#God is our unique source

[a-godman]

We Do the Will of our Heavenly Father to Enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens

 In order for us to enter into the kingdom of the heavens, we need to not only call on the name of the Lord but even more, do the will of the heavenly Father, for it is possible for us to do things in God’s name yet not be approved by Him, for we do not do it in Him, with Him, and in His perfect will. Wow! Oh, Lord Jesus! Today we as believers in Christ need to live in the reality of the kingdom…

[ghelgheli]

Afab people can also develop a gendered subjectivity in response to transmisogyny, whether they've been victims of it or not, just as amab people can develop it as a result of misogyny. So, if transfemininity is also defined by this characteristic, afab transfem also fit into it. Your objection to this fact is just a bias based, at best, on ignorance.

-

It's is a bioessentialist prescription because you're adopting a conception of transfemininity that dictates that to be transfeminine, you have to fulfil to expectation of being male assignment at birth. this is no different from someone who uses the bioessentialist conception of womanhood which require female assignement at birth. Both are form bioessentialism that we should not perpetuate at our level, but rather we should re-thinking these gender categories in a way that doesn't align with bioessetialist conceptions

whoops! you caught me out aha. I forgot that afab trans people have subjectivities shaped by transmisogyny. I also forgot that cis womanhood is defined in large part thru transmisogyny: the fear of being clocky, constant affirmation by distancing from the tranny-object except when it's hot to have a bit of a jawline now, palatability as opposition to the monstrosity of being the shemale. I guess cis women are transfeminine too!

let's remember, while we're at it, that transmisogyny is the spectre that haunts the subject of the cis man. the gendered border policing lest one take a step too close to sissification, the prohibition on behaviour that could threaten to make him a girl—oh! cis men are transfeminine too!

in fact, we're all transfeminine! transmisogyny, as the recognition and attempted correction of the tranny-glitch that undoes the threads of gender, asserts itself against all of us. it is impossible to be a gendered subject without having contours shaped by the domineering pressures of transmisogyny, because that is what demands we all fall in line to the gendered nightmare. oops! all transfem!

but wait. a certain group, deprived now of unique identification, has just lost the ability to describe its gendered situation. it has been swallowed up by the seas of inclusive thinking or whatever. I guess that's okay :) I guess we'll drop our complaints :) we were a nuisance in the first place, weren't we? sorry. so sorry for existing this way.

listen to me. listen to me not as your fucking ephemeral gender oracle telling you what you want to hear before being thrown away, not as your bullshit mouthpiece granting you entrance to this mystical domain you want to claim for yourself, but as a god damn person for once—an impossible thing to ask of the transmisogynistic tranny wannabe, I know, but try!

you cannot escape hegemonic gender and its violent devices with flaccid platitudes about "re-thinking these gender categories" as though by changing the names of things you can change the things themselves. transmisogyny is the bioessentialism, and transmisogyny is why I am a failed man—the faggot embodied—something less than both man and woman—a gender traitor specifically against my assignment itself. and if you cannot recognize the unique ways that transmisogyny is deployed unrelentingly and irrevocably against the ones who will never be able to resort to birth assignment as a defense—against the ones who cannot throw their hands up and say, "I was never supposed to be a man in the first place!"—you have not understood the first thing about the root source of transmisogyny, and it is no surprise to me that you have no sense of transfemininity as a political category, a(n un)gendered class.

[bluesidez]

The Love Lab presents:

One Bite for You, One Bite for Me

💗 THIS IS MY 100 200 300 FOLLOWER SPECIAL!

pairing: Miguel O’Hara x AFAB!Reader

summary: One of the things you and Miguel bond over is delicious food. One day, you notice that your clothes aren’t fitting like they used to. Miguel is there to remind you how beautiful you are.

content warning: established relationship but they’re not married, 18+ so MDNI, non-Spiderman Miguel, LOTS OF MENTIONS OF FOOD AND DRINKS, weight gain, cycles, insecurity about body, alcohol, body worship, unprotected p in v sex (wrap it up 🫵🏾), cunnilingus, lots of praise, a little Spanish (if wrong please lmk)

credit for art + dividers: Me! + @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

a/n: This is actually the first fic I wrote when my Miguel hyperfixation came back in full force. I based it off of this video and a comment saying that girls are usually the ones that gain weight super quick in a relationship. Please know that gaining weight is not a bad thing, especially in this story. Relationship weight can be positive and food is here to nourish your body! Also know that everyone’s body is different. Our bodies will react to things in different, unique ways. If you’re ever feeling icky about your weight/health, please take a step back, breathe, and know that you’re beautiful no matter what. There are also sources out there that can help you if your thoughts overpower your heart. Please don’t hesitate to seek help.

word count: 4.3k

To all my food-lovers and fellow plus-size girlies, kisses to you! You’re beautiful!

SPRING 🥭

“Baby!”

You grinned as you heard Miguel’s shout from the front door. His voice had a giddy tilt as if he made a breakthrough in one of his projects.

“I was finally able to stop by the new Jamaican spot before they sold out and look what I got us,” Miguel says before he slides the take-out bags across the table. “Ribs, oxtails, rice and beans, mac, and your favorite…fried plantains!”

You quickly untie the bags, happy to have a break from your research paper, and immediately get hit with the smell of spices both sweet and savory. “Oh my god! That looks incredible.”

After frantically digging around for a plastic fork, you were finally able to pull a piece of meat off the oxtail. It looked mouth-watering and tender. One bite of the meat and you’re immediately groaning, slumped in your chair. You nod your head and scrunch your face, watching as the juice from the gravy soaks into the pieces of rice stuck at the bottom of the take-out plate.

“That is so fucking good, Mig. No wonder there’s never any combos left by the time you leave work.”

Miguel just watches you eat with a glint in his eyes, happy to see you so relaxed and enjoying the food. He reaches into the second bag, pulling out two bottles of juice, “And to make it better, I got their fruit juice, made fresh daily-”

“Passionfruit and mango flavor!” Your eyes got big as you jumped up and wrapped your arms around his neck. He knew how much of a juice fanatic you were, so this drink was just the cherry on top of the large ice cream sundae that was your generous boyfriend.

“Thank you, baby,” you giggled and gave his cheek a fat smooch. You patted his chest twice and moved back to set up the table, “Now, hurry and wash up so we can eat this before it gets cold! We’ve got shows to watch.”

“Entendido, I’ll be right back”

SUMMER 🍦

You and Miguel were walking hand in hand along the Cancun Hotel Zone, taking in all the sights. Miguel’s job had given him a promotion along with an extremely high bonus, so what better way to celebrate than to use his PTO and bring the love of his life on vacation?

Granted, the area you guys were currently in was a little touristy, borderline bougie, but it was all worth it when Miguel got to see your eyes light up as you watched the turquoise waves fade into white foam along the shoreline.

You wobbled a bit while clinging to Miguel’s side, a little tipsy from the frozen paloma you drank to pair with today’s lunch. It was a waterfront restaurant with a live band so the vibes were just right for a little bit of liquid fun.

The downside was that the two of you were supposed to meet up with Miguel’s family later that evening and while you were fine with the confidence boost you were sporting, you wanted to be more alert when speaking with loved ones. Plus, you needed to give a good impression to the relatives you hadn’t met yet. It will be nice to put a face to the names of Miguel’s childhood.

“What do you say we stop and get some ice cream?” Miguel suggested, chuckling at you when you grinned up at him, ecstatic over the proposed plan.

“You know me so well,” you said, arms reaching around his waist, face squished into the side of his chest. “I would absolutely love some ice cream. Cool me down from the inside.”

Miguel chuckled and kissed the top of your head. You were especially cute when you got like this.

FALL 🍕

“Baby, check this out,” Miguel shouted, finally returning to your table with your food.

The fair was packed full of people, especially due to the pop-up food truck festival happening that same week. You had never seen more people run to get fried turnip greens and loaded fries in your life.

Still, this was just another chance to hang out with Miguel. You really didn’t care where you went with him, as long as you got to see that pretty smile.

You look down at the table and see what he brought back. Before your eyes sat the most un-Miguel order ever: birria pizza and two walking tacos, one Hot Cheetos and the other Dorritos.

“Dorilocos, Miguel. Really?” you raised an eyebrow watching him try to steady the open chip bags over some spread-out napkins.

“Amor, don’t look at me like that! I had to get them because Gabriel kept talking my ear off about this new food truck that made them better than the ones we used to eat on our trips back home. I, for one, don’t believe that for a second, so what better way to test that theory than to eat it with my baby?” Miguel gave the saddest look he could muster and slid his hand across the table, trying to convince you to indulge with him.

“Fine, fine. Don’t give me that look,” you say, pulling off a slice of the pizza, making the cheese stretch as long as you can. “Just don’t complain to me from the bathroom while your stomach fights to digest something it hasn’t had in over a decade!”

Miguel pursed his lips while shoveling as much food as he could on one Doritto, “Shouldn’t I be the one telling you that? That’s a lot of cheese, babe.”

“Oh my god, some queso tears up my stomach one time and you can’t let that go, can you?”

“It was once and yet you were in agony about it for days. I think I’m allowed to remind you at least monthly.”

“Just eat your food and leave me and my iron stomach alone. We’ll see what happens between today and tomorrow,” you quip, pulling your phone out ready to record Miguel’s reaction to send to Gabriel.

Miguel takes a bite and just leans against the table, head slumped on his clean head.

“Dios mio, he was right. This can’t be happening,” he groaned, slightly annoyed that Gabriel wasn’t exaggerating. He was also shocked at the fact that someone even came close to getting the local snack right.

You giggled behind your phone, happy that his reaction worked in your favor. You zoomed in a little more on his face, capturing him smacking his lips and licking off excess sauce. He was so zoned in on his food that he didn’t even notice you with your phone up.

“Is it good, Mig?” you asked, mirth in your voice.

He looked at you ready to answer but his eyes snapped to your camera and started to whine, “Amor, please stop recording!”

With a small smile, you made sure to add the video to your folder full of Miguel. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You just look so cute, I couldn’t help it.”

Miguel just mumbled to himself while stacking up another chip, neck heated over the interaction. “Here, just try this,” he said, holding a nacho close to your mouth.

You opened your mouth, just barely getting the chip in. Cupping your hand under your head, you begin to hum, the flavors all tangy, spicy, and savory. “I don’t know what your childhood Dorilocos tasted like, but this is really freaking good.”

“Just know that this one is only slightly better. By 0.00001% to be exact,” he said, rubbing sauce off of the corner of your lips and licking it off. The movement was muscle memory for him as he always liked to watch your face when you ate food, especially when it came to any nostalgic or homecooked dishes you never tried before. It warmed his heart to see you find comfort in his favorite foods.

“Well, I can tell you it’s 100% better than the ‘Taco Tuesday’ luncheon my job hosted last month. Nothing but unseasoned ground beef, endless black olives, and store-bought guacamole for two hours,” you respond, shuddering at the memory of soppy taco shells and your coworkers complaining about how spicy the mild salsa was.

“On second thought, this is absolutely a step up. Was the guacamole name brand at least?” He asked, peering up at you with a twist on his lips.

“I’m pretty sure it was a grocery store brand, so no.”

“Damn.”

WINTER 🍫

You were at your apartment in your bed, completely covered under the comforter with a fluffy blanket on top.

It was snowing heavily outside and you were freezing. However, your heater tended to make your apartment feel like a sauna, so you kept snatching the blanket off only to put it back on minutes later. Plus, your cycle was here. Your cramps left you lying on your side, rolling back and forth between the cool side of the bed and the warm side.

Physically, you were exhausted, but mentally, you knew you had so much to get done.

Christmas was just around the corner but you still had so many presents left to buy and wrap. Your job was doing the dreaded Secret Santa gift exchange and you were stuck wondering what gift would appeal to the stuck-up director in the accounting department.

You and Miguel were also hosting a small Christmas party amongst your friends, and there was still food left to buy. To top it all off, you were worried about your gift for Miguel, wondering if a silly little apron saying “Kiss me, I’m Irish” would hide the fact that you spent a ridiculous amount of money on some new tech he was eyeing.

You heard the apartment door open and close.

Knowing it was Miguel, you groan out dramatically.

He opens the bedroom door and peaks inside, “Baby?”

You just groan out again, “Everything hurts, Miggy.”

He comes up to bed and sits on the edge, “I know, amor. I’m sorry.” He bends down to kiss your head. “Want me to plug up the heat pack?”

“Yeah,” you say, leaning into his hands. When he gets up to grab the pack, you whine at his absence.

“I know, I know. I’m coming back,” he says, voice soothing.

Instead of turning the pack on, he removes your covers and sits back down on the edge. You shiver a little bit and he’s quick to cover your body with his, rubbing the top of your head as he kisses your temple.

“Are you feeling too bad to eat something for me?” Miguel asks, the timber of his voice settling you.

You shake your head and lean in closer to him.

“I think I want some food,” you reply, squeezing his body. “I haven’t eaten anything yet.”

Miguel tuts as he sits up and pulls you up with him, “That’s no good, baby. You have to eat so you can feel better. Your body needs it.”

You groan again and put your face in his neck, not wanting to move.

“Come on,” Miguel says, rubbing you from your back to your leg. “I got you some soup and a grilled cheese.”

“Did you get the stuff for the hot chocolate bar? For the party?” you whisper.

“Mm hm. Jumbo marshmallows included.”

You nuzzle his neck before you look at him, “Carry me to the kitchen?”

He makes a swift move to wrap your legs around his body and hike you up.

He gets up and holds you close, heading to the kitchen, “Let’s get some food in you, yeah?”

SPRING 🍇

The short spring break trip that Miguel surprised you with has been lovely. Miguel woke you with kisses down your body, taking you to the hilt with his mouth alone. You had to muffle your cries as to not disturb the neighbors in the inn. As his tongue danced inside of you, you gripped his hair with one hand and his head with your thighs. Miguel wouldn’t want it any other way.

After his first course, Miguel treated you to breakfast on the balcony. You two enjoyed looking over the horizon as you ate yogurt parfaits and fluffy omelets.

Later on, the two of you enjoyed a few tours of the vineyard and the city. The sights were beyond compare and the atmosphere was serene.

“Thank you so much for this Miguel,” you say, interrupting the silence.

“Anything for my lady,” he says back. “You’re doing great work this semester so you need the break.” Miguel stopped and turned to you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

You leaned up and kissed him, hands warm on the sides of his face.

You both started to makeout for so long that Miguel forgot about the massage he had planned for you before tonight’s farm-to-table dinner.

Needless to say, he laid you out on your bed and oiled your body down. Your head was in your arms as rubbed his hands up and down your back. His hands were heaven and you felt like puddy by the time he flipped you over.

After he massaged your inner thighs he pounded you into the mattress. Something you’re sure the hired masseuse would never be able to do.

Miguel joked and called it the Miguel Magic Massage when you asked if he offered this special regularly. The price? Being his cariño, his amor, his sweetheart.

By the time dinner started, you were glowing. You felt adored and the courses were amazing.

Miguel made sure everyone knew you were his. His hand never left your thigh the entire meal, staring down the older men sitting at the end table who were looking a little too long at the dip of your dress.

You were oblivious, feeding Miguel bites occasionally and humming at how fresh and delicious everything was.

After the last course was over, the men came to you all’s side of the table quickly. All of them started to make conversation with you, plugging in their businesses, and stuffing their business cards in your hands.

It was as if Miguel was invisible. He scowls deeper when they let out hearty laughs at something you said.

“Are you fellas here with your wives?” Miguel asked loudly, completely irritated. “My wife and I have really enjoyed our time here. It’s a beautiful place for couples.”

Some of the men went red in the face flustered at Miguel catching their scheme. Others just scowled, pissed off at being interrupted.

None of them could answer his question.

You looked at Miguel, eyes heavy and relaxed.

“You gentlemen have a great night,” you said, putting your hand in Miguel’s as he guided you to the exit.

“Your wife, huh?” you asked, core on fire. It was hot watching Miguel get so worked up over you.

“Baby, they were looking at you like you were some fresh meat. Like I wasn’t even sitting there,” he grumbled.

“One of them already offered to bring me on a cruise. He’s staying right next to us,” you say, standing outside your room as Miguel swipes his card at the door. You walked your fingers up his chest, heated over the grit you could see from his profile.

He was oh so upset.

“He’s next to us? Right here?” Miguel asked, voice low.

You nodded as you bit your lip, arm around his neck.

Miguel picked you up and dragged you to the bed. You giggled a little to yourself as he plopped you down. Mission accomplished. Silently, you thank those older men. If it weren’t for their overconfidence, Miguel wouldn’t have been tearing at your clothes like he us right now.

Miguel kept you up almost that whole night, making sure that the neighbors heard your cries. Those old geezers were sure to know his name by the next morning. Buying you a ring wasn’t enough. He needed a bat.

It was all worth it to see the tired and flushed looks of their faces when you all checked out the next day.

SUMMER 🍯

“What the fuck,” you mumble, looking down at the pair of jeans you were trying to put on.

It was early morning. You had a family reunion that you and Miguel would take a bit of a drive to get to.

You made sure that everything was packed the following night. Some clothes to stay for a few days, a few snacks for the road, a book for you to catch up on, and even a crossword puzzle book for Miguel.

You planned ahead. You were diligent. So why is it that when everything else is going right, your pants decide not to button up?

You pulled at the flaps once more, trying your hardest to connect the button with the hole. It fails as they slip from your grasp. You try again, sucking in your stomach as much as you could. You get the button to snap in this time, but it’s digging unbearably into your skin. The zipper fights against you as you try to pull it up.

You huff out in frustration and the pants snap open again.

Defeated, you let out a watery sigh and look in the mirror.

Your stomach was bigger than you last remembered, fupa a little more prominent. Your thighs were also a little thicker, the jeans hugging them a little tight. Your breasts looked a little big in your shirt. The family name stretches a bit more across your bust than the original design intended. Even your face was a little chubbier than normal. When was the last time your jaw was like this? High school?

When did you get like this?

You felt your throat start to burn, a sob building in your system. You’ve always been fine with your body, loving the dips and curves. Adoring your flaws and finding beauty in what society decides is not worthy.

You knew this. You knew that you were beautiful. Why was it so hard to get that thought into your conscience?

You felt the tears roll down as you peeled the jeans off of your legs. They were especially tight at your hips and you wondered how you even forced them past in the first place.

You didn’t know what to do. It was so hot outside, so you needed something comfortable, but those jeans…you had your mind set to wear those jeans.

You rummage through your closet in frustration, pushing and pulling the clothes across the rack.

By the time Miguel found you, you were squatting in the closet, hot tears covering your face.

“Babe, it’s been almost 30 minutes and we need to head out before the work traffic starts-”

Miguel stopped in the doorway as he noticed the state of the closet, “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? ¿Que pasó, cariño?”

You wipe furiously at your face, sniffling loud as you hear Miguel push clothes to the side to get to you.

“My pants don’t fit. I don’t think anything else will fit either,” you say, stuttering out your words as Miguel gets to your side.

You let him pull you up into a standing position. You felt defeated.

Miguel looked at you and wiped away the tears that you missed. You feel horrible as your face scrunches up again, tears forming in your eyes.

“No, no, no,” Miguel says, hugging you close. “Listen to me. I know that this feels like a lot, but this is normal. Your body will always change with you. You’re still the same beautiful, gorgeous woman I met years ago and that’s not changing because you got some extra hips, baby.”

“But Miguel,” you say, voice so sad. “I feel like I just got those pants. And. Nothing else in here goes with this shirt. I’m scared that nothing else will fit-”

“And if that’s the case, I’ll buy you new clothes,” Miguel says, pressing kisses over your face. “If these clothes mean that much to you, I’ll take you to the gym. Let me work out with you, but until then, I’m loving your body as is.”

You stare at Miguel, heart beating at his revelation. He stared right back at you, daring you to question or challenge his words.

“Don’t beat yourself up over something like this. If anyone has ever let you feel insecure about your body, they’re an ass, let me deal with them. If I ever do anything to make you feel insecure, tell me. Yell at me. Question me, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s not me.”

He hiked you up on the closet island in the middle of the room. You shiver a bit as your naked legs hit the wood.

He leans closer, placing his hands on the side of you, “Now, let’s think. Don’t you have a pair of cargo shorts that match the ones I’m wearing right now?”

You whisper out a yes.

“Would you be ok with wearing those? I’m sure they fit perfectly.”

You say yes again, head leaning onto his. You could accessorize it perfectly. It would make a great couple’s look.

Miguel knew this much, he just had to get you to see it.

“I love you, ok?” he says, voice clear.

“I love you, too. Thank you,” you say.

“Anything for my girl,” Miguel says. “My beautiful girl. She’s just for me. I can’t believe it.”

Your heart beats faster as he starts to kiss down your body.

“Her face is so lovely.” A kiss to your cheek and your lips.

“She’s always working so hard.” A kiss to your neck and your collarbone. He pulls your shirt over your head.

“She makes me so happy.” A suck to your breasts as he unclasps your bra.

“Her body is beyond comparison.” A trail of kisses down your stomach, your belly twitching as his breath twinkles on along your skin. “Soft. Amazing. Irresistible.”

“Her thighs are my earmuffs.” A caress to your inner thighs. Your legs snap a bit, ticklish at his ministrations.

“Miguel?” you whimper out.

“I have to relax you before this ride. Can’t have you upset,” he says, kissing his way up your thighs to your panties. “May I?”

You nod your head, fingers grasping at nothing but then a flat surface.

Miguel was swift. He pulled your underwear down and kissed at your clit. You could only hold tight as he pulled your body forward and dove in.

It wasn’t long before you were shaking like a leaf. Miguel sucked at you for minutes, pulling a long orgasm out of your system.

He kneaded your thighs as you trembled around his tongue, humming as your legs squeezed tighter. That was the queue for him to go further, so he added his fingers to the mix, moving his mouth up so that his fingers could pump in and out of you.

It took all of your strength not to let your body drop off the other side of the island.

“Miggy, please,” you wailed. You wanted more.

Miguel looked up at you whining above him. You pull your legs up, holding your hands under your thighs, practically begging for him.

Miguel kissed up your body again. He was swift with removing his clothes. You still had to have these clothes fresh for later and Miguel was about to wear you out.

He moved to push himself inside of you, grunting as you gripped him.

He replaced your hands with his and pulled your legs up by his head. You balanced yourself on the island as he slowly started to thrust.

“So good. Just for me,” Miguel said, watching as your body moved with his movement. “Perfect. And all mine.”

You remained quiet, whimpering softly as he dragged against you.

“You heard me, hermosa?” Miguel said. “You’re beautiful. C’mon. Say it for me.”

“I’m,” you stopped, mind foggy. You didn’t know how you were supposed to respond when he was going so deep.

“Say it.”

You cried out as he snapped harder, “I’m beautiful.”

“That’s right baby,” Miguel praises you, bending further to give you a kiss. “So amazing.”

He praised you until you finished, squeezing at any of you that he got his hands. By the time he was done, your arms felt like jelly from holding you up.

He carried you to the bathroom for a quick shower, never stopping his reassurances of you.

You guys made it in the car an hour and a half off schedule, but it was worth it for the uplifted way you carried yourself throughout the day.

It was worth it to see you happy and healthy.

By the time you made it to the reunion, it was like you were born anew. You greeted your family with smiles and laughter. Miguel couldn’t help but to cheese watching you do your thing.

He felt his heart soar as you caught up with family. Your smile was the biggest as you were out on the floor line dancing your heart out. He was right up behind you when Outstanding came on. The song was really a declaration of how he felt about you.

You giggled as he crooned in your ear.

“You light my fire,” he sang, swinging your hips in time with his.

“I feel alive with you, baby,” he spins you around to him, a smile on his face.

“You blow my mind,” he pulled you out and back in.

“I’m satisfied,” you squeal as he spins you in the air and puts you back down to keep dancing.

Outstanding. You really knock him out.

Another season where Miguel adored you more.

Another season where Miguel wanted you to be forever his.

Another season where he made sure he fed you well.

Another season of you making his heart pound.

Another season of your love reaching to the fullest.

Miguel was excited for the next season with you.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading! 💗

Any likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated. Let me know how you feel! 🥺🧁

Until next time,

-Lauro 💗

[felassan]

Snippets. 🐺💜 DA:TV spoilers under cut.

Carly: Lucanis is "pretty average [height] everyone else is ridiculously tall" [source]

John: "getting absolutely dummied by an encounter in the game you work on as your day job is a uniquely humbling experience" [source] Trick: "Me desperately doing side quests to bulk up before the next big critpath beat because I KNOW I am not currently good enough at Rogue to beat that meat grinder at my current level and gear without dropping the difficulty back down." [source]

John: "hands up if you’re in game dev and have ever caught yourself searching Google for a guide to the game you’re working on that’s not even out yet" [source]

Flaming greatswords? ^^ [source]

Jay: "God, I remember the concept art for this scene" [source] (the scene in the gameplay reveal when Solas sheds a tear when it fails)

Kala: "Thinking back to playing Dragon Age Veilguard with the Council and all the fun we had, the crying (mostly me) and the shock at some of the surprises (especially Caitie) and I can't believe that's gonna be the entire fanbase soon. I can't wait to experience it with everyone" [source]. "I genuinely cannot wait for everyone to see Veilguard. I *know* for a fact there is going to be things people will freak out about, just like we did. There's A LOT people will love. Everyone will have stuff they don't like, which is inevitable, but there's so much to love" [source] Caitie: "Holding hands and sharing headphones because i unlocked the [redacted] scene first ❤️ Fond memories 😭😭" [source]

Trick on some of the chairs in the Lighthouse library group screenshot: "As much as I ADORE the idea of Solas sneaking out of Skyhold with a U-Haul packed to the brim with furniture and all the good mage gear you gave him, I expect it's likely just a common Fereldan style." [source]

Caitie: "If it helps- ive also seen silly ‘head canons’ and jokes thats will end up true haha" [source]

Caitie: "I'm not sure if we can say where we ended up in the story- but we got farther than the GI guy did it seems! By quite a bit. Did not get close to finishing it, however." [source]

Kala: "Pssst… we saw the companion rooms and the Lighthouse and it was really something amazing 👀👀" [source]

edit/update:

here are some more snippets which were posted by the Dragon Age official YouTube account in the livechat on one of the videos last month:

"There are lots of hairstyle options, we’ll have much more to share on the character creator in the coming weeks!"

"It wouldn’t be a Dragon Age game without a visit to the Deep Roads!"

"Our team spent a lot of timing refining combat and making it feel fluid and fun whether you play as a Warrior, a Mage, or a Rogue"

"It wouldn’t be a Dragon Age game without consequences! Your choices will influence the world of Thedas, as well as relationships with your companions"

A user asked "Are you a Fen’Harel spy?" Dragon Age replied "👀"

[trainsinanime]

I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say about it, but I am very intrigued by the way The Locked Tomb portrays cavaliers, necromancers and lyctorhood as relationships.

First of all, Necromancer+Cavalier is a metaphor for marriage, that's obvious table stakes. It's explicitly non-romantic (or should be, anyway, in the way the society there has constructed it), but it is intense, highly devoted, starts with a vow, goes "til death do us part" ("one flesh, one end").

In the series Cavalier and Necromancer are a form of gender roles, and they map incredibly well onto the most stereotypical gender roles we have in our society. The Cavalier has stereotypical masculine traits: The fighter, the protector, up on the front lines, physically active. The Necromancer has stereotypical feminine traits: Weak, frail, but whatever the necromantic equivalent of nurturing is, with power over death and life. In the mythology and "gender roles" of the nine houses, necromancy is sort of not quite but still a bit equivalent to "the mystical power of women to bring forth life". And yes, this is all very conservative and cishet-normative and so on.

Of course the books then immediately, from moment one, subvert this on at least three different layers.

The first layer is that the feminine-coded Necromancer is the head of the deadly family in the society, and the masculine-coded Cavalier is the support, the disposable one.

The other layer is that the book distributes the roles of Necromancer and Cavalier basically randomly across the actual genders of the characters. There are male necromancers, female cavaliers, plenty of same-sex pairings and so on.

But the biggest and most important inversion is that when we first meet the nine houses, ten thousand years after a cow-murdering Twitch streamer destroyed the world, nobody actually follows that role assignment to the letter. All the different houses have very different ideas of how Necromancer and Cavalier works in practice.

For example, Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn are just straight-up married. Their work relationship is romantic, and while that's considered a bit weird by their society, it makes it clear that it can go on like this.

We are actually told that there was something going on in the second house, too, where Judith fell in love with Marta, but there she was gently rebuked and they were just friends instead.

Over in the sixth, Camilla and Palamedes have the inversion of boy necromancer and girl cavalier, but most importantly they have their own very QPR style of relationship that is unique to them and does not fit into either our society's traditional idea of romantic relationship, nor their society's traditional idea of what Necromancer and Cavalier should be like.

The seventh house leans into the frail necromancer/strong protector idea the most, except for [spoilers for the final third of Gideon].

The eighth house leans fully into the idea that the relationship is one-sided, that the cavalier is disposable, and jumps straight off the deep end by making the cavalier genetically bred to be nothing more than a power source.

The third house I've left out so far because, dear god, what even is going on there?

And finally, of course, the ninth, who are technically, strictly speaking, if we're following the metaphor to its logical end, doing a "fake married to lovers" plot.

So with that out of the way, let's look at Lyctorhood. Lyctorhood is fundamentally the final test, the final form of the Necromancer/Cavalier relationship as embedded in that society: The Cavalier has completely dissolved in the marriage, making their "spouse" all-powerful, but ending their own existence. That's the standard of the society as presented to the characters when they discover it, and all of them very quickly have their own ideas about it..

Most characters we know from Canaan House don't actually get that far (and to be fair, I think many of them would not have anything that interesting to say about it), but the ones who do are interesting:

Ianthe is physically repulsed by the idea of healthy relationships, so she has no problem eating Babs for power.

Gideon and Harrow are deeply in love, deeply devoted to each other, and deeply dysfunctional in their own ways, and Harrow manages to find a way to continue a dysfunctional horrible situationship with massive communication issues into Lyctorhood.

Cam and Pal find a different thing entirely, still recognisable as a take on Lyctorhood but also not at all. Instead of one absorbing the other, they fuse into a single new person together, but also in some ways dying in the process.

And it turns out even the older lyctors may not have worked quite as originally designed, with Pyrrha Dve still hanging around in Gideon the First and then finding her own way in Nona the Ninth. Throughout Nona it becomes obvious what was hinted at throughout most of Harrow: Lyctorhood is really just one of many ways for two people to become one. It is not the purest and best form of "one flesh, one end", just the best Johnny Boy could think of. Left to their own devices, we see people left and right figure out new ways to be together as one regardless of what society and God thinks of them.

This is really a key question of the book series: What does it mean for two people to become one? Well, it's up to them, and listening to what God has to say about it is probably not the best way to go. It'll make you end up like Ianthe. Do you want to be Ianthe? Actually don't answer that.

[lilislegacy]

an analysis: piper calling percy unimpressive

(warning: i wrote this at 1 am)

so basically

remember how we all despised piper mclean when she had the audacity to call our beloved percy “unimpressive” and we all lost our shit on the inside a little bit?

i truly don’t think she meant it in the way we think she did. i think we’re all just defensive of our boy.

piper clearly states that she is comparing percy to jason. first of all, jason is her boyfriend, so of course she’s biased. second of all, hera was manipulating piper to be obsessed with jason. so other guys and girls are automatically unimpressive to her.

and here’s the big thing: piper does not call him unattractive. she does not call him ugly. she simply says he’s not her type. piper is clearly attracted to the “good boy” look. jason is literally your all-american boy. he’s tall with light skin, a sturdy build, neat blonde hair, and blue eyes. part of why annabeth doesn’t trust him is because she is unsettled by his “perfect” appearance. jason is also obedient and well-mannered. he’s your standard good boy.

and the fact of the matter is: percy looks like a “bad boy”. and often, he acts like one too. him and jason are contrasts of each other. a symbolic representation of this: their features. percy has a darker complexion, messy black hair, unique green eyes, and a “sarcastic troublemaker smile.” he’s muscular, but in a leaner and more trim way. he’s tall, but he’s not a towering muscleman by any means. not that jason is either, but don’t forget, percy is a whole one. inch. (GASP) shorter than jason (which to me isn’t even noticeable, so her pointing it out as a flaw just proves that she’s so incredibly biased towards jason.) their other big contrasting feature: their personalities. jason is respectful and well-mannered. very obedient and under control. percy, however, makes jokes during inappropriate moments, talks back to people of power and authority, gets angry quickly, and loses control easily. i mean, literally right after she says this, percy starts insulting the roman god Bacchus and rapidly escalates a situation because of his natural instinct to be disobedient. piper is horrified by him doing this, especially because jason would never. does it make US all love percy very much? yes. but piper isn’t us.

THAT SAID, even she can’t actually call him unattractive. she even went as far to state that she can see why annabeth likes him, which means even her magically-obsessed-with-jason brain can still recognize his attractiveness and see why girls find him appealing. she calls him “cute in a scruffy way,” meaning she thinks that he’s got a disheveled attractiveness to him. she also once said that his pleading eyes are like a cute baby seal’s - even she can’t deny that his eyes are wonderful. so even though piper calls him unimpressive, i think rick put in a lot of clues here showing us that she acknowledges him as a conventionally attractive person, even if she’s not personally attracted to him.

let’s sum it up, shall we?

what does it say about percy? absolutely nothing. piper calling percy unimpressive is an inaccurate and unreliable source when it comes to analyzing percy’s physical appearance, especially if you don’t consider the context. this was rick’s way of showing piper’s clear preference towards jason, just like annabeth has a clear preference towards percy. and even though she said this, rick also made her give us several hints that percy is handsome, just not in a way she’s inclined towards. rick wanted love triangles to be completely out of the question with these 4. he wanted to make it very clear that annabeth had no interest in jason, and that piper had no interest in percy. so since piper is so drawn towards jason, percy had to be very different from him in her eyes.

jason is your a superman, percy is your batman

jason is your captain america, percy is your iron man. some even say spider man.

so put yourself in piper’s shoes: after hearing percy jackson’s name non-stop for 6 months, hearing him compared to jason, hearing of all his accomplishments and how heroic he is - i mean, the guy was literally honored on olympus and offered godhood - she was expecting a stereotypical good-boy hero. a hercules. a superman. your standard muscular blinding-white-teeth-smile hunk. the conventional, well-mannered good boy. and instead she got a wild and untamed, trouble-making bad boy. percy has an edge to him. he’s intimidating and unpredictable. he’s sarcastic and witty. he just looks like he’s up to no good. she wasn’t expecting any of that. that’s not what we’re taught a hero is supposed to be like or look like.

jason is appealing in a “he’d be a respectable and sturdy husband” way.

percy is appealing in a “he’s gonna fuck up my life but i so badly want him to” kind of way. (even though once you get to know him, you see he’s literally the world’s best boyfriend. piper even gets jealous of how loving he is towards annabeth.)

she had this exact idea of what he would be, and he wasn’t that. hence her calling him “unimpressive.” but it says nothing about his attractiveness.

i rest my case, your honor.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

disclaimer: i am not saying percy is actually a bad boy or a bad guy. he is a sweetheart. he has the biggest heart ever. he’s a cute little cinnamon roll. i am simply talking of first impressions from outsiders, and how he appears if you don’t know him.

[asmoshywrites]

Unique Names for Your Protagonists 

(Because finding good names is a tough job)

FANTASY 

Feel free to mix and match the names to make it more personable for our characters!

Ezra Winters -Helper of the night (Female)

Aurelia -The golden/ chosen one (Female)

Nyx Elowen -Nyx refers to the Greek goddess of night and implies darkness and mystery. Elowen is associated with the Alm tree, meaning strength. (Female)

Niran- Little Fire of Hope. (Unisex)

Verena -To fear, to respect (usually for a warrior related with bravery and power) (Female)

Caligo- Darkness, dimness, gloom (Male)

Caelum -The Sky of Heaven (Male)

Elayne -A ray of light, signifying hope. (Female)

Ophelia- Little moon (Female)

Altair Nocturne- A name embodying pride and strength associated with the darkness of night. (Male)

Azure -meaning the colour blue bonded to a serene blue sky or ocean. (Unisex)

Zephyrine -the name refers to pure little wind, derived from the Greek god Zephyrus. (Female)

Reverie- Daydream (Female)

Just so you know, this post is made with research and the help of sources.

[halluciniwaynia]

I kind of wish there was some kind of language to describe the literary and narrative structure of ultrakill, because conventional ones such as “protagonists” and “main characters” only capture a very small picture of the wider story. ultrakill already spits in the face of those things by having the “main character” (the main driver of events in the narrative) being someone who is the “antagonist”, antagonist being the roughest and closest word to describe Gabriel.

But even that categorization falls short in the sense that the game’s story is not about you, but it involves you. V1’s importance in the story is that of someone who is involved in a larger piece of something else: mankind’s extinction and the quickly growing (and very chaotic) sentience of hell, something it interacts with purposefully in the game as part of the mechanics, but story wise, we do not see. The only events that matter which we are influencing is our encounters with Gabriel, and the terminals, because everything else is hell interacting with itself. Everything else is hell becoming some weird kind of massively intelligent superorganism, at odds with the ideals of God being a omnipotent and ever loving creator. That is the story which drives the events of Ultrakill, the story that actually explains and branches out why everything is happening the way that it is and the way that it does. It’s not about V1 except that you (and it) are the hemorrhagic consequences of these factors coming to a head. A massively powerful, easily influenceable (by blood) ant which crawls its way into hell and goes deeper and deeper enticed by the terminals grading, enticed by the constant momentum and unfettered carnage that take place.

If anything, Ultrakill is a story which can only be experienced in a video game. Ultrakill isn’t separating the gameplay from its story, but it is making the core mechanics (style meter, weapon freshness, the terminals feedback with the player being the former’s source of entertainment, etc) completely separate from what is propelling the plot forward, from what is changing the world around it. A story like this, where you experience a world as the consequence, and not the cause of the story’s progression is something that can really only reliably happen when the audience is forcibly interacting as a outsider, with some of input. You cannot achieve this affect in film or books because there is no underlying mechanical reasoning to interact with. What you are shown is what is happening on screen, and you are to make assumptions about those things within their inclusion or omission from a scene.

Ultrakill is playing you a scene completely separate from the main play. There’s probably two plays going on here actually, what happens in Heaven and what you see as V1. You are always playing the terminals’ games, always giving them the entertainment they want and led you into. But there is always something else happening, there is always something bigger than you. You are exploring a world in the past, present, and future tense simultaneously by interacting with it as not the catalyst of major everythings, but as the byproduct of it. It’s a really unique story-telling perspective.

[b4ddprincess]

I finally accessed the void state consciously :)

And that’s what it really is, an empty, null, neutral state. Unfortunately it was only for 1 second, but I feel that it was him... It is as if there was no possibility of confusing him, for he is unmistakable. In this 1 second what did I see? Honestly? Nothing so different, just a vast dark(in my case), I felt the neutrality in its purest form, and of course, I did not feel my 5 senses, and even it seemed that I had no thoughts, all very silent. All this for 1 simple second? Yes, all this for 1 simple and unique second. And it’s funny because... I don’t feel different, I don’t feel excited as I thought I would be one day when I was going to have my first conscious contact with the Void, also I feel that it wasn’t the first time. Maybe I just idealized it as if it was a magical and extraordinary place, yes!? I feel so stupid, how can I complicate something so simple, something that is me?! And I did nothing special, really. All I did was lie down, and I was so sleepy and tired, and so I lay down without so much pretension to access the void(maybe if I had pretension this here would be the so dreamed success story), relaxed, and said statements like: "I’m in the void state consciously" and "I am aware of my pure state of consciousness" and let my thoughts wander(without forcing the bar), I felt symptoms(but nothing different than what I’m used to), and then after some time I think I was "entering"(do not remember better word) and leaving the void, but I think it was unconsciously, since I wasn’t conscious enough to say something, and then I think a certain time later(I’m putting it that way because I wasn’t having much sense of the time when it happened) I was aware of the void for that 1 second. So, I am this anon: https://www.tumblr.com/b4ddprincess/760285298713362432/divaqueen-what-do-you-think-of-me-to-let-them?source=share | And this one: https://www.tumblr.com/b4ddprincess/760416753349181440/hello-baby-a-few-hours-ago-i-tried-to-induce-the?source=share | And this one: https://www.tumblr.com/b4ddprincess/760903485022732288/hi-ellia-something-very-interesting-happened-to?source=share | Automatically it should have made more sense by now!? And no, I did not what that woman told me to do yet(ask for the conscience/ God to lead me), we know that this "God" she said is our own consciousness, yes?! But I will test this later. Yes, I said that soon would have a success story, and this is not exactly "my success story", but it’s a mini success that I found crucial to share, came much earlier than I imagined, I feel that soon I will have my so dreamed success story.

Just to highlight: It’s literally easy, if you don’t push the bar. I think I will be that anon: ⚜ (liked it).

Much love ❤ 

(This happened to me the next night of sending you the previous ask, I wrote it hours after the event, and I know that the next ask will be my success story)

congrats! 🥳💗 and all u gotta do is get comfortable, relax and affirm/daydream/let your thoughts wander. you dont need to "ask your consciousness" tht's just overcomplicating it ^^!

i personally believe in God Almighty and she most likely did too, but all u gotta do is relax, affirm and let go of the outerworld 💗

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Chaos Creator's Chapter 254

TL;DR - Cale's group arrives at a desert near 1st Star Ryan's castle. Cale is worried about Alberu. Horns feel anxious about the destructive trio.

The Funny Moments Cale's group arrived near Ryan's lair, which was a dense forest in the middle of a desert. White Snake admitted that it was odd, but also unique. And we had our first funny moment with the three kids.

Hong and Raon decided to roll down the sand as On watched them. But Cale was concerned when he heard Raon laughing "Kwahahaha!" instead of his usual "Hihi" or "Hehe". I guess Raon's been hanging out with Toonka lately? 😂

Up next was the scene of Cale worrying about Alberu:

Tasha, who caught Cale's gaze, smiled. -Human, human! Tasha's gotten really strong! As Raon said, who flew by him, Tasha became really strong. 'She's dependable.' Cale smiled naturally. It was a good to have a strong ally. -The crown prince would be happy to know this! Too bad you can't reach him! Crown Prince Alberu Crossman. Cale attempted a video call to him, but unfortunately he couldn't get in touch. Instead, a few hours later, he got a message. -I'm playing the game. Cale thought he couldn't get in touch because Alberu was playing a virtual reality game. "Let's go." The whole party set out. Cale, who was trying to follow, paused for a moment. '…No way-' Crown Prince Alberu Crossman. 'He's not obsessed with that game, right?' Impossible. That thorough-minded person would never be so addicted to games that he would skip work and meals just to play games, right? Cale let out a laugh. "Silly me." What a ridiculous idea. He shook his head and quickly followed his companions. 'Yes.' The sudden chill and cold feeling down his spine right now was probably due to the cool breeze blowing in from his companions who had moved ahead of him. Cale tried to ignore the hot sunlight of the desert that was unlike the north, and rubbed the goosebumps on his arms.

AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Alberu is a game addict confirmed! 🤣🤣🤣

Lastly was the scene with poor Horns and the destructive trio as they arrived at the capital and saw the central temple.

Horns: We're here. Rasheel: *standing in a tilted position* The capital is indeed the capital. Quite flashy, huh? Hannah: *fiddling with her sword handle* Its grandeur is less than the Church of the Sun God. Clopeh: Fufu. *laughing shallowly with a handsome appearance* Horns: *feeling very anxious but keeping it inside*...Let's go.

Clopeh, why are you laughing like that? Are you really planning to... convert that church to Caleism? 😂

Wolf Tribe Chief The wolf tribe chieftain finally returned to her normal self today, and she also went with Cale's group in the desert. The problem was... the author forgot the name given to her in an earlier chapter.

She was called Jessie back in chapters 217-218, but in today's chapter, she was called "Nia." 🤨 It's like that Black Blood patriarch situation again with "Wallot" and "Reddok." 😂

So Nia was described as a timid girl the same age as Lock. She calmed down after Lock and Gashan exhausted her strength, like how CH and Rosalyn did to Lock back then. Nia clearly recalled what she did during her berserk transformation, so she was feeling shy and apologized to everyone about the trouble she caused.

Cale thought that she resembled Lock in that timid aspect, but from what he heard from the other beastkin, she was not originally like this. She was more of a Litana. Her berserk experience temporarily turned her into a Lock.

Ending Remarks Game addict Alberu was today's highlight for me. 🤣🤣🤣 Next chapter would be Cale meeting Wisha's secret allies who would guide them to the source of the world.

[randomness-is-my-order]

i just want to say: i’m seeing some outrage from a very small part of the fandom that doesn’t approve of opinions put forth by first time viewers who have never read the books. these opinions–based on only a very small percentage of the whole story–are still valid. we all had our fair share of good and bad takes as we went through the books and these people, completely new to the pjo world and riordanverse deserve to voice their perspective without a bajillion people coming at them with corrections, spoilers and weird comments about how they are wrong and should refer to the source material.

i’m gonna be straight–no viewer of the pjo tv show is obligated to read the books before participating in the fandom. their opinions should still be respected and if one needs to contest their views, it shouldn’t come from this weird ass place of superiority because we have read the books, but from a vantage of friendly discourse and understanding that the person has yet to complete the pjo journey.

the reason i feel so strongly about this is that my nephew watched the show with me just yesterday. i always wanted to introduce him to this world and i tried getting him to read but he’s not a reader. he doesn’t derive enjoyment from reading the same way that i do. and partly the reason for that is his dyslexia and adhd (this is a consequence unique to him, ik others, including my sister, do enjoy reading even with dyslexia/adhd). so imagine how much i wanted him to get to know percy jackson and annabeth chase and all these wonderful characters who he could relate to and thanks to the show, now he gets to!!! how awesome is that??? i casually asked him yesterday if he would try giving the books a chance but he told me no and we moved on and had icecream.

the point of the tv show is to pull in from this vast pool of audience that has never read the books. this will inevitably lead to more book readers but it will also have a part of the fandom that are tv show-only and we can always fill them in on the finer details and try to acclimate them to the deeper lore but the show itself being their basis for analysis and opinions is 100% valid and we should be understanding and accepting of that. not everyone wants to read a book to understand a story. some just want to watch a cool show portray the entire narration and that’s okay. these people may love luke as he is now, or not be fans of percy or annabeth or think gods are just soooo cool–and that’s perfectly okay. maybe even after the season’s done, they may not enjoy some characters that we do because things from the book haven’t translated one-on-one and still, that is okay. their opinions on characters through the show alone are valid and should always be valid. we can always argue that if they read the books and had a rounded understanding of characters, they’d agree with us but they don’t... they never will because books aren’t their thing or maybe they can’t invest as much time into reading or maybe just because they don’t want to–and that is, once again, completely okay.

[blueepink07]

Short analysis of Muu's honeybee appearance in her MV

First of all, forgive me if some of the ideas presented were already discussed in the past. I, for one, haven't seen much discussion around this topic so I decided to bring this up!

The dresses that the girls wear in the bee form, seem to be made from flower petals. After some research, I have come to the conclusion that Muu's dress might be made from one of the petals of a yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus).

Tracing back through history, the Yellow Iris has been a royal favorite. It's been woven into the very fabric of empires, from the fleurs-de-lis in French monarchy to the ornate decorations in Ancient Egyptian palaces. This flower isn't just a pretty face; it's a historical heavyweight with a knack for elegance and power.

Before going further, about the fleurs-de-lis:

It’s even debated whether the symbol is actually a lily, the flower the emblem is named after, or an iris, which more closely resembles the design and typical yellow color. One 18th-century historian even speculated that the name instead comes from the river Leie, where yellow irises are common and the Franks once lived. Another theory connecting the fleur-de-lis with an iris comes from the German word for a yellow iris in the Middle Ages—either “liesch” or “lies.”

With each use, the fleur-de-lis holds unique symbolism. In a religious context, it may denote purity. French monarchs used the symbol to denote the divine right to rule.

It's no wonder that Fleur De Lis has a connection with Muu's character, considering that she is half french, and is portrayed in the MV as the Queen Bee, such the association with royalty.

Moreover, Fleur de lis' sturdy stem represents the ever-present God who is our strength and our source of sustenance.

"God gave me everything, everything is as I wish"

Also, yellow irises are known for denoting strong bonds and warmth, ideal for demonstrating devoted friendship and happiness. Basically, it is a constant reminder of one of Muu's most beloved wishes to have a deep connection with her friends.

The other girls seem to wear, if we follow the same pattern, white irises' petals.

Something that was already noted is that the longer the dresses are, the closer the girls that wear them are to Muu. This idea is also reinforced by the hair color.

In this picture it can be clearly seen that the three girls who were shown bullying Muu in the first MV, and were the closest to her, have brighter hair.

Honey bees are most attracted to blue, purple, violet, white and yellow. Considering that they themselves are honey bees, this may symbolize the "likeness" or the "popularity" these classmates have in school.

The hair color that they have in their bee form is more exaggerated than the one in real life. It's a more saturated and brighter version, but it still resembles the original one.

The other classmates who are not as close to Muu, have their natural hair color, which looks dull compared to Muu and her friends. Like their presence is deemed unimportant, they fade/ disappear next to Muu's friend group.

However, Muu is an exception. Why bother drawing her hair purple? It has no ties with her strawberry blonde hair in real life.

I kept asking myself this question, until I found this information:

"But it seems that bees, especially honeybees, are born attracted to the colour purple. Which is really clever of them, as flowers in the violet-blue range produce the highest volumes of nectar."

Muu is the Queen Bee, having purple hair she attracts all of her subjects to be around her. It's like she is the embodiment of beauty even in her bee form, having traits which can be easily envied.

Like Es tells her:

That's all! Feel free to add your own ideas! Thank you for reading!

[carionto]

Give them fetch quests

Humans love to be active. Or perhaps a better way to put it - their brains demand stimulation. Hence all of the thing they keep doing in the galaxy - unending exploration, setting up businesses for everything, inventing new (and deadly) leisure activities, and they just can't sit idle (yes each of those is a different little story).

Their ingenuity knows no bounds, though we wish it did at times. Like when they figured out how to kidnap moons. And apparently they've lost track of some of them! The sheer level of frustration is- unmentionable. *ahem*

Their seemingly hard-wired need to problem solve mixed with tenacity and disregard for established methods does provide a unique resource to the rest of the galaxy.

It is unwise to request other governing bodies of their respective species to act for our own interest, as the incurred debt may be quite steep, and official channels sometimes provide quite mundane and well-and-tested solutions.

However, there is nothing against coaxing or simply openly suggesting in a casual way that individual Humans do something for them, and no sane body would take full responsibility for the actions of a singular 'rogue' actor. This opens up the opportunity to give these Humans little activities they can do alongside whatever nonsense they were going to do anyway.

_______________________________

Bartholomew Reginaldo Hvarjarhstehd is on a mission from God to save a planet! [aka a gelatinous blob of an alien named '''Hl''k't'''' (and no, I have no idea how you're supposed to pronounce all those apostrophes, our vocal cords aren't made for that) was tasked by its local government to get a Human scientist to help with their pest problem (which unbeknownst to them was caused by another Human accidentally spacing their trash in the wrong spot) and Barthlolomew, high as a kite on space drugs, heeded the call]

Upon arrival, Balthrolomeow quickly activated his magic wand [grill lighter] and summoned the wraths of Hell [fired up the grill]. Disturbed by the sudden source of intense heat, but thankful it was contained, the local aliens decided to hunker down in their homes and watch with terrified curiosity at what this Human was going to do.

Thinking very, very.... slowly. And. uhh, not, actually. He just thinks he's thinking. But Bratholmowow was acting. With mighty leaps and thundering falls, the courageous Bathbormbalow was still managing to catch one mutated snake-wasp after another, tying their bodies in a knot, and throwing them on the grill!

It was a long and traumatizing night for the local aliens. For hours, Bambilorthabow chewed the charred husks of his failed grilling skills, cursing and spitting inedible chunks around the makeshift hunting grounds, the enzymes and organic fluids of the horrid pests that endured the cooking process further tampering with his addled mind.

Soon, the sun rose upon Bradfildermows snoring body, as he lay in the moss. He was taken back to his ship, and the kind autopilot AI informed them that the lighter fluid contains a chemical that is instantly poisonous to said pests and that they could synthesize a safe variant for their own use with minimal tweaking.

At the end of his adventure, Bamboreithrow had eradicated 0.04% of the pest population by his own means and gained a six week visit to the hospital for detoxification and radiation sickness as he forgot to wear his space suit on a planet with a notably higher solar exposure level than Humans can tolerate.

But on that planet, Brithmalkoniwi will forever be remembered as that weird Human who almost burned down a forest, ate a lot of snake-wasps, and almost died on the front law of the towns expert masseuse.

[sirenjose]

The Proof of Azoth's Theorem - (Concept Art) Analysis

(About Philosopher's Stone, Stibnite, Maria's Axiom, Philemon's Altar, Azoth, and a few of the symbols on each of their outfits)

Philosopher’s stone: the goal of turning base metals like iron into precious metals like gold or silver. It was also said to provide the elixir of life, which could cure any illness or bring longevity. It was considered the most pure and perfect of all substances.

Stibnite: an ore that is the primary source of antimony

Described in Basil Valentine's 1st Key (the image Fool's Gold is holding). This depicts purifying gold using melted stibnite.

Impure gold dissolves in melted stibnite. Metals besides gold are turned into sulfides and rise to the surface, while a white allow of antimony and gold sink to the bottom. Roasting this alloy causes the antimony to evaporate, leaving only the purified gold behind.

In the image of the First Key, stibnite is likened to a hungry wolf in the First Key due to how quickly stibnite dissolves (devours) metals.

In German, stibnite is called “spießglanz”, which means “spear shine” due to its shiny “spear” like crystals, thus why the First Key says “on account of his name, is subject to bellicose Mars”, as a spear is a weapon and all weapons are subject to Mars (the god of war).

This is like what is described by Nicholas Flamel, where silver is combined with mercury and antimony then distilled and cohobated (repeatedly distilling a liquid then pouring the distillate back onto the residue to extract more of the desired substance) to produce red power.

Maria’s Axiom: “1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, and out of the 3rd comes the 1 as the 4th” (also described as “1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, and by means of the 3rd and 4 thachieving unity, thus 2 are but 1”)

Carl Jung uses this as a metaphor to describe the process of “individuation”. This refers to the process of self-discovery to become our true, unique self.

This involves finding your identity outside of the roles and expectations imposed by the outside (society, others, etc…). The goal here being to achieve a sense of “wholeness” and “unity” with yourself.

1 is the 1st matter, or prima materia, containing everything you need. This is then divided (into opposites), with each element purified by itself then united again (reconciliation of opposites) into a complete whole more perfect than the starting matter, the philosopher’s stone.

Philemon’s altar: may refer to Jung’s Philemon, which is based on Philemon and Baucis from Ovid’s Metamorphosis and Goethe’s Faust.

With Ovid, Jupiter and Mercury are disguised knocking on houses but not shown kindness until they meet Philemon and Baucis, an old, poor couple. They let them live while killing everyone else (the wicked), with the couple’s house being transformed into a temple.

With Goeth, Faust is building a city on land reclaimed from the sea and asks the devil Mephistopheles to move Philemon and Baucis, but Faust is horrified to see the demon burn their house down with the couple still inside. Faust then decides he needs to atone for his crime.

Philemon was a figure in a dream of Jung's, a wise old man that represented superior insight and wisdom. For Jung, Philemon symbolized the “artifax” or skilled alchemist, with the goal to purify and perfect materials (transform base materials into noble ones like gold).

On a spiritual level, the goal of the artifax is to purify and perfect the human soul, achieving enlightenment (becoming a higher/whole human being).

Over Jung’s gate he put the inscription: “Philemon’s Shrine – Faust’s Repentance”. This involved integrating the moral questions raised by with the spiritual goal of alchemy via the opposing figures of Philemon and Faust (so acknowledge necessity of confronting evil on the path to individuation, atoning for Faust’s crime, and affirming the goal represented by Philemon).

Azoth: Considered to be a universal cure or Elixir of Life that could be created by the philosopher’s stone.

It is also essential agent of transformation in alchemy.

As the Universal Life Force, it's the energy responsible for the drive towards physical/spiritual perfection

Azoth is called Prima Materia in Latin. This was the first matter, the starting material required for the creation of the philosopher’s stone. It is the primitive formless base of all matter similar to chaos, the quintessence or aether.

It is the 1st matter at the beginning as well as its perfected essence (philosopher’s stone).

It relates to unity, wholeness, and synthesis of opposites

Alchemy Symbols:

Philosopher’s Stone:

triangle = fire

triangle in a circle = Wheel of Fire (Ignis Rotae)

entwined snakes = likely Hermes Caduceus (Hermes as Hermes Trismegistus was closely associated with alchemy)

Stibnite

upside down triangle = water

hexagram?() = represented the reconciliation/union of opposites (fire and water)

Philemon:

- triangle with a line through it = air

Maria's Axiom:

- downward triangle with a line through it = earth

- symbols on her dress and floor for Mercury/Quicksilver, Venus/Copper, Moon/Silver, Saturn/Lead, Jupiter/Tin, Mars/Iron, and Sun/Gold

There were several bits that looked like they could be symbols but I haven't been able to identify them yet (I've already spent so long working to identify everything. I'll try to add more if I identify them later).

Also I did notice/wonder how that shadow thing has eyes that appear around it could relate to Hunter Norton's weapon, which almost looks like an eye. Matthias also might have something on his boots but it's hard to be sure.

[stupidgalaxybrain]

If there's one thing I'm proud of as an artist, it's the fact I'm a style chameleon. I decided to sit down and recreate 4 artists I really love, and who better to do it with than with the most varied character in the entire franchise: King Dedede! This isn't just for appreciation though, but a study on how other people translate DDD's design, since character design is a passion of mine!

Let's start with @miniiieevee!

Oh my gosh their art is super great, and I think the most important part of getting the style right was the sparkles. I have never seen someone do highlights this way, and it's both super recognizable and super cute! For the King himself, we have a nice round beak, visibly blue eyes, a distinct head, pointed crown jewel, an undershirt, and stripes along the top of the belt. Like most of us, they use the (owo) kind of mouth and really fluff up the coat. Separate fingers can also show up for posing, following Spongebob physics. The stitching on the gloves and the little round eyebrows are another really cool touch! Out of all of the styles I looked at, this one has the most pastel colors.

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Next is @das-a-kirby-blog!

Das-a-kirby-blog has such a cool variety in their work, from really shapey sketches to super abstracted color schemes, which while super amazing, didn't provide me the best ref material. The colors here are frankensteined from a few sources, so I hope they capture their actual base color palette. They go for the pin-shaped route for body shape, with the undershirt (though sometimes there's no under layer), typically black eyes, extra belt stripes, and a chunky diamond shaped crown jewel. My favorite touch is the cottonball on the crown. Like I said at the top, they excel at shapes in their art!

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Third is @jojo-schmo!

I've been silently reading their roleswap comic, but I should've been loudly reading it because I super recommend it! I'd also say design wise their Dedede is the most unique! Besides myself they're the only one here to pick the kimono, they have a single blue stripe at the top of the belt, a triangular jewel, and the coolest element of the style, spirals! I've not seen anyone stylize the trim this way, and it's so cool in execution. Another unique element that really adds to certain expressions is the spiky teeth (which matches real life penguins! ...Don't look it up).

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Last but not least, @cosmicwhoreo!

God, their art is everything. The flow of the lines is so clean and smooth and everything they draw is super expressive. Their Dedede is by far the hugest, and also marks the 4/5 DDDs with a separate head, and 3/5 with black eyes. We have the belt stripes, occasionally a shirt, and a smooth tear drop jewel, but a uniquely shaped crown band. This design sees a lot of influence from the anime unlike the others here, so the color scheme is the most unique.

-

As a conclusion, it's really cool to see all the different design elements that we pick and choose for DDD. Some give him his smash outfit. Some people give him a body type closer to K64 or KATFL. Some people draw his eye color, or separate eyebrows, and others don't. There's no detail that's the same across every version, but they're all our lovable king. If you don't recognize one of these artists, check them out! I can only do a fraction of the incredible work they do, and let me know if there's any other characters or artists you'd like to see this exercise with!

[theknightmarket]

"Deal."

In which three disagreeable deities are forced to agree. TW: cursing Pages: 28 - Words: 11,500

[Requests: OPEN]

You were a cultist. You weren’t about to hide that aspect of your life because it was no mere aspect, not anymore; you devoted your entire being to tracking down the pantheon that would mark the end of all humanity. It wasn’t out of spite or service. You had no cosmic motive behind your catastrophic actions. But it wasn’t a test either. Belief rested in your heart and calm in your mind as you traded away the lives of your friends, your family, strangers who would never know what was coming, and your own, for one little thing.

A kiss.

Everyone thought you were joking. Nobody, not even the dredges of society, would risk it all for a little physical contact. They snorted when you told them your plan, and raised an eyebrow when they thought you were carrying on the bit for too long. Oh, there went the ‘town crazy’, traipsing down to the antique shop to pick up the latest prop for their little jape. We laughed at them, for they carried the weight of the jester for our amusement.

Oh, you’d show them. If they lived long enough to recognize what was happening. If they didn’t, you’d still be better off than them.

You proudly owned up to your title of the local lunatic, although it was first given as a joke. One step into your apartment, and they might’ve realized that you weren’t joking. All the ritual memorabilia scattered along the walls, all the unholy ingredients stored in the cupboards, all the little things that contributed to the utter collapse of humanity. Well, as long as the person working the antique store wasn’t a liar.

And, chances were, he was.

But it didn’t hurt to try. And try. And try. And try. One of these days it would work. Eventually, you’d hit the nail on the head and get exactly what you wanted. 

The slam of the book on the wooden alter reverberated around the apartment, swallowed by the artifacts you’d collected. You didn’t know when that day would come, if it would ever come, but you were definitely trying. A manic grin split your face in two as you flipped through the yellowed pages. Awful corruption for a god, but you were going to use it anyway. You could always rewrite it if all you needed was the instructions. They were deities, after all, they deserved better than some dusty, half-broken tome.

You hummed to yourself while you worked. Normally, your speakers would be up and running during the hours you studied old texts, blasting the playlist you’d accumulated over the years. Sorting things was never your forté, so they were all in one place. A bit jarring, but you got used to it, and you didn’t have the time to rearrange anything right now. There was work to be done.

The circle you’d engraved in your wooden flooring – which you notably did not tell your landlord about – was surrounded by candles to make the points of a star. Classic. Reliable. Any source of light was diminished, including the overhead lights that you never turned on and the curtains that you never opened. There wasn’t anything to see anyway, and you preferred your side lamp, though you also switched that off when you had everything in place.

Finally, you rushed to the book and read through the specific instructions for the one you were going to summon first. Try to, at least. The preparations before were all commonplace, every ritual used them, but this was where it changed. You might have been drawing a different symbol or equipping a unique relic. In this case, you were to light the candles pink and inscribe all manner of curls and swirls on the floor with a similar shade of ink.

The packet of lithium was in your hand before you knew what you were doing, but you didn’t resist sprinkling it into the wax divots near the wicks. Your high school chemistry lessons finally paid off, as long as you ignored that your first thought was food dye; working with a pantheon of deities outside of your understanding of the world was undoubtably taking a toll on your mental state.

But that didn’t matter right now. The only thing that was important was the paintbrush in your hand that pooled thick lines of neon pink in the exact shape of the symbol in the book. It had to be exact. Perfect. They deserved it.

You connected the last line to the rest of the shape and sat back on your knees to marvel at your work for the brief moment of life you had left. You wouldn’t get the chance once the end of times was ushered in. It didn’t matter to you if it was a sin to be proud of the product of your years of labor. It was probably more of a sin to cause the deaths of eight billion people. What was one more drop in the bucket?

Wiping your paint-splattered face with your sleeve, you rose from the ground and hastily stumbled towards the alter again. The only thing left to do was chant.

Adrenaline rushed you as though you were being judged, chased, stalked. And you likely were. You felt the stares of a hundred gods and monsters on you, from all directions, right into your eyes. They were eager to witness the introduction of apocalypse. They followed where your pupils went. Holding sparks of anticipation, they flitted across the page to work out the pronunciations, wild birds in their cages pleading to be free from the confines of flesh. Your grip on the alter tightened, knuckles paling as all blood rushed away. Any tighter, and you’d rip splinters from it.

You knew you opened your mouth, and you knew you spoke. The chant flowed like thick oil from your throat and poured itself over the paper. You felt it – gods, did you feel the words cling to the life you gave them – but you didn’t hear it. But it was working. It was working, so you didn’t care. You didn’t matter. The ritual did.

So, it didn’t worry you when a flash of pink light, brighter than an atomic bomb, sprung from the centre of the circle at the dip of one of the paint’s arcs and blinded you. Sight and hearing gone, you relied on touch to ground you, and even that was fleeting. The alter was knocked to the floor and you followed it, landing roughly on your palms in accidental prayer. You assumed you were still looking in the vague direction of the flash. The pink had turned to white in the space of your fall. Whatever was with you now, you had no choice but to worship it. The host of the apocalypse, the bringer of the end of times, the catalyst for the collapse of humanity.

The thing that smelled sweet and clasped your hands gently. You still couldn’t see. Did you do it right? Did you summon the right one? Did you knock over a candle and accidentally burn the apartment down and this was heaven? How did you get into heaven?

Your vision was clearing up while you spiraled. Gradually, the spots of light were pulled apart by a softer tone. It wasn’t the shadow you would have expected after removing all sources of light save the candles, but it wasn’t the flashbang from before, and you would take it. You’d hate for your efforts to be for something but unable to experience it to its fullest.

Shakily, you breathed out, exhaling something akin to dust from the lining of your lungs. A few particles remained in your mouth. Sweetness, again. As though you had dipped your tongue in sugar.

“My- my God?” you mumbled. You could hear your voice this time. Words you knew and recognized. Familiar. Safe. 

Yet you still felt safe with the hands of a stranger wrapped around yours. They were warm and soft, and, blinking with the sensation of stepping into the sun for the first time, normal looking. Slowly, you turned them over, so the palms were facing up to you. They were human.

But the thing kneeling mere inches away from you was not.

“Please,” they spoke, with a smile you swore you once saw carved into marble, “call me Wilford.”

He looked kind. When the last vestiges of bright light faded, you were greeted by the pleasant sight of a handsome, if not confusing, man. Really, the pink moustache and hair, the same color as the paint and candles, was the only sign of him not being the average person on the street, besides the fact that he appeared in your ritual circle like the second coming.

When your eyes met, his grin widened. You couldn’t guess what was going through his head, you wouldn’t dare, but you had questions as to why he was guiding you to stand so tenderly. “Now, whatever did you summon me here for?”

“I-I... well, I meant to- uh, dammit, I—”

Your poor excuse for a sentence was cut off before you could make more of a fool of yourself by hushing. Of course, you quieted down, thankful for the excuse to focus on breathing instead of talking. A haze of some unknown emotion clouded your mind and heart, but whatever you were experiencing must have been obvious to the deity you stood before. He took you by the crook of your arm and coaxed you towards the couch a few steps away. Doing this ritual thing in the middle of the living room was a blessing and a curse, though the latter would only come into play if it failed. You hated rearranging furniture.

He laid you down onto the plush pillows, cooing at you softly. Was this the relationship between gods and humans? Pets to play with as they saw fit. It made sense, as much sense as infinite immortals could make. There was no argument to be on an equal playing field, but you had imagined it to be more…

Violent, maybe subservient. You didn’t expect to be pampered with a hand patting your hair and assurances muttered until you were able to function again.

“I summoned you,” you shakily spoke. It was a statement, but you couldn’t stop the uncertainty seeping into your words.

“I should hope so—” Wilford’s laugh was the same as his voice, incredibly sweet and lighthearted, despite having enough power to stop your heart with just a glance, “—I am here, after all.”

Hesitantly, you nodded. Alright. He was actually there. You had summoned him. It actually worked this time.

“Do you remember why you summoned me?” came his own question.

You definitely did, and your subconscious seized your mouth again to avoid having to say it aloud. To the people in your town, the ones you entertained with your plots and stories, it was easy to tell what your end goal was. With the actual deity face to face, it was much harder. You should have planned for this. Maybe you could buy some time to get your confidence back.

You latched onto the odd choice of words that confused you in the first place. “Do… do I remember?”

“Sometimes I forget myself, and if an eldritch god does, I’m sure humans do, too.”

Your own breathing filled the silence left behind at the admission. Wilford’s chest didn’t rise or fall, why would it, and he seemed preoccupied with carding a hand over your head anyway. His moustache twitched every time that he brushed against your actual skin, and his smile grew an unnoticeable millimeter wider. It left you frozen and staring at him, which he didn’t appear to mind.

You could do this. There was no going back now.

“Well, Wilford,” you began, barely managing to escape his touch long enough to sit up straight, “I do remember.”

“Good! How can I satiate your heart’s deepest, darkest desire?”

“I want to kiss you.”

The reaction you received was not one you expected from a god, of any shape or form. He hummed pleasantly. Nothing else, he just hummed, the sound reverberating in the small room but never seeming to fade. It died out in a flash, instead, as he placed an elbow onto the couch cushion and balanced his head in the hand of it. In the fifteen seconds that you were both completely immobile afterwards, he didn’t blink, and his smile stayed plastered where it was.

“You want to kiss me,” he repeated, tone as peppy as before you revealed yourself.

No matter how hard your heart beating against your ribcage, you didn’t dare back down. You were in it now, whether you liked it or not. So, slowly, you nodded, becoming more and more sure of yourself in the process.

Wilford stayed perfectly quiet and perfectly still for another moment. You wondered if you’d done something wrong, something so taboo that you’d broken a god – but a kiss was much easier on the mind than the murder of billions of innocents; you should have been the one to freeze, and yet there you were, waiting with bated breath for him to say anything else. But he didn’t.

Not before he lunged forward, springing to lean over you in an inclined plank and barricade his arms around you. Even without the cover of blinking, his eyes seemed to mimic the stars – flashes of planets and sparks of supernovas jumped around in his pupils and radiated light to the whites. You could barely move your head enough to make eye contact with how close his face was, pressed almost directly underneath your chin, enough that you felt his mustache ticked at the skin as his grin grew impossibly wider.

“Oh-ho, now that’s an unusual request!” he commented, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”

The position you were trapped in gave you no leeway. When you spoke, your breath shifted the curls of his hair. “You haven’t?”

There was silence in which Wilford tried to remember, but he came up empty; so many years and requests and people, anyone would have trouble keeping track of them all. His own established issues didn’t help him any, but that didn’t matter. After all, that was the past, or the future, or a different present that he needn’t care about. You were the one in front of him, looking awfully scared for such a simple want, and you were the one he was tending to. The strange human who just wanted a simple smooch in return for possibly giving him the entire world. It was almost unfair.

“But it is intriguing.” His head cocked to the side. “The average summoner would ask for something bigger. Riches, power, time—” Then a thought occurred to him that made his smile collapse into a sharp grimace, broken only by him spitting out, “—fame.”

You supposed it had crossed your mind once or twice that you should do something more substantial with your boundless wish, but nothing else seemed worth it, to you at least. Why would you care about being a billionaire when you wouldn’t live long enough to use the money? Power was a moot point because you didn’t care enough about any entity to want to control it, and time?

“Isn’t the world going to end anyway?”

A few stray chuckles floated up from Wilford’s mouth. “Oh, no, of course not!”

Any fear that remained from his bout of silence was traded out for doubt, surprise, and a great deal of confusion. When he brought his head back to eye level with you, there was no sign of a lie, just dim amusement as your misconception. You might have been offended had you not been preoccupied by the questions that ran through your head.

He peeled back far enough that there were a few inches between you. “What point would there be in destroying the very thing that gives you power? The cults of eldritch gods support them, in every place and time at once, and to willingly minimize your area of effect would be plain silly. We can’t just destroy dimensions willy-nilly; we have to be selective. So,” he practically purred, closing up that gap slowly, “you’ll be completely safe. The people around you, however…”

Although he trailed off, you didn’t need any more explanation. A world-ending catastrophe wasn’t your aim, anyway, what was currently happening was. The space between you was getting smaller and smaller at a leisurely pace. You couldn’t complain, physically or figuratively. Puffs of air danced across your lips, like fog rolling in from the sea, and the couch dipped as Wilford’s knee came to stabilize him at the edge. You risked prematurely closing the gap entirely when you whispered, “That’s fine.”

“Good,” his whisper came out as the final bat of a wave against the shore, “you don’t exactly have a choice anymore.”

Not that you would protest as his lips skimmed yours so lightly that you weren’t certain it was happening at all. If you were to lean less than a centimeter forward, you would connect, and the deal would be done. Internally, you were a blank canvas, mind in a haze of expectation and adrenaline. Whether this was just you or the effect an eldritch god had on you, you didn’t know, and you didn’t care. You had devoted years of your life to this pursuit, you couldn’t waste the golden opportunity on minor worries.

But it wasn’t your fault that you were interrupted.

Another flashbang blinded you with white light. Ringing in your ears that stopped you from hearing anything except the high pitch, even when you felt your mouth open. This time, instead of the complete blankness of your senses, you were overwhelmed with pain, as if you had been dunked in the river Styx. Not just the brightness of an atomic bomb, but the agony of one, too. A migraine flexed and stilled in your mind, focusing all the thoughts on the damage it must have been causing you. What this was or why it was happening were secondary to silent prayers for it all to stop.

And then, just like that, your prayers were answered. In the flap of a butterfly’s wings, you were left reeling on the couch, pushed back into the cushions and fighting against your swimming vision. It was hard to distinguish direction for a moment, even the memories of the apartment you’d lived in for years struggled to help you, but it soon cleared up. In front of you, from the couch to the wall, was the same as it always had been, and you had to wonder whether Wilford had just made a dramatic exit before anything could actually happen.

Voices from behind you made you realise not only did Wilford not leave, but someone new was in the room with you, and it wasn’t a friendly neighbor checking in about the noise.

“The least you could have done was wait until I was finished.” That one was the voice you recognised, but the tone was much more acidic than the softness you were already used to.

And then, came the one you weren’t familiar with. “What would be the point of showing up after you’d sealed the deal?”

Against the bell chime of Wilford’s voice, this one was sleeker, as if it had been artificially smoothed down to slide from the throat to the mouth and out into the air. It lacked a sweetness but made up for it in baritone words like the soft pounding of a heart in your ears. It matched your own that had dropped into your stomach as your thoughts clouded with the newcomer.

“From what I remember, you’re not one to act with much sense,” Wilford replied, a spite overtaking any of the enthusiasm he had shown you. Whoever this was, he didn’t like them.

The stranger’s sarcastic laugh punctured the air of your apartment. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“And anyways, I was here first, and, unlike you, I was actually summoned.” 

“Wilford?” You were surprised by the shake of your voice – you weren’t a meek person by nature, but you supposed being in the presence of two gods would do that to anyone. You understood that you should have been groveling at their feet, thanking them and begging for forgiveness, and yet you simply rose from the couch to finally catch a glimpse of the deity he was on the cusp of arguing with.

“Yes, darling?”

His response was thrown to the wayside as your eyes met with the unfamiliar face in your living room. Your first thought was to wonder how the second god you’d ever seen was just as gorgeous as the first. The second was that your eyes blew so wide with fear with that you were sure they were going to fall out. They were draped head to toe in a crimson that burned in the candlelight, which, now that you actually looked, was no longer the pink you had lit it to be. It was much darker, eerily the same color as the blood that flowed through your veins, but it caressed the edges of their body and face like a lover’s hand.

You swallowed before you asked, “What- what’s happening?”

Your question flipped a switch in the two’s minds. On one hand, Wilford broke out into a snarl unbecoming of the man you’d seen him to be as he groaned, “We’ve been party-crashed.”

On the other hand, the one in red started to step – glide – toward you, the robe swaying across the floorboards and creating patterns in the still wet paint that they strode across. A smirk pulled at the corner of their mouth when you were within arm’s reach.

“What Wil here failed to explain is that I am the King in Red, Heir to Carcosa.” Neither of those titles you recognised but you felt your heart drop regardless, especially as he stopped barely a few inches away from you. The sliver of Wilford that you could see did not look pleased, but he stayed where he was anyway.

“Another eldritch god,” you clarified.

His touch on your hand felt like someone had lit a flame in your palm, the veins used as routes for a wildfire to grow. Your impulse to snatch your hand back was overtaken by the need to close around the warmth. The decision was made for you as he brought your hand towards himself. “Guilty as charged.”

The kiss was better, worse, different to the flame of his contact. It was so hot that it fully circled temperature and fell into a blazing coldness against the back of your hand. You were half sure he had melted away your skin, despite the strange lack of pain, and taken your breath along with it. You didn’t speak, couldn’t find it in you to, when Mark came out of his bow and stood straight enough to meet your eyes again.

“Considering Wilford here told you his, my name is Mark.”

You didn’t know how to feel; all the awe and terror and confusion and fatigue was catching up to you, convincing you with a gentle hand to lie down and forget that there were two gods in your living room, who you now knew the names of, that you were going to play host to. Everything was crumbling around you.

Putting up your scraps of confidence, you asked desperately, “Why are you here? I didn’t, I mean, I already—”

But mortals’ crises were nothing but spilled milk to eldritch deities. Flippantly, Mark waved his hand, the sleeve of his robe peeling back, before he spoke, “Yes, yes, I know I’m not technically the one you summoned, but I couldn’t help but overhear what you were trading for the lives of your friends and family.”

“Something that doesn’t involve you, that’s for sure.” Whether you were grateful for Wilford’s intrusion or appalled by the obvious disrespect didn’t matter. Mark’s smirk sharpened, expelling all the smooth charisma.

“If you’re going to make snarky comments,” he snapped, “I suggest you find another of your cultists and make some other exchange. I know you have hundreds.” Wilford gasped indignantly, not that you knew which suggestion he took the most offence to. 

“And leave you alone with one of my followers?” His scoff cut into a growl. 

In your preparation for summoning a god, you hadn’t done much research into who you’d actually be summoning. The specifics of the character weren’t anything you cared for, considering you would use whatever you could get your hands on – pink paint and lithium were the easiest combination of materials, and some of the other rituals asked for either very difficult or very uncomfortable things to get your hands on. As such, the relationships between those deities were unknown to you. Whatever this was, an ancient rivalry or a mere spat, you hadn’t prepared for it.

Nor were you prepared to be the person they were fighting to convince.

“Darling,” Wilford started moving closer, intentionally giving Mark a wide berth, “I know I said you’re safe, and you still are, but being around him for a long period of time has proven to be deadly.”

Sarcasm bubbled up within you. You hadn’t expected it to be a safe endeavor, after all. Still, you kept your mouth shut, more out of respect than the fear.

Mark had no such qualms about backtalking, however.

“Because becoming a ditzy canvas with no memories at all is so much better than what I can offer?”

Wait, what?

“Quite frankly, yes! A lot of people would take it over becoming a husk for you to puppet on stage.”

What?

One second, you were damning the world to apocalypse. The next, you weren’t, and everybody could live their happy endings. And then the next, you were sacrificing the people in the town but saving your own skin. And then the next, you were either losing your memories and your mind or you were renting out your body as an actor.

You really wanted someone to give you the story straight, without all the fluffy words and fighting. But the fear must have showed on your face, because Mark was gesturing in your direction with a manicured hand.

“Come now, you’re scaring the poor thing. I think we can come to a better agreement, don’t you?”

You didn’t like the tone of his voice in the last half. You didn’t like it one bit. He was suddenly less like a sneaky door-to-door salesman and more like the snake in the garden of Eden.

“I mean—” Your words sounded choked out, even to yourself, “—I don’t really think I want anything else.”

“There’s no need to pretend with me, dearest, that’s my job. You must have a larger goal – and with me, you won’t be sacrificing the people around you. They get to live, and you get what you want. Isn’t that better?”

You saw what the problem was. You supposed that after so many years of humanity milling about, there’d be conflicting impressions of them, especially for gods who didn’t see things on the same level as you. The world wars and the protests and the charities muddied the waters of what humans were really like.

Mark was making the – albeit completely understandable – mistake of assuming that both you and the townsfolk were good people.

“I think you overestimate how much I care about the people in this town.”

You couldn’t help the swell of pride in your chest when you noticed the shock on his face. Hell, his back straightened, and he blinked as if he just weren’t seeing you right.

“But your family. Surely, you don’t want to be the cause of their deaths?”

And he was assuming that your family was still alive.

“No, I- uh, don’t have a family.”

His face dropped as if you’d spoiled the ending of a show. Unimpressed, bored, and vaguely disappointed. Maybe he wasn’t used to this kind of resistance, maybe he wasn’t used to getting it wrong. Presumably, that wasn’t a habit the gods made, but it happened regardless. It was happening, and Mark was having a hard time getting back onto his feet.

After a moment’s hesitation, he stilled and frowned. “You’re making this a lot harder than it has to be,” he complained, and yet he spoke with such confidence, as if the outcome couldn’t be anything but him getting what he wanted, that you almost believed it, too.

Wilford stepped around Mark, very obviously and probably meant to tease him, in order to pull you back down to the couch cushions with him. You flopped against the back of it, only secured by his arms around you, cradled like a toy that a parent threatened to take away from their child. Just as stubbornly, he spat, “It was all going smoothly before you showed up.”

“And if everyone played along, we’d be done by now.” You could hear Wilford rolling his eyes better than you could see it in response to Mark’s groaning. You weren’t doing it on purpose, or, at least, you didn’t think you were. Why would you? The man beside you definitely was, trying to get under his skin and poking and prodding, but you were just answering the questions. Were you supposed to play alongor were you supposed to tell the truth?

Wilford interrupted before you could come to a conclusion, “In this day and age, I don’t understand why you’re here.”

Mark looked you up and down. Judging. He smiled, not unpleasantly but vastly less wholesome than Wilford’s grins. It reminded you of a rose, not just the petals but the thorns as well. He wasn’t lying about the danger he brought, he just wasn’t mentioning it, in the same way that you might not recognize a rose for the pain it would cause but for the beauty it was known for. Nobody talked about the spikes, just the satiny crimson of the prettier parts. Distantly, you wondered whether that smile meant you passed inspection or something different.

“I’m just interested.”

“Go be interested in someone else.” He waved his hand, a shooing motion that lit a flame in Mark’s face, his cheeks becoming just as red as his robe. You didn’t particularly want two gods getting into a petty fight in the middle of your apartment – hell, you hadn’t planned for there to be two gods in the first place – but you still wound up the mediator.

At least, you tried. “Can’t I make a deal with both of you?”

But your proposition was shot down immediately, a combined, “No!” bouncing off the walls and down the hallway. It sounded like the thunder and the rain of a storm, like it was down the street and right next to your ear simultaneously. Their yell, their one agreement so far, could have shaken the earth in the way you had expected their arrival to, instead of the flashbang you had been met with.

You shrunk back into the embrace of the couch, pressed into it in the way that got pennies and wallets and keys lost. You couldn’t tell whether it was out of fear, worry, or the want to get disappear like those common trinkets. The feeling of regret flexed in you, growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking. This whole ordeal was more than you had bargained for. You’d expected a one-and-done kind of thing. Now, you had childish rivals tossing insults.

Speaking of.

Mark bent down to take your hand into his again, but he didn’t lean to kiss it. Instead, he drew his other hand over it, fingers dancing along the skin and prompting sparks around your knuckles. “Dearest,” his teeth were gritted together so that the words struggled out from behind the bars, “I would rather die than share a follower with him. We both know how well it worked out last time.”

A tut from your side before it merged into a laugh. “You’re still hung up on that?”

“What reason do you have?” came the venomous response, disbelieving and mocking.

“I just don’t like you.” Wilford’s smile was bright even as he insulted Mark to his face. If you were to reach out, you were half sure your hand would catch on the tension between them, and you were surprised when you were able to get up from the couch and drag yourself through the air without being stopped.

When you were a few steps away from the pair, out of the blast radius, you sighed, “It’s obvious that this isn’t working. Is there a way to end the whole summoning thing?” You weren’t keen to have to redo all your hard work, but you were even less interested in losing your apartment to a minefield. As the saying went, there were plenty of fish in the sea, and finding another god couldn’t be that difficult. You hoped.

Your eyes latched onto the sudden fear in Wilford’s eyes. It was small, but it was there. Despite that, his grin never faltered, and his voice was steady as he answered, “No—”

“Yes, there is!” Mark announced with more excitement than you had heard in your entire experience with him, and, possibly, it was the most genuine, too. His head whirled to frantically search around the room until his gaze landed on the alter.

Wilford jumped to his feet. “It’s extremely complicated and you probably don’t have the materials and it takes time—”

“They have the book, don’t they?”

What ensued was by far the most insane part about this situation; you stood next to the wall, watching with concern, while Mark dashed for the summoning book. He was barely a few inches away from grabbing it before his face met the floor, snuffing out the candles that he landed on and knocking several others onto the floor. Wilford grunted in the new position as Mark’s elbow connected with his stomach – he recovered surprisingly quickly from the tackle to the ground – and he tossed the other god onto his back. A bundle of flames licked up at them on your wooden boards, but the threat was diminished with their combined rolling away.

Before you met them, you would’ve been scared out of your wits by the thought of two eldritch beings grappling in the middle of your apartment, especially because you would have made certain assumptions – that they had demonic powers, that they could kill you accidentally with the snap of their fingers, and maybe they still could. It was only now that you realized they not much more than schoolboys fighting in the field at lunch break. You couldn’t be intimidated by that.

So, walking forward to stamp out the fire that had been growing into a few smoldering patches of ash, you grabbed the book that they had seemingly forgotten about and proceeded towards your front door. Not schoolboys. Toddlers. Thinking of them like that gave you only one course of action; wait for their tantrums to end and then pick up the pieces.

They didn’t react to the creak of the door, Wilford too preoccupied by bending Mark’s arm back and Mark too preoccupied by not getting his arm bent back, so you slipped out into the night with ease. Immediately, you felt the change in the air. There was no tension out there, covered by the coolness of late hours. They offered a comfort you would never be able to match. Never had you been so glad to be human. Sure, other people were a nightmare and getting out of that town was a dream you aspired to, but you enjoyed this little bit of the world. You wondered if ants felt the same when they looked down off a hill. In the presence of ‘dangerous’ deities, it was nice to sit back and appreciate what you did understand. At that time, you would normally have been able to see the stars twinkling distantly against the black void of the sky, but they must have been hidden by the clouds because you couldn’t see them.

Or the railing.

Or the balcony hallway itself, or, as you whirled around to run back inside, the wall of your apartment. The door stood out like an unfinished painting, bordered by the same darkness that was all around you. You felt caged. It was closing in and spreading apart at the same time, and you could only think to return to the living room. At least you knew what was in there. Out here? Glares burned into your skin from all directions and the shiver of a frigid gust of wind was more physical than your own body. You lunged for the handle to escape it and threw yourself in.

More darkness greeted you.

“Wilford?” you called out, “Mark? Is anyone there?”

You had spoken to the void, but you didn’t expect the void to speak back.

“So, you’re the one causing all of this trouble?”

Those eyes seemed to narrow. The only thing you were certain of was the rapid thud of your heart in your chest, and even then, it was inconsistent. A scream clawed at your throat, but you choked on the sound.

You managed to struggle past the blockage to ask, “Hello?”

The words reverberated around wherever you were, but it wasn’t your voice. Some of the echoes were deeper, some higher, some altogether unintelligible, as if spoken in another language. It hurt when they came back to you.

“Darling, dearest—” Something writhed in the pitch, “I’d ask how they got so attached so fast, but we both know who we’re talking about.”

“And who am I talking to?”

“You’ve been messing around with that book; I should hope you know.”

You almost jumped to your own defense before you remembered what position you were in. On one hand, you had only meant to summon Wilford, not Mark, but, on the other, it probably didn’t matter in the eyes of whoever – whatever – you were talking to.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” you started as you searched for the confidence you had started the day with, “but which one are you?”

“I have man names, many faces… you won’t be around much longer, so you may refer to me as Dark.”

Well, it was certainly fitting. As if to confirm your thoughts, a patch of the void appeared to constrict and tear through itself. Each particle fought for space, sparking with red and blue light, and collected into smaller masses. You were stuck to where you were standing while the voice continued in the background.

“Those two are tenacious.” More flecks of light joined the fray. “Neither will stop until they get what they want.” They warped the area around them in the vague shape of a person. “That just so happens to put you in a tight spot.” The color seeped out of the portrait, but it was still distinguishable from the void. “Wilford will slowly erase your memories, even though he doesn’t mean to nor is he aware of it.” A body began to coalesce where you assumed the floor of the void to be. “And Mark will take your physical form as soon as you pledge yourself to him to use in one of his plays.” It travelled up from dress shoes to black pants to the edges of a white shirt. “And you were about to choose both.” A neck appeared above the collar and those particles caressed the line of a jaw. “That…”

A face emerged.

“That is fascinating.”

Before you stood the fully formed god you now knew as Dark, and you had mixed feelings about that. For one, you had actually watched him appear. He didn’t arrive in a blaze of light, he did quite the opposite. That in and of itself dug a pit in your stomach, and his earlier comment that you wouldn’t be around much longer wasn’t helping your nerves. You felt like you were on the edge of spiraling out of control, but you also felt strangely calm, like there was a voice whispering in your ear that there was no need to get worried. Your breathing stayed steady while you looked at him. A formal black suit and ashen skin were the only notable features he sported. There was no taste in your mouth, no pain in your body, just confusion and a hint of fear.

He opened his mouth to speak, and you braced for impact, but his voice sounded normal. “What’s so important to you that you’d give up your mind and body?”

The answer was coaxed out of your mouth before you could think to say it. “A kiss.”

You had managed to shock not one, not two, but three eldritch deities. You were three for three, and you were damn proud of yourself! When you were back in your room later that night, you were going to celebrate. With what, you didn’t know yet, but you were already stewing in the feeling. It didn’t take long for Dark to recuperate, though, and you were brought back to the present by his gravelly laugh.

“Mortals,” he tutted. “You can never seem to decide whether you’re so significant that you’re the centre of the universe, or you’re so irrelevant that nothing you do matters. You’d give up yourself and the people around you for a show of affection, no doubt ingenuine?”

“Is it so hard to understand that I don’t care about the people here?”

“And your own soul?”

“I went into this thinking the entire world was going to end, so this is a preferrable outcome.”

He thought for a moment, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes. You felt like you were being inspected, and maybe you were, but you must’ve passed his scrutiny because a grin crept across his face. Not sugary like Wilford’s, or sly like Mark’s, but understanding, as if you’d given him the last piece of the puzzle that he had also known from the beginning. You confirmed something in him, and he was going to use it to his full advantage.

“That settles it,” he said, bringing a hand up to snap his fingers. That sound reverberated, not unlike your original words, but without the pain. Instead of granting to a headache, it swept away the darkness like a curtain to reveal your apartment. You were standing exactly where you would have been after coming back inside, a few steps away from the centre of the ritual circle, only Dark was situated opposite you. Just to the side were Wilford and Mark, still tousling as though you had never left.

As Wilford reared back a fist to sock Mark in the jaw, he finally noticed your return, to which he shot a smile at you. A stark bruise had found a place above his eye, but that didn’t stop him from winking at you while he drew his fist further away from his target.

And then he paused, hummed, and jumped up from the floor to greet Dark with a hug and a call of his name.

Mark, meanwhile, stumbled to his feet. He didn’t look worse than Wilford, but he certainly wasn’t better; a cut dripped blood around his mouth, which he wiped away with his thumb. His expression didn’t brighten when he saw Dark, and, instead, he took the grace period to trot over to you and swing an arm around your waist.

“Couldn’t handle me on your own?” he boasted when you were well situated, “You had to call in backup.”

At the insinuation, Wilford whirled on his heel and spat back, “I’ll have you know I am perfectly capable of—”

“Can we be civil?”

Whatever relationship the three of them had, Dark seemed to be the most – if not liked – respected. The two men stopped talking immediately and looked towards the one who had spoken, whose voice somehow sounded like it brought the walls of the room closer even if the volume didn’t change. He was powerful, that much was certain, and he proved it more than Wilford or Mark had, so far.

Another demonstration was when he reached into a slightly shaded corner of your apartment and retrieved something from the inky black. For a moment, it was nothing more than vapor, like dry ice, but then he pulled it further towards him.

Even though it now had a physical form, it helped you none with what it actually was. All you saw was a piece of yellow, tarnished paper that made Dark grimace, before he shook it and the color seeped out of it. You could have assumed it was a trick of the light had that not also healed the rips and tears.

“I’m sure the little cultist didn’t summon anyone here to see a petty squabble,” he said as he reached back into the shadow to get something that made more sense to you, a pen. Not that you knew what to do with it when he stepped closer and held both items out to you.

You looked him up and down in confusion.

Dark didn’t look offended while he explained, “If you agree to these terms, you can proceed with your original plan.”

Wilford popped up over his shoulder to take a peek at the writing. His lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed but he only stated, “Dark loves a good contract.” Mark, meanwhile, tightened his grip.

Now that you were able to see the front of the paper, you could understand the words and be surprised it was in English.

To sum it up, after your eyes had skimmed over the terms, you would get what you wanted. You were ready to stop then and there, but common sense told you to keep going. Something about survival instincts or whatever boring thing your mind felt the need to involve.

The extra lines told you what would happen for the deities beside you. Wilford would get to take the memories of the entire town over the course of a couple days at a time – a similar situation to what you’d heard happened in Insmouth – but would use your apartment as a home base of sorts instead of an eroded group of rocks. You’d be there for the upkeep and taxes and, strangely, companionship. For two days after that, you would go with Mark to actively participate in his plays. At your side, he seemed to brighten when he read it. You guessed that unconscious husks weren’t the most entertaining when it came to improv. The final line stated that you would return to your apartment, alone, for the weekend, which worked for you.

But you weren’t the one it would be difficult to convince, and, what surprised you, nor was it Mark.

“Unfortunately, we have been over why a custody agreement won’t work,” Wilford piped up, leaning an arm over Dark’s shoulder. “Someone holds a very old and very useless grudge and is also the last person I would ever want to associate myself with.”

The impulse to point out that he had spent the last hour or so associating with Mark reared its head. You subtly patted it down, only noting that your confidence was coming back after the whole eldritch gods acting like petty toddler situation.

Dark spoke as though he were used to this, though, “You won’t have to make contact with the King in Red if you don’t want to. A day’s interim for handover has already been specified.”

Wilford couldn’t help but groan back, “You’re taking the fun out of this whole thing. They’re not a time-share, or a car being traded between dealers.” He went to cross his arms but was interrupted by his own gesture to the man who still had a grip on you. “And besides, Mark would never agree to it.”

“Oh, I’m fine with this arrangement.”

You blinked. Maybe you had preemptively gone insane because that void sounded like it was Mark’s but, even from your limited experience with him, he wouldn’t give up that easy. It unnerved you how casual he sounded, as it did the other two; Wilford’s eyebrows shot up, to be expected, but Dark also slightly reared back, like he had the chance of seeing the truth if he looked from another angle.

“Really?” you asked, turning your head to make eye contact.

“I’m given two days, and it’ll only take one to convert you fully to my side.” His hand left your waist and moved to pull your jaw towards him. “Contracts can be amended, can’t they?”

Damn. He was smooth. You tried to ignore the blush that flourished on your cheeks, and how your thoughts reminded you how little space there was between you and him. An inch, maybe less. It wouldn’t need much energy to move closer – in fact, it made more sense to just remove the gap altogether, right?

Until Wilford slapped his hand from your chin and stood steadfastly between you, the ideas falling out of your mind like a bucket with a hole punctured in the bottom. You hadn’t seen him move in the first place, but nobody looked shocked.

“We haven’t started yet,” he spat, and you were almost distracted by his pout.

They made faces at each other while you reread the contract. It all seemed very cut and dry. There was no point in a fine print if you were selling your soul for some kisses, because there was nothing to hide. No devils in the details for you.

Well, except…

“What’s the weekend for?” you asked. Dark didn’t seem the type to give you ‘time off’ just like that.

And you were right, in both aspects. He didn’t try to cover it up before he started explaining, “If I’m going to notarize this contract, I’m going to get something out of it.”

That got the other’s attention. Their heads snapped to look at Dark, both as confused as you were.

“Your follower here planned to trade reality as they know it for a single kiss, not even the three that we’re offering.” What? “Just imagine what else they could give for trifles like that.” What?

It took you a second to process what he said. He wasn’t looking for a one-up on another god, or entertainment, or companionship. He was looking for a gateway into the human world, and he found that gateway in you. What else you could give him. Access. Apparently, ancient beings who were witnesses to the dawn of time were also subjects to legalities. They couldn’t go invading the world whenever they wanted, they were like vampires, they had to be let in.

As Dark said, you would be the one to let him in, so that he could wreak whatever havoc that you could, or couldn’t, imagine.

That might have put other people off from making the deal. But, then again, you weren’t other people. You were you, and you had no qualms about breaking that dam and letting the flood destroy the town. You’d get what you wanted, that was all you really cared about, and it was the first line of the contract.

“Alright.” All three of the men around you looked towards you. “Deal.”

You took the pen that Dark was holding out to you, ignored the smirk that pulled at his lips, and signed your name on the dotted line.

The paper disappeared in the same puff of smoke it had appeared in. Dark’s hand was left empty, and so was yours as the pen took its own exit, but he quickly crossed his arms behind his back and took a step away from you. More than one, in fact, until he turned and started to walk towards the front door. He didn’t have to see your confused expression to understand.

“Privacy,” was all he offered before snapping his fingers and pointing at Mark.

It must have been insulting to be beckoned like a dog; he frowned and groaned and sighed and stomped all the way to where Dark stood, and then, with an upturned nose, he passed him and stalked into the exposed hallway. It only took a shared nod between Wilford and Dark for him to leave as well, following into the darkness that still stained the world outside your apartment.

You and Wilford were left alone. Right back to the start.

“Well,” he started, taking both of your hands into his, “I’m sorry about that, darling!”

“That normally doesn’t happen, right?” The warnings you’d found scratched into the first pages of books, the cryptic words from sellers, all of them foreshadowed the danger of summoning an eldritch god. None of them told you how ending up with three would turn out, so either it was a rare event, or nobody had lived to give their own advice on it.

Wilford simply nodded and answered, “Quite right.” His eyes drifted to the door that only just clicked closed. “Though, it was the actor and I last time, too, so maybe we’re exceptions to the rule.”

“Rule?”

“In theory, the followers who choose us have such different aims that we never cross paths. I have the mind, he has the body,” a laugh jumped out of his throat, “nobody’s going to Mark to forget their wife’s death. But nothing ever goes how it does on paper. We get muddled up, and then we both make deals, and then our follower’s caught between a rock and a hard place, and then—well, you’ve seen what happens.” He gestured dramatically to the apartment, that now seemed so much smaller than it did before. “You are what happens.”

But you were alive. You survived. No matter what happened from that point on, you had gotten through such an ordeal that would surely make anything else pale in comparison. You could do it.

“This is the first time Dark’s taken part,” Wilford offhandedly commented, before his spine straightened as though he was struck by lightning. You swore you could feel the leftover sparks when his hand returned to yours. “Oh, but no more about them. Party-crashers, really, are the worst of the lot. Just criminal. And not even the fun kind of criminal.” His eyes finally met yours again. “But we got there in the end.”

It was in that moment that his voice dipped from those jovial, sugar-coated words into something deeper. Not that his tone had particularly changed, there was just another layer to it, like a tree stripped back to the core of it. It befitted the god you imagined prior to summoning him. Now that you had met him, it made your heart flutter in your chest and your breathing pick up to match it. Much like how it was what seemed like years ago, except there was going to be no one popping in with a flash of light to interrupt you.

“Now, where were we?”

Standing up straight was an odd choice, but you were in an odd situation and by far more distracted by Wilford pushing forward through the thin air between you and connecting his lips with yours. The second that you were fully touching, you tasted the sugar that seemed a permanent coat for every part of him. It was incredibly soft, gentle, like he thought you’d shatter if he applied any pressure, and he did. Humans were such fragile creatures, bound by the laws you’d created for yourselves, both physically and socially. A pinprick, a papercut, a prod to the wrong part of you, and you could die, just like that. Wilford was determined that you wouldn’t go that way, but it made him far lighter than he would have liked to be.

But if this was him holding back, you couldn’t help but wonder what full force would be, because you couldn’t tell whether it was the sweetness or the man himself that was making you want for more. You forgot to breath as you focused entirely on the movement of his lips against yours. Your mind swam with thoughts, all centered on him, to the point that the last hour wiped out of your mind, and you returned to the beginning. It was addicting, to sum it up, and Wilford had to guide you apart when you started to go far too limp in his hold.

You must have looked some kind of way, maybe a certain dazed fog in your eyes, because he laughed – a sound that was so much lighter than before, if you could remember what it was like before – and tapped your nose with one of his fingers. Your barely caught Wilford’s wink in the hazy mind field you tried to pick your way through.

And then the pressure was gone, just like that, as if he’d never existed in the first place. For a moment, the impulse to agree with that flitted across your mind – it all seemed ludicrous, anyway, that was undeniable – but then the door behind you crashed against your wall, bounced back, and was eventually shut when a pair of shoes were fully inside.

You didn’t turn around, because you neither had the reason nor the time to do so. It was obvious whose hands were on your waist in a matter of milliseconds, each finger pressing into your clothes in time with the corresponding one on the other side.

“Finally,” Mark mumbled as his head came to rest in the crook of your neck. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his fluffy hair bat against your skin, one stray lock managing to knock against your earlobe. “I thought he’d never leave. He never knows when the party’s over. Never remembers.”

If you hadn’t seen the outcome of their little sparing match or the squabble, you could have been easily convinced he was in love with the other god, going off how much he talked about him. Many of your fellow students in high school pretended to hate who they were secretly attracted to, though they didn’t have the power to smite you if you were to suggest it to them. The man currently wrapped around you proved to be a deadlier risk.

“But that doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone and we can finally make good on our deal.” 

You were shocked out of your joking assumptions by the graze of Mark’s teeth where his head was planted. A nip, and you were wondering if you were starting already, but he stopped long enough to mutter some more muffled words.

“Oh, I have so many ideas.” You barely registered one of his hands coming up to guide your jaw into looking towards him. “If we’re doing it differently,” his whispers danced across your skin before drifting up as he gently pecked up your neck, “I can’t have you doing the same old King in Red script. 

From what you’d heard, that was the pseudo-ritual to take your soul, and, as per your contract, you were supposed to be fully conscious when you were performing. You were glad he’d picked up on that, it would be annoying to go through all that hassle just to be exorcised from your own body at the last hurdle. You were sure that you would have completed it had he not brought it up, thankful that at least one of you wasn’t distracted by the current events. 

“I would offer Othello,” he continued, and you shivered at the new puff of breath, “but the bard seems too tame for your first experience. Musicals are especially rough on the vocal cords if you’re not used to it.”

Damn, Mark was a tease. Your oh-so-dutiful-cult-follower exterior was cracking the longer he dragged this on. He wasn’t doing this on purpose, he was too excited about the prospect of plays to be disingenuous about the subject, but you had half a mind to jumpstart this thing.

“Your heist movies have always interested me—” Maybe two thirds a mind, “—what’re your thoughts on space?”

In fact, a whole mind.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

That felt sacrilegious, and your immediate thought was that you were indeed going to die for your transgressions.

The next thought was how good Mark’s lips felt against yours. The sugar-coated texture was wiped off and replaced by a satin ribbon. Fear of your blasphemy was thrown out the window as you cherished the push and pull, barely noticing the ache of your neck until it disappeared with a switch of position; you were twirled around by the hand that remained on your waist and the other shifted to the back of your neck. You appreciated the stability but found you couldn’t voice it as Mark dove deeper, gripped tighter, sighed against your mouth. The kiss on the back of your hand was nothing in comparison to this. Anywhere Mark touched was completely numb. No fire, no chill, just a blanketed safety from pain when he settled into a gentle caress of your skin. And then it started to tingle. Pins and needles danced on the surface. Capsaicin.

You shivered.

“It’s unfair,” he separated far enough to whisper, “that we don’t have more time.”

Everything moved at a different pace for deities. Decades could go by in the blink of an eye, entire empires rising and falling with less effort than the waves. Most of the time, they were forced to take a back seat, if only because it all would move too fast for them to have any sort of effect. Eldritch gods found their homes in the stars, where things went more at their speed, where things felt more welcoming than the place that valued every second of the minute more than life itself.

But that begged the question; why were you, a human, so comfortable? Why did it feel right to have you in his arms? You aged and you changed, but you made the weight of time so much lighter. Somehow. In a way that such a powerful being couldn’t understand.

You might have nodded at his words. You weren’t actually aware of your actions, but you vaguely felt your head bob up and down, even if it was slight. Your eyes were still closed – you weren’t sure when you closed them – but you felt Mark bow his head to slot between your neck and shoulder again. That was where it felt like flames licking at your skin, but you didn’t back away. Why would you?

You felt him speak before you heard his words, “But have no fear. It won’t take long for the day to roll around, dearest.”

Your heart stilled in your chest.

“We just have to be patient.”

The flames were doused and feeling returned to your lips in the space of a few milliseconds. Fog lifted from your mind, and you blinked slowly to regain your sense of self.

And then there were two. 

Dark didn’t enter with a show of dramaticism like Mark had, nor did he go to find some physical contact like Wilford. Instead, he simply opened and shut the front door and let you adjust to an actual room with him alone. There was an inkling of fear in the back of your mind, the ancient part from the years of hunting buffalo and being scared of the night that yelled at you to run. You pushed down the fight or flight reflex that begged to be triggered. It hushed without challenge, leaving you strangely calm in the face of the most powerful being you had ever met.

You found that you liked his smile. It was surprisingly pleasant, and presumably rare, considering the most you had gotten out of him since Mark and Wilford were involved was a smirk when you signed the contract. This was less sly, and, instead, had the corners of your mouth perking up, too. It only felt right.

What was weirder, though, was the fact that you felt equal to him. You, a mortal with zero self-preservation skills and 206 definitely breakable bones, felt equal to a god who could snap his fingers and kill you. There were no more witnesses, and there was only so much the police could do to track down a being of myth and legend. And yet, your mind assured itself there was no need to fear because you were on an equal playing field. You were both part of that contract, neither offering more or less than they could handle.

Dark, somehow, managed to voice your thoughts before you could. “So, you state your terms, I’ll state mine, and then we’ll have a deal,” he stated.

“What kind of terms are we talking about?”

He stepped forward once, and then twice, until he was close enough to take one of your hands and pull you towards him. Middle ground.

“Let’s start with this one, alright, dove?”

Your stomach flipping, you were the one to cross no-man’s land. Being so confident in the presence of a deity was unnatural, but, then again, everything about this was – except the feeling of lips against yours was beginning to become more and more familiar. The pressure, the texture, the—

The kiss ended as quick as it began. Dark drew back an inch with an exhale of cold breath while you stayed frozen. Your eyes didn’t have the time to close in the first place, so you easily noticed the plain shock on his face. Eyes wide and shoulders down, you could only imagine that you had done something wrong.

You were sorely mistaken.

You registered being dipped when Dark’s hands came to rest at the small of your back and your neck, and then your lips connecting so harshly that you thought they might have bruised. They were definitely already swollen from the combined efforts of the last two experiences, but now? You forgot the ability to breathe and simply submitted to the tug of his teeth against your skin.

Apart from the lapse at the beginning, you had no way of knowing this was Dark’s first encounter with anyone, let alone a human. For all his suaveness and elegance, social skills weren’t something he practiced often. That left them lacking, outside of business deals, to the point that every conversation with someone turned into a trade. Information, ideas, physical assets, it didn’t matter – but this scenario, with such a nice warmth contrasting his coldness, he forgot that this was an official exchange. It almost had him wanting to disregard the terms altogether and figure something out for just the two of you.

But Dark was nothing if not formal. No matter how much he felt the impulse to go further, he had to calm himself down, and that meant he had to take a step back.

He only managed a gap worth a sheet of paper at first.

“Mortals.”

You drew back the rest of the distance, so that both of you could speak comfortably and without temptation.

“You really are fascinating creatures.”

With those closing remarks, Dark trailed the hand from your neck to your jaw to your chin. A finger pushed at your bottom lip.

“I look forward to finding out more.”

He disappeared as quiet as Wilford and Mark, while you struggled to stay upright with your knees as firm as jelly and your heart threatening to give out. 

So much had happened in the space of those two hours, at most, in your apartment. For one, this was no longer your apartment, really. You shared it with three eldritch gods, only one of which you had signed up to interact with, and even that was something you originally thought would end in the massacre of your species. Complete extinction. But there you stood, alive and well, in the middle of the living room. Nobody was dead yet, and nobody who you cared about would die.

You didn’t fight the laugh that bubbled up in your chest – it spilled out like an overflowing bathtub, you felt like you were drowning, you were drowning, but you were alive. You were alive! You’d done it! You got that kiss you wanted, and two more on top of that. A hand, probably yours, jumped to your mouth to cover the cackles that escaped you, but it did no good. It was all just so hilarious.

The laughter only died down when you bit into the palm of your hand. With your teeth lodged into flesh, you had physically tied your mouth shut like a bear trap. This way, you could think.

First, you had to find something pink to wear. Second, you had to brush up on your improvisation. And third? Well, you didn’t exactly know what Dark was going to do, but by all the eldritch gods in that book on your alter, you were excited to find out.

[Yep, I definitely went insane. My mind crumbled and this was in the rubble. I normally struggle with the kiss at the end of these kinds of things, so I kinda shot myself in the foot by giving myself three in one, but it's done now, so enjoy while I sit here and collect the pieces of my brain <3]