#eventually will be

[bifuriouswaterbender]

Fic Preview

I'm writing a soulmark AU for the first @willow-wednesday-offical prompt. It's not Wednesday, but have a preview of the first part.

Kit remembered loving her father’s stories of soulmarks as a child. Her mother had been part of her bedtime routine before Madmartigan’s quest, of course, but stories were all him. He’d bring them to life—voices for each character, big actions to go with, moments sprinkled in just to make her giggle or gasp. They’d almost all end with Kit snuggled against his arm as he told her the happily ever after, usually a couple realizing they’d been destined to be together the whole time. Even when that wasn’t the ending, Kit loved them. She loved the idea of knowing a perfect person for her existed out somewhere.

When he left, her mother tried, but it wasn’t the same.

Sorsha didn’t do the voices as convincingly as Madmartigan had, and she wasn’t the kind of person to flail around.

The real problem, though, was that she didn’t seem to know the whole stories.

“That’s not the end, Mommy,” Kit snapped at her one day as her mother tried to kiss her forehead to say good night. “Princess Taramis has more to say!”

Sorsha pursed her lips. “No, honey, that’s the end of the story. She bested the three suitors and revealed herself. She got to live a long and prosperous life ruling on her own.”

“You forgot the soulmark part,” Kit said with an exasperated sigh. She wiggled out from under her covers to stand on the bed, swinging her arms about in her best impersonation of her father. “When Princess Taramis reveals herself to the gathered crowd, she turns around and lifts her hair to reveal a bare neck. ‘I have no mark,’ she says. ‘I am not destined for any of you by fate, and none of you have proven yourself by skill. If the universe has destined me to be alone, I shall do so happily. I’ve won my own hand and my right to rule alone.’”

“That’s not part of the story,” her mother said quickly, gesturing for Kit to get down.

She plopped onto the bed with a sulk. “That’s the way Dad told it.”

“Your father was a romantic,” Sorsha relented as she retucked the covers around Kit. “He loved soulmark stories. Not every story needs one. Most don’t.”

“Yours did,” Kit points out.

Sorsha smiles fondly. “It did. But we didn’t know that then. We found each other in battle. We didn’t even know we shared a mark until later. Marks aren’t the most important thing, Kit, darling. Our other responsibilities come first.” She stood, then hesitated and turned back to her daughter. “Besides, not having a mark doesn’t mean you have to be alone. Anyone can choose to be with whoever they would like, regardless of if they share a mark or have one at all.”

Kit didn’t agree with it then, but when she and Airk later decided to draw each other’s for them, she realized why her mother might have been so insistent on that fact as her brother moved his long hair aside to reveal a bare neck.

“Do I have one?” she asked in a mild panic, already turning around.

Years later, Kit could acknowledge to herself that it had been a horrible way to tell her brother the universe thought he should be alone.

[galpalaven]

wip whenever

got tagged by @ardberts so have some post-SHB and pre-Endwalker Azemet ;w;

Emet-Selch returns to the star with a smile on his face.

It’s… strange, to be forced to return to the aetherial sea rather than by choice. Certainly not how he ever planned to return to the star — but that dream had been dead and buried with the Sundering eons ago. A part of him hopes that, someday, Hythlodaeus will return to the star as well — perhaps Hydaelyn’s chosen will finally destroy Zodiark and his soul will be released, welcome to come home. Tired as he is, he debates holding onto his awareness in the hopes of seeing him just one more time.

It’s not like he’ll ever see the other soul he desperately wants to see, at any rate. 

Perhaps the closest he will get will forever be that it was Azem’s soul who sent him to the sea — and somehow, he’s alright with that.

Or maybe he’s just very, very tired.

When he wakes, there is considerably more weight to his form than he truly expects. As Lord of the Underworld once, he’d thought he’d be barely more than a conscience floating in a mass of nothingness. Instead, he can feel himself lying on what feels like sand. A breeze dances across his skin, ruffling his hair and bringing the soft whisper of waves to his attention. His brows furrow, and his eyes flutter open in confusion, trying to figure out where he is and what’s happening. 

Above him glitters an endless sea of blue, sparkling aether. Souls, he thinks, twinkle like stars in the night sky, and he wonders why he isn’t among them as he struggles to push himself up onto his elbows.

What greets him is… beautiful.

A sea of crystal clear water kisses the white sand at his back, barely a few feet from him. Turning his head reveals something much like Elpis — flowers and trees and familiar buildings floating in the middle of nowhere. Something in his chest aches at the sight of it, and he starts to sit up further when he sees it.

Or, more accurately, when he sees her.

Andromeda, looking every bit as he remembers her, wearing her robes and fiddling nervously with her mask, stands some ways away. Her dark, curly hair is tied back in that familiar low, loose braid, strands falling around her cheeks drifting in the breeze. Her eyes widen when she notices he’s seen her, full lips parting slightly in a gasp he can’t hear from where he is. She takes a hesitant step toward him as he watches, having stilled at the sight of her, entire face feeling both hot and numb all at once.

He’s dreamed of her many, many times over the years, but this is different.

This is… this is real.

Emet-Selch staggers to his feet, drifting towards her as if in a trance. She just watches him approach, wringing her hands, looking almost worried that he’s about to start yelling at her. 

Of course, that had been how a lot of their reunions went, wasn’t it?

He’s in no mood for yelling now, though. Not when his heart is in his throat, not when he’s got the woman he loves in arm’s reach for the first time in 12,000 years. He’s almost afraid to blink, breath caught in his chest, a faint tremble building in his limbs as he closes in on her, stopping himself before he can get too close. He’s afraid to try to touch her, despite how desperately he wants to pull her into his arms, terrified she’ll disappear in a cloud of mist, popping like a bubble.

She has to tilt her head to keep eye contact with him, eyes darting between his. There’s a long moment in which they just stare at each other, before her brows furrow a little and she rasps a soft, sweet, hesitant, “…hi.”

His lips twitch, and he snorts softly, drinking her in every bit as much as she is him. “Hi.”

She smiles faintly, still making a face like she’s afraid he’ll be angry with her. 

Hoping to waylay her fears, he crosses his arms, smirking and raising an eyebrow as he glances away at the scenery. “Is this your doing?”

She follows his gaze, though his eyes return to her immediately. Fiddling with her mask, she shakes her head, smiling bitterly as she says, “A gift — from Venat. Though, gift is probably being generous.” 

Her smile falls away as quickly as it had come, and there is nothing of the woman he had met in his dream some time ago now, who had told him that she was waiting for him, even if he hadn’t believed it when he woke. That echo of her had been giggly and smiley, slightly sad but mostly just happy to be near him again. This Andromeda…

“I’m sorry,” she says, avoiding his face deliberately now. “I’m sure you’re tired. I don’t — I don’t know how to fix this.”

Sorry?

“What in the hells are you apologizing for?” he asks, laughing a little. The sound of his chuckle brings her gaze back to his, and his chest feels lighter than it has in ages as he smiles at her, tilting his head and for once letting his affection bleed into his expression. Hope flickers to life in her eyes and he drifts a little closer, drawn like a moth to the flame. “I’ve missed you. More than — more than I could ever put into words.”

Her eyes well with tears, and she takes a shaky breath in as she looks at him. “I… I’ve seen how hard it was for you. I’ve watched. It killed me, not being able to be there for you.”

He looks away. “I’m surprised you’re not angry, if you’ve been watching all this time.”

She laughs a little, the sound broken and watery. “I am angry, but not at you. I’m… I understand why you did what you did. Truly. I can’t rightfully say that I wouldn’t have done something similar if I’d lost… if I’d lost you and Hythlodaeus instead.”

He glances at her face again, watching the tears fall. Smiling a little, he shakes his head. “No. You’re too good. You would have found another way.”

She shakes her head. “We should have gotten the chance to find another way before it came to that. When — When she first plucked me from the Thirteenth, when I first got my memories back, I was so — so angry.” Andromeda huffs, crossing her arms and looking out across the sea. “I know she told me when we were still alive, but I didn’t believe her. And why would I? Why would I have believed her? Her plan was as upsetting as Zodiark was to me. I don’t know why she didn’t try to bring our memories back instead. I don’t know why…”

She stops abruptly, sniffling and looking up at the aetherial sea, the twinkling lights like stars above them. Her breath hitches, and when she continues, her voice is barely above a whisper.

“I have been able to do nothing but watch,” she rasps, and her face crumples, a sob falling from her throat. “For thousands of years, all I’ve been able to do is watch, as people have suffered and died, as you have suffered and died, over and over and over again. I…”

“Andromeda…”

His voice is low and soft, and he finally braves the gap between them, reaching out and brushing some of her hair behind her ear. She shivers, gasping, and he makes a soft oof when she throws herself at him, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms tight around his middle, fingers clutching at his back with another, harder sob.

“Hades, I — it’s been so long!”

[rslashrats]

i found out that the dancing banana was created some time in 1999 today and i feel so bad. he’s 25… and i never did anything for him. this is like if i forogot a loved ones birthday

[pokeberry5]

late night/early morning stakeout

[ibis-radish]

I don't have any glasses for the eclipse someone relay it to me when it happens

[kingcael]

feel the light shine on my face

[koifee]

Falin panics when her gf is sad

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push the heel of my palm into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[melonsharks]

au where everything is the same except mabel and dipper have been going to gravity falls every year before the show takes place since like kindergarten.

its a pretty simple premise that derives mostly from my desire to explore interpersonal relationships and the ways a place and people can change from a young child’s point of view. it doesn’t change canon that much either, admittedly, i just wanted to draw childhood friends stuff LOL. ill call it uhhhhhhhh every summer au.

[dilfslayer1080p]

"he died for our wins" - 2024, LIDL Oil paint on LIDL canvas

[littlemsterious]

i was thinking about that post comparing Jessica Rabbit as an asexual to Barbie and an asexual and then i thought of the Neil Gaiman post (was it a post?) about Crowley and Aziraphale being asexual sexless and then this happened.

anyways. thoughts?

sorry it took so long I meant to do this a week ago but my brain is full of rocks.

[Image ID a three sided venn diagram. the big circles show Margot Robbie's Barbie sitting in front of a mirror, Jessica and Roger Rabbit from the poster of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens standing back to back. Between Barbie and Jessica Rabbit it says "sexualised by society". Between Jessica Rabbit and Aziraphale and Crowley it says "Knows what sex is". Between Aziraphale and Crowley and Barbie it says "no reproductive system(?)". the center is the asexual flag. End ID]

Also i haven't seen the Barbie movie as of this edit so at least please tag your spoilers.

[inbabylontheywept]

the house i grew up in was a little bit of a fixer upper. for the first 19 years, my dad just sort of slowly fixed it, but pretty early on in college, he came into a large amount of cash and decided to just do the whole thing at once. so he rented a different house for like, 2 months that was just a block down from us, and then got a bunch of contractors to fix original house ASAP. it was kind of crazy, but it compressed many years of work into like, three months.

the sitting in a new house for three months was actually pretty fun. and i shouldnt really complain at all (staying at home while in college is a sweet deal)

but.

but. my parents are fairly hard of hearing, and their bedroom in the old house was in the furthest possible annex from everyone else. wheras in the rental it was just in the middle of the house. so without going into details, i was extremely aware that my parents were having sex like, eight times a day. my dad had just retired and i guess they were celebrating, which is great i guess, having parents that really like each other is way better than the alternative, but also, it did make me envy their deafness. i kept headphones on for so long that year i got literal ear calluses.

at the same time, the house my buddy from the shoe incident grew up in flooded. turbo flooded. they burst like, two pipes at once and the damage was so severe they had to redo all the flooring and all the drywall. his family actually had homeowners insurance, which is either incredible or suspicious for a family that used the drained pool in their backyard to store rusty scrap metal. so insurance was handling the work, but in the meantime, they were crammed into a very small hotel room space. we did the math on it then, it averaged about 80 square feet a person.

so one day i got home, and i was chilling, and then six rolled around, and apparently six o'clock was sex o'clock because my parents decided to flex their cardio. i grabbed my headphones and prayed that god would do for me what he did for beethoven, but that failed to work, and then seven rolled around and my parents were still at it, which again, very impressive, but was pushing me to swap out judas for mozart in those prayers. there's a definitive point where you stop praying to be deaf and instead pray that god could take you to a nice field and pop you like a gore-balloon.

i was about five minutes away from that point when my friend called me and basically said i have been stuck in a 500 square foot space with 6 people and i didn't have many marbles to start but what few i had are gone. please. if we are friends, if we were ever friends, take me out of here just for a moment.

and i was still pretty mad at him, but i had pity on the poor guy. also helped that i was desperate to leave the house. so i drove the chickenshitmobile to the hotel and i picked him up, and then we did our normal hangout activity, which was go to food city and buy produce. his normal house was, on a good day, nasty, and his backyard was, as i stated before, mostly used to store mosquito larvae and rusty metal, so what we'd always done before was just walk to the grocery store a half block away and leer at vegetables.

so we did that and it was like old times again. they had some radishes that were expired, so i could buy like, literally an entire grocery bag of them for about $5. so i did. i really like radishes. he got a coconut because he liked fruit and beating things with hammers.

which probably would've been great except we didn't have a hammer, so instead we spent about 30 minutes stomping itike it owed us money. when it finally cracked we cheered like we just got the winning touchball at the superdome and then he ate some of the flesh, and i ate some of the radishes, and we admired the black, starless sky of the city before i took him back to his hotel room.

and then we got pulled over.

i forgot to turn my lights on because the street all around the food city was ludicrously well lit. so it went from being pretty bright, to pretty bright and flashy, then i pulled into a parking lot and a cop came to ask us for IDs which is where everything went to shit:

i’d forgotten my license at home. 

the cop was was actually kind of chill about it - he said he could get by with just an address. except i did not know my address. i hadn't memorized the new one yet. so i told the cop, my house is getting remodeled, i don't know my address right now. and then he went to my friend, and my friend said the exact same thing. house getting remodeled, staying somewhere else, no address, sowwwwwwy.

now the cop genuinely didn't know what to do. he went back to his car, and i was stressed that i was about to get into HUGE trouble so i started eating the radishes and my buddy started eating more of his coconut, and we actually managed to eat like a quarter of both before the cop came back. we ate enough produce that he could smell something weird in the air, and he asked what the smell was, and i said radishes, and my buddy said coconut, and the cop said which, and then we produced a large bag of droopy radishes and an absolutely brutalized coconut, and the cop was just like

so my buddy tried explaining how he was sharing a 500 square foot apartment with 6 people and wanted a fruit he could fight with power tools, and i tried explaining how i'd actually tried buying my parents like, board games and puzzles and stuff but nothing worked - the only thing my parents seemed to like doing right now was each other, and we both went on long enough and pathetically enough that the cop eventually went:

ok. stop.

and we stopped.

and he said do you know why i pulled you over?

and i said, because of my headlights, and my friend (who is hispanic) and the cop both looked at me like like i was the dumbest person in the entire world. and then the cop said no. that's why i'm allowed to pull you over. i checked your car because this neighborhood has a terrible sex trafficking problem, and i pull over every car i can to make sure no one is buying or selling sex. and you two are obviously doing neither. now i could give you, like, four tickets right now, but that would do nothing to make this area safer, so just turn your lights on, go home, drive safe, and try to be less stupid in the future.

and i said okay but i was thinking, you know, damn, this is just how i live man, i don't have a hidden third gear i can shift into. people can't just get smarter because it would be convenient. it's always convenient to be smart. i am literally trying my best.

but i didn't say anything because i was, slowly, learning how to filter what i said. instead i nodded and the cop left then i dropped my buddy off, and the last thing he said was said he owed me for responding to his SOS. I said he owed me for a lot of things, and he agreed that was true. then i drove home with my lights on, 5 under the speed limit, and arrived to a peaceful quiet home. I could’ve wept with relief but instead I went to bed.

the relief was short lived. i was woken up at 6 am by my parents. i swore, and then i prayed, and when i did not explode, i swore again. then i got up to make breakfast before my first class.

[canisalbus]

✦ Sheepstrength ✦

(An Art Fight revenge on Cerebrum_Cupcakes (from last year), featuring their warrior cats character).

[threefuckencrowsinaleatherjacket]

Myself included tbh

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.