#like i get why people say it but dys choosing the array over us is NOT the same as if he chose sym over us that feels different

[barttrvk]

have we thought about dys today gang. how about now.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #150: Merlin

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re finishing the last build in Observer on Timeless Temple, the man who broke the meta, Merlin! I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expecting we’d make it this far. Anyway, you’re a Divination Wizard, because no shit. You’re a wizard, you can see the future, you kinda cheat at life, everything else just falls into place. You’re also a Fighter, because you also keep a shortsword stashed in your staff in case of emergencies.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: A dimension-hopping bisexual. That’s not a phrase I ever thought I’d say, but I’m glad I did.

Race and Background

Merlin’s half Incubus, giving him immense magical power. Thankfully we can match that lineage one for one with the Abyssal Tiefling, an old UA that gives you +2 Intelligence, +1 Charisma, Darkvision, Abyssal Fortitude for half your level (rounded down, minimum 1) in extra HP, and Abyssal Arcana. That last one’s a bit complicated, so give us a second. 

Each long rest, you randomly get one of six cantrips by rolling a d6 (aside from the one you just had, you have to re-roll if that happens). You can get Dancing Lights, True Strike, Light, Message, Spare the Dying, or Prestidigitation. You can cast that cantrip like you would any other cantrip at your disposal, although awkwardly enough they never mention what ability score you would use to cast it. (I would assume Charisma, but feel free to argue with your DM.) After you finish another long rest, replace the old cantrip with a new one.

Being stranded on the other side of the world makes you the premier Hermit, giving you proficiency with Arcana and Religion. 

Ability Scores

You know literally everything, so make your Intelligence as high as possible. You also don’t have much difficulty avoiding the consequences of your actions, so it’s safe to say your Dexterity is pretty good too. You managed to catfish a not insignificant portion of the human race during the Goetia Crisis, so your Charisma is up there as well. Your Constitution isn’t as strong, you’re pretty much unkillable but I’ll be damned if Quetz didn’t try. Your Wisdom is rather low- you thought betraying the second sun was a good idea- but we’re dumping Strength. You are wizard, no big surprise.

Class Levels

1. First level wizards get proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves, as well as History (you were there for quite a bit of it) and Insight (you watch people long enough eventually you notice patterns).

You also learn how to cast Spells using your Intelligence. Like all wizards you get an obscene number of spells, so we’ll just mention the ones that are very important to the character here, though the character sheet has a full list.

Mage Armor, of course is super important for any wizard, as is your caster balls (Magic Missile). I’d also grab Charm Person to make the whole Magi Marie thing a bit easier. You can also get Find Familiar, if you really want Cath Palug that badly.

Lastly, you get an Arcane Recovery, letting you regain spell slots with a total level equal to half your level rounded up on a short rest once per long rest. Not having slots sucks, don’t do that.

2. Second level wizards learn a specialty, and Divination basically lets you cheat at everything thanks to your Portents. At the end of a long rest, you roll two 20s and save those results.  At any time before your next long rest, you can use one of those results to replace an attack, save, or ability roll you can see, once per turn. If you roll high, give it to Artoria. If you roll low, still give it to Artoria, it’ll be funny.

You also become a Divination Savant, making it cheaper and easier to copy divination spells.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells, but your Abyssal Arcana also grows stronger, giving you a random first level spell each long rest as well. You cast these spells as if you were using a second level spell slot once per long rest. They are Burning Hands, Charm Person, Magic Missile, Cure Wounds, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and Thunderwave. You’re a Grand Caster candidate, so it’s not like there’s a reason you couldn’t cast any of those.

We’re also spending your spells this level to enhance party members, with Enhance Ability and Magic Weapon helping out in and out of combat.

4. I know we just got cure wounds last level, but that’s a one in six chance of using it once per long rest. I’d hardly call that meta breaking. We’ll fix that by using your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Magic Initiate feat, giving you the spells Light, Minor Illusion, and Cure Wounds more consistently (the last one is still once per long rest though).

5. Fifth level Abyssal Tieflings get one last boost to their Abyssal Arcana, giving them one of six second level spells each long rest. You could get Alter Self, Darkness, Invisibility, Levitate, Mirror Image, or Spider Climb. 

You also learn Dispel Magic to break through Tiamat’s Chaos Tide.

6. Sixth level divination wizards have Expert Divination, recharging lower level spell slots after expending another spell slot on a divination spell. The recharged slot also has to be 5th level or lower, but that’s hardly an issue right now. Very useful for someone who’s technically in another plane most of the time.

You also learn Major Image, for stronger illusory power, and Haste to make a chosen warrior more of a hero.

7. We’re now going to bounce over to Fighter real quick, you’re surprisingly quick to pull a sword on someone if you feel like it. The Dueling fighting style adds 2 to your weapon damage with one handed weapons, and Second Wind lets you spend a bonus action to heal yourself. 

8. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you add an extra action to your turn once per short rest. 

9. For your fourth level spells, Hallucinatory Terrain will give your allies a glimpse of Avalon (healing and NP charge not included).

10. Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence, and learn Charm Monster to keep Cath Palug from smacking you upside the head for the eight billionth time.

11. With fifth level spells you can finally insert yourself into others’ dreams thanks to the spell Dream. It takes a minute to cast, but afterwards you can enter a trance to hop into a target’s dreams. You can shape the dream to your liking, or just watch the fireworks. You can also turn into a nightmare to deal psychic damage and prevent any benefits from that sleep if the target fails a wisdom save.

12. Tenth level divination wizards can use The Third Eye to gain one special kind of sight each short rest as an action. You can choose form Darkvision, sight into the Ethereal Plane, the ability to Read any Language, or the ability to see invisible objects and creatures. 

13. Sixth level spells like Mental Prison make things a lot harder for your enemies, charming one target creature if it fails an intelligence save. If it succeeds, it only takes some psychic damage. If it fails, it takes the damage and it becomes surrounded by an illusionary prison, so it can’t move, see, or hear anything beyond its space. If it’s forcibly moved out, or is attacked/attacks through the illusion, it takes even more psychic damage and the spell ends.

14. If you’re going with the standard array, you’ve probably noticed by now that your intelligence is currently odd. Thankfully we can fix that and make your DM’s life so much harder all at once thanks to the feat Keen Mind, which we’re picking up with this level’s ASI. Your Intelligence goes up by one, you have a great sense of direction and timing, and you have eidetic memory of the last month.

15. Seventh level spells like Mirage Arcane are another bump in power, letting you warp the landscape in a square mile around you. You can even add your fancy looking tower to the illusion now! Still not a lot of healing though.

16. Your last divination goody is the feature Greater Portent, letting your roll three d20s per day instead of two. Yeah, portent’s just kinda busted.

17. Eighth level spells like Illusory Dragon are a massive upgrade, almost as powerful as you usually are. This lets you make a dragon illusion that takes up space, is tangible, and can really breathe fire. I’m not entirely sure how this is an illusion, if I’m being honest.

18. Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for less dying and more stabbing. You also learn the spell Demiplane, to create your own Avalon! As long as you don’t mind your Avalon being a 30′ cube room and nothing else. Still, it’s hard to beat that level of security.

19. Seventeenth level wizards get ninth level spells. Seriously, just grab as many as you can. Merlin’s a grand caster, literally nothing is beyond his reach, certainly not anything a D&D character could do.

20. Eighteenth level wizards gain Spell Mastery over a first and second level spell, letting you cast them at their lowest level like cantrips. Silent Image and Magic Weapon are both good for support, I’d pick those. It’s not a huge issue if you change your mind later, too- you can change spells after 8 hours of study. You also learn True Polymorph. Artoria’s gotta father a child somehow.

Pros:

With your maxed out intelligence, plus ways to confuse your enemies and buff your allies, you make for a pretty good support caster. I doubt that comes as a surprise.

Divination wizards are kinda busted? Three portents per long rest can seriously reshape a campaign if you’re smart with them.

Wish is also kinda busted? You know how a lot of builds I mention not getting to ninth level spells as a con? Now you get to find out why.

Cons:

You’re squishy, which also isn’t too surprising. With an AC of 16 and HP barely scratching past one hundred, You probably won’t want to actually use your sword that often.

Despite healing being the big draw of your FGO counterpart, we didn’t really get that much in this build. You get one to two uses of Cure Wounds per day, plus your second wind. Not exactly meta defining.

Most illusions and buff spells use concentration, so good luck holding onto those with a con save of +1. It also means you have to pick and choose what you’re doing at any one time.

[michaelbogild]

Lines by Leonard Cohen

As someone long prepared for the occasion In full command of every plan you wrecked – Do not choose a coward’s explanation that hides behind the cause and the effect

And it's stronger than drink And it's deeper than sorrow This darkness she's left in my heart.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna I'll be wearing a river's disguise The hyacinth wild on my shoulder, My mouth on the dew of your thighs

He wants to write a love song An anthem of forgiving A manual for living With defeat

The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don't dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be.

You never liked to get The letters that I sent. But now you've got the gist Of what my letters meant. You're reading them again, The ones you didn't burn. You press them to your lips, My pages of concern.

I caught the darkness It was drinking from your cup. I said: Is this contagious? You said: Just drink it up

Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose Everybody knows

A cross on every hill A star, a minaret So many graves to fill O love, aren't you tired yet?

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming Everybody knows that it's moving fast Everybody knows that the naked man and woman Are just a shining artifact of the past

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked By the winds of change and the weeds of sex looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess

I walked into this empty church I had no place else to go When the sweetest voice I ever heard, whispered to my soul

I heard the snake was baffled by his sin He shed his scales to find the snake within But born again is born without a skin The poison enters into everything

And summoned now to deal With your invincible defeat, You live your life as if it’s real, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m slowing down the tune I never liked it fast You want to get there soon I want to get there last

When they said REPENT REPENT I wonder what they meant

Her thighs they slipped away from me Like schools of startled fish Though I've forgotten half my life I still remember this

And if no leaves were on the tree And no water in the sea And the break of day had nothing to reveal That's how broken I would be What my life would seem to me If I didn't have your love to make it real

And yes she lied about it all Her children and her husband You were born to judge the world Forgive me but I wasn't

O troubled dust concealing An undivided love The Heart beneath is teaching To the broken Heart above

The pull of the moon, the thrust of the sun And thus the ocean is crossed The waters are blessed while a shadowy guest Kindles a light for the lost

How come you called me here tonight? How come you bother With my heart at all? You raise me up in grace, Then you put me in a place, Where I must fall.

And everybody knows that it's now or never Everybody knows that it's me or you And everybody knows that you live forever Ah when you've done a line or two

It's coming like the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway, imperial, mysterious, in amorous array:

The lights went out behind us The fireflies undressed The broken sidewalk ended I touched her sleeping breasts They opened to me urgently Likelilies from the dead Behind a fine embroidery Her nipples rose like bread Then I took off my necktie And she took off her dress My belt and pistol set aside We tore away the rest

The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

The sea so deep and blind The sun, the wild regret The club, the wheel, the mind, O love, aren't you tired yet?

The wounded forms appear: The loss, the full extent; And simple kindness here, The solitude of strength.

If the sun would lose its light And we lived in an endless night And there was nothing left that you could feel If the sea were sand alone And the flowers made of stone And no one that you hurt could ever heal Well that's how broken I would be What my life would seem to me If I didn't have your love to make it real

But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower of Song

I said I’d be your lover. You laughed at what I said. I lost my job forever. I was counted with the dead.

It failed my little fire But it's bright the dying spark Go tell the young messiah What happens to the heart

Good night, good night, my fallen star I guess you're right, you always are I know you're right about the blues You live some life you'd never choose

looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between, I guess

I've seen you change the water into wine I've seen you change it back to water, too I sit at your table every night I try but I just don't get high with you

The present's not that pleasant Just a lot of things to do I thought the past would last me But the darkness got that too

The splinters that you carry The cross you left behind Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind

I wish there was a treaty we could sign I do not care who takes this bloody hill I'm angry and I'm tired all the time I wish there was a treaty, I wish there was a treaty Between your love and mine

I’m lacing up my shoe But I don’t want to run I’ll get here when I do Don’t need no starting gun

Thanks For The Dance

Ah, they're dancing in the street — it's Jubilee We sold ourselves for love but now we're free I'm so sorry for that ghost I made you be Only one of us was real and that was me

And I'm still working with the wine, still dancing cheek to cheek, the band is playing Auld Lang Syne, but the heart will not retreat.

And maybe I had miles to drive, And promises to keep: You ditch it all to stay alive, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Baby don’t ignore me We were smokers we were friends Forget that tired story Of betrayal and revenge

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all I'm standing by the window where the light is strong Ah they don't let a woman kill you Not in the Tower of Song

Show me the place, help me roll away the stone Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone Show me the place where the word became a man Show me the place where the suffering began

And you're weak and you're harmless and you're sleeping in your harness and the wind going wild in the trees, and it ain't exactly prison but you'll never be forgiven for whatever you've done with the keys.

Steer your heart past the Truth that you believed in yesterday Such as Fundamental Goodness and the Wisdom of the Way Steer your heart, precious heart, past the women whom you bought Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

Word of words and measure of all measures Blessed is the name, the name be blessed Written on my heart in burning letters That’s all I know, I cannot read the rest

And O my love, I still recall The pleasures that we knew; The rivers and the waterfall, Wherein I bathed with you.

You said how could this happen You said how can this be The chains are gone from heaven The storms are wild and free

I cried for you this morning And I’ll cry for you again But I’m not in charge of sorrow So please don’t ask me when

Both of us say there are laws to obey But frankly I don’t like your tone You want to change the way I make love I want to leave it alone

Behold the gates of mercy In arbitrary space And none of us deserving The cruelty or the grace

Then I came back from where I’d been. My room, it looked the same – But there was nothing left between The Nameless and the Name.

O longing of the branches To lift the little bud O longing of the arteries To purify the blood

I to my side call the meek and the mild You to your side call the Word By virtue of suffering I claim to have won You claim to have never been heard

I know I said I’d meet you, I’d meet you at the store, But I can’t buy it, baby. I can’t buy it anymore.

I was idle with my soul, when I heard that you could use me I followed very closely, but my life remained the same But then you showed me where you had been wounded In every atom broken is the Name

I fled to the edge of the mighty sea of sorrow Pursued by the riders of a cruel and dark regime But the waters parted and my soul crossed over Out of Egypt, out of Pharaoh’s dream

They whisper still, the injured stones The blunted mountains weep As he died to make men holy Let us die to make things cheap

Sounded like the truth Seemed the better way Sounded like the truth But it's not the truth today

Hurt once and for all into silence. A long pain ending without a song to prove it. Who could stand beside you so close to Eden, When you glinted in every eye the held-high razor, shivering every ram and son?

Sleep baby sleep The day’s on the run The wind in the trees Is talking in tongues

And I loved you when our love was blessed and I love you now there's nothing left

There's silt on your ankles and sand on your feet The river too shallow, the ocean too deep You smile at your suffering, the sweetest reprieve Why did you leave us, why did you leave

I saw some people starving There was murder, there was rape Their villages were burning They were trying to escape I couldn't meet their glances I was staring at my shoes It was acid, it was tragic It was almost like the blues

If you want a partner Take my hand Or if you want to strike me down in anger Here I stand, I'm your man

Ah I don't believe you'd like it, You wouldn't like it here. There ain't no entertainment and the judgements are severe.

The opposites falter, the spirals reverse And Eve must re-enter the sleep of her birth

I don't need to be forgiven for loving you so much It's written in the scriptures It's written there in blood I even heard the angels declare it from above

Sometimes I’d head for the highway I’m old and the mirrors don’t lie But crazy has places to hide in That are deeper than any goodbye

If you want a boxer I will step into the ring for you And if you want a doctor I'll examine every inch of you

Yeah we're drinking and we're dancing but there's nothing really happening and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night And my very close companion gets me fumbling gets me laughing she's a hundred but she's wearing something tight and I lift my glass to the Awful Truth which you can't reveal to the Ears of Youth except to say it isn't worth a dime And the whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ but the Boss don't like these dizzy heights we're busted in the blinding lights, busted in the blinding lights of CLOSING TIME

I want him to be certain That he doesn't have a burden That he doesn't need a vision That he only has permission To do my instant bidding which is to Say what I have told him to repeat

Though I take my song From a withered limb, Both song and tree, They sing for him.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died

Ditched on a beach Where the sea hates to go With a child in my arms And a chill in my soul And my heart the shape Of a begging bowl

And she says, Drink deeply, pilgrim but don't forget there's still a woman beneath this resplendent chemise.

You don't need a lawyer I'm not making a claim You don't need to surrender I'm not taking aim I don't need a lover, no, no The wretched beast is tame I don't need a lover So blow out the flame

O gather up the brokenness And bring it to me now The fragrance of those promises You never dared to vow

And I don’t really know who sent me, To raise my voice and say: May the lights in The Land of Plenty Shine on the truth some day.

There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking They've been sentenced to death by the blues

I know the burden’s heavy As you wheel it through the night Some people say it’s empty But that don’t mean it’s light

Ten New Songs

I better hold my tongue I better take my place Lift this glass of blood Try to say the grace

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat. You’d have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet.

A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it’s time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I’m wanted at the traffic-jam. They’re saving me a seat. I’m what I am, and what I am, Is back on Boogie Street.

Down in the valley the famine goes on The famine up on the hill I say that you shouldn’t, you couldn’t, you can’t You say that you must and you will

So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder to the tower where the blessed hours chime and I swear it happened just like this: a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the Gates of Love they budged an inch I can't say much has happened since

And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, With the photographs there, and the moss And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty My cheap violin and my cross

Then she dances so graceful and your heart's hard and hateful and she's naked but that's just a tease. And you turn in disgust from your hatred and from your love and comes to you light as the breeze.

I see the Ghost of Culture With numbers on his wrist Salute some new conclusion Which all of us have missed

I tried to love you my way, But I couldn’t make it hold. So I closed the Book of Longing And I do what I am told.

And up through the system the worlds are withdrawn From every dominion the mind stood upon And now that it's over and now that it's done The name has no number, not even the one

You got me singing Like a prisoner in a jail You got me singing Like my pardon's in the mail

You can add up the parts But you won't have the sum You can strike up the march, There is no drum Every heart, every heart To love will come But like a refugee.

Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just had to meet Without your clothes And everybody knows

It's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; from the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray for the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away:

Even though she sleeps upon your satin Even though she wakes you with a kiss Do not say the moment was imagined Do not stoop to strategies like this

I smile when I'm angry I cheat and I lie I do what I have to do To get by But I know what is wrong And I know what is right And I'd die for the truth In My Secret Life

I loved you for your beauty but that doesn't make a fool of me: you were in it for your beauty too and I loved you for your body there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you

O baby I waited so long for your kiss for something to happen, oh something like this.

O let the heavens falter And let the earth proclaim: Come healing of the Altar Come healing of the Name

If you're squeezed for information, that's when you've got to play it dumb: You just say you're out there waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

You put on a uniform To fight the Civil War You looked so good I didn’t care What side you’re fighting for

Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror and rest because he had finally come? Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.

It's coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range and the machinery for change and it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken and it's here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way:

I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet But I hear him coughing all night long A hundred floors above me In the Tower of Song

Sail on, sail on O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on

Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free.

I should have seen it coming It was right behind your eyes You were young and it was summer I just had to take a dive Winning you was easy But darkness was the prize

The party’s over But I’ve landed on my feet I’ll be standing on this corner Where there used to be a street

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat, to pose all hot and high behind the veils of shear deceit, our perfect porn aristocrat so elegant and cheap, I’m old but I’m still into that, A thousand kisses deep.

It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust – Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you

It's dark now and it's snowing O my love I must be going, The river has started to freeze. And I'm sick of pretending I'm broken from bending I've lived too long on my knees.

Well I don't know about tomorrow but I know what's coming next I've used up all my questions; I have no answers left

As for the world the job the war I ditched them all to love you more

The story's been written the letter's been sealed You gave me a lily but now it's a field

Your story was so long, The plot was so intense, It took you years to cross The lines of self-defense.

And soon there's sand in every kiss And soon the dawn is ready And soon the night surrenders To a daffodil machete

Waiting for the miracle There's nothing left to do. I haven't been this happy since the end of World War II.

The troubles came I saved what I could save A thread of light, a particle, a wave But there were chains, so I hastened to behave There were chains, so I loved you like a slave

his waltz With its very own breath of brandy and Death Dragging its tail in the sea

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

They oughta give my heart a medal For letting go of you When I turned my back on the devil Turned my back on the angel too

Had to go crazy to love you You who were never the one Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache Her braids and her blouse all undone

Well the mouse ate the crumb Then the cat ate the crust Now they’ve fallen in love They’re talking in tongues

There’s other ways to answer That certainly is true Me, I’m blind with death and anger And that’s no place for you

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

I was fighting with temptation But I didn't want to win A man like me don't like to see Temptation caving in

I know that I’m forgiven, But I don’t know how I know I don’t trust my inner feelings – Inner feelings come and go.

And sometimes when the night is slow, The wretched and the meek, We gather up our hearts and go, A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I dreamed about you, baby. It was just the other night. Most of you was naked Ah but some of you was light.

I don’t know why I come here, knowing as I do, what you really think of me, what I really think of you.

Had to go crazy to love you Had to let everything fall Had to be people I hated Had to be no one at all

I used to love the rainbow And I used to love the view I loved the early morning I'd pretend that it was new But I caught the darkness baby And I got it worse than you

Traveling light It's au revoir My once so bright, my fallen star I'm running late, they'll close the bar I used to play one mean guitar

I dreamed about you baby You were wearing half your dress I know you have to hate me But could you hate me less?

The night of Santiago And I was passing through So I took her to the river As any man would do

Let's keep it on the level When I walked away from you I turned my back on the devil Turned my back on the angel too

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed, I’m back on Boogie Street. You lose your grip, and then you slip Into the Masterpiece.

So we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

You got me singing Even tho' it all looks grim You got me singing The Hallelujah hymn

I'm aching for you baby I can't pretend I'm not I need to see you naked In your body and your thought

If your heart is torn I don’t wonder why If the night is long Here’s my lullaby

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry There's a lobby with nine hundred windows There's a tree where the doves go to die There's a piece that was torn from the morning And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you On a chair with a dead magazine In the cave at the tip of the lily In some hallways where love's never been On a bed where the moon has been sweating In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

And everybody knows that you're in trouble Everybody knows what you've been through From the bloody cross on top of Calvary To the beach of Malibu

Ah you drift into my dreams as if you had the right And you show me how you broke me doing all the little things I really like

I gave her something pretty And I waited till she laughed I wasn't born a gypsy To make a woman sad

There is no God in Heaven And there is no Hell below So says the great professor Of all there is to know But I've had the invitation That a sinner can't refuse And it's almost like salvation It's almost like the blues

The war was lost The treaty signed I was not caught I crossed the line, I had to leave My life behind I dug some graves You'll never findI was not caught Though many tried I live among you Well disguised

Now I'm living in this temple Where they tell you what to do I'm old and I've had to settle On a different point of view

Too late to fix another drink – The lights are going out – I’ll listen to the darkness sing – I know what that’s about.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat, you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet, who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is, and all he was, A thousand kisses deep.

And death is old But it's always new I freeze with fear And I'm there for you

I don't smoke no cigarette I don't drink no alcohol I ain't had much loving yet But that's always been your call Hey I don't miss it baby I got no taste for anything at all

I’ll try to say a little more: Love went on and on Until it reached an open door – Then Love Itself Love Itself was gone.

I said there'd been a flood. I said there's nothing left. I hoped that you would come. I gave you my address.

So I let my heart get frozen To keep away the rot My father says I'm chosen My mother says I'm not

O Crown of Light, O Darkened One, I never thought we’d meet. You kiss my lips, and then it’s done: I’m back on Boogie Street.

Ah, the moon's too bright The chain's too tight The beast won't go to sleep

And he cut my lip And he cut my heart. So I could not drink From the river dark.

O solitude of longing Where love has been confined Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind

My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I’d know you in my sleep and who but you would take me in, a thousand kisses deep.

Suddenly the night has grown colder The god of love preparing to depart Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder They slip between the sentries of the heart

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet

The autumn moved across your skin, got something in my eye, a light that doesn’t need to live, and doesn’t need to die. A riddle in the book of love, obscure and obsolete, till witnessed here in time and blood, A thousand kisses deep.

There's nobody missing There is no reward Little by little We're cutting the cord We're spending the treasure, oh, no, no That love cannot afford I know you can feel it The sweetness restored

The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it’s done – Your little winning streak.

I like to take my time I like to linger as it flies A weekend on your lips A lifetime in your eyes

Then he struck my heart With a deadly force, And he said, ‘This heart: It is not yours.’

Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Ah give or take a night or two

Steer your way past the ruins of the Altar and the Mall Steer your way through the fables of Creation and The Fall Steer your way past the Palaces that rise above the rot Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

Your crazy fragrance all around Your secrets in my view My lost, my lost was saying found My don't was saying do

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

Steer your way through the pain that is far more real than you That's smashed the Cosmic Model, that blinded every view And please don't make me go there, though there be a God or not Year by year, month by month, day by day Thought by thought

You sent me here You sent me there Breaking things I can't repair Making objects Out of thoughts Making more By thinking not

And you who were bewildered by a meaning Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed – Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

I see you standing on the other side I don't know how the river got so wide I loved you baby, way back when And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed But I feel so close to everything that we lost We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame

I used to be your favorite drunk Good for one more laugh Then we both ran out of luck Luck was all we ever had

There'll be the breaking of the ancient Western code Your private life will suddenly explode There'll be phantoms There'll be fires on the road And the white man dancing You'll see your woman Hanging upside down Her features covered by her fallen gown And all the lousy little poets Coming round Tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson

Confined to sex, we pressed against The limits of the sea: I saw there were no oceans left For scavengers like me.

I was born like this, I had no choice I was born with the gift of a golden voice And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond They tied me to this table right here In the Tower of Song

I’m naked and I’m filthy And both of us are guilty

the fiddler fiddles something so sublime all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops

I've seen the future, brother: It is murder

Who broke the heart and made it new? Who's moving on, who's kiddin' who?

So I knelt there at the delta, at the alpha and the omega, at the cradle of the river and the seas. And like a blessing come from heaven for something like a second I was healed and my heart was at ease.

And there's a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong You see, you hear these funny voices In the Tower of Song

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure They gain the light, they formlessly entwine And radiant beyond your widest measure They fall among the voices and the wine

When you've fallen on the highway and you're lying in the rain, and they ask you how you're doing of course you'll say you can't complain

You always said we’re equal So let me march with you Just an extra in the sequel To the old red white and blue

She stands before you naked you can see it, you can taste it, and she comes to you light as the breeze. Now you can drink it or you can nurse it, it don't matter how you worship as long as you're down on your knees.

By the rivers dark I wandered on. I lived my life in Babylon. And I did forget My holy song: And I had no strength In Babylon.

All your moves are swift All your turns are tight Let me catch my breath I thought we had all night

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming through a crack in the wall; on a visionary flood of alcohol; from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all. It's coming from the silence on the dock of the bay, from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb

There's a lover in the story But the story's still the same There's a lullaby for suffering And a paradox to blame But it's written in the scriptures And it's not some idle claim You want it darker We kill the flame

I was alone on the road, your love was so confusing And all my teachers told me that I had myself to blame But in the grip of sensual illusion A sweet unknowing unified the name

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name Vilified, crucified, in the human frame A million candles burning for the help that never came

They're lining up the prisoners And the guards are taking aim I struggled with some demons They were middle class and tame I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim

So come, my friends, be not afraid. We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear.

I see my life In full review It was never me It was always you

We'll be going down so deep the river's going to weep, and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

Show me the place where my head is bendin' low Show me the place where you want your slave to go

I’m tired of choosing desire I been saved by a blessed fatigue The gates of commitment unwired And nobody trying to leave

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey I ache in the places where I used to play And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on I'm just paying my rent every day Oh in the Tower of Song

There's an attic where children are playing Where I've got to lie down with you soon In a dream of Hungarian lanterns In the mist of some sweet afternoon And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow All your sheep and your lilies of snow

We find ourselves on different sides Of a line nobody drew Though it all may be one in the higher eye Down here where we live it is two

I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all But love's the only engine of survival Your servant here, he has been told To say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going Any further And now the wheels of heaven stop You feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: It is murder

I've heard the soul unfolds in the chambers of its longing And the bitter liquor sweetens in the hammered cup Ah but all the ladders of the night have fallen Just darkness now, to lift the longing up

Why don’t you come on back to the war, that’s right, get in it, why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just beginning.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

An Eskimo showed me a movie he’d recently taken of you: the poor man could hardly stop shivering, his lips and his fingers were blue. I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes and I guess he just never got warm. But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm.

I loved your master perfectly I taught him all that he knew. He was starving in some deep mystery like a man who is sure what is true.

I have begun to long for you, I who have no greed; I have begun to ask for you, I who have no need. You say you’ve gone away from me, but I can feel you when you breathe.

Hungry as an archway through which the troops have passed, I stand in ruins behind you, with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.

Well, you tell me that your lover has a broken limb, you say you’re kind of restless now and it’s on account of him.

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon Show me slowly what I only know the limits of Dance me to the end of love

I tried to leave you, I don’t deny I closed the book on us, at least a hundred times.

And I can’t wait to tell you to your face And I can’t wait for you to take my place You are The Naked Angel In My Heart You are The Woman With Her Legs Apart It’s written on the walls of this hotel You go to heaven once you’ve been to hell

Then let the other selves be wrong, yeah, let them manifest and come till every taste is on the tongue, till love is pierced and love is hung, and every kind of freedom done

O come with me my little one, we will find that farm and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm. And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb.

Ah they’re shutting down the factory now Just when all the bills are due And the fields they’re under lock and key Tho’ the rain and the sun come through And springtime starts but then it stops In the name of something new And all the senses rise against this Coming back to you

Like a baby, stillborn, like a beast with his horn I have torn everyone who reached out for me.

We met when we were almost young deep in the green lilac park. You held on to me like I was a crucifix, as we went kneeling through the dark.

And there are no letters in the mailbox, and there are no grapes upon the vine, and there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore, and there are no diamonds in the mine.

I cried, “Oh, Lady Midnight, I fear that you grow old, the stars eat your body and the wind makes you cold

So daily I renew my idle duty I touch her here and there – I know my place I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty and people call me traitor to my face

But my darling says “Leonard, just let it go by That old silhouette on the great western sky” So I pick out a tune and they move right along and they’re gone like the smoke and they’re gone like this song

And why are you so quiet now standing there in the doorway? You chose your journey long before you came upon this highway.

But I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong I will make it all up to thee.

It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.

And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said “All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them” But he himself was broken Long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him And you want to travel blind And you think maybe you’ll trust him For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.

Your master took you travelling, well at least that’s what you said. And now do you come back to bring your prisoner wine and bread?

Your pain is no credential here, it’s just the shadow, shadow of my wound.

And here where there is no description Oh here in the moment at hand No sinner need rise up forgiven No victim need limp to the stand

I met a woman long ago her hair the black that black can go, Are you a teacher of the heart? Soft she answered no. I met a girl across the sea, her hair the gold that gold can be, Are you a teacher of the heart? Yes, but not for thee.

Oh bless thee continuous stutter Of the word being made into flesh

The cripple here that you clothe and feed is neither starved nor cold; he does not ask for your company, not at the centre, the centre of the world.

Yes, you who are broken by power, you who are absent all day, you who are kings for the sake of your children’s story, the hand of your beggar is burdened down with money, the hand of your lover is clay.

the patron Saint of envy and the grocer of despair

She used to wear her hair like you except when she was sleeping, and then she’d weave it on a loom of smoke and gold and breathing.

And may the spirit of this song, may it rise up pure and free. May it be a shield for you, a shield against the enemy.

And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

to wear upon my swollen appetite.“ Well, I’m glad to hear you talk this way, you know I’ve watched you riding every day and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine.

Come over to the window, my little darling, I’d like to try to read your palm. I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy before I let you take me home.

Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night and I put it in your little shoe. And then I confess that I tortured the dress that you wore for the world to look through.

And the light came from her body And the night went through her grace All summer long she touched me And I knew her, I knew her Face to face

Let’s meet tomorrow if you choose Upon the shore, beneath the bridge That they are building on some endless river

And I’ve read the Bill of Human Rights And some of it was true But there wasn’t any burden left So I’m laying it on you.”

I listened to your kisses at the door I never heard the world so clear before You ran your bath and you began to sing I felt so good I couldn’t feel a thing

Like a worm on a hook, like a knight from some old fashioned book I have saved all my ribbons for thee.

Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark; no moon to keep her armour bright, no man to get her through this very smoky night.

And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin That the wilderness is gathering All its children back again

And now this woman by your side, well, she’s asleep And there’s nothing you can give her and there’s nothing you want to keep

Just take this longing from my tongue all the lonely things my hands have done. Let me see your beauty broken down like you would do for one your love.

And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror

Ah but if you cannot raise your love To a very high degree, Then you’re just the man I’ve been thinking of – So come and stand with me.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn, learn to serve me well.

Why don’t you try to do without him? Why don’t you try to live alone? Do you really need his hands for your passion? Do you really need his heart for your throne?

I left a wife in Tennessee And a baby in Saigon – I risked my life, but not to hear Some country-western song.

I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Oh take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, untie for me your hired blue gown, like you would do for one that you love.

I heard of a saint who had loved you, so I studied all night in his school. He taught that the duty of lovers is to tarnish the golden rule. And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure he drowned himself in the pool. His body is gone but back here on the lawn his spirit continues to drool.

It’s like our visit to the moon or to that other star I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

Well I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned: When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.

I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me. But the room just filled up with mosquitos, they heard that my body was free.

Too early for the rainbow, too early for the dove These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood And there is no man or woman can be touched But you who come between them will be judged

He tried to make a final stand beside the railway track She said, “The art of longing’s over and it’s never coming back.”

The judges said you missed it by a fraction rise up and brace your troops for the attack Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action Oh see the men of action falling back

Now the crickets are singing The vesper bells ringing The cat’s curled asleep in his chair I’ll go down to Bill’s Bar I can make it that far And I’ll see if my friends are still there Yes, and here’s to the few Who forgive what you do And the fewer who don’t even care And the night comes on It’s very calm I want to cross over, I want to go home But she says, Go back, go back to the World

Those who dance, begin to dance Those who weep begin Those who earnestly are lost Are lost and lost again

I asked my father, I said, “Father change my name.” The one I’m using now it’s covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame.

Even in your arms I know I’ll never get it right Even when you bend to give me Comfort in the night

And the last time that I saw her she was living with some boy who gives her soul an empty room and gives her body joy.

Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne, and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Ah, there is no comfort in the covens of the witch, some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch, and the only man of energy, yes the revolution’s pride, he trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.

Oh, your chains are too dark For the seas you must swim You are smiling at the seaweed But your smile is too grim

And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty, you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty. Your vision is right, my vision is wrong, I’m sorry for smudging the air with my song.

But here, right here, between the birthmark and the stain, between the ocean and your open vein, between the snowman and the rain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

For now I need your hidden love. I’m cold as a new razor blade. You left when I told you I was curious, I never said that I was brave.

Your letters they all say that you’re beside me now. Then why do I feel alone? I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web is fastening my ankle to a stone.

I leave the lady meditating on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim, I journey down the hundred steps, but the street is still the very same.

And I sing this for the captain Whose ship has not been built For the mother in confusion Her cradle still unfilled

Well, I argued all night like so many have before, saying, “Whatever you give me, I seem to need so much more.” Then she pointed at me where I kneeled on her floor, she said, “Don’t try to use me or slyly refuse me, just win me or lose me, it is this that the darkness is for.”

Some girls wander by mistake into the mess that scalpels make. Are you the teachers of my heart? We teach old hearts to break.

And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite, and one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night.

I believe that you heard your master sing when I was sick in bed. I suppose that he told you everything that I keep locked away in my head.

Do you remember all of those pledges That we pledged in the passionate night Ah they’re soiled now, they’re torn at the edges Like moths on a still yellow light No penance serves to renew them No massive transfusions of trust Why not even revenge can undo them So twisted these vows and so crushed

I am the distance you put between all of the moments that we will be.

I choose the rooms that I live in with care, the windows are small and the walls almost bare, there’s only one bed and there’s only one prayer; I listen all night for your step on the stair.

And now I hear your master sing, you kneel for him to come. His body is a golden string that your body is hanging from.

Through windows in the dark The children come, the children go Like arrows with no targets Like shackles made of snow

Like any dealer he was watching for the card That is so high and wild He’ll never need to deal another He was just some Joseph looking for a manger

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne? Where are the paths your heroes came? Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away, was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?

And it’s time for the burden it’s time for the whip Will she walk through the flame Can he shoot from the hip

Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah

But you’ve used up all your coupons except the one that seems to be written on your wrist along with several thousand dreams.

Maybe I’m still hurting I can’t turn the other cheek But you know that I still love you It’s just that I can’t speak I looked for you in everyone And they called me on that too I lived alone but I was only Coming back to you

And they’re handing down my sentence now And I know what I must do Another mile of silence while I’m Coming back to you

The door is open, you can’t close your shelter You try the handle of the road It opens, do not be afraid It’s you my love, you who are the stranger

I’m on the side that’s always lost Against the side of Heaven I’m on the side of Snake-eyes tossed Against the side of Seven.

But you lost them in your freedom And you need him now, you’re wild Blessed is the memory Of everybody’s child

Then fire, make your body cold, I’m going to give you mine to hold,“ saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride.

Now the clasp of this union who fastens it tight? Who snaps it asunder the very next night Some say the rider Some say the mare Or that love’s like the smoke beyond all repair

With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.

As a falling leaf may rest A moment on the air So your head upon my breast So my hand upon your hair

I’m not asking for mercy Not from the man You just don’t ask for mercy While you’re still on the stand

And many nights endure Without a moon or star So we will endure When one is gone and far

And then leaning on your window sill He’ll say one day you caused his will To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter

The rain falls down on last year’s man An hour has gone by And he has not moved his hand But everything will happen if he only gives the word The lovers will rise up And the mountains touch the ground But the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend And all the rain falls down amen On the works of last year’s man

You’re faithful to the better man, I’m afraid that he left. So let me judge your love affair in this very room where I have sentenced mine to death.

If I, if I have been untrue I hope you know it was never to you.

Then I saw you naked in the early dawn, oh, I hoped you would be someone new. I reached for you but you were gone, so lady I’m going too.

And there’s nothing to follow There’s nowhere to go She’s gone like the summer gone like the snow

That’s all I can say, baby That’s all I can say It wasn’t for nothing That they put me away I fell with my angel Down the chain of command There’s a Law, there’s an Arm, there’s a Hand

Lost in the rages of fragrance Lost in the rags of remorse Lost in the waves of a sickness That loosens the high silver nerves

When I am on a pedestal, you did not raise me there. Your laws do not compel me to kneel grotesque and bare. I myself am the pedestal for this ugly hump at which you stare

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

You met him at some temple, where they take your clothes at the door. He was just a numberless man in a chair who’d just come back from the war.

And when we fell together all our flesh was like a veil That I had to draw aside to see The serpent eat its tail

Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain So I hang upon my altar And I hoist my axe again And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began When Jesus was the honeymoon And Cain was just the man

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still My falsity had stung me like a hornet The poison sank and it paralysed my will

in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it’s come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Now my heart’s like a blister From doing what I do If the moon has a sister It’s got to be you

And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight I’ve heard all the wild reports, they can’t be right But whose head is this she’s dancing with on the threshing floor Whose darkness deepens in her arms a little more

Do you want to be the ditch around a tower? Do you want to be the moonlight in his cave? Do you want to give your blessing to his power as he goes whistling past his daddy, past his daddy’s grave

If it be your will That a voice be true From this broken hill I will sing to you From this broken hill All your praises they shall ring If it be your will To let me sing

The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask the nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass.

But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk, All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?

And the vow of compassion That you swore through your teeth When the war began to end And the photographs weep

Goodnight, my darling, I hope you’re satisfied, the bed is kind of narrow, but my arms are open wide. And here’s a man still working for your smile.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control. It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea, but let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Do not dress in those rags for me, I know you are not poor; you don’t love me quite so fiercely now when you know that you are not sure, it is your turn, beloved, it is your flesh that I wear.

A war between the odd and the even.

Well I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul; when I am not this hunchback that you see, I sleep beneath the golden hill.

And here, right here, between the dancer and his cane, between the sailboat and the drain, between the newsreel and your tiny pain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

I changed my style to silver I changed my clothes to black And where I would surrender Ah now I would attack

She said, "I’m tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite.”

Then lay your rose on the fire The fire give up to the sun The sun give over to splendour In the arms of the high holy one

And draw us near And bind us tight All your children here In their rags of light In our rags of light All dressed to kill And end this night If it be your will

I met a man who lost his mind in some lost place I had to find, follow me the wise man said, but he walked behind.

I asked her to hold me, I said, “Lady, unfold me,” but she scorned me and she told me I was dead and I could never return.

Well I lived with a child of snow when I was a soldier, and I fought every man for her until the nights grew colder.

Into this furnace I ask you now to venture…

She took his tavern parliament, his cap, his cocky dance, she mocked his female fashions and his working-class moustache.

Like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free.

She took his much admired oriental frame of mind and the heart-of-darkness alibi his money hides behind She took his blonde madonna and his monastery wine – “This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.”

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she’s half crazy But that’s why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer That you’ve always been her lover And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

So, now that you’ve decided To follow the sun Like a shadow of birds Or a king on the run

Well, I’ve been waiting, I was sure We’d meet between the trains we’re waiting for I think it’s time to board another Please understand, I never had a secret chart To get me to the heart of this Or any other matter While he talks like this, you don’t know what he’s after When he speaks like this, you don’t know what he’s after

Or she’ll make a break for the high plateau where there’s nothing above and there’s nothing below

The baby’s crying, so you do not go outside, and all your work it’s right before your eyes.

I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark Oh one by one she had to tell them That her name was Joan of Arc

And you wrap up his tired face in your hair and he hands you the apple core. Then he touches your lips now so suddenly bare of all the kisses we put on some time before.

I fought in the old revolution on the side of the ghost and the King. Of course I was very young and I thought that we were winning; I can’t pretend I still feel very much like singing as they carry the bodies away.

Oh, you are really such a pretty one. I see you’ve gone and changed your name again. And just when I climbed this whole mountainside, to wash my eyelids in the rain!

Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?

And who are you?“ she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke. "Why, I’m fire,” he replied, “And I love your solitude, I love your pride.

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Just open up your dainty little hand. You know this life is filled with many sweet companions, many satisfying one-night stands.

And come forth from the cloud of unknowing And kiss the cheek of the moon

But climb on your tears and be silent Like a rose on its ladder of thorns

the crumbs of love that you offer me, they’re the crumbs I’ve left behind.

Yes, and here, right here between the moonlight and the lane, between the tunnel and the train, between the victim and his stain, once again, once again, love calls you by your name.

There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t.

Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me, she’s the soft naked lady love meant her to be and she’s moving her body so brave and so free. If I’ve got to remember that’s a fine memory.

O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel, You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal.

He said, "I locked you in this body, I meant it as a kind of trial. You can use it for a weapon, or to make some woman smile.”

But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever and the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame She said at last I was her finest lover and if she withered I would be to blame

You will never see a man this naked I will never hold a woman this close

And you say you’ve been humbled in love Cut down in your love Forced to kneel in the mud next to me Ah but why so bitterly turn from the one Who kneels there as deeply as thee

I went down to the place Where I knew she lay waiting Under the marble and the snow I said, Mother I’m frightened The thunder and the lightning I’ll never come through this alone She said, I’ll be with you My shawl wrapped around you My hand on your head when you go And the night came on It was very calm I wanted the night to go on and on But she said, Go back, Go back to the World

May Christ have mercy on your soul For making such a joke Amid these hearts that burn like coal And the flesh that rose like smoke.

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill So my body leaves no scar On you and never will

I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit. Then he wrote himself a prescription, and your name was mentioned in it! Then he locked himself in a library shelf with the details of our honeymoon, and I hear from the nurse that he’s gotten much worse and his practice is all in a ruin.

And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight All these wounded boys you lie beside Goodnight, my friends, goodnight

One by one, the guests arrive The guests are coming through The open-hearted many The broken-hearted few And no one knows where the night is going And no one knows why the wine is flowing Oh love I need you

I greet you from the other side Of sorrow and despair With a love so vast and shattered It will reach you everywhere

So you moved away the mountain That the sun rose behind And you said yourself a prayer And laid down with the blind

Your body like a searchlight my poverty revealed, I would like to try your charity until you cry, “Now you must try my greed.” And everything depends upon how near you sleep to me

and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose, yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee She says, My body is the light, my body is the way” I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride’s bouquet

Children have takes these pledges They have ferried them out of the past Oh beyond all the graves and the hedges Where love must go hiding at last

It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone Who is reaching for the sky just to surrender

The river is swollen up with rusty cans and the trees are burning in your promised land.

Your father’s gone a-hunting Through the silver and the glass Where only greed can enter But spirit, spirit cannot pass

And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice, a singer must die for the lie in his voice.

and there is no space but there’s left and right and there is no time but there’s day and night

Your father’s gone a-hunting And he’s lost his lucky charm And he’s lost the guardian heart That keeps the hunter from the harm

It’s not the news of burning towns that ruins your mind Like a spool you turn and you turn but it won’t unwind No these wars you did not start, they don’t tear your sleep apart It’s just a man taking what he needs from the store room

True love leaves no traces If you and I are one It’s lost in our embraces Like stars against the sun

And the crickets are breaking his heart with their song as the day caves in and the night is all wrong

Now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess. Is it true you betrayed us? The answer is Yes. Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine, I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline.

I sang my songs, I told my lies, to lie between your matchless thighs.

Why do you stand by the window Abandoned to beauty and pride The thorn of the night in your bosom The spear of the age in your side

And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.”

Trav'ling lady stay awhile until the night is over. I’m just a station on your way, I know I’m not your lover.

Just take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done, let me see your beauty broken down, like you would do for one you love.

Let your mercy spill On all these burning hearts in hell If it be your will To make us well

Oh the world is sweet the world is wide and she’s there where the light and the darkness divide and the steam’s coming off her she’s huge and she’s shy and she steps on the moon when she paws at the sky

And while he talks his dreams to sleep You notice there’s a highway That is curling up like smoke above his shoulder

For the heart with no companion For the soul without a king For the prima ballerina Who cannot dance to anything

You kept right on loving, I went on a fast, now I am too thin and your love is too vast.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you

Well you know that I love to live with you, but you make me forget so very much. I forget to pray for the angels and then the angels forget to pray for us.

I know you need your sleep now, I know your life’s been hard. But many men are falling, where you promised to stand guard.

And she comes to his hand but she’s not really tame She longs to be lost he longs for the same

Now I look for her always I’m lost in this calling I’m tied to the threads of some prayer Saying, When will she summon me When will she come to me What must I do to prepare When she bends to my longing Like a willow, like a fountain She stands in the luminous air And the night comes on And it’s very calm I lie in her arms she says, When I’m gone I’ll be yours, yours for a song

Through the days of shame that are coming Through the nights of wild distress Tho’ your promise count for nothing You must keep it nonetheless

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song. Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so long.

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn Dance me to the end of love

The walls of this hotel are paper-thin Last night I heard you making love to him The struggle mouth to mouth and limb to limb The grunt of unity when he came in I stood there with my ear against the wall I was not seized by jealousy at all In fact a burden lifted from my soul I heard that love was out of my control

Your standing days are done,“ I cried, “You’ll rally me no more. I don’t even know what side We fought on, or what for.

[hufflepuffhollander]

spin the bottle: a tom holland imagine

a/n | this is long but it’s so worth it! it was fun to write so it has to be fun to read, right? (right???) *also thinking about starting up a tag list, message me if you want to be included!*

summary: An uneventful party takes a turn when you get dragged into a kissing game with a hot stranger. (the gif will make sense, trust me)

tom x fem reader | contains alcohol use, language, and lotsa kisses | word count: 1.7k lol | enjoy!

You smoothed down your hair with one final run through with your fingers before your best friend reached over to shove your car mirror shut, saying firmly, “You look fine. Stop being so paranoid! It’s just a party.”

Yes, you thought, but you didn’t know anybody at this party, just your friend-  and she had just barely convinced you to go by the time it was starting.

“There’s just this one bump I can’t get to go down,” you grumbled, reluctantly getting out of the car and pulling your dress down to cover more of your thighs. You walked into the house with your friend, smiling blankly at strangers as she floated through friendly faces, giving hugs, and you beelined straight to the drink table. There was a smattering of room temperature seltzers, mostly empty handles of liquor, and some sad looking pints of juice and soda to choose from. How exciting. Your expression at the disappointing array must’ve been more noticeable on your face than you realized, because a guy came up from behind you, shaking you from your thoughts.

“Takes you back to uni, huh?” he said, reaching for a red solo cup, hesitating, and then grabbing another, stretching it in your direction.

“There’s nothing quite like lukewarm alcohol,” you joke, only then looking up at the voice, choking back spit as you took in the beautiful boy’s features, a baby face somehow mature and insanely attractive, his prominent jawbone clenching and relaxing as it moved to speak.

“Can I suggest something? I have a secret recipe that always kills.” he smiled, reaching to take the empty cup back from your hands. You hesitantly let go, curiosity getting the best of your judgement. You watched intently as he went to the kitchen, filled the cup with ice, and came back with a packet of kool-aid powder in his hand. You frowned.

“Hey,” he said, smirking. “Don’t you trust me?” “I just met you.” “Well, trust in the process.” 

He started expertly picking up liquors and mixers, seeming to know the perfect measurements, looking like a chemist in his lab. You couldn’t help but stand in delighted shock at watching the artist work.

“Alright,” he said, handing you the cup, now full of a bright red liquid. “Close your eyes and try it.”

You took the cup, your fingers brushing his, and you felt your nerves awaken. You closed your eyes lightly and brought the cup to your lips, letting the cool liquid slip down your throat. It was...delicious. You opened your eyes and he smiled at your clear reaction.

“How did you manage to pull that out of the world’s most miserable array of drinks??” you asked, taking another generous sip.

He just chuckled, stuck his hand out and said, “I’m Tom.”

“y/n.” you said back, shaking his hand, nerves piping up again. He gave you one last smile, wiped his hands on his jeans, and walked away. You watched him leave and felt a twinge of disappointment that your brief interaction had come to an end. Your friend came out of the noise, putting a hand on your shoulder and looking at your cup.

“Where in the hell did you find that? All I’ve gotten is flat lime seltzer, which is obviously the worst one,” she groaned, glancing at the disgrace of a booze display.

“Bartender made it,” you said smirking, left in Tom’s invisible trail, taking a sip of your drink and floating away to another side of the room. Your friend looked after you, puzzled. “Where the fuck is there a bartender?” 

Later, after having a handful of meaningless conversations with forgettable people, you had made eye contact with Tom too many times to count and couldn’t stop thinking about him. You wanted to go up and talk to him, but you couldn’t work up the nerve. If he was as interested as his eyes told you, why couldn’t he just make the first move?

Your friend found you, taking your hand and bringing you into a smaller adjacent room, full of fruity smelling vape smoke and a few less people. “What are we doing in someone’s office?” you asked.

“Spin the bottle!” your friend grinned at you.

“Seriously? I haven’t played that since middle school, and nobody was ever bold enough to actually kiss anybody anyway,” you sighed. Honestly, you would’ve been happy to play- but Tom was nowhere to be found, and nobody else in the forming circle on the floor seemed worth your time. Your friend saw you hesitate to sit down. 

“Ugh, come on, y/n, you’re suddenly not up for making out with strangers?” she poked at you like you had a long-standing habit of doing just that. You shrugged, wishing you had stayed home. Your drink was long gone along with your interest in this party.

“Jesus, tough crowd,” your friend muttered. “Hold on.” she left the room, and you stood awkwardly in the corner, pretending to be interested in a boring painting on the wall.

She came back in, followed by a boy in a baseball hat, Tom trailing meagerly behind. You both made eye contact, making the same realization at the same time: you were suddenly very interested in playing spin the bottle. Your friend caught your eye and winked, mouthing ‘you owe me one’.

12 or so people sat in a tightly packed group, some a little buzzed, some completely faded. The girl next to you fidgets as you feel someone hover over you. “I’m gonna- just...squeeze in here-“ Tom shoves his way into the circle and sits down next to you, both of you looking straight ahead, smiling and silently acknowledging each other.

“You looked thirsty,” he says keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead, handing over a new red cup filled with the same magical liquid as before. You graciously accepted it and nudged your elbow into his. “Thanks.”

Someone put on a grungy party playlist and the game began. The boy in the baseball cap spun the bottle in the middle and kissed the girl Tom had taken the place of. Your friend ended up kissing a girl with sleek black hair and too much eye makeup, but didn’t seem to mind. Then came Tom’s turn, and he glanced at you, back to the glass bottle, and gave it a spin. It felt like an hour went by as it rotated around the group, eventually coming to a slow halt...and your vodka-soaked heart fell a few inches in your chest. It was pointing directly at a girl across the circle, smile shining brightly at her newly decided fate. She was objectively pretty, hair tied up in a ponytail with bright blue eyes. Tom cleared his throat, and she began to fuss with the hem of her skirt as she leaned slightly forward towards him. You brought your drink up to your mouth so you could focus on something, anything, other than Tom about to lock lips with the girl across from you.

But a hand pulled your cup away, and you turned to notice it just as you felt two hands cup your face, arms attached to Tom, who turned his whole body to face you. This all happened in an instant, and suddenly he pulled you into a heavy kiss as your eyes fluttered shut. You heard the girl grunt as she sat back down, but it was just background noise now- all you could focus on was the kiss you were currently melting into, Tom’s palms searing into your cheeks. You moved closer to him, wrapping both arms around his neck and kissed him back even harder. You only noticed it had been too long when someone lowly muttered “Guys, come on.”

You pulled away and remembered that there were still other people in the room.

Tom looked into your eyes, then down to your lips. He ran his tongue across his own. “You taste like Kool-Aid,” he said, lips curling into a smile.

You still had your hands grasping at the nape of his neck, bodies pulled into each other as the game continued.

“You know, that’s not how the game works,” you said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I decided to change the rules.” You couldn’t stop staring into each other’s eyes.

The song that was playing changed suddenly to one with a loud raging beat, and it broke you out of the trance you’d been in. You pulled away from Tom and glanced over at your friend, who was looking at you wide-eyed with pride. The girl across the room was shooting you daggers. Luckily, the alcohol warming your system helped you to not give a fuck.

It was time for your turn, and you decided to make up for all those times in middle school you couldn’t work up the courage to kiss the cute boy that you’d wanted to. So you picked up the bottle, let it spin around once, and stopped it as it pointed at Tom. He laughed along with a couple others. Someone else grumbled something like “get a room.”

Neither of you caring about the group anymore, Tom pulled you into his lap, this time snaking his arms around your waist, and leaned you back as he kissed you. It felt warm and familiar. The flavor of his tongue mixed with the vodka mixed with synthetic fruit punch filled your stomach with butterflies. Maybe the group gave up on the rest of the game, maybe not. You had no idea. You and Tom had synchronously tuned them out, eventually finding yourselves huddled up on a couch and wasting the rest of the evening away drinking your magic drinks and sneaking kisses in between sips. It seemed like the party was dying down, but neither of you wanted the night to end.

“Hmm, what should we do now?” you said, and Tom had a lightbulb moment, grabbing your hand and moving to stand up.

“How about another game?” he gave you a suggestive look.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Have you heard of seven minutes in heaven?” 

You narrowed your eyes at him playfully, then squeezed his hand in return. You both looked around, hearts leaping with anticipation. Where were all the damn closets in this place?

[vidavalor]

Can we talk about how Sam is as useless at this as Bucky is, really, and it’s massively sweet?

Yeah, I’m writing about Sam because we all love us some brainwashed, century-old assassin endless array of hurt/comfort here but this idea that Sam, because he’s a therapist and not always a crying, nightmare-sweat-drenched mess, is Captain Got It All Together is not truth... because this poor broken-hearted kitten absolutely does not and it makes him so much more of a better-realized, fuller character... 

I’m not trying to wade any ship wars here or any fandom strife over the Bucky slant to fic/sometimes erasure of Sam here... I love both of these characters equally and ship them but my point here is that I think that because Bucky’s trauma is more well-documented and, for lack of a better word, “flashier”, that some people might think Sam looks perfectly well-adjusted. By comparison, he probably is but this other, quieter story happening with Sam is necessary reading here if you’ve been sleeping on the complexities of one Sam Wilson that aren’t the ones the show is focusing on more explicitly relating to his lived experience as a Black man in America. (They’re not completely separate either but not only this part of his life.) What do I mean, exactly? 

Been wondering how these two are falling in love but can mainly just get it from Bucky’s POV because Sam is awesome and Bucky is sad and need love? Not sure what Sam is getting out of his relationship with Bucky? Not totally sure you ship it but leaning that way? Yeah, pull up a seat because this thing I wrote after Ep 5 here (so spoilers through that) is basically an old-school ship manifesto at this point but comes at SamBucky/WinterFalcon from Sam’s side, rather than Bucky’s. (I have nothing *against* Bucky. I just think you’re missing half the goodness of this show and half the surprisingly tender romance of all of this if you are not focusing on Sam as much as Bucky.) If this interests you, then read on, being forewarned that it’s a little long...

So... Sam Wilson is a sweet, kind, warm-hearted, empathetic, drop-dead gorgeous superhero soldier flying military veteran therapist... whom the canon suggests is Bucky Barnes-level obsessed with his dead former partner (in some sense of the word), Riley. You thought it was just Bucky with the angsty past love? Oh no... oh, no no no....

Consider that Sam’s been back in Delacroix twice now in TFATWS and not once has his sister-- who adores him and who knows everyone in town-- suggested that she call up any one of the at least ten decent single people she has to know who live in the area to take her f*cking *dreamboat* of a brother out. Forget the show putting Sam in like twelve pieces of canon and not throwing a single human (not named Bucky) at him and what that implies-- we all know that Sarah wouldn’t care what kind of human her brother was attracted to and yet she and the entire community of Delacroix can’t seem to find this guy a date. He’s sweet and hot and an Avenger but our Sam’s a monk, you guys... More to the point... they don’t even try. They know better than to try anymore... which says a lot.

Going back awhile now, when Sam met Steve, he was still this equally dreamy and he didn’t even have any Avengers-related problems getting in the way of his potential dating life. He had a normal job working for the VA in DC. Yet, he clearly was seeing exactly no one and while I am willing to admit that pretty much any human would drop everything and follow Steve Rogers around the world, it’s clear that Sam wasn’t seeing anyone at the time because his life was able to be dropped in a second and he also had that file with Riley’s photo at the ready, man. At. the. ready... 

He responded to the opportunity to follow Steve with no less need when it came to his own post-trauma-of-war identity as Bucky does. This isn’t to say that Sam is *as* lost as Bucky because it would be hard to out-do the once-brainwashed assassin who has been alive for a hundred years but Sam saw all sorts of hell. He’s a therapist for veterans because he’s had to get beyond *his own* PTSD and he’s really aware of how that is a journey that doesn’t exactly ever end. It gets significantly better and he knows how well it can-- that’s why he can tell Bucky that there is hope of that-- but it is very clear that Sam Wilson is still suffering his own kind of PTSD and his own grief for the death of a guy who likely couldn’t love him the way he needed him to. 

I know we don’t know a ton about exactly what Sam and Riley were but I think there is enough to infer that they probably actually weren’t a couple. For one thing, Sarah never mentions him and even if the show wanted to be vague about things, they could phrase it like “it’s been forever since you brought back someone to the house, haven’t met any of them since Riley” or something. There are ways to infer that they were a thing and the nature of it, if the show wanted to do that but all they have suggested so far is that Sam was in love with Riley. We know he and Riley were friends and worked on the Falcon suit project together but what we are getting out of what they are giving to us is that Sam loved him but it’s not clear that they were even a couple. I’d even say the picture of them that he shows Steve and Natasha is supposed to evoke that they weren’t a couple-- it’s of Sam looking at Riley, smiling like he’s the moon and the stars, while Riley is smiling but just a bit and he’s looking at the camera, not at Sam. 

In other words, remember Miller’s analogies from school? Sam is to Riley as Bucky is to Steve. I just offended every person reading this who thinks that Steve and Bucky weren’t an unrequited thing *ducks* but I feel like we’re supposed to take from what they give us that Sam knows a little something about being mad for a guy who thinks you are his best buddy but doesn’t look at you in a romantic or sexual way and you feel like you’re dying over it. Sam gets Bucky because Sam *is* Bucky when it comes to this. 

If Sam and Riley were just the best of friends, Sam still would have mourned him greatly but it would not necessarily have impacted his love life the way it seems like it might have. I’m not necessarily saying there was no one but this is a man who even when it felt like Steve Rogers-- whom Sam obviously found attractive-- seemed like he was making Sam question whether or not he was coming onto him or just super-nice and making a new fellow veteran friend... even when that was happening, Sam’s response was that he didn’t hate it or anything and he was willing to help Steve with what he needed in this friendly, advice-giving sort of way and maybe they had a thing, who knows, but it was clear that Sam-- a guy who has to be hit on *all the time*-- wasn’t really used to the idea of there being someone in his life. So, he wasn’t letting anyone into his life. He would have had the chance, no doubt. He was choosing not to. Why would you choose not to? If you were grieving the loss of a man you couldn’t get over and you thought that you weren’t ever going to love anyone like that and maybe having someone wasn’t going to happen for you.

Like, imagine Sam’s surprise when The Winter Soldier turns up, nearly kills them all, disappears and they go on the run and he starts hearing Steve’s confessional stories about the guy who was his best friend and in love with him and Steve has literally never said those words aloud because they’re from the *1940s* and he’s felt guilty all this time for hurting him. Steve’s the kind of guy who would feel guilty for not being in love with someone who was in love with him. That’s when Sam, who thought he had more in common with Steve, realizes he’s actually *Bucky Barnes* in this story. He’s the damn Winter Soldier in the Steve-and-Bucky version of him and Riley. 

That is how Bucky evolves from “the kind of guy you have to stop” in Sam’s mind to the guy he’s hanging out with in every fight and snarking over the car seats with. He’s like yeesh, I thought I had a few years of this ungodly pain and that was bad... this poor bastard’s been in love with a Riley who could and probably will live until he’s a hundred and thirty. Sam starts getting into this whole antagonist origin story of The Winter Soldier here because he realizes that one wrong move-- one case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time-- and he could have been captured during the war he was in. He could have been tortured like that, so easily, and he knows what it’s like to be tortured by love in that way. 

Bucky, for his part, when he begins to get his mind back and more fully remember Steve and his past, takes one look at Sam and is thinking like... that poor SOB... oh, look, it’s 21st Century Me. So, you fell for Steve Rogers, huh? Welcome to the club. We meet every Tuesday at two to discuss being the pining best friend in love with a guy who, in all likelihood, is attracted to both of us but unless Tony Stark can shake loose a bit of the freak in The Star-Spangled Man With a Plan, we’re not getting anything but a most earnest and sincere friendship out of this (and if Stark can’t, no one can....)

Like, Bucky’s Steve love is pretty pure. He wants him to be happy. He’s hurt that Steve doesn’t love him the way he loves Steve but he does love him as his best friend as well and wants him to have what he wants out of life. If that’s going back in time to Peggy Carter (who wouldn’t, really?) and leaving him behind then, fine. He wishes he were still here but he’ll deal but he’s going to be keeping an eye out for the other guy left behind-- Steve’s new modern era best friend person. Bucky’s so gone over keeping Steve safe that he can’t even resent Sam’s presence-- he’s thrilled he exists. Someone good to look after Steve when Bucky couldn’t! Sam Wilson is heaven sent and must be protected at all costs! So frequently from some kid with webbed fingers, apparently! 

Sam, meanwhile, is challenged by the dilemma that Bucky appears to think that they’re in the same boat while Sam, who for sure had a little crush on Steve as who doesn’t, has really come to realize that he is far, far more into the tragic one here. He’s so irritated about it. It would be simpler if he just fell for another blond soldier with red, white and blue blood who couldn’t love him. At least he’d just be completely hopeless then but the brainwashed one? The one that thinks he’s horrid but is so good that he can’t even bring himself to be that jealous of Sam when he clearly thinks Sam is sleeping with the guy he’s loved for years? 

Oh, Sam’s gone on that one... 

Bucky’s still a mess then so it’s harmless enough to just pretend he’s not writing himself into touch-starved Bucky fanfic in his own mind here but when Bucky keeps saving him in different fights? When he catches him looking once or twice. When the bickering is really flirting and Sam knows he means it that way, too? When the poor guy just gets his mind back, they all reunite and go to one battle and then the two of them disappear and miss *five years* of their lives? When then, soon after, Steve is gone, too? 

When it begins to feel like *they* are now the story and meant to go through the rest of these things together? I mean, when everyone else is all on about the fate and destiny of it all-- Stark’s big sacrifice being the one way to save everyone, Doctor Strange going on about all the possibilities of the universe on a saving the world level but it so personal to the people Sam and Bucky know, Steve choosing to go back in time because he can and be with the woman he loved and never got to have... 

...standing there in the funerals and aftermaths of all of this together, by virtue of being Steve’s Friends Who Aren’t Really Part of This Gang Exactly... are Sam and Bucky. What are the odds that they are supposed to be the rest of one another’s story? Sam was wondering it. He for sure hadn’t felt like this since Riley... he might not have really ever felt it at all before. 

Can we just admit that while there’s been some guys in the past-- and it could be rephrased as ‘some people’, as while Sam is written to suggest he’s at least into men, he could be into people who don’t identify as men as well-- but there’s not been someone who has been able to love him the way he’s loved them. 

He’s from the South and Black and the show taps into the racism he’s been through as a result. Not obviously in Delacroix, where he feels safe and seen, where people care about him and don’t care that he is not straight, but in other parts. He’s been in the military, where homophobia is still pretty rampant and it’s a culture of a lot of heterosexual machismo. (Hell, the show even has a kind of walking, talking example of a guy everyone knows was the epitome of that kind of culture, even if he’s been broken by that world, too-- John Walker.) It’s not even really clear if Sam is out and, if he is, to whom. He seems to be the kind of person to want to be himself as much as possible and Sarah likely knows because they are close but I’m not so sure that a lot of Sam’s military buddies actually did. He really strikes me as the guy who gets along with everybody and whom everybody loves-- but whom few people actually *know* because he keeps himself (all of himself, not just his sexuality) private from others...

...which is also a hell of a lot like one Bucky Barnes. 

Guaranteed they became such fast friends not just from being sort of left with one another in the aftermath of Steve and their attraction but because Sam was amazed to find that Bucky was actually pretty funny and Sam just kept talking to him because while he has-- or had, anyways, before he ran off with Steve-- a ton of people he’d consider friends, he doesn’t really have anyone he’d consider to be a close friend and hasn’t since Riley. Bucky, just still stunned to be free of mind control and that there was another human being talking to him instead of looking at him as a weapon to program to kill, was eager to listen to and absolutely thrilled when he could find something sarcastic to say to make Sam laugh that surprised laugh and light up. 

These two damaged couple of guys spent most of this show and the months before it just terrified by how much love they were feeling for one another and were very happy to let any conflict they could get in the way of it-- any excuse to claim they weren’t feeling totally seen and run for the hills back into their own trauma.

It’s not just Bucky doing this. He might have been the one not returning the texts at the start, the one who seemed to be withdrawing more, while Sam was texting him still to check in on him but how quickly that began to flip around by Episode 5. 

Suddenly, the brave one is Bucky. It was Sam for the first few episodes-- he was stil trying and so hard, despite not getting what he needed in return and Bucky still sending signals that he wanted him but was happy to still revel in being too damaged and scared to try harder. By Episode 5, though? Bucky’s not only learned to trust himself again, it is proven to be what he was afraid of: not being able to protect and love Sam the way he wanted to and that Sam would leave him. Triggered by the shield as a metaphor for not caring about Bucky, not having a reason to still pursue him, Bucky thought he had successfully pushed Sam away and that Sam would really stop texting because to not do so would be to admit to one another that they wanted to be around one another and this wasn’t just about Steve/Captain America. By Episode 5, Bucky shows up in Delacroix not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but with eyes only for Sam and is every one of Sam’s favorite Bucky Barnes fantasies come to life. 

It’s now Sam flipping out. Would you have expected the Sam of the first two episodes to be a babbling mess in the face of a flirty Bucky stretching and claiming it’s time for him to go get a hotel room? To try to be playing it cool but winding up asking him to stay forever and telling him he likes his tight t-shirts in the middle there? To get so nervous that he suddenly is babbling about six toes and flirting with Sarah, showing how jealous he was of Bucky just... smiling and being this guy Steve had said was under there but that Sam had only had small glimpses of so far? If he was gone for the broken Winter Soldier... he’s wrecked by a single smile from this Bucky. 

This is the same guy who spent the first few episodes confident to a point of near-cockiness, loving flirting with and teasing Bucky, the one that seemed more well-adjusted and in control of himself. Overall, he is but there’s something there when Bucky shows up and White Wolfs Sam into a sputtering mess who is sending him little glances, as if they’ve switched bodies from the first few episodes. It shows *just how much* Sam is comfortable with Bucky and how rare it is for him because he would react differently to Bucky’s more overt flirting of Episode 5 if how he is with Bucky was his default in life. Instead, we see that some of it is posturing-- it’s the Sam equivalent of lifting heavy things and using power tools. His is the humor (what’s a better aphrodisiac than making the Winter Soldier laugh or flirt back or blush?) and the bicker-caring. We even see where it comes from, in a way. Sam is a soldier-- he knows how to help other traumatized soldiers and when we saw him in his VA group session when we met him, we saw him using that kind of machismo world and its language to communicate with the soldiers in the group. The difference for him with them versus him with Bucky is that he’s also flirting with Bucky. The buddy cop thing is intentional-- it’s Sam’s strategy, it’s been Bucky’s choice to respond to it and they’re playacting it as how they talk because it’s been easier than admitting that they are completely gone on another and just want all the soft things. 

Up until recently anyway and now Sam’s reeling from a man he’s fallen in love with showing up and loving him back. Don’t think for a second that Bucky doesn’t know enough by now to know that it’d totally undo Sam but the surprise of it to the audience only really exists if you don’t think Sam and Bucky have anything in common besides their now-gone mutual friend. In reality, they’re endgame. 

[doitwritenow]

IronStrange Starter Kit - Master Fic Rec List for all Y’all Because You’ve been Asking and I’ve been Avoiding

Hi! All you anons and askers, I made a list!!! Hopefully some of these are what you’ve been after. :D

(Please reblog this, lol, I spent too much time on it...) 

General rules: These are complete unless indicated otherwise, and end happily unless indicated otherwise. There’s a variety of ratings, as I have no qualms against smut, but I don’t usually read it outside of a larger plot. So I don’t think there’ll be many explicit stories on here. Word counts vary; I indicate general length but don’t go into specifics. What else, uh... Bold stuff is the headers and general subjects. I link the titles. Block quotes are author summaries. Enjoy!!

- 

Okay so first off, there are a couple of Fandom Staples who just have leagues worth of good short stories, and if you haven’t read them, then definitely treat yourself to the array:

A Thousand Futures of Me and You - VisionaryGalaxy (Vishanti, what a legend, ily so much). This is a series of unconnected one-shots, each their own and covering a variety of tropes and moments and themes and AUs. They’re so fun (and/or painful and/or thought-provoking and/or tense and/or sexy)! In-character and amazing, consistantly. 

Prompt Collection -  amethyst-noir (Arbonne). (Also a legendary human). This is exactly what it sounds like: a series of prompt fills in all sorts of tones. You’ll almost certainly find something here that feels like it was just made for you!

Alright, onto the individual stories and series!

Long fics/series:

The of overqualified hands and pi figures series - lantia4ever. (This was my first Ironstrange story, and it is no less magical now.)

A series of one-shots, all set in the same alternate verse in which Tony and Stephen first meet following the events of the first Avengers and then continue to meet after that throughout the canon up until Infinity War and eventually beyond it. Becoming friends - and more along the way.

Time After Time - fancylances. (I love love LOVE this one. Highly recommended.) 

Tony Stark is unstuck in time. Stephen Strange might just be the only person in the universe qualified enough to help.

Citizen Erased - Imagined. (This author. Just... such a wonderful, talented, stunning person who makes wonderful, talented, stunning works. This story is masterful.)

What do you do when no one in the world ever manages to remember you?

Anyone who sees Tony Stark promptly forgets he ever existed after mere seconds. When everyone he has ever cared about has lost their memories of him, he goes to Stephen Strange, possibly the only one who can help him lift the curse. But a terrifying danger is coming, and saving the world isn’t an easy job to do when no one can remember who you are.

if only the gods had mercy on us and it’s sequel a soul too deep - orphan_account. (Vishanti, this series...  It’s so beautiful and emotional and heart-breaking and heart-warming. And it has so few views for so many words! One of my absolute favorites, VERY highly recommended.) 

Tony Stark loved Stephen Strange. He loved him more than anyone could ever imagine. But then a terrorist group attacked the convoy. Then there was a car accident. In the middle of it all, there is tired, battered love. (And, maybe, a little bit of genius)

From the Top - lucifersfavoritechild. (Everyone reads this fic. Written by the blogger Monarch Of The Ironstrange Ship, it’s an MCU rewrite around the relationship. Very fun.) 

“Stephen, if you’re . . . there somewhere . . . when I drift off, I’ll be with you again. I can’t wait.”

|| Personally, I think the MCU would be much better as a love story between Stephen Strange and Tony Stark. Don't you?

Starting from Iron Man, and going all the way to Endgame, with all the appropriate stops in between. Let's take it from the top.

UNFINISHED: Skin Deep - Mystical_Magician. (Super cool premise, and super interesting to read! The dynamic here is very fun.)

A battle that should have finally killed Stephen instead launches him into a parallel universe. Exhausted from centuries as Sorcerer Supreme, he chooses instead to explore this new world in any animal form except human. Having hoped for peace at last, he can't stand to be looked up to, to be responsible for others, to have the world on his shoulders.

If he'd hoped to avoid excitement, however, he really should have stayed away when he noticed an enormous explosion and a falling metal suit of armor as he passed through Afghanistan.

UNFINISHED: The End of Infinity - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec. Very long, very slow-burn. Canon-compliant Endgame fix-it. I’m trying so hard, lol.)

In 2023, the battle for the universe has been won. At a cost no one can forget, the fight is over—for all but one. Stephen Strange has an idea. An impossible idea spanning dimensions and timelines, life and death, and the lines of good and evil. But he's played impossible odds before—perhaps he never stopped.

All that Loki wanted was to fight, one last time, for the fate of his universe. So when he finds himself fighting for another, crashing into the past, he has a few intended words for the wizard that forced him there. But not before he finds a boy. Or, more accurately, before the boy finds him.

Peter Parker had been waiting for the next mission. He just doesn't expect it to come from the future, armed with a ridiculous story demanding a ridiculous quest. And he doesn't expect not to be able to tell Mr. Stark.

Tony Stark is trying to rebuild from the Civil War, knowing that someday, something will come that he needs to be ready for. And he doesn't know it yet, but two universes are trying to rebuild around him, and that something is already here.

Seven Stones. Five dead. Two universes. And one impossible quest to tie it all back together.

UNFINISHED: Sunrise in Exile - Ragdoll (Keshka). (Another fandom favorite! And for good reason. This is really really good!) 

Tony does the math and realizes their best chance to save the universe is by... not confronting Thanos on his own turf.

So he steals a wizard and a spider and a space ship. And he runs.

(Three humans and an A.I in space, the alien friendships they make along the way, and discovering how science and magic might coexist in a universe where they can be one and the same.)

Shorter plotty ones: 

Out of Suffering - Mystical_Magician. (So this author??? THIS AUTHOR??? Very very good, much yes, very good.) 

Stephen Strange does not like people, but 14,000,605 lifetimes of fighting and dying alongside this small group have worn down his walls. He likes them, gods help him. He might even consider them friends. It’s really for the best that they all go their separate ways once Thanos has been defeated. In their eyes, he’s barely even an acquaintance.

Now if only Tony and Peter would stop surprising him.

moros - spookykingdomstarlight. (Almost got a spot in the angst section. Very good). 

There were fourteen million universes Stephen had birthed into existence and let die and, in far more than he cared to count, the visitor standing before him had become something… dear.

Shaking is Caring - mariadperiad20. (This is just STUNNING. Highly loved.)

5 times Stephen's hands would shake, +1 time they didn't.

It's Kinda Chalky - DestielsDestiny. (This one’s pretty short, but definitely worth it.) 

You can live an entire lifetime by looking into someone’s eyes. His sister used to say that all the time. Stephen never gave it much thought back then. These days, he can think of little else.

Something Magic - Imagined. (Beautiful!)

There is only ever one rule that matters:

do not fall in love with the enemy.

An Idiotic Theory - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec! I tried to be funny.)

His wizard has been cursed, again, and Tony's already used up his luck for the day.

(Stephen says it's not a curse. He says Tony's whole daily-allotted karma-based luck theory has minimal merit, citing the fact that Tony had come up with it while he was drunk.)

Tony really should have saved his miracle.

Love Through Time - babywarg (morphaileffect). (I love this one. It sticks with you.) 

Tony discovers an old drawing of, and finally remembers, his invisible friend Stephen from when he was a child.

Alternates - doobler. (Super cool!)

After being punked by a lowbrow magician, Stephen finds himself falling through doors to otherwordly dimensions. How will he ever get home?

132 - 28ghosts. (Soulmate AU! Very fun, incorporates Stephen’s time-loop with Dormammu.)

Ninety-nine point eight percent of humans have a soulmate mark that tells them the age their soulmate will be when they meet them. Tony Stark has a mark. It's just that his is...different than most people's.

(Or: six people who aren't Tony Stark's soulmate, and one who is.)

and when the world falls (I will fall with it) - HeavenChild. (Another multichap soulmate AU. Absolutely lovely.)

Tony will give anything to those he loves.

People will take everything he gives before leaving him in shambles.

Rhodhey, Pepper and Vision have had enough.

Or the five times Tony had his heart broken and the one time he didn't.

i saw the end of the world - JumpToConclusions. (Why has no one read this fic??? It’s so good!!! Stephen knows the future since he saw it on Titan, and things grow more complex from there.)

Tony and Strange are trying to make this work, this being remaking The Avengers. ...And maybe they'll stumble into something else along the way.

Tiresome heart, forever living and dying - Mystical_Magician. (R e a d  t h i s  p l e a s e. The mythology is so cool and the symbolism is so beautiful and the prose is so satisfying. One of my absolute faves.) 

As a fledgling crane, Stephen was too curious for his own good, and it was this curiosity that led to Eugene Strange finding and stealing away his feather robe. Trapped in human form, cruelly forged into the perfect son, not even his father's death freed him when his robe was so well hidden. He only managed to break his father's mold after breaking completely in the aftermath of his accident, and slowly gluing those broken pieces back together at Kamar-Taj, but not even magic could find what had been hidden. Enter Tony, after the defeat of Thanos.

Fluffy ones:

From The Outside - Live. (Hilarious.) 

Being a sentient life-form surrounded by humanity can be hard. Especially when said humans just can't admit their feelings for each other.

Sleeping Iron Man - Golden_Asp. (Another fun one. Perfect balance of ridiculousness with a touch of angst to make it interesting.) 

Stephen Strange stared at the Avengers on his doorstep, Tony Stark flung over Steve Rogers' shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "He touched something, didn't he?" "Yuup." or The one where Tony touches Sleeping Beauty's spindle, is put into an enchanted sleep, and everyone, even Rocket Raccoon, take their turn kissing him. But Tony only has one prince charming.

Doctor Ob(li)vious - lantia4ever. (One of my very favorites. So cute.) 

Stephen starts getting some weird looks from the Avengers, spanning across disturbed, confused and even scared all the way to curious. He dismisses it at first until weird turns into knowing.

And knowing turns into realizing...even if the scheming teenagers had to all but paint it on the walls for him to do so. Oh wait...

Applied Combinatorics in Two-Player Games - 28ghosts. (Short and fun and full of snark.)

After a battle, Tony Stark and Stephen Strange argue about games.

-

“Chess is not a solved problem.”

“Has been since ‘97, Kasparov versus Deep Blue. Kasparov, 1; Deep Blue, 2; three draws.”

“Chess is a game, not a problem.”

The Courtship of Peter Parker's Father (Figures) - flyingonfeatherlesswings. (Peter plays matchmaker! Adorable.)

Peter couldn't stand to sit by while Tony and Stephen danced around each other any longer. Something had to be done.

Speaking Eyes - Vrishchika. (Not Steve Friendly. Tony is amazing in this. And Stephen is so fantastically dramatic.)

Tony has always had expressive eyes.

The Signs of Sleep Deprivation - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Another self-rec. <3)

"Tony said to put the potato in the dishwasher, so that's what I did."

Sometimes, Avengers just show up to say hi. Sometimes, they all show up at once, and Tony makes an party out of it. Sometimes, he invites the snarky, oblivious, somewhat insecure wizard because, and Peter quotes: "everyone else is coming".

Sometimes, something needs to be done.

Show Me Your Scars (And I'll Show You Mine) - Imagined. (Adorable. Lovely. Imagined does it again.)

The worst part is that Stephen keeps tucking his hands away, just as Tony wants to hold them. He keeps hiding them, surreptitiously, no matter what they’re doing. It’s only when Tony kisses Stephen, or hugs him, that he feels the hands settle on his back, uncertain, ready to pull back within seconds.

It only makes him want to cuddle up to Stephen even more, but he backs away, not sure if it’d be welcome.

Promise? Promise. - sharonscarters. (AU, kidfic, absolutely adorable.) 

A four year old Tony Stark runs away from home and finds his Guardian Angel.

What The Doctor Ordered - wakandan_wardog. (Post CW. Kind of not Rogues friendly? So fun, makes me smile. I re-read this one a lot.)

The Rogue Avengers are called back to New York because the heavy hitters are going to be needed against Thanos. Of course, there are some truths that Steve Rogers will need to accept sooner rather than later. Tony Stark has moved on and Stephen Strange will not suffer fools lightly.

Hurt/Comforty ones:

Among The Chaos of The Stars (You're My Safe Harbour) - ShootMeDead. (Oh my vishanti. OH MY VISHANTI. So so so so SO good.) 

Stephen has always been able to hear the stars. Tony is the only one who can silence them.

each night like a white noise frequency - Phierie. (I ADORE THIS FIC. OKAY. I LOVE IT. READ IT.)

Stephen is no stranger to making hard choices. He doesn’t regret his actions on Titan, but months later they weigh on his mind heavier than ever; the cracks begin to show.

Just An Accident - CucumbersInGold. (I really like fics with Stephen’s hands and the difficulties thereabout. Idk, just one of my favorite things. This is beautiful). 

Stephen's hands act up.

Learning, Unlearning - Caaaaaaas. (More character study than anything else. Really good.)

Whatever Stephen wanted with life, life just didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

In which Stephen learns and unlearns some very important lessons.

your eyes have their silence - doctortwelfth. (Oh look it’s another scars fic. I told you I liked them.) 

Tony is gentle with Stephen’s hands even when Stephen forgets to be.

Burning Lines Into The Snow - petroltogo. (Not very Steve friendly. Short and sweet.)

Post CW: It's not just the team that's so broken they are barely able to comprehend how many parts they're missing now, how many have been ripped and twisted and torn. It's Tony as well, right down to the core, the damage so far-reaching even he doesn't know how to fix it.

And then there's Strange, who has his own way of covering the cracks.

Old Bones - CJtheWeeb. (Owch. Dumb geniuses trying to be invulnerable.)

Sometimes Stephen Strange has great days, where he was nearly pain free and his hands still enough to where he could pick up a cup of water and barely spill a drop.

Today was not one of those days.

something taken, something new - meowrails. (So in-character. The premise was a little off to me, but I’m so glad I decided to read this one. I really really like this fic.)

The ChronicConnection implement and app allows a person that lives with chronic or illness-induced pain to transfer their burden temporarily to a willing loved one.

Tony and Stephen sign up as beta testers.

Angsty ones (happy ending unless otherwise mentioned):

day one - days4daisy. (THIS IS SO GOOD OKAY IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE ON THIS LIST READ THIS).

Three days in Stark Tower. Stephen must be in bad shape if he just agreed to this.

His Merlin - babywarg (morphaileffect). (This author keeps showing up on this list because they are A LEGEND. A LEGEND I TELL YOU.) 

As a child, Tony imagined himself a Knight of the Round Table. Little did he know he would grow up to be a king. And that he would have a wizard by his side to lead him to either glory or destruction.

there is no heart for me like yours - turtle_abyss. (Soulmate AU! Wonderful. <3)

Being able to feel your soulmate - a phantom touch, a bone-deep awareness - is a divine torture. To know, but not see. To seek, but not find. To feel someone holding your hand and not be able to hold theirs.

Grace - StrangeMischief. (*cries in beautiful fic* Happy ending!)

“Pain’s an old friend.” 

Us...Me - StrangeMischief. (This will hurt you. So melancholy. Pepper and Tony live their life, and Tony remembers. Not a happy ending.) 

“I don’t believe in happily ever after.” 

One-Thousand Cranes - FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls. (Self rec, sorry. Hopeful ending.) 

After it all, a man with shaking hands makes a wish.

courtesy - deathofglitter. (Dealing with the fourteen-million futures. So good.) 

Stark looked at him like he looked at the amulet that rested on his chest like a steady promise - dutiful, a bit burdened, and trying to hold a profound lack of personal emotion whatsoever, still personal enough to protect as anyone would a precious object.

La Douleur Exquise - BananasofThorns, StrangeMischief. (More pain. Pepper and Tony, and Stephen watching and trying not to wish. Very good, no happy ending.)

The before was easy. There were fewer boxes in their minds and no chains around their hearts. There was no hurt. No tears. No dreams.

But those days were long gone.

Stigmata - babywarg (morphaileffect). (AU! Soulmates again. Very interesting, beautifully done.)

Since Stephen was little, mysterious wounds have appeared and disappeared on his body, leaving mysterious scars. His mother says it's because he's one of a Pair, and he's absorbing pain meant for someone else.

*wipes brow* PHEW! That gotta a little more in-depth than I first intended... Have fun, my MysticIron friends. Happy quarantine. 

[glimmerglanger]

out of his system - jangobi fic

ALRIGHT SO, the prompt for subobi week today is one of my squicks. BUT, I still want to post something and also I have too many ideas. This particular idea is a bit of an au I’ve been plotting for a while (thanks @mocha-bear). I don’t actually have any of the rest of it written! This is set pretty early on in it, though….

Anyway, this is Jangobi (is my first written piece of Jangobi stuff that’s more than a snippet going to be pure spice? Yes, it is.) AU where things went significantly worse for Obi-Wan during/after Bandomeer and he never got back to the Jedi. Technically an AU where things went slightly BETTER for Jango and he ends up free to do what he wants earlier than in canon after Galidraan. So, he’s working as a bounty hunter and has been for a bit. He’s….around 29 in this. 

Technically, if this had a prompt to fill, it would probably be sex work? So, warnings for Obi-Wan being in a brothel (not capable of giving full consent to anything). Not safe for wizards. BJs. Spicy. This is the F+J of subobi week, in that it is eventually going to be a 60k fic, whoops.

~~~~~~~~

Jango knew well enough he had no reason to go back to Trolk VI. As far as shitty planets on the Outer Rim went, it wasn’t particularly impressive. Most of the economy seemed generated by the fighting pits or the pleasure houses surrounding them.

Jango had little interest in either of those pursuits. 

Most of the time.

He’d visited pleasure houses before, though mostly because the places seemed to draw his bounties in the same way that a wailing, dying thing drew the attentions of a starving predator. He’d bagged more than one bounty while they were in the middle of….their business. 

His visit to a pleasure house on Trolk VI had not been such a success story. He’d ducked into the building in a rush to avoid the group that had already shot him twice - someday, he’d learn to stop walking into ambushes - and he’d barged into one of the rooms for the same reason.

His plan had been to hide somewhere, or go out the window again. But his pursuers had been close and there’d been someone on the bed already, stirring around in a loose, gossamer gown, and he’d thought, ragged-edged, that the people after him had no idea what he looked like, out of his armor.

His pursuers had apologized, moments later, when they opened the door to find him on the bed, stretched - miming the act of a good, hard fuck - over it’s first occupant, one of his hands over the kid’s mouth, just in case he got any bright ideas about screaming, even as dark spots had swam all across Jango’s vision.

He’d managed to avoid passing out until after the door shut again. 

It had been a shock when he woke up again. Even more of a shock to realize that the whore had bandaged his wounds, neatly, and even applied bacta. He’d been a pretty thing, Jango had registered, but most whores were, and Jango hadn’t had the time to consider it. He’d left, dropping some extra credits on the bed, and never planned to think about Trolk VI again.

And he didn’t, really.

But he did find himself thinking about the whore, his copper-red hair and wide, surprised eyes, and the unusually thick and battered collar around his neck. His thoughts kept spiralling around to the boy - over and over - and distraction wasn’t something he could afford. Not in his line of work. Not in his life.

Obviously, he’d needed to get his fixation out of his system. And so he ended up back on Trolk VI, in the pleasure district. He walked into the house through the front door, sneering at the proprietor behind his mask, half-sure that the woman wouldn’t know who he was talking about - he hadn’t gotten the whore’s name, after all.

But they must not have had many other male humanoids with reddish hair to choose from. She tittered happily enough, told him he’d made a good choice by selecting Ben - evidently the boy’s name - and waved a hand to have him led up the stairs.

The house was well-off. HIgh-end. It didn’t stink of sweat or sex; instead some care seeemd to have been taken to ensure it was all pleasant scents, soft music, dim lights. Jango ignored the droid’s request for a tip when he was delivered to a door he remembered.

He stepped into the room quietly. Nothing had really changed, he noted. A bed predominated the room, covered in soft fabrics. There was a bench along one wall, a chair. Hooks, here and there, on the walls and ceiling. He could imagine a use for each.

And each use was connected to the only other figure in the room - the boy, Ben - sitting on the side of the bed, a container of bacta open by his hip, a gossamer robe slid off of one shoulder, revealing an array of fading marks, skin shiny from the bacta application. 

He blinked over at Jango right away, eyes stunningly blue, his hair a tangle around his jaw - like someone had been playing with it - and his mouth reddened. His drooping robe did almost nothing to hide his shoulders and chest - there were marks there, too - or the traces of a flush over his throat.

Jango looked at him and felt a kick in his gut, almost shocking.

He couldn’t recall, really, the last time he’d felt directed desire.

He’d begun to think he just wouldn’t, ever again.

Ben recovered first, which was a lurching shock, and tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing just a little. He asked, his voice all wrong for a brothel in the Outer Rim - Jango heard that accent on his clients from the Core, and nowhere else, “Should I expect armed men to burst in after you, again?”

There was something satisfying to being recognized so quickly, but, then, he was sure he’d made an impression, last time. Jango shook himself, snorting, and said, “Not this time. Disappointed?”

Ben’s mouth quirked, just a little. He wasn’t….acting in quite the way Jango expected from a whore. Certainly there was no fawning about as he dipped his fingers once more into the bacta, spread a line of it across his shoulder, and asked, “Only a little. And you recovered?”

Jango remembered, clearly, blinking his way to consciousness with his head in Ben’s lap, the boy trailing gentle fingers over his brow, murmuring some strange lullaby that had seemed familiar from somewhere and--

He shook the thoughts away, taking a step forward as the boy closed the bacta jar and stood, carrying it across the room. “I’m well enough,” he said, looking at the fading marks across the boy’s back.

There were reddened marks, fading, long and straight. He recognized lashes, when he saw them. There were other imprints, on his shoulders and arms, fingerprints, perhaps, and the shape of a mouth, here and there.

And below those marks there was scar tissue, old and ragged. Uglier than he’d have expected on a pleasure slave. Especially one so lovely as this boy, who had to be worth more undamaged. Taken with the heavy, ugly collar around his neck - something Jango hadn’t seen on any of the brothel’s other….employees - it was leaving him with multiple questions.

He crossed the room while Ben arranged the bacta, apparently unconcerned, even when Jango touched one of the marks, with just one finger. “Better than you,” he added, and the boy looked over his shoulder, robe sliding a little further down his back.

“Apologies,” he said, “sometimes the bacta takes a while to work.”

Jango frowned, shaking himself again. He hadn’t come here to chit-chat with a whore. He’d come here to - to burn away his fascination with this boy, before it distracted him any further. Considering the sight of his glove on Ben’s skin wasn’t helping with that. It didn’t matter that, for whatever reason, he didn’t like the marks.

It had been a long time since he fucked anyone at all. That was all. Years, he thought.

His body had, obviously, had enough of waiting, and his head had fixated on Ben, because he’d been warm and pliant, when Jango stretched over him, because he had a red mouth and clear eyes, and legs a parsec long. He’d fuck the boy, get it out of his system, and move on.

Decided, he took a step back, and snapped, lifting his helmet off, “Do you waste so much time with all your clients?”

“No,” Ben said, agreeably, meeting his gaze evenly. “I’m very adaptable.”

Jango wondered, sudden and dark, just how adaptable he was. He said, voice getting thicker, “Help me with this.”

“Of course.” Ben had long, clever fingers, Jango noted, removing his armor quickly and steadily, setting each piece aside carefully. He was tall, too, all stunningly long legs and with a hint of coltishness still about him, not fully grown into his shoulders. 

It felt...strange, to be out of his armor in front of someone else. But Ben had seen it all, already. He’d seen Jango bleeding out, and had decided, for whatever reason, to patch him up instead of leaving him to die and stealing the armor and the rest of Jango’s credits.

The beskar alone would have been enough to buy out whatever price the boy’s owners wanted for him, unless the boy was something really special. 

It made no kriffing sense that Ben had kept him alive. People didn’t do that, didn’t just - help, for no reason at all. Especially not when it would serve them better to do otherwise. Jango caught Ben’s wrists, when he reached for the closures at Jango’s belt, and said, roughly, “You could have killed me, before.”

Ben looked over at him, down, just a bit. He didn’t slouch, made no effort to make himself look smaller, which--Jango realized he quite liked. “Kill you?” Ben asked, tilting his head to the side. “Why would I kill you? I don’t even know your name.”

“Is that a prerequisite?” Jango asked, and realized, with another hot lurch in his gut, that he wanted to hear the boy say his name. Maybe scream it, a few times.

Ben shrugged. He said, dry, “It seems a bare minimum to know, before killing someone. Don’t you think?” 

“You’ve got a mouth on you,” Jango said, and heard the appreciation in his own voice, unplanned, just...blossoming there. Alarming. He was supposed to be here to fuck this boy, to get rid of the thoughts that had plagued him. It was past time he made some progress in that direction. He released Ben’s wrists, handled his belt on his own, and said, “Maybe you should make better use of it.”

“As you wish,” Ben said. He raised an eyebrow at Jango and kept eye contact as he sank down to his knees, lovely and with that wisp of a robe still around him, half-obscuring his body before he hesitated and….shrugged it off, letting it pool around his legs.

He was lovely as Jango remembered; lovelier, perhaps, without Jango’s blood smeared across his skin. Jango bit his tongue, reached out, and fisted a hand in the boy’s hair, Ben still looking up at him, and said, “I expect to be impressed.”

Ben’s mouth curved, sharp, just for a moment as Jango jerked his slacks open with his free hand, just enough to pull his cock out and he didn’t know exactly when he’d gotten so hard. Maybe as soon as he’d stepped into the room.

“I aim to please,” Ben said, and before Jango could make a reply, the boy pulled forward just a bit against the hold in his hair, and licked across the head of Jango’s cock, and--

And it had been a long time since anything touched him but his own hand. He hadn’t even wanted to fuck his fist, for an age. He’d been….not content, really, but willing to just ignore erections until they went away.

He swore, tightening his grip and rocking his hips, sliding his cock into the hot, wet perfection of Ben’s mouth. The boy kept his eyes upturned, staring while Jango watched his cock slide past reddened lips, draw back again all wet and slick. And it was -- perfect.

Jango’s jaw clenched shut, hard, and he slid his other hand into Ben’s hair, too, the waves of it catching at his gloves - he hadn’t gotten as far as removing them - as he held the boy’s head just so, fucking into his mouth.

He could feel Ben’s tongue, rolling against the bottom of his cock, and the boy sucked, noisily, in time with each shallow thrust, loud, his mouth and cheeks getting wet, even before Jango swore and anchored him in place, pushing further.

Ben’s eyes fluttered, when Jango properly fucked into his mouth, into his throat. He felt the boy restrain a choke, watched his eyes get shiny and wet, cheeks getting blotchy with red, the color spreading each time Jango shoved forward, his breath hitching and wet, and still, he kept his eyes open, staring up and--

Jango blinked and jerked his head to the side, swearing viciously when he came, knowing, with a strange, twisting feeling, that he was never going to forget those blue eyes just watching him, the entire time. 

He ground his hips forward and then pulled on Ben’s hair, dragging him back and off.

The boy gasped for breath, audibly gulping at the air, and Jango dared a look back at him, kneeling there on the floor, mouth and jaw wet with spit, mouth brilliant red, breathing so hard his whole body shook with it, one of his hands braced on the ground, apparently for balance, even as he glanced up and asked, his voice wrecked and hoarse, “Impressed?”

“I’m getting there,” Jango rasped back, taking his fingers out of the boy’s hair. He had - at least - another hour of time. He found he very much wanted to use it. Perhaps even extend the arrangement. He’d had a few very good jobs. He could afford an entire night, easily. He exhaled, want curling down his spine, and ordered, “Go on, onto the bed. I want between your legs again. Properly, this time.”

[sylleblosscm]

Friends, it’s very late where I am, but there’s something I gotta say my piece about. It’s not relevant to ~all this~, but it is deeply concerning to me, and if I can get ahead of even just one person taking onboard misinformation, then good. 

 There’s a news article I’ve seen floating around a few times now, about a man who was denied a heart transplant for refusing to get the covid vaccine. From someone who has been through the transplant process (for my kidney - three years strong, yo) and open-heart surgery, I feel uniquely qualified to point out how this article being used as antivax propaganda is mega bullshit. 

 Here’s the thing friends, contrary to popular opinion, organs are not allocated on a first come, first served basis. There’s no “taking turns” here. That’s why some people are on the list for years, and some, only weeks. As it was explained to me, when an organ is ready for transplantation, an algorithm sorts through candidates to find a potential match who will suit it based on blood typing, tissue typing, etc., then a human must choose the most viable patient based on a number of factors. From the conversations I have had with professionals, it’s a gruelling and at times callous field of medicine, but by necessity. Nobody is taking pleasure in denying anybody a life-saving transplant. There simply aren’t enough to go around - therefore, the organ must be matched with the person who will likely get the most out of it. A “greater of two goods” sort of thing.

 One such criteria that patient are assessed on is their health, organ failure notwithstanding. The fact of the matter is: vaccination was already a requirement for transplantation. I cannot stress that enough. You must, must, must be up-to-date with all your vaccines to even be considered. Your weight, lifestyle, and smoking habits will also be taken into account. This is not to discriminate against anyone, but once again, to give the organ the best chance at longevity. It’s harsh, but there’s no point in giving someone a whole entire heart that might last 20 years, if they’re going to die from a vaccine-preventable illness in six months. Furthermore, doctors kind of want anyone in the best possible condition before undergoing major surgery. Something as huge as opening up someone’s actual beating heart comes with all kinds of risks. It is any medical team’s duty of care to minimise those risks as much as possible, but as the patient, you gotta look out for your own health too, dude. It sucks, but you know what sucks harder? Dying from organ failure.

 Along that vein, another major factor is patient compliance. Transplant recipients are put on an array of medications, namely: immunosuppressants to stop the body rejecting the new organ, and other stuff to offset the side effects of those immunosuppressants. Even one or two missed doses can spell disaster, so you really need to be diligent. On top of that, the immediate followup after a transplant is f u c k i n g  b r u t a l, especially from someone who’s just undergone such a major surgery. From there, it’s regular checkups, blood tests, scans, and all manner of poking and prodding. And that’s not even going into the lifestyle changes. In short: if you’re about to kick up a stink over one needle, how are you going to cope with such a demanding mecial regime? How can your doctor trust you’ll trust them in the future? Arguing with medical professionals is the worst way to prove you’re a viable candidate for tranplantation. I know medical gaslighting is a thing, I’ve experienced it myself - but by and large, these people know what they’re doing, they do it every day, and you always have the right to a second opinion. And a third, if need be. But when your whole team is telling you, “get a needle and we can save your life”. Get your ass of nazi twitter and do it.

 And finally, just to reiterate: the field of organ transplantation is wonderful, and it’s brutal. There’s just not enough to go around, and so much misinformation out there to combat. If you haven’t, and you’re able, please consider signing up to donate once you pass. 

 Tl;dr: it’s not a culture war thing, it’s literally always been this way. 

[tanoraqui]

Grave dirt baby... 🥺✨

me, procrastinating my actual fic? no... GRAVE DIRT BABY A-YUAN

HEY TUMBLR FUCKED UP ALL MY BULLET POINTS ON THIS THE SECOND I HIT POST BUT IT’S 4AM SO I’M LEAVING IT UP ANYWAY. STUPID GODDAMN WEBSITE.

Wei Wuxian has been in the Burial Mounds for like 2.5 months out of what he doesn’t yet know will be about 3. He’s not even sure he’s going to survive yet. But he has managed to manifest an evil sword - the evil sword - out of the aether/ambient resentful energy/an attunement set with an unwise touch in the belly of an evil turtle

and he does know that he’s not going to survive if he doesn’t get the power of the Burial Mounds under some sort of control

so he cuts his arm and with blood running down the blade, draws something adjacent to the first demon-summoning flag but as an array in the dirt. He stands in the middle and - keep in mind that he more or less hasn’t slept in 2.5 months - plunges the sword into the center, still coated in his blood, and draws in all the resentful energy of the Burial Mounds

was it supposed to go into the sword? Into himself? Into just the single 4ft diameter array area, a column of bound death? who knows, not Wei Wuxian! it’s pure gut instinct

u know what else works on gut instinct, thought? Fairy tales.

And in a fairy tale, why, clay of the earth plus iron enough for a blade plus still-warm blood to show the way...

There’s an implosion and Wei Wuxian is standing - somehow still standing - in a small crater where the array used to be, and his evil sword is plunged into the belly of a baby

He yanks it out in horrified reflex, and realizes a moment later that the baby seems unfazed by this. If there was even a wound, it closes before his eyes, and the glimpse he had showed something more bloody clay than flesh beneath the skin

the iron sword crumbles as he pulls it away, as though rusted a thousand years. the baby turns its head from the iron shavings that falls on it, but then reaches up for Wei Wuxian with a cheerfully demanding cry

he picks it up, of course. (he’d think he was hallucinating if he wasn’t absolutely and utterly aware that he’s not)

it is, as far as he can tell, with physical and spiritual resentful inspection, an absolutely normal baby

oh, except when he looks really closely. Then he can sense the neutron star–dense knot of resentful energy where a golden core might (but will definitely not have room to) form. Also, it can command the dead, and when he holds it, so can he. He’s not sure if it’s a proximity-based power share or if he’s passing his desires through the baby, but even Wei Wuxian, at about 3 months with no food save the rage of the dead and no rest save the promise of final release, has to stop investigating at some point. He has things to do!

specifically, he has Wens to kill

so instead of the iconic shot of the dark flautist in the moonlight, we get the dark, uh...man singing a very spooky lullaby to his baby in the moonlight. It is still deeply creepy. It’s a making-it-up-as-he-goes tune based on a Yunmengi lullaby that he certainly learned from neither of his foster parents, and the lyrics are along the lines of, “let them remember what they did, sweet little potato, let them remember why they’re dying”

yeah he’s been calling this child “Little Potato” for 2 weeks 

why

is that not how you name a child

sometimes when he’s more annoyed at it, he calls it “Little Radish”, or even less appetizing root vegetables

by the time he walks in, the baby is asleep in his arms and he’s not singing anymore, just letting the dead do his will. This is what Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji see. The subsequent conversation, Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu at their feet, goes like this:

LWJ: Wei Ying. You have a baby.

WWX: Oh, uh...

PLAY DUMB!

WWX: What baby?

NOT THAT DUMB!

WWX: Oh, this baby! Haha yeah. I...found it.

JC: What the fuck

WWX: Yeah, weird, right? Right near the, uh...

LWJ: They said you were in the Burial Mounds

WWX: Yyyyup. Yes that is. I found this baby by the side of the road after I walked out of the Burial Mounds.

JC, briefly too morbidly fascinated to think about either the demonic cultivation they just watched or the fact that he wants to hug his brother like he’s never wanted to hug another being in his life: What did you name it?

WWX: ....

JC, desire to hug intensifying together with exasperation: oh my god

Sometime in the next couple days - after sleeping a bit, maybe - it occurs to Wei Wuxian that his raw instincts were right and things will go very badly for little A-Yuan (his siblings insisted he name it) if anyone finds out that he’s a not-yet-walking, not-yet-talking little neuron star of resentful energy. So he takes the iron shavings that are all that remain of the Stygian Turtle Sword and forges them into a Tiger-shaped Seal. He also carves a bamboo flute, like he’d been thinking about before the whole...baby thing. He loudly proclaims both to be dark and terrible weapons

(it really is helpful. The sword was...kind of A-Yuan’s other parent, after all, in addition to their third partner, the Burial Mounds. Chenqing gives him finer control of whatever stray resentful energy he chooses to pick up, and the Stygian Seal lets him channel A-Yuan’s power at need, even when not touching him. Which is good - a battlefield is no place for a baby)

even if that baby thinks ghosts and ghouls exist to pick him up and rock him or toss him around (babies like to be tossed)

Wei Wuxian puts so many goddamn spirit-repelling charms on that child, and lets it be marked down to the paranoia of a survivor

using whatever resentful energy he picks up is generally more effective, actually. Less strong, but it quickly becomes clear that the way this works does, in fact, involve Wei Wuxian communicating his desires through A-Yuan, or at least A-Yuan has to put up with the loan of power. There’s nothing quite like abruptly losing control of a field of corpses because the baby got abruptly uncooperative with anything that wasn’t barfing

the baby does eat, for the record. As far as Wei Wuxian can tell, he doesn’t actually need to, but once WWX fed him once, when they first left the Mounds, he wanted it all the time

he still takes A-Yuan with him when he can. That is the paranoia of a survivor. A-Yuan is...

“A battlefield is no place for a baby, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli says gently, as he sets out from Carp Tower after another stolen visit, another failed attempt to convince Jin Guangshan off his ass. “And you are...so busy. LanlingJin takes in orphans, you know...”

“A-Yuan...he’s my blood,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. He’s never been good at lying to his shijie

Whatwherewhenhowwho, he’d see on her face if he was looking at it. But he isn’t. It’s not shame, though, she can see (it really never is, with Wei Wuxian). Fear of disappointing her, slight resignation...but mostly acceptance. Determination. Something almost like contentment.

(When Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangj first took him back to whatever resembled a base camp - somewhere in Qinghe, probably, or maybe Lanling - he had to let a trained healer look at A-Yuan, physical and spiritual examination, and he held his breath and calculated how many people he’d have to kill to get out of here, how fast he’d have to move to not hurt his brother or any particular friends; thought, oh, he’s mine, in a way he hadn’t before - as a child, a son, not just a very strange weapon - 

“He’s quite healthy,” said the doctor, mildly surprised, bouncing A-Yuan on one knee. A-Yuan gurgled happily. “About three months old?”

the longer Wei Wuxian took to answer, the more disapproving her stare got. But that did make sense)

Then all else can be dealt with later. “You should still leave him here,” Jiang Yanli says firmly. “You need to look after yourself and A-Cheng out there. I can look after A-Yuan.”

It takes a bit under two years to win back the lost and burnt territories, scour the Wens out of every crevice, corner Wen Ruohan in his precious Nightless City and bring it tumbling down. Nobody will know the timing but A-Yuan sleeps through the final battle, smiling at dreams that would make a grown man weep in horror. Somewhere, his father is playing a lullaby

About a week later, Jiang Cheng stalks into Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, which he shares with A-Yuan. One of the first rooms rebuilt in the new Lotus Pier. A-Yuan is there, too, playing with blocks while Wei Wuxian idly drafts talismans

“A-jie said the kid is yours,” he says, crossed arms. “Like, yours-yours. When the fuck did you do that?”

(Wei Wuxian has thought about this, by now; gone over the pros and cons of every possibility, the politics and potentials and maybe even the giddy possibility of telling something like the truth)

(the guiding principle is: he has no interest in drawing on the “Stygian Tiger Seal” ever again. The Sunshot Campaign is over. His loved ones are safe, and he sees no reason why they shouldn’t all live long, happy, normal lives)

(also/though, he will burn Jin Sect, Carp Tower, and all of Lanling to the ground before the new Chief Cultivator should touch his son)

“In Caiyi,” he lies. “Right before I got kicked out. I, uh, snuck out a lot more often than you noticed.”

His brother squints at him suspiciously. But Wei Wuxian can also watch him do the math in his head and reluctantly admit that it works.

“So are you claiming him or what?” he challenges. “’Wei Yuan’? You have a courtesy name - wait, no, you are not naming that kid again. You’re going to make his courtesy name be Carrothead or something.” 

“Should I let you pick it, oh wise and noble shidi - no, shushu?!” Wei Wuxian teases, as A-Yuan gets tired of his blocks and starts climbing up him like a jungle gym

Jiang Cheng sighs like the north wind - gusting long and hard, with just the faintest chill to suggest that the skies will be weeping, soon

But...

Despite some evidence to the contrary, Wei Wuxian is generally fully aware of when he’s about to cross a line that cannot be backtracked over. So he meets Wen Qing in the city, and before going to Lanling, he nips into Lotus Pier and picks up A-Yuan

He might leave A-Yuan with Wen Qing in the city when he goes to Glamour Hall, but Qiongqi Pass happens with a toddler watching silently from Wei Wuxian’s hip. Does Wei Wuxian tell him to look away, bury his face in baba’s shirt, or does he not bother, knowing the sort of song that makes up A-Yuan’s sweet dreams?

The Wens become the second through 51st or so people who learn what A-Yuan is. Wei Wuxian briefly considers trying to hide it, but, honestly, there are dead things everywhere on the Burial Mounds, and despite his genuine efforts, he cannot convince A-Yuan that a fierce corpse is anything but the ideal patty-cake companion. (They’ll play with him for hours! It’s a two-nearly-three-year-old’s dream!)

(he doesn’t want to convince him, not really. The last thing he wants to do ever is give A-Yuan anything to be scared of)

nor could he possibly wish that A-Yuan not be...obviously hale and hearty, running rosy-cheeked and strong around these hills of death that slowly seep the energy from any humans, animals, or even sturdy root crops

“So, uh, this is actually my demon baby,” said Wei Wuxian as they all settled in

“this day has been so weird already, this might as well goddamn happen”, said the Wens collectively

“You created a living child out of dead earth, so I’m going to take that as a yes that you can bring my brother back,” said Wen Qing specifically

“...fuck. I mean, yes. I mean - fuck,” said Wei Wuxian. “I- of course I will.”

(it doesn’t work like that, though)

The 52nd person to find out what A-Yuan is is Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian very much does not tell him. They have a pleasant toy-shopping trip and lunch in town, and then the alarm talisman goes off and Wei Wuxian grabs A-Yuan and Lan Wangji tugs them both onto Bichen and when they arrive, Wen Ning is roaring. Lan Wangji knows what’s important; he takes A-Yuan so Wei Wuxian’s hands are free and he doesn’t have to worry about his son

except Wen Ning, black-eyed with rage, throws Wei Wuxian into a tree hard enough to crack a rib, and even as Lan Wangji raises Bichen, A-Yuan shouts,

“Uncle Ning, stop!”

and Wen Ning stops

(as a rule, Wei Wuxian can’t take over with himself and Chenqing anything A-Yuan is controlling, unless A-Yuan lets him, and vice versa. To eliminate variables, Wei Wuxian had made sure that any reins on Wen Ning were his (Wei Wuxian’s) alone. But in that moment, before Wen Ning came fully back to himself, his reins were swinging free - and they were back within the bounds of the Burial Mounds, where A-Yuan was always strong)

and Lan Wangji puts several pieces together at once and prays to every single god in heaven and every ancestor he’s disappointing right now that this was a miracle of love and a very cute child piercing through a fierce corpse’s mindless rampage. That he simply...hallucinated the burst of resentful energy he just felt from the child in his arms

but he’s absolutely, utterly aware that he didn’t

Wei Wuxian explains, stilted and awkward at the bottom of the hill. Challenging and terrified. Holding on to A-Yuan. 

Lan Wangji promises to keep the secret. 

Wei Wuxian takes Hanguang-jun’s word

Remember, oh, remember, that Wei Wuxian walks A-Yuan back up the hill until A-Yuan gets tired and Wei Wuxian picks him up, on their one-and-a-half–man plank bridge through the dark. Remember remember remember that before he can finish speaking that line, there is light - the clearing is lit with lanterns and secret-keepers 2 through 51, and I suppose 53 now that Wen Ning is awake, are waiting with dinner and warmth and welcome. Reader, remember this.

But then...

Aunt Qing and Uncle Ning had gone, and then, with a terrible expression on his face, so had A-Yuan’s baba. Now his baba’s anger and sadness is so strong that the weight of it makes A-Yuan cry from hundreds of miles away, and he curls into Granny’s arms and sends his baba everything he can. Will everything be okay, then? Will everyone come home; will they be able to smile again?

(oh, A-Yuan...)

(No.)

A-Yuan - Wei Yuan, Little Potato (when he’s good for baba or bad for Aunt Qing) or Little Radish (inverse); one day to be Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui - was born in the good old fairy tale way of earth and iron and blood. It’s a hard thing for any child to lose even a single parent - in one day, in one minute, A-Yuan loses two of three, as the father of his blood burns away in hand the last shreds of Stygian iron, and promptly loses control of his own resentful energy

(the Tiger Seal does nothing like explode, in this world. It was never more than a prop - but a vital one. the benefit of proving it destroyed would be worth the loss of a parent, if only a second didn’t follow on its heels)

A-Yuan has been a dead thing (or close enough) come to life all his life, and both dead and living have been his friends and family. But he’s never felt the transition the other way: from life to death

It’s no wonder, really, that he can’t remember it afterward. No wonder that even on the land that was the last part of him, he was feverish and barely conscious when Lan Wangji stumbled, bleeding, off of Bichen, and took in his arms. No wonder that he remembered very little at all, including the dead. 

But he would be okay. Under physical and spiritual inspection, he’s a perfectly normal boy. He may not be able to form a golden core (there's something in the way), but there are...workarounds. He’ll grow up in one of the most heavily spiritually warded enclaves in the world, safe and loved as he relearns (mostly in secret) what he can do

(For the sake of this story, and A-Yuan’s survival as something close to canon, let’s say there are some truly dark things in the forbidden section of the Lan Library, that could only be used for nefarious purposes - though, I suppose we already knew that. Let’s say there are talismans that will disguise the very nature of qi, so resentful energy may appear spiritual. Let’s say, Lan Xichen becomes the 53rd to know the truth, because his brother needs help - and it’s Wei Wuxian’s child, okay? It’s just Wei Wuxian’s child, quiet and unsure rather than laughing as he always was. If you were in the inner circle of leaders of the Sunshot Campaign, you have absolutely met this child, probably held him and bounced him on one knee)

(What keeps Lan Xichen up at night isn’t the concealing amulet he helped his brother make, which Lan Yuan wears at all times around his neck. It’s the silence he keeps every time he meets Jiang Wanyin’s eyes over a diplomatic table. If anyone had the right to know Wei Yuan survived... But Sandu Sengshou killed Wei Wuxian, everyone knows that, and now he hunts demonic cultivators - what might his pride drive him to do to his nephew, if he ever learned the truth? (Selfishly, Lan Xichen know that if Lan Wangji lost A-Yuan, even just to living at Lotus Pier, Lan Xichen might lose his brother. That fear ebbs with time passing, but the the longer he hasn’t spoken, the worse it would be to do so...))

They don’t restrict Lan Yuan to the Cloud Recesses, no more than any other novice. For memory of their mother, neither of them could bear that. Jiang Cheng does eventually see him at a conference, and stops dead. Years have passed, but that is an entire goddamn nephew, right there. But - how? No, it can’t be. That’s...everyone knows Lan Wangji hated Wei Wuxian. It’s just...and someone would have told him. The Lans value propriety above all, after all.

Anything that can be done with spiritual cultivation can be done with demonic cultivation, save heal. Lan Sizhui makes up for it with an encyclopedic knowledge of undead and monsters, and a prodigal talent for Inquiry

On their first night hunt, the young juniors face ghosts. Unfortunately, this is when Lan Jingyi learns that he’s terrified of ghosts. He’s hiding behind Lan Sizhui and panic is contagious, and the senior accompanying them is in a different room of the abandoned house, and Lan Sizhui forgets that he’s holding a sword and just shouts, “Stop! Go away!” 

the ghost, of course, obeys

Lan Jingyi peeks out form behind him. “Did- did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Sizhui admits (except that he’s absolutely sure he did)

There’s another flicker of movement, just the wind blowing ashes but Jingyi whips around with wild eyes. “Can you do it again?”

[friendship. my point is, he’s a demon baby but he has family and friends who love and accept him.]

And one day, some absolute fucking morons are going to bring him back home, where he can never be anything but strong, and threaten his friends and family? And the threat is an army of his old playmates, commanded by an attempt at recreating some combination of Chenqing and the Tiger Seal? He couldn’t manage it in Yi City, but now A-Yuan, Wei Yuan, Lan Sizhui stands on earth that has never stopped being part of him, or maybe he’s never stopped being part of it. If he closed his eyes he could feel every foot on it, living and restless dead. And they’re threatening his baba - who he remembers, as the earth remembers its old partner, even though the blood is changed - and his father Hanguang-jun, and his extended family and friends?

No.

[anoutlandishfanfic]

Metamorphosis Chapter 25: In the Womb of the Earth.

*waves at all y’all collectively* I CAME BACK LIKE I SAID I WOULD!!!

So, I started this chapter way back in November/December (read: after the previous chapter posted) and then everything fell apart. My health took a nosedive (I’m having surgery day after tomorrow) and I was literally focused on getting thru the day and surviving work and my brain couldn’t function on the level I needed it to to write this chapter. Things have gotten a little better (soon to be a LOT better) and I managed to crank this one out!

Special thanks to @thefraserwitch for the constant stream of texts that inspired a whole heckuva lot and to @diversemediums for being the confirming POST IT voice that I seem to always need in my life. Y’all rock.

BUT ANYWAY HERES THE DEETS

The Premise: What if Claire had conceived on her wedding night to Jamie?

You can find the previous chapter here (Part One / Part Two) if you need to catch up (I wouldn’t blame you). You can also find the master list of the whole fic here on Tumblr or its also current on AO3.

___________________________________________

February 20th, 1744; The Abbey, Scotland.

“I’m fine,” I glared at Jamie and pointed to our chamber’s door for good measure, insisting, “Go.”

He made no move to do so, his auburn brows bunched together in concern instead as he observed, “Ye’re lookin’ a bit green aboot the gills, Sassenach.”

“I’m just tired,” I hedged.

It certainly wasn’t a lie.

We’d sail with the next morning’s tide and the knowledge had everyone on edge. No one had slept well the night before, nor had anyone high hopes of the day passing quickly. Time seemed to stretch on forever now that the end was in sight and my husband’s nervous presence — though well intended — was becoming insufferable.

“Can I help ye back into bed, a’ least?” he offered. “Do ye think you could sleep a wee bit?”

I contemplated this, then turned my gaze to my usual chair by the fire. It was a worn out sort — overstuffed to the point that it made reclining bliss — with a low footstool to accommodate my swollen ankles.

Did I want to lay down completely… or just sit a while?

A wave of bone-aching fatigue washed over me, but my brain rattled off all the things that still needed to be done before we left.

How many more linens would Brother Erastus let me turn into nappies?

Brother Nathaniel said he’d see to the food stores for the journey, but I wanted to inspect them yet today… so I’d have time to repack should I need to.

Come to that, were our things packed?

I winced, knowing I’d think of a dozen more things my weary mind had forgotten once I got started.

Maybe I would just sit a bit.

A decidedly Scottish noise broke into my thoughts as a warm hand slipped around mine, gently leading me towards the edge of the bed.

I opened my mouth to protest but stopped as he eased me onto the soft mattress, swinging my feet up and helping me roll onto my left side. I grabbed for all the available pillows — gleefully seizing Jamie’s — and was soon completely ensconced.

Bloody hell, this feels amazing.

I heard a rumble of laughter from above me and lifted my face for a kiss, Jamie happily obliging.

“Sleep well, my hen,” he crooned, his thumb gently stroking my cheek as his lips hovered just above mine.

I realized that I really must look something like a mother hen tucked up in her nest and a slow smile spread across my face as I kissed him again.

“I willna be gone long,” he assured me a moment later when we came up for air. “Jus’ to see Murtagh about the carriage, aye?”

“Take your time… I’m not going anywhere.”

…

Jerking awake to the sound of the door bouncing off the wall, I caught a rather undignified squeal of alarm just before it left my lips as I was yanked from a deep, numbing sleep and thrust unceremoniously into the land of the living.

I lifted my head from the pillow and discovered I was no longer alone in the room, but now in the middle of a veritable bear pit. Loud, male declarations of Herself’s safe arrival and that there’d been nae trouble aboot the matter at all only muddied the waters as I blinked groggily, hastily looking for my husband amid the array of kilts and breeks.

“Aye, place it there,” came his voice, followed by a muffled thud as they did so, and I dropped my head back down onto the pillow.

He was here. He obviously had things — whatever the hell they may be — well in hand. If I were needed, he certainly knew where to find me.

My hand slid up between the sheets and I lifted it to my face, rubbing my heavy eyes as I tried to place what on earth they could be talking about. Why they couldn’t use proper nouns in this godforsaken country like any other civilized people was beyond me.

The movement accomplished nothing except to wake the rest of my body up, settling a dull, pulsating throb in the depths of my skull and my hip to aching with such a veracity that I could have sworn my fall in the Theive’s Hole had been yesterday, not four months ago.

“Jamie?” I called and the room fell instantly silent as they all quite suddenly remembered my presence.

My voice had sounded pitiful, even to my own ears, but I didn’t care. I needed him to explain what the hell was going on and get the rest of these men out of my room… and he’d better do it quick.

“Och, I’m sorry to be wakin’ ye, lass!” Willie’s voice was the first to profess from somewhere at the back of the crowd, “Tis only tha’ we thought ye’d be wantin’ to ken wha—“

But Jamie immediately pushed through the throng and succinctly cut him off, his face drawn with concern as he nearly threw himself onto the floor at the side of the bed. I reached for him and he bent over me, kissing my brow softly as he apologized profusely, “Christ, I’m sorry, lass!”

My abject confusion over the situation must have been evident, for he continued on without letting me speak.

“Lady Drummohr sends you her good wishes, mo nighean donn… She says she hopes she’ll see you at dinner but understands if you dinna feel up to it… Says she remembers bein’ this far wi’ her own bairns an’ wouldna blame ye if he didna leave yer chamber this evenin’... I’ll give her your thanks, aye?”

I shook my head, dismissing both the notion that I was so feeble that couldn't leave my room and the cancellation of the opportunity to see a real, bonafide mother in the flesh for the first time since arriving at the abbey ten weeks ago.

“What is that?” I scowled vaguely in Murtagh’s direction, where a good sized trunk lay at the man’s feet. He stood beside Jamie with the barest hint of a smile beneath his heavy beard and I knew something was up.

I may have a name to go with the who but I still hadn’t the foggiest idea of the what.

“Aye, tis from the Lady,” Jamie continued, his face brightening with excitement. “She said she didna ken how much you were able to take awa’ with you, so she brought some things you may be needin’ for yourself an’ the bairns.”

“Oh, Jamie…”

All of the air left my lungs in a mighty whoosh as everything came rushing back to me.

We would, indeed, be sailing to France, but first we would have to successfully make it aboard the ship.

There were at least half a dozen of His Majesty’s finest dragoons stationed in the village just outside the abbey and positioned at strategic points between here and the harbor. We would need to fool every single one of them… and Dougal had found a perfect cover for us in one Lady Margaret Grant of Drummohr. Hailing from Dalkeith, a good three days' ride away, she would not be recognized as anything other than a traveling woman of good repute.

I could then take her place with a nom de guerre of my choosing, with Jamie and Murtagh trading places with two of her footmen, and we’d safely ride to the harbor in our luxurious borrowed carriage. Should we be stopped leaving the abbey — and heaven forbid we would — I could explain in my blatantly British accent that I was sailing for Le Havre where I would be meeting my merchant marine husband.

But I hadn’t counted on Lady Margaret being generous above and beyond her arrangement with Dougal.

My free hand lifted to my lips, my fingers trembling as Jamie undid the latch and opened the trunk. He lifted out a small quilt and placed it on the coverlet before me, then froze as he spotted the fragile contents below.

“Oh God, Claire,” Jamie wheezed, immobile at the sight of four tiny baby gowns.

I reached out blindly through sudden tears, needing to touch the garments — to touch him — and was rewarded with both. His arms wrapped around me again, his head dipping into the curve of my neck as the tips of my fingers reverently traced the swirls of thistles and leaves around the neck of one gown.

“I don’t... I didn’t have any clothes for them,” I swallowed hard, trying to tramp down the feeling of complete and utter inadequacy, “Jamie, I barely have nappies for them to shit it, how the hell am I supposed to be a mother to them?!”

His head lifted and his blue eyes — so completely calm, damn him — focused on mine, one corner of his mouth lifting in a slight smile as he assured, “We’ll manage it, mo nighean donn… There’s the both of us, aye? I’ll no’ be lettin’ ye fall.”

I kissed him then, pulling him closer in desperate urgency. His lips met mine and anchored me to him, holding me fast as I tried to make sense of the storm building around me.

“I’ve got you,” he crooned, pressing my head against his chest when we came up for air.

I concentrated on the sound of his pulse, the rhythm of his heartbeat against my cheek, and slowly felt clarity return to me.

“What else is in there?” I sniffed.

His arms loosened around me and he peered over the edge of the trunk a moment.

“More wee things for the bairns… but I think this one’s for you, Sassenach.”

With this he let go, retrieving a bodice and woolen skirt dyed a deep navy blue from the depths of the wooden chest.

“Well, it certainly wouldn’t fit you,” I grinned and took it from him.

He grunted good naturedly at my jest and obediently bent his head for a closer look when I shoved the bodice back into his lap, cheering with delight.

“Oh, aye,” he nodded appreciatively, yet his voice held that hollow tone of disproportionate earnest. “Tha’ll do verra nicely for you, Sassenach.”

I rose one brow at him, “You have no idea why I’m excited about it, do you?”

“Aye, well… tis a new frock, isn’t it? An’ a bonnie one a’ that,” his grin turned sheepish as he confessed.

I lunged for him, meaning to poke him between the ribs, but he caught my hands well in time and I laughed.

“The boning, the lacing of it,” I nodded towards the bodice, “It’s made for mothers!”

“Oh, aye?” his brows shot up at this and he dropped my hands in order to take a second, proper look.

I began to examine the waistband of the matching skirt as he did so and very much liked what I found.

“So’s this,” I continued. “I can wear it now and continue to after they’re here.”

He handed it back with a greater appreciation, his gaze growing wistful, “Did Jenny’s gowns have such things?”

I nodded, fighting back my gut-wrenching yearning for Jamie’s elder sister. It was always there, brooding under the surface as I contemplated our life to come. I didn’t have much of anything in the way of worldly goods, but what I did have, I’d gladly give to have her with us.

“We may be leaving Scotland at dawn,” I whispered hoarsely, then swallowed hard in order to continue, “but I know we’ll be back… I just know it. You children will see their birthright. I promise you.”

He leaned forward and kissed me softly, the promise of his body, of his protection and undying love echoing my own.

Leaning back after a moment with a sigh, his gaze fell on the tiny baby gowns and his eyes took on a light of complete wonder.

“I havena held a bairn in a verra long time,” his voice was deeper than usual, husky with longing to take his own children into his arms. “I ken they’ll be wee… but, a dhia, Sorcha, I forgot just how much so.”

I draped the gowns over the swell of our children and brought his hand to the place where one insisted on causing a disturbance within me.

Nodding, I pressed hard against them, urging them to respond to us, “But they’re strong.”

“Aye,” he brought his lips to mine as his children proved my point emphatically, “Just like their mother.”

…

Later That Evening

Dinner had been delightful, though we’d still excused ourselves as soon as was appropriate, citing our early departure.

But in truth, I had only one destination in mind.

The hot spring.

I shut the door of our chamber behind us with a grin and leaned against it, insisting abruptly, “Take off your clothes.”

Jamie started visibly then burst out laughing as he sat down hard upon the bed.

“Oh, aye?” He rose a brow when he could finally speak, his shoulders still shaking, “Is tha’ how it’s goin’ to be?”

Heat rose to my cheeks as I shook my head in mock derision, reaching over to the nearly empty chest of drawers and withdrawing two homespun robes of a deep chestnut hue. I tossed one to him and his amusement turned to curiosity.

“I want to show you something,” I blurted, not wanting to give away the surprise and yet needing to get him out of the room somehow.

Both brows rose nearly to his hairline as he looked at me skeptically.

“An’ I must wear this?”

I undid the lacing of my new bodice, commenting, “We both are.”

“Ye’re delirious, Sassenach,” Jamie shook his head. “Ye canna be tellin’ me ye mean to wander about in nothin’ but that?”

“Well,” my blush rose considerably and I wished he’d just put on the damn thing and be done with it already, “it covers more than you’d think… and I stick to the shadows.”

“Ye’ve done this before?!”

The incredulity of the idea had him back on his feet in an instant, a fire burning bright in his eyes.

“I have,” my chin rose defiantly, “and I plan on doing it one last time before we go.”

A slow grin spread across his face, the indignation in his eyes melting into unfettered requirement.

“With me?”

“Of course with you,” I snorted, shoving his robe against his chest. “Just put the bloody thing on, will you?”

He did so immediately, then helped me in turn, all the while his grin permanently splitting his face in two.

“Good,” I appraised him, adjusting the belt around my waist more securely.

“Shall we go, then?”

Jamie rose a brow at this and opened the door, bowing low over his hand as he gestured into the deep shadows of the hall.

Slipping my hand into the crook of his arm, we made our way wordlessly along the dark passageways. We turned this way and that, the slope of the floor slowly dipping as we got closer. Finally reaching the door to the passageway, I opened it and sighed with relief as I found the sconces already lit.

We continued on for some time and eventually had to walk single file as the tunnel narrowed.

“Are ye sure ye ken where we’re goin’?” Jamie asked skeptically from behind me, his frown evident in the darkness.

I suppressed a laugh and brushed the tips of my fingers along the solid rock wall, “Well, there’s no chance of us taking a wrong turn, now is there?”

The tunnel was dimly lit and full of twists and turns, but held no offshoots or forks of any sort. It simply led to our destination, which was the only reason the brothers let me travel to and fro unattended. There was absolutely no chance of me getting lost underground as I traversed completely naked beneath my borrowed robe.

Brother Jeremiah had introduced me to the abbey’s restorative hot springs during the long weeks of Jamie’s recovery. I could slip away and find relief for a few hours as Murtagh watched over our beloved charge. The warm buoyancy of the water relieved the pressure of the lives within me, rewinding time to give my body back to me. The quiet solitude soothed my frazzled nerves and slowly healed the mental and emotional wounds inflicted by the horrible ordeal we had all just gone through.

The heat of the spring wafted towards us quite suddenly and a shiver of excitement ran up my spine, raising gooseflesh in its wake.

“We’re almost there,” I assured him unnecessarily.

The light of the cavern was discernible before us — bless the brothers for preparing it for us — and Jamie now could see it for himself. We continued on a few paces more and then we stood in the midst of the gaping cavern. Sconces were positioned here and there between us and the shore, attempting to illuminate the void, but great gaps of darkness stood beyond and it was clear that the space was a good deal larger than either of us could imagine.

I let out a sigh of absolute delight, so relieved to finally be here, and asked, “Do you like it?”

Jamie didn’t answer but looked around with his mouth agape. I knew the feeling fell, but my eagerness to be within the pool had me disrobing before my poor husband knew what was happening. I had one foot in when his voice stopped me.

“Christ, Sassenach,” he burst in delight, “‘tis a hot spring!”

I laughed and continued my descent down the carved stone steps.

“Oh, you do. Good,” I grinned and reached the bottom. “Do come in, then.”

Jamie shed his robe, but kept a firm hold of his skepticism, asking from the top of the stairs, “How hot is it? Should ye be bathin’ in it in yer condition, Sassenach?”

I shook my head, my curls splaying this way and that on the surface of the water, and I rolled my eyes.

If he only knew how bloody amazing it feels in here.

The muscles of my lower back had immediately relaxed upon contact with the water, my hips loosened and my breathing eased. They seemed to like it too, for they tumbled with delight at the first and then settled into a blissful slumber. I could walk slowly about, stretching my long limbs without the strain of gravity. Or I sometimes lay my arms on the stone ledge of the shore, resting my head atop them as I let my legs float out from beneath me… levitating weightless in the water.

“It gets hotter the further out you go,” I assured him, gesturing vaguely into the darkness. “I stay over here in the shallows and I’m just fine… it's like a splendid bath that never grows cold.”

He continued in, the water slowly swallowing him up as he joined me. The awe was back in his eyes, now seeing and feeling for himself what a splendid thing this was. He wiggled his toes in the clean, black sand at the bottom of the pool, sending pulsating currents over my own. The surface looked deceptively still, but there were small currents here and there if you knew where to find them… the pulse of the living, breathing spring.

Jamie turned to grin at me in the darkness, his teeth flashing white in the sconces’ flickering light.

“Christ, Sassenach,” he repeated and shook his head, completely at a loss.

I laughed, “You approve, then?”

“Oh, aye,” he insisted, looking ‘round excitedly. “I do, indeed.”

Jamie bounced on his toes slightly as he squinted out into the darkness.

“How far does it go?”

“I’m not sure,” I shrugged. “It got too hot for me.”

He nodded with an adorable sense of determination and I knew he was out to explore this oasis I had just introduced him to. He started to move away but I touched his arm, stopping him for a moment.

“Be careful, alright?”

His face melted and he leaned back in for a kiss, nudging my nose with his, “Aye, I’ll keep an eye for any wee beasties.”

“Any big ones too.”

“Mmm,” he kissed me again, “I think we’re quite safe, m ’ionmhas. Though, tis a shame we left our pet selkie behind, hmm?”

I laughed and shoved him away, letting him explore to his heart’s content. I could hear him splash this way and that, muttering to himself, but was surprised when he returned shortly after he left.

“Nothing out there?”

He snorted, “Entirely too much that I canna see… and you’re right, tis a good deal hotter out there.”

His skin was delightfully warm as I slipped my arms around his neck with a sigh. Resting my cheek against his chest, I let my feet float out beneath me. He towed me slowly around the edge of the pool, the water rippling over my legs and abdomen feeling remarkably like his caressing hands. I became warmer and more aroused by the moment, the tips of my sensitive breasts brushed against his chest and set off fireworks deep within me.

He found the man-made niche cut into the wall that I liked to frequent and sat on the wooden bench, pulling me to sit sideways on his lap. I knew there was plenty of room for both of us on it and pushed him backwards as I moved to straddle him. The eager glow in his eyes set me afire as I settled myself more comfortably, treasuring him for a moment before guiding him home. The accompanying inrush of hot water surprised me for a brief moment, but I soon found it incredibly exhilarating and settled myself with a sigh of pleasure.

“Oh, I like that one,” he purred.

I blinked at him stupidly and asked, “Like what?”

“That sound you made,” he explained, the delight evident in his eyes, “the wee squeak.”

I didn’t think it was possible to blush — I knew my skin was already flushed to the point of beet red — and I found myself dropping my gaze, hoping my hair would fall in my face and hide my embarrassment.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to be noisy.”

Jamie tipped my chin up, brushing the curls from my brow as he insisted gently, “I said I like it.”

I nodded, not entirely sure what to say to that and found I didn’t have to, for he continued.

“And I do… ‘tis one of the things I like best about bedding you, Sassenach,” he grinned, “the small noises that you make.”

He cradled my head in his hands, kissing me with an urgency that made me forget myself once more, and shifted his hips just so beneath me. I half stifled a gasp and he commented softly, “Aye, like that.”

“That's what I thought most about,” Jamie murmured, his hands slowly caressing my back, curving around to cup my breasts, to frame the swell of our children.

“In prison, at night… chained in a room with dozens of other men, listening to the snoring and farting and groaning. I thought of those small, tender sounds that you make when I love you… and I could feel you there next to me in the dark, breathing soft and then faster, and the little grunt that you give when I first take you, as though you were settling yourself to your job.”

My breathing was certainly coming faster now, my head light. Had it not been for my rather firm hold of him down below the surface, I was sure I would have floated far away into oblivion.

“Even better,” his lips brushed against my neck, sending a shiver of delight up and down my spine, “when I come to you fierce and wanting... and ye wimper under me and struggle as though you’re struggling to get away, and I know ‘tis only that you’re struggling to come closer... and I’m fighting the same fight.”

His hands sank to my hips, slipping between us to caress the stretched and yearning point of our joining. I quivered and my breath went from me in an unwilled gasp.

“Or when I come to you needing… and you take me into you with a sigh and that quiet hum like a hive of bees in the sun,” a sweet smile played at his lips, “and ye carry me into peace with a little moaning sound.”

“Jamie,” I hoarsely whispered, my need nearly strangling me. “Jamie, please.”

He kissed me soundly as his hands settled around my waist, slowing me until I groaned around his lips.

“Not yet. We’ve time, mo chridhe,” he calmly answered. “I mean to hear ye groan like that again… to moan and sob, though ye dinna wish to, for ye canna help it… I mean to make you sigh as though your heart would break and scream with the wanting...  and at last to cry out in my arms… and I shall know I’ve served you well.”

With that, my release overtook me, shooting like a dart into the depths of my belly. It loosened my joints so that my arms slipped limp off his shoulders, Jamie’s steadying hands all that kept me from drowning.

Resting my head against his chest, I felt boneless as a jellyfish. I didn’t know — or care — what sort of noises I’d been making, but felt incapable of coherent speech.

That is, until he began to move again... strong as a shark under the water.

“Oh God, no,” I protested. “Jamie, no. I can’t bear it like that again.”

The blood was still pounding in my fingertips and his movement inside me was an exquisite torture.

“You can… for I love you,” his lips brushed against my neck. “And you will, for I want you… but, dinna fash, for this time I go with you.”

Bloody hell, you’re coming with me, I vowed.

I lifted my hands to his chest and splayed my fingers wide, still trembling as I pressed my palms against his slippery skin. Sliding my hands up, I took hold of his shoulders and shoved him the couple inches backwards into the stone wall of the niche with all the strength I could muster.

Jamie’s eyes flew open in surprise and the arousal I found there was the second wind I needed.

His brows rose suggestively and I sat back — settling myself to my business, as he had so eloquently stated before. His hands settled at my waist, curving round to clenching my buttocks tightly as I rode him towards oblivion.

A low groan rumbled within him and I cupped one hand beneath his head, pulling back up to me by the scruff of his neck. I was rewarded with a Christ, Claire and kissed him hard as I sank even deeper. It wouldn’t — couldn’t — be long now for either of us and with that knowledge, I tossed restraint to the wind.

“You are mine,” I repeated, the final vowel twisting into a cry of pure ecstacy.

I heard his own cry and I knew I had served him well.

[laureviewer]

Persona 5 Royal: A Review

It’s finally time to review one of my all-time favourite games.

I first played Persona 5 around 3 years ago, and I’ve really grown since then in a few ways. A few thoughts before I begin: a) since my first playthrough, JRPGs have cemented themselves as one of my favourite types of games; b) I don’t hate all turn-based RPGs except Pokémon anymore!; c) after my first playthrough I went to Japan, and as Persona 5 is set in Tokyo, playing Royal was a lot of fun as I knew a lot of the locations, which meant I could dive into the setting deeper than the first time; and d) my 250 hours of playtime in total across both playthroughs can most likely be attributed to the incredible writing and masterful character development.

Warning: HEAVY story spoilers

I’m not trying to sell you a game. I want to give you an in-depth analysis of the story, characters, gameplay and all other aspects of this brilliant game, spoilers and all. I want a discussion. So, dive in and see what I really thought, no holds barred.

The Silence is Deafening

‘…’ – a direct quote from our protagonist, there. Our silent hero, codename Joker, is a victim of circumstance. Wrongfully accused of assault by a mysterious man who is angered that a kid prevented him from forcing a woman into his car et al., he must move away from his hometown to wait out his probation period and live a normal student life. Why must he live above a failing café under the guardianship of the cranky owner? Not to mention: why is he banished to Tokyo of all places, somewhere very likely much more exciting than wherever his hometown is?

Either way, Joker isn’t going to tell you. He’s quiet and lets the other many, many other characters do the talking for him—a usual trope of JRPGs, but it is still an issue as he is also put on a pedestal as an incredibly special, talented, empathetic and all-round great guy. He’s the only one capable of saving the world, as he has abilities no-one else has, for some reason.

But this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. Sure, it doesn’t really make sense why you have such a huge following when you don’t have much of a personality, but that’s the beauty of the silent protagonist. You, the player, are the protagonist. The fact that you can even put your own name in as his name is telling. You make the decisions, you make the friends, and you carve out your own destiny from the choices you make. It’s always these kinds of games that, when I talk to my friends, I say ‘I messed up with Sojiro’ or ‘I went to the arcade today’—and it is me. Because even though I’m not a woefully silent Japanese male teenager with glasses, for the time I’m playing Persona 5, I am.

So, you are the protagonist. You learn that there are mental shutdowns all over Tokyo, making people go crazy and kill lots of people, such as a conductor crashing his train, or simply killing people on the spot. It’s weird, but what can you do? You’re just a student with his own problems: not only do many of the students avoid you because you are a delinquent, but the volleyball coach, Kamoshida, seems to be harassing students, from the ones on his team who seem terrified of him, to girls that are being hit on. When a strange app appears on your phone, you accidentally find yourself in the metaverse, along with Ryuji, who also has a good reason to get revenge on Kamoshida.

I Am Thou, Thou Art I

What teenager doesn’t have a rebellious self hidden deep within their subconscious? Well, these teens can utilise that hidden self past its usual constraints to overcome the crappy adults that suppress them and make detrimental decisions for them. Once Joker and Ryuji, and later many other young adults, realise this potential and recognise that these adults need to be stopped, they are awakened to their Personas. A Persona is a manifestation of a persona user’s personality, which the individual can use to face hardship and overcome injustice, even if just in the Metaverse, the collective unconscious world.

But, really, there’s no ‘just’ about it. Here in this world, which take the form of Palaces, the Phantom Thieves (you and your friends) can defeat the ruler of the Palace (the adult with a distorted desire) to convince them to change their heart. In this way, the ‘real’ them in the real world will atone for their actions and justice can be served. So, really, your actions are vital to solving crimes, dealing justice and, eventually, saving the world.

These Personas are like Pokémon for adults. You are special, as you can catch and wield multiple Personas, allowing you to have a whole array of powers, but your friends have one that they train and evolve throughout the course of the story. Catching them is a skill: you have to learn their weakness, and use a skill that takes advantage of it to ‘down’ the Persona. This gives you a chance to either: perform an ‘all out’ attack which sees all your allies fight them at once for increased damage; ask them for money or an item; or negotiate with them to convince them to become a part of you (and thus catch them for use later). This gets harder when there are multiple different Personas to battle at once, all with different weaknesses and strengths that means you must time your combat precisely to ‘down’ them at the same time.

Personas are one of the best parts of the game, as you can see.

Not happy with a persona’s moves, or you want to create stronger ones? Go to the Velvet Room, where Igor and the Twin Wardens Justine and Caroline will fuse two or more Personas together to create new ones.

This is where the Pokémon element is better and worse. You can get completely new and stronger Personas immediately, which is cool, but if you are particularly drawn to one it doesn’t make sense to keep using them as they will level up far quicker if you fuse them than if you keep them. I struggled with this at first, as Arsene is your first ‘official’ Persona, and I couldn’t quite believe you are only meant to have him for the first few hours. It’s like Ash giving up Pikachu after defeating Brock!

Also, have you seen how you have to fuse them? It’s so dark and unnecessarily vivid! You have to guillotine, electric chair or hang them in order to create these new Personas, which is so different to Persona 4 where the Personas are cards, making it less gruesome to get rid of your companions. It definitely made me feel bad for fusing them, but that didn’t stop me!

Essentially, the Persona franchise wouldn’t be the same without all the incredible Personas you fight and capture along the way. It really encapsulates what the games are like: stylized and deeply considered, exuding character and imagination throughout.

Take Over, It’s Time to Put You Down

Using these Personas are a lot of fun, too. The moves are elemental as well as physical, they can inflict ailments such as ‘sleep’ and ‘fear’, and evolve as you and your Personas level up. Personas all have strengths and weaknesses, and by fusing them, you can create Personas with stronger moves and resistances that, as you get towards the end of the game, means that you can fuse some incredibly powerful Personas that can fight any and all enemies, if you’re smart with the moves you inherit.

This all sounds very similar to Pokémon, right? Well, there are other more showy, fantastically fun elements that integrate beautifully with the stunning graphics to make every battle (which have the potential to become very repetitive) exciting and challenging. When a character manages to ‘down’ an enemy by using a move that is strong against it, they can either do another attack or choose to Baton Pass to an ally, chaining super-effective attacks to down multiple enemies in one round, which is useful if there are a lot of different enemies with different affinities and weaknesses. Then, once all enemies are downed, all allies can come together for an All Out Attack for an extra boost of damage.

As much as this is useful for the player, if the enemy downs one of your allies, they can also do a secondary attack, which means that they have the potential to wipe out your team very quickly. Plus, some moves are one hit kills, which may have low accuracy but is still extremely frustrating sometimes, particularly in regular 5 where I found the combat more challenging. The worst boss fight was Haru’s dad, where I actually had to change difficulty for the only time throughout the game—who decided it was a good idea to revive the robot shadows if you didn’t kill them in three moves?!

The Showtime moves, new for Royal, bring a fresh new element to the game. As you progress through the story, your allies start forming bonds, which will then be reflected in combat. At seemingly random times, they can join up with fantastic new animations (such as Yusuke cooking Ryuji some yummy food at a bar, who get interrupted by a shadow coming in the door, and they both take it out) and inflict massive damage. I was sad that Joker doesn’t get one, until the Royal section where baes Akechi and Sumire both team up with you respectively for new Showtimes. It made me wonder whether Joker just wasn’t as close to the rest of the team as he becomes to Akechi and Sumire, which actually also made me glad that I focused on both of them heavily in my playthrough!

Every song that plays throughout the game, including combat, is a banger, so even though my husband got annoyed hearing it coming out of my TV for 120 hours, this soundtrack will remain one of my favourites to date. Overall, the combat is great, and thankfully not too repetitive after so many hours of gameplay.

Adulting is Hard

The story of Persona 5 is deeply gripping, and keeps you invested and interested the whole way through. It didn’t absolutely destroy me like other JRPGs have done (see: Final Fantasy XV), but fun, emotive and has huge repercussions if you don’t succeed in your mission, including people dying and the world ending. No pressure, then.

Your actions, then, are crucial to making the world a better place: and the villains that you encounter are integral to succeeding. In true revolution fashion, it’s the kids that need to stand up to the adults to rid them of their distorted desires—but it’s not all random. The adults are truly abhorrent (the first one, Kamoshida, sexually assaults female students and physically abuses members of his volleyball team) and they continue a running thread from first to last—that is, the ones who you think aren’t connected at all seem to be connected to the final villain by the end. It’s very clever, and kept me gripped the whole way through—something that’s needed with 80+ hours of gameplay.

The writing is absolutely fantastic. All characters have their own distinct mannerisms, personalities and stories, which you get to explore with the Confidant mechanic (see below). The voice acting is great, and as I progressed through the Confidants, I really started to feel like they were becoming my friends, and that every time I turned on my PS4 I was hanging out with my pals again. It’s the way games should make you feel—like you actually care about what will happen to them.

This does make the game quite stressful (in a good way), as what you do has actual repercussions. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes that some of your dialogue doesn’t affect the game at large, as well as your romance choices. None of the characters acknowledge you have a girlfriend, and if you date Ann, for example, she won’t act any differently than if you decide to not even become her friend. While that’s disappointing, other dialogue choices can completely affect your game so that you always have to be very careful with your decisions. Will you get the ‘bad’ ending, where you fail to stop the final villain; the ‘good bad’ ending, where you accept his distorted view of the world; or the ‘true’ canon ending, where you revert the world to normal? A lot of choices throughout this lengthy game affect what ultimately happens, so you do feel like you’re affecting the story a lot more than, say, Pokémon. In fact, in Royal, you can even miss out on a whole section of the game…

Ascending to Royalty

As long as you max your Confidant links with Akechi (the renegade teen detective), Kasumi (the new gymnast freshman at your school) and Maruki (the school counsellor), you get to experience the 30+ hours that Royal adds to Persona 5. And—major spoilers here—once you’ve defeated the God of Control and exposed Akechi for the unhinged betrayer that he is, you should go to juvenile detention and your ability to use Personas should be gone for good, as Momentos has been destroyed.

However, in Royal, Maruki has figured out how to use cognitive psience—and you’re the reason why. His sessions with you has helped with his research, and so now he can make the world a better place by granting everyone’s desires in the collective unconsciousness.

As you can see by his actions, he’s not your typical antagonist. His heart is completely in the right place: he wants to make everyone happy by granting their desires for them, such as bringing back Futaba’s dead mother and helping Ryuji recover so he can get back on the track team. I resonated with that, and actually wondered whether it would be worse for certain characters, particularly Futaba and Haru who get to spend time with their respective dead parents, to reject the “blissful ignorance” reality that Maruki had created for them in favour of the truth.

By this point, I had grown rather fond of the deranged but entertaining firework that Akechi has revealed himself to be, and once I learned that Akechi would die (as he did in regular 5) if Maruki’s reality were to be revoked, I almost chose to accept it. But Akechi being adamant that he was going to stop Maruki no matter what as he didn’t want to live under anyone else’s rule helped make that choice for me. It was difficult, though. Akechi’s is a motive that is simultaneously selfish and noble: selfish as he doesn’t want anyone else to control him, even if that means other people are happy, but noble because he values the truth above all else. Plus, the fact that he was one of the main villains throughout the story up until this point made me question whether we should continue to trust him, even though he had decided to help us, even if it were primarily for his own gain. I think my fondness for him (perhaps because he is a fully-fledged Confidant in this game, unlike regular 5) and the wildcard elements he brought to the game made me feel a certain brand of loyalty towards him, and so I chose to honour his “dying wish”. And, of course, this path led to the ‘true’ ending!

This indecision is shown most clearly in Maruki’s palace, where you have to deduce what decisions in certain situations Maruki would think is the ‘right’ one. It really helps you understand where he’s coming from. For example, his question ‘if your friend is being attacked, and you don’t have much time before they get seriously hurt, would you a) run to get help but you might not make it back in time, or b) join the fight to help but you might get hurt yourself?’ Neither answer is necessarily wrong, but b) is correct as Maruki simply wants you to look out for yourself over others. The crux of his viewpoint is that you should endeavour to make yourself happy or safe, even if that means others may not be. It’s a very interesting conundrum, and one I enjoyed debating philosophically whilst playing.

The concept of right and wrong and mental health was also tackled in this game through Kasumi/Sumire. Ultimately, even though Maruki wanted to help her by allowing Sumire to pretend to be her dead sister, as she blames herself for her death, he ultimately did her more harm than good. With the support of Joker and the others Sumire was able to overcome her delusions and grow into a strong, confident young woman. This cemented for me how backwards Maruki was and that reality is the most important thing, even if it’s not always what we want, because that’s life. In this way, I feel that Royal added something to 5. Even though going into someone’s mind palace was about mental health, I never really considered it until Royal dealt with an innocent traumatised girl and a misguided man attempting to heal her. I applaud Atlas for tackling something so difficult pretty well.

Confident in my Confidants

It’s a good thing the player can really get into the story, because it’s heavily dependent on personal decisions and making friends.

In order to get stronger within the Metaverse, Igor, the man inside the Velvet Room, tells Joker that he needs to strengthen the relationship with his friends first. This is absolutely true—not just with your teammates, but with other individuals who live in Tokyo too, in the form of the Confidant mechanic. For example, while your teammates all get skills such as curing afflictions and taking fatal hits for Joker, others give just as much if not more valuable perks, such as Kawakami giving you more free time or Mishima allowing all teammates to gain experience even if they don’t contribute to the battle once you max them out.

The way you level them up is through socialising. This passes time, but is also incredibly interesting, as each Confidant has a gripping story (except Ohya!). You can’t downgrade a Confidant, but picking the right dialogue choices can make leveling them up much quicker in a game where time is everything. It’s also necessary to level up your stats, such as knowledge, kindness and charm, to allow you to progress with some Confidants and be empathetic or charming enough to deal with the situations thrown at you. I loved the dual play style of dungeon battles and social simulation—in a lengthy game, it broke up gameplay and kept it fresh.

As this was my second playthrough, I already knew that maxing certain Confidants would yield the best results, such as Kawakami and Yoshida who eventually allows you to negotiate with and catch shadows of a higher level than you. But in Royal, the new additions of Counselor, Faith & Justice—Maruki, Kasumi & Akechi—freshened things up. Technically, Justice isn’t new, but you can now hang out with him instead of his progress being facilitated purely by story.

Time to rate my friends from worst to best!

21: Ichiko Ohya Devil Arcana

I found this alcoholic journalist very annoying. Her story isn’t that interesting, she isn’t very nice, and the skills that she gives you to allow you to sneak around Palaces easier aren’t worth it either. I only maxed out her story near the end as I had time, but honestly, she shouldn’t be a priority.

20: Iwai Munehisa Hanged Man Arcana

Didn’t think anything of him until Royal, where I had more time to learn about his time in the Yakusa and his son. Useful for guns (which aren’t even an integral part of combat, really), but other than that I barely used his shop—plus you have to have high Guts in order to progress. Definitely better Confidants out there.

19: Tae Takemi Death Arcana

The fact that this doctor is a sexy goth is probably the best thing about her. You can level her up quite early on, so she is quite exciting at the beginning as she’s one of the only adults you can turn into a Confidant at that point, but after a while she stopped being interesting to me. In my Royal playthrough I found I didn’t need many healing items—SP was far more important!—and in the end I didn’t max her out. A fun outfit, but can leave her.

18: Shinya Oda Tower Arcana

Definitely annoying (but what little brother isn’t?) but there’s a sad reason for that—his mum is emotionally abusive, even if she doesn’t mean to be. In the end I wanted to max him out to save him from that life, but I never quite got that far. At least I managed to change his mum’s heart before I finished the game.

He’s also quite useful in buffing gun attacks and bonuses for downing and negotiating, so definitely useful for combat. I just ended up feeling bad for him, but he was also a bit of a shit, being a bully to his classmates; his big bro Joker helped with that!

17: Hifumi Togo Star Arcana

I never got to know her in my first playthrough, and I didn’t realise how useful she is for battles. She eventually allows you to swap players in combat, hastens escapes, improves money hauls, and allows back-up members to do follow up attacks. I’d definitely give her a shot for just those bonuses, even if you don’t want to romance her—but she is sweet, if very detached from the rest of the story.

16: Chihaya Mifune Fortune Arcana

I maxed her out pretty quickly so I could get the fortune readings; affinity was especially useful, as you can level up Confidants a tiny bit quicker, for a price. And, after she takes 100,000 from you near the beginning (!) and eventually gives it back, she’s lovely. Nothing special, and definitely not one to romance, but nice.

15: Twin Wardens Justine & Caroline Strength Arcana

Their Confidant path was slightly different: you have to show them Personas with specific moves, and they will level up. This was very interesting, and also put a natural brake on their relationship, as some Personas can’t be made until you are a certain level. They are also very useful as you eventually unlock group Persona fusions and can fuse Personas of a higher level than you, for a price. Always fun to get the ridiculous Personas a bit earlier on! Also, their story was super interesting, due to the mystery that surrounds their identities…

Also also, Royal gives a new element to your relationship with them. You can now take them out of the Velvet Room to show them ‘human things’, like aquariums and cinemas. I didn’t utilise this much as you only get skill cards, and no actual level progress, but I wish I had more time, as the dialogue in these sequences is hilarious as they try to understand why humans would do certain things. The fact that I’ve ranked them so low is telling—there are so many fun and useful Confidants that mean they rank this low. 

14: Yuuki Mishima Moon Arcana

I actually think you’re a bit mean to him—he’s definitely your friend, but every time you are asked to clarify this the dialogue choices make you seem like a dickhead when you say he’s only ‘sort of’ your friend! He’s helped you so much, stop being such a dick, player. Plus he helps increase EXP, as well as allows EXP to be given to back-up members so it’s definitely a good thing to max him earlier. Plus, he’s sweet, and gives you Momentos requests. Justice for Mishima!

13: Takuto Maruki Councillor Arcana

Lovely. What a gent. Shame he turned out to be distorted by deciding to change people’s realities by interpreting their vague wants instead of actually asking people if they’d WANT their realities changed or not. Sounds a bit like Thanos to me, but with a better reason to be evil.

The bonuses of Maruki though are: he’s interesting; he’s lovely; and his bonuses are mainly SP based, which is always hard to recover in Persona, especially in the early stages of the games. He raises your SP, gives you a chance to instantly recover ailments, gives you a chance to become focused and therefore raises your attack, and gives you a chance to recover your SP when low. Very useful, and you can’t play the Royal storyline without maxing him out before November 18th anyway.

12: Haru Okumura Empress Arcana

Again, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Haru on my first playthrough (perhaps because she’s quite a late addition to the team), but this time round, I had more time to get to know her. I really wanted to save her from her awful fiancé, and hoped I’d be able to say ‘don’t marry him, marry me!’ if I chose to romance her, but alas. I was also quite surprised with how business-orientated she is, which was a surprise. However, she was just too prim and proper for me, and even after her story showed her to be evolving into a confident woman, she didn’t evolve quite enough for me to be interested.

She’s useful, though, as all the Confidants are who are your team members, so leveling her up is a must, for help in combat and to evolve her Persona.

11: Morgana Magician Arcana

Morgana was the most useful as the support hero—I always wanted him in my party, particularly in hard battles, just to keep me and my allies alive. Plus, who doesn’t love a talking cat? Though, at one point, he does get moody and very annoying. While Morgana as a character was never that exciting past being the initial reason they can become Phantom Thieves and the mystery surrounding where he comes from, Royal switched that up by turning him into a dreamboat with piercing blue eyes when Maruki made his dream of being a human come true. They kept saying throughout this sequence how beautiful he was, which was amusing. A nice twist on the original game.

10: Toranosuke Yoshida Sun Arcana

I learnt to level this fallen-from-grace politician up quickly from my first playthrough as, once you max him out, you can negotiate easier with shadows of your own level, and negotiate with higher level shadows and add them to the compendium—absolutely necessary. Also, he’s basically a massive socialist leftie, so he rocks.

9: Yusuke Kitagawa Emperor Arcana

I didn’t like him much in my first playthrough, but now I appreciate him far more—he’s flamboyant, artistic and, best of all, happy to be in his own mind and be himself, no matter what people think of him. He’s a bit stuck up sometimes, but all in all he’s an outsider who fits in better than he really should. And he provides funny dialogue, particularly when interacting with Futaba. I also love his Showtime moves with Ryuji and Ann.

8: Ann Takamaki Lovers Arcana

I’m quite surprised she’s this low down for me, but even though she’s the first girl you befriend and she’s hopelessly beautiful to everyone who meets her, she doesn’t quite push past the ‘ditzy girl’ trope. The story does try to make her more nuanced, and to an extent it works—she’s also fun, thoughtful and empathetic—but there’s just too many misogynistic and ditsy jokes that even only a few years later don’t land anymore. Saying that, she literally uses her sexuality to break free of the misogyny that surrounds her body and the sexual abuse and prejudice she experiences, at the most from the volleyball teacher, and at the least from everyone around her. It’s a steep hill to climb, but she’s doing it.

I drew the picture below!

7: Sadayo Kawakami Temperance Arcana

Kawakami’s your teacher—what could possibly go wrong? Well, she’s also a sexy maid who comes over to clean up, though she won’t go any further as you’re her high school student. Yet. It’s a bit dodgy, especially as she acts like your mum, but even so, the forbidden fruit angle is fun. Her story is also compelling. Not only is she an interesting Confidant, but one of the most useful ones for the amount of extra time she gives you when you level her up. Why on both my playthroughs did I not level her up immediately?

6: Sojiro Sakura Hierophant Arcana

He’s your guardian who takes you in when you have to move from your hometown after your alleged assault to live out your probation. He starts out cranky, but has an absolute heart of gold. He ended up being one of my favourite Confidants—plus, he’s one of the most useful, as he is one of the only ways to get SP in the early game by making coffee and curry. You need to understand the pride I got from making coffee that met his expectations!

5: Futaba Sakura Hermit Arcana

Sojiro’s adopted daughter is so much fun that I romanced her in the first game. While some may think she’s more like a little sister, she’s just a bit more immature because of her hermit lifestyle and Arcana. She’s funny, loves games, and has great references; she is one of the only instances of a game that has a young girl who doesn’t sound like 40-year-olds trying to sound like teenagers. She has a heartbreaking story, but her personality keeps it light. She says it how it is, no matter what anyone else thinks. She’s great.

4: Kasumi/Sumire Yoshizawa Faith Arcana

I chose to romance the gymnast honour student in Royal, because how can you not romance the new girl? Though I wasn’t sure at first, as I found her quite twee at the beginning. However, she became a lot more nuance when she became Sumire, which is to be expected. Plus, she is really well integrated into the story and really makes you feel she cares about you. She has an amazing costume when she is Codename: Violet, and gives you some truly useful abilities, such as ambushing from a distance and avoiding being surrounded by shadows. She’s a great addition to an already great game.

3: Makoto Niijima Priestess Confidant

She’s bestgirl in terms of smarts, badassery, and simple relatability. She is Student Council President, an honour student, and has been manipulated by evil adults for their own distorted desires. Her parents have died, which instils her with deep guilt for being a burden on her sister. She’s also the only one whose Confidant story doesn’t actively revolve around herself: she changes, but it’s through helping her friend who may be a victim of trafficking rather than her own self-interests. She’s sharp, poised and even more badass when she awakens to her Persona, Johanna—it’s a freaking motorcycle!

2: Ryuji Sakamoto Chariot Confidant

Your best buddy. I’m always drawn towards these ones, who are treated a bit dumb but are loyal to the end. He’s also hilarious, like when he complains the Phantom Thieves are in the shadows and not getting any credit, and I chose the option ‘I like the shade’, he says ‘what are you, moss?!’ I really do wish I could romance him, because I can see a lovely storyline where he’s unsure at first but the fact that they’re soulmates transcends gender.

1: Goro Akechi Justice Confidant

I’m almost hesitant to admit I find him the most fascinating and fun. Not only is he dangerous, exciting and unhinged, he's at the centre of an incredible twist. He’s one of the most interesting characters, and you never know what he’s going to do next. I would definitely date him if Japanese games let gay relationships happen; he has all the best attributes for a crazy romantic relationship. Not IRL, but in a game, why not?

I love that he didn’t die and teams up with you in Royal, and that . He’s also the first character that Joker gets a Showtime move with, which made it quite special. When it is revealed just how evil and crazy he is, his whole character changes, including his Persona, his Phantom Thieves outfit, and his demeanor—it’s scary how excited he is by killing, but at the same time, he is absolutely certain of his viewpoints and won’t compromise for anyone. Many of these points would be a reason why he shouldn’t be my number one, but I can’t help it.

Honourable Mentions: Igor (Fool Arcana), Sae Niijima (Judgement Arcana) & Jose

Igor is the ruler of the Velvet Room, and the person who facilitates your rehabilitation in changing peoples’ hearts. However, ‘person’ isn’t quite right for Igor: he’s the God of Control, born from the desires of the collective masses who want to be controlled and be told what to do rather than make difficult decisions. It was a cool twist to realise that the God of Control had been impersonating the real Igor; I don’t know if Igor was lovely in the previous games, but he certainly is once you restore him at the end of 5. Despite him being interesting, I never felt like I had a connection with him, as you level up his Arcana automatically throughout the story, and he never tried to have a personal relationship with Joker.

Sae has her own palace and Arcana, but she’s not quite the same as the others. Like Igor, you level up automatically throughout the game when you confess to her the whole Phantom Thieves story, and while she does have a Palace, she doesn’t through any huge transformation other than realising that learning the truth is better than trying to win at any cost. She’s cool, and her outfit in her Palace is sexy, but you can’t romance her and can’t change much of what you say to her. I wish in Royal she could have been a fully fledged Confidant instead.

Jose counts even less. A new addition to Royal, he helps you change the cognition of Momentos by collecting stamps as you go further down, and he gives you items in exchange for flowers, so he definitely makes Momentos better. However, his addition is nothing world-shaking, and he only shows up randomly, which makes him quite annoying. I could have done without him, but at least he made Momentos more interesting than in the base game, which, compared to Palaces, was quite boring.

All in all, my main issue with the Confidant system as that you still can’t date boys. We’ve been saying for years ‘that’s just the Japanese way’, but considering the crazy hentai they bring out (still with only very little amounts of yaoi/gay hentai) it may be time to stop excusing them for not being with the times. Catherine: Full Body aimed to dispel that somewhat—perhaps Persona should too.

A Momentous Game

Overall, this is one of my favourite games of all time. The gameplay keeps me entertained for 100+ hours (though, to be fair, I do love long games) and the characters and writing makes me emotionally connect with the story they are telling. I’d suggest playing for at least 8 hours, as it’s a slow burn, but once that hurdle is jumped the real obsession begins.

Time to go and play Persona 4 Golden, as I’m not quite ready for the fun to be over yet.

[nothingbutfangirlsmut]

The Girl Out of Time

Pairing: Bucky x Reader and Sam x Reader

Background: Willow Roffe was born and raised in Brooklyn. She lived her life as happily as she could with her two childhood best friends Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. When they both left her to join the military she tried to continue with life but that didn't get to happen for her for the simple fact that she meant something to James Buchanan Barnes.

Rating: Story will be overall MATURE but not every chapter. There will be strong language, talk of both mental and physical abuse, some good ole angst, and smut. There will be a warning at the beginning of the chapter when it includes smut.

Chapter 26

After Nat left the church Steve, Sam, and I went on to our hotel suite. I was quick to fall onto the couch. I felt so drained. Sam lifted my feet so he could sit down then placed my feet on his lap. Steve started pacing the length of the room. We had only been there for a few short minutes when a knock sounded on the door. Steve was quick to open it. In walked Sharon Carter looking completely frazzled.

"Steve. There's something you gotta see." She said quickly.

She grabbed the TV remote from the table then turned on the TV. It was already on the news channel. I bolted upright as I saw the building in Vienna with a giant hole blown in it. Many were injured in the blast. I pulled my phone out instantly texting Nat. Please let her be okay.

I bounced my knee nervously as I continued to watch the TV.

"Authorities have identified the suspect as James Buchanan Barnes. The winter soldier." The news castor stated.

I shot to my feet turning to face Steve. He looked surprised but suddenly determined.

I sighed in relief at Nat's text.

"Nat's okay. Why would he do this?" I asked Steve.

"I don't think he did." Steve said simply.

Sharon gave of what details she knew then the three of us set out for Vienna. When we arrived the place was still in total chaos. Steve sent Sam and I ahead into the hotel bar to wait for him.

"He's calling Nat." Sam said as we both sat at the bar.

We ordered drinks then waited on Steve to reappear. It wasn't long before he was standing next to Sam leaning on the bar.

"She tell you to stay out of it? Might have a point." Sam asked then took a sip of his drink.

"He'd do it for me." Steve said simply.

"1945, maybe. I just want to make sure we consider all our options. The people that shoot at you usually wind up shooting at us." Sam told him.

"I have no worries." I said simply then downed the rest of my drink.

Sharon suddenly appeared next to Steve. She kept her face forward as she spoke.

"Tips have been pouring in since the footage went public. Everybody thinks the Winter Soldier goes to their gym. Most of it's noise. Except for this." She slid a folder to Steve.

"My boss expects a briefing, pretty much now so that's all the head start you're gonna get." She added quickly.

"Thank you" Steve told her as he opened the folder.

"You're gonna have to hurry. We have orders to shoot on sight." Sharon said then walked away.

Sam finished his drink quickly then the two of us followed Steve back outside.

"Where to Cap?" I asked as we walked quickly down the crowded sidewalk.

Steve gave me the folder. I opened it to scan the page quickly. Romania. He's in Romania?

"What's the plan?" Sam asked as we climbed in the car.

"Looks like an apartment building. A bit run down. Sam you'll take the roof. Willow, I need you on top an adjacent building. You two are my eyes for any company." Steve ordered as he drove quickly.

"So you're gonna face him alone?" I asked softly.

Both men sitting in the two front seats knew I had all my memories of James back. They knew I understood the feelings I once had for him. Those feelings felt like a memory too but I still actually cared about him now. Steve looked at me through the rear view mirror.

"Yes Will. I think it's best I confront him alone. We don't know what kind of state he's in." Steve said softly but sternly.

"But we know for sure he remembers me and won't harm me. Don't you think it'd be safer if I was with you?" I asked.

"No" both men said in unison.

Steve's no was soft and understanding but Sam's was sharp and final. I slumped back in my seat. I didn't feel like I should be on the side lines. I remembered what James meant to me so everything we do now means so much more. It was just as important to me as it was to Steve but there would be no arguing with the Captain. I knew that much. So I sat silently in the back seat until we arrived at our destination. Steve and Sam both took a minute to suit up while I surveyed the area.

"There's a smaller building there. I'll take that roof." I told them pointing to said building.

Both men nodded in agreement. Steve left to head towards the building James was in leaving Sam and I alone.

"You still choose me right?" Sam asked softly.

I smiled up at him. I grabbed his shirt pulling him down so I could kiss him.

"Yes Sam, I may remember my feelings for James but they're just a memory." I told him.

He nodded then kissed my forehead. Once he took to the sky I hurried to the roof of my building. I perched myself on the edge so I had a perfect view of the entrance. Sam did that same on top the much taller building. It wasn't long before the vehicles started rolling in. This wasn't looking good already.

"Heads up Cap. German Special Forces approaching from the south." Sam said over the coms.

"Understood" Steve said simply.

I watched as the vehicles surrounded the building. More and more armed men got out. There's way too many.

"They've set the perimeter." Sam informed over the coms.

I watched the group form then kick in the front door.

"They're entering the building." I told them.

"They're on the roof. I'm compromised." Sam said quickly.

I looked up to see him fighting someone off then flying off the building. I stepped back from the edge so I wouldn't be noticed. I just had to wait for Steve's orders now. He was inside somewhere with James.

"Five seconds" Sam said as he flew around the building.

I held my breath. My anxiety skyrocketed as I waited.

"Three seconds" Sam said.

Please let them make it out of this.

"Breach! Breach! Breach!" Sam shouted.

I gritted my teeth as I listened to the chaos erupt in the building. I couldn't see anything but I could hear an array of different sounds. There was definitely one hell of a fight going on. As I waited for any sign or word something flew out of a window then landed on the roof a few feet in front of me. It was a backpack.

"What the hell?" I questioned aloud.

I walked over to it slowly. I kicked it to make sure it wasn't going to explode. When nothing happened I picked it up then stepped back against one of the stone walls. Another crash had me looking up to see a body jumping over to this roof. They landed in a roll then got to their feet quickly. It was James. He looked around most likely for the back pack.

"Looking for this?" I asked stepping around the wall so he could see me fully.

"Willow" he said in surprise.

"Hi Jamie" I smiled at him.

"Come on doll, I really need that bag." He said reaching out to me.

"I remember Jamie." I said simply keeping the bag in my tight grip.

His eyes seemed to light up as he smiled at me.

"That's fantastic doll but as much as I'm dying to kiss you breathless I really do need that bag." He said taking a step forward.

Before I could say anything else a man in all black tackled James to the ground. It was a instant fight. The moment James was able to break free he ran for the other edge of the building.

"Jamie!" I shouted.

He turned in time to catch the bag I'd thrown at him. He winked at me then jumped over the edge. The man in the all black, cat like outfit moved to follow him. I lunged forward knocking him to the ground but he was quick to get away from me. His only focus was James.

"Sam Southwest rooftop." Steve said through the com.

"Who the hell's the other guy?" Sam asked.

"About to find out." Steve said.

As soon as he landed on the roof I went over the edge to follow James. I could hear Steve close behind me. The chase was on as we all tried to catch up to James. I kept my eyes on the new comer in front of me. I knew he was hot on Bucky's trail. They jumped into an opening that lead into a tunnel. We ended up jumping right into traffic. Steve was right next to me as we ran around the cars. Sirens wailed behind us but we paid them no mind.

"Stand down! Stand down!" They yelled from behind us.

Steve jumped folding his body to lay on the shield as it hit the car's windshield. The car stopped then Steve rolled off the hood. He opened the door then pulled the driver out. I was climbing in the passenger seat as he knocked out the windshield completely. I held onto the dash as Steve sped around the other cars. I felt the jolt to the car making me look back.

"Cat guy is hitching a ride." I told Steve.

He instantly sped up then started to swerve trying to get the guy off the back of the car.

"Sam, I can't shake this guy." Steve said in frustration.

"Right behind you" Sam answered.

I looked behind us to see an army of police cars gaining on us. As they pulled up on each side of our car Steve started to swerve into them. We are so fucked for this.

"Steve there!" I shouted pointing at James.

Steve swerved the car driving right through the barrels to follow our friend. I watched in absolute awe as James grabbed hold of an oncoming bike knocking the driver off. He effortlessly turned in around then jumped on it taking off. It was one of the most badass things I'd ever witnessed.

"Shit" I breathed as the cat guy jumped on the back of the bike.

He tried his best to get James off of it but James was much better than that. With help of his metal arm he kept himself from crashing then kicked his attacker off. Just as we got to the exit of the tunnel an explosion went off.

"Get out now!" Steve shouted.

I didn't have time to think as I jumped out of the car instantly picking up in a run just as Steve had done. The car started to flip behind us as James was finally knocked off the bike a few feet in front of us. Steve tossed his shield knocking the attacker away from James. Once we reached him we both stood protectively in front of him. Seconds later we were surrounded by sirens and flashing lights then the war machine dropped in front of us. His arms were held out with his weapons at the ready.

"Stand down, now!" He shouted at us.

Steve sighed but put his shield on his back. Sam was led over to us at gun point.

"Congratulations Cap, you're a criminal." Rhodey told him.

As an officer grabbed each of us to put us in shackles the man in the black cat suit took off his mask. It was that Wakanda prince or king now that his father was killed in the bombing.

"Your Highness" Rhodey said with a small nod.

—

[grailfinders]

Servant #4: Artoria Pendragon (Lily)

Rounding out our Artoria collection for the moment is Saber Lily. It feels a bit weird making a 20 level build for a character whose whole schtick is not being fully trained, but here we go anyway. Our goals are similar to the last two builds: a fancy laser sword and mana burst, with the caveat that Lily isn’t as physcially powerful and doesn’t have access to Warlock levels. The build’s spreadsheet is here, and we’ll be going into more detail about it below the cut.

Race and Background

As per usual, Artoria’s a Human Knight, granting her +1 to all ability scores, proficiencies in History and Persuasion, and giving her three Retainers.

For skills, we’re using the standard array: if you want to roll, keep that strength up for multiclassing. Our highest stat is Charisma. Saber Lily’s future occupation hasn’t crushed her spirit yet, so it’s a bit higher than Artoria’s.

Next up is Dexterity, she’s a bit faster than the other Artorias, but have you seen children? It fits.

Follow that up with Constitution; Saber Lily’s a growing girl, she needs her hit points.

Next is Strength, because this is the lowest we could make it and still fit multiclassing requirements.

Finally, slap the 10 and 8 into Intelligence and Wisdom, respectively, because this is still Artoria we’re talking about.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: We are once again starting our build as a paladin, giving you proficiency with All weapons and Armors as well as Wisdom and Charisma Saves and Religion and Medicine. You’re just a knight in training right now, you need to know how to patch your own injuries. Once again you receive Divine Sense at this level, letting you detect extraplanar entities nearby, and also Lay on Hands, letting you heal for 5hp per paladin level after each long rest.

2. Paladin 2: Second level paladins receive a fighting style: take Great Weapon Fighting so you can prepare for Excalibur and prevent any time paradoxes. You also receive Divine Smite, giving you the option to burn spell slots for more damage. Speaking of spell slots, you have those now! You can cast 1st level spells at this level. You can only prepare up to your charisma modifier + half your paladin level each day, but you have access to the whole paladin list to choose from. I suggest focusing on support oriented spells like Bless, Cure Wounds, Shield of Faith, and Heroism, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide how you want to spend your time before duty crushes your soul.

3. Paladin 3: Third level paladins receive Divine Health, making you immune to disease. You also join the Oath of the Crown, swearing to uphold the dignity of the crown i.e. you. This gives you the channel divinity options of Champion Challenge, forcing other creatures you choose nearby to make a wisdom save or be forced to stay within 30′ of you, as well as Turn the Tide, healing allies around you for 1d6+Charisma Mod if they are bloodied.

4. Paladin 4: Fourth level paladins receive an Ability Score Improvement, which we will put into Constitution for better health. Most of your spells are buffs right now, so you don’t need to worry about making magic checks too much at the moment.

5. Paladin 5: Fifth level paladins have an Extra Attack each turn, letting you deal much more damage. This is also the level you receive 2nd level spells, such as Find Steed to get that horse you always wanted, and Magic Weapon to help you keep up with your older selves.

6. Barbarian 1: Now that we have some extra damage, it’s time to switch over to Barbarian for a bit. First, you get Rage (a.k.a. Mana Burst), giving you advantage on strength checks, +2 to melee damage, and resistance to nonmagical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage. In return, you can’t be wearing heavy armor, and you can’t cast or concentrate on spells while it’s active. Unfortunately, you don’t have a fairy godfather or magic cup helping you dress, so you’ll just have to wear medium armor if you want to use these skills. You also get Unarmored Defense, making your unarmored AC 10 + Con + Dex.

7. Barbarian 2: 2nd level barbarians get a Reckless Attack, giving you advantage on all attacks now in exchange for enemies having advantage later, and Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dex saves caused by things you can see. You don’t have to be tough to kill if you’re tough to hit.

8. Paladin 6: You gain an Aura of Protection, giving you and any friendly creatures within 10′ of you a bonus of your Charisma mod on all saving throws.

9. Paladin 7: As an Oath of the Crown paladin, you have a Divine Allegiance, letting you swap your health with a nearby ally’s when they take a hit. Your hit dice are going to be pretty generous with you, so make sure you spread the love to your squishier teammates. 

10. Paladin 8: You gain another Ability Score Improvement, which we’ll put into Charisma. With the one stat buffing every save you make, it’s not a bad idea to max that out.

11. Paladin 9: Ninth level paladins gain access to 3rd level spells like Spirit Guardians, Elemental Weapon, and Crusader’s Mantle. The sword of choosing is nice, but having angels swarm around you to protect you is a pretty sweet way of proving God’s cool with your coronation too.

12. Paladin 10: Tenth level paladins get an Aura of Courage, preventing you and friendly creatures within 10′ from being frightened. You don’t know what you’re doing yet, but you look like you do, and that’s what’s important.

13. Paladin 11: Eleventh level paladins have Improved Divine Smite, adding an extra 1d8 radiant damage to all of your attacks. A nice addition, but still not quite NP level yet.

14. Paladin 12: Twelfth level paladins get another Ability Score Improvement. Use this one to max out Charisma. You are now officially Too Pure for this Sinful World, and you have the certification to prove it.

15. Paladin 13: Thirteenth level paladins gain 4th level spells, Like Aura of Life and Death Ward. Dying is bad, make sure that doesn’t happen.

16. Paladin 14: You’re really racking up paladin points now, earning you the power of Cleansing Touch, letting you end a spell’s effect on you or a willing creature five times each long rest. Curses are for people who don’t have the power of God and Anime on their side.

17. Paladin 15: At this level, Oath of the Crown paladins gain the depressingly misnamed skill Unyielding Spirit, which gives you advantage on saving throws against being paralyzed or stunned. You try not to think about why neither of your adult selves have this.

18. Paladin 16: You gain your last Ability Score Improvement, which we’ll put into Dexterity and Wisdom, to bump up your saves just a bit more.

19. Paladin 17: Just one level away from the end, you finally gain access to 5th level spells, including your Noble Phantasm Holy Weapon. It’s not a laser, unfortunately, but it’s a concentration spell that lasts for up to an hour, and basically adds a smite (2d8 radiant) to every hit you make. As a bonus action you can dismiss the spell and go full Caliburn, forcing every creature you want to within 30′ to make a Constitution save or take 4d8 radiant damage and become blinded for one minute.

20. Paladin 18: For your final level, you receive Aura Improvements, bumping up the range of all your normal auras to 30′. This isn’t that big a deal, since you’re normally all standing together in a line anyway, but you never know when it’s come in handy.

The Positives: With your high health total and powerful spellcasting, you can be an effective support even on the front lines. Your high Charisma also means you have plenty of uses of your skills, letting you use them more liberally than your adult counterparts. You also give a pretty massive buff to every saving throw your party makes. While charisma saves aren’t as prevalent as wisdom saves, your +16 to them means you don’t have to worry about getting shunted to another plane any time soon.

The Negatives: You have a slightly lower AC than the other Artorias, and honestly may want to think about just foregoing armor altogether and using your Unarmored Defense. This, combined with your very low strength, means you probably won’t be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield unless you use your NP, which you only get one of per long rest. That’s not to say you should avoid fighting, just don’t expect to stick around on the front lines.

[hamliet]

Your Fate Is Up to You

“I WILL CHANGE FATE I DON’T POSSESS. MY FATE IS UP TO ME AND NOT THE HEAVENS!”

So said Shi Wu Du right before he died. In doing so he directly stated TGCF’s existentialist themes on deciding your own fate.

On the most obvious level, within TGCF the roles of god, demon, human don’t dictate whether or not someone is a good or righteous person. I mean, the worst demonic calamity in Bai WuXiang and the head god Jun Wu are the same person.

To start with I might as well just state it outright that my thoughts on Jun Wu are probably a lot harsher than most of the fandom’s. That said the narrative definitely has empathy for him and his ending was perfect and objectively beautiful.

Like most of MXTX’s antagonists, Jun Wu is attempting to force empathy because he feels lonely. It’s the same motivation that drives Shen Jiu, Xue Yang, Jin GuangYao, He Xuan, Qi Rong even, etc, etc, etc. It’s also what drives many of our protagonists (Wei WuXian, Luo BingHe, Hua Cheng, etc.) Yet in the end, Jun Wu is not actually forcing people to empathize with him, but instead dragging them down with him, and he needs to realize this.

The scene where Mu Qing is poised to fall into the lava (a symbol of the hell that started it all) tells us:

Many small broken threads of flames were also singing Mu Qing’s robes, and the hilt was scorching hot, yet he still gripped on hard, afraid to let go, and afraid to look down.

If he was to let go then it was nothing but blazing flames and lava waiting for him down below. There was also the hungry wailing of countless spirits of the deceased, their cries resounding and echoing, as if they were calling for the one struggling, hanging on for dear life above to hurry and join them in companionship.

Jun Wu really just wants someone to hurry and join him in despair. But it’s also symbolic in showing the difference in Xie Lian, because instead of sacrificing parts of himself (aka his three friends: Hua Cheng, Feng Xin, and Mu Qing, plus Mei Nian Qing again), he’s determined to save them even though some might not necessarily deserve it. Feng Xin and Mu Qing haven’t treated him particularly well, but they’re a part of each other. Mu Qing is the part of Xie Lian that others tried to shame, the part of him willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goals (usually saving people), the part of him that almost led him into becoming Bai WuXiang himself. Xie Lian needs to reconcile that part of him, the choices he made that were both good and bad in these traits, with his animus (Hua Cheng) and with his princely side in all its strengths and flaws too (Feng Xin).

Anyways, all that to say it’s fitting Mu Qing is the one dangling, about to be burned. Because especially after Jun Wu has taken so much from Xie Lian, it’d be fitting for him to deny that part of himself and any risk that he would be like Jun Wu. But he doesn’t do this, because he is similar in some sense, and because he knows it. And even if Mu Qing had sided with Jun Wu by then (and he hadn’t), Xie Lian decides to save him. It works with the theme of rebirth, in which the butterflies cannot fly over, but Xie Lian himself can because he’s strong enough to do it on his own:

Hua Cheng casually let loose a silver butterfly. That silver butterfly fluttered its wings, flying out for a few hundred feet, but before it reached even one third of the way to Mu Qing, it dissipated into silver smoke and vanished in the air.

Xie Lian knew that he was demonstrating that the wraith butterflies could not help; it was a dead end, not worth dying for. 

Mu Qing also witnessed the vanishing process of that silver butterfly, his expression gradually turning into one of despair.

He understood. Right now, one, there was no one who had the ability to save him, second, no one believed him, and on the grounds of his triggering, there was no reason at all for Xie Lian to come pull him up at the risk of his own life.

But, while despairing, he still refused to yield, and he was unwilling to give up. Mu Qing gritted his teeth, shouting, “IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME THAT’S FINE TOO, BUT I WILL NEVER FALL THAT EASILY!” 

(It’s also why during the final physical fight, MQ and FX are yet again dangling over a pit.) Xie Lian chooses to reconcile with himself, with his shadow self and with what he could have (and almost did) become, with the friends he’d driven away. In saving his loved ones, he saves himself.

Therefore, it’s fitting Jun Wu didn’t die. He could not make Xie Lian into anything close to what he became because of his choices. It tells Jun Wu that yes, Xie Lian and him are alike, but that doesn’t mean they’re destined to walk the same path. It was his choices that led him here. And because Xie Lian reconciled, there’s hope for him to reconcile with himself too.

His being forced to remain alive even after having done so much evil, and Mei Nian Qing choosing to stay with him as well, ultimately disproves Jun Wu’s cynical view of the world. It offers him another chance. Someone can always choose to do better, and he is left with MNQ who chose to do better just like he needs to.

He didn’t intend to get up at all, and Xie Lian asked, “Master, are you not coming?” 

Head Priest shook his head, “I’ll keep his highness company. After all, in the past, I didn’t stay by his side.” 

The rain was coming down harder, scouring Jun Wu’s resting face, washing away the life and blood flowing from his wounds.

As the rain washed, Xie Lian felt the three human faces on his face seemed to have gradually faded somewhat. Maybe it was his imagination.

After a moment of silence, Xie Lian took off the bamboo hat carried on his back, and tossed it from his hand, covering it over Jun Wu’s face.

Not only that, but there is a part of Xie Lian and a part of Jun Wu that are similar, that are good. And that’s the desire to save people and an understanding of hypocrisy. Though Jun Wu completely forsook the whole saving people thing for awhile, it’s not like his actions are entirely useless. The dichotomy between the righteousness of the gods and evils of demons has been completely ripped into shreds, and people on both sides have to make choices to make better.

Like, it’s pretty telling that the three gods we see who are the kindest and most benevolent are Shi Qing Xuan, whose brother cheated to get him an ascension, Xie Lian, who got kicked out twice, Yu Shi Huang, who was scorned by all during her life, and then also there’s Hua Cheng who outright refused to ascend. Everyone else who was expected to ascend and then did is a complete disaster. (Though again, Shi Wu Du outright gave us this existentialist theme with his last words: “I decide my fate!”)

Even among these disasters, we see improvements. Mu Qing is honest with Xie Lian about how he wanted to be his friend. Pei Ming tells a demon whom he wronged who has now stalked him for years to love herself, to do better, that she can choose to be better. 

And among the demons, Hua Cheng saves the day with his love for Xie Lian. Qi Rong dies saving a human child, a callback to the same act that started all of this (when Xie Lian chose to save Hua Cheng instead of continuing a festival to the gods). And He Xuan helps save the gods he betrayed, in particular returning Shi Qing Xuan a reminder of who he is. He may not have earned his ascension, but he’s the one in the end protecting the people with spiritual powers, because he is strong enough even without his brother’s help. Instead of defining Shi Qing Xuan by who his brother is, He Xuan defines him by who Shi Qing Xuan is.

When he saw a “Hua Cheng” come by, he quickly called out, “CRIMSON RAIN SOUGHT FLOWER!!! You’ve finally come back! What the heck were you doing leaving for so long, have you thought of a way to connect with his highness? No no no you best think of a way to help me deal with the situation here first, do you see all those fiery rocks coming down from the sky? Think, fast! Blow a breath or make those endless little butterflies go up and chase them away or something, otherwise we’ll die....”

“Hua Cheng” didn’t speak a word, coldly allowing Shi Qing Xuan say that giant pile of words in one breath, and finally, as if he was growing impatient listening, he cut him off directly, “Deal with it yourself.” 

Shi Qing Xuan exclaimed, “Deal with it myself? Don’t joke at a time like this, I’m not his highness, I can’t understand your jokes. How do I deal with those rocks on my own…” Before he finished his sentence, “Hua Cheng” seized his back collar, and yanked him out of the human array directly.

...Yet unexpectedly, after “Hua Cheng” had pulled him out he wasn’t done, and a hand came swinging, smacked him and sent him flying out.

...“It’s fine it’s fine, I didn’t die! He didn’t really hit me, he was just lending spiritual powers!” ...

Shi Qing Xuan examined his hands, then looked at his own body, emitting spiritual light from head to toe...

Just then, “Hua Cheng” flung his right hand, and tossed something at him. Without thinking, Shi Qing Xuan raised his hand to catch, but when he saw what it was he caught, his entire face blanched.

That object was the Wind Master fan!...

Shi Qing Xuan was clutching that dearly familiar fan, his neck stiff, and slowly turned to that “Hua Cheng”.“Hua Cheng” then repeated again coldly, “Deal with it yourself.” 

He Xuan, someone who had no faith in justice or the gods or anyone, has faith in this one former god, now a beggar. And because of the return of his fan, because of who He Xuan is, Shi Qing Xuan remembers who he is and who he could be as a god, and saves people.

You only need one person to believe in you, to remind you that you can be better, in the end.  For Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, for Shi Qing Xuan and He Xuan, for Gu Zi and Qi Rong, for Xuan Ji and Pei Ming, and even for Jun Wu and Mei Nian Qing.

[lifesucksheres20bucks]

this is pretty random, out of nowehere but could you write a soulmate au of reddie in which people can see who their soulmate based on a red string tied on their ring finger and the end of the string is tied to your soulmate, richie and eddie forgot each other because of the trauma they had on their childhood so they both believed they have no soulmate because there is no sting on their fingers and then they saw each other on a random place and the sting appear, i made a fan art on this

@weirdwaffle made some incredible art to go with this fic so go check it out!

Richie has been in Los Angeles for the past 4 years going to UCLA, busting his ass in with his Major. He decided to pursue an acting career but his parents wanted him to go to university, so they made a compromise, he could do an acting major. He also picked up a minor along the way, he wanted to dabble in the art of writing. His goal was to be able to write his own jokes and perform them on a tv show. Not to toot his own horn but he was damn good at writing jokes and at performing them. About two years ago he started doing stand up at the local comedy bar and he completely fell in love with the gig. That brings us here, the summer after he graduated, top of his class, in the middle of New York City. He probably has the shittiest apartment in the city, but he’s proud of that, because it’s his shitty apartment. One that he paid with his own money, money with no strings attached, unlike his parents money. He had come here because he wanted to work on Saturday Night Live. He wanted to be a cast member so bad but he would take any job he could, hell he would become the janitor if he had too. SNL was his dream, it combined all of his passions, acting, writing, comedy and stupid voices. He was already on the right path to working on the show. He had sent in a self tape while he was back in LA and they told him they wanted to see him perform live. The second he got that phone call he decided to pack up all of his things and move to NYC. 

Eddie on the other hand, was kind of a hot mess. He just graduated from nursing school and was working shitty night shift at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, he only accepted the job because he had interned there and they offered him a permanent post. He told himself he wasn’t going to work there long, only a year or two just to get enough experience to get a better job. Working the nights shift were the worst, he mostly got drunks with stupid superficial injuries. The most exciting thing to happen in the emergency room in the last week was that someone accidentally set their pants on fire and had 1st degree burns on their ass. Although he complained a lot about his job, he wouldn’t change it for the world. He loved being a nurse, it made him feel important and strong. When he was younger, his mom made him believe he had serious health issues, he was scared of everything and it prevented him from being a worry free kid. He didn’t remember much of his childhood, his therapist said it was probably because he had blocked out all memories of his mom and that sadly included his childhood. He always felt like something was missing like a part of his soul had been ripped out, maybe that's why he didn't have a red string on his finger. 

Everyone has a soulmate. Every person is born with a red string attached on their ring finger and once they meet their soulmate those two would connect. That’s how you knew, pretty simple actually. However, Eddie didn’t have a string on his finger, he figured his soulmate must of died before they had a chance to meet. Thinking of that made him sad, it most likely meant he was going to die alone. 

Richie didn’t have a string either, not that he cared much, he wasn’t really one for soulmates. He preferred being the guy people hooked up with before settling down with their forever partner. It was quick and without any real commitment. Plus he had an array of people to choose from, both guys and girls liked to experiment before meeting their soulmates.

A month after his live audition, Richie got a call, it was from one of the producers of SNL telling him he was going to be apart of the featured cast. After the phone call ended he collapsed to the floor, it was the best day of his life. He suddenly felt the urge to tell someone what happened he took his phone a blankly stared at his contacts, he didn’t know who he wanted to call but the urge to do it felt so powerful, he thought he was going insane. 

“It’s just the adrenaline, you’re not insane” he told himself

Instead of dwelling on what just happened, he called his parents to tell them the good news.

The week before the first SNL show of the season, the cast were practicing skits non stop. He was there from 8am to way past midnight on most days. He was exhausted but he was only so happy to be actually doing this, his dream job. One night they were practicing a skit that involve someone breaking a vase on Richie’s head. Of course they used sugar glass but somehow the last take they tried had hurt a lot more than the ones before.

“OH shit dude you’re bleeding!” one of his cast members yelled

Panic settled in Richie’s stomach as blood dripped down the side of his face. He slowly touched his forehead and felt the deep cut on his temple. 

“Dude you have to go to the hospital, that looks really bad. Come with me, I'll take you to the emergency room” Richie mindlessly followed his colleague out of the Rockefeller centre. 

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance, I don’t know if I can walk far like this”  

“Don’t worry, it’s just on the other side of the street, we’re nearly there”

Richie walked in the emergency room and sat down on a chair, feeling very lightheaded. His colleague talked to the nurse at the reception and she told him he could wait on a bed until a nurse came to look at him.

He sat there for what felt like forever until he felt something pull at his ring finger. He looked down thinking it was hallucination coming from the blood loss but there it was, clear as day, a red string tugging at his finger. 

Eddie was finishing up with a patient when he was called to look over another one. 

“You have a patient in bed 4, head injury, so you might need stitches”

Eddie groaned, he hated giving stitches, he hated the way the needle felt when it the in the skin. He suddenly felt nervous, thinking it was because of the stitches, he just brushed it off. 

As he started walking towards bed 4 and  he feels something pulling his at his hand. He quickly looked down and saw a red string. He starts to panic, this wasn't supposed to happen, he doesn't have a soulmate. He starts to turn away, he can't do this, not now, he's not ready. He feels a full on panic attack coming on and he tries to walk away but the string is keeping him there. 

“Hey could you stop pulling, you’re starting to hurt my finger”

Eddie’s head shoots up, that voice, he knows that voice. A sense of comfort and warmth washes over him and he slowly starts walking toward the noise. He pulls back the curtain at bed 4 gasps.

“Richie…” , Eddie breathes out, he doesn’t know how he knows the guys name but he just does.

“Hiya Eds”, that nickname escapes Richie lips like it was something he was dying to say all his life.

Suddenly everything hits Eddie like truck. Derry, the quarry, all of the summer nights spent with the losers club laughing but the most important thing that came back to him was Richie. The way that Richie made him feel, how could he have forgotten a love that powerful. He can see in the way Richie’s face squints, that’s memories are coming back for him too. 

“Eddie, how could I have forgotten you”

“I don’t know Richie, none of this makes sense” 

“It’s Derry, that shit hole made us forget each other. We didn't have strings because we had already met when we were children.” 

Eddie suddenly remembers Richie injury and touches Richie’s face. He feels this feeling inside of him that he's never felt before, it’s like he’s breathing for the first time in his life. 

“I, uhm, I need to, hm, stitch you up, okay ‘chee?” Eddie didn’t know where that nickname came from but it felt right.

“ yeah hmm, Now, pip-pip and tally-ho, my good fellow, go ahead and patch me up Dr.K” Richie said in a terrible British accent

“Oh my god, I can't believe you still do those awful accents”

“ Yeah well, I get paid to do them now”

“What did you like start working at SNL or something, like you dreamed of doing as a kid” Eddie says laughing

“Actually yeah, that’s how I got my injury. We were practicing a skit and someone used real glass instead of sugar glass. A real great first week”

“ Wow that’s incredible...I think we have a lot of catching up to do. I'm all done by the way.” Eddie said as he took his hand away from Richie’s cheek

Richie grabbed Eddie’s hand and squeezed it softly.

In that moment they knew that everything was going to be okay. 

*SORRY THE ENDING SUCKED AGAIN I CANT FINISH STORIES FOR SHIT OKAY THANKS BYE*

**i also researched way too much for this fic lol**

[kinda-ooc-just-a-little]

Heart of a Lion

Just a heads up, but I put a vulgarity warning in this chapter because there’s a part that is a little different from the usual vanilla stuff and I want people to be shocked but not scared. It’s basically some name calling and mentions of certain ‘favors’ but that’s it. Not sure if it’s necessary, but I’m doing it anyway. 

I’m really excited for this chapter because reader is really going to start coming into their own!

Chapter 7 Fight or Flight

Shinso x Reader

Rated M for Future Mature Themes (Not Explicit)

Tags: slow burn, mutual pining, secretive quirk

Summary: You never wanted to be a hero. You come from a long family of heroes, so why not just be a normal person? That’s what you hoped, until you re-connected with your old High School friend/crush.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 /

Well this is fun. You thought as you woke up to a deflated bed and rocks lodged in your back. You cursed Shinso for convincing you to go on this trip. At least, you would have thunk that, until you saw a rare morning bed head Shinso with his hair down instead of the usual flayed back. You inwardly thanked him for the opportunity.

The morning proceeded smoothly as the team had breakfast and headed out toward the river. The coordinator informed everyone that the activity would be canoeing down and then up the river. Then it would be time for lunch and after, there would be time to swim in the river. At night, after dinner, there would be a special “Trial of Courage” that was kept secret on what the ‘Trial’ would be. The coordinator mentioned that the residents reassured there would be no feral animals to interrupt the trial, so there was nothing really to fear. This reassured no one.

“Everyone choose a partner to help operate the Canoe. Once you choose, this will be your partner for the rest of the activities for the day, so choose wisely.”

Almost immediately, you felt your hand being forcibly raised in the air.

“Got my partner.” Shinso said proudly. “That is, if you want me.”

You snatched your hand back, trying to laugh off his questionable double entendre. “I guess you’ll do.”

Shinso started making quick work loading supplies into the canoe. You gathered the safety supplies and carried them toward the boat. It didn’t take long before everyone was on the water and floating down the river. You sat in the front as Shinso sat in the back.

“Hey,” He said to you and you turned your head. “We’re going downstream so don’t worry about rowing. I got it covered.”

“Aw, how chivalrous.” You cooed.

“Don’t get cocky. You need to save your strength for rowing upstream.”

You pouted to yourself as you observed the still water. The boat was a bit far from the group and there weren’t many people around, so the river was quiet for the most part. You let yourself relax a bit as you hear Shinso lightly correct the canoe’s course in the water.

You let out a big sigh that didn’t go unnoticed by Shinso. “Something bothering you?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” you twisted your hips to look at the Indigo haired boy behind you. “Everything is happening so fast. Just last week I had a crap job and went home alone every day. Now, I have a job that takes us on trips like this and I’m talking to you again. It feels surreal, like…”

Your words fell, but Shinso knew what you were going to say. “Like everything’s a dream and you’re about to wake up.”

You nodded.

“Well, if it means anything, I feel that way too.” Shinso looked away as a light shade of pink danced across his cheeks. “Not many people get third chances. I was happy that we got the opportunity to talk again, so much so, I was scared it was a dream.”

You turned around to hide the blush that was also forming on your cheeks. God, does he even realize that he makes everything sound so romanticized? “Well… I am a treat.” Was all you mustered to say and you heard a chuckle behind you.

“Of course, you are.”

The rest of the river passed with no problems, although, your arms were dying from rowing back upstream. After packing up, the coordinator had somehow found a megaphone and was currently yelling that it was time for lunch. “Who the hell gave her a megaphone,” was the thought on everyone’s mind as everybody sat down at the benches for lunch. You decided to sit with your team to chat with them, and to make sure no one was getting the wrong idea about you and Shinso. The entire day, you tried to convince yourself that you weren’t already hearing rumors about you when you’ve only been there for a damn week. You also didn’t want that pressure on Shinso. He has more important things to worry about.

“If you want to go swimming, you have about three hours of free time.” The coordinator announced after mostly everyone was done with their lunch. “Just make sure you’re back in time for dinner and the Trial of Courage!”

“I’m going to go and change into my swimsuit.” You told your team. “I’ll meet you out in the water!”

You made your way back to your tent and grabbed your swim gear. Before you got to the outhouse to change, you overheard someone mention your name.

“Ugh, who the hell do they think they are?” A woman said behind the outhouse.

“For real… here for only one week and he’s all over them.” Another woman added. You really hoped this wasn’t going where you think it’s going.

“I can’t believe it! He won’t even spare a look toward my way and I’ve known him for two years! I bet they bribed him, that fucking slut-”

“Well maybe he’s all over me because I actually care about him.” You revealed yourselves to the three wicked women. You recognized them from another department. You gave silent thanks because you didn’t know what you would do if you had to work next to these two-faced women. “And I don’t talk shit about his friends behind his back.”

“Friend? Please, I bet you suck him off in the office whenever you can.”

“The only reason a man would change that drastically is if someone seduced them.”

“So, what is it? Promised to be his little toy for his attention?”

You felt an anger boil up from within you. They claimed to like Shinso, yet they say all these things behind his back. “You better watch what you say.” A form of energy unknowingly jolted throughout your body and resided in your irises. “Before I make you regret it.”

You saw the women back off and fast walked away. You heard one whisper something about your eyes. Shit.

You clutched your head in frustration, trying to get a hold of yourself. Damn those women. You didn’t want your quirk to accidentally activate, especially not here.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s wrong?” You heard Shinso ask for the twentieth time since you got back from changing.

You both were currently walking through the forest as part of the Test of Courage, but it was just an over glorified walk through the woods at night. The entire time you knew you must have sported an annoyed look because you felt that way ever since your interaction with those women. You couldn’t get what they said out of your head. How dare they talk about Shinso like that.

“I said I’m fine, Shinso.” You said, your voice not even trying to mask your annoyance.

“Bull Shit.” He said as he grabbed your shoulders, forcing you to stop walking. “You were fine until you went to go change. What the hell happened?”

You gritted your teeth. “I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

You could see Shinso’s expression grow dark. “Tell me, what happened.”

“I just over heard some women from the design department… they were talking about us and…” Your voice fell short. You couldn’t bring yourself to repeat what they said. It made you feel disgusted.

“What did they say?” Shinso’s voice became deep and laced with anger.

You sighed. “They said that the only reason you hang out with me is because… I do… sexual favors for you.” Your voice trailed off at the end. It’s not like you were shy about it, but more so you feared how Shinso would react.

“I’m going to kill that entire department.”

Yeah, that reaction. “I know your not serious, don’t worry about it.”

“No, I am. I’m going to tell them all to jump off a bridge.”

You saw him start to walk back toward the camp, but you quickly grabbed his hand. “Look, it doesn’t bother me, it’ll be fine.”

He still looked unsure, but you gave him your best begging eyes. “Please?”

He grunted and continued the path. “Just tell me when they bother you again. I’ll put them in their place.” You wondered if he noticed that he still held onto your hand, but you weren’t going to mention it.

You both walked in silence as you continue the path with his hand in yours. You marveled at the thought of what it might be like if you could do this everywhere with him. Would he mind? Would he want you to hold his hand? Does he want you like you wanted him?

Your thought process came to a complete halt as you hear the shuffling of bushes. It didn’t sound like it came from the immediate vicinity, but you hope it was just someone getting ready to prank Shinso and you.

“Hey, why did you-“

You shushed him as you focused on where the sound was coming from. You barely made out some of the voices you heard.

“Where… brats… lesson… deal with Shinso…”

You gripped onto Shinso’s hand and lead him behind an array of shrubberies. You gave him a ‘please just trust me and be quiet’ look and held a finger over your lips, hoping he’d understand.

He nodded.

You both observed the clearing you just left to see a man, who didn’t look like he had the best intentions, enter it. “Come out little brats! I know you’re here somewhere!” You couldn’t put your finger on it, but you recognize the voice. “Damn, they were just here. Where did they go?”

This was bad. Shinso didn’t have his binding cloth with him and the camp was a ways away. The intruder had a different tone of voice than the one you heard before, so he must have separated with someone who was heading to the camp. You hope the others could handle it.

Shinso grabbed your attention and gestured a finger toward you and pointed toward the woods. You barely had time to decipher what he meant when he suddenly jumped over the bushes into the clearing.

What the hell is he doing?! You thought as your mind reeled for a solution to get out of the situation.

“Yeah, and what do you want?” Shinso retorted, clenching his fists.

“Oh! There you are!” The stranger chuckled. “Thought you were here. Was afraid my friend’s locator quirk went wrong somewhere.”

Shinso brows knitted together.

“What? Upset that your quirk isn’t working?” He tapped on a device that was currently wrapped around his head. “Got this little present off the black market. Protects me from psychic quirk users, just like you!”

“And how do you know about me?”

“Oh, I know a lot about you.” He sported a grin. “After all, we went to the same school.”

What? You thought. You searched your memories to see if you could remember who he was. Was he in the hero course with him?

“You even succeeded in entering the hero course. I never even got to congratulate you on your success.”

Now you remembered.

Yuto.

He was never a fan of Shinso, especially after the sports festival. His quirk wasn’t that strong, so not many people took him seriously. If you remember correctly, he had a quirk that made him able to grow any part of his body made from keratin. However, the keratin that grew wasn’t that strong.

“No matter how hard I tried, I could never get strong enough to protect me or my family. But now…” He removed a bottle from his jacket and downs it in one go. “I have all the power I need.”

Shinso took a step back as he observed the man in front of him. Yuto had his eyes clenched in pain as his slim body morphed two times his size and his muscles growing throughout his body, along with his hair, and nails that grew into claws.

All you could do was sit and watch as the villain started to power up. Anxiety raided through your body, your fight or flight senses betraying you as you chose to do neither. You observed the device still securely wrapped around Yuto’s head. How the hell is Shinso going to defeat him now?

You could tell he was thinking the same thing, but before he even had time to react, the villain charged and sent him flying to the nearest tree. He groaned in pain, as he could barely stand up.

“What’s wrong Shinso? Why don’t you use your quirk?” Yuto taunted. “You’re a hero, right? Fight me like one!” He landed another blow, sending him in the opposite direction.

You couldn’t watch this. With just one hit, Shinso was already looking beaten up and had at least a couple of cracked ribs. He was wasting time at this point, hoping you would have gone for backup, but you knew it was too late for that.

You crouched on your knees and cupped your hands together. You gather all the emotions you were feeling into your heart: anger, fear, and the intense desire to protect that in which you care about.

You had to do something. You had to save him.

You needed to call upon the lioness.