#and that made it much more terrifying beyond the good and bad endings. at least to me

[skeletoninthemelonland]

Do you like all the Springtraps 🤨

Or Just springtrap :^

Ofc there are a few exceptions, but in general- Yes, I do like all the Springtraps!!! :O

[love-of-the-red-star]

That time I got reincarnated as an Aeon

(Series)

Chapter two: This is not a good day to be a god.

Warnings: Spoilers for Aventurine’s backstory, some canon divergent stuff as I’m taking creative liberties. Reader is kind of biased but also not. People aren’t really having a good time. Good ol Eldritch horror. This chapter is a bit more serious in tone than the last ones.

“Mr. Yang, can we please switch the channel?”

Welt, being the nearest person near the techy T.V you absolutely had no fucking idea how to operate yet had obliged to your request, because you see, the news channel had no problem broadcasting your latest breakdown for everyone to hear.

You could have sworn you saw Pompom almost cry from the sound of your eldritch version and honestly you wouldn’t blame them— if you were them, you were sure you’d cry at the sound of your own voice too because what the fuck was that—

Why you even cried? Well, you accidentally freed a planet.

From existing. By simply accidentally dropping your tears on it because you cried watching a planet from thousands of light years away that you’re pretty sure is Sigonia come to conflict.

How you accidentally did more damage than Nanook and haven’t ended up being assimilated to them is beyond you, but you remembered you still have some agendas, you can’t be eaten yet.

It wasn’t exactly your fault your true form was a little too big that rogue planets who had the unlucky chance to get too near you ended up being quite literally disassembled. You just hoped there were no sentient life forms in it.

Continuing on with breakfast, Himeko drank her weird smelling coffee near you, unperturbed and probably used to hearing the news airing out your dirty laundry. (She’s still a little shaken from hearing the crying, but knowing you personally has made it seem.. less terrifying.)

You munched on your toast, thanking Pompom for making it the way you liked it; being slightly on the burnt side.

Welt had switched the channel to a different network, this time, there’s sports. Everyone seemed content on seeing sweaty men on a soccer field instead of hearing your not so pleasant and probably horrifying sounding distress so it was a win.

Then you randomly remembered Sigonia.

“Hey uh.. Himeko? Do we have data on this specific star cluster here?” You asked as you scribbled on a piece of paper, hoping at least that Akivili had made it there at least once.

Himeko peered through the paper and frowned. “….” She seemed hesitant, which confirmed your suspicion. “We don’t… the rail hasn’t gone that way just yet.”

Well shit. It seemed like you couldn’t take the express with you without you heading there and establishing a space anchor first.

But that would take time. Too much time. And you realized that logically there would be little to no benefit of a space anchor in a harsh desert planet— you cut those thoughts as soon as they came, you weren’t going to think like the IPC.

It’s up to you to establish a connection then. But could you even make it in time?

————————————

Your projection had disappeared after breakfast, leaving the express once again to wander as they pleased as you returned to your original body to peer into Sigonia— specifically Sigonia IV once again.

It’s surprisingly lively for a desolate place. It made sense, people do live there, and it made you smile at the resilience they presented despite their circumstances.

You should bless them, you thought, maybe placing it under the guise of their mother goddess if you’re remembering their belief system correctly. She.. unfortunately does not exist, but you do.

You won’t let them know that though for the sake of their peace.

You just wish the two clans would free themselves from hatred; logically it would be more beneficial to work together in a place like that, and it made you feel bad for the Katicans in a way— to be caged by their own prejudice they can’t see beyond words or envy that they’d choose to simply wipe out another clan out of those feelings. It was just sad, a little pathetic almost.

You didn’t want to be biased, but you do know you have sides to take if you wanted to be free of something. In this situation, you don’t think there was an option to simply have the two of them be on equal terms— not for now at least. Maybe you should consult Xipe? But where even are they?

For the sake of quieting your strangely human conscience, you chose to bless the Avgins in their little festival, in the hope that you’d steer them away from their written fate.

You know it’d be hard to fight, but you’d be damned if you didn’t try.

It had taken you to seeing little Kakavasha for a good while for you to finally crack and get down there yourself.

There was no way you were going to let him suffer a life that you knew was going to happen to him, not if you could do something about it. And lucky for you, you were an Aeon, and you were an Aeon that did whatever they damn wanted.

You had said fuck you to fate that day and took the form of an Avgin woman, not before leaving a message to Boothill that you hope he’d receive considering you’re not delivering it through your phone number— you were delivering your message through sheer will.

————————

Assimilating with the Avgin had come rather easily. It had made you feel bad to deceive them— you had pretended to be injured, no, it was more like you intentionally let your projection appear injured, as you approached their camp.

You had called yourself “Delia”, and they were keen on accepting that. They had taken care of you and kids cooed over the patterns of the skirt that you wore, asking you how you had created it.

Your only saving grace had been a young girl who appeared almost the same physical age as you, shooing away the people who crowded you too much. (Not that there was even many of them, there were three at most, and they were children.)

You had only awkwardly laughed as she shot them a look, something about how the “patient” needed to be left alone.

“Sorry about them, they can be excitable when they see something pretty.” She said to you, squeezing a wet rag before she wiped your face with it. It’s embarrassing to be taken care of like you were a baby, but if it’s what it took to try and free them, then you’re willing to sacrifice your dignity a little more— if you were being honest, you’d take this over hearing the sound of your own crying on the television.

“It’s fine.” You smiled as she put the rag down and checked your “injured” leg.

“A few more days and you’d be good to go. Though…. You’re healing faster than people normally would…..” You could sense the suspicion in her tone, and inwardly you smiled mischievously. “Never mind, I suppose that’s a good thing. The sooner you heal, the sooner you’re out of the bed and can go around and move about.” She nodded to herself in her assessment of you and left the tent.

It was days later that you found that she’s funnily enough, Kakavasha’s sister.

By that time, you were known by the people around you, but you didn’t know them.

Kakavasha had been one of those who knew you in courtesy of his older sister; and now he’s here, shyly peeking over the table as you scribbled away into a sheet of paper.

He’s curious as he peered over your work. “It’s the stars you see on the left side of that mountain.” You told him, hesitantly he brings his pointer finger and holds it over the tear drop shapes.

“What’s this?”

“It’s rain.” You explained, and the little boy that you once knew to be the gambler tilted his head.

“Why is there so many of them?” Ah right, this place didn’t rain much.

“The sky is crying.” You told him and he simply frowned.

“Sister said you have a lot of stories.” He decided to change the topic, probably sensing your awkwardness. How embarrassing for a little kid to know you’re not good at speaking, but you know you’ll eventually learn how to better yourself in doing so.

“Yes I do, wanna hear one of them?” Your smile returned, and little Kakavasha, with his one missing front tooth, reflected your expression.

“I’m taking that as a yes. I’ll tell you the story of a girl who lost everything to the rain…”

————————

Two Sigonian months (you’ve counted the hours, and put them into months to prevent yourself from going insane from saying the numbers) and you’re pretty sure you’ve ran out of tales you’ve parodied from the original you told him and the other children. Kakavasha had brought it upon himself to stick by your side funnily enough, saying something about not caring if you repeat the tales to him again.

His mother had brought you to the side some time ago, thanking you for the diversion you gave to the children from the reality they were in.

You were combing a sleeping Kakavasha’s hair when you had heard it. The dreaded call for aid for the next Kakava festival.

And there was no time for the space anchor you were just starting to make.

Your hands paused, and you gently set the child’s head off your lap and into a pillow before disappearing into the night.

You returned 6 system hours later. Then another 18 system hours went by before you disappeared again and reappeared exactly after six hours. That continued on for days as the festival grew nearer.

——————————

Unbeknownst to you, this was utterly terrifying for the galaxy rangers aside from Boothill to receive messages from a nonexistent number. It had come in the form of a cipher, then actual comprehensive texts, then another cipher again and all of them would increase in frequency— as if the one who was calling for help was making it a point that it was urgent.

All of it had led to the answer of Sigonia IV despite the other strange contents of those messages.

Sometimes it wasn’t even texts at all, sometimes it was calls in the same six system hour time span that they’d receive those messages. They’d receive the call, and they would receive static sounds that formed words— gibberish half the time, but still beckoning them to Sigonia IV.

Some of them had put their phone down sometimes as the calls manifested into sounds that made them shudder all the way to their bones. They couldn’t describe the noise, but it put some sort of primal reaction out of them enough that some of them went 72 system hours without sleep.

As irrational and ridiculous as it sounded, there were very little things that galaxy rangers feared.

Whatever was sending them these things were one of them.

Sometimes it would be their TV, and Boothill had the unfortunate fate of listening to the strange cacophony that if he had been a human he was sure it would have terrified him enough he’d piss himself. There was something wrong about the waves it emitted, it wasn’t a normal glitch or a hack sort of glitch, but rather something else.

SOS, Sigonia IV, SOS, Sigonia IV. The message were a repeat.

In the calls he received, he would have thought he was having a fever dream when he found they didn’t exist in his call logs until his fellow rangers confirmed they received the same message.

He remembered receiving the text once before all this— a strange occurrence, but not exactly a coincidence.

They received the same messages again for this night. Except the ending sequence changed.

Bring people. Avgin. IPC not help. SOS. Sigonia IV. Send HELP.

After the last sequence had indicated the date, the TV short circuited and the lights dimmed.

“Oh fudge me.” Boothill muttered, whoever or whatever was even sending these things were clearly going agitated. “Looks like we’re going to be on a roll boys, I don’t think it’s wise to priss off this cutie pie so best we don’t ignore that signal for any fudging longer than we already had.”

“Say less, and I hope to the aeons I get a good nights sleep when we’re done.”

—————————————

Part I, Part II, Part III [HERE], Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII….

And that’s a wrap for part two! I know it lacks jokes but come on. But yeah we’re going on the more serious territory for a bit before we go back for the jokes. Heavily unedited and written in the middle of the night.

[whatsk-poppinhomies]

Pairing : Lee Minho x F!Reader TW : fighting ; Minho being a jerk ; angst ; fluffy at the end ; established relationship Word Count : 3.8k Request : i would like to know if you could please write something super angsty but with a fluff ending with him, could be a fight or maybe some bad things said in the heat of the moment, idk you choose, whatever you feel comfortable with. A/N : This took so long to get around to and I'm so sorry, but I finally finished it and I hope that you love it! It was a nice little change from what I've been working on right now. Thank you for loving my writing and supporting me, and I don't know if you remember saying it when you requested but you said you love me forever and always and the feeling is 100% mutual anon!!! Thank you so much!!

Things with Minho weren’t always perfect, no relationship ever was, but you liked to think that your relationship was strong enough to withstand the usual hurdles that most couples went through. For the most part, speed bumps would be smoothed over in a matter of minutes and arguments were more like the flame of a birthday candle, blown out within seconds of lighting it. You both loved each other, and that feeling was strong enough to get the both of you through even the toughest of days. You weren’t sure what was different about this time around, maybe it was the timing, or maybe it was just the fact that you both had gone through this kind of thing so many times that there was no more going around it. You both had to face it head on, and that was something that you never expected to do. 

“Where are you going?” You asked when you saw him heading to the door with a suitcase. Nothing had happened, not yet at least, and the sight in front of you had your stomach sinking. “Is something wrong? Did I do something?” He had never given you a reason to feel like you had to walk on eggshells, but seeing him this way, like he was about to walk out on you, had you beyond nervous, beyond terrified. 

“I’m not going anywhere, kitten.” He cooed, placing the bag down next to the door before walking over to you, his hands moving to your hips to hold you steady as he looked you in the eye. “We’re gonna be filming a new music video further out in the country and it’s gonna take a couple days. I’ll be staying at a hotel so I don’t have to keep driving back and forth every day. I’ll be back before you know it.” He leaned in to press a kiss to your forehead before backing up, but his words and the sentiment behind the action weren’t as reassuring as you wanted them to be. 

“Well… Why didn’t you tell me about it? I never heard about a new music video…” You said, the words coming out rather sharply, although you didn’t intend them to. “I mean… What if I didn’t catch you leaving? I’d just wake up and you’d be gone. Do you not care about how that would have made me feel?!” 

He rolled his eyes, running his fingers through his hair as he glared at you, his eyes ice cold and sending a shiver down your spine. “Sometimes I forget to tell you things, my life is kind of busy Y/N. Sue me for it. My life doesn’t exactly revolve around you.” He snapped back, and you knew that he could be kind of harsh with his words, but you didn’t know the extent of it until now, and those words had never been targeted towards you until this moment. “You’re so far up my ass anyway, I thought you would have known about the music video already considering you’re always right fucking there.” 

You swallowed thickly, a nervous chill running through you from being yelled at by the one person in your life that had never raised their voice at you at all before. You weren’t used to it, and you already felt the tears pricking your eyes as you stared at him. “I’m sorry that my way of loving you isn’t good enough, or if it’s a little too much for you. You should have let me know so that I didn’t get so attached.” You retorted, albeit far more quietly, your held back tears causing the words to come out sounding more choked off than anything. 

“Yeah, maybe I should have. And maybe I didn’t tell you about my little trip because I didn’t want you to tag along. I need my own space.” He said, and you felt your stomach tighten up, your throat closing in, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep yourself from crying. If you continued with the argument you’d only break down, so you stayed silent, waiting to see if he had any more left to say. You were like his verbal punching bag, and maybe he was just really stressed out right now, but he was taking it all out on you, and everything that he was saying sounded like his genuine feelings. “I’ve wasted enough time on you… I need to go.” Was the last thing he said before walking out, not a goodbye uttered by either of you, just the tension filled silence that grew and filled the space between the both of you until he walked out the front door. 

It was strange, how your mind was filled with so much, yet you couldn’t think of anything at all. You just stood there in the middle of the room, staring at the door that he had walked out of you don’t know how long ago now. Time seemed to stand still, everything was frozen, not even the sound of birds tweeting outside could be heard. It was like your entire world had stopped, and that’s when you realized that maybe he was right, what he had said wasn’t just nonsense said in a moment of anger or annoyance. It was the truth, it was the wake up call that you needed. 

You were attached to him, far too attached and it wasn’t healthy, not in the slightest. Your world shouldn’t feel like it was crumbling just because of one argument, but it did, and the walls were caving in and the floor was sinking beneath your feet and you felt like you were going to be swallowed into the nothingness that would be your life without him. You had to do the both of you a favor, you had to get out of there, you had to give him the space that he very clearly needed, a space that you didn’t know you needed as well. 

With your number dialed on his phone, his thumb hovered over the call button. You’d pick up, he knew that you would, but he was scared of what you’d say to him. He knew what he’d say to himself if he had been on the receiving end of his own words this morning. You had simply asked where he was going, and there was nothing wrong with that, he knew that. He would have felt the same sense of fear that you clearly felt if the roles were reversed. He was stressed, but that was no excuse for treating you that way, for acting the way he did. 

“Guys… can you… can you be quiet for a moment?” He called out to the rest of his members that were foolishly goofing off behind him, not a care in the world, and while their voices softened just a bit, their antics continued. He’d never be able to talk to you, not like this, at least he wouldn’t be able to be relaxed during the conversation. He needed to apologize to you, and while a face to face apology would be better, a phone call was all that he was able to give you right now, and for that, he felt even worse. 

His thumb pressed against the green button and he quickly brought the phone up to his ear, awaiting and expecting to hear your voice after the first ring. But the first ring came and went, leading into the second, and then the third, and it was so rare for such a thing to happen that he assumed he had just dialed the wrong number. 

Now, something like that wasn’t likely to happen, not with him. Your number had been etched into his mind since the day he had gotten it from you, the dialing of the digits a muscle memory now. He had to find a reason for the lack of an answer though, and the only reason he could come up with was that maybe his finger had slipped, it had slipped just enough to press a wrong number, and that’s why your voice hadn’t come through his speaker to reassure him and calm his nerves. 

He pressed out the numbers once more, slowly this time, focusing on his screen and reading back the digits at the top once they were all there just to make sure he was right this time around. “Come on…” He mumbled to himself as he heard the first ring sound out, fading off into silence just to be followed by the second ring. This never happened, you never ignored him, you always had your phone close enough to you to hear the special ringtone that you had given to just him. This had to mean that something was wrong, something happened, and his own stomach sank at the possibility, all of the things that could have happened. “I have to go guys.” He said, his words short as he walked right past them, not even bothering to give them an explanation as they all tried to follow behind him. He didn’t have time for explanations right now, but once he was sure that you were okay he’d tell them what had happened. You were his top priority right now, you were top priority always, no matter where he was or what he was doing, you were always number 1 in his mind. 

His phone sat in the center console of the car as he started the drive back home, his eyes glancing down at it every couple seconds just to check if you were calling him back or if you had texted him to let him know that you had just been busy in the shower or something. Anything, he would have taken anything over the silence that he was receiving right now, and the longer it lasted the more worried he got. The little argument that the two of you had earlier that morning seemed like nothing to him, it didn’t even cross his mind that you’d be upset about it because he just assumed that you would know that he meant none of the words that came out of his mouth. There was just so much going on, the words were meaningless, and at the end of the day, he absolutely adored you, he loves you, you knew that. 

The set for the music video was 2 hours away, and that was if there was no traffic at all, but of course, he had the luck of running into rush hour, and he had been stopped at every single red light, turning what would have been a 2 hour car ride into almost 4 hours and in that duration of time he had heard nothing from you, he hadn’t heard from you at all and by the time he pulled up to the apartment he was on the verge of having a full fledged panic attack. 

His keys were almost left in the ignition of the car in his rush to get inside, and the only reason he remembered to grab them was because he needed to unlock the front door to get to you. No matter how fast he tried to move, it felt like his feet wouldn’t carry him any faster than the speed of a snail, and maybe it was some kind of internal hesitation, a fear that what would be on the other side of the door once he opened it, or better you, what might not be there. 

“Y/N!” He called out your name, practically screaming it as he pushed the door open, the sound of the doorknob slamming against the wall breaking the silence of the shared home. As he looked around, everything seemed far too still, as if nothing had been touched, no one had moved inside these four walls for hours, and his breaths became faster as he stepped further into the apartment. It was quiet, too quiet, and he could only describe what he felt right now as being at the top of a 20 story building and standing on the edge looking straight down. 

It was like he was frozen in the center of the room now, trying to find any sign of life, any sign of you being there, and he thought, maybe if he looked around enough, maybe if he did a couple double takes something would come up, but all he was met with was nothing. There was no heat that clung to the LCD screen of the television after having been on for a little bit too long. There was no scent of laundry detergent in the air that would alert him that you had clothes going. The hum of the dishwasher wasn’t heard as it usually would be when he came home, and there was no sound of water running through pipes that would indicate you were in the shower. Everything about the house right now felt empty. 

Why did an empty house feel so claustrophobic? The walls were closing in on him, he couldn’t breathe and all he wanted was to push them back, and the only thing that would allow him to take a deep breath was finally seeing you. Where were you? If you had only gone out for groceries, the house wouldn’t feel like this. There was some sort of resting stillness, a sense of finality in the emptiness, it felt like it would be like this forever, and he didn’t understand why. 

He hadn’t stepped any further into the home, dread filling every bone and taking over every fiber of his being at the mere thought of taking another step. Was it a good thing that he hadn’t? The doorknob jiggled and the sound of keys rattling on the other side had his head whipping around to see you walking in. “Minho…” You whispered his name, freezing in the doorframe. Your arms and your hands were empty, you hadn’t gone grocery shopping… So where have you been? “I didn’t think you’d be here. I’m sorry…” Why were you apologizing? “I just forgot a few things… I’ll be out soon.” Your tone was hushed as you made a move to step past him, but his arm instinctively reached out to grab you, to feel your skin against the palm of his hands, to stop you from walking away from him. 

“What do you mean you’ll be out soon? Where are you going?” His tone was hushed as he looked at you, but you didn’t even meet his eyes, staring down at the floor as if you didn’t want to see him. “You didn’t answer your phone, you didn’t text me… What’s going on? Is something wrong, did something happen?” There was a soft sound that came through your lips, and it sounded like a scoff, but he couldn’t be quite sure. You were acting so distant, it scared him, you had never been like this before. 

“I was just trying to give you what you needed…” You mumbled, and he could hear it in your voice, in your tone, in every syllable of every word that he couldn’t seem to understand the meaning of. You had been crying, you were devastated, and the only thing that he could manage to get out of the vague sentence was that it had been his fault. 

You tried to pull away from him, but he didn’t want to let you go, he couldn’t, not until he knew that things were okay. If he let go now, he was scared that you’d walk away from him, walk out on him, and he knew that his heart wouldn’t be able to handle that. “What do you mean…? I need you. I don’t know where this is coming from, love… I just… I know that we had that little spat this morning but… It was nothing.” 

At his words, your eyes finally lifted from the floor, the whites of them reddened and the skin underneath puffy and raw. “It was… nothing?” You repeated his words questioningly, and although you weren’t looking directly at him, he could see your eyes waver as you looked around the room. “Was it nothing because… you didn’t get hurt? Because you got to walk out after completely breaking me down and making me feel like shit? You make me feel like my love isn’t good enough, or that it’s way too much… And then you get to just come back in here and say that it was nothing?” 

Clearly what he had thought to be a little spat had been so much more to you, and while the both of you usually didn’t like to dwell on arguments, this one had stuck with you, it had bothered you enough to the point that you were seemingly on the verge of walking out, of leaving him. “I-...” Where was he going to go with that sentence? He didn’t even know, but he was so scared, so so scared that you’d try to pull away again, that it would be the last time you’d ever pull away from him. “I was stressed… I didn’t mean any of that, you know I didn’t… You don’t really think that I think of you like that, do you?” 

But surely you did… Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be acting this way… You wouldn’t be so upset… “You’re the only one who gets stressed… Sure, we’ll go with that.” You mumbled, letting your arm drop limply, aware now that he wasn’t going to let go of you, not that easily at least. “You said you wanted space, and that’s what I’m giving you. If you’re so stressed… If that’s what made you say that, then I don’t want to be around you anyway.” 

What was he supposed to even say now? You were using his words against him, words that he had tried all morning to forget that he had said, but you didn’t forget, you never did. His eyes squeezed shut as if the answers to his question would appear on the insides of his eyelids, but all he saw was darkness, which was exactly what his life would be without you in it if he didn’t fix things. “I’m not… I don’t want space. I want you here with me, I want you to cling to me, I need it.” He was breathless, his breaths coming heavily as if he had just ran a marathon, and he was surely sweating as though he had as well. There was nothing more stressful than what he was going through right now. 

“Why? So you can go right back out the door again and leave me here feeling more confused than I was this morning?” You shook your head, but he mirrored the action only double the speed as his eyes went wide, pulling you closer to him until your chest was pressed against his, and his forehead resting against yours. “Minho…” You gasped out his name in one short breath, all others that were supposed to follow were held in your lungs. 

“If I walk out that door again… I don’t want to do it alone. I want you right beside me, love.” He quickly spoke, feeling as though time were slipping from his hands the longer he made you wait, he needed to speak fast, he needed to get all of his feelings out so that you knew he was being serious. “I want you to come with me to the shoot, I want you to be there to watch us film, I want to feel your eyes on me the entire time.” 

You gnawed on your bottom lip, your eyes staring down at the faded pattern of his t-shirt that had been through the wash way too many times. “What if I don’t want to…? What if I need space?” You quizzed and his heart felt constricted, his breaths sharper now as he thought and assumed a deeper meaning to your words. Why would you say that? Did you just want space so that he could come back home and you not be there? What was the reason behind it? 

“No.” He said flatly, causing your head to pull back so you could look up at him with narrowed eyes. He didn’t mean to sound so short with you, but it was the only word he could think to say when everything felt like it was being stacked against him. “Please… I’m sorry…” He wasn’t the type of person that wore his heart on his sleeve, not at all, and his emotions were usually bottled up quite well, but right now it felt like the bottle had been shaken and it was bubbling over, making a mess of the table and the floors. “If you… If you need space, fine… But come with me. You can have space… I just don’t want to leave you, I don’t want to be away from you. Please…” 

Begging definitely wasn’t his thing, but he’d be damned if he lost you because his pride was too high. He was willing to do anything to make things right, especially since it had been his words that had messed things up in the first place. He had made the mess and it was his job to clean it up. “You’re so confusing, Minho…” You sighed, letting your head drop back down against his chest as his hand came up to pet through your hair. 

“I know, I’m gonna work on that, I promise.” His chest vibrated, but what you assumed to be laughter that you weakly chuckled along with were the stuttered breaths that he had been holding for so long it felt like his lungs would burst. “I love you, and I need you, I’ll always feel that way. If I ever say anything stupid like that again just… call me an idiot and throw a pillow at me or something. I don’t ever want you to feel like your love is too much… I need it. I’ll die without it.” 

You scoffed as you lightly pushed him back, crinkling your nose at him. “You’re so dramatic. You’ve been hanging with Hyunjin a little too much, haven’t you?” You teased, but he couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed with the comment, he was just happy to see you playing around, to see your smile again, to know that you weren’t going to leave him. 

The two of you belonged together, he felt it in his bones, in his heart and in his soul. There was no one else in this world that he’d rather be with, and if it wasn’t you, he wouldn’t settle for anyone else. He needed you, that much was the honest truth, and while he wouldn’t actually die without you, he’d be much better off that way if he didn’t have you. You were his, and sure, you were attached to him, but he was attached to you, and that’s simply because he wouldn’t be himself without you, and you wouldn’t be you without him. You were each others better halves, and that’s how it always was, how it always will be.

[circeyoru]

Hello you amazeing writer!! I'm here and for starters, I just wana say HOW MUCH I LOVE YOUR WRITEING HDHDGDGDG

*Cough cough* Anyways...I am here to add a sprinkle of angst, cause it feeds my blood-lust /j

I remember reading a non-canon version of your "Unwanted soul" fic, where the reader gets redemed (like Sir Pantious) and at the end, they het back to hell while keeping some of the angelic fetures (like the wings) and Alastor ripped them off, ignoreing readers crys (sience now he wasn't under contract).

I was wondering...what if, after all that, reader woldn't actulay fully forget Alastor? Personaly, I really REALLY hate feeling any kind of pain, even if it's as small as a paper-cut, so what if reader gets so upset over all that that they ignore Alastor and just start feeling mode down than usual?

Other than that, I HOPE U HAVE AN AMAZIENG DAY/NIGHT!! HOPE I DIDN'T BOTHER MUCH :3

HAD A STRESSFUL DAY! BUT I'M HERE TO DESTRESS!! NO BOTHER AT ALL!! Okay, back to normal.

Go to MASTERLIST for the works. This ask is for {Unwanted Souls}. The specific mentioned ask is this, so give them a read before this.

The angst is back. Prepare yourself, really, I mean it...

Yes. Reader/you will and do shut down after the stunt Alastor pulls. It's similar to the state you were in before your suicide on Earth. But! Alastor's keeping an eye out for everything and anything you do so you don't get the chance to plan your third death.

Needless to say, you regret coming back because Alastor was and is beyond your control. If you had his soul, you'd destroy it. Alastor knows, that's why he's not offering it anymore. He did consider it, but the way you were unresponsive to him, he trashes the idea.

You don't talk to him, you don't listen to him, you don't look at him, and you don't acknowledge him. You know, any form of reaction and attention you give him, be it good or bad, he'll take it all with gratitude, and you're not giving him that pleasure. Not what you went through because of him.

Alastor does everything to coax you into looking at him again, he knows he can't threaten you because that's what you want. If he was angered enough to kill you or attempt to do so, you win and he'll be left with nothing. No more you. He can't let that happen. He tried returning with wounds or accidentally harming himself while making your meals. No reaction.

He asks you what he did wrong, what can he do for you to at least go back to the way you were. He didn't like how you were like a doll or a broken puppet. It was so agonizing to see you like this, even worse when the reason was him. You didn't even touch the anime and books he brought for you, not even the phone, or tablet, or laptop. Nothing.

After a long long while, you made up your mind. A plan brewed. One that will give you your eternal sleep.

"I want a feast with my favourites." You spoke so softly one day. Yet Alastor heard it loud and clear, he nodded, it has been forever since he heard your voice. The last was when you were begging him not to rip off your wings and halo that took you away from him. He got to work, saying he'll be back soon and asked for your patience.

Patience. You've given him too much. Your eyes burned with fury when his presence left the apartment and your home domain. You took your blank notebooks, summoning angelic weapons one after another around your bed. The angelic steel stacked up as did your exhaustion. Your eyesight blurry and your body heavy. Just a little more and you'll sleep. The feeling was so similar to when you embraced death the first time. Then you fell asleep. Forever.

When Alastor returned, he was terrified to find you surrounded by angelic steel. His mind didn't register that you were the one to summon them, like the time you saved him all those years ago. He only rushed forward to you, ignoring all the wounds on his legs as he walked pass the deadly material. He tried shaking you awake. You're eyes didn't open, your body was cold. Heartbeat? It was so weak.

He shouted for you to wake up. He pleaded and begged. He apologized. He was wrong. He was all wrong. It was all his fault. Just wake up. Please! He needs you! He can't live without you! You can't abandon him again! Not again! Please!

Before, in the canon of my story, you woke up because Lucifer told Alastor what to do. But here, he never knew about your relationship with Lucifer, nor would Lucifer tell him how to wake you up. Lucifer watched from afar as you slowly died from your powers that drained your very soul. Saving you wasn't an option, he said he'd respect your choice and won't question them. He's keeping it, he's your friend. When you were going on with your plan, you too realized that the only true friend you had was Lucifer.

You can't handle Alastor, you shouldn't have thought you could. You shouldn't have accepted Alastor.

You shouldn't have saved him that day.

Alastor deserves to suffer while you enter your eternal slumber.

[thingsidrawgohere]

I just finished my first run of DA4 and let me say- I probably got my money's worth. If one wants to view the experience via a purely mercantile lens. I found many bits of cheese and touched the insides of many angry creatures. But if one wishes to frame the thing as Art- Hell, if one wants to solely discuss it as the Fourth in a series of lore-dense, narrative RPGs, then, Cousin, We've Got Problems. Three interconnected niggling ideas that kinda all lead to the conclusion- for me, at least- that modern design practices simply do not trust the player. News flash, right?

Anyways, I think I'm going to have some thoughts on this subject to avoid other thoughts, thank you.

Full-Throated Spoilers Beyond. And a lot of them. It's long.

Idea 1: DA2 is my favorite of the series. That's not the problem; it's the setup. I know what I'm about and it's interesting characters interacting over time. Flawed characters. Abrasive, opinionated, STUPID ASS ANDERS characters. The story was scaled well for a handful of total losers and it was political. The most humanly political of all the games, I think. That's a very low bar, particularly for AAA, but it felt better to stand in a street, to be personally effected by events, than to look at a literal map of icons and notes and distant decisions as in DA3. It's important, I think, for DA to be about Being, Getting Dirty. You aren't a king. You shouldn't be.

Side Note 1: DA2 is a fucking miracle. The old gag that FO New Vegas, blessed be, was made in 18 months is trotted out to display Can-Do Attitude and DEEPLY unethical labor practices. DA2 got less time, fewer reusable assets (due to a different art style), and had to rebuild most of the engine. A. Miracle.

DA4, on the other hand, has a series of supportive, well-adapted people who have all worked very hard on themselves in therapy and know all the fucking right words to say. They chat with one another with kindness and sober fondness. In the One Instance of interpersonal friction, it is resolved with grace and speed. I find this Horrid. They fucking forgot to give these people negative traits. It's likability slurry. They experience no hard growth, hold no horseshit ideas, suffer no lingering doubts. It's not only unnatural but it's lifeless. It becomes Written. I can see the fucking author waving at me. I've got a note from my run that reads 'Rook told the man who is forcibly living inside his head "Thank you sharing that" and I want to scream.'

And that would be bad enough except the ideas are there. You've got a reluctant father story. Someone trapped between two cultures. A older man, already terrified of aging, of death, taking a Much Younger lover. That's Fucking Meat. I can see the writers straining against something but what they deliver is still person-shaped missed opportunities that repeat, that repeat, that repeat. It's So Frustrating. There's flashes of Good Writing. Of good character beats. But Also- from my notes, a character had just held her brother as he died, inexplicably for a second time, and Rook gives her a little pep talk that ends with him asking "You good?"

And the fucking woman says "I'm good" in response. She seemed to mean it.

How does one- react to that as a viewer? I told a man who wanted to be a lich more than anything to Not and he was cool with it. He never brought up being a lich again. He wasn't even upset. I let a man's city die and he's like I Get It, Bro. No Harsh Vibes. It rings hollow.

Talking over Solas' memories, collectively pulling out the meaning behind them- that was some of the best characters-interacting writing in the whole thing. And it's HOURS into the game. A shame.

Side Note 2: A lot of a loved-one death as motivation in this old refrigerator. If you get a name and one line, Oh Boy Brother, you are prolly gonna die bad. Lazy.

If I'm going to talk about Emmrich, let's talk about his romance. I honestly thought it was bugged. I Am playing through another run as a comparative but Wow. Larian and BG3 absolutely reconfigured what's acceptable in these types of story beats. This particular romance felt regressive, in a sense. Like a last minute addition. The very definition of love coins. No charisma or honest affection between the characters. Nothing allowed to percolate (more on that in a second). Just- now you are ROMANCED. Which means on the Blue Moon instance he has anything to say regarding being in a relationship, the best you can get is a 'dearest' at the end of a sentence. I was Excited by the idea of Emmrich really struggling with a May/December situation but he Doesn't. He has a few lines implying that he Could but it leads nowhere.

And they fuck in a coffin (???) and it's not even hot (!!!). Unforgivable. Double Unforgivable. I heard there was spice in this game? This is baking soda.

Related, a few lines awkwardly dodged the question of Emmrich's previous relationships and I have an inkling, without experiencing the other romances, that this is the world's largest case of gun-shy after the backlash with DA3's non-playersexual romances. This man can not be confirmed to be Anything but Into Rook, whatever they might be. There was also a throwaway line with Taash how she prefers women and that's as much as I saw of explicit preferences. I don't envy anyone trying to address the rabidity of fandom but it feels like unnecessary acrobatics.

Side Oh No: It's so bad that I'm honestly thinking of doing a fixit fic regarding the romance/character writing. And God, I can't right now. I have to finish my other project first.

Idea 2: The pacing. That's what ruins so much. There was a scene of a gnarled, fucked-up gate, torn from its hinges. And my guy says "Something Big must have torn apart that gate" all ominous, building a sense of- Nope. The very big darkspawn is standing ten feet away on the other side. I hadn't even swung the camera around the hall to see it before my guy goes "That big darkspawn must have torn apart the gate!"

Yes, I know there's an issue in open world games these days wherein devs are allergic to a player's millisecond of not knowing where to go but this feels applicable across the whole game. A problem isn't allowed to fester. It is brought to attention and then swiftly dealt with. If there's a locked door, a difficult decision, a feeling beyond Protestant determination, it will be dealt with, Post Fucking Haste. It's like the game doesn't trust the player to hold tension.

This happens not just in barks or small set pieces. Whole arcs work this way. Like Harding's longterm personal quest. She gets a handful of lines about feeling vaguely angry or perhaps thinking she Should be More angry about Lore Dump Retcon and then at her culmination, she's fighting her own anger. A vicious, hot, searing thing- and it wasn't earned. At all. There was room to telegraph this theme, bury it in the dirt to let grow roots. They didn't. One Line was given about her people pleasing tendencies And she's not really shown to be people pleasing to her own detriment. This is Chekhov's Gun in running shoes. It doesn't work. It feels like it comes out of left field.

Hell, there was a mission that was like SURVIVE IF YOU CAN and it was like- literally a long hallway. The Pacing is all Off.

Idea 3: I don't like that I must do this but DA4 doesn't understand its own flavor. The One Thing you Cannot Do is have Minrathous, the city of slaves and blood mages, seem nice. Particularly in the poor parts of town. You Cannot have the Crows be a lovely dovey band of scamps. You Cannot have the Blight be reversible. You Cannot CANNOT say "elves have it pretty good" as my Elvish Rook said with his face flaps. No. NO. You Cannot side-step the politics of this setting. These are the bones on which these characters are hung. To lessen the world is to lessen, to decomplexify them.

You know what my elf didn't hear in the town that canonically trades in bodies that look his? Knife ear. Eh to fantasy slurs but my point is no one said a cross word to my guy. The Qunari living in the town that had been warring with the Qunari for Centuries seemed totes fine. There were no alienages. There were no proper templars- even from other regions. No Mage Circles. No mage issues at all. Hardly anything whatsoever regarding the Chantry or Andrastianism, even as the game takes place in the Super Anti-Pope town. I had a literal demon-possessed man in my party and the world did not react.

I had a friend describe this Thedas as feeling smoothed out and Yeah. It feels like all the nasty bumps have been deemed undesirable. I don't know what to make of it. Is this simply taking the world in a different direction? Is it a mandate to tone down the unpleasantness, for sales? A shift in design ethos? Is this a sign of a very troubled project as it was with Andromeda?

I don't know. Is this still a Dragon Age game without its politics? There's enough here for me to wonder if Bioware is even Bioware anymore. There's a TREMENDOUS amount of work, of skill in DA4. Just Absurd. The environments are thick, Thicc. But work alone is not a virtue. Have we ship of Theseus'd so far that the people- the real people, not the logos- who have interests aligned with what made DA1 special are no longer there? Something went wrong with this project, narratively. Something I don't know how to fix without addressing basement level assumptions I'm clearly not privy to. I hope they can.

Final Thoughts: Game development is a fucking hole into which one pours one's relationships, time, and health, physical, mental both. It gives satisfaction very rarely. They shipped. In that way, huge success. It's not even, fundamentally, a 'bad game'. But it is a victim of a modern philosophy of pre-chewed ideas and player distrust. VGs are ultimately a business and, in these last few years, there's been a unimaginable devastation to the workers in the industry- even as the money flows ever upward. The desire to sell well has morphed into a NEED to sell well, even among the 'kept' studios. Big studios, Grand Dame Studios sitting on top of past critical and financial successes, been killed by their overlords recently. No one is safe. It's suddenly quite dangerous for large studios to make anything remotely niche, remotely unclear and Bioware has both Andromeda And Anthem under its belt. They're probably feeling the pinch. They needed a hit and hits, these days, are increasingly smooth. And DA4 is very smooth.

That's just my feeling on the matter. I'll see what a second run yields.

Smaller thoughts:

I don't care about the combat but that was- odd. The illusion of depth with all the skill trees and types of damage and subsystems of attack- all boiling down to a one button push. It's odd. I played rogue on PC so perhaps it's different for other classes, on console. But I pressed the button at the man and when I got a halo, I pressed another button and then pressed the first button again. No matter where I was on the skill tree, it never changed, never felt different. I don't know. It felt. Odd?

There was a Honest To God "It's quiet- Too quiet" and it just Happened. I would have pulled out every one of my teeth to avoid that. I get the jokey-okey but fuck, man.

Where's the chest hair? WHERE? Body hair? ANYTHING? Davrin has plastic chest. It's freaky.

Gloom Howler Gloom Howler Gloom Howler. Frankly, that whole storyline had a large gulg of the farcical. I laughed my ass entirely off when, upon her defeat, the Gloom Howler said "I'm sorry" and took a nap so hard that the scene wiped to 'some time later'. That was insane editing. PACING. And- naming. Gloom Howler. Gloom. Howler.

Teeth. Dear God, the teeth.

The devs were in a real pickle here, no doubt. My great sympathies. There's an Overwhelming abundance of world states that DA3 could have left on the board and I understand the balancing act between acknowledging the events of older games and staying generic enough DA4 could apply to All of them. Is Cassandra the White Divine? Or is Leliana? It's a nightmare of choices. Any of the people that Could be Divine can not be mentioned without lore issues. Who's on the throne in Orlais? Ferelden? Where's beloved so-and-so? Dorian canonically did return to Minrathous so he can 'safely' appear in game- but he fucking can't talk about Iron Bull, who may or may not be alive. Isabela canonically goes back to piracy but she can't talk about events in Kirkwall because she may not have been there for them. Oof. That's not a lot you are Allowed to acknowledge. The Poor Bastards.

Watched a braid slip off a person's shoulder, organically, as they were talking. Started at the bottom and look where we're at, technologically. And speaking on the technical, a lot of textures didn't load right. For the entire game, my guy's left shoulder armour thing had a much lower rez texture than the rest. Three hard crashes, which isn't the worst. One Wonderful mission wherein Lucanis' hair and his knives were the only bits of him to render.

I'm not touching the non-binary storyline. It was clunky, for sure, but the greatest sin was using Our words. There is canonical words for NGC/NB people in fiction and to not use them shows a fundamental distrust towards the source material and the players both. It's the linguistic version of the quest marker or the barks telling you where to go.

I still don't know how I feel about the dead Varric twist. Feels goofball but he got to hang out in his little pajamas. I wish I was in little pajamas.

Solas was pretty fucking tight but I think a lot of that was due to his VA. Something about the voice direction, in general, felt- flat? But old Solas was doing it good.

Ending. God, I get it. People are tired and satisfying endings are hard. And DLC exists, more cynically. But Hells Bells, I'm getting to the point wherein even the slideshow is annoying. Give me a fucking Ending to the Choice Game. Don't you fucking 'Spider-Man Will Return' at me, you bastard. I'm a child of fucking god.

Yes, I got the secret ending. I know. That was Also bullshit.

I feel better getting that all out of my system. Thank you for sharing that.

[throneofsapphics]

bad decisions 

Mor x f!Reader

Summary: Day 16,  “Don’t be nice to me, I know how much you want to slit my throat.” with Mor. 

Word Count: ~2.7k 

Warnings: drunk-ish sex, rivals to lovers, forced proximity minors dni!

october master list

“Don’t be nice to me, I know how much you want to slit my throat.” 

Mor rolled her eyes. “I never said that.” 

“You don’t have to,” you shot a grin at her - one you knew would infuriate her beyond measure, and took off, heading right out the courtyard. First of all, she’d approached you - which was strange enough. The two of you had been at odds since … well as long as you can remember. Sometimes you wonder if you’ve been rivals for so long, that you wouldn’t be capable of being friends. Everyone likes to say the two of you are so much alike, and you always pretend it’s an insult. Pretend - Gods when did you start seeing her differently? 

You didn’t have time to reach as a strong arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you firmly back against … Mor’s chest - her breasts brushing against you. You went still, frozen enough to be a statue, as the cool metal of a blade pressed against your throat. Her scent filled with anger, frustration and you could’ve sworn you got the faintest hint of desire. 

“If I wanted you dead, you already would be.” Her lips grazed against your ear, her breath warm on your neck. The dull flat of the blade pressed one more time, before it slipped out of your view. You shoved away from her and winnowed in the next second. Far, you needed to get as far away from her as possible. You forgot how terrifying she could be if she wanted to. That close touch, her body and breath against you, her blade against your throat, mother above it excited you. 

You were so so screwed. 

-

Mor isn’t sure what came over her, to hold you like that - to put a gods-damned knife to your throat. She knew if you told anyone, she’d be in deep shit. But, based on the small arousal coming from your scent, and hers - to her dismay, she had a feeling you’d keep this one a secret. A dirty little secret, just for the two of you. 

A smile crossed her lips at the thought. Despite your insistence, she didn’t hate you. Not anymore, at least. The two of you have been around each other for centuries, both in Rhys’s inner circle. You both had large personalities that clashed, and more than once Rhys had winnowed the two of you out to a secluded mountain in Illyria and told you to fight it out. Hating you, despising you, was so much easier than admitting to anything else. It’s a habit, a routine, and one she’s reluctant to let go of, if she does - she’s not sure what would happen, if anything. At the end of the day, you probably wouldn’t try to kill each other, but when it comes to you she can’t count anything out. Or trust herself anymore, she made a mental note to ask Rhys to send her on an assignment. A long one, somewhere on the continent or equally as distant. 

-

Rhys had a wicked gleam in his eyes as he made the announcement, right at the dinner table - in front of the entire inner circle. You and Mor, on a trip to the continent together to try and forge closer diplomatic ties. 

“I thought we were trying to make good relations with them.” Cassian commented, recovering from choking on his wine. The two of you turned twin glares on him, and he winced. His brother, unknowingly, just threw him a bone. If there’s something the two of them hate more than each other, it’s being underestimated or doubted. Of course your rivalry wasn’t known outside of his inner circle, they were always careful to put on a united front in public. He’d entered the courtyard you two had vacated just a few minutes after, and got a decent sense of what happened there. If it took the two of you fucking to get over this, it could either make things much better or much messier, but he was willing to gamble on it. Anything to end a centuries old feud nobody could trace the beginning of. 

-

You threw the rest of your items into pocket space, it would be much easier for the two of you to travel without dragging around any extra weight. 

“I’ll winnow.” Mor announced, as you’d finished. 

“I’m fully capable of winnowing us.” You snipped at her. There wasn’t really a problem with her taking you, but something about her tone antagonized you. 

“Just let her.” Rhys’s voice echoed in your mind. You didn’t bother turning to glare at him, he’d come to see both of you off. Probably to also whisper thinly veiled warnings into both of your minds. 

“You’ve barely been there, I wouldn’t want us to get lost.” Her red-painted lips curved into a cruel smile, and you fought down the small temper that spiked in you. 

“Y/n please,” Rhys sounded like he was nearly begging. Based on the slight glaze in Mor’s eyes, she likely was receiving a similar warning. Since when did Rhys have to referee the two of you? “For centuries.” 

“Get out of my head.” You felt him withdraw, and threw your shield back up - iron walls tight and impenetrable.

“Fine.” You answered through gritted teeth, and she beamed at you - as if to say I knew you’d see reason. 

You held your arm out, and her warm hand clamped around your wrist - a bit tighter than necessary, as you both traveled between the folds of the world. First, she landed near the coast, took a breath, and winnowed across the ocean. A few more stops and even you were feeling dizzy, Rask was a long way from Prythian. Finally, you’d made it just outside the capital. You mentally took stock of all of your weapons, hidden beneath various layers of clothing and enchantments. She’d landed in a secluded area, shielded from any eyes as both of you took a few seconds to steel yourselves. 

Then, you walked into the vipers nest as a united front. Not an enemy, but a territory looking for any excuse to invade the human lands, to capture that low-hanging fruit. Rhys had sent both of you on a … difficult task, to say the least. Even though your company came through her, you were grateful he hadn’t sent you or Mor alone. Despite everything, you did care for her safety. Only because if something happened to her, it would hurt the others. 

The first round of talks went well enough. The foreign dignitaries had an aura of caution at your appearances. Apparently Rhys hadn’t told them who would be showing up and both of you were infamous enough it made a remarkable impression. One, it showed the level of apparent ‘respect’ the Night Court held them in. Two, it was a subtle threat. Together, the two of you could likely level this palace if given the chance and Rhys wanted to make sure they knew that. 

-

You’d been there two weeks before it went sour. For the most part, you stayed out of each others way as much as you possibly could - which wasn’t very often. Still, removed from the Night Court, in a foreign area, her company was almost pleasant. Little barbs here and there, but nothing explosive. Not that you’d dare cause a scene here, that could wait until you got home. 

“Why don’t you come to my rooms?” Mor asked. The two of you had indulged in a glass of two or wine, and your common sense left as quickly as your glass had drained. 

“Alright.” You followed her through the door. They were almost identical to yours, but decorated in red, compared to yours in green. Everything here was beautiful, all elegant lines and drapes. 

You didn’t flinch or jump as she trailed a hand down your bare arm. The touch felt natural, felt good. The wine was definitely getting to your head. Her fingers locked around your wrist and she tugged you into her body. Her other hand slid into the back of your hair as you gently rested your free hand on your wrist. 

“What is this?” You breathed, your heart absolutely racing. Her lips crashed against hers, and you paused for a brief second before returning. It was all passion, heat, and a bad bad idea. You let out a soft whimper as her teeth tugged against your bottom lip, her fingers dug almost painfully into your hair as you keened against her, pressing your body as close as you could. 

You tumbled into her room, clothes quickly discarded as she walked you backwards to the bed, falling on top of you with an oomph, and a light laugh. 

Hands roamed both of your bodies, your nails digging into her back as she threw her head back in a moan. It seemed to pass in flashes; her lips trailing down your body, teeth tugging at a nipple, her head between your legs, your thighs clenching around her head, her atop of you, your hands firmly pulling her down on your face, the elegant arch of her neck as she moaned your name, then the two of you laying side by side, covered in a light sheen of sweat. 

She sat suddenly, pacing around the room - looking for something. You slowly rose to sit on the edge of her bed, and a bundle of fabric launched your way. You caught it with one hand. Your clothes. 

“This was a mistake,” she muttered, almost frantically. “A waste of time.” 

“Right.” You cleared your throat, dressing as quickly as you could before leaving. At least the tears waited until you’d reached your own room. You couldn’t figure out why the hell you were crying. A mistake, that’s understandable - but calling it a waste of time? That hurt and you’d never felt so embarrassed.

-

You rose the goblet, almost to your lips before catching that brief scent … faebane. Your hand clamped on Mor’s wrist, two nails digging in harshly. Gods it was almost to her lips - the liquid less than an inch from touching her mouth. You’d been extensively trained in poisons and knew exactly how to detect this. All eyes were trained on both of you as she lowered the glass back down, recognizing your signal, and not daring to look at you - lest the distraction cost both of you. A discreet shield slid up around both of you, hugging close to your skin. Mentally, you thanked Mor. 

“I trust you have an adequate explanation for this,” you purred, leaning back in your seat, arms relaxing ‘casually’ next to your side as you grew to a dangerous level of rage - your eyes cold and body beginning to tremble with power. 

“Excuse me?” Someone cleared their throat. 

A tendril of magic shoved the goblet their way, sliding across the marble with a squeak. A marble table, how ostentatious. 

“The contents of this glass, of course.” 

He lifted it, taking a small sniff. “One of our finest wines.” A muscle in his jaw flecked as a thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead. 

You turned to the highest ranking one in the room, a female with a murderous look on her face - pointed right in the direction of that male as her eyes flicked to you. “Is faebane not regulated here?” 

Her brown eyes widened so large the whites showed in a ring around the irises. “Illegal. Banned.” You sensed the genuine surprise from her, she’d had no idea. A snap of her fingers and a few words had the male dragged from the hall by guards.

“Understandably,” Mor spoke - her voice rippling with anger, “we will be taking our leave.” She rose, chair shoved back as she laid a hand on her shoulder. You followed her lead as you strode from the ball, both of you held your breaths and your hands braced on the most accessible weapon. The rest of your clothes were forgotten, you’d kept your most valuable items on you.

You exited the palace before footsteps and a plea to wait came from behind us. Mor paused, shifting to face whoever it was as you turned your body just enough to see who it was, while still keeping watch on the area ahead of the two of you. Thirty paces to clear the wards preventing winnowing. Gods, if the two of you had to fight your way out - it would be worse for relations, that’s for certain.

The female you’d spoken to earlier appeared and assured the two of you he was acting independently, that it wasn’t sanctioned, etc. You didn’t care, if you had to drag Mor out of this gods-damned city you would. There’s no way the two of you would stay in this cesspool any longer. Mor finished up the conversation, and told her she could send correspondence their way to finalize the agreements after this was discussed with the ‘necessary parties’. Every inch of her was rippling with anger, dangerous rage ready to overflow at any given moment. 

“We need to leave,” you murmured - just loud enough for her to hear, and she quickly wrapped up the conversation. 

-

“You probably saved my life.” 

Your lips curved into a soft smile. “Don’t sweat over it.” 

“I owe you a-” 

“No.” You interrupted harshly. “You owe me nothing.” Her head tilted, brows furrowing. “We’re fr-,” you cleared your throat, hand coming up to rub the back of your neck, “not enemies.” 

She sure as hell caught your little slip as her lips quirked up at the corners. “You can admit you don’t hate me anymore.” 

“I’d rather us stay on even footing.” You drawled, turning to leave the room before you said anything else stupid. Gods know you've already done enough. 

“Wait,” your hand was on the doorknob and against your better judgment you paused. 

“We are friends.” 

“You held a knife to my throat.” 

“I’d never hurt you.” You whirled back around, bracing your back on the door. 

“Physically.” You countered. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You slept with me and called it a waste of time.” 

“I did not-” Her lips pressed together in a tight line, as if just remembering she had. “We were both drunk.” 

“We never get drunk in foreign courts,” you hedged. Why were you having this argument? If anything this was a waste of time. Especially as she strode towards you and you found yourself fixed in place. 

She stopped, inches away from you as her hand gripped your chin - scanning your face as if she was looking for something. You should’ve pulled away, should’ve shoved her off, but the feeling of her skin against yours, those lightly calloused fingers gripping you tightly, her body almost covering yours. 

“It wasn’t a waste of time,” her voice was low and breathy - seductive, even. You tried to turn your head, but her grip was too strong, instead you diverted your eyes, focusing on the bookcase on the back wall of the room. “Look at me,” her fingers squeezed, and you did. Her eyes were glazed, a sheen of lust covering them, her lips slightly parted. The scent of arousals mixed and slowly filled the room, rolling from both of you like a maelstrom, an explosion waiting to happen. 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“You’ve been on my mind every gods-damned day.” Her other hand trailed down the curve of your neck, her nails scraping lightly as your breath caught.

“Tell me.” Dangerous, this was so dangerous. You shouldn’t even be entertaining this, she could be spitting little lies at you only to drop them and shatter you. 

“The right side of your mouth indents - when you don’t want anyone to know your smiling, how you tap your fingers on your thigh when you’re deep in thought, the little whimpers you let out that night -” 

Fuck it. You surged forward, one hand burying into her hair to push her closer to you, meeting her mouth in a soft and tentative kiss. She deepend it, her hand pushing your lower back to bring you closer. 

-

Rhys grinned to himself as you both returned, scents interwoven with each other. Still, he didn’t dare show any surprise or shock and made a note to warn Cassian to keep his gods-damned mouth shut. 

[phantomspren]

I've been watching LotR the last few days (cause why watch something I haven't seen before from my incredibly long list of things I need to watch when I can watch something I've seen before a ton) and I just want to talk about radical hope.

The story of LotR is bleak. Just. So incredibly hopeless. There are so many points where the characters just genuinely have no hope that they will live, let alone save the world.

During Return of the King, there is a literal darkness that covers the world for days. The only hope there is for success is a couple hobbits. Who are walking through enemy territory. With one thing that would instantly guarantee success to the enemy.

And in the end Frodo fails.

Despite all of this

They kept hoping.

Frodo failed and all was lost.

But it wasn't.

They saved everything.

They didn't make it through unscarred. Many people didn't make it through at all. But they did make it.

But they wouldn't have if they'd given up.

Sam's speech at the end of The Two Towers left me in tears. (It normally doesn't.)

Lately I've been feeling incredibly hopeless. I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for a living, and I'm currently working towards something that I have so little chance of succeeding in. I'm paying so much money to go to school for this.

Beyond just me, I'm terrified for the upcoming election for obvious reasons. I live in a country where we already have a maternal mortality rate that's way too fucking high and people are actively working to make that worse. I live in a country where there are people who don't think I and the people I love deserve to exist. I live in a country where the highest cause of death for children is guns.

I live in a world where there is an active genocide going on and no one gives a shit. I live in a world where the deadliest disease has a cure, but why would we give them access to that? The people dying from it are poor. They're poor because of us. I live in a world that those in power are slowly destroying.

But I'm here. We're all here. And there's so much bad. But there's so much good.

I went to a convention last month, and it was the most fun I'd ever had. I want to do that again.

I got invited to go to a pumpkin patch with a friend next week.

I just finished rereading Hamlet.

I have motivation to write and tell stories for the first time in years.

I made a new friend this year.

I still haven't finished listening to Welcome to Nightvale.

Alecto the Ninth isn't out yet.

I had a friend help me out yesterday.

I helped out a different friend.

There are stars in the sky.

The leaves are turning colors and falling and it's so beautiful.

I watched a movie that I've seen at least a dozen times before and it made me cry.

It feels so hopeless.

But that's not a reason to give up hope.

We gotta fight for what we've got. I'm going to fight tooth and nail even if all it means is that I get to see one more sunset, read one more book that changes me, meet one more person who gets me.

I don't care if you can donate a thousand dollars to a charity, or if all you can do is just stick around for another day because you know that you will feel joy again at some point, that's what you gotta do.

It might get worse.

We might not see things get better.

But it will get better again. And before it does, there will still be moments of joy. And the chance that we'll see everything get better, the chance that we'll see anything get better, that's worth sticking around for.

That's radical hope.

Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

[thatgirlonstage]

Actually insane over the fact that EoA chose to explicitly, textually tie Esteban’s decision to betray his family to his trauma over losing his parents. Like. It’s definitely a supported reading that this is some post facto justification for what was a decision actually motivated mostly by greed and ego, but what he himself says about it is that he felt like he could see a danger, that no one was listening to him when he tried to warn them about it and beg them to take a different course of action, and that the last time this happened both his parents wound up dead so this time he decided to be proactive about trying to protect the people he loves. And then he failed miserably at doing that because Shuriki betrayed him.

Like it’s an incredible choice because it’s genuinely very good writing that adds a ton of layers and complexity to his motivations—even if it is partially justification I don’t disbelieve him that it was a contributing factor, yknow?—and also I’m sitting here clutching my head losing my mind about it bc like. He and Elena are the same. They are foiled in so many interesting ways and their motivations are the same. They actually both struggle a ton with entrusting responsibility to other people when it’s about something important to them. They both want to protect Avalor and their families. They both lose their parents to something well beyond their control and are so terrified of losing anyone or anything else in the same way that they will do anything to be sure they aren’t helpless next time. They’re the same. The differences are that Elena is more altruistic than Esteban, who cares more about His people than about people In General (ie, Elena is more good-aligned vs Esteban is more neutral-aligned, tho I think there’s a decent case to be made that Esteban straddles the border a bit) and the narrative rewards her for that, and that Elena… trusts the right people. She trusts people who do ultimately have her back, and who will tell her when she’s trying to do too much on her own, and who ultimately have her best interests at heart. Esteban… It’s Complicated. Bc it’s not that he has no community or support, but it’s this sort of vicious cycle of 1) he doesn’t have very many people in his support circle and some of the people he does have are shitty friends (hi Victor), 2) he’s very bad at ceding control and trusting other people to tell him when he’s wrong, which yes is a flaw he needs to work on, but it’s also partially bc 3) a lot of his support circle is also very bad at treating his concerns and issues seriously (I’m going to get pissed about dia de las madres again, which I know is kind of unfair but also. Bite me.) and this got him orphaned in the past. So he ends up in this place where he’d rather shake hands with the devil because at least then he knows the terms of the deal. This consistently goes terribly for him, bc none of his devils are actually obligated to play fair and he is frequently tricked out of whatever concessions he thought he had gained, but how he got here makes sense. How he got here is worthy of sympathy. He is easily manipulated by people who pretend to listen to him, but that’s necessarily only the case because he spends a lot of time feeling like no one cares about listening to him. He spends a lot of time caring deeply about people who he knows love him but he feels like don’t trust him. He wants, desperately, to save them from an optimism that is warranted for them because they’re the protagonists, but was never rewarded for him.

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 7

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[18+ rating for language, sex, violence, alcohol consumption, abuse, and general Hellaverse-ness]

[CW: mention of nonconsent, self harm, alcohol abuse]

[Part 7/?? Word count 3178]

—————

The shower being the best place to think is universal across species and realities. Which was unfortunate for Blitzø. He didn’t want to think about anything at the moment. He rested his forehead against the tile wall and just let the water run down him.

The thought of Stolas marrying Stella made his stomach twist. The idea of that girl being around constantly was sickening. Maybe if Stolas would try to find another Goetia this whole thing wouldn’t be so bad.

Except that idea didn’t make him feel any better. Anyone marrying Stolas was an awful prospect. Someone not actively hostile joining the palace at least didn’t terrify him, but the anxiety over the wedding didn’t abate.

Satan’s taint, fuck this! Blitzø punched the wall, irritating his bruised knuckles. No way, I fucking can’t, shitshitshit. He couldn’t have feelings for… He couldn’t. Prince Stolas was demon royalty. He was Blitzø’s master. Despite everything they’d tried to subvert the bond Paimon had forced on them, it didn’t change the fact that Blitzø was Stolas’ slave. The prince had his life in his hands.

He couldn’t have feelings beyond this strange friendship they maintained. Stolas had his life. He shouldn’t have his heart too. And if it was too late for that, Blitzø could never let on that he did.

He stood in the shower long enough to get the worst grime off without scrubbing. The fact that he’d cried almost the whole time and only got out once he couldn’t anymore was incidental. He had enough energy to dry off and fall onto the twin bed in the nude.

back lte, see u wen I wak oop Blitzø texted to Stolas on his flip phone just before passing out.

It was just before noon when Blitzø woke up. He ached from horn tip to hoof. At some point in the night his tail had gotten tangled up in the blanket. He found Waffle Iron, the horse plushie Stolas gave him, in his arms. There was a text from Stolas, sent not too long after Blitzø sent his.

Welcome back. You don’t have to worry about being on time for anything tomorrow. I am up late myself after all. I found a document on creating portals and it gave me some insight on making them for travel between realms. I��ve been practicing most of the night and I’m eager to share what I’ve discovered if you’re interested. In any case, I’ll be getting some rest now as well. Goodnight Blitzø.

How Stolas was able to type these walls of text so fast was still a mystery. Whatever, at least he had some leeway this morning. As they had gotten older, Blitzø had been entrusted with more of Stolas’ personal care. That was generally in the morning, acting as a valet. Throughout the day he was something of a dogsbody, something of a bodyguard depending on the situation.

First up after getting dressed was to check if Stolas was up yet. He could hear hooting snores as he cracked open the prince’s bedroom door. Sounded like he’d stayed up even after sending that text. Blitzø grabbed food from the kitchen (hot dogs, cheese, and crackers) before heading back to Stolas’ chambers.

The prince was still asleep. With nothing else to do at the moment, he grabbed a novel from the book alcove. Blitzø had been expressly forbidden from doing any cleaning anywhere in the palace. Not that the staff hadn’t tried. But Blitzø’s version of cleaning was not up standard and often meant more work for the maid staff in the end. So while he wasn’t much of a reader, it was better than being alone with his thoughts.

Stolas finally woke up about an hour later. “Bout time.”

“Good morning to you too Blitzø.”

“It’s after one.”

“Oh. Good afternoon then?”

“There you go, Floof. You want food or clean up first?”

“If we could have lunch prepared while I’m dressing, that would be preferable. Have you eaten anything yet?” Stolas extracted himself from the pile of blankets and pillows as Blitzø pressed a buzzer to request food from the servants.

“I had something earlier.” He pulled an outfit out of Stolas’ wardrobe; shirt, trousers, and vest that could work with or without the long capes the owl demon liked. He joined Stolas in front of the mirrored vanity.

Stolas lifted an elegant eyebrow as he finished washing his face. “By ‘something’ do you mean a slice of cold lunch meat?” Now that he was so much taller than Blitzø (and essentially everyone in the palace) his friend handed him garments and helped with adjustments instead of actively dressing him.

“No,” Blitzø replied, sounding offended. “It was cold hot dogs and cheese. Some crackers too.” He stuck his tongue out at Stolas while buttoning up the vest.

Stolas didn’t miss the bruising on the imp’s knuckles or his split lip. Looks like some sort of altercation occurred overnight. He thought the protection from the bond was equally effective wherever Blitzø was. Evidently not. “Well that is an improvement.” He sat down so Blitzø could stand on a stool to fix his head feathers. Best to bring up the subject of injuries after food.

“Looks like you had an exciting time last night,” Stolas said as they finished lunch. He grasped Blitzø by the hand, examining the knuckles. “I thought my protection would be at the same strength everywhere. Are you hurt elsewhere?”

Oh shit. Blitzø paled and yanked his hand away. “Wasn’t on purpose. Some punkass Sinners wanted to make trouble. I got banged up a bit but it’s fine.” His shoulders hunched as he tried to pull away without leaving his seat.

Stolas blinked, confused. Blitzø was more agitated than he’d expected over a fist fight. “Did anything else happen? We can talk if you need to.”

Ohhhhhh nooooo that was the last thing Blitzø wanted. Deflect, deflect! “Crashed a party, had a good time. If it wasn’t for this fuckers on my way back it’d have been a great night. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam.”

“Ah, of course. I only wish I could do so more often.” Stolas was flustered. The imp kept insisting things were fine despite looking worn out and upset. He didn’t want to push too hard though. Maybe Blitzø just needed space. He didn’t get too much in general and Stolas didn’t want to take away the little privacy his friend had left.

Indeed after about a day, Blitzø seemed back to normal. Their routine went back to normal for a few days. Blitzø was mostly sleeping on the lounge or in his room but that wasn’t abnormal.

Stolas was relieved it wasn’t anything serious. At least until he had another “date” with Stella. This time they went to her family’s estate, so her older brother was in attendance as well.

Again, afterwards Blitzø asked to leave for the evening and although he wasn’t injured like before, he was just as prickly and closed off. He insisted he had fun, meeting other teenage imps and going to parties or occasionally clubs. Then all would be back to normal by the day after.

This cycle repeated for a few months, with Blitzø becoming increasingly closed off. He was spending as little time as possible in Stolas’ presence and not engaging in their normal conversations. Some mornings he’d obviously been fighting and others he’d overindulged with whatever drinks were available.

The owl demon realized how upsetting the whole situation was for him when he noticed he’d overpreened while Blitzø was out in the evening. The bald patch wouldn’t show when he wore long sleeves but he had to fight to not make it bigger. It was hard however. His best friend was becoming more miserable by the day. His fiancé made little effort to connect with him. Stolas just wanted to keep his mind off it by constantly adjusting and cleaning his feathers; at least that would relieve the emotional stress for a while.

After three months Stolas couldn’t take it anymore. He’d attended an afternoon tea party with Stella. Blitzø had remained at the palace. He couldn’t exactly mingle with the servants and following Stolas as he escorted Stella was nauseating.

Stolas let himself collapse into a chair in his sitting room. Normally he enjoyed his well fitted clothing (he never claimed to be modest about his appearance). Today it all felt claustrophobic and he stripped off everything except for his shirt and boxers. Not a dignified look for a prince of Hell. Dignity be damned, he had enough of dignity at that tea party.

Blitzø picked up the shed clothes. The cape would need wrinkles pressed out but the rest of the clothes needed a wash. He did minor tasks around the chambers to avoid conversation. As the light faded he asked, “Mind if I leave for the evening?” It was something of a routine now, for him to have a night out after a Stella related day. He had to get permission each time though.

Stolas sat upright suddenly. He’d hoped that without having to be around Stella, Blitzø wouldn’t feel the need to get out tonight. Apparently not. Stolas almost gave permission on reflex but managed to stop himself. He didn’t want Blitzø to come back miserable again.

“Actually I’d like your company tonight Blitzø.” He winced as the binding glowed faintly.

Blitzø felt the pressure on his neck. Satan’s asscrack! Stolas might not have intended the order but it was too late now. “Sure,” Blitzø managed to croak. “What did you have in mind, master?” Fuuuuuck why did he say that?

Stolas stumbled over his words. Blitzø had called him master before, but either in a teasing tone or flat and formal when among other Goetia. He’d never heard Blitzø’s voice with that much venom. “We could…watch a movie? Or talk? Or maybe…” he trailed off, not wanting to admit he wanted to cuddle up.

Blitzø took some time to respond. “A movie would be fun.” With the added benefit of preventing conversation. Especially if they picked something they hadn’t watched before. “Wanna use the theater?”

The palace had a private screening room on the first floor. It had half a dozen overstuffed recliners set up in front of a projection screen. There was a fully stocked candy and soda bar, along with a popcorn machine. With the kitchen on the same floor it wasn’t hard to request something more substantial as well.

The two had been known to fall asleep in there as kids, after eating too much junk food and marathoning movies (or as close as nine year olds can manage a movie marathon). They had also broken two chairs, as they made excellent springboards until collapsing.

When Paimon handed over ownership of the palace to Stolas, he opened up use of the theater to the house staff and security. Until then it had been restricted to only the family but Stolas felt it was silly for it to be unused most days. Staff could use it during their time off and they had to clean up after. Evidently it had become a popular spot for dates, since they didn’t have to leave the grounds and spend money to squeeze into a crowded cinema. It was a good thing the recliners were leather.

It seemed gatherings of friends enjoyed it too. A group of five imps and three Hellhounds was cleaning up as the credits rolled when Stolas and Blitzø arrived. “Your Highness!” The Hounds all snapped to attention, one dropped a wastebasket as he did so. “Apologies sir, we will be gone as soon as possible.”

“No rush, we’re still deciding on what to watch after all,” Stolas tried to reassure them.

“Heeeey Bliiiiitzø,” one of the imps called out. Scarlet, a maid about his age and one that was not only civil but very friendly with him. “Blitzø, hey man, haven’t seen you much lately!” That was Vex, one of the footmen a couple years older than him.

“Now that I can go all over Pride, I gotta get the full experience.” He put some sugary temptation in his voice. There were a few hotties working here and these two were at the top of the list. He slipped behind the bar to get his and Stolas’ favorite sodas and buckets of popcorn.

Vex leaned over the counter. “Well, so long as you don’t completely forget all the fun experiences here.” The other imp’s tail was swishing around, eventually the tip lifted high enough to brush Blitzø’s cheek.

Scarlet hopped up on the counter and looked back at him over her shoulder, her own tail wrapping around her coworkers. “We should have a movie night together, just the three of us.” Her tail moved to swirl around Blitzø’s arm. “Or just two of us.”

Jackpot! “For sure, can’t forget old friends.”

The group finished cleaning and left Stolas and Blitzø alone. Watching Blitzø flirt… Stolas felt a stab to the gut. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “There’s quite a few we haven’t watched yet, is there anything you’d like to see?”

“Nothin sappy.” Blitzø settled into a chair with his pile of goodies as Stolas started the film and dimmed the lights. The prince had selected an action comedy; nothing heart wrenching, enough humor to lighten the mood and a satisfying level of blood and explosions. They followed up with the less impressive sequel and the trilogy redeeming third movie. Between the second and third they had an intermission to order dinner from the kitchen. After the last movie it was almost midnight.

The clean up rule applied to them as well so they made sure to leave the theater in a fresh state for the next viewers. Blitzø was excitedly talking about the explosions and blood sprays as they headed back upstairs. Stolas for the most part was listening, laughing along with him. He hadn’t seen Blitzø this cheerful in months. I missed this.

When they reached Stolas’ chambers, Blitzø attempted to head to his own room. Stolas grabbed his hand, saying “I’d like to talk, please?” The imp followed. He was trying to figure out some way to get out of this conversation. He’d been avoiding Stolas just to get away from discussing…anything at all.

Blitzø sat in one of the chairs in the drawing room. Shoulders hunched, feet dangling (it was sized for a Goetia), and tail wrapped around himself, he hoped he made it clear he didn’t want to do this. Stolas sat across from him, twisting his fingers nervously. They both were silent, not sure how to start. After a few false starts from Stolas, Blitzø hopped out of his chair.

“Great, good talk, see you in the morning!”

“No! Blitzø! I … we can’t keep this up!”

“Keep what up?” The imp twitched in place, his back to Stolas. “Everything is fucking fine.”

“No it’s fucking not!” Blitzø jerked up. Stolas almost never cursed, much less raised his voice. “You’re miserable, becoming more so by the day and I can’t stand it! Please, talk to me Blitzø.” He didn’t respond. Instead he stayed rooted in place. “Blitzø I don’t want to order you to talk but-“

“Oh, you’re gonna pull that card prick?” Blitzø knew he was toeing the line, insulting Stolas, but he couldn’t help it.

“No! No, I’m sorry Blitzø, I don- I didn’t- I’ve never-“

“But you can Stolas.” Blitzø finally turned to face him. “Even if you never order me around, you can and I can’t say no, and I… I probably wouldn’t even try. To say no…” Dammitall, he did have feelings for the other demon.

Stolas’ pinprick pupils emerged, something that only rarely happened when he was feeling emotional. “What-“

“How am I supposed to talk to someone who can just drag everything they want out of me?! And what does it matter if I’m miserable? I fuck up everything anyway! So I might as well just be miserable and you can live your perfect prince life!”

“How is my life perfect?!” Stolas’ voice cracked on the last word. “My father hates me so much he made my only friend a slave, I’ve got to marry a vapid harpy who already hates my only friend, who is slowly destroying himself and I can’t do anything to fix any of it!”

Stolas had risen to his feet but now he slumped on the floor, roughly at eye level with Blitzø now. “I don’t know if I can ever break the chain my sadistic father put on you. And it’s grinding you into pieces and me with you because you really are my friend and I like you and I’ll never be able to make you happy…” his words lost their usual deliberate cadence, turning into a babbling flow.

“I know you like me, that’s why your dad was such an asshat.”

“I mean… I think I like you Blitzø. More than friends, as they say. Except you’re bound to me. Trying to be anything other than friends is… You can’t say yes if you can’t say no. I have to settle for making you comfortable.”

Every thought vanished from Blitzø’s head like Sinners during Extermination Day. “You’re fucking with me,” he said with that growling hiss.

Stolas shook his head; it hung down as if he couldn’t support it. “Why else would I be trying so hard with Stella? She despises both of us. But we’re all going to be stuck together and getting her to be civil is all I can think of to do.”

That’s why he keeps bringing me? Blitzø dropped to the floor, near Stolas but facing away. “I…Floof, I don’t want you to marry anyone,” he mumbled. Stolas’ hearing was excellent; he could whisper and the prince would hear him. “I thought it was just because she sucks, but anyone marrying you… it fucking sucks.” He looked over his shoulder, barely peeking out. “I think I like you too, Stolas. How messed up is that?”

“As messed up as a Goetia liking an imp. At the very least. I think the only thing more messed up is an angel liking the first woman.”

Blitzø finally looked straight at Stolas. “You did not just compare us to the King and Queen of Hell.”

“Did I? It was just a hypothetical scenario.”

“Yeah right punk. I know you better than that,” Blitzø shoved Stolas’ shoulder. He was rewarded with Stolas’ hooting chuckles. “I’ve had one too many emotions for today. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

“Of course. Logistics are best sorted in daylight.” The two hesitated, not sure where to go from here. Blitzø finally asked. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Please do,” came the instant reply.

Neither of them were up for more than sleep. Even when they started getting physical they both went at a slow pace, to ensure they could both say yes. But the next morning Blitzø was wrapped around Stolas’ back, with Stolas’ arms clinging to his.

A/N : I realize this is probably a more mature conversation than two teenagers would have but I haven’t been a teen in [redacted for old] and I don’t feel like attempting it. We got plot to move people!

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[simplylove101]

2024 Horror Challenge: [86/?]

↳“The solution for a claustrophobic astronaut is to give him more space.” Alien: Romulus (2024) dir. Fede Álvarez

Plot: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Starring: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn & Aileen Wu

Okay, I fell asleep as usual before I could type up my reviews for the movies I chose for my Halloween marathon. I settled on three (and then it turned out I had to trade one out because the first option was quickly turning into a dud watch & I just couldn't deal with that on Halloween of all nights They gotta be at least solid. lol) and this was one of them. My co-worker had warned me beforehand that it was just okay in his opinion, which doesn't necessarily mean anything cuz sometimes his taste is basic, but I will admit I don't think he was too far-off by saying that. I think it definitely got stronger in the second half with all the action-packed sequences but it took me a little while to really get invested at all. This isn't even because of bias of the superior Alien/Aliens movies (I appreciate Prometheus for what it is as well) but it doesn't really do enough to make the characters feel real and have their own personalities beyond serving the plot, besides the sister-foster brother/android relationship between Rain & Andy. The acting with them felt like a major highlight (Priscilla/Civil War fans will recognize the talented Cailee Spaeny & David Jonsson was in the very underrated Rye Lane last year) along with Isabela Merced showing her skills as a promising scream queen (I mean that quite literally btw by giving one of the best screams in horror imo) I knew she wouldn't be but spoiler alert, she should have been a final girl. welp lol Anyway, the rest of the cast is good with what they had to work with but as I said the script only gave them so much. The effects were really good tho and I appreciate Fede was trying to make sure he stayed as true as he could to the original movie since this takes place after it. I'm one of the people split on the usage of Ian Holm's likeness since Fede has been very open about the fact that he did it for the sake of the story but then Idk if that transparency makes it any better tbh since it's still a form of AI, is it not? And the man is dead. :/ Either way, there was too much of his character anyway so that doesn't help. It did feel like it relied a little too much on typical Alien tropes but then that's the trouble with some sequels/prequels sometimes. Not every trick is gonna hit every time since it'll feel repetitive. That said, I say this as someone who hasn't seen every Alien movie so I won't pretend to speak on true mega fans' behalf. Anyway, as I said, it took a minute to get me on board, but at least the finale was strong enough to be entertaining. Still, gotta say out of the three major Fede Álvarez movies, this was probably my least fave (but then I really like both Evil Dead & Don't Breathe which I own so lol) I am curious if I would have preferred this in the theater tho, because I feel like I might have with how epic they were trying to go with it. Crazy they were gonna just dump this on Hulu as if it wouldn't make a ton of money (spoiler alert: It made a lot) So, yeah, wanted to like it more but it wasn't all bad. Which is all I went in expecting so it was fine.

[somber-sapphic]

Down Hill Here We Go

Lena feels terrible, Alex is worried, Kara is...?

Word Count: 1718

{Go To Part 1}

-----

Lena curled herself up on the little couch in the Tower as Alex went hunting for…something, the brunette wasn’t really sure. She wasn’t listening. She was embarrassed, miserable and absolutely exhausted. To make everything worse, Kara was nowhere to be seen. That just made the already grouchy woman angry. Kara had texted her to drag her into the Tower, and now she didn’t show up.

Her throat was burning beyond belief, and her stomach was starting to flip. Her skin felt like it was on fire, while her insides were frozen. There was no in between. Her nose was running and stuffy, her body ached, and the fatigue that she felt couldn’t be matched by any late night working that she’d ever endured.

She could hear Alex rummaging around not too far away, but found herself desperately wishing that she would stop searching for stupid cold medicine and hold her. As much as she hated herself for wanting that attention, she just wanted someone to hold her. At least she trusted Alex. Lena was about ready to go curl up in a stranger's lap for the human contact she so desperately wanted. With a soft sigh, she closed her eyes, taking a brief minute to revel in how good it felt to block out all of the light that was trying to fry her brain.

When she opened her eyes a second later, Alex was nowhere to be seen.

“A-lex?” She croaked, struggling to turn around so that she could at least see the woman. She was strangely terrified that she would be left alone. Probably something to do with all of the abandonment issues and emotionally abusive family. No time to go through all of that Lena mused, still trying to see where Alex was. When no answer was given, she tried again a little louder.

“Alex? D-did you leave?” Lena bit off the end of the sentence, avoiding asking if Alex left her, which would imply that she actually wanted Alex around. She did of course, but it's not like she actually wanted the older woman to know that. She was a Luthor, tough and never willing to show weakness. That reluctance to show weakness was almost what cost Lena her family. She was working on being more open, but it was hard. She resolved to sit in silence until Alex got back, knowing that if she stood up she was likely to fall on her face. Her equilibrium was all over the place, thanks to the fever.

Naturally, Lena’s anxiety chose to ignore her decent plan to stay put and listen to Alex’s request. She clung to the ratty blanket that the brunette had managed to find before running off hoping desperately that it would provide her with some much needed warmth. She didn’t understand why everything had to be so cold. Was it like a Tower rule or something?

Lena took a deep breath, which immediately resulted in a bout of wracking coughs, so bad that if she were in public, someone probably would’ve stopped to see if she was okay. The answer would have been ‘no’, because it felt like her lungs were somehow on fire whilst swimming in a vat of mucus. A glob of the stuff filled her mouth, and she grimaced, not sure what to do. She settled on what she believed to be the least gross option, of spitting it into the blanket. It wasn’t like anyone would be brave enough to touch if after she was better anyway.

She stood shakily, the world spinning with her as she tried to make her way across the room. She was scared, and wanted to find Alex. Unfortunately, her body had different ideas. Lena managed to take two wobbly steps away from the couch before her legs gave out and she sprawled across the floor in a sort of Lena puddle.

“Lena!? What the fuck were you thinking?” Alex demanded skidding across the floor to sit by Lena's side. She cupped a hand over the other woman’s cheek, eyes filled with worry for the woman she considered to be her baby sister.

“I…I wanted to find you. You left, I got…I got scared. But I fell…” Lena had tears in her eyes that she was desperately trying to hold off. Her damn emotions were winning this battle.

“Oh kiddo, I went to find you some flu medicine but when I came back you were asleep. I left you a note,” She pointed to the table by the couch, where the piece of paper sat. Wow. Lena was apparently quite out of it. “I figured that it’d be best if I let you sleep, so I went to go train with the others. I’m so sorry I scared you. I honestly thought you would sleep for another three hours.” Alex chuckled quietly, forcing a calm into her voice that she didn’t feel.

Lena sniffled and reached up to wipe her running nose on her sleeve. It was gross, but she didn’t have any tissues, so what choice did she have? Alex grimaced slightly, about ready to do what parents had to do with their toddlers when they had stuffy noses.

“I know you don't feel well, but that’s beyond gross. Can we get you back up on the couch? I didn’t get a chance to check your temp earlier, and you feel too hot.”

“Floors good.” Lena mumbled, an intense shiver wracking her frail body. She closed her eyes again, happy to be finally at a neutral temperature. She could tell that Alex wasn’t pleased, but the other woman still stroked her hair and massaged her head. It felt so, so good. Of course, her comfort was short-lived. Only two minutes had passed when loud footsteps jogged her from her moderately contented state.

“I will pick you up, and you will not like it. I suggest you cooperate.” A gruff voice said, pulling her from the calm almost dreamland that made her feel safe. The words were harsh, but the tone was extremely warm. When she peeled her eyes open, she saw J’onn standing above her, a small almost fatherly smile painted on his lips. She smiled back (she thought, really it was more of a grimace) and opened her mouth to reply. All that came out was a pathetic squeak. Lena cleared her throat, brows narrowing in concern.

“Hi J’onn.” She croaked, satisfied at the return of her voice. Clearing her throat had made her feel like she was swallowing burning knives, as well as the glass that had already embedded itself in her throat. Alex made a nervous mother-henning sound and tightened her grip around Lena. If only Kara were there. Kara would fix everything. Stupid Kara needed to come home.

With Lena’s permission, J’onn picked her up, and deposited her carefully back onto the couch. Alex tried to hand her the blanket, but she wrinkled her nose, remembering what she had spat into it earlier. Upon seeing the sick girl's expression, Alex dropped the piece of fabric and wiped her hand on her pants.

“Right. Do I need hand sanitizer?” She asked, one eyebrow raised. Lena dropped her gaze guiltily and nodded. She felt tears welling in her eyes, angry with herself for feeling so emotional. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry. It’s alright Le, you’re sick. It’s okay. J’onn, can you go get me a blanket, thermometer, Advil and a glass Pedialyte? I have a feeling we’re gonna have trouble keeping our witch hydrated.” Lena whined quietly and reached out for the blanket on the floor. She was cold, she wanted the blanket regardless of how gross it was.

J’onn was only gone for a few minutes, but Lena hated every second. She wanted the blanket that Alex wouldn’t let her have, she wanted Kara, but most of all, she wanted to sleep. Which she couldn't do without a blanket or Kara.

“Where’s Kara?” She mumbled, rubbing her forehead exhaustively.

“She had to do something for Cat-Co honey. She won’t be back for at least a day. We can call her later if you want to though.” Alex suggested, trying to examine Lena without having to actually examine her. If there was any sort of medical tool involved Lena would bolt. She hated doctors more than she hated being sick. She was on record saying that she would rather die than be stabbed by an evil genius wearing a white coat.

J’onn arrived with the blanket and took his leave as soon as the brunette had curled herself up into a tight ball under the covers. He figured there was no reason to stress her out more by staying if Alex could handle it on her own.

“Alright you,” Alex said, brandishing the thermometer in front of Lena’s face. Instinctively she flinched away, her fever clouded brain, nervous at the prospect of her temperature being checked. Maybe her fever was trying to get some kind of revenge on her, because it certainly didn’t make very much sense. “I’m just going to take your temperature. It's not going to hurt. Open your mouth for just a second, okay?” Alex murmured, speaking as if she would to her daughter. It was barely 10:30 and she already missed Esme.

Reluctantly Lena opened her mouth to reveal a spray of white spots coating the back of her red, raw throat. The older woman’s heart sank as she placed the thermometer inside Lena’s mouth, murmuring about how good she was doing while trying to come up with a plan of action. It was pretty obviously Strep, but she didn’t have any antibiotics laying around, she should, she’d need to remember that, but this wasn’t the DEO. She didn’t have everything she needed to treat Lena’s current ailment. Plus, judging by the runny nose, Strep wasn’t her only problem. With a heavy sigh, she removed the now yelling thermometer from her mouth and prepared to say something she knew Lena would instantly reject.

“Honey…I need to take you to Urgent Care. It looks like you’ve got Strep Throat, and I have no way to fix it here.” Lena’s face palled visibly as she processed the information and planned an escape. She would not be seeing any doctor. She would be fine on her own.

[lpdwillwrite4coffee]

Okay y'all. This is the story of how I owe $17,000 to the guy who propositioned me during family night at a local brewery and now I'm committed to bringing sensible wine options to his house for Thanksgiving.

Our tale begins like most do - panic crying in the living room while my house floods. Because of a freak polar vortex like day in February, my old drafty house and the rust bucket of a boiler in the cellar created a horrific one-two punch that ended in me nearly freezing to death in my own home and almost all of my heating pipes cracking and leaking, flooding my first floor and basement. It was terrifying, beyond stressful, and most importantly to this story, expensive.

After 2 and a half months of living in a hotel, battling insurance companies, daily anxiety attacks, and having 4 grand of insurance money stolen by my bipolar, narcissistic mother, I hit my absolute fucking limit. Friends of mine who are much better off financially than I have ever been in my life offered to help me out of the dark, lonely, and cold hole I'd wound up in. Three text messages and a lot of tears later, I was in possession of a check for $17,000 and had an official start date for construction. Praise Dolly.

A hop, skip, and a jump through time and we're now in July. I'm paying my friends back in monthly installments and trying not to crumble from the knowledge that it will take me 4 or 5 years of consistent payments to get out from under this loan. But at least I have heat. It's the little things I guess.

My friend, let's call him Mitch, and his wife, who unfortunately shares my name but for this we'll call her Lucette, are kindly checking in on me and inviting me to coffee/dinner/drinks to hang out. Things seem like they're back on track to being normal.

Lucette gets a new job that requires a ton of travel, so I don't see her as much as I do Mitch, but that doesn't bother me, as Lucette and I were never particularly close and spending more than an hour of time with her makes me feel like a dirt poor 19 year old who showed up to a nice dinner party in paint stained jeans and a ripped band tee. We are not energetic or socioeconomic equals.

One weekend, Mitch and I get drinks just to catch up, and he tells me that him and Lucette have made the decision to try out ENM (ethical non-monogamy). They've been married for 7 years, have had a bit of a dry spell due to pandemic close proximity, and there's just the general vibe that they want to try new things. I get it! And I'm encouraging. Life is too short for bad sex, I tell him, and he's thankful I'm not judging them. We have a good laugh about it all - particularly the bit about them seeing my profile on Feeld, as they have one too - and after another beer, I go home.

This is probably the part of the movie where the music changes, warning the viewer that some event is looming and possibly dangerous for our protagonist. If only life had such a soundtrack I could hear.

Throughout the summer and into September Mitch and I see more of each other and I take notice of the uptick in chill weekend day drinking and texts. Nothing about it feels off or motivated by anything other than being bored and wanting to hang out with a friend. And because I know about his ENM journey, I think there's the appeal there of getting to speak freely to someone who won't wrinkle their nose and make jokes about bringing pineapples to neighborhood BBQs. In a stunning change of mental pace, I don't overanalyze it. Perhaps this was a mistake.

One morning I wake up a text from Mitch cancelling plans. I'm secretly thrilled - I didn't want to shower that day anyway. But I can also tell something has gone horribly wrong on his end, but he doesn't say what, so I just "yeah, sure, let me know when you're free next" my way out of the conversation.

When we do talk next, he tells me why he cancelled. Lucette cheated on Mitch during a work trip. They'd established rules within their ENM arrangement that she broke. And she broke them loudly, multiple times, and with her iPad still logged in and left on the kitchen counter in full view of Mitch. Horrible words are said, declarations of 'the best sex of her life' are sent to several group chats, pictures are seen. It's bad.

Mitch is unwell. I comfort him as best as I can and he tells me that he and Lucette aren't pulling the divorce lever yet, but he's still heartbroken and scared he's going to lose his marriage. I feel awful for him. I offer to buy him another beer. He shows me the texts he saw. It's officially A Lot.

From that day on, I become his "my wife cheated on me with the guy she told me not to worry about" therapist friend who he can unload on and get sympathetic words in return. I've been imprinted on by the depressed baby bird hatched by infidelity and low self-esteem. It's not the first time, and I'm certain it won't be the last.

Tell me, how's that soundtrack only you, the audience, can hear? I bet it's tense and full of cello.

A few weeks later, I get a head cold. It's not the end of the world but it's annoying. I'm fevered, stuffy, exhausted, and I have not a drop of soup or broth in my home. Mitch sees my Instagram story about being sick and offers to bring me soup. "Aww, that's so nice of you, thank you." "Of course! I'll go get it and be right over." "Awesome! Just text me when you drop it off." Thirty minutes later my doorbell rings. My dogs bark their heads off. I'm a little annoyed. The bell rings again. I see Mitch's car in my driveway. I mutter to myself about why he didn't just leave it on the steps as I go to the door. I look disgusting and I'm flushed with a solid 100.2 fever, but I guess I'm having face time with Mitch now. I open the door and he hands over the soup almost immediately, but with an odd look on his face. I thank him and ask what I owe, but he refuses for me to pay him back. I thank him again. He doesn't make a move to leave. I tell him I'd invite him in but.... *gestures widely to the PJs I've worn for 3 days in a row and the broken capillaries in my nose and the dogs still barking behind the second entryway door* He smiles awkwardly and says it's okay. He still doesn't leave. "So... how are you, Mitch?" His shoulders slump. "I'm not doing great."

Ah. There it is. Mystery solved. My time has been bought with soup and he's lingering to collect on it. So I lean on my door, sniff back a disgusting level of mucus, and brace myself for whatever is about to be said. Turns out, Lucette couldn't stop texting the Best Sex Ever guy and possibly is fixated on him due to some weird aging hot girl nonsense. Mitch tells me he and Lucette are separating. She's sleeping in her home office. The mess got messier. I tell him I'm so incredibly sorry, this is awful, etc etc etc. He stays for 20 minutes to tell me all of this and get as much of a pep talk as I can muster while trying not to sneeze directly in his eyes.

In the interim, I've gotten several strangely loaded texts from Lucette, telling me she's glad Mitch has me and that she knows he values my friendship and advice on things. Alexa, play "She Knows." But I keep things as vague as possible, because I don't want to shove myself even more in the middle. I didn't choose to be imprinted on, but I can choose not to encourage a more permanent bond. Call me a wildlife rehabilitation center.

Being sick takes me out of commission for a while, and I have to reschedule multiple things, including getting beer with Mitch. That doesn't deter him from messaging me of course, but I don't see him for a couple weeks. When I'm feeling better, I tell him we should check out a brewery we've never been to before and we set a day.

This is probably the part when the audience yells as the protagonist not to go. Don't get in the car. Stay home.

Ah, to not be a participant in the narrative.

I get to the brewery and immediately I notice 2 things: 1, it's family Sunday Funday, and 2, the vibes around Mitch are........uncomfy. I turn into a socially anxious motormouth. I can't stop talking about literally everything that doesn't matter, including the child at the table next to us playing a solo game of Uno and the 80's music playlist. I order my beer and finally force myself to chill tf out. Maybe I've picked up on a vibe that has nothing to do with me. Maybe he's just feeling weird. Maybe I'm just insane. All of these options are valid.

Halfway thru our drinks, Mitch brings up the odd texts from Lucette. "I think I know why she was being weird with you." "Oh? Why?" I sip my beer and wait. He says, "So, back when Lucette and I decided to open up our marriage, we had a discussion about who we'd see ourselves dating..."

Hey audience, how's that music crescendo?

I blink. Mitch gestures with his beer. "And obviously, your name was at the top of my list."

And because I'm the definition of smooth, I practically shout, "REALLY???" so loudly 5 people turn around and look at me. Mitch doesn't even look away from me. Instead, he stares deeper into my eyes and asks, "Do you ever see that becoming a possibility?"

Me. Dating Mitch. After months of supporting him through a painful, messy separation that hasn't even really become official. After knowing way too much about his sex life. After all the sad boy memes and depressed 1am texts he's sent. After being forced to read his angry, sexually charged break up poetry in front of him 2 beers in at the bar.

AFTER I HAD TO BORROW $17,000 FROM HIM AND LUCETTE.

I verbally flounder for a painfully long 12 seconds while watching that little girl beat herself with another Uno Reverse card, and finally land on a gentle but firm rejection of the idea. I don't have a chance to mentally process all the messed up parts to this messed up puzzle in the moment but when I get home it starts to click.

They had that conversation in the spring. Around the time that I had to borrow the money in the first place. And while I don't have proof, I can almost guarantee that Lucette vetoed Mitch's suggestion of bringing me into their situation, and now that they're breaking up, he feels like he can take a swing at it (pun? unintended?)

Which means that every single interaction, every single conversation and hang out, every single dollar bill I borrowed is colored with the knowledge I now possess which is that Mitch, for however long, has wanted to fuck me. He's wanted to fuck me so. Goddamn. Bad.

Audience, I bet you're the star at your optometrist's office with all that 20/20 vision. I'm honestly jealous.

No wonder Lucette was sending probing texts with the energy of "I know you know, and now you know I know." No wonder Mitch attached himself to me like a duckling trying to cross a busy road. No wonder both of them were so earnestly checking on me when I first moved back into my house. NO WONDER MY SUBCONSCIOUS MIND HAD BEEN SCREAMING "YOU'RE IN DANGER GIRL" FOR WEEKS.

And before ALL of this, Mitch had organized Thanksgiving at his house since Lucette would be out of town, and one of his friends created a list of what people can bring. I signed up for wine, since it means I don't have to cook. And when this entire thing came to a head, I started to write an "I'm bailing" text to Mitch. But before I could pull that trigger, our mutual friend messaged me to say how happy she is that I'll be there and that she's missed me.

So now, after finding out that Mitch has wanted to get his dick in me for months (if not longer) without even considering the power imbalance of me owing him SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, I have to pick out a sensible red and white wine and show up at his house at 2pm on Thursday.

Audience. Reader. Friends. I am.... stressed. And in serious debt.

And apparently hot enough to possibly instigate an argument between spouses.

Cue the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving song. This year I'm grateful for autonomy and friends willing to come up with a code word in case I need to escape quickly.

[rayplaysotomes]

and finally, the lupin post. as usual, this is reformatted from my picsart otome route posts that i make whenever i finish a route. 

spoiler warning for lupin’s route in code: realize guardian of rebirth under the cut!

first of all, not a lot of otome games (at least ones ive played) leave one route to be the final and wont even let you unlock it until youve completed the others but with that being said. i think lupins route is absolutely worth it and definetely fitting as the final route. its very rewarding, especially in how it wraps up the story iin  satisfying manner, while still leaving you curious and wanting to play more. 

also. lupin is such a charismatic character with so much personality and charm. hes very entertaining to watch. i do wish we had gotten a little more on his backstory or something to give him just a biiiittt more depth other than one monologue but regardless, hes still a very likeable character overall. 

one of the things i noticed right off the bat (and something i almost always mention in these posts) was the romantic aspects. phenomenal. him and cardia just have so much chemistry and it works so well. that whole scene with cardia confiding in him about how she was a monster and he assured her that she was huma. and then they said they loved each other. dude. or on the airship when he kisses her hat??????? they just work so well together.

i also loved how his route like? combines certain aspects and endings from other routes. like we get to see the antagonists from other routes and each character dealing with them on the nautilus. very fitting for the final route. 

also throughout this whole route, i really liked impey and victors dynamic. like i had first sorta noticed it in ch 8 right before the route starts when they go off talking together about science and engineering, then later in lupins route they seem to have gotten closer and often fight together during battles, for example, the fight with nemo on the nautilus. idk. i just really enjoy their dynamic. 

also finis. good lord. there was. so much interesting information about him in this route. you can sorta pick up on this from other routes, but in this one you really start to see just how bad his inferiority complex is. and its extremely well written imo. like hes done so much for his father, yet isaac still likes cardia more, and obviously thats hard for him to understand. so he takes it out on cardia as if its her fault. and he does whatever hes told in hopes that when isaac’s plan is finally put into action, his father will love him. i also really like the way they build up and leave hints towards him being immortal in the other routes (esp vans), but you dont really understand how it works until this route when he finally explains it and its just. literally terrifying. like that scene is INSANE.

i also really liked the monologue talking about isaac, his wife, and cardia and finis as kids. its just. very interesting. 

and quick bonus from the picsart post i made when i had finished everything including extra scenarios since i had saved them for the end:

just fully finished guardian of rebirth including extra scenarios and i will never emotionally recover from this. this game is seriously. so beautiful. like theres no other word to describe it. its just so beautiful through and through. like. there has only been one other otome game that ive been so thoroughly invested in. its taken me a long time to finish it purely because ive grown so extremely attatched to these characters. (so long infact, that theres no impey route post because i played his before i even started to do these posts) i am. beyond excited to play future blessings and wintertide miracles. 

this is so cringefail but. i simply love this game and these characters and this story. also, floatable is. absolutely one of the best otome ops imo. iconic. and code realize has got to have one of my favourite ensembles out of any media imo. like lupin gang is up there with the rfa. their dynamic is just so perfect. these characters are so complex and beautifully written and just so so entertaining to watch. this game is so perfect. 

[divorcingjimmatthews]

huge spoilers for s2e8 forest for the trees!!

okay watching this episode upset me NGL :'))) so much bad stuff happened the whole "get hurt in your dreams" thing is terrifying and so are the cicadas (boyd's worms were larvae?). we saw the community get splintered all through the second season so it doesn't even feel like they're all together in this like it did by the end of s1. each group is up to their own thing and not talking to each other because they don't trust each other—it hurts

seeing that some of the attempts that the characters made at connecting or reconnecting through the season actually failed was very painful. it really feels like things are getting broken beyond repair and i hate that feeling. at least we have the really cute and soft situation going on with ethan, julie, victor and mrs liu—ethan and julie telling victor about the internet was literally the sweetest and funniest thing. my heart is so full of love for this man

jade and victor

speaking of victor, it's understandable that he has been withholding information. he literally thinks that trying to leave will get everyone killed. it's also understandable that jade got so frustrated with him—he thinks that not trying to leave will get everyone killed. given the new terrors that are brewing, it's a good thing that tabitha was there to gently nudge the answers out of victor. yay tabby!

jim and randall

as for jim—i'm just gonna say that i've seen people on the main FROM server call him tinfoil jim and it didn't not get a chuckle out of me, LOL. he said that he wasn't gonna let this place turn him into someone he's not, and that's good, both he and jade are clearly struggling back and forth against the effect the place is having on them and i'm rooting for them to come out on top, but dammit, sometimes it just hurts to watch.

jim, couldn't you have waited until you could touch base with tabby about this? and the "interrogation" scene... what are you even doing, jim... T_T at least he's realised it now, let's just hope it wasn't too late

boyd and donna

the whole thing happening with team boyd is the biggest point in favor of victor's approach—did he bring all that shit along with him back from his quest? :') what is even the point of being able to kill the monsters if you've got much worse threats around now, that can get you inside your home and hurt you in your dreams. the whole thing is making me so anxious that it's basically making me want to agree with victor and donna and say that living out your days in the town the best you can is the best case scenario here. anyway—i guess that ship's sailed now. they gotta find a way out...

not even gonna talk about randall cuz im so disappointed istg T_T

EDIT: thought i should make it clear that i don't think what's happening to jim is his own fault. he would not be this close to his limit if donna and team boyd didn't keep everything under wraps. they should realise that what they're doing is causing the opposite effect of what they were hoping for. the issue here is that they don't trust their own people, they only trust their own judgement, and that's pretty fucking bad. and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy too because they've got people like jim looking insane because they're acting on incomplete or deliberately skewed information. i understand that they're dealing with more than anyone should have to be dealing with but damn. mistakes were made man :(

EDIT 2: i'm so worried that boyd is going to die because "nevermind i'll tell you later :)" is so ominous like ellis you're in a story!! there may not be a later!!!!

[midorishinji]

Saturn's return

In about a week, I will be 26 years old. Technically, Saturn's return — the dreaded time that everyone says is a period of intense life transformation — does not occur until you’re 27 or 29 years old: I calculated mine, and it is scheduled for April 2028, when I will be close to turning 30. I still have time until then, and I don't know if it is placebo effect or not, but I am already starting to feel the change. Saturn is the planet of difficulties and trials, and I understand this better than anyone else.

Original work ｜Part VII of the "A girl by the sea"｜Also published in Portuguese and on AO3

a.n: Inspired by what my dear friend @rupphires at Spirit wrote, the beautiful "Eu ainda acho que Plutão deve voltar a ser planeta", and maybe a direct response to what I wrote almost a year ago, "Saturnalia".

I've never been much of a believer in astral hell, or things like that — actually, I'll allow myself a digression here: what a horrible habit I have of starting a piece of writing by saying that I don't believe in this or that, as if I were about to present an argument in a debate, and instead of being about to tell something in this semi-personal diary corner of the internet; a reflection of my overly argumentative personality, I guess. Digression aside, I'll get back to it: I'm not much of a believer in astral hell, Mercury retrograde, or whatever. When your life is a continuous streak of bad luck, one more or one less catastrophe doesn't make a difference. But this month challenged me and made me believe in astral hell, because we're just over a week away from my birthday and I've already had at least five financial setbacks, including my laptop and my cell phone breaking in a space of less than ten days. Forgive me those who are Libras or October Scorpios, but what a hell of a month!

Contrary to what it might seem, I'm less upset than I would have imagined. Of course, I'm a tightwad (it’s what my mother always says, and rightly so), and I get too attached to things. I've had the same cell phone for almost five years, and had the same laptop for even longer: it went through three different chargers, a replacement of the charger port, and a screen replacement before the hard drive finally called it quits and since the repair cost more than it was worth, it was enough to make me give up and buy another laptop. It's in my nature to try to save even what is beyond repair. I'm the kind of person who is still in touch with my first childhood friend, because even though this friend and I are tremendously different — from each other, and from the people we were when we met — I insist and hold on to all those last threads of relationships so as not to let anyone go. I still have the same account on this website, the same pseudonym since I was 14, and I haven't even changed my picture out of pure attachment. The worst years of my life were precisely those that were most disruptive to my routine, when I saw everything that was familiar slip through my fingers no matter how hard I tried to hold on to it.

I won’t lie and say that I don’t miss certain periods. I think about some years in particular — 2015, 2021 — and remember them fondly. Always the penultimate years before something ends for good, because the end is terrifying, and I can enjoy life better when I think that I still have time. I still have a year of high school to complete, I still have a year of college to finish, I still have a year of post-grad to be done, it’s always been like that. It’s in this breather before the inevitable change that I feel most comfortable: when you’re used to a routine, and you know that you still have time to wallow in it. But lately I’ve noticed that change has been disturbing me less, because I’m changing too: not the painful metamorphoses of before, apotheotic, going from black to white, but gradually. Turning gray, lighter gray, even lighter gray. I’m starting to accept that some friendships will go, or at least won’t be as close as before, without letting this affection die inside me. I'm accepting what life is like as a working woman, with schedules and everything. I'm accepting that I'm different from other people, always have been, always will be, and that maybe there's no answer as to why. Idiopathic.

I've been trying not to let things get to me so much, to practice gratitude, or whatever. I have a good job, and I'm grateful for it. I'm finding myself in my career, and I'm grateful for that. I bought a new laptop because my old one really couldn't work anymore. Things have been much, much worse for me. I've spent months crossing the street without looking both ways, hoping that a car would come and run me over. But this overly grateful talk makes me sick, truly nauseated, because I'm also ambitious, and I'm not content with what I have. I always want more, and that's a source of eternal dissatisfaction, but also of growth. I am a duality between wanting the comfortable stagnation of routine and always doing new and intellectually stimulating things, which is an inexhaustible source of conflict in my restless and contradictory nature. This year, I did many things that pushed me out of my comfort zone: I did everything I could to get a promotion at work, I’m pursuing a specialist’s degree, I published a completely original book and took the risk of entering it into a competition. I did all of this without knowing if it would work. And I, who have always been a coward, suddenly stopped being one for a few moments.

In about a week, I will be 26 years old. Technically, Saturn's return — the dreaded time that everyone says is a period of intense life transformation — does not occur until you’re 27 or 29 years old: I calculated mine, and it is scheduled for April 2028, when I will be close to turning 30. I still have time until then, and I don't know if it is placebo effect or not, but I am already starting to feel the change. Saturn is the planet of difficulties and trials, and I understand this better than anyone else. Everyone always fears Saturn's return, because it demands the lessons that life has taught us; it is the last breath of youth. Saturn is the executioner of time, but it also has its duality, being the god of hidden wealth, agriculture, and transformation. I'm afraid that I'm not doing enough, and when my turn comes, I'll fall like someone knocked down by a wave that's too big. After all, the zenith of my birth chart is Jupiter, the opposite of Saturn, the planet of glories, excesses, and blessings, and I don't know how to be moderate. I'm all or nothing, I often take a step too far, but things usually work out, oddly enough. Jupiter always brings luck. Saturn shrank my social circle, but brought valuable friends; it made my career go through ups and downs (and talk about downs!) until I found enough motivation and passion within myself to make it soar; it made adapting to social life, with its incomprehensible rituals, a martyrdom, until I realized that I don't need or want to be like other people, that I like my distorted perspective because of sheer egocentrism; it made my dreams seem as distant as the distance between Earth and the planet of rings, but in less than a week, I will be in the audience of a Smashing Pumpkins concert. My favorite band, in fact, the band of my life. Many years ago, when I wrote “Agnosthesia”, I prophesied this tour, and I prophesied that I would be there to see it. Since everything in nature is composed of cycles, I always end up returning to “Agnosthesia”, and to the same idea as before. If what I once wrote can become reality, it gives me hope, and makes me think that perhaps I am not wrong in practicing the antithesis of what the first paragraph of this story represents by closing my eyes, before going to sleep, and always wishing for the same thing, that wish.

[goombasa]

Getting Past My Own Terror When Trying New Things

So over the last couple of years, i've been trying several new hobbies.

A lot of them I ended up dropping not long after starting them, much to my shame.

Now I'm back to at least dabbling in a lot of them, chiefly trying to learn digital art (both vector and raster), dabbling in game design, and fiddling around with some DAWs and banging out some simple tunes. If I had the space, I would love to drag out my fabric scraps and take another go at sewing again. I've dropped and picked up all these different hobbies on and off again for like a decade, ever since leaving college, but I just never could keep up with them. I've pondered on why for a while. A part of it might just be me. I do have difficulty focusing on things from moment to moment, but I think it's something a bit deeper than that: I think it's because I'm terrified of failure, and that terror is really hard to get over.

I compare something like drawing, something that I've only really attempted to do since leaving college, and writing, something that I've been doing constantly since middle school. At this point, writing feels like second nature to me. It's something that I've trained since very early in my life, to the point where I don't even see it as a skill anymore, it's just a part of me, something that I do. Drawing though, I haven't done any serious attempts at art since I was required to back when I was in school. I didn't really do it beyond those required art classes, and only took an interest in trying to learn it after my time in the education system was over, and now, when I try to work on it, I'm easily frustrated by the fact that progress is slow. I get intimidated and frustrated, and not long after that, I end up putting it down and not touching it again for months on end until I muster up the courage to try again. As you can imagine, this hasn't led to me making much progress.

And therein lies the issue; I want to make progress, I want to get better, and create something I feel more comfortable with sharing with other people. But I'm terrified. I know I shouldn't be, but I am. Recently, I've taken to trying very, very hard to push past that terror, that mental block that keeps telling me that, due to the fact that I'm not instantly good at it and immediately making progress, that must mean I'll never get better at it and therefore should just quit while I'm ahead. It's an incredibly toxic mindset to have about myself and my own abilities, but no matter how many times I'm reminded that things like drawing are skills that need to be trained and fostered over long periods of time, my mind works against me to tell me that if I'm not making masterpieces after a month of taking a handful of free courses on Youtube, well then, obviously I'm never going to be good at it and I should stop trying.

I've mostly forgotten one of the most important parts of trying something new, especially if it's mostly just supposed to be for a hobby and not a professional skill, at least not in the near future: have fun with it. And that's something that I've been trying hard to force into my skull at this point. I shouldn't be forcing myself to learn a new skill if I'm not going to enjoy it. I want to learn to draw because I want to create in a new way, something that's unfamiliar to me. I shouldn't worry about whether it is good or not, I shouldn't worry about what other people think of it, but years of being exposed to the idea that if it isn't good enough to sell then it isn't good enough to show has made me very self conscious of my own creations. It's a bad time.

But I think this finally might be receding. I first noticed when I stopped constantly posting to youtube, putting out videos quickly in order to try and keep my channel relevant, that I just felt better. When I started to work on videos at my own pace, just work on them when I feel like it, no matter how shoddy they were, I felt happier with the end result because I didn't feel compelled to make them out of obligation or worry. I was having fun making things again.

And I have to apply that same sort of mentality to my new hobbies if I want to keep making progress. I want to get better, for my own satisfaction.

I'm curious if anyone else out there has had a similar sort of epiphany about their own hobbies. Have you experienced that feeling of just not feeling like you're progressing fast enough, or at all, even when you're new at something. Please, let me know, how'd you get over that hurdle, how'd you get past your own personal mind games and just enjoy the stuff that you do, the stuff that you make. I'm very interested to hear how others deal with this phenomenon.