#so it depends who I'm writing him with

[dramatisperscnae]

Bruce... how many kids do you have now? 22?

"Contrary to popular opinion I don't have a habit of adopting every child I see. Wayne Manor is only so big, after all."

[14dayswithyou]

Hi, Howdy! Hey! I really love your novel!! I got a little confused by the 4 day, may maybe you help me please? who is it? why we got the bad end staying the night in Ren’s apartment and he disappear of the home screen? I can’t understand “unset memory” game, sorry if I wrote smth wrong or smth sounds rude, I swear that I didn’t mean it if happened, I’m really a fan of the novel, I’ve been playing the game since day 1 or 2 I guess, probably day 1, english isn’t my first language, but I tried lol

⌞♥⌝ I hope you don't mind me answering these as bullet points!! ^^

"It" will be revealed later in the game! So I won't reveal too much right now.

You can only get the Dead End in Day 4 by staying at Ren's apartment — the rest of your choices before that don't matter. I'd also pay closer attention to the black smoke and Ren's reaction towards it!

Ren disappears from the home screen because he promised to help the player out (and stop them from getting the Dead End again). Try replaying the game again from the beginning for a surprise!

"Unsent Memories" was another visual novel (initially being written by @10chimes / @unsentmemory, though the project has since been dropped and handed back to me /pos) and is set in the same universe as 14 Days With You. Its storyline and characters are completely separate from 14DWY, so you don't have to worry about them while playing 14DWY.

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[maddymoreau]

I'm enjoying Fallout 3 a little more but there’s one thing that’s extremely bothering me.

How come, in the dialogue options, I can NEVER can mention, I was FORCED to leave the vault?

I didn’t have a choice but to leave. Jonas Palmer was beaten to death in attempts to get info about my father James. The Overseer was going to have the same done to me if not WORSE.

The Lone Wanderer: "So they killed Jonas, and I'm next, is that it?"

Amata: "Yeah. It's lucky I got here ahead of them. But we can't stand here talking! You're got to get out of here!"

I understand my father didn't know this would happen. That he simply thought I wouldn't be able to leave the vault after he escaped.

But the fact I can never explain what happened when reunited with him is just so ODD!?!?!!?

I COULDN’T STAY!!!!!!!

I FEEL LIKE THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION YOU SHOULD WANT TO KNOW DAD!!!!!

WHY ARE THESE MY ONLY OPTIONS?!?!?!?!!!!!

Why give me that entire section where I had to escape the vault to avoid MURDER!!?? If they were going to back me in a corner (dialogue wise) that I would've gone after my father no matter what.

It would've made the dialogue option, "Why would you throw away the life we had?" WAY MORE INTENSE AND INTERESTING IF I COULD TELL HIM HIS ACTIONS UNINTENTIONALLY AFFECTED ME!!!

It could've been followed by a cute bonding moment where he apologizes and says while this life was never what he wanted for me he'll now help me adjust however he can.

[thetomorrowshow]

hubris killed the god - ch 6

First Part

this is the final part! thanks for coming along on this one, i really enjoyed writing it :) it kind of makes me want to do more of this style in the future, so thanks for the lovely feedback <3

cw: implied/referenced death, much open discussion about death, blood & injury, non-graphic animal death

~

Within three days, Shelby is bedridden.

Or, tableridden, rather.

A mattress has been brought into the chapel (Scott’s suspicious that it’s Sausage’s own bed, dragged from the sideroom) in place of the pillows that had been cushioning Shelby’s resting place.

Shelby lies there, mostly unmoving, face pale. When she’s awake, her brow is furrowed in concentration, shaking hands weaving invisible purple webs with her wand (invisible to all but Scott). When she’s asleep, her temperature rises and she tosses and turns with illness, unable to protect herself; it’s often then that Sausage leans over her, muttering under his breath with his hands laid on her head.

At times they work at once, Sausage passing from her head to her cheek to her hand, spilling a drop of whatever is in his tiny cylindrical container at each point and continuing his muttered spells or blessings, while Shelby scrunches her eyes shut and weaves protection spells and health spells and resilience spells.

Scott can’t really tell if any of it is working. The red marks on Shelby’s cheek and hand don’t grow any smaller or larger, they don’t fade or darken. He watches the spells she casts enter her body, he sees the hexes that she weaves, but for all he knows, it’s doing nothing.

For all he knows, Shelby is still dying and he’s been right to not get his hopes up.

Sausage’s magic is less of the visible kind, for the most part, but he can see occasionally the way Sausage seems to wrap Shelby’s hand in golden strings, or the glow that passes from his hands into her hair.

Scott watches more than anyone else, he thinks—not that he’s there in the chapel more than anyone else, just that he watches. fWhip’s there whenever he can make it, sitting beside Shelby and laying his head on her shoulder or helping her eat; Gem reads to Shelby when she’s resting, hands shaking too much to carry out any more spells but feeling too ill to sleep; Katherine just sits beside her, sometimes gripping her hand when she needs it; even False steps in every once in a while, bringing fresh water for both Shelby and Sausage.

Scott doesn’t feel that he does too much to help. He mostly sits in the first pew, keeps an eye on the two of them, noting when Sausage’s prayers begin to stutter or Shelby’s hands list to the side. Then he quietly taps the shoulder of whoever is sitting beside Shelby (or slips out to the foyer where someone will be waiting) and lets them know that the two magic users’ strength is flagging, and they need to rest.

And Jimmy . . . Jimmy doesn’t come by at all.

Jimmy doesn’t even really come into the church anymore. He eats meals out by the fire alone, patrols the border by himself near-constantly, and otherwise avoids everyone.

It’s guilt, Scott thinks. If Shelby hadn’t been ill, he’d probably do the same, ashamed of his decisions and feeling horrible for the people he’s hurt.

And it may be guilt, but it’s also a terrible thing to do. Because Shelby is dying, and everyone is giving what they can to help her or be near her, and Jimmy isn’t even trying.

Every time he remembers how little Jimmy is doing, he does a little more himself. He helps Sausage to a pew for a nap. He offers to readjust Shelby’s pillows. He actually does something, which is more than Jimmy can say.

And when Scott isn’t in the chapel, he’s tracking the border’s changes, marking them with sticks and rocks. Because the border is changing every single day now, shrinking as Sausage focuses his efforts on Shelby.

And when Scott lies in bed at night, he stares at the ceiling and tries to think of ways to escape.

Oli’s dead, for sure. And there’s no way that Joey’s safe, now that they know the mites can swim. For all they know, they’ve already spread to the ocean, devouring every sea creature they come across and multiplying even further.

Pix is gone, whether by some sort of escape that only he could think of or death, Scott can’t know. Shelby’s here, but nobody knows for how long.

There’s nobody else. There’s nothing else. There’s nowhere to go.

They’re trapped in a dwindling Sanctuary, and even if Shelby does survive, they’ll all die not long after.

He considers the Nether—Shelby had managed to travel through it, after all, so it had presumably been relatively mite-free—but immediately dismisses it out of hand. Humans can’t survive long in the Nether—the temperature is just too high. Scott can barely manage the ten minute travel through the portals, there’s no way he could last more than a day before dying of heatstroke.

And then Scott loses track of his thoughts for a moment, tired as he is, and somehow ends up categorizing the various portals by how far they are from Chromia’s. It’s like counting sheep, he thinks idly. Tracking them in his mind as a way to fall asleep. Joel’s is the closest, of course, but there are a bunch of portals kind of all tangled up and he cannot for the life of him remember which color of carpet leads to which portal.

He tries to picture them in his head, holding back a yawn. Jimmy’s is brown, Gem’s is . . . orange? Was Pix grey, or a blue? And what about the fairgrounds, that Oli had built a portal for? Despite there having its own, much more mysterious portal, of course.

A portal, Jimmy had called the Rift. Then he’d said that it had been Lizzie’s plan to head in there.

Scott sits straight up in bed, exhaustion forgotten.

They can go through the Rift.

-

There’s silence around the campfire after Scott introduces his plan. fWhip and Gem exchange a look. Katherine glances back at the church. False leans back a bit, folds her arms.

Jimmy, however, nods. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about, too,” he says. “I’d say it’s worth a shot to send at least some of us in.”

“Some of us being who?” Gem asks, and there’s something pointed in her voice that Scott doesn’t quite understand.

Jimmy seems to, though, because he inclines his head toward her. “Myself, Katherine, fWhip, and you, I figured,” he says to her, before shrugging. “We could rearrange those if we need to. But Shelby can’t travel, and False ain’t keen on the Rift—” False snorts in acknowledgement— “and Scott can see the border, might protect Sanctuary for a bit longer. That’s my reasoning, least. All good?”

And Scott nods, if only because Jimmy’s the leader.

He wants to go through, but he can’t leave Shelby. Sure, he wants to survive—he’s gotten this far, after all, one of the few left during the apocalypse—but he isn’t going to throw away his friends just for the chance to live.

And again, it’s a chance. Just like how finding Pix had been a chance.

Scott’s not willing to put everything on the line for another chance.

-

The preparations start immediately.

Gem runs to and fro, reassuring Shelby in one second and sharpening her sword the next, packing food and first aid and everything she can carry.

fWhip trails along beside her, apparently already ready, offering suggestions and chewing so  hard on his lip that it starts to bleed.

Katherine hasn’t collected much in her short time here, so she spends her spare moments sitting beside Shelby and Sausage, holding Shelby’s hand whenever it’s available. Scott watches her, sometimes, his eyes catching on their entwined hands, and thinks of all the things that Shelby’s confessed to him over lunch, and wonders.

And Jimmy, again, is the odd one out, wandering through Sanctuary and sitting alone by the campfire.

Scott’s content to leave him to it—he doesn’t know what Jimmy’s thinking and he’s not really interested in knowing—but when Jimmy grabs him by the shoulder early the next morning (the day before they’re set to head out, leaving Scott and False in charge), Scott reluctantly breaks away from his path to the church and follows. He’s a busy man, trying to take over the management of Sanctuary at such a tumultuous time—whatever Jimmy has to say had better be quick.

They walk in silence for a moment. The sun has just broken over the horizon, casting the orange leaves of Sanctuary’s trees into a dim, yellow light. It feels so very autumnal, even though Scott’s fairly certain it’s only just barely September. Maybe there’s some kind of magic involved, like with the rest of Sanctuary, that changes the seasons on a dime. He’s pretty sure that last week when he was out here, the trees had been mostly green.

Those are only idle thoughts, straws grasped at for something to think about so that he isn’t forced to make conversation. Unfortunately, it looks like it’ll be up to him, as Jimmy says nothing for several long minutes.

“Nice out,” Scott offers eventually. Jimmy starts, almost as if he’d forgotten Scott was here.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs. “Bit warm for this early, but I ain’t complaining.”

Scott nods slowly. Scuffs at the footpath that travels around the border that they’re following. Jimmy doesn’t say anything else.

Jimmy pauses at a point close to the border on the opposite side of the church, looking out over the plains in the distance, little patches of grass turned black.

“This is the most beautiful part of Sanctuary, I think,” Jimmy murmurs, and Scott tries to see it. He really does.

But there’s not much to it. It’s just a plain, with few of the trees that make Sanctuary so picturesque, stretching far until it slowly climbs into rolling hills.

He nods again, anyway. He’s not sure what Jimmy’s trying to do—connect with him, or apologize before leaving? Try not to part with bad blood?

Because while Scott’s certainly grown some sympathy for the man, he doesn’t have to like him. He doesn’t have to forgive him for ending the world.

Even if, in some strange turn, he wants Jimmy to forgive him for pushing them to look for Pix.

But Jimmy doesn’t ask forgiveness. He doesn’t try to explain his actions, or apologize. Instead, he takes in a deep breath, and says, turning to meet Scott’s eyes, “I want you to go through the Rift.”

Scott blinks. “Sorry, what?”

Jimmy sighs, sits down on a boulder in a familiar way that clearly tells Scott he’s spent quite some time here. “I’m not going. I want you to take my place.”

And that—whatever Scott had expected, it isn’t that.

“Wh-why?”

Jimmy doesn’t answer immediately. He just gazes out over the plains, something lost, something longing in his eyes.

Scott may not forgive Jimmy. He may not like him. But Jimmy’s a good leader, knows how to properly build a community in times of hardship, he knows how to direct. If the other side of the Rift is some new world, untouched by the death that plagues this one, someone will need to be there to help the group survive, rebuild from nothing.

Not Scott. Chromia had been full of llamas and not people for a reason, after all.

And he’s already been preparing to stay back, Jimmy had asked him to stay back and he’d agreed and he’s settled in that decision and that’s final—

“I can’t do that,” he says, and there’s a bit of panic rising in his throat, but he swallows it down as best he can. “I—you’re the leader, I can’t—I don’t—”

“Scott,” Jimmy says softly.

Scott stops.

“I’m not going,” he continues. “And they’ll follow you. Even False will follow you, if you can convince her. But I can’t go through the Rift.”

“Why not?”

Jimmy chews on the inside of his cheek. The fire that normally burns so brightly behind his eyes is dim, his body hunched over itself a little bit. He fiddles with his vest a little, then looks out again over the plains.

“It was in the catacombs,” Jimmy starts, his voice still lower than Scott’s ever heard before. “I was marking our path with chalk. And. . . .”

He shakes back the cuff of his right sleeve, and there, on his wrist, is a tiny pink splotch, raw scrapes from where it’s clearly been scratched at swelling it further.

Scott stares.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Jimmy says, a bit of a wry smile playing upon his lips. “Not when we couldn’t stop moving while we were down there. Not when Shelby needed comfort. Not when we need to focus everything on her.”

Oh.

Jimmy’s dying, too.

And Scott supposes he ought to feel something about that—sadness, at losing another friend; relief, that the killer who began this whole thing will meet his end; even despair at the loss of their leader.

He doesn’t feel any of that, though.

He mostly feels tired.

“We might be able to heal you,” he offers. The words come out halfhearted, as genuine as they are. “If it works with Shelby, we can do it with you, right? We can just put off the Rift thing until you’re both better.”

“And if Shelby doesn’t get better?”

Scott looks away.

“I want to stay,” Jimmy says. “I do. But I can’t. And maybe it’s selfish, Scott, but I don’t want them to know that . . . that I’ve been hiding this from them.”

“Like you hid the stuff about Joel from me.”

Jimmy grimaces. “Yeah. I’m not really good with confrontations like that. You saw what happened. But I couldn’t just leave without telling someone, you know?”

“So . . . you’re leaving,” Scott says. He glances out toward the plains, the little patches of darkness that mar them. “To—what, to become like Oli? Instead of staying here, where we can help you . . . go peacefully, I guess?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I don’t care much for the idea of staying in bed, all still and sick ‘til it’s over. I figure I’ll just head out quietly, yeah? I already packed my bag. I just wanted to make sure someone could be in charge.”

“I’m not a leader,” Scott reminds him. “What about fWhip?”

“fWhip’s a follower,” Jimmy shoots back instantly. “He gets too stressed to actually lead.”

“Katherine?”

“I don’t think she’ll want to go through the Rift,” Jimmy says. He’s clearly given this a lot of thought. “She said she’d come, but I bet my bootstraps she’ll back out last minute. And not Gem, either,” Jimmy adds when Scott opens his mouth. “Scott, I chose you because you’re the one who fought back when you thought I’d made a wrong choice. You spoke up. And not just then—you suggest your own plans all the time. You’re a leader, even if you don’t know it.”

Scott wants to argue. He wants to tell Jimmy all the ways he wouldn’t be a good leader, all the times he’s screwed up, all the illegal things he’s done.

But there isn’t time.

There is time, however, to spend another moment with Jimmy, so Scott heaves himself onto the boulder beside him and leans, just a little bit, against him.

Jimmy tenses, then slowly, carefully, rests his head on Scott’s shoulder.

Scott can feel through his shirt that Jimmy’s forehead is a decent bit warmer than it ought to be.

They just sit there, as the sun rises, leaning against each other, staring out at the plains beyond the border. The world is silent, no wildlife left to wake up.

It’s strange, Scott thinks, because for all the various emotions he’s felt about Jimmy—the small crush he’d had for so long that had given way to anger and a little fear when he’d learned of Joel’s fate, the affection, the apprehension, the respect, the irritation—he feels absolutely nothing in this moment.

After maybe ten minutes, Jimmy’s muscles tense (as if he’s preparing to carry something heavy) and he pulls away, brushes off his wrinkled shirt, and stretches his arms out.

“I should probably head out before the town wakes up,” he says. “Get away before anyone can stop me.”

“Sure,” Scott says, quiet, then adds, “what do you want me to tell them?”

Jimmy pauses, looks in the direction of the church (obscured by the woods) and then back to the plains. “Not the truth,” he says eventually. “I don’t care what. Better to let ‘em believe I’m a deserter, probably. I don’t want them to try and find me.” He idly scratches at the spot on his wrist, before adding, voice quieter, “And I don’t want them to be sad. I don’t want them to have to grieve me. It’s better for them to be angry, I think.”

Which Scott thinks is unfair to Jimmy’s memory (not that he’s a memory yet), but. Dying men and their wishes and all that.

“Where are you planning on going?”

“Wander,” says Jimmy. “See if I can find a way to kill those buggers. Look for Pix, maybe. Then die peaceful-like in a ditch, probably.”

Scott doesn’t laugh at the poor attempt at a joke. Jimmy doesn’t either. Instead, the Sheriff gives him a sad smile, picks up his satchel that had been leaning against the boulder unnoticed, and steps across the border.

Scott sits there and watches until he’s just a speck in the distance, swallowed up by the hills.

-

“And what, he didn’t even give you a reason? He just left?” Gem demands, and Scott’s never seen her this angry.

He shrugs helplessly. “That’s all I know. I woke up, I came over to check on Shelby, he left me in charge, and then he left.”

If Scott’s omitting certain irrelevant parts of the story, nobody will ever know. Because despite the way it itches at him uncomfortably, it had been Jimmy’s dying wish to not tell them why he’d left.

“I can’t believe this,” Gem huffs. “I thought he actually cared. Forget him.”

fWhip’s sequestered himself awkwardly in the corner of the foyer, arms hugged tight around himself. His eyes are shining in the dim light, and Scott looks away quickly before he can confirm them to be tears.

Katherine’s angry as well, arms folded tightly over her chest, hair coming out of its braid. “Coward. Doesn’t want to face what we’d do to him if the Rift takes us someplace safe.”

Scott cringes internally. He doesn’t speak up.

“So, Jimmy ran for it,” Gem says, counting on her fingers. “Jimmy ran, Shelby’s down, Sausage is with her. Pix is gone, Oli’s gone, Joey’s probably gone. Lizzie left. Tomorrow, half of us are going through the Rift.” She sighs. “Soon there’ll be no one left.”

“Well, if the Rift works out, we can come back and send everyone through,” Scott points out. “Even though there’d be no one left, at least we’d be alive.”

Everyone across the room nods. fWhip sniffles quietly.

“So,” Scott says after a moment (they’d all been waiting for something to be said, and it was usually Jimmy’s job but now Scott has Jimmy’s job and he’s not ready for this responsibility—). “We’re leaving tomorrow. Can someone fill me in on the plan, please?”

-

Scott finds himself sitting on that boulder, overlooking the plains (which are still unimpressive compared to literally every other view of Sanctuary). He hadn’t even known this boulder existed, in more than a passing sense, until Jimmy showed it to him this morning.

He doesn’t have time to mourn, no time to mourn anything that’s happened over the past couple of months, but he does have a moment to sit by himself and mentally prepare for the plan that they've spent the past hour going over.

Or at least, he thinks he does, because he’s barely been there for ten minutes when someone clambers onto it beside him.

“Hey,” Katherine says.

“Hey.”

She sighs, looks out over the plains and the mites that inhabit them. “Terrible view,” she comments after a moment.

Scott snorts. “Exactly what I thought.”

Silence.

Scott hasn’t had much to do with Katherine—she helped him stitch a copy of his fedora, of course, but outside of that afternoon of sewing, they haven’t really hung out. Not like he has with Shelby, or Jimmy, or Joel.

All of his friends are dead or dying.

Except Sausage. Everyone always seems to overlook Sausage.

“He liked you, you know,” Katherine says out of the blue.

Scott chokes a little bit. “Sorry?”

“Jimmy,” she says, as if it’s obvious. “I know you had a thing for him. If you’d asked him out, he would’ve said yes.”

Right. Well, that’s a revelation that Scott doesn’t have time to process. And unfair of her to put on him. “Did you ever ask Shelby out?” he asks dryly.

Katherine inclines her head. “Touche.”

“I had a thing for Jimmy, he had a thing for Joey, Joey had a thing for you, you had a thing for Shelby—if anyone tried to pair off, it would’ve caused wars.”

“Or a big, happy polycule,” Katherine suggests. “Then maybe none of this would’ve happened. And Jimmy can still be the leader, which would keep his ego soothed."

Scott frowns. “Wait, why does Jimmy get to lead the polycule?”

Katherine gives him a look. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Literally all of you guys were down so bad for him. Gem and I used to bet on who would crack first and confess.”

And Scott had thought he’d been rather subtle about his affections for Jimmy. The Sheriff tended to eschew romance in general (he’d always looked out of his depth when Scott tried to talk about Katherine’s little love triangle), so Scott had been careful about not overwhelming him or crossing any boundaries. In fact, he’d become so used to dissociating romance from Jimmy, he must have not noticed several fellow rulers pining after the Sheriff.

Which is kind of disappointing. He must’ve missed out on months of gossip.

And it’s all in the past, now.

“So, about tomorrow. . . .” Katherine starts.

“You don’t want to come,” guesses Scott. She turns a shocked look on him.

“How—? Never mind. You’re just a natural leader, I guess.” She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to stay with Shelby.”

Scott nods. “I figured,” he says. He didn’t. Jimmy figured, and Scott’s just passing along his assumptions.

Now, more than ever, Scott understands why everyone else valued Jimmy being a good leader despite his murderous tendencies.

“Right. Well, is that cool?” she asks.

He’d love to have Katherine with him when they come out on the other side of the Rift, knowing nothing about what might be waiting for them.

But on the other hand, he won’t pull her away from Shelby in what’s possibly Shelby’s final days.

“It’s not a problem,” he says. “I’ll see if False will join us instead. I’m not going to make you do anything. And I think Shelby needs you more than I do.”

Katherine shoots him a small smile. “Yeah. Thanks. But if everything works out, we’ll all be headed through soon, anyway.”

“Hopefully Sausage has another sheep.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

It’s not healthy to suppress emotions like this (Scott’s well aware of that, if nothing else), but he finds himself relieved that he doesn’t feel more than a distant sadness at Katherine’s decision to stay.

“You know,” Katherine says after a moment, “I knew Jimmy decently well. And if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he isn’t a coward.”

Scott doesn’t say anything. Just remembers that when he told them all what had happened, the first thing Katherine had done was call Jimmy a coward. Words of anger, perhaps? Or is her new admission a lie?

“It . . . it hurts to know that he just left us. I can’t decide if he had a reason, or if it really was just running away.” She sighs. “Everyone’s selfish when it comes down to it, I guess.”

Scott nods. “Yeah,” he finds himself agreeing. Just hours ago, he’d sat on this boulder with Jimmy leaning against him, feverish and likely hallucinating as he gathered the strength to strike off alone.

And just two months ago, Jimmy had killed a god out of quick-tempered anger and selfishness, dooming the world.

“Yeah,” Scott says again. “It’s what makes us human, I guess.”

-

Sausage, tired as he is, gives Scott a warm hug before they leave.

“Take care, Scott,” he whispers, beard tickling Scott’s ear. Scott nods, swallows back the lump in his throat.

“You too. Get Shelby better, yeah?”

Sausage doesn’t respond, just squeezes him and turns back to Shelby.

Shelby doesn’t acknowledge Scott when he bends over to give her a hug, her eyes squeezed shut and heat radiating off of her. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her tight for a solid ten seconds.

Katherine gives him a quick hug on the way out, and Gem and fWhip and False are waiting on the airship already (with the sheep just hanging out behind them, which is a ludicrous sight), so he hurries along and clambers up to join them, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and his trusty shovel at his hip.

“Bye!” Katherine waves from the ground. Gem waves back right as the turbines start spinning and the airship slowly takes off.

Scott grips the railing, staring down over Sanctuary. From this height, he can tell that the protective magic around the town is beginning to fail. It’s patchy, almost open, from above, and it’s shrunk so much that the houses on the edge of town are beginning to fall outside of the line.

Some sort of emotion wells up in Scott, and he isn’t sure if it’s fear or grief or what, just knows that it’s making his stomach turn.

Whether or not the Rift thing works out, he probably won’t ever see Sanctuary again.

He may never see Sausage or Shelby again. He’ll never see Chromia, or the Evermoor, or Tumble Town, or any of this world ever again.

Scott heaves a sigh, then turns around, to find fWhip and Gem watching him.

“Sorry, what?” he blinks a few times. “Did you—did you say something?”

fWhip shrugs. “You’re the leader now,” he says awkwardly. “Just waiting for you to go over the plan.”

“I just learned the plan from you yesterday,” Scott points out. “Surely you know it better than me.”

“I guess, but . . . Jimmy always did it.”

“Right.” Scott forgot that he would actually have responsibilities. He’d never paid much attention to what Jimmy did, other than run himself into the ground patrolling and cause the apocalypse. “Um. False will drop the sheep on the other side of the river from the Rift, hopefully attracting the mites. We head through the Rift while they’re distracted. That’s . . . that’s it.”

Gem frowns. “I expected more.”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. More.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “Well, I don’t have anything else to say. Give me a couple of minutes, I’ll make something up.”

fWhip actually grins a little. Which is great, because Scott’s pretty sure he’s barely stopped crying since yesterday.

Then he turns back, and watches the miles pass below them until he can see the mountain that holds the pulsing Rift in the distance, the ground around it so overwhelmed by mites that the terrain is no longer familiar. Somewhere within the festival grounds that had never been properly used is a torn flag hanging from a bent flagpole, tatters flapping in the wind.

Finally, whatever it is in Scott’s stomach resolves itself into a properly identifiable feeling.

He feels fear.

Which, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have time for.

“We all know the plan?” he finds himself yelling over the sound of the airship, as if they hadn’t just gone over it. Gem and fWhip nod, fWhip already leading the sheep to the edge.

Just as False passes over the river, by the bridge, fWhip shoves the bleating sheep overboard.

Even from as far up as they are, Scott hears it hit the ground with a crunch and cringes, wishing he’d thought to cover his ears.

But it works.

The mites that had been squirming around the Rift begin to crawl en masse in the direction of the sheep, where already a few lucky mites are devouring the thing. They’re going to have to move fast—this is in no way a permanent solution, especially considering the multiplication that’s going to take place.

Scott throws the rope ladder over the side when False halts the airship, looks around for—for no one, he’s the leader, he has to go first.

And he’s right—he’ll need to move faster than ever, what with the still sizable collection of mites below him.

Scott swallows, his mouth utterly dry. There’s a pretty good chance this is the last thing he’ll ever do. There’s no guarantee that there’s even anything more than a hellscape on the other side of the Rift.

But if this is his last act, at least he won’t have to be in charge any more.

Scott swings himself over the railing and finds his footing on the waving rope ladder, before hauling himself down as quickly as he can. The wind is blowing the ladder all over the place, and it’s all Scott can do to hold on and not die of fright, but his arms (somehow growing used to this) hold firm and his toes curl around the rope and he somehow, gloriously, makes it to the bottom.

He starts yelling at the top of his lungs before he even touches the ground, nonsense and folk tunes and wordless, whatever he can think of, just to frighten the darkness away a bit. He starts glaring as soon as he can look away from his own feet, clearing a nice space for fWhip and Gem to land.

Scott double-checks that his pant legs are tucked into his boots, then draws his shovel, holding it threateningly above his shoulder, ready to hit any mite that steps out of line.

There’s a lot of them. The grass is worn down around the Rift (so close Scott can hear it thrumming with power) by so many plaguelings stacked here, as if they know that a portal could lead to more places to corrupt but can’t figure out how to enter.

Scott’s voice cracks. He’s alone down here, surrounded by mites, the only way out is across that rickety bridge and even then it might—

Gem jumps the last couple of rungs, landing heavily on her feet beside Scott. fWhip scurries down the ladder right behind her, and then it’s just the three of them against the world.

“Ready to go?” Scott shouts. Gem nods, and her mouth’s moving but Scott can’t hear her over the sound of his own voice and the departing airship. She nods again, though, drawing her sword with one hand and holding onto fWhip with the other.

fWhip nods as well, his ears flapped over themselves to muffle the noise. Scott takes in a breath—they’re leaving it’s time to leave they’ll finally be out of here—and turns toward the Rift.

They have to cross the bridge, first. And as Scott takes his first step across it, the wood below his feet gives and his foot crashes through the bridge.

Scott loses track of his constant stream of noise, crying out in pain as the splintered wood scrapes up his leg like fire, all the way up to his knee, tearing through cloth and skin. There’s a mite just a few feet away from him, and surely more out of sight—he can’t stop here, he can’t catch his breath, he can’t wait for the pain to lull for a moment—it hurts and his stomach feels like it’s fallen out of his body but he can’t stop—so Scott grits his teeth and yanks his leg up, the wood scraping right back down the marks it just made until he’s properly standing again.

“Scott!” Gem grabs onto him, pulling him back a couple of steps—Scott hisses at the weight on his leg—

fWhip darts forward, testing the bridge on all fours, tail swinging out behind him for balance. It bends beneath him, but it doesn’t break like it had for Scott, and fWhip manages to cross entirely.

“One at a time,” he calls back. “And be careful—I think they’re swarming under it!”

Scott bites back a snarky response. He knows to be careful—it’s not like it was his fault the bridge broke under him. But he gingerly steps around the hole in the bridge and tiptoes across, his leg smarting, skin now bared to the wind.

Gem joins him on the other side. The Rift is within reach now, warm and pulsing purple, just a couple of meters away and they’re home free.

There are quite a few mites waiting between them and the Rift, however. That’s certainly an issue, but not unmanageable. He handled more in Stratos, probably.

Scott starts swinging with his shovel, yelling every curse he can think of, but he’s only cleared a few before fWhip grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him roughly to look to his right.

Returning from across the river, sheep entirely gone, is a veritable wave of death.

The mites are piled higher than Scott is tall, practically twice his height, an amorphous being that looms over them like Joel once had.

Scott’s mind goes utterly blank. All he can hear is the pounding of his heart in his ears. All he can feel is his limbs shaking.

It’s moving fast, the shadow of the plague passing over them as the pile begins to collapse, in a matter of seconds mites will be raining down and latching onto them and they’ll die under the assault of so much death and Scott can’t make himself move—

Then Gem shoves him, and instinct kicks in.

Scott grabs Gem by the hand, fWhip by the arm, and runs.

He runs, and fWhip trips and Scott doesn’t let go, just hoists him back up with a strength he’s never had before and keeps going, because they’re going to die if they stay here and Scott’s never been more afraid in his life—

Something hits his back and bounces off—then again and again. Scott just has a moment to spare a thought, a prayer to whoever is listening that it didn’t touch his skin, and then he has to focus every thought he has on getting out.

Gem screams something, fWhip yells “We’re gonna make it!” and Scott bites his cheek and closes his eyes and his shoe catches on a stone—

Scott tumbles headfirst into the Rift.

-

The first sound he hears is the chirping of birds.

[akuma-tenshi]

there are some characters where i look at them and go "i don't want anything bad to happen to them ever" and others where i look at them and go "i need them to suffer so fucking much until they b r e a k" and there's no telling which is which until you talk to me about them

[skrunksthatwunk]

just read shin devilman and i'm about to be so annoying what the FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (both /pos and /neg but frankly /baffled. what the fuck. anyway thoughts below)

ok so i knew sd (i'm just gonna call it sd) was gonna be weird right. it has TOS style gratuitous funny time travel plots and TOS style homoeroticism it's like. it's mostly there to see ryo and akira hang out in a variety of Historical Events/Settings/Clothes and that's fine. in theory.

chapter one fucking. i. okay i had this foreboding sense right like oh... they're in vienna in 1913 and my first thought was "do i google when hitler was born + is this a "do we kill baby hitler" time travel theoretical??" and i was like no no he would've been older. anyway it's gotta be a coincidence right hitler's not going to be in this. and then we meet this painter. his name is adolf. oh god. he hates jewish people. oh no. but everybody was antisemetic back then it like,, it might be a hitler symptom but this could still be another unaffiliated adolf. oh but his hair's greasy. but he doesn't have the mustache so maybe it cancels out? and as it goes on im like seeing okay his jewish.. art dealer(?) is selling this portrait of his unrequited love to another jewish man and i'm like oh god Please don't do what i think you're going to do with this but also debating whether or not i want this to be hitler because on one hand it would be an awful narrative choice. like politics aside (we'll get there) it's just so goddamn tacky. but on the other hand my fear and increasing belief that go nagai is about to reveal this guy to be THE adolf hitler is building up pressure for a fit of hysterical laughter that i Know is likely coming. god it would be so baffling and so so funny and

i howled. is my point.

like i cannot express to you how fucking mind melting this was to me. for the next couple hours of reading i would just stop and (unprompted) whisper adolf..! adolf hitler...!! to myself like. god what a fucking. just look at it god i don't have to explain LOOK AT THIS SHIT. LOOK AT IT. he animorphs into evil older hitler. it's in Such poor taste and it has Such fucking. dumb implications. we'll get there.

what else. oh i love how nagai doesn't even bother with explaining them adjusting to places most of the time. next chapter BOOM they're in armor on a boat ready for battle. did they just pop out of the dimensional rift like that? in historically appropriate roles/clothing? that doesn't always happen though bc ryo has to get them clothes for versailles next chapter. but we meet them with the cheyenne and it looks like they've been there a while so. idk it's goofy to me. he really said i am not putting all that effort into a drabble.

pivot but i like how dumb yaoi-coded a lot of sd is. i read it for The Scene (the "akira im not into women i um. i. uh" scene) but it still kind of surprised me sometimes. i would be chastising myself for looking at akira diving overboard to save ryo (in full armor) bc it's not Really gay to save his best friend's life right and then that's Immediately followed by this

im fucking losing my mind. kyaa don't take off my armor (baka). what am i doing. what was HE doing writing this. etc.

^^i didn't even gather everything gay i saw because eventually it started feeling about as enlightening as pointing out the gay bits in a ryokira doujin. but those are some highlights i guess. you think they encountered homosexuality in the ancient grecian military? surely not...... unless..............? (also they're bound by fate..... look i know they're almost The most literal iteration of that dynamic but. i know what you are)

i love this bit. zero stakes. "yeah greece kinda ate shit" "lol exactly like--" "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND WALK!!!!!!!!!"

what else what else. oh this panel was funny. only her left arm is being severed here so that right shoulder is supposed to connect to her back. somehow. spot the difference!

THEY GOT FLAT STANLEYED

another panel i liked. the h in dhevilman stands for head empty

this one too. the scan was actual shit so i kept not seeing the guns so this was Extra jarring to me

also look at these little blurbs at the end. iirc they only did those for the joan of arc and little bighorn stories and LOOK HOW DIFFERENT THEY ARE TONALLY

like the joan chapter is largely sweet? i guess? it's supposed to be a happy ending and it's like aww (though. i don't think joan would be like "an angel in the form of a demon... :)" but whatever) and then it's like Yeah Well She WAS Tried For Being A Witch. By Humans. And Was Burned Alive. it's super jarring and then the little bighorn one is like "sometimes they put this in movies!" as if we didn't just see people get massacred???

actually that brings me back to the hitler thing. i'm kinda new to devilman so take this with a grain of salt but part of what i appreciated about How devilman's apocalypse happens is that like.. demons weren't Really in control of humanity's governments or anything. they inspired paranoia that exacerbated preexisting prejudice and selfishness and led people to view the marginalized as the most dangerous For their past oppression, and humanity tore itself apart. and when there was a little compilation of the groups targeted in this, jewish people (specifically in the context of the holocaust) and native americans were both brought up, and i respected that as well. devilman takes place in our world, so discussing these atrocities and ongoing bigotries is like,, relevant and important for what it's trying to do, i feel. it wasn't focused on much, but it stuck out to me, and i think it shows a degree of care about those genocides on the part of nagai.

but i think mentioning them in passing and from a contemporary perspective was a bit safer. you have to be a lot more careful doing historical fiction/time travel misadventures about Very Real atrocities for your Very Unreal Fantasy Romp. and i think that because nagai feels moved by these atrocities and because they're kind of important to devilman and what it's saying about humanity, he felt it would fit to have them in a devilman story that includes time travel (or perhaps he was just inclined due to artistic preferences. either way). i think it also makes sense to explore, in theory. yet any time you insert your fantasy bullshit as a cause for/major factor in An Actual Irl Genocide/Etc you kind of trivialize it. not quite the same, but the closest other example i could think of was how motherfucker supreme jk row.ling took the witch burnings and was like haha that was witches playing pranks on stupid idiot muggles. they were laughing btw. real actual irl people were murdered!! i'm not saying you can never joke about it or mess with it but when you're treating them as serious events And Also going "well actually it was my Dumb Fantasy Thing that caused that" you like.. make it about your dumb fantasy thing instead. the dead are reduced to props.

ch 1's depiction of hitler was of one who already hated jewish people before watching his beloved be burned alive by a jewish(?) demon (a demon masquerading as a jewish person? yeah), but who decided to dedicate his life to jewish extermination Because of that event. and i think the decisions to have him hate jewish people before this AND to not make him a demon are good. this could've been worse. but it still kind of makes the holocaust about demons, y'know? hitler was a person, one influenced by the world in which he lived. countless surrounding factors led to his hatred of jewish people, his attraction to fascism, and his genocidal project. the same is true for everyone involved in perpetuating or tolerating the holocaust. there is no inciting incident, really, for that hatred existing. not for most people. devilman is fundamentally concerned with the nature of group hatred, fear, bigotry, and violence. i would argue they're within its central bundle of inextricable themes (no matter how many adaptations try to, y'know. extricate it). exploring historical instances of that makes sense. but disregarding all of that nuance in favor of "demons tricked him" is in bafflingly poor taste. it's one thing to place demons in a contemporary/future-set story manipulating governments and encouraging violence, but it's another to make the murders of millions of Actual Real Not-Props-For-Your-Spinoff people retroactively caused by demonic influences. because it kind of decreases the agency of the Actual Real murderers. in sd they were tormented, deceived, manipulated by higher forces. in reality they were manipulated, maybe, but by humans. the same is true for the little bighorn chapter. admittedly, i'm less familiar with this event, but it seems... vaguely accurate? to my memory? regardless, taking a massacre that was part of a genocidal effort spanning centuries and going "custer had demons in his heart >:(" is like. revolting to me! and i don't think it's even a like,, metaphorical demon in the hearts of him and his men because we see a very literal demon in marie antoinette's heart the chapter prior. i think it's supposed to be the same thing. symbolic, maybe, but in-story there is in fact a literal demonic possession causing this. as opposed to the propaganda, violence, willful ignorance, greed, callousness, etc which actually caused it. it's like.. anti-relevance. anti-poignance. even if the demons are symbolic of like. humanity's base instincts or whatever i still don't like it. it's stupid and it sucks. and you've got like. tiana getting raped. and because of the context she's a sort of stand-in for everyone who experienced sexual violence as part of this genocide. and it's got the go nagai depictions of sexual violence funk on it (i need to finish devilman lady but Oh Boy) so it's like yucky and that makes the depiction of the genocide broadly yucky because it's again a snapshot of an actual THING that HAPPENED to REAL PEOPLE and it still has the horny funk and. god am i making sense?? whatever it's like. bad to me. i'm not saying you can't like shin devilman or whatever but this part was gross and as hard as the hitler twist made me laugh it was simply not worth it. the toybox approach to historical fiction is Not Good when you start putting in real atrocities and real people, imo. you can't blame hitler's antisemitism on demons bc that primes people to dismiss others as Just Evil it encourages an ignorance that perpetuates genocide and also it's just kind of bad for your story's like.. social commentary. devilman feels like an indictment of humanity but sd almost feels like it's excusing humanity for the same actions bc of the retroactive thing. it's like devilman's demons weren't manipulating humans who independently had a pattern of mass violence for xyz reasons but instead were the secret cause of every cycle of mass violence humans did. it blows!! genuinely open to differing views on the fucking political commentary in shin devilman but idk i just uh. don't think it was good. as someone who's fresh off a first read.

idk. um. i thought shy ryo was interesting.

tbh it doesn't seem like,, in line with my image of ryo from the original series? but i kind of like it when characters are unexpectedly shy, so it's cute to me. i have to wonder when in the process of writing devilman nagai decided ryo was 1) in love with akira and 2) intersex (something ryo if not nagai himself explicitly ties into his interest in men), because the whole thing feels... different than devilman irt that dynamic. i mean, i've been talking about how gay sd is, but i genuinely think a lot of that comes from a desire to depict their relationship with those things in mind, both for the audience and (again, potentially) the author. making ryo more shy in like.. a kind of effeminate way? (idk man idk) feels like the sort of not-quite-retcon that'd stem from that.

actually i kind of liked his relationship with tiana, brief as it was, and what it highlighted about ryo. he blushes when he realizes she's into him, and while he sort of rebuffs her flirting, it's clear that he still cares about her. he's flustered by the situation because it puts him in an awkward spot, not being able to say why he's not interested (and who he's actually interested in). it's a less-discussed and honestly very relatable part of being gay and closeted that was like,, pleasantly surprising to see. hell yeah. and that bit about ryo being unable to kill animals where she says he has a gentle heart is so cute to me

they're friends!! :> and that rules. i think there's a tendency to depict queer characters who don't (and are unable to) reciprocate the feelings of a straight character as being cold to them. and i think it would be really easy to take this gay sort-of-villain in ryo and make him disregard tiana (or women broadly)'s feelings (the gay misogynist trope). but ryo is tiana's friend. her crush isn't going to change that, because the friendship is genuine and comes first, and i like that. and i think in the context of sd we're supposed to read ryo's feelings for akira as ultimately unrequited. he loves akira, and akira loves miki. but that's not why they're not friends in the end. i see ryo/tiana and ryo/akira as parallel relationships. that in a world where ryo confesses and akira doesn't reciprocate, they would still be friends (something especially powerful with a gay character, who're treated as if they perverted a perfectly normal friendship). it's kind of sweet and hopeful, even if you know their relationship's going to end for other reasons soon enough. and he cries when he sees her dead!! i know that feels like a no-brainer to have characters cry when they see people massacred (people who took care of them for weeks) but it's not a given!! and again it shows that he cared for her rather than being like pshuh. women. which again a lot of people inject into their gay guy characters. like i'm glad that one of the adjustments made to ryo's character Was Not That (phew) but instead something that kind of made him more similar to tiana, made him relate to her even though her crush made him feel a bit awkward. like. there's room for exploration there, with him projecting his own awkwardness onto akira and stuff. anyway. yeah i wish she was a more developed character bc she is very much a brown girl there to fall in love with a foreign stranger, highlight elements of his character, and then die horribly but that doesn't mean i don't like what was there, i guess, so much as what wasn't.

[analyzingadventure]

You know I actually never realized this before-- so you remember how tri. retconned Original Chosen fighting and defeating Apocalymon into them fighting the Dark Masters instead? (To be fair it is possible they could've ALSO fought Apocalymon afterwards but that isn't the Epic Final Showdown tri. decided to depict so it's borderline a retcon)

If the Original 5 Chosen fought and defeated the Dark Masters once in the distant past, doesn't that mean that

A) They survived and hid for just a few thousand years until they came back for a Round 2 at conquering the world

B) They died, were reborn, and THEN went for the Round 2

You know I've just DYING with curiosity, desperately wanting to know if any of the villians in Adventure would ever be reborn after Adventure, right. Because according to the lore they should, right (unless their data was like somehow absorbed by Apocalymon and destroyed along with him (though that would still leave Piemon as an exception (and Vamdemon but we all know what happened to him) and the sole survivor))

And what tri. has essentially done is confirm that most of them should, in fact, be reborn sooner or later

But that just raises the question of if Apocalymon was lowkey driving the Dark Masters nuts (as suggested by the novels), and if tri. was kind of about destroying the last remnants of Apocalymon's data (within Meicoomon), if they were reborn this time would they be free of Apocalymon's influence

If so, would their third (?) lives then turn out different? Would they still try to take over the world all over again for funsies (this time just without Apocalymon giving them power etc), or were they just the same as Ken was in Zero Two? I mean Apocalymon was supposed to be a spawn of Milleniummon and Ken was infected with Mille's malice directly, so while it may have been a bit filtered it was still the same source of malice and corruption, right

And like regardless of how their next lives would turn out, shouldn't the kids (OR AT THE VERY FUCKING LEAST GENNAI) like realize that this is going to happen eventually and like. Go and see if they can find them (either as their pre-Ultimate forms or even when they're still in their Eggs) and try to figure out what to do BEFORE shit hits the fan

I JUST

[echospast]

listen ... fantasy simeon with siren magic ... that is all.

[gingermintpepper]

I’m only just recently getting back into Greek mythology, so reading your rambles about it is always interesting because i’m not too knowledgeable about it, and thank you for the kind comments on the art, your art is very cool, the designs are very pretty and unique !!

Oh thank you so much! That's so sweet <33

To be fair, we're all constantly learning more and more about Greek mythology and hey, I'm super glad to hear that you're getting back into it too :D Hopefully, you have fun while learning new things :DD

And I'm glad to compliment your art - I genuinely find it really compelling and the concepts are really cohesive. Super cool stuff. Of course, if you ever have any questions or just want to gush about your story, I'm all ears too!

Cheers to learning together!

[radioisntdead]

Accidentally stumbled onto the dark side of Tumblr again, DEAR GRACE SOME FOLKS NEED INTENSE THERAPY, or need to stop doing drugs, maybe both, my eyes, my poor, poor eyes, I need a holy water and bleach combo

Also I should watch gravity falls again

[desperatepleasures]

you'd think given that the characters cannot fucking afford to buy food half the time it'd be challenging to come up with canon-compliant feedism plots about them but it's actually really really easy because every member of the ichinomiya household would sell their soul for a single corn chip

[mmriesoftvat]

I think I am going to make some temporary changes to this blog, mostly due to low muse/what people prefer and create a tier list so people know what to expect. This doesn't effect current drafts, only new threads going forward.

Main muses: Cyno, Kazuha, Albedo, Kami

Secondary: All yakshas, Yelan, Layla, Collei.

Request only: Childe, Andrius, Sucrose

[lakka-arts]

me one (1) netflix!geraskier mistagged as gerlion post away from blacklisting the tag all together

[ronanlynchbf]

"all this foreshadowing abt declan dying and then he didn't even die" well personally i think declan got murdered dead by mstief in greywaren so. actually 2 me he did die. Badly.

[specialshinytrinkets]

[ID:

You do [caps] not [end caps] need to kill off a character for 'emotional impact', or 'realism'. Especially if you've given readers / watchers time to bond with said character. Come on.

/endID]

im starting to think you guys dont like it when stories make you feel things