#i would have 3 nickels. are we surprised

[slendershift]

shifting for a faceless youtuber is a little embarrassing sometimes cuz it’s like yes i don’t know what he looks like… IN THIS REALITY… i promise it’s not the minecraft skin and instead is the voice and the personality… guys no don’t run away

[shewroteaworld]

Unsub Bait

Premise: For the fourth time, brilliant sunshine!reader is asked to bait the unsub. For the first time, Spencer has a problem with this.

Word count: approx. 2,000

Tw: canon-typical discussions of violence

Author's Note: Welcome to the second installment of brilliant sunshine!reader (meaning highly intelligent sunshine!reader) x Spencer Reid! While you don't have to read my first brilliant sunshine! reader fic to understand this one, I would highly recommend reading it. It's titled "I'll Hold Your Weight When You Can't." Hope you enjoy! :) <3

“Here’s an overview of the first phase of the operation: (Y/N) will go undercover as a college student at Yale. She’ll get acquainted with the unsub at Speakeasy, the New Haven bar where he assesses potential victims. We’ll apprehend him in the act of attempted kidnapping.” Hotchner listed for the team.

You’d played unsub lure almost a comical number of times. Once? That’s a once in a million task required to capture a once in a million unsub. Twice? You’d only have two nickels, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right? But four times? 

You’d already joked to Hotch that you should add “professional unsub bait” to your resume. 

It would’ve been more comical if it wasn’t so scary. 

You took a deep breath as you stared at the photos of the victims on the mahogany conference room table. Melissa Grey. Audrey Bernstein. Alivia Johnson. You could see your 21-year-old self in their eyes. You remember being so young and full of anxiety; you were near graduating from MIT. You couldn’t sleep at night from worrying if you had already lived up to your potential and would spend the rest of your years a washed up gifted kid– an academic has–been. After graduation, you proved to yourself your worth.

The college juniors in the photographs had their lives cut short by the unsub before they had the opportunity to find out what amazing places their brilliant minds could take them. You were about to allow said unsub to nearly kidnap you. 

That is, if you didn’t blow your cover. Then, he would hold you hostage or attempt to kill you as soon as possible by skipping his usual "kidnap and torture" routine.

Rationally, you knew your field experience more than prepared you for this task. Also, you knew your team had your back. They always kept you safe and healthy. The one time you were put at serious risk, you had to fight to be left alone after the case closed. But, you’re not sure if all the facts in the world could adequately calm your adrenal glands.

“Is this necessary?” Spencer suddenly interjected.

You turned to Spencer in surprise. “It’s the quickest way. We have twenty-four hours,” You said.

The unsub had a pattern; a girl was dying once every two weeks, and, when the the local and Connecticut police force combined failed to contain the situation, the BAU was brought into the case 36 hours before the next killing. With his eidetic memory, you were certain Spencer couldn't forget the time restraints if he tried, hence why you were stunned by his sudden brazenness. However, given Spencer's traumatic relationship history and your budding romance, Spencer's behavior was a lot more likely.

You and Spencer had been dating for a couple weeks. Despite being certain the team had their suspicions, you kept your relationship on the downlow. Strong boundaries were a good thing to keep when your relationship was in its fragile, formative era. Plus, you both agreed it was best to keep a high level of professionalism. 

This was the first time Spencer broke protocol.

“I think there’s another way.” Spencer continued. “It’s unsafe and illogical to put anyone’s life into considerable risk if there’s another viable option.”

“Are you implying I’m being rash, Reid?” Hotchner asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Usually, Spence would look away and take a breath. He’d at least have the decency to act timid, especially given the fact the entire team pulled multiple all-nighters in an effort to catch this serial killer. Instead, he leveled with Hotchner’s glare and asserted himself further. “I just think we’ve gotten a little too comfy using (Y/N) as an unsub lure. The more we do, the more probable a disaster will occur with her in the line of fire.”

“Spencer,” Morgan cut in gently. There was sympathy in his eyes. “We’ve done this with (Y/N) before. We’re good at reading her. And she knows the drill. We’ll keep her safe.”

“Yes, because that’s something we can certainly guarantee when she’s 3 inches from a serial killer.” Spencer deadpanned. 

“Reid. A word.” Without waiting for Spencer’s reaction, Hotch left the meeting room. With a hard look in his eye, Spencer filed after Hotch. You were relieved he was still obedient despite being ornery.

For a few moments, the team sat in silence. 

Rossi broke the spell with the scrape of his chair. “Well, I for one, am going to take this impromptu intermission as an opportunity to grab coffee. Any requests?” Rossi asked. 

“I’ll take a barbajada.” You joked half-heartedly. 

“Very funny, (L/N). Any requests the office Keurig can complete in less than five minutes?” 

The team rattled off their go-to office drink orders, but it faded to white noise. During your friendship, Spencer would always care for you when you had to lure the unsub. He’d be more attentive on the jet ride in and out. He’d check in on your mental state directly after the unsub was arrested and always called you once you got home. Once, after the particularly stressful unsub encounter, he sent you links to PTSD articles and even offered to help you schedule an appointment with a specialized therapist through the FBI’s mental health services.

But he’d never once intervened with a plan for you to go undercover. You knew Spencer Reid was nothing if not rational. He knew Hotch valued every member of his team. He knew Hotch would never send you undercover if it wasn’t necessary to stop a killing spree before more young women became statistics. 

Therefore, you knew Spencer was thinking about Maeve. 

You stood. 

“Where you going, Beauty Queen?” Morgan asked.

“Just heading to the restroom.” You lied. 

You walked down the hall and crept up the stairs. You tiptoed down the east wing of the second floor to avoid clicking your heels against the concrete. 

You crept to the side of Hotch’s office. You pressed your back to the wall.

Hotch said something indecipherable. An angry Reid answered.

“And all I’m saying is, she is not a cat with nine lives! She has one life. One precious life, that I think we’ve been a little too careless with.”

“Reid, you know I would never risk putting (Y/N) in harm’s way if it wasn’t the best course of action. She’s experienced with this. The team is experienced with this.” 

A beat of silence passed.

“Promise me that if you have so much as an inkling her life is in danger–”

“We’ll do everything in our power to get her out of there.”

“That’s the thing! ‘Everything in our power…’ It’s not enough. How many times have we told families we did everything we could when all they have left is a body bag?” 

Your heart froze. Both of the voices lowered. You could only catch bits and pieces of Hotch’s speech. You were never an eavesdropper, but despite your better nature, you crept around the corner towards the door.

“I know what it’s like to lose someone to an unsub, Spencer. I know how it sticks with you. I know how it changes the job. But you have to trust us– the team. We’re going to protect her. And we’re going to be there for you,” Hotch said. 

Spencer sighed. "How did you do it?" Spencer's voice cracked. "After Haley, Hotch? I’m not sure if I can survive this.” He sounded seconds away from tears. 

At that moment, you knew you would not sleep comfortably at night if you continued to be a fly on the wall.  You tiptoed back down the east wing and waited for Spencer at the bottom of the stairs.

Ten minutes passed before Spencer appeared at the top of the staircase.

“Spencer?” You called. 

His hazel eyes were tinged pink. He walked down the stairs nonchalantly. “Hey, um, would you mind if we discussed part of the case file real quick? Privately? It could help, um…” He cleared his throat. “Develop your persona.”

“Yes, of course.” 

Spencer didn’t look at you as he power walked down the hall towards the janitorial closets. For the first time since you started dating, he didn’t adjust to your walking pace. 

He flung a door open and yanked you inside. 

Carelessly, Spencer slammed the door behind you. Before you could get a word in, he pulled you into a bear hug.

“Spencer.” You whispered. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

He nuzzled his nose into your hair. 

You stood in the statue of a hug for two minutes.

“I can’t lose you.” Spencer whispered.

“You won’t.”

Spencer pulled away from you. He bent down to look you in the eye. He squeezed your shoulders. His eyes danced with emotion. There was a deep ache, a whirlpool of sadness that you knew a lifetime may never heal. What perplexed you was the hardness that you could only read as anger. 

“I…” He sighed. He hung his head. He dragged his palms down the slope of your shoulders to your forearms. It was like he was taking a cast of you with his hands. 

“I’m not dead on arrival. I’m still here. I’m coming back on that jet ride home with you. I’m going to be okay.” You reciprocated his shoulder squeeze. “You’re going to be okay.”

Spencer shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I care about you. It’s a part of the girlfriend package.” Spencer pulled you into another constricting hug. 

 “I can’t fathom how difficult this must be for you.” You whispered.

Spencer pressed his forehead to yours. “Promise me when you go out there, you won’t worry about me. I want you to only focus on you, your surroundings, and making sure you get out of there.”

“I promise, Spencer.” You said, though you weren’t sure if that would be the truth.

“And one more thing,” He said. His irises were so close to yours you could pick apart the layer of green and brown. “As soon as you feel unsafe, you call someone. If you have any inclination he’s going to overtake you–”

“I call the team.”

He took a step back and ran his hands through his hair. “I know you’re strong. I’m not trying to insult your field work.”

Your heart cracked. “Spencer, love, I know that. I’m so happy you care about me. I just wish this situation hurt you less.”

He dropped his hands to his sides. His brows furrowed. He stared at a random point to the left of your face.

“Can you do something for me? Before we leave?” He asked, still not meeting your gaze.

“What is it, Spence?”

He took a deep breath. He met your eyes again. “Dance with me.” 

“What?”

“Dance with me. I…” He inhaled deeply. “I never got to dance with Maeve before she…I barely even got to hold her. I won’t make the same mistake twice.” 

You closed the distance between you and Spencer. You cupped his face in your hands, and he instinctively leaned into your touch. His eyes shone with tears. “I’ll dance with you for the rest of my days, Spence.” 

He whipped out his phone. He turned on a slow jazz song you played for him last winter on an impromptu hot chocolate date. 

Your heart skipped a beat. You could go on that same date again, but it would have a whole new color to it. 

He slid his phone onto a cleaning supply shelf. He pulled you to his chest. Your head nestled right beneath his collarbone. You wrapped your arms around his mid back.

You danced, bodies pressed together like puzzle pieces, in silence until the song ended. The symphony of emotions didn’t cease with the final brush of the snare. 

Spencer continued swaying with you.

“I’m going to be okay.” You whispered.

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “You can’t promise me that.” He held you even tighter. “But I can promise you I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you come home to me.” 

Author's Note: Hello to all my new followers! I'm so glad you're here! I'm so grateful for the overwhelmingly positive reception to "I'll Hold Your Weight When You Can't." Hope you enjoyed this piece as well!

I hope you have a great day or night wherever you are in this crazy world.

xoxo,

shewroteaworld

[lanawinterscigarettes]

what if i asked for a joe goldberg x fem reader (kinktober) against the wall sex?? and praise?? it feels so awkward requesting this— is it okay 😭 dom reader maybe??

it's absolutely okay! I know that sometimes requesting smut can feel a little weird, but you're perfectly fine so don't worry <3 thanks for the request!

Kinktober 2024 Day 19: Joe Goldberg x fem reader against the wall sex and praise kink

Warnings: smut/nsfw content, sex against a wall, penetrative sex (p in v, please make sure to use a condom irl), praise kink, partially clothed sex, sub Joe, dom reader, the reader's a massive tease/Joe has a slight humiliation kink, brief hair pulling, hickeys mentioned, the reader is implied to be as obsessive and crazy as Joe is

The pictures hanging on the nearby wall shook as Joe slammed you against it, his mouth meeting yours in a flurry of teeth and tongue. Even after being together for all this time, it was still hard for him to keep his hands off you.

"You look so gorgeous today," he breathed out, his voice sounding a little raspy when he spoke. His eyes roamed over your body, his hands planted firmly on your hips as he held you trapped between him and the wall behind you.

You couldn't help but think about just how pathetic he looked, especially when he got so desperate for you- which happened so frequently it was hard to keep track of. If you had a nickel for every time he pounced on you the second you got home for the day, neither of you would need to work for the rest of your lives because you'd be filthy rich.

"You flatter me," were the words you purred back in response, your arms wrapped around his neck to ensure he stayed as close to you as possible, not that he planned on pulling away anytime soon. "Maybe you should take a look into the mirror sometime, then you'd see that you're not so bad yourself."

He practically whined at your lighthearted teasing, hiding his face in the side of your neck as he hands clutched onto your hips even tighter. He could feel his already hard cock straining against the fabric of his jeans.

Luckily for him, your pants had already been discarded long before this point, so all he had to do was pull your underwear to the side if he wanted to slip in. But first things first, he needed to take a deep breath, otherwise he'd bust the second he was inside.

The sound of you chuckling is what broke him free from his thoughts. "You're so cute when you try acting like you're not as affected as you really are," you cooed in a tone that was mostly affectionate and only slightly condescending.

Regardless of whether you were mocking him or not, it still turned him on to hear you say that. Any of the blood that wasn't causing his face to flush had already rushed further downwards, making him impossibly harder. He needed you, and he needed you now.

With one hand still pinning your hips to the wall, the other moved down to unzip his pants, pushing both them and his boxers down far enough to be able to pull his cock out. He was already panting by this point, and if you didn't know any better you'd have thought the sounds you were hearing was a pug trying to breathe after taking a walk on a hot summer day.

"Easy, baby. I'm not going anywhere." The teasing comments coming from you certainly didn't help matters.

The hand that wasn't still on your hips wrapped around his aching cock, pumping it a few times before he reluctantly let go and pulled your underwear to the side, slowly but surely slipping in. A noise that was something between a whimper and a groan left his lips as he felt you clench around him, his eyes fluttering shut at the sensation.

"I'm surprised you've been able to last this long. Usually you'd had finished before you were even inside," you mused in a slightly breathless voice, not having lost the certain air of cockiness about you that you always gained whenever the two of you had sex.

He whined loudly in response, his hips forcfully bucking up into yours, pushing him in deeper. God, you were always such a tease. It drove him crazy in the best possible way.

"I- I didn't want to leave you hanging," he muttered as he started to thrust at a relatively quick pace, one that had your nails digging into his back through his shirt as your own back arched up off the wall behind you.

You bit your lip while moving your face in a little closer to his, speaking next to his ear in a low and sultry tone. "How thoughtful of you. You're always so considerate, huh? Always so good for me."

He felt his knees buckle at your whispered words, his legs almost giving out. The impact you had over him was tremendous, and you were well aware of it.

"S- Stop." He hid his face in the side of your neck again, hoping you hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of how red his face had become. He let out a soft grunt when he felt your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him in closer and pushing him deeper within you, the tip of his cock brushing against your sensitive velvety walls.

"I don't think you're in any position to be making demands right now." Your hands moved up his back, one of them finding its way to the nape of his neck as you laced your fingers through his dark, curly hair.

Before he could protest, your fingers tightened their grip and tugged his head back, pulling his face away from your neck. His eyes were wide with a mixture of arousal and humiliation, though the first one was clearly winning out of the two.

"Now, behave."

The stern tone of your voice was enough to snap him out of whatever sort of flustered, somewhat bratty mood he was in. "Y- Yes, ma'am," he breathed out quietly, desperate to please you.

The strict gaze in your eyes softened as you loosened your grip on his hair, gently running your fingers through it instead of gripping onto it tightly like you had before. "That's it, good boy."

Joe could feel his cock twitch as a jolt of pleasure ran through him at your praised, but he held off on finishing, wanting to make you feel good first. He kissed you in a way that was much more tender than earlier, his hands holding onto your hips with affection rather than possession.

As much as you enjoyed it when he allowed his lust to take control of him and guide his actions, you had to admit you liked it when he mellowed out even more. He was much more agreeable that way.

"Good boy, good boy, that's it," you spoke out loving words of praise as his mouth went from your lips to your neck, carefully marking up the area as he purposely rolled his hips against yours. You needed him the same way he needed you, even if you'd never say it out loud. The two of you completed each other in the best (and worst) ways possible.

After all, who else would be able to love him as unconditionally as you did? No one, that's who. You shuddered to think about the woman after you who might try to take your place.

There wouldn't be a woman after you, there couldn't be. You refused to even toy with the notion. It was you and him, forever. And you'd rather die than allow someone else to take your place.

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[deadpresidents]

I'm always a fan of Caity Weaver's work, but this piece from the New York Times Magazine (these links are gift links from me past the NYT paywall to access the full article) about how the penny is not only a ridiculous zombie currency, but also a reflection of American dysfunction is one of the best articles I've read in a long time. It's really interesting, especially the parts about production, circulation, and the ultimate paralysis of throwing them in a coin jar for months or years before eventually taking them to a Coinstar machine.

Not only is the penny useless and more expensive to make than it is actually worth, but it's also relatively easy to eliminate. But it's not an imperative and eliminating it also wouldn't necessarily be something that the government or the citizens would actively profit from. And people don't like change -- and I don't mean "change" as in currency, but the act of doing something different or unusual from our accepted routines. So we just ignore them or discard them or hoard them needlessly, and the government keeps making billions of tons (literally) of them because they drop out of circulation. Nobody cares and nobody wants to have to do anything about it because America.

Here's a little excerpt of the piece from the New York Times Magazine, and again, just follow the links for a free gift pass behind the paywall for Caity's full article:

Americans accumulate pennies not because we desire them but because we are entitled to them. If we pay for something in cash with more than exact change, we expect to receive back the difference; if the difference ends in any number other than 0 or 5, we will receive at least one penny. We are entitled to pennies because they exist. But imagine a world where they didn't. Imagine a world where it was Canada. Many Americans will be surprised to learn that Canada eliminated its 1-cent coin more than a decade ago...Canada got rid of its penny in 2013 because it cost 1.6 cents to produce and had, like its American cousin, become essentially worthless. Here is the most important detail to understand: Canada eliminated only its physical coin, not the mathematical concept of 1 cent. Payment by credit card, debit card, mobile phone or check -- any kind of noncash transaction -- is calculated exactly as it was before the penny was abolished. If, after tax, a bill comes to, say, $20.11, a Canadian paying by credit card will be charged $20.11. A Canadian paying by cash can expect to pay $20.10. The final digit of Canadian cash transactions is rounded to the nearest nickel: 1 and 2, nearest to 0 nickels, round down to 0; 3 and 4 round up to a nickel -- 5; 6 and 7, also nearest to one nickel, round down -- 5 again; 8 and 9, nearest to 10 cents, round up. I admit that the thought I might be asked to pay, say $3.80 (cash) for something that, according to the laws of God and man, has been calculated to cost $3.79 (cash) is not only reflexively infuriating to me but a potential source of permanent confusion. The Canadian government mitigated one of those problems (no hope for the other) with an information campaign that included signs with simple charts dividing potential prices into two columns: "Round down" and "Round up." I asked Karl Littler from the Retail Council of Canada if there were still signs at cash registers explaining the rounding. "It's 10 years now, so even the most obtuse people have pretty much figured it out," he said, and laughed.

-- Caity Weaver: "America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny", the New York Times Magazine

[jackandjoker]

my top shows of 2024 (better late than never)

1. jack and joker (act surprised)

this was my first ever thai show and GOSH was i in for a ride.. i legit started watching this for fun because i saw an edit and i found the name ‘joke’ very funny… oh how times change.

this show was made for me, it’s perfect to me, i can talk about it forever and i will.

2. peaceful property

to think i almost didn’t watch this because the poster didn’t interest me 😭

but this is so underrated i think? it was everything to me, each story was special and made me feel so many things. the phoomvicha episode made me cry the most, along with ep 8 😞

3. last twilight

this is the 2nd show from P’Aof that i’ve seen and i think he’s gotten a spot in my favourite directors list. definitely not without faults, but still unique and beautiful and i loved it. also cried a hell lot… and i hope i can get mhok’s fart proudly shirt one day.

4. let free the curse of taekwondo

my first ever korean drama and it will not be the last!! i loved this so much, i only wish it was longer. i’m patiently waiting for all my exams to end so i can watch all of hwang da-seul’s filmography.

5. i hear the sunspot

so many firsts in this post- this is the show that introduced me to the world of asian bl… my first ever asian drama <3

i love kohei & taichi with all of my heart and although they seem to be the kings of miscommunication, they found each other in the end. and i desperately want to try that burger.

6. interview with the vampire s2

iwtv is my kind of crazy, i love them all 🤲

not much to say about this one but it’s one of the 3 shows i’ve given a perfect 5/5 rating so far. (others are j&j and derry girls).

7. the on1y one

patiently waiting for season 2🥹

these two had my entire heart 😭😭 something about this show that makes me feel so much comfort… and it’s gorgeous so that’s a plus. (my first ever taiwanese drama- sorry)

8. takara’s treasure

this was just so cute 🥹 they’re adorable and it’s just a light and fluffy show and i love that. i took care of an abandoned kitty for a while and named her takara because i considered her my treasure lol.

9. 23.5

loser lesbians <3333

if onsga and aylin had a daughter, it would be me. 100%. i love milklove and i’m impatiently waiting for whale store xoxo. and i love how view is like the girl version of mark pakin because i adore her and keep seeing her in random stuff i watch.

10. see your love

this was just so fun🥺 the best 20 mins i had every wednesday for 12 weeks. both the main leads and johnathan & xin jia have my heart, along with shu he and shaopeng’s parents. i love amazing supportive parents in bls 🥹🩵

some other favs under the cut :)

non 2024 shows i loved-

moonlight chicken

i need more series like this because 🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵 it was so gorgeous omg and it was too short 😞😞

when i watched the first ep i didn’t think i’d like it but still continued and i’m so glad because it only got better and better. and i hope whoever decided to make earthmix firstkhao gem4 sing the moon represents the heart never has a bad day in their life. i love it so much.

the best story

when are we getting the dew story yinwar?? 😭🥺 if i had a nickel for everytime war cried after seeing yin with a girl, i would have 3 nickels. maybe more if i start counting their music videos

cherry magic thailand

i wanted more taynew after peaceful property and damn!! karan was whipped 😭 it’s funny how his thoughts were like that when he had a gaystraight face the entire time

other 2024 shows that i enjoyed:

sugar dog life

i love shows that involve cooking and i love characters who bond over food. so obviously i loved this. similar to takara’s treasure, a feel good show.

caged again

it got a bit messy around the end and the story took turns i wasnt expecting, which was fine, but i felt it was different from the premise if that makes sense? i loved it still and i would definitely like to see more of ben & jay.

my love mix up th

i randomly watched this on my period and honestly it made me laugh so much so i’m biased 😭 some stupid stuff did bother me but overall very slay <3 i’m glad chokun has a main role now, after this & peaceful property 🥺

[speakofthedebbie]

by popular demand (re: one person) some radioapple fic recs!! (i hope thats what you meant lol most of the fics i read are just radioapple)

Bedtime Rituals to Try out Before the Next Angelic War by @miribalis

just yes. thousand times yes. so basically my boy luci has some sleep troubles and that somehow leads to a qpr with al look its been a while ok just read it

Managerial Liberties by the same fella

these two tags explain it pretty well

something that sticks out to me about this is that charlie is actually (reasonably) cold to adam and like. im actually surprised with how little ive seen that. i mean i dont think id be exactly buddy-buddy with my besties killer either. only 3 chaps as of writing but already looking to be a radioapple classic

im not sure if its meant to be read as such but it kinda feels like a squeal to bedtime rituals in a way (edit: not meant to be read as such, just the same vibe)

devils don't fly (don't expect me not to fall) by @corgiss

also just yes. basically a really not cool joke evolves into a blossoming romance because why wouldnt it. (man if i had a nickel for every radioapple fic that had a masquerade that was sabotaged by the vees- *gets shot bc i cant mention osas yet*)

i’ll hold you close (i’ll stay the course) by the same fella

the entire time i was just going "yas king! put that egotistical flatscreen in his place!!". basically luci reminds the overlords who he is and vox shows he can be more of a threat than he lets on.

ykw fuck it just the entire series (i didnt mention i would give anything to not give a shit (but i do) and my perfect rock bottom (my beautiful trauma) because the first one sounded a lil too angsty and ive gotten enough of that from other sources [pointedly glares at Quietly, It Slips Through Your Fingers, Love {also coming up later!}] and the second is (mostly) smut and ive been trying to step back from that because "ive seen worse" isnt a valid excuse for that torture actually)

Of Saints and Sinners by the forever amazing @morningstarwrites!! (if you see this i have a serious question: is this your first time ever writing a fic? because how do you get so much right the first time- [not even beginners luck could explain this level of skill])

i could sing its praises until my death bed but ill hold off so i can explain whats happening. basically after burning down a meeting room several times, luci and al make a deal ("not a deal!", luci laments to the void): they will attempt to be civil and maybe even friendly, and by the end luci will owe al a favour. whats the favour? read it yourself dammit! seriously, 10/10, i am foaming at the mouth till friday (depending on how this goes, that might be tomorrow or today)

Quietly, It Slips Through Your Fingers, Love by Starlit_Rainfall (no tumblr in sight, so AO3) (i. urgfgh. what happened. i was just smiling over the fluff while crossing to go to school. where did it go. where did it gooooo)

if thats anything to go by, the last few chapters have been rough. the fluff feels so far away that i cant even explain what happens. luci was waxing poetic about swimming in maple syrup for al, i remember that much. also emily is there (fallen) tho we havent seen her in a sec. if you read it, warning for the gut punch of angst that starts chap 32 "She/Her" (though the chapter before that, "Should Alastor Know By Now?" ends pretty rough too)

Freely We Serve by @romanaxe

i dont remember how i managed to stumble upon this but im having a great time. basically alastor is a new sinner fresh in hell (but time doesnt matter and the whole cast is still here) and thinks "what better way to gain power than be the personal assistant of the heartbroken king of hell!" features a 6(?) year old charlie and a morally dubious lilith (also i loved eepy al X3)

A Family Forged in Hellfire by Green_Ghostwriter (once again, no Tumblr, so AO3)

this ones a bit newer (10 chaps), is so far mostly exposition and the slowburn pot hasnt even been put on the stove, but as just a hazbin fic in general i see the potential. basically its a 1920s au where heaven decides little charlie doesnt deserve to be raised in hell and is sent to earth with a "foster" family where her actions in life will determine witch realm she will return to after death. her "parents", al and minzy, are given false memories so they can claim the girl as their own and gee i wasnt kidding when i said it was a lot of exposition. erm honestly explaining anymore would tech be spoiling so go read it!

The Red Thread That Binds Us by @scun-gilli

{{future me prefacing this by saying i have no idea where i was going with yesterdays thought process, all you need to know from it was im on chapter 27. also scungilli your comment is making me very worried 😟 well theres no mcd tag so im sure itll fine, right? RIGHT, SCUNGILLI??}}

basically its a king x kings guard au where al and luci grow up together and only grow closer after a. certain life event for al (its fine guys trust :)) [she said, like a liar]) then al is sent of for royal guard training school (ik its not called that i forgor 😭) but dw he comes back. just watch out for graphic depictions of injuries (i think thats this fic) angst and a sneaky eve bc radioapple fics are allergic to happiness (or maybe im not looking hard enough lol) (also im really tempted to make the friendship bracelets they had 👀)

somewhere down the line by kj_crwm (AO3 link)

this one starts off as human!alastor/lucifer but by the middle(?) its just regular radioapple. basically al is encountered by luci while finishing off a job who agrees to keep quiet. luci just keeps on showing up, reveals hes the devil to which al us just like "lol ok" and eventually they get in a relationship (ooh lala 👀) but they break up after saying some hurtful things to each other (oh nono 👀) with luci promising al they will never cross paths again. if you watched the show then well. you know that doesnt happen 😂 most human!al radioapple have al summon him (no hate to them) so this was an interesting change of pace

cannot stress it enough but this is a WORKING list i WILL be coming back to it bc these are purely the fics i could think if off the top of my head. IN FACT, if any of you have radioapple fics you love, SEND THEM THE FUCK IN! i am one person whos only been in this fandom for 4 months, and reading fics/shipping radioapple even less, theres bound to be some ones i missed that you think are Worthy™️! and if theyre nsfw then at the very least it shouldnt be the main focus

EDIT: so sorry anyone who reblogged this before had to see the disgusting unedited version. literally just found out that tumblr doesnt apply edits to reblogs. what the fuck

[raplinesmoon]

Alone With You In The Aether (KSJ x GN!Reader)

pairing: lunar deity!Seokjin! x reader (no specified pronouns) genre(s): angst… i’m sorry, a tiny glimmer of fluff at the end au(s): some kind of mythology mixed with dystopian mixed with post-apocalyptic au word count: 2.1k warnings: implied character d*aths (non-graphic), mentions of blood, lots of sad thoughts rating: 18+

summary: Seokjin thinks he's hard to remember, but your faith leaves him surprised every time.

a/n: if i had a nickel for everytime I wrote Seokjin in a strange apocalyptic, dystopian au, I'd have two nickels. It's weird that it happened twice. Also why do the most gut-wrenching, angsty ideas come to me for Seokjin (give this man a break)! Consider this my long overdue bday gift for him. This fic draws on this prompt, the song 134340 (of course), the book by Olivie Blake (for the title and angsty vibes) and the films Sunshine (2007) and Snowpiercer (2013). It's wildly experimental and may be slightly bad considering I haven't written for Jin in so long, but I hope you give it a chance <;3

Seokjin was used to the dark. He looked out upon the night sky every night, a vast sea of midnight black as far as the eye could see, lit up by tiny specks of stars and satellites, with him at the center of it, perched on the crescent moon, mesmerized by the world below.

The humans were fascinated by him, and Seokjin by them. Every night, they’d look up at the sky, pointing and exclaiming at the bright white orb that lit everything up. They’d offer their prayers and make their sacrifices – for peace, and prosperity, for good fortune to enter their homes and bless their families. And Seokjin would always deliver – whether it was through abundant crops, or the blessing of another child to the human race.

He was the gentle, all-giving light in their eyes, shielding them from the harshness of their day-to-day lives, ruled by his much more tempestuous counterpart, Hoseok, otherwise known as the sun. 

Until the day everything crumbled into dust.

The gods had never expected Hoseok to lose the battle against the malevolent demon that tormented the world, evil at its very core. Eternity had been promised to them as the Earth’s caretakers, tending to and sowing the seeds for humans to thrive. The devastation was profound at the loss of their beloved companion, none of them able to do anything as they watched the ichor leech out of his being, plunging the world into an eternal winter.

Paralyzed by shock and grief, they’d called a tribunal, lost on how to move forward without their beloved sun. Seokjin offered up his palace in the heavens, the deafening silence at his marble table proof that none of them had been expecting any of this to come to fruition.

Yoongi, the keeper of time, was the first to speak up. 

“It’ll happen to all of us,” his voice is gruff, leading to wide-eyed stares and gasps of shock and confusion around the table. “The humans grew weary of Hoseok, and the light that he provided. They destroyed the earth that he sowed, built buildings tall enough to block out his light, and retreated deeper and deeper into the underground and the shadows. They stopped believing.”

Seokjin ponders over Yoongi’s words, a pit growing in his stomach when he realized Yoongi was right. In the eons that he’d been tasked with being the caretaker of the moon, humans had always sought to conquer the land they’d been bestowed. He welcomed them when they tried to explore his dominion up above, lips twisting in amusement at their curiosity. But as he watched them grow more and more intelligent, fueled by Namjoon’s gifts as the god of knowledge, with that intelligence came greed, and its horrifying consequences. 

“They’ll lose faith in all of us, one by one. As the earth begins to crumble without its sun, their faith too, will weaken. And when the last person stops believing, we too will vanish alongside them.”

And Seokjin, who’d always been docile and kind to the humans, realized that with the advent of this new chapter in the universe, that he’d likely be the first to die, the humans’ faith in him as temperamental as the waxing and waning of the moon they searched for in the sky every night. A moon they could no longer see. 

If Seokjin had lungs, the dust would cling to them, burning up his insides, stealing the very breath from him. He couldn’t remember how long it’d been since the death of the sun, whether it was decades, centuries, or even millennia. The dust clouded everything, rising up into the atmosphere, washing away the oceans, and Jungkook, the sea god, along with it.

One by one, the gods fell out of favour, helpless against the hopelessness which had begun to thrive amongst the humans. Seokjin wondered how any of them were alive at all, continuing to cling onto the fragile threads of life when everything that sustained it disappeared around them.

Most of all, he wondered how he’d managed to make it so long, his faint light present despite the cloud of dust. How people believed in a moon they could no longer see, one that could no longer promise hope of fertility in a barren land, where people picked at the dirt for food, where children stopped being a blessing and turned into a distant hope that evolved into a curse.

Who was left to believe in him, the weakest of all deities, powerless without the help of others?

And yet, Seokjin persisted. He watched the Earth freeze over, and what was left of the remaining humans crowd onto an old locomotive that traveled alongside whatever light remained of the fallen sun.

There were no more prayers for peace, for serenity. The prayers turned vengeful, resentful, all the gods left cowering in fear at how the tables had turned.

Seokjin stayed away from it all. He became listless, numb inside, just waiting for the day that he too, would vanish.

But that day never came. 

Dust. Dust as far as the eye could see. It was all that you could make out in the cloudy sky as you gazed out of the train, clinging to rocks, to the snow and ice that surrounded you.

You remembered the day the sun died. It’d been like any other day. Except you hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Restless on the scratchy sheets of your bed, you’d wrapped your blanket around you, staring out the window at the calming light of the moon. For as long as you remembered, you’d been obsessed with the gentle object in the sky, in awe of the radiant yet serene light it brought to the world, how it changed in relation to the passage of time. It was silly, but you’d always imagined there was someone up there taking care of the moon in the sky, fueled by stories your mother would tell you as a child.

Lulled to bed by it, you awoke to start your day as normal, remembering to give your mother a goodbye kiss before work. Nearly five hours later, while you were staring at your computer screen, the whole world exploded into darkness.

All you could hear were the screams of panic, objects clattering to the floor as people scrambled to rush outside, only to find that the darkness was everywhere, the once bright sun now a dull but sinister shade of crimson. Like the colour of blood. 

Your first instinct was to rush home, to check on your parents. Pulling up the light of your phone, you prayed the little battery you had left would be enough to sustain you. Instead, you came upon an empty building, shattered objects strewn about, and no sign of your parents anywhere.

It took nearly a week to learn of how many humans had actually perished in the panic surrounding the sun’s death, and even longer to come to terms with the fact that you’d never be able to navigate the darkness to come by.

You looked up at the smoke rising through the sky, creating the beginnings of the fine cloud of dust that would come to dominate the atmosphere, and saw it.

The faint glow of the moon, still there, still persisting. And so would you. 

From that day, the moon became your comfort, your protector. Even as the sky became more hazy, its presence in the night sky always kept you at ease.

Even when you boarded the train, knowing it was your only hope for survival in the increasingly harsh and hostile world, you never stopped looking out the window every night, imagining its soft light behind your eyes. 

“I know you’re there,” you whispered into the darkness. “It’s crazy, but even though I can’t see you, Moon, just imagining you still up there, in the sky like always, makes everything seem okay. It reminds me of why I treasure this world, why I want to keep holding on.”

. . .

Seokjin is jolted out of his haze by the words — he hadn’t heard anyone speak to him in so long. He knew by the fact that he was still around meant that there was someone who still believed, but their faith had always been silent. Until today. 

Seokjin feels warmth wash over him, warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

And so, into the aether, he talks back, taken aback by the conviction in his voice.

“I’ll always be here.”

Yoongi was the only one nowadays who wasted his time visiting Seokjin’s domain. The once lavish palace, with its halls of marble as bright as the moon itself, filled with jewels that sparkled like stars, now became decrepit, a mirror of Seokjin’s own hollowness.

Seokjin envied Yoongi, his immortal status nearly untouchable. Because while time became harder to track for the humans on the locomotive, none of them could deny its existence. None of them could stop the passage of time. There would always be people who believed in Yoongi.

“I never realized how lonely our existence was until we lost Hoseok,” Yoongi sits next to him on the staircase. “How foolish we were to think that we held power over the humans, when really, their faith was all that held together our fragile state of being.”

“I know you’re lonely, hyung,” the name surprises Seokjin. Yoongi hadn’t called him that in such a long time. “But haven’t you always been that way, even before we lost Hoseok?”

Seokjin ponders on Yoongi’s words, thinking back to the eternity he’d spent as caretaker of the night sky, watching humans sleep under his care. He’d yearned for a long time to connect with them, to spend time with them like the other gods did with their subjects, but they’d always forget about him come the dawn, the day and its promises far more alluring in their eyes.

“Who could be foolish enough to still believe in someone, something they can’t see?” Seokjin spits out. “I can offer no warmth or protection to the world. Some times I think it would be better for them to just let go, whoever it is. So we could both move on.”

 Yoongi pauses for a moment, taking in the distressed look on Seokjin’s face.

“I’ve seen them, you know,” Seokjin blinks at Yoongi, a smirk twisting on his brother’s lips. “They’re very beautiful.”

Yoongi puts a hand on his shoulder, his all-knowing eyes twinkling with something magical.

“Don’t let go just yet.”

“You’re all I have,” you whisper into your pillow, eyes heavy with sleep, but also with the weight of continuing to live this half-life. “I feel your absence everywhere.”

Seokjin wishes he could comb through the aether, resist the dust and smoke, weather the frigid ice, lay a hand on his shoulder to tell you he’s here. He’s here because of you, because while you believe you’re nothing, you’re everything. You’re the only thing he has left too.

He wonders how different it would have been if he’d met you in a past life, one where the tether between you two wasn’t something that could snap at any moment. Where the red string wasn’t frayed and splitting into pieces. Maybe you would have been a daring explorer, or a regal ruler. Maybe you would have been able to see Seokjin properly, to touch him, press your lips to his.

But maybe you were always destined to fall in love in this cruel, lonely way.

Seokjin doesn’t even notice the aether vanishing around him one day, until the moon, once his noble perch, gives out from underneath him, and he’s falling, tumbling through the endless vortex that is the universe. 

That’s how he knows there’s no one left to believe anymore. That you’re gone.

His heart races, and he calls out for Yoongi, for someone, anyone to stop the madness, closing his eyes.

All of a sudden, he halts, a gentle hand reaching out to clasp his own. Seokjin blinks open his eyes, and he sees you.

But you’re not you. Not as he’d known you. You’re glowing, a soft aura to match his own, a faint smile on your face.

“I never stopped believing.”

The void shifts around the two of you, spinning until Seokjin recognizes the heavens, the bright twinkling of stars in the sky. The two of you are in his palace.

Seokjin understands the moment he looks out onto the horizon, seeing the green of forests and the blue of oceans, the earth healing before him.

It’s you. A new star born from a dying one. A new dawn, one neither of you has to face alone.

a/n pt. 2: The lore for this honestly goes crazyyy, I could have taken it in so many different directions. But in case you're confused, OC is reborn as the new sun (rip Hoseok, gone but never forgotten), and also Seokjin's consort so they will live happily ever after for eternity. And those pesky humans get a second chance too! As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

[tua-five]

Season 3 Episode 10

"Oblivion"

There's a couple references to all seasons here

The last episode of season 3. Tomorrow is the day.

Ben flicking the tail 😭

This is so sad. I'm not ready. I'm so scared. Just thinking that Luther and Klaus died... I mean, I know everything is fine at the end of the episode, but right now... they're like, dead dead.

It's crazy how Klaus doesn't like pineapple on pizza. Him out of all the siblings, should.

"Nah, it's like the old man said. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times ain't gonna happen 'cause I'm not a gibbering idiot." Fair enough.

"Hey, buddy 🤗"

"You 👿"

Speaking of the bouncy house. When Klaus lands, he says, "This is someone's idea of heaven?"

There's a couple of things with that. First of all, yes. Second of all, the fact that it is, means it's most likely a kid. And it's really sad to think that a kid died. There's a whole birthday party behind them... so that just makes me curious.

Also, him saying this means that that is how it works. When you die, you go to a place that you imagine to be heaven.

Reginald does have a point. Ben says that he made it happen. Being in Hotel Oblivion. But seriously. He did nothing to contribute to that fact.

Love how Five came out of the room, and it changed to number 5.

Reginald is genuinely surprised when Klaus comes. Just thought I'd point it out.

"You're going to ruin everything!"

"Oh, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd have a dollar."

Well, you know. Maybe this time, it's better to ruin everything.

They're all like, which idiot sibling rang the bell, when really it was the idiotic manipulative Sir Reginald Hargreeves.

Diego panicking and asking what floor is so real, though.

"Revenge looks good on her."

"Would you shut up and help us kill this thing?"

And then Ben just sits there. Watching.

And again, Five with the axe 😭

Love that for him.

Oh, yay. Ben finally contributing. I think part of it is because part of him is still umbrella Ben. And scared of his powers.

That or he's just a wimp.

And I love the Lila-Viktor duo. "This feels oddly familiar."

"At least this time we're not aiming at each other."

Very true. Now kill it.

Great. Now Five has lost his arm.

And Luther... 🥺😢

And the life being sucked out of them... (for some of them again if we go back to season 1).

The most impressive thing about reginald isn't that he is an alien. It's that his monocle stayed on when he fell over and died.

Ray being here, in this timeline, isn't right. He said it himself in season 2. He didn't want to come with to 2019. He had to stay for the movement. And now he's here. That's got to mess things up. The huterrfly effect. I don't care if it's a whole new timeline and it's reset. It isn't supposed to be like this.

"Obsidian Memorial Park. Graciously donated by Sir Reginald Hargreeves this 1st day of October 1989."

That date seems to always pop up. We all connect it to the Hargreeves's birthday. But it was never about them, was it? No. It's always been about Reginald. And Abigail. I'd say it's the day she died, but that isn't true. Reginald came to Dalas after she died way before 1989. So something else happened.

"Well, what are we supposed to do?"

"Live our lives." Yeah. And that's what you do. For six years, five months, and two days. Because you guys will never get peace.

What I don't like is Five looks so distraught. Confused. Yet there are no words when he looks at Viktor. Then turns and leaves.

And they all live their lives separately. Trying to figure out how to be normal again. For some, just trying to figure out how to be normal, how to live, for the first time. While Allison and Reginald get the life they wanted.

And Ben goes away on train. After being rude and grouchy, he smiles.

Here's a few gifs, but I'll actually create separate posts of just todays gifs.

[mydysfunctionalvampirefamily]

Surprise bitches!!!! You thought you'd gotten rid of me, but we still have one shots to do!!

Christian Edge, a vampire for 400 years? I guess Edge is a fake last name then because I really don't think that is a 1600 surname.

Shelley Hemsworth, she wasn't even allowed her to say her first sentence before laughing so hard??

So Shelley just is here because she's pretending to be interested in her boyfriend's interest? I can respect the effort she's going for for this Cliff? I hope he's worth it.

Oh wow this Cliff is actually in the show lol.

Tim saying in as many ways as he can: CLIFF IS NORMAL!!

Cimanthe Pratt: I love her, but I just have such a hard time following what she's saying.

Okay but "squash hunting is very lonely" would be an amazing tag line for either a paranormal dating show or a competitive squash carving dating show.

Linus Szandor Foley. Sexier ideas than the satanic church? Bold statement.

This is going to be a site chaos.

"That's like a math!" 😂

"then don't be a snitch" if I got a nickel for every time a vampire om this pod talked about not snitching I'd have 2 nickels.. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Just the normal guy freaking out and running out of the room, and the weirdos are all like hey dude, chill.

3 sky lights? What is this, a sims house???

The power of a happy trail, man.

Workplace hootinanny? 😂😂😂😂

Wait cliff and shelley are exes??? How did I miss the break up?

Rubber toes imply that you go bare feet in winter.

They all run??? 😂 Cliff was so close too!

"vials of release?" 😬

One of the release vials shatters? So everyone else just ran to not get sprayed with cum and not because of some ghost. That makes sense.

"I had no idea you were so potent." excuse me, sir!

Poor Cliff! He is such a scaredy cat! He set out to be the calm and reasonable one, but he became the Shaggy.

No reality show is complete without a surprise father reveal.

Wait the Wilsons are the villains now?

At least Cliff is going to get some more customers from all of this.

[loveislandthegame]

thoughts on today's volume! first off, let me say i really, realllllly hope that the next season doesn't have horrible couples acting like children at the finale 😭 hazel & hari were ruining the vibe . i gave FB props for not making her a villain, but i'm rescinding that now because they made both her and hari look absolutely ridiculous. it's astounding how much they manage to ruin their own characters. now let's get into the rest of it

FB you better be joking ! i've lost count of how many times they've used this box. at this point the feather is crusty, the silk is shattering, the massage lotion got bacteria in it, the whipped cream can is squirting out straight up nitrous oxide, etc.

i don't know what's more horrendous , the glitched massage oil overlay or this dress . what in the penny, nickel, dime is this ??

when i picked castle ruins for the final date i was envisioning like, a cute grassy hill with rocks scattered around, overlooking the sea . cute romantic vibes ... only for that shit to end up being a brick wall 😭 it's still a cute background though, and the date was nice

FB, where's my damn suit ! (i know i'm probably the only person that wants one but like, even the queen herself, s2 MC, had a suit option at prom) i ended up going with the black dress, which was a good shout because it actually looks really good with claudia . we're giving sun and moon 🌚🌞 <3

of course we won, but with the way this season's been going i wouldn't have been surprised if we somehow had a tie with sienna (i know it's not possible though because she gets dumped if you aren't wlw. if you're wondering about the ranking it was 4th: hazel/hari 3rd: sienna/kyle 2nd: bea/theo)

before going outside MC had a conversation with claudia's mother, and i loved this. minus the land part, this is the kinda shit i'd want as gifts IRL

when i tell you i groaned out loud when i saw who the VIP guest was. also, during the recap of our villa journey i have no clue why he was acting like i chose to be with jin in the recoupling prior the final one, did FB forget it was boy's choice ? (the AI is AI-ing girl...)

spin the block...? You can’t be talking like that White Baby

FB really screwed over the people who were romancing finn, i'm actually gagged . granted i think you're a bit delulu if you picked love instead of money with anybody besides lulu , but finn actually was an LI option. this is worse than hamish getting with ivy, i genuinely wanna know wtf were they thinking

the diamond scene with finn was the least robotic conversation this whole season, perhaps the misogynistic creeps that wrote season 5 came back to write that pile of bullshit. don't bother buying it. if you really wanna know: finn got back with kat, they tried to have an open relationship and it flopped

is he an option to run away with or what? i don't know because i slammed the tf out of the "i'm in a relationship" option 👹

love or money time, and i picked love of course ! i would say we walked off into the sunset but it's already night time

next week's volume is gonna be a reunion and ... ugh 😐 respectfully, they should've just pulled the plug here . at this point the only other islanders i care about are bea & theo, but after the final recoupling they pretty much became nonexistent (and knowing FB, this reunion is probably gonna be dedicated to helping one of these wack ass couples fix their relationship drama ...)

[spacedewey]

Thinking about that post just now where the hotel lights wouldn't come on without the key card. Last year, I read a Phillip K. Dick book called UBIK, and I think about the third chapter all the time since. In chapter 3, we meet Joe Chip, trapped in his apartment. He can't leave without putting a nickel in the door, and he doesn't have one. He can't make coffee without putting money in the coffee maker. He can't do anything in his own home without paying what we would now think of as a microtransaction for it, including leaving. And most of these objects, including the door that won't open, have an AI in them that argues with him about it. And I read this and just immediately thought "This is the future corporations want." Like, I'm surprised we're not there yet, even. "Swipe your value card to open a window!" "Get the rewards app to turn off the living room light!" It seems so obvious once some one suggests it to you.

[malinaa]

TOP 9 BOOKS

tagged : @hmsharmony ty jennifer this was SOOO hard oh my god like. genuinely agonized me for days to think about what to choose but it was SOOO fun tho <3 tagging : @rosesau | @evcndiaz | @pendrgcn | @gayarthur | @the-tenth-arcanum | @oretsev | @wherepoetsdie | @bellamyblakru | @ryekat & anyone else who wants to do it !!! rules : list your top 9 books obviously. i cheated a little and put series as as one option because that's just who i am as a person. most of these i chose at random from my 5 star reads from the past few years btw

1. percy jackson and the olympians (series) by rick riordan

i was never a big reader in elementary school—or at least not to the extent that my classmates had been. my sixth grade english class required us to bring a personal book from home for silent reading and i stole my brother's spine-cracked copies of pjo and brought them to class. i finished the whole series in less than a school week (i had to scramble to the library to pick up another series because the single novel should have lasted me at least three weeks). pjo literally kickstarted my love for reading as a hobby and i truly don't know how to state the importance it had on my little ten-year-old brain fr

2. on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong

i have never read a book more beautiful in prose and so uncommonly human than this. there's just something so incredibly heartbreaking knowing this whole book is the narrator's letter to his mother who can't read! like what the fuck

3. alone with you in the ether by olivie blake

this came as a surprise to Me when i first read it. i meandered through the first quarter, loving the writing style but feeling disconnected from the characters until the Church Hand Scene™ and it was hook, line, and sinker at that point (i have since come to love the disconnectedness in subsequent rereads, knowing that the feeling was the Point). i have read this book four (4) times since i read it first last year. LAST YEAR!!! olivie has like... fundamentally altered my brain chemistry or something because i feel like everything i have written since having read this book has been somewhat influenced by it.

4. much ado about nothing by william shakespeare

what can i say! this is theeeeeee romcom ever. i have watched so many adaptations of this play, read it countless of times and can recite some iconic lines, and still the banter between benedick and beatrice is sooo elite. cannot be topped!!

5. a place for us by fatima farheen mirza

fun fact: seed rec'd this book to me and has been reccing it to anybody who would listen. the prose is so lush and melancholic. it's one of those books where nothing Really happens, but you feel Every Emotion Under The Sun and you're just like. altered by reading it

6. the song of achilles by madeline miller

obviously.... OBVIOUSLYYYYYYY this had to go here. if i had two nickels for every greek myth retelling i read during school that fundamentally changed me etc etc u get it. i read this as a junior in high school when we, yet again, had to bring a personal book to read durin class. i think at that point of my life, i've never read something that tragic yet so beautiful at the same time and now i am always looking at the beautiful and tragic in media. so! there u go! brain cells rewired and whatnot!

7. the grisha trilogy by leigh bardugo

this is funny because i . technically did not rate any of these books 5 stars i'm sobbing. but like, considering the fact that my url is what it is and the way i always have them in the back of my mind, it's no wonder that i put them here. i have such an odd attachment to these books and these characters. i had copies of these books since their release but didn't touch them until ... before the sab tv release which is so fucking funny. like i don't know what i would be like if i read this as a t(w)een. i would've been so fucking insufferable ngl

8. when my brother was an aztec by natalie diaz

i actually read this for an assignment and had to write a report on it and i had SO much fun doing it. diaz plays a lot with hunger and her imagery is literally unmatched. i think about the way she contructs sentences and am filled with such envy. my beginning sentence for my paper was a nod to her style (though i failed miserably). it was: "in a paradoxical sleight of hand, hunger feeds in natalie diaz's debut." she is just. so fucking good at words i need to CHOMP on it

9. sharp objects by gillian flynn

you know the thing where you see a really popular author for a really long time and they have their work adapted to the screen and it's so good but you still haven't read their actual writing? yeah, that was me with gillian flynn (specifically about gone girl). i read gone girl, i read sharp objects, i read her short story the grownup, i'm currently reading the last novel of hers that i haven't read, dark places, and flynn is just so... incredibly good at constructing harrowing stories. it's no wonder why all three of her novels got adapted to the screen! her prose is so grounded. vivid. there's this ease to her writing that, whenever i concurrently read another novel, i always find the other piece to be lacking. i slink back to flynn's prose and immerse myself in her awful, human worlds.

[witchoil]

act 3 thoughts i guess. incoherent discussion of spoilers below the cut.

there were things i enjoyed about episode 7 purely by virtue of it being something new and FINALLY explaining like half of what happened in act 2. ekko FINALLY getting some screentime!!!!! unfortunately this also meant more heimerdinger. timebomb cute. vander/silco real.

however episode 8 immediately erased whatever grace i could have given this act from ep 7. it was a slog and a clusterfuck. the caitvi sex scene in particular was absolutely infuriating in every way, from the way it came out of left field while vi had way more important things she was already upset about to the absolutely cringe-inducing music playing over it to the fact that it happened in a FUCKING JAIL CELL I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. i didn't enjoy the jayce stuff at all, but can admit that's probably personal preference because i've never really liked him. but the caitvi stuff. unforgivable lmao.

by the time we got to ep 9 i was just begging for it to be over. this episode was stunningly beautiful to look at but absolutely painful to watch from beginning to end.

how to even begin to get into the politics of all of that. completely handwaving EVERYTHING piltover has done to zaun to come together to fight an underdeveloped and deeply problematic big bad outside threat. others have already pointed this out in the tags, but dressing zaunites up in cop costumes just to kill them to PROTECT PILTOVER. what the fuck. i'm genuinely speechless.

additionally i remained so mad about ambessa/the noxians becoming the big bads that i couldn't even sit back and enjoy the big battle on its own merits i was just cringing the whole time.

also like. everything with viktor/machine herald just made no sense to me from a character writing standpoint. if i could be bothered to rewatch i would try to do so with an eye towards understanding his whole arc but on first watch it felt completely incoherent and only made sense in the context of machine herald being a foregone conclusion.

but jayvik got un-divorced so yay i guess!

i wish i could say something meaningful about all the mel stuff? her powers were cool, although it would have been baller to know literally anything about how they worked. i guess it was cool to see her finally come into direct conflict with her mother. but ultimately absolutely no narrative closure for her, imo

and of course. jinx. if i had a nickel for every time i had to watch a mentally ill character get killed off because they're too damaged to live, well, i'd still be fucking depressed.

putting sevika on the council only to show the other councilors giving her the stink eye was so bleak and sad, insane way to twist the knife after everything else they did to her this season.

and man. poor ekko. wtf. on top of barely getting any screentime this season, everything that happened to him was just so tragic and at the end we don't even get to find out whether or not the tree and the community around it exist/are going to survive in any meaningful way. very cool.

absolutely hateful that caitlyn got the last words of the series but also completely in keeping with everything else this season has done and shown itself to be about so can i really be surprised??? she was the writer's room's favorite character and it showed from the beginning to the end of this season, i say with a heart full of bitterness.

[inventors-fair]

Three's a Crowd: Idiom Runners-Ups ~

Our runners-up this week are @an-anarchist-shapeshifter, @hypexion, and @misterstingyjack!

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter — Redirect Current

See, this is the kind of lateral-ish adjustment that I really liked seeing in these entries. Stealing one's thunder, as a turn of phrase, doesn't necessarily work by itself, but the recontextualization in an MTG sense gives it new life. That's phenomenal. There are a few "currents" in the lore, but personally I imagine this to be an Izzet-oriented spell—imaginative, I know. But Jaya used lightning, Ral can walk to a plane with other dueling wizards, whatever. The point is that the versatility plays into the imagination, and the imagination makes an already strong card that much more playfully fun.

What's really cool about this card is that you've made something uniquely weird: the blue Ball Lightning. And with only one red pip, too! This card is great as a surprise counter, but once your opponent knows about it, they're gonna be that much more cautious—which, if you're in the control deck, is exactly what you want. And I think that it's a pain in the butt to deal with, but only in the way that cards like Reverse Polarity are. Y'know? It doesn't overstay its welcome, it's reactive, and it's both a callback and a contemporary twist. Great job all around.

@hypexion — Blight Bramble

[AD: A large mass of thorned vines, growing around a skeleton, their bone hand gripping a rusting scythe.]

If I had a nickel for every evil plant that we had in this contest, I'd have two nickels, etc. This is the first one that's come up because I'm doing the full commentary in alphabetical order, and I do like them both—almost equally, in fact. But I should be a good judge and talk about them on their own merits, and both of them have great merits indeed. I'll get the flavor out of the way first, because it's short and sweet and you've nailed it on the head. It's classic plant-horror creepiness with a variety of possible worlds but an evil-farm vibe that fits into a larger picture of the archetype. I can picture some half-plant druids and fungusy monsters taking over the land. Man, that could almost be Shadowmoor-adjacent, yeah?

Presumably, black and green have a typal draft strategy, and there are other sacrifice-themed cards to go around it. Great! This card serves as a decent blocker at the very least, but it serves a purpose in the draft skeleton (heh) of allowing for more combat if you want to send your plants/saps in without caring if they die, or maybe you can hold them back as blockers that makes the game trickier for your opponent's attacks if they don't have evasion and they're at a lower life, etc. I mean, this card itself isn't breaking new ground, but it has good roots, and it speaks to a strong knowledge of what would play well and feel cool in a set. I wonder if Saprolings would be in green and Plants in another color. But I'm overthinking at this point...

@misterstingyjack — Into the Maw

Ah, the classic. I honestly had to do a double-take because I read the flavor text and my brain went "well, obviously" before I doubled back. It really is a perfect classic callback, y'know? I'm seeing the Wurms from core sets, all green and not-quite-dragonlike, big mouths and beautiful paintings and big Dominarian jungles... Yeah, no, this card's awesome in that regard, and if there was some core set that brought back Entwine, I wouldn't think twice about seeing this card in it because it's just that fitting for what it wants to do.

I feel that the scaling is a little curious, but the more I think about it, the more I can see it as a decent uncommon. Like, for eight mana, you can get a 6/6 trampler or really devastate their board, OR you can wipe out a squad of flying creatures and get a 3/3 out of the deal, depending on the archetype matchup. There hasn't been a real great green anti-Flying card in a long while, it seems, but I also can't bring any to mind so I know I'm missing one—the point is, I'm also comparing this to Pick your Poison, in a favorable way. Really, this card answers any question that can be thrown at it, and it's impressive how versatile this can be and how much draft design can be put into it as a main-deckable card AND a sideboard piece.

Commentary's on the other side of the mountain... @abelzumi

[aftermathfanfic]

Part 3, Chapter 10

Scrooge suddenly sprang up, sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide.

Those weren’t his thoughts he’d been thinking.

-------------------------------------

“…And then, when I started to leave, he tried to force me to stay! Even though he said that he’d leave me be if I wanted him to, and-” Huey rambled, sitting on the living room couch. “And he was rude, and he was acting as if he wasn’t interrogating me even though he obviously was-!”

“And you’re a minor!” Della shouted angrily, throwing her hands up. “He had no business interrogating you in the first place!”

“Exactly! No business!”

“And in the middle of a high school, like- there’s no way that’s legal! None!”

“And throughout the whole thing he was implying that Uncle Scrooge had done something wrong, like he was a criminal-!”

“What?”

“Yeah, the whole thing was because he was trying to get me to talk about Scrooge! Because he thinks he’s somehow done something wrong!”

“Oh, well, that’s just typical!” Della fumed, pacing back and forth across the room. “Scrooge literally saves the world from moon people, defeats F.O.W.L., and does the government thank him? No! Goddamnit!”

“And the way he talked to me, like I couldn’t see through what he was doing, it was so insulting!”

“Goddamn him, that smarmy Irish douche!”

“And he made me miss Maths and Physics!” Huey cried.

“And he made you miss your class!” Della agreed vehemently.

Up to this point, Mrs Beakley had been sitting quietly in the nearby armchair, listening to Huey and Della as they loudly declared their frustrations. At this point, she raised her head and spoke, her voice calm and steady, “If I may… Huey, you said this Agent Nickel was interrogating you?”

Huey nodded.

“Interrogating you about what, exactly?”

Huey reached into his pocket and pulled out the note that Nickel had given him. He handed it over to Della, saying hesitantly, “He… wanted to know about these.”

Della quickly skimmed the note, her eyes narrowing in disbelief. She showed it to Beakley, who took it from Della’s hands.

Huey watched her as she read it. He didn’t see Mrs. Beakley’s expression change at all, but he did notice the faintest narrowing of her eyes.

“Those are the things we keep in the Other Bin, right?” He asked anxiously.

“…Some of them.” Mrs. Beakley murmured.

“S-so… so, what does that mean?”

“Yeah, why is he asking about all that stuff?” Della chimed in. “Actually, forget that, how does he know that any of these exist?”

“I don’t know.” Mrs. Beakley told them, standing up. “That, we’ll have to discuss with Scrooge when he comes back. In the meantime, I have a strongly worded phone call to make to our local FBI office.”

“But… wait, are we safe?” Huey stuttered, rising from the couch as well. “I mean, this guy works for the government, we…”

“We’re fine.” Mrs. Beakley reassured him. “I highly doubt that we’re in any kind of trouble, but even if we are, it’s hardly anything serious. Otherwise, we’d have police officers knocking on our front door as we speak.”

“But-”

“Huey, we don’t have the answers right now.” Mrs. Beakley told him. “Once we do, and once the rest of the family has returned, I will give them to you. Until then, try to keep your mind off of it. No sense agonising about the situation until we know what the situation is.”

“…Alright.” Huey conceded reluctantly.

Beakley nodded, satisfied. “Focus on your schoolwork in the meantime. It’ll calm you down. Perhaps your mother could help you, if you’re feeling too distressed.”

Della blinked, somewhat surprised. “Uh… yeah, sure! If that’s alright by you, hon.”

“I… think I would like that.” Huey replied gratefully.

“Very well. I’ll go make that phone call, then.” Beakley proclaimed, walking out of the room. “The sooner that fool gets punished, the better.”

Huey and Della left the room as well, making their way through the mansion towards Huey’s room. As they did, Della put her arm around Huey, telling him gently, “Hey, it’s gonna be alright. That guy’s just some upcoming hotshot, looking for anything he can use to make a name for himself.”

“But how did he find out about the Other Bin?” Huey asked concernedly.

“I dunno.” Della admitted. “But we’ll find out, okay? One step at a time.”

“One step at a time…” Huey murmured. “…Okay.”

-------------------------------------

Huey did not expect his mother to be as proficient at maths as she turned out to be. Between the two of them, Huey’s maths work was all finished up inside an hour.

Physics was another matter.

“Hoo, boy.” Della remarked with a tired breath, sitting beside him at his schoolwork workstation. “I’ll be honest, Huey… this stuff is making my head spin.”

“It’s just applied maths.” Huey commented, bent over the worksheet. “It’s easy to understand if you have the background knowledge.”

“Huh. Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.” Della leant back on her chair as she talked. “Never really paid much attention to sciences back in school. Wish I had now.”

“What did you study?”

“Just the mandatory stuff. Maths, English, the usual stuff.”

“What about in junior year?”

“Never made it to junior year. I dropped out in tenth grade.” Della replied casually. When Huey turned to give her a horrified look, she added, “It was a lot more common back then that it is now. The only reason people would go through high school was to get into college, and most people went into trade apprenticeships. Didn’t need a college degree for that.”

“I guess not…”

“Yeah, nowadays, even apprenticeships need a high school diploma. I mean, you boys could find your way without one, but for the Average Joe? Yowch.”

Huey didn’t respond. He was staring at the paper before him, absentmindedly tapping his pen against the desk.

“…Do…” Huey asked uncertainly. “Do you think that this was about Paris?”

It took a moment for Della to realise what he was talking about. She leant back in her seat, frowning for a bit, before replying, “Nah, I don’t think so. FBI doesn’t care too much about international stuff, last I checked.”

“Then what did that guy want?” Huey turned around to look at his mother, unable to let go of this mystery. “Like, is- is Scrooge in trouble? Is he not allowed to have the stuff in the Other Bin?”

“No! Well… I mean…” Della winced, pulling up her right leg to her chest. “…We’ve kept those things a secret for a reason. The stuff that’s down there… in the wrong hands, they could be used for some pretty awful things.”

“…And the wrong hands in this case… is the government?”

Della nodded. “One of the many.”

Huey kept tapping his pen against the desk. “…I’ve never really thought about the government as an enemy before.”

“Well… they’re not ‘enemies’, exactly.” Della explained with a conflicted wince. “Not in the way that Glomgold is our enemy, or that F.O.W.L. was. It’s just… Scrooge is the wealthiest man in the world, and by extension, the most powerful. And it used to be – and this is way before my time – it used to be that politicians from all over would come here just to try and win Scrooge’s favour. They’d ask him to sponsor them, or fund their campaigns, or something. And every single time, he’d say no.

“To this day, Scrooge has never dipped his toe into politics. He doesn’t trust that scene, and he doesn’t need it. He has enough money to do what he wants regardless of who’s the governor, or the president, or whatever.” Della narrowed her eyes. “And they know that. They know they can’t control him, and that’s why they hate him.”

Huey nodded slowly, keeping up. “So… they’re not an enemy. They just don’t trust us.”

“Exactly. And we don’t trust them.”

“So why are they doing this now?”

Della sighed. “I don’t know, kiddo. Something’s changed, but… I couldn’t tell you what.”

“Paris.” Huey declared, staring straight ahead. “It has to be Paris. That’s the only thing that’s changed. Because- because we’re US citizens, that whole thing would have reflected badly on them… this is them trying to keep us in check.”

Della took a moment before replying, “Well, they’re doing a pretty bad job at it if that guy was the best they could do.”

“Or he was just the beginning.”

Della didn’t seem to have anything to reassure him with. She just looked at him sadly, then leant forward and pointed at the sheet of paper before him. “One step at a time, Hue. For now, focus on your… particles and stuff.”

“…Okay.” Huey said quietly, trying to pull his thoughts away from the government and away from the FBI.

He didn’t like the idea that his family had done something wrong.

-------------------------------------

Scrooge laid in his hotel bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was the middle of the night, or close to it, and yet he wasn’t any closer to falling asleep. His hands were laced over his chest, his index finger tapping anxiously against the back of his hand.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Goldie.

He took in a deep breath, trying to lull himself into slumber. He knew his family wanted a moment to relax and rest, but there was still a very big part of him that wanted to just leap out of bed and join her without another moment of hesitation.

Yet, here he was. Lying in bed. Staring at the ceiling.

“Curse me kilts…” He muttered softly. He thought teenagers were supposed to be impulsive, thrill-seeking. How was it that he, the old man, was more willing to get into the action than they were?

They’re slowing you down.

They were slowing him down, ironically enough. The price of family, he supposed. One that he was happy to pay if it meant the kids would be happy.

What about Goldie? She’s waiting for you.

Goldie would wait for him, he knew that. She wasn’t the type to give up easily. Still… it wasn’t quite fair to keep her waiting for too long.

You could go now. You don’t need to wait for them.

No… he couldn’t just leave his family behind. This was supposed to be for them, after all. What would he tell them, coming back to the hotel with the idol? No. He would wait.

You don’t need to keep the idol. Just long enough to get it out of Goldie’s hands.

True, he could just take it and hide it somewhere she wouldn’t find it. Then, he could direct the kids into ‘accidentally’ stumbling into it. Clever. That would also give him an opportunity to check out the traps and make sure everything was-

Scrooge suddenly sprang up, sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide.

Those weren’t his thoughts he’d been thinking.

He took a moment, panting fearfully. He looked around his bedroom, hoping to find something, anything that would tell him that it wasn’t what he thought it was. The room was sparse, with a single cupboard, a desk of draws and a mirror, but there was nothing that was out of place.

“…Who are you?” Scrooge whispered quietly.

There was no answer.

Scrooge leapt out of his bed and scavenged around in his travel bag, vigorously searching for his pill bottle. As he did, his eye glanced over to the mirror, and he saw something that made him stop dead.

Slowly, carefully, he edged closer to the mirror, trying to get as close as possible so he could be sure of what he was seeing.

There was a faint magenta glow coming from inside his head.

-------------------------------------

Two Years Ago

Scrooge frowned at his reflection, distorted as it was on the wall of magenta crystal.

He adjusted the helmet he was wearing, vainly attempting to alleviate the discomfort of wearing the headwear. He’d have preferred it if he was wearing his top hat, but he doubted it would provide him with much protection against the cavern’s psionic onslaught.

“Alright, people! Let’s go!” Gyro’s voice shouted from behind.

Scrooge turned around, seeing that Gyro was currently pacing back and forth around the small, circular grotto they’d decided to take a break in. Boyd was sitting by the campfire they’d used to cook their meal, playfully poking at the embers, while Goldie was lounging on a lump of crystal that had fallen over. Except for Boyd, each of them was wearing the same kind of helmet that Scrooge was wearing.

“We are currently two-hundred metres above the inner sanctum of this place!” Gyro declared dramatically, picking up a rucksack with a strange metallic disk attached to it. “You’ve had your lunch break, now it’s time to go!”

“Relax, brainiac.” Goldie retorted lazily, making no effort to stand up from where she was. “We can afford an hour to rest our feet. That scroll’s not goin’ anywhere.”

“That’s far from the issue!” Gyro declared as Scrooge rejoined them. “We are being bombarded by psychic energy in this place! The longer we dally, the more damage we’re doing to our minds!”

“I thought you said these helmets were ninety-nine percent effective?” Scrooge asked pointedly.

“Ninety-nine-point­-nine, thank you.” Gyro rebutted. “And that still leaves point-one percent of my genius that’s being compromised here!”

“Mm. What a pity.” Goldie sighed sarcastically.

Noticing the dirty look that Gyro was giving her, Scrooge stepped in to play mediator. “Alright, Gyro, we’ll take off. No sense prolongin’ this, not with a Sword of Damocles hoverin’ over our heads.” He turned towards Boyd and asked, “Er, how deep down are we now, lad?”

“Four hundred and four point seven-nine metres, Mister McDuck!” Boyd chirped happily. “According to your calculations, the inner sanctum of the caves is approximately five-hundred metres underground, so we only have ninety-five point two-one metres to go!”

Scrooge turned back to Gyro, asking concernedly, “That teleportation thingamajig… you’re sure it’ll work with over a thousand feet of stone and crystal in the way?”

“Physical obstructions aren’t a factor with this.” Gyro looked over at the disk on his backpack, explaining, “The teleporter pads, when activated, open up a limited extradimensional link between each other. When we go through, we’ll be transported through the gap between dimensions and so long as the receiver’s still running at the cave entrance, we’ll appear at the other end no matter what’s in the way.

“No, the problem is one of distance. And this is my first foray into extradimensional physics.” Gyro admitted. “Five-hundred metres may be testing our luck.”

“Then we can set the last one up here and come back to it once we’ve retrieved the scroll.” Scrooge said decisively. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find our way back.”

“Very well.” Gyro agreed, slinging the rucksack back off his shoulders. “Boyd, could you give me a hand here?”

Scrooge walked over to Goldie, leaving the other two to it. The treasure huntress slowly adjusted her position on her crystal lump, sitting up straight and grumbling, “Urgh. So much for giving my knees a break.”

“Well, I guess that means you’ll be in less of a state to swindle me again.” Scrooge replied cheekily, sitting down beside her.

“Ha!” Goldie snorted. “Just you watch me, McDuck!”

“Oh, come on! Would it kill you to be a team player for once? You’ve stolen every single artifact we’ve come across!”

“And yet, you keep inviting me to come along.” Goldie sighed, leaning back on her seat. “How strange.”

Scrooge chuckled uneasily. “Aye, well…”

His smile slipped.

With a reluctant sigh, he stood back up, saying, “Erm, everyone?”

All eyes turned to him.

“I should tell you now, before we go any further… I’m afraid that this will be the last expedition for now.”

“Aww.” Boyd groaned disappointedly. “But these trips have been so much fun!”

“I know, lad.” Scrooge told him. “But I’ve talked to my family, and… well, they’re quite adamant that this is the last one. It’s… it’s just not fair, goin’ off on adventures without ‘em.”

“Perfectly understandable.” Gyro said with a nod. “Just so long as I get my end of the deal, of course.”

“Aye, you will.” Scrooge reassured him. “I’m not goin’ to rob you of yer pay just because I got cold feet.”

“Maybe we could still adventure, but they could come along?” Boyd suggested hopefully.

Scrooge thought about the last conversation he’d had with his family. He remembered the angry yelling of Donald and Della, Beakley’s cold glare, and the betrayed, hurt expressions of his younger nephews.

He thought about Louie.

“…They’re not quite ready for that, lad.” Scrooge replied. “They’ve only just started high school, an’ they haven’t found their feet just yet. They need time before they’re ready to add adventurin’ back into the mix. I’m afraid that this is it… for now.”

“…Okay.” Boyd replied, going back to setting up the transporter, disheartened. Scrooge sat back down on the crystal log with a heavy exhale, looking into the remains of the fire pit.

“…You ‘talked’ to them, huh?” Goldie remarked quietly beside him.

“Aye.”

“Meaning that they found out?”

“Aye.” Scrooge admitted, knowing his lie wouldn’t get past her. “Della had come lookin’ for me, somethin’ about Huey gettin’ in trouble at school… she realised I wasn’t where I said I’d been, and… well, it all fell apart from there.”

“Told you keeping this secret was a bad idea.” Goldie reprimanded him coyly.

“You’re one to talk about that.” Scrooge said crossly. “But… you’re right. I should’ve known better.”

“Probably.” Goldie shrugged. “But you had the itch, and it would’ve driven you mad if you hadn’t acted on it. And you…” She looked over at the other two, and lowered her voice even further, “Well, you couldn’t exactly bring Sharpie along. Not after what happened.”

“…No.” Scrooge replied quietly. “Cannae say that makes it any better.

Goldie watched him silently for a moment, then smiled and reassured him, “Hey, they’ll forgive you. Knowing your family, two months from now, this’ll be water under the bridge.”

“I know.”

“And I’m still getting that scroll, Scroogie. I could use me some psychic powers.” Goldie told him jokingly.

He smiled at her. “To do what?”

“Read thoughts? Pick pockets with telekinesis? It’d make rippin’ people off a lot easier, that’s for certain.”

Scrooge chuckled. “Ah… never change, Goldie.”

Goldie laughed back. “I try not to.”

A click, followed by a humming sound, interrupted their conversation. They turned to Boyd and Gyro as they stood up, the scientist loudly declaring, “There! All set.”

“Right!” Scrooge leapt up from his seat, picking up his rucksack from nearby and swinging it over his shoulders. “Let’s go snatch that scroll, then!”

Goldie groaned exaggeratedly, then stood up to join him.

For another thirty minutes, they carefully descended the cave’s depths. All around them, magenta crystals gleamed in the light of their lanterns, clusters of them lining the walls, the floor, everywhere. The jagged rock forced them to move slowly, growing out at odd angles and threatening to cut them to pieces should they move too recklessly. Boyd offered multiple times to cut through the crystals with his laser vision, but Scrooge denied him. “Save your energy, lad.” He told him. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us down there.”

Finally, at the end of the half-hour trek, they emerged from the tunnel into a larger cavern, the torchlight only barely illuminating the edges of its confines. The party advanced cautiously, Scrooge leading them forward, as the room was made clear foot by foot. This entire cavern was strewn with the remains and ruins of its previous inhabitants, overgrown by the occult minerals, but the crystal here seemed to have formed into steps, leading up to a dais-like platform at the end of the chamber. The stone was oddly smooth, like it had been carved, yet Scrooge knew that should be impossible.

“Aha! There it is!” Goldie cried out, first to spot it. “In the middle of that growth over there!”

Sure enough, as they stepped onto the central platform and made their way across, they all saw a dense cluster of crystals embedded into the far end of the wall. Within one of these crystals, barely visible behind the reflective glare created by the lanterns, was an unfurled scroll, frozen within the mineral. On its pages, perfectly preserved, were ancient writings in an unknown script. It looked to be some kind of Dravidian language, though Scrooge could only guess.

His elation at finding the scroll lasted only until he got close enough to look at it. “Curse me kilts, it’s stuck in there.” Scrooge muttered. “Crystal’s completely grown around it.”

“Well, that’s what picks are for.” Goldie remarked bluntly, taking off her rucksack and reaching for the pickaxe strapped to its side.

“Boyd’s laser vision would be more efficient.” Gyro interjected, stepping forward.

“Would it?” Goldie challenged. “Or would it just reflect off the crystal and hit us instead?”

“It would do no such thing.” Gyro replied testily. “And it would take a quarter of the time it’d take with that crude instrument.”

“So? What’s so great about being fast when you could be careful?”

“You? Preachin’ caution?” Scrooge laughed. “What happened to the real Goldie?”

“She decided she’d prefer not to damage the scroll with new-fangled lasers, that’s what happened.” Goldie replied irritably.

“Perhaps I could simply remove the crystal encapsulating the scroll, rather than the scroll itself?” Boyd suggested. “That way-”

A loud crack from the wall interrupted their conversation. Whirling around, they saw that the writing on the ancient parchment was starting to glow, with a bright, purple-tinged white light.

What actually alarmed them, though, was the crystal surrounding it starting to pull itself free.

A mass of pink crystal tore itself from the wall with a cacophony of shattering gemstone and crumbling stone. The party jumped back as the creature loomed before them, resembling a twelve-foot tall bulky headless humanoid, its fists shaped like heavy clubs and the scroll embedded deep within its chest. As it stood before them, a soundless psychic hum filled the air, reverberating off of their helmets, as rings of smaller, sharper crystals started to spin in the air around this mineral monstrosity.

Scrooge grunted angrily, stepping on the back foot and readying his cane. “Should’ve known it would be guarded!” He turned to the others, ordering, “Keep your distance!”

The others nodded, immediately scattering to the edges of the chamber. Scrooge held his position, waiting until the golem made a move.

He didn’t have to wait long. The moment the others moved, the golem strode forward to slam its hammer-like hands towards Scrooge. He leapt to the side, then yelped as he saw some of the crystals satelliting the golem start to fly at him. Thinking quickly, he activated the cane’s umbrella mode, the black fabric popping out from the tip and expanding to cover him like a shield. The crystals deflected off, though not without leaving a significant imprint in the umbrella’s surface.

He scrambled away as Boyd flew above, a pair of red lasers firing at the golem from the boy’s eyes. The golem took the hits without so much as flinching, instead sending a flurry of magenta projectiles towards Boyd as it continued to advance towards Scrooge. It swung two blows towards the elderly adventurer, who ducked and wove with a yelp each time. He fumbled around with the cane, trying to return it to its standard mode, but another strike from the golem knocked the cane out of his hands, sending it flying away to the other side of the room.

Goldie came from behind the creature, swinging her pickaxe into the monster’s side with a war cry. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Scrooge retreated, leaping off the dais and behind a large crystal outcrop.

“Mr. McDuck.” Said Gyro, who had also taken cover behind the crystal.

Scrooge peered over at the battle, growling, “Argh… Boyd’s lasers aren’t doin’ much!”

“No, they’re not. The creature must be heat-resistant.” Gyro remarked, taking a few experimental shots at the monster with a space pistol he’d pulled from his belt. Ducking back behind cover as a barrage of crystals came flying towards him, he added reluctantly, “…This thing isn’t doing much to it either.”

Scrooge watched helplessly as Goldie and Boyd fought the golem, the former swinging pickaxe blows while dodging the monster’s fists, and the latter drawing fire from the halo of projectiles swarming the golem’s body. “Cannae the lad fire missiles from his hands?” He asked desperately.

“What?” Gyro balked. “The force of the explosions would collapse the ceiling on top of us! And so would most of his offensive functions!”

“Well, we cannae let Goldie fight that thing alone!”

“Hm. She’s not making much progress this way, that’s for sure.” Gyro agreed. Poking his head out of cover, he shouted at Goldie, “Aim for the joints!”

“What?” Goldie shouted back, just barely dodging another one of the golem’s attacks. She looked at the creature, staring at it long enough to confirm it was a walking mass of solid crystal, then screamed back, “What joints?”

“It’s an automaton! It’s bound to have some kind of structural weakness!”

“Well, I’m not seeing-”

The creature struck her, cutting off her retort and knocking her back. Scrooge’s heart leapt into his throat, then back down when he saw her get up and start running towards them. She was clutching her cheek and her helmet, her pickaxe left discarded on the ground. The attack had only clipped her, thankfully, though the sharp edges of the crystal looked to have cut the straps of Goldie’s helmet.

“Careful!” Scrooge told her as she took cover between him and Gyro. “Don’t lose your helmet!”

“Well, it’s hardly my fault that the strap broke after one hit!” Goldie snapped angrily. She looked at the palm that had been covering her cheek, clicking her tongue irritably at her crimson-stained feathers. “That’s a new scar.”

“Argh! We cannae fight like this!” Scrooge snarled in frustration. He looked over at the battle, seeing that Boyd had just fired a charged ball of red plasma at the creature, which batted it aside to explode nearby into the ground. Scrooge winced at the burst of heat, then retreated into cover, thinking quickly.

“Alright!” He said suddenly, turning to the other two. “My cane, the Action Cane, it can be set to create this, er… sonic attack! Tune it to the right frequency, and it can shatter bulletproof glass! If I can get to my cane and use it on that thin’, it could weaken it, maybe even destroy it!”

Goldie looked intrigued. Gyro looked alarmed. “Again, there is stone and crystal above us that could come crashing down if sufficiently damaged.” He reminded them.

“You have a better plan?” Scrooge demanded. “It’s either this, or we leave empty-handed!”

“It’s our best shot.” Goldie agreed, wiping away blood from her check. “You need us to run a distraction?”

“Aye. Draw its attention as best you can, and I’ll run while it’s distracted.”

“Alright,” Goldie stood up, taking her helmet straps and tying the severed ends together in a knot. She winced at the tightness of the makeshift harness, then nodded. “Ready.”

Gyro sighed reluctantly, standing up as well. “Ready.”

“On the count of three.” Scrooge told them. “One… two… three!”

The three adventurers darted out from behind cover, Goldie roaring at the golem, “Hey! Come and get us, you overgrown clump of quartz!” Bolstered by the taunt, Scrooge ran as far as his legs would let him, keeping an eye on the monster as he ran. Gyro fired his laser pistol at the creature, firing at its legs, while Goldie snatched her pickaxe from the ground and started swinging into its body again with gusto. Boyd targeted the monster’s projectiles with his lasers, disintegrating most of the smaller crystals. Oddly, the monster barely reacted to any of this, turning to face Scrooge as he ran for his cane, still stuck in umbrella mode.

Three things happened in quick succession.

The first thing that happened is that the golem, ignoring the other three, sent one of the crystals that had survived Boyd’s attack towards Scrooge. The crystal flew past his head and hit the cane with uncanny precision, the force of the impact shattering the crystal and severing the cane in two.

The second thing was that Scrooge slowed down for a second, staring at the destroyed Action Cane with horror. This golem was no mere machine. It was intelligent, created by psychic power, and it had been listening to their thoughts the entire time.

The third thing was that the last of the golem’s projectiles went soaring towards Scrooge just as he was turning around, smashing into and through his helmet. Piercing pain shot through his right temple as he was sent tumbling to the ground.

The last thing he heard before everything went black was Goldie screaming his name.

-------------------------------------

Scrooge stared at his reflection in the mirror, at the faint magenta glow that was coming from his head. It was hardly a bright light by any means, and it was only about the size of a dime, but it was still an unnatural and alarming sight to behold.

He edged closer to the mirror, trying to see as much detail as possible. Parting his feathers, he gingerly exposed the scar on his right temple, a scar that hid the fragment of clairvoyant crystal that had been embedded almost a full inch into his head. A permanent reminder of that fateful adventure, a consequence of his restlessness and recklessness.

He remembered little of his treatment. Goldie and Gyro told him that after they’d gotten him out of the cave, they ran to the nearby village for a doctor. Luckily, they had found one – a travelling German doctor by the name of Gutefeder. The man had saved his life, an act that Scrooge had rewarded him grandly for. It was a tiny piece of rock, he’d told him then, barely the size of a pea.

Originally.

Slowly, Scrooge took the bottle of pills Gutefeder had made especially for him, unscrewing the cap and taking out a couple of capsules into his hand. He downed them both, not bothering with the water, and swallowed, watching the glow carefully.

A minute passed. Then a second. Then, the glow started to subside slowly, until it was gone.

Scrooge backed away from the mirror, watching his reflection warily, in case the glow came back. Even as he crawled back into bed and laid his head down, he kept his eyes on trained on the mirror, his own haunted, fearful eyes staring back at him through the night.

Sleep was slow to come.

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2023

Nobody tagged me (I think :D )

1. Best book you’ve read so far this year.

Without a single second thought it has to be The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel. i desribed it as soul-crushing and it really was. But also brillantly thought through, written and paced. Also very heavy in regards so physical and mental trauma, so I absolutely recommend it but steel yourself.

2.  Best sequel you’ve read so far this year

I have read a bunch of sequels, and while chronologically story-wise The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman was a prequel, it was published long after the first book in the series, so I am going to count it.

3. New release you haven’t read yet

Again, I have a bunch, so randomly let´s say The Bleeding Tree by Hollie Starling, Atalanta by Jennifer Saint and Gwen and Art are not in Love by lex Croucher.

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

Most of my anticipated 2023 books are already out and since the bookdepository shut down I have trouble keeping up with new releases that are not on every Youtubers lists, but I am looking forward to The Winter Spirits: Twelve Ghostly Tales for Festive Nights.

5. Biggest disappointment

There were several books which I rated low, but in terms of me having really high hopes for and being let down, the winner is Stone Blind. I love and adore natalie Haynes previous greek myth retellings, but this one was just all over the place and none of those places were good.

6. Biggest surprise

For some reason I thought I would be bored by Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Ried simply because nothing about the setting enticed me. And yet here we are throwing 5 stars at a book.

7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you)

Mary Doria Russel. Yeah. the Sparrow is really..... something. And then I read one more of her books and also thought it really good.

8. Newest fictional crush/newest favorite character

I am going to say Francie Nolan because I really want to show my love for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

9. Book that made you cry

T-H-E-S-P-A-R-R-O-W . 

Honourable shoutout to The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead which made me teary-eyed.

10. Book that made you happy

Looking at my reading I apparently decided to be mostly miserable while reading this year. So let´s, once more, mention the beauty of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I felt happy when I was reading that one.