#Honestly at this point if we make more than 5 posts a day in less than 1 hour

[twistedminutia]

Which Housewarden Has the Most Practical Signature Spell?

This question was triggered by my thinking about the signature spells the housewardens have are… not always super useful under most circumstances. As this post will be covering all housewarden signature spells, there will be spoilers for Book 7 parts only available in JP.

Riddle Rosehearts. Signature spell: Off with your head. Creates a collar around the neck of the target(s) which prevents them from using magic.

It was Riddle’s signature spell that got me thinking about this in the first place, honestly. Mostly because his spell seems very practical on its face. He’s actually the housewarden who seems to use his signature spell the most, after Azul, which would make it very practical. Right?

Except his spell is only practical at all because of two specific circumstances. One, he is in a position of authority and able to deal out punishment to rule breakers, and two, he is in a location with a lot of magic users. In Twisted Wonderland, humans who use magic are much less common than humans who do not use magic. Outside of NRC, Riddle’s spell isn’t going to have much more use than a fancy collar about 90% of the time.

In summary, Riddle’s spell appears practical, but only because he’s in the perfect circumstances for it. If he was in different circumstances, it would be much less useful. 5/10

Leona Kingscholar. Signature spell: King’s Roar. Causes anything of Leona’s choosing within a certain radius to crumble into sand.

This is, again, a spell that is only practical under certain circumstances. It’s definitely a powerful spell, but you’re not exactly going to be whipping it out every single day, unless you’re a glassmaker (and even then, you need specific sand to make glass and we don’t know what kind of sand Leona makes).

That being said, it’s not like the spell has no practical uses. It’s an extremely powerful offensive spell and it means people would certainly be cautious about approaching Leona in a combat situation. He’s a prince as well, so we need to consider that he’s more likely to get targeted for political reasons. A powerful spell like his would be a deterrent and a means of protecting himself and defending others.

All in all, it’s another powerful spell, but it’s hardly one you’re going to get much use out of under normal circumstances. 4/10.

Azul Ashengrotto. Signature spell: It’s A Deal. By signing a scroll, Azul can take any power he chooses as part of a contract. If the terms are broken, the contracted party will have to obey Azul.

Okay, so this one’s a weird one. It’s been stated before in canon (I believe Jade and Floyd touch on this right around Azul’s overblot) that Azul does not HAVE to make a contract in order to take a power. He can just do it (he was using his signature spell when he overblotted, for example, without needing the contract). However, this is difficult to control (since he just sucks out ALL a target’s abilities instead of one) and it skirts along the lines of forbidden magic, so he uses the contracts.

Obviously, this limits practicality. To gain the power, he needs to get the target to agree to the contract and he needs to fulfill whatever his end of the bargain is. However, Azul is cunning and good at hiding his motivations to get what he truly wants. He can’t get people who don’t agree, but he can leverage people to get them to do so.

In general? This is the most practical spell we’ve seen so far. It’s got wide applicability (it seems to be implied in his backstory that he’s not limited to taking magic) and it’s something that can be used every day, even making it part of your job (which he does)! 9/10, subtracting a point for the inconvenience of the contracts.

Kalim Al-Asim. (What, were you expecting Jamil? Read the top again- it’s housewardens, not overblotters!) Signature Spell: Oasis Maker. Using only a small amount of magic, Kalim can create a downpour.

This is one of the spells that got me thinking about how practical some spells are, because this spell is discussed as impractical in story. Kalim states that the spell is mostly useless in a time of irrigation and running water. It’s good for some water fun, but not a super useful spell. In some ways, this could be seen as a reflection of Kalim himself, or maybe even how he sees himself: fun and flashy, but not really useful.

This makes it more interesting when, later in the chapter, Azul notes that the spell is incredibly useful in a different context! Go to a land without water and suddenly Kalim is a king. That’s why he’s wealthy in the first place- being able to create water made his family important. And it could be another commentary on Kalim- he’s really only fun and flashy in this setting, but he’s also more capable of being beneficial to those around him than he realizes.

So. Is Kalim’s spell practical? Well, yes and no. Azul’s right in that it’s more practical than Kalim was thinking, but that practicality is context specific. But being able to make clean water no matter what is useful in a lot of survival situations, and could help a lot of people, so… 4/10. Practical under the right circumstances.

Vil Schoenheit. Signature spell: Fairest One of All. Vil is able to curse any item with any condition he chooses.

So, uh. Does anyone else think this is like. Ridiculously overpowered? Might as well just give him the ‘do whatever you want all the time’ spell because that’s basically what this is. He has, in canon, paralyzed people with food, almost put someone into a cursed sleep with food, created acid, and paralyzed someone by getting them to touch lakewater. What. The. Hell. Are there limits on this spell? Is Vil perpetually one mental breakdown away from creating ‘you obey everything I say now’ water and dumping it over a crowd????

Okay. Rambling aside. This is a ridiculously practical spell. Clearly there are limits (I would imagine he can only affect so many people/things or hold it for so long before he can’t keep it up anymore) but it’s pretty damn strong. 10/10.

Idia Shroud. Signature Spell: Gate to the Underworld. Idia can open the gate to the Underworld in the S.T.Y.X. headquarters.

I feel bad but... It's not the world's most practical spell, is it? It's cool, and clearly necessary, don't get me wrong, but like. How often does this come up in day-to-day living? It might be practical for his job, I guess, but it doesn't seem to be useful in most circumstances.

I obviously can't rate this one very highly. Sorry, Idia. One point for its usefulness to his job. 1/10.

BOOK 7 SPOILERS

Malleus Draconia. Signature Spell: Fae Maleficence. Allows him to put people into ageless sleep while surrounding the area with a wall of briars and thorns.

This one's a harder spell to categorize, because we know what the spell has done so far, but we don't know it that's all it can do. I may be wrong on this, because I've only read the portions of the chapter that have come out in English, but it's not confirmed that this is the only thing his spell can do- like it's never been stated 'Malleus' spell puts people to sleep always.' It could be that this is the extent of his spell, but it could also be more like Vil's spell. If we'd only read Book 5 and he hadn't explained it, we could have assumed that Vil's spell could only be used on food. But it's actually much broader. I'm saying this because I don't want to rule out that Malleus' spell might be even more powerful or flexible than shown.

That being said, I can only judge on what I have. And what I have now is the ageless sleep bit. It's certainly not the most practical spell ever, though it could have its uses. As a defensive spell, it seems pretty good. You could trap an army with it, or create a protective barrier for your people until danger has passed. Still, I don't think this is a spell Malleus could use every day.

It's primarily for defensive purposes, so same as Leona's. 4/10.

[undersprite]

2024 Comic Contest Results

Before we get started, I would like to extend a personal thank you to everyone who created an entry for the contest this year. Although we only got four entries this year, those four entries' dedication to telling stories that are novel and interesting for this community to enjoy is worthy of commendation in itself. For a while, I was scared we wouldn't even get enough entries to fill the podium; thanks to your efforts, this has not come to pass.

Since we have very few entries this time around, I'll be providing a link to each comic, with accompanying scores and excerpts from reviews. Now, catch the results under the cut:

Runner-Up: "The Undertale Game Comic" by FutureGamer25

(Average score: 15.5/50)

"As the submitter says, this was made in a day. I can’t be too hard on this out of principle..." - Soufon

"[...it] succeeded at making me laugh multiple times, thanks in no small part to how it deliberately wields nothing looking like it fits together." - CHAOS_FANTAZY

"You know, honestly for being made in less than a day and being posted 5 minutes before the deadline, I gotta give you a lot of credit for that. I don’t even think I could have made that in a day [...]" - Mufeet

"The freaking car and the ending got me a good chuckle. I'll give you that. I congratulate you for tossing your coin." - Subna

3rd: "Frisk Visits the Store and Nothing Happens" by Trooper3

(Average score: 34/50)

"I thought Sans and ESPECIALLY Papyrus were super funny [...] I think we’ve finally reached a point where the skele-bros are just consistently characterized properly now, and I love to see it." - Mufeet

"The FunMart[TM] makes an earnest effort to capture the feeling of exploring an area in an actual Toby Fox game, and [...] captures at least a bit of that shine." - CHAOS_FANTAZY

"I honestly like your idea, is funny and it works perfectly to show these OCs of yours in this format. I wish there was more content to see about them, I wish to know them [...]" - Subna

"As light as it is, I like having this kind of slice of life look into UT’s world, the comedy focus helping to make the comic feel more breezy than insubstantial." - Soufon

2nd: "Undertale: Pushing On" by Mouse

(Average score: 34.75/50)

"Of all the entries we got, this is the only one that really felt like it captured the essence of telling a story as if it were still part of a game—something I have sorely missed." - CHAOS_FANTAZY

"Great story and great teaching from it. Can add up greatly to UNDERTALE’s world and...tbh I’d LOVE to play a full game with Alvia." - Subna

"[...] I like having who [Gerson] is in UT be because of Alvia’s actions, like how the orange soul kid is framed as responsible for the bunny family in Snowdin’s success - having all the soul humans impact the underground like that helps all of them feel real to UT’s world[...]" -Soufon

"I was captivated from beginning to end, and god, the ending [...] it actually made me a bit teary-eyed." - Mufeet

1st: "Knock Knock" by StarlightShores and ToMoChao

(Average score: 47/50)

"I was not expecting something like this out of this contest. Knock Knock is a substantial storyline, not a peek into an adventure, or a silly reprieve." - Soufon

"Even if it’s pretty lengthy, it keeps you engaged, to know where this is all going, all the way to the end." - Subna

"Flowey and Sans pair-ups are so rare, but when done it is ALWAYS such a fun time. They both play off each other so well, and it is no exception in this comic, especially towards the end where they start to bond over dealing with the loss of someone important to them." - Mufeet

"You created a story going on a thousand panels where, while reading it, my attention never flagged [...] You created a webcomic the Undertale fanbase will, if there’s any justice left around here, be obsessed with for years to come. It’s art, I’m afraid." - CHAOS_FANTAZY

Our full score card for the event can be seen here. The full reviews will be available in the Discord server on request.

With regards to prizes: the judge whom was contributing to our prize pool has begun college for the year, and unfortunately they were unable to set aside the money they had originally promised for the cash prize. The illustration prize is still available; winners, please reach out to fmsdraws on Discord to claim your prize.

And that leaves me...with this blog.

I'd like to write up a proper postmortem for this experience, but that can come in another week or two. For now, please enjoy the comics and celebrate the victors!

[panlight]

hi!! i’m so sorry to keep sending you asks (if you get sick of it please just let me know and i’ll shut up i promise!! 💕💕)

so this is re: the cullens being in high school, as per the ask you answered a couple days ago! i also always thought it was super weird, and i’ve been thinking for a while now that a MUCH better cover story would for them all (even carlisle and esme) to be grad school housemates (i say this as someone who has now spent two years in grad school and is about to be there for another five at least lmaoooo)

here’s why i think it would work:

1. the age weirdness wouldn’t be as obvious bc people of all ages go to grad school (i started when i was 22 and had classmates in their 40s)

2. related to age, the visible/physical age also wouldn’t matter as much since some of my classmates (me included 😭😭) looked like we could still pass as high schoolers while others gave off huge “kids and a mortgage vibes” even if they were just like a year older

3. the whole looking “off” and tired thing is just like. the grad school Look™️. the shadows under the eyes and general gaunt-ish appearance honestly wouldn’t stand out that much and if somebody said something about them looking “off” or whatever, they could just be like “late night studying” and the other person would be like “lmao so true bestie”

4. if they pretended they were all renting space in the same big house (and carlisle and esme just acted a little less parental), the whole “dating each other” thing wouldn’t be that weird at all. i feel like it’s not that uncommon for couples who get along to rent different floors or sections of a house, and if they didn’t pretend to be one big weird family situation and instead just acted like they all met each other at school, i don’t think people would even bat an eye

5. people go to grad school forever. like. for so long (i vaguely knew of someone who was in the eighth or ninth year of her phd). esp if they picked something like a big state school where the “kids” could go to undergrad first, they could realistically do four years of undergrad, maybe a two or three year masters, and then a phd of indeterminate length (usually at least five). that would allow them to stay in the same place for at least 11 years

and this is not an official point, but i will note that for carlisle to still do his whole doctor thing, i think it would be perfectly reasonable for him to have already “graduated” or whatever, but continue to stay with his “friends” for financial reasons, or just bc the living situation worked for everyone

anyway, i’m so sorry this was so long, and honestly i bet someone has already said this somewhere before, but it just struck me when reading the “why tf are the cullens in high school” post that grad school would be such a great cover story for them

haha anyway thanks for putting up with my ramblings and thank you for all the lovely work you do on the blog!! 🥰🥰

I've definitely seen "just put them in college!" before (and I have made that argument myself) but I don't know if I've seen the grad school cover story specifically before!

It would allow Esme and/or Carlisle to be the 'peers' of their children rather than some sort of guardian or parental figures. They could, as you said, all be renting a house together and Esme could be studying architecture or getting a PhD in art history or whatever while the kids study who knows what. Maybe there's a medical school as well and Carlisle can go back (it still makes zero sense that Edward and Rosalie go "to keep him current' like how is that supposed to work? They come home and just recite from perfect vampire memory everything that happened in calls? Wouldn't Carlisle be keeping current by like, idk, actually being a doctor, reading journals, going to conferences, and continuing education?).

A group of friends renting a house together as a bunch of couples makes way more sense than two parents barely visibly older than their foster/adopted kids who all date each other.

And, honestly, it's probably a better use of their time to get actual advanced degrees rather than stopping at undergrad? I know because of secrecy how they use their knowledge and skills is somewhat fraught but like, publish papers under a false name or let someone else take the credit or something and you can still contribute to the world of academia.

[fumifooms]

Marchil crumbs part 3

Part 1 - Part 2 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7

Count of times canon reminds us that Chilchuck is very attracted to blondes: 3rd For context: this is the canon explanation for everyone's shapeshifters

I can’t get over Chilchuck seeing Marcille like she has anime sparkles around her hair. How long have you stared at it. It’s like with the handsome Senshi where everyone is like "no this looks legit and absolutely like the real one" but her hair is shinier/prettier in the changeling than in the actual her

It drives me crazy that Marcille styles her hair every day for herself but little does she know she’s giving Chilchuck the show of his life, daily arranging his favorite thing aka blonde hair into different unique ornate hairstyles. Not that he cares about the details but ohh my god.

It makes sense that Chil would be the first one to notice her hair being all loose and messy then. He’s bothered by seeing her like this and wants her to tie it up again, and is even more unsetled and shocked when she says she doesn’t want to anymore. Though he also recovers from the shock quicker than Laios and takes charge of the situation. HE NOTICED. HE CARESSSS. IT BUGS HIM

^ That is what you call a character arc, of becoming attached to her hair lmfaoo(more like to Marcille and her habits). Or lying. "Man I sure wish she'd shave her hair I'd be less distracted on the job. Her golden majestic hair is so blinding with how shiny and sparkly it is ugh" /j

He chose to do a portrait teehee <3

Chilchuck defending her honor even under mind control that makes them honest zombies

Marcille out there defending his VIRTUE. It’s not just that he didn’t commit infidelity, he HAS A PURE HEART!! Honestly, assigned virtuous by a bicorn would so be the type of novel shenanigan that Marcille would hella romanticize. Which we do see her do lmao but <3

They're so funny together in the golden kingdom chapters. First of all, sitting in front of each other at the table? Nice. Second, them being on the same wavelength all throughout lmao.

Them. Sharing the same numerous braincells, nodding together and making good use of it to make good decisions for the party. Valuing their noses

Also can we apreciate that they like, can talk together. Communicate and debate. Even under tougher situations or more sensitive topics. Shit this would have been a good place to put the pages when Marcille was dungeon lord... But they're lined up for part 4 and part 3 is already full with pics... You guys have no idea how much Tetris I'm doing for these marchil crumbs posts

I wanna do a full compilation of every time he laughs at her but in the meantime have this small imperfect collection as well as this reddit comp. I swear she's the person/thing that makes him laugh and smile the most. Besides alcohol maybe

The gang and Chilchuck both knowing her well and not at all lol. Gotta love Chilchuck's confidence about knowing her favorite meal, and him remembering the bare minimum that even Laios hasn't lol

Marcille infesting his life to the point that, quote, "her delusions" are even part of his adventurer’s bible life timeline. The only picture in fact, in the streamlined canon reference to Chilchuck's life. "Hey is Marcille imagining herself as an halfling and Chil's wife with a mini Chilchuck baby Chilchuck's canon family appearances" canon: well no but actually yes /j

Chil at her bedside <3

Looking out for each other comp Yes thank you Chil captain obvious (he's trying his best and doesn't want to die let's not be mean c'mon). But like you know with that whole scene of the mad sorcerer attacking, for Chil it must have been the most terrifying thing ever. Ancient magic?? By an elf, targeting them with murderous intent?? With only an elf with also ancient magic to keep them safe attack by attack in the nick of time?? His biggest nightmare. I'm also reminded of when Chil talks with Leed about how "our magician held under the mad sorcerer's attack" all fond and 'I am so relieved I can trust her with my life' and Leed is like "That silly looking elf?!" and Chil was like "Yeah she's silly. At least she's strong tho." I'm getting carried away but yes this scene was relationship-defining in some ways

But they keep each other in check too

She was trying to make conversation and sharing her interests aw Chil come on

They're sooo domestic. "Chil are we there yet" "Marcille I swear to god if you ask me that one more time-". Also second time through the manga that Marcille squishes Chil against the ground/wall.

Get squeezed idiot

Part 4 is here!

[fernandopiastri28]

quand c'est? - part 3~ ln4 x op81

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Yeah, yeah, he’s an idiot and should just accept defeat. He shouldn’t push himself so far. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, so the attempt is mute. Oscar knows he won’t listen to him, he should just give up while he’s ahead.

warnings: major illness, cancer, sickness, major angst wc: 2267

Lando ends up back in bed, a pair of Oscar’s boxer’s awkwardly sagging around his ass and a plain black quadrant shirt on. He’s been loaded up with pain medication and he can still taste the powder of the tablets lingering on his tongue. Oscar’s off in the gym doing a workout with Kim and had only left after much insistence from Lando.

He’d tried to check his phone, catch up on anything via social media he’d missed or answer some messages from family and friends, but it felt as if just looking at his phone screen was burning his corneas and brain, so he settled for staring up at the ceiling.

He thought about Oscar for a bit, but thinking about his boyfriend for too long resulted in him being half chubbed up against his thigh at seven in the morning. He could’ve done something about that, maybe it would’ve helped reduce stress from his body, but he was too tightly strung to do anything to himself- he genuinely thinks it would’ve killed him if he put his body through something as strenuous as wanking.

And that’s genuinely fucking embarrasing, so he tries to sleep away the shame.

Lando’s woken up by a heavy mass crawling on top of him. “Morning,” He grumbles as Oscar drapes himself half onto Lando.

“Morning,” His voice is less thick with sleep, but he’s clearly tired and panting, “You feeling better?”

“Mhm,” He shifts to wrap his arms around Oscar. His shirt is slightly saturated with sweat, as is his hair, but it’s nothing he hasn’t gotten used to. It’s part of being and/or dating an athlete. “Somewhat,” He adds- he feels far from ‘better’ or ‘good’, but it’s more manageable.

“Feel up for anything?”

Lando quirks his eyebrow, very forward, “Early morning sex?” It’s uncommon for them to have sex in the middle of a race weekend due to the imminent aches that Lando has to suffer post penetration, but honestly, it couldn’t be worse than his head right now, and if it makes Oscar happy- he’s down.

Oscar’s cheeks go splodgy red, “Tha-that’s not what I meant,” Lando isn’t sure why he gets so flustered and awkward about it. They hooked up for the first time in silverstone 2023, and that was over a year ago. Since then, they have been many cases of slow and languid sex before the race weekend and last night rushed fucks at the end of it.

“Okay? Then what did you mean?” His fingers drift through Oscar’s fluffy swoop, already dried and not showing a trace of being sweaty. Lucky bastard.

“Uh, a shower maybe?” They basically just had a shower, Lando doesn’t see the point. Maybe Oscar is testing his abilities to see if he can withstand a shower this time around. “Or get up and ready for the day if you just want to skip to that- we have some media stuff around midday, so I was thinking we could just wander around Orchard road until then,”

Lando thinks about it for a bit. He likes orchard road, pretty much each building is an architect's dream and an engineer's nightmare. Plus, there are quite a few luxury shops, so he could go get some new clothes and shit- but, it’s always so busy whenever he’s been in the past. Busy means being recognised, being recognised means having to take photos and autographs, interacting with fans means being peppy and.. and being normal Lando.

He can’t be normal Lando today, his body can’t even fake it.

“Not Orchard road,” He shakes his head, mumbling into Oscar’s arm as his nose juts against it. “I can’t do- can't deal today,” And of course Oscar is sickeningly understanding.

“All good, Lans,” God, he loves when he calls him that. It just sounds so good with his accent. “I’ll let Jon know, yeah?”

“Why?” Lando feels dopey, his mind clogged up with drugs.

“He’s your trainer, he needs to know if you’re unwell,”

“Yeah- okay,” His eyes blankly focus on his nails, where they’ve grown out too long like Oscar’s always are. They gently scrape down Oscar’s back, faint red lines appearing in its wake.

They stay like that for a few minutes, Lando unmoving and silent. “What’s going on in your mind?” Oscar’s got his eyes on Lando’s unfocused ones. “You look so out of it,” His thumb slides across Lando’s cheek, and he struggles to bring his mouth to answer.

His tongue rests heavily in his mouth, and it feels like his brain might throb out of his ears. He hadn’t noticed that he was coming off the painkillers because it had been so sudden, and he’d been trying so hard to just focus on Oscar.

“Empty,” His voice is hardly there, much like how it sounds after a party that consists of a lot of screaming.

Oscar licks his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to Lando’s lips. “Don’t feel up for talking?” His face is bare centimetres from Lando’s, and his features are all fuzzy being so close up.

He shakes, I’m not up for anything. It’s too many words for now, so he stays silent. It’s weird, only minutes ago he’d be considering the aspect of having sex, now he can hardly blink on command.

Maybe this is what it’s like being properly sick, and he’s just always gotten lucky with only having brushes with bad colds.

Oscar rolls off him after a little bit, and Lando’s eyes shut again. He doesn’t notice how much time passes- seconds, minutes, hours. It feels like it’s only been a 10 minute power nap when he’s awoken by Oscar again who tells him it's ten am and they actually need to get a move on.

He’s in a very typical Oscar outfit- black castore shorts and a team supplied papaya polo shirt. He has an 81 cap in his hand, his other hand on his hip. “Lando,”

“Oscar,” Lando slurs as he tugs the blanket further over his head.

“Lando, if you’re not up for the race today- just tell me,” He sighs, a frustrated one. “I’ll tell Jon, the team just needs to know now so they can get Pato race ready,”

He doesn’t get a reply, “Lando, wake up, mate,” He’s getting increasingly more irritated, and so is Lando. “Lando, wake up, Lando- fucking hell. Lando!” His voice is about as loud as the Oscar Octaves go, and Lando genuinely wants to smack him across the face.

Lando groans, a weird strangled noise of pure affront, “Shut the fuuuck up, Oscar,” He pushes the covers down and just stares at Oscar. “Fucking hell,”

Brown eyes meet green eyes- very unfocused green eyes. Green eyes that have no emotion behind them. They’re open, they’re there, but it doesn’t look like Lando is actually seeing anything.

“Jon’s looking for you,” God damnit Jon, does the man have anything better to do with his life?

Well. He is employed to pretty much hound Lando like a dog, so he is actually doing his job.

That makes one of them.

“And you need to get dressed, we’re just gonna head straight to the motorhome and shoot some stuff, alright?” Oscar sits on the edge of the bed and Lando’s lip juts out slightly. It would be unnoticed by anyone else, but Oscar knows each and every quirk of Lando’s. “C’mere,” He opens his arms.

Lando shuffles to prop himself up, not able to quite sit up. He makes a slight scoot forward before letting out a harsh breath. He’s not sure how much he’s going to be able to do today at this rate.

Oscar meets him halfway and embraces him. “You can’t race like this,” He hums, “You’re burning up- you could hurt yourself,” Lando allows himself to fully zone out, the words going in one ear and out the other.

Yeah, yeah, he’s an idiot and should just accept defeat. He shouldn’t push himself so far. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, so the attempt is mute. Oscar knows he won’t listen to him, he should just give up while he’s ahead.

“I’m.. gunna get dressed,” The words fall out of his mouth awkwardly, like they haven’t had time to fully form before they’re said.

Oscar moves back, standing up too. “Great,” He knows there’s no use in trying, so it’s better to just cheer Lando on where he can- make him feel somewhat better.

Oscar goes to the front door to put on and lace up his shoes while Lando debates what he wants to wear. Despite the uncontrollable sweating the night before, he’s feeling on the edge of a shiver, so after a long debate, he settles for a random pair of black jeans and an orange hoodie, the sleeves rolled to his elbows.

He shuffles into the bathroom, staring at his appearance for what feels like a concerning amount of time. It feels compulsive, in a way, like he physically cannot control his eyes to look elsewhere. He goes into autopilot as he reaches for his toothbrush, squirting toothpaste onto what he hopes are the bristles.

He turns the sink on, waving the toothbrush around in a hope to get it wet enough. He could’ve just settled for a dry brush, like he’s caught the younger boy doing a few times, but the thought makes his body physically cringe. According to Oscar, it’s better for your teeth, to Lando, it’s psychotic behaviour.

Lando gets impatient after a minute of brushing and spits out the toothpaste from his mouth into the sink, wiping his lips clean with a towel after. By this point, his eyes are working again and he can see. His headache has also weaned off somewhat, so that’s exciting.

He emerges from the bathroom, trying to remember what he needs to pack for the day. Phone, paddock pass, hat, journal, camera. Phone, paddock pass, hat, journal, camera. Phone, paddock pass, hat, journal, camera.

He can’t find his pass. Fuck. Where the fuck is it.

He grabs his pillow, tossing it to the ground with the thought his pass would be under it. It’s not a crazy thought, it’s happened once or twice before. He looks under the bed, which is a difficult task as it hurts to move usually, so squatting down and tilting his head towards the ground feels hellish. It’s not on the desk, not yesterday’s bag or jacket.

It’s just- gone.

“Lando, Lando,” Oscar repeats, walking up behind him. A hand loosely wraps around Lando’s bicep and he jerks at the feeling. “What’s wrong? Have you misplaced something?”

“Yeah, my- my pass,” His eyebrows knit together, a look of frustration and anxiety painting his features.

“I have it, I saw it on the ground this morning and grabbed it because I knew you’d forget it,” The aussie calms him, handing it to him as proof. Lando presses his fingers into the card tightly, squeezing it as if he’s worried it might fly off.

“Thanks,” He smiles, relief flushing his system. “I love you,” He looks over his shoulder, pecking Oscar on the lips. “Sorry- for being mad earlier,” Deep breaths and sighs break up some of his words, but Oscar can understand him all the same.

“It’s all good- you’re not well. I understand why you’re just a bit out of it,” Oscar holds Lando’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Just get your shoes on and we can head off,” Lando’s nostrils flare in effort as he steps towards the door, bending down to get his shoes on.

Oscar looks hesitant to ask if he needs help, his mouth opening and closing a bit like a fish, “I’m okay, I’m good to go,” Lando stands up, steading himself with a hand on the wall, out of sight of Oscar.

Oscar pauses in front of him, and for a few seconds they just stare at each other, then Oscar slides his hand up Lando's cheek and kisses him softly. Lando melts into it, moaning embarrassingly easily and quickly. God, he hadn't realised just how much he needed this until now.

They physically have to pull off each other after a few minutes, Oscar’s face flushed pink and Lando’s chest heaving through desperate shallow pants. “You’re so hot,” Lando bites his own bottom lip, grinning hard.

“Don’t-” Oscar warns, “Don’t do that face or we’re not gonna leave for another hour,”

Lando wants that insanely bad, but he genuinely thinks his legs would buckle and break underneath him if he tried, so he’s the one who opens the door and leads them outside of the room.

They go down the elevator, down to the ground floor where they’re practically attacked by fans. Their hands get separated, Oscar being pulled into a different direction by a pack of young boys while Lando’s swarmed by a group of teenage girls.

Lando’s sure he’s taken about 30 photos and signed about 20 shirts by the time they’re able to get properly outside and into the car. Oscar takes his hand back, squeezing it harder, “Sorry about that, I know you wanted to avoid the fans today,” He murmurs, doing his best to comfort his unresponsive boyfriend.

Lando’s tongue drags over his teeth, recognising the gap in between his two front teeth, the slight difference of lengths between each tooth, the ridges in them. He moves to sucking on the inside of his bottom lip, pinching it with his teeth. The pain is distracting from another uprising headache.

He won’t say anything to Oscar this time, he’ll just tough it out.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

In my head, you’re a Magnus Archives blog. I mean, I know you obviously listen to other things, but In my mind it’s things like Welcome to Nightvale, Malevolent, Hello from the Hallowoods, The Sheridan Tapes, things like that, horror and supernatural.

So I had to do a double-take when I saw a Dungeons and Daddies post from you, I really didn’t know you listened to it. Then I see you reblog a Fawx and Stallion post, and now I’m just wondering how many podcasts you’ve listened to that I’ve also listened to.

Hahaha yes this blog has been mainly for tma stuff for years now, I still feel like I'm new to the fandom but honestly I've been here through a lot of it since the beginning of season 5

Buuuuut in the past few months I've stopped going into the tma tag regularly and been feeling a little detached from it, at least as opposed to before. My listen to tmagp has been way less interactive and I hardly reblog content anymore (which is something I like doing but because of various bad experiences on the internet recently I have yet to recover from I feel safer posting my own original posts rather than reblogging)

And that freed up a space in my mind to realize I've actually been listening to a lot of podcasts besides tma and it's honestly a shame not to talk about them more with others

I do listen to a lot of horror fantasy supernatural and science fiction podcasts! I also love a lot of dnd and ttrpg podcasts, I also love everything dropout and wish I could get into critical role but it's so big I don't think I'll manage it

I put under the cut a (quite long) list of the podcasts I have listened to and/or have notifications turned on

Anyone following me, you're welcome to send me an ask about one of them if you like them as well or want to hear about them!

I also put a list of podcasts on my to listen to list. Feel free to drop a recommendation for which them to listen to first!

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

Podcasts I'm caught up on (the lists are long so it's alphabetical without "the")

Ongoing podcasts

The Amelia project

Ask your father

A voice from darkness

Black box

Brimstone valley mall

Camlann

The cellar letters

Death by dying

Derelict

Eeler's choice

Ethics town

Fawx and stallion

Hello from the Hallowoods

The hundred handed

Levian

Lost terminal

The Magnus protocol

Malevolent

Midnight burger

The mistholme museum of mystery morbidity and mortality

Neon inkwell

New years day

Not quite dead

Old gods of Appalachia

The penumbra podcast

The program

Red valley

The Sheridan Tapes

The silt verses

The sound museum

Super suits

Tell no tales

Tiny terrors

Traveling light

Unseen

The vesta clinic

Victoriocity

The white vault

Completed podcasts

Absolutely no adventures

Archive 81

Borrasca

The bright sessions

Camp here and there

Descendants

Give me away

I am in eskew

Monstrous agonies

Parkdale haunt

The Magnus archives

Re: dracula

The secret of st kilda

Spirit box radio

Steal the stars

Time:bombs

We know none

Wolf 359

Wooden overcoats

Ttrpgs

The adventure zone

Campaign skyjacks

Chapter and multiverse

Dark dice

Dice shame

Dimension 20 (not a podcast but I listen to it like one)

Dungeons and daddies

Not another d&d podcast

Rusty Quill gaming

Worlds beyond number

Podcast on my listen next list:

The Alexandria archives

Alice isn't dead

Ars paradoxica

Believer

The Black tapes

Blackwood

The box

The bridge

Carrier

Counterbalance

The cryptid keeper

Darkest night

The darkroom

The dark tome

The deca tapes

The deep vault

Dreamboy (this one is nsfw so it makes me nervous lol)

Duggan Hill

The earth collective

Either

The far meridian

The fountain road files

The glass canon

Jar of rebuke

Kings fall am (I started but heard not great things about it)

Knifepoint horror

Kollok 1991

Less is morgue

The leviathan chronicles

Liberty

Limetown

The lost cat

Mabel

Maeltopia

Marscorp

Mirrors

Mockery manor

Next stop

The no sleep podcast

The orphans

The Orpheus protocol

Out of place

Paired

Palimpsest

The phone booth

Point mystic

Pseudopod

Rabbits

The right left game

Shadows at the door

Spines

Stellar firma

The storage papers

Stories from among the stars

Super ordinary

Superstition

Tanis

Tides

Unwell

Vast horizon

Victoria's lift

Video palace

Welcome to night Vale (I listen to this one very sporadically lol)

We're alive

Within the wires

Woe begone (I started but got stuck on episode 20ish but want to continue)

Wrong station

Ttrpgs

BomBARDded

Critical role (it's sooo long tho)

Dames and dragons

Dragon friends

Join the party

The lucky die

Queens of adventure

Realms of pearl and glory

Rude tales of magic

Skyjacks courier call

Three black halflings

[vonpharma]

w[h]ip wednesdaaaay

sorry for the hiatus! i finally just bit the bullet and set an alarm on my phone so i won't forget to post lol. here's a small preview from day 5 of sicktember~

Hoisting his unconscious sister out of the office stairwell was not exactly how Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth pictured his day going.

In his time alive he’d seen quite a few strange things go down in that stairwell. It was practically a second home to him, after all—twelve flights up, twelve flights down, it made nearly everyone cringe when he’d tell them how much of his day was spent hiking to and from his high-rise office. He probably could’ve benefitted from relocating, but it was honestly very convenient, getting all his cardio in before even his morning cup of tea. 

Yes, he’d seen a lot of things going on in that stairwell. Highly dramatic personal phone calls. Potentially shady dealings involving discontinued snacks from the vending machine. Overworked interns sneaking away for naps. Larry, once. 

One thing Miles had never seen upon these stairs, though, was Franziska. 

When they were children, it was a tradition, of sorts. They’d arrive in front of the foggy elevator doors—it didn’t matter where they were—and Miles would instinctively clench his fists, making the best attempts to muster all his courage. Back then, he was small, and he felt even smaller standing poised before the massive shape of them, his murky reflection refusing to crystallize in tandem with his nerve. Franziska, ever the little empath, would grab his hand tight in hers and drag him to the stairs. After tapping her foot performatively for a few seconds and complaining of how long the elevator took to arrive, we might as well use them with the foolishly slow descent of that foolishly inferior contraption.

Of course, children grow up. Miles never had a childhood to grow out of, but Franziska always did the most to sprint leaps and bounds ahead of him. At some point in their adolescence, she had stopped taking the stairs with him. There were no hard feelings, of course—but she had places to be and was more often than not in stilettos and pencil skirts. I’ll meet you at the top, she’d always say, and then grimace at him with her face all red when he (always, effortlessly, without breaking a sweat) arrived at their destination first.

The red on her face is a different shade, this time. A far less fortunate one, it would seem. Despite everything, Franziska is there in the stairwell with him once more. Only this time, she is not dragging him lovingly up the incline, but holding white-knuckle onto the railing as she makes her best attempt to climb, knees wobbling with the effort, drenched in sweat. Miles can see her forearms through the now-transparent sheen of her blouse, and despite how she’s perspiring, the poor girl is shaking like a leaf.

He stops there, at the top of the grouping of stairs that she’s making her best attempt to scale. Rigid, brow furrowed in concern, mouth firm. 

“Franziska?” says Miles. “Are you… quite alright?”

Her head, previously dipped toward the floor—watching her feet, nervous that they might fail her—snaps up to face him. The way she bears her teeth is somewhere halfway between a warning and a plea for help, pained and angry all the same. For a moment his blood runs cold as he remembers the last time he’d seen that look—blood coagulating on his car upholstery, a horrible scream echoing in his ears, tear-tracks refusing to dry on his cheeks. 

Curiously, her whip is unholstered, coiled in her free hand. As if she were announcing to the world that her guard is up, don’t come near. Despite the acid-drenched sheen of her glassy eyes, she maintains her hesitation in cracking it at Miles—instead just pointing, with the leather shaking haphazardly in her hand.

“You… don’t you—don’t you dare—!”

It’s all Miles can do not to visibly cringe when he hears her voice. A truly miserable-sounding affair, like bogie wheels struggling on miscut gravel. Come to think of it, Franziska had sounded a little croaky yesterday morning when she joined him for tea, and she had taken a little more honey than usual. But she didn’t seem ill otherwise, certainly not to this extent…

Miles isn’t really sure what to do, so he just kind of stands there awkwardly, lordly above her all the same. She manages to get herself up one single step before her knees buckle entirely, and Miles is already shuffling down to meet her, his body seemingly moving all on its own. 

Franziska’s a small fire in his arms as he catches her. Every square inch of her skin is scorching hot, singing Miles’ grip even through layers upon layers of perfectly pressed ruffles. In sleep, still, the tremors take her, and she’s breathing heavy and hard through her mouth. As he’s arranging her to something resembling bridal style in his arms, he thanks his lucky stars that his sister is such a small thing, hopes she will forgive him even for thinking so. Like this, especially, she looks so much smaller than usual.

[noveratus]

I just finished listening to the last episode of this season of the Magnus Protocol, and I have thoughts, both for the episode and the season overall. Spoilers below.

I have mixed feelings regarding this episode. To put it short, I think it is fine as a regular episode, but I don't like it as a season finale. I think that Celia's reveal and Gwen taking over Lena's position was handled really well, but I think it was done kind of late. I will get more into this in the season review since that is where my main issues lie, the structure of the season itself. Also, the whole 'Sam being taken' thing and being shoved into this other universe betrayal would have felt more meaningful if we had an idea of what the other world looks like, because, if I remember correctly, Sam is falling into a world without the entities where people are most likely rebuilding now so it really doesn't feel that bad and he can just walk through the portal again which is why I wish this reveal had been done in a different episode. It simply doesn't feel worthy of the season finale, and the cliffhanger was very undeserved. We already know the Archivist doesn't want Sam dead. In fact, I have a theory it was trying to save Sam from Celia. Honestly, I'm more interested in whatever is happening to Collin because that guy is dead dead now. There is no way he is living.

Ok, for my season reveal: I think that this season was alright, good even! Not as great as season 4 or 5, but better than season 2 for certain. I think I might like season 1 of the Magnus Archives better simply because of the build up. Are the things real? Are they not? And then Martyn being terrorized for weeks and it all culminating with that attack. It was really cool and had an actual resolution, even if not all questions were answers, there was a sense of finity by the end of it which this one lacks. It just doesn't answer enough questions. "Oh, but Celia-" I think Celia was too obvious to be considered fulfilling, which isn't to say the reveal wasn't great, but I think it needed more. They had to at least have revealed what happened to Collin I think.

Now, for my main issue with the season, it started really well and it was pretty interesting in the first episodes, the character dynamics were really fun and I wanted to learn more about the computers, but at some point the show became the 170th love triangle this side of the pacific with a forced romantic subplot on the house. I think that Alice and Sam being exes is an interesting development, but you didn't need the romance man. You already have Alice as the foil for them just not wanting them to investigate, you don't need to make their previous relationship and current relationship be a whole thing, genuinely, who wanted this? And it wasn't built up, it just happened so that Sam would follow Celia around like a puppy dog (as if he wouldn't do that as was with him being obsessed with solving the secrets of the institute as seen with him exploring with Alice) and half of the season felt like Sam and Celia talking about how they were going to investigate about this and never really doing any investigating while the plot hit Alice like a truck.

And then there is Sam, who is probably the most boring character in his show. His personality traits are that he is into women, is obsessed with solving mysteries, and that's it. Considering that his obsession with his job is something he shares with both Celia and Gwen, that only makes him feel even less appealing. Also, Celia and Gwen have a much stronger reason for why they are who they are, which in Celia's case is her son and the trauma from being in the apocalypse while Gwen is proving herself, which is something that Sam is apparently trying to do as well, except in his case it is not really all that well built. Like I have said before in my previous posts is Gwen, while I despise her and I dream of her death every day, is a really well written character, because that is what the audience is meant to feel. They are meant to hate her, she is kind of a bitch. Alice? She is the most well written character in the show. She has nuance, you understand why she does what she does. Celia? She has potential. Personality wise, Celia is a bit flat for my taste, but she has enough of a backstory and motive to be very interesting if you just remove the stupid forced romance plotline. She is just a woman, a mother, trying to do her best in a pretty shitty situation, which I can stand behind. But Sam is none of those things. Yes, he got rejected by the magnus Institute and saw some fucked up things, cool, but compared to the rest of the cast, it just feels flat. It doesn't have the same impact as Jon retelling his story of how he came across the first book, so what you end up with is a cardboard protagonist surrounded by otherwise very interesting characters! Hell, even Lena and Colin who are meant to be secondary characters are more interesting than Sam since Colin has the paranoia Jon had and makes you wonder just what the hell is he seeing? And Lena, who is in charge of these monsters and yet still clearly cares about people is genuinely fascinating and I want to learn more, and I hope she doesn't die off screen. I want to like Sam. I really, really want to like him, but by God he feels like every protagonist ever and it is so stale and it is so boring and it doesn't help that the season drags on for too long on the later half with people talking about how they are going to do things and never doing them which is my main issue with Season 2 of TMA where there is a lot of people talking about how they will do stuff and how people will do stuff but nothing of importance actually happen. I genuinely think you can cut from season 1 to season 3 of the original show and skip most of season 2 without anything of notice and the same can be said about a solid 5 episodes of this first season of the Magnus Protocol which, since they are on the latter half. There is a lot of build up, and it is not that it doesn't go anywhere, but it is not the reveal one might think it would be. Which is kind of insane considering the writers are the same people who wrote seasons 4 and 5 of the magnus archive, which are probably some of my favorite pieces of media ever and I get that it could be a slow burn and all that, but this is just 2 seasons. There isn't a lot of time to burn slowly here, especially since they are adding a lot of new concepts like alchemy that I feel like won't be handled how they should be handled.

Another point I want to bring up regarding the The Magnus Protocol, actually starts in the Magnus Archive with how it handles its female characters. So, in modern media we have something that I like to call the Nagging Wife problem, in which writers will write women, particularly the love interest of MCs as being 'smart' so they will oppose the MC whenever they act in a dumb way or a way perceived as dumb by them, which puts them in a position antagonistic to your Main Character. Think Wanda from Fairly Oddparents or Marge from the Simpsons for example. And that is a very glaring issue present in TMA where despite not being love interests, all of the main female characters will, at one point or the other, act as Jon's 'nagging wife' at some point, leading to their nagging irrevocably affecting the plot and making Jon act as more of a whump since 'oh look how poorly treated Jon is' and hey, this could have worked, but because the cast is mainly female and none of the characters is really given as much depth as the male characters, we just get Jon's many nagging wives and entire episodes of them doing pretty much that and it can be very inconsistent with their character and very annoying and off putting. Luckily, the Magnus Protocol doesn't have as much of that. Yes, there is Gwen, I suppose, but that's her point in the narrative. She is the most morally dubious one. But I was so terrified that Celia and, particularly, Alice would fall under the 'Nagging Wife' problem, but luckily, for the most part that isn't the case because, while yes, Alice does go against Sam, I think she is pretty consistent overall and they do call her out on it which definitely helps avoiding the issue.

Overall, I like the Magnus Protocol, but I don't think it is anywhere near as great as the Magnus Archive, neither as a stand alone story nor as a sequel. I hope this changes with the next season, because, as it stands right now, I don't think it has that much of a reason to exist- as a sequel. As a standalone story, it is good, not as great as its predecessor, but good, which might sound harsh considering that I said I like this podcast, but then you need to remember how TMA ended and so far, this season hasn't really improved on the ending nor surpassed it.

Final score: 7/10, but only as a standalone story, Gwen and Alice carry it hard, with Celia being a solid character as well and the side characters being interesting enough, but not enough happened to them. Put them in more situations, please, and thank you. As a sequel, as it stands, it's a 5/10, maybe lower, but it has asked a lot of questions that could lead to something great.

Have a doodle of my beloved and my beloathed for the trouble as well :)

[anarchycox]

Hard Numbers about Commenting

So I did this post back in January Commenting by the Numbers where I pointed out over 7 million fics on AO3 had less that five comments.

Several people pointed out that when you just look at a comment count that includes author responses so that means that it is more likely that over 7 million fics have RECEIVED maybe 1-3 comments.

But that why eye opening still feels abstract. So I began to collect personal data. Here is one week.

Information for context:

A. I updated 3 times in this week, 2 of which finished the story

B. I am archive locked which means my kudos is actually low for my general popularity, so the ratio between comments and kudos would actually be much larger if I was open to guests.

C. As stated above I am a writer who has built up a following so I even archive locked get more comments than a lot of people.

D. This can only track kudos know data, I cannot factor for people who read and didn't kudos, because honestly adding hits into this would have been a lot of data to track and you can't account for people who open and didn't read, reread, etc.

Here we go my comments to kudos ratio for a week:

Day 1: Comments 6 Kudos 141 = .42%

Day 2: Comments 5 Kudos 105 = .47%

Day 3: Comments 6 Kudos 81 = . 74%

Day 4: Comments 7 Kudos 61 = 1.14%

Day 5: Comments 9 Kudos 79 = 1.13%

Day 6: Comments 2 Kudos 51 = .39%

Day 7: Comments 9 Kudos 96 = .93%

Again my popularity and archive locking probably balance each other out but again other people might have a better ratio or a far worse ration.

But dang, those numbers tell a story. When writers say we don't get comments IT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION IT IS A FACT. When writers wonder if they bring value to the table, if they should keep going? If you are seeing not even half a perfect of the people who kudos commenting, yeah it will be demoralizing and maybe make you want to stop trying.

I am not trying to shame people who don't comment, because I'm not perfect about it, but this is more about showing writers aren't making their desperation up. Writers aren't seeing support for their work, and it cannot be surprising when writers give up. Don't just talk about how much you love a fic in your discord or group chats or on tiktok or whatever. Please make sure you let writers know they matter to you.

[strangegutz]

I don't post about it often, but I'd like to point some attention to my Patreon! For 5 bucks a month, you get to see most finished pieces before anyone else, patron exclusive WIP shots, and also the full process of dolls that the public only gets to see the final result of! You'll find a link to my Patreon in my pinned along with a kofi link if you want to throw a tip my way more directly.

Truth is things have been tough in a few different ways. Our roommate moved out, so we're having a harder time paying the bills and mortgage. My partner Mel now works 12-16 hour shifts 6-7 days a week, which is hard on both of us. We only get to see each other for less than an hour a day most days, and any days off are spent catching up on chores, which is the only time I get to leave the house. It's honestly really hard to live like this, which means I need to start really pulling more weight.

I'll be pushing the Patreon more, linking my kofi and wishlist here and there, making less dolls for myself, and making more for you! Keep an eye out for items like shirts, hoodies, mugs, etc as well, as I'm working on a new print on demand store to help out.

Stay sick, strangers

[sakebytheriver]

There was drama behind the scenes in Community? Do you feel like you want to elaborate?

Oh my gosh there was so much drama 😭😭

I'm surprised you haven't heard about it, it's like the biggest dark cloud that hangs over that show.

Okay, so here we go this is going to be such a long post,

Dan Harmon and Chevy Chase were both competing to be the biggest dick working on the show, in the end Chevy won, mostly because Dan recognized the error of his ways and worked to change, but the point is Chevy saw himself as this big time Hollywood legend due to being one of the first cast on SNL, and so his over inflated ego did not enjoy the long hours on set or the way they were writing his character (of course a lot of how they wrote his character was in response to his own bad behavior) and so he acted like a little bitch all the time, if you've seen the show there's an episode where Pierce throws a tantrum and then goes to hide in a trailer the whole episode, that's basically how Chevy would act on set, most of the cast ended up hating him too because of his behavior and the writers had to find ways to limit his on screen time replacing him with a body double because he did not want to work as long as the rest of the cast and because Community was this insane show that had off the wall concepts for their episodes and scene concepts that would only last two seconds in the final product but would take entire days setting up filming locations and dressing the sets the days and the hours were Long af and so the more crazy concepts the show ventured into the less Chevy wanted to be there and so in turn he ended up clashing heads with Dan Harmon the other dick in this story, now Dan Harmon was the show runner and creator of Community, he is the mastermind behind the whole thing, but at this time he was pretty much at rock bottom for his entire life and his behavior, he was an alcoholic, he was sexually harassing a woman who worked under him, and he happily provoked Chevy Chase's little bitchiness in public, going as far as to play an angry voice message Chevy left him into the microphone on stage at a fan convention to a room full of fans and the media.

In response to all of this bullshit the studio fired Dan Harmon and replaced him with two guys whose only experience running a show was a racist show called Aliens in America about a white family that wanted to get a hot cool European exchange student to make their nerdy son cool, but instead got a brown dorky foreign exchange student with a funny accent and weird food, the show lasted one season and was promptly forgotten by the entire world for very good reason 😬

Anyways these two guys were brought in to showrun the infamous Season 4 of Community, otherwise known as the gasleak year. Now, these new showrunners weren't enough to make Chevy happy and he was still a little bitch most of the time and his coworkers were very unhappy with him for getting the guy who turned this show into a cultural icon fired. But they did season four and it was a big pile of shit, there's a couple episodes from that season that are worth watching, the body swap episode written and directed by Jim Rash is one, but for the most part this season is a write off, it's not that it was bad, it was honestly a lot better than most shows out there, but it was really really bad in the context of the rest of Community. It was a season desperately trying to be the show that came before it and it just utterly failed, trying to capture the magic that was Community without knowing how to do that.

Anyways, after this Joel McHale, the actor playing Jeffery Winger and a man who calls Community the best thing that ever happened to him went to the studio and said, "you gotta bring back Dan Harmon" and ultimately, the new showrunners were sacked, Chevy left, and Dan Harmon was brought back to the show.

Season 5 premiered with an episode called, Repilot that brought our now Greendale six instead of seven back together in a way that felt like coming home again after your first semester at college, bittersweet in that way that makes you feel like everything has changed, but nothing has moved. They lost Donald Glover in the fifth episode of the fifth season playing Come Sail Away by the Styx and now the show only had five of the original cast that made up the community we follow and by the end of season five the show was canceled at NBC and even when the giant cult fanbase raged at them they still refused to bring the show back for that iconic Six Seasons and a Movie Abed so often proclaimed in the text of the show

Until of course a streaming service that no longer exists called Yahoo!Stream came in and spent $42 million dollars for one singular season of Community (and two other shows apparently) and the fans were overjoyed to get their final season even if we also lost another key part of the main cast Yvette Nicole Brown to get it. Now the show had lost almost half the original cast, lost its showrunner, had a shit season, then got its showrunner back, got canceled at its original network, and now brought back for an internet streaming service in the days when Netflix still mailed people DVDs, and so this is the mindset they went into Season 6 for. The final season of the show had lost the fun whimsical tone of the golden age of the first three seasons, but still had the wacky zany adventures now couched in this sad feeling of reality that the end is coming soon, but then the last episode flashes a black screen that says "and a movie" and the fans had hope

Of course until Yahoo!Stream goes bankrupt and blames Community for it and that movie never comes.

Dan Harmon goes on to make Rick and Morty and a podcast called Harmontown where he admits to his horrific behavior on the set of Community and apologizes to his victim in a way that makes her feel vindicated and satisfied that he has changed his ways and moved forward with his life crawling his way out of his rock bottom to make a career far surpassing anything Community ever gave to him. While Chevy Chase has all but fallen into obscurity as he still does not accept that he did a single thing wrong ever. And now in the year 2023 we are getting the final chapter of the Community story in the form of a Peacock streaming movie that will most likely bring back almost every character and actor except for Chevy Chase

And that is the very very abridged version of the bts drama that haunted Community for six seasons and now a movie 😭😭

[copias-girl]

Hey. I saw you deleted all the excitement/nonsense from the other day, wanted to check in on you. I realized that while I've been on this hellsite for 12 years and seen and experienced a great deal of my own anon drama, I forget how overwhelming & terrible it feels when it first happens to you.

I failed to notice that, in addition to being very new to this site, you're also only 18 (please note that this is not meant to sound condescending - tone is impossible to convey via text). I was a couple years older than that when I joined here, and I carried just as much excitement and energy into everything I posted and reblogged and quickly gained a reputation for myself. From what I've observed from your blog though, mine was decidedly...less fun & positive, so I got a LOT of anonymous messages telling me what they thought of me. I would spend a lot of time thinking about those anons and the terrible things they said to me, constructive or not, objective or not. It didn't matter how many support messages I got from friends or mutuals, or how much we mocked the anons or made light of the situation - I was angry, embarrassed, felt like nothing I did would fix it, and sometimes didn't want to log onto this site anymore, despite it being the only outlet I had to express myself in this way.

It is normal to focus on the small negative in spite of the overwhelming positive - healthy? No. But normal.

My point is: Please do not let this nonsense deter you from being you. Not everyone is going to like you, and that is totally fine. Not everyone is going to like how you post/reblog on your blog. Speaking solely for myself, I generally keep a more contained dashboard I can scroll through quickly at work, so I don't follow your blog, but I don't translate my personal feelings on how you blog into my personal opinion of you as an individual. Everyone blogs differently on this site, which is what keeps it interesting. I'm also not so chronically online to go out of my way to send you a 5-paragraph essay about consent or being hypersexual in a fandom for a gay Satanic band. Instead I'll send you a 8-paragraph essay trying to comfort you and to tell you not to despair, lmao.

I LOVE your enthusiasm about how you express yourself in your posts & reblogs, and it seems there's a shit ton of blogs around you that feel the same way & express themselves the exact same way. Don't lose that spark! Don't let them rain on your parade! [Insert another cliche phrase here]!

Take time if you need a break, but please understand you did nothing wrong. Everything said to you was someone's opinion they wanted to force on you to control how you behave because they themselves are terrified of the world around them and don't understand they cannot control others. Hopefully one day they'll realize how sheltered and, quite frankly, stupid they are. I did.

My advice: if you ever reopen anons and start getting those messages again, delete them and don't engage. Most of the time they're just looking for attention, to rile you up. Classic bullying tactics.

Or print out their messages and use them as firewood. Or toilet paper. Whatever works.

Lastly, you don't have to acknowledge this or publish this message if you don't want to. Genuinely, I just wanted to reach out and make sure you're okay and to attempt to longwindedly impart some advice from my own experiences over the decade.

You do you, dude. Fuck the haters.

Thank you so so much for this incredibly kind and comforting message ♥︎ I really appreciate it more than you could imagine, it even made me cry reading it. I feel like this message is a good closer for this situation, so I’m also going to use it as an opportunity to give a little PSA about how my blog will be operating from now on.

First of all, just thank you again. I’m honestly astonished because every single thing you mentioned is exactly how I feel. The hurt of it all despite getting so much support, the empty feeling of not wanting to go on tumblr anymore despite it being my only outlet. Tumblr was supposed to be my safe space, my escape, my home, and it really sucks because it honestly doesn’t feel like that anymore.

I think the thing that hurts the most is that literally no one reached out to me as a friend in the dms to tell me that I was bothering them. I’m not a mind reader, so if no one says anything then I assume I’m not bothering them. But I do pride myself on always being approachable, I’m ALWAYS open to people messaging me with their concerns.

It’s different when it’s some faceless anon who comes off as slightly passive aggressive. If someone would have just DMed me, I definitely would have put more thought into it and taken their suggestion. Since I haven’t been on tumblr long, I didn’t even know the difference between reblogging with a comment or reblogging with tags until literally just now during this whole situation.

I just feel like I’ve been serving spaghetti every night for dinner. 9 people say they absolutely LOVE it, but then I come to suddenly find out the 10th person doesn’t. But they never said anything all this time, so how was I supposed to know?

I’ve had two people block me who I thought were my friends. One who, during this situation, even said she’d always be there for me. Basically, she informed me that our mutual friend had been upset about my comments and apparently never said anything before this, so I reached out to that friend and apologized. She apparently got triggered by my apology, and they both blocked me. That hurt. A lot. And if I’m being honest I’ve been fighting so hard not to self harm during this time.

I feel like I’ve been treated like a malicious criminal over this, when in reality everyone should know damn well I’ve never done ANYTHING to deliberately make people feel bad.

And don’t worry, I definitely did not take the comment about my age to be condescending. In fact, I wish more people would have taken it into account. And the fact that I’ve only been on tumblr for 6 months, so I don’t really know much about it.

I have a life outside tumblr. I’m a student, and I’ve had to be a full-time caretaker to sick relatives who have now unfortunately passed away. I’m grieving. My father abandoned me and my mother, so I’ve had to take over doing all the things that he used to do.

I come on tumblr, I scream about everyone’s favourite satanic antipopes, I post some fics, and then I close the app and go about my life. I don’t research the history of tumblr and what’s deemed acceptable by certain groups of people. I’m a human. I’m a real teenage girl, with feelings. I’m able to be hurt, and triggered, and everything else. I know I’ve created a personality for myself on here, and I think people often forget that I’m a real girl.

I wish I could say I’m okay, but right now that spark definitely feels dampened into a sad little ember. Since this has happened, I’ve almost stopped eating entirely, and when I do eat, I immediately throw it right back up. My Mom took me out to eat and I threw up in public. This has honestly had my stomach in knots.

Today was the first day I actually didn’t feel nauseous. So hopefully time will heal this wound. I wouldn’t wish this on ANYONE, but I’m glad to see you got through it and made it out ok. I’m hoping for the same outcome for myself too.

Now for the PSA portion of this message (everyone please read):

Will I stop being unhinged? Hell no. But I will be moving any horny comments into the tags, as suggested by the people who had complaints. The absolute last thing I want to do is alienate people and make people uncomfortable. (I still have questions about reblogging with comments tho, for example, if I say something not horny should I still put that in the tags or is it ok to comment that?)

Secondly, my best friend suggested that I should just start taking my unhinged comments and making them into posts of their own, so I’ll probably do that too. I think I might tag them with some cheesy tag, probably a pun on nsfw (not sugar for work?) so that if you’d like to blacklist that tag, you can, and then your dash will be safe for scrolling at work or wherever. And you can just click ‘view post’ if you want to view it.

So, rest assured, the horny party will never stop! But since I’ll be putting my stuff in the tags, you probably won’t see it circulating as much as reblogged comments, so if you want to see me being unhinged, just come to my page and scroll through!

Also, I’ve gotten so many other supportive messages and I want to thank everyone for sending them in. I won’t be answering them, because I don’t want a lot of stuff about this situation on my blog. And this is going to be the last time I talk about this situation on my blog. But the supportive messages really do mean a lot to me, so thank you all ♥︎

I feel malaise, so I might still be absent for a little while, but I’ll try to get back in the saddle as soon as I can. I haven’t been in the best mindset to write, but I’m really going to try because posting fics and running this account genuinely make me happy.

Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope to see you all again very soon

Love always,

Sugar <3

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Elastic Heart Ch 5 (Linked Universe story)

Summary: When Sky goes missing, the Chain scrambles to figure out where he is and what happened before it's too late.

AO3 link

First chapter

<<Previous // Next>>

Chapter 5: Arbiter's Grounds

Link’s patience was at its limit as he stared dully at the two soldiers in front of him. “Let. Me. Through.”

“We were specifically notified that the queen would be sending a Hero with her guards,” one of the soldiers said, though with less hostility than before as Link glared at him. “T-that’s the order.”

“I made my own way here,” Link explained curtly. He was far too exhausted for this nonsense. Just how idiotic were the knights in this land? It was no wonder Twilight held them in such low regard.

Thinking about Twilight made his stomach twist. Thinking about any of them made his stomach twist.

He had to hurry up.

As the soldier came up with some other feeble excuse, there was a screech from the sky, making all three of the men turn to see a monster flying through the air. Link watched it warily, wondering if the Shadow had sent a black blooded beast there or if it was common for the area. The petrified reaction from the guards was of little help or use - he figured they’d squeal over a critter let alone a monster.

It was fairly large, though.

Glancing at his surroundings, Link saw the flying creature, the pathway ahead beyond the sealed gate, and some cliffs. With a quick fortifying breath, he pulled out his clawshots and aimed for some ivy on the cliffside, giving himself a higher vantage point as the beast swept in to dive for the ground. The soldiers squealed, abandoning their post.

That could be his opportunity, honestly. But that would leave them to fend off the beast, which was unlikely to end well in their favor.

Goddesses above, he was growing tired of having to save everyone. Couldn’t they at least handle the small matters so he could focus on Demise?

Link shook his head. Focus. You know they can’t help it.

Well. The knights should be able to help it. The longer he watched them run around the more irritated he became. He shook his head, watching the beast instead. There was a way to handle both matters and get him to his destination faster.

Waiting for the right moment as the beast flew just beneath him, ready to climb and gain altitude, Link leapt off the cliffside, angling his body so he collided right into the monster. The winged creature cried out, dipping down a little and then flailing like an enraged loftwing. Link held on tightly, his stomach somersaulting from the thrill of it.

This wasn’t his first time taming a flying beast, after all. Some loftwings when their partners died would be enraged or go insane for a few days. They were a danger to themselves and others. Link had done this song and dance before.

He wrapped his arms around the beast’s neck, twisting his shoulders so his elbows could guide it at the wing joints. The creature shrieked in protest but obeyed to ease the pressure, climbing over the sealed gate and leaving the knights far behind. The land quickly shifted from greens and blues of the field and lake to the familiar terrain of Lanayru Desert.

Wait. No. Gerudo Desert. Whatever. A desert was a desert, anyway. What mattered more was what and who he would find within it.

The creature became further enraged and began to buck wildly, sending them both careening. It was time to get off.

Releasing his grip, Link felt gravity take hold as he free fell to the ground below. The beast twisted away to reorient itself, and he untied his sailcloth to soften his landing. Turning as he heard the monster scream again, he pulled out his bow and arrow, aiming for its eyes. The beast let out a choked cry before it finally crashed into the sand, sliding to a halt in front of him and kicking up a dust cloud.

Link watched it a moment longer, a strange melancholy pulling at his exhausted heart, and then he sighed, turning to face the desert. The sun was fairly high in the sky, but it was beginning to teeter downward for the afternoon. He shielded his gaze with his hand, looking into the wavy air and seeing structures in the distance.

Monster encampments, possibly. Either way, it was a landmark. He’d take it.

Steeling himself, Link marched forward. One way or another, this should be his final battle. Zelda had indicated as such. It was the last horde in the land, after all.

I’m coming for you, Demise.

XXX

The tranquility of Hyrule Field on an overcast afternoon was shredded with the sound of hooves and snarls as a wolf led a pack of heroes riding on horseback. They were all going at a full gallop, the wolf somehow managing to stay ahead of the rest despite bearing the smallest member of the group.

A few monsters littered the area, and the troupe quickly attracted their attention. Wild grabbed an arrow and let it loose, having pulled it back so taut that he nearly snapped the bowstring. It hit a monster in midair with ease, sending it to the ground. The pronounced thud that echoed across the field gave Wild little satisfaction, but at least it gave him some assurance that the others wouldn’t be bothered. 

Wild’s deft movements weren’t the only ones as other members of the group swiftly eliminated targets without batting an eye. Warriors decapitated a bokoblin as he passed, Four shot a few with his bow and arrows before Twilight trampled right over them with a snarl. Nothing was going to slow them down at this point.

After they’d eaten, Twilight had asked his Zelda for some steeds to expedite matters (and had to finagle his way around Zelda’s idea that he’d somehow sent Sky to defeat the monsters). Wild and Wind rode Epona together, Four was with Twilight, and the rest were provided horses from the royal stables. The mood of the group had become serious the instant they’d left the tavern; Twilight had headed for the castle while others had stocked up on what supplies they could get (Legend was still seething that potions weren’t available in the city, which meant they were limited to what they already had - Twilight pointed out that they could restock in Faron Woods or Kakariko, but no one was keen on backtracking at this point).

Thankfully, according to Twilight, Lake Hylia was just to the west of the city, so it wouldn’t take them long to reach it. Wild certainly hoped that was the case; once they began to ride no one had said a word, and though Wild wasn’t the most empathetic of the group even he could sense everyone was on edge just as much as he was. Wind’s death grip on him tightened as he encouraged Epona to move faster, and he could faintly see the glistening lake in the distance. 

When they finally arrived, Time tersely divided them into pairs so they could search the perimeter.

“We know he’s heading for the desert; this is a waste of time!” Legend argued.

“We just got here within less than half the time it would take him to go on foot,” Four fired back. “He has to be somewhere close. What if we blow right by him?”

“That’s enough,” Warriors snapped. “Pair up and move out.”

Wind and Wild quietly stayed together on Epona, trotting around the lakeshore with their eyes peeled. The Champion was just as eager to push ahead, but he also didn’t want to risk overtaking Sky. Still… it should be obvious fairly quickly if Sky wasn’t here.

His mind couldn’t help but wander in a million different directions, anxiety sealing his lips and opening his thoughts. None of it made sense, and it was making even less sense now. Wild’s main suspicion had been that Sky had been tracking the enemy and accidentally fallen through the gate. He would have to fight the horde at that point, and then he would probably head for the nearest landmark, namely Castle Town and Hyrule Castle. It would then logically make sense for him to be in the city, for Telma to possibly find him and help him until he could reunite with the group.

Except he didn’t wait.

Wild didn’t understand. He just didn’t understand . It was now obvious more than ever that Sky was actively avoiding them.

The champion shook his head. We don’t know that. He may not even know we’re here. But that Telma lady wrote to Rusl, which means she must have told Sky we were looking for him, right? Right?

Right?

Wild didn’t know what was happening anymore, but a panic was seizing at his throat, goading him to move faster and find him before it was too late.

Pulling out a telescope, Wind squinted through the lens with a sigh. “Where is he? Surely he can’t be moving that fast? There were knights escorting him, weren’t there?”

Wild shook his head, unable to reply. He didn’t know anything anymore, just that he had to find him.

By the time they had even begun their search, the sun was already dipping towards the horizon. Lake Hylia reflected its bright rays, the sky stained golden and rose, a painting that was reflected with the stretches and pulls of the water’s lapping. It prevented anyone from seeing under its depths, and it made Wild shield his eyes from the glare as he paused, staring at a gateway just ahead.

There were guards flanking it.

Furrowing his brow, he tapped lightly on Epona with his heels, goading her forward.

The guards immediately crossed their spears over each other to prevent his entry. “Only those with the Queen’s permission may pass into the Gerudo Desert.”

Wind huffed. “We’re on a mission for her! Have you seen the Hero she sent this way?”

Wild bit his lip as the guards looked at each other uneasily. He wasn’t entirely sure why they hadn’t just asked them in the first place, but as he turned, he saw everyone converging on their location.

He supposed that meant they hadn’t had any luck. His heart raced in his chest, his anxiety spiking.

Twilight, who had turned back to his Hylian form upon reaching the lake since there were people around, came to the front. “My name’s Link. I have something from Her Majesty. She sent me to aid the Hero of Legend on his quest.”

The guards blubbered a second longer, awestruck, and Warriors finally snapped, “Get to it, then! Tell us what you know! What sort of pathetic excuse for soldiers are you?”

Time laid a hand on the captain’s shoulder, and Warriors’ face, already curled in a snarl, immediately tightened and settled into a dull, cold glare.

Wild shriveled further into Epona’s harness as Wind squirmed irritably behind him.

“He didn’t pass through here,” one of the guards finally remarked. “We’ve, uh–we’ve been waiting for him.”

“He—what?” Legend stammered. “That’s—we didn’t actually pass him did we?”

“What if he’s still in Castle Town?” Wind worried.

“That place is huge,” Hyrule added.

Warriors took a step towards the guards. “You’re lying. I can tell.”

The guards immediately took a hesitant step away from the captain.

“Tell us where he is,” Time intoned, crossing his arms. His voice was certainly the most even of the group’s, but his withering glare was more terrifying than any of the yelling had been.

“Or we gut you like a fish!” Wind added, pointing accusingly at them.

“Sailor,” Warriors and Twilight immediately warned together.

“What, I wasn’t actually— ”

“It was a monster!” one of the guards finally burst out. “We–we didn’t know if he had access or not, so at first we–well… we… but a flying monster came and he–he climbed the wall and jumped on it and rode it over the gate!”

“Sky flew on a monster ?” Wind repeated. “That’s freaking amazing!”

“Maybe we should try it!” Hyrule intoned thoughtfully, looking around.

“Let us through,” Warriors ground out instead.

Twilight turned sharply and walked away as the others started frantically speaking over one another. Wild dismounted Epona to follow him.

“They’re going to let us through, right?” Wild asked, wondering why Twilight was giving up on the matter already. “I can get the gate open without their permission, the slate—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Twilight interrupted as he stared at a wooden structure in the center of the lake. “I have a way that can get us in and maybe give us a head start.”

Wild watched him confusedly. “What is it?”

“Get the others,” Twilight said as he ran towards a boardwalk.

Meanwhile, over by the gate, the Hero of Warriors was steadily losing his patience. He and Time both were steadily feeling increasing dread over the situation; they could sense that time was running out to reach their friend and family, and these guards were one more obstacle and insult to everything Warriors stood for.

Despite the captain’s desire to verbally tear the pitiful excuses for knights apart, his rage was interrupted by both the objective and the champion’s frantic waving.

“What is it?” Hyrule asked before anyone else could. Time, who still had a hand on Warriors’ shoulder to keep him from completely losing it, turned to halfway face Wild.

“Rancher wants everyone,” Wild choked out, his eyes glittering with a familiar panic. Warriors had seen it on his face when Twilight had been hurt.

It wasn’t like Wild really knew how to hide it or process it, after all. The captain was waiting for the champion to finally snap and start disobeying orders like on the battlefield a month ago.

They were all beginning to fray at the seams. What had been a bizarre and unsettling search and rescue had turned into something far more involved and worrying. Sky should have been found easily, yet here they were.

At least Warriors knew he was still alive. But the true matter now was, why was he running so desperately? Was he running towards something or from it?

An old paranoia crept up from his gut into his skull, icy and chilling and terrifying, reigniting thoughts he had already dismissed yesterday.

No , he shook his head as he walked with the others to the boardwalk where Twilight awaited them. I know Sky. He wouldn’t. Something else is going on.

Originally the captain had thought Sky was simply being foolish, following his apparently-faulty intuition rather than his head. It would fit for a teenage hero to do so, even though in all their time together Sky had generally demonstrated more maturity than the others.

Well. On and off, at least. Sky’s seeming laziness had gotten Hyrule and Warriors hurt when he couldn’t keep up with them. He dozed off all the time, dragged his feet with chores… it had never particularly bothered the captain, except the one time they ran into a monster camp and could have used his help. He still held the slightest annoyance over that matter. But… none of that coalesced into a logical explanation for what was happening now. Sky was slow and steady, this panicked rush of his was completely against his nature as Warriors understood it.

Maybe you don’t understand him, then, the paranoid voice whispered.

“For Hylia’s sake,” he muttered under his breath. That’s enough. Sky isn’t a traitor, there is a rational explanation for this and I will figure it out.

At this rate he felt like he and Time were the only ones thinking rationally. Well, and perhaps Twilight.

Twilight watched their approach, arms crossed. He jerked his head behind him. “I found us a way in that’ll help us catch up quickly.”

Time raised a questioning eyebrow as he glanced beyond the Ordonian. “I’m assuming you’re going to explain, then?”

“It’s a, uh…” Twilight faltered and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. Then he sighed. “It’s a cannon.”

Legend’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You want us to blast our way through the gate?” Warriors asked confusedly. Great Farore, he didn’t hate the guards that much.

“No. Over it.” Twilight explained. “This is how I always got to the Gerudo Desert.”

Wind gasped. “Oh! I’ve done that before! Let’s go!”

Hyrule watched Wind rush ahead, bewildered. “You… were blasted out of…what??”

“Am I the only one worrying about the landing part ?” Legend threw his hands up in the air.

“No, you’re not,” Warriors remarked, raising an eyebrow at Twilight. “How did you land?”

Twilight shrugged. “Fyer knows where to aim so you land in a soft space. I swear the sand there is like a pillow, it’s like the one place where you’ll be fine. Just, uh, be sure you roll.”

Warriors cocked his head to the side as he scrutinized the Ordonian hero. “So you just got launched in the air and prayed you didn’t die.”

“Yeah, basically.”

Mentally, Warriors scratched Twilight off his still a rational member of the group list.

The captain groaned, pinching his nose. “How did anyone ever assume you were the responsible one?”

Four and Wind rushed ahead as if this were a normal occurrence, making the captain debate if Four was still rational as well. Wild was already anxiously waiting by the entrance, where a strangely dressed man was eying the group warily.

“Fyer,” Twilight greeted as he approached the man. “We need a lift to Gerudo Desert.”

“All of you?” the fellow questioned. “That’ll cost you extra, you know.”

Warriors unclasped his wallet and dropped it into the man’s hands. “Hope this suffices. Let us pass.”

Fyer stared at the pouch with surprise, stammering a response and opening the door for them. Wind easily swiped some rupees back as he passed. When Warriors raised an eyebrow in the sailor’s direction, the kid shrugged. “He doesn’t need all of them.”

“How do you keep getting so much money, anyway?” Four asked, squinting at him. “I remember when we were at that inn you couldn’t buy anything because you’d paid for our room and board.”

“The room full of pots, of course,” Warriors answered easily.

Wind gasped. “Yours had rupees?!”

“What did yours have?”

“...More arrows. A lot of them didn’t even have anything! It was so disappointing!”

“Mine had a frog in it.”

“Oh, one of mine—”

“Focus.” Time interrupted.

“Does this hurt?” Legend asked uneasily. “It usually hurts on the receiving end.”

“Protect your neck,” Twilight advised. “The whiplash isn’t fun. Beyond that… as long as you land well, it’s fine.”

“As long as you—”

The doors slammed shut, drowning them in darkness. Warriors instinctively huddled closer to his brothers, bumping shoulders with Time.

“This wasn’t exactly how I was expecting this day to go,” he said quietly.

“At this rate, is there even a point to having an expectation for any given day?” Time countered, his usual gentle mischief absent in his tone.

The captain sighed, and the cannon fired.

XXX

Four really wished he had Ezlo. It would make landings much easier.

At least, he figured that’s why he missed Ezlo. Strangely he didn’t remember landing, but he was lying in the sand nonetheless.

What…?

“Well maybe you should’ve mentioned that!” some voice over him hissed as he was slightly propped up by arms.

“I don’t think he’s ever fired that many people together…”

“That’s enough! Cut it out, all of you!”

“Hey, he’s waking up!”

Four groaned as orange light pierced into his vision when he fluttered his eyelids open. Legend was directly over him, holding him gently, eyes filled with worry. Twilight was across from him, also supporting him, and Wild was peeking over his shoulder. Wind was at his feet, expressive face pinched in concern as Time stood behind him with Hyrule. Warriors was directly over him, seemingly kneeling behind his head.

“Hey, Smithy, you with us?” Twilight asked gently.

“Mm,” Four replied, trying to figure out what in the world happened.

“Here,” Legend offered, holding a bottle to his lips. “It’ll at least make sure nothing’s broken while you get your head on straight.”

Four sipped the potion reluctantly, coughing a little at the bitterness as it went down. His world came into better clarity, aches he hadn’t noticed dissipating entirely.

“What happened?” he asked blearily, sitting up of his own volition as the other heroes hovered over him.

“A few of us crashed into each other before the landing,” Warriors noted, and Four saw that the captain was sporting a small cut by his left temple. “Nothing too terrible, but it threw you off balance and you got knocked out on impact.”

Oh. That was probably why Ezlo had come to mind. Maybe he should have shrunk down for the launch, it might have at least reduced his speed and made him less likely to hit anyone.

“How long was I out?” he continued, slowly standing and testing out his body.

“A few minutes, nothing major,” the captain answered dismissively.

“He could have died!” Legend snapped.

Another argument broke out between Legend and Warriors, with Twilight trying and failing to play mediator, garnering Wind’s ire while Wild and Hyrule watched hesitantly. Four rubbed his temples at the oncoming headache, growing steadily more irritated.

“Boys!” Time finally yelled, silencing everyone. When they all stared at him, he crossed his arms, holding their gaze. “Get yourselves together. Every second we stand here arguing, Sky gets farther away. No more talking for a while unless a pertinent question is being addressed.” Directing his attention to Four, he asked, “Smithy, are you able to walk now?”

Four nodded, grateful for the silence.

“Good. Ranch hand, you lead.”

Twilight, sufficiently schooled and looking very small under his elder’s gaze, slowly got to his feet. Four felt a little bad for his friend, who clearly felt guilty over what had happened. He would reassure him if he wasn’t convinced Time would incinerate him right there with his glare the instant he uttered a sound.

Shifting into his beast form, Twilight led the group carefully, sniffing the ground every few paces. Four could see Legend, Wild, and Hyrule all growing impatient, with Legend stiffening while Wild and Hyrule grew fidgety. Eventually, the traveler pointed ahead. “Look!”

Everyone whirled on him, ready to hiss for his silence before Time could get a hold of him. The traveler was unperturbed, huffing, “I see a trail!”

“A trail?” Four repeated, following Hyrule’s finger. Trail was a strong word for what he saw - there were divots in the sand, like a little stream had carved a path, but its lingering imprint was being quickly overrun by wind pushing sand into the crevices.

“You think Sky’s wind item could make such a trail?” Time asked the group as a whole.

“Probably,” Legend answered. “Which means he had to be here recently - the sand will cover it up soon enough.”

Four perked up. That meant Sky was very close!

The group picked up their pace, Twilight still at the lead to confirm Sky had indeed passed through. The silence gave Four time to think and center himself, which he appreciated since his mind had been whirling since this entire ordeal had started.

After all, none of it made sense. Initially, Four had assumed Sky was captured. It was what made the most sense - everyone knew that if they were on watch they were supposed to awaken the group if there were monsters. There had to be some kind of miscalculation on Sky’s part, and somehow he’d ended up in danger and unable to alert them. He’d probably gone to investigate a noise and only discovered too late that the horde was unnervingly close to camp.

At least, that had been the initial assumption. Four had seemed to be the only one thinking it, which was frustrating, but he’d kept his mouth shut. Hearing in that letter that Sky was safe and resting at that tavern had reassured him greatly, but it had also made him start to question things.

Did Sky get himself out of trouble? Was he never in trouble in the first place? If so, what in the world would compel him to do what he had done? Four still had an inkling that his dear friend was hurt somehow, maybe was addled from his experience and trying to find his way back to the others.

What if the Shadow had managed to corrupt him somehow? What if he’d tortured him during his capture? What if Sky was part of the horde now?

Four shook his head, trying to shove the terrifying thoughts out of his mind. It didn’t quite fit the objective details, at least.

That still didn’t stay the worries in his heart that Sky had been captured, though. That somehow Sky had escaped and was trying to find them as desperately as they were trying to find him. That the longer it took them to get to him the more likely he was going to get captured again.

Though the blacksmith was on the quieter side in the group, he wished they’d taken some time to discuss this issue. Outside of the initial concern when they’d found the gate, the group had been treating this situation like a regular mission when it was, in fact, so much more.

Their brother was missing.

Frustrated tears stung in his eyes, and he balled his fists tight enough to dig his nails into skin and distract himself. He absentmindedly followed his brothers, praying that Sky would be fine when they found him. Because they would find him. They were close, as Legend pointed out.

Four nearly crashed into Wolfie, yelping a little as he stopped abruptly. The shadows that encased the wolf were nearly imperceptible in the oncoming darkness as the sun finally hid its shining face behind the dunes. When Twilight emerged from the darkness, he was stiff and very closed off. Four was about to ask what was wrong when he noticed they had ended up at a structure of some sort.

“What is this place?” Wind asked quietly.

Twilight didn’t speak.

“He’s asking you, wolf brain,” Legend grumbled as he stepped forward to investigate the area. “We don’t know this land, remember?”

“Is it a Gerudo fortress?” Warriors questioned.

“N-no,” Twilight finally answered, his voice barely a whisper in the wind. “He… he’s inside.”

“Sky?” Time confirmed.

“Yeah.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Hyrule piped up, catching everyone off guard. “Let’s go.”

The sailor and the traveler moved ahead quickly with Wild on their heels. Warriors paused for a moment and then followed alongside Four.

Twilight stood still, the long shadows of the building consuming him.

Time approached his pup slowly. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Twilight sighed, shaking his head. “We shouldn’t let them get too far ahead, there’s a dungeon in there.”

“I figured, just based on the appearance. Where are we?”

“This… this place is called Arbiter’s Grounds,” Twilight explained as the pair walked together to catch up. “It was once a… well, I guess a prison for Hyrule. It’s been abandoned for a long time.”

Time glanced back at the building thoughtfully. A Hyrule prison in Gerudo territory? Had they formed some kind of alliance? “I suppose the Gerudo are farther into the desert.”

Twilight glanced at Time from the side of his eyes, saying nothing.

That… didn’t make the eldest Link feel pacified on the matter.

When the two reached the rest of the group at the entrance to the dilapidated building, Time glanced around at the surroundings. The architecture looked… vaguely familiar. And not in a Hylian way.

Wonderful. As if his unease at Sky’s situation wasn’t bad enough at this point.

“Be on your guard,” he advised everyone as a slight breeze blew in their faces. “This place will likely have infected beasts.”

“And Sky’s swimming in them,” Legend added worriedly. “So let’s go.”

The veteran hero was right. The longer they lingered, the more likely they were to lose him again. Time wasn’t repeating that error. Whatever was wrong with the young knight, they had to find him before it got worse.

At this point that was what he was convincing himself. Nothing else really made sense. Sky had interacted with the people of Castle Town, even the queen , and instead of hunkering down to wait for them, or even trying to return to where the dark portal had been (was it still there? Time didn’t recall seeing it when they’d passed through the field again), Sky had continued on to hunt more beasts. 

For whatever reason, the seemingly sweet and gentle knight had gone rogue.

Given Time’s understanding of the Skyloftian, it made little sense, but at this point nothing else made any sense. He knew all his boys were capable of being reckless; Sky was simply a late bloomer.

And of all the ways to bloom… Time was going to have grey hair by the time this was over. He was certainly going to demand an explanation out of the boy when he found him.

That was that. Sky was being a reckless teenager. There was no possibility that he’d decided to leave the group, to leave all of them, to leave—

Time shook his head. Projecting his old wounds onto this situation was not going to do him any favors. The longer Sky was missing, the worse it got. He felt angry at himself for even making this about himself in the first place, and it was certainly decreasing his tolerance for the others’ outbursts. They needed to find the boy. Time was growing more concerned by the moment. If his main theory was true, after all, then Sky was likely to get himself killed. 

Well, honestly, no matter the theory, Sky was likely to get himself killed. They needed to move.

“Stay together,” he advised the group as he led them into the dungeon.

The instant they walked into the entranceway, Time knew this was going to be an unpleasant dungeon. The stifling air held a stench to it that was pungent and uncomfortably familiar. Time was instantly reminded of the well in Kakariko and the Shadow Temple, the smell of brittle old bones and flesh turned to dust. Back home it had been punctuated with a moldy, earthy scent, moisture and soil trapped in a manner that made him feel like he was going through more graves. The dryness of the air here sped the rotting process, making the actual scent of decay lesser while also making the entire place far more stifling.

He couldn’t imagine any of this was pleasant on Twilight’s heightened senses.

He also could quickly figure out what might have happened here. Warriors’ grim, knowing expression implied the captain knew as well. 

Time scanned the room and quickly saw a purchase for his hookshot. Leading the group, he held on to Wind as the pair let the item pull them to nearby sturdy ground, avoiding the quick sand that was consuming flesh and bone alike. Once they passed a whirlpool of sand, they were left with what looked like the remains of a cell to the left and a sealed gate that blocked their progress.

Warriors glared at the door. “There has to be another way in. If Sky came through here it wouldn’t still be locked, unless it’s a facade. Or there’s a way to get overtop it.”

“It probably is locked,” Wind surmised, jiggling the large bars. “Just means it had time to reset. But I swear we were catching up to Sky. We’re sure he’s in here?”

“Reset?” Warriors repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“We need to find the dungeon map,” Legend interrupted. “We’ll waste less time that way.”

Four glanced at Twilight. “Where do we find it?”

The young man shifted awkwardly, rubbing his sweaty palms on his tunic. “I… don’t remember.”

Wind’s eyes widened. “How could you not remember where the map is? You’ve been through this dungeon!”

Wild looked between the pair confusedly. “There are maps?”

Warriors glanced at Time questioningly, equally lost.

The champion then turned to Legend. “Is that why you’re always so insistent on having a map?”

Hyrule shrugged, eyes trained on the floor. “I don’t get the fuss, I get by without them.”

“The point is ,” Time interrupted before this deteriorated further. “We need to find it.”

Hyrule looked at the hero, brow furrowing in frustration. “But—”

“No , we’re not proceeding without a map. It’ll waste too much time,” their leader insisted, agreeing with the veteran.

“Can’t you just follow his scent, though?” Warriors asked, looking at Twilight.

Twilight ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I wish it was that simple, but these places require a certain order of events to progress. If I just follow Sky’s scent, we’ll end up in front of locked doors with no way through, like this. We have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“I still can’t believe you don’t remember where the map is ,” Legend grumbled.

“It’s been a while, okay? A lot has happened since then, I can’t possibly remember all the details of every dungeon!” Twilight finally snapped, losing his patience.

“The good news is that the closer we get to Sky, the less likely it’ll be a problem,” Wind thought aloud, staring at the locked door. “Because if we catch up to him, he’ll still be solving things and we’ll get through them before they can reset.”

“How long is that?” the captain questioned.

“Don’t know. Never timed it.”

“Usually if you get knocked out it resets,” Time offered.

“Look, I may not be as experienced as you all,” Hyrule interrupted. “But I can still follow clues. The key to this door is over there.”

Everyone followed the traveler as he pointed towards a chain coming out of the wall with a handle attached.

Twilight blinked. “Ah. Right.”

Legend gestured dramatically towards the chain. “This is literally the only thing in this room and you didn’t even remember that?!”

“I didn’t see you noticing it, Vet!”

Wind rolled his eyes, rolling through the quicksand to get to the chain as another argument started. Just as he hit solid ground, the ground shifted, and two gibdos dragged their bony bodies out of the earth, spears at the ready. Wind yelped briefly before quickly slashing through them.

“Great,” the sailor said with a quivering tone. “This is one of those dungeons.”

Time looked back at the traveler, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off the ground aside from pointing out the pulley. When he traced the teenager’s stare, he saw what had tipped Hyrule off in the first place.

Specks of blood trailed intermittently from the gate to the pulley that Wind was desperately yanking.

There was still a touch of moisture to them, their innermost circle sitting atop the stone rather than having crusted into it.

Sky was close, but they could lose him if they stalled any longer.

Twilight quickly joined Wind and grabbed the handle, pulling the chain with a sharp jerk, and the gate split and opened, granting them access. Time didn’t comment on the blood, but it was evident who had and hadn’t noticed. Hyrule was already filling up empty bottles with lantern oil and shoving them into people’s hands, face set in determination. Twilight was a shade paler than usual, Four looked terrified, eyes frantically scouring the earth for more signs of Sky’s injuries.

Wild immediately went for the solitary treasure chest in the other corner, pulling out a key. No one needed to comment on it as there was only one locked door in the room. 

Time glanced at Twilight questioningly. This dungeon was unusually simple.

Then again, it could be because Sky was already clearing it.

Legend froze in mid-step, making Four yelp as he crashed into him. The veteran didn’t seem to notice, crouching down with his lantern in the darkness of the next room. Twilight stiffened, clearly on edge, and Time detected movement in the room.

“Vet, watch it!” Wind chided as he squinted into the darkness.

“There’s blood on the floor ,” Legend said, his voice worriedly rising in pitch. “Sky’s hurt! What if he’s dying, what if–”

Twilight and Time swung their swords in unison as otherworldly shrieks filled the air, their blades chopping through a wave of gibdos that had emerged from the quicksand. The rest of the group jumped as Warriors pulled out his borrowed fire rod, and Time and Twilight hastily ducked out of the way as he dispatched the rest and simultaneously lit the torches on the other side of the room.

The bars over the door on the far side of the room opened, and everyone tore ahead wordlessly. Legend reached the next place first, pausing in the center of the large room. Time took in the sights, seeing four stone stands around a large staircase. There were several entrances, he could tell from a swift glance and from changes in air pressure moving throughout the room. The stairs led to a closed door, and two out of the four posts had blue fires lit on them.

In the center of the room was a large cloak and hood, and a broken lantern.

“A poe,” Time surmised aloud. Larger than one he’d ever seen, but it seemed a fair guess.

“Yeah,” Twilight said slowly, looking ahead. “Of course they took the flames again.”

Time was reminded abruptly of the Forest Temple in the Lost Woods, and he looked at the two flames again.

Two flames. For four posts.

“Sky’s halfway solved it,” he whispered.

Wild, with his sharp hearing, turned to look at him. “Solved what?”

“You need the flames to open the gates,” Twilight explained. “And the poes steal the flames. If there are two lit, then he’s defeated two poes.”

Legend toed the tunic hesitantly, sword at the ready. “Uh, yeah. I can tell. But where are the others? This place just got a lot bigger.”

“I remember where the map is,” Twilight said flatly, catching everyone’s attention.

Time glanced at him, confused by his tone. “Where?”

Twilight pointed to an already open chest. Its contents had already been taken.

“Sky has it!” Wind realized.

“Great,” Legend groaned. “That just gives him the advantage.”

“Are we going to talk about why Sky’s actively going through this dungeon instead of trying to find us?” Four piped up, crossing his arms and looking ready to start another fight.

Wind whirled on him. “You want to do this now ? You think we haven’t been wondering that too? Something obviously has to be wrong!”

“Or maybe he’s on to something,” Hyrule offered. “Could be trying to puzzle something out.”

“Only you would assume it’s reasonable to just abandon the group to solve a puzzle.” Four sighed heavily.

“Look, what matters right now is that Sky’s actively hunting the poes,” Twilight said, waving his arm to get them to pay attention. “Which means all we have to do is track them . We can find him!”

“How do we track the poes?” Warriors questioned as he stared at the tattered remains of the fallen ghost.

Twilight shifted into his wolf form wordlessly, sniffing the large robe.

“Okay, but if they’re ghosts how do they even have a scent?” Wild wondered.

“The cloth should,” Four surmised with a shrug, a little put out over how quickly his discussion had been terminated.

“Do ghosts all wear the same cloth, though?”

“Is there a guide to poe fashion we need to know about?” Warriors muttered absentmindedly.

“Bet it smells like crap, though,” Wind said with a shudder. “Yuck.”

Time watched his pup sniff in circles a moment before charging through a door to the side, and everyone followed hastily.

Legend froze yet again just as he looked up at the platform ahead. Time was about to finally get on the veteran hero’s case when Legend’s entire body went rigid before he drew in a deep breath. “SKY!!”

The entire group whirled , and, sure enough, their brother-in-arms was on the platform, sword drawn and stained in black blood, ready to head to the next room. He barely moved, standing in profile to them as if he’d been in the motion of leaving when Legend had yelled at him.

Time felt the steadily growing suffocating knot in his chest loosen, though it didn’t release entirely. Sky was there, alive and within such close reach, and Time felt like he’d never had so much solace seeing one of his wayward boys.

“Sky! You’re okay!” Twilight exclaimed, relieved.

Sky swallowed thickly, his face pale and worn thin. In the lighting he looked almost gaunt, like one of the beasts crawling through this dungeon. Based on the amount of blood on his blade, it seemed Sky was the reason the others had met such little resistance so far, as Time had unfortunately suspected.

The young knight shook his head at the group, seemingly unable to speak, and just as Warriors was about to ask something, he rushed through the door.

“Wait! Sky, what are you doing?” Four called after him.

Legend was the closest and immediately pulled out his hookshot, looking for a perch since there wasn’t a clear path between the stairwell to the platform and the other side of the fallen chandelier that blocked the walkway to where Sky was. When neither the veteran nor Time could find a place for their respective hookshots to latch on, Wild ran ahead, clambering up the rock itself, though he slid quite a bit in his attempt to climb it. Legend sprang forward, using Wild as a step off to jump up to the platform, and Wild groaned, falling to the ground level just as Twilight reached out to catch him.

“Thanks, Vet!” Wild grumbled as he started to climb again.

Legend’s voice echoed from the next room. “Sky, get your sorry ass back heeeaaaaaAAAAYYYYY GIBDOS GIBDOS SHIT SHIT SHIT—”

“Come on!” Twilight called, already pulling a lever attached to yet another chain. “Let’s go!”

The group waited as Twilight hoisted the chandelier into the air, and the instant there was enough clearance they started to tear through. Wind was first, eyes fierce, and Time brought up the rear alongside Twilight. Despite their haste, the large wooden beams with spikes on them didn’t escape Time’s notice.

This place was like the Shadow Temple, then.

Pushing the thought aside, he focused on getting to Sky, and Legend’s yells were easy enough to follow. By the time they reached the veteran, the gibdos were disintegrating into ash and dust.

Legend didn’t spare them a glance, running ahead when a scream tore through the air, chilling them to their cores and making them freeze .

It wasn’t as if fear had stopped them in place. It was… well, it was fear, but a different kind, one that sank into one’s very soul and shook it with dark magic.

ReDeads.

Wind let out a whimper, stumbling backwards when he could use his legs once more, and Warriors reached out to catch him. Twilight immediately transformed again and tore ahead on all fours, teeth bared as he leapt cleanly into the air and slammed one of the beasts (were they always that short? Or was it just that Time was taller now? They still were easily a head higher than him, but…) into the ground. Its claymore clattered on the stone and Legend sank his tempered sword into the beast’s head.

Time quickly dispatched the other ReDead with fire blessed arrows, leaving an uneasy silence in the air.

“Where the hell did he go?!” Legend snapped. “Damn it!”

“Why is he doing this? He just—did he just run through the monsters and leave them to us?” Four asked the room, eyes filled with hurt.

“I don’t understand,” Wind muttered, huddled near Warriors, who had his hands on the sailor’s shoulders. “He—this doesn’t—did he—?”

Warriors’ grip tightened on the youngest Link, knuckles white. He was looking down at the ground, his eyes dark, face stony.

The entire group felt lost, standing in a haze of confusion and pain, and Twilight looked at Time helplessly.

Time tried to organize his thoughts as best as possible. They would all be looking to him for guidance.

He didn’t have any to give.

But what he did know was that he needed answers . Sky’s behavior had gone from erratic to downright dangerous. Time tried to parse it out as best he could, but the more he examined it the more he recognized that he really didn’t understand that boy. Termina had taught him to recognize that everyone had a story of their own that guided their actions, but he was only just realizing that he truly didn’t know Sky’s story at all.

Did any of them know Sky’s story? Wild was like an open book with his wounds, Warriors’ stories and remarks were always carefully interwoven with key details missing, Twilight and Hyrule’s dismissal of the importance of their adventures often left more questions than answers, Wind’s exuberance was shadowed by his very apt ability with the sword for such a young man, Legend’s knowledge spoke for itself most of the time, Four’s face spoke more than his words yet—

Time knew so little about all his boys, but he still knew something about each of them. He had slowly become the secret keeper of the group, sharp enough to catch little hints and private matters they tried to keep to themselves, understanding enough to keep his mouth shut. Some trusted him with secrets, such as Twilight and Four, others danced around the issue but didn’t deny what he might or might not have seen and heard. A silent understanding lingered between him and his boys, an understanding that he knew more than he let on but wouldn’t approach the subject until they were ready to do so.

Well. That understanding was with almost all his boys. He’d never quite had such an understanding with Sky.

The Skyloftian knight had always been warm and welcoming, kind and empathetic. Everyone went to him with their hurts, and he always seemed to know when he was needed. He was among the first to defend those who were injured, he was the first to speak up to soothe tears and anger alike.

But Time knew next to nothing about him, except that he had made that cursed blade, he was blessed to have never dealt with Ganon, and that he was in love with his Zelda. He had made those aspects of his story known.

But that was it. A person’s story was far more than three facts.

So what was Sky hiding?

A door slammed somewhere in the far distance, echoing with a haunting reverberation around the room.

“We need to keep moving,” Time finally said.

Slowly, the group came alive again, following Time with a somberness that hung heavily in the air. Twilight quietly trotted ahead, sniffing hesitantly, when he froze and started growling.

“What is it?” Wild asked, stepping forward before yelping and ducking as a blade came out of the darkness to try and take his head off his shoulders.

A bokoblin, clearly from Wind’s world based on its attire, came screaming out of the darkness alongside a lizalfos and a wolfos. Warriors quickly went to the lizalfos while the champion began to fight the ‘blin. Twilight went toe to toe with the wolfos, both snarling at each other. Time assisted his pup, helping him corner the beast while others jumped in to assist their brothers. The beasts fell quickly enough, and Time’s trained eyes noticed more signs of battle, as if these were stragglers from another fight.

“Sky’s not in league with them,” Warriors muttered with what seemed to almost be a sigh of relief .

Legend turned slowly, eyes alight with fire and bewilderment, aghast at the implications of such a statement. Twilight barked loudly just as the veteran opened his mouth, and Wind stomped his foot.

“This is stupid!” the sailor pronounced. “This is so stupid ! Why is this happening?! What’s Sky thinking?!”

Hyrule ran ahead without a word, making everyone yell after him and hastily follow. Time felt his own control of the situation quickly slipping, and it was making him extremely agitated. One of his boys was already in danger; he didn’t need the rest of them putting themselves in perilous situations.

This group was slowly falling apart, and Time felt powerless to stop it. The soothing, quiet, constant, and gentle seam that weaved between all of them and bound them together was fraying apart and rushing ahead into danger, making the rest of them unravel.

They reentered the large chamber that held the torches and sealed gate only to find that the gate was now open, with all the torches lit brightly.

“How did he—?!”

Hyrule’s question was interrupted as enemies pulled themselves out of the quicksand flanking the staircase, and before Time knew it, they were surrounded.

Wild stared ahead at the stairs and the open gate, eyes desperate.

“Champion, no!” Time called, but it was too late. The scarred hero rushed ahead, though his progress was halted by a large moblin bringing its weapon down to bear on him. Warriors helped block the attack, knocking him off balance enough that an arrow grazed his leg. He hissed and Legend froze the moblin in place with his ice rod just as Wild shattered a blade against its legs, crippling it. Time was too preoccupied with the two lizalfos in front of him, gritting his teeth as they moved with more speed than should have been possible.

Hyrule sent a sword beam flying towards one of the lizalfos, knocking down the beast when the blow really should have gutted it.

Wind let out a battle cry as he leapt off the stone railing of the stairs, getting an aerial advantage and sinking his blade into one of the lizalfos’ heads with deadly accuracy. The beast fell, and the sailor bashed the other away with his shield. Behind him, Time heard Twilight yelp, and he whirled to see the wolf get cut deeply into his right shoulder by a stalfos. He quickly pulled out his bow and fired an arrow between the creature’s humeral head and elbow joint, temporarily pausing its attack and preventing its arm from moving, giving Twilight time to limp backwards and regroup with his ancestor. Time swept his large blade up diagonally, shattering bones and armor alike, and the stalfos clattered to the ground in pieces, giving him a moment to appraise the situation.

The group was chaotic and uncoordinated, anger evident on some faces while others continued to be distracted by the obvious path Sky had taken. Four rolled between two bokoblins to avoid an attack, slicing one of the ‘blins while doing so. Warriors had managed to get a few more cuts but was fighting well enough, back-to-back with Wild, who now seemed to be fixated on protecting the captain after getting him hurt. Though Wild’s expertise with the blade was more than proficient, archery was his main specialty, and being so close to the captain in the center of the action was wearing him down quickly. Hyrule was halfway up the stairs, watching the situation while holding his blade tightly in his hands, face focused, making Time uneasy. Legend had swapped weapons and was instead fighting with his blade once more, yelling a curse at the lizalfos that was slowly cornering him as keese began to fly over everyone. Wind was—

Wind was about to get hit .

“Sailor!” Time shouted in warning as he rushed to the boy’s aid. Wind was too busy eliminating a flock of keese to notice the bokoblin behind him, ready to strike—

Warriors yelled as Wind turned, but it was too late. The blow made contact, and Wind went flying across the room, out cold.

The room broke into pandemonium now. Hyrule cried out, his blade set ablaze with magic, and he easily felled the swarms of keese, making fire and small burnt bodies shower down on everyone. Time raised his shield to block the grisly precipitation while Legend swatted them away instead, distracted and getting punched clearly in the gut with a bokoblin club. Warriors killed the beast in retaliation, turning to run towards Wind as Wild covered the veteran while he regained his breath. Twilight was also tearing towards their youngest, his limp slowing him considerably, and Time turned to face the last large foe alongside Four, who was patting flames on his tunic and hissing.

Four dove ahead before Time, attracting the enemy moblin’s attention and giving Time an opportunity to dive in. The beast had bent downward to reach its small opponent, exposing its neck to Time’s blade. As the two leapt out of the way of the beast’s crumbling form after the blow, they saw that the others were picking off the remainders of the horde with a fair amount of ease.

Time rushed to where Twilight was guarding Wind, bending over Warriors, who was tending to the sailor. Wind’s hair and half his face were stained with blood, and despite the captain’s gentle nudges, he remained motionless. More blood stained his cheek as Warriors tapped it lightly, and Time saw that their captain had a not only acquired more injuries, some were deep enough to break his armor. He held his shield arm to his chest protectively.

“Captain—”

“He needs a fairy,” Warriors interrupted. “We don’t have time sit around and wait for him to recover.”

“Or you,” Time added as he pulled out the last of his fairies. “Rancher, help me sit him up.”

Twilight shifted back into Hylian form, kneeling beside Wind and propping him up. The Ordonian’s own shoulder wound was far more evident now, staining his tunic red. Time uncorked the bottle with the precious healing gift, and the fairy hovered between Twilight, Warriors, and Wind before the elder heroes motioned towards the sailor. The pink light brightened around the fairy as it worked its magic around Wind’s head, and the sailor stirred.

Legend walked over, his feet shuffling as he downed half a potion and took a deep breath, the first Time had seen him take since the hit to his chest and gut. Then the veteran held out the remainder to Warriors. He gave a sharp command before the captain could even get a word in, and Time’s stern look was enough impetus to push him into compliance.

Wind groaned, rubbing his head wearily as he opened his eyes. “What happened…?”

Warriors quickly went to the boy’s side as Time replaced Twilight in supporting him. “You took a bit of a hit there, kid.”

Wind soured at the nickname, but was apparently too woozy to argue. Time gave him a reassuring smile before glancing at his descendant. “You should—”

“We need to preserve what potions we have left,” Twilight interrupted immediately, having predicted what Time was going to say. “We were already running low on supplies—”

“We just stocked up in Ordon Village,” Time reminded him.

“We stocked up on some supplies in the village,” Twilight fired back. “We don’t have potions in Ordon.”

“There’s milk.”

Twilight bit the inside of his cheek, clearly trying to come up with an argument before sighing in defeat. “Fine. I’ll drink some milk.”

“Does anybody wonder if that stuff ever goes bad…?” Four asked in the background as the Ordonian downed half a bottle.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Time said with a half smile.

“You drink poes. Your opinion is invalid on the matter.”

Wind giggled, still a little addled. “Why couldn’t you drink the big poes here?”

“Maybe next time,” the eldest Link replied, brushing sweaty hair out of the boy's face. “Think you can stand?”

Wind huffed proudly. “Of course I can stand! I’ve had much worse!”

To prove his point, the sailor leapt to his feet with gusto, and then hastily stumbled backwards into the wall.

“We have to go!” Legend called. “Some of us aren’t waiting!”

Time turned and saw Hyrule and Wild already running up the stairs, and he bit back a groan. There was no stopping them at this point. Warriors steadied Wind and the rest of the heroes rushed after their impatient friends.

“I remember this part,” Twilight muttered. “If Sky didn’t get too far ahead, we can—”

“Sky, wait!!” Wild cried up ahead. “Guys, help!”

Everyone doubled their speed only to find themselves caught in a new horde of monsters, with Sky in the center, bathed in black and red blood alike. The room was filled with stalfos, gibdos, keese, bokoblins, skulltullas, and lizalfos. A few were slain on the ground, but most were converging on Sky, while Wild immediately brought out three bomb arrows at once.

Time held out a hand, alarmed. “Champion—!”

Wild aimed straight for a large skulltulla, loosing the arrows. Time immediately dove for Sky, knocking the young knight to the ground just as the arrows made impact. The blast temporarily blew out his hearing, making the world seem vaguely distant while a high pitch ringing drove him insane. Time groaned, coughing and gasping when Hyrule’s boot slammed into his vision as the traveler blocked a monster attack that would have likely crippled him. Sky squirmed under him, clamoring for an escape route. Time pushed himself up, hastily moving aside as Sky shot out from underneath him. He managed to snag the boy by his sailcloth just as his hearing returned, sending him crashing back into reality.

Everyone was in the room now, fighting and pushing monsters away from the center where Time and Sky stood. Worried glances were thrown their way, but now that they had all regrouped and Sky was seemingly alive and okay, everyone was finally on their game once more.

Well, except for Sky himself.

The teenager twirled, turning himself around to face Time, knocking his hand off his sailcloth, but Time grabbed him by the wrists.

“Please,” Sky wheezed a frantic, tear filled plea. “Please, you have to leave.”

Time furrowed his brow. Of all the different scenarios running through his head, the boy begging them to get away was not the first one that had come to mind upon their reunion.

The sharp interrogation that had been brewing inside of him fizzed out like water escaping a dam, and instead his heart filled with worry. Sky’s eyes were wild, his face sweaty, his body trembling with exhaustion. Time had never seen the boy this frantic and unwell. “Sky… what’s wrong ? Let us help you.”

“You can’t help!” Sky replied, twisting his wrist so much he was likely hurting himself to get out of Time’s grip. “Please, I—”

Wind suddenly used his wind waker to blast a flock of keese into the wall, and the force of the air sent Time and Sky flying right into a half crumbled wall. The stones gave way when they slammed their shoulders into it, and Time felt pain shoot from his shoulder blade all the way into his fingertips.

It’s a good thing I wear armor , he thought dully as he groaned. His mind reoriented quickly, a frantic sense of urgency pushing him to look for Sky, who had fallen entirely into the room beyond the wall. It was a large circular area, covered in sand except for a platform in the center.

The monsters slowly seemed to be pushing the others towards the room as well, and Time hastily sprang to his feet to stop a lizalfos strike from tearing into his already injured shoulder. His body was not happy with the overhead maneuver. When he glanced back, Sky was finally pushing himself into a standing position once more.

Something dark materialized between Time and Sky, and the eldest Link felt his blood run cold.

“Sky!” he cried out in warning, garnering everyone’s attention, but the one person who needed to hear him was distracted, and the dark shadow rammed into the teenager, who stumbled right into the center platform. 

As soon as Sky fell backwards onto it, the Shadow coalesced into a figure, walking towards him slowly as the platform rose into the air.

“No!” Time yelled alongside Twilight, who tore ahead, pulling out a bizarre looking device and slamming it into some grooves in the wall. He hopped onto it, and the strange spinning top started to ascend the wall alongside a cut out path. There was the remains of a stairway jutting out in the wall, and Twilight seemed to be heading for it so he could leap off and get to the centerpiece, but skulltullas were crawling to that point as well. Time felt his heart in his throat, terrified at both what the Shadow could do to Sky and that Twilight might get injured again. He pulled out his bow and arrows to assist the rancher when a lizalfos from behind drew his attention instead. One of Wild’s bomb arrows blew by him to eliminate the skulltulla, and Twilight yelped, leaping off the spinner just as the arrows killed the skulltulla… and the platform Twilight had been heading for.

Time turned to yell at Wild (mainly for almost blowing Twilight up… a selfish part of Time was thankful his descendant couldn’t reach the Shadow alone now), but the champion was already watching sheepishly in realization. He held up an appeasing hand as he put his bomb arrows away.

“We have to find a way to get up there,” Time said loudly over the din as the champion examined the room. “The Shadow has Sky pinned down.”

“The Shadow?!” Wild repeated.

“Damn it, Champ!” Twilight swore uncharacteristically, face pale with worry. “Sky’s up there!”

“What?! Sky’s up there?” Four yelled as he leapt off a wall to give himself some extra speed and height, driving his blade through a moblin’s heart.

Legend rushed over, an unfamiliar cane in his hands. “Get me up there. I’ll protect him.”

“That’s just it , I can’t get up there with if Champion keeps blowing up the platforms— ”

“Solutions now, blaming later!” Warriors barked from the other side of the room.

The monsters all stopped fighting. Everyone froze in mid parry or attack, confused.

What were they…?

There was a harsh, dark laugh that echoed around the area, making everyone look up at the platform. Sky was barely visible, staring at something they couldn’t see.

“What’s happening?” Wind asked slowly.

Legend groaned. “Oh, no. He’s about to monologue, isn’t he?”

“Let him,” Warriors muttered. “It gives us time to find a way up there.”

“Not so loudly, though!” Wind hissed. “What if he can hear us?”

“There’s no way he can hear us all the way down here,” Wild pointed out.

“I can hear you,” a voice echoed down to them.

“WELL THAT’S GREAT BECAUSE YOU’RE A COWARD!” Wind suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs. “GET YOUR SORRY SHADOWY BUTT DOWN HERE AND FIGHT US LIKE AN ACTUAL WARRIOR!”

Twilight and Warriors were both eying the path that his spinner had climbed. The two slowly crept towards the wall.

Footsteps bounced around the area, building a strange dread in Time’s chest as he looked up and felt his heart stop.

His own face was looking back at him, eyes red and skin grey, as if he had been rotting away in the Water Temple for years.

The Water Temple.

This shadow… was his?!

“You…” he muttered.

His Shadow smiled. “Me? Don’t make too many assumptions yet. Now excuse me. I have someone to talk to, and your noise was far too deafening for a civil conversation.”

“Just get out of here!” Sky suddenly yelled, rushing to the edge of the platform. “I’ve got this!”

“Try anything foolish and my beasts will finish you off,” the Shadow advised before swiping at Sky with his blade, making the knight disappear as he jumped back to dodge it. Time snapped back into focus, stepping forward with alarm, as the Shadow walked away.

“So, uh… should we just kill the monsters while they’re not attacking?” Wild offered.

“That doesn’t seem right…” Hyrule noted uneasily. Lowering his tone, he said, “Besides, if he thinks we’re just stuck down here, then we can sneak up. If we attack them they’ll just start fighting back, and then it’ll take longer to get to Sky.”

“He definitely can’t hear us saying that, right?” Wind whispered.

The group waited. There was silence.

Time glanced upward. At least that meant the pair wasn’t fighting yet. He didn’t know how that shadow version of himself from decades ago had managed to grow so powerful, but…

Goddesses above. It had almost killed Twilight. It was going to kill Sky.

“Whatever we’re figuring out, we need to do so quickly,” he said softly.

Hang in there, Sky. We’re coming.

[compassionatereminders]

tw: suicide

i'm currently 24, i have meet my best friend when we were 15 for a while... and when i say a while i mean years at least 3 years she is just taking advantage of me. she has this boyfriend they spend money like crazy (only her bf works she doesn't work atm) and a lot of times she borrows money from me. 80% of the time i don't get my money back but i sometimes don't mind because she has a daughter (this bf is not the father btw so he doesn't spend much money on her daughter) and i feel so bad for her kid.

my friend got pregnant at age 17 and i love her daughter a lot. it feels like i'm her aunt or something (she does call me an aunt as well) she feels like family to me. a lot of times i would also willingly buy her something because i feel bad that she doesn't have things she needs. her ex pays child support but my friend spends that money mostly on herself. this is also where his involvement ends, he pays child support and maybe he sees his daughter once every month or so.

i'm sorry if this is getting boring to read so i will get to the point. my friend only calls me when she needs someone to babysit her kid. and when she needs money. she loves going out with her bf and a lot of times, probably 3 times per week i babysit her daughter. i don't actually spend much time with my friend at all when i come to her to babysit we maybe talk for less than 5 minutes because she's always in a hurry and when she is back she is tired or needs to do something so we don't talk more than a few minutes either.

one day she got even mad when i couldn't babysit even if i'm single it doesn't mean i always have free time just for her.

since i implied or try to imply our friendship doesn't works out anymore (2 days ago) she threatened me she will kill herself because she is very depressed. i know she doesn't have a perfect life and she goes to a psychologist (but she was never dealing with suicidal thoughts, and she never ever said to me since we know each other that she wanted to hurt or kill herself).

now i do feel really bad because i think what if something happened then it would be my fault? she never said to me that she ever threatened any ex boyfriends with suicide (we talk about a lot of things i know she wanted to keep her ex boyfriends but she never used this tactic with them as far as i know) so i think why would she do this to me? makes me think that she a) not lying and she wants to kill herself b) she never used this tactic with her any of her ex boyfriends but she knows am an emotional person and she is trying this with me even if i'm just her friend and not her intimate partner.

i would also feel so bad for her daughter if i break off this friendship. her dad doesn't give a s**t about her, and dad's family (grandma and grandpa) don't really care about her either. my friend's mom & dad are not good people her mom is physically abusive & her dad is an alcoholic so they're not good grandparents to be around with.

i really can't stand this friendship anymore it feels like i'm her personal butler or something "hey i need a babysitter come here" and "i need to borrow some cash, can we meet"... she used to be a good person and honestly i was waiting for her to "turn back" into old her but that never happened.

so sorry for such a long post but should i feel responsible? like if something happens would it be my fault? my common sense says: no, but when i start thinking about it i think maybe it would be my fault because i abandoned her. she called me so many times how she wants to kill herself and sent me like 7 messages already just when i started implying we should not be friends anymore... i didn't really say it but i was hinting at it because i didn't know how to word it... since then i saw her in person today and she was telling me how she wants to kill herself, this time she spoke with me more than a few minutes, we talked like 45 minutes but mostly she talked how she would kill herself if i stopped being her friend.

later she happily went out with her bf... her mood changed completely she went from stressed, almost crying, panicking, threatening she wants to kill herself and even how she would do it... then she would change into this bubbly smiling person when she went out. and ofc she only called me to chat and for babysitting...

This "friend" is using you, and her response to you trying to establish the boundaries you need is not just unfair, but abusive. Her mental health, her economy and her child are NOT your responsibility. And she has no right to threaten you into not establishing the boundaries you need. No matter what happens from here, it won't be your fault or your responsibility. Your responsibility is yourself, and that means walking away from people who use, manipulate and abuse you. Even when they make it hard.

[themaladaptivewriter12]

Title: "He is Me, and So Are We."

Part 7 of my “Cray-Cray for Cater” series! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 can be found here!

Parings: Cater Diamond x Twisted Wonderland Male OC (Mirai Yuhara)

Summary:

When Cater begins to distance himself, Mirai can't help but feel he is to blame. Instead of facing his problems head on, Mirai cowers from his self-inflicted fear of rejection, and now it's too late.

cw: Angst, Hurt/comfort, arguing, use of Cater's signature spell, self-worth issues, self-esteem issues, Cater has trouble seeing his own worth, making up

a/n: It's been a while, but Ima make up for it! Promise! I can't believe this series has 7 parts already! Part 8 will be a long one!

a/n: I missed my own anniversary. IMA RIOT!!! Late anniversary post soon.

Reblogs are appreciated, just use my custom tag, #TheMaladaptiveWriter12, if you do!  (─‿‿─)♡

Cross posted from my Ao3: TheMaladaptiveWriter12

“Chamomile, Jellyfish Stingers, Scales of a Coral Snake, Mandrake Root,” Mirai listed, writing down the inventory for Professor Crewel once more. He always got sad when he saw the mandrake root. 

Per usual, Mirai was helping out Professor Crewel with sorting and organizing his supply closet. Mirai liked helping out when and where he could, but also, he liked Professor Crewel, he could trust him. But unfortunately, much to Professor Crewel's chagrin, he couldn’t make Mirai a personal lab assistant. 

“It’s unethical, it shows favoritism,” Professor Crewel said in a mocking tone, face twisted.

Mirai tried to hold in his laughter.

“Yeah, you wanna know what’s unethical? How uptight that old geezer is! I swear he hasn’t changed at all since my school days,” Professor Crewel scoffed, with a sneer.

Mirai giggles as the memory, as he continues his recording. The school, namely Trein, wouldn't allow Crewel employ Mirai, much less pay him, so instead, Crewel overlooks his mistakes in class, well, not all of them, adds an extra point to his grades where he could, gives him access to pretty much anything in the lab, and gives Mirai the harmless little leftover gems and potions from his classes.

“What’s so funny, Little Papillon?” Professor Crewel asks from where he was leaning against the doorframe. A hand on his hip, the other was holding his pipe, its contents unknown.

“N-Nothing,” Mirai stammered.

Crewel smirks, leaning his head against the wooden frame, his gaudy fur coat sliding down his shoulder even more than it already was, “You thinking of that orange haired pup?”

“Orange haired…?” Mirai thought before it dawned on him, face flushing red, “N-No!”

Professor Crewel laughed, “I jest, I jest. But on that topic, how is it going, your relationship, that is?”

Mirai flushed, mumbling, “Isn’t that a little too personal for you to ask, being my professor and all?”

“Oh? And here I thought we were quite close.” Professor Crewel teased.

“You’re almost old enough to be my father,” Mirai deadpanned.

“I’d have to be sixteen to be your father,” Professor Crewel said with a disgusted face.

“You’re four years shy.”

“Your father had you at twenty?”

“Nah, he was your age actually.”

“Huh.”

“You could be my older brother?” Mirai jokes.

That made Crewel burst into a fit of laughter. Mirai snickered.

“Okay, I can be your adopted older brother, and I wanna give you relationship advice,” Professor Crewel said with a smirk.

“Alright, no. Adopted father sounds better.” Mirai laughed.

“But I thought you didn’t like that. Now tell big brother about your boy,” Professor Crewel laughed.

Mirai broke out in a fit of laughter, “Pl-Please don’t say that ever again!”

“Father it is.”

“Ugh, that still sounds horrible.”

“Ima say it every time you act up in my class.”

“No! Please don’t!”

“Watch me.”

“But honestly,” Mirai said after his laughter died down, “I’d say we're fine. Being with Cater is new, it’s fun, and I couldn’t ask for anymore.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. He walks me home, and to class when he can. He’s always so caring and nice,” Mirai said with a happily little dreamy smile on his face.

“Well aren’t you a little lovesick pup?”

“N-No,” Mirai pouted.

Professor Crewel chuckled.

“You sound like Sam. He always calls us lovesick Imp, and every time I come in for work, he always tries to read my fortune, but I won’t let him,” Mirai chuckled. 

“Wait,” Crewel said, “You work for Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“And he pays you?”

“Yeah?”

“Why isn't it unethical for him?!” Crewel shouted, throwing his hands up.

Mirai laughed at Crewel.

“You laughing at me, Little Papillon?” Professor Crewel asked, whipping his head around to his student.

“N-No,” Mirai chuckled. 

Crewel smiled. “I guess you don’t need my help after all,” Professor Crewel laughed.

“I mean, I guess there is something that has been bothering me,” Mirai said, mood dropping a bit.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“He’s been distant lately,” Mirai started, eyes downcast. “I can tell he’s forcing himself, I mean, like, I don’t know, I can’t describe it, but he just feels…off.”

Crewel looked surprised at his student’s confession, “Have you spoken to him about it?”

Mirai shook his head, “I don’t wanna, I don't know, spook him? Scare him into hiding even more? I just can’t figure out what would cause him to act this way. He was fine a while ago, but now, I don’t know, he just seems distant. I want to give him the space to work it out, but I don’t want him to ya’know, shoulder it all.”

Crewel genuinely looked stumped. He thought for a moment before speaking again, “The safest route to go about this is communication. Talk about it, tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t wanna seem pushy or nosy,” Mirai confessed quietly, “I don’t want him to get mad at me.”

“Has he ever gotten mad at you for caring?”

“No.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Professor Crewel scoffed, “and if he has, tell me, I’ll handle it.”

Ignoring the threat, Mirai sighed, “I know that there’s no reason for me to be so edgy, but I just can’t help doubting myself. Like what if he doesn’t like me anymore.” 

What if our “I love yous” were fake? Mirai thought.

Professor Crewel got into Mirai space to look him in the eye, “If that boy likes you, then he will stay. If he doesn’t and breaks your heart, I’ll fail him.”

“Professor, you can’t do that!”

“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but he does have a few missing assignments,” Professor Crewel smirked.

“I really need to get him on top of those,” Mirai sighed.

“So, will you talk to him, Little Papillon?”

Mirai nodded meekly.

“Speak,” Professor Crewel commanded.

“Y-Yes, Professor Crewel.”

“Good boy!”

Mirai flushed as the praise.

“Whacha talking about?”

Mirai looked behind his Professor and saw Cater leaned up against the doorframe of the closet, a sly smile on his face.

“Cater?” Mirai called, confused, “Is it that late already?”

“Hm,” Cater nodded, “I called and you didn’t answer, so I went looking for you after you didn’t show.”

“You called?!” Mirai gasped. Mirai dug into his pocket and found that there indeed was a missed call from Cater.

“I’m sorry, it was on silent,” Mirai apologized, “I got caught up sorting this out.”

“Go ahead, Little Papillon, I can finish up myself,” Professor Crewel said, waving his student off.

“Are you sure? I didn’t-”

“Are you disobeying me?”

“N-No?” Mirai stuttered.

“Good boy,” Professor Crewel praised, petting Mirai on the head, “Now shoo, out. Remember your homework and to study for your quiz”

“I will! See you tomorrow, Crewel,” Mirai said, waving.

Mirai hurriedly shucked off the spare labware he had on, handing them to Crewel, and made his way to Cater.

“Let’s go,” Cater said, taking Mirai's hand.

Mirai happily took Cater’s larger one, swinging it as they walked. 

“Oh and little pup,” Professor Crewel said with a smirk, “I wouldn’t want to forget those overdue assignments. I’d be a pity for you to suddenly fail my class.”

Cater glared hard at Professor Crewel, grating his teeth, as he shut the lab door behind them. Crewel laughed as they left, shaking his head and went to finish organizing his storage closet.

The next day, Mirai had his shift at Sam’s, and of course he slept in. Mirai rushed around his room, throwing on his designated work outfit, which consisted of a black button down shirt, black jeans and black boots. He grabbed his shoulder bag, throwing in his phone, wallet, and other things he might need and rushed downstairs. In the lounge grim was sitting on the floor eating a tuna bagel, which Mirai gagged at.

“Why didn’t you wake me?!” Mirai cried trying to find his key.

“I did, and you went back to sleep,” Grim deadpanned.

“I’m late!” 

Finding his key on the mantel, where it wasn’t before, the ghosts no doubt, Mirai ran to the foyer, then suddenly there was a feral screeching sound. Mirai gasped in fear, jumping back a good couple of feet, and looked down at the floor. Grim was glaring at the Prefect, the direbeast holding his tail, bagel forgotten on the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” Mirai cried, feeling horrible.

Grin didn’t say anything, but he continued to glare holding his abused tail, ears flaming a bit higher. Mirai felt bad, really, but he didn’t have time to try and coax the cat from his angered state.

“I’ll make it up to you, promise!” Mirai called, rushing out the door, locking it behind him, and started his way to Mr. S's Mystery Shop.

Mirai shoved the door open, an apology already on his lips. “I’m so sorry,” Mirai cried, “I overslept, Grim didn’t wake me, the Ghosts hid my key, I stepped on Grim’s tail, I-I-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam said surprised, “calm down, Little Imp.”

“But I, but I’m-”

“Yes, you’re thirty minutes late, and it’s fine.”

“But-”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Sam tutted, “It’s just the opening shift. No has even come in yet. Put on your apron, grab a snack, and go calm down.”

“Thank you, Sam! Sorry again,” Mirai rushed out, heading to the back.

Mirai put on his apron and grabbed a blueberry muffin and a bottle of water. As he ate, he watched Sam write the day's sales on a collapsing blackboard in colored chalk, and once he finished, Sam went outside to set it up. Mirai finished his muffin, brushing the crumbs off his clothes, and checked his appearance in the small hand mirror Sam kept under the counter, making sure he was presentable as he waited for their first customer.

It was a slow morning. A few students came in looking for a snack or two. Jack and Ruggie came in some time after, buying ingredients to make some steak.

“Leona’s in a meat mood again?” Mirai asked, laughing at the absurd amount of meat in Ruggie’s hand basket. 

“Ugh,” Ruggie groaned, “well, at least it’s not my money I'm wasting.”

“That will be three hundred and fifty marks.”

Jack looked flabbergasted. Ruggie dug through the battered brown leather wallet and gave the exact amount.

“Thank you,” Mirai chirped, putting the marks in the register.

Jack stepped up next, putting some protein shakes on the counter and the exact amount needed.

“Thank you,” Mirai said, taking the marks.

“You must buy those a lot to know the price,” Ruggie commented.

“Don’t you?” Jack asked, “Surely you must have all his favorites memorized with how many times you come here for Housewarden Leona?”

“Of course. That way, I know how many Marks I will get to pocket in the end.”

Jack sighed, but he knew not to try and lecture the Hyena, this was Ruggie we were talking about.

“Thanks guys, come again,” Mirai called as the two walked out. The two gave their own waves in return. 

A little while later, Deuce and Ace came in asking for an absurd amount of flour, eggs and milk. Sam handled that one, “poofing” everything on their list onto the counter. 

“Unbirthday party?” Mirai asked. 

“Yep, and Trey forgot to go shopping yesterday,” Ace answered.

“Trey did?” Mirai asked.

“Well it was more like he got caught up with his Vice duties that it slipped his mind.”

“Oh,” Mirai nodded thoughtfully.

“It’s gonna be a pain carrying all of this back,” Deuce sighed. 

“I’d help, but I’m currently on the clock,” Mirai said sadly.

“Why do you work anyways?” Ace asked, looking around for Sam before saying, “Sam is very picky with his workers.”

“I didn’t have a Mark to my name, and I needed extra food funds, supplies funds, and clothing funds,” Mirai sighed.

“Sucks man, I’d help if I also wasn’t getting money from my mother,” Deuce sighed.

“I wouldn’t have asked y’all to help in the first place.”

Deuce and Ace looked taken aback.

“I don’t like taking money from others without working for it,” Mirai supplied.

“Oh,” Ace said.

“Guys, enough chit chat, you have an unbirthday party to attend!”

“Oh yeah,” Ace and Deuce shouted in unison, “Bye Mirai!”

The two rushed through the shop and out the door. Mirai shook his head fondly.

“So, Little Imp,” Sam pried, sitting on the edge of the counter, “How’s it going with that boy?”

“Not you too,” Mirai whined, getting a sense of Deja vu.

“Oh? Who was the first?”

“Professor Crewel.”

“You two close?”

“I help him organize his potions closet on Friday’s.” Mirai explained.

“Huh. Anyways, how’s it going?” Sam asked.

“It’s fine, great even, but I feel like he’s distanced himself,” Mirai huffed.

“Distanced?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how to explain it, he still walks me to class, he still walks me home, he still holds my hand, but somehow he feels off.”

“Sometimes in a relationship, you feel like giving each other space, to keep from going too fast,” Sam explained, “Maybe he feels like he’s rushing things?”

“Too fast? Do you think we’re going too fast?”

“Hmm,” Sam thought, “Maybe he’s losing the feel of the honeymoon phase.”

Mirai sighed. 

“But you could always talk to him, Little imp, it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“That’s also what he said.”

“See, us wise old men know what we’re talking about,” Sam laughed.

Mirai snickered a bit, “You’re not old,”

“But you’ll never know unless you try,” Sam said softly.

Mirai nodded.

The rest of his shift was a little busier, but nothing to really work him to the bone. And when the clock struck three, his shift was over. Mirai was uniting his apron when a familiar voice rang out.

“Heyo!”

“Hey Cater,” Mirai smiled, “Just let me put my apron away, and I’ll be right there.” 

Sam was sitting on the counter again, sandwich in hand as he read the paper. “Hey, Little Imp,” Sam greeted, not taking his eyes off of what he was reading.

“Hey Sam,” Cater smiled. 

Mirai came back out, with a smile on his face, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Bye Little Imp, see you tomorrow,” Sam waved with a smile, “Remember what we talked about.”

“Bye Sam, and I will,” Mirai said with a wave.

Mirai and Cater walked in silence. Mirai looked at Cater as they walked, his face was blank, his usual smile nonexistent. 

“Cater?” Mirai called.

Cater seemed to snap out of it, face flashing from surprise to a forced smile. “Yes Hon?”

Mirai thought about what he and Professor Crewel, and Sam spoke about. “Those overdue assignments? Wanna talk about that?” Mirai asked instead. The Prefect was berating himself in his head for chickening out. He’ll wait a bit longer.

“It’s fine,” Cater said, laughing nervously. 

“Clearly not if your assignments are overdue. So Ima help you.”

“Aren’t you just so sweet,” Cater crooned.

“I mean it, Cater,” Mirai glared up at him, “You’re lucky Riddle hasn’t caught on yet.”

“Yikes,” Cater flinched at the aspect of Riddle finding out.

“So, are you busy right now?” Mirai asked.

“No,” Cater said, shaking his head.

“Good. Off to Heartslabyul we go.”

Mirai and Cater entered the mirror to the Heartslabyul dorm. Mirai thought he could never get used to the feeling of going through the mirrors. It felt pulley and pushy, and it made his stomach feel funny every time. When they entered the dorm grounds, it was quiet.

“Where is everyone?” Mirai asked curiously. 

“There was a Croquet game today,” Cater explained, “They should’ve wrapped it up by now.”

“Ah.”

Cater led Mirai inside the dorm and through the lounge and when they entered, there were a bunch of students occupying the lounge. Some were reading, other’s playing cards, one of the tables had several students doing their homework, and in the far corner, at the tea table, Ace, Deuce, Trey and Riddle were having tea and cookies. Trey perked up at the two entering the lounge.

“Hey Mirai, what brings you here?” Trey greeted the prefect.

“I’m here to help this dummy over here study,” Mirai answered, cocking his thumb at the redhead.

“Hey,” Cater gasped, but he didn’t sound offended at all.

“Where’s Grim?” Deuce asked.

“Home,” Mirai supplied, “I accidentally stepped on his tail before work this morning, so I’ve been avoiding him.”

Ace snickered.

“I seriously don’t get how you hang out with that man,” Deuce sighed.

“Me neither,” Cater huffed.

“Guys,” Mirai laughed, “He’s not that bad, nor is Professor Crewel.”

“Cater,” Riddle called, “remember to serve your guests tea, it would be very offensive not to.”

“Y-You really don’t have to,” Mirai stammered, “We’re just here to study.”

“Nonsense,” Riddle dismissed, “It would be rude not to. You’re a guest and a friend, but most importantly, it’s a rule.”

“It’s okay Riddle,” Cater chuckled, “I was getting the tea anyways. I was just gonna take him upstairs first. Black tea is fine, right? It’s only three o’clock.”

“Upstairs?” Ace asked with a smirk.

“Yeah?” Cater asked, “Why? Is there a rule against that?”

“Why upstairs?” Trey asked, a sly smile on his face.

“‘Cus I can’t play music down here,” Cater whined, “It ruins the study vibe.”

“That’s probably why you can’t concentrate, you’re too busy singing,” Mirai chided.

“Am not!”

“Fine, we can play music, but it's gonna be the instrumental version.”

“No,” Cater whined, “Guys! Mi-Mi’s being mean.”

“Suck it up you big baby,” Mirai laughed, smacking Cater on the arm.

The room erupted in snickers. Ever since Cater announced his relationship with Mirai, they became the talk of Heartslabyul. Everyone wanted the latest update on their relationship, and how they were doing. And even with Ace and Deuce’s threats to anyone who opposed, that didn’t stop the playful teasing that Mirai and Cater were subjected to. 

“So you're just studying?” Ace asked.

“Yes, studying,” Mirai gruffed, putting a hand on his hip, “something you should be doing after the state of your last pop quiz.”

A bunch of ‘oohs’ rang out in the room, and Ace had the nerve to look embarrassed.

“Hey,” Ace shouted, face red.

“What quiz?” Riddle asked Ace.

“It was a pop quiz,” Ace rushed out guiltily.

“Have fun studying,” Trey teased.

Cater and Mirai finally caught on to what they were implying, faces growing red. The room erupted in laughter. Even Riddle was chuckling.

“It’s not like that,” Cater whined, face flushed.

“Oh, yeah, like I haven’t heard that excuse before,” Ace cackled.

“Hope you learn a lot of things together,” Trey laughed. 

“Lets go,” Cater said, pulling Mirai out the lounge, tripping over his own feet.

The pair walked up the stairs, through the diamond archway, and down the hall to the wing that held the upperclassmen rooms. Cater shoved the door open and shut it behind him. Mirai liked Cater’s room, it was very “Cater-esque.”

“Uh, you can sit anywhere, I’ll, I’ll get the tea, uh brb,” Cater stammered, standing in the doorway.

Mirai nodded, sitting on the bed. With that, Cater left. 

Mirai spent the time scrolling through his Magicam, when there was clatter outside the door, and Mirai jumped at the noise.

“Uh, I need a little help, my hands are kinda full,” said Cater’s muffled voice from outside the door.

Mirai opened the door for Cater, who was balancing two beautiful covered porcelain trays, one in each hand. One had pictures of cakes on it, and the other teapots.

“Lemme…” Mirai mumbled taking the tray with the cakes on it. 

“Thanks,” Cater smiled, walking in the room, closing the door with hip. 

“Why didn’t you just use your signature spell? Extra hands ya’know?”

“O-Oh, yeah, I guess I could’ve done that.” Cater cleared a space to set everything down on a folding table. “Welcome to casa de Cater!”

Mirai laughed, “It’s nice as always.”

Cater removed the lid with the teapots on it and placed it down, “I hope I did it right, it’s your favorite after all.” There was a beat of silence, and when Mirai didn’t answer, Cater grew concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“S-Sorry, sorry,” Mirai said, snapping out of his stupor, “I-I, it’s just, it’s just, it’s very pretty.” 

The teapot and teacups were clear glass, the saucers looked like shattered glass. The pot handle was gold, it was swirled and twisted, and where the handle met the pot, there were porcelain lilies, trimmed in gold, their centers were yellow. The lid handle was a couple of lilies and a bud, and on the saucers was a lily and a gold twisted stem. The cups were like mini versions of the teapot, and the spoon was long and sliver with a lily on the top.

“What about it has you so quiet?” Cater asked, voice just above a whisper, like as if he spoke louder than that, whatever this mood was would shatter to pieces.

Mirai swallowed hard, trying to compose himself. “It looks just like the one my mother had.”

“Oh,” Cater said, eyes going wide, “I, uh, I’m sorry. We, we uh, we don’t have to use this one. I-I can-”

“N-No!”

Cater halted, not sure what to do.

 Mirai took a breath, trying to calm the sudden panic that rose through his body, before speaking again, “No, it’s okay. I'd really like to use that one, if that’s alright.”

“Okay,” Cater whispered.

Cater took a second before carefully flipping the cups over and poured the dark tea into the cups. As the tea was poured into the cup, its warm and rich scent permeated the air, and Mirai could immediately tell what it was.

“How did you know this was my favorite?” Mirai asked quietly.

Cater smiled softly, “I heard from Riddle that you like Earl Grey, so I brewed you some.”

“Thanks,” Mirai smiled.

“But you can add the sugar and stuff. I wouldn’t want to ruin your tea.”

Cater moved the bedside lamp and placed Mirai’s tea cup, spoon, and saucer, and a glass pot of honey and a bowl of sugar cubes on the bedside table. 

“It’s pretty,” Mirai said in awe.

“It’s been my favorite set, for a while now,” Cater said sheepishly, “It reminds me of you.”

Mirai flushed, “It’s far too beautiful to be compared to me.”

“I’d say you're even more so,” Cater teased, poking the Prefect on the nose, “but it fits you more than ever.”

Mirai flushed and busied himself with putting the sugar in his tea. Once it was to his liking, Mirai cradled the warm cup in his hands, staring into the deep colored liquid. Taking a sip, Mirai sighed, content. 

Cater lifted the lid of the tray with the cakes decorated on, and underneath was a smattering of little tea cakes and cookies. “These are for you,” Cater smiled.

“If you’re trying to butter me up so that we won’t do your overdue work, you're sorely mistaken,” Mirai smirked.

“Me?” Cater gasped dramatically, “Butter you up? I would never!”

“Okay, okay,” Mirai laughed, stirring his tea, “But we’re still doing them.”

“I know,” Cater sighed.

The next two hours were spent in each other's company. Mirai oversaw as Cater did his work, and of course that didn’t go smoothly. More than once did Cater zone out and stare out the window, then he would periodically check his Magicam, which ended up with Mirai taking his phone, sticking it in the bookshelf. Cater whines dramatically at that. Then Cater changed the song that was playing a bunch of times, saying it either didn’t fit his mood, or match the vibe. This then led to Cater picking his favorites to sing along to, then he started dancing in his seat, and then he went on a tangent on his favorite singers and the gossip around them as of late. Mirai had to get him back on track after that one, well that was until Cater got up to “use the bathroom” for the fifth time. 

Mirai really couldn’t help Cater other than keeping the third year on track. They had different lessons, different classes, and different requirements being in different years and all, but Mirai tried to support and help the best he could. And once Cater got focused he didn’t stop, and not long after he finished all his assignments. 

“Done,” Cater sighed, dropping his pencil and stretching his arms above his head. 

“Good job,” Mirai praised, eating yet another teacake. Mirai honestly didn’t know how many he’d eaten since they’d started. 

“That was so boring,” Cater whined, “A total #snoozefest.”

“I’m proud of you though. I really am.”

Cater looked stunned, and as he went to say something, there was a knock at the door. Cater took the opportunity to take the attention off himself and answer it. It was Trey.

“I came to see if you two wanted dinner,” Trey smiled.

“Oh! Can I invite Grim?” Mirai asked, suddenly remembering the cat back at home. “I’m sure he hasn’t had actual food all day.”

“Of course.

Trey left with that and Cater followed shortly after he started up a conversation with the Vice. Mirai sighed. Oh well, he’ll try again some other time.

Days passed and Mirai was kicking himself for not asking Cater earlier, because now, it seemed it was too late. Something had happened after that day Mirai helped the third year with his homework. Mirai knew he was hiding something, but something about that day became the tipping point for Cater, and now it all was just…wrong.

It started with Cater disappearing every so often. Mirai brushed it off until he didn’t show for one of his classes. Riddle had gotten him for that one, but Cater brushed it off saying he went to the infirmary for a stomach ache. And Mirai asked him if he was okay, he seemed to freeze up before kissing him atop his head, telling him not to worry.

 Then Cater stopped stopping by to walk him from classes. The first couple of times, Mirai didn’t mind, he wasn’t a two year old in need of a hand to hold lest he get lost, but after it continued after the fourth and fifth time, it began to hurt. Was Cater busy? Had Mirai annoyed him? Mirai couldn’t find an answer, nor did he have the courage to ask. 

And then when he saw the Heartslabyul third year in passing, he just wave like nothing was wrong. Cater talked his ear off like he always did, not that Mirai minded, but he wouldn’t touch him, or at least not directly. He’d wrap his arm around Mirai’s waist, pat him on the shoulder, but he wouldn’t hold his hand. And oh how Mirai craved to feel Cater’s lips against his own. Mirai couldn’t remember the last time Cater kissed him, he couldn’t remember the last time he felt Cater’s warm breath mingling with his own, the slide of Cater’s tongue against his, or the taste of his cherry chapstick. What about his touch? When was the last time Cater touched his skin, hugged him, held him close like he never wanted to let go when he stayed the night? 

Mirai wanted to be angry, to yell, scream, but he couldn’t. He wanted to be mad at Cater, he wanted to confront him, chew him out, but that wouldn’t be fair, because he was to blame. He was too afraid to communicate, to ask for himself, and now look where that got him. And today was his breaking point.

Mirai noticed it the moment he saw the strawberry blonde that morning for breakfast. Cater had entered the cafeteria with the rest of Heartslabyul, a smile on his face as bright as the sun, ready to take on the world. He was chatty, filling Trey in on his newest Magicam gossip, but something was off. 

“Good morning, Babydoll. Sleep well?” Cater asked, happily.

“Meh,” Mirai said, staring intently at Cater. 

Mirai reached across the table to hold Cater’s hand, but Cater’s eyes flicked to his hand, and in a split second, he dropped his fork.

“Oops,” Cater said, reaching to pick the silverware up. “Ima go get another fork. Brb!”

Once Cater came back, he kept his hands off the table for the rest of breakfast.

It was safe to say Mirai skipped over the stage of dejection and went straight to irritation. What had he done to make Cater not want to hold his hand? And to go as far as making a show of “dropping” his fork to avoid him? Mirai grumbled to himself, the moment the last bell rang, he was gonna confront Cater. The bell rang, signaling the start of classes and Mirai sighed. It was gonna be a long day. 

Throughout the day, Mirai caught glimpses of bright orange waves, but not once were those green eyes on him. But the was something that Mirai wanted to confirm, to see if the inkling in the back of his mind was just anxiety. 

“You guys think Cater’s being weird today?” Mirai asked as he did his Potionology worksheet.

“What ya mean?” Deuce asked.

“Isn’t he your boy-thing or whatever?” Grim muttered out. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“I don't know. He just is.”

“I don’t know man,” Ace said, “Maybe you’re looking too far into things?”

“Maybe,” Mirai said looking back at his work. 

It was their free period and Mirai and the other freshman got together to work on some homework.

“Yall get inna lovers spat or somethin’?” Epel asked curiously.

“Nope,” Mirai said curtly.

“Sure sounds like ya did.”

“Why do you ask anyways?” Jack asked.

Mirai looked across the courtyard where Cater was with a gaggle of third years. He was talking animatedly, his smile wide, his voice light and playful. But his eyes, from here he couldn’t see them, but he knew from earlier that despite his happy attitude, his eyes didn’t show that at all.

“He said he didn’t feel well, earlier this week,” Mirai half lied.

“Well, now that you mention it, he does seem a little unwell,” Sebek mused. 

“His vitals are coming back positive,” Ortho chimed in. “Maybe he’s tired? Idia gets like that sometimes.”

“Maybe,” Mirai muttered, turning his attention away from Cater. 

Classes ended and just when Mirai thought he was gonna make yet another trek home alone, Cater was waiting for him outside the door.

“Ready to go, Baby?” Cater asked.

“Ya sure you’re not too busy?” Mirai asked, a little more than annoyed.

“How could I be too busy for you?” 

Mirai raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as he began his walk home. Cater followed happily, as he typed and scrolled away on his phone. Mirai tried to ignore it, but really? Was he not gonna pay attention to him? Not even tell him of his day? Maybe Cater really was getting tired of him?

“Well, will you at least hold my hand?” Mirai asked, voice harsher than he intended. 

“A-Ah, sorry,” Cater said, panic coloring his face. “Sure.”

Well, why wasn’t he taking his hand? Mirai stared at Cater as he seemed to panic, like he couldn’t figure out how it worked?

“Cater?” Mirai asked.

Cater suddenly looped to Mirai left and switching his phone to his left hand, he reached and took his prosthetic hand into his right. Why?! Mirai let go and stepped into Cater path. 

“What’s going on with you tha-”

The third year suddenly stopped in his tracks, and while trying to avoid a collision, he dropped his phone, the device luckily falling to the grass.

Mirai muttered a curse, “Sorry, lemme-”

Cater gasped, “N-No it’s-”

They both reached for the smartphone and as their hands collided, Mirai reeled back, trying not to let the surprise, no fear, show on his face. Cater’s hands were cold. Cater looked up at Mirai, knowing their hands touched, trying to gauge if Mirai felt it too, but Mirai said nothing, his expression unreadable.

“Sorry,” Mirai muttered.

“I-It’s fine,” Cater stuttered. 

The two just stared at each other, and Mirai tried to fight the tears that threatened to fall.

“Well I gotta stop by Sam’s to pick up some breakfast. Text ya after clubs?” Mirai croaked.

“Of course,” Cater smiled. “Later, Babydoll.”

Mirai watched Cater’s back retreat back to the school building, no doubt going to his club meet. And Mirai’s hunch was right, the theory that had been burning in the back of his mind for the better half of the week was true. This Cater was a fake. He needed to find Cater.

Mirai stopped by Heartslabyul. Most of the guys were at their respective clubs, so it was easy to slip in a claim that he was here to drop something of Cater's off. Mirai followed the hallways that led to the upperclassmen wing, and making it to Cater’s room, Mirai stopped at the door and knocked. No one answered. Mirai knocked again and waited, and still got no answer. Mirai sighed, hoping Cater wouldn’t be too mad as he tried the door, and to his luck, it was open. 

Mirai pushed his way into the dark room, and slowly tipped his way to the bed. 

“Cater?’ Mirai whispered. “Cater?”

Mirai looked at the bed and it was empty, the sheets immaculate. Mirai’s stomach dropped.

“Okay, okay, this doesn’t mean anything,” Mirai tried to convince himself as he exited the vacant room. “So he wasn’t here, cool, that’s fine. So now we just gotta find him.” 

Mirai checked the rest of the dorm, the balconies, the croquet field, and when Mirai couldn’t find him in the rose maze, he began to panic.

“Where are you?” Mirai muttered.

Cater sat in the observatory, looking up at the stars. He was tired, his brain wouldn’t shut up, and now he didn’t have his phone to distract himself. But then again, maybe it was for the best. Because now he didn’t have to see the hateful comments on his feed, now he didn’t have to see all the things he envied, all the things he hated himself for. No he couldn’t compare himself to the thousands of others who he doom scrolled across, now he didn't have to see the cringe photos his double posted in his stead. 

Cater sighed, feeling the pull of magic tingle in the back of his mind. His clone was still out there, filling in as him for the day. Just as it had been for the better half of the week. He could do this, he’d been keeping it up this long and no one noticed. Not his freshmen, not Riddle, not Trey, not Kalim and Lilia. Not even Mirai.

Cater chuckled to himself. Not even his lover could tell the difference. He was just that replaceable, wasn’t he? Just another faceless being, just another unoriginal internet personality, just another poser. The sound of the doors sliding open, made Cater startle, and then irritation washed over him. So much for some peace.

“Getting so extra studying in?” Cater asked, trying to sound like his usual self. “I feel ya. Someti-”

“Ya’know, if you don’t wanna do this anymore you could’ve told me.”

Cater whipped his head around and instead of seeing one of his fellow third years, he was looking down on his angry lover.

“I will not be your plaything,” Mirai shouted, eyes watery, “I-I will not be y-your, your latest trend! So if I’m tiring you, say it to my face and we'll end it now!”

“He-hey, wa-wait! I-”

“And the clone! Really?! I know you know how dangerous that is! How long have you been doing that?! Where are your blot levels at?”

Shoot. Cater hadn’t even checked how much he had accumulated. Cater’s eyes flicked over to his pen. He could still see red, but it was awfully cloudy, black beginning to take up around the edges.

“Clone? There’s no clone,” Cater lied with a smile, “I don’t what you-”

“Boss, I’m back. I took notes on what-”

The clone stopped dead in it’s tracks, it’s green eyes wide in fear much like it’s owners. The double looked between Mirai and Cater, not sure how it could salvage this situation.

“Mi-Mi, I-”

“Dismiss him,” Mirai said, voice devoid of emotion as he ignored the clone. 

Cater stood from his spot on the floor, “Mirai, I-I-I didn’t-”

“If you’re gonna explain yourself, I'd rather hear it from you,” Mirai huffed. “Not, not, not from him, and not with him here. ”

Cater sighed, taking his phone from the copy before dismissing him into a burst of playing 

cards. There was silence between them, neither of them looking each other in the eye. No one knew who’d break the silence first.

“Fine. Let’s just say I’m totally wrong, which I’m not, why were you here all day, and not in your classes?”

“You know,” Cater said playfully, “sometimes Cay-Cay’s brain does a silly and-”

“Cater,” Mirai called, cutting off the strawberry blondes rambling.

“Y-Yeah?” Cater smiled.

“Stop smiling.”

Cater faltered, but when Mirai’s gaze didn’t let up did Cater finally drop the act, and it was like a flip switched. His green eyes were void of their usual happiness and gone was his smile, an irritated sneer in its place. This wasn’t the Cater Mirai knew, but it was one that Mirai wanted to know, as crazy as it sounded. Mirai could count how many times he’s witnessed this side of Cater on one hand. He’d seen it twice during Riddle’s Overblot, and the other was a mistake.

“That’s better,” Mirai smirked snarkily.

“So now you’re here to tease?” Cater sneered.

“Not tease, scold is more like it. Do you know how dangerous that little stunt was?”

“I can handle it,” Cater huffed. “I’ve done it before, I can do it again.”

“Oh come on! You and I both know that’s not a smart idea.”

“So how’d you know?” Cater asked, ignoring that last statement. “How’dja figure it out, cus I honestly thought I was doing pretty good sending those copies. It worked for the better half of the week.”

“To be honest I didn’t know at first,” Mirai admitted, “But then you wouldn't touch me.”

“‘Course. Their body temperature isn’t exactly human.”

“Also, not sure if you know, but the longer your clones stray away from you, the less “normal” they look.”

Mirai thought back to earlier in the day when he’d been watching Cater. The clone looked a bit pale, sick even. And it’s eyes, they were dull, void of life and emotion.

“Noted.”

“No, not noted,” Mirai grit out. “What’s eating you so much that you’d endanger yourself like this?!”

Cater didn’t say anything.

“Are you that repulsed by me that you’d send a clone in your place? 

“Repulsed is one word for it.”

“If you’re mad at me, then tell me why! Yell at me, get in my face, I don’t care! Anything beats the way you-”

“Do you actually love me, Mirai?” Cater asked with a finality that made Mirai’s hair stand on end.

“Wh-What?! You’re asking me that after all of this?!” Mirai asked, “I should be asking you that question!”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do! Even if you’re really making me question everything we’ve been doing these past few months.”

“You sure it’s me and not Cay-Cay?” Cater smiled.

“Wha-What?”

“Oh come on Mirai! You saw it today! I’m replaceable! I’m just another soulless personality! Just another smiling face! No one! Not a single person realized that I wasn’t me! All I have to do is smile, take a pic, make a dumb joke, and act like the next unintelligent trend chasing magicammer out there, and boom! What do you have?! Cater Diamond!” 

“That’s not true and you know it,” Mirai shouted back.

“Ya’know, I started thinking about us after our break. I realized how much has changed, how much I have changed since I’ve met you. And I started thinking about how our relationship might look in the future.”

Mirai was taken aback at his confession, but stayed silent in favor of letting him speak first.

“It then got me wondering if I would ever be able to bring you home to meet my family? And I already know how they see me, but I don’t know if they truly accept us. And then I began to wonder, who is Cater?”

“I-I-I don’t, I don’t follow-”

“Is Cater me or the me I created in response to my sisters? Is Cater the Cater I created in response to my life as the kid who moved every year, as the kid without a real friend in Twisted Wonderland? Is Cater the Cater who overshares to keep people close, that they think they know me, but far enough to have a real connection? And I began to wonder, which Cater you are dating, and if you love the actual Cater, and not the one I created.”

“Of course I love you,” Mirai growled. “I told you before, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship before, so it’s def not a word I throw around lightly.”

“Then who am I to you, Mirai?” Cater asked coldly.

“You already know the answer to that. You’re my boy-”

“Nuh uh. Who am I to you?”

Mirai swallowed, taking a breath, “You are kind and caring, selfless, always putting others first. You are attentive, always knowing how someone’s feeling, always the one to lift the mood. You are you. You don’t have to be smart, or athletic, super pretty, and you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be Cater, and that’s enough for me.”

Cater was stunned into silence, and Mirai took the chance to continue. “Cater, Cater I, Cater I want to be someone you can rely on, someone you can trust,” Mirai said looking down at his feet, “I’m worried about you, and I’ve been thinking of ways to go about this, but I was scared I was pushing you away. I’ve never been in an actual relationship before, and I really didn’t want to mess this up, well, I guess I already have, but I don’t wanna mess up anymore than more than I already have,” 

Mirai sighed, looking up at Cater, “I don’t want you to face your problems alone if you don’t have to. If you really don’t wanna talk, then we don’t have to, but I’m here for you. I always will be. And if you want me to leave, I’ll go.”

It was the quiet sob that had Mirai climbing the stairs to Cater, and when he saw the rivers of tears falling down his cheek, his heart broke in two. “Oh, Cater,” Mirai sighed, “Come here.”

Cater fell forward, and pressed his face into Mirai's chest and sobbed. Cater gripped the Prefect like a lifeline, fingers white knuckled in his shirt. Mirai let him stay there as he cried, holding him tight, and steady. The Prefect let Cater cry, rubbing his back as his breathing grew between sobs. Mirai would always be there, as long as Cater would allow him to be, he’d be there. 

“I-I-,” Cater stuttered.

Mirai sat up and gave Cater his full attention.

“I feel horrible, I feel like I’m lying to you. And I don’t know how to fix it,” Cater babbled.

“You are more than what you think, Cater. You are more than your Magicam account, you are more than what you post, or how many followers you have. You are more important than how others perceive you, you are braver then your darkest thoughts. You are irreplaceable.”

Cater was sobbing into his sleeves, shoulders shaking. 

“I’m, I’m sorry,” Cater hiccuped, sniffling.

“Don’t be,” Mirai reassured, “But I really am proud of you Cater.”

Cater slowly sat them down and pressed himself into Mirai hold. Mirai slowly fell back onto the cold floors, sighing as Cater smushed his face into Mirai’s neck. They stayed like that for a while, Cater lying on Mirai's chest, and Mirai, combing his fingers through Cater’s soft orange hair.

“Thanks,” Cater croaked after a while.

“You’re welcome,” Mirai said softly.

 Sometime after they both calmed, the two of them ended up laying on the observatory floors, looking up at the bright night sky. Cater was dozing, lying halfway on Mirai’s chest, and Mirai laying there, combing his fingers through Cater’s hair.

“You’re soft,” Cater mumbled after a while.

“Am I?” Mirai asked quietly.

Cater nodded.

“I love your hair,” Mirai whispered, scratching his nails down into the roots, “It’s so soft, so thick, and so vibrant.”

Cater hummed, turning his head into the scratches. Mirai chuckled, scratching down Cater’s head, and onto his nape. Cater sighed shakily.

“I love how bright your eyes are, and I love your freckles.”

Cater whimpered, turned his face into Mirai’s chest, and visible flush coloring his cheeks.

“I love you, Cater.”

“I-I love you, too,” Cater whispered. 

Mirai smiled, kissing the top of Cater’s head and Cater leaned into it, silently begging for more, and obliged with a loving chuckle. 

Cater yawned, “‘m tired.”

“Well we can’t sleep here, but we can go back to Ramshackle?” Mirai offered, “We can make some quick instant Ramen and watch a movie?”

Cater smiled, “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Together the two of them left the observatory, and headed to Ramshackle, the weight of their troubles seemed to float up into the stars as those heavy metal doors slid shut behind them.

[dlamp-dictator]

Okay, finished up the main story of Wuthering Waves and slowly getting a feel for how the day-to-day grind is going to be in this game. And... I gotta' be honest here.

I'm enjoying it. A lot.

The game is fun. Very fun. It's got flaws, glaring flaws, but frankly I haven't had this much fun in a game like this since maybe DmC 5 if I had to compare it to something I'm familiar with. Ultimately, despite my love of the game I like it in spite of its massive flaws rather than because of its minor strong points, but it's a game I honestly think I'll stick with for awhile.

However, I'm not here to talk about the gameplay this time around. I wanted to talk about the story first because that's honestly the roughest part of the game. And I'll be frank, this is more a mad rambling in the sense of the younger Allen X than the current one, but I just can't get my thoughts on this game steady yet, so try not to mind the vomit I'm about to throw at you.

But first, as always, that synopsis.

Wuthering Waves is set in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world after a catastrophe called the Lament wiped out most of humanity and caused unknown beings and monsters, called Tacet Discords to appear. However, humanity soon adapted to the threat and over time rebuilt civilization. The story follows the amnesiac Rover, who has awoken from a deep slumber and sets out to explore this new world.

Let it be known that I stole this from the wiki because that's how little I care to summarize this story myself. There's... a lot to discuss. I'll be here all day if I nitpick and talk about every immediate problem I have with the game's story, so I'll try to summarize my issues with three main points. Emphasis on try, again the game's still very new and my thoughts are overall still very scattered. With that said, here are the main points:

There's no real ground for us to care about the world or its people.

The game overloads us with unfamiliar terms and makes following the story hard.

The military sycophancy is... annoying.

Alright, let's break this down as best we can.

Yeah, Let's Just Knock Out the Military Sycophancy

So, while I'd like to start with the most pressing matter first of the game's hook-less intro and lack of intrinsic motivation for Rover or the player aside from gacha rewards, this is the most controversial thing to discuss and I'd rather have it out in the open and talked about first so we aren't too distracted with my other messy points.

So, Wuthering Waves' first 3-ish Acts (especially Act 2) and honestly the whole Huanglong chapter of the main story has rather... pointed moments of focus toward military branches of Huanglong and Jinzhou. There's a lot of heavy praise for the military, how they're keeping out enemies and invaders, how they need to be supported at all cost, etc.. And on its own it's fine.

Like, really, no bullshit, I'm honestly fine with this on the surface.

A quick reminder folks, Wuthering Waves, for all it's technology and advancements, is still in a post-apocalyptic world where literal Sound Demons™ come out of the void to slaughter people with reckless abandon. This is shown the very first time you leave and enter the city of Jinzhou, as NPC soldiers are actively fighting Tacet Discord, some of which will die if you don't intervene and help them clear out mobs on your way out of the city. The training barracks is right outside the gate, there are military bases and camps in even the more remote places where you can also see more NPC soldiers fighting mobs. The lore states that only recently they've forced non-Resonators out of the army because they will legit die instantly to these things.

In this world having a strong military and being proud of it, especially when your city is the first line of defense, is something that's obviously going to come up. In the world of Wuthering Waves, a military force isn't there to potentially conquer another country and take their stuff, work as some glorified bodyguard for the nobility, or protect luxury resources of elite national interest. In Wuthering Waves, the army is thrown into the frontlines to be the wall against the Tacet Discord and likely die or be horribly injured in droves during the process. Make no mistake, despite Jinzhou elegant and peaceful appearance it is on the northern border where almost all the major Tacet Discord are formed. It is very much Chinese-Kislev with Sound Demons™ instead of Chaos Daemons. Not to mention you're traveling around with Yangyang, a member of the scouting military branch, who would obviously have strong opinions about the organization she serves, and Jianxin, who's an errant monk trying to still learn about the world and only has the words of her masters to go off of, and her masters are very pro-military.

It. Makes. Sense.

But the game sure as shit doesn't really show a lot of that in the text and dialogue. It really does come across as brown-nosing, and since the only voices against are main group are the Fractsidus it's hard to take their words at face value. It's not like the game plays up the fact that Yangyang is a military officers aside from Act 2, or that Jianxin is in actually kind of a childish musclehead that's only really good at martial arts and little else as her later Intimacy voice lines imply. The Military Sycophancy is more a product of rushed and lacking characterization than outright brown-nosing. Some minor dialogue in later acts actually question how righteous and moral some of those military leaders are in the heat of the moment, but you have to look for those voices to be heard.

But speaking of lacking characterization that brings me to my second point.

There's Not Really a Grounded Hook, is There?

To give a brief summary of the Huanglong story, the main character, Rover (yes, that seems to be the canonical name) wakes up after a vision/mysterious event of sorts while having no memories of their past or their goals. They are awoken by a friendly soldier and town guard and travels with their new companions to the city of Jinzhou after some shenanigans. The city's local leader, realizing an prophesy involving Rover is about to set off big things, attempts lure them to their side through both friendly and mysterious means. As Rover follows the trail they come to learn several parties and factions not only know about them, but have plans for them that don't require them to even know of main purpose of them being brought to the world, and those factions tease Rover with information hinting about their purpose before fleeing the scene. Through these meetings and the connections Rover makes throughout the story, they decide side with those that housed, protected, and cared for them and help save their country, unbeknown to them and several others going all according to the city leader's plan at the end of the day, even if said leader gambled a little at the end.

And while I'm skipping a lot of details here and there, namely involving the Fractsidus, Black Shores, and other parties, that sure as hell is a better summary of the plot than you'd find in the game. I kept out a lot of the terminology, but that's the basic idea. You're an unknown element, you have several people interested in you because of it, and... that's really it.

There's... nothing to truly hook you.

Look, I know using the G-word is bad form, but I'm gonna. In Genshin the story is simple: You're Aether/Lumine, some asshole god stole your sibling (or sent them back in time or something), you want to get her back and you have to solve every country's problem along the way while Dainslief just stands their menacingly. In Arknights...

...

...

Okay, honestly Wuthering Waves' story intro is about as bad as Arknights' with all the unfamiliar terminology and introducing people you don't care about until 3 more main story chapters, but you get my point.

Wuthering Waves doesn't have much to get you truly invested in the story. There's no real incentive for you to do things aside from mild curiosity and the gacha rewards. The fact that the little scavenger hunt Jinshi sends you on is super-lore heavy doesn't help either. There's a few good moments like most Jiyan confronting the phantom of his former superior, most of the stuff with Aalto and the Black Shore, Scar's occasional moments, and all of the final act, but those are few and far between with all the lore, exposition, and Yangyang's voice actor not having the greatest voice direction. You're dragged around a lot, but you don't really get to stay long enough to really care about the group. I think the only time they did was when they had you with Yangyang in Qichi Village learning about the place's backstory. That was good storytelling and world-building, as you are immediately curious about why the village was so fucked up and the implications were so... twisted. And best of all Scar was able to bring the lore explanation to a human, understandable level with his analogy of the wolf, shepherd, and sheep.

Which brings me to my last point.

So Many Goddamn Terms

The fact that they reference this in later Acts does not help, but the game has a lot of terminology in it. To summarize some of this, the world of Solaris-3 is a post-apocalyptic world based off frequencies, wavelengths, and a biiiiit of Chinese/Eastern fantasy thrown in for flavor. A lot of things revolve around that, but goddamn are there a lot of terms here. Even the official site just barely covers the basics. The Black Shores, the Fractsidus, the various nations and locations of importance. There's... a lot. A lot that isn't cover in as much depth as it should, or should just be simplified to its most important points. Part of me thinks this is because it's a Chinese game first and translating all the terms into something a Westerner can understand is just a mess in and of itself. However... this game also had quite a few years to cook as well and... it needed another year in the oven for reason aside from the glitches and lag.

Smaller Issues

Just gonna' put these in list form because I'm very tired now.

The Voice Direction: I think it's clear the voice acting isn't great, and I want to say its the director's fault. We've got a lot of decent talent here and a few people with good line reads. It just feels something is holding a lot of them back or the director isn't giving them enough context. Maybe now that the secrets out and we know who's voicing what they can actually direct things better now. Either way I'm hoping it gets better.

The Glitches and Stuttering: I'll save gameplay discussions for another posts, but for now I'll say I'm filling it minimally. It's not as bad as others, and I took some precautions to not deal with it as much, but it's still bad.

Rover's Character: So Rover actually has a lot more speaking lines than the average gacha self-insert character, almost to the point of them being their own character. However, the words coming out of their mouth are often just exposition, which only characterizes Rover as someone either intelligent or observant, which clashes with in-universe other characterizations of them being an almost mindless TD-destroying slaughter that cuts through mobs like its an addiction.

Uuuuugh... I know I said I'd say some positive things about the game, but... this has already left me a little drained. I'll talk more in detail about the positives at a later date, but for now I'm gonna' chill for a bit and maybe do a weekly boss.

I'll see you folks later.