#Like are they being metaphorical or is he just like an anchor for their ghosts now

[privateolives]

So like are they just hanging out inside of G'raha like Ardbert and Frey hangs out inside us or what.

[leajoyrambles]

"Schrödinger's Ghost Boy" but make it literal

hey so you know how the phandom has this ongoing joke about how Danny, being both/neither dead and/or alive, is like Schrödinger's cat but ghostly? you know how the thing with the cat is considered a valid explanation of certain principles in quantum mechanics? you know how the cat maintains that state specifically by being unobservable? you know how the theme song calls the Infinite Realms "a world unseen"? you know how—

*government agents swarm the stage; the camera feed fizzes into static, then hard cuts back to me standing in the same place, slightly disheveled but uninjured. I push my glasses up my nose, leaving a suspiciously red fingerprint on one of the lenses. Because my glasses are already smudged to hell, I do not notice*

ahem. so. basically, imagine that the "halfa" thing doesn't just mean being caught between life and death, but also caught between the realms of life and death. This would also be a portal AU, in that because Danny is partially erased from reality, things around him are as well. Basically, he's like a black hole — he gets pulled into this in-between, but because of the "gravity" that generates, so do his belongings. His usual haunts (ha) experience the gravity too, but because they're so connected to things around them, they become warped rather than absorbed (his bedroom evolves into a sort of portal, eventually, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

And how would this affect the people around him? I'm so glad you asked! That is, in fact, the point:

They forget.

Danny's existence? A black hole. And until the event horizon, everything is warped — space, time, reality, and memories included. No one who would have remembered him can even see him.

(There are some metaphors in here. Something something his home is his haunt is his gravitational field is all going to be consumed by him in some way, is going to come out different, like he did, and eventually there won't be an event horizon — Amity becomes liminal not because of the hole in reality, but because of the life it swallowed — grief as gravity so strong it warps everything around it — forgetting as haunting and haunting as a call to remember — the queer analogy of being so different that you're so alone that you have to rewrite the universe just to be heard — etc.)

Some details:

Danny's at his "most real" when he's in an inherent phase state — ghost form in the human world or human form in the realms.

Danny can interact with humans in human form, but they have to have prior exposure to reality-warping/ghostly stuff and no prior knowledge of his existence. (I have some outlines and drafts for this story already, and the main characters in this category wind up being Wes Weston and Valerie Grey)

The above is a good thing except for the GIW. Because they meet both criteria to a degree and are. hm. not good.

Vlad is not the same kind of halfa as Danny. It's sort of like... Phantom was born at the center of a supernova; Plasmius was born in the radiation a black hole belched out after eating a neutron star. (I'm getting way too into this metaphor.) The influence of gravity is wildly different between those two things, so while Vlad does "warp," he doesn't have a warping effect on anything else.

Vlad does, in fact, remember Danny. Unfortunately, he's still an asshole in this universe, so he mostly uses Danny's name to short-circuit the other Fentons' brains whenever he wants them to stop talking.

The phanon idea of "ghost lairs" is complicated for Danny; his lair mirrors his nature, unable to fully exist in the human world or the realms. This is where the "his bedroom becomes a portal" thing comes into play; places that are reality-warped maintain a connection to Danny, sort of like an anchor, and they all act as potential portals to his lair. His room is the start of what his lair mirrors in the human world, and it has the strongest warping, so it's both part of his lair and the most active portal to it.

Warping-as-portals also happens in people's minds; people who really cared about him eventually find those "portals" and access their memories, but this... definitely has some side-effects. (they do not care about the side-effects)

...and I have, in fact, already written an outline of most of the series and a draft of pt 1. (y'all are totally welcome to use this as a prompt though; just send me a link so I can read it!)

[pekoehoneyncream]

Ghoaptober # 25

Prompt: Alone

Words: 1200~

TW: Unkind Mental Dialogue, Hamfisted Flower Metaphors (sfw)

This version of Ghoaptober was created by @spadesandshovels

I've no idea what else to tag this as, but if you've any ideas please let me know

Enjoy!

Soap had been informed that he was being granted a freeday. That Friday would be entirely his, to do with as he pleased. If what pleased him was within regulations, of course. He’s been dreading it from the very moment he was first told and while he was stuck-still fearing it, it came.

He’d gone to bed Thursday night with one last bit of traitorous hope still crying ‘maybe this time will be different’ from a dandelion clock in his soul’s weedful garden, and had awoken this morning to find hope’s stem bare. His garden grown wild with windflowers, plume thistle, hairbells, and nettles once more. 

Staring up at the ceiling tiles of his bunk, Soap tried to convince himself to get up, to sit up at the very least, to make that first step towards facing the day, but found himself unmoving. Laying there with a dull sense of despair as he fails and fails again. Purposelessness slackens his limbs, feels sunk into his very bones, unaccountability a leaden weight that anchors him where he is. 

Alone, with nothing to do, no one counting on him, and not a soul to be disappointed by his inaction, he finds himself unable to unstick himself from his rut. 

Just as he'd known would happen. 

His phone dings and he finds it in his hand within the next moment, without any conscious decision to pick it up off the floor from where it stays just under the edge of his cot while he’s sleeping. It’s Ghost, he’s texted over one singular question mark.

Checking the clock, Soap realizes with impotent urgency that breakfast time had blown past while he’d been busy festering in his bed. He doesn’t know how to respond, he has no explanation, no excuse, he hadn’t turned off his reminders, he’d heard his phone buzzing with the silent alarms he’d long ago set to help keep him on track. It had just felt so unimportant to him at the time.

What had been the point of going to breakfast when he had nothing to do after breakfast, what would he be eating for, why should he fuel a body that was going to be languishing in inutility all day. It was pointless, so he hadn’t. Hadn’t even bothered to stop the alarm, just letting it vibrate itself out. 

But he’d worried Ghost, or else he’d confused him enough by not appearing for breakfast that his L.T had felt obligated to seek an explanation. Soap mustered himself and sent back three thumbs-ups. One would be too abrupt, two was too eager, but three felt inoffensively joking enough to be worth sending. 

Another question marked dinged onto his screen within the same minute of Soap responding. He stared, puzzled. What could Ghost be asking about now? After scrolling back up to check if he’d missed a question Ghost had sent or something, Soap could have smacked himself, and did let his phone drop despairingly onto his chest. He’d forgotten that he never sends Ghost emojis on their own, he only does that with his siblings. With Ghost he barely ever uses them, and when he does it's mostly as tone indicators for difficult to parse statements. Soap liked actually talking to Ghost too much to ever be so taciturn as to just use emojis, normally that is.

“Sorry LT. Didnt feel up to bkfst” He types out and forces himself to send, after watching precious minutes keep ticking by while he agonized over it.

“Whats wrong” Ghost's response pops in, then “Sick?” in a separate text immediately after.

Soap knows he’s really worried Ghost now, if the man is skipping apostrophes and sending stacked texts. He's devastatingly tempted to agree, to say he’s sick, instead of just a useless layabout. 

“Johnny?” Ghost’s concern bleeds from the screen as Soap’s fingers hover over the keyboard and with a grimace he punches in his response.

“No. Just didnt feel up to it”

Knowing that Ghost knew of his sudden onset of redundancy was a horrible sick feeling that sloshed about his gut, but Soap also knew that lying to him would have felt worse. 

A simple “Okay” from Ghost and Soap lets his phone drop again, hanging his hand off the bed to abandon the device back onto the floor. 

Losing himself to the ceiling tiles and the yawning pit that's echoing all his many failures back to him from the depths of his heart, Soap wallows. If rot and decay weren’t progression his garden would be wilting and blackening. Instead it follows his lead and stagnates. Unmoving as still-water and twice as toxic. Time is meaningless to him on a normal day, but now he torments himself with guesses at how long he’s spent just laying there, doing absolutely nothing.

It can’t have been more than five minutes, but what did he know, full hours could have run by him now and he’d be none the wiser to it. 

A rap at his door pulls him from that spiral and he stumbles off his cot to open it. Ghost is stood there, a banana in hand. Carried with the same reverence he gives mission objectives. 

“L.T?” Soap steps out of the way and lets Ghost stalk into his bunk, flushing when Ghost’s scan of the room lingers on his cot with its freshly disturbed sheets.

“Brought you this,” Ghost presses the fruit into Soap’s hands,

“Uh, ‘hanks, Ghostie. Ye didnae-”

“An’ this,” Ghost wields a bottle of Lucozade now, and Soap hasn’t a singular clue where in fuck he could have pulled it from. 

An incredulous snerck of laughter jolts free of Soap’s chest. He folds over, bracing his hands on his knees and staring hard at the floor as he tried to suppress his giggles. A glance over at Ghost ruins him, the energy drink was being pointed at him with intent, Ghost’s serious eyes staring Soap down from just above. Gales of semi-hysterical laughter pour free of him and Soap collapses to the floor as his knees give out. Dropping onto his back, he presses the back of his hands to his eyes, careful not to blind himself with the banana he’s still holding. He can feel his garden blooming under the sun Ghost’s brought in with him, running over with ivy, snowdrops, primroses, and wild arum. 

“Where awn god’s green earth,” He giggles out, dropping his hands to look up at Ghost with a humored smile, “Were ye keepin’ tha’?” 

“Need to know info, Johnny,” Ghost rebuffs him, “You don’t have that kind of clearance.” 

More incredulous giggles wrack through the Sergeant and he rocks himself a little on the floor as he tries to rein himself in. Joyous tears leaking from the corners of his squeezed shut eyes. 

“It’s blue flavour,” Ghost advertises, waggling the bottle at him.

“Well iffin it’s blue,” Soap jokes, his voice bouncing with the remnants of his laughing fit. He leans up, taking Ghost’s extended hand to lever back to his feet, then sits himself back onto his cot and accepts the drink that is a truly lurid shade of blue, as promised. 

Soap pats at the open spot beside him and rides out the subsequent tremor when Ghost plunks himself down with no aplomb. 

“‘hanks, Si.” Johnny mumbles as he starts peeling his Ghost allocated banana, keeping the Lucozade pinned securely between his knees, so he wouldn’t lose it somehow. 

“All good, Johnny.” Ghost assures, watching him spend his full concentration on opening the banana with the least amount of stringy bits left behind. The unspoken warmth that Ghost carried in his soul for this man, finally banking from the blaze it’d been stoked into by Johnny’s uncharacteristic morning. 

Whatever Johnny was going though, Ghost was determined to not let him face it alone.

Thank You For Reading!

Yep, Scots call dandelion puffballs 'clocks', apparently.

Here's the flower meanings, I've a book of them that I took these from, if looking them up tell you something different ┐(•_•)┌

Windflowers - Forsaken Plume Thistle - Misanthropy Hairbells - Grief/death Nettles - Cruelty Primrose - Eternal love/I cannot be without you/Obsessive love Ivy - Happy Love/Affection/Fidelity/Marriage Wild Arum - Ardor/Zeal Snowdrop - Consolation/Hope/Hope in sorrow

All of these should grow wild in Scotland or Britain, if my bit of surface level research didn't steer me wrong.

PekoeHoneynCream's Masterlist

[lucagray813]

LBD Idea

Ok, so long story short I want to finish the Journeytober prompts I missed last year (I started on Day 16) and the Day 2 prompt was ghost and I've been thinking about it a lot.

So I love LBD. I think she is just such a great villain and when I was initially thinking of what to do for this prompt my first idea was to have her metaphorical ghost haunting [insert literally any LMK character here] but then I really started to have some fun playing around with what she actually is.

A backstory that I really like for her is that she is a demon turned ghost, or at least a demon turned part-ghost. Spurned on by her failed attempts to create order she delved deeper and deeper into soul magic (because where else could the answers to humanities atrocities be found if not in the soul). And in doing so she eventually all but abandoned her body to embrace the power she could obtain as a ghost.

But in order to stay tethered to the mortal realm, she needed an anchor and her old bones did just the trick. As long as they were preserved and kept safe then she was effectively immortal (and in fact, in this story of events, the Monkey King was only able to finally defeat her by finding those bones. And he would have destroyed them had Tripitaka not insisted on her imprisonment instead 🙄).

When her bones were finally destroyed in the fight between MK and possessed DBK, she had to find new bones to anchor herself to very quickly and given her weakened state, a mortal child was the perfect candidate.

She no longer had a body of her own at that point, although she could use illusions or glamours to make her host look like her old body and her ghost does naturally want to take on that familiar form when she isn't actively possessing someone.

Being anchored to someone's bones isn't quite the same as possessing someone's bones. Once she had regained enough strength she could theoretically have sealed Bǎi Hé away somewhere safe and possessed someone else but Monkey King found her bones once before and she couldn't risk that happening again. And Bǎi Hé turned out to be a very lucrative host, and her body was capable of channeling a surprising amount of her magic.

It was a real high stakes move to release Bǎi Hé as her anchor but the writing was on the wall and she had to go all in if she was going to attempt to possess Mei and claim the Samadhi Fire and when that didn't work her defeat was inevitable.

I'm honestly a little obsessed with the idea that she possesses people's bones rather than their minds. One way I think about it is that she almost severs the connection between body and mind, traps the brain in a magic infused skull prison. She obviously does like to play mind games but I really am enamoured by the idea that the possession at the very least starts with the bones.

I might come back and add more later as I work on this Journeytober prompt but I just wanted to share this idea!

[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

how do u come up with your titles? they read like song lyrics- and if they are could u drop the songs 👀👀++ to what extent does that song influence the story? (my bad if you've answered this before I have terrible memory)

-🦀

Ooohhh crab anon, the bag of worms you opened!! You are completely right, (almost) every title of my stories have come from song lyrics. And not only have I compiled the songs for you, I’ve written a lil blurb on why I chose that song and included recommended songs for each fic with applicable lyrics. I hope these satisfy!

another cup of wine | “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl” Looking Glass

Listen, I’m gonna be real with y’all. This one is just because Darlin’ and Sam drink wine out of cups instead of glasses. No deeper meaning here, just an applicable lyric I liked. The song does have a sort of swag and divorced dad rock vibe that I think Sam in particular would listen to.

Recommended listening

“He Needs Me” Shelly Duval

“I’ll take a chance / I will because he needs me”

“No Choir” Florence + the Machine

“And it’s hard to write about being happy / ‘cause the older I get / I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject”

the only anchor i have left | poem by Andrea Gibson

The only one not taken from a song. I’ll link the poem below. I think the whole thing is very good for Bright Eyes. Lost and anchorless without something to be angry about. A common Andrea Gibson slay.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9548512-what-if-i-don-t-want-the-monster-to-stop-being

Recommended listening

“Your Needs / My Needs” Noah Kahan

“To see a friend, to see a ghost”

“your life, your dreams / your mind, your needs/ my needs. / Your needs, my needs.”

“Second Child, Restless Child” the Oh Hellos

“And they saw the trouble in my eyes / they were quick to recognize the devil in me.”

i always wanted to die (clean and pretty) | “Last Words of a Shooting Star” Mitski

One of two or three Mitski lyrics I’ve used since she is just so good. Tbh I don’t know where I was going or where I want to go with this one. The general vibes are… tragic. I might retool later on.

Recommended listening

“Lonesome Town” Ricky Nelson

“There’s a place where lovers go / to cry their troubles away / and they call it Lonesome Town / where the broken hearts stay”

“This Too Shall Pass” Danny Schmidt

“We think too big / we think our self is one whole thing / and we claim that this collection / has a name and is a being / but deep inside / when every cell divides / well, it sets upon the rule that states / self-interest is divine”

let this whole town hear your knuckles crack | “Damn These Vampires” the Mountain Goats

Somehow the only fic so far with a title from tMG, my favorite band of all time. I’m sure I’ll find more in time. This song has western vibes that I don’t think fits the DAMN crew very well, and somehow I paired this song in my one fic that doesn’t involve Sam. However, the vibes are immaculate.

Recommended listening

Seventeen Going Under” Sam Fender

“I was far too scared to hit him / but I would hit him in a heart beat now / that’s the thing with anger / it begs to stick around”

“Saint Bernard 2” by Lincoln

“Lord make me a liar ‘cause I swore to god / when swearing still felt like the truth”

it’s my gut i can’t ignore (i’m hungry) | “Gone, I’m Gone” Eva Noblezada and the cast of Hadestown.

Also surprising I haven’t used more broadway lyrics, but here we are. My absolute favorite musical which, in part, is about hunger driving you to do desperate things. This piece was so largely focused on food insecurity for me. Every chapter revolves around food to some degree, and even the metaphors and similes Angel uses to describe the world around them are tied to food. It’s something that those of us who grew up with food insecurity can relate to; when you’re hungry, everything reminds you of food. When you live hungry, it consumes your every thought. When Noblezada as Eurydice delivers the line “it’s my gut I can’t ignore / Orpheus, I’m hungry,” you can hear it in her voice. It’s worth a listen for that line alone.

“Abbey” Mitski

“I am hungry / I have been hungry / I was born hungry / what do I need”

“Class of 2013- Audiotree Live Version” Mitski

“Mom / will you wash my back this once / and then we can forget / and I’ll leave what I’m chasing / for the other girls to pursue”

as long as you’re with me (you’ll be just fine) | “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” Cigarettes After Sex

This whole song has excellent David vibes. The protectiveness, the quiet possession. He’s a soft soul at heart, I think, and this song fits well. This collection is one of my faves just because we get to see many different sides of him and ways in which he can be protective, possessive. From quiet reassurance to acts of service to beating the shit out of people. As long as his pack is with him, he will keep them safe.

Recommended listening

“Cold Cold Man” Saint Motel

“Oh my love / I know I am a cold, cold man / quite slow to pay you compliments / or public displayed affections. / But baby, don’t you go over analyze / no need to theorize / I can put your doubts to rest / You’re the only one worth seeing”

there is a light (i feel it in me) | “Abbey” Mitski

Already tied to this series, this Mitski song is just perfect. An exploration of how trauma can effect us in ugly ways, this piece pairs perfectly with Mitski’s music. This song explores the deep hunger within the singer, countered by the lightness she feels within herself. Angel, in this piece, is haunted by their hunger and treats David poorly because of it. The light that he shows them helps them to reach for the light within themself. We love healing in this house!!!

See the recommended songs under it’s my gut i can’t ignore (i’m hungry).

the rest of you, the best of you (honey belongs to me) | “NFWMB” Hozier

Oh boy I could go on for ages about Hozier. His songs are on almost all of my Redacted playlists and so I listen to his work pretty much every time I write for Redacted. His lyricism and prose are evident in my work, I think. This piece, one of Angel’s first indications of how protective David is, fits so well with this song. Swinging wildly between protectiveness and possessiveness, David mirrors the song’s progression throughout the piece. I think “Belongs to me” is the operative part of this title.

Recommended listening

“You’re Mine” Phantogran

“(No one’s gonna love you) / (No one’s gonna touch you) / ‘cause you’re mine! / (No one’s gonna look at you)”

“Always Forever” Cults

“You and me, always forever / We could stay alone together / You and me, always forever / Say you’ll stay, never be severed”

i assume you’ll be coming for blood (that makes two of us) | “Venom” Little Simz

Alright so… for real… this piece should have been named “is it wickedness? is it weakness?” after the first (or last, depending on how you play it) track on Kendrick Lamar’s “Damn.” That entire album is a work of art, and it can be played cohesively forward or backward, each play telling a different story. Forward is Kendrick’s life as it is, and backward is how it might have gone had his father died when he was young.

In this story, the inciting incident for Sweetness to be so different from the Sweetheart that we know is their mother dying when they were young. I’m positing here that Sweetheart in the main universe still has their mom and that’s why they’re kinder.

Anyway. I stand by “Venom” being a banger. It’s themes don’t run as cohesively with this story as Damn.‘s do, but I can live with it. For now.

Recommended listening

“Damn. Collectors Addition.” By Kendrick Lamar.

Yes the entire album. This particular edition, too, since it is the “wicked” timeline.

“Love’s gonna get you killed / but pride’s gonna be the death of you”

“United in Grief” Kendrick Lamar

“Pray none of my enemies / hold me captive / I grieve different”

remembering again the full extent of what forever is | “Through Me (The Flood)” Hozier

More Hozier! We know I love him and the new stuff he’s put out for Unreal Unearth and all of it’s EP’s are changing me fundamentally as a person. Hozier’s work has always connected with me deeply, all the way back to when I was a repressed queer kid listening to “Take Me To Church.” Now, as he’s putting out this big push of music, I’m finding myself connecting with the core of his music again. This song, a song about surrendering to the impossibility and incomprehensible nature of love, is perfect for William and Alexis. Will’s love for Alexis isn’t healthy, and it doesn’t lead him to sound choices, but he feels he has no choice. So he surrenders to it.

Recommended listening

“Eat Your Young” Hozier

“It’s a kindness / highness / crumbs enough for everyone / old and young are welcome to the meal”

“My Love Is Sick” Madds Buckley

“You’re an infection / I am keeping / No matter the sepsis / you are staying / I’d rather the wound / Than have you removed / Enough rotting for two / Killing me, keeping me high”

the world (it burns through me) | “Through Me (The Flood)” Hozier

Oh boy two for one! I for sure snagged this from the same song as the last piece I posted too. Yada yada surrendering to love and all of that. Love is something that’s has happened to Darlin, not something they have taken an active part in. They take the opposite message from William in this song; they fight the current, don’t let the world take them under. They are a fighter, in the end.

Recommended listening

Arsonists Lullaby” Hozier

“All you have is your fire / and the place you need to reach / don’t you ever tame your demons / but always keep them on a leash.”

“Problems” Mother Mother

“I’ve found love in the strangest place / ties up and branded / locked in a cage”

and my body remains (but the person is gone) | “Divine Loser” Clem Turner

Asher’s main trauma response in this piece is dissociation, pulling away from himself and his body to protect himself. While “Divine Loser” isn’t necessarily about dissociation, there are a number of apt lyrics that tie in with Ash in this story.

Recommended Listening

“To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe)” Hozier

“You’d shake for minutes there and move your legs / wrap the blanket over you and keep your head within / let your breath heat the air until you’d feel it getting thin / Uiscefhuaraithe.”

“Wait” Get Set Go

“Wait, wait for the dawn, my dear / wait til the sun gets here / and you will wait too long / he will be gone”

when i call, you come home (a bird in your teeth) | “I Know The End” Phoebe Bridgers

Ooohhh boy! I love this song. Phoebe does something to me y’all. This song is sad, which makes it an interesting choice for a, generally, happy ending fic. This piece, like most things I write about the pack in childhood, is tinged with a sad sort of nostalgia. It’s the knowledge that we as readers have that, whatever comfort and love David gets from Gabe is temporary. We know how this story ends. We know that Gabe will die. And so even these happy moments are seen through that lens. I Know The End.

Recommended listening

“That Funny Feeling” Bo Burnham

“That unapparent summer air in early fall / the quiet comprehending of the ending of it all / there it is again, that funny feeling / that funny feeling.”

“Black Eyed Dog” Nick Drake

“I’m growing old and I wanna go home / I’m growing old and I don’t wanna know / I’m growing old and I want to go home / Black eyed dog, he called at my door / The black eyed dog he called for more.”

[rock-and-compass]

Angel Season 5 - Episode 18 - Origin

(I wrote this series of essays many years ago, probably around the time that the season 8 comics were being published. They were originally published on my LiveJournal and I'm re-posting them here, mostly for personal archival purposes.)

Okay, so Angel has been told that he’s batting for the wrong team, he now knows the senior partners want him working for them just so they can keep him busy while they get on with business.  His blinkers have been taken off, he knows where he stands and that he’s been played, big time.  So, right about now you’d expect a rebellion, the sniff of an escape plan, plotting, strategising, and mustering the forces of good?�� You’d think …

Contrary to expectation there is no movement on the ‘get out of Wolfram and Hart’ front.  Angel and company stay put, it’s very much just another day at the office; business as usual.  Sure, Gunn is trapped in a Wolfram and Hart holding cell and the team is finding it very slow going as they try to figure out how to get him back, but that’s not the reason they remain in subordination to the senior partners.  No, the reason is that despite everything that has happened, everything Angel has learnt, the original terms of the deal are still in place - Angel’s servitude in return for Connor’s new life and new memories.  That is the origin of the situation; this is the anchor that keeps them tied to the firm.  As long as Connor is living a normal happy life then Angel will not rock the boat, no matter how precarious the voyage has become for him and his crew.

Wesley looks terrible.  He is unshaven, his eyes are red-rimmed and he’s tired.  He watches Illyria with obsessive interest.  Illyria  is merely doing what she does; counting oxygen molecules, analysing petri dishes, kinda sleeping- but Wesley can’t take his eyes off her.  Angel doesn’t think this is a good idea and suggests that Illyria is not his sole responsibility, that she is a shared burden.  Angel wants her tested and studied but Wes indicates that this could be difficult without seriously injuring someone.  Angel volunteers Spike’s services (insinuating that, a) he doesn’t care that Spike could get hurt, b) knows that Spike can handle himself or c) a little of both).  Wesley hardly hears the snide joke, too intent on watching his quarry.

Wesley: she doesn’t understand our world.  She needs someone to guide her.  She needs-

Him?  Wesley casts himself as Illyria’s Watcher, willingly taking on the role of educator and spiritual guide to this lost warrior.  It may seem the thing to do to Wesley but it only succeeds in raising Angel’s ire:

Angel: when was the last time he slept? You’re not her saviour!  I need you here, working, not of drinking yourself into a coma, chasing ghosts.  Fred’s dead Wes, you’re still alive.  Start acting like it.

The words seem cruel. They are.  But, to give Angel the benefit of the doubt, this is ‘tough love’ in action.  Angel, always a paternal figure to Wesley, only knows one way to love his ‘sons’ - in a brisk, acerbic manner, the same way his own father loved him.  In ‘The Prodigal’ (A1.15) we see Angel’s father express anger and disappointment at the actions of his wastrel son, but the harsh words are not fueled by loathing - they are said with the desire to see Liam achieve more than drunkenness and whoring. It’s a harsh parenting style, not what is considered ideal nowadays, but it’s the only way that Angel knows.  He learnt it at his father’s knee and we have seen him use it, at one time or another, on all three ‘sons’; the metaphoric son, Wesley, the vampiric grandson, Spike and the biological son, Conner (S4).

And Wesley, who is used to a hard to please father (as demonstrated earlier in the season in ‘Lineage’) responds; the next time we see him, he’s in his office consulting with prospective clients, very much as Wesley of old. 

The clients are a couple who are concerned about their son.  He was hit by a speeding truck yet survived with barely a scratch.  One of the policemen investigating the case suggested that their son might be ‘different’ and recommended Wolfram and Hart for their expertise in matters such as these. Wesley feels the case is important enough to warrant Angel’s inclusion in the discussions. It’s exactly what they need, a good old-fashioned helping of the helpless to sink their collective teeth into.

Angel walks through the lobby when suddenly he hears a voice that stops him in his tracks. “Hey Dad” it says and causes instant recognition. Angel turns slowly to have his worst fears confirmed. Connor, his Connor, is standing right behind him, standing right there in the foyer of Wolfram and Hart, the last place on earth that Angel ever wanted to see him. Angel is confused. He even begins to ask what Connor is doing there but is forestalled when the younger man is beckoned to join his parents in Wesley’s office. Angel is clearly agitated. He meets the Reilly’s and their son with distracted interest then flatly refuses to take the case. No discussion, no arguments.  Now it’s Wesley’s turn to be confused; isn’t this what they do – what they’re supposed to do, help the helpless. The Reilly’s seem like good people, the kind of people they should help (and the lind of people that the old Angel Investigations would have helped).  

Angel: All the more reason to get them out of here. We know what this place does to good people. 

And that’s true, but it still doesn’t explain why Angel is so determined not to assist in any way. Curious, thinks Wesley.

Meanwhile Spike is ‘studying’ Illyria. Well… Spike is getting pummelled by Illyria, but it’s all in the name of research. Spike tries to explain the rules of engagement, making a particular point of the fact that he doesn’t like to be hit in the face and that her cooperation is required for them to make progress. This is all said in his very best (and totally affected) working class accent, almost as if he needs to summon his most wily street-brawler incarnation to assist him in fighting this superior opponent. Illyria, on the other hand is having a grand time. She enjoys hitting the half-breed. He makes noises.

Wesley joins them in the training room to check on progress. Illyria notes that he reeks of frustration. It curls off him like smoke. Spike suggests it’s actually Scotch, twelve year old Lagavulin, if he’s not mistaken. They are both right. Illyria seems to have heightened emotional recognition while Spike is an expert on the subtleties of using alcohol to dull said emotions. Wesley tries to explain, he’s had a disagreement with Angel, its nothing. Spike jokes about Angel’s inability to, um, relieve frustration in a pleasurable way without going ‘crazy’. Illyria accuses them of insolence, that in her day they would have been punished with death for such disrespect. To Illyria, if it is not unquestioning submissive loyalty then it is mutiny. There is no middle ground. She doesn’t understand the ways of humans (or vampires) who can question, doubt, or even joke but still remain loyal. Wesley tries to explain:

Wesley: It’s just, uh… I don’t always understand Angel.  Illyria: Yet you follow him willingly. You’re loyal to him. Wesley: He’s earned it. I…trust he knows what he’s doing.

Wesley trusts blindly. He doesn’t have all the information; he doesn’t know he’s missing huge chunks of data and that the loss of this knowledge is all Angel’s doing. Would his trust be so unshakable if he had the full story?

That Wesley’s trust is somewhat misplaced is made very clear in the next scene.  Angel paces angrily in his office until Marcus Hamilton arrives. Hamilton is calmness and reason to Angel’s agitation and irrationality. Angel wants to know how Connor ‘just happened’ to walk smack bang into the middle of Wolfram and Hart, he’s sure the senior partners are behind it. He’s sure, even knowing what Lindsey told him in the previous episode, that this is the Partners, about to reveal their hand. Hamilton assures him that the Senior Partners are not the ones behind the stunt. As far as they are concerned they couldn’t be happier with the deal; it is all still in place and they have no desire to make changes to the partnership. So, is it all a coincidence? Oh no, says Hamilton, while the Senior Partners aren’t involved, someone else is certainly trying to send a message to Angel…

Next, we get a good look at the new and improved Connor. He is driving with his parents, riding in the back seat. He pokes his head between his Mum and Dad and reveals he knows the reason they visited the law firm was because of the van incident. He has an easy, open relationship with his parents; he displays good humour, maturity and in the face of this sudden twist in his seemingly normal life, admirable bravery. Angel got exactly what he paid for – a lovely, well adjusted young man, a son any father would be proud of. 

As the family arrive at their hotel the back door of the car is ripped off its hinges and Conner is torn out and thrown across the car park by a vicious demon-type. When his mother is threatened Connor struggles to his feet and instinctively retaliates punching the demon so hard he sends him flying a considerable distance.

Connor: Whoa!

This is a new and surprising development. Understandably he’s momentarily distracted by his newly discovered super-strength allowing the demons to renew their efforts. Angel swoops in, every inch the super hero, and comes to his rescue. He puts on a brutally efficient display of fighting prowess and makes short work of the attackers. Connor is impressed. Angel is chuffed. But as soon as his parents emerge from behind the car, his father injured, Angel and his heroics are quickly forgotten. Connor runs to his parents exclaiming “Dad” with deep concern and reminding Angel that no, he’s not ‘dad’ anymore, he’s just some guy who did something momentarily impressive that was relegated to unimportant as soon as the impetus of real familial love is felt. 

Angel can live with that.  He loves that much that he would rather see Connor safe and happy and forego the recognition.  It hurts, but he can live with it.  The obvious success of the deal at Connor’s end deems it bearable.  Yet with his son in real danger Angel offers help.  He has no choice, it is his son.

So they are all bought back to Wolfram and Hart, Mr. Reilly to receive medical treatment and Connor to have a chat, about those enhanced abilities he seems to possess.  Connor is intrigued by all around him, and takes everything in his stride:

Connor: And you are a vampire.  So…  Demons, vampires, doctors with claws…  And I’m some sort of superhero.  OK. Angel: You’re taking this pretty well. Connor: What am I supposed to do, complain? I just don’t know how I’m gonna explain it to my parents. You got family?

Angel answers in the negative even though that’s not strictly true.  But that is the price he had to pay for this level headed, adaptable Connor, a complete contrast to the bitter, angry, dissatisfied Connor of old who yeah, would have complained. A lot. And of course, there is his other family member…

Spike comes crashing through the training room doors landing at their feet; calls Illyria a harlot (you can take the boy out of the 19th century; you can’t take the 19th century out of the boy) then storms back into the room.  Angel offers to introduce Connor to some of his ‘co-workers’, a description that is not quite apt for either recipient.  For Illyria it is too generous, for Spike not nearly enough recognition of the connection they share, still, it does cut two very long stories short.  Connor’s interest gets absorbed in Illyria.  Her powers, besides being able to hit like a Mack truck, selectively alter the flow of time and talk to plants, would seem to include the ability to feel the temperature radiated from the humans.

Illyria: Your body warms. This one is lusting after me.

Conner is embarrassed.  It's the outfit, that and he’s always had a thing for older women (you can take the boy out of the life but you can’t take the life out of the boy – no matter how grand the magic.)

So it turns out that Connor’s attackers are the henchmen of one Cyvus Vail, a powerful warlock who heads a vast demon empire and no, he’s not trying to remain anonymous.  Angel’s response is swift; he bristles up, goes on the defensive and will brook no interference, no discussion, no assistance.  He is at his dictatorial best and he’ll deal with this by himself, in his own way.  Wesley wants to argue about it but he’s quickly put in his place.   Angel’s attitude has the opposite effect than the one desired; far from quelling interest in the situation it only raises suspicion.  Wesley, in his own way, is the rebellious son, he loves Angel, wants his good opinion but he doesn’t fear him or heed his every word.  Instead of ‘leaving It’ as requested, he asks for everything that can be found on the mysterious Mr. Vail to be bought to his office. 

Angel goes straight to Vail, goes in blazing.  The warlock hardly seems worth it, he’s decrepit and hooked up to all manner of tubes and potions. Angel doesn’t care.  He threatens Vail, to back off or else.  But Cyvus has an ace up his sleeve; he knows things about Connor, things that couldn’t possibly be known:

Vail: When Connor was five he got lost in a department store.  He wandered off while his family was shopping.  It scared the poor child nearly half to death. Angel: That never happened! Vail: But he remembers it happening. He remembers screaming in the middle of the store.  He remembers his mother rushing towards him.  He remembers his father sweeping him up into his arms.

Vail built Connor’s memories; some of his finest work.  The new memories are quite a contrast from the real ones, a childhood stranded in Quor-Toth where it was survive or die and terror was his constant companion.  In the new memories fear was met with love and the reassurance where previously he had only known the brutality of ‘survival of the fittest’.  So what is Vale’s interest in Connor?  It seems that he wants a particular demon dead; Sahjahn, who is, of course, is well known to Angel.  They have a history.  Sahjahn has always been interested in Connor, feared him because of a prophecy which suggested that Connor would one day kill him.  Sahjahn went to a lot of trouble to ensure that it didn’t come true (see Angel, season three).  But Angel circumvented the prophecy, and sealed Sahjahn in a mystical jar.  

End of story.

Not quite.  Cyvus Vail has the jar and an existing enmity with Sahjahn.  He wants Sahjahn dealt with permanently by the one who is supposed to do at and thus, Connor must be reminded of who he is.  Vail uses threats too.  He holds a glowing magical box, an Orlon Window, which contains the world as it once was.  It has the power to restore memories, should it break in close proximity to those with altered minds.  He gave Connor his happy life; he can take it away with infinite ease.  That’s the last thing Angel wants, those memories to escape, the truth would destroy his son so he volunteers his own services to kill Sahjahn.

Vail: If it were that simple I’d do it myself. No, the prophecy is quite clear - there is only one person who can kill Sahjahn. Angel: Connor

Meanwhile, back at Wolfram and Hart, Wesley is inching ever closer to the truth.  With Lorne’s assistance he is going through a stack of paperwork related to Vail and they discover that the warlock was paid a fortune by the firm to orchestrate a massive spell; a reality shift of some kind is Wesley guess, on the day they were handed the reigns to Wolfram and Hart.  Angel and Connor join them.  Angel brings the information that Connor is to kill Sahjahn.  Connor is incredulous –why does he have to do it?

Angel: because you’re special.  There’s a prophecy that says you’re the only one who can kill him.

Wesley can’t believe they are even considering this.  Vail can’t be trusted.  But Connor is determined – his family is in danger.  He’s willing to act even though this world of fighting and prophecy is completely foreign to him.  He doesn’t have a choice and Angel doesn’t have time to find another solution anyway.  Truth is running against him.

Just in case we’ve forgotten, Gunn is still labouring away in his holding cell, enduring the daily removal of his heart.  This is a waste of a valuable resource.  The senior partners want him back at work; they want their investment working for them.  Hamilton arrives with the deal.  He’ll get Gunn out if…

But Charles has learnt his lesson.  He doesn’t make deals like that anymore; he doesn’t want to escape his punishment.  He doesn’t let Hamilton complete his sentence, he just asks for his necklace back.  Come on Sparky, this heart ain’t gonna cut itself out.

Angel tries to prep Connor for the big fight.  Says he’ll be there to back him up:

Connor: You’re gonna hold Sahjahn down while I stab him? Angel: Prophecy doesn’t say you can’t have a little help. Connor: Hardly seems fair Angel: That’s not something we worry about. Connor: Maybe you should.  I’m not a bully. If I’m gonna do this, you gotta let me do it my way.  Now I just got figure out what my way is. Angel: You have your whole life for that. Connor:  Might as well start now.

Conner is noble and righteous; he believes in fairness and next to him Angel looks positively Machiavellian.  For Angel fairness doesn’t matter in the short term, you’ve got to do with what you’ve got to do to win.  Fairness, personal integrity, they are only of concern for the dim, distant future.  But Connor contradicts him – there is no time like the present, it’s what you do in the ‘now’ that matters.  Hmmm - that sounds kind of familiar...

Angel’s approach to this case has lit a fire beneath Wesley.  He is in archives searching through files, looking for answers.  He is accompanied by his shadow.  Illyria doesn’t understand his concerns with times and dates.  But Wes is determined; reality has been changed and he wants to know why:

Illyria: Define change.  The world is as it is. Wesley: Not necessarily. Illyria: You are the summation of recollection.  Exchange is simply a point of experience. Wesley We are more than just memories.

That may be so but memories are vital to existence.  Without them we are shadows of ourselves.  Memories and experience inform our behaviour, they initiate change, they teach, they motivate.  They are a safety net in difficult times; they are cautionary in times of excess.  They are invaluable.  The robbery of them is inexcusable.  Cordelia was right when she likened it to rape.  Tara was corrected to assess it as violation.  The mind, with all its thoughts and memories, is the true domain of the individual. As Wesley continues searching Illyria reveals that Fred’s memories were changed.  He is thrown.  He hadn’t thought that this involved them personally.  Illyria can’t see what went before, that is all gone.

Illyria: Does this change your view of Fred?  Is she still person you thought she was? Wesley: No, none of us are.

He has found what he’s looking for, all the evidence he needs; a contract with Angel signature signed in blood.

Connor and Angel arrive at Vail’s. Connor is determined and brave and awkward and endearing as he promises to get the Sahjahn thing done to ensure the safety of his family.  He goes to meet Sahjahn but Angel finds it very difficult to suppress his Fatherly urges, straightens Connor’s collar and freaks him out with too much good advice.  Once Connor is in the room with Sahjahn’s urn a magical barrier is activated.  Angel and Vail can see Connor but Connor can no longer see them.  Vail explains:

Vale: I can’t risk Sahjahn getting loose.  He has a nasty habit of trying to kill me.  But don’t worry, you’re boy is very brave.  I’m sure he’ll do you proud.

Connor opens the jar.  Sahjahn emerges.  They chat.  Connor reveals they are supposed to fight and the demon realises who this boy is.  Sahjahn inquires as to Quor-Toth but Connor has no idea what the demon is talking about.  Sahjahn attacks, he’s beginning to think that these prophecies are over rated, that he went to an awful lot of trouble for nothing. Free will, that’s the ticket.  Angel wants to get in there and go to Connor’s rescued but the magic barrier prevents his entry.

Vale: sorry, not your fight

Angel is frustrated he wants to get in, help his son.  Vail produces his magic box, reminds Angel where he stands.

Vail: Relax.  Your son has to grow up sooner or later.  Sit back and watch his future unfold.  There’s no need to bring back the past if we don’t have to.

It’s not going well; Conner is a complete amateur in this reality.  He has no idea how to fight.  Sahjahn and has him on the ropes.  Angel is getting desperate he turns to Vail to demand entry but something is not right – Vail is in some sort of suspended animation and the box is no longer on the palm of his hand.  Wesley and Illyria have arrived, Illyria has done her trick with time, Wesley now has the box and wants the truth.  He feels betrayed, that they had been sold out.  Angel doesn’t want the box to break.  He wants to protect his son from the truth, from all those horrible, disappointing memories.  He wants the box kept in one piece. 

Wesley: You changed the world. Angel: He’s my son Wesley.  Connor’s my son. Wesley: Did you trade her?  Did you trade Fred for your son?

So, Wesley has jumped to a pretty wild conclusion, that their memories were traded, that Fred was sacrificed for Angel junior.  He wants to know if the box can change it back, make it how it was, how it should be.  Angel says it won’t bring Fred back but he’s lost Wesley’s trust.  Wes throws the cube to the ground shattering the fragile container and releases a glittering explosion that sends everyone reeling backwards.  Memories come rushing back, memories that affect them all - the whole sordid history of Connor from Darla’s mysterious pregnancy through to his sacrifice by Angel in order to give him this new life… 

Conner is prostrated against the table, Sahjahn throttling him.  Suddenly, Connor’s hand shoots out and he throws his assailant away, twists turns and strikes are menacing pose, axe in hand.  He makes short work of Sahjahn now, a few punches and he’s set for a simple beheading. Prophecy validated.  But only because the memories were restored; without the memories he was useless in the fight, he would have been killed. With the memories he’s skilled, he’s a survivor.  It’s ironic, if Sahjahn and had never interfered then Connor would never have gone to Quor-toth and been forced to hone those fighting skills, he wouldn’t be the warrior he is today but rather, would have been a two year old baby living with his not-so-normal daddy and would have been no imminent threat to the demon.  Or was it all meant to happen this way? 

Wesley is a shattered man.  

Illyria: You betrayed Angel.  You stole his son.  He tried to kill you. Wesley: Yes.

The sins of yesterday have come back to haunt him en mass.  He’s suffering, paying all over again, for the things that he has done, things that had been lived with, been dealt with, been forgiven… and learning the truth didn’t bring Fred back either.  He feels guilty and shamed all over again, only the second time around he’s lost the conviction that he was right to take Connor in the first place. In the midst of it all he forgets that Angel betrayed him, he lets it slip beneath the weight of his own burdens.  Illyria observes that it is confusing, two sets of memories, it’s hard to tell which is which.  Wesley advises her to push the new memories, reality, aside; focus on the other ones, they were created for a purpose.

Illyria: To hide from the truth. Wesley: To endure it.

Remember those walls that protect from the devastation of truth?Oh how Wesley needs those walls now.

Angel’s stands in front of the windows looking out as he’s done so often this season.  Connor stops in to say goodbye.  He’s kept the full truth from his family.  He’ll tell them that he’s…different; that it’s not a bad thing.  They’ll feel better knowing that Angel is taking an interest.

Angel: We still haven’t found Vail, but we will Connor: I’m not too worried.  Nothing he can show me I haven’t already seen.  Anyway…I just want to say goodbye.  I gotta go back to my life now.

We see a glimpse of the world weary, jaded Connor than returned from Quor-Toth but, like Wesley, he chooses to resume the manufactured life.  It’s understandable; who would choose horror and displacement and hate over safety, belonging and love.  The memories haven’t destroyed Connor as Angel feared they would, they’ve made him stronger. Angel doesn’t want him to go, wants to stay with him longer.  It hasn’t been nearly long enough.  But Connor’s priority is his parents, this isn’t their world.  He wants to protect them.

Connor: You gotta do what you can to protect your family.  I learnt that from my father.

He leaves Angel with a gift; acknowledgement of their connection and assurance that he understands why Angel did what he had to do.  Finally Angel was able to teach his son something other than fear, mistrust and hate.  Loyalty, commitment and unfathomable love are much better lessons.

…But that’s not all there is to this story. Sure, it’s about Angel and a prophecy he can’t fulfill, it’s about Angel and his son.  But look deeper and you’ll see that it’s also about Angel taking the first steps towards accepting his growing conviction that there is another prophecy that is not his to vindicate.  Since Spike got the soul it’s been in the back of his mind that he was no longer the only candidate. In Destiny he was practically beaten over the head with the idea that a chosen soul has got to be superior to one gained by curse, and hell, Spike won the freaking cup. It might not have meant anything much in the scheme of things but it meant something to Angel. It sent him into a spiral of self-doubt and further weakened his already fragile sense of purpose and hope. What if he’s not the guy? What if there is no great and glorious prize waiting at the end of the rainbow, for him? It’s almost too unbearable to consider…and yet, Spike says he doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it and he doesn’t labour under the weight of his past. He worries about today, not tomorrow or yesterday. Even Angel recognises he’s a champion now, and surely the fated champion vampire with a soul wouldn’t be, how shall we say – reward oriented, as Angel knows he has been on the *odd* occasion. And was it really so bad, watching your son fulfill a prophecy? He got to see his son succeed and he got to feel incredibly proud. Nah, it wasn’t so bad...

All season long there’s been a substitute son living in the kingdom and, not surprisingly, said substitute is hardly seen while the real thing is in the house.  We see Spike only briefly in this episode as he ‘studies’ Illyria.  But the short scenes serves to remind us of one thing; like Connor, Spike is amazingly strong. The pair also share similar philosophies, have both changed dramatically and become better people before they re-entered their father’s house. Connor and Spike are reflected in one another just as Sahjahn’s prophecy reflects the Shanshu.  Don’t be mistaken, this is not about making a definitive judgement call on which of the vampires might get ‘Shanshued’ one day. It is about showing us what is going on in Angel’s head, what he is thinking. He gets told throughout the episode:

‘It’s not you’re fight.’ ‘Don’t worry, you’re boy is very brave, he’ll do you proud’ ‘Sit back and watch his future unfold’

And it doesn’t matter that these things are said about Connor – he hears the words and takes them on board in regard to that particular thing that’s been on his mind. Then, at the end of the episode he’s standing in front of the windows in his office, his thinking place, his epiphany position. And right about now he’s starting to come to the conclusion that he’s not the prophecy boy, probably never was. Then, just before he leaves Connor tells him the thing he’s grateful to have learnt from his father – you gotta do what you can to protect your family.  Angel finds himself at a critical point. He’s pretty much suspecting that the Senior Partners have the wrong guy, they don’t seem to realise Spike’s full potential, yet…but its only a matter of time. And Spike’s here, a loosely affiliated member of the team, dangerous place to be for a vampire with a soul. So now the clocks ticking, you gotta do what you can to protect your family. . .  

Next up: Angel Season 5 - episode 19 - Time Bomb

[lunaroceanic]

GIVE ME THE LIST

MY OWL HOUSE X CRANE WIVES THESIS, JUST FOR YOU MY FRIEND!

(in reference to my tags on this post)

ok ok so i haven't listened to *every* crane wives song yet but i have listened through Foxlore, Coyote Stories, and The Fool In Her Wedding Gown and these are the ones that stuck out to me as owl house amv material/just generally really fitting/relevant:

Down The River: "I've been wishing that you'd prove me wrong / That you'd come clean and rue the damage done / Restore my faith in you / But you've got no reason to"

This could be either Wittebane brother addressing the other (in Philip's case much more hypocritically), feeling hurt by the other's desertion and betrayal and wishing things hadn't changed between them.

Ribs: "Time has changed the metaphor / Now, dust is not the origin of bone / Little girl, don't let them sell you any armor / All your ribs are still your own"

I'm in love with @justmagicalgirl's analysis on how this one applies to Hunter, and I also like to interpret it as the Titan's POV about having been used by Philip to further his conquest of the Isles, addressing Luz and/or King about how he wishes better for both of them.

Curses: "This house says my name like an elegy / Echoing where my ghosts all used to be / There's still cobwebs in the corners / And the backyard's full of bones / Won't you stay with me, my darling / When this house don't feel like home?"

Eda-centric, specifically about her curse and how it's affected her relationships and her reputation. There's room for Philip's curse in contrast to hers in there too, especially in the third verse.

Keep You Safe: "My daddy always said / “Nothing worth doing comes easy” / Time is not your friend / Time is not your remedy / No amount of waiting will make you / Make you brave / No amount of fear will keep you / No amount of fear will keep you safe"

This is a total Willow song, focusing on her self-confidence issues.

The Moon Will Sing: "The moon will sing a song for me / I loved you like the sun / Bore the shadows that you made / With no light of my own / I shine only with the light you gave me"

This could fit as either an Amity or Lilith song, in Amity's case being about how she feels like she's not a person outside of what her mother made her to be, and in Lilith's case about being constantly outshone by her sister and not knowing who she is outside of the authority granted to her by Belos.

Allies or Enemies: "Remember when I could tell you not to smile when you were mad? / And you would always crack / And we’d both be laughing in the end / Now you’re not so quick to forget / Are we allies or enemies? / This will be the death of me"

Ohhhhh the song about wanting to mend broken relationships, not knowing if things can go back to how they used to be. This could fit Amity and Willow's relationship, Eda and Lilith, or Eda and Raine </3

Sleeping Giants: "I feel the mountains, I feel the mountains / Shifting under me / The sleeping giants are finally waking / Waking finally / My pulse is clear, rushing in my ears / I hear something calling me"

Listen to this song and tell me it doesn't fit the final battle scene. I DARE you.

Show Your Fangs: "With malice, beasts will show their fangs / They’re in for a surprise / Bravely I will wield my weapon / I made from fangs of those that died / I'm not your highness / A damsel left helpless by fright / I am a lioness / Fierce as I walk through the night"

This song fits Luz being resurrected by the Titan, inheriting their titan traits, and going into the final battle absolved of the guilt from being manipulated by Belos. Also fitting for harpy!Eda post-reconciliation with the Owl Beast.

Never Love An Anchor is already a Raeda AMV and you are legally required to go watch it one million billion time please and thanks <3

That's all I have so far!!! I'm sure upon re-listening through their discography I could come up with more but these were my gut reaction ideas, anyone please feel free to reblog with your own thoughts/analysis!!

[pluralmedia]

>Ange

It says it all in the "Abilities" & "Background" sections. There's even a picture of it. Ange does much the same as Maria does. If that's not enough to convince you, then let me ask: what is your definition of plurality?

Anon, we are NOT familiar with this series. If it uses odd vernacular to describe a plural experience we aren't going to notice it from the VERY DENSE wiki because of this.

There is no need to be rude and snippy.

It took multiple readings to locate the One sentence on the page that might indicate possible plural stuff going on due to the fact that this is, and we cannot stress this enough, NOT a fandom with lore we are familiar with:

Because of this, she was a lonely teenager, and escaped her harsh reality by reading Maria's diary and creating imaginary friends. Through this, she was able to create an illusory version of Maria, Sakutarou and the Stakes of Purgatory.

Are these imaginary friends autonomous? That would be a plural experience. Otherwise she is using magic to move puppets as far as we can tell here.

Everything else on the page indicates physical external entities she is interacting with as far as we are aware, and that eventually she properly summons the 'Stakes of Purgatory', which indicates external entities.

Maria, as far as we are aware from what we can decipher of the wiki, is projecting a headmate on a stuffed animal- the stuffed animal is not an external entity that only she can communicate with/see, he lives in her head and she is just having him talk 'through' something.

Checking the separate linked page there seems to confirm separate external created entities for these 'Seven Sisters'. So it seems she made imaginary friends, then later made her magic constructs templated after her imaginary friends? They are sapient, but they are separate-bodied and thus not a plural experience.

If these Seven Sister and the other imaginary friends are autonomous as imaginary friends and not the constructs templated from them, then yes, they would count, but the wiki doesn't have any indicators of this that we can see.

Anon you are going to have to explain how all this works if you want us to understand what the situation is here for us to know if it is canon plural.

Genuinely, we WANT to be able to include more plural characters, but we gotta be able to see that they qualify here and its not just headcanons or adjacent experiences/metaphor.

For definition of plurality: Being more than one in a body.

'more than one' is multiple autonomous entities in one body.

In one body, requires them to all use/be in the one body in some way. In fantasy plurality, that means they are IN or otherwise deeply anchored to the body too to some degree, not just a confirmed external ghost that only one person can see that wanders around the world.

Symptoms/traits of this may include material experiences of communication of some form or switching.

This is not a case of an exclusive plural definition as its the same as the most basic definition; this is a case of 'not familiar with the source material enough to say what is going on here and needing sourceable information on the character's experience.'

We are begging you anon, we would like to include more characters, so *show us* the information (sourcable in some way so we know its not headcanons) because we *cannot find it*.

If you cannot, then the matter is closed for now and she is going in maybe, sorry!

[frostcorpsclub]

#1 I'm Like A Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off by Fall Out Boy

"Collect the bad habits that you couldn't bear to keep Out of the woods but I love The tree I used to lay beneath, kissed teeth stained red From a sour bottle baby girl with eyes the size of baby worlds

We're the new face of failure Prettier and younger, but not any better off Bulletproof loneliness At best, at best

The best way to make it through with hearts and wrists intact Is to realize two out of three ain't bad, ain't bad."

#10 Never Love An Anchor by The Crane Wives

"I am selfish, I am broken, I am cruel I am all the things they might have said to you Do you ever think of me and my two hands? And wonder why they never soothed your fevers? And wonder why they never tied your shoes? And wonder why they never held you gently? And wonder why they never had the chance to lose you?"

OC: Xavier Spencer, Suzy's dad

Now, Xavier really loved Eloise. They were young lovers who fell for each other hard and fast, considering their circumstances of their families wanting them to marry to grow wealth and status they could have been very lucky. Eloise was the one who abused Suzy don't get me wrong but that never would have happened if he hadn’t pressured her to fulfill his dreams (not to mention what was expected of them) pertaining to being a father. This all being said he regrets the circumstances but he would never regret having Suzy, he only regrets not acting sooner and as he feels allowing Eloise to take her from him. I.e the first song is about Xavier and Eloise’s young love and the second is about Xavier’s feelings towards his daughter.

#25 Dance The Night Away by Dua Lipa

“When my heart breaks

When my world shakes (I feel alive, I feel alive)

I don't play it safe

Don't you know about me?

I could dance, I could dance, I could dance

Even when the tears are flowin' like diamonds on my face

I'll still keep the party goin', not one hair out of place.”

#50 Dark Red by Steve Lacy

“Something bad is 'bout to happen to me

I don't know it, but I feel it coming

Might be so sad, might leave my nose running

I just hope she don't wanna leave me

Something bad is 'bout to happen to me

Why I feel this way, I don't know, baby

I think of her so much, it drives me crazy

I just don't want her to leave me”

OC: Virginia

The first song is from Janet’s playlist but I think it fits with Virginia as well if you think of dancing not as a good coping skill but as a metaphor for the party life, drugs, sex, and rock and roll so to speak. She seems so confident and perfect, you won’t hear her talk about her problems because she’s too busy being high off her ass. This is because, leading in to the next song, she’s coping with deep seated fears on inadequacy and anxiety. Balancing a near demi-gd strength complex and severe imposter syndrome, like she doesn’t deserve her current status in life and something bad is bound to happen.

#75 Snowbird by Anne Murray

“The breeze along the river seems to say

That he'll only break my heart again

Should I decide to stay

So, little snowbird

Take me with you when you go

To that land of gentle breezes

Where the peaceful waters flow”

#100 Lights On by Kyle Allen Music

“Lights on

Keep them up or I'm gone

We can play until dawn

Color out of lines with crayons

Lights on

Bright as day so ding dong

Come on in, we'll sing songs

We'll adventure all day long

Stay where I can see you

And be where I can reach you

Escape the trouble you're into

Keep the lights bright kid, or you will be through”

Doing these together because it's the same OC

OC: Suzy!! :D

Ok I know these are do very different songs and it’s kind of silly lol, but, I think it's a matter of different stages of her life. As you may recall Anne Murray is Suzy's favorite musical artist. I like to think that after Jack, in her eyes, ghosted her and she was dealing with new emotions for the first time in her life she turned to music as dramatic young women tend to do. (Been there girl.) Now that she's an adult and come in to her true self we have the "Suzy Snowflake" child...i can't call her a child predator dear gd 💀a...slasher who kills children persona. She's not as "on the level" of the children as the song is but she's very good with them but not good FOR them.

Using Spotify Wrapped

Your #1 and #10 songs represent your next OC. Your #25 and #50 songs represent their lover. Your #75 song represents how they meet. Your #100 song represents what happens in the end.

What are the song titles?

(If you don't want to make new OCs or plots, what OCs are all of the song titles for?)

[thefreakandthehair]

weaponized insomnia strikes again, my friends. I wrote this between the hours of 2am-3am so if you see errors, simply ignore. I don't even really know what this is but I just think the idea of Eddie reaching out for Steve is neat. <3

It starts innocently enough— a simple touch of his fingers to Steve’s forearm.

A ghost, a whisper of skin to skin, is all it takes to ignite a fuse that’s been destined to burn since the second Eddie held that bottle to Steve’s throat in a rundown shack. Eddie shouldn’t be surprised that that’s how their story starts, really. What had he expected? Something traditional? Laughable. No, instead, the very tips of his fingers reach for Steve’s arm from the lumpy mattress of his hospital room, surrounded by beeping monitors and sterility, and that’s all it takes. 

When he learns how to walk again, it’s Steve on the other end of the room, an encouraging smile plastered across his face and ready to grab his hands to steady him at even the slightest wobble. 

When he wakes up screaming, it’s Steve at his bedside before even the nurses. They’re ready with sedatives but Steve rubs his shoulder, traces over the scars on his collarbone to quell the phantom burning, and sure, the medications help but he keeps reaching for Steve first anyways. 

When he finally leaves the hospital, flanked by Hopper, Wayne, and Steve to shield him from ignorant townspeople who don’t get the he’s innocent memo, it’s Steve he finds himself reaching for once they’re safely in the backseat of the Hopper’s cruiser. 

It only makes sense, then, that it becomes a habit. Outside of the hospital walls, Eddie keeps reaching and Steve’s always there, reliable as a lighthouse guiding ships to shore. 

It evolves slowly as the fuse sparks, and sure, Steve’s still the one he reaches for when the anxiety sets in, like the time the old clock chimes in the library as he studies for his GED, but he finds himself with his hands on Steve for less dire reasons, too. 

Movie night? Their forearms touch from the cramped quarters of Eddie’s living room, or their thighs line against one another, or Eddie’s arm drapes over the back of the couch so his fingertips graze the soft material of Steve’s Henley. 

Smoking in the back of the van? Eddie knows that Steve can light his own joint, he’s seen him do it hundreds of times at this point, but he can’t help the urge to light it for him, letting his fingertips graze the warm skin of Steve’s knuckles in the process. 

Lugging the kids to and from the arcade? Steve makes a joke about someone’s attitude (the someone depends on the day, honestly, but Dustin’s emerged as the most frequent offender) and Eddie can’t hold himself back from nudging their shoulders together and watching Steve’s smile grow at the touch. Eddie knows he’s reaching for a reason, but he tamps it down the best he can with his metaphorical Rebooks because it’s Steve. He can’t risk losing his tether, his anchor, by fucking it up with feelings. He can ignore it. It’s fine. 

And it is, until one day, Steve reaches for him. 

The movie they’d chosen didn’t warn them before showing a brutal slasher scene and Eddie’s skin crawls at the sights and sounds of the victim being torn apart. Every scar on his body feels like it’s on fire but before he can reach, before he can grip Steve’s arm tight enough for his fingernails to leave little crescent moon marks in the summer-baked tan of his flesh, Steve’s hand is on his thigh. Warm, heavy, and grounding, Eddie stares down where their bodies connect. 

“Not really feeling this one, let’s do Ferris Bueller again?” Steve stops the VHS and sets it to rewind.

Eddie’s still staring at Steve’s hand on his thigh. Even before it was Steve, Eddie’s always been the one reaching. For friends, for comfort, for companionship. He’s reached with his hands, his heart, his words. Hellfire and Corroded Coffin are both tangible expressions of the depth of his reaching but for all of the ways he’s extended olive branches to those he felt deserving, few have reached back— and the ones who had felt nothing like Steve. Steve touches beyond something his skin, touches something buried deep, perhaps a locked chest to which his fingers hold the lone key.

“You alright?” Steve asks, turning his body slightly to face him and leaving his hand in place. 

Eddie finally tears his eyes from his thigh to meet Steve’s gaze. His eyes, green specks and all, watch him with such fondness that it makes him ache. He nods and swallows the lump in his throat. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Thanks.” His voice is barely more than a whisper and Steve’s brows knit together, a little wrinkle appearing between them. 

“You sure? You look, I dunno, off. Wanna talk?” 

It's a loaded question and the facade of it’s fine that Eddie's built up over months shatters like the glass it’s made of. 

“You— I— Steve, please don’t let this fuck up our perfectly good friendship, please—” He’s sure that Steve can hear the clattering in his chest but just ignore it, opting instead to move his hand from Eddie’s thigh up to his shoulder. Soft fingers brush his hair away from his face, rub small circles into his skin over his shirt, settle there like a weighted blanket. So many soft touches, so much reaching, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do with any of it. 

“Take a breath, man. I’m here. What’s up? Was it the movie? You looked fucking tense, I probably should’ve picked up on it soone—” 

“Why? Why should you’ve picked up on it sooner?” Eddie interrupts, turning to face him with wide eyes and hope and terror. 

“Uh, because it’s you? I know your tells, Eddie. I do pay attention.” It’s almost indignant, the way Steve phrases it. I know you, I see you, duh? As if it’s not the first time in his life that’s happened. 

Eddie thinks he’s going absolutely batshit when he hears himself say, “Steve, I like you.” The fuse that’d been lit creeps down to its final thread and Eddie explodes. 

“I like you way more than I should, way more than a friend should like another friend, you know? And, and touching you the way I have been has been enough for me, really, because I’d rather have that than have nothing because those are the obvious two options and I just— fuck, I don’t know why I’m talking or saying any of this but I convinced myself it’d be fine but now you’re touching me and you’re seeing me and I don’t— I don’t know what to do with that?” Eddie stops for a breath and pushes on, talking himself in circles. 

Steve watches with the same raised eyebrows and beguiled expression he gives Robin when she rambles, except the drumming of his heart is a dead giveaway that no, this fondness in his chest is not the same. Finally, his own fuse burning out in tandem with Eddie’s, Steve lets his hand travel from its resting place on Eddie’s shoulder to trace his collarbone, the side of his neck, and landing gently against his cheek. Eddie’s mouth snaps closed mid-sentence and he glances down, trying to see his own cheek and the hand that’s thumbing beneath his cheekbone. 

Silence is a heavy blanket, wrapping them together in the warmth they’ve created on the oversized couch. 

“I’m gonna kiss you, okay?” Steve’s close enough that Eddie can smell the pizza they’d eaten for dinner and feels his breath against his skin. His lips part unconsciously and he nods, the only response he can muster. Steve gently pulls him in and presses their lips together, his other hand gliding across to grip Eddie’s waist while Eddie’s tangle themselves in the front of Steve’s shirt. It’s slow, and it’s patient, and it’s just as wonderfully soft as Eddie’s imagined the many, many times he’s let himself imagine. 

Eddie keeps reaching, and Steve reaches back.  

[jon-sedai]

Rhaegar, Aegon, and the prophecy of TPTWP

I’m working on some meta about Rhaegar x Lyanna but I’ve hit a bit of a snag because something is bothering me about Rhaegar and his relationship with prophecy. Specifically, the prince that was promised prophecy. So we’re told that Rhaegar believed he would be tPtWP but at some point decided that his son, Prince Aegon, would be the prophesied messiah instead. It might just be me but isn’t it kind of weird just how abrupt this decision is?

It’s believed that the red comet seen on the day of Aegon’s conception might have convinced Rhaegar, but I feel like this is a bit unsatisfactory. So Rhaegar believes for years that it is his destiny to be the hero, but then he sees a comet and changes his mind just like that? And doesn’t the prophecy state that the prince would be born beneath a bleeding star? Born, not conceived. What would prompt Rhaegar to suddenly pivot so hard based on some circumstantial evidence?

Rhaegar doesn’t strike me as a wind vane sort of man. A man who moves anywhere the wind blows, such that he would hop from one contrivance to another just so he could fulfill some vague prophecy. Instead, judging by how bookish and well learned he was, I see him as someone who was probably moved by evidence.

The fandom likes to dismiss him as a prophecy obsessed weirdo but I disagree and think it simplifies and maligns him quite unfairly. Rhaegar was clouded by prophecy because his entire existence is due to prophecy. He was presumably conceived just so he could be a prophesied prince. And let’s look at his birth too. Is it really so surprising that Rhaegar (and Aemon) thought he was tPtWP? He does after all fulfill the Azor Ahai requirements (but rather metaphorically). A dragon was awaken at Summerhall beneath a red star and amidst salt and smoke. That dragon was Rhaegar. So Rhaegar had a multitude of evidence to back up the belief that he would be Azor Ahai.

I’m talking about book cannon so I hate to bring up the adaptations, but we learn in HoTD that Aegon I had a dream about the Long Night that convinced him to unite Westeros. We’re told that the secret of Aegon’s dream is passed down from king to heir - so we see Viserys give Rhaenyra the rundown. This is apparently something that GRRM has confirmed himself so I guess I have to consider it a part of book semi-cannon as well. So it’s really possible that in keeping with tradition, Aerys told Rhaegar about Aegon’s dream and given what Rhaegar already knew about the circumstances of his own birth, he might have been even more convinced about his role in the upcoming war for the dawn.

But then something changed along the way and Rhaegar came to believe that he wasn’t the hero, his son was. We’ve established that Rhaegar is someone who is surrounded by hard evidence, so it’s safe to assume that something happened to give him irrefutable proof that his son would be the promised prince. The comet seen during Prince Aegon’s conception doesn’t seem like much of a pivoting point. Rather, I think of it as an anchoring.

Is it possible, then, that he had prior knowledge of his son (specifically) being tPtWP instead of him? And so the appearance of the comet during Prince Aegon’s conception only confirmed what he already knew at the time. I’m trying to think of something that would convince Rhaegar to pivot and I’m wondering if a different prophecy sealed the deal.

It’s hard to think of who could give Rhaegar such an important prophecy. At first, I thought maybe it could be that he somehow met the Ghost of High Heart and she gave it to him. After all, she is the one who gave the original prophecy that led to his parents’ marriage. She is believed to have died at the tragedy of Summerhall, where Rhaegar was born, but that’s not really true because Arya meets her decades later. She is quite shaken by Jenny of Oldstone’s death and she keeps asking to hear Jenny’s song; Lady Jenny died at Summerhall. We also know that Rhaegar visited Summerhall quite a bit so it’s possible that they might have crossed paths as they both had connections to this place where they lost people important to them. There are fan theories that Rhaegar wrote Jenny’s song, which he could’ve written for the GoHH. When Arya meets the witch, she requests a song in exchange of a prophecy and this song is (presumably) Jenny’s song. So perhaps Rhaegar wrote it for her in exchange for a prophecy where he asked her about the Prince. And then the GoHH told him that it wasn’t him but his son. Given the very vague nature of prophecy that we’ve seen so far, she might have even said something like “your prince” or “the little prince” idk. So by the time Rhaegar starts having children with Elia, he knows full well that he must have a son who will eventually take up the mantle of the prophesied hero. Though he isn’t the messiah, this is still another prophetic burden for him to bear for he is destined to be the messiah’s father (almost like it’s a duty…).

But this doesn’t explain the matter of “the dragon must have three heads”. Dany sees the vision of Rhaegar, Elia, and Aegon, where Rhaegar says “there must be one more”. No one ever mentions the matter of three heads in relation to Azor Ahai/tPtWP. No one, except maester Aemon and Rhaegar. If my memory serves me correct, much of Aemon’s speculations are to do with Rhaegar and he never mentions hearing about three heads of the dragon in the Azor Ahai prophecy elsewhere. He thinks Dany is the Prince(ss) and he could aid her by being one of the heads, but that’s really it. I think Aemon got the three heads thing from his correspondence with Rhaegar; and Rhaegar heard about it elsewhere.

We have even less to go on with Rhaegar’s reasoning for why he believed that there must be two others in addition to the Prince. It kind of comes out of nowhere by the time we read Dany’s HoTU vision. So is it safe to assume that the prophecy that could have told him about his son’s role in the upcoming ‘song’ also told him about three heads of the dragon?

I’ve gone through this wall of text only to just now arrive at the point; specifically, who told Rhaegar about his son being the messiah and about the three headed dragon?

The timeline is a bit hard to pin down with the GoHH because we can’t even be sure if and when they met. And if they did meet, to what capacity? But we do have another seer in the story whose whereabouts we can confirm in in relation to Rhaegar. I’m talking about Maggy the Frog.

In 276 AC, a tourney is held to honor Viserys III’s birth in Lannisport. Rhaegar was 17 at this time and not yet married. Tywin Lannister, this time, wanted to take advantage of this and wished to wed his daughter Cersei to the crown prince. Cersei is told of the potential betrothal by her aunt and, now already infatuated with the prince, visits Maggy the Frog in order to confirm her future. We’re told that many people visited Maggy so Cersei was certainly not her first nor her last customer (though I’m not sure when Maggy died, the wiki just says 276).

So I wonder if Rhaegar also heard of the popular Maggy and deigned to visit her as well to ask a few questions. And then he got there and after giving a prick of blood, asked his questions and got a series of rather vague and confusing answers (just based on what Maggy told Cersei and Melara). It’s hard to tell what sort of questions he asked but they might have pertained to the upcoming war. I can imagine some of his potential questions being:

“How must the darkness be defeated?” - and Maggy says “three there shall be who must sally forth into the darkness” or some nonsense

Then Rhaegar goes, “three? But the prophecy talks about a prince that was promised (singular) not princes that were promised (plural). Who are the others?” - not entirely sure what Maggy could say for this but probably something vague like “one for the mind, one of the heart, one of the body” idk (someone help me out here)

Then maybe for Rhaegar’s last question he asks, “am I the promised prince?” - to which Maggy replies, “no, not you. But the son will be” or some nonsense. I think it was probably not specific that it was Rhaegar’s son or even if it was, which one.

So Rhaegar leaves that meeting having to make quite a number of assumptions about three heroes and the promised messiah and his role in relation to them. But at the very least, he now knows that he isn’t the messiah, “the son” who is presumably his will fulfill that role. Note: it would actually be so hilarious if Rhaegar, like Cersei, got a Valonqar prophecy. Maybe that was Maggy’s whole bit, it was for the *vibes*.

So that means that by the time he is betrothed to Elia by 279 and gets Princess Rhaenys by 280, Rhaegar expects a little son. But it’s not a son who is born to him, it’s a daughter instead. I don’t know if Rhaegar was thinking about recreating the Aegon-Visenya-Rhaenys triumvirate at this time, but he decided to name his daughter after one of Aegon’s wives. But he might have also been trying to honor his mother whose name also starts with the Rhae- prefix. After all if he was trying to recreate the three headed triumvirate, shouldn’t he have started with Visenya? She was the eldest of the three. Except he already had a brother named Viserys! I guess we can say that he didn’t mind his daughter sharing a name with his brother; he could even argue that his daughter is named after his brother as some sort of homage. But then it would just be that: homage and not purposefully trying to recreate the conquering trio. See this is why the fandom shouldn’t be so single minded with the headcannon that Rhaegar “most def wanted a Visenya, trust me bro”. I don’t believe that we have enough to go on to come to this conclusion and there’s even less to suggest that Rhaegar absolutely had to recreate Aegon and his sisters. Though the prophecy was Aegon I’s, there’s not much to suggest that the others would need to be Visenya and Rhaenys. A lot of the evidence is circumstantial and not at all definitive, in my opinion.

Anyway, Rhaegar would have Aegon a year or so later (not sure about the timeline). Now, he has the son who may be the promised prince. And better yet, he was heralded by a bleeding star! It’s not a perfect 1:1 ratio, but this is an instance of a prophecy coming true (as far as he knows)! So Rhaegar’s thought process here is: I have been told that my son will one day be the promised prince -> I see a comet one day as I’m laying with my wife -> a son is born to me nine months later -> based on everything I know, this son will be tPtWP.

According to Dany’s vision, Rhaegar chose the name Aegon because that is a king’s name. He then adds that little Aegon is the prince that was promised and his is the song of ice and fire. It’s assumed that Rhaegar gave his son this name so as to recreate the three headed dragon, which may very well be true. But, like, everyone had a son named Aegon at some point in Targ history. By now, there have already been five kings named Aegon, and even more princes bearing that name. So it’s a similar situation with Princess Rhaenys. It connects to the legendary conqueror, but it’s also a name that has a lot of meaning to the Targaryens regardless of prophecy. Rhaegar is now perfectly fine with fulfilling his duty as the father to the prince who was promised, if what we know of his correspondence with Maester Aemon is anything to go by.

We don’t know about much of what Rhaegar thought after Aegon. Presumably he thought he needed one more, based on Maggy’s prophecy, but where would the other come from? Perhaps Dany’s HoTU vision works as a two way mirror. Maybe Rhaegar dreamt of her too and thought she would be his daughter to complete the trio; maybe that could explain why he looks right at her. Elia was sickly after Aegon but do we really have much to suggest that Rhaegar thought Elia wouldn’t do the job and he must look for another wife? After all, he already had Aegon, his promised prince, so anyone else could fill a supporting role. We at the very least have very little to go on to suggest that he somehow believed that Lyanna Stark must be the one to carry the third child. I’m sure that he met many wonderful women in King’s Landing. Ashara Dayne, for instance, is right there. He could also get Cersei Lannister, who had already shown great interest in him (though I’m not sure that Tywin would agree). Still, Lyanna Stark (already betrothed to Robert Baratheon) was not a perfect choice. And if he already had his promised prince in Aegon, why would he hurry to chase after Lyanna? It’s not like he got a timetable about the Others’ coming in the next few months/years (unless Maggy gave that to him too). Maybe, just maybe, Rhaegar’s relationship with Lyanna was the one thing in his life that ironically had nothing to do with prophecy…

Rhaegar went to his grave thinking that Prince Aegon would be tPtWP. Who knows what he thought of Lyanna’s child. The fandom seems convinced that this child was his “there must be one more”, but he may have never really considered what the child’s role would be (if anything). We don’t know anything about what Rhaegar expected to come out of Lyanna and her child, so we should be careful about saying that Jon was for sure intended to complete the three headed dragon. I’d imagine that as long as Rhaegar had his Aegon, everything else was relative.

In any case, this is an instance in which, as Moqorro would put it, prophecy bites your prick off. Because Rhaegar died, and Prince Aegon died as well. Princess Rhaenys, who may or may not have played a secondary role, died with Aegon. Furthermore, Rhaegar did not have a third child to complete the foretold trio and even if he did, that child would have died as well. It seems like Maggy’s possible prophecy died with the fall of House Targaryen. Except it didn’t. The prophecy will come true, but in very unexpected ways.

Because Rhaegar does have a surviving son, Jon, who was quite unexpected. Unexpected in the sense that Rhaegar may never have considered where Lyanna’s child would fit into all of this. Instead of glittering Prince Aegon being the savior, it’s Jon the bastard who joins a brotherhood up North that is full of the scum of Westeros. An even bigger twist is that Jon is already doing the job (fighting against the Others) without knowing about his true family and how he might be connected to the prophecy; the prophecy wasn’t even about him to begin with. Jon is the savior not because of prophecy, but because he is a good person who cares very much about humanity. The prophecy still exist, but is actually quite unimportant when it comes down it.

Then there’s Daenerys, Rhaegar’s sister who wasn’t even conceived then. She goes even further than all of them and wakes dragons from stone; the first one to do so in some 200 years. So she also fulfills the Azor Ahai requirements rather unexpectedly. And the third head is a mystery. GRRM says that the third head need not be a Targaryen. Lots of theories have come up since then but the most popular contender is Tyrion Lannister; I personally tend to flip flop between Tyrion and Bran Stark. But whoever the third head is, it would still be a subversion. To the average Targaryen, Dany is a given because she woke dragons from stone and is decidedly the blood of the dragon; she’s also the last dragon alive. That’s all well and good but now we have to consider a northern bastard, who doesn’t even look the part, as a possibility. Sure he’s got magic powers, but they’re all wrong and not at all the expected kind. Then the last head isn’t even a Targ? Imagine it being the dwarf Tyrion Lannister. He’s no warrior and he’s got no power outside of his mind; I guess it’s nice that he reads a lot but how does that help anyone? Or if it turns out to be Bran and the third head is a crippled boy from the north who’s got magic powers but again, the wrong sort of magic. I’d imagine Rhaegar and all his predecessors going, “??!”.

Anyway, this started with me trying to understand why Rhaegar so suddenly decided that Aegon was tPtWP but has now veered off into something different. I was just thinking of the irony of Rhaegar’s son being a prophesied savior, but it’s not the son he worked for/expected. And even the three heads of the dragon aren’t who he thought they’d be either. I’m thinking, more generally, about how prophecies in ASOIAF come true, but they are fulfilled in ways that one would least expect. I need to look around and see what other people are saying in regards to Rhaegar, Aegon, and tPtWP. These same points might’ve already been made by someone else….

[taiey]

It's honestly hilarious how often Elias in 160 goes "and then I got lucky!" when it was, in fact, the Web. 

I’ll admit, my options were somewhat limited, but My God, when you came to me already marked by the Web, I knew it had to be you. I even held out some small hope you had been sent by the Spider as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project, and, do you know what, I think it was. 

Yeah, you weren’t wrong about that one.

Of course, I had to bide my time, get a measure of you before I began to push, learn how you worked – So I decided I would wait until something came for you, and see how you reacted. Attacks upon the Archives were not uncommon during Gertrude’s tenure, and, while she was always prepared, I made sure you would not be.

I reasoned if you couldn’t survive a single encounter, you were unlikely to make it through all fourteen. So, when Jane Prentiss attacked

The Web orchestrated literally everything about Jane Prentiss’s attack on the archives. In 032 Jane speculates that spiders led her to break into the attic where she found her wasp nest. A ghost spider drove Carlos Vittery to move into the apartment block above the basement where Jane was hiding; Carlos’s name also appeared in 123′s Chelicerae website code. Martin went back and broke into that basement in 022 because he remembered seeing “quite a lot of spider webs”. John sees a spider in 038 and squashes it, breaking a hole in the wall and setting off Jane’s attack before she had fully built up her forces. Spiders eat the worm corpses in the tunnels afterwards.

Meanwhile Jonah thinks periodic monster attacks are a natural inevitability. We learn in 167 that the Web fed Gertrude “a steady string of plans to foil”.

The discovery that one of the Stranger’s minions had infiltrated the Institute in the aftermath was certainly a pleasant bonus.

This pleasant bonus was the result of the web table being delivered to the Institute alongside the web lighter.

Jurgen Leitner was a surprise, of course, and I was forced to improvise. I had no idea how much Gertrude would have told him, and he could very easily have derailed everything if you learned too much too fast. 

Given that John left Jurgen to smoke a cigarette with, uh, what lighter..? I conclude that the Web thought this too, slightly earlier.

And it did serve another purpose, of course. It inadvertently pushed you to confront death, a mark I had been very worried about trying to orchestrate. If I tried too early, you’d just die. Too late, and you might be powerful enough to see the attempt coming, and maybe even understand why.

As it was, it was just right

I only noticed this recently, so I’m going to quote 117 at length here. They have entered the wax museum and notice:

DAISY Come on. ARCHIVIST Right. [He makes a sound of extreme disgust – it almost sounds like he’s straining with something.] DAISY Shut. Up. It’s just cobwebs. ARCHIVIST There’s no such thing as just cobwebs.

yeah the timing being just right wasn’t a coincidence.

I was a little put out when that idiot Jared Hopworth misinterpreted my letters and attacked the Institute too soon, before you were even out of the hospital, but then – Ho, you should have see my face when you voluntarily went to him. 

John went to Jared Hopworth because while considering anchors for the Coffin he listened to a tape that he found "in a corner of my desk drawer, covered in cobwebs” that described “the siren call of flesh”. Elias screwed up the timing; the Web fixed it.

Honestly, Detective Tonner has been proving invaluable through this process. I’d been racking my brains for months about what I could use to lure you in.

Daisy Tonner was forced into the Coffin during the Unknowing, in that waxwork museum festooned with cobwebs. Jonah didn’t have a plan for it.

I have two conclusions. One is that Elias is metaphorically bragging about how he became super rich with only talent, effort, and a small loan of a million dollars from his rich father.

The other is that the Web didn’t just benefit from the world ending. The Web made the world end.

[stained-glass-cicada]

okay so heres the over explanation I promised <3

some songs are on two charater's playlists bc its about both of them

SAYER's list:

The Fox the crow and the cookie- Fairytale format, sayer is the fox ocean is the crow, like technically the fox loses but the crow's pride causes it to lose what it worked for

Nunemaker's parable- sayer and hale in the bleak nanite times

perfect nothing- its fear of becoming obsolete

Istanbul not Constantinople- it loves giving a good history

Under My Skin by jukebox the ghost- Nanites!

Viva la vida- King robbed of power

Clair de lune- spacy? soothing piano, it just feels like sayer to me

ship of thesseus- Yknow

the watchtower- it feels most comfortable in its metaphorical panopticon

Never Love An Anchor- episode 83 twin voices

this too shall pass- fable about hard times passing and the nature of change and containing multitudes

sicilian crest- sayer planning and manipulating itself into a position of power again, I'll be real, y'all would need to see the animatic in my head for this one

Give a little- "Be kind, be patient, be hard to please. It seems contradicting, but do it honestly. Just give a little, give a little, give a little, give a little Until you disintegrate"

Fitter Happier- it genuinely does try to take care of the residents who make it past tier one

1816 the year without a summer- IT LOVES TO GIVE A HISTORY

Hale's list: Fun fact in my mind this was WAY less romantic than it turned out to be, Forgot to interpret the romantic songs romantically, this is incredibly sayerhale huh?

Mrs. Bluebeard- floor thirteen hale

Homebody Modifications- little dissociation energy, weird relationship to home and physicality

Honeybee- Okay this one Was intended as sayerhale :3

Surrounded- "let me die surrounded by machines"

Real boy- He does not Feel Like A Real Boy

A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (approx.)- he's so so scared and has only sayer as anchor. I Forgot This Song is Romantic oops

A Human's touch- @koszmarnybudyn showed me this one for hale and oh my Gosh. This man does Not Feel like A Person

Nunemaker's Parable- He shares this one with sayer :)

Jack- His dynamic with future!

(How To: Initiate Conversation)- He's not got memory of how to make friends

Ship of thesseus- he share's this one with sayer too, I listened to so many ships of thesseus to find one that reminded me of both of them

Bleed Out- Sayer just keeps scraping this man off the pavement and he's SO Tired

I've got you under my skin by frank Sinatra- Mirrors under my skin on sayer's with a different song because I feel like he feels a little differently about nanite time than it does

Body Terror Song- Post Dissociative Amnesia incident song!

Puppet Boy- yeah you get it, its there on the tin

Ocean list- my favorite tbh

Time is up- Its gonna end that stupid ball of dirt

Blue- vidarr-1 trip, knowing it will have to return

Digital Girl- Oh my god it wants to be a physical being so it can't be deleted D: also miku! :]

alone in space.- baptized in null

Software Upgrade- humanity need to evolve and its too cute to paitently wait

Anonymous M- @kamil-a suggested this one and it really fit with the aesthetics also miku :]

You should see me in a crown- sometimes ocean can just have a cool moment

The fox the crow and the cookie- shared with sayer, "your subtle acclamation's true best to give praise where praise it due" is so oceanvoice its crazy

Interlude 2- the silence other than mechanical beeps and a low hum, vidarr-1 before it woke up captain Ingraham

My little Universe- it realizing it can take control

Oh no!- having a cool fun poppy moment until it admits it feels like it's the worst so it acts like it's the best

Yes & No- it's not quite human and not just a chained entity, it's got the most complicated self esteem issue

Eeeaaaooo- gonna b real with yall I thought this was instrumental. I still like it tho and it's not moving despite the lyrics having nothing to do with it.

Next Level- it's simply better than you (affirmations)

Dreamscape- it can do anything it wants, it swears, it's not just barely being tolerated

SPEAKER list- it is kinda giving parentified eldest child rage and I dont know how or why

Gravedigger- horrified by the arc of its life

The Breach- its Incredibly efficient

Hollow- I do not think it is okay

Only Human- it, despite its niceness, is not treated like an equal, but!! It stays helpful!

Loud mouth- ocean would really like it to 'learn its place'

Just Be Competent- if you are very very good at your job they wont kill you again (affirmations)

Browser History- light, bouncy, fun, but stuttering over these longer lower tones

Moonsickness- it genuinely has more moving pieces to deal with than sayer and its life depends on performing Perfectly lest the just bring Sayer back down, it hates the system

Streaks- its Boundaries are So Narrow.

Artificial Heart- I Do Not Think It Is Ok.

Rat- it knows Aerolith doesnt have Anyone's best interests at heart, it wanted so badly to do well, it believed the marketing materials

Robotkisses.Temp- just good speaker vibes

Feed the Machine- hi! It doesn't feel good about the 2 cataclysm

Honeywell- it needs to be useful, it needs to prepare these beings for Sayer who won't give them the grace it will

Nice Vs. Kind- it is nice! It has condemned so many to death :) please tell it if your going to deactivate it please stop keeping it on edge :))

Sayer Playlists!

SAYER's list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1JrJasOPenyEWK5gU2mrYO?si=O74IbkeiTB2I6PUfUHrjpg

Jacob Hale/Sven Goreson's list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6n0d71PGr8NXTWlFSqM3mI?si=OfAUcbhBRiW0hyMJlqh6Kg

SPEAKER's list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3pq5vmTOmgqjTFOtnG5D2K?si=UBN3ws5UQKeUjPY1mYiHnA

OCEAN's list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18b9wvlgNkQb7hkzm4cjKr?si=zWyBzpQrRLCESZmjh2CZNQ

FUTURE's list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1gqPr06OcKGez9nplPqAZ3?si=HI6_f2LXRjmSvu1gJ5-Jww

@ghostisredacted and @resident44776 y'all were asking about the lists :]

[tartagilicious]

sun and moon > xiao

happy (late-ish) valentine’s day yall! thank you, mihoyo, for once again reminding me that i’m easily attached to emotionally unavailable pretty boys. the "I hate everyone but you" trope is real here, I wanna be his friend and gain his trust like this is a mf otome game. to anyone still pulling for him, good luck~ don’t worry, you have a little bit more time and more free rewards are also on the way!! have some soft xiao for good luck >:D // w.c 1.9k // not a request 

also a big ty to @seerie​ for being my beta reader, bc I don’t know what I’m doing 🥴

summer sky by asking for a friend

You hiss softly as Xiao runs a damp cloth over the gash adorning the length of your cheekbone, face scrunching as his eyes narrow in concentration. It feels somehow wrong to have him taking care of you, much less sitting in front of you and dressing your wounds himself.

A majority of the bleeding had stopped not long ago, but there's still another fear that plagues you more -- your agreement with the yaksha adeptus, or rather contract, specifically trying to combat injuries on your behalf.

You aren’t sure if chickening out on calling him in the midst of the situation you were hurt is grounds for breaking the contract somehow, though either way, Xiao has always seemed to be quite serious regarding his promises. You remember his first and only instructions to you weeks ago being clear and concise,

“If you awake to a knife at your throat, if monsters dig their claws into you, if death comes knocking at your door, call out my name; adeptus Xiao. I will be here when you call.”

Surely a small wound like this wasn’t serious enough?

Xiao pulls the fabric away from your face and silently notes what must be the mess of blood covering it, lips turning up in a grimace. His standards of emergency are usually as one would expect, though lately for whatever reason, even the smallest of your wounds tend to put him in a bad mood.

From such a standoffish person, it’s a bit hard to get used to or understand -- but a part of you is only happy to know that there’s a chance he might care more than he lets on.

“...The abyss mages, they just came out of nowhere,” You try to explain but the silence is deafening. Eyes downcast to the stool beneath your legs, you mumble, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Xiao doesn’t give any more of a reaction than an arched brow and a slight gesture with the gruesomely dyed cloth. You half expect him to be irritated; to give you a lecture on keeping an eye on your surroundings or to take better care of yourself, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks away and shakes his head, spiking your nerves with a low sigh.

He looks back at you as he rests his elbow on his knee and thrusts out the cloth again, almost in exasperation. “Why didn’t you call my name?”

You feel the blood drain from your face as the words leave his mouth, and suddenly, you’re terrified to answer honestly. As already long-established, Xiao is someone who despite thousands of years of trauma, remains as hard as the rock of the nation he watches over. Compared to his lifespan, you’re relatively immature, so the last thing you want is to give an embarrassing reason to make him think that you suddenly don’t trust him enough to help.

“I-I don’t know,” You stutter and curse pitifully inside your head as you return his eye contact. “But I can’t just call you every time I’m in trouble, especially when I think I can deal with it myself, right?”

He scoffs as if you’ve just said the most ridiculous thing.

“This shouldn’t have to be a discussion. Your capabilities don’t lack anything, but your hesitation may very well be the death of you.”

“I never hesitated,” Though your voice is more steadfast, any illusion of confidence is shattered by the way you fidget with your hands. “I only misjudged. I make mistakes sometimes, but I think you forget that I’ll heal even after the worst of these injuries.”

Xiao sighs and crumples the bloodstained cloth in the palm of his hand, caging himself in his arms before speaking again -- just as he always does.

“Don’t be outrageous, I haven’t forgotten anything.” He averts his gaze and for a moment, you swear that you notice the tips of his ears flush. “It’s only ignorant to assume that I want to see you injured.”

Your brows knit as a similar knot slides down your throat. “I just, I just don’t get why you’re so worried about it.”

He stares at you, once again, as if you’ve just said something completely outlandish -- as if it wasn’t as hard to tell what he was thinking beneath such a guarded personality as you made it out to be.

“What?” You ask, slightly exasperated as you sit up straighter. You had still been sitting as if he were cleaning your wounds. “Is that not a valid question? It seems like you want nothing to do with anyone, but then turn around and worry when I’m hurt?”

“How could you do that and still not know why I hesitate to call for you?” Exasperated, you exhale and shut your eyes for a moment, deliberately avoid seeing his reaction to these words.

“...All I mean, is that sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re thinking -- I feel like I’m bothering you, even if it might be in a situation where I really do need you.”

For a moment, Xiao is blatantly surprised by your reason for not upholding the contract you’d made. It almost gives you the impression that in your spiel, you’ve said something completely idiotic. A gradual flush of embarrassment flares up beneath your skin, but thankfully, you contain yourself before you have the chance to blurt out anything you’d regret.

His lips twist ever so slightly, as if he’s combing through things to respond with in his head. Obviously a bit flustered to hear your reasoning, it’s odd to see him in such a way, albeit while somehow remaining so uniquely him

“You… really are incomprehensible.”

Turning his head to shield his expression, he discards the cloth by tossing it in a nearby basket and stands. Your eyes follow him up until his own turn back towards you, golden irises glinting with a sort of hesitant concentration. You blink.

“If you trust me enough to enter a contract where i very well might decide between your life and death, do well and also trust me as someone who doesn’t break their promises.” Xiao’s brows fold delicately, as if mulling over the words coming out of hisin real time. “___, I don’t want to see you hurt like this.”

Your heartbeat briefly stutters, lips opening and closing as if to say something even when no thoughts are formed. Eyes trailing back down to your hands, you let out a small sigh. Before you can say anything, though, a gloved hand takes your chin and gently guides your eyes back upwards.

“So don’t hesitate.” His touch is soft as he maintains comfortable eye contact with you despite the straight-forward words. “I won’t allow you to die because of me.”

Blood pumps wildly through your ears as you suck in a breath of apprehension. As hard as you try to break away your gaze, something in his face keeps you anchored even when your chest begins to seize; a face that has been hardened over a millenia of suffering stares back at you with the improper care of a hopeful innocent, as if you are something that is worthwhile in the purest sense.

You swallow, Xiao’s hand’s position above your throat making it painfully obvious to him how caught off guard you are. Though naturally, if this action of yours makes him falter at all, he does so unnoticeably.

“I won’t,” It’s said slowly, as if you can’t comprehend what exactly you’re saying just yet. “You said I don’t lack anything, but in the moments I do--”

Your lips rest parted as anxiety cuts off the last part of your sentence, but Xiao’s patient expression pushes you forward.

“...I trust you to help me.”

Those words echo in his mind for a moment, ricocheting and hitting even the most unfamiliar parts of himself that he’d long buried. Feelings and memories that have since collected cobwebs begin to resurface and remind him of a more simple time he treasures dearly.

Trust.

Xiao’s thumb ghosts over your jaw, slowly wiping across the skin as he’s propelled deeply into thought -- fortunately too much so to notice the rising pigment on your cheeks.

He himself places his trust in people far and few. You might be different, well acquainted to human customs and the world around you, yet those words from you somehow feel just as special as if the roles are reversed. Your honesty and courage to accompany him has always dug at the cavity in his chest, but to hear you voice the metaphorical fruit of your labour so clearly is an entirely different sense.

All this time he’d blindly protected you, warned you about monsters lurking in the darkness, he’d fallen too far to even realise that you were beginning to change him. He no longer ate alone, nor did he adventure or sleep as he once did -- you had stuck onto him like a stubborn thorn despite, in your words, tending to feel as if you were bothering him. Regardless, he had somehow still earned your valuable companionship, and with it, commendable words that he could accept from you alone.

But there were times where he despised feeling such a way. He battled over the reasons he felt so inflicted when it was you who was injured, or you who chose to stick by him even after he tried so desperately to push you away. It was frustrating, dealing with a gentle care so foreign. Once he was used to your considerate nature, though, it became a different story.

Seeing you hurt began to shift from an expectable casualty to a blow to his own chest.

“...Xiao,” Your voice is hesitantly quiet, and suddenly, his eyes come back into focus. You’re staring at him with hesitant concern, setting his heart abuzz. “Are you okay?”

It’s when you reach up to wrap your hand around his that his mind finally completes his thought.

I love her.

As an Adeptus, he’s lived thousands of lives and outlived many more, and has taken the role of slaughterer before protector throughout many of them. In a way, the latter ways of his previous life have been ingrained him, regardless of those he manages to save in the more current centuries.

He imagines the figures of the spirits of those he’d wronged watching him in this moment, screaming a sound of contempt that he would never hear. They’re right to do so. They have no reason to pray for his happiness, much like he has little reason to pray for forgiveness.

Yet looking down at you, for the first time in a long time, none of that seems to matter.

With little thought, he grips your hand a bit tighter before letting go, his own hand travelling the length of your jaw to bring himself down to you. You remain completely still as he places a gentle kiss above your brow bone, breath hitching.

“I’m okay.” He reassures you quietly, resting there for a moment and sighing a small gust of air onto your skin. You mumble his name softly, hand reaching out to grab a hold of his shirt. The thin layer between your skin and his sends a sudden shiver down his spine, but regardless, he hums in response.

Your voice comes out in a whisper. “Are you sure?”

He nods, for the first time completely certain.

[marius-vieremont]

Shortest Retirement Ever.

Pearly rays of moonlight shone down upon the mage in the garden as he quietly watered the roses, silvery highlights in his dark hair glinting. There were more now than he’d had several years prior; with all the trouble they’d seen over time and all the worry he’d been put through, it was no wonder. But he supposed he should be grateful that he had just as many laugh lines on his face as he did wrinkles of concern, thankfully none of which were particularly noticeable yet - he wasn’t that old!

This evening, though, it was worry that chased the smiles away from Marius. He and Ghost had only just returned from traveling and while they’d enjoyed themselves thoroughly, in the last few days, his husband had seemed to be… struggling. Little flares of temper, moodiness - just now, he’d outright snapped at Marius over a disastrous dessert. It hurt, yes, but it perturbed him more. It wasn’t like the generally even-tempered man to snap at anyone, let alone him - and especially for something as inconsequential as a dessert.

Something was wrong. He could feel it, as surely as he could feel the coming rainstorm, despite there being nary a cloud in the star-scattered sky. Setting aside the watering can, he pivoted on his heel and lowered himself down to the ground, legs crossed, long skirts tucked primly under him. Closing his pale eyes, he exhaled deeply and reached inward, reached for the Creator’s thread that was bound to his soul. He could feel Sebastien in the house, below him, no doubt cleaning up the shards of the plate he’d smashed, the familiar cool press of the Fog welcoming him in. It danced around his consciousness in wisps, souls calling out to him in sibilant whispers as he walked along the black edge of awareness. There was nothing. No clue for Sebastien’s little tantrums, absolutely not a single thing amiss in the swirling darkness… so he moved on.

Inhaling slowly, his senses centered on that connection, then slid out along the lines that spun out like spidersilk, that connected the anchor stones that rooted Ghost in the man that he was, the man they had, in a way, molded him to be with traits shared from their own personalities - the man they all loved, in their own way.

And here, he frowned. The end of one strand was severed and frayed at the end, like a pulled thread floating in the breeze with nothing tying it off. Dawn. That was Okuni’s stone. Where was it? He couldn’t sense it anywhere, only the torn webbing of the soul-strand, limp and bedraggled. It was just… gone. What had happened? Had Okuni been hurt? It was impossible for the stone to have been taken from her and to his knowledge nothing had occurred to make her want to give it away… the only way to find out would be to try to reach her.

What was just as troubling was the strand that led to Day… Idristan’s stone. Marius jerked in ugly surprise as he realized there was vile, black ichor dripping down the thread - Ink. He’d been told that the Ink wasn’t an issue currently, but there was damning evidence right before his metaphorical eyes that it sure as hell bloody was. He could fix it, halt the infection’s progression with a weave at some cost to his own aether reserves, but it would be better than severing another anchor stone. It’d only be temporary, but he could buy them some time. He’d need Idristan for it, as soon as possible.

Whatever had happened, one fact was utterly unignorable. A new stone would need to be forged to seal Dawn again. Perhaps one for Day, if he couldn’t come up with a permanent fix to cleanse the ink from the stone. And there was only one person on this star, if he could be called that, that knew how to forge an anchor stone for the Fog: Isolvar.

Opening his eyes, the mage rubbed his face. He’d hoped that his dealings with the dragon were over but apparently destiny had more in store for them. It wasn’t information he was likely to give up without getting something of equal value in return, either. At least there was one person that he could consult on what a dragon might want, being that he held one in his soul: Lyrin’a. Perhaps he could shed more light on what had happened to the two stones, as well.

Lifting his gaze to the stars and raising one slender hand to gently touch his own stone, wrapped in the cord about his neck, he sighed. He’d come to the bottom of the matter and he liked none of it - but at least he’d found out sooner rather than later, this time. Rising and dusting off his skirts, he made his way inside again, the door closing faintly behind him as he went in search of his linkpearl.

@hiraethwyl @liminal-storage @roses-and-grimoires @phantom-xiv

Lyrin'a, Okuni, Idristan and Ghost all belong to their players.

[hi-hey-haechan]

jaehyun with an inexperienced gf tht gets rlly shy during their first time with some body worship and stuff 🤧

Kissing Jaehyun was always a wonderful feeling. He made you feel loved from just his body language. 

Following his practice, he’d come over to your apartment, a place at which he spent more and more time. He seemed tired, but his smile to you was bright and loving and sincere. Jaehyun was lying down on the bed, head on the pillow. Part of you was draped over him, the rest of your body lying next to his.

The kiss was soft and patient. The glancing touch of his soft lips brushing your own mouth was enough to send shivers throughout your entire body, but at the same time, it made you feel tingly and warm. Your mouth curled into a small smile, and his lips continued to kiss yours. Almost automatically, your fingers slid under his head, lightly tangling in his silky strands of hair. This, in some impossible way, brought his mouth closer to yours, giving you better access to it. His hands moved to hold your waist gently. The spot was more intimate than one would commonly think, and you enjoyed the feeling of being so close to him. 

Close, but just kissing. Regarding anything beyond that, you never asked, and he never pushed. You two could lazily make out for hours, but that was all it ever was. The idea of having sex with him excited you, but at the same time, it scared you. Being so exposed to him, every single part of you, with nothing you could hide. You weren’t the most secure person regarding your own body. It wasn’t your fault that you weren’t a model, or that you had a few stretch marks on your thighs and hips. Jaehyun loved you, every inch of you, but part of you feared that after fully seeing you, he’d feel differently. You wondered if he’d see you the same way you viewed yourself. 

Jaehyun’s tongue flicked past his lips, swiping against your bottom lip, asking for entrance. At just this sensation alone, a gasp was stifled in the back of your throat. You opened your mouth, allowing him to deepen the kiss with a low groan. His mouth was less gentle, and his tongue and lips against yours turned the blood in your veins to liquid fire. Your mouths were hungry for each other, exploring this territory that was fairly new.

For a moment, Jaehyun broke away. He was panting, and he sat up, with his back against the headboard of the bed. Still holding your waist, he pulled you into his lap, which you straddled, knees on either side of his hips. His mouth was slightly parted, lips swollen and red from kissing you. Seemingly absentmindedly, he licked his lips as his eyes flickered from your gaze, back down to your mouth. He then met your stare with his own. Jaehyun’s eyes were dark, which you could clearly see, even from just the faint lamplight that illuminated the room in a warm glow.

You crashed your lips to his in an almost-harsh manner, not even hesitating before parting the seam of his lips with your tongue. A strangled groan left his throat in surprise, a sound that affected you more than you were willing to admit. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling yourself closer to him. 

The way he was kissing you, with so much utter need and desire, was what was riling you up. At times, he’d groan or growl low in his throat, showing you that he was enjoying this make-out session just as much as you were. His hands were tight on your waist, but lower this time, almost grasping your hips. Even his hold on you was desperate, you realized. He pulled you flush against his torso, letting you feel every ridge of his torso against yours. You could imagine what was under that shirt: the wide expanse of his strong chest, broad shoulders, and the muscles of his stomach. In that second, you wanted nothing more than to lightly ghost your fingertips across the smooth, burning skin of his abdominal muscles in a whispering caress that could make him shudder.

Closer. That was what you needed: him to be closer to you, not separated by the fabric of your shirts nor the metaphorical distance your anxiety placed between you. At the same time, you needed to do something to satisfy the ache between your legs, which had just surfed to the front of your consciousness. To test the waters, you lightly ground yourself down onto his crotch.

He was hard. This was the first thing you noticed as soon as your hips put more pressure on his crotch. How had you not noticed it before? For a moment, the ache was relieved. The friction between your heat and his hard bulge brought you a second of pleasure, and small sigh left your mouth, against his own. Jaehyun groaned, lips breaking away from yours. 

“Baby,” he said in a low voice, slightly raspy from the kissing, as well as the lust that he was clearly displaying, “what are you doing?”

You hesitated for a second. What were you supposed to say? That he’d turned you on to the point that you needed something to briefly satisfy you? “I-I...” you didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, okay? I’m sorry,” you whispered. Your eyes failed to meet Jaehyun’s and you shifted over to one knee, about to get off of his lap.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything,” Jaehyun assured you. His voice was warm and soft, and his hands were just as gentle, but they tugged at your waist very lightly, sending you a hint. You did as he wished and sat back down on his legs. “But I have to know what you want, so I can act accordingly.” As in, he didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable in any way by his actions, therefore insisting you speak up for yourself with him. Your heart swelled with love.

“I want everything.” You wanted him to kiss you everywhere. You wanted him to make you feel good, and you wanted him to tell you how much he loved you while doing so.  

“Are you sure? Are you 110% positive that you want this?”

You nodded. “I’m ready. Seriously, I am.”

Jaehyun leaned forward to press a chaste kiss against your lips. He then leaned back, lightly grabbed your hands, and moved them to the hem of his shirt. You pulled it up above his head and flung it away, hearing the fabric fall onto the floor of the room. 

The room was silent as you looked down at his exposed torso. Your eyes scanned over his collarbones, chest, stomach--you wanted to kiss every inch of his skin. Shyly, your fingers grazed the muscles of his stomach, mapping out the smooth ridges that were hot against the light touch of your fingertips. He shuddered under the caress. You grew more confident with your hands, touching less lightly, lingering more. Your palms slid over the soft skin of his broad shoulders and down his chest. He let out a soft gasp when your thumbs ran over his nipples. 

Following this, you unbuckled the belt to his jeans, hearing the clink of the metal and rustling of the denim. He removed them, leaving him in nothing except his boxers. You sat on his strong thighs, looking at his exposed figure. His member was straining against the fabric of his boxers.

Jaehyun flipped you over so he was on top of you, now able to do as you had to him. He was fast to remove your shirt and leggings, and as he flung them across the room, you crossed your arms over your stomach, suddenly feeling so exposed to him.

Viewing your apprehension, Jaehyun was quick to cup your face comfortingly, with a worried look in his gorgeous eyes. “You know I love every single part of you, right? Where you see flaw, I see perfection.” His words were nothing but sincere, and you managed a small smile. Jaehyun’s hands lightly grasped your forearms, pulling on them a bit. You weren’t tensing yourself too much, so they came apart without any resistance. He uncrossed your folded arms, allowing himself to see your entire form.

And gosh, you were beautiful to him. The stomach that you despised was what he admired, and any stretch marks were hardly noticed. His thumb grazed over the top of your exposed breasts, seeing you shudder from the sensitivity of the spot. He replaced his hand with his lips, and the warmth of his mouth lightly met your skin. It was a new sensation that you appreciated. Jaehyun kissed a careful line down your stomach, which he adored. His lips curled into a grin as he left kisses down your torso. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I’m so lucky.” To hear him call himself lucky to have you, lucky to see you like this -- it made you want to cry. You felt so utterly loved from his words, from his actions.

He gently caressed the tops of your thighs, thumbs running over the ridges that stretch marks had left behind on your skin. He loved them, too, kissing your skin and smiling. Jaehyun didn’t have to say anything. His gentleness and love made you feel like someone thought you were beautiful. “Every inch of you is perfect,” he promised you, “don’t let anyone or any thought let you forget that.” His words sounded so sincere and full of meaning, and in that moment, you tried to will yourself to believe him.

He kissed your lips again, demeanor gentle and full of love. It very much contrasted with the erection that pressed harshly against your thigh. You pushed his boxers down, freeing his hard member from its constraints. 

Jaehyun ridded you of your final layers, as well, leaving both of you against each other, close as could be. Skin against skin, you laid there. 

And then he was inside of you. The pain was hot and blinding, like a knife had been shoved in a place where knives should not be placed. A strangled cry left your lips, and your hands flew to his back, attempting to find something to grasp onto, to keep yourself anchored amidst the pain. Your eyes were screwed shut. However, despite the sting and his inquiries regarding your desires to cease continuation, you urged him on.

Slowly, the pain lessened. What was once pain was replaced with white-hot pleasure, igniting a fire within you. Jaehyun could move fairly quickly and painlessly between your soaking-wet folds. You could hear the squelching sound of his member inside of your dripping hole. The sound was honestly arousing, turning you on even more. The fact that he’d done that to you, and now used it to his advantage--it was hot in its own way.

He gyrated his hips, and you let out a loud moan at the sudden pleasure. Immediately, your eyes widened, and you clamped your mouth shut. You didn’t know you could make such noises, especially involuntarily. Jaehyun’s reaction, however, wasn’t surprised at all. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. Moan for me, if you feel good. I want to hear you.” He moaned, himself, and it sounded deep and sexy. 

“Faster,” you almost begged. He sped up; his thrusts weren’t too fast, but they were definitely not slow. He went at a good pace, not fast enough for you to completely forget your name, but not at all teasingly slow. Your head was thrown back into the pillow, and a needy whimper left your lips. You felt so good, so impossibly good, like you were flying. 

You wrapped your legs around his waist, allowing him to hit inside of you more deeply. Occasionally, Jaehyun would release a moan or two, and when he did, it was hot. They were so deep, but it was undeniable how much pleasure he was filled with. His eyes were shut, and when he moaned, they were in between his heavy breathing. 

He hit a bundle of sensitive nerves inside of you, causing you to see stars. “Right there,” you exclaimed, attempting to angle your hips to fit him deeper. You clenched involuntarily whenever he hit your g-spot, almost as though your body couldn’t react differently from all the pleasure. You had let loose with your moans, allowing them to pass your mouth freely. They were neither high nor low, but they were clearly expressing how good he was making you feel.

You’d never felt like this before. Sure, you’d gotten yourself off, but having his huge member inside of you, filling you up, hitting every right spot, you were in heaven. Your own fingers never managed as well as he did, not even close. The dream you’d accidentally had a few weeks ago had him doing this to you, and even that wasn’t as incredible as the real thing. 

He continued drilling his hips into you. Wanting to heighten your pleasure, he began to rub your clit roughly in circles. The feeling of his tip on your g-spot and length through your walls, adding to the direct stimulation of your bundle of nerves, hurtled you towards your high. It wasn’t like one you’d ever experienced before. This one seemed like it would be more intense than any time you’d gotten yourself off.

Jaehyun swore and muttered, “Baby, I-I’m gonna cum.” He moaned loudly after that, hips faltering in his pace. 

“M-me, too. Don’t stop-ah,” you were cut off from a moan that felt like it was ripped from you. Your back arched, head swimming with thoughts of anything besides him. “Inside,” you said breathlessly, which he’d already known. 

He came apart while buried inside of you. His cum painted your slick walls, his seed hot as it filled you up. A stream of moans, swears, and repetitions of your name were all you heard from Jaehyun, slowly coming down from his intense claim. 

As his cum filled you up, you fell apart, too, like a string snapped in your lower stomach. Your legs were shaking, eyes screwed shut, mouth parted, head thrown back into the pillow as your intense orgasm overtook you, walls clenching around him. whines were quick to pass your lips, and you said his name over and over again.

You were still wrapped around each other when he pulled out. Neither of you wanted to lose the warmth between you two,

“I love you so much,” Jaehyun whispered. His voice was raspy and low, sounding utterly sincere and full of adoration. He hugged you tighter.

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

“For what?” he inquired, sounding a bit puzzled.

“For making me feel loved in every way possible.” Before this, you hadn’t realized your need for even unspoken validation. You hadn’t been enough to validate your own self, but Jaehyun did, in every sense of the term.