#rediscovered it and immediately began work in it

[jenuinely-speaking]

Haven't been able to write at all the past two weeks and it seems even Spotify is on my side tonight 🙌🏽

It's time to get this first monster chapter done and possibly post some previews and back story for this AU. Been working on it for almost a year and it's been sizzling in the slow cooker 🤌🏽

Sneak peak tag of story one of the collection in the tags

[cosmicdahlias]

Fuck Me Like You Hate Me

a ford x reader fic

MINORS DNI

You’re so tired and overworked from trying to prevent Weirdmageddon. Ford proposes some much needed stress relief.

warnings: rough sex, choking, slapping

okay so full disclosure the title is ripped from a seether song, i’ve been rediscovering the music i listened to as a teen and i was immediately inspired.

You sat hunched over your desk, going over the journals. You were reviewing every possible way to prevent and stop Bill. You hadn’t properly slept in days, working yourself to the point of exhaustion until your body gave out and forced you to sleep. You stared at the rift, how could such a small thing be such a looming threat?

Ford descended the stairs with a fistful of unicorn hair, seems like Mabel’s quest was successful.

“Afternoon, y/n, how are things goi-“ He stopped, a look of concern spread across his face. “Oh honey, you look so exhausted.”

He came up behind you and began massaging your shoulders. “You need a break, burning the candle at both ends won’t do you any good.”

Your brow furrowed. “Ford, how can you say that? The whole world, no the universe is at stake.”

He turned your chair to face him. “And what good are you to the universe if you’re too exhausted to even keep your head up?” He said taking your cheek in his hand.

You leaned into his touch, covering his hand with yours for a second before the grave reality at hand set back in, you shook your head.

“Ford, I- we don’t have time for this. What if Bill-“

He kissed you hard. “Forget about Bill for just this moment, focus on me, only me. Listen, you’ve been so overworked and stressed out. I can sense it immediately from across the room. And I think I have a solution. Use me, let out all of that pent up emotion out on me. I know you need this”

“Ford, seriously, I can’t. I really need to go over the journals.”

He took your hands in his. “Stardust, I love you, but I need you to fuck me like you hate me.”

You blushed. “Ford, no, what if I-“

“Hurt me? Baby, there’s not a thing you could do to hurt me.” He chuckled.

You weighed the pros and cons. No, you couldn’t. Preventing Weirdmageddon was your top priority. You refused to let yourself be distracted, not even for a second.

“I’m sorry, but really I need to get back to work, you should too.”

You turned around, returning to the task at hand.

He cocked and eyebrow and crossed his arms. “What? Are you scared?”

You buried your face into the pages, electing to ignore him.

Ford let out a huff. “Fucking say something, come on!”

You put up a hand, a clear signal that you were too busy for this.

“Don’t be such a cunt.” He said, knowing full well how much you hated being called that, but it worked. You turned around in your chair, holy fucking shit you wanted to tear him apart.

“Excuse me?”

He could see that he got to you. “Ohhhohoho, you don’t like that, do you? What are you gonna do? Are you just gonna stand there and take it?”

You stood up, knocking your chair to the floor. You seized the collar of his trench coat, pulling him into a furious kiss. You felt him smirk against your lips, he had won.

You broke away, grabbing his wrist and basically dragging him up the stairs, leading him down the hallway to his room. You passed by Stan, who laughed his ass off when he saw your face.

“Oh geez, what’d ya do this time, sixer?”

“Shut it.” You seethed through gritted teeth.

“Whoa, touchy. Guess you’re in for it now.” He said, patting Ford on the back.

You slammed the door behind you, pouncing on Ford. You practically ripped his clothes off and they scattered to the floor. You shoved him onto the bed and you began removing your clothes. You looked down at him, still seeing red.

He wanted you to hate fuck him? Fine, you were going to rock his shit so hard that he wouldn’t be able to see straight for months. You sat next to him on the bed and spat in his face, his cock twitched wildly.

“I like this side of you. I should call you a cunt more often.”

That did it. You reeled a hand back, slapping him in the face. It barely registered.

“You call that a slap?”

He raised his hand and brought it down sharply on your ass, you yelped.

“THAT’S a slap.” He growled.

You reeled your hand back for a second time and struck him hard on the face. His head snapped to the side, he blinked a few times, vision blurry.

You gave him a second to recover before moving to straddle his face.

“Are you gonna sit on my face? Do it, fucking smother me.” He growled.

You sank yourself down on him and he took your clit in his mouth.

“That’s it, grind on me.”

He wrapped his hands around your thighs, trying to pull you as close as he could, eating you out like it was his last meal. You bucked your hips as he lapped at you. He loved this, he loved having his mouth on you, the way you bucked your hips against his tongue. He could spend all day between your thighs if you’d let him.

Your breathing became shallow, you were close. Ford took notice, quickening the pace of his tongue.

“That’s it, cum on tongue, cum on my fucking tongue.”

You grabbed a fistful of his hair, grinding yourself desperately on him, feeling yourself cum on his face. You threw your head back in ecstasy, moaning loudly. He tightened his grip on your thighs, trying to coax a second orgasm out of you. You rocked your hips as you came again.

You slid yourself off his face, sitting on his hips, his cock pressed against your ass. You looked down to see his stubbled chin covered in your cum, god he looked so hot like that. You leaned down and kissed him sloppily, licking yourself off him. You reached your hands down and pinched his nipples, tugging them hard. He moaned loudly and his cock throbbed on your ass.

You hovered yourself over his length and sank yourself down onto him. He reached his hands up to grip your waist and started to buck his hips into you. You seized his wrists and pinned them above his head, you weren’t going to let him have control, not this time.

“I knew if I pissed you off enough that you’d get like this, you’re such a slut, riding my cock like this. You- mmf.”

You covered his mouth with your hand. He seized your wrist and pulled it off of him.

“What’d you think that was gonna do? You wanna shut me up? Make me. How’re you gonna do it, huh? How’re you gonna do it?”

You slapped him hard across the face.

“Oh yeah? You think slapping me is gonna work? Because I’m still talking.”

You pulled yourself off of him and he whined at the loss of your pussy around his cock. You picked his belt up off the floor, returned yourself on top of him, sliding him back inside you and slipped the belt around his throat.

“Are you gonna choke me? Do it, fucking asphyxiate me.” He growled.

You pulled the belt, it dug into his neck. He managed to choke out a moan.

“Not so talkative now, are you?” You taunted.

He nodded submissively. It wasn’t often that he showed you this side of him, opting to be the dominant one, but god you loved having him under you. You pulled down the belt, temporarily loosening your grip. You leaned down and bit hard on his neck, he whimpered loudly.

“God I love when you hurt me like that, stardust.”

You tightened the belt again, his cock twitched wildly inside you.

He tried to speak, but with the belt the words were unintelligible, you released your grip again.

“Can I cum in you?”

“Grammar, Ford.” You teased.

He chuckled. “May I cum in you?”

“Good boy, that’s better.”

You picked up your pace, giving him the ride of his life.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, dear god you feel incredible.” He said, breathing ragged.

His moans were deafening as he came inside you, filling you with his cum.

He laid his head back on the pillow panting, words failing him. All he could do was look at you, god you were so beautiful.

He reached up, cupping your cheek. “Feel better?”

“Regrettably, yes.”

“See? I told you that you needed this. Next time don’t be such a cunt.” He teased.

You slapped him lightly.

“That was very much deserved.” He chuckled.

You pulled yourself off of him, removing the belt from his neck. Ford laid on his side pulling you into a spoon, sighing deeply. You laid with him for a moment before the anxiety over Weirdmageddon returned.

You moved to get up. “Okay I really need to get back to researchi-“

Ford pulled you back against him. “I know, I know, but just stay with me for a while, please.”

You huffed, but knew this is what you needed. You began to feel drowsy, you tried to fight it, but felt sleep overtake you.

-

When you awoke an hour later you both got dressed and went to make your way back downstairs, passing by Stan again. He smirked.

“Heh heh, sorted things out did ya?”

Ford rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Stanley. I can always count on you to be mature.”

[mushiewrites]

Got Your Back

Hiya! So I’ve had this fic since last September, I wrote it for @emmadoodlewrites when we both went insane for tickle machines and made up a few in a flustered frenzy. I recently rediscovered this fic and shared it with @wishitweresummer, who encouraged me over and over to upload it. So, I reworked it, somehow added 1K words, and here we are. Thank you @awkwardtickleetoo + summer for reading this through for me and for hyping it up and making me want to post it! (and thank u cal for the title ur a genius). I love how it turned out, and I hope you do too!

After George confessed his love for tickling to Dream, he decides to make him something special in support. Dream gets curious, and before he knows it, he’s stuck

(lee!Dream / tickle machine : 3.6K words)

Dream had always been curious. Everyone who knew him was aware of this fact, mostly due to the blonde getting himself into trouble because of it. Whether he was exploring new places without a map or tinkering with things he shouldn’t, he was used to things backfiring. But he didn’t really mind. He much preferred taking the risk in favor of trouble in order to learn everything he could about anything and everything he was interested in - including people.

Another thing Dream was known for was his generosity. Gift giving was absolutely one of his main love languages, and he constantly used it to show his friends and loved ones just how much he cared for them. Dream was thoughtful, always collecting things that reminded him of specific people and being so excited to give it to them, relishing in the way their faces would light up at the unexpected gift.

Recently, George had revealed some very personal information about himself with Dream. A few weeks ago, while sitting underneath an oak tree in the rain, George had told Dream his thoughts and feelings on tickling - about how much he loved it, and how much he adored the feeling of it. He told Dream how warm and safe the action made him feel, sputtering and whining through it all. It took some much needed coaxing and reassurance from the blonde, but in the end, George got it all out. Dream was there to support him through the whole thing, wrapping him into the biggest hug he could while showering him in praise.

Immediately after George had left that day, the cogs in Dream’s brain began to turn. He was set on creating things to show George that he didn’t have to be embarrassed about his secret adoration for tickling, wanting to make him something special and just for him. Dream spent many nights hunched over his crafting table drawing up blueprints, feeling like a madman whenever he came up with a new contraption to torture George with. After coming up with a few solid ideas, the building began.

It started with a small tickle machine.

It was around the same size and shape of a normal backpack, and designed to sit against the back the same way. There were eight retractable arms that sat over the shoulders, ribs and sides, much like how a koala would cling onto a person. The arms were designed to be able to perform the meanest of tickles that George could handle (or not, but that wasn’t Dream’s problem). The ends of the metal rods were covered in small rubber nubs, molded to glide expertly between ribs, to skitter up and down squishy sides, to poke and prod against sensitive stomachs - the possibilities were endless on someone as ticklish as George.

The machine was still in the prototype stages, but it was ready to be tested to make any final adjustments. He planned on waiting until the next time he was with George to test it, wanting to see how the machine worked on the smaller boy and hoping to find ways to make improvements. But the longer the device sat idly, waiting for its first victim, the more Dream’s curiosity grew.

So he decided to test it himself.

After a lot of pacing and contemplating, he walked over to the chest in the corner of the room where he kept the machine, opening the lid and chuckling nervously when he saw it. It looked like some kind of giant upside down bug, with the legs curled in on themselves while in the ‘off’ position. Dream lifted it from the chest, holding it in his hands and inspecting it while the butterflies in his stomach erupted into a whole new wave of panic. It took a bit of self convincing but he finally decided that yes, he was absolutely going to test this now. What George didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Dream let out a nervous giggle as he pressed the little green power button on the middle of the machine, reaching around and holding it against his back the best he could to try and secure it. He struggled with the positioning, taking a few steps back until he felt his heels hit the wall. Dreamed leaned against it, using the wall to help hold the machine in the correct spot and allowing the arms to finally extend out and over his body, clinging on and tightening to hold itself in place. The blonde watched in amusement as the arms reached over his shoulders and hugged around different parts of his ribs and sides, settling down after a few minutes and becoming still against him. He smirked to himself, happy with the way the machine was working so far.

Dream jumped forward with a yelp as the arms began to move, pulling him from his thoughts and bringing his attention to the new sensation that was spreading across his torso. It was only the first stage of the tickling, Dream having set different settings and stages for different tickling speeds and techniques. But even at the lowest stage, it had Dream doubled over, squirming against the wall as the ends of the metal arms pressed lightly against his ribs. The drew small, slow circles into the bones, pulling strained laughs out of Dream even as he tried his hardest to hold them in. He didn’t expect it to be this bad, but it was, and all he could think about was how much this would get to George. Through his panicked giggles he cheered at his success in making a functioning tickle machine.

The arms slowed to a halt, giving Dream time to catch his breath. He stood back up on his feet, turning around to face the wall and leaning his forehead against it with a groan. He closed his eyes as he continued to take in deep breaths, smiling at the thought of George screaming and squealing having to endure this himself. Suddenly the arms sprung back to life, digging in with a little more pressure at a quicker speed. Dream was thrown into loud cackles almost immediately, pushing off the wall and throwing his head back, his arms pressed as tightly as he could to his sides in an attempt to block out the tickly feeling.

“Ohoho my Gohohod, fuck! Thihis is bahahad!” Dream knew no one was around but couldn’t help but narrate the feeling. It was just so much more ticklish than he ever thought it would be, and it was only the second stage. He clenched his fists tightly, his eyes still squeezed shut as he let out a wheeze through his laugh, hiccups and high pitched squeals following closely behind.

The arms that rested over his shoulders were prodding into his top ribs, just below his armpits. They dug in slightly, vibrating over the bones every few seconds and making Dream feel weak in the knees. The other three sets of arms were poking into his ribs and sides, moving slightly every time they lifted up and touching down, always tickling a new patch of skin to keep him squirming. He leaned forward as he cackled, trying his best to stay standing as he laughed himself silly. He couldn’t remember the last time he was tickled this much - in his defense, he couldn’t really remember anything anyway with how fiercely the machine was tickling. Through it all, though, he did have one consistent thought; it tickled, and it tickled bad.

Dream gasped for air the minute the machine came to another pause, his giggles remaining as the metal arms stayed pressed against the bones of his ribs. He couldn’t shake the ghost tickles that had his stomach doing somersaults, even when he used his hands to rub the areas around where the arms were resting. The blonde found himself giggling helplessly, deciding he’d done enough testing for one day and reaching back in an attempt to power off the machine. George could try out the more intense settings the next time he stopped by.

But as Dream felt around blindly for the power button, he realized he couldn’t reach it from this position. He opened his eyes in a panic, quickly looking around on the table beside him for anything he could use to help reach it.

“Shit. Uhm….” Dream was mumbling under his breath as he searched through different tools, eventually giving up and turning around to gently press against the wall behind him to try and successfully hit the power button. But it was no use, and the familiar sound of the machine whirring to life echoed through the room once more.

Suddenly the arms were digging into his ribs and sides, only this time, the bottom set of arms made their way over to his very sensitive tummy. He let out a shriek as they vibrated into the pudge of his lower tummy, between his belly button and the waistband of his pants.

“No no nahahahaha! Fuhuhuck, plehehease! PLEHEHEASE!” Dream wailed, feeling the second lowest set of arms moving over either side of his belly button and pressing in, vibrating again, but at a much faster pace than before. He doubled over once again, his back arching off the wall before leaning over with his elbows to his knees, cackling towards the floor with his eyes squeezed shut.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the top two sets of arms began seeking out even more sensitive spots on his very ticklish torso. The lower of the top two sets found their way to the back of Dream’s ribs, a spot he had programmed purposely to fuck with George. He cried out at the feeling, never having been tickled there before and realizing how absolutely torturous it was. The top set framed themselves perfectly to wiggle their way under Dream’s arms, sending him flying back against the wall with his arms crossed over his stomach tightly.

“Nohoho, oh fuhuhuck, stohohop!” His knees began to wobble and he allowed himself to slowly slide down the wall, only stopping when he hit the ground with a thump. Dream pulled his knees up as much as he could, attempting to try and protect himself from the tickling but finding that it only further pressed the arms into his skin. He quickly straightened his legs out against the ground, kicking as he grabbed fistfuls of his pants, needing to hold onto something.

As the tickling continued, Dream fell to the ground on his side, turning onto his back and rolling back and forth a few times to try and hit the button against the floor. The third set of arms moved a little closer on either side to his belly button and he squealed, thrashing and squirming and kicking out as much as he could. No matter how much he pressed the machine into the ground, no matter what angle, it was no use - Dream was well and truly stuck.

The tickling finally stopped, but Dream couldn’t stop laughing. He was overwhelmed with the vibrations from the ghost tickles, still feeling the tingly circles and pokes over his torso as if they were still happening - even in the spots left untouched. He heard a noise from across the room and opened his eyes quickly, almost choking on his own breath as he saw George standing in the doorway, whose cheeks were bright red with his jaw dropped to the floor.

“G-George! I cahahan-”

“Dream?” George interrupted, his blushy cheeks somehow also appearing to be drained of all color as his eyes focused on the machine still wrapped around the blonde. “..What is that?”

The younger boy opened his mouth to try and explain, to try and make any excuse he could, but was cut off with a loud cackle when the machine clicked back on, the arms back in motion and making him scream.

“Noho not again! Nohoho plehehease! NOHOHO!” Dream let out a squeal that bounced off the walls of the room, startling George with the force of it. The older boy ran over and kneeled next to the blonde, trying to figure out what it was and what exactly was happening.

He watched with wide eyes as the metal arms poked and swirled and vibrated against Dream’s torso, focusing on his ribs and under his arms. The blonde let out a scream when the machine began to pick up speed and the bottom arms moved, making him arch up against the ground before falling back down against it, writhing and kicking as he did. Dream’s hands were wrapped around the bottom set of arms, pulling as much as he could to try and dislodge them, but finding it useless. George’s eyes trailed down to where they disappeared under the blonde’s shirt, moving a hand to grab the bottom of the fabric to slowly pull it up. George felt his face burning up as he saw the two bottom arms tickling at Dream’s belly button - one circling around the edge as the other pulled at it, occasionally dipping in and making Dream cry out in ticklish agony.

Dream swore he saw stars from how hard his eyes were squeezed shut. He knew he was screaming through his laughter, yet everything sounded muffled. His senses were on fire. The arms of the machine were sinking into every sensitive spot with precision, and with the two taunting the small indent in the center of his tummy, he thought he might seriously pass out at any second. His face was hot, and he could hear George talking to him and saying his name, but he couldn’t focus on anything else besides how horribly everything tickled. He attempted to open his eyes, but he was laughing so hard that his cheeks were keeping them squinted, blurring his vision and making it essentially impossible to see. Dream had no choice but surrender to the tickles, throwing his head back and letting himself laugh as much as he needed to.

He felt a hand grab his shoulder and pull him onto his side, and suddenly he could breathe again, taking in gulps of air and gasping through his cackles. George had managed to find the power button, finally freeing Dream from the ticklish hell he had been enduring. The brunette was carding his hand through the blonde waves, adjusting the two so that Dream’s head was resting against his thighs.

“Thank you, ohoho my God…” Dream managed through his left over giggles, turning to lay flat on his back as he draped a hand over his chest, letting out a deep sigh when he felt how fast his heart was beating. His eyes were still shut but he could hear the brunette laugh from above him, feeling his hand being moved from his chest and being replaced with one much smaller than his own. Dream moved his hand back, laying it over George’s and holding it for comfort.

“What even was that thing?” George asked hesitantly. Dream could sense the nervousness in the elder’s voice, opening his eyes slowly to adjust to the light and allowing them to focus on the brunette. George’s face was closer than he expected, making him giggle when George realized and pulled back quickly, clearing his throat and looking away from the blonde. Dream watched with a wide smile as George’s face grew an even deeper shade of red, clearly flustered at the situation he had walked in on.

“Well,” Dream spoke through his teeth, grunting as he moved to sit up slowly and cracking his back before turning around to face George. “You were nice enough to trust me with the whole tickling thing, so I wanted to do something special for you!”

Dream laughed as George physically cringed at the mention of the dreaded word, turning his attention from the blonde once again and looking down at his lap, picking at a loose thread in his pants to distract himself as he continued.

“O-Okay, and what? You decided you wanted to torture yourself to relate, or….?” He let out a squeaky giggle when Dream scoffed at the accusation, squirming to the side when a poke landed on his ribs.

“No, idiot. I actually made it…for you. For fun for us, but I was also thinking about it for the times where I can’t be there to help, you know?” Dream spoke gently, suddenly feeling shy about the whole thing and reaching behind him to pick up the small machine to hand to George. He watched as George’s face continued to turn a bright red, biting his lip to hold back the giggle that was threatening to escape to try and remain calm, knowing how embarrassing the subject was for the brunette.

“Dreeeeam,” George whined, holding the machine in one hand and bringing his free hand up to cover his face. “That’s…that’s just…”

He was struggling to find the words, torn between wanting to scream out in embarrassment, and wanting to cry because of how lucky he was to have someone like Dream supporting him. The younger boy giggled at the response, leaning forward and pulling the smaller boy into a hug. He smiled when he felt George lean into him, letting out a shaky breath as Dream used a hand to rub up and down his back soothingly.

“You’re welcome, Gogy.” Dream smirked, feeling George hide his face into the crook of his neck, whining about how much of an idiot he was. He let George pull away after a minute, using the floor to push himself up onto his feet and leaning down to offer George a hand. The brunette accepted it, grabbing the bigger hand and laughing when Dream yanked him to his feet as if he weighed nothing.

“I have a feeling this thing is gonna absolutely destroy you, Georgie.” Dream teased, poking at the machine and giggling when George turned his hips to prevent him from touching it. He noticed the elder’s blush had spread to the tips of his ears, the light pink color slowly turning a lighter shade of red the more flustered he became. George rolled his eyes at the blonde, hugging the machine to his chest as he spoke.

“Well, it sure did destroy you, didn’t it, Dreamie?” Dream made a move to walk towards the door, George suddenly stepping in his path and making the two almost collide together. He felt his own stomach flip at the question, taking a small step back and bringing a hand up to run through his hair as a way to cope with the nervousness he suddenly felt.

“I don’t know about that, but-” he tried to excuse the accusation away, but George was having none of it. He got a sudden wave of confidence, and mixed with his normal cockiness, Dream was doomed.

“No no no, you’re not gonna act like that didn’t just wreck you to pieces, Dream.” The blonde felt himself swallow hard as George took a step forward back into his space. “Which is kind of questionable, actually, because why would someone subject themselves to such torture if they didn’t like it? Care to explain?”

“N-No! No, I-”

“You liked it, didn’t you?” George held up a hand, slapping it over Dream’s mouth when he opened it to protest. “You wouldn’t have tried it if you didn’t think you’d like it at least a little bit.”

George removed his hand to let Dream answer, bursting into bright giggles when the blonde pressed his lips together tightly, his cheeks burning up and turning a dusty pink.

“I don’t!” George laughed at the way Dream was immediately defensive, not having any real excuse to offer other than a denial.

“Don’t worry, Dream. Your secret’s safe with me.” The older boy poked a finger into Dream’s tummy, making him jump back with a squeal. When he looked up again, George was walking towards the door, laughing as he went. Dream groaned, looking down at his shirt and bringing a hand up to his stomach, rubbing out the lingering tingles that George had left behind. He heard the door opening, looking up and being met with a very menacing smirk.

“Just to let you know, I absolutely will be using this against you. Watch your back, Dream. Your very, very ticklish back.” Dream felt a shiver run down his spine as he watched George flash him one last smile before turning to step through the threshold of the door with a wave, closing it lightly behind him.

Dream walked over to the crafting table, leaning back against it and letting out a deep breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. He sat down on the stool next to him, letting his head fall into his hands with a flustered whine, giggling to himself at how ridiculous the whole thing was.

When the flustered feeling finally passed, Dream was back on his feet, scribbling over blueprints of other ideas he had, making little improvements and upgrades as he worked. Dream decided he needed to up his game. If George thought that machine was mean, he decided to show him just how bad it could get. Dream was about to create George’s worst nightmare. Dream was determined to make George cry.

And he had just the idea on how to do it.

[dammarchy211]

It isn’t true!

I am not the ghost!

Without a soul!

come! Listen to my heart!

You here it beat…

(Preface for pronouns, Dart is transfem)

Introduction of both this au’s villains, and more Dart lore! This is for the au we’re Raz is 20 btw.

Firstly, Agatha was working on her reanimated dead in secret, her company makes toxin based weapons basically but they're still not Really doing anything illegal that people know about. The reason people started finding out is that she was dumping "unsuccessful" ones out of the drainage pipes in her factory and they began walking around and terrorizing people. Lili, Raz, Dogen, n Kitty were sent to the city her company's in (dubiously New York City) to sleuth out what was going on! They don't immediately figure out it's her, Dex gets wrapped up into it because of the zombies using C.R.I.M.E. tech. Agatha tried to be super friendly n sponsoring the psychonauts agents at first in order to lead them in the wrong direction ! Kinda a mix between Syndrome and Mirage from the Incredibles plot wise.

She eventually reanimates Dante, but noott very well. All of Agatha's zombies r basically puppeted around by mechanical parts and some psychic tech. Dante is only conscious after she reanimates him too bc he had his brain stored when he died! Agatha's reanimated dead are also reanimated a while after death, whereas Dart was reanimated almost immediately so Dante is practically falling apart compared to her. Dante is definitely not the main villain, and Really does care about Dart, especially since he went through so much effort to keep her alive after he died, but Agatha reanimates him so they can rediscover that same method that worked with dart. Which might become a conflict of interest between Agatha n Dante in the future.

When Dante was alive, he did actually Try to parent Dart, but so much of his time was iust devoted to his experiments and work and cult stuff and holing himself up in his office that they were distant regardless. I mean Dart was kind of just an experiment that he didn't even think would work and he got attached too- there were a good 3 or so years that Dante was sick and dying (probably harmful material exposure let's be honest) and they just Didn't talk about it. They both knew but they didn't discuss stuff like that. I mean they had heart to hearts sometimes but the last time Dart really saw him before he died was kinda 'you're dying and we both know it'. Even when Dante was alive, Dart was really trying to run away from anything ‘supernatural’ or ‘weird’ or dangerous and just live a normal life. That’s kind of why she started going to whispering rock, but after the brain snatching incident she just hid in the outhouse the whole time and then stopped going after.

[00127am]

ring! ring! wake up! it's 00127AM!

hi, again. did you miss me? :)

i'm not sure how many times an apology can be used for dropping off the face of the earth, but i guess a third (second?) time can't hurt. i'm back! indefinitely, this time. full promises and reassurances. you know the drill (yeah ... sorry about that), it's time for titi's hiatus faq!

titi's not-so-faq

again? where were you this time? in my apt, moping about not being able to write and losing my mind over nct. but on a serious note, i wasn't on the correct medication. it's important to me to be transparent about mental health issues so i'll be honest and say it has been very rough for me. but i've pulled myself back together (on new medication as well) and all in all set to get my life in order and rediscover the love i have in my hobbies (and the ability to write, god help me).

what were you doing? i took some summer classes, stared at the wall and daydreamed for most of my days, and began running nct group orders on instagram (shameless self promo, i want cheap ems--go join my orders i'm also really fucking funny on instagram @ yutaekki). i've also worked. a lot. a girl has to fund her crippling nct addiction somehow (and trust me it has been crippling, nct merch and pc tour soon?).

about my works i think this is maybe the most important question? or at least the one some of you are interested in the most. i'd like to continue them as they are but ... all in all that's not going to happen. a part of the reason for my hiatus is that i was unhappy with my work, everything seemed redundant or flat or just poor writing in general. i don't want to force myself to continue off with something i never liked in the first place. so, i've decided to rewrite! same concept, same characters, (some) same moments but maybe a different premise? different overarching plot-line? i'm not sure yet but whatever i end up doing, it will be completely and entirely me. so yes, all the social media aus (and i mean all of them) will be archived. but don't worry! i've been writing! and new and improved versions will be published soon!

about tl as everyone who is at least slightly familiar with me and my works knows, i was a diehard ot26 ult. the news about him was heartbreaking and i'll leave it at that. i am not in support of him in the slightest. everything associated with me will always be ot25 and all content including him has / will be removed. if you support him or are remaining neutral please unfollow or block me immediately. i ask that you don't talk about this subject with me, as a survivor myself it brings up some bad memories--thank you for respecting my boundaries!

it's silly, really, that i feel like i've let people down. i know i took the best course of action for me, but i can't help but feel a bit sad that people have been waiting for me to update. but it's a bit bittersweet now, right? i hope i can still provide a platform and a world that makes everyone smile (and kick their feet). thank you for supporting me! through the past, my absence, the present, and the future! i'm forever grateful and all your love is nothing if not well received. i'm happy to be back. please continue supporting me!

let's meet again in this new life!

with all my love, your ever faithful,

titi

[brainddeadd]

The Holiday

After a tough breakup with your deadbeat ex-boyfriend and months of mundane office work, you made a bold decision: to escape to Toronto for a much-needed holiday. You booked a last-minute flight, eager to leave behind the dullness of your everyday life and the painful memories of your past.

The moment you arrived in Toronto, the crisp winter air invigorated your spirit. The city's vibrant atmosphere felt like a breath of fresh air, and you couldn’t wait to explore its charming streets. You wandered through local cafés, browsed quirky shops, and marveled at the stunning architecture, feeling a sense of freedom you hadn’t experienced in ages.

On your second night, you decided to visit a popular bar known for its live music. You settled onto a bar stool, sipping a warm drink as the band played soulful tunes. The energy of the crowd buzzed around you, and you felt alive for the first time in months.

As you scanned the room, your gaze landed on a tall figure with a friendly smile, chatting with friends. You didn't recognize him at first, but there was something magnetic about him. He had a relaxed demeanor and a laugh that seemed to resonate with the music. You tried to play it cool, but your heart raced at the thought of approaching him.

Gathering your courage, you made your way over, your heart pounding in your chest. “Hi! I’m [Your Name]. Mind if I join you?” you asked, trying to sound confident despite the flutter in your stomach.

“Of course! I’m Joseph,” he replied, his eyes sparkling with warmth.

You hit it off immediately, sharing stories and laughter over drinks. You told him about your escape from a boring job and a toxic relationship, while he shared tales of his life, his passion for hockey, and his recent triumphs in the sport. There was something about him—his kindness, his humor—that drew you in, and soon, you were lost in conversation, the world around you fading away.

As the night progressed, Joseph leaned in closer, his warm gaze locking onto yours. “So, what’s on your agenda for tomorrow?” he asked, his voice low and inviting.

“I was thinking about exploring the Distillery District,” you replied, a smile dancing on your lips. “Want to join?”

“I’d love to,” he said, his enthusiasm infectious.

The next day was a whirlwind of laughter and exploration. You strolled hand in hand through the cobblestone streets of the Distillery District, indulging in artisanal chocolate and soaking in the festive atmosphere. Every moment with Joseph felt electric, and you could sense the chemistry building between you.

As the sun began to set, casting a warm glow over the city, you found yourselves at a cozy restaurant overlooking the waterfront. The ambiance was perfect, and your heart raced as Joseph reached across the table, his fingers brushing against yours.

“I’m really glad we met,” he said softly, his gaze intense. “This has been the best holiday I could have asked for.”

You felt a warmth spread through you, a sensation both exhilarating and terrifying. “Me too,” you admitted, your heart pounding. “I didn’t expect to meet someone like you here.”

“Someone like me?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Someone who makes me feel… alive,” you confessed, feeling vulnerable yet exhilarated.

He smiled, his expression softening. “You deserve to feel that way. We all do.”

The days flew by in a blur of joy, laughter, and unexpected romance. Each moment with Joseph felt like a step toward a brighter future, away from the shadows of your past. You realized that this trip had been more than just an escape—it was a chance to rediscover yourself.

As your time in Toronto came to an end, you stood on the balcony of your hotel room, looking out over the city. Joseph joined you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “What now?” he asked, his voice a gentle rumble.

You turned to face him, your heart full. “I think I want to see where this goes. No more running away. Just… embracing what’s in front of me.”

Joseph’s smile lit up the night. “Me too. Let’s take this adventure together.”

With a shared kiss under the shimmering city lights, you felt a wave of hope wash over you. Toronto had been your escape, but it had also become the beginning of something beautiful—a new chapter in your life, filled with love, laughter, and the promise of endless possibilities.

Back home, life resumed, but you carried the warmth of Toronto with you. You’d changed, and so had your outlook. You no longer felt bound by your past, and you embraced your job with renewed vigor. As you navigated your day-to-day life, the memory of Joseph remained—a sweet reminder that sometimes, taking a leap of faith could lead to extraordinary things.

And every now and then, you’d receive a text from Joseph, reminding you that love could blossom in the most unexpected places. You smiled, knowing that your holiday escape had become so much more than a fleeting moment—it had transformed your life.

[peekychu]

hi, ive loved your art forever, finally working up the courage to send an ask ahshdjfjf

when i was a kid i was really attached to the pokemon anime and i remember that one episode about the charmander being left all alone in the rain, and then being saved by ash and given a chance to recover, i remember projecting so hard onto it and wanting to be given that chance as well, to have someone save me like that. anyways, your art has always made me Feel Things, theres a very sentimental quality to your art and the way you design characters. i connect a lot with your sadder stuff as well. youre very good at storytelling in your work, especially that piece with ray about wanting to return to the places in your childhood but not ever experiencing them the same way. man, you hit that feeling right on the head.

anyways, where was i going with this. i struggle a lot with trying to reclaim some parts of my childhood, it took me a lot to even remember that i projected so much onto that charmander. but seeing a pikachu be so.. i dont know, happy about connecting with pokemon so much, it just, it means a lot to me. i used my imagination as escapism and id like to try and reconnect with it. i am using your art as a guide and as inspiration.. i feel like i can get close to that again.

i hope animal friends brings you joy and i will be so happy if you choose to share any of it. and im sorry about your job, ive been in that exact situation, stay strong

sincerely, one online animal beast to another <3

Oh my GOD, this ask is so touching idek where to start answering 😭😭😭 Wow, thank you!!!

Instant follow btw, ur drawings are so dynamic and sensory, and HOLY moly your anatomy skills 🤯 I’m super honored!!!

I honestly forget ppl ever see my more sad/melancholy drawings, I wasn’t expecting it to affect me so hard hearing someone mention it xD Drawing is one of the few vessels I can properly channel my emotions with, and there’s a lot more raw stuff I don’t share online. I never know if the catharsis I feel drawing the Heavier stuff translates, because I still center those drawings around silly animals xD

I’m so happy you were able to rediscover your connection with Ash’s charmander!! That episode always made me emotional too 💔 I can’t say where my lifelong fixation on Pikachu really began, but my mom told me that even before I engaged with anything pkmn related, I was just immediately enamored by seeing it at a store or on TV xD

Eventually she took me to see Pokémon 4ever in theaters, and I vaguely remember being instantly ENCHANTED by the little short movie before the actual film began. Those animated shorts of Pikachu with all its friends, no humans attached, were always this ultimate comfort fantasy for me to watch xD

As my identity and personality fluctuates, I always find it comforting being grounded in my connection to Pikachu. The episode where it refused to evolve stuck with me on a deep level too haha.

ANYWAYS UHH I can’t thank you enough for your kind words!!!! I am holding ur paw, you stay strong too!

[jesus-is-hope]

At 15, heard of Eric and Dylan and Columbine, and understood how they could have done it.

At 19, rediscovered Eric and Dylan and Columbine through Marilyn Manson. Quickly got into their journals and Jeff-Co's Files.

I began to research other school shooters, becoming obsessed with Kip Kinkel, which led me to writing in-depth fantasies of joining Kip, and Eric and Dylan, in their shootings.

At some stage, spurred on after discovering the Natural Born Killers movie, fantasy crossed over to reality: I dreamed of finding the right guy so that we could do our own shooting. I poured out all my thoughts and emotions into writing.

I actually, unknowingly, came close - on MySpace I befriended Pekka Eric Auvinen, who in 2007 went on to do his own shooting. We spoke about our interests in guns/shootings but never that we each wanted to go through with it.

I also began correspondence with Kip Kinkel, who was my favourite shooter and my biggest crush.

My obsession and dream went on until age 30, when I started thinking about repenting/coming to Christ, Knowing I was going to have to let go of all my shooting obsession and dreams and everything that went along with it.

But I choose to repent, and Jesus immediately, miraculously, healed me of every obsession and dream to do with shootings and shooters. He took away my hatred and homicidal thoughts of people.

I deleted everything related off my computer, threw away all my writings, documents, photos, even all my correspondence with Kip.

The point of me writing this is that I want anyone thinking of doing a shooting, to NOT do so. To know that change is possible, you need only accept Jesus.

Some will be miraculously healed like me, others will need to work through things with Jesus in healing and deliverance prayers and Christian counselling.

Every time I see a shooting, like yesterday with Maine, I'm reminded that it was worth coming to Jesus and be freed of the darkness filled me,

And also how much I want to help people know that change in Christ IS possible.

[darth-maya]

The song of the day is

LORNA SHORE - Pain Remains Trilogy

Trigger warning for the music video: self harm and suicide

Its not necessary to watch the video to understand the songs, it just adds some extra context to the story. The songs themselves don't get as explicit as the video does.

Ya'll asked for the wall of text, so here it is. Before I dive into these 3 songs on their own I first will give you the context of the album that this trilogy is the final act of.

Once we get to the trilogy, though, the music videos are very good but very heavy topic wise. If you're really interested, I would recommend pulling the lyrics up as well as catching everything he says is damn near impossible.

"Pain Remains," an album by Lorna Shore, tells the story of a character who has experienced a great loss in his life and uses the ability to lucid dream to escape from the pain the real world has caused him.

Throughout the album, he hones his abilities to become the God of this dream state world he has created. With his new abilities, he even gets to the point of creating life in their own image. He creates man from his own memories, yet this still does not fulfill the void in his chest. After everything they have accomplished, they still aren't happy. If this could not provide fulfillment for them, then what's the point.

The world becomes an inescapable purgatory for them. After wandering and looking at all they have created, they become full of rage and want to see the world they've created burn. If it could not fill the void in their heart after all of the work they put into it, then why should it exist. He then has a glimpse of hope. Some sort of light begins to guide him to what he hopes is his escape.

They do not explicitly say what this light is, but based on these lines and the title of the first part of the trilogy "Pain Remains I: Dancing like flames" I assume what he saw was the face of his love that he lost before the album began. He saw the light of his love dancing like flames ahead of him, leading him out from this purgatory of his own creation.

Now, this is where the trilogy begins with the first part

Dancing like Flames

This opening line is both about the dream world he has created, and his love he rediscovered while in it. Both of those things captivated him. The dream world became his escape from the loss of his love, but seeing her again will be his escape from the dream world. Both meant so much to him in his life that turning his back to either seems impossible now.

Although that slowly changes as he begins to focus on seeing her again in the dream world and reflects on the time they spent together alive.

At this point he immediately falls for them again, only to realize it is only a creation in his dream world. He can see them, but they are no longer real. This is just a creation based on memories of this love he once had. They know exactly how to get to his heart, but he knows its just a game.

A lot of this song is detailing his love with this woman, and how quickly and surprising it was to him. They had the perfect love story, only for it all to be taken away in the blink of an eye. What I love is its as if he is talking about his past love as well as the dream world at the same time. Both are things he dedicated a lot of his life and love to, which now feels pointless to him. His love, because she was taken from him far too soon, and the dream world, because it could not fill the void that she left.

At this moment he is coming to terms with the fact that he is lost, and has lost the last bit of hope he had about ever being found. The dream world he has created is pointless to him now. He has lost any purpose he had being here, but he knows returning to the real world may be even worse. Those lines lead directly into the final closing moments of the song where he says.

The love he once had is gone. In its wake it has left him a shell of his former self. If he alive anymore? Does it really matter at this point? If the world that he carefully designed to be in his own image could not fill the void left behind by this woman, than what possibly could? He feels caught between 2 options, but doesn't want to choose either of them.

This song directly leads into the second part

After all I've Done, I'll disappear

This is when it starts getting really heavy, especially in the music videos. He has truly given up all hope.

In this world he was using to escape, he now see's piece of his former life spread throughout it. In his attempts to escape from his pain, he engulfed himself in it. His own personal purgatory which he desires nothing more than to escape from.

He now knows this has to end. He must escape and put an end to this world.

There is only one way to escape though. He is going to burn his world down, and disappear.

Which is where we'll lead into the final part,

In a sea of Fire

After this songs lengthy string intro, they dive into what might be the heaviest song on the album. Will Ramos (the lyricist) said this about this song

Which is a very evident theme in this song as he begins by tearing this world apart in his lyrics. Describing it as a "ceaseless existence" and later on as "an echo, a murmur, a broken melody"

Leading directly into the chorus, which to be a little less formal here, is some of the most metal shit I've ever heard in my life that I shamelessly will be stealing for villain monologues in my dnd campaign.

There is only one route for him now. This world must be destroyed, and he is going to do it himself. Every bit of rage and emotion he spent all this time fleeing from is now all rushing out of him at once.

If even in his attempts to escape he has cocooned himself in the pain he was running from, whats the point? The world is a complete lie, built upon memories of a world he long has deserted. One he would rather die than have to return to. He will throw himself into the fire, and burn away.

One key detail is in an album absolutely full of breakdowns, these 3 songs only have the one, which happens towards the end of this song. Leading up to it he says

He realizes this world was not helping him. It was only masking the pain. But he now realizes that no matter what he does, he can't escape that pain. The only solution now is to burn down his world, and end his own life along with it.

The final climax of this song is them replaying the chorus one last time, it being the biggest and most cinematic moment, as the song immediately fades away to have a bit of a synth moment, only to build back up and leave us with the final note of this trilogy, and the album as a whole.

I have already made a long winded post about this portion, so a lot of what I say is going to be me repeating myself, but this truly is one of my favorite moments in music across any genre.

This is literally the epilogue of the album, where he then lays his soliloquy.

which is almost explicitly the titles of the 3 parts of this trilogy. As Will himself said, this song is a very bittersweet tragedy of an ending to a devastating album.

The narrator spends the entire album creating a world in an attempt to escape from the void that the lose of the love of his life left him with. No matter how much he accomplishes, it all must come to an end. After all that he has done to escape it

The Pain Remains

[xylaes]

Xylaes stared up at the ceiling, exhaling an exasperated sigh as he rubbed at the slight lump now forming on his forehead. An annoyed expression was fixed on his features as he clenched his jaw in an attempt to shrug off the sudden pain.

“Come on, let’s keep going.” Pollux bounced on the balls of his feet, training daggers in hand as he gestured for his friend to get up and keep trying.

“It’s no fucking use…” Xylaes flung both hands upwards before letting them flop back down beside him. “I have no idea how to control it. I have no idea exactly what -it- even is yet since it mostly seems to happen when I’m under extreme pressure.” 

Ever since the limb replantation from the House of the Chosen in Maldraxxus, Xylaes had rediscovered some of his magic. Or the arm’s magic, he wasn’t quite certain how that worked just yet. Even after six years he didn’t feel like he was any closer to finding his answers. He had been stripped of all his arcane magic prior to entering prison as a part of his sentence decades ago, and while this replanted arm seemed to have brought some magic back to him, he had no idea how to control it nor how to even summon it at all.

It was mostly random, but he did know that anytime his life seemed to be in immediate danger he was able to access that new, but also old magic. Unfortunately, recreating those types of situations while just sparring was impossible. Pollux had done his best to try to gain the element of surprise on him, attempting to provoke some kind of reaction, but it still had yet to work.

The only thing it was accomplishing now was in pissing him off. “I’m done with this.” Xylaes stood up and began to stalk away when suddenly Pollux was below him, swiping a leg around to knock him off his feet. With a *thump* and a soft grunt, Xylaes found himself on the ground yet again. “Fucking stop it! I said I’m done with this today!” He could feel the anger flaring up inside of him as he rolled onto his feet and stared down the other man.

Pollux once again disappeared from sight with a shrug. Xylaes’s nostrils flared as eyes darted around, attempting to sense his friend who was no doubt about to attack him from the shadows again despite his objections. A sharp jab between his shoulder blades spun him around only to be met with emptiness and the overwhelming urge to punch Pollux in his stupid, pretty face when they actually did take a break. A kick to the back of his knee caused him to drop to his other knee with a pained grunt before being forcefully knocked onto his side once more. Fucking rogues. 

He rolled away from the last strike up onto his feet once more, holding up his left hand at the ready in case some kind of magic decided it wanted to make itself known to him. Pollux appeared for a split second a handful of yards away and tossed one of those training daggers right at Xy’s face. He couldn’t call upon any magic, but he did manage to slap the weapon away mid-air; at least his reaction time was still decent. A thought made too soon when a sudden jab thunked against his lower back, spinning him around once again.

No longer just frustrated at this point, Xylaes was pissed off. Mostly at himself because he could not figure out how to make this blasted arm, nor any part of himself for that matter, produce any kind of magic on cue or even by accident. It had been nothing but disappointment day after day of sparring, practicing, focusing, meditating, or anything that might help him. So much work with zero results would get to anyone after a while, and today was that day for him. Pollux certainly wasn’t helping.

He abruptly found himself knocked onto his ass once more, and in a moment of pure, simmering rage he bellowed out a loud, “FUCK OFF!”, as he shot his left arm out before him.

Pollux was suddenly knocked from the shadows, staggering a few steps before finding his footing. There was a moment of confusion on his face before he clutched at the sides of his head and dropped to his knees, eyes watering, blood trickling from his nose, and clearly in pain as he gasped out, “Stop….Stop it…STOP!!”

That oddly alluring rage was quick to fade and so was Pollux’s invisible assault. Both men stared at each other across the training grounds, in a little bit of lingering pain, but mostly in confusion. Pollux was the first to move, getting to his feet as he wiped the blood from his face, and moving over to Xylaes to offer a hand up. He didn’t take it just yet, still attempting to wrap his mind around whatever had just happened. 

That certainly was not his magic, but it was his doing…right? Pollux retracted his hand and sighed, flopping down next to Xylaes on the ground. “I think…” He paused, attempting to collect his thoughts. He had felt that pain before, he knew exactly what that was. “I think we need to consider that perhaps that arm has given you access to…other types of magic.”

@polluxhale

[simslegacy5083]

NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 9 Ep 57: Winterfest Moments

The Story of a Family

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The revival of his relationship with Noemi loomed large on Luigi’s heart and mind, but when Winterfest rolled around, he was excited to show all the special Sims in his life just how much they meant to him.

He started with his smallest friend – his beloved feline companion. That morning Luigi began the day by giving Chubbs an extended leisurely playtime chasing around their favorite laser toy. The deep purr rumbling from his cat’s chest told him that his gift had been appreciated!

The next friend he ran into was Bonnie, who was just getting ready to head out to her first class of the day. Knowing she planned to find a place with Leroy after she graduated that semester Luigi had bought her a collection of spring seeds to start her own little garden. She loved it, promising to invite him over to sample the fruits of her labor as soon as she had something to show for it.

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Next Luigi headed outside to put his gifts to his cousins in the mailbox and was excited to find a package from Great-Grandpa Candor waiting for him!

He took it back up to his room, opening it to reveal a framed poster with an inspirational quote about working hard. Luigi immediately found a space for it on the wall and texted his grandfather a thank you before spinning into his winter clothes and heading off to campus.

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He found Noemi in The Commons, working in one of her club’s upstairs labs on parts for the upcoming util-bot contest.

When she unboxed that season’s bestselling romance novel and a few not safe for school “toys”, she knew that not telling him about her pregnancy scare had been the right call. The test had been negative, so really there was nothing to say. Besides, she’d gone too long without his joyful adventurousness in the bedroom, and she didn’t want to spook him with worries about premature parenthood.

Noemi laughed when he said he’d bought two copies of the book, and suggested they could start a “book club”. Snuggling up close she told him seriously that she’d like that very much. She had a small box of protection wrapped up all pretty under the tree at her place for him and was really looking forward to rediscovering that aspect of their relationship.

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During the long break between his last class and practice Luigi headed back home to Brindleton Bay. As was tradition for them, Peachy was whipping up a hearty grand breakfast for their Winterfest dinner. Luigi happily pitched in to make some special holiday cocktails.

Even with a rare misstep by the gourmet chef resulting in the need for a few more eggs and a change of clothes they finished with plenty of time to catch up before Scott and his girlfriend Bria arrived to join them. Luigi found it much easier to celebrate with the couple now that he had his own girl.

He didn’t mention Noemi to his family since they hadn’t yet talked about “going public”, but he was sure he’d be able to do so soon.

---------------------------------------------

After dinner a chagrined Peachy asked his boy for a little “IT help”.

He’d never been the most tech savvy sim and elderhood had only made it harder to remember “all those darn passwords”.

Luigi laughed, replying that it was the least he could do as repayment for “all those amazing meals.”, dutifully sitting down at the rec room computer to straighten everything out for his father before they joined everyone in the living room to exchange presents.

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Before Luigi headed back to school and Scott went off to see Bria’s folks, Peachy and Valentina pulled their respective boys aside.

They’d already secured Aubrie and Kian’s agreement to be flower pal and ring bearer respectively at their wedding in Tartosa, scheduled after the New Year, and they hoped Luigi and Scott would stand up as their Sims of Honor.

Both boys were happy to agree, glad that their parents had worked out the “family issues” and finally been able to set a date. It had been a wonderful Winterfest so far and Luigi still had one final bit of holiday cheer to spread that evening at practice.

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View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[ryttu3k]

Noodling around with a new Durge. Tentative name: Etavel, high elf bard (and eventually Cleric of Corellon). Flighty, dramatic, a lover of art, music, magic, and beauty, Etavel is a pretty archetypal Corellite - something that makes them spectacularly unsuited for being Bhaal's Chosen and heir.

(CW for… Durge and Bhaalspawn-typical stuff, really.)

Turns out using a lost elven Bhaalspawn soul, originally conceived in the original plot prior to the Time of Troubles, in crafting his new child may have been a mistake. Bhaal had intended to shape this soul into a weapon - instead, the Bhaalspawn this soul had once been had died in childhood before even reaching their First Reflection, returned to Arvandor, and become quite attached to Corellon's teachings; when they found themself ripped back to the Material Plane, something of that remained, some inherent elvishness that not even their Bhaalist blood could overwhelm. Etavel was born in 1439, possessing the Blessing of Corellon, and raised by Baldurian elves in a tradition of music and magic.

They were ten years old when they killed their foster parents, immediately taken in by Sceleritas Fel, the cult beginning the process of indoctrinating the young elf as their new leader. Etavel tried to resist, they really did. They loved beautiful things, and the Undercity was not beautiful, it was ugly and scary and cruel. Still, they were only a child, and easily overpowered physically and mentally by their domineering older half-brother Sarevok - over time, Etavel broke down, reluctantly embracing their destiny along with Sarevok and their niece Helena, Sarevok's daughter, put on a strict program of education and brainwashing, teaching them combat, Bhaalist culture, and a great deal of regular violence.

While they still rebelled on occasion (once, as a youth in 1460, they even managed to run all the way to Evereska, intending to escape into the Feywild!), these attempts grew less frequent as the cult slowly broke their spirit, and while they still loved art, music, magic, and beauty, their view on such began taking on a distinctly more Bhaalist tinge. By the 1470s, they were a seasoned killer; in 1477, they went on a killing spree that became legendary amongst the cult, and when Bhaal officially returned five years later in 1482, following the deaths of Abdel Adrien and Viekung, Etavel was officially named Bhaal's Chosen (much to the dismay of Sarevok and his grand/daughter Orin, his child with Helena, who Orin had slain in 1471 when she was seven years old).

By 1490, they were… tired. Tired of the Bhaalist cult, tired of being seen only as a tool of their father. Tired of the Dark Urge that often stripped them entirely of agency and control. They began working with Enver Gortash, falling desperately in love, or at least infatuation; while they still had loyalty to Bhaal and the full intention of eventually carrying out his plans, they began wondering if, perhaps, there could be another path for them.

Whether the Absolute plot would have saved them, however, they would never find out. The day before Midsummer, Flamerule 30 1492, Orin attacked them and handed them over to the tender ministrations of the Myrkulite Kressa Bonedaughter. They would remain in her custody for nearly two tendays before being loaded onto the Nautiloid; on Eleasis 20, their new life would begin.

Etavel is still young, for an elf - only 53 years old, while an adult by Baldurian standards, they have yet to pass many elven milestones, like the Drawing of the Veil. Their trance is filled with memories of their past lives and nightmarish glimpses of their current one, mostly stripped of context. Still, their waking hours are an unexpected gift, despite the violent urges they still feel. Now, they can celebrate art, music, magic, and beauty - and a more innocent, joyeous form of them, like they had enjoyed in their youth before the cult and before the Urge. They've rediscovered Corellon Larethian, and have reached out to them in an attempt to find some guiding star in their own life; there is a future to be had there, if only they can rid themself of the Urge once and for all.

[wafflebloggies]

aftershocks

[a small DTFM thing, set after my fic, in the light of recent events]

Although the world had ended, it had done so very quietly, and most people hadn’t noticed yet.

Mark, half asleep, did not act like someone who knew the world had ended. He padded out of the hotel bedroom and across the small kitchenette, touching things with an unready hand like anybody might in an unfamiliar space, squinting through his glasses, not at all as if the world had ended. He fumbled in a cabinet for a glass, got himself some water, drank some on his way back through the room, saw the enormous splash of black across the tile and carpet and wall and stopped in his tracks, not as if the world had ended but as if it had suddenly become more interesting; albeit not in a good way.

“What?” he said to himself, and then, louder, “Antonio?”

He backed up a bit, staring at the big splatter of black sludge as if it might leap at him.

“An-”

He had not yet seen Antonio, evidently, because when the voice came creeping from the shadow under the table he started like someone had dumped ice down his back.

“She’s dead, Mark.”

“Jesus Christ, Antonio-” The water in Mark’s glass jumped in little spangles as he spoke. He glanced at it, put it down on the counter. “Who’s dead? What’s this- stuff? What hap-”

“It’s okay,” said Antonio’s voice, from under the table. It seemed to climb unwillingly from the very middle of the shadow, the darkest part, as if there was nothing really under there and the table was just originating the voice on its own. Terrible casting, if that were the case, a very flat hard-edged uncompromising motel table speaking with the soft, shaky, faraway voice of someone trembling right at their wits’ end, peeking into the beyond.

Mark waited for a while, on the assumption that there was going to be something else. The black gloop on the wall continued to slide downwards, slowly, in long unpleasant bulges, like congealing treacle. Distantly, he heard the lift doors out in the hallway chime, rumble open, rumble shut.

“Do you want to… elaborate, on that?” he said, at last.

“I don’t think that’d be a very good idea,” said the table.

Mark blinked a few times. The table itself felt distinctly off-limits, so he pulled himself up onto the small countertop next to the aggravatingly tiny sink and perched, bare heels resting against the glossy white cupboards, feeling for the glass at his side and pulling it towards him as he looked at the table and the horrible splat. He took careful stock of himself and decided that he was probably about as awake as anyone could be expected to be at two AM. He had been sleeping better, lately. One of the things he had found himself slowly rediscovering was the feeling of waking up feeling a little sleepy, instead of terribly, buzzingly, immediately awake.

“I’m picking up some bad vibes,” he said. It felt like something Antonio might say, and he thought it might get a reaction.

The table didn’t say anything. Mark lifted his eyebrows, as if soliciting an explanation from the silent room at large, and drank some more water.

“Okay… do I need to go get you something from the pharmacy? Is there anything that’d help?” He eyed the black splat. “Pepto, or-”

“You don’t need to go to the hospital today, Mark,” said the table, reasonably.

Mark stopped. The splat, the weird silence, this bizarre behaviour, of course it was all more than enough to put him on edge, but it was only now that a slow, icy, crawly feeling began to work itself up his spine. Without thinking, he reached for his phone, and realised he’d left it in the bedroom.

“What? No, I said a pharmacy- Antonio, what’s going on? Who’s dead?”

There was a long silence. Just as Mark was convinced there wasn’t going to be any sort of response at all, he heard a slight shifting sound from under the table, a soft click, and the TV turned itself on. Mark turned his head sharply, but the sight of the screen, the scrolling legend, the cold black-white-gray twisted devastation, arrested him before he could make a noise.

For a while. He sat there and watched for a while, a cold statue with one hand stopped in the act of questing across the counter and his heels resting against the cupboard doors, bathed in the cold light from the TV as the drone pictures roamed across the sharp skeletal wreckage, the slow cycling parade of shots. When he finally managed to speak, his voice was a jarring thing, hard and practical and too harsh in the silent room.

“It- could be fake. We have to go-” He stopped himself. “No, no, bad idea. Shit. Uh- okay, I’ll check Twitter, if it’s real everyone’s going to be talking about it. I’ll check, you look for videos.” He was moving, now, sliding from the counter, giving the ghastly splat a wide berth as he headed for the bedroom. “If it’s fake there can’t be any-”

“I said, you don’t need to go to the hospital today,” said the voice under the table. Light and reasonable, shorn short of life and any emotion other than a playful sort of discursion, shallow as a sheet of foil, as if there was no topic in the world that mattered but one. Mark knew this tone in this voice so well it made him sick, but the shake in it and the horror threading through from underneath was another thing altogether, new, awful, real. Mark slowed, stopped moving, the bad feeling in his spine gnawing higher, colder, as the voice went on.

“I said, we have to film a video today, I said, did you forget? I said-”

“Stop it.”

“-you’re so silly, Mark, you’d forget your head if I wasn’t here to tell you, I said, you don’t need to go to the hospital, we’re going to film today, I said-”

“-stop-”

“I said it’s not like she knows you’re there, does she even know who you are anymore when you go anyway she doesn’t does she I said you don’t need to go to the hospital today you need to film I said-”

“STOP IT!” Mark yelled, slamming a hand into the tabletop, striking the head of one of the flimsy fake-wood chairs so that it skittered backwards across the floor and toppled. Under the clatter, the soft voice fell silent.

Mark stood, one hand on the table, the smart of it pulsing through his skin, up his arm. He stood there with his head down for a while, as the circling images of bent rebar and filthy black smoke soaked the room in dizzy white light.

“You felt- it- die, didn’t you?”

Silence.

“Your… mother.”

He curled his stinging hand and stepped back, feeling with hot shaking fingers across the underside lip of the big TV. He turned it off, stood for a little while looking into the blank black screen, the pale smoky reflection of his own face in the dead-shine of the surface. He felt, then saw, the hard angry smile start there, threaten to break into a terrible vengeful grin. He pressed it back under, fought his face still.

“Is this how it felt?” whispered the table. “Everything was okay and then, and then everything turned upside-down and now it’s like half of me isn’t there anymore, I’m half-empty inside and I, I can’t stand it, Mark. It- it hurts. Is this what we… is this what we did? Is this what I did to you?”

Mark was not an unkind person. This was a truth about himself that he had yet to accept, a truth that he spent quite a lot of effort, one way or another, avoiding at all costs. What he did know, was that the crucible of rage in his chest was not something he could trust. That the times when it flared brightest, pushed him hardest into action, were the exact times when it was the most important for him not to act.

Mother is dead.

Mark could think the words, but he couldn’t feel through what they did to him. The impulse that made him want to yell, shriek, the furious jubilant energy that wanted to claw out of him in a running-into-battle screech, and the hot unexpected barb of jealousy, that someone else had taken the victory for themselves- even when he knew he hadn’t had a chance in hell of being the one, of ever finding out how. The struggle between these feelings and his guilty relief that he hadn’t been forced to take on that fight, to somehow brave that unknowable horror that had birthed his and all of the others. He could not weigh one thought or feeling over the other, or get them all to sit still. He could only suppress, keep even on the outside. He could do that. He could always do that.

And over and above it all was the thought that this would all mean nothing, if not for his mine canary, his peculiar strip of litmus, the thing currently making no noise at all in the dark recess under the table. The thing that knew, when he couldn’t. Without Antonio here, he would have seen the footage and he would have felt nothing but a terrible uncertainty, knowing that they could make a news story, make it real, get it seen, as easily as breathing. If they breathed. That they lied, that all they knew how to do was lie. Mark felt he might have gone out of his mind, trying to prove it one way or the other. He might have done anything stupid or reckless. Because...

Because there was the thing deep underneath, the blank dead something that he couldn’t touch. To even reach for that would be to break the vital fragile thing that he needed, needed to function at all in the way he had been, the something-like-stability he had been building, carefully, for the last few months. He felt the inevitability of it, but he couldn’t do it. Not now.

He could only try, to snap Antonio out of it. He had nothing to work with, except his voice, their shared experiences, the pain and the progress. He could only try.

Mark turned, made himself look, made himself engage, finding as he did so that the aversion- the immediate hard chilly feeling that jolted in his chest and stirred up memories of awful days, terrible, miserable things- it really had faded, become so much less. Maybe with time, healing, or maybe just with knowing how important it was in this moment, that he felt his way through this without anger. Without anger, and most importantly, with the kindness and the clear thought that his friend- yes, his friend- deserved.

He made himself pick his way around the mess and take the chair and set it carefully upright. He sat down, working his hands against the arm of the chair, tensing his thin fingers and letting them slacken one by one. When his right hand felt steady and okay, he reached out and put it on the tabletop.

“Antonio?”

The silence was thin and cold and it crawled. Mark waited, and at last, a voice that sounded a lot more like Antonio’s own again made its way out of the shadow, very wobbly, very low.

“Please don’t…” A breath. “Please don’t hate me, Mark.”

Mark took a deep breath. “You know I don’t. C’mon, whatever this means, we’re going to figure it out.”

The pause this time felt like it took a year, but at long last, there was movement. Antonio’s hand came creeping over the edge of the tabletop like something out of a horror movie, slow and shaky and splattered with black goop. Mark swallowed, but he hadn’t steeled himself for nothing, and honestly he was more relieved than anything else that it wasn’t worse. It had occurred to him that maybe when something like Antonio went to pieces, it might not be a metaphor.

He reached out for Antonio’s hand and covered it with his own, hoping to hell this wouldn’t end in shattered bones. He was relieved when the hand only curled around his, threading his fingers, frantic, shivering, gentle. He breathed out, slowly, held on.

“It’s going to be okay.”

[monsterkong]

Rediscovering the Power of Old Negatives and New Techniques

🎞️ Nostalgia has a way of sneaking up on you, doesn’t it? It’s in those quiet moments, when you’re sifting through old boxes or stumbling upon a forgotten photo, that you’re transported back to another time. For me, that time was the early 2000s, when I first picked up a camera with the intention of making photography my life’s work. Little did I know, the journey would lead to the creation of a technique that would forever change the way people look in photos: the squinch.

🔥 The Spark of a New Idea

The squinch wasn’t born out of a desire to revolutionize photography. It was simply a solution to a problem I noticed early on in my career. As a former model, I knew the "wide-eyed look" was far from ideal. It lacked the depth and confidence that could elevate a photograph from good to great. So, in my New York studio, I began telling my clients to squint—just a bit—to bring out that inner confidence. But it wasn’t quite right. The word "squint" didn’t capture what I was trying to convey, and often, my clients would overdo it.

Then one day, in 2012, my daughter, who was just nine at the time, came up with a word that changed everything. "Squinch," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. And in a way, it was. A squinch wasn’t a squint; it was a gentle narrowing of the lower eyelids, creating a look that was both thoughtful and confident. It was exactly what I had been trying to achieve, and it resonated immediately.

🌟 From a Studio Term to a Global Trend

The squinch quickly became a staple in my photography sessions, and it wasn’t long before the technique started to gain attention. I made a video explaining the concept, and to my surprise, it went viral. Suddenly, the squinch was everywhere.

One of the most memorable moments of this journey was when Good Morning America contacted me for a feature. The correspondent they sent was Sarah Haynes, a client whose headshot I had taken years earlier. It felt like a full-circle moment, one that solidified the squinch as more than just a quirky term—it was now a recognized technique in the world of photography.

As the squinch gained popularity, my career soared to new heights. I opened studios in both New York and LA, and my work started to gain international recognition. The squinch had become more than just a look; it was a movement, one that changed the way people approached headshot photography.

🌈 The Magic of Old Negatives

But despite all the success, some of my favorite moments come from revisiting the past. Recently, I discovered an old negative of a photo I took with my wife in our first apartment. The apartment was small, with a beautiful southern-facing window that provided the perfect light for shooting. I processed the black and white film myself, a practice I had perfected in a darkroom I set up in my mom’s basement in New Jersey.

Finding that negative was like opening a time capsule. It took me back to those early days, when photography was still a new and exciting venture for me. Back then, I spent countless hours experimenting with light, composition, and expressions—always searching for that perfect shot. Little did I know that one day, a simple word from my daughter would lead to a technique that would define my career.

Rediscovering these old negatives reminded me of why I fell in love with photography in the first place. It’s not just about the final image; it’s about the journey, the experimentation, and the joy of creating something unique. The squinch may have brought me global recognition, but it’s the memories and the passion behind each photograph that truly make it special.

As I continue to explore new techniques and revisit old ones, I’m reminded that photography is an ever-evolving art form. There’s always something new to learn, and always a reason to look back and appreciate the journey that brought you to where you are today.

[ladamedusoif]

Chimes at Midnight, or an EoY Ramble.

(divider by @saradika - thank you so much for your incredible work)

Who can cling to a ramblin’ Rose?

Good question. But cling to me for a few moments, as I ramble my way through an end of year post - of sorts. Personal shenans ahead.

I have no great wisdom to impart. No life lessons, no affirmations, just reflections and observations after a year where my entry into this fandom brought me much joy, kindness, love, and strength - and, unfortunately, some upset, hurt, and pain, too. 

But then, such is life, and while many of us use this space as an escape, the dynamics of just being human can’t help but filter through here, too.

I (and my 120k and counting words of fic - correction, my “ethical porn for nerdy types”) am here because of an alignment of events in early 2023. Here is my origin story:

I was stopped in my tracks one day by a friend’s Instagram story - or, specifically, by the twinkly-eyed, crinkly-eyed, smiley handsome man being interviewed in the video they’d shared. And something fired in my brain (bear in mind, a reaction like that is highly unusual for me).

Around the same time, my divorce process began. After a day of crying in my office and/or on the street, my sister sent me a message with some advice: You need something distracting and comforting. Watch The Mandalorian. You’ll like it.

(This is all her fault.)

I can only blame traumatised soon-to-be-divorcée brain for the fact that I didn’t quite immediately put the twinkly-eyed handsome smiling man together with the tin can dad with a voice like melted chocolate and an adorable green child that reminded me of my toddler niblings. Whoops. 

(Sorry, P. Divorcée brain!)

Long story short: it clicked, eventually, and with a hop, skip and a jump from “hey there, handsome” to “I love him a normal amount” via SNL, I ended up here. 

People often compare Tumblr and fandoms to the purest form of childhood friendship. Oh, you have a Bluey backpack? I like Bluey too. Let’s be friends? And it’s a perfect analogy. It was a joy and a comfort to realise that, after a lifetime of feeling like I had to hide and be ashamed of the things and people who made me happy, there were other people just like me who didn’t feel shame, and who helped me realise this was…normal? And good? And, though this might seem like a contradiction in terms, healthy?

I rediscovered the pure joy of shared fangirling (gn). I read other people’s beautiful fics and, overcoming my fears and anxieties, rediscovered the person I’d been until I went to college and only wrote academically/professionally - the person who always made up little stories for herself, who tapped out “novels” on her mother’s 1970s portable typewriter, who never went anywhere without a copybook for writing and drawing her stories, who dreamed of being a writer. I started to write Visiting, and people actually read it. 

And through that, and reading their words and talking/flailing in their DMs, I connected with people who in some cases became close friends. People who seemed to like me for me, for the me I was re-learning how to be after an incredibly traumatic period in my life. And that meant - and means - the world. 

(Not all of those connections or friendships were sustained, and I still don’t really understand what happened to end them - in some cases, abruptly and without explanation. All I can do is remind myself that people need different things at different times, wish them well, and allow myself to miss them.)

Gratitude sometimes gets a bad rap as a practice but it can be freeing and healing. So, putting aside the hurt and negative experiences and focusing on the good:

I am grateful for the affirming, kind, supportive relationships I’ve built through a mutual love of one (1) man. 

I am grateful for the way my presence in this community, however marginal and irrelevant I might feel, is kept going through mutual support and silliness. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to rediscover writing as creative practice and fun, rather than just something I have to do in my line of work (and which is bound up with anxiety in that respect).

I am grateful for the people who take the time not just to read but to respond to, share, and love on my work. (You’re amazing and I love you all!)

I am grateful for the people who showed and show me love even though they’ve never met me in person, and in myriad ways. (These ways include personalised birthday poems and fancams, sending me a copy of Esquire out of sheer kindness and surprising me - and my neighbour, who took in the package - with a talking Dinjamin figure. You all know who you are.)

I am grateful to my friend for her thirsty Instagram story and to my sister for her unwittingly consequential TV recommendation. 

And some general observations and reflections about my presence, experiences, and work here that I want to carry forward into 2024:

Popularity is definitely not a marker of quality.

You are entitled to have opinions and share them, even if they don’t follow the prevailing wind. Arguably, especially then.

Your feelings are valid.

Trust your gut.

It’s okay to want people to read and interact with your work, and to wonder why it doesn’t get picked up, no matter how many ‘write for you!’ posts you see from the Big Writers.

Speaking of which: if there’s room for everyone and everything, then there should be room for everyone and everything. Not just the chosen few and a handful of tropes.

Responsibility is a two-way street.

You’re worthy of love, kindness, and respect.

The love you take is equal to the love you make - or, in other words, give love and be receptive to it, whether in affirming messages, positive comments, or a simple flailing, excited reblog. 

Carry your little light, however fragile, into the new year.

With love, Rose. (And my Ben, below - print by the incredibly talented Alyssa Gonzalez)

[gingersnappe-9]

In a Crowd of Thousands: Beskar vs. the Dark Saber (16)

Din Djarin/Mando X Fem!OC || Star Wars/The Mandalorian Universe

Series List || #star wars anastasia || PREVIOUS || NEXT

5.4 K words

Warning: canon violence (lethal weapons use), near death experience(s)

A/N: chapter banner art by @followwhereshegoes​ & myself

The plan was to announce her reunion to Leia and reaffirm their family’s legacy of fighting for the greater good of the galaxy. 

Ava tried convincing herself that it was for the best. No, that it was her rightful place to be by her sister’s side fighting the good fight with the Rebellion and serving as a diplomatic attache to underprivileged reaches of the galaxy. It’s what they talked about at least, but the more Ava experienced it, the stuffier she rediscovered it all was. She recalled how much she disliked wearing dresses that she could potentially trip over and fall on her face in front of some important foreign dignitary – she actually remembered doing that once when she was younger – She had forgotten how most of the individuals in law and diplomacy were decades older than her and never quite appreciated her humor. Ava accidently scandalized a maid when she dropped a book on her toe while practicing her walk – like he did back on the Crest – and swore like a spice runner. 

Try as she might, Ava was just having a far more difficult time fitting in to her birthright. She’d watch the maids flit around and coo about the fine jewelry and dresses she and Leia would be wearing to the event. She had to agree though, the gowns and finery were stunning. The material felt like starlight across Ava’s fingertips. The bright colored gemstones of her necklace were as red as sand stone. A pair of crowns, however, remained in their storage boxes. Leia suggested they hold off on donning their headdresses until they arrived at the venue. 

“They’re gorgeous but I’ve knocked mine off my head getting out of a cruiser or two.” The sisters shared a good laugh. Ava wasn’t sure what being a “someone” should feel like but only deep down in her subconscious did she consider that she really only needed simple things… perhaps a simple person. 

Sooner, rather than later, everyone was dressed and being ushered into sleek, black cruisers. Leia and her secretary or personal assistant immediately began chatting about her schedule and future events. They didn’t seem to need her attention so Ava allowed herself to gaze out the tinted windows and onto the passing by cityscape. The light had already begun to bleed from the sky as dusk settled over Canto Bight. The lights streaked by not unlike the stars at lightspeed, though they paled in comparison.

They arrived at the Starfield Legacy Center far earlier than even the ravenous reporters who were always far more interested in capturing the glitzy regalia or a moment of weakness between a supposedly madly in love couple. Ava and Leia calmly walked through a side entrance with grand capes covering their ensembles with ushers following closely on foot with the crowns, locked away in protective boxes. One of the event coordinators brought them up to a secluded room where they could freshen up and wait in privacy before the speeches and press rounds. Ava sat down quietly on a plush chair tucket into the corner. She fiddled with her opera length gloves to keep herself from messing up her hair or makeup or her dress. She watched as Leia moved through the motions with ease. How her sister handled unexpected questions with ease and firm command. Leia was a natural born leader and Ava adored watching her in her element. If Ava had been left to her own devices, she would’ve shown up with a smear of grease on her cheek, a pair of work coveralls all rumpled and disheveled only to say, “Hi, I’m her. So, yeah that’s it”. 

Lost in thought, Ava didn’t even notice that Leia had approached her with one of the large lock boxes balanced in her arms. She had already placed her silver crown neatly on her head. It resembled a solid halo that sat across the center of her head with five slender peaks jutting out. Alderaanian jewelry was rather simple, but in its simplicity they were always striking. The necklace – small squares of Alderaanian silver linked by delicate jump rings – was a piece that their mother wore often. The necklace must’ve been stored off-world at an embassy for it to have been saved from the destruction of Alderaan.  

“I believe it is time.” 

Ava stood up slowly as Leia rested the box on the nearby side table. When the cover was lifted, the light in the room seemed to shift to a golden hour. The halo-shaped crown was fitted to her scalp with a tapered point resting just below the center of her hairline. Teardrop shaped pearls rested across her forehead. The thin bands that reached out were like rays of the sun with even more pearls inlaid in between. Ava let herself adjust to the weight of it, glad that Leia suggested she hold off wearing it until necessary. There was music beginning to play from the hall, though muffled it signaled the evening was beginning. 

The two of them walked over to a large full-length mirror on the other side of the room. They looked very much like the sun and moon – Ava in her striking gold crown, cream colored dress with a deep green sash; and Leia in her midnight purple gown, silver jewelry, and similar sash made of a maroon satin – Their father used to call them his sun and moon. Leia placed a hand on each of Ava’s shoulders and allowed her cheek to rest on her sister. They stood there taking in the sight of one another. Taking in the other’s presence and the reality that against all odds they were together again. Family. 

Leia squeezed Ava’s shoulders and took a step back. “You look so much like her.” 

“Who?” Ava responded quietly. 

Leia only smiled. “Mama. You have her presence.” 

The younger of the two sisters smiled right back. “You remind me of Papa. You’re always so sure, and just as fair.” 

“You’ve done well, you know,” Leia spoke calmly, “I know none of this has been easy. But you’ve done really well with handling everything that’s come your way.” 

“The journey was interesting to say the least.” Ava quipped. 

The two of them stood silently together for a moment more. But only a moment before Leia took Ava’s hands and helped her slip her gloves on. For some reason, when she focused on the gloves, she thought of Mando and how his gloves slipped on and off his hands. 

Leia half smiled. “But I can't help but wonder if it’s what you really want.” 

Ava pulled her hands back while Leia regally collapsed hers together. “What does that mean?” 

“I just mean… You were born into this world. It was your destiny from birth to wear that crown and carry on the legacy of house Organa as much as it is mine to carry on the Organa and Skywalker legacy,” Her voice never waivered, never accusatory or disappointed, just very truthful, “But I can’t help but feel that it might not be meant for you after all.”

The pair of them stood in the room alone in silence for a moment after Leia finished. Ava had similar thoughts float into her mind but she’d always dismissed them as trivial since everything the Mandalorians had told her was a lie to get her sister’s money. “Whatever happened, happened. I can’t change it and I will not go back to it.” 

Leia gave her a look only older sisters could make. “He must have been special then for you to be digging your heels like a ton-ton.” 

After she had to throw back a lighthearted grimace at being called a ton-ton, Ava didn’t know what to feel. No, she knew exactly how she should feel. It was a lie for money. A cash grab. Nothing more, nothing less. Ava knew Leia could sense her feelings so there was no point delaying the obvious. 

“They did what bounty hunters do. They delivered their quarry and now they’re probably halfway to a new sector by now.” She said with more sorrow than intended. It hurt to put power into her fears. Out of the corner of Ava’s eye, she caught her sister with a somewhat hesitant look. “What?” Leia’s face shifted rather quickly to one with a soft, knowing smile. 

“Aurie, he didn’t take the money. And I can’t imagine their withholding information makes you feel better, but for what it’s worth, they brought you back to me. But this is the life that I have chosen for myself. I supposed, now, it’s your turn to choose.” 

Leia let go of Ava’s hands and began to walk towards the door and didn’t turn back to see if her sister was following until she opened the door. When Leia turned back, she truly looked like their mother. Though Ava knew the two weren’t blood related, it was in the way Leia carried herself. Her poise, the way she tilted her head and said, “Ava, Aurelia, it makes no difference to me. You are mine and Luke’s sister. We will always love you.” And then she calmly walked out into the world Ava was uncertain of reentering. 

It felt as if the world had spun off its axis and was floating farther and farther away from its sun. So Ava decided to go outside and take in some fresh air. 

The gardens were large and expansive – but most importantly empty – on a large earthen terrace that overlooked Canto Bight. From its vantage point, Ava could see the city cresting out towards the bay. The calm waters glittered in the early moonlight. Distant sounds of life were carried in on the wind. Below, each and every person walked their own path. Difficult ones. Easy ones. Some that were hard one day then a breeze the next. What path will I take now? She’d found her family. More than she was expecting, two whole siblings who expressed their unconditional love for her. What was next? 

What indeed?

A foreign voice echoed in her mind and all of a sudden Ava’s body stiffened. She turned around quickly and found the path empty. But something or someone was out there. A new energy swirled in the air. Ava felt like her nerves were on fire as her blood began to pound behind her temples. The energy, the presence, she’d felt it before crawling in the back of her mind. It was cold and filled with a quiet and dangerous rage. 

“I know you.” Her voice wavered as she spoke out into whatever darkness was drawing closer. 

A man appeared. The same stern face and severe eyes. His hands were placed behind his back as he walked with precise steps. In a word, elegant, or more accurately, predatory. His dark eyes stared her down, hungrier than his demeanor gave off.  

“Yes. We’ve met before. In a manner of speaking.” He continued to stalk forward. 

She put her hand out – as if the gesture would protect her – “Who are you?” 

“My name is Moff Gideon, your Highness.” He gave a short nod after her title. 

A chill ran through her spine. “You have me confused with someone else.” No sooner did Ava try to turn around, a powerful feeling wrapped around her mind giving her a splitting headache. It nearly made her drop to her knees. 

“Oh, I’m not confused at all. You are the lost daughter of Senator and Queen Organa,” His voice was cold and seemed to strike with a blunt edge with each word, “Though my plans need a little adjusting you’ll do just fine.” 

She turned around to face the man and slowly backed away with each step he took; but even so, she felt like she was being backed into a corner. “Stop.” 

He kept advancing with a ceaseless gaze. 

“Stop.”  

Her head hurt.

“Stop.” 

Everything seemed wrong and her hands twitched. 

“STOP!” 

Ava thrust both of her palms out towards him and felt a surge of energy release. It was like a pulse, her pulse, magnified outward. It was not unlike what she experienced at the opera with Mando. 

She opened her eyes, not even realizing she’d squeezed them shut. Ava saw Gideon down on one knee, huffing to try and bring air back into his lungs. Ava channeled whatever courage she could muster, and tried to remember Luke’s lessons. But it felt like her memory was failing. A few stints in force sensitivity training did not a Jedi make. 

In her mind she asked for help from the cosmic forces of the universe, the Maker, Luke… Mando… anyone. 

A terrible sound came from his throat. It was strained laughter, or at least some form of it. “Excellent. Most excellent.” Gideon pushed himself up with visible struggle but quickly regained his footing. He moved his cloak to the side and revealed a hilt clipped to his belt, took it in hand, “You do indeed have what I want, Princess” and ignited the blade. 

It was unlike anything Ava had ever seen. It mimicked the way Luke’s lightsaber emitted light, but it was dark. The blade was black with white edges. The energy surrounding the weapon was just as dark. Ava sensed how it wrapped around Moff Gideon’s mind and body, twisting and warping what was already malevolent to begin with. It was consuming him. Alarm bells screamed out in Ava’s mind. Run. 

She took off in an instant without direction or awareness. Ava gathered as much of the dress into her arms as she could, but the weight of the fabric still seemed to slow her down. It didn’t help that she’d lost sight of the building between the impossibly tall greenery. Ava figured her best bet would be to hide where he wouldn’t expect to look or would be least likely to find her. So Ava ducked into a nearby cluster of trees. 

The more she pushed her way through, however, the sleeves and hem of her dress caught and snagged on branches and twigs. It ripped the delicate overlay of her dress and muddied her heels. Finding they only got stuck in the dirt and undergrowth, Ava kicked them off and daringly threw them away in hopes it would possibly fool Gideon into going a different direction. 

It felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest. The more time she spent in suspense, the harder her blood pounded. The greater the ringing in her ears became as the sky grew darker and the shadows became more and more menacing. Her mind felt cloudy. She couldn’t hear anything or anyone. They must’ve been deeper into the garden than she’d realized. Despite her mental haze, Ava gently tried closing her eyes and reaching out to feel for presence. She’d barely touched the surface when something came screaming into her mind. It felt like claws digging into her nerves. Her skin became so cold so quickly it felt as if it were burning. And despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but scream out in agony. 

I found you. 

Before she even knew it, a deep reverb echoed in her mind alerting her not a moment too soon before a blade struck out just millimeters above her head. 

Ava scrambled to her feet and ran back out onto the path. Her body still cried out in pain, and her breach into energy opened like a flood gate. Gideon was still gaining on her. She reached out and felt the finely laid stone beneath her feet; she focused on the craggy surface and motioned with her hand as if she were clawing it out from the ground and flung it back with all her strength. A large chunk flew up and back at her pursuer. Ava heard rock crumbling, and when she looked back, saw the slab sliced in two. 

Impossible. 

“No, not impossible, my dear.”

Somehow the lunatic was in her head. He was the clawing in her mind, like a poison slowly creeping into her bloodstream. 

“Why are you doing this?” Her voice felt hoarse and her body was only growing weaker. 

“Why does anyone do anything? Power. Power is the way of the world. It always has been. It brings the greatest change and is the strength of the longest lasting empires. And with the dark saber and you, my goals for the galaxy are well within reach.” 

“You’re forgetting that most power-hungry madmen are spineless cowards who use others to get what they want.” Her voice was horse and growing strained. 

Gideon chuckled with a false humor. It was cruel and mocking. Ava could feel it pulsing behind her eyes and the pain brought her down to her knees as he skulked closer. 

“You’ve just never seen true power before. This,” He brandished the blade up towards her face. So close, Ava could feel the cold energy pulsing off it. “This is what power really is.” 

She’d never seen energy like it before. The blade both emitted light and yet somehow seemed void of it. As such close proximity, she felt it draining her energy even more. Only one sort of thing in the known universe drew in energy like that – a black hole. The dark saber was some sort of contained black hole. It had to have been. It appeared to be the antithesis of a lightsaber which projected the wielder’s energy. The dark saber fed off it. It pulled in the life force of its wielder, even those around it. 

“That thing is killing you.” Something flashed quickly across Gideon’s face. He wasn’t expecting her to say something like that, and Ava caught it. “But you didn’t know that, did you? How could you, you don’t know anything real about power you-” 

He quickly slashed the blade through the air and swiped Ava’s cheek. It burned. It was cold and yet burned hotter than anything she’d ever felt in her life. The pain rendered her speechless as she was knocked to the floor grasping her cheek. 

“I know more about this power than anyone else in the galaxy,” The tip of the blade hovered precariously close to her face, “Pity. You could’ve been something great. But you’re just like all the rest of those feckless fools in the Resistance. You’re just standing in my way.” 

Ava’s world suddenly came to a screeching halt. She’d heard those words before spoken in that very same voice. Out of nowhere she recalled crouching behind a hallway corner, then a hand falling to the floor. It had been her father’s hand. Ava could hear her mothers scream before her body hit the floor with a sickening, and lifeless thud. “It was you…” Her voice caught in her throat, “You killed them.” 

When Ava looked up at Moff Gideon his face was twisted into a mad grin. He relished in her horrifying realization. 

His eyes were wide and wild, “I’ll take what I need. But don’t worry, you’ll be with them soon enough.” Gideon raised the darksaber to dish out what could only be a mortally wounding blow. 

Please… 

A blaster shot rang out, as if from thin air, struck the flat side of the saber blade, ricocheting off into the ground. 

A feeling swept over Ava, it was good and young. Grogu. And where the tiny green creature found himself, another was never far behind. 

Ava turned her head in the direction of the shot and saw a familiar silhouette slip into the shadows. She sensed how he stalked through the dark and cover of the greenery ever closer. His watchful gaze never left hers. Ava could feel in her own muscles the way his pulled and strained against his bones. The strength in his hands as he gripped his blaster artfully. Teeming with energy and an overwhelming urge to seek and destroy. 

Without realizing, Gideon slashed down again.

Ava’s body reacted before she could even think. Her palm extended outward just as the saber came down. The scene around her became perfectly clear in her mind. The stone surface of the pathway through the soft and tearing material of her dress; she became one with the plant cells slowly blooming while others had fallen to the ground and went through the final stages of decomposition. The air molecules surrounding the blade snapped and popped as it moved through the air. And just before the saber made contact with her flesh, it stopped. 

It stopped the same way two magnets of the same polarization repelled one another. The blade held against nothing in midair. The two of them stared at each other with a look of awe but even during that moment, Ava could feel her control slipping. 

Another blaster shot, this one straight to Gideon’s hands, knocking the saber from his grip. The next thing Ava saw was the bulk of Mandalorian armor hurdling out from nowhere and tackling Gideon to the ground. The two men grappled on the ground for the upperhand. They seemed to match each other blow for blow. Though Mando was strong, Ava could sense something in Gideon had been altered by the blade. He fought back like an animal possessed, clawing and punching and the soft points between Mando’s armor. Gideon somehow managed to rip off one of Mando’s thigh plates and used it to completely slap Mando clean across his helm. 

The sound of pure beskar striking beskar was loud for Ava, so it must’ve been somewhat deafening for Mando. The Mandalorian stumbled back and Gideon managed to reach for a blaster hidden on the opposite side of his hip. Ava cried out just as Gideon pulled the trigger, striking Mando in the shoulder, just below his pauldron. She barely registered the distressed sounds coming from Grogu’s pram just a few meters away. He tried to come forward, but Ava intentionally held his little craft back. 

In the moments afterwards, it felt like the shot kept ringing in her ears. 

“There is a reason his kind is all but extinct,” Gideon’s voice was wicked and chilled, “Too noble for their own good.” He took aim again, this time, where the hollow of Mando’s throat would be. She could feel his pain rippling throughout his arm, she felt his racing pulse slow. Mando fought to maintain his composure as his thoughts grew fuzzy till they all disappeared into unconsciousness. 

Ava’s hands twitched again. They needed to hold on to something. They needed to defend. Her mind reached out, and no sooner could Gideon place his finger on the trigger did the dark saber skitter across the ground and fly into Ava’s hand. She surged forward with a speed she didn’t know she had. The blade sliced up through the barrel of the blaster as if it were nothing. The force of her attack was strong enough to knock Gideon back a few paces. 

Something took Ava over. She felt a thrum of electricity coursing through her. She felt like a star about to explode, just teeming with potential power and energy. So she took off. 

Gideon barely had enough time to react. The saber came down hard against the plate. It was beskar versus the dark saber. Blow after blow, Ava continued to swing with every ounce of her strength that she could muster, and the blade responded in kind. She let her anger roll through her like the undercurrent of a torrent river. It was a rage she’d never felt before, or had only become aware of the moment she realized Gideon was the man who slaughtered her parents. Ava slashed and punched and kicked and all he could do was use his small shield against her. The ground beneath them quickly bore the marks of their opposing efforts. Scorches here, slashes there, the concrete and stonework ripped from the ground. Sweat crept down Gideon’s brow, the weapon he once envisioned himself conquering the galaxy with had been turned against him. It drew on his fear. 

He was responsible for her suffering. He was the one who’s greed had led to the deaths of so many innocent lives. He’d nearly killed Mando. He had tried to kidnap and do Maker know what sort of horrible things to little Grogu, and possibly even her. Ava’s hands grew hot from the fury surging through her body. It felt as though her eyes glowed in anger. The dark saber responded, it hummed and sang in her mind to the very same tune of revenge. It craved it as much as she did. Moff Gideon needed to pay for his crimes, and they decided he would. 

With a swift punch backed by the force, Ava swiftly knocked the air clean out of Gideon’s lungs. He lay on his back atop the wreckage they’d both created. Ava hadn’t even realized how far they’d traveled till she caught a glimpse of herself in some sculpture. The polished metal reflected back an image of herself that Ava didn’t recognize. Her dress was torn and mottled with dirt and debris. Her crown was long gone and her hair was coming undone. What startled her most was her eyes. They weren’t brown anymore, they seemed brighter with flashes of red on the outer edge of her iris. She was changing before her eyes. The blade sang out in protest of her stalling. 

Ava paused and looked for a moment at the strange sword. She listened to it with a more careful ear, and what she heard was different from her initial judgment. 

The blade wasn’t inherently evil. It wasn’t anything much at all. Energy was constantly flowing through the crystal within. Raw potential. It called for revenge because she had wished for it in her mind. Standing there and witnessing how quickly hate had made her change frightened Ava. The potential had always been there, but it took the blade to make herself realize how much of her emotions she had been ignoring. It stung. The hilt grew heavy with doubt, and it was in that split second Gideon acted. 

He lunged up from the ground like some feline creature with his teeth bared ready to sink into the soft flesh of its prey. 

His hands wound around her own on the hilt of the dark saber. The two of them grappled with strained muscles. Ava nearly bit into her lip with the amount of effort it took to keep the blade away from Gideon’s effort to drive it into her throat. The man’s eyes were as wild and feral as her own, but Ava felt her anger slipping away. It pained her to look him in the face – the man responsible for her mother and father’s deaths – but a new sensation began to whisper in the back of her mind… 

We will always love you. 

We are with you.

It was Leia. Luke. Her parents. Everyone who cared for her, near and far, alive and gone. Their essences melding together like a balm that soothed her soul. Their love and spirits were with her. They would remain in and all around her. No matter how angry she was, how hurt and betrayed by fate she felt, Ava realized that would never die. It would sustain her, it had thus far. She’d traveled clear across the galaxy for a feeling she did not have a name for… but it was the love for her family, found or otherwise. 

In her hands, she could sense the saber mirroring her conflicting emotions. How it cried out in confusion from her influence as well as Gideon’s. It was the oldest song in the galaxy: one of struggle, light and dark. Only Ava seemed to be listening to it.  

“Why don’t you seem to understand?” He hissed, close enough Ava could feel the heat of his breath against her face, “The only way to exist is to take and maintain order.” 

Ava was close. Even with her limited knowledge of sabers, she felt for the housing unit within the hilt. She could feel the power circuits and the wiring leading to a central unit. All the while, Gideon’s grip had become so fierce he pushed her palm so hard into the hilt they’d begun to bleed against the detailing. His fingernails bore into her skin leaving red crescents dribbling. 

There. 

The image of it came clear in her mind. It was no bigger than her thumb, deep like onyx and vast as a moonless night. 

“For take, there should be give. After death, life should grow,” She planted her feet and dung down deep, “The galaxy will continue forward long after any of us leave this world. Any attempts to out last it are foolish.” 

She bore down on the housing unit. Felt it break and warp under her pressure. Release. Gideon sensed it too. He began to yell and scream in vain. Ava had already cracked in, uncontained energy had begun to spill out. 

“The way of existence is balance.” 

It broke and like a supernova, energy poured outward. The saber sparked and burst, sending out white hot particles. Ava and Gideon were knocked back with scorch marks across their exposed skin. 

Ava landed hard on her back, the wind knocked clean out of her. In her attempts to pull air back into her lungs, she struggled to look around. Gideon lay in a smoldering pool of his black cloak. Unmoving. The crystal lay amongst the debris of the destroyed hilt, calm. She pulled it into the palm of her hand with little effort. It was indeed as black as the void of space, so much so, it seemed her hand had developed a blackhole. Vengeance no longer silently plagued her mind. That part was done and over. It was time for growth. 

Ava whipped her head back to see if Grogu had avoided the flair. The doors of his pram opened with a soft hydraulic hiss and sweet eyes gazed down at her as he floated in her direction. 

“Where’s your dad?” She wheezed. 

Grogu hovered off in a direction and Ava stumbled behind as if she were a babe just learning to walk. When Mando came into view the adrenaline had begun to wear off. From the distance, Ava couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing.

All of her strength gave out leaving her no choice but to crawl the last few feet to Mando. His beskar was scorched and scored from the saber. Bits of his flight suit were singed and the place beneath his right pauldron was soaked in red. Panic seized her heart and muscles. Her once steady hands shook uncontrollably as she lifted the pauldron up and off. The site was black and oozing. Knowing she didn’t have enough strength to see if the shot had gone clean through his shoulder, Ava had to lean her entire upper body weight to apply pressure. His breathing was shallow, his heartbeat slow. The bleeding had been prolonged without any intervention and his body was showing the toll. Her entire body shook. She was beaten and aching. Shrapnel had certainly lodged itself in various points of her body, but none of that mattered. Ava reached for whatever energy she had left. 

She felt the dimming hum of Mando’s life. It was slipping away. 

“No,” Tears fell across the motionless helmet, “Not you too.” Her voice was barely there. Desperation and despair thick enough that she practically choked on it. “Please… I need you… I… love… you.” 

Grogu appeared beside her. His small hand reached for the site. Ava wanted to pull his untainted fingers back, no child should have to witness and partake in such misery. But something washed over her. Energy pooled in a different direction the closer Grogu came. 

She rested her hand atop Grogu’s significantly smaller one. Ava allowed herself to follow the gentle current. Beneath her trembling fingers, Ava could feel Mando’s skin shifting. Torn cells joined again. Layers of epidermis repaired itself slowly as the current flowed from hers and Grogu’s hands. Mando’s heartbeat rose. But Ava’s dipped. She was giving so he could take. 

Slowly but surely, with their conjoined effort, the wound was mended. The viscous remnants remained, but the bleeding had stopped. He took a deep breath which meant Ava could finally take one herself. 

By then, there was shouting and disturbance from the crowds above. Ava sent off a brief moment to her sister and to Luke. Whether or not they sensed it, Ava didn’t care. Her eyes were heavy and her body had already slumped across Mando’s chest. The coolness of the beskar soothed the heat from the mark across her cheek. Grogu had already succumbed to his much needed rest. Whoever would find them would be in for a surprise. 

A princess, a bounty hunter, a small child all together. 

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