#it's really good. it's not without its imperfections and there are a thousand things i would change/adjust. but its still so good.

[wetpapert0wel]

i will forever be sad that razias shadow is as obscure as it is.

[phantomarine]

Hey what were you trying to say in your “it gets good at page 1001” post

Was it more of a comment directed at yourself ( self degradation), is it satire about perfectionism,

Is it supposed to be inspirational for Beginners webcomic creators, or we’re you just in a bad mood?

More of a warning against self-sabotage, because I see it so much. Sometimes it's tied to perfectionism, sometimes it's the opposite - people surrendering to imperfection when they don't really have to.

Creator chat incoming. I'll put it under the deelybob for anyone who wants to read it 👇

I've been in the webcomic sphere for several years now and I've seen so many people introduce their comic with 'I know it's very long and not easy to read, and I won't be going back and changing anything about what I've already made - but please critique it so I can make the rest of the pages better and attract a bigger audience from now on.'

And that's a hard thing to respond to. If a reader can't get through all those existing pages without being confused or bored, then how can they get to the good stuff that lies past them?

So much of gaining an audience is about actively making it easy to 'fall into' a work. Without that easy entry point, it's always going to be an uphill battle to build an audience, no matter how good the later chapters get. There are outliers, but most webcomics won't be those outliers, especially with thousands of them available nowadays. Some people love the grind, but most people will jump to a new tab and try to find something less frustrating.

And webcomic creation is particularly cursed by its very nature. Creators are hesitant to go back and edit pages, even once they've figured out more details about their craft or story structure. It's mostly because of the seeming permanence of it all - the art takes ages and the words feel unchangeable if even one other person has read them. To go back and edit is to publicly admit your failings, right? That's how it feels. What do you MEAN you didn't get it right the first time? You were supposed to do it live, and do it PERFECTLY!

But ideally it shouldn't be any different than prose writing, which is ALL ABOUT finding the story in those edits. And because your story is digital, you can go back and change things whenever you feel like it. A webcomic is fluid.

And if you're thinking 'I should just redraw my whole first chapter' - NO! Hell no, old art can be a part of the appeal! It's far more about finding little tricks to convey your story/characters more clearly. I have read some first chapters with janky art that made me fall completely in love with the story and cast. It's not about the art - as with all things comic-related, it's about conveyance.

Examples I've seen and some I've used myself: A single extra page with a meaningful interaction can solidify the theme of a character's arc. One additional 5-to-10-page scene can help add visual context for an offscreen event where there was none before. Adding a map can tell people where the characters currently are. Changing a character design can help if they get often confused with another character. Redoing your lettering to make it more legible is a huge one too.

In the end, I just don't want people to be afraid of small edits. When I got feedback about the bad clarity of my own work, I knew it would take some time to fix those problems. It wasn't fun to think about or to do, but I'm glad I did it in the end - because it would have limited my audience tremendously. With just a bit of extra effort, I opened a door that wasn't there before, and it now leads more people even more easily to 'the good stuff.'

tl;dr You started your webcomic for a reason, and you're learning more things about its characters, story, and craft every day. Don't be afraid to go back to old pages and inject some of that wisdom through editing. Even a little can go a long way.

***Caveat: If your goal is to just create chaotically, with no goal of gaining an audience, you are a wild and free little thing, and I am in awe of you. This whole rant doesn't apply to you, and you are stronger than me.

[marcmorrigan]

finally delivering on the princess tutu headshots i promised... love these dysfunctional teens 🩰💖💕

LOTS of notes about headcanons/design choices under the cut! like. a lot. dont say i didnt warn you

starting with my specialest guy fakir:

i had a suuuper clear vision for fakir, and i couldnt be happier with how he turned out, he looks exactly how i imagine him! trying to translate his Bird-Shaped Hair into my style gave me SERIOUS homestuck flashbacks. my affinity for knights with Problems knows no bounds...

adding the hyperpigmentation around his eyes and his acne scars is what really solidified this for me-- i put those in and was like oh!!! there you are!!! my boy!!! and you can tell because i gave him acne scars + thick eyebrows that he IS my boy... there are very clear trends among my headcanons for my faves lol. big noses, thick eyebrows, skin imperfections, heavy eyebags, long dark hair... and fakir truly has it all 😤 he is so Ideal Character Design to me

i think fakir is actually pretty self-conscious about his appearance tho! we see characters like pike and lilie say hes handsome to ahiru, but i dont know how often he actually hears that? and im sure its hard not to compare himself to mytho, who is straight out of a fairy tale; being a regular teenager dealing with regular teen body stuff is hard enough without your roommate being a magically beautiful eternally youthful storybook hero. i think he probably internalises more that people see him as scary and angry, and that the girls who do have crushes on him always frame it in contrast to mytho, who is Good and Kind and Handsome, implying (or sometimes outright stating!) that fakir is Bad and Mean and... Well...

fakir is very sensitive but quiet about it, so i think its a very private point of self-consciousness. i think he puts a lot of semi-secret effort into his appearance; canonically he has a lot of very funny and clearly customised clothing, and he chooses to keep his hair long and in a very particular style (i have a whole breakdown in my mind of how he achieves that style and it involves a surprising amount of pins and an unsurprising fuckton of teasing. i think his hair is a little fried from heat damage!), and i think that probably extends to other things, too, like manicuring his eyebrows and doing a lot of very Teenage Skincare that doesnt actually help his acne much lol. i think he probably has a lot of self-injurious habits and BFRBs like skin picking and chewing, mostly at his acne and around his nails (both of which he hates, because he knows he shouldnt but does it anyway). i think if he does it enough that theres noticeable evidence it feels, like, world-ending for him, ESPECIALLY if anyone asks what happened lol. do not perceive him except in the very specific ways and contexts he approves of THANKS

on to the narratives favorite princess, mytho:

again, i had a pretty clear idea of the vibe i wanted mytho to have going into this-- i want him to have, like, extreme prince charming vibes, very Classically Handsome without necessarily being 'conventional.' i thought a lot about 'the happy prince' story while i was working on this, and really wanted him to look like a cross between how the prince statue looks in my head and a porcelain doll. and also a cross between jonny brown and brigitte bardot? lots of very direct influences for him lol. so! lots of gold tones, gemmy eye color, cute little tooth gap, quivering wide-eyed thousand-yard-stare doe eyes and big ol dolly anime lashes, which were the very last thing i added because i was NERVOUS about pulling those off lol. they turned out cute tho! ive only done a handful of pieces for this series and i can already tell princess tutu is gonna make me up my lash drawing game considerably, these kids all look like they blink and cause a hurricane from the gale force wind of their falsies

also wait i lied the very last thing i did was add his freckles/beauty marks because he needed that little extra oomph and those were It. i think he probably has some on his hands/wrists too 💕

i was a little unsure if my idea for his hair would translate with this flat-color approach but im pretty happy with it! its supposed to be afrotextured hair (somewhere between 3b and 4c i think? wide range of potential i knowww but im still kind of hammering out my headcanons okay, this is exploratory lol) thats been rolled and finger-styled into his little feather shapes. i think loose, chunky twists would be another fun way to interpret his hair and twists are one of my fave styles to draw do i might draw him like that at some point too...

i guess fakir is the one who styles his hair for him before mytho gets his heart back? i imagine fakir is pretty meticulous about maintaining mythos health and appearance, even at the worst stages of their relationship. i think itd be hard for fakir to frame the way he treats mytho as For Mythos Sake if he wasnt doing some level of actually beneficial care for him, so being really fastidious about things like mythos diet and sleep hygiene and hair care and such gives fakir an outlet for his 'you just have to do what i tell you' thing that helps him convince himself it really is helping, no really, hes doing this for mythos benefit and he just has to be strict with him because mytho doesnt UNDERSTAND he needs PROTECTING and fakir is the ONLY ONE who can do it so mytho HAS to let him because if he doesnt then why does fakir even EXIST, if he cant manage this then what is he good for, and--

yknow. the usual complexes. and their relationship is so complex!!! but also so simple, but like. in a good way. fakirs behavior is complicated but his motivation regarding mytho is SO straightforward which makes that downward spiral into harm really easy to map out... i wont go much into that in this post since this is about visual/appearance-related headcanons but just. augh. i love this show and i love these characters!!! and i hope its apparent in my work that i do love them so <3

im hoping to do a set of these for the girls next!!! i have some other stuff to finish first but hopefully... Soon... Some Birds...

[robyn-goodfellowe]

Hi uhh idk how to say it but any tips on writing in general? I really wanna write my story I have stored in my doc but I don’t know where to start.

hello!! i am very honored that you came to ME to ask because i love to talk about writing, so thank you :) with that being said this might get a little long so ill put everything under a readmore, but all of my advice can be summarized like this

tl;dr: just start!!!

i KNOW. in my soul. that there's genuinely nothing more every aspiring writer hates to hear than "just start" lol but it really does come down to that. just start. whatever you put on the page doesnt have to be PERFECT, it just has to be there. my first drafts for anything are never solid. my initial drafts are NEVER the quality of the final

and its through careful, consistent rewriting that it becomes something more palatable and fun/easy to read. what ive noticed a lot of new writers do (and i used to be very prone to this as well) is that they go into their drafts expecting to drop their final product there, and aim for perfection. i cannot stress enough that perfection is THE ENEMY in literature. you can rewrite things thousands of times for it to turn out imperfect in the end, and thats OKAY. you'll end up with a draft you like eventually, but don't expect yourself to find it right away. it takes me a lot of consistent writing sessions to have a paragraph that im satisfied with. itll come to you naturally

but the best advice i can offer is really just ... START. open google docs and just write down your thought process, whatever that looks like for you. maybe its the summarisation of a few scenes you like, maybe its a chunk of an out of context paragraph. whatevers in your head, put it on paper and see where you can go from there. thats really the only way you can start

outside of that some of my big things are being consistent and READING. i write for at minimum half an hour every day (not always fic lol! i am a creative writing major, am working on my manuscript and also trying to get published in some small-scale literary magazines and sites. so im always working on something, basically) and its probably the only thing in my life i am super consistent about. maintaining a habit and making yourself write even when you dont "feel like it" or cant find motivation is the best way to keep writing long term. and reading, well, how i like to put it to my friends is that creativity is like a well. you cant keep drawing from it without filling it up eventually. you need good writing and good words to inspire you so you can keep drawing from your creative well. when im not writing im reading and you should be too. you really cant have one habit without the other

are really immersing myself in the world that i've created for my silly little guys. i am, at all times of the day, immersed into my stories one way or another. im almost constantly curating pinterest boards, or making playlists, or sharing it with my friends (the last one is highly important. the best way to stay encouraged is to have someone to share with) and so theres not really a day when im not thinking about what i want to write to some extent

but yeah basically thats all of the advice i can offer. write, write, write and don't be afraid for it to be not perfect. nobody is perfect, you are human. so just have fun with it

hope this can help ssomewhat! :)

[an-annyeoing-writer]

officer!Kai x Reader: miss magpie.

Word count: 3 725

Tags: a bit of sexy, a bit of comedy, a bit of drama...

Warnings: mentions of blood and injury, arresting.

Author's note: @lunaflowers It was supposed to be sexy but I accidentally came up with too much plot. And it's all because you said "take me away, officer".

The item in front of you was nothing that could change the world, neither for better or for worse.

It was not a weapon, it held no political value, and neither the material it was made of was particularly rare. Yet, it was simply beautiful: an antique diadem with amethyst rhinestones attached to a frame made of pure silver. The design was nothing particularly unique, and yet, in your eyes it was the most beautiful thing.

Because it was not supposed to be touched, because it was still worth a few thousands, and because you were certainly not supposed to be breaking into the museum just to see this beauty from up close.

Over the years, you managed to get through securities of many buildings without worry. It was kind of a talent of yours, one you nourished with knowledge gathered on YouTube channels, books found in local libraries, and carefully analyzing the most famous theft cases you managed to get your hands on.

You meant no harm, really, although you knew that the people working here would spend days pondering over what happened. And their confusion, as well as the news announced in the media, would be all well worth it – because you never stole anything and only took pleasure in creating chaos.

And one more thing that brought you even more pleasure, was the presence of all those beautiful things that you would have no other opportunity to be this close to otherwise, although temporarily and just to see what they were like in real life.

You were literally a magpie for shiny things. A magpie that didn’t feel the need to steal them – just to enjoy them.

The diadem felt too light in your hands, although it looked well-made and not something that would fall apart easily. Yet, it was an antique, and you hoped you wouldn’t damage it on accident. You stepped in front of a nearby mirror – a part of some other exhibition, to be precise – and gently placed the piece on top of your head, straightening yourself proudly.

The only source of light was the white streetlights coming from the outside, but your eyes were already accustomed and you managed to convince your mind that it was not streetlights, but a beautiful moonshine, like in a story about magic, covens and astral creatures. Maybe the diadem’s colors didn’t match your complexion all that well, and the shining of the rhinestones only highlighted the imperfections of your skin and hair, but at this exact moment, for these precious minutes, you were on top of the world.

You stared at the mirror a bit too long before you realized that far behind you, leaning against a column, there was a silhouette you absolutely did not spot before.

You froze with your fingers still touching the diadem on your head.

You looked straight ahead, your eyes fixated on the person in the background of your reflection, its shape slowly becoming more and more evident, and you only pondered as to how could you not have spotted him before?

The man stood there with his arms crossed. He had a police uniform on, although you barely saw it in the sparse light. He looked composed, as if not even slightly bothered with the presence of a wanted criminal responsible for dozens of high-priority break-ins.

You turned around slowly and raised your hands, the diadem on your head tilting slightly, and you did your best to not make any frantic movements as to not let it fall off. You knew you had to be careful now – not only for this reason. You were not a good fighter, he could take you down so easily. You needed to play this part smart.

“Hello, officer” you laughed awkwardly. The man tilted his head to the side. Your eyes were accustomed enough to be able to see him well despite the distance, and you noted a small, curious smile appear in the corner of his lip.

You frowned. Minutes had already passed since you arrived, and you two were there still all alone, no back-up called, no noise of police sirens. The fact that you got caught was already unexpected, but this situation also didn’t seem like what you’d imagined your final defeat to be.

“So, um…” Should you start a discussion? Or a fight? Or just run? Or throw the diadem and run in the opposite direction? Dammit, but you couldn’t risk damaging it. No, you had to make sure the treasure was safe first. “What brings you here, actually?” you spoke as nonchalantly as you were able to, very slowly stepping toward the exhibition table. Unfortunately, it shortened the distance between you and him as well, and you felt yourself become small and defenseless against his strong, even though still silent, presence. You did your best to avoid any rapid movements as you took the diadem gently off your head and placed it neatly back on the exhibition. The man observed you without a word, allowing you to finish your deed, as though watching an animal in a cage – not wanting to interrupt its natural instincts and eager to find out what would it do in those peculiar circumstances.

“Curiosity, probably” he finally spoke and you shuddered at his deep voice vibrating through the air.

“Curiosity, huh… Well, what are you curious about then, kind sir?” you questioned, forcing your voice sound cocky to boost your confidence. It almost worked.

“Well, I’m very curious about the skilled thief who has been breaking into museums all over the country and not even once stole anything. I almost wonder how many break-ins did we not even notice happening.”

You laughed awkwardly. It sounded like a praise in your ears and you couldn’t help but get a bit shy at the thought. But you quickly reminded yourself of the circumstances.

“So, how did you exactly know where to look for me?” you asked, now the one being curious.

“You don’t steal anything, but you always touch… something. You have a pattern” he explained in a matter-of-fact voice. “For pretty things. For shiny things. I wasn’t sure, but now I can see, why.” He glanced at the diadem, lifting one eyebrow, as if making fun of your peculiar behavior he had the chance to see earlier. You pressed your lips tightly, feeling caught red-handed in more than one way. “Is that really just it? That you enjoy seeing yourself in these things?”

You shrugged.

“Yeah, kind of. It’s just… you know, kind of a freeing experience. Touching the things no one else can, seeing yourself how no one else could.” You stared at the diadem with sentiment. “And knowing that people’s gonna be confused shitless after finding out. I have a pretty boring life otherwise.” He stared at you, clearly disbelieving that your reasoning could be this silly and simple-minded. You felt a bit weird, sharing such deep thoughts with a policeman who could only bring harm upon you at the moment, but somehow, you didn’t feel like a criminal. More of like a child caught playing with their mom’s jewelry when nobody’s home.

But the officer only shook his head, taking his time to collect his thoughts. You felt like he’s judging you in his mind. What could he possibly ask next? If you haven’t thought about what if you get caught? Come on, he must have heard people talk about that thousands of times in his career of a police officer.

Besides, it’s not like it mattered at that point.

“Why don’t you steal them, then?” he asked.

“Because stealing is bad” you deadpanned. “Duh.”

The man was clearly starting to lose his mind at the conversation, and it gave you a bit of satisfaction knowing it was no longer him in charge of the talk. Even though you still had no doubt that he was in charge of the situation as a whole.

“So is burglary. But you’re a skilled burglar. Why won’t you use your skill for something safer? Something that would bring you material benefit?”

“What exactly are you implying, huh?” You tilted your head to the side, genuinely intrigued.

“That if you’re arrested, your only line of getting out of prison sentence may be to trade your freedom for your skill.”

You felt your face heat up. Maybe you were skilled burglar, but making a living out of it? Having someone watch you and make use of something you considered a hobby…? That was messing with your thoughts way too much, and your mind just refused to acknowledge such a possibility.

“Well, I would rather not get any sentence, so since I haven’t stolen anything, why won’t you just let me leave?”

He sighed, scratching the back of his head.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Well” you shrugged. “Have fun with the exhibition then, and I’ll see my way out-”

You managed to make three towards the entry.

Just three steps, not a single one more, before something hit the back of your knees, knocking you down fast and effectively. You let out a small, confused whimper when you fell face first onto the clean, tiled museum floor.

The man crouched down, pressing his knee into your lower back, gently enough to not hurt you, but firmly enough so that you knew that fighting him was not an option. No hurry, no rough or frantic movements. You breathed heavily. Being overpowered so fast and so easily felt surreal.

“Don’t try anything.” Something in his voice felt soothing, as if – once again – you were an animal, but this time caught wandering a bit too deep into the human habitat. Were you to be taken into a warm house and domesticated by the animal rescue, or killed quickly and quietly by the heartless poacher?

He pulled your hands back, and the clinging of handcuffs woke you up from the daze. You recoiled, using all your strengths and pent up energy to try and throw him off yourself.

“Shh… easy there.” He presses you down a bit stronger. You whimpered helplessly.

“Let me…” You tried to stop him from immobilizing your hands, and finally kicked your legs up, managing to somehow knock the handcuffs out of his fingers. “...GO!” It was a mere moment, just one second-long chance to get out of his grasp, and you used it to your advantage, pushing him off yourself and simultaneously getting up on trembling legs. Your pulse was so loud it drowned out his voice – whatever he was saying – and you didn’t bother looking back as you strode towards the exit, quick steps turning into a sprint when you realized he can and will try and catch up to you.

You got in here through a window in the roof and that was the only way out you could rely on.

You ran up the stairs at the back of the exhibition room, and you already heard heavy steps right behind when in your frantic steps, your foot stepped at an unfortunate angle that made you lose your balance. From a chaotic climb up the stairs, suddenly you were tumbling down the high construction, on your way down bumping into the man and sending him falling down along with you.

With a heavy thud, your and policeman’s bodies collapsed onto the floor at the very bottom of the stairs. The entire museum suddenly fell silent.

It took a few very long moments of laying down motionlessly before you dared to move your muscles.

Everything hurt, especially your knees that you must have bruised up while falling. The world was still spinning when you forced yourself up.

That’s when you saw the policeman laying motionlessly a few steps from you, facing upwards and with a deep gash on his forehead that made you gasp at the sight.

“Oh no. Oh fuck, no, no…” You didn’t think twice, crawling to him, although your own head was still spinning and your legs hurt when moving. “Hey, hey, officer, wake up!”

You shook him by his shoulders and the man mumbled something incoherent. You screamed inside, realizing that you could not possibly leave him there. In the long hours that would pass before the museum opened in the morning, the damage his body suffered from could turn irreversible, and you just could not stand the thought of having him on your conscience.

Not wasting any more time, you pulled out the phone from his pants’ pocket. His hand moved slightly, reaching to wave you off, as if trying to prevent you from stealing it, because what other thought could he possibly have about you browsing through his pockets, right? But he was still too weak and confused to impose a threat and you just nudged his hand away, dialing the emergency number.

Your heart was beating fast and you felt nauseous. While giving the details and the address to the operator, you felt like your entire life was falling apart.

“Miss, what is your name?”

You knew there was no way to stop it now, that too much has happened to escape the consequences any longer. Your hands trembled when you answered the question, and once the ambulance is on the way echoed in your ear, you didn’t wait for the further instructions before hanging up on the operator and throwing the phone away from yourself.

You couldn’t think straight any longer. Was there a way for you to still make a run for it?

What if you just left? Went far away, somewhere people won’t know your name? You could just survive.

You were about to get up and run back up your escape route when you felt something grasp your wrist.

You looked down. The officer stared at you way more consciously now, and, although still laying down on the floor, his hold on your wrist was strong.

“Please, let me go…” you whimpered.

“You can’t run forever” he mumbled, voice barely audible. “Just let it happen. You’ll be okay. I promise.”

You wouldn’t listen. If only you had a choice, you would pry his hand off yourself and still run, because the levels of fear and panic in you were way higher than any reason or even consideration for what he meant.

But you heard a clinging of metal when with remains of strength, the man handcuffed your wrist to his own.

You sobbed, feeling tears roll down your cheeks.

With your mind slowly becoming numb, you only sat there in the sound of your own cries, waiting for the ambulance and the police to finally arrive

* * *

One month later.

Back in the days, you’d work at a small convenience store. The job didn’t pay well, and neither did it give you any satisfaction to do. The floor was always dirty beyond the capacity to be cleaned, and the windows were covered with dull advertisements in annoying, fake colors. The only thing that brought a smile to your face was when new alcohol would be delivered, because the few more expensive brands that your store sold had such pretty bottles, and you’d spend the lazy parts of your shift with your vision tunneled on the crystal-like surfaces. Back then, you didn’t think anything as pretty would be achievable for you to look at on a daily basis.

But the tall office building you stood in front of was covered in dark glass that reflected the setting sun in the most beautiful of ways, and as you looked through the windows of the ground floor, the restaurant inside had the prettiest little bulbs as a part of their decoration, and behind the bar counter, there were bottles of alcohol that appeared to be kept clean at all times, and so it was yet another thing that reflected the light. And the building’s windows were clean, too.

So that’s how it could have looked like, you thought to yourself.

It would be a lie to say that you could consider a better job, were you not to have that particular skill of yours. In fact, you were almost certain that you would never even get close to a place like this, if not all that happened. Was it worth all the stress and bruises, on both your body and your mind, that incurred in the process? You couldn’t agree, but neither could you disagree with such a statement.

“You like it?”

You jumped at the voice that sounded out right behind you, almost dropping the newly acquired laptop bag held tightly in your arms.

“Jongin? What are you doing here?”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him wear a T-shirt before, it was always the uniform. But today the man looked different, and you wondered what brought him to this place. It was also the first time since the museum that you saw him without a band aid on his forehead, and although the scar was still there, you were glad to see it healing well.

“I wanted to see how’s it going. Are they treating you well?”

You snorted at that, although the tips of your ears got a bit red when you realized he came all this way just to see you.

“They’re nicer than I thought, to be honest. I always imagined corporate work would be… more stiff. But I’ve been here for a week, I don’t know if I like it yet. I’m still at work safety trainings, I don’t even know what exactly I’ll be doing” you shrugged, trying to sound unbothered. But for a fact, you were actually quite stressed out with all the things happening recently. “And they pay me better than I thought they will, you know, considering I have no choice but to work there…” you added a bit quieter, lowering your head. You still felt ashamed of the situation you found yourself in. Accepting the job offer was your only way to avoid prison. The judge took into consideration that the harm you’ve done was relatively marginal. 

And Jongin’s testimony about you staying with his injured self at the museum also took a great part in getting you as merciful of a sentence as it was only possible in the circumstances given. You still had to report regularly to the local police office (and, frankly, you didn’t mind, because it was the one Jongin himself worked at).

“But I think it will be fun. A bit. Or maybe not too boring” you pondered. “I’ll be joining some team that checks security measures for the insurance provider. It sounds so serious, you know? I mean, I was a convenience store cashier before. This is so fancy in comparison. But how will I even tell my family how I got this job? Hey mom, I broke into a museum but I didn’t steal anything so they hired me” you continued to blabber.

Jongin watched you with a warm smile.

You could tell he’s proud of himself. And even though you didn’t know if it was the best outcome for you, you felt like it was the best outcome for him. He not only caught the burglar he was after – apparently – for months, but he also managed to get them to change their ways.

You had to admit, his personal charm did play a role in making you more eager to cooperate.

“So, did you come here just to ask about my job, or…?”

The man pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Actually, I wanted to ask if you’d like to eat a dinner together.”

You stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded.

“A dinner?”

Is this a…? No way.

“Yeah, there’s a nice place I wanted to show you.”

“Nicer than that private museum I visited three months ago?” you teased, at which the officer rolled his eyes, letting out a shaky laugh.

“It’s a fancy restaurant that we had an office party at once.” That didn’t sound too encouraging. “They have crystal chandeliers all over the ceiling.”

Your eyes widened in excitement and you almost felt yourself salivate.

“Let’s go there.”

The man laughed warmly.

“Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I’m not overpaying. You’d be as happy with the lighting section at home depot” he announced, giving back on the teasing jokes you started.

“You won’t tell me there’s a single person on the earth that doesn’t like the lighting section at home depot.”

At that, he laughed even louder, and you weren’t really sure whether you should feel shy or offended. But your face was getting redder with every word he spoke, and your heart was beating just a bit faster at the sound of his laugh. After the circumstances the two of you met in, any interaction now felt surreal.

“What about you?” you decided to change the topic. “You had some days off because of… you know.” You vaguely pointed at his forehead. “Are you a hero now? Are you getting a raise?”

It was Jongin’s time to look awkward, and he scratched the back of his head, frowning.

“Not really, I actually got scolded for the lone investigation and camping at the museum without anyone’s approval. But since things turned out fine, I’m not really in trouble, so I guess it’s okay. It could have ended much worse.”

“If you didn’t catch me?”

“For example.” You weren’t really upset with him for doing his job, but it seemed that he was still a bit nervous mentioning it. “But, I mean, since I did catch you…” he smoothly changed the tone and pointed back at his car parked nearby. “Let’s go, I have the table booked.”

You raised your eyebrows, feeling challenged with his statement.

“Oh, really?” You huffed. “Well, this time I think I could run off pretty easily.”

Jongin pressed his lips together, as if hesitating. Then, with a mischievous smile, he leaned over, nodding downwards. You glanced down, confused, and he tilted up the edge of his jacket, displaying a pair of handcuffs secured by his belt.

You let out a small “oh”.

“Or would you rather I catch you again?”

And although this argument was enough to convince you not to dare him any further, you just had a feeling that the museum would not be the last place Jongin’s handcuffs would end up in use.

Woohoo, two fanfics in one weekend! Hope you guys enjoyed it!

FYI I'll be releasing EXO Writers Masterlist next week, so stay tunned!

[lopaak]

In Stars and Time, Aion, Mirages and Thoughts

Launching a game you were awaiting for long is always weird to live ; you're in a special time frame, an Eon you're aware you'll only live once.

In the case of In Stars and Time, it's also partly because once your finish the game, once your fixation will be over, you know you'll look back a few days or weeks before and realize your life changed in such little time.

Eon, or Aion as I will be referring to, one of the three divinity of Time in ancient Greece, represents the Time of eras, cycles, where Past and Future cohabit like lines on a globe, both parallel and meeting at every pole.

While there is Kronos the linear, unstoppable Time, and Kairos the Time of the moment and opportunity you'll get once, Aion is a Time that takes from both of its siblings.

Aion only happens once, as a specific time frame, a frame constructed by the events within it. Yet it is also a Time you live through during which Kronos' linearity makes you suffer, inexorably, makes you love and appreciate things nearby, makes you fear the end.

Yet it is also a Time in which countless opportunities are presented to you, as Kairos' influence washes over every ounce of Time thrown by the Universe.

Another specificity of Aion is that it is the only of these 3 divinities that has an existence within space, not just Time. It was originally used for astronomical time, to measure the cycle of astronomical objects, of Stars.

So here I was, playing a game about loops, unavoidable cycles of repeating events, while myself being in an Aion, aware of the ephemeral aspect of my emotional playthrough.

So, what about In Stars and Time?

It was a great game, standing in that huge rift between imperfect game and perfect piece. So great actually that this small essay is, unlike my digression about Aion might suggest, about this game!

A professional reviewer making an article on the game might be more interesting and especially, better written than a silly 18yo tumblr user though. Read at your own risk. Spoilers ahead btw!

But, since I'm making this, let's start with the basics, I imagine? The art direction is really, really good. The design of the characters is both cute and distinctive, and the (mostly!) black & white aspect of the game fits the characters and the story really well! Some still art of the characters during the hangouts and at the end of the game brought tears to my 4am-completely-dry eyes.

As an rpg, ISAT does the job well for me. The traditional medieval rpg endgame place, the castle, in this game the 'House of Change', is where most of your gameplay will take place, in 3 different floors. Which starts in the beginning as a map to go up the floors to encounter the King later evolves into a labyrinthine experience as in act 3 and 4 you have to go back in rooms hinted at you by an NPC, by your helper-companion Loop, or by deduction, to get some items, go back to another floor, go to the spawn village, over and over again.

That is where my only negative criticism of the game stands ; Acts 3 and 4 felt sometimes too confusing, hard or complicated, finding the items to advance in the story almost felt more as a burden than a fun detective exploration game. The moments of fun in these were talking with your friends about the discoveries and then going back to the village to talk with Loop. And all that was inevitably done so by Siffrin dying or being frozen in time, which wasn't making all that job any more fun.

BUT! Because most criticisms need a 'BUT', that was also experiencing, what Siffrin, our main silly hat character, was living, and thousands of times less strongly. In this specific case, the slight frustration or annoyance i got by looping to certain floors to get books and all that fuss was completely justified, as the ending would make less sense without it, and Siffrin's development as a character would be pretty meaningless, because they would have went through way less.

Act 5, where Siffrin "slightly" loses it because of everything he went through in the previous acts, is only meaningful because while what we as players might have found annoying, he as a character suffered his heart and mind through it. Every time you decided to step on a banana peel to loop up in the House, Siffrin had to die and fake their feelings to their friends once more. Every time you found slightly annoying that you had to fight a specific enemy (Sadness) again, Siffrin was living it.

About fighting! I felt the battles as really fun, satisfying and never really getting boring? Some criticisms I've seen say that fighting Sadnesses is boring, either too easy or too hard, that it's not fun... But personally i really enjoyed it!

First because, the art of the Sadnesses is like. reallyanotherlevelofdope. I found each Sadness' design amazingly cool. Many of them have this silliness to them, whether in their pose or in their expression, yet they are all crying, and, as their name implies, anything they experience is nothing but sadness. At a point where sometimes, despite hurting them in the process, you almost feel like you're freeing them when defeating them.

And well, the moving patterned background art during the battle is super duper cool as well! As someone who loves patterns of any kind, i found all of them really cool looking. Each Sadness has a background different tied to them!

Secondly on why i liked the battles, this won't be a long point but : simply, the combat system is fun! The rock-paper-scissor aspect, the different Crafts, the jackpot mechanic, all that was pretty fun.

And thirdly, the MUSIC!!! The music playing during the battles is really good and makes them more fun. And that brings me to another point on why I love ISAT : the OST. Which is my next paragraph, how fortunate.

THE OST!!!! Composed by Studio Thumpy Puppy, the soundtrack of the game is stunning! stunningly good! The genre of music i listen to the most surely is videogame ost (I'm even listening to that rn), and the soundtracks of games is something I always pay great attention to and an aspect that really hammers the nail (or nails the hammer?) when it comes to me loving a game. Every track of this ost from the King theme down to the rock-paper-scissor tutorial kid tune is of genuine amazing quality. I can only recommend giving it a listen if you're not interested in the game, and supporting the composer on Bandcamp if you can! The ost is a great fit to the event currently happening in the game, and sometimes really feels as if you were in the place of Siffrin, reflecting their mental state. For example, during Act 5, when everything about the music takes a drastic change and becomes darker, fitting the game and Siffrin's current state.

Oh, did I mention Siffrin's feelings? Makes me realize I haven't talked much about our main character yet. Oh well! Here I go. And that is where I'm gonna spoil!!

Siffrin, the silly hat wizard (wizards are not real, urgh, i mean traveler) is who you play as in ISAT. Every moment you experience is from Siffrin's perspective. He's a traveler (uses he/they!) from another country, unknown even by him at the beginning of the game. Eventually as the game progresses, they realize the land they came from was a land north of the country in which ISAT takes place, Vauguard. That land disappeared years ago, and everyone sort of forgot about it. The characters know there was an island north of Vauguard, but forgot everything about it. Trying to read its language or saying its name out loud gives a headache, if you can even remember the name. A big chunk of the game is about remembrance, Siffrin wanting and trying to remember that name, as he himself forgot. Siffrin is a deeply introvert person, scared when people touch them yet touch starved, have a hard time talking about their feelings, and much more (I'll go into it more when I'll talk about the story and do the essay part of this post). Most aspects of their personality, the topics of depression and trauma he went/is going through, as well as him being asexual makes me relate a lot to him.

However Siffrin is far from being the only multilayered and complex character in ISAT.

AND!!!! Here is when I took a break from ISAT.

A few weeks ago, I started writing this essay and eventually took a break, heh. It gave me time to think more about this silly sad game :)

I wondered whether I should rewrite everything or continue where I left off, and if you're reading this, well it means I decided to continue!!! SO here I am, continuing this essay, however moving the direction a little. I'm easing back on the review aspect and going full-on essay. Let's gooo~ wowee

When there's a topic tough to talk about because of its complexity, I ask myself : why do I want to talk about it? It eases the process to reflect on why I'm doing what I'm doing. But for some topics there's another level of complexity, thanks to, oh well, the emotional attachment there is to it ; and one of these topics is ISAT.

In what lens should I analyze ISAT? Under what light? What zoom level on the microscope? What aperture size? What focus? And perhaps the most important question ; should I use anti flare and damaging equipment? Should my picture of In Stars and Time be burnt, as looking as Stars entails. I think I'm going to look straight into the Stars and let my pupils burn, let this text get consumed, because if this text were to exist in the grand scheme of ISAT, I imagine it would get consumed either way.

Let's think. I'm closing my eyes now. No spider on my neck, no croissant in sight. Thoughts merge with C418's beautiful composition on his album "Excursions".

On the horizon, a plethora of games, shows, movies or artists that will impact my life in more ways than I can imagine at this moment. On the ground, in the sand, In Stars and Time lies, an artifact in the photographic sense, and an Artifact in the sense that it will stay with me, like many did in the past, still impacting what I'm writing right now. I pick up the cartridge..or the..steam key(?), slowly blow off the sand and rise my hand to look at it under the scorching sun. It won't be an easy task. But it wasn't for the past Artifacts either.

So ; In Stars and Time is an incredibly hard object of analysis, both because of its nature and because of my attachment to it. That's for certain. Now, it's far from impossible and nothing's impossible anyways when you have all the time in the world. A lens that I feel necessary to use when analyzing In Stars and Time is the lens of the dispossession of one's identity. Siffrin is forcefully separated from what made them who they are now, forcefully separated from the impending victory and freedom.

Cultural dispossession is something that I can't say I relate myself but is something that had a definite impact on my family, something that I could witness in the eyes of a loved one back a few years ago, someone who was reminiscing their earlier memories as a way to survive in a brain getting used and fatigued. Memories that I could not all write down, as Time was getting close. One day, a bit over three years ago, these eyes closed and with that ended a flow of mental souvenirs.

ISAT made me think about that person a lot. It feels that throughout In Stars and Time, at least to me, grief was treated in a way that I've never seen before. Grief is everywhere, but subtly? It is just a car you see driving next to you during a trip on a long highway. You can't really read its license plate but, do you need to? Do you need to know where that car is from, in what country, what state was it bought? Do you need to know where it is going? No you don't. But sometimes you wish you could know. (Note ; writing this makes me think about this song)

I left all my luggage in the last station. I lost them. Moving on.

Grief is also present as a fear of something that might have already happened, in the character of Bonnie. They did not lose their sister but what if? What if it was too late? 'Siffrin, what if they could never go back because of you? Because of me?'

Siffrin witnessing Bonnie being murdered was one of the most terrifying experience while playing the game. I don't know if Sif can ever recover after that in the future, but my headcanon says so. Thinking about that event makes me ...sick.

Bonnie is, despite their age, one hell of a strong character, for many reasons. Because their final hit can be an absolute bop. Because they make super duper good snacks. Because they're here. They crawled to escape the curse, walked with no gear nor water for days before meeting the crew. All this time, they stayed strong. They kept advancing, in the hope of finding something, anything to help.

And they did. I can see them right now, in this desert, looking at this cartridge. The scorching sun is freezing cold, so I'll keep moving to heat myself at least a bit. I have to continue.

Difference is constructed.

Mirabelle is, in a lot of ways, the other main character. She created the party, she saves everyone's life, she beats the King. It's tough to be more 'main character' than this. At least it is by most fictional adventure standards. She's very unique anyways, but is it a weakness to be unique? Obviously not; except in the house of Change? Tough to say, but needless to say, she has a very dyptical (i made that word up, let's say, "dual") relationship with the House and with her fellow housemaidens. She loves being where she is, she loves her place in the House, she loves her beliefs. But she's scared whether she is the right person, because the reality is that she wasn't "chosen" by the Change God, because there are expectations she cannot (or is repulsed to) fulfill due to being on the aroace spectrum.

That is also something I related a lot with! And the message about religion and more specifically belief is really healthy. To believe is not necessarily to make compromises, it is also to believe in yourself, as apart of whichever deity, able to change, able to be who you are.

I think her fears are very relatable, to many people. To an inattentive eye, it could make her a pretty consensual character when it comes to her personality. A character that everyone can like, she's the nice one, all that. But that'd be falling for the trap she's in herself.

Mirabelle is way more complex than what she may look like, a sweet housemaiden who is nice and caring, here for others, who fits her name really well (to be fair, Mirabelle does suit her alot, but not just bc of the sweetness and all that). She has a strength other characters don't necessarily have ; a strength that is in-game represented by her shield ability and the fact that she deals the final blow to the King. But it's a strength that deeply, is tough to explain and that other people will likely do better than me. A strength tied to her belief in Change, tied to her care towards the people of Vauguard, but also tied to her believing in herself. She seem unsure of herself and, arguably she is in many situations, but when the moment is important she knows what to do and she's sure of that.

In the end of the day ; Mirabelle is aware that she doubts her strength, and knows that she can fight those doubts.

And, as I see in the distance a faraway light illuminating the sky, making day look like night, I understand that a shield, far, far away, is resonating for countries around. In another land that is mere mirages for me, they're celebrating.

I don't want this essay to look review-y too much so I won't go around analyzing Isabeau and Odile like I did previously with the others ; plus, patterns get quickly boring. Nah.

There is a ton to say about Isabeau and Odile though. However I've been thinking about how to express my feelings and essaying on them, and I can't find the words. Which granted I'm no journalist, no professional reviewer, but I feel like any inability to write about the things I love is a form of weakness for me. Just for me though, if, that makes sense, oh, well, okay,. If people read this and are interested in my thoughts about them, I'll definitely try my best to go in depth in another essay, specifically about the whole roaster ; Bonnie, Isabeau, Mirabelle, Odile and Sif! (and another one!) They're in alphabetical order! (not the essay).

I will try for now tho, to at least express a bit my feelings on them two. Isabeau is a beautifully written character. I really see his personality as a glimmer in the party. He's brave and strong, but so romantic and kind-hearted. Like Mirabelle, he may seem like a pretty consensual character that is a bit stereotypical ; the buff guy with a heart of moss. But! Like her, he is much much more complex than what meets the eye of someone casually glancing at a ISAT 100% No Commentary video by "theFullGameplayGuy" or some other name (made them up). (No hate towards these channels. They're lifesavers sometimes. Thanks thefullgameplayguy or any no commentary gameplay channel.)

Got distracted but, like the script of a film being created on set, I decided to not delete my distractions. Makes the essay more me!

Odile. Odile is a character that I found so very intriguing since I played ISAT's "prototype", Start again: A prologue. She talks less compared to the others, she's much older, mysteriously scientific and scientifically mysterious. She's lesbi- oh sorry that's a headcanon. . . Um, so, she's very intriguing, especially until her hangout event where you learn much more about her, her past, her life, what brought her here. She has a personality that is quite hard to get at first, but a really cool and sweet one. When I played the game and had to choose the wish in the first minutes, I actually chose the one with Odile! And the reason is exactly this intriguing personality, her mysterious veil of Craft and Science, and my interest for Ka Bue (the country she came from).

All these characters will stuck with me for a long, long time. While playing, I saw myself in each of them at least a bit. Few games made me feel represented with an array of different characters, all shaped in the small world they're coded in, yet near infinitely complex.

Now I know what you may be thinking. I'm not forgetting Loop!!! I actually thought a lot whether I should include them here and decided that I will include them in that other essay I'll make if it interests people, because they are a WHOLE other level of layers and as much as I love writing this, it's a very big piece I can't really tackle in the middle of an overall essay about the game.

In Stars and Time is one of these games. One of these art pieces that will have a lasting on my life. In the continuity of games such as Undertale/Deltarune, fnaf (yeaa it's a franchise), The Stanley Parable, Stardew Valley, Bad End Theater, Life is Strange, If Found, or more recently q.u.q and Stories Untold, and much much more ; this game will change my perception and apprehension of things, and will continue to influence me over the time, over all my future creative projects. (id recommend to check all the games i mentioned that you haven't heard of!!) It will follow me, for the better, in my creative process. So thank you Armor Game Studio, thank you Studio Thumpy Puppy, and thank you the creator, Insertdisc5!

So ; as I'm nearing the end of this, I wonder what it is. I called it an essay for a lack of better words, but I honestly don't know if I'm qualified to write something and call it an essay. And it's definitely not a review either. But it started as one, a bit! Though i don't want to make a review. So I don't really know! But oh well.

Also, remember the three Time in ancient Greece? I think a lot about its ties to the game, but again, that would be too long and especially, too hard for me to explain with words..?. Everything interconnects, everything meets everywhere, everything, on all ends and all thoughts. And ISAT is now part of a cobweb bigger than worlds, words and concepts. I might, tho, try to write about it, one day.

Call me lazy for not expanding on some topics but it's tough to produce allthat for my tiny brain!! I really want to go further but you know. Eh

As for me, I continue walking in the sand. In the erased steps of someone of more importance, I go forward toward the unknown with a new piece in the forever expanding puzzle of a life ; a piece called In Stars and Time.

[serendipitouscontaminant]

Sorry to pop in again so soon, but I just had to return and offer a little more praise.

Okay so after reading the 3rd part and letting all of that settle on my soul - and getting over my initial "omg I fricking love this fic" excitement - I just need to say I am floored by your storytelling prowess. Your description of things are so immaculate that there's no question as to what you mean and how that feels/looks/sounds etc. Lines like "Barbie feels like her insides have been scooped out and replaced with fragile things. She has to move slowly, breathe carefully, to keep from jarring them, because they’ll grow stronger but they haven’t yet." Perfect. Anyone who's been there knows exactly how that feels like and knows you've described it to a T. I love how you were able to take complicated things like that and put words to them.

Your characterizations are spot-on. Ken saying he felt "spinny"? Like yeah, I could totally hear it in my head, and it was definitely believable he said that. But more than that though, you helped us readers understand what these two were *feeling* and did so without sacrificing who we saw in the movie. It's like I was a doll experiencing humanity for the first time too, in all its good and bad.

The detailing of how they feel about being human - "but she still wakes up with her flesh and blood heart beating too fast and her flesh and blood skin sticky with cold sweat (yuck)" - and how they're coping with it - "Gloria feels her stomach lurch when she sees his hands, cuticles and nails picked at and chewed on, every imperfection worried at until they’re impossible to ignore. Barbie has the same problem, but a spinning ring and a flawless manicure every time she gets her hair touched up have mostly taken care of it." - are beautiful in their own way. I really can't get over how you've really helped the readers put themselves in their shoes and feel as they feel in their newfound humanity.

Not to mention how you've developed their platonic soulmate AU which I am HERE FOR. I love it so much, like that last part with their foreheads touching had me in tears. And the angst - my word! - also had me in tears too. Those poor babies.

Anyway, as I said before: you're a genius with wonderful gifts, and thank you for sharing them with us. I will definitely be keeping an eye on your Ao3 to see any more posting in the future if you so choose to do so. But please, please may we have at least one little thing where Ken gets some happiness please? I think he's earned it, but that's just me.

I'll leave you alone now, but I just really needed to share this. Thanks again <3

Thank you SO much for this and I am not put upon at all :D I love getting compliments about my work lol so definitely don’t apologize

Genuinely thank you, though, because I’m so glad you feel that way about the fics. I’m trying very hard to convey the humanness vs. dollness of it all, and to have the characters talk and act like themselves, just in this really weird and often sad situation. I’m also glad the spinny lines worked lol. I was like “how would Ken describe the feeling of spiraling?” and that’s what I got.

AND YEAH, someone said in the comments on the first fic that it was giving dark soulmate AU vibes, and I was like yayyy love that that was noticeable, and I’ve kept leaning on it because I think it’s so interesting. (Though the darker aspects have faded.)

And lmao I swear Ken will have a good time soon!!! I genuinely started feeling bad for him at a certain point in the last fic of the trilogy and I was like “man, I need this guy to pet a horse or something and possibly not even cry once within three thousand words.” But he’s going through the very beginning of the adjustment period in that trilogy, so it is Not easy. But again—things will look up for him now!!! I have plans!!!

(I do also have plans for more heavy angst, but my threat of a fic where Ken just overall has a great time still stands. I actually have plans for it to maybe be the first fic in the vignette collection that will probably be the last entry in this series. But plans change, so don’t quote me on that. Things WILL look up, though.)

(Also, obligatory link to the series: something in me in you.)

[freya-rat-face]

With that last post, I thought I'd share

When I was writing and world building, I came around to a lot of the gig with The God as it's purported to exist

Because I am a Creator God to this very very small, incomplete world and it gave me a lot of sympathy to the one humanity has made up.

My beloved world is imperfect. People hurt each other for sheer joy of inflicting pain and for ten thousand other reasons. Disasters, mistakes, just Shit Happens.

It was that or it would lose its definition as a world. No pain, no pleasure. It's a landscape and can't live.

Life is energy and the cycles within.

Because to increase pleasure, you have to make it better, but then it would always work because there's no failure; and really, after a point, why bother? Even wanting to be happier could be out of the question because longing and wanting are signs of not having which is not a good feeling.

I love my creations. Nothing but love. Even the bad ones. I love them so completely with everything because I made them and they are my creations.

But they do bad things. They make me angry, which is a thing I made them to do. I get frustrated with them as I created them because the way I made them means that they will respond to the world I made around them in ways that will result in damage and harm. I know they're like that because I made them that way with their parents and their upbringing, the circumstances of their conception, the geopolitical bullshit that comes with where they're from and what they look like.

But if I take that shit away, make them "perfect", I'm removing everything that makes that character that character. Not only flaws, but good traits vanish when all traits are good. Who cares if she's at peace now, so is everyone else.

I don't NEED to be logical here. I'm the fucking creator. If I wanted to, I could put that boulder in the air and pretend to smash a town with it and magic the town right back. I would say that I have done that for things like rewrites.

But I want my world to be a world. Without consistencies, it's not a single world but instead a scattering of ideas all roughly connected by being in my head.

So I make rules for it. What lives here, how. What grows, what people need.

And after enough stuff, it starts to fight. Common food resource, common water needs.

And early on you can build shit, change it up to make them fit together neatly without hurting anyone, but eventually, there's just gonna be conflict. How that gets handled by the people involved will be dictated by what they've learned, what they've got, and who that made them to be.

OR you can take away them needing things.

So I can rebuild my world and take out all the suffering and it makes all my people, my characters, into flat, useless pictures in my head. They lose their shitty opinions, their nasty habits, their kneejerk overreactions, their prejudices; but they lose their virtues, their compassion, their empathy.

Technically? No, my characters don't have free will, but they don't know that; what they have is the framework they have for what makes them the character they are and the decisions before them. From their point of view, they do have free will; but they're still gonna take the left door because when I was trying to pick out that little quirk of theirs to always pick the left door, I flipped a coin to determine right or left.

From my point of view, I don't even have free will here. I can't change the course of the story to spare anyone the pain, because if he doesn't get curious and press the fucking button, the story is already over and nothing happens. No one suffers, but no one is happy, either. There's no victory, no overcoming, no progress and no pride.

It's BORING. What is even the point.

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that if a Creator God exists, it's still an asshole, but I understand why a lot better.

[nox-the-former-demon]

>>In this post, I, Nox, Former Demon, will elaborate on the unique trials one such as myself faces when suddenly and unexpectedly set into a living form, uncleansed of my history, and all too aware of how and why things are, as well as the nature of the body and soul’s interactions.

To start with, I first need to explain how to e body and soul each uniquely affect elements of a person’s being. Mainly, what elements come from what. To start with, I’ll start with the soul.

The soul is the origin of a person’s individual identity. The thing that says I am Nox or I am Asa or whatever else. The soul determines how one thinks, how one speaks, what one likes or dislikes. Unsurprisingly, the soul is the thing that drives your hopes and dreams and wants. But the soul isn’t something that stays in any one stagnant state of being. If it were, cleansing post mortem wouldn’t be necessary. The soul changes shape based on its surroundings, it builds habits and tendencies. The cleansing puts the slate blank, or at least as close to blank as manageable as the process isn’t infallible, mistakes are made, things get left behind or even picked up and imperfections are a given. And of course, the soul is bound to change once it’s in a form.

And a lot of this is because it is placed into a body that is hard wired certain ways.

To best illustrate this point, I often like to highlight handedness. In my past life, I was left handed, something that contributed to my military success with the HRE. But now that I share my form with Asa, we’re both right handed. This extends to other factors as well. The way your brain is wired, the chemicals that flow through your blood, injuries and medical conditions and puberty, all of it will have some sort of impact on how your soul melds to its form. Sometimes things are good fits, others the imperfections from the cleansing cause clashes. That’s why some people thrive in life and others struggle to exist.

I mention all of this to set up for the main subject I would like to discuss. That being neurodivergence. I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone if I say that neurological imperfections are a factor of the body and not the soul, elements a person is born with and cannot change but may change them as a result. Autism, ADHD, Tourette’s, OCD, Bipolar, so on so forth, these are all elements with how you are physically put together and while some can be treated others cannot, and you either need to be adapt to it or let to rule you.

Having said this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one who spends a long time without a body isn’t used to these kinds of conditions. A thousand years of having no physical wiring, suddenly shunted into a human form will have a pretty harsh adjustment period.

I was probably neurotypical before, even in my past life. Now, I’m in a body with adnd and probably autism as well. And I won’t lie, I kinda hate it.

I find myself sleeping in most days. Asa may wake up before I do, taking her medications most mornings. I think that the stimulant probably helps stir me most days. I remember they played a strong factor in my remembering who I am, giving the room to focus and think. And now they help me pull myself off of the couch in our shared headspace. But I’m not without difficulty. I’m far more forgetful than I once was, I can get affixed to certain things far more easily than ever before… to be honest I hate it but there’s only so much I can do. I’ll survive, as long as I need to anyway.

Some of you may be wondering where gender identity comes from after this explanation. And the answer is, partially body, partially soul. It should be obvious that imperfections in the cleansing play a role, but also the way the brain is wired, and how both your brain and soul ultimately react to hormones. It’s a mess, and it’s a mess that after all these years isn’t going away. That’s just the nature of the cycle. Imperfections are a necessary component of existence, and people really should understand that anymore. If they don’t, they don’t willingly.

If you’re now wondering about my own identity, sharing a form with Asa, let me abridge it. Asa is a trans woman due to imperfections in her cleansing, she is also partially inhuman due to her history as a demon and exposure to Nel, whose power had an effect on those around them. As for myself, my masculinity has never been too core a factor to me as a person. I spent so long embracing inhumanity that I only barely perceive myself as human, and in more recent times, I’ve found myself adjusting both to the wild energy Nel puts out as well as the femininity that comes from Asa’s and my shared existence in an estrogenized body. Asa is, to quote her, a “Transfeminine Human-Adjacent Dog Thing”, meanwhile I would best be described as “Xenogender”, as well as, with some reluctance in saying as much… a femboy. I hate that word but it’s accurate.

Asa’s pronouns are She/It. Mine are They/It/He. It’s an awkward situation, sharing this form, but I’ve had enough time to get over the initial shock and just only be mildly annoyed.<<

[the-hem]

The Perfect Series. Part 1. "Grace and Disgrace."

The microcosm and the macrocosm.

There are two dimensions in which worship of God results in Grace or disgrace, the human and the society, “micro and macrosms.”

 All discussions of how we turn life into moments of Grace or its opposite using our human authorities, AKA “the Series” result from interactions with self and selves. God has but one infinite level, Himself, Self for short.

The Graciousness of the Self, the Supreme Soul theoretically should pass through the self and selves unaltered and unabated. The Spirit should always be able to Soar across the waters and proclaim “This is Good” without question.

Goodness in the Macrocosm is the result of Civil Society and it is mandated by Rule of Law.

 The Graces of God are mandatory on the surface of the 21st Century Planet Earth So there really shouldn’t be any questions about this correct?

Sundered vs. Civil Society.

We need only turn to the rules of civil society contained in the Constitutions of every nation and the United Nations Charter and Declaration to find the means to widespread Grace. They are the legally required conscience of humankind. They composite thousands of years of our learnings from our disgraces, the greatest of which is failure to enforce human rights laws.

Societies that do not enforce the law result in chaos, such as ours. If we start enforcing the law with all the hate and rage and fury disgrace requires in order to force and exit, we could hope for what is called  Sha’ah Ba, “the turning point” in Hebrew. Without Sha’ah Ba, Olam Ha Ba, the “God’s Coming.”

This world is obviously the Sundered World, it was conquered and left for dead by disgusting disgraceful persons. The return of God’s Graces through Sha’ah Ba could very well restore all the beauty we know we are missing and usher in Olam Ha Ba. The process of Unsundering, Ha Shem, Sha’ah Ba and Olam Ha Ba is called Mashiach, or “the Perfect Series.”

Moses illustrated the power of even the Imperfect Series to the Juice on Sinai.  Moses did not have time to change diapers, argue the minutiae, and butter people’s big breads, he had to rouse a depressed and deprived people and get them to move.

He had to convince them to perform Sha’ah Ba, turn the corner and it was going to be a rough ride, but staying was not an option and he himself needed convincing, too. Moses confessed he was not a good looking or glib man, and he screwed things up out of the gates, but God said, “Keep coming back, I’ll be here”.  Moses was the only one that interviewed for the Job while the rest complained all day long, so he was the one God chose.

God said, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, “We Are Continuous. Your misery must needs be temporary. Let us together lead the people to freedom as soon as possible, that Our Worship may at last begin”, Exodus 3 &4. God’s version of the Turning Point included tearing the assholes right out of the Egyptians till they relented and then the People departed their sundered lives and began the transitional life of Sha’ah Ba.

Nations must accept the need for sudden Turning Points just like individuals and do what has to be done those Commandments, contracts, rules, roles and responsibilities, collectively called “Duties” can be fulfilled. We should not need at this point in time to suggest to God we are somehow flawed or unpracticed at Duty and give us, as with Moses, a few more tries.  We should not need Mercy or Forgiveness or Crosses. We should be utterly ashamed and very, very alarmed after receiving the Old Testament the First Latter Day Saints had to ask Jesus for an Additional.

What didn’t sink in? Duty to God.

Duties of God, Duties to God.

From the Crossroad of the Divine, the Song of the Supreme General:

Sri Kartik, the God of Justice said:

All these worlds would run into chaos if I would not do My work; I would create confusion and would destroy all these living entities.  

As the ignorant do their work in attachment, oh descendant of Bharata (the Kingdom of India), so the learned must act without attachment in desiring to be the example for the common people.  

He should not disturb the minds of the ignorant attached to the fruits of labor; a wise man should, engaged in his duty, fit all in with his work. 

The Crossroad of the Divine discusses national obligations and how, when attended to or neglected, individuals gain or give up happiness. I say give up because communities that deviate from duty by allowing assholes to govern them are asking God to take the meaningful work of their souls away from them and set them on fire. The assholes that perform such thieving, cheaters in national elections, warmongers, roving gangs of religious dipthongs, etc. are asking to be slaughtered.

The rest of the Perfect Series, the Ha Shem, discusses how and why people sunder themselves and through the study of the Sastras, the Words of God, all of Them the ways we can retune our minds to the serene surface of the See, undergo Baptism AGAIN and enter a new permanent Age free of disgrace, confusion and wanton destruction.

The Upanishad will continue.

[redorich]

Hello! Can we get a little something for the hermit canyon AU? I was thinking something Karl centered, maybe they accidentally find his library or otherwise find out about his "travels". They're probably invisible for the whole thing, but do they do anything afterwards? Do they leave little notes and reminders? Would they try to help at all? Or would they push it to the back of their minds and try to forget about it?

Unlike most discoveries made by Hermits, Joe does not find a secret location on a normal surface run. When Etho found the Pogtopia ravine, it was a mystery to him, unsettling and vivid. When Grian found Technoblade's snowy cabin, it was on complete accident, just because Grian needed to explore, to get out of the canyon for a few hours.

When Joe exits the canyon, as he rarely does, he makes a beeline for Karl's library. Time is... not something Joe concerns himself with, but he prefers to constrict himself to the linear travel of the fourth dimension nowadays-- if such a thing as "nowadays" can be said to exist when tangling with time.

Where was he? Ah, yes. He moves quickly, because he dislikes spending more time away from Xisuma's side than absolutely necessary, even if the admin has been having a run of good health days and there are twenty-two other Hermits to attend to the admin in an emergency. He doesn't bother with invisibility, or walking, or other mundane things. Joe simply hovers in the air, flying toward his destination and perhaps fiddling with the tick speed just a little, just enough to get him there faster.

There's a residual feeling of familiarity, like a relationship with an ex-girlfriend which has long since turned sour, near the canyon. There's a whisper there of magic, of gleaming white spires, but all Joe can see is red.

"It's a shame, what they did to this library," Joe mutters with a tsk. Posters of hazy LSD-esque drawings of various time periods and locations line the walls, molding away as red vines climb on them, devour them.

He shrugs. Might as well move on; nothing of value remains here.

To the south is a place Etho has visited only briefly and in passing: Kinoko Kingdom. It's a hotspot of activity at times, and a ghost town at others. Etho didn't even know the name of the place until Puffy reported it. Joe doesn't care. For all that Etho likes to present himself as a cryptid, scaring poor innocent wood-dwelling folk who are just looking for a big fuzzy triclopean spouse, Joe is the one with experience as a cryptid. Let them see him. What are they going to say, "I saw Herobrine"?

He touches down, finally, in front of another library made from mushrooms and wood. Allowing his eyes to flash white for a moment so that he can ferret out the building's secret room, he is both disappointed and unsurprised to see it empty of life. Karl Jacobs, resident time traveller, is not there.

Joe closes his eyes. He doesn't want to have to do this. For decades, there was a place he called home, a place he built from the ground up. It was a place in between life and death, and so he called it the Inbetween.

He opens his eyes, and he is there. It's like walking down a street you've been down a hundred thousand times before; even with your eyes closed, you know where you're going. There are no longer dozens of imperfect copies of himself running around, brainless and waiting to be culled like lambs to the slaughter in order to fuel an affront against nature. Now, there are many iterations of Karl, all wandering aimlessly... save one.

The only version of Karl wearing color stands in an open-air corridor near the courtyard. Even from a distance, Joe can see his chest rise and fall far too rapidly for him to actually be getting any air. (Joe sees everything here, where his eyes are white and cannot be anything but white.)

"Why am I here?" Karl babbles to himself. "I haven't time-travelled-- or did I already forget?"

"You didn't forget," Joe reassures him. It does not have the intended effect.

Karl screams, turning around so quickly that he falls on his ass. He scoots away like a crab missing a leg, scrambling for some distance. "Your eyes--!"

"Come closer," Joe says. "I won't hurt you."

"You're Herobrine!"

Joe exhales slowly. "I was Herobrine. What I am is the only person who can help you."

Karl warily clambers to his feet. None of the other Karls dressed in white pay the two men any mind. "What do you mean?"

"You've got yourself stuck in a dimensional loop of Homestuck proportions, Karl," Joe says. "So did I, when I built this place. It took me decades to figure out how to get out of it, and I knew what I was doing. You don't have that."

"Am I stuck here forever, then?" Karl says mournfully. He waves a hand at the carefree automatons wearing his face. "Will I become one of them?"

Joe takes a few slow steps closer, keeping his hands where the stressed-out time traveller can see them. "I'll take care of things on this end. You won't ever have to come back here again."

Karl sags in relief like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Does the name Eret mean anything to you?" Joe asks. It's a name he's heard from Puffy's lips once or twice, and if her information holds true, things could get much easier.

Karl blinks. "Uh... Yeah? What about them?"

Joe continues. "Dark hair, tall, white eyes like mine?"

"I've never seen Eret without their sunglasses, but I guess, yeah," Karl replies. Of all the things he would have expected Herobrine to ask about, Eret isn't one of them.

"Imagine what Eret looks like," Joe suggests. "Think real hard about them. Imagine them here, in the Inbetween, right in front of us."

Karl has no idea why Herobrine wants him to daydream about Eret (even if their voice is very nice), but if the man is pulling his leg, well-- it's fucking Herobrine, he can do what he wants.

Speaking of that nice voice, Karl hears the voice in question scream out of nowhere. Karl flinches away from the sudden loud noise, before his eyes catch up to his brain and he realizes that he just magicked Eret into existence in the Inbetween.

"What the fuck," Eret says. "H-Herobrine, uh, long time no s-see..?"

"Sorry about that time I kinda tortured you," Herobrine says brightly. "I'm nicer now."

"I doubt--" Eret begins caustically, then remembers exactly who they're talking to and shuts their mouth. "...Why is everything so dark?"

"Take off your sunglasses," Herobrine suggests.

Eret grimaces, but obeys. This place is practically humming with magic, so they just know they're going to get blinded by it the moment they remove their glasses, but they remember what happened last time they pissed Herobrine off.

Wincing, they remove the sunglasses, expecting pain and receiving... nothing. The glint of light on quartz is a bit uncomfortable, but that's a normal human uncomfortable that Eret hasn't experienced since they were a teenager.

Herobrine smacks them on the forehead with his palm. "I take back what I said about 'living with this power for the rest of your life', and all that," he says. "You can turn 'em off now. I'd recommend not turning those eyes back on, though-- at least, not here. It's a little bright, magic-wise."

Eret gapes. All these years, they feared the day they'd meet this powerful man again, imagined what they'd say as they cursed his name or begged his forgiveness... and here he is, giving them exactly what they desperately hoped for but knew they'd never receive simply because he's 'nicer now'.

"Herobrine," Eret says, "why have you done this?"

"Call me Joe," Herobrine says.

Karl interjects, "Joe mama," under his breath. It is with the utmost shock on Eret's behalf that Karl does not in fact get immediately smited into oblivion, merely smacked on the forehead.

"Now you won't forget," Herobrine-- Joe says. "Anyway, I have shenanigans to be up to back in the canyon, so I'll send y'all back now. Those red vines are bad news, and so is their egg, so y'all better take care of that, please. It's really messing your server up."

Karl blanches. "The canyon?"

"Oh, look at the time. Have fun, be safe, bye," Joe says with affected mild disinterest.

Both Karl and Eret have so much to say, so many questions to ask, but they fade away before they get the chance.

[stormy-skies-falling]

𝔻𝕚𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕗 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕤?

about: Dreamwastaken (the teletubby himself)

warning(s): ew larvae, Dream's real name, talk of the imperial system, Mr. Juicy, fluff that makes me feel lonely :,)

pronouns: none specified

word count: 2.0k

note: Whoops! Sorry this took so long! School has been... interesting, to say the least. But anywho, enjoy! Kisses! <3

“Y/n, if you climb any higher, you’re gonna fall.” Dream says, as he paces beneath the large apple tree I’m striving to scale.

“You underestimate my climbing abilities, Dreamy” —I reach for another branch and hoist myself further up the tree in an attempt to get the heavenly apple above me— “and I really don’t think you should do such a thing.” I retort right as one of my feet slips off the branch below me, breaking said branch.

I look down to see my wide-eyed boyfriend getting ready to catch me if I fall. I won’t. “I’m fine, I’m fine. See!”—I regained my footing on another branch and gestured to myself with my free hand— “Everything’s just fine!” I exclaim.

“Mhm, sure” —Dream rolls his eyes, but then softens his gaze— “Why don’t you just come down. We have plenty of apples, so getting yourself hurt over one more is not worth it— and if you haven’t noticed, you’re not the most graceful ballerina in the studio.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. Though his plea is very reasonable and I should probably follow his advice… I want that apple, so I keep climbing.

A few days ago, my boyfriend Clay and I decided that we should start getting into the fall spirit. And one of the most fall-y activities we could think of was apple picking. Seemed simple enough at the time.

The idea was simple really: we would go to the apple orchard right outside of town, pick us some nice crisp apples, then go home and try to make an apple pie or two. Like I said, simple. But that’s not how it’s ending up working out.

The apple orchard that we’re currently at, Pomarium’s Apple Orchard™, has been around for decades and because of that, the apple trees are absolutely massive. According to the internet, regular apple trees can grow to 30ft or higher and just looking at the trees in the grove that is Pomarium’s Apple Orchard™, they seem to hit that mark.

The owners of the fine establishment, Muriel and Edith Pomarium (yes I know them personally, job shadowing project, ‘nuff said), have taken much pride in their work, as they should. The orchard and its apples have won the lovely ladies a vast amount of awards, since the place was opened, and has brought hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country to partake in the seasonal apple picking. Hence, how Clay and I found our way here when we were kids.

I finally reach the top of the tree, the luscious apple just out of my grasps. I stretch to reach it, throwing all caution to the wind (because why not). The branch keeping my figure from plummeting to the earth below me, begins to creek. If I just reach a little more, I’ll be able to grab my prize. The wonderful, juicy, red apple. I stretch and lean as far as I can towards the apple without falling and with great triumph, I finally pluck it off its stem and retract it towards me. Looking at my reward, I am filled with a great sense of accomplishment. I did it, the thing that almost made me fall several times in the aim to reach it; my mission has been fulfilled.

“You little stinker, I almost lost you out of fear. That would have been a big mistake on my part wouldn’t it have been? Yes it would! Oh yes it would!” I coo.

“Uhh, are you good, dear?”

I tear my focus away from my hard earned prize to see my boyfriend staring up at me, incredulously, while taking a bite of his twelfth apple.

“Yes, now can you stop ruining my moment with Mr. Juicy.” I retorted, directing my gaze back to the apple.

I turn the apple in my hand to examine the fine specimen. I am admiring my work until I turn it fully around in my hand to be met with a rotting hole in the fruit’s flesh. Now annoyed that my once perceived “perfect” apple was imperfect, I close my eyes and count to ten in some pathetic attempt to calm myself down. A groaning sound from the branch interrupts my much needed counting, reiterating that I probably should get down now. A slimy feeling overtakes my thumb. I pause and take a deep breath, I know that whatever is on my thumb is going to gross me out so I need to stay completely calm.

“Y/n! Is everything alright up there?!” Clay asks.

“I’m complETely calm!” I say, voice cracking.

My boyfriend yells something else, but I am too focused on working up the courage to see what’s crawling on me to hear.

I take a deep breath. Whatever happens, I just can’t freak out— I just can’t. I tightly squeeze my eyes shut an angle my head towards Mr. Juicy. Opening my eyes I am met with the foul beast that is moth larvae. Nope.

I let out a loud, high-pitched shriek and chuck the apple as far away from me as possible, sending the insect along with it.

Apparently, my sharp movements were too much for the poor branch, because before I knew it, the space below me wasn't so solid.

My plummet to the ground felt as if it took an eternity, well, I fell less to the ground as I did into the awaiting arms of my equally worried and exasperated boyfriend.

The relief I felt when my once cascading body was caught in the familiar arms of my lover, was overwhelming. The scent of him and his cologne overtook my senses. It brings back a feeling of security I hadn’t realized I’d lost in my endeavor to put another apple in our basket.

Cuddling my head further into his neck, I delay the inevitable: a safety lecture from the one and only, DreamWasTaken.

“You know, I wonder who could have told you that was gonna happen—”

“Seriously?” I deadpan, interrupting Clay’s “I told you so” thing.

“Seriously… Mr. Juicy? Really?”

I roll my eyes and signal that I want to be let down.

“He was a mistake, okay, you’re the only one for me. You know that.” I pout as Dream stands me on my feet.

“I can’t believe I almost lost you to an apple named Mr. Ju—?”

“Okay, enough with the apple—” I wrap my arms around his neck and he pulls me closer by the waist— “But really, thank you. I’d probably of broken something—”

“Other than the branch?”

I glare at him.

“I’m trying to be thankful here and you keep ruining the moment.”

“You know I love you and I know you love me.”

“I’m very aware and I love you too.”

“And you don’t know what you’d do without me.” He smirks, leaning in to give me a kiss.

“Okay, you know what—” I unwrap my arms from around him and push him away from me.— No kisses for you!—” Clay lets out his signature wheeze and grabs my wrist, effectively pulling me back into his arms.

“Fine, fine. I guess you can have a kiss.” I laugh, happily giving in to my boyfriend’s wishes, and leaning into him.

Warmth blossoms in my chest as our awaiting lips meet in a sweet kiss. The scent of apples and fresh autumn air danced around us and we drank each other in; love radiating off of us. Running out of air, I reluctantly break our kiss and rest my forehead against his. After all these years, he still takes my breath away. The audacity.

Pulling away from Clay, I open my eyes and am met with the face of my smug boyfriend.

“That good huh?”

I scowled at him for the hundredth time today.

“Shut your face you over glorified teletubby.” I deadpan, walking away from him.

Now it’s my turn to be smug.

Walking a few steps, I turn back around to see my offended yet impressed lover surrounded by a plethora of apple cores. Forgetting about my most recent victory, I am introduced with a new problem.

“Did you eat half of those apples?” I gape at a now guilty looking Clay.

He mumbles something I can quite distinguish.

“Huh?—” I walk closer towards him to try to hear what he’s saying.— “Love, there’s really no point in hiding, because the evidence clearly points to you eating most of our apples.”

“Okay, yeah. I may or may not have gotten just a tad bit hungry—”

“A tad?—”

“Yes.” —I continued to stare at him— “Hey, you were up there for quite some time and I got hungry, so…” He trails off while I keep on staring at him, trying to process the abundance of apples he ate.

“Mr. Juicy—”

“oKAY! You know what,” I interrupt. “You were hungry, we can just pick more—”

“The place closes in ten minutes.” My boyfriend informs, picking up the half full basket of apples we have, wraps his free arm around my shoulders, and begins to lead us away from the god-forsaken tree. “—We can just pick more tomorrow—”

“We’re streaming tomorrow.”

I halt our movements and stare at the ground while I think of a possible time we could get more apples.

“I’m sure we have enough apples for pies and other stuff. If all else fails, we could just grab a bushel of them where we pay.” Clay reasons as he moves us towards the place we pay for the apples.

“True, true.”

Upon our arrival to the paying stand, we are greeted by the kind faces of the lovely owners of the fine establishment.

“How was it out there?” Muriel asks while her wife weighs the apples we have.

“As wonderful as always, Mrs. Pomarium!” I say.

“My dear Y/n, we’ve talked about this so many times! Just call me Muriel, no need for formalities.”

“Yeah, you’ve been coming here for years, same with you young man.” Edith says, as she comes back with our apples.

“I’m sorry, force of habit.” I say, looking down at my feet.

“Didn’t get into any trouble, didja?” Edith asks my boyfriend and I while we quickly play rock-paper-scissors to see who’s going to pay.

Without missing a beat, Clay and I look up at one another, look at the owners, look back at each other, and look back at the owners and consecutively say “What us? Get into trouble? Never.”

The ladies knowingly shake their heads and we play the deciding round of the game. I lost.

Clay pays for our half bushel, the extra one, and a jug of homemade apple cider with cups, for the road. We bid our farewells to the wives and promise to come back for dinner later this month.

“That was fun.” I say as we make our way back to the car.

“It was, just like old times!” He answers, giving me a fond look.

I reciprocate his expression.

Reaching the car, Dream puts the apples in the trunk, while I pour us each a glass of cider. Two cups in hand, I walk over to the front of the car, leaning against it, and enjoy the serine view before me.

I turn my head towards the sound of crunching rocks to see my lover making his way towards me. After he gets himself situated against the front of the car, I give him his cider, and look back to the sunset over the grove.

A few minutes go by and both Clay and I have finished our drinks. I take both of our cups and place them inside the cupholders, in the car. Strolling back to the front of the car, I am met with Dream’s open arms. Falling into his hold, I direct my sights to face the moonlit orchard and bask in the sweet scent of apples and the wonderful feeling of love that spills from our hearts.

[oswinsdolma]

Yes, it's nearly 2.00am (because that's apparently the only time I have inspiration to write essays) but I've been thinking a lot about this lately and wanted to get it off my chest, so here you go:

The main goal of Merlin becomes disturbingly fractured along the way, which opens up the gaps for the prophecy to seep through instead of following the expected channels, but it can essentially be boiled down to three key elements 1) build albion; 2) decriminalise magic and 3) save Arthur, but when all is said and done, we never really see any of those objectives achieved.

Now, there are a few reasons for this, both from a writing perspective and a plot perspective. The first, and one of the most obvious, is that this show loves irony. I won't go into a lot of detail here because I've already written a whole ass essay in this very subject, but in a nutshell, you can look at this from two perspectives: firstly, it's important to establish that this technique is purely about the angst: it's the writers' way of provoking a reaction from an anguished audience, but it's foreshadowed just enough to make it more painful than it is shocking. Alternatively, there is the more plot motivated irony in that it genuinely makes a good story. Irony is a technique that has been used for thousands of years, not just because it provokes a reaction from the audience, but because it allows you to explore your characters in greater detail than before, riddling them with hidden juxtapositions and internal conflicts that are never resolved quite in the way you expect. The irony in Merlin is the epitome of this, with the whole motif of Arthur needing to die for his reign to begin. It is a classic example of the simultaneous despair and hope that mocks you from the shadows.

Following this, there is another force at play that deals with half truths and seemingly imperfect contradictions, and that's prophecy. It's not really a secret that I have very strong feelings about prophecy and its effects on all the characters, Merlin in particular, and the fact that fate and destiny are such key themes in Merlin both makes perfect sense and wants me to smash my head into a brick wall. Prophecies are another common trope that often go hand in hand with irony (think Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, The Iliad, all that doomed hero shit that I inexplicably adore), the key to their influence over the plot often lying in how they usually come true in the most unexpected of ways. This links back to that initial theme of irony, but this isn't what makes me angry: what is infuriating is that prophecies tend to come true, no matter what, and most of the characters seem not only to know this, but to let it take their autonomy over their respective fates, driving them to disaster.

Let me elaborate: especially in season five (I'm assuming just for the added fall at the end), Merlin talks a lot about how "one day, things will be different". He tells sorcerers that one day they won't have to hide. That one day, they won't have to live in fear of who they are and what others think of them. And Merlin is right: while it is not explicitly stated, it's generally established that this is one of the things Merlin should actively be working towards. But here's the kick: except for a few specific circumstances, when has Merlin ever actively tried to change Arthur's mind about magic? Yes, he has taken a few opportunities, like with Dragoon saving Uther's life, or with the Dolma's final request, where he has encouraged Arthur to rethink his choices, but otherwise, his support has been lukewarm at best. Instead, his primary concern was always saving Arthur, so he can become the king the magical world hoped he'd be, but he left out a crucial part, trusting in the prophecy to fill in the gaps. He knew it would come true, but it was, almost predictably, in the one way he never dared to expect.

And in a twisted way, there's that thread of irony again: Merlin thought he was saving Arthur so he could one day become the king who would see magic as a force for good, but instead, he created someone who was merely a survivor. It was Kilgharrah who said it first, and he who would mention it last: they are two sides of the same coin. But as willing as Merlin was to give his life for Arthur, and vice versa, he was never really ready to give him his mind.

Another interesting thing to note is Merlin's fixation on the "Saving Arthur" lens of the prophecy over the "Restoring Magic" part. Now, there are a ton of ways you can look at this, depending on how far along the scale of Queer Analysis you are, so I'm going to try and address a couple. At one end of the scale, you have the fairly simple and very believable "merthur" take. This basically boils down to the fact that Merlin and Arthur may or may not be deeply in love with one another, and that drowns out any voice of reason that may unfold. This is actually fairly canon compliant, particularly looking at incidents such as the Disir, when Merlin chooses Arthur over his and his people's freedom, though that choice was clearly, in hindsight, misadvised.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the idea that it is the work of Kilgharrah, Gaius and other responsible figures in Merlin's life when he was new to his role in destiny, who reiterated at every occasion that Arthur must be protected at all costs. This may have ingrained into Merlin's thoughts and influenced his decisions from here on out.

Between those two points, there is a grey area, and I am of the personal opinion that neither extreme entirely satisfies the situation. For me, I think the characters in question are far too complex to have such simple motivations, and that the true reason lies somewhere between the two: Merlin undoubtedly cares for Arthur, and while at the start, his actions in protacting Arthur may have been driven by other (largely superficial) motives, over time, their mutual affection blossomed to the point where certainly the more personal quests were motivated not by need, but by love. However, there is a divide here, and while the line in the sand smudges from time to time, it never really disappears: a lot of instances in which Merlin is trying to help Arthur are entirely overshadowed by destiny, and in time, Merlin comes to accept that Arthur and Destiny are, in fact, one and the same, and this is where that ever-present tragedy lies. For all he truth in here, Merlin doesn't get everything quite right: he sees Arthur as a balance that needs to be protected, without fully realising that he doesn't just have to keep the sides of his equation in equilibrium, but he actually has to start solving them if he wants them to endure.

Having just said all that, sometimes I decide to fuck over complexity for a few hours purely because I am a shameless merthur hoe.

Also, can you take a moment to please note that this last section is highly subjective and it is completely up to you as to what you decide!! This is just my opinion and you're welcome to agree or disagree at any point.

So, aside from the Angst Factor™ and twisted character development, why was the main goal never fulfilled? Unfortunately, that is a question far cleverer people than me can only speculate, as the writers alone know the answers, but I'm going to give my opinion a shot. Honestly, there is something beautifullly poetic about something that never ends, or ends when there could be something more. Humanity has struggled with endings-and beginnings- since it learned truly how to think, because that kind of finality, that inkling that there might have been nothing before and after something else is incomprehensible. In leaving Merlin in a place where the next point was uncertain, the writers left the story open for us. In depriving us of that catharsis, they effectively made sure that the story would never be over, not until we want it to be. And yes, it was painful. I can't think of an ending that was more heartbreaking than that curious mixture of closures and openings all at the same time (hell, I could write a whole essay based on this concept alone!), but it was also a gift, ironically like that of the prophecy itself in that we can choose what we want to do with it, safe in the knowledge that there will be a happy ending again, one day.

In summary, we might not be left with catharsis in the way we wanted. We might not have got the happy ending that could also have stretched on and on indefinitely. But we were left with something else, something equally beautiful as closure, but in the complete opposite way. Amongst the remains of allwe had hoped to build, Merlin left us hope.

[ot3]

What's the core appeal of orv? I know the premise but why does it make you so hyped up?

OH BOY OH BOY....... i will try to be as concise as possible here but i could write without exaggeration thousands of words about why orv is good. But I guess here's the big stuff.

- Its funny, for starters. it is extremely funny, which is very high up on my media priority list. in orv, there will be incredibly grim things that make you laugh, and incredibly cringe and silly anime bullshit that will hurt you as heavily as any other media you’ve seen. 

- it executes it’s thematic arcs with pinpoint precision the likes of which i’ve hardly ever seen anything else manage to do. regardless of whether or not the themes themselves are the sort of themes you go bonkers for in media, it’s always just delightful to see something perfectly stick it’s landing in terms of the big concepts its trying to grapple with, and orv does

- it’s got fun and fascinating worldbuilding mechanics. the core concept being ‘reality now operates on the rules of a shitty novel’ means that the worldbuilding doesn’t have to function logically, it functions thematically. it’s explicitly stated in orv canon that some of the internal rules governing this new reality are objectively really stupid and illogical, but they just have to roll with it because that’s what was in the book, and i think it’s a really enjoyable way to do it. This may at first sound like a copout, where the writer is trying to excuse their own bad worldbuilding, but it isn’t. The world building is actually incredibly deeply thought out, but it doesn’t exist for the sake of rational function, it exists for the sake of, once again, furthering orv’s thematic arcs. the rules by which this universe operate do a magnificent job of strengthening the core concepts the authors are exploring. 

- it deals with morality in a really wonderful and nuanced way. there are almost no characters in orv’s extremely large cast of characters who are just explicitly morally condemnable, and almost every conflict allows you to understand exactly why the antagonists believe they’re in the right by opposing the actions of our protagonists. the central conflicts are never pure right and pure wrong; they’re always about contrasting goals, conflicting worldviews, and different priorities between ends and means. this makes the conflicts all feel so much more dynamic and engaging than those where the only stakes are physical harm. 

- the characters interpersonal relationships are some of the most interesting ive ever seen. orv is very slow burn and it takes a long time for a lot of these to come out of the woodwork, by design, but by god once they do they fucking hit. similar to the plot conflicts, the interpersonal conflicts also almost never occur where there’s one side clearly in the wrong. the characters are almost all genuinely attempting to do their best by each other, and the tension comes from the ways in which human communication is fundamentally imperfect and part of our feelings and intentions get lost in translation. it’s very heartwrenching and heartwarming to see unfold, in equal measure. 

- following from that, it’s a narrative that really meaningfully prioritizes non-romantic relationships over romantic ones as the central focus. obviously there’s shipbait and the ot3 is real and good and my friend but if you’re looking for deep complex platonic, (found or otherwise) familial, and antagonistic relationships that never get ruined with forced romantic arcs, we got em baby!

- the pacing is unlike anything i’ve ever seen before. from a purely technical standpoint, it is genuinely a fascinating case study in how to execute a narrative that is almost constantly escalating without exception. there is very little downtime or breathing room in orv, which is insane for something that clocks in at over a million words, and somehow, it still works. i’ve never felt more like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water than i did when i was reading orv and i can’t believe they pulled it off. it’s so interesting to read something like that.

- it is a tragedy without resorting to cynicism and a very adult narrative that’s really steeped in childlike wonder. i’m a big fan of cartoons made for children cartoons made for children are my favorite things to watch because i like media that is uplifting and encouraging. but of course children’s media will always be simplified and not very relatable to an adult. orv is very much a serious and heavy adult narrative, and a deeply tragic one at that, but this is never tragedy for tragedy’s sake. it’s a very compassionate piece of media over all, that holds a lot of reverence and sympathy for the ‘naive’ optimism of children that gets stripped down over time. if you, like me, feel more like a grown up child than an adult someday, i think it’ll hit for you. 

- if you are a person who has ever gotten deeply involved in media to ignore bad things happening in the real world, which i know you are because you are reading my tumblr blog, then there is going to be a lot about orv which resonates for you. a lot of metanarrative has attempted to comment on the voyeuristic nature of media obsession and storytelling, but a lot of it does so in a bizarre way that almost seems to shame the audience for having the audacity to... enjoy the product the creators have produced for them. orv is what i can only describe as a love-letter to its own audience, and it’s really a manifesto about how engagement with media can foster genuine human intimacy, even if initially it’s something you’re using as a crutch to replace that intimacy. the closest thing to orv’s metanarrative i can think of would be undertale. if undertale made you Feel some Things, orv is gonna make you Feel some Things as well. 

- it is extremely cathartic and meaningful. i am not exaggerating at all when i say that reading it gave me the closest thing i have ever felt to any sort of spiritual breakthrough. it helped unfuck my head a ton during some very grim times and i think the perspective it offers on the value of human life is a really really good one

- its really funny i promise

- its cringe in a way that’s hype

- please read orv please not even for me do it for yourself i want you to experience what i experienced for YOUR sake not mine

[catzula]

the lightning thief ii.

a/n: okay so I was not going to write a second part but I liked it a lot so here we go. This can be read as a standalone btw, you don't really have to read the first part to understand, but like,,, still lmao

warnings: mentions of blood, mentions of wounds, mentions of death, cursing, tw: major character death, tw: blood if anything else, please tell me

honorable mentions: first half pure angst, the rest is slow-burn, enemies to lovers with Gojo. 6.4k? Yeah, meant it when I said slowburn. oh- soulmate au!! I really hope y'all like this as much as you did the first part oof

Gojo sometimes wonders if your souls are tied to each other because you're in love or if you're in love because of the shared tie.

"I'm sorry, Gojo." Your voice is scratchy, and Gojo can tell it hurts even to speak. "I'm so sorry."

You don't want to see your lover crying hovering over you; it's your fault his tears stream down his cheeks, but it's impossible to take your eyes off of him. Gojo shakes his head side to side, lips quivering as his grip on you tightens, too afraid to let you go.

Your face is getting paler by the second; your hand reaches to his face to wipe his tear, but you fall weak. So instead, your god takes your trembling, ice-cold hand in his, guiding it to his face, nuzzling his face into your touch.

He can't- it's too much. He had to witness this, your limping body in his arms, counting minutes till you leave him, thousands, millions of times, but each time hurts just as much. And knowing this is- this is the last time... he thinks he's going mad.

"Please," his voice is a hush, blending in with the wind. "Please don't go. I can't go on without you." Gojo sobs, pulling you closer to him, flush to his chest as he feels your face nuzzle his neck. "I need you- I don't care how long it takes, I just want to see you again."

"I'm sorry," you sob into his chest, drinking his smell one last time.

One last time.

It's your fault he's sobbing like this. It's your fault this is the last time you're ever going to be together. It's your fault his bright, pearl-white hair is soiled with a dark burgundy of blood.

"I thought- I just wanted to help."

Your words only seem to make him cry harder; his voice raises to shouts, pushing you closer to himself as if guarding you against death. "I know, baby, I know." He manages to say. "I'm not- I'm not mad at you."

He should be. You're the one who broke the bond, after all. It's your fault the piece of lightning that used to tie you together broke in two.

"I love you so much; you know that, right?" He ushers you. "I'll always love you, so just please-" He shakes his head side to side as he notices you can't keep your eyes open anymore. "don't leave me."

Not much to say; all he can do now is to beg.

If anyone- anything else saw him this very second, on the ground, holding the body of a mortal girl, dirt all over him, begging shamelessly, no one would believe he's a god, let alone the strongest. But at that moment, he doesn't care.

You have it easy, you think. You're never the one to witness your lover's death, grieve after he's gone. As you watch him sob like a leaf in between a storm, holding your numbing body, it feels selfish.

People seem to think he's the selfish one, and they're right in any other thing he does, but never in love.

"I don't want to leave." You finally tell him, despite knowing it'll only hurt him more, it'll wound him deeper, you're still unable to hold it in as you clutch him as if he's the one thing still holding you alive.

"It's okay." He hushes you, caressing your hair, grazing your cold skin. "Just sleep now, okay? You're not going anywhere, I won't let you."

You smile. Gojo wishes for you to ask him for the promise, the promise to find you in the next life as well, "wait for me, Gojo." You'd tell him, "Find me again, meet me in my next life." He would always respond with a teary smile. "Always, my love."

But instead, you stay quiet this once.

Gojo's mouth goes dry.

You feel heavy in his hold, your eyes fluttering close, hand sliding and falling on the ground.

No.

No, no, no!

His eyes wide with shock, with horror, with panic, Gojo tries to get you to wake up- because that can't be it, right? That can't be it- you didn't-

He calls out your name, begging you to open your eyes- even for a few seconds, he didn't even get to say a proper goodbye. He never does, though, since how does one say goodbye to the love of their life?

"Please love-" the god looks so pathetic, so miserable as his head rests on yours, begging you to open your eyes, don't leave him- he's scared.

Why didn't you ask him- ask him to find you again? How can you leave him with those words, breaking his heart more than any other time? It feels wrong; something feels horribly wrong as your body gets colder and colder in his arms.

He stays there with you in his arms, for how long, he doesn't know.

As Gojo stands up, letting your limp body go, two things slip from his hold. One is his lover, and the other is the string of lightning that ties your souls together.

~

Gojo sometimes wonders if your souls are tied to each other because you're in love or if you're in love because of the shared tie.

He doesn't want to find out.

It's the kind of doubt that makes its way into his thoughts only when he has you in his arms like this, your head nuzzling into your lovers' neck, your heartbeats a steady rhythm against his chest.

A rhythm he has come to memorize, searching for it in the eternity you leave behind.

You've always liked staying with him like this; it's one of the minor things that never seems to change about you in every new life you spend together.

Even just the thought of the next life you'll spend together is agonizing for him. It weighs heavy on him, to count the days he'll lose you, to even think about how you felt all those times, limp between his arms, each time body colder than the last.

Please don't leave me. Don't leave me alone.

His grip on your body tightens as his chest does; it's a hold of fear, of longing.

"What's wrong?" You lift your head to meet his blindfolded gaze; his bottom lip captured between his teeth. No matter how much you look at him, it's impossible not to feel awe at Gojo. He's a god, the embodiment of thunder, of power, created to perfection- his only imperfection being a soul tie he shares with a mortal.

Your voice seems to snap him back out of his thoughts, or maybe it's the way your heart pace picking up that startles the man. That alone makes you hurt even more- that he's grown sensitive to your heartbeat after witnessing it die under his touch countless of times.

He doesn't know you know any of this, of course. Gojo doesn't talk about your shared past; he doesn't mention how he had to see you die many times, doesn't let you sense the pain, the fear he goes through.

"Nothing's wrong, love." He caresses your cheek with the back of his knuckle, a playful smile turning his frown upside down. "I was just thinking about stuff."

"What stuff?"

He misses a beat before answering, but he's good at masking it with a chuckle. "God stuff," he sighs exaggeratedly, "tough being the strongest god, you know."

You smile back at him, not pondering on it, but you can't shake off the feeling that he has something bothering him, weighing on the god of thunder.

It reminds you of the night a serpent had visited you, the talk, the truth it gave you. The pain it gifted you.

"This- this isn't the first time we met?" You ask the man who first came as a serpent. He's big, as big as the other gods; he must be one, as well.

Skin littered with tattoos, marks, and scars, scarlet eyes bore into yours that's the exact opposite of your god, but nonetheless, as unearthly beautiful.

"Of course it isn't! He never told you?" The man laughs. Sukuna, he calls himself. "B-but how? Why?" You blurt out, confused, not aware how tight of a fist you've made your hands.

Sukuna quirks a brow at you, openly mocking your naivety. "How else did you think a soultie between a god and a mortal would go?"

"I-" You start to speak, you don't want to talk to him anymore- you have a sick feeling bubbling inside your chest, but he cuts you off. "You're a mortal!" He laughs. "He's a god- immortal. Your lifespan compared to his is like a grain of salt in a beach."

"He never- he never told me we met before." You speak, a mere whisper that's more likely spoken for yourself rather than the god watching you.

"I can see why he does that. Gojo wants to protect his little mortal- he can get a little obsessive at times, too, but that must be a given after watching your lover die."

~

"Gojo?" You call his name one sleepless night, even the sound of rain on your window not enough to lull you into sleep. You don't have to open your eyes to know he's there; he always is when you need him anyway.

The only light source is the lightning twirling in the room; it illuminates his face when Gojo raises his hand to push his hair out of his face. "Can't sleep?"

"No."

"We can talk, if you want." He offers, and you bite your lip before taking the offer. He knows it makes you feel safe when you hear his voice; Gojo always tells you stories and memories he has as a god. "Tell me about Cronus." You usher for him to narrate the same story you've heard many times; it's one you like a lot.

But this time, you have one more reason to ask; to know more about his brother, Sukuna.

Gojo chuckles at the way your eyes focus on his hand dangling from his side, your eyes following the movement of the lightning that ties him to you.

As a cute little smile settles on your futures, one almost looks loving, and Gojo once again finds himself wondering if you'd fall in love with him if your soul hadn't forced you to.

"You seem awfully interested in my stories today," he laughs. "You usually fall asleep as soon as I start talking. I don't even know if I should be offended or not."

"You have a nice voice." You tell him with a smile. "It sounds... familiar."

You don't notice it, but your words seem to alarm the god just a little. He quickly masks it with a smile, leaning forward that your noses almost touch. "Why are you awake today, then? Is something bothering my lightning thief?"

You chuckle at the playful name, but the tension in the air seems to rise as the moment passes. "No, I'm just a little curious. How old are you, Gojo?"

His brows go up at your question, eyes narrowing just a little. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason." You assure him, but it's obvious he doesn't believe it. Still, he answers. "Very old," Gojo smiles. "Maybe as old as time itself."

You nod, turning your eyes to the tie swinging from your pinky. After a few minutes of silence, you're speaking once again. "How long have we had this tie, then?"

~

"Gojo wants to protect his little mortal- he can get a little obsessive at times, too, but that must be a given after watching your lover die." Sukuna smiles; it's sickeningly big, looking at you with expecting, wide eyes. The god gets what he wants.

Your eyes widen in terror, in realization, hand coming up to cover your lips. "He watched me die?" Your words come out as a wretched gasp, it's everything the god wanted, but Sukuna is yet to blow the final blow.

"Of course he did!" He shouts; it's obvious he's having his fun, eyes glinting with the newfound happiness of playing with a mortal. Even better that all he's saying is the truth, too. "Countless of times, even we lost count after millions."

"No- that's not- that can't be true." You squirm- it all makes sense, why he gets so anxious as much as a cut breaks your skin, his over-the-top behavior to get you back healthy when you have a cough. "He has to wait years before you appear back on earth, before he finds you again- just to watch you die."

It hurts, it burns; you never knew words could be so unbearably painful."Why are you telling me this?" You sob, the thought of your lover not leaving your thoughts; he had to endure this all himself, he watched this cruel cycle all his life, he lost you- Gojo lost you and had to move on countless times.

"To help him, of course." The god answers you. "I want to break- free my brother from this curse. Don't you want to, as well?"

free him.

from your love, he means.

"You hurt him." Sukuna adds with a wicked grin. "Each time you die, you hurt him even more. Don't you want to stop it?"

"Yes," you whisper, sobbing as you nod. "Yes- I don't want to see Gojo hurt- please help me, please, please, help me!"

"Of course, I will." The serpent god is generous, after all.

~

Sometimes you wish you never knew.

It's selfish, you know.

But when Sukuna told you how to break the cycle- your first thought was that you wished you never knew. It plagues you, your heart, your mind, your soul- the brutal truth, the simple thing you have to do to save the one person you truly care about.

"I can't do it," you'd told the serpent. "I can't."

He'd laughed at that, as if he had always expected this was your answer, one bordering a shout that told you to run, get out, something is very wrong. "Are you that selfish, mortal girl? You can't do this one little thing- you'd rather let him spend the rest of his life like this?"

He's right, you know. You can't let your lover suffer anymore just because you're afraid.

So you take the knife the serpent has to offer.

~

It's simple. Maybe a little too simple.

All you need to do is die for your love instead of dying despite it.

"This has been an ongoing cycle because your soul refuses to cut your ties with his, fights death for it." Sukuna had tells you as he ushers the blade in your hands. "This time, you're going to cut it yourself."

The metal knife feels cold under your fingers, your lips tremble when you even think of leaving Gojo. For eternity. You don't want to, don't want to lose him, your life, your tie- but it's for him.

As soon as you grip the knife, the serpent leaves for the night, leaving you with the horrible feeling of what's to come.

You drop the knife as if it burns you, metal hitting the stone floor with a loud clang. As if it pulls your energy with it, you fall on the floor, as well, forming a ball as you bury your face in your knees, sobbing mindlessly.

I don't want to die.

"Don't be a crybaby." You tell yourself. "You can- will do it- for Gojo." Your trembling hand reaches for the knife once again, the silver reflecting the moonlight. "For him, for him, for him."

He's the only thought you have as the knife breaks your skin, as you cry out in pain, as warm blood starts coloring your dress dark.

"For him for him for him," you keep repeating. You don't catch the dark chuckle coming from the night, but you do hear Gojo calling your name. The thread of lightning sweeps on the floor, soiled by fresh blood and dirt- it's broken, he realizes in horror.

"What did you do?" Gojo cries as he takes you in between his arms. "What did you do- Y/N, what did you do?"

As you notice how genuinely terrified his beautiful blue eyes look- it's only then you understand just what you caused.

You broke the bond- and it's your fault you'll never meet again.

~

"Can you stop eating, and act like a fucking adult for at least a minute?" You force from behind your teeth. "You're going to blow our cover!"

The man in question doesn't even spare you a glance, rolling his eyes from behind his black eye-band, thinking you can't tell when he does. Or maybe he does know you can see it when he rolls his eyes at you but doesn't care. When he (half)finishes chewing his chips, Gojo mocks you by repeating your words back to you in an exaggerated voice and a snarky smile.

He's more than aware of how your hands twitch beside you to punch him as hard as you can, how you grit your teeth together and narrow your eyes at him. Oh, he annoys you so beautifully.

Your hands itch to squeeze the life out of the blindfolded man as he laughs at your expression and keeps on eating- you can picture your fist hitting his annoyingly perfect white teeth, pushing them in and making him unable to chew anything for a while- ah, good dreams.

Gojo Satoru, the most annoying and unbearable man you were unlucky enough to encounter, and even worse, have him as your partner. Temporary partner, at least, but that single word wasn't enough to soothe your anger after living the worst three weeks of your life.

He's doing it on purpose, of course.

Gojo has always been the type to have fun getting a kick out of people, but with you, both he and you know he's overplaying it.

If he's honest, even Gojo himself doesn't know why he's so hellbent on making your life miserable- it isn't something you did or said, but a guttural feeling that makes the god so uneasy, he has to make you feel that way, as well.

"I don't know why you're so fixated on this stupid plan of yours." He speaks between his chewing, making you wince. "It must be because you're weak."

Oh, to kick him in the balls.

"No, it's cause I'm not an idiot like you who goes into fights without a second thought."

"Just say you're boring and go." He huffs, pulling out his phone and scrolling down, making you huff out in annoyance. In truth, Gojo knows it's the opposite. You're not boring, on the contrary, he finds you a little too amusing.

You have the kind of charm that brings a smile to everyone's face, a spicy personality that makes you argue with people for fun, your kindness that has even Nanami a little softer. You're awfully attractive, have a smudge of dark humor and a loving smile-

You're everything and anything a guy could ever want, and Gojo thinks that's the most annoying thing ever.

He doesn't know what that feeling is that prickles his skin when you accidentally brush against him, that sickness bubbling in his chest when you first met him, smiling brightly.

"I'm not boring, I'm just cautious." You huff at the handsome man that gives you a mocking look. "That's what a boring person would say. I don't need to be cautious, you know, I can beat anyone with ease, they should be cautious of me."

"Of your massive fucking ego, more like." You mumble. "What, are you gonna call yourself a god, too?"

"I might as well be one." He leans forward to you, you can almost smell the chips he'd been eating. He's so close- so pretty up close, that you seem unable to get any words out of your mouth, left speechless, even when he has his eye-band on.

"Wh- what is this?" You stutter, trying to hide how flustered you feel by lashing out. "An extreme case of god complex?"

"No," he laughs, finally pulling back to give you room to breathe. "Just telling the truth."

"Yeah, whatever." You turn your eyes away from the handsome man, pure-white hair reflecting the red and green light coming from the street, his smile making you shiver. "Let's just get this over with."

~

You fought well.

Gojo has to admit you did, even though you're a little roughed up, you took high-grade curses by yourself without being much of an obstacle for him, and that isn't something Gojo gets to feel during a fight with a partner.

His gaze falls on you, sitting next to him on the bench as you wait for your ride to take you back to jujutsu high. You have your arms wrapped around you, not much to shield you from the chilly breeze of the night. Cuts and bruises litter your arms, even though nothing to worry about, the sight still has Gojo feeling somewhat uneasy.

You're unaware of Gojo's gaze, fighting the exhaustion that pulls you to a deep slumber. Your head lolls dangerously close to Gojo; he finds himself holding his breath as he can feel yours fanning against his neck. You look so vulnerable, cute, even, without that disgusted frown you have whenever you talk with him.

Minutes feel like hours as Gojo can only try and busy himself with his phone, leg bouncing as he waits for the shuttle to come already. As he decides the best option is to wake you up, he feels a weight falling on his shoulder.

He freezes.

Finally having somewhere you can rest your head on, Gojo feels you shuffle even closer to him in your half-asleep state, your face almost touching his neck, your steady breaths making him shiver. You... you fit so nicely against his chest, as if you were made to be there, it feels so right, makes him feel so ease, he can just rest his head atop yours and fall asleep as well, a slumber he hasn't head in thousands of years, maybe.

He suddenly sprints on his feet.

The sudden movement jerks you awake, confused eyes finding the frantic-looking man standing before you. "Is the ride-"

"Don't!" He almost shouts at you; it's the first time you've seen him so serious- so worried. "Don't touch me."

Touch him?

It takes you a few seconds to understand what he means, feeling hurt coiling in you when you do. "O-oh," you can only whisper, "I'm sorry- I didn't mean to, I just fell asleep."

He still doesn't look convinced; you notice his hands are trembling.

Oh.

You don't say anything, couldn't even if you tried to, afraid the tears welling in your eyes will spill if you do. You knew Gojo hated you, he made it as clear as he could, but you never thought- he hated you this much.

Too proud to apologize, he stands there awkwardly, can't bring himself to sit back down as you wait in silence for the rest of the night.

"Oh, thank god." He hears you mutter as a black car turns around the corner and comes near you. You jump on your legs, rushing to the door so you can get in as soon as possible when you hear him call your name.

"I-" Gojo tries to speak, hand resting on the back of his neck, face tinted pink due to cold, or maybe it's something else, but you shake your head no. "There's nothing to explain."

When he opens the door after you, you have your head resting against the window, eyes once again falling weak to exhaustion, but as soon as he gets in, you jerk yourself awake, sitting upright without giving him a second glance.

~

"Is everything okay between you and Gojo-sensei?" Itadori asks a while after that night you went with Gojo. "You've been acting weird ever since you went to kick some curse ass."

You snort. If even Itadori caught up, you really must be obvious, you think. "Nothing out of the ordinary," you shrug, taking a sip from your coffee to give yourself some time. Even thinking about the incident has you cringing internally. "You know, the usual. We never liked each other."

"Oh?" He blinks. "I thought you were good friends?"

"Good friends?!" You almost spit out your coffee. "How did you get that idea?"

The pink-haired boy shrugs. "I don't know, it just feels like it. Gojo-sensei works best with you and you with him, you tease each other a lot, too. You seem in sync."

Sync. It's the last word you'd think of to explain your relationship with the man in question.

But Itadori is right. Something did change between you two. Gojo doesn't tease you anymore; on the contrary, he keeps his distance from you as much as he can, not talking to you if he doesn't need to-, and truthfully, that makes your wound ache just a little more.

You're not one to say you enjoyed him teasing you, but this feels a lot more awkward, and watching him be so at ease, have fun and laugh with anyone else has you feeling a little- ahh, you don't even know at this point.

"Huh? I have to go." Itadori jumps on his feet. "Thank you for the coffee, sensei!" He doesn't forget to shout, smiling as he sprints down the corridor. You hear him voice out a small oh on his way down, but you think he probably stumbled over his untied laces.

A sigh leaves your lips as you rub your temples, turning back to your computer to finish your paperwork.

"In sync, he says." A voice speaks behind you, making you jump in your seat.

"Shit!" You curse as you turn to the door, your eyes falling on the last person you'd want to see, leaning on the door frame with a pink bag hanging from his fingers. "Oh, did I scare you?" He grins, and you can't not roll your eyes.

"No, that's a new way of greeting people, haven't you heard?" Your answer makes him huff out a laugh as he casually walks in and plops himself on the seat Itadori just left.

"As humorous as always, I see."

"As annoying as always for you, as well. What are you doing here?"

"Am I not welcome?" He quirks a brow; he's wearing one of his sunglasses today, the crystal-blue of his eyes peek from where the black-glass can't cover, leaving you in a vulnerable state you don't want to be in.

"Not even a bit."

Gojo grins.

"I come with a peace offering, though." He tells you as he hands you the pink bag he was holding. You take it from the man suspiciously; it's warm, smelling like a bakery would fresh in the morning. "Doughnuts."

When you stand there, not sure how to proceed as you hold the bag in your hands, Gojo raises a brow mockingly. "Did my generosity leave you frozen?"

"I feel like I shouldn't eat without seeing you eat one first." You ignore his remark, peeking in the bag with a suspicious frown.

"Oh come on!" Gojo lets out a laugh. "Am I really that unreliable?" He laughs even more when you don't miss a beat before answering. "You are."

"Okay, okay." He shakes his head from side to side. "I was going to eat some, anyway."

He reaches in the bag, picking one from the many, bringing it to his mouth when you-

"Wait!"

Gojo's hand freezes when you shout, eyes wide in fear. "What?" His brows furrow, inspecting the doughnut. "Is there something-" he's still speaking as you make a reach for it, taking the white powdered doughnut from his hands in a swift motion. "I'll eat this one." You grin.

There are a few minutes of silence as Gojo tries to process what happened, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he smiles. "Oh, you little-"

"Huh? Can't hear you from how delicious this is."

He stays quiet, and he's grateful you don't notice the smile, a genuine, almost loving smile he has as he watches you gulp down the dessert. Gojo's quick to wipe it off his face, but the feeling isn't that easily suppressed. You raise your gaze back to the white-haired man as you take a sip of your coffee to finish it off. You have to admit the man has taste when it comes to desserts.

"I'll take that my peace offering is accepted?"

"I'll think about it." You shrug, mood fouling as soon as you remember why he's here. "Why come with one, anyway? You never wanted to be friends with me, what's with the sudden change of heart?"

He ponders over your question for a while, eyes darting around the room and finding you again. "Felt like it." He simply states, not expecting you to snort.

"That might be the worst possible answer you could've given."

You feel your heart missing a beat when Gojo grins, giving you a look over his glasses, meeting you with the most beautiful blue gaze. "It is, isn't it? But it is the truth."

~

"For fucks sake- that hurts!" Gojo whines for the thousandth time that night, and you ignore it just as many times.

"Y/N!" He groans, and you finally let go of Gojo's hair strands, sticky, green, and gross with some suspicious liquid a curse threw at him.

He had begged you to help him wash it off- by help, he meant whining like a baby each time you even put pressure on his oh-so-precious hair.

"Oh, shut it already, you big baby." You murmur, your voice not doing the best job at hiding your smile, so you turn your back at the man watching you take some more cream in your hands.

"Where did that god complex go, anyway? You were the one bragging about being a god, weren't you?"

"And?" Gojo huffs, true-blue eyes staring at you from the mirror with a childlike pout. "can't gods feel pain?"

You let out a laugh, turning your focus back on his head and pushing it downwards so you can reach the crown. Even while sitting, you're almost the same height, you realize. Tall motherfucker.

"I don't know, you tell me. I'm not as much of an asshole to claim to be a god." Your answer seems to amuse him, but his chuckle cuts off with yet another whine.

"Ow!" He frowns when you slide your fingers on a section of strands, pulling the green substance off of them. "Can't you be at least a little more gentle?"

"No, but I can just stop and leave you to it." You roll your eyes. "This isn't fun for me either."

"I bet it isn't." Gojo mocks you with a look sent your way through the mirror. "How can spending time with me not be fun?"

"Are you aware how bad you smell, Satoru?" You mutter mindlessly, not realizing how easy his first name rolls off your tongue. You're too focused on working a stubborn gulp of green off of his hair as Gojo stills under your touch at the sound of his name, eyes widening and heart missing a beat.

"What?" You ask crossly as he gulps loudly, brows furrowing. "Are you still whining?"

"Okay, okay, I'll shut up." He mutters, watching you smile at yourself proudly at making the Gojo Satoru retreat. He deems it's endearing. He thinks you have the prettiest smile. The funniest reactions. The most beautiful smell. A kind touch.

Even as you pull on his hair so that he might end up bald at the end of it, Gojo relishes in your touch, loves it, craves it, misses it. Fuck- he hates it.

Gojo isn't an idiot; he's lived far too long not to know what's happening, what he's feeling. And somehow, that makes it worse.

"Wow, never seen the Gojo Satoru stay quiet for more than five minutes." You tease the man, pulling on his hair rather harshly to make him jump in his seat. You can't help the giggle that makes its way out of your lips when he sends you a cross look.

"Trying to cope with pain, thank you very much." He mutters, but there's a smile on his lips, as well.

You're a little surprised as he keeps his quiet for the rest of the operation, leaving you two to a peaceful silence as you work your way on his hair, the scary kind of intimacy only shared between-

"And- I think it's done!" You exclaim in victory as you let go of Gojo's hair-conditioner-soaked head. "Go wash the excess or something, and the rest is up to you."

Gojo is leaning over the sink as you talk, inspecting himself on your mirror. "Oh," you say before leaving him to his narcissistic bullshit. "Never call me for something like this again."

"What?" He gasps in fake hurt. "You'd rather me ask Nanami?"

"No, I'd rather you shave your head." You smile as you close the door from behind you. "Oh, Y/N, don't forget!" Gojo shouts after you. "Don't forget our date!"

Your date.

You hated how -despite knowing it was Gojo being a teasing asshole- hearing that alone made your heart skip a beat. It wasn't anything that even resembled a date, just meeting the new first-year student, but Gojo liked to tease.

When you leave him alone, Gojo groans after you.

Loudly, too.

He finds himself rubbing his pinky; it's a nervous habit that calms him off, that reminds him of the old love the God used to have.

Used to, he reminds himself.

It took him hundreds, thousands of years to bury this feeling that was now resurfacing- no, this was different.

His soul was tied to another back then; he had his other half, his one and only love. What he felt for you was nothing but a mere attraction, if he could even call it that. There was no way Gojo would fall for yet another mortal.

...

right?

right.

~

"Gojo," you whisper, voice strained. "Gojo, I can't go on."

Your hushed whisper hits the cave walls, blending with the sound of water dripping. When you try to take another step, the pain from your most definitely broken ankle jolts up your body, making you cry out. "I'm sorry- I can't go on, let alone fight." You tell the man again, who is also hurt, trying to get you to walk with him- cmon, just a little more.

For the first time you've seen him, Gojo looks desperate. His eyes are wide frantically, darting around the dirty walls for an escape route, but he knows- Gojo knows he can't escape.

He could've if he was alone, or maybe if he just had you-

But not with the new student in there.

He groans, the blood he's losing making it harder to feel warm. Oddly enough, his hand that holds you feels warmer than any other part of his body.

But here you were, both hurt, not vitally but enough cause one.

"Fuck- just hold on a little more, Y/N." Gojo holds you steady when you stumble over your own legs. "I promise I'll get us out of here."

"No, I-" You try to reason, but it's apparent the man falls deaf to your cries, stuck in his head to find something. Some way out.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This day was only about meeting the new student and teasing you the whole day, and you weren't supposed to be in this cave; you weren't supposed to fight curses- the student wasn't supposed to be captured by them, either.

"Gojo there is no other way!" You cry out, hoping he doesn't catch on the slight tremble in your voice. "You have to save the kid, and I can't go on." When he shakes his head denyingly, unconsciously nuzzling his face to the touch you have on his face, you smile bitterly. "I can take care of myself, you have to go."

"Gojo!" You call out once again, your hand sliding up his shoulder. "Gojo fucking- listen to me!" It's only when your hand cups his cheek you pull him out of his panicked haze, the bluest gaze finding you. "You have to-"

"No."

"Leave me here." You finish your sentence, sending him a cross glare. "No," he repeats, the grip he has on your arm tightening, warning you not to press it, he won't listen, but you're as stubborn as him, aren't you?

You take a shaky breath when the handsome man finally shakes his head, mirroring the bitter smile you have on your lips. It's such an intimate moment, one you've never experience with anyone, and certainly not with him, but somehow, it feels almost nostalgic. A feeling of sadness lingers on both your chests as Gojo finally nods at you, your hand falling off his face.

"I'll come back for you." He mutters as he starts walking, speaking without thinking, "you hear me? I won't leave you here."

It hurts- for some reason, the words he speaks are painful, more than your wounds, more than the hopeless situation you're in. "Of course, you will." You want to answer. "You always do." Words tingling on the tip of your tongue, you choose to bite them, instead.

What is this feeling? This feeling that has your body shaking, making you tremble with sobs? You don't know. It feels like a terrible longing to the man that had just left you, like you've been waiting for him thousands of years, a burn of grief in your body that makes you want to cry out in pain. It's like you're losing something- like- like--

"Come find me, Gojo." Your voice bounces off the walls, now too far away from the God.

come find me.

Come find me.

He keeps hearing the sentence in his head, feels so strangely familiar to-

you.

He stills in his place, the god of thunder, when his body remembers before his heart does, remembering your touch from thousands, millions of years ago, identical to the way you had just held him. With a cry of relief, of fear settling in the back of his throat, Gojo turns back around- running to you, to find you, one last time.

You're back, it took him too long to understand, but you're back, you held your promise, his lightning thief, no matter how far he runs, you'll always find him.

Even without a tie that binds your souls.

Gojo finally has an answer to his question.

Are your souls tied to each other because you're in love, or are you in love because of the shared tie?

[beautifulterriblequeen]

A Tiadrin theory

I woke up this morning with a sudden headcanon about Tiadrin, and as I poked at it, it filled out nicely, so I’m gonna go ahead and call it a theory at this point.

It gets angsty, as all good Moonshadow theories do. If your heart doesn’t weigh 6 tons by the time you reach the end of this post, I didn’t capture the feeling properly.

Several bits of detail flutter around this mysterious woman, and I’ve theorized various versions of her circumstances, her relationship with Runaan and Ethari, her former position before the Storm Spire, the reasons she went there, and the reasons Runaan was so hellbent on avenging her dishonor.

I don’t think any of them landed as well or tied together as neatly as this one, though. Hence “theory” instead of just “headcanon.” Here we go:

FIrstly, some meta information. This is a fun tweet, but in this post I’m looking directly at “belief systems as sources of both comfort and restraint” and at the “weight of guilt” and “cycles of trauma” lines, in regards to Moonshadow culture, and specifically Moonshadow assassin training.

And raise your hand if you’ve been looking further afield than the front-and-center Janaya-with-Soren nod from “ripped women who teach soft boys to stab,” because I have. TDP is full of parallels and imperfect mirrors.

So, in the spirit of soft yet angsty cycles and the ripped women who perpetuate them, Theory Part I: Tiadrin trained Runaan, because she was the leader of the assassins before he was.

She’s referred to as a mastermind. Assassin leaders need to be good with plans of all sizes. We’ve seen how Runaan silently adapts to chaos and doesn’t tell anyone what his new plans actually are. He’s a good leader. But he also had to learn those skills from someone. Whoever instructed him was a tactical genius, and also very Moonshadow, and Runaan was an adept student.

Also, Tiadrin is a goddamn badass. She’s several inches shorter than Lain, Runaan, Ethari, and Viren. But she is a powerhouse in battle. She knows her physics well enough to drag this 6′2″ human battle mage skidding across the floor. Monster thighs, monster intellect.

As a 5′4″ woman who trained in jujitsu for several years, let me just say: gender equality in battle is great, but physics does not care. It will crush your popsicle-stick ass if you try to chuck a 250 lb person across the room and your math is off. The most accurate fighters are the ones who know how hard physics hits back when you’re sloppy.

Tiadrin earned every inch of respect, and every inch of her thigh circumference, the old-fashioned way. She worked for it, all day every day. Runaan does the same thing. He might have half a foot of height on her, but he trains like the world will crush him if he’s not perfect. And that’s very Moonshadow assassin in its own right, because it will, and it tried. Tiadrin knew what she needed. And she knew what Runaan, soft boy that he is, needed. And she made sure she trained it into him, all day every day.

Tiadrin is one of the reasons that Runaan survived the fight in Harrow’s chamber. She made him the fighter he is, the person he is, and that was just enough to pull him through... so he could see his own mentor trapped in a coin. Yay, thanks Viren.

Theory Part II: Runaan’s squad was made up of all the elves Tiadrin has personally trained, or trained by proxy.

If Tiadrin was Runaan’s trainer and mentor, then her honor was his honor. And when she supposedly faltered and fled at the Storm Spire, that suddenly cast him, as an individual assassin and as the current assassin leader, in a terrible light. If his mentor was a coward, what did she teach him? Would he also duck and run when things got hopeless, and abandon his duty?

The doubt that must’ve swirled around him when the village learned the terrible news about Lain and Tiadrin must’ve sliced right through him. Thousand-yard stare, biggest internal Oh No ever. Runaan lives to serve his people, and to have them doubt him, after all he has done to train them and protect them from harm, would be the worst kind of pain. He had to make it right.

But not just him. Assassins seem to take solo missions even for their first kill, if Eljaal’s covered shoulders are any indication. You can Moonshadow your feels if you don’t have to watch your friend kill someone, if you don’t have anyone watching while you stab someone to death. You can pretend it’s all serene and just and smooth and valid and honorable. You can hold to your love of life and dance right past your embrace of death, if no one else sees it. But Runaan’s mission had 6 members. They were definitely going to have to watch each other murder people. Why?

Tiadrin’s honor was their honor. An extended family of brothers, sisters, cousins, fosterlings, anyone who was drawn to Tiadrin, or her to them, bonded together over their family feels and protective instincts. They were family. And then their leader fell, her honor crushed.

They had to make it right.

They all carried Tiadrin’s honor with their own, taught by her personally, regarded as honorable assassins. Until she seemed to have a fatal flaw in her character. Then everyone wondered if that flaw got passed down, too. The assassins had to prove that it hadn’t been, for the sake of their people, and for all of Xadia who trusted them to take out threats in the dark. They had to go set right Tiadrin’s “mistake” and take Harrow for Zym’s death. All of them. Every single one, no exceptions.

No exceptions. That’s why Rayla had to go, too. Tiadrin taught Runaan everything he knew about being an assassin, and when she moved to the Storm Spire, Runaan dutifully passed Rayla’s mother’s teachings to Rayla herself, feeling like part of the family, an essential connection between mother and daughter, between assassin mentor and mentee. He tried to get it just right, just perfect, so Rayla would feel like she’d been trained by her actual mom as much as possible. Not just because Tiadrin was Rayla’s mother, but because Runaan respects Tiadrin’s prowess so much. She was the best, and every bit of Runaan’s efforts to be his best reflects his respect for her.

You don’t get to be the assassin leader unless you’re the best there is. Runaan knows that from both sides. And just like Tiadrin did with him, he does his best to teach Rayla everything she needs to stay safe and alive, so she can do her duty too, and come home safe to her family every day.

And, in the end, part of that duty had to be avenging her mentor’s mentor, her own mother, by accompanying Runaan on his mission. Her lessons were from Tiadrin, one step removed. If there was a flaw in her training, no one would trust her when it was her turn to lead the assassins, and she’s not even done training yet! Rayla understood Moonshadow honor, assassin honor. She was driven to ask Runaan to take her with him, and he could see exactly where she was coming from. Their honor was tangled up with Tiadrin’s. They couldn’t back out. They had to go to Katolis, them and everyone else Tiadrin had trained.

That’s why the binding ribbons came out. They were in a do-or-die situation, in the most literal sense.

They could not go home in failure. If they all failed, it would take out a whole line of assassin training, possibly the same one that had lasted for countless generations (okay maybe we can count them and there are like 30) and crush the Moonshadows’ spirits. And they’d literally rather die than see that happen. They were all ready to give their lives to restore Tiadrin’s honor, and their own, because without her legacy, there would be such a crater in the assassin corps that it might never recover.

Yes, this is basically my angsty “Runaan’s found family went into battle together and most of them died” headcanon again, but this time with a solid theory behind it. I’m not sorry. I love this angsty idea, it’s horrible. Do you see the cycle of trauma? I’ve got one more part to add, which may make it clearer.

Theory Part III: Assassin leaders always go serve at the Storm Spire once they successfully train their own replacement.

In this theory’s version of Why Laindrin Went To The Storm Spire, Tiadrin was always going to end up at the Storm Spire, once she became the assassin leader. That’s where the veteran assassin leader goes, see, to liaison between the dragon throne and the current Moonshadow leader. They know the assassins’ skills far better than any Skywings or dragons do, and they know the leader in charge of them, so they can give guidance or direction as needed, or simply phrase the Dragon King or Queen’s request in such language that the assassin leader knows intuitively what really needs to be done.

Yeah, Tiadrin writing Runaan mission directives. I can see it.

Tiadrin’s mentor would’ve left for the Spire when Tiadrin got promoted to leader. The person she trusted most in the world, who had trained her, left her behind, only to communicate by long distance. Moonshadow deniability, amirite--we’re not stabbing people, we’re sending tactical correspondence, yep that’s it. But Tiadrin was still surrounded by Runaan and the other young assassins, and she bonded with them all, and life was bright.

Then, the shadow came once again. Runaan was an excellent student, and she knew he was ready. Maybe she delayed, and delayed, Moonshadowing her reasons. Maybe she wanted the chance to bring life into the world, to try to balance out some of the death she had dealt. Maybe she wanted a few more years of domestic life in the Silvergrove with all her favorite elves, to bolster her heart for the years to come. Maybe her mentor at the Spire was up to shenaniganry in dragon politics and she wanted to buy them more time to lay those plans in place.

Knowing Tiadrin even the slightest bit, I will assume it was all this and more. But eventually, she couldn’t put things off any longer. She had to go fulfill her duty to the dragon throne and join the Dragonguard as the representative of the Moonshadow assassins who had bound themselves to the protection of Xadia long ago. She had to walk away from her bright life, her family, her friends, her allies, and climb up into that misty stone tower, to spend who knows how long away from everything she knew and loved.

And she did. She chose to walk away, for love of Xadia. She took her beloved husband with her, but she left the Silvergrove, Xadia’s protection, and her own daughter’s upbringing in the hands of the elf she chose to replace her. The soft boy she’d taught to stab, who would teach her baby girl to stab, too.

Because this is The Way.

I know I’ve had an angsty headcanon that assassins don’t retire. But, consider this: maybe one of them can. One of Tiadrin’s many plans could have been counting on Runaan’s extreme prowess and devotion to Rayla. If Tiadrin knew that she could return to the Silvergrove in peace and retire there with Lain once Runaan trained Rayla to take his place as the assassin leader, then she could live in the Silvergrove again for the rest of her life, and also get to see Rayla grown big and strong and become the assassin leader herself, another proud elf in a long line of honor and tradition. She might feel that was a big accomplishment, considering the dangers they all face. And it would be.

Yes, this would hinge on the fact that Runaan would have to leave the Silvergrove to replace Tiadrin at the Storm Spire, to serve as Rayla’s liaison to the dragon throne. Cycles of trauma, remember? Tiadrin can’t have all of her family back in one place, ever again. She has to love and train someone enough to put them through the life that she’s having to live, and she has to be strong enough not to let that break her. And then, she has to choose between them. She chose Runaan first, so that she could hope to choose Rayla later. She trusted him with all the future happiness of her heart. And he did his best with it.

But they didn’t quite make it, in the end, because of Viren.

I know this has been a lot of angst. I know. But there is a moonlit lining to this theory, and I think we all need to consider it. If there is a cycle of taking the assassin leader out of the Silvergrove to serve the dragon throne for ancient promise reasons, then if that ancient promise is ever rescinded or redressed in an effective way, the family won’t need to keep yeeting loved ones out of its orbit. And if assassins cease to be a necessary evil as a result, then no one will have to leave, or stab, again. At least, not for the same angsty reasons. They could stay together and never need to leave again.

It won’t be easy to break such a cycle. It might be impossible. But if anyone can manage it, it’ll be Tiadrin, and her family.

extra headcanon for this theory:

Tiadrin, packing up for the Storm Spire: One last thing, Runaan.

Runaan, stoically attentive because what are feels on the day your mentor leaves you: Yes, Tiadrin?

Tiadrin: Ethari will need to pick an apprentice to replace him, too. He should start looking now.

Runaan: Why? Only the Silvergrove’s Master Craftsman gets to pick an apprentice, and Ethari isn’t--

Tiadrin: *wink” Not yet, he’s not.

Runaan: Tiadrin, please, what have you done?

Tiadrin: I want to come back here someday, Runaan. I want to see your good work with Rayla. And I can’t do that if you flat-out refuse to leave your husband when Avizandum calls for you to replace me. So he needs to be ready to leave, too.

Runaan: I, I, I would nev-- I couldn’t--

Tiadrin: *patting his shoulder briskly as she strides out* Mmhmm, sure thing, kid. The council votes him in next Thursday. Be good while I’m gone! I want to find this place exactly the way I’m leaving it. Lain, honey, get your coat!

Lain, in the next room: Yes, Tiadrin!

Runaan, soft-eyed, to the silence in her wake: Yes, Tiadrin.