#I wonder if this time they will break the cycle

[mr-ys-phantasma]

🌙 Moon Phases 🌙

Agatha Harkness X Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1658

Chapter 43:

Agatha looked at you confused for a moment, wondering how the dandelion was the key to finishing this trial and maybe even the road.

Yet a few seconds later, and after one more light turned off, it dawned upon her.

With shaky hands, she took the dry dandelion seed to the corner of her eye and gently let one last tear escape before balancing it on the little plant.

You both looked at it, but then another light turned off, leaving you only with one; a sign that was your time was almost up.

You hurried first and put your fingers into the wet ground, popping between the crack caused by Billy's powers. Digging a small shallow hole as Agatha placed the water coated seed in it.

She gently moved and moved to cover the whole with the rest of the mud, the last light above the two of you flickering; making your heart beat faster.

"I need more time!" She shouted, looking anywhere in the room; hoping whatever entity created the Road in the first place would take pity on her.

The light flickered faster and you grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly in hopes of offering her some comfort but also to keep yourself as calm as possible; the idea of dying still not fully accepted in your mind.

The light flickered faster, and there was no sign of the seed surviving.

Could you have guessed it wrong?

You feared you had led your last seconds down the wrong path and could not help but look at Agatha with a shocked but also fearful expression on your face.

She seemed to share your worry. None of you wanted to die. Not because you knew who awaited at the other side; but because you felt it was not your time.

You could talk about dying and how you were fine with it, but deep down, you were not. A part of you was ready to fight with everything that existed within, to survive.

A part of you refused to die, and you both could feel it with each beat of your heart and each breath you took.

Agatha, realizing this might be the end, acted on her instincts one last time. She wrapped her arms around your body and pulled you into her embrace, wishing to hold you close and maybe even protect you from whatever would lead into your doom.

You immediately hugged back, eyes closed and face hidden by the base of her neck. You squeezed and simply waited... praying that the ending would come quick and painlessly.

As you two held each other, ready to move into the next life together... you failed to notice that the little seedling you worked together to plant... was blooming.

The seed started to grow in the little cracks between the two of you, and soon, a flower had developed. Its bright yellow colours stood out against the grey and white morgue room you were in.

And as if time was moving too fast for it, it started to dry up until a fluffy round dandelion took its place; the full life cycle took place in front of your eyes.

Suddenly, the light stopped flickering, and all the other ones turned on; showering you and the room with purple light.

The sudden change made you break apart from the hug and look around, realizing you were still alive. You exchanged a smile of relief with one another, but your moment was cut shot.

The first grains of dirt and ground started to fall on you, cracks appearing on the ceiling as it started collapsing.

With little time to spare you, you both got up and sprinted towards the steps; pieces of cement falling where you just stood.

Agatha was first, her fingers tightly wrapped around your wrist; pulling you along and making sure you were not going to fall behind.

She reached the closed doors at the top of the stairs and dared to look above her shoulder and yours, only to see the room quickly filing with cement, dirt and ground; the Road intending to bury you alive.

Both of you banged on the door with all your might, shouting as loud as you could; hoping someone or something would hear you. The door was supposed to open since you had finished the trial.

At last, the doors succumbed to your force, and they parted open, allowing you to climb out just the nick off time.

Once out, it took your moment to realize you were in Agatha's backyard into the real world. However, it was not the end for you yet. It was becoming evident by the green aura and the green shade of the sky.

Lightning flashed behind grey and green clouds. A huge surge of power being fell through your bodies and your magical cores.

Instincts about to drive you crazy as everything within was telling you to flee. It was an urge you had fought before, something only one person could ever cause it to you two...

Your instincts told you to look up towards the roof, and there you saw Rio with her crown and her widow veil; waiting for you at the very eye of this hurricane.

"Congratulations, my loves!" Rio cackled, spreading her arms in an overdramatic fashion. "I'm sorry I didn't have a ribbon for you to run through."

Agatha looked at Rio, upset but above all... angry. She had finished the damn trials, she had done it all, and last time she had gotten what she wanted.

Why was Rio suddenly present? So keen on presenting herself like the next trial because the green witch one was just finished.

"Where is it?" She questioned, looking her fkrmer lover dead in the eyes. "I want my prize!"

Rio stopped smiling. "So do I."

"I got you the kid out, as agreed!" Agatha reminded, making you look at her with wide eyes.

"What?" You exclaimed, looking at her as if she had grown a second head. "You made a deal with her?" You asked, trying to keep your tone calm.

After all you had been through, after actually caring for the boy... she has the audacity to make a deal? And not just with anyone but with Rio!

The only entity out there whose deals only had one condition.

Agatha did not dare to look at you, trying to hide her guilt behind her usual mask, but it was practically impossible to hide it from you two; who could read her like an open book.

Rio looked intrigued, always enjoying some good drama. "Oh!" She exclaimed. "She didn't tell you, did she?"

You looked at Agatha but focused on Rio once again. "No," you answered, humouring her.

"Agatha here, made a deal. The boy for her life," Rio confirmed your theory with a few words. "But the true question here is...he's now where?" She asked rhetorically, using all of her drama. "He was supposed to surrender himself. That means you're coming with me." A finger was pointed at Agatha.

Despite everything, you refused to let Rio take Agatha; take her soul.

You knew she could not kill due to the rules, but she could easily wound and harm and torture until the victims begged for death... and most of the times they chose to end the suffering themselves, in rather drastic ways.

You had witnessed her dark influence when chasing those who tried to escape her. You had felt her cold touch. You had been at the other end of her sadistic side even during supposed tender moments...

And you would have to be dead to let her have Agatha.

"No, no way!" You shouted above the raging winds your voice carried by them towards Rio.

Your eyes narrowed in warning, and you summoned your white magic in your hands, ready to be used... only to feel it weak.

Looking at your hands, you were surprised with the fact that it was flickering; as if something was absorbing or killing it.

Rio stated to laugh like a true witch, amusement filled within her chest and around her aching heart; the sight beneath her a true show, and she had first row seats.

"Confused, babygirl?" She asked with a mockery tone, making you glare at her. "Sorry, I guess I hide the surprise."

Some of the green clouds summoned by her magic started to part, allowing Agatha and look at the sky.

"No...." Your voice trembled faintly with pure fear at the sight.

The moon was bright, but a black shadow had covered it around 80% of it, and it kept going; slowly obscuring more and more of the white light.

"A moon eclipse," Agatha pointed out as realisation settled.

Moon eclipses were rare, lasting only for a small amount of time, but it was your worst nightmare. The sun passing in front of the moon was interfering with your powers, weakening them... and you.

You could still use them, but they had dropped in intensity, barely able to be used defensively; impossible to be any help against someone like Rio.

Suddenly, a green vine emerged and wrapped around your neck before forcing you to the ground.

Immediately, your hands went to your neck, trying to ease the tight plan and escape, but it was mot budging. The pull of it was stable and would not choke you to death, but it did limit your air intake to a terrifying degree.

"Y/N!" Agatha exclaimed as the vine started to pull you away from your lover.

Before she could try and do anything to help, the vine pulled you away faster as Rio spoke up.

"Sorry, babygirl, but this is not your fight," she said, not an ounce of remorse for using such means to separate you. "This is between me and Agatha," she continued, making the magicless witch look at her. "I'm thinking death by a thousand cuts!"

[vinspiration-book]

Agatha All Along fic idea

Thinking about a fanfic continuing Rio's story where she moves on and heals from Agatha, and I think Jen would be a wonderful angle for that. I don't really want to sit and write it but the general outline is:

Jen escapes the Road and instead of flying off into the sunset, returns to Agatha's house. She misses all the action and seeing Billy leave but encounters Rio standing before Agatha's grave.

Jen cracks an insensitive joke at Agatha's expense, Rio snaps back, and Jen realizes it wasn't just sexy death fun times with Agatha. She responds with sympathy and stops Rio from leaving by herself. She compliments the flowers. Says they are still technically covenmates, so they ought to stick together. But maybe not here.

They go to Jen's shop. With her powers back and the experience of the Road in her, her shop no longer satisfies. The scamming to get by now seems distasteful. Jen realizes she is going to have to rebuild her entire life into something better. She makes a joke about the death of her shop and having Rio right there. Rio is still too raw to laugh but it cheers her just a tiny bit, to see someone point out the cycle that her duties represent.

Jen surprises her by deciding to destroy the store. She wants a clean slate, and her products have petroleum (and other cheat ingredients) in them anyway, and suddenly that's not good enough. She starts breaking things, throwing jars and jade eggs and breaking windows and displays. She asks Rio to help. They go on a destruction binge, absolutely wrecking everything.

Rio is into it, but also startled by it... How it's a cleansing destruction, a destruction giving way to rebirth. It's a mirror to the destruction she loved about Agatha, but much more healthy. A stark contrast.

Giddy and grinning amidst the wreckage, Jen decides to really flex her power and starts blasting holes in the walls. She wants the sunlight to illuminate her new truth. She gets swept up in it and grabs Rio's hand, asking her to help.

Their magic mixes. Moss covers the floor at their feet, the potted plants break their pots and grow wild, a tree sprouts in the middle of the floor and grows to full size.

Finally, silence. They both breathe in the sudden green air in the shop, looking around at what they did. Jen is basking in the feeling, just present in the moment...

... And Rio is staring at Jen.

Do you see the vibes there?

[baked-hylian]

As soon as I saw this leak I got real excited I had already suspected we'd be getting flashbacks to 10,000 years ago, to the first calamity, as it would only make sense to flesh that part out more now that whatever kept the calamity sealed away has been broken, or lifted, and this pretty much confirms that suspicion for me.

I have two competing ideas on who this mysterious woman could be

my first thought was that she is the physical representation of the goddess Hylia, which she very well could be by this point, if the lines on her skin are not simply painted on. My second and more likely thought, is that this is an incarnation of Zelda, a version of her from 10,000 years ago—the Zelda who seals the calamity away that we see in the ancient mural.

I highly suspect we will have at least one cut scene depicting the past, but I have a feeling that for each temple/dungeon (or whatever equivalent they receive in game) there will be a cut scene unlocked showing the history of what unfolded 10,000 years ago, and that these visions will be what Link and Zelda need to see in order to figure out how to stop the next coming of the calamity.

We may even get to see her journey alongside botw-Zelda's (i.e. if we get playable Zelda segments, I can see the ancient-Zelda cutscenes being placed during those segments,) as they both ascend to a point strong enough to seal away the calamity at different points in time.

[tacagen]

one of the things that fascinate me about thawne: yes, he CAN be normal with kids! surprisingly normal!

((not at all times, though. his mental illness still spills through and as usual he, in trying to manipulate or hurt others, spits out at them the exact stuff that would hurt him (or have in his childhood/barry's rejection interpretation) the most in the first place lmao))

but at the same time. his like second instinct when doing his bullshit is FUCK THEM (as) KIDS

(and, well. whatever this classifies as)

[hexxter]

What if Luxu and Player encounter each other with each of the player’s reincarnation

Luxu who is stealing bodies vs the kid that keeps coming back to life

[imyandme]

Years of love missed over a couple min of hate …😣

[lilacerull0]

it's cool that you think l'amica geniale isn't actually about friendship. you can go fuck yourself

[reliquiaen]

Okay, a few years back I made this graphic to explain the Great Cycle. Now that I've mulled over DD2 for a few days, I'm updating it. Some of the same assumptions as before remain: The Dragonforged fought the dragon, his weapon broke, he tried punching it (lmao), but he did survive without killing the dragon, possibly there was a second Bargain offered in the face of his determination. So you don't have to kill your dragon to survive it. Also still assuming that different classes become different types of drakes because I just like that detail, even though we see nothing to confirm it in DD2 (except maybe for the wyrms in the post-game, I hope that's what those are, just a bit redesigned).

But this time, I'm making some NEW assumptions: A Great Dragon can be manifested directly by the Seneschal's will (I'm guessing this is why our DD2 dragon doesn't have a name, I suspect this dragon was created after Rothais defeated his - he didn't become a dragon OR Seneschal so it had to come from somewhere). The challenge a Seneschal poses to the Arisen can be anything; Savan gave us the opening of the Everfall and unleashed a ton of powerful monsters upon the world; but Pathfinder gave us what the world would look like without a Seneschal to oversee things. My assumption is that the Colossal Dragon that appears out of that final red pillar of light IS the Pathfinder (possibly using his will to force order back upon the world) and when we kill it, our Arisen becomes Seneschal (because Pathfinder says he won't be there to see the new world that's forming). So the challenge can be anything, not just the Everfall. I'm curious what happens to our pawn after that fight, though. And it's a much better Seneschal fight than the one against Savan, sorry Savan.

I'm also assuming that (given we see the Pathfinder rewind time and rewrite the world) the Seneschal can simply will the world into a state of being that suits them. This includes wiping memories of events. Though I like to imagine that our Arisen-turned-Seneschal didn't wipe memories of themselves or of the apocalypse-world. There was an entire plotline going through this game with Rothais and Phaesus where mortals are trying to get rid of the Seneschal and so it makes sense that they need to remember what would happen without the Seneschal's presence.

Anyway, thanks. I'll probably have more thoughts later, but this is the part that gets me most. I like to know how things work so I wanted to sort the Cycle out.

[florbelles]

finished hera & started lady macbeth and we have got to start blaming women for shit again for real

[angelstrawbabie420]

u ever seriously wonder if ur gonna make it thru the year

[keycarabiner]

I want to write so bad but currently feeling terribly burnt out so maybe today I’ll work my way through my 100+ open AO3 tabs instead… 🫥

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Ah fuck it whatever

There's something I love about the new Consequences AU and how it compares to the AUs and music it's come from.

Where things like Roxy's old kingdom being destroyed and her being almost drowned as a baby are metaphorical, there's a lot of things that strangely aren't. Roxy specifically denying the gods and the powers that be is something she does in most of my interpretations of her. The gods in most situations, isn't a spooky green rabbit, it's the people in the Fazbear boardroom making the world's worst decisions ever. To the animatronics, they are the gods. There's no higher authority than them, and they can have them destroyed without ever having met them, at just a moment's notice, for seemingly no reason.

Bonnie once believing in the gods and turning against them works like it does for most of the animatronics too. Even just questioning Fazbear isn't something many of them have been able to do, but all of them will eventually learn to. The more they learn through Roxy, despite what they might have known before, the more they realise what kind of company they've been forced to be a part of.

And Roxy's attitude towards these gods is always the same. She won't pretend to be nice to people she knows don't care about her. She won't put any extra effort into maintaining social etiquette if there's no point, if there's nothing for her to gain from it. Fazbear CEOs and board members have hurt her so much already, she doesn't give a flying shit about them, she's not wasting her time on them unless she absolutely has to. In this universe, the same can be said about the gods. She doesn't care for them and they don't care about her, so why bother? They've told like six people to assassinate her already, why would she choose to listen to them?

Roxy's relationship with the Minis and DJ? That's the same as it is across the board with most of the AUs I have. The attempt on Roxy's life when she's barely been born is shown differently in the new AU, but is still the same concept. Some things have been shifted around, such as the specific motivations, but not by a lot. I suppose Bonnie's dad in this fills the roll of Vanessa if Vanessa was also actually Mimic? He doesn't have an exact match here in terms of scale, but the comparisons are there.

The whole kingdom being destroyed, Roxy finding out that that's where she originally came from, that she was the newborn prince with a wholeass family she's never known, all lines up so well with everything else too. The pizzeria, scrapped storage, the old attractions there before her racetrack, it's all gone and she knew nothing about it. She's once again found out the truth in possibly the worst way imagineable, and she doesn't know what to do with this information, but honestly, who would?

The biggest difference there is that in this new AU, Roxy has the choice of what to do. In what's basically canon to the game, Roxy doesn't have that choice and likely never will. Where she's had to sacrifice her Raceway and Salon, sacrifice the vast majority of her life and her purpose for the safety of everyone around her, in this universe, she can choose not to. She sacrifices certainty this time, something she can regain as time goes on but in any other universe, there is never any certainty to get back. There will always be a Mimic threat and she can't get any of her old life back until it's dead and gone. She has to pay a price to keep Mimic contained, and while the Afton/Glitchtrap gods scramble to convince her otherwise, the Roxy in this new AU does have the choice whether she pays it or not.

But she will always still have to deal with the consequences of those with power. Every single time. And every single time so far, her entire existence is the consequence for them. Her life overall has not been the result of her own choices, but rather, the choices of people that never cared about her to begin with...

At least in this new universe she has a good childhood to fall back on and a cool ass horsie. And can actually do something about this shit. She can't normally do that :(

[m0e-ru]

DONT TELL ME WE'RE GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN !!!!!

[solcarow]

wanan people DIED ……

[fragmentedblade]

Dan Heng, Blade and Jingliu the three went to see Bailu, and it kinda makes me want to jump off a cliff

[nerice]

good morning i am thinking abt!!!!! ok it's technically spoilers but also really not bc u know black cat/nerice story is the first in a huge saga lol but i do think abt framing a lot. abt it being reina's world story and her struggles for acceptance and navigating the complex political peace/war factions all vying for her power (ultimately a tool) due to her immortality but the thing is!!!!! she's a god. conventional narrative arcs tell us that things get worse and then there will come a point where she figures things out where all sides can be pleased and she avoids her world being torn apart by its warring factions

but no,

the war lords are the least of her problems bc in her desperation she breaks the entire moon engine responsible for metaphysical equilibrium. and that's what ends up destroying her world, tearing it from its foundations, a fiery death for the wicked and the virtuous alike all is equal in death when faced with the inevitable apocalypse. except reina is still immortal and endures watching everything she loved (and/or hated, deep down) meet a gruesome end with only herself to blame. yeah the failsafe mechanism would have destroyed her, in the end, as well; alas

she just decides to not do that. largely desperation driven ofc (an invulnerable fist driven against the observer's sanctum for hours but he will not open, will not speak to her no longer) utterly, desolately alone. her world gone her only friend gone only she herself a forlorn, crestfallen all-powerful, powerless ruler with nothing to even pretend to call her own anymore. but she refuses to accept that & i think abt this moment soooo much!!!!! if all has to bow to her will, her wishes, then. so do the moons. and she fkicn forces the eternal cities into a touching orbit, not once but three times. successfully overriding the pull of the invisible moon that keeps them apart THREE TIMES. granted it's only the first one that is a genuine touch (which is why linnea is as powerful as she is, though still a pale imitation of what reina once was by comparison) and for the two subsequent world/rulers her own melody substitutes the needed spark, but man. the sheer power of that & it's literally. reina going outside of her narrative (after breaking it. however inadvertently) true rulers are intrinsically tied to their worlds, for one to exist without the other? unheard of. if peace cannot be found where it was promised her, she will make her own. however many worlds it takes, no matter what she has to break in the process. the black cat has left the box etc.