#actually maybe that finale was cosmic punishment enough

[llycaons]

also i feel like that post that talked about spn and house gaybait being more entertaining than heartstopper was kind of unfair in that it presented two very different types of shows as if canon pairings/presence of plot were the only differences when like...one of those is very clearly for teenagers about teenagers in high school and their relationships. adult shows with strong plots and canon gay relationships also exist! I feel like op was showing THEIR ass because those aren't even that hard to find? and it makes a sense why an adult would be less compelled by heartstopper than a medical mystery drama. also spn sucks shit idk why you're acting like destiel has a leg up on anything else here

[dread-pirate-mumbles]

thinking about house post roadtrip (and hilson, of course)

spoilers for ending

So the way i always interpreted the ending of the show to be: wilson dies, house kills himself, because these two disaster men are so codependent that one cannot exist without the other

but i also think wilson would hate that. he probably already feels guilt for not going the chemo route, and this would feel like... an additional Bad Thing he's responsible for

so i thought about like. what would wilson do to make house stay alive, after his death, and the obvious choice that a lot of fandom has made has been to bring up House's promise to Thirteen

but i also like to think about like... Wilson going behind House's back, and contacting Chase and/or Foreman. Wilson manipulates House into staying alive long enough for them to intervene (maybe something like asking House to leave something at his grave- maybe some whiskey and a cigar? or something like that)

and Chase and Foreman (and maybe Thirteen, because i hc that she, Chase, and Foreman are House's favorites) are laying in wait to grab him and keep from finishing his plans

of course, he'd have to be basically under a 24 hr watch, but between them all, maybe they manage it

and then, maybe, house realizes he can't kill himself, but he can get himself arrested, which would get him away from his old fellows long enough to either actualize his plan or for him to begin to see it as some sort of cosmic punishment for the various ways he hurt wilson

regardless of what happens, i just. really want to see the fellows realizing just how important wilson is/was to house... to see how pathetic and sad and angry and lonely and heartbroken he is, now that wilson is not merely removing himself from house's life, but straight up Gone gone. Esp since house and wilson probably finally actually did something about their situationship while they were on the road.

[theonevoice]

Rumination n. 4 – On Aziraphale, sacrifice and guilt (another bold hypothetical)

I feel like we've been almost only considering the tragedy of the Fall from Crowley's point of view (it's obvious why), but I would really like if in s3 we get to see the battle before the Fall (the big missing event between what we have seen in the s1 and s2 prologues) and learn something about how Aziraphale experienced that moment. So I started wondering what kind of situation would be in character for the two man-shaped entities we know, being at the same time relevant enough to deserve to occupy a prologue (that is, to open our collective third eye about some new underlayer of this millennia-long cursed relationship). And then, one specific thought popped into my empty brain, and I went down a rabbit hole.

One aspect of Aziraphale character that I have never seen discussed per se is his attachment to his identity as an angel. There is plenty of wonderfully insightful takes about how this attachment influences his behaviour (to Crowley and in general), but why is he so attached in the first place? What if there is something other than fear of punishment in his oh so painful obsession with preserving his angelic status? What makes it so precious to him? If Gabriel so readily dropped his role of Supreme Archangel to be with Beelzebub, why is Aziraphale so obsessed? Is it really only a weird metaphore for "class struggle", reminding us that powerful élites get to do whatever they want while the little people must abide by even the stupidest rules?

What if Aziraphale's rank of principality is particularly dear to him for a personal reason? We know that angels get promoted or demoted and not created with a fixed role. What if he earned his during the great war of Heaven? But would the Aziraphale we know be the kind of "soldier" able to win a title in battle?

I think it is not entirely absurd to imagine that Aziraphale didn't want to go to battle at all and was forced to by other angels. That coul explain why in s1 he is, for once, so strong and determined when he tells the Quartermaster angel that he has "no intention of fighting in any war". Consider how remissive he tends to be with other angelic entities throughout the series: he is uncharacteristicly resolute here. It almost looks like he was setting a non-negotiable boundary here. 

Maybe Crowley is not the only one traumatized by what happened. Maybe after being forced to go into war, Aziraphale also experienced something terrible, a moment that scarred him forever. What could that be? Here it comes another bold hypothetical.

Maby he and soon-to-be Crowley run into each other and realize they both don't want to fight. Maybe they are on the verge of developing the unfathomable thought of running away together from the battlefield. Maybe they almost try but keep getting separated by crushing waves of opposite legions. Maybe they finally manage to step away from the thick of the fight, but other angels surround them before they can even discuss what to do next. Maybe Crowley is struck by the unbearable cruelty and absurdity of what is going on and decides to protect the only pure, gentle, and actually good angel he knows from harm. So maybe he pretends that Aziraphale just captured him and let them take him away and put him with the other defeated angels. And for his achievement Aziraphale earns a promotion to principality that will forever remind him of that horrific moment, of how he could not find the courage to tell the truth and say something in Crowley's defense. 

Maybe this is why he is so obsessively attached to his place in Heaven, because someone he loved sacrificed himself in order to preserve it for him. Maybe this is why he is so fixated on the unspeakable desire to bring Crowley back to Heaven, not just as a compensation for a generic cosmic injustice but as atonement for his own fault. 

Maybe this is his side of the trauma. 

Maybe this is why, whenever he is in a state of emotional pressure, he tends to fall back on his black and white, "you are the bad guys, we are the nice ones" pattern of behavior. Because actual - clinical - trauma prompts the traumatize mind to deploy self-defense strategies, and if I can convince myself that you were evil all along, then I am not guilty of letting them catch you. 

(I still believe it would be interesting if Crowley actually "didn't really fall," but he willingly chose to leave Heaven - but I've already rambled on about it long enough here, and the two scenarios could even be compatible if my math is correct).

Maybe this is also why, when dispatched on Earth, he does so poor of a job (by Heaven's standards, of course). Because trauma also causes self-sabotaging behaviours leaning on the deep unconscious belief that you don't deserve to succeed and never will. How could you ever deserve to succeed if the accomplishment that gave you your very rank of principality - the word that defines who you are in Heaven's books - was a lie?

Maybe this is what makes the dialogue at the end of the Job minisode - and all the other bits of dialogue that he have on the same topic - so dramatic and tragic: Aziraphale needs to convince himself that he is worthy of the sacrifice that preserved his angelic status, and finding himself lacking in that department would activate the most devastating guilt. And even more he needs to convince Crowley of it, to prove to him (even if he probably doesn't remember it) that he didn't sacrifice himself for a fraud. He doesn't need to be an angel because he likes it, but because it was the identity that the angel who hung the stars bought him with his damnation.

Maybe this is why he shows such a pathological conduct about forgiveness and forgiving. Because under all the many, many layers of denial he believes that he is the one that has to be forgiven, but doesn't know how to ask for it, being afraid that he could be, in fact, unforgivable.

It is entirely unsupported speculation, of course, but imagine what it would mean if Aziraphale angelic identity was "stained" by such a gigantic deception, his "original sin," and he spent 6000 years in full impostor syndrome mode, repressing the thought of his unworthiness. Not out of fear of Heaven but out of fear of being a disappointment to the angel that Crowley was once (and that demon Crowley constantly reminds him of). Maybe Aziraphale has spent his entire existence telling himself that he had the duty to repay this enormous, secret debt by being the most irreprehensible angel ever, only to have this plan thwarted by the tempting presence of none other than Crowley himself. The most cruel temptation of all. Imagine being torn between the joy of misbehaving with the entity you love and the duty to be irreproachable, not for Heaven, but for the unspoken obligation that (you believe) this same entity put on you a long time ago.

It would mean that Aziraphale's struggle is not between his love for Crowley and his allegiance to Heaven, but between his love for Crowley and his obligation to (past) him. It would be not "I cannot love you because I am afraid of losing my place in Heaven," but "I cannot love you because if I lose my place in Heaven, I will have wasted your sacrifice and failed you again." It would be the tragedy of renouncing the happiness of being together with the person you love because you convinced yourself that that same person, when he saved your place in Heaven, implicitly gave you a mission that denies that happiness. "I cannot love you because if I do, I will betray you in the worst possible and most unforgivable way." "I cannot love you because you wanted me to be a good angel, and good angels don't allow themselves to love demons." "I cannot love you because you chained me to the duty not to." It would be tragic in the "classical tragedy" meaning of the word, like in Antigone by Sophocles (that Aziraphale actually namedrops in the 1941 flashback), where the main character is torn between two conflicting moral laws and cannot move without infringing on one of the two. But with the extra pain of having both laws coming from the same person and the person in question actively trying to pull you away from that (self-)imposed lawfulness in the meantime.

Honestly, by this point this is more a fanfiction than a speculation, but it would give us an explanation for why Aziraphale decided to take the Metatron's offer specifically after Crowley's reaction to the opportunity of being an angel again (when he leaves the Metatron, he tells him "you don't have to answer immediately. Take all the time you need", which means that he didn't say no, but he also didn't say yes). In this scenario, he is so excited for the prospect of restoring Crowley to his angelic status because he still pins his Fall on himself. The idea makes him so happy not because he wants to be together in Heaven (it's hard to imagine that he wants to go live there or doesn't know that Crowley is not interested) but because this would extinguish his imaginary debt and allow him to leave the cage where he held himself hostage for 6000 years. The cage that prevented him from getting to close to a demon. With Crowley restored as angel, Aziraphale would be "off the hook," and they could finally "go off together." He would not feel chained to his heavenly rank anymore. It's not "come back to Heaven so I will not be trouble by our love," it's "come back to Heaven so you I will be relieved of the duty of being worthy of my rank and be free to be the kind of questionable angel that can love a demon." 

It's only when Crowley refuses to go back - and only then - that Aziraphale feels definitely compelled to take the role of Supreme Archangel. If his moral duty to be a worthy angel cannot be erased, it must be paid entirely. And the payment is sticking with the responsibility that he thinks Crowley gave him, to live up to his rank of principality, to do good and, even better, to "make a difference," which, in his mind, would be the ultimate way to honour that never forgotten sacrifice, sacrificing himself in return.

[demonfamilytherapist]

What if there’s an MC who’s willing to side with Celestial Realm, for whatever reason they may have?

(Referencing this post.)

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t see it ending well for anyone. I’m viewing the choice of who to side with as like… otome routes, or Fire Emblem games. Like the choice of who you side with fundamentally shapes the nature of your relationships going forward. War is going to fuck people up regardless, and no relationship would escape unscathed, but to me the Celestial Realm route is the “tragic love/everything goes wrong” route.

The demon bros might prefer you side with the Devildom (the royals certainly would) because it’s easier for them and let’s them keep your relationship as uncomplicated as it can be in war. But choosing the human realm - even ordering them to fight for the human realm - they’d get it. Especially if MC has any sort of family/siblings there, which they probably do, because they are human. MC has something to protect in the human realm. The brothers and the royals can take care of themselves - MC’s family and friends probably can’t, at least not in a cosmic war.

Your relationships might take a big hit, but I think they would recover - maybe over the course of decades, but still. Diavolo might even be more inclined to a quick treaty with the human realm as well. As someone with a responsibility to the Devildom, I think he would understand and respect you treating the human realm the same way.

But the thing is, most of the brothers have never held any real animosity towards the human realm, and the one who very famously did later acknowledged his anger was misdirected. After all, Lilith fell in love with a human, but it wasn’t the humans who declared she had to be punished for the actions she took to protect that love.

I don’t see the brothers feeling anything but betrayed if MC chose the Celestial Realm - a place they barely know, where they’ve met maybe three people - over the Devildom or the human realm. Diavolo, too, I think would struggle to understand it.

I think the only people who would be happy about such a decision would be Luke and maybe Raphael and Michael (on a tactical level, if not a personal one). And I didn’t forget Simeon - I think he’s shown enough doubt for the Celestial Ream and care for the brothers that his feelings would be mixed, at best.

As for the rest of the Celestial Realm, I’d imagine they wouldn’t entirely trust MC. After all, they have pacts with the seven rulers of hell - surely they must be tainted? Either you don’t use your pacts and the angels don’t trust you, or you do, forcing the brothers to fight alongside the realm they fought a war against, the realm that tore their sister away from them, and lose pretty much any chance of reconciliation with your demons. Ordering them to sit out might be a way to avoid the worst of the fallout, but this is a real “you’ve found a way to win where everyone loses” type situation.

You’ve mentioned “whatever reason” in your ask, but I do think their reasoning would play into all of this too. Is MC worried about Luke’s safety in the war? Is MC the world’s biggest Raphael stan? Is it a matter of religion?

The latter I would actually find really interesting. An MC who has kept their faith throughout all the events of Obey Me, to the point of trusting the Celestial Realm over the devils they literally know, over the human world, knowing the damage it’s going to do to their relationships… I’m not religious, so I can’t say I understand the reasoning, but I do believe it is compelling. If anyone has a religious perspective to add, I would love to hear it.

You might notice Solomon is absent from this post, and the truth is I keep going back and forth over how he’d react. I tend to lean towards an “accidentally immortal” MC, so I believe they’d be able to reconcile over the years… but I do think it would be a big hurt to Solomon, who after standing alone for years finally found someone he thought would protect the human world alongside him.

I also want to note that I wrote this on the basis of our canon experiences only - if anyone’s MCs have been to the Celestial Realm more often and developed stronger ties there, that also changes things.

But overall, while war never ends well for anyone, I see siding with the Celestial Realm the most painful choice MC could make. Whether it would be worth it, would be up to that MC.

[greenerteacups]

love how you write snape ie. with the acknowledgment that he is the single funniest character in the series. i don’t think jk really hit all the notes she was going for with him but he’s genuinely thee most entertaining character, especially once alan rickman gets involved. like every single year harry is convinced that the meanest teacher in school is out to get him and every year PSYCH he was protecting you the whole time, which is super doubled down on in the final reveal. sorry harry his heinous behavior towards you was not because he is aligned with the evil faction but bc he personally hates your guts for extremely petty reasons. yes i will save potters life but i will not be nice about it. beautiful. anyway you’re doing such a good job with him i love the dynamic you’ve given him and draco with draco coming to his classroom to sit and bitch on his desk while snape brews evil potions and ignores him <3

thank you <3 snape is so much fun to write because his life sucks SOOO bad but he literally does it to himself. everything about his situation because cosmically and stupendously funny when you realize he Does Not Have to Be Here. at first you think albus dumbledore is punishing him by making him hang out with snotty kids (whom he hates) while protecting harry (whom he LOATHES) from his former boss (evil death god) and also doing secret dumbledore-work behind the scenes to keep harry from fucking his life up (hey can you protect this immortality stone i think voldemort wants to steal? oh whoops your leg got chewed up? sorry severus :( also maybe be careful bc there's a basilisk on the loose in the castle. whoops. oh and hey can you go grab harry and his pals? a werewolf is about to eat them :) thanks severus). on a TEACHER'S. SALARY. why? lily is dead, snape's stated reason for switching sides is gone, it's obviously not like he was philosophically compelled by the Not Being Evil of it all, so like... why? the "always" scene is clearly supposed to be this beautiful expression of undying devotion but in context it's actually snape going "how DARE you accuse me of giving a shit about this child" and then demonstrating emphatically that after 17 years he has absorbed absolutely NO fealty to the Cause or the Order or the principle of Not Being Evil, he does not care about Harry or any of the hundreds of other children he's saved, bc he's still doing this out of love/guilt/grief for a married woman he hasn't actually talked to in like. 22 years. so it's like ok ok ok you loved her enough to betray your cause and put yourself through excruciating mental and physical toil for literal decades and risk your life for people you don't know or care about and basically become the handservant of albus dumbledore, right, okay, but you DON'T love her enough to not be a dick to her son? like not once will you say ANYTHING nice to this kid. you'll rip your life apart at your seams for her memory but when it comes to not shitting on her one living descendant it's too far. okay. okay. insane. character of all time

[quibbs126]

Okay, so the idea I came up with today was inspired by me listening to Mr Brightside at Gravity Falls (basically a mashup of the Gravity Falls Intro theme and Mr Brightside) while I was getting food this morning, maybe a bit too much

So we have this guy (don’t have a name for him yet), who’s basically just an office worker, nothing particularly exciting, and one night as he’s coming home from work, while on the train back everything goes dark, everyone else on the train is gone, and there’s some blue light as the train door opens, and when he gets out he’s transported to some freaky other world. I realize this just sounds like an isekai (I think, I don’t actually watch a lot of isekai). But instead of some fantasy world or some other, he’s transported to this dark world full of eldritch horrors, and he’s just trying to survive and get home, back to his cat Mitski

The premise in my head was specifically “Gravity Falls but the protagonist is a 20 something year old guy with an office job”. But also it’s not really Gravity Falls, the place is more messed up and a lot less friendly. Heck I’m not even sure if there are any other humans here. But it does have relatively modern buildings, it’s some sort of weird modern day torn in the middle of nowhere, it’s just there’s no one there but him and the horrors

The closest I have is him meeting a young girl that lives at a cabin who offers him a place to stay, but as it turns out she’s actually some horrifying creature (and her transformation is like really messed up too) that wants to eat him. Or at the very least he meets a young girl and declines her offer to follow her because he’s convinced this scenario will happen as it already has

But yeah basically, this place probably isn’t somewhere for family friendly TV, or at least wouldn’t be on Disney

I’ll be honest I don’t have a lot for the plot. There should probably be more characters

All I know is the protagonist is a bit of a coward and pathetic, but mostly just in a way of “he would much rather just run away from these things than find any way of defending himself, since he’s pretty sure he’d die”. He is just a normal guy, he is not equipped to handle cosmic horrors. He’s half convinced this is some sort of karmic punishment because he doesn’t really like his job. He swears that he will be so happy to go back to it once he’s finally out

I kind of don’t want to give him a way to defend himself, like a weapon or anything. I feel like it takes away from his character in some way, giving him a way to fight back. I know he has a briefcase. Don’t know if that’s important

Oddly enough though I have things about his cat, Mitski. Which in all honesty I probably shouldn’t name her that because I already have a character named Mitzi, but ah well. But speaking of her name, Mitski is technically Mitski II, with Mitski I being the protagonist’s childhood cat that at this point has passed away. Also Mitski is like, his only emotional support in life. He doesn’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend (maybe he had a girlfriend but she left him sometime before the story. Not sure if I need that drama though, it’s not like she’ll be important)

I don’t know if I should have Mitski in the town or not. I mean, she’s important enough that she should probably appear, but I don’t know how considering she probably didn’t come to work with the protagonist that day. If she does show up, then she generally locates herself on the protagonist’s shoulders. And she’s probably got some intelligence to her

Anyways yeah, idea I had

[stevesjockstrap]

Eddie Month day 4

prompt: rejection & lost

Since he’d cut gym class so many times last semester (and maybe last year), he’d been forced to take it again with underclassmen. Namely, Steve Harrington and his dickhead friends. 

He knew he should keep his eyes down and to himself in the locker room. He knew better. But that didn’t change how his eyes would track across the room to count the moles on the span of ribs as a polo shirt was pulled off. 

When he finally got a grip and pulled his own gym clothes on, he was the last one in the locker room. Or so he thought. 

As he went to walk out into the gym he was shoved against the brick wall. 

“I saw you looking at me, freak.”

He stared back into intense dark eyes, not sure what to say. There wasn’t much to say, he’d been caught. 

“Oh I- uh. Well-“

“You’re lucky that coach told us to stay out of trouble or we don’t play. Or you’d be dead. You better watch yourself, man.”

“Uh huh,” he nodded. Apparently that was enough because Steve walked away from him without another word. 

In some cosmic twist of bad luck, he found himself paired up with Steve. For the Presidential Fitness Test. Eddie was the only one who groaned when they were told what they were doing. Everyone looked at him and he covered his face with his hair. He wondered if he could fake a cramp or actually make himself throw up. 

“Let’s go, Munson. My grandma does better sit ups and she’s been dead for ten years.” Steve got high fives from his friends around them. 

This might be the worst day of his entire life. He’d never been more excited to hear the buzzer go off and he could switch places with Steve. Steve who easily tripled the number of countable sit ups than he had accomplished. 

He sighed as they were told to do pushups next. 

“Are you even trying, man?” Steve scoffed from above him. 

“Unfortunately yes,” he huffed. He did a few more before the buzzer went off and stood. Unsticking his sweaty hair from his neck, he glared at his annoying partner. “You know, not all of us are trying to impress anyone in stupid high school gym class. This means fuck all to our actual lives, you know that right? In twenty years it will not matter how many fucking push-ups you did. This is just to keep us compliant and prepare us for the cruel and unusual punishment that is our collective society once we graduate!”

There were some scoffs and some laughs from around the gym. Somewhere towards the end of his rant he’d lost control of his volume and gained everyone’s attention. 

“Public speaking is a different class, Munson. Get it together and get with the program.” Their gym teacher’s voice echoed across the gymnasium. 

“Your turn, hot shot,” he motioned for Steve to take his place. 

Steve ignored him and proceed to do an impressive amount of pushups. It continued this way through the rope climb, sprints and long jumps. Eddie mumbled his monologues to himself. Steve ignored him.

Eddie groaned again as they were directed to a starting line to run a mile. What he would do for a cigarette right now. 

A few minutes later, he was holding his side propped against the wall, trying to suck in breaths past the stitch in his side. For some unknown reason, being with this group of people who were actually trying to do their best had made him want to try. And now he was paying for it. For all of his big talk about nonconforming, something in him still wanted to belong. But he never could.  

Steve ran past at breakneck speed and didn’t even glance at him. Figures. Why would he care if he passed out? Still sucking in breaths, he slid down the wall and sat watching everyone finish. 

“So that’s a Did Not Complete for the mile, but that was a lot more hustle than I’ve seen from you. Keep it up, kid.”

“Perfect, thanks so much,” he saluted sarcastically as he walked past. 

He kept his head down in the locker room as he got changed.

@eddiemonth

@lighthousebeams this request turned into angst soz 🖤

[the-mocking-robin]

See, I can't pull up, like... Priests. And their interpretation of the ten plagues. Specifically speaking, a priest's job of educating followers to the context of the Holy Book is secondary to ensuring their place in any community is secured. They're likely educated akin to religious scholars, but there's no vested interest in them for discussing context for what is being said unless it pushes forward some sort of agenda.

... For modern priests, anyway.

That aside, reading from scholars is always Hell and they never agree on anything, so I'mma just go with the guy on this and know in my heart I'm likely Super Fucking Wrong.

I do think the idea of G-d acting as a passive consequence is... More in line with my personal beliefs. Imagining G-d giving a false idol the power of having a final say in his own people's lives — leaving it to Moses to work around and protect the Hebrew slaves with his knowledge of what's to come, what has been, what will be — is wild to consider.

But that's mostly with the perspective of thinking this is an all seeing, all knowing, ever present being who understands the consequences of any course of action and picks which is best depending on the outcome they wish to have.

For G-d to see the ruler of the oppressors of his people turn around and just decide, "Actually. Yeah. You can go," and decide that wasn't enough? It leads to a few assumptions of G-d and his character.

Giving G-d the benefit of the doubt, there might've been ✨godly foresight✨ at play. Maybe making a bigger show of their release was made to prevent a greater war in the future. Or to give reassurance that G-d was there and even at the worst wouldn't leave them in Egypt. Maybe he wanted to prevent Egyptians from thinking this was possibly a good idea to try twice, and make them reconsider who they enslave.

The Catholic in me says that's not it. He was angry and spiteful. He saw a "false God" and decided that they needed to be punished for trying to impersonate him. Even if the Pharaoh wanted to, he would've never been allowed to just let the Hebrews go, because it would be G-d's thirst for blood that hadn't been satiated, and this was the chance to get it. (This is the take that makes a passive G-d feel kind of interesting to me. If he wants the blood, why would he let someone else ruin his own people instead of knowing it'd be done right, himself?)

A more practical take on this is probably something in the middle. It's almost a publicity stunt. A reminder to the Hebrews of their G-d and a final claim from the Egyptian Pantheon that these specific people were his and not to be used for their worship, even through the Sun God Born Flesh. Divine politics and all that.

I don't know if I find it ... Comforting. Eye for eye shit on a cosmic scale feels like it shouldn't happen. If there is one G-d, there's no real competition to fight, no real wrongs done that can't be handwaved away, situational freewill or no.

It feels like politics. But you're in a monarchy. You vote but there's only one candidate, who's just running under multiple names. It's conflict for the theater of it and not because of genuine care for the world. The courts/council are all too comfortable to change the way things work. Why would they challenge anything?

(Am I blaspheming right now? Probably. I'll say my Hail Marys later.)

But... Yeah. Lots to think about.

Mm. The hardening of the Pharaoh's heart during the plaguing of Egypt.

That's fun to think about theologically.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Yamada: so how did you and izuku start dating

Aizawa: I saw him crush a watermelon with his thighs and I accidentally said out loud “oh god I wish that were me right now” and here we are now

~The way this immediately and completely ate my entire brain~

Of three things Aizawa Shouta is absolutely sure:

One, he simply was not built for operating during the daylight hours. Nighttime really is where it's at in his opinion. The general lack of crowds and eye-searing sunlight just can't be beaten. (Dusk and dawn hours also get a pass but they're both on thin ice.)

Two, the beach is a sandy hell-scape whose only redeeming factor is the convenient access it provides to the eldritch horror that is the ocean aka the place he'll doubtlessly end up drowning himself when he finally, and according to Hizashi inevitably, snaps and runs gibbering mad into the abyss.

And three, he's absolutely and irrevocably cursed. He's being singled out and punished from on high by the gods themselves. His name is writ large across the cosmos in mockery. There is a cosmic "kick me" sign taped to his spiritual back and Shouta's going to hunt his former student Sero down and give him detention for life for encouraging his family's patron god to put it there.

By this point it's really the only logical explanation.

Which, as a card-carrying atheist, he's pretty sure is saying something about the depth of his feelings regarding his current circumstances.

Because there's no other explanation for why or how he's managed to find himself in this current situation.

The situation being, of course, Shouta, in full hero gear, standing in the hot sun on a pristine sandy beach, surrounded by screaming fans as he provides extra security and crowd control for the 20th Annual Heroic Sukiwari Charity Drive.

Shouta has seen hell and it is both Ms. Joke's open mic night and this exact moment right here.

Because, again, he's absolutely 100% cursed.

And the avatar of said curse is, obviously, his soon-to-be ex-best friend who somehow roped him into this entire thing.

Because some people say divine retribution when talking about cosmic revenge plots but Shouta tends to just says Yamada Hizashi. The two are, in many ways, interchangeable.

Shouta's going to put purify salts in all of Hizashi's hair products and also his sugar jar and possibly his energy drinks the next chance he gets.

Because if he never sees another shirtless pro-hero or another watermelon again in his life it'll be too soon.

He's pretty sure he has permanent hearing damage from all of the screaming and screeching the crowd's been doing since this thing started.

And if, after all these years of friendship with the personification of a megaphone, watching a bunch of pro's crush watermelons with nothing but their personal strength on a beach to raise money for various charities is what finally destroys his hearing Shouta is going to shave Hizashi bald before he finally embraces sweet death.

Or enacts Nezu's birthday plans and becomes a supervillain.

The jury's honestly still out at this point.

Shouta does his best to shut out the screaming behind him as one of the cameramen slides up beside him, getting a better angle on the stage as Hizashi, who's currently screeching about Miruko's performance, practically dances across the sand in front of where Shouta's standing.

"Wow, wow, wow," Present Mic chants as he dramatically fans himself, "that was one on heart-stopping, hare-raising show. Let's give it up for everyone's favorite bad, bad, bunny, Miruko!"

For her part, Miruko just struts off the small stage with a nonchalant wave to the crowd, her tiny white bikini in place and the pulverized remains of the half dozen watermelons she'd dropped kicked into soup left behind her.

"But don't lose that rhythm yet listeners," Mic announces gleefully. "Because we've got one more hero set to take the stage! So, without further ado, it's the moment I know a lot of you have been waiting for, myself included if we're being honest. The pièce de résistance of our little shindig, the showstopper himself, the one, the only, the #1 Can Do Hero Dekiru."

The crowd is absolutely deafening.

And, for once, Shouta has to grudgingly admit that he can't actually blame them.

Shirtless, sculpted shoulders and tight abs on display thanks to his low sitting and almost criminally short green swim shorts, and with his trademark bashful smile in place, Dekiru trots out from behind the curtained-off area with a crate of watermelons resting on his shoulder like it's no big deal.

Shouta's pretty sure someone to his immediate right faints but considering they're not currently a trample risk he ignores it.

But the casual show of strength with no quirk use in sight is more than a bit impressive.

For all that people, romance specifically, and attraction in general, have all been things to be considered on a firm case-by-case basis for Shouta, even he has to admit that Dekiru is ... captivating.

Rather drastically so for Shouta considering he's never actually met the man before in person.

Though Shouta does feel like he almost knows him on some level considering the fact that it really would take an act of the actual gods to get Yagi to shut up about his erstwhile protege during staff meetings.

Dekiru waves his free hand at the crowd as he sets his crate of watermelons down on the stage.

"Show us what you've got!" Mic demands from a few feet to Shouta's left. "And let's give him some encouragement listeners!"

The crowd starts up a loud and steady chant of "De~ki~ru!" as the hero pulls his first watermelon out and begins his set.

With an effortless flex of muscles, Dekiru digs his fingers into the watermelon and wrenches it completely in two.

Shouta reaches up to tug at the top of his uniform, relishing the small sip of cool air it grants him.

Shoulders and biceps flexing, another watermelon meets its end between Dekiru's palms.

Shouta really needs to add a water bottle to his utility belt because hydration is important. Or so he's been repeatedly told.

"Those hands, those muscles," Mic groans dramatically. "He really is the Can Do Hero!"

Cheeks noticeably flushed, Dekiru sits down on the stage and fits a watermelon between thick, toned thighs.

His hips twist, those thighs flex, and the watermelon cracks, spilling juice and sweet pink flesh all over Dekiru's lap.

"Oh god," Shouta can't help but say, "I wish that was me right now."

On stage Dekiru's eyes go wide as his attention somehow abruptly zero's in on Shouta.

It's at that moment that Shouta becomes aware of the deafening silence that's fallen over the beach.

Head-turning agonizingly slowly to the left, Shouta's confronted with the sight of Mic, microphone in hand, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

His sunglasses are askew and he's staring at Shouta with a look on his face that's one part horror and one part unholy glee.

As a matter of fact, the entire beach is staring at him in much the same way.

For a moment Shouta just freezes, body going still at having so much attention turned in his direction.

This ... was not the turn he was expecting the day to take by far.

His first instinct is to, honestly, use his scarf to slingshot himself directly into the sun so his soul can be cleansed with cosmic fire.

But then ...

"Ah," Dekiru speaks up from on the stage, one hand ruffling the back of his hair and cheeks darker than before, "maybe we could go on a date first though? If you'd like?"

There's suddenly a part of Shouta that doesn't actually want to delete himself from existence via self-immolation.

And there's an even large part that doesn't want to outright reject Dekiru's seemingly sincere offer.

Because, when it all comes down to it, Dekiru seems to be, by all accounts, what passes for exactly Shouta's type.

Whip-smart if his very public arrest record and tendency to argue online and on the air with people he disagrees with is anything to go by.

Cute, with that dark green hair and sharp undercut, matching wide eyes, and a face sprinkled liberally with freckles.

Leanly built and small enough that Shouta's sure he could move him around easily but obviously muscular enough to be able to put up just the right amount of resistance in the right situation.

And, above all else, if the stories are to be believed, obviously some degree of batshit insane.

More than one story Yagi had told during breaks had Shouta questioning if the man had imported special American demons back to Japan and then stuffed them all into the deceptively charming and approachable-looking hero that is Dekiru.

So there's really only one logical way to proceed forward in this situation.

Shouta grins.

Several people in the crowd around him step back.

He's pretty sure he hears someone start reciting a prayer.

But Dekiru just blushes, eyes locked on Shouta's and teeth tugging at his lower lip.

"Hope you like coffee," Shouta finally says into the breathless silence that's fallen over them, "and cats."

Dekiru lights up, a smile brighter than the sun and twice as deadly blossoming across his face.

Just off of Shouta's side, Hizashi's busy having some kind of hysterical seizure.

Around them the crowd is going absolutely feral.

Yagi's going to birth actual kittens in the middle of the staff room when he finds out about this.

Shouta can't wait.

[sunderedandundone]

Possibly controversial [Dark Crystal SkekGra/UrGoh] HCs

Or I don't even know if it IS HC so much as kind of an inverse HC, in that it's a place where like 90% of the fandom seems to HC in stuff that I don't? Here we go. Please be gentle. As always, I pledge to the flag of #AllHCAreValid.

I think Gra and Goh are incredibly lonely out there in the desert, and aren't at all enjoying that aspect of their lives.

I mean, I would hope this WOULDN'T be that controversial? After all, these are characters whose very titles establish that they like to go around Thra and interact with all its lifeforms and stuff (the *form* the interaction took might've varied, but...)

And when the Gelfling show up on their doorstep, Gra is more hype than a golden retriever puppy. Mind you, we can and should attribute part of this to drugs, and part of this to the sheer pleasure of knowing one's many-trine-long shop projects were not wasted and the Hail Mary pass to save Thra and make themselves whole has finally connected.

But even given that, they just seem SO super hyped that I have to think that, y'know, birb who's had no or very little social stimulation in hundreds of trine miiiight feel a little relieved to be entertaining company. :-)

The only reason I even 'worry' this is controversial is because so many fanficcers -- and I mean from the really-great to the not-so-great -- seem to treat the half an Age the two spend at the Circle of the Suns like...almost a couples getaway? A blessed idyll? And they do this with such light, offhanded assurance, as though it's one of those things of which the Dothraki say, It Is Known.

Again, #ALLHCAREVALID, but I personally find this difficult to get...*as* someone who's been gifted with what I well know is the sheer dumb cosmic luck of living many many years with my True Love, or what's surely within a degree of the closest to true love as exists on mortal earth. Like, I am exceedingly, eternally grateful.

It's just that...and I hope I'm not bursting the bubble here...even the Truest love is still hard work, it won't last if you don't work it, and even if you really really do it can still end. And no matter how goopy goo-goo eyes y'all are in the relationship's first stages, eventually everybody but the most intro introverts is going to find that the company of one person is just not enough to make a livable life out of. It just isn't. I heartily wish each and every person who actually desires a True Love in this life to acquire one -- but just know that it's not like in the movies. It's not even going to be easier than your other less-epic relationships were. Maybe in some ways harder, in fact.

It'll just be more *worth* the agony.

Even that, you might sometimes doubt. But in the end there's something hard to describe that still makes it worth it. That's the main difference I've discerned. <--[[NB: *Does not* apply to abusive lovers]]

Being forever out in the neverwhere alone with your love for an indefinite period isn't a recipe for wedded bliss. It's a recipe for driving yourselves and each other to drink. Ask like 2/3rds of retired couples, especially the ones where one or both partners were working outside the house AND (points at this and points AT SKEKGRA) deriving their identity from their work -- and then suddenly......not.

Once more, #ALLHCAREVALID and I have seen this trope written beautifully and I have enjoyed reading those beautiful pieces, but strictly from a suspending-disbelief standpoint just...no. Also I have to admit, something in me rebels at the idea that NOTHING of what the Skeksis (AND Mystics, in my telling) go out of their way to make an *especially painful* punishment is really -- sticking around in any meaningful way. That they're just like "oh welp, like we care, what more to life is there than making puppets, smokin' that crack, and each other." To me, it kinda cheapens the sting of the whole banishment, and I feel like it should have ongoing sting. The nail is NOT self-installed, and the exile is NOT a blissful retirement to the Bahamas.

On that note:

2. I seem to be one of the very few people in the fandom who doesn't ship them in the *traditional* sense, either.

I mean, I know. It's fandom. Fandom seems, from this relative newb's perspective, to be ~70% about sex no matter what the IP. :-) So I shouldn't be surprised to find myself in a minority.

And a minority many of whose fellow occupants I find odious because a lot of them are in the "no homo" school, or else the school of "Henson was a nonsexual, anerotic, angelic being who would've been SCANDALIZED by people writing sex scenes with his characters, even though he gave the Jen puppet an entirely extraneous wang AND started *The Dark Crystal* with an Edenic scene of nude Jen saved from an R rating *only* by a literal strategically-placed leaf." Like, just in case any parents in the audience needed the warning that this was not a small-kids, fluffy movie. ^^ (Funny thing is, I took it totally in stride as a kid watching it in the theater run. It was only on rewatch as an adult that I was like "HOLY SHIT was Henson making a statement with this, and oh God no *wonder* this quasi-flopped, people surely must have thought this was weird and Inappropriate for Children -- even though I of course still think it isn't.")

Yeah, nah. Are you kidding me? This is a puppeteer who grew up in the *40's/50's in Mississippi* and then ran off to TVLand in the 60's to eventually make tons of money off his weirdness. OF COURSE HE WAS A FREAK, and you know what? I find that wonderful news. (Bro, have you even heard the Frank Oz funeral-eulogy story? *QE fucking D*.)

But then when I go to explain that I don't conceive of Gra/Goh as a conventional romance but as something that kinda transcends any experience us single beings can know, other fen think that I am dissing Mere Romance and Mere Sex as being beneath me, or beneath the characters. Again -- hell no. Good, believable, stirring romance and sex are hard as hell to write and my respect for those who can do it is very high. And romance and sex IRL? They are awesome. Five stars. <3

I'm just saying these are literally personality-instanced aliens, is all.

I am officially agnostic, though I have my private opinions subject to change without notice, about whether Skeksis/Mystics have any kind of reproductive equipment. Or anything like what modern humans consider 'erotic' feelings (physical or mental). There are valid cases for and against. And although I don't personally write such content, I don't object to the depiction of erotic or sexual activity between Gra/Goh either. Hell, IF they had the slightest capacity for it and they thought for one single instant it might help them rejoin into their UrSkek, I think it's safe to assume they 'd try it at least once for that reason alone.

I just want the dyad to be something beyond that. And again, I don't mean beyond as in superior. I mean beyond as in Other, as in alien, as in behind a paywall very few other beings can get through in their mortal lifetime. And yes, as in spiritual -- though for a third time, I'm not parsing 'spiritual' as 'better than affairs of the mere flesh.'

And I try very hard to make sure I write it *as* that -- to make sure that I'm not just doing a deep platonic friendship (as wonderful as those are) or a 'brotherly' relationship, but putting in material that sorta blurs the very boundary of the self, the definition of personality, the idea that a person can only be in one place at a time.

As I go, in fact, it's developed almost toward an idea of the Skeksis and Mystic personas being *masks* or *roles*, on some fundamental level -- a self-illusion that each half occasionally, disconcertingly, briefly becomes aware of here and there, but then almost always panics and buries. I'm talking about, you could have one of those Shakespearian SkekVar/SkekSo scenes going, and all of a sudden poor SkekVar realizes that NONE of this is actually the General talking to the Emperor at all -- it's *VarMa talking to SoSu*. Only for some bizarre dream-logicky reason, they're wearing these weird faces and playing these weird murderbird characters...almost like they're onstage in a play they somehow can't opt out of acting in. And when they want to relate to the others of their kith, somehow, it can only ever be through the filter of this mask. So they're never saying what they truly want to say to the other Twice-Nine, or even usually thinking what they want to think; instead, the *best* they can ever do is grope blindly toward each other's souls, trying to interpret the hazy signal of the other Ur/Skek through this noise of these adopted personae -- and why bother because it's all fake anyhow -- but then if it's fake, why is it all they know, and nothing they can seem to escape from?

And *that* would within about 3/4ths of a second be FAR too much for a simple birb like SkekVar to deal with. So the most signal you'd ever get from them that it'd even happened is merely ::snort:: :-D And pretty soon the episode of ego-vertigo would dissipate -- drowned in the bodily experience of the normal persona with extreme prejudice aaand probably a lot of food and booze. ^^ There'd still be mysterious moments in which, however many leagues apart, Var and Ma would briefly seem not like 'opposites' but like a resonant pair, almost as if they had some shared nature and path after all...this is something, though, that only the very few who get to see both sides (*such* as Gra and Goh --or perhaps on the longer scale, Aughra) might have any inkling of.

See what I mean though? It's hard to even articulate! Because it kinda should be, I guess. :-D I guess that's my point.

Again, #ALLHCAREVALID! This is simply what *I* *me* *personally* want to do with the opportunity that the divided-soul trope in DC represents. I enjoy giving Gra and Goh these experiences of disrupted self within my fiction. (Btw, apparently LSD &c primarily work THROUGH disrupting the part of the brain responsible for a sense of distinct self :-( #Imjustsayin #urdrupes)). And I enjoy looking through their eyes to see the selves of the other UrRu/Skeksis -- showing the personalities of the latter to be blurrier and more self-contradictory than one would have thought, as well.

And then, by contrast, the fleeting moments where Gra/Goh do experience something close to full unity -- be it achieved by a vision or a dream or let's be honest drugs -- would be way more intense to them than what you or I could possibly experience. Us being people who get to just blithely go about all day sure of our unified self, at least 99% sure of where the border between us and the rest of *idam*, this thing, All There Is, lies. (The other 1% is called either "satori" or "hallucinogenic therapy"/"ayahuasca experience"/etc. :-) )

We aren't without our times of not being sure who the hell we are or which of two completely incompatible things we want, of course. Which is why UrSkeks and the divided-soul trope writ large have relevance to human experience. We all have our times. But most of us don't have it often enough to even come close to fucking up our faaairly comfortable everyday sense of "I am this person and this is what I'm about." :-) These tree aliens are a different matter.

So it's not a problem with romance at all? ...It's more a devotion to the idea of the Otherness and alienness of the thing, because I personally feel like that's what Henson and definitely Froud were kinda trying to get at with the UrSkeks, and with what is eventually big-Revealed about the Skeksis and Mystics' true nature. (I remember that moment, too, in the theater. It was my first encounter with the trope and it was a bit mind-blowing. Like, that method of resolving protagonist/antagonist conflict in a story had honestly never occurred. ...I do have the excuse of being, what, nine or so? :-D But still. Striking. And I liked it.)

Anyway. Seemingly unusual, possibly controversial, hopefully not of such a nature though as to get anyone actually mad. ^^

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

I know Kid Cosmic is over now, but I have one more thought. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I don't think S3 explained why Papa G got the government's attention in the first place, or maybe it did not matter??

It’s unfortunately very common for cartoons to get cancelled before their time, with many things either left unresolved or hastily crammed into what little time the show still has. Spectacular Spider-man, The Legend of Korra, OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, Ducktales (2017), Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. etc. etc. The Owl House is getting its third and final season severely shortened, I hear.

Perhaps most relevant to your question, Anon, is Craig McCracken’s Wander Over Yonder, which got the same treatment. In that context, it’s no surprise CMC was laser-focused on Kid Cosmic’s main characters and storyline, even though it meant the side characters and worldbuilding weren’t expanded on much.

We don’t know Kid’s parent’s names. We don’t know their personalities. Presumably Kid’s mom is Papa G’s descendant, since she, Papa G, and Kid all have blonde hair and glasses and Kid’s dad has neither of those traits, but it’s never actually stated! And since Papa G is 112 years old, it seems unlikely that she’s his daughter, granddaughter or great-granddaughter is more likely. We don’t know anything about Papa G’s wife, either! And he mentioned the star on his hat was from his oldest son, implying he had at least two sons, which we also know nothing about!

As you mentioned, Anon, it’s never mentioned why Papa G got the government’s attention! Was it only the Biker in Black and his group that took notice of Papa G, or have other groups taken notice and are simply wise enough to let him be? Is this notice related to the main storyline, related to Papa G’s implied past space shenanigans, or both? What did Papa G get up to while in space?

Also we’ve got no info on Mo’s husband (Flo’s dad) or Flo’s husband (Jo’s dad), unless they’re both single moms who adopted their daughters? Also Fry apparently has a sister?

Also Chuck just kinda got shoved to the side after season 1, like, space has all this bonkers technology and he never got a new translator or robo-legs? His refusal to share Tuna’s translator... it’s painful for him to speak English unassisted, and he believes it is his “price to pay” for causing so much trouble. That kind of self-inflicted punishment is no doubt a leftover from his time as minion, but if you’ve done wrong, punishing yourself and groveling and acting obsequiously isn’t good for you or the person you’re trying to make things right with. Stepping forward is more important than bowing down.

Presumably his Great Leader is still out there being a conqueror and getting his minions killed left and right even without assistance from any Stones, but he was never dealt with, and his minions never freed! There’s a discussion about good vs. evil and learning and free will that we just never got.

Also the implication that Tuna Sandwich genuinely has human-level intelligence and it’s not just cartoon logic at work.

Also that the Portal Stone can transport people to a fantasy world? Like, did Queen Xhan know it could do that? How did Fantos know it could do that? As the fantasy world dissolved I.R.I.S. seemed distressed/in pain, so was it sort of real after all?

There’s also the Precognition Stone’s ability to see into the past, which could have also been used more. Did the other Stones have additional powers that could have been unlocked, then?

What’s the significance behind Fry’s tattoos? Why does Hamburg like pinecones so much? What’s Carl’s deal with vampires? What kind of cool biker adventures does Carla go on? What are Carlos and Ramona’s personalities like outside of being Rosa’s parents?

Also let me go on the record saying that I am pleased as fucking punch I was right about Erodius not actually being evil, though it’s still unclear as to whether it’s a naturally occurring entity or if it was created by someone, and whether or not it’s a person or can more accurately be compared to an animal or a computer program.

And that’s just off the top of my head, there is so much that could have been done with this world, but wasn’t. Even if CMC was given all the time, money, and staff he could ever want, I doubt he would have gone into every teeny tiny detail. Nevertheless, the story as is does suffer from being so “tight”.

Like, obviously what we did get was really fucking good and its flaws are minor when compared to its virtues, but I feel it’s still worth it to discuss its flaws. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[storysofmyown]

Seven stages of love Chapter 3: Ludus

Summary: Ever since the Celestial War, since they all fell, Asmodeus has  dedicated himself to his sin. Not caring about anything else, but  drowning himself in the pleasure and ecstasy of it all. But not anymore,  now he cant even handle the idea of it. But, what else is there to want? After so long of having indulged in his sin, what is there than  Asmodeus is looking for, something that will fill him, and that wont  drive him to destruction? Perhaps his brothers can help him with that. Warnings will appear in each chapter.

Trigger Warnings: Self depricatement (?), anger, mentions of exhaustion. Please tell me if I forgot to add one.

Word Count: 3278

Read on ao3

It had been at the very least an hour, and Asmodeus eyes had yet to focus on the damn page in front of him. His eyes were looking at the words. He was reading and he knew what each word meant, but it all felt like his brain refused to understand what was in front of him. He read the same word over and over again but in his mind all he could think about was Leviathans words and what it all meant to him. His heart rate had been calmer than ever before, but that didn’t mean it was good. That only meant that he was in such a state of confusion he had to look up from the book to realize he was in Satan’s room. A faint memory came to mind of him waking up in the middle of the day and making his way here. But…it was all fuzzy. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say it felt like his memories were submerged underwater. There was a faint recognition of things, words, and moments, a faint recognition of his own feelings…of the things that had presented themselves, and how distant they felt to him.

But, it all just felt so out of place. He knew his body was somewhere in the House of Lamentation, but his mind was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Almost as if it was traveling through a cosmic place with all the answers he could ever need; to all the questions he could ever ask. But instead of looking at the answers, he was in the middle. Just starring at the everything of the world through the eyes of an spectator, and not through the eyes of someone that had his own live. Perhaps, if he just reached out into the overwhelming darkness of the water that submerged his entire being, he would feel better. But how to reach out to the unknown? What if what laid on the other end was worse than what he knew now? In the end he let out an audible groan and set the book back on the stand, a pout on his lips.

“This is impossible!” He was incredibly tired. His eyes heavy and mind completely gone as he yawned and turned to Satan who was smiling foolishly at his book. That’s right, Satan had stayed in the room as well, but it’s not like either of them had registered each other’s presence. He had tuned out of the world entirely, and he was sure Satan had done the same. Speaking of which, the blond demon had muttered something under his breath, before proceeding to chuckle.

How in the world did he manage to pay attention to something for so long, Asmodeus wondered, before a sigh escaped his lips as he decided he should just give up this meaningless search that had become his life. Maybe it was time he finally accepted that there was no way he would ever understand the yearning that had kept him awake for so many years in the house. The aching to be simply hugged by someone who wanted to hug him. Perhaps that’s how he was meant to be for eternity. Had his father made it so he would end up as the Avatar of Lust as a punishment so that Asmodeus never felt that?

“Please, you don’t believe him, right?”

Satan spoke once again. Making Asmodeus raise an eyebrow at him as he decided it was enough self-deprecating for a day. Leviathan had made him question his existence enough the other day. And so, he proceeded to approach Satan, standing behind the demons couch and looking over his shoulder at the pages of the book.

“What are you reading?” Satan jumped, hitting Asmodeus in the face with his book, making the lustful demon groan a little as his hand flew to his face, tears burning on the corner of his eyes as he glared at Satan.  “What was that for?!” His comment effectively making the wrathful demon glare.

“Why were you reading over my shoulder?!” He snapped, glaring harder at Asmodeus which only made him scoff.

“I just wanted to know what you were reading, you jerk!” Satan stared at his brothers in confusion for a moment.

“…I thought you had gone back to your room already.” Satan’s sighs as he calms down, sitting in his original position.

“Well,” Asmodeus walked around the couch before propping himself on the other end of it. “you can be quite scary when we barrow your books. Hence why I was going to read it here and then go but…”

“But?”

“…I don’t know. I guess I just don’t have the attention span to spend hours reading.” Asmodeus shrugged, sitting on the couch before resting his back against the armrest, letting his head fall back as he stared at the ceiling. Breathing slower with each passing second, eyes drifting closed.

He was exhausted.

His eyes were heavy. He wasn’t hungry at all even if he had yet to eat anything since waking up. He was so incredibly tired, but during the night he couldn’t sleep. Part of him felt like it had been carrying with the same weight as Beel carried for hours on end, simultaneously feeling  like his legs wouldn’t be able to take him anywhere. It didn’t help that his brothers had been acting so strange with all the space…but perhaps it was his fault for worrying them. After all, Belphie and Levi probably already had told the rest of their findings. Satan was the only one that still treated him with some degree of normality. And even so he knew he was trying to act…gentler with him.

“…you wanted to know to what the book was about?”

Heh, another confirmation of his suspicions. Satan’s voice made Asmo sit up, looking at his brother with a raised eyebrow before nodding. He might as well try to act like his whole world had not fallen apart a few nights ago and unlike each passing day was eating him alive to the point where even the simplest task would make him go into a frenetic state. Oh well, might as well try to keep up the act. He looked at Satan before nodding, the demon not letting go unnoticed the lack of usual spark his younger brother had.

“Yes!”

“Well, in that case” Satan sighed, closing the book and looking at the back, examining it for a few seconds before nodding once more. “Very well, the story is about those two strangers.” He starts, looking at Asmodeus. “Two strangers that become the most important thing the other has.”

“Eh?” Asmodeus answered involuntarily. Shifting in his sit as he looked at Satan properly now. It was a…interesting concept.

Two strangers. They meet in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by everyone yet no one at all. The voices are echoed by how confused and lonely they are. But then…then they see each other. Satan said that they didn’t necessarily feel the sentiments that that word imply. That word...the one that kept coming back to him and placing itself against everything Asmodeus knew. That same word was plastered all over the book, in each page, and even in the cover. But even so, Satan stated the book claimed to not be that. He said…it was about some kind of…superficial sentiment. Some kind of crush they had. A brief moment of passion the two shared for one another after just that one moment.

Satan went on to describe their journey. And how as they slowly got to know each other they started to actually fall into a more intense feeling. But, to be fair, Asmodeus had stopped listening the moment Satan had said the first few sentences. Two strangers. Two complete unknown persons, and yet they managed to feel a certain type of affection towards one another. From all the people he had met, to all those he had merely shared a bed with. No names exchanged, no number, no way to see each other again, to those recurring visitors whom he had even their birthmarks memorized…he didn’t feel like that with any of them.

Were there people that could actually experience that type of devotion? Perhaps it was all just made up. Yeah, there was no way that existed. Have a sudden romantic infatuation for one another? Just like that?! No, Asmodeus refused to believe something like that could happen. It didn’t make sense at all!

“…are you even listening?” Satan’s voice finally registered as he sighed, closing the book and setting it down. “You are free to leave if you are that bored-“

“I don’t understand.”

“You weren’t listening to me. Of course you wont understand.”

“What? No, that’s not what I mean!” Asmodeus protested, half glaring at Satan now. Damn it, he was so damn confused. First Leviathan told him there was an entirely different kind section of that word, which was reserved for friendship, and platonic relationships. And now Satan told him that it was possible for two people to fall in adoration with one another although they were complete strangers?! He could have sworn that each time he learned something new it just helped to…to make him despise his sin even more.

Asmodeus took the book from Satan’s hand, the bookmark he had placed neatly between the pages falling, the page being lost as Asmodeus opened the book and scanned the first page, almost immediately devouring the content of the book like Beel would do with a restaurant if not stopped.

“…I was reading that” Satan protested, glaring at Asmodeus as he got to take the bookmark from the floor. The demon turned to place it on a table, before looking at Asmodeus. He had bag under his eyes. Something his brother would have never let be shown in the past, or let it be seen by anyone at the very least. Be it by an extensive amount of makeup or by his hour-long beauty regimen, it was strange for Asmodeus to let show anything that he deemed a “flaw” in his skin. And the way he was reading the book…he was desperate. A desperation Satan had certainly never seen in any of his family members to this day. “…you can give it back once you are done.”

“Mhm, yeah” Asmodeus answered briefly as he got up and walked over to the door, hitting the wall on his way out as his eyes refused to leave the page.

For the next 4 days, Asmodeus did nothing but be enthralled on the pages of the book. To be fair, he had finished it on the second day, but he had been rereading it. Over, and over again. Each time more vigorously than the last, his eyes jumped entire paragraphs he knew gave no useful information to the questions he needed answers to. How could two strangers fall in such a way for one another? How could it be that two complete strangers could experience more feelings on their first meeting than he had on his long life?! From the celestial realm to this very moment, the only feeling he could remember was that of lust and perhaps pity…sadness. No other feeling had ever made its way to him in the nights before, but now, now it was different. He felt something, and he wanted a certain feeling.

To him it was almost a lie. From all his experiences, never had any of the demons or demoness he had been with looked at him with something other than lust. They never sought to make a conversation that went past the names and the “where are we doing this?” In his mind it was impossible that a feeling so deep be felt so easily. Because if it did…then what would that say about him?

On the fifth night, as the dusk hit the Devildom, under what was the bleak light of the stars coming through the window, Asmodeus finished the book for the third time. His eyes focusing on the very last line. Those words. Those three simple words being muttered from one person to another. And no more words. Not an explanation, not a reason, not even a damn hint of why they felt like that on that very night. Asmodeus could feel some tears burning on his eyes as he glared at the book and threw it on the nightstand beside his bed. The stupid book had only left him with the same exact question that had been plaguing his mind from the night of his revelation. He hid under his covers, ignoring the ache of his heart, and went to sleep, only to dream of his inner broken, soul, and the void.

The next day, he went to Satan’s room to give him his book back. Praying to the father that had hurt them for the demon to not be on his room and he wouldn’t need to even mutter a word. But of course, that wasn’t the case.

“Ah, Asmodeus, I’m guessing you finished the book?” Satan’s voice was heard, prompting a sigh from Asmodeus as he fully stepped onto the room. The demon was on the high end of a stepladder, reaching for one of the top shelves.

“…yeah.” He spoke on a defeated tone.

“Did you enjoy it?” Satan asked, looking at one of the books, taking it out of the shelve and dusting it off. Asmodeus thought for a second. Had he enjoyed it? Well, its not like he was all that invested in the story. His focus was more on finding answers than it was on indulging into the story. And so, he couldn’t even recall the name of the characters, or the name of the book. Much less if he had enjoyed its content. But if he had to give an answer… “Asmo-?”

“No” They spoke at the same time. Setting the book down on the table, just as Satan looked down at Asmo, raising an eyebrow. He was about to ask why, but it would seem Asmo beat him to it. “How can two complete strangers feel something like that?!” He spoke, not even having given his brother another look, passing around the restlessly . Asmodeus tone increased slightly as he walked around the couch, hands moving and gesturing to the book. “Isn’t that sentiment supposed to be worked and developed with time as you get to know the person?! Isn’t it supposed to take years for people to finally realize the extent of their true feelings for another person?! It can’t be that simple! It can’t be as simple as walking into some place and making eye contact and just…and feeling it!”

“You don’t have to shout!” Satan spoke louder as well, before sighing as he watched Asmodeus shoulders drop and look away. For a moment Satan stayed silent as he analyzed Asmodeus words, thinking back to what he had read of the book before finally speaking. “…they didn’t fall for each other. At least not at first.” He states, starting to go down the steps of the ladder.

“Eh?!” Well that was a lie, Asmodeus thought. “Yes they did. The book describes it the first time they meet! They-”

“And upon their eyes meeting it was like the music faded. The bodies dancing around became shadows, all surrounded in black like the rest of their lives, only for the still barely noticeable grayish color the other made them see. With each step they took towards the other, the color became more vibrant, bright. They were like fire on a pitch black room for the other, and they smiled. For the first time, it wasn’t a calm or sweet smile. It was a nervous awkward smile, as they barely managed to announce their names. As they barely managed to exist close to the other.”

Satan finished quoting the book, making Asmodeus stare blankly at the demon as he frowned.

“Show off...” he remarked under his breath, just as Satan reached the last step, sighing. Instead of hopping onto the ground and walking over to Asmodeus he sat down, giving Asmo a look that made him step closer.

“The way it was described, the nervousness and awkwardness…I don't think they fell for each other, at least not in that very moment. Sure, they wanted to meet and get to know the other. And they found the other interesting, and upon that conversation is that they became important to one another…but I don’t think it was as intense as you think it was. It felt more…innocent.”

Innocence…that was something Asmodeus used to be familiar with. But he had lost touch with it the moment his body hit the grounds of the Devildom. Once he discovered this new world and all the things his body was capable of…the things his body wanted, he become detached from that part. Never did he imagine he would be missing that side of him. The side that didn’t need to be touched to be validated, and simply spending time laughing and talking would be enough to make him feel important. He wished he could go back to the moments where he wasn’t aware of anything at all. He missed not being himself. How cruel of the universe. To put right in front of him the description of what he had felt during those first encounters…the feeling he no longer experienced. The feeling of being alive as his skin was set ablaze by the wonderful sensations now he would hid from.

“…how cruel.” Asmodeus whispered, as he proceeded to sit beside Satan on the same step, resting his head on his brothers’ shoulder without thinking, their shoulders bumped together as Satan looked carefully at his brother.

“Cruel?” He raises an eyebrow.

“So…at first…they really didn’t feel anything for each other?”

“…I wouldn’t say that. They certainly felt something…but it isn’t the type of sentiment you thought it was. Truth be told…I think those two were so desperate to feel happiness and desired…that they fell in **** with the idea of a relationship and being wanted…and then it slowly morphed into what they had at the end. True, absolute devotion.”

Asmodeus stayed quiet at the mention of the word. But on his mind, there was such a turmoil that only grew with each passing moment. He didn’t know what he was missing. But he knew that when he found it, he would feel…whole. But each time he went to try and find it, he only came back with a bigger puzzle to resolve and with barely any pieces to put it together. With barely any grasping understanding of the subject that was torturing him night after night.

“…I still don’t understand.” He pouted, making Satan chuckle as he leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows as he tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I think that’s the point. It isn’t something that we are ever going to understand. Not fully, at the very least, it’s just…it’s just something that is.” Satan sighed, before looking back at Asmo who still had the same expression. A lost one. “…but that’s better. In my opinion, at least. What fun is there to have in a question that is so easily answered?” Satan merely got a hum out of Asmo this time.

But the demon was listening. And he was wondering. Perhaps his brother was right…but he was not about to give up finding a concrete answer. After all, it was the only thing driving him at this point.

Ludus: Flirtation, playful, lively. The discovery of a crush, its rooted on having fun.

****

Hello~, I hope you all had enjoyed this chapter. This chapter was so hard to write, honestly. Mainly because I didnt know how to have Satan make the connection and explain it to Asmo, but here it is, and I really hope you all enjoyed it! next chapter will be published on Saturday like usual, until then!

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[seijorhi]

Hello! I found your blog fairly recently and your stories are so good! I'm currently obsessed with your blog it's an issue. I don't have a request, but an idea that I wanna know what you think of. What would think of one of Haikyuu boys kidnapping a darling that has a terminal illness that he doesn't know about, and darling is like 'Ha, joke's on you. I'll be dead very soon.'

Oh. Oh this would be heartbreaking. I think it would work best with somebody obsessive - a perfectionist. A setter 👀 (where are my pretty setters at??) I’m thinking either Akaashi or Oikawa. 

TW mentions of kidnapping, death, abuse, general angsty themes

Assuming they don’t already know, they’re a little confused why you’re so calm initially with the situation? Like they’re happy, thrilled even, but they were expecting just a little bit of resistance at the bare minimum? 

But you’re just sitting there calmly, fiddling absentmindedly with the chain wrapped around your ankle as they talk. You don’t say anything then, why bother? They’re clearly delusional and it’s not going to make a difference, you’re dying one way or the other, might as well make the best of the little time you have left. Fighting them is only going to hurt you. So you let them hold you close, shower you with affectionate kisses and when that stray tear wells up and spills down your cheek as they go on and on about your beautiful futures together, well it’s easy enough to ignore.  

This isn’t what you wanted. Your last few months were supposed to be spent with family, with your friends, surrounded by the people you love. It’s a cruel joke, you suppose, that now you have to spend them with him - the person who loves you the most (or so he says). Life has never been kind to you, why should death be any different?

Except eventually you can’t hide the symptoms. Maybe it’s because you don’t have the medication you need, maybe it’s just that your time’s running up and as your body breaks down they start to get harder and harder to ignore. For somebody so obsessive, it’s actually amazing they haven’t already noticed. They find you in the bathroom one night, skin pallid, trembling and weak and when they swallow you up in another suffocating embrace, you break.

It’s bitter relief when the truth finally comes out, a sick satisfaction you feel in watching their expression darken. Disbelief, denial, horror, they flash across their faces, one morphing into the other too quickly for you to keep up. Their grip tightens, their head shaking fervently. You’re lying. You have to be. 

And then comes anger. You bruise so easily now, but it doesn’t scare you nearly so much as watching them rage and tear apart the bedroom they’d so painstakingly prepared for you, yelling, screaming, begging. When everything is in tatters, they fall back into your arms sobbing, and you feel like it’s cosmic punishment that you’re the one to comfort them, running a soothing hand up and down their back as they cling to you like a child.

When the dust settles, that’s when the panic sets in. They’ve worked so hard to finally have you, they won’t loose you, not to illness, not to anything. They don’t listen when you tell them that there is no cure, that all the doctors have tried everything, that short of a miracle, you’re going to die before the year is out. They throw themselves into research, find doctors (with questionable morals, you’re sure) to come and poke and prod you while they hover over you like an overgrown bat. You’re babied, forced onto bed rest while they wait on you, tending so diligently to your every need. At night they cuddle you so tightly, like they’re afraid that if they loosen their grip just a fraction, you’ll disappear like smoke in the air. 

It gets worse, and the worse it gets the more unhinged they become. They alternate between begging and screaming at you, shaking you like a rag doll with eyes blown wide with manic insanity. Even then, you don’t fight them. You don’t have the strength left.

(What right do they have to rage? You’re the one who’s dying.)

You always thought that you wanted more time, but now... now you think that dying would be a blessing.

[border-spam]

Leech Lord - When it's cold

TW: Dark thoughts, existential dread

Tyreen has always acted like coming here was the best decision she’s made for them, it’s pissed him off more than she’s ever appeared to notice, but then again her pretending like she isn’t picking up on his frustrations is nothing new.

She’s spent years singing this planet’s praises, how she loves everything about it and he should be thankful that his sister got them out of the cage that was their home, but she can’t lie to her twin. Never could, even though it’s not once stopped her from trying.

Troy knows her better than his own scars, and for all her intense skill in bullshitting, he sees through her every time. Even the times he really wishes he didn’t.

She fucking HATES Pandora as much as he does. Hell, maybe even more, her rage always tracked deeper through her bones than his could muster. He’s too tired to hate the way she does, it’s exhausting to burn with that dark a fury for so long.

He told her to her face the day they landed here that this planet was a shithole. He told her he wanted to go home, that staying here was not going to pay off the way she insisted it would for them. He’s told her the same thing practically every day since in one way or another, but she shrugs it off, twists it into a joke, reassures him in that silky smooth purr that it’s not that bad, that the filth of old blood in the sand and choking dry heat is worth it for what they have become.

Stars.

And maybe it would have been worth it if they had just stayed stars like she’d originally wanted, but things have changed over the years. He hates himself for believing her when he knew, just like he always did, that she was lying. Now that goal he worked so hard to reach for them both has been ripped from his grasp, now he’s stumbling behind her again as she demands he turn his cunning towards her new target - to be Gods, and Troy’s not sure he actually wants to be a God… not on Pandora.

He’s heard enough about the deities of this place from the natives to know whatever Pandora sees as holy is something far beyond his pathetic being. Shuddered as Jak-Knife wove myth of the great flood and the hunger beneath the sands, felt nausea snake through his stomach as they described something both terrible and disturbingly familiar. The eyes. The maw.

The great hunger of the mad song.

That’s not who he is even if the thrill of fear that runs down his spine when he considers it is almost pleasure, and it’s not who he wanted to be, if he still remembers correctly at least. The Troy he wanted to be is probably dead now, another desiccated corpse claimed by survival on Pandora. The possibility of that life is gone, he thinks. He’s not even really sure if he’s alive - the Troy he became in the end.

Tyreen says “We” will be Gods when she snares him so kindly in those manipulations whispered like love. “We” used to mean him and her back when they were two parts of the same whole and Mom would remind them how that would never change, but he’s started to really question if it has.

Tyreen’s “We” now rings with the dread of something he can’t quite place.

Nekrotafeyo was beautiful. Cool, rich blues marring into the same violet black you’d catch behind your eyelids just before drifting into sleep. The sky was so many colours at sunset, and plants, animals, all living things gently pulsed with a bio-luminescence that meant night was never true darkness. 

Pandora is dead.

It’s just.. sand and jutting rocks in formations that don’t track naturally, that gave him fever dreams for the first couple of years about the things that must have shaped them. The air tastes like chemicals. The dirt is laced with oil, it’s vile. It’s sticky, ravenously hot, freezing cold, and it doesn’t want you to live on it.

He won’t rule Pandora as a deity, he can’t. It’s not made for that. 

Pandora is a tomb, and in the back of God-King Calypso’s mind, he’s pretty sure he’ll die here just like the thousands who’ve gurgled his blessed name through their last breath in honor to their Holy Father. He won’t go in a blaze of glory, those are for the good and he’s anything but, he’ll just probably be a corpse his sister uses as a stepping stone to lurch towards her divinity.

That sounds about right for someone like him, and as the years go on, as he realises Seifa is not coming back and his friends are cracking under the burden of his existence in their lives, he thinks about it more and more.

Sometimes, on those icy cold Pandoran nights when he can’t sleep, when he’s been awake days and his eyes feel like their full of grit and joints ache with every breath, he goes outside.

Sanctum is docked near the pinnacle of the Grand Cathedral, like a thorn jutting from the tower of the twin’s shared cloister. It’s so high that the screeching noise of the night city below is almost drowned out by the wind that whistles through the gothic parapets, and sometimes when his kingdom is laced in glittering frost reflecting the glaring neon of the lights that dot the streets, he scales it.

Awkwardly clambers up the side of his ship as the dead weight of that horrible arm pulls at his spine with each twist, fingers fumbling for grip in the little rivets of freezing sheet metal as he hauls his heavy, exhausted body up inch by inch till he reaches the flat of the hull and crawls to the centre.

Throws his coat down and sits on the pooled fabric, pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and waits as he focuses on the distorted music and crowd chatter that manages to filter from the metropolis so far below.

Lets the freezing cold air goosebump his bare skin as it leeches his warmth and creeps through the iron of his bracer, straight into his bones. Waits for his lungs to start stuttering out puffs of steamy breath as he begins to shiver under the clear night sky. Waits, and thinks about not having been born.

When he gets just cold enough, he can’t feel his broken body anymore, but he can think so clearly and he wonders if this is what it would be like. Not being in pain. Not living under the mental fog of the cocktail of drugs he relies on now just to ward off the nightmares. Not holding so much pathetic regret inside his ribs.

Not dying, that’s something else, being alive and then deciding to not be is very different and he’s not a coward. He’s not. Just… not having existed in the first place at all.

That’s not the same. That’s very easy to imagine even if you’re not a coward. 

If he’d never been born so many people would be so much happier.

Tyreen would be... whole. She’d be pure, wouldn’t she. If he hadn’t taken half of her power the way he did, she wouldn’t be the way she is now. She’s told him that plenty, how it’s his fault. All of it.  Mom would never have died. Dad would have stayed full of sunshine and jokes and love. Where would they be now as a family, them and Ty? Travelling the universe? Seeking out siren lore?

Leda wouldn’t be dead. Typhon wouldn’t be abandoned. Tyreen wouldn’t be whatever the fuck he’d helped turned her into. A monstrous god of her own making, or a sad child crying for her parents. He’s not sure which.

Troy has damaged so many people by being alive and there’s no goodness from it. There’s no payoff, no benefit. What’s the point of it? He’s broken. The power he stole doesn’t even work, so what was it all for? What’s he done bar cause pain and death just by existing?

Is that not exactly what a parasite does?

The COV wouldn’t exist if he’d never. The billions they’d affected would be all the better for it really, despite what they tell each other about “bettering” the lives of Pandora’s lost and the galaxy’s lonely. 

Eli and Ven would have found someone better to seek help from, wouldn’t they. The Oracle wouldn’t be the shadow of himself that he is now, exhausted and so sad. Jak-Knife would probably be leading their own clan, not babysitting a pathetic excuse for a man that worked them to the bone while simmering with jealousy towards how much he wished he was them.

Seifa… 

If he’d died on Seifa’s ship, where would she be? Somewhere warm and nice where when it rained the water was refreshing and not a slurry of red dust. With someone who deserved her.

He knows where she is now, a station he wouldn’t punish someone by exiling them to… and it was his fault she was there.

The back of his mind agrees that he is the crux of so much pain. He’s the one that’s the cosmic mistake.

Sometimes he’d like to ask Leda, she’d know the answer. Mom had known everything when they were small, had the answer to every curiosity or confusion from little minds, so he tries to. Whispers a question he doesn’t even understand to the stars through chattering teeth. He wishes she could hear him.

He’s always relieved when she can’t.

The cold defeats him in the end, every time. His body forces him to struggle to his feet and stiffly begin the climb back as the city below starts to quiet, shimmying slowly down the hull between handholds that bite into his icy fingers as the wind howls. 

There’s a fleeting thought whenever he’s slowly picking his way down to the entry port that it would actually be really easy to slip, and he’s surprised it hasn’t happened yet. THAT would be the kind of ending he’s going to get anyway, one stupid little mistake from a hand he can barely feel, and all that would be left of him would be a mess for some poor fucker below to clean up. 

He smirks at it, but knows in reality his traitorous wings would save him. 

The port airlock hisses open and he stumbles into the warmth of his ship every time, he doesn’t fall, he doesn’t cease, he just passes out in the cocooning dark of his bedroom.

It’s survival instinct that does it, that makes him move and forces him back inside, but he still goes outside on those freezing nights, because maybe one night... it finally won’t.

Not that he’d get to be that lucky, he’s got a cult to run in the morning, and Tyreen would never forgive him anyway.

[courtorderedcake]

Majestically Too Far Beyond : CSSNS 2020

It’s finally here! Yaaaay! Here’s my @cssns​ for 2020, Majestically Too Far Beyond, title based on the Poem written by Komal Kapoor. You can read my explanation of how this mess all got started Here. Art is by @kmomof4​ and I threw in some too for fun. 

Summary :  Emma Swan has never been that type of girl, you know, the one that cries and sinks into a pint of ice cream after a break-up. She's never ever cared about anyone other than completely out of survival, but then came Neal, and then came the final big break up with someone maybe she sort of kind of loved. So now she is one of those girls who are homeless, living with her adopted brother and his wife at their farm in a long abandoned Victorian keeper's home, desperately trying to save to get her own place while working her difficult government job and as a merc witch on the side.  When a desperate Witch calls on her to do a spell, it's all bad news - but then said Witch revealed a mountain of gold coins, and whimpered that Emma is her only hope. How can she not be a bad ass magic savior for this poor soul? All seems to be well, until the consequences are suddenly very real.  Killian may be a Demon, a fallen Angel that now delights in the practice of revenge, but first and foremost he's a gentleman. Sort of.  Especially when his ruddy Angel brother is focused on bureaucracy and keeping mankind out of chaos, while Killian barely keeps his denizens as safe as he can in a world that wants Demons dead. Witches and Warlocks use them for parts, Werewolves see them as a threat, Angels mostly still hold on to the ancient feud regardless of their treatise, Fae stay chaotic neutral, Vampires don't care for others affairs - it's a perilous world where hate crimes happen without consequence. When Killian goes above to plead for more safety laws in the metropolis of Hyperion Hills, the city that lies over a major portal to hell, he does not expect to meet a council that the elemental five sit on. He especially doesn't expect that the council would ever take him seriously in his campaign for demon safety. Regina, Snow, Ariel, Elsa, and Belle seem dead set on making it their pet project - each for their own very different reasons. Especially when they bring up hiring a tempestuous security consultant, Emma Swan. When they adjourn, he can say that he is optimistically apprehensive. An optimistic Demon never leads to good things, unless by good things you mean throwing back rum while chasing a pretty woman for plundering. He's unsure of what to expect when challenged to do shot for shot by a mysterious blonde Witch, who didn't care who (or what) he is, but he does like a challenge. Too much in fact, the challenge raising the stakes, because from there on it becomes a blur, and yeah, he's bloody well in it now. The idea of a contract sounds fantastic when they stumbled into the strange tower, half naked and wanting. It's the ritual she does instead that he should have been paying attention to. So, maybe now he's missing a hand, and has only the vaguest idea of what happened from the mess of blood he's woken up to, his and someone else's, a mirror's accursed magic the only thing to tell him what took place: he's a prisoner until someone lets him free… And a woman that he’s positive did not exist in his life yesterday, who just happens to not only be a Witch but a complete stranger, is pregnant with his child. 

Rated E, but really falls in at more of a M. Fluffy angst with some adult themes and hinted undertones.  READ ON AO3 HERE.

Chapter 1 - Long ago, eclipses were feared as well:

To say that the Jones 'Brothers' had been fighting since time began, was not an understatement, but also not exactly truthful. They had actually been fighting before recorded time, and before there was even a concept of the perception of anything besides the aether or eternity.

That's why he'd fallen, actually. Loss was a powerful motivation, enough even to question the utmost Authority - and the Authority despised questioning. Fighting was in the nature of the divine Celestials, as it seemed, and in Her infinite curiosity that She defined as 'Wisdom', God had let Lucifer burn too brightly. Their war was a lover's jealous quarrel turned violent. 

Although Liam was created moments before Killian, they were brothers (as it were) even amongst a host of angels, and they were close regardless of their stubborn spats. They fought over the world and its workings, Liam given a flaming sword while Killian was given books. They fought over knowledge of the divine arts, arguing whether humans were worthy of the Arcane. They fought over Killian's love of a mortal woman, and his questioning of commandments. 

They fought over Killian standing behind Lucifer, and Liam fought Killian right before he fell. In some ways, it was Liam's own hand that pushed Killian, but in his last angelic act, Killian forgave his brother. 

While Earthborne and some remnant Angels believed Demons were not capable of love, they were of course wrong. Demons loved, lost, and forgave just as any others. Even after the schism, even after years of passive aggressive pettiness between both sides, Demons were still seen as wayward, dark, demented creatures. Angels had done little to fight this stereotype, instead reveling in their continued status as goodwill ambassadors. 

Even their name amongst mortals was a cosmic joke, the Creator and her lover-made-antagonist too long gone to bother with proper names. They were Angels or Demons to some cultures as humans grew on God's abandoned project, while others called them by their new names. 

The Angel Diana was called a Goddess alongside Hecate, Freya, Gabriel, Uriel, and many others. The Demons Zeus, Odin, Loki, Hades, and Poseidon happily took on roles that suited their carnal needs. Angels mixed with mortals along with Demons, God's secret seeds of elemental magics taking life along beside them as Druids, Fae, and Elementals.  Some of the Celestials even birthed life as their lost parents had, Demons begetting Demons, Angels begetting Angels, and everything or anything in between. 

Humans gained magical prowess as the world changed, Witches, Druids, Warlocks, Mortismals, and Mesmerels becoming the norm for human bloodlines. 

Still, Demons were given less, all because God had cursed them irrevocably before disappearing with Lucifer into the abyss. They were cellularly different now than any of the Angels they had once been, a yoke around their neck that they could be forced to obey. Like Angels, they could be worshipped, called, trapped, or contracted even as their powers and bodies twisted into the curse stained strangeness God graced them with. They were looked on with disgust, pity, horror, and anger for it despite their best attempts.

Which was why his sodding Ponce of a brother working as an Angel ambassador for a Prince of Hell was so important - and so bloody frustrating. 

It wasn't as if being a Prince of Hell wasn't stressful enough - his people always under siege or afraid of some Witch summoning them to place a brand, then using them as a charcuterie board - no. It was that his brother was a baked potato when it came to convincing the public they were not what millennia of ingrained hatred had established Demons as. 

Bosch had died before Killian could uppercut him, regardless of his depiction of Liam as a trumpeting ferret bird or the even less flattering version of Killian. Dante had been another great PR stunt his brother had botched miserably. The Rings of Hell weren't even used, Lucifer gone before he could put God's plans for punishment into place. Now as a museum and reenactment park, it was a popular attraction that helped generate funds for the denizens that lived in the spacial plane that surrounded it, but Dante's review had been swayed by Liam taking him into The Kingdom right after. How could Hell ever live up to the paradise God herself had planned for humans? Only Cedar Point, Busch Gardens, Disney, or Universal Studios could come close as far as themed parks. It was a complete disaster. 

This newest idea of Killian sitting on the board of Hyperion Heights to work with the world's premier intersectional coven, 'StoryBrooke', was another terrible idea in the making, and Killian had no qualms letting his brother know it.

"This is absolutely ridiculous Liam," Killian gritted out, itching under the glamor that made him look mortal. Being confined in a skin suit had his molecules vibrating so loudly he could hear his canines, starlight and cosmic fire sending pinpricks of goose flesh down the dark hairs of his arms and legs. Wearing this was torture enough without Liam staring at him in disdain, his own heavenly image unblemished. Even his halo was a polished gold around his fat head. "While I am a dashing rapscallion in my original skin, don't you think it's bad form for them to see me like this instead of how I actually look? Isn't the point of this to show that even if we're not as pretty as your lot, we're still beings that deserve respect?"

Liam grunted, rolling his eyes. Blue fire from explosions of stars and galaxies lit in mirrors of Killian's own, but framed by rosy cheeks and tawny curls instead of moving shadow, a ghoulish pallor, and dark hair the color of ink or raven's feather. The Angelic glamor contained the haze of darkness that moved like smoke around him, the length of his fingers and claws, and made his flesh look pale but not tinted the color of the universe's light. It did not hide his horns (remnants of shattered halo) or his twitching tail if someone chose to leave eyes on him too long, but that was another Demonic burden to bear. 

"First impressions, little brother. Even the most progressive Witch is still a Witch. I'd rather them see you like this instead of wondering if you truly need all your giblets."

Killian swallowed hard, nodding once before grumbling, "Younger brother. Younger."

"Go over your notes again. You'll need to be your nauseatingly charming self for this, especially if they bring the males in their midst," Liam asked of him, and Killian looked out the dark windows of the car as his tail moved in agitation. 

"Regina. Head of the Coven, Witch and Mortismal that inherited her throne from her mother. Began the integration method and broke away from the Misthaven Coven to create the StoryBrooke one," Killian intoned. 

"Right. She's a tough nut too, and her ghosts do the most of her dirty work. She's not someone to cross unless you want your chairs stacked to the ceiling every morning by some bloody poltergeist." 

"Aw, well, I'm unfortunately haunted by you already, I doubt a poltergeist could do more damage." Killian slanted a look at his brother, who gave an annoyed huff as his pure white feathers ruffled. Killian was thankful in part that he did not have wings at all times, even if the trade off was painful. "While Regina is the head of the Coven, the head of the Council is Elsa Frost of the Frost twins. She's a direct descendant of the Giant Ice Sorceresses with powerful magic, but her passion is creating legislation for Hyperion Heights. Her sister Anna is the family's public relations face, and runs their fashion empire, Arendelle Designs with her Druid husband."

"Good. Good, tell me about Ariel Poisson."

"Siren and Mermaid, with four years on the council. Made history as the first water Elemental to sit on the council, beating the long seated Witch, Ursula, by a large margin. Opponents argue that her father's position as King of the seas and his dominion over fair weather and fishing made voters nervous to not cast ballots for her. Her campaign slogan was 'Part of your World', which could be beneficial to my campaign." 

"Right. Snow Blanchard?" 

"Would-be heir to the Misthaven Coven who ended its elitist reign by breaking tradition and leaving, sending them into chaos." Killian smirked. "She sounds like someone who I could get along with."

"She gets along with everyone except her family, which is more than normal it would seem," Liam replied back, and Killian snorted out a chuckle. 

"Druid, Elf, and Green Witch. Runs a high profile herbal apothecary chain Enchanted Forest Supplies, focused on holistic medicinals, herbs, and spices. Nolan Farms is a subsidiary that sells produce to the Heights, which is her husband's 'pet' project."

"Watch yourself, brother," Liam warned. "While you might get away with that if it's just the Witches, if David and Ruby sit in today you'll find that will not stand."

"Ah, yes. Ruby Reddings and David 'Charming' Nolan. You only circled that they are Werewolves in red ink everywhere you could. David is Snow's husband, and her lead farm hand. Ruby is Snow's cousin who introduced the two. Ruby is currently in a high profile relationship with your colleague, Inspector Wolfe, and they both are very active in pack politics. Many are betting they will create their own pack if the current Alphas do not abandon some of the more ancient doctrines. Nothing new there."

"Don't forget Livre and Fa."

"Belle Livre, Witch turned Vampire, runs a community literacy foundation and bookstore chain. Known ally to Demon rights. Soft spoken but brutally intelligent. Introduced a synthetic blood that allows for daytime living via plant cells collaborating with Enchanted Forest, which made history 6 years ago," Killian listed. "Mulan Fa, Vampire. Cultural Development head of the Heights, and curator of The Hyperion Heights Museum of Art, History, Science, and Culture. Teaches part time at Hyperion Heights University as an adjunct professor. Fa is married to a Fae Elf, Merida Ursa."

"Good. That's as far as we know besides the whole Swan fiasco, which is not to be brought up."

"What Swan fiasco?" 

"Oh, little brother. If you had done your research outside of the profiles I gave you, you would know all about the criminal history of the black and heartless sheep within the Misthaven and StoryBrooke covens. It's better off that you don't know."

"Er. Well. Alright. I didn't look into them because I don't bloody well care about their lots as long as we get protection. There was another slaying this weekend. A Lower Demon."

"I'm aware. Did you know her?" 

"Not really, but that's not enough either. I owe my people more. The other Lords of Hell are fine telling Demons to stay below and never use their name, which is fine for the new blood. It's the old, the weak, and the abused that are at risk."

"Careful, Killian. Your lust for vengeance will never be welcomed by mortals."

"I'm well aware Liam. They like my kind for an entirely different kind of lust."

"Could you please not." Liam sighed, sitting back against the seat. After a moment, his brother spoke quietly. "There was another attack as well, this time in broad daylight in Camelot Town. The Anti-Integration Movement has claimed responsibility."

"Of bloody course they have!" Killian hissed, clenching his fists. He pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing. "Brilliant. Just absolutely marvelous -" 

"They were going to run a story in the Times. I managed to block it for now, but we need a sympathetic writer on the inside, or we risk them running another story with their bias."

"I have a guy. I'll reach out, he's an old school Warlock who I've worked with in the past on push back. What's their excuse this time?" 

"They said that the Succubus was, quote, 'asking for it by the way she was dressed'."

Nausea rose in Killian's throat, and he swallowed it down with bitter practice. "I wasn't aware that how someone dressed meant their lives were not only void, but taking pieces of them was fine as well."

"We know they're being funded well, and we will get arrests as soon as possible. This won't be forever, Killian."

"That's easy for you to promise when this has been my - our forever." Killian bit out, glaring at his feet.

The car came to a stop, the driver opening the door to let them out. Killian moved briskly up the steps of the council building, as Liam followed behind. They moved through the lobby with an easy flash of Liam's ID that Killian scoffed at, moving into the elevator. 

"After that display, I'm going drinking after this," Killian gritted through his teeth. 

Liam blinked, straightening his tie in the door's polished reflection. "What display? They were nice."

"Exactly. If I came here alone, I would have been in that security line for an hour." 

Liam rolled his eyes, taking down his halo to polish the golden ring. "You absolutely exaggerate how you're treated. Not everyone is out to get you, especially when you look like this. Give others a break."

"I'll give myself a break after this with as much rum as I can safely consume, instead."

The doors pinged open to reveal a small atrium, dark wood flooring in stark contrast to the birch tree covered walls. A secretary stood behind a rounded desk against the far wall, motioning for them to sit. 

"They'll be with you in a moment," she offered, glancing at them with a thin smile. Killian could practically taste her distrust as he scratched behind his ear. Liam swatted at him lightly in a bid to get him to stop, both of them tense when the doors finally opened to reveal a petite woman dressed in a powder blue skirt and blazer. 

"Come in gentleman. The council will see you now." She smiled icily. His brother stood, his feathers slightly puffed in an indication of his own nervousness. 

Killian followed a second later, walking with them as they made forced, but pleasant conversation all the way into the boardroom. 

Women sat at a long table that curved slightly, facing their own small table similar to a courtroom. He was reminded of the tribunals in the old days when law had begun, but the courtiers were far different than the strange group of women scrutinizing them. 

To his surprise, the majority of them seemed actually curious instead of repulsed or bored. 

"The council recognizes Liam Jones and Killian… Jones. These are your chosen surnames, correct? And you identify as… brothers?" 

"Yes," Liam stated firmly with a curt nod. Killian watched from his peripheral as his shoulder muscles twitched, his wings held stiffly upright to keep them from the floor. 

Killian nodded, careful to keep his tail curled around his legs. The skin suit itched as it clung to him, not abated by his attempt to sit more casually. 

"Interesting," remarked the dark haired witch at the far right. A nameplate sat in front of her, marking her as Regina. He wondered idly if her stare was due to the blood on his hands only an eternal existence could bring. 

"You are here to ask for help in creating safety measures and a potential council commitment to Demon rights, correct?" Ariel, a fiery haired lass with a heart face, asked. 

"Our major point of concern is the influx of hate groups that seem to fall in line with smuggling operations and planned violence," Killian said slowly. Attention snapped to him, and he brought up the slide presentation he had prepared. "We have had some luck stopping shipments and arresting bit players, but we can't find the heads of these operations."

"You can't find them, or you are barred from digging deeper?" Mulan asked, and he chuckled darkly. 

"The latter, I'm afraid. We have consistently come to the same dead end again and again. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you ladies how difficult a foe powerful covens behind corporate entities are." He let a grimace creep onto his face, and saw the majority of the women nod in acknowledgement. 

"This could make many enemies for us, if approached in the wrong way." Belle stated quietly. "Specifically with our good friends in the Storybrooke Coven."

Snow nodded, exchanging a bitter look with her. "We may need a professional from our coven, but she's unable to get clearance without special notation."

"Oh? Who is this?" Liam asked. 

Elsa and the rest of the coven smiled in varying degrees of fondness. "The best in the business, and in my Coven. If you need to find someone, Emma Swan can always find them, and she's good at criminal magical activities. She knows the system, knows how and where to hide, and where to seek."

They'd found what the coven wanted, and their stake in the venture. Killian caught Liam's face falling, his eyes narrowing into slits. 

"You can't be serious. Involving Swan in this after -" 

"That was all a misunderstanding, and was blown completely out of proportion. We have long held up our end of the blame and accountability, while Misthaven has shirked theirs in the name of slandering her." Elsa steepled her fingers. "If you desire the best, which I assume is why you are here, you need to rehab not only Demons’ image, but hers as well. She should be sitting here with us."

Liam tried in vain to tip the scale back in their favor, his face going red. "We'll consider this as part of our negotiations."

"Negotiations? Liam, you are a detective. You should have deduced by now that you have no leverage. You have only decisions to make." Regina closed her planner, regarding them with her dark gaze. "So, make them quickly, before our patience wanes."

Killian bit back a laugh at Liam’s sudden blustered stuttering. These witches were good, and as the meeting ran on for hours he realized just how much liquor he would need to recover. 

 "Well that went well." 

Liam’s sour expression and slumped shoulders were just visible in his peripheral, even as his feathers were still quite literally ruffled. He huffed out a noise of disapproval, too vexed to even reply back. 

"Aye to that, brother." Licking his lips, they stepped into the cool dusk air. "I'm going for that drink, are you…?" Killian glanced at Liam, who shook his head with annoyance. 

"Seriously? You really -" 

"Really shouldn't what Liam?" Killian smiled, venom leaking into his tone. "Go get drunk in a town that would rather pretend I don't exist or sell me in a fine powder to the nearest bidder? I think I'll be okay, although the concern is duly noted."

He turned on his heel, his glamor falling away in a puff of smoke. The air hit his itchy, overheated skin, his tail whipping around in sharp, agitated flicks. 

"Take care of yourself, little brother! No need to be a self destructive bastard. We lost a battle, not the war!" Liam called after him, stepping into his sleek car. Killian snorted. 

Hailing a cab with some difficulty, the driver asked where he was headed with the same slight resignation he was used to for his kind. 

"A bar, Demon friendly please. Some place without swill."

The driver nodded, dropping him at a dimly lit corner of the city. A red neon sign spread crimson light along the sidewalk, soft light also spilling out the doors accompanied by loud guitar. Looking up, the looping, swirled lettering made him smirk. 'The Jealous Flask' was as good a place as any in his neck of the underworld woods. 

The inside was smoky, deep red damask wallpaper paired with dark, pitch stained wood panels, booths, and bartop. The liquor selection was displayed neatly, unlike the few early patrons sitting scattered around. The jukebox played warbly rock music, some punchy chords and an easy to memorize refrain. 

'one two three four, can I have a little more, five six seven eight nine ten, I love you' 

The bar stools were empty, and Killian slung himself onto one, the bartender nodding his head by way of a greeting. 

"Rum, neat," Killian stated, pointing to his preferred vice. The bartender did not stop polishing the glass in his hand, but the bottle floated down gently, pouring itself into a tumbler before the glass set itself down in front of Killian. "Thanks, mate."

The bartender nodded again, continuing his work with the aid of his magic. People began to trickle in as the time ticked forward, a witch or two eyeing him suspiciously, vampires playing pool in the front, a group of young werewolves forcing change into the jukebox to get edgier music playing through the speaker system. The Clash crooned out words against the Fae Queen ruling over greater Eld, the pack jumping around excitedly and thrashing their heads back and forth. By this time Killian had moved to the far curve of the bar, his glass refilled to the point of the bottle sitting next to him like a patient date. There were still no other Demons in his presence. It shouldn't have surprised him, shouldn't have even made him angry with the amount of violence they were privy to, but he burned away the emotions with the alcohol flowing down his throat. 

A soft touch on his shoulder caught his attention, and he turned with a growl. It died in his throat when large eyes met his, blonde curls falling in front of her eyes in loose tendrils. 

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bother you," she stammered, biting her lip. Pointing to a drink that was clearly not his, umbrella and all, she continued. "I was trying to reach my drink. It’s gotten crowded and I thought, I mean, I am sorry I wasn't trying to -" 

"Aye." He nodded, throwing back his drink. "S'alright lass. I'm sorry, I s'pose I'm just a bit out of place here."

She smiled, blushing. "Yeah, I uh, I get that. I haven't seen you around before."

"First time here. I was in the neighborhood for business." He poured himself more, and to his surprise she pushed and elbowed her way to sit next to him. 

"Business?" Her eyes were curious while her fingers toyed with the umbrella in her drink. "Should I be concerned?" 

It was clearly teasing, and Killian felt himself loosening up around her. She seemed to read him well, or at least the alcohol was working. "Not any of the good kind, I'm afraid." He grinned with a wink. 

"Ah, so we're just ships passing in the night?" She leaned in and he could smell the floral and herbal scent of her, her eyelashes batting coquettishly as she sipped her drink in his space. 

"Passing closely, I hope," he murmured. His heart raced; it had been ages since any mortal had shown interest in him that was mutual. 

His head spun as she met him drink for drink, hand unsubtly creeping higher up his hip. 

"Would you be opposed to… Maybe, I don't know… getting out of here?" 

"Are you saying you would fancy a nightcap, lass?" She smiled from under her lashes while biting her lip, and his heated blood grew hotter. 

"Perhaps." She stood with grace as she extended a hand to him. "My place is a quick and easy teleportation spell away from here, and my bed doesn't require any sort of magic outside of what I can do with my tongue." 

Killian hesitated, her golden hair in the glow of the lights making her seem to shimmer. "I don't even know your name -" 

"Eloise. It's Eloise." She pulled him up, letting him stumble into her body. Her lips met his, and soon he was pulling her closer as their mouths slanted across one another's in hunger. She bit his lip and he felt the tightness that had bloomed in his belly spread fire down his spine. 

"Lead the way, love," he whispered huskily, grinding into her. 

She smiled broadly, the world shifting until he was in her dimly lit home. A lone window twinkled starlight, moon huge outside as it hung in the sky. Her tongue slid past his lips, the bitter herbal taste overwhelming while the world shifted again, this time pulling him apart. 

 In a perfect world, Emma Swan would not be doing anything remotely close to what she was currently debating doing. It truly wasn't her fault; it fell on Neal and his stupid family if anyone was to blame, and his stupid coven with their stupid leader. She should have known back then it had been a set up, should have known that Neal was a fucking liar. How many times did the same drawn out plot have to play out? Apparently, too many, considering she had still warmed his bed until a week ago. 

This time it was final. Emma wouldn't accept him back when Neal slithered out from under the rock he had his affair in. She wouldn't be charmed by his smooth talking silver tongue, and if he so much as breathed near her, she would take another five years for breaking his smarmy Fae nose. Final. It had to be final. 

But finality meant certain conditions had to be met, especially if she was to ward him away. For one, the beautiful loft that belonged to Neal in the Heights downtown could definitely not be her base of operations any more. Neither could the various in between places she found where Emma could grieve until he took her back, damaged goods and all. No more hotel rooms, no more abandoned apartments, no more warehouses, vacation rentals, or quiet empty offices. She had to get her own place, and it had to be able to handle her particularly finicky magic. Neal's place wasn't great for her particular practice, but the view had been killer enough to ignore it. Neal's fortune had meant she didn't need to work, and with her record (or, as his coven would sneer, 'notoriety') that was just as well. 

Working added a wrinkle to her life; she would have to find somewhere that allowed her enough space for her magic to keep her employed. That would require a hefty chunk of gold - if she was lucky. The prices in the downtown area were steep, only high profile Witches, Warlocks, Fae, and Celestials could afford accommodation that close to the capitol buildings and Ley Lines. Initially when Emma had glanced through the apartment listings on the bulletin board, she had almost had a panic attack at the amount of gold they demanded. 

Her brother David, blessings be, had been her knight in shining armor. There was a large Victorian home that lay in shambles at the edge of their farm lands, its beautiful scalloped details in need of paint, and the gutters growing weeds as thick as her forearm. But, it was within her budget if she could get the down payment placed before the scheduled demolition. She put what she had down to stall as much as she could, but it was not enough in the least. 

One big job was all she needed. One big job that she could cash out on. A dip of her toes back into the waters of peddling illegal magic, just quickly in and out without a splash. 

She didn't need any more jail time, that was for certain. 

Putting out the word she was available in the whisper market was always dangerous, but listening in was free and without a snag if you were smart. 

Emma heard tell of a desperate woman willing to give a truckload full of gold to the right Witch who could perform delicate, esoteric, deeply Arcane and forbidden magics. Luckily for both of them, that's what Emma excelled at. 

She had always been good at her craft, and her magical workings were beyond powerful. She could do things that other practitioners only dared to dream of, if they could even conceive it. It was why Neal had kept her around, and why his coven's dislike would melt away if she said she would consider joining. 

(If she did that around Yulesmas for better gifts, was it really so bad?) 

The request itself was intriguing, the woman herself a Witch that could not do the spell alone. She wanted an equivalent exchange of unbreakable magical bonds, which while tricky, was not forbidden in most circumstances. The offer was too good to pass up on, but Emma didn't like leaving things to complete chance. 

Cue her sister-in-law, Snow. If anyone could throw runes, read the winds, divine from the mundane, and not keep any of it a fucking secret, it was Snow. 

Emma knocked on their cheery red door in the early morning, which must have been a surprise to Snow considering she was half dressed in business wear. She pulled up her stockings in a one footed hop, motioning for Emma to come in as she balanced the phone receiver against her neck. The coiled cord spun around her, and she groaned loudly. 

"Yes, Regina, I know. I'll be there, I'm literally - it's 2 hours away. I will be there in thirty minutes at latest, but - Well, yes, Emma just walked in." Snow gestured at a chair, and Emma sat, looking at her with an eyebrow raised. "Yes, I know it's early for her. I know. Uh huh. Yes. We will definitely put her on the table; it's absurd not to, considering - yes, I would love to talk to you about this in person as I've said - alright. Yes. Okay then, buh-bye." 

Sighing, Snow twirled, untwisting herself from the phone cord. She smoothed down her pencil skirt and blouse before looking straight at Emma with a curious stare. Her mouth twitched with annoyance as she spoke. 

"Now. To what do I owe the pleasure? I have a meeting with Celestials shortly, so." She waved a hand indicating the clock in the background. Turning to the counter, she opened up a cookie jar and removed a rolled cannabis cigarette, putting it between her lips and lighting it. 

Emma swallowed, watching the petite woman slide the purple lighter back in its space on their counter. "I just need you to divine something for me. A situation, with a woman who wants me to… to uh, do something."

Snow rolled her eyes, narrowing them to glare at Emma. "We are bringing you up as collateral in our meeting today, trying to get you a seat where you belong - on the council," Snow hissed. She pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a breath. 

"Please?" Emma asked innocently, batting her eyelashes for good measure. 

Snow sighed. "Alright. Picture the situation and the woman."

Emma focused on the description, the spellwork requested, the woman's pleas. She could feel Snow's magic engulf her, and the fuzziness that came with it as she wove threads out into the natural universe, time and space sending her back answers. 

A moment passed, and the feeling abruptly stopped as Snow shook her head. 

"This doesn't feel right," Snow said, taking a drag of her blunt. She exhaled, the thick smoke swirling into the shape of birds that dove through the air. Emma coughed, waving a hand in front of her face. "That woman… I don't know. She feels off."

Emma frowned, petulant that the answer was negative. "She's a Witch, and in trouble." 

"Have you rolled your runes?" Snow began to pull on her loafers, gathering her things. 

Emma chewed her lip. She had divined, or tried to, but had not found a concrete result. "Yeah, and they said it's… Questionable, but the end result leaves all parties happy. Tarot said basically the same thing."

Snow let out a little twittering laugh, pulling her purse up on her shoulder. "And how does Neal feel about it?"

"Neal doesn't need to feel any way about it. I… We… I broke it off." Emma looked at her shoes, then idly inspected the counters formica. "Forever this time." 

"Oh. Is that why you're here so early?" Snow's eyes went wide, a hand covering her mouth. "Oh, Emma, honey. I'm so sorry, I've just been under so much stress with Regina and this council. Wait, where are you staying? Oh no - are you homeless!? You mean it, you're never going back to that creep?"

"Never," Emma said firmly, even as her voice caught. "I'll find a place though, Snow. Don't worry." 

"So you are homeless, oh Emma, if I wasn't late - no. No. You know, I'll call Regina and cancel it, you need me more than -" 

"No, well, I mean -" Emma shook her head. "No. I'll stay here tonight if I have to, but you need to get to your meeting. I don't need Regina's wrath on top of everything else."

"You know you can stay here with us as long as you need, oh, Emma, I wish you had told me -" 

"I don't want to stay here. I can't work here, and I love you guys but you both are gross with your lovey dovey hippie -" 

"I get it, I get it." Snow grimaced. 

"So yeah, I need the money. I can't stay here, I need my own place… I put a tiny deposit on that Victorian down the road, but I need the full down payment to keep it." Emma shrugged. 

"The house at the --- Emma, that place is a breeze away from being condemned!" 

"No it's not," Emma groaned, rubbing her temple. "It's got good bones, and character. It just needs some… help."

"Well. I mean…" Snow hesitated, heading towards the door, as Emma followed. "Alright then. I'm just warning you, I get a terrible vibe from that woman and I could cancel this today, we could work out a plan. We have the money from the harvest. You could work for us or with David and help us with the roll outs in exchange for a loan. I'm organized, but the help would be appreciated if you're living so close… especially since I'm making sure that house is safely remodeled for you. I don't want you to end up with the roof falling on you or some gas line exploding." 

"You worry way too much, Snow."

"I hear the future through nature, and it's generally terrifying. Nature is terrifying. Excuse me for being cautious, and wanting to help you out."

Emma laughed as they walked out the door together, Snow rummaging in her bag for lipstick which she quickly applied. "Yeah well, you're also smoking weed so potent it could put an elephant to sleep. I don't want a loan from you."

"I'm not an elephant, Em. I'm an Elf. It'll take more than this to knock me on my ass." She smiled, extending a hand to squeeze Emma's shoulder. "Be careful, okay? No repeats."

"That wasn't -" Emma protested, but Snow cut her off with a sharp look. "Yeah, alright. 

"Good. I'll see you tonight, you're coming for dinner. No buts." Snow grinned, before disappearing with a puff of periwinkle smoke. 

Emma groaned, kicking dirt as she stalked away towards her new potential home. 

 In the final days before moving from the small basement apartment Emma rented, the dingy, unused, bare studio finally found some decoration in chalk outlines, herbs, and a large bubbling cauldron. It hadn't ever been a home or remotely close to one when Neal presented a better option, the bed untouched and unmade. It reminded Emma more of her prison cell than anything else, which offered a strange duality of comfort mixed with dread. It was fitting that she would meet to do this ritual here. 

Gothel arrived promptly for their 10 am arranged meeting in a well worn taupe cloak. She looked as desperate as the correspondences between them indicated, but Emma resolved to get this over with as quickly as possible. They shared a nod in the form of hellos, then Emma pointed to the cauldron.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Emma asked, and Gothel drew back her cloak to reveal her tired and gaunt looking face. 

"Yes. Let's. Your payment, with more upon completion." Gothel dropped a large purse on the counter, Emma immediately grabbing it and checking the contents. It was real, her heart soaring as she shoved it in her bag. 

"So, you are to give me a token of your will, usually blood, an animal you raised, or something that's valuable to you . Something you care about, that you are tied to that a severing will make you -"

"I give you the life of my first child," Gothel interrupted. 

Emma's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh." Biting her lip, she brushed back her braid. "That's… That's super Illegal. I…" 

"You wanted something heavy, you got it. There's a reason why I came to you; you have a reputation for doing things quietly. The reason you chose me is because you need the coin. Now, my terms. I know you provide healing. I want to keep myself young and strong - youthful immortality. Grant me this." The grin on her face unsettled Emma, Snow's warning in her mind. Nevertheless, the satchel of gold meant a secured home.

"Um. Alright. Are you sure, the life of your firstborn? That's a ways off, and the strength won't happen until -" 

"Do it. Do it now, I know the spell will be enacted when payment is due. I'm well studied - Breaking a bond with a child, specifically your first, will grant me the power I need. I know that I can't do this spell myself either, so here I am."

Emma gulped. "Okay. Let me get the texts."

Emma returned with her copper cauldron, pile of books, and spell components. Gothel's grin grew wider, her eyes gleaming at the sight of the tongues, eyes, crushed butterflies, and other more macabre ingredients the spell required. 

Feeling a low tug in her gut that something was wrong, Emma backed away from the altar. The other Witch seemed to shimmer, slightly in alarm, a glamor of some sort possibly covering her skin. Feeling even more unsettled, Emma shook her head. 

"I can't do this, listen -" 

"Please. Please you must, I need this to escape a curse. It's blood magic, almost unbreakable and impossible to escape on my own. Please." Emma heard no lies in her speech. "I admit that I have not been entirely truthful. While I was able to send you the gold easily, I am trapped, held against my will. I can only project myself to you. I was afraid to tell you, because I am desperate to rid myself of this curse." When no lies continued to register, Emma felt a deep sense of pity for the other witch. A blood magic binding was no joke; someone truly must have hated the poor woman. 

"Fine," Emma said, throwing her hands up. Gothel perked up slightly, hope in her eyes. Throwing the ingredients in the cauldron, a shimmering mist roiled over the edge as she spoke ancient words and stirred in the shape of long unused runes. Adding bones that melted in soapy bubbles and stirring with a long Pegasus feather that gradually turned to ash, she looked up at Gothel, who was wringing her hands anxiously.

"Your tokens?" Emma asked. 

Gothel waved a hand over the stained cloth; several of the woman's teeth, a long braid of her hair, and a large chunk of skin fell into the cauldron. The cauldron's contents began to boil, smoke curling in darkened serpentine tangles. 

Emma began the words, Latin, Arameric, the old tongue of the Pagans, Celtic, remnants of Gaul, flowing them together until speaking plainly to her own magic. 

"Blood of one that is two, child, mother, 

Blood of my own, tear them asunder, 

Thicker than wine, thicker than water, 

Ties that bind, bound to another, 

The womb that grows life, 

Kin cared for in kind, 

A payment for power, 

Remake the ties, lift, and unbind."

Scraping her hand against a dagger, Emma let her blood drop slowly into the brew, the words flowing out in the crimson rivulets. As she pulled away the wound closed from her own healing energy. 

"Cradle of moon within flesh, 

Remake that which is to be made, 

Your reflection removed, 

Mine in its stead.

Your burden is mine, 

Carried and held as your first, 

Blood of the two, child, mother, 

As they are born, you are cursed."

She looked at Gothel, who was still wringing her hands, long nails cutting into her palms. This magic was hopefully worth the price the woman had so freely paid. Breaking an infant and mother's bond to give to another was a great sacrifice, the magic comparable to true love, if not greater. The power the Witch would receive would hopefully free her from the curse, but also give her the strength she desired.

"It's done. You must cast your brand over the cauldron, and when you, you know," Emma turned around, holding herself tightly. Caught up in the thought of what she, Emma Swan, would even do with a child, she was unaware of the other Witch behind her scrambling to the cauldron or her deep disregard for anything she was saying. "Get pregnant, let me know. I'll handle that - Wait, what are you -" 

Gothel chuckled lowly, her brand in its arcane circle around the cauldron, neon lines of electricity like power that sparked and crackled. Emma felt her hair stand on end, small pebbles lifting off the stone floor as the cauldron shook. Smoke rose in heavy plumes, purple and a noxious mauve that made the air feel sticky, her lungs not able to fill all the way. Gothel's chuckle had turned into a wild cackle, her braided and matted hair like vines or a visage of Medusa. 

Gothel's voice was crazed, shrill as she pointed a gnarled finger at Emma. "This is it. This is it! I've done it, I'm free! Oh, you silly, stupid girl. Now nothing will ever stop me again!" 

Her laugh grew into a shriek of triumph as magic swirled around them, Emma watching as the woman in front of her disappeared. Gaping at what happened, Emma checked herself for any signs of curses or hexes, unsure of what had just taken place. 

To her surprise, no sign of magic lay on her that she could see. She wasn't cursed, the room wasn't jinxed, and the second payment… Emma quickly checked her purse, finding the large satchel of gold easily. The second sat where Gothel had discarded it without looking twice, and she picked it up hesitantly. It was heavy in her hands as she checked it again and again, realizing that for once in her life, everything was going right. 

 Three hours later, she owned the Victorian home down the road from her brother's farm, the first home she had ever truly called hers. 

 Living near her brother's home had its perks, and disadvantages, as Snow had hinted. For one, Snow was cooking for her every day, and Emma was positive she was going to gain several dress sizes if she didn't stop gorging on various pasta dishes while pouring her magic into restoring the wooden floor. 

A major downside was having her brother constantly fixing her house without her being aware. She'd been woken by him cleaning the gutters, fixing her porch, and of all things, roofing. It had only been a few days, but between his insistence on the outside being presentable and her own work inside, the house was coming along faster than she ever dreamed. It was frightening, and David kept her on edge with his very obvious attempts at snooping around. 

"So, you're done with Neal for good," he said, startling her as she sat out on a newly hung porch swing. She wrinkled her nose at him in protest, and he grinned. "And… You're making doors again."

She froze, panic gripping her. 

"It's alright, I'm not mad. I'm just - just be careful. I trust you, but I know that before -" 

"I made a mistake. I know it, you know it, the Coven knows it, and so does everyone else in the Heights that saw me fall from grace." Emma curled her arms around her knees, bitterly forcing out words. "I won't make the same mistake again. I am on the straight and narrow; these doors are for commuting and hunting skips only." 

David laughed, poking her in the side. "Back to hunting skips, huh? Damn. Don't you ever settle down and enjoy the simple life?" 

Emma laughed, shaking her head. "What the hell is the simple life? Nothing is simple."

"Well, yeah, but… I mean the simple life." He brushed a hand through his hair, looking at her with a gentleness that she instantly felt uneasy with. "House, a pet maybe, hobbies, a partner, kids -" 

"If you are trying to set me up again -" 

"Not me," David raised his hands defensively. "No, I was just -" 

"I don't deserve that life," Emma stated, shrugging. The sun was sinking lower, crickets singing in the cool air. "That life isn't for me. That life is for people like you and Snow, people that are worth something."

"Oh, Emma. You know that's not -" 

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Emma snapped, standing with a start. David looked at her with a hurt expression, and she felt pure rage. "Goodnight."

She stepped back into the house, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. 

"Emma, come on," David called from the porch, but Emma wasn't listening to him as she fought the immediate urge to be ill. The sudden nausea ripped through her, and despite her attempts, vomit burst from her throat. 

She panted, holding on to the wall with one hand. The other hand gripped her side, fierce cramping making her double over in a scream of agony. She lurched forward, unable to breathe as pressure rose in her stomach. To her terror, her skin grew taut and she seemed to bloat, the pain of it ripping through her. 

David splintered the door, his arms around her as she lost consciousness. 

She woke in an ambulance, David holding her hand like he'd done when they were children. He was always the best big brother she could have asked for, always protective of her, and always pushing her to be better. He had convinced her to trust Ruth, convinced her to take a chance with the older woman who was willing to adopt both of them, and they had found another home together. When she was scared or sick, he was right there to hold her hand. Even now as pain ripped through her, he was there. She tried to understand, but her body burned until the flame became too much to bear. 

She woke again to the beeping of machines and David's yelling, her body aching but no longer in the same searing pain. Lifting herself up to try and hear what David was saying, she struggled to make out more than just fragments. 

"I'm not leaving, that's my sister ---- How did -- she wasn't, she --- I don't know, she never said anything ----- A WHAT? No! I'm --- not leaving!" 

Emma's stomach lurched, and she shifted to get out of bed. The sheets slid from her middle, and she gasped. Her middle was rounded, as if she was pregnant. But that was impossible, that was absolutely and completely impossible. 

A knock sounded, a petite woman entering. 

"I'm Doctor Mullins, Emma. I know that this may take some time to fully process, but… you're pregnant."

Emma hissed out a breath into a hysterical laugh. "What? No. No. This is not how babies work, or pregnancy, or even - I haven't even had sex since - "

"I know, and I understand that you must be frightened." The doctor attempted to console her, but Emma could not stop her rising panic. She touched the rounded skin of her stomach, the firm smoothness lined with stretch marks. Letting out a low wail, the doctor tried to speak over her still. "It's some ancient and dark magic, but it's very real. We have an inspector on the way to take your statement, and we performed a few tests -" 

"No. No, this is a bad dream, this isn't real, this isn't happening to me!" Emma closed her eyes, trying to focus. 

" - most concerning of which is the results on paternity, which indicate that the father has non-human presenting DNA. Normally that's not terribly unusual, but this is clearly not a planned pregnancy considering your… your conception being, well, this, and the genomic markers show that the parentage is half Celestial. I need to ask, have you had any relationships with an Angel?"

Emma shook her head, trying to understand what the doctor was asking. 

"Alright, what about anyone with proximity to dark, Arcane, or Demonic magics? Anyone who associates with Demons? Do you associate with them?" The doctor eyed her curiously, and Emma shook her head again. 

"I don't know any Demons, Angels, or Celestials." Emma bit her lip, frustrated at the question. Rolling it between her teeth, she murmured a thought out loud. "I did recently perform a ritual that was older. It didn't call for this though, I don't know anything about this…" 

"Well, it doesn't just happen." Emma looked at the doctor with enough venom in her stare to curdle milk. The doctor laughed nervously. "I mean, it did but -" 

"This cannot be happening," Emma moaned, throwing her head back against the hospital bed's pillow. "This has to be a bad dream."

"I'm afraid it is all very real. Considering the circumstances, an inspector of magical law will be assigned to question you regarding the situation. Because of the issues of legality, you may not leave or have visitors until then." The doctor stood, brushing her hands on her slacks. "Baby looks healthy despite wanting to grow at an accelerated rate, and we have slowed that as much as we can. Welcome to motherhood Miss Swan, and, er… Congratulations." Giving a last placid smile, she left the room, leaving Emma alone. 

Emma sat stunned, unable to do anything but focus on her steady breathing. 

(Fuck)

The single word came to mind again and again, escaping from her lips as her breath finally began to turn into sobs. 

"Fuck."

[impalementation]

Do you think there is a connection between Buffy chosing name Joan in Tabula Rasa and Spike telling her she's addicted to misery in Normal Again? Does Buffy think of herself as a martyr?

sorry in advance that this reply sort of went all over the place. it’s an interesting question!

first, i think answering the martyr question depends on how one defines “martyr”. if we’re talking in the basic sense of “sacrifices oneself for a cause” then buffy certainly is one, and she does mention her sacrifices at various times throughout the show. even from the very first episode, it’s clear that buffy thinks that slaying is something she has to sacrifice something of herself for--her “normality”, her life, her peace of mind. but on a meta level, i wouldn’t say that buffy is a typical martyr figure, because the show frames her sacrifices as fundamentally unjust. as opposed to something worth deifying--the definition of martyr that is more like “sainted for sacrificing oneself for a cause”. the narrative treats buffy as heroic in part because she repeatedly chooses self-sacrifice over people getting hurt, but i don’t think it ever canonizes her for this aspect of her heroism. it doesn’t make her an exalted object of worship…with maybe the exception of her headstone and crucified swan dive in the gift. because note how after buffy sacrifices her life in prophecy girl and the gift, or sacrifices angel in becoming, the show doubles down on her humanity and trauma. when she was bad, anne, and most of season six all emphasize the emotional and psychological toll of buffy’s life as a slayer, and feature her really fucking up, or generally not being a saint. the show pays for its martyr imagery in the gift by bringing buffy back to earth in every sense of the word. i’ve always found it pretty impressive writing honestly, the way that the show consistently makes buffy’s pain humanize her instead of glorify her.

then there’s "martyr” in the sense of “acting martyred”. which is more like “exaggerating victimhood for sympathy”. or “righteously wallowing in one’s suffering”. which i don’t personally think that buffy really does, but it’s certainly something that characters and audience members accuse her of. see cordelia calling her a “cry-buffy” or faith in who are you? saying of buffy: “i could do anything i want, and instead, i choose to pout and whine and feel the burden of slayerness?” or willow’s mockery of her in grave. what i would say is that buffy definitely has a tendency to not talk to other people about her pain because she doesn’t think they would understand. for instance, her leaving all of her friends behind in anne or not telling them about heaven in season six. i don’t think that “martyred” is really the right word for that, since it has such derogatory connotations, and because this tendency of buffy’s is not really, in my opinion, about buffy flattering herself or seeking pity. but there is absolutely a way in which buffy keeps her feelings locked up, and stews in them, and doesn’t really feel able to talk about them, in a way that is tied up in her “special”, heroic status. she even says explicitly in conversations with dead people that on some level she feels like the love and validation of her friends doesn’t matter because “they haven’t been through what [she’s] been through. they’re not the slayer.” 

she’s also (in my reading) preoccupied with her goodness to a pretty intense degree, which is why her failure to live up to her ideal of herself in season six is so devastating to her sense of identity. she seems to feel an obligation to be “good” because of her heroic status—it’s telling that when she breaks down to tara about spike she describes him as “everything i’m supposed to be against.” as in, she seems to think of herself as betraying some exalted, heroic ideal by being with him, rather than just having an unhealthy relationship. you could also probably read her self-punishment that season as having similarly exalted motivation. like she is taking it upon herself, as the slayer, to punish herself for not being a “good” enough slayer. it’s how i read her turning herself in in dead things, anyway. these tendencies to self-isolate and elevate personal suffering to cosmic importance are definitely not healthy (even if her personal suffering sometimes is actually, uh, cosmically important), and do have things in common with acting martyred. but are way more complicated than just “playing the victim” or something. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s pretty much always “bad” people that suggest that that’s what buffy is doing. because the show sees much of buffy’s suffering as genuinely unfair, and thinks she is good for not rolling over and accepting it.

so to connect this to spike’s lines in normal again, i think we’re meant to see him as both right and wrong. as is the case with many of spike’s speeches. he’s upset, like dawn was, at buffy rejecting him from her life, and reacts with his well-worn tactic of hitting people with the almost-truth right where they’re most sensitive. he calls her attitude “nasty martyrdom” because, given his soullessness, he’s not in a position to really understand her depressive self-loathing. but he’s absolutely right that buffy holds herself to heroic ideals that make her miserable. and given that he was the tool she was recently addictively returning to to punish herself, it’s not strange that he would think of her as “addicted to the misery”. he gets that buffy is needlessly beating herself up, and using her heroic ideals as the bludgeon. he gets that she doesn’t feel allowed to be happy. he gets that she feels somehow trapped between what her friends represent and what he does. but he doesn’t get how that behavior is a product of self-hatred, instead of some kind of overwrought masturbatory self-interest, and is therefore unable to be sympathetic to it. even as he correctly identifies that her mindset is unhealthy.

i don’t know if they’re meant to parallel each other, but it feels deliberate that we get that scene in never leave me that also takes place in buffy’s bedroom, only this time it’s spike that’s having his brain fucked with, and buffy that suggests he’s feeling sorry for himself. and spike tells buffy that he finally understands the thing he couldn’t in season six, including normal again.

BUFFY: So, that's what this is about. You feeling sorry for yourself, Spike?

SPIKE: I’m feeling honest with myself. You used me.

BUFFY: Yes.

SPIKE: You told me that, of course. I never understood it though. Not until now. You hated yourself, and you took it out on me.

BUFFY: You figured that out just now?

SPIKE: Soul's not all about moonbeams and pennywhistles, luv. It's about self-loathing. I get it.

as for whether we’re meant to draw a line between normal again and buffy naming herself “joan” in tabula rasa, i’m not sure. the name “joan” seems like a dual joke about the fact that joan is a blandly normal name compared to “buffy”, but is also a name that evokes the grand sacrificial heroism that buffy is capable of. a joke about which parts of buffy’s identities are permanent or not. but if there is a connection, i think it’s related to the season’s general deconstructive mindset. buffy’s identity crisis in season six is all tied up in her idea of what a hero looks like, and so in that respect it’s very significant that buffy at the end of the gift was buffy at her most mythically heroic. the kind of heroism frozen at a moment of perfect, martyred sacrifice. similarly, joan is normal and happy and heroic, a version of herself--like the buffybot--that buffy feels distant from. but no one can live up to that sort of perfection day to day. buffy’s struggle to confront her human imperfection parallels the season’s attempt to make itself and its audience confront their own expectations regarding perfect, happy heroes. everyone, including buffy, is frustrated that something seems “wrong” with her. so the two scenes seem related in that they both suggest that buffy is drawn to heroism and idealism, consciously or unconsciously. which is relevant to the season’s implication that a fixation on such ideals can be as crippling or harmful as they are noble.