#not putting it under readmore. everybody has to look at it

[depoteka]

last week @nxposure tagged me in two different tag games and now i have some time to answer! thank you, dear!

first game: 15 questions

Are you named after anyone? no, i'm not. my parents just liked the name. but allegedly for a short while they considered naming me after a song by a band they love and i dislike. i thank god everyday that in the end they decided to name me weronika instead

When was the last time you cried? this month? or last month? i don't remember

Do you have kids? i don't but i want to in the future

What sports do you play/ have you played? only PE classes at school. would love to start doing some yoga at home tho because i don't move much other than evening walks from time to time

Do you use sarcasm? i suppose. i don't pay attention to that

What is the first thing you notice about people? hard to say, i'd say general vibe. having some sort of social anxiety and experiences with bullying makes you decide pretty fast if the other person is nice to you or if they make you uncomfortable

What's your eye color? dark green. sort of blueish

Scary movies or happy endings? happy endings. i avoid horror movies at all cost (with some exceptions)

Any talents? uh i guess crocheting! not an expert on it and cannot make my own patterns but it makes me and some other people happy

Where were you born? poland, in a shitty hospital in a different town so i don't even have my hometown on my birth certificate

What are your hobbies? as tumblr puts it "media consumption" (watching movies and listening to music) but also crocheting like i said previously

Do you have any pets? a black cat! she lives with my parents so i don't see her that often now

How tall are you? 162cm which is 5 feet 6 inches i believe. i've had to convert inches to centimeters in so many crochet patterns and i still don't remember how much an inch is

Favorite subject in school? english because it was the easiest class for me. i also liked history and geography

Dream job? translating movies but they don't give me a deadline and i can just make the most perfect translation. or i could do voiceover for nature documentaries. an impossible job is an old hollywood movie star or a rockstar in the 70s

and now the second game!! 5 songs i like. i think i will just list things i've been listening to lately

i went thru sleater-kinney's discography again after the release of their new album because well, i didn't like the new album. so i'll stick to their older ones

spotify reminded me about this song by putting it on my discover weekly playlist and i'm just looping it constantly

peter!!! i love this song, the ending especially (and also the reworked version of this from birdy soundtrack)

finally watched shaft the other day and i love this instrumental

haven't heard this song in years but now i'm listening to it a lot like it's 2008 again

[morethanwonderful]

Round 2 is Here! The Which MXTX Character Was/Would Be Most Insufferable Online Tournament Bracket

For an explanation of what this poll's deal is or links to completed matches, look here. Otherwise, let’s have some fun facts about round 1:

The closest match from round 1 was Lan Xichen vs Xiao Xingchen, in which Xiao Xingchen won by just 2.8%. Xichen was winning this one for a good while at the beginning, but the Xingchen campaigners really put in an effort to turn it around.

The biggest win margin in round 1 was Jian Lan vs Qi Rong, in which Qi Rong won a whopping 95.3% of the vote. Absolutely nobody wants to interact with that guy.

The most total votes in round 1 went to Luo Binghe vs Wang Lingjiao, with 785 votes between them. As Shen Yuan would say, everybody has a hot take on the protagonist!

The fewest total votes in round 1 went to Lang Ying (Present) vs Lan Sizhui, with 257 votes between them. One of my mutuals compared this match to a fight between two dust motes, so I suppose I can't blame y'all for finding it un-compelling.

Now on to round 2! You can find the full list of links both on the original announcement post (linked above) or right here under the readmore. Happy voting :D!

Wen Chao vs Quan Yizhen

Mu Qingfang vs Jin Zixun

Xie Lian vs Lang Qianqiu

Xue Yang vs Xiao Xingchen

Tianlang-jun vs Wei Wuxian

Nie Huaisang vs Shang Qinghua

Qi Rong vs Lan Wangji

Nie Mingjue vs Lan Qiren

Jin Guangyao vs Sha Hualing

Lang Ying (Present) vs Shen (Jiu) Qingqiu

Jiang Cheng vs Jin Ling

Mu Qing vs Yu Ziyuan

Xuan Ji vs a-Qing

Zhuzhi-lang vs Luo Binghe

Wen Qing vs Su She

Shi Wudu vs Lan Jingyi

[birchbow]

Gamzee often refers to himself as “pan-rotted” due to his sopor-eating habit as a wriggler (and so does pretty much everyone else at some point). He told Kurloz that he has to really focus in order to remember mission instructions a few chapters back, I think? Gamzee doesn’t have a great self image, but it seems true that he’s often slow to draw inferences unless he’s already paying attention for hints about something specific. Like his default awareness is a little more diffuse, and he has to put in deliberate effort to narrow it down on a particular problem? He attributes this to the sopor, and so does everyone else. What I’m asking is - sopor aside - does being neglected by a lusus affect a troll’s brain development? (Beyond emotional stability and the ability to form secure attachments, ouch.) Since lusii don’t talk I’m not sure about language acquisition but maybe lusii respond positively to grubs babbling? Sidenote: the fact that Gamzee has the scriptures memorized so well almost feels like his chronically understimulated pan grabbed these abundant in-person interactions with authority figures in his early schoolfeeds and ate it up like starving. Sorry this is so rambling 😅

I'm incapable of being brief, especially when I get long asks with lots to chew over, so here's a readmore!

SO There's a moment in canon where Gamzee outright says "[sopor] rots you. Rusts your motherfucking thinkpan." and I think it's up for debate to what extent that's true but also it does seem pretty reasonable that heavy/consistent drug use throughout your adolescence would leave you some cognitive issues!

(Although also, as a person who tests super well in things I intuitively Get and am interested in, but often feels slow and dull, can't fit certain subjects/concepts into my head, and has a hard time remembering all the steps of things I want to do,,,, I put a lot of myself into my characters, is what I'm saying lol.)

RE: not having a lusus, I think that probably would have way more effect than the kid who went through it would assume, yeah. Like, all trolls would know your lusus keeps you safe from predators/intruders, gives you early practice fighting/wrestling, and especially in more rural areas, scavenges and hunts for you especially when you're young. But trolls as a society definitely undervalue the part where they also provide a sense of security and affection, because you're not supposed to want or value those things as a troll!

It's hard to make direct connections since lusii only sort of resemble human parents, but there's certainly studies to show that children of neglectful human parents struggle forming the cognitive pathways they would otherwise establish, and have trouble later in life--even if your caretaker doesn't talk, it seems pretty reasonable to me that having a parental figure who fucks off for long periods of time and leaves you completely alone with no idea when they'll be back would have a pretty similar effect across species! I'm not well-educated enough on that topic to draw the parallels I would want to, but it feels like a solid theory.

Also, quite apart from any of that, there was definitely a chain of cause and effect from "dad doesn't want me and there's no food" to "...but I have sopor slime" to "this makes me less hungry and also I give less of a shit about how hungry and lonely I am" to "if I stop eating this I feel shitty and have a hard time thinking straight and there's like a decade of repressed emotions under there".

RE: scripture, one of the things that I see original-flavor/canon Gamzee do is be all in on his religion, and when that falls out from under him, reorient to the first convincing power he finds, which unfortunately for everybody is the whole mess of Doc Scratch/Li'l Cal/Lord English. It to me feels very much like a guy who has no idea how to make his own ideological support structure, and is desperately looking for someone to give him a belief system and set of rules to follow.

ANYWAY SO hopefully it's fairly clear how that carries forward in a universe where instead, he gets a supportive church that helps him sober up and channels all his deeply-repressed rage into "hey, those aliens over there need conquering, go kill em", and also he's offered these books that are like. The rules. And knowing them gets him approval, and reassures him when he feels like a fuckup, and it turns out he can learn things, if they're things that fit in his brain right, and that's reassuring because he genuinely thinks most of his failings are his own fault for wanting sopor, and Alternian addiction support boils down to "do that again and we'll cull you" so they sure the fuck don't have a compassionate attitude about recovery or good information into after-effects, so everybody else is also just like "yeah, probably you fucked up your brain, idk, git gud".

This is a very lengthy way of agreeing with you lmao. The feedback loop of "oh you're pretty good at this" from authority figures, and it being a topic that he naturally had an interest in, definitely is a big part of why he's so deeply into it.

[fagcrisis]

sorry what do you mean your mother's coup. elaborate

this ended up being long as hell so readmore time

so i live in this old fucking apartament building right, turns 120 soon, hasnt really been renovated in 50 years. and our apartament has the attic built in, which wasnt a feature originally and the previous tenant did it himself, badly, meaning weve had a hole in our roof for about 5ish years now that we just have not been able to fix. last november we had a pretty big storm that fucked the hole up even worse and our previous solution of just "put a bucket under it and leave the room" has stopped working because too much water was getting in and my sister had to start sleeping in a different room so safe to say, shit state of affairs

my mum got a contractor to come take a look at it and the dude concluded that its dangerous to be left unfixed and hes gonna have to climb in between the attic walls and the roof bc due to the hole theres a shitton of mold that needs to be cleaned out. overall this wouldve cost us 600k forint thats more than my mum makes in 2 months and i had 9-5 at that point but my shit salary was not gonna fix this. so my mum had a breakdown and decided that well sell the apartament and try moving, which sucks bc when we got this place it was still cheap but since then the housing market has gone to shit and we wouldve had to live in a rental we probably wouldnt have been able to afford. but my mum still called an agent to check the house out, and he told us that theres no way were selling it, because of the big fucking hole, the messed up pipes and bc the building isnt insulated (legally cant be bc its a historical monument lmao. europe)

HOWEVER he also said. since this is an apartament building with 12 flats we have a house representative and we pay *google translate help me* common cost every month, to cover repairs on the house, that we shouldnt have to pay for the repairs, the house should. cause. its the whole houses roof not just our apartaments.

my mum went to the house rep (józsi) to ask about this, and he told her that this isnt true and that he wont pay for the repairs. which made my mum mad and she went and found a lawyer who said the house does have to pay for repairs. but józsi was still like i will not.

so my mum talked to all 12 of our neighbouring flats individually and found out that literally everybody has grievances with this dude. there has been an ENTIRE TREE growing on the roof for years now that we havent been able to get cleaned out, the staircase is borderline life threatening to use, we could technically get authorization for insulating the house but the rep needs to apply and józsi hasnt, one of the gates to the yard is like not working, etc

they ended up calling the first house meeting in years (were supposed to have those every month lol) where they ended up voting to have a new rep, and also to fix our roof. which got fixed by the way, and the mold was also cleaned out

BUT the story doesnt end here bc they still need to vote a new rep in. and my mum found this company who represents apartament buildings professionally and sure itd cost us some money but we pay the common cost anyway, and they have contractors they work with so itd be soooo easy to fix shit in the house. but for some reason some people decided they want this dude instead, who owns one of the flats in the building but does not live here, his insane mother does who hates me. and he DOESNT LIVE HERE the entire problem with józsi was, that he was like not helpful in any way and now they want a guy who doesnt even live here??

ANYWAY TODAY THE PLOT FUCKING THICKENED. because. my mum started looking over the houses finances with 2 of our neighbours one of whom is i think a lesbian but im not sure anyways they found out that józsi has been STEALING MONEY. FROM THE COMMON COST. WHICH IS WHY FUCKALL GOT FIXED IN THE HOUSE!!!!

anyway the coup is still ongoing but i hope u enjoyed my mums tale of intrigue. shes having so much fun w this shes having secret meetings with people to talk about this all day

[just-j-really]

So I was talking with @ghostboyjules about Tragic Dreamling Songs, and ended up accidentally plotting out a Dreamling fic based on the elder scrolls: oblivion?

(You do not need to know anything about oblivion to understand this, I promise. Hear me out.)

Dream is a mage specializing in illusion/mind control type-magic. He's technically of royal blood, but he's the spare of a spare of a spare and he'd only end up on the throne if literally everyone died. As a teenager, he was an arrogant little shit about this, right up until he accidentally got a lover killed while digging into Eldritch Magic. He then hid himself away in a backwater town, as an extremely solitary artist.

He's living peacefully, if not happily, right up until a gate to hell opens in the middle of his town. He takes sanctuary in a church with some other citizens, and is essentially just there waiting to make a tragic last stand when hell's soldiers inevitably bust in (he's a POWERFUL mage but even he can't stand alone against hell).

And all of a sudden the doors burst open and- it's not a demon.

It is Some Guy, in mismatched armor he clearly looted off a dead man. He doesn't look like he's bathed in months. Even from a distance he reeks of smoke and sulfur.

"I'm looking for the artist," he says.

(putting the rest under a readmore because dear GOD it got long)

"How the fuck did you get here," Dream's neighbors say. "There is a hellgate outside."

"Oh, I destroyed it," the man says. "What, like it's hard?"

There's a lot of confusion after that; the man has news from the outside world. This hellgate wasn't an isolated incident- a mage named Burgess who'd had a grudge against the royal family made a deal with the Devil to have them assassinated. The unfortunate side effect of this deal is that now Lucifer has access to the earth, and is opening hellgates in order to take over completely.

This particular hellgate is closed, though; the man goes off with some soldiers to retake the rest of the town, but eventually he finds Dream again. He still hasn't bathed, but at least someone gave him a suit of armor that doesn't technically belong to a corpse.

He tells Dream that his name is Hob, and he's been sent by the royal family's librarian to find Dream because everybody else above him in the line of succession is dead. Surprise, Dream's the Emperor now.

Dream, petty, is like "They sent you?"

Hob's like "Yeah and I was in jail for several murders so you can see how bad things have gotten."

(I think Hob's just a bandit trying to make himself sound cool but I'm open to saying he's an assassin)

Hob eventually proves that he's working for the royal family (and apparently the deceased emperor had a prophetic dream about him?), and brings Dream to Lucienne. She explains that there's a ritual, technically part of the coronation ceremony, that they can do to close the hellgates and banish Lucifer. Only problem is it requires artifacts or relics connected to seven eldritch, powerful deities. One from each, except the god of Dreams- the rulers of this land had special ties to the King of Dreams so he needs to take precedence in the ritual. He's got three.

As the ruler-to-be-with-said-special-ties-to-the-King-of-Dreams, Dream is the only one who can actually complete this ritual. He can't risk his life, and the members of the royal court left after everybody got assassinated are, you know... the librarian. Very knowledgeable, limited combat skills. So the person who keeps getting sent out to retrieve these relics and/or the thing they need to find the relic- is Hob.

Dream, who grudgingly grew to kinda enjoy Hob's company while Hob was escorting him to Lucienne, bids him goodbye the first time expecting him to die.

Hob shows up three weeks later, long after everyone had given up hope. When asked why it took so long he says he got sidetracked and ended up stuck in a painting for a few days? And then he had to rescue this girl from a cult? it was very important. But anyway, he's got the sand!

And this just keeps happening. Dream keeps expecting Hob to get killed looking for these relics, Hob, against all odds, keeps surviving. Dream's actually starting to think they have a hope of winning this.

He and Hob grow closer in the brief moments they can snatch when Hob's not off nearly getting himself killed. He learns that Hob is actually decently handsome when he's bathed.

When Hob returns after winning the relic from the goddess of Death, having actually spoken to her in the process, Dream yells at him for his recklessness for a full ten minutes, before pulling a startled Hob into a hug that is extremely painful on his bruised ribs. Hob doesn't complain.

That night, Dream confesses how he got his first love killed. They were looking into drawing on these eldritch gods for magic- the King of Dreams, specifically, because clearly Dream, a member of the royal family, would be powerful enough to control the god with connections to the royal family. His lover thought they should stop, Dream pushed on anyway, she paid the price for it.

Hob, in turn, confesses how he'd turned to banditry, that at first it was because he was literally starving to death but at a certain point it became too easy not to see people as people. They grow closer after that- they were already close, Hob managed to figure out Dream better in their brief meetings than anyone else has, and Dream's somehow done the same for Hob even though Hob's much more of an open book, but it goes deeper, now.

Not long afterwards, Hob needs to go retrieve the Dream King's ruby, the final piece of the Close the Hellgates spell. And... there's no way he survives this. It's being held in a pocket dimension belonging to Burgess. Sure, Hob's survived everything up until this point but this entire dimension is controlled by Burgess. It's not possible for him to survive there. And yet it's their only option.

(Dream tries to tell Hob he loves him, here. Hob presses a brief kiss to his cheek and tells him to say it when Hob gets back.)

Hob leaves. Dream is still the ruler, and in public he keeps it together, is having everyone prepare for battle, but inside he's a wreck. He's doomed two lovers to death, and for what.

And just when he's convinced himself that this was all worthless, Hob comes back. He is even filthier than the first time Dream saw him and his arm's been broken and set wrong and he's wearing corpse armor again! Why does he keep doing that!

Absolutely none of this stops Dream from flying into his arms immediately and kissing the life out of him.

"I thought you'd died," Dream tells him later, in private.

"I won't," Hob assures him. "I've decided not to."

Dream isn't sure if he finds this comforting.

So like! Tides have turned! Things are great! Dream and Hob are stupidly in love! They are making it everyone else's problem, just a bit!

But then, as they're about to complete the Close the Hellgates spell, Lucifer gets the upper hand. Demons are pouring into their hideout, there's no time to finish the ritual, everyone's going to die.

But, Dream thinks. If he can't properly finish the ritual, he can... overload it. The magic equivalent of closing a door by melting it shut rather than locking it. It'll kill him, for sure. But the Hellgates will close.

He's about to do it.

But then Hob, who knows Dream better than Dream knows himself at this point, says, "Fuck. No. Wait. I didn't want to do this but- I'll buy you time."

His face is grim, in a way it hadn't been any of the times Dream sent him to certain death.

And Dream, even though he'd been about to do the self-sacrifice ploy literally five seconds ago, is immediately like "No. I can't let you do this. I can't let you die for me."

And Hob, sheepish, is like "...remember that time you yelled at me for ten minutes straight about how dangerous it is to interact with the Eldritch Beings that Control the Universe, I should not under any circumstances have spoken with one?"

"Yes?" Dream says, not fond of where this is going.

"I may not have been. Entirely honest with you. About what I did," Hob says. In the flickering light of the single torch that's still lit, a sudden gleam appears in his eyes, too steady to be a trick of the light. "I may have. Made a deal. With Death. I won't die for you, because I can't."

And as much as Dream would love to yell at Hob for that one, there are more immediate problems, so Hob goes to guard the door and Dream goes to complete the ritual properly.

Even though he's doing the ritual properly, Dream has to shatter the ruby to complete it. Instead of killing him, all the power from the ruby flows into him-

and he remembers that he's one of the Eldritch Entities in Charge of the Universe. What he'd thought of as 'digging Too Deep into magic and getting his girlfriend killed' was... essentially that, he'd had a mortal lover, they Dug Too Deep Into Magic together. In the fallout, she got killed and he got turned mortal.

Which was kind of a cluster to begin with- none of his siblings knew what had happened to him, and they still have strict rules governing what they can do and probably wouldn't have been able to interfere if they had. His people weren't sure what would happen to him if he died as a mortal, and were frantically trying to figure out a way to get him back, but everything they could come up with was Extremely Finnicky Rituals. Even aside from the practicalities of enacting an Extremely Finnicky Ritual, none of them could figure out how to trick Dream into doing it. Human!Dream is exactly as stubborn as Regular!Dream, and about 90% more distrustful of Eldritch Magic.

And then Lucifer got summoned by Burgess, saw a chance to take out one of the Cosmic Powers that Be while he was weakened, and jumped on it.

The whole 'ruling family is the only one who can stop Lucifer via an Eldritch Ritual' thing was a con, on Lucienne's part. Dream-on-earth had been lead to believe he was royalty to account for... the fact that he is, on a cosmic scale.

Lucienne, when she realized what Lucifer was doing, came up with a plan to have Dream do the Give-Dream-His-Powers-Back ritual in a way that fit with human!Dream's narrative (not only to save his life but also because Dream was uniquely situated to stop Lucifer from taking over the world- he was attacked first, he's not bound by any 'don't intervene' rules).

Also she sent the former emperor a prophetic dream about Hob because Human!Dream desperately needed a bodyguard. Why Hob? He was the best available option of 'people near the emperor at that point in time.' It worked better than anyone could have expected.

Anyway. Dream is Dream-Dream again, he makes short work of Lucifer and goes to find Hob, who is very dead.

So Dream is standing in the corner, quietly having a yup you did it you killed two lovers in a row crisis, completely unable to move, when his sister shows up and says, "Again???" in a deeply exasperated tone.

He's too distraught to be offended.

And then he realizes she's not talking to him.

Death waves her hand, and suddenly Hob is a person again instead of a bloody wreck on the ground. He sits up with a groan that sounds like he'd just spent the night sleeping on the floor, not literally died.

"Thanks," he says to Death, scrambling to his feet.

"Don't mention it," she replies. "Could you please just wait a week before dying for this guy again?"

"I make no promises," Hob tells her. She gives him a look.

"He's worth it, alright?" Hob says, "I-" and then his eyes, scanning the room for threats, find Dream, and a smile dawns on his face. He turns his back on Death- turns his back! on Death!- to run over to Dream, picking him up and swinging him around before pulling him into a kiss. "Your eyes," he says, wonderingly, cupping Dream's cheek in one hand as he breaks the kiss, "Is that from the spell? Does it hurt? They're beautiful, but-"

"They. Do not hurt," Dream says, and then winces. His voice is back to an eldritch rumble, deep enough that it's both felt and heard, and Hob seems too dazed to be bothered by his eyes but surely this will affect him-

"Good," Hob says, snuggling contentedly against Dream again. "Glad you're safe," he murmurs.

"Hob," Death says, quietly stunned, because this whole time her brother's been missing-maybe-dead and she's been distracting herself by helping this cute lil no-longer-mortal save the mortal king he's in love with. And now here her brother is. Safe. Alive. Being snuggled.

"Oh, right, I need to introduce you!" Hob says, twisting in Dream's arms so he can look at Death. "This is-"

"That's my brother."

(And then there are several tearful reunions, and Dream has to be assured by both Death and Hob several times that Hob is VERY not-mortal now and also VERY willing to make contracts with eldritch entities and that includes marriage contracts, nudge nudge. And then Hob and Dream kiss a lot and live happily every after the end)

[1lostsoul0fishbowl]

What are five songs that encapsulate GreatMage and why? 😊😊😊

Oh man, this is such a tough question, but so fantastic because there’s so many gorgeous songs that could work well for our little sweethearts. To try and make things a little easier on myself lol, I stuck mostly to songs that I’ve already used for chapters in Next Time I Fall, and I’ll tell you a bit about each one… but this is gonna get long (as everything I write tends to do lol) so I’ll put it under a readmore line.

Hold On to the Nights (Richard Marx) - this one perfectly sums up the beginning of their relationship when El was still with Mike. It’s a gorgeous song full of just pure longing, yearning, to be with someone who isn’t able to be with you. Also, fun fact! The first hints of GreatMage appeared in a chapter in Little Help titled “do we break another rule”, which is a lyric from this same song.

Memorable lyrics:

Well I think that I’ve been true to everybody else but me

And the way I feel about you makes my heart long to be free

Every time I look into your eyes I’m helplessly aware

That the someone I’ve been searching for is right there

Head Over Feet (Alanis Morissette) - this is the only one not used in NTIF, because I ended up going with ‘this one’s for you’ instead, but Head Over Feet was a very close runner up for that chapter. I thought it was perfect to describe El’s eye-opening summer of 1987, as she slowly realized that her old feelings for Mike had long since faded away but a love for Gareth was steadily growing in its place, and that her relationship with Gareth would be much different and better. One line even says “I’ve never felt this healthy before”, and that just kinda summed up the whole vibe I wanted for them, for El especially, realizing that a good boyfriend should make her feel better about herself and not worse.

Wildflower (Skylark) - absolutely the perfect song to sum up the way Gareth’s love for El grew after he found out about Hawkins Lab and everything she’d been through in the past. It’s a beautiful story of admiration and affection for someone who’s been through a lot but didn’t let it break them. The chorus seems to express that he sees her for exactly who and what she is, and wants only the best for her.

Memorable lyrics:

She’s faced the hardest times you could imagine

And many times her eyes fought back the tears

And when her youthful world was about to fall in

Each time her slender shoulders

Bore the weight of all her fears

And a sorrow no one hears

Also:

When you walk into her eyes, you won’t believe

The way she’s always paying

For a debt she never owes

Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You (Glenn Medeiros) - Spoiler alert! This is the song I’m planning to use for chapter 21! It’s about knowing you’ve found the person you want to be by your side forever, no matter what life throws at you.

Memorable lyrics:

Our dreams are young and we both know, they’ll take us where we want to go (I love this because El and Gare are both teenagers at this point in the story, but their relationship is already solid enough that they’re envisioning a future together, and neither of them wants to picture a future without the other!)

The world may change my whole life through, but nothing’s gonna change my love for you (As El reveals more and more of her past to Gareth, she always has that underlying fear of “this is it, this is the one thing that’s gonna make me be Too Much for him”. Meanwhile Gareth is just like “damn, babygirl, you contain multitudes.”)

Longer (Dan Fogelberg) - Spoiler alert! This is the song I’m planning to use for chapter 22! I adore this song because it gives sweet and cozy vibes of a relationship that’s stood the test of time and will continue standing forever. And in the Lostsoul Universe™ we definitely believe in forever love and happy endings.

Memorable lyrics:

Through the years as the fire starts to mellow

Burning lines in the book of our lives

Though the binding cracks, and the pages start to yellow

I’ll be in love with you

Thank you so much for this fun and absorbing and thoughtful ask! I love how much you’re enjoying my story and my darling little rarepair, and I thank you endlessly for sharing that joy with me! 🥰

[euclyta]

Well since you asked (and I've kinda been wondering about it) — what's chocobo's mystery dungeon like, especially compared to the pmd series?

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

im putting this under a readmore because i (redacted)

so i gotta give a bit of context first: there is an entire spin-off series of final fantasy games all protagonized by a tiny little chocobo. i bring this up first because there were two dungeon crawlers on the playstation- these set up the regular returning elements of the chocobo series (namely some main characters), and it even runs with the trend of having cid in every ff game!

the specific one i love is Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, it was on the wii and its a very basic dungeon crawling, PMD-esque game, with a hunger meter, monster houses, etc. i think the thing that sets it apart from other dungeon crawlers gameplay-wise is that it has a job or class system much like mainline final fantasy games do, in which you unlock access to eight different jobs that completely change up the playstyle AND the difficulty of the game due to their own niches (my favorite job for example, white mage, is very high difficulty until endgame)

for me the main reason why i want more people to know about it and try to give it a chance even if its just via an emulator is the story. i might be biased here but i first played this game when i was 9 years old and it still lives rent free in my brain to this day (im 21 now for context)

to not give any spoilers, the main premise is that chocobo and cid are treasure hunters looking for a gemstone; upon finding it, they're suddenly transported to a town in seemingly a completely different world where the citizens constantly lose all their memories everytime the belltower rings

the very first night they spend in this world, a meteor crashes in from the sky, turning out to be an egg from which a baby is born. this baby then proceeds to somehow start bringing people's memories back by allowing chocobo to enter their minds

this is also why i think its such a cool concept, because it uses memories and people's minds as the main set up for dungeon crawling, even representing memories as scattered puzzle pieces. and everytime you are inside someone's memories, you can hear snippets of their thoughts as you go along, ending in the full memory being fully restored when you exit

there are a ton of memory dungeons, one for almost every npc in town, and they introduce a thing called "special rule" dungeons for non-story ones where you have to play with certain gimmicks the whole way through (1 hp, perma blindness, enemy gauntlet, stuff like that). and every single one has those snippets of lore and foreshadowing you gotta piece together, little by little, to understand the truth behind the town

for the characters, the cast is very colorful and i think everybody genuinely feels very human. granted the voice acting isnt the best but it adds so much to the charm of it. plus the designs and all the official artwork there is is just breathtaking (ive only now been noticing there are a few elements in my own art that are subconsciously inspired from this game's artstyle)

i HAVE to mention raffaello here because now that i have a bigger understanding of how tropes and storytelling work, i can say for sure that he is just so, SO crazily well written; its not all in the text, but all the worldbuilding comes together eventually and that's when it really hits

and of course i gotta bring up the soundtrack- its almost entirely comprised of arrangements of older final fantasy songs and each and everyone of them is MAGICAL. its remained as one of my favorite soundtracks for years, so much that i realized that the official disc release was incomplete and went out and put together all 42 songs in the highest quality i could to make sure it doesnt become lost (this is a very reocurring theme with this game in particular)

i want people to play it and i want to talk about it. partially its because this is my favorite game. but also because its been THIS close to being a major case of lost media. there are SO many things that have been lost to time because they were japan only or they were overwritten on the internet (including the entire japanese chocobo series website portal, thats like three different unique websites with tons of never saved artwork they nuked). so much of it i still remember but i have zero way to access it anymore and it eats me from the inside out.

its a common theme of things being lost to time with this game but its also incredibly sad and funny because the entire theme of the game is things being lost to time. ouroboros. time is a flat circle.

and... here is where i come in talking about the remake- chocobo's mystery dungeon everybuddy and why i heavily recommend the original over it

so... the original wii game had a japan only ds port with some new elements and stuff. but the main thing with it is that they changed a LOT of the story; same plot, different execution, to fit in with a ds format. the problem with this is that the remake was based off of this version and not the original one, which leads to a LOT of serious and emotional moments being gutted and sped through.

the gameplay itself is fine, they actually made it even more pmd-like by adding a companion system, and they upped the difficulty a lot if you dont know what youre doing. but the story changes genuinely kill it for me if im being honest. they retconned what made me sad about the ending at the cost of everything else (and even then im angry because that took away from the intensely emotional ending that still had me crying like a baby LAST WEEK)

in general though. i just think this game is so beautifully crafted. this game originally came out in 2007 and it still holds up SO well. the graphics are very cute and stylized, but everything is so detailed that every single part of the world feels lived in. the town is very small but i think its why it always feels like coming home. huge recommend and i refuse to die until ive convinced at least one person to play it through to the end (its been 12 years and im still trying)

[approximately20eggs]

walks in

hi hi hello i am here to choose for you and ask about an oc of yours <3

i would love to hear about immerlias if you have any facts you'd like to share!!!

hello hi hi!!! the boy!!!!! good choice!!!! thank you for asking me about him :) this turned out to be SUCH a long post so I'm gonna put it under a readmore so I don't clog up people's dashboards with my fucking essay lmao

so I've actually been wanting an excuse to break down S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W by mcr and why its actually conveniently written about Immerlias so I think I will do that ehehe BUT also I just wanna ramble about him in general so I shall do that first

so. I do not remember how much information about Immerlias I have shared on him before. but he is my beloved. my son. my bestie. you surely understand /lh

some general info: Immerlias is a shining elf andhis name means sunlight and joy! he is aro ace and agender but also simultaneously a cis boy and his pronouns are he/him but he honestly doesn't really care what people refer to him with! I feel like he'd get a kick out of the occasional they/them or neopronoun, as a treat, but not enough to "officially" use them or anything. I do not think he would want people to consistently use other pronouns for him. this was meant to be a short detail and now its not lol

he is also babey. something about this man sets off everyone's protective instincts I swear and I KNOW this because in every rp and dnd game I have put him in, people IMMEDIATELY snap to "precious boy must be protected" mode within minutes. he is just so good at winning people over with his sweet, adorable smile and autistic adhd swag. I don't blame anyone for this because if I had only just met him I would probably default to that too. unfortunately I am subjecting him to The Horrors instead /lh

he's just super super sweet and adorable and my favorite way to show it is literally just to describe what his bedroom looks like because it is just. in every way an example of the kind of person he is. it is messy and stuffed with every last little thing that makes him happy. he painted the walls yellow and keeps repainting his ceiling in different murals and he puts poems and art up on the walls and draws directly on them sometimes and every surface is stuffed with trinkets, most of which are broken things he's picked up off the ground and shined up or made into art or just thought were pretty, and he collects shards of broken glass to sand and polish away all the sharp edges and wrap them in wire and hang them in his window so they through rainbows all over his room, and his bookshelves are stocked with everything from picture books to highly advanced math textbooks because it all brings him joy, and sometimes he spills ink on his desk but he'll just draw around it and make art out of it, and god I could go on all day describing his room but hjhghghjshghbvbhsgvsvjhgjhs

(also he has a little hidden spot under the floorboards that he's made without telling anyone that's just big enough for him to crawl into and hide and I think that's also very apt because as much as Immerlias appears to wear his heart on his sleeve there's also a lot he doesn't tell anyone. this whole room is a symbol I swear)

god this is getting long. I apologize in advance because I still haven't talked about S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W lmao

I am going to get into that actually SO I'm just gonna. put up each verse and then talk about it jbjksbjks

[Chorus] Move your body when the sunlight dies Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow Everybody, hide

[Verse 1] Make a wish when your childhood dies Hear the knock, knock, knock when she cries We're all alone tonight Hold your breath when a blackbird flies Count to seventeen and close your eyes I'll keep you safe inside

so I'm putting these two together because I intend to break down the chorus fully later but it feels illegal to skip the intro of the song. so starting with verse 1:

GOD ok so. this is perfect. if you didn't know my wip starts off with Immerlias and Aryaea coming of age so this is very apt lol. BUT this is especially good for Immerlias because his whole character arc is about growing up and losing his naivete. he's been sheltered his whole life and then at the start of the book for the first time he and Aryaea are leaving town and their parents altogether (getting a bit into the third line there lol) but YEAH from line one it's very good!! line two is also good though because Aryaea goes to him for support a lot and you can also jump to the last line in the verse which makes me think about that again because they keep each other safe a lot. they're very codependent you see, as fictional twins have a tendency to be /lh

(you know, for once I think it would be very funny to have a pair of twins that just fucking hate each other but also aren't mortal enemies. just twins that they're each like "ugh, Steve again" at each other or something. I think it would be funny. anyway)

BUT besides the first line the OTHER line that made me immediately think of Immerlias when I first heard this song is in this verse too!! I don't know if I've ever mentioned this but Immerlias is fucking terrified of crows. which has plot reasons. it is Auresmus's fault. basically bc of zem Immerlias has nightmares about crows (elves are not supposed to be able to have nightmares at all) so that freaks him out a lot!!! it's kind of led him to firmly hold the belief that crows are harbringers of doom in real life too so he will have a full-blown panic attack if he sees one or even hears them cawing. anyway, moving on:

[Pre-Chorus] He burns my skin Never mind about the shape I'm in I'll keep you safe tonight Yeah, yeah, shut up and run with me!

I'm just gonna. that last line there I'm just gonna focus on it really hard for a moment because Immerlias IS arguably running away from home at the start of the novel. besides the fact that he's kind of tired of being coddled, he and Immor have a history of butting heads and frankly due to a lot of communication issues in this family Immerlias doesn't exactly believe his parents are proud of him. he also has this perception of his parents' expectations of him that are both a lot higher and completely different from what they actually are; while Immor and Regaya genuinely just want a happy life for him he's convinced that he's going to disappoint them if he goes into the arts instead of something more academic in nature, and frankly he's kind of convinced he's already disappointed Immor by not being remotely interested in joining the military (very false. if anything Immor is thrilled his son is relatively safe from the horrors of war). not only all of that but completely unrelated to family communication issues I do think he's trying to procrastinate growing up a little. typically at age 50 shining elves would start building a house of their own and/or start pursuing a career, but Immerlias isn't ready for that, in no small part because he's conflicted about what he wants to do with his life, because even with his parents out of the equation he loves math and STEM easily just as much as the arts and he doesn't want to pick one over the other. so yeah he's running away from all that with Aryaea for a little bit! ok moving on again

Move your body when the sunlight dies Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow Everybody, hide Move your body when the sunlight dies Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow Everybody, hide

ok so to start ANY song that says something about the sunlight dying or the world losing its color/light/saturation or whatever immediately reminds me of Immerlias. this is both because of tdi campaign Immerlias (in which he literally died. L) and because of his actual canon arc in my wip which does not in fact involve his literal death so much as him going through a depressive episode and struggling with his sense of identity (his name does mean joy, after all) and then having to redefine that happiness for himself when he doesn't have that childhood naivete that made it so easy anymore. I'm really, really looking forward to writing that arc out but alas it is a long ways away </3

all the references to the scarecrow also make me think btw, bc it's not a reference to the blackbird in verse 1, but something different. you can think of a scarecrow as something that exerts control over crows, in a way, which makes me think of Auresmus—and for a significant chunk of the book he does seem like a pretty big threat in need of being avoided! but if we think of the crows as being representative of Auresmus themself rather than zem just being in control of them, then you also get something that 'scares crows,' or that scares Auresmus, and that's the actual threat—the dragon that he owes a debt to, who is the actual antagonist of the novel, not zem. I think it's an interesting thing to consider :)

[Verse 2] Blow a kiss at the methane skies See the rust through your playground eyes We're all in love tonight (All in love tonight) Leave a dream where the fallout lies Watch it grow where the tear stain dries To keep you safe tonight

this verse makes me think a bunch about Immerlias's optimism and more about his arc with having to redefine joy and all that. the whole childlike, happy-go lucky attitude doesn't really cut it for some things (such as the impending doom of the apocalypse) but it still takes him a while to like. process the situation that is the plot and see it all in a realistic, grounded light that's not just blindly believing it will all work out okay in the end. and that's what kicks off his depression spiral but at the same time he has to work though his whole identity crisis and an increasing rift between him and his ability to keep in touch with reality on a more existential level if that makes any sense at all and he's still trying to work out his personal future and dreams with all this and yeah. yeah. its a whole thing

[Pre-Chorus]

[Chorus]

[Guitar Solo]

[Bridge] Love, love, love won't stop this Bomb, bomb, love won't stop this Bomb, bomb, love won't stop this bomb Run, run, bunny, run Run, run, bunny, run

[Chorus]

again this whole thing with like "love won't stop this bomb" makes me think very much about how he loses his naivete (and this verse particularly calls to mind his staunch pacifism, which isn't a problem in and of itself so much of the lack of nuance he has about it at the start) and has to work towards solving the problem that is the impending apocalypse without just trusting in Peace And Love On Planet Earth Quapara <3

and that is the end of the song! god that was fun. I haven't had a good long-winded infodump in a while

thank you again for asking about him, friend. I hope you enjoyed my essay kjbsjkbskjsjks

[cornbreadcreations]

been having entirely too much fun with my Hazbin Hotel Sinnersona, Doodle! Doodles lore gets a little dark, so I'm gonna put it under a readmore. Trigger warnings for: Cave-related deaths, drowning, starvation.

Theo Del'Arte was out hiking on his day off work, just enjoying some nice natural scenery, having a good time. And then a bear came along. Theo stayed calm, though, faced the bear, kept going slowly backwards to create distance; it was no grizzly by any means, so he figured it would lost interest shortly, but it didn't. It followed him until he hit a wall, and as it drew nearer, he noticed a crevice in the mountainside. It was just barely big enough for him to slip into, but the bear would not be able to fit, being what he at the time assumed was a large male black bear. The bear could get its arm in, pushing Theo deeper into the crevice, where he learned - it was deeper than it looked. He slipped, sliding swiftly and painfully along the rock before landing harshly in pitch blackness.

He screamed and screamed, his pack with his phone in it nowhere to be found, lost in the tumble. Hours he was trapped there, unable to climb out with two broken legs, until a monsoon came, and the cave filled rapidly with water.

At first he tried to use it to get out, but it had been so long already, and he was so exhausted, he couldn't keep up with the water, and ended up drowning.

Shortly after, he manifested in hell - and that's where he sort of splits into two storylines depending on how much of a power fantasy I feel like indulging in. :) Doodles powers as a sinner include:

Flight, by manifesting a third pair of wings on his back, or by transforming his four arms into wings.

Echo Location and Enhanced Hearing: Doodle is a leaf-nosed back, so his ears and the shape of his nose allow him to use specialized squeaks to 'see' with sound. He can even use this ability to pick bits of shrapnel and debris out of dirty wounds. He also totally tells Angel Dust he's actually blind and uses only echo location to see, to which AD starts trying to trick him, at some point holding some object up and saying 'what color is this' to which Doodle replies 'idk, smells purple.' Despite this, they are pals.

Decimating Decibels: At base level with no soul contracts or other power modifiers, Doodle can create sounds in a multitude of frequencies both hearable to humans and not, with a maximum base power output of 420 decibels. For context, 200 decibels would cause your internal organs to rupture, 210 would explode your skull, and 320 decibels to crack the earth open like an egg to make an omelet. 1100 would cause a supermassive black hole so powerful it would immediately swallow the universe and give everybody an instant game over, but Doodle can't reach that level. At the moment, anyway. :)

Bonus:

Despite his power level, Doodle has very low ambition. He's not interested in becoming an overlord, and he has not desire to hurt, manipulate, fight, or otherwise fuck with people in a negative context. He's a friendly demon, who just wants to be content with his afterlife. He's not certain exactly what sins led him to hell, but Heaven would feel much too squeaky clean, he'd be too afraid to touch anything for fear of tainting it. As such, he's politely declined Charlies offers for redemption, but is quite happy to use his experiences on earth and his own knowledge of the human condition to help Charlie in her dreams by acting as sort of a pseudo-psychologist (he makes it very clear he is NOT a trained therapist or psychologist, it was just one of his special interests so he just knows a stupid amount about it) helping sinners work through their issues and helping Charlie better structure her system, since Charlie has no context of what its like to be a human. double bonus, how Doodle would have looked as a winner:

[dynamimight]

cw: THIS IS NOT A FIC, the internet is simply my diary lmao. just a lil thing to get stuff about tumblr rn out of my head. read if you please, i also rly want to talk about this w/ppl 😭😭 (readmore bc i put this in fandom tags)

i recently have been feeling a certain kind of way about reading fanfic; if i find myself scrolling (bored/looking for fun stories as always) i kinda just quickly scroll through the whole page and give?? up??? like im not as excited as i used to be. this is for a few reasons:

1. i feel like a lot of fics are the same now 👍🏼 not a terrible thing, but i really look back to the quarantine era of "forced creativity" (a different conversation) and think about just how much people were writing; not to "give out content," but to truly explore an online writing community and do something that was worthwhile. the resurgence if the "[as]" trend on tiktok really put that into perspective for me: quarantine forced ppl to explore creativity, created job opportunities based on that (influencers/content creators as we now know them), and really pushed artistry to the point of basic normalcy. even though this was a cool kind of thing (seeing so many ppl create), our level of understanding art and its brilliance was lowered. which brings me to point 2-

2. a good amount of the "creative era" of quarantine was simply ppl replicating other ppl's original ideas, or straight out stealing them to add an extra topping of fame, bc ofc "everybody wants to be famous." my best examples of this are the two sides of the tiktok coin: dancing & damelio.

dancing became a big thing, and it made sense to start dancing trends; a trend is just popularity + replication. but charli damelio becoming famous for creating one of those trends and it later being stated that a completely different girl, jalaiah harmon, created it and had no recognition until the news came out?

and yes, she was on ellen, but that pales in comparison to the millions of dollars that the damelio family made bc of one instance of improperly following a trend.

and that's what i see now with multiple online spaces; they've become boring bc everyone is doing the same thing w/o giving proper credit to anyone. before content creation & whatnot became huge, no one irl would go around seriously saying tht they created some huge, celebrity-reach trend without being checked.

now, the difference between tiktok and fanfic pertaining to "trends" is based on power imbalance. no one is gonna believe a middle schooler saying that they started the trend of wearing skirts over jeans when it was very obviously some a-list celeb. in writing, you look to your favorite authors, poets, etc. and formulate your own writing style. whether that's word choice, plot format, or anything else you can cultivate to your own writing experience.

while you can always put your own spin on new dance/fashion trend, writing is different. you wouldn't put a spin on a classic in the same way: it would be a modern retelling, or smth symbolic of the original. adding an extra move is is not equal to adding an extra sentence. and that is what leads me to my final point-

3. writing is becoming/has became very formulaic. a good amount of fics in the most popular fandoms here follow a similar style. we see this with the short cycle of complaints that went around when the fic format of "short blurb with a group of character names under it" came about. along with the fact that the format probably came from the notoriously unoriginal & wattpad-esque booktok, everyone who wanted activity in their notifs was using that format. and so now, with every new group of teens that comes here to enjoy stories and explore writing, the new "trend" isn't a fully fleshed out story: it's like pushing out content.

i'm not complaining, and i'm not saying that everyone lacks originality. i enjoy whatever ppl put out bc i know that any form of writing comes from some place within. i am simply making a written observation of something i've noticed happen over the last couple of years- being a younger teen when it started, and now growing into the basics of adulthood.

the internet is my diary lol

[montyywritess]

pet loss. ive already flooded my other socials w this grief so i have nowhere else to put ittt. there's legit nothing happy under the readmore as a warning. sheer vent post. was going to just draft it but i need to TALK about her.

my brain just has broken. it's only been a day so i know the pain is nowhere near over. truthfully, i think i could be in my 50s or 60s and still cry about my baby girl.

i just hate that the waves seem so strong and from nowhere too. i can just be talking about nothing even related to losing my dog, and i'll feel bad for laughing. i'll feel bad for feeling any joy. because it's not TRUE joy. because i know my true happiness was when i was going on walks with her, or cuddling her on the couch. or when she tapped my hand for more attention.

i feel like there's been an injustice, how a dog so loving and sweet had to die. and why did the world have to keep on going without her.

14 years of my life is such a long time when im not even 30 yet. and she's loved me during all of them. quite literally at my worst, she's seen me through it all. and she HAS. she wasn't just a dog that was 'there.' my babs was so observant, so in tune with everything i did. she followed me like a shadow. she knew when i was sad, she knew when i needed cheering up.

when i first moved away from home at 17. every triumph and every low point, she was there.

what's crazy is i didn't even need to train her? for anything. she never once had an accident in the house, until towards the end of her life. i showed her once, pee outside. and she did it ever since. i didn't need to train her on or off a lead. she knew. she just KNEW. she stayed by my side if we went on walks alone. the furthest she'd ever go was a few paces ahead, and then she'd stop to check i was still there. she'd only ever trot away further if i was with other people, but then she'd bound on back to us to make sure we were still together. she never was aggressive in the slightest. she was patient with everybody. as i went on to welcome cats and other dogs into our lives, she SHOWED THEM THE ROPES. she welcomed them too. she taught our other dog lola basically everything too, as we rescued lols from a neglectful situation, she didn't even know how to play with toys, but baby showed her. baby was and is the definition of perfection.

i even remember when she had her head buried in some tall grass, a HUGEE mastiff came running on over to her. she was still sniffing away. and then he said hi by sniffing her butt. she didn't even jump. she slowly lifted her head out of the grass and gave him a ??? look. like he was a peasant disturbing her.

babs absolutely made everybody fall in love with her whoever met her. even people who hate chihuahuas. "i never knew they were like this?" ALL of them said it.

there's only been two times in her life that she showed a mean streak and that was protecting me from people who meant me harm. despite her size, she was willing to hurt herself to save me. obviously i didn't let that happen but the fact she was willing to, meant everything.

she slept with me every night, tucked herself in the crook of my knees and we'd be like book ends. sometimes i'd wake up with her head on my pillow, tucked in the covers like she was a human.

there was something magical about her, that i've never had with any other dog. not even dogs i've owned or fostered. like she'd been on this earth before. so wise and kind.

i have SO many beautiful memories of her i've ordered a huge journal where i will start writing them as they come to me, so they can be remembered forever because i'm terrified of forgetting them.

but now i have one horrible memory that wont leave me and thats of her taking her last breath in my arms. i couldn't stop telling her thank you, and telling her it was okay. but its burned into my brain and i feel sick. i can't sleep because of it. i know that i owed it to her to be there, to make sure she wasn't wondering where i was. because she would have. i owed it to our bond and the 14 years of her always being there for me. but fuck, it's awful.

all of this feels so fucking wrong. i dont think i was supposed to be here without her and now im just stuck. now the rest of my life, she won't be there. it's not fair.

[catalists]

📓!!!!

Congrats, you get the angsty one :))))))

So, this one is set well in the future: Caleb, in his early-to-mid sixties, Essek...Essek. Caleb has made significant progress dismantling the Assembly and continues to teach at the Academy. A few years earlier, he and Essek mutually break off their romantic relationship--Caleb is the one who insists, since he is very aware he is getting older and Essek is not. Caleb urges Essek to start to build other relationships and focuses in his life before the Nein are gone. They still sort-of live together, on and off, but Essek's absences become lengthier. Caleb half-regrets it, but he also knows that Essek who spends time with them but has friends and projects elsewhere will have a better life when Caleb is gone. Anyway, they've been living in each other's pockets for about thirty years. He tells himself a little space is okay. While they're not 'in' a romantic relationship anymore, they also aren't looking for other partners--Caleb is getting older and has what he needs, and whatever Caleb's worries about not being enough, Essek really doesn't have interest in anyone else. But, charged with broadening his social circle, Essek...flounders a little. He has only had one (1) friend-making experience and he still doesn't really know how to get to know people aside from as an exchange of favors--or, since he isn't really looking for returns besides positive relationships, offers of aid. So, Essek ends up helping and befriending another adventuring party.

He likes them! They don't have a Jester, or a Caleb, but he does grow to care about them. But most critically, they don't have a Caduceus, who has always been able to turn things around, drag people back from the brink. And when things go very, very bad, it falls to Essek, who panics and rips them forward through time to save them.

It works. Sort of. They all make it. They dodge the blast of dragon fire that would have killed them all--and the dragon itself has given up, hours after their vanishing. They patch themselves up, enthusiastically hug a reluctant Essek for saving them. Essek teleports everybody home. It's fine. [[rest under readmore for length & injury descriptions]]

He has a headache and feels nauseous when he gets home, but that’s pretty par for the course for wild adventures. Essek honestly doesn’t think anything more is wrong until his skin is flaking and peeling the next morning. A sunburn, except he hasn’t spent any real time in the sun. When the irritation turns to bloody sores and the nausea remains,  he figures out pretty quick it's a side effect of the untethered time travel and rushes to the others, but they're all unharmed. Good. It's just him, then. Their druid heals him and he goes home, relieved it wasn’t worse.

Then it comes back. The heals work temporarily, but they don't keep it at bay. He goes to Caduceus then, but though Caduceus can heal it more easily, it still returns. They experiment with letting it go a little longer to see if it might repair itself without magic, but the wounds only worsen and Essek becomes more ill. He stays at the Blooming Grove through the next month, to the end of spring, where Caduceus’s healing can get him through most of the day of spellwork or light work in the garden before his body begins to break down again. If healing is not the answer, something is--something in the spellwork caused this injury, destabilized his own body’s ability to hold itself together. Something in the spellwork can put it right again. But he can’t find the answer, and as spring turns to early summer, Caduceus gently suggests that he ask for help. “I have,” Essek says, a little confused. He has been at the Grove for nearly a month now. “You have done a lot for me.” Caduceus makes a sweeping gesture at Essek’s notes, his spell diagrams, the painstaking account of his own casting as he tries to figures out what he did to himself. “Help with this,” he says. Essek is stubborn, but he is not stupid, and he is very tired. Caduceus goes with him when Essek returns to Rexxentrum again. It is early evening when they arrive and Caleb welcomes them both warmly and has them stay for dinner. His school year is just wrapping up; only a few advanced students are staying on to do research over the summer, so it is good timing, he says. If they want to spend a little time there. He avoids Essek’s eyes, a little. Essek wonders what he means by a little time; wonders if he resents their presence or regrets their parting at all.

“I am glad to hear it,” Essek says as steadily as he can. “I came to ask your help with--a project.” He explains it haltingly; Caduceus lets him, sitting silent. It’s mid-evening by then and whatever good was done by the healing spells is starting to wear off, so Caleb gets a good demonstration of the way the skin turns paper-fragile and blood wells up, on his hands and arms, under his fingernails. They’re only partway through their meal, and Caduceus reaches up automatically to touch a spell to Essek’s jaw and stop the bleeding in his gums so he can swallow without tasting iron. Caleb takes Essek’s arm very gently. He looks him over, fingertips up to his elbow, which is as far as he can carefully unbutton Essek’s sleeve. He finds without direction the other little wounds, familiar enough with Essek after decades to sense how he holds himself differently, both where the skin is tender and where there are invisible aches beneath the surface. “You should have come sooner,” Caleb says, cupping his face where Caduceus healed him moments before. Color seems to fade from humans as they age, and Caleb is no exception--his hair is more gray than red, now--but his eyes are as brilliant blue as ever. “You should have come as soon as it happened.”

“I didn’t--” Essek can’t look at him but can’t look away, so in absence of averting his eyes the words leave him. It takes him a minute to find them again. “I thought it would resolve itself.” The truth is he stopped believing that after the first week, but to admit anything else would be dangerous. Caleb insists on taking a look at Essek’s notes that night. They stay up late; Caduceus pats another healing spell into Essek’s shoulder as he leaves them to go to bed to get him through to the next morning. Caleb starts out fiercely focused and determined and full of hope; it reignites that same hope back in Essek. They work until Essek’s headache creeps back in. Caleb stays up a little longer as Essek trances in his chair. It neatly averts any negotiation of sleeping arrangements, for the time.

After a few days of progress with Caleb’s fresh eyes, they stall again. They both spend long hours staring at the equations, reworking them; Caleb goes to the Academy library and the Cobalt Soul and brings back every book that might help. It is the sort of complicated problem a wizard could dedicate their life to. I might, Essek thinks dizzily when he wakes from his trance in the middle of the night with blood running down fresh sores on his arms and trickling from his nose and mouth. The illness worsens as time creeps by; a healing spell can only hold the deterioration off for so long, and ‘so long’ becomes shorter. Essek would feel guilty to impose on Caleb for so long, guilty to keep Caduceus away from home, except that he is tired and ill most of the time, working with Caleb every moment that he is well enough to think. They fall, effortlessly, into their old patterns; when Essek slips from trance to sleep entirely by accident in the library one night, Caleb lifts him with a spell and carries him to bed. They fall asleep together after that without discussion. When Essek begins to reliably wake with bloodied arms, Caleb wraps him in bandages before they sleep so they don’t wake in bloodstained sheets. Every once in a while there is a flash of insight. But it’s not enough; not fast enough, not far enough. Caleb forgets a meeting one day, distracted with their latest approach and Essek’s worsening state, and that prompts them to involve the students. It’s an interesting problem; it is good practice for them, even if they are mostly checking or repeating Essek and Caleb’s work. Two of them try a few things and lose interest, going back to their own projects. The last student becomes invested, and Caleb eventually explains the situation a little more. Eventually, they meet Essek, and Caleb and Essek find themselves with something of a laboratory assistance.

It is the longest day of the year when they finally talk about it; high summer, the heat baking into the pavements outside. Essek stays inside, and the curtains stay drawn; while he once might have chanced the discomfort, they’ve learned the hard way that now his already fragile constitution shatters entirely in sunlight. Caleb sits with him, the room lit by an arcane glow in deference to Caleb’s eyesight. Even inside it is hot; Essek conjures an arcane chill periodically to keep the air at a comfortable temperature, and no one tries to use the stove. Essek picks at a platter of sliced fruit; everything tastes a little bit of iron, these days. Eating is an effort.

Caleb notices. “I can get Caduceus,” he offers, but Essek shakes his head and forces another bite. He doesn’t want to trouble Caduceus yet, not when he knows he’ll be asking again before he tries to sleep, in the hopes of drifting off in the temporary respite from pain.

He chews and swallows. Perhaps he is doing it to himself; the bright sweet novelty of citrus still draws him to the slices of tangerine even though he knows they will sting. Then he says, trying for casualty, “I am sorry for going back so quickly on our agreement.”

“What agreement?” Caleb wonders.

“To...be apart,” Essek says. “To end things.”

“I am glad you came,” Caleb says steadily. “I told you, I wish you had come sooner.”

“Even so,” Essek says. “If your hope was...I am conscious that I am taking up a great many of your years.” Caleb’s eyes are very blue, watching him like this. He looks from the fruit to his notes and says, to his own lines of failed equations, “I will try not to take many more of them.” On the last word, his own fang draws blood from his lip, so gentle a brush that he wouldn’t have noticed it if he did not have skin that split at the slightest provocation. He fumbles for a handkerchief and adds callously, “One way or another.”

“Essek,” Caleb says. “Essek, no.” He catches both of Essek’s hands in his; Essek is strangely aware of the texture of them. He has held Caleb’s hands many times, when he was younger, more recently, and he can feel the way Caleb’s skin has changed as he aged. Essek’s skin has a new texture now, too, although not quite the same--but in some ways comparable, thinner, more delicate. Caleb takes the handkerchief from him and dabs at Essek’s lip with single-minded concentration. “I would like you to take up many more of them. This was not--I was honest with you. I am cognizant only that you--our lifespans--”

“May not be so far apart,” Essek says. “As it so happens.”

“We are going to fix this,” Caleb says, sharply.

“I hope so,” Essek says, honestly. “But I only meant...there is no accounting for the future, Caleb Widogast. I will manage without you someday, should I have one. I promise you that. If I do not, or if I do...I am glad, to be here now. With you.”

Caleb smiles wanly at him. “Someone told me there is always a way.”

“Yes,” Essek says. “But we are on a clock. If we do not find the path before it runs down...I do not know how much longer. But if this draws itself out towards an inevitable conclusion, I will go.”

“What?” Caleb says. “No. Until this is fixed, stay here.”

“And if it ends in my death?” Essek says. He sees Caleb open his mouth to object. “Humor me. If this ends in my death. Surely you do not wish me to die here. We have gone to so much trouble, to let neither of us watch the other die.”

Caleb looks stricken. “That is not what...that is not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?” Essek challenges. He sits back to look Caleb full in the face. “What is this, but a slow deterioration? What is this but destined to cause you pain? Do not tell me you will fix this, Widogast. Say we cannot. Let us plan for such a possible future.”

Caleb wets his lips with his tongue. “I want--Essek. Unless there is someplace you would rather wish to be, in which case we will take you there, stay here. Please. Stay.”

Essek nods, slowly. “If you wish it, I wish it.”

“I do,” Caleb says. There is some relief on his face; Essek would feel a little guilty, for making such a threat and seeing the pain it caused him, if Caleb had not so assuredly done the same to Essek without any hesitancy.

“And say we fix this,” Essek says. “Say we fix this tomorrow.”

“Say we do,” Caleb says.

“Would you have me go, or stay?”

“I would--” Caleb looks at him. Essek does not know what he sees; for his part Essek sees Caleb, just Caleb, all the Calebs he has known at once: young and flame-haired and wary and a little older with more lines around his eyes and mouth, the proportion of them from smiling creeping up year by year, and with hair all-red and red-with-a-hint-of-gray and red-with-some-gray and red-and-gray in equal measure and the lines deepen and his eyes stay the same bright, bright blue. Essek holds Caleb very carefully in his memory, although he is aware it is not as good as Caleb’s. That is okay; he has back-ups. He has a collection of drawings of Caleb by Jester, from most of the years they have known each other, Jester’s private winter solstice gift to him. “I would have you, Essek. However you would like.”

“And if I do not want to go?” Essek asks.

It is Caleb’s turn to look past him at the books heaped on the table. “I do not want to be selfish with you, Essek.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“I want you to stay,” Caleb says, finally. “I have always...”

“How fortunate,” Essek says, “That we want the same thing. I wish to have you too, Caleb. For as long as we have. Until the end of it, whatever pain it causes.”

Caleb stands and moves, then, dropping beside Essek on the sofa and drawing him in. Essek goes easily, melting into the familiar hold. Caleb presses a kiss to his cheek, a less-fragile bit of skin. Essek closes his eyes.

One of them will die, in the next year, or in another thirty. That is the least important part.

In my imagination, they probably figure it out and save Essek, but hey, dealer’s choice unless I actually write this.

[inkdemonapologist]

[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

WE STARTED.... A NEW SCENARIO..... as you may have read in Boo’s summary post, for some unknown reason aLL MUSICAL AND PERFORMANCE ABILITY SEEMS TO BE??? GONE??? Sammy woke up, realised he couldn’t hold even the simplest tune in his head, and immediately lost THIRTY-ONE SANITY in one hit

..... YOU KNOW THAT MAKES SENSE HONESTLY

 anyway i have a some out-of-context quotes from the game for u all under the readmore if ur into that kinda thing!!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[GM] It's a tough voice to do, so you can't be as choosy, and your resident Bendy cannot act to save his life, so that's no good-- [Joey] Uh-oh. [Jack] Sorry, Lurks. [Joey] I'm just so worried he's going to have to act now... [Jack] Clearly, he should've used the time between scenarios to train that! [GM] Yeah, that's just what everybody wants I'm sure, is the Lurker training in LYING. That sounds like a great idea!

[GM] *asking for dice rolls to see how well our actual jobs are going* We can do a little bit of mundanity to, to treasure, and keep you warm later!

[Henry] Should I spend Luck points on this? No, I'm not spending Luck on work. [Sammy] That's a good general life policy

[Jack] Does Jack have any contacts? [Joey] No, he has glasses! :D [Jack] noooo that's my job! It's my job to make Jack's puns! ....Contacts probably didn't exist in the 1930s, that's okay. [Sammy] No, don't say that! Boo's going to have to look it up now!

[GM] What spell is Joey working on? [Jack] (Spell of Make Investor Like You)

[Joey] I think he probably has filing cabinets specifically to put occult stuff in and lock. And then the rest of his office is just piles and tables of animation stuff that you're like "...shouldn't this??? be??? in the filing cabinet???"

[GM] Allison remarks, "The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power of our minds, which hardly any later friend can obtain." [Sammy] Y'know, normal, just nORMAL CASUAL CHATTER, [GM] Tom, working on the pipe, just kinda mutters, "I enjoy friends, dear not only by habit and association, but from their own merits." And she gives him a look! [Jack] ...love at first whATEVER THIS IS,

[Sammy] ...Sammy's not amused. [GM] The band's amused! [Jack] Jack is probably amused.

[GM] So far things are going very well, but y'know, [Jack] Only so long until we crit fail something! [Sammy] NEVER TOO LATE TO MESS IT UP!

[GM] Allison's vibe is like, I Didn't Study This Exactly, But I Was Hoping It Could Just Work Out! [Jack] ...She has a lot of practice at just... making things work out, huh.... 

[GM] Is there anything else Joey would try to show off? [Joey] Tries to think... what else is at the Studio... [Jack] "Do you wanna talk to our janitor? He's really cool!"

[Joey] I roll to see if Joey can put two brain cells together,

[Jack] I have to appreciate that Bendy said he didn’t have the keys today. He’s been stealing them before, but THIS TIME isn’t his doing!

[Sammy] If there’s anything he needs to do himself, then he’ll come in early, but I don’t know what state we’re in -- [Joey] Uh, New York. [Sammy] ...what? [Joey] You didn’t know what state we’re in. :) [Sammy] [Sammy] thanks

[Joey] Oh Joey’s absolutely coming in early. Joey woke up, and felt great, so he’s going to menace every other department today, because he has the energy to get his fingers into everything! [Sammy] *distressed sounds in the background*

[Sammy] Hey how come when we did a Halloween cartoon, we all went to Haiti, but we’re doing a cartoon about a fair and we’re not going to a fair? [Jack] [Jack] I think we all know why.

*trying to decide who goes to Joey’s fancy dinner with an investor* [Sammy] I don’t know if Sammy will help you... [Sammy] Unless you bring Sammy and put him on a piano, like a small child that needs to be immediately handed crayons.

[Joey] Joey will say that they’re essentially the second hands in each of the departments-- [Jack] Yeah, Abby, the second hand… entire Art Department director, [GM] Uh-huh. [Joey] She… she knows,, [GM] Joey, [Joey] She knows that Joey… is … Big Gay for Henry,,, [GM] This is true, but I think she likes nominal acknowledgement that she holds a position, [Jack] He can just say that they’re high-ranking, and not-- [Joey] No I rolled badly, Joey’s going to say that Sammy and Henry are busy, so he brought his second-best! :) [GM] Abby is massaging her temples. [Joey] Sorry, Abby. He is,, an idiot,,, [GM] I think she’d be a lot more bothered if she couldn’t go and commiserate with Henry about it. Like, “why can’t he keep it straight?” [GM] ……………….well. She knows why he can’t keep it straight.

[GM] It’s about midnight, and something... strange.... happens. The trumpet player, who is leading the band -- [Joey] -- has a trumpet for a head! [GM] what no

*Joey succeeds a sanity check, Jack fails it* [GM] Joey, roll 1d10! [Joey] Uh, 3? [GM] Okay, you’re only down three sanity, that’s not so bad! [GM] Jack, roll 6d10! [Jack] what? [Joey] Six??? SIX d10s????? [GM] Yeah! [Joey] nICE KNOWING YOU, JACK!!! It’s time for Sillytime Jack.

[Jack] Smash cut to Henry, curled up in bed, nice and cozy,

[GM] I will also note, you cannot seem to Fast Talk. [Joey] ...what else can I do? [GM] Just normal talk. Like a normal person.

[Jack] I feel like Jack probably has a hunch that it’s weird nightmarish horror nonsense, on account of he just lost nineteen sanity,

[GM] Abby’s gonna try to take him to the hospital. [Jack] Jack’s just going to let that happen, because he’s shaken enough that he doesn’t have any significantly better ideas! Other than AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA,

[Sammy] *rolling sanity damage* 9… 9, stop that…. 4, [Jack] You’ve already lost more than Jack! [Sammy] 2, ...6, and 1! [Joey] That’s 31. [GM] Okay, Sammy has six sanity! [Sammy] eXCUSE ME?????

[Joey] Joey does want to head home… what day is it? [GM] Friday, the 13th! [Jack] HM, [Sammy] I GUESS IT IS, ISN’T IT… I wasn’t keeping track, but I guess it sure is! [GM] A delightful treat for myself, when I was looking up days in July, in 1934, [Sammy] WAIT, NO, ITS ACTUALLY A COINCIDENCE? Oh my gosh, [Jack] Because Friday the 13th wouldn’t even be a spooky day at this point in time! [GM] It is now! [Jack] It’s spooky, but just for us!

[Sammy] Sammy would try to call Jack, he’d try to call Joey, he’d try to call Henry -- probably several times, [Henry] sammy gets jack’s cat [Henry] phone is answered with meows [Jack] That does seem fitting for a really bad luck roll; the phone gets answered, and Sammy’s really relieved -- and it’s just the cat. [Sammy] Sammy, at 6 sanity: “jack’s tuRNED INTO A CAT,”

[Joey] The phone kept on ringing, so the cat just batted it off the cradle, [Jack] I feel like Jack probably doesn’t usually get a significant number of calls, so like, this many calls in a row is just obnoxious! [Jack] Cat’s having none of it. [Jack] Phone ring isn’t breakfast! [Jack] Where is the soft provider of food.

[GM] Oh no, you know what’s going to happen? Henry’s gonna get through to Jack, and then when Sammy calls it’s busy! [Sammy] cALLS JACK IT’S BUSY, CALLS HENRY IT’S BUSY, [Jack] I was gonna say maybe Henry would call Sammy first, because Sammy was one of the original three. [Jack] …Henry calls Sammy, Sammy is busy because SAMMY is trying to call someone, and then Henry calls Jack, and Sammy tries to call Jack again-- [Sammy] *laughing* THE HORROR, The deep, bone-chilling horror of A TIME BEFORE CALL-WAITING!!

[Henry] Is Joey there? [Jack] Yeah. [Henry] Are you guys alright? [Jack] ……………….hm,

[Jack] Cat is just sat on Joey, purring. Something is wrong with the human. Purr to fix the human.

[Henry] I called Sammy to make sure he’s okay, but-- [Abby] Was he? [Henry] No.

[Joey] Joey is going to be… obstinate feels like the wrong word? [Joey] He’s being the cat where you put the leash on, and the cat just sits down. [Joey] That is the Joseph mood right now.

[Sammy] *muttering* First one boyfriend turns into a cat, now the other boyfriend’s voice is wrong, today is terrible,

[Joey] This is Joey’s everything. [Sammy] That’s Joey’s contribution to the party! That’s like, your bard can no longer play music. [Sammy] ……….which is also true, but Sammy contributes other things. [Jack] Like Intimidate! [Sammy] Right now he contributes paranoia!

[lorata]

Do Claudius and Alec still become close without Selene as a link in the injured-Creed AU? And would Petra be jealous that Alec "only" lost an arm and not his mobility?

the short answer to question 2 is no! they are kin in that regard. as for question 1 -- HERE HAVE FIC (under the readmore)

District 2 gets its first back-to-back Victors in 30 years, and that’s … fine.

Claudius is twenty-five years old, he’s not a baby or a jealous teenager who needs to sabotage what other people have just because it isn’t his. Petra and Alec won hard Games and came out scarred, he’s not going to deny they deserve to have someone their age who understands them. Be nice to know what that felt like, but whatever, the deaths didn’t fall in his favour, it’s fine. Petra hates him, but now she’s got a buddy, and he’s even missing a limb so she doesn’t even have to resent his privileged existence. Now they can go have tea parties and bitch about all the privileged able-bodied assholes who just don’t get what it’s like.

Lyme asks if Claudius wants to meet Alec, once he’s cleared for visitors, but Claudius begs off. He sends cookies along with everyone else, but he’s not going to put the poor kid in an awkward position of sitting through an afternoon playing nice with the weird dude from that year nobody talks about, and the thought of Alec going over to Petra’s and laughing about it afterward is excruciating. That really is the hallmark of getting old, caring what the kids think of him, but you know what, he’s allowed to have his feelings.

Sometimes Claudius wonders if this is how Enobaria felt when he won, but then he remembers bleeding out onto her hardwood while she stepped over him and went to bed and he thinks, ah, actually, probably not.

So the kids have a friend for life and Claudius is a loner and it’s fine. It’s fine. He’s got his mentor, and he has Misha, who must have some kind of weird emotional radar because she ramps up the harassment and stealth gifts of profane embroidery until Claudius snaps at her to fuck off and leave him alone. Except that later that night she climbs in his window with a loaf of soft, pull-apart bread and containers of Snow only knows to dip it in and turns on a terrible spy movie and paints his nails glittery black while they eat like he didn’t just bite her head off that afternoon, and okay, maybe he doesn’t need to be quite so tragic about it.

Around October, he runs into Alec in the apple orchard. Or rather, Alec runs into him.

There’s no way around it; Claudius is coming back from the mountain and there’s Alec on the path, feet planted, one arm wrapped around his chest. He’s got his head tilted, chin raised, and a stubborn look on his face.

Oh, Claudius thinks in a crackle of clarity. Thisis how Enobaria felt when he showed up at her house at three in the morning spoiling for a fight.

“Hi,” he says, because he’s the elder now and that means he has to be mature, but at the same time he probably should have checked with Callista about whether she’s okay with her twitchy baby Victor getting in knife-fights with the Village recluse.

Alec studies him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. “You’re avoiding me.”

He says it calm and matter of fact, and Claudius’ first impulse is to sputter out a denial. Instead he bites his tongue and rolls back on his heels. “Oh?”

“Everybody else has come by to say hi.”

“Bullshit.” By the Victory Tour, sure, but mid-fall is still way too early for the whole Village to make a personal appearance. At that point Claudius was still looking for knives when he rounded a corner. “What is this about?”

For the first time a bit of the challenge slips, revealing the tired kid around the mouth and the circles below the eyes. But it’s not just the long exhaustion of recovery, there’s something else in the curve of his eyebrows, the play of fingertips along his hem. “It’s not like I don’t know. I’m the same age. As — those kids. In your Arena.”

He — what?

Time for math. Claudius always sucked at reading but he can do Games calculations just fine, thanks, and yeah, Alec winning the 73rd would put him at twelve the same year as all the outlier tributes Claudius’ year. Suddenly Claudius feels very old and very tired and very much like he has not had enough therapy to identify what the fuck is wrong with this picture. “Uh,” Claudius says, intelligently. “Okay, I don’t know what you think is happening here, but — that is not it. You think I’m avoiding you because you remind me of the kids I killed?”

Alec flushes dark, but to his credit, he doesn’t back down. And yeah, okay, Claudius has his own issues, but the last thing a new Victor needs in his recovery is thinking his very existence is someone else’s trauma-bomb. This seems like the kind of thing Callista should have brought to his attention, but maybe Alec never mentioned it. Keeping it a secret from his mentor and confronting the possibly volatile, hostile, triggered Victor in the apple orchard seems like exactly the kind of dumbass strategy a young Victor would come up with, so … yeah, why not.

He also can’t leave it like that, and not only because Callista will gut him and feet him to her cats for breakfast. Claudius sighs and heroically resists the urge to pinch his nose. “We’re not going to solve this on the path. Come back with me and we’ll — something.”

Alec gives him the side-eye as Claudius brushes past him, but even Claudius can’t ignore the way he’s no longer holding himself like there’s a sword jammed up his spine.

‘Something’ turns out to be cookies, because Alec isn’t cleared for fighting and Claudius can’t stand the thought of sitting on the couch and staring at each other while the awkwardness fills the room like poison gas. Baking is … good, right, who doesn’t love baking, except he didn’t think about how many simple tasks use both hands and has to keep switching out what he’s about to ask Alec to do. Normally he’d give him stirring, that’s the baby task, but it’s a bitch and a half when you can’t hold the bowl still, and Alec can sit and trap the bowl between his thighs — or Claudius can trust him to measure ingredients without fucking up.

They’re Careers. Careers are good at following instructions with precision. Not everyone has a pathological need to reinvent the wheel like Misha. It’ll be fine.

“For what it’s worth, I never thought about you being twelve,” Claudius says over the bowl of butter and sugar. “It’s not even about the math, it’s — all of that is before. We are who we are when we walk through those gates, nothing else matters. Talking about a Victor’s life before Residential is super weird. It feels … not illegal, that’s a big dramatic, but … I don’t know the word for it. What’s the opposite of classy?”

“Gauche?” Alec suggests, and huh, okay, Claudius has heard Brutus use five-dollar words with military precision and ridiculous satisfaction precisely because he knows no one expects him to, but it didn’t sound like that. He’ll blame Alec for this given their conversation, but Claudius can’t help the tiny checkbox that appears in his head saying educated.

“I was gonna say rude as shit, but sure, let’s go with that. It’s gauche.” He doesn’t say it with a Capitol accent, which should earn him a reward, but instead he reaches out for the bowl of eggs. Alec had cracked them both one-handed with the kind of satisfaction that spoke to a hell of a lot of practice. Claudius imagines Callista rolling up with a bucketload of eggs — oddly charming. “Your life is your business, you know? I never even did the math before.”

“Okay.” Alec says it slowly, but he doesn’t argue. Which is good, because honestly, the thought of anyone imagining Claudius as a twelve-year-old is absolutely mortifying. “So then … why?”

Oh, boy. Here’s where Claudius will give it up for the new kid, he’s way braver than Claudius ever was. He might have knocked on Enobaria’s door in the middle of the night and demanded she fight him, but he never would have had the guts to ask her why she didn’t want to be his friend. In training they used to bark at candidates for leaving openings in their guard; Claudius has no words for whatever this is.

“I guess I just thought it would be weird.” The sun’s at the right angle to shine through the kitchen window, catching the light of the little prism hung from the frame and scattering rainbows across the ceiling. “I’ve been out a while, you and Petra are back to back. You didn’t need any third-wheeling.”

Alec wrinkles his nose. “We’re not dating. That wouldn’t even work.”

Claudius does not mention that only one generation is Misha, a woman who likes women, and Devon, a man who’s into men, who are in fact dating. He didn’t learn that little fact until at least a year in, and Alec isn’t anywhere near either Brutus or Lyme’s mentoring lines, so he won’t likely hear of that for a while unless Petra’s into gossip. He nearly hands Alec a knife, pauses, weighs asking a fresh Victor if he’s cleared for knives versus the likelihood that they’ll lie to get their hands on one, then passes over the chocolate block and snags a paper bag from the cupboard instead. “Here,” he says. “Smash this.”

“Smash —“ Alec blinks.

“Buying broken chocolate is stupid,” Claudius says, and Alec lets out a startled snort. “Hit it with a hammer, or throw it on the ground and stomp on it. It’s cathartic.” See, he knows some educated words, when it counts.

They get the dough in the fridge to chill and retire to the couch. Alec doesn’t react with surprise or disbelief like Claudius did the first time he learned that step, which puts him in a rare fucking box indeed, the ‘we made cookies when I was small’ box, where Claudius normally puts abnormally wholesome people like Emory or Devon. Even Petra, for all her issues, has the requisite fucked-up childhood. Alec tucks his feet under him and massages his shoulder absently; for his part Claudius isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do now. Misha needs constant entertainment, like a bored puppy, or she’ll decide to rearrange his furniture or plait his hair into dozens of tiny braids with ribbons on the ends, but Alec seems content to sit.

“Okay, so.” Alec stares intently at his feet. His socks have cats on them, holding hands in a circle around his ankle and singing at the moon, which Claudius didn’t notice before and now cannot stop looking at. “I don’t want to be rude or whatever, but you know you can have more than one friend? This isn’t the Arena, we’re not claiming Allies.”

“Have you told Petra that?” Claudius shoots back, because it’s better than pointing out that actually, in the Village, it has historically been exactly like that. Friendships are made or broken along hierarchy lines, he and Petra never gelled and now that she has Alec that should be it. He’d be an asshole to poach her new best friend. He’d even call precedent to defend his concerns, except that the decade above them has Emory, Misha and Devon defying expectations, and, shit.

Alec shoots him a look so dry and exasperated he may as well have peeled it right out of the Brutus photo album. Claudius is impressed. “See, this is starting to sound like a you problem.”

Claudius stares at him for a second, then can’t help a short laugh. “Did anyone tell you you’re a little bitchy?”

“Long history of swallowing bullshit, I don’t have to do it anymore.” Alec grins at him, sharp with an undercurrent of — something he’s not saying. Interesting. Maybe it wasn’t all cookies and five-dollar words after all. “Seriously though. I won the Games, I get to ask for what I want now. Callista says so.”

Okay, see, now, that sounds — Claudius slants a sharp look at him, but Alec seems happy enough to examine the fireplace, chin resting on his knee. He probably imagined it. “Okay, well.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We can bring the cookies over and see if she throws them in my face, how’s that.”

“She won’t,” Alec says, brightening, and yeah all right, fine, it’s not the worst to find that gnarled knot of resentment in his chest and let it go. “Not if you have nutmeg.”

“Oh, you’re one of those, I see.” Claudius nudges him with his foot. “Secret Emory under all that sass, I see you. Come on, let’s check the dough.”

[floreleine]

That GM prequel fic - part 3: Florence's POV

Part 1 (Madeleine, <1k, G)

Part 2 (Scarlet, 1k, G)

Ships: Floreleine & ScarletMay

Hiding the entire fic under the readmore this time for Part 1+2 spoiler reasons! This one's also rated G (or T if we're going for swear words and alcohol consumption I guess), a little over 1k words.

There will be at least 1 more part of this, and then I might post a revised and possibly longer version to ao3.

Bc idk where to put this in the fic itself yet, quick setting overview: they're not sitting around a table but instead Florence and Madeleine are sitting on a small couch, Scarlet is next to Madeleine on a wobbly kitchen chair and Anna May is sitting opposite them on a barstool at the kitchen aisle.

That night, the librarians plus Scarlet (and minus Baby, who is sleeping in the next room under a security camera that both Madeleine and Scarlet insist on checking every other minute) are sitting in the kitchen together for dinner and a drink.

Or five drinks in Anna May's case, as she downs the first one in one go and hasn't let go of the Whiskey bottle since. Florence can't blame her, really - if Madeleine had run off with some guy, no matter how early in their relationship, only to return a year later with tears and a baby... She has no idea what she'd be doing right now.

Madeleine and Scarlet are talking about the child right now, sharing child-caring advice - Florence is fairly certain that Madeleine has her knowledge from books and only from books, but she seems to have picked out sound advice from all that she has read at least - and Florence has to smile fondly at how Madeleine is glowing at the prospect of having a child in the library.

Scarlet is careful in her replies, not wanting to commit to anything, her eyes shifting back to Anna May whenever she doesn't think that the others are looking.

'She's afraid she'll kick her out after all,' Florence thinks with a quiet sigh. 'Can't blame her, Anna knows how to hold a grudge, and with how she is drinking right now... It isn't her friendliest appearance'.

Still, she thinks that they will work it out. They better. It's been a while since she has seen Anna May have an emotional reaction to just about anything, and it can't be healthy to keep it all locked inside, pushing all chances of happiness away.

Madeleine must have heard her sigh, and she leans back against Florence's side. Florence squeezes her arm, content to have her by her side, glad that they, at least, don't have to worry about their relationship status. Being with Madeleine always relaxes her, makes her feel like everything is alright in the world.

Madeleine presses a kiss to her chin and, after checking that both Scarlet and Anna May are looking down at their glasses, nods in the direction of the door. 'Should we give those two some privacy?'

Florence tilts her head for a moment to consider, then shakes her head, nodding at Anna May, and Madeleine winces a little. Yes, Anna is barely keeping it together now, who knows what she may say or rather shout if they left them alone... Anna May should get a chance to cool down, before she ends up saying something she doesn't mean and would regret.

As if on cue, Anna May throws back the rest of the Whiskey in her glass in one gulp and loudly brings it down on the kitchen counter as if to dispel the silence that has fallen.

"Fuck."

Madeleine looks like she wants to remind her about cursing with children in the house again, but Florence squeezes her arm to stop her. They don't need to irritate Anna May even more right now.

"I'm sorry," Scarlet says immediately. Florence doesn't think that she is apologizing for anything in particular, just for the situation in general, for present and past.

Anna May gets up and turns around, putting her glass in the sink and turning on the water, but then just leaning against it with her hands holding onto the metal edge and her knuckles turning white.

Florence is trying to decide whether to step in or not when Scarlet speaks up again in a shaky voice. "I can - I can leave, I don't have to -" she gets up, clearly ready to bolt, and Anna May flinches, but she doesn't turn back around.

"No-one's" leaving, Florence says at the same time as Madeleine says "No, don't be silly!" They share a smile, and then Madeleine squeezes her hand before getting up and walking over to Madeleine. "Come on, let me show you everything. You can sleep in the room with Samantha, me and Florence aren't really using it much anyway."

Florence watches them go with a soft smile. Madeleine always knows what to do, what to say. She's so grateful to have her.

Once the other two have left, Florence goes up to Anna May and slams the still-running tap down, making her jump.

"Stop wasting water and get a hold of yourself, Anna!"

Anna May whirls around, clearly ready to fight, but Florence just throws her a deadpan look and she deflates.

"Fuck, I don't know what to do." She slurs her words a little, but not as much as Florence would have expected after that much alcohol.

"Right now? You are going to drink some water so you will not be terribly hungover tomorrow. And tomorrow, you have got to think about whether you want that woman and her kid to stick around or not."

Anna May flinches a little, but when Florence sighs and pours her a glass of water, she takes it without protest and gulps most of it down in one go.

"I dun' want her to leave," she then murmurs, staring down at the glass in her hands. "She left me once, I don't want her to leave me again."

Florence sighs and pulls her into a hug. "Bloody hell, Anna, why did you never say anything? You must have been fucking heartbroken, and all you told us was that you gave dating one last chance."

Anna May half-laughs, half-sobs and clings to Florence like a lifeline. "Don't know. Didn't want to be weak. Didn't want it to be real."

"Oh, Anna," Florence sighs and squeezes her tightly. Then she takes a step back and fixes her with a hard look. "You've got to tell her that, you know that, Anna May? She is going to run away just to give you space while you are not talking to her because you're afraid she might run anyway."

Anna May sighs and grimaces a little, but nods. "I - tomorrow. I'll tell her tomorrow, before I can chicken out." she sighs. "I mean, it's not like I know whether she'd want to - whether she still-" she sighs. "She only left me because he didn't want to share, but maybe by now she's just over me."

Florence shrugs. "I can't look in her head, Anna, but from the way she looks at you... I think you guys will figure it out."

Anna May nods uncertainty, then frowns again. "And you'd be fine with it, if she's staying here... Indefinitely? I mean, she has a - kid -" she adds with a somewhat perplexed expression on her face, making Florence laugh. She's half of a mind to say 'congrats, you're a step-mom!' but stops herself at the last second. There will be time for that kind of joke when the peace between Anna May and that Scarlet isn't quite so fragile anymore. "Exactly," she instead replies. "So you know Madeleine will be mad at you forever if you let them get away."

Anna May snorts. "She did seem quite... taken by the kid."

Florence nods, frowning a little herself now. "She's always wanted kids, she just accepted that it isn't sensible in our line of work, and that I am not interested in them anyway. Seeing her with Samantha, now I'm wondering..."

"You did nothing wrong," Anna May reassures her. "And fuck, can you imagine having two kids around? It will be bad enough, trying to protect the one from everybody."

Florence sighs and nods. "I suppose. But I'm sure we'll manage. ...are you going to be alright now, or do I have to hide the Whiskey?"

"I'm not a drunk," Anna May replies a little offended, and Florence grins.

"I know you're not, but you sure made a great impression of one earlier!"

Anna May groans, and then she turns back to the counter to refill her waterglass. "Fuck, I'll be so dead tomorrow."

"Sleep in, then. Me 'n Madeleine will make sure Scarlet won't take off before you're awake and had your talk with her."

Anna May nods sharply. Florence smiles and squeezes her arm. "Well, get some sleep. I'll check on Scarlet and Madeleine."

~

Anna May nods again, and Florence sees her lean back against the counter with a deep sigh while she is leaving the kitchen. She really hopes that Anna May will take her advice to heart. Some heartbreak can't be avoided- but the one between her and Scarlet doesn't seem quite so inevitable.

Part 4

@phoenixhalliwell @thesevenwondersofawitch another update, hope you liked it!

If anyone else wants to be tagged for this series, lmk! Not tagging my usual GM tag list in every fic update as that would just be spammy.

Taking prompts!

[spiralhigh]

Maybe Danganronpa 1, 2 & V3? Or just 2, that's fine too!

okay this. this is gonna have to go under a readmore lmao

thh:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

man..... hm. this is hard because i dont think about thh very much....... probably asahina

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

NAEGI. naegi baby boy you are my angel in real life. sweet little feller

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

DEFINITELY ASAHINA but i already said her so hagakure <3 i like him he's silly

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

TAKUMI. i know he's not in thh literally at all but im not doing one of these for killer killer and there arent rly any obscure characters in thh so i'm putting him here. i love him so much it's unreal

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

touko <3 terrible representation of every single group she's part of, including women. but i love her

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

HIFUMI FR just look at chapter three like. come ON

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

leon. i hate that bitch he's annoying

sdr2:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

okay this is hard because like. komaeda is my favorite character who i've spent the most time analyzing but i think about hinata more because i'm in love with him? so i'm going to answer komaeda but know that it's basically a tie

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

HAJIME HAJIME HAJIME HAJIME HAJIME HAJIME HAJIME sometimes i literally just sit and stare at his neutral smiling sprite for a little while. he is so cute he is SO cute i literally cant handle it

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

AKANE!!!!! everybody fucking sleeps on her and i am so tired of it because i love her so much. she's like, probably in my top 10 dr characters

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

YASUKE!!!!!!!!!!!! he's mentioned one (1) time in sdr2 so he fucking counts. and i did see that one line and lose my mind and talk about it for a week thanks

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

it is impossible to be poorer or meower than komaeda nagito

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

kazuichi. i like him but i still want to torment him a little

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

teruteru.

v3:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

(sighs quietly) ouma... i'm sorry. i don't like what the fandom has done to him but i do like his canon characterization a whole gd lot

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

you KNOW it's amami. you KNOOOOWWWWW it's amami i love that bitch he is so pretty

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

RYOUMA everybody forgets about him but not me. not me. i love him.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

amami again i guess? it's hard to answer this for a game that has such a small cast when i'm not cheating like i did in the last two lmao

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

again. hard to get more controversial than ouma.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

oh my god kaito. kaito forever i could make him worse

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

i was originally going to say korekiyo but actually im changing my answer to every single one of the monokubz. worst addition to danganronpa, worst characters in danganronpa, every single one of them burn in hell forever and ever