#possibly may remain unfinished?

[to-the-stars8]

Home For the Holidays

Jason Todd & Dick Grayson & Tim Drake All Chapters Ao3

A/N: Just a little Christmas story for the holidays I thought I would post. I don't know if I'll finish it before Christmas or at all, but we will definitely see how it goes! Sorry if the characters are a little OOC, I just wanted to try something new--tho I did try to stick with the og characteristics as much as I could. Also, I'm kind of keeping it sort of to the original timeline, which is why it's set in the 90s.

Jason, Tim, and Dick are stuck in the middle of who-knows-where with little to no money and only five days til Christmas. Not to mention, tensions are high between them, so they have to come together to figure out a way to get home.

December 20, 1992, Reno, NV

Last Christmas was playing on the radio in the motel room as Jason took a drag off a cigarette while he watched Tim try a kickflip for the third time in a row. The plastic lawn chair he was sitting on was rocking back and forth on its feeble legs. He could hear Dick arguing with Bruce on the guest room phone inside, and it was getting heated. Eventually, the conversation ended with Dick calling Bruce a shit father and slamming the phone down. Tim must have heard it from his spot in the parking lot by the way he gave Jason a questioning look but didn’t say anything. 

A few minutes later, Dick stepped out of the room. He sucked in a fresh breath of Reno air before exhaling slowly. It was something he had been doing lately to try and calm down, but, this time, it didn’t seem to be working. 

Taking another drag of his cigarette, he offered it to Dick who declined it with a slight wave of his hand. Jason raised his eyebrows in an ‘you’re loss’ gesture before asking, “What did our dear old Dad say?”

By the sour look on Dick’s face, it hadn’t been anything good. “He’s on some mission and can’t come. He’ll try to get in contact with Alfred, but I doubt he will if it’s not urgent. He also bitched at me for not calling on a ‘secure’ line.”

Jason was all but surprised. Bruce picked and chose when he wanted to be a loving father. Flicking away the bud of his cigarette, he finally said, “This place is too expensive to stay at, even though it’s a fuckin’ dump.” 

“We’ll figure something out,” Dick said, trying to be calm. “I’d like to be home for Christmas. We should be home for the holidays.”

For some reason, that annoyed Jason and he snapped back, “And how are we gonna get there, Richard? Right now, I got thirty dollars to my name, and I would bet that thirty dollars that you got less. I doubt the kid has anything to offer other than piss-poor skateboarding skills.”

“I can hear you, asshole,” Tim shouted across the parking lot. 

Jason ignored him before saying slowly to Dick, “Just give up the Christmas idea.”

“Just because you and Bruce don’t like each other, doesn’t mean he doesn’t like us.”

Dick was sure Jason would have gotten up to hit him just by the look on his younger brother’s face. Standing suddenly, Jason glared down at Dick before turning on his heel to stalk off. Dick, feeling guilty, tried to call him back, but it was useless. With a huff, he retreated into the room. The door slammed shut behind Dick, making Tim jump. 

It had been like a cycle of arguing before coming to a truce since the end of the mission, and Tim had just started to wait until the next time they would blow up at each other. He couldn’t picture Jason keeping any kind of positive attitude of any kind, and Dick didn’t really have the sort of temper that could tolerate anything but happiness and complacency. At the end of it all, it left Tim annoyed, Jason stomping off, and Dick trying not to blow up. 

With a sigh, Tim went to do another kickflip.

[normatural]

Echoes of Souls | A.T

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x f!reader

Summary: In the old, abandoned castle, she found a love letter addressed to her, written by someone who died a century ago.

Word Count: 627

A/N: This is going to be a multi-chapter story so let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist. Feedback is always welcome. English isn't my first language so excuse any mistakes but feel free to point them out to help me improve.

Prologue

As you ventured deeper into the old castle’s darkened heart, the wooden floors creaked under your weight. Moonlight spilled through the gaps in the boarded-up windows, casting eerie patterns on the walls. Your footsteps echoed in the vast, empty halls - a reminder of the life that once filled these rooms. In its prime, the castle must have been a sight of power and strength but now only its ruins stood with the remains of what it once was.

In a forgotten corner, behind a luxurious, albeit faded, tapestry was a small, concealed door. Intrigued, you pushed it open, revealing a hidden study. Dust motes danced in the beam of your phone’s lantern as you surveyed the room. Your eyes fell upon an ancient and elegant desk, covered in a thick layer of dust. Something gleamed faintly beneath the grime.

Clearing the dust with gentle, careful strokes, you noticed an old, ornate inkwell and an unfinished letter. But it was the sealed envelope that captured your attention. You picked it up, the paper fragile and yellowed with age. You broke the seal with trembling hands and unfolded the letter, eyes scanning the elegant, flowing script.

As your eyes scanned the words, you could scarcely believe your vision. The letter was addressed to you, bearing an unknown name that sent shivers down your spine. It was a letter from Aemond Targaryen, written over a century ago.

"My Dearest, 

Though you may never read these words, I write them with an ardent heart, compelled by a love that defies the boundaries of time. From the moment I first beheld you, my soul recognized its counterpart. In the fleeting, stolen moments we shared, I found a joy that I had never known, a peace that I had never sought.

But fate, it seems, is a cruel mistress, and the duties of our blood have kept us apart. Yet, even as I fulfill these obligations, my thoughts are ever with you, my heart yearning for the day we may be reunited, even if only in another life.

If you find this letter, know that my love for you was eternal and unyielding. The gods themselves could not tear my heart from yours. You are, and will always be, my greatest love.

Yours forever,

Aemond Targaryen.”

Tears welled in your eyes as the heartfelt words sank in. A part of me felt somehow a profound connection to the man who wrote them as if his spirit had been waiting patiently across the centuries for you to find him. To find this letter. It was as if you could feel Aemond’s presence, a gentle whisper in the air, a caress just out of reach. The hairs in your body stand on end.

Memories that were not your own flickered in the periphery of your mind - glimpses of a life filled with passion and tumult, of a love that burned brightly against the backdrop of a world in turmoil. Aemond’s face, stern yet tender, flashed before your eyes, a visage that seemed to bridge the gap between past and present.

At that moment, the abandoned castle felt alive with the echoes of the past. You clutched the letter to your chest, your heart beating faster against your ribcage. How could such a thing be possible?

In the quiet of the night, under the watchful gaze of the moon, you whispered your own words to the wind. Hoping that somehow they’d meet that man just like his had met yours. Sleep didn’t catch you that night. Your thoughts too consumed with that letter and the whirlwind in your chest to fall into a slumber. The fact that you should start planning the restoration of the castle is just as lost.

[podcastenthusiast]

Dead Boy Detectives Fic Rec List

Mostly payneland <3 I will update as I find more fics.

“I don’t like this, mate,” Charles muttered.

The Things We Can, and Cannot, Do by MDJensen

Paul Rowland is dead. It's not just that, though.

Oh, Lonely Bones, Have You Forgotten? by DontOffendTheBees

“No,” Edwin agreed, gravely. “Nor do I.”

Frankly, taking this case was probably an unwise decision. The meagre payment offered by the sickly-looking ghost of the old groundskeeper would fall far, far short of the emotional cost of the expedition. And yet when Edwin had looked over to Charles and met his eyes, there had been no doubt, no hesitation. Perhaps it was the notion of unfinished business; that mysterious force that compelled ghosts to sites of personal trauma as sirens compelled sailors to the unforgiving rocks. Perhaps they were both mere gluttons for punishment.

Either way, they were here now. It was with heavy hearts and wary eyes that on the evening of June twenty-sixth, Edwin and Charles – along with Crystal – set foot once more on the grounds of St. Hilarion's School for Boys.   In which a very, very old case is re-opened.

Mom Says It's My Turn to Jump on the Grenade by RoseGanymede95

Charles tried to pay attention, because Edwin was really upset, and Charles still didn’t understand why, and it seemed like this might be important. It was just, they’d been at this for a while, and Edwin kept asking him the same questions and not leaving him time to answer, so. His mind may have wandered a bit to how he would reinforce the next cricket bat. His attention snapped back to the present when Edwin said, “This can’t happen. You can’t risk this, I can’t be the reason you risk it. You have to move on.” “Move on?” Charles repeated blankly. “Move on from what?” “From here, Charles!” Edwin shouted, suddenly furious again, suddenly shouting even though his eyes were filled with tears. “You have to go with Death! You have to leave!” “I don’t want to go with Her,” Charles said, nonplussed. “Fine, that’s your business, but you can’t keep hanging around me!” Edwin snapped. Charles’ world suddenly tilted on its axis, sending everything askew. “I can’t?” he asked, his voice small, his heart wide open and exposed.

Let me bleed instead of you by mellxncollie

The question rang like a cracked bell in what had only just become someplace Edwin had started to contemplate calling home. “What was Hell like?” - Charles and Edwin keep secrets from one another. The list isn't long, but it's not empty. Eventually, they start tumbling out in soft whispers, in tear-reddened eyes, in shocked expressions, in choked up phrases.

Or, 40 years and 8 secrets.

Indelible by Arisprite

Charles is feeling a lot and also not much at all in the immediate aftermath of returning from Hell. He also can tell Edwin is wearing thin from holding himself together. Who wouldn't be, after that? It's okay, though. Charles can take care of him, and he always always will.

Done Running by Asidian

Charles has gone a peculiar off color, all the blood blanched from his cheeks. He glances to the arm, and then back up to Edwin's face. "Any break's a bad break, innit?"

"Some have more drawbacks than others," says Edwin, detached and scholarly. "For instance, unless the nerves are compromised, it is possible to make use of the injured arm in cases of extreme –"

"Bloody hell," breathes Charles.

Joi de Vivre by olympus_mons

Edwin Payne crawls out of Hell twice. Somehow, his problems begin in the aftermath.

so many ways to give in by piilu

“I think there’s something really wrong with me, mate,” Charles sobs, the remains of the bat falling from his hand. ---- Charles struggles with his anger issues. Again.

A Room of One's Own by DarkStars (Worlds_Okayest_Goalie)

Crystal is so tired of watching Charles and Edwin stare longingly at each other. OR 5 times Crystal tells Charles and Edwin to get a room and 1 time they do.

Shape Me by dearheartdont

At least twice a year Charles and his mum packed their cases and caught a train to Birmingham, leaving his dad behind with a freezer full of carefully labelled Tupperware.

Charles Rowland and his relationship with his extended family and heritage.

(Part of a series of snapshots of Charles’ life in the 1980s.)

half of my soul, as the poets say by thegirlofthorns

Edwin existed, just as Charles had. Charles, who occupied a space in loving memory. A much-deserved space – Edwin would have wanted it no other way – but the core of him wanted to scream that he had been here, too. He never would be again, but he had lived, and he had breathed and laughed and moved with too much frippery and frill to continue on breathing, and he had been a whole person, once. And it had not mattered. So looked at CHARLES ROWLAND through tears, allowed himself to. Even Charles's hammer on metal on stone was not enough to dull the pain, but it was enough to remind him that he was still here, even if he was no longer living. It was an awful sound, a jarring sound, and tears shone in Charles’s eyes as he focused intently on carving out the A in his surname, but it was something. They were there, together, and they were feeling.

- Or, Charles finds Edwin's unmarked grave and will, in the lightest of terms, not be having it.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, and Very Bad by hibye

It was about the torture. The torture he was experiencing presently, and also every minute of every hour of every day, standing alongside Edwin Payne and saying nothing out of the ordinary at all.

O Spirit From The Great Beyond! by InTwainFiction

Edwin is ignoring Charles.

They haven't spoken in almost twelve hours, and all because of a little incident involving some puppies. Yes, said incident may have been Charles' fault, but he has apologised a million times.

Charles is getting desperate to find a way to get Edwin to talk to him again, and a little walk away from the office provides just the thing Charles needs.

He hopes it will get Edwin to talk to him, but at the very least it will be a laugh.

a beautiful day to say goodbye by ofstitches

“The house is… sad,” the client responds.

“Again, we can’t help with selling the house. Maybe try some decorations. That’ll brighten the old place up,” Charles suggests.

“No, you misunderstand. The house doesn’t look sad. The house is sad. It is depressed.”

“How do you figure?” Edwin says, sitting up in his chair now that the client has said something potentially interesting.

or A new case brings up old feelings, and maybe something more.

A Heaven Like They Talk About by LikeMmCookies

After managing to piss off yet another witch, Edwin and Charles are cursed as punishment. Bewildered, powerless, and lacking answers, they face their greatest challenge yet: being human again.

With Edwin doing novel things like picking out shampoo and wearing different pants, Charles finds his body reacting in strange ways to his best friend. He questions if these are new feelings, or if they'd been there all along.

But the biggest question remains - do they stay alive or do they find a way to go back?

being unknown by The_IPRE

Edwin does know Charles, or at least he likes to think that he does. He knows that Charles is far better with the clients than he is, quick to offer a smile or extend sympathy while Edwin is far more interested in delving deeper into the details of the case. He knows that Charles has a wicked swing with his cricket bat, but prefers to leave that as a second resort when he believes there's a way for them to come to a compromise. He knows that Charles chooses to hope for the best from people, even after having seen the worst they have to offer–and in fact, having been killed by it.

As Charles sits in front of him, the strain in his shoulders at odds with the easy grin on his face, Edwin wonders how much of his friend he is failing to see. -- 5 times Edwin didn't press the issue, and one time he did.

The Kind of Light That Means Just Love (When My Baby Smiles at Me) by DontOffendTheBees

“Charles,” Edwin admonished, gently closing his book with a finger tucked between the pages to hold his place. “I have asked you to stop fooling around with that contraption and get some work done.”

“I have been!” Charles defended, gesturing broadly at the higgledy-piggledy array of items around him. Evidently, taking stock of the contents of his bag of tricks was an expansive task. “Taking a break.” He snatched the small square of paper from the Polaroid camera and began to shake it with abandon.   In which Charles partakes in some amateur ghost photography, and Edwin (fondly) bemoans the futility of the exercise.

The Good Left Undone by plutosheaven

Help comes from unlikely places when Edwin is once again faced with a threat worse than death.

the phantoms here will never have their fill by ahyperactivehero (ahyperactiverhero)

Poltergeists are created when a ghost experiences extreme emotional distress. Poltergeists are notoriously hard to reign in, and they almost never gently move on. Neither Edwin nor Charles ever imagined it would happen to them.

Basically, five times where the Dead Boy Detective Agency dealt with the threat of a poltergeist.

XXX

“Once you choose to go down the poltergeist route there is no coming back,” Edwin said. “And I will have no choice but to follow you.”

“You can’t do that mate,” Charles said. His voice had cleared up some, his form less wavy.

“Then do not go where I cannot follow,” Edwin said.

Form 239, Schedule L by sanctuary_for_all

At the top of a small pile of papers was a copy of Form 239, Schedule L, filled out with achingly familiar handwriting. At the top, the word "Approved" was stamped in large red letters.

This Darkness, Enduring by kickingtheladder

“Your son is gone,” they tell her. “It was… an Act of God.”

She cannot think of a single thing to say for a very long moment. And then she has many things to say, most of which are not at all appropriate for polite company. --- Edwin Payne's mother, before and after.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by kickingtheladder

“Your son is gone," they tell her. "He ran away." She doesn't say anything. --- Charles Rowland's mother, afterwards.

dreaming of the things you said / hoping that it's meant by ohmyfuckinggod420

Edwin turns away with a deep breath, ignoring the fluttering in his stomach. His non-existent, ghostly stomach. It seems so ridiculously cruel and on theme for his current situation. Not only is he in love with his best friend, and not only does his best friend not love him back, but he’s feeling things that he shouldn’t be feeling on top of things that he physically should not be able to feel. or

The gang is back in London. Niko is gone, Crystal is on the cusp of a breakdown, Charles is still a flirt, and Edwin is... trying his best.

Oh, and he keeps feeling his pulse. As a ghost. A very dead ghost.

The trouble really never ends.

the ghost of the past that you live in by ObsessedWithFandom

It didn’t start as much. As anything, really. Charles noticed him in the hallways only because he was new, which was rare in Year 11, and because he smiled shyly whenever Charles said hi. Aysar, he’d introduced himself, and Charles liked the way the syllables formed in his mouth. He wanted to be Aysar’s friend.

Or: five boys Charles didn't date, and one he did.

Aftermath by sophisticatedyet

“What are you humming?”

Charles’ polo muffled his question, and the pause before Charles answered was so long that Edwin wondered if he hadn’t heard him at all. But then he said, "A lullaby.”

The answer made Edwin smile bemusedly. “Why? I can't fall asleep.”

“Yeah, duh, I know. It's just meant to soothing.”

“Oh.” Edwin rested his head back against Charles’ chest. “I suppose I do feel quite soothed.”

Dance the Night by Gruoch

“What is that?” Crystal asks, looking Edwin up and down with an expression of abject befuddlement that borders on disgust.

“It is my disguise,” Edwin replies a little stiffly in response to her tone. “You told me to wear a disguise.”

“You look like Margaret Thatcher,” Crystal says flatly. “You’re going undercover at a nightclub, not a library. This—“ she plucks at Edwin’s long tweed skirt, her lip curling— “is not appropriate nightclub attire. You’re gonna attract too much attention.”

“I thought attracting attention was the point of this ludicrous exercise,” Edwin snaps back.

“Yes, the right kind of attention,” Crystal stresses. “This—” she waves a hand broadly at him—“will get the wrong kind of attention.”

~~

In which the gang returns home to discover something sinister stalking London’s party scene after dark, Edwin lets his hair down, Charles’ confidence is shaken, and Crystal pursues a new lease on life (and hopefully doesn’t die in the process).

Everywhere, Everything (wanna love you) by WildCookieKeef

Freedom, as it seems, is suffocating. Decades spent running away from death herself and yet now more than ever does Edwin feel restless. Hell is behind him for the second time. He might’ve escaped his fate of eternal torture, but rabidly approaching are revelations he would’ve kept buried for far longer.

He’d never be so flustered and disorganized if it hadn’t been for Crystal or the Cat King or Monty or the Night Nurse or that horrible witch Esther or Simon, god not Simon, or practically reenacting old Greek tales with his best mate or. . .

No. It’s no one’s fault but his own. If he could sleep he’s sure he’d have nightmares.

Of what? There’s lots to choose from, but he can just feel it. Maybe some spirit malady has taken root in his body. He can sense the tension under his skin. Aches of pain that he knows aren’t physical.

He never should’ve told Charles. What was he thinking?

or After the end of S1, Edwin reasons that Charles rejected his confession and fears the worst while trying to suffer silently. Charles is very bad at letting Edwin suffer in peace.

the eight layers of hell, reversed by Zairielon

There's a lot that Edwin and Charles don't talk about. Frankly, after 30 years together, you don't have to say much for the other person to get the point. But Port Townsend and Crystal and Niko knocked their dynamic off-kilter, and by the time they return to London and finally get back to "normal," "normal" has changed. "Normal" is now Crystal's bright laughter, Niko's earnest affection, and Edwin's faint smiles. "Normal" is an unnameable ball of emotions tangled up in Charles' chest. "Normal" is Edwin looking at him, and Charles hearing those words all over again.

Charles, I'm in love with you.

OR, Charles figures out what it means that Edwin is the only person in the world he'd run into Hell for.

When We Walk Together We Tend To Walk Alone by UneducatedAuthor

She’s never unexpected, but she’s always a surprise. And when Charles meets her, it's nothing like the nightmare he's built up in his own head, being split away from Edwin and cursed to an afterlife without him. She's kind and gentle and familiar, and she gives him a chance to say goodbye to his mother.

Or, the one where Charles meets Death. They have a lot to talk about. But it's okay. They have time.

it's you that i hold on to by lrvzender

A pair of lips press shakily on his temple. Charles Rowland’s blood definitely runs hot, Edwin decides, definitely.

“You’re not asking anything, mate. But you have to understand that you are worth saving, a thousand times over. You are worth knowing, Edwin.”

Something bigger than the whole, wide sky. Something bigger than death, perhaps.

(where Edwin does not ask to be known, but Charles knows anyway)

and your song, it haunts me like hunger does the crow by kay_cricketed

After they return to London, Charles notices an escalation in people approaching Edwin with their attentions. Which is fine! It's not that Charles is jealous. He wants Edwin to be happy and to have a chance at a fulfilling relationship, yeah? The problem is, Charles is aware that Edwin is unpracticed with these kinds of emotions and other people, and it would be very easy for someone to take advantage. And that’s not going to happen, not on Charles’ watch.

To make matters worse, the admirers are getting a little too intense. And Charles is starting to suspect there's more at work than everyone realizing his best mate is brills.

(Or: In which the damage to Edwin's soul across years of torture has had an unusual effect, and Charles needs to fix it before he's compelled to violence. Again.)

trína chéile, le chéile, claochlaithe / entangled, together, transformed by theroyalsavage

Edwin Payne and Charles Roland are not Orpheus and Eurydice. They are not tragic figures of myth, children of gods and spirits, immortalized in verse by the poets of old. They’re nothing special at all – just two boys too stubborn to move on. With that said, however… Edwin must admit that there are certain similarities.

Came up from that lake of fire by ghostinthelibrary

"Are you a zombie?” Niko peers into Edwin’s eyes. “Because the Night Nurse told me zombies exist. Do you hunger for brains, Edwin?”

“Hardly.” Remembering being splattered with gray matter in the not-so-distant past, Edwin shudders. He cannot imagine consuming it. “I’m not a zombie.”

“What about a vampire?” She almost looks excited by the prospect. “We’re only a couple of hours from Forks. It would be perfect!””   When they’re caught during their escape from Hell, Charles and Edwin have no choice but to make a deal: they have one hundred days to find and entrap a powerful, malevolent spirit, or both of their souls are forfeit. But when they’re both temporarily restored to living bodies to aid in their search, being alive brings with it a host of new feelings, which neither of them know how to cope with, especially as their deadline looms closer and their quarry proves increasingly dangerous.

Unbreakable by Asexual_Enjolras

Edwin feels as though he owes Charles an apology because he cannot offer support to his best friend in the same way that Crystal can. And Charles tells him exactly where to stick that apology the moment he does.

Or, Edwin feels like he is broken and Charles does not agree.

after the insects have laid their claim by lolotr

“Where are you buried, do you’ve any idea?”

“My body was never found,” he replies softly. “There is a memorial marker next to my parents’ graves, but my remains are not there.”

The idea is so horrifying that it stuns Charles into silence for a couple seconds. “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t I know that?”

Edwin’s shoulders tense. “The whole thing is bloody tragic enough as it is.”

Grabbing his wrist, Charles begins marching them back in the direction of the pond they used to get here. Edwin doesn’t resist, but he does argue, because of course he does. “Charles, where are we going?”

“St. Hilarion’s. We’ve got a new case, don’t we?”

Hold This by RoseGanymede95

“Alright, listen,” Charles said, after trying not to think at all for at least five minutes. “Hear me out.”

“Any ideas?” Edwin asked, not looking up from his page.

“It’s just. What would actually happen if you cut my hand off?”

Edwin jerked his head up so fast, Charles wondered that he didn’t brain himself against the stone wall. He looked more offended than he had when he found out about the live snake in Charles’ bag.

“What the hell kind of a question is that?” He hissed.

“I’m not saying we should do it!” Charles backpedaled. “I’m just curious! These cuffs make us proper solid, don’t they? We could probably lop it off and get me out.”

“No,” said Edwin emphatically. “We are not discussing this. I don’t want you getting any ideas and chewing your own arm off like a trapped weasel.”

“Not my whole arm, just my hand.”

the start of something beautiful (the spoiler-free remix) by KiaraSayre

Four cases from the Dead Boy Detectives casebook, featuring amnesia, corporeality, a time loop, and a chill hang sesh.

If I'm Batman, You're Robin by ahyperactivehero

Charles misses a lot of things from life. One of those is the movies. Edwin volunteers to go with him.

XXX

“Batman Returns?” Edwin asked, reading the title. “What sort of creature is a Batman?”

Charles couldn’t help the bark of a laugh he let out. “No, he’s not a creature, mate. He’s a superhero.” At the totally blank look on Edwin’s face he tried again. “He’s like a detective. But he fights crime with his fists, too.”

“Ah,” Edwin said with a knowing look. “One of your heroes, I see.”

offer me that deathless death by websters_lieb

It takes the better part of two days for Charles’s body to even be found, and in the end, Edwin is forced to turn on all the lights in the gymnasium attic where Charles had died in order to get a janitor to come upstairs. No one had even been looking for him, yet. - or Edwin and Charles attend a funeral, look for a gravestone, and decide to become detectives.

Edwin's Payne tolerance by RabidWatermelon

Charles knew Edwin had a high pain tolerance. How could he not, having endured the tortures of hell? He just didn’t expect it to be so… useful.

AKA I want to write drabbles about Edwin's pain tolerance because I think it's something that would come up over thirty years together and be mildly concerning to someone who went through abuse in life. No fixed plot or posting schedule. Will update tags as chapter come out w new content.

The Case of Edwin's Missing Notebook by thewalkingstone

Edwin forgot his notebook at the office.

Not a problem. He prided himself on having an excellent memory. He certainly liked to jot down notes as he worked, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t work without it. He would just have to remember things until they returned to the office.

It was fine. He was a professional, and professionals did not delay an investigation because they forgot their notebook. OR Just months after escaping Hell, Edwin accidentally forgets his notebook on a case. He does not handle it well. Luckily, his new best mate is there to help him out.

The Scenic Route by DontOffendTheBees

"Cheer up, Edwin," said Charles, brightly. "Might never happen."

Edwin gave Charles a look so haughty it had its own title. "It very much has happened, Charles." He sniffed and straightened out his newspaper with attitude, the rustle of it loud and sharp as a whip crack. "I don't see why we couldn't have simply hopped through the mirror and met Crystal there."

"At this point, Edwin, I'm in total fucking agreement," said Crystal, not opening her eyes. She was burrowed under her coat like a blanket, doing her best to make the uncomfortable upright seat look like a cosy bed. Fortunately this train car was basically empty, so she had space to stretch across two seats – and no one close by to comment on the floating newspaper across the table and the fact she was having a barney with it. "You're like, the worst person to travel with."   In which the agency takes the scenic route to their next case; and Edwin finally receives some answers he's been waiting for.

what some circumstance stole by Chrome

For a magic-user intent on siphoning pain for power, both Hob Gadling and Edwin Payne represent unique opportunities. United in dire circumstances, a man incapable of dying and a boy long dead forge an unusual friendship--and try to survive the experience. --- “When you died,” Hob said. “How old were you?” “Sixteen.” “That,” Hob said, “Is awful.” Edwin shrugged. “Life is, I’m afraid,” he said. “Can be wonderful, too,” Hob said. “I promise.”

[serpentface]

Here's what Brakul's abandoned son looks like in the present day. His name is Síldebrai, he's 14 years old and already almost 6', and he just graduated to his very first responsibility of impending manhood (tending cattle up at the summer pastures). He has a notably shitty deer tattoo given to him by a friend, which remains indefinitely unfinished due to them being caught in the process.

Síldebrai does not have full ancestral tattoos (arms) yet, as these are only given when a child comes of age and is initiated into adulthood. His parental ancestry tattoos are atypical in only representing his mother and maternal grandparents, as his blood father abandoned him and is a known oathbreaker, and has thus been struck from his lineage. Ancestry is measured based upon direct parent to child blood relations (divided by gender into unbroken male and female lines), so his adoptive father Vrailedh cannot be directly represented. However, due to Vrailedh being Síldebrai's biological uncle (Brakul's brother), Síldebrai will still be able to claim his male ancestral line upon adulthood.

Remarriages in cases of death, exile, and abandonment tend to be kept within the family of the absent parent when possible. This is in large part a pragmatic matter of maintaining clan ties, but additionally to ensure full and unbroken ancestral guardianship for any children who have not yet come of age (and thus have not yet secured a place in their lineage). An adoptive parent completely unrelated to a child may be able to persuade their ancestors to offer guardianship, but the child cannot formally claim a place in their line. This is not socially damning, as they will still have a firm place in their clan, but it can be spiritually fraught and isolating. Being the progenitor of an entirely new lineage is a heavy burden both in life and especially in the afterlife, in which you will initially be the only member of your gendered line tasked with watching over your descendents.

[jasontoddiefor]

every once in a while I think back to a fanfic I read in 2015. in retrospect, it wasn’t all that well written, but it was penned by teenagers in love with their story and the story loved me back.

They main character was trans and a central theme of the story was the length of his hair. I read the first chapter the day it was published, almost certainly searching through the trans character tag. It was October, another two months to the date I would cut my hair - the day before Christmas, I walked out of the hair salon as though I’d already received all the gifts I could possibly want.

I loved my short hair, the buzz at my neck, running my fingers through short strands and have the hair fall from them after lifting them just a few centimeters.

Three years later, I decided to grow my hair out again. For my family, mostly, I think now, as a test, to me and to them.

My aunt said it felt like spite, dangling my hair in front of them, threatening to cut it off again as though to punish them.

I did cut it off again.

I think I failed my own test. I know my family did.

For the first time in nine years my hair has grown past my shoulders, that imaginary line by which I measured someone’s love. My own, probably.

Fourteen years ago I cut my hair for the first time in my life. It used to reach down to my knees, and tangled at every opportunity. I remember being so exhausted, long before I realized what was actually weighing me down.

I miss that little girl sometimes. I hope she forgives me.

But this post is not about her, not yet. Maybe not ever. She’s asleep in her Playmobil castle and princess bed and I don’t know how to wake her yet.

This is about a story posted in 2015. The last time it was updated was 2017, it was never finished.

I don’t ever need it to be finished. All I need is for it to remain there, with its title, the reminder of don’t let your hair past your shoulders, and the comment I wrote in 2015. I hope this story knows I love it still, and that somewhere, sometime, another boy learns that it’s okay. That your hair can grow again. That you do not need to hate it.

The authors of that story have vanished, I can’t find any of them anywhere, but I hope that my last comment, left now nearly a decade later, has reached them. That they know how grateful I was for giving me something to hold on when I need it, for allowing me to be seen when I couldn’t stand looking in the mirror.

That even now, so may years later, looking back at their writing with - perhaps - embarrassment for leaving it unfinished like that, having written the kind of stories only high schoolers would, they will know it means the world to someone.

[maple-the-awesome]

Twilight's Calling ||

Pairing: Twilight x GN! Reader

Words: 2,544

Requested by anonymous: Heeey. First of I love your writing style! It’s just amazing! Cause twilight is my fav. could you maybe write something like xreader with him, for example they’re in a battle or smth? Only if it’s okay ofc! Thanks a lot and have a good day and week! best wishes :) Twilight may or may not be my favorite Link, too (TP was the first game I finished, so I'm a little bias, okay?). I've had this draft lying around unfinished for awhile, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to finish it. Here you go, hun 💜

Zelda Masterlist 🤎Fandom Masterlist

It's getting pretty late. 'Late' as in the sun has long set and the last time you saw any of the boys was about an hour ago when Time finally managed to herd the remaining stragglers out of the room, although he was being a bit hypocritical seeing as he still lingered in the doorway for a good minute himself afterwards (not that you dared comment on it).

Since their heavy footsteps had faded into silence - and aside from the innkeeper sometimes shuffling down the hall or a sudden 'pop' of the bedside candle - you've been left entirely alone with your thoughts as they dance on the very edge of sleep, but you refuse to lose balance. It's your shift. You promised to be a good lookout and it took a lot of convincing to even get the position, so you can't disappoint no matter how heavy the weight upon your eyelids or heart is.

You've always been well aware of the risks that would come with this mission and from traveling alongside nine heroes of legend; troublesome young men and boys who can definitely handle themselves in battle, however none immune to making possible mistakes. You expected one to occur at some point, yet never wanted the aftermath to be anything too serious.

Wild getting a decent scar on his forehead was a scare when it initially happened, but he was back on his feet within the hour - less than that actually, because if you remember correctly, his quick recovery had been controversial and resulted in quite a bit of bickering. The bottom line is that Wild bounced back with little to no trouble thanks in part to his thick skull. This is different. Twilight has yet to follow his protege's example and it's been hours.

You must admit you underestimated the situation at first due to a lack of context. It's not to say you didn't care about Wolfie when he got struck, however there's a notable difference between a wild 'pet' that occasionally trails your group and the very man you've grown to secretly admire over the months you've spent traveling together. If you had known then that they are one of the same, you would've likely shared a similar level of panic as the Champion, but instead you were left in the dark until Four finally explained Twilight's secret to you.

Even at that moment, although more worried, you figured everything would be okay. Wolfie or Twilight, a fairy should be able to do the trick to heal the worst of injuries, so one can imagine your heartbreak once learning that, for some odd reason, the state of his wounds haven't changed even under a fairy's sacred touch. That's when you truly became fearful, but you refused to show it outwardly - no more than whatever made itself present on your face, anyway.

Making a fuss won't aid Twilight's condition nor will it calm the concerns of your friends, so instead you had mostly stayed out of the way until Time announced everyone should get some rest. At that point, you made your presence known, quick to shoot your hand into the air while volunteering to take the first shift for watching over Twilight. Champion was the only one to fight you for it and honestly, you still aren't certain how you won the argument, but here you are, sitting quietly at Twilight's bedside while trying desperately to keep yourself from descending into madness as you fret over his well-being.

He's doing somewhat better after Hyrule's magic managed to stop most of the bleeding, however his wound remains deep without any further healing progress and his skin is drained into a pale, sickly color clear even through the dim glow of candle light. He looks like shit and you'd guess he feels like it, too, seeing as his face curls into a pained expression every now and again, a whispered groan leaving him whenever he slightly shifts his body (not that he moves that much).

It's gotten a bit chilly tonight, however all blankets in the room have been laid over him and you refuse to swoop as low as to steal comfort from a dying man, so you simply keep huddled to yourself, half praying the next shift will come sooner and half praying it won't because a stubbornness inside you is somehow convinced that the simple act of you being here will keep himsafe from death's hands.

You don't pay much attention to the quiet groan that comes from the bed, having already bitterly accepted that there's nothing that can ease whatever pain haunts Twilight during his nightmares, although you do lift your head when a hand shakes its way into view, barely able to carry itself to the edge of the covers where it collapses with a broken echo from its owner, "W...What time is it?"

You almost cry simply by the sight of Twilight's dull eyes staring up at you, half-lidded and only appearing bright if compared to the dark bags hiding underneath them, but you manage to hold back the tears for the sake of not scaring him.

"I-I'm not sure. After sunset," You answer slowly as to prevent any wobbling to your voice.

"And the others? Is every - everyone else okay?" Hylia, he sounds awful, his once handsome, accent-laced voice butchered by a hollow croak.

"Yeah...Yeah, we're all okay - and don't worry about the shadow. Wild managed to take it down - thanks to you tiring it out, I'd say. You sure gave that thing a run for its money there," You attempt to joke lamely. Although your laugh doesn't carry much life to it, Twilight's expression does soften a tad after the sound.

"...Good..." Is all he says before closing his eyes with a sigh through his nose. Meanwhile you fidget nervously, debating with yourself on whether you should let the conversation die off so that he can continue getting rest or keep him talking while he's able to. You sure do love hearing his voice, after all, no matter how broken it may be; it reminds you that someone as great as him is actually real and, after recent events, still alive.

In the midst of your depressed thoughts, you notice Twilight reach his hand out towards you again - or at least it looks like he's trying to. Really, he only has the strength to lift it palm-up slightly off the covers, yet you understand this movement's wordless request. Ever so gently, as if he's made of glass, you take his hand and sandwich it between both of yours. He's a bit too cold for your liking, a sharp contrast to his normally warm touch, not that you draw attention to that worrying detail.

"...Is there anything I can get you?"

He tries to shake his head, but loses will halfway through the action and instead chooses to simply let his head lull to the side towards you. From there he stares for a bit longer than he means to, his dazed brain struggling to process his thoughts at its usual speed.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"Someone has to keep an eye on you," You allow a small smile, slowly reaching forward to help move his bangs away from his face, "We're all taking shifts throughout the night. I was just lucky enough to get the first."

Twilight hums, closing his eyes for a brief second when your fingers brush his forehead, "How'd you manage that?"

"Barely. For a second there, I thought I was gonna have to duel the Champion for it - had my hand on my sword and everything before he finally caved," Twilight makes a sound between a scoff and a laugh which makes your smile more genuine even if he does flinch in pain immediately afterwards, "The real question is how I won against Time...Actually, I wouldn't be that surprised if he's secretly standing outside the door as we speak."

A creak of old floorboards in the hallway makes your eyes dart to the door, almost expecting the man in question to walk in and call you out for your jokes, yet you calm that doesn't happen. Twilight brings your attention back to him by moving his thumb against your hand, "Don't tell 'em, but I'm glad it's you here. I like having ya' here with me..."

You press your lips, hoping it'll help you ignore the heat against your cheeks. That must be the first time Twilight has ever openly said he 'likes' anything related to you; you're certain you'd remember any other instances of such a milestone. It might not be the exact sentence you'd want him to use the word in, but it's a step in the right direction, so you'll take it.

"I like having you here with me, too, Twi...which is why I've officially decided that I'm too selfish to let you die on any of us. I don't care if I have to fist-fight Hylia for it; I'm not letting you get out of this journey so easily."

"That right?"

"I swear it on my life."

He chuckles weakly, although the sound is taken over by a fit of coughing. Promptly you pour a small glass of water using the pitcher kept on the bedside table before gently helping him sit up to take a careful sip.

It's insane for you to think that only a few weeks ago, you had been secretly watching him move hay bales at Time's place effortlessly. Now he lies here in bed struggling to hold a conversation, his muscles shaking horribly by the simply action of prompting himself up even slightly. Seeing him like this makes you feel awful, but you also consider yourself blessed to be the one taking care of him during a low point like this, ensuring that he's properly cared for and tended to almost like a spouse would.

"Seems like I'm starting to lose you, farm boy. You should relax and get some more sleep," He makes a face and seems prepared to argue, however he must not have been able to think of anything convincing to say - that or the aching in his bones has become too hard to ignore. Either way, instead of saying a word, Twilight nods droopily before inching his way back down against his soft pillow while you fix the blankets over him again.

"Look on the bright side: make it through this and you'll probably get special treatment from here on out. Get your bags carried for you, have whatever meals you're craving be made each night...If you hobble around a little I'm sure you could even get Time to fuss over you -"

" - And what about you?" Twilight quizzes and you can't tell if he's being serious or just teasing. It feels like the latter, yet the way he watches you while awaiting your reply makes you feel another way; soft and warm, but a tad anxious at the same time, "What can I get from you?"

You pretend to think, although in truth, you already know there wouldn't be any limitations for what you're willing to give. If he asked for the world right now, you'd figure out some way to gift wrap it for him...but that's too embarrassing to admit aloud, "...Depends on what you're thinking and if you can swing it the right way."

He hums, once again staring at you just long enough to make that anxious feeling really prominent. Is there something on your face that no one told you about earlier? Is he judging your messy hairdo that you had no time to fix since the battle? Did you sound too flirtatious in your answer? Maybe his injury has given him the ability to read minds, so now he knows just how desperate you are to earn his affections!

"...If I asked you to stay with me, would you?" Twilight whispers so quietly that you barely hear, yet you do. 

"I, uh...Time will be here in an hour or so for his shift, but I won't go anywhere until then, okay?" Not even your poor excuse at smiling can save your stumbled words, yet you pray he doesn't look beyond either. He's loopy from such a stressful day, so it makes sense that he's have trouble properly wording questions. It also makes sense for him to be scared to be left alone - anyone would be in such a state. He doesn't have to worry, though; between you and the boys, someone will always be by his side throughout the night. You'd expect that knowledge to be a relief for him, however Twilight only frowns and looks away with a surprisingly depressed look in his eyes. 

Fiddling nervously with your hands upon your lap, you ask carefully, "...Unless you're wanting me to watch over your for the whole night? In that case, I wouldn't mind staying if it would make you feel better. I'm sure the others would be fine with it if they could just check in here and there."

Twilight presses his lips, refusing to look directly at you. If you didn't know any better, you'd say that based on his continued reaction, you're still somehow missing the point of his question, yet no matter how much you rack your brain, you can't think of what else he would've possibly meant.

You were tempted to ask for more clarity, but Twilight speaks before you can, "...I'd like that."

"Yeah?"

He nods bashfully which melts your heart in a way you're sure would be shamefully clear if he were only looking in your direction.

"...Well, since you took one for the team -" Scooting your chair closer to the bed allows you to cross your arms over the mattress and rest your head on top of them. Desperately you try to ignore your nerves and the cute way Twilight curiously looks over at you, "- I'll stay for the night if you promise me one thing."

"Hmm?"

"Stay with me, too? Without you, I might just loose my mind. Don't tell anyone else, but you don't drive me nearly as insane as some of the other boys do," not in the same way at least.

The corner of Twilight's lips turn upwards, his hand taking it's time to move over yours. The second it makes contact, you take the chance to hold onto it, "...Sounds like a deal..."

You match his smile easily, "Get some sleep, Twi. I'll be right here when you wake up, so just focus on getting better for me, alright?"

He hums one last time, drifting off to sleep as commanded where he seems to be far more peaceful than earlier. As promised, you remain by his side until morning, eventually falling victim to quick naps yourself only disrupted whenever someone else sneaks into the room to see how things are going. You're certain you'll be tired tomorrow with an aching back after spending an entire night hunched over, but that's a small price to pay for someone like Twilight. It'll all be worth it to see him recover, granting you even more time to spend by his side through thick and thin.

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

it's hard to see me (at least you tried)

A birthday fic for the wonderful @handwrittenhello, set in the early days of the Dead Boy Detective Agency and featuring a fresh-from-Hell Edwin still struggling to figure out how to people, a lot of whump, and a little emotional hurt/comfort. You can read the first few scenes below or find the whole thing on AO3!

Relationship: pre-Payneland

Rating: M

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, including stabbing and an amputation

Word count: 10K

Summary: Charles and Edwin have been the Dead Boy Detectives for over a year, tracking down lost items and estranged loved ones, when they take on a new case that takes a terrifying turn. When an overwhelmed Edwin drives Charles away—possibly forever—with a thoughtless comment, he finds himself alone and in the kind of peril he thought he had left behind in Hell.

***

Edwin is no stranger to dead bodies. Hell was filled with them, after all. He’s seen corpses—including his own—in all manner of grisly states. After decades of watching his own remains be flayed, disemboweled, crushed, or decapitated, he thought he would be quite immune to the sight of violence. There’s no earthly horror that can compare to some of the things he witnessed in those seventy-three long years.

So he’s not certain why he’s having such a visceral reaction to the sight in front of him. Despite the fact that he’s a ghost and he has no heart, he can feel the rapid pounding of his heartbeat, so hard and fast that he half-expects it to beat right out of his chest. Phantom sweat prickles the back of his neck. The hands that grip his pen and notebook are trembling.

Perhaps, he thinks, it’s because he’s rarely seen the aftereffects of a violent death since Hell. Of course, he and Charles are detectives, and such work often comes with the threat of some level of unpleasantness. But in the just over a year since they founded the Dead Boy Detective Agency, most of their cases have been straightforward: tracking down a missing heirloom, checking in on left-behind relatives, ensuring that the right will made it into a lawyer’s hand. So far, their most violent encounter was a water nymph that Edwin ran afoul of while questioning witnesses, and Charles dealt with him quite handily.

The last freshly deceased body Edwin encountered was Charles’s, in fact, and most of his injuries were internal. His actual death was quite peaceful, no blood or screaming, but a gentle drifting off to sleep.

Edwin imagines there was a great deal of blood and screaming in this young woman’s last moments.

“Bloody hell.” Charles looks like he might be sick, even though ghosts cannot be sick. “That’s not Melanie.”

“No, it doesn’t appear to be.” Their client is the ghost of a ten-year-old girl whose unfinished business is watching over her twin sister, who is now eighteen. The girl, Lissa, came to them when her sister never returned from work three days ago. Their mother, a busy nurse, hasn’t yet noticed that her daughter is missing, nor have any of her friends, so the living authorities haven’t been notified of the disappearance yet.

When Charles tried to gently suggest that the young lady may have left home of her own volition, Lissa had looked at him with tear-bright eyes and said, “But it’s almost Christmas and Melanie and Mum both love Christmas. Melanie wouldn’t leave Mum alone.”

Edwin knew they were going to take the case as soon as she began to cry. Charles always folds in the face of tears.

The dead girl doesn’t have the same dark hair and delicate features of Lissa and her sister. She has long, coppery red hair and heavily freckled skin. She stares up at them with empty eyes, gagged and bound to stakes driven into the packed dirt floor of the cellar. Around her is a circle of runes. She’s wearing light green pajamas, the front of the shirt a ruin of blood and viscera. Three of the toes on her left foot are painted a bright pink, Edwin notices, while the rest are unadorned. She must have been interrupted in the middle of painting them.

He looks at the girl, bound and helpless in her last moments, and hears the echoes of old laughter.

“Mary Ann, Mary Ann.”

Edwin blinks and shakes his head. He isn’t in that basement.

“Mate?” Charles asks and Edwin looks at him, confused. He can’t reconcile the laughter echoing in his ears with Charles’s presence. “You okay?”

Edwin nods jerkily. “Quite well.”

Charles doesn’t look convinced, but he turns his attention back to the corpse. “Think she ran into the same trouble as Melanie?”

“It does seem likely.” Edwin’s voice sounds distant to his own ears. “I’m afraid we can assume that Melanie didn’t wander off on her own accord.”

“Guess Lissa was right.” Charles starts to kneel down by the dead girl, but Edwin puts out a hand to stop him.

“The runes, Charles. We mustn’t disturb them.” In truth, Edwin doesn’t think he can bear the sight of Charles kneeling in a pool of blood right now, even if it won’t even stain his jeans.

“Right,” Charles says with a rueful grimace. “What do they mean, mate?”

Edwin forces himself to step closer to the runes and the body, even though his heart still feels like it will break free of his ribcage. The pounding heart is just an illusion, he knows, just like the clothing he and Charles manifest. Edwin has been dead since 1916; he doesn’t have a heart to beat frantically in his chest. Still, the thud-thud-thud-thud continues, relentless.

“They seem familiar,” Edwin says. “But I can't place them. They’re not in a language I understand.”

“But this was definitely some kind of ritual, yeah?”

“It does seem likely.” Mary Ann. Mary Ann. Edwin ignores the chanting in his head, bending down to get a better look as he copies down the runes in his notebook.

“What kind of ritual, you think?”

“A summoning, perhaps.” Edwin's voice is perfectly level as he sketches another rune. “Or something else entirely. There are many old magics that require a human sacrifice.”

“Whoever did this was a bloody monster,” Charles says darkly.

They lapse into silence as Edwin continues copying down the runes. When he’s done, he straightens up. “I’ll need to consult my books back at the office. I’m sure I’ve seen runes like this somewhere.”

“Seems wrong to leave her here, don’t it?” Charles looks down at the dead girl with a strange, sad expression. He gets that way around living people—or in this case, recently living people—sometimes. Edwin wonders if she reminds him of someone he knew while alive.

”She seems to have already moved on to her afterlife, so there’s nothing else we can do for her, I'm afraid.” Edwin snaps his notebook closed. “However, we may still be able to save Melanie. Come along, Charles.”

He starts up the stairs, glancing back in time to see Charles reach out to close the corpse’s staring eyes. In a voice too quiet for Edwin to hear, he murmurs something. Most likely not a prayer, as Charles is not the praying type. Perhaps some kind of an attempt at comfort, or an apology, even though she’s far past the point where either will make a difference.

They do not speak as they leave the basement together, their footsteps making no noise on the rotted stairs.

***

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

Edwin’s spectral heartbeat hasn’t slowed down, even hours after they’ve left the basement and are safely back in the office. He tries to ignore it, focusing on the book in front of him. He still hasn’t found any mention of those runes, not even in the Minor Arcana set, a recent acquisition that has been a most useful addition to their library. Perhaps those weren’t proper runes, he thinks, but the scribblings of an amateur. Maybe the whole thing was nothing but a prank gone wrong and not a genuine attempt at a ritual.

Mary Ann. Mary Ann

“Alright, mate?” Charles asks from the other side of the office, where he’s been kicking around a football for the better part of the last hour. To most people, it would look like Edwin is doing all the work while Charles fools around, but Edwin knows Charles does his best thinking when he’s keeping himself busy.

“Of course,” Edwin says without looking up. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just, you’ve been staring at that page for ten minutes. Anything good?”

Edwin blinks down at the page, realizing Charles is right. He’s read this same page at least four times and has retained none of it. “I’m afraid not. I’m not finding anything of note, though I’m sure I’ve seen runes like these before. I just don’t remember where.”

“You’ve got the best memory of anyone I know,” Charles says with complete confidence. “You’ll remember. It’s got to be in one of these books, yeah?”

“I would hope so.” Edwin glances up to see that the football is nowhere to be seen and Charles is staring morosely into the infinite backpack a grateful client gifted them six months ago. At least, Edwin thought the witch was grateful at the time. Now, he wonders if they did something to displease her, because her gift has done nothing but provide endless vexation. “Charles, did you lose your football?”

“I didn’t lose it, mate. I know right where it is. Getting it back’s the trouble.”

“This is why we shouldn’t try to put anything we’ll miss in there. Like certain one-of-a-kind alchemical texts.”

“I’m going to figure it out one of these days, and it’ll be brills. A backpack that can fit anything!”

“I’m not convinced it isn’t devouring everything you put in there like some kind of black hole.”

Charles grins. “Or maybe it’s a portal to another dimension. Maybe somewhere out there, there’s a Charles that just got hit in the face by a football jumping out of his backpack.”

Despite the anxious pit that hasn’t left his stomach since that morning, Edwin feels his mouth softening into a smile. “Please tell that Charles to return my book at once. I was quite enjoying it before you borrowed it for ‘just a tick.’”

“You’ll have it back before you know it, mate.”

“If you say so.” Edwin sighs and closes the book. “Do you have any thoughts about our best course of action?”

“Need to figure out who the dead girl is, don’t we? And if she had any connection to Melanie. I suppose we could talk to Lissa, see if she could have been one of Melanie’s friends.”

Edwin nods. “We may also want to have another word with the neighbor’s cat. It may be more cooperative now that we know this could be a matter of life and death. If Melanie ends up dead in a basement, there will be no more illicit cans of tuna.”

“Can’t hurt.” As Edwin watches, Charles sticks his head into the infinite backpack.

“Charles, if you end up stuck in there again—”

“I’m not.” Charles’s voice sounds distant and echoing. “Just seeing if my football’s floating around somewhere in here. Or if I can see Narnia or something.”

“You’re going to lose a limb one of these days. If not your head.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Haven’t lost my head yet, have I?”

“If you say so.” With a sigh, Edwin stands. “Let’s go check in with the client. If we’re lucky, she’ll know who our victim is.”

There’s a beat of silence. “One problem with that,” Charles says from inside the backpack.

“You’re stuck, aren’t you?”

“Seem to be.”

“Who could have predicted—”

Charles shouts.

“Charles?” Edwin rushes to his side, horrified. He knew the bag was more trouble than it’s worth. He should have insisted that Charles return it to the witch the first time he lost something of value in there. “What’s wrong?”

“The lexicographical lenses! I see them! But I can’t reach them.”

“You lost the lexicographical lenses in there? Charles, do you know how rare those are?”

“Didn’t I mention that, mate?”

“No, you did not.” Edwin pinches the bridge of his nose and reminds himself that there’s a case to solve. “Hold still. Don’t try to grab them. There’s no point in you saving the lenses if you’re going to get lost in there. I’ll get you out.”

It’s while he’s helping disentangle Charles from the bag that he remembers where he saw those runes.

***

After years of trying and failing to escape from the door at the top of the stairs, Edwin had known he needed to find another way out of Hell. He had become too predictable; whenever he left the dollhouse, his tormentor knew exactly where he was going to go. So he sought out the other door that he’d heard whispered about, the one deep in the bowels of Hell.

He should have sensed the danger when his warden made no attempt to follow him down through the lower levels of Hell to Lucifer’s wastelands. Stupidly, he thought he had outwitted it, that it was scouring Limbo for him while he was on the other side of Hell. But after he had waded through the fires of the wastelands—burning to ash again and again—and found the door, he knew why there had been no attempt at bringing him back. It was a seal in the middle of the burning ground, surrounded by a circle of symbols that meant nothing to him at the time.

Edwin tried to pry it open until his fingers burnt right off. He pounded his fists against it uselessly. He screamed and pleaded. He tore at his own skin until he bled, hoping his blood would satiate it. Nothing worked. And the worst part was that he could feel how close he was. He could feel the presence of the living world, just on the other side of that seal. He was surrounded by fire and pain, but he knew scant meters away, people were living their lives with no knowledge of how close they stood to Hell.

Then the denizens of the wastelands found him. Not the demons, but the souls that resided there. The worst of the worst went to the wastelands, Edwin soon discovered. When his warden came to collect him and bring him back to the dollhouse, he was almost relieved. In the wastelands, he learned that there were far, far worse things than being chased and torn apart by a spider made of baby doll heads. It took him years before he was brave enough to venture out of the dollhouse again.

“Edwin?” Charles sounds worried.

Edwin blinks. They’re walking down a London street, but he realizes he doesn’t know where they are, nor remember how they got here. It’s been a long time since his memories of Hell grew so strong they blotted out his present surroundings. “Yes?”

“Think we should check out her flat?”

The door to a shop opens, emitting a burst of Christmas music and a flurry of shoppers carrying brightly-colored bags. “Whose flat?” Edwin asks.

Charles frowns at him. “Grace’s.”

Ah, yes. They’ve learned the identity of the corpse they discovered, one Grace Murphy, a twenty-year-old university student who was reported missing by her roommate a week ago. After speaking to their client, who had no new information for them, and the neighbor's cat, who was as disagreeable as ever, they returned to the scene of the death and found that the police had discovered the body during their absence. The police are clueless about what’s truly going on, as is to be expected, but at least listening to their conversation helped Edwin and Charles learn a bit about the dead girl.

“I suppose that’s the best course of action.” A woman walks right through Edwin, a peculiar sensation. He shudders.

“Hey.” Charles puts his hands on Edwin’s shoulders and steers him to the side of the sidewalk, out of the path of pedestrians. They’re standing in front of a clothing boutique, where all the mannequins in the window are wearing Santa hats. “What’s going on with you? You’re acting like the one who got his head stuck in a pocket dimension.”

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud. Edwin stares up at the Christmas lights festooning the doorway of the shop. One is flickering and buzzing, the bulb about to burn out.

“Edwin?”

“I know where I’ve seen the runes before.” Edwin’s voice sounds distant, drowned out by the thudding of his incessant heartbeat. How do the living deal with this noise?

“Really?” Charles’s worried expression breaks into a smile. ��That’s brills, mate! Knew that big brain of yours would figure it out. You always do, don’t you?”

“In Hell, Charles. I saw them in Hell.” A horn honks and Edwin flinches violently. Someone shouts something rude, most likely in response to the honking. “On a door out of Hell deep in Lucifer’s wastelands.”

“The wastelands? That’s the lowest level, yeah?”

Edwin nods. He’s recounted the details of Hell’s geography to Charles in precise details, just in case Death ever catches up to him. He can’t imagine a just universe in which Charles Rowland is consigned to Hell as his afterlife, but he learned that there was no such thing as a just universe approximately seventy-five years ago. For all Edwin knows, Charles has been damned simply by his association with Edwin himself. It’s better safe than sorry.

“Come here.” Charles steers Edwin through the window of the boutique and finds a mirror hanging on the wall to step through. When they appear in the office, Edwin knows he should congratulate Charles—he’s improving greatly at mirror walking—but he can’t form the words. Guiding him onto the couch, Charles asks, “Is that the gate you escaped from?”

Edwin shakes his head.

“But you tried?”

Edwin nods.

Charles is quiet for a tick, like he’s waiting for Edwin to elaborate. When Edwin doesn’t speak, Charles asks, “So, what? You think that was a gate to Hell in that basement?”

“God, no.” The very thought of Charles near a gate to Hell is enough to make Edwin want to be sick, lack of stomach be damned. He forces himself to speak over the thundering of his heart. “If a gate to Lucifer’s wastelands had been opened, there would be signs. Blazing infernos, rivers of blood in the streets, the souls of the damned running amok. I think that may have been an attempt to open one, but it couldn’t have been successful.”

“Why would someone want that?” Charles asks.

“I imagine the same reason humans have been doing stupid, dangerous, cruel things since the beginning of time. Power.” Edwin stands, shrugging Charles’s hands off, and crosses to the desk. “Tomorrow is the winter solstice. It’s also a new moon. The darkest night of the moon cycle falls on the longest night of the year. That’s the kind of significant cosmic event sorcerers, witches, and the like love. If I were mad enough to want to open a gate to Hell, that’s the night when I would do it.”

“So why kill Grace before then? Why not wait until tomorrow night?” Charles’s face twists, like he’s tasted something sour. “Or maybe they just killed Grace for the fun of it.”

Thudthudthudthudthudthudthudthud.

“Edwin?”

Edwin nods slowly, staring at a spot over Charles’s shoulder. He feels like he used to in the moments when he knew he was cornered by the baby doll spider, when he had run and hid and run some more, but it had all come to nothing. He was caught, just like he was always caught, and now all there was to do was beg for a quick death.

“Right.” Charles bobs his head in a nod. “First, we need to stop by Grace’s flat, see if we can find any clues about who took her. Then we need to figure out if her path crossed with Melanie’s. Think we should—”

“I think we should drop this case.”

Charles stares at Edwin, obviously gobsmacked. “What?”

“Charles, we are in over our heads.” Thudthudthudthudthudthud. “This isn’t a lost family heirloom or a greedy grandson trying to hide a will. This is a door to Hell that might be opened in London tomorrow night. We’re not equipped to deal with this.”

“And what about Melanie?” Charles demands. “We just supposed to tell Lissa that sorry, her sister’s been sacrificed by some mad sorcerer or witch and she’s probably in Hell now?”

“We won’t be able to tell Lissa anything if we attempt to intervene and end up trapped in Hell with Melanie. No, this is simply too dangerous.”

Charles’s expression softens and he closes the distance between them to squeeze Edwin’s shoulders in what he surely means to be a comforting gesture. “Is that what you’re worried about? Ending up in Hell? Not going to happen, mate. Not when I’m around.”

Edwin wants to scream. “You cannot promise that.”

“Yeah, I can. I’m the brawn, aren’t I? Some brawn I’d be if I let my best mate end up in Hell.”

“You have a cricket bat, Charles.”

“Oi! That cricket bat’s kept you safe so far, hasn’t it?”

“Against a handful of angry ghosts and one angry water nymph,” Edwin says. “Not Hell.”

Charles shrugs, as if to say “What’s the difference, mate?”

And Edwin can’t let that stand. He can’t allow Charles to seriously consider the possibility of putting himself between Edwin or Melanie or anyone and Hell. The thought of ending up back in the dollhouse makes Edwin’s knees watery with fear. The thought of Charles lost in those sickly greenish hallways, at the mercy of something that won’t care that he’s the best, kindest, most loyal person in the universe, leaves Edwin somewhere beyond terror, with a cold certainty that letting that happen would be the most unforgivable thing he could do.

“Charles,” he says through gritted teeth. “You could not defend yourself against a handful of schoolyard bullies. If you honestly think you stand a chance against Hell, you are more stupid and reckless than I thought.”

The office is suddenly very quiet.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD.

Charles lets his hands fall away from Edwin’s shoulders. He’s wearing an expression that Edwin has never seen on his face before, somewhere between shocked and disbelieving, like Edwin just delivered a punch that he didn’t see coming. “That’s really what you think, mate?”

“That I think you and your cricket bat would be torn apart by a demon or something worse? Yes, Charles, I do!”

“Right.” Charles nods jerkily. “Yeah.”

The bottom seems to drop out of Edwin’s stomach as tears fill those gentle brown eyes, eyes that were bright with laughter only a few hours ago after Edwin helped him out of the backpack. He has the sudden, sinking realization that he’s not only misstepped, but trod all over everything. “Charles—”

Charles lets out a harsh noise that may be intended as a laugh, but sounds more like a sob.

“I didn’t—”

But Charles doesn’t wait to hear how badly Edwin didn’t mean to say that and how sorry he is. Turning, he vanishes through the mirror without another word.

***

Read the rest here on AO3!

[necronatural]

Project Moon Discourse Part Whatever: Statement 2

Project Moon's company twitter has released a statement on their perspective.

In summary, the Youth Union who has been rallying a lot of people has been protesting about Vellmori's "unfair dismissal" (firing over previous statements). Project Moon points out that they have not fired her yet, and the YU do not have concrete proof of what happened (AKA why you have to say "alleged" when commenting on crimes yet to be tried). Youth Union discusses the private circumstances and apologizes for repeating accusations as fact.

Kim Jihoon posits here that this was a political conspiracy by the Youth Union to boost their position (they were a very very small group before all this), which the Project Moon User Association must a part of. He posts the draft the Youth Union drew up if PM complied, without the union rep's permission as evidence. OK man.

...By the way, he also sent an official legal notice to the Project Moon User Association with that same info.

The PMUA says hey man! We do talk to the Youth Union, but we're actually a completely different group who has not declared jackshit as fact and have been conscientious in our speech. Fuck you! And posted the letter (legal threat) PM sent publicly along with their reply. (Jihoon references this in the statement above).

Read here. The letter is the pdf at the top of the doc.

It's through this response that we learn that the reason the Youth Union was cowed was because Vellmori resigned.

The PMUA notes: hey, isn't it extremely fucking suspicious that you publicly stated that due to breaking company rules with years old tweets (this isn't legal btw) and Vellmori's most recent statement was that you told her that she's getting her papers in a week (legal but asshole shit btw)? And yet when you're catching heat about the ludicrously illegal unjust firing, you reveal you've been hiding her resignation? Unrelated, why did you post an unfinished draft statement predicated on a round table that never occurred? Why are you threatening us for libel we never posted?

AKA they fucking ate him for dinner.

Kim Jihoon is being cooked alive over his notes app malding & pointed translated repost of his original statement. Everyone and their dog can see his sole deflection only really applies to the Youth Union, who fucked up publicly a while ago, while the PMUA is spotless in their conduct. The fact they have not done anything but ask the Youth Union for info - which they used responsibly thus far - renders literally every complaint Kim Jihoon is making totally worthless. And they made sure he fucking knew it. Meanwhile, the folks who originally kicked off harassment and boycotts (DCInside) remains uncommented on, enraging people even further.

By the way, you may be wondering why Kim Jihoon is suddenly so frenzied in his attacks. The thing is, PMUA just successfully met their fundraising goal! And wouldn't you know it, the money they raised is for applying to file a class action lawsuit over PM's mismanagement.

Stay tuned for more on Crossy News Network. I am too nosy to possibly stop reporting on this

[rennymayflower]

Alr, ramble ahead but after seeing the Rainbow episode I’ve had a desperate urge to redesign and reimagine it. Small warning for body horror.

-

One of the main complaints I have for this episode is the lack of backstory for the Rainbow curse. I mean I get this is a content farm and Gametoons does a more episodic story structure, but we got Black’s backstory, Spectrum’s backstory, and Har, Mo, and Nee’s backstory. The only other backstory I think we didn’t get was that fire demon Sprunki, but no one likes that guy so he doesn’t count.

So for this version, the Rainbow curse is instead this collection of code that’s used to customize Sprunkis. When Mr FunComputer made the Sprunkis, he stored any leftover code somewhere in the lab. It remained inactive and harmless until Black comes back for some reason and fights Gray and Wenda.

The fight results in the Code waking up and immediately it becomes unstable. Code without a vessel is extremely volatile and fragile, so it instinctively latched onto the nearest “empty” host, which was Grey. Thanks to his monochrome color and his durability, Grey can temporarily house the Code without dying, but it’s still extremely painful.

Moments after being taken over by the Code, Grey immediately starts to change physically. Since the entire Code is so unstable, it’s trying to make multiple Sprunkis out of one vessel, resulting in not only a rainbow color palette, but also different body features like wings, horns, ears, etc, all growing in the wrong places. I also like to imagine that it’s physically changing Grey on the inside, things like multiple hearts, lungs, stomachs, things that that.

Along with physical changes, the Code is also trying to implement multiple personalities and voices inside Grey, resulting in him losing control to hundreds upon thousands of unfinished Sprunkis. For extra angst, I also like to imagine Gray is still completely aware, he’s just become part of this messed up mind hive where, even if he surfaces for a minute and is able to communicate to the outside world, he’s still accompanied with dozens of other voices possibly talking over him. Like if he tries to call out to Wenda or anyone else for help, his voice is completely overlapped by dozens of others, making his voice intelligible.

And yea, despite Gray being able to temporarily hold all this code, it’s still way too much for him. The code is basically trying to implement an entire planet’s worth of Sprunkis into one body, so that much strain and pressure will eventually rip Gray apart and kill him if nothing is done. The Code would also lash out at nearby Sprunkis due to its vulnerability of it still being developed, possibly trying to kill anyone who gets too close.

As for how Gray would be saved? Honestly no clue, either it’s the same solution with the color remover, Mr.FunComputer gets involved, some deus ex machina with Wenda, or something else. Either way, Gray’s gonna be leaving with a lot of scars and trauma which is nice.

And that ends the proposed rewrite. Not much else to say other than I like angst.

A shitty sketch could never possibly do this concept any justice but I HAD to illustrate this

If I may add one small thing onto this concept; what if every sprunki that Gray dissolves gets absorbed and joins the hivemind? :3 I think that'd be pretty neat

[idontevenknowanythingsendhelp]

A friend of mine just pointed this out (someone’s probably already posted about this, but I haven’t seen it so) but this guy is just, in the background of some of Ranboo’s thumbnails for Generation Loss on his RanbooLive channel. There are many reasons this guy can be here. The main ones we focused on were this guy possibly being someone (important?) in Generation Loss (Showfall employee, the founder, Hetch maybe?) or this is just some random man that the creator of the thumbnails put in to either throw people off or just because it was funny. Idk, that’s really all we talked about. There are probably other reasons but we only talked about these before moving on. Just thought I’d talk about it.

Edit: alright, I have been informed it might just be Ethan Winters and there are a bunch of other little guys in thumbnails and the artist apparently just does this. My bad, I know literally nothing on the internet.

WHY ARE SO MANY OF YOU GUYS LIKING THIS, IT’S LITERALLY JUST ME AND MY BEST FRIEND BEING DUMB IDIOTS, WHAT IS SO APPEALING??

To the next person to like this and remind me of it: I will pull a Ranboo and eat your children.

Edit: @samsclubhotdogs, you had better watch out. Your day of reckoning shall arrive.

@spiderwebsinzibbyshead, @brockendrems, @smallworld334, @bonemeal12, @moth-souppp, @void-speaks, @noels-nebula, @zeros-tmntbrainrot, @moobswithsoup, @shadowflayeronlyfans, @goofytaylor, do not test me. Count your days.

@whiteeyesandtina. Despite the clear warnings, you all seem to continue. You all shall regret this.

@blue0909, @smile458, @jaz-oline, why do I even try?

@i-am-very-confuse, sleep with one eye open.

@tobyfobywoahby, you all are quite daring. I respect it. Mostly.

@wheatleyinabox, I don’t know why, but I like your name. You will be spared. For now.

@unnmedauthr, why. Just- why. Do any of you have any self preservation!?

I must now create a list for any future victims targets, I suppose.

@cas-mentalynothereeee, @oxidantdreamboat, @spinspoon, @fuzzyoctarian, @whoreraccoon, @unknown-and-invisible, @morticuz, @just-call-me-jackson, @pigeons-with-jello, @soapychickenn, @himxa, @hcrystal02, @m00nnition, @sillylegoman, @marcothepinata, @arsonistbeee, @definatelynot6stackedrats, @v01dw4tch3r, @sensitive-little-frog, @cactibraindump, @lunaeclipse1057, @medeivalpencil, @ill-beyour-captain, @thebritishteacup

*sigh* Unfortunately, it will remain unfinished, as Tumblr will not cooperate with me. 😔 truly so sad.

This is getting difficult to keep track of.

I believe I may have made a grave error.

To @spinspoon, you are… forgiven. I guess.

@moonb34r, @justherefornothing1, @louddragonhoagiehero, @road-stripe, @dreams-and-legends, go on, don’t be afraid, turn your location on, I just want to talk.

You idiots, I have reached the limit of mentions, what the fuck.

I am going to kill a man.

[dreamscribee]

⚝Unspoken Bond⚝

°。°。°。°。°。。°。°。°。°。°°。°。°。°。°。。°。°。°。°。°

༯ Namami x reader ༯ Summary: Nanami has always had a crush on you but never admitted it; however, an incident happens that may bring those feelings to life.

༯ Word Count: 398 (words), 2,463 (characters)

°。°。°。°。°。。°。°。°。°。°°。°。°。°。°。。°。°。°。°。°

Since the first day at Jujutsu High, Namami Kento harbored a silent crush on you, always too hesitant to act, convinced you didn’t reciprocate his feelings. One day, you approached him with your characteristic warmth. “Nanami, did you catch what the assignment was today? I wasn’t paying attention.”

A bit flustered, he nodded. “Y-yes, I can help you if you want.”

“That would be perfect. We could study together, if that's alright with you?” you suggested.

Blushing, he nodded again and followed you to the library. Years have passed since then, and though you graduated and drifted apart, Namami’s fond feelings remained. Now, as a full-fledged sorcerer, he cherished seeing you more often, enjoying the closeness that had rekindled since your school days.

During your lunch break one day, Principal Yaga summoned you abruptly to his office. Sighing at your unfinished meal, you headed over.

“Y/N, there's been an emergency, and we need your unique skills to dispel a powerful curse,” Yaga explained gravely.

“Understood. I’ll head there immediately,” you assured him, determination steeling your features.

“Stay safe, Y/N,” Yaga called out as you departed.

Upon arrival, the situation was hostile. Fellow sorcerers struggled against the curse's might, barely maintaining control. Spotting one who seemed on the brink of collapse, you took charge. “Stand down, I've got it from here. Ensure your partner is safe, and call for backup. This is more serious than Yaga anticipated.”

Grateful, he nodded and hurried to assist his partner while you advanced to confront the curse head-on. However, in your focus, you lost track of the elusive entity. While investigating, the curse ambushed you, overpowering you with a sudden blast of a strange, goo-like substance. The world dimmed as you fell into darkness…

When you awoke, it was to the sight of Namami’s concerned face, hovering close. “You’re safe now,” he murmured, relief evident in his tone.

Confused and trying to piece together what happened, you realized Namami had not only tracked you down but also defeated the curse that had bested you. This act of bravery shifted something between you; perhaps it was time to address the feelings that had long simmered beneath the surface.

As you both recuperated from the ordeal, you found yourself considering not just the dangers of your profession, but also the possibility of exploring something deeper with Namami—something that, until now, had been left unsaid.

[kkeidawrites]

A Gemstone Amongst the Rest

Welcome to Day 11 of Blacktober!

CW: Violence, enemies to lovers, slow burn

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

A Bird in the Shadows

The shadows of Gotham City fluttered with unknown characters and the rats, as elusive as they were finally came into the night.

Lights were lit around the remaining buildings of the business district, crime alley already open to the public and no doubt ready for their shenanigans to begin.

On top of an unfinished building, stood the infamous detective and protector of Gotham City, the Batman. With his knee perched on the edge, Batman looked around the streets of Gotham, a watchful eye on its citizens as the nightlife that the city is known for started up.

“Master Bruce, do you plan to come home anytime soon to eat dinner?” The earpiece in his cowl spoke and the man presses his finger to his left ear.

“Alfred, I need an update on that lead I had last night. I think I may have found a clue as to who it is.” Batman says as his eyes focus on an abandoned jewelry store sitting in front of the building he stood upon.

Scaling down the building, Batman makes it to the front entrance of the jewelry store and steps into the broken window where normally the pieces of gems would be displayed.

“Catwoman, again sir?” Alfred speaks up questionably.

“Unless she’s switched to robbing abandoned jewelry stores then no, I think we have a new friend in Gotham.” Batman replies then kneels down to pick up a powdery substance on the ground.

“Oh joy.” Alfred says unimpressed.

Searching the area, Batman took his time taking samples of the powdered substance, that leads him to the back of the building. He finds himself in the vault of the store and sees it is picked clean of any trace of jewelry; no brainer there but what could someone want with an abandoned jewelry store?

Turning to his left, Batman spots a handprint on the vault’s handle, the powdered substance once again making an appearance.

Taking out a scanner tool from his utility belt, he holds it up to the handprint and analyzes the impression. It comes back with no results and Batman frowns in thought.

“This handprint doesn’t match with anyone. That can’t be possible.” He mutters to himself. Taking a step back, Batman feels something by his foot and looks down to see a rounded rock.

Bending down on a knee, he picks up the rock and inspects it carefully. It felt lighter than a regular density a rock would originally weigh, it was hollow.

Cracking the rock on the concrete floor, it is revealed to the detective that there were gems inside. Batman ponders on what this type of rock was doing in a place like this.

“Ohhhh, I see you’ve found my gem. Quite fascinating aren’t they?” A new voice speaks up from behind him and Batman looks over his shoulder at the woman that stood at the vaults entrance, her back leaned against it.

Her black and silk mask covered her entire face, hollow eyes looked at him with a blank expression. She wore a full body black suit and high heeled boots.

“Each one is full of different gems and colors, each one a price that is worth much more than that Bruce Wayne owns.” She says looking at her nails, bored.

“Who are you?” Batman demands.

“Black Sparrow, now if you don’t have anymore questions I would like my rock back.” Sparrow holds out her hand to him, expecting to have her geode but, the Dark Knight didn’t move whatsoever.

“What do you need them for?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? If they have a pretty color inside, then they are worth a pretty penny.” Sparrow places a hand on her hip while the other sneakily goes into her right pocket.

“And if I don’t give this to you?” Batman gets in a wider stance.

Sparrow sighs then suddenly throws three round balls at his feet, a gas emits from the balls and Batman covers his mouth with his free hand.

He saw that the gas didn’t affect him and slowly lowered his hand. However, the gas didn’t hurt him, it did activate something with the geode in his hand, it began to grow as if it was ice around his hand. The geode’s grip takes over his entire upper body and his right leg making him stuck.

Sparrow walks up to the struggling hero of the night and takes the geode from his hold. Looking it over to see if any of the inside was destroyed or damaged, Sparrow tilts her head at him in curiosity. She checks out his face and body and hums.

“I told you to let me have it but, now look at you: stuck and struggling.” She giggles and goes to leave the vault.

“Oh, another thing, there is a ‘little something’ I left behind. I figured you would be here sooner or later and I was right. Ka ọ dị. (Goodbye).” She waves as she walks out the vault.

Just as she said that, beeping was heard around Batman and he struggles against his restraints. His free foot kicks at the gem encased around his leg and is able to free it. Placing both feet behind him, Batman pushes himself off the wall and this allows the rest of his body to be freed from the geode.

Running out into the sales floor, Batman searches the room for the beeping and finally sees the little something that Black Sparrow left behind.

A bomb sat cushioned in a velvet jewelry box and Batman inspected the bomb. His mask scanned the contents of the inside of the bomb and saw that it was an opened geode on the inside. 45 seconds was showed as it ran down on the timer, Batman had to work fast and without knowing how powerful this bomb was he couldn’t take any chances.

Flipping it over, he pulls open a little hatch at the bottom and sees four wires inside. Red, green, blue, and yellow were his options and he had to be careful as to which wires were not going to set it off.

20 seconds were left and Batman had to make a decision now, guessing that blue was the correct choice he pulls it. Unfortunately this wasn’t the right wire as the timer now read 10 seconds, pulling the red, nothing happened again.

Batman pulls the other two wires and it did the same thing as the first two, none of them were the right wire and Batman felt that it was best to bail out now.

He is quick to make his exit and once the beeping of the bomb stopped an explosion went off and the entire jewelry store was now full of crystal geode, sticking out of the window and walls like spikes.

Batman looks at the mess that was made then presses a finger to the earpiece in his cowl.

“Alfred, call Gotham PD to my coordinates. I believe Commissioner Gordon should be aware there is another criminal in Gotham.” Batman orders looking around the area.

“Right away sir.”

Unbeknownst to Batman, Black Sparrow looked on three buildings down from her crime scene and smirks at her work, then is quick to leave the area by using her in suit wings to fly off.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Two weeks later

The annual Wayne Industries Conference Ball was held at Wayne Manor as it usually would around this time and all socialites and business gurus alike were in attendance.

Bruce Wayne, billionaire and businessman, made his rounds at his party; greeting old, faces meeting new ones, and showing off his playboy mannerisms that he is known for.

However, as he was speaking with one of his business partners, Bruce’s eyes found a newcomer enter the foyer.

Hair in boho braids that went to her shoulders, a cocktail dress that had a slit up to her mid thigh and black stilettos.

Her eyes find Bruce’s blue ones for a second but she is quick to look away and walk over to the hors d'oeuvres table. Using a napkin, she picks up a cucumber sandwich, and takes a drink from a nearby waiter. Taking a swig of the champagne, the woman hums in delight then eats the little snack.

“Excuse me,” the woman hums, answering and turns to see Bruce Wayne standing in front of her.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, Bruce Wayne.” He holds out a hand to her to shake. Swallowing her food, the woman dabs the napkin over her lips.

“Y/n L/n, I would say it’s a pleasure Mr. Wayne but, I believe that you and I have nothing to say to one another.” She raises a brow at him.

“Oh? Have we met before then?” He asks lowering his hand to his side.

“L/n Styles, your company is trying to sell out mines. The very one that I worked my ass off to get off the ground. I was only going to attend this place for a short time because I owe a friend but, now that I’ve met you, I can’t help myself.” Y/n snaps then takes another swig of her drink.

“L/n Styles? I don’t know what you’re talking about. My company doesn’t deal with any clothing brands.” This doesn’t settle the ire in Y/n’s stomach.

“You’d best figure out who is trying to take my business away from me or else I will see you in court Mr. Wayne. Good day.” Y/n sets down her glass on the table behind her and pushes past Bruce, heading for the exit. He takes notice of the necklace around her neck and sees it is a geode.

Bruce places a hand under his chin in thought. Since when was he buying out a clothing company, that was never something he wanted to do. He needed to get on the horn with his brokers and see what is happening.

Rushing out to follow her, Bruce spots her getting her fur coat from the coat checker at the door and puts it on.

Y/n leaves the manor with a displeased look on her face and carefully walks down the slippery steps.

“Miss L/n! Wait a minute!” Her head turns to see who it was but, this makes her slip on a step and she gasps in shock.

Bruce is quick to catch her by the waist and pull her up straight so that the two were face to face. Y/n pushes him away when she realized he was holding her much longer than she liked and glared at him annoyed.

“What is it that you want Mr. Wayne?”

“I was going to tell you that I will give your company a call tomorrow. This is all a big misunderstanding, I do not incorporate my business with anything related to fashion or threads, I don’t know anything about that stuff. If you’ll let me, I can investigate this and keep you informed of what is going on.” Bruce offers and puts his hand in his suit pocket. He pulls out his card and hands it to her, Y/n reluctantly takes it.

“Fine. But, if I find out that you are trying to buy my company I will sue your ass to high Hell. This will be mine.” She threatens.

Bruce nods with a sly smirk.

“I’ll even hand over the keys if that is the case.” He says.

Y/n looks him over and turns to leave once more, the valet at the bottom of the staircase already waiting with her keys and car.

Driving off, Bruce watches the woman leave his home turf then frowned in thought. A geode necklace? How interesting. His thoughts are interrupted when he hears Alfred call for him inside.

Bruce walks back up the stairs but not without looking at the entrance of his manor gates where the woman had just left from then returns to continue hosting inside.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

If you guys want a part 2 let me know!

Make sure to like, reblog, and follow and hey ask me for any particular content you want to see written for Blacktober in my inbox!

Part 2:

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4 Life & Death Expansion Pack is Now Available For Pre-order

You can preorder The Sims 4 Life & Death Expansion Pack now to start playing immediately when it launches on October 31, 2024 on PC via EA app™, Mac® via Origin, Epic Games Store and Steam®, PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One systems. The expansion pack will be released on October 31, 2024, and costs $39.99. 

EA and Maxis have just dropped an official asset pack for their upcoming The Sims 4 Life & Death Expansion Pack.

The screenshots showcase the new Grim Reaper Career, brand new World called Ravenwood and unique ghastly interactions coming in this DLC set.

Peel back the veil to uncover the secret to richer Sim lives and beyond in The Sims 4 Life & Death Expansion Pack. Achieve your dreams in life by ticking items off your Bucket List or pursue them as a Ghost with Unfinished Business. There is a ghastly new world to haunt, a career that’ll bring you closer to Grim, Wills to write, Crypts to explore, and even ghostly skills to master. There are no real endings — only transitions — as you move between life, afterlife, and even rebirth.

Official Description and Features

An Endless Journey

Build your Bucket List by collecting goals throughout your Sim’s life, starting as a Young Adult. Items will appear on your list based on your Sim’s traits and family relations, and you can also choose your own. Removing items is possible, but completing them yields powerful rewards. If a Sim’s life ends with items still on their list, they can devote their afterlife to completing their Unfinished Business. The ultimate reward for experiencing everything on their list is the option to be Reborn, though you can still choose to Move On or remain on this plane as a Ghost.

A Ghastly, Gorgeous Life

Make death your life’s work with a career of reaping souls, helping Ghosts, dispersing hauntings, and more as a member of Grim’s team. Or, you could become a Mortician and deal with death more from the perspective of the living. Outside of work, you might spend your days exploring Crypts and building your Thanatology skill for the new Ghost Historian Aspiration. These things – among other dark diversions like bonding with your Pet Crow (careful, provoking it could be deadly) or collecting and reading the lost Tarot Cards of Lady Ravendancer Goth – will have a special appeal to Sims who are Macabre, one of 3 new traits.

Goodbye (For Now)

Different Sims will grieve in different ways. There are 4 types that will tie in with both Sims’ personalities and their relationships with the deceased. Grieving Rituals are customizable and unscripted, allowing you to hold whatever type of event (or events) fits your story. In life, Sims can create Wills which can be used to pass down Heirlooms, assign guardians for surviving dependents, distribute their Simoleons, and more. Sims can honor the departed with a memorial display featuring their portrait, and by interring their urns in Crypts or with Custom Caskets and Gravesites.

Friendly or Fiendish?

Linger on as a Ghost and spend your afterlife helping or terrorizing the living. Ghosts will grow in their abilities as they do everything from assisting with household chores to levitating living Sims and hanging them upside down (fun AND profitable - they may drop Simoleons!). Their interactions with the living can earn them Fear or Goodwill essences, which can both be sold for Simoleons. There’s a lot to do after death; Ghosts can even pair up for a special, spectral Woohoo.

Official Sims 4 Life & Death Screens

Life & Death Pre-Order Bonus

If you purchase The Sims 4 Life & Death Expansion Pack by December 12th, you’ll receive the Macabre Mementos Digital Content set! This three-piece set contains two new Build items and one CAS item, including:

Lasting Legacy Family Portrait

Mournful Melodies Music Box

Plumed Elegance Mask

Macabre Mementos Digital Content —Wonder at treasures that have endured time’s passing, witnessing the come and go of generations with ghastly grace. Look upon those who came before in the Lasting Legacy Family Portrait, listen to the haunting lullaby of the Mournful Melodies Music Box, and masquerade in fowl finery with the Plumed Elegance Mask, available when you order through December 12**.

[telvess]

Hello Tess🫂❤️❤️ if it's not too much (and if you have time, of course)...can I ask for Hajun, Susanoo and Hermes headcanons with a painter reader? Especially if the reader likes to sketch them or paint them often...a little painter simp!

If you don't want to do it or don't feel like it, that's totally fine!❤️

Love ya!☀️🌻

Don’t I want to do this? I COULDN’T WAIT TO DO THIS! my first Susanoo request, I’m so excited!

I know you asked for headcanons, but I ended up writing scenarios as well, and they, hm… got out of hand. And so you know… before I fell for Thor, I had a weakness for Hermes, and now thanks to you it came back to me!😭😭😭

Anyway I hope you’re feeling better today, Sunny🌞

RoR: Painter!Reader (Hajun, Susanoo, Hermes) 🔞

Hajun

Let’s not pretend this is kind of person who would stop to look at a beautiful view.

Before he met you, he didn’t give an art second thought. After he met you? He thinks it's pointless, but there are works you show him that make his eyes widen for a split second. Hajun then goes back to pretending that it bores him to death…

If you really want to catch his attention, use bright colors and don't paint something boring.

You always make such a mess with the paints… He likes it.

Oh, you want to teach him to draw? Problems start with his I-don’t-care attitude, then you have to deal with countless broken pencils because he grips them too hard, and of top of that refuses to follow your instructions. Surprisingly Hajun isn’t the first who loses patience.

He's usually unaware that you're drawing him. It's nothing new that you're staring at him.

He doesn't ask what you're drawing, he has to look after his image, but when he thinks you're not looking, he takes a quick peek. Tease him and he will be offended.

Whenever you sketched Hajun, you always used as many thick lines as possible, to better reflect his demonic nature. This time wasn’t different. You sat down near his training ground - that is, simply any place that could have been damaged - and sketched him from the distance. You weren’t usually this obvious, but Hajun was too focused on himself to notice anyway… — Why do you keep peeking? — he asked right after you looked again. You looked at him over your sketchbook. — I’m sketching you — you explained simply, almost indifferently. Hajun stared at you with a dull expression, making you almost lose your cool. — Show me — he demanded, stepping closer to you. You did as he said. — It still needs some improvements, but generally I’m quite contented with… — That’s me? — Hajun interrupted you. Now you were the one with the dull expression on your face. Hajun sounded so serious that you took another look at your unfinished work. You saw very well reproduced facial features, proper body proportions, decent shadows and a good capture of his arrogant expression, something you were most proud of. Apart from the lack of horns and blood, it was impossible to understand how he couldn't see the striking resemblance. — Ouch! — you giggled — It resembled you! — you shouted, almost angry. — I don’t have such face — was his reply. You clearly don’t have a mirror either… you though, but didn’t dare say it out loud. — And my arms should be bigger — he added, pointing a dirty finger at your sketch. — Well, you aren’t tightening them now, are you? — you said, slightly annoyed at this point. You both stared at each other for a moment, until a strange tension began to build around you. You quickly glanced at your sketch and then at Hajun again. — Maybe… they’re not big enough — you admitted slowly — But I can fix it, if only you provide a right source. Hajun remained calm, almost too calm after your obvious provocation. — You may not know how to draw me properly, but you definitely know how to talk to me, little harlot — his calm voice irritated the hell out of you, but hearing that nickname gave you chills. — Come, you'll have to take a closer look — he grabbed your arm and led you towards the field. The sketchbook fell from your hand and landed on the ground. — My sketchbook, wait! — You don’t need it — Hajun didn't let you break free from his grip.

Susanoo

He would show interest in your art. Not necessarily a lot of interest. He may give the impression that he is indifferent to art, but he can actually appreciate beautiful works of art.

You can’t expect Susanoo to talk about art tho. It’s just not his thing. He may ask you questions about details, different methods of painting or the inspiration behind each work, but he will not take an active part in the conversation. He just tries to show you he cares (not about art, but you).

If you prefer to prepare your paints yourself, asks him for a help. He may be a little grumpy about it, but he wouldn't say no to you.

Of all your works, Susanoo likes motion painting the most. There’s something special about them. This frozen moment, captured in time. The more creative you can get, the better.

If you paint him, remember to be sure to properly convey all his grandeur and capture his majesty in all its splendour. Take it seriously, after all he isn’t some small fry.

You were chilling on a couch, practising in your sketchbook. Susanoo was expected to meet the other gods about Ragnarok in an hour, so you were all by yourself. So the timing was perfect to complete one of the hidden projects. Nobody could interrupt you or look over your shoulder, or at least that's what you thought… — Oho, that’s how you like me, girl? — you heard Susanoo’s husky voice right behind you and jumped up with a loud scream. The pencil fell out of your hand. Susanoo laughed out loud at your reaction. — It’s just a sketch… — you muttered. At this point hiding sketchbook or pretending you didn’t draw his exposed… things was pointless. Susanoo sat down next to you, his arm rested on the back of the couch. — Let me see… — he tried to take sketchbook from you, but your grip tightened — Don’t be shy — said Susanoo, and so you gave up. Susanoo looked at your unfinished work and studied it for a moment. His impassive face gave you no hint of what was going through his mind. — You could sketch me in any position, but I can clearly see what was your priority here. You giggled, trying to ignore your warm cheeks. But what you couldn’t ignore was his hand appearing on your thigh. His other arm, which had been resting on the back of the couch, now happened to be wrapped around you as Susanoo pulled you closer to him. The sketchbook fell to the floor, but you didn't think much of it because you were too busy kissing his hungry lips. Whenever Susanoo kissed you, he always gave his all. His tongue explored your mouth, his firm grip on your back, he liked to feel your body pressed against his, your warmth and the trembling he made you feel. It always put him in the right mood. While he played with your mouth, you caressed his crotch. It wasn't long before you felt a growing bulge under your fingers. Susanoo’s hand untied your obi and slowly slipped between the flaps of your yukata. The feel of his warm fingers on your breasts sent shivers down your spine. Before lust could completely consume you, you mumbled: — Aren’t you supposed to have a meeting with other gods soon? Susanoo opened his eyes between kisses, you knew you had angered him. — I don’t understand why you dragged them into this — he replied dryly and pulled you even closer so that you were sitting on his lap. — You will be late! — Yes — he kissed your chin, then moved to your bare neck — And I don’t see a problem with it. — You and your stubbornness — you whispered, feeling yourself slowly fall under his spell as his tongue licked your skin. Just as Susanoo thought as he squeezed your buttocks hard. Maybe a little too hard. You moaned, but the slight pain jolted your senses awake. You stopped a kiss, pushing Susanoo away. He watched in surprise as you covered your breasts and reached for your sketchbook. — You’re late — you announced, sitting up straight next to him — And I have to finish my sketch — you pointed at your sketch of him. — No, no, girl — Susanoo said in a voice that brooked no objections — You have to finish me. The real one, over here — he took your sketchbook and threw it away. You huffed at his demanding tone, but didn’t oppose when Susanoo pulled you to him once again.

Hermes

Since the beginning, you two always talk about art. Hermes was known for his musical abilities basically throughout the universe. You two have a special place for art in hearts.

Hermes likes to talk to you about painting, but he is quite demanding. Art is subjective, but don’t you think he wouldn’t notice if you get sloppy painting some particular part you don’t like. Oh, yes, Oh, yes, he’s gonna point that out.

If you don’t paint for some time, he notices it and asks you about the reason behind it. He encourages you for keep trying, especially if you feel stuck and lack motivation.

I feel like if you try hard enough, you could convince him to draw with you. Hermes would expect some kind of tutorial from you, but after his first work it turns out that he has experience and was just playing along.

Hermes doesn’t have favourite type of painting, because he believes that everything can positively surprise him, but he really enjoy seeing first raw sketch of your work and then its final version, for comparisons.

Sketch it as much as you want, at any moment and how you see fit. Hermes doesn’t mind being watched, in fact he really likes feeling your eyes on him.

Your favourite place to relax was the garden at Olympus in the morning, when everyone was busy with their duties or hadn't even started their day yet. You sat on a bench surrounded by perfectly trimmed hedges and trees, and the silence disturbed only by chirping of birds and the occasional wind whistling. You turned yourself off. Perhaps you shouldn’t. Otherwise, you would have notice earlier that someone appeared next to you. — That looks good — said Hermes in his flawless butler uniform. — I-I-I was just-! It’s… — you hid your sketchbook behind your back, feeling how you cheeks got warm. — A very good sketch of naked me — Hermes finished the sentence for you with a playful smile. You gave in to that smile, and burst out laughing. — Okay, you got me — you tucked your hair behind your ear — I was just practising silhouettes, and then I thought about you and… — you shrugged, embarrassed. — Well I supposed it’s my fault. I've been very absent lately, haven't I? Hermes sat down next to you. — You… aren’t you busy now? — you asked, a bit surprised, because you didn't remember the last morning you spent together. — I’m, but who would I be if I couldn't manage dozen or so minutes for you, y/n? — he smiled again, but this time it was a rare kind of smile that Hermes almost never presented. A genuine smile that wasn't the result of politeness or manners. — May I see the rest of it? — he asked. Without thinking, you handed over sketchbook to Hermes. It’s foolish of you to assume that he only wanted to see your unfinished work. — D-don’t! — you said, but it was too late. Hermes started to leaf through every sketch you had ever drew, including the inappropriate ones. And there was a whole lot of him there. You’ve shown him some of them before, but not every single one. After all, you didn’t want him to know this side of you… too well. It wasn’t lady like. — Well… — Hermes’ voice sounded as polite as always — It seems I’ve neglected you very much. Your cheeks burned to the core and Hermes clearly enjoyed that sight. His red eyes sparkled with joy, and if you weren’t so embarrassed you might have hit him for it. — I think you did… — you found yourself saying. You bit your lower lip. — Eh, what can I say? It’s all your fault! You’re such a good model — you shrugged, trying not to smile too broadly — My hands just want to draw you! Hermes stared at you for a moment. If you didn’t know him, you’d probably assume he was thinking of some sort of riposte, but years of being together had taught you that the only thing that could match his practiced politeness was his sharp mind. To your surprise, Hermes took your hand and started massaging it gently, the fabric of his glove was warm and soft. He caressed your fingers, touched your wrist, even checked your pulse for a moment. There was something very relaxing and natural about his moves, because for a moment you forgot how busy he was and that he would have to return to his duties soon. — Have I mentioned that my favourite part of your body are hands? — he asked you after a long silence. You shook your head in denial, which encouraged him to expand his thoughts — It’s not just the matter of these graceful fingers. Nor is it a matter of what you can create with them. I feel I adore them so, because whenever I’m bored with duties, I find solace in fantasizing about how these hands will take care of me later. Your eyes met again and you could have sworn you saw something rare in his pupils, but it was quickly hidden behind Hermes' playful nature. He stood up. — Well, I should get back to my duties now — he adjusted the flaps of his jacket — Please, dear, keep these sketches to yourself, because they’re very accurate — he winked.

[fearandhatred]

Hehehehehe for the one word thing: theft (or words related to that)

i'm so sorry for this it could be five sentences if you squint real hard. also me when writing absolutely anything at all: how do i make this about angel crowley

the dollmaker

the teeth went first, which you lined up with extreme care onto curved wires caressing a plain, wooden pole. they say teeth are what make a face, and i guess that must be true—you would know. i hadn't known yet what you were going to do, so i just watched with my bare, gaping mouth as you chipped my teeth into asymmetrical shapes, carving them into a beast's.

the tongue was next, the larynx too—just as well. i wasn't much keen on speaking anymore, anyway, what with all the blood in my gums. i wasn't keen on smelling anymore, either, the tang of iron and wood flecks that surrounded you like a visible aura. the silence must have been music to your ears, now that i couldn't scream through the pain, could hardly even take a breath.

there were the lips, the nose, the cheekbones. you took it all off my face, like a sculptor trying to return their creation to a clean marble slab, and all i could do was watch. and maybe, along the way, i was even resigned. that settling that inevitably came with constancy.

but then the panic surged back up and out of my body along with my eyes, which you scooped out with ease, and i could scream again, only it wasn't coming from me—no, maybe it was me, the other me, if it was me. i didn't know which way was left, couldn't comprehend what my eyes were seeing: it's one thing to see fragments of yourself scattered around like an unfinished painting; it's another to see the remains of where those fragments were stolen from—oh god, it would have been kinder to be less methodical, to have had gnarled and brazenly sliced pieces of flesh and marrow exploded off of my face, rather than the precise and surgical peeling away of skin, all in one piece like wool from a shearer's hand.

and you painted them a lurid, reptilian yellow, slitted pupils like a knife's scar. i saw this, i saw my eyes only through yours, gold reflected off blue, and for a moment there was something so intimate, so complementary in that gaze, you with your deceitfully gentle smile and weightless hair, that i forgot what you were doing to me. just for a moment. but then it came into focus again, that garish, nauseating colour of my eyes, and that moment was gone. the colour of sick, one more step away from the angel i was, if an angel was defined only through construct; if an angel was defined by spirit, by grace, by acts… you're the farthest thing from an angel i could possibly fathom, and yet here you are.

i closed my eyes, then, and one by one you took, and you took, and you took, stealing everything from me, stealing myself from me. when you lifted my brain out of my cleaved skull, the pain finally quietened, if only for the few seconds it took to rewire it, but it was a reprieve, and i was grateful. and i didn't feel it when my limbs were hacked off at their stems, tourniqueted and cauterised. i didn't feel it when you ripped out the nails from my fingers and toes and replaced them with claws.

and so even as you took, and you took, and you took, i didn't struggle, no, and soon i couldn't struggle. but i didn't want it, i didn't, i didn't. but one by one by one, it got easier, with every limb and organ and joint, with every side sweep of my hair; you've changed that, too. because i thought—oh, i thought that with every piece of me you changed and fit into this new mold, i thought you would at least take it all. i thought you would complete me at the end, so that even changed, this new thing may still be me.

but we're at the final stages now. here come my lungs, my intestines, my stomach, fitting into this new me so perfectly it's as if i'd never changed at all. you've taken the stray clumps of my meat and stuffed them back into me, you've fed me back my blood, and it all works, as if i'd never changed at all. there's just my heart now, resting on the stool you'd propped me up on like a doll, nothing left but stray splotches of blood, but you're not taking it, you're not taking it, what are you doing?

i feel each individual stitch now as you sew me up around my joints and from my pelvis to my neck, a long line like snake vertebrae, weaving in and out of my skin. and still my heart remains untouched, outside of my body, discarded like waste. i start to beg now, because i can, and i didn't want this, but now i'm so close to reformation, to being whole, and oh, i feel so empty, you left the hole in my chest there where something is supposed to fit, and now my centre of gravity is off, and i can't be expected to live this way.

please, all i'm asking for is my heart, just this one thing. i know i haven't been good, i know i struggled, i know i screamed, i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. oh, but please, won't you take it?

[justforbooks]

Hannah Arendt,

born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German-American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.

Her works cover a broad range of topics, but she is best known for those dealing with the nature of wealth, power and evil, as well as politics, direct democracy, authority, tradition and totalitarianism. She is also remembered for the controversy surrounding the trial of Adolf Eichmann, for her attempt to explain how ordinary people become actors in totalitarian systems, which was considered by some an apologia, and for the phrase "the banality of evil." Her name appears in the names of journals, schools, scholarly prizes, humanitarian prizes, think-tanks, and streets; appears on stamps and monuments; and is attached to other cultural and institutional markers that commemorate her thought.

Hannah Arendt was born to a Jewish family in Linden (now a district of Hanover, Germany) in 1906. When she was three, her family moved to the East Prussian capital of Königsberg for her father's health care. Paul Arendt had contracted syphilis in his youth but was thought to be in remission when Arendt was born. He died when she was seven. Arendt was raised in a politically progressive, secular family, her mother being an ardent Social Democrat. After completing secondary education in Berlin, Arendt studied at the University of Marburg under Martin Heidegger, with whom she engaged in a romantic affair that began while she was his student. She obtained her doctorate in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in 1929. Her dissertation was titled Love and Saint Augustine, and her supervisor was the existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers.

Hannah Arendt married Günther Stern in 1929 but soon began to encounter increasing antisemitism in the 1930s Nazi Germany. In 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power, Arendt was arrested and briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo for performing illegal research into antisemitism. On release, she fled Germany, living in Czechoslovakia and Switzerland before settling in Paris. There she worked for Youth Aliyah, assisting young Jews to emigrate to the British Mandate of Palestine. She was stripped of her German citizenship in 1937. Divorcing Stern that year, she then married Heinrich Blücher in 1940. When Germany invaded France that year she was detained by the French as an alien. She escaped and made her way to the United States in 1941 via Portugal. She settled in New York, which remained her principal residence for the rest of her life. She became a writer and editor and worked for the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, becoming an American citizen in 1950. With the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, her reputation as a thinker and writer was established, and a series of works followed.

These included the books The Human Condition in 1958, as well as Eichmann in Jerusalem and On Revolution in 1963.

She taught at many American universities while declining tenure-track appointments. She died suddenly of a heart attack in 1975, at the age of 69, leaving her last work, The Life of the Mind, unfinished.

Arendt's five-part series "Eichmann in Jerusalem" appeared in The New Yorker in February 1963 some nine months after Eichmann was hanged on 31 May 1962. By this time his trial was largely forgotten in the popular mind, superseded by intervening world events. However, no other account of either Eichmann or National Socialism has aroused so much controversy. Before its publication, Arendt was considered a brilliant humanistic original political thinker. Her mentor, Karl Jaspers, however, had warned her about a possible adverse outcome, "The Eichmann trial will be no pleasure for you. I'm afraid it cannot go well". On publication, three controversies immediately occupied public attention: the concept of Eichmann as banal, her criticism of the role of Israel and her description of the role played by the Jewish people themselves.

Arendt was profoundly shocked by the response, writing to Karl Jaspers "People are resorting to any means to destroy my reputation... They have spent weeks trying to find something in my past that they can hang on me". Now she was being called arrogant, heartless and ill-informed. She was accused of being duped by Eichmann, of being a "self-hating Jewess", and even an enemy of Israel. Her critics included The Anti-Defamation League and many other Jewish groups, editors of publications she was a contributor to, faculty at the universities she taught at and friends from all parts of her life. Her friend Gershom Scholem, a major scholar of Jewish mysticism, broke off relations with her, publishing their correspondence without her permission. Arendt was criticized by many Jewish public figures, who charged her with coldness and lack of sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust. Because of this lingering criticism neither this book nor any of her other works were translated into Hebrew until 1999.[314] Arendt responded to the controversies in the book's Postscript.

Although Arendt complained that she was being criticized for telling the truth – "what a risky business to tell the truth on a factual level without theoretical and scholarly embroidery" – the criticism was largely directed to her theorizing on the nature of mankind and evil and that ordinary people were driven to commit the inexplicable not so much by hatred and ideology as ambition, and inability to empathize. Equally problematic was the suggestion that the victims deceived themselves and complied in their own destruction.[316] Prior to Arendt's depiction of Eichmann, his popular image had been, as The New York Times put it "the most evil monster of humanity" and as a representative of "an atrocious crime, unparalleled in history", "the extermination of European Jews". As it turned out Arendt and others were correct in pointing out that Eichmann's characterization by the prosecution as the architect and chief technician of the Holocaust was not entirely credible.

While much has been made of Arendt's treatment of Eichmann, Ada Ushpiz, in her 2015 documentary Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, placed it in a much broader context of the use of rationality to explain seemingly irrational historical events.

In an interview with Joachim Fest in 1964, Arendt was asked about Eichmann's defense that he had made Kant's principle of the duty of obedience his guiding principle all his life. Arendt replied that that was outrageous and that Eichmann was misusing Kant, by not considering the element of judgement required in assessing one's own actions – "Kein Mensch hat bei Kant das Recht zu gehorchen" (No man has, according to Kant, the right to obey), she stated, paraphrasing Kant. The reference was to Kant's Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason 1793) in which he states:

Der Satz 'man muß Gott mehr gehorchen, als den Menschen' bedeutet nur, daß, wenn die letzten etwas gebieten, was an sich böse (dem Sittengesetz unmittelbar zuwider) ist, ihnen nicht gehorcht werden darf und soll. (The saying, "We must hearken to God, rather than to man," signifies no more than this, viz. that should any earthly legislation enjoin something immediately contradictory of the moral law, obedience is not to be rendered)

Kant clearly defines a higher moral duty than rendering merely unto Caesar. Arendt herself had written in her book "This was outrageous, on the face of it, and also incomprehensible, since Kant's moral philosophy is so closely bound up with man's faculty of judgment, which rules out blind obedience." Arendt's reply to Fest was subsequently corrupted to read Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen (No one has the right to obey), which has been widely reproduced, although it does encapsulate an aspect of her moral philosophy.

The phrase Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen has become one of her iconic images, appearing on the wall of the house in which she was born, among other places. A fascist bas-relief on the Palazzo degli Uffici Finanziari (1942), in the Piazza del Tribunale, Bolzano, Italy celebrating Mussolini, read Credere, Obbedire, Combattere (Believe, Obey, Combat). In 2017 it was altered to read Hannah Arendt's original words on obedience in the three official languages of the region.

The phrase has been appearing in other artistic work featuring political messages, such as the 2015 installation by Wilfried Gerstel, which has evoked the concept of resistance to dictatorship, as expressed in her essay "Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship" (1964).

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?