#i think they may have been Going Somewhere

[nanamiskentos]

➤ 𝐉𝐉𝐊﹙ 脹相 : CHOSO KAMO ﹚ ─ the death painting cw ─ MDNI. canon!choso, óràl (m. receiving)

"and don't get me wrong," choso huffs, his breath puffing out like steam escaping a kettle. pale pink lips pouting, "i know yuuji's got a heavy burden on his shoulders, but he could really stand to try and take my advice a bit more, don't you think?"

huh. no response. choso's scowling now. cinnamon-hued eyes thinning into slivers, searching for where on earth you disappeared to.

thin brows furrowing, "my love?" the end curling into a question as uncertainty colours his tone. choso's had a long day training thus far, and it didn't help that upstart who shoulda' stayed in that damned box — gojo satoru, seemed to occupy most of his younger brother's attention. diverting his attention away from the important lessons that his petulant older brother was trying to teach him. eso and kechizu were never so stubborn.

with a sharp exhale, choso pushes himself up from the seat, smacking his thighs in frustration, but not before —

"sit back down, cho."

choso's mouth goes bone-dry, nerves going into some twisted form of sensory overload as he tries to calm the blood rushing through his pounding heart before the muscle explodes. but it's too late for the blood rushing down south, already pooling in a satisfied coil over his groin.

he hasn't the faintest clue on where you managed to swipe away his robes, but he thinks he may yet be the luckiest man (no, wait, let's not unpack that yet) alive. amber eyes raking over how the cream linen drapes your form so perfectly, clinging to every curve that he loves to worship.

but choso is sharp, he doesn't miss the mischievous glint in your eyes nor the way that your teeth sink into the flesh of your lower lip. teasing, watchful. he should have known better than to be caught off guard like this, but choso truly cannot even bring himself to care about how much of an effect you have on him. how you unravel him to the core.

"you're lookin' pretty frustrated, baby," you're purring, already stalking closer so choso has to tear his eyes away from the swell of your chest and back to somewhere more polite and acceptable. think, choso, think of something smart to say. something that isn't sleazy, and something that hasn't been concocted by the heat throbbing and pumping straight outta' his cock.

but there's some awful lag between his brain and his tongue, and choso can only let the crimson flush build up, painting the back of his neck awash. watching as you snicker, knowing that the half-curse is practically one touch away from trembling in your hold. well, you can truly give him something to quiver about now.

"had a rough day, is all," choso rasps, and he doesn't even seem to be aware of how his vocal cords have turned to a husky granite. loose strands of chestnut-dark hair falling over his eyes as his pink tongue comes out to moisten his lips, mind whirring on how to turn this loss of composure into a win, "uh, it really sucked, you could say. mhm, i guess that's how i'd describe it."

you're already seated between his knees, head gently leaning against the broad muscles of his thighs. hands already pawing at the loose waistband of his ivory martial pants. unimpressed eyes blinking up at him, "what did i say about bad puns, cho?"

"that they're no good," choso murmurs, doing his best not to shudder as your nails lightly skim over the thatch of dark curls past his hips. but because he truly can't help himself, he has to add on, "that they blow."

he's really a natural born comedian, choso thinks to himself, it's just a shame that no-one else can really see past the gloom and doom to appreciate his natural wit.

you're pressing a gentle kiss to the base of thick shaft, and choso has to muffle a loud groan to prevent himself from coming undone already. fuck, he was far more sensitive than he anticipated but how could he not be? when you're proving personal love and care to each thick, throbbing vein that spirals up his cock?

choso shuffles in his seat, muscles already twinging as he parts his thighs. giving you more room to giggle and slot yourself into that gap, allowing you to firmly reach for his shaft and giving it a firm one, two! pump. already managing to pull out slick beads of translucent precum from the pink slit.

"sooo, how's that feel, baby?" your tongue barely brushing against the tip of his cock, applying the most gentle and teasing pressure that makes choso press his lips together firmly. your mouth parting to try and take as much of him as possible past your lips.

"g-good, real good," choso breathes out, tawny eyes already reaching skywards to thank the heavens for bestowing this upon him. he's panting, hands flailing in the air to clutch at the air, then at the thin material of the seat before settling at your scalp.

but he's gentle with it, determined to not apply too much pressure, to not delivery any sharp stings of pain. not when you've lavishing him with such attention, your fingertips now resting on his bare thighs as your mouth steadily bobs and releases with a sticky pop! each time you pull back.

and god, choso's entirely obsessed with how you press against the underside of his cock with a lil' more firm pressure. laving right up against the girthy veins in a way that makes his muscled abdomen tense and flex with each new wave of pleasure.

"m-my love?" choso's eyes are shut now, dark lashes fluttering against splotched skin as he feels something creeping up on him. he's sensitive, so sensitive now and each caress of your loving mouth has his thighs shaking, "i think 'm gonna, hah, i'm 'bout to — what the fuck?"

choso does pride himself on being an exemplary role model and a high standing member of whichever society will have him, so he doesn't actually curse quite often. but this situation entirely calls for it, and he can only swing his hazy eyes open to blink down at you. dumbfounded as you're already smiling like a minx. pulling yourself up, and up and —

oh. well, choso's never been one to complain. not when you're gently positioning his large hands against the ties of the robes, nudging him to pull the linen off so your bare skin can be lavished by him. a gentle kiss being pressed to his bite-stung lips, "wanted you to cum in me, silly."

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think leona ever asked his parents why he was even born? When he wasn't even destined to rule a kingdom and only exist in the background as a "prince", whose title meant nothing anymore when cheka was born.

(I want me some angst)

-anon

Possibly? I think that Leona probably had to come to terms with a lot of not-so-nice truths about the world and his place in it as he was growing up. He's a smart guy, he'd put two and two together eventually.

Coincidentally, Leona asks a similar question (“How can I become king?”) to a butler in the second volume of the light novel (during his post-OB flashback sequence). The butler becomes deeply uncomfortable and cannot seem to muster a response. In that moment, Leona states that he knew it was considered inappropriate for him to covet the throne. And then he praises himself for being such a clever child LMAO—

Maybe there was no particular reason for his birth. On royal money, they can have as many children as they want and still have the means to support them. Family planning isn't as necessary. If you really want to go the angst route though, maybe the Kingscholar parents had a second child as a "failsafe" in case something happened to Falena or he wasn't able to sire an heir. If that's the case, the parents probably weren't thinking about how this might affect Leona's mental or emotional wellbeing; they were preoccupied with cementing their rule into the next generation and might have figured Leona would be happy serving in some other governmental position instead of taking up the throne (which now belongs to Cheka by birthright).

It's sad to think about little Leona working so hard in order to get recognized. He must have been so full of hope and joy back then, before he realized his efforts were futile and he would never get what he wanted most of all. Not just the crown, but the love and admiration that comes with having your skill and merit recognized. I wonder if Leona got his UM before or after he had his dreams crushed...? If it's before, it feels like a bad omen and a reason for others to hate him. If it's after, it only feels like confirming what people believe about him... That he's only capable of taking and destroying, never building or growing. That has got to do some damage to your psyche.

Leona may not have even asked his parents The Question directly, honestly. His mother is scarcely mentioned and his father is ill... and Falena is busy ruling in their father's place, which makes me think that it was mostly Kifaji raising and taking care of Leona. Maybe Leona pipes up one day and asks the Grand Chamberlain why was he born if he has no purpose? And that startles Kifaji, who tries to reassure him, only for Leona to grow increasingly frustrated and accuse him of being evasive or lying to avoid telling him the ugly truth. If they're playing chess at the time, I can picture little Leona knocking all the pieces off the board with an arm and then storming off somewhere to sulk.

We still don't have the origins of his scar. Leona talks about it very casually in his Dorm Uniform voice lines, stating that scars are seen as marks of bravery in his home country, but never explaining how he got his. It could be that there's no grand story or meaning behind it--but I've also seen fan theories that the scar was the result of Leona doing something dangerous at a young age in a desperate attempt to be seen and praised by others. That detail could fit very well into this angst hypothetical.

[captain-daryn]

Not 100% the same, but Alpha Theory (the idea of Alpha Wolves) was actually disproven by the same researcher who published it. But they the time he realized his mistake and published a new study, the damage had already been done. I swear I read somewhere that he regretted the original study, but I may be thinking of something else.

(Also- dogs are not wolves and vice versa. They share a common ancestor. Their social behaviors are VERY different. So even if Alpha Theory had any leg to stand on, it wouldn't apply to dogs anyway. So please stop using Alpha training methods against your dog, it's harmful and ineffective in the long run and probably going to end up with your dog biting someone. Yes there may be dominance over a resource, but dogs don't have just 1 alpha to submit to in wild dog packs, it's fluid and changes depending on the dogs and situation)

[exquisink]

When The Daylight's Gone, Ch2 - Yandere!Gojo Satoru x Fem!Sorcerer Reader

warnings. nothing in particular in this chapter, except for a brief mention of masturbation. but heed the tags on AO3. This chapter has been already posted there but I forgot to cross-post. Whoops.

wc. almost 11K this chapter, lmao.

Adjusting to life at Jujutsu Tech may not have been the smoothest ride for you, but everyone has been kind, considerate, and helpful with you; everyone has been ready to help and practically at your beck and call. Especially Gojo-sama. You’re not oblivious to how much he seems to be interested in helping you feel part of the organization—or whatever you’d call this (it’s definitely not truly a school)—and you let him know that his efforts don’t go unnoticed, which seems to change something in him every time you do. It’s almost as if he doesn’t get enough gratitude for all of the effort he puts into making a change around here. While his colleagues don’t seem all that impressed with him for a myriad of reasons removed from his role, you find that you think of him as more and more compelling of a person. 

You notice it in his little mannerisms around his students, in particular. He and Kento Nanami share a common goal: they want to protect those flames within the students, they want to protect their youth and allow them room to just be kids. You have a feeling that in the world of jujutsu, you are forced to grow up far too quickly as you are thrust into some of the most gruesome situations that most people honestly cannot fathom experiencing themselves. It’s why you have removed yourself from hunting curses, much like Ijichi-sama. It’s not something you can stomach. Having the curse of seeing spirits is something you already wish you didn’t have, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to help others. That’s the whole reason you’ve taken this job in the first place. 

But Gojo-sama…it absolutely doesn’t take a genius to see that the way he acts around others is a mask. It’s painfully obvious the more you hang around him, the more you observe from the sidelines, and you wonder if somewhere in all of that haughty, obnoxious, condescending as fuck facade of his that he wishes someone else had done the same for him. Maybe back in his days as a student here, he hasn’t had someone to shield him from the horrors of the world and he’s witnessed them far too early in his life.

“So! I think the students are going to enjoy a quick trip to Shinjuku!” Gojo suggests, drawing your attention back to the present as he leans so far back into his office chair that it begins to creak against the wooden floor. His hands clasp together as he continues to speak. “And while Nanami is off babysitting them, that means I have a lot more free time to spend with y—I mean you guys!” 

Shoko shakes her head. “I can’t guarantee I’ll have my schedule freed up for your sake, Satoru.”

“Not even if drinks are on me?” Gojo-sama offers with a little smirk playing on his lips. Now you’re the one shaking your head, a hint of a twinkle in your eyes. They may be authority figures in their own rights, but they all have their own vices, you suppose. They probably don’t expect to be the greatest role models to the students, and perhaps these are behaviors or habits of theirs they keep shielded from the impressionable youth as much as possible.

“Yes, not even after that,” Shoko deadpans, her expression serious. That’s a sign to take to heart, and Gojo backs off. Smart move. “I need to cut back.”

“Such a shame,” Gojo pouts, before grinning wide at you as Shoko takes her leave. With that fucking devastatingly beautiful smile of his that seems to just hide so much deep-seated loneliness that you can’t believe people are outright refusing his offers. Oh, curse you and your tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt (even if they have continually shown you reasons not to, but right now Gojo doesn’t appear to fit that description). “Guess that just leaves you and me.”

“So it does,” you reply with a lazy smile. The last thing anyone wants to feel like is an obligation, and you don’t want to make anyone feel like that; you’ve known what that’s like with past friendships yourself. Honestly, you still aren’t sure why you’re making a point in accompanying him. But you also feel like it’s just basic decency as a person. As a participant in the human experience overall, if you must go so far as to say so. 

No one wants to be lonely, not even a guy as boisterous and annoying as Satoru Gojo. (Even if you don’t personally find him as such like the others do.) With a life like his, that seems to keep him on some higher plane of existence as everyone else around him, that must keep him feeling isolated from everyone else. That doesn’t feel good no matter how much someone likes being powerful.

There is a thought that keeps popping up in your mind with each exchange you share with Satoru Gojo.

Is his status all that is cracked up to be for him?

Is he lonelier than he would ever admit to anyone in his life? Even to you–or anyone else in his life he ever considered close to his heart? 

Doesn’t he wish he could drop the act and show people who he really is, or is he already so accustomed to the icy cold backhanded slap of rejection that he may as well play into the role jujutsu society imposed on him? 

There’s so much more you want to know about Satoru Gojo, but you don’t know if you’re jumping into things too quickly. It’s already been a few months, but you still feel out of the loop in a lot of aspects. The more you get acquainted with everything and everyone around you, you find the less you truly understand or truly know much of anything. When Ijichi takes you under his wing for training, you’re not sure how to utilize your own cursed energy–what little you believe you have of it. But Ijichi reminds you–that you are more powerful than you think you are–after all Gojo insists that you might be better off labeled as Grade 2 or Grade 1 with the potential your cursed technique has. 

Should you take his words to heart, though? Better not to let it get to your ego (however little you have).

“Hey,” Gojo waves his hand in front of your face. “You kind of zoned out for a little bit there–everything good?”

“Oh!” You blink owlishly; you have been lost in your mind a lot lately huh? “Yeah! I”m okay. So what are we doing now?”

“I wanted to ask if you’ve seen any progress with your cursed technique,” Gojo replies like he’s been reading your mind, but you doubt that’s how the Six Eyes technique of his works. Maybe it’s just a hunch or a feeling he’s got and he just happens to be right about what you’ve been drifting off into thought about in that small pocket of time. 

“Er…don’t you ever check in with Ijichi-san?” you inquire in a wobbly tone. You honestly have not been keeping as much track of your progress as you should have been… you didn’t expect to be quizzed on it like this so soon but then again…maybe you should have.

“Of course I do!” Gojo scoffs, “I just can’t hear your perspective? I want to know what you think and you forget I’m here to help you out too if you’re not sure what you’re doing.”

You shake your head. “I really have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with any of this! All I can do right now is create veils, and that’s as far as it goes right now.”

“Hey! That’s still progress,” Gojo insists with a thumbs up. “I mean, did you have any exposure to anything related to jujutsu before all of this?” 

Another shake of your head. Nope. You’re pretty much fresh meat in regards to any of this, and from what you understand, sorcerers themselves are extremely rare breeds of humanity. You are stunned to see how small the classes in both Tokyo and Kyoto are. 

“See?” Gojo beams at you so wide the corners of his eyes crinkle. “It may be slow progress, but it’s still progress.”

You laugh at that bit. “You actually sound like a real teacher, Gojo-sama.”

“Come on, you know I told you that you don’t have to call me that,” he counters, “We may be working together, but we’re friends too, remember?”

You bite into your cheek as you chew on a proper response. 

“Are you not my superior?” you point out not in an accusatory way, but isn’t it not too intimate to do something like that? After all, it’s already feeling too intimate for you to be calling Ijichi ‘Ijichi’ or ‘Ijichi-san,’ but he’s also insisting on disregarding formalities. Maybe you are too much of a stickler for the traditions, but it’s mostly out of respect for everyone here. After all they have gone through experiences and trials and tribulations you have yet to experience yourself. You have so much to learn from all of them.

“I mean, yeah! But that doesn’t mean you have to get all formal. You’re not with Shoko!” he reflects for a moment, then adds: “Or Ijichi or Nanami!” 

“Okay, okay! Fine, I’ll work on it, Gojo.”

“Oh, come on. I”m working so hard to make you comfortable around here.”

“I’m just trying to respect your authority, Gojo,” you counter with a smile. Gojo just stares at you for a few moments before surrendering.

“Fine, fine. I’m just saying. It’s not necessary, you know? You’re not a student or anything either. At least, you’re not mine .”

“But I am still learning a thing or two from you and Ijichi,” you remark, “And Principal Yaga especially.”

“Still, since you’re so new to all of this, don’t expect anything to happen overnight, you know? Not everyone can be me, I guess,” he scoffs again, rubbing his nose and you find yourself rolling your eyes in jest. Yeah, there it is. That (honestly warranted) self-confidence. 

Most everyone around him finds it obnoxious, but you can’t help but find it refreshing. A lot of people are afraid of keeping that flame burning inside them, but he isn’t. People always want to play small to make others comfortable but he’s not interested in that, not necessarily in the way someone expects. 

Satoru Gojo is an instructor, first and foremost, and the goal of an instructor is to mold his students to become stronger, faster, and better versions of themselves–in fact he has stated on several occasions to you that he wants them all to surpass him. Because one day he’s not going to be here just like anyone else, and since he’s also not shy about droning on and on about how he wants to reset and reshape jujutsu society as it stands now, he channels all of his energy into this one singular goal. 

You can’t help but admire him for that kind of dedication, that kind of passion. You are curious what made him choose this kind of path because if you had to be honest with yourself, Gojo doesn’t seem the teaching or Sensei type. Far too lax, far too easy going and goofy. But maybe the students need a personality like that. Still, he deserves something where he can really let loose and not lose so much sleep over. (Yes, you have caught wind about his wild sleep schedule that would put most soldiers to shame.)

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Sensei ,” you tease with a little smirk twitching on your lips as he appears aghast at that address. Just pouting like some petulant child who’s just been denied his favorite snack. “So seriously, since it’s just us, what’s the plan for today? I don’t have much going on, so you better make this worth my time.”

Of course you mean it in jest. You don’t plan to bail on him, not when you’ve already made it a point to yourself that you aren’t going to leave him hanging. Even everyone else has made some remark about how ‘brave’ you’re being just enduring extra time with Gojo, but you don’t view it that way at all. You might be the odd one out here, but thus far you just don’t get it.

The big deal, you mean.

He finally speaks up again.

“Come on, seriously? I’m going to have to beat Gojo or Sensei out of your system. You’re a student in a way, sure, but like I just told you, you’re not my student, you know?” 

You hide your smirk into your palm. “Whatever you say…”

In spite of himself, he’s smiling at your antics, and that’s really your only goal. Just like he gives everyone else a hard time all on purpose, you’re returning that energy, and the good news is that he doesn’t seem to mind it all that much. That’s progress more than anything, right? Here you are, doing a better job at adjusting to your new environment than you expected to be doing, and he’s honestly made this new life a lot easier for you too–even if he doesn’t know it just yet. 

Actually, why not change that right now? 

“Gojo, I um…” you start a bit tentatively before you break into a fit of giggles again at his melodrama. “Seriously, thank you.”

He raises an eyebrow at that as he adjusts his blindfold. “What for?” 

“Making me feel like part of the group,” you answer, “You work really hard to make sure I don’t feel left behind, and I just appreciate it. That’s all.” 

He looks at you like he’s in a bit of a daze before shaking himself out of his stupor. He probably doesn’t get recognized for his efforts enough; teachers are an underappreciated profession in every aspect of life, it seems like, even in the world of jujutsu.

“It’s kind of, you know, basic human decency and all,” he reasons, but somehow he keeps an even tone with an underlying layer of playfulness. “Plus that’s kind of my job too, or at least part of it.”

”So what?” you challenge him, but you don’t mean to in a negative way. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be recognized for something like that.”

”For doing the bare minimum?” he nearly scoffs at that notion, but you do catch him smiling a little, which is the goal here. “All right, whatever you say, Princess.”

”Princess?” you repeat, your lips curling into a little bit of a pout. This time it’s you raising an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize I gave off that vibe.”

”A vibe of…?” he beckons you to finish that statement for him.

”Spoiled rotten?” you try to fill in the blanks with the first thing that pops in your mind and he once again looks aghast that that is the first thing you would even consider! “Bratty? Mean?” 

”No! You don’t act like that at all,” he counters, a hand over his heart as you feel his eyes scanning you through his blindfold. “You give Pretty Princess vibes, though.”

”Pretty Princess, huh?” Is he just trying to flatter you or wiggle his way out of something else? 

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “You’re pretty. I thought you’re aware of that fact.”

”Am I?” Your gaze flits to your feet as they shift, his words settling in. He does sound genuine. You have to admit—you don’t get called that often, or at all as far as you remember.

”You are,” he insists, poking your cheek, brushing the tip of his finger along your skin. “You should really believe that a little more, you know? Being humble is so out these days.”

”Of course Satoru Gojo would say something like that,” you snark back with a roll of your eyes. “But that is sweet.”

”Well yeah, I’m Satoru fucking Gojo, and what I say is definitely law,” he retorts with a playful smile twitching on his lips again. 

“Weren’t we supposed to be doing something?” you remind him after a beat of silence, and Gojo hums in thought after he mulls over what you might have meant by that. 

“If you want, I could help you train today. Ijichi’s working with Itadori and Nanami right now with something…” he trails off, “Unless you’d rather do something fun instead, like I could show you some of my favorite places with all of the best sweets in the world!”

”I think we should train first, Sensei ,” you reply, “I’ve been slacking and I want to make sure I can make my veils actually last long enough.”

”Oh for fuck’s sake, I told you—I’m not your Sensei at least.”

”Uh huh,” you quip, “But you know what, you’re right, you’re not my Sensei because people might assume you’re trying to fraternize with a student because you just admitted you think I’m pretty.”

”Or I was just merely making an obvious statement,” he insists, “You just happen to have a hard time believing that you are with the way you carry yourself. Easy to tell when someone doesn’t know who they are or what they want, you know?” 

“Oh, and I suppose then that means you’re an expert at that kind of thing?” you probe while batting your eyelashes. 

Gojo nods, “Of course! That’s my whole role in society after all.” 

 “Is it?” You scoot in closer to him, ignoring the way your heart is racing beneath your breasts as your nose barely brushes against his. His Infinity is down with you, and his skin does feel so soft just from that. “Then enlighten me, Gojo. Is this going to help me perfect my cursed technique if I have a better sense of identity or of my desires in life?” 

“Well yeah,” Gojo starts, but you do catch him faltering slightly, likely from the sudden proximity. “I mean, knowing who you are and what sets you off is a major key in harnessing your cursed energy. I mean, cursed energy is all about keeping your emotions in check. Cursed energy is primarily negative energy so learning how to channel that energy into something against a spirit is important. And you know, low self esteem counts as negativity and that can cause curses to spawn. I mean, didn’t you hear about Okkatsu and how he cursed a normal girl because he didn’t want her to die? Curses can come from both sorcerers and non sorcerers. Until Okkatsu, all we knew was that curse spirits are often a manifestation of non sorcerer cursed energy…”

You nod along as he rambles on. “Uh huh. So how does someone go about managing their negative feelings then?”

“Well, I remember helping Itadori out by having him watch a bunch of terribly boring or annoying movies,” he explains as taps his finger against his chin. “We could do that but I think you need something a little more advanced than that. Like I mean you already seem to have a good handle on your emotions since you’re spending all of this time with me and you seem more charmed than irked by my presence.”

”Why would I be irked by your presence?” you interject, “I didn’t give off that vibe to you, did I?” 

“I may be the world’s strongest sorcerer but that doesn’t earn me brownie points in popularity,” he admits, but he’s acting like it doesn’t affect him when it likely definitely does. “Even Megumi gets easily ticked off at me and I’m raising the kid.” 

You huff at that. “I mean, you know what they say, Gojo. You could be the juiciest peach, and there’ll still be someone who doesn’t like peaches. So who cares!” 

”And Megumi definitely doesn’t like peaches,” he snorts with a shake of his head.

”Oh, please. Don’t say that!” you retort with a playful shove to his shoulder. “He adores you. Kind of like how he behaves like he’s annoyed by Itadori all the time but he didn’t want him to die for a reason.”

“A fair point, m’lady.” 

“First Princess, and now m’lady?” you tease, “Come on, this is getting ridiculous.”

“Alright, alright!” Gojo surrenders while clasping his hands together.  “Okay, so are we training or what?”

“Of course,” you reply, “Just tell me where we can start and then as a reward for staying consistent, we can go grab all of those sweets you keep talking to me about, because now I can’t stop thinking about them.”

Gojo laughs, “Deal.”

It’s not outright obvious to anyone or even you at first, but Gojo has been tagging along with you wherever you went like an over excited little puppy dog. He behaves more like your guard dog in much more public areas though. You don’t mind his constant shadow at first, thinking it as a nice refreshing change of pace after spending most of your time in solitude. It can either be comforting or it can be suffocating. But you don’t find Gojo suffocating, not like how everyone else seems to. 

And maybe he has taken that to heart, which is another thing about him you don’t find yourself minding. Clearly, he just hasn’t been used to someone actually actively wanting to be around him after who knows how long since you waltzed into Satoru Gojo’s world and maybe a part of you finds it flattering that he enjoys your company so much. 

“Hey,” Gojo stops you while you’re strolling side by side down a street with many jewelry, makeup, or designer clothing stores down the strip. “Didn’t you say you needed to restock on some makeup?”

A record breaks in your mind. Say what now? He actually listens to your mindless ramblings? Why are you so shocked every time someone pays attention to you, especially someone as esteemed as Satoru Gojo? Moreover, why are you still gawking at him like he’s just sprouted three extra heads? 

You blink once at him. Then twice. You glance up at the store he’s stopped you for and your breath hitches. A Sephora, huh? Is he sure about this? What is he even thinking about, splurging so much money on you like it’s not a big deal to him? Your eyes scan the rows upon rows of various brands you have only watched Youtube influencers review and can only dream of owning yourself. The Dior row is especially calling out to you like a siren in the Dead Sea. 

This is so dangerous… you pout, gaze flitting between Gojo and the entrance to the store. Your gaze lingers on the Dior aisle once more. You long for some of those lip oils. Or their blushes even if a lot of influencers have admitted they suck for their price points… 

“Yeah, but…” you trail off, frowning as you peek through the windows, fearing for the total costs if you actually do follow up on his offer. “Their stuff is usually out of my budget.”

A brief silence stretches over the two of you. You’re about to turn but he stops you, grabbing your wrist, and you glance up at him through your lashes. 

“Don’t sweat it. I got it,” he offers with a small smirk, pushing the door open for you and your feet stop you just short of entering the store. 

“Seriously,”—he places an arm on your shoulder—“I got it.”

“I can’t pay you back,” you reply, biting on your lip. 

“You don’t have to. Come on,” he declares as he grabs your wrist, yanking you inside. The dozens of stares falling on the two of you make your heart flutter but it’s probably not you they’re really paying attention to. In fact you’re absolutely positive it’s probably because of Gojo. He’s a show stopper in a lot of ways. Maybe they’re gawking at how tall or handsome he is, how shock snow white his hair is. Wondering what shade his eyes are beneath his blindfold that he wears all the time. 

Wondering what he’s doing with a puny little thing like you in a cosmetics store. Maybe they’re all wondering if you’re a couple and he’s just your sweet patient boyfriend humoring your love for cosmetics. 

As if you can ever be with someone as untouchable as Satoru Gojo. You can only dream of being with someone like him, someone so otherworldly and ethereal and practically regarded as some kind of Messiah. 

Gojo stands close to you, and you observe him. It’s hard to figure out what anyone’s thinking without seeing their eyes. You wonder how his Six Eyes must be unbearable for him a lot of the time that he has to wear a blindfold. 

As if he senses you staring, he peels his blindfold back and hums as if lost in thought. 

“I think you talked about loving lipstick the most, right? What brand do you like to wear? Gucci? YSL?” he inquires idly while lifting his blindfold; he scans the aisles before walking toward one of the more expensive luxury brands you can never hope to afford a first time around already. You grab his elbow and stop him in place, and he peers down at you, those blue eyes appearing to admit a kind of glow. 

“I can’t afford to wear any of those!” you protest, flabbergasted, “Can we just stick to the mid-range priced items? You really don’t have to buy me anything!”

“You can now! So name the brand and we’ll look at it, yeah?” he retaliates with a goofy grin that is convincing enough to let him win you entirely over. This is not something you can easily accept from anyone! Not even him! Especially not him! It feels all kinds of wrong to you if you can’t return the favor in any way and you know you can��t. He knows you can’t either and he’s doing this anyway all because he wants to. There is no hint of obligation or feeling like he has to repay you for spending so much time with him.

You almost want to shrivel up and die in that very moment, but he’s being kind of pushy and you don’t really know why. It’s not like you can’t go get makeup at some affordable drugstore, and he can just pay for those, something you can easily return the favor for with enough time. 

You’re not all that picky. And you know one taste of luxury is going to have you hooked for life . There’s no going back. 

Although, like you have been fantasizing about already, you have been dying for anything from Tom Ford or YSL or Dior… 

You drag out a sigh as you weigh out your options. 

“You’re not going to let me get out of here until I let you buy me things, aren’t you?” you inquire in a flat tone. 

Gojo’s still grinning ridiculously and you kind of hate how cute he looks getting all giddy at the prospect of spoiling a friend just because. 

“Now you’re getting it! So seriously, what are we feeling?” he asks again, that stupid grin of his unmoving. 

Yet you find it more endearing than annoying like everyone else seems to… 

“Slow down,” you reply. He relaxes his grip on your wrist and you release it. You don’t miss that unreadable expression flashing in a nanosecond. “There have been some shades I’ve been needing. But we are not going overboard here. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answers almost robotically with a mock salute. You fight the urge to roll your eyes. 

You lead him to one of the Dior aisles where a classic red lip shade catches your eye. You have two defaults, and you don’t need too much makeup: a flattering red lip for an occasion and a flattering nude shade for everyday is really all you’re going to need in this department. Then you know you need the rest—new foundation, new concealer, mascara, etc. etc. 

And since Gojo is being so pushy you may as well take advantage of the opportunity. Even if does feel all kinds of wrong in your soul you know he’s not letting you get off that easily. So you decide to reframe it this way: you’re really only allowing this because Gojo’s resolve about this isn’t going to budge. 

“Oh! This shade is gorgeous,” you muse out loud as you pry one of the tester red lipsticks and grab one of the free lip applicators to test the color on your lips. You glance around for a mirror and find one just down the aisle, pouting your lips into it as you assess the shade you chose. You hum in thought. 

Then you turn to Gojo, who’s keeping a fair distance but watching your every move. 

“Do you like it?” you inquire, pointing to the shade painting your lips.

“It’s nice,” he replies, “Totally evens out, um, your complexion!”

You giggle into your hand. He’s trying , which is better than most men who have ever walked into your life. Most of them think makeup is fake or stupid or pointless or just plain lying. Then in the same breath claim they like a natural girl but most of them don’t understand what a natural girl looks like. 

Gojo seems a smidge less ignorant about that kind of thing though. Just a smidge. 

“C’mere,” you declare as you gesture with a come hither motion. He obliges, and you have to prop yourself up on your tippy toes just to reach his cheek, where you smack your lips against. A bold move, perhaps, but he deserves it for all of this generosity he apparently isn’t known for at all amongst his colleagues. 

“How ‘bout now?” you ask with a sultry purr, fluttering your lashes. Which both definitely feel naked. You love mascara. They definitely need a good mascara… something both lengthening and volumizing, perhaps? You haven’t been exploring much in that regard…  

“It’s perfect ,” he purrs smoothly, not skipping a beat. He doesn’t even bother wiping off the stain and it’s not like you two are an item or something. You just want to give something back. “Aren’t you going to try more shades?”

You deflate, flushing a little at that as you twiddle your fingers. Oh, he sounds a little too interested now. Should you back off? 

You pull back. Absently you run your tongue around your teeth as you eye your reflection. Oh wow, this shade kind of makes your teeth look way whiter so you’re definitely snagging it. This really is so dangerous and it’s not fair hat Gojo is making you go through with committing such a sin. Grabbing a basket and tossing the tube of lipstick into it while swiping a makeup remover wipe from a nearby dispenser and cleaning the color off. Gojo snags the basket out of your hands. 

“Hey!” you protest again with another pout of your lips. There’s some blotches of leftover lipstick you missed but Gojo can’t help but find it cute. Almost a complete idea of what those pretty lips of yours might look like when he’s the one kissing the color off and not some damn makeup remover. 

“I got it,” he insists, keeping the shopping basket just out of your reach. “You enjoy more shopping, alright?”

Your eyes begin to twinkle and you don’t notice that Gojo’s heart must have skipped a beat in that moment. 

“Can we window shop at the designer stores here too?” you beg him eagerly, eyes sparkling like a child winning a plush toy in a claw machine.

“Yeah,” he breathes in reply, composing himself. “Anything.”

You’re not paying attention to him now as you’re already sprinting to check out the mascaras you’ve seen online and can only dream of owning yourself. This is already more power you can ever hope to have!

You snag the one you hear is best for your kind of lashes. 

But you find yourself scattering around all of the aisles but don’t buy that many things out of common decency. Even if someone like Gojo comes from a lot of money, it isn’t right. You just can’t help it though. He’s given you a taste already and you wish you could buy with your own money but that’s not a reality for you. You are going to allow yourself to indulge just this one time and then never again. As nice of a gesture it is from Gojo, you have not been raised a leech, and you’re not going to take advantage of someone’s generosity like that. So you give yourself an item limit but that doesn’t stop you from trying all of the samples of makeup and swatching the colors, asking for Gojo’s opinions and he tries to seem interested which is the nicest thing he could do for you.

All while you’re browsing, Gojo hangs back just to observe you. Admiring how lost you get in such a simple hobby to him and probably to everyone else. 

You just don’t realize how much he is truly paying attention to you. How much he wants to know more and more about you. Your likes. Your dislikes. What makes your eyes keep shining like that like they are here. 

Snapping discrete photos of the things you eye with longing but don’t toss into the basket for future reference. 

You test another lipstick shade in another brand aisle, then test it on Gojo’s cheek like you did before. A classic nude shade is something every girl needs, you tell him, and that’s all for the lipsticks. 

Once you grab all of your essentials you don’t even dare to so much glance at the receipt and neither does Gojo. Tossing it into the trash as soon as you both walk out. 

“So you don’t try to return anything out of guilt,” he explains with a little wink. “So, you still want to check out those designer stores?”

“Yes! Can we go to Chanel?” You clasp your hands together, doing your best to contain the fact that you may be a little too excited.

“Of course,” Gojo replies easily once again, “Anything.”

“I’m not buying anything! I just want to look,” you remind him as your hands rest on your hips, chin slightly raised. “You got me enough.”

You gesture to the bag he’s clutching with that huge hand of his, you can’t help but point out to yourself. And dang, you never have noticed before how long his fingers actually are… 

He follows your gaze, before glancing back at you and you catch onto what is a bit of a judgy stare in that he’s such a fucking nepo baby way. 

“There’s not even 10 items in here!” he argues with a fret. 

“Yeah but you forget my budget isn’t usually made for these items. You got me enough. Way more than enough,” you assure him, “Trust me. Let it go, Gojo. I let you buy me stuff already.”

“Fine, fine, waving the little white flag,” he quips while wagging a finger. “Now come on, we still have a whole day since that mission was cut short for us and the students.” 

“Alright, alright. Bossy,” you tease while flashing him a little smile and then planting another kiss on his cheek. Where this time he leans in completely prepared for. “Thank you, Gojo. You really didn’t have to. But this isn’t happening again.”

“Fine,” he relents, sagging his shoulders; he’s saying so to your face at least. You don’t know what he’s plotting behind that blindfold. But you choose to take his words at face value to spare him some dignity. 

You beam at him again, grabbing his free hand and leading him to the closest designer store. The same cycle continues. Your eyes twinkle like brilliant little galaxies upon the endless choices but you know you can’t really have them and you emphasized to Gojo again as you waltzed into the store together that you won’t let him buy anything more for you. 

But you still let yourself loose! Putting on a little fashion show for him. You grab an item you wish you could have for yourself. This piece feels vintage and soft, delicately crafted and sophisticated like everything else in these stores. You strike a few poses in front of a tall mirror and Gojo just watches idly on the sidelines as you enjoy yourself. Sometimes still capturing little snippets of you unguarded and you haven’t the slightest clue as you’re living out what you can only define as your dream life. These might make beautiful candids in his office or somewhere more private in his estate, but you have no idea he’s thinking that right then. You’re too busy having the time of your life. Grinning madly like you’re alight and carefree and you look absolutely stunning. 

And you don’t know that it’s absolutely killing him . It’s maddening, how well you flaunt yourself like this, like you’re dangling yourself in front of him, all his for the taking. 

You don’t know how he wants to bend you over and blow your back out in the middle of this fucking store, in the middle of the mall, in the back parking lot, or the parking deck. Anywhere. Everywhere. But you’re not his yet, but you’re dangling yourself in front of him like a tempting sin and he can’t take it. 

Not his mind, his body, his heart, his soul, and definitely not his aching cock straining through his boxers. 

It doesn’t seem like you notice either as you stride up to him, stars in your eyes as you show him another bag before putting it back. 

“Are we going to the other stores? Are you getting bored?” you ask, looking very much like you’re bouncing off the walls. Much like him when he’s consumed way too much sugar. 

“Of course. Anything,” he replies immediately repeating the same damn line but not before glancing away. “I have to take a quick trip to the washroom first. Do you want to grab a bite to eat too?”

You nod, following him out. You take the bag he was holding and wait for him by the restrooms. 

Thank God, you’re out of his line of sight for the moment. And the stalls are empty. Doubly thank God . No one has to watch someone as esteemed as Satoru Goio (not that the mortal world would know anything at all about someone like him) fist a few just because he can’t control himself. What is he, some kind of hormonal schoolboy? What the fuck! He’s got more class than this! 

Resorting to something like this… 

It’s unbecoming. So very unbecoming of a man known to be the strongest in this physical and metaphysical world. 

He can be quiet about all of this, even still. He just… 

He just needs to take care of this before he loses his fucking mind and takes you for himself. 

(Maybe he might have already been plotting how to do that. To shield you from a world who only looks at you one way and no other way.)

On some occasions, Shoko joins you and Gojo when he wants a little company. Shoko has said before that she considers him dear even if she playfully declares he’s trash like any other man. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t make time for him, though. Especially when there’s alcohol involved and she doesn’t have to worry about paying those ridiculously expensive tabs. 

You have gotten used to going out with them on work nights (which is honestly every night with Gojo, at least), and you have come to realize his expectations each time. This time you have gotten some pointers on how to make yourself a bit more put together with these transitions from Shoko and you can’t be more grateful. You haven’t delved into the world of beauty all that much before this, mostly because you’ve had no reason to and you only stuck to the bare basics, but now you have a bit more of a social life than you once had. 

And maybe you want to catch Gojo’s eye in another way and not just in terms of your potential as a sorcerer. 

You glance over your shoulder, frowning as you take note that Gojo has yet to pop out into the front schoolyard where you planned to meet together before driving off. The nighttime air is crisp but a bit nippy; you’re scrunching your nose each time you feel a feathery light gust of wind tickle your face, and the thick layer of foundation you beat all over your face to death with a beauty sponge isn’t doing you many favors in the world of uncomfortable sensory feelings. A part of you wants to claw your face off because you’re not used to full glam looks, even if this is a softer glam look. You prefer the light every day getup, ‘no makeup makeup’ or whatever these trendy girls call it, you wish you were as cool and trendy as they are but you feel like you fall behind on what’s cool all the time. 

You twist back around while admiring Shoko with stars in your eyes. God, you have so much inner work to do yourself! She seems to know everything about how to bring out your best self and she embodies an absolute goddess in your eyes. She’s an ethereal presence. Her chestnut brown hair flowing down to her buttocks, her slim figure and her heart shaped face are all downright enviable. She can have anyone she wants, and she probably knows it too. 

Man, what you’d give for confidence like hers. Gojo does have a point from before–a negative self image is no good and can interfere with your progress as a sorcerer yourself. Even if you’re not all that interested in power scaling, you still want to be able to protect the students and yourself when the situation calls for it. 

Shoko calls your name, and you snap back to reality, blinking owlishly as she lights herself another cigarette to burn through–how many of those has she had in one day already? Is she one of those types to smoke entire packs within a night or a whole 24 hours? It’s not like they’re actually going to kill her or anything from what you understand about reverse cursed technique, but that doesn’t mean destroying your body over and over just for the shits and giggles. 

“Why do you go hang out with Gojo without another thought?” Shoko asks you out of the blue as you grow increasingly impatient waiting for Gojo to get here–he’s probably working on wrapping up some things for future missions this week or something–and you purse your lips as you shrug off her question. 

“Everyone needs a friend,” you decide is your simple response. Shoko stares blankly at you but you remain firm in your answer. You don’t believe it needs any further elaboration. And technically, it really shouldn’t. You’re just not that kind of girl. The kind to just take advantage of someone just because you can get away with it. There’s nothing “in it” for you at all. Stripping away all of your layers, you’re truly just a simple girl at your core. 

But for some reason, Shoko doesn’t buy that answer right away. 

“Really? Are you absolutely sure about that? Is there something in it for you?” she prods, and of course you’re right on the money of her being unsure, but her tone isn’t accusatory or anything—she’s just trying to seek an understanding of your motives and truthfully you have none. Nothing outright malicious or self-motivating, anyway, like she likely suspects. “Don’t get me wrong. Satoru’s a dear friend of mine but he usually bribes me with drinks or the nicer cigarettes when I’m not particularly interested in doing something with him involved.”

“No,” you declare, once again, with full confidence, swiping a pocket mirror from your clutch and pouting your lips, touching up on your lipstick which has already smudged off a bit. It’s a nude shade that complements your features; you’re still a student when it comes to these things but the tips Shoko has offered you for a more “office appropriate” look has helped plenty. Besides, Gojo has bought you all of those nice luxury brands that are typically so out of your budget; why not put them to daily use like you should so they don’t go to waste and expire because you’re too afraid to use such nice things? 

You recall all of those suggestions of hers—a medium-buildable coverage skin tint, a natural, luminary blush, two mascaras that separate, lengthen, thicken, and hold your curls without getting too clumpy or smudge throughout the day. All put together with a soft glam eye shadow look. It’s perfect. The girl’s a fucking genius at this stuff. 

“Then why?” Shoko prods again, a little too insistently. You wonder why the fuss. Just like she must wonder why the fuss! Is Gojo that bad of a person to be around because you genuinely haven’t gotten that vibe? If anything else, he’s become a comfort to you. You have been kind of used to being alone too. It doesn’t feel as sad as it sounds, not like how it must feel for Gojo. 

You try not to seem a little dejected by the fact that Shoko is suspicious of you. It’s not like she knows you well, though… 

“Because it’s like I just said, everyone needs a friend! The kind of friend who doesn’t want anything from them in return, or at least doesn’t expect it,” you continue to her after stashing the tube of lipstick and pocket mirror back into the Chanel clutch you still are absolutely positive Gojo sent you after your last outing together. “He just, I don’t know. He seems kind of… I don’t know. Alone. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“We hardly have the time for our own struggles,” Shoko remarks, turning away with a wistful expression. “Why do you think I smoke so much?”

“Maybe that’s the problem with all of you guys,” you point out, not meaning to try to read people to filth here or anything like that as you’re fluffing your hair a little bit. You’re just starting to see a pattern. Ugh, these fucking flyaways! How does Shoko’s hair always look so perfect even in these conditions? That’s something else to ask advice about from her later… “You guys are too caught up in your own lives to notice what’s going on right in front of you. I’m not saying that to call anyone out; it’s just the way everyone’s wired, anyway. Human nature and stuff. We are too busy worrying about ourselves to worry about everyone else all the time. if we did that then we can’t live our damned lives, and that just can’t do. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to remind the people in your life that you care about them.”

Shoko frowns in response to that, burning through her current cigarette which is already halfway gone. Bits of ashes drop unceremoniously to the ground as she puffs out some smoke, mulling over your words, and something flashes in her eyes, like she’s flipping channels of so many memories in her mind but for some reason you doubt it involves Gojo and probably some other people she considers close to her.

“That’s a fair point, I guess,” she grunts, her eyes flashing again with something–something like grief or regret ? Over what? Do you pry or just keep it to yourself? 

“Is there something I’m missing about Gojo?” you finally demand of her, your tone thick with curiosity as ever like you’re trying to debug some kind of code. “You guys all keep rambling on about how he’s this peculiar character and yeah, I’m not denying it but what sorcerer isn’t a little crazy? Don’t you have to be in a profession like this, one where the majority of the population would write off as utter hocus pocus?” 

Shoko processes more of your rapid fire questions before shrugging, taking another shot at her cancer stick between her fingers which is nearly gone now. She burns through those like Gojo burns through all those sugary foods he ingests practically every second of every day.

“Spend more time with him and find out,” Shoko answers, probably more flippantly than she intends to sound, flicking more ash off of her cigarette as a wry smile plays on those juicily glossed lips of hers. You almost want to pout at how she seems to have everything figured out for herself–from the way she carries herself to the way she shows up for herself too. Dark sultry eye makeup with a flawless makeup base and when she decks herself out, she decks herself out . You can’t recognize her sometimes outside of work when she’s having too much fun cutting up dead bodies and putting together autopsies or beautifying dead bodies or whatever else she does as a healer  “It’s never a dull moment. Love the guy to death, but even I have my limits with him.”

“No one is easy to be around,” you admonish with a sigh. “Not even me. I know my shortcomings or at least the ones I’ve been made aware of thus far. With that kind of logic, you won’t have anyone around you.”

“That’s…also a fair point,” Shoko acknowledges with a nod, more bits of ashes dropping to the concrete below. “I guess I might have some reflecting to do. But you know, I have noticed Gojo becoming a little more relaxed these days. You’re probably why.”

“Oh, come on,” you giggle, hinting at a bit of uncertainty. “I’m just little old me.”

“And that might be someone Gojo needs,” she adds with a little wink, before her gaze flits to your purse. “You still haven’t made a guess on who’s been sending you these expensive gifts? Who else do you know likes to spend money without any regard for how much it is?”

You follow her gaze to the purse before shaking your head in response. 

“Well of course I know it’s Gojo,” you admit bashfully as you ponder her other words. Gojo is a perfectly capable man who doesn’t rely on anyone. Surely he doesn’t need someone like you around, right? “No one else around here is made of money like he is. And I doubt someone like Gojo needs someone like me.”

“How can you be so sure?” she teases in a singsong tone. “I’m just saying—he clearly doesn’t hide the fact, either.”

You don’t really know how to respond or react to that. You aren’t going to deny it, not really. Gojo has been a lot more attentive with you than anyone else, and he’s known Shoko since they went to high school right here at Jujutsu Tech together. She has to know so much more about him than even she cares to know about Satoru Gojo and maybe there’s a part of you that wants to badger her for all of the information she might have on him for… reasons .

Hm. Maybe there is something in it for you, but you expect absolutely nothing regardless. You don’t want to be like those people who try to be someone’s friend just to get with them. That’s not really being someone’s friend. That’s being a total weirdo and no one wants to be that guy.

“I should say I also commend you for a character like yours,” Shoko admits after a moment of reflection–maybe she does have to check in with herself too more than you realize. There must be a lot she’s hiding from everyone too. “We don’t see authenticity like that around here these days so it’s probably a breath of fresh air for Satoru too.”

“I hope you’re not insinuating what I think you are, Miss Ie—I mean, Shoko,” you stammer as a blush rushes to your cheeks. 

“I’m not insinuating anything,” she teases, pinching your cheek. “But it has been a while since Satoru has acted like this. Not since…” She holds off on finishing that thought, which again piques your interest but you don’t poke and prod the bear with the stick, and instead she settles with: “Yeah, not since a while.”

Your forehead wrinkles a bit as you ponder her words. 

Now you’re only left in the dark much more than you already have been in the world of jujutsu sorcerers. You are still a fledgling yourself, yet right off the bat Gojo determines you should be bumped up to grade 2. Not only that but you learn that Satoru Gojo is something like a quasi-religious figure around here, possessing both the Limitless and Six Eyes cursed techniques which hasn’t been a thing for centuries, apparently. He’s the strongest special grade out there to exist, but he has admitted to you and to the higher ups that there are going to be many who surpass the special grade rank and by extension may surpass him. He expects that of Itadori, Fushiguro, and Okkatsu, in particular, but he hopes for that for the future generations as a whole. 

Still, these don’t really fill in many blanks for you. You don’t understand why everyone’s got their reservations over Gojo; if anything, he’s so arrogant and haughty because he can back up his claims and that must grind everyone’s gears. To a certain extent you can understand the frustration everyone has with him, but that can’t be all there is to it. Then again, you have only been on Jujutsu Tech grounds for what, five months or something like that now, tops? You still have so much to see in how he interacts with the others. Other superiors, other colleagues, but with his students, they seem to enjoy his company… (well, at least Itadori seems to; the second years have a few choice words on how to describe him.)

“Did I leave you ladies waiting?” you hear a voice call out to the two of you. 

Your head snaps up to find Gojo carrying dozens of bags hooked around all of his slender fingers. You can’t help but giggle at the sight because it reminds you of the times you did the same thing to spare you another trip to the trunk with all of your purchases. 

“What’s all this?” you question with a smile. Gojo pauses before answering, as if a little taken aback by a change in you. Probably he’s noticed you put a little more effort to look more business appropriate, actually with a full face of (hopefully passable) makeup… 

“You look lovely, I-I mean, as always, of course,” he coughs before he sets all of the bags aside. “And ah, I just tend to splurge a little. Stuff for the school, stuff for the students, stuff for me…” 

“That’s sweet of you,” you comment before you cradle the Chanel clutch in both your hands and present it to him. “So does this mean you actually are the one responsible for this?”

Gojo’s face falls for a split second before bouncing back. “Did you not like the color choice? I still have the receipt and I can change it o—!”

—You raise your hand to cut him off. 

“I only started using these because I have no idea if I should return these to you, but now I do,” you interject with a little chuckle. “If this is your way to thank me for hanging out with you all of those times, I don’t need an incentive for it, Gojo. I’m happy to hang out with you because we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Gojo beams at that. “Of course we are! Just, you know! Don’t worry about the gifts. Use ‘em or don’t—I just like giving gifts, and um, you deserve them, and stuff.”

“And stuff?” Shoko quips, shooting Gojo a look with a little wraggle of those perfectly groomed eyebrows of hers. Gods you’re so jealous of her effortless beauty. “Real suave, Satoru.”

“Like you know how to charm a girl’s pants off,” Satoru shoots back. 

“I think we know who gets more pussy between the two of us,” Shoko deadpans.

You can’t help snorting at that. Why do people find this guy so off-putting? It honestly seems like he tries really hard to bring some light into the situation since life as a sorcerer is far from peaceful. If he finds you refreshing, then you find his character just as refreshing right back. 

“Girl, yes, show ‘em,” you cackle into your hand. Shoko grins at your words of encouragement and Gojo’s posture slumps at that. 

“No more expensive alcohol for you,” he huffs like an insolent toddler, folding his arms over his chest. Shoko doesn’t seem all that bothered, shrugging him off. 

“I’ve been meaning to swear off that stuff anyway.” At some point between all of the silly banter she’s tossed the butt of her cigarette away and admits that she’s finished another pack. 

“God, you really have to nip that nasty habit in the bud,” Gojo suggests with a sly little grin and a cock of his head. Shoko rolls her eyes. 

“Cry me a river. We all have our thing. Mine’s smoking. Yours is sweets. One step at a time or whatever,” she answers, brushing her hair behind her shoulder. “Are you two ready to go?”

“Where do you plan to keep all of those bags?” you query, and Gojo’s eyebrows flash. 

“I’ll take care of it,” he replies after considering your question. “Let me do that real quick, actually.”

Gojo strolls off with those items and returns just moments later with a thumbs up. Shoko has a look on her face that you almost want to call her out on but you decide to hold your tongue for the time being. You tap your foot on the earth beneath you as Gojo shuffles back to the two of you after storing away all of those various ‘goods’ he’s stocked up on that you can’t help but be a little curious about. Gojo tosses you a little grin and you find yourself grinning back, and as soon as that happens you can feel Shoko’s scrutiny seep deeper and deeper into your soul and you are absolutely tempted to call her out on it until Gojo speaks up.

“Okay, now I’m ready to go!” Gojo announces, his gaze fixing on you, which Shoko definitely takes into account as she’s still assessing you with that fucking look in her eyes that says ‘ nothing in it for you, huh? ’  “I was just kidding about the no expensive alcohol part, Shoko.”

“I figured,” Shoko chuckles, “Now stop eye fucking her and let’s go.”

You hide your face as it reddens an even darker shade, if that’s even possible at thai point.

“I-I was not!” Gojo blubbers and Shoko cackles back at his face as his posture slumps a bit again. Even if you're suppressing the urge to bust up laughing at his reaction, mostly because you do not expect it, acting like he’s been caught red handed doing something completely unforgivable. 

“Uh-huh,” Shoko scoffs as she saunters off with the two of you following close behind her. 

You catch Gojo sneaking a few glances at you. You don’t seem to mind that at all and are actually feeling your heart soar to the heavens. But you notice something else. Him inching a pinky toward yours. You try to bite back a little hint of a grin but fail, so you initiate, curling yours around his and you can hear the faintest sound of a contented sigh escape his lips. 

Shoko’s back is still to the both of you, her hips flouncing as she walks like she has no care for the world what the two of you do. You hope you’re not giving her the impression that she’s the third wheel because it’s not like the two of you are together or anything like that. As far as you know. You have already written off the possibility of you and Gojo ever being a thing. He’s so far out of your reach but he seems happy being all touchy with you like he is your boyfriend and for some reason you don’t have an issue with that. 

Well of course you don’t have an issue with that. This is the closest you’re ever going to get, and that’s perfectly all fine and good with you. Besides, you have reminded yourself that you’re not in it for yourself. Gojo is happy to have found some kind of comfort in you, and that’s your goal. 

“Sheesh, Shoko’s too eager to get absolutely shitfaced on all that beer,” Gojo leans in and whispers into your ear. “But she has the strongest alcohol tolerance I have ever seen. Reverse cursed technique is pretty dang awesome once you get the hang of it, but it’s easier said than done. Took me forever to figure out how to use it.”

”Are you gossiping about me back there, Satoru?” Shoko accuses as she tosses her head over her shoulder. 

“No ma’am,” he vows, “Just giving her the 411 on your drinking abilities.”

”So you’re admitting to gossiping, you useless shitstain,” Shoko snorts but she doesn’t seem to take it that seriously. You still aren’t sure what the dynamic is between them, but they do seem closer than everyone else here. 

“Oops!” Gojo hollers back at her with a little snicker. “Keep walking those thick ass fucking thighs of yours so we can get to our ride, pissface.”

”Oh, that’s a new one! And you wish you had these thighs, fuckface!” Shoko shouts with her tone laced in sarcasm as they approach the parking deck. She refuses to allow Gojo to ‘warp’ them everywhere. You have yet to experience what that’s like. Having cursed techniques like Gojo’s must come with so many perks like getting to mimic flying and shit. You still are not sure what you can do with your techniques.

Now you’re practically in stitches at their exchanges. They’re riots around each other. Shoko’s not kidding about there never being a dull moment, but why does she say so with it laced with some negative connotations? There must be something you’re missing in this picture but you’re not putting two and two together. All you know is that you enjoy Gojo’s company and Gojo enjoys your company just as much, and just because everyone else keeps their distance doesn’t mean that you have to because you don’t find Gojo burdensome like everyone around you seems to. Maybe there’s something there, something where you have yet to scratch the surface and unravel, but who the hell knows? 

As you follow Shoko, you don’t miss Gojo’s hand grazing your pinky now dropping to rest on the small of your back. You peer up at him with curiosity twinkling in your stare; what’s going on in his mind? Why’s he–? Suddenly that sharp prickle of goosebumps scatter across your arms as you catch onto some men staring you down around the block. 

Your eyes flit to different areas of the street ahead once you exit Jujutsu Tech grounds; is he trying to make a statement, or something? 

“Gojo?” you mutter, as you attempt to shy away from his touch. “No one’s going to try anything, you know?”

His mouth twitches as he glances down at you, slipping his hand away and allowing it to fall back to its side. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles back, “You never know with men , you know? You can trust me on that one.”

Should you have paid closer attention you may have caught onto the fact that he might be calling himself out there. But you shrug off his behavior as you finally approach where Shoko parked her sedan in one of the parking garages, but Gojo’s still on high alert, scouting any potential threats like you’re easy prey or something.

You just give him one final curious glance before hopping into the backseat, Gojo deciding to join you back there. Shoko starts her car and pulls out of the parking area, not before making some quip to Gojo about something you have no context over, and neither bother to fill you in on the topic. It’s probably not something that concerns you anyway; you’re going to focus on a night out with your friends.

And they are your friends. You’re glad Shoko considers you as one, and that Gojo thinks of you as one. Even if it is still way too intimate to call him Satoru for some reason no matter how much he insists you absolutely can call him that. You really are adjusting to life here a little better than you think, and while the progress may be gradual, you have a feeling it’s just going to get better for you from here.

[aceromanticperfection]

@razgriz95 I think it might be about this article.

The only other link between ‘Severance’ and Tumblr I recall was people thinking it was inspired by someone reading a @charlesoberonn post about the concept (at least I think it was him).

I know the O.P. is rephrasing the ‘Torment Nexus’ meme, but that in itself reminds me of how Roald Dahl essentially saw modern generative A.I. coming in 1954’s “The Great Automatic Grammatizator”:

“WELL, Knipe, my boy. Now that it’s finished, I just called you in to tell you I think you’ve done a fine job.”

Adolph Knipe stood still in front of Mr. Bohlen’s desk. There seemed to be no enthusiasm in him at all.

“Aren’t you pleased?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Bohlen.”

“Did you see what the papers said this morning?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

The man behind the desk pulled a folded newspaper towards him, and began to read:

“The building of the great automatic computing engine, ordered by the government some time ago, is now complete. It is probably the fastest electronic calculating machine in the world today. Its function is to satisfy the ever-increasing need of science, industry, and administration for rapid mathematical calculation which, in the past, by traditional methods, would have been physically impossible, or would have required more time than the problems justified. The speed with which the new engine works, said Mr. John Bohlen, head of the firm of electrical engineers mainly responsible for its construction, may be grasped by the fact that it can provide the correct answer in five seconds to a problem that would occupy a mathematician for a month. In three minutes, it can produce a calculation that by hand (if it were possible) would fill half a million sheets of foolscap paper. The automatic computing engine uses pulses of electricity, generated at the rate of a million a second, to solve all calculations that resolve themselves into addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. For practical purposes there is no limit to what it can do…”

Mr. Bohlen glanced up at the long, melancholy face of the younger man. “Aren’t you proud, Knipe? Aren’t you pleased?”

“Of course, Mr. Bohlen.”

“I don’t think I have to remind you that your own contribution, especially to the original plans, was an important one. In fact, I might go so far as to say that without you and some of your ideas, this project might still be on the drawing-boards today.”

Adolph Knipe moved his feet on the carpet, and he watched the two small white hands of his chief, the nervous fingers playing with a paperclip, unbending it, straightening out the hairpin curves. He didn’t like the man’s hands. He didn’t like his face either, with the tiny mouth and the narrow purple-coloured lips. It was unpleasant the way only the lower lip moved when he talked.

“Is anything bothering you, Knipe? Anything on your mind?”

“Oh no, Mr. Bohlen. No.”

“How would you like to take a week’s holiday? Do you good. You’ve earned it.”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir.”

The older man waited, watching this tall, thin person, who stood so sloppily before him. He was a difficult boy. Why couldn’t he stand up straight? Always drooping and untidy, with spots on his jacket, and hair falling all over his face.

“I’d like you to take a holiday, Knipe. You need it.”

“All right, sir. If you wish.”

“Take a week. Two weeks if you like. Go somewhere warm. Get some sunshine. Swim. Relax. Sleep. Then come back, and we’ll have another talk about the future.”

Adolph Knipe went home by bus to his two-room apartment. He threw his coat on the sofa, poured himself a drink of whiskey, and sat down in front of the typewriter that was on the table. Mr. Bohlen was right. Of course he was right. Except that he didn’t know the half of it. He probably thought it was a woman. Whenever a young man gets depressed, everybody thinks it’s a woman. He leaned forward and began to read through the half-finished sheet of typing still in the machine. It was headed “A Narrow Escape”, and it began “The night was dark and stormy, the wind whistled in the trees, the rain poured down like cats and dogs…”

Adolph Knipe took a sip of whiskey, tasting the malty-bitter flavour, feeling the trickle of cold liquid as it travelled down his throat and settled in the top of his stomach, cool at first, then spreading and becoming warm, making a little area of warmness in the gut. To hell with Mr. John Bohlen anyway. And to hell with the great electrical computing machine. To hell with…

At exactly that moment, his eyes and mouth began slowly to open, in a sort of wonder, and slowly he raised his head and became still, absolutely motionless, gazing at the wall opposite with this look that was more perhaps of astonishment than of wonder, but quite fixed now, unmoving, and remaining thus for forty, fifty, sixty seconds. Then gradually (the head still motionless), a subtle change spreading over the face, astonishment becoming pleasure, very slight at first, only around the corners of the mouth, increasing gradually, spreading out until at last the whole face was open wide and shining with extreme delight. It was the first time Adolph Knipe had smiled in many, many months.

“Of course,” he said, speaking aloud, “it’s completely ridiculous.” Again he smiled, raising his upper lip and baring his teeth in a queerly sensual manner.

“It’s a delicious idea, but so impracticable it doesn’t really bear thinking about at all.”

From then on, Adolph Knipe began to think about nothing else. The idea fascinated him enormously, at first because it gave him a promise—however remote—of revenging himself in a most devilish manner upon his greatest enemies. From this angle alone, he toyed idly with it for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes; then all at once he found himself examining it quite seriously as a practical possibility. He took paper and made some preliminary notes. But he didn’t get far. He found himself, almost immediately, up against the old truth that a machine, however ingenious, is incapable of original thought. It can handle no problems except those that resolve themselves into mathematical terms problems that contain one, and only one, correct answer.

This was a stumper. There didn’t seem any way around it. A machine cannot have a brain. On the other hand, it can have a memory, can it not? Their own electronic calculator had a marvellous memory. Simply by converting electric pulses, through a column of mercury, into supersonic waves, it could store away at least a thousand numbers at a time, extracting any one of them at the precise moment it was needed. Would it not be possible, therefore, on this principle, to build a memory section of almost unlimited size?

Now what about that? Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness! Given the words, and given the sense of what is to be said, then there is only one correct order in which those words can be arranged.

No, he thought, that isn’t quite accurate. In many sentences there are several alternative positions for words and phrases, all of which may be grammatically correct. But what the hell. The theory itself is basically true. Therefore, it stands to reason that an engine built along the lines of the electric computer could be adjusted to arrange words (instead of numbers) in their right order according to the rules of grammar. Give it the verbs, the nouns, the adjectives, the pronouns, store them in the memory section as a vocabulary, and arrange for them to be extracted as required. Then feed it with plots and leave it to write the sentences.

There was no stopping Knipe now. He went to work immediately, and there followed during the next few days a period of intense labour. The living-room became littered with sheets of paper: formulae and calculations; lists of words, thousands and thousands of words; the plots of stories, curiously broken up and subdivided; huge extracts from Roget’s Thesaurus; pages filled with the first names of men and women; hundreds of surnames taken from the telephone directory; intricate drawings of wires and circuits and switches and thermionic valves; drawings of machines that could punch holes of different shapes in little cards, and of a strange electric typewriter that could type ten thousand words a minute. Also a kind of control panel with a series of small push-buttons, each one labelled with the name of a famous American magazine.

He was working in a mood of exultation, prowling around the room amidst this littering of paper, rubbing his hands together, talking out loud to himself; and sometimes, with a sly curl of the nose he would mutter a series of murderous imprecations in which the word “editor” seemed always to be present. On the fifteenth day of continuous work, he collected the papers into two large folders which he carried—almost at a run—to the offices of John Bohlen Inc., electrical engineers.

Mr. Bohlen was pleased to see him back. “Well, Knipe, good gracious me, you look a hundred per cent better. You have a good holiday? Where’d you go?”

He’s just as ugly and untidy as ever, Mr. Bohlen thought. Why doesn’t he stand up straight? He looks like a bent stick. “You look a hundred per cent better, my boy.” I wonder what he’s grinning about. Every time I see him, his ears seem to have got larger.

Adolph Knipe placed the folders on the desk. “Look, Mr. Bohlen!” he cried. “Look at these!”

Then he poured out his story. He opened the folders and pushed the plans in front of the astonished little man. He talked for over an hour, explaining everything, and when he had finished, he stepped back, breathless, flushed, waiting for the verdict.

“You know what I think, Knipe? I think you’re nuts.” Careful now, Mr. Bohlen told himself. Treat him carefully. He’s valuable, this one is. If only he didn’t look so awful, with that long horse face and the big teeth. The fellow had ears as big as rhubarb leaves.

“But Mr. Bohlen! It’ll work! I’ve proved to you it’ll work! You can’t deny that!”

“Take it easy now, Knipe. Take it easy, and listen to me.”

Adolph Knipe watched his man, disliking him more every second.

“This idea,” Mr. Bohlen’s lower lip was saying, “is very ingenious—I might almost say brilliant—and it only goes to confirm my opinion of your abilities, Knipe. But don’t take it too seriously. After all, my boy, what possible use can it be to us? Who on earth wants a machine for writing stories? And where’s the money in it, anyway? Just tell me that.”

“May I sit down, sir?”

“Sure, take a seat.”

Adolph Knipe seated himself on the edge of a chair. The older man watched him with alert brown eyes, wondering what was coming now.

“I would like to explain something, Mr. Bohlen, if I may, about how I came to do all this.”

“Go right ahead, Knipe.” He would have to be humoured a little now, Mr. Bohlen told himself. The boy was really valuable—a sort of genius, almost—worth his weight in gold to the firm. Just look at these papers here. Darndest thing you ever saw. Astonishing piece of work. Quite useless, of course. No commercial value. But it proved again the boy’s ability.

“It’s a sort of confession, I suppose, Mr. Bohlen. I think it explains why I’ve always been so ... so kind of worried.”

“You tell me anything you want, Knipe. I’m here to help you—you know that.”

The young man clasped his hands together tight on his lap, hugging himself with his elbows. It seemed as though suddenly he was feeling very cold.

“You see, Mr. Bohlen, to tell the honest truth, I don’t really care much for my work here. I know I’m good at it and all that sort of thing, but my heart’s not in it. It’s not what I want to do most.”

Up went Mr. Bohlen’s eyebrows, quick like a spring. His whole body became very still.

“You see, sir, all my life I’ve wanted to be a writer.”

“A writer!”

“Yes, Mr Bohlen. You may not believe it, but every bit of spare time I’ve had, I’ve spent writing stories. In the last ten years I’ve written hundreds, literally hundreds of short stories. Five hundred and sixty-six, to be precise. Approximately one a week.”

“Good heavens, man! What on earth did you do that for?”

“All I know, sir, is I have the urge.”

“What sort of urge?”

“The creative urge, Mr. Bohlen.” Every time he looked up he saw Mr. Bohlen’s lips.

They were growing thinner and thinner, more and more purple.

“And may I ask you what you do with these stories, Knipe?”

“Well, sir, that’s the trouble. No one will buy them. Each time I finish one, I send it out on the rounds. It goes to one magazine after another. That’s all that happens, Mr. Bohlen, and they simply send them back. It’s very depressing.”

Mr. Bohlen relaxed. “I can see quite well how you feel, my boy.” His voice was dripping with sympathy. “We all go through it one time or another in our lives. But now—now that you’ve had proof—positive proof—from the experts themselves, from the editors, that your stories are—what shall I say—rather unsuccessful, it’s time to leave off. Forget it, my boy. Just forget all about it.”

“No, Mr. Bohlen! No! That’s not true! I know my stories are good. My heavens, when you compare them with the stuff some of those magazines print—oh my word, Mr. Bohlen!—the sloppy, boring stuff that you see in the magazines week after week—why, it drives me mad!”

“Now wait a minute, my boy…”

“Do you ever read the magazines, Mr. Bohlen?”

“You’ll pardon me, Knipe, but what’s all this got to do with your machine?”

“Everything, Mr. Bohlen, absolutely everything! What I want to tell you is, I’ve made a study of magazines, and it seems that each one tends to have its own particular type of story. The writers—the successful ones—know this, and they write accordingly.”

“Just a minute, my boy. Calm yourself down, will you. I don’t think all this is getting us anywhere.”

“Please, Mr Bohlen, hear me through. It’s all terribly important.” He paused to catch his breath. He was properly worked up now, throwing his hands around as he talked. The long, toothy face, with the big ears on either side, simply shone with enthusiasm, and there was an excess of saliva in his mouth which caused him to speak his words wet.

“So you see, on my machine, by having an adjustable co-ordinator between the ‘plot-memory’ section and the ‘word-memory’ section I am able to produce any type of story I desire simply by pressing the required button.”

“Yes, I know, Knipe, I know. This is all very interesting, but what’s the point of it?”

“Just this, Mr Bohlen. The market is limited. We’ve got to be able to produce the right stuff, at the right time, whenever we want it. It’s a matter of business, that’s all. I’m looking at it from your point of view now—as a commercial proposition.”

“My dear boy, it can’t possibly be a commercial proposition—ever. You know as well as I do what it costs to build one of these machines.”

“Yes, sir, I do. But with due respect, I don’t believe you know what the magazines pay writers for stories.”

“What do they pay?”

“Anything up to twenty-five hundred dollars. It probably averages around a thousand.”

Mr. Bohlen jumped.

“Yes, sir, it’s true.”

“Absolutely impossible, Knipe! Ridiculous!”

“No, sir, it’s true.”

“You mean to sit there and tell me that these magazines pay out money like that to a man for ... just for scribbling off a story! Good heavens, Knipe! Whatever next! Writers must all be millionaires!”

“That’s exactly it, Mr. Bohlen! That’s where the machine comes in. Listen a minute, sir, while I tell you some more. I’ve got it all worked out. The big magazines are carrying approximately three fiction stories in each issue. Now, take the fifteen most important magazines—the ones paying the most money. A few of them are monthlies, but most of them come out every week. All right. That makes, let us say, around forty big stories being bought each week. That’s forty thousand dollars. So with our machine—when we get it working properly—we can collar nearly the whole of this market!”

“My dear boy, you’re mad!”

“No, sir, honestly, it’s true what I say. Don’t you see that with volume alone we’ll completely overwhelm them! This machine can produce a five-thousand-word story, all typed and ready for dispatch, in thirty seconds. How can the writers compete with that? I ask you, Mr. Bohlen, how?”

At that point, Adolph Knipe noticed a slight change in the man’s expression, an extra brightness in the eyes, the nostrils distending, the whole face becoming still, almost rigid. Quickly, he continued. “Nowadays, Mr. Bohlen, the hand-made article hasn’t a hope. It can’t possibly compete with mass-production, especially in this country—you know that. Carpets…chairs…shoes…bricks…crockery…anything you like to mention—they’re all made by machinery now. The quality may be inferior, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the cost of production that counts. And stories—well—they’re just another product, like carpets and chairs, and no one cares how you produce them so long as you deliver the goods. We’ll sell them wholesale, Mr. Bohlen! We’ll undercut every writer in the country! We’ll corner the market!”

Mr. Bohlen edged up straighter in his chair. He was leaning forward now, both elbows on the desk, the face alert, the small brown eyes resting on the speaker.

“I still think it’s impracticable, Knipe.”

“Forty thousand a week!” cried Adolph Knipe. “And if we halve the price, making it twenty thousand a week, that’s still a million a year!” And softly he added, “You didn’t get any million a year for building the old electronic calculator, did you, Mr. Bohlen?”

“But seriously now, Knipe. D’you really think they’d buy them?”

“Listen, Mr. Bohlen. Who on earth is going to want custom-made stories when they can get the other kind at half the price? It stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

“And how will you sell them? Who will you say has written them?”

“We’ll set up our own literary agency, and we’ll distribute them through that. And we’ll invent all the names we want for the writers.”

“I don’t like it, Knipe. To me, that smacks of trickery, does it not?”

“And another thing, Mr. Bohlen. There’s all manner of valuable by-products once you’ve got started. Take advertising, for example. Beer manufacturers and people like that are willing to pay good money these days if famous writers will lend their names to their products. Why, my heavens, Mr. Bohlen! This isn’t any children’s plaything we’re talking about. It’s big business.”

“Don’t get too ambitious, my boy.”

“And another thing. There isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t put your name, Mr. Bohlen, on some of the better stories, if you wished it.”

“My goodness, Knipe. What should I want that for?”

“I don’t know, sir, except that some writers get to be very much respected—like Mr. Eric Gardner or Kathleen Morris, for example. We’ve got to have names, and I was certainly thinking of using my own on one or two stories, just to help out.”

“A writer, eh?” Mr. Bohlen said, musing. “Well, it would surely surprise them over at the club when they saw my name in the magazines—the good magazines.”

That’s right, Mr. Bohlen!”

For a moment, a dreamy, faraway look came into Mr. Bohlen’s eyes, and he smiled. Then he stirred himself and began leafing through the plans that lay before him.

“One thing I don’t quite understand, Knipe. Where do the plots come from? The machine can’t possibly invent plots.”

“We feed those in, sir. That’s no problem at all. Everyone has plots. There’s three or four hundred of them written down in that folder there on your left. Feed them straight into the ‘plot-memory’ section of the machine.”

“Go on.”

“There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You’ll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there’s a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There’ll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose.”

“Where?”

“In the ‘word-memory’ section,” he said, epexegetically.

Through most of that day the two men discussed the possibilities of the new engine. In the end, Mr. Bohlen said he would have to think about it some more. The next morning, he was quietly enthusiastic. Within a week, he was completely sold on the idea.

“What we’ll have to do, Knipe, is to say that we’re merely building another mathematical calculator, but of a new type. That’ll keep the secret.”

“Exactly, Mr. Bohlen.”

And in six months the machine was completed. It was housed in a separate brick building at the back of the premises, and now that it was ready for action, no one was allowed near it excepting Mr. Bohlen and Adolph Knipe.

It was an exciting moment when the two men—the one, short, plump, breviped—the other tall, thin and toothy—stood in the corridor before the control panel and got ready to run off the first story. All around them were walls dividing up into many small corridors, and the walls were covered with wiring and plugs and switches and huge glass valves. They were both nervous, Mr. Bohlen hopping from one foot to the other, quite unable to keep still.

“Which button?” Adolph Knipe asked, eyeing a row of small white discs that resembled the keys of a typewriter. “You choose, Mr Bohlen. Lots of magazines to pick from—Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Ladies’ Home Journal—any one you like.”

“Goodness me, boy! How do I know?” He was jumping up and down like a man with hives.

“Mr. Bohlen,” Adolph Knipe said gravely, “do you realize that at this moment, with your little finger alone, you have it in your power to become the most versatile writer on this continent?”

“Listen, Knipe, just get on with it, will you please—and cut out the preliminaries.”

“OK, Mr. Bohlen. Then we’ll make it... let me see—this one. How’s that?” He extended one finger and pressed down a button with the name TODAY’S WOMAN printed across it in diminutive black type. There was a sharp click, and when he took his finger away, the button remained down, below the level of the others.

“So much for the selection,” he said. “Now—here we go!” He reached up and pulled a switch on the panel. Immediately, the room was filled with a loud humming noise, and a crackling of electric sparks, and the jingle of many, tiny, quickly moving levers; and almost in the same instant, sheets of quarto paper began sliding out from a slot to the right of the control panel and dropping into a basket below. They came out quick, one sheet a second, and in less than half a minute it was all over. The sheets stopped coming.

“That’s it!” Adolph Knipe cried. “There’s your story!”

They grabbed the sheets and began to read. The first one they picked up started as follows:“Aifkjmbsaoegweztp-pl-nvoqudskigt&,-fuhpekanvbertyuiolkjhgfdsazxcvbnm,pe-ru itrehdjkg mvnb,wmsuy…”

They looked at the others. The style was roughly similar in all of them. Mr. Bohlen began to shout. The younger man tried to calm him down.

“It’s all right, sir. Really it is. It only needs a little adjustment. We’ve got a connection wrong somewhere, that’s all. You must remember, Mr. Bohlen, there’s over a million feet of wiring in this room. You can’t expect everything to be right first time.”

“It’ll never work,” Mr. Bohlen said.

“Be patient, sir. Be patient.”

Adolph Knipe set out to discover the fault, and in four days’ time he announced that all was ready for the next try.

“It’ll never work,” Mr. Bohlen said. “I know it’ll never work.”

Knipe smiled and pressed the selector button marked READER’S DIGEST. Then he pulled the switch, and again the strange, exciting, humming sound filled the room. One page of typescript flew out of the slot into the basket.

“Where’s the rest?” Mr Bohlen cried. “It’s stopped! It’s gone wrong!”

“No sir, it hasn’t. It’s exactly right. It’s for the Digest, don’t you see?”

This time it began. “Fewpeopleyetknowthatarevolution-ary-ewcurehasbeendiscoveredwhichmaywell-bringperma-nent-relieftosufferersofthemostdreadeddiseaseofourtime...” And so on.

“It’s gibberish!” Mr. Bohlen shouted.

“No, sir, it’s fine. Can’t you see? It’s simply that she’s not breaking up the words. That’s an easy adjustment. But the story’s there. Look, Mr. Bohlen, look! It’s all there except that the words are joined together.”

And indeed it was.

On the next try a few days later, everything was perfect, even the punctuation. The first story they ran off, for a famous women’s magazine, was a solid, plotty story of a boy who wanted to better himself with his rich employer. This boy arranged, so that story went, for a friend to hold up the rich man’s daughter on a dark night when she was driving home. Then the boy himself, happening by, knocked the gun out of his friend’s hand and rescued the girl. The girl was grateful. But the father was suspicious. He questioned the boy sharply. The boy broke down and confessed. Then the father, instead of kicking him out of the house, said that he admired the boy’s resourcefulness. The girl admired his honesty—and his looks. The father promised him to be head of the Accounts Department. The girl married him.

“It’s tremendous, Mr. Bohlen! It’s exactly right!”

“Seems a bit sloppy to me, my boy!”

“No, sir, it’s a seller, a real seller!”

In his excitement, Adolph Knipe promptly ran off six more stories in as many minutes. All of them—except one, which for some reason came out a trifle lewd—seemed entirely satisfactory.

Mr. Bohlen was now mollified. He agreed to set up a literary agency in an office downtown, and to put Knipe in charge. In a couple of weeks, this was accomplished. Then Knipe mailed out the first dozen stories. He put his own name to four of them, Mr. Bohlen’s to one, and for the others he simply invented names.

Five of these stories were promptly accepted. The one with Mr. Bohlen’s name on it was turned down with a letter from the fiction editor saying, “This is a skilful job, but in our opinion it doesn’t quite come off. We would like to see more of this writer’s work…”

Adolph Knipe took a cab out to the factory and ran off another story for the same magazine. He again put Mr. Bohlen’s name to it, and mailed it immediately. That one they bought.

The money started pouring in. Knipe slowly and carefully stepped up the output, and in six months’ time he was delivering thirty stories a week, and selling about half.

He began to make a name for himself in literary circles as a prolific and successful writer. So did Mr. Bohlen; but not quite such a good name, although he didn’t know it. At the same time, Knipe was building up a dozen or more fictitious persons as promising young authors. Everything was going fine.

At this point it was decided to adapt the machine for writing novels as well as stories. Mr. Bohlen, thirsting now for greater honours in the literary world, insisted that Knipe go to work at once on this prodigious task.

“I want to do a novel,” he kept saying. “I want to do a novel.”

“And so you will, sir. And so you will. But please be patient. This is a very complicated

adjustment I have to make.”

“Everyone tells me I ought to do a novel,” Mr. Bohlen cried. All sorts of publishers are chasing after me day and night begging me to stop fooling around with stories and do something really important instead. A novel’s the only thing that counts—that’s what they say.”

“We’re going to do novels,” Knipe told him. “Just as many as we want. But please be patient.”

“Now listen to me, Knipe. What I’m going to do is a serious novel, something that’ll make ’em sit up and take notice. I’ve been getting rather tired of the sort of stories you’ve been putting my name to lately. As a matter of fact, I’m none too sure you haven’t been trying to make a monkey out of me.”

“A monkey, Mr. Bohlen?”

“Keeping all the best ones for yourself, that’s what you’ve been doing.”

“Oh no, Mr. Bohlen! No!”

“So this time I’m going to make damn sure I write a high class intelligent book. You understand that.”

“Look, Mr. Bohlen. With the sort of switchboard I’m rigging up, you’ll be able to write any sort of book you want.”

And this was true, for within another couple of months, the genius of Adolph Knipe had not only adapted the machine for novel writing, but had constructed a marvellous new control system which enabled the author to pre-select literally any type of plot and any style of writing he desired. There were so many dials and levers on the thing, it looked like the instrument panel of some enormous aeroplane.

First, by depressing one of a series of master buttons, the writer made his primary decision: historical, satirical, philosophical, political, romantic, erotic, humorous, or straight. Then, from the second row (the basic buttons), he chose his theme: army life, pioneer days, civil war, world war, racial problem, wild west, country life, childhood memories, seafaring, the sea bottom and many, many more. The third row of buttons gave a choice of literary style: classical, whimsical, racy, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, feminine, etc. The fourth row was for characters, the fifth for wordage—and so on and so on—ten long rows of pre-selector buttons.

But that wasn’t all. Control had also to be exercised during the actual writing process (which took about fifteen minutes per novel), and to do this the author had to sit, as it were, in the driver’s seat, and pull (or push) a battery of labelled stops, as on an organ. By so doing, he was able continually to modulate or merge fifty different and variable qualities such as tension, surprise, humour, pathos, and mystery. Numerous dials and gauges on the dashboard itself told him throughout exactly how far along he was with his work.

Finally, there was the question of “passion”. From a careful study of the books at the top of the best-seller lists for the past year, Adolph Knipe had decided that this was the most important ingredient of all—a magical catalyst that somehow or other could transform the dullest novel into a howling success—at any rate financially. But Knipe also knew that passion was powerful, heady stuff, and must be prudently dispensed—the right proportions at the right moments; and to ensure this, he had devised an independent control consisting of two sensitive sliding adjusters operated by foot-pedals, similar to the throttle and brake in a car. One pedal governed the percentage of passion to be injected, the other regulated its intensity. There was no doubt, of course—and this was the only drawback—that the writing of a novel by the Knipe methods was going to be rather like flying a plane and driving a car and playing an organ all at the same time, but this did not trouble the inventor. When all was ready, he proudly escorted Mr. Bohlen into the machine house and began to explain the operating procedure for the new wonder.

“Good God, Knipe! I’ll never be able to do all that! Dammit, man, it’d be easier to write the thing by hand!”

“You’ll soon get used to it, Mr. Bohlen, I promise you. In a week or two, you’ll be doing it without hardly thinking. It’s just like learning to drive.”

Well, it wasn’t quite as easy as that, but after many hours of practice, Mr. Bohlen began to get the hang of it, and finally, late one evening, he told Knipe to make ready for running off the first novel. It was a tense moment, with the fat little man crouching nervously in the driver’s seat, and the tall toothy Knipe fussing excitedly around him.

“I intend to write an important novel, Knipe.”

“I’m sure you will, sir. I’m sure you will.”

With one finger, Mr Bohlen carefully pressed the necessary pre-selector buttons:

Master button—satirical

Subject—racial problem

Style—classical

Characters—six men, four women, one infant

Length—fifteen chapters.

At the same time he had his eye particularly upon three organ stops marked power, mystery, profundity.

“Are you ready, sir?”

“Yes, yes, I’m ready.”

Knipe pulled the switch. The great engine hummed. There was a deep whirring sound from the oiled movement of fifty thousand cogs and rods and levers; then came the drumming of the rapid electrical typewriter, setting up a shrill, almost intolerable clatter. Out into the basket flew the typewritten pages—one every two seconds. But what with the noise and the excitement and having to play upon the stops, and watch the chapter-counter and the pace-indicator and the passion-gauge, Mr. Bohlen began to panic. He reacted in precisely the way a learner driver does in a car—by pressing both feet hard down on the pedals and keeping them there until the thing stopped.

“Congratulations on your first novel,” Knipe said, picking up the great bundle of typed pages from the basket.

Little pearls of sweat were oozing out all over Mr. Bohlen’s face. “It sure was hard work, my boy.”

“But you got it done, sir. You got it done.”

“Let me see it, Knipe. How does it read?”

He started to go through the first chapter, passing each finished page to the younger man.

“Good heavens, Knipe! What’s this?” Mr. Bohlen’s thin purple fish-lip was moving slightly as it mouthed the words, his cheeks were beginning slowly to inflate.

“But look here, Knipe! This is outrageous!”

“I must say it’s a bit fruity, sir.”

“Fruity! It’s perfectly revolting! I can’t possibly put my name to this!”

“Quite right, sir. Quite right!”

“Knipe! Is this some nasty trick you’ve been playing on me?”

“Oh no, sir! No!”

“It certainly looks like it.”

“You don’t think, Mr. Bohlen, that you mightn’t have been pressing a little hard on the passion-control pedals, do you?”

“My dear boy, how should I know?”

“Why don’t you try another?”

So Mr. Bohlen ran off a second novel, and this time it went according to plan. Within a week, the manuscript had been read and accepted by an enthusiastic publisher. Knipe followed with one in his own name, then made a dozen more for good measure. In no time at all, Adolph Knipe’s Literary Agency had become famous for its large stable of promising young novelists. And once again the money started rolling in.

It was at this stage that young Knipe began to display a real talent for big business.

“See here, Mr. Bohlen,” he said. “We’ve still got too much competition. Why don’t we just absorb all the other writers in the country?”

Mr. Bohlen, who now sported a bottle-green velvet jacket and allowed his hair to cover two-thirds of his ears, was quite content with things the way they were. “Don’t know what you mean, my boy. You can’t just absorb writers.”

“Of course you can, sir. Exactly like Rockefeller did with his oil companies. Simply buy ’em out, and if they won’t sell, squeeze ‘em out. It’s easy!”

“Careful now, Knipe. Be careful.”

“I’ve got a list here sir, of fifty of the most successful writers in the country, and what I intend to do is offer each one of them a lifetime contract with pay. All they have to do is undertake never to write another word; and, of course, to let us use their names on our own stuff. How about that?”

“They’ll never agree.”

“You don’t know writers, Mr. Bohlen. You watch and see.”

“What about the creative urge, Knipe?”

“It’s bunk! All they’re really interested in is the money—just like everybody else.”

In the end, Mr. Bohlen reluctantly agreed to give it a try, and Knipe, with his list of writers in his pocket, went off in a large chauffeur-driven Cadillac to make his calls.

He journeyed first to the man at the top of the list, a very great and wonderful writer, and he had no trouble getting into the house. He told his story and produced a suitcase full of sample novels, and a contract for the man to sign which guaranteed him so much a year for life. The man listened politely, decided he was dealing with a lunatic, gave him a drink, then firmly showed him to the door.

The second writer on the list, when he saw Knipe was serious, actually attacked him with a large metal paperweight, and the inventor had to flee down the garden followed by such a torrent of abuse and obscenity as he had never heard before.

But it took more than this to discourage Adolph Knipe. He was disappointed but not dismayed, and off he went in his big car to seek his next client. This one was a female, famous and popular, whose fat romantic books sold by the million across the country. She received Knipe graciously, gave him tea, and listened attentively to his story.

“It all sounds very fascinating,” she said. “But of course I find it a little hard to believe.”

“Madam,” Knipe answered. “Come with me and see it with your own eyes. My car awaits you.”

So off they went, and in due course, the astonished lady was ushered into the machine house where the wonder was kept. Eagerly, Knipe explained its workings, and after a while he even permitted her to sit in the driver’s seat and practise with the buttons.

“All right,” he said suddenly, “you want to do a book now?”

“Oh yes!” she cried. “Please!”

She was very competent and seemed to know exactly what she wanted. She made her own pre-selections, then ran off a long, romantic, passion-filled novel. She read through the first chapter and became so enthusiastic that she signed up on the spot.

“That’s one of them out of the way,” Knipe said to Mr Bohlen afterwards. “A pretty big one too.”

“Nice work, my boy.”

“And you know why she signed?”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t the money. She’s got plenty of that.”

“Then why?”

Knipe grinned, lifting his lip and baring a long pale upper gum. “Simply because she saw the machine-made stuff was better than her own.”

Thereafter, Knipe wisely decided to concentrate only upon mediocrity. Anything better than that—and there were so few it didn’t matter much—was apparently not quite so easy to seduce.

In the end, after several months of work, he had persuaded something like seventy per cent of the writers on his list to sign the contract. He found that the older ones, those who were running out of ideas and had taken to drink, were the easiest to handle. The younger people were more troublesome. They were apt to become abusive, sometimes violent when he approached them; and more than once Knipe was slightly injured on his rounds.

But on the whole, it was a satisfactory beginning. This last year—the first full year of the machine’s operation—it was estimated that at least one half of all the novels and stories published in the English language were produced by Adolph Knipe upon the Great Automatic Grammatizator.

Does this surprise you?

I doubt it.

And worse is yet to come. Today, as the secret spreads, many more are hurrying to tie up with Mr. Knipe. And all the time the screw turns tighter for those who hesitate to sign their names.

This very moment, as I sit here listening to the howling of my nine starving children in the other room, I can feel my own hand creeping closer and closer to that golden contract that lies over on the other side of the desk.

Give us strength, Oh Lord, to let our children starve.

At long last, we have created Severance from the classic sci-fi series Don't Create Severance.

[persephone-writes]

A Diviner's Guide to James Potter

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Hourglass

James Potter x Fem!Gryffindor!Reader

Chapter Twenty-Two ☆ Series Masterlist

Description: You try your best to help Sirius with his brother, even if it means trusting your abilities in Divination more than ever before.

Word Count: 7.9k

You were unable to find Sirius, at least while you were in Hogsmeade. After a few hours meandering around the village with only a vague interest in the shops, James, Peter, and Remus went back to the Three Broomsticks to see if Sirius was drowning his sorrows in butterbeer…or a half dozen shots of firewhiskey. You and Lily split up to check the shrieking shack, however unlikely it may be that he would go there of all places, and Marlene and Dorcas walked the streets as a last ditch effort. None of you were able to locate him. 

With a dark cloud hanging over your heads, you all left Hogsmeade in the early evening before dinner, your steps slow and dragging down the path towards the castle. As she had done while you searched the shack, Lily tried to look on the bright side of things. 

“It’s probably a good sign we haven’t found him. It means he’s probably still with his brother.”

James, whose hands were shoved into his pockets and his head hung, lifted his face for a second, his eyes finding hers. “Or it went badly and he's gone to hide.”

“Do you really think Regulus would attack him?” Marlene asked in a whisper. 

“Not that kind of hiding,” James muttered, his gaze finding the ground once again. 

Remus kicked a pebble with the tip of his shoe, sending it skidding along the path before it fell into the grass, hidden within the green. “He’ll be back tonight,” was all he said, his voice betraying his hopeful words. 

The short conversation hit another lull, leaving you to stew in your own thoughts, however melancholy they may be. You wished you had a prediction, an inkling, anything to tell you what would happen with Regulus, though you were just as blind as everyone else. You could try, you supposed, stealing another few eggs from the kitchens or borrowing Steve Zielinski’s crystal ball. Even so, you had serious doubts that your elementary skills would result in anything substantial in the way of Regulus’s future. 

You all went straight to the Great Hall with the measly hope you’d find Sirius already sitting at the table, though he was nowhere to be found. It was lively tonight, fueled by Hogsmeade and the promise of no classes the following morning, though your group added nothing to the exuberance. You ate in relative silence, save for the sound of Remus repeatedly stabbing slices of pork chops with the thick metal prongs to add onto his plate. You lingered there until the very last scattering of students began to get up to leave, your group eventually following.

“I wonder where he is,” Marlene mumbled, her voice barely discernible despite the fact that you were standing right beside her. 

You trudged up the staircase towards the tower, trying to think of a suitable thing to say. You had no clue where he could be, if he was still with his brother or not, or if James was right and he was tucked away somewhere wallowing in the agony of his brother's future. You didn’t dare bring up the latter point again, not when you could see the hurt behind Marlene’s eyes. You hadn’t pressed her on the topic of Sirius lately, though you had a good enough idea that it was bothering her more than she was letting on. 

“Remus is right,” you began, speaking close to her ear. “He’ll be back tonight.”

☆  ─────── ₒ*ₒ☾   ☽ₒ*ₒ ───────  ☆

It was another early morning on Sunday, though a dream had not been what awoke you. Dorcas was snoring again, having forgotten to cast a silencing charm. Marlene and Lily appeared unaffected, neither stirring behind the curtains of their four-posters. It was a wasted effort to fall back asleep, so you gave in to the early morning sunlight. You dressed for the day, lugging your books into the common room like you had done a thousand times before, hoping that you could make some use of your extra time. 

Sirius had not come back the previous night, at least not to the common room before you went to bed. You assumed he must have staggered up to his room at some point, the need to sleep likely overpowering his desire to self isolate. 

Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of him as you set your books on to one of the common room tables, flattening out a roll of parchment as you flipped one open. You’d have to actually practice Transfiguration later, though notes would do for now. It was as good a way as any to rid your mind of what your friends had said to you the day before, Lily’s words breaking through most of all. “Even if you don’t have the sight, you’re gifted, more than you give yourself credit for.” Trusting one’s gut was always a good thing, though their confidence in your abilities was reaching James-level trust. You couldn’t even figure out your own future, much less anyone else’s. Lily always was too kind to you. 

Your quill tapped against your parchment as your eyes glazed across the same sentence over and over, your mind refusing to accept the words into recognition. Like a fist banging on a door, your problems would not allow you to focus on anything else. You couldn’t shake what you had thought the evening before, the ideas that had popped into your head on the way back to the castle…

You didn’t bother removing your things from the common room, rather gathering them into a neat pile and shoving it to the far side of the table. Without much of a plan other than going to the kitchens, you left the tower, making the long trek down to the basement. The castle was completely silent, though the kitchens were anything but.

As soon as you pushed open the painting you were met with various clatters coming from the far rooms, the house elves moving swiftly to and from the pantry, weaving around one another as if they could predict the others movements. Silver trays floated in the air behind them, bags of flour sent flurries of powder as they were plopped onto the floor, whisks spun rapidly in massive bowls of batter. It was controlled chaos, and you only hoped that your presence wouldn’t push it over the edge into complete disarray. 

“Excuse me,” you muttered as you tried to walk between them, though you were less talented at knowing just where they were about to step than they were. A few looked up at you with furrowed, irritated brows, others ignoring you completely. 

It was only when you made it to the pantry that you heard the sound of your name. You spun around, finding Isby staring at you from across the room, her large ears pulled back. 

“Isby,” you said, trying to soften her hardened eyes. Her hands were on her hips, her little feet stomping towards you as you smiled. “Good morning.”

“Miss L/N never said she would not be returning,” she grumbled, glaring up at you. “I hads to call on the Headmaster, I was so worried.”

The regret over forgetting about Isby hit you instantly like a cannonball to your chest. In all honesty, you thought she’d be happy not to have so many students piling into the kitchens so often. 

“I’m sorry, Isby,” you said, trying your best to show your sincerity. “I didn’t know you’d worry.”

“Professor Dumbledore put Isby in charge of your care in the kitchens. Isby takes her job very seriously,” she said, crossing her arms. 

“Everythings all right now,” you said, though you weren’t sure how truthful that really was. “Professor Dumbledore had it taken care of.”

“Taken care of,” she said under her breath, her large eyes darting across the floor. She glanced up again, her ears shifting back to their normal position. “I has forgiven you.”

You smiled warmly, crouching down to meet her at eye level. “Thank you, Isby, for everything.”

“Miss L/N must stay out of trouble,” she began, briefly looking around at the other house elves, still bustling around the room. “Isby must go.”

You stood back up, watching as she disappeared in the pandemonium, which now appeared more like a hive of busy bees than house elves. 

You gathered a few eggs, a bowl, and a pastry for later, wrapping it up in a napkin before making yourself a small space at one of the house elf sized tables, smiling at the memory of sitting there with James. You didn’t let yourself think of it long, focusing instead on the task at hand. 

Setting the bowl in front of you, you thought of Regulus as you cracked the first egg above it, imagining Sirius running towards him through the Hogsmeade bustle. You peered down, watching as it splattered against the sides. You hummed to yourself, searching for any discernable shape or pattern that you recognized from your textbooks, though at first glance, you noticed nothing. Maybe ovomancy wasn’t for you. 

After a few more minutes of trying to make out some sign, you gave up, waving your wand and getting rid of the first egg. The kitchen was still loud, filled with the hissing sound of sausages and eggs frying followed shortly by their smell, the oven doors opening and slamming shut over and over, the pitter-patter of a hundred little feet flying across the stone floors. You rested your elbows on your knees, your head falling into your hands as you tried to shut it all out. With your eyes closed, you tried to think of Regulus again, this time imagining something you hadn’t seen. 

Regulus, his black hair slicked neatly back, his grey eyes like storm clouds, a color you could see even from passing him in busy corridors, his pale arm, held out as a wand touched his skin, an inky mark creeping its way onto the surface, the same one you had seen in the Prophet, suspended in the sky above the scene of a wicked crime.

Quickly, you opened your eyes, grabbing the second egg and cracking it a ways above the bowl. It splattered in the same manner, hitting the bottom before moving up the sides like waves in a tempest, nearly spilling over the lip. Your keen eyes stared as it settled, shifting back and forth before slowing, the clear white marbling in the broken yolk. Just when you thought it was finished, the deep yellow began to swirl once more, refusing to remain stagnant as its predecessor had. You held your breath without meaning to, your jaw clenching as it took a new shape, forming with other wayward blobs to create new masses, separating from others in the opposite manner. In a few seconds, you could see the picture it was forming, distinct against the white of the egg. An hourglass. 

With a quivering hand you flicked your wand again, the egg disappearing and leaving the bowl clean. You could feel your breath shuddering too, your eyes staring blankly at the kitchen in front of you. Without much thought, you grabbed your pastry, forgetting the bowl as you walked from the kitchen out into the basement corridor, your mind mostly blank. You felt half asleep as you made your way back to the common room, your feet feeling as if you had heavy, metal boots on, like the ones on the knights in the Entrance Hall. You weren’t sure you had gotten anything clearer in your entire life, and for whatever reason, it frightened you beyond belief. 

When you made it back to the common room there were only a few students mulling about, their curious eyes following you as you went over to the table where your things were piled, taking them into your arms before you flew up the stairs to the girl’s dormitories. Ever since the public display of near-violence between James, Sirius, and Zephyr, it was difficult to shake your housemates' newfound interest in you. Still, you were thankful no one seemed to be brave enough to press you on it, ironically enough. You likely had James to thank for that. 

Your roommates were awake when you slammed the door behind you, the pastry still clucked between a napkin in your hand. They all stared at you, each with the same perplexed expression. 

“Where’ve you been?” Lily asked, folding up a jumper to put back into her trunk. 

“Studying,” you said, motioning with your books. You looked down into your other hand, noticing the pastry had been all but decimated. “Went to the kitchens, too. Do you want this, Dorcas?”

She smiled, waltzing over to take the pastry from you, not phased by the fact that it had been flattened. “This’ll hold me over,” she chuckled, taking a bite out of it. 

You dropped your books off at your desk before getting ready for breakfast, even though you had already done everything you needed to this morning. Your friends waited patiently as you idled in the lavatory, saying nothing as you paced the small room. You ran the faucet, just so it would sound like you were doing something rather than wasting their time. You hadn’t the mind to feel guilty about it, staring at your reflection in the mirror as if your eyes, backwards from the way the world saw you, held the answer of what you should do. With your thoughts a little less scrambled, you were able to reason that Sirius had not gotten a straight answer out of Regulus. It was likely his brother was still debating over what he should do, though just as it had been a week prior, Regulus’s time to decide was running out. 

You shut off the water, rubbing at the crease between your brows before facing your friends once again, your mind marginally clearer. 

“You didn’t see Sirius at all, did you?” Lily asked as you walked down to breakfast. 

“No,” you said, your mouth pulling to the side. “I hope he’s doing all right, or as good as he can be.”

“James won’t let him hide for too long,” said Lily, her voice suddenly brighter than yours, less weighed down. You didn’t know where she got her serenity from, but you wanted some of your own. 

Sirius was at breakfast, though he looked like he’d been run over by a pack of hippogriffs and then dunked head first into the Black Lake. There were deep purple bags under his eyes, bold against the sickly pallor of his skin. He was worse than you’d ever seen him before, almost as if he were deathly ill, and distinctly depressed. His countenance was no better than his looks, his shoulders rounded forward, his neck angled downward towards his plate, nearly empty save for the sausage and toast Remus had given him. He touched nothing, not even his tea. 

You, and surely your dormmates, were all itching to ask him the same question: how did it go? Though, no one dared to say a word about it. A few meaningless, hollow comments about classes and quidditch were thrown out just to break the tension a bit, but little else was said. It was probably just a victory they had gotten him down here, you realized, making it unlikely any would try and push their luck. 

“You should come to the library with us,” Lily said to the others as you all stood to leave the Great Hall. You had forgotten you had made plans with her to do so. “First thing after breakfast, Y/N. We need to start seriously preparing!”

“Who?” James asked.

Lily shrugged. “All of you.”

You knew what she was trying to do, though it didn’t seem like she was attempting to hide it too thoroughly. James looked to Sirius, though his eyes were far off, staring straight ahead as you left the hall. 

“You wanna go, Padfoot?” James asked.

Briefly, Sirius’s eyes drifted towards James, his mouth barely moving as he mumbled, “Sure.”

With Sirius’s blessing, that meant Remus and Peter would follow, or so you hoped. You all went back to the common room to get your things before going back down the library, your assumption being correct. Remus lugged more books in his bag than any of you, even Lily, who seemed to bring almost her entire eight-class course load. Peter seemed to obey only for Sirius’s sake, looking almost as upset as him as you found your places at one of the only free tables large enough for all of you to fit. The library was fairly full, just as it was every weekend, though the fact that you were nearing the end of term only made it more congested. The only reason you were likely able to get a table with eight chairs was due to Lily’s instance of getting there so early. 

Unconsciously, you found yourself sitting beside James, taking out your things from your bag without so much of a thought about your choice. As soon as you flipped open your advanced Astronomy textbook, the realization of his closeness sent a flurry of nerves through your stomach like a jolt of energy before it faded away. It was getting more difficult to force yourself away from him during casual moments, moments when you weren’t thinking about how you ought to act or where you should look. The longer you two were together, really together, the more you had to fight against it, even more so than you had before. It was if you floated to his side, pulled in by a gravitational force of blinding, warm light that seemed to radiate off of him at all times. As you attempted to continue jotting down your notes, hoping you were acting inconspicuous, you realized that he probably did the same, though you just hadn’t noticed, too caught up in the sight of him to recognize if you had walked closer or if he had beat you to it.  

At one head of the table, Sirius sat in a grumpy stupor, his eyes still agonized by heavy, drooping lids. He sat back in his chair, not bothering to look down at any of his school work, which you were sure had been piling up for him over the past week. You peeked at him out of the corner of your eye, your leg bouncing as you thought of a way to get James alone so you could pester him for details. 

Your quill hovered above your parchment as you decided what to do, giving in to your first instinct after only a brief moment of deliberation. You scribbled something down in the margins, slanted to the right so that James could read it more easily. You glanced up, looking around at the rest of your friends. They all were fairly engrossed in their own work, other than Sirius and Peter, though neither were looking your way. Lily, the most important person to consider, was staring down into a giant, leather-bound book, her brows scrunched as she muttered the words so softly you couldn’t hear. 

Your eyes darted back towards James as you tapped the tip of his shoe with yours, trying not to lose yourself in the picture of his face, downturned towards his own work, his lips barely parted. His head perked up, turning towards you as his glasses slipped down his nose. Instantly, your eyes shot back down to your own paper, inching it closer to him. He took your meaning immediately, reading your parchment as you went back to pretending to study. 

Follow me in five minutes.

After a few seconds you folded up the parchment, sticking it into your textbook before closing it. You stood, taking your copy of Advanced Astronomy into your arms before heading towards the stacks. You only got a few steps away before Marlene turned around, watching you leave. 

“Where’re you going?” she asked, whispering. 

Remus and Dorcas’s head popped up as well, though Lily stayed entirely occupied, lost in her reading. 

“I have to cross reference something on pulsars, you know, the type of neuron star that—”

“Forgive me for asking,” she mumbled, turning back around. 

You spun on your heels before anyone could see your triumphant smirk, all too pleased with yourself as you escaped into the long rows of tall shelves, twisting and turning like a labyrinth in the wide space. You didn’t go far, ducking away beside one of the large, pointed windows, the morning light washing the dark wood with golden light. You leaned against the shelf, your fingers tapping against your book as you watched a few students pass, all quiet as a mouse. 

It was definitely less than five minutes when James found you, or rather you found him, stepping out into the aisle as you watched him whizz by. Any other time you would have chastised him for it, though you knew it was the last thing he needed. 

“James,” you whispered, catching his wrist. 

As your hand slipped away he grabbed it, holding you as he swiveled his head around to see if anyone was watching. 

“We need to talk,” you said, “but not here.”

He nodded, letting go of your hand as you walked as quickly as you could without it reasonably counting as a jog to the furthest, most undisturbed corner of the library. It was the same place you had gone after Zephyr reappeared in Gryffindor Tower, when James had guarded you so fiercely you couldn’t believe you didn’t realize he was in love with you. 

“What happened with Regulus?” you asked, your voice still hushed. 

James’s face fell, his expression so grim it made your chest ache. “He talked to him, but he doesn’t think it made any difference.”

Your heartbeat quickened, dread mixing with the awful concoction already churning in your stomach. “What did he say? What did Regulus say?”

“I think the main gist of what Regulus said was ‘butt out’ and ‘fuck off’,” James answered, his expression pained as he imagined it. 

“He didn’t seem unsure, or like he might not go through with it?” you asked, some of your hope drifting away. You longed to grasp it, force it back towards you where you could hold to it as long as possible. 

“Padfoot didn’t say much,” he sighed, running a hand through his curls, dark in the low light. “But I’m not entirely sure I trust him, either. He’s never had a clear head when it comes to his brother.”

You thought for a moment, your textbook held tightly against your chest. “Did he offer a place for him to stay— with him, in London?”

“They already live in London.”

“You know what I mean,” you said, staring at him expectantly. 

“I don’t know,” he muttered, shaking his head. His hands came down to his hips, his head slumped forward for a beat. “We’re just lucky he’s out with the living right now. I didn’t exactly push him for answers,” there was a clip to his tone, though you knew it wasn’t because of you. 

Sirius was your friend, but he was James’s best friend. You knew he had a way of taking things on, carrying burdens even if it wouldn’t lighten the others load. It was one of his best traits, something that made you love him even more, though his innate dramatism did not help him in hiding it. 

You set your book down on the table, stepping back in front of him so he had to look you in the eyes. He did without question, his irises shaded by his lashes, heavy in your quiet corner. You stroked his cheek, warm to the touch, frowning all the while. You hated every bit of all of it; the immeasurable amount of pain Sirius was feeling, the uncertain fate of Regulus, and James’s breaking heart. While not your top priority, you tried to soothe him the best you could, running your fingers along his hairline. 

“We can help him,” you said, just loud enough for him to hear. You tried to think of something else to say to ease some of his worries, though all you could settle on was an ill-fated statement that you knew he would argue against. You said it anyway. “It’s no different than the way it was before, when he thought Regulus was lost.”

“I’m not sure he ever thought he was lost,” he said with a sadness trembling in his voice, his eyes fluttering shut. He brought his hand up to rest over yours, keeping it in place. When he opened his eyes again, he let out a short, worn breath, laced with the unmistakable sting of sorrow. “I think he always thought there was a chance…that maybe one day Regulus would, I don’t know, change his mind.”

Your face crumbled, though you caught yourself, forcing a brave front, even if you knew James would be able to see through it all too easily. It was always worth a try, if it were for him. 

“There's still a chance. Like you said, you don’t know what really happened. Who knows how Sirius is interpreting it,” you paused, your eyes drifting from his. “This morning I went down to the kitchens before anyone else woke up— I couldn’t sleep. I tried ovomancy, y’know, the egg thing?” 

You looked back up, James nodding. 

“I thought of Regulus, just to see if I really could predict his future, or at least get a reading,” you continued, taking a breath that shuddered in your lungs. “I saw an hourglass, which seems pretty self explanatory.”

A flash of horror crossed James’s face, though you pressed your palm tighter to his face, cupping his jaw. 

“No, no, James, this is good. It means he hasn’t decided. If he was certain, or fairly certain, why would time be running out? It would already be out.”

Horror was replaced by realization, realization by a faint glimmer of hope. He pressed his lips to yours quickly, pulling away before you could even register what he had done. He broke out into an astonished smile as he looked back at you, laughing quietly to himself. 

“You’re amazing,” he breathed. “Bloody amazing.”

You shook your head at him, using the freedom of your newly released hand to brush a curl behind his ear. “It’s nothing, really—”

“It’s everything,” he said, grabbing your hand to cradle it against his chest, fully enveloped between his. “When are you going to realize how gifted you are, how special this is? I’ll prop you up forever if I have to— actually, I’ll do it even if you do realize— but you should start giving yourself some credit,” his voice dripped with honeyed warmth, his words rushing out in a low voice fighting against exultation. 

You didn’t know what to say, forgetting how to speak, though you didn’t need to. James was off again, still caught up in the excitement of your discovery. 

“You have to tell Sirius. You don’t mind, right? You don’t have to, but I think we should—”

“Of course, I will,” you interrupted. “I didn’t know when it would be the right time. He’s very…fragile right now.” It felt odd to say, wrong to call Sirius such a term. He was strong, almost impossibly so, though there was no other word you could think of that would adequately capture what you saw today. You couldn’t blame him, either. If it were you, you would’ve been a heap on the floor years ago, absolutely useless. 

James’s thumb rubbed across the back of your hand, gnawing at his lip as he considered what you said. “You’re right. I’ll find a good time to do it, maybe tonight. For now, could you keep it between us? I think he’d be pretty peeved if everyone else knew before him.”

“Of course,” you said with a single nod.

After a beat James reached up to cradle your face, kissing your forehead before letting out a single, small laugh into your skin. “My girl’s hot and she can predict the future.”

You scowled at him, hitting his arm softly. “It's not a prediction, it’s a reading,” you corrected, your ears burning up. You hoped he couldn’t feel the heat in your face, though you were fairly certain that he could, and that he was probably reveling in it. 

“And brilliant,” he said, still beaming. He pressed the back of his hand onto the side of your neck with a smirk, sending a shiver down your spin. “You are hot, though. Was it something I said?”

“I think I have dragon pox. It’s highly contagious. You better get away from me or you’ll catch it,” you said, your voice flat. 

He laughed, a bit too loud for the library, though you couldn’t find it within yourself to care. His eyes shined, some of his earlier worries gone, at least for the moment. You were happy to have done it, even if you knew it wouldn’t last. 

“You’re worth a trip to Poppy’s.”

He leaned in, kissing you a bit longer this time, dragging it out just to the edge of something more, something fuller. When he stepped away he still looked impish, motioning for you to follow as he slipped back into the winding shelves towards the main aisle. You grabbed your textbook to follow him, shaking your head. 

☆  ─────── ₒ*ₒ☾   ☽ₒ*ₒ ───────  ☆

You guessed James must have found a time to tell him, because all throughout breakfast on Monday, Sirius kept stealing glances your way. You weren’t sure if he was trying to hide it or not, though every once in a while you’d catch him peeking up from his food, his eyes darting over to your face before returning back to something else in a quick, flashing movement. After the first couple of times you turned away from him, allowing him to stare at you without the embarrassment of being caught, though you weren’t sure it was even possible for you to embarrass Sirius. Like James, it took true humiliation to knock away his front of pure confidence. 

After breakfast, Remus and Peter went off to do who-knows-what, leaving you and Dorcas to go back up to the tower while the rest went to a double period of Arithmancy, a subject you were quite happy to never have taken. The two of you sat on the overstuffed red sofa by the fireplace, surrounded by other sixth and seventh years with free periods doing the same thing as yourself. It was warm enough that a fire was unnecessary, its melody of crackles and pops strangely absent from the usual noises of the common room. Now, it was simply hushed voices or a stray laugh, the scratching of quills and the turning of pages. 

As you did your homework, the sounds began to wear on you, mixing with one another in a low cacophony of jagged, disjointed parts to an awful song. You fiddled with your quill, your jaw tight as your eyes bore holes into the page. You could feel your heart beginning to bang, harder and harder, against your chest. Soon, the air was suffocating, leaving you no other choice but to pop up from the sofa in a sudden jerk. 

Dorcas looked up at you, pushing her thick, curling hair from her face as she watched you gather your books. “What's wrong?’

“Nothing,” you muttered, glancing around you at the other students. A few were watching you, some of whom you knew quite well, though none brave enough to meet your eyes once you caught there's. The beating of your heart had not slowed, leaving you unconcerned with the curiosity of your classmates. Briefly, you wondered if you were going mad from stress. 

Your daze was only broken by Dorcas, who said your name as you began to walk away. She stood up, though you only shook your head, ducking out of the common room like a rabbit being chased by a fox. 

You didn’t need a crystal ball to predict what would happen in your future. “What's up with you? Why are you acting so weird? Is anything wrong?” The gentler questions would come from Lily, though the meanings would all be the same. It wouldn’t matter, though, because this time you could tell them. With Sirius in the know, the only silver lining was that for once, you didn’t have to keep secrets. 

Even so, you knew Sirius would be furious with you for meddling in his family life, in his life, using a form of magic he placed no weight into. While he was kind enough to keep his comments to mere jokes, you knew how he truly felt. He thought you were foolish for believing that you, who wasn’t even a Seer, could somehow gain any insight into the future. You also had a sneaking suspicion that fate (or at least the very probable chance that something would happen), terrified him to no end. He had already been dealt a bad hand, and you couldn’t blame him for raging against the idea that it all was set in the stars, that he had little control of what happened to him next. 

You agreed with him, at least in part, for one always had the power to change their decisions, to decide on a different course. But how often do people change their minds once they’ve started on a certain path? You didn’t know, and the uncertainty of the answer haunted you as you rushed through the corridors, your feet seeming to know where you were going better than you did. The walls faded into a blur of limestone pillars and carvings, the puffs of orange flames turning into streaks of vibrant color against the grey. 

You found yourself on the fourth floor, turning into the empty classroom you had frequented a dozen times before. You weren’t sure if you were planning on taking the mirror passage into Hogsmeade, hide away in its cavern, or stare into the mirror itself, though all of these choices were made moot when you saw Sirius standing in the room. His back was to you, staring into the mirror. As soon as you opened the door he turned around, his eyes widening. He fixed himself quickly, shoving his hands into his pockets as she sauntered closer to you, completely at ease. 

“Hey, L/N,” he drawled, though his mouth was missing the teasing smirk that so often went with that tone. 

“Hey,” you said, just barely getting the words out. He still looked sickly, only slightly better than yesterday. His hair was pulled back into a low, loose bun, strands sticking out in a state of dishevelment. Normally, it would have seemed suave on him, perfectly imperfect, though now it looked just as it would on anyone else: frowzy. “Bunking off?”

He shrugged, his shoulders falling in a heavy, dead movement. “Double period. It gets pretty boring after an hour and a half,” he said, sounding wearier the more he spoke. He looked down at his uniform dress shoes, polished and shining. “Didn’t know that breakfast food knew the future.”

You chuckled softly, meandering further into the room. “It’s not really the eggs that know, it’s just how they fall. I do all the heavy lifting.”

You were overjoyed to hear him laugh, even if it was strained. 

“Even though I don’t believe in any of that shite,” he began, a forced smile creeping on his lips, “thanks for not telling anyone else. You know how fucking fussy they can be.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m still too angry with you to pamper,” you joked. 

He raised his brows. “Then why’d you read my brother's future?”

“That was a favor to Regulus,” you said with a wave of your hand. “He owes me, but he doesn’t know it yet. One day I’ll make him buy me something nice and expensive, y’know, to call it even.”

You knew he was far too clever to miss what you were implying, though it’d take a lot to miss it. Regulus will come back to you. You weren’t even sure if you were that confident, though Sirius didn’t need to know. 

He rocked a bit on his toes, his head turning sharply away. His mouth fell, twisting into a doleful grimace. “I’ll pass on the message,” he mumbled, the words gritting between his clenched teeth. 

Your heart panged, your fingers tightening around the spine of your book. You knew you shouldn’t be joking about it, taking things so lightly. Your apologies rushed out, much like Marlene’s had, escaping you before you could stop them, “I’m— Merlin…I’m sorry, Sirius. I know that I shouldn’t have meddled in your life. I feel awful about it, really.”

He sighed, looking back at you once you were finished. “You’re unbelievable.” He shook his head, chuckling bitterly. “You’re a real fucking guilt machine, aren’t you?”

His anger all seemed to flow inward, absorbed into his own chest before any of it could reach you. You watched his face distort again, his brows angled and pinched. 

“What?” you asked, taking a hesitant step towards him, just to test the waters. 

He was still chuckling, though it was sour, ugly in the air. “Meddle all you want, Y/N, I don’t care about any of it. I fucked with you for how long?” He motioned to you, letting his hand drop against his leg. “I was a dick, and you keep forgiving me. I’m a dick to everyone and somehow none of you will leave me alone,” his volume rose, exasperated as he continued on. 

You didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, coming to stand only a foot away from him. “Stop it, Sirius. This is— you’re not thinking clearly. We’re your friends, we understand. You don’t have to be happy-go-lucky all the time.”

“Why aren’t you upset with me about Marlene? What about that?” he asked, trying to egg you on. 

You sighed, rubbing your eyes. “She’s over it, so there’s no reason for me to hold a grudge on her behalf. I know I wouldn’t want her to, if it were me.”

“We both know she’s not over it,” he muttered, entirely different from how he was a moment ago. He was smaller now, whatever had been building within him settling to a low, ruminating simmer.

“It’s fine, Sirius. It's a teenage romance. By the summer she’ll be good as new, and probably dating someone else,” you said, hoping your words were true. 

He didn’t speak for a long moment, sucking on his teeth while his eyes ran along the floor. You waited patiently, studying his tortured expression. 

“James really loves you, you know. It’s disgusting,” he whispered with no humor despite his clear attempt at jest. 

You filled your lungs with air, slowly letting it out. “I know.”

“And I thought Lily was bad,” he said, chuckling a bit this time. His eyes, brilliantly grey, met yours. “When we’re alone I never hear the end of it.”

A smile twitched in one corner of your mouth, though your face was still dominated by a growing sadness. “Must be awful for you.”

He began to walk away, his steps slow and uncalculated, moving at his first instinct in no clear direction.

“With Lily it was all lovey-dovey, gushy stuff,” he mocked, sending a sharp pang through your nerves, though he couldn’t see, turned away from you. “I didn’t think it could get worse than that, but Merlin, was I wrong.” 

A strange feeling of relief washed over you, easing a flash of worry that somehow James’s obsession with Lily was greater than his for you. You felt guilty for it, though you couldn’t allow yourself the time to dissect the meaning.

Sirius laughed under his breath, his head bent towards the floor. It was another long pause before he continued, the ache in his voice poorly disguised through his whisper, “It’s the same way his parents are. I mean, they don’t go on and on about how in love they are with each other in front of me,” he let out a breathy laugh again. “But you can tell, when you look at them.”

Your feet might as well have been glued to the floor. If you wanted to move, you couldn’t, frozen in place as you listened to him. His voice was crushing, full of a pain so foreign to you that your mind could not wrap around it. 

“I don’t think he knows how lucky he is to have parents like that. He knows, in a way— it’s not hard when you have me as a comparison,” he faltered, clearing his throat. “I’m not sure my parents ever really loved each other. I can’t really imagine either of them loving anyone.” He stopped walking, his hand resting on one of the small, wooden desks. “I guess it’s not hard to understand why he’s good at it and I’m not. It’s so bloody easy for him. If he were anyone else I’d fucking hate him.”

Your mind reeled, wondering why he was choosing to tell you this. Perhaps it was self-retribution, you thought, for all the secrets of yours he somehow found out about. Still, even though he had acted poorly, even though he had been a bad friend, you didn’t know if you deserved to hear any of this. 

“You could go back there, you know,” you said, somehow finding your voice. It was small, but enough. “The Potter’s would have you back in a second, if you asked.”

He nodded, peeking over his shoulder. Your eyes met briefly before he looked away again. “Yeah, I know.”

“If you bought Marlene a butterbeer, she’d go out with you again,” you said, trying to force some lightness into your words. It seemed to have worked, for his shoulders shook in what you assumed to be a silent laugh. 

When he didn’t say anything, you continued, “I know I said she’ll get over it, and I wasn’t lying, but she doesn’t have to.” That seemed to catch his attention, his head picking up. “She still likes you, Sirius, but she’s also still a little livid. If you treat her like a normal boyfriend she’ll be head over heels in no time. You might have to…repair some damage, but it’ll work out, if you want it to.”

“If I want it to,” he repeated, an edge to his tone. 

You ignored it, nodding even though he couldn’t see. “Yeah, if you don’t drop her like you do with everyone else,” you said softly, trying to ease some of the harshness of your words. Still, you cringed as you said it. “I think it would be good for you, good for her, too. I really think that one day you might love her as much as James loves me. But even if you don’t, even if it doesn’t work out, at least you can say that you tried, that you gave it your best shot.”

You wondered if you were talking about Marlene or Regulus, though you weren’t sure it mattered. The point stood for both, whether Sirius liked it or not. 

“Can’t you just hex me again?” he said, finally turning around. His brows were raised, his face otherwise blank. 

“Maybe some other time,” you said, matching his expression. You studied him as he walked closer, passing you as if he was heading to leave. You spun around, wanting desperately to stop him, to keep him here just a little while longer, where he was forced to listen to you. “Did James tell you what I thought it meant, the hourglass?”

Sirius stopped, spinning back around. His face was dragged down, his eyes tired. “Yeah.”

“Then you know,” you began, your lingering sliver of hope for Regulus building back up again. “It means he isn’t settled, he’s undecided. Snape was right.”

His name made Sirius recoil a bit, as if his body was ridding itself of a mild poison. His jaw set, the rest of his body tensing. “If I promise to try, will you leave me alone?”

You couldn’t help your smile, not wide enough to show your teeth, but enough to show him that you were pleased. “I cross my heart.”

“You’ve got a deal, sister,” he said, whipping open the door and striding out, not looking back as it shut behind him. 

The bell tower rang, marking the end of second period. You had to go to History of Magic, though you were surely going to be late, given that your bag was all the way up in Gryffindor Tower. However, you still couldn’t help but turn around towards the mirror, drawn in by the image you knew you’d see. It wasn’t as if Professor Binns would notice your tardiness, anyway. 

Slowly, you walked towards it, tall and proud where it was sitting in the corner. The nearer you got, the clearer the image became, materializing like a ghost beside you. James was standing next to you, nearly pressing against your shoulder. He held the same bright smile that you loved the most, easy and entirely unforced. His hair was a mess of wild curls, barely tamed, wearing the jeans that always sent your cheeks ablaze. Every few seconds he would glance at you in the reflection, the happiest he could be, his own face blushing when he met your eyes. It was the same thing that you’ve seen for over a year, though now you knew it was real, more than just a fantasy. The only difference was your hands, each wearing a ring. 

☆  ─────── ₒ*ₒ☾   ☽ₒ*ₒ ───────  ☆

After classes on Tuesday, you and James retreated to the east side of the lake, too far for anyone to see anything other than two blurry dots, sometimes shifting amongst the grass. The transistor radio rested beside you, playing an acoustic song that you knew but James didn’t. You hummed along to the tune, your back against his chest as you gazed out across the water, the sunlight warm against your face. James kissed the side of your head, resting his cheek against you. 

You already told him about your conversation with Sirius, leaving out everything but his promise to try and get through to his brother. James was happy to have heard that, though you could still feel it in the way he carried himself, in the way he was playing with your fingers, that it had lifted very little weight from his worries. 

“I like this song,” you said when it changed to another, just as slow. “This DJ has good taste.”

The water lapped at the shallow shore, mixing with the fingerpicking, the soft accent of the man singing about love. 

“This one, I know,” James said, his voice rumbling against your back. 

You chuckled, twisting your head to look at him. “How cultured of you.”

He pouted at your teasing, his brows pinched as he reached up to touch the side of your face, feather light along your jaw. “Good thing I have thick skin, around you,” he grumbled, moving down to the side of your neck. His thumb brushed just under your chin, moving languidly over your throat. 

You buzzed, your head thrown back to rest against his shoulder. All your clever, biting jabs were forgotten, washed away by his mouth as he kissed the corner of your lips, then your cheek, then just beside your ear. 

By some miracle, you found your wit again, making a dissatisfied noise as your eyes shut. “Don’t be a tease.”

The back of your eyelids, orange from the light of the sun, were set in shadow as James chuckled, leaning down again. He kissed you, and the swell of love resounded like a thousand violins, all playing a single, sublimely beautiful note.

☆  ─────── ₒ*ₒ☾   ☽ₒ*ₒ ───────  ☆

Tag List: @floverisland @ilovejamespottersomuch @googie-jeon @tvnile @eli-com @lovelyteenagebeard

[put-me-on-a-hitlist]

A theory I have about shifting and how religion may help

I’m not great at explaining or putting my thoughts into words but I will try my best.

Some things we have already established is that anything is possible. Anything you can think of and the things you can’t happen somewhere in the multiverse. With manifesting, what you believe is what is true. Well something that I’ve always grappled with growing up in a Christian household is how so many people have accounts of meeting the Christian god and so many people have accounts of meeting gods of other religions when they die before being revived. How could that be possible if there is only one true god? Then when shifting found me and I learned more about manifestation I started to wonder if all religions are real. It just depends on which you believe in. If someone believes in the Christian god, then when they die, they will shift to either heaven or hell. If someone believes in the Greek gods, then when they die, they will shift to the underworld.

I believe this is how all gods and deities are created. Depending on what you believe, it’s what you are manifesting into being true. Every religious person does it without realizing.

I feel like this could be something people who have been trying to shift for a long time could use to their benefit. This is in no way a requirement needed to shift but we could create our own god or religion around shifting.

I’m going to need you to hear me out about this. I could be completely wrong so take what I say with a grain of salt but in most scriptures, their god is seen as an all powerful being that can do anything. A god could hypothetically make someone shift. If we created a god that can do that, we could just rely on that.

“But that’s just overcomplicating it!” Okay? I’m someone who’s been trying to shift for two years now. I’ve tried just about everything under the sun and it hasn’t worked for me yet. Everyone over complicates shifting and it’s not always that easy to undo that. Sometimes over complicating it even more might be the thing that helps someone finally shift. This wouldn’t be for everyone, but it might be for some. I just figured I would share my thoughts.

[nyxtickled]

I’m so shocked to hear all that’s been going on with this dude, but I’m so proud of you! This must be so hard for you, but clearly you are better off and have so many great people in your corner! Sending love <3

Are you able to share any of the “warnings” you got from people previously (aside from the few people you mentioned)? Like was he really just acting like this to everyone? It’s so crazy to me that this happened to others too - sociopath vibes. It’s scary that this was hidden for so long!! Can’t trust anyone :( also, I’m loving the screenshot evidence and I think it really helps to paint a clear picture of how a predator can hide like that.

Again, sending so much love! Also p.s. he fucked up big time with you, he lost a good one!!!

thank you for the love, it means so much! the good news is, i was fucked up over it for a short bit, but i feel nothing but relief and closure now.

absolutely - here are some of the warnings i received, which i was later talked out of after approaching him:

i included some of my responses to the reddit user who tried to warn me as well, just to sort of verify how i was immediately taken aback and i could immediately disprove the claims being made about me. the reddit convo was actually what led to the biggest conflict i shared about in my og community warning post. those messages were what led me to say “hey so i am being told some things that make me really uncomfortable, but my dog is literally dying so i don’t have the capacity to discuss it rn, i just need space.” the response that followed was the 24 hours of lashing out and shaming me for “taking her side” etc.

overall i would just say that if anyone you play with seems to have a habit of telling you that their other play partners are jealous of you, or if you hear warnings about them and they just get angry with you for not immediately choosing to blindly believe that the warnings are fabricated, or if the explanation for the warnings always involves some level of “that person is just bitter bc they wanted more with me and i didn’t” etc, you should interpret it as a red flag.

for example: if i had a play partner approach me saying someone warned me about them, and they felt unsure about me now, i would begin by apologizing right off the bat that they were pulled into a situation that led to them feeling like they weren’t safe or valued by me. then i would ask if they were willing to speak to me about what came up or what they were told, in case i may be able to offer some insight. if they didn’t have the space for it, id respect that. of course i would be very anxious and worried and confused, wondering what someone could have said to them about me to make them feel like they couldn’t trust me - but processing those feelings would be MY responsibility, not theirs. the only appropriate thing for me to do would be to give them whatever space they request, and tell them that i would love nothing more than to talk about it and explore what was going on whenever they were capable. and again, i’d just apologize for any hurt they were experiencing.

would i be lowkey losing my mind a little? absolutely! i’d probably be spiraling and tweaking tryna figure out what on earth could have been said or what they thought i did and whether it was true. i’m not saying it would be easy!!!! but all of those panicky feelings are not theirs to appease. so i would instead reach out to my own close friends for support.

now, granted this hasn’t ever happened to me in kink, because idk i just try really hard to be as honest and open and forthcoming as possible with everyone i ever meet. but it has happened with interpersonal relationships where my partner or friend has a problem with something i did that inadvertently hurt them, and they aren’t ready to talk about it yet. so, it was my responsibility to give them the time they needed to process, and to process my own panic somewhere else.

no one should ever make you feel like your boundaries and needs are harmful to them. if someone has a problem with your boundaries, it usually means they were benefiting from you not having any.

[gothicallybright]

JOB? DONE!

⊱ ────── {⋅. ✯ .⋅} ────── ⊰ You've had some issues with the air conditioning system in your house and the heat is melting away your sanity. Your husband isn't much of use, so you decide to look through some ad flyers to help find someone to fix your air conditioning and make your summer less miserable. ⊱ ────── {⋅. ✯ .⋅} ────── ⊰

𓆩♡𓆪 A/N 𓆩♡𓆪 Inspired by Chappell's promo posters for The Giver. If it wasn't obvious. Thinking about making my next post inspired by Lost Records: Bloom & Rage- If anyone has played that game fully, PLEASE hmu I have NO ONE to talk about it, AND I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. thank you mwah, enjoy reading! (excuse any errors i'm exhausted)

''Ugh! Damn it!'' You hit the air conditioner with a wrench, your final sign of surrender. You are once again defeated by household devices. You have been trying to fix this damn thing for weeks now! Strangely, one day, the conditioner wasn't providing as much cold air as it did days before, making you sweat uncontrollably. The heat is making you nauseous to a certain degree. Your body physically can't endure the heat anymore.

''Hey, babe? Could you get this checked out, please?'' You shout from up the stairs, where the conditioner is, to your husband. The frantic sound of a bag zipping up gives you a clear vision of his response. ''Sorry, honey! I'm late, I have to go.'' He calls from the living room as he starts running up the stairs. He places a plain kiss on your lips before mumbling a quick ''I love you'' and leaving the house. Classic. You murmur an annoyed ''I love you too'' back.

You sigh in determination, ready to take on the cold air beast once more. Your hand slips inside of the machine, wrench gripped between your fingers as you twist it. And twist it. Still nothing. The damn thing won't even start at this point. You grip the wrench in frustration, your knuckles turning white due to the force. Your blood is boiling with rage and the heat isn't helping. You give up, throwing the wrench on the floor, creating a loud metallic thud.

You make your way down the stairs, thinking about your useless husband and how he's not capable of fixing an air conditioner, let alone making you feel good. ''This is who I'm married to?!'' You think out loud, plopping on the couch. Your hand rests on your forehead, feeling the heat of your body's temperature. Your tired eyes wander around the living room, landing on the small glass table next to the couch. At least your husband brought the mail in. You pick up the various ad fylers and begin flipping through them. Most of them bombarded you with huge ''SALE!'' signs in bright red from stores no one buys from anymore. You sigh, getting up from the couch to throw them in the trash. As you walk, you continue to flip through the fylers, eventually landing on something interesting.

You throw away the rest of the fylers, keeping a single one in your hands. You chuckle to yourself as your read the fyler. ''YOUR WIFE'S HOT, I'LL FIX HER AIR CONDITIONER. CALL 620-HOT-TO-GO. I GET THE JOB DONE!'' This fyler was definitely made for you. Your eyes land on the woman in the fyler, lingering for a moment. The woman in the image is dressed in construction style attire, wearing a bright orange hard hat that is slightly tilted on her head. With that, she's also wearing a high-visibility safety vest in neon yellow with reflective silver stripes. Her hair is long and curly, makeup bold. In her hands a red and black power drill, giving a confident pose. Hell yeah.

You grab your phone and dial the number. You listen to the ringing sound for a few moments before the woman picks up. The sound of teeth brushing paired with muffled music somewhere in the background fills the silence. The woman spits the toothpaste out and speaks up. ''This is Chappell Roan speaking. How may I be of service?'' Oh, wow. Her voice is… attractive.

''Hi…'' You begin, gathering your thoughts. ''I found your ad and… I could use a little help with the air conditioning system in my house. It stopped blowing cold air last week. My husband's no use, really. The heat's getting to me. Can you help?'' On the other side of the line, Chappell's already packing up her tools, swaying to the music on the radio. ''Of course I can help! It's my job to make unhappy wives happy.'' She chuckles, and you laugh in response. Whatever that means. ''I'd appreciate if you come by next week, but if you can't, that's okay.'' Chappell chuckles once again. ''I'm just getting in my car. What's your address again?'' Alright. This is certainly something. You give her your address and she assures you she'll be here in fifteen minutes.

Indeed, fifteen minutes later, you hear a car pulling up into your driveway. You rush outside to greet the repairer. Loud classic rock music echoes through the empty street as Chappell opens the car door and steps outside. With the door now shut, the music turns off. She grabs the toolbox from the backseat and comes up to you. She extends her hand out for a handshake and you awkwardly shake her hand. ''It's a pleasure meeting you, miss.'' She exclaims and you nod your head with a smile. ''You too… uh…'' She chuckles. ''It's Chappell.'' ''Pleasure meeting you too, Chappell.''

You lead her inside and point towards the air conditioner. ''Phew… it's as hot in here as it is outside…'' Chappell says, placing her forearm on her already damp forehead. ''I know, it's horrible! I'll go get you a chair.'' You bring in the chair and Chappell uses it to get to the air conditioner's level. Her toolbox is open and laid neatly on the windowsill. You watch as she pulls out a screwdriver from the toolbox, prying open the front panel, revealing the filter clogged in dust. ''Ah! Thought so!'' Chappell exclaims, setting down the screwdriver. ''Ever cleaned this big boy?'' You awkwardly rub the back of your neck. ''No…'' ''Well, you should have. The filter's clogged, preventing the cold air from coming out. Don't worry, I'll get it fixed.''

Chappell sets the panel aside, exposing the clogged filter fully. She carefully takes out the filter, handing it to you. ''Go wash it, under cold water.'' You nod and rush to do so. The rinse under the cool water sent a cloud of dust down the drain. You place the filter on the towel to dry and reunite with Chappell. She seems to be squinting into the depths of the conditioner, feeling around with the screwdriver.

She's wearing a white tank top which greatly exposes her tattoos, and her toned physique. You find yourself rather staring. You watch how her muscles shape each time she moves her arm or leg. God. Your husband is a lanky prick, and this woman is everything he's not. She notices your staring and smirks down at you, her eyes wandering around you. You look away, embarrassed. A familiar feeling engulfs your body and mind. Hm. Something you felt when you first met your husband, however that feeling with him is long gone now. Perhaps, a spark of sorts?

Chappell grabs a small flashlight from the toolbox and aims it inside of the conditioner. ''Hm, everything else seems to be intact. Just put back the filter when it dryes and that should be it.'' You breathe a sigh of relief. ''Oh, thank God. Miserable summer is finally over!'' She smiles at your comment. ''Glad I could help.'' Carefully getting down from the chair, Chappell closes her toolbox and walks past you towards the front door. Upon opening the front door, she is hit by the force of a strong summer storm, stumbling backwards. Refreshing cold air fills the house, but you swiftly close the front door upon seeing the pool of rain that already formed at the entrance.

''Oh my… haven't had one of those in a while.'' You comment, grabbing the towels from the bathroom to soak up the puddle of rain. However, Chappell is pinching the bridge of her nose. ''Damn it… I forgot my umbrella. Hey miss, do you think I could borrow one of your spare umbrellas? I'll return them tomorrow.'' No way you'll let her outside during this weather. So, you suggest a better idea. ''You can stay here until the storm passes. My husband travels for work, he's not home often.'' You offer, hoping for a positive response. It does get lonely with a traveling husband. ''Oh? It's not trouble, really. It's a short walk. I best be go-'' Chappell walks away while talking, but you grab her wrist, stopping her. ''Chappell, please… I'd love some company.'' You plead and she sighs with a smile. ''Okay, okay, fine.'' She grabs your hand and you lead her into the living room. ''Sorry about the mess… wasn't expecting anyone today.'' Chappell looks around. ''What mess?'' ''Well, the floor isn't mop-'' ''Shush. As if I'm any better, and I have guests all the time!''

You spend the rest of the stormy afternoon with Chappell, watching movies and having fun in general. You never felt this good with someone, let alone your husband. You wish she could stay forever. You wish. The raging storm outside seems to have eased down by the time your attention shifted to something else other than Chappell. You draw the curtains open, revealing the soaked street, but no more rain in sight. ''Hey, look! The rain stopped finally!'' You exclaim with a smile. But, your smile fades upon seeing Chappell already picking up her toolbox and making her way towards the front door. You follow her.

''I hope I was good company. Not used to having my work days look like this. Thank you, miss.'' She puts her hand on her heart, bowing down slightly. A simple gesture of pure gratitude. But, you can't let her go just yet. Chappell reaches for the front door, but you grab her wrist once more. She turns to you with a curious look on her face and you waste no seconds. Fuck the marriage anyway. You kiss your repairer, in a way you've never kissed your husband. Chappell is taken aback, but quickly catches on, laying the toolbox down on the stairs to wrap her hands around your waist. The kiss is quick, but definitely leaves a sweet taste on your lips after she pulls away.

''Here.'' She hands you a piece of paper with her number on it. ''If you need a job done, call me.'' She winks at you before finally leaving.

[suometar]

coming into your inbox again to discuss djo’s music/delete ya. Has anyone else noticed the ties between delete ya and chateau (which honestly makes delete ya even MORE heartbreaking since chateau is obvs about the beginning of his relationship with his ex vs delete ya is the aftermath). We have the reference to joe and his head injury in both (very steve coded of him lol) eg. Chateau: “I could feel the pain Of my head, seeing stars” vs delete ya: “And now I'm back on your couch, frozen peas to my head” and then the intro “oh my god” from chateau which plays in the background of delete ya at the end 😭😭😭 also thank you for pointing out the similar sounds of the police in delete ya. I love it even more since you’ve pointed that out and can’t believe I missed it before 

You're welcome! May I also point out the riff in the start of the song that is direct nudge to Prince (that was confirmed by Joe) and the very Taylor Swift -ish type melody of "The blame complex in me, me, me" that repeats in "One heart could beat for the two of us, two of us, two of us, oh-oh-oh".

There's so much of this goodness in it it's unreal. Like, this album is going to make me respect him so much as a songwriter and a lyricist. I know I've already said those earlier but they bear repeating.

Oh god YES! You're absolutely right about Chateau. I actually had thought about the same thing, though not consciously until now. And it makes total sense. 😭😭😭

Looking back and listening to his other songs there are also references to difficulties in a relationship, like in 'Go For It'. He talks about a lot of things, how a relationship starts to erode, communication breaks, misunderstandings etc etc. It also has the line "One week, And four years". Considering Decide was released in 2022 that would fit the timeline of their relationship as well. And then they broke up somewhere around 2022-2023. And the song ends with a line "It's a harder thing to do than to say (So don't say a thing)" Does it then mean leaving without explaining or not saying a thing and just trying to keep the relationship going? Who knows.

In 'Fool' he sings about being a fool for someone else. I think it's not really about him being the cute kind of fool who makes his gf laugh but the kind of fool who believes everything that's being said to him even though he knows that he's been lied to and even knows what are the tell tale signs of the lies. Because when you love someone you choose to believe the best of the person you love. Or you choose to stay with them even though it's not fully equal relationship 😭😭😭

"There's a person behind those eyes, That's not right

Any crack is a sign of lies, That's not cool (Not cool)

Everybody needs a Fool, I'll be your Fool"

Oh and what about then 'Gap Tooth Smile'? Of course I'm not entirely sure if all the lyrics are right but the version recorded in Australia is quite clear and you can hear them. Even though he's said that it's about loving your girlfriend in general - it also has a sad ending with "God, I count my blessings from the one-eyed dove". Two doves of course is a reference to lovers. And here too he says that the love was one-sided and despite that he counts his blessings over it, even though it lasted just a while

I'm not saying that those songs necessarily are about the relationship, but from the themes of The Crux it seems clear that he's been very reflective of his own life in his lyrics even before. And that it hasn't always been easy - like no single relationship ever is. But yeah the songs from Crux clearly point that out despite him only now being open about it being his most personal album.

Like, this album has so much heartache in it and it already tears me apart.

Feel free to come and ramble about Djo here anytime :)

[moraymoth]

 JAMES BLACKBURN HEADCANON AND NOTES BY DEVI MORAYMOTH

jorkfolfe hinted and tw for mean parent.

 Felix Wolfe really, really wants Blackburn in his gang, of course, probably because he knows he’s been going against Edward - however, what if there was more for it? This isn’t canon or anything, this is headcanons as a heads-up. I don’t mind if you disagree either.

James, of course, denies each and every time when Felix offers that odd thing and makes a scene; as said, James openly goes against Ed.

 So, what if, in the past - James and Felix used to be extremely close. Say throughout elementary up until 7th or 8th grade? They knew everything about each other, even if one was more melodramatic they would have got along and SOMEWHAT evened each others personalities out and James was relatively content and comfortable with this whole thing compared to how extreme or angry they act now. 

 So I’d say, like, middle school crushes type shit. You know?? That leads into a small idea I have of James’ family. I call James Jameson for this exact reason as well. Mr Blackburn, a short mean old man with a raspy voice and a flat expression. I’d say he’s homophobic, extremely homophobic - and with the two of them being middle school crushes and Mr Blackburn finding this out would make things absolutely horrible.

  Basically a, ‘if youre gay i’ll kill the both of you and you aren’t my son if you don’t follow in MY tracks’. Again, when I say Mr Blackburns short I mean like 5’0 short. 

 In return, James got so scared to the point he began to distance himself from Felix and get pretty pissed and angry overtime mainly at himself for doing something like that - which makes Felix more hopeless in his eyes, which since he was already acting out a bit in the past it gradually got even more extreme. Should probably throw in there, I feel like Felix and James are both seniors.

 Felix wants to befriend James again, and I can heavily think that he may already have an inverted letterman waiting for him somewhere on hand or in a bag or in his car. Since Felix would technically know where James lives(I see the idea here where only Felix knows since James may not bring the Basketball team over at all due to his fuckass dad and hes afraid for them) so Felix will stop by with gift baskets, in which James will only keep one or two things or throw the whole goddamn thing away as much as he wants to see that boy. Felix would also beg James’ parents to see him and talk to him again, which that’s actually pretty crazy to think about but what more do you expect from Felix? Either Demand and Beg or just demand it straightout with the door being shut completely on him.

 The Jameson name comes from the idea that’s his government name, and being called Jameson triggers something in his brain where he’s like don’t EVER call me that. It’s why everyone calls him James, or such as the basketball team may not know about the name all that much. The reason he hates it is because of his Dad naming him that. Jameson also means “Son of James” (Could be funny if his dads name was Jayson or James too but.)

 James has a hard time showing his care, obviously, and it’s probably affected him up in the basketball team as well since his home life (i.e mainly his dad…).

 I also feel like James’ family does magic shit or have demonic connections, more so than the Wolfes, mainly with the dark arts. They use blood to their advantage when doing it, since instead of a spellbook like Lous family or Felix using papers for it, or it being a supernatural powers - they can use the blood to make any spell although on the darker side of things with a few chants. If they do end up using books, it is written by the person who knows those things (Such as James having his own written one, called The Book of Shadows in a particular language and all the spells hand made by him) In which, that would be why Mr Blackburn and Mr Wolfe may have been close in the past as well (just not gay) to where their sons would have met, only for them to be torn apart by the same people who introduced them to eachother. (James would have done magic too then.) 

 James, on the dark magic end, used to do it as well. However, since then, he has not done it since he feels like it hurts people around him (such as something bad always happens after he does it and he regrets it heavily)

 James does not want to be like his dad at all, but he’s following in his steps because he’s afraid for the people around him, it’s why he shut Felix out. He didn’t want him to get harmed, nor did he want to think being gay was good (because of the thoughts Mr Blackburn injected into him.)

Jameson also has horribly bad anger, that much is obvious in IBVS all together - but this can be added on here. He bottles his anger up to a point he hurts anyone in his vicinity because he doesn’t know how to contain it or handle it at all. This leads into him accidentally punching one of his friends - regretting it and storming off out of fear they’ll hate him. 

 This could add into Felix wanting Ed to fuck off thinking he’s also causing grief upon James 

in which, he is unknowingly actually doing that with this whole change thing < will lead upon later

So, to that one poem in James’ redesigned reference sheet, to Felix, James is a star that got flew way too close (got caught) and now he feels he has to save him and all. ^ Relates to a song on the Jorkfolfe List (this post may also help you guys learn more about such songs on the jorkfolfe list.) Mr Blackburn has also cursed Mr Lopez to the point he has almost died, however Ms Lopez can keep him stable. Louis and Laurel are afr to scared to enter that room since they don’t want to see their father ill (he’s no longer on his death bed, just extremely sickly). ^ Mr Lopez is a really really good dad. He’s just sickly and his kids are scared to see their parent hurt.

Anything related to Felix that James may have was all mainly thrown away by Mr Blackburn while James was begging him not to do that at all. So, He had to hide very few things from his dad that he wanted to keep (a photo of him and felix hidden in a spot in his closet around 6th grade). A play on skeletons in his closet. Jameson also, as said, wouldn’t use Jameson in the basketball team at all. This gives Felixs reason a bit more depth and a bit more to James refusing to go with Felix, in which, in the end he may actually head off to his side any way.

A key point in one of the servers I was describing this to, was, ‘A fight between Xavier Jackson and Mr Blackburn would be great’.

I feel like James’ family also leans into the more gothic side of things, which would be a crazy change from the more normal looking parents (i.e antonio, janet, william, etc). His house probably has a spiked metal fence around it tucked deep into the darkest area of foxfield as well. Probably also a dead tree in their yard? ^ James’ room is likely similar, but I feel like he would have a lot of skulls that are real, or bones for that matter. Which would be extremely fun if anyone woul draw it (probably me if i do do that) where his room has shelves and stuff with plenty of skulls, and of course those volumes of dark spells tucked into it.

 He is greatly afraid of change, because he’s already had to make so much change between him and Felix so he doesn’t want to see himself forgotten by the basketball team nor have to distance himself. Since Edward may have helped him in some shape or form, which is highly likely that everyone in Edwards group has helped James in some way. When the group changes, even if it’s very little, he starts to grow a sudden dislike because of the worries he has stored away. However, it does rock back and forth in his head due to Mr Blackburns actions and how they have always affected him and his relationships. Whether for better or for worse the changing is, he’s scared. He thinks Isaac is going to change Edward(and his attitude makes him unbelievably mad), he thinks he’s going to lose Ed who will stop being friends with him just as he did with Felix (not because he likes ed unless you, the reader, portray it such as,) because of Isaac. It’s not just James’ interalized homophobia, it’s more than that.

If he does move onto Felixs side, he would have to fight his interalized homophobia further (I see felix being an absolute freak and kind of a flirt and it makes him EXTREMELY pissed off), but the even bigger change will drive him even more insane because of Felixs group (mainly evil justin… if you read his sheet, he’s EXTREMELY clingy.) and they could possibly bring out more bad then good in James (not ethan because ethan either switched sides and if he stayed is far too anxiety ridden or nervous to do so. Also hes probably the sweetest out of all of them.)

 A song I wanted to do with these two were, 

Tim, I wish you were born a girl by of Monteral   Which i still really want to do but it would be more exciting to do it with a surprise.

 Speaking with that member more, you know who you are, James definitely sucks at communication horribly and probably doesn’t want anyone to know whats going on with his dad at home. The day James cut Felix off was, he said (which is why people keep drawing it), ‘Felix… I wish you were born a girl.’ Before up and leaving that other boy there where he tried to tell him he had to leave in which Felix watched the other leave, saying- ‘jameson- wait–’ before James disappeared into the background. Of course Felix may still try and interact, but we know James would either avoid or lash out.

 One line that person said was, ‘not mr blackburn trying to mold james into him in the worst way’ James may really really want to go back to Felix, but he doesn’t want Felix (or himself) hurt in the process. 

 The scars upon James in the redesign is NOT from his father though, because James seems like the angry and blinded by rage type - he has had plenty of fights over things with other people at school. They would of course scab, in which James would pick at them either way making the other jocks try and stop him from picking at them however they still end up in scars.

 I wouldn’t think Mr Blackburn would put his hands on him (maybe a bit, but not often… probably a quick smack across the face or using a spatula. We don’t talk about the spatula part though getting his with a spatula hurts REALLY BAD.) but mainly yell and freak out on him, to the point he hits a wall or the table and freaks out further - in which James wouldn’t flinch anymore at it because he’s grown numb to it. If he does hurt him in a smaller fit of rage, he’s either grabbing him by the ear or yanking his earring which is why he’s missing one.

He’s likely attacked teachers too.

James has nothing but taking it out on the people around him, or buildings. He has a lot of rings on his hands I feel like, and he would punch the walls of the outdoor of a building until theyre bleeding and bruised.

 He hurts his friends too, but he regrets it heavily and doesn’t think before he does it - and he blames himself even after months have passed.

Obviously, his friends would understand this and would reassure him but it doesn’t make it okay because they did infact get hurt and he knows that.

 When James gets really upset or mad, the one who can probably hold him still and comfort him best is Cody - for one, because he’s basically the basketball players tank and can keep him still, and for two Cody is basically a big teddy bear (like ethan possibly is to the packe, who can calm Felix in perhaps the same manner?)

 Justin would have invited everyone to the group, except Louis inviting James. So basically it would go, in my eyes, Justin invited, Justin has been friends with Louis since they were little so Louis is invited, then Louis invites James, then Justin invites Cody. There. That’s how it goes in my opinion (and headcanons). I really like this idea in my head too I’ve teased on a few times. James takes care of crows and ravens, having fed them a lot. It’s probably one of his soft spots too. They tend to stick around him a lot because they know they can trust him. I saw this one thing of this crow waiting everyday for this little kid to get home from school, only let him pet it, and would always check on him. Which I find absolutely adorable in all manners. So, in my brain, it went, aww James would actually be really cute with birds similar to that.

 Some of these crows are blind, missing a limb such as a leg or a wing or maybe is deaf. He treats them.

The two I have in my head have names and personalities. The crow would be called Pestilence, a female crow who is extremely noisy and chaotic. She tends to curse, due to picking up on James’ constant swear words. She also torments people around James if she feels like it, but her favorite spot to hide or sleep is in James’ letterman hood. She likes to mock people around her, and she loves making noise when she gets gifts for James even if it’s as simple as a piece of wood. When Felix is around with James and shes there, she’ll stick her beak in his ear or peck his face and then laugh about it. James relies on her to speak about the way he is feeling sometimes, but sometimes she leaves for some time since she’s still technically a wild bird.

 The raven would be called Bionic, with a hand-made little leg though flimsy. She’s also pretty chaotic, but is a lot softer around the edges. Her favorite part is to sing songs that James may listen to - and she likes saying, ‘boop boop’. She also rests on his head, cleaning his hair even if he doesn’t need it. ^

May possibly update said post if I feel like it.

possible doodled designs below.

needed mentions : @moldieecheese (since you love jameson), @qhostpi22 (you wished to be tagged), @jamesblackburnn1fan @over-dvse

[multi-fandomdisaster]

One of the things at Kings Island from a potential lore perspective that has always somewhat intrigued me is the queue of The Beast.

I'll admit, if you've been in/seen The Beast's queue before, this may sound...a little silly. The Beast's queue is seemingly pretty barren of theming props (especially when you have things like the posters in Mystic Timbers, the preshow video building of Orion, and the entire queue of Flight of Fear to compare it to), but there are a couple of (in my opinion) particularly interesting props that are there that could imply a more interesting story.

I'm talking about (what I've personally dubbed) "the barrel pit" (which notably has large chains in it too)...

(Image 1 taken May 13, 2023. Image 2 taken April 20, 2024. Image 3 taken July 1, 2024)

...and the signs on the ceiling of the queue itself.

(Images 1 & 2 taken May 13, 2023)

"Beast Containment Area 1" and "Beast Containment Area 2" is what the signs say, Area 1 being the extended queue and Area 2 being the main queue. That, paired with the massive chains in the barrel pit which is located in between these two "containment areas," paints a pretty clear picture to me: at one point, the workers of the Kings Crossroads Consolidated Mining Company (the fictional mining company in The Beast's theme, the name of which can be found on a sign on a building at the entrance of The Beast's queue) had once captured and kept The Beast here.

I mentioned in a previous post that when The Beast first opened, there was a massive sign somewhere by the entrance that looked like this:

[The source of and the alt text for this image can also be found in that same previously-mentioned and linked post]

To sum it up, the president of the mining company (Charles J. Dinn, who fun fact: was the manufacturer of the ride Charles Dinn!) is asking for volunteers to join the mining company employees on a Beast hunt so that normal mining operations can begin again. I believe it's implied that at this point in time, you as the rider were maybe going on one of these hunts, but I don't have any way of confirming that. As of now, us as the riders don't seem to have any specific story-based mission, with the official description on Kings Island's app and website talking about the ride's historical and personal significance to the park (I think I read somewhere something about the changed story having something to do with the old minecarts coming back to life and you checking it out, but I lost that source to the void that is the internet years ago so don't quote me on that lol).

Before, I assumed that the at-the-time Little Miami Amalgamated Mining and Minerals Company was unsuccessful on its Beast hunt (as we still presumably have The Beast roaming around the forest of Rivertown today), but upon taking another/a closer look at these two queue details...perhaps they weren't as unsuccessful in their mission as I once thought.

There's a couple of specific things I believe that these queue details could tell us:

1. The size of The Beast

If we're assuming that the miners did indeed catch The Beast at some point and that "Beast Containment Area 1" and "Beast Containment Area 2" were where they kept it, then that could give us a pretty clear idea of just how large this Beast is. I mean, if you look at the way "Beast Containment Area 2" specifically is built, it's like a large wooden cage. I'll admit, I don't think wood would hold a creature like The Beast for very long, but it's still worth noting.

(Additionally, there's a couple of other signs in "Beast Containment Area 2" that say "Warning" and "Beast Unchained," which begs the question...if they were keeping The Beast there...were they keeping it unchained? I mean, I know what I said before about wood probably not being the smartest of materials to build a cage out of if they actually want to keep it there, but...these guys didn't seem all that great at their jobs here. Maybe they should have stuck with mining /silly)

2. The origin of The Beast's chains

As you may know, the logo of The Beast features the wooden track topped by two massive orange paws that are adorned with sharp silver claws and manacles on the creature's wrists. We see clear as day in the barrel pit large chains, and even some tie-down spots the chains may have once been attached to. Could this have been where The Beast's chains came from? Perhaps it originally chained down here, broke free of those chains, and ran back out into the forest.

That's all I've got for now. I'll might add more in a later post talking about all the signs in The Beast's station at a later date, but for now I hope you enjoyed my random Beast lore ramble! :D

(If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask me!)

[robustcornhusk]

every now and then i see someone out there on an outdoor elliptical, swish-swish-swishing their way down the block

and like, it has a point, which is 1) it's outside which is inherently more pleasant than inside for exercise and 2) if you got Fucky Legs it will not make them Fuckier

however

every time i see them - i think it's the same person each time - they're going downhill, slowly, and they're exerting a shitton of effort to crawl. idgi

[wandixx]

I've seen a lot of different takes on Fear Toxin/other fear causing stuff (Yellow Lanterns Ring or something)(later just called Fear Toxin cause I'm lazy) but here is another one.

Danny seems like he isn't affected by Fear Toxin because his biggest fear is that his accident changed him so much he is no longer human, he can no longer truly experience human things.

So when he gets lungful of fear Toxin, he feels normal. He was antsy before, because c'mon, it's a rogue attack but it's not worse. Or so he thought. Because the anxiety lingers. Not enough to register as abnormal just this slight hypervigilance that makes you see things about yourself and your surroundings that you'd never realize otherwise. He'd realize he doesn't blink as often. He'd realize that if he doesn't consciously focus, he sometimes seems to not touch the ground. Forgets to breathe. He can't feel his own pulse at time. He'd realize people will miss him when he's walking down the street as if he was invisible (people just don't care about everyone they pass by). When he'd look straight into his reflection, he'd look slightly to the left. Not enough to actually name anything that was wrong but just stretched enough to fall on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. If he just caught his reflection in the peripheral vision, it'd be vaguely shadowy creature with glowing green eyes and white smoke instead of hair. Overall he'd be just wrong enough to be distinctly not human.

For everyone else, he'd be just a dude. Literally couldn't find more normal dude than this dude. Will pass as absolutely normal human unless someone is specifically looking for ecto-ghost stuff. Even most magic users wouldn't clock him at the glance

Tldr: Fear Toxin makes Danny perceive himself as some sort of eldritch horror but not enough to make him believe he'd actually be affected, while from outside perspective he's Just A Dude™

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[heatherwitch]

PNW Plant Magic Series

These posts were made many years ago based on my personal (UPG) correspondences and experiences with the plants. Some views have evolved since then!

I encourage you to sit with any plant you want to incorporate into your craft and truly connect with them instead of solely using a UPG correspondence list on tumblr! Consider these a starting point/inspiration! :)

Bleeding heart

Bracken Fern

Deer Fern

Lady Fern

Licorice Fern

Maidenhair Fern

Miner’s Lettuce

Nettle

Osoberry

Red Elderberry

Salal

Salmonberry

Sorrel

Sword Fern

Trillium