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kaiser1ns · 2 months ago

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i told you, didn't i? time is nothing but a construct, an easy thing to manipulate but we'll start with the living dead or the walking dead, call it however you like, my little puppet! everything is more fun when its uʍop-ǝpısdn. hope you will enjoy being stuck between the physical and spiritual realm. remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram. buy gold, bye!

𝗷𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗵𝗶!𝘀𝘂𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘆𝗮𝘁𝗼 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

THE CORPSE'S BRIDEㄑword count :: 6121 ▿ finding a red envelope with money often symbolizes marriage, but sometimes luck is just on your side as you pick it up in the city center. what you didn't know is that you accepted а marriage proposal. and this is how the suo family tricked you, a living woman into becoming the ghost bride of their deceased son.

CHOOSE ANOTHER DIMENSION IN WEIRDMAGEDDON

“You are a disgrace to our family.”

Every day it was the same old tune, like a broken bamboo flute that had worn out its melody. You’d hear it as soon as you stepped through the front door, sometimes even before. “How come the gods have cursed me with such a daughter?” your mother’s voice carried over the sounds of her stitching, accompanied by the echo of your father’s disapproving grunt. They acted like they were personally offended that you were still breathing.

Yes, yes … The unmarried daughter. You knew the script so well by now, you could predict every insult before it left their mouths. There was no getting out unless someone asked for your hand in marriage. It was already getting more than annoying, you wake up wondering when there will be a wedding and go to sleep thinking about how you want everything to end. If you had been born a boy, it would have been much easier for you, but apparently, the all-mighty gods want you to suffer.

“Are you in this house again?” Even though you were the one coming home from the market, laden with bags of food you’d bought with your own money. Not that they ever thanked you, for making dinner and serving delicious meals on their plates. The most gratitude you got was a side-eye from your mother as she sewed something, muttering to herself as she added the finishing touches to the red and gold dress.

You froze. Red and gold? No, no, no.

“What are you staring at?” She snapped, her needle pausing mid-stitch on a piece of crimson fabric that shined bright by the house lights. “This is your wedding dress if you ever manage to get a husband.” her tone was as sharp as the needle in her hand when she returned to her sewing, sighing at the fact that you were still here.

This wasn’t your first marriage guilt trip. Ever since your two older sisters had gotten married off, the pressure was on you. Sometimes you genuinely considered just disappearing poof and you are gone. Then you could haunt them forever, appearing in their dreams and turning them into nightmares.

“Mother, do you need me to do anything else?” you asked, hoping to escape even for a little while. Her eyes narrowed, the needle suddenly looking more like a weapon in her hand. “Go fetch some water from the well, and get something sweet for your father.”

You didn't need to be told twice. Grabbing the wooden bucket, you made your way to the center of the village. It was quiet for once, no bustling crowds or nosey elders asking why you weren't married yet. You mimicked your mother's nagging voice under your breath, lowering the bucket down into the well.

"Your sister is already expecting her first child, and you still don't even have a husband, blah blah blah..."

You rolled your eyes, adjusting your grip on the rope. The weight of it felt so familiar to your life, dragging downwards, just like your mother's hopes. And then, something bright caught your eye, a splash of crimson against the dull stone. You squinted. There, floating near the bucket, was a red envelope.

“Finally!" you muttered, quick to glance over your shoulder. It was an unspoken rule — finders, keepers. Maybe the universe had finally tossed you a bone. You bent down, fingers brushing the envelope's edge, and a chill ran through you, despite the sun hanging lazily overhead. Red envelopes were usually given for weddings. Could this be a sign? A stroke of luck for your otherwise underwhelming love life?

But the moment your fingers touched the envelope’s contents, the air shifted and the wind seemed to whisper your name—in a voice that wasn’t yours.

You looked around. No one was there. Strange.

Opening it like it was your last meal on this earth you couldn't believe your eyes. "Gold!" you whispered. The crisp smell of paper money filled the air, your fingers trembling slightly as you counted it. Your mind raced with possibilities—finally moving out, finally escaping the daily nagging, finally—wait.

Inside the envelope was a small, folded piece of parchment. It was old, the edges colored in yellow, and as you opened it, your heart sank. There was a lock of someone's hair, it was a slightly reddish brown with a small note tied to it. The words on the paper weren’t a blessing. They weren’t even good news. The name next to “groom” was unfamiliar: Suo Hayato.

Heart pounded fast as you pieced it together. You hadn’t just found some stray money. You’d accepted a proposal—a ghost marriage proposal. There are beliefs that if an unmarried boy is not married in the afterlife, his spirit could bring misfortune or illness to the living family members, pushing families to find a bride for him and one way to do that is to leave a red envelope, tricking the girl into thinking it has money. Because even in death, a person is not seen as complete without a partner. It also ties into beliefs about spirits and the afterlife, where the dead might reach out to the living to resolve unfinished matters.

Slowly your gaze slid back to the red envelope. An intricate pattern was etched into the surface, symbols you didn’t recognize. The kind of symbols your grandmother used to warn you about, eyes wide and voice hushed.

"Do not touch what belongs to the dead," she'd always said, but how exactly would you know that something belongs to someone who is not here anymore?

You cursed under your breath. Well, great. It was too late to back out. The Suo family had tricked you into becoming the ghost bride of their dead son. A gust of wind blew through the well, carrying with it a low, chilling hum. You swore you could hear that voice again, whispering softly in your ear, "Thank you for accepting me."

That gentle voice, with that honeyed sound, made you shiver as your hands began to shake. That couldn't be true, it wasn't real. You just accepted an invitation to your own wedding and of course, no one alive would want you, of course, it would have to be someone dead. Quickly taking the overflowing water bucket you hid the letter in your clothes. You would think about it later, you were running late and would be scolded more than usual. The dead boy would wait a little longer, there was nowhere for him to run.

You go home as quickly as possible, the strange feeling of someone watching you still hasn’t left you. Your mother was done with sewing the dress, but she was nowhere to be found as you placed the bucket in the kitchen. Then you found her and your father in the garden talking, sitting between the statues of the ancient dragons that you and your father used to play among when you were little. When they loved their daughter and engagement did not destroy the relationship between a girl and her parents.

"I don't want our daughter to be treated like that. But this is what we should do." hiding behind the wall you were shocked by her words, eyes wide and tears started to form in your eyes. You never expected to hear such a thing from her as you wiped your tears and heard your father. "To keep this image of a perfect family. I hope someone asks for her hand soon because she won't live in this home any longer." Of course, traditionally, girls who did not marry were regarded as a threat to the entire family and were not allowed to continue living at home. Suddenly the letter fell out from inside your robe. You are practically married now and maybe tonight you will pay your husband a visit in the graveyards.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, was it? You hadn’t asked for this. But there it was—a contract, a promise, an unholy bond.

Fingers trembling, you snatched up the letter that had fallen and shoved it deeper into your robes, your heart pounding in your chest. Maybe this could be your way out. If the Suo family’s dead son had claimed you, then at least no living man could. You thought back to the voice, that soft murmur, almost too tender for something no longer living. But could you trust a voice that came from the dark?

Your parents' voices faded into the distance as you hurried to your room. The dress, a crimson red with delicate embroidery, hung neatly on the wooden frame, waiting for you. Its beauty felt like a mockery now, knowing your parents had likely sewn it for some stranger. You brushed your fingertips over the fabric, the reality of your situation sinking deeper. This dress would never be worn for a joyous occasion. Not for you.

As the evening sun began to set, you glanced out the window toward the distant graveyards. The lanterns lining the street flickered eerily against the walls. A strange pull began to take hold, like an invisible red string tugging you toward the resting place of the stranger you were about to marry.

But still, you were curious, who is this husband of yours? How old is he because that was important ... you didn't want to marry some 50-year-old grandpa. It wouldn't be your first time sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep because right now, the urge to go and find his grave surpassed even the heavenly world. It was time to meet him, the one who had called out to you, to see if this strange and unnatural union could be undone. Or maybe you were bound forever.

You could still feel his presence—the weight of it lingering in every step you took as you made your way through the empty streets. The moon hung low in the sky painting everything in its silver glow. The silence around you was oppressive, broken only by the sound of your sandals against the dirt path.

The closer you got to the graveyards, the colder it became. The wind picked up again, swirling around you, bringing the chills. You almost turned back to go home, but the thought of your parents, of being cast out from your home, pushed you forward.

Finally, you arrived at the gates of the cemetery. The iron bars stood tall and ominous before you, half-covered in creeping vines. Beyond them lay the rows of graves, their headstones arrayed like one great army. You swallowed hard, hesitating for just a moment, before pushing the gate open.

Your feet carried you towards the Suo family’s burial plot and the further you ventured in, the more you felt that presence intensify. It was suffocating, wrapping itself around you like a veil. And then, there it was—a single grave, marked with the name of your husband.

The earth before it looked freshly disturbed as if something—or someone—had been moving beneath the soil. You stopped, breath hitching, your body frozen in place. It had been dug up, there was dirt everywhere, and by the light of the lantern, you could see that the dug up was deep, to say the least. You put a hand over your mouth in complete shock. There was no one in the coffin. How come there was no one? Your breathing became heavier, the warm air coming out of your mouth suddenly turned cold, your eyes wide with complete fear when you heard noises near you. It could be someone passing by, a bird, or ... a rabbit.

A little white bunny, with a color just like the moon reflecting the yin energy. But will it bring you good fortune and peace in a place like this? Why did everything suddenly just turn into a scary fairy tale and why did you have to be the main character? You and the small animal looked at each other, its red eyes shining brighter than the lantern next to your face until suddenly it ran away when you tried to approach it.

And then, you heard it again—that voice. But this time, it wasn’t a whisper.

"Welcome, my bride."

The voice came behind you.

Swallowing hard your body shook, more than before as you couldn’t move. You stood in one pose, like a statue until you heard footsteps approaching. Spinning around, heart pounding in your chest, you screamed as loud as your lungs allowed. The sight before you was more horrifying than anything you could have imagined—a boy, or what had once been a boy, stood there, grinning at you. You instinctively threw your lamp in defense, the small flame flickering in the air and for a moment you thought the fire would pass through him like a ghost. But the impact was real. It struck his chest and clattered to the ground.

“W-what? Stay away from me or I will … I will–” You stammered, your mind racing. He wasn’t just a ghost, but a corpse. A jiangshi, a walking dead boy. Panicked, you glanced at the disturbed grave behind him, a confirmation that Suo Hayato had indeed risen from the dead.

But something was strange. His pale skin didn’t have any signs of decay, no silver hue like the stories warned, no moss clinging to his rotten flesh. He looked almost normal, almost alive. His brown hair hung loosely over his face, parted to one side and his singular eye or his living eye, watched you and made you feel the goosebumps. The other eye was covered by a leather eyepatch, which only gave you an unsettling feeling. A pair of yellow tassel earrings, with red gems like the rabbit’s eyes swung with his movements. And there was the black hat, a yellow talisman attached to it, though the paper was blank.

“Please, do not fear me,” he said, voice still sweet and calm despite the terror bubbling inside you. “You woke me up from my slumber for our wedding. My parents always wished for me to marry, but you see … “ His words trailed off as he lifted the talisman from his hat, his grin widening as if trying to comfort you. “I died before I could tell them who I truly wanted.”

You let out another scream, louder this time. The absurdity of his casual tone while he stood there, very much undead, with his smile flattering for a second and his single eye widening slightly because he had expected as much. You backed up until you were pressed against the cold stone of another gravestone. This couldn't be happening. He was dead, he should be dead, and yet here he was, speaking to you as this is just another day.

“I-I don’t want this! I don’t want to marry a dead man!” you shouted, your voice trembling as you struggled to keep your footing, knees weakening beneath you. All of a sudden, the weight of what was happening crushed you down. You didn’t want to die anymore. Not like this, not as some undead bride in a nightmare you hadn’t asked for.

The boy, Hayato, tilted his head, his smile now almost sorrowful. “I am not here to harm you. I was brought back for this, to fulfill my parents’ wishes.” you caught a glimpse of the boy he might have been before death took him. “I can’t bear to see you afraid of me. I never wanted this either, but you were the one who took the red envelope my mother left.”

You paused, trying to steady your breath, eyes darting between his face and the talisman he held. The numerous stories of jiangshi that your grandmother told you—these creatures were said to drain the life force from the living, feeding on their energy until nothing remained. Was that why he was here? To suck away what little life you had left? To take you down into the grave with him?

“I won’t let you drain me,” you blurted out, your voice shaking but your defense rising despite the fair. “I’m not ready to die yet!”

Hayato’s eye widened, and then a deep sigh escaped his lips. He stepped closer, too close for your liking as you flinched. But instead of attacking, he let the yellow paper fall over his face again. “I am not here to drain you. I was raised … incomplete. Not fully dead, not fully alive,” he explained, lowering his gaze to meet yours. “I simply wanted to meet you.”

“But you are a jiangshi,” you whispered, blinking as your eyes were fixed on him as if watching for any sudden movement.

“Yes,” he admitted, his smile fading completely now, replaced with sadness. “But I did not ask for this fate any more than you happened to be my bride.”

His words sank in, making you rethink everything. He was just a strange boy who stood between life and death. His pale face, his empty eye socket beneath the patch, the talisman that should have controlled him but didn’t—he was terrifying, yes, but also…trapped.

“Then what do you want from me?” you asked, and as much you wanted to run, to escape something kept you rooted in place.

Hayato hesitated, then looked up, meeting your gaze with that single eye of his. "I want what I was denied in life. A chance to choose for myself. And maybe..." He paused, and the tiniest hint of hope flickered in his gaze. "Maybe to experience love."

Your heart was still racing, unsure of whether you should trust him—or if you even had a choice at all.

“Just accept him already, young lady! I want to sleep when it's dead silence.” someone's female voice called but there was absolutely no one near you and you started to look around. "I'm down here, but you have time until you join us." The woman's voice came from leaning against her tombstone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, ma’am." Your breath hitched, and your gaze landed on a nearby tombstone. The name etched into the stone was worn, nearly faded, but still there. A woman’s ghostly form leaned casually against it, translucent and calm. You were talking to dead people now. Wonderful.

Just because you decided you'd be rich from a dumb envelope, and what did it turn out to be? You live between these two worlds as much as your husband. "Ah, the boy of the Suo family. They finally found you a bride."

This time it was a deep male voice as you both looked in that direction. It was coming from a tall, ghostly figure standing just behind another tombstone. "Good choice! I know the women in her family are unearthly beautiful!” You didn't know how to take that, a compliment you'd never received before. Hayato looked at you while you were still looking down at the ground, the moon illuminating everything above you.

His eye filled with something like... affection. He waited patiently for your response because it wasn’t easy to just accept a marriage proposal, a ghost one at that.

The dead were already speaking to you as if you were one of them, and perhaps you were—caught between their world and the one you had known your whole life. Maybe you didn’t want to die, but living in this strange in-between place was better than being cast aside by the living. You took a deep breath and slowly nodded.

"I... I accept," you whispered, almost to yourself, then met Hayato's gaze. "But I need to go home first." He smiled, the kind of soft smile that made you forget for a moment that he was no longer alive. "Of course. I will wait for you."

You turned, leaving the graveyard behind, though the voices of the dead still whispered in your ears, their conversations muffled by the distance. The walk home was quieter than before, though you couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching from the shadows, but you knew that the light would appear again.

A week passed when you gathered courage and told your parents everything. You showed the envelope, explaining what had happened—how the Suo family had chosen you, how you had unknowingly accepted the fate of being a ghost bride, and how his spirit had come back to claim you. By not telling them, however, that your husband is somehow alive. You expected anger, disbelief, or perhaps even outrage. But instead, your parents stood in silence.

Your mother was the first to break the stillness. She took your hands in hers, her grip trembling slightly, but a small smile appeared on her face. "You... you will be married?" she whispered as if daring to hope this strange, supernatural fate might finally be your salvation.

Your father, though pale with shock, slowly nodded. "This is... unexpected," he muttered. "But if it means you will be safe, and the Suo family is satisfied, then this is for the best."

Before you could respond, there was a knock at the door. Your mother rushed to answer it, and there they were, the Suo family—Hayato’s parents. His mother, a graceful woman draped in mourning clothes, approached you with a smile that held both grief and relief.

"You have given my son peace," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "For so long, his spirit was restless. He didn’t even tell us who he wanted to marry. But now, he has found his bride, and he can be at peace. Our family is forever grateful."

Feeling as if you were floating between two realities—the living and the dead, bound by an agreement you hadn’t fully understood. But now, there was no turning back. This was your life now. This was real. It wasn’t some bad dream. You were truly a bride—if only to a ghost. Or rather, what remained of it.

The dress your mother finished sewing would be wrapped around your body soon. At least that's what you heard from the conversation of the adults in the great dining room. How did it all happen so fast? You could believe that Hayato told his mother in her dream. You could talk to the spirits of dead people after all.

You were walking in the big yard of your house when you heard a light tapping, small and gentle steps and in the middle of the garden was the white bunny from yesterday and immediately rushed towards the animal. It started running and you followed. Why does this rabbit appear out of nowhere? Are the gods giving you a sign to escape your fate as a normal human? Most probably, yes.

It stopped in front of the family temple where you honored your ancestors but for some reason, you hadn't been here in a few weeks because you were always doing work around and outside the house. You saw the rabbit jump up the steps and stand in the center of the temple, surrounded by tombstones but it hopped in front of your grandmother’s stone. Asking her for help won't hurt, you missed being here, finding peace in this beautiful place especially since your grandma never judged you.

Lighting the candles and incense, you kneel down, hoping for guidance from your ancestors. Please, if you can hear me. I need your help and advice. I need to know what's the best thing to do. You stood there holding your hands in an attempt to get an answer. You could see and talk to the dead, and that must include your family too. Suddenly the heat from the candle went out and you snapped your eyes open to see several of the stones with their names begin to glow and the rabbit was still sitting in front of your grandmother's table stone.

Images appeared from the blue glow, rather the spirits of your ancestors as they sat over their stones, and you looked to the one of your grandmother's, and as a finale, her spirit appeared last, and the white bunny jumped into your lap.

“So this is our ghost bride? She is too beautiful to be buried alive.” a woman called out, and you believe this is your grandmother who lived 120 years ago, as she waved a fan in front of her face. “A ghost bride? She took that from you.” Next to her was a man, dressed in warrior armor as his arms were crossed like he was judging you.

“Said the man who denied getting married because he was already married to the war.” waving her fan slowly but you could still catch her sly smile in a teasing tone before the warrior opened his mouth and someone cut him off.

“A wedding is a wedding. Don't fight over the happiness of someone so young, either.” you knew that voice as you looked at the spirit next to your grandmother it was your grandfather. Your eyes watered when you saw them again. Hugging the bunny with one hand, you got up, and with the other, you tried to touch them, but failed. They were just ghosts, they weren't like Hayato because their debts and wishes had been fulfilled. “My sweet child, I wish I could hug you as well.”

You wanted to ask how you could even see them, but that was a stupid question from the person who was about to marry a dead man. Of course, you could see them because the moment you touched the envelope the physical and spiritual realm merged into one.

“Grandma, why does this have to happen to me?” your voice trembled as the words spilled out, heavy with the confusion and heartache that had been building for days. Becoming a ghost bride... it wasn't something you could ever have imagined for yourself.

Your grandmother looked at you with that soft and reassuring smile. "Everything happens for a reason, my dear," she said, but did everything have to have a reason or was it another joke of fate? "The gods have chosen you, and so has the Moon goddess. You have everyone's blessing, even though you may not experience love the way you dreamed... I know, without a doubt, that the boy loves you deeply."

You stared at her, disbelief washing over you. "How do you even know if a dead boy can feel anything? His heart stopped... How could he possibly love?"

Your grandmother laughed at your innocence, the sound warm and comforting, like a lullaby from long ago. "You don't have to be alive to love. Love isn't confined by life or death. It’s a bond that exists between souls. The red thread that connects you two may be invisible, sometimes tangled, but it will always lead you to the right person, living or dead."

Her words settled into your heart, but still, a tear slipped down your cheek as you struggled with the weight of it all. As you wiped your eyes, you heard the soft crunch of footsteps behind you. The spirits of your family turned, their eyes full of knowing as they gazed toward the garden.

Your heart skipped a beat when you saw him, your dead husband-to-be, wandering quietly through the garden, stepping into the light from the backyard’s small door.

"See now, my dear," your grandmother whispered, her voice lingering like an echo. "Love always finds a way."

You turned to speak to her again, but they were gone—the spirits of your family had vanished, leaving you alone in the garden. Without hesitation, you rushed towards Suo as the bunny stayed at the temple, your heart drawn to him in a way that defied all reason. Everything is happening too fast to be true.

Anger. Confusion. Fear. His presence in the garden felt too sudden. And yet, there he was, standing under the bright daylight with that same eye smile you remembered from the last time you saw him, but now you can see him more clearly.

"My beloved, I have wondered to whe—"

"Are you crazy?" you hissed, cutting him off with a whisper-yell as you looked around anxiously. "You can't just show up out of nowhere! What if my—no, your parents see you?"

Your heart was racing now, not just from the shock of his sudden appearance, but from the fear of what would happen if someone else saw him too. Suo’s presence, while comforting to you, was a ghostly impossibility to the living. People would panic, or worse, think you'd lost your mind.

He, however, seemed completely unfazed by your panic. His gaze was soft, patient even, as if he had expected this reaction. Slowly, he reached for your hand, his fingers brushing against yours with a strange warmth that startled you. The sudden contact made you tense up, your breath catching in your throat.

"Only you can see me, my love," he said quietly, his voice gentle as you blinked, processing his words. Only you can see me. It made sense now, why the spirits of your ancestors had appeared without anyone else knowing, why Suo could walk into the garden without causing a stir. But still, the way the words "my love" slipped from his mouth—it felt both sweet and unnerving.

You gulped, suddenly unsure of how to respond. "My love?" It was all you could manage to say, trying to reconcile the person before you with the man you were supposed to marry in death.

Suo’s smile didn’t waver. It softened, his gaze steady as if there was no question in his mind. "Yes," he said simply. "You are my love. You have always been."

The conviction in his voice made your chest tighten. You wanted to protest, to ask how he could say such a thing when your relationship had never truly begun, but the truth was undeniable—he had come back for you. Whether by fate or the pull of the spirit realm, you were bound to him, and he to you.

And for the first time since all of this began, you didn’t know whether to feel relieved or afraid.

Suo’s hands held yours gently, his thumbs brushing over your knuckles in a way that made your heart race. His touch was warm, so real, despite everything about this moment feeling so impossible. You searched his eyes for answers, trying to make sense of the emotions and memories, but nothing came.

He noticed your confusion, and his smile faltered slightly, but only for a moment. "I know you probably don't remember me," he began softly, his voice laced with a bittersweetness, "since you moved houses."

He paused, glancing down for a second as though gathering his courage before meeting your eyes again. "But we used to play together as kids. You were the wife, I was the husband... and my dog was our child." He chuckled softly at the memory, but you could hear the longing hidden by the humor.

Your breath hitched as scenes of long-forgotten memories began to appear. The boy... the boy you used to play with every day, laughing under the summer sun, pretending to be grown-ups before life pulled you apart. You had moved after a terrible storm destroyed your home, making you move out to your sister's home for a while and your own house had been renovated during that time. It was chaotic, and in the midst of it, the boy who once filled your days with laughter had simply faded into the background of your life.

"I..." You shook your head, confusion washing over you. "You were the one who gave me a lantern with a special message inside when we were kids?"

Suo nodded, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "After you moved out, I was desperate to find you. I did, but you never spared me a glance. You were always so busy with chores, with life... and I was just a boy standing on the sidelines, watching."

His hands tightened around yours as he gently pulled you closer. "But apparently, I couldn’t stop thinking about you... even in the afterlife."

You swallowed hard, the weight of his confession sinking in. All this time, he had been holding onto memories of you, even as death claimed him. His wish, left unfulfilled in life, had somehow bound you two together in the strangest, most unexpected way.

He glanced at your family temple, where the spirits of your loved ones seemed to smile warmly at him. Even the white bunny was jumping around as if in celebration, as though the universe itself had conspired to reunite you two.

“So please give me a chance. I promise you that in the next life, whichever one of our many to come…I will always find you and love you.” you could feel it, you could see it, that he is really into you. Despite his interest in you all this time, it was strange to you that someone liked you, he saw you as more than the girl who did the dirty work of her parents.

But was it as easy as it sounded? To love him the way he loves you. In a week you had already seen it all and knew that there is no way to escape fate no matter what you do, no matter what life you live because what is written for you will happen unless you want to write your own story.

The boy you had left behind when life pulled you away. Tears welled up in your eyes as you realized that, you had always been connected despite the years and the distance.

"I remember you now," you whispered, voice trembling with emotion. "You were always there... and I forgot." A pang of guilt struck you, but Suo’s gentle smile reassured you that you hadn't done anything wrong.

"You didn’t forget," he said softly, brushing a stray tear from your cheek. "Life just happened. But we were always meant to find each other again.”

The idea of destiny suddenly feels more real than ever before. It was as if fate had tied this entire journey tightly, leading you back to him—even in death. You couldn't deny it anymore. You were bound to him, not just by circumstance, but by something deeper that had always been there, waiting for the right moment to unfold like the lantern lights during a festival.

Suo leaned in slowly, his breath warm against your skin. “Can I?” He asked but your heart raced, your hands trembling as his lips brushed against yours, soft and tentative, as you couldn’t tell him yes. It was a kiss that felt like a promise, one that sealed the connection between your two worlds, between your souls. In that tender moment, everything seemed to make sense, and the talisman on Suo's hat glowed faintly, the word "爱" (love) appearing under the bright sun with that striking crimson color.

When you finally pulled back, breathless, your face was burning as you couldn’t see but were sure that you were redder than the color red. "I can’t believe my first kiss was with a zombie," you said, still holding onto his hands.

He chuckled, a slight blush coloring his cheeks. How that was even possible when his blood circulation should have been stopped, you didn’t know—after all, he wasn’t technically alive but you found yourself not caring anymore. Why should you care when the person in front of you really loves you and proves it? It was him. That was all that mattered.

"Well," he said, smiling down at you and squeezing your hands "here I am, having my first kiss with a living person." You both laughed, hands intertwined, surrounded by the quiet serenity of the garden. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to marry someone like him, it would be more interesting, especially since you have to balance two worlds now. You had nothing to lose, but you wanted to spend more time alone with him, to remember the boy who was once a part of your life and now will be with you forever.

Remember the dead even when they appear for you with a marriage proposal. Because there is something to see and hear, but mostly to feel. And he felt too alive when you started running towards the exit of the garden as he looked back to see the spirits of your family cheering and dancing with joy and your grandmother looked at him with that warm smile she only showed to you. Suo would be curious how his family would react if they too would hold a banquet in the world of the dead because…

“You are a blessing to my family.”

WEIRDMAGEDDON VICTIMS :: @maruflix @heartkaji @17020 @stunies @y2kuromi @seneon @littleplantfreak @meidiary and special thanks to @kiurona for suggesting the idea and working with me and @nyxypoo for doing a beat read

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guided-by-stars · 4 months ago

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It baffles me when I see other people going through Stars and Time and they get frustrated when 1. Bonnie pushes Siffrin into the tear, and 2. Siffrin doesn't find the key in the Head Housemaiden's office and they get softlocked. There's frustration that comes out in other points as well, but those are the two situations where I've seen it be the most intense. I've seen people yell at Bonnie, yell at Mirabelle, yell at Siffrin, genuine anger and annoyance, some people will hold grudges. Say that this choice is stupid, try to find a way to avoid looping back. Usually at that point, I know I'm not exactly going to have the most fun watching them play.

I think some people trap themselves in the expectations of the medium. They're approaching it as a game first, and an expression of art or a story with people in it second. It genuinely surprises me sometimes when people treat characters as...characters, and not people. Do you not try to immerse yourself in the world and circumstances when you engage with media? Take it seriously? I see people try to justify these deaths. Most people aren't frustrated with the rock death, because they justify it as being a tutorial. At the same time, people who are already grumbling about having to go through Dormont again on loop 1... I'm not sure if this experience is for them. Considering on my completion file I ended far past loop 200... Acts 3 and 4 alone often have so much PURPOSEFUL looping, sometimes all the way back to Dormont.

People justify the softlock as a "tutorial" for the icon that shows when you cannot progress that loop...but at that point it had already been shown how tutorials were not made to be obtrusive. The fighting tutorial was centered around Mirabelle's own anxiety, an anxiety that progresses and grows throughout their journey through the house. The Bonnie taking down an enemy tutorial? That's not locked to any fight, it happens the first time that Bonnie has the chance to do so, it could happen anywhere! Adrienne could have easily coded it so that the first time the player was softlocked, the tutorial for that icon would play there. That's not the point of it. The point of it was to show how self-depricating Siffrin is, at that point in the game. How he puts so much of his self worth on his role as the trap disarmer and the key finder. How he blames himself for everything. How he sees himself as a failure. If you could just figure out where the key was if you tried really hard or something, you'd miss all of that. Almost everything in this game has a point and the point almost always is to show you more about the characters.

The game is meant to make you play through it countless times. It's meant to show you the experience of Siffrin, someone who has no choice but to go through it countless times. It's not for padding, it's not to be mean spirited or unfair or difficult, it's to give you an EXPERIENCE. When you want to fast forwards through text but you have a feeling that something might have changed and you stop just in time to see new dialogue, when you notice Siffrin's smile fading from act to act, when you make sure to pick up every souvenir from Dormont every time you loop JUST IN CASE you need to use it somewhere in the House, when you are so thrown off by the rock in the Death Corridor that you become paranoid and check every pillar afterwards just in case... and then you get the Memory of Pillars for your troubles.

When you check Loop's advice for quests you've already completed, just to see what they say about it, when you select text options that are already greyed out because you want and hope and desire there to be more to the conversation...maybe this time? When you do the friend quests again in Act 4 and you don't skip through them because you have a feeling Siffrin will be feeling differently now, and he does, and it's an entirely different experience this time. When you get the Bright Flower and you forget to give it to your party and then you go to talk to the king and see you can offer him the flower? When you bring the flower with you every loop after that just in case there's another person you can give it too and then you realize you can give it to the Head Housemaiden? That's what ISAT is about.

#in stars and time #isat

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gffa · 1 year ago

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Over the last week, I decided to go ahead with bookmarking all the fics I've recommended over the years on AO3 since I abide by tumblr poll results always (and man pour one out for all the fic that never made it to AO3 or has since been deleted, sooooo many gems lost to time!) and it was a bit more than the ~3,000 I was expecting:

Hopefully, this will be easier than browsing the hundreds of recs posts I've made, since you can filter for any of the author's tags now! These are mostly focused on Star Wars and DC fandom, but I did my time in the anime mines and occasional tours through some TV fandoms or movies. You can dig into everything unfiltered and start your own filtering, or the bigger fandoms you'll find:

MAJOR FANDOMS: Each of these should have 100+ at minimum and, in the case of Star Wars, literally almost half of them are in that fandom. Look, Star Wars fandom might be a trash fire in a lot of ways, but it is ON FIRE with some good fic. (Older bookmarks not guaranteed to match my current sentiments, especially re: the Jedi, but they did catch my fancy at that point in time!)

STAR WARS: - All Star Wars -OR- All Star Wars minus the Obi-Wan/Anakin ship - OR- Nothing BUT Obi-Wan/Anakin

BATMAN/DC: - DC can sometimes be tricky, but you can do a Batman* search and get most of them (though, sometimes Nightwing* or Young Justice* or Superman* will catch some of the others). Honestly, though, you might want to just do a search for what character or dynamic you like and have fun from there, because otherwise you're getting a face full of my Dick Grayson Is The Center Of The Universe And I'm Making That Everyone Else's Problem agenda. ;)

MARVEL/MCU: - Marvel* will probably get most of the various properties, though you may want to filter for Defenders* or Guardians of the Galaxy* if you're interested -OR- Marvel* without the Thor/Loki - These focus a lot on the Thor* fandom if you want to witness the results of like 8 years of constant voracious reading in that fandom (Minus the ship), because, seriously, I read a LOT of Odinson family fic. - Bonus, just do a search for Maximoff* to find some really good X-Men: First Class-verse because, listen, I have been ALL ABOUT the Maximoff twins since long before the movies or MCU brought them over and I will DIE ON THE HILL of "Marvel, make Magneto their bio-dad again or I'm never reading another comic of yours ever".

TOLKIEN/LORD OF THE RINGS/SILMARILLION/HOBBIT: - Tolkien* -OR- Hobbit* -OR- Lord of the Rings* searches will turn up most of my Elf-hunting, I primarily focus on the Sindar Elves, but look I can't resist my problematic Feanorian faves or that I will die on the hill that Fingolfin is the best ever. (You have NO IDEA how sad I am that so much fic on Stories of Arda or FFNET is not easily bookmarked on AO3, sob. I externally bookmarked a few of the bigger ones, but sooo many shorter faves are missing from my recs tag.)

CLAMP: - X/Tokyo Babylon legitimately bums me out because it's not a huge fandom and yet so much of what was written was pre-AO3 and lost when CLAMPesque went down or was never brought over from Livejournal, yet this fandom (well, the Seishirou/Subaru pairing) still burns brightly in my heart.

BOOKS: Chrestomanci | Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

DRAMAS: Nirvana in Fire | The Untamed -OR- Modao Zu Shi

VIDEO GAMES: Dragon Age: Inquisition | Final Fantasy 8 | Genshin Impact | Okami

BANDS: Arashi

All right, whew, that was actually a fun project, despite how much work it was to hunt down a lot of older faves to see if they were on AO3, hopefully you'll find this useful!

#lumi.txt #fic recs #star wars fic recs #batman fic recs

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sonic-justice-real-for · 3 months ago

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help. why is this in the ffxiv dynamis data center party finder.

#mod yugioh #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv

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five-rivers · 7 months ago

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My Kingdom of Fish poll fiction! Continued from here.

After a small amount of dithering, Danny took the cameras. He was here to show his parents the library, and he couldn't do that if they couldn't see it. The ambient array could collect data here as well as anywhere else. The Fenton Finder's 23rd iteration was as buggy as the first. He'd actually done a small amount of sabotage to the ‘self-defense system’ to make it safe to carry around, so… Yeah.

The only things he felt at all bad about leaving were the medical monitors and the environmental safety detectors. Both of those had helped him in the past. The Lost Library was supposed to be safe, though. It wasn't a truce zone or anything, but people didn't go there to fight, and the librarians were supposed to take care of any environmental dangers that popped up (mostly because things that could endanger ghosts could certainly endanger books). The Library of Tongues did that, anyway.

He did have to rearrange and remove some of the cameras, especially the redundant ones and the ones that weren't taking his amplified aura well, so that they fit on his much-reduced frame, but they were made to be serviceable, and soon he was ready.

The coat room, as it turned out, was right behind the reception desk.

“There are doors that aren't visible or that won't open for you unless you're a member or have a badge,” the librarian explained as she put the equipment on a shelf. “Another reason not to lose yours.”

“Where's the way in?” asked Danny.

“This way.”

The librarian led him back around, then to the side of the desk. Here, again, the wall had folded back into a set of doors, this one more ornate.

“The copyist's room attendants will meet you down the hallway,” said the librarian, sitting back down at her desk.

Danny nodded. “Thank you.”

The hallway forked right sharply. A ghost woman with bronze skin and dark hair was waiting there, not far from the corner. There was a spiral on the center of her forehead in what looked like gold wire under her skin. The outside end of it disappeared under her hairline.

“Oh my,” she said, hiding her mouth behind a pair of bell-like sleeves, “you’re so cute. Iphigenia didn’t tell me you were cute.”

Danny made a face.

“Ah! Precious! How old are you?”

“I was fourteen when I died,” said Danny, flatly. “I don’t know why places like this make me tiny, but I’m not.”

“You must be young at heart.”

Danny squinted at her.

“Mm? Are you looking at this?” she asked, pointing at her spiral. Danny shrugged, then nodded. He hadn’t been, not really, but in the interest of changing the subject… “It’s what members of the library have instead of another alteration. It’s like the fires you get at the Library of Tongues.” The spiral moved, retreating, unwinding, vanishing under her hair and then spiraling out onto the palm she offered up to Danny. “It’s called the Lìshǐ Yánxù De Jīn Xiàn, although ghosts from western cultures call it Ariadne’s String. No sense of pride for their work, I swear.” She shook her head. “So, if you get lost, or need help finding something, find someone with one of these, okay? We have a pretty big children's collection, believe it or not.”

“I'm not really a child.”

“Oh! So mature!” She poked his cheek, then stood up and opened the door behind her. “Let’s get you situated.”

The copyist’s room was large and brightly lit, lined with beehive-like cubbies that served as shelving for scrolls. There were several work tables spread throughout the room, and a mid-sized manual printing press. There were two other ghosts in the room. One, a stressed-looking larger man with a curly, box-cut beard, and the other a severely thin, angular man with a long, looping tail.

Both wore guest badges, and both had features that did not seem to match the rest of their appearances. The severe-looking man had large, fluffy, soft-looking wings with feathers that twitched and shifted near constantly. He had a quill badge clipped to the belt of his tunic. The other, larger man had moth antennae and wings, but also enormous, ribbed bat ears. He had not one but two badges attached to his robe-like wrap, the candle and the gong.

“Now,” said the attendant, “I know you said that you wanted to do Ancient Greek to English, and when people say Ancient Greek, they mean Ancient Greek from Life, not old Zone dialects, but the Mausoleum of Macaria tipped into the Acheron a few weeks ago, and were swamped with Elysian, Asphodelian, and Tartarian Greek. Especially Tartarian Greek. Would you mind doing something from one of those? It would be much shorter than what we'd give you in regular Ancient Greek, only a few pages.”

She looked at him hopefully.

“It would really help if you knew any of them,” she added.

#danny phantom #kingdom of fish #poll fic #choose your own adventure #dannymay #dannymay 2024

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summahsunlight · 5 months ago

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Perhaps It's Fate, Part 26

Rating: T, to be safe

Word Count: 2,142

Summary: After joining the Resistance as a mechanic, you were happy to keep to yourself, until a little orange and white bb unit and his master wander into your workshop one day.

Pairings: Poe Dameron x Mechanic!Reader

Start from the beginning!

Taglist: @ms-dont-care, @starless-eyes-remain, @elmoakepoke, @marvelobsessiononastick, @kiaralein, @softly-sad, @totalpoedameron, @ordinarymom1, @sevvysaurus, @spider-starry, @liadamerondjarin, @jingyuhearteu, @dream-alittlebiggerdarling, @paintballkid711, @ren-ni, @lostinwonderland314, @elite4cekalyma,@elisabethbathgate, @imabeautifulbutterfly

I'm back! I know it's been FOREVER. I hope this new chapter is worth it :) Reblogs, comments, etc. are appreciated!

Poe knew he had royally screwed up. He knew the moment you tearfully fled the command center. He knew he should have gone after you, to look for you immediately.

Instead, he stayed. You would come around eventually and seek him out when you ready. Poe could almost bank on this--so he was a bit surprised when he left the extremely long briefing with Leia--you were no where to be found. In fact, no one had seen you for hours. Not even BB-8, who always managed to find you to make sure you were alright.

He needed to find you. He couldn’t leave on the next mission without talking to you--there was a very real chance he wouldn’t come back from this mission and the last thing he wanted was for your last memory of him to be him angry and telling you to leave. But the longer he looked for you, the more Poe was beginning to believe that you had left. Rushing back to the command center he cornered the unsuspecting communications officer and demanded to know if you had boarded the last transport off planet.

“The last transport went to Mon Cal, sir,” the officer reported.

“Was she on it?” Poe growled, desperately.

“I’m not sure, I can pull up the passenger manifest.”

“Then pull it up!”

Fear flashed through the officer’s eyes before he quickly got to work on the commander’s request. Poe anxiously paced behind him. What if you had really gone? What was he going to do? There was no time to chase after you--he needed to leave soon--the Resistance needed to find that way finder so they could end this war once and for all--and there was literally no time to spare.

Briefly he thought about letting Finn and Rey go--she could pilot, he’d seen her skills, but damn it--they were both so green when it came to missions. Perhaps an ounce of military training between them and he was being lenient on Finn’s training with the First Order. He’d been trained to just follow orders, never think for himself...

...the communication’s officer cleared his throat, alerting Poe that he was done with his task. Poe stopped pacing and nervously swallowed. “Well?”

“Her name wasn’t on the manifest, sir.”

“Great. That means she’s still here on base.”

“Not...not necessarily. If she was a last minute passenger...”

“What do you mean by that?”

The officer took a deep breath, winced slightly as he replied, “The crew might not have put her name on the final manifest that they passed off to us because that would have meant having to resubmit all their flight plans again and delayed their departure. It happens all the time, sir. I’m surprised you didn’t know about that.”

Poe felt like he had been punched in the gut. You were gone; with his intense desire to protect you, to give you the life you deserved--he’d pushed you away, probably for good. Before he could even think straight, he asked when he could get clearance to take off. He was going to Mon Cal, he was going after you--the mission, the Resistance be damned.

****

If you were being honest with yourself, you were devastated that Poe didn’t show up to stop you from getting on the transport. Well, it's not like you told him that you were actually leaving, you thought, bitterly, wiping at the tears in your eyes.

Or perhaps he didn't love you as much as you thought he did. Maybe he really did want you to go. Somehow, you managed to beg your way onto the transport to Mon Cal--the last one to leave base that afternoon--despite not being on the original passenger manifest. The crew seemed annoyed by that; apparently they didn't want to add your name and delay departure. You suggested they didn't add your name--you didn't want to be found or followed.

"Fair enough," the captain said with a shrug. "Get on board."

One last glance to see if Poe had emerged from the base; one last little bit of hope dashed when you didn't see him. He doesn't love you, you're such an idiot for ever believing it.

Crying, silently, you found a hidden spot on the transport. No one could watch your fall apart back here, behind a large crate. There had been some questioning eyes when you boarded, however, no one actually said anything to you. For all they knew, you were on a mission for the Resistance--not trying to get away from the man that had broken your heart into a million little pieces.

At least now Poe was free from the burden that you were. He got put all of his attention on the war and the Resistance--he could find someone that could take care of his heart better than you. He could have that peaceful life after the war was over with someone else; he could bring that person home to his father and proudly introduce them--he could parade them around Yavin IV with pride beaming in his brown eyes--he could have the life he deserved.

You had been living a dream with him, a dream that you had to wake up from eventually.

"Sorry folks," a voice said, making you realize someone had been speaking. "We're experiencing some mechanical problems; they're working on it but our departure is going to be delayed."

A low rumble spread throughout the cabin as the passengers grumbled about the delay--you felt a little bit of relief--you weren't entirely sure you wanted to leave the Resistance behind, after all you had made some friends here and you wanted to help. You told yourself that if Finn, Rose or Rey were aware that you thinking of leaving--they would have come to stop you

Familiar beeps echoed across the base and from your hiding spot you were able to glance up and see Poe, rushing to his fighter--rushing off on another mission not rushing to make sure you didn't walk out of his life forever.

****

Poe stormed towards his fighter, BB-8 on his heels. If he hurried he could get to Mon Cal not long after the transport--that would give him enough time to find you and tell you that he was sorry, that he was so in love with you that he was terrified he was going to be the reason you died.

BB-8 was screeching at him and Poe spun about on his heel, ready to shout at the little droid that they were wasting time--until he saw what the droid had been trying to tell him--the transport had not left yet. You weren't gone after all. He could see a team of mechanics working on the ship, the passengers had disembarked and were milling about waiting for the opportunity to reboard and be on their way. His deep brown eyes scanned the crowd looking for you and his heart sank when he didn't see you at first--and then, he caught sight of you, the sunlight catching in your hair...

...Poe took off like a shot, dodging in and out of workers and ships trying to reach you.

As he got closer, he called out your name and when you looked up at him, his heart shattered. He would never get the image of you, eyes swollen from crying, the devastation reflecting back at him--and then the realization that he had been the one to do this to you. Not the First Order, not Kylo Ren or General Hux--but him.

You ducked into the brush behind you and disappeared. Poe clenched his fists as a pair of mechanics, unaware of what was going, stepped in his path, blocking him from following you into the jungle. Gritting his teeth, he lowered his shoulder and pushed his way passed the mechanics and then into the jungle.

He saw you running up ahead on the path. Poe caught up to quickly, gently grabbing your wrist and pulling you back towards him. "Please, sweetheart, please don't go," he begged. "I didn't mean it--I regret that I even put the thought in your head."

Violently, you yanked your hand back, noticing that Poe's hand dropped to his side and that his shoulders sank a little. "Why should I stay? It's been hours since we got back from that mission, hours since you told me to leave--now all of a sudden you regret that?"

"I regretted it immediately," Poe whispered.

"Sure you did," you snapped at him, tears running down your cheeks.

"I did; I should have followed you, I should have told you..."

"But you didn't Poe! Just admit it--you don't love me!"

Poe felt sick to his stomach. Even if he convinced you to stay, would you even want to stay with him? He was about to lose you, he knew it from the bottom of his heart. "Is that what you think? That I don't love you?"

Wiping the tears from your eyes, you sharply nodded your head. "Isn't it obvious? You've been so angry at me--I'm a burden to you--I'm in the way of your work with the Resistance. I'm a nobody, Poe, just... just got back to base and forget about me. It's just better this way."

"Better? You think this is better? Breaking both our hearts like this?"

"You'll find someone else! Someone better!"

"There's that word again! I don't want better! There is no one better! I want you!"

Drawing your arms around yourself, you hugged your shaking body, tightly. Tears freely streamed down your cheeks and you felt him take a step closer to you. "Poe," you pleaded with him, "please, please don't make this harder."

Poe heard his commlink going off; Finn must have been looking for him, but he couldn't leave on that mission--not now--he could not leave the base without making sure you'd be there when he returned. He took another step towards you, making the small space between you even smaller. "I know...I know I haven't...I've been terrible towards you recently. Angry. But it's not you I'm angry at, sweetheart. I hate this whole situation. I hate that I can't give you a safe place to call home, I hate that every time I leave--I might not come back to you. But I have never, ever stopped loving you. Please, sweetheart, you have to believe me when I say that."

You shook your head; why couldn't he just let this go? Why couldn't he see it the way you saw it? It was better this way--even if he now hated that word. "Just go on your mission, Poe. It's more important than me. Just forget me."

"No," he said, softly, firmly.

"No?" you repeated, looking at him through watery eyes.

"I'm not going to just forget about you."

"You should; you'll be able to focus on your mission."

Heavily sighing, Poe closed the last little bit of space between you. His fingers ghosted along your arms before he gently grasped your wrists in his strong hands. "You are my mission, sweetheart. Bringing an end to the First Order, bringing peace to the galaxy--making sure it's safe for you--that's my mission. I have to go on this mission with Finn and Rey--if we don't find a way to stop the reborn Emperor and the Final Order--there will never be peace. Promise me, you'll be here when I get back."

Crying, you buried your face against his shirt and you felt one of his hands let go of your wrist and his arm snake around your waist. You couldn't manage any words, just a simple nod of your head.

Poe pulled back, kissing your forehead. His comm was going off once again and he knew he couldn't delay any longer. "Promise me," he whispered, now kissing your lips softly. His hand holding onto to your wrist let go and his thumb wiped your tears away. "Sweetheart, please."

You sniffled, a few more fresh tears falling. "I...I promise...I'll be here when you get back."

Letting you go, Poe stepped back. His eyes locked with yours as he answered his comm and said he was on his way. Reaching underneath his scarf, he pulled the chain from around his neck. You saw the gold of his mother's wedding ring reflecting the sunlight and then he slipped the chain around your neck. "Keep this safe for me?"

"Shara's ring? I'll...I'll make sure it's safe."

"I love you; I'll say as often as I have too until you believe it. And then I'll keep saying it so you remember it."

Clutching tightly to the ring, you stood there while he kissed you, making another promise to come back to you and reassuring you once again that he did love you. Then he was gone--heading back through the jungle--leaving you standing behind, silently tears running down your cheeks.

Promise me, Poe, that you'll come back.

#my writing #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron #perhaps it's fate #an update!#hope it was worth the wait #i know it's been forever

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wolfjackle-creates · 2 years ago

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Ghost!Robin Part 11

Time for another WIP Wednesday! I'm not sure if I'll have anything for next week. I'm working on a one shot right now as I can and wrapping up stuff for my final week of work which is taking a ton of time. Though I did get on a roll today and wrote a bit more than I'm posting, so maybe I'll have something.

Story Summary: Danny was invited to dinner at Wayne Manor to meet Jazz's boyfriend and his family for the first time. He worked hard to make sure no ghost business would interrupt the evening. But when he arrived, all he could focus on was the ghost of the dead Robin that seemed to haunt Jason. Looks like he was breaking his promise.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.4k

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“Hn. What is the range on these devices?” asked Bruce.

Danny shrugged. “My stuff? From anywhere. I track through the Infinite Realms, not by Earth. GIW? Jason-Robin, they’ll be able to detect something from probably ten miles out of city limits, but they’d need to be within half a mile to get an accurate location. The Fentons? Mile or so. They get an exact location or nothing.”

Tim asked, “Is it likely the Fenton’s will come to Gotham?”

“Not sure,” admitted Danny. “But they sell commercially, so other ghost hunters might have their equipment. Jazz, pass the Fenton Finder?”

Damian couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice when he finally saw the blocky silver device with a circular, green screen on it and bits sticking up out of the front. “Why is there a light bulb attached to it?”

Even Robin looked at the device with a raised eyebrow and sent out a silent this real? his way.

“It flashes when a ghost is nearby,” Danny replied to both of them.

Tim hummed in interest. “Are the visible antennae necessary? Why are there multiple?”

“Most of my parents designs were cobbled together with whatever they could cannibalize from other household electronics and junk yards. Hence the less stream-lined appearance compared to the Guys in White’s stuff.”

He flicked the switch to turn it on and instantly the light bulb was flashing red, the radar screen turned on showing several dots in close vicinity to the center, and a robotic voice said, “You are surrounded by multiple ghosts. You’d have to be an idiot to not notice the ghosts all around you.”

Danny let it read out it’s warning again before flicking it back off. He had to laugh at the looks of complete bafflement on basically everyone’s faces. Even Bruce raised an eyebrow at it.

“Yeah, that’s my parents for you. FentonWorks designs are at least easy to spot. Not the the Guys in White’s stuff is much better. That horrible white on everything…” Danny shuddered. “I hate white.”

Bruce hummed. “Will you be able to provide us with some of these devices so we can study them on our own?”

Danny bit at his lower lip. “Probably. But it’ll have to wait until after I get you the information on how to safely work with ectoplasm. If Tim and Barbara are your big tech people, they’re not liminal at all and will have to be careful when handling it.”

Tim added, “We do have extensive experience working with toxic chemicals. Many of the Gotham rogues use chemical warfare.”

“Right. Yeah, I’ll have Tucker send you the safety sheets on it and we’ll see what devices I’ve got or can make duplicates of to get to you. I’ll be sure you get all three styles of hand-held trackers and their schematics. Maybe I’ll even be able to get you the schematics for a larger tracking system like what my parents have set up in Amity.”

Barbara nodded. “That would be great. What sort of set up do your parents have in your home town?”

“So they’ve set up sensors all over the city that detect ectoplasmic activity. The signal gets sent back to the computer in the ops center they built on top of their house, and they can pin the exact location of any ghost to within a foot or two anywhere within, like, five miles of the city limits. That data is also shared with the computer in their GAV.”

Jason bumped Jazz’s shoulder with his. “I know I’m gonna regret this, but what’s the ‘GAV’?”

Jazz sighed and answered. “It stands for Ghost Assault Vehicle. It’s a modified RV that’s basically a tank. Jack and Maddie simply have to press a button and a dozen ghost weapons will protrude from the vehicle and aim for any nearby ghost. And that’s without Maddie shoving her entire upper body out the window while holding a bazooka.”

“Yep. I regret asking. How badly am I gonna want to murder your parents by the time I’m done learning about them?”

“They are not my parents.” Jazz’s voice was hard.

At the same time, Danny answered, “Depends. How do you feel about genocidal mad scientists?”

Jason just let his head bang on the table. Robin flew over to him and patted him on the back. Jason seemed to subconsciously lean into the touch.

“Now,” said Danny. “I promised I’d show the rest of you these scanners up close.”

“That would be appreciated,” said Bruce. “We also have a few more questions about you and your parents.”

“And I need you to tell me more about these Lazarus pits because those sound like they’re a disaster.”

Alfred cleared his throat. “And I believe that will have to be the end of this meeting tonight. It is getting late and at least some of you will insist on going on patrol tonight still.”

A few people grumbled at Alfred’s words, but no one argued.

Danny made his way to the other side of the table and went over how to use the devices again. He pretended not to notice the way Jazz flinched when he turned on the Fenton Finder and it called out its warning again.

Jason did put an arm around her in response, though, so he figured she’d be all right.

“So that’s that,” he said once he turned off the last device. “I won’t be showing you any weapons until after we get you up to date on ghost biology and culture. If you run into issues in the meantime, you can call Jazz or me and we’ll take care of it.”

Bruce nodded. “We’ll be following up with our own experts as well.”

“Of course,” agreed Danny. “I figured. Now, you had some more questions?”

Tim asked, “You mentioned to me and Alfred that a member of Justice League Dark stopped by Amity. Can you tell us more about that?”

“I mean, there’s not much to tell,” said Danny. “It was John Constantine. And at the time I had no idea how famous he was. Would’ve asked for an autograph if I had, but oh well. This was shortly after I defeated Pariah Dark, the previous Ghost King. He came in, asked if I needed help. I told him I got it covered, he gave me a phone number, and that was that.”

Bruce hummed. “Yes, that sounds like Constantine. We will speak to him.”

“Why?” asked Danny. “It was exactly what I wanted. A check in to confirm I was okay and someone to reach out to on Earth if I got in over my head. It’s just by that time I started getting allies in the Realms. The big concern Earth-side was ghost hunters. And the worst of them were government sanctioned so I wasn’t sure if I should reach out to the Justice League since you guys also work with the US government.”

Jason let out a noise that Danny could only think of as a growl. “He should have spent enough time there to answer questions like that.”

Danny snorted. “Less than a week before he arrived, our entire town was removed from Earth and brought into the Infinite Realms for multiple days. Something would’ve been very wrong with him if he’d stuck around longer than it took to confirm it wasn’t likely to happen again.”

“I’m sorry,” asked Steph, “what is that about your entire town being transported off earth?”

“Don’t you know? My friends and I figured that’s why you sent Constantine to us.”

Barbara shook her head as she clicked around her computer. “There’s nothing in the Justice League files about it.”

“Huh. Well that’s how I became the Ghost King. The previous king was released by an idiot and lured to Amity. Ended up bringing the entire town into the Realms. His goal was to take over the town then the rest of earth. I defeated him in single combat while some other ghosts helped hold back his armies. No one bothered to tell me until later that that meant won his titles as well.”

Dick was frowning at him. “Why did you have to be the one to defeat him?”

Danny just blinked at him in confusion. “Who else was there? My accident is what activated the portal and started letting ghosts through. By making me half ghost, I had the powers necessary to contain the ones who caused problems. My parents were incompetent at best. So I just did what had to be done. Besides, if I hadn’t been an idiot, the portal never would’ve turned on in the first place. So it was my responsibility to fix it.”

----------

And no one at the table liked that answer! The end of the dinner is finally in sight! I know I'm overlooking characters. I'll do some editing to make sure everyone gets a say before I eventually get around to posting this to AO3. (It's a good part of the reason I haven't started cross posting, tbh. That and I like to have stories fully finished before I start posting.)

Hope you all enjoy.

Tag List Part 1:

@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost, @emeraldcorpral, @all-mights-asscheeks, @darkhinauniverse, @blep-23, @phandomhyperfixationblog, @larkcoe1, @thegatorsgoose, @job-ross-the-second, @britcision, @lenacraft, @bubblemixer, @androgynouslordofescapism, @purefrickingspite, @leftmiraclechaos, @lizisipancardo, @starlight-sparks, @miraculousandmore, @gildedphoenix, @sometimesthingsfallapart, @letmesayfuxk, @phoenixcatch7, @skulld3mort-1fan, @abaowo, @dhampir-princess, @idkmrpianoman, @sarina-elais, @ballzfrog-blog, @undead-essence, @spookytragedyshark, @flyingpansaurus, @akintoabitch, @marivictal, @8-29pm, @justreadingthefanfics, @happybear135, @kisatamao, @spoopyspoony, @adorablechaos, @sara0055, @screamingtofillthevoid

#dpxdc #danny fenton #jazz fenton #all the bats #anger management #my writing #were finally moving past the distrust!#at least a bit #constantine felt a chill go down his spine #he's gonna be spending longer than he'd like avoiding bats after this night #danny has no idea what he just unleashed on the wizard

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ticklemerainbows · 1 year ago

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Aestheticore Legacy Challenge

Hullo friends! I have been searching for a little while for a legacy challenge that I could also use as some sort of perfect genetics challenge and I figured, why not make my own. So the aestheticore legacy challenge was born! As you can tell from the title, this challenge is centered around differed aesthetics. There are a ton of aesthetics out there so it was hard to pick just 10, and some of these I’ve never heard of before so I’m excited to try this out!

If you decide to do this, tag me ticklemerainbows or aestheticore challenge so I can see! And feel free to let me know what you think. This is my first challenge so if there’s things I could do different/better let me know!

And without further ado, the challenge.

~x~x~x~

Generation One - Cottagecore

Your favorite thing about living on family land is the garden. It’s been around for at least the last 10 generations, and you want nothing more than to keep it going, but living in a city isn’t for you. So you pack up, take a keepsake plant from the garden and move to a quiet town in order to grow your own garden that will hopefully last for generations to come!

Requirements: The Perfect Garden

Live on a small (no bigger than 30x30) lot

Maintain a garden for the entire generation

Reach level 10 Gardening

Make a living off your plants

Suggested Traits: Green Thumb, Loves the Outdoors

Color: Green

Generation Two - Auroracore

You try your hardest to help your parents on the farm but you can’t help but have your head in the clouds. Fairy tales are your favorite genre of anything, and while living on a farm is all fine and dandy - you absolutely love your horse, you did raise it from a baby after all! - you always wonder if there’s something more. Like, a unicorn, perhaps?

Requirements: The Fairy Tale Finder

Raise a horse from foal to adult

Reach level 10 in the Riding Skill

Have your horse get the Friend of the Herd Lifetime Reward

Search for a unicorn anytime there’s an aurora

Suggested Traits: Equestrian, Animal Lover

Color: Lilac

Generation Three - Light Academia

Being raised by someone who’s lifelong mission was to find a supernatural creature was surprisingly not as chaotic as it would sound, though you still prefer to stay more…grounded. While your parents were out hunting, you preferred to keep your head in the books, earning a scholarship to get into University.

Requirements: The Perfect Student

Get on honor roll as a child/teen

Earn a scholarship in any subject

Buy the bookstore

Suggested Traits: Socially Awkward, Workaholic, Perfectionist, Bookworm

Color: Beige

Generation Four - Fairycore

Your grandmother always told you about her times with her unicorn friend, and while you never quite believed her, you fell in love with the idea of supernatural creatures altogether. Magic, fairies, it all sounds so fantastical that you even begin trying to figure out if you can turn yourself into a magical creature!

Requirements: Alchemy Artisan

Reach level 10 Alchemy

Visit the arboretum once a week to search for fairies

Befriend a fairy

Use an elixir to become a fairy

Suggested Traits: Supernatural Fan, Gatherer

Color: Pink

Generation Five - Comfy/Cozy

Life around magic has been a whirlwind, and you are anything but all that excitement. Having a grandparent who owns a bookstore has its perks, and you spend most of your time curled up with a good book and a warm cup of tea. Leaving your house to work doesn’t sound too appealing but you don’t have to go outside to write, do you?

Requirements: Professional Author

Join the bookclub

Visit the library at least 3 times a season

Reach level 10 Writing

Write a best selling novel

Suggested Traits: Bookworm, Couch Potato, Artistic

Color: Orange

Generation Six - Decora

You always get asked how you turned out so outgoing when you were raised by homebodies, and you never have an answer for that. You just love being around people, and more importantly dressing those people up. You want to fill as many peoples lives with as much color as possible.

Requirements: Fashion Phenomenon

Change your outfit every season

Reach level 10 Painting

Makeover at least 10 sims

Become best friends with one of your clients

Suggested Traits: Charismatic, Artistic, Excitable

Color: Magenta

Generation Seven - Jamcore

You love color just as much as your parents, but not so much the fashion part. Your clothes get way too messy as you experiment in the kitchen, after all. Creating yummy, colorful dishes are where your passions lie and you are determined to learn as much about the culinary arts as you possibly can.

Requirements: The Culinary Librarian

Cook meals for your family every day

Grow a fruit orchard on the family farm

Have a personal recipe library

(Optional) Use the Grandma’s Canning Station once a week

Suggested Traits: Natural Cook, Bookworm

Color: Yellow

Generation Eight - Nautical

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls ye. You’ve always been drawn to the water, so much so that your family jokes that you might be a mermaid. Swimming, fishing, boating, it all appeals to you. You’d live on a houseboat, if given the chance.

Requirements: Presenting the Perfect Aquarium

Own a boat

Install a pond on your family land

Move into a houseboat

Reach level 10 Fishing

Suggested Traits: Loves to Swim, Angler

Color: Blue

Generation Nine - Wanderlust

Your parents loved the open sea but you want to see what’s beyond that! Visiting other cities, and even other countries. Learning and immersing yourself in the culture. You’ve read books about it, watched shows, and now that you’re old enough it’s time to dust off your visa and visit those places for yourself.

Requirements: Seasoned Traveler

Reach level 10 in Photography

Collect a relic from each location

Go on at least 1 adventure in each country

Marry someone from a foreign country

Suggested Traits: Adventurer, Perfectionist

Color: Red

Generation Ten - Synthwave

You spent your life in other countries, other cultures, and you have to wonder, what more is there? You’ve inherited a love of traveling but is it possible to go to other timelines, or even the future? There’s not much research on it now but there’s only one way to find out. To the future!

Requirements: Made the Most of My Time

Become best friends with Emit

Reach Level 10 in Advanced Technology

Complete the Time Keeper Legacy Statue Challenge

Create a time machine

Suggested Traits: Friendly, Adventurer

Color: Black

#legacy challenge #sims 3 legacy challenge #aestheticore challenge

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hastyprovocateur · 10 months ago

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I don't see the triangle, your hontour. Saw some people talking about Mizu Akemi wanting Taigen and I felt nauseous thinking he might be the center of it.

There was already a triangle in season 1 with Mizu sandwiched in between Akemi and Taigen's engagement. Taigen pursued Mizu to reinstate his honour and Akemi pursued Mizu to save her engagement. But that's it... like that's as far it went before it got resolved in the end.

Akemi chose the Shogunate and staying in Edo over running away with Taigen. Mizu left Taigen and the rest in Japan to pursue the remaining white demons in London alone.

And no... the writers didn't make Taigen an important enough character to conclude his story outside of him being rejected by Akemi after everything they went through. He won't be hiding in the barrels or burst out the waves like a siren that followed Mizu. If he was on the ship, you'd have seen him.

I can't picture Mizu telling Akemi that marrying Taigen is like "Begging to eat trash" and mustering at best that "He's not a good guy... but he could be a great one" only for his ass to get rejected and go "Finder's Keeper"?? And even if she does choose him... why would Akemi be involved at all...?

The protagonist chasing revenge, the deuteragonist chasing greatness and TAIGEN??? is their point of contention cmon now

#Don't embarass either woman like this.#That man is not worth fighting over #mizu blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai #akemi blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai mizu #taigen bes #taigen blue eye samurai #ringo blue eye samurai #akemi bes #mizu bes #akemi #mizu #taigen

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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AI-infused search engines from Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity have been surfacing deeply racist and widely debunked research promoting race science and the idea that white people are genetically superior to nonwhite people.

Patrik Hermansson, a researcher with UK-based anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, was in the middle of a months-long investigation into the resurgent race science movement when he needed to find out more information about a debunked dataset that claims IQ scores can be used to prove the superiority of the white race.

He was investigating the Human Diversity Foundation, a race science company funded by Andrew Conru, the US tech billionaire who founded Adult Friend Finder. The group, founded in 2022, was the successor to the Pioneer Fund, a group founded by US Nazi sympathizers in 1937 with the aim of promoting “race betterment” and “race realism.”

Hermansson logged in to Google and began looking up results for the IQs of different nations. When he typed in “Pakistan IQ,” rather than getting a typical list of links, Hermansson was presented with Google’s AI-powered Overviews tool, which, confusingly to him, was on by default. It gave him a definitive answer of 80.

When he typed in “Sierra Leone IQ,” Google’s AI tool was even more specific: 45.07. The result for “Kenya IQ” was equally exact: 75.2.

Hermansson immediately recognized the numbers being fed back to him. They were being taken directly from the very study he was trying to debunk, published by one of the leaders of the movement that he was working to expose.

The results Google was serving up came from a dataset published by Richard Lynn, a University of Ulster professor who died in 2023 and was president of the Pioneer Fund for two decades.

“His influence was massive. He was the superstar and the guiding light of that movement up until his death. Almost to the very end of his life, he was a core leader of it,” Hermansson says.

A WIRED investigation confirmed Hermanssons’s findings and discovered that other AI-infused search engines—Microsoft’s Copilot and Perplexity—are also referencing Lynn’s work when queried about IQ scores in various countries. While Lynn’s flawed research has long been used by far-right extremists, white supremacists, and proponents of eugenics as evidence that the white race is superior genetically and intellectually from nonwhite races, experts now worry that its promotion through AI could help radicalize others.

“Unquestioning use of these ‘statistics’ is deeply problematic,” Rebecca Sear, director of the Center for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London, tells WIRED. “Use of these data therefore not only spreads disinformation but also helps the political project of scientific racism—the misuse of science to promote the idea that racial hierarchies and inequalities are natural and inevitable.”

To back up her claim, Sear pointed out that Lynn’s research was cited by the white supremacist who committed the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.

Google’s AI Overviews were launched earlier this year as part of the company’s effort to revamp its all-powerful search tool for an online world being reshaped by artificial intelligence. For some search queries, the tool, which is only available in certain countries right now, gives an AI-generated summary of its findings. The tool pulls the information from the internet and gives users the answers to queries without needing to click on a link.

The AI Overview answer does not always immediately say where the information is coming from, but after complaints from people about how it showed no articles, Google now puts the title for one of the links to the right of the AI summary. AI Overviews have already run into a number of issues since launching in May, forcing Google to admit it had botched the heavily-hyped rollout. AI Overviews is turned on by default for search results, and can’t be removed without restoring to installing third-party extensions. (“I haven't enabled it, but it was enabled,” Hermansson, the researcher, tells WIRED. “I don't know how that happened.”)

In the case of the IQ results, Google referred to a variety of sources, including posts on X, Facebook, and a number of obscure listicle websites, including World Population Review. In nearly all of these cases, when you click through to the source, the trail leads back to Lynn’s infamous dataset. (In some cases, while the exact numbers Lynn published are referenced, the websites do not cite Lynn as the source.)

When querying Google’s Gemini AI chatbot directly using the same terms, it provided a much more nuanced response. “It's important to approach discussions about national IQ scores with caution,” read text that the chatbot generated in response to the query “Pakistan IQ.” The text continued: “IQ tests are designed primarily for Western cultures and can be biased against individuals from different backgrounds.”

Google tells WIRED that its systems weren’t working as intended in this case and that it is looking at ways it can improve.

“We have guardrails and policies in place to protect against low quality responses, and when we find Overviews that don’t align with our policies, we quickly take action against them,” Ned Adriance, a Google spokesperson, tells WIRED. “These Overviews violated our policies and have been removed. Our goal is for AI Overviews to provide links to high quality content so that people can click through to learn more, but for some queries there may not be a lot of high quality web content available.”

While WIRED’s tests suggest AI Overviews have now been switched off for queries about national IQs, the results still amplify the incorrect figures from Lynn’s work in what’s called a “featured snippet,” which displays some of the text from a website before the link.

Google did not respond to a question about this update.

But it’s not just Google promoting these dangerous theories. When WIRED put the same query to other AI-powered online search services, we found similar results.

Perplexity, an AI search company that has been found to make things up out of thin air, responded to a query about “Pakistan IQ” by stating that “the average IQ in Pakistan has been reported to vary significantly depending on the source.”

It then lists a number of sources, including a Reddit thread that relied on Lynn’s research and the same World Population Review site that Google’s AI Overview referenced. When asked for Sierra Leone’s IQ, the Perplexity directly cited Lynn’s figure: “Sierra Leone's average IQ is reported to be 45.07, ranking it among the lowest globally.”

Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot, which is integrated into its Bing search engine, generated confident text—“The average IQ in Pakistan is reported to be around 80”—citing a website called IQ International, which does not reference its sources. When asked for “Sierra Leone IQ,” Copilot’s response said it was 91. The source linked in the results was a website called Brainstats.com, which references Lynn’s work. Copilot also referenced Brainstats.com work when queried about IQ in Kenya

“Copilot answers questions by distilling information from multiple web sources into a single response,” Caitlin Roulston, a Microsoft spokesperson, tells WIRED. “Copilot provides linked citations so the user can further explore and research as they would with traditional search.”

Google added that part of the problem it faces in generating AI Overviews is that, for some very specific queries, there’s an absence of high quality information on the web—and there’s little doubt that Lynn’s work is not of high quality.

“The science underlying Lynn’s database of ‘national IQs’ is of such poor quality that it is difficult to believe the database is anything but fraudulent,” Sear said. “Lynn has never described his methodology for selecting samples into the database; many nations have IQs estimated from absurdly small and unrepresentative samples.”

Sear points to Lynn’s estimation of the IQ of Angola being based on information from just 19 people and that of Eritrea being based on samples of children living in orphanages.

“The problem with it is that the data Lynn used to generate this dataset is just bullshit, and it's bullshit in multiple dimensions,” Rutherford said, pointing out that the Somali figure in Lynn’s dataset is based on one sample of refugees aged between 8 and 18 who were tested in a Kenyan refugee camp. He adds that the Botswana score is based on a single sample of 104 Tswana-speaking high school students aged between 7 and 20 who were tested in English.

Critics of the use of national IQ tests to promote the idea of racial superiority point out not only that the quality of the samples being collected is weak, but also that the tests themselves are typically designed for Western audiences, and so are biased before they are even administered.

“There is evidence that Lynn systematically biased the database by preferentially including samples with low IQs, while excluding those with higher IQs, for African nations,” Sears added, a conclusion backed up by a preprint study from 2020.

Lynn published various versions of his national IQ dataset over the course of decades, the most recent of which, called “The Intelligence of Nations,” was published in 2019. Over the years, Lynn’s flawed work has been used by far-right and racist groups as evidence to back up claims of white superiority. The data has also been turned into a color-coded map of the world, showing sub-Saharan African countries with purportedly low IQ colored red compared to the Western nations, which are colored blue.

“This is a data visualization that you see all over [X, formerly known as Twitter], all over social media—and if you spend a lot of time in racist hangouts on the web, you just see this as an argument by racists who say, ‘Look at the data. Look at the map,’” Rutherford says.

But the blame, Rutherford believes, does not lie with the AI systems alone, but also with a scientific community that has been uncritically citing Lynn’s work for years.

“It's actually not surprising [that AI systems are quoting it] because Lynn's work in IQ has been accepted pretty unquestioningly from a huge area of academia, and if you look at the number of times his national IQ databases have been cited in academic works, it's in the hundreds,” Rutherford said. “So the fault isn't with AI. The fault is with academia.”

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