#and it was out of nowhere and its been as you can imagine: horrible

[madebycoffee]

i have updated my stupid game, and gone in without mods... and jesus fucking christ the full screen pop up ads for the stupid new pack.

EA i really don't want to be sold death. I have just experienced that shit IRL. It's expensive enough.

Halloween decor isn't bothering me, people with skeletons in their yards isn't bothering me. I'm going to add the packs name to my tumblr filtering so I'll be fine here. But fucking hell opening this game and being advertised all this death shit sucks. like really sucks.

[dimonds456]

Billford and Abuse: An Analysis

Honestly, as someone who ships both Billford and Fiddauthor, the thing I like about the toxic yaoi ship is the fact that it IS toxic. Like, the jokes are great, but its depiction of abuse is so, like... genuine. Without getting personal, I've been in a really fucking bad toxic (platonic) relationship before, and Billford deadass helped me come to terms with it.

Cuz here's the thing: most fictional abusive relationships just start with the abuse itself. It shows the victim and the perpetrator at the height (or almost at the height) of the abuse, and we see as either one of them is destroyed by it or the victim becomes free. But Billford actually shows the WHOLE timeline.

Something that bothers me about a lot of fictional abuse reps is the fact that you cannot sympathize with the victim aside from "aw that's horrible :(". Cuz it just starts AT the abuse. We don't see how they got there or what's causing the victim to stay. We just know they need to escape.

But with Billford, we see EVERYTHING. How it started out as something Ford genuinely loved, seeing Bill as a friend and someone he could trust, how it made him feel better because he was actually making progress on his research and he wasn't lonely anymore.

To Ford during those early days, Bill was the highlight of his time in Gravity Falls. We can follow his train of thought exactly to where he let Bill possess him with basically no strings attached (pun intended).

That's what makes it all the more devastating. Bill isolated Ford from everyone. He sabotaged his friendship with Fiddleford by planting that seed of doubt in the engineer and pulling Ford further and further into his plans. Then the thing with the portal happened and Ford had NOWHERE to go. Plus, Bill kept trying to get Ford to stop thinking about Stan, to move on and let him rot. So he kept planting seeds of doubt in his own brother as well, causing Ford to further and further slip away.

Then Ford confronts Bill. And the monster is unleashed.

Once Bill realizes he's lost control of Ford's devotion and the illusion has shattered, Bill just LEANS into it. In order to take control back, he started tormenting Ford and just being horrible to him, to try and make him fall in line. Love and fear ARE right next to each other in the brain, after all. And there's NOTHING Ford can do but just fall further and further into paranoia.

Bill demonstrates many real-world abusive/manipulative tactics on Ford, the big one being isolation, since that allows the rest of the everything to even happen, but the way he turns Ford against LITERALLY EVERYONE using paranoia is really true to real life.

Now obviously your toxic boyfriend cannot possess random strangers irl. But you know what he CAN do? Start spreading rumors behind your back. Stalk you. Harass you. Make you feel unsafe everywhere except home (which isn't safe either, but it's better than the outside world). He can spend your money or break your things. Slash your tires. In Ford's case, LITERALLY abusing his body. There's the sticky notes, the threats, the roof incident, all of it just piling one atop the other.

I cannot imagine how fucking terrified Ford must have been to finally send that postcard to Stanley. He was at a point where he assumed Stan would hate him, or at the very least wouldn't respond so why even bother, and he'd just gotten the "steal your eyes" threat. He was out of options, and was absolutely sure he was putting Stan in danger by getting him involved (another irl abuse thing that happens).

He was scared to reach out for help because 1) he didn't want others getting hurt (like Fidds had), 2) he was ashamed he'd let this happen, and 3) he, on some level, felt like he deserved this.

Justified? To a paranoid, scared, abused, irrational brain: Absolutely. In reality? Never. But HE'D built that portal. HE'D allowed Bill to possess his body basically freely. HE'D basically helped start the apocalypse. And that shame would have lead to SO much self-hatred and despair.

His reaching out to Stan was his last resort, his only way out. THAT'S what intrigues me about the ship so much.

I do not want them to make up and get back together. They're horrible for each other. But I do enjoy exploring the dynamic of it, fully seeing the cycle and how it happens, and seeing a whole new side to Ford that we only caught a glimpse of in the show and Journal 3. Plus Bill but his side is more comedic and sad to me I do not take him seriously FSDGHJ

The jokes are great and I love it here, but if I ever write a fic or draw art for these two it's going to be toxic as hell man. And not in the fun way fgsjd

[damthosefandoms]

There's death at my door and I swear that it's following me

(ao3 link)

Summary:

“I’m going to finish it,” he says out loud to anyone who might be listening in his empty house. “I swear. I have to for school, anyway. I’m not handing in an unfinished paper.”

There is no response but the sound of Ponyboy’s own breathing.

“It’s not easy to write, Johnny!” he yells. “This is the part where I get you killed, you know!”

Nothing.

Figures he’d be quiet dead, too.

---

Neither of the greasers who died that cold, September night in 1967 had a funeral—Dally had nobody to set one up, except his friends who couldn’t afford it, and they never found out where the cops took him after they killed him anyway. But a month or so after everything ends, they find out Johnny’s mother had him cremated and that she and his father kept his ashes.

Ponyboy is particularly pissed off. Something about Johnny being trapped in that house his whole life, and even now, after death, being kept in a place he hated more than anything else…

“It ain’t right. I…we loved him more than they could ever dream of.”

As the remnants of the gang sit around the Curtises’ kitchen table, defeated, Two-Bit half-heartedly jokes they should steal his ashes. Darry rolls his eyes. Sodapop says that’s horrible. A heartbroken Ponyboy says, “Dally would’ve done it in a heartbeat.”

A week later Darry and Soda wake up to Pony making eggs for breakfast, with a new centerpiece on the table.

“Tell me that is not what I think it is,” Darry mutters, gesturing to the cheap urn.

Pony’s face goes red. “So, uh… this kid Mark at school taught me how to pick locks, and…”

“Ponyboy Michael Curtis!”

“C’mon, Darry, I had to! It was eating me alive. They don’t deserve him! I’ll bet they won’t even notice he’s gone!”

His brothers look at him like he’s finally lost it. Maybe he has, because Mark’s advice had gotten him nowhere, and Pony swears the Cades’ door unlocked on its own last night.

“All Johnny wanted was to get out of Tulsa. The happiest he ever was, was watchin’ the sunset back there on Jay Mountain. I needed to go get him so we could take him there.”

“Ponyboy…”

“I had to. I just had to. If not for Johnny, then for Dally, okay? ‘Cause god knows we couldn’t do anythin’ else for him.”

He’s got a lot of reasons to believe this is what Johnny wanted.

That weekend, the whole gang drives up to the remains of the church, so they all can say goodbye. Ponyboy pours Johnny’s ashes out over the cliffside where they watched the sunset, and if a little bit of dust gets on his hands, well. He stares for a minute before he goes to wash it off at the old water pump.

“You gotta go, Johnny,” he mumbles. “Don’t stick around me. Don’t do that to yourself. Move on.”

He’s always had a weird relationship with death. 

---

Ever since Ponyboy was little, he’d been told he had a strong imagination. His brothers call him a dreamer. His dad used to laugh and say he had his head in the clouds; his Mom said he was just the creative type. He learned pretty fast that no one else saw the things he could see, and he learned even faster not to talk about it. He thinks his brothers never believed him, but they also never forgot.

It’s one of those things where Ponyboy doesn’t see things unless he needs to. He got real good at tuning out the supernatural at a very young age, and it’s not something that comes up in his life very often anyway; death may follow him wherever he goes, it may show up at his door but he does not let it in. He doesn’t know why he’s like this. It’s like there is just something special about him, something he figures he won’t understand until he is much, much older. Or maybe he never will, and he’s just crazy.

The first time death comes to visit, Ponyboy is not feeling well. It’s been a month, it’s almost Halloween, and it is the first time since Johnny and Dally died that he’s sick again. Pony’s got just a low-grade fever, but Darry lets him stay home because that’s for the best. He promises to work on his English assignment.

Darry and Soda head out to work with promises to check up on him during their lunch breaks. He picks up his notebook and flips through it, but he is at the part where he runs into the church to save those kids and he can’t bring himself to pick up the pencil and admit that it was his cigarette. His fault.

His pencil rolls over the edge of the desk. It clatters to the floor and Ponyboy reaches down to get it. When he sits up, Johnny’s ghost is staring at him, pointing at the blank page. 

He blinks and he is alone again, but he can still feel the presence and knows deep down he isn’t. He sits back and groans. He can’t be normal for ten minutes?

“I’m going to finish it,” he says out loud to anyone who might be listening in his empty house. “I swear. I have to for school, anyway. I’m not handing in an unfinished paper.”

There is no response but the sound of Ponyboy’s own breathing. 

“It’s not easy to write, Johnny!” he yells. “This is the part where I get you killed, you know!”

Nothing. 

Figures he’d be quiet dead, too.

But writer’s block grabs him by the throat and doesn’t let go, so Ponyboy picks up his pencil again and begins to doodle on that blank page a picture of his current situation.

He falls asleep at his desk, and when his brothers come home, they find him there, snoring over a picture of himself at his desk, writing in his notebook while Johnny Cade stands watching over his shoulder like some kind of guardian angel.

---

Time passes and school starts up again, and around a year or so after the Windrixville nightmare, Ponyboy announces to his brothers that he’s going to some school dance with a couple of friends. He’s really non-committal about the whole thing, but Soda thinks it’s a good idea, and maybe Pony doesn’t really like the group of guys he’s going with but he knows he has to get out of his comfort zone and this is one way to do that. He promises to be back before curfew, so it’s not like he’ll have time to get into any trouble.

Apparently, his first mistake was one he’d made literal months ago, back in the spring—saying no to going out with Angela Shepard.

He knows it was shitty of him, the way he'd barely even acknowledged her presence after she waltzed up to him that day, but he also he knows it was never about him. It was her, expecting Pony to have her back whether or not he actually was interested in her, because that's just what Curtises and Shepards do.

But the day she approached him was—would've been—Johnny's seventeenth birthday. So, you know. There are a lot of reasons he'd turned her down. 

And now here they are, in October of 1968, at this stupid school dance. Mark’s brother Bryon brought a date and Bryon never liked Ponyboy anyway, so he and Mark walked off together to let those two hang out, and then Mark wanted to go out to Terry’s car because he brought alcohol or something—Pony was not interested in drinking the slightest, but he followed anyway—and then his second mistake must’ve been simply being at the dance or something, he doesn’t actually know. He doesn’t think he spoke to Angela the whole time.

(Later Ponyboy finds out she was trying to piss off Bryon, who he later finds out is her ex. She was mad he'd brought a date, or something like that. He still doesn't really get the whole thing, and probably never will. If you ask him, Angela should've known better than to have taken it all personally when she'd known exactly what she was doing.)

They’re sitting on the hood of Mark’s friend Terry’s car and some guy walks up that Ponyboy has never seen before. 

And the guy just swings at him! Of course he swung back!

Pony knows that he does not have a tough reputation, but he is one hell of a fighter—he may have gotten his ass kicked in the rumble but he also helped kick ass, and he’s been working out a bit with Darry so he can keep up with the track team, and he was briefly considered an accessory to murder, so clearly he can handle himself. Just ignore the fact he'd been drowning in the fountain for that whole thing. He figures Mark didn’t get the memo, because when the guy smashes a beer bottle to swing at Ponyboy’s head, his idiot friend decides to pick that moment to tell the other guy to relax.

Next thing Pony knows Mark’s on the ground bleeding and the school-sanctioned cop appointed to keep kids from killing each other at the dance grabs him to haul him away. Some job he’s doing.

He goes to get Mark’s brother, and he explains that the guy meant to hit him and not Mark, and Bryon says something about Angela Shepard but he doesn’t really explain. Pony decides he doesn't care. Mark groans and his eyes open, but it’s like he can’t see anything and Pony winces, because he knows all too well what is happening.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Shock,” Ponyboy says, and he takes Dally’s old leather jacket off and throws it over the guy until the ambulance arrives and the EMTs take over. He’s careful not to let any blood get on it, though. It’s already been through enough.

Ponyboy thinks maybe he has, too.

The brothers get into the ambulance and Cathy Carlson, the girl that Bryon took to the dance, walks up to him and asks what happened, so he tells her. She mentions that Bryon borrowed a friend’s car to drive them there—Two-Bit drove Ponyboy to the dance and then ditched him for the first girl he saw at the party, and must be long gone by now—and she points it out to him in the parking lot. She heads off to see if she can get a ride to the hospital from someone. 

Ponyboy wants to thank Mark for stopping the fight, if he can. He’s not as bad as everyone thinks he is; Pony’s got no clue why Dally used to be so insistent he stay away from the kid. He also kind of figured Bryon would need a way home too, so…

He hotwires the car. He hopes he didn’t break anything in the process, and he makes sure to have Cathy drive, because she has a license and Darry won’t let anyone but himself teach Pony—and he won’t do it until Pony’s sixteen. Probably for the best considering Soda and Steve have a million speeding tickets each and Two-Bit is chronically under the influence.

When they leave, Ponyboy and Bryon have to help Mark walk out because he can’t on his own just yet. Pony’s in the middle of saying he gets it, “I had this killer concussion last year after some soc kicked me in the head during the big rumble, and I remember bein’ out of my mind loopy after, laughin’ at how I couldn’t run… straight…”

He trails off.

He realizes he recognizes this hallway. The door across from him is slightly open and it is the room Johnny died in.

Mark half-falls ‘cause Bryon kept walking and Pony didn’t, and it takes Cathy asking if he is okay to snap him out of it. He says yes but his chest is starting to feel tight and his eyes burn.

He blinks a few times and shakes his head and mumbles a “sorry,” which just gets him an odd look, but no one really asks after that. They get Mark in the car and the only thing he says for the entire ride home are the directions to his house.

Except they don’t get all the way to his house, because they are driving down the street Dallas Winston died on and the pain in Pony’s chest gets worse and he looks out the window toward the street lamp and yells “STOP!” because he sees someone standing there and is convinced they are about to hit them.

Everyone stares at Ponyboy like he is insane but he does not care because Dally is crumpling to the ground just like he did that night, calling out Pony’s name and dropping dead. Then he is standing up, and the bullets are hitting him, and it repeats and repeats like some horrible loop. Pony feels like all his hair is standing on end. He can’t breathe.

Don’t think about how you heard Dally and Johnny’s last words, how they called for you, but you’ll never know Mom and Dad’s. If they screamed for help. If they held each other as they died. If they watched the train coming and knew they couldn't run.

“Uh, I forgot to tell y’all a turn, I… I’ll get out here. Thanks for the ride.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before he gets out of the car and shuts the door. Cathy’s got the window down and she asks if he’s okay and Pony is normally a good liar but he isn’t tonight.

“I’ll be fine. See you later.”

They drive off and Ponyboy sits down on the curb and stares at his hands. He’s never hanging out with any of them ever again.

He thinks about his dreams, the horrible ones that wake him up screaming and shaking, the ones he can’t ever remember, and he wonders why he had to be the one cursed with this stupid ability. To know something horrible is going to happen before it does. To see what happened to his friends after death. Why he has to be the one to know Dallas Winston will never move on. He has this feeling in his gut and he knows he needs to walk down this road to get home but he cannot bring himself to go anywhere near that street lamp. He already has Johnny’s spirit attached to him. He can’t deal with the idea of Dally being there too. He is too angry, and even from this distance, it’s starting to affect Pony, too.

He takes the long way home, because maybe he has a jacket tonight but he figures that if he’s going to get jumped tonight for walking home alone, what’s the worst that could happen after last time? He’s already lost two friends. He lost his parents. Who even cares anymore?

When Ponyboy gets back to his house it is well after curfew and he can see the light on inside and it is like deja vu. He has a black eye and his lip is cut, he knows it’s swelling up because he never put ice on it, and his chest feels tight and he knows he’s shed a few tears and he just. He can’t even bring himself to care as he walks inside.

“You’re late again,” Darry says. Soda is nowhere to be seen. 

“Yeah, whatever, Darrel,” Pony mutters.

“Where were you? I told you to be home by midnight. What happened to your face?”

“Some guy swung at me. Don’t worry about it.”

“You really think I won’t, Pony? We’ve talked about this.”

That is a lie. They didn’t talk. They just promised Soda not to fight anymore.

But Pony is tired and Dally and his heart hurts and he feels like he is going to explode, so he does.

“I was at the hospital, Darry, is that what you want? My friend got hurt trying to help me out because some guy I ain’t never seen in my life decided to swing at me at the dance even though I didn’t even do anything and I went to the hospital to check on Mark. And you know what? I had it all under control and then I hadda walk past that stupid room Johnny died in and now I know my brain is broken ‘cause I can’t stop thinking about it and about Dally and— and I don’t want to talk about it!” Ponyboy can’t even finish. He just storms past his brother and down the hall to his room.

He opens the door, grabs Sodapop out of the bed and shoves him out, and then slams the door shut behind him. The doorknob clicks locked and they hear a noise that sounds an awful lot like a heartbroken sob.

Soda looks at Darry.

“I told you waiting up for him would just piss him off.”

“Shut up.”

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

The Nya-rtists of hotarubi

Hotarubi as cats

Wc:800

Subaru

I actually don't know what to imagine him as! But I guess a brown Scottish fold would fit, his little face looks like he is ready to apologize for breathing too loudly.

A cat that appeared in a few movies and shows as a kitten but stopped featuring around the time you got him. He is incredibly well trained, jumping between platforms or hoops or meowing when you do a small sign with your hand. He does seem to dislike giving the paw though.

Your merienda pal! Your tea time mate! When you sit down at 4 or 5 to drink some infusion and eat something he will sit down on the chair facing you. He looks so cute and looks at you with his big beautiful eyes that makes you give him a little treat to share with you. (Seemingly cats can drink moderately herbal tea so he would like that!)

The other two sometimes join you but Haku just splays down on your lap and will hold your hand as you handfeed him treats, Zenji doesn't seem too interested in treats and just wants to make you hear his horrid song.

Even though he is quite well behaved and never hisses at visits or you, he will paw and bite at you or any cats who attempt to kill a bug or hurt them. Little anomaly bug protector.

You are unsure if Subaru likes Zenji, maybe it's because he appeared out of nowhere or how he enjoys being sticked to someone else who sometimes happens to be the touch adverse cat, either way whenever Zenji starts singing he runs away to your room and burrows under your bed -his unofficial hideout with a cat tatami mat you bought him- or under your pillow to drown the noise out. When you attempt to pull him out his little face makes you leave him be.

Haku

He is a japanese bobtail cat that was raised in a shrine to hunt mouses but got sold because he wasn't catching any.

He is so quick to jump on your lap almost as soon as you get him home, purring and asking for scratches. He is such a loving boy to every visitor.

He likes music with flutes, he will loaf down on the middle of your sofa -preferably on a blanket too- and close his eyes.

Even though he is quite a chill and quiet kitty who loves to laze around and sunbathe, whenever Subaru is in trouble he will pop in to aid him. He it helping him out from a space that was smaller than he expected or meowing at you and waking you up when Suba lingers around your bed waiting for you to wake up and feed them.

The cat that will stand up straight and still suddenly as if he saw something on the middle of the night to freak you out and then fall asleep, he almost seems to enjoy making you nervous about ghost in your house.

Zenji

a Bombay cat His eyes bright and sleek body beautiful enough to be in a poem

For a nice while you thought you had only Haku and Subaru but it isn't until one night a horrible meowing wakes you up and you find a black cat in your living room. You rolled with it and introduced him to the other cats in the morning. When Subaru saw him he jumped back and ran back to your bed, but Haku just looked at him and walked to his food bowl.

You think Haku actually snuck him in, given how familiar he seemed to be with him. It also explains why he was so thin, the thing must have been sharing food with Zenji, though you never see him eat or drink.

Loves music! Not like Haku, who will lie down and vibe, his tail moving at most; Zenji will start scratching pillows and anything with threads, find him a scratch ball or anything. It's even worse if you yourself play the instruments, he will meow acting as the vocalist whenever you practice.

He is always hanging by Haku's tail! Whenever you look for one of them the other is close by. There are a few instances where he will take it to stalk you rather than Haku and will be surprised when you speak to him, as if he thought he was invisible.

One day he brought a cat plushie from the streets, you guess. it was all dirty and you had to stitch its underbelly so the stuffing wouldn't spill out. At night he hangs on the windowsill and licks it as if it was his brother.

A very vocal kitten! He does speak for all two of his brothers yelping and vocalizing at the minor (if any at all!) reason.

[mrs-elsie-barnes]

The Old Gods and The New - Chapter 8

A Prayer in the Fog | Loki x Reader

A furious Loki requests Val's help in searching for you, but with Asgard's guards so recently depleated he is forced to turn to the Avengers for support. Meanwhile you contend with you captors, all of your captors.

Warnings: 18+, reader has been kidnapped and imprisoned, flashbacks, Loki throwing things around (only sort of a warning), Avenger arguments.

Divider by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist | Loki Masterlist | Masterlist

“What do you mean there’s no sign of her,” Loki shouted, body bending inward with anger, a protection against the burst of magic he released sending a table flying across the room, behind him Brunnhilde’s books were swept from the shelves, swirling in a whirlwind of green magic that consumed its master. 

Loki’s first burst of anger had been calculated and controlled, an effort to ease the pressure that was mounting inside of him, screaming at him. But his patience was gone. Objects crashed from the shelves, Brunhilde’s glass trinkets and picture frames smashed into shards on the hardwood floor and cut into the soles of Loki’s shoes as he paced like a caged animal. In one hand his magic shimmered, gold and green, aching to be set free. In the other he grasped his dagger, fingers curling around the handle for comfort.

“Loki, calm down.” Brunhilde put her hands out in front of her, gesturing for Loki to sit again, she moved him backwards until his knees hit the armchair and he fell, slumped and defeated. 

He would be sorry in the morning. Loki liked Brunhilde, a simple emotion reserved for so few of his acquaintances. He respected her and he knew he would regret taking out his fury on her home.A curl of ink black hair fell across his forehead and he tipped his head back in exasperation.

“How can I calm down when she is lost? My ásynja was supposed to come back to me, she wouldn’t just leave. She has to be here, she has nowhere else to go!” Loki ran a hand through his hair, already messy from the week he’d spent searching up and down the coastline. “She wouldn’t go anywhere else, she only knows us and those idiotic superfriends.” He fell back again, closing his eyes against the horrible idea that you might have returned to them. 

It was an unbearable thought, but one that had crossed his mind, that you had run away to escape him and return to the almost hermetically sealed world of the Avenger’s Compound. He had been so sure you’d hated it there as much as he did, so sure he was doing the right thing by bringing you to the fresh air and freedom of Tonsberg.

When you hadn’t come back to his cottage that night, Loki had gone out looking for you. He’d planned to take you for dinner, perhaps walk along the harbour again and discuss what you’d been able to discover with Brunnhilde. And then he’d imagined taking you back to his home in Tonsberg to show you the spare room he kept, that even if you didn’t want to be with him there’d always be a safe space for you there if you wanted it. He’d imagined you’d be happy there, together, however you wanted. But that was the unbearable thought wasn’t it. That he could ever be happy, ever have something, someone, for himself to hold and cherish and dote upon. 

He had even found your bracelet by the harbour, still glinting even without light, magically imbued to always shine for you. But there was no other trace that you’d even existed outside of his desperate, lonely, imagination.

Brunnhilde called in help from the village to search for you, but they had been badly depleted on their journey to Midgard and there were few guards or soldiers left who were skilled enough to help. Those that did join the hunt were mostly the very young or the very old, those that had been protected by the fierce warriors of Asgard. 

The only lead Loki had found was that two older members of the village had also disappeared, no one knew them well, only that they were at least as old as Odin himself and twice as reclusive as the volatile king had been. The grouchy men kept to themselves, mumbling in the pub about Asgard’s protection and Odin’s orders, much to the quiet amusement of the younger patrons or, more often, hiding in the small fisherman’s cottage on the wharf. No one had seen their lights on since the night of your disappearance and they were the only villagers to be unaccounted for. 

Brunnhilde had sent two of the newer guards to track them in the vain hope that being young and eager would help them. But she’d insisted that Loki remained in the village, you might return at any moment and, more than that, he was volatile in his current state. 

Loki had paced the living room, certain he’d wear a hole in the carpet before he dared to rest for a moment. And the two guards had returned, their leads as empty and hollow as Loki’s heart. 

“I’ll ask Thor to speak to them, okay?” Brunhilde let her hand fall slowly to Loki’s slumped shoulder and patted him gently, unsure whether his temper was controlled or merely simmering below the surface. 

Loki slumped from the chain onto the floor, leaning back against the armchair, his energy drained. Somehow he could feel you still, and it was these sensations that he clung to as he waited for news knowing that if he could feel you, you were alive, even if you weren’t safe. 

The sensation had changed that morning, triggering his new bout of fury. You were awake, for the first time since he'd lost you, and there was a fire burning inside of you. He could feel its warmth, but also its rage, white hot and powerful, and he told himself you were fighting back. Soothed himself on the prospect of your anger carrying you through whatever ordeal was being thrown at you. Proud that you were harnessing your magic to escape. 

Suddenly the feeling vanished, as if it'd been ripped from him and you were gone. No lucid dreams, not even nightmares. Just darkness. 

If you had returned to the Avengers and his reading of your emotions were correct, they would pay dearly. 

In the darkness you felt a tiara, nestled on the top of your head, it's intricate, itching weight familiar in your dreams. Your dresses were clean, decorative, but not practical as they were on Asgard. A doll, on display for the court, just as had been ordered. And as you touched your hand to your face, feeling the soft skin beneath, the jewels that encrusted your fingers scratching the sensitive skin, you allowed yourself a tear. 

“Stop crying for that pathetic boy” a harsh voice snapped next to you. 

“He’s not a boy, he’s a Prince,” images swirled in your mind as you tried to claw back your consciousness. Childish play, stolen kisses, your last week in Asgard and the secret, forbidden acts that you'd indulged in, revelled in, with Loki. Loki. Loki…

You woke up in the dark, hazy slumber grasping around your consciousness and dragging you back. Sleep, wake, dream, suffer. Your hands bound behind your back, ankles bound to your chair legs. You could smell the sea still and see light coming through a high window, it cast a small shadow around you but not quite enough for you to study the details of the room. 

You had seen enough documentaries when you were cooped up in the little flat to know that any sensible person wouldn't have allowed you a window at all, even without the powers you had been honing. 

There would be a way to send a message though the window and then Loki would save you. You were sure of it. You just had to get free. 

 “Are you awake Princess?” A croaky voice asked from the darkness. You tested your bonds for the first time. Rope, that was it, simple rope, all you had to do was create enough heat to singe the fibres and pull them off. 

 They didn’t know what you were capable of now, but then, you thought, you weren’t overly confident either. Playing with fire was not a skill you'd worked on properly, perhaps you could burn the ropes. Perhaps the flames would take you too. The risk was high.

“Yes.” You answered, sharply, shifting imperceptibly so you could attempt to make your hands smaller, slipping them against the ropes in the hope you could break free. 

“Good. You know you’re not meant to run Princess.” The old man bowed painfully, his back creaking at the movement, “His Majesty, the Allfather, The King of Asgard, the God of War and Wisdom-” the man coughed and began to straighten, “the God of the Heavens, behold-” he opened his arms towards the door as if expecting Odin to step into the room before looking blankly at the empty space and turning his bleary eyes back to you. 

“You know they're all dead, don’t you?” You tipped your head to the side looking for a light source around the crooked figure of the man. A small lantern flickered in the hall outside, you could see the light through the glass at the top of the door. Focusing on the thought of it, warm under your touch, taking in the salty air, eating the oxygen, consuming the wick, it flared giving you a good look at the room.

The man was old, as many of the Asgardians were, but he truly looked it. Wrinkled face half wrapped in cloth, back bent by time and feet hobbled by his dutiful pacing. A gold helmet slipped about on his head, his sunken cheeks no longer supporting the plates, his white hair sticking comically from the edges.

“Pardon, Princess?”

“They're all dead, you fucking idiot. Who gave you these orders, who told you to take me?” You tried to muster as much regal courage and venom as you could, thinking of Loki in his Asgardian leathers, how they made him look impossibly taller, and you channelled that feeling of divine importance into your expression, eyes narrowed at the old man and lips tight.  

“His Majesty.” The man insisted. 

You rolled your eyes, but if he wanted to play by courtly rules, surely you could too? You thought back to the scant memories you had of the Asgardian palace and the time you spent there. Most of your memories seemed to centre on the gardens, rather than the halls and rooms, perhaps the old man could be persuaded to simply let you leave. 

“Would his Majesty mind if I took some air in the gardens?” You offered, fluttering your eyelashes in the most royal way you could muster.

“Come, Princess,” he sighed as if this was a daily discussion, “you know you must stay here-” But he didn’t seem sure. Perfect, you thought, he can be manipulated.

“Ah, as you say - uhm - noble guard of….”

“I have the honour - the honour,” he coughed again, doubled over with the effort, “of being Odin’s personal guard, he has sent me here to collect you, Princess, for protection of course.”

You slipped your hands one last time and felt the rope go slack, blood rushing back to your pinched fingers. You hooked the rope around your fingers, hiding your freedom behind your back. 

“For protection? I don’t feel very protected?” You looked pointedly at the ramshackle room. 

The old man wagged his finger, “it is not for your protection that we must keep you, Princess. The Allfather says we must protect Asgard.” 

The man must be deep in his memories, you thought, to still talk of Asgard in this way. Even you knew that Ragnarok had consumed Asgard months before.

“And what does Prince Loki say?” You needled, hoping he’d slip back into this former version of the world and at least indulge you with some tales of Loki. 

“You must not speak to Loki!” The man was angry suddenly, throwing himself forwards into your space, the change in his demeanour frightening. He smelt like musty old blankets and you hated it, wrinkling your nose in disgust and turning your face away. 

A few short months ago you might not have noticed, too used to the trapped air of your apartment. But you had become accustomed to a new way of life, not just because of the lavish surroundings of the compound, but also because you knew that Loki would never had allowed this man to get so close to you. The thought of his protection thrummed inside of you, shoring up the knowledge that he would come and rescue you from this awful place.

 Your pity waned and bile rose in its place, your nose wrinkled. 

Channelling your deepest memories you took a deep breath, “how dare you tell a Princess what to do!” You thundered, the flame in the hall flared again, licking up the wall and sending eerie patches of dark and light flying up the walls. 

“I, Your Highness, my apologies.” 

The man threw himself at your feet, grovelling and snivelling on the filthy floor and you looked down for the first time. Ignoring the disgusting spectacle before you, you turned your attention to your bare wrist. The bracelet was gone. It felt light as air when you were wearing it, but the loss of it was heavy, your heart sank. What if Loki found it and thought you’d abandoned him? 

You contemplated your next move, trying to ignore the continued snivelling of the man at your feet, when the door swung open again. 

The man who entered was as old as his friend, hunched and twisted with age and war, his sword dragged along the floor where his scabbard had become lose and his joints compacted. 

“What are you doing?” He wheezed, “get up you idiot.” 

Instead of climbing to his feet, the man instead crawled to the corner of the room and appeared to fall asleep, slumping forwards into the wall. 

“Here, child, food.” A bowl was unceremoniously tossed onto the table, the gruel inside making a sludgy trail up one side of the chipped ceramic before falling back into the bowl. 

“How am I meant to eat that? Who’s the idiot now.” You scoffed, keeping your chin up at the haughty angle Loki favoured. Perhaps if you acted the part they would treat you better. 

Your second captor gave a sigh and moved behind the chair to loosen your hands, but instead of allowing him you tossed your body back into the chair and knocked him into the solid wall behind you. He made a wet thump as his head connected with the stone and then fell to the floor. 

Pushing the ropes from your arms and legs, you freed yourself from the broken chair. Hazy, unseeing eyes attempted to focus on you as you stood, brushing dust and debris from your clothes, but you ignored them, attempting to summon any magic you could to clean your clothes and light your way to freedom. 

The old man looked up from his prone position on the floor and gasped in shock, scrambling away from you. His fear, the belief in his eyes that you could hurt him now sparked inside and your magic flooded you. 

“Goodbye.” You waved at the two men, confidently striding towards the door playing with the magic between your fingers, flames climbing the walls in the corridor outside as your concealed rage took over, knocking the door from its hinges before you even touched it. 

“Not so fast,” a voice growled in the gloom.

From the shadows a young man appeared, his hair was tied back in the newer style favoured by Loki and Thor, and his clothes were similar too, draped and colourful where her other captors wore blacks and greys, the patterns were different though, as too was his accent. 

You stopped mid stride, mind reeling. 

“Estrid. You must stop using your magic. You’ll draw attention to yourself.” He barked, but it wasn’t unkind. For a moment you were entirely confused, clawing back at your memories to try and find why this person made your mind itch and your eyes burn. 

A carriage ride through lush green land, a secret meeting, your mother and another man, so bright you could barely see him, and this guard, watching and waiting, holding the carriage door for you. 

Although the memory filled you with warmth, you couldn’t trust him. Hadn’t you experience many memories of Asgard, just for Odin’s men themselves to take you and bind you in that forgotten room.

Your trust was too precious to waste. 

“I think you’ll find I do whatever the hell I want these days. If you want to drug me you’ll have to do better than that,” you pointed at the porridge splattering the tiles. Instead you conjured an ice cream, with a chocolate wafer and sprinkles. “I’m going to look at the sea, we are near the sea aren’t we? Enjoy the view for a while until Loki finds me.” You started to the door, licking the strawberry drips as the made there way over the cone and tried your best to ignore the boring eyes of the new guard. 

“Stop. Using. Magic. Do you want to draw attention to yourself?” The man followed you, his leather boots thumping along the stone flagged floor and echoing in the dark hallway. 

“Yes, obviously. I want to be found.” You rolled your eyes, calling to Loki in your mind. 

“You’re a fool. We’ll have to move you again.” He grabbed at your arm but you pulled it back. 

“No, you won’t, I’m not being caged anymore, get out of my way,” you fluttered your hands. A fork in the corridor appeared as you strode around the corner, stairs on both sides. “Now which way is out. I’ll make you an ice cream if you tell me?” You offered an attempt at a smile playing on your lips. Once this man had been kind to you, and although you didn’t trust him entirely, he had at least two daggers and a sword at his hip that he hadn’t used. Even when he’d touched your arm he hadn’t hurt you. 

“I warned you to stop. Follow me.” The man made a grab for your hand again, but you dodged out of the way and picked a route, but it was blocked. You could see through but couldn’t get further than the first step without coming up against another stone wall. You huffed and your ice cream vanished back into the ether while you tried to figure out a way through. 

The man looked at you, snapping sharply, “you’re the one who brought magic into this, let’s go.” 

With your escape blocked, you were compelled to follow him, keeping a step behind at first to try and gauge his path. 

“Hey, hey, wait!” You jogged to keep up with the man, his strides long and the heels on your boots clicking against the stone. “Why the hell should I trust you, anyway?!”

He turned to face you, his eyes flaring as he reached up and grabbed your arm again, scanning your face, “how do you not remember?” He sighed, you had expected anger but he was disappointed, despondent, when he spoke again, “put the cloak on. Quickly.”

“I don’t have a cloak,” you stopped in the corridor, taking the opportunity to absorb the details of your surroundings. It was still dark and the smell of the sea still permeated the thick stone walls, but there was a fresher smell as well, like wet grass after the rain.

“You can’t walk around like this,” he gestured at your outfit, black jeans and boots, a thick aran jumper.

“What’s wrong with my outfit? It’s cold out there.”

“We can’t use magic here. When we can, I'll find attire suitable for your station.”

“My station. As a Prisoner? No way. Let me go shopping,” you twirled and batted your long lashes teasingly, hoping to distract or annoy him enough that you could make an escape. Although you couldn’t use your magic consistently, you had been learning, very quickly, that some of your talents, like Loki's, were just innate. You didn’t require a spell to irritate a man.

“As a Princess, a Queen in waiting.” The man was furious now, he took your arm and dragged you along until you squealed dramatically and tried to make yourself as heavy as possible until he was forced to slow his pace.

“Do Princesses normally get dragged about? If you don’t like my outfit I can change.”

Mentally you started flicking through all the clothes you could remember. Dresses, skirts, jeans, suits, pyjamas.

“Stop!” The man shook her shoulders “Do not use your magic!” And then there was a flash of light and you fell to the floor.

Thor was fairing no better than his brother. He’d been expecting to crash their romantic dinner with both stories of war and anything he could remember to embarrass his little brother in front of the lady he was so obviously pining for. But there was no mirth in his heart when Loki revealed you’d never returned from Valkyrie’s cottage and he’d joined the search immediately.

When nothing was revealed he offered to return to the Avengers compound in an effort to secure their help, much to Loki’s chagrin. 

 Now, with his head in his hands, he sat in the living room of the Avengers compound and appealed to them again. 

“There must be some system you possess, Stark, to track her? She has magic now and will be using it. Can’t you track that?” He asked. 

“And what does magic use or emit that I could track? Radiation? Pollution?” Tony answered, waving a screwdriver in the air before returning to the small circuit board he was tinkering with. 

Thor looked thoroughly confused. “It’s just magic. Loki’s is green, Estrid appears to have a blue and silver sedir, track the colour.” 

Tony sighed, exasperated, and didn’t answer, keeping his eyes focussed on his work. 

“Are we going to address that you and Loki have been keeping all of this from us?” Steve interrupted, arms crossed. 

Natasha nodded her agreement, “I knew she could shift, what else can she do that you’ve been keeping secret?!” Natasha asked. 

“Oh Romanoff, you know, girl magic like Loki, silly things. She changes her hair and clothes.” Natasha narrowed her eyes at ‘girl magic’, but kept quiet. Thor shrugged, he’d never been that enamoured with Loki’s magic, it seemed frivolous to him to spend hours making little potions and writing runes. He was more interested in the armoury and his personal assortment of weapons. 

“We know that, what else?” Natasha grit her teeth, frustrated. 

“She makes little trinkets, jewellery and gems and such. Like I said, girly things.”

“She can manifest things? How?” Banner sat forwards, his elbows on his knees, fascinated. “Can she teach us?” He turned to Tony and nudged him to rejoin the conversation. 

“What? No. I don’t know. Loki taught her. Anyway, she can control flames and I think I saw her grow a plant once.” Thor was bored of this part of the conversation and went back to sipping his mead to steady his nerves. He thought back to Loki’s face as he left, his sunken eyes, devoid of mischief. Time to change tactic, courtly ways were never Thor’s strong point, but he knew enough not to labour a point too much. “Anyway, I brought some new things for you to try Steve, should you be interested in -”

“No not anyway we needed to know these things and you kept it from us. Why the hell should we help you now?” Tony waved the tiny screwdriver again, a magnetic screw dangling precariously from the end. 

Bargaining. Thor could do bargaining, he’d seen his father and Loki use it to various effect enough times. “What if… I got them to help you. Natasha said she needed someone inconspicuous for your next mission, what about someone who can shift?” 

The assassin mulled over the prospect for a moment, “it would help me a lot, it's a simple B&E really but they know all our covers. Loki would be perfect.” Natasha looked at Thor, hopeful.

“Perfect! You come to Tonsberg and find Loki’s beau and I will ensure Loki is most helpful on your mission.” Thor held his hand out to Natasha to shake, but Tony poked it away with the sharp end of his screwdriver. 

“Not so fast. I want Loki and the girl and I want her to stay behind afterwards.” He levelled his stare at Thor. 

“Loki and the girl, it’s a deal.” 

“Fine, fine. We can send two agents. I’m done with this. You can’t keep things from us and then expect our help.” Tony groused. 

“Loki won’t be happy with two agents.” Thor shook his head. 

“I honestly don’t give a fuck what Loki wants,” Steve stood, uncharacteristically angry amidst the growing tensions, “he isn’t on our team. We brought her here and owe her some safety. But after this mission she needs to make a real choice. Is she in or is she out?” Steve stalked off to the gym slamming the door behind him.

There was silence as the other members slowly dispersed until only Tony and Thor were left. Thor followed Tony to the bar set into the wall of the living space, pouring another round of mead into his large cut crystal glass. 

“Candidly, Stark, she has the ability to be quite annoying. My hope is whoever has her let’s her go. But we will need more than two agents.” Thor tipped his head back, swallowing loudly. 

Tony smiled into his drink, he could understand annoying, he didn’t mind annoying. “What makes you so sure she was taken and that she didn’t just run away.”

“Oh, that’s easy, she is in love with my brother.” Thor smiled at the thought of Loki’s dopey, lovelorn expression, “I’m not sure they realise they are in love with each other so deeply, but,” he shrugged, “such is love.” 

Tony raised an eyebrow. So he had been right, Loki had been flirting with you and you did seem to prefer the Trickster God’s company, spending a good deal of your time together. But love? Loki?

“I’ll go with you. If she loves Loki she’s a strong woman, we could use some of that.” Tony tipped his head to the side and nodded as he spoke. “But it also means she’s an idiot and can’t be trusted. You understand that, right?”

“Oh yes,” Thor didn’t even look offended. “My brother is terrible and the two of them together? Incredibly vexing. But we must find her. I do not wish to discover the breadth of his wrath and vengeance should she be missing indefinitely.”

“And they’ll work the mission?”

“I’ll endeavour to keep them in line.”

Tony sighed he supposed that was the best he could hope for, dealing with actual gods.

“Wake up,” a new voice echoed in your sore head, waking you from your dreamless sleep. This room was different to the last, rather than rope your hands were now bound with heavy iron shackles etched with runes. 

Your gaze was cloudy, confused, but you still tried to channel your magic into altering the weighty shackles. Maybe you could make a bracelet like the one Loki gave you and simply slip away. But your magic fizzled before it could manifest. Not even a spark, though your head throbbed terribly at the attempt. 

“No magic when you behave like a brat." Your captor spat. 

“You’ll regret calling me that.” You bit back, yanking at your chains. 

His mocking laugh echoed in the early morning gloom, the door slamming shut in the dark and then you were alone again with your thoughts. 

Manoeuvring your heavy hands you sat at the foot of the bed, tucking your feet underneath you and away from the cold floor. With a deep intake of breath you tried to clear your mind and then exhaled, searching for him, for Loki. You prayed, attempting to send a vision of not just your thoughts, but your whole self to him, what you could see and hear, the smell of the sea and the call of the birds outside. You thought of Loki, implored him to save you, sent your thoughts floating into the air as you breathed your plea to him. 

In your prayers you reached out to him through the fog and touched your fingertips to the stone and in return, you were sure you heard him calling your name. 

<<Part 7

Part 9>>

[reasonsforhope]

Heads up/warning that I'm going to start posting articles related to the Israel-Palestine War

I've worked really, really hard to keep my blog about positive news only, and that's going to continue - these posts will be only about good news related to the war.

Of which there really, really isn't much, so I don't know that there will be a lot of posts, but I will be posting articles about humanitarian aid reaching those who need it and actions that will prevent more lives from being taken.

I know that, no matter my position on the war, this is something that would be very controversial and make a lot of people upset, so I wanted to be explicit about my position on this - and my posting policy, which is not the same thing. I also wanted to give people a heads up because I know the war in general is really, really triggering for a lot of people right now, for a lot of different reasons. I'll be tagging all relevant posts, so if screening those out is something that you need to do, you can.

I have worked very hard to make this blog a space with only good news because I know how much it can matter to have just one place, if nowhere else, that you can count on to not give you emotional whiplash with horrible news. To know you have one place you can go where you are guaranteed not to see bad news that will send you into a tailspin. That's why I've had a policy of not including signal boosts or PSAs about tragedies, no matter what they are, on this blog. (I do post about some of that stuff, including the Israel-Palestine War, on my main blog, though. I consider this blog to be me trying to run a public service, basically, and so have specific policies for myself around that, including my editorial and fact-checking standards.)

I'm going to be honest, I was really, really hoping the war would end after a couple of weeks, which has historically not been uncommon for wars with/involving Israel.

But that's clearly not happening, and I can't keep not acknowledging what's happening on here, so, this post.

With that, I imagine people probably want to know my actual stance on the war, since that's what I'll be posting in accordance with.

So, here's the official stance of this blog:

Every time a civilian is killed, it is a tragedy; Every time a child is killed, it is a tragedy, no matter their nationality. I condemn all antisemitism and all Islamophobia.

I support all calls for a ceasefire, as well as demands that Israel immediately stop its repeated bombing of hospitals, ambulances, shelters (including UN shelters), and refugee camps.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of hospitals is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of shelters or refugee camps is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of ambulances is justified.

There is no situation in which the killing of children is justified. Yet more children have now been killed in Gaza than in all global conflict zones combined in each year since 2019.

There is no situation in which cutting off an entire country and/or territory's supply of food and water is justified.

Yes, this applies to every group involved in the war, including countries supplying either side, and any countries or non-state organizations who may yet join the fighting.

The initial Hamas attack on Israel was a tragedy. The continued Israeli bombardment and invasion of Palestine is also a tragedy.

Most of the things I post will be about aid reaching Palestinians or news about tangible, confirmed progress toward a ceasefire. I probably will not be posting good news posts about aid reaching Israel, unless it's explicitly and only humanitarian and/or barring drastic unforeseen changes in circumstance. This is because as of yesterday, November 7, the Palestinian death toll is over 10,000 to Israel's roughly 1,400 (only about 200 of whom have been killed in the past month, starting on October 8, aka outside of the initial attack by Hamas). At least 3,195 children have died in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel.

The Palestinian death toll is nearly 8 times the Israeli death toll. The number of children killed is 110 times higher in Palestine than Israel. (Source for death toll here, ratios via calculator.) Every single one of those deaths is a tragedy - and there have been far, far too many tragedies this past month.

(On a related note, Israel stands very, very little chance of actually eliminating Hamas with this war. The US has attempted this same strategy and failed many times: the US failed to eliminate the communist/North Korean regime in the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing 70 years later; failed to eliminate the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War; failed to eliminate numerous groups of Iraqi insurgents in the Iraq War, which triggered Iraq's civil war; and failed to eliminate the Taliban in the Afghanistan War, even though that war lasted for literally 20 years. Afghanistan is once again under total Taliban control.)

The last thing we need is another 20 year war. The last thing we need is more civilian deaths. Bombing civilian settlements, as well as hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps are war crimes under international law, meaning that both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes.

It's time for the war crimes to stop.

Humanitarian aid reaching civilians is good news, and I will be posting accordingly.

Ceasefire now.

[coveofsecrets]

“𝙻𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙽𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜”

-> Platonic! Yandere! Unohana x reader

-> Warnings: small descriptions of death, intended to be implied PLATONIC yandere.

-> Reader is intended to be under legal age

─── ✱*.｡:｡✱*.:｡✧*.｡✰*.:｡✧*.｡:｡*.｡✱ ───

“What are you doing, wandering around so late at night?”

Not even a few seconds after the words echo across the hall, a hand finds itself placed on your shoulder, the grip gentle, yet firm.

A silent command to stay still.

Yet, you do not follow it.

Disobeying, you yelp, jolting as you swiftly turn around to the person who said that, your own eyes meeting the ones of the person who’s been raising you.

Retsu Unohana.

As always, her lips are pulled into that gentle smile, just short of reaching the skin around the corners of her eyes.

You’ve never liked that smile of her’s.

It tells one thing- that you’re safe, that she’ll protect you; but it also tells another- that she’s irritated, that you have to listen to her or else you’ll face consequences.

“Well?”

Realizing you didn’t give her an answer, you stiffen.

“Uhm-” you stammer, “Just a snack.”

You can’t help but wince at the poor excuse, especially since Unohana’s eyes narrow, her smile just growing a tad tighter.

You can’t… you can’t put your finger on it, but it’s just-

“Really?” The words coming from her mouth are slow; steady. It’s as a way to let you know she’s not mad, but you only feel like a prey animal that’s seconds away from being brutally torn apart by a predator, taking its time because it knows you have nowhere else to run.

It knows you’re cornered.

“Then what’s that bag there, for?” The Fourth Division captain leans her body to the side a bit, taking a look at the backpack slung over your shoulder.

Quickly, as if hoping to salvage the situation, you hide it from her.

“Snack-hoarding,” The words spill from your mouth.

Clumsy.

All Unohana gives is a closed-eye smile, the shadows from the moonlight seeping through the windows falling over her face in such a way that you can’t help but feel terrified of what might come.

It’s not as if she’s ever given you horrible consequences for going against her, or lying to her; most she’ll ever give is being grounded… but you still can’t help but feel scared by that smile at hers.

“Snack-hoarding…” She echoes, sounding as if she’s trying the word out on her tongue. “Why don’t you head back to your room, [Name]? I can make something for the both of us. I’m also in the mood for something late.”

“Oh, no need to-”

“I’ll do it.”

End of discussion.

Knowing that, you can’t do anything but nod, slowly walking past Unohana as her head turns to follow your every move.

Like an owl…

Once behind her, you scramble to your room, shutting the door so you don’t have to see her gaze focused on you.

Soon, Unohana’s footsteps start to get quieter as she walks to the kitchen, and with all of the strength gone from your knees, you collapse against the door.

Fuck.

A hand coming up to your chest, you grasp at your shirt, breaths coming in and out at a rapid pace.

What-

Your vision is blurry, your mind screaming at you to do something, anything to defend yourself from threats that aren’t even there.

The-

But you’re stuck.

You want to move, but your body forbids you, keeping you rooted to the hardwood as your brain begs you to run.

Run from the predator that’s about to sink its teeth into your flesh, yet also freeze in front of the apex animal and pray it goes away.

Unohana may never have raised a hand against you, but she will always be a woman that you’re terrified of.

You can only imagine what her opponents might see…

…if you manage to sneak out one day.

[alpaca-clouds]

Dear Worldbuilders: Please Understand Cultural Norms As Cultural Norms

Two days ago I had a discussion with my new roomie. Because we are two autistic guys, who will not stop talking politics all day, and were talking about the opening ceremony of the Olympics. To which he held the opinion: "I mean, I was not offended. But I can understand the Christians who are." To which I pointed out, that they really do not get to be offended after forcing their religion onto everyone.

Somehow the discussion however went to the horrible topic of "kink at pride". And he showed me videos he saw online, where some nudists were also participating at pride. To which I just shrugged and was like: "So what? They are naked. It is not as if they are doing something sexual. They are just naked, and there should be nothing taboo about the naked body. I mean, c'mon dude, we are living in Germany which is kinda known internationally for its nudist culture." And he went: "Yeah, sure, but usually if there is a nudist beach or a nudist swimming pool I will go there expecting to see naked people." And I kept relying on the point: "Well, but what harm is done to these people being naked?" To which he went: "Well, the children...!" And I was like: "Do you really think kids are getting traumatized by seeing a naked body? You are aware there are cultures around the world in which running around naked is pretty normalized, right? I know that 'don't be naked' feels super intuitive for someone growing up over here, but keep in mind that to someone from Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia 'women should cover their hair' would feel about as intuitive, because it is just a cultural norm." Which was the point I was given.

But thinking about it, I actually do see a lot of people struggling with this concept as well. Yesterday a friend and I also talked about how many western people just assume that Christmas is celebrated by everyone around the world - even though it isn't.

And I think this shows nowhere as strongly as in fantasy and scifi media. Because a lot of fantasy and scifi media just will go ahead and assume a baseline western culture - even in settings, where it does not make sense. More than that: It will assume either modern western cultural norms or - especially for fantasy - will kind of try to extrapolate how people imagine something to have been like at some time.

And I am staying with the nudity example, because it is actually a funny one. A lot of fantasy media will assume people in a medival setting to be super touchy about nude bodies, because Victorian's were crying (according to popular myths) when they saw a naked ankle.

However: This actually could not be further from the truth. Because we have ample evidence, that in medieval times not only public baths were not sex seggregated, but that on hot summer days the peasants would also work at least partially naked on the fields.

Sure, in some areas of Europe nobility was a bit more squeaming around naked bodies than the peasants. But that was then a nobility thing - and even this was not necessarily true throughout the entire middle ages (again: The period lasted around 1000 years), and especially not throughout all of Europe.

But you know what said nobility was also super iffed about? Yeah: Women's hair. That got hidden throughout medieval Europe as well. Especially in late medieval times. At times under headscarfs, at times under certain types of hats.

Then let's also talk about the Christmas thing. Because it is a classic of fantasy media especially. The world is going to have a winter festival that involves gift giving, family parties, and often enough also dead trees in prominent locations.

Now, on one hand: A lot of cultures around the world had winter solstice festivals, so assuming that your fantasy culture will have the same is not that far fetched to have that, too. But why give it the modern Christmas traditions? There are so many other traditions you could come up with. I am sure of that. You are a fantasy/scifi writer after all!

You might ask yourself right now: Why do I even have an issue with this?

Well, the answer is simple. Because this is about Eurocentrism. Building a world like that will just assume that western European traditions are "the norm", they are what we should assume to find everywhere. And when people read fantasy media and just find it all reflected there, it is what they will start to assume. And then they are going to be all "surprised pikachu", when they find out that indeed, the world does not celebrate Christmas.

Also... Just normalize naked bodies. There is literally no harm in seeing a naked body. None at all.

[ninyard]

so ive been watching towning randomly appear out of nowhere, and i totally entirely support the agenda of this ship because its so random and kind of unhinged and absolutely something I'd see spawn from this fandom. I thought, considering you are the entrepreneur of the ship, you might find it funny that my friend, who has read the books but isn't really in the fandom (doesn't have tumblr OR read fanfic rip) has had to deal with me sporadically sending updates regarding this ship lmaoo. i'm fully trying to convince her to embrace the towning agenda (hopefully I'll get to her by the end of the summer. considering we talked about what level of badboy a random turkey in her backyard has, I don't believe it is horribly distant for her to succumb to this level of insanity)

Also, I'm thinking of doing fanart for towning?? I tried scrolling back on your blog to find the fancasts / references, but I fear I cannot find the post. I'd love to draw them doing something (any ideas as to what??)

Anyways, I hope you have a good day <333

Personally i LOVE that you're recruiting unknowing friends onto the towning train. anything i can do to help, you just let me know. we're always recruiting over here!!!

ALSO FANART oh my god that’d be AMAZING.

re: their looks:

figured i'd be kind to the dash and put some fancast/references here for easiness sake for ya!! first of all fabulous descriptions of them can be found here

for browning: this dude is our main facecast atm i think (pretty sure his name is alvaro soler, if that helps. he's a spanish (?) musician i think??)

for your consideration regarding his body type:

and then we don't have a proper facecast for towns yet (im kind of leaning towards lakeith stanfield atm) but here's some pics i've got on my pinterest board

and for poses???? here’s a handful of silly lil references I found that i can imagine towning in and hopefully they might give you some inspiration

I hope you're having the best day!!!!<3

[marbleboa]

Mukai Speculation: The Hell is Up With the Divine Wood

So. I've been thinking about potential avenues for Mukai's backstory lately. She is one of those characters that is given very little characterization-wise, however her very existence in her role as a Scar is one of those things that give a lot of people pause. Often with the question 'hey uh what's that 11 year old doing there'.

As such, I thought I'd put down some rambles about the matter here!

One common route I've seen taken is that Mukai was kidnapped by Claw, and it makes sense! Claw’s basically got child kidnapping down to a science, and apparently brainwashing to boot.

Though in regards to the later, I was thinking about Shou's comments in the 7th Division Arc immediately after Ishiguro suggests brainwashing the protags. He seems to imply the process dulls an esper's abilities, turning them into trash/mindless slaves. As such, I think it's safe to assume none of the scars are brainwashed in an unnatural sense, but rather succumbed to Claw's ideals due to personal weakness and/or vulnerability

Back to Mukai, if brainwashing wasn't in the picture I'm thinking either she was kidnapped at a young enough age where under Claw's indoctrination her cooperation never was an issue, or she entered the organization a different way. But if she wasn't kidnapped, then how did this kid end up in the role of a Scar? Well, I'm basing my speculation here primarily on this scene from the manga:

Quite the info, as it both comes out of nowhere and is never mentioned again. Not unheard of especially for the World Domination Arc in the manga, where the readers get so much thrown at them at once. On its own, there's only a bit we can glean from Mukai's reaction: 1. this was a place she had a lot of attachment to, and 2. it was important enough to be noted by Claw and later destroyed after the 7th Division's defection.

The whole 'divine wood' thing brings to mind an element of spirituality, some spot of nature that's deemed as sacred. This brings me further back to the beginning of WD arc. Prior to Toichiro’s speech, the other Division Leaders are kind enough to grant us some exposition on the extent of Claw’s influence:

So. Religious cults. It paints an interesting, unseen picture of these different organizations vying for a place at the table when Claw takes over the world. Thinking about it, I had an idea--what if Mukai came from one of these cults?

Probably a bit of a stretch, but I could imagine those special tree(s) she talked about being one of the main fixtures of the group's beliefs, something believed to aid those who paid tribute to it(you know how we love tree cults here). A place that Mukai was taught to be special ever since she was little...it's no wonder her powers would resonate with objects made from there, belief's a powerful thing. And if it was involved in Claw, they would certainly have information about all that on record to dispose of it later.

What's more, it seems pretty common for upper level cults to make things a family affair--and child with powers like that would be sure to grab attention. Money's well and good of course, but what better way to make your organization stand out than to give up an offering of power instead? What if Mukai was given to Claw willingly? And Mukai, well, she's not made privy to any of that of course. But with all the praise for her powers and the promise of freedom to use them, plus her family's pride...it's not hard to imagine how she'd be easily entangled like that.

In regards to her post-Claw life, I think this could open up some interesting possibilities for different dynamics and conflicts to say the least. It's of course a horrible thing for a child to be taken from their family, but maybe in that situation there could be a bittersweet reunion in the end. For a child to grow up realizing they were given up as a bargaining chip, one that the other side didn't even end up wanting to keep(marked as damaged goods, remember?)...that has to be a trial on its own.

Obviously I doubt this is what ONE intended to be gleaned from the whole thing--but hey, it's interesting to think about.

[paranormeow7]

been thinking about house horror a lot lately and it’s occurred to me that a lot of it takes place in houses of evil that there’s no escape from, where you fall deeper and deeper in until you are swallowed. While I love that kind of concept, I watched a couple of spooky videos today that got me thinking about a scenario where you could leave the house and go about your life as normal, but you were still forced to live in it and come back “home” to it every day.

The videos I watched were “my house walkthrough” by nana825763 and “RADAR” by lyrahorrorz. In “my house”, the protagonist walks through a noticeably decrepit, disgusting home that slowly loops over and over, becoming more corrupted and hellish throughout each walk through its halls. This protagonist treats it as normal and describes each room and how it relates to their family as a person who would live in this house, even the ones that were “closed off”. They wander into rooms that have been condemned and show off the corpses of their family as if they are still there with him.

In Radar, the protagonist is seen desperately trying to escape his house, and an entity tormenting him by reminding him of horrible things, flooding the home with an unbearable smell, and removing his hands. He tries to escape by banging his head into his door until it splits open. Eventually he gets out and simply goes out for a casual movie night with his friends, yet having to go back home to this torment directly after. His house also becomes noticeably decrepit and abandoned by the ending.

These aren’t particularly made to display the theme I thought up, but it was interesting all the same. Your house is a place of solace, a place to rest after a long day. Now imagine if this house was a horror eating away at your psyche and your very life the longer you stay in it, yet you have nowhere else to go. Your mundane every day tasks, such as going to school/work, picking up groceries, or watering your garden become your escape, your sense of normality in this nightmare you go home to every day. You may try to run away, or stay with a friend, but you always end up crawling back into the jaws of the house one way or another. You are tethered.

The most interesting and scariest part of this concept to me is that it’s a real thing that some people live. Some people have abusive family members that they stay with because they have no one else. Some people can only afford disgusting and barely livable places infested with things that want to get under your skin. I’ve known loved ones in these situations and I’m sure if I asked them what their house felt like to them, they would describe it as a monster, a sinkhole, a place of stagnation and stress. So is it really much different to be forced to live in a haunted house, or a sentient, malevolent house, or any other sort of surreal, winding nightmare of a place that you just can’t step away from for long?

You tell me.

[kerryweaverlesbian]

sometimes i think about the gadreel telling dean to kick cas out plotline and am filled with more rage than you can imagine. its NOT even that like. dean was mean to cas or anything im sure he gave cas money or something bc i cant see a world where he kicked cas out with nothing and he was pretty forthright about caring about cas during that sequence where cas wasn't allowed in the bunker.

but its SOOOO obvious the only reason cas didn't get to stay in the bunker was because of the hand of the author. they didnt wanna change the status quo of the show. im not even talking about destiel im talking about the fact that castiel being human, and potentially learning to enjoy being human with his best friends, would destroy the rest of the season's planned plotline for him. he would've just gone completely human and not wanted to be an angel anymore. this would've also meant he could've went on more hunts much earlier than he did in the actual show, and his dynamic with both brothers could've developed during the downtime between him being safe in the bunker and the rest of the season's plotline moving (bc lbr the season plotline doesn't pick up again until holy terror, and this isn't a bad thing its just very obvious)

(although i still stand by that if you wanted to actually successfully pull off the rest of the season you could just have him be kidnapped later, hear that ezekiel is dead, and then have him make the call to become an angel again in order to be able to escape and help dean. like the phonecall where dean is like "and you're okay with that?" re: cas being an angel again would've hit a lot harder bc dean would've been able to pick up on his enjoyment of some aspects of being human)

also the doylist reasoning behind not letting him spend time with cas is also to isolate dean so he starts working with crowley when the gadreel reveal happens.

also lets be fucking real the sexual tension between human cas and dean would've been off the charts they were like we cant fucking write that the fucking (heller comrade) traitors on our writing team WILL make it gay we CANT do that.

sorry for this essay im just. its one of the biggest wastes of potential in the show.

So true bestie. The hiatus between season 8-9 was my first in the fandom and we were all CERTAIN that Destiel was going to happen from how gay the last couple of episode were (THE CRYPT SCENE. THE ARROW IN THE BAR.) And then. Then. I mean like people were convinced every season hiatus but there was something in the air for that one. And that thing was destiel. So they stopped letting them hang out.

On the bright side, I enjoy how horrible the experience is for Dean having to lie to both Sam and Cas because I'm a sicko. And it's very funny. He was SO close to having everything he wants (Sam alive and well. Hell closed. Cas with them permanently.) And he can't have that because of one, shall we say, social faux pas. And every day someone is asking him with genuine kindness and love "but Dean, isn't happiness directly in your grasp? Don't you want to grasp it?" And he has to go. Through gritted teeth. "No. I like it like this. This is happiness for me. It's my choice."

It's cringe comedy, it's a comedy of errors, it's lies on lies on lies. It's funny! Especially since Sam just sort of decides to find Cas incredibly charming this season out of nowhere. Just to twist the knife that Dean has to make the problem. So, it might help to reframe it that way haha.

And also, 9.06 is GREAT FUN for me in particular. Ohhh we want to be together so bad but even if we say it nothing will change so we won't and we're both bitter about it but damn do I love you. Catnip for me. It has its problems but the NIP.

I do think that a more charitable part of the Doyalist explanation is a problem they run into very noticeably in s10, 11 and 12: they only have enough money designated for a certain number of guest star appearances. That's why he's "watching The Wire" so often lol. This is an assumption of mine but like. That's gotta be the reason. So they wanted something for Cas to be out there Doing when he's offscreen for long periods (and they were just like 'fuck it' in later seasons)

This is a tangent but I think it's so interesting how obvious in Supernatural it is that practical constraints affect the material plot. All monsters are guys in suits. Season 3 is cut short from the writers strike so Dean goes to Hell. Cas and Mary can't be in as many episodes that they obviously should be in so their character flaws are that they're flakey and often disappear. They couldn't get JDM for a season 3 episode of Dean's nightmare so they had Dean's biggest fear in fact be succumbing to his own self-hatered.

Anyway. In conclusion, season 9 sucks. I agree.

[imaginesofeverykind]

Witches Brew ~ Chapter 3

Summary: To practice magic is to slight God with the devil's embrace. It is evil, sin, consuming and the price one pays is never worth what one seeks. Yet people, in times of desperation often turn to desperate measures, in Aegon’s case, medicinal remedy is not an option. No healer can undo what has been done. But the Hag tucked away behind reeds, water topped with algae and the voracious bog may be able to. For a price.

Warnings: GORE, graphic descriptions oh bodily harm and maiming, magic described as visceral, catholic-centric monotheism demonised, 18+ minors DNI

Tags: DnD Homebrew Fusion AU, Targaryens are noblefolk, Aegon is a werewolf

Word Count: 4.6k

Chapter Song: Quagmire - Satin Puppets

Series Masterlist

Thayhelm passes almost as quickly as Melthare, the two seasonal holidays sneaking out from nowhere like an unseen strike where once you would be on top of the yearly festivals. Perhaps if Auntie had been around, she would have had a better sense of the time around her and urged you to join her in celebration of the spiritually sound holidays. You still celebrated, only barely recognizing the Autumn Equinox on account of the spiritual vestiges that roamed around the swamp in search for nothing you could provide. 

As a child Thayhelm was your favourite holiday, the spirits in the swamp came from many and took on shapes that weren’t of the prime material realm. It was as close to Fey as you could imagine without falling victim and becoming a lost and trapped soul within the cursed labyrinth of the Feywilds. The spirits often flocked to the Elder Tree, its beacon of energy attracting those roaming near like moths to candle fire. 

Dead Winter Day was fastly approaching and you’ve made a point to remember to travel out to the shrine of Ornmir and celebrate. The first Midwinter you will be alone, no Auntie to help guide you through the hymns of winter and the offering you’d need to prepare. It wasn’t as though you felt incompetent, you - like the spirits that roam during Thayhelm - felt lost.

And yet, you found yourself feeling the opposite when the moon became full and Aegon would arrive on your horribly deteriorating porch — what would Auntie think? Firstly, she would go on an admonishing rant about the state of the hut which had only worsened since her departure. What once lay a stately cottage, now groaned with wood rot and crackled from the termite infestation. ‘Look after your belongings’ You can hear her reprimand in the shrill voice of your mind, as though any of the hut felt like it belonged to you. 

Secondly, she would lecture you on your attachment that had grown toward Aegon over the months since meeting him, warning that things like this may be highly sought after but they were only a means to distract oneself from embracing full potential. ‘Magic makes us whole, not the inevitable absence of others’ She had once said, cryptic as Auntie was known to be, you could easily decipher that it was a warning to sway far from the whims of earthly attachments. 

You reluctantly and silently agreed, magic is what made you who you are. A man who barely crossed your path months ago was not something to become attached to. But, the thought flew through your mind like a sin, a flash of wickedness and betraying the memory of Auntie — she was no longer here, it wouldn’t hurt to humour the feelings of warmth or fullness that came whenever Aegon was around.. 

And that is where your mind lingered, on harmless guilty pleasure. Trivial, menial things like brewing a different potion to help him sleep better after a grueling transformation under the moon or to be more mindful of cooking meals that were less of the slop that mirrored the marshy quagmires but more familiar to him. For comfort, you told yourself when the creeping feeling of embarrassment washed over as though it was foolish for thinking like this. 

A knock at the door pulled you from spiraling further into the paralysis you found yourself in more frequently. A slight hiccup bloomed in your gut and heart, who could it be? A face flashed in your mind and it became clear who you wished it might be but the footsteps and the knock weren’t familiar to your ears. And the full moon had only passed a mere week ago. 

Appearing, from thin air, as you so often did behind the guest on the porch and it was quite the surprise. The broad and tall Holy Knight was almost unrecognizable, but that wasn’t the cause for the feelings of unease and trouble brewing within you. His holy sigil branded on the tunic beneath his shining armour and imprinted on the cloak that swayed softly in the breeze. 

“Squire boy,” you muse, teasingly. The nickname you recall Auntie used when he had visited a decade prior, he was a young man then, though now he had grown more into his features and looked regal in the armour he donned. 

He turned to regard you, a steely look in his eyes and it occurred that there was no longer the boyish charm he once had when he first visited. Time had been kind to his features but not to his mind, it seemed. Repugnant religious interference had snuffed out what gratitude and reverence he had prior as he looked down on you with the same look of contempt you get from the villagers whenever you descend into the towns. 

“Hag,” he sneers, it was clear he was not here for niceties anymore. Once a young man, now a Holy Knight. “Where is your elder?” His dark eyes watch you carefully meander around him, as if waiting for a chance to strike you down or even an excuse to do so. 

Gods, you restrain yourself from rolling your eyes, he’s become boring. 

“Gone,” shrugging lazily, you look at his greatsword, far too big to be sheathed. The pommel molded with the same sigil as his cloak and tunic. “Has the church decided to retroactively smite her for helping your master all those years ago?” You taunt, thinking that his arrival was odd enough without his dreadful aura bringing a damper to your day. 

He ignores your jape, completely, eyes scanning for any signs of life in the hut. “Gone is she? Gone where?” He accuses, as if you were hiding her away or simply being dishonest about her whereabouts. 

“Somewhere,” you shrug, “but not here.” 

“Hm,” his jaw tightens, reaching across his body to a concealed pouch and presenting a small wicker doll. “This be your handy work then, witch?” It was made with care for the craft, no amateur could bind the twigs together with an astute precision like this but it was definitely not of your own creation. The weave pattern was unfamiliar, different than what you’d seen before. Not even Auntie’s technique looked like this. 

“Afraid not dear Squire,” not even the runestone tied to the chest on the doll looked familiar. It wasn’t troubling to you however, many travelers come and go and it wasn’t the first time a witch or wizard passed through and left signs of their presence. 

“You may call me Ser Criston – and how is it that Lord Visery’s suddenly falls ill, no recovery in sight and one of our lord priests finds this?” He presses, clearly trying to milk some confession from you but your resolve remains unchanged. It was benign if anything, a wicker doll could mean anything from good tidings to something as malevolent as blood magic – which you were versed in but this was not your doing. 

Plainly it very well might be a targeted attack on the Lord of Oldtown, but the possibility of it meaning good health was higher. 

Your shoulders rose and fell in another lazy shrug. To be perfectly honest, it seemed on par for the zealots to make something out of nothing to this degree for the purpose of fear mongering. They denounce magic as devil work and try to ignore its existence but the moment it seems targeted they are suddenly believers. 

“Clearly I am an innocent, though I can sense how badly you wish to have me burnt in the city square. No evidence means no charge, even a religious fanatic as yourself can honour law. Or has your false God decided he is above law?” 

He reached forward, in an attempt to grip the hem of your cloak. But as his fingertips grazed the top of your collar bone, you had disappeared in a puff of mist, materializing behind him with a grin, tisking his behaviour. “My my, your temper has risen Squire boy. Run along back to your iron castle and false god empty handed… The Witch of the Swamp has no answers for you here.” 

“You may be proven guilty yet,” he spun around to face you, upper lip curled in a nasty sneer, “tell me this then – what bewitchment have you put on the Lord’s son Aegon? I was aware of his lustful escapades to the whorehouses and taverns yet he returns to the swamp. What vile deceit do you poison him with?”

Hah, you snort, face contorting into a grimace, “and you care oh so much about the little lordling? Feigning concern does not exempt you or the people for what lay in truth; He was a sinner long before he found me in the eyes of you zealots. But it is ever convenient to have a reason to blame for his frivolities, is it not?”

He nods, a faint smirk on his lips that waned into a contemptuous smile with nostrils flared, “count your days little hag, once the church finds you guilty of maleficium and magical interference you will burn in the square.” His broad torso had begun twisting as he made his descent down the rickety steps of the porch.

“If,” you say aloud, causing him to turn back, a smug smile spreads across your face that twists into a sinister snarl, “get out of my swamp.” 

A threat he happily obliged.

***

The winter winds that cast down from the nearby mountainous ranges brought a merciless bite, winter had come with a vengeance and it had only been steadily getting worse. You had yet to see Aegon since the incident of the Holy Knight, Criston, who had darkened the doorstep of the hut and brought with him empty threats under the guise of religious intervention. Perhaps in the beginning, your intention with Aegon had been merely a spiteful jab at the Lord of the land and his family. Even then, your intention was to never cause death even if it would be incredibly easy to do so. 

So the Lord Visery’s fell ill? That couldn’t be helped. It was in the hands of fate now whether the man lived or died. All you did was take a mere part of him, the fault should not befall you if his own wounds weren’t tended to properly because the healers were inept.

The harmonious bleating of a distant Nymphernal carries you from your thoughts, a soft reminder that while the creatures of the Swamp were friendly, you were out alone and trudging barefoot through thick marshy glades of still water. It was not quite Dead Winter Day, the midmark of winter and yet you felt a pull to the shrine of Ornmir to pay respects and present an offering. It would be the first time you would venture alone to this area of the Swamp, no longer under the guidance of Auntie who had long disappeared. 

To where? That was unclear. One morning you awoke and she had simply gone. 

Perhaps on another worldly pilgrimage, or perhaps to take her own life. The only indication you had ever known that this may happen is when she instructed you to not miss her if she were to ever leave. But you did. 

Hidden behind the thick shield of clouds, the sun sat at her highest though her warmth nigh be felt from down below where you silently yearned for it. Though you trudged triumphantly, mud and clag squishing up between your toes and sticking to the bottom of your dress where the rips and tethers sat. The hunting song of the Stymphalian echoes through the treetops, no doubt as it prepares to descend on its prey, you were just a girl when nursing the small bird back to health, now you could only imagine the monstrous size it got to. 

A local superstition cited, to hear the hunting song of the Stymphalian was a bad omen, and despite never feeding into the poppycock drivel of townsfolk, there must have been some merit to this superstition. The overgrown path that many years ago was used as a trade route between two of the smaller towns now lay abandoned and its only purpose served as the spiritual shrine of Ornmir. 

Only the shrine had been destroyed. By what or who was unknown. 

Perhaps the townsfolk are right, the only thought you had upon setting eyes on the blighted site. But now, it seemed, you finally had an answer for why Ornmir had grown aggressive. Only a person with intent can wrought this much destruction on a stone and wood shrine, but that hardly narrowed down the culprit. 

That afternoon you spent silently restoring the shrine back to its original form, proving to be more difficult than initially thought but your resolve strengthened despite it. Blood Magic came easy. Green Magic, even easier. Mending spiritual monuments to appease a now wrathful spirit? Harder than one would think. 

When you finished and bowed your head, the sun began waning and with it; her light. With darkness approaching it was wise for you to return to the hut, yet your feet carried you elsewhere. An unseen feeling tugging at you in the form of soft incomprehensible whispers. You weren’t being bewitched that was clear, you could still control yourself but the feeling was one that couldn’t be shaken.

In the distance, another hunting call from the Stymphalian cawed tauntingly.

Urgently, you walk through the swamp, a feeling of light distress that felt foreign as though it weren’t your own. The thrumming drone of the tree drowned out your own heartbeat and singled in on an anomaly, as you drew near it became clearer what– who the anomaly was. 

“Aegon?” You whisper softly, a hand bracing the trunk of a tree as your eyes cast downward on the man in a curled up position. Hardly recognisable and it wasn’t on account of the muck that covered him from head to toe or his ripped clothes. His torso was grotesquely hunched, spine malformed and breaching through the skin similarly to his limbs that disproportionately elongated, causing the skin to tear. 

His eyes, though, remain the same as they look up at you, beading with tears. You drop to your knees and understand immediately what’s happened, and partially blame yourself for not warning him that this would happen some way or another. This soon though? Was what caught you off guard. 

You place a gentle hand on his arm, “this will be greatly uncomfortable, I apologise.” A string of words fall from your lips in a hiss that echoed in a whirlwind, coming from every angle and direction that encased the both of you until shrouded and the surroundings melt from the deep swamp. He cries out in pain but the strain on his vocal chords doubled over each other creating a monstrous yawp that sounded anything but human. 

The swamp seemingly disintegrates from the power of your unwavering muttering, a black void filling its place for a brief time before the inside of your hut melts into the view. Your head spins for a short second, a stabbing pain following in your chest but that did not concern you nearly as much as Aegon. 

“What is happening to me?” He bleats, voice strained through his gritted teeth which were more jagged and fiendish than human. His body trembled incessantly though he tried to suppress it by hugging himself, looking to you for an answer. It almost felt cruel to tell him, on top of monthly transformations and mood swings, that there was yet another caveat for this curse. 

“Let me help first, I’ll take away your pain.” You promise quietly, rushing over to the cabinet collecting jars of phoenix ashes, slime mucus, hydra scales. All of them became a blur as you quickly swiped them into your arms and collected the mortar and pestle. “This… this is highly unusual to occur so early.” You murmur quietly, shakily pouring ingredients into the mortar. 

He groans aggressively, chest rising and falling with each of his staggered breaths as if he were urging you to hurry up. You unclasp the obsidian dagger attached to your belt and another set of ornate tools, similar to that of pliers and look on the writhing man with sorrow, “my apologies for this, it will help I promise.” With a gentle touch you hold his hand and stretch his malformed fingers, black claws poke out of the ends where his nails would otherwise be.

Your lower lip is sucked between your teeth in a deep concentration when you settle the pliers on one claw. “What are you–” he barely pants out when you rip the nail from his finger with a brutal force, he screams out in agony and the immediate response is for him to retaliate but he can only writhe further in pain. Bones cracking harder, bellows becoming breathier. 

Adding the nail to the paste marked that it was nearing ready for consumption. You had only ever seen this type of healing solution made once, and the very process of it left a scar embedded into the recess of your memory. Sparing Aegon a glance, you look at him cautiously, “I advise you to look away, this is unsightly but necessary.” 

Though you do not keep a gaze on him to confirm if he watches on or not, bringing the obsidian blade to your throat and in a swift motion, slit through your throat and lean forward over the paste. The gurgling sounds made the process appear far more worse than it was, as you recall Auntie doing something similar when tasked with healing a Holy Knight who visited after losing his fighting arm in battle while you were tasked with distracting the young Squire accompanying him. Needless to say, you were unsuccessful. Auntie’s gurgled grunts and waterfall of blood forever etched into your mind, a reminder that the magic you do was part of you.

Once the mortar is filled, thick with the crimson viscous of your own blood, you place a hand over the self-inflicted wound and mutter to yourself, still gurgling through the iron tang sitting in your mouth. A witches body could handle damage tenfold so long as it were for ritual, protection or magic, as it was a vessel for said magic, every aspect of it. Torso drenched and sticky now remain the only indicator of the injury placed on yourself, not even a scar remained in its place. 

Finally, mixing everything together, you smear the repugnant salve on the back of a dreamlily leaf and bring it to his lips. Though you could not blame his apprehension after witnessing the obscene display before him for not wanting to ingest the mixture you held. “Trust me, it will help.”

He was fearful, ever so slightly and his nod was almost so non-existent you nearly missed it. With a gentle hand, you begin to slowly feed it through his lips. Your other hand, despite besmirched with blood, ran softly through his once pristine silver hair to help soothe him, just as Auntie often would to help lull you after night terrors or when you fell ill. It was unusually maternal of her but it was the only way to get you to settle.

There was rescinding silence as his groans of pain ceased, one could almost mistake it as if he had passed away, but his tearful eyes with blood vessels burst highlighting the violet within them were open and looking around the hut. Physically he may be present and well, but mentally and spiritually the paste had sent him elsewhere, to a realm of existence that exceeded physical barriers like pain. The husk of his body remained, vulnerable to anything including yourself which is why you set off around the hut to cast protective wards, sparing him several glances as you did so. 

***

A vast void thrumming with echoes of magic assaulted your senses. It was jarring. Everywhere you looked there was nothing. Inside the centre of a dying star. Within the core of the prime realm. Imbedded inside the darkest pit of the underdark. Neither of those were quite right, no, the airy feeling as though you were made from gas indicated otherwise. Dreamlike as the sensation was, it was anything but. You were trapped deep within your mind, a hidden pocket dimension tucked away and concealed by magic that was not your own. 

“Auntie?” Your voice carried on, repeating for what seemed like leagues ahead of where you stood into the bottomless and endless void. The sound of magic rippled and cracked, like vines being snapped, the volume of it causing you to cringe and cover your ears. Is this what being consumed by magic felt like? At its very core, is this where your magic lie within?

Though no answer to your thoughts or calls. Just you and the Void. It was surreal, a surge of fear shot through you like a jolt of electricity. Am I stuck like this? The sensation, the oppression of it all felt overwhelming. Am I dead? You begin to think and wonder if during your slumber Aegon or someone else ended your life—

“Bramble.” 

The softest whisper, distorted through the shadowy abyss. Though it bounced all around and was difficult to pinpoint the direction of its origin. Left? Right? Up? Down? Perhaps there was one God after all, and this was the eternal punishment for blasphemy and devil craft.

”Bramble.”

Much clearer was the voice now, to the right, you affirm and feel yourself move though you do not appear to walk, merely you just are heading right. And though the void felt all encompassing all at once, there was loneliness stowing away within — the voice was not an indication that someone was close.

”Bramble.”

It was right behind you now, like a vacuum of space and time that pulled and ripped you from the chasm of oblivion. Blinding light searing deep into your eyes along with the acrid smell of familiarity binding you to the prime realm once again. Eyes of an angel come to vision, a battle beaten face of someone who must be of celestial ancestry but the unmistakable violet colour of the eyes say otherwise. 

The voice pulling you from limbo belonging to the very creature before you. No longer the monstrous amalgamation of man and beast, but a light at the end of a cavern, ascending you from the deepest crevasse within your mind. His very being a beacon of hope coiled within the remnants of a broken man, and you begin to think for the first time that fate has intertwined the two of you somehow for this feeling to be so pure. 

His face is close, commanding your field of view but even without him doing so you could tell very clearly that the void was no more and you had returned to the present realm. 

”You ‘lright then?” He says before leaning back into the bed, his expression one that could be either concern or inconvenience it was hard to tell. The dark circles under his eyes looked as bad as the ones you felt under your own eyes. Sleep clearly evading you both. 

“Yeah,” You softly utter, clearing the collating gunk from the bottom of your throat with a cough. The windows displayed a distinctly dark bog from the outside though it was difficult to tell if only a few hours passed or if a whole day had passed. “You’re back to normal,” it felt less like a comforting observation and more like a jipe considering he would never be back to normal. But, you supposed this was to be his new normal. 

He laughs dryly, wincing while shuffling to a spot of more comfort, seemingly like he read your mind and was inclined to agree with you. “Your eyes… did this strange thing. Like there was light trapped inside you, wanting to get out… I thought for a moment divine intervention happened and your soul was being exercised.” 

A laugh escapes your lips, “piety does not suit you very well.” Your eyes graze along his body, inspecting for any signs remaining of his partial transformation. The clothes that lay on him were barely holding together, his torso might as well be laid bare and his pantaloons left nothing to the imagination. Your scrutinizing gaze must have made him uncomfortable as he seemed to flush red with embarrassment and cover himself with the thin blanket. 

Sighing, you stand up, his gaze following you carefully and curiously. He did this often, everytime he would arrive for the full moon and the two days that followed he did a lot of watching. At first you thought you disliked the constant eyes, peering over your shoulders or beneath the kitchen table but the longer he did it, the less it felt like surveillance and more just curiosity. 

You return to him with two identical bottles in hand, wax sealing the corks at the opening to prevent them leaking but also to prolong the viscous liquids effects. “Take these back with you when you go, it’ll help,” placing them on the table, your fingers linger over them for a moment, “do you know what happened… yesterday?” 

His head falls back against the pillow, staring up at the various dried herbs dangling from the ceiling, “I have an idea… I was transforming, wasn’t I? Is that — that’s not normal, is it?” His eyes dart around the hut, craning his neck to watch you by the hearth heating up a cauldron. 

“Somewhat,” you answer quietly, the heat from the fire encasing you in a warm caress before abandoning it to return to Aegon’s bedside, a hot cloth in hand. “To suffer under the curse of the Lycan is to surrender body and soul to the beast. The moon commands you yes… but there is a beast within you, and if controlled properly can extend to hybrid forms that don’t require the full moon's command.”  

“But… I didn’t have control,” his eyebrows crease together, “I was… I was angry. My mother… she —,” he stopped himself, the look that fell from the frown pressed into his lips to the creases on his forehead indicated it wasn’t something he wished to speak about, and it wasn’t something you wished to press him on so you nod silently. 

With the steaming cloth in your hand, you softly begin to pat away at his forehead, gently removing the dried up flecks of blood after the day prior’s harrowing ordeal. “A beast is quick to anger,” the saying was something you recall Auntie musing about once, though in reference to the ever grumpy crocodile that frequented its favourite sunspot by the elder tree. 

“Don’t let Aemond hear you say that, he may show offense,” Aegon tiredly jested, a smile tugging at his cracked lips.

”I fear if he had been stuck with this burden then perhaps Oldtown would end in ruin,” the thought had occurred many times since that woeful night, “alas, infant lycanthropes tend to show signs of hybrid transformations after an entire seasonal rotation. It was not something I anticipated happening so soon… it will get easier over time and less painful.” 

“How do you know?”

”Because that is what I do, I gather ingredients, cast spells and know things.” You smile at him, hand absently caressing his cheek above the steaming cloth and begin to wonder what it would’ve been like if fate entwined the two of you earlier than the blightful event that brought your lives together. 

—— Taglist ——

(Lemme know if you wanna be tagged!)

@karlachs-soldier @serving-targaryen-realness @deltamoon666 @bogbutteronmycroissant

[ghostclangen]

Another day, another solo dawn patrol. Hornetstar sighs groggily and curses Fauna. Is it too late to choose another deputy…?

Still, the solitude gives her time to think. There’s been something nagging at her for moons and moons now: what’s wrong with Marshlily? She’d always been so sweet and kind, but shortly after she’d become a full healer, something changed in her, something that has Hornetstar’s skin crawling. “What happened to you, Marshlily?” she mumbles, then sighs again.

The sound of a clearing throat cuts into her murmuring, and Hornetstar shrieks at the sudden noise. “Who’s that!?” she asks, looking around frantically until she sees the culprit: a white she-cat with a coat mottled with silver. “Who are you? Wh-what do you want!?”

The stranger, however, doesn’t seem to be hostile. Her claws are nowhere to be seen and her fur is flat along her back. There’s even, Hornetstar notes, a look of sympathy in her eyes. Her hackles slowly lower, though she’s still on guard when she says, “Um … do I know you?”

The she-cat shakes her head. “No. Not yet. But I know you.” Off Hornetstar’s confused look, she says, “I’ve been watching over the Cavern of Souls for many long moons. It used to be unoccupied, but now you and your group …”

“GhostClan.”

The she-cat nods. “Right. GhostClan. You’ve come to settle there. I was going to let you be, but I’m … worried.”

Hornetstar cocks her head. “Worried? Why?” Not that you don’t have reason to be, she adds to herself. “Wait, who even are you?”

The she-cat gives a soft chuckle and shakes her head. “Where are my manners?” she says as she takes a seat on the ground. “My name is Nettle. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you …”

Hornetstar pauses, then sits down as well. “Hornetstar.”

Nettle nods again. “Right. Like I said, I’ve been watching over the mountain and its Cavern for much of my life. There’s something about it that intrigues me. How should I put this …” She thinks for a moment, then continues, “Have you seen anything odd there? Out of the corner of your eye, perhaps? Anything … ginger?”

Hornetstar’s eyes widen. “How did you know about that?” she blurts, then snaps her mouth shut. What she saw in the Moongem … so she hadn’t imagined it!

“I figured as much.” Nettle sighs, then says, “Her name is Waterfur.”

“I know. I heard her name when I was at the Moongem. Do you …?”

Nettle nods. “I’ve been. Not since you moved in—I figured my presence wouldn’t be quite welcome—but I’ve seen it. I’ve felt its power.”

“Right. … Do you know who she is? What happened to her?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” Nettle says. “It must have been something horrible, though, for her to be lingering here. I wouldn’t be worried, but I know she’s not a friendly presence. I’m scared that something is going to happen to you, and I couldn’t let that happen. As odd as it seems … I care about you all.”

Hornetstar would be unsettled by the overfamiliarity under any other circumstance, but the relief that sweeps over her is immense. Thank StarClan—she couldn’t bear any longer for it to be just her and Marshlily who carry the burden of the knowledge. “Thank you, Nettle. … Can I trust you?” It’s a stupid question, she knows, but what else is there to say?

“Of course you can,” Nettle says, giving her a look of both empathy and curiosity. “What is it?”

“Some of the cats have been acting … different,” Hornetstar says. “They’ll go cold. They’ll be violent—more violent than necessary, I mean. And Marshlily, our healer, she’s been …” Her voice cracks as she says, “Something is wrong with her, Nettle. She’s lashing out and having fits and twitching uncontrollably and I’m scared.” Looking down at her paws, she adds in a tiny voice, “I love her. I don’t know what to do.” The words fall  from her mouth like a waterfall, and every inch of self-preservation in her screams at her for showing so much vulnerability to a stranger, but what else is she supposed to do? How does she deal with it? For StarClan’s sake, how has she managed to deal with her entire life?

Thistle’s voice breaks her from her spiraling just in time. “I don’t have all the answers,” she says, “but I have a sneaking suspicion that that’s related to Waterfur’s ghost.”

“I sure hope so. I don’t need a ghost and a curse on my paws.”

Thistle nods and gives Hornetstar a sad, though still comforting, smile. “I hope this isn’t too forward,” she says, “but … is it possible for me to become a member of GhostClan? Or at least to stay in the Cavern with you? I’d like to take a closer look. Maybe I could even speak to her.”

“You can speak to ghosts?” Hornetstar asks, wide-eyed, then shakes her head. “Sorry. That wasn’t the question. Um, yes, you can stay with us. We’ve taken in plenty of loners before, and I can’t think of a better cat to have on my side.”

“Thank you, Hornetstar,” Nettle says with a little purr. “You won’t regret it, I promise.” After a pause, she says, “In that case … you have ‘warrior names’, correct?”

Hornetstar nods. “You don’t have to take one, but if you’re looking for one, then how about …” She looks around her, searching for something suitable. Nettlemountain? No, that sounds dumb. Nettlegrass? That one’s a little redundant. How about … “Nettledawn,” she says, gazing out toward the brilliant sky the sunrise has brought. “Your name will be Nettledawn.”

Nettledawn fixes her with a bright smile and stands up, her tail up in delight. “Nettledawn is a lovely name,” she says. “Thank you, Hornetstar.”

For the first time in a long, long time, Hornetstar’s heart lightens, and she stands up as well. “Come on,” she says, “let’s get you back to camp.”

[bellatrixobsessed1]

I Am Blackened Bones (Part 26)

Spirit Azula isn’t exactly one to be convincing or persuasive. But she is stubborn and she does refuse to leave even when Katara asks her nicely to do so, just for the duration of the council meeting. Katara imagines that Azula has some choice words for the spirit. She also imagines that the spirit has gotten used to Azula’s prickly demeanor and blunt harsh words. Accustomed enough to ignore them entirely. And so, with the declaration, that she let Azula be there for the sky curtains, so she will be staying at the forefront for as long as she pleases. But it does have its perks to take her to the meeting instead; it puts the council members at ease to speak with a softer version of Azula. To look into those innocent, curious eyes rather than to meet human Azula’s fiery, intense gaze. To watch a terribly bored spirit Azula fidget and count the icicles on the ceiling instead of seeing human Azula sit stiffly and imposingly.

Katara imagines that Azula’s natural overall demeanor wouldn’t do her any favors on this particular endeavor. She supposes that Azula, with enough effort, could threaten and intimidate her way to the Spirit Oasis. But that would be nowhere near as efficient and effective as spirit Azula just being herself with Azula’s sweet, silky voice, soft face, and tiny stature.

Afterall, what harm could a precious thing like her do?

Provide a good disguise. 

Act as a vessel to conceal a bomb.

The spirit, innocent and unassuming, could walk into the Oasis and human Azula could force her way out and do whatever she pleases with Tui and La. But she wouldn’t do that…would she? Katara furrows her brows at the realization that she doesn’t think Azula would take advantage of them letting her into the Spirit Oasis.

Maybe she is letting her guard too far down. Being too trusting. Maybe the spirit has instilled exactly the kind of trust that can pave the way to Azula doing something horrible. Something to usurp Zuko and take back what she thinks is hers. 

But no. She had seen the way Azula looked at her. The things that Azula had confessed to. She can fake a lot of things, but love has a certain look and feel to it. One that Katara has come to recognize very well. And Azula, both versions of her been very sincere. And so she concludes that Azula only wants what truly does belong to her; her firebending. She can only imagine just how much Azula misses it, Katara had been so lost when TyLee had chiblocked her for the first time. 

The council members continue to chatter amongst themselves after Aang finishes his recount of everything that he has observed of both Azulas. That the spirit is friendly and playful and quite fun to be around and that Azula herself is cooperative. Snarky and standoffish but not particularly combative. She mostly keeps to herself. 

“Regardless of how we feel about her, I think that we can all agree that it’s cruel to let someone suffer like that. A bender’s bending should never be taken from them, let alone become a source of suffering to them.” He concludes.

“You took Ozai’s bending from him, did you not?” A council woman asks, she studies Azula’s face for a reaction. Whatever Azula’s might have been, the spirit takes with indifference. 

“Former Fire Lord Ozai was an active threat who could be stopped in any other way.”

“Any other way that you were willing to perform.” Says the man next to her.

“Either which way, taking someone’s bending is a last resort and it’s not necessary with Azula.”

“If the spirits choose to keep her from her bending then there is probably a reason for it.” Chief Arnook counters. 

Katara has a feeling that this is the exact back and forth that has been keeping this meeting in session for so long.

“The spirits have their own biases. And they aren’t always right.” Sokka points out. “That Wan Shi Tong guy, he sunk a library with us inside of us because we were trying to use his books to try to keep the Fire Nation from conquering everything. An angry spirit terrorized Senlin Village because it thought that they destroyed its forest.”

This gives the council pause. 

It gives Azula pause. 

Azula who studies him with a look of confusion.

“He did say that he was going to try to get along with you.” Katara whispers to her. 

And the conversation carries on with a brand new debate. Should they trust the spirit’s judgment? If they can’t trust the spirits then why seek out their help? It goes on and on until Katara feels like they are talking in circles and the spirit seems to nod off. 

It is in the spirit’s exhaustion that Azula works her way back in and Katara’s stomach flutters. But Azula keeps quiet, a silent observer until they ask her why she thinks that she should be granted access to the Spirit Oasis.

Azula holds her silence for a moment before answering with a question of her own. “What have I done, specifically, that makes you think that I shouldn’t be granted access?” She pauses. “My brother did more to warrant distrust than I have but you welcome him into your city with open arms.” 

“And he will never see the Spirit Oasis again.” Chief Arnook assures. 

“I don’t need to be awake when I go there.” Azula shrugs. 

“But the spirit will be and you can harness from her, any information that might be useful to you.” 

“In any capacity.” She clarifies. “I don’t need to be awake in any capacity. Someone can carry me, unconscious to the Oasis and out of it.” Katara is certain that she is terribly uncomfortable with her own idea. It would leave her terribly prone and vulnerable. 

There is a murmur around the table.

Katara wonders how the spirit would have answered. 

.oOo.

It has been some time since she and the spirit have been together in this dark place, listening to the raging of the fire beyond it. Azula wonders if the crackle will fade and the walls of that flaming labyrinth will finally extinguish.

The spirit sits across from her, her posture is lax but it bears a much closer resemblance to her own than it had before. She, in fact, recognizes more of herself in the spirit than she has ever been able to.

There is an intelligence in her eyes, a knowingness. A very particular kind of knowingness. The kind that Azula herself often possesses. And that is the knowledge that she knows something that someone else doesn't. Or something that many people don’t. To be on the other end of that is unsettling. Worse still in that she can’t possibly fathom what that little spirit version of her can know that she doesn’t. But the look suits the spirit so well. It suits the spirit because it suits her. 

The spirit is starting to talk like her too; with the same inflections in the same places and the same tones. Her word choice is growing increasingly eloquent. 

And somehow that terrifies Azula. 

“We’re going to get our bending back.” She says as though it isn’t still possible for Tui and La to reject them. Or for the Oasis water to simply be ineffective. “We could go back to the Fire Nation.”

“That is the goal, yes.”

“Is it?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

And the spirit shrugs. “I quite like it here. The sights are extraordinary. It’s something new.”

“And what would you know about that? You’ve never been to Caldera City for yourself.”

Her mirror image extends an arm. Her fingers touch Azula’s forehead. “I have.”

“That’s not the same.”  

“It is.” The spirit insists. 

“How so?”

“I can feel the things that you do if I want to.” She pauses. “I can push you out if I want to.” She draws out another longer silence. “You aren’t stronger than me. You can’t ‘snuff me out’ as easily as you think you can.” 

Azula’s stomach churns and she begins to wonder just how innocent the spirit truly is. And just when it had stopped being ignorant and goofy and started playing the part. 

Or maybe she is looking too much into it. Projecting what she would have done onto a spirit that truly is kind and goofy. 

She hadn’t even considered that the spirit can be intelligent and playful at once; a new, evolve version of her.

A superior version of her.

She hadn’t even considered that the spirit might just be able to take over her life. Azula would lose her firebending for good if she exorcises her spirit self. The spirit, now that she has gotten re-acquitted with her vocabulary and the human world, has nothing to lose but baggage and hurt.

Maybe this whole time she was the one who was meant to fade. She almost certainly was. She was the one left behind in the maze. Perhaps it is time to let go. She can’t achieve what the spirit can earn for her. Affection, comfort, friends…

It wouldn’t be so bad to just let go. Aside from these brief, fleeting moments she only suffers anyways. 

There is a flicker of satisfaction the eyes of her spirit self. The thrill of a conquest. A bold sparkle that comes with knowing that she has the upper hand. Triumph, complete and total. And, Agni, she wears that look so well. Well enough that even she has trouble distinguishing the two of them apart. The spirit tilts her head and that look fades. “I don’t want to push you out though. You hate me so much, but I don’t hate you.” 

Azula swallows hard. It has been a good while since she has made herself cry. 

She can’t watch herself be happy without feeling embarrassed to the point of anger. Being carefree and happy, she realizes feels like making a fool of herself.

She hates the part of her that is happy because that part of her is everything that she wishes she could be. She can’t even look at the good parts of herself without feeling resentment and dissatisfaction. 

The spirit regards her with what can only be pity. She sits down next to her other half and when Azula doesn’t push her away, she takes her into her arms. She is so broken, so very broken that she can’t stand to see herself happy, can’t stand to imagine what that might be like. “Go ahead.” She murmurs. “You can have Katara for yourself.” 

“When you asked her, Katara said that she didn’t want that.” 

“She’d never know.” 

“I don’t want that. And you don’t want that.” The spirit informs her. 

She doesn’t want that. 

She doesn’t want to fade. 

But she doesn’t want to hurt either. 

Beyond their little dark place, where the spirit holds her close, a wall of flames fades into ember and smoke.

[berrypass-de-murdler]

3 - 9 This Murder is Mine

Had a mild epiphany last night while watching the Golden Globes

I imagine the Murdle fandom mostly consists of people who enjoy books and live-action TV/movies

So of course they'd be put off by the cartoon. I made it for the animation fandom!

My passionate love for cartoons and the way they tell stories can technically go back to since I was born lol, and I use inspiration from many beloved media in both the designs and storytelling of the Murdle cartoon - maybe it's because I put in more effort into making it a good standalone show instead of just a murdle adaptation

It's sad that I'm the only one who will ever be able to see it to its entirety in my head, while I try to include as much detail as possible there's only so much that can be conveyed through writing, as the visual version in my head also contains their face expressions, body language, and voices which I think help convey emotion further

Anyway enough of that dumbass rambling

Look more drafts!

I don't... love them but uhhh they'll do for now

Yes Sepia is related to Cobalt, they are brothers

I want to draw Horsegico but I can't draw horses goddammit

DON'T READ THE EPISODES WITHOUT READING THE BOOKS!!

Graphite is cautious as she heads closer to a big ol’ mine. She gets the feeling that someone is following her, and jerks around. Giant Logico has nowhere to hide! Maybe his new size isn’t such a good thing? She runs over to him.

GRAPHITE: What is your problem?! LOGICO: I need to figure out what you’re up to.  GRAPHITE: I’m not… up to anything, just get lost. Or there will be consequences.

Logico pretends to canter away. But he’s not off her tail yet. After hearing some crashing and screaming, he rushes into the mine as fast as possible. Graphite is gone, and a disembodied leg lies on the ground - a murder definitely occurred. Obviously. But was it one of the people here, or was it Graphite before she got away?

Sheriff Sandy is back from the dead, and a tall man and a short man are also present.

SHORT MAN: [grabs Logico’s face] GOLD! I’M CALLED GOLD IN THESE HILLS! LOGICO: [angry neigh] DON’T TOUCH ME! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?! GOLD: G- G- GOLD!!!! I’M CALLED GOLD, RIGHT HERE IN THESE HILLS!! LOGICO: Okay. Doesn’t mean you have to scream and GRAB ME!

He turns to the tall man instead, expecting an introduction.

TALL MAN: Hey there big guy, with your one big blue eye.

Logico assumes the man is colorblind, but then realizes that he is in an entire different body at the moment.

LOGICO: What’s your name, though. TALL MAN: I’ll give you a hint. I’m Union Man Mint. I fought the boss, and the boss won. Now I’m out of a job, and on the run.

Logico could just kill somebody at this point. A suspect who RHYMES? 

LOGICO: Please end me. SANDY: Twilight, look out!

Gold runs around at inhuman speeds, carrying a giant book on his head.

GOLD: Y’ALL GOTTA READ THIS BOOK, Y’ALL GOTTA READ THIS BOOK GOOD! IT’S TALKIN’ ABOUT THE GOLD, GOLD IN THESE HILLS! 

Logico’s legs shake. The dream can’t go on for much longer. Can it?!

LOGICO: I can’t do this… they’re too… horrible… SANDY: I’m sorry Twilight… I swear, you don’t gotta worry about Mint. He’s been my pal for as long as I can remember. MINT: I’m not here for gold - not today, at least. Just searching for mushrooms, to make up a feast.

The terrible rhymes swirl in Logico’s head, slowly drowned out by “GOLD IN THESE HILLS!!” He can barely keep himself together…

IRRATINO: Psst. LOGICO: Thank god you’re here… IRRATINO: You’re doin’ a good job, Logico. And I gotta feeling you’ll be outta here sooner than ya think. Just keep pushin’. LOGICO: If I do… will I wake up? And you’ll stop talking in that dumb voice…

Ghost Cowboy Irratino nods. It’s really weird for Logico to be able to look at him at eye level. But once again, he fades away.

Logico takes a deep breath, accidentally letting out a very equine snort. He knew there was something very wrong about that Mint fellow… and he’s entirely right!

MINT: I killed her, it’s true! But look at her form!

He leads Logico to the rest of the body - Graphite was the victim!

MINT: If you knew what I knew, she couldn’t stay warm. I did what you could never do - I took the criminal, and split her in two!

Logico is very disturbed, this is getting kind of hectic. At least none of it is real? Or was it? He has to go confront Ivory again, and runs to the courthouse. Little does he know that Mint is following behind!

The end!

Guess Graphite and Sky aren't getting together sob sob

Next up marker drawing of every book 2 character!

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!