#epilogue? yes

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Laios's three Boy Best Friends. And yes, they hate him.

[sebdoeswords]

SICKENING. ABSOLUTELY SICKENING.

[beetle-beep]

picked up a stim recently where I just like scratch at the top of my sun plush's head while I'm at my computer and this image slammed into my head like a baseball bat

[prettyupsetnerd]

[lifeof-pink]

i think the way the book became 3rd person pov when kim dokja got off the train is one of the most fucking genius literary moves ive seen in years

[fosliie]

An ache I still remember

Finally done!! A lil something about grief, grudges, longing and all that good stuff

[evercornelias]

abigail marston was twenty three taking care of baby jack marston and manchild marston…she should’ve been at the club!

[outtheoiseaux]

I think post-canon Dirk would be impossible to locate at any given time.

That story about the 8 euro cafe breakfast is true, by the way. Paris breakfasts are strange and full of carbs

[siriuslyobsessedwithfiction]

The president of Mal's hate club is The Darkling. The club's funds come from Nikolai. (Unofficially and off-paper, of course.)

The president of Alina's hate club is Alina Starkov herself. The co-founder is her only mother figure, Ana Kuya. Baghra is in charge of gathering new members.

Mal claims he is not a member of Alina hate club, but brings lemon cake to the function and regularly provides new material for the president.

There's a difference.

[heyclickadee]

“Hey, you okay?”

“I…no.”

“Okay. Talk to me.”

“Phee…what if we made a mistake?”

“What?”

“There is hardly anywhere the Empire is not these days. What if something happens to one of us? To both of us? What if you go out on a mission for Vos and you are killed or”—

“It’s us, brown eyes. And it’s me. I’d like to see the Empire try to keep me down.”

“Then what if one day I wake up and I cannot remember you? Or the girls?”

“Then we’ll help you remember all over again. All of us.”

“But what if”—

“You were having that nightmare about Tantiss, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I…don’t want to…go back to being….”

“Listen, Tech Ninety-Nine Genoa: you are never going back to that ever again. I promise.”

For the day five prompt of ND Tech Week. I’m thinking it takes Tech a little while to get back home, and a little while longer to figure out who he really is. He still has some rough days, and worries in ways he didn’t before. Whatever happened to him, and whatever he did afterwards, was something he couldn’t control—and it kept him away for so much longer than he wanted. Still, every once in while it hits him how much they lost, and how much they got back, and in spite of everything he thinks he must be the luckiest man in the galaxy to have come out the other side. After all, better late than dead. As Phee always says. (Or did that one time.)

[rennybu]

hold me closer, i'm not dead

(any and all pronouns for Favour, pick your poison)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Izutsumi character study

[thewritetofreespeech]

Tressym can be Fickle

WORDS: 692 RATING: G PAIRING: Gale x Tav SUMMARY: based on a very real arguement between my husband & I on who our cat likes more.

It had been a long, arduous, grueling day at the academy.

Though Gale loved his new role as a professor and educator, teaching the young minds of witches & wizards all across Faerun to harness their magic, induction week was the worst. He felt his life was in less peril fighting the Elder Brain or any of their other enemies & cohorts along the Sword Coast than he was now. Testing the new inductees to file them accordingly to their skill. ‘Skill’ being a very loose word tossed around this week.

He returned home that evening with a heavy sigh through the door, an even heavier thud of his satchel filled with books, and a desperate need to be tended to by his spouse. The whole day had been about soothing the egos, feelings, and on occasion literal wounds of new students that Gale thought he deserved some tending to now.

“Tav?” He called out as he put his cloak away. Usually, they greeted him at the door. Or at least acknowledged him when he came home. Curious, Gale walked through the house to try and find them. His search not long as he came upon Tav in the living room. On the couch by a low fire, with Tara on their lap. “Well….don’t you two look cozy.”

“Hmm, we rather are Mr. Dekarios.” Tara agreed. “Or at least we were, until someone started shouting.”

“Apologies for shouting in my own house.” Gale snipped at Tara. Taking his own plush armchair across from them. “Since when did you become a lap cat? And, before you get too ruffled under the feathers, it’s a figure of speech.”

Tara hummed. Seeming to debate about not letting it go but was perhaps indeed to comfortable to make a fuss. “Very recently I suppose. I never had an interest until now.” The tressym purred with her eyes closed as she tilted her head up towards Tav and her head scratches.

“You never took an interest with me.” Gale said with a deep frown.

“You do not have nails, Mr. Dekarios.”

The wizard growled and stood up. Unable to watch his dearest friend and lover betray him like this in front of his own eyes. It was still early for dinner but he stalked off towards the kitchen to focus his frustrations on what to eat.

A few moments later, Tav came in. Looking confused on why he was so upset. “Sorry.” He apologized quickly. “It’s just been a long day. And I am glad that you and Tara are getting along now. Guess I’m being….overly sensitive at being shut out. Tressym can be fickle, but I’ve never known Tara to change her mind about anyone. Again, not that I’m not pleased you two are getting along. I just never thought I would suddenly be second in her estimation.”

“Suddenly second? Please Mr. Dekarios.” The couple turned to see Tara trot in. Seeming interested in their conversation. “I wouldn’t say that you were suddenly second. Not given my high esteem of your mother. A better estimate is which one of you is second on the day, and who is third.”

“Really Tara? Kick a man while he’s down??”

“But, I’m a reasonable creature. Perhaps my estimations can be over swayed. Perhaps with a bit of chicken? Fried pigeons if you have any?”

“So a creature of reason but not honor, eh?” Gale stated, with a wave of his hand as if he wish to brush away this whole conversation.

Before he could leave, Tav wrapped their arms around his waist. Pulling him close. The smell of their hair in his nose. Something like ‘you’ll always be number 1 to me’ muffled into his chest, which causes him to smile and hold them back.

They tell Gale to go upstairs and relax. Take a bath if he liked, while they made dinner. That sounded heavenly, so he did just that.

When he came back down, he was not amused by the roast chicken on his plate. Nor the grinning little tressym in the corner, licking her chops like she’d just swallowed a canary. Or, perhaps, her bribery chicken.

[lialox]

What if oldest dream behind the wall was Tls123?

“We’ll still stick together from now on too, so why do you sound so grimly determined? Don’t worry. No matter what kind of a monster is waiting for us, I’ll finish it off.”

I gently smiled. Meanwhile, the subway was slowing down even further.

My reflection could be seen in the black window of the exit door. There was a splatter of blood on my cheek reflected on the glass. I wiped it off my face. And then, my mood cooled down.

⸢The blood was really on my cheek, and not on the window.⸥

“Doors are opening!”

Along with Lee Hyunsung’s cry, everyone got ready to fight.

“....Ng?”

However, contrary to everyone’s nervousness, what greeted us was a rather empty subway platform. Sure, there were a few people walking around in the surroundings, but none of them paid us much attention.

“What’s this, there’s no....”

Jung Heewon muttered that out, and as we stepped onto the platform, I was overcome with an ominous foreboding. There it was, the unfamiliar sense of reality touching my feet. Faint sparks, along with every single one of my Fables, were pointing in a certain direction.

⸢Someone was sitting on the subway’s bench.⸥

Black athletic wear as if its wearer had just gone out for a run. A beautiful woman was slouched on the bench, unflinching in her sleep even with the bustle of the crowd around her. The short crop of her hair lightly caressed her cheeks.

As the pulsing migraine assaulted me, I somehow managed to lift my unmoving feet.

⸢Kim Dokja made a promise. To end the culprit who made this world. No matter what that existence was.⸥

There were deep bags under the woman’s eyes. It was as if she hadn’t slept properly in years.

⸢Time isn’t moving because not reading and not imagining.⸥

I did think that all of this could be a dream, a lie. I even believed that this was a dream the evil <Star Stream> had created.

I even believed that I could have been the monster waiting past that wall.

But this person, I didn’t expect her to be the one past the full stop. To have met a writer at the place where the creator of a universe of stories resides…

⸢Y ou we re al rea dy ex pec ting this di dn’t you Kim Dok Ja.⸥

Before any story could be described, before it could be read, it had to exist in one person’s dream first.

The author’s.

The Most Ancient Dream. The world’s most omniscient yet powerless god.

“I… am Tls123?”

Han Sooyoung was the first to speak. Her eyes were trembling.

All of my senses were gnawing at me; they said that that woman was the culprit behind all these scenarios.

It was the same for my companions.

I thought I heard something fall to the floor, and I saw Jung Heewon’s sword rolling around on the ground.

“Ah, ah....”

She was now looking at her. She was looking at the woman, then back at Han Sooyoung. Her eyes were filling up with despair.

As if she couldn’t believe this. As if she’d prefer that this whole thing turned out to be a lie.

[The promise with the ‘Secretive Plotter’ is activating.]

I opened my mouth only to close it several times. Maybe, this might be my punishment.

For daring to dream of a perfect ending in which all of us survived. To have come this far, and shed blood for such a hope.

It was as if the universe was telling me there was no such thing.

The Star Stream wasn’t like that. This was a universe of sacrifices and salvation too, was a paid service.

[You have promised to destroy <Star Stream>.]

[<Star Stream> will not be destroyed unless the ‘Most Ancient Dream’ is ended.]

I now stared at the woman.

The woman who gave me every reason to survive in this ruined world.

[Please end the ‘Most Ancient Dream’.]

+++

Sparks overflowed above my Incarnation Body. My heart was madly pounding away. My head faltered, and I somehow managed to suck in several deep breaths.

[The 4th Wall] was right. Maybe, I already knew.

There were simply too many hints.

⸢I was far too lucky in this world, and⸥

⸢Everything in this world seemed to be geared towards my convenience, and⸥

⸢At times, this world even felt sloppy.⸥

If all of these were the result of the guiding hand of a writer who so desperately wished for our survival…

⸢The genesis of all the world-lines, the original world-line.⸥

I raised my head back up, then stepped forward to lift ‘that’ Han Sooyoung into my arms. She felt so light. This small body carried the weight of every sin in the world.

The world written just for me.

An anguished cry came from the rear.

“Sooyoung-ssi, calm down!”

“You bastard! Let me go!”

It was a voice far more devastated than I have ever heard from her. Tears were pouring from her eyes as Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung held her by her arms. A dagger was gripped tightly onto one hand while [Black Flames] were bursting from the other.

“That bitch, why the hell would I write a story like this!?”

She continued to thrash about, and even the kids held onto her legs to keep her from taking another step forward to do something foolish. The entire nebula worked together to suppress her, their status raging forth as Han Sooyoung did everything she could to break free of the restraint.

“Something this fucked up—“ Han Sooyoung snarled. “If I had to write a story for this purpose, to write a novel with these… Shit developments…!!“

Han Sooyoung choked on her own tears as she continued to try to force her way past our companions.

“Han Sooyoung.”

It was Yoo Junghyuk who stepped in between them. The one who had lived this tragedy for thousands of lives.

“It has been difficult."

He reduced his tragedies to a mere few words.

“But it’s over now.”

⸢His forgiveness was offered in this manner. ⸥

“Shut up!!”

⸢It only served to break her.⸥

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!!”

Yoo Junghyuk opened his mouth as if to respond, then suddenly doubled over in a coughing fit.

Thick fog came in from somewhere, and I picked up on the ominous power of Chaos. Yoo Junghyuk’s expression as he held the blade became weird.

“Y-you bastard....”

As he staggered about, the pitch-black Fable leaked out from his mouth. That Fable gurgled out and travelled down his chin, hit the floor, and finally, formed the silhouette of a person.

The blade of the [Heaven Shaking Sword] gleamed between the jet-black coat; a man who only lived for this moment was standing there now.

⸢The Secretive Plotter.⸥

The being who had even forgotten about his real name after experiencing an enedless tragedy even past the last sentence of his story. The man who lived only for the purpose of revenge was here.

⸢No human can control every type of imagination.⸥

Just how many universes were born and broken in her mind? Just how many of her imagined tragedies were inherited by just one person?

⸢And that’s why the most ideal person to end this dream had already been determined.⸥

It was the world’s most fair revenge.

So why did I keep holding onto Han Sooyoung this tightly?

[[ It was you. ]]

The Secretive Plotter’s [Heaven Shaking Sword] continued to wander in the air. That sword was now pointed towards its creator.

[[ The being that dreamt and perpetuated every tragedy in all the worldlines. ]]

I only made it this far because of those tragedies she wrote.

It was the story that I loved more than anything. The story I was indebted to.

[[ Kim Dokja. You must end the Most Ancient Dream. ]]

Every letter here was chosen by her hands. By bearing all of these sins, she brought us to this moment.

It was thanks to Han Sooyoung that I managed to survive.

And now it was time to repay my debt.

“Did you forget?”

[‘Demon King’ transformation is activating!]

[‘Archangel’ transformation is activating!]

I smiled gently and with one hand raised my [Unbreakable Faith]. I pulled the sleeping Han Sooyoung closer in the other.

“I didn’t promise to kill people.”

In this place far beyond our full stop, our swords were drawn.

A new story had begun.

[cha-melodius]

It is, in fact, the 9th of August in Australia, ao3

[fangswbenefits]

I love how much of a complex and intricate character Astarion is.

You can approach his story in so many different ways, and it will still make sense, depending on your perception of events and what we are given canon-wise.

I don't believe there is a singular, correct way to handle his trauma. Everyone is different. We all pour bits and pieces of ourselves into him, as our experiences shape how we interact with his story.

It's truly fascinating to read all these different perspectives surrounding him.