#schrodinger's mourning

[heedra]

god i wish i could just move on from this one specific thing in my life im godawful about moving on from

[zorosdimples]

cw: mourning, angst, and hurt/comfort. sweet ino takuma. in the same vein as this post. dedicated to @schrodingers-romy mwah mwah <3

it’s fucked up.

days bled into weeks, weeks seeped into months, and you’re still neck deep in the tides of mourning. along with the love of your life died your future, your hope. the once cosy apartment you shared with kento is a shell of a home—a painful memory of what could have been.

you’re curled in a ball on your sofa, the spot where he always settled at the end of a grueling day: tie discarded, collar unbuttoned, belt removed, scotch in hand. his clothes still hang in the closet (your therapist says it’s okay to take your time with his belongings, so you do). you’re swimming in his old, faded grey sweatshirt, along with a pair of pajama pants you bought him for his last birthday.

takuma is kneeling on the floor in front of you, beanie tossed aside, running a calloused palm up and down your forearm. you bemoaned your appearance when he showed up at the door with your favorite takeout, but he can’t help but think of how beautiful you are, even with swollen eyes and bitten lips and tears for another man—his mentor—glistening like dewdrops on your cheeks.

i’m fucked up.

“i’m s-sorry it always ends up like this,” you croak, a wry chuckle fluttering past your lips, dying almost instantly. you flash him a pathetic smile and use the sweatshirt cuff to swipe at your dripping nose. “go, takuma. you’ve done enough for me already. you should have fun instead of listening to me cry.”

the young man simply shakes his head, umber eyes filled with a bone-deep warmth—a hearty soup on a snowy day. “i want to stay.” please don’t make me leave. he squeezes your hand. “you don’t have to be alone right now.” all i can think about is you.

for the first time all evening, you grace takuma with a genuine smile, its radiance piercing his heart and flooding his bloodstream. he feels lightheaded as he sits next to you on the couch, like his chest might explode when you snuggle into his side. he wants nothing more that to kiss the tears from your face and swallow your sorrow and carry it as his own. but he’ll wait—he’ll always wait for you.

i’m sorry, nanami. but i think i’m in love.

[pearwaldorf]

(jumping off from this)

Thinking about Deadpool and Wolverine and how the movie uses ironic camp to disguise its homophobia (sometimes). And how the puerile humor (hurr hurr the sword in the guy's butt is a penetration metaphor) has changed very little from when I first saw it in the 90s.

And the jokes haven't either. Like yes Wade is canonically pansexual but he's still going to couch it in a way that gives him some plausible deniability because this is Disney. It's Schrodinger's snark--you can always backpedal if somebody takes it seriously because it would be weird if it was sincere hahaha right

One of the people in the thread mentioned Jack Harkness as an analogue to Wade but here's the thing. You saw Jack flirt with men and women and aliens. You saw him kiss dudes (in 2005!!!) and fall in love with them and mourn them when they died. He was allowed to be unapologetically queer in a way we're never going to see with Wade.

I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum. If you want to build on what you see in the movie, I'm genuinely happy it works for you. But after being in fandoms where I got a canon queer ship it's unpleasant to see something where the text can only strongly imply it at best. I don't miss it.

[skelavender]

He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s been scared for her life before, he’s seen her pale and unmoving in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for her, but he’s never had to see her covered in a sheet on the cold, unfeeling metal of a morgue slab. OR Wetwired: marriage of convenience style.

read closed doors on ao3, or below the cut!

Mulder’s shaking. He struggles to hit the correct button to hang up the phone. 

Dead. Scully’s dead. 

“What happened?” Frohike asks from behind him.

“Maryland State Police.” He tries to keep the shake, the fear, out of his voice. “They think they've found Scully.”

“Is she okay?”

“No, um... they think maybe I should come down and I.D. the body.” He chokes on the last word, and closes the door behind him before his friends can react. 

Mulder doesn’t remember the drive to the county morgue. When he parks, he’s still trying to hold back his tears, his grief. This isn’t right. 

What is he supposed to do? She can’t leave him a widower, once again partnerless within the FBI, chasing her ghost through the X Files. It’s not right.

He’s hazy through a confrontation with his source, letting the anger at the injustice fuel him. He yells, and it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. If Scully’s gone, then what’s the damn point. They’ve already gotten away with it. 

He kicks the door of the man’s car, and goes inside to identify his wife’s body.

He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s been scared for her life before, he’s seen her pale and unmoving in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for her, but he’s never had to see her covered in a sheet on the cold, unfeeling metal slab of a morgue tray.

But it’s not her. It’s not Scully. There are no words for the relief he feels at seeing another woman through the slats of the blinds. He almost collapses right there, the tension of mourning fleeing his body. Scully is still Schrodinger’s cat, both alive and dead as long as she remains unseen. Though the dead woman is still somebody’s loved one, she is not his wife. 

“It’s not her. Somebody has to call her mother.”

“We already tried.” The coroner says, “We weren't able to reach her.”

“She's not answering her phone?” 

Just like that, Mulder knows where Scully is. 

***

Mulder knows that he has a pretty good relationship with the woman who is technically his mother-in-law. It helps that Maggie is one of the most kindhearted and likable women he’s met, and that she doesn’t know he’s married to her daughter. 

As a result, Maggie has never, ever, told Mulder to go away. Not on the days when Scully was missing that she couldn't stop crying, not when Mulder showed up shaking and swaying on her doorstep. Never. She had always offered that motherly, soft smile and opened the door with a “Come on in, Fox,” and scolded him when he tried to address her formally. 

This time, when he casts his shadow across her doorstep, frantically knocking and peeking in the windows, she tries to close it in his face. She makes no comment on her name. 

He pushes past her with a half-hearted apology. He needs to see Scully, to wipe away the mental image of another redheaded woman on a metal slab, laid out and labeled potentially with his wife’s name. 

Mulder sees Scully’s gun before he sees her. Her weapon leads her from around the corner, and it is immediately trained on Mulder’s figure. Instead of tensing up at the threat, Mulder relaxes. She’s alive, she’s upright, she’s breathing.

He knows she won’t hesitate to shoot, hell, she’s already shot him once, but he’s not scared. Not for himself, at least. For Scully, out of her mind from too much TV, yes. For Maggie, who Mulder is trying his best to keep behind him in case Scully does fire her weapon, yes. But he’s not scared for himself. Even if Scully shot him now, straight to the heart and he bled out in seconds, the pain wouldn’t compare to the half an hour this evening when he thought she was dead. Nothing can hold a candle to the horror that had sunk into his bones. 

“You’re in on it. You’re one of them.You’re one of the people who abducted me. You put that thing in my neck! You killed my sister!”

The accusation stings. There’s always been a part of Mulder, buried deep in a chasm of guilt over Samantha and everything else, that has felt responsible for Melissa���s death. If he had never dragged Scully into the conspiracy shrouded corners of the world, her sister might still be alive. So maybe Scully’s right, in a twisted way; maybe he did kill her sister. 

“That’s not true, Dana.” Maggie steps out in front of Mulder’s human shield. 

“It is! He’s been manipulating me since day one. He even m–” she removes a hand from her gun and presses it to her mouth to keep in a sob. Mulder can fill in the rest of the sentence. He even married me to manipulate me. His heart breaks.

“I want you to listen to me.”

“Mom, just get out of the way!” Scully sobs. Her gun shakes in her single hand. 

“You trust me, don’t you? You know that I would never hurt you? That I would never let anybody hurt you. That’s why you came here, isn't it? You’re safe here. Put the gun down, Dana.” Maggie steps closer as Scully’s gun retreats to the ceiling, her arms folding to her chest. “Put it down.”

Finally, Scully lets herself crumble in her mother’s arms, dropping like a puppet with her strings cut and sobbing, sobbing, sobbing like he’s never seen her do before. She doesn’t let go of the gun. 

Mulder steps closer on light feet, approaching to release the weapon from Scully’s chokehold. Unfortunately, he hits a creak in the floorboards. 

“No!” She screams and lifts the gun to him again.

“Scully, please.” Mulder begs, his voice cracking. “Please let me help you.”

“It’s okay, Dana. Fox loves you, he’s not here to hurt you. It’s okay.”

Mulder stays across the room. “Do you two want to get into your car to go to the hospital, and I can follow?” he asks Maggie. She nods. “Okay. Scully, would you hand the gun to your mom, please?”

Maggie puts enough space between their bodies for her to receive it, then holds it out to Mulder, who finally approaches to retrieve the weapon. He clicks the safety back on, removes the magazine, and places them in separate places around the living room. He does the same with his own, and helps Maggie lift a still-limp Scully upright. 

“I’ll go grab my keys, Dana, you’re safe with Fox, okay?”

Scully, leaning most of her body weight on Mulder and completely out of it, makes a vague sound of agreement. While Maggie is out of the room, Scully shifts to lean her head on Mulder’s chest. He rests his right hand on the back of her neck, running a finger along the two chains that lay there: her cross necklace from her mother, and her wedding ring necklace from him.

The wedding ring that Maggie doesn’t know exists. Shit.

“Scully, I’m going to take your necklace, okay?” He whispers, “So your mom doesn’t see.”

Scully lets out a little whine from the back of her throat and nods slightly. Mulder’s fingers fumble at the clasp, and he manages to slide it into his pocket half a second before Maggie reenters the room. 

***

Mulder puts his hands up as he enters Scully’s hospital room tentatively, trying and failing to make a joke of the situation. Maggie, thankfully understanding their need to talk in private, exists as Mulder enters. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks, taking a seat beside Scully’s hospital bed. He scoots the chair closer in before grabbing her hand in his, and lifting the other to brush her hair from her face. 

“Ashamed,” she confesses. “I was so sure, Mulder. I saw things, and I heard things… it was just like the world was turned upside down. Everybody was out to get me.”

“Now you know how I feel most of the time.” Mulder tries to lighten the mood, to make her feel less… guilty, if Mulder is reading her right. It doesn’t seem to work.

“I thought you were going to kill me.” It comes out as a whisper, as another confession. 

“I'm not surprised.” He leans toward her, and explains the common link between the victims and their hallucinations, turning their worst-case-scenario anxieties into a reality in their eyes. 

“Like me thinking that you'd betray me.” Scully offers in understanding, “I was so far gone, Mulder, I thought that you had gone to the other side.”

She tells him what she had seen, him conferring with the Smoking Man in the parking lot, selling their secrets. She doesn’t tell him about seeing a smudge of lipstick on his collar, or the scent of an unfamiliar perfume in their motel room. For the sake of her own sanity, those shall remain unmentioned and she will just accept that they, too, were hallucinations induced by the recorded television programs. 

Mulder considers the Smoking Man for a moment, formulating a theory as to who was behind the induced mania. 

“Why don't you try to get some rest?” He says, and rises to leave the room. Before he crosses the threshold, he remembers half his reason for coming by. “Oh!” He turns towards her, and fumbles with the pockets of his coat “I almost forgot.” He pulls out a familiar chair, with an even more familiar ring dangling at the bottom. 

Scully smiles softly and holds her hand out for Mulder to drop her wedding ring into. “Thank you, Mulder.”

“I… let your mom take the lead, with the hospital. She still doesn’t know.” He says quietly.

Scully nods and slips the chain over her head. She motions for him to come closer, and he leans down to her. She presses a soft, grateful kiss to his cheekbone. 

“I’ll just uh, go take care of the Cancer Man and stuff.” He bends down to place a final kiss to her forehead, and steps out the door.

He’ll deal with the rest of it. He’ll clear the path of obstacles, of things they need to investigate, so she can focus on getting better. 

***

When Scully is discharged to Mulder’s care and he takes her home, she beelines for the loveseat that backs the kitchen. What Mulder considers her solitude chair. She sits sideways, crossing her ankles and pulling her knees to her chest, and sets her book on the arm of the chair.

Knowing she’s unlikely to relocate to the couch, he stretches out across the length of it so his feet are closest to her and grabs the book he left facedown on the coffee table last week, which Scully had placed a bookmark in and closed to save the spine. They sit quietly, absorbed in their respective books, each enjoying the quiet, steady company of the other.

“I’m going to go to bed.” Scully says, breaking the silence and rising from her seat.

Mulder smiles up at her, “Goodnight, Scully.”

She gives him a watery smile and disappears down the hallway. 

When Mulder gives up on his book an hour later, he retreats down the hallway after her. When he reaches Scully’s bedroom door, accustomed to sliding into bed with her as has for the past few weeks, he pauses with his hand on the knob. 

It’s closed. It’s never closed. 

This is… new. Scully closes the door when they retreat to bed together, and had done so in her own apartment as well when he had stayed there. It hadn’t surprised him in the slightest, Scully’s a practical person, and a closed door is safer in the event of a fire. Usually, on the nights he joins her late, he closes it behind him. So far, she’s always left it open those nights. 

But it’s closed now. The invitation he’s been eating up so greedily is closed, at least for now. Mulder turns to the other side of the hallway, swinging open the door to his own bedroom. The hinges creak. 

Without even stepping in, Mulder knows he can’t sleep there. The room is cold, stale, hollow in a way an extra blanket and Scully’s fancy scented candles can’t fix. It’s not Scully’s room, with her soft pink walls and soft mattress and, well, Scully. His own bedroom serves a walk-in closet with a mattress.

There’s no love here. 

He clicks the door closed and retreats to his leather couch, pressed against the staircase in the basement room that they use as a home office. At least on the couch, there is no empty side where someone else should lay. 

***

When Mulder wakes a few hours later to shift positions, he feels the pressure of something resting against his knee. He opens his eyes to see Scully leaning against the couch, legs folded under her, dozing with her head rested on his knee. It’s not dissimilar from when she had snuck into his old apartment months ago, an instance they had never outright addressed. 

He tries to shift his cramping leg slowly, gently, as not to wake his partner. She rouses anyway, turning around to blink up at him sleepily. 

“You alright, Scully?” he asks, voice rough. 

She nods. “I’m sorry I locked you out.”

“‘S alright.” He stretches to relieve the ache in his leg, and once it’s gone, lays flat and reaches his arms out to her in invitation. She rises, only to lay back down on top of him, legs intertwined and arms wrapped securely. Her head rests on his chest, and he presses a kiss to the top of it.

“I do trust you.” Scully’s voice is quiet beyond a whisper, and Mulder’s not entirely sure he actually heard her say it.

“I know.”

“I’m just…” She sighs. “Unsteady. Like I’m not sure what’s real.”

“This is real, Scully.” He says into her hair. “We’re home, we’re safe.”

“But are we?” She lifts her head to look at him properly. “Mulder, we’ve been manipulated and abducted, there have been attempts on both of our lives. I’m not certain we’ll ever be safe, much less feel it.”

“You’re right that it’s possible that this will go on forever.” He replies. “But it’s also possible that that’s not the case. It’s possible the Smoking Man will be dead on our doorstep tomorrow morning, and we won’t have to worry about him anymore. It’s possible that we’ll get a tip about Samantha’s tomorrow. If we worry about every horrible possibility, we also have to let ourselves dream about the wonderful ones.”

If only you knew, Scully thinks. She does daydream about peaceful and happy futures, and every single one of them involves him. 

[lee-hakhyun]

got an orv au idea based on the schrodinger’s clown post you reblogged :D

tw: themes of self-harm and suicide (don’t worry about reading this if you can’t or don’t want to; all ideas here!)

au where kdj dies and revives only when it’s funny, but it’s specifically mainly funny to the people around him - all it does for kdj himself is prove that he’s unloveable, again and again

when he’s alone, he can’t end things because he’s the only one there and it’s not funny to him, which makes him laugh bitterly; isn’t that ironic? isn’t that just grand? his fate is not in his hands; he’s a literal cosmic joke. it’s another thing that he finds himself taking comfort in yjh on when he reads twsa; resurrected over and over for another’s entertainment, forced to start over with no close bonds to guide him. it stops being as much of a problem for him as he fades into obscurity with age, unperceived and unknown.

when the apocalypse begins, he realizes it could be a useful tactic the first time he dies and comes back to life when people least expected it, and considers twisting public opinion to consider deeming his constant revivals funny. except… the longer this story goes on, the less and less he’s able to even die.

because it’s not funny to his friends, you know? he’d spent so long knowing he was literal comic relief to everyone else that he’d forgotten what it was like to be wanted. being mourned is foreign. guilt drags him down as he thinks he’s tricked even his beloved people into thinking he’s worth something.

it all comes to a head when kimcom gets to the fourth wall and sees 51!kdj- and realizes that the person who kept killing and reviving kdj all that time was himself. a version of him who went through almost the exact same thing as a child, who hated himself so much he kept imagining himself dying as a teenager and wondering if it would’ve been better that way. if it would’ve been funnier that way. if people would’ve been better off seeing him as just a joke.

and seeing a parallel version of his friends breaking down through the train window, begging him to let them in, he quietly realizes that the answer is no.

(post)

oh. oh kim dokja... people start caring for him and he just thinks he's tricking them :') i'm glad he realizes his worth in the end, at least

[greycappedjester]

hey! hope you’re doing well. I’m starting to reread the HQ at Hogwarts series because I needed a change of pace from my work at uni (and it’s a comfort read of mine). anywho, I was wondering if you had a favorite quote from any of your stories that you wrote and why (or just the quote if it is to avoid spoilers)? like were there any quotes that really made a scene worth writing to you?

Oooh I love this ask, thank you!

Let's see, I don't know if these are my favorite but they're lines that come to mind a lot that I'm specifically proud of (tbh I tend to forget lines until I'm re-reading one of my stories and see it and go "oh yeah, that one")

I'll try to do one per series. I can't really pick one from Past is a Mirror or Call Me Your Home At Night yet, I'll have to wait until they're more done:

ATFO:

Oof somehow this is the hardest series to choose just one line from. That said, it's a super dark line for a dark chapter but I really love the use of homophones in this one.

Dick tilts his head up to the sky and laughs.

Laughs until it hurts and it does, it hurts so much, and that just makes him laugh more--throwing his arms out like he can fly on the ground and turning in a circle in a dirt covered Gotham alley that even the morning can’t erase.

Because Robin always smiles when it’s dark. Until it’s morning again.

Or mourning again.

….Dick’s laugh fades out.

Cards:

And, eight years old and with a bone deep gravity too heavy for his small body, Kuroo Tetsuro quietly made a vow even if Kozume Kenma would never hear it.

I’m going to build a kingdom around you.

(Not a line but Tsuki and Hinata's final conversation in Shufling the Deck is what really sold me on writing that sequel)

Walking With My Eyes Open/ In Spite of Ourselves:

Honestly for short stories this series has some of my favorite conversations; but, a couple of favorite lines are these two.

But, human shoulders weren’t meant to bear the expectations of divinity.

and

A riddle, Schrodinger’s long lost love letter. Gen had proof he fell in love--was dying to try even--yet still couldn’t quite believe it. So, which was the lie?

Hq at Hogwarts:

I really love the prologue for Department of Mysteries; I wrote it waaaay before I posted it and was excited about posting it for awhile. I think the end just eally says everything about how long and how deeply Akaashi does love Bokuto.

He was bright and happy and so deeply good in a way that was everything Akaashi wanted that he fell in love by the time he took the hand.

“I’m Keiji.”

Investigators Inc.:

Truthfully, my favorite of my humorous stories; I like this exchange a lot from when their van breaks down. It just eels like it really fits all of them.

“I’m looking up directions,” Suga said, already pulling out his phone.

“But….but, map !” Oikawa held it up even as it drooped around him.

“Great,” Kuroo said, “we can use it for shelter when we’re stuck out here and have to take up foraging.”

Bokuto brightened. “Ooh, I’ve got a pocket knife!”

“Yay, we’ll need it to fight off the wolves,” Kuroo said.

“I don’t think it’s that dire,” Suga said, showing them the screen. “There’s a town pretty close by. Can’t find a taxi or a towing service, though. We may have to walk if Iwaizumi can’t fix it. It’s about an hour.”

Kuroo shrugged. “Honestly, Iwaizumi can probably fix it. He’s like the machine whisperer or something.”

“Iwaizumi cannot fix it,” Iwaizumi said from right beside the passenger window and Oikawa jumped. “The transmission’s out.”

“Then, put it back in,” Bokuto suggested.

Iwaizumi stared. “I’m seriously having all of you read a car manual one of these days."

Thanks again for the ask! Trutfully I always love hearing what people's favorite lines are; I just think it's really neat to see what sticks with people and I'm always touched that it could be something I wrote.

[daenystheedreamer]

i like treating theon like schrodinger’s cat. i want to put him in a cardboard box with polonium and poison and keep him in a state of quantum superposition until i open the box and then i can mourn in widow’s weeds screaming crying and cursing god. or he is alive and i give him hugs and tell him oh its all better now. he’s my little kitty cat<3

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on harrow the ninth chapter fourteen and fifteen

God, in this story, gets at a lot of things I find really interesting about immortal characters. Or at least, immortal characters as I want them to be portrayed — people who are just immortal. Not booming voices from the heavens. What happens when you live forever, but still talk and think like a normal person? If your indefinitely extended duration leads not to becoming a slow-talking sage, but just, being a normal person who's lived that long.

I have to wonder how much it's performative and how much it's natural. Does he cling to normal conversation, silly little jokes, or is it what he defaults to? Does he enjoy the effect that has, that their god speaks like a regular man, or does he do it because he wants no effect?

He's going to die. Will we mourn, or cheer? There's different ways to play this. He could be a decent man all along. He could be the worst one of them all. It makes me very curious.

The fact that the book keeps giving me things like that to think about is why I'm still enjoying it, because man, I'm 30% in and it feels like I'm at where the book should have started. All the setup before this is very justified and I can see it leading to great things, but Harrow finally feels like Harrow again and is interacting with what's around her in the way that works for a story.

I think this is the first confirmation I'm actually getting about there just, being other populated planets around. I like that; start as fantasy, pull back and show yeah there's people all over. God's kinda being a dick by saying BOE is an acronym and not saying what it stands for, though. There's a lot of implied history going on, if the cult was seeking out God's gang before God even knew about them. I enjoy when big information is dropped very casually. When it's not something God treats as a big secret (at least, not to his lyctors) but still naturally something Harrow wouldn't have known before.

lol big g knows her parents are dead. cat's out of the bag and schrodinger killed it. but he still didn't know the details of harrow's birth. i love secrets being revealed.

these are good conversations and all. i just want to see more movement, still. i want to see harrow push toward a goal.

i do not think harrow should tell him about going in the tomb though. i think he'd probably kill her. also, hmm, blood of eden. sure sounds mysterious.

oh, fifteen's short. let's read that too.

you know, i should have thought of this earlier, but i'm PRETTY sure harrow seeing the body is a new thing, not something that was true in the gideon timeline/memoryzone. maybe. hard to say. harrow never gave gideon the speech about how she's insane. but maybe she wouldn't have considering she hated gideon at the time.

who knows. maybe the body was the one who gave harrow the instructions to do a bunch of fucky shit and write the letters. i wonder if the body's presence was implied in the parts from harrow's perspective at the end of gideon.

this conversation does imply that it is the girl from the tomb, not gideon. i mean, it already basically said that ages ago, i'm just trying to keep an open mind (or coping, if you want to look at it that way). unless harrow's perceptions are really fucked up. the "she asked me not to tell you" definitely has some implications.

[thequeenofsarcaasm]

something I wanted to know is why in jujutsu kaisen the deaths are so superficial death in jujutsu is very different than in other animes The deaths also don't have as much impact, which is quite notable. I think there were only two deaths that had an impact outside of Toji and Geto, both of which caused problems in the jujutsu world.

It’s giving Attack on Titan season 1 😭

Many deaths don’t really serve the plot if we’re being honest. My girl Nobara (I know she’s in Schrodinger’s box and not confirmed dead but still) didn’t have to die. Nanami died just before her and it triggered some character development for Yuji so why kill her too?????? What was the reason??? Also, Yuji’s rage ended up being useless anyways since he didn’t even get the satisfaction of killing Mahito. I could say the same for my dear Yuki and Tsumiki. Gege hates pretty girls.

But that’s besides the point. I think that one of the main themes of JJK is “meaningful/less death”. The characters aren’t even striving to live atp (ahem Megumi ahem Mai ahem Yuji). Yuji wants to know what a “good” death is and I think it’s up to us to decide. Is dying while trying good enough? Gege doesn’t necessarily want the deaths to serve a great purpose. In a way he wants to depict how the meaninglessness of death is its meaning and how it’s an important moment for the dying person.

I may get it but it still infuriates me when great characters are killed for shock value or used as plot devices.

Also, I understand that not everyone’s death can impact the plot the way Geto’s or Riko’s death did (it makes sense after all) but I wish Gege would let his characters mourn their friends/coworkers in a more impactful way. If I can’t get over Nanami’s death then no one should 😾. Everyone should be crying constantly about him and Nobara. No one even mentions Yaga anymore btw (not even Gojo when he came back but Gege made my boy as cold as an iceberg after he was freed). And don’t get me started on Gojo’s death. Lol

The ramifications of Riko’s death were extremely well depicted so I know Gege can do it but he just doesn’t. Shock value over everything else i guess.

Thanks for asking 🫶🏾

[5-golden-eps]

ElliahRose- is a popular author for dsmp. She wrote the heartbreaking story: If We Could Go Back (I'd change the world for you). Along with Schrodinger's avians. She is mostly inactive.

If We Could Go Back (I'd change the world for you)- is a modern setting with no magical effects, except one. The craft family mourned the loss of Kristin, all sad to see her go. Out of grief, they start to blame the youngest, Tommy, for killing her. He is neglected, hated, forgotten, and very alone, even though he is only a child. After a horrible accident, the crafts lose Tommy and finally see their faults, but it's too late. The family eventually breaks apart, and they don't care for each other. But, when Wilbur wishes to fix their mistakes, a certain green-eyed man gives them a second chance. Now, they have a chance to change the future of their family.

If We Could Go Back (I'd change the world for you)

[freaks-and-facades-ravenloft]

Freaks & Facades: Session 0 - Cast of Characters

Welcome to all you wonderful readers!  

Here is an introduction to the wonderful character cast for the Freaks & Facades campaign!  This is meant to be a brief overview on the characters’ starting personalities and goals (with some insights gleaned after feeling them out between sessions 1 and 3). 

We hope you love them all as much as we do!   Check them out below the cut!

-- Aboleth Eye!

Pryrrish Norfaer - ( @moonstruck-vixen )

Pryrrish of House Norfaer was once one of the serene and mysterious star elf race; now exiled from their cloistered and dying realm of Sildeyuir.   

She is a forsworn scholar, hunting for the most hidden secrets of the otherworldly.  In her hands she clutches a tome of spiraling script, the cause and salvation to her quest for knowledge.  Only she can truly understand what the maddening, spiraling script deigns to tell her.  For her eyes and souls both hold that same spiral of unreadable darkness within them…  

Her youth was cut short after witnessing devastation on the Material Plane.  The dreaded Day of Mourning.  And when she endeavored to uncover how it had come to pass, that foolish quest brought her no answers.  Only terrible personal disaster.  Paying a price she never anticipated, Pryrrish was branded a heretic.  Forced to embrace the darkness of her new accursed patron--the Elemental Dark itself--to save and begin her life.  The dark book’s secrets both doomed and saved her; perhaps it will now guide her to what it all means?  There must have been a reason behind her misfortune.  A reason for why she was offered the brand of the Elemental Dark upon her soul…  

Will she find what she seeks through her determination to reclaim knowledge thought lost?  Or will the Elemental Dark, forever whispering in her ear, consume her in this foolish quest’s end?

Star Elf Warlock 6

Ludwig Hossler Schrödinger - ( @atlysium )

Ludwig Hossler Schrodinger is a young man fascinated by the world around him; and people fascinate him more than anything, for reasons we all take for granted...

He appears a proud scientific noble of Lamordia, tastefully austere and rational to a fault.  Except when it comes to human osteology, the study of bones.  His parents (who love him very very much) helped him acquire a taste for this little-understood branch of science.   But they never truly introduced to the world beyond their cryptic household.  How odd, considering their influence as Markgrafs of the mountain village of Schwartzsteinburg…

It was a great surprise when Schrodinger’s idea to travel beyond the town was embraced wholeheartedly by his parents.  For their darling son hoped to meet with the Society of the Enlightened Mind in Ludendorf!  Lady and Lord Schrodinger thought it would be a life-changing opportunity for their son to share the fruits of his labor in the field of osteology (and osteomancy).   And so, departing from the safety net of his protective and equally gifted parents, he has proudly shared his life’s work to the Society! But the Society, unfortunately, quite misunderstood his enthusiasm for this strange new science.  

Is he a victim of academia tirelessly struggling to be understood?  Or, perhaps, the Society saw his endeavors in self-experimentation as the unnatural obsession it truly is?  

Human Boneblade 6

Fenri Sunwillow - (Redbrown [not on socials])

Fenri Sunwillow is an exceptional, strong-willed halfling priestess; her smile lights up a room even in the darkest of times.  

She is tirelessly devoted to the teachings of the Dawnfather Pelor–God of the Sun, Healing and Mercy.  With her unshakeable faith, Fenri has gone on many adventures beyond the Free City of Greyhawk.  She has faced monsters, scoundrels and failure, all alongside friends who welcomed her gifts and her optimism.  She treasured them wholeheartedly and offered them the grace and healing of her god!  

But now Fenri the halfling is no longer among friends.  She is a light with no one to shine upon.  She continues what the tenets of Pelor ask of her, seeking to find those most in need of her gifts.  And her friendship.  Everyone is a friend Fenri hasn’t met yet!  But life is hard on such a small bundle of joy, and the Sun does not shine all day without rest.  And yet Fenri shines and shines–through true faith, inner strength or misguided delusion, who could say?  

Will she push through what awaits her, through the darkest time in her life?  Or shall the Sun inside her heart not be enough to sustain her once its out of reach?

Halfling Cleric 6 (Patron Deity: Pelor)

Channa Devir - ( @aureliagaming )

Channa Devir knows much about sacrifice; and she is willing to risk much in order to reclaim what is hers.  

An aspiring prodigy in the arts of elemental theory and magic, Channa was lifted up and taught by some of Khorvaire’s greatest conjurers.  They taught her about the laws of reality, and how to make a life with the gifts she was given.  She followed their guidance and friendship, becoming attuned to the  principles of elemental earth in the process.  Earth is steadfast and patient while the world seems in flux.  And she felt through her mentors she had sacrificed enough of her body and soul to have real achievement in this crazy world.

But then her foundation for living was suddenly lost.  Her best friend; gone without a trace; not even a note...  She went to their mentor, supposedly the greatest conjurer in the realm for answers.  Together Channa learned more and more, hoping to unravel the elemental ritual left behind by her friend...  But then her mentor, her only support and teacher, vanished as well.  The ritual remnants in their laboratory...   Channa had lost everything to this mystery, so she decided to follow in her friend and mentor’s footsteps.  To make them answer why they had abandoned her.  The sacrifices needed to for such a ritual would be great, but Channa would follow it to the end.  To be with them again!

Will those she searches for weep that she was drawn onto their same path of mistakenly pursuing knowledge?  Or has Channa offered herself before a hungering evil that has fed upon greater mages than she and her friends?

Human Duskblade 6

Solange Therese Charron -( @owldork1998 )

Solange Therese Charron has long embraced her lot in life, forever on the outskirts.  

She had a rough start of it: a strange foundling raised by a pair of poor gravediggers, just beyond the walls of decadent and lively Port-a-Lucine.  She was born touched by the grave in more ways than one, however; for Solange is a caliban, a creation of humanity’s aspirations twisted by the darkness of taboo and unforgiveable sin.  She is forever forced to hide her  deathly beauty behind the veil of the mourner; which suits her fine.  No one asks a  gravedigger why they hide their face...  But those that linger beyond death have taken notice of her, a being trapped between worlds.  And to hone this connection and defend the living, she was invited to watch over the crypts of the city’s oldest bloodlines.

She became a gravekeeper of St. Leonburg’s Cemetery by night, hoping to earn the experience to see what the Order of the Moonlit Vigil protects within the uncharted catacombs below.  The dark of those bone-decorated labyrinths calls to Solange, but she instead pushes towards her duties of protecting the noble dead (and tolerating the living nobles who visit the cemetery to socialize and scheme).  But she cannot truly escape the call, literally and metaphorically...

Can one seemingly born to serve death find peace in her duties among them?  Or must Solange dare to walk among the living to find answers about her spectral-afflicted existence?  

Caliban Gravedigger 6

Read the next part, Session One - Vignettes (Part One) here!

Thanks for reading!  We hope these characters fascinate you with their tales!

Parts: Zero/Cast, One P1, One P2, Two, Three [tbd]

-- Aboleth Eye @aboleth-eye

[rubin-therubix-loverofblorbos]

I Wrote a Poem Based on Danny Phantom {Kinda}

My feet are tired from walking,

I've passed the end of the road,

My gravestone has no name,

As the rock starts to corrode. 

I'm Schrodinger's being, 

my eyes closed with spiked contacts

and yet, it's perfect, my seeing.

I am a thing dead yet alive,

my hearts beating,

and yet into the grave, I nose-dive.

I scream in my casket

as it is covered with dirt

and for the first time

I feel truly hurt.

It's like I'm Danny Phantom.

My sanity

has a ransom.

A living corpse possessed 

by its own ghost.

Wow, i sound crazy

maybe my mind is toast.

I just wish I said goodbye to my dog,

'Cause, we all know they're secretly gods.

They say hate stays and love goes on,

But all the hate would stay with me

after I'm gone.

I committed suicide,

yet murdered.

I have thrown myself aside into the abyss

And it looks back at me in pure bliss

and they mourn

Yet they mourn

Somehow they mourn for me.

my casket is empty 

as they wished

and I am buried.

 I am silent,

Like some kind of friendly tyrant

watching your life go by.

as we all once flourished.

And my casket is empty, 

as they wished.

[imfallingimflying]

Flowing blowing cold air rips its way through the gap between my jacket at my belt line. It sneaks and crawls its way under my shirt, chilling the skin that shows. The wind leaves me as soon as it comes, which saddens me the same way losing a best friend to time or death or space or life does. In a moment I mourn the gift that the blustering air gave me, and I move on.

I stand at the edge of a small wooden pier. There's snow covering it, nearly a foot of the stuff. My boots have left deep footholds and empty canyons in the snow, blemishing its serene white surface. A boat rocks next to me, filled with ice so the front is nearly sinking. I'm sure more weight on it and it would go under, deep into the lake. The lake is mostly frozen over, a layer, a coat of clear ice on top. Not enough to walk on but just enough to drop something onto and watch it slide away. Taunting you, wanting you to try to collect it, just try. Step onto the ice and watch as white lightning strikes crack their way around you.

I'd already thrown off my hat and gloves, tossed them to the side. The sun and my pockets work in tandem to warm my head and hands, no cotton cover needed. I look around the lake, listening for activity, watching for movement, hoping for anything upon anything. Silence. Nobody's awake at this hour, it's too early.

I can feel an ache behind my eyes. It's been there for weeks, maybe months now. Has it been a year? This pulling at the nerve that connects to my brain. It feels as if I need to cry. I never do. I lost the ability to somewhere, haven't had the need to find it yet. I wan't to sleep. I consider closing my eyes, drifting off and imagining they don't exist. That the pain behind them is gone and leaves two deep deep pits, lakes of darkness where I used to look out of.

"Am I dead?" The question slaps me awake. Why would I wonder that? I can see, I can feel the cold air, I could talk, should I choose to. But then I question it more. Nobody is around to see, and what is living without anybody else around? Truly, does one need to be seen to exist? Experienced? If nobody knew you were born, if you never saw a single soul, would it even matter? I humor these theatrical thoughts. A smile enters my face, morbid and sarcastic. A part of me feels proud, asking myself such a divisive question.

Then the pain behind my eyes comes back into focus, and it pulls my eyes down at the water like an anchor, or perhaps a brick. I'm looking at the water below me. It's a shade of dark green, like a mold. I watch a fish swim to the surface, gray and shiny. It opens its mouth as it hits the surface, sucking on the bottom of the ice.

Another morbid thought crawls its way into my head. A spider of troubling questions tying together a web of intrusive "what if"s. I suppose for a second: "If you cannot live without it being seen, could you die if nobody knew?"

I immediately recognize the hypocrisy of the statement. Of course someone would know eventually. After all, people go missing all the time, and someone has to notice they're gone to report it. Sooner or later they turn up anyway, chopped up in a ditch or something. They died and nobody was there to watch.

But still, the thought entices me, a deep, fucked up curiosity eating and digging its way through my brain like a millipede. I raise my boot off the snowy pier, and hold it above the water. I could step in right now. Nobody would see it. I wonder what would happen then, if nobody knew that you died, that I was flailing and suffocating under the ice. Schrodinger's corpse. I chuckle at the thought. I think about the plunge, the ice wetting my jeans and worming its way under my jacket. The water would cover me, jealous that it couldn't embrace me until now. It would push its way into my mouth, freeze my hands until my fingers fall off, freeze my knees and elbows in place. I shiver, and plant the raised boot back on the pier.

Something strange happens then. Something... wrong. A different sensation to all of the world around me. A strange aesthetic change. I can feel a voice exit someone behind me, yet I hadn't heard them approach. I feel two hands on my back, though I'm not sure about the number of fingers on each hand. With a single word, they push me off the pier. I turn in the air, swiveling on my foot before I leave the ground. All at once all my dreams and visualizations arrive at one finally realized moment. A part of me wanted to thank them. They say one word before I hit the ice.

"Pig."

[bloggerspam]

Danny thinks about his death constantly.

It surrounds him, is the thing. Like a blanket.

Like an avalanche.

He's constantly reminded of it--day to day to day.

He died.

It was easy to forget, in the beginning. It was nothing but pain pain pain until it wasn't--until he woke up and Sam and Tucker were there, crying over him.

They told him his heart stopped, for a couple minutes. He wonders about that nothingness everyday--he thinks about that nothingness every time he wakes up.

And then it was all about keeping himself there--keeping himself tethered. He didn't know it then, but he knows it now.

He was desperate to stay real.

He was desperate not to fade.

But back then it was about his powers--about the other ghosts, about his responsibilities.

It was easy to not think about it, in the beginning. It was all about saving the day from the ghost of the week.

It's hard to remember what it was like, before.

It's hard to forget, to not think about it, now that things have settled.

And it gets harder and harder every time---when he met Sydney and Ember and Desiree.

When Box Ghost and Lunch Lady tell him they don't remember their names.

When he found Sydney Poindexter's yearbook picture in his school's library.

When he found a signed Ember McClain CD on Ebay.

When he found an article talking about a mover's untimely demise in a factory bearing a striking resemblance of a certain Box Ghost.

He wasn't even named, the "unfortunate factory worker."

That makes it worse.

Jazz tells him it's unhealthy, the way he's been pouring over old articles over murders.

She tells him it's not something he can control, Death. It's natural.

She looks him in the eyes, and he can tell that she means it.

When he looks at himself in the mirror, he wonders what it's like, to look at him and not see Death for what it is: an uncertainty.

He came across a dead kitten, once.

He had scooped the little thing up into his hands, and realized that it was just an object then. A dead thing. Cold.

He carried it to the woods, dug a little grave for it with one hand. When he buried it, he marked it with a jagged rock.

He could see his breath, but he didn't look for a ghost. He didn't want to get his hopes up, he didn't want to be crushed. It would be both regardless of if he saw one or not.

He let the breath be fog. He let the breath be his ghost sense.

Danny thinks about his death when he lays in bed.

He let it be both, and then he let it go.

Schrodinger's boy mourning Schrodinger's cat.

He's woken up 3 times by now, from nightmares.

About falling through the earth and never getting back up.

About the burn coursing from his hand to his heart.

About dying, but never able to stay dead.

He lets the tears soak his pillow, feels his breath fog in the warm summer air.

He thinks about dead things, and lost souls, and the uncertainty of it all.

He thinks about being frozen in time, with his not-dead-death and ice core.

Danny thinks about his death constantly.

It's always there, is the thing. Like time and space.

Like a guillotine.

He's constantly in the face of it, when he stands before a mirror.

He's dead.

He's alive.

Do you ever think about how sacred life must be for Danny?

Danny who interacts with ghosts every single day. Danny who is half ghost himself, but also half human.

I feel like sometimes people forget Danny is also half human.

He knows his rogues. He knows the ghosts of the Ghost Zone. He knows they were alive, at some point, and their lives must have been intense enough or their deaths traumatic enough that their souls decided that one lifetime wasn't enough.

For him, killing has to be the worst possible offense. How dare you strip someone of their life. How dare you cut short someone's time, knowing how scarce it is for humans? And it must be even worse for Danny because he knows not all humans become ghosts. He knows they won't get the second chance he did. He knows their murderers will never truly understand the atrocity and horror of their actions because they haven't seen the things Danny has.

Do you think it keeps him up at night? Do you think he spends hours on news sites, reading about the people whose time has been stolen? Thinking of all these souls that went away before they were due? Do you think he tries to look for them in the Ghost Zone? Do you think he mourns for them when he doesn't?

Do you think it ever makes him think about his own mortality? He's half dead, sure. But he's also half alive and that half can die. Do you think he ever cries himself to sleep, knowing he'll eventually have to go through that again?

[anniethelen]

Thinking how different TFATWS could have been if Steve had died in End Game. The characters could have actually mourned him. (From what I know, Spellman wasn’t allowed to know if old Steve was alive or dead.) Bucky and Sam could have talked about Steve without being so vague.

I could imagine a scene where Bucky is walking around aimlessly and he passes an alley and has a flashback of smol Steve getting into a fight with a bully. Or Sam is out shopping and someone walks by and says “on your left.” And he does a double take. Bucky in his apartment looking at pictures of Steve or maybe having a headstone for him put next to his mother’s. Bucky and Sam can both deal with survivor’s guilt.

Bucky and Sam could be annoyed at the public perception of Steve because Steve was nothing like that. There could be an episode that ends with them sharing stories about Steve and smiling.

[pigtailedgirl]

So because I can’t let Steve go anymore than the MCU can. Or, in the MCU’s case, you know let his character be grown if that was really the best end for him, complete or anything other than a joke. The way that have to keep mentioning him and Tony in every project to fill in or tease more character. To try an explain the plot hole or emotional hole of loss each brings. Tony’s lack of connection to the other’s emotional story, versus the Iron Man cast, versus not really examining anything about his death narratively as it relates to what it meant morally, or physically for those close to him. Sure Peter and Happy miss him, the world mourns... Is there a reflection of who and why in Tony’s legacy and death?

Same with Steve. The MCU clearly doesn’t care who and why Steve is or was.  Steve’s ending clashing so hard with his connections not only to Sam and Bucky, but the present, to all these emotional parts of character’s lives that he was related to. Nat’s and Tony’s friendship. Wanda’s mentee. T’Challa’s respect. America’s old icon and morale. The question of Hulk’s serum alt. All of it dropped. 

The important context to Steve now is he loves and has sex with them ladies. On the USO tour. As beefy, good ass Steve. 

How incredibly shallow a take on the character.

How sad that they are so obsessed with these takes...he’s left in character limbo hell, where he’s as the narrative so far as decided a public and private Schrodinger. Is he dead to them, is he on the moon, is he in the past happily living, is he back as an old guy? It’s all pick your options but realize none of them are going to be considered in the emotional weight on him or whoever thinks it. 

I think if the MCU heads have brains, they realize the character’s as they wrote and their endpoints were narratively unfulfilled. This is why they can’t let them rest or have the new ones compellingly take over.