#LIKE HE'S MOST LIKELY DEAD. given the realm time-difference at least

[sunn-mechanic]

[ID in alt]

Guess that makes me Evil

--

I could not stop thinking about how Vex is probably dead in DR, that shit makes me so unwell

Also, version without the lyrics below, bc I like both:

[ID in alt]

[yikimiki]

>> bones and ashes

⚔️ sukuna x fem!reader | warnings for: violence, mentions of death, possessiveness (sukuna is as evil as they come so basically every red flag under the sun), non-con that turns into dub-con (Stockholm syndrome), mentions of virginity loss, anatomically impossible size difference (if u know what I mean), blood play, etc | around 5-6k words | also important to note that I absolutely assassinated the canon lore in some points but bare with me

Sukuna doesn’t really have the ability to love. But he thinks he gets close enough when it comes to you. Of course, in his own twisted, macabre way.

Sukuna isn’t familiar to the concept of fondness, let alone anything more profound or meaningful than that. He knows want, desire, possession, curiosity even. But none of those feelings have ever tilted towards the side of affection, nor does he want them to. They’re all narcissistic pulses that keep pushing him forward — towards more power, more control, more of what he can become. He’s not even fond of his own abilities. Arrogant? Perhaps, but not fond. He can’t be fond of something he knows is not at its peak yet, that would just be weakness.

And Sukuna is everything but weak.

He sees you in a cold winter morning and he does what he knows best: he takes. Takes your pride, your virginity, your blood. Takes you like he took the lives of the rest of your village, paints your skin red and watches as the tears wash it away. Sukuna takes and takes until you have nothing left to give, just like he has done countless times before and yet… this time, something switches.

This time, he decides to let you live. Trapped in a dark cell, of course, but alive regardless.

The days move slowly, and you learn to mark their passing by the loud, clanking sound of a metal dish being thrown through a cracked door. The food is mostly raw meet and, after a few days of disgust, you cave in and eat a little of it. Not enough to be satisfied, not even close, but enough to keep you alive for at least a few hours longer.

Sukuna comes by in irregular intervals, and you soon give up on trying to find a pattern in his visits. You know it’s him from the way the door creaks open even further to accommodate his size, and you watch as his large shadow observes your movements for a moment before he kicks the disgusting plate towards you. Most of time time he’s there, you force yourself to eat, afraid of what should come if you turn down his unspoken commands. Once he seems satisfied, he exits without a word.

There is one single advantage in being in a windowless, isolated cell: you can’t hear what goes on up there. You’ve heard enough the day that Sukuna came to your village — the shattering screams, the pleads for mercy, the babies crying, the sound of wood and bone breaking almost too similar to differentiate. You saw creatures beyond your realm and heard awful whispers and threats; held you family as they died and gave up as the snow beneath your hands became as red as the burning sky above. And you know enough about Sukuna’s legend to be aware that it wasn’t an isolated incident.

When evil incarnate arrives, there’s not much you can do but surrender.

Though, when it comes to the legends, you thought that his palace was more of a manner of speak than an actual location. Once again, though, you’ve heard enough legends to know when to stop inquiring about the details.

Sukuna comes in after a week with a plan and a cloud of amusement over his head — frankly, given the state you were in, he thought you would be dead by now. Your stubborn hold on life is as impressive as it is pathetic.

“You looked so small when I first saw you,” his thunderous voice breaks the silence. There’s no food in his hands this time, only the fire cracking behind his form. You’re sitting down on the cold floor, back against the wall, and you don’t even bother looking up at him. “You look even smaller now.”

You don’t answer, because you don’t know what to say. Of course you’re smaller — you’re weak, starving, lacking movement and sunlight. Every muscle in your body aches and the aftertaste of dried blood never leaves your mouth. Smaller is a compliment; you wish you were just bones and ashes by now.

Sukuna takes a heavy step inside the dark chamber. “I killed everyone you’ve ever loved that day,” he says, bluntly. There’s no amusement nor sorrow in his tone — it’s a neutral statement. He lowers himself to your level and, on the corner of your eyes, you see his four arms. He is so wrong, even in a physical sense. Like the scar of something that shouldn’t even exist. “And yet… you live. Do you want to know why?”

You sneer. “I wish you’d just let me die.”

He chuckles, and one hand meets the side of your head. His fingers dig into the dirty, messy strings and pulls on the roots. There are tears on the corners of your eyes but you refuse to let him see them. “That’s exactly why you’re alive,” he says. “I knew you were ready to die when I saw you — all bloodied up, on your knees in the snow. It was quite a sight.” Sukuna’s voice is a malicious whisper as he comes even closer to you — he smells rotten. The tongue that licks up your cheek makes you want to puke. He tastes you the same way as he did on the first day, and you have no idea what he’s searching for. “Tell me, why were you so ready to give yourself to me? Most try to plead at least.”

“Plead for what? Your mercy?” The sarcasm is clear through your tone. The words you mean to say are knotted in the base of your throat and the odor Sukuna reeks is making you dizzy; making you remember everything that came before this. “I— I didn’t have anything else to live for,” you stutter. “You killed… you killed my mother, my father, my baby brother… why would I want to live without them? Why would I humiliate myself asking for mercy from a creature that clearly doesn’t have any to spare?”

Through anger, you look up at him. His eyes are flames bursting through the darkness, and they shine as your words settle on his skin. “Do you only live for love, my little dove?” He asks. “What a purposeless life you have.”

“Do you only live for hate?” You ask back before you can hold your tongue. Somewhere in your mind, you know that he’s capable of unimaginable evil, but you are beyond the point of caution. “What a purposeless legacy you’re leaving behind.”

This angers him. The corners of his mouth twists as he speaks. “You people fear me. Even the strongest of sorcerers doesn’t dare to go against me.”

“I pity you and your ridiculous need for destroying what isn’t yours,” you spit. “And I hate you for keeping me alive. I hate you for everything you’ve done to me and to the people I love. And I hate that you even dare to come here and talk to me like I’m the smaller person for daring to care about something.”

The hands on your hair tighten and he pulls your face against his. Sukuna’s forehead is a furnace against yours, his eyes burn into your soul. “You little insect, I could kill you with a snap of my fingers if I wanted to.”

Your voice shakes but you say it regardless: “Do it, then, what are you waiting for?”

“No,” his answer is more cruel than death could ever be. And he knows that. “And you know why?”

“If you are keeping me alive to have your way with me, so be it, have it,” you say. The tears are obvious now. You wonder if he can smell how fearful you really are. “Violate me like you did before, I don’t care anymore, but just don’t keep me alive just to waste me away.”

His lips are touching yours now, but you can’t pull away even if you tried. Sukuna’s chest is heaving like he’s in the middle of a battle, his voice like a roar in your ears. “Then ask. For. My Mercy.”

“I w-would n-never…”

“Ask!” It’s a loud command that crashes against you like a wave. You sink like there is no adrenaline in your body to keep you afloat; the anger that moved you before is no longer within your reach.

The truth is clear: you’re human. He’s a curse — the king of curses, older than you could ever imagine; probably even more powerful than the legends you’ve heard. His eyes say that there are fates worse than death and you believe them. And maybe, just maybe, if you play by his rules, he’ll grow tired of you and let you wither away.

“P-Please,” you are sobbing now, tears falling down like a cascade. Sukuna licks them and hums in satisfaction, watching as you break apart into a mountain of hiccups and trembling limbs. “Please just… have mercy on me. I’ll do whatever you want just — please, stop torturing me like this.”

“Aw,” he coos. “Was that so hard?”

You want to say that yes, somehow, that took everything still left in you. You want to say that if he wanted to break your spirit, congratulations, he’s done it. But you don’t get the chance.

Sukuna kisses you with the same ferocity you expected, sharp teeth crashing against yours and tongue exploring your mouth with no prior warning. He groans as he tastes you — you, the blood in your food, the salt of your tears — and suddenly it’s all that he will ever crave again. You whimper against his lips as his two lower arms crawl up your thighs and hold onto your hips, pushing you against him as he stands up and presses you against the wall. You feel more caged now than you have felt these past few days.

“Silly little human,” he raps against your lips, then licks your cheek for more of your precious tears. He realizes how much he likes to make you cry. You wince and give out a little sob, which only makes him smile. Finally, his grip on your hair loosens. “What is my name?”

You blink, dumbfounded by the sudden question. “S-Sukuna…?”

He pouts. “Say it like you mean it or I won’t be so nice.”

“Sukuna,” you say more firmly this time.

“There we go, that’s a good girl,” he says. “See how things just work better when you don’t misbehave? Hm?”

You nod. He doesn’t like it. “Y-Yes, I see, I’m sorry.”

“Very good.” The hand that was on your hair moves to hold your face, and it’s so huge that you feel like it would crush your skull with one single movement. As the other two arms hold onto your thighs, the fourth limb squeezes your breast. “Now, this is what’s going to happen, my pretty little human,” Sukuna starts, “I will have my servants take you to my chambers. You will be washed, clothed, and taken care of. They will feed you proper human food this time, whichever it is that your heart desires. How does that sound?”

Sounds like a trap. “And, in return, what do I have to do for you?”

“What do I have to do for you…?” He raises his eyebrows.

“Sukuna,” you complete.

“There’s my perfect little girl,” he says. You hate that something inside you likes the praise. “You will have to wait for me there. Do whatever you prefer, but don’t leave my room. Any attempt at escaping or killing yourself will be futile, and I’ve already warned every single curse that your death will result in a much more dire future for them. So you will be brought back to me. And I promise I won’t be so nice.”

“I understand… Sukuna,” you correct yourself quickly. It doesn’t go unnoticed.

The hand on your breast squeezes tighter, and you bite your lip so you don’t complain. “I knew I was right when I brought you here, something made me spare you. Yet, I don’t know what it is just yet.”

Sukuna is a looming threat above you, his limbs trapping you, and his deep voice is like thunder about to break. You know why so many fear him — you fear him too. And the sooner you act like it, the sooner he’ll grow tired of you. Sooner he’ll realize he was wrong in bringing you into his fortress.

He smirks. “But I believe I’ll discover soon enough.”

- ⚔️ -

Sukuna’s chambers are as spacious and monstrous as himself — corners switching and adjusting like breathing flesh; furniture morphing into different shapes; the weird odor of something old; the feeling for something lurking. The large windows show a world between worlds; a reality that doesn’t seem right no matter how long you stare at it. His palace is in a dimension you can’t reach, and you give up on trying to understand it. If anything, the more you wonder about it, the more you shake under the weight of the sheer power it must take to keep it all existing like solid matter.

Your passage of time is morphed and unreliable, but you would guess that a couple weeks have passed by the time that you come to terms that, perhaps, Sukuna isn’t as easy to bore as you first expected. The fire in his eyes doesn’t seem to diminish as he sees you — if anything, his eagerness to have you all to himself only seems to expand — and the way he takes care of you makes you realize that he isn’t planning on letting you die anytime soon.

Life in his chambers is far more comfortable, you admit, but it’s a prison nonetheless. Still, you can’t say that you are mistreated. In his chambers, you are bathed and clothed, well-fed and pampered. You soon come back to your normal weight and the fatigue leaves your body; there is more space to move, more things to do. The curses that come to check on you seem to be strangely kind and human-like, though you know it’s out of fear and not out of worry, and they keep your mind occupied with several stories and legends as the days move on.

Sukuna is more absent than you would have imagined, conquering and killing as often as he can. When he finally comes to you he is clean, recently bathed, but you can still see he is fresh from a battle, some mindless corruption beyond the horizon that you would rather hear nothing about. There are shallow scars and deep cuts that heal unreasonably quickly; dried blood that hasn’t quite washed away and ashes beneath his fingernails.

You ask whose village he has attacked this time, but he says it doesn’t matter, because there are no survivors.

“I never leave any survivors,” he completes, kissing your forehead, “besides you, my little human.”

You don’t push beyond that information, but the feeling of being special, chosen, starts to blossom like a dangerous rose inside your chest. It stings and stings, but grows regardless, and you see yourself less able to fight against his possessive claims. You start to enjoy them. You start to wonder if life beyond those walls is worth fighting for when you seem to have everything you would ever wish for right here.

You can always tell when Sukuna is about to arrive in this world because the atmosphere switches into something darker, heavier. The air seems thicker and the clouds beyond your windows start to bleed into a deep shade of red. Sukuna returns with the apocalypse on his back, and, when he does, he uses your body as he pleases.

Like the room around you, there is constant change. Sometimes it hurts like hell; sometimes it’s pleasurable. Sometimes you wish it would just end and you end up crying in despair; sometimes you look at him like you might get used to feeling him inside of you. Some days, Sukuna is kinder, more patient, taking time to adjust you to his enormous size and even makes sure that you enjoy it before reaching his end; fucking you full of his cum until you can’t think of one single thing besides him. Other days, you know he is angry just by the way he walks through the door — and, in those days, you are left bleeding and bruised as he uses your body in every single way until he’s close enough to satisfied. That, on itself, can take a long, long time.

You realize that, during those violent days, he could use one of his curses to please himself, but he prefers to use you — because you bleed, you cry, and you suffer. As long as your pain exists, his interest is unwavering.

However, like everything else, you adapt, get used to it. Routine becomes familiar and you learn the tell-tale signs of his rancid mood; learn how to make it a little better and what things to avoid. You stop thinking about getting away — you don’t even have anywhere else to go — and start longing for his presence as he takes more time to come back home. Sukuna is warm, safe; next to him you know you are shielded from any harm. When he appears, no one dares to look or touch you, no one speaks until they are spoken to. Just by being in his gravitational pull, you are protected and no harm will ever come your way again.

Even if it hurts, you start hoping that he won’t get tired of you.

Sukuna, on the other hand, isn’t quite sure how he feels about it all.

It’s not love — he has gone over that one a few hundred times already, has marked off every possible scenario and imagined every possible feeling, and he is sure it isn’t love. To be frank, he doesn’t even think he’s capable of it even if he wanted to, he sold his soul too long ago to even remember how normal humans love. But if it’s not love, it’s something similar — a kind of tenderness, fondness. He has a soft spot for you, to put it bluntly. Though not in the typical sense.

Sukuna adores you like a painter adores his favorite canvas; like an exotic bird in a cage — he adores you with possession, obsession, with the knowledge that you can’t ever get away from his grip. He is fond of you in a way that he would murder anyone who would even dare to touch what is his; but would never set you free. He can hurt you, he can tear you into pieces and build you to his liking. Sukuna can kiss you or bite you; hug or break you, but it’s because you’re his little pet and no one else’s.

He is fond of the way you bend for him; the way you look at him with sheer adoration in your eyes even after he has taken everything from you. He is fond of the way that only he could kill you; that your small life is in his hands and you thank him for it. Sukuna is fond of the way your tight little cunt stretches so wide to take his fat cock; lives for the little whimpers you give out and the tears that stain his satin sheets when he finally allows you to cum for him. If he could crawl inside your soul, he would. If he could take it and eat it and have you forever, he would.

He doesn’t know why he craves you so much, but he knows that nothing else gives him the same high anymore.

So he keeps you.

It’s a heavy stormy night when he comes back the next time, and his room is only illuminated by a few candles and the lightening from outside. You’re in his large bed, looking as small as that day in the snow, and there is a touch of worry in your eyes that he doesn’t miss. But he ignores it.

“Undress,” he commands.

You rush to do as he says, throwing the faint fabric over your head. It falls to the ground as Sukuna walks towards the bed, his massive weight making it dip under his knee as he leans closer to you.

“My pretty little doll,” Sukuna muses. “Missed me?”

He always asks that. And your answer is always the same.

“So much, Sukuna.”

It’s more honest every time.

He hums, satisfied, and smirks as he pushes your hair away from your face. “I have something to tell you, and I think you will like it,” Sukuna says. You look at him with wide eyes as he settles over you, his four arms caging your body as you lay down. The mouth on his stomach open and closes, a large tongue coming out before it vanishes again — it always does it when he’s particularly excited. “Would you like to know what it is?”

You know he will tell you regardless. Like all the tales of his battles, he lives for the glimpse of horror in the back of your eyes. “Yes, Sukuna.”

“Seems like you are famous now,” he starts. You furrow your eyebrows. “Sorcerers are trying to save you. The poor little human girl that Sukuna took as a prisoner months ago.” He kisses your neck, then licks the skin. You shiver — months, it has been months then. “Two of them tried to enter my domain today, stupid little insects,” he continues. Another hand lands on your exposed breast, playing with your nipple. “You have no idea how enraged that made me, my little human. To have someone try to take you away from me; to try and to enter my domain and take you from me.”

His voice turns into a growl by the end of the sentence, and you feel the familiar pulse of terror running through your veins. He’s in a bad mood, that’s obvious, but there’s something hiding beneath that as well.

“What did you do to them?” You ask. “Did they get in?”

Sukuna chuckles darkly, and the hand that was on your breast now settles on your clit, massaging it softly. “I took care of them, my sweet thing, of course,” he says. Your breath hitches at the slow pleasure of his movements, and your eyes flutter shut. “No one will ever take you from me.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” you say without a thought. In your heart, you feel it’s wrong. But without him, you have nothing. “I’m yours forever, Sukuna.”

“I know you are,” he answers.

Sukuna holds you by the throat as he kisses you — not enough to suffocate you, but enough to make you a little dizzy. Your eyes cross mindlessly as his tongue invades your mouth; a deep groan coming from his chest as he tastes your lips. He always kisses you violently, possessively, like he wishes to suck your soul out of your chest. Beneath his size you can only shrink and hold onto his large biceps, the wetness between your legs growing as he takes what is his.

He pulls back, ignoring the string of saliva that connects you two. “Pretty little thing,” he muses, shoving his middle finger inside your mouth. “Suck for me.”

You do as he says and he smirks at the feeling of your pretty lips around his large finger. Soon enough, the same digit is invading your pussy, curling up so quickly that you see starts at your peripheral vision.

“Relax or it’ll hurt again,” he says — not like he cares about it. “I want you to remember tonight.”

“W-Why?”

“Because I’ll make sure that you’ll be mine forever,” he says, a devilish smile on the corners of his lips. “So no one can take you from me. No one would even try.”

Your breath is getting heavier, and you don’t even register what he’s telling you — he could do a billion things to you and you’d still let him. The time spent only in his company made your resolution vanish, and you became exactly what he wanted you to: another possession for him to do as he pleases. Because of him, you have nothing else. Besides him, you have nothing.

“You’re not cumming around my finger tonight,” he says and quickly removes his hand from your cunt. You whine at the sudden emptiness, walls spasming around nothing, but you know better than to protest. “It’s going to be around my cock, you got it?”

“Yes, Sukuna,” you say.

“Good girl,” he muses. His lower arms move to undo his pants as his mouth attacks yours once again. His sharp teeth drain blood from your lips and he groans at the metallic taste; drinks the little sob of pain you let out. “You’re all fucking mine. Forever,” he growls, “I’ll make you live forever with me.”

Months ago, that would be torture. But now, “It sounds like heaven, Sukuna,” you say. “I love you.”

Your vision falls to where his hands are working. His cock is massive, bigger than your forearm, balls swinging out of his shorts and falling heavy under his shaft. Your entire body tingles in anticipation as he strokes himself, aligning his cockhead with your opening. “Tiny fucking cunt,” he curses, rubbing it against your soaked folds. “I’ll train you to take my cock even better than now, kitten.” Your mouth falls open as he starts to push in and it hurts — no matter how many times you’ve taken him, it always burns. “Way too fucking tight for my fat cock, you know that?”

“I-I’m sorry, I’ll do better-“

He chuckles. “I fucking love it.”

In one strong motion, he shoves himself as deep as he can, pressing against your cervix as you whine at his size. It isn’t fair — it’s so thick you can’t even breathe, you can feel him in your stomach, pressing and pulsing until you can’t think of anything but the sheer size of his massive cock inside your poor little hole. Your walls hurt to accommodate his girth, stretching as far as they can, but it never seems like it’s enough.

“It’s t-too big, Sukuna,” you whine. And it is. You know he must be doing something to your body so you can even be alive right now, because it’s not humanly possible to take such a big cock. “I c-can’t…”

His hand lands on your head and pulls at the roots. “You are my special little human, my obedient little girl,” he reminds you. His cock throbs inside you and you whimper, the small movement alone makes you drool. “You will do anything I tell you to do.”

You nod. “Y-Yes.”

“So when I tell you to take it….” He rolls his hips even deeper and you call his name so loud that you’re sure the entire world will hear it. “You’ll fucking take it.”

You don’t even have the ability to answer as he starts to pound deep inside your soaked cunt, hard and violent, as he is. Your vision is blurry with tears as you look down to see his massive cock bullying itself again and again inside your cunt, taking everything you have to give.

“Look at me when I claim you,” Sukuna warns and you do it instantly. Your legs wrap around his hips and he squeezes your ass so hard it will bruise. There’s a malicious glint in his red eyes that never quite goes away, no matter how much he tries, and now it’s deadset on you. “My precious little girl,” he calls, voice strained with pleasure. You can tell from the way his cock throbs that he is close, but it doesn’t matter. He just keeps going. “You told me you love me. Do you only live for love, kitten?”

“I live f-for loving you, S-Sukuna,” you respond automatically. “I live for you.”

Sukuna groans like an animal — he adores what a stupid little fuckdoll he has turned you into. He can never get tired of this; he can never let it get away. “You’ll die for me, kitten?”

You nod so quickly you get dizzy. “Yes, a-anything… I’m yours f-forever.”

He calls your name like he has never done before, a little insane, a little sweet. If the sheer size of Sukuna’s genitals aren’t anything to go by, he cums a lot — it oozes out of your cunt before he’s even halfway through, cock throbbing and leaking again and again until you’re filled to the brim. His huge balls smack against your ass as he continues to bully himself inside you, a little more desperate now, intoxicated by his own pleasure.

There’s no rest, there never is. He only takes and takes.

“I’ll make you mine,” he groans.

“I’m yours, Sukuna, I’m yours…” you repeat like a broken record, half-aware of your own voice through the loud moans and hiccups. You watch in ecstasy as he uses one of his sharp nails to cut the palm of his hand, blood oozing out of it and dropping on your breasts. It’s like you know what he will say even before he says it. “You want me t-to-“

“Drink it.”

Perhaps you should be scared, but you’re not. Your mouth opens without a second thought and he presses his large palm on your lips, muffling your moans and allowing the hot dark liquid to invade your tongue. Sukuna’s blood is thick and it tastes like poison, but you do as he says, liking his flesh and drinking it until he seems satisfied and takes his hand away.

It strikes your body like an arrow, straight through your chest and expanding like deep roots. You feel as his blood burns your insides, changing something in your very existence. It’s hard to think through the sensations — the pleasure building up, the venom running through your veins, the mixture of devotion and fear that dances inside your mind. Your vision is double, black around the edges, and you think you might be cumming but you’re not sure you can even feel your body anymore. Sukuna’s voice echoes muffled in the background, and you can see his mouth moving in slow motion, but you don’t understand his words. You think you are crying. You think you can’t breathe. You think you are dying and being born at the same time and you don’t know why you feel so grateful for it all.

Your lungs are on fire and your throat is dry. You try to speak, but can’t. You have the vague flashback of the time your uncle made you drink alcohol, it burns just the same, but this time, no one is laughing. This time, you’re dying.

“… at me.”

This time, Sukuna’s voice rings sharp and clear. You stare at him, confused, as the flames inside your chest slowly subside.

“Keep looking at me,” he repeats, commanding.

You try to nod, but your head doesn’t move. You can’t see the room around you anymore. “H-Hurts,” you manage to get out.

“I know,” he says, and there’s a touch of softness in his voice you don’t ignore. “Focus on me. I’ll make it feel better.”

And that’s what you try to do, even if your soul seems to be floating miles above your body. You look down at where he is still moving in and out of you, at the white-coated mess that drips from your hole and soaks your inner thighs. It doesn’t seem to hurt as badly now, like your body is changing to accommodate him even better — in fact, it feels like heaven.

You look up at him, dumbfounded. “I t-think I’m going to cum, Sukuna,” the words come easier now, and you feel like you can move again. Though, it still feels like a dream. “It’s so g-good.”

“Cum on my fat cock, then, make me proud,” he coos. You close your eyes and nod, trying to focus on the paradise that blooms between your legs. You feel every ridge and vein of his massive cock; hear the lewd squelching sounds of his cum leaking out of you. It comes to you faster than you would have imagined, washing through your body like a wave as you cry and shake miserably. “That’s my girl, fuck, there we go, that’s my perfect little girl.”

The spasming of your walls manages to milk more cum out of him and he groans loudly as he releases inside you once more. Sukuna cums so much it makes you breathless, filling you again and again until he’s satisfied and the sheets beneath you have no salvation left.

“There we go, take everything,” he says in a strained groan, “every fucking drop inside this tight fucking cunt.”

Sukuna looks absolutely insane above you — fucking his cock so hard into you that it seems like he will never have the chance again; eyes blown wide and his teeth clenched. You cum again, this time a little softer, as you feel his thick cock shoot a specially large amount of cum inside your pussy, and wait until he’s done using your body.

Eventually, he settles, pressing his forehead against yours and looking deep inside your eyes. The redness in them is shining like flames, watching every movement of your face.

“Feels weird,” you say. “I feel dizzy.”

He chuckles and removes himself from you. Another white-hot wave gushes out of your cunt, and he sits back to watch it drip. “There we go, it wasn’t so bad, was it?”

You swallow, your tongue is still numb inside your mouth. “It was horrible, Sukuna. I felt like I was going to die.”

Sukuna smiles and uses two fingers to push some of his cum back inside you. “I can promise you it was better than when I did,” he says, and you’re confused for a moment. “But now we don’t have anything to worry about anymore, my sweet thing. Those pathetic little sorcerers won’t want you.”

“H-How are you so sure?” You ask.

“Aw, my sweet, stupid little girl.” He pouts, condescending as always. “No one will want to save a curse now.”

Your eyes widen. “Did you…?”

“I told you.” Sukuna licks his own blood at the corner of your mouth. “You are mine forever.”

[mimomentomori]

Thoughts/Theories for Arcane Season 2 Act 2: Jayvik centered

Potential spoilers so read under the cut if you've watched Act 1!

To recap, at the end of Act 1 we see Jayce, Heimer and Ekko all get messed around with by the Wild Rune, causing anything linked to the Arcane to glitch out and malfunction. Based on the visuals and what we know about the characters it's likely those three will be scattered across time and space to different degrees;

Ekko will be gone long enough to be considered dead by the Firelights but return with his time powers to deal with the final confrontation with Noxus.

Heimer may be tossed back in time to confront his past trauma and be key in getting he and Ekko back to their correct time.

Jayce... He's gonna have the hardest time. He attacked the Wild Rune with the hammer which caused a massive reaction, so as a result he may be the one separated and lost in the Arcane dimension the longest. Based on the new Arcane Survivor Skin preview and the sneak peaks we got in both the newest teaser for Act 2, he'll most likely be stuck in this dimension for an undetermined amount of time, enough that it will affect his hammer directly and fuse the arcane shard in his cuff to his skin. The question is, how does he get out?

I think Viktor will be the key to his escape. Viktor, as we saw in his last scene in Act 1, is now inherently connected to the Arcane and by extension the Void given that he was fused with the Shimmer-tainted Hexcore. His continued use of the Arcane to heal his new followers will continue to destabilise the barrier between the realm of the Arcane and the material plane, but it could also potentially save Jayce.

If we're sticking with the Jesus/religious leader angle, Viktor was already shown to be having visions since he first coughed blood down into the matrix leading to the Hexcore's creation. After being fused with the Hexcore and by extension granted direct connection to the Arcane, he's been shown to be guided by 'Sky,' or at least a memory/fraction of her that now currently exists within the Hexcore and the Arcane.

My theory is, the more he settles into his new role and newfound connection to the Arcane, I think he'll start having visions of Jayce in the Arcane dimension and endeavour to get him out. While 'affection kept them together,' I think it's more than that now. They built hextech and the gates together, and with Jayce now directly affected and trapped by the Arcane they have a mystic connection to each other through the Hexcore. Despite their abrupt and bitter parting, I think seeing the main object of his affection trapped in such a state and clearly not yet fused to it like Sky is, he'll extend his power to get Jayce out.

Inevitably, this would lead to a potential clash/confrontation over both men's involvement of destabilising the Arcane in Zaun and Piltover... But I think in the end they will always do what they feel is right to save eachother.

I also want to add real quick that Ekko's criticism of how the Hexgates were built to send all runoff and potential fall out to the Undercity is valid and a gross oversight on Jayce's part, Viktor being from the Underground would have had to have a say in its design too so he will have possibly overlooked or felt confident this detail would be unlikely as well. Jayce and Viktor were partners on the project despite Jayce being the face of it; i.e. they're both responsible for what happened with the corruption and the Wild Rune.

With time being a key theme being shown in both the opening credits and how Ekko operates, it's looking like the theory that Viktor is the mage that saves young Jayve and Zimmena may be more likely than we think. But at the same time, even though we see in Viktor's new poster that he is able to thrive for some time, the plants that they experimented in did eventually wither and this may be a problem for Viktor as the next two acts progress.

Whether this means Viktor accepts or defies this rot to be in line with League Lore... I'm putting my faith in the writers on that one.

Let me know your thoughts!

[bihansthot]

Figured I'd pop in and ask you this question:

So I'm writing some lore for my oc and I was wondering if you had any sources for how Bi-Han is as a brother. The thing I'm working on is supposed to be angsty given what Bodaway's backstory is, but I'm afraid that with what little I know about Bi-Han I might accidentally make him into a complete prick. Like I want there to be some tension and distance between my oc and Bi-Han but like not to the point of Bi-Han being ooc if that makes sense?

You don't have to answer this right away, as I understand you've got a lot on your plate. I know I've already said this, but I do hope things get a bit better for you ^.^

Hello love! So, I have a couple posts I’ve made in the past about this that I’ve mentioned it before here, here, here, here and here.

I feel very strongly that at least in Midway and NRS timelines not including MK1 (2023) Bi-Han was a fiercely protective yet asshole of a brother, the type to pick on Kuai Liang himself but kick anyone else’s ass who tries to start anything with his little brother. I’ve often rambled that Bi-Han protected Kuai Liang growing up and would often confess to misdeeds Kuai Liang was actually responsible for because he didn’t want his little brother to suffer. I personally headcanon Bi-Han has a pretty scared up back from being beat with bamboo (which was a common punishment in Imperial China) so often when the brothers were growing up. I don’t think you have to worry about making him too much of a prick because short answer he is one, long answer he’s a prick but he has good reason to be one. He’s the oldest, he has all the responsibilities and burdens that come with being the oldest brother as well as the Grandmaster’s grandson (their Grandfather is Grandmaster before Sektor’s father takes over which leads me to believe in the older time lines Papa Zero is dead, it’s unclear if Bi-Han did it or not). He’s treated and raised differently than Kuai Liang is, he’s raised to be crueler and colder than Kuai Liang because he should be the next Grandmaster or at least that was the game plan until Papa Zero dies. Bi-Han most likely had to kill their Grandfather or their father or maybe both in order to become the next Sub-Zero and to do that he has to kill his emotions at a very young age but he doesn’t want Kuai Liang to be the same way. So, he makes sure he’s always the bad guy so Kuai Liang doesn’t have to be, he always takes care of things. He’s a very dedicated and hardworking individual and had to step into the role of both big brother and father figure for Kuai Liang. They’re all each other had until Tomas joins the Lin Kuei and suddenly Bi-Han finds himself with two little brothers to look out for and protect.

I base a lot off this off of how desperate Kuai Liang is to find out what happened to Bi-Han in MK9 and in Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (which isn’t really canon but it’s kharacter building so we’re gonna use it) he absolutely sobs about the loss of Bi-Han. You do not hunt down someone or sob about a loss if you don’t genuinely love and care about that person. So, that solidifies to me that Bi-Han was an excellent older brother or else Kuai Liang wouldn’t have hunted Hanzo down, he wouldn’t have been in tears fighting his brother’s killer, he wouldn’t be distraught with grief and loss and wouldn’t live on in his brother’s place if Kuai Liang didn’t love and genuinely admire Bi-Han. A bad older brother doesn’t get that, a bad older brother gets a “oh pity, did he leave a will?” I actually have another piece that touches a bit on their relationship but implies they were actually twins which you can read here. Bi-Han is an asshole yes, but he’s also a good brother, you can be both, my brothers are great examples of this. They are absolute assholes to each other and occasionally to me but still would do absolutely anything for any of us. They teased and bullied me growing up just like Bi-Han teased and bullied Kuai but they covered up for me when I got in trouble just like Bi-Han covered up for Kuai Liang.

Bi-Han is a very complicated, layered asshole, he’s not just pompous ego and bravado. If you haven’t watched it I would really recommend watching a play through of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero it gives a really good idea on Bi-Han’s attitude of asshole but reluctantly does the right thing when he needs to. The story mode for MK9 is also helpful to see his attitude as a kharacter but unfortunately there’s really nothing showing Bi-Han and Kuai Liang together. So all we have to go off of is how Kuai Liang reacts to Bi-Han’s death. Bi-Han as Noob Saibot famously tell Kuai Liang that “we share blood but we are not brothers” because Noob Saibot is Bi-Han stripped of every positive feeling and emotion. Kuai Liang parrots his back to him in MK11 so they very much have a strained relationship after Bi-Han’s death but not while he was alive, I refuse to believe that.

Basically it’s up to a lot of interpretation because we don’t see any of their childhood or them even interacting with each other but I have written a lot on my take about their relationship. Like I suggested though if you haven’t already, please watch Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, Mortal Kombat 9, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle or the Realms and feel free to ask or DM me any questions you have. I’m also more than happy to give you my discord username if you’d rather chat there but I’m more than happy to chat about all things Bi-Han and Lin Kuei and discuss how their kharacter progression looks like.

That invitation is for anyone in the fandom if they have any Sub-Zero Bros or Lin Kuei questions, I’m not Boon or Papa Tobias but I have been playing the games since 1992 and have a very good grasp of the lore. I also love what if situations and extrapolating logical conclusions to those situations and think about Bi-Han basically constantly. I’d much rather you lovelies come to me than try and google things and wind up on the weird fan wiki that says Bi-Han is 36 when he’s 32 and gives Sektor and Cyrax fake names, spoilers Felix is NOT Cyrax’s name, it’s just a made up fan name used by this sketch ass wiki same with Sektor, they don’t have canon names. Bi-Han, Kuai Liang and Tomas Vbrada are the only canon names for the love of the Elder Gods stay off this cursed fanmade wiki. Please. Also, I’ve said this before too but please, please don’t make the mistake of thinking Liang is a surname, it isn’t, Kuai Liang is his full first name, just like Bi-Han is his complete first name, the Sub-Zero brothers do not have a canon last name. Only Tomas has a canon last name in the Lin Kuei.

Ok I think that maybe answers your question, hopefully I know there was some powerful rambling in there. There’s a lot of stuff to sort through so like I said if any of you lovelies have questions please feel free to ask me.

@den-kunn I’m tagging you in this because I’ve seen you use Felix for Cyrax and if that’s a personal choice than by all means go for it but I don’t want you to be mislead by that fan wiki and think it’s his canon name when it’s not. I’m just trying to look out for you if you don’t want me to though that’s totally fine just let me know. I’m not trying to police anyone or anything I just know that fan wiki is notorious for spreading the wrong information and I don’t want you lovelies getting confused or mislead by the misinformation that wiki spreads. Because there are mean people out there that will start shit over the small inaccuracies and I don’t want any of you lovelies getting chewed out because this stupid fan wiki made something up.💙

If anyone else wants to be tagged in Lin Kuei or Sub-Zero Bros lore stuff and rambling then just let me know and I’m more than happy to start a tag list. Have a good night lovelies 💙

[antisolararc]

i just know he sits 5 inches from the tv with the volume on 80

bio + etc under the cut

PERSONALITY & BACKGROUND:

A prototype of an artificial spirit left in the ruins of the Temple of the Astral Eye, Tjong was found and restored by Puri. He is unaware that ██████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ █ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ██ █ █████ ███████ ███████ █ █ █████████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ████ █ instead, he believes that he was created to be a powerful temple guardian. With the terrestrial society that created him long gone, he was raised in isolation in the Astral Reaml. His knowledge on human history and civilization comes from historical myths, heroes’ tales, and... the leftover recordings of ancient soap operas. His recollection of his own life is disjointed, and he is even unsure of his own age. As a result, he has a uniquely poor perception of time. For example, he strugged to understand the day/night cycle when he first arrived in the Terrestrial Realm. Tjong naturally assumes that most of his eccentricities (or at least what others would call eccentricities) are attributable to the differences between humans and spirits. However, most of these traits are actually a result of ██████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████. Tjong is more humanlike than he realizes... man creates in his own image, after all.

Rarely thinking to question what he is told, Tjong often doesn’t know what to do with himself without some sort of preordained task. At the same time, he struggles to see things from others’ perspectives and can be very difficult to reason with. His dedication comes with vigor befitting such a fearsome spirit, and he will plow down everything that stands in his way. Even though he is a follower by nature, Tjong is arrogant and self-important, considering himself a heroic warrior and assuming that he must be the most capable person for any task he is given. He remains rather ignorant towards his colleagues’ complex schemes, but he probably wouldn’t care what his friends did, as long as they remained so. His "little brother's" scheme, on the other hand... well, he can't do anything to stop it now, and he's not going anywhere, so I guess he just has to be disgruntled over it. Speaking of Tjong seems to know more about Meridian than anyone else -- more than Meridian does -- and, uncharacteristically, he's not talking.

While Tjong would never describe himself as emotional, considering it ill-fitting for his role, he undeniably is. Like everything he does, his feelings tend to be delivered with the subtlety and gentleness of a metal bat to the face. Luckily, he is upbeat by default; even in the heat of battle, he is usually smiling. True, genuine rage from him is a rare, frightening display. Anyone who isn’t terrified of him will probably consider him a completely ridiculous individual. He has a formal, theatrical way of speaking and takes every absurdity dead seriously. To his credit, though, Tjong readily admits when he does not understand things. He has poor social intelligence, but his nature as a spirit allows him to understand complex systems with relative ease. He has an innate understanding of how spirits, relics, and the Astral Realm function. Tjong is incredibly passionate about anything that interests him. Although he is not particularly astute, he is curious by default and approaches new things with a sort of naive whimsy.

ABILITIES:

As a simulacra, he is contained within a physical relic. In this case, a sheathed blade. When you attempt to pull it from its sheath, it instead becomes Tjong as a humanoid spirit. If he is banished, his humanoid form will disappear. When his dagger is sheathed, he is not aware of his surroundings or "awake" in the Terrestrial Realm. In order to summon him again, he must have accumulated enough essence, and, more importantly, be willing.

His summon is a hammer (of whatever size he pleases, but usually comically large). He rarely fights with this hammer, instead using it to craft new weapons from the essence of spirits he slays. The appearance of these weapons usually suggests which creature they once were. His weapons will disappear if he is no longer touching them. He can change which ones he is holding on a whim, and ability that he utilizes heavily. Regardless of what weapon he's using, he'll be the tank, though. Although his carapace appears like fine porcelain, it is stronger than steel. He is very strong – strong enough to pitch cannonballs like baseballs and regularly rip doors from their hinges on accident.

[augment-techs]

Choose 4 rangers and make them into gods as if PR was your own pantheon. Preferably two are benevolent while the others are malevolent

What would they be gods of? Their aesthetic? Powers? Who they'd be in love with etc it's up to you have fun!

I can abide by giving up four characters as gods, and I can list what they would do, because gods are easy. But Benevolent and Malevolent is a little bit too...humanistic. No matter what part of the world you're in and what pantheon you look into, you might have nice gods, you might even have marginally mellow gods, but that is entirely different from being what humans would conceive as "good."

But with that in mind, I can at least split the baby and follow the themes of being malignant, benign, ambivalent, and something like "the other" or "necessary."

First up would be Purple Solar Ranger "Ari" Ellarian. She would probably represent survivor's guilt, inner turmoil, earthquakes, sterility, orphans, banditry, pirates, potatoes, snow storms, wild animal cultivation, artistic inspiration, goats, precious crystals, locked doors, and sapphic longing. Her primary realm would be the sky and the home hearth. Her powers include animal understanding and cooperation, creating animals from pure light and shadow, becoming starlight to disperse and reassemble when in danger, and imbuing godhood to those she deems worthy of the Power and who have earned her favor.

Second would be Blue Omega Ranger Kiya Kyatyl. Oceans and icy tundra's are most definitely her home grounds, but that follows along very well with her representation of FEMININE RAGE, betrayal, grief, imprisonment, lightning, siblinghood, violent war, burial rites, aggressive cults, moonlight, alcohol, the marketplace, competition, and glass making. Most of her followers are women or femme presenting, giving that while she's not exactly the kindest of gods, she's slightly less likely to show displeasure towards them. As opposed to with men, who she goes out of her way to curse and humiliate as much as possible. She has the ability to turn into a massive bear or kind of feral cat, but she doesn't care much for being subtle; so she's more prone to smite with lightning bolts.

Third would be Tommy Oliver, any age, any Color, any team he was a part of, given that he has no specific location and environment to stick to or around. His application of godly duties is split between his Colors of Green, White, Red, and Black with a small increase and decrease depending what skin he's residing in when he changes into a dragon, tiger, pillar of black smoke, or falcon. When he's in his human body he largely amuses himself between being a teenager, in his mid-thirties, or late forties to mess with people. He is the known as a god of flight, physical fights, heroes, underworld connections, trauma, PTSD, hidden knowledge, time travel, stupidity, hubris, wrath, breaker of chains, teachers, and virality. Also he can turn into a giant monster if he really wants to, be he doesn't that much.

Last but not least would be God of Death, fertility, humility, secrecy, exhaustion, childbirth, harvest, full moons, new moons, hares, abandonment, insomnia, wolves, cannon fodder, sex workers, pitilessness, foot soldiers, coyotes, divine aid, absolute friendship, music, poetry, shelter, foxes, transformation, sensuality, divine grace, hearth fires, volcanoes, cooking, and outcasts; Eugene Skullovitch of ORANGE. His territory is largely based in dense forests and low-population cities and his powers are...limited to animal transformation, comforting the dead, and directing heroes, villains, and other more appreciated gods in either the direction they need to go or AWAY with a few words.

[dreamedfyre-a]

helaena doesn't have a favorite child. the way she interacts with each of them is different, but the only thing one might argue would be showing favor to one over the other is that she'd indulge maelor and jaehaera more. she loves jaehaerys; but he is aegon's son, the son of the realm, the firstborn. he will have everything, his mother's love included, but he's never simply hers. maelor was a baby, but even had they grown older, she knows he would struggle with not being given everything like his brother. the world would be less giving to him; she could indulge him a little more. but jaehaera... she is the one who'll have the least say on what happens to her. she is the one people won't see as valuable in the same way her brothers are. it's not that she is the favorite. it's that helaena would like her to be as happy as she can possibly be while the two of them have some say on it.

when b&c happens, helaena doesn't scream or cry or panic. in the book, it's said she kept calm and tried to talk to the attackers, and i find it reasonable and believable because i'm much the same in dangerous anxiety-inducing situations, especially if there's someone else i'm looking after and who i need to protect. i think she didn't even have the time to panic. her mother was being held hostage, her children were in danger; she had to get them out.

what she does when she realizes there's no way to avoid bloodshed is what's the only logical solution for her: try to make herself the sacrifice. letting her children die is not an option, and trying to fight would only end up with all of them killed; she cannot seriously harm their attackers, and buying any time for the children would mean nothing. maelor is 2. alicent is tied to a chair. if she does that, she'll sentence more than just herself to death. but if it's just blood they're after, then she can sacrifice hers.

except she can't and they ask her to choose and not complying isn't an option when they threaten to abuse her daughter and to just kill them all. helaena didn't choose one or the other out of favoritism. it wasn't because she cared more for one than the other. she chose because there's no better option, and if she can protect jaehaera and maybe let her and one of her brothers walk away alive, she has to do it.

maelor is chosen on account of his age. it's horrible no matter how you look at it, but helaena thought it'd be less cruel, if only because he was too young to actually know what was going on. jaehaerys and jaehaera understand the threats and the situation. he would know his mother sentenced him to die. he'd know what would follow. maelor wouldn't.

except of course none of them knew what would follow, and they took jaehaerys' head anyway.

helaena doesn't love her children less after it happens. it's because she loves them all that she can barely stand to be near them. she looks at jaehaera, and she can only see what's missing; they were a set of two, inseparable, so very alike. in a few years her daughter would probably look very different, but then and there she's the image of her dead twin, the child she couldn't save, the one whose head was cut off right in front of her and whose blood seems to stain her hands ever since, impossible to wash out. she loves jaehaerys and she lost him. she loves jaehaera, but most of the time she can't even be there for her daughter as she should.

maelor is her baby. the youngest, her little boy, her only boy. helaena loves him to death and she can't bear to look at him as a result. she chose him to die. she looks at him and she hears the echoes of you hear that, little boy? your mom wants you dead and she feels sick. the boy isn't the issue. she is. what kind of mother chooses one of her children to die? what kind of monster? she hates herself too much to be near them. what good would it be anyway? there are people who'll be kinder, protect them better. how can she ever hold them close knowing her hands are covered in blood?

grief leaves her devastated, but self-loathing destroys her.

[aparticularbandit]

Agatha Harkness and the Other Alien Plant

Summary: Agatha adopts Audrey II instead of Seymour.

Chaos ensues.

Rating: T.

AO3

When Agatha was young, her mother often left her at the house alone.  Agatha wasn’t the coven’s heir apparent – her oldest sister, Charity, was – and she wasn’t even the back-up – her older sister, Prudence, was.  Even her twin brother, Nathaniel, older only by a few heartbeats, was given more freedom; with no natural magical ability, he had little to do with the coven proper, and as the sole son, he was much more involved with the other people around Salem.  In fact, he’d spent most of his time at the docks with the sailors, hoping and waiting for their dad to return.  Sometimes, when she wasn’t needed around the house, Agatha would join him, but most of the time—

Charity, training to be the next leader of their coven, took Agatha under her wing.  Where their mother spent her time looking after the coven proper or training Charity personally or where Prudence spent her time with the small family she’d tried to start, Charity spent most of her free time with Agatha, helping her hone her magic and showing her the best time to go shopping for the different herbs or components they might need for their various spells.  Sure, most spells don’t require anything more than runes and incantations, but sometimes…sometimes they need more.

Now, three hundred years later, when her mother, her sisters, and her brother are all dead (all by her hand, some more intentionally than others), Agatha forages in the urban landscape for tricks of her trade.  Sure, sure, during a solar eclipse, she should be out in a forest or on an island, taking roots and shrubs and leaves and blooms that are only found in this exact time, but she’d scavenged so many during the last eclipse that she still has more than enough to tide her over until the next one.  And sure, sure, there are spells – incantations, mostly – that can only be enacted during an eclipse, most of them specific to the specific kind of eclipse – but she hasn’t felt like experimenting with the solar sigils this time.  She’d gotten burned plenty throughout the last century, and she’s made enough progress on her newest attempt that she feels comfortable waiting before trying again…mostly because there are a few techniques she wants to perfect before implementing them in her next attempt.

Which is why she’s here, in the heart of some unnamed city, searching not for herbs or roots or components but for shops that are only open during the eclipse, when the barrier between some of their realms draws thin.

One shop in particular.

Agatha speaks in a language that was foreign to her centuries ago but which slips through her lips much more easily after multiple lifetimes of training and use.  “The Ancient One sent me,” she lies in the language they’d learned together.  “Do you have anything new for them this moontide?”

The shop owner, whose name Agatha has either forgotten or never learned, doesn’t even look at her.  “I do not wish to speak to their pupil—”

Agatha recoils at the word and doesn’t even listen to the rest of what the owner says before spitting out, “I’m no pupil of theirs, boyo.  I’m a witch, magical in my own right, and I don’t need the tricks of sorcerers to….”  She takes a deep breath, swallows her words down, and scowls at the owner’s amused expression.  “The Ancient One cannot be in all places at all times,” she tries again.  “They have more immediate concerns this moontide, and so they have sent me.”

“One who is not their pupil.”

“One who is their friend.”

This, at least, is not a lie, although Cian would probably prefer Agatha not use their name or their notoriety to bother shop owners who would otherwise want nothing to do with her.  But it isn’t as though Agatha is the only one who does so; she’s given Cian free reign to name drop her among any witches they might find themselves.  Even if she hadn’t, she knows they would.  It’s how they’ve found her so many times when she hasn’t wanted to be found.

Still, the shop owner chuckles, still not looking at her.  “The Ancient One has no friends.  You lie.”

“They don’t need friends,” Agatha corrects, trying to be as gentle as she knows Cian would be, despite wanting nothing more than to bite this owner’s hand off, “when they have me.”  She waits for any acknowledgment of her words, and when there are none, she grits her teeth together.  “Look, do you have anything for them or not, hon?  I don’t have all day.”

“Nothing for them,” the shop owner replies, finally glancing over to her, removing his glasses and rubbing them with the end of his shirt, “but something, maybe, for a witch.”

Agatha’s brows raise sharply.  “What do you have?”

Which is how Agatha ends up with a tiny sprout of a thing similar to a venus fly trap, but smaller, in her possession.  It certainly isn’t the weirdest thing she’s gotten from one of those eclipse shops, but if it’s witch specific, it’s getting up there.  Point of fact, witch specific usually doesn’t mean anything good.  It usually means something deadly.

Agatha isn’t fool enough to believe that a plant this small can’t be deadly, nor is she fool enough to believe that only the plant itself might be the problem.  Keeping the plant alive might be a superhuman task, and letting it die might be the truly destructive thing.  There’s no way of knowing.

Honestly, it might have been better to leave the plant well enough alone.

But Agatha has never been – and will never be – very good at leaving things well enough alone.

~

It takes some trial and error – and a fantastic bit of bad fortune – before Agatha finds that the plant feeds on human blood.

Of course, Agatha doesn’t feed it her own blood.  She keeps a bag or two around for vampire friends when they decide to visit; it’s nice to have a good spot of tea with friends, and when your friends aren’t much into tea, you make do with what you can.  Some vampires still like tea, provided it’s spiked with a spot of blood.  Others just want their blood in a mug, heated just the same way she might tea or hot chocolate – on the kettle or in a pot over the stove.

It’s nice, every now and again, to have visitors.  It’s less nice when certain others decide that her visitors need to be terminated for whatever reason.  It’s even less nice when certain others infiltrate her apartment and attack her visitors and that hot mug of blood gets spilled everywhere, including on the nice new plant that she’d gotten during the eclipse because it was supposed to be great for witches or whatever.

Little bit of a turn up when the plant, which had been in the process of dying, suddenly seems to get better, but that doesn’t really make up for having to get all of that blood out of the carpet.  Even with magic, it’s a pain and a half, and that’s on a good day when the vampires haven’t decided to boycott her for months because they think this is her fault.

(It is her fault.  A vamp went after Cian.  But she can’t explain that to any of them.  Besides, they’ll get over it eventually.

So will Cian.)

~

Now, Agatha doesn’t constantly feed the plant.  Sure, sure, she has blood for her vampire friends, and sure, sure, her vampire friends aren’t coming around right now, and sure, sure, blood goes bad within a couple of months, but it’s not like she’s going to pour all of the blood she has on a plant.  That would be ridiculous.

When she finishes the last of her saved blood bags, Agatha names the little plant Cordelia and thinks this is a much better disposal of blood than trying to pour it down the drain, which is such a waste.

~

Five months into owning Cordelia, three weeks after the last of the blood bags is used up (and two weeks before the next one needs to be cycled out), Agatha first hears the croaking, whimpering, rasping voice of something calling out, “Feed me.”

Notably, it is not speaking in the English that Agatha predominantly uses whenever she has a visitor over, it is not speaking in the Latin she frequently uses for her incantations, and it is not speaking in any other language it would have heard around her apartment; it’s speaking in the language it first her speaking when she picked it up, a language that is old and antiquated and no longer spoken in most places around the world, at least not in the way that the plant is speaking it.

And she knows it’s the plant solely on the basis of that very specific thing.

Which means that the shop owner sold her a speaking, blood drinking plant, which sounds less like a plant and more like something else entirely.  Or maybe a new crossbreed between a vampire and a plant, like maybe a vampire version of one of the flora colossi, which would be interesting to say the least, but that would require some very specific changes to how that species functions, including actual roots stuck in the ground, and, of course, something that functions as blood by which to turn them in the first place.

It would also mean its throat would have evolved to the point where it could say more than three words, but if it’s been turned into a vampire, there’s a possibility that—

No, no, no.  It’s something else entirely.

Agatha gives the plant a blank stare and says, in English because she doesn’t feel like parsing through another language right now, “Try that again, hon.  I couldn’t quite make out what you were saying.”

The plant opens its venus flytrap like lips and squeaks out again, in English this time, “Feed me.”

“Mmhm.”  Agatha doesn’t even blink.  “Want more blood?  Is that it, dear?”

“One of those vampires would be nice.”

Agatha’s eyes widen, and she gives a great nod.  “Did you see how upset I was when they got attacked?”

The plant shrugs its drooping leaves.  “You hummed quite nicely after dinner.  Figured you were, uh, not that upset.”  Its lips curve into a menacing grin.  “Next time, use me.”

It takes a moment of consideration before Agatha stands, bops the plant – Cordelia – on the top of her rubbery head, and returns to the kitchen.  “You can’t just eat everyone who annoys me, hon, and I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”  She leans up against her kitchen counter and stares at the plant.  “On the other hand, I have a friend who might have great use of you.”

Cordelia’s grin grows.

~

It’s another week or so before Agatha drops in on the New York Sanctum Sanctorum.  Not because she particularly likes the place, although she does have some quite fond memories of her time there, but because the Ancient One has decided to check in on New York, taken a sabbatical from their time at Kamar-Taj, and when Cian decides to come back just across the street from her, Agatha always goes to visit.  It’s habit.

Now, Agatha doesn’t bring the plant with her for their first weekly tea meeting.  That would be sacrilege.  She does, however, over a sip of tea mention, “I might have another artifact for you.”  She hides her grin as Cian’s brow raises and instead leans back conversationally in her chair as she says, “This one talks.”

Cian doesn’t groan, exactly, but they do the physical equivalent of it by setting their teacup to one side, clasping their hands in their lap, and sitting up a little straighter, the way they might when dealing with a particularly obnoxious student.  “That does not sound like an artifact, Agatha.  That sounds like another pet.”

“Cordelia’s not a pet.”  Agatha holds up a hand as she takes another sip of tea.  “Yeah, the name makes it sound like she is.  She’s not.  Just a blood-drinking plant from one of those shops you told me never to visit without you.”

Cian stares at her.

Agatha sighs.  “You really thought I was going to listen to that, angel?  Really?”

“No, no.  I knew you wouldn’t.”  But Cian settles, leaning back into their chair, which means they aren’t on edge anymore.  Which is good.  Probably.  They meet Agatha’s eyes with their moss green ones and ask, “Which store?”

When Agatha finishes explain her admittedly limited knowledge of the situation, she finishes by saying, “And you have easy access to portals across other dimensions, so if something goes wrong, you can take care of her.”

Cian shoots her a tired look.  “Agatha.  Love.  You also know those spells.”

“Yes,” Agatha groans, “but all of my sorcery is tied up in my back.  You know this.”  She lifts up her shirt and gestures to her back, covered with thick, thick scar tissue.  Sure, she has the same spells that Cian does because they’d trained her in sorcery a long, long time ago.  But given the chance between relieving her own pain and having additional sorcery to partner with her magic?

No, no.  She has magic.  That’s more than enough for her.

(Except for her back.)

“Someday, you really should find someone who can heal these.”  Cian reaches out and gently traces a finger along one of the scars before Agatha drops her shirt back into place.  They sigh.  “If I must be your heavy lifter, then I will, Agatha.  You know that.  I only regret that you decided….”  Their voice trails off.  “Never mind.”

Their disappointment is palpable, but Agatha pretends that doesn’t matter.  She’s won, after all.

~

“Alright, you little alien from who knows where,” Agatha says, staring at Cordelia.  “If anyone – anyone at all – tries to hurt Cian, you snap them up, you understand, hon?  They’re going to tell you they don’t need the additional help, which is why you’re not going to tell them.  You’re just going to eat those shitheads, got it?”

Cordelia’s lips spread in that menacing little grin.  “Sure thing, baby girl.  I’ll eat all the intruders you want.”  It even looks like she winks, which doesn’t seem possible.

But it feels a bit like they’re in cahoots, and it’s nice to be in cahoots with someone again.

~

(Cian calls thirty minutes later.  Wong has been swallowed whole.  Cordelia has been eviscerated from the inside out but is still somehow alive.

Agatha cackles long after Cian disappears.)

[stellarwaffles]

It’s been over 26 hours so I’m talking about my hcs now!! Also people actually voted which I wasn’t expecting

I’m going to try and organize my headcanons..

Relevant to canon

- Akita + Kataru are not 70+ years old, they are 16.

It’s so weird to me that going by what little timeline canon gives us Akita + Kataru are at least 70. They were not alive pre-Ice Emperor, by the time they were born the Ice Emperor had been ruling for 44 years

- people actually died

Personally, given the choice, I’d much prefer being killed instead of being frozen and fully conscious for 60 years, I feel like I’d go insane.

Also how did all the people that were frozen survive 60 years without freezing to death or suffocating or starving??

- adding to that last point! Here’s what happened when villages were attacked:

1) Vex has a formling village located

2) he tells the Ice Emperor about this totally super dangerous village that needs to be destroyed

3) the Ice Emperor sends out his dragon + some soldiers to the village

4) the dragon gets there first + blasts it w ice. Buildings are destroyed + people die

5) the soldiers get there + take any survivors they find prisoner

6) any survivors that hid successfully either move to a nearby village that isn’t destroyed or rebuilt the village (usually the village is too destroyed / too many people died(/were taken prisoner) for rebuilding to be very doable)

- formlings have the ceremony where they unlock their animal forms when they’re 11

So Akita’s flashback in that one episode happened 5 years ago

- Oh also Vex isn’t from the same village as Akita + Kataru otherwise it would’ve been the first one destroyed and he also didn’t show up in person to their ceremony. It was just one of the many formling villages attacked

- when Akita + Kataru’s village was attacked Akita was one of the survivors that successfully hid + Kataru was one of the survivors that was taken prisoner

This means Akita is aware that Kataru’s alive. She saw that he was one of the villagers taken prisoner

- ok technically Akita doesn’t know for sure Kataru is alive, she just knows he was taken prisoner + therefore MIGHT be alive and she will not let herself believe even for a moment that he’s dead

Because of this her goal isn’t to stab the Ice Emperor, it’s to save Kataru from prison THEN stab the Ice Emperor

- the prisoners in the ice palace aren’t treated very well, many of them die. All they have to keep them warm is whatever they were wearing when they were taken prisoner and they’re only fed like every 3 days

This means Kataru is even more malnourished than Akita (most people in the Never Realm are at least kinda malnourished bc it’s kinda hard to get food when stuck in an endless winter)

- Akita stopped by villages on the way to the ice palace for warmth, food, and to make sure she was headed the right way

I think that’s everything relevant to canon..

Not relevant to canon

- Akita + Kataru’s parents died in a blizzard when Akita + Kataru were 9

They moved in w their aunt, but she died when their village was attacked (she was at home + the house was one of the buildings destroyed)

They moved in with a different aunt after the Ice Emperor was defeated

- Kataru also has a knife

Akita + Kataru’s parents gave them both hunting knives (I asked my dad and what I’m thinking would be smaller hunting knives or survival knives but I want to call them hunting knives) for their 8th birthday

- formlings have black sclerae (the white part of the eye) bc I think it looks really cool + also if you look at Akita + Kataru’s animal forms they have black sclerae

- Akita + Kataru have a cousin about their age who is really annoying. He likes making fun of Kataru

- they also have a cousin who’s 6, she’s not siblings w the annoying cousin

I don’t have names for any of their family members

- Kataru is a pretty good cook

- Akita + Kataru’s birthday is either in August or October, I haven’t decided

- because of being in ice prison for 5 years Kataru can’t feel his toes, the ends of his fingers, or the tips of his ears

- if he wasn’t malnourished Kataru would be around 6’ (he’s 5’7)

Akita would be 5’8 instead of 5’6

- Kataru has dimples

[pessimisticshapewithablog]

Anaylzing TOWW dialogue.

Part#1

This will also include unused dialogue because there isn't enough characterization of him without it.

Come closer. Fear not, for though you are already dead, I still have need of you.

It appears TOWW is trying to comfort the lamb or is at least concerned that the lamb would be scared of him. Too scared to make a deal, maybe? This could just be a line he's rehearsed over the course of his imprisonment. No real emotion behind it I mean.

Those foolish Bishops thought they could keep you from me in death. But instead they sent you straight to me.

How are the Bishops keeping souls from literal Death? Is this why they have so many skeletons in their realms? Is this why Heket has animated skeletons in her dungeon. The souls cannot pass on to TOWW because of something the bishops are doing?

I think Shamura knew what they were doing, when the lamb was sacrificed in a way that sent the soul directly to TOWW. the other Bishops only acted on their commands, they would not have known that this would happen. Does TOWW not think it's suspicious that of all the souls that are kept from him by the bishops, his prophesied savior is sent right to him? Maybe he didn't care. Maybe Shamura was tired of trying to placate him, knowing  they could not realistically keep Death imprisoned forever. It was time to put an end to this and the Bishops.

I will give you LIFE again, but at a PRICE!

All I ask is for you to start a Cult in my name. Do we have a deal?

Can TOWW just resurrect folks, without needing bones and such like the lamb. Although I'm pretty sure the place where he is trapped is full of bones. It maybe a different ritual all together considering he gives us the red crown too.

It's funny how the price of the lamb's life was paid mostly by TOWW in the form of giving them the red crown. I say this because TOWW already had Ratau ready to mentor the Lamb on starting a cult. Does he give the red crown to anyone that manages to reach him? What does he look for in his vessels?

(After Lamb dies)

Fear not, for you are my chosen vessel and death cannot halt you.

I shall not allow it, for I still have need of you.

Now, I'm sure he's just saying that out of habit. Isn't it interesting that TOWW refers to the concept of death as separate from himself? He says "I shall not allow it", he may not be death, but he can control it. The same way his siblings control, chaos, famine, pestilence, and war, but are not those concepts.

Take what you have gathered. Build and strengthen the Cult. This is how power is gained.

What does he mean "This is how power is gained"? For most people death is permanent, earthly gains are left behind. Being an immortal god of death has warped TOWW's perception of the mortal death would it seem.

Continue on, undaunted. Each time you are brought down, you rise again stronger.

I personally don't feel any stronger after dying in-game. Is TOWW....reassuring the lamb after they die? As in, motivating them to keep trying even when they fail? It makes sense, you wouldn't want your vessel to become too disheartened to continue serving you.

Death is of little consequence. Rise once more, vessel of mine.

It matters not how many times you are struck down. The Cult shall continue to grow.

I know it meant to come across as possesive but being referred to as "vessel of mine" gives me butterflies.

Given how self-centered TOWW comes across to be, it's curious that he puts great importance of the cult surviving. Makes sense as, cults and followers are an easy way to amass power and resources in this world. It is a wonder that he allowed Ratau to live after letting his previous cult to fall to ruin.

To be continued...

[atomicsheepscientist]

Alright, ignoring the insanity going on in the other reblogs, here's my take on the prompt!

As newly appointed ghost king, Danny was visited by powerful beings from other realms, especially the other death or death-adjacent realms. Some come to start fights and challenge him for the throne. However, most came to pay some sort of tribute in order to renew or establish treaties and allyship with him.

This process became a whole affair, with thousands of beings from hundreds of different planes coming to visit Danny as the new Ghost King Phantom. Honestly, Danny began to enjoy the ones who came to battle for his throne. They at least broke up the boring monotony of subtle and not so subtle politics and power plays!

After a whole month of Danny taking audience with these beings, the Observants finally got their heads out of their asses and started making Danny an appointment book. Now, any visiting entity had to first meet with Danny's newly appointed secretary and schedule an appointment with him to have an audience.

Danny took full advantage of this and put off all non-important meetings until next year! Hey, most of these beings are dead and/or immortal. They can wait one measly year so Danny might be able to enjoy his Senior year in HS.

However, the tributes Danny received still did need to be sorted. Danny was going to put this off, but then the Box Ghost somehow managed to get into the vault, find a freaking CURSED BOX among the supposed gifts, and then proceeded to cause havoc in Amity Park with said box.

So now, Danny has roped Sam and Tucker into helping him sort through all these things and categorize them. (Sam was especially helpful at making a system of organization. Danny was planning on just sorting by color. Tucker even managed to create a digital guide of their organization with his PDA and a ghost computer!)

At the end of the extended weekend of sorting (thank you Clockwork), Danny and company were exhausted but found so much cool stuff. For example, apparently, there was this guy named John Constantine who somehow managed to sell his soul to multiple entities! These entities seemed to have used this tribute time as a way to get rid of their contracts because Danny found all of them in his vault! (He even used one of his new king powers to check. And yes, these were all the contracts tied to this man's soul)

But Danny didn't really feel comfortable owning someone's soul. So, team Phantom decided they would have fun with this! Through Sam's magic and Tucker's tech, they track down John Constantine. He's a member of the Justice League! Danny decided he might as well go return the complete set of contracts, give this guy control over his soul again. (No, this isn't just an excuse to visit the Watchtower that's in space, Tucker! Totally just going for official ghost king buisness)

Arriving at the Watchtower (OMG, he's in a space station!), Danny flies around the base, invisibly searching for Constantine. Not finding him anywhere on the base, Danny goes for the next best option: finding the person in charge and giving them the soul contracts!

So, Danny flew into the JL meeting room and turned visible. (Oh gosh, he is so nervous. There are so many cool heroes here!) Looking around the room, Danny decides Batman looks like he's the most in-charge figure here. So, Danny asks Batman how much he'd pay for John Constantine's complete soul. (Soul contracts can't just be given away, ok. There has to be some sort of exchange or they become invalid! No Sam, this is not just a way to extort the JL for money)

Danny was not expecting $200 million for the contracts (heck, he halfway wasn't even expecting to be taken seriously), but he wasn't about to turn it down!

"How much would you pay for john constantine's complete soul?"

In the middle of a JL meeting a white haired, green eyed boy floated upside down in front of Batman.

"200 million"

"Deal!" The boy said extending his hand. Which Batman shook. Then the boy disappeared. Leaving behind one full contract for the complete 100% soul of John Constantine.

Batman held the contract as he smiled, then he started to laugh. Everyone in the meeting was scared and John was sobbing.

( later Batman traces the money transfer to one Sam Manson.)

[samethyst01]

A Mother's Love: Chapter Eight

A fist of cold and dark was strangling the Pink Palace, and the grounds around it. Mist in the shape of clawed fingers tapped at the sky, and the edges of everything, pulling them back and exposing the horrors lurking beneath. Coraline walked with purpose up the hill, past the dead trees whose blossom had long ago died, her boots making quiet crunching noises on the cold dirt below, and when the ground was solid, the sound was hollow and echoed a thousandfold.

She went over the plan in her head again. When she reached the well, she would shine her flashlight into its depths, presumably not even reaching the bottom due to its distance. So, once she had confirmed that it really was what she thought – another portal – she would descend into the depths. She had almost convinced herself that she had the nerve to do it, to actually cross into that hell again, but the dream had shaken her. If the ghost children really were suffering like that, what could she possibly do to save them?

Step, step, step. Along the dark and cold path Coraline stepped, and stepped, and every step was marked with another memory, another old fear. She had been this way before, thirteen years ago, and had brought the key around her neck, brought it to its fate. If there was any chance of another disembodied needle-hand coming to stop her, she’d have noticed it by now, seen its glint in the dark. No, she was alone. She was alone and the moonlight shone upon her, and everything, and she had no way of knowing if she was safe under it.

And as she began to let the fear in again, let it soak, she heard a quiet pitter-patter beside her. She looked down to see the Cat, and he was staring up at her as the two of them walked.

“You’re not gonna say anything…?”

“No. It’s like you said – there’s work to do.”

Coraline had only thought that, not said it. But she supposed it wasn’t out of any kind of realm of possibility that her companion could hear her thoughts. He probably heard them right now. She looked back at the path and soldiered on, and for a while there was silence between them. Eventually, Coraline remembered something she had realised earlier in the week.

“You talk differently.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You always used to speak in this really haughty manner – the things you said were sort of… arrogant, confident. The tone of it, the intonations. You have the same voice, but it just sounds… off.”

There was a beat of quiet before the Cat responded, as if he was trying to conjure up some sort of explanation on the spot.

“Have you considered that perhaps, under the circumstances, my old antics would be inappropriate? Or perhaps I’ve grown tired of such paltry things, given what’s at stake? Or maybe…”

He trotted ahead of her and stopped in Coraline’s path, forcing her to stop as well.

“…maybe I just don’t give a damn anymore.”

Coraline scoffed lightly and rolled her eyes at his dramatics.

“I guess that makes two of us.”

She waited for a second before looking down at him with an impatient glare, and he obliged, returning to her side. And so they walked in silence again. After another period of quiet, Coraline realised that it might be the only time for her to ask some of her most burning questions. She had written down the important ones, and she hoped that – given his supernatural nature and connection to the other world and the Beldam – the Cat could answer everything. And if not everything, then at least as much as he was able.

“If we’re going to do this, I need to know everything you know about her. About her world, too.”

“And you assume I have anything useful to say? If I knew some grand, secret thing about our enemy, don’t you think I’d have shared it with you by now?”

“I’ve met people like you. You all like to keep certain things close to your chest – for whatever reason.”

The Cat sighed heavily and, though begrudged to do so, relented.

“What do you want to know?”

Coraline said nothing, an indication of her earlier point – everything, and no less. It would be the least he could do.

“I can’t say very much – not just because I know she’s listening – but because a lot of it isn’t useful. What I do know for sure is that the Beldam is old, maybe as old as the Pink Palace, but she did not create the Other World.”

“She didn’t?”

“No. She discovered it. In fact, she was its first occupant, before it had discovered anyone else. Before it could claim anyone else.”

That made Coraline’s head hurt. What did he mean by ‘claim’? Was the Other World capable of such a thing, of independent thought? What exactly was it, beyond some other dimension? Right on cue, the Cat responded again.

“She always told you she’d die without you – that she needed your soul to survive. She feeds off them, you see. But why do you think that is?”

“Because…”

Coraline had to face an uncomfortable truth.

“Because the Other World is feeding off her.”

The Cat gave her a wry look.

“Exactly. Without souls to replenish her strength, the Other World would consume her like she tried to consume you. And then, it would look for another occupant. The two are entwined in a twisted, symbiotic relationship, like a parasite and its host. And they’ve endured for almost two hundred years.”

Coraline shivered at the thought. She recalled the moment of her escape from the Other World, when she was young, and specifically the tunnel through which she traversed. She always wondered about it, why it was there, and what it represented. At one time, it was pristine and magical, other times dusty and filled with broken memories. But once, and only once, it resembled the innards of something vast and ancient, watching her with a terrifying self-awareness. It was a dread presence that was older than time, older than space, and infinitely more powerful than both.

“The Other World… what is it, really?”

And that was the only question she was afraid to have answered.

“I’m sorry, Coraline, but I still don’t know. I can only theorise, like I’ve been doing all these years.”

The two were coming up to the well, and Coraline felt that pit in her stomach getting bigger, and so much heavier. It threatened to consume everything in her if she didn’t put it to rest.

“But I do know one thing. It is more alive than we think.”

And then there it was.

It was so much less imposing than Coraline had expected. She had conjured it up in her head as some vast, dark structure teeming with insects, thorny tendrils leading down into the gaping maw of the portal. But it was just a well. The fairy ring had long since decayed, and over a decade of poor maintenance had led to the area becoming mossy and overgrown. Coraline sighed, letting out a portion of her fear and her dread, allowing it to escape for just a moment. She could, at the very least, feel a little calmer.

The Cat watched as Coraline approached the well, its lid buried beneath a mound of moss and dirt. She pawed at it with both hands, clawing open the clumps to reveal the lid, which had begun to rot. If horrors awaited her, she knew she had to be prepared, so she grabbed her flashlight and held it like a baton, switching it on a moment later. She gave a quick glance to the Cat, perched on a tree stump, and nodded at him. He nodded back, and before she could hesitate again, she pulled the lid off the top of the well and shone her flashlight’s beam down into the depths.

At first, it was too dark to see anything besides the slick walls, also having become overgrown, and which were teeming with insects. Some flew upwards out of the black and into the sky, while some – the eyeless, near subterranean creatures – simply stayed put. Coraline then began to angle the torchlight downwards, until it reached what she thought may have been the bottom. It was nothingness. All that remained, all that ever was, was total, empty nothingness.

Coraline gulped nervously. This was it – the portal was down there. All she had to do was make the jump and she’d be in that place, the one it was all leading towards. But then, she thought, what if there actually was no portal? What if she fell straight to the bottom and died, or worse, broke all her bones but continued to live, forced to lie in the darkness, alone, unable to move or scream for help? Horrors began to fill her mind, and at their peak, she saw something moving in the torchlight.

It was impossible to make out any kind of shape, but something was definitely down there, at the bottom of the well, in the water. So it wasn’t a portal after all. And then, Coraline began to hear a faint but unmistakeable noise – a woman’s voice, gurgling and growling. It started off low in pitch, like whoever it was down there was trying to speak, but it slowly began to get louder, and sharper, and eventually the growl became a shriek. The shriek, in turn, became a scream so horrible and piercing that Coraline was transfixed by it, paralysed by its totality, just like the night before when the Beldam came to her.

But before she could be lured into the well, a cold hand gripped Coraline’s shoulder. She turned abruptly and let out her own scream of horror, coming face to face with a ghoul from the mist – the same ghoul she had seen the day she arrived at the Pink Palace. It was Mrs Lovat, her face pinched and drawn, her eyes pure grey, just like her stringy hair, and there was a sneer plastered on her face. She wasn’t naked like before; there was a grey blanket wrapped around her shoulders, which her crusted fingernails clutched at to hold upon herself. She was slightly less terrifying than before but still unimaginably shocking to look at.

Coraline scrambled backwards, clutching at her flashlight as if it would protect her from the spirit. The beam began to flicker and die, perhaps smothered by the darkness around them. She looked around for the Cat’s support, but he was gone. In her mind, she cursed at him for leaving her to deal with the spirit alone, but another part of her figured that it was intentional. Just another demon for her to confront – not a literal one, but something to be overcome.

Slowly, Coraline rose to her feet and met the gaze of Mrs Lovat. There was silence for a while before the spectre opened her mouth and began to speak, in a rasping, desperate voice.

“You… left.”

Fear began to be replaced with anger, as Coraline huffed indignantly.

“I thought the job was done, ma’am. I did everything I was supposed to, I had no reason to think she was still alive.”

“Ignorant child!”

The spirit lunged forward and Coraline took several steps back, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she watched the old woman glare at her.

“It is our responsibility… to uphold the laws of this land. To keep watch over those who might live here, to keep them safe… from her.”

It was at that moment that Coraline truly snapped, if she hadn’t already when the cops wouldn’t listen to her. All the years of holding back her feelings, the story she could only tell to one person, the hate and the fear and the trauma, all of it was gushing forth. She began to cry, tears running down her cheeks in a wave of agony and relief, all of it flooding out at once before she could stop it.

“Nobody ever wants to hear it, do they? About how badly it affected me! About how— how I would wake up screaming, thinking she had come back to kill me and everyone I love! About how I thought one day she’d come to my world and tear it all apart! About how hard it was for me to make friends, or find love, or feel safe around my own goddamn mother! Nobody wants to hear how that witch destroyed me, destroyed my life, my heart! Even after I had won… and now you’re telling me it was all for nothing? Now, you talk about responsibility?”

There was a moment of pause where the spectre said nothing, and Coraline looked at her desperately, her expression twisted in fitful rage.

“ANSWER ME!”

She screamed, and the spirit actually flinched. Mrs Lovat wrung her hands, her face mournful, and finally let out a quiet, hoarse sigh.

“I’m sorry, Coraline.”

With a scoff, Coraline sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She wasn’t done yet.

“You know, I did you a goddamn favour. I took Wybie away from that place, like you wanted, and I tried to give us both a normal life. But all this time—”

She interrupted herself with a bitter laugh.

“—all this time, you wanted me to become like you, a lonely old crone watching some other poor kid wander into that hell?”

Privately, she regretted those words, but she wouldn’t let her guard down, not yet. Mrs Lovat narrowed her eyes at Coraline, but chose not to berate her further. No, she would give answers instead of a lecture. The time for the latter was long gone.

“If it were up to me, both of us would’ve moved on by now. But she will not let it.”

The spirit looked down at the Pink Palace, regret and turmoil in her glassy eyes.

“Besides… somebody has to watch over your parents.”

“Watch over them…?”

Coraline questioned. The thought of her parents being put in mortal danger had crossed her mind more than once, but something felt off, something was wrong. And at that moment, her phone began to ring. She fished it out of her pocket and saw it was her mother, probably calling to ask where she was. She answered almost immediately, preparing to get an earful for wandering out into the woods late at night.

“Mom, I’m fine, I just went for a walk to clear my head.”

“Come home, dragonfly. Come home.”

It was her mother on the phone, but her voice was ethereal, distant, echoing with a strange undertone. A chill ran down Coraline’s back as she heard it, and she looked to Mrs Lovat for guidance. The spirit shook her head, but it was too late for that. The other line went dead, and Coraline knew what she had to do. Before Mrs Lovat could warn her, she sprinted back down the path and towards the Pink Palace. Something told her that her parents were in danger, and if that was the case, if she had taken them, there was only one place left to go. But how, without a key?

It didn’t take long to return to the house. Her parents’ car was still nearby, but as she burst through the doors, she noticed that everything was silent. The house was dark and cold, no sign of her parents. Frantically, she checked every room, from the kitchen to the bathroom, to the living room and the garden, and to both the bedrooms. Still nothing. Not a sign of them. Coraline panted and sobbed to herself, no companion to comfort and guide her, all alone with her parents stolen away from her for the second time.

Though she knew they would be of little help, Coraline decided to try something a little more rational, and called the police. When someone finally answered, she launched into a litany of frantic descriptions, detailing everything that had happened thus far, and begging the operator for help. But instead of another person responding to her, the voice on the other end was far, far more horrible. It was the voice she had been waiting to hear again – the one that knew Coraline would call for outside help. The one she had been running from for thirteen years.

“Darling… running away from me again? That’s not what a good, dutiful daughter should do.”

Coraline froze, every dark corner of the Pink Palace suddenly far more hostile and malevolent than before. She began to hyperventilate, unable to form any kind of reply to the Beldam’s horrible words. But the witch wasn’t done yet.

“Poor Mel… poor Charlie. They’re gone now. Gone for good. And soon… you’ll join them here. With me… and with all the other people you failed to save from me.”

The sneering, sadistic tone in the Beldam’s voice gave Coraline just enough strength to hit the button on her phone and end the call, and before she could even think, she sprinted upstairs, ran into her room and slammed the door, tearing off her boots and coat and jumping into bed. She grabbed her covers and pulled them over herself, desperately crying and sniffling, her whole body trembling with fear. She begged God for the nightmare to be over, to send her to sleep so she could wake up and find her parents alive and safe. She had to try, even if nothing would come of it.

And eventually, after what felt like eternity had passed, Coraline fell into a deep, exhausted slumber.

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

Tell me your thoughts on death.

Hmm, big question. I have a lot of thoughts on it, perhaps they're even conflicting. **This post is LONG and I'm probably gonna discuss topics people will find upsetting, so read on at your own risk. If you are not of sound mind, I do not recommend you continue to read this.

Firstly, death is (so far) inevitable. I'm not even sure what someone would do with themselves if immortality was a given. I'm already a chronic procrastinator -- I'm not sure how I would be if I were immortal. Ultimately I don't imagine I would achieve much (not that I'm achieving much as it is and I'm already mortal, which is pathetic). In a weird way, nauseatingly cliché as it is, perhaps death is what makes life so precious; how transitory it all is, is what gives life meaning. It may not offer us a purpose but you are forced to at least experience it for some unknown amount of time. Whether you enjoy it or endure it falls to the chaos of chance.

I believe there are different types of death. I think this is fairly well-understood in society by now. There is the death of the person -- the physical death; then the death of the legacy/legend -- when word about said passed person also stops. Obviously there are many historical figures who have not yet experienced full legacy death. Even if one living person speaks of one passed, then said "spirit" is not quite dead yet. Then there's the idea that death does not truly happen to the person whose life ends, but rather it happens to those who knew said person. I think it's foolish to believe that death does not happen to said person, however. There are so many ways to die that the notion one would not feel or notice one's own death is ridiculous. I can think of endless ways of how one may meet one's end where the figure is fully aware that their death is imminent -- not all death is peaceful and sound. Death is not always sweet and it is naive to assume so.

I want to believe in a good afterlife, but I am not sure if there is one. The idea of a worse realm existing than this world is one I also find hard to imagine -- the more I see here, the more there is a hellishness about it. I would like to think that if there is an afterlife or another realm we move to, that it is kind to all who enter and does not exclude anyone -- almost as if each person has their own personal "perfect" or tailored "kind" afterlife, given "kind" and "perfect" are often so subjective. But I think this is more wishful thinking than anything else, unfortunately.

How one meets death is something that fascinates me. Most people probably hope they have the healthy, natural and peaceful death, despite knowing there are exceptions. Then there are those who suffer terribly from depression and perhaps other disorders, who find existence so unbearable that death seems to be a provider of peace. But then there are the people who have been unfortunately diagnosed with a terminal illness or -- even more unusual and rare -- perfectly healthy people who simply decide they would rather leave on their own terms than let nature take its course. A prime example of this latter category is Jean-Luc Godard: he chose to leave on his own terms, though the reason conflicts between indeed being unwell and in fact being of sound health but simply tired of still living. People like to slap morals on a "choice" of death but I feel it is foolish to do so. Each circumstance is so individual, it is absolutely nobody else's business to say whether it is "right" or "wrong". I have my own thoughts regarding my death, morbid as it is to say, but we all eventually must contemplate our inevitable end after a certain point. I have been well-acquainted with death from a young age -- and so few of those were "kind" deaths, so thinking about death as a concept doesn't phase me much.

A comfort is that, for millennia, so many of our cultures across the world have had forms of funerals and other specific rituals to say goodbye to a departed loved one, or celebrate a loved one long after their departure. Some of my favourites are the Day of the Dead rituals in México and the rituals in Toraja, Indonesia, where what we call death is viewed completely differently. I think it's beautiful.

What gets me most is the idea of the death of the entire universe, or of all of space. Total annihilation terrifies me, or it did. This point will get into weird territory because I'm not a professional astrophysicist so am not fully informed, and I'm just expressing my own thoughts on it -- I'm not saying what I think is fact because I know it isn't absolute. The idea that one day, far, far into the future, absolutely nothing may exist horrifies me. But almost for my own sake, I'm not sure how convinced I am of this theory. If the Big Bang is how the universe as we know it today was created, that means there surely must have been something -- some form of energy -- that reacted to something else for such a sudden and violent bang to result. So we did not come from absolutely nothing. Which makes it hard for me to believe that after all the universe is eaten by black holes and the black holes eventually die, that there is absolutely nothing left. Maybe it is and that's simply the end of it all, but part of me feels there must be some unknown energy or substance that lingers in the otherwise void of nothingness, and perhaps eventually react with something else, maybe creating some other new system or epoch (or maybe not). Mind you I know the flaw here is that at the time of the Big Bang, everything that now exists was believed to be pent up tightly packed together in one very small point, and by the Dark Era, everything will be so spaced out that even reactions that occur may not be tightly packed close enough to create anything new afterwards.

I can handle the idea of Earth's eventual destruction (albeit not well, it still scares me though I know it should be far off in a future where I'm long gone), along with the rest of our solar system, and galaxies colliding to form new ones or being swallowed up, but total non-existence of anything in what we currently call our universe just saddens me. Really makes me think of that old Bible quote "For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

[wahlpaper]

Every Heart a Doorway Review

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

CW: Transphobia, Deadnaming, Child Abandonment, Parent Death Mentioned, Mutilation/Blood, Death, Child Death, Skinning, Reanimation, Animal Cruelty, Swearing, Bullying, Medical Content, Disordered Eating

5/5

While I'm normally the person in my friend group to suggest books, occasionally a friend recommends one to me. This was the case for Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. And they were absolutely right to do so! I took a while to get around to reading it, but I fell in love with it as soon as I did. It's an imaginative world of worlds with ace rep and neurodivergent coding. I'm relieved that it's the start of a series, as I didn't want to be done with it. If you're intrigued so far but not looking for a series, this novella definitely works as a stand-alone.

Every Heart a Doorway starts when Nancy is sent to a boarding school for Wayward Children. She has been through a doorway to a land of the dead, a land she felt at home in. Now she must learn alongside others like her, children who have been cast out of their world and are desperate to go back. Unfortunately, as soon as she starts making friends, people start being killed. Who will be next? Who is doing it? What's their motive? Will Nancy and the school survive long enough to benefit from what the Home for Wayward Children has to offer?

The premise of this story is a beautiful and exciting one. I love the idea that there are worlds out there perfectly suited for each person who isn't suited for Earth. This is where I sense the neurodivergent coding, aided by the author being autistic. All of the children we met felt at home in the world that they found. When they returned to the real world, they had spent so long unmasked that they couldn't stand the world they came back to. Their parents had a hard time with the returns as well. As an autistic person, it left me wondering what world would make me feel right. Perhaps one from scratch would do best, but I can't help thinking of Halloweentown from the Disney Channel Original Movie. 

Another aspect that made me love Every Heart a Doorway was the queer rep. McGuire included ace and trans rep in her novella. Nancy has a squish (platonic crush) on her classmate, Kade, who is trans. He was thrown out of his other world for it and disowned by his parents when he returned. The Home for Wayward Children took him in, though. He's not the most extroverted person, but he does immediately take to Nancy in return. Nancy is asexual and potentially on the aromantic spectrum. Her doorway world was affirming of this. Knowing that McGuire is demisexual made this representation all the more satisfying to me. I have read that the other books in the series have queer rep too. If it's anything like this, I'm looking forward to it! 

Every Heart a Doorway should be a horror novella, given the murder, mutilation, and description of some of the worlds, but it didn't come across that way to me. It's possible that my inability to imagine the gory scenes kept it from being as scary as it could be, but I don't think so. This school is for the children who want to go back to their worlds or at least want to remember them. Many of the worlds were dark, scary, or focused on the dead. The characters are comfortable with dead bodies, so it's easier for the reader to be as well. I appreciated this approach. It's not disrespectful to the dead, it honors them without turning them into a spectacle. The people at this school have a very different viewpoint than most humans, and that matters.

Seanan McGuire created a fantastical and dangerous world that offers hope and acceptance. If the idea of escaping into another realm or a boarding school for kids who have done so appeals to you, Every Heart a Doorway is the book for you. Treat the book as a doorway of its own!

[drjdorr]

I came up with this theory some time ago and still think it's neat(dumb but neat)

Earlier I realized that the MCU didn't have a popular "they were all dead" theory that alot of media has(particularly children's media) so out of boredom I started playing around with that thought and honestly, a pretty reasonable theory could be built from that(at least reasonable as far as "they were dead the whole time" theories go) though not only are they dead, the Avengers are in Hell (ok technically seems more like purgatory since redemption mechanics may be at play but "Hell" is more dramatic)

Now to be fair not everyone in the MCU is a dead sinner, some are just constructs by the simulated reality and some are... going to be explained later however atleast the core Avengers of Tony, Steve, Natasha, Bruce, Thor, and Clint use to be alive

Due to the admittedly shallowness of the theory it will probably be easier to explain character to character and explain how they probably died, why they are in the bad place, and anything else relevant so let's dive in

Tony is easy. A rich weapons manufacturer who profited off uncounted deaths, hmm why might he be in the bad place? And before you say "but he changed" yes, but not before his death when a Missile exploded close enough to him to read the brand name. I may not be a military weapons expert but if a human is close enough to a missile to read what brand made it when it goes off, they probably are going to catch a lethal case of death. We also see a transition space which we see in some of the recently deceased in the form of the cave(ok my hellvengers theory is nonsense and I know it but is him "dying" then removing something preventing him from leaving the cave his body is kept in a Jesus reference?! Anyway) this transition space allows the simulated world to give an explanation of how the recently deceased "survived" *wink wink nudge nudge* their demise. We later see perhaps the only way to truly leave this hell realm without being revived in some capacity, noble self sacrifice.

Steve... Steve was tricky. Like how did he die is easy, he Crashed a plane full of Bombs into the Freezing cold Ocean, take your pick for cause of death(this also means he may be one of the characters we see alive the longest given it is most of his movie). No what was tricky was, why did Cap, an individual of pure heart(made even purer by the serum) end up in hell. The best idea I could come up with is either Clerical error(I promise I made the pun before initially noticing it) and ended up in the wrong place, or he went to heaven but where Cap is most comfortable is helping people so he Chose to go to hell to help redeem sinners(obviously with any heaven memories wiped), he would still be in hell though so it would still try to punish him. His transition space was his fake room which he saw through immediately (almost like he already transitioned to an afterlife before?). And lastly he found a different route out, he simply chose to leave. Ya, he belonged in heaven so once he decided to go back heaven let him back in were he could grow old with Peggy

Because team Cap are connected in choosing to be here let's quickly do Bucky. Bucky died when he fell a ridiculous hight from a speeding train, that generally kills people. Bucky also belonged in heaven but his heaven is being close to his friend Steve, so when Steve left to reform people in hell, Bucky wasn't far behind. Unfortunately (perhaps because his heart hadn't been purified like Steve's) his transition zone wasn't so nice, his transition zone was the Winter Soldier, Hell remember. And unfortunately the simulated Hell realm is internationally consistent so when Zemo used Winter Soldier code, the Winter Soldier activates still. Know if you can just leave if you actually belong in heaven why didn't Bucky leave with Steve? Well firstly Steve Chose to go to his heaven, it was an active deliberate choise. Secondly, Bucky acquired new friends so his definition of his heaven may have changed enough to not have him leave.

Rounding out the Cap trio if Sam(Nat is admittedly Cap adjacent but isn't a proper member of the group in my eyes). Sam had to be the hardest of the three. How did he die? No clue. Why is he being punished? *shrug* I guess he is a post WWII soldier and many consider the second world War to be our last truly moral war, but I don't feel like condemning all our military personnel(the complex itself maybe but the men and women serving aren't inherently bad). Then it hit me, it was so obvious in hindsight. Sam is an angel. He is an angel that followed Steve to hell because Steve's goals were so good and just(obviously with heaven memory wiped and replaced with a human life and angel body changed to human[though there may have been something stirring in the subconscious when he chose his career and tool of his trade]) and when Steve left, well the job still needed doing.

Natasha is easy if not as direct(I haven't seen Black Widow so that might throw wrenches I don't know) . She is a spy/assassin/ skill based living weapon whose ledger is "dripping" with red. Clear why she may be punished and cause of death is maybe op went wrong(maybe in Budapest? Hmm?). And she got out by self sacrifice in endgame

Bruce dosed himself with ungodly amounts of gamma rays those, as Fury put it, "can be dangerous". And why is he here... good question. My best guess is the fact that Hulk is often meant to represent the more violent and dangerous side of Bruce's personality, one he tried to repress. Which I admit eh

Thor is an interesting one. You see, Thor isn't dead. I know weird. But he is a god, so unconsciously shifting to hell to follow someone who is dead doesn't seem to unreasonable. Speaking of which

Loki attempted to overthrow his own adopted father by literally stabbing his birth father in the back. Pretty obvious why he would be punished. And he died when he fell into the void during Thor 1. He is also the poster child of the futility to escape outside of redemption considering how many times he "died" before he truly died at the hands of the mad titan after trying to do everything to stop him and thus nobly sacrificing himself. Unfortunately Thor unconsciously shifted so seeing Loki die die for certain might have caused him not to follow him again.(also TVA Loki split before noble sacrifice so didn't escape to heaven like sacred timeline Loki did)

Lastly (for now, it's late) is Clint. He seems to be a good guy so what if he is another Bucky situation where he is here because someone else, in his case Nat. Though he has an accidental secret, he brought abit of heaven with him with his family's farm that is isolated away from the rest of the world were nothing really bad happens until (the hell world breaches and) things go really bad. As for how he died, see Nat's cause of death

I know I said Clint was last but Steven died in a car crash while texting and driving(don't text and drive) and got sent here because he was a self centered arrogant egotist who only really cared about himself

[sasorikigai]

((Honestly I don't feel capable of properly critiquing a story when there's clearly so much untold as of now...but that in itself is also my own primary complaint. At the end of it all, the story movement felt like introduction, little else, and "that's all for these most basic building blocks of the beginning of our characters' stories; tune in next game, or DLC, or whatever, when we actually start to tell said stories!" Just setup and sequel-hooking. Nothing wrong with an origin story, mind, but I think there wasn't quite enough actual story movement therein, at least imo. I'm no expert in story analysis nor in Mortal Kombat.))

Random Inbox Shenanigans || anonymous || always accepting!

The same, but all I know is that I am extremely biased as a die-hard Scorpion/Hanzo Hasashi and Sub-Zero/Kuai Liang fan, but I definitely concur on the part that NRS seems to go on the path of shallow what-ifs on different timelines, rather than expanding the exquisite substance and depth of the character history and complexity by delving them further. In that regard, I am a huge fan of the whole MK9/MKX/MK11 saga, which gave us just that; those series of games become ones that span in a mostly continuous motion forward, along with character development and chemistry.

We definitely saw Scorpion/Hanzo transform from a vicious raging specter dead-set on revenge and vengeance to a sagacious and compassionate Grandmaster, who ended up (unknowingly) sacrificing himself for the greater good. And I have always loved Sub-Zero/Kuai Liang's personality, and his dualism; deadly and merciless in kombat, while being very kind, empathetic, and traumatized. He's the epitome of a loyal, dedicated fighter who will go ends for his people, not only of Lin Kuei, but of Earthrealm as long as they're on his side. The stories in those games were cohesive, and not only in Scorpion/Sub-Zero's perspective, but we saw all other characters develop as a character in a remarkably good way, or become wicked and immoral, wanting nothing but dominance and supremacy. They were painfully and relatably human. Even Raiden, the demi-god Protector of Earthrealm wasn't free from the grasp of going 'dark.'

Even other media could be said as such; animations such as Scorpion's Revenge, Battle of Realms expand on many 'origin' stories and the original tournament. Also, the recent reboot of Mortal Kombat Movie starring Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi) and Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero (Bi-Han) is essentially retelling the tragic death of Hanzo and his rebirth as Scorpion. At this point I would just like to know why there is nothing of Hanzo Hasashi for the rebooted timeline in Mortal Kombat 1, just deleting him from existence and robbing him of the unique history which was given to him all along to one other than Kuai Liang, who already has his own remarkable story of growth from Tundra to Sub-Zero.

All in all, the story in Mortal Kombat seem to severely lack the semblance of depth, which was aplenty in the previous games. And I am getting really tired of getting 'origin' stories retold repeatedly through different media; it is time that we get more complexity through less messing of the storylines and timelines, but with more character development, but it is what it is at this point and I can't do nothing, but hope for the better story mode in the future games.