#anyway I like absolutely nothing I'm making so i'm sending this out into the void anyway

[runawaymun]

fighting for my life against art block and idk it might be working

[wolverineluvr]

Yandere Satosugu x reader

TW: Gore, murder of a child(readers son), Geto and Gojo r unhinged, angst, age gap(reader is 25-35 and SatoSugu r like 18-19), Geto didn't defect, fem!reader.

You scream and cry as Satoru bats your son, Hikaru, around as though he's a ball of yarn and Satoru's a cat. "Please- I'm sorry!" You sob. Your stomach twists until there's nothing but a knot and turns as Hikaru falls to the floor with a thud and a weak call out for you. "It's all gonna be okay, don't worry. We'll give you a new kid real soon." Suguru coos into your ear. His arms are hooked under your armpits, forcing you to just stand and watch as Satoru grins and shuffles around in his pocket.

He fishes out a knife. "Sugu'...How should I finish him off? Knife, or unlimited void?" Satoru asks in a tone that indicates he's clearly proud of something. "Let's let her choose," Suguru responds and you can hear the smile on his face. "and you can't choose neither cus then we're just gonna do both, got it?"

You don't know what to do. What the fuck is an unlimited void anyways? "She's taking too long so I'm gonna give her a timer." Satoru sighs, but there's still that stupid grin on his face you wish you could wipe off his face. Satoru raises one of his hands, the fingers extended and he puts down one as he counts slowly, like he's not counting down for the death of your 6 year old son.

One.

You look down at the bloodied face of your child, his nose is bleeding and there's dirt on his cheek—his crying smudges the red blood and the dirt, making a small patch of mud along the way. Knife or unlimited void?

Two.

You look back up at Satoru—he's looming over Hikaru like a snake and a mouse—his eyes are gleaming with sick and twisted joy. He looks up at you, his expression asking you: the knife or unlimited void?

Three.

What do you choose? What if the plan with the knife is to give him an easy and quick death, stabbing Hikaru's brain or something like that? Would that even be an easy death? You don't know. What if the plan is to just cut him open while he's still alive and rip out his organs, or to just stab him over and over again? Knife or unlimited void?

Four.

What even is unlimited void? Is it the name of his car or gun or something? What does it mean? Is this even happening? It can't be, can it? It was just a normal day before all this, and now you're debating the better option of what your son should die from? And one of them is something you don't even know? Knife or unlimited void?

Five.

You can hear Satoru's voice becoming absolutely giddy as he sits on the back of Hikaru, making sure he stays in place as Hikaru weakly calls out for you again. You don't want to choose. You don't want to watch your son die. Why is this even happening? Knife or unlimited void?

Six.

Satoru puts down up one of the five down fingers, still counting. Suguru sighs behind you as he feels your heartbeat quicken and race like you're running a marathon, "you don't have to look" you hear Suguru murmur. But that doesn't help. Closing your eyes won't help. You'll still hear his cries and sobs for help. You'll still feel the insane guilt of doing nothing while your son is crying out for you. Knife or unlimited void?

Seven.

"I'll cover your ears" Suguru offers. You can't do anything but sob and continue to struggle in his grasp. He knows it's not your fault you had a kid. You didn't know you belonged to them yet. He presses a small kiss to the spot behind your ear, sending unpleasant shivers down your spine. But the same question is going through your mind, knife or unlimited void?

Eight.

You try to plead with Satoru, offering that you'll do anything for him to stop. He just shakes his head, though you notice a slight change in his face. He seems a little more..sorry. But he doesn't let up, still sitting on top of Hikaru's back and gripping the knife in his hands. Knife or unlimited void?

Nine.

You feel nauseous. This isn't real. It can't be. You don't know what to do. Why? Why? Why? You hate Satoru and Suguru with everything inside of you. ..Knife or unlimited void?

Ten.

Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or unlimited void? Knife or-

"Please.." You sob and Satoru just shakes his head. "Choose, now." Suguru demands into your ear. "K-knife.." Your voice is trembling as you speak, hoping, begging, praying, that the knife was the better option.

But as you watch Satoru sink the knife into the back of Hikaru's hand, you know that's not true. "Mom-my-" Hikaru weeps out, his voice weak and clearly in pain. "Oh, you're crying out to your mommy? That's too bad, 'cus your mom belongs to me and Suguru okay? She doesn't love you anymore." Satoru mockingly coos as he leans more down towards Hikaru's head.

Hikaru just cries and screams as Satoru takes the knife from his hand before getting off of him, turning Hikaru over and onto his back. Satoru quickly starts to stab Hikaru's stomach over and over and over and over and over again. His shrieks and wails are drowned out by your own. They don't say anything, but Suguru moves and wraps his arms around you in a hug like this is hurting him more than it hurts you.

"It's okay." Suguru murmurs into your ear, as you see Satoru take the knife out of Hikaru's limp body once more, before pulling up his shirt, revealing the many stab wounds in his small torso. He takes the top of the knife into Hikaru's chest and begins to cut a line down, making a rectangle from the middle of Hikaru's chest down to his abdomen.

Your wailing has stopped and now only weak weeps are escaping your wet lips as you watch Satoru rip off the skin of the rectangle he made in Hikaru's torso. His organs have been revealed and Satoru starts to dig through them, making his fingers and palms messy and bloody.

The wet and horrible noises of Satoru ripping out Hikaru's small intestines and setting them aside don't register in your ears, all you can hear is ringing. He continues to dig, taking out all of the organs that he doesn't want before maneuvering his hands up and swiftly ripping out Hikaru's heart. Satoru stands, picking up Hikaru's intestines and he begins to walk towards you. Your eyes and cheeks are wet with your tears, snot bubbling at your nose, all of the mucus makes it hard to breath through your nose, so your mouth is open.

You're shaking as Satoru stands in front of you, your vision blurry as you stare at the organs that belong to your son in Satoru's hands. And the tears start flowing again. Your voice cracks as you loudly wail, your throat sore from crying so much already.

"It's gonna be okay, don't worry. You'll forget allll about him. Right Sugu'?" He smiles as he looks away from your face and at Suguru's. The long haired man nods, smiling back as Satoru moves and puts Hikaru's intestines on Suguru's shoulders like a morbid necklace. He then moves and grabs your hands, pressing the heart of your little boy in-between them and wrapping his hands around yours.

"We'll give you all the kids you want."

Notes: Sorryyy I haven't been posting as much!!!! I haven't had much motivation to write but I am trying to expand the types of things I write <33

[sugarpasteltmnt]

I've been compleatly OBSSESED with neon void so far!!! It's by far my favorite fic of any I've read!! After every chapter I have to take a second to do the happy stimmies because you write all of the scenes so well. Whenever I see a new update I clear the next hour for reading it and the subsequent geek out sesion for how AMAZING it always is. You write extremely well, you convey the characters so acurately, the fight scenes are creative, the way you write Leo's perspective is AMAZING, love the font changes, the angst PALPABLE, and just over all I love everything you're able to do with this concept. The way you can see Leo's mental state deteriorating through out the fic is just *chefs kiss*. There's so much I love about the fic that I can't possibly list everything.

Also the established difference between teleporting and portaling is so great, it adds to the pure panic that void causes for the boys aside from, y'know, crazy dude capable of beating Big Mama within an inch of her life and STRAIGHT UP OFFING a buch of other yokai. It does wonders for establishing him as a threat even though he technically isn't for the turtles. Plus I'm sure that once they find out who Void really is, it will add a bunch of tension since they'll need to stop Leo from literally SCATTERING HIS ATOMS ACROSS SPACE.

AND THE CHAPTER PREVIEW ISTG I've never gotten so much serotonin from being in this much pain ;0; The gif is perfect to set the mood, I can't wait to see what happens. You're ablility to choose just the right thing to stab so many people directly through the heart is nothing short of super-natural. BUT PLEASE give the boi some happiness, if not for his sake, for mine-

ANYWAYS this is all a VERY long way of saying, I absolutely love this and I had to draw the silly boi being the silly boi. I needed to draw him happy for the health of my heart ;-; (don't worry though, I'm working on some tasty angst right now)

Can't wait to see where everything goes, GOOD LUCK TO CASEY but there only six chapters left so we're getting to the end game now >:D

Please have a wonderful rest of your week :D

THANK U SO MUCH ;w; I’m so so happy that my fight scenes are followable/enjoyable, and tho they are a binch to code I’m so happy you enjoy the funky fonts and formatting ;w; i know reading blocks of text can be intimidating/tiring for readers, so i try to break it up to help with the pacing and sprinkle in some fun, spooky fonts as treats 🩵

Something i really, REALLY loved about Rise was the fights. Not only was the animation amazing, but it was always so creative. I try my best to make the fight scenes as silly as the boys can be, while utilizing their adaptive skills to use their surroundings to their advantage.

And bruh trying to balance Leo’s insanity in a believable way has been such a (fun) challenge so it makes me so happy to hear you like it 😭🥺 and I’m so glad people seem to like the ‘teleportation’ gimmick I’ve got going on (and that it hopefully makes sense omg)

(And i will admit I’m a little proud of my chapter previews because they are so fun to write, and i like to reassure readers that 1) i have a plan and 2) I’m keeping myself accountable to finish LOL)

Also aksdlaskdhaksdh thank u for this art this part especially is SENDING ME WHEEZE 🤣🩵❗️

[sburbian-sage]

Hi skepticArbiter!

I don't know how long it's been on your end since you posted that GristTorrent ask, but your offhanded proposal of a Universal Grist Bank has driven my ADHD to heights of hyperfixation that have never been seen before. It has been months. Being a native Smith of Coins that's about what you'd expect, lol. Anyway! I bring it up because the session I'm currently in is serendipitously about the absolute best group I could ask for in making the idea a reality. It really feels like the Shine itself legitimately just manifested itself and forced whatever the infinitesimally small chance of something like this actually happening I swear to dog.

Thirteen of us, all have made it through at least ten sessions (with CERTAIN PEOPLE at significantly more than that-- 32 if she's to be believed and I've seen no evidence to the contrary and lots of proof that it's true) and managed to naturally reroll our native classpects. All of us. Not a lick of vagabouncy. It's insane. Both of our cardinal aspects’ first playthroughs were duet sessions. There's public proof several places on the replayernet going back timestamps that our Bane of Stage, Page of Mist, and Rouge of Sand have been sessionmates before. The Bane of Stage hunts Azurites for Fun and Him Time, 12 confirmed PK kills that I am aware of. Our Waste of Law(aforementioned 32 session legend) is awesometier. Several of us are pre-replayernet loose veterans. Our tactician classes, Flux player, and Mind player have been freaking out like ants when their trail gets stepped on. No major glitches or bugs so far, knock on wood. It feels too good to be true but in discussing it all of us dealt with capital-b-Bullshit scenarios with Light players in our last runs so I'm just trying to enjoy it without ruining it worrying.

I'm sending this message primarily to let you know that this is actually happening, and to thank you for coming up with the UGB in the first place. But also, I have come with some questions. I have never had to deal with the Others before (miraculous in it's own right tbh) and thus have absolutely no idea what to expect. I'm not part of the side that's doing the bartering, but I've known a good chunk of this group over the replayernet for a pretty long time and consider many dear friends(another insane thing to actually happen- us ending up together) and I am. Concerned. Everyone says “oh they do impossible bargins” and “will take parts of your soul” but I've never seen anyone actually SPECIFY what the terms for their deals are. It's not that I don't believe it's really that bad, it's just I'd much rather know than not know, you know? Is it a faux pas I'm not aware of to talk about it? Since you had to do it yourself for your ring journey I figured you'd be as good a place as any to ask and since it's over text it might not be as impactful for you as asking my friends face to face potentially could be for them, I apologize if that's incredibly insensitive of me.

For further context, the group is split so some of us are working on bartering with the others (Rouge of Sand, Guide of Void, Maid of Rage), some of us are actually making the physical server and programming the necessary software (myself, Witch of Time, Sage of Dreams, Heir of Sound), some are doing both (Waste of Law, Ward of Mind, Sylph of Flux), and our Seer of Space, Bane of Stage, and Page of Mist are covering taking care of session stuff where they can for now so the rest of us can focus on getting everything together for the bank.

Thank you again, and in advance for any insight you are willing to share,

snugglySocialist

Holy shit! I'm glad that an offhanded statement I meant mostly as a joke finally led to good things happening, instead of just getting me in trouble. Though that could still happen if I endorse this and it turns into an All Or Nothing situation, so pull through if you can. I said it before and I'll say it again, if you pull this off then not only will you have the eternal of gamebreakers, people who accidentally break their game, and anyone in a Ring Journey, but your handles will be put in the history books right next to the guy who figured out the Alimentator hack.

As for your question, I'm afraid I'm not a good firsthand source of information on this topic. I did not make the bargain for the Ring Journey I'm on, someone else did it. You are right that information is hard to come by, but "it's difficult to talk about" is only one reason out of three. Some people hide the nature of their bargains for protection. Especially if it's a larger operation like a Ring Server, if the presence of the server hinges upon X condition being fulfilled, and some malefactor wants to take down the site, best not to let them know which conditions to break. The third reason is that "not disclosing details of the bargain to other people" may itself be a condition of the bargain. It is, in fact, as annoying as it sounds, and all of these combined (not to mention the fact that writing down anything about the Others is a passive source of corruption) makes this topic a bitch to gain any information about.

For your purposes, the institution of a Ring Server isn't that big of an ask, so I don't think the price will be literally impossible or metaphorically impossible (like "consume the hearts of all of your friends and set yourself on fire", that's basically their catty way of saying "we're not giving you a deal"). However, something like a Universal Grist Bank has significantly more "oomph" behind it than an online archive, social media page, or weirdass elitist bookclub. Standard bargaining practice is to respond to any price they give you with "that is too much", in which case they'll either lower the price, or solidify that the price is set.

As for the actual prices, it varies. The Transamphibian founders can't use their real names anymore. CorpseParty got shut down because someone used the server to try and scry cross-session, which apparently violated the deal. In general though, the prices set seem almost spiteful. "They take bits of your soul" is more metaphorical than literal, like really fond memories, your reputation, relationship with someone important, and in the worst cases your ability to engage in a hobby that you consider fundamental to your sense of being. I think there's at least one case where someone's condition was that they can't use any Replayer Network, which effectively unpersons them (this information was shared secondhand for obvious reasons and thus couldn't be verified). It's impossible to tell what the deal is until you have it, and all of your efforts to establish the UGB are basically bottlenecked into dealing with those guys, who can make or break the entire project. And they know this. And you have no power over them, only than knowing that they will not do anything to you unless you ask them to do it. There's really no further advice I can give you other than...

Lawyer up. Read the fine print, argue for fairness as much as possible, and don't let yourself get worked over any more than is necessary.

Once you accept a deal, stick with it. There are no "grace periods", take-backs, or hiding an infraction. If the terms of the deal are broken, the UGB goes up in flames basically forever (unless you make another deal to "recover it").

Genuinely, genuinely, don't chew off more than you can swallow. If the terms of the contract are unlivable to any of the people undertaking it, don't do it.

There is one other aspect I should mention, which is that if the conditions of the deal only concern one person, the deal will still be upheld once that person dies. So if the condition is "nobody can upload Build Grist" and someone uploads Build Grist, then the website is kill. But if the condition is "none of the founders can alchemize anything anymore, and all of the founders end up dying, then the site will stay up. Though it'll obviously need new administrators. Sorry for the macabre example, but this is a little-known facet of Other bargains that not a lot of people know about, and it's why a lot of the older servers and networks are still up.

[lipstickmarks]

Eddie: *tries to kiss Chrissy*

Chrissy: wait Eddie I have morning breath!

Eddie: Princess you know exactly where my mouth was last night do you really think a little morning breath is going to bother me?

Boooooo, Tumblr just barely showed me this ask from FEBRUARY! Ugh anyway, here's some horny stuff :)

Eddie is so the type to make absolutely absurd naughty remarks just to make Chrissy blush and wine. Chrissy really is the epitome of the "I'm shy but deep down wanna get fucked like a whore" meme.

He Looks Up Grinning Like a Devil

Pairing: Eddie Munson X Chrissy Cunningham

Word Count: 1.3K

Warnings: Bondage, cum denial, possessive Eddie, alternating POV, established relationship, smut, oral sex (f receiving), nipple play, unprotected sex, slight overstimulation, slight Dom/sub dynamics (m Dom, f sub).

Keep reading

His tongue was deep inside her, licking and suckling at just the right spots, pulling moan after moan from her.

"Eddie..." Chrissy mewled, her face warm and contorted in pleasure.

Eddie said nothing, he didn't need to. He swirled his tongue around her clit, sending a pulse of pleasure throughout Chrissy's core. She tried to squeeze her legs together but Eddie's head prevented her from doing so. In fact, she couldn't go anywhere even if she tried.

Eddie had either of Chrissy's wrists pinned to his bed frame and her thighs slung over his shoulders while he ate her out. It was something they just recently tried and Chrissy was surprised how much she enjoyed it. In fact, she was the one who broached the subject.

"So, I read this story in Cosmo... about this couple who tried this thing in bed--"

Soon after that, the silk scarves became part of their routine. Eddie would pin Chrissy's wrists back while he kissed her and then, once she was sated and bound, he would fuck her in any way he pleased until she was shaking and crying.

Tonight was no different.

"Jesus Christ, Eddie." Chrissy whined as Eddie licked her to the brink of an orgasm. She felt the familiar build up and her skin felt like it was on fire. "I'm gonna cum!"

And no sooner than she said it did Eddie completely withdraw from her, leaving Chrissy empty and pulsating around nothing. She made an affronted squawk- how dare he! She had been so close to finishing, she could feel a phantom orgasm ghosting through her body

"Eddie!" Chrissy whined.

Eddie crawled over Chrissy's body, balancing himself over her in a push-up position. He held himself up by his fists and drank Chrissy in, admiring the ways in which her body reacted to him.

He leaned down and wrapped his lips around her nipple, sucking harshly. Marking Chrissy up was almost as enjoyable as making her cum. Eddie relished in the fact that everyone would know Chrissy was his.

He lowered his body onto Chrissy's, his bare chest flush against hers. The only clothes he still had on were his black ripped jeans. Chrissy, on the other hand, was completely naked for him.

While he sucked a bruise onto on nipple, he used his right hand to feel up the other side. Chrissy moaned at the dual sensation.

Eddie was so evil, bringing her to the brink of pleasure just to draw back and then wind her up again. Everyone who had ever warned her about him was right- he was a devil. A delectable, hedonistic, euphoric devil who lured her into his garden.

And she would happily rot away here. The thought of spending her days in Eddie's bed, twisted into any position he wanted her, taking pounding after pounding, orgasming to the point that her vocal chords gave out. Everyone loves to say that Eddie hypnotized Chrissy- used some kind of dark magic to kidnap her. And if that were the case? Chrissy was more than happy to spend the rest of her days bare fleshed with her captor as his pliable, fuckable doll.

Without warning, Eddie reached down with his free hand and slid a finger into her, filling the void left when he removed his head from between her legs.

"More, Eddie please, use two fingers, I need more." Chrissy begged, her eyes screwing shut.

He released her tit from his mouth and placed a series of wet, open-mouthed kisses to her chest. "Anything you desire, my love." He said, adding another finger.

Chrissy moaned from the extra pressure. Two fingers wasn't quite comparable to Eddie's dick but it was something. He pumped his two fingers in and out of her quickly, then added a third.

"Ah!" She cried out, yanking her arms against the restraints. She wanted to tangle her fingers into Eddie's hair; stroke his face, run her nails down his back, palm him through his jeans, something.

"You wanna get your hands all over me, dontcha, pretty girl?" Eddie purred.

Chrissy nodded pathetically.

"Please, Eddie I want to touch you."

Eddie crawled further up her body and placed a kiss to her lips, then her jaw, then her collarbone, and then he trailed a line of kisses across her shoulder, and down her arm , all the way to her wrists where she was tied up.

He sat up and grabbed the two ends of the scarf. Chrissy sighed in relief at the opportunity to finally touch Eddie... until she felt him tighten the restraints.

"Eddie!" Chrissy pouted.

Eddie smirked as he tightened the other restraint.

"Sorry, sweetheart, I just love watching you squirm." Eddie took Chrissy's chin in his hand and gave her a lazy smile. "You can touch me all you want after I get my dick in you, kay?"

Chrissy nodded, though a pout remained. She wanted to touch Eddie, desperately, but she also knew what was coming next would be even more thrilling.

Eddie disrobed completely and stroked himself before he climbed onto the bed once more. He teased her with just the tip, swirling his head around her entrance before he finally pushed into her.

"Ahh!" Chrissy cried as her walls were stretched out from Eddie's girth.

Once he bottomed out, Chrissy sighed contentedly.

Eddie silenced her sigh with a kiss, eagerly mashing his lips against hers. He slid his tongue in and kissed her hard and deep.

When he pulled away from the kiss, he placed his large hands on her hips and nuzzled into her neck.

"You ready for me?"

Chrissy nodded, pressing her forehead to Eddie's.

"I'm ready."

With her go ahead, Eddie started moving. The two of them had been in a physical relationship for the last two months. It had been hot and heavy from the get-go, as if the two of them were put on this Earth to make love to one another. Eddie usually took his time, but sometimes he was just in the mood to fuck her hard and fast.

He snapped his hips against hers in a ferverish rush. He pumped in and out of her while pressing kisses to her neck. Chrissy tried to pull against the restraints again, but to no avail. Eddie double-knotted them this time.

All she could do was lay there while Eddie fucked her until she came.

The pressure was almost dizzying. Eddie managed to hit all the right spots. Chrissy threw her head back onto the pillow and screamed as he fucked her.

She was panting, moaning, sweating, and she could feel Eddie everywhere. It was too much and not enough at the same time. Chrissy could feel her forgotten orgasm from earlier building back up.

"Eddie, I'm gonna-"

"Go ahead, sweetheart." He said, kissing her.

It didn't take more than a few thrusts before Chrissy was cumming, hard. She cried out as the sensation ricocheted through her entire body.

Eddie didn't stop, though. He fucked her through her orgasm until he was spilling into her as well. He gritted his teeth but couldn't help the little scream that fell from his lips. Chrissy was his undoing, she always had been.

Chrissy panted, absolutely spent from the exertion. Eddie disappeared into the bathroom to grab a washcloth. When he came back, he cleaned her up and placed kisses to her thighs while he did so.

He tossed the washcloth into the hamper and then untied the scarves, but not without taking each of her hands in his and pressing delicate kisses to her wrists.

"How do you feel, Barbie?"

Chrissy giggled at the nickname. She was in a daze. She felt completely at ease and honestly couldn't remember the last time she was this relaxed. Eddie seemed to have that effect on her, ever since that day in the woods.

"Happy."

[articskele]

BERNADETTE BY IAMX IS SUCH A CEDRIC SONG. GODDDDDDDD.

HE MAKES ME SICK!!!!!! OHH I'M SO ILL I'M SO UNWELL. AUGHHHHHHh I NEED TO THROW THIS MAN INTO THE RIVER

In the first part of the song, Bernadette refers to his childhood best friend Dove. Not wanting her to leave after she found out about the murder, singing sickly sweet nothings of a future where they can stay as they are, as they've always been.

Dove was the only one that's been there for him all these years and he cannot bear to lose her now. He may be all socially savvy and popular and whatnot, but behind that mask he's vulnerable. He has no one else.

OOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO NOW THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET INTERESTING

Cedric finds himself stuck "out of bounds" (kinda like the Backrooms) where he meets Artic, and they absolutely HATE each other at first but they're forced to work together in order to get out. There's a whole enemies-to-friends thing, they try to kill each other multiple times, it's great

Cedric has always been haunted by death and abandonment, doomed to lose the people closest to him. His parents, Dove, Mel... Even his name is an echo of his uncle, the late Cedric Anthony Stone. Either by circumstance or his own hands, they slip through his fingers all the same.

"We are alone, no one to blame" is just. Goddd. Neither of them asked for this. There is no fate or divine ruling in this place, only the things that happen and how we respond to them. Two lost souls that were never even supposed to meet, now wandering a barren landscape with little hope for survival. Hands intertwined, warm skin against frigid bone. They have no one else.

At one point, they encounter an "anti-cheat" entity (think smth like the Dungeon Guardian from Terraria, insta-killing you for being where you shouldn't be) in the form of this HUGE archangel. Cedric kneels before it, fully expecting to die. But Artic doesn't back down, giving him this look of "I'm not giving up on you."

HERE THE CHORUS TAKES ON A WHOLE NEW MEANING, NOW REFERRING TO ARTIC. It’s no longer a selfish serenade, there’s real weight behind the words as this one moment signals a HUGE turning point in Cedric’s character.

So much confusion and awe and guilt and hope just hit him all at once and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Even in the face of certain death, Artic is standing up for him. Staring into the eyes of a being well beyond their comprehension. Putting her life on the line for some random human that’s done nothing but be an insufferable asshole to her.

And it’s just. So baffling to him?? Why would she do this?? They're going to die anyway. Or maybe, just maybe, they still have a chance. He still has a chance.

The chaos that follows is a blind scramble to escape, daring to defy binary gospel. This place is volatile; any wrong step could send you tumbling into an infinite void, any object could kill you with unimaginable force due to collision errors. And this so-called angel could rend their very souls apart with the slightest touch. If death is even possible here, that is.

Glass is shattered. Wings are set alight. Howling screams still ring in their ears as Artic and Cedric flee the scene, running until their legs give out. They are alive, and that is all that matters.

They find temporary refuge in an empty library, tending to their wounds and getting some much needed rest. But the end of the song carries a foreboding air; neither of them know what lies ahead, much less whether or not they'll be able to survive it. But they must carry on.

[katrinawritesthings]

Kibum / Taemin; unstoppable force meets an immovable object ; PG

Taemin texting Kibum asking him to guilt him into taking a shower because he is 5 weeks stinky

He brings one hand up and sneaks it under Key’s shirt to stick his finger into his belly button. ”Beep beep,” he says. Then, before Key can even react to that, he puts his hand back in his lap and looks up again. “Did you want to do my hair because you were having a panic attack about how you think your life is careening wildly out of control again?” he asks blandly.

Key is stressed. He's stressed and disturbed and unsettled and all over the place and a mess. He has so much shit going on in general that he has to deal with and he has to plan for and he has to get over with but there's absolutely nothing that he can do right now at this second. He has absolutely jack shit to do right now and it's stressing him out. He can't not do something. Because when he doesn't do anything then he's not doing anything and he's wasting time and time is money and so he's wasting money and he already doesn't have enough money because capitalism is a burden on the universe itself but that doesn't stop it from dragging him down into the spiraling void of darkness crushing responsibilities that overwhelm him but can't be fixed or helped right now and he can't seemed to calm himself down because it's just him all alone doing nothing and he feels so so so small in a world that's so so so big and he also feels like he can't really breathe and what he really needs is—

From: Gremlin Boi Hey can you guilt me into taking a shower it's been like 5 weeks : (

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Key mutters to himself as he checks his phone. His panic attack continues but he texts a reply to Taemin anyway (“yeah okay I'm coming over in 20 minutes and you better not be stinky when I get there”) and snatches his bag up from where he left it on the table. This is exactly what he needs. He loves Taemin and his perfect timing. Taemin sends him back a “D: okay thanks” as he's slamming his front door behind him.

This is good. This is helpful. He'll spend some time with Taemin and baby him some and make Taemin buy him dinner and he won't think about everything else in the world and how it's constantly two inches away from crushing him at any given moment. It'll be great.

The next time he checks his phone, it's after he's pulled up in front of Taemin’s house and turned off the car. He has another text, “hey I procrastinated for like 15 minutes but I'm getting in now and I left the back door unlocked for you,” that he reads and rolls his eyes at before leaving the car. He heads up and around the side of Taemin’s house, getting on his tippy-toes to reach over the fence gate and finagle the lock open and then continuing around until he hits the back door and lets himself into the laundry room.

Taemin’s house is dark and smells vaguely like unwashed clothes, like usual, but with a hint of the strawberry scented candle that his therapist gifted him for his birthday a couple of months ago. Key heads to the kitchen and helps himself to a water bottle from the fridge. He keeps going until he reaches the bathroom, where he can see light coming from under the door and hear the shower running.

“Good boi,” he says to himself, and then leans on the wall next to the door and waits. Before too long he hears the water turn off, and then he gives it another minute for Taemin to actually be out of the shower. And then he knocks on the door with one knuckle. “Hey, stinky,” he calls.

“I'm not stinky,” is Taemin’s pouty reply. “Hi,” he adds. Key can hear the tiny smile in that one word just as clearly as he could hear the pout and he grumpily has to fight back a blush. Taemin is too cute for his own good.

“Hey,” he says, and he doesn't really mind that his voice sounds as soft as he feels. “Can I blow dry your hair for you?” he asks. He needs someone to take care of to distract himself from how he can barely take care of himself.

“Yeah, okay,” Taemin says. “Lemme put some clothes on first.” Key hums something in affirmative and resumes his waiting. After another minute, the bathroom door unlocks and pulls open, so Key slips inside and finds Taemin wearing loose sweats way low on his hips, an unbuttoned plaid shirt, and his lazy, sleepy smile that always makes Key stumble over his words. “Hey,” he says.

“Fuck you, looking at me like that, wearing all of that, you're doing it on purpose,” Key grumbles as he steps in and closes the door behind him. Taemin’s smile turns, if anything, even lazier.

“Doing what?” he asks. “Being hot? Because that's just how I am normally.”

“Fuck you,” Key says again, and then, “you feeling okay, Gremlin?” he asks, reaching up to run his fingers through Taemin’s wet hair. Taemin shrugs, lifting his own hand to rub his nose.

“Yeah, just, tired. A lot,” he says. “The usual.”

“Mmhmm,” Key says. He moves his hand down to push gently on Taemin’s shoulder. “Sit,” he demands, steering him towards the toilet. Taemin moves his wet towel off of the closed lid and sits obediently, lacing his fingers in his lap and twiddling his thumbs. “You texted me while I was busy having a panic attack, so, same,” he adds as he backs up a step and crouches down to pull open one of Taemin’s bathroom cabinets. Taemin hums back the same way he did as he grabs the hair dryer and straightens up again.

He jams the plug into the wall underneath Taemin's night light, then gets himself tangled in the cord for a moment before he sets up comfortably in front of Taemin, grabbing his brush from next to the sink. After he turns the dryer on, it's kind of too loud for them to keep talking—for Taemin, anyway, with his sleepy quiet voice—so they just exist together in relative, pleasant silence. Key pushes his hair out of the way of his undercut to dry that off first, just so it doesn't look all scruffy, and then parts Taemin’s hair down the middle like he likes and starts that.

He brushes through it gently, keeping it neat and going section by section, drying it and styling it at the same time. Nothing too fancy for Taemin to grumble about, but still nicely wavy and feathered out at the front, something pretty and cute and light for Key to look at later and be proud of himself. A minute in Taemin closes his eyes, smile tiny on his lips as he leans into Key’s hands and the heat of the dryer like he always does. He talks a lot about being an ocean gay but Key is still pretty sure that if there was ever an animal to describe this little grooming loving, heat craving, smug ass gremlin, it would be a cat.

Eventually, Taemin’s hair is nice and dry, styled pretty and Key feels satisfied with his work. He turns the dryer off and sets it on the counter, fluffing up Taemin’s hair with his other hand and smiling proudly. Hell yeah, he thinks.

“Hell yeah,” he says out loud.

“Hell yeah,” Taemin says, opening his eyes and blinking Key into focus. “can I get up?” he asks.

“Absolutely not,” Key says. He said hell yeah but he is absolutely not finished yet. It was a preliminary hell yeah. “Braids,” he says. Taemin needs braids. Or, technically, Key needs to make some braids. Braids are cute and require a lot of little attention to detail. He opens one of Taemin’s bathroom drawers and pulls out the little case of tiny colorful hair ties that he put in there for days like this.

“Okay,” Taemin says easily. As Key takes a little section of his hair and starts braiding it, over and hold and over and hold and over and hold, Taemin looks up at him with his dark, hooded eyes and a little knowing smirk that makes Key feel progressively more flustered. Scrunching his nose as he ties off the first braid, he squishes Taemin’s cheeks with both hands.

“You're doing it again,” he grumbles. Taemin’s grin spreads so wide that it shows teeth and his tongue bitten between them. He raises and lowers his eyebrows too and throws Key a whole ass wink from less than two feet away.

“I know,” he says. Key rolls his eyes and gathers up another little section of hair to braid. Gremlin asshole boi man. Key is too gay and soft for this. Taemin looks down after a second though, smiling to himself instead, shifting his weight on the toilet lid to be more comfortable. He brings one hand up and sneaks it under Key’s shirt to stick his finger into his belly button. ”Beep beep,” he says. Then, before Key can even react to that, he puts his hand back in his lap and looks up again. “Did you want to do my hair because you were having a panic attack about how you think your life is careening wildly out of control again?” he asks blandly.

Key hesitates for a moment long enough to lose his place in the braid he was making. He sighs as he tries to pick back up where he left off, lips puffed-up in annoyance at how predictable he is.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “sorry for using you,” he mumbles even quieter. He tries not to make it obvious, but he guesses Taemin just knows him too well to—

“Oh, please,” Taemin snorts. He shakes his head, messing up Key’s braid again, and stops quickly when Key narrows his eyes, but lifts both hands to poke all over his tummy instead. “If you're using me, then I'm using you,” he says. Key tilts his head, confused. He's not sure that that makes sense.

“Excuse?” he asks. He quickly finishes the second braid and ties it off before anything can happen to it again. Taemin shrugs, turning his head obediently when Key gently pushes on his jaw so he can get a better angle for a third braid on the other side of his part.

“I asked you to come over and help with my depression and you said yes,” he says. “And then you came over and asked me to help with your anxiety and I said yes.” He uses his new line of sight to pick out a blue hair tie from the case on the counter, wiggling it onto his finger and then holding it up for Key to grab when he's done. “No one's using anyone or making anyone do anything or whatever,” he says. “We're just two pals helping each other out with our fucky brains. You gotta not frame accommodations and favors that people do for you as burdens, dude.”

He says all of that so simply, casually but in a rehearsed sort of way that makes Key feel like he's either said it a lot before or heard it a lot before. Key surveys him contemplatively as he feels up his finger and pulls off the hair tie.

“Did you pick that up off of the street or did your therapist tell you that?” he asks. Taemin shrugs again.

“Jonghyun told me, yeah,” he says. “He's real good at, like, stopping all of that self depreciation shit.”

“Well, that's neat,” Key says, amused. Neat that Taemin is working on that for himself and neat that his therapist has somehow managed to give Key advice through him yet again. “He's probably right,” he mumbles. All of those things that Taemin said make sense, now that he's thinking about them.

“That's why I keep going to see him,” Taemin says airily. Key snorts into the back of his hand. That makes sense too. If his therapist hadn't been doing so well at his job for the past several months Taemin wouldn't keep going back and giving the hospital money every time.

“I'm still proud of you for deciding to go to therapy,” Key says. This time Taemin actually blushes a little bit instead of smiling and looks down at his lap. Key smirks to himself. Oh how the turntables. “It was really brave and I know how hard it was to make that decision for yourself,” he adds casually.

“Okay,” Taemin says loudly, frowning up at Key with red cheeks. “Stop that, stop validating me, you know you're gonna make me cry,” he snaps. Key stays quiet, shrugging his shoulders putting on his best innocent face, but he knows that that in and of itself speaks for him. Taemin stays quiet as well, and then, two little braids later, mumbles, “Thanks.” And then, as Key moves to start a sixth braid, blocks his hand by grabbing his wrist. “Can we go lie down?” he asks, pouting. Key knows that his pout is fake and he's just doing it to get Key to agree with him, but he agrees anyway, nodding and dropping Taemin’s hair. He's too cute always and Key can never say no to him.

He lets Taemin take him by the hand and walk him out of the bathroom, through the house, and into the living room, where Taemin hands him the TV remote before pushing him down onto the couch. Knowing what to expect, Key situates himself in a way where he can be comfortable on his back and still give Taemin room to be comfortable on top of him. He itches to get up and do something, to clean Taemin’s coffee table or do his dishes for him or make food or something, but he's been shut down by Taemin enough times before that he knows not to try. He doesn't feel like listening to another lecture about how he needs to chill and not take responsibility for every little thing that he sees ever. He's getting tired of admitting that Taemin is right.

Instead, when Taemin flops on top of him, he accepts the weight and hooks his leg around Taemin’s calves and an arm around his waist. With his other arm, he points the remote at the TV, turning it on and then flipping through the channels until he lands on his fashion shows. Taemin snorts into his shirt and turns his head to face the back of the couch, slipping his arms around under Key’s shoulders and wiggling to get comfortable. Key pleasantly ignores the judgment of his fashion shows in favor of clicking the volume up.

He does his best to immerse himself in the TV, rather than the moment. He does his best to pay attention to the show instead of paying attention to how his brain keeps nagging at him that he's not doing anything productive. He is being productive. He's being productive for himself, by taking it easy and taking it slow and letting himself calm down and relax. Taemin on top of him is a heavy, comforting weight, a heavy pressure that squishes him down but in a good way, in a physical way instead of a metaphorical way. Being squished like this is way better than when he feels like his soul is being squished by society.

It's hard, but he does manage to do it, eventually, a little over half an hour later. He's also managed to match his breath with Taemin’s, if not his heartbeat, but he'll take one out of two any day. Taemin, for his part, has been quiet the whole time. He's not asleep, but he is dozing, drooling a little puddle on to the front of Key’s shirt that Key can't bring himself to be upset about. What he can bring himself to be upset about is something that crosses his mind while he let it wander for a minute during a commercial break.

“Hey,” he says, lifting one hand to pap Taemin’s cheek. Taemin mumbles back a vague noise and rubs his cheek on Key’s chest to show that he's listening. Key frowns up at the ceiling, thinking. “You know how,” he says, “when you texted me you said it had been five weeks since you last showered?” he asks. Taemin nods with an agreeing little hum and Key frowns harder.

“But,” he continues, “you texted me two weeks ago inviting me to come over so you could lay on top of me?” he says. “You put your three week dirty gremlin body on top of me and didn't tell me you were stinky?”

“Yeah,” Taemin says. Key doesn't even have to look to know that he's grinning and very smug about something. “You said you liked how I smelled,” he says.

“I did not,” Key says immediately, even as the memory of him doing exactly that surfaces in his brain. He scrunches his nose at the ceiling. He did say that he liked the way that Taemin smelled 2 weeks ago. it was familiar and masculine and kind of sweaty and real comforting and—

“You liked it,” Taemin says smugly. “You like my musk.”

“Okay,” Key says loudly. Suddenly he's done talking about this. “Fuck you. Shut up.” Taemin doesn't say anything else but Key can hear and feel him giggling to himself. He sighs heavily and tries to focus back on the TV. He guesses it makes sense that he would like Taemin’s sweaty gross dirty smell. He likes everything else about Taemin anyway.

[beardedmrbean]

Hi, it's Dream Anon ! It's been a while, more than a year I think ? But a lot has happened dream-wise.

After the last couple of asks I sent, where I dreamt about being "hired" to be an NPC in other people's dreams, I kept having those "dream filming" moments about every night. No fanfare, not even a discussion with that greek/norse "dream goddess".

Then, around two weeks later, I discovered I had a carbon monoxide leak in my house. You'd think that would be the end of it, weird dream happenings end up being from a CO leak, you fix it and it's gone... except that after a month of having no dreams at all, it started happening again.

That time, I was directly in the white void again, and the dream goddess said something along the lines of "Your presence cannot be delayed any longer" (in my native language). Then it was like a cutscene or autoscroll from a video game, I followed her through what looked like a corridor with many different "scenes" around us, I distinctly remember seeing one of a sort of mountainous plateau, going "Oh, that looks like a Ghibli background", and the scrolling stopping for a moment before resuming. After some time (felt like forever), we ended up in a study, she took a seat, and I did too. She said "the fish closes the laser", and without thinking I answered "Just a different way of dodging". She sighed again and said "Dodging is temporary, the fish or the laser will end. I liked the cake, though.", then I woke up.

While I still don't understand what the hell is up with the fish and the laser, I remember very distinctly the dream it's from, where my school cafeteria gave me cake with a bite taken out of it, and it makes things even weirder. Did this dream goddess take a bite out of my slice of cake in a dream years ago ? Does that mean anything ??

And that's not even the worse part ! I went to sleep pretty late on Friday night, and after waking up to the sunrise (something that usually doesn't happen as I'm not a morning person) and with a killer headache, my computer showed Sunday. To this day I'm not sure whether I really slept for 28 hours, or I lost all memory of my Saturday. I had no plans for that day, so no one could confirm what happened, and my internet history for that day was completely empty, but that's not completely unheard of since there are days where I don't boot up my computer at all.

This time I got worried I might actually have a tumor (it's not everyday you hear a supposed deity in your dreams say that something will end, and then discover you slept for a whole day straight) so I went to the doctor and explained everything, and the doc said something along the lines of "Don't care about the dreams, but we definitely have to check that hypersomnia out". I got the whole shebang done, ended up with a folder full of pictures of my brain, and... nothing unusual. I did learn I have a relatively large hippocampus compared to the average person, though.

Nothing major happened for months after that, every few days I'd get another dream acting as an NPC, sometimes I'd meet the dream goddess (which I've taken to calling "boss") and forget absolutely everything from those conversations. The white silhouette with antlers/lightning crown of thorns never got any more detailed, by the way.

Nothing wild has happened in real life so far either, sometimes when I see a silhouette in a bright light it makes me think about the dream goddess, but that's about it. No hallucinations yet !

Today I woke up thinking about documentation, and immediately remembered that I used to send you asks about those dreams. I stopped because my life got pretty chaotic while I was getting that CO leak fixed, and after that tumblr fell out of my recent websites and I completely forgot about it. I did keep a record, though, that's what I'm using to write this.

Anyway, glad I remembered, and especially glad I could clear up that radio silence after my last ask. Re-reading it, it kinda looked like I died after sending it.

Decided to have a look and see when the last one came in and I had to cheat to get the tag to show.

Dream anon tag

Hello, it's dream anon, here's an update : The same method I used earlier worked, although I feel like I'm becoming better at noticing the dream goddess during NPC time so maybe in a few days I won't even need it. Touching my nose every minute of every waking hour is a bit tiring, and I feel like I'm gonna develop OCD if I keep this up too long.

April 28, 2022 it's been way too long.

Glad you're good, you pop into my head on occasion and I do wonder.

Got a few people over the years that drop in for a random ask here and there, they all pop in occasionally.

Had to stop when I hit the CO leak that was spooky, I'm glad there's no permanent damage from that, and you've got a big hippo camp too, that's fun.

I'm very glad to hear you're well though, that is very good news.

And if you're up for a bit of dream fun,

You want the Blue Stilton, that's the one that does it. 20 grams which is .706 ounces, so not much.

[clownsuu]

SORRY FOR SENDING ANOTHER ASK SO SOON But I'm genuinely curious, do you have any OCs of your own that you draw, or do you just draw fandom characters and friends OCs?

A bit of a more specific question too, do you have any characters or something you unintentionally created just doodling or when burnt out? I created a character to draw when I'm frustrated with how my art is turning out, frustrated with anatomy, or have no ideas. Its something good to have 👀

(I would share him but I don't want to send you art in your asks that has nothing to do with you or your designs NDSKJAD)

I have seen your earlier ask, I might give it a good ol doodle for it- but for now this gives me an excuse to talk about some of my dumb ass characters hddhJDDH-

[cracks my knuckles and breaks all my finger bones]

(old art)

(long post)

I have a bunch of ocs that I have made in the past that aren’t fandom related- I have some I really like- but they are fandom related so I won’t show smhh- but anyway here are a few of my personal favorites-

Example one being Jack (yeah same name smhhh) he is part of a item head universe Iv created- and of course, as he looks it- is a party of a scheme-y and shady casino (no affiliations to Cuphead hfhdJDHD) He is the owner, but is stuck in a bet with a owner of a bank, and completely fucked himself over with- Jack is in denial really he does not like to be played like a deck of cards smh

(Human) Douglas- aka the “nasty big tid dude that no wonder is a character I made”- is the bank owner- really fucking scummy and cheap- rules the city despite being just a owner the bank- disgusting fucking man who smells like pennies and orphan tears-

Yeah I really enjoy those two- I also have a few more characters from this little universe I made like the mayor, Ignis, but I ain’t gunna go too far unless someone is curious lmao- but anyway, I don’t quite have characters that I accidentally unintentionally made, but I do kinda have support characters I doodle every now and then when I feel like absolute shit-

They had a name- but I completely fucking forgot JDHDGSHS- but we call them Arson Moth- They are a god of void who used to be extremely large and in charge, but somehow became small and marketable plushie sized- making them extremely irritated and upset, specially when people treat them like a soft plushie (because, yknow, they are smol and really soft-) so in revenge, the cause acts of arson and violence because fuck you hffhJDGDGD- i rarely doodle them, but they are fun to draw when really sad or frustrated cause- yknow-

Very angi small mans hdhdDH-

This, is Heart- A character of mine that I personally feel is a emotional support character I have smh- I have created him far before Sun/moon came out, but he has almost the exact same personality as sun does- (and pointy nose hffhDHDHD) They are part of a universe of personified organs that work in a “human system”, and he is the most emotional character of them all smh- the heart does what the heart does, which is be chaotic and just does anything that makes themselves and others happy- also gets into arguments with Brian (Brain)

(Fuckin nerd-) those two argue a lot- Brain wanting to have the system work in a orderly fashion, and heart wanting everyone to just be happy and motivated-

He gives me brain rot I love this dumbass so much- drawing him always makes me feel better smh- their anatomy doesn’t really matter either because they aren’t human, they are Heart-

[wh6res]

dreams come true | yuta

"soulmate or not. i don't shoot blanks." — ny

[ part of the my bloody valentine collection ]

tw. gore, blood, murder, death, killings, mentions of illegal organ trafficking, violence, mentions of stalking, minor character deaths, weapons (a knife and a gun), almost (??) suggestive content but nothing happened

disc. this is rlly fucked up and yuta is unredeemable. i dont condone such acts. this is all a work of fiction and meant to entertain.

wc. 5k

every time you sleep, the void is sickening. it was all you could see, lightyears and lightyears away of pitch black that made your head dizzy and your stomach dry heave. you've always wondered when you'll start dreaming about your soulmate's memories. they were like little secrets, another way for two people to be intimate without even being together. their days were flashing before their soulmate's eyes in the form of a dream. it's as if you spent the day with them!

you loved it, the whole concept of it. it sounded so wholesome and sweet and jesus fucking christ, you've always been such a hopeless romantic.

it was sweet until it turned sour. you loved it until you hated it. it was romantic until it turned downright terrifying.

you wake up covered in cold sweat, panting and gasping as if you've run a whole marathon.

moonlight seeps through your glass window, slightly left ajar for the midnight breeze to pass through – you walk up to it, pull it shut, and draw your thick curtains together. you exhaled, breath shaking as you tried to anchor yourself back to the ground.

with the only source of your light disappearing, darkness envelops you whole. for once, you craved the void. you want that void back if it meant never seeing something like that again – something straight out of your worst nightmare.

"119, what's your emergency?"

"uhm, i think… i think i just witnessed a massacre."

you reiterate everything you saw in the dream – the mahogany door, paint chipping off the drywalls. the doorknob was rusty, so were the hinges, and it made an ominous creak when pushed open. the light switches on, the first you see was a bunch of dirty ice coolers in what should've been the living room, it wasn't even the slightest bit organized. they were everywhere, and the floor looked grimy and disgusting, like there's a stain they can't seem to scrub off. only when your soulmate has stalked closer did you see the labels haphazardly taped on top of the ice coolers.

kidneys. livers. lungs. pancreas. intestines – you nearly vomited on the floor, trying to relay everything you saw to the operator on the other end of the call.

then came the gruesome parts.

their deaths.

they were five people in total. men clad in cheap t-shirts and pants, wearing all these similar leather jackets. some were well-built, ripped in the arms and thighs, but some were skinny, the jackets hanging on their small frames.

they never stood a chance against him.

your soulmate is agile, quick on his feet with outstanding eye-hand coordination. only equipped with a butcher's knife, but it was all he needed to take them down and send them knocking on inferno's gates. he was skilled, knowing when to pounce and where to slash his knife to maim but never to kill. by the time your soulmate was through with them, everything is bloody red. all the victims' eyes widened as they sputtered and choked on their blood – not dead, but dying...

because your soulmate wasn't done yet.

a killer should have a modus operandi, should they not? so he took out a desert eagle, stood before the bleeding bodies, and shot two bullets straight into their eyes. the finishing touch? carving a frown on their faces with his butcher's knife.

the operator only told you one thing after she's made you describe the place for them to track the crime scene down.

"double-check all your windows and doors."

because you couldn't be too sure, not when you have been granted a front seat to the sad face slayer's most recent endeavors.

the detective eyes you with a certain pity. maybe that's why you don't bother meeting his eyes. you sit still on a chair, camera blinking red behind him, the interrogation room is freezing even with the thick jacket you're wearing.

seven billion people in the world and you're soulmate's a ruthless serial killer who took it upon himself to purge the world of evildoers – he was playing god, no wonder the detective is looking at you like that.

"uhh…" he's awkward, fidgeting in his seat. "and you saw this all in a dream?"

"yes."

you've known him only minutes ago. mark lee was his name and he seems to be a subordinate of a higher, more experienced detective named kim doyoung. you don't know whether to feel offended or not for having a doe-eyed newbie taking care of the case, but you pushed it at the back of your mind, knowing his superior is watching on the other side of the two-way mirror.

"did you have, like, other past instances where you dreamt of him? of what he…" mark looked like he was going to throw up. "what he does to his other victims?"

you shook your head. no. "i've mostly just heard of him on the news. i don't think i have the stomach to find out in-depth what the killer does."

mark takes out a folder, features walking the fine white line between looking apologetic or wanting to say me too. "i'm, uhh, really sorry to hear that."

there's a sudden pregnant silence encapsulating the interrogation room. it felt like you were mourning for something, the chains of dread dragging your heart to the ground as it pounded against your ribcage. mark looked like he wanted to say something, but you swore his eyes darted towards the camera in the corner and decided otherwise.

"anyway…" he trails. flipping the folder open in one swift motion. "past sightings have given us the sad face slayer's name."

he slaps down a picture of a man, his hair raven and a permanent scowl etched on his face. the quality was shitty. it looked like it was a screenshot taken from zoomed-in cctv footage.

"nakamoto yuta, twenty-five, japanese, and has slipped one too many times past authorities that at this point, it's practically a talent."

and just like that, it made sense why you're here.

your lips pursed in contemplation, palms quaking as your fingers reach forward to inspect your soulmate's picture. "and… you want to use my soulmate connection –" you glowered. never had a sentence sounded so fucking cursed and utterly wrong. "– to catch him?"

mark can't look you in the eye. "yes. he's very elusive. his killings have been happening cross-country and, as you can see, have garnered national media attention. the police are hanging by a thread here. a month in his case and all we got is his MO, name, and that he has this weird god complex on him. if we can't catch him by the end of next month…" he shrugs. "the feds are going to interfere, sooner or later."

"so…" you trail, urging him to continue.

"so, we need as much information about him as we can get and your dreams about him will be able to provide that."

fucking great.

the much newer revelations of precisely who it was on the other end of the soulmate connection put a significant damper on your mood. you'd like to think your new little cop buddy who follows you around gives you the least bit sense of security, but alas, it doesn't. not when you've seen first hand how yuta took down five men all at once without breaking a fucking sweat – you absolutely refuse to call him your soulmate, you'd never accept a person with his nature as a soulmate.

you try to hide the bracelet mark handed you last two weeks ago, during your time spent in the precinct's interrogation room.

"please have this on you at all times until we catch him, okay? this is for extra measures, just in case something happens to the cop assigned to guard you. just press the little button here and we'll be there before you can even finish shouting 'help!' – hey, i was just kidding! what's with the face?"

considering you're now probably being hunted alive for snitching on a serial killer? mark lee, that was not funny at all.

"do you have to get inside the lecture with me?" you whine, shielding your face with your hair when you notice people shooting glances at the rather handsome cop they assigned to you. "it's not like he'll attack in broad daylight! and in a fucking classroom, for that matter."

jaehyun looks just about ready to hurl you out the window. "lower down your voice," he scolds. "serial killers don't pick a time and place, sweetheart. he kills when necessary and if it's fucking necessary to murder everyone in that classroom to get to you? he'll do it in a fucking heartbeat."

you sigh when the chair next to you screeches against the floor, the aforementioned male taking his seat right next to you. jaehyun felt more like a babysitter than a cop, who seems to have a habit of constantly inputting his not-even-needed opinions on the most superficial things.

are witness protection protocols like this?

it was a good thing that overgrown bat doesn't come hanging around in your apartment, but he does have the police car parked right across the building's entrance. judging by how meticulous and thorough he seems to be, he won't miss any face that comes in and out of the building.

you didn't forget exactly why you're under witness protection. for the cops to waste one good officer to follow you around, you needed to be valuable and being valuable meant sleeping through nightmare-induced dreams of what your soulmate does for a living. the scenes are so gruesome, so graphic and utterly gory, that you dart towards the bathroom first thing after waking up in cold sweat, draining all of dinner down the toilet bowl.

after dreaming of him in action a few times, you've now completely understood what detective lee had said regarding yuta's god complex. it was unsightly, yet there was a twisted sense of heroism to it. if there's one thing, he only gutted the bad guys – but that didn't make nakamoto yuta any less of a bad guy, himself.

i need to ask you a favor [sent 2:05am]

JJH: what? [received 2:10am]

often the nightmares were too much. too much that you thought of escaping its horrors by never getting a wink of sleep ever again – until you realized you're a witness and is probably the only chance for the seoul police department to catch that bastard.

buy me sleeping pills? [read 2:08am]

when you peep out of the window, you find an empty spot across the road where jaehyun usually parks the police car. twenty minutes later, you answer the knocking on your door. he used that little "code" he did for you to know it was him. jaehyun was glowering and muttering about how he wasn't some errand boy when he shoved the plastic bottle in your hand yet, you still thanked him nonetheless.

the pills worked like a charm. you managed to stay asleep throughout the whole night, ceasing those episodes of yours where you jolt awake in the middle of dreaming about the sad face slayer's memories.

life continued for you. it became a little bearable, but that didn't mean the horrific murders you see in your dreams are something you can get used to – you don't think you'll ever get used to the sight of him slashing his victims, the blood trickling like a goddamned waterfall.

today the dreams were different. anticlimactic, per se, if you compare it to the violence so utterly present in his memories.

the first you see were black gates, then it shifted to him ordering coffee in a café (amazing what a simple black mask can hide). it switched to him walking on a sidewalk, then he arrives at his destination, an apartment building – it wasn't too rundown, nor was it extravagant.

the serial killer takes the elevator and walks up to a mahogany door –

your room number is a blaring sight.

you couldn't be wrong, not when the 506 with the missing zero in the middle was a sight you saw every day, going and coming home from university.

that was your front door.

he was at your front door.

you jolt awake, ignoring the icky feel of sweat making your clothes cling onto your skin. ice creeps up your spine and freezes you over when you notice with a sinking realization.

those black gates are from the university you attended. that café is your favorite study nook. and that sidewalk is a route you take every day.

you clamp your hands on your mouth as tears roll down your cheeks in rivulets. you pull the comforters up above your head, fear gripping onto you with a vice-like grip as you sob.

it was in the dead of night, moonlight grazing the confines of your room and hours away from dusk. you finally utter those three words in a frightened whisper.

"he's stalking me."

as if having the overgrown bat jaehyun following and annoying you around wasn't enough, you now have another person keeping watch over you. mark lee, unlike jaehyun, may not be as ripped with muscle, but you heard from your cop buddy that the young detective has a few black belts under him. people at the precinct said that if they have to choose one person who can ever come close to the sad face slayer's agility, mark lee's your guy.

"you gotta be shitting me," you mutter, leaning close to jaehyun to whisper like high school girls talking about gossip. "he doesn't look the type!"

jaehyun, in turn, plays along and copies you. "yeah, true. he gets that a lot, i think,"

"guys, i'm literally in the back seat. i can hear everything."

the change hadn't been too drastic. at least mark was there when jaehyun proved to be difficult, pulling him towards the other way when the older male tried waltzing into your class again. "you don't need to sit next to her in her class! are you serious? there's one exit and entrance and we're on the fifth floor. breaking into that classroom will be the end of nakamoto's serial killer career!"

you shoot mark an appreciative smile, one he quickly returned before hauling jaehyun around the hallway. "we'll just be at the canteen, okay? press the 'lil button on your bracelet and we'll be right there!"

shaking your head with a slight smile on your face, you entered the classroom, sat in your usual spot, and did some of your readings from our other class to kill time. you hardly hear the screech of the chair next to you as it was pulled back. not like you cared much for whoever sat down next to you, but you can't deny there's that feeling of missing jaehyun when he used to force his way into the lecture.

"settle down! settle down, people!"

the professor enters and the class begins.

you were meticulous with your note-taking system. it's thorough, leaving no room for information to slip you. having already printed hard copies of the powerpoint presentation and simply jotting down some extra key points mentioned by your professor.

you were just about to raise your hand for a question when you feel something warm graze past your arm. you absentmindedly look down.

the breath is sucked right out of your lungs.

hi, soulmate

there, scribbled with an ominous red crayon on a small piece of paper. it was almost laughable how innocent it looked but when you follow the ring-clad hand, up the black hoodie he's wearing, and finally to his face—

"hi! i'm yuta."

his cheshire smile spikes up your heartbeat. it makes you want to throw up, makes you want to slam your head against the desk. the fight or flight hormone you have is making you restless, eyes pinned on the serial killer sitting next to you, scared that if you avert your gaze, he's going to take out that desert eagle and shoot you until your skull caves in and the bullets in his magazine empties.

"but judging by your reaction, i don't think introductions are needed, hm?" his tone is easy, conversational even and it shoots a freezing jolt of fear right up your spine. it makes you sweat profusely because you don't fucking know what to do, your thoughts in complete and utter disarray.

"just press the little button here and we'll be there before you can even finish shouting 'help!' – hey, i was just kidding! what's with the face?" you swallow, sneakily pressing the button without breaking eye contact with the serial killer sitting in front of you.

"look upfront. now." yuta orders and you nearly snap your neck as you turn your head with lightning speed.

"i thought i was above the soulmate rules, but here we are. my soul is either too tainted or too great to be tied to such trivial things, but oh well, we learn to work with what we have. surprisingly, i learned to like dreaming about how your day went."

you feel something sharp poking at your thigh and when you look down, he has a silver butterfly knife pointed against you. the precision of the angle he held it with doesn't slip your notice. one slice of that knife, no matter how small, and he'll be spilling your guts in this classroom.

a fat tear rolls down your face.

"can you imagine how much my heart broke when i learned you were spying on me? leaking information to that snobby detective? to those incompetent cops? bad baby, that was very bad of you."

"yuta—"

"you think the cops can save you from me?"

his other hand comes in contact with the nape of your neck, holding your head in place as he leaned down to invade your space. he scoffs, and you can picture that terrifying cheshire grin you've seen one too many times in your dreams.

the knife digs through your coat, the tip hardly poking your skin only because he doesn't want to drive it into you yet. how did he even manage to get inside the university? not to mention the weapons he possessed? shouldn't anyone be suspicious when they see a man dressed in all black, clad in jeans and a hoodie, into a university—

he even dressed the part. with that hood drawn up and carrying that one notebook, he looked fairly normal. someone who can easily blend in with the crowd.

you eye your professor, willing him to look at you but your soulmate is having none of that. you squirm when he drives the knife further, at the base of your stomach. with his other hand, he twirls a lock of hair around his finger. "now, now, soulmate. you don't want half the people here to get hurt, do you? unless... that can easily be arranged—"

"no!" you whisper, head jerking to the side to look at him humming in satisfaction. damn. out of all the faces he's seen contorted with fear, yours is his absolute favorite. with those pleading, glassy eyes and parted lips, yuta is tenting in his sweats.

"thought so," he chuckles. "let's get up. we're leaving. that old crook doesn't care if students just up and went in the middle of his lecture."

you don't want to think about how he even knew that because it implied attending the lectures a good amount of times. it's with sinking realization that jaehyun was right. if it weren't for him insisting to sit next to you, nakamoto yuta would've long gotten you in his claws.

you tried gathering your things until he purred into your ear.

"ah, ah, ah. you wouldn't be needing those with where we're going."

the hallways were empty, not that you had much time to scream for help when he had a knife pointed up your back, shoving you into the fire escape stairs. within the tranquil confines of the staircases, the sad face slayer couldn't fucking care less for your personal space.

he disgusts you greatly, he needn't do anything but stand there in front of you but you can already smell the long blood trail from his path. it reeks of rotting flesh and that infuriating god complex he had left a sour aftertaste.

"you know, i genuinely wanted to get to know you," yuta pouts, shaking the hoodie off his head. his hair raven, it's ends kissing the nape of his neck. he looked like he came right out of a shounen manga but the bloodlust in his eyes is something that can never be masked. "i detested the soulmate connection at first, i thought i should just kill you off because you could be my loose end."

his humorless smile is enough to give you nightmares.

"but seeing how sweetly normal and untainted you are made me hold back," the butterfly knife appears before your line of sight, yuta teasingly dragging the tip right down your cheek to trace your tears. "so, why did you snitch, baby?"

you shiver when he noses the side of your neck, inhaling your scent as his other hand hooks underneath your top, freezing fingers making you jolt. when you don't reply, his patience starts to dwindle. then again, he was never a patient man.

"answer me, you bitch. why did you rat me out?" gone is the playful lilt in his voice. the vibrations surge through you as his deep, demanding voice scares you shitless.

you feel, hear, and smell him everywhere. this wasn't like any nightmare. this is real, and you won't magically wake up on your bed, sighing in relief, knowing he isn't there, that it was all just in your head. no, this was very much real and there's absolutely no escape.

"i didn't," your voice cracks. "i didn't mean to—"

"bullshit!" he yells. you wail in pain when he slams you against the wall, head aching as it came in contact with concrete. "because of you betraying me, i nearly fucking got caught, and i never get caught!"

you were full out sobbing at this point, noisy and unsightly as the snot mixes with your tears. your only hope now is he gives you a quick, painless death and that he doesn't carve and mutilate your face like what he always does to his other poor victims. "i'm sorry! please... i'm so sorry. i was scared—"

he coos mockingly, tilting his head to the side as he inched his face closer. "aw, scared? my sweet little soulmate was scared?" he places the blade flat against your neck. as humiliating and degrading as it was, you almost peed on your clothes. "how about now? i'm sure as hell that you're fucking terrified for your useless life right now."

you cringe when his hand abandons the expanse of your stomach, no longer inching higher, finding its purchase on the hair sitting at the crown of your head. he holds you in place like that, forcing your head parallel against the wall, with his whole body pressing up to you that it's nearly suffocating.

"just one quick little slice," he taunts. you hiccuped when you feel the feathery light scrape of the blade moving against your skin. "you won't even have time to scream… but i'm sure we don't want that, do we?"

you forgot how to speak. forgot how to breathe. whenever your mind wanders, you've always thought about how you'll give this killer a piece of your mind, with the amount of fear and sorrow he inflicts upon other people. but you guess realities were a lot more different than expectations. the yuta you dreamed of meeting is in handcuffs, but fate is a fickle little thing.

"do we?" he repeats, slicing ever so slightly at your skin. enough to draw blood in droplets, never a waterfall.

"n – no."

he smiles. "you can make it up to me. do you want to make it up to me?"

the butterfly knife digs even further. a warning. and if you value your useless life, you should be smart enough to know what to answer. drawing a shaky breath, you tried forcing the ends of your lips up to a smile. "of course, yuta."

your voice breaks as your sobbing grips your body whole. the fear consuming your entire being like a parasite consuming the host. you would've shut down altogether if it weren't for the calloused hands gently gripping your face. "i know, i know. i see how regretful you are, baby. don't worry, i won't hurt you. you'll make it up to me."

anyone would be fucking stupid if you believe those words coming from a serial killer.

in your wrecked state, you barely register that he's pushing you down to your knees. skin coming in contact with the freezing linoleum floor as you refuse to look at what his hands are doing. yuta has pocketed his knife. the sound of a belt unbuckling in itself added insult to injury.

you stare blankly at his shoes as he shoves his bottoms down enough for his cock to show. if you squint hard enough, you'll see tiny splatters of blood in the shoelaces. whether or not he feels you're unresponsive, he doesn't show. maybe he doesn't care entirely. he takes one of your hands and used it to wrap around himself. he gasps, sharp, followed by a hiss.

you feel it throbbing and it strengthens the disgust you feel. no way you're going to give him the satisfaction of eye contact when you're already forced to blow this psycho.

"eyes up."

you sniffled, vulnerability present in the tone you speak. "i don't want to. please, don't make me."

if words alone aren't enough for you to follow orders, maybe you'll feel more motivated if held at gunpoint. it's unmistakable, the infamous desert eagle you've only seen in your nightmares. the last thing you ever expected is to be on the side where the bullet comes out.

the barrel is freezing as he digs it into the crown of your head. "soulmate or not. i don't shoot blanks."

your eyes looked up then. glaring as the tears rolled down your face. "you're a monster," you mutter under your breath. where you got the confidence to fight back is unknown.

"i've heard that before, be more creative next time," he holds your hair tight in one grip, shoving you forward, eye-level to his throbbing dick. "now… suck, baby."

"freeze!"

you knew that voice, you've been hearing it for the last two weeks. "jaehyun–!"

yuta cuts you off, shoving the gun into your mouth. the safety clicking off resonating in the tranquil room. it's deafening, and it makes you immobile.

"hands up. step away from the civilian." whether or not mark is nervous as he points the gun at the serial killer, he's doing a damn good job of hiding it.

yuta sighs, exasperated as he throws his head back. his raised arms came down to tuck himself back in his jeans, and the action made jaehyun's calm exterior crack. "i said, hands up, asshole!"

"chill out, motherfucker. i'm just trying to wear my pants." the serial killer hisses, glaring at jaehyun over his shoulder.

"mark, call back up already. what are you doing?" jaehyun mutters, side-eyeing the young detective whose gun shakes as he holds it up. the taller cop takes a step forward, eyes never leaving the notorious killer as he addresses you curtly. "(name), come here."

just as you plant your palms to the ground to push yourself up, one of yuta's hands shoves you down quick as lightning. "no. she stays here, with me."

jaehyun scowls, takes another step forward. "and what makes you think i'm going to let that happen?"

"i don't think. i know."

there's a constant ring in your ear as the gunshot temporarily renders you deaf. you've shut your eyes in utter fright, hands shooting up to cover your ears but it was too late. you refuse to open your eyes, you didn't want to see a dead body lying before you, even if it belonged to a heartless serial killer.

but when your eyes fluttered open, it's not yuta bleeding out on the ground.

"no, this can't be – jaehyun!"

it was a bullet straight to the head, no one could've survived a shot like that. his eyes are empty as he stares at you, unblinking, stoic. the color is yet to drown away from his milky complexion. but you can't even manipulate yourself into thinking that jaehyun's still alive. not when his eyes are empty, not when he just looks so lifeless.

it couldn't have been yuta who pulled the trigger.

his weapons were on the ground and the shot rang too fast. the sad face slayer couldn't have crouched down for his gun to shoot the cop, it would've taken too much time. and among the three men, there's only another person holding a weapon, and that was –

"great shot, mark."

the detective smiles, but with the blood splattered on his face, it looked cold. "told ya i've been practicing."

yuta hauls you up by the arms, addicted to how frail your body feels as it collapses against him. he's finally got his little soulmate in his arms. and he will never, ever let you go.

the cops lost – you've lost.

yuta, with a sense of victory coursing through his veins, took the liberty of trailing little pecks down your neck as he mutters, "mine, mine, mine!" but you couldn't care less about his display of mocked affection. not when the other person meant to protect you, turned out to be everything you think he wasn't.

mark must've felt the gravity of your stare as he crouches before jaehyun's bleeding body. grabbing the fallen cop's gun, he took it upon himself to empty the magazine. the lopsided grin he sends you broke your resolve more than yuta ever could.

"i'm sorry. it's nothing personal."

jenoluck (c) all rights reserved

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Scattered AU Masterpost Part 1

This is a collection of all material associated with the Scattered AU (read about the premise here)!

Join the new Discord server here

AU material under the cut (because this is growing super fast already)

Due to post length limit (which is apparently a thing), find Part 2 of this AU here.

A few ideas to get us started:

- Tango and Zedaph spawned relatively close to each other, but they haven't found each other yet and each think they are alone. They keep just barely missing each other in their exploration of the area. Maybe, with the powers of Zed's perfect sense of direction and Tango's laser-sharp perception skills, they'll finally stop walking circles around each other...maybe.

- Xisuma spawned alone, deep underground in a massive, confusing cave system. He desperately wants to figure out what's going on and how to fix it, but a bad run-in with the Warden damaged his helmet, leaving him unable to use admin commands.

- Mumbo spawned the farthest out of anyone, right next to a woodland mansion. He quickly realized that hoping to stumble across another person this far out is a lost cause, so he's trying to create some form of communication using a combination of redstone and Evoker magic. The Evoker isn't very helpful, and it isn't going well.

- Joe and Vintagebeef were the only ones to successfully spawn at spawn. They aren't really sure what's going on, but they've decided to build a small village as a base of operations while they figure it out (and to signal signs of life to anyone who might successfully find their way back)

- Cleo spawned in a village, and is currently hiding out in a house while trying to convince the villagers to trust her. Let's just say they aren't thrilled to have a zombie in their midst (and the iron golem is even less pleased)

- Impulse had the misfortune to spawn in a guardian temple. Between the guardians and the constant threat of drowning, he's been in a death loop since the world started.

- False and Stress spawned right next to each other. They figured out pretty early that something was wrong with regen, and using their combined strengths, they made it to the Nether to get ingredients for healing potions. They are now on a mission to find the others and distribute the potions to whoever needs them.

- Ren actually managed to travel a good distance back to the world center, before getting pretty badly injured. With no regen, and knowing he'll have to start the journey all over if he dies and respawns, he's decided to pull together a small base and take shelter while he waits to be found.

- Scar spawned on an outer End island, with no idea how to get back to the Overworld. He keeps finding strange glitches in his surroundings, and he swears he can hear soft Vex laughter whenever he turns his back...

- Keralis spawned in the Nether, and he is absolutely terrified.

That's all I have for ideas so far. The location of the others (and what happens next) is up to you!

Contributions so far:

- Bdubs spawns in the void, but he just doesn’t die. Maybe it’s spawn protection, maybe it’s the glitches, but he just keeps falling and falling and falling further from the bedrock, unable to do anything to help himself as he descends further into the void

- @fluffy-papaya

- After wandering around aimlessly for days or maybe weeks, Tango finds an automatic farm for... well... he's not sure, exactly. But he does know who built it- it's got Zedaph's mark all over it. So he stays there, fixing broken Redstone, trying to figure out what it does. And when Zedaph returns to collect melons (so that's what this thing is for), he finds Tango waiting for him.

- @rayveewrites

- Etho spawns in a underwater cave, but there is air in it and for some reason a shipwreck so he can get some wood and tools. But he has to get out to contact anyone because the reception in caves don't happen to be the best, little does he know just outside the cave is the monument where Impulse is, they're so close yet so far from one another

- anonymous

- Maybe Etho ended up spawning at the very top of a mountain, he could see far from up there and has a general idea of where he is, but no idea how to get down as all around him is powderd snow hiding ravines, and cliffs. . . And a few goats that Etho has narowly avoided getting headbutted by. (Etho went to the mountain after escaping the cave)

- @ciaravixen

- Welsknight spawned in the Nether

- (paraphrased) Ren fell down a ravine in the mountains on his journey to the world center, and decided to make a small cabin base rather than try to carry on injured. Doc spawned in those same mountains, and may find him eventually.

- anonymous

- Grian spawns on the tallest peak of the highest mountain. Surrounded by thick fog and almost ever-falling snow, with crevasses and cliffs that drops thousands of blocks to the ground around every corner. No trees, no life, and barely enough air to breath. It's so cold. A thin red sweater isn't nearly enough to keep him warm.... he's likely caught in a death loop for quite awhile as he refreeze over, and over, and over again. And when he does manage to climb down, an ice pillager lies in wait...

- @therainofsweetmelody

- Scar’s End spawn is on a single island- he can see other islands around him, but they’re just out of jump reach- he tried, and fell and died, and respawned back onto his little island with the whispering voices around him a tad louder, and the islands just a bit farther away. He stops trying to jump to them eventually, out of fear they’ll vanish and he won’t have anything to focus on besides the whisper of ice cold hands and wings on his skin

- anonymous

- Oh! Maybe since Xisuma’s admin helmet is broken and he’s unable to run any world commands, that means mob hermits like Cleo, Doc, and Jevin aren’t quite the same. Maybe Cleo locked herself in that house for the villagers protection as much as her own. Maybe Doc eventually joins a lone creeper pack. Who knows! -💧

- anonymous

- Zed and Tango spawned in the same jungle biome, explaining the melon farm and why they could be literally three blocks from each other and still not be aware of each other’s existence. -🟣

- The first thing Scar does once he first spawns in (besides from almost having a panic attack) is take a jump into the void. This of course does nothing. He checks out the rest of the end islands around him, and finds a rather large end city just in render distance. There should be treasure or something that could help him survive, right? -🟣

- Keralis was lucky enough to spawn in a warped forest biome and next to a basalt delta, so he’s got wood and stone. It takes a bit, but he gets full gold armor and finds his way to a nether fortress. He figures with the broken regen that the other hermits will try to go for potions. Maybe he finds Stress and False, maybe not. -🟣

- I apologize if I'm sending too many asks, please feel free to say if so! I'm just already so invested in this idea, and absolutely love where it's all going! Shattered au brainrot go brrrrr - anyways; Cub spawns in a valley within the messa. To one side an abandoned village covers the cliff, and to the other, mines drill deep into the rock. A stream luckily runs through the valley, though it's slowly drying up. He can hear strange sounds in the mines, and feels something in the village watching

- @/therainofsweetmelody

- what if the hermits caught in death loops start gaining scars and marks from all their deaths? like impulse had permanent scars from the guardians and grian’s hands are permanently blue from freezing to death all the time

- anonymous

- X finds some axoloyls in a lush cave and falls in love. He gets some wood from said cave and gets some buckets so he can keep them -🟣

- Cleo gets stuck in a death loop with the iron golem, who is blind to her not attacking the villagers. One of the smarter villagers realizes she’s not fighting back, and calls the golem off. -🟣

- (paraphrased) After the iron golem is called off, Stress and False find Cleo badly hurt in the village house. They make sure she's comfortable and safe before going to the Nether to get potions, where they find a battered Keralis and carry him back. They turn the house into a little hospital while they brew potions and take care of Cleo and Keralis until they're strong enough to move on.

- anonymous

- Stress and False have set up a Nether Portal near a Nether Fortress, for easy escape to the relative safety of the Overworld. Keralis has never been more relieved in his life than when he found that portal.

- @/rayveewrites

- Doc spawned a thousand blocks away from ren, not knowing hos friend was there he happened to go in that direction. He managed to get materials, tools and food for himself before he sees rens little hut

- anonymous

- Jevin was one of the luckier hermits, when it came to where he spawned. He woke up in the shallow green waters of a floral cave, illuminated by glowing rocks and berries. He wasn't... quite alone. Although no other hermits could be seen, he quickly found a small family of axolotl living in the closed-off cave. They became his companions as he tried to assess his situation, and served as comfort when he realised his communicator was almost useless. Being slime, the environment was very welcoming

- @/therainofsweetmelody

- Xb spawns in the middle of a desert, with not even a village in sight. While he's used to being in distant lands with limited resources, he's very much not used to it on the Hermitcraft server with limited contact to the others. As the nights go by and the sands grow more hostile thanks to never-burning husks, he grows more and more lonely.

-@/basaltdragon

- At first, Doc is elated when he spawns on a mountain surrounded by goats. That is, until he discovers that none of his fellow hermits are there with him. After being headbutted down the mountain into the snowy tundra below and left on precariously low health, he hunkers down in a nearby igloo. But it's not exactly easy in a food-scarce biome when his only contacts are two villagers and the horde of strays that gather outside each night...

-@crows-in-space

- in one sense of the word, scar is safe. There's enough chorus fruit on the island to keep him alive, and despite his concerns the enderman don't even bat an eye at him. Theoretically, he could survive for longer than many of the others. But the whispers keep nagging at him, pushing him closer and closer to the edge. Sure, he could survive, but how long could he stay on this deathly quiet piece of land before someone would find him? He can see the faint outline of an End City on one of the fading islands, and every passing moment it haunts him. If he could just give in for a moment, let the powers of the vex harness his body for just a few seconds, maybe he could make it over and gather some gear- maybe even an elytra- and then he'd be set. But fear and logic talk him out of it. He's made deals with the vex before, and that quick trip across the islands could put him in a much more dangerous position than only being stranded...

- @/crows-in-space

- What if after scar gives up, he finds his vex mask lying on the floor with a tag saying ‘do it, it’ll help you get across’ (shade's note: Scar does it)

- anonymous

- For the Scattered AU: Scar gets an elytra, and after much internal struggling he decides to take a chance and leap into the darkness for hope of finding another island. During his terrifying glide he hears a distant scream from the void that is so familiar, but he can't quite place it, and he's in no hurry to risk flying any lower to check it out. - M

- @petrichormeraki

- Iskall and doc's robotic eye glitch out so they don't have any depth vision, so no mater where they spawn, they Are bound to die a few times from missinterprating how far away an Arrow or trident is, and how fast something is coming at them.

- @/ciaravixen

- I initially thought of this for Ren, but since there was already an idea for him, it could probably work for Iskall instead; He spawns in the middle of a scorching desert. Dunes of sand for as far as the eye can see, with barely a cactus or dead Bush in between. No water, no life - only the ever-present heat of the sweltering sun, and the large skeletons everywhere. He manages to find an abandoned temple after days of dragging himself through the sand, and spies a desert village on the horizon

- @/therainofsweetmelody

- Scattered AU! The way the "not killing Bdubs in his own spawn in the void" glitches work is similar to the forgiving void mod works where when you hit the bottom of the void you are teleported to the top instead of taking damage, but since Bdubs can't see anything in the void he doesn't know this (beyond a constant falling) feeling until he manages to "fall forward" enough to find some end islands, he finds scar this way but is so excited to see him he died from fall damage right in front of him

- @theclockworkowl

- (Scattered AU) Piggybacking off the death loop scars ask, when/if Bdubs is rescued from the void, he's in ROUGH shape. His external limbs are blackened and freezing with frostbite from the void (voidbite?), and his bones are permanently weakened from his form being subjected to the cold abyss for so long. Bdubs needs to relearn gravity after falling for so long, and doesn't use elytra anymore. The solid ground under his feet is something he'll never sacrifice for convenience ever again. - M

- @/petrichomeraki

- Wels spawned in a giant crimson forest in the nether. Towering mushroom trees, thick red vines, with piglins and hoglins he constantly has to run away from. But he finds something.... interesting as he's exploring. A house has been built into a wall, a mixture of nether and overworld blocks. Stepping inside, someone clearly lives there - someone who's not a piglin. Imagine his surprise (and relief) when a certain familair knight walks through the door. "Helsknight?"

-@/therainofsweetmelody

- xB wakes up in a dripstone cavern. It's damp and cold and the spikes are very tall, forming a sort of natural cage around him. At the very least, zombies and mobs can't get through, but the longer he stays there, the weirder the sounds get. There... wasn't a new mob for the dripstone caves, right? Right? (i'm trying VERY hard not to do new hermit OR crossover headcanons for scattered au. i swear) ~@betweenlands

- Scattered AU! Everyone Etho dies He spawns in a new place, first it was the underwater cave, then it was the top of a mountain, but it wasn't until he spawned inside an ocean monument and saw impulse trying to escape just as he was dying he realise the importance of the pattern, He was cycling though each of the other hermits spawn locations, which made all the wierd almost hermit made wierdnes make sense, the underwater one was his but the mountain was Grian's spawn spot,

- @/theclockworkowl

- Can the hermits see death messages? (They can) I'm imagining the potential angst of that, where normal world messages (achievements, commands, deaths) go through just fine but the others can't chat. The helplessness of watching their friends' names endlessly filling the chat and having no idea where they are, having no clue how to help, not even being able to offer comfort.

- @/basaltdragon

- Someone had mentioned xisuma also ending up in a floral cavern with axolotl, right? What if this was the same cave Jevin found himself stuck in? After days and days of clawing at stone, xisuma finally breaks into a cavern filled with faint light. After discovering the friendly acolotls, he notices a strange blue mass floating in the water.... and is almost startled to death when he sees the skull faintly showing through the slime, and the familiar wobbly voice coming from it. "Xisuma?"

- Doc and Grian (and later on, ren) spawned on the same mountain. Grian, of course, at the very top: stuck in the endless snowpeak, towering high above the clouds. Doc, meanwhile, ended up at the base, surrounded by snow and goats and giant taiga trees as far as the eye could see. Once Ren got stuck in the ravine, he often heard a familiar scream before a sickening splat every now and again, as the ravine lies almost completely below the highest peak. He's afraid to check his communicator.

- @/therainofsweetmelody

- grian’s practically given up since there’s not much for him to do. there’s no food and his hands are too frozen to mine. a little fox stays by his side at least. he’s about to freeze again and his health is low and he hears crumching footsteps approaching. he assumes its the iceologer coming for him but instead he hears “grian?” and he can make out blurry figures before he passes out and wakes up wrapped up in a blanket infromt of a fire. (whoevers managed to find and rescue him is up to you :D) (Shade's notes: the person who found him was Doc, and he took him back to Ren's cabin to warm up)

- anonymous

- Scar isn't the only one changed by the time he reaches spawn. Impulse drags himself up onto land finally, breathing heavily, and there's something different about him. Sharper teeth. The shadow he casts more inconsistent. Always faintly smells like saltwater. And his eyes glow faintly, a pale washed-out non-color like light at the bottom of the ocean. Something suggesting nonhuman geometry. Something sleeping that had to reawaken to escape. ~@betweenlands

- Eventually, Etho spawns in a jungle. By a complete stroke of luck, he sees the smoke of a campfire. Tango and Zedaph are happy to see someone- anyone- else. Especially when it turns out Etho somehow managed to get the coordinates of a certain Ocean Temple. Sure, it's far, but they can make it. After all, there's an 'I' in team ZIT, and they aren't leaving him behind.

- @/rayveewrites

- (summary of a couple different writing peices) After escaping the Guardian Temple, Impulse set out to find any other Hermit he could. He has gained some unnerving qualities and abilities that he doesn't really understand, but he's trying not to think about that right now. After defeating several mobs he should not have been able to defeat with his level of progress, he now possesses one Totem of Undying. He met up with Zedaph, Tango, and Etho on their way to find him. They are now hosting him at their campsite and are glad he is safe, but Etho is unnerved and suspicious of his more unsettling attributes.

- I had sent this idea right after the inbox closed, rip. But anyways - what if mumbo ended up befriending the evokers and pilligers in the woodland mansion? Of course, it wouldnt be like that at first- the constant death to the axes and swords and magic, the growls and yelling and cursed glares. But he always came back to work on the redstone and evoker magic in a desperate attempt to contact the others. Eventually, the evoker stops sending their vex, and the pilligers stop swinging their weapons

- @/therainofsweetmelody

- (Scattered AU) After Scar gives in to the Vex. Bdubs is barely conscious to begin with; dying to the void so many times really took it out of him in every way possible. But when he is awake, what he sees makes him scared. Scar with faded, cold eyes. Scar with transparent wings, gone in a blink. Scar being able to do things he shouldn't. Scar says it's to get them out of there, but every day he gets a little paler, a little colder, and Bdubs grows more worried. - M

- @/petrichomeraki

- Perhaps xb and Iskall are on opposite ends of the same desert? On one side, high sand dunes covering miles, with a single desert temple and isolated desert village hidden amongst the cliffs and hills. On the other, the deep flatt valley next to a Mesa mountain, flat nothingness stretching far past the horizon. It would still take quite a long time for them to find each other, but at least there's a change they could meet... and, perhaps, over that mountain, cub could be somewhere in the mesa

-@/therainofsweetmelody

- Iskall and Xb eventually find each other in the desert. Sunburned, dehydrated, and sand-blasted, they hug when they first meet despite not knowing each other well. And they try their best not to die, because what are the chances they'll ever find each other again? Two heads are better than one for finding their way to the rest of the hermits.

-@/basaltdragon

- Its probably a week or so of falling before bdubs managed to move enough to finally see the end islands just barely rendering in the distance. As someone had mentioned, perhaps he became so hopeful that he missed his mark, hitting the ground with a sickening splat just blocks beside scar. It took bdubs almost another week to get forward enough to see the islands again. This time, he landed right on scar... sending the vex back to his spawn several islands away, and leaving bdubs alone for days

-@/therainofsweetmelody

- While Bdubs and Scar are more than happy to have found each other again, their moments together are tense and filled with gaps of uncomfortable silence. There's an unspoken agreement hanging over them: Scar doesn't question Bdubs' frozen and frail state, and Bdubs pretends not to notice how Scar's skin has gotten pale and ghost-like, or how he glances behind him often, like he's being followed by a shadow only he can see. Though of course, Bdubs does notice. The whole server does. Grian wakes up in a cold sweat from a dream of Scar's ruthless attempts to destroy the mycelium resistance. Cub feels his own ties to the vex magic acting up once again, now worrying more than ever what Scar may have encountered in this broken world. Even Mumbo's evoker friend begins acting different, though Mumbo can't seem to determine whether it's out of excitement or fear...

-@/crows-in-space

- Scattered AU After the Wels meeting Hels Headcanon I imagine maybe Hels offers a deal to insure his safety on the Hermitcraft Server in exchange for Wels safety in the Nether. Wels very reluctantly agrees adding to the deal that Hels won’t hurt anyone. To bad he didn’t notice his Evil counterpart cross his fingers while shaking on it.

- anonymous

- Scattered AU:  TFC spawns on the main end island, dragon and all. With out proper preparation he’s been stuck in a death loop since the world’s start. Sometimes, right before he dies, he wishes that the janky respon would de-age his body; he’s not the agile young man who could take down the dragon solo anymore.

- @liagrace-b

- Scattered!Grian can’t fly. His normal down-featherly wings look like every feather has been plucked off, leaving the very sensitive skin open to the elements. But the world’s code itself has altered the physics of the wings themselfs. Grian can feel how much heavier the wing structure sits on his back, meaning that they couldn’t let him glide even if fully feathered. Poor Grian hasn’t survived the freezing cold long enough to know if his feathers would grow back with enough time.

- anonymous

- EX somehow gets into the scattered mix. Spawning in the Deep Dark, the exiled admin is terrified, and will stop at nothing to find his brother. 🌙

- (Scattered AU) Scar and Bdubs, after months(?) of travel, make it to the Ender Dragon's island. Bdubs is scared for both of their lives; he is in no condition to fight, he can't even STAND, and he's so, so afraid to die and be condemned to falling forever in the void once again. Scar says nothing, only gently setting his friend down behind an obsidian pillar before his skin goes completely translucent, his eyes clouding white. (Paraphrased: Scar defeats the dragon, him and Bdubs meet up with TFC)

- @/petrichormeraki

- the plugins do not work, so singleplayer sleep is out. Beds do reset spawn point, so the Hermits who spawned in a place where they can get them would do well to make several and use them as checkpoints along their journey (and hope that they don't get broken, especially for those who had to escape death loops....)

- (my answer to some questions)

- Those trapped in death loops change, adapting until they aren't harmed anymore or till they escape. After all, what are players if not adaptable?

- @permafrost782

- Xisuma blames his broken helmet for being unable to admin, as some sort of comfort. But there is no comfort there. The truth is, not even Joe, Tango, Cub, or Hypno can access the chat, can even begin to run commands to fix what has gone wrong. If they could, they would have teleported everyone to 0,0 and reset the worldspawn. Those partnered with any of the admins feel a certain kind of hopelessness. Those without feel a different kind of hopeless.

- @/basaltdragon

- To add to the scattered AU: Though i had seen someone explain the void connecting to the end so Bdubs gets out of that fall, i had the thought of this; What if eventually the void loops around with the overworld's sky, so he's basically in a continuous loop if falling to his death and respawning in the void until he finally is lucky enough in his falls to get over water and live. After that he just has to stay alive otherwise he returns to the void..

-@aetosofvalla

- Somewhere, in the back of Scar’s vex-addled mind, there’s the worry of Jellie. Where is she? Is she with another hermit? Did she spawn in with another village again and will he have to find her again? -🟣

- (Scattered AU) Cub and Scar have been linked by the Vex ever since their deal. One day, Cub's iron armor burns against his skin all at once, and through the searing pain is a horrifying realization that Scar has given in. - M

-@/petrichormeraki

- After a while Cub gets the resources to build a nether portal, but then he finds his portal has connected with someone else's. He finds himself lost again, without access to the farms he's built or the resources he's gathered, but at least he knows a friend is close.

- anonymous

- The End duo come across another end city. There’s a boat at the far end. Scar flies up on delicate vex wings to get the spare elytra and other loot. They’ve been walking for far too long. He floats down (as if he had the slow-falling effect. There’s only health in the brewing stand. Bdubs’ worry for Scar increases) with an extra set of trousers, boots, an elytra, the potions and a pic. Scar offers the elytra to Bdubs. He refuses. It’ll take longer to walk, but he never wants to fall again🟣

- Mumbo gets caught up in redstone work and doesn't bother trying to find anyone else. So when another hermit finally finds him, he has to stop his evoker friend from attacking. Whether or not he's successful is another thing.

- Anonymous

- (Scattered AU) Consider. When Doc finds Grian on the mountain peak while exploring the terrain, a message sends through everyone's communicators. <Grian was blown up by a Creeper>. Doc doesn't get a death message that time, despite both of them suffering the consequences of a surprised Doc in a server where mob-oriented hermits are more volatile than they should be. Doc doesn't go looking for other hermits again after that, and Grian is shocked into numbness at the dawning realization that his monster friends might be so much worse off than he thought. - M

- @/petrichormeraki

A summary of where things stand so far

- scattered au pog!!! hypno is in a seemingly endless flowery field. it was nice at first, but there's no trees, no food, and hardly any water. the sun is so hot. flowers aren't filling. hypno thought he liked being alone.

- Anonymous

- Mumbo doesn’t succumb to the magic of the mansion like perhaps Cub and Scar have, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t entirely unaffected- his skin becomes a little more washed out, instincts a little more violent- he certainly can’t go into villages anymore, otherwise the iron golem will smash him to bits

- @/fluffy-papaya

- With Scar using Vex magic, the Vex turn their attention to Cub, trying to tempt him at every turn. More then once he's found his mask in one of his chests, staring up at him, or awoken in a cold sweat from a dream full of vex. So far, he's resisted the temptation. Wether that lasts is another question entirely.

-@/bat-connoisseur

- Maybe eventualy hypno realises Even flowers would need water to grow, or that the bees must have a bee hive somewhere around here, and the bee hive is always connected to a tree(I think thats the case in Minecraft). So he tries to find where the buzzing comes from and follow the bees around.

- @/ciaravixen

- cleo bases a lot of her identity around being a zombie, right? she probably isnt too happy to be cured. she probably cries all the time it takes her to heal. it had to be done, but that doesnt mean she has to like it. and she doesnt, not one little bit.

- Anonymous

- that ask about Mumbo not bothering to look for anyone got me thinking.... Mumbo getting too caught up in his work with the evokers to look for the others. Mumbo making friends with the illagers. Mumbo knowing that it's completely reasonable that nobody has found him yet, but still getting the creeping feeling that no one is coming for him. Mumbo spending all his time with his new friends because, after all, they're here, and the hermits aren't... All this to say that, when the hermits eventually do find him, he might not be very inclined to leave...

- @/crows-in-space

- At one point, Mumbo's new friends are just...watching him try to do his stuff, observing. Mumbo's getting increasingly frustrated when ne of the evokers watching him breaks off and hands him something. At first he thinks its a totem of undying, its shaped like one, but its strange. Made out of iron, and its eyes are diamonds instead of emeralds. Then it starts to burn his hands and he passes out from the pain. When he wakes, its gone and he moves on, a bit more wary of his 'friends'. Maybe it was a mean joke, or some kinda of strange inhiation for the mansion maybe Except next time he's frustrated, he thows his hands up annoyed and fangs rise out of the ground around him and snap at the air. He cries out, confused, before looking at his hands which almost look like they've been painted with gray paints. it wont come off. He seems mentally the same but now he starts to experiment with his new found abilities. Maybe they can help with his redstone or even find others.

- Anonymous

- after trying a poisonous flower, hypno respawns back in the field. this time, he tries walking in a different direction. maybe this is the way out.

- Anonymous

- The flowers in Hypno’s area are just so perfect... blooming dandelions don’t lose their seeds when he brushes against them, petals that are crushed underfoot quickly regain their shape- and if his mind wasn’t so affected, he would’ve noticed the flower he picked was quickly replaced by another

- @/fluffy-papaya

- The Moobloom has one unique feature: The ability to leave behind flowers in its path... that is, the ability to alter the world around it simply by walking. These flower plains are not particularly large, maybe eight or so chunks across in each direction, but glitched world generation spawned in a herd of mooblooms, and all they've been doing is walking around causing little distortions, one on top of the other. From the inside, where Hypno is standing, the plains go on forever. The air is thick with buttercup pollen that's slowly dulling his sense of space and time. He has to pull it together, somehow. Force the world to recognise that he's walking forwards in a straight line. Or he'll be wandering in circles forever...

- @/draconic-dreams

- another hermit- maybe beef? sees the edge of a deep, fragrant field. on the horizon, not far away, is hypno, walking in circles. he calls but he cannot hear beef. something tells the man not to go into that field- at least, not without a flint and steel. (Shade note: Beef and Joe saved Hypno and are currently sheltering him (unconscious) in their spawn sanctuary)

- anonymous

- Maybe if they went through the exit portal and it glitched but good. They don't think about the fact it should send them back to their spawns, Scar feels something at the back of his mind that very much isn't him tell him to change his mind, stay in this place becuase they'll just be trapped if they try to leave, but Bdubs grabs his arm and jumps in before Scar can say anything. For a second, blessed silence, Scar's mind feels clear and normal. then they show up at world spawn and scare theother

- anonymous

(Shade note: people at the spawn haven now include Joe, Beef, Hypno, TFC, Scar, and Bdubs)

- Once Keralis and Cleo are healed up, the village gang starts going to 0,0 to try to meet up with others. On the way, they find a flower forest (potentially the same one Hypno’s in). They find some mooblooms and fall in love (this was def not done bc I want some fluff, nope not at all /s) -🟣

- Mumbo receives a set of robes from his evoker friend. He’s loathe to get rid of his suit, but at the same time... well, all the better to fit in, right? This is a glitch and fluke anyway, and he might as well blend in if the illagers ever turn on him. That’s it. That’s the only reason he tosses the suit jacket into the fireplace, don’t be silly. It has nothing to do with the feeling that he just doesn’t want to leave...

- anonymous

- I’m imagining Shattered Impulse looking like the Fishman from Shape of Water + the teeth of an Angler fish and the ability to unhinge his jaw. Poor guy probably gets mistaken for a glitched mob when someone finds him.

- @/fandomrecycling

- Yes hello it's me again. After the pollen spells breaks for Hypno (and whoever else might have tried to save him beforehand...), he notices he's a little different. he can't always control how he moves, he doesn't like eye contact, and he takes an even bigger interest in his, well, interests than before. Basically Tourettic Hypno go brrr (I am tourettic so feel free to ask me clarification!)

- @/fireflower-dusk

- I don't think Keralis has been mentioned except for being in the nether so I would like to contribute that he spawned in that soul sand and skeleton biome that has almost nothing in it.

- anonymous

- Mumbo, being hundreds of thousands of blocks out from spawn, is the last hermit to be found. Even after the glitch was fixed, Mumbo was so caught up in his research and new abilities that he no longer felt it mattered. He'd been apart from the hermits for well over a year now; and a long time ago he gave up hope that they'd come back for him. This was, of course, until he woke up one morning to a disturbance outside. When he goes to check the source of the racket, he's left frozen in place at the sight of Iskall on his mansion's doorstep. And at the end of it all, despite Mumbo telling himself that he was better alone, Iskall's hand on his shoulder, reassuring that "Yes, I'm here, yes, I'm real, and no, I'm not leaving, you spoon." Is enough for Mumbo to break, clinging to Iskall as if he'd disappear at any moment, murmuring "I'm sorry" over and over like a broken record. -🧸

- Maybe after Wels and Hels make their deal, and Wels gets some gold gear and a respawn anchor to click, Hels shows him how to create a portal to Hels the place to which from there, they think they can get into the overworld. The only catch being that to get in to Hels the place you need to focus all of you emotions onto pure hatred and anger, but the question is could Wels do it?

- Anonymous

- Hels taunts Wels about how no one came to get him, and plants ideas about how this was done on purpose, about how he's the only one to spawn in the nether for a reason. He tells him the hermits want him gone. And Wels of course becomes angry but he becomes angry at Hels for trying to tell him his friends didn't care about him. He's also angry at himself though, maybe for thinking he hasn't done enough to make his friends want to keep him around. He is never mad at the hermits though, never them

- TFC's concerned. Even if he thinks it's great he found Bdubs and Scar, the latter shouldn't be able to just kill the ender dragon alone. TFC doesn't know much about Scar but the man can barely fly usually, why did he turn into a vex, anyway? vexes don't exist in the end. TFC need to ask, at least to make sure he's ok, but everytime he tries he stops in his track once the cold, icy blue eyes stare back at him. devoid of the usual warmth his green ones have.

- Anonymous

- (Scatter AU) Saw someone mention the other ops on the server and had a thought: Tango is a programmer with a specialty in game programming. He’s probably sitting at the campfire thinking of every single way the game must have been corrupted to cause this many problems. If he could just get into the code, maybe he could fix some of these problems. I’ll bet he’s driving himself a little crazy thinking of everything that could be done to fix the world and not being able to do anything...

- Anonymous

- Cub was lucky, he thinks. Seeing the many death messages in chat, he's torn between gratitude that he's ended up with what almost looks like a normal spawn, and worry for his friends. After gathering enough resources to stay reasonably safe, he knows what he has to do next. So when he encounters Xb, he eventually suggests he takes some resources and a bed he's salvaged from the abandoned village and heads towards 0,0, hoping there'll be someone there. (1/3)But as for him... well, there's an obvious place to head as far as he can see, for someone with a safe enough spawn point and the ability to gather resources. A place where he knows for sure he'll find someone else, someone who needs help. After all, unless this world is even more messed up that it seems, there's only one place where a player would be killed by the Ender dragon, and he knows exactly how to get there. (2/3) (Shade note: Him and xB were not successful in finding the Hermit who the mystery portal belonged to. They must have died in the Nether and returned to their spawn point. XB resists the idea that they split up, but he sees the logic in it and agrees to start the long journey for 0,0.) (pt. 3 was eaten by the inbox)

- Anonymous

- Maybe one of the reasons Cleo doesn't like being a human as much is because she had chronic pain (particularly in her back) when she was alive, and when she gets cured after meeting up with False, Stress, and Keralis, her back pain comes back (along with all the other pains of being alive)

-@/justme123abz

- Whenever Etho spawns, wherever Etho spawns, he takes it upon himself to tell each and every Hermit he can find to head towards 0,0. He's not sure why, but he believes that if they get everyone together, they can figure out how to fix the broken world.If there aren't any Hermits in sight, he'll make a sign out of whatever's avalible before going searching. It's a complete pain to try and build anything coherent out of sand and cactus, but he has to try. He has to get everyone together. It's their best hope. It's their only hope.Even Evil X. Even Hels. Everyone. He doesn't care about past grievances. They need to get through this. And their only option is to do it together. (Shade note: He doesn't stay with Team ZIT for long. He probably dies trying to protect them from something, knowing that it will only result in him finding another Hermit anyway. Even though he himself isn't making any progress toward the origin, he counts it as a victory every time he can guide one of his friends just a little bit closer.)

- Doc Ren and Grian himself thought that him being found and safe would fix everything right? yea no he has horrible fevor, he struggles to retain warmth depsite 2 feet from a fire, he's tired and has a hard time stay awake becuase on the mt he slept alot, he barley eats cuz he cant hold too much down rn. He cant stand being alone or he'll start to panic, ands he's just trying to ignore the new fox fetures he has desperately when he's aware enough to do. Doc and Ren have a hard time ahead of them.

- Anonymous

- Mumbo was trying to make a machine with redstone and evoker magic to contact the hermits right?so what if he did build the machine ad at first his only way to get the magic was to go annoy the evoker hoping he would try to hit him and instead hit the machine to power it. Plan backfired so many times because of the vex killing him before. So when Mumbo becomes apprentice he wants to try power the machine himself but it breaks because he can't control how much magic he uses yet.time to study magic

-@/artsarasp

- Etho dies with the Zit and ends up back in it. Next he ends up in X's spawn, there's no one around but he finds the bloody tunnel X punched himself, and races down it to see in the distance Xisuma and Jevin in a cave.He calls out to them, only to get overwhelmed by zombies that just spawned, He manages to gurgle out 0,0 before he dies again. (He's now determined to be the messenger of meetings, even willing to die on purpose to find them all). After that? Ren's old spawn, now he has to track ren

- anonymous

- I guess hypno’s been... hypnotizd 👉😎👉

- We need more Jevin and xisuma interaction content, be it fluff or angst, how aware is jevin by the time Xisuma gets there? How many axolotls do they take with them on the way to the surface?

- @/ciaravixen

(Shade comment: We need more Jevin and xisuma interaction content, be it fluff or angst, how aware is jevin by the time Xisuma gets there? How many axolotls do they take with them on the way to the surface? )

- Mumbo having to learn how to use the magic, the evoker will probably also try to teach him how to summon the vex, even if Mumbo really wants to just focus on the magic and not the evocation.What if he's able to summon Scar since he gave his name to the vex? just by accident and Mumbo gets so startled by Scar's new appearance that he immediately interrupts the evocation and makes Scar dissappear. Scar reappears where he was before confused cause for a moment he saw Mumbo?did he allucinante??

- @/artsarasp

- Scattered AU! So what if what happened with EX and Hels happened with old hermits to? Like Biffa, Generikb, Jessassin etc etc. Everyone is concerned as it is but then they see a death message from one of them and realize it's even worse then they thought.

- Anonymous

- Once Wels and Helssknight are in Hels the have to sneak around a lot. Hels isn’t as popular there as he had previously boasted, that’s why he had tried to take over the over world. Cue heart to heart talk before a Hels version of another hermit cuts them off. (Can you pick the Hermit I’m kinda stuck here)

- Anonymous

- Iskall must have not even known the direction he was walking from his desert spawn, so its purely by luck he ended up finding the mansion mumbo resides in- his cybernetic eye is fixed almost instantly upon his arrival by mumbo and iskall feels his hope fades as he realises they’re /so/ far from the hermits. I also guess he must be worried about whats happening to his friend right before him, mumbo wouldnt willingly give into the vex and evoker magic right? 1/2 But he isn’t so sure anymore, the days at the mansion are quiet and uncomfortable as Iskall has to be wary of the illagers that walk the halls, mumbo assures him of his safety, but theres no light in his eyes - he doubts the illagers welcomed mumbo at first- The usual banter isn’t there at all, its dead silence as mumbo keeps on working and Iskall can see how paler his skin becomes and the blue scars that litter his body 2/2

- Anonymous

- Etho died and respawned at the true spawn once. Beef was elated to see him and was afraid if he let him go, he would disappear. He didn’t want to lose his friend again. In the end, he does, he was actually with Etho when he dies, and he never lets the feeling go.

- @/harley-the-pancake

- aww poor etho! At least he's okay with this new role as messenger. Now i can just imagen he ends up at Ren's spawn and manages to track the man, nearly dying but staying alive and- thats a house in the distance! He goes over and nearly runs into Doc, who invites him in surprised and they catch each other up, their spawns and Etho's situation. They're overjoyed to hear about the others and Ethos glad to see them realtivly okay. Grian's condition is worrying however, changed and still weak (1) They agree they need to start heading to 0,0 but Ren is nervous about leaving safety, Doc wants them safe, and with Grian still sick and weak from laying in snow for weeks it'll take a bit until he's stable enough to travel (he'll probs have to be carried anyways). Etho stays for a few days at their insistence for rest, he wants to keep going there is more hermits out there he hasn't found, they are insistent that he take time to recover. Then, he lets himself die. Off to the next hermit! (2)

- Anonymous

- This is for the very very beginning, but maybe before False meets up with Cleo, she spawns in a warm ocean biome. Coral structures fill the water around her, and tropical fish dart between them. It would be almost peaceful, were it not for the fact that False was encased in a cage of coral.It’s a gamble every time. She has to try and smash her way out of her colorful prison before the tide rolls in, slow and steady water rising up her body and over her head. The water makes her movements clumsy and arduous as she tries to free herself, racing against time to escape the awful tide. (Pt 2) OH SORRY I HAD AN IDEA (this is from the coral False anon)What if Stress and False both spawn in that biome and they have to try and help each other out before the tide comes in?? Added angst if one of the times one manages to escape but the other doesn’t

- Anonymous

- (scattered au) Every time that a hermit dies the universe and the world file starts to corrupt, the way that things are going if everything doesn't go back to normal soon, then the world will crumble on itself with the hermits inside.

- Anonymous

- Admins log, day: ⬛⬛⬛ I've finally managed to find my way to the drip stone caves, weirdly I think I may have a good connection down here, I'll try to contact the others, if they haven't forgotten about me yet. (Shade note: Far away in the woodland mansion, Mumbo rubs his eyes and marks down another failure on his latest contraption. How long will it be until he can generate a signal? He has no way of knowing that, for a single moment, it worked. He stopped checking his communicator a long time ago, so he doesn't see the single message until much later: <Xisuma> can anyone hear me?)

- At some point Etho cycles round to Doc's spawn. His friend is long gone but there are five creepers in formation watching him. Waiting for something.It takes a moment for him to recall the trick of unfocusing his ears just right, so that their hisses resolve into words. He hasn't had to do it for years, after all. He hasn't run into General Spaz since he left Chocolate Island.“It'ssss been a while, Esssssho” the General says. “Let'sssss make a wager”The General reaches out for a handshake... it seems the glitch finally gave him a pair of arms.(ancient Etho lore go brrrr)

- Anonymous

- Both the snow and the void are cold, and getting stuck in there means getting frostbite a lot is fairly likely, so Grian and Bdubs would be unlikely to get out with all their fingers...

- @/bat-connoisseur

- Based on a little piece of this ask where it was mentioned that Hypno passed out only three steps outside the flower biome, I start to wonder, how long was he wandering in circles without food? Why did he collapse so immediately? Was the biome itself perhaps sustaining him? Keeping him "healthy" (if you could call it that) and alive? COULD he have starved to death if he hadn't been pulled out? Or would he have just kept walking? And walking. And walking...

-@/asexualbert

- An idea focusing on evil xisuma. He ended up spawning on the nether roof, stuck with nothing but mushrooms and bedrock as far as the eye can see. No communication, no water, no way out. He can probably eat the mushrooms, at the very least.... but there may be some bad side effects from it. It's disheartening and lonely up there, dying from starvation over. And over. And over. At one point, etho may have spawned there as well... but of course, he wouldnt last long. Condemned to endless roof...

-@/therainofsweetmelody

- Okay, hear me out: after Hypno’s been out of his illusion for a while, he starts to get headaches. He doesn’t think anything of it, until he wakes up one day with small horns growing and flowers in his hair. In conclusion: Moobloom!Hypno

- @/harley-the-pancake

Art:

- An Impulse

- A Grian

- A Guardian Impulse

- A Void Bdubs by @/sweetest-honeybee

- This Hypno by @/irys-97

- an Iskall and a Grian

- a fox Grian

- A Guardian Impulse

- a suffering Xisuma

- Mumbo and Evoker doodles

Writing:

Up. He needs to go up. He spawned too deep in the world, and though he'd heard of underground spawns there was no way, no way in the world that being so deep under was normal. Every cave he crawled up either came to a dead end or opened into a massive, mob-filled cavern, and somehow he still hadn't found even half a mineshaft. He could spend hours upon hours painfully clawing his way through the stone, but he keeps convincing himself it'll be faster to find a cave that leads to the surface. The pounding heartbeat of a warden stills rings in his ears, an ever-present reminder of his terrible luck. If only he could get some wood. Just a few planks, some torches. Anything. It's almost as if the stone doesn't want him to leave.

- @basaltdragon

- Buried by @arts-and-drafts

- Cleo grits her teeth and pulls a leather cap low over her head and stays on the outskirts of the taiga village, where the less scrupulous people go. She can't stay here long, if an iron golem catches her she's going to end up social spawning a bunch of less sapient friends and wiping out the village. The air is cold and thin out here, close to the mountains. The strays leave her alone. She's not sure how to feel about that. ~@betweenlands

- "A poem, by Impulse" by @/rayveewrites

- Pulse by @/arts-and-drafts

- Unnamed Impulse fic by @bat-connoisseur

- Another Impulse fic by @/betweenlands

- Don't think about it by me (@shadeswift99 )

- A poetic fic by @irys-97

- this short anon piece

- If I lose myself by @/arts-and-drafts

- Mountainside by @/basaltdragon

- Sleepwalk by @/betweenlands

- This Grian fic by @silverechosandsmileymasks

- A Jevin fic by @/basaltdragon

- This Hypno piece by @/fireflower-dusk

- This Iskall anon

- Alternate Impulse fic by @/rayveewrites

- Short Grian fic by @rk9-mew2

- an alternate headcanon for Mumbo

- This Xisuma fic by @/bat-connoisseur

[magefeathers]

Tried to send to the writing blog but you seem to have asks disabled there? So anyway: 🖊 🖊🖊🖊 one for each

omg I'm sorry! I always forget you have to manually enable asks on a new blog and it's not enabled by default, I just never enabled them when I made the sideblog o(-( Thank you for letting me know!!

I will repay you with the origin stories for how each of my OCs was made!

L'yara

As my original WoL, she wasn't actually meant to be an OC! It all started with the absolute lack of dialogue options for the player character in ARR, of all things. It made me go, "Oh, so I'm just one of those people who goes along with everything everyone says because I lowkey hope I'll die doing something heroic and be remembered as a hero for it? Okay." Aaaand that actually became the foundation for L'yara's backstory! A lot of her lore has changed since then, but her original reason for joining the Scions is still, basically, because she had a death wish.

Khorchi

So, funny story, I made my account on the free trial, and only the five races were available to play as on the free trial, which is why I picked miqo'te - I knew nothing about au ra or viera or hrothgar. And it took me until Heavensward (like, well past Yugiri's introduction) for me to realize that au ra were a playable race in game on the full version. And by then I had the full version, but by then I was attached to L'yara as a character and already developing lore for her. So I made Kaisuri as an alt just so I could play as au ra. Once I got to Stormblood I fell in love with the Dotharl tribe, because I've always had a fascination with reincarnation mythos, and the next time I logged into Kaisuri I went Holy shit, because she was a xaela with dark, blue-toned skin, like much of the Dotharl tribe, and the dye color I'd picked for her glamors was void blue (commonly used for Dotharl garments) and she (at the time) had white hair, just like Sadu, so I immediately decided that she was going to be an OC from the Dotharl tribe, started giving her lore, and eventually changed her name to Khorchi to make it more xaela-aligned rather than the raen-aligned Kaisuri.

Domitien

Dom SOLELY came about because I wanted to try playing a healer but was terrified of being bad and being judged for it. So I basically made a throw-away alt with a randomly generated name that I didn't hate, so I could start as a conjurer and have the "excuse" of the sprout by my name if I sucked. I got to Sastasha, the tank died, in the time it took me to get him up the rest of the party had died, I tried to move on to res-ing the next person before I'd topped off the tank and the tank died again.... it was a shit show. I felt so terrible and the people in that dungeon with me were so, SO nice about it, but I still literally deleted the character out of humiliation. A few months later and I'm joking with a friend about making a functional light party of OCs, because I already had two DPS's, and technically had a healer since Domitien's appearance data was still saved. By then I had started playing AST on my main and wasn't terrible at it so I had much less healing anxiety, and decided to revive Domitien and start giving him lore!

Einar

Despite them now being one of my favorite OCs, I literally only made Einar because I needed a tank for my (then still hypothetical) light party. It was shortly after male viera were announced, and I wanted to make a male viera OC so badly. The entirety of their lore and personality was formed around me pondering what kind of mindset a male viera would need to have to leave their tribe, which is really funny considering that same train of thought led me to this character identifying as nonbinary and actively seeking to obfuscate their gender.

Thank you for the ask!! <3

[justanotherlifeff]

Levi Ackerman × reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, matured themes, slowburn

Warning: There's mentions and descriptions of underage rape and suicidal themes and self harm and other triggering stuff.

No one's POV

"Squad leader (Y/N)! The scouts are back! They retook wall Maria!", (Y/N) was woken by Diana's excited yelling. She barged into Levi's room, mud all over her shoes. (Y/N) woke up with a jolt and noticed it. "Levi will be pissed..." she thought but she didn't say anything to Diana. This wasn't the time for it. She knew that she had to see if Levi and Erwin returned safely or not. "Diana, saddle my horse. Fast" (Y/N) commanded Diana as she went to the bathroom to change out of her nightgown. She didn't take long to change and when she was done, she immediately ran for the stable, her heart fluttering with joy. They are back. They are successful. They are one step ahead for humanity's victory.

When (Y/N) reached the stable, Diana was done saddling the horse and (Y/N) immediately got on it and galloped for the walls. The fluttering feeling in her heart turned into an uncomfortable clench when she reached the wall. An elevator with nine people was coming down. An elevator can hold about twenty people. "Was that all the people who survived?" she thought, the uncomfortable feeling in her stomach increasing. The lift seemed to come down for eternity. "Are they dead?" (Y/N)'s mind whispered to herself. She had no idea what she would do without Levi. Without Erwin, her only family left. When the lift came down finally, (Y/N) felt like her heart stopped. At the front was Hanji, her eye bandaged. Behind her was Levi. (Y/N)'s eyes widened at the sight.

"No... This isn't happening..." her mind shouted. Levi noticed her on her horse and bowed his head. "He didn't protect Erwin..." (Y/N)'s mind whispered at her. Out of instinct, (Y/N) turned her horse and galloped towards the Survey corps headquarter, not stopping even when Levi shouted, "(Y/N)! Wait!" loudly.

(Y/N) went straight into Levi's office. She needed to know how Erwin died. She needed to know if Levi tried his best to save him. After what seemed like a lifetime later, Levi entered his office to find (Y/N) sitting on one of the chairs in front of his desk. "How did it happen?" (Y/N) asked him in a quiet voice. Her face scared Levi. It was what he saw the day he first met (Y/N). Emotionless and cold. There were no tears in (Y/N)'s eyes. She almost looked like she was tired, like she was bored. Levi didn't know how to explain everything to her. He was never too good at explaining anyway.

With a sigh, he said, "Both Erwin and Armin were seriously injured. I had to use the titan serum on one of them and I decided that it was time for Erwin to rest.". "So, you killed him..." (Y/N) stated, her voice showing...nothing. No anger, no regret, no sadness. Her voice was like of a dead person, void of any human emotion. "(Y/N), I had good reason to..." Levi tried to explain but (Y/N) held her hand up, signalling him to stop. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say." she said before walking towards the door. "Don't try to follow me. I don't want to see your face again." she told him, not bothering to look at him before walking out of the office.

(Y/N) felt numb. Memories of Erwin and Levi making promises shot through her mind. "How many times will I lose everything dear to me?" she thought. To her, life seemed more meaningless than ever. She walked towards her office. Yes, she had her own office but she preferred to work with Levi. She felt lonely doing all the work alone. Ironically, loneliness was all she had now. She took a pen and paper and wrote a letter.

"Ms Hanji Zoe

Commander

Survey corps

Subject: Resignation letter

Dear Hanji,

Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from the position as squad leader of the Survey corps, effective from whenever you get the letter.

I appreciate the opportunity of growth and development you have provided me.

Sincerely,

(Y/N) (L/N)"

This was it. She knew she had to run from this life. Being in the Survey corps meant she had to witness the death of loved ones again. She had to face Levi again. (Y/N) walked towards Erwin's office. "I will never see him sitting in there again" her mind whispered to her. She opened the door to find an empty room. "Hanji didn't move in yet.." she assumed. Memories of when she was chosen as squad leader, when she asked him to walk the aisle with her on her wedding passed her mind. The wedding would never happen now. She remembered the ring in her finger. "Should I leave it with the letter?" she thought, not being able to make up her mind. At the end she decided to keep it.

As a symbol of her old memories of a Levi she knew she loved. (Y/N) placed the letter on the desk and went out of the office, out of the headquarters. She didn't take her horse or her possessions, she didn't have the time to. She walked towards the place where she made the decision of joining the Survey corps. To the orphanage.

(Y/N) POV

I knocked on the door of the orphanage and the matron opened the door. Seemed like the news of Uncle Erwin's death spreaded like wild fire since the first thing the matron did was hug me and say, "Oh (Y/N) dear! I'm so sorry...". "Ms Winkler (the matron's name), can I stay here for a few days? Till I get my own house?" I asked her calmly. "Your own house? Aren't you getting married soon?" she asked me, confused. "I'm afraid the wedding won't take place. After what he did..." I sighed. "My dear, I don't know what the captain did but you rejecting him means it must be something horrid. You're welcome to stay here for as long as you want. I'm getting old, so a bit of help is always welcomed." Ms Winkler smiled as she took me in.

Ms Winkler showed me my room a while back. I sat on the bed, trying to remain calm but I felt restless. The depth of the situation was finally hitting me. Uncle Erwin is dead. I left Levi. I left the Survey corps. I have absolutely nothing left to live for. I felt emotionally unstable. I felt all energy from my body being drained. "I can't take this anymore. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts..." my mind was screaming.

I walked to the bathroom. Conveniently, there was a blade there. I had to cut myself. Drown my sorrows by causing external pain. Just before the blade touched my skin, I remembered that I wasn't alone. I still had my child. "I'm sorry honey... I completely forgot about you... I'm so sorry I almost hurt you..." I whispered to my stomach, which bulged a bit now. I caressed it a bit as I sat on the bathroom floor, whispering sorry as tears streamed down my face. I have to take on all the pain the world throws at me. I have to make sure my child gets a happy life.

A week later

"(Y/N), you need to eat properly... You're eating like a mouse, dear... Both the baby and you needs the food..." Ms Winkler tried to convince me to eat. I honestly tried my best to eat as much as I can but I had no appetite. After the happenings of last week, nothing felt good. I slept for two days, eating a few bites of bread whenever Ms Winkler got it to me. She was worried about my and my child's health and even if I was grateful that she was making the effort, I just couldn't eat. My sleep schedule was all over the place too as my nightmares came back.

It's been a while since I've been having nightmares every night. Being with Levi helped but now... There's nothing I could do about it. I've been helping Ms Winkler with her household duties, looking after the other kids, and keeping myself as busy as possible to forget the events of last week. Hanji didn't send me an approval of the resignation letter yet and I thought about going to the Survey corps headquarter to make sure if she got the letter or not but later decided against it as there was a chance of running into Levi there.

I still didn't know why he decided to let Erwin die but I decided that it's best if I don't know as the truth on it might only be more hurtful. I rented a house last day too, where I was supposed to move in to next week. The owner, a lovely old lady, was really understanding of my situation. I was peeling some potatoes in the kitchen when Ms Winkler came into the kitchen and told me, "(Y/N), someone is here to see you."

Levi POV

It had been a week since (Y/N) left. I understood why she did it. What I did was unforgivable. However, I couldn't keep any regrets, right? My sleep schedule had been shit for the last week, the insomnia returned, as well as the nightmares. All I did everyday was bury myself with paperwork, clean any place with a speck of dirt and drink to some extent at night. My good alcohol tolerance didn't help at all. At least that kept my mind off things... Apparantly everyone was surprised when I cleaned the stable by myself two days back. I couldn't blame them because I made cadets do things like that since I became a squad leader. I was working on paperwork when Hanji entered the room.

"What do you want shitty glasses" I asked in a stoic expression, not looking up from the paperwork. "Oi, I'm the commander now. At least give some respect..." Hanji teased, trying to make me talk. She had been doing these for a while as I haven't talked to anyone much since last week. There just was too much on my mind and the amount of paperwork was intense. "It's been a week since she gave that resignation letter. What are you planning to do about it?" Hanji asked me. Yes, she wanted to leave the Survey corps. Because of me. It was all over wasn't it? "Aren't you in charge of writing the approval letter?" I asked, restricting any emotions in my voice.

"Levi, stop acting like you don’t feel anything. Before her commander, I'm her friend and I know that you want her to be happy as much as I do. You need to go and explain why you made that shitty decision. At least try to get her back." Hanji told me, her voice sounding angry. "I tried to tell her. She didn't want to listen" I answered. Hanji looked at me like I am horse shit.

"You went up to her and told her that you made the decision to kill Erwin. It's obvious that she wouldn't want to listen to you. And you stopped trying because of that one time? I honestly had better expectations from you, Levi." she told me, getting angrier. "What am I supposed to tell her? That I don't regret making that decision? You think she will like hearing that?" I asked Hanji, frustrated. She was right, I should've tried harder, but, how?

"But you do regret it don't you? Even if it probably was necessary according to you?" Hanji asked, in a soft tone. "I'm not supposed to regret it... Erwin said.." I was interjected by Hanji, who simply said, "Erwin regretted not being able to see what's in the basement, didn't he? Thus you had to make the decision for him and he had to die. Sure, the downfall was big but it caused one of our biggest victories didn't it? We know so much now... I suppose, regretting might give some good results too, doesn't it?" she explained. I was silent. She was right. I regretted my decision.

However, it had to be done. I had to explain everything to (Y/N) and leave the decision to her. "Levi, let's not delay things more. I got news that (Y/N) is staying at an orphanage nearby. Let's go together and convince her to talk to you. As a friend, I want her happy and as a commander, she is a huge asset to the survey corps, given that now we only have 9 survivors from the last mission. I'll tell someone to saddle our horses." she told be before getting up and going out of my room. I didn't feel as nervous as I feel now when I proposed (Y/N)...

It took a while for me to arrange all the paperwork I was working on into neat piles before going to the stable. Hanji was already there, on her horse. Diana, (Y/N)'s second in command was standing there. She probably was the one to saddle the horses. "Commander Hanji, when will squad leader (Y/N) return from vacation?" I heard her asking Hanji. Yes, the survey corps members and other higher ups were told that (Y/N) was on vacation as she needed some time alone due to Erwin's death, and not to talk about it to the press. The only people who knew about the resignation letter were myself and Hanji. "Well, we are going to talk to her about that now." Hanji smiled at Diana, who saluted me as I arrived near them. I motioned her to be at ease as I got on my horse. With that, we galloped towards the orphanage she was in.

We reached there in a few minutes as it was pretty close. "I'll go inside and talk to (Y/N) first. I'll call you when I have convinced her to talk to you. I have a feeling that she will refuse to talk to you at first." Hanji explained. I nodded as a reply. It was depressing to think that (Y/N) would refuse to talk to me. I got down from my horse to find a few kids staring at me and the horses. "Oi brats, you know where the stable is?" I asked them. One of them, possibly the leader, a small brunette kid, walked up to me and said, "I'd tell you if you were nice to me." with a pout.

"Listen, brat, I am being nice. I'm not in much of a good mood now, so don't give me this bullshit. Where's the stable?" I asked the kid in my monotone voice. "Mhhm, I won't tell you unless you're nice." she pouted. "Kid, don't expect every single stranger to sweet talk to you." I sighed. Kids were annoying. "Well, Ms (L/N) was a stranger. She was nice to us." the girl told me. "She was? Well, Ms (L/N) is a nice person. I on the other hand am a piece of shit who made her sad." I sighed, my expression showing some sadness even if I tried to hide it. The girl looked at me for a moment before saying, "The stable is in the backyard. Follow me.".

I followed the girl, the group of kids followed me. "You're captain Levi right?" the girl asked. "Yes. I am." I answered, as I walked with the horses. "How did you make Ms (L/N) sad?" she asked me. "Well, as you know, the commander of the survey corps is dead right? I had a lot of things to do with it. The commander was Ms (L/N)'s uncle and... You know how that works." I explained. "So you're here to talk to her?" the girl asked.

"Yeah" I answered as I got the horses in the stable. "You know, she won't be happy if you keep using your potty mouth. If you're nice to her, she will listen." the girl advised. I was surprised that a 10 year old was advising me about how I should talk to (Y/N). However, she wasn't entirely wrong. I only had a chance if I calmly explained everything one by one. "You're right, kid." I answered as I closed the stable door. "Oi, what's your name?" I asked the girl. "Stella." she answered as Hanji came out. "I figured you'd be near the stable. (Y/N) agreed to talk. Let's go." she said. "Best of luck out there. You need it." Stella told me with a smile.

(Y/N) POV

"Hanji?" I was surprised to see her here. I honestly thought she will just send an approval letter. "(Y/N), we need to talk." she told me. "I'll give you two some privacy" Ms Winkler said before getting out of the room. "I expected you to send an approval letter..." I started but Hanji interjected. "(Y/N), both you and Levi are my best friends. I want both of you to be happy. What you two are doing right now isn't gonna make either of you happy." she went straight to business. "Hanji, I'm happy this way. I don't want him in my life." I told her.

"Don't try to trick me, (Y/N). You're as thin as a scarecrow. I could tell you can't eat properly. Don't be so selfish (Y/N). We both know that you're not happy. Do you think your child will be okay without any explanation of why you left his or her father? You can't deny your child of his or her father just because you are angry." Hanji told me. "There is an explanation, Hanji. He decided to let Uncle Erwin die. He chose some Cadet over Uncle Erwin." I was interjected again.

"(Y/N), you weren't there when it happened. I saw the whole thing and I don't blame him. I don't know what he was thinking but I witnessed everything. He was going to give Erwin the injection. He was almost killed by Mikasa in the process. Eren begged him like his life depended on it. He ignored every one of them. I saw from far away that he almost pushed the needle in Erwin's hand but then Erwin shot his hand up, away from the needle and said something to Levi. That's when Levi gave the injection to Armin. I think, it was something that Erwin said that changed Levi's mind. Trust me, he wanted to save Erwin but I don't think Erwin wanted to be saved. If anyone broke a promise, it was Erwin. Not Levi." Hanji explained to me what she saw.

Was I blaming Levi for nothing then? What did Uncle Erwin say to him? "Levi hasn't been sleeping for the last week and he honestly looks as old as his age now. I don't want any of you two to suffer. Please, at least talk to him about it. Let him explain." Hanji told me in a serious tone. "Okay. I will talk to him." I sighed. If Hanji is right, I probably am making a big mistake by leaving him. I just had to make sure. "Ah, great! I will get Levi here in a minute. He's right outside!" Hanji said happily before skipping outside. That crazy woman is always prepared...

After a long minute, Levi entered the room. Hanji wasn't kidding when she said that Levi looks older. He had eye bags and looked like he had a bad case of a hangover. How much has he been drinking? I've never seen him having a hangover... Even after all that, he still managed to look almost as good as usual. "So, explain" I told him as he sat on the chair beside me. We were sitting at the dining room. "I decided that I will tell you everything from the beginning. After that, you're free to make any decision that you see fit." Levi told me. He looked like a defeated man, like he lost everything dear to him. "Okay" I replied before he started.

"We were losing the battle. The beast titan was throwing boulders at us, cornering us. If we were to wait longer, everyone would've died. We were in the inner walls of wall Maria. My squad and Hanji's squad was in Shiganshina. The colossal titan was coming towards us from Shiganshina. Eren was unconscious on top of the wall. Everything spelt defeat. I proposed Erwin that I would sacrifice myself so that he and the others could ride Eren and escape. It was a botched up plan anyway. Erwin then told me that he had a plan which included him and every other soldier in the inner wall to charge at the beast titan, making themselves potential targets. They would shoot flares at the beast, distracting him and I would use the line of titans next to him to get to him.

Erwin wanted to see what's in the basement and to attend the wedding. He wasn't willing to make the decision. I, at that time, decided that humanity's victory is more important because I wanted you and our child safe. Even if you leave me for it. I made the decision for him and he told me to take care of you two. The plan was a success. I got the beast titan but I hoped that Erwin was alive. I didn't kill the beast titan so that Erwin could turn into a titan and eat him. I was wrong, and the cart titan took the beast titan and ran off. He commanded his titan army to kill me but I killed the titan army as fast as possible before following the beast.

I found him talking to Eren but he saw me and ran again. My gas was finished when I reached Eren. There, I found that Armin was almost burnt to death. He defeated the colossal titan earlier by sacrificing himself. Berthold was captured by Eren. Eren told me to use the serum on Armin. I hesitated because there still was a chance that Erwin might be alive and I was right. Erwin was badly injured and dying. I made the most obvious decision, which was to save Erwin. That's when Eren started begging. Mikasa shot at me with her sword when I hit Eren to get him out of the way. I just... Felt weak.

Who was I to choose that their best friend, a person who was almost like a brother to them, should die? Even after all that, I knew that I had to save Erwin because I promised you that I will keep him safe. Hanji came later and took Mikasa off me, explained them that it has to be Erwin. That's when Eren mentioned how Armin wanted to see the ocean. I realized that both Erwin and Armin had dreams that made them go on. I still decided to bring Erwin back to life. Just as I was about to push the needle in his hand, he shot his hand up and muttered with his dying breath, "Teacher... How'd y... find out that they don't exist?". I remembered something that Kenny said at that time. That everyone has to be drunk on something in order to live.

It matched with something Erwin told me earlier, that he wanted to die many times but it was the mystery of the basement that kept him alive. If he knew what was inside the basement, he probably wouldn't want to be alive like this anymore. And, that would be a loss for humanity nonetheless. Armin on the other hand had goals that was far from reach. I made the decision that felt would be best for humanity and the safety of you two. On the view point of a captain, I have no regrets, but, in a personal view point, I regret this decision and will continue to do so all my life." he explained.

For once, I think I understood why he did it. "Levi, I understand why you did it. I think I will forgive you too, but, give me some time. I need to think it all over, and convince my mind to forgive you. It really wasn't your fault but I lost someone dear to me. I just, need some space till we get married." I replied. "You... You won't leave me? We are still getting married?" Levi asked, his voice and face showing surprise. "Yes. I won't leave you and we will get married on the date we fixed. However, I want to stay alone till that day. I need to give myself the time to forgive you." I explained.

"(Y/N), thank you so much for reconsidering... I don't deserve to be forgiven. I'm sorry..." Levi muttered. "It's okay Levi. By the way, how much are you drinking?" I asked him. "Oh, just every night." he answered with a smile. "Don't drink that much. It's bad for you. You look older." I told him. "Okay. I wont." he told me, holding my hand. I didn't know what came upon me because I got up and hugged him. He was still sitting down, his head was on my chest. "I'm so sorry.." he muttered. "It's okay. We will be okay." I told him, caressing his hair. He hugged be back in a few moments and I knew that I would never regret this decision of not leaving him.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: (Y/N) WILL GET MARRIED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! Sorry, I might have mentioned in chapter 18 that (Y/N) will have her kid after 6-7 chapters but I decided to give the characters a bit more development before going into that. So, (Y/N) won't have her kid in a few more chapters.]

To be continued...

Taglist: @reality-is-often-disappointing, @kingtamakimurder

[heresathreebee]

Garrote part 3

[Starz Power Diego Jimenez X Jazmine Mann (Black!OC)]

Word Count: 2,700 words

Warning(s): Rated Mature, language, partying, mentions of sex and drugs. Previous Masterlist Next

AN: I am constantly mere clicks away from releasing everything I have at once but I know if I do I will lose momentum for the plot. 

Edit: I. Forgot. The tags again.

@nicke0115 @1zashreena1 @mental-bycatch

The week that followed was heaven and hell. Diego went back to throwing parties nightly, fucking girls coked out of his mind, and in general trying to forgot all about Healy and his pretty bait, but Tommy Eagan was threatening war over a dead partner unless Alicia met his ridiculous demands. Thanks to Tommy's new right hand man, there was an opportunity to gain instead of lose now. All they had to do was wait and see if Dre could pull through. 

There were two new numbers in Diego's phone. One unsaved that sent cryptic messages about their deal, and the other marked as an emoji rather than a name. Jazmine's texts seemed forced– like she was reaching out on behalf of Healy's instructions. So of course Diego elected to simply ignore them both. They were buzzkills anyways. 

Diego was showing something important on his phone to his sister when Jazmine sent another text. 

Remember when you scared off Haagen? I miss that every time I see him. 

On the other end of the line, Jazmine felt pathetic sending the text. Healy hadn't even asked her to write this time, she was just so… bored. She hadn't been sleeping well, pulling double shifts involuntarily since her boss found out she closed the store when her coworker didn't show up. She carried her stress in her shoulders– the tightness in her neck caused her daily migraines and there was a new pinching sensation between her shoulder blades to accompany the rest of her pain. In the shower, she massaged whatever she could reach and thought of Diego's big hands doing it for her. 

She literally shook herself to clear the thought and pelted the shower curtain with water in the process. Diego Jimenez wasn't some faux bad boy with a secret soft side– he was the leader of a cartel. If he hadn't killed people himself, he definitely had people killed for him. He was beyond dangerous to even fantasize about. 

DING-DING. 

Her phone called out to her from the bathroom counter and she realized it was past time to get out. Her fingers were pruned to the point of over-sensitivity and there was a rapidly closing window to apply the leave-in conditioner to the best of its use. Still, she wiped her hands on the towel to read the text. 

Come out and party. Wear something nice. 

Alicia boxed his ear over the last sentence but he brushed her off. Jazmine declined anyways claiming exhaustion and went to bed. There were people to socialize with already– what was the absence of one little minimum wage laborer going to do?  Apparently she was important enough to occupy a corner of Diego's head. He was still bent about the way she had reacted to his identity. Who the hell did she think she was? As they discovered in the ungodly hour after the party ended, she was also important enough to drag Healy out of whatever hole he hid in. 

"Diego, we need to talk." 

Alicia had gone home– Diego expected she would likely never attend another one of her brother's parties as it wasn't her brand of debauchery– and she'd cleared the place out in her disgust, so his penthouse was empty for once. 

"What's the matter," Diego poured himself yet another drink, "am I not being a good boyfriend?" 

"We don't care what you do when you're not operating," Healy reprimanded. "But we need you to cooperate. Be a presence in Jazmine's fake life. You've been established as a rival for her affections, and you need to become an obstacle standing between the bait and the target. Jazmine walks home from work every single morning by herself. I don't know if you noticed it's been pouring buckets for three days straight." 

Healy almost sounded like he was shaming Diego. It wasn't his fault she was poor. She wasn't his real girlfriend and therefore not his real problem. "Please don't make me regret making this deal, Diego. We will never get an opportunity to dismantle Haagen like this again. Need I remind you that you've got a missing child on your hands?" 

Diego glared fiercely over the rim of his cup. Healy smoothed his hands down the front of his shirt and returned to his neutral position as righteous commander. 

"Schedule more time to spend with Jazmine, especially in public spaces. We have it on good authority that Haagen is going to put a detail out to give him updates on Jazmine in the near future, and he needs to see you in these updates." Healy turned on his heel and reached the elevators, stopping them from closing dramatically and fixing Diego with a stare. "And no more ignoring us." 

Jazmine woke up the next morning to one new notification. 

I'm coming over. 

"Oh shit." The woman threw herself out of bed and looked around. This wasn't fair. Cleaning day was a bi monthly ritual where she took a day off to deep clean the entire apartment, blasting music and stepping around her dog to get things done. Hercules wandered into her bedroom looking chipper as ever. "I guess we better get started then, huh?" 

The fucker showed up on her doorstep not ten minutes after she got out of bed– she wasn't even dressed for the day. Her hands nervously tried to cover the broth stain on her jeans as she cleared a space for him to sit and wait while she finished her morning routine. She worried while brushing her teeth that Diego might be a psycho like her last boyfriend. Psycho enough to kick her overly friendly pet, but no sound of yelps filtered through the paper thin walls and when she finally emerged, the pit-bull was settled with her head on his lap. 

Diego turned his head at the sound of a huge sigh. Jazmine was gazing at him but quickly turned when she realized she'd been caught. She began to flit about the room, picking up lost things and piling them up until she could figure out what items went where. He watched, making absolutely no move to help other than keeping the dog out of the way. Hercules– as the tag on her collar read– laid as much in his lap as he would allow. 

"Buena perro," he muttered, and if she still had a tail, she would have wagged it. Growing bored, Diego rose and stalked over to the fridge. "Do you have anything to eat?" 

The white void in the fridge answered for her, but she still called out, "no, it's empty." 

"I'm ordering pizza." 

"What about Chinese?" 

Diego looked at the lonely, days-old Chinese boxes in the fridge and shivered. "I'm getting pizza." She didn't complain. He returned to the couch to do just that. Distractedly, he admired the curve of her spine as she bent over. She wore jeans again and another band shirt, this time it was a baggy Chicago thing. He licked his lips thinking about taking them off her. 

Healy’s meddling had repercussions– mainly that it would made taking girls home harder, or at least less frequent. Diego still felt great suspicion towards this Jazmine, but it didn’t stop his body from wanting her under him. Or over him, on him, riding him… he tried to blink the images out of his head. 

“What kind of dirt does Healy have on you?,” he found himself asking. “My sister and I have been dying to know.” 

Jazmine shrugged, keeping her back to him. “No dirt.” 

“So you’re just helping out of the goodness of your heart?” Pizza arrived in time for her not to answer, and they returned to their positions for further interrogation. “Anything to get that creep Haagen away from you for good? Or are you an agent as well?” 

“No,” she said. She slipped rubber gloves on to begin maintenance on the tower of dishes piled on the side of the sink. She seemed to live alone– there was no reason to have so many dishes. Maybe he had been wrong in his assessment from earlier? Or maybe she was just a hoarder. “To tell you the truth, I’m about as fond of Healy as I am Haagen. I take that back– Healy’s a step up but not by much.” 

“Because you don’t trust him?” 

“I don’t know…” That mountain of plates and glasses seemed to disappear quicker than he expected and she began to scrub out the sink and the cleared counters, grunting with effort as she did so. “I trust I know the kind of man Haagen is, more so than I do with Healy. Partnerships like the one I have with Healy– they’re subject to change, and not always for the better. He’ll always do what’s in his best interest. What’s good for him is good for me.” 

For Now. The implication that she may harbor the same feelings towards Diego was not lost on him. In fact, he stood up from the couch and approached the windows with their blinds down to peek out at the street. There was nothing quite so conspicuous as a black SUV with a mean mugging thug staring back at him. Even his own protection didn’t roll that sloppily. 

Jazmine objected to the windows being opened but Diego insisted. “Need our relationship on display, right? Haagen’s got to know I’m here.” 

She relented quickly and threw her gloves aside, plopping her butt on the couch to rest a moment. The leftovers in the box were room temperature but she hardly seemed to mind. God, he wanted to run his hand up her shirt just to see if she was wearing a bra. They twitched in his lap and he realized there was no way she missed the hunger in his gaze as he did. 

“Did you bring those beers,” she laughed as she noticed the case on the coffee table for the first time. “Can I have one?” 

The beer seemed to quell the tiny tremor in her fingers. She kicked her feet up on the coffee table permitting Diego to do the same. "What the hell are we even doing? Hanging out? What exactly is this accomplishing?" 

Jazmine gave it some thought as she took a pull from her drink. "Putting on a show. We need Haagen to think I'm in love with you, like you're no good but I'm not ready to let you go for something 'better.'" 

"And Haagen is something," Diego put his fingers up like claws, "better." 

"He certainly needs to think he is." She noticed Hercules whining and let her out the door unaccompanied. "We've got his 'gentleman' ego to work with." 

Diego followed her to the window and grasped her hips from behind. She half turned, gazing up at him with a question in her eyes. He leaned into her space to whisper into her ear. 

"Those eyes Healy thinks Haagen sent to watch you? Well they're watching right now, and they're not being subtle about it." 

She doesn't try to look like he expected her to. Instead, she stepped away from him and pointedly crossed her arms. "You don't look very comfortable if you're still wearing that." 

She nodded her head at his coat. 

"So take it off me." 

That startled her. Jazmine's eyebrows lifted, and her feet shuffled when he gave her nothing but a smirk in return. Finally, she did as he suggested. She did not miss the way his hands seemed to brush lightly over her rib cage. These small, fleeting touches that left her breath audible and her stomach warm. He didn't even give her a chance to put the coat on the hangar when he dragged her back against him. 

"What are you doing?" She didn't mean to sound breathless, turning her head to the side and exposing more of her neck at the behest of his pushy nose and allowing him to trail kisses on her skin. 

"Putting on a show," he said against the shell of her ear. 

He felt her stiffen a little against him. The tent on his pants was preventing a lot of important blood from entering his brain, but he was conscience enough to feel how conflicted she was. Diego slipped his hand up her shirt like he wanted, cupping her bare breast and sucking a mark into her neck. She allowed it, but it felt more like compliance than enjoyment. All at once and against the protest of his body, he let her go. He watched her shoulders relax and her hands find a home beneath her armpits. 

Jazmine nodded in answer to a question left unasked. She did grab his hand and pull him away from the window, backwards into the tiny hall separating the front room from the bedroom and bathroom. She dropped his hand as soon as they were out of sight of the window. 

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," she said. "Just hang out for twenty more minutes and you can leave. I'll text you tomorrow and we can makes plans for another 'show.' You can stay in my room while I clean the bathroom." 

Diego sat heavily on her bed. Just as he was about to get comfortable, someone knocked at the front door. Jazmine brushed invisible dirt from her knees as she got up to see who it was. He followed from a distance. The peep hole was almost out of her reach, but she stood on her toes to see outside. Suddenly, the woman looked back at him with wide eyes. It's Haagen, she mouthed. As soon as her head was turned to the task of confronting him, she missed the part where Diego began to undress. 

"Hey!" She flung the door open and yelped when Hercules barreled through her legs to get inside. "You... found my dog!" 

"Indeed," Haagen said, folding his hands over his heart. "I saw this poor creature wandering and I returned him using the address on its collar. I am astounded to learn that he belongs to you." Nice cover story. The man continued, "since you have the day off, I was wondering–" 

Haagen's wondering was cut off by the appearance of a half naked boyfriend. Diego wound his arm around Jazmine and leaned down so he could engulf her clothed nipple with his hot mouth. She gasped, pushing his head away on instinct and he pressed her into his side like a vice. 

"Come back to bed, baby," he purred, then pretended to take notice of Haagen watching in the doorway. "Oh, you're that guy, right? James, Jeff, Jebediah or whatever." 

"Jeremy," the man hissed through his teeth. "Hello Di-e-go." 

"Right right right." An embarrassed Jazmine buried her face into Diego's nude shoulder, acting unconsciously but playing into her role perfectly. "Kinda crazy how I start hearing about you and then all of a sudden you're showing up on my girl's doorstep, isn't it?" 

Haagen made a move to defend himself but Jazmine was quicker. "He found the dog, honey! Jeremy was just bringing her home, he didn't know I lived here." 

"Right," Haagen cleared this throat. 

Diego's smile bordered on a threatening mania-- there were far too many teeth displayed to suggest any sort of friendliness. "Life is so full of strange coincidences…" 

No one missed the way he squeezed Jazmine harder. It sent a message to be sure. Vague enough for Haagen to infer whatever he deemed necessary to the story in his head. It was quite brilliant actually. 

"Well I ought to," Haagen swallowed, "leave you to it then. I'll see you around the shop, then?" 

"Bye–" she barely managed to say before Diego dragged her into the apartment and slammed the door shut. He kept dragging her all the way back to her bedroom, and all the while she protested being treated like a misbehaving child. It wasn't until he'd slammed the door and collected his shirt from the floor that she realized what exactly had transpired. 

"Oh." She brushed the frizzing curls invading her eyes, "oh that was perfect. Healy was right to pick you." 

Diego rolled his shoulders once his shirt was tucked back into place. "Come over tonight. I'll text you my address and we can capitalize on this. Wear something nice." 

She was about to protest his leaving but realized it wouldn't matter. If Haagen expected a fight from the noises he'd heard, he would probably just assume it had ended quickly if he saw Diego storm out alone. He crafted his own version of events. She let the pieces fall where they lie and made arrangements to meet Diego tonight. 

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I'm sorry if I bother. English is not my first language, and I hope to be clear. I read that you are a historian. Here, in Mexico, I was studying history, but I discovered that after bachelor's degree, you need at least a master's degree in order to get a job that allows to live. Other factors aside, that put me off quite a bite. I wanted to ask you how that works in your country, if there are job opportunities and things like that. Thank you so much!

First off, you’re not a bother at all, your English is just fine, and I’m happy to help!

As for your questions: ..... ahaha, oof. Up front, I will say that I’ll try to be both supportive and realistic here, since I obviously feel strongly that we need more historians, I myself am a historian, and I don’t want anyone to base their decision solely on what one person on the internet tells them. There are a lot of factors for you to consider, and this is intended to just give you my perspective on how I’ve experienced them. I have answered several other asks about my academic research and career trajectory (such as it presently is....) in my school stuff tag, which you might like to consult to see what else people have asked/I have answered. But I do want to be honest with you about what you might expect, especially in the COVID world, which has turned an already-grim academic job market into... well, one thing at a time. Let’s get started!

I am American, or at least my passport says I am, and I have either studied, done research, or taught (sometimes all three) in the US, the UK, and Europe. I did my PhD at a fairly prestigious large research university in the UK, and I’m currently applying for jobs in that same general sphere (the US and the Anglophone academic world). That, therefore, is the experience that I’m speaking to, though I can imagine there are some things that are more or less the same across the world. Obviously the US is a screaming hellfire nuclear waste dump right now, teetering on the brink of permanent fascism, so.... that’s a cheerful and promising prospect for long-term academic employment in this country, by which I mean it terrifies me. Also, as I have ranted about on many occasions before, the humanities in general have been so systematically, deliberately, and extensively devalued by late-stage capitalism as not being monetarily “worthwhile” that it’s no accident that there aren’t many jobs. This isn’t to say there aren’t ANY, but.... yeah. Nobody wants to become a historian because they think they’re going to get rich for it. They’ll be lucky to get a stable job. My perusal of job boards has all been “online part time adjunct instructor!” which is frankly, brutally depressing. Everything is gig-economy, ad-hoc, temporary-term disposable labor, which is devaluing and destabilizing an entire generation of eager young academics who really WOULD like to be gainfully employed in education and just can’t be, and.... oy.

Ugh. Anyway. I promised I was going to be supportive, so we won’t get too far into the weeds of my existential despair right now. In short: yes, to teach college/university, and possibly the better kind of high school, you will need at least one graduate degree in history, and there’s no getting around that. If you want to do something history-adjacent but not academia, that requirement might be changed. There are plenty of other careers that would value a history degree and the critical thinking, reading, analytical, and big-picture skills that it teaches, assuming that any of us have jobs in the future. You may want to consider if you have enough passion for the subject to do multiple rigorous (and often expensive) advanced degrees in history; if you don’t want to do a master’s, that might be a sign that you like history as a hobby, but don’t want to commit to it professionally. And that is completely fine! it doesn’t make you a failure or mean that you’re any lesser as a person, and if you study history up to the bachelor level and decide that you don’t want to do it anymore, it’s better to know that now than before you’re stuck sinking years of money and effort into something that burns you out and isn’t where you want to be.

I have been honest about the fact of how hard a PhD is (the hardest thing I’ve done in my life) and how dispiriting the post-degree job market is (I realize I have the especial bad fortune to be job-hunting in the plague world, but hooo boy). The basic standard is that you never hear back from anybody at all. Sometimes they send a polite form-letter “your application will not be progressing to the next stage we wish you the best” rejection, but the culture has basically become that they just straight-up ignore you, and I hate it. It’s like screaming into the void over and over. Applications are often multiple pieces of labor-intensive work (CV, cover letters, teaching statement, research proposals, previous courses, contacting people to write letters of reference for you) and to constantly do that and get.... absolutely nothing in return is, again, complete trash on your mental health. Even if you recognize that it’s not really about you and there are a ton of people going through the same experience, it’s not fun. I’m about to submit yet another application, 18 months or so after I first started job hunting, and I have yet to receive even a single request for an interview. Imma be real with you chief: It sucks. You run through the whole “I’m clearly a fraud/an idiot/wildly unqualified compared to everyone else/etc” impostor syndrome highlight reel. And you just kind of have to deal with it, suck it up buttercup, and trudge your ass back to the job board anyway.

Then again: no matter how nihilistic that sounds: there are some jobs, and people do get them. There aren’t many of them, and the competition is therefore intense; every humanities/history postdoc or entry-level professorship opening will probably have a good 50-75 applicants at least, and that’s on the very low end for the more prestigious schemes. My dear @oldshrewsburyian, however, has gone through the exact same grind with early-career researcher hell and temporary visiting jobs, and she did in fact just land a tenure-track position earlier this year, which is wonderful and well-deserved. So: It can happen! I know people who have gotten real academic jobs, in other words! There is hope for the rest of us! Theoretically!

Basically, you’ll need to decide what your appetite is for future study, what kind of positions you might like to apply for and where, what your plan is if that doesn’t work out, if you would be happy doing something history-related but outside academia, if you’re willing to accept that we may not know for several years what the post-COVID job situation is, and all the other major uncertainties right now. I really wish I could give you clarity on these things, but unfortunately, I don’t know myself. Nobody does. So I mean this from the bottom of my heart: Good luck. Hang in there. Let’s hope things get better soon, or at least eventually. Until then, Ave Imperator, etcetera.

[bagels-and-seagulls]

I'm just going to wait patiently as you write your "hc fic" because it's beautiful and you ended the last one with him not telling jonas which means at some point he's going to have to start telling jonas and i want to know what happens in between and how they reconcile the issues with davids fighting and im really really into it now so im very happy you kept writing it like that

i’m glad someone is into my little hc/bulleted fic universe because i love writing it like this, so enjoy some secret boys in love!!

more bad boy david

-they don’t talk about it, not really, not for a while. instead david learns about all of the freckles on matteo’s back, about which ones make him gasp when they’re kissed, which ones make him sigh and sink into the mattress already half dreaming and wanting to go further. matteo traces the sides of david’s arm with his fingertips until he thinks he has everything memorized down to the fleshy bit of his elbow and the bones underneath, until the only thing that he can think about is how his bed feels like when its warm with someone else’s body heat. 

-matteo whispers to him when it’s dark, and it’s cold, and he feels completely safe underneath the sheets with his head tucked into the side of david’s stomach, and david is lighting up a joint that’s in between his lips and playing with matteo’s hair, and there’s something low playing on the radio that sounds croaky and old and just right. the lighter sends a little glow around the room, and matteo thinks that he knows what it feels like to be on fire whenever david is looking at him like that, like he knows how to make matteo’s toes curl and still leave him begging, like he wants to destroy him. 

-you terrify me, matteo admits through his front teeth. david doesn’t even look down at him. he looks up and away and blows smoke out his nose and tugs sharp at the hair on the base of matteo’s skull until he’s arching into it. and why’s that? he asks like he knows the answer but wants to hear it anyways. you consume me. i’m afraid i’ll be nothing without you one day. david looks down at him then with something close to surprise on his face, a surprise he doesn’t want to admit. don’t you know, darling? he asks slow and quiet, making sure matteo is listening hard and close, as if he doesn’t hang off his every word. you’re the sun, and i’m just a lonely planet lucky enough to be in your orbit. the stars don’t worry about little rocks like me. matteo dreams of galaxies and nebulas and the universe for weeks, wondering if david really meant it, if he wanted him to. 

-david tells him what it’s like to break someone’s arm when they’re at the top of a building, watching all the tiny people below enjoy a night of warm, wet air, and matteo holds his breath and hears something crunching in his head. david tells him that it’s exhilarating, and the only time he feels like he’s doing something about the nasty and mean world they’re stuck in, and that he absolutely hates every second of it. matteo asks him why he doesn’t stop, why he doesn’t find another way about it. they don’t stop, david responds and watches as a group of rowdy boys leave a bar with their arms slung over each others, singing at the top of their lungs. matteo wonders if he’s ever been at the other end of david’s high gaze. they don’t stop so how can i? 

-hans is the first one to find out about them. well, not about them, but about the fact that matteo has someone keeping him company at night when he finds a jacket on the hook he doesn’t recognize after he stumbles home one night from a crowded party. he sees a pair of shoes a couple days later that are just slightly too worn to be anything anyone around here has ever had. he asks about it as he’s giving matteo a cup of coffee one morning and eyeing a bruise on matteo’s collarbone where his shirt slipped. do you have a boyfriend? he asks curtly and quickly and trying to hide his smile behind his cup. matteo looks at him like he doesn’t know what hans is going on about but still mutters out a quiet i don’t know anyways because he has to tell someone or he’s going to burst into flames made out of his own insecurities and indecision. 

-are you my boyfriend? matteo asks david the next night into the side of his neck when david’s hands are under his shirt and hot on his hips. boyfriends usually tell their friends, david says back and still bites at matteo’s shoulder like he’s trying to make a point. matteo pushes him back and looks him in the eyes, and david looks mad, like he wants to pick a fight with someone, like he wants to prove someone wrong. and matteo hates to think that that person is him. 

-they don’t talk for two days after that, and they’re both miserable. matteo says he’ll tell jonas by the end of the week if david just comes over that night, if david comes over every night for the rest of their lives. he had quite gotten used to sleeping next to someone else. matteo lies away that night, listening to david’s heartbeat, and wondering which one of them was really the planet and which one was the star. 

-the decision ends up getting taken out of matteo’s hands two days later when he runs into the wrong person at the wrong time, says the wrong thing and puts his nose in the wrong place, just in time to meet a homophobe’s fist. jonas tries to pull him out of it as quick as he can, pull him away from the violence and the screaming and the void that matteo has fallen into at the sound of unkind words and cruel jeers. he tries to shake him, hard, tries to get matteo to look at him, pay attention to him, to snap out of it. 

-someone must have told david about the scene in the courtyard, or maybe he just knows about drop of spilled blood around him because he’s pushing past jonas with a gentle shove moments later and dropping down to catch matteo’s eye from where he’s been staring at the red drips onto his hands. jonas tries to pull him away, tries to get back to taking care of his best friend who needs him, but stops when david throws him a look from the side of his eye that is filled with a quiet, controlled type of fury that jonas has never quite seen before, and has never seen since. 

-david, matteo mutters when he finally stops thinking about if his nose is broken. david thinks about what his name sounds like moaned out when it’s dark and quiet and they’re alone, about how matteo looks like he’s been completely shattered apart and doesn’t know about where his pieces are. david thinks about blood, and tears, and breaking someone’s fingers. oh, darling, he says back, and matteo knows he’s on the other side of inconsolably enraged, but trying to keep that small smile on his face as if that was going to help lessen matteo’s alarm, as if he didn’t notice that cold look in his eyes that says he’s made his mind up, that someone has to answer for something. matteo thinks about how big a star is compared to a black hole.