#listened to echo on repeat and here's the result
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I really wanna
Hold up, hold up neukkyeojineun neo
Eonjenga neoreul deopchilji molla
I really wanna
Yeah naega neukkin gamjeong da negero jeonbu isikae ya
Yeah itgo itdeon gamgak dasi hanbeon naege pieona
#listened to echo on repeat and here's the result#anybody else imagine if these hunters fight altogether?#solo leveling#sung jin woo#choi jong in#cha hae in#baek yoon ho#woo jin chul#liu zhigang#thomas andre#goto ryuji
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Perfectly Pathetic
synopsis: when you take an interest in the new girl, regina takes an interest in you
pairing: regina george x plastics!fem!reader
words: 4.6k+
A/N - in the nicest of ways, please DO NOT read this if you don't want to read about toxic relationships. you have been warned. I don't want a repeat of last time. also we need more fics where regina is actually mean so
WARNINGS - swearing, alcohol use, general toxicity, toxic relationships and bullying/vague reference to weight
Buy me a ko-fi
the clash of plastic trays and idle chatter brought alive the fragile student body of North Shore High School. on the outside this may seem like any other lunch room but inside it was a carefully crafted game of chess. every move was calculated. each person has their place and if you stray too far you're at risk. you're sat next to Gretchen Weiners. known for big hair and keeping secrets, she knows everything about everyone. opposite her is Karen Shetty. she... tries her best and looks adorable doing it. a ray of sunshine if you get to know her. and before you sits the most beautiful woman you have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Regina George. effortlessly perfect but needlessly cruel. she was the most popular person in school and one of your best friends.
perfectly manicured nails stab into the skin of your cheek as your head is yanked in her direction. razor-sharp eyes stare back. "are you even listening?" the answer was no but you didn't want to say that. "what are you staring at?"
a flash of blonde as she looks behind her. you push against her grip to look too. across the room sat Janis 'imi'ike and Damian Hubbard. you hardly ever spoke to them but you were lab partners with Damian. he was funny. today, however, there was a new addition with strawberry blonde hair, a blue checkered shirt and brown pants. you knew everyone at this school to some degree. a curse of popularity. but you had never seen her before. "seems they've got themselves a new friend"
"who cares," her nails dig a little deeper drawing a pained expression as she pulls your head back to face her. She holds your gaze for a moment. a silent challenge. before fingertips glide across your cheek and she goes back to leading the conversation across the table. you pick at the food on the tray with a fork but you can't help but be intrigued. North Shore was boring and predictable. a direct result of being under Regina's control. but this girl was new and you couldn't help but be drawn to that. to the unknown. to the possibility. three pairs of eyes as you push up from the table and march across the room.
"I haven't seen you around here before." was all you could think to say as you approached the end of the table. Janis and Damian share a look before settling on... confusion. You weren't ever particularly mean to others but you were guilty by association. people mess with you. they mess with Regina.
"oh," by the look on her face, she already knew who you were or at the very least your friends. "it's my first day."
"Where did you transfer from?"
"uh... Kenya," she seems unsure. you put it down to nerves.
"you sure about that?" a curious raise of your brow. "'cause you don't sound-"
"we're leaving" stated firmly as three girls breeze past. the blonde leads the way. the other two are just a step behind.
"so what made you move all the way here from Kenya?"
"my mom got a new job."
"couldn't find one-"
the sound of your name echoes through the room bringing the world to a stop. a weird silence settles over the room. "come. now." growled through gritted teeth and paired with snapping fingers. you were being summoned like a naughty dog ignoring their owner. a sigh as all eyes fall to you. waiting to see what you'd do but make no mistake, they already knew the answer.
"I'll see you around." a flash of a smile before you scamper after Regina.
"so your ears do work." is all the girl says as she shoves you through the door. you bite back any comment because that was how this worked. you may be top of the food chain to everyone else but Regina led the pack.
as the final bell for the day rings, you're shoving things in your locker when you spot the new girl. she seems to be struggling to even open it. you watch her for a moment. a smirk settling. this was another chance to talk and this time Regina couldn't demand your presence. "need some help?" it seemed to take her by surprise as a handful of papers drifted to the floor. a small chuckle, you reach down to collect her work and hand it back. "how's your first day going?"
she shrugs, taking the papers. "it's alright."
"anyone giving you any trouble?" you ask, falling to lean against the lockers. people around here were not nice and took every chance to show it. some more than others. She shakes her head. "you sure? if anyone does anything, I can sort them out." you give her a knowing look and she offers a sort of amused smile. "so you do know how to smile, it's cute. are you gonna tell me your name or am I gonna have to guess?"
"it's cady. Cady heron."
"well, cady heron. the trick to these," you tap her locker door with your knuckle. "is to push in and pull up before trying to open it. annoying, I know but they're old." you watch her try again and this time it swings open. "see."
"Thanks." you linger as they shove some of their stuff inside. you notice a few stray stickers on the locker opposite.
"no problem." you push up from the metal. "I can show you all types of tricks to get through this hellscape if you want?" she shuts her locker and you both start walking towards the exit. "number one tip, avoid Regina."
"Isn't she your friend?"
"yeah," you nod. "that's why I said it. She can be... a lot. surely Janis told you that."
Cady looks at you for a long moment. "something like that." you let out a chuckle. Janis probably told her what a massive bitch Regina was. they had a less than favourable history.
"I should go. I'll see you around Cady Heron." as you both go your separate ways, you can't help but glance at her as she walks away.
having a study period just before lunch was both an absolutely ridiculous idea and the best thing to happen to your schedule. it basically guaranteed you didn't do any work whatsoever and felt more like a two-hour lunch period. seems you shared it with the new girl because she was sitting at a table scribbling in a book alongside Janis who was doing her normal embroidery or whatever.
"if it isn't Cady Heron," you comment, taking a seat on the bench. her face brightens at the sight.
"where's the rest of the coven?" Janis asks, not even bothering to look up from her work. "wait- don't tell me, a house fell on them."
"you're so funny Janis," an exaggerated sarcastic laugh.
"I think I can hear children singing... ding... dong the witch-"
"So Cady, how are you enjoying north shore?" you interrupt loudly and the 'song' trails off.
"It's fine."
"you don't talk much huh?"
her mouth opens but falls silent as Gretchen approaches the end of the table. she shoots you a less than favourable look. your brow furrows a little.
"Can I talk to you," pitch a little too high to say no.
"Sure," a shrug. you look at her for a long moment waiting for her to continue.
"in private," Gretchen urges. with a roll of your eyes, you stand up. flashing a smile at Cady, Gretchen grabs your hand and drags you away before you can say anything.
"what are you doing?" whisper yelled at you.
"I was just talking." god this girl was dramatic. you take your usual spot. she sits opposite.
"to the art freaks?"
"dude, it's fine."
"no it's not." she urges quickly, shaking her head "You know how Regina gets."
"Regina isn't here?" and she wouldn't be until lunch. only you and Gretchen share this free period. usually, you spend it listening to her gossip about people. she could not keep a secret to save her life at least not when it came to anyone outside of you and your friends; even then it's dicey. fun for you though.
"All I'm saying is you need to be careful,"
"don't worry. I was only interested in the new girl."
"that's worse," you just roll your eyes. "Regina doesn't like her."
"Regina doesn't even know her," you argue. "none of us do. she's been here like a week."
Gretchen thinks the idea of even wanting to talk to Cady is blasphemy. that it's better to avoid her but you think she's overreacting. Cady hadn't established herself at this school yet. right now she is with Janis but tomorrow who knows? she could be cool. it's a matter of perspective.
a pretty perfect smile does little to distract from playful eyes as you approach her jeep. the blonde is in the driver's seat. one hand rested over the steering wheel. the other typing something on her phone. She had sent a message telling you to hurry up but on arrival, neither Karen nor Gretchen were even here yet. you toss your bag in the back, climbing into your usual spot behind the driver's seat. Karen is usually next to you. "sit in the front, weirdo," she comments. you don't bother with a comeback, just moving to the front passenger seat.
"Where are the others?" you ask, glancing at her. the soft glow of the afternoon sun kissed her skin beautifully. black shades hang on the end of her nose. She really was something to be admired. Regina shrugs and then tosses her phone down. the car roars to life and you're starting down the road before you can think any more about it. it's pretty silent at first. the sound of the radio filling the space. the lack of your two other friends acting as a buffer was sitting weirdly. this wasn't your first time alone with Regina but she's been so grumpy lately. whatever you say feels like an invitation.
"so you like the new girl?" asked casually as she came to an abrupt stop at a red light. you just forward, the seatbelt digging into your neck. it drags up a quick cough but that could also be from surprise. other than that first interaction where she'd summoned you from across the room, you had never spoken to Cady when she was around. Gretchen may be dramatic but she probably wasn't wrong and you really didn't feel like risking it.
"Sorry?" feign confusion was... a choice but it seemed like the better option here.
"you like the new girl," repeated calmly; her eyes drift to you as yours move towards the traffic light. was this the longest red light in history? "right?"
now it's your turn to shrug. you find Cady intriguing but you're not entirely sure if it's interested in the way Regina is implying or just because you were so bored of the every day. "she's cool." a scoff as she pulls away continuing down the road. "you've hardly spoken to her."
"don't need to," Regina didn't miss a beat. Cady definitely didn't fit into what she'd consider cool but then again, neither had you. not entirely anyway and now you're here. you hang out with the most popular people in school. went to the hottest parties. you were currently being driven around by the Regina George. you never understood why or maybe you did and just refused to accept it was that simple. you know what everyone else says. that it's because of the attention you show her. you wouldn't necessarily say they're wrong but everyone gave her attention. She did always say there was something special about you. "I thought you at least had standards."
the rest of the car ride is silent as you think over what she said and Regina keeps to herself. the music is the only thing, keeping you sane until you pull up at the George residence. you always forget just how big her house is until you're there. As you walk inside, her mum appears abruptly startling you a little.
"hey, ms. George."
"hey girls," she singsonged. "how was school?"
"fine," Regina shoots back.
"well if you need anything? a drink? some snacks? advice? I'm here,"
"I'd actually love an iced-"
"we're good," growled as she grabbed your wrist hauling you up the stairs. "don't bother us." a confused look but she didn't let go until you were firmly inside her bedroom. door slammed shut. the blonde tosses her bag down.
"you should really be nicer to your mom, she adores you," you say idly taking a seat on the end of her bed, placing your bag down.
"you should shut up because it's none of your fucking business."
jesus christ. you kinda regret the decision to come over. "I just wanted an iced tea. maybe a little snack."
"god knows you don't need it," Regina comments. wow. okay. she was in a mood.
"what's up with you?"
"I'm fine," she responds. "you're just being so fucking annoying recently."
"I haven't done anything?" you've not been acting any differently so you have no clue what she's talking about.
"just absolutely drooling over the new girl. it's embarrassing." she declares, taking a seat on the bed.
"I..." you stop yourself because you're more confused than anything else. "we've spoken like once."
"liar" she responds. "I know you've been talking all the time," fucking Gretchen. "do you think she's pretty?"
"Cady?" Regina nods. you shrug. "I guess."
"prettier than me?" her head tilts. you can't tell if she was jealous or fishing for compliments; neither was her style. so it was probably a trap.
"no." you wanna say she's being dramatic but that wouldn't end well. She doesn't say anything, hardly even reacts. just cold eyes. Is she expecting you to say more? "of course not." you're waiting for the ball to drop. for her to make a snide comment or something. anything was better than nothing. but it just never comes. she takes out her phone and starts typing. you fall back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. you both just sit in the quiet. you're worried about saying anything that'll lead to more insults. god knows what she is doing on her phone.
"you're so pathetic." Regina eventually says. you'd take offence if you weren't used to it; basically a term of endearment at this point. you can hear her moving but don't bother looking until she's towering over you. dark eyes and a small smile that would seem genuine coming from anyone else. a hand cups your cheek but no nails follow; it's gentle and slow as she runs her thumb over your skin. what was happening right now? "do you ever think about me?" you blink a few times trying to make sense of everything. why was she being so nice? why was she being so gentle? why did she ask that?
"what do you mean?"
a roll of her pretty eyes. "you know what I mean." you did but surely not.
"I... don't know what to say."
"Because I think about you," your breathing hitches as you sit up. looking at her properly. "those pretty eyes," she moves closer. "these lips," her thumb runs over your bottom lip. you swallow hard. "do you wanna kiss me?" you just stare back. a smirk as she ghosts your lips.
"say you wanna kiss me." this felt cruel. you lean in and she pulls back slightly. a finger pressed against your lips. her expression is colder now. sharp. "say it."
"I... wanna kiss you," you dare and that smirk quickly returns. removing her finger, Regina leans in and connects your lips. it's soft and slow. not at all like you imagined kissing Regina George would feel like... until the girl pushes into you and it's exactly like you imagined. fast. forceful. like she wanted to devour you. A hand pushes you back against her massive bed and she moves to straddle your hips. your heart is beating so loudly you wouldn't be surprised if she could hear it.
"still thinking about the new girl?"
"I never-" You feel her press a little harder against your chest so you change your answer. "no." Regina tosses her hair over one shoulder, and a finger under your chin pushes your head up.
"I don't think you should talk to her anymore," Regina states before leaning down to connect your lips once more. "understood?"
you're too caught up in the moment to really gauge how serious she was being so you nod. "good girl." whispered against your lips.
Regina George had always been a lot. She always demanded attention and you often gave her it. you weren't ashamed of that. She knew you'd do anything for her. As did most of the school.
"Hey," Cady suddenly appears beside you in the hallway. she seems a lot more relaxed around you which was nice to see. however, you have not spoken to them since that weird night with Regina. She wouldn't like it. plus Gretchen would probably snitch on you immediately. "so we should probably figure out a time to work on our project." you've been paired up for an assignment in American literature.
"We can do it today after school if you want?" she nods. "I'll meet you out front."
"hey Cady," Karen slides up beside you on the other side, instantly looping your arms. ever the pleasant company. you wonder if she just wanted to see you or get you away from Cady. probably the former.
"I'll see you later," you say to the new girl before turning to your friend. "what do you want?"
"you're coming to Connor's party Saturday?"
"Obviously,"
"I have the perfect-"
"no," you respond instantly. you loved Karen. she was genuinely the sweetest person you know. but at every party, she tries to give you a Karen Shetty special aka a makeover. and every single time you have to say no.
"but I have the perfect outfit for you."
"is it actually perfect for me or just slutty."
"Both," Karen states excitedly. "please," pleading eyes as she draws you closer, hugging your arm. "please please please."
a loud groan. "fine."
"Really?" her eyes light up and circulation quickly returns to your arm. you nod at her which leads to excited clapping. maybe it wouldn't be so bad. maybe it was the perfect outfit for you but also sexy enough to satisfy Karen.
"oh here," you reach into your bag and produce a homemade friendship bracelet. you'd been tutoring some younger students for extra credit but sometimes you just hung out with them. "made them with some of the kids so,"
"ah thank you," she takes it eagerly. you had one for Gretchen and Regina too. only one of them would appreciate it though.
"why were you chatting with Cady?" Karen asks, sliding on her bracelet as she takes your arm once more.
"we're doing a project together," you explain. "you were literally just in class with us Karen."
"oh yeah," she smiles brightly. "I'm starving." you chuckle a little and allow her to eagerly pull you towards the dining room.
you're sitting on the grass. Cady is talking in your ear as you stare into the distance. most students had gone home already. The rest were working on homework or projects or extracurricular activities. you arranged this meeting but god were you bored. no offence to Cady but you kinda wish you'd been paired with Karen so you could be fucking about right now and then rush the work the night before it's due.
"are you going to the party Saturday?" you ask idly.
"What party?"
"oh shit." you forgot she was hanging out with Janis and Damian who definitely wouldn't have been invited. "connor mckay is having a party. The dudes a mess, big house though. you should come,"
"don't think I was invited,"
"I'm inviting you."
"not sure that's how it works."
"Just come Cady," you insist. "you can bring Janis and Damian too if you want. everyone will be too fucked to notice."
"uh, thanks then" she smiles a little, glancing back at her textbook. "I'll think about it."
"you have to think about attending your first high school party?" you question. laying down on your back. "I'll be there," you turn your head to look at them. "it'll be fun." you watch her carefully and soon she smiles.
"Okay, yeah."
"well that was easy," should have just started by stating you'll be there. "Be careful, Cady." you tease, looking back to clouds passing by but you can't help but smirk a little. "I'll start thinking you like me."
sat in the back of Regina's jeep as she fixes her hair in the overhead mirror, Karen inspects your face while Gretchen is copying Regina by fixing her hair. "can we just go in," you insist, slapping Karen's hands away. "before I regret coming."
"Why would you regret coming?" Gretchen questions, looking around at you.
"I feel stupid,"
"you look amazing," Karen urges. "perfect."
"you would say that."
"stop whining," Regina insists. flipping up her mirror. "you look hot. now let's go."
finally. "I'm gonna get so fucked up," you state as you step out of the car. walking beside Regina with Gretchen and Karen a step behind. the party is already alive. started at six. It was eight.
you reach the point in every party where you just don't want to be there anymore pretty quickly tonight. you're suddenly so aware of how annoying everyone is. sat on the kitchen counter, you swing your legs back and forth as you sip whatever was in your cup. Gretchen gave it to you. the party passes around you like you're not even there until an all too familiar blonde appears. "you look sad," you'd mistake that for genuine concern if it wasn't Regina "Already at sad drunk, that's impressive."
"what do you want Regina?" she had basically ignored you since you arrived so why she suddenly thought you were worthy of her presence, you'll never know. Shane was the object of her disgustingly public displays of affection tonight. "thought you'd be too busy with Shane."
"god, you're so obsessed with Shane," a roll of her eyes as she takes the cup from your hand to help herself. you watch her as the red cup comes to painted lips. not a hair out of place. so perfect. Regina was perfect. it was annoying
"I invited Cady tonight," you state, snatching your cup back.
"ew. why? I thought we agreed you weren't going near Cady anymore," technically you did. practically it wasn't that deep. who cares.
"And Janis and Damian but mostly to get Cady here,"
"desperate to hang out with losers," Regina sighs. "is she here?"
you shrug. "too many people. too big a house. I haven't looked, to be honest."
"Well," a hand finds its way to your thigh, running up and then down softly. "if you're good tonight maybe I'll give you a little treat."
"don't," you push her hand away. "go back to your boyfriend."
"he's not my boyfriend,"
"well whatever he is," you jump down off the countertop. "you made it very clear that I'm not what you want."
"you're so dramatic," she pushes up too. "I hate when you get drunk."
"Whatever."
"fuck sake," Regina responds. "you act like I said we're together or something."
"you're such an asshole," you huff. "I'm gonna find Cady."
"good luck with that,"
there are so many people at this party. you're not sure who half of them even are but they all seem to know you as you stumble around after the new girl. a constant barrage of 'hellos' and 'you look hot' in various forms. it's tiring. annoying. and you're about to give up and go find Gretchen so she can rub your back to make you feel better when you spot her. She was looking as awkward as ever. "you came." shouted over the thump of the music
"yeah," her face lit up. "Damian too. Janis said she'd rather jump off a bridge than come so..."
"That sounds... exactly like her," you nod. "I like..." you glance at her outfit. Regina would hate it. you don't love it. "your outfit. very school teacher chic."
"Thanks," she replies. "I didn't have anything to wear so,"
"it's cool. I'm just happy someone here isn't gonna irritate me- do you want a drink?"
"Sure," she nods. "do they have juice?"
"uh... probably somewhere." who asks for juice at a party? "I'll check. stay here."
you wander off back to the kitchen in search of some juice. your first stop is the fridge which is very stocked. you briefly scan for anything open, sweet and edible before just grabbing a carton of fresh orange and deciding that will do. pouring her a glass before heading back. she's still in the same spot only a particular blonde in the tightest little black dress has decided to strike up a conversation. you immediately know something is wrong. Regina can't stand Cady. it's why you told her you admitted to inviting her so easily. You wanted to piss her off. you can't make out what is happening but as you make your approach the redhead leaves. Regina turns to you with a sugary sweet smile betrayed by her eyes. "hey baby girl, feeling any better?"
"What did you say to her?"
"why do you have a glass of" brow knitted as she tapped her nail against the glass. "orange juice?"
"What did you say to her?"
"who?" you let her have the glass and she takes a sip. a visible look of disgust. "is there anything in this?"
"It's just fresh orange,"
"what the fuck? are you trying to sober up or what?"
"it was for Cady," you explain. "what did you say?"
the blonde shrugs. "she just had to go. not my fault." you don't believe her. why would you? She has a track record of being a conniving person who'll make trouble just for the sake of it. it'd be naive to think she didn't do anything."
"Why do you have to be such a fucking bitch all of the time," you grumble loudly. a hand snaps around your wrist and suddenly you're yanked closer to her. hot breath sending a shiver down your spine.
"I let you off before because you were all sad and tragic but don't think you can ever talk to me like that," growled in your ear before she abruptly shoved you away. "Cady left. get over it."
"she only left because you said something,"
"she left because she realised you don't like her," the blonde snapped. such a pretty poison came in the form of Regina George as she turned her gaze on you. She was pissed but kept it quietly contained to just beneath the music so nobody else had a clue. "that you've just been stringing her along. pretending to be her friend. all because I wasn't showing you enough attention," she's close again. too close. she wasn't physically that tall but right she seemed massive as she loomed over you. her eyes flicker to your lips and back up. did she wanna kiss you or kill you? neither seemed smart. "she realised that you belong to me."
"I'm not a dog Regina."
"you sure about that," a mean glint in those pretty eyes. "you wanted my attention. you got it." she shoves the orange juice back in your hand. it's contents splashing your hand. "don't cry about it now." and with that she turns on her heel and disappears into the crowd
// NEXT
#regina george#regina george x reader#mean girls#mean girls 2024#renee rapp#mean girls fanfic#regina george fanfic
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Hi I see you're opening request, so I'm here to ask for one. Thank you so much!
Plot: Zayne anger and his punishment when he find out you lied to him and get yourself in dangerous.
anon are you a mind reader?! 👀 bc I've had a draft of this sat in my wip folder for ages!!!
Hope you enjoy!! 💕
Sorry isn't enough...
Zayne x reader
Warnings: angst, lots of angst, no comfort, Zayne is mad (and possibly ooc)
Might do a part 2 (with a happy ending as an apology for this)
Zayne doesn't yell. In fact, in all the time you'd known him you couldn't remember ever seeing him lose his temper. Sure he got annoyed with you sometimes, mainly when you ignored his advice or turned up at the hospital with yet another injury, but it never boiled over into anger. He'd scold you like a child, giving the occasional icy glare, but nothing more. So when you limped into his office today, an hour late for your appointment and caked in dirt and dried blood, you were prepared to receive another lecture about safety from your primary care physician.
The minute you opened the door and took the first unsteady step into his office, you knew something was off. The air held an icy chill, causing a shiver to run down your spine, the tension increasing with every step. You could feel the pressure of Zayne's eyes on you as you approached his desk, piercing green gaze scrutinising every aspect of your appearance, taking note of every scrape and bruise, every smudge of blood that stained your skin and clothes.
"You're late." Emotionless and cold, his voice shattered the uncomfortable silence that had been present since you entered his office. Swallowing thickly, you finally meet his eyes, and immediately regret it. His expression is hard, brow furrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes which usually hold a tenderness whenever he looks at you are dark, and swirling with a storm of fury. Zayne is pissed.
Opening your mouth, the apology on the tip of your tongue quickly dies at the sound of Zayne's exasperated sigh. "If you're planning on apologising I'd suggest you save your breath. I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to whatever feeble excuses you plan on giving." His harsh tone hits you like an avalanche, burying you in the disappointment that is practically radiating from him. "I've warned you time and time again to be careful, to prioritise your safety and yet you seem determined not to listen. I've lost count of how many times you've limped into my office. You refuse to listen to my advice yet you come to me whenever your recklessness results in another injury. Tell me, do you insist on continuing this foolish behaviour until it undoubtedly causes your death?!"
A lump forms in your throat, eyes fixed on the floor as you desperately try to hold back the tears threatening to fall. Every cruel word Zayne seethes is another knife to your heart, cutting deep and carving themselves into your flesh. And despite your best efforts, you can't stop the choked sob that escapes your lips. Because it hurts. Seeing the man who has always treated you so gently fuming with rage, steely glare freezing you where you stand, forcing you to endure the brunt of his anger. His words melt together, flooding your mind and making your ears ring as they echo on repeat inside your head. You're so overwhelmed by the crushing weight of his disappointment that you don't even realise you're crying until a cold hand touches your cheek, thumb wiping away a single tear. His breath fans your face as he exhales a tired sigh, "come here, let me see your wounds" his voice is softer now, having lost its previous venom but his outburst has left a sour taste in your mouth. You pull away from his touch, shaking your head slightly as you wipe away the tears that stain your cheeks.
"I can take care of it myself...I wouldn't want to inconvenience you any further." You utter, keeping your voice steady and void of emotion. "Don't worry, you won't have to deal with my reckless behaviour anymore. Goodbye, Dr Zayne." Turning away from him you quickly make your way out of his office, ignoring the calls of your name, determined not to let him see you fall apart completely. With each step you can feel your heart breaking more, bleeding out and flooding your chest with every crushing word Zayne spat at you. You're not sure where you're heading, vision blurring with tears, you just know that the last place you want to be is with Zayne.
#love and deepspace#zayne#zayne love and deepspace#zayne x reader#lnds zayne#lnds#angst#zayne x you#lnd
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How To Find Your (British Actor) Blorbo On The Radio: A Brief Guide
(Disclaimer: British, because the main tool I'm using is the BBC's Genome.)
If you want more of your fave actor, or you love full-cast drama podcasts/audios (and audiobooks/NF content too) here's a guide on how to get your hands on BBC Radio broadcasts.
The BBC have a great free resource called Genome, which has all the Radio Times listings from 1922 to the present day (plus some of the actual articles), and it's searchable. Up until its arrival, it was really hard to do that, so \o/
Not all actors do radio and not everything you find will be obtainable, but it's always worth a try! It's especially likely for actor-blorbos who do other audio work, or theatre (theatre tends not to pay so well, and radio is a handy extra thing that can be more easily slotted in between performances than TV/film.)
Go to Genome, and put your blorbo's name into the search box:
Press search, which will bring back a bunch of results from both radio and TV listings from 1922 up to the current year:
2. Filter down to "radio only" on the sidebar to avoid scrolling through all the TV. At the top of the page you can change the display order to First broadcast (or Availability, if you want it only to bring things currently available to stream on the BBC website), among other options.
I can also cut down on extraneous results by selecting a date range that only covers when my guy was active.
I scroll down until I find something that looks interesting, in this case a proper audio drama, called The Hornblower Story. It's from 1980 and is an adaptation of a well known book. The details give me enough info to search the wider internet, and see if I get lucky...
3. Search the internet and listen to your blorbo act in radio drama!
There are several ways to obtain radio drama online. If you use streaming sites like Audible and Spotify, it may be there, although usually only if it's had a commercial release.
The BBC still broadcast old programmes on the radio, so it might be currently available on their website to stream - and unlike TV, you can listen to BBC Radio anywhere in the world! (If you are in the UK, you can also download and use the BBC Sounds app.) The Genome will usually provide a link for you to go straight there, if that's the case.
However, obviously, most BBC Radio from past decades is not available commercially or being broadcast by the BBC now and some doesn't exist in the archives, or was never recorded (as with TV), but as methods of recording audio at home have been widely available since the 1950s and 60s, there are loads of off-air recordings of radio made by listeners/collectors, and some have freely shared their copies online. Some are in closed forums etc., but three good sites to try first are YouTube, RadioEchoes & the Internet Archive.
I usually start with a Google search - e.g. '"Title" radio' or radio bbc and if that doesn't give me anything add on first "Radio Echoes" and then "Internet archive" to the search.
And I'm in luck! Radio Echoes appear to have the adaptation I'm after. I need to check the broadcast dates to see if they match up & then I can stream or download for free - and hear my blorbo play a stern Admiral for 5 minutes or less, hurrah!
Clicking on the links takes you to a screen where you can press play to stream or right click on the play bar to download the mp3 file to your device. (Click the "Save audio as..." option).
These are archive off-air recordings, so the quality can vary, especially for older programmes.
4. Rinse and repeat with each new likely Genome discovery.
If you find a copy of what you're looking for on the Internet Archive instead, you'll get up a page with a play bar (like the one above), with episodes listed plus details (to varying degrees) below. If you want to stream, just click play and enjoy. If you want to download it, then click on the MP3 files line on the right-hand sidebar, which will then give you an "X no of files" button to click and you can download them to keep.
(You can download all the files, but I usually cut straight to the chase and just nab the MP3s.)
Sometimes the BBC have released a commercial audiobook. In those cases, if you already use audio/music streaming subscription sites like Audible or Spotify, you should be able to find it there.
If you don't, or you want to buy a download, I've found the best option (weirdly!) (for UK users, at any rate) is to get the audiobook up at Penguin Books, which links to various paid subscription streaming and download options, so you can find the best one for you (and you know it's been recced by a hopefully reputable source.)
Last year, I wanted to buy Vivat Rex, the BBC's landmark dramatisation of all the English history plays rolled into one giant starry-cast Jacobean audio serial, and successfully used this route. (I'm very old by internet terms and still like listening via MP3 files on my MP3 player, as long as it survives.)
Pretty much the only affordable download option I've found so far I got courtesy of Penguin's links to Hive. (But this may be a UK only option.)
If what you're looking for seems likely to exist even if you can't find it by any of these methods - keep trying! New things are being added daily to all these websites, and the BBC cycle round old shows all the time.
And if you want to go deeper, there are closed forums etc. for radio enthusiasts where you need to make an account, but you may then be able to torrent or download an even wider variety of things.
Of course, whether or not your blorbo has been in anything good or any radio at all will depend on them, but I hope this guide will help enable you to find out!
YouTube, Radio Echoes, the Internet Archive and Old Time Radio all have radio from other countries too. So while the BBC Genome can't help you with anywhere outside the UK, the other links here can be good places to look around and browse for things you might be interested in.
You can of course use the same methods to search for things like a favourite author, or particular plays, to see if the BBC have done any radio adaptations - BBC Radio have done heaps of things that have never been adapted on screen, so it's always worth a look for anything you'd be into.
Radio Echoes is browsable as well as searchable, and while Internet Archive is a bit less so, there are some excellent collections you can look through, like the Saturday Night Theatre collection, and the BBC Radio Shows listings.
#bbc#radio#audio drama#resources#genome#radioechoes#internet archive#podcasts#radio drama#radio comedy#audiobooks
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When US senator JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, was rolled out as former president Donald Trump’s running mate last month, the move had several seeming aims. It was a nod to rich supporters like Vance’s patron, Peter Thiel; a way to present the electorate with a more youthful face than Trump’s; and a play for the working-class voters around whom Vance grew up, as he wrote about in his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy.
All of this was almost immediately undermined when comments Vance made in a 2021 Fox News interview, claiming the country is being run by “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made,” came to light. There was, it quickly became clear, more where that came from.
Among other things, Vance has suggested that people in “violent” marriages shouldn’t get divorced. In a 2021 interview, Vance criticized abortion exceptions for rape and incest, saying that the unborn fetuses in pregnancies resulting from these situation were seen as “inconvenient.” Vance has said that US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a “sociopathic attitude towards family,” claiming that the New York Democrat said it is “immoral to have children because of climate change concerns.” (She did not say this.) Vance also suggested in a 2021 speech that adults who have children should get extra votes.
“We have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country,” Vance told the Federalist in an interview in 2021.
Vance and the Trump campaign have dismissed these remarks as taken out of context, but like many other comments related to women that Vance, Trump, and their allies have made, they do not exist in a vacuum. In fact, they almost perfectly echo the rhetoric of accused rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate and members of the online misogynist community. (Tate, the most prominent and influential of a group of professional misogynist influencers, has denied the allegations against him.) And the Trump campaign is not just passively repeating the misogynistic talking points of the so-called manosphere, but actively engaging with it to court the votes of isolated young men—a group to which both Trump and Vance have a history of attempting to appeal.
Examples abound. Tate has, for instance, called women who don’t want kids “miserable stupid bitches” while telling the misogynistic Fresh and Fit podcast, in an episode now deleted from its YouTube channel, that “life without children [...] is inane and it’s pointless.” He went on: “If you sit here and genuinely think you’re going to work your ass off through your fertile years and by the age of 54, you’re not going to be suicidal, alone with a cat, then you are dumb.”
Trump, for his part, is reported to have repeatedly called Harris a “bitch” in private and has called women “dumb” as well as “crazy” and “low IQ” on multiple occasions. (In the past month alone, Trump has called Harris “low IQ” and “dumb as a rock” at rallies and in social media posts.) Trump once referred to former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman as a “crazed, crying lowlife.” He also called her a “dog.”
Tate has repeatedly compared women to dogs, telling Barstool Sports’s Dave Portnoy in an interview in 2022, “You can’t be responsible for something that doesn’t listen to you. You can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you, or a child if it doesn’t obey you, or a woman that doesn’t obey you.” (Portnoy, who is known for his own misogynistic views, responded to Vance’s suggestion that childless adults should pay more in taxes on X: “This is fucking idiotic.”)
“President Trump has empowered women throughout his career as a businessman and in politics, promoting women to senior roles in both his company and campaign,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign told WIRED, labeling the premise of this article “outrageous.”
“It's shocking to see rhetoric typically reserved for the annals of internet forums repeated by some of the most powerful politicians in America,” Nina Jankowicz, the former Biden administration disinformation czar, who is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project, tells WIRED. “Well beyond the presidential race, these sorts of attacks aim to denigrate women and their value as human beings, and aim to encourage women to stay out of politics and public life. They have no place in our politics.”
Of course, it should also be remembered that both Trump and Tate have been accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct. Trump has been found in court to have sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, and just last week Romanian authorities opened another investigation into Tate in relation to accusations of trafficking women as young as 15.
Trump and Tate appear to be aligned on another subject: porn.
Tate, who is facing allegations of sexually exploiting women by forcing them to make pornographic videos for financial gain, has long railed against what he sees as the evils of pornography.
“As masculinity has plummeted, a whole bunch of men are simply not having sex anymore, and then they become addicted to porn, which is cucking, effectively,” Tate told Tucker Carlson in an interview last year. “Two people are having sex and you’re just watching it.”
Should Trump succeed in retaking the White House in November’s election, he could seek to criminalize porn, according to the 922-page Project 2025 document that outlines plans for a second Trump term. (While Trump has disavowed the document, it is the product of his allies and of former Trump administration officials. One of the report’s authors, Russell Vought, told undercover journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting in a meeting earlier this month that Trump’s efforts to distance himself from Project 2025 were just “graduate-level politics.” Vance also wrote a foreword to a since-postponed book written by Project 2025’s architect, Kevin Roberts.)
“Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime,” Roberts, the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, writes of pornographers in the document. “Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
The links between Trump, Vance, and figures like Tate and the virulently toxic incel community appear to be, at least in part, strategic.
As Trump’s own campaign managers have outlined his strategy, “secluded, MAGA-sympathetic voters who have proved difficult to engage,” as The Atlantic put it, are one of the campaign’s primary messaging targets.
To that end, a pro-Trump PAC has launched a $20 million campaign to reach young voters that was kicked off with Vance’s appearance on the Full Send Podcast hosted by the Nelk Boys, a group of four men who have a huge following among young conservative males.
The Nelk Boys have in the past hosted Tate as well as Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, another far-right influencer better known as Sneako. De Balinthazy has fantasized about being allowed to hit women as men were 50 years ago. In one video uploaded to TikTok, he was caught on camera hitting a woman and responding that she had “been acting up all night.”
On their podcast, the Nelk Boys have repeatedly defended the misogynistic rhetoric espoused by both Tate and De Balinthazy.
Trump has been interviewed several times by the Nelk Boys, labeling their work “important,” and was recently pictured alongside Sneako at an MMA event.
Trump also was recently interviewed by streamer Adin Ross, an ally of Tate’s who infamously inadvertently tipped off authorities about Tate’s plans to flee Romania. He was also kicked off Twitch for showing "unmoderated hateful conduct" in a chat and hosting the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. During the interview, Ross gifted Trump with a gaudily-wrapped Tesla Cybertruck and a Rolex, which some experts say may have violated campaign finance rules.
Trump’s misogynistic worldview has bled into other areas of conservative politics, too.
Even before Kamala Harris officially replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, the right was demonizing her as a “DEI hire” —a phrase Tate has used to criticize women in the past.
Prominent right-wing media figures have similarly made numerous misogynistic comments in recent months. In April, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk blamed birth control for creating “very angry and bitter young ladies” and falsely claimed that the medication “screws up the female brain.” Alec Lace, a regular Fox Business contributor, appeared on the station last month and felt it was OK to call Harris the “original Hawk Tuah girl, that’s the way she got where she is” before adding that she is a “DEI vice president.” And just last month, Fox News prime time host Jesse Watters claimed: “When a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman.”
At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, the speaker list featured Dana White, who was caught on camera slapping his wife, and Hulk Hogan, who has been accused of physically abusing his wife. (Hogan filed a defamation suit over the claims but asked the court to dismiss it five months later.) It also included a number of conservative figures who have sought to blame the victims of sexual assault, such as David Sacks and Mark Robinson. The speakers also included Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida lawmaker who has been investigated but not charged by the Department of Justice for allegations of being part of a scheme to traffic a 17-year-old woman.
“Women who know and work for President Trump personally, like myself, know he is encouraging and generous to the women around him,” says Leavitt, the Trump spokesperson. “Most importantly, President Trump’s policies as president uplifted women across the country because they brought down the cost of living and made our communities safer.”
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21, 26 & 27 APAF F!Leo say it to baby lou... Did something happen to baby lou? Probably... Maybe.. But it could happen outside at night, it can help with dialogue 27
And here I thought you don’t like angst? >:D (F!Leo referred to as Leonardo and the baby referred to as Baby)
21. “Please be okay. Please be okay, please be okay—”
26. “[Name]? [Name], this isn't funny. Stop... please...”
27. “Breathe... breathe. Look at the stars, kid.”
CW: child injury, implied child abuse
Lou is hurt while he’s on a mission maybe
Leonardo curses under his breath as he runs, ignoring how the cold air burns his lungs when it enters and exits. Fear, panic, anxiety, and frustration all collide and burst within his mind as he tries to understand how this could happen.
He shouldn’t have looked away for a single second. —shouldn’t have risked even blinking. How can he be so stupid? How can he be so fucking stupid?
He makes a sharp turn, slipping on the concrete and crashing into the nearest wall. This doesn’t slow him down as he’s quick to get back on his feet and continue running.
At this point he’s not even sure where he’s going. He knows the general area she should be in, but it’s only a matter of time before—. No. Don’t think that. She’s fine. Baby’s fine.
She has to be.
He raises his arm and taps his wrist comm, swallowing nervously but it results in him coughing lightly from the dryness in his throat. He doesn’t care. He needs his breaths to catch up with him.
“Don. Give me an update on Baby.,” Leonardo demands.
Nothing in response.
Shit. Not them too.
“Leo? Raph? Mikey? Come on guys, give me something,” he begins to plead.
He waits. —Waits with hopeful anticipation that dies with each passing second they don’t respond.
He hooks left when he hears the smallest sound, following it and hoping it’s his baby. It’s not a sound she makes, not a sound he would ever think it could be her, but he’s grasping at straws hoping for something.
He’s still following where the sound came from when he asks Donnie through the comms again, desperation clearer in his voice. “Leo? Donnie? Don, come on, this isn’t funny,” his breath hitches in his throat and he clears it. His voice is quiet but he doesn’t press the comms this time as he pleads, “Stop… please…”
He clenches his jaw shut as his heart pounds against his plastron. He narrows his eyes, focusing on the path before him. Each step he takes he has to be another step closer to his baby. He has to be.
He can only hope he’s not too late.
“Please be okay,” he pleads aloud. He’s met with a fork in the road, three paths with no indication of where he should go. He can’t waste time, he goes straight.
He strains to listen for anything, any sign of that sound from before or anything closer to a sound Baby would make. As if mocking his efforts, the surrounding area and beyond it is quiet. Eerily so. Not a single sound can be heard in any direction. He can barely hear the sounds of his own breaths over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.
“Please be okay,” he pleads again.
The echo of the sound he had heard is all that plays in his mind. Trying to pinpoint where he is now compared to how far the sound was prior to him running after it. It can’t be far now. But he can’t tell where it could be. It hasn’t repeated itself. He can only work off his memory.
Even if he can’t tell where it came from, he can’t stop moving. He has to keep trying.
He hooks right, grabbing the corner edge of a nearby building to fling himself forward to avoid crashing and burning again. The building’s material crumbles under the pressure of his grip, but he doesn’t care. He keeps going.
“Baby? Come on, it’s Papa. Where are you, Baby?” He calls out in hopes she might hear him.
And, like a miracle, he hears the tiniest chirp in the distance.
He doesn’t hesitate to turn toward the sound and run faster than before.
“I’m coming!” Leonardo calls out to her. Hope blossoms in his chest, trying to overwhelm the anxiety and fear in his body. But as much as he can hope, the intonation of her chirp isn’t good.
So he pleads aloud as he runs, unaware of his voice leaving his throat, “Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay—.”
He stops.
He nearly freezes in his tracks. Every emotion that riddled his body pauses, frozen in time as he registers the discoloration of his baby’s skin. He can even feel his own heart stop.
Left abandoned on the cold, wet, stony ground is his baby. She barely has the strength to acknowledge his appearance, forced to curl herself into a fetus position as she holds her little swollen and bruised arms. Tears stain her perfect red crescent stripes, and her pained frown warps her perfect little yellow diamond stripe. She attempts to retreat in her shell, but her entire body flinches at the attempt and she’s forced to, yet again, curl into a fetus position.
Leonardo nearly lunges at his daughter, falling to his knees beside her as he carefully tries to assess her body.
Baby reaches for him, tiny hands opening and closing at her father as she winces and whimpers at the attempt.
Leonardo is quick to stop her movements, carefully holding her hands as he consoles, “Shh shh shh, don’t move. Papa’s here, okay?” His hands lightly brush over her injuries, searching for deeper wounds but when he finds none, he quickly scoops her in his arms. He cradles her with both arms, tucking her arms to herself to keep her from moving.
He has to heal her. He has to get her to the medbay. Fast.
He breaks into a sprint, avoiding dips and crevices in the ground that can jostle her in his arms. But despite his efforts, she whimpers against his chest.
“I know, I know, Baby,” he reassures and lifts his cradle hold on her to bring her up to his neck. “Please don’t move, we need to get home.”
He presses his comm with his shoulder, “Don, Leo, Raph, Mikey. Whoever hears this, retreat if you can. Meet me in the medbay—please. Please be okay.”
Baby whimpers at the movement, tiny hands grabbing his plastron. He pulls her hands off to hold herself, anything but risking injuring herself more than she already is. “No, Baby,” he pleads. “Breathe, Baby. Breathe.”
She fights against his attempt to keep her still, clicking her jaw with frustration. He looks down to see her pained expression, her little face burning with fever. It makes him want to cry. But he has to keep moving.
So he looks up, finally looks up for a distraction as he runs. And he notices the stars. They’re bright and twinkling in the night sky, illuminating the darkness with their brilliant beams. He remembers how desperately she wanted to see the outside world. How she wanted to see something more than Draxum’s lair in the future, and the Hamato subway lair…
“Look at the stars, Baby. Look up,” Leonardo tells her as he avoids a pothole in the stone path. “Breathe… and look at the stars.”
Baby finally stops fighting against him, not aware that he’s already tucking her arms in. Her pained expression finally lessens and her eyes reflect the stars’ shining lights. Her pupils dilate as she stares, unable to look away.
“That’s it,” Leonardo praises softly, “They’re pretty, aren’t they?”
She seems to have failed to hear him as she doesn’t make a sound in response. Her little breaths are calmer now, soft exhales dancing across his plastron. And it’s all he can ever need from her in this moment.
Now he needs to continue doing his part.
She’s safe in his arms now. He can promise that. He can’t let her go, not now, not ever. And he’ll have to figure out how this all happened after she’s okay. He can only hope the younger Hamatos can handle their end until he can get there.
#(accidentally) played American football with my newborn#rottmnt#rottmnt snippet#dialogue prompts#writing prompts#hehe I hope this is coherent
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Part three to the Sleep Token FX post. Some of these I've picked up on my own, and others have been pointed out to me by @reveries-of-my-mind and @moonchild-in-blue through their reblogs of my original post about Vore. A lot of these FX bits are more obvious, so I decided to just put TMBTE in one post.
Part three includes: Take Me Back To Eden
Part One -> One, Two, Jaws and The Way That You Were
Part Two -> Sundowning and This Place Will Become Your Tomb
+ If I've missed something, feel to add your own thoughts!
Note- some of these are FX, others are sound mixing and music bits I wanted to mention. Any song you don't see mentioned are songs that I couldn't find anything to pull out of them. Plus, reminder; these are my interpretations, I'm sorry if you can't hear what I hear, or you think something different.
Chokehold
- Lots and lots of digital, glitchy FX which sets the mood for the album. This is also repeated throughout all the songs in the album, which works with their algorithm-esc, robotic theme (both lyrically and musically) in their songs for this one.
The Summoning
- Unfortunately, everyone's favourite jazz-metal amalgamation doesn't have any other SFX notes other than carrying on Chokehold's glitchy FX motifs.
Aqua Regia
- Jazz café ambience shown throughout the song, also, every single instrument other than the main paino is echoed and or muffled.
+ Fun fact! Aqua Regia is Latin for Royal Water. It's a concentrated solution of Hydrochloric and nitric acids, and is one of the only acids that can dissolve Gold; it's used in the jewelry trade to test the purity of Gold. Not a clue what Vessel is trying to get across with that, but his obsession with chemistry and biology motifs strike again.
Granite
- The screetch of the guitar chord at 2:32, right before the breakdown, sounds almost like a car hitting the breaks and skidding. Works well with Granite's theme of car crashes. You can almost imagine someone having an argument in the car, and the screetch is a result of things going a bit too far.
Vore
- Like I said in my original post, in the beginning (first fifteen seconds), along with the scratchy guitar chord, there are chewing and swallowing sounds. The song is quite literally from the point of view of being stuck in the throat of a God.
- At 3:23 to 3:30, there are bird noises similar to the ones at the start of TMBTE! They're incredibly subtle, but they're there. If you can't pinpoint it, there's a squeaking noise at 3:27, which is just a bird tweeting!
Rain
- From 3:55 to the end of the song, there's rain, which is obviously very fitting. Not specifically rain tapping on a rooftop, but more so rain pouring down a gutter, at least to me.
Take Me Back To Eden
- From 0:00 to 0:40, there's echoed animal noises, like if you were to stand in the middle of a rainforest. The song starts of in absolute silence, only broken by nature; not a human made noise to be heard. It's quite literally Eden. These sounds are there throughout the song, they just get much harder to hear the longer Vessel sings and the more instruments they later on top of eachother.
- At 1:42, there's either a Lion's or a Tiger's roar.
- From 3:10-3:16, there's the sound of thunder.
- A lot of the jingles you hear in The Summoning are repeated here! E.g; 3:40 and, more clearly, at 4:50 and 7:50.
- The lyrics "we were tangled up like branches in a flood; it was no accident" are direct refrences to the lyrics in Chokehold.
Euclid
- The song is 5 minutes and 13 seconds long, but Vessel only starts singing at the 13 second mark. The first lyric? "Just run it back, give me five whole minutes". We, as the listener give him five whole minutes to say what he's gotta say. Further, the song ends on the exact same piano chord that it begins with; the song, in of itself, is a loop. Anytime you play Euclid on loop, you are running it back and giving him five whole minutes. One of the reasons Euclid is my favourite (next to Aqua Regia) for this album.
- The lyrics "the night belongs to you" and "this bough is broken through" are lyrical refrences to The Nigh Does not Belong to God from Sundowning and When The Bough Breaks from One. The oldest album, and ST's first produced album.
- From 4:02 to the end of the song, a verse from The Night Does Not Belong To God is played. It completes the produced album trilogy, and, with the five stages of grief, allows for acceptance and healing. Euclid not only loops itself, but loops the three albums together. Sundowning, TPWBYT and TMBTE are an endless loop that can and will be played as many times as needed for Vessel, for you, as the listener, to heal. To accept change. To realise there's more than denial, anger bargaining and depression. And I think that, in of itself, is beautiful.
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Album Notes: Sleep Token really put their whole soul into this album huh. By far, it's the one that uses SFX the most, and rounds out Sleep Token's own genre as a whole. We see snippets of older songs used throughout the album, both lyrical refrences and actual chunks of old songs taken out and placed within other ones. 10/10, would cry to again.
Thank you for reading through all my thoughts and feelings, whoever you are. Remember, the night belongs to you; worship <3.
#THIS ONE.#TMBTE my one true love#they do a lot of linking older songs in this album#and I love it#a lot#the brainrot grows stronger each and everyday#someone said something about needing to study them under a microscope and I completely agree with that statement#the fact that Euclid loops their three main albums together kills me#like I'm dead on the floor#I'm never getting over that#I'm gonna crumble to bits when I see them live I swear#music analysis#music and lyrics#sleep token#sleep token vessel#vessel#st#sleep token tmbte#mel's rambles
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i'm devastated but like in a good way, and I have a lot of lokius thoughts I need to jot down before i pull a timely and become spaghetti
spoilers for season 2's finale below !!
so in this house, lokius is alive and thriving - because listen:
Firstly, i've seen a lot of people upset with the finale and while that's super valid, here's some positive thoughts on why I kinda sorta dig what was given to us.
the recap never included that one ship while catching up on the main plot points of everything that has happened since the show's beginning. I think that should be pointed out idk.
from a fic writer standpoint the fact that Loki spent CENTURIES??? (+however long fighting sylvie and having repeating conversations with HWR) Like literally a huge chunk of time we don't see trying to fix things has so much potential. I'm giddy abt that ngl
That when Loki needed advice most, he time-slipped to Mobius to ask him his opinion. Not only that, he time-slipped to when they don't know each other yet, because he wants a Mobius who is unbiased. He's aware that were he to go to a place in the timeline where they're now close, Mobius would try and talk him out of abandoning all hope.
He knows, much like with Mobius' story, he's been hesitating to look past himself - to see the bigger picture, instead of what he wants. That hesitation has led to years and years of consequences, Loki failing each and every time, similar to how the officer of Mobius' story delaying the prune of a variant led to an eruption of consequences that resulted in the harm of their comrades too.
What Loki wants is save his friends, ultimately. At first, he wants to save his friends and be able to experience life amongst the timeline branches with them. He tells Sylvie he doesn't know where he would belong without them. What Loki realizes in the end is that to give them the choice he believes they deserve, he has to make a choice of his own. In the end, he finds belonging (at least for now, because I refuse to believe this is the end of TVA Loki's storyline) in putting those he loves before himself and what he wants, something Loki has done only a handful of times throughout the entire Marvel series. He needs that growth character-wise because, as we know, he will be involved in the next big phase.
I think that Loki time-slipping to ask Mobius for advice parallels last episode's 'it's about WHO' again. Who has given him the chance to be a better version of himself the entire show? Who helped him overcome his deep distrust in others, learning to care for them instead - so much so that he sacrificed himself to protect them? And again, Mobius is who Loki went to when he was lost and his words are what guided Loki to the decision he made.
A Sylvie and Mobius scene where Sylvie is seen caring for Mobius in the aftermath??? Mobius wasn't offering comfort to Sylvie, he was depicted as more distraught than she was. In fact, I'd say they really wanted to get across how 'alone' he felt with Loki's absence, standing watching a life he never knew from afar.
(there's a whole unpacking i want to do here about how we previously saw Loki looking longingly across the street watching Don's life too, before whisking Don away from his mundane family life for a greater purpose; something about Mobius looking at that life and recognizing there's a missing piece to it, and it's back in a place he no longer feels he fits because the TVA is missing something too; something about Loki 'supposedly' finding where he belongs, but not Mobius. those are thoughts for another post though lmaoooo)
I think they left Mobius' arc open-ended because he still hasn't achieved that greater purpose. That's (hopefully) because it's meant to be fleshed out in either a later season or next movies to come. And (hopefully x2), that purpose becomes Mobius helping to somehow save Loki from his current fate.
The final moments?? Hello??? Mobius' voice echoing as we pan in on Loki holding the branches together, teary-eyed with a soft, melancholic smile??? Seeming to be listening in on Mobius amongst the branches??? Mobius' 'let time pass' because he doesn't know how to move on from losing Loki?? Come onnnn, the tragic angst in just those shots were CHEF KISS
Overall, I know it's a let down not to have an actual canon status but I mean - were we really expecting the mouse to come through for us??? At least, we didn't get a 'no homo' moment so I count that as a win against rickey the rat. Lokius survived the finale, and that's what really mattered for me tbh.
Like idk, I could also be biased because I kinda, really dig tragedy and slow burn angst. And that's what this finale gave us, along with so many possibilities !! Them being separated leaves so much that can happen !! Like, like - Mobius has the opportunity to have an arc about saving his bae from holding time together indefinitely - from Loki's greatest fear, being left alone. Mobius getting into marvel shenanigans in an attempt to reunite with Loki somehow is beautifully romantic to me ya'll idk. I am delusional and I fully embrace that fact.
Okay honestly this isn't even ALL MY THOUGGHTS I HAVE MORE but this is getting long so I'm stopping here (currently: sending morse code signals out to help pull me back from the brink of insanity)
#loki spoilers#loki season 2#lokius#i might have went overboard with this im ngl#i'm just doing backflips about my blorbos and i can't stop ok#save me from myself i am foaming at the mouth i am rabid racoon that needs to be tased#i will not release my grubby little fingers from these two fictional goofballs you can't make me!!!!#txt: icarus has a bout of madness#marvel
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2. "I'd like to dedicate this song to my partner, Kim Kitsuragi." (Nod to the lieutenant."
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant doesn't say anything, but gives you a quick smile, before turning away.
COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He's incapable of blushing, but if he weren't -- he'd blush.
+1 Reputation
GARTE, THE CAFETERIA MANAGER - "Good, good," the cafeteria manager intervenes to cut the moment short. "Are we ready? I want to unplug the microphone now."
DRAMA - Last words?
"Evening will come, we will sew the white sail! Workers of the world, unite!" [Leave.]
"Thank you, Martinaise." [Leave.]
[Say nothing. Leave enigmatically.]
Since Volition won the skill poll by a landslide, we're going to stop in at a couple of places first. (Also, I don't have time to wait for the results of the next task poll tonight.)
🎵 Instrument of Surrender
ELECTRONIC DOORBELL - An old call box with a matrix of push buttons lists all the companies in the East Delta Commerce Centre.
7. [Volition - Challenging 12] "Slipstream SCA."
We only lost this last time because I tried to roll it after taking a bunch of morale damage.
VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Whatever she says, it can't hurt you. You're a different person now. Stronger, healthier and...
Alright, maybe not *healthier*, but it's a *bonus* that you've drunk so hard you can't remember any of your past relationships. Oblivion's the ace in your corner.
Call her again. (Press the doorbell to Slipstream SCA.)
ELECTRONIC DOORBELL - There's a light buzz as you press the doorbell, waiting for her to answer the call. It's cold outside, and you can hear the wind blowing into the speaker.
PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - There's the static again, whispering like a seashell pressed against the ear.
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - "Yes, hello, this is Tricentennial Electrics." It's the same voice you heard before. "Have you come to place an order?"
"Hi, it's me again. I wanted to talk to you."
"Last time we talked there was some confusion. You got me mixed up with someone else."
"Can you let me in please? I need to get inside this building."
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - "My god..."
VOLITION - Here come the bad vibes again. Relax. Distance yourself from it.
"What?"
"Please don't hang up. I just want to explain myself."
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - Before you can finish your sentence the voice continues speaking: "It's you..."
"My god, I didn't think I would hear your voice again."
REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - Wait, is she...?
"Wait, are you repeating your words?"
"Didn't you already say that the last time we talked?"
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - "Michel, just please..." Even her breathing, the way her voice drops when she finishes the sentence sounds exactly the same.
"Why did you even call? I don't understand... You've been gone for months," she continues. "I thought you didn't care."
DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Is this some kind of joke?
"Do you think it's *funny*, deceiving a police officer?"
"Just stop it already! Stop repeating your words!"
"It doesn't matter what I say, you're just going to continue, right?"
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - The voice from the intercom doesn't answer, but you can hear her breathing. Wind blows into your microphone again, crackling and echoing in the box.
"Is it over? Can we talk now?"
"Thank you. Now tell me, who's responsible for this *joke*?"
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - "Ever since I came to work here it's been different..."
"As if my mind's been wiped clean..."
Say nothing.
(Hang up the call.)
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - "It's so nice."
"It's so nice to be able to finally forget about you."
VOLITION - And then it hits you.
🎵 Live With Me
"You're a recording."
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - She tries again not to cry. And *still* doesn't succeed completely. Her quiet sobs sound old and distant, as if her voice is being played off a wax cylinder.
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - Real or not, your mirror neurons react: it feels painful to be listening to this.
"Just a recording… and here I thought…"
"Why does it still feel like it's *my* fault?"
"Go ahead, ancient recording. Cry then."
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - Her sound melts into the static from a long-distance phone call. From time to time you can hear people talking in the distance, but can't make out any words.
VOLITION - This is where you hung up the call the last time, but the recording is still going.
Keep listening.
(Hang up the call.)
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - A phone rings in the office with an old-fashioned chime and someone walks by in a pair of heels. The static is like a warm blanket wrapped around the sounds.
"Is anyone there?"
(Hang up the call.)
TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - No one replies, but the static grows stronger like rainfall. Then a female voice speaks out, completely different from the one before. Glorious and *total* somehow. Crawling inside your head.
SHIVERS [Trivial: Success] - Her words are too cold to comprehend. She smells of sodium lights and rain streaks on car windows. Eyes like pilot lights watch your shape in dark hallways, guttering.
KIM KITSURAGI - "So..." The strange, alien thought pattern ends. The lieutenant cuts in, inspecting the intercom.
"It was a recording trapped in the circuitry. From some ancient tenant. This sometimes happens. Shall we conclude here? We have other mysteries to solve."
"Wait, a recording trapped in the circuitry?"
"Something *weird* just happened to me."
(Just hang up the call.)
KIM KITSURAGI - "Mhmh. I don't have time to explain it to you right now. Maybe some time later..." He looks at the sea, almost wistful.
2. "Something *weird* just happened to me."
KIM KITSURAGI - "Don't take this the wrong way, but -- during our short stint working together -- *something weird* is almost always happening to you."
+5 XP
LOGIC [Medium: Success] - That *is* true.
12. [Leave.]
🎵 The Insulindian Miracle
JOYCE MESSIER - "You're back. Good." She takes a sip from her silvery thermal cup. "What can I help you with?"
"Can you tell me about these tattoos again?"
"By the way, I've talked to Evrart Claire."
"Let's talk some more about this *boat* that you're on."
"Tell me about Wild Pines. What do you do?"
"Tell me more about the strike at the harbour."
(Show her your badge.) "I found my badge, by the way."
"Let's talk about the lynching."
"I've got some more questions about *reality*."
"Thank you. That's all for now." [Leave.]
JOYCE MESSIER - "By love, you did!" She inspects the piece of blue plastic, her eyes scanning from left to right.
COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Fast, observantly. Like an electronic printer.
JOYCE MESSIER - She hands it back to you. "Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois. I am glad to see a man of high qualification -- the situation is precarious."
+5 XP
Seaweed drips from the badge in your hand. It smells of fish. "What can I help you with, lieutenant-yefreitor?"
2. "By the way, I've talked to Evrart Claire."
JOYCE MESSIER - "You have?" She smiles, carefully. "And how did you like Mr. Claire?"
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A TUMBLR STORY: TORN PAGE (p.36)
PREVIOUS RESULT: Was it... a voice?
It wasn’t. You realised it as you turned around and saw no one speaking, everyone absorbed by their own brooding. Only Ashna threw you a concerned glance. Their eyes didn’t catch you this time; you were too distressed to fall for them, trying to figure out the source of that voice. Because you knew it was not in your head – it could not be. You never thought in a voice so different from your own, and you would not preface a thought with ‘hey’. No one would preface a thought with ‘hey’. It was a conversational expression.
“All okay?” asked Ashna. You felt the warmth of their palm pressed against your arm, even when you were covered by four thick layers of wool and cloth. You welcomed the concern; you also had no answer.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened? You suddenly got so altered…” the elf spoke softly. It soothed your mind, paving a straight path to sort your memories, making them easier to voice out.
“I heard something… someone.”
“One of us?”
“No, it was different. I haven’t heard that voice before, but it felt familiar. It seemed to be almost like–”
“Like an Echo.” Ashna finished the sentence for you. You noticed them going pale, freezing on spot and clutching their cloak. “It’s an Echo.”
“What’s an Echo…” you attempted to ask but they weren’t listening. Sprinting forwards, they grabbed Amani by her furred sleeve.
“Amani, there’s Echoes here, order a retreat!!”
It was too late, however. You knew it when you noticed the first shadows slide amidst the last few trees and the grey rock. They were translucid, of a fait pink that reminded you of winter’s dawns. They were cold: they drunk the warmth of air and ice, leaving the mist around to seep between the layers of leather and bite the unprotected skin. The shining daystar – already left with only light to spare, no heat – went darker, as if a shadow was casted over your heads. The soil trembled, just a little; the frozen waters of a nearby spring shuddered and shattered, flowing in a bizarre texture of a myriad pieces. Trees bowed in fear and all nature went quiet; yet a roar only befitting of nature’s own scream was heard over the valley that you were crossing.
Hibiscus stopped swaying. She went completely still, like the trees that dared not reach for the sky, like the animals and birds that remained, immobile, on their spots, however exposed they were. A fox was left to sit amidst an open field, with a rabbit only a few steps away. A pair of birds fell from the sky, unable to flap their wings.
“What is this… this wasn’t in our reports…” mumbled Amani, taking a step back. It was the first time you saw her so lost. She was the Leader; she was supposed to know what to expect. She was meant to be ready.
“We’re doomed…” muttered Ashna under their breath. They looked so small, grasping onto their staff in a despair so palpable you could almost hold it in your hands. Their eyes jumped between the flickering pink, watching it transform into figures known to mortal eyes and those you never saw before, horrid and captivating on equal parts.
“Behind me. All of you.” Laefen stood first, dagger in hand. They were ready – you could see veins showing underneath their skin as their entire body tensed, prepared for battle. Their ears shivered, catching the slightest breeze. Their eyes narrowed, focusing on the moving shadows. They were ready – and yet, you felt a difference in their posture. Something not quite right.
Perhaps, it was just your imagination.
“What’s an Echo…” you repeated, clenching hands around your own staff. The lack of information bothered you.
“A shard of an Old God,” finally, someone answered. You glanced at M, perplexed at the reveal, not so surprised by the source. While humans just arrived to Therania, the young settlers had time to learn and pray to the Gods of this world, too keen on seeking the protection of those imbued with greater strength. Humans were drawn to the mystic and the occult – it was part of their unreasonable nature.
But a shard…
“How is it possible? The Gods are dead,” you stated the obvious. Again. But other things were dead and yet the obvious seemed to let exceptions take over.
“They are indeed,” nodded M with a faint smile, mismatching the occasion. “When they were killed, what they created remained. The world did not go away because the Goddess of Therania, of Soil and Waters, died. It prospered over her dead body and used it as fuel.”
“The Gods did not create this world, there is no proof…”
“Does it matter? The point is that, while they are dead, their power is not. Bits of it have fused back together: some created illusions and anomalies, some boosted the prosperity of their old domains, and some, like these, gained… well, not conscience. Spite.”
Hey, that amulet… it’s glowing.
You turned to look around again, drawn to that same voice, now duplicated, triplicated, coming from all sides. It sounded like people you knew, and at the same time it had no common structure, tone, or melody. It could not refer to you – all your amulets were off, and even the new pendant hanging from your neck remained cold and lifeless for the past days. It was directed at you, however. You wondered if anyone else heard that, or it was your personal illusion. Or perhaps, they heard something else.
But was that the right question to ask now? No, of course not. Scholarship could wait.
“What do we do?”
M smiled wider. “We fight, or we die.”
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❤️ first kiss / realization
🧡 kissing in bed / lazy kiss / cuddling
💛 reunion kiss / relief
💚 true love’s kiss / magic kiss / healed
💜 surprise kiss / impulsive kiss
(your choices of ships)
❤️ First Kiss/Realization
[Maybe canon for them? 6.4]
Fuyu'li took off running as soon he passed through Meghaduta's aetheryte. It had been too long since he last left Radz-at-Han. He'd heard word that his young savior had not been seen in some time and had not a single ounce of rationality about it.
The Garlean researcher panted as he hit the top of the steps, hurrying to the pillar where he'd oft meet with Varshan. Though many were gathered at the steps of the Radiant Host's dwelling, none were his lord. Tail thrashing, he ran up to a guard, ignoring the instant yet expected look of discomfort.
"Master Varshahn! I hear he is missing! Has something happened to him!? Has he been injured!? I have been detained for this past year through the near Calamity!"
"Calm yourself, Garlean. He has taken off to Mehryde's Meyhane on a walk to acquaint himself better with his new legs."
Fuyu'li staggered at the other's words. "New legs," he repeated, visceral images of the boy walking upon magitek appendages.
Not waiting for clarification, he returned to the aetheryte, aethericly vaulting himself across Radz-at-Han to his next destination. Rounding a corner, he crashed into the firm chest of an Au Ra, sending bouncing back on his tail.
"Apologies," the Keeper breathed out, getting his senses together before looking up.
His eyes went wide as they met a familiar red gaze, though a good three/four fulms higher than it should have been.
"No, the fault lies with me. I was in my head," the Auri man answered before his expression widened in recognition, "Fuyuki?"
The Garlean froze, hearing the nickname curiously leave the man's lips. He covered his mouth then turned his head in embarrassment.
"That name…did your little brother tell it to you," he asked, taking Au Ra's hand as it was offered, electricity moving through him as fingers met palm.
"Little brother? I am the youngest of my…siblings. I thought you knew this? Ah, you are confused by my appearance. I am Varshahn."
Fuyu'li shook his head, "Impossible. I am seeing the impossible. I could not have been away longer than a year. I will say Au Ra physiology alludes me; however, you going from a boy to man in such a short amount of time. Was this the result of more research into the void or magicks gone awry!?"
Varshahn blinked then put his knuckle to his lips, thinking for a moment. "Perhaps it is time I should tell you everything…come with me. I shall treat you to a meal and tell you my story.
Fuyu'li listened quietly, happy for the privacy of a far off table. What he heard sounded like something out of a story tail, but the pieces he'd been missing in his search for the boy's no, dragon's sister came together in a clearer light. Upon being appraised of the most recent events regarding the trip to the void, the Miqo'te was left with his appetite ruined, picking at the remnants of his naan and curry with his fork.
"So you found others more suited to help you in your search of Azdaja," he said softly.
"Yes. My new friends have made far more progress than I had dared to dream. Though, I fear now my hope is precariously held by the Warriors of Light victory over Golbez's Zeromus…That aside…I am surprised the truth of who I am was more of a point of interest for you."
"It matters not who you are, only that my life is yours. I swore fealty to you. I should have been here and yet I was trying so hard to find you someone who could have saved your sister. I met with many who possessed the Echo. Those who gifts manifested in a special manner I sought to use to find Azdaja…But I ended up being manipulated to serve another's purpose believing it to be your own. Pray, do not make me expand upon their method. I was their unwitting puppet and though I had them in my grasp, in the end I could not ask them to help me after what I almost had done. I would…I would have imperiled many for your sake, but I knew no matter how much you wished to unite with your beloved sister, you would not have anyone else pay the price."
"Your dearest one."
Y'zel Tia's voice tumbled around in his mind as he touched his chest. His Master had appeared to him then. He struggled with accepting it though he understood the logic. His life was saved and given a new purpose. A love based on honor and gratitude. It has never made his heart quake, and yet, that his savior was this immortal being housed now in a man. It shook him.
"I have caused you to suffer on my behalf. I apologize," Varshahn cut through, large scaled hand coming to rest on Fuyu'li's shoulder.
The Keeper swallowed, looking from the hand up to the still gaze of his Master. He shook his head, "I would gladly take any pain from you if it meant your prosperity, though, I now find myself even more useless to you than before," he started, looking at his hand before curling it into a fist, "I was too weak to be your sword and shield, though apparently you needn't one. Too weak to protect the home you love. Too weak to have seen through the fog of my devotion to have found you useful tools to find your beloved sister. Any suffering has been of my own inferiority. But I will not stop until I see all your dreams fulfilled. My life, as small as it is, is yours."
"You have gifts and you sought to use them for myself. Despite your self doubt you persevere. That in itself shows your strength. Many have served me in the past and yet now I find some many people who care for me and a being they've not met, because I care for them. I'm sure there is room for you and your strength among them.
It is funny. I had a thought earlier that one of my new friends finds themselves a stranger in a strange land and at times does not know what to do as they encounter new feelings and then it occured to me…That I am as like you. I suppose I do not like feeling so otherwise.I've long felt love for my people here…but it had not occurred to me how much that love has come from being able to walk at their sides and learn to empathize in ways that are not inherent to my kind. It is embarrassing to think of myself as I really am.
And now I'm feeling a bittersweet wave of emotion. Joy that you see and speak of your failing as if Azdaja was your own sister. That you care for me so much. But there's sadness too. Not that it proves fruitless in, but because I can sense how hard you've tried just for me and to have returned finding me changed and an explanation that begs mosts' belief."
"Do not spare a single thought on that. It was your character that has taken hold of my heart. Your shroud clearly has served a great purpose.
Varshahn put his hand to his cheek, rubbing it lightly, "I do not like how easily this homunculus reacts to flights of emotion. It must be exhausting to have such things show and be able to do little to mask it."
"Have I done something to offend," Fuyu'li asked.
"No. Not at all. It was just a fleeting thought. Another mortal impulsion I don't quite understand. Perhaps, as you might say, I should go change. And yet I'm curious to see if I'm indeed reflecting that which you have suddenly set upon me."
"You should be comfortable young master, no…m lordship," Fuyu'li said, quickly getting up to give the Au Ra a salute before continuing,"If my presence has becoming taxing please retire and I shall make myself available to you when you call. Until then I shall speak with your retainers to find ways to be useful by your next tribe through to the void."
Varshahn stared then stood, nodded, moving to pass by the other only to stop.
"Fuyuki."
The Miqo'te swallowed as the name sounded out in the mature tone. His heart hastened as he felt a palm on his cheek gently guiding him to look at his Master before finding their faces gravitating toward one another. It was a brief embrace, and Fuyu'li committed every millisecond of it to memory. The slight pressure of Varshan's finger tips. The faint burn of curry. The stoic withdrawal, no tell as to what the intentions were behind
"Goodnight," was all the Au Ra offered in the wake before leaving him to his own thoughts.
Fuyu'li slumped down into chair in a daze while in the distance Varshahn stopped, touched his heart, then moved on to blip through to another aetheryte.
🧡 Lazy Kiss
The sun was high over the Amethyst Shallows. With the recent move, Ioh'juhn had found a means to dock a small dinghy behind the house, perfect for small getaways and lazy afternoon fishing trips.
His pole set fixed over the edge, bobber floating about waiting to be pulled under while he laid back in a nest of pillows and blankets, Y'zel on one side, a bucket of ice and "borrowed" champagne on the other.
"This is the life Kitter," he sighed, arms behind his head before rolling his head to kiss the top of the other's ear.
Y'zel rose, smiling softly as he strokes the other's cheek.
"Yes it is my sweet Catter. Do you know what would make this a perfect day," Y'zel cooed, walking his fingers down the Keeper's chest
Ioh'juhn beamed moved his hand to the waist and of his trunks, "Oh yes. I think I do!"
The other Miqo'te beamed then was suddenly stuffed upward by a magiteck claw as four nouliths came down, piercing the four corners of the boat. It capsized quickly, Ioh forced to scrambled out of the water and onto a few floating planks.
"What the fuck Kitter," he called out, watching Y'zel be carried up to the back of the house and let down next to Violet as she recalled her weapons and Nyx with a controller in her hands.
"Next time you'll pick me first," Y'zel shouted before leaving in a huff.
💛 Reunion Kiss/Relief
[6.4]
Leon grunted as he felt his leg ache. Still, his fear had gotten the best of him. In his old armor he clanged through Aporia, spear in hand, ready to join his employers in combat for Y'zel's sake.
As he approached the lift, the door opened, the party of eight spilling out with Claudien being supported by Y'zel as they moved along.
"You're safe," he the Elezen breathed out as he lifted his visor, rushing to help support the Hyur before seizing the back of Y'zel's head and kissing him hard, possessively even despite holding the other's primary up in his arms.
"Yes, we are," Y'zel breathed out, fluttering a bit as he put his ringed hand up against Leon's.
A shiver ran down the Elezen's spine. The worst of his fears assuaging slowly. Claudien seemed in tact which meant Y'zel would not be entertaining his reckless anxieties no longer. They could be family, a strange one that he didn't quite have his head around, but one none the less.
💚
Keith smiled as he tucked in G'khenna and Khloe into bed, happy to have a little relief from the constant fighting between them. He knew not how long the peace would last. Raha almost always seemed to have some sort of Scion business when the girls decided they could tolerate each other long enough to insist they were best friends and wanted a sleepover.
"Alright. Sleep tight little adventures," he sang before heading for the door.
"Wait! Tell us a story," G'khenna called out.
"Please Mr. Keith!"
Keith rubbed the back of his head. "Ah. I guess I've got one…" he started.
Upon an era long ago, a Miqo'te prince with ruby red eyes was imprisoned in a Crystal Tower by an evil wizard. Prince after Prince was sent to save him by the king of the realm, but each time the wizard would defeat them by using the darkness in their hearts to turn them into monsters. With the magic of the tower and the wizard's army, the prince and evil captor lived a long time until forgotten and the tower became hidden by a dark fog.
One day a simple, handsome Hyur was wondering through a forest and became lost in the fog. He felled monster after monster until, tired, he arrived at the tower. Seeing a window, he looked up and spotted the prince reading a high window.
"Please. May I have water," he begged.
"I cannot leave this place. You should go or the wizard here will turn you into a monster."
"Are you trapped?"
"Yes, I am cursed so that I cannot leave the tower. Many came to save me, but you will not find no glory or honor rescuing me from here. You will become a monster like the rest."
"Well. There must be a way to break the curse. I'm sure I'll be okay. Why don't you lower your tail and I'll climb up to you?"
The prince sighed and closed his book, letting the Hyur scale his tail and come into the window. He was surprised that the man remained unaltered.
"Can I have that glass of water now?"
The prince obliged and once the Hyur was satiated, helped him leave the way he came.
"I'll be back to check on you and look for a way to uncurse you," he called out.
The prince sighed, not believing him. Yet, the prince did return with all sorts of trinkets and potions that he was told would work. None did though. Still, the prince grew fond of the adventurer and looked forward
The wizard soon noticed his army dwindling and felt the prince's happiness start to radiate and kill the fog. Wanting the prince's despair to last forever, he poisoned his drink with a sleeping draught telling him the only way he'd ever be with his Hyur again is in his dreams. Realizing what was about to happen, he wrote, "I love you, wake me with a kiss" then fell asleep, trapping his tail in the window seal.
Upon the Hyur's return, he climbed the tail then found his friend asleep with his note. His heart beat fast as he looked at the prince, finding him beautiful even if he snored loudly and whipped his tail in his sleep. Kneeling over him, and with his clear expressed consent, he kissed him. An aetheric pulse burst from their lips, the curses lifted. The fog vanished and the monsters faded into nothing. The great wizard evaporated and screamed as the purity of their love washed over him.
The tower liberated and the prince free, they re-established the forgotten kingdom together, married, and lived happily ever after with their beautiful daughters. The end."
"That was awful daddy," G'khenna sighed.
"You didn't even tell Khloe and Khenna about the battles. Skipped over them to the mushy stuff! Khloe gets much better stories from adventurers' sticker books."
"Have papa Raha come tell us a better story! He has been on real adventurers'."
"Well I'm glad you two have united against a common cause, but it is bedtime," he pointed out, switching the light out and earning disappointed mewls and boos.
Outside the room, he sighed until struck several times by a tail.
"I don't snore Keith!" his husband hissed before stomping off.
💜 Surprise Kiss
Asa rubbed his brow after he finished his letter, requesting Y'zel return to work for a time so that he could focus on his coming wedding and to get in contact with the young girl claiming to be his niece.
Reclining in his chair, he let out a breath, scrunching his face as he tried to think of anything else but the work ahead and what he might come back to. As he tried to empty his mind, he felt his lap become heavy and lips upon his own. Startled upright, his hand went around his fiance's waist, instinctively preventing her from falling.
"Eliose…we're in my office."
"Really? I wondered why there was a desk in front of you and the other's were avoiding the gloom emanating from the door. Are we in Dravania too," she mocked, hand stroking through his hair, "I have locked the door so your image as a no-nonsense brutal tyrant of a leader can be maintained."
"Good," the man answered before sinking back into his chair, closing his eyes, a hint of a smile on his face.
#final fantasy xiv#ffxiv#final fantasy 14#ff14#ffxiv oc#ff xiv#fuyu'li zen Zwhan#varshahn#varshahn/oc#ffxiv miqo'te#y'zel tia#ioh'juhn reighn#wol x g'raha tia#g'raha tia#g'khenna summers#khloe aliapoh#leonnioux ouraox#asa obinata#eliose cutiox#violet fisher#nyx blackmoon#first kiss#surprise kiss#true love's kiss#lazy kiss#Reunion kiss
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A Gain in Power (Roquefort TF/MC/CRPT/HY)
(Original Date of Upload: February 5, 2023)
Original Description:
I may have written this in two days. I played Hi-Fi Rush a few weeks back and it's a very good game! Roquefort has been my TF obsession since then. Australian accent, corruption mood, robotic werewolf. All-in-all, really fuckin' hot and I needed to write a TF story of him as soon as possible. This story is a bit different to me, it's kind of experimental since I'm doing a lot of different things in it that I haven't before. Especially on the subject matter of hypnosis which I have never done in a story before up until now, much less non-consensual hypnosis that requires a lot of resistance. I think I did it kind of wonkily but I'm still proud of the end result nonetheless. The post-TF is definitely a little awkward though, I wasn't quite sure where I wanted to go around there. Overall this is all just a bunch of new concepts that I haven't tried before, but I am trying now! And overall I still think it turned out rather well! Also the story title is a pun. I hope someone gets it.
"I put my stock in futures… but not yours, kid."
How many times has Gerald heard this line? It felt like about ten or so now. A little embarrassing to think about, really, the knowledge that it's been taking this many attempts to beat this boss.
Left stick forward, light attack while the boss is still transforming…
He wasn't really rhythmically inclined. That might've been the largest issue here, although even then the penalty never seemed that dire before. They were at least able to connect certain cues, especially with parrying, but something about this boss was… tedious, to say the least.
Ignore the "Repeat" penalties, just go with what works. X, X, X, and… fail to time the last beat properly. Try again!
Try again. That's what Gerald tells himself. All the other bosses were a walk in the park! Except maybe Mimosa but he didn't die to her as much as he died to this Roquefort fellow. Could it be the size? Could it be the irregular attack patterns? Could it just be that he's on Normal mode and should've just gone with Easy like his gut told him before this game started?
25%, just as long as- Ugh, crap! The stupid dive attack always-
He's not using his entire arsenal, is he? When's the last time he used Peppermint, or really called on any of the allies? He hasn't used a Special Attack in a long while either!
Shit, why does the boss deal damage while swimming through the money??
Maybe he should use more combos? Or actually try to be in beat? So many thoughts, so many things he could try and do. This boss shouldn't be this hard, it really shouldn't-
Music's ramping up, Chai is near a fist, Roquefort's about to jump and dive at him, aaaaand… there!
At least he's able to get a good few hits in when the boss is incapacitated. Although he himself is somehow at half HP. Maybe buying those things that increased his max health would've been a worthwhile investment.
Grapple to him, somehow start an aerial attack, miss half the hits, the boss misses an attack that would've rushed towards him. Grapple again, forget to listen to audio cues, get hit, repeat. 50% health on Roquefort, about 45% on Chai…
He sighs. He likely won't be winning this fight today, meaning it'd probably be a good time to give up and take a break after he inevitably loses this round. That's… fine (he's lying to himself). He needs to blow off some steam (he desperately wants to beat this boss before he ends this session).
He gets hit again, a pang of fear emanating through him as he notices how low his health is. Roquefort's voice then echoes through Gerald's headphones. "Hmph. Giving up already? Weak."
Is the game taunting him now? It usually only does that when he game overs. And that's a new voice line too. Usually he hears the man say 'Money is power!' or something every twenty seconds.
The fight gets uneventful from here, maybe because Gerald is already sure he's losing. He's slipping. He's getting greedier with his attacks, he's trying to end things quickly when this isn't the game for that.
"Ya ain't gonna use all that's at your disposal? This could have been over easily."
There was something unnerving about the tone of that. Why did it feel so targeted? It was… discomforting. He didn't like that.
Another simple combo: X, X, X, and… ah, perfected that last hit for once! Excitement is fleeting, though. 25% on Roquefort, 20% on Chai. Even worse…
"Prepare to get blown away!"
…the QTE.
The worst segment of the battle, if not the entire game as a whole. If his inability to get into the rhythm wasn't going to fuck things up, his inability to discern buttons at an ungodly pace would.
They always went so fast. This didn't feel like the Space Channel 5 segment of Mimosa's fight that was just a bunch of calls and responses. This was what felt like an unfair rapid fire of required inputs. It hurt, it really hurt.
He was pretty sure he didn't even get past the halfway point. His own health gets decimated in what feels like seconds.
It's over. He lost.
The screen steadily fades to black, except this time Chai is missing from it. The only additive the blank computer screen has is a short taunt from Roquefort.
"Your struggling gets pitiful."
The lack of Chai on the screen didn't really phase him. A part of him would've assumed it was one of those 'you die [x] amount of times and get an Easter egg' kind of things.
Gerald sighs, staring at the black screen. A self-deprecating smile crosses his face. It was pitiful, wasn't it? Whatever, guess if the game was blanking he should take a break. He just has to wait for the option to Leave to show up.
It never did, though. The screen remained black, and it did so for what felt like a long time. But those lengthy few seconds ended as something finally did appear on the screen.
Steadily fading in from within the void was what looked to be a solid gold metronome. The pendulum seemed to already be active, swaying left and right to a soft, constant click that rang through the headphones.
Left, click. Right, click. Left, right, left, right. The clicks that practically reverberated through his ears had mesmerized him. The swinging of the pendulum was practically hypnotic. He was so fixated that he didn't really notice the opacity of the metronome fade, the object solid on the screen of his computer.
It was then that an all too familiar voice broke the audio immersion. "Beautiful, ain't it?"
Gerald's eyes remained fixated on the pendulum, but his mind still functioned enough to speak. "Wh-huh…?"
"It's a nice metronome. Costed a pretty penny too. But that ain't what I'm here for…"
Gerald knew this voice. Thick Australian accent, a strange yet powerful tone to its demeanor. "Roque…fort?"
"Heh, look who's on the money! Not as dumb as I was expectin', considerin' that pitiful performance of yours in our little… 'battle', if you could even call it that."
Gerald wanted to blink. "I'm… sorry?" He wanted to articulate more than that. To ask what was going on, or how this was even happening. Yet the metronome, the swinging… left and right and left and…
"I'm going to be blunt with ya', mate. You're weak. It's pathetic to watch, even more pathetic to endure when you're the one constantly tasked with fighting such a disappointment."
"It was only ten… times. Wasn't that bad…"
A sign echoes from Gerald's headphones. "You're that accepting of it, huh? You're even more of a disappointment than I thought. But I'm going to rectify that…"
"What do you…?"
"You need to be made stronger. You need to be made better! You… you need to be shown what true power feels like."
The swinging of the metronome's pendulum starts to increase in speed. It's only subtle, but when it's the only thing the eyes focus on you can feel it.
Gerald's jaw clenched. "I… I don't…"
Roquefort cuts him off. "Let's start with that thing in your hand…"
Eyes still unable to tear away from the metronome, Gerald couldn't see what was happening. The controller within his hand shook for a few moments, his grip slowly fading as the inanimate object seemed to shake at an increasingly faster rate. As the object convulsed, it seemed to melt in a way. Buttons lost their defining features and melded into the mass. Both sticks liquified into raised bumps on the strange lump of goo.
Once everything was smoothed out and gone the controller shape steadily compressed into itself, reshaping and losing all uniqueness to its features until it was a lumpy, black, gooey-looking sphere floating innocuously in his hands. Shortly after that, it began to reshape itself yet again. Lengthening horizontally, its sphere shape changes to something more slender. Getting longer still, one end shines with a gold coloration while the other end gains a T-shape to it thanks to two new blunted protrusions. After a few more seconds the object hardens, its material changing to a metal with a pure black coloration. The golden nub at the end shines softly while another bit of gold forms an inch beneath where the protrusions formed.
Gerald couldn't see it, but his controller had been morphed into a cane. It dropped into his hands, both of them curling around the strange new object. The metal felt cold.
"What did you… do?" Gerald inquired, his eyes still trapped to the rhythmic swinging of the metronome.
"I gave you something a little more… refined. It'll also allow what comes next to be easier. Now just sit back and accept this… gift, of mine."
Gerald hissed as a sudden shock zapped his fingers from the cane. His entire body shivered in response, a strange feeling welling up inside it, meanwhile his hands started to go numb. He tried to move his head away from the computer, to look at what was happening, but it felt rooted. His eyes remained affixed to the metronome's swinging. "Ngh, need to break from… this trance-"
He grunts as he tries to do so, and while that happens things begin to change in his body. The numbness in his hands was caused by their physicality being shifted. His skin started to take a darker tone as the warmth in it steadily dissipated, soft flesh hardening to a cool metal. His fingers softly twitched to the clicks of the metronome in his ears, each finger segmenting at the joints as the metal washed over them. At the same time his hands were beginning to increase in size, stretching out larger and bulkier; fingers getting thicker and blunted.
The twitching in his fingers gained a subtle mechanical whir to them, the now segmented joints gaining a black hue to them. A robotic feel seemed to wash over the entire area, his hand already having become a bronze coloration, perfect for its now entirely metallic composition. Small nubs had even emerged from his knuckles, hardening into an elongated hexagonal shape as they practically powered out with a light blue glow.
A geometric line etched itself around both wrists as the changes to his cellular structure jumped to his forearms and beneath the sleeves of his hoodie. The region numbing, the bronze washing up them and the skin hardening to metal. Both forearms looked to bulk up in size as these absurd changes courses through them, sleeves steadily filling out with this new size. The internal muscles shifted to wiring and convoluted mechanisms while the bones hardened to a shining metal. Another line ran across the now metallic casing, bisecting it unevenly before moving to his elbows and segmenting them from his arms as well.
The changes on his upper arms mirrored those in the lower arms perfectly. What were once his bicep and tricep muscles were replaced with inorganic, advanced technology; but still filled out the region and expanded it within his sleeves and stretched them out slightly. As his flesh shifted to metal it got bisected unevenly as well with yet another casing split. And as everything steadily reached his shoulders, his shirt got a bit more snug as the area got bulkier with mechanics that were once his deltoids filling his new metallic chassis. Lastly came one final casing split in the area separating his arms from his torso, the axilla, creating a clean divide between the limbs and his body.
The numbness in his arms steadily faded, the areas feeling cold and lifeless. Yet he could still move them, albeit weakly since he wasn't acclimated to these new limbs.
"What are you doing to me…?" Gerald said, fear in his voice as he was still unaware of what his arms had become. They just felt cold and it was uncomfortable and terrifying.
"Eh, I ain't one for keepin' shit like this a secret. I pity you, kid. You're weak, and all I'm doin' is fixing that for ya', like someone else did for me. I'm transforming you into the stronger one between us."
Gerald was left confused. "Wha…?" Transforming him into the stronger one? Was Roquefort implying…
"Y-you're making me into… you…?"
"Clever boy, you catch on quick! You'll be me in both body and mind… gives me chills just thinkin' about it! Usually I'm the one transformin', heheheh…"
Roquefort was clearly enjoying this. Gerald, on the other hand, wasn't. He wanted to protest, but that could worsen an already bad situation for him. He just had to break away from staring at this damned metronome!
He grunts again, trying harder to break away from this trance all while his body continues to change even more. The skin tone on his chest begins to shine a deep bronze while the warm skin itself reconstitutes into cold metal. His clothing fills up again as his entire body starts to expand, widening out to a larger width than it possessed before. His chest steadily rose up, previously unimpressive pectorals expanding into a larger and thicker size. A small dent formed where the cleavage would be while straight lines formed beneath his pecs and around his body to break the chassis apart and separate the upper body from the lower. Strangely, a bit of fluff formed on the midline of his chest, an attempt to give his chest some kind of chest hair. Three spikes of clumped fuzz poked from this new fluffy growth, stylizing it a bit.
His back possessed less impressive changes than that of his front. While the smooth metal ran across the entire area, there were still slight segmentations like a pair of parallel ones, each split running roughly two inches away from his neck. Those splits stopped at the horizontal run that parted his body in half.
In contrast to the implied musculature his body possessed, his belly changed in a different manner. Bloat filled it up, the hem of his hoodie riding up it as it grew thicker and fatter. It got a metallic sheen as it enlarged, the region seeming to segment four times at regular intervals in an attempt to give it a more mobile look. His hoodie continued to move upwards, revealing this segmenting and confirming his belly had swelled into a firm robo-gut. It steadily moved with his breathing, rising and falling slightly in its new larger size.
Gerald felt this strange gain in weight, although at this point he was feeling a chill throughout his entire body. His torso felt like it was churning as well, his vestigial feeling strange as if they were warping around and shifting. Complex robotics were filling his body at a rapid pace, things shifting and changing within him as various systems of mechanics began to flow throughout his changing form. Soft glows emanated from the various holes in his casing, different colors representing all the new systems implemented to his currently cybernetic body. A soft red glow put his body's internal heating system online, filling it with some semblance of comfort in contrast to this slightly horrifying predicament. Then there was a soft blue glow that signified power fully coming online, Gerald slowly being able to move his hands properly as he tapped his fingers on the cane he was still grasping.
Wait. He could move his hands.
It was a momentarily glimmer of hope. Gerald was quickly able to unhand the cane and move his hands upwards to push his headphones off his head, the appliance slipping down to his neck after he did so. His eyes still remained fixed to the pendulum, but he could still reach his hand over and use the keyboard. Maybe if he forced a Ctrl+Alt+Del, he could…
"Still resisting I see…" Roquefort's voice reverberated from his computer's speakers.
The pendulum began to swing faster, and the speed was starting to feel disorienting. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, though. "I just have to-"
"Hm. You'd usually be more intuitive than this, Roquefort."
"What-"
"You'd never do something so predictable."
"You called me-"
"Roquefort. That's your name."
Gerald swallowed a lump in his throat. He knew that wasn't his name, but the weird confusion he's being given by the swiftly swinging metronome was making him feel strange. His hands started to inch away from the keyboard. "That… can't…"
"Doesn't it sound so familiar though? Roquefort Wolfgang, Head of Finance at Vandelay Technologies."
"Head of… Finance…" Gerald repeated, the last word in that sentence sounding slightly off. Sounding a pinch deeper, rougher.
"Good boy. Go on, think about it a bit more. Recall all you can…"
Gerald's hands fully retracted away from the keyboard, the man giving a single nod as his eyes remained on the golden metronome. All he was given was being the Head of Finance at a technology corporation, but that seemed to be enough that he started searching his brain for information. Something about that had begun to feel so right to him it was…
"Urgh…"
His head aches, things are feeling conflicted. It's both right and wrong… which ones which? Gerald shudders, his mind now in turbulence. As he tries to put the pieces together, the changes start moving downwards to his waist and below.
His jeans were already in the process of straining thanks to his much broader form. The button held itself tightly as the zipper tried to keep itself together. His belt was doing quite a lot of work as well, although it was the only part of his attire that felt like it was properly constricting him.
The region around his waist had strange shifts when it came to its casing. The region at the base of his spine seemed to gain an interesting mechanism within it. The region around his rear seemed to gain a strange way of segmenting while the roundness of his ass seemed to increase and fill the seat of his pants. If anything it looked like he had two round pieces of metallic plating.
As with the rest of his body, the changes within his legs were effectively the same. Skin tone changing, skin composition morphing. Much like his arms, the casing of his thighs bisected unevenly. The internals of the area shifted to wiring and tubing and hard metal bones, the region bulking up as a direct result of that. Lines formed around the knees where the chassis cleanly broke for the joints to work.
Changes in the lower legs were effectively the same, although the casing splits seemed more vertical than horizontal, at least for the first half of it. Things reached an interesting change towards the lower half of his leg’s crus. While still possessing its newly metallic shifts, the color shifted to a darker red with thin black stripes running vertically downwards, giving them the weird look of emulating the visible portion of a pair of socks.
This didn’t last for too long though as once everything flowed down beneath his shoes and onto his feet, a more drastic change occurred. A deep shade of black entered his feet, subsuming the fleshy tone of it and deepening it to something completely inorganic. The size of his feet steadily expanded, his footwear starting to bulge against the growing size of the appendages. A strange sleek smoothness entered the metal, nullifying any imperfections and exacerbating that feel of inhumanity in the area. His heels dug into the heels of his shoes as they hardened, ankles smoothing and digging into the sides. The soles of his feet swelled yet smoothed as they looked like they emulated the soles of a shoe more and more. The strangest change came to his toes, each one melding and squishing with the other as they smoothed out into the toecap of a shoe.
The size increase coupled with these strange developments resulted in the cloth of his already existing footwear to rip apart, revealing the sleek shining metal beneath. Even the shoe strings weren’t spared as the bridge of his foot grew a protrusion that acted as the tongue of a shoe, pushing the strings while they ripped against his changing feet. This new size of his feet allowed them to slightly break from the crus of his legs, making them appear to be separate articles of clothing from that of his weird socks. Even weirder was what was happening to the internals of his feet, bones and muscles morphing and rematerializing to become a strange internal mechanism of metal and wiring. Something had definitely formed beneath his feet-turned-footwear.
All while this occurred, Gerald’s mind was in a confused rut. “M-my name is not… Roquefort? Is… it…?” As he stammered, his voice cracked. Deeper still, a huskier tone entering it through his doubts.
A bright blue glow flickered into his irises, his head was pounding. He placed both hands on his head, the now slightly warm metal of his palms ebbing into his temples. Yet his eyes remained locked onto the metronome’s pendulum. Gerald’s voice temporarily returns to normal, a moment of clarity and resistance coming through. “Nnngh, n-no, have to…”
“You’re stronger than this, Roquefort.”
Ugh, that name. It feels more familiar every time it’s said. “My names- urgh, my name’s Ger… ald…?”
Even with his resistance that name felt wrong. That declaration was wrong.
“Stop actin’ so weak!”
A growl practically exited Gerald’s throat. “I ain’t weak!” he said defensively, his voice running lower again, sounding more rough and powerful. An accent was even beginning to crawl in there.
“Ooh, fightin’ back now are we. Finally showing some initiative!” The pendulum starts to swing at a faster pace again. A part of Gerald tries to look away again, but it feels so entrancing. “Come on, boy, repeat after me…”
“Strength is valuable, financial strength is invaluable.”
“S-strength is valuable… financial strength is invaluable…” The accent in Gerald’s voice gets stronger, noticeably Australian. This is accentuated by changes in his neck. A split in the metal circles around his neck as the deep bronze creeps up in. It slowly flows up his shifting skin, replacing it with metal as his neck widens.
“Costs are all that matters.”
“Costs… are all that matters.” His voice cracks less, getting overpowered by the deep huskiness of Roquefort’s. The value of strength, the value of money, both are filling his mind rapidly as well.
“Money is power…!”
“Money is… u-urgh-” Everything begins to waver for a split second. “N-no! Not… right… I’m not…”
He was too far down the mental spiral though. Something about those phrases felt so accurate. Something about all of this felt so… right. He may have been weak before, but he was being granted this strength. Power. So much power, but so much knowledge as well. He could feel his mind filling with all that information needed for proper financial handling. It would be rude to turn down such an 'offer' of high value being granted to him!
“Would you like to try that again, Roquefort?”
Gerald(?) lets out a low chuckle. “Of course. I ain’t one to give up so easily!~” he said with a smirk.
They both then spoke in unison.
“Money is power!”
At this point the metal had gone up from his neck and started to etch onto his face. The pale tone of his flesh is ebbed away as it’s replaced by the bronze, just like it was with the rest of his skin. As his organic flesh was being converted to artificiality, the structure of his face changed entirely. His jawline smoothed and sculptured itself, roundness sharpening into a more angular shaping. His entire head seemed to get slightly larger, the shape of it squeezing slightly to appear slightly rectangular. His nose got wider and blunt. Eyes got smaller, edges sharper. Eyebrows got thicker and bushy while getting slightly crooked at the end. Even his ears got slightly altered as they became slightly pointed.
The robotic nature of his new form became more clear as the last of his skin was subsumed by the bronze mental. The chassis that made up his head was divided in two right on his face, a split running above his cheeks and stopping beneath his bottom eyelids. It started back up at the upper eyelids and created a clean trapezoidal shape that ended on his forehead. Roughly an inch above the split diagonally came two protrusions that poked from his head, slowly hardening into a definitive hexagonal shape before alighting with a bright blue.
The last of his physical changes came with his hair. He raised a hand to the apex of his scalp and, in one fell sweep, wiped a good chunk of his hair off the top of his head and left it with a significant bald spot. What remained around his head started to restyle itself, straightening and combing itself together as it changed into a style that prominently poked out both sides of his head (alongside a tuft that poked out the back). Large tufts of hair that from a frontal view looked like the pointed ears of a wolf. All the while, the coloration was becoming a deep brown. Stripes of gray had also etched into his hair, starting at one temple and stretching around the back of his head all the way to the other.
Brown fluff then started to trail further down the sides of his head. Growing on the sides of his jaw and flowing downwards onto his chin. The further down it went the thicker this new beard seemed to get, the style also seeming perfectly angular to that of his jawline. Fuzz had also arisen towards the ends of his mouth, moving upwards to above his upper lip and then running sideways to meet underneath his nose. A nice thick mustache was what graced that region as a result.
The changed man couldn't help but give his beard a nice stroke. His eyes, still fixated on the pendulum, had also gained a glowing blue coloration in their irises.
"Feelin' a lot better…" he spoke with a smirk. His new mindset felt right at home in his head. Some would say it's greed, but he's just making the choices that bring the most profit. That's what he did to that weakling after all. Gave them the form that was most profitable. So much stronger, so much better.
For once he blinked. He had no reason to take into account that metronome anymore. As far as he was concerned, he was done with it. Almost. A few finishing touches have to be done after all.
Finally broken from the screen, Roquefort looked down at his body. A hoodie, some jeans, a pair of headphones hanging off his neck. He pushed the chair he was in back and kicked off the tattered remains of his previous selve's old shoes. His cane had also found itself on the floor, likely due to whatever futile resistance he had also tried to put up. Whatever, he needed something more refined.
He stood up from his chair and picked up his cane, a hand grasped onto the handle firmly. "Now that that little distraction has been dealt with, I have some work to get back to doing."
The tip of his cane touched the ground, both portions of gold that were on it glowing in response to his desires. The room had rapidly started to shift, reality warping around him as deep purple unfurled on the carpet while bright golds and rich wooden browns formed around the walls and ceiling. The room around him was getting significantly larger.
At the same time, his clothing was undergoing its own changes. His hoodie started to split down the middle, buttons emerging along this split. The hood receded as the neck deepened into a deep V shape, the hem raising to a smaller V shape. The sleeves retracted into the hoodie, leaving it sleeveless and marking it more as a vest now. Lastly came the coloration, a rich purple color soaking into it as thin white stripes formed.
Concurrently, a new shirt seemed to form beneath his changing hoodie. As the hoodie sleeves retracted a new set of sleeves, white in color, unfurled from beneath the vest and ran down his arms before rolling themselves up to above his elbows. The neck deepened, the hem shrunk, and the new shirt materialized across his body. Its hem went over his rounded belly and tucked itself into his pants, a buttoned up shirt placket noticeably visible from the middle of it. As the neck of his hoodie finished descending, a rather large collar unfurled from the shirt beneath and splayed itself across his chest. The neck of his shirt collar was deep enough that his chest fluff was visible. The headphones that were strewn across his neck thinned, shrinking and snaking around his neck as the black coloration shifted to a red and pink striped pattern. It got slightly longer, tying itself into a loose knot before it finished changing into a tie.
The final change came with his jeans, denim softening to a nice purple cotton while the pockets became larger and more noticeable. A jagged yellow stripe ebbed into the material at the base of his legs as well. His belt got slightly wider and loose enough that it fit around his waist properly. The buckle expanded, a normal belt buckle enlarging to a thick chunk of silver with a gold V in the middle. Two silver V shaped notches had also formed next to two belt loops while another formed on the portion of his belt above his rear. A strap slowly snaked from the back notch, snaking upwards before branching out diagonally and slithering to the front of his body. From there the straps went downwards and connected to the two frontal notches, giving his pants some suspender straps.
One final finishing touch to his attire was a monocle that materialized in front of his right eye. With a sigh, he adjusted his monocle before placing a hand around a suspender strap. "Finally, something that fits. Now for…"
He looked around, the room continuing to expand around him. The walls were lined with various bouts of information; one side holding stock info and graphs while the other held a vault door with multiple clocks hanging above it. Chandeliers draped from the ceiling while portions of the carpet leading up to his newly materialized desk were lined with samurai armor in glass casing. At this point the room has become ginormous, a lot larger than himself (at least while he's human).
"There's my office!" he says with a smile. The walls finally harden, the massive wall behind him having become a door with a massive golden V on it. In front of him was his desk, a few holographic screens being projected from the top of it. More importantly…
At the middle of the desk was a metronome. An object Kale had given him months ago, one he didn't really care for necessarily. He didn't expect to use it up to now, but he would be lying if he said he didn't welcome what he had just used it for. It was… interesting to say the least.
Roquefort looked down at his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers over his palm. "Hmph. This feels good. Strong. I think I'm going to be enjoying this…"
Of course he's going to be enjoying this. Admittedly, his mind has become an odd mesh of knowing of his former self and having always been this self. It's contradictory. Confusing, admittedly. He'd never really do this kind of thing again, that was for sure.
He looks up and stares at the screens on his desk. He has a meeting with Kale in a few hours, then he has to deal with Zanzo and their annoying creativity budget bullshit. They could've sworn they dealt with that already, damn it.
"Time to get back to work, then!" Roquefort said aloud, pulling his chair forward and taking a seat on it.
He's got a lot of work to go through now, and something about that makes him smile. The financial control, the profits to be gained, and all that money.
This is going to be good…
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JATP AU: Everlasting musical connection - Chapter 6
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Epilogue
Julie and the Phantoms x Lukanette AU
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TW: check AO3 for the tags ( !!! )
Chapter summary:
The final battle, magic, and the conclusion to the ghosts fate.
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AO3
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CHAPTER 6
‘Second chance.'
A voice echoed in his head, and the next thing Luka knew when he opened his eyes was that he had already seen those scenes. Stargazing under the moonlight, their countdown glowing bright, a sudden sound… and Felix- the magician appeared in front of them as he had anticipated. Remembered? Was he seeing what was going to happen? Could he save Marinette and his friends from what he saw in his vision?
He had to try.
When the powerful ghost appeared, Luka jumped towards him, tackling Felix. Apparently, he was too far. He couldn't stop himself from ending up frozen again before he could reach him.
‘DAMN IT!’
'Second chance.'
The voice repeated, and another reset activated… He didn't know why it was happening, but he wasn’t going to stop trying to protect his friends.
He tried again and again, but the result was always the same: failure.
"Shit!" he cursed, failing again. 'Why is nothing working? I have to protect them!'
Amid despair, a familiar dark void surrounded him- pitch black.
He knew that room. It was the same room they had been in between the time they died and the time they reappeared as ghosts in front of Marinette. And then, a sudden teal light surprised him. His eyes rapidly adjusted, and that's when he saw it: the little Snake spirit that had given them the countdown marks on their wrists.
“Snake God!”
"Hello Luka. My name is Sass. I'm your kwami. Your strong will gave me power to appear again- briefly," he hurried to explain.
"Kwami? Wha-?"
"I don't have much time left, so listen," he interrupted. Luka was astonished and confused, but he kept his full attention to Sass. "I'm the one giving you these resets- 'second chances'. Nevertheless, there's a price for them: with every reset, your countdown decreases by 5 minutes. If it goes down to zero, then… there will be nothing else I can do. Be careful…"
"I don't care about my time! I want to save them!" He yelled. Sass smiled proudly at that. "I've tried everything and nothing is working. I have to save Marinette and my friends! What can I do!?"
"Remember you're a team, Luka. You have friends to help you. 'Clout' for your sister, 'Resistance' for your drummer friend. Rely on them to win…" The snake God was starting to become translucent. "I'm sorry I can't do much more to help…"
"Wait-!" Luka called, but the tiny god had already faded away.
"Good luck…" Sass's voice echoed in the void, just before another reset was starting.
'Shit! Thank you, Sass. Here we go again.'
‘Second chance.’
_________________
When he opened his eyes next time, he was once again at the beginning of the scene, to the moment after having repeated the spell thrice and the glowing countdown. Felix appeared and- he knew what would happen no matter what. He knew what he wanted to protect and what he was willing to sacrifice for it. His time was not important anymore. Marinette was. And so, he decided to follow his kwami's advice.
"Ivan!" He called, startling him. "Repeat after me: resistance!"
"Wh- what?"
"Just do it!" Luka cried in despair.
"Re- resistance" he had managed to repeat it just in time before Felix panicked and cast his 'venom' spell. Luka fell down to the floor, paralyzed, and he could see Juleka unable to move as well.
'Shit!' He cursed, having failed again.
But Ivan…
"Are you ok!?" Ivan kneeled down to check on the siblings. He was moving, Luka realized. Ivan was moving!
"What!? How is the spell not working!?" Felix asked, and it was Luka's turn to smirk. He had finally found an opening- light towards victory.
'Second chance.'
This time, he knew how to proceed.
Another reset, and as soon as Felix appeared, Luka pulled his bandmates closer and held their hands, to their surprise.
"Ivan! Repeat after me!" He ordered once again, and this time, after repeating the magic words, the ox God- his kwami- appeared in front of him. As Sass had done with Luka, he telepathically explained his power and warned him of the countdown going down while the power was activated.
Felix was stunned. He tried and tried the 'venom' spell with useless results. "Why is it not working!?"
"Juleka! Repeat after me: ‘clout!' Hurry up!"
"Clout!" She repeated. It didn't take long until the tiger God appeared in front of them with the same warning about the countdown and power explanation too. Stripes returned to Juleka's skin, and she licked her lips in anticipation. She felt stronger than ever. Her soul burned with the power to avenge her girlfriend and, more importantly, protect her friends.
Felix's face whitened at their threatening gazes. His gaze moved to their countdowns, and that's when he realized what was happening.
"So I was right… You have kwamis by your side, too!! Then the 'lifer' girl has- But no- Why would she!? It's impossible…!"
"Let's go guys! Charge!" Luka yelled, pointing towards Felix.
They did as he said, but Juleka was the fastest one, reaching him with a high, long jump and a punch that made the soil crack. Ducked with one knee on the floor, she glared at Felix from below, straight to his eyes.
"Shit!" He managed to say, having taken a step back just in time. For the first time, there was real panic in his eyes.
"Get him!!" Luka yelled, and the three Phantoms charged towards him. They jumped, resulting in all of them falling on the floor. "Don't let him escape!"
The dust of Juleka's punch was clouding Marinette's view. Left alone, a few meters behind the action, she coughed and covered her mouth to breathe. "Guys?" She called, worried.
"We've got him!" She heard Luka say, and a relieved sigh escaped her.
But a quick flash of light, followed by a mystical sound surprised Marinette. Shock showed in her eyes and before her...
"No…"
"What!?" The Phantoms gasped, turning back to see their biggest enemy in front of Marinette.
"My, my… thank you, Kalkki" he smirked. "And now…" his hand tightened around Marinette's neck but the Phantoms were too far away to help. And Luka's countdown… 'shit!'
Felix started to turn into a black matter, entering Marinette's body and making her lose consciousness, to the Phantom's horror.
Suddenly, the red moon glowed brighter, blinding them.
"What? What's going on!?" Felix gasped, and a big expansive wind pushed him to the floor, expelled from Marinette's personal space.
The lifer girl's eyes were red, and a kwami appeared in front of them- not alone. To everyone 's surprise, a ghost appeared in front of Marinette and kissed her forehead in reassurance. "I'll take care of the rest, my dear," she said. "The red moon makes Tikki stronger."
"M-mom…?" Marinette gasped when she saw the newest ghost’s face. Soon, tears collected for two years, since her passing, found their way out. "Mom!" She cried, hugging her tightly.
Surprise was massive to everyone at the scene, but Felix wasn't planning to let a touching scene interfere with his plans. In fact, he'd gained the knowledge he had wanted to know.
"So this is where you were hiding, huh? Sabine Cheng…" Felix stood up, challenging.
"Felix." Sabine pushed Marinette aside and the girl nodded.
"Not only did you lie about Tikki, but you also faked your crossing over... I admit you fooled me." He took a step closer. "But now I know why this lifer could see ghosts and has a kwami: because it wasn't hers- it was yours! You've been living inside her all this time! Hiding Tikki from me, protecting your daughter… I should have finished you when I had the chance…!" He cracked his fingers and neck as he spoke.
"Should I remind you that you can't destroy me? And of course I'm not letting you destroy my daughter, either. Or her friends," Sabine said angrily.
"Oh, you're right. I couldn't kill you before. But now it's different. There's the red moon and…" He snapped his fingers and a black tiny figure appeared next to him. "I collected Plagg recently. There's nothing I can't destroy now." He laughed maniacally.
Sabine gasped. "No! No way! That's not possible! Xavier is still alive!"
“Yes, he is, but somehow, I ended up possessing him by chance after I got kicked out of your daughter’s naive blond friend’s body."
“No!��� Sabine yelped.
"It was clever of you and your master to hide the kwamis inside lifers. I bet you didn't expect those three to die so early, though, huh? Your Master even protected them for 25 years inside the void, until he passed away…"
There was unusual rage in Sabine's eyes, something Marinette had never seen before.
"But now it doesn't matter. I'm going to take your kwami and ask for 'the wish.' I'm going to rule this world and the phantom world and you can't stop me!" He laughed. "Cataclysm!" With a snap of his fingers, the rock next to him turned into dust. Marinette and the Phantoms gasped. “No way…”
Luka was ready to call for his power, but his mind was running full pace analyzing the information he knew: he had to stop Felix and protect Marinette and her friends. He had to do it! A shared look with Marinette's mother and then Marinette's frightened eyes, gave him the solution he was looking for.
"Ivan! Juleka! We need your powers!" He asked them, without Felix noticing. "I need you to do as I say…" He whispered a short command.
"Ok."
"Let's go!" Luka yelled as the phantoms charged against the oldest ghost.
He turned back to them. "What? Why don't you give up already? How stupid…" His fingers, aiming for Ivan, snapped, but nothing happened. "What? Impossible!" He tried again but nothing. Before he could react, Juleka punched him to the floor again and he groaned. "Shit!"
"Ivan! The words!" Sabine yelled. "'Resistance' and 'Cataclysm!'"
"What- no!" Luka and Juleka were holding Felix's hands, preventing him from snapping his fingers. Ivan held his right wrist and called for the spell. Soon enough, a black light and a black mark passed from Felix to Ivan. "No! I was so close!" He screamed.
"Ivan, give it to me," Sabine demanded.
He nodded and did as Sabine Cheng commanded. Then she looked at the Phantoms first, and then her daughter and told them, "I'm going to end my Master's duty."
After Ivan did what she commanded him, Sabine wasted no time to use 'Cataclysm' on Felix. He screamed, cursed, resisted as much as he could… but it was inevitable: in seconds, he turned into dust.
It was over.
The Phantoms let their butts fall to the floor, exhausted, letting a relieved sigh out.
"Are you ok, Marinette?" Luka asked as soon as he caught his breath. The girl nodded, joining their side. She wished she could hug them but all she could say was 'thank you.'
"Is he really gone?" Ivan asked.
"Yes. Felix is gone for good. And since I used 'cataclysm' on him, he won't be crossing over. All the kwamis are now free to return where they belong," Sabine explained.
"If I had known he was going to be gone so fast I would have punched him harder…" Juleka protested.
Her bandmates laughed at that.
"You guys were incredible… Thank you." Marinette smiled. "The best friends in the world!"
"Of course!" The Phantoms grinned.
Marinette's gaze caught the light on Luka's wrist and she was horrified when she saw his countdown - their countdown.
"Wha-!? 8 minutes!?" she cried. "It was supposed to be a few hours! No!"
"There's a price to pay for the kwamis' powers. If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have defeated Felix," Luka explained.
"But-!"
"You're safe now, Marinette. We have no regrets," Luka affirmed, his friends nodding determinedly in agreement.
She cried, and when her mother came to comfort her, she noticed there was a similar countdown on her wrist as well- 1 hour and 45 minutes.
"Mom! You're disappearing too!?” she cried. “No, please! I don't want to! There's so much I want to tell you and I've missed you so much! I can't lose you again! Not my friends either!" She bawled her eyes out.
"Marinette, dear. You're safe and I completed my Master's duty now. And I've seen how you've been growing with music even without me around. You have very good friends, Marinette, and I'll be looking after you when I cross over, too."
"Mom!!" She hugged her. She didn't consider why she was able to touch her, she couldn't let her go. Not again. "Don't leave me! You too!" She looked at the Phantoms, who smiled apologetically. "It's too cruel! There's so much I want to tell and do with you all!"
"Marinette. I'm going to miss you too, believe me... But now you need your phantoms more than you need me." Sabine patted her back tenderly.
"Huh?"
"... the wish."
"The wish…?" Marinette blinked.
"I don't know if it's going to work, but the red moon is out and, after observing you all these months, I think it's worth the try." Sabine carefully wiped the tears running down her daughter’s cheeks.
"What are you talking about Mom? What's ‘the wish?'" She panicked seeing how the countdown numbers kept going down.
"These two kwamis, Tikki and Plagg. When combined, they can grant a wish. And I’m going to wish for your Phantoms to stay with you."
"What!?" The group gasped in shock.
"But Madam! We’ve been told there's a price to pay for using the kwamis' powers! If you use them then your time-!" Luka protested and Marinette's hands were covering her mouth "No!"
"Marinette, dear, if I do nothing, then all of us are going to disappear anyway. If there's a chance that you get to keep your friends… and the one you love," she said the last bit in a whisper, "then it's more than worth it."
"But mom-!"
"Shhhh… I can count on you, right? For Marinette?" The Phantoms didn't need a second to answer, "Absolutely!" to her contentment. Marinette was touched to tears by how loved she was.
"Tikki. Plagg. Unify."
“Mom…” Tears were running down Marinette's cheeks as she observed the upcoming events.
A bright white light surrounded Sabine Cheng as she called the ultimate power. She gave a smile at the Phantoms, giving special attention to Luka, and kissed Marinette's cheek before calling for the magical words.
White glowing surrounded the three Phantoms and their countdowns turned crazy, unable to be read anymore. At the same time, Sabine's countdown was rapidly approaching 0.
"Mom…!" Marinette cried.
"Say hello to Dad, Aunt Nadja and cousin Manon and tell them I love them for me, will you?" She smiled kindly.
"Yes, mom, I will." Marinette managed to smile back. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, dear." She kissed her forehead one last time. "Be happy and never give up your inner music."
Marinette's throat felt like it was tied from holding her loud cry inside, so all she could do was nod as an answer.
Soon, Sabine Cheng turned into a blinding light and raised towards the moon while she hummed the song she composed for Marinette when she was born - her lullaby. Marinette listened as carefully and lovingly as she could, knowing it was going to be the last time she was going to hear it with her voice.
Sabine Cheng, Marinette’s dear mother, crossed over.
And bright light still surrounded the Phantoms.
"What's going on?"
"Shouldn't we be real or something by now?"
"The countdown!" Ivan alerted. "It's moving from 0 to 1 second constantly!”
“Maybe the wish didn't work?" Juleka wondered aloud.
"No!" Marinette cried. "I can't lose you too!" Once again, she didn't know how, but she could touch the Phantoms and gave them a big, collective hug, Luka in the center.
The countdown stopped then at the 30 seconds mark.
“Come here- power hug,” Marinette urged them.
“Power hug!” The 4 of them hugged tightly like they had that one time before, when they had almost crossed over because of Felix's spell.
“How is it? Is it working?” Marinette asked impatiently.
“I do feel stronger, but… the countdown isn’t changing and we’re getting more and more translucent...” Luka saddened.
“No- But-! I can touch you!” The lifer held them stronger. “This shouldn’t be-!”
She realized then that that time with Felix may have worked out most likely because of Tikki’s powers. Now, without the kwami with her…
“I’m sorry, Marientte. It seems it’s not working…” Luka lamented. “Even when your mother gave us her time…”
“NO! Don’t go!” Marinette begged. “Juleka! Ivan! Luka! Please! There has to be a way!”
"Rose…” Juleka mumbled, making her bandmates' attention focus on her. “Rose said love and music can grant miracles… under the red moon…"
"You want us to sing now…?" Luka asked, unsure.
"We have a special bond- an everlasting connection made through music and-” Ivan mentioned, looking at his friends.
“Let’s do it!” Marinette commanded urgently, cutting him off, and started signing their newest song. THEIR song. ‘Everlasting Musical connection,' hoping that they can keep being together forever. The Phantoms soon join her and they sing as one.
‘Perhaps for the last time,' it crossed their minds.
“It’s not working, Marinette…” Luka finally said, resigned. The countdowns were still frozen and their skins translucent.
“No…! It has to work!” Marinette said with a thread of voice.
Juleka and Ivan saw how Marinette and Luka stared at each other’s eyes, longing, and they exchanged a look. “Maybe if…” Juleka started.
“Yeah…”
The pair looked at the bassist and drumist in confusion.
“Luka still has a song that has yet to be sung," Ivan proclaimed.
"What?" Marinette looked at Luka, curious, and he blushed at her glowing eyes.
“Sing her her song, Luka. The one you secretly composed for her.”
"You knew it?"
"Of course we do! You're not as subtle as you think!" Juleka said and her brother groaned. "The glowing is vanishing. Time is almost over. C'mon, stupid!"
"But-"
“Luka, sing it! Sing it! Please…” The lifer begged.
“We’re about to disappear, Marinette, it’s pointless.” Luka shrugged.
“It’s not! It could never be pointless! Your music brought me back on track when I wanted to give up. You mean a lot to me. More than anything…”
“Marinette…”
"Please Luka! I- I want to hear it! Whatever you've composed for me, I want to hear it! From you. Before it's too late!"
Her begging eyes and his friends supporting pats on his back convinced him. "Ok… I'll sing…" The lifer beamed. "But a capella is a bit-"
“JUST SING IT, DAMMIT!” Juleka smacked him.
"Ouch! Ok, ok!" he finally accepted and cleared his throat, ready to sing. His hands were sweating, but he still moved them to hold Marinette’s. He wasn't used to feeling this nervous… He took a deep breath. "These are my feelings for you, Marinette: listen closely, please."
Her heart skipped a beat in anticipation.
The song Luka composed for Marinette was called ‘Miraculous girl.' Luka sang tenderly, Ivan and Juleka accompanied him rhythmically and with the chorus. She melted at his singing voice to the point she almost believed she had crossed over with them and reached heaven. The melody was incredibly beautiful and sincere, soft and pure. Soothing. And the lyrics…
‘The most extraordinary girl. The song that has been playing inside his head since our first encounter…’
She blushed when she realized the meaning of his metaphors: a confession of love.
Luka was blushing deeply when he finished singing, very nervous about her reaction.
"Marinette, I-"
He couldn't finish the sentence; Marinette jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly to his surprise and delight. He was pleased that his feelings reached her, but even more pleased that he was able to hold her at last.
"I love you, Luka!" She rushed to say before separating. His overjoyed smile spread on his face.
"I love you too, Marinette."
He leaned down and she looked up at him, staring lovingly at each other’s eyes until their lips met halfway. It was their first kiss, but they kissed as if it was the last time… They honestly feared it could be their last time… But Love and Music… The red moon… Miracles…
Did the song work…?
Checking the countdown, it granted them a couple of minutes, but it started counting down again.
"It can’t be-!" Marinette cried, looking at Luka with tearing eyes first, and then their bandmates. Her hands reached to touch them. "No, please!"
"We knew it could happen…” Luka shrugged, staring longingly at her eyes. “At least I can leave without regrets for real this time." He smiled sadly, kissing the top of her head.
They hugged again, the semi-translucent Phantoms comforting the lifer as she wept. The air was heavy, filled with sadness. They hummed their song quietly, but the countdown kept running down… What hurt them the most, though, was the idea of leaving Marinette alone and not being able to play with her again.
Amid the silence, Juleka spoke.
"There's something left to try…"
She gazed at Ivan and he nodded in understanding.
Confused, the pair of lovers looked at them as they reached for Luka's hands on hers.
"It’s just a possibility but I think that maybe the magic wasn't strong enough for three people…, but, perhaps, if it's only one…"
“Wait, no! What are you saying!? Jules? Ivan?” Luka frowned. “Guys, we’re a band! We’re together in this!”
Warmth, twinkling and small lights started to spread around their bodies towards Luka’s hands, who started glowing brighter, while the two other ghosts were becoming more transparent every second.
“No, stop!” Marinette begged. “We need you!”
“You need each other.”
“No! Juleka-!”
“Rose is not here anymore,” Juleka offered her brother a sad smile. “I can cross over without regrets knowing you can be happy here with Marinette.”
“Jules… Stop that…” The older brother teared up. “Ivan-! Tell her!”
“Mylene is married and happy with someone else. I can leave at peace, too. I want my friends to be happy and if I can help…” Ivan shook his head before speaking and offered them a convincing smile.
“Ivan…”
“Guys...” Marinette cried, holding tightly on them.
"Let's meet again when we cross over, ok?"
The two phantoms kept smiling at Luka and Marinette as their bodies fainted more and more. The last and bigger lights, their souls, moved up to the sky...
And they disappeared completely.
Marinette whimpered as the contact with them broke. “Guys…!”
Luka’s teeth clenched, holding back his tears and focusing on holding and comforting Marinette so he didn't crumble down like a castle of cards. He had to be strong for Marinette, more than ever…
Suddenly, Luka's touch disappeared and they gasped.
“Luka! No! Not you too, please! I can’t take it anymore!” Marinette didn’t seem to have any strength left as she desperately begged for a miracle.
Luka tried to hold her closer, but his skin trespassed hers… ‘Shit-!’ he internally cursed.
“Marinette. Look at me.” She wept. “Marinette. Look at me, please. One last time…”
She gasped at his last sentence and did what he said. Her eyes on his.
“No matter what happens, our bond is everlasting. Forever.”
“Forever,” she repeated.
“I love you, Marinette.”
“I love you, too, Luka!” she whimpered.
Her heart was about to explode. Losing her mother two years ago had been painful. Now, losing her mother, her closest friends, and the one she loved, the hurt was even worse. She kept looking at him as he smiled lovingly at her. The moon had moved down, and it was now behind him, blinding her more and more as his ghost body lost its physical consistency.
The red moon’s glow blinded her completely, forcing her to close her eyes.
Ah… She fell on her knees. Her hands found her face but she wasn’t crying. She had run out of tears. She felt the moonlight on her closed eyes. She knew the reality that was expecting her if she opened them.
She was terrified.
Defeated.
Drained. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.
And suddenly, she found herself surrounded by darkness.
Was it her own darkness or…?
Huh? Was there an eclipse expected for tonight?
"Hey," a voice called.
She knew that voice.
Luka’s voice.
Was her mind playing games with her?
“Marinette,” the voice called. “Look at me.”
Her heart was about to burst out.
What if her mind was tricking her?
She opened her eyes, slowly, and looked up… and she met his soft smile in front of her. “Hi.”
“Luka-!” She gasped. “You're here!”
“I'm here.” His smile widened.
“You didn’t disappear… You’re- You’re real??”
Marinette stretched her arm, attempted to touch him, but stopped before reaching him. She hesitated, terror taking control of her. Before she tried the action again, Luka was the one who reached to cup her face and clean her tears. Marinette immediately jumped to hug him.
“Luka! Oh My Gosh, you're alive!?” shock passed, she touched him everywhere: face, head, neck, torso… she stopped at his face. “For real…?”
“Yeah- looks like it…” He smiled, leaning towards her touch. “I can finally touch you, Marinette!” he exclaimed happily.
“Luka I-” She jumped to hug him again. “I’m so happy you’re here!”
“Me, too, Marinette,” he reciprocated, relishing in her warmth. “Me, too.”
There was a silence, as they kept embracing each other, only broken by heartbeats.
From two hearts beating in perfect harmony.
Many of it was new: the little affectionate touches exploring the sensations on their skin, the body heat, the scent and the chill air...
Luka moved Marinette's bangs away to take a better look at her face, and Marinette did the same. Marinette's gaze moved to Luka's lips for a moment, and he did too. Luka leaned and Marinette closed her eyes, expectant. But Luka let his forehead rest on hers. They lost themselves in each other's eyes, until Marinette put her hands behind his neck and he read her intentions. They both leaned in and shared a long, loving kiss. Their second one, and certainly not their last.
When they separated, they smiled shyly at each other.
They didn’t need any more melody to understand their feelings: they were now in tune.
They sat down, side by side, looking up to the moon, now glowing white, and its reflection on the water.
“I'm going to miss all of them so much…” Marinette said.
“Me, too,” Luka added. “Well- Except Felix.”
“Oh, true- I’m certainly not going to miss Felix!”
They laughed at the joke and Marinette leaned her head on Luka's shoulder.
“I've always wanted to do this with you,” she admitted.
“Me, too, but I didn't expect your head to be so heavy,” he joked.
“Hey!”
“I bet I'll soon get used to it.” He kissed the top of her head. “Gladly.”
Marinette smiled back at him, caressing his hand on hers.
"Say Marinette, how are we going to explain this?" He pointed at himself.
"I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But we'll find a way. Together."
"Together," he repeated, and leaned to give her a quick kiss on her lips.
She tightened her grip on his hand.
“Let’s go home.”
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Chongyun is leaning against the sofa, staring over at Kami, who's curled up, with a pillow in front of him. Kami's staring up at the ceiling, very clearly avoiding eye contact with Chongyun.
"So..." Chongyun prompts, trying to get some kind of conversation going. "You said you wanted to talk. I'm listening."
"I don't know how to talk," Kami finally says. He doesn't lower his gaze. "I'm shit at talking to people in person, you included. This is all stupid. Forget I said anything."
The corners of Chongyun's lips curl downward, anxiety starting to pool in their own gut. They don't exactly know what is going on, and the thought that Kami is hiding something is even more apparent now.
"Uh, I can't. You had a panic attack at work earlier."
"Yeah, cause I'm a mess and everyone knows it. Maybe I should call in tomorrow. Or whatever, it doesn't fucking matter." Kami offers a shrug, before shifting his position. He's stretching a leg out in front of him. "You can sit down, you know. I'm not contagious."
"I can sit down," Chongyun echoes. "But are you going to bolt the second I do?" They're moving to sit anyway. "Talk to me, I don't understand what's happening, and I don't-"
"Nothing," Kami interrupts. His gaze shifts to Chongyun. His brows furrow into something that's a mix between anger and. Fear?
"Nothing is going on, and I think that's my problem! I'm waiting for the ball to drop. Like I feel like I'm waiting for shit to go down. For Ren or Arakan or Niwa, or even you to just decide you've had enough and dip."
"I'm not going to!"
"You don't even fucking live in town, Chongyun. What if you drive back and decide you weren't serious about moving here? What then? Maybe I did push you away."
"Where is this even coming from?" Chongyun reaches a hand out to rest on Kami's outstretched leg. The second he makes contact, Kami's jerking his leg back, making an attempt to kick Chongyun away from him. "That's uncalled for," Chongyun complains.
"I never told you about..." Kami begins, trailing off immediately. He turns his head to the side, expression going completely blank.
If Chongyun were honest with themself, they'd have to say in all the years of knowing Kami, they have never seen Kami look like this before. Kami looks completely zoned out. He stays that way for several seconds.
"Kami?" Chongyun prompts. That spark of fear they felt earlier is back, even stronger now. "You with me?"
"I don't remember," Kami whispers. "I don't remember half the shit she did..."
"She?" Chongyun's head tilts to the side as they purse their lips in confusion. "You mean Ei? Or Yae?"
"No, it's..." Kami blinks a few times, snapping out of whatever trance had just held him in a vice grip. "Nevermind, I don't know how to talk about it." His gaze again lands on Chongyun, but he doesn't look as frustrated. "Look, some shit happened to me, and it's eating at me. I told Ren about it."
Chongyun's jealous over that. He doesn't have a reason to be, Ren is Kami's family. But Chongyun's known Kami for years, they're practically brothers at this point. At least, Chongyun had always seen Kami as an elder brother. Why would Kami go to someone he hasn't spoken to directly in years?
But then again, Chongyun had pushed Kami to talk to him more. Is this the result of cousins finally bonding? Chongyun shoves that feeling of jealousy aside, it's not worth getting upset over in the first place.
"Have you told your sibling, too?" Chongyun asks.
"I want to," Kami says, looking down at the pillow, Kami's fingers play with the corner of the pillow, folding it over and pulling it back up, and repeating the process. "God knows I want to talk to Arakan, and even you. I want to just scream at people so bad about what I went through, but I also don't want people thinking I'm even more weak than I already am? I mean, what if people leave?"
"No one's leaving you," Chongyun says firmly. "People care-"
"You don't know that!" Kami spits out. "God, stop telling me I have people in my corner. Yeah, you're there, but I don't know Ren and Arakan, and I know Niwa even less. I don't know them. I don't know what they think or how they feel, and for all I know, they still hate me! I can say some shit and mean it, and they say they care, but fuck. What if it's all just another fucking mindgame? What if I'm still being...nevermind. Fuck it, nevermind."
"Talk to me!" Chongyun says forcibly. "Jesus, Kami, talk to me! Tell me what's going on with you so I can help!"
"Please go back home. Tomorrow or the day after," Kami says. "Not because I want you to leave, fuck. If I was allowed to be selfish I'd have you move in with me right now. Cause yeah, I just. I dunno 'Yun, I need people. But I can't drag you down with me when I'm trying to get my head sorted. I'm so fucked up mentally." Kami waves his hand around his head to emphasize his point. "I had shit done to me. Like. I can't tell you details. God I want to. But crying and leaning on people is doing more harm than good at this point. I'm tired, I have a headache. I don't fucking know left from down anymore."
"What about therapy?"
"Yeah," Kami nods. "Therapy. I need it, I know I do. But I need some time to myself. In this apartment, or something. The past several days were really fucking overwhelming. You here, people constantly coming and going, and half of said people being so mentally screwed up. I. Fuck. I need a day or two alone."
"What about Cyno?"
"I'm not ditching him to the streets. He needs a home, I have a bedroom and a bed. I still want him to live here, but I need a day or two. I fucking need space. Physical space, not emotional."
"Okay. I can leave. I'll go back home and keep checking up on you. But don't you stop talking to your family, okay?"
"Do you think I can trust them?" Kami looks at Chongyun, staring intently. "I want an honest answer. Maybe you don't know them that well either, but you can talk to them easier than I can."
Chongyun stares back. This is a hard question to answer, because while Chongyun and Ren have joked with each other on streams before, in spite of being different categories, Kami's right. Chongyun doesn't know Ren outside of social media, and they know Arakan even less, other than Arakan seems introverted.
"I think you can," Chongyun says carefully. "They're your family. Just because your mom and aunt messed up doesn't mean they did."
"I know, but I feel like there's. It's all shit, 'Yun. I feel like everything is shit. Garbage."
"It's not." Chongyun rests his hands on Kami's knees, pulling on them to lower his legs. "Look, I may not know exactly what happened in your life, and I don't expect you to tell me, either. But I do expect you to keep trying. With everyone, with a therapist, or whatever you think helps, because whoever you were when we first met, I know you're not him anymore."
"I feel-"
"You're not. You're happier, you're more outgoing, you're even making giant steps to keep going. You have a great job, you're starting a new career, and you have gained a lot more over the past few years than you realize. You're not alone."
They watch Kami swallow a few times, blinking rapidly. But Chongyun hopes the emotions are positive, rather than negative.
"Thanks, little bro. Man, I am shit." He forces a laugh. "Go home though. You've been helping keep the peace around here. Go take time for yourself too. Don't be like Niwa, don't take on more than you can chew. Cause if you fall, I don't think there's hope for the rest of us."
Chongyun delivers a light pap to the cheek. "Don't worry. I'll help all of you through this. I'll force dms or something. And hey, I'll be back permanently before anyone knows it."
Kami doesn't say anything to that. Instead, he just leans forward and gives Chongyun a hug, letting his body relax.
"Thanks 'Yun. Know that I... y'know. Care."
"I love you too, Kami."
tagging: @artificeheart, @erabundus
#drabbles tag#ic.#v. connected the dots ; didn't connect shit ( modern. )#angst tw#manipulation mention#family issues#tagging my other blog/character#mmriesoftvat#; kaminari
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notes on chapter 5
The opening quote (pg 41) by Narayan is from his work "The Guide".
"... tears her into pisces" (pg 41) - This mistake, "pisces" instead of "pieces" comes up multiple times after this. - Fish imagery - Water imagery. Also, if I remember right, the other times that this mistake is made is in Johnny's footnotes or the letters in the back. It is not made in Zampano's text again. Reminds me of pgs 12-16, when Johnny added "Water" to "Water heater" in the manuscript. Does this make the manuscript unreliable, because Johnny has been making edits to it? Should we take typos like "pisces" as Zampano's mistakes and misspellings, or Johnny's?
"Adonta ta Mele" - Her still singing limbs. Translation originates from actual myth. The symbol that follows it is the alchemical symbol for Earth, and is the first of many in this chapter.
"In both cases, unfulfilled love results in the total negation of Echo's body and near negation of her voice." pg 41. But the chapter continues by showing all of the different ways that Echo's voice lives on, in and through other things. Interesting that this is told alongside all of the alchemical symbols, because as stated HERE: "The principle, or underlying, intent of alchemy is then understood as one of making of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body through transmuting the bodily consciousness into spirit and through fixing the spirit in the body." Alchemy and reanimating the dead often go hand in hand, too.
References to Ovid's Metamorphoses - these stories are all about creatures/people/beings in the wrong bodies, being forced into different forms.
Echo quote: the trees/leaves hide a being (pg 42)
The symbol on pg 42 is the astronomical sign for Pluto, the combination of a P and L in honor of Percival Lowell, who published a work called "Memoir on a Trans-Neptunian Planet", after a 10 year search for an as yet unseen planet. (note Neptune, Roman name for Poseidon, more water imagery). Fourteen years after his death, Pluto was discovered.
"To repeat: her voice has life. It possesses a quality not present in the original, revealing how a nymph can return a different and more meaningful story, in spite of telling the same story." (pg 42) - This is followed by a Don Quixote quote in the notes, calling to mind the ref to Dulcinea on pg 17, and the ref to a mother in the quote itself which perhaps brings out Grendel's mother refs again (back to the Mead Hall on pg 21), and foreshadowing to his own. That same note also holds another ref to WWII.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Menard wants to rewrite Cervantes' work by perfectly setting up his life in such a way that the exact same story line and text would come to him naturally, as it did to Cervantes. The fragments that Menard "comes up with" are verbatim to the original text, but he claims they are better, more subtle and inspired, than the original. It was supposed to be satirical, calling out stuck up critics. Funny that Zampano plays along with the joke, acting like Menard really has come up with something original. Though Johnny responds in aggravation, he is doing something similar, as his own living situation and mental state seem to be mirroring Zampano's in the end.
"...or better yet listening to a bitter curse, realizing a whole lot wrong's being ushered into the world but still missing the words,... both written out on brown leaves of paper..." (pg 42)
"This much though I'm sure of: I'm alone in hostile territories with no clue why they're hostile or how to get back to safe havens, an Old Haven, a lost haven, the temperature dropping, the hour heaving & pitching toward a profound darkness, while before me my idiotic amaurotic Guide laughs..." (pg 43) - Heaving & pitching are distinctly marine terms, calling up Rime of the Ancient Mariner again.
Zonules of Zinn (pg 43), otherwise known as ciliary zonules, are the elaborate systems of extra cellular fibers that center the lens of the eyes, bringing distant objects into focus. Named after Johann Gottfried Zinn.
Symbols: first symbol on pg 43 - planetary alchemical symbol for Mars
Second on pg 43 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Mercury
First symbol on pg 44 - Waning moon (pinpoints ebbs and tides, life and death, also known as the sickle of the moon)
Second symbol on pg 44 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Jupiter
Third on pg 44 - Infinity, or Lemniscate, which comes from the Greek word for Ribbons.
Fourth on pg 44 - Planetary alchemical symbol for Omega, symbol for Death, or the End.
"Textual transfiguration" (pg 44)
"Literature's rocky caves" being marked by an omega.
Wordsworth poem ref'd on pg 44 is Ode to Duty.
"He becomes thence... an earthy, weake, worthlesse thing, and fit sacrifize for only eternal oblivion..." (pg 44)
Talaraia (pg 44) - "Of the ankle," referring to Mercury's winged sandals.
Occludes (pg 45): stop, close up, or obstruct (an opening, orifice, or passage).
Pgs 45-46 are spent discussing a typo in a poem: "cares" vs "caves" in relation to Echo.
""I beleive that sky opens & closes on certain periods..." (pg 46, footnote 59. Typo added by editor, not Johnny.
"Ironically, hollowness only increases the eerie quality of otherness inherent in any echo." (pg 46) This brings to mind Heidegger's unheimlich from previous chapter, the "uncanny", which also brings up Uncanny Valley vibes, especially in this context.
"Divinity seems defined by echo." (pg 46)
"...the hallowed always seems to abide in the province of the hollow." (pg 46)
The symbol that appears on pg 47 is the planetary alchemical symbol for the Sun. So, his formula reads:
(Sun) Sound + Time = Acoustic Light
"... his own creature darkness, taking me completely by surprise, a sudden protracting, and just so you understand where I'm coming from, I consider "... long past midnight" one claw and "empty hallways" another. (pg 48)
"Or even an ancient Samuel O'Reilly @ 1891..." (pg 48) Samuel O'Reilly patented the first electric tattoo machine on Dec. 8, 1891.
"Bars of an EKG" (pg 48) - EKG, Electrocardiogram. Records signals from the heart to check for different heart conditions.
"QRS complex" (pg 48) is the combination of 3 of the graphical deflections seen on a typical EKG.
"... The failure which began it all in the first place, probably right after one burning maze but still years ahead of the other loss, a horrible violence, before the coming of that great Whale... Spanish gold..." (pg 48)
"Sleep... that bloody handmaiden..." (pg 49)
Truant: A student who stays away from school without leave or explanation." from Middle English, referring to a person begging through choice rather than necessity. Or, Scottish Gaelic: wretched.
"...confined to the sharp oscillations of yellow and blue..." (pg 49) There is an uptick in color being noted from here through the rest of the chapter. Best guess on this one: Yellow = maize (corn/maze/land) Blue = water (pisces, Neptune, sea)
"Of course, Lude didn't see it. He was blind. Maybe even right." (pg 49) Further proof of Lude being Johnny's Virgil.
The entirety of footnote 62 is a doozy, but not much is written on it. General consensus seems to be that it is all about Johnny's traumas, which is definitely fleshed out in Appendix II-C and the Whalestoe letters later.
"At least the next step was clear.//Some act of violence would be necessary.// And so it was that before another synapse could fire within my bad-off labyrinthine brain, he was already lying on the floor." (pg 52) - Should we take these "visions"as daydreams, or hallucinations?
Colors from 51: Cinnabar: bright red mineral consisting of mercury sulfide. It is the only important ore of mercury and is sometimes used as a pigment.
Lemon.
Celadon: a willow-green
Indigo.
(red, yellow, green, blue, like the keys later on in the chapter).
"...Out of nowhere. Out of the blue." - pg 52
"I love how enthralled she remains by this festival of living." (pg 54)
"...always talking blue streak to my boss..." (pg 54)
"...For this year's ruling April fool." (pg 54) maybe no actual relation but calls to mind the Fool from the Tarot deck, who is seen as the "main character" on a journey of self enlightenment.
"...a goddamn spatial rape." (pg 55) Brings to mind Greek mythology, Zeus, especially Ovid's Metamorphoses.
"Karen is upstairs, sitting on the bed playing with a deck of tarot cards..." (pg. 56) Not so off base with the Fool theory from pg 54 then?
"Karen spent every night of her fourteenth year composing that smile in front of a blue plastic handled mirror." (pg 58) Blue again
Aphonia: loss of ability to speak through disease of or damage to the larynx or mouth.
Pyritic - a brass colored mineral... also called Fool's Gold
pg 58-59 shows Navidson avoiding his and Karen's trauma. Perhaps their avoidance of their traumas and focus on the House simply transfers/gives power to those traumas, and the House reflects that.
"Karen's attacks, which I suspect stem from early adolescent betrayal, increase proportionally with the level of intimacy - or even the threat of potential intimacy - she experiences with Will Navidson or even her children." (pg 59)
"The ensuing tension is more than temporary." (pg 10)
"The bad bodhi wall." From footnote 72 on pg 60 - Bodhi is a fig tree considered sacred in Buddhist practice. Cont. tree imagery. Also, descriptions of the ill will exuding from the walls include the word "oily", which is not the last time in this chapter that word is used.
"Unfortunately, as he twists the last key, the accompanying sound contains a familiar ring. He grips the red kye and tries it again. As the dead bolt glances the strike plate, the resulting click creates an unexpected and very unwelcome echo." (pg 61) - could the typos be related to when the House gains strength, as it defies reason/structure such as proper language?
"Blue seracs" (pg 68) Blue again.
Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. (pg 69)She was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during WWI and executed by firing squad in France. Her name has become synonymous of the seductive female spy. Also went by Mata Hari.
Moither: (Yorkshire) bother or harass (UK) toil, labour, perplex, confuse. (70)
Black and purple (pg 70). Reference back to pg 26, list of colors includes lilac, mauve (purples), and pelican black (pelicans will come significant later), in addition to rootbeer (will come significant later), midnight blue, south sea green, maize (yellow), and cochineal (red)
"Dis(as)embling...." (pg 71) Odd phrasing.
"What wail embattled break." (pg 71) - Whale.
"Another Maldon or no Maldon at all" - The Battle of Maldon in Essex, in 991 AD
"... The already foreseen dissolution of the self." (pg 72) - Reference to his mother?
"My face has been splattered with purple... preserving me." (pg 72)
"...in the spirit of the dark; in the spirit of the staircase - "Known some call is air am." Which is to say - "I am not what I used to be." (pg 72)
We have hit a significant moment. The monster from the story seemed able to physically mar Johnny in the present. He has seemingly changed moving into the future. And we are invited now into his past.
"...Daisy, wearing a red and gold dress, barges in and begins tugging on her father's sleeve." (pg 73) Red and Gold significance?
Neologism: newly coined word or expression.
Selah.
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"Roger, we need to talk."
I stood near his desk. The only one who had dared to come this close to him thus far. Under the artificial lights, he looked as handsome as ever. Roger, my best friend. We'd met in college, fifteen years ago to this day. His thick black curly hair shone, bouncier than ever. His brown skin was smooth and his hazelnut eyes had a spark to them. He was healthy and smiling. He was dead.
"Clara? What's that about?" he asked, after saving the Excel document he'd been working on. "Is that about the Darrington project?" I ignored the icy terror crushing my heart. "D'you remember that thing you always say?"
He stood quiet for a moment, thinking. Behind me, whispers got more and more panicked. Our colleagues had taken refuge in the break room. I knew they were listening and watching, the door opened just a crack. Had Roger noticed everyone had been running away since he'd arrived, an hour ago? Even I didn't want to talk to him. The others had forced me, arguing I was closest to him, that we had history. That's precisely the reason I was running away. They weren't there, two weeks ago, looking inside the casket. They couldn't picture his corpse, in that exact same suit. His husband crying.
"Don't work harder, work smarter?" he tried, scratching his head on that spot. Where his skull had cracked. "No, about resting," I said, struggling to control my voice.
My legs barely supported me and tears were looming.
"Oh yeah!" he laughed. "I'll rest when I'm dead! Well, if you're asking, yeah. That was the best nap ever."
His words echoed in my brain. I didn't get it. Well, I did, but I didn't want to.
"I didn't expect for it to last that long, though," he kept going, sipping coffe in the pink mug I gifted him last Christmas. "But I guess I needed it. Thanks for covering for me by the way! I was scared thinking about how behind I was gonna be when I woke up." I swallowed bile. "Roger, do you realise what you're saying?" "I don't follow." "People just... they don't just wake up. You are dead for Christ's sake!"
He frowned, concerned. For just a second, I could picture his face slowly rotting away.
"What did you want me to do, sleep forever? I got work to do! I'll rest when I'm dead, not disappear when the files are pilling up!" "That's what I like to hear!"
Our Boss' voice boomed from behind me. I turned around, almost falling. He was taller than anyone in the building, his chest large and his grey eyes as dead as Roger's ought to be.
"We don't need lazy people here!" he said, towering over me. His teeth glistened when he smiled. "Roger knows that. And I expect you all do."
People started pouring out of the break room, supporting each other. I wondered if I looked as pale and weak as they did.
"Isn't that right Boss!" Roger said, getting back to work. "That's always been the deal, yeah? I mean, you let most of us go back home to sleep a few hours at night, I couldn't ask any more of you." "Most of us?" I mouthed, my eyes going back and forth between Roger and our Boss. Had that man always looked that tall? "The company needs results and commitment," he approved. "I couldn't spare you any more than a couple of weeks, whatever the excuse. Profit before fun!" "Profit before fun!"
I jumped, startled. Everyone around me had repeated that, in a dead voice. Their faces were still covered in tears but they stood straight now. And one by one, they got to their desks, the open space full of empty voices saying "I'll rest when I'm dead!"
So I stood there, knees shaking. The open space flooded with the clicks of keyboards and discreet, professional chatter.
So that's it? I thought. No one was questioning that? Roger had died and come back and it was normal? The professional thing to do?
"Clara!"
When had our Boss gone back to his office? The door was open but the lights were off. His voice crept out of the darkness.
"Clara, I need to see you in my office. Now."
They all looked at me. Guess I'll rest when I'm dead.
Your friend always said “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” so much that it became his catchphrase. He says it again today when he came into work, going about his daily routine. This normally wouldn’t be concerning, if not for the fact that you attended his funeral two weeks ago.
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