#(narrator voice: it was clearly not like whatever)

[gregoftom]

good fucking food

[sugurufic]

Co-Parenting with Suguru

AU where Geto didn't kill the entire village but adopted Nanako and Mimiko (I love mommy geto)

Word Count: 5.3k

Summary: Geto is able to adopt Mimiko and Nanako with your help, and how the girls with Gojo set you two up. Acquaintances to lovers, idiots who care for each other. (pure fluff, and i've tried to avoid using y/n)

You wouldn't say you and Geto were good friends, but when you were asked to testify on his behalf in front of the higher ups, you readily agreed. You were tasked to look after the twin girls he had brought back from the village and they were the sweetest little girls you had ever met. Even if Geto had killed those villagers, you couldn't blame him - they were torturing two innocent souls on problems caused by their own vices. 

Shoko and Gojo couldn't testify to Geto's character - everyone knew they were practically joint at the hip - the three of them are always together. You were closer to Utahime  your senpai, known to not like Gojo and Geto very much. With whatever casual conversations you had had with Geto, you hadn't really found a reason to dislike him. And hearing Nanako and Mimiko call him “Geto-Sama” in their sweet little voices only helped in solidifying your high opinion of him.

You heard their narration of the night and how Geto with his incredible bangs and magic powers stopped the evil people hurting them and took him away and dropped them into your arms.

“Do you really think any of those could be trusted with kids?” Geto asked. You snorted in response and gladly accepted to take care of the two lovely little girls.

“Your Geto-Sama will be right back with you,” you promised the girls while closing the buttons of your uniform. “I will be back in a bit. I've got dolls for the both of you,”

“Thank you,” they tell you, adding “sama” to your name. You blush but don't say anything, having already told them to not address you as such multiple times over the couple of days.

“I don't believe that Geto-San could have gone out of his way to hurt those people. In fights with curses, collateral damage is always there, and Geto had two little sorcerers to take care of. I think we can excuse him this time.” You said when you were asked to speak.

“I don't see anything wrong with letting Geto-San take care of the two girls. They clearly trust him much more than anyone else, after how horribly they were treated by the village. I pitch on his behalf, that he would take utmost care of the two sorcerers under his care.” You said when the question for their custody arose.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” Geto said bowing in front of you once the elders were done with the hearing. They had dismissed everyone else to discuss the matter.

“You've got some lovely girls to parent now, Geto-san,” you say, returning his charming smile. “Are you sure you are ready to be a parent?”

“Not really, no,” He admits. “I will try my best though,” 

“Oh they are such lovely girls, I have half a heart to keep them for myself,” You fawn, feeling suspiciously giddy. “If you ever need a babysitter-”

“I will definitely call you,” Geto nods with a smile on his beautiful face. He has always been beautiful, but today with his hair half-up, half-down, he looks especially charming. He rushes away on hearing footsteps and you walk the short distance to the dormitories. 

“Hello girls!” You excitedly enter your room, holding out a bunch of cookies in your hands, thanks to Utahime. “The final decision of the higher ups will come later today, but Geto should be free to see you,” You give them the stack of cookies and then seeing the styled dolls add, “Do you girls like dressing up?”

You smile with the way their eyes widen with excitement and open your humble wardrobe in the dormitory, giving them access to everything they'd need to get dressed up. They decide to dress you up instead, and the three of you are full of giggles as they take your makeup and freely draw on your face - and be surprisingly good at it. You play some of your favourite music, which the girls seem to enjoy and then they paint your nails. They dress you in your best clothes and you love the way they've styled you.

There's still a long time left before the higher ups will announce the decision, so you take the girls out shopping to distract them. Fortunately, your income as a sorcerer allows you to have the freedom to spoil your girls - and you love it to an alarming extent. Mimiko and Nanako have got excellent taste, you'll credit them that - they pick out the cutest dresses for each other and coloured lip balms that compliments each other's hair well. You encourage them to change into their new clothes in the mall itself  and take so many pictures of them and with them - and you are almost sad at the thought of letting Geto have them, but that's something you will be sad for later.

You've lost track of time at the mall, and when you get back it's already twilight. The girls had a lovely day, and they are still buzzing with excitement when you enter. 

Geto is sitting on your bed, in a semi-clear spot with almost all of your stuff on it - from the whirlwind that dressed you earlier. 

“Geto-Sama!” The girls scream with delight and kneel down in front of him with bows, showing how grateful they were to him - he motions them to get up and hugs them both simultaneously, but his foxy eyes hold your gaze as he says, “Mimiko and Nanako can live with me, from now.”

Your body reacts to the news faster than your mind, and you've already planted a kiss on his cheek and have your arms wrapped around him before you realise what you have done. A crimson blush colours his face along with your lipstick as he thanks you, his voice softer and breather than usual.

Your whole body heats up when you see the colour of your lipstick on his cheek  and the way he makes no attempt to wipe it off his flushed cheeks as Mimiko and Nanako look up at him with glittering eyes. 

You hear your name from Nanako’s mouth, noting the “sama” she had added yet again. Geto's eyes are affectionate as he hears them gush to him about you, about the fun they had with you. 

While Mimiko is in Geto's arms, Nanako makes her way into yours and you feel silly for tearing up. You hug her close to your chest, feeling her little arms around your shoulders. “Thank you for bringing back Geto-Sama,” Nanako whispers to you. You pat her head and plant a gentle kiss on her cheek, now mindful of the transferring lipstick.

The sound of a camera clicking snaps the four of you out of the trance, and you find the Gojo Satoru standing at the threshold of your room, clicking pictures of the four of you. “Suguru, you get a girlfriend and daughters and you forget all about your best friend,” He tuts, dramatically putting a hand over his chest, his icy blue eyes peeking from behind his sunglasses.

Gojo gasps on seeing the lipstick mark on Suguru’s cheek and takes out his phone to snap even more pictures of a blushing Suguru. “You forgot to mention things were this serious!” He says, mock offended.

“Gojo/Satoru, shut up!” You and Geto speak simultaneously.

“You're even saying the same things now,” Gojo sighs like an old man. Mimiko and Nanako burst out into a fit of giggles. “You agree with your godfather, Satoru, right girls?”

“Godfather? Where did that come from?” You ask, scrunching up your nose.

“Well it was gonna be Suguru as mother and myself as the father but now you've taken in as their mother and Suguru as their father so I've got to take the next best thing-!”

You hit him upside his white-haired head, veins on your forehead popping out with irritation at his words. Gojo rubs the top of his head muttering something under his breath. “This is why I always stay with Utahime Senpai,” you say, making Suguru and the twins laugh.

“Get him, girl!” Geto cheers you on.

“I won't give you Nanako and Mimiko if you continue to be roommates with him,” you declare, narrowing your eyes at Geto.

“I'm renting a place outside Jujutsu Tech,” Geto confesses with a sigh.

“WHAT-?” You and Gojo both yell in shock.

“It's for the best,” He says.

“You’re taking my girls away from me!” You complain, hand on your chest. “This is so unfair, Geto-kun. How will I see them now?”

.

It's been a couple of weeks, and the twins have adjusted well to Tokyo. You've adjusted too, opting to spend your time with them rather than with anyone else. Gojo keeps teasing you relentlessly, not even bothering to stop when the teachers are around. You've grown closer to Suguru as well, spending most of your off-time with him. Shoko has become your refuge now, with Utahime leaving for Kyoto.

It's one of your lazy Sundays, and you wake from your and the twins afternoon nap. They are snuggled to either side of you, and it’s unbearably hot but you don't dare move; admiring their serene, sleeping faces. Your left eye twitched at the thought of the torture your girls were subjected to by those foolish villagers, blood boiling once again.

You reach for your phone instead, going through some old photos. You've scrolled down to when the girls were living with you, a picture of the three of you with matching white bows in your hair when the door quietly opens, and Suguru quietly enters with a pitcher of water and some glasses. He chuckles at your grateful face, pouring out some water for you. You gulp down the water, your overheated body giving out a sigh of relief when the cold water hits your stomach. 

“It's time to wake them up,” He whispers, leaning down to your laying form.

“I don't really want to,” you whisper to him, pleading, not looking away from his pretty dark eyes. “Five more minutes?”

“Okay,” He relented with a sigh, sitting beside Nanako. You think of how different he is now, different from when he is exorcising curses and when he is with Gojo. You also find yourself liking this side of him, that only his girls got to see. And you, one of his girls. 

“Have you thought about their schooling?” You ask, voice quieter than a mouse. Geto lays down, facing you.

“I’ll have them homeschooled,” He replies just as quietly, frowning.

“That’s boring,” You say. “How will they adjust to the outside world? We can’t always be with them.”

“I’m terrified of the curses getting -”

“Teach them to defend themselves, just a little.” You suggest. “You know they can’t rely on others, they will need to learn to keep each other safe.”

Nanako stirs between the two of you, mumbling a hushed “papa,” under her breath as she snuggles into Geto. You fawn all over this, his pretty eyes wide and looking at you, seeking assurance. A gentle smile graces his beautiful face as he caresses the girl’s caramel hair and you have to resist the urge to pull his silky hair out of the bun and run your fingers through them. You opt to lightly pat Mimiko’s dark head instead, and she snuggles into you mumbling, “mama,”

Admittedly, you’ve teared up a little and you excitedly turn to Geto, who is giving you his prettiest smile that you’ve ever seen. In this little moment, you can pretend to be a happy family, living in a rose-coloured dream.

.

Suguru loves spending time with his girls, and it’s even more delightful when you join in. He especially loves it now that you’ve practically moved in - the guest room slowly filling up with your scent and trinkets. He enjoys taking all of you out to different spots in the city - the parks, the malls, cute cafes and even back to Jujutsu Tech, occasionally. 

Suguru wonders if the two of you could even be friends if not for Mimiko and Nanako - just adding to a long list of things that he was grateful for from that night. Your easy smile and sparkling eyes and the way you shower his girls with your love and care just keeps on adding to all the things he admires about you. He half wishes Satoru’s mindless teasing to become a reality, but he lacks the courage.

Currently, he’s sitting on the floor with Nanako behind him, brushing his hair out and Mimiko sitting beside her twin, acting as her inventory. He’s in pure bliss, and the only thing that can make this better is your presence.

Soon enough there is a knock on the door, and Suguru feels bad for hoping it’s you. Of course, he enjoys your company, but you deserve a chance to live freely and not spend every waking hour with him. Satoru and Shoko are there instead, with amazing takeout for Friday evening.

Satoru spoils his self-proclaimed goddaughters (Suguru wouldn’t trust anyone else, either) with the best of everything. Shoko loves teaching them new things, reading, maths, curses, the human body - everything watered down to suit their tender young age.

The four of them play board games while Suguru does the laundry, putting the clothes on the drying line. Usually, you would be here helping him with the clothes, words flowing easily between the two of you. 

He's distracted from laundry when he hears Satoru call your name followed by a whistle, then yelling, “I can't really blame Suguru, you look so hot!” He hears your grumble something, and then Mimiko and Nanako’s excited cheers on your appearance. “You had a date?!” Satoru says again, his voice loud and surprised.

Suguru’s heart feels heavy, and he makes his way to the rest leaving half of the clothes in the dryer. 

“It wasn't really a date honestly.” You complain. “That guy had no manners! Chewing with his mouth open and not even using the napkins properly! And he barely asked me anything, kept on boasting about himself - it was boring.”

Suguru feels half guilty for the way his chest relaxes, but his breath is taken away as soon as he sees you - you are always beautiful, but you look especially pretty with your brown leather skirt and black jumper. Your jewellery compliments your complexion, and your hair looks perfect. And he has to agree with Satoru- you look hot.

“Where's Suguru?” You ask, looking around.

“Right here,” He says, coming to stand beside you.

He loves the way your eyes sparkle - the lids decorated to match the outfit and a delighted glimmer in your eyes.

“So, I was at the mall and this reminded me of you,” you say, picking up the paper bag on the floor beside you. “The only good thing that came from today, to be honest.”

“You were thinking of me while out with another guy?” He teases.

You get flustered, but respond “Do you want this present or not?” You try to sound stern, but you hand him the bag regardless.

The bag feels heavier than he had expected, and glances in to see the professional camera he had been eyeing for a long time but didn't buy in favour of getting Mimiko and Nanako some limited edition dolls. His pretty eyes widened with delight. “How did you know?” He asks, unable to hold back his excited smirk.

“I am not blind, you know.” You retort, happy that he loved the gift.

“What is it?” Shoko asks. Satoru snaps the bag towards himself, taking out the box of camera and different lenses. “That is one expensive investment,” she remarks.

You chose to ignore her comment, distracting everyone with the little cake you had bought. “And I've got cake!”

“Is today someone's birthday?” Mimiko asks.

“No, baby.” You say, “It's okay to have cake without any reason,”

The little girls are delighted to see the half sky and half forest cake. Neither Suguru, you or his girls have any idea as to when the exact birthday is, so you have them cut the cake together, pretending it to be their birthday. When Suguru takes the cake to the kitchen to cut it up, you follow him, leaving the twins with Shoko and Satoru.

“Suguru, you should get dressed up fancy too,” You say. “Let’s take some good pictures with our girls. I’ll cut the cake up.”

“Okay,” He agrees.

Suguru decides to match you, consciously picking pieces that compliment your outfit well. He is inappropriately fancy dressed up for this photo session. He is thrilled to use the camera you’ve gifted him, and there is no better scene to be his first than his girls(you included) and his friends. He’s brushing his hair out, putting it up in a half updo before giving himself a once-over then leaving.

He’s surprised to see Mimiko and Nanako dressed up too, sitting on either side of Satoru as Shoko and you clicked pictures on the phones. His camera is sitting on the table, still in its box. He has a child-like excitement as he opens the box and checks the lenses with it - the excitement of setting up the camera is unmatched. Even though he enjoys spoiling his girls, he cannot deny that being spoiled is a nice feeling.

Once his camera is ready, he snaps a picture of the scene - you sit between your girls now as Satoru and Shoko click pictures. The flash from the camera distracts everyone, and his eyes find yours sparkling, looking at him with the sweetest smile on your face. He cannot help but wonder how your lips would taste. Suguru smiles at you instead as you wave him over, Mimiko and Nanako between the two of you. Satoru and Shoko give him a knowing once over, the deliberate matching not missing his best friend’s six eyes.

Your hand touches his - neither of you attempting to move as Satoru clicks a picture of the four of you in Suguru’s new camera. Satoru is grinning like an idiot seeing Suguru’s blushing face, motioning Shoko to click some pictures of their idiot friend in love with his daughters’ mother. It is stupid, Gojo thinks, the way that the two of you act like an old married couple but are too terrified to confess your feelings for one another.

“Mimiko, Nanako, come here for a moment, dears,” Gojo calls them. “Suguru, Y/N, please stand closer. You aren’t rivals.”

Suguru narrows his eyes at Satoru, but doesn’t comment on it, too happy when you’ve pressed yourself at his side, your arm wrapped around his waist. He swings his arm over your shoulder and leans his head towards yours. His face burns with the soft warmth of your body pressed against him - but he holds his smile steadily, looking at the camera. He looks at your beautiful face for a moment, the serene smile on your face and he forgets all about the jerk who had taken you out.

He just prays that he gets the courage to ask you for a dinner date - perhaps before someone else snatches you out of this perfect life of his.

.

Satoru is at Suguru’s flat, spending time with the sweet little girls. Both you and Suguru had some unavoidable business to attend to - you with some curses and him with his parents - and he finally got the chance to babysit them. Satoru is currently sitting on the floor of the twin’s bedroom, with pink bows in his white hair and getting his nails painted in a pale blue colour by Mimiko and Nanako.

It's not his favourite thing for amusement, but he lets it pass. He does get why Suguru lets his girls do these things to him - they look just so precious with the little forehead creased in concentration. His mind is cooking up a scheme - a scheme which can only be fulfilled with the little one's help. It’s only with him that they address you and Suguru as mama and papa- feeling too shy to address the two of you as such face-to-face.

“Dears, do you think your papa and mama love each other?” He asks the little angels painting his nails.

The girls share a secret look with a smirk that tells Gojo everything that he needs to know. “I’ve seen papa look at mama the way Nanako looks at crepes, Gojo-sama!” Mimiko snickers. “He always has a big smile when mama is home.”

“Mama is also the same, Gojo-sama!” Nanako says. “She looks at papa the way Mimiko looks at ice-cream!”

Gojo laughs at their childish description of the two, wondering how blind you guys must be to not see that the feelings are shared.

“Gojo-sama!” Nanako jumps, excited, as she remembers something else, her caramel bob shaking. “One evening, when mama fell asleep on the sofa, papa carried her to her room. We brought her blankets and he tucked her in, but she held his hands in her sleep.”

“Yes!” Mimiko jumps up too, brown eyes gleaming with giggles. “Papa had turned so pink when Mama did that. He could barely speak.”

“That sounds familiar,” Gojo giggles with them. “Do you want to help me set-”

“Yes!” the twins shriek before he even finishes the question.

Once the three of them are done with the set up, Gojo calls Geto to let him know that he has some urgent clan business to attend to, while Mimiko calls you to tell you that Nanako had a bad dream and she misses you terribly. Both of you rush to return while Gojo and his goddaughters leave for the evening. Gojo leaves a little post-it-note on the fridge, with a brief message.

Geto has been running for 10 minutes straight, red faced and out of breath as he reaches the door of the flat. The elevator dings open and you step out, looking just as out of breath. “Did Mimiko call you too?” you ask, panting.

“No, Gojo told me he has some clan business - ” He says, taking a moment to completely process your question. “Why did Mimiko call you?”

“Nanako had a nightmare, she was asking for me only, apparently.” You say, standing beside him now. The enticing smell of your perfume fills his senses and he is grateful that his girls have you to comfort them. He too finds comfort in your presence - albeit it’s for different reasons than his girls.

When no one opens the door for a couple of minutes, you put your ear to the door and try to hear something. The house is quiet, devoid of any movements.

“I think they’ve fallen asleep.” you comment.

Geto then opens then closes the door as quietly as he can, trying not to disturb the girl’s sleep. He bumps into you standing in the hallway after taking off his shoes - only to gasp as he sees the immaculate set up in the living room. A sheer white canopy covered in fairy lights and seemingly all of the pillows and some mattresses of the house thrown in the tent - and some of his and your favourite snacks. There’s a movie paused at the beginning and red roses and candles and mild incense decorating the room. Geto blushes when he realises that it’s a set up for a date, heart pounding against his ribs in part-annoyance and part-excitement as he sees your shy face. He’s half mad at Gojo, but he can see the traces of Mimiko and Nanako as well - with the way the pillows are laid out and the flowers are placed.

Geto’s phone rings, breaking the tense silence. It’s Gojo. “Suguru! Put me on speaker!” Gojo’s excited voice says from the other end. He can hear his girls giggling in the background. 

“Fine,” Geto sighs.

“Oh hey!” you turn around on hearing Gojo call your name, face hot and worrying your lip between your teeth. “Your little girls, they thought we should let you guys have an evening to yourself - relax and watch a movie. How did you like that set up?”

“You didn’t really have to-” You start to speak as Geto rolls his eyes, fully knowing it was Gojo’s plan. He knew Gojo well.

“Nonsense, you won’t let your daughters down by saying that,” Gojo says, and Mimiko and Nanako giggle louder. “Alright, bye! Enjoy yourselves. There’s wine in the fridge, Suguru.” He says before handing up.

“I’ll get the wine,” Suguru offers. You smile at him before sitting down in the fairy-light canopy, looking much like the woman of his dreams, like a princess waiting for her prince. His heart aches, for he can’t call you his, not outside of his mind. He smiles too, pretending that it’s date-night for you.

There’s a note on the fridge in Satoru’s messy scrawl which gets his attention first. Suguru, take one for the team and ask her !!! Your daughters and friends are rooting for you. She likes you, you blind idiot. A blush colours his face as he crumples the note and throws it in the bin.

His favourite wine is in the fridge, and Suguru is half surprised at Satoru’s thoughtfulness. He pours out two glasses and brings them to you, the bottle left back in the fridge. “Wine for you, ma’am,” he says, and you get the cutest blush on your face as you accept the glass, humming in delight at the taste. He follows your stead and lazily relaxes against the mountain of pillows under the canopy.

“What’s this movie?” You ask, fidgeting with the remote.

“I have no idea,” He says, praying that Satoru doesn’t embarrass him.

The movie begins with the main character, the girl getting ready to go work. It seemed like a cheesy hollywood christmas movie at the beginning, where the girl would be frustrated with her job and go to her small town and never return. That would have been better, in hindsight. Because as the movie progresses, and the love interest comes in - a single father, who had to send his daughter into foster care because he was wrongfully accused of embezzlement - the foster parent being the main character. The girl testifies for him in court while she lives with a new normal - caring for the love interest’s daughter as her own.

Suguru's face burns with how similar the movie is to you and him - he can barely even look at the screen. While the movie played, he subconsciously reached towards you, your warm cheek now resting against his shoulder. It’s hard for him to ignore it now that he realises that this movie was a deliberate selection, and the comment in the note about him being blind. 

Suguru steals a quick glance at you, finding you looking at the screen with a little smile, cuddling one of the bigger pillows. You seem totally unaffected by the movie. “It’s so cute,” you murmur. 

“Hm?” he prompts.

“The story,” you say, glancing up at him then back at the screen. 

“Would it be cute if it were real?” he asks, heart pounding against his ribcage.

“Even cuter,” you nod, cheek moving against his shoulder.

His heart threatens to crawl out of his throat at the admission. He eyes the two hands, one his and the other yours - so close but not touching, afraid to cross that invisible boundary which has built over time. He dares now, for once to cross that boundary, to test the waters and puts his pinky finger over yours, interlocking them. He can feel your smile get wider as his heart nearly makes a hole in his ribs.

You take it a step further and intertwine your hands with his.

“I love the way your hand fits in mine,” he says after a long tense silence, sounding breathier than usual.

“You have nice hands,” you shyly say.

It brings him confidence, the way you say it. Emboldened, he turns to face you and wraps his free arm over your waist, pulling you closer. His nose touches your forehead and he inhales the smell of your shampoo, never tired of smelling it in the pillowcases of your room. He lowers himself to your eye level, stroking your cheekbone. “Would let me kiss you?” he whispers to your lips.

“Always,” you whisper, parting your lips to welcome him.

The kiss is everything he could have imagined and more. It’s pure bliss, the way your mouth slots against his and the way to taste better than he could have possibly imagined. Of course, you have always been pretty, but he found you the most beautiful in this moment, in his arms, with your soft tongue fighting against his. His brain has short circuited and he fears that he might get addicted to your taste. He chases your mouth when you pull away to catch your breath, letting go of the intertwined hands that had sweat in the heat of the moment.

Suguru misses your lips instantly, scanning your face for any signs of regret or discomfort. You place one of your hands on his neck, reach the back of it and caress the delicate spot where his hair ends, and a gasp leaves his mouth at the sensation. You put your other hand on his collar and pull him close, his face dragging against the soft pillows and you kiss him. This kiss is much more desperate than the first one, with your teeth occasionally crashing and tongues exploring, the movie long forgotten still playing on the screen.

When you’re both out of breath, you pull back, still breathing the same air and noses touching.

“It was the best fucking kiss of my life,” Suguru confesses, sounding out of breath.

“Mine too,” you say.

He doesn’t want you to think that it was a spur of the moment thing, so he puts on his serious face and says, “Would you like to go out for dinner with me? As more than co-parents?” 

“I thought you’d never ask,” you reply with a giggle.

“Dress fancy,” He says. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” you ask.

“Why wait ?” he shrugs.

“I don’t have - ”

“You do,” he says, shy. “I had got something for you a while back, but never mustered up the courage to give it to you.”

You sit up, looking down at him with an excited gleam in your eyes. “You’ve gotten me an outfit for our first gate, it seems like you were prepared.”

“I swear to you that I wasn’t.” He says. “Just try it once.”

The dress Suguru brought compliments your figure and complexion well, and you’re surprised to see that it fits perfectly. You uber to a fancy place, and with the man on your side, this is the most perfect first date ever. The maroon dress hugs your figure in the right places, and you feel giddy knowing that Suguru had bought this lovely dress with you in mind. 

He looks even prettier today, sitting in front of you as your date, dressed in an equally fancy maroon suit. You take plenty of pictures with him, distracted by his long silky hair in a half-up, half-down look. You can barely process the food, distracted by the beautiful man in front of you taking in the way he talks. The way he says your name, almost purring, has you wanting to throw your feet and giggle like a little girl.

Suguru isn’t better off himself. Of course, he loves the way his name rolls off your tongue, but right now dressed in the dress he bought for you, sitting in front of him with flushed cheeks, the delicate smile never leaving your face as you speak has his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. He finally has you with him the way he had been wanting for years, finding you pretty even when you were both mere acquaintances. 

He cannot wait to call you his, but he supposes he’ll save that question for the next date - for you to give this relationship a name. In his head, he is already yours - heart, mind and soul - the only question bugging him is whether you want to be his. That’s a worry for later, he thinks, as he plants a delicate kiss on your lips as the long evening comes to an end.

[bridge-arsonist]

This has probably been talked about before, but I love how Cold doesn't represent logic.

Normally, when you see a cold, uncaring sort of character in media, someone who just doesn't care, they're associated with logic or power. The stoic detective, the ice queen, the snarky assistant, you know the deal.

But not The Voice of the Cold. You want a logical character? That's Skeptic! But Skeptic isn't cold by any means: he's, well, skeptical, of the things that people tell him. He has the goal of finding out as much information as possible about this situation, and getting out of the hostage situation the Narrator has set up. He's not super expressive or anything, but he's actually pretty approachable/friendly with anyone not named 'The 'Narrator'.

And it makes sense. Skeptic is the voice you get by taking the most logical course of action. Take the blade just in case, but hear the Princess out and ultimately realize she's as much of a victim in this as you are before freeing her, and doubling down when the Narrator tries to control you.

Cold, on the other hand, is about apathy. The closest things to a 'goal' he has are:

1. Don't be bored.

2. Get revenge on the Narrator somehow.

And so, he really can't be logical, at least, not 'logical' in the way we perceive it. Our goal is to get out as unharmed as possible, and many of his suggestions directly contradict this goal.

But the Cold doesn't care about death. After all, it's already been established it's already temporary. His sheer apathy towards any and all harm that comes towards him fundamentally contradicts conventional logic, because conventional logic dictates taking the course of action that minimizes harm.

Now, that's not to say Cold doesn't care about anything. In his own way, he genuinely is trying to look out for the other voices when he urges them to numb themselves to pain, because it's easier that way, isn't it? He's clearly frustrated when they can't do that, urging the Player to just ignore them and listen to him instead during Moment of Clarity.

But at the same time, because of Cold's apathy, his typical 'logic' is just "whatever seems interesting". He's fundamentally a very impulsive character, not in spite of his apathy, but because of it.

Honestly... It's more like Contrarian than anything. I mean, think about it. An impulsive character who does whatever seems interesting and strives to make the Narrator as miserable as they can? The difference is in how that apathy presents itself, which makes sense, because they pretty much manifested in opposite ways.

That aside, though... The Cold acts based on a bestie to feel. Specifically, a desire to feel entertained. And, it makes sense, considering he's what you get from killing yourself due to agonizing numbness and boredom. Of course he's going to be apathetic, uncaring of his wellbeing, and impulsive. That's what you manifested.

Apathy, taken to its logical conclusion, is very impulsive. And I love just how well Cold represents that.

[ajmasch]

@here4hualian kissmas day 4: indirect kiss

Xie Lian flopped down on the bed, exhausted, ignoring the way the sudden impact sent clouds of dirt flying off of him. He needed a bath, he needed sleep, but before any of that…

He placed two fingers against his head. “San Lang?”

The reply was instant. “Gege! This San Lang was beginning to worry he’d never hear your voice again!”

Despite his exhaustion, his husband never failed to draw a laugh from Xie Lian. “San Lang, I’ve only been gone for a day.”

“And this poor husband has been wasting away in your absence the entire time,” Hua Cheng complained dramatically. “I pray my beloved will return to me soon?”

Xie Lian sighed. “I’m sorry, San Lang, it looks like I’ll be away a little longer than anticipated. The spirit itself wasn’t too much trouble, but he managed to gather somewhat of a following, I think he was trying to copy Qi Rong–”

“Trash,” Hua Cheng interjected, bringing a smile to Xie Lian’s face.

“Yes, well, it’s just taking a bit to make sure we’ve cleared out the whole operation. Hopefully only a couple more days at most, but…”

“Need any help?”

Gods did Xie Lian want to say yes. As much as he teased Hua Cheng earlier, he felt the same ache at being separated from his husband. He wanted nothing more than to fall into Hua Cheng’s arms, but he knew he couldn’t.

“We’re supposed to be proving we can keep our relationship separate from Heavenly business,” he reminded Hua Cheng.

“Hmph,” Hua Cheng grunted. He had made his position on the matter very clear from the start, he thought it was a stupid policy. Honestly, Xie Lian kind of agreed, but he could see why there would be some hesitation about allowing a Calamity to be involved with the Heavens after everything that was revealed about the former Emperor.

“Never mind that. Would you just… tell me about your day? I miss you.” His cheeks heated up as he admitted it even though the only one who heard was Hua Cheng, who said that type of stuff all the time.

“Of course, Gege.” The softness in Hua Cheng’s voice as he replied left a fuzzy feeling in Xie Lian’s chest that continued as he began to narrate his day. Xie Lian sighed in contentment and settled down to listen to his husband speak. He closed his eyes and let Hua Cheng’s voice wash over him, imagining he was at home in their bed, and that any minute now he would feel the comforting weight of another person beside him.

That weight never came. Struck by the urge to feel as close to Hua Cheng as possible, Xie Lian found his hand reaching for the ring of ashes that lay against his chest. He lifted it up and pressed it to his lips, wishing he could be kissing his husband instead. To his surprise, at that moment, Hua Cheng stumbled over his words.

“Gege? Did you just… do something?”

Xie Lian’s face was surely red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know San Lang would be able to feel that, haha…”

“Do it again.” Xie Lian didn’t know it was possible to sound breathless over a communication array, but Hua Cheng managed it somehow. He lifted the ring again and pressed another kiss to the smooth surface.

“Gege…”

“What does it feel like?” Xie Lian asked curiously.

“It’s like… It’s like when we exchange spiritual power, except it’s emotions. I can tell they’re not mine, but I feel them so strongly, whatever Gege is feeling.”

“Oh? So then…” Xie Lian focused on Hua Cheng. His San Lang. Every emotion he had about his husband, all the love he could possibly manage to hold, and he pressed it into the ashes. He heard Hua Cheng gasp through the spiritual array, then nothing.

“...San Lang?”

“Gege… really will be the death of me.” Hua Cheng’s voice sounded wrecked, as if he were barely holding himself back from tears.

“San Lang deserves to know how much I love him,” Xie Lian replied.

“I love you too, Gege.” Xie Lian’s smile turned into a yawn that Hua Cheng clearly heard over the array, because he chuckled and said, “You should get some sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

“Sing for me?” Xie Lian requested.

“Of course.” Xie Lian drifted off to the sound of his husband’s voice, holding his ashes tightly and trying to convey as much love as he could through that connection until he could do it in person again.

[krisluxxeeempress]

HOW DOES YOUR PERSON FEEL ABOUT YOU? PICK-A- PILE

Pile One: The One That Got Away

The five of pentacles reversed, hanged man, empress, three of pentacles reversed, strength card reversed w/ the three of wands at the bottom of the deck- for starters. The energy I immediately received as cliché as they say, is simply you are the one that got away.

All the reversal cards are exactly what “your person” is realizing with the hanged man upright, in English, “your person” is experiencing that you are the end all be all. Some of you may think I am being dramatic when I say this and so you may have Leo placements and or they do. Usually, when someone realizes you are the one that got away its due to their actions influenced by thinking the grass was greener on the other side. It’s clear that when you were in this person’s energy, accessible to them- they were not cooperative, the strength card reversed would indicate that they were weak mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically -in addition to being immature with the way in which they handled you. There is no other explanation for someone to fumble The Empress, whether you are a man or women exuding this energy. Like Chaka Kan “ I’m Every Women” or remix “ I’m Every Man”. 

In other words, you have all the qualities a person in their right mind would desire, need and want and yet they fumbled your existence.  For every fumble, there’s a crumble. With the three of wands, “ your person” is trying to find a way back to you. Remember it takes The Ace of Wands ( new beginnings & energy ),  The Two of Wands ( Plans, Action & Follow Through) to reach The Three of Wands ( Doors Opening & Opportunity). “ Your person” is trying to strategize a plan to get you back somehow because again, they are coming to the realization that whatever or whomever they thought was better, ISN’T. This Three of Wands combined with the Strength card reversed energetically reminds me of someone walking with their tail in between their legs or better yet, taking that long walk of shame in the morning. I reference morning because the Empress card represents light. You are their light which reminds me further-more of Aquarius energy. Now let’s clarify the Three of Pentacles reversed. I want to know why they chose not to act right in other words when they had their chance. . . ( 2 minutes later- SpongeBob narrator voice) They didn’t want to act right because surprise, surprise ( The Ten of Cups, upright appeared)

 I suppose they were not ready, which confirms my previous point about their immaturity. The Ten of Cups is very intimate, raw, high vibrational and unbreakable that requires honesty, depth, baring one’s soul, unconditional love, commitment and longevity. I always get a spiritual vibe from The Ten of Cups which connects to The Empress energy you exude, as within and so without. Not making excuses for this person, “your person” but clearly you energy was “too good to be true, powerful, authentic and otherworldly”. Most fear success in a financial sense and this concept holds true when it comes to true love as well. Clearly.  Most will find a way to sabotage a good thing mainly due to fear and insecurity and I do not need to see The Moon card to confirm that fact. I feel like I can go deeper with this explanation but for some reason (that I am energetically aware of ) I am unable to, the way I want. Which lets me know that “your person” has just arrived at this realization and or is finally digesting the reality of their fumble of you. For some it may have been 3 years, months, weeks or days since you’ve last spoken to this person (though that is very specific- I am always hearing the word 4) Heavy Scorpio, Pisces or Cancer placements or Astrological transits and influencing you or them at this time. Some of you may be hearing this person’s name everywhere lately or they you. In synastry or Composite, you may have strong Venus, Neptune, Pluto, Uranus, Moon and or Saturn placements shared. (Using my own deck called “ Why are they mad”, to clarify The Hanged Man, “ your person” is mad because they don’t turn you on anymore & they must stay mad, cards came out.

So not only does something feel final to them- which confirms it’s been a while since you’ve both have spoken or seen each other but they must stay mad, meaning they figure you are not attracted to them anymore and I don’t mean physically. I mean spiritually and emotionally which to me counts for everything. Whereas, you are genuine, loving etc. inside and out- they realize they are the complete opposite. This also confirms they thought the grass was greener elsewhere- meaning they are superficial, and they held that in higher regard than someone ( you ) that showed them what true love could be and everything that comes with it. ( I want to write more but energetically this is all they can process right now- it’s that deep. They are beginning to dive deeper but as you know water is cold and it takes some adjusting too.

Cancer energy- the crab is on the land near the water. Scorpio energy goes deeper into the water and Pisces energy is the bottom of the Ocean) “ your person is experiencing Cancer- crab energy, they are adjusting to the cold water, their cold heart and your cold exterior. Feel me? I sure feel you. In conclusion, with the Three of Wands- the cards The King of Cups reversed, Fool reversed, and Two of Wands upright came out. Literally what I just said- they are going back and forth between land and water meaning- they are not ready STILL to dive in completely due to fear and the expectation of being vulnerable and honest. The King of Cups reminds me of Capricorn energy, not Scorpio. They may have Capricorn placements, or you. I don’t see them taking any action as of now.

( P.S. : I almost forgot to pull from my “ love oracle deck)

" Someone is viewing you as the one" card came out ( ON GOD)

Pile Two: Let it Burn

The devil reversed, king of pentacles reversed, three of swords, three of cups reversed and the ten of wands reversed with the fool reversed at the bottom of the deck- for starters. I was literally hearing “Let it Burn” by usher when these cards came out and the last time I heard that song literally was last summer during a bonfire at my father’s house down at the beach. I say all this to say that last summer (I know what you did last summer vibes), someone’s father – or the fact they are a father or just became one and fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius placements) may be significant to some of you. Anyway, The Fool card appeared in PILE (1) reading above, so you may come from that pile, or it would be in your best interest to read that pile as well. “Your person” is a procrastinator because it's energetically taking me a long time to get to the point, I even had to restart my laptop to start thing reading. This could also be an indicator that “your person” has fought these painful feelings regarding you for some time- hence The Ten of Wands card reversed that are triggering The Three of Swords. The King of Pentacles reversed reveals that your person could be a Taurus, Capricorn or Virgo (or have those placements) which explains further the delay. More specifically if they are a Taurus- matters of finance, overindulgence (thanks to The Devil card reversed), status, comfort and an unwillingness to change explains what “your person” was too busy with as opposed to your connection with them. ( I just got tired out of nowhere) This energy feels like the cliché “ having all this success and no one to share it with” vibes. Damn, and it just got worse.

To clarify The Three of Swords, The Ten of Swords just came out (NO LIE). “Your person” is experiencing an emotional and mental devastation currently. It makes me wonder if “your person” has lost it all (and by all, I mean everything they were so busy being concerned with that wasn’t you) and only now that they aren’t distracted with those things, they are now feeling pain and mental anguish. The High Priestess and The Ace Of Cups came out to clarify further which lets me know that they knew all along you were The One, their One Love and Happiness but “ THE DEVIL MADE THEM DO IT”. . . .Like PILE (1), I am having a hard time energetically going deeper to get to the root of the problem which may indicate that your person is blaming everything but themselves for the demise of the once was relationship between the two of you. The Tower, Eight of Swords and Ace of Swords has appeared and so, “your person” is experiencing a TOWER MOMENT. The truth of matter has them trapped mentally and physically. This is extreme guilt, depression and KARMA.

“Your person” clearly aligned with societal norms and expectations- putting money, power, respect above true love and everything that comes with it and now they feel like it wasn’t worth it. In fact, they feel worthless. Crazy – the Justice card reversed just came out and keep in mind I am still clarifying The Three of Swords. “Your person” isn’t talkative now ( if they ever were) however, it’s hard to give more of an interpretation of their energy. The truth sets you free but first IT HURTS. (Pulling from my Why are they mad? Oracle cards) “ They are mad because they have nothing to offer but Hard D*** or Wet P*** card came out. ( DAMN) “ you person” may have used you to boost their ego and status in some way or flaunted their material goods in a manipulative way to make you feel like they were the prize, and you were simply not good enough or had to compete for them. ( I just pulled from my Love Oracle deck) “ someone is having raw sex with multiple people, and they are not just friends” cards came out. Now it makes sense why “ Let it Burn” came to mind. “ Your person” may be burning with an STD  or experiencing some kind of skin irritation, cold, flu, sickness or shingles. They burned a bridge with you and now they are burning in some way physically.

Pile Three: Moving Fast

Eight of wands, ace of wands, page of swords reversed, three of swords, chariot and the magician at the bottom of the deck- for starters. Well damn, when the cards presented themselves, I literally couldn’t pick up the energy because it was moving so fast. I forced myself to sit still and process everything and that is the vibe “ your person” is coming in with. If you read the other piles, this fast movement towards you would be because “your person” is rushing in to fix things and doing so with BIG D*** energy ( whether they are man or women) Reason being is because for some of you it’s been years, months, weeks, or days that you’ve last seen or spoken with this person and they randomly came to a realization about you and the relationship you could of, should of, or would have had. For some you were the person that got away and now they figure rushing in and giving it their all- there may be hope. For others of you, “your person” is new. Even if you know them by name, seen them in passing or experienced a brief conversation- they feel relatively new.

We have all been hurt and that hurt should challenge us to heal, grow and move on and so “ your person” will be coming in to play the role of assisting you with moving on from a past heartbreak, disappointment or waste of time. “Your person” may be a fire sign ( Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) It’s energetically so strange because I want to reference the previous piles as if this is someone you know, and they are coming back with brand new energy but then part of me feels like some of you may still be holding on to the past ( Cancerian energy) and viewing this new person through hurt lens. Some of you may be making “your person” responsible for someone in the past hurting you. For others of you, if this is the same person coming back to prove themselves, I can feel that you are untrusting and holding their wrongdoings against them. I feel discouraged and I keep energetically questioning myself on whether this is a new person or the person from the previous piles. 

They say “time heals all” but personally, the longer it takes someone to apologize or attempt to do right by me the worse off they’ll be. Time makes me passively resentful, and I am wondering If this is how some of you feel if “your person” isn’t new. I feel extremely conflicted right now in this energy. Is this a new person moving fast and you worry that you’ll make the same mistakes from previous relationships? Or is this a new person that is moving fast because they know what they want? Clarifying the chariot comes the Justice card, Four of Wands reversed, and the King of Wands reversed. I am having a very difficult time deciphering if this a new or familiar person however, regardless a decision is going to have to be made (No wonder I can’t tell energetically thanks to the Justice card, indecisive Libra energy) If “your person” is new, they are going to suggest eloping together. If “your person” is familiar (from the past) they are going to want to make up for lost time and suggest eloping or getting married to prove how serious they are. For whoever this resonates with, I feel strongly that you will feel stuck, unsure and ultimately conflicted (your energy is so strong, I’m surprised the two of swords didn’t come out)

When I pulled from my Why are they mad oracle deck, the card “they are mad because you are not on their time” came out. And so, clearly you are not moving as quickly as they would like whether this be a new person or past person. (The Seven of pentacles and page of wands cards are present as well) With that, your decision appears to be making “your person” wait and work for it. PERIOD. This energy felt very difficult for more reasons than one. “Your person” may feel that you are being difficult but in my experience through difficulties comes long term reward. My advice would be to make them put in the work over an extending period to ensure you do not get hurt or repeat past mistakes as I can sense those past mistakes are still lingering in your conscious.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! IF ANY OF THESE PILES RESONATED PLEASE CONSIDER "HEARTING" OR REBLOGGING MY POST. I AM TRYING TO BUILD AND EXPAND MY BLOG AND I NEED YOUR HELP TO DO SO.

I OFFER PERSONAL READINGS, PLEASE EMAIL ME: SERVINTHAMOSTHIGH@GMAIL.COM

CHECK ME OUT ON YOUTUBE, PATREON AND TIK TOK.

LINKS BELOW FOR YOUR CONVIENCE.

[ps-cactus]

No Voices But Ours | HL oneshot

5,400 words | also posted on AO3 and Wattpad Ominis x f!MC, & Sebastian (unnamed MC, no appearance descriptions)

Thank you, the ever-amazing beta @accio-bagel

Tags and TWs: Major Character Death, Post-Canon (10 years later), Haunted House Vibes, Thriller, Mystery, Unreliable Narrator, POV Multiple, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Survivor’s Guilt, Redemption, Tragic Love, Tragic Friendship, Hallucinations, Implied Suicidal Thoughts, Found Family But Also Lost Family, Mental Instability, Self-Loathing, Depressive Themes, Nightmares, Fear of the Unknown.

Summary / Preview:

If the past calls, can you ever ignore it? Should you run—or listen closer?

Ominis is right, of course. Sebastian Sallow died months ago, and she saw it happen. He’s gone. Completely gone, because this is certainly not a ghost. She recalls clearly from Hogwarts: ghosts are visible, faintly tangible, capable of conversation, and some even of heated discussions. Whatever voices reach her, whether in dreams or waking hours, they don’t truly exist. It’s nothing more than something perfectly normal that comes with grief—the wish that he were still alive. ... Tonight, he receives another reminder that it's not even a ghost. He knows what ghosts look like and how they behave... Sebastian crouches down but makes no effort to pick up the book. Resting his palm against the polished wooden floorboards, he feels this again. The faint, rhythmic pulses, like the ghost of a heartbeat. After all this time, he knows the pattern—once the rhythm fades, all the odd sounds fall silent too. Not forever, no, but for a while at least. Usually, it fades fast. And it's fading already. Good.

“Are you hearing him again?”

Familiar hands grip her shoulders firmly, bringing her back from the depths of sleep. They also force away a lingering echo of her own scream that still rings in her head. She lets go of the wall where she had probably instinctively clung to escape the familiar rhythmic pulses coursing through every surface in moments like this.

“Yeah,” she answers, feeling the scratch in her throat, and hastily adds, “I know. Just a dream.”

Ominis brushes a strand of hair from her forehead, and she knows he’s using the gesture to feel for fever. She watches his face, bathed in pale moonlight, and his eyes, where this light glimmers in fleeting reflections. It keeps her from acknowledging the never-ending shadowy hallway looming behind him. At night, this house always seems oppressively enormous.

“Just a dream,” Ominis reassures her, placing a light kiss on her forehead. The suffocating dread slowly fades, and sleep starts pulling at her again.

Ominis is right, of course. Sebastian Sallow died months ago, and she saw it happen. He’s gone. Completely gone, because this is certainly not a ghost. She recalls clearly from Hogwarts: ghosts are visible, faintly tangible, capable of conversation, and some even of heated discussions.

Whatever voices reach her, whether in dreams or waking hours, they don’t truly exist. It’s nothing more than something perfectly normal that comes with grief—the wish that he were still alive.

x

Sebastian doesn’t move, hardly even breathes, standing barefoot in the dark corridor. The moonlight carves a pale path beneath him. The screams have faded. Except for the ones that will never leave his head, of course. But in his mind, that same voice isn’t screaming. It’s casting spells. Calling his name sometimes. Spitting out curses occasionally.

But here, it’s always the same—a scream of fear, a scream of pain. He holds back from speaking to that voice again. Maybe there’s no voice at all. Maybe it’s just this old house driving him mad. Tonight, he receives another reminder that it's not even a ghost. He knows what ghosts look like and how they behave. This is a haunting punishment.

He checks a few unused rooms, just in case—filled with nothing but silence, as expected. 

Of course. He’s just going mad, plain and simple. Serves him right.

He leaves without another glance back, retracing his steps toward the bathroom.

x

The trees stand bare, having surrendered into an early slumber even before winter’s touch, yet she always finds comfort in strolling through the garden. Especially as soft strains of a piano drift through the air from a slightly open window. 

She is careful enough not to glance toward the far end of the grounds, taking an early turn to avoid the white tombstone among the old oak’s fallen leaves. Clutching the book she failed to concentrate on to her chest, she lifts her head, absentmindedly looking for the seagulls in the silent sky, but the island’s autumn fog is thick as wool, even at noon.

Lunch passes soon, as unremarkable as so many that came before. The house-elf follows every request, preparing the meals exactly to their liking, but they all taste like nothing to her. Just like the familiar groans of the floorboards, the whispers of the drafts in the old house are simply background details she doesn't even notice anymore.

But her cup slips from her fingers, rolling on the table and sloshing its remaining tea the moment she hears a sharp, furious thud from the room above.

x

Sebastian brushes the book off the table. Useless. Worse still, he can’t even leave to search for something more useful on his own, depending instead on booksellers he barely trusts.

But there is always this fear whispering to him: what if, by leaving, he risks the protective spells faltering or vanishing altogether? He doesn't trust his own magic anymore. Whatever that risk is, it isn’t one he can take. He has to finish what he started. No one must find him before that. He won’t be able to explain. No one could ever understand.

He barely understands himself these days. Least of all can he grasp what truly happened after she used the spell meant to rid them of the relic for good. But he just blacked out—no other term fits better. When he regained consciousness again, it was long past the moment it mattered.

Maybe the confusion goes back even further, because he still has no explanation how the relic found its way back to him after almost a decade.

He hadn’t looked for it, of course. That much was certain. The moment he saw it again, he knew only that it had to be destroyed. He had the audacity to ask his friends for help without having any semblance of  a plan. What a fool. How dare he even call them friends now?

x

She quickly says, "There's something upstairs," even though Ominis hasn't yet asked. He’s just frozen, worried, across from her at the table. “Something fell. Dusky, see what’s going on up there.”

The house-elf, having already cleaned up the tea from the table with practiced efficiency, nods and disappears with a sharp pop. 

x

A muffled pop, both remote and unnervingly near, makes Sebastian turn to the middle of the room. Nothing. 

A second noise, like the lingering reverberation of the first, makes him blink and peer at the empty space. Still nothing. Not a shadow, not a whisper. Not a ghost.

He almost wishes it were just a ghost. He wonders if just a ghost would even bother speaking to him. Or would it simply linger, observing in silence, with no words to give? Would it despise him? Or pity him?

He’d take hatred over pity any day.

x

“Nothing?” she asks sceptically, irritation rising as the elf shrugs and shakes his head. She knows he returned too fast. She sees he’s scared. “Are you lying?”

His frantic head-shaking intensifies, eyes flickering in panic for a moment before he dashes from the room.

“House-elves can’t lie,” Ominis notes calmly.

“Wait!”

The elf doesn’t stop, his retreating steps disappearing down the hall toward the kitchen. She turns sharply toward Ominis.

“House-elves can’t disobey, either.”

x

Sebastian crouches down but makes no effort to pick up the book. Resting his palm against the polished wooden floorboards, he feels this again. The faint, rhythmic pulses, like the ghost of a heartbeat. After all this time, he knows the pattern—once the rhythm fades, all the odd sounds fall silent too. Not forever, no, but for a while at least. Usually, it fades fast. And it's fading already. Good.

He frowns at the book on the floor before eventually placing it back on the table, where there’s still a little space left among all the glasses and plates.

Beneath the papers, Sebastian notices an envelope resting at the very edge of the table. This one holds nothing but more grief and pain. So be it.

He tugs at the corner of a letter a little. The recipient’s name stings his mind. His own handwriting looks foreign. It’s the last letter he ever sent here. He never should have written it. Even if it had been the last thing he ever did, he should have handled it alone. 

Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? That’s exactly how it will be now. Alone as he is, and with this probably being the last thing he ever does, he will see the relic destroyed. There are already a few ideas he’s considered. For instance…

A gust of wind scatters some papers from the table along with that letter, making Sebastian glance up, noticing the seagulls flying by again, their cries unusually loud today. With an annoyed flick of his wand, the window snaps shut, and the glass rattles in protest.

x

“...Or suddenly go mute! But all of this—” Her voice rises, frustration mounting with every syllable of a conversation they’ve already had too many times—until she stops. “Did you hear that?” 

Ominis doesn’t answer, focusing instead on making a genuine effort to understand, just as he does every single time she hears something he does not. As usual, for him, there’s only silence. Her chair screeches against the floor right before she darts past him out of the room. Soon, her hurried footsteps reach the top of the stairs.

Ominis hesitates before going after her. Whatever these ‘sounds’ are, they terribly exhaust her. She doesn’t know how to stop them or make some sense of them, and he has no idea how to help. All ever since that day.

He still remembers the rage that consumed him—his entire being, the whole world at once—when Sebastian, after ten years of a perfectly decent life, claimed that the relic had simply turned up in his house. How convenient, Ominis said then, because it was agonising to realise that every bit of faith he had in his friend’s redemption had been misplaced. 

However, she had always been the one willing to trust people, to believe in them. It’s because of her he agreed to listen to Sebastian at all. Now her faith is likely the reason she still can’t accept how truly catastrophic his mistake had been and why she can’t let it go. 

When Ominis finally follows her into the room, she comes to him at once. He searches for any disturbance, any inconsistency in the signals from his wand—but there’s nothing. Nothing but silence and stillness.

“There’s nothing.” Her voice comes out quiet, almost shaking, just like her hands. “I don’t know… Must have imagined it. Sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” he squeezes her hand slightly, repeating the simple words that still seem to help them both. “It’s alright. It’s an old house; I used to hear things here all the time. It’ll pass.”

Later that night, Ominis leans over a sink in a bathroom far from their bedroom, gripping the porcelain with both hands. The rush of water fills the silence around him.

Yes, he still remembers that all-consuming rage. But the rage and anger are long gone. Ominis has had no will for anger in a long time. The little strength he does still have, he hoards for forgiveness but never quite reaches it. If there’s one thing he has in excess, it’s pain—so much that, deep down, he knows exactly what she feels, far better than he cares to admit.

Each time he jolts awake from that nightmare, detailed as ever, Ominis edges closer to acknowledging what she had always seemed to know. That the person coming to their house that day wasn’t a reckless teenager, but a man genuinely terrified of something he wanted to but couldn’t explain. Terrified of what came true after all.

Odd enough, Sebastian’s death had never once appeared in his nightmare. The final moment is never about him at all. And her dream is the exact same. There are moments when Ominis almost speaks aloud the theory forming in his mind. He may not hear voices or strange sounds, but he feels the way the silence here lingers unnaturally. It makes every room feel emptier than it should, stretching the time even. Or the way the fire in the hearth loses its warmth the more attention he gives it. The simple yet so complicated theory. Almost impossible. Rather insane.

“No. This is ridiculous,” Ominis murmurs, shutting the tap off. He presses his hands, insufficiently cooled by the water, against his face. Wrapped up in his own mind on this troubled midnight, he fails to notice that the tap seals itself shut, ceasing its quiet dripping.

x

Sebastian twists the tap tighter and hurriedly returns to his usual spot—the blanket spread out on the bathroom floor. Thick enough that he can’t feel the subtle impulses beneath him, though he knows, without a doubt, that they’ve started the moment the tap started dripping by itself. 

He sleeps right here often because the space is just small enough not to smother him with its hollowness and because, until now, this was the only place where they had never reached him. He always hears them from afar, from other rooms, but never here. 

Although now he would swear on anything, he just heard Ominis’ voice right beside him.

He isn’t afraid of such things anymore. He doesn’t even indulge in these imagined voices, either, weaving the illusion that he was never at fault at all. But lately a mere voice seems a rarity, because what he hears more often is the scream. And it gets closer. Just like the voice was right here in this room. As though any semblance of peace is vanishing from his reach completely.

x

“You’re gone… you’re not real… you’re gone…”

She rushes through the garden, her tears sliding off her cheeks just as fast. This time, she doesn’t turn away from that path. She is barely awake from yet another dream that returned the terrible, aching thoughts. 

She doesn’t even wait for Ominis to come back, so desperate is the need to see the tombstone again, to remind herself of reality, of acceptance, and—please—just calm down.

It’s too late to change anything. She must live on. Must focus on the future, or at least the present. Anything but the past. 

She steps closer to the white stone standing out in the darkness and wipes off the soggy leaves clinging to it. Her fingers trace the rough-cut letters briefly before they freeze.  

x

Sebastian hugs his knees closer, still sitting on the bathroom floor. Her voice. The deafening ‘No!’, as distant as it seems resounding straight from within his own head. He senses the faint, rhythmic pulses coming off the floorboards and walls. Stronger than he’s ever felt them. The pain is no longer confined to his chest; his whole body hurts.

He knows what’s doing this to him. Knows it’s punishing him and knows why. But he can’t take it anymore. No matter how—it just needs to be over. He has to act. He has to try. 

As he stands, he keeps his gaze on the door, refusing to acknowledge the mirror. One of the reasons is the grey in his hair. As if he has any right to still be here, growing older, when they will never get the chance.

Determined, he steps into the hallway. 

Each step down the creaky staircase is deliberate, and the grip on his wand is firm. 

All the resolve drains from him as he reaches the entrance to the vast, empty basement. Almost empty. He leans into the cold stone as his breath catches.

Is he really allowed to take another step? Will it let him even try? What if it already knows what he wants?

The house drafts feel much colder than before. He’s barefoot again, clad in only pyjama trousers and a thin shirt, but sweat drenches his skin.

x

As she drops to the ground, the wet leaves beneath her knees smear into mud. Ominis calls her name again and again, but her voice is just as lost as her mind might be. It’s only when he touches her shoulder that she jolts and tries to speak again, unsure, however, she will make any sense at all.

“Th—there…” She chokes out, unable to finish, her eyes locked on the letters on the white stone. “And you… your…” 

Ominis kneels beside her, dropping his wand on the leaves. One arm wraps around her, steadying her trembling body, while the other gently finds her face. 

“Shhh… I’ve got you, shhh… It’s alright.”

That’s when she notices that unlike her, he hasn’t even thrown on a coat. She doesn’t think when she starts to rise, oddly happy there is a reason to leave. She keeps swallowing her tears, trying to say, “It—it’s freezing. Why are you—”

“No, it’s not,” Ominis stops her. There’s tension in his voice, but it carries a quiet steadiness hers lacks. “Feel it. The wind, the ground—they're not cold. Please, just stop and feel.”

The request stuns her for a moment, but she lowers her hand to the damp leaves. Her fingers dig into them, seeking for the earth beneath, searching for a chill that should be there, that must be there—but isn’t.

“How? Why?” Her voice falters as her eyes snap back to the white stone. It doesn’t make any sense. She begs it to be some nonsense. Another nightmare. She finally speaks the words she had meant to, even as each one feels unbearable. “Ominis, the tombstone… It has our initials. Both of ours. Ominis, please… Why?”

“That dream we both have sometimes,” he says, drawing closer, his fingers skimming her cheek again. It hurts him too, to speak, but he can’t keep holding this in. “You had a feeling it was the truth, didn’t you? But something stopped you from saying. Like a word on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach, no matter how hard you try to grasp it, so you let it slip away.”

The truth. 

The truth is somewhere so painfully close.

It is in so many things she keeps both accepting and hopelessly missing. All this time, she had never questioned when their break from work, taken months ago, would end. There were no letters sent or received. No owls for so long. No seagulls in the ever-quiet sky, not once in months. 

And yet, she never questioned it. 

She had turned away from these questions, just as she had turned away from the tombstone, because deep down, she knew too well. Because even though Sebastian’s body and the relic had vanished without a trace, she knows that the stone was more than a memorial and that beneath it, the ground was not empty.

She knows why the nightmare always ends there. 

She understands why it always ends the same way.

x

Another drop of sweat trails along his temple, blending into the single tear streaking down his cheek as Sebastian steps into the basement. He lights a few torches along the walls.

The relic waits, undisturbed, right where he left it. 

A monument to his foolishness. 

Spells are echoing in his head again, desperate, never-ending. 

Slowly, he advances toward the small pyramid on the stone floor, more surprised at each step. It didn't even let him this near that day. 

Blink. A glance to the side—that’s where Ominis was. He was closer, so Sebastian reached for him first, fingers searching for a pulse. He hoped. Listened for breath. Heard nothing. Blink. His eyes dart to the farthest, darkest part of the basement—where she fell. Walking toward her, he knew already. Blink. He turns, just for a moment, toward the door. That’s where a curious house-elf was peeking inside, terrified. 

Sigh.

He raises his wand, aiming directly at the relic. He doesn't know if he could cast the spell or if he could even force out a single word and what might follow. 

He simply wants this all to be over.

x

She once believed that facing some kinds of truth can be painful enough to unravel someone completely. And still, even through the ache, her mind is sharp; it feels clearer than it has in such a long time. To understand, to recognise the truth, is now as effortless to her as drawing breath had once been. A pang of guilt and disappointment in herself stirs inside her—is she really so selfishly determined to deny her own destiny that she chose to believe it had belonged to someone else?

For so long, she had been spiralling, lost between reality and endless illusions, unable to comprehend whatever this is that’s happening to them. But now all her thoughts, both clear and still taking shape, flow down her cheeks in the form of tears… 

No, not quite. They flow onto the fingers that slowly trace her skin.

Ominis is here. Beside her, just as he always has been. Even as she pulled away, as she lost herself, when he had been struggling just as much.

“Ominis, I’m so sorry…” She whispers, leaning on his knee, clutching at the thin fabric of his pyjama trousers. “I’m so sorry…”

“No—Why?” His hand moves carefully as he brushes against a stray strand of her hair near her face before returning to settle beneath her chin. 

“I think… the last thing I remember before everything changed… Is using Ancient Magic. Something went wrong. That must be why we’re both… I’m sorry. I don’t know… Merlin, I just…”

"No, don’t say that," he says firmly, holding her tighter against him. "We made that list of ideas together, didn’t we? We all chose to take the risk. That relic was far more complicated." He breathes in deeply before continuing. "You remember when I said that if it found him, rather than the other way around, it could be worse than anything else?"

She watches as his hand trails down her arm, finding her hand clenched into a fist on his knee. Carefully, he unfurls it, weaving his fingers through hers. 

“I do. It would have meant this relic is so powerful and complex, it may have something like a consciousness of its own…” She looks up at him. “So… you believe him? That he didn’t try to find it again?”

“I truly don’t know. But if both he and the relic are gone, and that means he’s facing it alone somewhere... then I genuinely hope he can overcome it.”

“He loathes himself so much. There’s so much pain inside him. But whatever happened then, I know the relic has no hold over him anymore.” 

Her eyes drift back to the gravestone with six letters on it. It hurts more the more she understands; her mind is flooding with all the realisations she used to suppress. And yet, she still doesn’t fully get it. “You truly haven’t heard anything? Nothing at all? No thuds, no footsteps, no voice?”

“I swear, I didn’t hear anything,” Ominis says, as if regretting that it’s true. “No voices but ours, no footsteps, nothing unusual at all.”

“But you had the same dream as I did?”

“Yes.”

She grips his fingers tighter, and his thumb strokes hers in slow, steady movements. Her mind swirls with thoughts, and though some facts settle easier than others, they wound her just as deeply. 

Sebastian has some bond with the relic because he once wielded it, and she has one because she attempted to destroy it with magic she believed she understood. Could that be the reason she had heard his voice? 

But why—why is Ominis here? And the elf...? What if she is the reason they are all somehow trapped? That would be too cruel. Is there any part of this she can still change? Is there anything left for her to undo at all, or did all the possible moments pass beyond reach?

“What if… maybe this is all just another dream?” She breathes out, pressing her eyes shut, unable to handle the number of questions—some unanswerable, some too painful to even voice.

Ominis says nothing. He simply leans forward, pressing his forehead lightly against hers.

x

Sebastian clenches his teeth so hard it hurts—from sheer anger. Mostly, he is furious at himself. At the foolish fifteen-year-old boy who once decided this damned thing was the answer he needed. 

The relic had changed—there are no Inferi on its edges, it seems smaller, and utterly silent. And he didn’t black out after unleashing magic on it, spell after spell. 

Still, none of it worked.

The only thing left to try is the spell he had used the first thing back then. The relic had changed so much in the months. Maybe this time, it will work. 

Anyway—

He is so done he’s ready to tear the whole world down and himself afterwards just to make it all end. He takes a deep breath, his wand already starting the precise movement.

A flash. 

A thunderous crash.

He freezes, eyes narrowing as he notices something new. The smallest, almost invisible crack on the relic’s surface. He feels something he hadn’t felt in eternity—a sharp, unexpected jolt of joy that almost makes him laugh. 

x

Ominis lowers his hand from her face, his head tilting toward the house.

“There’s someone there,” he whispers, his words almost lost in the wind. “It’s not the elf.”

“True… Not an elf,” she whispers back, placing her palm to the ground again out of habit, expecting the usual pulses, but there is nothing. The shock of it—both the missing sensations and the man standing before her, whom she hadn’t seen for so long—is so great that it takes her a moment to realise she wasn’t the first to notice.

“Hold on, you actually heard it?”

The silhouette doesn’t move closer, stopping just a few steps away.

“Is that… Is that you?” The distant voice wavers, hesitant, uncertain.

“I hear,” Ominis nods. “It’s Sebastian.”

“Forgive me,” he still hesitates, as if afraid to take another step. “I fixed it. I think I did. Just… please…”

For the first time in forever, the voice doesn’t come from within her own head—it’s real, right beside her. His real voice. But the weight of the new suspicion is so heavy, so full of sorrow, that if they had been near the island’s shore, she is certain the grief alone would have pulled her under the waves straight to the ocean floor. From the way Ominis remains perfectly still and silent and only furrows his brow, she knows he feels the same. 

The brief hope they had is mercilessly gone.

x

The pyramid’s peaks emit a soft silver glow, their rhythmic pulses no more spreading through the ground and the walls. A faint light seeps from the crack, sluggish and indifferent, as though the relic knows it has no audience. And even if Sebastian Sallow weren’t lying motionless on the stone floor and was still able to be interested in anything, he wouldn’t have seen this glow no matter how hard he tried.

The glow pulses at the four peaks, climbing the ridges toward the highest, the only still unlit point. When it reaches the top, it gives a last, weak flicker. And fades.

A last, feeble shudder runs through the relic. Then, there is only stillness. Probably the kind that exists in the last fragile second before an unstoppable storm.

The relic cracks. 

One thin line becomes many, crawling over the relic’s surface like vines overtaking a house, claiming it entirely.

x

“He just vanished,” she murmurs in disbelief. She barely has time to process it before noticing something worse. “Ominis, the house—it’s fading. Something’s changed.”

The world transforms quickly. She doesn’t even have time to describe what she sees, but soon there is nothing left to describe at all. The wand on the ground is gone. Ominis’ arm remains wrapped around her waist, and she suddenly understands that she must not let him go, so she clasps his hand and presses it tighter against herself.

The house is gone. The elf is nowhere around. There’s even no earth beneath them anymore. No leaves. Nothing but the blackness where the world used to be. 

Beside them, on what looks like a floor made of black glass, lies Sebastian. In the vast, consuming darkness, the only glow emanates from beside him. Covered in an endless network of fine lines, the relic appears to still be whole only because of this soft, familiar glow.

“He destroyed it,” she realises, looking closely. “The relic. It looks slightly different now, and it carries a little trace of Ancient Magic.” 

“So using your magic wasn’t the wrong choice. Maybe that’s what altered the relic and allowed it to be destroyed. But why did he appear so briefly?”

“He’s… he’s here as well.”

She guides Ominis’ other hand to Sebastian’s shoulder, and he tightens his fingers uncertainly around the damp fabric of the shirt. 

“Tell me, is it just me, or…”

She knows. She doesn’t understand why, but she’s glad to know. “This is strange, but… yes. Maybe…” 

She glances around quickly, but there is nothing. Nothing at all. The void stretches on, endless, empty. The last traces of the faint glow continue to fade. 

“Nothing?” Ominis asks, but she can hear it in his voice—he knows the answer.

“Nothing,” she says, because she has to say it out loud. “If all this was tied to the relic, that means we… we’ll be…”

She knows, with unbearable certainty, what’s happening. There’s nothing they can do to change it. And the only thing that truly matters now remains unknown—what comes next.

“Hey. It’s alright. This is just a dream. Any moment now, we’ll wake up,” Ominis murmurs, lightly lifting her chin. “You hear me? There will be no more nightmares. All of them are over now.”

She watches the tiny reflections of light flicker in his eyes as she trembles in his arms again. She doubts it will happen the way he describes, but the way he says it soothes her.

So she accepts it.

And from acceptance comes peace.

From peace comes… hope. The last one. 

She reaches for the silver glow of the relic, if anything of the original relic remains at all. For the last time, she calls upon this magic, and it obeys, eagerly, almost as if it’s glad to. The glow drifts with her hand as she lowers it onto Ominis’ fingers, which have just returned to Sebastian’s shoulder, as if he had known exactly what she was about to do.

“It’s alright,” Ominis says, leaning slightly toward Sebastian. “It’s not your fault. None of us is to blame.”

“No more nightmares,” she adds firmly, watching as the edges of their fingers blur, dissolving within the dwindling glow. She looks away, squeezing her eyes shut, curling forward, her forehead pressing against Ominis’ chest.

The sharpest pain now comes from knowing that their final days, their last months together, had been filled with confusion and suffering. And that those months were truly their last.

“I… I wish we had more time,” she says.

“Let’s find each other again when we wake up, alright?”

She barely nods. “Alright.”

“Just please, don’t be too hard to spot. I’m not exactly great at hide-and-seek.”

A weak laugh escapes her as she sinks further into his embrace. His hand settles over her head. His other hand moves slowly, smoothing down her back in a measured rhythm—steady, unchanging, like the tide rolling in and out. Her trembling lessens with each pass of his touch, and at last, she feels safe, fully sheltered—not just from the endless emptiness that’s already around, but from whatever comes next.

x

The last traces of the silver glow fade away. The relic lingers only for a heartbeat more, as if offering a final farewell, before it shatters into countless fragments, each no larger than a speck of dust.

xxx

Sebastian Sallow’s pulse hammers against his ribs, wild and unsteady. Each breath he exhales pushes the tiny piles of dust away from his face. He doesn’t dare to move yet. 

He listens. 

The voices reach him, but for the first time, they bring no fear. There is no anger in them for some reason. No hatred. He doesn’t like that. He thinks back to his own thoughts, but the weight of self-loathing is no longer there somehow. It isn’t his choice—he doesn’t want any relief—but he lacks the strength to fight. His gaze catches on the scattered dust, and suddenly, he knows what it is.

He actually did it. It worked. The relic is gone.

As he steps outside on unsteady legs, he shields his eyes from the light that burns his eyes. It’s too bright and feels almost too warm for autumn. He looks toward the white tombstone. There’s no one there, of course.

He trembles, feeling his body surrendering to exhaustion. He stumbles back inside and sinks onto the first sofa he finds. 

He sleeps for hours, peaceful, dreamless, and unmoving. This sleep will definitely settle something inside him. When he wakes up, he will know what to say to people who keep asking. He will know how to return to work he once loved, and he will love it again. He will live.

And no one in this house will ever suffer another nightmare.

P.s. I couldn't have said in the beginning but it was partially inspired by 'The Others'. Thank you for reading, your feedback is very much appreciated ❤️🥹

[nicromancytarot]

WHAT IS YOUR STRONGEST PSYCHIC ABILITY

This is a general reading based on a collective of people. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. If you don’t feel the pile resonates with you, don’t be scared to try another, if it still doesn’t feel right, that’s ok! Maybe our energies aren’t as connected and my readings are not for you.

I do these strictly for fun and educational purposes. I don’t change for these readings and I do not fake readings. I would tell you the cards I got but I pull like 20-30 cards each reading and that just slightly a strenuous task to write them all down lmao.

PICK A CARD

I asked my spirit guides what your strongest psychic ability is, pick a pile and find out what they had to say.

Pile 1 ———> Pile 2 ———> Pile 3

PILE 1

Alchemy.

Alchemy is the act of turning metals into silver and gold, it was created in hopes of being able to find cures to diseases and therefore extending the longevity of life. Now obviously I’m not saying that you are able to physically turn a base metal into silver or gold, however I am saying that you mentally have the ability to turn something dull, into something great. You might find yourself to be an incredibly positive person, or perhaps you are very optimistic, this is due to your ability to fix whatever is going wrong in your life.

I am getting the message that you need to learn how to harness this ability so you can use it intentionally rather than on accident.

An example of this ability could be shown when someone is super depressed, everything’s going wrong for them in life, but all the sudden they rise like nothing even happened, they are able to turn a shitty situation into one of their greatest accomplishments, and all it takes is their mind and soul.

Extras: The Weeknd, The moon, Green, White, America, Bisexual

PILE 2

Clairaudience.

Clairaudience is the act of being able to hear things that exist in a paranormal matter. An example of this could be your own voice in your head, like a little internal narrator which is talking to you and telling you random things, perhaps they are reminding you of something you forgot, or maybe they are telling you not to do something. These voices can sometimes appear from outside of your body, you may hear them as though they are existing within the physical realm. However, do not get this confused with other mental health issues, if these voices tell you something disturbing or uncomfortable, those are not to be mistaken as an awakening or guide trying to reach you.

Now that being said, since you have the ability to hear things, you may go to a location that has unknown paranormal activity, and you could possibly hear something that no one else does, like footsteps, a scream, a screeching chair, the list goes on.

Your greatest ability is to take in those messages in which you receive, and using those to your greatest advantage to learn and understand more. This is one of the best ways to communicate with the higher beings (Spirit guides, The universe, God, etc)

Extras: Stars, James Marriott, Chicago, Boxing, Yellow, City man

PILE 3

Mediumship.

Mediumship is known for its ability to be able to see beyond the physical realm. It is greatly understood for being able to see spirits and even communicate with them. It may be that you can see those spirits clearly as if they are like real people who you can interact with. Or it could be that you see them in your minds eye, as if you can describe them, but they are just a projection of a thought that has been placed into your brain.

The ability itself is certainly one of the most interesting, you may find yourself able to beckon upon these spirits, you may feel as though they are called towards you or vice versa.

You could even have the chance to speak to and meet yours, or others higher selves, having introspective conversations with them to learn more about what you need to know for the future.

This could be something you grew up aware that you could do, or possibly something that comes to you with time. It may not appear obvious at first, perhaps it’s just shadows in the corner of yours eyes, or visual premonitions, if so, you can totally begin working on it, if that’s what you desire.

Extras: loud, Blue, Blueberry, Saturday, Molly, Beer, Madison Beer, Montell Fish

[violet-moonstone]

highlights from "searching for oswald...and chicken"

wow I loved this episode...I feel like I say that every time but I REALLY REALLY enjoyed this one

first of all its a Dagur episode, which automatically makes it great...most of the screenshots I took are of him. Honestly all of his dialogue is very quotable, especially since so many of the jokes they give him are thinly veiled adult humour

also the B plot with chicken was certainly something (and makes me think the writers were thinking about the end of the hidden world while writing it?)

ok so the beginning of the episode was already tugging at my heartstrings. I love seeing Dagur and Heather's sibling relationship, whether hey're arguing or getting along.

Well that's deeply upsetting! and the fact that he said "most of his life" makes me wonder how much of the confidence Dagur displayed as a teenager was a cover for whatever he was dealing with internally.

The part where Dagur hugs Heather and she looks happy but almost surprised was very bittersweet. It seems like she's still getting used to having a family, and affection catches her off guard.

Excuse me while I go cry

Call me deranged but I think Dagur slamming Snotlout against a cage was hot

As always, Hiccup is adorable. Literally looks like a cat

This is funny but also very upsetting! Snotlout and Dagur really make a habit of using humourous line delivery to cope with being deeply unwell:

*clears throat* uh yeah Dagur, I'm sure you do love a good "fruit bath," from time to time if you know what I mean...

Come on, the writers, animators and voice actor HAVE to have known that line came across as suggestive. Like the way he sounds? His facial expression? They may not have intended it to specifically imply he was talking about getting in a sauna with some twinks, but it certainly sounded like something sensual was going on.

Also I didn't get a shot of this but when Dagur starts listing adjectives to describe Heather's reckless behaviour, Hiccup says "Sentinel" while looking at Oswald's journal. Dagur says something like "that's not quite the word I'd use," which makes me think Dagur was going to call her a not so PG word...

Snotlout staring directly at the camera while narrating Tuffnut's emotional breakdown in the style of a pun-loving mystery novelist:

What an asshole (I love him). there's something really funny about Tuff leaning against the tree with a hand on his hip. Poor guy. Astrid and Stormfly were clearly less amused than I was.

Ok let's talk about Hiccup motivating Dagur to open the door to Oswald's shelter. My little Dagcup heart was really soaring here. And look at the lighting!

LOOK AT HIM! LOOK AT HIS FACE!

Oooohh man, Dagur expressing guilt about his past and Hiccup trying to help him through it also really got to me.

Dagur: I was a villain!

Hiccup: No, you were a kid

Me: *crying*

Because yeah, Dagur in Riders of Berk/Defenders of Berk did horrible things, but he was also enabled by all the adults in his life who could have stepped up after Oswald left. I've already written (both in posts and in one of my Dagcup fics) about how being thrown into a dungeon as a kid only made Dagur a worse person (no one in the show talks about the scars on his face that weren't there before...). And There is clearly an opportunity for restorative justice when it comes to characters like Alvin and Eret that wasn't extended to Dagur despite the fact that they had already overpowered him and could have at least given him a choice between punishment and trying to make up for his actions. Anyway...let me not rant about that anymore.

Ok what's next...oh yeah! Astrid doing this:

Hilarious.

Um...ok so...I needed to screenshot this for uh...reasons. It's the um...the composition and the...the lighting and...yeah. All that stuff.

THE DRAWING OSWALD DID OF DAGUR AND HEATHER AS KIDS

oooooohhh my heart!

Look. At. My. Boy. He looks so happy and at peace after reading his father's letter.

Ok so again...the writers making very interesting decisions for Dagur's lines.

Dagur being funny and a little concerning again

I liked the colour scheme for this Gronckle

More Dagur appreciation.

Before the episode where Fishlegs helps Dagur fly Shattermaster, I would have assumed Dagur would make fun of Fishlegs for being a nerd -- but instead he appreciates it. I think their friendship is super adorable, and I wish we got to see more of it.

Fishie! He calls him Fishie! (I ship them a little sometimes tbh) I can see Dagur having a thing for nerds.

hehehe

and uh, let's close off with hiccup being hot and windswept

[cantwritethetword]

(2024) TickleTober Day 1: Harvest - Going against the Grain

Fic Descript - Bruce agrees to help out on the Kent farm and, after an off-handed comment from Clark, he decides to see how ticklish superman actually is.

~A/N  - Welcome to ticklecrowber2024!!!! (forgive the corny title hehehehehe)

We're starting off this month with a super cute superbat fic requested by an anon. While writing it I'm realising this is gonna be a pre-relationship romantic fic, so hopefully that floats your boat.

Like I mentioned on a post ages ago, I'm not aiming to write full fics for all the prompts this year to hopefully avoid burnout so I'm going into this aiming for a few hundred words - we'll see how that goes.

Hope you like it!

- Enoy! ~

Tag List: @fullsongphilosopher

Masterpost Link 

TickleTober Masterpost

One of the (few) things Bruce hated about being in love with someone was the way it made him do things.

And not in a suggestive or psychological way, literally he felt compelled to gain some sort of relationship 'brownie points' to subtly prove his worth as a potential partner.

Which was how he had ended up here, about to knock on the door of Clark's farm home.

When superman mentioned needing to do some hard labour around the fields up in Kansas, Bruce found himself offering to help before he could even blink. It wasn't until Clark enthusiastically accepted that the batman fully realised what he had gotten himself into.

Mixing their work and personal lives? At Clark's house no less? Doing something that probably was effortless for Clark, but would be a significant physical strain for Bruce? What was he thinking?! He'll look like a fool...

But, as much as his brain loved to insist on how much of a bad idea this was, Bruce had resisted the temptation to cancel.

And so, he now found himself raising his fist and tapping the wooden door-frame.

"Bruce!" Clark grinned, opening the door fully.

The man was dressed so stereotypically farm-y, Bruce thought to himself. Brown leather boots half-covered by a pair of old denim jeans, topped with a plain white tee and - god he looked good in that red flannel...

"-are you... did you want to come in?" Clark chuckled.

Shit, had Clark invited him in already? Was he that distracted by the superhero in front of him that he fully disregarded any input other than the sight- wait it's happening again-

"Yes!" Bruce blurted out, interrupting his own thoughts. "Sorry, yes. Thanks."

Ugh love made him a mess.

As Clark narrated and explained his way through his humble abode, Bruce couldn't help but get stuck in his own head - again. He barely registered that they had left the house and were now walking through the wheat fields. He knew Clark was giving some really important information as to what exactly they needed to do and where they would need to do it, but it was almost as if his brain was more focused on the sound of Clark's voice than what it was actually saying.

Until Clark giggled.

Like a gunshot, Bruce locked onto the sound with unbridled curiosity. What had caused it? Would it happen again? Whatever it was clearly didn't phase Clark, as he was back to talking about whatever farmyard jargon that was interrupted earlier.

A few more moments passed, and Bruce had never been more focused on Clark's surroundings. What could possibly have made superman laugh like that? And how common of an occurrence was it if Clark didn't even acknowledged it?

Thankfully, it happened again - with Bruce watching the whole thing.

As Clark walked, a few stray spikes of wheat brushed against his bare lower forearms (where he had rolled up the aforementioned flannel). His hand twitched reflexively, and he once again let out a soft giggle at the sensation.

And, once again. Bruce's mouth moved before his brain could catch up.

"What was that?"

Clark half-turned his torso to face Bruce. "Oh, it just tickles."

Bruce flushed at the casualness of Clark's response.

"It's actually one of my favourite parts of walking through here..." Clark continued with a genuine smile. "Something so small being so intense, makes me feel soft.... alive... human..."

Only Clark could make getting tickled by a plant sound so endearing, it was almost enough to make Bruce forget the huge tidbit of Clark lore that had just been revealed to him.

Superman's ticklish??

He didn't have much time to feel the full shock of that information, as Clark was already several paces ahead of him. Bruce half-skipped to catch up, and as he did, something in his mind convinced him to snap off a piece of wheat from beside him.

As they continued their walk towards the edge of the field where they were about to begin work, and Clark continued yapping, Bruce ran his fingers over the wheat piece in his hand. Was he seriously about to try to tickle superman? Would Clark be alright with it? Would he find it weird and repulsive and never speak to Bruce again cause how could he possibly think that was a normal thing to-

stop - Bruce interrupted himself.

no overthinking

Bruce took a breath, slightly sped up his footsteps to bring himself right behind Clark, and ran the wheat stalk along the side of Clark's neck.

Clark folded with a shriek and a giggle, his smile never fading as he gave Bruce a quizzical look.

That smile was all the invitation Batman needed.

With a smirk, Bruce tackled Clark into the wheat next to them and climbed on top of his chest before frantically twiddling the wheat stem against any potentially ticklish bare skin he could find. Clark's neck, ears, collarbones - even the small patch on his tummy that was exposed from his shirt riding up as they fell - nothing was safe.

And Clark's laughter was like birdsong - it was the most free, happy, genuine giggling Bruce had ever heard. So much so, the billionaire opted to snatch another piece of wheat to use in his free hand against Clark's forearms - which were currently doing fuck-all to fight against the tickly attacks (aside from clinging to and breaking some nearby wheat stems, but Bruce theorised that was mostly for Clark to resist fighting back... cute).

After a sufficient tickling, Bruce paused - mentally checking for any signs of annoyance on Clark's face and letting the man calm down for a few moments.

"Why'd you stop?" Clark asked breathily without missing a beat, and now looking slightly disappointed.

Once again caught aback by Clark's openness, Bruce stuttered and floundered for an answer. "I... I was just... I wanted to... make sure... you..."

Clark laughed. "No need to panic, it was just a question."

Bruce chuckled, still a little embarrassed.

"You always worry so much." Superman smiled, poking Bruce's neck with one of the wheat stalks he had snatched during the tickle-attack to emphasise his point.

Bruce squeaked (though he would later insist this wasn't true), his face flushing a deep red.

"Oh?" Clark grinned menacingly, rolling himself and Bruce over to flip their positions with clearly little-to-no effort. "The dark, scary batman is ticklish too?"

oh god

And, after being thoroughly tickled, Bruce spent the entire time they worked on the farm trying to convince himself the look on his own face before Clark tickled him definitely wasn't nervous excitement, and that he definitely wouldn't give anything do it all again.

Definitely not.

[katatonicimpression]

It's the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve and I have fuck all to do so let's watch the Sam episode of What If?

DISCLAIMER: This is the first, and so far only, full episode of this show that I have ever watched. It did not inspire me to watch more. So, that's my bias I guess.

Background

There was some controversy about all of this. Sam appeared briefly in the zombies episode in the first season of this show. He's already a zombie and is quickly killed (re-killed?) by bucky, who makes a quip about it.

The line feels kinda off, like they're trying to recreate the banter between the characters in the live action (finding each other annoying etc) but it falls flat. There's no love there. In civil war (which takes place before the canon divergence in the show), their banter still has a level of camaraderie to it. They're riffing off each other, and fighting together and saving each other. It's weird to have bucky quip at the prospect of sam's death in a scene that takes place after those scenes.

It feels like reading one of the thousands of "incorrect quotes" posts on this app that write Bucky being horrible to Sam for no reason. It's the exact same emotional experience. Put a pin in that.

There was another controversy related to this, which is that in the same episode, Sharon also dies. Allegedly, one of the main writers (matthew chauncey) said that they should give her a particularly violent death because "no one likes her... he belongs with peggy". This is an open expression of violent misogyny so yeah that's fun. What a piece of shit... allegedly.

Sam does not appear in any other episode of what if s1. When s2 came out, his absence felt conspicuous, and many people commented on it. In particular, there's an episode of s2 that is vaguely medieval/robin-hood vibes, and Sam is noticeably absent from Steve's band of merry men. Steve's best friend, closest partner of over 50 years of comics isn't there. The falconry themed superhero is not in the medieval episode. People rightfully called bs.

The show felt similar to reading posts and fics in the fandom, and the way that people will minimise Sam's existence in Canon. Put a pin in that.

One person involved in making it (I think a writer but I can't remember and I searched for like ten minutes it's NYE gimme a break) responded publically to these complaints. They cited a supposed uncertainty over sam's future in the mcu (specifically whether he was cap or falcon) as a reason for not including him.

This was very funny, because 1) There was no ambiguity over whether Sam would be cap - it was a dead cert since Endgame what are you on? and 2) no one would've been mad if Sam had appeared as Falcon.

This response had the same vibes as when random fans say weird and ignorant things in Sam's tag and, when confronted, will offer weird excuses that don't make any sense. Pin it.

The other bit of context here is the (admittedly heavy) discussion of how What If launched Captain Carter, a decision that had to have been made around the same time that they decided to do samcap. I've talked before about this; it's complicated and the discourse is annoying. But ultimately, it comes across very badly for the mcu that they created a white female british captain america (not captain britain from Excalibur, but specifically a captain america character) specifically to launch near simultaneously with a Black captain america. It looks bad and I don't like it.

Anyway, so after this person who's name i can't find put their foot in their mouth, Marvel released a few stills from s3, revealing that Sam would be in one episode. People were happy to see him, and (aside from the VERY VALID CRITIQUE that WhatIf!Sam doesn't have the eyelashes he so clearly ought to) people were mostly placated.

The Episode

I love mark ruffalo but his voice performance in the opening scene is not it. Also the narration is mixed a lot louder than the dialogue... which is a jarringly amateur mistake. Ok whatever i'm gonna try to keep my salty complaining sam-focused

So, the show opens with a version of the opening samsteve meetcute from CATWS. But this time, without a mutual exchange of vulnerability. This time Sam is just offering Bruce comfort.

Then he literally gives him therapy.

Then he takes him to Louisiana to the boat, a redo of the sambucky scenes in tfatws. I'm not the first person to point this out, but there's a big difference here. Bucky came to louisiana uninvited with a (technically unwanted, but still very impressive) gift for Sam and then spent the day working on the boat as a gesture of friendship. He was performing acts of service (or however you express it) because he wanted to preserve and nurture this relationship. He knew he'd treated Sam badly and wanted to make it up to him.

Then, Sam invited him to stay the night (or, rather, accepts bucky's self-invitation to sleep in his house), because he's nice and welcoming and generous yes sure. But also because he likes Bucky back, despite everything. They both want to be friends and partners.

That's not happening here. It's just Sam offering Bruce his home because he is apparently motivated by a desire to help random white men he meets.

It reminds me of the countless fics and hcs that write Sam exclusively as a caretaker and therapist for bucky or other white characters. It reminds me of the takes that rewrite canon to make him be the one to pursue bucky with a desire to help and nurture him - a thing that has never happened in canon. Urgh. Pin that thought up with the others.

Oh and of course, we can't have a story about samcap without paying tribute to our holy special boy steve for a bit. Whatever it was just a few overly long shots.. still annoyed me though. Wow I really am a hater.

Oh and Bruce is the one with the arc? He's the one the episode is about? But his change of heart happens entirely off screen and with no implicit turning point? Lol. Lmao even.

And "friends who accept us for who we really are." I want to take this entire writers room aside because no. You can't end with a thesis statement that wasn't the theme of the story. Go back to school.

Am I Nothing but Negativity?

It was nice to see sarah again! Shame all she got to do was scream then get violently shoved to the floor.

Ok but in general, once the episode gets started in earnest, it's fine.

I did genuinely like seeing Sam again. I like him in the lead, even if the episode was about Bruce, Sam was still the main character and that was fun to see.

Mackie's voice performance is strong.

I enjoyed the 0.0003 seconds of sambucky. I liked seeing Sam and Monica together.

"The man wants to have tea with Lenin." This line is so bad it's good again. Yeah he probably would. And he'd be fine. Vlad would love the guy, everyone does.

I like the visual of Sam facing down a giant kaiju and just chatting to it. That's very sam coded. That and Sam with the shot of the monsters walking past him and him standing strong.

What is the Point of this Show?

There's nothing spectacular in this episode. The dialogue is astoundingly predictable, the jokes fail to be funny.

At times, the animation style (much like TDP which recently finished) feels like it's holding them back. A lot of the quieter, less actiony, shots are ugly frames with people walking less naturally than sims do. And they do have some more expressive stuff in the busier scenes, so it's not artistically empty, but it's not doing a lot for me either.

Maybe it's an interesting technique for those who know more about these things, but honestly regular 2d animation would've been (i assume) cheaper and potentially better. Then again, if it wasn't visually distinctive, what else would it have going for it?

Conceptually, a mcu what if show is an amazing idea, but in practice IN MY VERY BIASED OPINION, it's done very little with that potential. The comics offer such a rich trough of ideas that could be spun into very entertaining short episodes with versions of the characters that would otherwise not be able to encounter those story beats. Hell, Sam in particular has an entire massive part of his character cut from the mcu (his powers) that they could explore... and that would be really well suited to animation!

But they've stuck to the comparatively shallow mcu lore for most of it.

I've seen people express disappointment that it's ending after only 3 short seasons and I see why. This is obviously the sort of thing that you could do so much more with. But I also feel that the writing is uninspired and betrays a real lack of interest in the worlds of most of these characters.

I Hate its Vibes

So let's take a look at those pins, shall we?

We have:

Ignoring Sam most of the time

Mischaracterising his relationship with Bucky

Writing him as a caregiver, a nurturing therapist only

A lack of an internal world and motivations beyond his desire to help others

Ignorance over his character's history including his powers and the depth and longevity of his relationship with steve

Nonsensical excuses when faced with criticism, unintentionally displaying even more ignorance and incuriosity over the character

I mentioned that writers comment about sharon earlier for a reason. The vibes are not good. They are rancid. They are reminding me of every dumb post I've ever read on this site. Every weird jab at the character for stupid, racist reasons. Every fic with the "magical negro" trope. Every moron i can think of tbh.

Yeah, so maybe I'm not being fair to this show. The episode was uninspired, but not bad. I liked seeing sam do things. If people gif him looking cool in it, I'll reblog it I guess. But I'm not gonna watch the rest of the show, and I won't mourn the fact that it's ending.

I guess my conclusion is that it's very funny that Marvel placated disgruntled sam fans with a still from this episode, and then when it finally comes out, it's everything we've ever complained about.

[bucketsofmonsters]

Where the Light Enters - Part 1

cw: unreliable narrator, hurt/comfort, slow burn, eventual sex, enemies to lovers, past childhood sexual assault, past sex trafficking, referenced noncon, offscreen dubcon, happy ending, the tags look scary but this is mainly a story about recovery

Cole/Female Inquisitor

word count: 4k

ao3 link

Masterlist

She’d chosen the templars.

It seemed the better option. Or at least the less vulnerable one. 

Frankly, she'd barely understood what a templar was a few weeks ago. The mages seemed upset about them, but surely there were more important things than that in a war. Besides, she'd rather hide herself behind a trained militant force than these rogue witches. 

She still didn’t really understand them if she was being honest. She knew enough to see that people were afraid. No matter how evil the templars may be, at least they were stable. Maybe that was enough. 

She had hoped, assumed even, that Cullen would be doing this part. That she’d point at the templars on the map and he’d set off with his less than stellar army to collect them. That the man who’d been advocating to bring his old comrades into the fold would do the legwork and return with the mage killers and she’d be just that much safer. 

But no. She’d pointed at the map and then been sent off. They hadn’t even given her time to complain. 

Not that she would’ve. It would have ruined her perfectly crafted image of the sweet doe-eyed girl that ensured they wouldn’t throw her to the wolves. The one that changed her from a tool to a manipulable, scared girl. 

She was fine with being manipulated. So long as they thought she was weak-willed, there was no reason to hurt her. She just had to ensure that whatever was best for her was the path of least resistance for them. 

Besides, it wasn’t like she wasn’t returning the favor. The little notebook buried deep under her floorboards ran through the easiest way to get to all of them. Not to endear her to them, just to make her safe. She’d foster pity, camaraderie, desire, whatever would keep her in their good graces for the longest. 

She was always harmless. That was the one thing she had to be. Harmless above all else. Any sign of competency turned to threat under anything but the softest light. 

And yet they’d sent her fragile, bumbling self off to the templars to secure themselves some allies. Josephine had insisted she wouldn’t have to do anything, that she just had to show up while the actual soldiers being sent alongside her would do the heavy lifting. 

Iron Bull had promised much the same, posturing as he normally did. She almost always took him with her these days. He was a beast of a man who threw his weight around like it was nothing, more than happy to take blows for her. And even more importantly, he was growing incredibly fond of her, the kind of ally she needed. 

Their actual leader, the one who made the real decisions, was Cassandra. Cassandra was disinterested in coddling her, more focused on gathering troops than on the strange girl who’d inexplicably been shoved towards leadership because of an ability she’d been given by some higher power. 

Solas, the mage she’d been forced to take with her, was too busy huffing and puffing about prioritizing templars over mages. She thought about snapping at the elf, at insisting that maybe the mages should have been an organized militaristic force if they wanted to be prioritized in this fight. 

Instead, she rolled over like she always did, playing afraid until he stormed off, clearly uncomfortable with the tremor in her voice as she swore she was just trying to get the strongest possible troops so no one else would get hurt. 

Good. Let him be uncomfortable. She had never liked him much anyways. 

But even so, when they arrived at the templar camp she kept herself wedged firmly between Solas and Iron Bull, as far away from the leader of the templars, the Lord Seeker she was pretty sure he was called, as she could. 

She still didn’t fully understand who he was, couldn’t make sense of what he was doing here or why she was meant to care about him. In her defense, she hadn’t expected to be forced to come along. 

Despite her disinterest in him, despite her safe position, despite the way Bull attempted to lead the conflict, when something snapped in the Lord Seeker and he lunged forwards, he lunged at her. 

The world lurched under her feet and it felt like it had the last time, when she'd been pulled through the fade to this awful place and given the strange power that stuck her heading an army. It made her reel in her skin, her muscles and sinews feeling like they were being tugged along faster than she could keep up with, her mind stretching impossibly thin as it did.

And then she was alone. Her warriors and mages were gone, no Bull or Cassandra or Solas to keep her safe. 

Then this Lord Seeker appeared once more, and she suspected that even if she had listened when they’d told her all about the templars and their plight, she would have no better of an idea who this Lord Seeker was. 

This idea was only reinforced when the Lord Seeker began to morph, turning into eerie, hollow puppets of her now absent companions, cycling through her advisors as well. 

She allowed herself the freedom to not perform innocence for these poor mockeries of her cohorts. It seemed probable that this ‘Lord Seeker’ was a demon and as such, unlikely to respond to her usual fawning. 

So instead she got on with things, turning away from the creature that had just decided to morph itself into the face that she tried to avoid seeing in the mirror, and began moving forwards in this strange new space. 

The exploration was slow, the terrain littered with traps. The demon seemed frustrated with her persistent refusal to listen to it menace her. 

The rooms revealed little. Some had puppetted versions of the members of the Inquisition, acting out some situation or another. She decided not to devote her attention to it. It seemed to be intended to display what might happen should she die here and to be frank, she couldn’t care less. She would be dead after all. If Cullen ended up in a jail cell after she died, so be it. It would serve him right for forcing her to come here anyway. 

She explored another room, empty and strange, not sure what she was looking for. It wasn’t like she could just find a way out, she knew she was somewhere incorporeal and beyond things like exit doors. Maybe it was the fade, maybe she was in her own mind, maybe it was this demon’s territory. She didn’t much care, unless figuring it out led her to an exit any faster. 

And then, as she drowned herself in hopelessness and melancholy, a voice sounded from behind her. 

“You.”

The voice didn’t sound harsh nor antagonistic, a far cry from what she’d heard from the demon’s many faces. It was soft, almost curious in its tone. 

She turned around with wide eyes, forcing her face back into the soft façade she’d been free of whilst only under the scrutiny of the demon. 

“Thank god I found someone,” she gasped out, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick. “I thought I was all alone in here.”

A young man stood before her. She tried to take him in but it was difficult to due to the frankly absurd hat he was wearing. It covered most of his face, obscuring him from her, the shaggy ends of blonde hair and a stern looking mouth barely peeking out from under it. 

He also, fairly notably, was hanging from the ceiling, which did not help with the matter of the oversized brim of his well-worn hat blocking her view. 

He spoke once more, in that same gentle, inquisitive tone. It was off putting in a way it shouldn’t have been, its softness not quite managing to shield it from that. “It's not the same. Soft words, hard thoughts. You hate me. People do that but you think I’m human and you hate me anyway. Besides it, because of it. It’s hard to see, hard to understand, covered more and more, shying away from the light. The light brings eyes and the eyes bring hurt.”

“Are you inside my head?” Her tone was laced with a spite she rarely allowed to see the light of day.

He looked around. “We’re both inside your head. You’ve guessed that already.”

She shook her head. “Not here, not this place. You, what you’re saying, those are my thoughts. You’re stealing them from me.”

“Not stealing. Just seeing. Hearing.” He paused for a moment, and then said with a decisiveness she’d yet to hear from him. “You’re a bad person.”

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, brushing right past his statements, desperately searching for a way out of this. As much as she hated it, this weird creature that she’d found lingering in her mind was probably her best chance of escape. At least he didn’t seem intent on killing her.

“I grabbed onto you, when you were pulled through the fade. I wanted to go help, but getting out is hard. You made it easy but part of me is stuck up here now. You could help. If you go back I can follow you then too.”

Great, so she’d picked up some sort of mind-reading monster in the fade. She was tempted for a second to take her chances with the demon but she wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t get out on her own, and he clearly knew something. 

“What are you?” she asked, at least wanting to know what she was dealing with before she threw her life into his hands. 

“I’m Cole. What are you?”

That earned a ghost of a laugh from her, the short huff of air barely noticeable. Not that it mattered, Cole could probably feel it as she did. “I’m Rosemary.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, suddenly behind her, standing on the same floor she was on.

“About what? My name?”

“Wandering, alone, unnamed, searching for something soft on the tongue. Rosemary made people see the ghost, not the person. Rosemary earned gentle hands. What are you?” 

This was spiraling out of control faster than she could figure out how to manage it. “Can we focus on getting out of here?” she asked. “Can’t you interrogate me when there’s no imminent threat on our lives?”

Then he breathed a word out like he couldn’t decide if it was a prayer or a curse, like it was a horrible truth that had just occurred to him. “Britches.”

Her head snapped towards him, a tension she’d long since trained out of herself rearing its ugly head. “Where did you hear that?”

“You told me. It echoes in your head, the closest thing to you that there is. It’s so far, fleeting, fading. But it’s almost you.”

“We need to leave,” she practically pleaded with him. “Can we please just get out of here?”

“I’ve never heard someone who wasn’t a who before. Where did it go?”

“I promise I’ll answer all your questions when we get out. Please, we need to go.” She wasn’t above begging. There was very little she was above, in all honesty. 

His head tilted once more, as if considering asking about that thought, before deciding the promise of honesty in the future was worth more. 

“It wants your face,” he declared. “It would hurt more than you ever could, claw the people apart instead of just holding. You want to leave. I can help.”

“You can get me out of here?”

He didn’t even bother to nod, just continued speaking in his strange little riddles. “You need to make it more. Right now it’s just a few. The further you go, the further it stretches.”

“Why would I want to make it bigger?”

“The smaller it is, the closer together the power. You have to stretch it thin.”

Right, so she just needed to keep moving and eventually something in this seemingly endless demon would snap. 

She didn’t need him for that, she could travel on her own. 

His head tilted as the thought passed through her head. “We’re in you already. If you leave me behind, I stay. You want me to go so you can’t leave me.”

He was right. As much as she didn’t want to travel with this weird creature, leaving him festering inside her head seemed infinitely worse. 

“Alright then Cole, we’d better start walking.”

He nodded but did not move. “We will need to fight.”

“You will need to fight. There’s not much I can do.”

“No. You don’t fight, you move softer. Sneaking, slipping, stealing. You only have to roll over if you get caught.”

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” she said, and her voice was instinctually softer. He paid her no regard. 

“I can be quiet. We can move softly together.”

She hoped the creature actually understood what it was saying, that it could be as stealthy as it promised. Or at least hoped that it could fight. 

He still didn’t move and she wondered if he was waiting for her to go first. 

She turned and took a few steps out the door, hearing no footsteps sound behind her. 

When she turned, Cole was nowhere to be found.

A voice came from right behind her, outside of the doorway. “Should we not leave?”

She whipped around and glared at him. He didn’t seem to react to the look at all. 

To be fair, she wasn’t very intimidating. She had little practice at being menacing and she most certainly was not a natural. 

Emboldened by the fact that he did not seem to need to move to follow her, she set out, walking out the door, blowing right past him.

A scream sounded from her left and Cole said, “Keep going straight. It wants you to wind around and around and around so it doesn’t have to stretch.”

His voice echoed and she wasn’t sure if it was an audible noise or not. She turned to where it felt like it had come from and there he was, walking alongside her. 

The sound of her footsteps remained the only ones in the hall as the two of them walked. 

“We should move quietly,” she said. 

He looked around as he moved. “Envy can’t hear me. It doesn't know I’m here. You wouldn’t have either.”

“If not for safety then maybe you should be quiet for my own sanity.”

“You’re not going insane,” he declared. “You are frustrated.”

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“No,” he said. “You can be frustrated if you’d like.”

“No,” she informed him, although she imagined he knew already. “I would not like.”

She turned to look at him and saw a glimpse of his eyes under his hat, a little wrinkle formed between them. “Then you should stop.”

“You first,” she huffed. 

“The Iron Bull is out there,” he said, undeterred by her clear irritation. “He isn’t bad but he brings hurt anyway.”

She decided to try a more direct approach. “Can you shut up?”

“If you let them bite, then it doesn’t count. It only hurts if they take it, if you allow it it's still yours.”

She stopped with a jolt, whipping around to scold him. “If you can see everything in my head, why do you keep talking? You know what’s up there and I know what's up there so what exactly are we achieving?”

“I have thoughts too,” he said, almost wistfully.

“Really? I have yet to hear them. You instead seem intent on airing every thought I’ve ever had as obtusely as you can.”

“It’s hard. Your thoughts are so loud. You’re very angry.”

She huffed as she stormed onwards. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know. I think the hurt would make me help. It just makes you want to dig your claws in and hold.”

“Fucking irritating little creature, that’s what you are. I’ll be glad when I get out of this and I never have to see you again. Then you can stew on my rotten thoughts as long as you’d like.”

His head cocked to the side. “You’re not convinced we’re inside you. You still hope this could be the fade. You think I may belong here, that I might stay.”

“Frankly, I don’t care where you go. I know you’re not staying with me though.”

“We’re tethered.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You can see in my head, right? Do you really think they’re going to believe a demon over me? You’ll be killed in a heartbeat. Which is fine by me, no skin off my back.”

“A bad person,” he muttered to himself, hands flexing and unflexing slowly, rhythmically as he spoke. She wasn’t sure if he even knew he was doing it. 

He went silent as they heard the shouting of troops. Cole faded away and she took to the shadows. 

If this really was her mind, which she was not ready to wholeheartedly believe on the word of some creature, then she had no idea how stealth worked here. Was it really as simple as being quiet and hiding away? Surely in this space that the demon allegedly created, it could sense where she was. 

And yet she watched soldiers run in front of her, looking desperately for someone to fight as she slunk further into the artificial landscape. 

Cole made himself scarce from there on out, occasionally warning her with that strange, disembodied voice to turn now or to avoid the room ahead, although never in such clear terms. 

Eventually, she realized where she’d ended up. She was where she’d begun, where the Lord Seeker, or perhaps the envy demon, had lunged at her past her several bodyguards, most of which were standing protectively in front of her.

It wanted her. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe because of her perceived position of power. Maybe because of whatever this ability was that the fade had given her seemingly at random when she’d been pulled here.

It didn’t really matter, at the end of the day. She just needed to get out. 

And at the top of all those staircases was a dead end where she had been attacked. 

She looked around as the sound of battle-ready troops got louder. 

“Cole,” she hissed. “Where do I go?”

His voice sounded from above and she looked up to find him in the palm of a massive statue. 

“You remember it wrong. The statues don’t have faces here. You didn’t care to look.”

“I still don’t. We have more important things to be worrying about than what some weird statues look like.”

“It should end where it began. You must escape in the center.”

She made the mistake of turning her head, of looking nervously towards the false templars that resided down the stairs. 

When she looked back up, she was alone again. 

Or at least she hoped she was, looking around nervously, checking for any signs of an aggressor. 

But demons didn’t play fair. 

Before she could so much as catch sight of it, the faux Lord Seeker was slamming her back into the wall, hands tight around her throat. 

The face looking back at hers was the half-familiar one from the mirror once more, one she tried to avoid looking at at all costs. 

It was typically unfair, she supposed. To be forced to look at an imitation of herself as she died. 

She kicked and flailed, trying to break from his grasp, to get away by any means possible, but she knew it was a losing fight. She could feel the strength in its hands that far exceeded hers. 

Cole’s voice sounded from right beside her. “He is afraid of you.”

She could see no sign of him out of the corner of her eye as she thrashed in the demon's hold, but she could hear him perfectly. 

The fight began to drain out of her, sinking into herself as her kicks lost all their power. 

And then the hands around her throat went stiff and the world folded in on itself. 

She collapsed to the ground the second she saw Iron Bull in front of her, pulling the Lord Seeker away from her. She heaved in air where she sat, clutching her chest as she did, eyes beginning to water. 

It wasn’t her best performance, a bit overdone. She honestly could have just reacted as she would naturally but the sudden appearance of her companions had thrown her. In her defense, it was a sudden shift and she’d been preoccupied with other things. 

The strange creature with the stupid hat was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t sure if she hoped he was still trapped back wherever they had been or not. She certainly didn’t want him lingering in her head but having a mind-reading creature roaming around would prove an ever greater problem. 

Bull carried her inside as the other two talked about a demon and some transformation she hadn’t been privy to, instead caught up in her own dramatics. 

He tucked her away on a chair in the corner as Solas said something, probably whining about her. Cassandra gave her a firm order to stay put and they left her inside, amidst the templars.

She stayed tucked in her corner, choking down any panic that might want to arise. 

She didn’t like being alone with groups of men, let alone groups of men that she didn’t know and hadn’t built any repertoire with.  

The fight was over fast. She stayed dutifully in her corner, not one to disobey orders. When it was over, Cassandra and Bull returned for her, Solas presumably off worrying about more important things than her. 

Cassandra did not let Bull carry her any longer, insisting she was fine without giving her the chance to speak. She rose to her feet, despite her plan to feign weakness a little longer. She didn’t want to upset Cassandra.

Cassandra dragged her back to their control room to debrief about the mission, where she would inevitably try to pull something approximating leadership out of her once more. 

It wouldn’t work. She knew any attempt to lead would upset more people than it would please.

It was safer to be weak. 

Cullen was upset about something, which didn’t make sense to her considering she’d helped his precious templars first. Josephine was upset too, not that she’d ever admit it. But a liar recognizes a liar and that calm voice was as put on as it could be. Leliana was endlessly practical, so presumably she was telling her something important. She barely listened to any of it, instead focusing on clutching her uninjured stomach in faux pain, hoping that the hands that had been around her neck left bruises, despite having been in that world between worlds. 

And then their typical, predictable chatter turned to something more panicked and she looked up to find Cole sitting on their table.

Her eyes shifted from an impression of someone trying to be brave about their pain to a very real panic, lurching away from him before she could think. 

Swords were being drawn in the blink of an eye and she did her best to position herself behind Cullen. He was already the fastest to the draw and Cole was too dangerous to her. Hopefully, if he felt he had something to protect he would be even more likely to end this creature now, before Cole could become a problem. 

“You left,” Cole said, looking straight at her, the weapons pointing at him not seeming to concern him at all.

All heads turned to her. “Rosemary?” asked Josephine hesitantly, waiting for an explanation. 

“He helped me against the demon,” she said reluctantly. “But I don’t think we can trust him.”

Cole’s head cocked to the side. “Fleeting, fearful, frantic. You need me to be gone, they can’t see what I know. We both will stay.”

She prayed the others didn’t understand that as the threat it was. 

Leliana glanced between the two of them and asked, “A spirit helped you?”

A spirit. It made sense, she’d apparently picked him up in the fade and he hadn’t done anything truly menacing so it was unlikely he was a demon. At least not yet. She wasn’t sure how Leliana had deduced this but she stored the information away. 

She nodded. “He did. And maybe I was unfair. He was nothing but kind to me, and he saved my life. We could give him a chance.”

Cullen scoffed. “Trust him? He’s a demon and you just said we shouldn’t trust him! Now you want to set him free in the camp?”

“Wasn’t it you who said I could stand to be a little braver, Commander Cullen?” she said, sitting up a little straighter. She needed to do this, if Cole was inside her head he could get her killed. “He saved me, and I say we give him a chance.”

Cole was gone before she finished defending him, disappearing with hints of fade green in the air where he’d sat. 

Josephine looked nervous but she seemed the most content with their situation, saying, “He could be a useful resource-” 

Before she could so much as finish her sentence, Rosemary bolted out the door to go find the ticking bomb that had invited itself into her army.

[homestuckreplay]

JOHN EGBERT BANGING OUT THE TUNES APRIL 21, 2009?!

After our adventures in John's bedroom and living room these past days, we now get a glimpse into his father's study. Unsurprisingly this room is also filled with harlequins, but this time the more businesslike monochrome harlequins, almost veering into mime territory. There's also a copy of 'The Serious Jester' on the desk. From this we could guess that this is where John's dad does the serious part of clowning - filing his taxes or whatever - if it weren't for the next line.

There is also a CAN OF PEANUTS on the desk. Ha ha, oh DAD. You won't be falling for THAT one again any time soon. A severe peanut allergy is a terrible affliction to cope with.

AGAIN?? Is this suggesting that John's dad, through carelessness at best, has been leaving peanuts around the house to potentially poison his son with? Can we infer that his ceaseless cake baking is a sort of Russian roulette, where most cakes are perfectly safe but there's a small chance any one could have peanuts blended in? Is the divide between John and his father that John does whimsical, ridiculous pranks while his father does 'serious' pranks that endanger people's lives? When are we going to meet this evil clown?!

A father without a pipe is like a strapping roughneck without a toothpick. That is to say, HE IS A RATHER PISS-POOR EXCUSE FOR A ROUGHNECK IF YOU ASK ME.

This is the THIRD time an opinion like this has been voiced by the narration - first the tire swing, then the fire, and now the father, all trappings of the suburban lifestyle in which John seems to live. The narrator explicitly calls themself 'me' here too, suggesting a distinct entity instead of a disembodied narration. Are we reading this from the point of view of an entity who is keeping John homestuck, forcing him to partake in all the trappings of home life? And does this have anything to do with Sburb - as someone pointed out on Discord last night, it's only one letter away from Suburb?

I think that captchaloguing a captchalogue card should cause John to open a portal to the astral plane like with bags of holding in D&D.

But the most exciting part of this update is John playing the piano on page 77 - complete with a song playing inside the animation! The song is Showtime by Kevin Regamey and Malcolm Brown, and it's a very pleasant listen. John is a skilled piano player!! Which means that sooner than expected, I'm getting an answer to my question of 'what is John good at'. I can't believe there hasn't been a single mention of music in this comic until now, and suddenly John busts out this simple but lightweight, airy, carefree melody that he's clearly practiced loads before. What other secrets is this kid hiding from us?

The caption on this animation is even more intriguing - '(Pages including sound will be preceded by [S] in the command.)' Is music going to become a regular part of the comic? Is John playing music going to become relevant to the plot, so we'll get to hear more of his songs, or will music be worked into the story in other ways? This is treading new ground, moving Homestuck further away from a 'traditional' comic, which only makes me more curious about where it'll go next.

[transhawks]

I know you're writing a fic with Twice is in (and also actually appreciate his character), so do you got ideas, rules whatever, on how to write his dialog? Ll the fics ive read never feels right unless it's straight from the source material 😭

Hey! So, I've definitely played around with this in writing. Let me show some examples and word vomit about Twice. I will say that while I often return to the manga and observe how he talks, I also have developed LOTs of head-canons, so much of this is my own ideas/fanon. When I wrote You in 2020, it was very much an experimental fic, stream of consciousness kind of fic. And I encourage people to play around if they are doing something like solely focusing on Jin. In this case I essentially wrote it in Second person, to emphasize the idea of a fractured mind/depersonalization or the feeling as if "I'm not the real one" that Twice had. Here's how I showcased the split:

This is how I described Jin's initial "split" by the way. Note there's actually THREE different ones - I have a personal theory there's actually three personalities, the dominant Jin who is incredibly traumatized and slightly regressing in maturity, the older, quieter maturer personality who shows up only when we see into his thoughts, who seems pensive and contemplative (most of 115 is his narration) and kind of gives Twice's manga international narration a film-noir like quality, and the vocal "negative" voice that I guess either contradicts voice 1 or functions like an id to the ego.

Before anyone chimes in with "FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY IS TRASH AND DEBUNK-", yes, I know, but I find the idea of splitting the mind like this useful for literature, specifically, not real life. And I suspect a lot of writers do as well, so the idea of a "split" mind where a voice voices the things no one should want to say or think as Horikoshi has created here works well in that framework. Hence, when I write the split in Jin's mind, I use it as a way for me to figure how what's with his mind.

One of the biggest issues is that Jin's issues are very much pop-culture/fantasy mental illness because no disorder fits him well. For one thing, Jin's trauma is also a neurological one because he clearly had brain damage from the whole experience that cause his scar. And then it's like Horikoshi decided to take elements of schizoaffective psychosis, tourette's, BPD, DID, and OCD and PTSD and throw in "actual force blunt force brain damage" into the loop. That's not to say Twice's struggles aren't realistic/relatable - they totally are, but whatever he has isn't exactly an accurate depiction of anything out there (especially since it's so quirk-based). Personally, tailoring it to fit something neatly, I think, would do a big disservice to his character so I don't strive for that sort of realism and just work with what Horikoshi outlines for us.

Anyway, that is to say that often when I try to depict mental illness in writing, especially from the perspective of the ill person, I try to incorporate elements of disorder into the writing itself stylistically (I sometimes do this with writing Hawks as well). A lot of people just only strictly stick to this past-tense (or present) third person limited way of writing, and I think there's fun in throwing that out and using characters like Twice as reasons to do it. Or just playing around with formatting.

Anyway, this is how I try to depict it from a Third Person Limited perspective in Irreversible.

So first off, I distinguish between the spoken voices Jin has by bolding the contradictory voice. Internally, I depict intrusive thoughts by keeping it bolding, putting in parenthesis, and then justifying the text to the right. It breaks up the paragraph and creates the "element of disorder" I spoke about earlier. Here's what that can look like at it's most disordered, where there's essentially a mental conversation written out.

There's also a clear difference in spoken vs internal because while internally the voice addresses Jin himself to create an element of insecurity (questioning if he even deserves Toga's kindness), it's only in speech that he'll contradict Jin after he says something. This doesn't always happen, and I don't think every sentence needs it. Jin has moments in-manga where he doesn't speak like this and I also think it correlates with emotional state (interestingly a really upset Twice can be more "together").

But it's not as simple as "Jin says something, bold immediately contradicts it." That would make it boring to both read and write. My suggestion to have an actual reaction by a Jin to the bolded words - because it happens in canon (sometimes he tries to stop himself from talking further).

In this sentence, I make Jin immediately refute the previous sentence. It's not a full on back and forth, but it does show that he's aware the other voice is saying things and what it is saying. Lastly, this is more me on how to actually make it matter besides keeping it accurate to canon characterization. First, Jin is funny. Naturally he's funny and very blunt, but his illness is also used by Horikoshi for tension relief and to kill the seriousness or somber mood the LoV scenes can evolve into. Do not be afraid to use this for humor because as a character, Horikoshi DOES do this HOWEVER, this is not all Jin is, and when showing his internal life, there's far more seriousness to it all. But if you just want to write Jin instead of focusing on him, I think acknowledging he has a (wacky, immature and slapstick-y) sense of humor and in turn can be a funny character is not a bad thing. He lends himself well to physical comedy so don't be afraid of writing him doing weird things or making funny gestures.

Two, make the words count. At the end of the day, you're writing a story. You are not only conveying personality through these words, you are hopefully moving plot forward, or using the space you have carefully. Do not be afraid to have the contradictory voice say something poignant, something no one else would say, or ominous that can be used as foreshadowing for later parts of your story. Remember, these are characters that are meant to tell stories so use them.

[darklinsblog]

Little Prince | Sandman Imagine

Summary: You ask Morpheus to read to you your favorite story growing up, The Little Prince

Pairing: Morpheus x Human! Reader

Requested: Yes

Author’s note: Special mention to @saraicus who made spoil a tad bit of this imagine hehe

Ever since you could recall, you had loved the book of the Little Prince, from a child to now as an adult it was just some sort of safe space, something you could always revisit whenever.

Whether you were feeling sad or you simply wanted to reminisce on your memories linked to this very specific book, you found yourself reading it over and over again.

Each time you read it, you found something new, maybe another lesson to be learned or just something in the book itself you hadn’t notice before.

As usual you entered the library and grabbed a set of books and Lucienne, the librarian and dear friend of yours was already stretching your comfort story into your direction.

You smiled holding back a laugh

“Am I really that predictable?”

“I firmly believe that every single one of us needs a book to comfort us” she spoke sweetly.

“Even if it’s a children’s book?”

“A child will always possess an infinite imagination, maybe as a adults we see more beauty to the world through the eyes of a child”

Maybe she was write, perhaps it was a good thing, maybe you were keeping your inner child close while still learning about diverse topics.

Truth be told, you spend most of your time at the library, it was quiet, peaceful and it could be just you and whatever story you would immerse yourself in.

As you read, you were softly interrupted by a kiss at the top of your head, you looked up to see Morpheus softly smiling down at you.

“Enjoying your read?” He asked softly, making you smile and nod.

“Very much so” you said, you were writing a mythology book, but by the corner of his eye he noticed the very familiar book to you.

He stretched out to grab it, feeling the sense of the book cover, the pages, he had seen this book countless times over the years but now, it held a special place in his heart.

Morpheus could not get even a simple glance at the book without his eyes glistening or a soft smile forming on his lips.

Because now this book, inherently reminded him of you, the one object of all his affection, longing and hope.

“What’s on your mind, my king?” You questioned him with a hint of curiosity

“Mind if I read this to you, later tonight?” He asked quite cautiously, not being sure of how you would react, but as he saw your eyes glistening, air seemed to find its way back to his lungs.

“That would be lovely”

You were quite excited to have Morpheus read for you, because he knew how much this reading meant for you.

Something you loved was that Morpheus never fault a single promise and today was no different because at night time, right after finishing his duties he was ready to read for you.

He sat on the bed, signaling you to come closer, you carefully laid on his chest and he grabbed the book of the Little Prince and started reading out loud for you.

His voice was so relaxing and listening to the story on his voice made you love it more and be more attentive.

“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly…” he went on narrating and this time you could help yourself to finish the sentence you knew so well.

“…What is essential is invisible to the eye”

This time you looked at your lover, who smiled at you and kissed your cheek, he closed the book and embraced you fully, keeping you warm and safe.

Your whole body felt loose under him and right now you wished this moment would last forever, that you could stay like this, almost frozen in time.

Like nothing truly mattered.

The King of Dreams could feel you slowly falling asleep in his arms and it was reassuring for him to know you were comfortable enough to let yourself drift into your sleep.

“Rest, my lady. We have countless days ahead of us” he murmured in your ear and was the last thing you heard as you finally fell asleep.

Taglist: @emiemiemiii @ladyfairenvale @hungrhay @aurorarevenclaw1927 @adishax @meganmayhem89 @mrs-captainsteverogers @hb8301 @bambooing-shenanigans @queenshelby @characterxreaderimagine @emarich7 @carolcrysis @coolsnowker @jesllianaquilesrolon @supermegapauselouca @vvsdreaming

[hello-universe-lovers]

The continuation of this post so let's go!!

SLAY THE PRINCESS: THE FIRST DRAFT AU (part 2)

As usual, spoilers ahead))

Edit: ITS DONE NOW

The DAMSEL/BELLE:

We have reached further into this Construct. While Shifty has plenty of perspective to wake up, the Long Quiet still slumbers. He stirs in His sleep, but He can't get up yet. So off the Player goes to find more Voices and Perspectives.

While one would expect affection for the Damsel, there is only a bitter contempt, due to the circumstances you get her. If the Narrator is willing to take over like that, Ley has less incentive to do what he says, but it means her apathy is higher, enabling the Voice of the Cold to appear. Both of them are driven by the curiosity of setting the Princess free, rather than any real desire to save her, and it doesn't help that she's not explicitly expressing her wants beyond what "you" want. This angers the Narrator, and causing him to describe the cabin door slamming in their faces. However, he still can't force Ley to stay in the cabin, and she can leave...so out of sheer curiosity, she and the Princess swapped clothes. As expected, the Princess was freed and the world didn't end, shocker/s. She even let her take the Blade so that she couldn't kill herself. Not that the world is really all the appealing...

She stayed in the cabin, with the Cold and Narrator as a companions. The Narrator keeps urging her to leave, she refused, and Cold reiterates her stance. He is willing to stay here, since it's clearly pissing Him off. Time passed, and the anger turns to worry. Ley was human, a mortal. She should need food and water and such. But for some reason, she doesn't care. She asked questions, the Narrator refused to answer them, and she refused to leave the cabin.

Time passes

And more time...

And more time...

Until one day, He stopped talking. Not even to describe the passage of time.

Once He's gone, Ley gets up and leaves the cabin, noting the waste of time it was go expect any answers from Him. When she got out, the cabin was surrounded by a field. On the porch, was a lady in her old clothes, and holding a basket of apples, waiting for her. The Princess--the Belle, she called herself now, tells her all about the things she did while waiting for her to come out. All of the farming, building, crafting and all of that, and now that she was freed, she could enjoy it! Ley asked why she didn't just leave. Belle replied by saying she remembered her saving her, despite whatever compelled her to kill her. She never abandoned her, and so how could she abandon her "Hero"?

That made her really touched...surprisingly. and so she sat on the porch, enjoying the apples, until the chilly night crawled in...

And they were back in the mirror. Cold has little words to say, only that no one sane would have just suffered isolation like that willingly, just for answers. He likes her, and hopes that she continues to be...interesting to watch. He has no reaction to being taken away.

The BEAST/WILD:

Her decision to get the knife cost Ley her first life. In her second, she tried to negotiate, now that the Princess was much more feral. Broken appeared out of the fear the Beast put on her. There is no reasoning with a wild animal. But Ley wanted to try.

And she gets eaten.

That...aside, the Wild did tried to assimilate her. But she just...couldn't!! Ley wasn't her other half, she was an outsider. But to kill her is to repeat the cycle she claims to have discarded, so she just left her tangled in the Network, connected But not integrated. This is where Narrator shows concerns, rather than his usual urgency. HE has to be the one to wake her up, since Broken was nowhere to be heard.

When she did, escaping from her prison was as hard as ripping off bark from her body. It's Broken that got her to pause. Since she IS part of the Long Quiet (and her general attitude), integration was easier. Her legs and head were almost gone. But Ley pried her out still. Of course, not before talking to her. She realized that...though fucked up, she understood what the Princess was trying to hide the pain, to try and forget it and be something greater. But they can't be greater than what they are now. The Princess is hurting, and she now needs to help her. She pleads Broken to help her too, since she could understand. She is with her right now, feeling everything. Including the pain the Wild's heart tried to hide.

With great effort and great pain, Broken wanted to be free, and the separation was painful. Leaving her legs as nothing but roots that could barely function like actual legs. So Ley carried her to the Heart of the Wounded Wild. Pristine Blade in hand, she freed her too, looking to end this cycle of violence.

It was a struggled to carry 3 broken people. But together, they made it out.

The cold was like a soothing balm to her aching body. Broken wasn't afraid of the other side. In fact, the biting cold was almost gone. Instead, it's more like breeze, passing through the trees, supporting her trembling limbs. They looked at each other, and Broken correctly assessed that she was like the Wild once, trying to forget a pain so great that she wanted to hide away, but she couldn't. She had to confront that pain, one way or another. And she has helped Broken, in that way. She is hurt...but she feels like she will be OK...ley sends her goodbyes, before the Long Quiet cradles away another Voice.

The SPECTRE:

Surprise, surprise/s

Actually doing what the Narrator wants SUCKS. So, after ONCE AGAIN not getting any answers, Ley decided to jump into the void to kill herself. That was admitably a lot scarier than she anticipated. Hence Paranoid.

He is not happy to be here, and he increased Ley's anxiety, as they walked to the cabin. The anxiety is lifted...somewhat, by the arrival of the Princess. Once again, the Voices in her head agreed in a course of action: do NOT touch the ghost (unless it's to slay her). But ley is not having it and talks to her, with her body protesting the chill rattling her core. The Spectre laid out the deal: she wants out and needs to hitch a ride. And after trying to swing at her to shut Paranoid up (and getting frost all over her face as a result), she agreed.

The possession was not clean. Her limbs felt heavy, her very being felt like it was buried in 10 feet of ice, and her heart, lungs and vision were an all time low in capacity. This is where Paranoid helps, since she is so committed to helping the Princess. And so he works together with the Princess

"Nerves...Lungs...Arms...Legs"

"Heart...eyes...arms...legs"

Taking over her body, with extra effort on her arms and legs, the 2 piloted Ley up the basement, the stairs and finally out of the cabin. The time was long, the journey longer and Ley was about ready to pass out. But she didn't get the chance to.

Paranoid greeted her in the mirror, glancing wildly around, as the Long Quiet cradles him, as a contrast from the earlier voices. She greets back and she thanks him for helping her bring the Spectre home. Paranoid was...happy to hear that. He didn't expect to be thanked and that made him happy a little. So happy he almost forgot about the textureless nothing trying to take him away! He screamed, but Ley tried to reassured him. Saying it's ok, and that he won't be alone in the dark. After a promise, Paranoid joins the Long Quiet.

The STRANGER/STAR:

(Ey beta Connie design!)

Perhaps the many lives has caught up with her, or the Shifting Mound is influencing her. Regardless, she walked away from the cabin, which lead to the next world...a world not even Shifty was sure she could breach, so late into her journey.

But the Contrarian awaits, and so she ventured forth into a tunnel with no light.

Taking the Blade with her, she descended the stairs, but dropped the knife, somewhere in her journey. Then, so did the rest of her followed suit. Falling through what was herself unraveling at the seams, witnessing everything and nothing at all, like each layer of her soul was peeled back more and more and more and more and more and more and--

She was at the bottom of the stairs, the Princess's cold stare gazing at her, with the only thing glowing...was the Pristine Blade she dropped earlier.

Contrarian was...affected, to say the least. And clearly asking this princess question seems to make MORE of her, Ley decided to let HER...(they?) What to do next. They have the blade after all.

Everything happened all at once. The stabbing pain, the sting of dying, the warmth of a hand, more and more were happening again. She didn't know when, but she heard both herself and the screams of an infinite voices.

Then...nothing

She was in nothing.

There was no woods, no Narrator, no pathway, no cabin, no basement and no princess.

Contrarian was still there, though. Trying to act like what the went through didn't happened. But it did, and not even her mask could hide her agony.

Without truly knowing her, Ley hugged the fool. And helped settled her spirits.

Connie makes a joke about overloading the Princess with her choices. Or lack thereof. Ley laughed and said to do nothing was also a choice. A choice that hurt someone she didn't knew.

Contrarian could only agree, dropping her mask. She disguise the act by testing to see how deep their void went.

And like a supernova, something explodes to life. A brilliant bright light that blinded them. And before their eyes was a planet, a sun that held the Princess's gentle face. She spoke in a voice far away and echoing but close and mamy all at once.

She thanked Ley, for carving a new path from a seemingly dead end. She was never to exist, and but thanks to her, there was a new Hope, a new Existence. A star alone cannot shine the night, but one of many becomes a galaxy. She even forgives Contrarian, making her tear up.

Then, it was time for this star to die. The hands grabbing her were like a black hole, sucking away all light. And they followed suit.

Contrarian giggled, tapping the glass to get Ley's attention. She was so happy to had taken this journey with her. It was NOT what she expected and so FUN. Ley asked in return if she's ok. She waves it off, but thanks her for the ride and hope to see her again. The Long Quiet's silence muffled other sound.

The ADVERSARY/FURY:

The penultimate Voice, Cheated was not easy to find. But she was able to in the Route of the Adversary. Someone that small and frail shouldn't have been able to kill her. But she did died, taking Ley with her. That was enough for Cheated and oohhh was she PISSED. Cheated didn't even cared about the Adversary's desires, and granted, neither did Ley. But Cheated was EXTRA mad. Wanting to fight until she won, she kept pushing Ley over and over. And unlike with the Razor, there was no POINT to it. So eventually, Ley just REFUSED to fight anymore letting the Adversary killed in an unsatisfying way.

Now the Fury was PISSED at her so Ley has finally checked out of the situation. When she was unwound, she continued to not respond in a way Cold would be proud of. Cheated couldn't take it, and wanted to leave, but Ley was angry too. She was angry at her for putting her in this mess, so she didn't get to leave. Whether through her own will or guilt of seeing someone she was SUPPOSED to be on her team be unwound and unraveled, Cheated stayed, being torn, reassembled and put back together in grotesque ways.

Until finally, she was put back together, in a state that she was before her first unwinding. The Fury...she looked so tired. Everyone in that room was.

She collapsed, and Ley took the chance to sit with her. Fury admitted that she felt like there was something missing. A passion that wasn't there. A passion that SHOULD have been there. But it's not...and she projected it onto someone who was, for the most part, innocent. Ley's only crime was being strung along by 3 entities. Cheated stood nearby, ignoring her own aches and cried a sorry. Shouting it even, while ruffling her messy hair. Ley and Fury sighed, and pulled her down to the depression pile too. No one is OK, and frankly...they need to sit there and not be OK for a bit. The Shfiting Mound took Fury, shortly after. And Ley was left alone...

She gazed at the mirror with a Cheated trying so hard to make herself smaller. She couldn't meet her gaze. Ley couldn't either. Their anger blinded them to each other's pain, and now they were and are hurt. All they could do was...say sorry. And hope that next time will be better. Cheated didn't want to go, but Ley at least offered her comforting words. That was enough for her to stop struggling her trembling limbs and leaned back.

The HUNTRESS:

(I didn't had a picture on hand so have this sketch of the Huntress)

She was so close, even if this iteration didn't know it. But the fatigue was getting to her. So much that she forgot the knife in the basement, when she asked for space away from it all. And without keeping the basement door open, the Princess assumed she left her for dead. Luckily, she remembered and came back down for it, only to find a cut hand and an armed, angry Princess. She died soon after.

Hunted arrived to assure her something like that doesn't happen again. But the Princess was busy. Collecting an array of furs, pelts and traps, she was not a frail Princess, but a deadly Huntress. And she was looking to catch her favorite prey again. Hunted and Ley booked it to the woods. And huh, the Huntress could follow them out without ending the world...no time to talk about that!! She is on the loose. With a gun and hatchet and PLENTY of traps!

Ley had many choices to go from here. She could succumb to animalistic instincts and attack her like the animal she expected, trapping herself and the Huntress in a Den of Ouroborus. Ooooor she takes action, by not being an animal, but someone who can plan an attack, JUST like her!

Thankfully, leveling the playing field won over and with ingenuity, she lured the Huntress into kne of her own traps, breaking her legs. She was angry, but she must admire a fellow hunter when she saw one. She only asked to keep the bayonet, and make sure she was taken care of.

Then, she was taken away, bayonet included.

Hunted was scared, but he calmed down upon seeing her. She took care of the situation, not getting lost in the fear and Paranoia of prey, and rose as a predator. He's proud of her, and thanked her for keeping him safe. She asked him to do the same for the others, when he gets there. He couldn't understand exactly what she meant, but he can understand the sentiment. And so he let's the Quiet take him, leaving the mirror blank, entirely transparent.

But no...it's not transparent. There's something in the shadow. An eye, a beak. It's...

The Narrator...?

((Finally! It's done!

I...do not expect anyone to read through all of this. I know this probably only appeals to me, and a few of my friends, but to the few that were interested in Ley...thank you. I got one more post about the ending of this AU, but that's for later. I am done typing for today. Please ask me questions about this au, if you have any. And if you don't care at all, that's ok too. Have a nice day

[teine-mallaichte]

This... this started with a prompt, but it moved so far away from the vaguely angsty, survival situation SO FAST that I don't think it fits the prompt anymore 😂 but it was fun to write regardless. And seeing as I seem to have made Adrian be the most irritating man in all of Thedas it only feels fitting that Fenris gets to tease him for once. So a bit more post DA2 FenHawke for @dadrunkwriting

"Well, this is just perfect," Adrian muttered under his breath, raking a hand through his brown hair in frustration. "Lost in some cave full of rocks, dust, and probably a few nasty surprises lurking around. Just what I needed."

The air was damp and thick, the smell of earth and decay pressing in from all sides. His torch barely held off the surrounding darkness, casting flickering shadows that seemed to move with a mind of their own. It was unnervingly quiet, and for a moment, Adrian thought he could hear his own heartbeat echoing in the stillness.

"Is this what dying feels like? Because I swear, the suspense is getting old," he grumbled, his voice bouncing off the stone walls, swallowed up almost immediately by the hollow space. Turning to look behind him, the narrow tunnel he'd come from had vanished entirely, swallowed by the blackness. The caves had a way of distorting things - nothing seemed to stay in place for long. He hadn't meant to get lost.

With a resigned sigh, he continued forward, his steps echoing around him, "Alright. Let's make a game of it: Find the exit, try not to get eaten by anything, and then get back to the ship for some rum. At least I can do that."

A soft voice interrupted his rant, "Ate you planning on narrating this entire experience?"

Adrian’s lips twitched into a half-smile he knew Fenris couldn't stay quiet forever. He'd just need to irritate him enough to get him to speak, "Of course I am," he answered, his tone breezy despite the discomfort creeping under his skin. "How else would you keep track of me in the dark?"

Fenris' voice came again, flat and matter-of-fact, like he was stating a simple fact. "Elves can see in the dark."

Adrian stopped dead in his tracks, his heart skipping a beat as he whipped around, eyes widening. "What?" he stammered, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust to the dim light. "That’s cheating! And… how did I not already know that?"

A soft chuckle reverberated from the shadows, echoing off the stone walls, just a bit too close for comfort. "You’ve never asked, Hawke," enris replied, a smug edge to his voice. "And if you’d been paying attention over the last decade, you might have noticed."

Adrian scowled, though Fenris couldn’t see it—or could he? The unfairness of it all stung. He glanced around again, but the torchlight barely pierced the suffocating blackness, leaving him blind to whatever surrounded him. "Can you stop talking to me from the abyss?" Adrian spat, frustration rising in his chest.

There was a pause. Then Fenris spoke again, but this time, his voice was so close that Adrian felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "You’re unnerved by the dark?”

Adrian groaned, as his pulse quickened, a chill running through him. "Oh, Maker… you’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Watching me stumble around with my pathetic human eyes?"

Fenris’ voice didn’t waver, but Adrian could almost hear the smile in it. "You’ve faced demons, blood mages, dragons… but a bit of darkness and you’re practically useless. It is… amusing."

Adrian threw his hands up in mock despair, though he doubted Fenris could see it—or maybe he could. The unfairness still rankled. "Yes, yes. Mock my tragic human limitations."

A shift in the air—light as a whisper—brushed against his arm. Adrian’s heart stuttered in his chest as he jumped, a string of curses escaping him before he could stop them. "Maker’s breath! Don’t do that!"

"You really are jumpy in the dark, aren’t you?" Fenris’ voice was soft and teasing, but Adrian could hear the amusement clearly.

rubbed his arm, trying to shake off the lingering sensation of Fenris’ touch. His grip tightened on the torch, but it didn’t help. His pulse was still too fast. Every slight sound seemed amplified, every brush of air making him jump. What was it about this place? Why did it feel like he was losing control?

As he turned in a circle, scanning the shadows again, something glinted—just for a fraction of a second—in the dim torchlight. Adrian froze, narrowing his eyes. He thought he saw… eyes? A pair of glowing orbs reflecting the light, hidden just beyond the reach of the torch. But when he turned sharply, they were gone. The darkness had swallowed them, as if they had never been there at all.

His skin crawled, and he swallowed hard. What the hell was that?

Another shift in the air, and this time Fenris’ voice was much too close, his breath just a whisper away. "What’s wrong, Adrian? No witty retort? No flirtatious quip?"

Adrian stiffened, heart hammering as he spun around, torch raised like a weapon. The light swung through empty air. He froze, breath held. The oppressive silence pressed in, thick and suffocating. He took a shaky breath, trying to calm himself, but his pulse was still too fast. It wasn’t just the dark—something was wrong here.

A soft laugh echoed in the darkness—Fenris’ laugh. It was too close, almost directly behind him, and before Adrian could even react, Fenris was there. One hand brushed lightly against his arm, sending a jolt of warmth through his body. His heart skipped again. He jerked his arm away, spinning around, but Fenris was too fast, his presence too fluid.

"You are enjoying this too much," Adrian grumbled, his voice shaky as he tried to keep his composure. He could feel Fenris shifting behind him again, just out of his sight, but the sound of his breathing was impossibly close.

"And why shouldn’t I?" Fenris’ low chuckle echoed in the cave again, "You’ve made it your personal mission to irritate me at every turn."

Adrian swallowed hard. He could feel Fenris standing just behind him, too close, but he couldn’t see him. The darkness seemed to swallow everything but Fenris’ voice—low, steady, unnerving.

He hadn’t realised how much he relied on sight until it was taken from him. His chest tightened as he scanned the shadows for any hint of Fenris' presence. The elf was too quiet, too quick, and it was driving him insane.

Fenris’ laughter was soft, almost mocking, from directly behind him this time, "You know, Hawke, you’ve been remarkably quiet," Fenris teased, his voice low, near a purr, "I almost miss the incessant chatter."

"Stop—" Adrian’s words died in his throat when he felt a soft breath against the back of his neck. He stiffened, his eyes wide and unseeing in the dark.

Before he could gather his thoughts, he felt a light pressure on his waist, pulling him back against a solid, familiar chest. Adrian froze, his breath caught in his throat. The warmth of Fenris' body radiated against his back, and his arms slid around his waist, locking him in place.

Fenris’s grip tightened for a moment, pulling him just a little closer, "it seems I’ve found a new way to keep you quiet."