#and the idea that that's a selfish choice

[soapssuds]

android!john price x human!reader, or in which you seek a human companion after many years of being alone.

+18, smut, mdni, etc.

You were a fidgety mess as you sat in the waiting area of the office. Your eyes continually glance towards the door as you waited for your name to be called.

The office you were waiting in was like a dating service of sorts. It was for people who had trouble connecting with others. So, to help, one could get assigned or "matched" with a android.

The android could be your friend, a guide, ... a lover. Whatever you need, the android will help. And the android also had a choice too. Some seek companionship as humans do. Others are just fascinated by the whole human emotion concept in general.

Whatever it was, both humans and androids wanted to help each other. To better understand or to just not be alone in the world. And it seemed to help.

You were broken out of your thoughts when your name was called. The doctor beckoning to you to the door as you got up and collected your purse.

"Morning, how are you doing today?"

You smiled at the doctor, "I'm good... though, I am curious about the match?"

It was normal to be nervous. Because sometimes there were people who couldn't even match with an android.

The doctor smiled at you, "luckily we found the perfect partner for you."

You cringed at how she said it. You didn't want the android, whoever they were, to feel like they were being forced into a relationship after all.

She stopped in front of a door, "he's in there."

"Do I just go in?"

"That's all there is to it."

"What if he changes his mind about being with me?"

The doctor chuckled softly at you and ushered you forward, forcing you to open the door with her closing it behind you.

You aren't ready for this, you decided. And just as you were about to back out, someone greeted you.

"Morning love, I was wondering when I would get to meet you face to face."

Putting a on a brave face that consisted of a kind smile and easygoing eyes, you turned towards the voice.

“Morning, uhm… sorry, she didn’t tell me your name.”

“Neither did she tell me yours.”

He stood up from the chair that was situated at the table in the middle of the room, his form was towering. You wondered how he was created in such a way, but quickly stuffed the idea away.

You held out your hand and gave out your name, your eyes holding every anxious thought within them as you hoped you wouldn’t embarrass yourself, “you can call me John.”

He didn’t hesitate to reciprocate your gesture, much to your relief. And when his hand fitted into your own, you were taken aback a little by how warm it was. Your surprise caused him to chuckle which, in turn, caused your cheeks to heat up.

“Now love, I know why I am here, but how about you? What are you looking for the moment you set through those doors?”

He was still holding your hand (most likely to track your heart rate) while his eyes were trained on yours. You wondered silently if he even needed to blink.

“I want a partner… a romantic one. Someone who I can go on dates with, cuddle with in the evenings, and… and be intimate with. That’s what I am looking for.”

You barely managed the confidence to say all of that. Though, you couldn’t deny that you wanted to shrivel up at every single admitted word that fell from your lips. A whole part of you felt so greedy, so selfish. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea-

“Good.”

“G- good?”

He moved his hand to grip at your wrist and gently tugged you forward to where you fell into his chest, “because love, that’s what I was looking for too. It may be hard to believe, but even androids can love.”

You couldn’t stop the giggle that fell from your lips, “and I wouldn’t doubt that at all.”

“Then, would you allow me to take you out on a date so we could properly get to know each other?”

Deciding to just stop worrying for once, you played along. A giddy smile on your lips as you leaned in, “if you would be so kind to escort me, good sir.”

To say the least, you never made it to your little date.

Instead, you had brought him to your home so you could get ready, though, what ended up in you changing your clothes was him politely knocking on your door to help you out which eventually led into him helping you into bed.

A date could always wait for another day, right?

Sure, you were doing things backwards, but with how John had your legs folded up to your chests, you doubted that he cared.

“Ahhh, look at you, love, your cunt is just swallowing me whole.”

He pressed his weight down onto you, his hands gripping your hips harshly as he thrusted into you. His dick plunging and marking your walls, forcing your nerves to remember him. As a steady and hard plap – plap – plap echoed into the room along with your moans and sweet whimpers every time his tip kissed your cervix.

You scratched at his back, your nails digging into his all too real skin as you tried to thrust your hips back into him, desperate for him to go deeper, harder. Removing one of his hands from your hips, he moved his fingers down to your dripping cunt, with precise and careful movements, he started to gently rub at your clit. The way you moaned so loud for him as that thread snapped within you. Your walls clenching hard around him as you came around his hard length. The mere feel of you squeezing his cock had him gushing. His cum that filled you may match the white color of a human man’s but was otherwise just harmless warm fluid created and stored, only to be used in such situations as these.

And to say the least, you were his first partner who let him cum inside, and as he watched you try to catch your breath, he finally released your legs from the mean mating press he had you in. And before he could pull out of you, you had already locked your legs around his waist.

“Again?”

You were breathless, but craved for more. To match with someone like you.. he was truly lucky.

“Only if you’ll ride me this time,” he said flipping you both over so he was now on his back and you were straddling his waist, his cock stiff snuggly inside you.

“With pleasure, and then maybe we can go out on that date later?”

“Whatever you want and more, love. I’m all yours, just as you’re mine.”

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I will say, at the end of the day, I am very fond of Illario Dellamorte, despite it all. Yes, he managed to make every single POSSIBLE bad decision one can make, then figured out how to make a few more that nobody else would've thought possible. Yes, he was increasingly sloppy and incredibly stupid about it all. Yes, a lot of his frustration and rage is incredibly misdirected. Yes, I said before the game came out that I support him having a villain era, and I still do because it's fun and I love mess and drama—as much as he stresses me out and makes me want to strangle him because Jesus Fucking Christ.

Still, I think I like the idea of forgiving him. For me, there's something interesting in how he doesn't kill Caterina, in how he didn't ask for what happened to Lucanis and seems genuinely angry—wrong as he is to direct it at Lucanis—that the control that Lucanis so highly prized was taken from him rather than dying at his best, in how he can engineer Lucanis's death but experience a grief that still feels harrowingly genuine at the wake, in how he clearly is grasping at any possible advantage and is carelessly choosing his allies not because he believes in their goals or ideals but because he's desperately power-hungry and ambitious and no more. In how, if he is forgiven, Lucanis is impressed he almost got away with it, in how Illario goes to help the Crows in Minrathous in that last gambit.

He's a mess, and he's selfish and ambitious and vicious and contradictory. But, I have a soft spot for characters like him and relationships like his and Lucanis's, y'know? Forgiving him and forcing him to work out his life after he's burned nearly every bridge he has is just really interesting to me, especially given how Lucanis is still full of hope and affection for him alongside the hurt. How do you rebuild after all that, you don't even have the devil-may-care breezy mask anymore because everyone knows better now. Figure out where he fits now in his cousin's life, because I do think—at the end of the day—the affection and relief is still there from both sides, under it all. Deeply buried possibly, for Illario, but there.

I think there's enough pieces here to suggest that he and Lucanis have a chance to actually figure it out, and to suggest that Illario might actually get his shit together and be willing to given opportunity, time, and patience. It's also a messy choice (and a huge risk), but I do personally like the idea of forgiving him. I like the messy, insane, dramatic narrative of it. He has potential, as Lucanis himself notes. I would love to see if he can rise to it, now that he's gotten all of this out of his system.

Or, at least forgive him because there's something funny about that and I want to see what else he does if given the chance. It'll probably also be a mess, but I'd love to see what messes he gets up to when he's not plotting against the person closest to him in the world. It'll be fun! But, sincerely, I do think he can get his shit together, and I hope and believe he wants to. It's the more interesting and fun story to me, for both him and Lucanis, personally speaking.

[querkynchaotic]

Obliviate

mary macdonald microfic - canon compliant

(quoted choices by messermoon for dumbledore's first line)

The first time she thought about it was when Marlene died.

It had been months since she had used magic and years since she had stepped foot into Diagon Alley. Actually, after Hogwarts ended, the only time she had seen a wizard or a witch who wasn't one of her friends was in St Mungo's, when Lily had given birth to Harry.

The problem is, once you think about something, there is no unthinking it. The more she tried to get that idea out of her head, the more she thought about it. And as things got worse, that little voice in the back of her mind became more and more oppressive.

"What if you just forgot about it all ?"

Forget about the bullying in school, the glares, the insults, the double standards, the spells behind her back. The death eaters who had already killed so many of her friends. The attacks on Muggles she felt were directed against her. Knowing who had done it, knowing why, and having to hear the explanations the muggle news gave. Knowing the truth.

Knowing became too much. And she understood why they all wanted to fight -- James Potter wouldn't be James Potter if he wasn't risking his life to make the world a better place -- but she just. Didn't have anything to fight for. The wizarding world didn't mean as much to her as it did to them, and she didn't see why she would fight for a place where she was so unwelcome.

So she thought about it. Forgetting everything. But there was too much to forget. And Lily was still here, Sirius was still here, and they needed her. She couldn't be that selfish and let them down.

So, she only thought about it. As something to calm herself in the middle of the night, the kind of horrible thought that weirdly brings you comfort, thinking "if everything goes to shit, I'll just forget about it."

She just never imagined it would get that bad.

Because after Marlene died, Dorcas went a bit crazy. And then she died. And then Lily disappeared. When Harry was 6 months old, her and James went MIA. Sirius wouldn't tell her anything, they mostly talked about Remus, and the more they did, the more Mary wondered how they would ever come back from that. But she never wondered if they would come back from that. I mean, they were Sirius and Remus, for goodness' sake.

And then.

And then.

And then Lily died. And James. And Sirius had betrayed them. And he had killed Peter. And the world fell apart.

She's in Dumbledore's office with Petunia Dursley, ready to leave, when Dumbledore says :

“You will leave Harry Potter where he is. You will not speak to him, you will not write to him, you will have no contact with him at all.”

She feels like she's in a dream. She's outside of her own body, watching herself in that office, with that man. Right now, she doesn't see a war hero, or a rebel, or a headmaster : she sees the reason why so many of her friends are dead. No, not "so many" : all of them. Because the two who are left might as well be.

"He can't..." Her voice sounds weird, like she's hearing it on tape. Like it's someone else speaking. It's completely void of emotion, as well. It catches her off guard. But maybe she doesn't have anything left to feel. "He can't know I exist ?"

The old man smiles, all trace of coldness gone. "I'm glad we understand each other."

"Then I want you to obliviate me".

The voice in her head isn't a voice in her head anymore. It's not an intruder telling her "you could forget about it" ; it's her thinking "I'm going to forget everything". It's her saying it out loud.

"I beg your pardon ?"

"You heard me. You want me to leave Harry alone ? That's the thing I ask in return." Her voice is mechanic, daring, like her emotions are turned off. Usually, that's not a good thing, because it's even more of a mess when you turn them back on. Hopefully, this time, she won't have to go through that.

"I don't understand. What are you asking ?"

God, she had forgotten Petunia was here.

"Obliviate. It's a spell that erases your memory." She doesn't bother waiting for Petunia's reaction, turning her attention back to Dumbledore. "You said I'm reluctant to being involved, right ? Well, this is me not getting involved. With any of it, actually. I don't want to remember the war, I don't want to remember how it ended, or why it started, I don't... I don't even want to remember your stupid school. I want to forget that magic exists."

A surprised gasp comes out of Petunia's mouth, and then the mask is back on, and she looks full of disdain once again. "I understand that. I always told Lily it was better to be normal than a freak."

Mary wants to tell her she's wrong. She wants to tell her that magic can be beautiful. But right now she doesn't remember why. Magic is beautiful when it's someone's magic, and everyone magical Mary loved is dead.

For Lily's sake, for all the times Mary held her while she cried missing her sister, she wants to tell Petunia she's wrong. That she loves being a witch. But she's so tired. And right now, she really doesn't.

She wishes she had someone on her side, to argue with Petunia so she doesn't have to. To jump into the fight for her.

But isn't that what they did ? Jump into the fight for people like you ? And where did that get them ?

Absolutely fucking nowhere.

"How far back are we talking about ?" Dumbledore's voice snaps her back into reality. He's looking at her with piercing blue eyes. God how she hates him. But she's also relieved, like this man is finally gonna take away some of the pain he caused her.

"Everything. Just erase everything from when I was eleven years old."

"I would not recommend that. You would wake up with ten years of your life missing, and you would start asking questions. Trying to fill the gaps."

"Can't you..." She sighs. She's so fucking tired. And more than anything, she wants to go to sleep. Physically and metaphorically.

"Can't you leave some stuff then ? So I don't wonder and get nosy about my own life ?"

"One simple way to do that would be for you to extract your memories from your brain. That way we could choose which ones..."

"For you to have them ?" She cuts him sharply. "And keep them in little bottles and look through them whenever you like ?" She scoffs "That's not bloody likely. Aren't you supposed to be a good wizard ? Like, really talented ? Can't you manage to... I don't know, make your obliviate a little selective ?"

"I could leave some memories of school, the ones that don't imply magic, but it would be very blurry. You wouldn't have much. And I can't let you keep any memories that date from after school. That would leave too many blanks you would want to fill."

She sighs. Closes her eyes. Lets that sink in.

He's going to do it. He's actually going to do it. This is it. This is where her pain stops.

What a bastard though, she thinks with a chuckle. She opens her eyes.

"It's fine. Just... Imply that we fell out of touch after school. I have a lot of memories that don't include them. I'll be fine."

"Very well. Mrs Dursley, if you would like to step back."

And suddenly, she sees everything. Like she's going to die and her whole life flashes before her eyes. All her magical life, anyways. It's like her brain knows what to focus on, in a last desperate attempt to keep it.

She's going to forget Lily's wedding. She's going to forget Harry. She's going to forget Sirius' and Remus' flat. She's going to forget Marlene's 19th birthday party. She's going to forget the trip they all made to France.

She's going to forget about Quidditch. James flying on his broom, Marlene and Sirius throwing bludgers at each other, Lily cheering them on, Remus reading in the stands, Peter with a red and gold scarf and pink cheeks.

She's going to forget how it feels to fly.

She's going to forget about potions. Lily giggling when they made Amortentia. Marlene mortified when hers smelled like Dorcas, Sirius and Remus thinking theirs didn't work because they were brewing it together.

The classes. The spells. Peter's magical chessboard, the owls, running in the Forbidden Forest, enchanting objects so they would dance, getting back at the boys and pranking them, getting drunk with Firewhiskey in the Leaky Cauldron, ...

She's going to forget Hogsmeade.

Trying to do magical make up. Sirius' magical moon phase tattoo. The first time she saw a unicorn. James' elf Minnie. The magical fireworks on New Year's Eve.

She's going to forget how it feels to cast a Patronus.

All there, in a second, she sees Lily smiling and Marls dancing and Remus...

"Obliviate"

When she comes home from university, she finds pictures of her school friends on the floor. She doesn't remember taking them out of the boxes, but she's feeling a bit light headed and really, really tired, so that must be it.

She picks up a picture of her and the girls. God, she hasn't seen them in ages. She smiles. She wonders what they're up to now. Mentally tells herself off for not having made the effort to stay in touch. It wouldn't make much sense to seek them out now, four years later.

Isn't it crazy, how you can spend your entire time with people, live with them, and then... They all went to different universities and fell out of touch, or at least that's what she assumes because right now she can't remember discussing their future, or what Lily wanted to study.

Oh well. She's ready to bet one day she'll turn on the sports channel and see Marls on TV, though she can't remember which sport it was she was really into. Or she'll stumble across a book written by Remus at the library, though she thinks she would remember if he had gone on to study Literature just like she did ?

"I really need to sleep" she mumbles to herself.

She picks up the photos, puts them back in their box, and goes to bed.

[stormbabylore]

Ooh, I have a few!

I've an AU in which Aeryn just stops after StB. She is shattered, exhausted, unable to cope, and truly convinced her closeness to the Scions causes them more harm than good. So she walks away. She returns to the Ruby Sea (the first and—at the time—only place she's experienced a true memory of her former life), where Tansui convinces her she is allowed to make selfish choices—she is allowed to stop. Even to stay. Despite never officially joining the Confederacy, Rasho makes an unspoken exception for Aeryn that no one seems to question, especially not considering how useful she makes herself. But emotionally, she is an utter wreck. She tosses her linkpearl into the ocean but frequently has nightmares about receiving desperate calls for help from the Scions. She is haunted by the voice of Hydaelyn and the fear that she has done the wrong thing, but she can't find the courage to abandon her perceived freedom from the bloody, ceaseless struggle she has left behind. She may not be happy, she reasons—she may never feel happy again. But everyone is safer without her, she is sure, and... And she is free.

(Two more "bad ends" behind the cut, but beware: they are EW spoiler-heavy!)

In canon, Aeryn begins losing herself to despair as the Scions, one by one, make their sacrifices in Ultima Thule. The breaking point for her is when Urianger chooses, willingly, to give up his life alongside Y'shtola. But at Urianger's parting behest, G'raha manages to pull Aeryn back from the brink and give her the hope she needs to press on; and when he, too, then goes, she is able to maintain her composure for the twins. That said... I could easily imagine G'raha failing to break through to her, resulting in a bad end. Aeryn would lose herself entirely, willingly releasing herself to Dyanmis to become a blasphemy. G'raha and the twins might try to get through to her, but I don't think she'd have the capacity to hear them any longer and would flee toward the Endsinger's song of despair. Meteion might take pity on her (given their past connection) and attempt to grant a swift end to her strife. But because Aeryn's inner power is so strong, it's more likely that they would fuse into something even stronger than the Endsinger. The sheer magnitude of all their suffering would trigger Aeryn's star magic, which she/they would unleash (as stars do) to bring an abrupt and explosive end to everything—even the Final Days.

Finally, my screenshots from this challenge really got me thinking about what Aeryn would be like as an Ascian. There are several ways she might have gotten to that point. Maybe post-HW, if she found herself in the position assumed in canon by Urianger... or perhaps in ShB, had she managed to manifest her past self's empathic abilities and forged a different connection with Emet-Selch. Truthfully, though, I'm kind of stuck on the idea of her offing Fandaniel (without truly killing the Ascian) and getting sort of possessed by Amon. It would be a split situation in which her soul (plus Azem power plus soul of a literal star) can't be fully controlled, even by the Ascian's methods, so she'd probably be a little bit bonkers. But I think her empathy for Hermes's situation would have made her uniquely suited to an odd kind of soul symbiosis with one of his shards, helping to subdue a little bit of Amon's madness, as well as his desperation to end. In that way it would be a bad end for the WoL, but perhaps not the worst end, story-wise. I could still see Ascian Aeryn working to avert the Final Days: reaching out to Meteion with both her own and Hermes's memories, pushing through the nest to find the Endsinger, even summoning Hades and Hythlodaeus… and possibly even some of the other Ascians? Defeating the Endsinger alongside both Ancients and Ascians would be pretty poetic, all things considered, and so delightfully circular thinking back on ARR. I'm not sure much about the fight itself would change, with Ascian Aeryn finding herself in the odd circumstance of being gifted strength beyond even her means by the prayers of the Scions who don't want to see their friend defeated, perhaps hoping they can somehow bring her back...

(Do I need another AU? No. But I'm a teensy bit obsessed with the notion of EW driving Aeryn to willingly play host to an Ascian... annnnnnd I'll probably end up writing some of this. Oops, I guess? Here we are.)

Bad endings? Bad endings anyone?

What if they got consumed by the light? What if they became a primal? Any and all bad endings!

I think mine most likely would've become a lightwarden because she didn't get to Emet-Selch fast enough. "Obsession" would be its name, due to the fact it would be obsessed with the idea of saving others and changing the world, probably leading to either the Scions killing her or to her consuming the First in Light.

.

[pocketgalaxies]

thinking about if/how the loss of opal as we know her will affect at all their perception of protecting the gods, especially compounded with fcg's death. when you reunite with someone you've missed so much and all he has to tell you is that his brother was killed by a god and his friend was forcibly surrendered to serve that god in the name of self-protection from predathos. when your best friend found so much hope in their god and went on this journey with you feeling like they were doing the work of a god who helped him find purpose, and all there is to show for it is a pile of scrap metal. how do you reconcile the idea that your mission is to defeat this entity that threatens the gods, when the gods are relentlessly demanding sacrifice and death from the people you love in order to protect themselves. how can you not think for at least a moment that maybe the gods deserve to be destroyed

[thetomorrowshow]

hubris killed the god - ch 6

First Part

this is the final part! thanks for coming along on this one, i really enjoyed writing it :) it kind of makes me want to do more of this style in the future, so thanks for the lovely feedback <3

cw: implied/referenced death, much open discussion about death, blood & injury, non-graphic animal death

~

Within three days, Shelby is bedridden.

Or, tableridden, rather.

A mattress has been brought into the chapel (Scott’s suspicious that it’s Sausage’s own bed, dragged from the sideroom) in place of the pillows that had been cushioning Shelby’s resting place.

Shelby lies there, mostly unmoving, face pale. When she’s awake, her brow is furrowed in concentration, shaking hands weaving invisible purple webs with her wand (invisible to all but Scott). When she’s asleep, her temperature rises and she tosses and turns with illness, unable to protect herself; it’s often then that Sausage leans over her, muttering under his breath with his hands laid on her head.

At times they work at once, Sausage passing from her head to her cheek to her hand, spilling a drop of whatever is in his tiny cylindrical container at each point and continuing his muttered spells or blessings, while Shelby scrunches her eyes shut and weaves protection spells and health spells and resilience spells.

Scott can’t really tell if any of it is working. The red marks on Shelby’s cheek and hand don’t grow any smaller or larger, they don’t fade or darken. He watches the spells she casts enter her body, he sees the hexes that she weaves, but for all he knows, it’s doing nothing.

For all he knows, Shelby is still dying and he’s been right to not get his hopes up.

Sausage’s magic is less of the visible kind, for the most part, but he can see occasionally the way Sausage seems to wrap Shelby’s hand in golden strings, or the glow that passes from his hands into her hair.

Scott watches more than anyone else, he thinks—not that he’s there in the chapel more than anyone else, just that he watches. fWhip’s there whenever he can make it, sitting beside Shelby and laying his head on her shoulder or helping her eat; Gem reads to Shelby when she’s resting, hands shaking too much to carry out any more spells but feeling too ill to sleep; Katherine just sits beside her, sometimes gripping her hand when she needs it; even False steps in every once in a while, bringing fresh water for both Shelby and Sausage.

Scott doesn’t feel that he does too much to help. He mostly sits in the first pew, keeps an eye on the two of them, noting when Sausage’s prayers begin to stutter or Shelby’s hands list to the side. Then he quietly taps the shoulder of whoever is sitting beside Shelby (or slips out to the foyer where someone will be waiting) and lets them know that the two magic users’ strength is flagging, and they need to rest.

And Jimmy . . . Jimmy doesn’t come by at all.

Jimmy doesn’t even really come into the church anymore. He eats meals out by the fire alone, patrols the border by himself near-constantly, and otherwise avoids everyone.

It’s guilt, Scott thinks. If Shelby hadn’t been ill, he’d probably do the same, ashamed of his decisions and feeling horrible for the people he’s hurt.

And it may be guilt, but it’s also a terrible thing to do. Because Shelby is dying, and everyone is giving what they can to help her or be near her, and Jimmy isn’t even trying.

Every time he remembers how little Jimmy is doing, he does a little more himself. He helps Sausage to a pew for a nap. He offers to readjust Shelby’s pillows. He actually does something, which is more than Jimmy can say.

And when Scott isn’t in the chapel, he’s tracking the border’s changes, marking them with sticks and rocks. Because the border is changing every single day now, shrinking as Sausage focuses his efforts on Shelby.

And when Scott lies in bed at night, he stares at the ceiling and tries to think of ways to escape.

Oli’s dead, for sure. And there’s no way that Joey’s safe, now that they know the mites can swim. For all they know, they’ve already spread to the ocean, devouring every sea creature they come across and multiplying even further.

Pix is gone, whether by some sort of escape that only he could think of or death, Scott can’t know. Shelby’s here, but nobody knows for how long.

There’s nobody else. There’s nothing else. There’s nowhere to go.

They’re trapped in a dwindling Sanctuary, and even if Shelby does survive, they’ll all die not long after.

He considers the Nether—Shelby had managed to travel through it, after all, so it had presumably been relatively mite-free—but immediately dismisses it out of hand. Humans can’t survive long in the Nether—the temperature is just too high. Scott can barely manage the ten minute travel through the portals, there’s no way he could last more than a day before dying of heatstroke.

And then Scott loses track of his thoughts for a moment, tired as he is, and somehow ends up categorizing the various portals by how far they are from Chromia’s. It’s like counting sheep, he thinks idly. Tracking them in his mind as a way to fall asleep. Joel’s is the closest, of course, but there are a bunch of portals kind of all tangled up and he cannot for the life of him remember which color of carpet leads to which portal.

He tries to picture them in his head, holding back a yawn. Jimmy’s is brown, Gem’s is . . . orange? Was Pix grey, or a blue? And what about the fairgrounds, that Oli had built a portal for? Despite there having its own, much more mysterious portal, of course.

A portal, Jimmy had called the Rift. Then he’d said that it had been Lizzie’s plan to head in there.

Scott sits straight up in bed, exhaustion forgotten.

They can go through the Rift.

-

There’s silence around the campfire after Scott introduces his plan. fWhip and Gem exchange a look. Katherine glances back at the church. False leans back a bit, folds her arms.

Jimmy, however, nods. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too,” he says. “I’d say it’s worth a shot to send at least some of us in.”

“Some of us being who?” Gem asks, and there’s something pointed in her voice that Scott doesn’t quite understand.

Jimmy seems to, though, because he inclines his head toward her. “Myself, Katherine, fWhip, and you, I figured,” he says to her, before shrugging. “We could rearrange those if we need to. But Shelby can’t travel, and False ain’t keen on the Rift—” False snorts in acknowledgement— “and Scott can see the border, might protect Sanctuary for a bit longer. That’s my reasoning, least. All good?”

And Scott nods, if only because Jimmy’s the leader.

He wants to go through, but he can’t leave Shelby. Sure, he wants to survive—he’s gotten this far, after all, one of the few left during the apocalypse—but he isn’t going to throw away his friends just for the chance to live.

And again, it’s a chance. Just like how finding Pix had been a chance.

Scott’s not willing to put everything on the line for another chance.

-

The preparations start immediately.

Gem runs to and fro, reassuring Shelby in one second and sharpening her sword the next, packing food and first aid and everything she can carry.

fWhip trails along beside her, apparently already ready, offering suggestions and chewing so  hard on his lip that it starts to bleed.

Katherine hasn’t collected much in her short time here, so she spends her spare moments sitting beside Shelby and Sausage, holding Shelby’s hand whenever it’s available. Scott watches her, sometimes, his eyes catching on their entwined hands, and thinks of all the things that Shelby’s confessed to him over lunch, and wonders.

And Jimmy, again, is the odd one out, wandering through Sanctuary and sitting alone by the campfire.

Scott’s content to leave him to it—he doesn’t know what Jimmy’s thinking and he’s not really interested in knowing—but when Jimmy grabs him by the shoulder early the next morning (the day before they’re set to head out, leaving Scott and False in charge), Scott reluctantly breaks away from his path to the church and follows. He’s a busy man, trying to take over the management of Sanctuary at such a tumultuous time—whatever Jimmy has to say had better be quick.

They walk in silence for a moment. The sun has just broken over the horizon, casting the orange leaves of Sanctuary’s trees into a dim, yellow light. It feels so very autumnal, even though Scott’s fairly certain it’s only just barely September. Maybe there’s some kind of magic involved, like with the rest of Sanctuary, that changes the seasons on a dime. He’s pretty sure that last week when he was out here, the trees had been mostly green.

Those are only idle thoughts, straws grasped at for something to think about so that he isn’t forced to make conversation. Unfortunately, it looks like it’ll be up to him, as Jimmy says nothing for several long minutes.

“Nice out,” Scott offers eventually. Jimmy starts, almost as if he’d forgotten Scott was here.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs. “Bit warm for this early, but I ain’t complaining.”

Scott nods slowly. Scuffs at the footpath that travels around the border that they’re following. Jimmy doesn’t say anything else.

Jimmy pauses at a point close to the border on the opposite side of the church, looking out over the plains in the distance, little patches of grass turned black.

“This is the most beautiful part of Sanctuary, I think,” Jimmy murmurs, and Scott tries to see it. He really does.

But there’s not much to it. It’s just a plain, with few of the trees that make Sanctuary so picturesque, stretching far until it slowly climbs into rolling hills.

He nods again, anyway. He’s not sure what Jimmy’s trying to do—connect with him, or apologize before leaving? Try not to part with bad blood?

Because while Scott’s certainly grown some sympathy for the man, he doesn’t have to like him. He doesn’t have to forgive him for ending the world.

Even if, in some strange turn, he wants Jimmy to forgive him for pushing them to look for Pix.

But Jimmy doesn’t ask forgiveness. He doesn’t try to explain his actions, or apologize. Instead, he takes in a deep breath, and says, turning to meet Scott’s eyes, “I want you to go through the Rift.”

Scott blinks. “Sorry, what?”

Jimmy sighs, sits down on a boulder in a familiar way that clearly tells Scott he’s spent quite some time here. “I’m not going. I want you to take my place.”

And that—whatever Scott had expected, it isn’t that.

“Wh-why?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer immediately. He just gazes out over the plains, something lost, something longing in his eyes.

Scott may not forgive Jimmy. He may not like him. But Jimmy’s a good leader, knows how to properly build a community in times of hardship, he knows how to direct. If the other side of the Rift is some new world, untouched by the death that plagues this one, someone will need to be there to help the group survive, rebuild from nothing.

Not Scott. Chromia had been full of llamas and not people for a reason, after all.

And he’s already been preparing to stay back, Jimmy had asked him to stay back and he’d agreed and he’s settled in that decision and that’s final—

“I can’t do that,” he says, and there’s a bit of panic rising in his throat, but he swallows it down as best he can. “I—you’re the leader, I can’t—I don’t—”

“Scott,” Jimmy says softly.

Scott stops.

“I’m not going,” he continues. “And they’ll follow you. Even False will follow you, if you can convince her. But I can’t go through the Rift.”

“Why not?”

Jimmy chews on the inside of his cheek. The fire that normally burns so brightly behind his eyes is dim, his body hunched over itself a little bit. He fiddles with his vest a little, then looks out again over the plains.

“It was in the catacombs,” Jimmy starts, his voice still lower than Scott’s ever heard before. “I was marking our path with chalk. And. . . .”

He shakes back the cuff of his right sleeve, and there, on his wrist, is a tiny pink splotch, raw scrapes from where it’s clearly been scratched at swelling it further.

Scott stares.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Jimmy says, a bit of a wry smile playing upon his lips. “Not when we couldn’t stop moving while we were down there. Not when Shelby needed comfort. Not when we need to focus everything on her.”

Oh.

Jimmy’s dying, too.

And Scott supposes he ought to feel something about that—sadness, at losing another friend; relief, that the killer who began this whole thing will meet his end; even despair at the loss of their leader.

He doesn’t feel any of that, though.

He mostly feels tired.

“We might be able to heal you,” he offers. The words come out halfhearted, as genuine as they are. “If it works with Shelby, we can do it with you, right? We can just put off the Rift thing until you’re both better.”

“And if Shelby doesn’t get better?”

Scott looks away.

“I want to stay,” Jimmy says. “I do. But I can’t. And maybe it’s selfish, Scott, but I don’t want them to know that . . . that I’ve been hiding this from them.”

“Like you hid the stuff about Joel from me.”

Jimmy grimaces. “Yeah. I’m not really good with confrontations like that. You saw what happened. But I couldn’t just leave without telling someone, you know?”

“So . . . you’re leaving,” Scott says. He glances out toward the plains, the little patches of darkness that mar them. “To—what, to become like Oli? Instead of staying here, where we can help you . . . go peacefully, I guess?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I don’t care much for the idea of staying in bed, all still and sick ‘til it’s over. I figure I’ll just head out quietly, yeah? I already packed my bag. I just wanted to make sure someone could be in charge.”

“I’m not a leader,” Scott reminds him. “What about fWhip?”

“fWhip’s a follower,” Jimmy shoots back instantly. “He gets too stressed to actually lead.”

“Katherine?”

“I don’t think she’ll want to go through the Rift,” Jimmy says. He’s clearly given this a lot of thought. “She said she’d come, but I bet my bootstraps she’ll back out last minute. And not Gem, either,” Jimmy adds when Scott opens his mouth. “Scott, I chose you because you’re the one who fought back when you thought I’d made a wrong choice. You spoke up. And not just then—you suggest your own plans all the time. You’re a leader, even if you don’t know it.”

Scott wants to argue. He wants to tell Jimmy all the ways he wouldn’t be a good leader, all the times he’s screwed up, all the illegal things he’s done.

But there isn’t time.

There is time, however, to spend another moment with Jimmy, so Scott heaves himself onto the boulder beside him and leans, just a little bit, against him.

Jimmy tenses, then slowly, carefully, rests his head on Scott’s shoulder.

Scott can feel through his shirt that Jimmy’s forehead is a decent bit warmer than it ought to be.

They just sit there, as the sun rises, leaning against each other, staring out at the plains beyond the border. The world is silent, no wildlife left to wake up.

It’s strange, Scott thinks, because for all the various emotions he’s felt about Jimmy—the small crush he’d had for so long that had given way to anger and a little fear when he’d learned of Joel’s fate, the affection, the apprehension, the respect, the irritation—he feels absolutely nothing in this moment.

After maybe ten minutes, Jimmy’s muscles tense (as if he’s preparing to carry something heavy) and he pulls away, brushes off his wrinkled shirt, and stretches his arms out.

“I should probably head out before the town wakes up,” he says. “Get away before anyone can stop me.”

“Sure,” Scott says, quiet, then adds, “what do you want me to tell them?”

Jimmy pauses, looks in the direction of the church (obscured by the woods) and then back to the plains. “Not the truth,” he says eventually. “I don’t care what. Better to let ‘em believe I’m a deserter, probably. I don’t want them to try and find me.” He idly scratches at the spot on his wrist, before adding, voice quieter, “And I don’t want them to be sad. I don’t want them to have to grieve me. It’s better for them to be angry, I think.”

Which Scott thinks is unfair to Jimmy’s memory (not that he’s a memory yet), but. Dying men and their wishes and all that.

“Where are you planning on going?”

“Wander,” says Jimmy. “See if I can find a way to kill those buggers. Look for Pix, maybe. Then die peaceful-like in a ditch, probably.”

Scott doesn’t laugh at the poor attempt at a joke. Jimmy doesn’t either. Instead, the Sheriff gives him a sad smile, picks up his satchel that had been leaning against the boulder unnoticed, and steps across the border.

Scott sits there and watches until he’s just a speck in the distance, swallowed up by the hills.

-

“And what, he didn’t even give you a reason? He just left?” Gem demands, and Scott’s never seen her this angry.

He shrugs helplessly. “That’s all I know. I woke up, I came over to check on Shelby, he left me in charge, and then he left.”

If Scott’s omitting certain irrelevant parts of the story, nobody will ever know. Because despite the way it itches at him uncomfortably, it had been Jimmy’s dying wish to not tell them why he’d left.

“I can’t believe this,” Gem huffs. “I thought he actually cared. Forget him.”

fWhip’s sequestered himself awkwardly in the corner of the foyer, arms hugged tight around himself. His eyes are shining in the dim light, and Scott looks away quickly before he can confirm them to be tears.

Katherine’s angry as well, arms folded tightly over her chest, hair coming out of its braid. “Coward. Doesn’t want to face what we’d do to him if the Rift takes us someplace safe.”

Scott cringes internally. He doesn’t speak up.

“So, Jimmy ran for it,” Gem says, counting on her fingers. “Jimmy ran, Shelby’s down, Sausage is with her. Pix is gone, Oli’s gone, Joey’s probably gone. Lizzie left. Tomorrow, half of us are going through the Rift.” She sighs. “Soon there’ll be no one left.”

“Well, if the Rift works out, we can come back and send everyone through,” Scott points out. “Even though there’d be no one left, at least we’d be alive.”

Everyone across the room nods. fWhip sniffles quietly.

“So,” Scott says after a moment (they’d all been waiting for something to be said, and it was usually Jimmy’s job but now Scott has Jimmy’s job and he’s not ready for this responsibility—). “We’re leaving tomorrow. Can someone fill me in on the plan, please?”

-

Scott finds himself sitting on that boulder, overlooking the plains (which are still unimpressive compared to literally every other view of Sanctuary). He hadn’t even known this boulder existed, in more than a passing sense, until Jimmy showed it to him this morning.

He doesn’t have time to mourn, no time to mourn anything that’s happened over the past couple of months, but he does have a moment to sit by himself and mentally prepare for the plan that they've spent the past hour going over.

Or at least, he thinks he does, because he’s barely been there for ten minutes when someone clambers onto it beside him.

“Hey,” Katherine says.

“Hey.”

She sighs, looks out over the plains and the mites that inhabit them. “Terrible view,” she comments after a moment.

Scott snorts. “Exactly what I thought.”

Silence.

Scott hasn’t had much to do with Katherine—she helped him stitch a copy of his fedora, of course, but outside of that afternoon of sewing, they haven’t really hung out. Not like he has with Shelby, or Jimmy, or Joel.

All of his friends are dead or dying.

Except Sausage. Everyone always seems to overlook Sausage.

“He liked you, you know,” Katherine says out of the blue.

Scott chokes a little bit. “Sorry?”

“Jimmy,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “I know you had a thing for him. If you’d asked him out, he would’ve said yes.”

Right. Well, that’s a revelation that Scott doesn’t have time to process. And unfair of her to put on him. “Did you ever ask Shelby out?” he asks dryly.

Katherine inclines her head. “Touche.”

“I had a thing for Jimmy, he had a thing for Joey, Joey had a thing for you, you had a thing for Shelby—if anyone tried to pair off, it would’ve caused wars.”

“Or a big, happy polycule,” Katherine suggests. “Then maybe none of this would’ve happened. And Jimmy can still be the leader, which would keep his ego soothed."

Scott frowns. “Wait, why does Jimmy get to lead the polycule?”

Katherine gives him a look. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Literally all of you guys were down so bad for him. Gem and I used to bet on who would crack first and confess.”

And Scott had thought he’d been rather subtle about his affections for Jimmy. The Sheriff tended to eschew romance in general (he’d always looked out of his depth when Scott tried to talk about Katherine’s little love triangle), so Scott had been careful about not overwhelming him or crossing any boundaries. In fact, he’d become so used to dissociating romance from Jimmy, he must have not noticed several fellow rulers pining after the Sheriff.

Which is kind of disappointing. He must’ve missed out on months of gossip.

And it’s all in the past, now.

“So, about tomorrow. . . .” Katherine starts.

“You don’t want to come,” guesses Scott. She turns a shocked look on him.

“How—? Never mind. You’re just a natural leader, I guess.” She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to stay with Shelby.”

Scott nods. “I figured,” he says. He didn’t. Jimmy figured, and Scott’s just passing along his assumptions.

Now, more than ever, Scott understands why everyone else valued Jimmy being a good leader despite his murderous tendencies.

“Right. Well, is that cool?” she asks.

He’d love to have Katherine with him when they come out on the other side of the Rift, knowing nothing about what might be waiting for them.

But on the other hand, he won’t pull her away from Shelby in what’s possibly Shelby’s final days.

“It’s not a problem,” he says. “I’ll see if False will join us instead. I’m not going to make you do anything. And I think Shelby needs you more than I do.”

Katherine shoots him a small smile. “Yeah. Thanks. But if everything works out, we’ll all be headed through soon, anyway.”

“Hopefully Sausage has another sheep.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

It’s not healthy to suppress emotions like this (Scott’s well aware of that, if nothing else), but he finds himself relieved that he doesn’t feel more than a distant sadness at Katherine’s decision to stay.

“You know,” Katherine says after a moment, “I knew Jimmy decently well. And if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he isn’t a coward.”

Scott doesn’t say anything. Just remembers that when he told them all what had happened, the first thing Katherine had done was call Jimmy a coward. Words of anger, perhaps? Or is her new admission a lie?

“It . . . it hurts to know that he just left us. I can’t decide if he had a reason, or if it really was just running away.” She sighs. “Everyone’s selfish when it comes down to it, I guess.”

Scott nods. “Yeah,” he finds himself agreeing. Just hours ago, he’d sat on this boulder with Jimmy leaning against him, feverish and likely hallucinating as he gathered the strength to strike off alone.

And just two months ago, Jimmy had killed a god out of quick-tempered anger and selfishness, dooming the world.

“Yeah,” Scott says again. “It’s what makes us human, I guess.”

-

Sausage, tired as he is, gives Scott a warm hug before they leave.

“Take care, Scott,” he whispers, beard tickling Scott’s ear. Scott nods, swallows back the lump in his throat.

“You too. Get Shelby better, yeah?”

Sausage doesn’t respond, just squeezes him and turns back to Shelby.

Shelby doesn’t acknowledge Scott when he bends over to give her a hug, her eyes squeezed shut and heat radiating off of her. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her tight for a solid ten seconds.

Katherine gives him a quick hug on the way out, and Gem and fWhip and False are waiting on the airship already (with the sheep just hanging out behind them, which is a ludicrous sight), so he hurries along and clambers up to join them, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and his trusty shovel at his hip.

“Bye!” Katherine waves from the ground. Gem waves back right as the turbines start spinning and the airship slowly takes off.

Scott grips the railing, staring down over Sanctuary. From this height, he can tell that the protective magic around the town is beginning to fail. It’s patchy, almost open, from above, and it’s shrunk so much that the houses on the edge of town are beginning to fall outside of the line.

Some sort of emotion wells up in Scott, and he isn’t sure if it’s fear or grief or what, just knows that it’s making his stomach turn.

Whether or not the Rift thing works out, he probably won’t ever see Sanctuary again.

He may never see Sausage or Shelby again. He’ll never see Chromia, or the Evermoor, or Tumble Town, or any of this world ever again.

Scott heaves a sigh, then turns around, to find fWhip and Gem watching him.

“Sorry, what?” he blinks a few times. “Did you—did you say something?”

fWhip shrugs. “You’re the leader now,” he says awkwardly. “Just waiting for you to go over the plan.”

“I just learned the plan from you yesterday,” Scott points out. “Surely you know it better than me.”

“I guess, but . . . Jimmy always did it.”

“Right.” Scott forgot that he would actually have responsibilities. He’d never paid much attention to what Jimmy did, other than run himself into the ground patrolling and cause the apocalypse. “Um. False will drop the sheep on the other side of the river from the Rift, hopefully attracting the mites. We head through the Rift while they’re distracted. That’s . . . that’s it.”

Gem frowns. “I expected more.”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. More.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Well, I don’t have anything else to say. Give me a couple of minutes, I’ll make something up.”

fWhip actually grins a little. Which is great, because Scott’s pretty sure he’s barely stopped crying since yesterday.

Then he turns back, and watches the miles pass below them until he can see the mountain that holds the pulsing Rift in the distance, the ground around it so overwhelmed by mites that the terrain is no longer familiar. Somewhere within the festival grounds that had never been properly used is a torn flag hanging from a bent flagpole, tatters flapping in the wind.

Finally, whatever it is in Scott’s stomach resolves itself into a properly identifiable feeling.

He feels fear.

Which, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have time for.

“We all know the plan?” he finds himself yelling over the sound of the airship, as if they hadn’t just gone over it. Gem and fWhip nod, fWhip already leading the sheep to the edge.

Just as False passes over the river, by the bridge, fWhip shoves the bleating sheep overboard.

Even from as far up as they are, Scott hears it hit the ground with a crunch and cringes, wishing he’d thought to cover his ears.

But it works.

The mites that had been squirming around the Rift begin to crawl en masse in the direction of the sheep, where already a few lucky mites are devouring the thing. They’re going to have to move fast—this is in no way a permanent solution, especially considering the multiplication that’s going to take place.

Scott throws the rope ladder over the side when False halts the airship, looks around for—for no one, he’s the leader, he has to go first.

And he’s right—he’ll need to move faster than ever, what with the still sizable collection of mites below him.

Scott swallows, his mouth utterly dry. There’s a pretty good chance this is the last thing he’ll ever do. There’s no guarantee that there’s even anything more than a hellscape on the other side of the Rift.

But if this is his last act, at least he won’t have to be in charge any more.

Scott swings himself over the railing and finds his footing on the waving rope ladder, before hauling himself down as quickly as he can. The wind is blowing the ladder all over the place, and it’s all Scott can do to hold on and not die of fright, but his arms (somehow growing used to this) hold firm and his toes curl around the rope and he somehow, gloriously, makes it to the bottom.

He starts yelling at the top of his lungs before he even touches the ground, nonsense and folk tunes and wordless, whatever he can think of, just to frighten the darkness away a bit. He starts glaring as soon as he can look away from his own feet, clearing a nice space for fWhip and Gem to land.

Scott double-checks that his pant legs are tucked into his boots, then draws his shovel, holding it threateningly above his shoulder, ready to hit any mite that steps out of line.

There’s a lot of them. The grass is worn down around the Rift (so close Scott can hear it thrumming with power) by so many plaguelings stacked here, as if they know that a portal could lead to more places to corrupt but can’t figure out how to enter.

Scott’s voice cracks. He’s alone down here, surrounded by mites, the only way out is across that rickety bridge and even then it might—

Gem jumps the last couple of rungs, landing heavily on her feet beside Scott. fWhip scurries down the ladder right behind her, and then it’s just the three of them against the world.

“Ready to go?” Scott shouts. Gem nods, and her mouth’s moving but Scott can’t hear her over the sound of his own voice and the departing airship. She nods again, though, drawing her sword with one hand and holding onto fWhip with the other.

fWhip nods as well, his ears flapped over themselves to muffle the noise. Scott takes in a breath—they’re leaving it’s time to leave they’ll finally be out of here—and turns toward the Rift.

They have to cross the bridge, first. And as Scott takes his first step across it, the wood below his feet gives and his foot crashes through the bridge.

Scott loses track of his constant stream of noise, crying out in pain as the splintered wood scrapes up his leg like fire, all the way up to his knee, tearing through cloth and skin. There’s a mite just a few feet away from him, and surely more out of sight—he can’t stop here, he can’t catch his breath, he can’t wait for the pain to lull for a moment—it hurts and his stomach feels like it’s fallen out of his body but he can’t stop—so Scott grits his teeth and yanks his leg up, the wood scraping right back down the marks it just made until he’s properly standing again.

“Scott!” Gem grabs onto him, pulling him back a couple of steps—Scott hisses at the weight on his leg—

fWhip darts forward, testing the bridge on all fours, tail swinging out behind him for balance. It bends beneath him, but it doesn’t break like it had for Scott, and fWhip manages to cross entirely.

“One at a time,” he calls back. “And be careful—I think they’re swarming under it!”

Scott bites back a snarky response. He knows to be careful—it’s not like it was his fault the bridge broke under him. But he gingerly steps around the hole in the bridge and tiptoes across, his leg smarting, skin now bared to the wind.

Gem joins him on the other side. The Rift is within reach now, warm and pulsing purple, just a couple of meters away and they’re home free.

There are quite a few mites waiting between them and the Rift, however. That’s certainly an issue, but not unmanageable. He handled more in Stratos, probably.

Scott starts swinging with his shovel, yelling every curse he can think of, but he’s only cleared a few before fWhip grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him roughly to look to his right.

Returning from across the river, sheep entirely gone, is a veritable wave of death.

The mites are piled higher than Scott is tall, practically twice his height, an amorphous being that looms over them like Joel once had.

Scott’s mind goes utterly blank. All he can hear is the pounding of his heart in his ears. All he can feel is his limbs shaking.

It’s moving fast, the shadow of the plague passing over them as the pile begins to collapse, in a matter of seconds mites will be raining down and latching onto them and they’ll die under the assault of so much death and Scott can’t make himself move—

Then Gem shoves him, and instinct kicks in.

Scott grabs Gem by the hand, fWhip by the arm, and runs.

He runs, and fWhip trips and Scott doesn’t let go, just hoists him back up with a strength he’s never had before and keeps going, because they’re going to die if they stay here and Scott’s never been more afraid in his life—

Something hits his back and bounces off—then again and again. Scott just has a moment to spare a thought, a prayer to whoever is listening that it didn’t touch his skin, and then he has to focus every thought he has on getting out.

Gem screams something, fWhip yells “We’re gonna make it!” and Scott bites his cheek and closes his eyes and his shoe catches on a stone—

Scott tumbles headfirst into the Rift.

-

The first sound he hears is the chirping of birds.

[tomwambsmilk]

It's 100% true that the Roy siblings did not choose to be Logan's children and Tom and Greg and the old guard did choose to work for him so their relationships to Logan are fundamentally different, and the degree of culpability they bear for their own moral degradation is also wildly different. But workplace emotional abuse is also very real and omnipresent in the way Logan treats the people who work for him. And one of the impacts of workplace emotional abuse is creating an extreme attachment to the abuser and becoming less cognizant and even defensive of their abuse towards yourself and others, and in cases where the emotional abuse is institutionalized and systemic it can also create a strong aversion to leaving because your whole sense of personal identity becomes wrapped up in the organization and so being forced to leave can cause an intense psychological crisis. I don't think the situation of working for Logan is at all equivalent to being his child but I also think that it's a bit misguided to imply that Tom and Gerri and Frank and Karl are operating from a place of pure rationality without any undue psychological influences when they make the choice to stay with and support Logan

[sleebyfrogs]

Okay so just imagine like. You’re just a little guy. You have no parents and your grandfather who raised you has always disparaged and disapproved of the very fact that you exist, for reasons utterly beyond your control. People enjoy your presence because you’re polite and charming the same way they enjoy flowers in spring, which is to say in passing and ultimately without any real connection.

And then you meet this guy who is just like. obsessed with you. He always wants to be around you and he derives true joy from it without you having to say anything funny or clever or lie for politeness’ sake. He creates art that he loves of you and because of you. Indirectly, you are suddenly able to put joy and beauty into the world, anything into the world, because you inspire him. You never imagined you would leave any kind of footprint the way things were before, because nothing you had was meaningful or lasting. And he flatters you dreadfully, he tells you how incredibly beautiful you are, and whether you realise it or not, you can feel that at least part of this value that he has found in you, that he has given you, comes from that beauty.

And then one day you meet his friend, who is older than you and cooler than you and a lord, and so witty and eloquent that you struggle just trying to keep track of whatever the fuck he’s talking about (and he always sounds like he knows everything about it), and he’s been this guy’s friend much longer than you have, and he also compliments you on your beauty and so seemingly that is the only quality of any worth that you possess, right? And then he waxes on and on about how it’s the only thing worth having and explains that what you have is actually incredibly valuable and fragile and precious, and that you are inevitably going to lose it and there’s nothing you can do. And also he says all this while you’re having your gay awakening because he’s sweet-talking you in a way you’ve never experienced and it’s uhhhhh it’s something. So then while you’re having a complete existential crisis over this your mutual friend calls you over to show you the most exquisite painting you’ve ever seen in your life and it’s of you. You didn’t know you could be so beautiful to anyone, you didn’t know he could create anything so beautiful, you didn’t know beauty on this level could even be captured in art. And that’s how he sees you, continually, without you having to make any effort to please him? Just to be yourself is enough to have inspired this incredible thing? You might cry. And then you realise he created it here and now and of you because on this particular day of June, you are twenty years old, and young, and pretty, and once you age out of that, you will lose the one thing anyone has ever valued in you, and surely also his interest, and you will be alone again, and worthy of nothing and no one. And because you’re also twenty years old and privileged and inexperienced you’ve never learned any capacity for nuanced thoughts and say things that are incredibly rash and stupid and regrettable.

So I’m not saying Dorian did nothing wrong but I am saying in his position I’d definitely have been a vain and terrified idiot too

[masked-alien-lesbian]

Not that I want to marry Duke Richards or Sir Gideon Payne by any means, but rereading Desire & Decorum has made me wonder what it would be like to play a more morally darker mc that gets married to someone who is trying to overthrow the king or queen. Something like TC&TF but instead of fighting to get your throne back, usurping the throne. Watching the world burn for you obtain power...

[muchemoaboutnothing]

x

[stars-and-darkness]

.

[mikuhats]

Im sorry but how did you get this from the finale 😭 would you have preferred if simon killed himself on screen

[idolsgf]

thinking about weathering with you and how at the end the characters decide to go with the selfish choice instead of the self sacrificing choice. they’d rather doom the world and be together than apart and i think that’s beautiful

[cuntstable]

thinking about byakuren touhou….. buddhist monk monday…..

[here-there-were-dragons]

my mother is absolutely convinced of some nonsense conspiracy theory that (in her words) "originally humanity lived in peaceful all-woman societies of goddess worshippers who took care of eachother and lived in harmony, while males were roving loners that had no society and never cooperated. that changed when the men banded together and overthrew the peaceful woman-dominated societies, and enslaved us all." and, according to her, this is proof that a woman-dominated world would be innately more peaceful, and that men are innately violent and evil and should be either barred from holding any legal power or leadership roles or at least should be (again in her words) "gelded like bulls" to remove their testosterone before even being considered for such a thing.

she also evidently believes that the problem with all religions today is primarily that they aren't "goddess worshippers", because she seems to think goddess religions are inherently peaceful and pure too and seems to be especially obsessed with "Isis" in particular. the very very few times she's openly considered it unambiguously bad for some population or another to have been exterminated (she's got a bad case of devil's advocating genocide brain), she's gone out of her way to make up some crap about how said people were a peaceful society of goddess-worshippers, almost always of isis. delusions of isis-worship seem to be the only thing that ever causes her to consider any arab or middle-eastern culture, society, or ethnicity to be relatively uncomplicatedly undeserving of extermination, in fact, because every fucking time she doesn't immediately start devils-advocating it and making remarks about how "the rest of the world should box them in and let them blow eachother up" it's when she's whinging on about how whatever specific micro-ethnicity she's thinking about are or were traditional persecuted isis-worshippers.

the sole major exception to her weird fixation on isis worship justifying worthiness of life is the whole israel thing going on, in which she has consistently made very obvious that literally the only reason she's against the genocide of palestine is because it gives her an excuse to even more openly hate jewish people than she already did. and honestly i'm not sure even that's true because i think she's made some offhand remarks about palestinians having probably been peaceful isis worshipers before the jews infected them with christianity or something anyway.

so for the last, however fucking long it's been i've been constantly having to listen to her go off about how this behavior is in the jew's blood or whatever and that they literally invented all genocide because somehow the concept didn't exist before them and wouldn't have ever been invented by the rest of humanity without those jewish aliens dropping it in i fucking guess apparently and she furthermore goes on about how every single genocide and mass-oppression movement in history is directly inspired by them, ESPECIALLY the nazis, and THEN i have to listen to her rant about how, basically, wwii was something they entirely brought on themselves by "dominating the economy and treating everyone not them like shit" and the nazis were just "using their own tactics back at them". and then she goes on a rant about how the people the original jews exterminated back in the day (aka the first ever genocide, which they invented, because jews invented genocide and hate according to her) in the middle east region were peaceful matriarchal isis-worshipers.

and then she starts making comments about arabs being backwards and palestinians either being mysogynist muslims that should be boxed in to blow eachother up with everyone else or secret peaceful isis worshippers corrupted by men's cruel hand, sometimes in the same sentence, entirely dependent on which group she's more in the mood to hate at the time.

it's exhausting. beyond exhausting. her sole purpose in existence seems to be to have the singularly most exhausting set of politics physically possible to fit into one person.

just, sometimes i think, if there really is anything at all to the incredibly stupid and inexplicably popular idea that anyone or anything has a Purpose tm to exist for, i feel like my mother's purpose is to be walking proof to me of a Type Of Guy That Is Real, cause i sure as fuck would have trouble inventing this mess if it wasn't standing right in front of me spewing confusingly bipartisan hate. all of her thoughts and opinions are these long winding nonsense chains that feel like if that man carrying thing sketch about the friend with confusing politics was a person. on meth.

[inkskinned]

the tradwife movement is the same as it has always been - back in the kitchen, back to breeding - it just has better branding.

when i was younger, i hated pink. i was not like other girls. this is now something i'm embarrassed of - this was not me being a "girl's girl."

but it was expressing something many of us felt at the time: i literally wasn't what girlhood was supposed to be. this is a hard thing to explain, but you know when you're not performing girlhood correctly. it isn't as easy as "i liked x when girls liked y" - because there were other girls that liked x, too - but i never figured out exactly the correct way to like x, or to be interested in y.

now there is the divine feminine. this is the same rhetoric it has always been: women are biologically driven to like pink and ribbons and submitting to our husbands.

the problem is that the patriarchy found a better PR team. because yes, actually, i want every woman to have the choice to be a homemaker. i also want her taken seriously for her legitimate home-making labor. i want her to be recognized as also having a job, just unpaid. i want men to have this opportunity, too.

but it is no longer "i made this choice and I love it." instead it is a sixteen-paragraph rant about how selfish it is that my generation isn't having kids. instead it's long videos about how if you feed your children processed foods, you're going to kill them. instead it is "this is what womanhood is supposed to be. i feel bad for any other choices you're making."

the shame spiral is just prettier. it is large houses devoid of personality. it is the implication: if you don't have this, you aren't happy. the solid, everlasting assurance: women are actually supposed to be submitting. this is the default. this is the natural state of things. all other attempts inflict suffering.

but you can no longer say i'm not like other girls. you can no longer reject this image completely. you cannot find it revolting, even if you know that the underbelly is toxic and festering. sure, it is the same repackaged patriarchy. but the internet does not have shades of grey. you should support and reward other women! your disgust is actually internalized misogyny. not because you are seeing a vision of yourself the way they're trying to train you to be. not because you feel her ghost pass within an inch of your earlobe. not because your father will eventually ask you - why can't you be like her?

because they figured out how to make it beautiful: women will sell other women on this idea, and we will find the singular loophole in feminism. sure, she's shaming you in most of her videos. sure, she implies that a different life is obscene. but she just wants you to be happy! you'd be happier if you were listening!

and the whole time you're sitting there thinking: i'd actually just be happier if i had that kind of money.