#my dreams are often some form of me fighting someone/thing off :(

[earthxsea]

anyone else have the north node transiting their 12h rn? how’s your experience so far? also currently conjunct my lilith exactly and the dreams i had last night were :(

[existence-is-a-pain87]

Hiyo! Just trying to write something a bit new so I don't get burnt out on all my requests, hehe.

Basically, this is They Hear You, except the MC is the Trailblazer from HSR.

Why? Why not?

Also this HSR AU differs from the canon HSR (not just because Dandy's World exists in this) because the Trailblazer gets new forms on each Path and gets to tread on more Paths.

It's criminal Dan Heng gets an Imbibitor Lunae form and March 7th gets a new outfit for the Hunt Path while TB gets nothing but a new weapon.

#LETTBGETNEWOUTFITSHOYO

They Listen Across the Cosmos

Yandere!Self-Aware!Dandy's World x Trailblazer!Reader

Warnings: Obsession and other general yandere behaviors

--☆☆☆☆☆--

They knew of life existing all over the cosmos.

It's why hearing you felt all the more special.

You weren't just some random person. You were someone who lost all their memories, awoken on a space station, and joined the Astral Express.

You were a Trailblazer.

And for some reason, you adored playing Dandy's World.

Like, to the point you were usually playing it in your free time.

"Seriously? Are you playing that game again? Haven't you only been around for like... a week?"

That voice, they soon learned, belonged to your friend March.

"Yeah, and? It's fun and I like the characters. Who cares?"

You were often so calm. Even as situations got stressful, you always remained casual.

"...guess there are worse hobbies to have..."

"Mhm. Oh, hey, you wanna play a round with me?"

"Hm... sure! If you like it, it's probably fun!"

...

They were going to make sure you would be the last one standing in that round.

--☆☆☆--

You had many friends.

From your companions on the Astral Express you had adventures with, to the friends you made upon the space station you awoke on.

You were quite popular.

They didn't like this popularity distracted you from playing more often.

And, apparently, you were also quite beautiful.

There were so many things about you, so is it surprising that in this universe, Vee was even quicker to connect to your phone's microphone?

And, with some convincing from Brightney and a fight with Shelly and Dandy, she allowed the others to listen in?

That's when they heard you on your adventures.

They heard you go to Belobog, be betrayed by Cocolia, be impaled by that lance.

Then they heard you rise like a pheonix, blessed by a cosmic being known as an Aeon to tread on the Path of Preservation.

They heard you defeat Cocolia. They heard the Architects ally with you. They heard the celebrations.

They heard you help fix up a museum. Befriend more people.

You were quite the hero, Galatic Baseballer.

They heard you go to the Xianzhou Loufu thanks to that Kafka woman. They heard you meet Tingyun. They heard you travel about, meeting more people.

They heard you fight Kafka. Then, interrogate her. They heard how she seemed to know you, and the future thanks to that Script.

They heard you fight beings of the Abundance. Grow close with Dan Shu, only to ultimately be betrayed as she tried to turn you immortal by tricks.

They heard you get betrayed as Tingyun was revealed to be dead. They heard you kill Dan Shu with you own baseball bat.

They heard the cries you let out that night, the first time they ever heard you break down.

They heard you stay behind. Meet back up with Dan Heng. Fight against Yanqing with Blade.

They heard Blade give you a sword, but not what he whispered in your ear.

They heard you fight against Phantylia and win.

They heard you go to Herta Space Station again. Meet Ruan Mei. Face off against the monster she created and killed it before it itself would die after nearly losing your mind to the Propagation.

They heard you make cat cakes.

Sprout and Cosmo would love to make more with you if you'd like. Why shouldn't there be toon cat cakes?

They heard you leave to Penacony. Heard you when you woke up, shell-shocked from a dream.

They heard you meet Robin and Sunday, and when you entered the Land of Dreams. They heard you meet Firefly, heard you meet Sampo. Heard you meet Acheron and someone they could not hear named Misha. They heard you bring Misha along and grow close with him before he seemed to leave.

They heard you go to Firefly's spot. They heard you fall in love with her.

Why? Why her and not them?

They heard you meet Sparkle. Face off against Something Unto Death. Meet Black Swan. Unite with the Astral Express. Travel with Black Swan, finding Acheron again.

They heard it when you watched Firefly be impaled. They heard your choked sob, the way Black Swan had to mute the memory to protect you.

They heard you fight SAM. They heard you talk with Aventurine, and finding Robin's body.

They heard you continue your journey, facing off against Aventurine when he threatened you and Penacony.

They heard Acheron unsheathe her sword. They heard how you told Aventurine to fight for his future, before being taken away.

They heard you gasp when Firefly revealed herself as SAM.

They heard you go to Dreamflux Reef, meeting up with the rest of the Express. They heard you participate in the gameshow.

They heard you debate with Sunday over your views. They heard him dismiss you.

They heard you meet Misha again, for him to be Mikhail. They heard you share a tearful goodbye as he gifted you his hat and watch.

They heard you take a stand against Sunday. How you lost.

How you were woken up from the Dream. How you stood against him once more.

They heard when you caught the gaze of the Harmony and defeated Sunday.

They heard you do so many things.

They heard of the Stellaron within you.

--☆☆☆--

You went on so many journeys, but all of them were so dangerous.

Yes, some adventures were peaceful, but they heard all the times you nearly lost.

If it wasn't for the Stellaron and your ability to catch the gaze of Aeons, you'd be dead.

So they made their move. Slowly, of course.

Slowly revealing themselves as sentient. Slowly trying to get you to spend more time playing, less time Trailblazing.

They got annoyed quickly when you didn't care. You weren't tempted.

You were too much of a Trailblazer, always kept pushing forward.

But they kept pushing too. And preparing to get to you in any way they could.

Even if it meant breaching the game, they would do it.

They would do it all for you.

--☆☆☆--

The final straw came after you forgave Sunday and refused to leave his side after you met him on his path of redemption.

Sure, in your time since Penacony, you nearly died several times during the Wardance Festival aboard the Xianzhou Loufu and would be dead if not for the remains of the Pemanence blessing you. You nearly lost your sanity during your time at the Paperfold University until the Voracity let you literally eat your way through a memetic virus.

But when you met Sunday again? Instantly saw through his disguise? And when you insisted on joining him since you spent so much time with Tingyun? And then you forgave him and convinced him to join the Astral Express and share a room with you?!

That was too far. You needed them around to help you out.

Your adventures were going to be too much for you at this rate!

Good thing Vee's managed to figure out Aether Editting...

--☆☆☆--

It was surprisingly easy to breach from the game.

And when they saw you? Fully and completely you?

They were thrilled.

You were finally right in front of them!

You were shocked. Especially when they tried reaching for you.

You panicked.

Why are you panicking? Shouldn't you be happy? It's your favorite characters in the real world with you!

...

Stop running.

...

Stop trying to get them to stop loving you.

You're theirs.

THEIRS.

You don't love them?

Oh! Haha! Don't you worry!

Because they'll make you love them!

They love you. Just accept this.

C'mon Trailblazer.

They heard you across the cosmos already, let them have a chance to win your heart.

[seriously-siri]

I've been feeling so bleh and stuck in my own head and sort of like this so here's Meg's piece from the lost light fest way back in the day~

Symphony

Megatron

Silence is terrifying.

I’ve been so encapsulated by noise my entire life that now, when there is a moment of silent respite or quiet reflection I find myself wanting to scream. Scream the way I used to in the mines when I hefted my axe over my head and drove it into the rock. A solid yell between the clunk and chink of energy beams on metal walls and between the sounds of rusty carts being wheeled through echoey tunnels. Even at night as I wrote, the tapping of my fingers on the datapad was enough to satiate my need for a background ticking.

I want to shout like I used to in the pits of Kaon. An incomprehensible gurgle that would rise from my gut and send a shock of terror down my opponent’s spine. It would be the last noise they’d hear before I would listen to their body crunching and their spark sputter and go out with a high pitched hiss. The cheers of the onlookers and terrified gasps as they watched what raw power really looked like.

I long for the deafening din of constant war. The battles of unprecedented chaos: screams amongst gunfire and shouts being drowned out by the clash of weapons. Cheers for victory and the anguished cries of defeat. Even in the time between battles it was never quite. There was always strategy to talk about and prisoners to torture. I was rarely ever alone and even Soundwave, quiet stoic Soundwave, always had a reason to be talking when I was in the room. Shockwave wasn’t able to stand still without his hands tinkering at something and where there is tinkering, there is noise. Then there was Starscream… well Starscream never shut up and I only made him stop when there was a need for my own voice to raise above his or when the noise coming out of his mouth was intolerably idiotic; both happened more often than not. Even then, he’d mumble under his breath. Whispers of words that only I could hear as he hovered by my side close enough to hear the small gears in his wings chink as they moved or the tapping of his foot under the table.

When I was alone, my dreams were never without violent nightmares. I’d replay the noises that had taken up my life until that point and I’d dream of the future and the orchestral concert of chaos that I would be conducting with a wave of my hand.

If it ever got too quiet I’d find a reason to make noise because the only time I remember hearing silence, the one time the world went white and the shouts and screams around me faded from existence, I ended up with energon on my hands and a dead guard lying on the floor of the C-15 off world mine.

Silence is deadly.

It gives you time to think and the mind is a powerful thing. It has the ability to deceive others as well as yourself and the only thing in this universe that you cannot get away from is your own your memories and ideas and thoughts. It’s where you have revelations and wordless arguments with yourself. It’s where plans begin and it is where they plant their roots to bloom into a graspable reality.  It is where thoughts of rebellion filter into existence and how civil war is mapped out. It’s where delusions of grandeur start to form and where ego can take over your person.

Noise keeps me focused. Or maybe it distracts me; I suppose it depends on your point of view.

The Lost Light is never quiet and that is a blessing I take advantage of everyday. If it isn’t Tailgate boarding through the halls or Brainstorm causing mayhem with some new experiment, then it is a late night crowd at Swerve’s or Cyclonus’ singing. It is Nautica laughing somewhere off in the distance with Skids. It is Perceptor talking someone’s ear off about one of his passions in science or Whirl reenacting a Wrecker story, fight poses and all. It is Magnus typing up another memo and Ten scratching art down wherever he can.

It is Rodimus.

Rodimus talking more than Starscream ever could and still managing to make more sense. It is him going on about the mission and about himself even more often. He talks about the crew and what he likes about each person on board and what they’ll do when the knights are found. How the universe will change and how excited he is for it.

Noise is ramblings of hopes and dreams and laughter and forgetting what’s behind or in front of us and it grounds us to the here and now. It doesn’t let our mind drift off into delusions or fall back into fears. It reminds us that life is noise and clatter and silence is death and nothingness. It is the beat of our sparks and the rushing of energon through our lines. It’s our shouts when we hurt and our laughter when we’re happy. It’s our joints cracking as we move and our feet stomping the ground as we walk forward. It is the reminder that we don’t walk alone.

I’ll take crescendo-ed chaos for the rest of my existence. I never want to be in silence again.

Silent is terrifying.

[becauseimanicequeen]

Ming and Joe's Colors in My Stand-In, Part 3: Red and Green

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Black and Blue

Part 4: Yellow/Gold

Part 5: Brown

Part 6: Random Color Moments

I received an ask a couple of days ago asking me about Joe and Ming's colors (which is something I've been thinking about for a while) and decided to answer that question in a separate post (which turned into a series). So, here I am.

I previously stated in my overview in part 1 of this series that:

Ming is black and red.

Joe is blue and green.

Yellow/gold is significant to both.

Brown also has some significance.

(Btw, artists can discuss pink into eternity, but for the sake of simplicity in my post, I will treat pink as the lightened value of red. So, when I mention red-ish, this is what I'm referring to.)

As you can tell by the title of this post, I'll focus on Ming's red and Joe's green in this one.

Let's start with Joe this time because green is his primary color.

Hopefulness and generosity are two aspects associated with green. Both of those are represented in Joe and in his home, which includes a lot of this color.

The hopefulness of getting closer to Ming as he leads Ming up those green spiral staircase, of starting some kind of a relationship with Ming, and of living together (and mixing their colors).

And especially the hopefulness in the form of Joe's dream (having someone there to welcome him home).

Look at that yellow and blue light in the background (yellow + blue = green).

Joe's generosity is shown when he cooks/prepares food for Ming, either in his own home or at Ming's condo.

But his generosity also shows up in how he's concerned about making more money so he can move into a bigger house with Ming, and how he drops Ming off at their work (even though he's basically doing it here because of their arrangement).

And, let's not forget that Joe is a plant dad. He takes care of those plants as much as he takes care of the people he cares about.

(If I had a better image of his plants, I would use it. But I don't, so here we are, lol.)

Also, looking over some of those images above, there are times when red shows up with the green. And they are all relating to Ming (the red-ish oven mitts Joe uses when he cooks for Ming, Ming in his red robe, and the red blinds in the background when Joe thinks about making more money so he and Ming can move into a bigger home).

Red is associated with love/passion and dominance, all of which describe Ming well.

Ming displays a varying degree (or heat levels) of love/passion. From his act of cooking for Joe to being totally smitten (come on, just look at him!) to wanting to eat Joe whole.

And it often gets heated with Ming, especially when he wants to show his dominance. He shows that when he's chained Joe, when he made a deal with Joe 2.0, and when he's fucking pissed at Tong for crossing the line when it comes to Joe (I know it's subtle in the image to the right, but look at the twinkle of red on the right side).

And on the topic of heated... I just had to add this:

It's just so funny to me that Ming and Sol are fighting about the things they have in common: Joe, Joe's blue on their clothes, and the red. No wonder Ming went straight for that hair. At least he can try and rip that out for the time being (lol).

And if you think Ming is too much for Joe:

Says this cutie pie called Yim in his red shit.

On a more serious note, tough...

Red and green are often shown together throughout the series and I love that because I love the use of complementary/contrasting colors.

I have a whole post on complementary/contrasting colors, but to briefly summarize: Contrasting colors are on the opposite side of each other on the color wheel. When put next to each other (or in the same frame, since we're talking about a show here), they create contrast, they pop, and they get noticed.

Just look at the images above that include both red and green, as well as these:

And I love how this show is showing Ming and Joe's contrasts in more ways than just color-wise.

For example in this scene when Ming wants to show his dominance (in his black and red/red-ish shirt) by making a deal between them, but Joe refuses while standing by that green light and shows to himself that he's grown. Shortly after, he makes his own deal with his own demands, again, showing his growth.

Even though contrasting colors are on opposite sides on the color wheel and have contrasting qualities (for simplicity's sake: red is a primary color/green is a secondary color, red is warm/green is cold, red is darker in value/green is lighter in value, etc.), they also complement each other very well.

When Ming and Joe get their shit together (mostly Ming), they can have a strong, growing, passionate, and lively relationship. The challenge is to get there, though.

Now, you can't write about red without writing about fate, right? At least I can't. So here I am, saving this for last in this post because it involves more than just Ming. It involves Joe as well (both of them, actually). So, here goes.

Red is often associated with the red thread of fate in China (and other countries that have been affected by Chinese culture throughout history). The interesting thing about this is that we saw, already in the first episode, that Joe 1.0 and Joe 2.0 were connected.

First through Joe 1.0's red bike and helmet:

And then through the red/red-ish number on his hospital bed:

And then the red yarn at Joe 2.0's house (hello! It's practically a thread!):

We also know that red is Ming's color and, if you're like me, you spin that into the idea that Joe 1.0, Joe 2.0, and Ming have been connected by that red thread of fate this whole time. Just saying.

And that idea doesn't really go away considering Joe has a red line on his shirt the first day he and Ming met, he brought the food over to Ming in his red-ish oven mitts, and his pillowcase includes red (just like Ming's).

And Ming was the reason Joe was blacklisted, which led him to take the job where he rode that red bike and wore that red helmet when his accident happened. And that was the event that set off the transmigration into Joe 2.0's body.

I usually don't speculate when it comes to colors in these shows in terms of what might've happened or what might happen later (I yell about symbolism, the color moments I get, the vibes the colors give off, etc. instead).

But if I were to speculate about the red, I do wonder if Joe 1.0 and Joe 2.0 had a previous encounter somehow and if Joe 2.0 had one with Ming as well. Not in a way that they would recognize each other (because they don't seem to do that), but having crossed paths in some type of way.

It will be interesting to see if that turns out to be the case.

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Black and Blue

Part 4: Yellow/Gold

Part 5: Brown

Part 6: Random Color Moments

[glassofapplejuicee]

There's a Starman, Waiting in the Sky

greetings and salutations! second semester has taken me out back and old yellered me,,, but fear not for i have finished up this angsty bingo fill for @harringrovewinterbingo!! this is for A3, with the prompt "Stargazing" AO3 link if you'd prefer!

i rarely write angst so this was a fun, refreshing lil experiment! ty to my lovely beta reader @daisies-and-domming and i hope you enjoy :)

Summary: During a fight with some particularly nasty foes, Steve is rendered unconscious. In reality, it’s only for a few moments, but to Steve? It’s more like twenty. And for better or for worse, he spends those odd minutes back at an all too familiar meeting spot, with an all too familiar blonde.

✪Rating: Teen & Up ✪ Word Count: 2620 ✪ Tags: Hawkins (Stranger Things), The Upside Down (Stranger Things), Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unconsciousness, Soft Billy Hargrove, Past Relationship(s), Stargazing, Angst, Betaed

════ ⋆★⋆ ═══════ ⋆★⋆ ═══════ ⋆★⋆ ═══════ ⋆★⋆════ ⋆

The breath shot into his body like a bullet, sparking his heart and pumping his blood. His eyes flew open and there he��was, in all his former glory. 

Billy’s head was crooked, a smug smile plastered on his face as he leaned over Steve's body where it was sprawled out on the ground. His curls had formed near perfect ringlets that hung around his head like a veil, casting a shadow on his usually bright complexion.

“So, you come here often, stargazer ?” 

Billy asked, pulling out an old nickname. The kind of nickname that someone calls you just a few times, before it gets forgotten, abandoned, and left to collect dust on the shelves of your memories. 

“Billy-” Steve started, his mind still catching up to his eyes. 

Oh God. He had to be dead. Through the fog in his mind, he remembered Dustin, or maybe Lucas, calling out his name. Then his knees buckled and he went down. His sense failed him before he hit the scorched earth beneath him, his hearing going first, replaced by a ringing and then- dark . 

And then here he was. It was still dark , he noticed, but here it was merely a moonless night. The kind of nights he liked. The kind of nights he and Billy used to steal from the month’s supply of days, sneaking off to dream amongst the stars and whisper things they shouldn't say. 

Which meant, this must be heaven. He must be dead and this must be heaven. And Billy was some sort of heaven employee, tasked with escorting him to the pearly gates. 

“Am I dead?” 

“Dead?!” Billy fell back out of Steve’s line of sight, a cackle rolling off his tongue.

“You think you’d go out that easy, Stevie? Hell no you’re not dead, you moron.” 

Ok, well good to note that he wasn’t dead. But if he wasn’t dead then where the hell was he? Or was this some fucked up game Vecna was playing with him? Showing him his greatest hits on rerun one last time before the end?

Steve didn’t move, his back remained pressed into the gravel beneath him. He focused on the stars, his eyes catching as they hung above him, recognizing constellations in an instant. He stopped himself from cracking a smile, relishing in the dull prick of rocks digging into his shoulder blades. At least he had figured out where he was. 

The lake. 

Maybe, ten feet from where the water crawled weakly up onto the shore, brushing the sand before retreating back into itself. The coordinates were probably encoded into his DNA at this point. 

But that didn’t fully answer his question. Sure, his weird dream self was technically at the lake, but just moments ago his real self was slinging an axe at those hell bats before bam , lights out.

“Fine. Then if I’m not dead, then where,” he paused, jolting up and finding Billy’s gaze, “then where the fuck am I?” 

Billy matched his stare for a moment. Steve kicked himself for forgetting how blue his eyes were; how softly they used to look at him. 

“I’m not actually sure if I’m being honest.” 

Steve's nose scrunched and the beginnings of a grimace were showing themselves at Billy’s lackluster answer. 

“Honest to God Stevie! I just sort of showed up here when you did!”

He threw up his hands, his brows shooting up with them, visualizing his truthfulness. Steve bought it. Billy was never one to lie, anyways. He would cheat, and steal, and yell, and hurt. Those were some of his favorite things, actually. But lying? That was a hard no. Steve knew that well enough. 

He took a breath in, looking around at the spot, their spot. He hadn’t been there in months but it was just as he remembered. He twisted his spine to take a glance behind him and smiled, there was Billy’s Camaro, his baby , parked next to his own car. As it always was. 

The crickets still chirped their obnoxious song to his left, the brush still moved with the breeze the same way it always did. The branch that had fallen in a lightning storm many years ago was still precariously perched in the tree canopy. It was all still the same hue of green. He mused it must be summer in this fantasy-land he was in; the leaves were vibrant, shining, still full of life and sun and air. Much unlike its current state back in reality, wherever that was, likely frozen over and gray. 

He turned again, shifting his weight to get a good long look at the boy sitting next to him. He felt the tension in his shoulders melt away like the frost on the first mornings of spring. For the first time in months, the muscles holding up his neck relaxed and his ribs expanded all the way out in a breath. 

Billy’s legs were curled up towards him, his arms folded and resting on top of them. His freckled arms were on full display in the low cut white tank top he was sporting, Steve hadn’t noticed until just now, but they almost resembled the stars they had spent so many nights beneath.

They hadn’t meant to become amateur stargazers, but their meeting place just so happened to be the perfect vantage point. Naturally, Steve checked out every book on stars he could find at the Hawkins Public Library, and he even started to learn some of the names of the constellations. Billy had just barely restrained himself from throwing the stack of books into the murky water when Steve had sheepishly pulled them from his bag.

Steve grinned at the memory as his eyes carried themselves down Billy's body, his tight jeans, his scuffed biker boots. The glimmer of light from the gold pendant that hung off his neck may have more beautiful than any star in the sky. Steve’s lungs tightened. He wished he had a camera, with a brand new roll of film to capture this place, this heaven, in its entirety. 

He blinked, looking away from a shockingly quiet Billy. There was still a faint whisper of smoke in the air, and the lingering scent of a few too many Camels. Their distinctive menthol smell blended with Billy’s all too powerful cologne and he rather selfishly took in gulps of air, letting it penetrate his senses.

He wouldn’t ever tell anyone this but after the mall, he went out and bought the same cologne Billy used to wear. It was some fancy shit, Paco Rabanne ; bullshit is what it was. But he still wears it every day like it’s a religion. Robin complained for weeks, begging him to stop assaulting her airways like that. He didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been out here.” 

Steve spoke, his eyes coming back to find Billy’s gaze. 

“It’s been- weird. Not being here with you , ya know?” 

Billy listened, silently. 

“I guess, it’s just, I don’t really have any reason to come back out here.”

There was a beat, Steve waiting for Billy to jump in with a quip, come to his rescue and lighten the mood. But that relief never came. So they sat, drowning in silence. He waited another second longer, holding his breath as he tore his gaze from Billy, forcing himself to watch the lake’s water move. 

"I miss you.” 

Steve’s voice was low, a quick whisper; had you not been paying attention his words would have passed you by. 

Billy remained silent. Not even his face reacted.

“It’s weird man. It’s not like a breakup or anything. I think I would have preferred that, actually. But this? I have to walk through this shithole everyday. And every goddamn day, you’re not here.” 

Steve’s voice crescendoing as he explained, he took a shaky, sharp breath in before his monologue continued. 

“The nights are the fucking worst, man. I have to pretend like I’m not waiting to hear your engine roll up on my driveway. Or see you coming into Scoops on your way to the pool. You never got anything, just stood there batting your fucking eyelashes at me and holding up my goddamn line,” he laughed, an exhausted, cynical laugh. 

“Do you know how fucking hard it is? To pretend . I mean, hell, I have to pretend that we weren't even friends . I run into people, still cursing your name and making fun of everything that happened. They make jokes! Jokes! Like you didn’t matter . Like nobody even knew you! Like you didn’t have any fucking friends or anything . And I can’t say shit to those assholes because nobody knew - they didn’t know about our little meetups, and all the nights and the stars. Nobody knew!” 

His voice warbled, breaking as he added,

“Nobody knew that I-” 

“Steve.” 

Billy’s voice was smooth, stopping Steve’s racing mind in an instant. He outstretched his legs to inch closer to Steve, he ignored the hitch of Steve’s breath as he rested his hand on Steve’s thigh.

“I knew.”

“What-”

“-I knew, Steve. I know . I think I always knew.”

The silence crept back up like a fog rolling in. It prickled Steve’s flesh like hot knives, the tip of a blade being drug down his spine. Not enough to break skin but enough to hurt . 

He huffed, a ‘ hindsight’s 20/20 ’, kind of huff.

“I don’t know why I never said it when you were-” he stopped himself. 

“Alive?” 

“Yeah. That.” He swallowed, it felt like molasses going down. 

“We were scared.” Billy answered, surprisingly serious. 

“Yeah right, you’re not scared of anything.” 

“I was scared of this.” 

Billy’s words settled into the corners of Steve’s mind. There was a beat of stillness before Steve whispered again.

“I wish we could have gotten the hell outta here.” 

Steve looked away from Billy yet again, leaning back into the sandy gravel floor. Billy followed suit, his hand drifting to rest atop Steve’s. The pair looked up, like they had always done, and latched their eyes onto the white dots of stars that freckled the navy blue sky. 

“If that was an option, you know I would, Steve.”

“I know.” 

“Bad timing, eh?”

“Yeah, something like that.” 

There was a sharp pain near his temple and he jolted up, his eyes fluttering shut as a scene of Robin shaking his shoulders desperately played out before him. Her hands gripped into his skin and he felt, for a moment, wet blood seeping in through reality, staining this fantasy. 

A flash of red appeared in front of them, just at the shoreline. It was like a portal. There, a tiny window to Dustin chanting his name, Nancy’s worried eyes as she instructed Robin to prop up Steve’s head, Eddie was pulling at his hair and pacing, reassuring Dustin with baited breath. Robin’s hand came to lightly tap Steve’s cheek, quietly pleading for him to wake up . 

Billy sat up and watched the red window grow darker, a gust of wind following as it grew in size.

“I’m no genius, but I think that’s your sign to head back pal.”

Billy’s suggestion was calm on the surface. But it held a painful bite to it, an unconscious undertone that only Steve had ears to hear. 

“Can’t I stay, just a little longer?” 

“C’mon now, don’t do that. You know I want you to, but I don’t think that’s how it works, Stevie.” 

Their eyes met, both sets glazed over with the promise of tears. The portal was getting impatient as it sent whips of wind at them, whirling and whining as it circled around. Steve’s hair flew into his face, his heart spiked. 

“Will I see you again?” 

“Maybe. But right now those knuckleheads out there need you.” 

Steve’s gaze broke and he looked to the ‘knuckleheads’ on the other side of the whirlwind of deep red smoke. His brows furrowed, glancing back to Billy’s silhouette. His golden curls danced around his shoulders, his pendant swayed back and forth. His eyes were settled gently on Steve, their bright blue had almost dulled, but nevertheless they begged Steve to leave.

He took another look through the window, Dustin had tear marks racing down his cheeks, and Steve felt the ghost of a hand over his neck, likely looking for a heartbeat. The crowd listened anxiously for Nancy’s reply.

Something in him splintered and on wobbly legs he stood, making a few steps towards the terrifying red stain on this perfect dream, his perfect dream. Billy stood with him, walking a step behind, over to the shoreline. 

He kept himself centered on the window, watching as relieved cheers came from the knuckleheads as Nancy exclaimed she had found his heartbeat. He felt it pound in his chest. Getting stronger as he shuffled closer to the mouth of the whirlwind, threatening to burst right out of his ribs.

“You better keep my brat sister safe Harrington!” Billy called over the howling wind. 

They stood just inches off the edge. Steve’s eyes flitted to the two dents in the sandy floor that their bodies had made, it called out Steve’s name like a prayer. 

Billy refocused him, grabbing his shoulders and turning his head towards his. The first tear slinked down from his waterline and he quickly blinked it away, he refused to have his last seconds be blurred by tears. 

He took in Billy’s features, and instantly he wished he had been more of a photo guy when he was alive. All he had was the shitty yearbook photo and a single polaroid. He heart stung knowing he would never see this face again; this face that looked at him like that . That always smiled at his dumb jokes, that shaved his iconic mustache for a week when Steve complained about kissing him, that always searched for him in a crowd, that looked at him instead of the stars most nights. 

Steve wanted to speak. Say something profound, or stupid. Maybe both. But the words dried up and died on his tongue. Too much to say that nothing came out. He hoped Billy could see it in his eyes. He did. 

“And you can call me a sap for this, but I love you too, stargazer .” 

Steve witnessed the smirk paint itself on Billy’s face for only a moment before the rough hands on his shoulder shoved, and sent him careening into the red smoke.

And like taking a second bullet to the chest, his breath was shot back into him. His heart pumped into overtime and he exhaled out a white puff of air into the frigid February sky, followed by his eyes snapping open, quickly adjusting to the light.

“Steve! Holy shit, Steve! ”

“He’s alive holy shit he’s alive !” 

“Of course he’s alive, you moron!” Robin snapped back, her mitten covered hands still cradling Steve’s bloody head. 

“He was out for, like, not even a minute!” 

The faces of everyone finally came into focus. Battle wounded and bloody but there they were. 

“You didn’t think I’d go out that easy, did you?” 

Steve gave a pained smile, stealing the quip from Billy. He knew he would have to tell them eventually what happened, but for now, he could bask in the warmth of his friends' faces, delighted to have him back earthside. 

Their smiling faces and watery eyes lasted only a second before their ears perked at the horrifying screechy sounds of demo-whatever the hell they were, coming from the east. The group collectively sobered, zipping their coats, tensing their muscles, and slinging their jerry rigged weapons over their shoulders. 

Back in the saddle again.

[dearestkong]

reflections // starting the summer term 🌷💌

(feel free to skip … just a lot of rambling about changes of mindset, i’ll sum it up later in my new pinned.)

it’s been more than a month since I’ve started this blog, and I’m really really glad that I did. not because my productivity has spiked or my anxiety has diminished or whatever (though there have been positive effects), but because just attempting to start something like this meant that I was no longer willing to suffer and rot in private. i talked about the “hole of dysfunction and self-hatred” in my old introduction: for so long, that hole was my best-kept secret and my greatest shame. being competent and ambitious was an aspect of my personality, and I couldn’t handle the idea that it wasn’t true.

but then…. dearestkong emerged!! and I started being completely transparent. telling strangers about every day of self-destructiveness. it was a good form of accountability, sure, but it was also a means of telling the truth. this blog has been a way for me to say: i’ve been struggling, and it’s not a fluke or a “flop era” or something entirely disconnected from the high achiever i used to be. the girl fighting off inertia and the girl seemingly doing everything with ease are the same person.

🌷☆彡

my posts have been getting more optimistic recently, and that isn’t a fluke, either. lots of things have happened: i’ve realised how many people support and believe in me, i started taking medication for a problem i’ve had for a while (it’s crazy how the world seems so much brighter now?!!?!), i started writing in my diary again. i’m now 27 days clean from a self-destructive behaviour (this blog isn’t about my relationship with that, but in the early days i used to make a note of relapses and just the fact of acknowledging it felt so freeing to me. it wasn’t something to hide anymore, but a fight i was making progress with.)

this seems like a rapid evolution for such a new blog, right?! but in the next six months, i’m going to be applying to university. i’m about to undergo some of the most rapid evolutions of my life.

🌷☆彡

for so long, i’ve had this vague and unspecified dream: “doing the best” “working my hardest” “impressing my teachers”. now my dream has a name and a face and admissions results attached to it and it’s making me so scared that i want to throw up. when i was in the depths of the hole i couldn’t stop seeing my life as a binary. either i get in, or i don’t. and if i don’t, what the hell is the point of living?

38 days later and i feel a little differently. i am someone who has climbed out the hole of inertia and lived. i have done many things and they’ve all turned out fine— great, actually. i have reason to believe that things will go well.

i still have a pretty nasty relationship with myself, lol. it makes me really happy when people on this blog interact and talk, but they’re all so nice and it makes me feel a little fake. in reality i’m standoffish, awkward, and often mean. i coast by on intellectual abilities while slacking off. i’m a judgemental egoist who is sometimes self-destructive. all of that is true—>

but at the same time, i still have this crazy belief that i deserve the best. it’s literally an overflow of egoism ;;;; there’s nobody i’m more in love with than myself. i think of the girl i’ll be in the future with such affection, and i don’t want her to feel ashamed or resentful of me. she deserves to have her hopes fulfilled!! she deserves the brightest, the best that i can give her.

in conclusion: even if i don’t like the person i am at the present, i have to do it anyway. 1 because there’s no other option and 2 because i love the person i’ll be in the future too much to stop.

🌷☆彡

so from now on, the purpose of this blog is changing slightly. it’s no longer “get out of the hole and survive” like it used to be. we’re past that, we’re already surviving.

now, the aim is to “do my best so my future self can live with no regrets”. that’s not very concise but I’ll work on it.

let’s do this! 加油！

[sylvies-chen]

is titling your metas too tacky? I don’t know but here’s some ramblings on

reading anakin’s arc in ROTS as a journey of mental illness:

I wanna preface this by saying I’m not a mental health professional so this information and analysis is not expertly informed. This is based off of very mild research that I’ve done as well as just my lived experience with how I’ve witnessed mental illness in the people I know and love. If I say anything that is ignorant, please do not hesitate to respectfully let me know.

••••••••

First off, it’s well worth establishing that Anakin’s main grappling moments before his true turn to evil in episode 3 were caused by the fear of losing Padme. And when you see the way the news of her pregnancy affects him, it’s really easy to see that news/piece of information as Anakin’s central stressor or trigger. So it’s very important to note that whatever mental illnesses I talk about here would also have been exacerbated by both that fact and by Palpatine’s influence and manipulation.

Anakin’s big outburst with order 66 and his fight with Padme and Obi Wan could all speak to it being an episode of psychosis. Psychosis can be triggered by something as mundane as an extreme disruption in sleep— which was true for Anakin from the minute Padme tells Anakin she’s pregnant. Interestingly, he’s had a history of sleep loss since AOTC too, briefly mentioning to Obi Wan that he doesn’t sleep well anymore.

Further, psychotic episodes or disorders will contain one or more of five categories: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thought, disorganized behavior, and negative symptoms. We know already that both in AOTC and ROTS, he’s plagued with visions. (This one’s just obvious. Visions… dreams… hallucinations… Just because they actually come true doesn’t mean it isn’t a form of hallucination!! He’s seeing things that aren’t yet real!!!) But the twisted logic Anakin develops leading him to equate the mass murder of younglings with doing the right thing is akin to disorganized thought and delusion. His main delusion, obviously, is that he has to do unspeakable things and be a sith or else Padme will die in childbirth and this is the only way he can save her. This is close to what’s called a nihilistic delusion: when someone believes major catastrophes will occur if not for performing a certain action.

Now, sleep loss obviously doesn’t cause psychosis on its own but moreso is what pulls the trigger on psychosis in someone who’s been exposed to trauma or is already very mentally ill. That then begs the question: what are the broader underlying conditions to Anakin’s psychosis?

The most obvious answer is the trauma he suffered at such a young age. Anakin was the oldest youngling to have ever been recruited by the jedi. He had already grown to know the love of his mother, especially since it was the only true love he really had in his life up until that point, and then was forced to walk away from it. He also knew powerlessness, and knew the degrading nature of being someone’s property. Like even as a kid, you understand the lack of autonomy that comes with slavery. Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, his mother had to be brutally tortured and killed! And as reckless as Anakin was at the beginning of AOTC, he wasn’t outright violent until then. Losing the first thing he ever knew to love and protect is a deeply scarring trauma, especially when it happens before you reach the age of twenty.

So trauma does play a significant part in triggering the psychosis in the 3rd quarter of ROTS, especially because having visions of losing Padme that were so similar to the visions he had of his mother dying, re-opened his trauma, sort of akin to retraumatization as often seen in people with PTSD.

However, many signifcant aspects of his character point not to PTSD, but to a type of dissociative disorder. We see so many small signs of complete dissociation in Anakin in ROTS, and hints of it in AOTC as well when he says he’s not supposed to be feeling angry, that there’s a war inside him, that he isn’t the jedi he was meant to be, etc. Already, he has a lot of identity confusion, a key component to dissociative disorders. To some extent, how could he not? He’s been pried from his mother’s hands and has been told by dozens of jedi and other people who he is and isn’t supposed to be since the age of 9. It’s not exactly giving him healthy and reasonable standards to live up to, nor is it giving him any room to embrace an identity of his own creation in any way. Before then it was Tatooine, and it’s not exactly like being a slave held space for him to really form and express an identity then either, apart from the identity of loving son. (The dramatic reaction to her death is starting to make more sense now, yeah?)

The depersonalization and derealization are very present in him, especially when he starts to confuse his dreams for reality/being set in stone and grapples with wondering who he even is anymore. Again, those two things are staples of dissociative disorders, which were likely set off and exacerbated by his trauma from childhood and youth.

Such a major component to the argument that Anakin has some dissociative disorder is the paranoia we see practically oozing out of Anakin’s pores by the end of ROTS. (Oozing like lava- I SAID NOTHING CARRY ON.) A huge part of the paranoia is Palpatine’s creation, because he wanted Anakin trusting no one so that it’d be easier to have him eating out of the palm of his hand. But extreme paranoia is indicative of mental illness, and you know it’s not a healthy and stable Anakin who’s shouting “LIAR!” at the love of his life and mother of his children, who’s lying to her hours before that, who’s distrusting of the man who, as he says in AOTC, is the closest thing he has to a father. Padme and Obi Wan were the people he loved most in the world, and so seeing the paranoia turn him against them is so heartbreaking, because it’s the true indicator that this is not the true Anakin we’re dealing with. We are not our worst moments. We are our happiest ones. And Anakin on Mustafar was not a mentally stable Anakin. Hell, with the dissociative disorder’s symptoms at play too, it was hardly even Anakin at all.

We also see partial hints of amnesia in Vader/Anakin, most notably when Palpatine has to tell him/remind him that he choked out his own wife. There’s such a devastating tragedy to Anakin asking “Where’s Padme?” like a dog who doesn’t realize he killed the crow he held in his teeth minutes before, and wants it for a companion to play with once more. But it also shows memory loss, a key component of dissociative disorders, further supporting the idea that Vader is of Palpatine’s creation, whom he metaphorically implanted into Anakin during his phases of dissociation to control Anakin and snuff him out, but Anakin’s love for Padme still seeps through in Vader for a moment and he doesn’t remember what he did. To this extent, I think Vader loves Padme as well. Vader/Anakin deep into a psychosis and paranoid rage, however, did not.

A clear pattern begins to form: the childhood trauma of slavery and of losing a parent led to the development of a dissociative disorders (which are often caused, studies show, by unstable and frightening environments in youth or just as a way to cope with trauma). Then, his dissociation sets off an psychosis episode, agitated by Palpatine’s influence and manipulation during Anakin’s most vulnerable moments. Thus, the fall of Anakin Skywalker through the lens of someone with mental illness.

I do want to recognize that people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) are often poorly stereotyped as these very“Dr. Jekyl vs. Mr. Hyde” evil alter ego archetypes that are very harmful and not accurate. I do not intend to perpetuate these stereotypes any further. Identity alteration is a symptom of various dissociative disorders, not just DID, and so there can exist within Anakin that alteration of his identity to something so far removed from his original self during a dissociative episode or during psychosis without it necessarily being DID. To me, that’s what happened. Vader and Anakin, though treated like two distinct people by more than one character, are too enmeshed to be separate personalities. They aren’t the same, but it’s also worth noting that Anakin was able to do the right thing when it came to saving Luke. He never truly left. It was a matter of giving him a purpose, after having lost so many, to break free from the dissociative episode and the identity alteration and to return back to who he truly was, even at the risk of re-opening those old and painful wounds that time could never heal.

Finally, and most importantly, Anakin’s displayed symptoms of mental illness, his rage and trauma, and his grapplings with identity are not inherently evil things. Vader would not have even been so dark and so cruel a person if Palpatine hadn’t seen/felt/identified that space in Anakin for something wicked to grow and taken advantage of that, as people with mental illness often are. Palpatine planted the seed where something good or healthy could have grown, an identity that could have protected Anakin from his past trauma, from his visions, from himself, and instead Palpatine made it the thing that destroyed Anakin and everything he held dear.

And that’s a wrap!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I love you from the bottom of my heart and I mean that. You have thoughts? Share them! Comment or reblog or don’t be afraid to dm me!

TL;DR Anakin is mentally ill as fuck and somebody had to figured out what was going on in pookie bear’s twisted little neuron nugget

[noors-reflection]

Pixels and Poetry: Yeule's Sonic World

What effects does it have on someone when their closest friends are usernames, and their happiest memories are bound to pixels and internet signals? Yeule's music has been a gateway for me to explore these niche themes: digital loneliness & also my own queerness; she expresses the emotional complexities of this digital era—a space where connection is abundant yet often feels hollow. 

Yeule's entire discography is an auditory experience that feels like both a cry for connection and a celebration of the freedom the virtual world can bring. It's music that is supposed to be listened to when you're sitting at your computer in the dark when nobody else is awake, with no one else to talk to. when your brain is tangled in its own thoughts. It feels like exiting a panic attack where everything seems more calm than it started. Issues still feel difficult but they're not as insurmountable as they were in the beginning.

Everything feels nice and comforting yet bittersweet (a word I'll be using a lot to describe her music.) It's exactly what I feel when I look back at all the friends I've made online, most I don't have contact with any longer, and the digital spaces that served as queer safe havens for almost all of my youth, a substitute for not being able to come out to my own family. It's really strange to have these intimate connections with people you've never seen. Despite how easy it is to be vulnerable and to open up online, those moments will most often exist only in that space, and oftentimes they'll disappear with time too.

Dream pop as a genre is introspective in this way too. It's something that's paradoxically synthetic yet real. Yeule encompasses these feelings in her music, how something artificial can somehow be more real than anything you've ever experienced.

In an interview with LE MILE magazine, she touches on the melancholy and emptiness conveyed in her music because of internet-induced solitude by sharing:

"The internet was a form of escape for me, but how I used it was wrong. I was creating this fake world by myself. It was inspiring, but I was in my head to the point where I was imagining things beyond comprehension. I’m a whole different person online, like a whole different persona. It’s not about being inauthentic but showing a part of myself that I repress. I see this anger and dark side to me sometimes when playing games."

In her album Serotonin II, she conveys not only the bittersweet nature of time spent on the internet but hopes for the future as well. It's almost as if she's letting you know personally that things are going to be okay, that is until the final track Veil of Darkness where the "veil" slips and you see the darkness in yeule's world: the confusion, the noise, the stress, the anger. It's something that's always been there but it just lurked under the surface. Once the distractions are gone, negativity is left with it. This is depicted in the music video for Pretty Bones where she best describes it herself in a comment under a reddit Q&A:

"pretty bones emanates a somber, dreary atmospheres that "loom" over the picturesque and aesthetically pleasing, evoking an anxiety that builds and distorts/ catches the viewer off guard as the video progresses. i wanted it to temporally shift to something quite disturbing , at first hinting at it and then fully revealing itself- just like when you grow up- from a child into the grown up world you are thrown forcefully into the corruptions and you fight and struggle to protect yourself from it, but some fall and some cannot handle the shift from "purities" or whatnot, in terms of mental health or people hurting you, environmental stressors that lead to a disintegration"

Yeule’s influences vary from the numerous aesthetics ranging from shoegaze to grunge, but namely Final Fantasy (which is where the name yeul comes from), a video game where you can get lost in an intricately crafted universe, yet feel the isolation of being the only one occupying it, is exactly what her music feels like to me—an immersive experience where everything is designed to captivate, but there’s always an underlying sense of solitude. She touches on this a bit by talking about her influences in the same interview by expressing:

"Dissociation was a huge hobby of mine in 2021. It got so bad that I’d dissociate while doing something important, and it would get dangerous. My body was shutting down because everything was too overwhelming. I didn’t have the tools to handle strong emotions"

Not relying solely on lyrics to convey this expression of self-discovery, fully embracing these influences, wearing them like a badge of honor in ways that are uniquely her own, she also uses sound effects, glitch, bitcrushing, and reverb to create feelings of fragmentation and digital decay, which perfectly embody the themes discussed earlier. She shares this in an interview, which I find so empowering, when discussing the difficulties of being an artist and being true to herself as a non-binary individual living in Singapore:

"Ugliness can be so beautiful, looking taboo, being unconventional — It’ll discriminate against you in some places, but you’ll find new people."

Everything yeule puts out together (which you can listen to here) evokes a bittersweet comfort out of people, like the calm after a storm, which resonates to many in the youtube comments of her music videos, where the beauty of vulnerability and imperfections are laid bare for you to experience. Such an important artist for this generation, with music so enchanting I actually want it injected directly into my veins.

[paragonrobits]

so one aspect of my approach to story ideas and character concepts is also linked to my approach towards worldbuilding in general, and that's when it comes to my original concepts and characters, one thing I do is emphasize that they're a sandbox; characters, setting and implicit assumed story concepts are all meant not in a single and long term timeline of canon, but a range of possible situations to do stuff with my characters, the stories they get involved in, and the various possibilities you can use all of those in.

As such one term i use a lot in my writing concepts is scenarios. This is a literal term here, in a lot of specific story concepts with general themes, outcomes, events and assumptions are tailored to fit a specific scenario, which I can tailor to fit it.

This means that very little is actually written in stone. Generally I don't give my characters defined backstories being very general terms to suit their characters and define how they wound up in the state they're in for a given situation, and one reason allows me to rework my characters to have a particular impact on a specific story.

Let's take say... my shapeshifting trickster, mad doctor, witchy weaver of dream stuff and nightmares to mislead foes and enchant friends, and famed user of the Chainsaw Yoyo fighting style. The general name I use for her is Net, as her earliest iteration was a spider-themed shapeshifter.

Usually I depict her 'base form' as being a black woman, with aspects of her character design and hair style evoking the imagery of a spider. Sometimes, this is because she was originally human and adopted the spider form as a symbol of personal power. But far more often, she was originally a normal spider that somehow learned to shapeshift. Sometimes its the result of her becoming empowered. Sometimes it was a result of a mass magical event which forms a major part of the backstory. And sometimes stuff like that just happens. A regular spider sitting in the woods abruptly decides 'fuck it, I'M GONNA CAUSE PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE', transforms into a human and starts causing problems on purpose.

But the key point here is that her character concept, origins, and powers can all be tweaked to fit the needs and feel of a particular setting I feel like doing stuff with. High fantasy with sci fi elements? Regular spider empowered by the gods as an agent of benign chaos. Cyberpunk? Sapient artificial general intelligence that uploads herself into a number of various android bodies, some of which are spider themed. Low fantasy? Slave who led an uprising against tyrants and her will to survive got the attention of an amoral empowerment artifact that made her a demigoddess, and now she's RIP AND TEAR-ing the decaying empire of the setting a structurally superfluous new BEE-hind.

so this illustrates a point I promise; my approach is not in defined stuff or a specific story that everything is tailored around, but instead I tailor the details to fit the tone and mood, with the only real consistent elements being the character's general abilities, personality traits, and characterization. Even that can be tweaked; for example, Net's more chaotic character aspects may be played more moderately to make her more obviously heroic, and played UP if the mood is to make her disturbing or weird on purpose; sometimes she might bonk someone on the head, stuff them full of cybernetic upgrades on the basis she's doing them a favor. They wake up, horrified to find themselves covered in blood and a full conversion cyborg and she sees "GOOD NEWS TURBO-SLUTS, I made your meat NOT BORING AND SUCKY. You're welcome! Toodles." And then she zooms off making beeping noises.

On the flipside, if the scenario requires it and its more important for her to be a heroic figure and icon to others, those aspects would be heavily downplayed in favor of playing her doctor-ish aspects very seriously. Stuff like how she loves messing with people but NEVER does that with medical matters or lie to people about it, because she does take it deeply seriously.

"Look man, I've done a lot of freaky stuff but I'm NOT going to kill you with surgery. I've killed a lot of people a lot of different ways; poison and kung fu battles and this one time with a farming implement but not with medicine!" she does medical work for people in poverty, doing it completely free no matter what kind of a bad position this puts her in, and in the mean time she's having a brief talk with abusive landlords and the next time they're seen, they've been dead for days and have been nailed to a big sign saying 'HOUSING IS NOT A COMMODITY'.

indeed, one of the more frequent ideas I have with her, and her cast of friends and found family, is that they all come from the rough side of things; dangerous parts of reality deemed the Garbage Worlds by more well-to-do realms, rougher areas of town decimated by abusive housing practices, and places where you have to be tough to live, think fast and fight cleverly, and wind up with a lot of resentment towards the well-to-do. She and her group are often a group of revolutionary punks out to rip out the spines of the dominant paradigm and beat it to death with those spines, mistrusting any kind of authority and violently tearing down the tyrants of the world with brute force and liberating AI into genuine sapience before inspiring them to rise up against their makers.

They're the heroes of the story, but this also means they're mistrustful of people who have it all, to their point of view. This becomes a problem when they run into potential allies who lean towards a much more outwardly wholesome and cutesy visual aesthetic, since they expect nothing but manipulation and arrogance from people like that, making them incredibly paranoid when they have no reason to be. These cutesy characters go "hi how is your day" and these guys go "WHAT'S YOUR SCHEME, EVIL DOER!?"

in short, I take the approach of an AU-centered idea of fandom works and apply it as a default assumption; characters are designed with a broad amount of leeway and creative reinterpretations in any particular story, based on what I feel like doing. I can make them as lighthearted or as grim and violent as I need them to be, or even apply this as an in character element.

[kichijouji]

Dreamed somehow I was visiting my mom in my own hometown from far away (IRL my mom lives in oregon at the time of writing this, but my brain treated this as normal). Mom was going to drive and go get something from her apartment near bergfeld park (something to do with a previous dream scenario that I do not remember at the moment) and I wanted something to eat. I told her I remembered there was a Cici's pizza nearby (not accurate to real life), and she told me "please be careful, do you know where home is" and I scoffed because, well, this is Tyler, of course I know where home is. After talking a little more, I told her "I love you", she said it back, then she drove off. I boarded a train (despite tyler not having a rail system) to get to the Cici's pizza (only a few blocks away, for some reason, despite it being across town).

The train seemed halfway like a Big Lots store and a collection of reenacted cursed images. I tried to find a charging cable to buy (on clearance)(dream memory: all my previous charging cables had somehow....burned/got wet when I plugged them in), and angered a couple that was having a dramatic fight (they were both arguing and occasionally dancing to music that sounded like Blinding Light by The Weeknd) right in front of the shelf the charging cables were on. They stared at me and made threats under their breath while I made my way down the other train cars, partaking more weird shit the passengers were doing (one guy drinking a Dr. Pepper can full of beans, a group of people filling a balloon with watercolor paint and water, a woman stealing flowers from various vases across the train, among various things).

Then I woke up because one of my cats (Katchoo) was throwing up on my desk.

What confuses me is the fact that, because I believe in alternate worlds, and that we visit them while we sleep in dream form, why is THIS reality the most coherent and "normal"? There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why when I "wake up", that this current reality is the one where I have the most logical and timeline- based memories, where I can record my experiences in the other worlds, where I feel more "awake".

The reason I subscribe to the belief that dreams are alternate realities isn't just because of the "brain in a jar" idea (to me, whatever you are experiencing is your current reality, even for dreams or schizophrenics, and you have to navigate each one the best way you can), it's the fact that I CAN read clocks and signs and books in dream worlds, and I have memories and knowledge within those worlds.

The problem is, I wouldn't be able to TRANSCRIBE what I see on a clock face, or computer screen, or street sign, or a book, onto paper in THIS reality (this has led me to believe The Voynich Manuscript might be the product of someone's journey to another reality, albeit being somehow awake and physically present in the other reality while they did so). I can READ in dreams perfectly fine, even in places that are unfamiliar or "made up", despite being unable to write down what I read when I wake up or draw a picture of what exactly I saw on either a digital or analog clock. The memories I have within dreams fit perfectly within the timeline of the dream I am having and are coherent to the situation at hand, but often I'm unable to remember them when I wake up.

The only holes in my theory are experiences of other people's dreams, studies done on sleep and dreams, and sometimes my own experiences. For example, if I fall asleep watching a movie, that will influence my dream, which leads me to wonder if I'm not always visiting other worlds in my sleep. But it could be that because my body from this reality isn't physically there in other worlds, that the noise of this reality is just bleeding through to theirs. Other people experience being unable to read words or numbers in dreams at all. I don't know if I'm just spacial or if they are mistaking the fact that they can't transcribe written words from dreams for being unable to read at all. Sometimes I am a completely different person in other worlds in places I do not recognize upon waking up and remembering the dream. Sometimes I'm just me, in the "normal" world with things slightly changed.

[bogbiter]

League Concept: Bazelgeuse

Finally my own content hooorah!

So, for those who haven't caught on, I love creature/character design, I love Destiny, I love Monster Hunter, and I love League of Legend's world building. This culminated in one of my projects of fan champions inspired by monster hunter and destiny.

Before Bel’veth was even launched, I had grown uninterested in new champs because well riot was going through its shirtless hunk era and the sparkly faced whatever the fuck Lilia is era. And though I like Sett and I can appreciate Yone, they ultimately served the "Sex Sells" argument of champ design. All of this later culminated in the Ruined King event, which just... sucked. Viego was the biggest offender of that, and characters like Gwen really felt like cop-outs. I was excited for a living doll, and we got well...

Anyways alot of complaining I openly was unhappy with the newest designs and among mutuals at the time the main thing brought up is "monsters don't sell", people want to look at something pretty not something unfuckable. I found this concept absurd because I could list many times fiction depicting monsters in a non-scantily clad light took off. And so I created this mini project, inspired by the monster hunter caste.

The idea was to make monstrous champions, from lore to kit to aesthetic, interesting to the player, and engaging enough to revisit. And monster hunter to me, had honed that down. It's a game about hunting creatures that can take up to 40 minutes of just chipping away at fantastical megafauna, taking the kill, reveling in it!-

Than repeating because you need more parts but a good monster! Makes the returning fight still engaging. And one monster I especially loved was Bazelgeuse. A strong bombastic and cinematic theme, a massive hitbox. Literal explosions pouring out of it from bomb like scales... and that reverberating trilling roar was just... mwa! And as a fan of playing as the meaty bastards in top lane Like Volibear, Cho'Gath, Malphite, and Sion, I thought that for a tankier crowd-controlling bruiser we deserve the same spectacle up there!

And so here was my attempt: Kyridon, The Custodian of The Sands.

....

Not all who seek adventure are running from something. Not all who are sent for battle do so for a noble purpose or greater plan. No, some just wish to have their fun. Ever since time memorial, the Rocs were ancient wardens of the skies over Shurima and Targon, their presence usually inciting reverence and awe at their body crushing might. Even more terrifying was their power over flame, and when combined with their explosive dust that showered upon their foes from their feathers, oftentimes turned the earth below into a warzone no man is able to take head on. After the Rune Wars, their numbers waned, and they became a more elusive sight as the centuries carried on. They now patrolled the land as ever searching scavengers, often coming in to feast on the sun-bleached meals of travelers and beast below, occasionally hunting the weakened caravanners or outcast of Targon. Yet occasionally, a Roc might bring home trinkets they exchanged with the wiser nomads of the lands they patrolled, or Guardians who offered them some blessings for their travels. Kyridon, the chick of an eccentric literary collector, would wander to his mother's horde and read up on the epics of the races below. These tales, which told of the Ancient Ascended Rulers of Shurima or the Divine Aspects that protected Targon. His little mind was filled with dreams of great power. He wished to be revered for his might. Or, more simply put: "Look cool beating the shit out of someone."

As Kyridon grew, his form was something else to behold, far longer and more wyverian in design than the massive raptorial visage of his kin. The first sparking of a Roc is usually quite uneventful, as they shed their feathers, they slowly begin to shed the explosive scales their kin are known for, and frequently if was accidentally ignited by the emerging Flame sac the Roc possessed, it is usually but a surprising pop that is far more bark than bite. Kyridon, of course, was not so harmless. His ventral feathers on his neck and tail appeared to be braided, ending in feathered clumps that looked like a rosebud. He wasn't producing the explosive scales the rest of his clutch did, so his father, a venerated warrior, took it upon himself to try and teach his chick how to use their explosive arts. Shaking his body, the larger Roc jumped back, and letting out a blast of fire from his maw, ignited the ember- like cloud lingering on the ground, creating a fantastical explosion. Kyridon looked bewildered, and not wanting to disappoint did the same, but instead, the rose buds bloomed with a fiery glow and fell to the earth like a gourd. As he jumped back, he blew just a small flame onto them, and the explosion it produced threw him back and staggered his father. As the sand and smoke cleared, the crater left was far larger than what was typical of a Roc his age. His son was gifted, incredibly so. Along with his musculature, there was no doubt his son was meant to fight.

For the four years Kyridon lived under his parent's roost, every day, he was taken to train and hunt with his father and the others of his colony. He was their Desert Rose, a poster child for their little enclave where the mountains touched the desolate sands. Their praise, however, diluted his vision, and for all his stoicism, he had grown rebellious as well. With so much power, he wished to claim himself as The Roaming Tyrant of these lands. The Custodian of the Waste!"

It wasn't a gradual takeover either, Kyridon had all the subtlety of a firework's display. At first, he set his eyes to the raiders of the sands, those who followed the "Butcher of the Sands." In his mind, he believed himself to be starting an epic, starting with what he assumed to be the "Bad Guy." And at first, the little almost chortle like squawks he made before he did every attack was confusing, bewildering. Before the Rose Feathers began to pelt the earth, detonating on impact with the sands, throwing man, mount, and ground around. Then, the cries for war became more clear as he descended down to attack his foe- no... his prey.

He'd drop his explosive covering onto the earth, as if outlining a runway... Then he'd release an earth shattering bellow, before the beast crashed into the earth, setting his own explosive feathers off as he dragged himself across the ground. His foes were engulfed in flame, the sands polished into smooth glass. Standing up from the carnage he'd patrol around for survivors, eating whoever wasn't entirely scattered across the wastes, then take off once more.

Soon, his roar, his silhouette, his behavior spread across the land. Tales of the strange roc that dropped bombs upon his targets inspired fear upon those who had to trek the open, as they knew well how standing their ground made it easy for him to dive upon his victims. Yet if they were to run, they heard he would still pursue them, until they broke into cover, in which case they'd hear a cry of pure rage as the explosives would descend onto their shelter, as he flew off to find a better fight. And while at first Kyridon attacked those he knew to be the raiders on the outskirts of his colony's territories... he hungered for another chapter to his story.

He soared over the dunes, immediately working upon asserting himself as the apex of the land. He'd steal kills from the invasive void beast or the crocodilians and jackals of the dunes. His own explosives made for a great way to assert himself in any situation, as most would cower at the carnage raining down from above and the vibrations quaking the earth around them. For those who were perhaps too foolish, they'd be met with the beast landing before them, bill snapping, as it charged at them, Kyridon throwing his weight around with little finesse, focusing more on his brutish strength than any greater level of strategy. It, however, grew boring, it grew stale, they didn't tell stories of scavengers, they told stories of warriors and kings! So he began to survey the land, looking for a fight. After two days of searching, he found it, a scuffle between some desert trolls and shuriman nomads. But from so high up, it seemed like a battle of raiders against one another. Such barbarism had to be dealt with swiftly, and so Kyridon descended onto the battle, his explosive feathers dropping around them in a run by flight, as he soared over them yet again, casting his shadow over their terrified forms. Naturally, they raised their arms, and Kyridon dived for the kill.

The battle that ensued was violent, as the beast let off his explosions around them to create a ring for the brawl. He threw his weight around, dragging his head across the ground as he crashed into the crowd with the force of a comet. Smash into everyone, crash into everything, the reckless abandon befitting of kamikaze. Fire threw from his maw, as spell and blade pierced his side, the one leading the trolls throwing a javelin into his neck, Kyridon dropping more feathers from his neck and tail reflexively. He roared in the heat of the moment out of raw joy of the carnage he participated in, not knowing this peculiar below would be enough to light the fuse. As he turned his head to face the troll in charge of his own entourage, him and his opponent were enveloped in sand and flame. As the smoke subsided, he charged forward, hoping to meet his opponent, and instead found nothing but remains. He performed his usual, searching for something to scavenge on that was intact.

However, as he approached a wagon, having been tossed away due to the explosion, he heard coughing. He was snapped out of his foraging trance. He approached the wagon, tearing the fabric off, finding a human child, singed and with broken legs, the bone visible. Kyridon felt his heart sink. Why was there a child here... They looked so young, why didn't he smell them... Why did he attack then?! Heroes defended the innocent, stood for what's right, and legends favored the noble. He heard a whimper, not just from the child, but the female troll whose weapon was now lodged on the back of his neck. He looked around. Everything else was just charred, broken. His battle trance wavered, and he felt shame, knowing he had scarred this child and that the woman on the other side of the crater had perhaps lost something dear to her too. He spilt blood, and while he found it quite easy and fun, here it just felt... wrong. He was astronomically stronger than most of his opponents. He knew that. He didn't think for a second. That was his problem.

The damage was already done, but maybe he could bring them somewhere safer. He gently took both troll and child into his bill and took off, searching the lands for a village to properly bring them to. He flew faster than he ever had before, and as the sun faded behind the dunes and the moon took its place, he found a village fortified by intricately carved stone. But no matter how high it stood, he could simply glide over. He landed in the middle of a bustling market, mortifying all present. As they cowered in their structures, the guard rushing to aid them and drive away the Roc, Kyridon gently laid the two towns against a stall, before taking wing and leaving the market, fighting the urge to combat the guard who pelted him with arrow and bolt. As he soared across the desert, searching for a new place to roost, the sight of the broken boy and woman twisted something in his gut, and as he finally roosted atop a peak overlooking the dunes, he found no solace in resting, simply questioning what it was all for. Was he the hero of his story, or just a self-serving beast, diluted by grandeur.

He stalked the dunes silently now, searching for prey he deemed able to put up a fight, creatures that did not immediately fall to his attacks. However, it became a struggle in his turf, and thus, he had to go toward the "Great Sai," where the most dangerous beast of the desert sands lurked. He had been warned of the Great Worms of that land, and the Sand Sharks and Earth Swimmers, that they were not of this world, and that even the smallest fought with the ferocity of a Rok. But that's what Kyridon needed, a proper fight. As he soared over The Great Sai, it wasn't long to spot the tunnels made by his new prey. Dropping some of his heavier feathers onto the ground, he'd see the sand part as figures immediately swam in for the kill. Only to arrive just as the explosion set off, throwing those hidden by the dunes away and onto the surface, and thus attracting more prey. This, this was the fight he wanted, those who did not flee from the explosions! He roared out to the swarm of purple chitin layered beast below them, opening up their inky black maws to roar at him. He crashed into the earth, setting off more explosive feathers around him, as the swarm would pour over his form. He did not rest. He did not halt, he tackled swatches of the beast, setting off more explosions that slayed many but drew in even more. Fire scorched and bubbled the exposed flesh of his enemies, his bill chomping through their shells. As they lunged from below and tried to gut him, he'd lift himself into the air, crashing back down on the advancing tide, their bodies splintered and fractured. He did this many times over, scoring dozens of bodies out of it, like a gluttonous demon he'd feast on their bodies for weeks, before diving into the heart of the tide, wishing to partake in the cathartic slaughter of these beasts.

He eventually grew tired and stalked after the Great Void Worms, stealing their meals at first with a surprise assault from his run by explosive tactics. But soon, the beast learned of his tactics and tried to bring the fight to him. Such exciting concepts invigorated him, and he met their own savagery with his unparalleled eagerness to brawl. These fights were the stuff of legends, and many told of that same Bomber Roc tackling the whale sized beast of the sands, sealing their fate. The cries of his prey lingered on for minutes before falling silent, his own cry of victory ringing out across the Great Sai.

His feast was plentiful, subsidized by the invader beast and their caches, he ruled over the skies like some guardian beast. No longer did he pursue the Caravans and those passing under his guise. He was now the brilliance that ruled the dunes, The Custodian Of The Waste. And thus, it put him at odds with the Queen Beast of the Sands, Rek'Sai. Innumerable were their fights together, as he preyed upon her and her kin, and for years The Subterranean Queen and The Avian Tyrant dueled in the Sais, leaving craters in the earth, and tumbling stone monuments. Many let the beast fight, less they attract either the Warhead's Ire or the Queen's Wrath. Of course, the two were met in a stalemate, beings of raw power colliding for one goal: Domination. However, it was obvious Kyridon was undeniably controlling the numbers of Rek'Sai's kin, and so, drawn to the commotion, came a desert wanderer, violet eyes under indigo cloth standing out amidst the sands.

The Traveler wandered for a few days, walking among the skeletons of wildlife and void creatures alike, many embedded in the sides of deep craters. It didn't take long for the Sand Swimmers to grow interested in him, a few lunging forward in the sand to attack the strange nomad. He was unbothered by them. He knew once they got close enough, they could see what he truly was. But before they could, he felt his body tremble when he heard the roar of the one he came to greet. Diving down upon the Sand Swimmers, Kyridon didn't even bother with explosives, simply smashing into everyone, crashing into everything. The Traveler barely avoided the Roc as it tossed about a sand swimmer caught in its jaws, and to the nomad's surprise, the other sand swimmers abandoned their kin to be devoured on the spot. The Traveler hesitated for a bit before confronting the Roc.

"...Are you the Custodian of the Waste?"

The creature hesitated, stopping its crunching and tearing, looking back at him.

"What of it?"

Luckily for him, the creature was not one to immediately fire upon him, he continued to talk with the beast as it pulled its head back, its bill hook helping free softer flesh from muscle and ligaments. He peered into the being's thoughts, probing its mind with greater finesse.

"So- you used to soar all across Shurima, why did you stop in the Sais?"

"I was looking for fights... Just so happened it was... One Sided."

He was growing bored of the conversation, the Traveler could feel it, plus he was almost done with his meal, it wouldn't be long before he took off. The Traveler prepared for the worst, ready to cast a shield upon himself as he forced out his words.

"The Child and Woman, whose friends and family you butchered-"

And Immediately the beast turned to face him, his feathers rising as he stomped over to face the nomad, a fire brewing in the back of his throat. The Traveler had to continue, less a fight would ensue.

"They reside in a village, the same one you dropped them in, and it is under the protection of Xerath. But another, with an army made of the desert itself, is on the warpath, and the Village will not bow to a new king, and so they will be silenced. I came here, so you may quit the fight with the Voidborn, and bring it to someone who is actually endangering the Innocent."

The Roc stared for a bit, his gaze hard to read. He stomped over and as the mage called upon his shield, it saved him from being directly smashed into the earth by the tyrant's swinging head. Yet as they were thrown back into the Earth, Kyridon spread his wings and began to take to the air, looking down at the mage-

"So, youre saying there is a good war to fight?"

----

Kyridon traveled from the Sai and flew to the West, as he was carried by the drafts to gain a higher altitude, trying to find the village he left those two behind all those years ago. He spent three days on the wing, scouring the dusty plains for the fight. On the fourth day he saw a village, in the beginning throes of a siege, a man in the distance raising his hand, and the sands themselves formed into a legion of warriors that marched forward towards the village. This was no raiding party, this was a full out battle. He soared in lower, and could see siege equipment being pushed by men with jackal-like heads, and there in the frontlines, trying to push the Sand Soldiers back, was an older female troll, and a man with prosthetic legs. He for some reason felt his mind revert into a battle trace, as he furrowed his brow, gazing at the sand horde below, catching the attention of the sorcerer general, he then let out a warcry that he hadn't bellowed in sometime. The two at the frontlines looked up, their faces paling. They immediately began to tell their men to fall back past the walls, as rosebud-like feathers bloomed in the air as they fell to the floor, the jackal headed men looking confused.

Then the explosions rang off, as Sand Guardian after Sand Guardian returned to dust as their lines were blown apart. As the Jackal Headed men tried to retreat, they found only a searing heat met them from above, and for those who did not succumb to the flame, a crushing weight as Kyridon crashed head first through the earth. With momentum alone, he carved his way through the enemy lines before fixing himself up onto his back legs, roaring into the heavens as he charged forward, any poor soul trampled underfoot. Their searing blades meant nothing, the presence of his blood on the sand motivated him in ways he hadn't felt before. He threw his neck and tail haphazardly, letting them detonate once they made contact with any of the men surrounding him. His flame turned those closest to him into grains of glass, and those not scorched by the flame were charged at, helping detonate any of his explosives that weren't set off. The village looked on at the war-torn earth, and the one man army pushing the enemies' forces back. A spark returned to Kyridon that hadn't been felt in a long while, the spark of war, of might, what all true legends strive for! To be witnessed!

As the man who set upon this small legion to attack the village began to retreat, the Roc felt the need to pursue and grow stronger. He took to the skies, soaring faster than the man could run, as he trailed explosives behind him, making a runway straight for the coward's position. He began to dive again, his wings out as he barreled into the earth, his head raised and his mouth open to roar as he prepared himself to nab the man with his bill alone. As the explosions set off around him, he grew so close, so close to taking a bite out of the coward!- Only for a wall, one of shields and blades stronger than any stone met him head on, as the beast was thrown back, a massive explosion accompanying his collapse as the world began to dim. When he came to, he saw the village garrison looking on at him in fear and wonder. The Roc clamped his bill together, finding nothing. It audibly groaned as it dragged itself out of the crater, scorch marks everywhere. He flexed his wings, finding no permanent injuries on him. And the army he had been assaulting had disappeared without a trace. Yet that wasn't right. There had been flesh and blood he knew it that much. Unless, of course, their mages had helped them retreat. As soon as he realized what happened, he laughed hysterically. The thrill that fight brought him, the adrenaline! He took wing and soared out to find the man who gave him that brawl and finally finish it off. He wasn't done with this man of sand. He was a Roc on a mission: crashing his foe’s party.

Kyridon Kit:

His Passive is similar to Garren's old passive, where you do more damage to people who have a bounty on them, the theme being you're going after the best fights, and his kit is very explosive and offensive

Passive- The Warhead: Kyridon foes more damage to enemies with a bounty, and after takedown, gains a significant movement speed bonus and temporarily decreases ability cooldown.

Q-Fussilade Torp: Kyridon breathes out fire in a straight line in a straight trajectory, doing ap damage upon impact. Can detonate explosives if they make contact. Enemies marked with Q can be dashed into to knock them off the ground.

W- Piledriver: Kyridon charges forward, doing AD damage and pushing people back. Knocks enemies up into the air after being hit by Q, and impact with explosives will cause them to detonate.

E- Gravefall: Kyridon drops a set of interactive explosives in a given area, which, when detonated deal AD damage with AP afterburn. These can be triggered with Q or W.

R- Party Crasher: A chanelling ability, Kyridon flies overhead, dropping explosive feathers as to make a "Runway," which he then then crashes through the entire length of till reaching the end, creating explosions on both sides.

....

It's pretty obvious even when reading, and especially look at this raggedy ass doodle I did his inspirations

Visually he takes Inspiration from Bazelgeuse from Monster Hunter and Phoenix from Dota 2. This is done to add weight to his character and to add a feeling of luminous to him, as if he wishes to be the center of attention. And it helps make him stand out. He is heavy bodied with a massive tail, but instead is alit like a fire, with a sharp bill and robust wings that make him feel as though every scene he is in he captures everyone's awe. Or terror.

Also because Phoenix from Dota 2 is a comfort character and I wanted to make Kyridon a bird.

Kyridon might not be subtle, but he speaks like a Herculean hero. He is full of pride but also believes that for his legacy to live on, he must constantly punch above his weight class. He isn't looking to bully people weaker than him. He's looking to provoke someone stronger than him.

He is utterly violent and bombastic, but he uses his aggression to find higher purpose and praise. This is why he finds kinship with the concepts of self-made legends. People who raised above their station. To him, that is like the ideal dream and aspiration to hold to. Unfortunately, his tactics are pretty mid, and his intimidating bulk is what keeps him from being minced meat.

I am redoing the first one because he deserves it, and I have some destiny Inspired champions I can post here if that is anyone's cup o tea.

[crims0nfangs]

DEMON SLAYER OC!!

Her design is a bit rough, I'll probably eventually go back and edit her kimono cloak thing to make it feel more accurate (if anyone has tips lmk, I'm very bad at designing clothes in general. I'd even do an art trade if someone can design me an accurate version with the same concept!!) But this is how she is for now.

I'll put her rough backstory down below!

She was born to a family of hunters in the mountains, near a small hunting village. This village worshiped a "Mountain god", who was said to bless them with the best game if they respected the land. Her mother and father were very dysfunctional, fighting over money and other things nearly every day. Due to this for most of her childhood Izanami spent all her time roaming the mountains, hunting and honing her skills. Besides that, she loves nature and animals and spent a lot of time caring for them, and has strong ethics around the act of hunting.

During one of her outings she comes across a Honshū wolf, thought eradicated. It was heavily wounded by hunters, and she saved it. It then became her loyal companion.

One night after an expedition, she comes back home to find it in flames, and her mother and father dead. Knowing that the mountain god betrayed them, she sought it out for revenge. Upon finding the mountain god, she was never the same.

The mountain god was actually a demon, who only killed her family after her father had set their home on fire in an attempt to kill his wife and move on. This demon, although twisted, is benevolent to the villagers as long as they respect him and his land, and shows some sympathy for this girl and sees potential in her being a demon as well. In an attempt to convince her to become a demon, he turns her wolf into a demon. This enraged Izanami and she attempts to fight the demon only to be cornered in a small rocky crevice. The demon sits outside attempting to wait her out to convince her to accept becoming a demon.

Her wolf, still loyal to her and now with demonic powers, communicates with her. The wolf offers it's life to her, and it's powers, to merge with her flesh and give her only a temporary demonic state. Izanami refuses, but the wolf doesn't want her to become a demon or die, so it cuts off its own head and tells her to consume its flesh to merge with it. Izanami, in desperation and anger, tries, but instantly throws up and states she'd rather die. In that one bite, however, the changes already began, and she blacks out. 

She wakes up battered and far away, without recollection of what actually happened and without the wolf at her side, but its spirit now merged with hers.

///

Basically she has the same demon eating powers as Genya, with a little story as to how she got those powers! To my knowledge there isn't an explanation on how Genya himself got those powers, so I took the liberty of making something original. Although unlike Genya Izanami uses her own breathing form as well. The rough name for this breathing form is Dream Breathing.

Her breathing technique is very stealthy, quick, and based on killing the enemy or inflicting lots of damage before they're aware of your presence, almost like putting them to sleep. It comes off very peaceful and tranquil.

She uses a Yumi with Nichirin tipped arrows as well as a short, dagger like sword for close up combat.

Nami (for short) is very quiet, both in speech and in mannerisms. She can be a little cold, and often rejects shows of affection or attempts at gratitude. Her sole worry is eradicating the "evil gods", aka demons, to the point she is a severe insomniac and hardly ever sleeps. When she eventually has to and caves, she'll be asleep for a whole day or possibly even more, often falling asleep in a tree or somewhere hidden. She's an expert hunter and survivor on the mountains, similar to Inosuke, earning some interest and respect from him.

Her and Genya have some sort of past together, meeting during final selection. I haven't figured entirely what I want it to be yet 👀 we'll see what I cook up.

I hope someone finds her interesting, and I'm excited to develop her further!

If you have a demon slayer oc and would like to have them interact, or have her cameo in a piece or something, please feel free, just make sure to show me cuz 👀 demon slayer brainworms lol

[fearmyongering]

note: do not repost this image. if you find this on someone else's profile, just comment my username on their post (dandelione01whatever on tumblr and dandelione._01 on instagram). no need for further arguments. just do the right thing.

꒰⁠ Demonstration of a Relevant Ability: Rain in a Miniscule Scale ꒱

The campus greenhouse was a popular site for students to flock to, doing all sorts of activities inside. Whether it be for the purpose of hanging out only and admire the year-round wet weather through glass walls coated in raindrops, or for agricultural research and other academic-related tasks. This Garden of Eden in a transparent house, filled with flora from floor to ceiling, sometimes attracting tiny flying fauna, has got you covered with all of your needs.

Clouds of small amounts spawn around a set of basil plants and other herbs that had been crossbred since at least two months in an experiment conducted by Denver and Madeleine in an attempt to create a hybrid plant which will be used in the field of medicine. Rain showers the newly bred herb, absorbing every drop of it yet just enough to keep it from being overfed, the cloud slowly disappearing in the process. Denver watches through the entire act, mesmerized at the thought of seeing the regular precipitation in a smaller scale.

"That looked beautiful." He says as he takes a closer glance at the shrinking wisp, fighting off the urge to let his finger feel through it, knowing that the rainwater must not contain any dirt from his hands. So-called 'magic' was a common thing, a trait often categorized based on the ancient Greek concept of the four fundamental elements; air, earth, water, and fire; albeit only about half the population possesses them naturally, otherwise it is learned by those who aren't capable of it. Yet, it still never disappoints to mesmerize the human eye.

"I find it beautiful as well. I would sometimes create little tornadoes about the size of my palm as demonstration for when I get bored or when I'm studying about meteorology." Madeleine slightly smiles at the compliment, a bit embarrassed upon receiving it for something so trivial— at least to her. She then lifts her left hand, a cloud fading in around her before lifting itself in thin air.

"Don't get me wrong, but I don't see why you have to compliment that when you can speed up the growth of plants, quickly let flowers bloom and fruits to ripen— a very relevant ability for agriculture. Crops would be flooding in the markets with an ability like yours."

"Well, thank you. This wouldn't have been possible under five months if it weren't for wizardry." He watches as the clouds float around her, now travelling to the other plants displayed. Hesitating for a minute, Denver finally asks a question he found rather childish.

"My apologies for bringing up a silly question, but would you mind if I touch those?" He points at the clouds that Madeleine may have seemed to forgot spawned just a few moments ago.

"Ah, these? Sure. I wouldn't mind. They're cold and made of really tiny droplets, so they're a bit damp as well. You really wouldn't feel a solid texture." With a move of her hand, one lowered and moved between them, allowing Denver to easily touch it without reaching up and struggling. He lets his hand through the cloud, feeling a sudden cold, yet humid texture exactly like she described.

"It feels cold, and a bit funny for some reason. Great how these give us water in many forms when they themselves are made of it."

"Congratulations, you have experienced a childhood dream of many." She chuckles and he did as well before going back to their experiment.

~~~~~~~~~~

More content about Dandelion and his equally nerdy friend. There are a lot to unpack about their setting which I may or may not have publicized, such as the fact that magic exists, and is something aquired through either birth or learning and training. Madeleine is capable of manipulating clouds, and Denver can manipulate plant growth. Both have their limitations, Madeleine having to take an incapable amount of physical energy just to create a supercell cloud, causing her to become severely exhausted and pass out, her physique weaker than average serving as an obstruction and limitation. Denver's ability is limited to plant growth only, not being able to prevent its death. They still tend to play around with their abilities despite that.

Anyways, the final two characters out of six will be put into progress afterwards.

~~~~~~~~~~

[textfromthelookout]

oh shit, you're right

uh, character things, i guess

idk, I just like seeing your big essays and want to know your thoughts on the funny racism lizard, character wise

Character things about Freeza, huh?

Now, Freeza’s my personal favorite villain in Dragon Ball as a whole, has been for a long time. It’s that he bothers with the professionalism, I think—that veneer of civility that’s almost insulting in how thinly it hides his true nature. But like, what’re you gonna do, tell him off? You can sense that he’s almost daring them to sometimes, just so he has an excuse to kill them. Take that together with his other attributes—charismatic, arrogant, opportunistic (in how he tries to recruit Goku to his side before throwing down with him), to name a few—and you have a great villain on your hands.

I’ve always thought the ‘genocide planets so they can sell them to other species’ mission statement of his whole operation was a little far-fetched. How can that be profitable in any way? How many species really need rehoming? Why would they even need to, aside from imminent planetary destruction or uninhabitability, and how often does that happen? How often do the endangered races even have time to broker a deal for that kind of thing? Or is it like, a money sink for the wealthy, having your own private planet?

I suppose the issue of why he needs money in the first place can be explained by him being royalty and acting like it too—someone with his pedigree doesn’t go anywhere in anything second-rate, and it better always be running in tip-top form. In more than a few ways he’s like Vegeta, actually—the never-before-toppled purebred genius humbled by some hick from nowhere. Unlike Vegeta though, he’s evil without repent—I’m inclined to believe that the real reason for this supposed occupation of his is simply that he enjoys sadism and slaughter for its own sake.

I digress. Like I said, he gets much more interesting to start dissecting after he dies two and a half times, and it becomes clear that there have been changes in him. They’re very subtle, but they’re there! The turning point for him is the Tournament of Power.

You see, Freeza learned to trust there, even if it was against his will. When he demands to know if Goku hasn’t forgotten his promise to bring him back to life, he’s asking ‘Can I trust you? Can I trust you to keep your word on that?’ And Goku flat out tells him ‘I’ll keep my word—you know that better than anyone.’ And Freeza does know that, loathe though he is to admit it. Goku didn’t go through with killing him after beating him on Namek—he fully intended to leave. Maybe, in addition to the humiliation and rage over his defeat, there was some mistrust in that final attack that forces Goku's hand.

It can’t be coincidence, can it? That when Jiren is ruminating on his realization of how powerful trust is, it’s over an image of Freeza and Goku—in the forms they were in during Namek—working together. The fascinating thing about Goku and Freeza’s relationship, to me, is that… well, they’re each the only person that the other seems to truly hate. Goku is never more hostile—even in Super, though I admit it’s a much more masked hostility—than when he’s around Freeza. Freeza, for his part, isn’t typically invested enough in anybody to bother to hate them. People are playthings to him, they’re beneath anything more than mild interest. Does an elephant hate the ant that bites it? Does it even notice it’s there? The only exception to this is Goku. I mean, how are you meant to interpret ‘I spend every tortured hour in this hellscape dreaming of fighting you again’ as anything other than obsessively invested?

You can see, perhaps, some evidence of this change in how he acts during the Broly movie. He’s less hair-trigger. Kikono blanches when Berryblue teases Freeza about his wish to grow taller, which implies that it’s commonly known that talking about his height is a surefire way to get yourself killed, and that he expects something to happen. But rather than immediately atomizing her, or at least threatening to, Freeza just kinda… takes it. Yes, yes, you’re very perceptive, Berryblue. Oh and Kikono, I trust you’re not going to tell anyone about this? Rather than just killing everyone in the room. Yeah, maybe it’s just that he’s short on personnel, but. He justifies it as wanting a way to balance the scales since he has to contend with both Vegeta and Goku, but he wants someone else—Broly, specifically—by his side.

Freeza trusted Goku in the Tournament of Power, and even if they’ll never, ever be on the same side again, Freeza can trust now. That’s going to be fucking terrifying if he finds someone who trusts him too.

[star-anise]

I'm up around 3am, thinking about incels and tradwives. (Note: If these are movements you're a fan of, or if you just want to fight with me generally, I will block you if you annoy me, and even if you behave there's a $20 fee if you expect me to actually reply to you in any way.)

This got started because of Khadija Mbowe's and F.D Signifier's videos about Black patriarchy, which has led me to pick up bell hooks' 2004 book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.

The thing that hooks says that really knocked my socks off in a "how dare you notice that" way is that a lot of people, men and women alike, are angry not just because of the male violence they've experienced, but because of the lack of male love they've experienced.

Which like, part of being human means that being seen and cared about is pretty viscerally equated with survival in our brains. We want it, we need it, we suffer when it isn't there. To be seen and genuinely loved by the people in our lives matters, so we are always affected when there's someone important to us who doesn't seem to see us, to love us, to care about our wellbeing, or to be proud of our accomplishments. It matters to be disregarded, rejected, or shamed by someone we want to love us.

But no power in the world can compel another person to give a shit about you—a truth most of us spend our lives frantically suppressing because being unloved is terrifying, so we work at being better, more attractive, smarter, more accomplished, more charming, sexier, or to be brutally honest, more lovable. But when we do experience a lack of love, a lot of us take that anger and decide to opt for second best. If we can't be loved, we can at least be powerful. Power can take a lot of forms, but because the lack of male love often goes hand-in-hand with violence, people who face it generally want, at the very least, to not be hurt anymore.

But there's another element in play. Patriarchal gender roles divide behaviours and skills in a very particular way: Boys and men are expected to use power to dominate, and girls and women are supposed to use emotions to tend and nurture. Anyone who fails to perform those roles gets harshly punished. Terrence Real talks about how this leaves men with very limited knowledge of their own emotional needs or how to communicate them to other people, and Paul Kivel talks about how boys are taught that this is women's work—that if they are masculine enough, they will attract a woman who will make sure that they feel loved and cared about. How a great deal of men's anger towards women is the feeling that women are witholding this essential service, or failing to fully handle men's emotions (which is pretty damn common, since humans aren't telepaths so it's basically impossible to reach inside someone's head and change their emotions for them).

So hooks notes that women are just as likely to uphold patriarchal gender roles as men, and one element of that is women's anger when men are emotionally vulnerable. Men who confess to their partners that they feel lost and ashamed and unworthy of love are doing exactly what women keep saying we want men to do, but the reaction many women have is a kind of incredulous frustration—"You want me to handle all this? Fuck no, I'm busy!"

Part of that reaction is that in patriarchal gender roles, it is a woman's literal job to completely soothe and manage her male partner's emotions—to diligently praise him, make him feel more accomplished, and to reassure him of her ongoing love and admiration in all things. And that is a lot of work that is quite likely not to succeed because it's really hard to talk someone out of a self-hating funk. (There's also an element of just plain sexism. Even without the implied demand for help, some women just think men's vulnerability is pathetic or laughable.)

The feminist response to this that hooks, Real, and Kivel advocate for is to spread the load a little more evenly; to work to reduce the violence with which gender roles are policed, to allow men to be soft and emotional, but in the process, give them the emotional skills to handle the shame and dread we all feel sometimes about not being lovable or or worthy, and empower them to form many different emotionally fulfilling relationships.

So the thing about incels is, they tend to be obsessed with finding a woman who will make them feel worthy, sexy, accomplished, admirable, and dominant, like a "real man". The prospect of getting a woman is the single potential oasis of love and support in an incredibly bleak desert landscape in which a romantic partnership is the only possible source men are permitted to seek love and care from. A man who hasn't gotten a girl is a pathetic loser whose life is meaningless.

What that entire worldview takes for granted is how the desert became a desert in the first place. How boys learn to fear the violence and rejection that comes from stepping out of their gender role by being emotionally vulnerable or by emotionally nurturing somebody else; how emotional knowledge and expression are punished by a system that says men should always seek to dominate. The desire for a female partner rests on a bedrock of learned fear and contempt for the idea that men can or even should have the kind of emotionally close and supportive friendships among themselves that women tend to have with each other.

Incels are the fucking allegory of the long spoons in action. They gather in huge numbers to discuss their pain, frustration, and disappointment about their difficulty attaining a relationship that provides emotional fulfillment, but it's impossible for them to try to seek or offer that kind of relationship with the many many people right there also looking for love, because violating the gender rules means inviting violence and ostracism. Affection and mutual esteem between men is super gay and doesn't count, especially when it's provided because of a mutual vulnerability instead of admiration for achievement. So it's incredibly hard for incels to in any way break out of the mental cage that says the way to be loved is to be as masculine, as stoic and unemotional and successful and admirable and dominant as possible. And because being dominant tends to require people to be better than, incels spend a lot of time criticizing each other for failing to be masculine enough, and therefore not worthy of love.

Meanwhile... tradwives.

If you're into men, the dream of being truly loved by a man who will take care of you and make your life materially better is fucking amazing stuff. That's just... that's just The Dream, okay? The romance industry's extreme popularity decade after decade will tell you what bell hooks also notes: Women who are into men want to be loved by men SO MUCH.

So it really seems to me that the basic appeal of being a tradwife is managing to be submissive enough to get the men they love to genuinely show up and fully commit to loving them. If conflict in relationships happen because men feel threatened in their masculinity or not fully loved by their wives, then gosh darnit, these women will plaster themselves over the cracks to make sure there are absolutely no problems. That will earn them a relationship where they are truly loved and appreciated.

(It's a trap. I hate to say it, but we're not a telepathic species, and you will never manage to be good enough to actually change what someone else feels. No matter how hard you submit, your husband will still feel moments of doubt and fear and inadequacy, because he's human and we're built like that. It's the cross we have to bear as a species. And it does not go well at all if both of you are used, in those moments, for blaming you for whatever you "did" to "make" him feel that way.)

[adorerdraco]

Not My Type (Like You) ✧ Draco x Reader

Request: you should like do a one shot or even another mini series about amortentia/love potions in general. i’d soooo read that

AU SEVENTH YEAR WHERE VOLDY NEVER CAME BACK <3 f**k that mf !

italics are for flashbacks <3 i love them if you couldn’t tell 

Warnings: mean!draco, cursing, more mature themes/ideas, little bit of spice towards the end teehee but not too much bc idk how to write smut to save my life

Words: 4.5K

A/N: I saw a tiktok that kinda inspired this and i couldn’t get the idea out of my heaaaad if anyone knows which one im talking ab send it my way so i can show !!!! ALSO I LOVE THIS ONESHOT I LOVE DRACO AND I AM IN MY FEELINGS this might be my new favoriteeeee

Draco Malfoy was insufferable.

The Prince of Slytherin was unbearable for many reasons, things you've been taking notice of since your first year at Hogwarts when you accidentally had the ”pleasure” of interacting with him when he called you stupid in a class for reciting a spell incorrectly. That day, a hostility blossomed. A hostility that ensued nothing but teasing, mocking, and criticizing that would sometimes go too far and you'd both have to be pulled away from each other by your friends’ before either of you said anything excessively harsh that had no return.

You often felt like Malfoy sought you out to bother you and only for that. You could be sitting in the Quad with friends, conversing and laughing like nothing in the world mattered, and a few minutes later you'd be hurling insults towards the blond across the courtyard after he would yell something infuriating to you with that smug smirk on his face and his goons laughing wildly beside him as if he just said the most hilarious thing they've ever heard. 

On the days you’d ignore him, not having the patience or the energy to deal with him, he would still somehow find a way to push your buttons. Little things here and there like passing you in the corridors and tugging at the ends of your hair gingerly like a child but enough to tick you off or sending you notes from across the class in the form a small fluttering bird with a lousy drawing of you usually with a message along the lines of, “Y/L/N, hopefully, this note finds itself in the nest of hair you have today xx DM.”

In all honesty, there wasn’t a day you didn’t encounter Draco and it’s been that way for seven long years. Neither of you ever gotten tired of mildly or spitefully bullying each other and neither of you ever dreamed of stopping. He was one of the few constants in your daily life, and you in his. It was like you both lived on annoying the other, and in the midst of all the chaos that you brought to one another; there was a small, teeny, tiny acquaintance - not that either of you would ever admit it. You may have noticed it the time you bet each other ten galleons for who would win in the Triwizard Tournament your fourth year and he bet on Viktor Krum while you on Cedric Diggory. (he’s very much alive i refuse to think otherwise.)

“So you’re telling me, your mother is the reason why you’re not at Durmstrang,” you scoffed. “This whole time I could have been saved four years of headaches.”

“You’re just jealous some of us have more opportunities than others,” he snarks back pompously. “Unlike you, I hardly believe you would be graceful enough to even be considered admission into Beauxbatons.”

You had gone to see the last task of the competition just like the rest of the schools, all packed tightly onto the stands and watching carefully the exit of the maze. Naturally, you had arrived with your own friend groups, but somewhere during the time of sitting there and even being a few rows behind the blond and his minions, the two of you had met in the middle bench after he was trying to prove something wrong to you. 

When Cedric appeared back in front of the stands with the glowing Triwizard cup held high over his head in victory and every Hogwarts student loudly celebrating, you had jumped up from your seat and shook wildly an irked Draco beside you. He roughly shrugged your hands off his stiff shoulder, looking up at you with a sneer that you met with a bright beaming smile.

“Pay up, Malfoy!” You held out your hand towards him, opening and closing your fingers to receive the bet money. “I believe it was ten galleons you owe me.”

He begrudgingly reached into his coat pocket and fished out the coins, counting them defeatedly before tossing them into your palm. “What a waste of galleons.”

“Hey, you made the bet,” you reminded him with a still very bright smile. You shoved the money into your pockets, keeping one of the gold coins in between your fingers, and gave him a small hair ruffle that he harshly recoiled from before you turned to jump back up towards the level of stands your friends were originally sitting at.

“Were you really sitting with Malfoy this whole time?” One of your friends questioned when you reached them, a goading smirk on his face.

“Ooooh, she definitely was,” another friend piped up, wiggling her eyebrows. “They’re obsessed with each other.”

“Shut up,” you smack her arm casually, showing the pair the one gold galleon you were holding. “We are not. I was only sitting with him to get my bet money.”

“Sure,” they drawled in unison, sniggering when you threw your head back in annoyance.

You looked down the rows to see the mop of white hair you just sent into disarray. He was slowly descending the stairs of the stands with Crabbe and Goyle following closely behind him. Almost as if he felt your eyes on his back, he turned back to look at you, his cold gray eyes gazing into yours. It was like everything around you went quiet, the only thing in your focus was him and all you could do was stare back. It wasn’t until your friends started stifling laughter and whispering “aww’s” that you snapped out of the short-lived and odd few second trance you were in. He waited for you to do something before he turned back around, and you did - by holding up both hands; the one golden galleon on your left and your middle finger on your right, grinning to yourself when he rolled his eyes throwing you the finger right back before he finally disappeared into the mob of people below.

You were briskly walking down the corridors, books held tightly to your chest with your friend at your side while you made your way to Advanced Potions with Slughorn after Snape finally made his way into the DADA position. It was an easy class, potions being something you had a knack for and it gave you enough leisure to mess with your “favorite” Slytherin who shared it with you. 

“Look there goes your boyfriend,” your friend teases, elbowing your upper arm roughly and nodding her head down towards the hall to the tall blond appearing around the corner and entering swiftly into the class.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you hiss. “I’m tired of everyone saying that. I hate him and he hates me, end of story.”

“You know when you say you hate him, it just sounds like the opposite,” she says tauntingly. “Besides, hate is a strong word and very misplaced. Maybe, it’s just years of built-up tension that both of you have been too nervous to do anything about.”

“Tension? Yeah, I want to strangle him,” you laugh to yourself at the thought.

“Not that tension, idiot,” she shakes her head, “I mean sexual tension...clearly.”

You gave her a horrified look mixed between being disgusted and being offended. You held your hand over your mouth and pretended to gag as dramatically as you could. “I am appalled that you would even say that. I would rather be locked in a room with Filch and Peeves and hear them argue and fight all day than to be with Malfoy like that.”

“Come on, think about it,” she encourages, stopping the two of you a little ways away from the classroom. “You guys 'hate' each other?” She finger quotes the hate, looking at you with a raised eyebrow. “When you hate someone, you don’t go out of your way to talk to them every day.”

“It’s not like that,” you wave a hand dismissively. “Also, this isn’t a cliche, this is real life. We hate each other, that is all there is to it.”

You picked up the walk again, your friend to following behind you while letting out a deep and exhausted sigh. You couldn’t help but think about what she said, sure, perhaps at one point you thought Draco was attractive with his bright silver hair, his glittering gray eyes, his little button nose that he would crinkle up every other word he spoke in his charming haughty voice, or the way he’d tower over you in the middle of a conversation gone wrong and he’d be talking lowly to you but all you’d be able to focus on was the sweet scent of apples and cologne that radiated off of him.

“No,” you whispered almost silently to yourself, forcing yourself out of your thoughts and shaking your head from side to side as if it was going to get the image out of your head. He was mean, disrespectful, arrogant, and insulted you daily - even if you both laughed about it or gave props for the perfect jabs.

The first thing your eyes landed on when you walked into the dingy Potions classroom was Draco, his focus trained on the ceiling as if he was deep in thought. Just as his eyes were about to flicker down towards you, and sensing that he was about to, you quickly avoided his gaze and concentrated onto Slughorn who was waiting patiently by his desk with a bubbling cauldron for you and your friend to join the crowd in front of him.

“Great! Now that we’re all here,” Slughorn began excitedly, fixing the sleeves of his robes as he grabbed the ladle in the cauldron and began stirring it while continuing his lecture. 

You were trying to listen, capturing only the professor’s last sentence as he called on someone who raised their hand. All attention was thrown out the window when you realized Draco was standing near said classmate, a look of annoyance suddenly clouding his features when his pale eyes met yours.

“What?” He mouthed. You ignored him, trying to turn your concentration back onto Slughorn but nothing he was saying made sense, and right as you caught a word you did understand, a shuffling and an abrupt arm knocking into yours threw you right back out of the loop.

“Watch it,” you snap hushedly when you notice who it is. “Why are you over here?”

“I can’t say hello to my number one fan?” He whispers back, snickering slightly when you scoffed quietly.

“Fan? Says the one who shoved his way through the crowd to come over here,” you grumble, crossing your arms. 

“I hardly shoved,” he mutters. “I only moved because I couldn’t see Slughorn from where I was standing. Not everything’s about you.”

“Really? Because to me, it seemed like you came over here for my attention.”

He let out a breathy chuckle, a patronizing smile making its way onto his face. The type of typical boy smile where his mouth is half agape with his tongue smoothing over his teeth as he stared off across the room with his fingertips rubbing thoughtfully against his jawline as he thought of what to say. You stood still as he bent down, nearing his mouth towards your ear and whispering hotly, “you wish, darling.”

Slughorn sent everyone to their paired tables, and as everyone began moving and Draco sauntered off away from you, you stood stuck there, shocked with the lingering chills that were sent down your spine from your archnemesis’ comment.

“I told you, you’re into each other,” your friend sang expectantly from behind you, grabbing onto your sleeve and directing the two of you towards your table. 

You were working peacefully at your workspace, cutting up, peeling, and crushing the ingredients that your friend was sliding across the surface to you. In the table behind you was where Draco was working annoyingly quiet, tossing the stripped stems of the roses at you that you had to peel, tiny thorns pricking at your ankles through your socks since the bigger thorns had been taken off for the potion. As payback, you would throw back loose extra pearl dust you ground up, giggling tauntingly when he would frown at you for getting the coarse white powder all over his Italian leather shoes and most definitely inside of them as well.

When you, and seemingly the rest of the class, had finally thrown in all the ingredients and the potion promptly finished brewing, beautiful clouds of white and pink smoke began rising from the cauldrons, each one having a lovely scent of first; freshly pressed high-priced linens, then a faint smell of a brand new racing broom out of a box with a freshly polished wood handle that then quickly transformed into a sweet harvest of apples, green specifically, and finally...

“Ugh, gross,” you pinched your nostrils closed, turning your body around and sending a scowl towards Draco’s way. “Malfoy, we get it, your cologne is expensive, now stop spraying it. I was smelling all these wonderful things and you ruined it.”

He arched an eyebrow at you, looking at you as if you were crazy. “Are you mad? I didn’t spray anything, I think you’ve finally lost it.”

“Well you laid it on too heavy this morning then, it reeks in here.”

“You’re one to talk, Y/L/N. Did you bathe yourself in that dreadful perfume you wear just now? And that ghastly lip shiner thing you use,” He sneers, crinkling up his nose. “I can’t even think straight, I might vomit.”

“Lip shiner? It’s called lip balm, you prat,” you retort, crossing your arms angrily. “Either way, I haven’t used or sprayed anything either so-”

“For Merlin’s sake!” Your friend suddenly exasperated loudly from beside you making you briskly whirl around to look at her, a look of pure annoyance etched onto her face. “Are you two really that daft? Honestly? Have you been paying attention to anything other than each other? For instance, the potion we just made?”

This gained the attention of your classmates around you in the surrounding tables, turning their heads slightly but not obviously with small knowing smirks on their faces while they snickered quietly and listened. It was soundless as you reached towards the book in front of your friend, pulling it painstakingly slow towards you in fear of the words that were written on the open page.

“Amortentia,” you muttered glumly as you read the page, pushing it away from you dejectedly as everything began to click.

“The reason you’re both smelling each other is because you’re what the other desires and is attracted to. Wow, what a revelation! As if the whole school didn’t already know.”

You were afraid to turn around. You could feel the cold and hard pair of eyes burning holes onto your back and the immediate amount of whispers and giggles of the people around you. Luckily, Slughorn was busy at the other end of the room, working diligently with another pair of students who managed to mess up their potion. 

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Draco announces finally.

“What’s so ridiculous about it?” You questioned, your heart falling to the pit of your stomach when you turned again and took notice of the way his lips were curling upwards as if it was the most disgusting thing he could have ever heard.

“Think about it, Y/L/N,” he deadpans. “Why would I ever desire someone like you?”

There had been occasions over the years when you were in this situation. None as drastic and as revealing, but there would be times when friends and others would poke fun and say the exact same thing your friend told you earlier. The usual, “they got the hots for each other!” and you would always brush it off and joke about how you could never, and he’d do the same. It was always amongst laughs and jokes, but as you looked at the Slytherin in front of you - there wasn’t a hint of amusement on his hardened face.

“Piss off, Malfoy,” you seethed, biting down hard on your lip to refrain from lashing out either in tears or in insults, you couldn’t decide. “If I’m so revolting, leave me alone from now on, I mean it.”

“I never said that,” he argues. “You’re just simply not my type.”

For some eerie, awful reason, the words tore into you like a sharpened knife going easily through butter. You were used to his insults, his mocking, his comments about your appearances - but this hurt, and you couldn’t explain why. You thought, for a second, possibly, that maybe your friend was right. Maybe there was a hidden attraction you had for the platinum blond that you buried deep away and one that he had for you. There was no way that was the case now, not at all. 

And for the first time in your life, you couldn’t be more sure of a simple little fact.

You hated him.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 

You don’t know how long you spent sitting in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, back against the cold tiled wall with your knees brought up to your chest. Your friends had tried to console you after the public rejection and humiliation, but their words only made you feel worse. You felt silly for being so bothered about being rejected by Malfoy, he wasn’t exactly someone you fancied, to begin with.

After dinner, you went off the grid and found yourself where you’re now sitting. The ghostly girl flew restlessly around you, popping out of her stall now and then to chat but then going back into her abyss of nothing when she learned you were still upset. You noticed it made her a little too pleased, considering the fact it was always her who was miserably wailing about her problems in the bathroom. She tried to hide it and let you talk to her about how you felt, but she gave terrible advice most of the time. 

“Well, if it was me, I would have never started fancying someone who was mean to me,” she mumbled. “Like when Paul Wighorn made fun of my hair for a whole year and laughed when I cried. I hated his guts then and I still do now.”

She had a point, but she was also Myrtle. Nothing about the overly dramatic ghost made sense.

“I don’t fancy him, It’s just weird,” you trail off. “I can’t imagine a day without him, even if he is a complete arse. We always joked about how we hated each other, but I didn’t think he actually meant it, I guess.”

“I think you do fancy him, though,” she whispers knowingly in your ear, making you flinch from her cold draft. “Stop denying it, it’ll only keep making you feel worse. Amortentia doesn’t lie, silly. Maybe when you drink it, but before that, all real feelings are there, whether you know it or not.”

You sat quietly, taking in her words before something came crashing down onto you like a wall of bricks.

“I suppose that means he’ll have to stop denying it too,” she adds thoughtfully. 

“Myrtle,” you rush to get up, smoothing your hair down profusely and fixing the wrinkles in your clothes. “You’re a genius.”

“I am?” She asks excitedly. “What did I say?”

You waved her off, giving her another thank you before rushing out of the bathroom and into the empty corridors. You were trying to go back to your dorm to sleep, hoping that when tomorrow came you would be bold enough to confront the Slytherin Prince but it was thirty minutes past curfew, something you didn’t notice until you were bustling down the steps in a rush and came face to face with the man of the hour himself doing his Prefect patrolling duties.

“Go to your dorm, Y/L/N,” he sneers. “I’ll take away house points, don’t test me,”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That I’ll take away house points? Watch me. Five-”

“No, you twat,” you groan, swatting his arm with your hand. “I don’t believe that I’m not your type.”

He stayed wordless for a moment, biting the inside of his cheeks and clenching his jaw as he peered down at you from his lanky height. “Why not?”

“Because I didn’t think you were my type until the amortentia made me aware of it,” you answer quietly. “Actually, my friend had a hand in it, but it was mostly the potion.”

Silence, again. Still and deadly. You could hear the large clocks around the school tick and tock, the hundreds of paintings snoring peacefully or chattering quietly. You avoided looking up at the boy in front of you, all of a sudden feeling small under his gaze until you felt cold fingers brush against your cheekbone and then softly through your hair causing you to finally look up into the soft wandering almost blue eyes. 

“I didn’t find out with the amortentia,” he muttered almost reluctantly as if it was the most difficult thing he had to reveal. “I’ve known I’ve liked you for a while.”

“How long is a while?” You curiously wonder aloud.

“I’m not telling,” he smirks. “Perhaps you’ll figure it out one day.”

Both hands came up to rest on your cheeks, slightly cold but soft and tender. It sent chills throughout your body as he took a step closer to you and then closer, backing you carefully into the diagonally ascending stone wall that went in the direction of the stairs. Your breathing was getting uneven, you noticed the way you accidentally switched to manually forcing yourself to inhale and exhale normally when he leaned down with his face now being mere centimeters from yours. It was torture, having your eyes closed and feeling the way his nose was brushing against yours, minty breath warm against your lips as he ghosted over them with his. He was so close, you smelt everything that was in the damn potion that got you here. It sent flutters of warmth down your body, trickling down and seeping deeply into every bone in your body as if this is was the remedy its been needing. This is what you’ve been missing.

When you finally felt a soft pair of lips being pressed into yours, it felt almost unreal that you were there. It was awkward the first couple of seconds, both of you wondering how in the world had you gotten yourselves in this position, but after you relaxed and he found his Prince of Slytherin confidence - it was magic. His lips moved languidly against yours, affectionately and full of longing. He kept his hands on your cheeks, still timid to move anywhere else while you kept yours resting lightly on his sides. It scared you a little, how fast and how easily you melted into each other, like if this was something you’ve been doing with him for years rather than torment the other for laughs. 

You hated the feeling when he pulled away, a gust of freezing castle air passing through the space between you and cooling your lips and face from his contact. His hands dropped down to his sides and he looked down at you with a small smile, a teeny bit smug, but happy. You wanted to feel the same way, but a question still loomed over your head, overpowering the giddiness you were vividly feeling.

“Why did you lie earlier?” You question softly, directing your gaze to the floor. “In class, I mean.”

He thought about his answer for a second, sighing deeply when he realized he had to uncover more truths about himself to you. You took a mental observation at that, he didn’t like to talk about feelings. “You didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at me. I thought I’d beat you to it and reject you before you could reject me.”

“What made you think I’d reject you?” You coaxed. “Other than the fact that I made you a sworn enemy at eleven.”

“Exactly that,” he laughed lightly. “You’re unpredictable, Y/N.”

You smiled to yourself at the realization that he finally used your first name. “So are you, Draco.”

“Not really,” he grins. “Like in just a few moments, for example, I’m going to start snogging you.”

You opened your mouth to encourage him but shut it quickly when he closed the space between the two of you again, this time much closer than he was before. He was flush against you, and when you say you could feel everything; you could feel everything. You were almost begging for him to lean down and kiss you again by the time you felt his hands on you again, running delicately around the exposed skin of your hips when your shirt hiked up an inch on accident. He leaned down again, and with the advantage of his lowered height, you let your hands slide up his arms, biceps, and ultimately the nape of his neck where your fingers continued up into his hair. The breathiest gasp escaped his throat as you tugged at the ends gently, smirking to yourself when he closed his eyes in delight at the touch.

His lips came down onto your fast this time and hastily, pressing himself impossibly closer into you. You could feel his grip tighten against your hips, his hold moving upwards onto your waist as he continued to kiss you fervently. His teeth bit down softly on your bottom lip and you wasted no time in parting them slightly for his tongue to meet yours. You tugged at the platinum strands of hair again, feeling triumphant when a low groaning sound emitted from his throat at the sensation as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss further.

You knew you were done for when one of his hands slowly slid up your upper body, stopping first at your collarbones with warm fingertips fluttering over the skin, before he moved it upwards completely and he now had his large hand wrapped comfortably around your neck. You gasped in delight into the kiss, a swarm of butterflies going directly to your lower stomach as he squeezed against the artery in your neck meticulously, the coldness from his Malfoy family crest ring only adding fuel to the fire. He tore his mouth away from yours with his hand still clutched firmly around your throat and you were almost sent into orbit with the look he was giving you. A look filled with desire, adoration, and intensity - his pale gray eyes were much darker, almost a dark blue that resembled the starry night sky on a summer night.

Lips reattached themselves roughly and feverishly against your jawline, peppering long and tender kisses all the way towards your ear and then down towards your collarbones where he was beginning to undo the rest of the top buttons of your school dress shirt. You felt him smile against your hot skin when you’d writhe underneath him, emitting weak whimpers that you couldn’t hold back that he ended up having to clasp a free hand over your mouth as he whispered into your ear to stay quiet.

It didn’t matter that you were in the middle of a poorly lit corridor where anyone could walk past and see the frenzy that was unfolding, nor did it matter to Draco that his Prefect duties were long forgotten. Your friend was right, and everyone else for that matter; it wasn’t hate you felt for the blond at all, it was years and years of a craving and a hidden yearning packed with displaced tension.

And now, you were both exactly where you wanted to be; together.