#hes hoping he can trick the gods into making her divine

[fanstuffrantings]

how did zeref create the dragon slayers?? and are natsu and zeref still brothers

As I answer this I want to note: a lot of these ideas are from 2022 and not as fresh in my head, and rewriting the lore of fairy tail has taken a backset to my own personal story so things can get muddy and may change.

First zeref has a parent/child dynamic with the dragon slayers. None of them really know him but he is their creator and has a certain level of fondness for all of them. Natsu he's actually disappointed in. I'll explain in a moment.

Zeref is cursed due to hubris and how he dug into every type of magic no matter how taboo just to learn and gain power in this au. He had a love of learning and a zest for life that ultimately leads to him corrupting the very core of magic causing death and desolation around him.

He's only able to be killed by people blessed by divinity, however out of pettiness as gods can often be, no truly blessed mages have been found since Zeref was cursed.

And by divinely blessed I don't mean magic based in divinity. I mean a child the gods claim as their own. Someone made holy without training for it.

He takes matters into his own hands and crafts children to act as sponges for dragon magic since in this version dragons are children of God's who have taught humans before. Zeref's idea is that maybe this could work in killing him.

Irene would have known him from this point and she's the reason the dragons take in the children at all. But when it comes to Zeref, anyone who assists him is worthy of sharing in his punishment and she's given a similarly horrible one to endure for it.

The thing is he knows for someone to kill him of their own free will he'd need to be hated. He'd need people who are angry and volatile. And natsu being the fire dragon slayer really should've been perfect for that but the dude is just too friendly and happy. Causing zeref to think him the biggest mistake of all.

Again: I really would need to sit down and spend a few hours/days figuring it out and most likely rewatching fairy tail to refamiliarize myself with the finer details but this is the gist. A lot of Zeref meddling in humanity is for the sake of finding his own oblivion. He's in a way killed what magic once was and can't find peace in the world because he corrupts everything. He absorbs things around him to keep himself alive unwillingly. If he doesn't absorb life he starves but exists until something appears that he can take from.

I hope this is good enough for now! Sorry if it's a garbage answer, I'm aware I need to revise and focus on it. Unfortunately my mind goes where it wants and it hasn't settled into lore building in a while.

Thank you for the question!

[jellyfitzjelly]

Zevlor in a fresh relationship, his partner is not yet aware of ruts. One day, Zevlors rut begins suddenly (I imagine he usually has a good idea on when they come on) and his partner comes home to him being completely wrecked trying to fuck his fist, saying her name over and over. When he sees her enter the room he is first ashamed but she practically drools and drops to her knees to take care of him. He is in for a long session of worship and care. Never has someone taken care of him like this during his rut. Zevlor is so filled with horny thoughts and love he cries a lil

After three thousand years it is here.... I apologize for the delay anon, IRL is crazy right now. I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless!

While the cat is away... | NSFW | AO3

Zevlor was reading when he felt a rush of heat inside him. He frowned as his nipples pebbled and his heartrate picked up. He cursed loudly in Infernal, panicked. His rut was coming right now! How come he didn’t expect it? Zevlor could always pick up the signs, but this time it came completely unexpected! Why?

He huffed with annoyance when he realized that it was probably because of Tav’s presence that his rut got triggered unexpectedly. They had gotten together a few months  ago, but Zevlor hadn’t told her about his biology. He just felt too embarrassed and had foolishly thought he wouldn’t get a rut until next year.

Sighing as his skin started itching,  a sign his rut was minutes away from beginning, the ex-Commander undressed hurriedly and went to the bedroom to grab the puss-box he kept hidden under the floorboard. He was thankful Tav was absent for a few days. She was visiting her friend Shadowheart. That would leave him time to get through the worst of his rut.

He chose a table with an ideal height. He murmured the gluing spell that would allow the puss-box to stay in place on the table. Gods  who in the nine Hells came up with “puss-box” as an actual product name? It was stupid and ridiculous, but even the tiefling couldn’t deny that this toy did him well when he was alone. Just in time: Zevlor’s cock was hardening, his knot swelling as he felt an overwhelming rush of arousal. Zevlor bit his lip as he felt the need for Tav’s scent. He hurried to their bedroom, rummaging through his lover’s clothes but none did the trick. The scent wasn’t strong enough… His gaze turned to the dirty laundry basket. Reddening, he looked through it and found panties Tav wore during her training yesterday. He brought them to his nose and breathed in the divine smell. Arousal shot down his spine, making his mind hazy and his cock twitch. He needed to fuck something now. He came back to the living room, eagerly oiling himself before lining his cock with the entrance of the toy. He brought the panties to his nose, closing his eyes as he imagined himself diving into Tav’s cunt. He snapped his hips into the tight walls of the puss-box, groaning. He fucked the hole urgently. Sweat started to pearl his brow as he took his pleasure, imagining stretching Tav with his knot, having her bear his children from all the seed he fucked into her. He threw his head back to moan as he breathed into his lover’s scent, his knot pulsing and aching. His release was building fast in the pit of his belly, he was going to come–

A gasp made him snap his eyes open. Tav was standing there, watching with shocked, wide eyes. Zevlor pulled out, panicked, dropping the panties in horror. His cock twitched despite the situation.

“I’m sorry–” Zevlor began, but his lover strode over.

He flinched, expecting blows, but she dropped to her knees in front of him and took his cock in hand. He moaned, frozen in place. He didn’t know what to expect. Disgust? Anger? Fear?

“You’re so big,” she murmured, practically drooling at the sight of his cock.

“Tav, I can explain…” he trailed off, scrambling for an explanation that did not involve the fact he hid the peculiarities of his biology.

She didn’t seem to have listened to him. She mouthed his knot, sucking on it and making Zevlor howl. His knot was sensitive, especially since he was so close to release. Tav sucked eagerly on his knot, trying to fit it entirely in her mouth. The Hellrider groaned, carding a hand in her hair. She finally let his cock slide into her mouth, letting him thrust. He could not control himself anymore and snapped his hips forward into the heavenly wet heat, being careful not to choke her. He keened when he felt a hand rolling his heavy balls. He tried hard to keep his wits about, to warn Tav about his rut but the pleasure was draining all thoughts from his mind. All he could think about was that mouth sucking on his knot and then on his balls. His thighs started quivering as his partner brought closer and closer to the edge.

“Please! Please! I– I can’t–” he stammered, trying to pull her off his dick but Tav was clearly decided to have him come in her mouth.

He was going to come, but it felt wrong, all wrong. Zevlor snarled, teeth baring as he roughly yanked Tav off his cock. He grabbed her arm and lifted her up to her feet before dragging her to the bedroom where he threw her on the bed. Tav looked so beautiful like this, ready to be filled with his seed. But he wanted to taste her first. He shoved her pants down and ripped her panties apart to dive into that cunt he had been hungering for. He lapped at her vulva like a thirsty man finding an oasis in a desert. He grabbed her by the hips, digging his claws in her skin as he kept her in place, pleasuring her and making her moan and whimper. She grabbed him by the hair, trying to shove his face into his cunt. Zevlor brought her to release, sucking on her clit even when the overstimulation settled in. He enjoyed her moans and her writhing, making his cock pulse. He brought her to another release, never getting enough of her taste and smell. Zevlor could not wait a second longer. He must have her. He stood up and showed off his cock, rubbing it against her sopping cunt. Tav moaned brokenly, snapping up her hips for more friction against her clit. The Hellrider pushed inside her with ease, groaning. This was so much better than his miserable toy. Her wet heat was simply heaven. Zevlor could not help a guttural, animalistic moan as he fucked her hard and fast. His release built up and up in his gut, his knot pulsing faster and faster.

“Mine,” he growled, wrapping a hand around her throat as his knot caught on her entrance.

“Yours,” Tav cried out and the Hellrider could put off his release no longer.

He pushed and pushed until his knot popped in, coming with a long moan and his head thrown back as he filled her up with his seed, feeling her walls constrict around him. He fell down on her, out of breath and blissed out. Tav wrapped him in her arms, petting his sweaty hair and purring into his neck.

“Didn’t know you were into choking,” she chuckled.

Zevlor blushed, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, hiding his face.

“Don’t be, I enjoyed it,” she grinned. “I like it when you get bossy.”

His cock twitched at the praise. They stayed in each other’s embrace until his knot deflated. Tav switched their positions and let him slip out of her.

“Stay in bed,” the Hellrider murmured, but the young woman had other plans.

She got up and came back with a basin of water and a cloth. She gently wiped him down, refusing any help as she tenderly wiped his sweat away. Her gentle touch seemed to break something in his heart. There was reverence in her eyes. Reverence for him. It brought tears to Zevlor’s eyes to see her kissing each of his infernal ridges, looking upon his features with adoration. Nobody had ever done so. All his past lovers had been accepting at best, nothing more.

“Don’t cry, my love,” Tav told him with a smile, wiping his tears away.

He took her hand into his, kissing her knuckles. She kissed and fondled every inch of his body from horns to toes. By the time she was done, Zevlor was hard and aching again.

“I love you,” he choked up. “By the gods, I love you more than I love myself.”

She straddled him, caressing his face. She took his hand and put it over her heart.

“And I love you too, Zevlor. My heart is yours and only yours.”

She grinded against his cock, her folds wet and inviting. Zevlor groaned like a wounded man. She let him slip inside, moaning as she felt the ridges rub all the right spot.

“I want your knot so bad,” she panted, looking him right in the eye. “I want you to knot me, Zevlor. I want to bear your child.”

“Tav,” the Hellrider whimpered. “Please…"

“I mean it,” she told him seriously, and that more than anything else drove him wild.

He grabbed her hips, digging his claws into the soft skin as he drove up into her cunt, slapping his knot against her entrance in a concert of slick and obscene sounds. His release was swelling inside of him, merciless and unstoppable. He could see how Tav’s thighs were quivering, her clit erect and swollen. She was close too. He snapped his hips up one last time and pushed forward, unrelenting, making her cunt yield to his knot. He shouted when it popped inside the tight wet heat. Zevlor spilled deep inside of her, a primal urge satisfied to see his mate filled with his own seed. The hope she would conceive a child crossed his mind, bringing another spark of arousal to his core as Tav slumped forward. He wrapped her in his arms, mirroring the tenderness she had shown him earlier.

“You are the greatest blessing the gods have ever given me,” he murmured, eyes moist.

Tav lifted her head, still flushed from their round. She smiled wide.

“I love you, but I really hope this thing of yours don’t last a full month. People would be concerned over my disappearance.”

Zevlor laughed.

“It lasts only a few days. A week at most. But my love for you will last all my life.”

“Good thing I will be yours forever, then,” she whispered before kissing him.

[tiddygame]

Ghoap god type au part 4! Now on Ao3!

part 1 /// part 2 /// part 3 /// part 4 /// part 5 /// part 6 /// part 7

I have not slept in A While because meds are meds so I don't know if this makes sense! Let's Go!!!

And shout out to these people for making me happy stim by requesting to be tagged! I hope this chapter is worthy of such an honor lmao:

@imjustheretofightforlove / @pieckyghost / @life-as-a-gamergirl

Ghost doesn’t know why he continued to give offerings to the god. He should have stopped when he had the chance, but he didn’t. Flowers, jewelry, rocks he thought looked cool, even an entire wallet he stole from a soldier who got on his nerves; It all went on the offering table. 

Something had changed. He doesn’t know what, but there was a difference. And not knowing was terrifying. Ghost liked to compartmentalize, to think things through and sort them into organized boxes. Decluttering the unknown was how he stayed sane.

If there is a problem, do not panic, just figure out what you can do. And if you can do nothing, then you have no reason to panic. The rigid line of thought was the only way he could trick himself into thinking he had any control over his life, that fate hadn’t already woven her strings.

So how do you think through something beyond your comprehension?

Try as he might, he could not and would never be able to truly understand divinity. There was no rationale he could apply to Soap that didn’t make his ears ring. It was all well within arms reach but firmly out of his grasp.

He shouldn’t continue to show patronage to something so unpredictable, so volatile.

“Besides,” Soap said, making eye contact once more. He grinned. It didn’t look human. “I’m not letting you go that easy.”

And yet, every night he would take his dinner to whatever lousy altar he’d created and sit down to eat with an entity that could kill him without raising a finger, would eat and talk to him like they were friends. He’s not sure of when he lost his fucking mind, but it was certainly long gone.

Everything about the god terrified him. It was ancient, domineering over one of the most prevalent parts of humanity. Everything had to die someday, and at the end of it all, Soap would still be there, even as it died too.

So when he appeared behind Ghost at a bookstore of all places, he damn near shit himself. 

He just wanted a book to occupy his time between battles, a distraction from the boredom of downtime. It was the same town as before, barely a few weeks since their impromptu meeting in the temple. He had been perusing the shelves and grabbed a book that caught his eye, some book about the history of the town, and was reading the back of it when someone was very suddenly right next to him.

“Anything interesting?”

Ghost flinched, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there as he turned to face the person who somehow got the jump on him. And just like everything else with the god, he doesn’t know how he knew that the person was Soap in disguise.

He looked nothing like the renditions he’d seen of the god; The man before him was short and had pale skin, light brown hair, and brown eyes. He looked about as non-descript as a human could get. Yet, he still knew that the man was no man at all, but a god that came from the heavens just to make his life miserable.

“Why are you here?” Ghost was too on edge and confused to put the fearful respect in his tone that he normally used when speaking to the god.

“I just came here to look for books, the same as you,” he replied, trying to keep a straight face and play it earnestly but smiling far too much.

Ghost didn’t dignify that with a response, continuing to stare down at him, book still in hand.

Soap sighed, “Alright, alright Mr. Grumpy, maybe I wanted to talk to you again.”

Ghost asked, “Why?” But he realized that probably wouldn’t get him the answer he wanted, “What do you need to talk about?” He was hoping to cut through the small talk and jump right to the essentials.

“I said want. Not need.” Soap corrected. When Ghost looked even more exasperated, he whisper-shouted, “I’ve been stuck in limbo for who the fuck knows how long! I need stimulation! Interaction! Conversation! Anything!”

Oh, gods above, this is the worst torture the god could have devised. He’d rather take eternal pain and misery over becoming a chatty god’s only conversation partner. Fuck, he’s done a lot of bad shit, but nothing to deserve this!

The god grabbed the book out of his hand from where he was still standing petrified and dumbfounded. Soap looked at the book, hummed, and then began browsing the aisle himself.

Soap mused aloud, “I’m not surprised you’re a history nerd… Is there anything else here that’s more interesting?”

A few weeks ago, the god had been so weak he could barely conjure a physical form, now he was in a bookstore to make fun of him?

“The god of death is calling me a nerd with shit taste.” Ghost hadn’t meant to vocalize that thought, but he was still trying to mentally catch up. 

It seemed to catch the god off guard as well, with him snorting as he tried to cover his mouth to stop from laughing, “I didn’t mean ye’ have shit taste, I meant history isn’t an interesting read when you lived through it.”

And at Ghost’s core, he was nothing if not a pain, so even as he was scrambling to figure out what was happening, he pointed out, “But you weren’t alive. You said you were in limbo.”

“Okay, smart-ass. Alive, limbo, whatever. I need a story — one I haven’t heard before.”

“Do you even know how to read?”

His accent became thicker with indignation, “‘Course I do!” 

“This language?” Ghost asked, gesturing to the shelves.

Soap immediately responded, “Ye—,” he cut himself off, looking at the book he grabbed from Ghost. It was upside-down and he twisted his hand awkwardly to have it back upright, squinting at it as he answered, now positive, “Yeah!”

Ghost mumbled, “Hmm, I figured you’d only be able to read dead languages.”

That one got a full laugh out of the god, he desperately tried to quiet his chuckles before they were told off for being too loud. Ghost isn’t sure why, but he felt oddly proud.

Soap was still smiling in an effort to stop laughing as he said, “That would make sense I suppose.” It seemed that not being able to laugh only made the situation funnier, huffing air out of his nose in a quiet giggle. “Well! What book would you suggest?”

Ghost pointed to the other side of the bookstore, “I’d suggest you stop looking in the non-fiction section.”

Soap looked around, muttering a curse under his breath. Seeing where Ghost had pointed, Soap grabbed his hand and dragged him along. Ghost was too surprised by the sudden contact to fight it, which was probably for the best. He may love his personal space, but he loved not getting smote even more. 

“Okay, well, now what book would you suggest?” Soap repeated himself, this time not bothering to browse the shelves as he looked at Ghost for a recommendation. 

Sighing in resignation, “What genres do you like?” If he could get this done with quickly enough, he might still have some time to himself before he had to return to camp. 

“I don’t know. All of them I guess.”

He is not going to get this done with quickly enough to have some time to himself before he has to return to camp.

Ghost let out an even longer sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose before coming to a solution. The store had their books sorted by genre, so it would be easy enough to grab one or two from each and then get Soap to pick one. 

The god of death’s personal shopper. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Luckily for both of them, Ghost has had an exorbitant amount of downtime and knew of a few popular ones that weren’t complete garbage. Death seemed content to trail behind him as he picked out the books, admiring the simple building.

The store had large windows facing west, golden light stretching over the shelves and reaching across the floor to tell Ghost how much time he was wasting. The smart thing would have been to just grab a random book, sing its praises, and hope he didn’t get called out on his bullshit. Of course, that would require being smart, so instead Ghost went through almost the entire fiction section, ending with a total of seven books. 

The stack of books was ridiculously tall as he set them down on a table at the back, intending to explain them to Soap and let him pick a couple. 

“This is everything, one book each from most of the genres.” Ghost backed away when Soap stepped closer, looking like an owl as he turned his head sideways to read the spines. Ghost gave up trying to understand the god. 

He pointed to the one on top, “This one is—“

“Fantastic! I’ll take them all,” Soap said, completely ignoring what Ghost was about to say. 

“What?”

“I’ll take them all!” Soap repeated, as if he hadn’t been clear enough the first time. He grabbed the stack of books, adding the one he’d snatched from Ghost to the pile as he walked to the counter.

“But… You don't have any money…” Ghost’s quiet protest went unheard as Soap walked away. He had a small existential crisis as he wondered what mistake he made that led him to this exact moment. He decided the mistake was being born as he followed after the god of death, knowing he probably wouldn’t have enough to cover the books.

Soap set down the books next to the cash register and gleefully asked, “How much for all of these?”

The shopkeeper looked a little surprised at the size of the stack but began checking them and adding up the cost. Even without seeing the number, Ghost was already bemoaning having to explain to a divine being how the economy and poverty work.

But apparently, Soap wasn’t done confusing him as he grabbed a wallet out of his pocket and began pulling out credits as the shopkeeper gave the total. 

At first, Ghost checked his own pocket thinking Soap had managed to steal his wallet and was in for a rude awakening when he found out Ghost was broke, but his wallet was still there. He wasn’t going to ask in front of the shopkeeper where he got it, but curiosity was eating at him. 

Ghost stared at the wallet. He recognized it vaguely but didn’t know from where. It was only when Soap was putting it away that he realized it was the one he’d stolen from that annoying soldier and offered to the god.

And who said your misdeeds come back to haunt you?

Once the books were all bagged, Soap gestured towards it and Ghost sighed as he grabbed the paper bag, supporting the bottom as it was lifted off the counter. Mirroring the same motion, Ghost gestured towards the door. Part of him was curious if the god would pop back out of existence when he walked into the light like he did last time.

Ghost whispered once they were far enough away, “You know I stole that wallet, right?”

Soap snorted, “That’s what made it one of my favorites.”

Ghost let go of the handles of the bag, only holding it from the bottom, and opened the door for Soap. Soap nodded in thanks like everything that had transpired over the last two or so hours was a normal interaction. 

Fortunately, the god did not vanish upon stepping outside, disproving his theory.

No, it was unfortunate. He wanted this to be done with. He didn’t want to keep talking to Soap.

His mouth didn’t seem to get the memo as he started to ask, “Why did you actu—”

“Ghost!”

The shout from someone behind him immediately sucked out any positive feelings he had. His usual glare was back as he turned to face the voice. There were two soldiers, a miserable little search party that looked disgusted at even having to go near Ghost.

“The General needs you for something.”

Of fucking course he does. He risked a glance to where Soap had been standing, unsurprised to see that he’d vanished. Ghost didn’t give them a verbal answer, just glared at them until they both began shifting where they were standing.

He felt a little relieved at being able to put the threatening tone back in his voice as he informed them, “I’ll be back before dinner.”

The one that spoke before looked to his partner and tried to forcefully say, “He needs you now.”

Ghost stepped closer, looming over them as he repeated, “I said I will be back before dinner.” He waited a moment, making sure they were properly threatened before he turned around and walked in the opposite direction of camp.

“Why were you at a bookstore?” One of them called out, almost accusatory as if it would stop him from leaving. He had forgotten about the rumor that he couldn’t read; He doesn’t know how it started, but it was a favorite amongst his fellow soldiers.

“What bookstore?” Ghost yelled back, not bothering to turn around.

The forest looked beautiful in the orange light of the setting sun. He was heading back to the temple, not because he missed Soap, but because it was the only place they wouldn’t be able to find him. If he really was needed, there would be soldiers crawling all over town searching for him.

He didn’t like going somewhere so secluded without his sword, but it was back at camp and he was not going back yet, wanting to piss off the general as much as he could. He hadn’t wanted to walk into the village with such an obvious weapon on his hip out of respect for the residents, but now it meant he only had a hunting knife to defend himself with. Nothing to sneeze at, obviously, but he would have felt a lot more comfortable making the hike through the forest with a heavier weapon.

A chill began to take hold as the sun dipped below the horizon. A cold front came through a few days prior that made sure the days were a lovely charming example of the upcoming fall weather and that the nights were frigid enough to make anyone regret not being on a tropical island.

He made the trek much quicker this time, now knowing the path. Which was a very good thing as the shadows grew stronger as he made his way through the trees, trying to make him trip on roots that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

When he got to the temple, he set the bag down and made quick work of gathering a small amount of firewood and kindling with the last of the waning sunlight, the chill turning into a freezing wind. His fingers shook slightly as he made a small campfire near the empty doorway to the right of the statue, paranoid about proper ventilation even with all of the cracks in the roof.

Using the light to see, he pulled down some of the vines, setting both them and the greener wood near the fire. Hopefully, they would dry quickly enough to be used later in the night. He quickly sorted through the books, taking them out and setting Soap’s collection to the side. 

He was trying to read the first page of his book when Soap appeared again. He didn’t look up as he greeted, “Good evening.”

“I do not like the way they treat you.” The god was blunt and Ghost couldn’t help but huff a small laugh at the amount of simmering anger the god held over what was a standard interaction for him.

“No?” Ghost asked, wondering why being told to return to camp was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But he may have underestimated Soap’s anger as the god answered, “No. They don’t get to speak to you like that.” The sentence was punctuated by the campfire flaring slightly, the flames suddenly rising higher, illuminating more of the temple before they rescinded.

Ghost looked up at that, moving the book away to stop it from getting singed. He was not ashamed to admit that he was nervous, he just would never tell Soap that. To have him suddenly swap from someone friendly and charming to an undeniably pissed-off god was alarming.

“Uh—”

“They treat you like a fucking dog and can’t even speak to you with a shred of respect?”

The god’s form was flickering. This is what Ghost wanted, to know the tipping point for the god, but he wasn’t sure if this was the scenario in which he wanted to find out. He’d prefer for it to have been on the battlefield, the god having lost its patience with protecting him, not next to a campfire in his own temple.

“Soap—”

“Why do you fucking stay? They have no fucking right!”

The flames flared again and Ghost grabbed the handle of his knife. Just like the last time he was at the temple, he knew it would do nothing, but he could at least find comfort in the lie.

Soap noticed the movement, making eye contact. Soap was still breathing heavily and Ghost was doing the same, albeit for very different reasons. The god heaved a sigh, slouching over as he covered his face with his hands.

Once more, despite all rationale screaming otherwise, Ghost stayed. There was a long silence, the only noise being the crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind. 

The god was sitting with his legs crossed, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands propped up his head. He was still staring at the ground when he asked, “Why? Why do you stay?”

“It’s complicated.” 

Soap looked unimpressed, “No, it isn’t.”

“No,” Ghost agreed. “But it’s a story I don’t like to tell.”

The god let out a long breath like he was trying to calm himself down as he rubbed at his eyes, “Didn’t you say you’d be back for dinner?”

“I lied. Late morning at the earliest.” Soap chuckled, much more tinged with defeat than it had been a few hours ago. The silence was back and Ghost hesitated before grabbing his book again.

“Thank you.”

Ghost wasn’t expecting that and felt a bolt of panic strike through him, not knowing what the god was thanking him for. 

Soap gestured towards the stack of books, “For humoring me today. I haven’t laughed in a long time. Thank you.”

The somber tone settled over him, the emotional whiplash from the past ten minutes alone was enough to make his head spin. Unsure of what else to say, he stuttered, “You’re welcome.” It sounded a lot more like a question than he intended.

Soap nodded and let his head fall again. 

And, just like that, he was gone, fading away with the wind. He stared at where the god sat, ruminating over his words. When he came back to the present, he saw that the books were gone as well.

He would have laughed, Death having grabbed his haul of books and scurried off in the breeze, but the honesty behind the god’s not-quite confession weighed on him. He tried to read, but was only flipping pages as his eyes ran over the words, not taking anything in.

He’s been in this situation before, waiting out time to piss off the general and he knew how it went. Sleep wasn’t an option; He always found something to occupy himself with to stave off the inevitable boredom. He was lucky to have a book this time, but try as he might, he couldn’t focus on it.

He gave up on reading and instead turned his focus to the campfire in front of him. He added another log carefully, taking care to not smother any of the other sticks. He didn’t have much fuel and he’d need to make it last until sunrise. 

Ghost woke up to light streaming in through the open doorway and birds chirping obnoxiously loud. He grumbled and tried to go back to sleep before remembering that he was never supposed to be asleep in the first place.

He tried to get up quickly, to stand to attention and scan for any threats or changes that indicated someone had come in during his nap. Instead, he sat up slowly, having to prop himself up on his arm to not lie back down.

His fire was miraculously still burning. The temple looked the same, there weren’t any assassins hiding in the corners, and his stuff hadn’t moved. It took him an embarrassing amount of time to remember that he never went to sleep with a blanket or pillow, yet now had both.

Instead of thinking about that, he stood slowly, his joints popping along the way. He yawned as he gathered his stuff, smothering the fire and folding up his bedding. Still not even half awake, he dropped the pillow and blanket at the base of the statue.

He grumbled out what was meant to be an expression of gratitude, but he’s not sure he got any of the syllables out. Taking as deep of a breath as he could to try to wake himself up, he began the walk to the river. 

It’s a miracle he didn’t get lost as he stumbled through the woods, listening for the sound of rushing water. When he finally got to it, he was sure to avoid getting too close to the slippery bank, not feeling like drowning so early in the morning.

He walked over the ramshackle bridge that crossed the river and led into camp in the early afternoon. Just like last time, most of the soldiers quieted upon seeing him. And, just like last time, the general came stomping out of his tent, though this time significantly angrier

“I need you to listen to me carefully,” he began, seething with so much anger over Ghost’s disobedience that he was twitching. “I am going to give you ten seconds to explain yourself. If you do not have a good reason for why you went AWOL, you are going to wish you had never been born, am I understood?” 

Ghost had mastered the voice of false innocence and remorse, “I’m sorry General, I wasn’t paying attention and got delayed by an hour.”

“An hour?” The general had a deceptively calm tone, one that spoke of being on the edge of doing something drastic. But the general was no god and Ghost had no qualms about giving him a shove.

“Yes sir, I know I said noon. I’m sorry for being late.” Ghost hung his head like he was ashamed. He was already mapping out a lie to explain why he arrived almost a full 24 hours after the search party said he would.

“Noon?” The general asked. Both of them were playing a very dangerous game, weaponizing an unstable but calm facade and putting on a little show for the rest of camp to sit back and watch.

“Yes sir.”

“I was told that you said you’d be back before dinner.”

Ghost lifted his head and glanced around, furrowing his brow in faux confusion, “Before dinner? No sir, I was trying to hunt for something to bring back to camp. They caught me right before I went into the forest; I might have said I was trying to find something for dinner, but I knew it would take me much longer than that.” Oh, how Ghost loved gaslighting.

The general’s lip curled, thinking he found a thread to pull, “Do you normally go hunting at night, son?” The words were full of poison, but Ghost already had an excuse.

“No sir, I looked for tracks yesterday afternoon, set up camp, and woke up early this morning to hunt. Unfortunately, I was no—”

“He’s lying!” One of the soldiers shouted, walking closer and shaking off his friend trying to pull him back. “He was walking out of a store! He wasn’t hunting!” Ah, that must be one-half of the search party.

Now emboldened, the other half approached from the stables, and joined in, “Yeah, he was leaving a bookstore with some guy.”

Uh-oh, that’s not good. He didn’t realize that they saw Soap. 

He was trying to figure out if he should outright deny it or try to claim that he, the notorious loner, had made a friend in town. A friend that just so happened to leave that day so they couldn’t ask for him to verify Ghost’s story. Hmm…

“What? No, he was alone.”

Never mind, that’s perfect; Only one of them saw Soap.

The two began arguing over whether or not Ghost had been alone and Ghost “timidly” chimed in, “Bookstore?”

The first one that had spoken paused his argument and turned back to the general, “He even had a shopping bag!”

Adding fuel to the flames of their anger, Ghost made a point of looking at his hands to show they were empty. He gently corrected like he was just trying to help the two remember, “I was walking out of a general store. Alone. I needed berries for bait.” 

The rest of the camp gave odd looks to the search party, the rumor of his inability to read not helping their legitimacy. Now he just had to hope they didn’t ask why he didn’t have any camping or hunting supplies aside from a small bag. 

The general looked more irritated than irate, “That’s enough. All three of you are being punished for insubordination. For now just get the hell out of my sight until tomorrow morning.”

Ghost tried not to smile too wide as he nodded and walked away, very happy that the general reached his limit before more glaring holes could be poked in his story. The other two looked offended at getting punished with him, one standing slack-jawed as the other even tried to argue before getting dragged away by his friend before he could dig himself a deeper grave.

Ghost was going to be punished regardless of what he did or when he returned, but dragging the other two down with him was well worth it. Plus, the rest of the camp would now think they were liars as well who tried and failed to get him punished.

All in all, it was a rather successful trip to the bookstore.

…

Had he been paying more attention, thinking more clearly, he might’ve thought to hide his tracks, to not leave an obvious trail to where’d been, to hide the evidence of his time spent at the temple of the god of death.

[malaierba]

Hi, don't mean to bother you but you are my Eve mutual and I feel you'd understand: Kind Of King

Eve - Lucifer vibes right?

(Love the idea that Lucifer would use "I'm not my brother's keeper" line on Eve, not rightfully killing him right then and there is incredible restraint on her part)

Hi! You never bother me, I was very happy to see a notification from you!

I didn't know this song, had to repeat it a couple of times but... Man, yeah, especially after it passes the first peak. It's giving "Eve questioning Lucifer likely trying to get her in his side after Adam's death" vibes.

Like, I can see the back-and-forth name-calling of the first verses — Eve being about as crude as Adam feels logical to be, especially with Lucifer who she's known since forever and has complicated feelings towards; Lucifer deflecting as much as he can also feels very fitting. I can see him being avoidant with the people he actually cares about; maybe like in the song he'd try to redirect Eve's blame?

But it's this part for me:

I think this is one of the first realisations Eve had upon death. Lucifer was punished with a kingdom he didn't want to rule, he who had believed in an idealised version of humans promptly gave up on them after seeing how imperfect they are, how broken they can be. Rather than try to offer the best afterlife possible for them he pulled away and let it fester (afawk anyway).

I think that'd just seem immature to Eve. Lilith at least is trying to organise a resistance against heaven. Lucifer just completely washed his hands off the issue the moment things didn't go according to plan. Like father like son?

(I finished that sentence, went back to the lyrics and, the fact that those ^^^ were what followed. Man, it's perfect)

I guess this is the part I can't quite make fit for them:

Some possible alternatives to the names Joab and the brother that couldn't be kept?

"Is this about Adam? You can't blame his acts on me": I guess it works since in a weird way both Adam and Lucifer are technically children of god? And also works for Eve, since by essentially being a clone made from Adam's rib she's her sister.

"is this about Michael?": I just like the idea of twins being pitted against each other. But that still leaves the question of what it was that Michael did that Eve would blame on Lucifer. There's the whole "expelled from Eden with a fiery sword" thing, would that be justification enough? Hmm.

If "I'm not my brother's keeper" is just meant as an insult not to be taken literally, then maybe the first line would be "is this about Abel?" Maybe him being the first overlord and it going so spectacularly bad that Eve blames Lucifer for not stepping in?

There's many possibilities. I'd love to hear how you are picturing those particular verses!

And gosh, the end!

This is just perfect. Everything I would hope from Eve entering the scene. Here, "Johnathan" is definitely Adam.

I just really need her to foil Lucifer, to be the apple of discord. She's the human drama to his divine drama, she's tired of being a plot device, she gets to be weird and possessive about Adam anyway because that they survived together can't be comprehended by any one person, let alone an angel.

Like I know we like to imagine her chill. But she was in hell, she was tricked into something that condemned her and all of humanity; We've seen how distant heaven is from human sinners, Lucifer himself is too... I think that'd breed some contempt. And with her being as old as she is and having lived through all she did, I see no reason why she'd hold her tongue. Being the mother of humanity should grant you the right to talk back to an angel or two after all.

[smartestmammalintheuniverse]

Rick and Morty

(very short fic in third person of Rick’s perspective during/right after Unmortricken)

“I gave my life for this. My whole life for you to just...die. But you didn’t. You came back over and over again. And then... even when I thought that I had finally killed you, you still didn’t die. You didn’t die, because even when I killed you, you were still there. Every time I walked by a reflective sureface, there was your face. Every time, I dared look in the mirror, my worst enemy was staring back at me. Any time, I ever dared to try and do anything at all. I coudln’t help, but think that this is what you would do. Because this is what I would do and you are me.... were me... and I am you or I was...

Rick stared down at the corpse in the chair. Prime was dead. He was finally dead and it was over. He had gotten justice for Beth and for Diane. He had gotten revenge for Beth and Diane. He had gotten revenge for every Rick who had them taken away. It should feel triumphant. It should feel like divinity. But it just hurt. 

Now, as he walks out of the room, all he can think is that that can’t be it. It can’t hurt to kill him. It can’t, because that is a betrayal. He has betrayed his wife and child all over again so now he’s gone. Gone. Just a shell of a being, because hurting is so much worse than nothing. Because nothing is less of a betrayal. So the shell of a being walks away with tear tracks down his face. He refuses to be called a man or a god. He’s just nothing.

He stops when he sees Morty. Morty, his grandson, who he loves more than anything. The only person he couldn’t trick himself into hating. Morty hugs him. Rick’s heart thaws just a little. He knows that Morty doesn’t care that he doesn’t hug him back. That he can’t. He knows that when they get back home that Morty won’t mention any of this to anyone. That he wouldn’t dare, because that is what Rick has taught him to do. And if anything, Morty learns.

So, they fly home. He cleans off. He watches it all in a dream. He makes jokes at the dinner table. This is the first time that he can have dinner with his family and not think about how if his Beth saw this she would cry. How if his Diane saw this, she would ask why? How stubborn she was. How strong she was. How her spaghetti will always beat anyone else’s. But now, all he can think about is the robots who had stolen her face and her voice. How even he had done the same thing. How sick was he that he had gave his AI her voice? He couldn’t live without her so he wrote her into everything he did.

After the dust settles, he’ll sit and think and wait. Wait, for everything to fall apart. Wait for Prime to come crawling up out of the dust. But after that doesn’t happen, he’ll sit with himself and admit that finally it’s over. Finally, every version of Diane can rest in peace and maybe if they’re lucky enough their Rick’s will rest with them. He can only hope that one day, he will have the privilege.

[lazodiac]

It's time once again to ramble incoherently about magic cards. Lets try and divine where each of the cards of Outlaws of Thunder Junction are from, why don't we!

You can find the first two parts here and here! And today we're covering...

BLACK

Starting us off with a native to Thunder Junction. God this critter is spooky looking. Love it though!

Aaah, the Hellspurs. I'll get more into them once we meet our first creature Hellspur, but for now just accept that this magmatic thread of doom is native to Thunder Junction.

Another native creature of Thunder Junction! Vultures are important and regal birds and shouldn't be so villainized, I think... but I can't deny they do sometimes look this nasty.

While we've seen a number of vampires in magic practice ye ol' Sanguimancy, the plane most often shown to do this (and the plane most likely to pop their collars THIS ridiculously) is Innistrad.

As mentioned with ghosts in the Blue cards, dead and revived means you're bound to the plane- zombies are native to Thunder Junction, regardless of where they're from previously.

Sweet lord kill it with fire! This abomination is from Thunder Junction and if it's not I never wanna see where it's from. Snorses are wonderful an idea but god they look comfortable.

Gonna say something controversial about this one- the way the lady is posing, her culty robe, and the predominance of ash in her fire, makes me think this is a deep-cut to Azgol, last seen in MOM. It's got similar vibes to various Hellspur aesthetic stuff, but the woman is clearly just too alive to be one of them- more on that later.

Okay this is probably the best place to bring this up. Hellspurs! One of the criminal factions of Thunder Junction. Lawbreakers, murderers, and thieves to a man. Each follows the brutal scorpion-dragon outlaw Akul, and almost every single one of them is mutated beyond all belief by the Chaotic Thunder of the plane.

As a result, much like with zombies and ghosts, these guys have fully stripped away all of their previous life in exchange for lava hands and shit. So, there's gonna be a lot of folk who are native to Thunder Junction purely by this metric, and it'll skew things a little. This is why I'm counting the numbers by colour, since the Hellspurs are predominantly red and black.

A natural (and very spooky!) magical mirage of death. I love this art.

See? This is what happens when you don't "lower" yourself to feeding on animals. You end up shoving your stupid ass face into a cactus. This is a Ravnican vampire, since we've seen before they're often stupid enough to pull this exact trick.

*Dry bones falling apart noises* Tinybones' funny trick and/or prank! This is from Dominaria since that wonderful friend is from Dominaria too.

Raised on the plane, native to the plane. This skeleton owns by the way, this is a good ass skeleton.

Gisa Cecani is, much like her brother, one of my favorite characters in Magic. She's Innistradi born and raised, and seems to fit in like a glove on this plane.

Really unsettling art on this one! Ghost, so native to Thunder Junction... though we can actually, likely, identify the body here; four arms suggests a Mirran Vedalkan. Neat!

Our first actual look at the main antagonist of the set (for as much as that means in a villain focused set). Akul, the Scorpion Dragon of Gastal- a fact revealed right before I started doing this!

Kaervek! The Merciless! The Conqueror! The "too big a deal to be dealing with this shit", imo. Everyone's upset at Marchesa being here but Kaervek is the one that bugs me the most- this man is a country-conqueror, not a petty crook!... but, it's fine, because it's clear in the story Kaervek is insulted Oko's recruited him for such trivialities.

Anyway, he's from Zhalfir. I hope he gets to kill Oko.

Swing your partner round and round, rip their corpus from the ground! Gisa doing a barn-raising in the most literal sense, a uniquely Innistradi way of waking up the dead, with a Thunder Junction flavor.

A hellspur bursting his way out of a shallow grave- oak box included. Funny, and native to the plane.

No real way of figuring out where this guy is from or his gaseous death-cloud... so I'll say Eldraine, based purely on the fact that it's the plane most likely to have such a simple burst of "sleeping" poison.

An easy one! He may be a rat man but he's called out as a Nezumi and that's a Kamigawan thing.

There are a couple places this delightful fellow could be from... but given the pickpocketting and the general demeanor, he's from New Capenna.

Azul, laying a horrific waste to his "friends" to benefit. The scorpion claws being a vent for his breath weapon is exceptional a design, incidentally.

A ridiculous piece of art for many reasons, this one is native to Thunder Junction purely by the fact that this is where the gang was born.

The reason why this is ridiculous is because every single height here is wrong. Vraska is taller than basically everyone to the left of her. Oko is using magic to make himself look taller that's literally canon so that's fine, but Kellan? Annie? One's a baby (described as small for his age) and one's a grandma. Tinybones is also probably far too big. The only person here who is the right height is Rakdos, whose height is "whatever height he wishes to be he can change shape depending on how excited he is". Wild shit.

The only plane with actual snakes-for-hair gorgons is Theros, and even then only half of the time. So this lady is from there. Fitting too, apothecaries making booze and poison is within Pharika's perview absolutely.

As fun as it would be to say this is a raven from Dominaria, implying the presence of Omenpaths are allowing the (currently suppressed and trying to fight his way out of Lili) Raven Man is doing some work, naw. This is just a normal raven.

An all-natural undead member of the Hellspurs, double erasing his identity. God dangit.

This being an ASSASSIN vampire suggests New Capenna. It's kind of their jam, you know?

Gisa showing she is more impulsive than a monkey-goblin obsessed with explosives is why this story spotlight (that isn't given a story spotlight tag) is happening. Innistradi magic running wild and giving us a real Train to Busan energy.

A later card explains that the demons that are natural to the plane grant gifts like this, so this scorpions and their soon to be scorpionman friend are native to the plane.

Fun fact; scorpions do just glow like this. Bio Luminescence is fun!

Jana has the exact same vibe (and the same demon-snake familiar) as Elnor from Yuma's story, so I'm calling it for New Capenna here. Also, funny flavor text AND reminder text. Fantastic work.

And that's it for part 1. Tune in momentarily for part 2 of Black!

[cringecannon]

ive been reading ur posts for a while and i had a vision from god recently that i needed to share with like minds, so i hope this will be to ur taste... i've been trying to find others who i know this will appeal to (besides me)

but...... bhaalcest-- orin being incredibly possessive over durge and jealous over gortash and durge's relationship, so she changes into gortash when she knows durge is expecting him and has her way with durge, while they're none the wiser.

for the sake of everyone else (and urself) i wont get into the nasty gorey parts that really makes this so much better, i love me some knife"play" (is it really play if orin just outright stabs u) and woundfucking (that i really want to get into but!!!!! i have to find the right audience... hoping i can rant insanely about all that here i just didn't wanna outright plop it down when this scene is good by itself too LJDLASJFAL) -👻

To be fair, I already wrote about Orin fingering a wound. I’m all for insane fucked up knifeplay rants in my inbox. Anyway, obligatory Dubcon, Orin, and Improper Use of Gortash’s Body warning

Something’s wrong with Enver.

You only notice it sometimes. The look in his eyes is wrong, or his grip on you is far too tight. Whenever you mention the change in demeanor, he brushes it off. Or he gets angry. Yelling, throwing things, veins in his throat bulging kind of angry. There’s something wrong with him. The man you know wouldn’t act like this.

You love it.

You almost pounce on him the first time it happens, so turned on you don’t even bother removing anything but the bare necessities. He’s confused for only a moment, but quickly falls into place. You ride him until his eyes roll back, nails digging so hard into your hips that they draw blood. You leave your own bloody scratches down his chest, marking him.

Imagine your surprise when you get to see him again a few days later and the marks are gone completely. It throws you off- your hips are still bruised. You call him out on it, he waves his hand and says he had an image to uphold. He can’t walk around looking like he was attacked by a feral cat. The comment irritates you. You like seeing him marked up, proof that he’s yours. You reach for your knife subtly. You think he needs to be reminded of your real claws.

You’re frozen when instead an ornate dagger is suddenly held to your throat. That bastard. He’s stolen your trick.

He presses the point of it to your throat, drawing blood. You feel the warm drip of it down your skin and into your shirt. You should kill him for this. You should play in his guts while he begs for the mercy of death. However, feeling him cut through your clothes with no regard for your safety excites you more. Every thin slice into your skin as he hurries to get you nude is exhilarating. You’ll get him back for it, eventually. You just need him inside you.

He shoves you back hard, splaying you out on the table. You eagerly spread your legs for him, throwing your head back with a gasp when he bends down to lick the trail of blood all the way back up to your neck.

He groans into your ear, hips grinding against yours with a stuttered breath. He wants to savor your blood, forever remember it staining your pretty skin. He leans to the side to hold the dagger against your stomach, dragging the blade across it teasingly. The cut is thin, barely drawing blood. You arch your back, desperate for more. He laughs breathlessly, pulling the dagger away to instead hold it over your thigh. You ask what's gotten into him. He laughs again, biting down on your shoulder. He asks a question of his own- how far would you let him go?

The dagger dances on your skin and you writhe, holding back a grin. Anything. You'd let him do anything, so long as you could play with him too. He groans, mouthing at the junction where your shoulder meets your neck. Of course. It'd only be fair, he wants you to play in his blood too. Wouldn't it be divine, love?

He's never called you love, ever. You're not sure he's called anyone love in his life, but when the blade finally bites into your flesh... you can't seem to make yourself care. You just beg for more.

[autism-purgatory]

very weird rant about Dark Souls and rejecting tradition below + Frampt and Kaathe.

I think the trilogy (esp DS3) does a nice reversal of the “fire=good and dark=bad” concept because we as people have always seen fire as providing comfort, hope, and well, warmth. That and discovering fire is a fundamental component of human evolution. Meanwhile, we view the dark as cold, frightening, endless, and dreadful. This reversal is especially noticeable in DS3, where the first flame is viewed as a greedy, almost selfish thing that clings to life after countless lords of cinder cast unitary into its fire. It does everything in its power to stay alive, it has to stay alive, because it fears the dark, it fears lacking power. DS3 especially seems to enforce themes of rejecting tradition, since the first flame seems to enforce this “fire comforting, dark scary” concept that’s been ingrained in human nature for thousands of years. Tradition could cling to life, despite everything collapsing in on itself, rejecting all that is other or different. The dark and all that is associated with it is demonized and ostracized, feared. Yet the people who maintain these superstitions hide their fear under a guise of bigotry. For example, Gwyn hides his fear of losing power and divinity to the dark under a veil of othering and cursing humanity and the dark, to the detriment of pretty much everyone. I think Frampt is an interesting manifestation of this subconscious need to maintain the old no matter how outdated or harmful it is, while Kaathe is a manifestation of how the future will come and shake up the status quo whether you like it or not (like how he tricked Oolacile into releasing Manus, perhaps as a wake up call to Lordran that it’s time to change the world, because it’s been sticking to an ideology that fucks over everyone but the gods)

And there are humans throughout the game that have given into this hateful ideology, look at the Way of White and the kingdom of Carim.

surprisingly, a nice subversion of hateful traditions is Solaire! He just kinda accepts he’s undead and has nothing against the player, and his ideology is tied to gwyn and the nameless king, but not in a way that makes him a hateful bigot like some other NPC’s. He chooses to be kind and hopeful, that’s his takeaway from the ideology of the Warriors of Sunlight. However, it does unfortunately turn on him, since his search for his sun can drive him to death. But, Solaire is sadly one of few exceptions. Throughout the trilogy, we see how clinging to hateful ideologies and traditions formed by bloodshed and exclusion fucks so, so many people over. To name one of many examples, Lost Izalith and the Witch’s children. The witch of Izalith, much like Gwyn, is scared of the dark, and (by Gwyn’s orders) makes the flame of Chaos, only for her and her own people to be hunted, killed, and othered by Gwyn after becoming demons.

I’m going to stop rambling now, feel free to add on :)

[a-french-coconut]

Travis Stoll (Part 8)

Persephone's garden is a breathtaking place, a gleaming spot amidst the grey shades of Asphodel and the charred earth of the Fields of Punishment.

It's gigantic, trees and flowers made of the most precious jewels spread further than he can see.

"Beautiful, is not ?"

"Did you do this all by yourself ?" asks Travis amazed as they walk trough the garden, each flower more exquisitely crafted than the other.

"Lord Hades gifted me this garden when I first arrived, he tried to make this place my home. As time passed, my garden grew more beautiful each winter."

They stop at a small clearing surrounded by small flowers.

"This is where grow all the medicinal flowers. Which one do you need ?"

"One that cures poison, my brother got attacked by a hellhound and he is set to die because of it. Only your flower can save him."

Persephone hums, a flower growing from her palm. It's small, fragile even. The green emeralds constituting the petals sparkling.

"This will cure your brother instantly, but unfortunately, I cannot give it to you freely."

"Why not ?" he protests, anger slowly boiling his veins. His brother's salvation is right there.

"You must understand the balance between life and death. If I were to give you the flower without receiving anything back, that balance would be broken. As Kore and Persephone, I cannot let this happen."

"What do you want in exchange then ?"

Beware of the price you are willing to pay

The prophecy echoes in Travis's mind, along with the promise he made to Will.

"What do you offer me, son of Hermes ? Your father is the god of trades, surely you didn't expect for me to hand you the flower without payment."

"Of course not." he lies, the small hopeful part of him that thought that Persephone would show compassion crushed like Minthe on the banks of the Cocytus.

It was foolish to think a divine being would understand what's it's like to lose someone they hold dear.

Not even the one who rules them and hears their sorrow constantly.

Hermes didn't show up when he prayed and prayed every night so that his mother would stop coming home drunk, passing out on the couch after screaming at Connor that he was a mistake.

Hermes didn't bother coming when he finally had the courage to call social services, his mother's screams about him being a bastard, a pathetic worthless son, resonating long after she left them.

Hermes didn't even knew they existed until they managed to steal from everyone at camp unnoticed, revealing the trick at campfire.

And despite all of that, he never hated him, never despised his father like Luke did. Because Hermes, certainly for him but nonetheless, gave him the best gift he ever received.

He gave him a brother, a person that would be there no matter what.

A reason to strive for a better life, one that wasn't on the streets or in foster homes.

A boy with the most beautiful smile and the loudest laugh, with the most unhinged plans and an atrocious crush on a son of Athena.

A boy dying ,with surely only a few hours left.

"Well ?", asks expectantly Persephone.

"Do you remember the wind, my lady ?"

"What ?"

"The wind caressing your face as you feel the sun on your skin. The wind blowing through the trees, whistling as you lay on the grass. The playful wind carrying you in the sky, making you dance with the clouds."

"I am a goddess, child. Those sensations you describe are meaningless to me."

He can see Persephone's hand trembling slightly, her eyes distant.

Liar

"Maybe now that you have grown used to Underworld my lady. But as a daughter of Zeus, have you never fly ? Perform tricks for your nymphs companions as your hear them laughing below ?"

Small, crystal tears drop on the ground, the Queen reminiscing a long time ago, one where she was named Kore.

"That's what I offer you in exchange of the flower, my wings. A divine part of me against my brother's life."

"I'm afraid it's not a fair trade little thief." whispers distantly Persephone.

"I think it is my lady. Those wings, they represent a life you lost when you became Queen of the Underworld. Not even when Lady Demeter greets you with spring do you become Kore fully again. I can help feel the wind again."

"Kore..." she whispers, "not even my mother calls me by that name anymore."

In front of Travis, Persephone shifts to a much younger girl, flowers braided in her hair, before transforming back.

Without a word, she hands him the flower.

As silent as she is, he takes it delicately and set it on the ground.

"Maia."

White wings flap on his ankles.

"Giving up a part of your godly essence is not a pleasant experience."

Travis gulps, a knot in his stomach tightening each second.

"I'm ready."

Quick as lighting, Persephone conjures a knife and cut off his wings.

Travis screams.

part 9 posted !

[ave-immaculata]

Hi. I am messaging as many Catholic blogs as I possibly can for spiritual help--I don't know if this is offensive. I don't mean it to be--I honestly, I try my very best to be a good practicing Catholic--but life gets very confusing. Anyway, I've been absolutely failing at every aspect of this Lenten promise, and I am terrified God is going to hurt me or hate me or punish me or just let something like that happen--that is not to say God is vindictive--He isn't; I'm just being very evil by making a promise to God and then not sticking to it. I've been getting mostly positive signs, but I am afraid that I am interpreting them that way out the selfish desire to be good and loved by God and not because He is actually pleased with me. I know this is complex problem. I know if you find the side blog this is from that it is going to be filled with non-canonical thoughts and desires and takes on God. I don't do it to be disrespectful--I love the Church with all my heart. I never wanna leave Her. So, if you do find it, please don't be mad or think made this out insincerity. I'm just scared and life and maybe the afterlife is throwing things at me at a much more advanced speed and understanding than I am prepared for. I would talk to my local priest, but I have caused trouble in the Diocese before, and I really don't wanna drag those people back in or my current priest or my family and I don't wanna be humiliated again. So, all I am asking for is prayer. Just pray for me.

{{{{Lenten Plans from the Universe/The Messiah/The Golden Timeline (02/13/24)

Okay so basically, here is the plan--handed down through divine intuition or signs or whatever gave me the information--I trust the information source--so here's my spiritual cleanse for the 40 days:

3 days of (as close as possible) no sleep--72 straight hours--then 2 days of regular sleep schedule for the next 40 days

40 days of no more than 1200 calories every day

40 days no spend (outside of food and bills)

40 days (at least) of no medication (exception--Excedrin Migraine but only in extreme situations...)

Increased prayer/communing/sign reading

***I want to be clear that this is something that I am doing for my own spiritual cleanse and enlightenment and enrichment and etc; I'm not advertising this as a responsible or safe or anything--this isn't a recommendation--you're welcome to join me in an attempt but consult with your own support system including mental health team.***}}}

I'm sorry this is so long. I'm sorry for being confusing or weird. I hope you are having a blessed Lent and I hope that you are given many blessings for praying. God Bless and thank you.

I will absolutely pray for you. I also want to add, despite what I'm about to say, that I get the worry you're describing about God punishing you or letting something bad happen as a consequence. I experience that kind of thinking, and even though intellectually we know that's not how God operates, it doesn't necessarily make it any less stressful. Any practices or penances that are amplifying those concerns are not drawing you to God and are not good.

Your series of Lenten devotions, in my opinion, were always going to be failed. These are collectively (individually, even), stricter and more difficult than most religious people (monks, nuns, etc., not just people who practice religion) would take on. I would sincerely recommend considering lessening your observance for the rest of Lent and discerning these sources pushing you towards them with renewed skepticism (especially using Ignatian discernment, which I can describe more if you like). Especially concerning (outside the penances), is "sign-reading." I don't doubt your sincerity or love for God, but I don't know that, given your worries and anxiety, this is going to be fruitful or draw you into a deeper communion with God.

God will not try to trick you with confusing signs or threaten you for not being able to keep up with this. God isn't going to ask you to stop taking prescribed medications as a penance. Let your your love for Him and His Church be the foundation of the remainder of Lent; your desire to please Him is delightful to Him. Read the Scriptures and dwell with Him.

I obviously don't know the situation with your diocese, but please consider speaking to one of the Priests about this.

[bonefall]

i just read the tv tropes page (super cool btw) and was curious about something. it says that both Mudclaw and Ripplestar (who i assume is River ripple?) die due to "Bolt of Divine Retribution", why did it happen? what does it serve to the narrative? i'm SUPER invested in your re write, so i hope you don't mind the questions ^w^

The TVTropes page is so thorough and impressive I was blown away by it, I'm legitimately flattered like a pancake that @halogenwarrior made it, I don't know how else to thank them besides showering them in praise

On the topic of Bolt of Divine Retribution, there are three times so far that StarClan has smote cats. Only one of them recovered. Those three cats were Ripplestar, Mudclaw, and Darkstar

In this rewrite, StarClan has been shaken up a lot. In terms of morality, StarClan cares about the preservation of the Clans above all else and is a shifting entity, as old cats fade and younger spirits join. They also keep their godlike aspects from early supporting material, like Code of the Clans. They can strike with thunder, make trees grow faster, craft young kittens, etc.

So sometimes it's possible to piss them off so badly that they do something very emotional.

Ripplestar

He's based on Ripplestar of Code of the Clans, the underrated field guide that everyone should read imo. I'm a big fan of the field guides and I try to weave in a lot of their stories!

In the rewrite he leads rebellions against the other Clans, trying to make room to bring SkyClan home. His actions lead to this part of history being called the Ripple Era.

Eventually this culminates in him attacking the other Clans at a gathering and being betrayed by his adopted brother, Gorseclaw. In fury at his violation of the full moon truce, StarClan smites him dead.

Ripplestar's actions result in the surviving leaders adding three new laws to the Code and generally cracking down on their warriors, a major domino kicked over towards the abysmal state of clan culture during the events of TPB.

Ripplestar hangs out in the Dark Forest with a couple of his old supporters. He's one of the spicier spirits, but really not that bad of a dude if you're not shred-worthy.

Mudclaw

For the narrative I'm writing, I don't do the "if your intentions were good all along, we forgive you :)" type StarClan we see in canon.

It was fine in their eyes to cast doubt on if Onewhisker had lied, but StarClan saw the truth, and Onewhisker did everything in his power to lead his Clan fairly, even trying to negotiate with Mudclaw. He refused, and yet, accepted that they would know the truth when they were able to contact StarClan again. For Mudclaw's uncooperative behavior, StarClan was just annoyed. Not furious. Not damnation-ready.

But then, Mudclaw worked with insurgents in RiverClan and ShadowClan, promising to support them in kind if they helped him become leader. He plotted with them, implying the proud and great StarClan could be fooled by such a stupid and simple trick, and then he tried to kill Onewhisker. The rightful leader of WindClan.

Several cats die in this skirmish, more than canon. He weakened WindClan at a time when it was more important than ever that it have unity. He insulted StarClan itself by taking matters into his own paws and breaking the code. StarClan was furious, and for this, refuses to let him live, dropping the tree on him to prove that he is NOT the chosen leader of WindClan.

StarClan does not care that Mudclaw tries to plead that he thought Onewhisker was lying; he is blamed for the death of every cat who died that night, and sent to the Dark Forest.

Darkstar

After the deaths of Birchface, Flowerpaw, Mapleshade's kits (appearing as the adults they were supposed to become; Patchpool, Larchface, and Petalstar), Ravenwing, Frecklewish, Appledusk, and finally Mapleshade herself, StarClan is VERY ANGRY.

They try to summon Oakstar and Darkstar to the moonstone right away, but Darkstar leaves god's texts on read so they zap her.

StarClan damns everyone even tangentially related to the incident to the Dark Forest out of blind fury, even sending the lives that Darkstar and Oakstar have lost so far to walk there as punishment. They're given a clear commandment; Protect kittens and never let this happen ever again.

Oakstar does not listen and eventually starts the Crusades that create BloodClan. Darkstar aces the assignment with flying colors and creates the Queen's Rights.

Oakstar goes to the Dark Forest for failing this so hard. Darkstar gets to go to heaven and also a lollipop.

[whump-card]

Forged Divinity Chapter 28: Leannan is Miserable

1401 words

CW: past institutionalized slavery, religious themes, negative self-talk

Previous, Masterlist, Next

~~~

Leannan spent the next two days wallowing in bed. Enjolras or Jeanette would come by occasionally to coax him into eating something, but otherwise he was left alone.

No punishment came. No balancing of the scales.

Everything was too much. The lies were too much. The books were too much. The fact that his sister didn’t believe in God was too much. The humiliation was too much. His new family was too much.

So he tried not to think about any of it.

Instead, he thought about Phineas.

Sure, if Leannan was human, then the way Phineas had treated him was wrong – but Phineas didn’t know that! As far as Phineas knew, they had been treating Leannan properly. Fairly. The worst thing they’d ever done to Leannan was something Leannan has asked for, no, begged for.

They listened to Leannan. Sometimes. And they were… funny, and protective, and possessive in a way that made Leannan a little giddy, and they’d saved Leannan so many times.

Leannan missed Phineas. He missed their presence, their smile, their authority, their ownership. He even missed being intimate with them. The realization brought tears to his eyes.

He’d never felt like this about a master before. Not even the good ones.

He fantasized about what it would be like to see Phineas again. He’d tell them about how he was actually a human, and Phineas would completely understand. But maybe Phineas would still like to be his master anyway, just to keep things in order.

Leannan had no idea what to do without a master.

Enjolras had made it abundantly clear, and Leannan had finally accepted it: she was not his master, and never would be. He was masterless, currently, and felt horribly adrift because of it. Leannan often had his own goals and interests, certainly, but those usually aligned with the goals and interests of his current master, or the aim of being sold to a new, better master.

He didn’t have high hopes for learning to live without one. The rest of his family had had twelve years to adjust. Meanwhile, Leannan had lived twelve years constantly relying on another person.

Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

He was a misfit here. He didn’t know how to play with the children, or handle the chickens, or milk the goats. He didn’t know how to… be the way the rest of them were.

Happy, maybe. They seemed happy.

Until they were around Leannan, anyway.

He combed over previous conversations and encounters, convincing himself that he had been constantly making people uncomfortable, disgusted, sad. How miserable it must be for them, to have finally gotten him home only to realize he was a fucked out whore who didn’t know how to live like them, how to be normal like them, how to be human like them.

All he’d done since arriving was ruin things.

Leannan spiraled.

~~~

“Okay, that’s enough!” Enjolras declared. She shook Leannan’s shoulder gently. “I’m on duty to help with lunch, and you’re coming with me.”

Leannan groaned and curled up tighter around his pillow.

“Do I have to?” he grumbled.

“You know what? Yeah, I think you do.”

Aisling was already getting things started in the restaurant kitchen when they arrived. She did a double take when she saw Leannan, but she smiled.

“Hey, good to see you!”

Leannan nodded, not quite looking at her. Enjolras nudged him forward.

“What can he do?”

“We’re reheating soup from last night, and making salad and a peach cobbler. The cobbler recipe’s on the table, or…” she hesitated, remembering that Leannan couldn’t read, “He can chop veggies for the salad.”

Enjolras nodded and went to work, setting up a station with a knife, a cutting board, and a bowl of washed cucumbers. She parked Leannan in front of it.

“Have at it!” she said brightly, and bent over the cookbook to figure out what she needed for the cobbler – but when she glanced up a minute later, Leannan hadn’t moved.

“Leannan?”

“I don’t know how,” he mumbled, his cheeks flushing red. He looked like he might cry.

“That’s okay!” Enjolras assured him, “Let me show you.” She took his place in front of the cutting board. “Hold the knife like this, okay? And then you hold the thing you’re cutting like this, with your fingers curled under so that you don’t chop them off, yeah? And then you want to slice it… about that thick. Okay, you try.” She put down the knife and stepped back.

Leannan slowly picked up the knife, rested his hand on the cucumber, and sank the knife into it with hesitant, jerky motions. The slice that fell away was thick and lopsided. Leannan stared at it blankly.

“Okay, um… Hey, Aisling!” Enjolras called to the other woman, “Do you want to switch with Leannan? Let him stir the soup while you chop?”

“Oh, sure…” Aisling started to say, but Leannan burst into tears, dropping the knife onto the counter and pressing his hands over his face.

Enjolras deflated a little. She had been hoping that some honest work would pull Leannan out of his funk, and it was already backfiring.

“Leannan,” she spoke softly, “Can you tell me what you’re thinking?”

“I don’t – I can’t, It’s too hot in here, I can’t think!” Leannan wailed.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Enjolras took his shoulders and began to gently guide him away, “Let’s get out of here for a minute.”

She exchanged a somber nod with Aisling as she steered Leannan out of the kitchen. They’d talked, the day after Leannan had burned the books – Enjolras and all the other adults on the island. Enjolras had been a bit more candid. Jeanette had filled in some blanks as well. What they had concluded was Leannan’s experience had been far worse than any of them could imagine, and worse than they might ever even know, and his mental state reflected that. They couldn’t punish him, nor could they force him to live like they did. They needed to give him space, encouragement, and love, and to understand that he wouldn’t always react the way they expected. It would take him a while to let go of certain things.

Enjolras sat Leannan down at one of the dining tables, and pulled a chair for herself up next to him. The dining room was completely empty, allowing them some privacy.

“What just happened?” she asked him, sitting down.

“I don’t know how to – how to do anything,” Leannan lamented between hiccuping sobs, “I’m not made for this, I don’t belong here.”

“Leannan, you’ve only been here for, what, four days? It’s going to take time for you to adjust, but you will, I promise.”

Leannan lifted his tear-streaked face from his hands, his cheeks red and snot running.

“But all I do is mess things up! All I do is make people miserable,” he choked out.

“That’s not true,” Enjolras said, putting an arm around his shoulders and squeezing him, “You don’t make me miserable.”

Leannan pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest.

“I’m the oldest,” he sniffled, “For years I thought I was the youngest, and then that I was the only one, but now I’m the oldest, and I don’t know how to be like them at all! I don’t know how to be part of… a family. Or maybe I used to, and I forgot.”

“Leannan, it took everyone a long time to learn how to live outside Iowa City,” Enjolras said, “You’re feeling exactly what Aisling felt, what Shannon felt, Clary, all of them – nobody knew how to live free when they were first rescued. They had to learn, and they had to do a lot of it on their own, but you don’t! You have everyone here to help you, and everyone wants to help you. You just have to let them.”

“Do you believe in God, Enjolras?” Leannan asked unexpectedly. Enjolras took a moment to shift gears, but she answered.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” she said, “Not the God you were raised with, though, something a little different. A little kinder.”

“Why doesn’t Shannon?” Leannan whispered.

“That’s not a question I can answer for her,” Enjolras said, “How about…”

“Enjolras!” Clary popped up at the top of the stairs, “Radio for you!”

Enjolras frowned slightly.

“Now’s not the best time.”

Clary shook their head.

“It’s Phineas.”

~~~

Previous, Masterlist, Next

Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

[dailycharacteroption]

Deity Drop 6: Daclau-Sar

We’re back with more deities, and we’re starting off with another lesser divinity in the form of our first nascent demon lord!

With extremely rare exceptions, demon lords do not emerge fully-formed from the Abyss. Usually, such paragons of evil arise over time, though the starting point may vary. Some demons spend millenia rising through the ranks of their kind, while some mortal souls were so wicked that they immediately ascended to nascent status immediately upon entering the abyss.

No matter where they start, however, nascent demon lords have become powerful enough to take on a unique form separate from the rank and file of demonkind. Such a form may be influenced by who they were in life, or the circumstances of their ascension or the forms of evil they favored. However, they are not quite as powerful as true demon lords, and not strong enough claim an abyssal realm of their own. Instead, they lurk in semi-private corners of individual layers of the abyss, including those ruled by true demon lords, whom they live in concealed fear of, hoping to grow in power enough to ascend before they decide that the newcomer is a threat to their power.

In any case, that brings us to today’s subject: Daclau-Sar, the Lord of Carrion!

Long ago, the demon lord Lamashtu tricked the god Curchanus into a trap and slew him, taking his dominion over beasts, an act which fueled her ascension into true, terrible godhood, leaving the slain deity’s carcass to rot.

From his defiled corpse, however, arose a new demon-lord-to-be in the form of Daclau-Sar, the patron of carrion, the scavengers that feed on it, and the defilement of corpses. However, unlike other demons of his status, he has no interest in subtlety or politics, and if he has any plans of ascending to become a demon lord in his own right, it is through the gradual process of continuing to indulge in his foul hungers and gather worshippers until he accumulates enough sinful power to do so.

While not spawned by Lamashtu, Daclau-Sar has an appearance befitting the Mother of Monster’s progeny, resembling a six-legged hyena with two heads and a pair of vulture’s wings on his back.

As mentioned above, Daclau-Sar has no realm of his own, and instead dwells in the Xorian Mountains, a region on the border of Lamashtu’s realm of Kurnugia, where he rules over the lesser monsters there and feasts upon their slain.

Like all of his power level, Daclau-Sar has few worshippers, but he does have notable followings among some remote tribes of the orcs in the Holds of Belkzen, who emulate their Lord of Carrion by picking battlefields of corpses for use as trophies, as materials for undead war-beasts, or as the main course in their rot-blighted feasts. It is likely they and other such worshippers believe they gain some power over death by utilizing mortal remains, as well as demonstrating their right to survive by consuming those who failed to.

As a nascent demon lord, Daclau-Sar doesn’t quite move in the circles to have a lot of relationships with other powers, not that he has much interest in other powers unless they get between him and a meal, or look like they’d be appetizing once bloated and rotting to perfection. It can be assumed, however, that he has a wary fearful respect for true demon lords and deities, especially Lamashtu, and does not care to know or learn about non-evil entities beyond their role at the dinner table.

High in the Xorian Mountains, the Lord of Carrion rules over a petty court of monsters and lesser demons on the outskirts of Lamashtu’s territory, though calling it a court gives it far too much credit. In truth, Daclau-Sar makes the rounds bullying the other denizens of his territory, giving them full knowledge that he will devour their corpses when they are dead, and that will be very soon if they do not obey. Only the knowledge that his target is a servant of the Mother of Monsters might give him pause, the emphasis being on “might”.

As a creature barely above a beast himself, it only makes sense that Daclau-Sar favors the Animal domain, as well as Destruction, and of course Chaos and Evil. Meanwhile, he favors the subdomains of Demon (by way of Chaos or Evil), Feathers, Fur, and Rage. All of which reflect his nature as a master of the corpse-devouring beasts and his viciousness.

Sadly, nascent demon lords have not been given the deity treatment in Second Edition, so we have nothing much to go on here.

He does, however, have an obedience, albeit granting only a few spells. In exchange for eating a pound of carrion each day, the worshipper becomes more resistant to disease, and can cast magic to devour the ebbing life of the dying, spread disease, and take on powerful beastial forms.

Daclau-Sar hasn’t been mentioned in Starfinder, so he might have been slain, ascended, or remained as he was. He might have an influence on any world or civilization where it is considered unclean or taboo to devour the dead.

In any case, that does it for today, but the week is just beginning, so look forward to more as the week progresses!

[prisanton]

Finale.

Preface:

The predetermined ending of my longest OC world storyline.

This is an excerpt from an EXTREMELY long and tedious and complicated original story, so maybe only me can understand these lines X-P

Plus, I’m not a native English speaker so the translation could make the comprehension even more difficult (clearly i should say impossible if im humble enough). Considering those, I will treat this blog as a ramble written for myself.

So if anyone even tries to read this shit I wish you a pleasant reading experience. Hope you find it interesting.

Specific Words:

* Positive Pole: in this OCverse, world is polar, which consists of the semi world of Positive Pole and the Negative counterpart.

* History : is visualized into a river.

* Pavilion: the place (in the History Dimension of Positive Pole) that held Positive divines. Plus, History Dimension is free from any physical property. It only exsists in concepts.

* Wings : a formal dress made by angles for the Truth (the leader of Positive deities).

* “Divines Cannot Wade” : it is because not a single divine here can withstand the test of history.

* The waterfall from sky: is due to a History leakage into the physical world.

...

Unbelieved, chaos surged in her heart, but Vacancy had no time to lag. She shouted to gather survived compatriots around her, gritting her teeth and running wildly along faintly visible steps towards the high skyline where the enormous water curtain hung down. She only hoped that, perhaps, Aek was still trapped in the Positive Pole, and a short period of prayer could not confirm him of her position. She could only stake her all on this!

The stairs leading to the boundary were endless, and at the end of the last few steps, Vacancy could only rely on the strength of her arms to flip herself up from the edge of the sky. Lying on the ground, panting, exhaustion paralysed her for a moment. By the time strength returned to her feet, she was embraced by a marvelous void – the heart of a world.

Whatsoever, she didn’t even get the opportunity to marvel at this strange sight that she dared not imagine before. On the other side of the river seemingly not far away, Aek, neatly dressed in Wings and hair held up, stood there, smiling gently, sinking her last glimmer of hope to the bottom.

“What - w - why were you able to find this place - ? ”

“I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, child. ”

This sentence finally shattered Vacancy’s psychological defense line. He knew. he had known everything, all the time. But She knew nothing. Tricked by him. Until nothing was left!

“I don't believe it! ”

Vacancy let out a roar, waved back, and led her remaining people to charge forward crazily. Divines cannot wade, she had already figured it out! As long as she did not admit defeat, there might still be a turning point breaking his plot –

Splash.

Vacancy stopped incredulously, and looked towards the source of sound. Aek, still wearing that smile on his face, stepped unhesitingly into the River of History with one leg. Skin there immediately began to sizzle and evaporate, revealing the bony interior and flowing, bloodless tissue underneath. While Vacancy stopped in her track, he did not. The other leg followed into water, step by step, agitating the calm surface, he walked towards the deepest central of History.

“Aekaelia!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING – ”

The merciful deity did not answer. He paced forward, smiling pleasingly, reached down and oared out an arc of water. Upon the touch of it, his arm disappeared instantaneously. Soul, rumored to have a mass of 23 grams. It is, however, unknown whether or not the brightest soul in the world can withstand a 23-second finale.

Joining of physical properties to the History Dimension made the distance in between them, that should have been reached in one stride, appeared incredibly long. Desperately, Vacancy dashed towards History, but even the eternal, unchanged smile of the god too began to melt. The colors on his body blended, rendered, and pervaded out against colorless surrondings, painting a dazzling neon. Vacancy fell crashing to the ground, instantly losing all the power that kept her running all along. She watched lying on her stomach, agape and tongue-tied, unable to get up staring at the scene of surreal and miraculous beauty. She felt the smell of vomit upwell behind her tongue. She didn’t know she was howling. She didn’t know whether the bitterly salty taste in her mouth was tears, snot, or her life.

“AEKAELIA – !! ”

– Irresistably Vacancy felt her rage and sorrow seeping through her fingers, which had been everything that supported her progress, and further, her very existence. Indescribable scream escaping her mouth like a cornered beast’s shrill, she buried her face and tears in the soil. And yeah, this was precisely what the cruelty of mercy looks. Violence provokes resistance. At least makes you die like a warrior; while mercy dilutes your fury, erasing all your past, its soft fingertips extinguishing the flame of revolt;

“Pavilion has no gods, ”

– Vita’s voice was the first to slip away from the memories she had been clutching so tight, followed by her face, her life, and that tiny hand she used to held onto her hem. Everything was fading. Grief got her, the giant palm of it clenching her body into an ugly crumpled nonsense, suffering gushed out from her mouth;

“Aekaelia – you’re so cruel, so CRUEL – ”

– But soon, she came to unknow why she was grieving; Then, the immense squeezing force evaporated, and she felt a sense of absolute relief in her heart;

“I am too a life. ”

– Everything felt light and airy. She felt tired, so she allowed herself to fell asleep in a prone position. Her face pressed tightly against the earth.

Click.

–

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

Hey hey~ coming in with a little trick request for your Halloween event!😈

I'd like to see some vampire!Manwë x Námo with prompt number 4 or 9 (your choice🧡). Dark content is welcome, also leaving that up to you.

Thank you! Looking forward to this!💜

Ooh! I have decided to go with number four for this. I also hope that you don’t mind that I took some liberty with the themes and the timeline.

"The choice"

Pairing: Vampire! Manwë x Námo (Calamórë)

Location and time: Halls of Mandos/19th Century England

Prompt : 4 - "Why won’t you let me turn you?”

Themes: Angst | Emotional | Loss

Warnings: Vampirism | Illness (Typhoid) | Death | Blood tears | Explicit language

Wordcount: 900+ words

Summary: Námo falls grievously ill. Manwë wishes to save him.

Minors DNI | You are responsible for the media you consume

A/n: this is for the @fellowshipofthefics October challenge. Two more slots are available for requests, but prompts 4 and 6 (for Vampire! Finrod) are out. The rules and prompts for requests can be read here.

Divider by @firefly-graphics

Námo was so still, it was frightening.

He was gaunt, his warm, ivory skin now as white as chalk. He did not open his eyes. Not when his sister fussed with his pillows to make him more comfortable; not when his brother covered his face and wept; not when the physicians spoke to the family in hushed whispers. He was too weak to do anything but rest.

“It is too late,” one said.

“There is little that could be done now,” another said.

“Only a miracle could save him from the clutches of this wretched disease," a third said. “And these mere mortal hands have not been blessed by the divine. You must prepare yourselves. I am sorry.”

One by one, they left. One of the physicians helped Irmo out into a dimly lit corridor, and down the stairs to the parlor. Nienna dithered by the door. Tears continued to streak down her cheeks, but she did not sob. She had to be strong, for all their sakes. 

“You will be wanting to say your farewells, Mister Súlimo,” she said.

Manwë was startled. He had been standing by the hearth, staring into flames that fought to keep the autumn chill from drifting into the room.

“Yes.” He smoothed his jacket and straightened himself, his tone perfectly calm, perfectly neutral. His face was a mask of serenity. “My thanks.”

Nienna acknowledged him with a silent, courteous bow before leaving the room in a swirl of dark silks that rustled with each step she took.

A servant closed the door behind her. The moment the corridor outside grew silent, Manwë's mask of serene composure dropped beneath the crushing weight of unspeakable agony. He did not know how he placed one foot ahead of the other or how he even reached the wide bed. When he arrived at Námo’s side and took an all-too-cool hand into his own, he sank to his knees and sobbed, unable to rein in his pain.

One last time. Manwë prayed, though to which God, he did not know. If only I could speak with him one last time.

Námo finally stirred and opened his eyes. It is as if he received one final surge of vigor. “You...came. Even... even after we argued..."

It was soft, barely over a whisper. Námo shivered, and grew silent. Manwë lifted his eyes. They were wild with grief and filled with deep red tears. More tears left scarlet trails that stained his pale skin. 

“Not even those who hunt my kind could keep me away from you," he declared, and brushed his hand over spun silver hair. It was still soft, slipping around his fingers like silk. Manwë watched with a mournful expression. Soon, he would not be able to touch that hair. 

Námo fought to stay awake. He yearned to reach out and stroke Manwë’s cheek, to offer him some comfort. Alas, he could not. He could not even raise his arm a grain’s breadth above the bed. He only whispered, “Your tears. They… they must not…see.” 

Manwë no longer cared, but he acquiesced anyway. He took out a square piece of red silk from his pocket and dabbed his eyes, his cheeks. Crimson soon soaked into crimson, but at least no one could see even if they tried.

“Why won’t you let me turn you?” The words came out in a smothered sob. “I can save you, little raven. Why will you not let me?”

Ever since Námo fell ill and they learned the cause of it all, Manwë beseeched him to let him intervene. Let me help you, he pleaded. Let me make you into a being like me. Then no illness will claim you, and we can remain together, for good and always.

Námo had a ready reply, and every time Manwë asked, it was always the same. He wished to remain mortal. He did not yield to any other course of action besides heeding the counsel of the family physicians. Then they argued. Caught in sorrow's grip, Manwë uttered things he could never take back before he departed the manor. Only Nienna's made him put aside his confusion and despair and anger, and return. Manwë listened again, certain the answer would be the same as always.

“This… this is my choice,” Námo insisted between labored breaths. “I wish…to leave… this world… the way… I have lived it. As… as a mortal.”

Manwë wanted to argue. To rage. This should not be so, he wanted to say. It was not right. It was not fair.

Twelve months, he thinks. Many a century spent searching for my soul’s other half, and when I do find him, all that is given me is twelve fucking months.  

“Do not…be angry,” Námo pleaded. “Please.”

Manwë stops, hesitates. Heated words soon die in his throat. 

“I am sorry, little raven.” Manwë grasps his hand and brings it to his lips. It is icy now. He smothers another sob. "And forgive me, for what I said before. I offer no excuse for being so cruel."

“There is... nothing... to forgive. Perhaps,” Each breath is a battle now. And yet, Námo persists. “If… fate is… kind, we… we will meet again.”

“I will wait for you,” Manwë vows. “I love you.”

Námo closes his eyes. A strange, numbing sensation crept up his throat. He whispers three words. Three final words, and then he goes still, for good and always. Manwë leans down, and kisses him for the last time. He buries his tears and rises. The fire burns brighter now, warming the room. Manwë does not feel it. The world will never be warm for him again.

tags: @edensrose @asianbutnotjapanese

[nukabrain]

My OCs

Wanted to create character sheets!! I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed creating them! Took me awhile too, kept getting sidetracked by schoolwork :C (Gotta keep those grades up!!) (So I can try to write consistently but not sure if that's even gonna happen-)

So MEET....

Courier (FNV) OC: Enzo Atticus | 25yrs | Independent NV

Is a doctor, so he frowns upon people who fight risky.

For safety, he fights with a sniper so he can minimize damage on himself.

Will get his money's worth, so of course he passes all the speech checks (its at 100 and I haven't even made it to New Vegas)

He is the type of person who always nit-picks on things.

Every time he heals a companion he will grumble things like "why would you do that" and "can't believe I'm using my resources on you" (He doesn't mind at all and enjoys healing others but he will never tell you that)

I know I mentioned he uses the sniper rifle but he is SERIOUSLY good at using it, even Boone considers his sniper skills to be as good as his.

He is very healthy himself, because "If you get sick out here it's game over for you." Plus he thinks its a pretty dumb way to die because you couldn't out run a worker ant.

This man is the unluckiest person on earth. (I had to nerf him somehow.)

Will be traveling along bothering no one and suddenly step in some puddle. Day is ruined because he forgot to pack spare socks.

Will lean on a wall and it crumbles on him. Gets angry and kicks a bucket. Water splashes on him. Did I tell you water? It was actually piss.

Also gets massive headaches/migraines (due to being shot in the head- duh)

Quotes from Enzo:

"I am NOT helping you with your addiction to chems, this is the 4th time this week and its fucking Tuesday."

"100 caps?? Oh c'mon the only enemies I better see are geckos."

"Why did I sign up for the courier job if I was a doctor? Easy, the pay was simply divine. I thought 'How bad could this transport job could be!'.... turns out pretty fucking bad."

"God damnit my boot broke and blood seeped into my socks. That's the 2nd time today! I should really take payment in socks instead of caps."

"Why do you keep rushing into battle? I can't keep wasting my stimpacks on you..... I had some extras anyways but STILL STOP RUSHING INTO BATTLE HEAD ON."

"Oh sorry sweetie, I just thought you look simply wonderful tonight. Now what were you saying? Oh it's only for 50 caps? A special discount for me? Aw thanks sweetheart."

"God I love fighting robots. No blood on my armor! I can even reprogram them in my favor!"

"Please just be water please just be water. *peaks in bucket* ITS FUCKING PISS ARGHHH"

"Buddy your armor isn't fit on right. *Adjust armor* There. Oh yeah and your shoelace isn't tied right. Fix that."

"Hey handsome, you never told me your name."

"Hey I worked on my endurance for running away from enemies, but it also comes in handy for special events like these."

ENZO PHOTO:

Character Insert (RDR2) OC: Elise Roseburn, 31yrs | Herbalist

very VERY kind, she helps whoever walks through her door.

not the naïve kind of kind, in order to receive her kindness you must treat her with kindness first.

Since she lived in the woods her entire life, she knows some good tricks

that also means she's good with rifles. She hunts for food herself.

She only has 9 1/2 fingers because she cut off her pointer finger from watching her dad cut a log. She got a little to close.

Knows every natural remedies there is.

Has a little shop in the woods just off the main path. It's like a secret spot only veteran travelers know of.

Those veteran travelers gatekeep btw, they don't want her to get too popular to the point someone kills her or she runs out of supplies.

She may treat everyone nice, but she's not attached to any of them. Sometimes she'll hear news of some of her customers dying and she won't bat an eye.

Cheeky! She'll make smart remarks and tease her customers.

She's able to tell a lot about a person within 5-7 minutes of conversation. (I know there is a word for this I just can't remember)

Doesn't like it when people do things for her. She doesn't mind gifts, but if there's a task she set for herself, only she can complete it.

Often pushes her emotional problems away. Perhaps staying in the forest alone is taking a toll on her.

Talks a lot about her parents, but when asked about their current status, she lies and say "they moved to a small town."

ELISE QUOTES

"Well hey there mister, you ain't looking very well."

"Ay! Unless you wanna mop my floors, rub your dirty boots off in the grass."

"Stop looking at me like I'm some catalog girl, unfortunately for you, I ain't for sale."

"Bless my heart, ain't that the cutest looking guy I ever seen."

"You think I'm 25? Well lets keep it that way."

"Unless your ready to eat lead on a Tuesday afternoon, I suggest you get your ass out of my shop."

"Well miss, if I told you my secret it wouldn't be a secret anymore."

"You only get my respect if you earn it. Now scram"

"Oh man he's a goner. Now which one of you nice boys gonna clean up the mess?"

"Oh this little beauty? She's my ace in the hole."

"What the fuck you mean you went hunting. Looking like that?"

"Now now boys, settle this outside, away from here. Winner gets a free item from my shop!"

"Airing the lungs aren't you? Hope you don't talk to your ma like that."

"A visit to the bone orchard never goes well."

"If I say it cost 3 dollars it costs 3 dollars, take yo bargaining ass someplace else."

ELISE PICTURES (OR HER VIBE? I CAN'T DRAW :C)