#reality-warping powers are the best way to give someone a good day

[hayanwulf]

“How much do you love Pepper?”

The question came out of nowhere. Tony pulled himself out from where he was neck-deep in machinery, and looked up at the Wizard who sat occupying one of his several workshop chairs, his eyes still fixed on the book in his lap.

“More than the world,” Tony replied honestly. “It’s scary, honestly.”

It truly was scary, the lengths he knew he could go to for the people he loved.

Stephen did look up from his book, then.

“Let’s just say, hypothetically—” Tony raised an eyebrow at that, “—that Pepper was in love with someone else. And they loved her. And they were very happy as they were.”

Tony could sense there was something deeper going on here than simply hypotheticals. What, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Yet.

“And let’s say,” Stephen continued, “that you had the power to change that. You had the power to keep her all to yourself, to make her forget all about that person, and that person all about her. Literally. And no one would ever know what you had done, or that things had ever been any different than the reality you fabricated. She would love you, would never know what she has lost, and you’d never give her a reason to feel any less happier. And before you ask, no, it will not create any unfortunate side-effects for anyone or anything.”

Tony’s brows progressively creased at the very dubious description of this hypothetical.

“If you had the power to do all that,” Stephen concluded, “Would you?”

Tony opened his mouth to give the obvious answer that no, I wouldn’t do that, because that’s wrong.

But then he paused, jaw snapping shut, as he realized something after rerunning Stephen’s words through his head.

Stephen was talking about a scenario where consequences stopped mattering. Where, perhaps, morals stopped mattering. Because no one would ever know that Pepper’s life had been manipulated — not even Pepper herself — not only that, but Tony knew he would treat Pepper the way she deserved, would give her all his love, his soul, heck, the world if she asked for it.

He knew that he would keep her happy, and that she would do the same for him. Because that was how it was, in present, in the reality.

So, with all that in mind, even if it was morally wrong to play with someone’s memories, to fabricate a reality that hadn’t always been the truth, did it really matter that those things had been done? Because at the end of the day, there would be no consequences, no repercussions, nothing negative that would come out of it.

Suddenly the question felt a lot more terrifying. It almost felt like a test, of sorts, of a person’s integrity. And Tony did not have a lot of integrity to spare. No, he was more than willing to bend the rules sometimes if it meant that it would help him achieve what’s best for this world.

(Except, he wasn’t very good at telling what qualified as ‘best for this world’ either, now, was he?)

So.. if he were to be tempted into it.. wouldn’t he give in? Wouldn’t he want to have Pepper? He wanted to say no, that he wouldn’t let himself fall into that pit, because there was no getting up from it ever again. But..

But power corrupts.

It would corrupt him, too.

Tony bit his lip and focused back on Stephen.

It was then that he realized that Stephen had his eyes keenly fixed on Tony throughout the silence of contemplation. There was something in his eyes.. akin to anticipation? Except, it was way more intense.

Something clicked in Tony’s mind. Or perhaps it was several pieces clicking together, solving a puzzle that had been right in front of his eyes all along but he had somehow missed for so long.

The question wasn’t hypothetical. It wasn’t hypothetical, because Stephen had that kind of power. Didn’t he? Tony would think so, after he’d watched the man take down a Titan with 4 infinity stones, prevent their planet from being eaten by a planet-eating cosmic entity, and defeat a witch who could warp reality and create kids out of nothing.

Stephen was in love. Stephen was in love with someone who he couldn’t be with.

The thought made something constrict painfully tight in Tony’s chest. But there would be more time, later, to think on that.

Right now.. right now Stephen was on the verge of falling apart. He loved this person so much that he was willing to go to any lengths, if it meant he could be with them. (The vice around Tony’s heart tightened even more, but really, this was no time to process that.) Even if it could be considered extremely immoral. And..

And he was, in a way, asking Tony’s permission for it. Perhaps to assuage himself that it was fine to do it. Perhaps to convince himself that it wasn’t wrong, that anyone would want to do the same.

Tony swallowed. The workshop’s air, that had been cool and pleasant just a minute ago, now hung with a damp sort of heaviness.

This was extremely hypocritical of Tony, given that moments ago he had admitted to himself that he.. that he wouldn’t be entirely opposed to using that kind of power to have Pepper to himself.

But Stephen.. he couldn’t let Stephen break. He couldn’t. Not like this. Not for this. Losing morality was a slippery slope. You couldn’t stop once you’d started.

He couldn’t let that happen to Stephen. He couldn’t.

(And if a small, insignificant voice in his mind screamed, you’re doing it only out of selfishness, he shut it out.)

“No,” Tony said. “Because.. even if no one would know the truth, I would know.”

“Because it would haunt your conscience forever?” Stephen asked.

Oh, Tony had no doubt that it would. He also had no doubt that his own conscience would slowly convince him that ‘it’s fine’ that he ‘did the right thing’. It would feed him lies, and he would make them his life’s truths.

That was, in essence, how the slippery slope of amorality started. Always.

Tony shook his head. “No. Because the Pepper that lives in here?” He tapped at his chest, right where his heart rested, “She’d hate me for it.”

Stephen’s eyes traced down to that little hand gesture, and stayed there even after Tony’s hand fell away. For a second that seemed to stretch for hours, Stephen simply stared at the spot where Tony had tapped his finger, and Tony grew just a hint distressed, that perhaps it hadn’t worked. Perhaps he didn’t manage to convince Stephen. That he would lose Stephen into this spiral of wrongdoings and never be able to recover him—

Stephen’s eyes flickered up to Tony’s, and something flashed in his expression, gone as quickly as it had come. Tony still caught what it was, though.

Self-disgust.

Before Tony could speak again, Stephen interrupted him, getting up as he shut his book with a slam. “Apologies, there’s an emergency at the Sanctum.”

And before Tony could do anything else, Stephen was already disappearing through a portal.

“Stephen!” He called out as he stood up, but it was no use, the portal already closed, the last of orange sparks showering down on his floor.

Stephen was gone. Stephen was gone, and Tony knew that no immoral reality-bending, mind-altering magics were going to be performed today. But Stephen was gone, reeking of shame and disgust for himself, gone to lament in whichever secluded place he always disappeared to, not to be found by any force of the universe unless he wanted to be found.

That hadn’t been Tony’s intention. That hadn’t been Tony’s intention.

But he could do nothing but watch at where the sparkly portal had stood, wishing that it had been him who Stephen loved with such intensity.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for trying to get revenge on the people who ruined me?

…I used to be worth something. I wasn’t perfect— far from it… I know that now, but I… I was good. Even though I wasn’t easy on the eyes. Even though most people didn’t like me. Even though I was a tad selfish. At least I had a friend. At least I tried my best to be kind.

But they took all of that away from me. And for that, I’ll never forgive them.

You see, I was Queen once— of a country that hangs in the clouds. It wasn’t always easy… like I said: a lot of people didn’t like me, but at least I was someone. I was important. I did my job, just like I was supposed to.

It all changed one day when he got me a gift… my best friend that is. He didn’t know it at the time— neither of us did, but there was something dark and evil inside of that brilliant mirror, and it soon decided to use me.

Dark forces warped me from the inside out, slowly distorting my perception of reality and even my feelings. I began to become a caricature of myself— nothing more than a selfish monster. I became paranoid, then self obsessed. I killed the rest of the royal family, terrified they’d try to take what was mine. I began to terrorize my people, and even mistreat my best friend. I stole countless bodies, making them own in a desperation to become perfect somehow, all the while the forces in the mirror watched on and SMILED.

You see, I was a pawn. The goal was…- well, I think it was something like “if we can get a queen under our thumb, then we can use that to vie for control of her world.” That was power they wanted, and they were willing to throw me under the bus to attain it.

Eventually, I was beyond saving. They distorted me so well and truly that I was practically unrecognizable. Running on only blind instinct and egomania at that point, I had the ruler of a foreign country kidnapped, senselessly tried to kill the man who was once my best friend, and then attempted to murder everyone both in my country and the foreign country.

…Needless to say, they put me down. The ruler of that country, his companion and my friend, that is.

I should be gone. But I’m not, thanks to him. That… that foolish, naive idiot! I can’t believe what he did. Still refusing to give up on me, even after everything that happened, my friend sook Death out and found a way to resurrect me, insistent I still deserved a happy ending.

Death ensured I was in my right mind again, but there was only so much it could do to mend me overall. I was and am broken. I always will be after what happened, I think.

My friend explained what happened, reassured me it was all okay now, and took me home. He said I’d be alright— that none of what happened before was my fault, and now I could finally be free.

But that’s not true. That’s not true at all.

First and foremost, my body… it’s hideous. Always shifting, at any given time it’s something between my despicable ‘true form’ and my monstrous Frankenstein’s creation. If you saw me, you’d gag. I can’t stand to look at myself. No matter how I appear, I always see someone evil staring back at me in the mirror. Someone who’s as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside. I hate her.

A few of my friend’s companions— ones far better than me, hypothesized it’s because I don’t know who I am anymore. As such, my sickening, parasitic body doesn’t either, and merely improvises in a futile attempt to capture ‘me.’

And saying I no longer know who I am is correct. I’m not just a stranger in appearance. It feels as if the girl I used to be has long since died— replaced by a callous monster. I remember it. I remember everything. I’m still touched by it, even having been ‘made right.’

I recall killing my family. I recall subjugating my people. I recall abusing my best friend, and I recall just how much JOY I felt doing it. He says that I’m not respond for any of that— that I wasn’t in my right mind, but I know that was still me. My innermost, darkest, sick and twisted desires. I’ll never be able to wash the blood from my hands.

Constantly, it feels as if I’m followed by ghosts. My skin writhes— and I swear I can feel my victims tugging at my limbs, demanding I return what isn’t mine. These hands… I don’t recognize them. I don’t recognize anything about myself. When I think about it too much, I get sick.

I’m broken. I’m ugly. I’m evil. And the people who made me that way have names and faces.

My friend… had actually met one of them. Sickeningly, they shared a mutual friend. When he learned what this person did (long before I returned), he attempted to get revenge himself, but was stopped by the group and reprimanded. He was told that the person who destroyed me— the person I’ll call ‘D,’ could still become a better person, and that he deserved as much a chance as anyone to improve.

Ahahaha. AHAHAHAHAHA.

D wasn’t the mastermind, to be clear. His king, who I’ll refer to as ‘DM’ was. DM is the person who corrupted me. DM is the one who made it so I could no longer love. But D was still an accomplice.

He watched on. He watched on, and made sure I was spiraling properly. When his master ordered it, he’d whisper suggestions in my ear.

Having come to terms with how unsalvageable I am, I decided I needed to make them pay.

D occasionally leaves his domain in the Mirror World, while DM doesn’t, so I started with the former. I ambushed him, took him down and took him hostage, hoping to draw out his master by forcing it to come save him.

But it didn’t even do that. Of course it doesn’t. I was imbecilic to believe something like that could ever care about anyone. D was just a puppet, too… it didn’t care if I disposed of him. It would just find another.

I was devastated. All my work, and I couldn’t make DM suffer. The anger overwhelmed me. Someone had to pay. I decided if it wasn’t him, then D, as his accomplice, was the next best thing.

I viciously attacked D and fully intended to torture him, but was caught in the act. My friend’s companions became aware of what I was doing and stopped me by force. They told me I’d done something evil— that D didn’t deserve that, and was trying to do better, just like I was.

In what world!? HE made me this way! He and his worthless master are the reason why I’m broken now… why I’m evil! How can it be wrong to punch back?

They’re why I’ll never be good. They’re why I’ll never be happy. They’re why I’ll never be a good friend. They’re why I’ll never be beautiful.

I’LL NEVER BE BEAUTIFUL. I’LL NEVER BE BEAUTIFUL. NEVER! NEVER EVER! THAT PERSON KEEPS SAYING I AM, BUT I KNOW HE’S LYING TO ME. HE THINKS I’M DISGUSTING. HE THINKS I’M A MONSTER. HE’S AFRAID OF ME. EVERYONE IS!

I’m worthless. I’m worthless and I’m broken and I’m SICK.

…Was it really so wrong to try and break the people responsible for that in return?

[infiniterequiem1743]

“The best way to remove your lies is to make them come true.” Suzaku Kururugi (SPOILERS IF HAVE NOT WATCHED)

This will probably be the last analysis for a while. Love Code Geass, but I don't own it. Please feel free to talk about my perspective on the quote, just keep it constructive.

Suzaku is the biggest roller coaster in the entirety of Code Geass. Personally, I went from hating him for most of the series before finally liking him. It wasn't the character development that I didn't like, as his struggle to find peace within himself was compelling to see. What I disliked the most was how he acknowledged the serious flaws within his ideology and viewpoint but neglected to adapt them to correct himself. At least for Lelocuh, he was willing to acknowledge his flaws and try to make himself better. Suzaku's fortitude in his beliefs is what gives him the highest highs and lowest lows. Despite his beginning forged by the guilt he harbors by killing his father, he ultimately makes up for it in the end by taking the mantle of Zero. (Side note: Knight of Zero outfit goes hard. Still can't put it above Julius Kingsley, but it slaps.)

This quote about truth is interesting coming from the perspective of someone like Suzaku. When coming to understand the paradoxical identity of a character like Suzaku, one must see Suzaku as a human. He suffered through experiences some of us might never come close to. He killed his father, his country was oppressed by an empire that saw them as nothing more than lesser beings, his lover died because of his best friend, and now he has to permanently live behind a mask to keep a world of peace. After analyzing Suzaku for who he is and what he can be, or at least from my own understanding, Suzaku's idea can be considered radical by the standards of today. In today's day and age, we believe that there is a natural truth to things in some shape or form. But from the perspectives of characters like Suzaku who have been exposed to war, bloodshed, magic, and mind-altering powers beyond anything seen by humanity. Just one of these would have anyone begin to question their beliefs and understanding of the world. For Suzaku, he has to lie to himself to continue his righteous march forward.

Think of it like a mental defense. So much has been thrown at him that he needs to change his understanding of the truth to come to terms with what has happened to him. He is subconsciously gaslighting himself to cope with the world around him. It is a striking realization to the viewer that Suzaku's original meaning behind the quote stands out. The quote tells its listeners to not make promises they can't keep, but Suzaku himself is telling a much deeper story. A story of his pain, his sorrow, and his endeavor for something better. A broken White Knight who can't come to grasp his own reality around him. Instead, he begins to twist his truths into a corrupted alteration. If one really thinks about it, that is all the Zero Requiem is. The culmination of Suzaku and Lelouch's suffering into one last reality-warping event. A lie so powerful that the entire world begins to believe it. But instead of Suzaku's warped truth of grappling with his trauma, it is a merciful, white lie that creates its very own world unlike anything the world had ever seen.

The truth is an underrated but prominent theme inside Code Geass, especially with Geass specifically. If this and other analytical posts gain traction, I might go into the numerous applications of what geass is as a symbol in the greater story.

Also, @minzonine, Infinity/10 stained glass. Thanks for the mention and keep up the good work.

[heliads]

Bubbly attitude!male reader with reality warping powers x tasm Peter, and one night Peter and reader go out to fight someone ( I’ll leave this up to you) and the villain starts saying stuff and gets into peters head basically telling him that he knows reader is a powerful reality warper and basically telling him the relationship is not real , they eventually beat the villain but later when they get home Peter asks reader did he reality warp their relationship and the reader gets startled and confused on where it came from which starts a argument where the reader starts losing control kinda just changing things around them unintentionally, to which reader calms down and tells him the relationship is real 💖 just some little angsty fluff

hell yeah wandavision his ass

masterlist

Peter Parker has only been awake for about an hour and a half before the city wrecks itself again. It’s a Saturday, too, which makes this latest crime against the public and his patience that much more heinous. He only gets two days off from work and whatnot, can whatever garden variety criminals currently lurking somewhere down there in the streets of New York please keep their illicit affairs to a work week basis? Or at least give him a little longer to lounge around and pretend like he doesn’t have a thousand things to do?

Peter covers his face with his hands, fights the urge to scream, and promptly loses that battle. His neighbors should be used to random shouts of anguish; he’s been living here for a couple of years now, this is nothing new. 

Peter forces himself up and into his suit, keeping the police broadcast on while he does so. As he pulls his mask, a new detail pops up on the ongoing situation, one that makes Peter’s attitude change from irritated to actually concerned. 

It’s not a group of  random crooks or thugs that’s terrorizing a crowd of people several blocks away, it’s one guy. One guy, who can throw cars with a wave of his hand. One guy, who’s tearing down buildings like tissue paper. There’s only one explanation for it, which is that Peter’s latest target isn’t human. 

This is really not good. Peter can and will run headlong into any fight that comes his way, but the inhumans are a little more difficult. Usually, taking them down means Peter’s going to get his ass kicked within an inch of his life and the property damage will be awful accordingly. This isn’t going to be a one and done, half hour max encounter with some guy who’s just down on his luck, this is going to be a full scale war. 

Not great, to say the least. Well, whenever Peter’s facing less than stellar odds, which ends up being more often than he’d really like, he knows what to do, what he does every single time. It’s time to phone a friend. 

More importantly, it’s time to phone his boyfriend. Y/N L/N is also an inhuman with some seriously wicked powers, which definitely give Peter a leg up in whatever fight he finds himself in. However, his work may be cut out for him. Peter has hardly reached for his phone to text Y/N for help before he hears a knock on the door.

Heading over, Peter can’t keep a smile from his face when he undoes the latch and sees Y/N waiting for him on the other side.

“How’d you know I was going to ask?” He questions, stepping aside to let Y/N into his apartment.

Y/N chuckles dramatically. “You couldn’t live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.”

Peter frowns. “Is that a reference I should know?”

Y/N sighs, shaking his head solemnly. “Sorry, wrong reality. It would be really funny if you were there, though.”

Peter can’t hide a small smile of his own at that. “I’ll do my best to fix that next time.”

This isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. See, Y/N’s powers aren’t something mundane like pyrokinesis or telepathy, he can change the very fabric of reality itself. Peter can’t fathom what it would have been like to grow up as a child with the ability to reshape reality, but the learning curve must have been seriously steep.

Regardless, Y/N managed to get a hang of things, and now he’s a great help on patrols and whatnot. They’ve been dating for a few months now, so Peter has come to appreciate Y/N’s gifts more than ever. They work well together, both as normal people and as well-intentioned vigilantes. To Peter, that means more than he could ever put into words.

Y/N jerks his head towards Peter’s police scanner, which is still faintly spitting out the latest reports on the ongoing inhuman situation. “What’s got you so worried now? I could practically sense your unease from a mile away.”

Peter grimaces. “I’m not sure yet. Sounds like some guy with crazy powers, at least super strength if not telekinesis or something along those lines.”

Y/N makes a face. “Sounds like a wonderful morning. Are you ready to finish this?”

“Always,” Peter grins, and, crossing the room to the window he always leaves open, hurls himself out into the open air of the city.

The fall only lasts a couple of seconds before Peter snaps out a hand on reflex, sending a spiral of spiderweb towards the nearest building. At times like this, he can’t possibly imagine how webswinging had ever been difficult to learn. It’s a part of him now, a practice just as unconscious as running or jumping. All he knows is the crisp wind blowing against him, the lurch as each web connects just for him to throw himself forward again.

Y/N’s not far behind him, creating a constant platform under his feet so he can run. Peter watches out of the corner of his eye. He’s always found Y/N’s powers cooler than cool, even a display so simple as turning shifting air into a solid form. The platform disappears a few feet behind Y/N, a continuous cycle of creation and destruction, purpose and nothingness.

Peter’s attention is yanked away from Y/N when he first hears the shouting. It creeps up on him, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. He turns towards it instinctively, before he even has eyes on the situation at hand. His knee-jerk response isn’t wrong, either; it rarely is in cases like this. Three blocks left, two straight, there’s an intersection currently being blown to bits as some guy in a dark hoodie picks up a car just to slam it into a power line a few yards away. It looks like he’s targeting the electricity going into a bank.

Not the worst strategy, but certainly not one that Peter can legally condone. By now, Y/N’s seen the disaster too, and the two of them arc down towards the scene so they can put a stop to all of this.

The guy is waiting for them, or so it seems; they hardly touch down upon the surface of the cracked asphalt before a Honda Civic is hurled their way as a rather violent hello. Peter sidesteps the vehicle in the nick of time, close enough to see his reflection in the chipping paint. Y/N opts for a more dramatic approach, shifting reality such that the car turns into a swarm of cerulean butterflies. They part around him, one mass of shifting sapphire, then reform into the car a few yards behind him.

The villain of the day doesn’t seem that startled by Y/N’s display of power. Instead, he just chuckles, as if hoping for something like this. “See,” he calls out to them grandly, “this is why you come to New York! Street magic like nothing else.”

Y/N’s gaze flattens. “I’m better than street magic, you idiot. You can’t even throw cars right.”

Peter bites back a laugh. “He’s got you there. Your aim was atrocious.”

To counter this claim, or perhaps simply to shut them up, the inhuman launches another frenzy of attacks their way, this time involving a telephone pole and two sedans. Peter and Y/N fall into their usual routine of dodging and moving steadily forward, and soon they’re close enough that Peter can web up the guy before he can charge them any longer.

The inhuman isn’t going to let them have the last word, though. He spits on the ground, narrowly avoiding Y/N’s shoes. “You should be fighting with me, not against me. This world will never accept us.”

“Well,” Peter says, scratching the back of his neck absentmindedly, “that’s going to happen regardless. I don’t think the bank robberies are really helping with that part of our image.”

The inhuman scoffs. “And what, you’re so much better than me? Running around with him, you don’t ever think twice about what you’re doing?”

Y/N’s face darkens in an instant. “What do you mean, with him?”

The inhuman just shrugs, or does his best impression of a shrug given the copious amounts of spiderweb currently keeping him in place. “You know what I mean. Spider-Man may not, but that all depends on how much you’re messing with his head.”

Peter shakes his head. “Nice try, buddy, but it won’t work. I know he isn’t using his powers on me. That’s not what he does.”

“Isn’t it?” The inhuman asks, cocking his head to the side, “how do you know for sure? Has he ever shown up places without you asking? Answered your questions before you asked them? Always been the only thing you need to be happy? Maybe not all of that is you thinking. Maybe some of that is him changing your reality, too. How do you know where he’s drawing the line?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Peter claims. He tries to say it authoritatively, but his voice wavers on the last syllables, making him sound less sure of himself than he really is. Or maybe Peter isn’t sure of himself at all, maybe what the inhuman is saying makes more and more sense the longer Peter stands there. Come to think of it, how had Y/N known to show up at his apartment that morning? He could have heard the police scanners, but that doesn’t mean he would have instantly been ready at that very moment.

There are a lot of coincidences like that, actually. Times when Peter couldn’t be more grateful to have Y/N around, when the surplus of positive emotion flowing from him seemed too good to be true. Maybe it was too good to be true. Maybe none of this is true at all.

Y/N is looking at him now, beseeching him to understand. “You can’t possibly believe him on this. You trust me.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, “of course I do.” Do I?

He shoots a web at the inhuman’s mouth before he can question himself any longer, leaving the guy for the police to nab. Peter stays quiet the whole way back to his apartment, wondering why it feels like he’s just pulled a blindfold away from his eyes only to stare, dazzled, into an endless torrent of light. Nothing makes sense, but it feels like he’s learned something very important indeed.

Only once they’re back in his place does Y/N finally let his irritation flood the room. “Peter. Peter. Don’t tell me you’re actually buying into what that guy was saying. You know he was doing anything he could to convince you to let him go, right?”

“So he picked the most obvious distraction. Right. Why is it that someone who’s never even met us before would so easily come up with that sort of truth?”

“Because it’s not the truth, Peter!” Y/N seems on the verge of a breakdown, but how does he know if that’s just what Y/N wants him to think?

Peter shakes his head slowly. “And how do I know that?”

Y/N opens his mouth, closes it, then takes a deep breath. “Same way I know you don’t have any powers you’re keeping from me. Same way I know you won’t tell anyone else I have these abilities. I know you, and I know you enough to trust you, even if you don’t trust me.”

Y/N swallows thickly, almost on the verge of tears,  and Peter at last realizes that he’s being a complete and utter idiot. Of course Y/N isn’t messing around in his head. They’ve been through enough trouble for him to say with certainty that if Y/N was messing with their reality on a daily basis, he’d change a hell of a lot more than just Peter’s feelings from time to time. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

Y/N looks at him hesitantly. “Does that mean you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you,” Peter says in a rush, “I love you, remember? That means your word means more to me than some bank robber we met twenty minutes ago.”

Y/N smiles slowly. “I’m glad to hear it. You had me worried for a second there.”

Peter waves a hand dismissively. “I’m just sorry I thought about it in the first place.”

He starts to leave the room, ready to change out of his Spider-Man suit and into some more comfortable clothes. Maybe he can even manage to rest today after all. As he goes, Peter catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye, a brief flash of light emanating from the area around Y/N’s fingers, which are extended discreetly by his side. 

A mere sign of agitation, the aftereffects of such strong emotions during the fight. Or maybe more.

marvel tag list: @namoreno, @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @callsign-scully, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @23victoria, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @gods-fools-heroes, @w1shes43, @deafsuperhero, @fadedver

[uchuukaijugundan]

Train to the End of the World

終末トレインどくへいく？

(Anime)

Surreal comedy by apogeego

Era: 2020s

Rating: A

Plot: Lagging behind in infrastructure, Japan skipped straight ahead to a 7G cell network, but as that's not how things are supposed to work, the launch party ends in catastrophe, warping reality and collapsing civilisation. What's left are little pockets around stations in the Seibu Ikebukuro line, now separated by long swaths of land, where bizarre things happen, such as the tiny village of Agano, where after turning 21 people become intelligent animals. This is where Shizuru Chikura lives, who one day by chance discovers her best friend is still alive two years after the incident, and decides to go to Ikebukuro along with her remaining classmates to find her.

Length: 12 episodes

Thoughts: Let's just get the "you just watched this because it had trains on the name" allegations out of the way, because yes, it's true (bowing on a lectern with 電車変人 written on it). It's also delightfully bizarre, and structured in a way it can be *anything* at any point. If you want to see zombies (who can only be defeated by hornyness - not by fanservice, but just by saying sexually suggestive things), mangaka with special powers provided by a Dezaki beret or a Gulliver style episode where the girls are attached by Tiny JSDF, or a city that is based on an anime the girls love, only it got kinda real, this is the place. It keeps giving you very weird situations with very weird solutions and for the most part it's a very fun watch. Now, you have this 12 episode story where bizarre things keep happening, and you need something special before wrapping up the story. IS THAT NABESHIN'S MUSIC? AND HE'S CARRYING A STORYBOARD??!? I'm a big proponent of one of these days someone picking up for adaptation one of those isekai LNs with really long titles, and give him full creative control, and his episode shows why, let the man cook. The sequence of the beret fight is maybe the best in the whole show. The ending is not the most interesting part visually (kinda feel the distance fog bridges were a way to save time), but it doesn't sugarcoat how hurt Yoka felt after being mocked and falling out with Shizuru. They do make up in the end, highlighting what's at the core of the story - you should not fear change, even if undoing 7G means everything was sort of hit with a randomiser.

Recommended to: looking for a very surreal show?

Plus:

Has a fun variety of episodes.

One of the best modem examples of what the medium can do

Exceptionally good looking for the most part, managing to convey this is a very *very* weird world.

Sega Saturn sighting!

Minus:

Because it really has fun trying stuff out, you might find some scenarios less entertaining than others

30 stations but 12 episodes. You know where this is going.

[cabiba]

1. Porn and Excessive Masturbation

Look…There’s nothing wrong with spanking the monkey every once in a while to let off some steam and get in touch with your own body, but most people take this way too far.

I know men who will spend the better part of 3 hours a day looking at other people have sex and then wonder why they feel like crap all the time.

Porn doesn’t do anything positive for your life.

It steals your energy, your time, and your attention and it warps and perverts your sense of self and your views of love and intimacy.

Give it up and your life will be 10X better.

2. Buying Shit to Look Cool and Be Accepted

Do you really think that those new Air Jordan’s or that awesome Mercedes will make women (or men) flock to you and bring you the love and acceptance you crave?

You know as well as I do that they don’t.But because swiping a credit card is easier than doing the hard internal work to become a better person, countless people waste their time and money buying things they don’t need to get accepted by others.

And it needs to stop.

There’s nothing wrong with having nice things or a luxurious lifestyle.

But the things you buy should reflect YOUR values, not your desire to be liked by others.If you’re a fashionista or a car nut…get the shoes and buy the car.

But if you’re like me and you couldn’t care less, put that money to good use and use it to live YOUR best life not the life others want you to live.

3. Toxic Relationships

You KNOW when your partner is holding you back and preventing you from living the life you want.

But because it’s easier to stay stuck in a shitty relationship than go through the pain of a breakup, most people aren’t willing to face the facts.

If you’re in a relationship (or even a friendship) with someone who doesn’t offer value to your life and doesn’t make you a better person.

End it. Move on and trust that something better will come along. Life is too short for crappy people.

4. Worry and Anxiety

Listen.

Bad shit happens to people all the time. Life isn’t fair and things rarely go according to plan.

But chances are, your life will work out better than you imagine that it will.

When you get caught up in worry and anxiety, you make the problems worse. You future project a reality that may or may not occur and waste all of your time and energy on potential problems in the future instead of powerful solutions in the present.

If you’re feeling anxious or worried about something, it’s a sign that you need to make a change in your life.Use it as a guide. But don’t get sucked into worry for the sake of worry.

It won’t help you.

5. Reading Self Help and Business Books Over and Over and Over Again without Taking Action

I’m a HUGE fan of business and personal development books.But most people who read them are “self help addicts”.They don’t read to learn, they read to feel good about themselves.

They’ll read 50 books that all say the same thing but never take action on any of them.

Don’t be that person.

Sure, read a personal development or business book if you want. But read them PRESCRIPTIVELY (meaning read them to solve a specific problem) and take massive action on what you read.

Because that’s the only way they’re worth a damn.

6. Reading ONLY Self Help and Business Books

In a similar vein as the last point, don’t waste your time by exclusively reading self help and business books.

Some of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned came fom reading about science, history, politics, and even fiction.Expand your horizons and expose yourself to new ideas.Don’t waste your time getting stuck in the “self help circle jerk”.

7. Being Too Damn Serious

Life is short and you never know when it’s going to end. So have some fun and lighten up why don’t you?There’s nothing worse than a life wasted being serious.

Tap into your inner child. Be goofy. Do off the wall stuff. Have more fun and inject more aliveness into your daily life and you’ll be better for it.

8. (The Wrong Kind) of Drugs

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that all drugs are bad.

They aren’t and there are many practical and therapeutic applications of substances like cannabis, psilocybin, LSD, and the like. But there are some drugs—like cocaine, opiates, meth, ect—that do NOTHING for your life except to make you act like an ass and feel like crap.

Cut them out of your life now.You don’t need them and they’re destroying your brain, body, and chances of success.

I can’t tell you how many people I know whose lives have been ruined by a cocaine or even alcohol addiction. I promise you, it’s not worth your time.

9. Having Connectionless Sex

Sex is awesome. Sex with new partners is awesome. Sex with multiple partners is awesome. But you know what isn’t awesome? Having sex with a bunch of “randos” to try and fill up your ego and prove that you’re the man (or woman).

I wasted a lot of my 20s trying to “get laid” and, in retrospect, those years would have been far more fulfilling if I had pursued connection over sex.

There’s nothing wrong with one night stands or casual sex. But if you’re going to do it, be safe and do it with someone you’re actually interested in and feel a connection with. Trust me…it’s better.

10. Living your Life for Other People

YOU and only you have to live your life.

Your parents don’t have to live your life, society doesn’t have to live your life, your friends don’t have to live your life.So why do you allow them to make choices for you and guide your decision making?

You only get one shot at this thing and you never know when your opportunity to make it count will end.

So make the most of it while you can. Pursue your dreams. Go after YOUR goals. Live so that YOU don’t have to die with the crushing weight of regret.

Other people might not understand and that’s fine.They don’t have to live with your choices.You do.

[squipy]

Heya stranger don't worry your not harassing me ^-^ but I did explain this in the post but I'll explain it again. So the difference is self Shipping with an antagonist is okay for two reasons A: the villains actions are so out there or very fictional it is impossible for these actions to be remade in real life unlike proshipping where these harmful relationships can be easily recreated in the real world. For example someone self Shipping themselves with discord from mlp is fine sense no one irl has the power to warp reality to it's wilm however someone who ships scootalo x rainbow dash can use that as an easy way to trick a child into thinking that kind of relationship is normal. See that's the main issue I have with proshipers these kind of things shouldn't be seen as good or healthy and put next to the beat happy music. Now my decline argument B: those who self ship with villains aren't into said villain because of what they have done but for other reasons. Unlike proshipers who like these dynamics not because of the characters personality because if that was the case they'd age up or down one of the characters (which is still a bit yikes but a bit better than leaving their cannon ages) now I also wanna make something clear: I don't go out of my way bullying or harassing pro shippers because that doesn't do shit I've been stuck here on the internet for too long and know at the end of the day telling someone to end it isn't the way to go I usually just avoid pro shippers the best I can and if asked can give alternatives.

Oh boy I'ma get cancelled for this but like anyways we're talking about proshipping...again

Ya know what's odd I like the IDEA behind what proshipping stands for basically ya know don't harass people over what they ship even if it seems problematic to you. See that is fine to me THE ISSUE IS WHEN PROBLEMATIC BECOMES OUTRIGHT DANGEROUS!!!!! so for example a big surprise to literally no one I'm a self Shipper and a lot of my romantic F/O's are villains who have done some shitty things which can be seen as problematic such as for example I don't think a robotic wolf with an ego trying to murder a child is exactly #unproblomatic but see that's the thing EVERY SINGLE HUMAN is problematic we aren't perfect we make mistakes and with that in mind that means that good written Fiction Characters are also by design problematic in some way just some more than others. THE ISSUE IS WHEN PROSHIPPERS ARE SAYING ITS OKAY FOR SOMEONE TO SHIP A CHILD AND AN ADULT TOGETHER!!?!? OR TWO BROTHERS!!??!? that's where I have an issue because at this point you are romanticizing these very serious fucking issues!!! It kinda reminds me of ya know violence in cartoons almost. I'ma use Steven universe as an example sense I've been thinking about that a lot. Steven universe shows a fantasy violence that is based on real use of these weapon's but is shown in a way where the child or adult watching it doesn't have a need to do these things in real life. NOW with proshipping that's the issue here you are Putting these not sure problematic things but straight up ILLEGAL things in a good light. Now now I know what your about to say "well death and murder is shown in fictional media all the time why is that okay" okay sure good question you wanna know why BECAUSE IT'S NEVER SHOWN AS A GOOD THING?!!?!!? for example in the new puss and boots movie it's never seen that what death is doing is good he's the antagonist. When you make these ships between an adult and a child you aren't putting it in a way that the viewer can obviously tell "okay this is just a really dark headcannon the person behind this headcannon obviously does not think this is a good thing* but no instead you guys make these edits with up beat sexual music. Now another argument you may make is "well people simp for fictional murderers why is that okay??!??" Again good question and this might be different for everyone but for me murderer is seen as an obvious bad thing but again I feel like people aren't into the character because there a murderer but because of other factors. Unlike proshipers who will be into a shipping dynamic straight up just because it's child x adult or sister x mom or whatever. It's honestly the same reason why I personally don't like the yandere Troupe because it puts the idea of straight up murder and toxic possessiveness in a positive light.

[elspethsunschampion]

Gifts

Rating: T

Summary:  Billy Kaplan wakes up to a surprise one morning--maybe his powers aren't just lightning-based after all?

A/N: I just have a LOT OF FEELS about trans Billy Kaplan okay

         Billy woke up feeling weirdly refreshed. Considering he’d cried himself to sleep the night before, he hadn’t been expecting to feel too amazing, especially since he was probably PMSing and liable to start his period within the next day or two, which was Grade A Suck, in his opinion. He checked his sheets, which at least turned out not to be a murder scene, so that was a good sign.

           Sleepily, he headed into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. His face was itching some, which might mean more acne—oh, joy. With a sigh, he grabbed his washcloth and rinsed his face before reaching for his toothbrush.

           Something was different. He hadn’t had a cup of coffee, so it was hard for him to put a finger on what it was, but there was definitely something different. Yawning, he squinted into the mirror. Weird, his chin looked almost fuzzy. But he wasn’t even on T yet, and not likely to be for a few years if he couldn’t even manage to come out to his parents, who were, seriously, the most harmless, accepting people in the world. Except—Billy frowned and ran his hands down his front. He’d managed to get a binder by ordering it from a pretty discreet online source, but he didn’t wear it to sleep in, since that wasn’t good for your breathing, and, again, there was the potential concern of Mom and Dad noticing. So how come his chest was so flat?

           “No way,” Billy said out loud, and his voice came out pitched half-a-tone lower than it usually sounded. “But I have lightning magic, I don’t—” He swallowed. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. With trembling hands, he stripped off the Thor t-shirt he always wore to bed and ran his hands down a smooth, skinny chest. “No way,” he whispered again, and then he pulled down the boxers covering his skinny thighs and actually squealed. “Oh my god! I have a dick!”

           For the entire day, Billy oscillated wildly between ecstatic and fucking terrified. He felt right, he looked right, and after desperately digging out the razor he used to use to shave his legs and armpits, he managed to scrape off the fuzz on his chin. His face looked different, but it didn’t look different enough that he thought anyone would actually notice. Firstly because they’d have to look at him instead of looking through him and secondly because it was such an insane thing to happen that no one would ever, ever believe it. No one was going to come to the conclusion that “that weird Kaplan girl (ugh) grew a dick last night and is really excited about it!”

           But he wasn’t a girl and now he had goddamn proof of it, even if he couldn’t exactly show it to anyone. And that was fantastic! Less fantastic was the fear of how the other Young Avengers would take it, because it seemed really likely that Billy wasn’t just a lightning-user after all, unless they’d skipped some really crazy shit in Earth Science. And—there was Teddy.

           Teddy, who’d been so great about it when Billy came out to him, who’d never fucked up Billy’s pronouns, not even once. Who’d given him the most breathtaking smile and said that he wished they could swap powers for just a little while so that Billy could feel more at home in his own skin. Who, Billy had to admit, he kind of sort of definitely had a crush on, and he thought Teddy might feel the same way, but how would this change things? In principal, it shouldn’t change anything, but Billy couldn’t stop worrying about various different ways Teddy might react. He could be weirded out, or it might turn out that he was straight and he’d only been interested in Billy because Billy still looked enough like a girl. Maybe that was why he’d never made a move. Because Teddy was definitely one of the nicest people Billy knew, and if he was attracted to women, Billy was pretty sure he’d never put the moves on him, because he respected Billy’s identity too much for that.

           And, yeah, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world, definitely not. But it was such a depressing thought—having somebody attracted to you but attracted to you in a way you didn’t want to be. That would suck.

           He spent his lunch hour trying to figure out how this had happened, in the hopes of being able to report something more concrete to Nate and the others than, “my tits vanished overnight, I’m overjoyed, none of this makes any sense.” What had happened the night before? He’d wrestled with his precalc homework, mostly finished it, read one of his Thor comics, and then gotten hit with a wave of dysphoria. And he’d gone to bed and cried. That was it. Wasn’t it?

           It wasn’t until he was trudging out of school that he remembered the last thing. I am a boy, he’d said, when he was crying, when he was curled up in bed. I am. I am a boy. I am a boy. And he’d gone to sleep whispering it.

           Just like the day he’d said, I want to stop Kesler.

           Maybe his habit of verbalizing the spell he was about to cast wasn’t just a habit…Billy swallowed as his entire world seemed to shake on its axis. If he wasn’t just a lightning mage—what was he?

           Freak, whispered a voice in the back of his mind, and he shivered, pushing the thought to the side. Maybe the rest of the Young Avengers would have some ideas.

           “All right, before we go home for the night, does anyone have any news?” Iron Lad asked them, the way he always did, although it didn’t look as if he was going to wait for an answer, and he probably meant news about Kang the Conqueror. But Billy hadn’t managed to get anything out until now, and this was basically the perfect opportunity. And if he didn’t say anything now, he didn’t know if he’d ever manage to get it out.

           “So…” he said slowly. “You know how we thought I had lightning powers?”

           “Yes, and you’ve been doing a remarkably good job at learning to control—thought?”

           “Um.” Billy looked nervously from Iron Lad to Patriot to—Hulkling. “Um. So. I—” He couldn’t figure out how to say it. “Last night, I—you know how I told you I, um, don’t like the way I look?”

           “Oh, spit it out,” Patriot said, although he sounded more impatient than unkind.

           But Billy couldn’t. “Look. Last night I went to bed—the way I usually do—and this morning I woke up and—” He took a deep breath, reached down and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and hoody, yanking them up and over his head. He had to fight the absurd urge to cross his arms over his chest. “I was saying last night before I went to sleep that I—that I was a boy, y’know, because I was feeling kind of shitty, and—and—” Fuck. There were tears prickling at the backs of his eyes. That was stupid.

           A soft hand was laid on his shoulder, and he glanced to the side to see that Teddy was regarding him with a kind of wonder in his round blue eyes. Billy flushed to the roots of his hair.

           “That’s definitely something we’ll need to test,” Iron Lad agreed, and the matter-of-fact way he said it soothed part of the terror that had been gnawing at Billy’s innards all day. Patriot’s eyebrows went up, but all he said was, “Huh. Well. Congrats, man.”

           “Uh, thanks. I, uh, I guess I better put my shirt back on, huh.”

           “Here.” Teddy handed it back to him. “Um. You look good, Billy.”

           Billy’s cheeks chose that moment to go from slightly warm to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun. “Uh, um, th-thanks,” he stammered, attempting to yank his shirt back on and getting tangled in it. “I guess, uh, we can talk more about it at our next training session?”

           “Good plan,” Iron Lad told him briskly. “Maybe if we can figure out the extent of your powers, we can figure out why you were listed on the Avengers Failsafe.”

           Billy tried to nod through the all-encompassing layers of shirt. It didn’t work terribly well. “Argh,” he groaned. “Can someone—”

           A pair of gentle hands took the hem of his shirt and tugged it down carefully. “You good?” Teddy asked.

           “Yeah, I th—” Billy’s voice was arrested as he finally managed to get the offending article of clothing straightened out and found himself staring straight into Teddy’s eyes. Apparently Teddy hadn’t been pulling from behind the way he’d assumed. Billy stared, trying to move his limbs, trying to do anything other than just let Teddy’s warm breath ghost across his mouth. And Teddy wasn’t moving away either, but—

           It was a fucking perfect moment, so of course Billy’s mouth opened and said exactly the thing most guaranteed to screw it all up. “Look—I’m flattered, Teddy, but, uh, if you weren’t attracted to me before—I don’t know if—” Yes, you do! screamed a voice in the back of his head. You know exactly what you want! You want to make out with his perfect face, right now! His brain couldn’t even use the you’re just a straight girl faking it anymore, but somehow he was still—afraid. “I mean. What if it’s temporary? I don’t really know how I did it, and—and—I’d rather not have you than just lose you again because, uh, my breasts came back.” Which, of course, was the point at which he realized that Teddy hadn’t said anything, so Billy had just assumed that he was thinking about kissing Billy the way Billy had been thinking about kissing him, and he might’ve just opened his mouth and shoved his foot so far down his throat he was kicking himself in the kidneys. “I mean, um.”

           Teddy went red, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “Billy, I’ve always been attracted to you,” he said, and Billy’s train of thought derailed with a screeching crash of phantom brakes.

           “You…have?”

           “I, uh, didn’t know if you wanted anyone to be attracted to you? I knew you had issues with your body, and I didn’t want to complicate things by making you think about them too hard, I guess. But—maybe I accidentally complicated shit anyway?”

           “Fuck me,” Billy said incredulously, and Teddy got a mischievous look on his face.

           “Maybe I should kiss you first,” he suggested, and Billy flailed his arms in the air.

           “Kill me now,” he moaned.

           “Your instructions are getting worse,” Teddy informed him, and Billy opened his mouth, having absolutely no idea what he was going to say this time, but before he could drive his foot further into his abdominal cavity, Teddy cupped his hand around Billy’s cheek, bent down, and pressed their lips together. Billy froze in shock, and then he had his arms wrapped around Teddy’s shoulders, and he was kissing him back.

           “Get a room, you two,” Patriot sighed.

           Billy flipped him off over Teddy’s shoulder as he brushed gingerly at Teddy’s mouth with his tongue. The screaming little voice in the back of his mind that had consistently insisted that he had definitely fucked something up lately had finally gone quiet.

           After a long moment, Teddy pulled back, but his hands were still resting on Billy’s waist. “So, um,” he said, awkwardly.

           “D’you want to get something to eat together? Tonight?” Billy asked him eagerly, and Teddy’s face broke into a wide smile.

           “I’d love to.”

           “Fuck yes!” Billy leaned forward into Teddy’s embrace, then had to lean up and kiss him again, on the cheek this time. “This is the best damn day of my life,” Billy told him, and Teddy’s smile got, if possible, even wider.

           “I’m glad,” he said, and he squeezed Billy tighter.

[absolutepokemontrash]

Kid!MC/Teen!MC Needs someone to go to Parent Teacher Interviews for Them and Guess Who’s Available?

Masterlist

The brothers being bad babysitters/dad figures is something I love very much, I bet you all could already tell that considering the Fic/Headcanon series I have going on. I would just like you all to know that Asmo’s section is based on a true story. Anyhoo~ onto the Headcanons!

Why? Why Him? (Lucifer)

Is MC really dumb, or are they just a kid? No one knows.

Obviously MC asked Lucifer, the only competent one in the house, the most professional, hard-working, controlled-

MC got their things together and gave Lucifer the run down on their teacher(s) before Lucifer got too absorbed in extolling his own virtues in an intense internal monologue.

News flash Lucifer, this isn’t a Shakespeare play, you can’t have a dramatic monologue or soliloquy about how great you think you are

At the actual meeting, if MC is in there, no, MC is not actually in there. Lucifer will speak to the teacher as if MC isn’t there. As someone whose not a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down kind of person, Lucifer expects the teacher to behave the same and not spare MC’s feelings.

Feelings do not deserve to be spared if MC is being a nuisance. No fake-kid/little sibling of his gets to be the class idiot!

If MC’s doing very well academically, he expects to be pointed at projects or tests they’ve done and the grade on it. It really makes him proud to see MC doing well.

Even if they’re not the best academically, if they’re not failing and they’re doing well in other aspects of school, he’s proud.

If MC really struggles in a school environment and just hates it there but they’re still keeping their head above water, they get a head pat of approval.

On the drive home, if MC came with him to the parent teacher interviews and everything went well, he just happens to turn onto the street that has a Baskin Robin’s or something of that caliber.

If they didn’t go, he picks something up on the way back.

No fun treats if MC is being a disruptive little heathen in class, no kid under Lucifer’s care is going to be the class Mammon. Not on his watch.

MC was busily stuffed their face with the treats that were gifted to them. Lucifer had to hold himself back from rolling his eyes at the kid’s blatant disregard for basic table manners when it came to sweets.

“Is everything the teacher said true?” Lucifer asked, MC looked up at him with a smile.

“Yep!”

“Good, good.” Lucifer held out his hand and patted them on the head. “You’re doing well. Keep it up.”

“Geez,” MC mumbled as they continued to stuff their face. “Can you get anymore affectionate?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, MC. It’s uncouth.” Lucifer said sternly. “Besides, I’ll have you know that many people enjoy my headpats. I’m quite affectionate.”

“Really now? Name one person.”

Lucifer opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. He and MC stared each other down, one pair of eyes much more nervous than the other. Spoiler, MC was still calmly eating their treat as they maintained eye contact.

“…Cerberus.”

“If you’re reaching for Cerberus, you’ve already lost.”

…his pride was under attack. Right in front of his desert…

“You’re grounded.”

“Worth it.”

*Rides by on a Skateboard* School is for NERDS (Mammon)

Pff! Stupid human! He’s not goin’ to some lame parent teacher conference-

Wait! What’s with that face?! Ugh… fine. MC’s gone and forced his hand with those damn puppy dog eyes…

Mammon does not dress up for this event, he dresses like he would every day, maybe throw on some designer stuff to let all the parents and teachers know he’s hot shit.

If MC goes with him, he pulls up in his beloved car and takes up two parking spaces (pure evil.). Every parent present already hates him, but at least the other kids there are impressed with MC’s sweet ride. MC would have gained some street cred if Mammon hadn’t managed to trip up the stairs to the classroom in front of everyone.

He’ll act way to casual with the teacher, turning the parent chair backwards and sitting down so he can lean on the seat.

Mammon gets bored crazy quickly while the teacher lists and explains all the stuff the class is learning, so his eyes begin to wander to any and all displays in the classroom. Projects, annoying posters, class pet, anything is more interesting than this teacher’s explanation.

When MC finally becomes the main topic of the interview, he’s all ears. MC’s doing great in school academically? Ha! Nerd! Maybe giving MC a playful noogie and interrupting the whole interview wasn’t a good idea, but whatever.

If MC’s failing anything, or just isn’t that gifted when it comes to grades, it’s very much a “Aw man me too” from Mammon.

This teacher is speaking with the Great Mammon, the first demon in RAD’s history to fail three semesters in a row. If this teacher thinks bad grades will phase him, they’re dead wrong.

Grades don’t mean anythin’ about smarts anyway! I mean, look at him! He’s a fuckin’ genius but he can’t get through a history test without sobbing even though he LIVED THROUGH MOST OF IT.

MC gets treats no matter what’s up in class. Though, if MC didn’t go with him, he’s likely to forget and just order something for the two of them when he gets back home.

“Goddamn teachers and their rambling!” Mammon whined, grabbing a slice of pizza from the open box on his coffee table. “You owe me, MC! Ya really do!”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” MC said, they leaned over and rolled a pizza slice into a pizza-scroll then proceeded to eat it like a veggie roll. “How do you think I feel, listening to them every day? You know how long it takes to get to the actual class material?”

“Five years?”

“Ugh! Five years if I’m lucky! I swear, I know more about my teacher’s grievances with like… five of my classmates than I do about trigonometry, and guess which one’s on the test next week?”

Mammon winced in sympathy, then remembered he was supposed to be whining and went back to it. “School’s shit and a waste of money, ya should drop out as soon as you can and help me run my new business.”

“You mean your pyramid scheme?”

“It’s not a pyramid scheme, MC! It’s legit! It’s a multi-tiered marketing-”

“It’s a pyramid scheme.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SOCIAL INTERACTION (Leviathan)

Everyone else must have been sick or something for MC to have asked Levi. He’d flat out refuse to go otherwise.

So, Levi couldn’t exactly go to the interview in his usual “I haven’t left my room or changed clothes in eight weeks” look. With the help of MC, he was able to find his military uniform at the back of his closet.

Asmo nearly fainted when he saw Levi in the uniform, not because “oooo, a man in uniform~”, it was because the outfit was so crumpled and wrinkled that it made it physically painful to look at. No time to iron and wash, the conference was in an hour!

Levi (and MC if they went with) rolled up to the school in a less than impressive ride, but one look at the uniform and all the other people present went “yep, time to be respectful (tm)”

For the first time in his life Levi was more intimidating than Lucifer! And he wasn’t even trying!

When the teacher starts explaining the course material, Levi spaces off in horror as he realizes he remembers literally nothing from school (AND HE’S STILL IN SCHOOL!) all that’s running through his head is “A squared + B squared = C squared” and “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell”.

The actual interview was the least interesting part of the trip, the real stuff happened when Levi passed by some art on display in the hallway and something caught his eye-

Those colours… that hair… that adorable smile..!

IT WAS HER! LEVI’S PRECIOUS RURI-CHAN IN ALL HER GLORY!

Levi immediately started fawning over the art class fanart and by sheer coincidence, one of the kids walking through the hallway happened to notice.

The kid asked MC if their… parent and or guardian liked anime. MC responded with “obviously.” Levi then asked the kid if they drew his adorable Ruri-chan. The kid said no, and that they drew the My Hero Academia fanart a few rows down.

Levi was absolutely floored that there were two anime fans in one class, then his entire world shattered when MC explained there was more anime art inside the art room and other classrooms.

H-hang on… did that mean that… a lot of people here… liked anime..?

Levi needed a while to process. No snacks on the way home…

Levi and MC were sat in the back of their Uber, Levi, the Avatar of Envy himself, was having his entire sense of reality warped. S-so much anime fanart… in a school of all places..! What did this mean for the future of anime?!

“Levi. Stop.” MC sighed. “If this were an anime, the camera angle would be doing that thing where it’s right on the bridge of your nose and dramatic music plays in the background.”

“S-so many kids in your class like a-anime huh..?” Levi stuttered, weakly trying to smile. “Must be nice..?”

“Oh, that’s just my class. The other classes and grades have their fans too.”

“Oh… really?”

“Levi,” MC stopped looking out the window and looked at the otaku that was having a full scale silent mental breakdown. “Anime isn’t even a niche interest anymore. It’s a pretty casual thing to watch now. At least a third of my class watches- Levi?”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH! ANIME! A THIRD OF THE CLASS?! ANIME… HIS PRECIOUS ANIME… WAS BECOMING A NORMIE INTEREST! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

“Levi?” MC waved their hand in front of their spaced out demon’s face. “Leviiiii? Okay he’s dead.”

The Know it All (Satan)

Ah, a smart choice, MC. Satan would be glad to help further their education. He’ll do everything in his power to make sure that the human’s brain is fed all that sweet sweet knowledge.

Satan can’t dress himself normally, MC had to coax him into a suit jacket, but he still only wore one sleeve.

MC was coming along to the interviews whether they wanted to or not, it’s important to hear what they need to improve on from the teacher themselves after all.

The two arrived pretty early, so Satan asked MC for a tour of the school. It was pretty tame until they reached the library. Satan was horrified at the state of some of the books…

Their spines lined with duct tape… pages missing and torn… someone apparently used a taco as a book mark…

The first thing Satan does when it’s time for his interview is demand the teacher take better care of the library, even though they’re not the librarian. MC tries to explain this, but Satan is too distraught to listen to reason.

He enjoyed hearing about the course material, but he made it known if MC thinks the assignments are too easy that they need to be given more challenging work. THEIR BRAIN NEEDS TO BE STIMULATED DAMN IT.

It was up to MC to either agree with Satan and nod to the teacher, or make frantic eye contact with them to try and communicate “NO DON’T PLEASE”.

Similar to (ugh) Lucifer, as long as MC is doing their best, he’s happy for them.

…but if they are in any way in the running for valedictorian he is HELPING THEM WIN.

He decided to stop at a cafe or bookstore to let MC pick out a “congrats on surviving your pitiful school” present after the interviews.

MC gleefully perused the shelves of the bookstore, there were so many books too look at…

“I’ll buy you as many books as you’d like, MC, just,” Satan shuddered slightly. “Promise me you won’t treat them like those poor library books…”

MC put their hand over their heart. “I swear on the duct taped book spines that I will never treat a book like that.”

“Good… good…” Satan breathed a sigh of relief and went back to looking at his book about cats.

“Are you… reading a Warrior Cats book..?” MC asked tentatively.

“Yes, why?”

“Satan, put that back.”

“I Will Seduce the Teacher For the Sake of Your Grades, Don’t Worry.” (Asmodeus)

Oh MC dear! He’d be delighted to go! Just let him get ready~

Asmo may not be the best choice, but he was at least going to be the best dressed person at that conference. (And MC just had to come too so all the other parents could be jealous of how well coordinated their outfits are)

He teased MC a little by saying he was going to flirt with their teacher to make sure they passed the class, but he was just kidding! …but he made sure to ask if their teacher was cute, he needed to know!

While waiting for his turn, Asmo flirts with some of the single parents, if he doesn’t see a wedding ring, they’re fair game.

Once his time slot arrived, MC realized that Asmo is one of those “my child has done and will do nothing wrong ever” types. This may have ended up working in MC’s favour if they were a class nuisance.

If MC is doing very well in sports, clubs, grades, anything, Asmo is fawning over them and gushing to the teacher about how great, smart and adorable they are.

Asmo surprisingly does not exactly flirt with the teacher, he was just teasing MC after all. But um… if MC’s teacher just happens to be cute and young, he may turn up the charm, just a little. Enough to make the teacher giggle and make MC cover their face in embarrassment.

After the interviews Asmo will probably schedule a nice day out for the two of them, shopping, a movie, mani pedis, something fun!

The real weird stuff happens in the months after the interviews… if Asmo did lightly flirt with the teacher, MC gets quite a few questions about their guardian. Questions that ask if Asmo is single in not as many words…

Oh lord, MC’s teacher developed a crush on Asmo.

Nail painting night was supposed to be a fun occasion, but MC was hopping mad and embarrassed. Asmo didn’t seem to notice as he continued to paint the little human’s nails.

“And then I told Phenex to get lost. The nerve of that little monster, right MC?” When MC didn’t reply, Asmo looked up and tilted his head. “MC?”

MC’s angry face would have been much more threatening if they weren’t just so adorable, but it was getting the message across.

“MC..?”

“Asmo.” MC’s glare deepened. “My teacher wants to know if you’re single.”

Asmo blinked a few times, before he hit his tongue to keep from laughing. “Really now~. I knew they’d be madly in love with me-”

“WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIIIIIIIIIIIS?!”

Oh My Demon King is That a BAKE SALE?! (Beel)

Of course Beel said yes! He’d gladly go to MC’s parent teacher interview!

He even put on a nice outfit :D he ended up looking a bit like a secret serviceman guarding MC, the tiny president.

Beel stopped for McDonald’s on the way there, all the other kids were so jealous of MC when they stepped out of the car eating fries.

But a little something something caught Beel’s eye when he and MC walked into the school… was that a… bake sale?

MC quickly explained that the bake sale was fundraiser for their class trip that year and the snacks weren’t complimentary. He had to pay.

And pay Beel did. He cleared out the entire table. MC’s grade’s overnight trip was going to be decadent as hell. That was no longer a crowd funded thing, that trip was privately funded by a tall buff ginger secret service member and this tiny in comparison child.

Kids are incredibly blunt, just like Beel, so when a random kindergarten kid wandered over, looked up at Beel, and very knowingly said “you’re very tall”. Beel was like “yeah”. The kid then said “what’s it like being that tall?”

Beel’s response to this kid’s question was to pick them up and hold them for a few seconds before placing them back down. For just a few moments this kid knew what it like to be over 6’4. Of course, more kids swarmed in and asked to be picked up.

Sure it was cute, but Beel now has an army of kids ranging from kindergarteners to third graders.

Finally, the conference actually began. Beel snacked the entire time and dutifully listened to everything the teacher had to say.

After the interviews are over, he checks with MC to make sure everything the teacher said was true and that they weren’t lying. If all was well, the two made their exit.

They stopped at Wendy’s on the way home.

“I’m so full…” MC groaned, Beel held up a massive cookie.

“So I can eat this?”

“No. Gimme that.” MC took a very defeated bite out of it. “My stomach says no but my mouth says yes…”

“I don’t want you to get a stomachache, MC,” Beel said worriedly. “No more snacks.”

“It’s a little late for that. It’s past nine and I’m still eating, there’s no way I’m getting to sleep at a reasonable hour.”

“Oh…” Beel mumbled. “I may have not completely thought this through.”

“*Snore* Huh? Wha? MC’s Grades? Uh… Fuck…” (Belphie)

MC must be failing a class or something because why on earth would they pick Belphie otherwise.

They ask him to go while he’s delirious from just waking up from a nap, he sort of half nods and mumbles some gibberish before going back to sleep.

MC had to basically carry his ass to the school. Belphie drooled all over them in the waiting room, and when it was their time to go into the interview, Belphie had to be manually put into the chair and slapped awake.

He barely listens, he just sits and nods along with whatever the teacher is saying. The teacher could say MC brought an alligator to school and he’d just go “uh huh…” “mmmph… yep…” “really now?” then yawn.

The only thing that could possibly get Belphie to be interested is if MC is studying space. If they are, than boy howdy is Belphie suddenly interested in their education.

Other than that? *snore*

If MC is in fact failing or doing poorly, MC’s teacher asks to see another one of MC’s guardians at a later date. Their plan failed miserably.

MC drags Belphie out of the school and yells at him for not helping them. Belphie, still sleep delirious, tries to press the snooze button. MC does not have a snooze button.

“Belphie!” MC shouted, shaking the Avatar of Sloth awake. The House of Lamentation’s resident bastard was somehow sleeping standing up outside. “HOW COULD YOU?!”

“Eh?” Belphie half-snorted and looked around confused. “What’d I do? Where are we?”

“At my school! You said that you’d go to my parent teacher interviews!”

“…MC I don’t think I’d pass well for you.”

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO AS MY GUARDIAN!”

“Sheesh,” Belphie murmured while he rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes. “You humans are so noisy.”

MC looked up at their dearest demon friend, and gave him their best glare. “I’m going to take all your fancy temperature changing pillows and switch them with normal pillows you traitorous bastard.”

[ekaterinatepes]

Nothing but the Best

Author’s Notes: wow guys! Thank you so much for your support and for following this story! I never thought I would get so much acceptance so quickly! You are all incredible! ���️

VIII.

“…he’s not in Japan, he’s gone to the Americas” Suguru arched his brow to Ijichi’s words about Satoru’s whereabouts “how come?” He asked “mission in New York, special grade curse in a school” Geto stopped on his tracks “New York?” He took off running to go get his phone without another word.

-

From: Suguru

To: Kitten

He’s in NYC! Get out of there!

-

You both agreed not to communicate through phone since Satoru for sure had his device monitored but this was an emergency.

It was 1pm in Japan which meant it would be around midnight back in New York.

“Fuck…” he didn’t have any time to lose, knowing Satoru, he had already found you. He had been there for about two days, plenty of time to locate Y/N.

Shit! He didn’t want Y/N to have to face Satoru alone. Well… so much for postponing his trip to New York.

“Shit!” Whispered getting in his car. He wasn’t about to let you handle Satoru on your own. Not that you couldn’t, oh no! Suguru was confident that if needed be you could hold your own just fine. But, you are his friend, someone who he loves. On the other hand, Suguru couldn’t just ignore what his own heart demanded. He didn’t want you to be alone anymore.

The past 6 months he had to stay behind just to keep Satoru from finding you but it was too late for that.

-

https://youtu.be/44mTGIotkWQ

|||

Each minute that passes feels like a lifetime… the clock falls off the wall…

|||

Defeated… that’s how Satoru felt now that he was finally able to face you. In his mind he pictured this encounter way different from this painful waltz of heartbreak.

He had been stupid to think you would jump in his arms, kiss him like there was no tomorrow and forgive him. He had been more like… delusional, thinking you would receive him with open arms (and legs) just because he showed up here.

Satoru thought you would see how hard he worked to find you, how much he suffered in your absence. He thought that would be enough to at least get a smidge of compassion from you.

Nothing was further from the truth…

You had always been a tough girl, stubborn, opinionated and bold. And fuck! He loved how you always made his blood boil with your passion! He could never get enough of you which is why he was so smitten.

But there was something different in you this time around… you had never been so… cold.

There was always a warmth that surrounded you at all times even when you were angry (specially then) a metaphorical and also a physical halo (not visible for non sorcerers) of luminescence that clung to your body enticing him and any cursed energy user to come closer. But now… standing here, before you. Watching you through his six eyes he saw that same halo much more opaque and cold. It was as if you had surrounded your heart with ice walls. A shiver ran down his spine.

What had he done to you!?

|||

Hold your breath… And pray for the world to end

Nothing's left… Some broken hearts will never mend.

|||

“Please… listen to me for 5 minutes and then I’ll leave you alone” (more like I’ll stalk you in silence and make you believe I left but I’m not gonna). Holding his hands in front of him as if trying to appease you, showing you he wasn’t hiding anything.

“You and I have nothing to talk about Gojo” your melodic voice was steady. Ouch… It hurt how you didn’t call him by his first name or any of the other cute and overly sweet nicknames you used for him; he haven’t heard you call him by his family name in about six years! No longer after you met you both were on a first name basis. He understood, it was a way of driving a wedge between the two of you, to distance yourself from him.

“There is nothing left for you and me to discuss… it’s over! Leave me alone” you stopped to take a breath trying to calm your heart.

“You know you technically are still a Gojo too… right? So it doesn’t make much sense that you call me by OUR name”. Yes, it was petty but he would be damned if he didn’t try and convince you to call him in a more familiar way.

She looked at him as if he was soft in the head for a moment “Sign the papers and forget I ever existed…” he had to cut you right there “NO! I refuse to forget about you Y/N! You are my wife! By law and by right you cannot just keep me away from you! I am not signing shit!” All those words tumbled from his lips faster than he expected. The rejection he felt for the idea of you never being with him again was making him lose his mind. You could not be serious! Could you? You couldn’t really be considering to move on… without him. (As if you hadn’t already done that).

“Just let me explain! Fuck!” running his hands through his hair in an exasperated gesture. “Please…” came a broken whisper, not a demand, but a request.

You straightened your back and folded your arms over your chest “you have 5 minutes and that’s it. At the end of that time I want you to leave and never come back!” Satoru nodded although he didn’t really agree to those terms but he thought if he continued to defy you it wouldn’t do him any favors to gain your forgiveness.

“I am sorry…” looking straight in your eyes started the handsome sorcerer, crestfallen and bleak “I know… I fucked up so bad… I know I hurt you. “ only words wouldn’t cut through the thick barrier you carefully crafted around yourself. You might as well be shielded by his infinity.

You looked at him with a mix of anger, pain and longing. You hated yourself so much for feeling your traitorous heart hammering away, getting lost in his crystalline eyes and deep voice. It wasn’t fair he held so much power over you.

“But I am fixing it Y/N… Sookie is not in my life anymore… I left her and haven’t been with her in a very long time, I don’t want anyone else but you…” assured the man desperately.

“How can you say that?!” You asked horrified “what kind of man are you that you would abandon your child!?”.

“He was not my son!…. Y/N. She cheated on me with someone else, the baby she carried was not mine. I confirmed that when the child was born…” admitted once more embarrassed about his stupidity.

Your expression was blank for the longest time, trying to process what Gojo had just said.

You blink a couple times, it’s almost as if he expected you to feel bad about his luck.

Fucking asshole! You knew he was trying to play the pity card with you but it wasn’t working.

“Well… I don’t care about your personal life, it’s none of my business” you reminded him. Satoru visibly flinched at the brutal retaliation. “let me finish! God damn! Y/N!” He felt like pulling out his hair.

“I know I fucked up so bad but please… please give me another chance… I will do whatever you say! Give you whatever you want just…. Don’t do this” he waited for an answer from you. He wanted to touch you and hold you in his arms, promise you he would take care of you and prove he was now worthy of your love.

“Goodbye Satoru…” you said turning around and getting ready to leave him standing there in the cold.

On instinct he warped in front of you and stopped you by wrapping his arms around your body, one went to your narrow waist and the other behind your neck pulling you to him.

Fuck it…. You already hated him, might as well give you a good reason.

He crushed his lips against yours in a passionate embrace. Your body froze in his arms and he took that opportunity to deepen the kiss, ever the opportunist he slipped his tongue between your lips and caressed yours, enticing you to taste him as much as he was tasting you.

It only took your brain a couple seconds to work but by then you were trapped. You tried to fight him, placing both your palms against his chest and pushing him away. Might as well have been pushing a fucking wall. Gojo fucking Satoru was the strongest living person for a good reason.

It felt like an anaconda embrace, the more you struggled the tighter he held you until you finally gave in yourself. A tear ran down your cheek by the time you started kissing him back. You both went from practically devouring each other, angrily fighting for dominance to sensually and tenderly exploring each other’s mouth with your tongues, little licks and nips until you separated. His forehead against yours, both of your breathing heavily.

Not a single word was exchanged. Both of you afraid to break the chasm of this frail truce.

—————

———> Chapter 9

@sleepyamaya

@cloudsinthecosmos

@jxvajxy

@satoruhooraaa

@my-reality-is-in-my-head

@dok-ja

@jscarlet06

@fiona782

@thatsharklovingwoman

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@coldvillainess

@vampgguk

@sukuna1stwife

[sepublic]

Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

         …

         SO! Onto other things first…

         WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

         Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

         AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

         She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

         Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

         JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

         No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

         King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

         A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

         Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

         Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

         Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

         I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

         What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

         They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

         (Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

         Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

         I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

         You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

         Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

         Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

         BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

         This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

         What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

         Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

         And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

         Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

         WHAT AN EPISODE!

[mckinlily]

Idea where the Voltron Paladins start to develop elemental powers from their Lions. Except...not the most obvious ones. 

Shiro can teleport. Well. That’s the most visible aspect of his power. What he actually does is warp the fabric of space-time because of course he does that. You know how Shiro basically fights like gravity is optional? Yeah, that just got 100x worse. Shiro essentially floats and drops and moves however he needs, and now he affects space-time for everyone else, too. You can tell when Shiro’s gotten really pissed because there’s this immense pressure and everything is suddenly heavy. Or in a combat, his enemies who were grounded are now bouncing and floating. And if you think “space”= “no gravity”, you’re forgetting this is the star pilot of the Garrison who certainly knows about orbitals and gravitational assists. He doesn’t need any alien robot-lion bond to calculate multi-body trajectories instantaneously in his head even with changing gravitational fields. Teleportation might be flashy and all, but every member of team Voltron knows that’s the least dangerous thing he can do.

Lance is an empath. At first, he’s disappointed he didn’t get anything cool and flashy like Shiro. Actually, at first, Lance didn’t think he got a power at all. This is just a normal part of forming Voltron, right? Right?? Why is no one else so exhausted from all the feelings? Guess I’m just weak... Lance actually has a near breakdown before the rest of the team clocks it and realizes he’s constantly swimming in everyone’s feelings and yeah, no. No one can handle all that. Allura steps him to teach him how to build boundaries, and still, he has to spend a few days avoiding Keith and Shiro (”What the hell, you two?! Do you guys feel ANYTHING that’s not twenty shades of repressed trauma???”). But with time, Lance learns to control and use his power to help the team. His connection is strongest with the other paladins, and he mostly uses his power to look after them and help them out during the down times. Lance has learned the importance of being a support and takes pride in healing his team when they’re down so they’re ready to kick ass in battle. But he also shines on diplomatic missions. His ability to ping what other people are feeling not only helps him smooth over offenses or fears, but he can pick up on inconsistencies and unseen red flags. Not to mention, Lance can nudge other’s emotions. Normally just slightly, but it’s enough to swing things in their favor. Lance might not be flashy, but that doesn’t make him less powerful. And anyone on the other side of the negotiating table quickly learns that.

Keith has precognition. Think Jedi see-things-just-before-they-happen Force shenanigans. His instincts aren’t just on point--he’s often reacting to things just before they happen. Naturally, this makes him almost impossible to face in combat. Incidentally, this is also part of why Keith is so bad at communicating: he’s often thinking in multiple points of time at once and condensing that down to one point to talk about is just...it doesn’t work like that. But slowly, as Keith learns how to work in a team and, if he can’t quite communicate with words, to let the others in so they sense what he’s sensing, Keith’s precognition stops throwing him out of sync with everyone else and pretty soon Voltron has the same too-fast reflexes as Keith. The others have gotten used to the flashes of Keith-thoughts zipping through the Lion bonds and letting him move them when they do. Now not only are the Lions practically indestructible, but Voltron is nearly impossible to land a hit on in the first place. 

At first Pidge is annoyed about the paladins powers because--Green Lion? Of course she’s going to get plants. And Olkarion might have helped her appreciate the natural world more, but she still thinks plant powers are lame. She’s not Poison Ivy. Give her computers and climate control any day. But then she starts talking to Green as she’s coding, and at first she just figures she’s a genius (which she is, thank you very much) but her programs are like nothing she or anyone else has seen before. Especially the viruses she writes for Galra tech. They grow. She can plant a “seed” on one part of system and later she’ll find that code sinking its roots into an entirely different part of the enemy ship. It creeps like vines, breaking through any firewall, tangling up any kind of security, alive in a way even the best AI isn’t. Pidge doesn’t even really need an access point anymore, just let her loose near some tech and like an invasive species, soon she’s overrun it all. Pidge’s code is like vines, like ivy or tangle weed, and once it’s in there, you can try to root it out. But you won’t succeed. Pidge likes this kind of plant.

And finally Hunk can kind of just...bend reality. Normally it’s little things, like cables that shouldn’t work suddenly don’t need an adaptor, the rust jamming certain gears is magically clean, that fuel cell that’s been on empty for the last three varga is still going strong. Of all the paladins, Hunk appreciates that difference little things can make (for good or for really, really bad. You won’t think changing the rotation rate of that star by half a second would make a difference, but turns out that changes the magnetic fields which create solar flares which...). Hunk’s happy making small, manageable adjustments to reality that he can predict the full consequences of. Mostly. But there’s still definitely been a time that someone’s held a gun to one of his teammate only to find--the gun isn’t there anymore? It never was? There wasn’t even a gun in existence in the first place? And occasionally someone will realize that aren’t really limits to what Hunk can change besides those Hunk sets himself. Those people start to back away very slowly as Hunk talks to himself about whether or not he should turn this rock into space chocolate That’s a pretty big molecular change, not telling what side effects with come with that. But if he took something that was already food, now there’s an idea... Hunk doesn’t use his power in combat that much. Or, at least, not in ways people notice (but isn’t it convenient that with Hunk around, armor lasts longer, equipment runs better, no one’s amo ever runs out...)

All these abilities would be chaos to work with, except that the paladins have grown to develop a low-level mind-meld like they have in the Lions. Normally it’s white noise far in the background, but it can flare up when needed and nothing is quite as disconcerting as when Keith pings something and all of them turn as one to look a second before something happens. Sometimes people swear that even when the paladins are outside of their Lions, doing separate things, they still move unnervingly like part of one unit. And in the Lions--

Gone are the days of inexperienced pilots attempting to survive. Pidge is turning your tech against you. Keith is predicting your every move. Shiro and Hunk are wrecking havoc on reality and all known laws of physics. This in addition to all the bells and whistles and impossible weapons they’ve unlocked in Voltron. And while you’re panicking, trying to figure out how the hell you’re supposed to fight this thing, Lance is there cranking your dread to eleven. Suddenly, it’s no longer surprising that Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe.

“Don’t they ever scare you?” ask some planetary leaders after witnessing the might of Voltron. Sure, the paladins are supposed to be the good guys, but... “What if they stop listening to you?”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” says Allura, the woman who has the power to heal and destroy planets in her fingertips. She smiles like her teeth haven’t turned sharp and blinding white in the last minute. 

“I am their Princess.” 

[kozzax]

so recently the folks over at @petrichormeraki have been working on a silent tommy au because of a few asks talking about mute!tommy. and one of the things that’s canon in that au is the fact that xisuma is the only mortal hermit. i took this as free reign to work out why each of the other hermits is immortal. some of them are gods, some of them are demigods, some of them are supernatural beings, but none of them (except xisuma) can be killed through feasible means.

because of the sheer amount of immortal hermits there just to live out immortality in peace, i like to think hermitcraft is sometimes referred to jokingly as ‘the retirement zone’ by other immortal beings. most mortals outside of hermitcraft wouldn’t know the hermits are all like... gods and shit.

hermits + their immortality under the cut because oh god this was supposed to be a fast post but i accidentally wrote... a lot. whoops!

Grian is a watcher. He was a watcher before he joined hermitcraft. That’s... just. Canon Grian Lore TM. Not much to explain with him.

Cleo and Joe are both immortal by virtue of no longer being capable of being mortal. As both of hem are undead beings (cleo a zombie and joe a ghost), killing them again isn’t... possible. In addition to this, at some point during their afterlife, they managed to gather enough power between the two of them to be labelled as the “Twin Gods of Life and Death”. Which one is life and which one is death? That depends on the day.

Cub and Scar are definitely not gods. But the deals the two made with the Vex are almost more of an insurance on their immortality. The Vex protect their ConVex as a dragon protects its hoard. Not only can the two of them hold their own in a fight, but their respawn is insured by the fact that even if they were to permadie, the Vex would bring them back anyways. 

False is the Queen of Hearts, Heads, and Body Parts. She’s also a vampire. In a similar vein, Ren is a werewolf. Both of them can only be killed through very specific means, and neither can die of old age. Throughout their many years in the worlds, they’ve gathered tons of skills and allies. Although now they’ve both stepped down, content to enjoy their peaceful lives and chill out in Hermitcraft, each of them was once a ruler of their respective factions. The ‘queen’ part of False’s title was never just a title.

Etho was granted immortality by a council of gods, after they took a liking to his interesting antics and kept an eye on his longstanding worlds.

Doc, BDubs, Beef, and Etho (again) were all brought to Hermitcraft as the last ‘mortal’ members to join. The general idea was that maybe they could give Xisuma some company and relief from the antics of his immortal and godly friends. This did not happen. Instead, the universe decided it was going to give all of them godly powers in their own right. Etho himself may have been immortal, but he and the rest of the NHO all grew infinitely more powerful after leaving the jungle of season 5.

Stress is a dryad. She can control and warp the nature around her in strange and beautiful ways. In addition to this, were her body to ever get fully destroyed in a way that would prevent her from respawning, a new body would instead form for her out of the nature wherever she died. This is how ice queen stress came about in season 6.

Impulse actually bullshitted his own way into immortality. Where most of the other hermits were either brought into it by someone else or born into it, Impulse actually discovered the secret of immortality while he was trying to figure out how totems of undying were made. He now knows how to create totems and how to become immortal, though he won’t tell anyone else if they ask. Part of the process of creating totems involved...

...Tango, who is a demon. As a demon, his powerset includes but is not limited to both pyrokinesis and an affinity for very very large and very very deadly animals. He doesn’t use those abilities on Hermitcraft often, but they’re in his skillset for sure.

As a byproduct of the immortality, Zedaph showed up in the current timeline. His immortality is... strange, because it’s not technically immortality. Zedaph, as a person, is mortal and can die. Zedaph, as a being, though, is one of billions of Zedaphs in the universe; each of whom is nearly identical to the others; and whenever one Zedaph dies, he is replaced instantly with a new Zedaph; a functionally identical Zedaph to the one who died. Nobody’s quite sure how this process works, but Zed claims it’s through “time travel”.

Jevin, as a slime, can actually inhabit any portion of his slime that he wants; no matter how small the amount. Even if he were limited to one singular molecule of slime, he could still exist around that molecule and regenerate slime until he was fully present again, though it might take a little while for him to complete that process. The only way to kill Jevin is by fundamentally altering the chemical makeup of every single molecule of slime he’s ever had anywhere. It simply won’t happen. He does use his abilities to get out of conversations, if he’s feeling particularly annoyed at the time.

TFC is potentially one of the most interesting hermits, in his prior responsibilities. It’s easy to forget that he’s not mortal, considering how frighteningly average he acts in his day to day life. One peek into any of his bunkers, though, and you’re hit right in the face with a bold reminder. TFC used to be one of the gods responsible for shaping the very worlds players would walk on; more specifically, he was in charge of cave systems and mineshafts for a long time. He’s retired from that life and is having a lovely time in Hermitcraft, just vibing.

Wels gained his immortality through a deal with the patron god of the kingdom he grew up serving. He made this deal as a young knight and watched for decades as the kingdom grew and prospered, Wels himself known far and wide as quite probably the best warrior of them all. After being dismissed honorably by the kingdom, as he’d been protecting them for many decades now and the rulers honestly felt he deserved a break, the god he’d made a deal with finalized this immortality. He joined Hermitcraft not long after, and has taken up a spot doing his part to protect the hermits.

Iskall was somewhat of an enforcer, for the gods. Were a god to be acting particularly out of line, Iskall would be called in to bring them to the council for trial. Sometimes his targets came peacefully, sometimes he’d have to use force to bring them in. No matter what he had to do, there wasn’t a single target he missed. He both can and will kill a god if he must. Technically, Iskall’s still on call, but generally councils don’t call on him unless absolutely necessary anymore.

Hypno made a deal with a god many years ago, trading his mortality for the ability to see hundreds of thousands of alternate paths for the future. He wanted to chronicle them, and he still spends one or two days a week writing out winding paths of the future. When he’s not working, he wears his bandana to cover up the third eye that allows him this insight. This helps him focus on the now, rather than the futures that may or may not be.

Xb is an eldritch being with reality warping abilities. He has them under fairly good control, most of the time. They really only become an issue when he gets too much pent-up magical energy at once; examples of this being things like season changes. His season 7 base is built around what happens when he needs to release. It’s a post apocalypse world, and the apocalypse was him.

Mumbo is definitely both magical and immortal, but the specifics of his powers are incredibly unclear. The hermits know it has something to do with redstone, maybe, and that the unpredictability of Hermit Challenges are a reflection of his strange and confusing powerset, but nobody’s really sure where his immortality stems from. Every time you ask him he gives you a different answer. The mumbonis are all different joking theories as to where his powers came from.

[vex-bittys]

In Your Dreams: A Horrortale Story

Raffle prize for @purplesangel. When your life is a living nightmare, is it any surprise that your dreams are just as bad? Thankfully a dream-walking human has arrived to help, but will she still want to help Axe when she finds out what he’s done to stay alive?

WARNING: character death mention, language, blood mention, some disturbing imagery including cannibalism (no details)

READ ON AO3

----------

Life in the Underground was an endless nightmare for Axe. During his waking hours, he checked his traps and hunted in the forest, often returning home empty-handed only to see the disappointment and desperation in his brother’s sockets. Supply trains became frantic riots as too many monsters competed for their share of too little food, and the sharp pain of hunger lingered even after the skeleton brothers’ meager meals.

Madness seeped in through the hole in his skull, distorting reality. He clawed at his skull, trying to release the pressure of the frenetic energy that consumed him. He could feel the darkness lurking, waiting for him to make a misstep, some seemingly trivial mistake; that’s when it would strike, shredding his thoughts and shattering his focus. There was no escaping it, and Axe knew that one day it would swallow him up.

Sleep provided no reprieve. In his dreams, Axe continued to suffer. He watched his brother fade away to nothing from starvation. He felt the gnawing emptiness of his own unsatisfied hunger. Feasts appeared before his single working eyelight only to transform into grains of sand that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. He ran through the shadowed forest outside of Snowdin, fleeing an unknown terror in the night while thorny tendrils of a deeper darkness caught him, slowing his progress, dragging him down, and allowing his madness to suffocate him.

Days dragged on into months, and months melted together into years. Waking life remained bleak with monsters still struggling (and at times failing) to survive. Food sources dwindled, and the gathering of other resources fell by the wayside as every creature in the Underground focused on filling their stomachs as best they could. Everything stagnated in its state of destitution and decay… everything except Axe’s dreams.

Axe’s nightmares repeated themselves night after night until slowly, they began to change. It started with the appearance of a new character- a human that Axe didn’t recognize, though he thought it might be a female. At first the human only observed the horrors that lurked in the sleeping world of Axe’s mind. Gradually, though, she began to interact.

It all started during one of Axe’s nightmares about his brother. Crooks would turn a pleading gaze to his brother, mouthing a soundless plea for food. Axe would fall to his knees, sobbing and pounding his fists into the ground. Crooks slowly collapsed, and the gradual dissolution of his body sent his dust drifting towards his brother, filling Axe’s mouth and nasal cavity until he choked himself awake… usually. This time things turned out differently.

“I’M SO HUNGRY, BROTHER,” Crooks’ voice came from the air around them and not his mouth, the teeth there long since broken or knocked askew from gnawing away at non-edible items simply to assuage the need to chew.

The human appeared, but instead of observing the unfolding scene, this time she glanced around until her eyes fell upon Axe.

-

Since the very first time you’d stumbled across this heart-breaking nightmare scenario, you’d worked hard to return to it. Dream-walking involved focus, practice, and a bit of luck, and in this venture, the fates were on your side. You’d walked this collection of now-familiar nightmare images many times, slowly working out which participant it belonged to and why the skeleton with the broken skull kept replaying these torturous situations in his sleep.

Now, you were ready to interact and hopefully restore some peace to the sleeping world of the monster in front of you. You extended a tentative hand towards him, unsure if he would welcome your touch as a form of physical comfort. He just stared at your outstretched hand as if it would bring some new and unfathomable horror to his disturbingly familiar nightmare. You let your hand drop. Words would have to suffice then.

“It’s not real,” you told the stocky skeleton firmly.

His sockets narrowed suspiciously. “what do ya mean, ‘not real’?”

“This-” you gestured to the vague, nondescript surroundings and very crisp, well-defined figure of the tall, starving skeleton behind you, never breaking eye contact “- is not real.”

The skeleton with the broken skull laughed, a harsh and humorless sound that grated against your ear drums. You sighed, frustrated but determined. It rarely improved a situation to reveal yourself while dream-walking; most dreamers forgot their nightly travels when they returned to the waking world anyway. Those who didn’t merely discarded your presence, along with any advice you might give, as part of a nonexistent scenario that could not influence their waking lives and should thus be ignored.

Normally, you resigned yourself to this and walked through dreams as a silent observer, but this skeleton’s torment tore at your heart and brought forth a tenacity within you to help him in the only way you could: by walking through his nightmares and defeating them, one by one, until nothing remained but peaceful slumber.

The skeleton with the broken skull scoffed. “you don’t know nothin’,” he growled obstinately.

“I know that your most frequent nightmares involve food, madness, and losing this other skeleton-”

“my bro,” the skeptical skeleton clarified.

“Losing your brother,” you amended with an edge to your voice, “to starvation.”

“it’s not like you’re some expert investigator piecin’ together the clues, pal. we’re all starvin’ and dustin’ down here,” he said, dismissing your observations. You frowned. Was there some truth to these nightmares? Often dreams represented thoughts and fears in a metaphoric manner, but maybe this skeleton didn’t have room in his troubled mind for subtlety.

Regardless, you would do what you could for him in the only place that you could reach him.

“I don’t know what your life is like in the waking world,” you conceded softly, “but this? Everything around us now? It isn’t real.” You continued in a rush before the skeleton could interrupt you again. “You’re asleep, and your mind is processing your fears… and your reality… into nightmares.”

The skeleton inhaled, obviously ready to argue again, but you stopped him by making a sweeping gesture towards his brother. Had this nightmare been reality, the taller skeleton would be dust by now. Instead, the image was frozen in place thanks to the stocky skeleton’s change of focus. “Look,” you ordered boldly.

-

Axe begrudgingly allowed his single eyelight to stray from you to his brother. While it was true that nothing had changed in the scene since he had turned his attention to his unexpected visitor, the moment he looked back, the scenario resumed. Flakes of dust drifted loose from his brother’s body, floating away on an unfelt breeze to disappear as they dispersed until nothing remained except the unbearable weight of guilt and his brother’s ghost of a voice whispering “Why?” over and over again in his head.

Why didn’t you save me?

“It’s not real,” you whispered solemnly behind him, but honestly, that didn’t matter. Watching his brother die of starvation that he should have prevented sent jagged pains through his SOUL whether it existed solely inside of his mind or not. Your next words, however, carried a much greater impact: “I can teach you how to change it.”

-

The most frustrating part of dream-walking was the inability to change the contents of people’s dreams or nightmares yourself. While you could view the unfolding events, you possessed no real power over them. Only the dreamer could affect their dreams. Thankfully, unlike dream-walking, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught.

As with every teaching experience, some students learn more quickly than others. Axe, as he eventually introduced himself to you, was not one of those students. The most difficult aspect of lucid dreaming for him happened to be the very first step to lucid dreaming at all: accepting that what he experienced while he slept was a dream instead of a warped reality that lived inside of his cracked skull and broken mind.

“These images all come from your thoughts,” you explained again. “You can control them, but first you have to accept that you can control them.” 

You knew that the dreams involving his brother were far too emotionally charged to make good fodder for lucid dreaming practice, and you preferred to steer clear of the choking darkness since you had no idea what effects such a powerful and overwhelming negative force could potentially have on you, even as an observer within someone else’s troubled subconscious. This only left the dreams of an untouchable feast to practice on… and practice was not going well.

As with your many previous attempts to gently guide the stocky skeleton towards seizing control of his nightmares, the lesson had quickly devolved into a squabble. You insisted that Axe could learn to control his subconscious surroundings; Axe stubbornly insisted that he could not. You would point out that this was his dream, and his mind; he would attempt to discredit your existence as just another piece of the complicated web of nightmares that plagued him: a human offering him false hope in a bleak and hopeless world.

It did bother you a little bit that Axe considered you- a (mostly) patient and helpful human- to be nightmare fuel. Only monsters lived in the Underground since the long-forgotten war, so why would Axe’s guilt-riddled dreamscapes include humans?

You decided to save the questions for another time.

“Try again,” you told Axe, who only answered with a weary, frustrated sigh.

-

Irritation swirled through Axe’s excessive magic, though it was aimed more at himself than at you. Every night you tried to help him take control of his dreaming mind, and every night, despite your calm instructions, he failed. You made it sound so easy, so why couldn’t he just grab a stupid spider donut off of the stupid table and shove the stupid thing into his big, stupid mouth?

“Try again,” you told him patiently as he brushed the gritty sand from his finger joints. He uttered a weary, frustrated sigh.

“i am trying,” he grumbled, biting back a deluge of unhelpful comments and curses. He touched another piece of food, a french fry, still steaming though it had been sitting on a pile of its doppelgangers since the nightmare began. The entire fry stack crumbled to sand before he’d even lifted one free; Axe’s patience dissolved along with it.

“if this was as easy as you claim,” he shouted, letting his anger overflow into sharp words, “then i’d be able to pick up these plates and smash them on the floor like i want to!” Without any conscious thought, Axe lifted one of the plates in question and hurled it at the ground. It shattered, leaving silence in its wake as Axe and the dream-walking human stared down at the shards on the ground in awe.

Axe gave an entire stack of plates an experimental shove, sending them cascading over the edge of the table and onto the ground where they created an inharmonious symphony of destruction. You applauded the spontaneous mess and squealed with glee, and Axe swept you up into a quick celebratory hug, spinning you around once before setting you back on your feet. As soon as he set you down, he grabbed a donut and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, his sockets narrowed in utter bliss, he picked up a second donut and offered it to you. 

Nothing tasted as sweet as victory… except for maybe a spider donut.

-

You didn’t want to dampen the skeleton’s joy by telling him that you wouldn’t be able to taste a donut in his dreams, so you took a bite, your head still spinning from his sudden show of physical affection. With a promise to see him the following night, you stepped out of his nightmares. You felt content that you’d taken the first big step on a journey to giving Axe the power to sleep peacefully without constant, horrific nightmares plaguing him.

The next lesson would be more difficult; you intended to guide Axe through banishing nightmares of his brother’s death. Out of consideration for Axe’s privacy, you had never asked him why he had such specific nightmares about his brother, but nightmares involving a sibling death as vivid as Axe’s hinted at some very dark and complex situations existing in the skeletons’ waking world. Those hints aside, Axe had outright stated that things were terrible in the Underground where he lived. Maybe working through his dream would give him some insight into fixing his real-life situation, at least the one he faced with his brother.

You hoped so. During the nights you’d spent helping Axe learn how to lucid dream, you had come to consider him a friend. You hated the thought of him suffering. You especially hated that you could only reach him during his nightmares. You wished you could do more, but how? Those were thoughts for your own waking world.

Tonight you wanted to focus on Axe’s progress, and once he’d gotten some practice at lucid dreaming, you’d work on changing the heart-breaking nightmare of his brother.

-

Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull as he waited for you to appear. He could feel himself slipping towards darker dreamscapes, and he fought to stay in the safe in-between place like you’d shown him. He told himself that the tremors in his bones were caused by his unstable magic and not by fear. What if his previous successes were a fluke? What if he failed when it mattered the most? 

Thoughts of failure sent him spiraling into the guilty nightmare of his starving brother. After all, his failures in reality led to this, and the dire consequences that he saw unfolding in his subconscious lurked only a step behind him in the waking world. Soon his real life would become this very same nightmare, and he would be left as powerless to stop it there as he felt to stop it here.

Thankfully, you appeared within seconds to chase away the grim meanderings of his mind and help him focus on the task at hand- Crooks.

Axe’s brother loomed in front of him, eyes pleading, begging for something that Axe could not give him. He watched the image of his brother twist and reshape itself, growing alarmingly large, the bones stretching from an influx of magic that still somehow managed to provide almost no nutrition. He whispered his brother’s name, frozen in place and unable to remember what he was supposed to do to stop the scene unfolding in front of him.

A small hand slipped into his; he had forgotten about you as his familiar fears swamped him. You looked up at him with a calm expression and nodded, encouraging him.

“You can do this.” Your words bolstered his courage. He dragged his panic back under control and turned to face Papyrus… or what had become of Papyrus under his inadequate care: the monster now known as Crooks. 

“You know what you need to do,” you whispered.

Axe stepped towards his brother, focusing on Crooks as he had seen him last: tucked into his bed, the blanket no longer quite long enough to cover his lanky frame, wishing Axe a good night and sweet dreams and promising to see him in the morning. Keeping that image locked in his mind, Axe let his lone eyelight travel over his brother’s altered frame. Sure enough, not a single mote of dust rose from the other skeleton. Crooks simply stood there, watching him through sunken sockets.

Though he’d brought his brother’s recurring death to a halt, the words that swirled and echoed around him continued, too faint at first to make out individual words or phrases. His brother’s voice whispered accusations like poisoned arrows that pierced his SOUL. A chorus of questions, all beginning with “Why…?” slowed, sharpened, and gained clarity. Crooks spoke, though his mouth never moved and the words seemed to thrum within his very bones, tangible beyond mere sound.

Normally Crooks’ omnipresent voice asked him why he would allow his brother to starve, but this time the question differed, though it still sent chills to the very marrow of Axe’s bones.

“WHY DID YOU MAKE ME EAT-”

Axe quickly hushed his brother, stealing a glance at you to gauge your reaction. You simply made an encouraging gesture as if to say “Go on, you’re doing great.” He wondered if you’d feel the same way if you knew what Crooks’ next words would have been.

“i couldn’t let ya starve,” Axe spoke softly, tilting his head to maintain eye contact with his much taller brother. “i’d do anything to keep you alive.”

“EVEN-”

Axe nodded, nearly choking on guilt. “yeah. even that.”

“BUT I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T EVER WANT-”

Remorse softened Axe’s expression, and his gravelly voice hitched. “i couldn’t let ya dust. i had no choice. i’m so sorry.”

-

Without warning, Crooks slumped, but he wasn’t collapsing into dust. Instead, he crushed his brother against his ribcage in a tight hug. You sensed a loosening of the guilt and remorse that gripped this particular nightmare so tightly. Things weren’t resolved yet. Nightmares could rarely be banished in a single lucid dreaming session, but you’d given Axe the tools he needed to seize control of his sleeping world. 

Only one challenge awaited you now: fighting the suffocating darkness of the final nightmare. You made plans to tackle that monumental task once Axe felt satisfied that he could manage this current nightmare on his own. Working through the tangle of emotions that his brother’s death awakened would take quite a bit longer than satisfying himself that he could eat his fill of dream donuts, but you were willing to go the distance to help Axe.

You actually wanted to do this, no matter how much the slithering darkness terrified you. Axe just meant that much to you.

-

“I think we’re ready for the final nightmare,” you declared after a dream session in which Axe showed off by summoning various items for his brother to eat.

In the lucid dreams about Crooks, his dream-brother mostly stood or sat nearby providing companionship and support as Axe practiced controlling his consciousness. Axe enjoyed the time with his brother, despite the knowledge that this version of Crooks existed only inside of his mind. It gave him a tentative sensation of hope that perhaps someday he could experience this type of peace with his brother in the waking world, free of the constant mad scramble for survival.

Your words shattered fragile, fleeting calm. Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull. The final nightmare contained his deep, dark fears, his madness, his guilt. Tendrils that reeked of his unspeakable crimes dragged him down into the cesspool that used to be his SOUL. He didn’t want you to see that part of him. He didn’t want you to know what he was truly capable of.

You’d never come back, and he’d be left alone with the echoing, blossoming psychosis that suffocated him. It would be worse now though. You’d shined a light into his life, and now he risked that glimmer of goodness being torn away… torn away because of what he’d done.

The punishment would fit the crime of his continuing survival.

-

You stepped into Axe’s dream world, excited and nervous at the prospect of facing the unknown horrors of this last nightmare that plagued him. The endless grey limbo that surrounded you came as quite a surprise when you expected inky vines of darkness encased in the thorns of Axe’s painful emotions and memories. Axe refused to meet your eyes when you approached him. Something was off about the whole situation.

“Is everything ok?” Maybe Axe wasn’t ready to face the darkness of the upcoming nightmare. You didn’t mind; you weren’t going to push him towards something that he didn’t want to do. You weren’t exactly eager to face it either, and besides, you thought you might enjoy just spending some time with Axe.

When he raised his head to meet your eyes, you couldn’t suppress a gasp of fright. Goosebumps erupted along your arms, and you shivered.

Axe’s single red eyelight… it glowed with an eerie flickering light, seeming to swell until the socket could barely contain the vortex of its power. Axe tilted his head at an unnatural angle and laughed at your reaction. You forced yourself to stand your ground despite your fear. This was not the monster you knew. Axe now embodied the darkness of his own inner turmoil, and it froze the blood in your veins.

“nothing is ok!” Axe’s snarl dissolved into sinister chuckles that made his broad shoulders shake. He lifted a hand, phalanges curved like claws to scrape at the hole in his skull. You lunged forward to pull his hand away before he caused more damage to himself, and he shoved you roughly away.

-

The hurt and confusion in your eyes filled Axe with dark satisfaction. You needed to know just what kind of monster he was. You needed to fear him, to run away and never come back. Instead, you offered him your compassion yet again.

“Let me help you.” Tears filled your eyes. His madness must be breaking your sweet, loving heart, but he drove home his depravity because if he let himself care, you’d find out the truth eventually anyway. Losing you would hurt more if he actually had you first.

This time when you reached out for him, he dodged, letting your momentum carry you to your hands and knees on the floor. He loomed over you, oozing menace like a thick fog.

“help me?” Axe’s scornful laughter echoed around the empty landscape. “and why,” he asked cruelly, “would you help a murderer?”

“Murderer?” You repeated the word as a question, as if you weren’t completely sure you knew what it meant. Your eyes widened in shock as tendrils of darkness climbed Axe’s arm, sliding over his bones like living tattoos until they pooled in his hand, taking on the shape of a huge meat cleaver.

“how do you think i’ve survived so long, little human? i hunt, and i kill.” He grinned, his mouth stretching into a disturbing parody of joy. “humans mostly. honestly, did you think the blood on my hoodie was mine?”

-

You admittedly hadn’t thought much about the blood stains on the hoodie. Maybe they were his. Maybe they were ketchup. Maybe in his dreams he wore the stains of his brother’s imagined death. Dreams and nightmares created their own reality with its own details pulled more from a dreamer’s mindset than accurate memories. It shocked you to think that Axe truly wore a hoodie that had once been soaked with fresh blood.

Human blood.

You trembled. Axe began to circle you like a hungry wolf, casually swinging his gigantic cleaver.

“Do you regret it?” you finally asked in a tiny voice.

-

Those four words penetrated the armor of madness that Axe was using to push you away, and they struck him like a well-timed attack. He reeled, reaching for some lie to keep you from seeing the truth and pitying him.

He found nothing.

The meat cleaver fell from his shaking hand. Axe sank to his haunches, covering his face with his hands, trying to hide from you and your perceptiveness. He wanted to scare you away before you could judge him and abandon him, but you shot your question straight to his SOUL, refusing to believe the worst of him.

“every fucking minute of my life.”

This time, when you tentatively reached for him, undaunted by his previous rejection, he leaned into your touch. He hated himself for his weakness, but every second that you stayed, even if you left eventually, was a second he would cherish until time wore away even the memory of his dust.

With his first admission, however poorly he’d delivered it, out of the way, Axe couldn’t stop himself from confessing even more of his transgressions and regrets. “i lied and told my brother it was meat from an animal in the forest. he didn’t want to eat humans, but i tricked him. i couldn’t let him starve” The words poured out of him; he feared that as soon as things went quiet, you would realize what an irredeemable abomination he was and flee. “i shouldn’t have done it, but i didn’t know what else to do. we were so hungry… and it messed up our magic. there’s no way to hide what we did. no way to undo it.” 

-

Axe’s words stumbled to a halt, and you sat for a moment in the heavy silence of the grey dreamscape, contemplating them. You hated what he had done, but you also understood that his only other option would be watching his brother starve to death. The circumstances didn’t allow for any winners, and Axe suffered with the knowledge of the things he’d done. 

“You were trying to survive.” Your voice nearly cracked on the final word. You could not fathom the desperation that drove Axe to his decision.

You remembered all of the heart-breaking stories that Axe told you about the Underground: the human who’d stolen the SOULs that the monsters had gathered and fled, taking the monsters’ hope with them, the death of their monarchs at the human’s hands, the Royal Guard Captain’s ascension to a throne that she didn’t possess the skills to manage, and the unbearable suffering of monsters starving to death or falling down because of an unshakable despair.

You raised your eyes to meet Axe’s eyelight, expecting to see softness there once more, but instead his horrified expression stared back at you. You didn’t need to puzzle out the cause because a moment later, barbed shadow vines lashed you, wrapping around your legs and dragging you towards a puddle of oozing darkness near your feet. You struggled against the thorny tendrils, and they tightened, driving each wickedly sharp thorn-tip into your flesh.

Pain seared your legs, real physical pain… in someone else’s dream. Panic washed over you, and you fought harder to escape, causing the barbs to rip deeper into you.

You screamed.

-

Shaking off his shock at the sound of your scream, Axe lunged forward. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around you and wrenched you away from the grasping vines. A writhing mass of them rose up behind him, swarming over him like living things. Staggering a few steps forward, Axe set you on an empty bit of space, but the vines quickly pulled him off of his feet and into a kneeling position. More tendrils rose to wrap around him, and the inky darkness of the puddle rose up to meet them, slithering up his body and swallowing him up in the darkness.

“i can’t protect you here… i can’t keep you safe from me, from my mind.” Axe choked out the words through the darkness consuming him. He couldn’t let you come back. He wouldn’t allow you to be in danger because of him.

This had to be good-bye.

He focused his mind.

“don’t come back.”

-

You jolted awake, that one last glimpse of Axe’s red eyelight, brimming with pain and regret burning in your mind. He had kicked you out of his dreams and told you not to come back. You couldn’t dream-walk in a mind that wasn’t open to your presence. Your throat constricted, and you felt tears sting your eyes. What if you never saw Axe again?

When you tossed back your blankets, you half expected to see scratches on your legs where Axe’s negative thoughts and emotions had touched you, but your skin was unbroken. You’d never experienced a nightmare so vivid and intense, but you breathed a sigh of relief that it couldn’t reach you in the waking world. If only Axe would let you come back, you could tell him that despite your panicked reactions, his dreams had no power to harm you.

Instead, he would continue to face the torment of his past mistakes all alone… for now.

Because while you had been helping Axe deal with his nightmares, you hadn’t neglected the appalling circumstances of his reality. If you could make your waking project work, you would be able to truly save the skeleton that you cared for so deeply.

I won’t let you push me away, you vowed.

-

Axe settled himself on the bench of his sentry station, taking a break from prowling the forest for potential meals. The barren snowscape left him all alone with his thoughts, and he hated it. In one bout of unhinged boredom, he’d created a sign for the outpost: “Head dogs, 5G.” It made as much sense as anything else in the Underground. Besides, there was no such thing as a hot dog in this frigid wasteland.

The narrow lines of dead tree trunks shifted if he stared at them too long, and the wind that howled through them carried voices whose words he could not quite arrange into coherency. The windblown whispers rose in volume until the roaring of innumerable voices filled his skull. The blazing white of the snow surrounding him only added to the sensory overload. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t see. 

“shut up, shut up!” Axe chanted, clawing at the hole in his skull. Reality warped, the passage of time quickened and slowed, and nothing made sense anymore…

… and you were standing in front of him.

Axe recoiled in disbelief. How could this be happening? He hadn’t fallen asleep… or had he? Maybe you were a cruel hallucination conjured by his loneliness. He refused to accept the vision of you even when you reached out in that oh-so-familiar way to calm the scrabbling of his phalanges against the jagged edges of the hole in his skull.

Axe’s hand shot out as quickly as a striking snake and grabbed your wrist. He yanked you forward until you were partially bent over the sill of the sentry station. He raised his massive knife high above his head; his eyes held no recognition, no clarity, no sanity.

You held completely still, unflinching. The meat cleaver hovered threateningly above you, but it did not fall. You and Axe were frozen in the moment, but despite the madness that absolutely radiated from him, you trusted him not to hurt you.

“you’re not real,” Axe accused you in a gravelly whisper. You weren’t even sure if he meant to speak aloud at all.

“Are you going to kill me?” Your voice didn’t waver, and you kept your eyes locked with his single eyelight, calm yet firm.

Axe lowered the knife. Real or imagined, starving or not, he would never hurt you. You knew him too well. He released your wrist, hoping he hadn’t hurt you by grabbing you like that. He wanted to ask how you’d gotten here, but other matters demanded a higher priority.

“you aren’t safe here,” the skeleton scolded gruffly. “didn’t you listen? monsters here kill and eat humans!”

“Good thing I found you first then.” You tried to diffuse the tension with bravado, but you had to admit that your choice to come to the Underground was a risky one. Axe’s eyelight travelled over your body, searching for injuries while surreptitiously taking in the sight of you. His obvious concern for your safety filled you with warmth and determination.

“there’s nothing good about this,” Axe growled though he had to admit that seeing you again definitely felt like a good thing to him. That little bit of goodness could be snuffed out in a hurry though if another monster saw you and attacked. “i’ve got to get you out of here.”

Axe lumbered out of his sentry station, glancing furtively around the barren landscape, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether he expected to spot an enemy or an escape route. The skeleton stopped right next to you, attempting to block you from prying eyes. You found his protective stance rather charming, but you weren’t here to be charmed. You were on a mission.

You slipped your backpack from your shoulders, swinging it around into Axe’s line of sight and opening it. Seven clear canisters sat inside, each with a brightly-colored heart shape inside of it. Axe’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“are those…?” Axe sounded almost reverent, and with good reason.

“Human SOULs? Yes. I gathered these from willing donors who wanted to help set the monsters free.” It had taken dedication and time, but you’d meticulously interviewed potential donors until you tracked down all seven SOUL types that you needed. Now, only the path to the Barrier stood in your way.

Without warning, Axe swept you into a crushing hug, then proceeded to spin you around. Your feet actually left the ground, and you laughed softly at the thrill of it.

“you’ve got to meet my brother, then we’ll smuggle you into the Capitol.” For once you heard excitement and hope in Axe’s voice. His eyelight gleamed with resolution as he reached for your hand. You placed your hand in his without hesitation. Axe’s declaration that he knew a shortcut still rang in your ears as the world spun beneath you and everything went dark.

Disoriented, you tried to take in the scene around you. You’d been outside, standing in a forest choked with dead trees and carpeted in snow, but suddenly you found yourself in a house. The loud colors of the bowling alley style carpeting had long since faded, and the couch had obviously seen better days. Everything in the house was touched with the same look of elegant decay: faded colors, worn fabrics, the yellowing of book pages, and the subtle musk of disuse. 

A fine film of the dust of time spoke volumes about the life of two monsters who devoted so much of their lives to simply surviving that they were forced to neglect the basic upkeep of their home. The house looked so long abandoned that the presence of life within it seemed almost surreal. You couldn’t find words to break the silence that permeated the house, soundless echoes of what it had once been.

Movement caught your eye; a lanky figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped in the dust-mote-filled light. Your eyes travelled up and up, an impossible height despite the figure’s hunched posture, until you found facial features that you recognized from Axe’s dream. The vivid colors of Axe’s subconscious bore the same washed-out appearance here that characterized their home, but you knew this must be Papyrus, now known as Crooks due to the effects of his recent tragic diet.

Crooks wrung his hands shyly, awaiting your reaction to his somewhat terrifying appearance. His teeth were crooked and broken, caked with something red that you tried not to think about too much. His nervous actions tugged at your heart, and you offered him a gentle smile which he responded to with a smile of his own.

“I’D OFFER YOU SOME OF MY SIGNATURE SPAGHETTI AND EYEBALLS, BUT WE��RE ALL OUT OF PASTA.” His apologetic tone did little to distract you from the fact that the skeleton brothers were short of pasta but not eyeballs. 

“That’s alright. Really.�� You didn’t hold out much hope that Crooks had misspoken considering Axe’s earlier admission. The sooner you got these monsters out of their Underground prison, the sooner they could return to normal healthy eating habits.

“my friend here wants to help us get to the Surface. they’ve got plenty of pasta up there. we just need to talk to ol’ Queen Undyne first,” Axe interjected, using a light tone to dispel the awkwardness of his brother’s offer. 

Crooks perked up at the mention of Undyne. “UNDYNE WILL BE SO RELIEVED. I DON’T THINK SHE LIKES BEING QUEEN VERY MUCH…” You clutched your backpack and its precious cargo of SOULs, unzipping it slightly to show the mingled glow of seven vibrant colors. Crooks peered at them with a mixture of curiosity and delight.

Axe shifted uncomfortably. “yeah, relieved,” he mumbled, refusing to meet your eyes. You didn’t have much time to wonder about the skeletons’ very different reactions to Undyne because Axe extended a hand to you and Crooks. As soon as your fingertips brushed his smooth, warm bones, everything went dark again.

In the few seconds it took your eyes to communicate the view of a once-opulent throne room to your poor confused brain, a glowing blue spear appeared and slammed into the ground so close to you that you felt the force of the impact thrumming up the shaft of the weapon. If Axe hadn’t yanked you backwards, you would’ve been impaled. Where had it even come from?

“UNDYNE WAIT! THIS HUMAN IS A FRIEND!” You followed the direction of Crooks’ voice to see an armor-clad monster with a wild mane of crimson hair. She held another glowing blue spear, and her single yellow eye focused on you with murderous malice. You staggered backwards from the force of her glare. 

“No human is a friend to monsters,” Queen Undyne roared, launching a volley of her spears at you. You resigned yourself to your doom, regretting that your rescue attempt had been such a short-lived failure.

A wall of bones erupted from the tiles of the floor, blocking the attack. Crooks and Axe both stood next to you, arms outstretched to summon the defensive maneuver. More spears struck the bones, causing them to shudder, but they remained standing. You turned wide, panicked eyes to Axe, searching for some explanation or reassurance.

“can you hold her off?” Axe asked Crooks, who nodded somberly. The stocky skeleton grabbed your arm and dragged you down a hallway of soaring pillars coated thickly in cobwebs and floor to ceiling windows of cloudy, cracked glass. Away from the immediate danger, you began to tremble. Tears welled up in your eyes.

Axe pulled you close, wrapping you in the safety of his arms and gently rubbing your back. He made soft shushing sounds, and you realized that your tears had turned into terrified sobs. Your body shook, and you hiccuped, trying to catch your breath. Axe held you until the overwhelming wave of emotion subsided.

“i’m so sorry. i thought maybe we could talk some sense into Undyne. she and my brother used to be really close, but the last human who came through here… well, that human killed a lot of monsters and stole the SOULs that we had collected towards breaking the barrier. they left us with nothing but despair and dust, and Undyne blamed herself for not stopping them. it… affected her.” Once again, Axe looked guilty.

“How can we convince her that I’m trying to help?” You gripped your backpack with determined hands. You didn’t gather these SOULs for nothing, and you didn’t plan to leave the starving monsters in the Underground without at least making an effort to save them.

“you aren’t going to convince her of anything.” You opened your mouth to protest, but Axe laid a phalange against your lips to silence you. “i want you to get out of here. it’s not safe, and i would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“What about breaking the Barrier?”

Loud crashes sounded from the Throne Room. Axe shot a quick glance over his shoulder before pushing you further down the hallway. “i need to go help my brother. if we can convince Undyne to trust you, i’ll meet you at the Barrier to break it and free the monsters.”

“What if you can’t?” More sounds of destruction threatened to drown out your whispered words, but Axe was close enough to hear you over the cacophony. Sorrow filled his single eyelight.

“i won’t put you in danger.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Actually, it did answer your question, and the implications left you frantic with worry for him. You wanted to explain how you felt about him, why his plan tore your heart to pieces, that you couldn’t just leave him behind, but the sounds of battle were approaching quickly. 

Crooks slid backwards into the pillar-lined hallway, kicking up dirt. He held bone attacks in his gloved hands, and he used them to deflect wave after wave of spear attacks. The barrage of attacks drove him backwards again, closer to you and his brother. Axe stepped between you and the sound of Undyne’s war cries.

Turning, he cupped your cheek in one large, bony hand. His eyelight drank you in as if to memorize every feature of your tear-streaked face. He leaned forward and kissed your forehead. “go,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours.

Then he was gone, teleporting to the entrance of the hallway to join Crooks with bone attacks flying. 

If you stayed, it would only distract him. He wanted you to go, to be safe. It took every bit of willpower in your body to walk away, to step through the Barrier without him, knowing that he never would’ve fought Undyne if it wasn’t for your meddling.

You waited.

And waited.

The seconds stretched out, each one lasting a thousand excruciating years.

You waited.

-

Axe curled up on the couch, full to bursting from a delicious dinner prepared by his brother. Yawning, he rested his skull in your lap, and you gently stroked his scapulae, smiling as he began to doze. He no longer feared nightmares. In fact, he rarely dreamed at all anymore. After all, what would be the point in dreaming?

Life on the Surface far surpassed anything that his subconscious could fabricate, and he already lived that dream every single day, with you.

INDEX

[pynkhues]

I got so excited seeing you post about Succession, I am absolutely obsessed with everything about that show from the writing, to the performances, to Kendall fucking Roy. Would love to hear any of your takes or analysis on the Roy siblings.

Oh my gosh, me too, anon. I'd been watching the eps a few at a time and when I got halfway through s2, I started watching them one at a time just because I didn't want it to end! It's been a crazy long time since I've done that, and it was such an invigorating feeling to enjoy a show that much to want to draw it out again. I finished s2 a few days ago and am halfway through a rewatch already, haha, and I am SO. HYPED. for s3.

It's so well written and like you said, the performances are top-notch (Jeremy Strong ridiculously deserved his Emmy last year, oh my god), and just the pay off with plotlines and character arcs is unreal, even if that pay off often hurts. I think it does such a great job of showing how filthy rich they are too, but making no part of their life aspirational? Which is a hard line to walk. They're all so miserable and traumatised and disconnected and lonely and they're destined to stay that way because they have no emotional tools to do or be otherwise. It hurts, but it's so frequently what they deserve too, and that gets so tangled up and twisted. I love it.

And man, the Roy kids!! Putting some broadstrokes analysis / opinions under the cut, because omg, I feel like I'll be talking for 1,200 years otherwise, haha.

Connor Roy

Legit obsessed tbh. When I was growing up, my mum was a huge Spin City fan, so she used to park me and my sister on the floor in front of it with toys while she watched, and as a result I think I have this really warm response to Alan Ruck, haha. He's fantastic in this, and lends the right amount of vulnerability to Connor.

I love that there's this push-pull with him as kind of an outsider, but also not? Like he's there at the table, to borrow the phrase from Tom, but there's very much this feeling that it's a courtesy or formality to Logan's previous family (and god, I'm dying to know more about his mum / Logan's first wife), but that doesn't stop this deep rooted need that Connor shares with his siblings for their father's validation.

I think a lot about what Connor says to Kendall in the s1 finale about how anyone can have a million dollars, but right now, with Logan's empire, they're somebody. It's this sort of tangled disconnect from reality (anyone can have a million dollars??) but also his desire to be seen broadly, but more specifically seen as Logan's son, that I feel really grounds Connor's arc, and I feel like he's just going to get louder and louder about it, especially with his presidential run getting closer.

Kendall Roy

Okay, okay, okay, I know that he's an absolute nightmare and a terrible human, but oh my goooooddddd, I love him as a character. I saw it in somebody's tags on a gifset, but I love this set-up where Logan keeps Kendall on the shortest leash, but it's a leash all of his siblings, despite themselves, want to be on. That's awful, but so indicative of the toxic way that Logan's raised his children.

There's also a great quote from Jeremy Strong somewhere, and I can't find it now, but to paraphrase, he said that the whole family is raised on this idea of strength and power, and Kendall's sort of a case study in strength not being his native language. It's so true, and I think Kendall's smart and resourceful and quick on his feet, but he's also so often desperately trying to wear a costume of who he thinks he should be.

I don't think he's weak (in fact, I think he's really resiliant), but he's definitely a fragile character and an addict, who nakedly needs nurturing that no one is willing to give him, least of all his mother (which, god, that scene when he tries to talk to her in the UK destroyed me) so instead he pretends to mould himself into the perceived image of his father and fails every time.

It's brutal to watch, especially when you see other characters know that and use it to manipulate him. Hell, his own father pretends to nurture and protect him (and I think kind of genuinely does too? But it's so warped?) the whole of s2, and it brings Kendall closer than ever before. It's painful, and affecting, and it's just this manifestation of trauma in a hopeless, cringe-inducing package, haha.

Roman Roy

Another nightmare baby I tragically love, hahaha. I actually think Roman's had one of the most interesting arcs on the show and one of the few that seems to be positive? Like his tendency to not take anything seriously so that he never truly fails was pretty fun in the first season, but to see that evolve into someone who's green but has great gut instincts, and is good when he lets himself be and when he lets himself try, is really invigorating narratively, especially as the other characters all slip further down morally and/or stagnate.

I'm loving the way that it's sort of cannibalising itself though too with him and Geri's relationship suddenly, um, pivoting, hahaha, and especially the way she's honed in on him getting off on being demeaned. There's something really fun about the one character clawing his way up masturbating to being told exactly how low he is.

Plus Kieran Culkin is a gem.

Shiv Roy

Sarah!! Snook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had a huge crush on her since Not Suitable for Children so was already totally delighted to see her in this, but oh my god, she's so good, and Shiv is so awful in so many wonderful ways. I love that she's kind of like Kendall in the way she pendulums between extreme competence and the most mortifying self-sabotage, and the way she's a very specific sort of insecure. Logan never asked her, y'know? Not really, and the way she knows she's his favourite, but knows that being his favourite without the validation of succession doesn't mean anything.

In a lot of ways, she encapsulates the show's themes and Logan's abuse in the best way, because she has what her brothers want. Her father loves her more openly than he does any of them, but that love isn't enough, because Logan's made sure it never will be. It's not a true love after all, because Logan loves them, but he loves none of them more than himself and his legacy, and being given the latter is what they've all been convinced will make them happy when it never will.

Nothing will.

It's just so good and so painful, and I'm in love with it all.

[punksarahreese]

Terminal | 16:22

Medtober day 2 (event by @page-doctor-bekker 🧡)

Time of Death!AU; Ava struggles to make the right decision

Word count: 1104

CW: ghosts be dead, there is a dead baby, cancer talk

***

Ava knew better, she really did, but that didn’t stop her from going to the ED. She promised herself it was just because she was bored, with no surgeries to watch in her OR for hours she felt her energy crackling like the campfires she would have with her friends back home. She needed stimulation and what better place to find something interesting than the emergency room.

The halls of Gaffney had finally begun to feel like a second home for Ava, no longer overwhelmed with the way her reality was slightly warped. She glided down the corridor comfortably now, slipping between nurses and watching as Doctor Charles shivered when she passed by him just a bit too closely. It was easy to forget how much she could still interact with the human world, especially with how much power she could feel just under her skin.

The ED was filled with life as always, yet it was also clouded by the weight of the other side. Ava had seen more spirits in this department than any other part of the hospital, somehow they all managed to come back to the emergency room even if they passed elsewhere. The wave of pain and fear that washed over her never failed to surprise Ava, though she had learned to ignore it for the sake of her stability.

There was one spirit she had trouble ignoring, though. One that always appeared like a little flash of blinding light. A pure soul, Jason had explained the light to her, someone who hadn’t done anything wrong in their life. It was near impossible to find a true pure soul, since most people had a couple sins under their belt by late childhood. This one was different, though, and Ava couldn’t seem to keep her attention on anything else as of late.

As chance would have it, she saw a flash of that light once again. She perched herself on a spare gurney, eyes tracking the man that the light always followed. Doctor Crockett Marcel, all southern drawl and confident eyes, seemed to be a pretty popular doctor since he showed up. Ava didn’t have a reason to hate him yet, though she didn’t really have a reason to like him either. She was more worried about his attachment, if she was being honest.

Eavesdropping wasn’t polite, she knew her mother would have chastised her for it even as a woman in her thirties. Still, it’s hard not to overhear everything when you’re a ghost stuck in a hospital whose walls hear everything. She had simply been floating around, trying to find something to do, and a familiar voice had caught her attention. It was Natalie Manning speaking to the new trauma surgeon, discussing something in hushed voices. Ava heard it all, though, and the story hadn’t left her mind since.

Harper had just turned one when the cancer took her, leukaemia ravaging her small body before intervention could help. Losing her had hurt Crockett far more than he let on, though Ava could feel it in the way his voice became guarded while speaking of his daughter. He wanted to protect her even in death, afraid that his memories could become tainted if in the wrong hands. Ava felt that way about her memories of Connor too, she knew it far too well.

After learning about Crockett’s daughter, Ava had trouble ignoring her. Jason said it was for the best, they shouldn’t interfere with a spirit attachment because it could harm the soul or leave them trapped. Especially for someone so young, telling Harper what was going on or why her dad didn’t pay her any mind would only damage her.

Still, she was only a baby and it hurt Ava to watch her like this. She was toddling after Crockett, watching him with big eyes as he instructed nurses to get labs and waved Will over to help with the transfer of a patient. She looked on the verge of tears, clutching onto a faded stuffed animal that seemed to resemble a rabbit. Wherever the trauma doctor went, so did his daughter, a little hand reaching out to grab the edge of his scrubs but always missing just by a thread.

It was heartbreaking, wishing she could just pick Harper up and hold her for a minute. Ava wasn’t necessarily a maternal person but she knew about sick kids, she knew they craved stability and just one good day. They never wanted to hurt and they always wanted comfort, especially from their family. She knew how hard this must be on the baby, stuck in an endless loop of trying to reach her father but missing him each time. Even as a ghost it would be so damaging to her psyche. Terminal cancer may be the worst part of being human, but the spirit world offered a never ending cycle of what if’s and pain.

“Ava, don’t do it.”

“She’s a baby, Jason.”

“She’s not your baby,” he said pointedly, materializing on the gurney to flank her right side. Ava rolled her eyes, annoyed at the way her friend always had a dramatic entrance in store.

“I know that,” Ava huffed before adding, “Don’t be an ass.”

“I didn’t do anything. You shouldn’t either, you know. Interacting with her will only make it worse.”

“She’s dead,” the blonde couldn’t tear her eyes away from where Harper stood against the wall and stared at a trauma patient her dad was working on. She looked terrified and it took all of Ava’s willpower to not let her energy go at the sight.

“So are you.”

“Yeah but I’m not a literal baby who died of terminal cancer,” she retorted, “We caused this for ourselves. She did not, she didn’t even have a chance to live.”

“And that sucks but there’s nothing we could do.”

“We could talk to her? Give her a real interaction so she doesn’t feel alone at least. The poor kid looks prettified, Jason.”

“It’s a bad idea,” he followed her gaze across the ED, “I know you care but you know-”

“Yeah yeah, the shadow people won’t like it and the hospital will react poorly if I get too upset or attached. I know, you’ve told me billions of times.”

“And yet you never listen.”

“Because she needs someone… she’s all alone and so am I; why can’t I just make sure she knows someone sees her?”