#someone tell me im internally dying

[nomairuins]

under the cut bc it is relating to The thang rhat happened yesterday. so umm. idk how to tw it. i thought some very scary stuff happened to my body but none of it actually did but i talk abt it a bit in detaul and its a bit gruesome . and i rambled abt it in the tags for a bit so dont read those either if u r squeamish Andor just dont want to hear abt that rn . apologies

in hindsight now im calming down a bit it is like. funny in a sad way that while i was literally Convinced that my rib had punctured my lung and also my heart and blood was filling my entire body. i Kept on asking the paramedics Is this gonna be really expensive . im sorry. um is this ambulance gonna cost a lot . and when my mom got to the room i kept crying and saying sorry in between my literal gasping for breath and gagging on what i was convinced was blood and uncontrollable shaking bc i was rly rly rly terrified it was going to cost her a lot of money . bit funny. where r your priorities girl...

[simpforrooster]

then why don’t you, hotchner.

aaron hotchner x reader

summary: reader is obsessed with their boss.

t/w: some cursing, alcohol consumption. i pictured a female as i wrote, but im pretty sure it can be read as gn!

aaron hotchner is your unit chief. your very hot unit chief.

you’re completely aware of how unethical this infatuation is. you’re also aware of the age difference.

not that you care.

nothing could come of this crush. no matter how much you dreamed something would.

jj, emily, and penelope knew about this silly little crush. i mean how couldn’t they. they’re profilers, and as much as you try not to let your gaze linger on him longer than normal, sometimes it couldn’t be helped.

you’re nestled in a corner booth of your local bar with the rest of the team, blowing off some steam after a case.

reid sits next to you, animatedly talking about his latest read.

hotch meets your eye across the table, feeding you a rare smile. as quick as it appeared, it was gone. the last thing you needed was for one of the girls to notice and try feeding you false hope.

jj was the worst about it. “y/n, he’s obsessed with you. haven’t you noticed he always pairs the two of you together on a case?”

of course, you have wondered about that.

reid lays his arm on the back of the booth, enveloping you. “you need to add this one to your list,” reid tells you, looking down at you. you crane your face to his, grinning at your friend.

what you missed was the way hotch’s jaw set as he watched the two of you. you miss the way his grip tightens on the handle of his mug.

hotch throws the rest of his beer back, setting the mug down a little too hard.

“let me get you another, boss,” derek says, eyeing the rest of the table.

“oh, this is our song, jj,” emily screams, pulling jj to the dance floor.

“spence, come tell me more about that book,” penelope says. reid’s brows knit together, and penelope jerks her head toward the bar. realization falls over his face and they’re the last to leave. leaving you and hotch alone.

“they’re not exactly subtle, are they?” he asks, a smirk on his face.

“i guess i could say the same about you,” you gestured toward his empty mug.

hotch shrugs his shoulder. “i’m not sure what came over me.” he held your gaze, leaning across the table.

“what was that about?” you ask.

“come on, y/l/n. you’re a better profiler than that.” those dark eyes bore into yours.

"were you jealous, hotchner?" you ask, calm and collected on the outside but dying on the inside. maybe jj was right.

“why would i be jealous of reid when i know i’m the one you want?”

your cheeks redden. hotch stands from his spot in the booth and slides in next to you. the man has shocked you into silence. there is no way your boss is flirting with you.

hotch’s jaw works back and forth, like he’s fighting an inner battle with himself.

“how do you know that?” you murmur.

“you think i don’t notice the glances you sneak at me? or the way your cheeks turn red when i have to be stern with someone?” his fingertips run across your cheeks. “give me some credit here.”

embarrassment fills your body, making your heart sink to your feet. of course he knew. he’s the damn unit chief. he’s the best profiler the fbi has.

“what’s confusing to me is how you never picked up on why i partner the two of us up. or how i sneak my own glances at you,” he says, low in your ear. “or how turned on i get when i watch you hand someone their ass.”

“hotch—“

“i know. i’m your boss and twice your age.”

your body falls back against the wall, all the air leaving your body as if you were punched. of course the unit chief has a moral compass.

“i-i- i don’t care about that,” you manage to say. hotch’s eyes close, another internal battle. he scoots closer to you, filling trapping you between him and the wall.

“dave told me you’d say that.”

“rossi? you’ve been talking to him about us?”

hotch smirks. “he’s been pushing me to make a move since you joined the unit.”

“then why don’t you, hotchner?” you ask.

“because the paperwork would kill me,” he murmurs, leaning closer to you.

“hmm, maybe i could help you fill it out?” you suggest, letting your eyes drop to his mouth.

hotch moves in, stopping a breath from your lips. “no paperwork would get completed if i had you in my office all to myself.” gripping the collar of his button down, you pull him the remainder of the way to you.

his lips mold around yours in a way you can only describe as perfection. like his lips were made for you, and you alone. he kisses you with an urgency, and you match it. raising up from the booth, you arch yourself into him. his hand cement to your waist, pulling you as close as he can.

when he pulls back, his face is flushed. the aaron hotchner is blushing.

because of you.

pride fills your gut knowing you affect him the same way he does you.

“you’re gonna submit that paperwork to strauss, right?” you ask, breathless.

“fuck yes,” he says, pulling you in for another kiss.

a/n: my first criminal minds fic! i’ve been writing for topgun maverick for a long time. since beginning to watch criminal minds again, i’ve been dying to write for hotch and reid. i hope yall liked this! 🫣

[quitealotofsodapop]

I've sent a similar ask before, but in peachsoup I want to see everyone's reaction to Sun Wukong being named Peaches.

Nehza: *face palms.* No memories and he is still subconsciously pining.

Erlang: *on the floor laughing* It takes a special kind of simping to do it with no memory.

Macaque: *crisis because even with no memory, Wukong chose his nickname for him as a name, but also he's supposed to be angry about dying but peaches-*

Prev.

Dont worry about resending. My inbox is stuffed to the gills and I get lost in it. Also indenting doesnt seem to work right when im on mobile.

I ended up making a bit of character dialogue based on this ask between Peaches and his school-friend "Nez"

Nez: "So how did you get the name Peaches?" Peaches: "Oh! When Dadsy- uh dad found me and MK, he called me it because peaches were pretty much the only thing I ate." Nez, agreeing hum: "Make sense." Peaches: "Then when we were adopted, we needed new legal names - so Zhu Taozi it was!" Nez: "So... you never considered having another name? I mean, the legal folk definitely gave you time to think about it. Why did Peaches resonate with you?" Peaches, twirling hair in thought: "This is gonna sound weird... but I felt like it's always been my name." Nez: "Really?" Peaches: "I know! It sounds so weird! But when I heard it for the first time, it just sounded so natural. Like someone I care about a long time ago called me it? Nez, intrigued: "Oh... so you think it was a nickname from a sibling or a parent or...?" Peaches, confidently: "I think it was someone I was in love with." Nez, memory thread unlocked?: "OH. Oh um... how can you tell?" Peaches, blush creeping: "I don't know! When I sit and meditate on stuff like this, I can just imagine someone just so beautiful with this deep voice chuckling my name like it was meant for me." (*hugs his own body lovingly*) Nez, honesty touched: "Aww..." Peaches, little embarrassed: "I'm sorry. Thats sappy." Nez: "Nah, it's really cute. Who knows? Maybe it's a sign from Yue Lao about who your soulmate it. He sometimes uses dreams to push fated lovers towards one another." Peaches, tail swishing with excitement: "Oh my gods, you're right! It could be a premonition! I wonder if my fated one is as beautiful as I see them! Nezha, internally: "He can't remember over 2000 years of life, but he can remember what his mate used to call him. It would be funny if it wasn't so bittersweet."

Once Macaque gets back, it's hard to see where his face mask begins and end. Learning that even with his memories gone Wukong chose to be called "Peaches", sends the shadow monkey into a conflicted mess. He's mad about getting KO'd obvs, but "Peaches" is both a tragic example of what if Wukong had died (Peaches is almost his own monkey after all), and a revelation that Wukong never truly forgot his mate.

Erlang is laughing his ass off as all of this goes down. His third eye was just spitting patch updates to him one day and BAM; Wukong's mate is back, and just learned that his amnesiac mate remembered and valued his pet name enough to make it his new name. It's way too funny to keep quiet about. He tells all his sworn bros about it.

When Peaches' family realises that "Peaches" was the pet name his big bro's crush called him back when they were a couple... they think its really cute. But the bad boy still isn't coming over for dinner.

[fairycosmos]

its so frustrating how difficult it is to get employed rn,, ive sent like thousands of applications since agust of last year and none of them called me back, even went to an interview and it went great only for them to not call me back 😭 im dying, i need a job but no one is hiring wtfffff!!! !

goddddddd fucking tell me about it. even though my current job is toxic as fuck im dreading when the temp contract runs out and im back in the job hunt. i've tried really hard to adapt this mindset of like detachment when it comes to interviews and stuff because honestly most of the time you could be the perfect candidate and they''ll still ghost you. the job market is LITERALLY impossible rn and even the most qualified people are struggling so pleaseeee i know it's easier said than done but try to practice the skill of not taking it personally. and it is a skill like it will take time and patience to build up the mindset and that thick skin but it is possible. anyway a lot of places just put out ads to see what's out there with no intention of hiring or put out ads even though they're hiring internally/ already have a person in mind for the role........and atp most places are looking for someone with two degrees and 10 yrs experience and 30 different skillsets who can juggle the responsibilites of 5 different titles all under one entry level position for absolute minimum pay.......it is utter madness !! obviously it's a good idea to reflect on each interview and try to like optimise how you present yourself to the interviewer but most of the time it's just good timing and luck when they actually pick you. nothing to do with your abilities or who you are!! wishing you all the luck in the world on your job search, totally understand how crushing it is x

job interview guide / thread of real job interview tips

[yenqa]

how enha reacts to you getting glasses!

pairing : enha x reader :))

warnings : kissing, mentions of dying (like someone saying “im going to die” as a joke)

wc : 0.7k

a/n : my first time doing an ot7 thing :)) also not proofread!! pls tell me if there are any errors

<3

heeseung - when he first sees it he’s in shock, (internally) because all he says outside is like “you look nice” which lowkey hurts your feelings because like does he think you look ugly or sum?? 🤨🤨 but like he doesn’t want to be teased by you because he thinks your so cute!! like he can’t stop looking at you and he thinks he’s discreet about it (but he’s not) so you confront him about it and he finally admits that he thinks you are the cutest, prettiest person alive and he keeps like pinching your cheek.

jay - hes the one that helped you pick your glasses out. so when you grab the one and put it on he knows it’s the cutest one on you, he steals the glasses from your hand and asks for those frames with your prescription. while you wait for them to be ready it’s all he can think about honestly. like he could be in the middle of working and think “y/n with glasses is so cute 🥰🥰” like this sounds really unrealistic but I DONT CARE 😜😜 and when u get the glasses he’s more excited than you! he quickly takes a photo of you with the glasses so he can put it as his lock screen and he looks at it and smiles every time ☹️☹️

jake - hes actually like jumping once he sees you, he like cups your face and looks into your eyes because he thinks youre so pretty :( he cannot get enough if you bro. and he’s so clingy afterwards like he can’t be away from you! also he like steals your glasses to put them on and like poses for you like “do i look good y/n? maybe i should get glasses” and he tells everyone he knows about them like “did you know y/n got glasses!?” UGH I LOVE THIS MAN.

sunghoon - he teases you for it, like he calls u four eyes and everything. but he doesn’t think you notice his lingering stares or him hugging you more often but you do. the thing is he’s too shy to upright tell you the glasses look so cute on you, so he does the opposite and teases you about them. he finally breaks his mask when you pretend to be sad because you think he doesn’t like them and he showers you in compliments and explains himself, to find out it was a prank 😠😠, he tickles you until you sincerely apologise.

sunoo - once he sees you, he fr starts squealing bro, like “ahhh y/nnie! you’re soo cute!! i’m going to die!!” and like kisses your cheek a bunch :((. he takes a selfie w/ you immediately and puts it as his wallpaper :(. he sometimes accidentally touches the lenses of your glasses and you get (jokingly) mad at him and he’s like “y/n-ah im sorry ☹️☹️” and you HAVE to forgive him bc he’s so cute!!

jungwon - when you walk in he literally starts blushing. like you? in GLASSES??? he just stares at you until you’re like “what? is it bad?” and he’s like “no not at all babe, you look so gorgeous!” and he thinks you HAVE to show him what you can see now so he makes you try to read a book from far away and you’re like “jungwon i can’t see that! i don’t think anyone can 😠😠” and he just giggles and moves it farther until you start laughing with him :)

niki - similar to sunghoon he has to tease you like he calls you a nerd and also calls you four eyes. especially if you’re like a reader he teases you to the max! like “can’t believe i’m dating a nerd 🙄🙄” and you’re like 😐. he also like takes you’re glasses and is like “y/n what number is this?” and he puts his hand in front of you like right in your face thinking you can’t see that? (obvi he knows but as a joke) and you’re like “niki be fr” and he rolls his eyes and goes back to whatever he’s doing. but when you aren’t paying attention, he takes a picture of you reading and puts it in his home screen as a widget.

yenqa © please do not copy, steal or translate.

[staryuee]

“ YOU MAKE ME FEEL SAFE.”

꒰warnings꒱ semi-proofread <3

⠀꒲ ` synopsis . . . telling [char.] that they make you feel safe ♡

⠀꒲ ` characters . . . aether, lumine, dainsleif, xiao, tartaglia, wanderer, yae miko, kokomi, itto, cyno, kaveh

⠀꒲ ` notes . . . quite short bc a bitch is exhausted from exams </3 love u lots mwah mwah sorry for dying every month

AETHER — 空

“you make me feel safe.”

“eh..?” aether pauses for a brief moment and instantly turns to look at you, a look of both surprise and joy encapsulating his features. he blinks twice, a smile forming on his lips as he stares at you with eyes filled with so much adoration that it makes your breath hitch.

“i’m.. im really happy to hear that, i really can’t put it into words.” he walks over to you and entraps you in a heartwarming hug, one that made you melt as soon as his body made contact with yours. hearing such a lovely phrase so easily drop off your tongue made him genuinely feel like everything he’s done so far wasn’t in vain.

it felt so right; to be the cause of someone else’s happiness; a haven for their security, and to know you had that in him was something so sweetly fulfilling.

LUMINE — 荧

“you make me feel safe.”

lumine stops in her steps to swiftly turn back to you. you flash her a lovely smile, one which she complaisantly returns with blush dusting her cheeks. “you’re so corny.” she goes over to you to squish your cheeks together, staring at you in awe as she does so.

“but,” she pulls you in for a hug, “i’m glad — it’s my job to look after you after all.” she squeezes you tighter and you can’t help but pull away to sneak in a sweet kiss to her forehead, she leans into it, still looking adoringly up at you with that smile of hers, you feel yourself heat up at the very sight of it.

“you make me happy.” she whispers and presses herself closer to you, hands resting gently on your waist.

DAINSLEIF — 戴因斯雷布

“you make me feel safe, you know?”

you were merely having a late night conversation, it divulged from your morning duties and then to what you love each other; your words leaving dainsleif rather speechless. such flowery words being uttered by someone he’s internally sworn to protect till the end of time genuinely feeling safe with him ? if he was a tad bit more.. emotional.. he could shed a tear.

instead, he opts for kissing your cheeks and cuddling you closer with his lips turning upwards ever so slightly. he wants to tell you how loved you make him feel, but he settles for his own quietness and the comfort of your warmth.

there’s still no words in any teyvat language that could express or even comprehend his love for you; he can only hope that his fleeting touches are enough to share a sentiment similar to your own.

XIAO — 魈

“xiaoxiao.” your voice echoes melodically in his sleepy mind. he replies with a simple hum.

“you make me feel safe.” you lean on him nonchalantly as if you didn’t just say something that could break him.

“it’s my duty to protect you.” he pulls you in closer, his heartbeat beginning to quicken with every shallow breath.

“i mean that being with you is just extremely comfortable and peaceful, it has little to do with your ability to protect me.” you laugh as you intertwine hands with him. xiao leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on the crown of your head, responding with a stuttered yet wholehearted reply was not worth the embarrassment for the yaksha.

he pulls your interlocked hand up to his lips and places a soft kiss on your knuckles, the silence thick yet so serene. he finds comfort in solace, but you’ve shown him that the atmosphere of loneliness can be shared with the silent affection of a loved one.

TARTAGLIA — 公子

tartaglia caressed your cheeks, staring at you with such determined love and adoration it was enough to send your heart into overdrive. every swipe of his thumb, every glance at your lips and every kiss that he stole managed to send flurries of butterflies into your stomach; which lead to your impromptu, “you make me feel safe.”

he stopped his ministrations abruptly, his eyes widening yet his smile remaining all the same. he lets out a soft sigh before sprinkling gentle kisses across your face, “you’ve really got me wrapped around your finger, huh.”

your fingers trail up to caress his nape before tugging him down for a quick peck. “yes i do... “ you murmur as his hands move from your face to hold the back of your head, pulling you closer. he lets out another chuckle before kissing your nose softly, a light blush colouring his skin. “ you make my heart race like nobody else could.”

SCARAMOUCHE — 斯卡拉姆齐

“you make me feel safe.”

“i’m sorry, what?”

he wonders what kind of miracle blessing he must’ve committed for you to even think about expressing such a thought. “are you feeling sick? what’s wrong with you?” he pinches your cheek with an unamused look as your giggles bounce off the walls. he turns to leave without a second thought, trying his best to suppress his feelings.

“hey — i was being genuine !” you hug him from behind with a soft smile.

“right, and i’m a human being.” he rolls his eyes as he attempts to push you away, with very little reluctance at your affection. thought he doesn’t believe your words, for ehem obvious reasons, he still feels the slightest bit overjoyed at the prospect of your words being genuine.

YAE MIKO — 八重神子

“you make me fee safe.”

“well, aren’t you a charmer, my dear?” miko gives you a sly smile before taking another sip of her saké. “which book did you steal that line from, hmm?” she laughed softly, patting your head gently as consolation for her teasing. you pouted at the playful touch but she was far from deterred. the moment she pulled back, she had a mischievous glint in her eyes. “do you have a way of showing me your words are true, darling?”

you roll your eyes at her shamelessness, reaching up to pull her in by wrapping your arms around her neck to oblige her romantic request. she gives you a final sly grin before leaving a soft yet passionate kiss on your lips.

“hmm..i’m still not convinced.” she giggles, pulling you in once again. you were in for quite the long afternoon..

S. KOKOMI — 珊瑚宫心海

“hey koko,” she hums gently, looking up at you with drowsy eyes, “you make me feel safe.”

it was honestly like you shook her with electro itself, or like she poured hot tea over herself with the way she instantly woke up; the biggest smile beginning to adorn her gorgeous features. kokomi sighs pleasantly, gazing at you with pure devotion before getting up to hold both of your hands in hers.

“i’ve had many people express such a sentiment, but hearing it from you..it means so much more.” she leaves a trail of chaste kisses across your cheeks before leaving a final one on your lips.

“did you read some sort of book on how to attack the divine priestess’s heart? because it’s very hard to not fall deeper in love with you.”

A. ITTO — 荒泷一斗

“you make me feel safe.”

itto nearly gave himself a concussion with the way his head instantly shot up and then proceeded to hit the large branch above him. you were simply aiding him in finding some onikabuto, what was that phrase for ?! he shook his head to shoo away the dizziness before stabilising himself on the tree beside him with a goofy grin, “well of course you’d feel safe around me ! look at me man, strong as an ox !!” he started flexing subconsciously out of nervousness, your affectionate laughter filling him with warmth.

he took a quick glance at you before trapping you in a sudden rib-crushing hug. “you are too adorable for your own good.” he smiles and squeezes you in tighter with a kiss.

“you’re one to talk, love.”

he feigns an insulted expression and points at himself with dramatics, “heyhey, i’m not adorable i’m cool, there’s a difference!”

CYNO — 赛诺

“you make me feel safe.”

cyno looks at you confused, his head tilting lightly to the side. “it is an honour to make you feel that way, i’m glad to be of service.. but what brought this on?” you hugged him quietly, he pulled you in closer yet he still craved some sort of verbal answer from you.

you thought for a bit before answering, “dunno, it just feels natural to say stuff like that with you, you know?” he absentmindedly smiled at you, kissing your forehead as a reply. “it feels natural saying puns around you.” he mumbles.

“i’ll take everything i just said back, cyno.” you flicked his nose, a small grin landing on his face as a result. “you love me but not my jokes? how disrespectful.”

KAVEH — 卡维

“you make me feel safe.”

“i don’t think i’ve done anything to receive such a grandiose sentiment from you, love.” he nonchalantly mutters as he continues on his recent sketch. your frown doesn’t escape his gaze and he can feel his heart clench with guilt at the thought of making you feel upset at the cause of his own insecurity.

you walk over to him and hug his back and he can’t help but lean in to your touch, “sorry — i appreciate your words, really, you’re too good to me.”

you nuzzle closer to him before mumbling, “next time you disregard my love i’m gonna bite you.” you chuckle and it makes him feel slightly less embarrassed for his lack of response. he turns around and places a gentle kiss onto your forehead and you hum happily against the contact.

“i love you so much.”

©STARYUEE do not copy, steal or repost <3

[sabh0]

What's your opinion on the anime? I find it pretty funny, but I can't say that I am not disappointed to see so many scenes missing.

For exemple, I wanted to see Dazai cry laugh at Chuuya's young mistress act, show that it was a joke shared by both of them, rather than one made to us at the expense of Chuuya. They took a genuinely funny moment and made me cringe SO hard for no reason T^T

God i could go on for hours about how Bones ruined this series. I'm obviously thankful we have an anime adaptation but. Well just compare bsd anime to jjk one or smth and yeah.

I will be complaining more under the cut,,

First the overall writing choices:

-Deleting or changing skk scenes to the point im not even shocked when ppl think these two actually somehow hate each other.

-The way they portrayed Sigma. They deleted half of his personality and backstory. And just speedrunned the Sky Casino arc like if seeing that place was giving them nightmares. No wonder he gets mischaracterized now.

-Tachihara's internal conflict about belonging to either Port Mafia or The Hunting Dogs? Bones never heard about it. It's not like IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT.

-Akutagawa's whole character in the anime is just 'edgy and angry and bad grr'. In the manga he had some 'kind' or even seelf-reflection moments that were ommited in the anime. Like where he realizes defeating Atsushi didn't satisfy him (ship fight, season 1). Or when he gives files about the orphanage Director to Atsushi and says he won't fight him today because he lost someone impirtant to him. Sskk vs Fukuchi fight?? No scene where Sskk r helping each other walk. Instead we get Akutagwa just pushing Atsushi away. Won't even start on that last smile that looked more like another angry expression.

-THE WAY THEY CHANGED "DAZAI'S ENTRANCE EXAM" INTO SOME CURRENT TIMELINE EPISODES. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY LIKE. THIS NOVEL WAS SO GOOD. Showing both Dazai and Kunikida's characters and partnership so well. But no. Let's just??? Put Atsushi there. Let's delete the fact this thing happened 2 years ago. And let's delete everything that was actually important about it, too.

-also some changes in the Dark Era arc. Like. Lord. Dazai is so much more emotional in the novel. His expressions r described so well. But the anime either shows him from the back at those moments (him finding out Oda was almost killed by a sniper in Ango's room) or just deletes/changes the thing (Oda dying. This scene is so emotional in the novel. From the description u can tell Dazai was crying/on the verge of it as Odasaku died. But in the anime he looks calm and then we get a far aeay frame and he just. Gets up and that's it yeah.) They also deleted the scene of him visiting Oda's grave.

-The way they rushed seasons 4 and 5. Just to give us an episode that goes further than the manga and has the shittiest writing ever when it comes to skk's plan revelation (im so angry about this u guys have no idea. I sincerely believe that if this episode never came out, the manga would go differently bc there's no way that Asagiri who wrote things like Stormbringer suddenly thought that some dollar store vampire make up will fool a guy who's centuries old and literally lived next to vampires. But well!! Seems like these two speeches Dazai gave weren't important at all and now we can just forget about them yippiee)

I could definitely mention WAYY more examples of that but this is already long af. Like guys. I know u cant fit everything in an animated show. It takes time to make it and all but. Bro. The character's in the anime r so shallow compared to their original versions.

.

Now onto the artstyle of the anime.

Lord. U know? It was actually pretty in the first 2 seasons. The official arts at the time were also really nice to look at.

No idea what happened later. Why did Bones suddenly decide that those ugly turtle smiles r gonna become the main thing in the character design. Why so many fisheyes. Atp sometimes i look at the official art and i go oh lord even i could fix it. It really feels like they draw some characters ugly on purpose now (Chuuya being the main victim for unknown reasons).

Tho i must say they have their moments even now. Some last episodes of season 5 weren't really bad, especially the Meursault part (love them for animating Dazai and Sigma dancing so well. And for that 101 animation. And maybe for the heartattack they gave me with 109 and Chuuya shooting Dazai so many times.)

.

On some other things, i really like the music! Bsd openings and endings never miss,,,

[suneeater]

jealousy

feat. simeon, diavolo

✎a/n: diavolo is shockingly easy to write for? very happy to finally have an entry for him on the masterlist aaaa

✰warnings: none enjoy!

✉: that jealousy post mentioning simeon and diavolo 👀 now im curious.

𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧

Simeon is the quiet jealous type. Out of all of the Obey Me characters, he has the strongest moral compass and in turn, the strongest guilty conscience. He can’t stand being jealous; he doesn’t know how to handle the mixed feeling of anger and insecurity, and to act out based on his own unpleasant emotions would be so very un-angel-like of him

So when he’s jealous, Simeon can sometimes retreat into himself and bottle it up. He doesn’t tend to do this in other situations, so it’s pretty noticeable when he’s jealous. He is a lot less talkative, less affectionate, and clearly trying to work through something internally

It never works though – everything has to come out eventually, whether for better or worse. Simeon almost becomes a little bit petty after holding in his jealousy for a while, especially if the situation is ongoing. If there is someone in your life consistently taking your attention away from him and threatening his status as your one and only, then there is going to be a price to pay. While he is able to carry on and smile to this person’s face, he is quietly sabotaging them in subtle ways

In moments where he doesn’t know how to restrain himself any longer, Simeon tries to snatch you away so that he can save face, and also his pride. The moment that he can see that someone is clearly bothering you or has overstayed their welcome, he’s whisking you away to safety without a moment’s notice. Since he’s so well composed, you often can’t even tell that he isn’t being genuine when you takes your wrist to lead you to something he is just dying to show you

When in the moment, you can tell Simeon is jealous by the way he suddenly becomes jittery and eager to leave the scene with you. His smile falters, and his expression turns, and he can’t seem to keep both feet still. He can’t take his eyes off you, either, and it’s almost as if it’s taking every but of his inner strength to keep from pulling you close to him

These are more subtle movements that allow him to remain composed to the public, but knowing Simeon so intimately, it’s clear to see that something is up. He’s prideful though, and embarrassed, so it takes a great deal of coaxing from him to ever admit that he was jealous. The way he sees things, if he is really secure in your relationship then he should have no reason to worry, and he never wants to blame you, so it’s a feeling that he shoves deep inside. No matter what his consciousness tells him though, he can’t but feel envious when he sees other people stealing your time and attention

𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐨

Diavolo is by far the most straightforward in his jealousy. Unlike Simeon, Diavolo is more confident in his feelings and can pinpoint his exact emotions without much deliberation. He’s completely willing to admit to you when he is jealous; not only does he have nothing to hide, but he wants to communicate with you and prevent things like this from happening again. Come on, you don’t want him to be stuck feeling so jealous and helpless, right?

He’s the demon prince, so he’s fully expected to remain collected and composed in almost every imaginable situation. It is very rare for Diavolo to lose his temper, and it’s something you may very well never see. It’s all a facade, though. While he may be able to continue being his outwardly jovial and expressive self, it doesn’t change how he feels on the inside

Diavolo when jealous is controlling. It’s in his blood to lead and command, and there is hardly any exception. He wants to steer the situation into one that benefits him the most, and he does so with a laugh. He’s fiercely intimidating – he exudes power and dominance, and he’s so confident that you can’t help but believe that there’s no way he won’t come out on top, no matter the situation. To his enemies, his laugh can be terrifying

When he’s jealous, he’s going to tell you straight up. Sometimes it’s verbally, and other times it’s through physical cues. He’ll never ask you to stop doing something or interacting with someone, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try to stop the other party’s involvement on their end. Intimidation is a breeze for Diavolo; he doesn’t even have to do anything out of pocket or make a threat to leave someone shaking in fear, and my god does he abuse this

Anyone stealing your attention from him can expect Diavolo to join the conversation in seemingly good spirits, only to feel him glaring wide eyed daggers at them for far too long for comfort. It’s crazy how he can convey displeasure through and otherwise lively and full expression

Diavolo communicates his jealousy in the moment to you through physical touches that aren’t out of character for him, but are slightly different enough to let you know something’s up. While gently holding hands, or having his arm wrapped around your waist may look very casual and natural for a couple as established as you are, you can tell from his sudden need to be close to you that he’s feeling envious

find the same scenario for:

solomon

[major-floyd-and-lilia-simp]

Once Upon A Dream

Lilia x Male Reader

Notes: i am primarily going off of what my gf has told me about Malleus's overblot. (Which is a lot lmao) And changing a few things obviously. I play on the international server. So we literally just got like, the first part of it anyway. Plus, im still on Savanaclaw.

Description: after Malleus's overblot happens, those affected are working on recovery. Until Malleus tells Lilia that (Name)—you—still haven't woken up. Lilia can't come to terms with the fact he might've lost (Name).

TW: mentions of war, death and descriptions of hopelessness.

Lilia didn't make a noise when it happened. Hell, his face didn't even move much save for falling into a neutral expression.

If it was anyone but Malleus or Silver who told the elder fae what happened, then they would've thought the man didn't care. But Malleus knew. He's known Lilia the entirety of his short life. He and Silver were the only ones who knew the subtle changes in Lilia.

Malleus knew Lilia didn't blame him. Overblots, they're uncontrollable. At least it wasn't painful. And there was still the chance (Name) was still alive. Just in a very deep sleep. That didn't stop the dragon fae from blaming himself. If he had just been more diligent against his own self-

A small hand on his shoulder pushed through Malleus's quickly darkening thoughts. Lilia was looking up at him, expression unreadable but the careful touch was clear as day.

The elder fae was doing his best to hold himself together, and he needed Malleus to tell the others the news.

Lilia didn't understand why news of (Name) not waking hit him as it did. It wasn't like he was dead. And it wasn't like Lilia has lost people to harder things before. He was in a war for fucks sake.

Perhaps it was because this happened at the hand of someone he held dear. He didn't blame Malleus. It was unintentional after all. So he didn't think it was that. He couldn't say it was just because he cared for (Name), because although he did, he would've had a much more outward reaction had something happened to Sebek or, seven forbid, Silver instead.

So why did he feel so numb. As if his heart had been torn from his chest still beating. As if every nerve in his body was simultaneously electrified and dead. It felt like he had lost something he didn't have in the first place.

The only other explanation, was that he loved (Name), but to come to that conclusion, one he already knew but buried deep, would be to admit that he was too weak to admit it, and now he'll never get that chance.

He was a fool.

He wandered into his room. There was a semi-vacant look in his eyes. That meant that (Name) has been in this deep slumber for a week now. Lilia just figured he was still recuperating, too busy making sure his dormmates and family were okay to spare much thought to the Ramshackle human. And Silver took longer than Sebek or Malleus or himself to recover so he thought nothing of it.

He was such a fool.

He was wandering. There wasn't an aim to where he went, but he found himself pulled towards the infirmary. Perhaps...

He shook his head. It was a one time thing, breaking Silver's curse when he was a babe. He doubted it could work again. He didn't even know how he managed it either. But still his feel carried him to the infirmary and to (Name)'s bed. Grim was curled up on his chest, awake but silent for once, while Ace and Deuce sat at his bedside, fast asleep on each other. They must've been here all week.

Lilia took a seat, staring at the man on the bed. He wanted to reach out so badly. The feeling of hope bubbled in his chest as he thought that maybe he could wake the sleeping human. Maybe.

Seven, he was so much a fool.

He reached out, his hand covering the Ramshackle prefect's, praying to whatever would listen. For what, he didn't know but he chanted "please" like a mantra in his head, nothing passing his lips save for a few shallow breaths.

Nothing happened.

Lilia deflated, the hope dying in his chest as he leaned forward. Waterlogged pain made itself known as it pricked at his tearducts, threatening to break him. His forhead pressed to (Name)'s shoulder, and he released a shaky breath. Grim had fallen asleep. He must've been exhausted as he was silent. The only sound in the room was Ace and Deuces steady breaths and the old fae's own shaky ones.

He didn't notice the change in (Name)'s breathing.

He didn't notice the subtle twitch of his eyelids

He did notice when a cool hand turned under his, and lightly grasped his own.

Lilia's heart clenched in his chest as his head shot up, magenta meeting (eye color). "I had the strangest dream." (Name) whispered, his voice raspy from misuse. "I dreamt that we were dancing in the woods...and it was only us."

Lilia didn't notice when the tears finally fell as he dragged (Name) close into a tight hug, laughter bubbling on his lips.

[oflorelei]

One thing that annoys me so hard is whenever i see people boil down grrms writing to be the most bland, MEDIOCRE, boring ass take ever 😭 guy LOVES fantasy, he LOVES to worldbuild with mythology in mind, he LOVES prophecies- characters like Dany are literally the walking embodiment of his love for fantasy and the fantastical. YET I have to keep seeing the most braindead, tumblresque, BLANDEST takes ever. "hOTD IiS aBOuT tWO sPoIlED dAdDy iSsUED bRaTS", first of all we all know grrm sold his soul to hbo like faust sold his to the devil- but he literally DENOUNCED the show 😭 to think this everburning car accident that plagues the screens of the times square in nyc is an ACCURATE depiction of georges work is laughable. Im not gonna tell you what the dance is about, BESIDES that with removing the fantastical aspect (literally blood betrayal, dying of the dragons, the long night coming again), also removing the obvious aspect of womanhood in westeroa something that is DRIVING FORCE ON WHY THIS CONFLICT EXISTS, is fucking laughable. Especially because George DOES write about this misogyny, internalized or not so much, to completely ignore that point to push the fucking stupid "holier then thou because i hate the targaryens BC they are conquerers despite the people they conquered literally comitting two mass genocides together with forced conversion" (on that point who tf of yall think u can seperate the hightowers from the faith pre-dance?), is literally my achilles heel. I need some of you all to use your brain and THINK, very hard and long, and READ thru awoiaf or one of the DOZEN OTHER NOVELLAS we have on the dance, the blood betrayal, the long night.

Also another quick rant: this wannabe 'historian' pov of "im just boiling it down to the most blandest, white toast bread, ignoring and misinterpreting the lore the the extent that it would make the dumb and dumber PROUD" is so annoying- coming from someone who is studying history with a focus on pre-modern era (aka middle ages) atm. This doesnt work for a world in which *dragons* and *magic* not only EXISTS but also indirectly or even directly influences the fade of the world.

My take? The blood betrayal definitively definitively is there, was written to resemble the dance of dragons (or the other way around). Yeah ignore a younger brother betraying his older sister who was the rightful heir to the throne of an empire only ruled by men till then. Yeah ignore how that sister is called amethyst empress (in a line of a thousand different gems names there could be), while her brother is called the bloodstone emperor (which is btw a GREEN STONE WITH RED FLECKS). Yeah ignore that this betrayal is what caused the Maiden-made-of-LIGHT to turn her back on the world meanwhile the Lion of the NIGHT came forth with demons (with what the others are compared to btw) to the realm of MEN. Yeah ignore that Dany is also suppose to mirror/parallel the amethyst empress and that fixing the wrongs of her ancestors is also her whole thing. Yeah ignore that the breaker of chains, the Prince that was promised, the one who has an dynasty resting on her back, whose downfall started with the dying of dragons in a war fought over the heir not having a dick, is also a (very) young woman, her womanhood also playing a part in her whole Story. Am i saying Rhaenyra or Dany are the AE reborn? Hell No, and if id bet my money on Dany. But both of them and their conflicts get so extremely paralleled with the Amethyst Empress History that you have to be literacy blind to not see that.

But thats my opinion, you can believe what you want as long as you dont boil hotd down to being the "truth" and ignoring the existing fantasy/magic as well as the world building relevant extreme misogyny.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

With your latest ask about the Dimension Swap AU, my brain is going into 'Brain Rot Mode' about it and now I gotta know Yugo's whole deal in it. The phrase "deeply unsocialized animal" is a string of words I've never heard before but will be using in my own character creations now. Yugo is clearly going through it when Rin beats his ass and has no idea what to do with that.

(I also want to know how Yuya's and Yuto's dynamic is in this AU. Yuya gives off the vibes of a frightened pitbull. Will rip your hand off if pushed, but really just wants to cuddle.)

TELL ME ABOUT IT WE'VE HAD THESE GUYS EATING OUR BRAINS SINCE MAY!!!

ok so i started talking about Yugo's Whole Deal but it was getting bigly long-winded so I had to make a separate post about him specifically--you can find that over HERE. my scary jock <3 he is indeed deeply unsocialized!! mind your fingers, this dog bites!!!

anyway re: yuto and yuya, hehe i wouldnt say yuya's like anything close to a pitbull he's more like. hm, if a soggy paper towel had the ability to occasionally and violently turn into a pipe bomb. he's a wet baby raccoon someone found in a storm drain. he was forced to eat cement when he was 6. etc etc. meanwhile standard!yuto is out here internalizing yusho's 'smile when you feel like crying' rhetoric in the form of keeping himself chivalrous and 'noble' at all times and never complaining so youve really got the push and pull of "extremely emotional all the time" and "keeping "cool" to a borderline harmful degree." (dont worry about yuto bottling up all his emotions im sure it's fine.) (im sure!!!)

xyz!yuya doesn't have many friends (and one of them ohhhh you know gave the ok for the invasion that blew up his home so. thats not great. 😬) so he kind of gloms onto Yuto's friend group (rin and gong) like his life depends on it. and i think early on his dynamic with Yuto is kind of shaky, but I was just talkin about this with zxal and there's definitely this element where Yuya's much more Heart on His Sleeve Emotions kind of helps get Yuto get back in touch with, yknow. Crying. Letting One's Self Embrace Negative Emotions. so it takes a bit but I like the idea that they eventually get more in sync and become actual friends (this in turn making up for Yuya traumadumping at Yuto and then immediately dying and getting soul-absorbed and then having about 14 panic attacks in Yuto's brain.)

(though by that point things are not helped by the fact there's a whole third other guy in the yuto mind palace (yuri) 🥴 but they'll work it out)

[seeingivy]

hiiii Ronnie!!

it’s your girl, Taylor as Gojo Anon, reaching out to check in on you.

How are you doing? 🤍🖤

hi sweet angel face!

(im cut tagging it because i accidentally procured a long response)

how are you my dear? things have been kind of up and down from me, which is why i haven't been so active. that makes me feel really sad, not because i necessarily feel obligated to write, but because i just want to!!! idk mental things and blocks have been all over the place. and i have so much fun thinking about ideas and such but sometimes i get in my head about writing about them or other stuff comes up.

my best friend's mom passed away two weeks ago, which kind of has turned things upside down. we were really close - her mom and mine are best friends, we all went on a cruise to mexico together (? idk its kind of like a fever dream but it makes me laugh now) and she was just someone i felt really really close to. i am so sad she's gone and i loved her so much.

school has started up and this actually happened during my first week of school so it kind of changed the tone. i'm a senior now but weirdly enough things feel so different. one of my best friends actually graduated and school feels different without her and i guess there's been internal stuff happening where my job and my research lab and everything just feels like it's drastically changed dynamic wise and it makes me wish it was still last year and i wasn't so old and i wasn't leaving.

i have so many ideas but don't know which ones to write! and i think about them so hard that i can't do them justice as one shots but i just don't know if anyone would read it if it was longer or if idk i would drop it after i felt like it wasn't good or anything. i hope to write something soon just for my own joy. (see: list of ideas below that I could write like 200k words of if I wanted to)

good old satoru gojo and y/n getting strapped with kids after an untimely passing. BUT they used to date. oh the sweet angst of living together but being responsible for two kids but getting close but one of you has a partner that kind of sucks and it kind of feels like you're a family but you can't really admit that you want to get back together bc. u know. family and all that and a lot at stake and obv angst of almost dying bc it's me and I would have to do that just for fun

satoru gojo (again? shocking I barely ever think or write for this man) but its like kind of like a royalty clan au? like arranged marriage but she literally don't gaf about gojo and sneaks around with a secret lover (that he knows about. and knows that is a snake) and then when things go wrong he's kind of like well I told you so but then they get close and kind of besties and she tells a maid or something that like omfg he doesn't even care about me like that he just feels bad and he overhears SO he has to obviously romance her. obviusly he has to like go to war or a fight or something where he almost dies becuase you know angst of almost dying its me and I would have to do that

I still think about dream girl everyday.

I also think about canary mate all the time too. I almost actually wrote some today but had to write a ghostwrite a deferral letter for my friend to delay her acceptance since her mom passed away

also bsfs older brother sukuna one shot of y/n getting sick or somethign or appendicitis bc u know bsfs older brother sukuna having a panic but in a sweet way

anyways I swear I think about writing and will write again sometime soon.

the good thing is that i'm applying to study abroad and that makes me really excited! it's one week in london and one in paris and they do the whole harry potter studio tour and where bridgerton was filmed and it makes me so excited to think about it.

anyways. thanks for asking. its sweet to know you still think of me even when i'm not active! i would send you asks all the time but you are an anon. but if u ever sneeze or something idk juts think its me sending u an ask like omg hi I love you.

[wonryllis]

MOOT GAME: " make up a trope for your moots and their biases. doesn’t need to be romantic. can be crackfic/funny. ^ㅇ(๑>◡<๑)ㅇ^ "

yeonie u remind me of worried boss x workaholic secretary au w seungie aka what’s wrong with sec kim

、ㅤ🎬 ⋆ ࣪ 午 MOOTS AS TROPES ᵎᵎ

aww it's so sweet of you to assign me a trope too,, love you anonie. it's not a kdrama i enjoy that much but the trope is top tier so im happy and that too with seungs omg im so down for it!! also i haven't worked once in my life yet but my perfectionist high achiever ass is definitely gonna be a workaholic i can feel it in my kidneys. ( MUTUALS )

instead of biases i just assigned idols who i thought they would be compatible with (includes enha, txt, svt, the boyz, zb1 and riize) hope you don't mind that i changed it up a bit :) hope my mooties like it!! UNEDITED! (also almost all turned out romance oops)

☆ @jaesvelvet

CHA. i will say single dad having the hots for his kid's teacher with ricky (zb1) omgggg like cha ks the super sweet teacher, the only other person ricky's kid voluntarily talks and associates himself with and ricky finds it so hard to believe until the parent teacher meeting when he meets cha for the first time. it's like an instant spark for him and ricky's kid is literally on a mission to make cha his mom!

☆ @luvhyun3

KANA. hmm my babe right here suits arrange/contractual marriage setting with jiwoong (zb1) like rival companies entering into an alliance through a union of the heirs yes that's what it is. they don't hate each other but they don't really like each other either. there's slow burn, like slow slow burn and so much denying getting confused with all the act they put on for the media until it all gets real.

☆ @jungqkook

HARU. would say best friends!brother now if he's older or younger in your fic that's upto you, and it has to be with soobin (txt) ahhhh i can imagine haru never having met bin at all and having no idea he exists until one day she does and lemme tell you it's love at first sight, she's smitten and it's so obvious that it makes bin fall for the cutiepie and everyone has so much fun watching them get together.

☆ @hoes4hoseok

PIPER. she would rock a journalist x a-list celebrity with joshua (svt) a literal movie plot where josh falls for piper's eloquence and sophistication and the way she doesn't fawn over him and is so professional. only accepting to be interviewed by her and her alone. trying his best to find new ways to bag someone who is not dazed by him at all but in reality piper is always dying internally because she likes him so much holy moly.

☆ @ctrlemis

ART. this one is a complicated one but— high school crush reuniting,, like former classmates with jungwonie and art and him had mutual liking for each other but life happened and years later at a reunion they meet again and hit it right off oblivious to the fact that they were each other's crush. like little lunch and dinner dates after work talking about how they used to be and how much they changed so cuteee. popular x quiet au.

☆ @jangwonie

FAE. for fae i feel something kinda cute yet complicated sooo childhood friends to situationship??? where they both are inseparable since diapers but something happens and they distance away only to come back together because of some deal between them and then it somehow turns into a situationship,,, with huening kai (txt) bunch of oblivious idiots you see.

☆ @nyukyujs

KYA. hers is a total fluff filled story where best friends realize they feel something for the other and do not hesitate to talk about it and then it's all flowers and hugs and cuddles and dates and kisses and everything in between with sunooo. nothing much changes in their relationship minus the label and pda which i might add that sunoo loves when it comes to her. a really healthy relationship!

☆ @heecyon

BEE. another cliche trope i see for my wifey,, ceo x his secretary: office romance where everyone just knows withh jayyy. spoils ally so much doesn't let her do too much work and makes it as easy for her as he can and literally trusts her blindly. wears his heart on his sleeve for her and is stone cold to anyone that's not her. treats her like his princess.

☆ @boyfhee

CAELIN. a super cliche one for you— forbidden rom between intern and boss with mingyu (svt) where cael does something super duper stupid infront of gyu and then he's like she's weird and then later on comes up with this mind blowing idea that no one could ever have thought of and gains so much recognition for it and gyu just falls for that hardworking pretty lady.

☆ @heelvsted

RIN. a supernatural universe where you're an angel who falls for a fallen angel omg,,,, with sunwoo (the boyz) like imagine rin on an angel mission like being someone's guardian angel for a while and then coming across fallen angel sunwoo and learning the dark sides of heaven, falling for him despite knowing the consequences.. let your ending be the decided by fate.

☆ @heesbaby

CINNA. you gotta have the most interestingly interesting meet cute everrr, i say holiday fling with wonwoo (svt) where they meet at the hotel lobby and accidentally get their room cards exchanged and all that misunderstandings and then they bond over the breakfast the next morning, have a walk by the beach at night and just have these tingly feelings for each other.

☆ @enhalov

MUSE. i say hybrid juyeon (the boyz) obsessed with his owner trope! muse stumbling upon a stray cat somewhere and taking it home only to find out a week later that it's a hybrid when she comes across a really hot guy curled up in the spot of her lovely cat. juyeon following her around everywhere and doing everything for her not letting her lift a finger,, damn.

☆ @www-jungwon

ELENA. fake dating fake dating fake dating,, to all the boys ive loved before yk withhh wonbin (riize) also topper x back bencher jock thingy where elena is like the good girl at the top of the rankings all the time and for some absurd reason has to put up and act with the egoistical quarterback,, they both do not understand each other's way of living but in the end fall for the way they're so different from e/o

☆ @joomiu

NAT. don't kill me for this one,,, student x professor but it's like a really young prof and they don't have a big age gap max is 4-5 years +_+ though it isn't the technical student one, just nat gets to know jake through her friends and then finds out he teaches finance at some university so she just shows up to his lectures to admire him and slowly jakey boy notices and rest it up to ur imagination.

☆ @okwonyo

JIAH. do i really actually need to say this? it's obviously grumpy falls for sunshine withhh yeonjun (txt) bambi brings out his soft side he never knew he had like one who has it in his bloods to baby his love with one who loves being babied by her love. the perfect puzzle match. sometimes there's this sugar rush in her that he's so damn confused how to act but always ends doing exactly what she wants without her having to say it.

☆ @atrirose

SEIU. definitely definitely definitely a thousand and hundred and eleven percent enemies to lovers with beomgyu (txt) like i can just see them as classmates who are at each other's ass all the damn time you know kinda like "the beloved summer" vibes where they hate each other's guts out and then end up falling in love and having the most unhinged confession moments ever everrrr. and then you a pair of idiots in love that act like frenemies like 80% of the time.

☆ @odxrilove

DORI. hm i see some neighbours to lovers here,, especially with the dumb x dumber pair one with sunghoon. newly moved in dori keeps ordering amazon to 106 when she's 105 and sunghoon is too much of a coward to tell her off. and then one day they bump into each other and sunghoon is like i gotta talk to her omg and she's like imma keep ordering to 106. y'all start talking, hanging out over each other's and then boom!

[stalkedbytrains]

Stories of Reckonfall: Cold Black Iron and Green Fire, Story 2

The Hierophant

“Hey! Detective Spooky,” yelled an officer across the bullpen.

“You call me that again Todd, and I’m using your spleen to cast some of my black magic,” she yelled back as she hastily rolled down her sleeves and rebuttoned the cuffs.

“Fuck you, Felix.”

“I’ll find someone else’s spleen if you just be nicer you fuckwit,” the detective said as she approached the front of the bullpen.

“Fraud sent you a case,” Todd ignored the comment and threw the casefile at the slightly below average in height detective. He wasn’t even trying to keep all the pages together.

“Fraud? The fuck do I know about fraud?”

“Do I look like I care? Victim’s over there.” He walked away without really looking her in the eye.

Detective Saint Felix could feel the fear rolling off of Todd. The fear of her. He knew what she did when she went undercover, he knew what happened when her operation failed. No matter what the Internal Affairs Bureau or the Criminal Magic Office had to say on the matter. She was cleared of any wrong doing as far as the department was concerned, but people still looked at her as a cop turned criminal that had gotten away with some very grisly murders.

“Thanks,” she called after Todd, who fought against every instinct to turn around and look at the green-eyed witch.

Saint Felix only had a few moments to overlook the file in her hands. The case was something to do with defrauding the dying. Did she just read that right?

“Hello, are you Detective Saint Felix?” said the only person waiting in the little lounge area.

“Yes, I am Detective Saint Felix, although you can drop the Saint, I’ve never felt very holy,” she said as she extended her hand.  “Miss,” she added as clarification.

“Miss Shelly Ramirez. I’m really hoping you can help me,” she said.

The victim shook her hand. She was taller than Saint Felix by a few inches, her brown curly hair was longer than Felix’s own dirty blonde hair which was just barely long enough to be pulled back into a small ponytail.

Felix tried to smile, “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise much. I’m not usually brought in on fraud cases.”

“What kind of police are you then?”

“Uh…” Saint Felix muttered as she walked back to her desk. It was very orderly and extremely clean. “I handle the cases that involve magic and magical entities. Werewolves, vampires, a fae spirit and its buried treasure. That kind of stuff. They usually only call me in when someone has died though.”

“I see. Well, my mother died recently,” Shelly started, with a pause for condolences from Felix. “When she died two people burst into her hospital room, claiming they were there to save her soul. They did some crazy magic stuff, claimed it was more difficult than they were expecting and then left. Just after the funeral we get a bill for almost six thousand dollars.”

Felix leaned back in her officer hair, as far as she could. “Hmm…”

“Is that even possible? Can someone even save a soul? I mean like that?”

“It is possible. But a lot of things are possible,” Felix mused. “If this isn’t some complicated confidence scam, and they are actually doing what they say they are… well they are using soul-based magic, which is very different from my magic.”

“What’s yours?” Shelly asked, her eyes lighting up at the possibilities.

“It’s secret.”

“Why can’t you say?”

“No. I mean it is literally secrets. Like if you tell me a secret I can use that power to fuel a spell. The bigger and more… important the secret, the more powerful the spell.”

Shelly looked around conspiratorially. “So if I told you I’ve been married for over a year, but no one in my family knew?”

Felix wasn’t prepared for an actual secret like that, and so she used it to cast the first spell that came into mind. A large cat, the size of a small car, exploded into life. It was ethereal and made of green fire. It existed for only a moment, in which Shelly yelled, “holy crap!” before the cat vanished.

“Wow! That was impressive,” she said with some polite clapping.

“Uh, thank you,” Saint Felix said. “But that’s not something you should keep secret. Love only withers when locked up.”

“You didn’t strike me as the poetic type.”

“I’m not. It’s something… someone once told me.”

Shelly nodded. “Well, my wife is a gorgon and she’s very, very shy, especially around men, and I’m the youngest of six, and all of my siblings are male-identifying. I’d prefer it if my wife didn’t turn my entire family into stone.”

“You obviously know more about your situation than I do,” Saint Felix said. “But anyway. Your case. My magic is ideal based, emotion and that stuff. Soul magic is very religiously tied. Holy and profane, sacred and cursed. My knowledge on it is relatively limited but I can do some research to find out if what these people did is even possible.”

“Oh! I made a copy of the contract they sent over.”

Shelly handed over some paperwork to Felix. It was several pages stapled together, and even from the brief glance, she could tell it was dense legal jargon.

“I’ll take a look,” the detective said, “and I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

“Thank you.”

The two women exchanged information and Felix went to read. The whole thing struck her as some sort of con, saving people’s souls. The Fraud Department thought so too but didn’t have enough magical expertise to figure it out, which made Felix’s eye twitch. In the world they lived in they didn’t have one magical practitioner among the entire department? No way. Someone must be doing this to spite her.

The contract seemed straightforward to Felix, but then again, her eyes started to glaze over every couple of lines of the weird legal jargon.

“Damn it,” she muttered. That meant she’d have to call the Arbiter’s office.

Her phone was ringing as she walked to her car.

“District Arbiter’s Office, this is Maester dela Court.”

“AJ, it’s Saint Felix,” the detective said, already dreading the coming conversation. They hadn’t spoken since Felix told AJ what she did while undercover, and the circumstances that led her to losing her cover, over a month ago.

“Detective,” AJ said, their voice smooth and cool, “it’s been a while.”

“It has. Look I have a couple of legal questions I was hoping you could answer for me.”

“Shoot.”

“First I need you to look over some paperwork for me, otherwise my questions won’t make any sense.”

“Very well, I’ve got some time after I get back from lunch. Call it an hour?”

“I’ll meet you at the office then.”

Saint Felix suddenly had more time than she was expecting to have, so it might be time to research this so-called business. On her phone it was easy enough, easier than she’d thought it’d be. If this was a scam she’d think it would take more time to find, since it would be potentially illegal but what did she know?

Save our Souls! listed itself as an insurance company albeit one for the afterlife. The website claimed to be able to save one’s soul from your preferred (or not as the case may be) afterlife; heaven, hell, purgatory, nirvana, the summer fields, whatever you wanted to keep your soul on the mortal plane. The whole thing seemed to be a secular Great Wheel allowing freedom of reincarnation. Saint Felix noticed, buried on the bottom of the website that was clearly not built to be viewed on phones, that Save our Souls! was not responsible for helping the souls of the deceased to get reincarnated. The more she read the more she was convinced the whole thing was a scam.

But then it was time to visit AJ.

St. Felix wasn’t super surprised to walk into the Arbiter’s office and see Justin’s door closed. He seemed to be constantly consulting Arbiters and such, going over the cast of the people who tried so very hard to assassinate her.

Behind their desk was AJ, hair was a very, very pale purple today with startling blue eyes. Every time Felix was stunned by just how stupidly attractive they are, possibly because of that fae ancestry. It just sucks that AJ really didn’t like Felix. Breaking a couple dozen people and killing a few more who murdered her husband in front of her while an undercover police officer did little to endear Felix to AJ.

“Detective, what can I help you with?” AJ said, their voice still deep and cool towards her.

“Translations,” Felix answered. “I got a copy of a contract that I barely understand and I can’t tell if it’s a scam or not.”

“What kind of contract?”

“Afterlife insurance.”

AJ’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“The business claims to be able to save people’s souls from whatever afterlife they are afraid of going to.”

“There’s no way,” AJ breathed out as they started to read over the contract.

Felix waited quietly, watching with some interest as AJ’s eyes glowed slightly with the power of their station, and if she really tried, really put in some effort into seeing, she could see the gears and wheels and levers and machine parts of the Law moving, just out of view as AJ tapped into it.

After a few minutes of quiet reading, punctuated by Felix’s breathing, AJ finished up, taking a deep breath.

“You are right, this is very strange,” the Arbiter said.

“Is it a scam?”

AJ frowned at that. “It’s hard to tell from this construct. It looks very solid, but it depends largely on how much you’re willing to take to court. The contract is written as a sort of life insurance policy and uses that idea to make the concept of one’s soul a possession that you are insuring against a destination, a heaven or a hell. It seems that the client, Mrs. Ramirez, insured herself against going to a hell, and the company followed through on the payments and saved her soul. The dispute comes in because apparently Mrs. Ramirez lied or otherwise falsified her claim, which resulted in Save our Souls! doing battle with a much stronger demon than they were expecting.”

“What does that mean?”

“This contract was written carefully, by someone who knows what they are doing,” AJ answered. “You’re screwed unless you can prove Mrs. Ramirez signed the contract under coercion, duress, or under circumstances that rendered her incompetent or unaware. Or prove that this company didn’t actually fight a demon and negate the estate charge.”

“Is that something they can even do? Charge the estate?” Felix asked.

“Yes. The language is very clear on that fact and Ramirez signed the clause that specifically authorizes that point.”

“What the hell is going on?” she asked rhetorically.

“I have no idea,” AJ admitted. “At least I can’t find out from just this contract.”

Felix didn’t respond, she was thinking of where she was going next. And what she was going to have to do.

“Detective?”

She snapped out of her thoughts. “Sorry. I was too focused on what I was going to do next.”

The question they were planning on asking died in their throat. “What are you going to do?”

Saint Felix stood up and sighed, resigned to future actions. “Something stupid.”:

“Felix? Felix! What are you doing?” But the Detective was already gone. “Damn it.”

When Detective Saint Felix walked into Save our Souls! she’d changed. She’d put on big, heavy boots, instead of her more sensible shoes, torn black jeans that were more torn from extreme wear than any sense of fashion, and a tight black band t-shirt. Felix thought it was cold to not wear a jacket, but Sarah van de Mere didn’t.

Sarah didn’t care if anyone saw her tattoos. She left the coat in her car.

Save our Souls! was in a small, second floor office. Exactly the kind a small insurance company would use. Sarah let herself in.

There was a small waiting room with a couple of comfortable chairs to wait in, and a receptionist’s desk. Behind the desk was a pretty person with dark hair looking like she hadn’t gotten remotely enough sleep in her entire adult life.

She looked up at Sarah and greeted her. “Hello. Welcome to Save our Souls! I’m Alice Wellington, Miss if you please. Do you have an appointment?”

“’Fraid not,” Sarah said as she flopped down into the chair in front of Alice. “Sarah van de Mere. I heard some of what you do here and I might be interested in procuring your services for myself.”

Alice waited a long second, to see if Sarah was going to give her an indication of the pronouns she’d prefer.

“Oh, right. Miss,” van de Mere said in the half-paced drawl she spoke with. It wasn’t a slow speech, but it was slower than most people’s, than Felix’s, speech patterns.

“Wait here for a moment,” Alice said. She stood up and crossed the room and went to the shut door at the other end, opposite where Sarah entered.

She could hear some whispering behind the door but not enough to tell what was being said. There was movement in the small kitchenette area behind her, but Sarah couldn’t see what was back there without getting seen herself.

Instead, Sarah quickly looked over all the paperwork left on Alice’s desk. Unfortunately it was all legal stuff, that impenetrable language Sarah never understood.

Fuck, Sarah forgot how much she missed cigarettes. Instead she grabbed a sucker from the bowl on Alice’s desk and popped it into her mouth. Then she took a few more and shoved them into her jeans pocket.

After a minute Alice came back into the room. “If you’ll come this way, Miss van de Mere.”

“Yup.”

She walked into the back office, which was surprisingly large for the single wooden desk inside it. Behind it was a man who looked remarkably like Alice, clearly a blood relative, not quite a twin. He looked more like an older brother who also hadn’t seen enough sleep in years. Despite the bags under his eyes, they were clear and blue and piercing.

“Luke Wellington,” he said as he stood up and offered his hand. “Mister. Owner, operator of Save our Souls!”

“Miss Sarah van de Mere.”

“What can I do for you?” he asked, never taking his eyes off her.

Sarah twirled the sucker in her hands for a second, meeting his gaze. For that second she wondered if he had Sight, and could see beyond the mortal skein. He’d have to have it if he was legit, and seemed like an odd thing to have just for a scam. Who would think of that? “I’d like you to save my soul.”

“Yes. Of course,” Luke said, finally blinking. “Are you familiar with what we do here?”

Sarah shrugged. “Sorta. You’re insurance for the afterlife.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Luke said. “First we have to do our research, just like any insurance company would. If you’re, say, an Anderlandian, you can potentially go to their fire and brimstone Hell. That’s a fairly standard belief system, angels, demons, heaven, hell, sin, redemption, so on and so forth. But if you were, something stranger, like a member of the Zothorian Cults then we’re talking about potentially saving you from something like horrors from beyond human comprehension who want to eat your soul to power their gigantic engines in their endless wars of eternal and existential death. That would be a higher premium.”

“You fight a lot of horrors from beyond the realm of human comprehension?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Well I’m not too sure how helpful I can be, I don’t know much about my parents, they died before I really got to know them. I think they were Anderlandian but, you know how it is being orphaned at a young age.”

“I do, actually.”

Sarah blinked, stunned by the blunt and honest answer to a question she didn’t expect to get answered. “Sucks, right?’

“Yup.”

“But I do know that I’m bound to go somewhere bad, I’m not a saint.” She cut herself off, almost telling Luke that her name would beg to say otherwise.

“Well I can tell you that we will have to charge more for the initial investigation as we will have to check all the major religions for your records before we can proceed. If we don’t find anything, there are plenty of other small religions to look around in but it could take some time.”

Sarah shrugged. “That’s fine. I just kinda want it done sooner rather than later. I made myself some enemies and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“We can discuss terms once we-” Luke started but he was interrupted by someone walking right into his office. His face immediately went to mildly annoyed, but the resigned kind of annoyed that no amount of complaining would stop the interruptions from going forward.

Before Sarah could turn to look at who entered behind her, she couldn’t make out a clear reflection in some of the polished silver tools on the shelf behind Luke’s head, she was grabbed by a strong set of hands and pulled up out of her chair.

The individual who entered Luke’s office, grabbed Sarah by her shirt and threw her up and out of the office.

“Marsha! What the hell?” Luke said angrily as he stood up and started to move around his desk.

“She’s got a tattoo,” the tall woman with the long black hair stated.

“I’ve got more than one,” Sarah cut in as she settled into a readied combat stance. She was trying to judge what the best style was for this. Should she go full magic and end the fight right away? Or should she fight conservatively? The problem was she didn’t know what this person could do. Was she some kind of enforcer for the scam? Or was she something that was prepared to do legitimate battle with paranatural entities?

Dark brown skin, long black hair. Dark pants, leather jacket. No noticeable weapons or scars. The woman was pretty, but also had a look about her that said she was dense and strong, at least judging by the way she threw Sarah around. There was not one physical clue for Sarah to latch on to that would tell her how to plan this fight.

Better to play conservatively for now.

“Her back tattoo is the Nine Eyed Dragon,” Marsha said, starting to advance on Sarah. “There’s only one set of people who had that tattoo. They worked for the occult mob. She’s not here for the insurance.”

“I was, but now I’m here to kick your ass,” Sarah responded as she advanced first.

This woman knew who she was, at least by appearance and reputation. That made her dangerous. Which meant that it was time for Sarah to end the fight as fast as possible.

Sarah fought dirty, in the mob there was no such thing as a fair fight, only winners and the dead. She lashed out quickly, and viciously, as she tried to kick out Marsha’s left knee. On a regular person it would have broken the joint or at least resulted in severe pain. But it felt like Sarah was trying to kick through sand, and Marsha looked more annoyed than terribly hurt.

Marsha countered almost immediately, and from a kneeling position. She punched Sarah right in the chest, instantly knocking the wind out of her. In between desperate ragged breaths, Sarah realized that she was fighting someone paranatural, someone beyond what a regular person would be capable of. And if she wanted to remain intact she was going to have to fight with everything she had, and not just pretend to do so.

Cold green fire started flickering across Sarah’s hands as she stood up and readied herself. This time when Marsha came in for her next assault, Sarah was prepared. It took everything she had to even compete with Marsha. The woman was fast, strong, and hit like a brick. Sarah felt slow and lethargic around her, like there was an aura around her that made Sarah not want to fight.

There was something to the fight, to the way Marsha carried herself that seemed familiar but she couldn’t place it. Until she channeled all her magic into a headbutt that made a satisfying crunch out of Marsha’s nose, with the following growl of pain and annoyance made Sarah realize she was fighting a devil.

She was not prepared for this, not even a little.

She had only ever fought one devil, as summoned one, back in her time in the mob, but she had prepared for that. Spent days and weeks preparing and storing up fear and secrets to unleash on the devil in case the binding went wrong. Of course it went wrong. It went wrong almost immediately. And the devil that they summoned was a sloth incarnation, so everything that they threw at it required a titanic effort, to overcome the tiredness and the aura of unwillingness to fight. This fighting through sand was something different. Whatever Marsha was, she was different than an incarnation of sloth. It made the simple act of fighting hard. It made Sarah feel more like Melthana than she had in years.

But still, Marsha was a devil at some level, which meant that the counter was obvious and dangerous.

Using whatever magic she had left, Sarah summoned spectral chains, chains made of cold black iron, covered in green fire. Chains that wrapped around Marsha’s neck, then her hands. It was a cosmic level of effort. It required more magic than Sarah had and still she pushed, she forced the magic, giving parts of herself that she didn’t know that she had to give. Because she refused to lose the fight.

The reason that binding a devil that way was hard, was because you all but forced them back to the hell they came from. And if you’re fighting a devil, they have gone through more than one kind of hell to get out of there, and they would do anything to avoid going back.

So when the chains wrapped themselves around Marsha’s neck and arms, she reacted immediately. The reaction was immediate and explosive.

The magic shattered. Sarah received a blow that probably should have killed her, and did shove her through the front door of the business.

The only reason the blow didn’t kill her was because Luke had intervened.

He caught Marsha mid attack, runes glowing all over his arms as he absorbed the blows.

“Enough!” he yelled.

Sarah picked herself up out of the remains of the door, as Marsha fumed with Luke still holding onto her foot, mid kick.

“I expect a discount,” Sarah said as she dusted herself off, for sure going to feel it in the morning. But that was a Melthana problem.

Luke glared at Marsha who weakly protested.

“And before you say anything,” Sarah said loudly, “the key to the phrase is ‘ex-gang member’. I’m pretty sure them trying to kill me was enough for me to break ties with them permanently. So you can take your prejudicial bullshit and shove it up your ass!”

The last thing that Sarah did before she left the office was to use the absolute last of her magic and conjure up a small business card with all of Sarah van de Mere’s information on it and threw it at Luke. She then turned and walked through the broken doorway and limped down the stairs. She had hoped that the last little display of magic was enough of a bluff for her to show off that she still had something left in the tank for the fight, when she really didn’t have anything. The empty magic headache was already starting while the adrenaline was holding off the battle wounds for a few more seconds.

“Fuck me,” Sarah muttered to herself, “I need a drink.”

It had been a few hours since Maester AJ dela Court last heard from Detective Saint Felix about this case that she was working on, and that concerned them a great deal. It really shouldn’t have even been on their mind considering the caseload that they had going on currently. 

But still when the phone rang, AJ answered it before the ring could conclude it’s first handful of notes.

“Office of Arbiter di Milo,” AJ said.

“Oh. The Arbiter? Well. Hm,” said a deep but unsure voice. “Is… uh… is Justin available?”

“He is not, he is in a meeting. Can I take a message?”

“I don’t think a message is gonna help. Can you tell him I’m calling on behalf of someone named Sarah? I didn’t get her last name.”

AJ swore to themself, and hurriedly got up. They went to the door of Justin’s office and knocked.

“What is it?” Justin asked, knowing that AJ would only interrupt for something important.

“Someone called looking for you. On behalf of Sarah.”

“Oh shit,” Justin said as he turned back into his office for one second. “I’ll be right back, minor emergency.”

Justin walked over to AJ’s desk and picked up the phone.

“This is Justin.” He listened for a long moment. “I see. How bad?” He waited and listened for a moment. “Yes. Yes. I understand. No, you did the right thing. Please don’t let her leave, also don’t give her anything else to drink. I’m having someone come pick her up right away.” He hung up the phone.

AJ looked at their boss with an annoyed expression. “Don’t you-”

“You can go get Melthana from the bar she’s drunk at, as a personal favor to me,” Justin said with his calm, fatherly tone and cadence, “or you can go in there,” he pointed to his office, “and take over this meeting for me.”

“I can take over the meeting. I know these cases backwards and forwards.”

Justin nodded. “I know you do, that’s why I’m giving you the choice. You didn’t ask to deal with Melthana, she is not your responsibility. You just happened to be the one answering the phone.”

AJ sat at their desk with their arms folded thinking for a minute.

“Go, I’ll get Melthana to her apartment and make sure she sobers up, make the excuses for me,” Justin said.

“No,” AJ said firmly. “I can go. I can… sober Detective Saint Felix up faster than you can. She won’t like it though.”

Justin clasped his hands together in a sign of respect. “Thank you AJ, put this is in the IOU column for me please.”

AJ grabbed their coat and went out into the afternoon city air to find the wayward detective.

Sarah van de Mere was drunk in a bar a block down the way from Save our Souls! building she just got her ass kicked in. She didn’t ever remember getting drunk this fast before, everything was very spinny and the bartender didn’t want to seem to give her more alcohol. That was rude of him. But she was already pretty smashed so it was fine. She should drink some water at some point.

When AJ got to the bar they noted how close it was to the business that the detective was researching earlier, and also how much of a dive it was.

“What the hell happened to you?” they asked when they walked into the all wood establishment that had no space left ungraffitied.

“Oh balls!” Sarah said in her slow, but now slower, patterns. “It’s the hot person I told you about! Oh hi.” She tried to rest her elbow on the bar top but slid off the counter.

“Sorry about all of this,” the large bearded bartender said. “I didn’t know anything was wrong until she took out her phone and her 1 year chip came with it. I wouldn’t have served her if I had known. I’ve had my own troubles you know?”

“She all settled up?” AJ asked.

“Yes, she’s good,” the bartender said.

“Good,” AJ said as they grabbed Melthana by the arm and dragged her out of the bar.

“Oooh, it’s happening! Stay cool Sarah!”

AJ pulled Sarah out of the bar and onto the street. They dropped the drunken woman on the hood of their car.

“What did you do?” AJ demanded. “Spill it.”

“You’re mad! Why are you mad?” Sarah said as she swayed a bit. “I’m the one that got punched by a devil in a person suit. Threw me through a door.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Guy’s got a devil on re.. Retainer,” Sarah slurred. “She fought me, cause she doesn’t like my tattoos.”

“Melthana,” AJ said with a sigh. “What the fuck are you doing at this bar?”

“Oh! That’s right, I’m supposed to be Melthana all the time now! I forgot! Oh no! She doesn’t drink any more!” Sarah leaned in and loudly whispered to AJ, “It’s because of all the trauma.”

“By the Blood,” AJ muttered under their breath. “With any luck this will both hurt and sober you up.”

“What’ll?”

AJ pulled one hand back and slapped Melthana hard across the face. The impact released a small cloud of faerie dust.

“Ow! Fuck!” Melthana said as the magic impacted her and forced the altered state out of her body. “Ow… fuck…” The deeper pains hit her all at once.

Melthana Saint Felix looked up at AJ, holding her face where the slap hit.

“Good to have you back, detective.”

Melthana looked down. “How bad?”

“Bad enough that I had to come down here for you, on Justin’s behalf.”

“Did I burn the bar down? Get into… more fights? Did I get myself arrested?”

“No, not that bad,” AJ said. “The bartender saw your sobriety chip and called your emergency contact, Justin. I came because I can actually sober you up.”

“Fuck,” Melthana whispered. “Would you mind taking me home? I’ve got to shower. And call my therapist and my sponsor. Fuck me, I feel like I’ve been hit by two trains.”

“It’s not that bad,” AJ said.

“I’ll be the judge of how bad it is.”

Melthana didn’t speak the entire ride back to her apartment.

When AJ pulled to a stop, Melthana got out of the car but didn’t close the door right away. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d invite you up to discuss what I learned, but my apartment is haunted so I can’t recommend it for you while I take a shower.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen worse.”

Melthana shrugged but didn’t say anything, she just went into the small apartment building and started to climb the stairs.

When AJ parked and followed Melthana up, she pointed to the exposed brick wall. “Don’t touch it. I think it’s cursed. Will give you terrible nightmares for a week.”

“It’s cold in here,” AJ commented.

“Curse. Never have to pay for a/c but… cursed. I’m going to shower. Don’t touch.”

Sure enough, five minutes after Melthana jumped into the shower, AJ’s curiosity got the better of them and touched the brick with one finger, just lightly, just for a second. And in that second they saw an old nightmare, one from their childhood, one that had been burned into their memory for a very very long time. And they experienced every moment of that old nightmare in that one second.

When Melthana came out of the shower, heard moving through the bedroom door on the other side of the brick wall that AJ was still staring at.

“You touched it,” the detective said loudly, breaking the silence of the room.

“I- I didn’t,” AJ lied badly.

“One of these days you’ll learn that I can feel your fear all the way over here.”

AJ remained silent for a moment.

“What did you see? Anything truly terrible?” Melthana called.

“Old childhood nightmare.”

“Huh, that’s a new one. I usually see dead people.” There was a silent pause that neither was going to break willingly. Until Melthana yelled, “Is there glitter inside of my bra? What the actual hell?”

“Oh, that. Um. That’s some faerie dust,” AJ called. “From when I slapped you.”

“So that did happen,” Melthana said as she came out of her bedroom looking cleaner but not better.

“Yes. I have some control over altered states,” AJ explained. “I have a limited ability to induce them, but also to forcibly end them. Doesn’t help with any potential consequences like a hangover, but it does end it right away. Leaves behind a lot of faerie dust though and that will get into places it shouldn’t.”

“Love it,” Melthana replied as she walked towards her fridge to pull out the cooler with her font in it. “Well thanks. I think. As for what happened. Well…” she paused as she sat down on the couch, heavily, next to AJ. “I couldn’t go in to Save our Souls! as myself because they do one search and they’ll find a police officer and that’s not gonna get us anywhere. So I went as the other identity that was very well established.”

“You had a meeting as Sarah. That’s fantastically stupid.”

“Not fantastically, just regular. Because a cop can only find out so much. They would say certain things, do certain things, if they think they were getting a regular client. Not if I go in there saying I’m investigating them. And it turns out that if it is a con, it is the most thoroughly vetted con I’ve ever seen.”

AJ didn’t speak for a moment as Melthana pulled up the cooler and unzipped the cover revealing the sickly green light and the wave of cold.

“Is that?”

“It is, I wasted all my magic. Because not only is the owner, Luke, got the ability to capital s See. But he’s got a full on Anderlandian devil on staff. She beat the ever loving shit out of me because she saw my tattoo. Now I’m just refilling my magic to get rid of this headache.”

“I was going to ask. Wait! A devil? Like an actual devil?”

Melthana nodded as she reached out and touched the cold black iron skulls, hands passing harmlessly through the green fire. The fire receded and the temperature of the apartment instantly rose by several degrees.

AJ reached out with a finger to try and touch it.

“I wouldn’t,” Melthana said with her eyes closed. She was trying to will the headache away, but something was telling her that it wasn’t going to go away that simply. “It would be like touching the wall but much worse.”

“Oh, ok,” AJ withdrew their hand. “You haven’t explained the devil thing though.”

“Well if you really were saving people from various heavens and hells, having a devil on hand from one of those hells would be very useful. Fighting her was a bitch. Just the act of fighting her was hard, and not like it was a difficult fight, which it was because devils are hard to fight. I mean… hmm… like the physical action of fighting was harder to do than it should be. She must have been some kind of war aspect or something.”

“And if it was just a scam why would you have a devil on your side for this kind of thing? Could be a bluff? To show off that you have a devil and therefore sell the lie that you can fight them.”

“No, because the kind of people that could see a devil and appreciate all that that entails wouldn’t be the kind of people you want to bring in on a scam. Too smart, see too much.”

“You think they are legit?” AJ asked.

“Ugh, maybe. All I know is that there is a devil on staff, and I had a hell of a time fighting her. And Luke managed to stop her with one hand, so he’s got his own thing going on. Then I got extremely drunk and had a work colleague come and sober me up. So this day is officially fucking terrible.”

“Well, I’ll leave you be since you seem fine. I can go look into this devil woman and see if she’s here legally.”

“Don’t.”

“What? We have a devil in the city and she beat the hells out of you,” AJ said.

“She was right to. Well sort of right to.”

AJ’s face went flat. “And why was that?”

“She saw my tattoos. She knew what they meant.”

“I can see them too. So what?”

Melthana sighed, stood up, and rolled up her sleeves. “Spiderweb,” she pointed to her elbow, “means I’ve done time in prison.” She pulled the collar on her sweatshirt to the side. “This eclipse meant that I sold drugs, specifical planar spike.” She turned around and pulled her sweater up and over her head, exposing her back. “The Nine-Eyed Dragon of the Celestial Theatre.” A tattoo covered the entirety of Melthana’s back. From her hips to her shoulders was an imposing, impressive dragon coiled amongst a field of stars. The dragon itself was terrifying and mystifying. Many eyes and many teeth. Claws, scales, colors, and a sea of stars. It seemed to shift and subtly move, and not just because of Melthana’s muscles and breathing. “Is the tattoo that was given to every high ranking member of the Oclith Mob. And this Marsha, this devil, knew exactly what that meant and was willing to fight anyone who had it. It means she’s smart and knows her stuff.”

“I don’t see why that’s enough to give her a pass.”

Melthana put her sweater back on. “Because she escaped a hell and is living here working an insurance job. I don’t think that’s enough to condemn someone back to hell for. I hear hell sucks, I can understand why a fallen angel would want out of that pretty badly.”

“Fine. I won’t do anything. But only because you asked. If they are doing anything illegal I’ll get her deported myself.”

“If they are doing something illegal I’ll be the one doing the deporting. I’ve got a score to settle with her.”

After a moment of silence AJ moved to leave the apartment. “You seem… stable now. I’ll leave you to it. Give me a call when you are ready to make another move on the Soul place.”

“Yeah, I will. First I’ve got to call… I don’t know, my therapist, my sponsor, fuck, my lieutenant.”

“Good luck with that,” AJ said as they went out the door.

“Thank you,” Melthana called out after them.

The phone calls were going to be worse than the hangover. But the worst of all was going to be the faerie dust she simply knew she’d be finding in places for the next several days.

The next day, after a lot of phone calls, several meetings, and no sleep, Melthana sat at her desk wondering if she should have asked for nine shots of espresso instead of eight. She felt terrible and that was even before the hangover was taken into account. She didn’t even consume that much alcohol, but it had been so long that she just couldn’t handle it. It probably didn’t help that AJ had slapped her real hard and forcibly ended her drunk.

Her phone rang and she heard it, she acknowledged it, she just couldn’t bring herself to answer the incessant vibrating.

She finally managed to answer her phone right before the voicemail would have picked it up. With an extremely unprofessional, but very necessary, “Yeah?” Melthana picked up the phone.

“Miss Sarah van de Mere? This is Save our Souls calling,” the woman’s voice on the other line.

Secretary, came the slow, pondering thought process. “Yeah?” Sarah said slowly.

“We have the results of our initial investigation. Do you have time to come in today and we can discuss the findings and where we can go from here?”

“Sure. What time is good for you?”

“Can you meet us in two hours?”

“Works fine for me.”

“We’ll see you then.”

Sarah hung up the phone.

Melthana immediately called the Arbiter’s office.

“AJ?” she asked. “They’re done. Can you come with me as back up?”

“That was fast.”

“Which is concerning, because I still can’t tell if this is a scam or not.”

“When is the meeting?”

“About two hours from now.”

“Pick you up in an hour and a half?”

“Yeah, meet me at my apartment. I have to get my face on. So to speak.”

There was a pause. “You going to be ok?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Melthana sighed. “It’s the best I can do.”

She hung up. There was a lot for her to do and she didn’t want to do any of it.

After going back to her apartment and changing into more appropriate Sarah clothing, and drinking more coffee, she was ready. Well, mostly ready.

“I wasn’t gonna sleep tonight anyways,” she grumbled and touched the exposed brick wall that was definitely cursed.

She felt the cold in her spine and at the base of her skull. The visions were intense and terrible. Melthana felt like she was dying all over again. Like she was stuck in her liminal space once again. Everything sucked. But she was overflowing with fear energy and power.

When she felt well and truly terrible, AJ called.

“I’m outside,” they said.

“Be down in a second,” Melthana said as she exited her apartment.

She went down into the cold, early winter air and took comfort in her coat that she would have to discard soon.

AJ’s car was nice, and pleasantly heated.

“You ready for this?” they asked before driving off.

“Not even remotely.”

Melthana quickly learned that AJ’s driving was borderline slow and measured. Which was distinctly different from how she got anywhere.

Despite the following of every single traffic law and the moderate speed of AJ’s driving, they still got to the office of the possibly shady insurance salesman on time.

Unfortunately he spotted them, as Luke Wellington was standing outside the office door smoking.

Sarah licked her lips, desperately wanting a smoke as well.

She climbed out of the car, leaving her big jacket behind.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said in her slow mannerism, “hot stuff.”

AJ was mildly shocked. They saw the Sarah persona before, while she was intoxicated. But watching the change in real time was something else. Melthana was tense and balled up the entire ride over, but now she was standing in a very different way. She shunned the jacket she was huddled up in and walked out into the freezing air with nothing but a tight shirt and jeans that had more holes than jeans. The speech pattern was totally different too. She wore her hair different. The tattoos that Melthana was so ashamed of and tried to hide, were on full display, even the bits that looked like someone pulled a sticker out of a sticker book where she had some of the tattoos along her hands and forearms removed.

That wasn’t even to address the “hot stuff” comment. AJ gave Sarah, it was so easy to think of her as an entirely different person with all of these subtle changes, a hard look for.

Sarah didn’t react at all, just shoved her hands in her pockets.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said to Luke who put out his cigarette.

He held onto the butt and brought it inside to dispose of properly. “Come on. Might as well invite the Arbiter in too.”

“Fuck,” Sarah said. She turned to AJ. “Jig is up. You might as well come up.”

AJ closed their eyes and took a breath before following Sarah out of the car.

“Sorry about the comment,” Melthana said. “Sarah’s… terrible.”

“Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking it.”

“Still am thinking it, but it’s not something I should say out loud. It was inappropriate.”

“But Sarah is inappropriate?” AJ asked as they started to climb the stairs.

“Sarah is a criminal and a terrible person.”

“And Melthana is what?”

“Self aware of how terrible she is.”

They entered the office where Luke was holding the door open for them.

He closed the door and waved them into the office at the back. Luke sat behind the wide desk and AJ took their seat. Melthana was more hesitant. Marsha the Devil was already there, standing in the corner near the window. There was also someone else already in the office, a man with slicked back gray hair and an impeccably tailored pinstripe suit.

Melthana moved her hand to her back pocket where she had stashed a black iron knife.

“Relax,” Luke said, not at Melthana, but more generally to everyone. “Everyone relax.”

Melthana tried not to just keep her eyes on the known threat, but also watch out for this new guy. Luke was also a problem, just not explicitly known what kind of problem.

“Marsha won’t do anything. Abdiel is allergic to actually doing anything physical so you don’t have to worry about him,” Luke explained as he pulled out a series of folders.

“What about you?” Melthana asked.

“I’m only useful with paranatural entities and religious rites. You could probably kick my ass without using any magic, but then Marsha would probably come to my defense.”

Melthana slowly took her seat, but she moved the knife out of her pocket and just idly played with it. Made her feel safer with the cold, black metal in her hands.

“You’re in a bit of a unique position,” Luke said as he put out two different manilla folders.

“You found me out,” Melthana said in response. “I left my badge in the car, but this is the Assistant District Arbiter.”

“I’m aware,” the insurance man with nebulous powers said without emotion. “You left here and got very drunk, very fast in a bar not far from here, where my associate Abdiel is something of a fixture.”

The silver haired man smiled. “Abdiel, angel on leave. I like alcohol and that place has such a… grimy aesthetic that I simply cannot get enough of. You are a talkative drunk.”

“Yeah, it’s why I don’t drink anymore,” Melthana snapped.

“Like I was saying,” Luke continued, trying to reign in his annoyance at his associates. “You are in a unique position. You did something that resulted in you having two, distinct, files on you.”

“Something very bad and very dark,” Marsha said snidely.

Luke stopped and turned to her, in tense whispers that didn’t go unheard by the two sitting across the desk.

“Stop it,” Luke said. “She’s a police officer.”

“Like no police ever wound up in hell.”

“You’re not helping.”

“She’s got that tattoo-”

“I’m getting to that.”

Melthana looked at AJ who looked back and shrugged slightly.

The two continued like an odd married couple.

“Sorry,” Luke said, trying to start again. “Like I said you have two files. Sarah van de Mere, who you came in as. And Melthana Saint Felix.”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad,” Melthana said.

“Well whatever you did when you went to work for the Oclith Mob,” Luke started, this time interrupted by AJ.

“She went undercover as part of a long term operation conducted by my department in cooperation with the police,” AJ explained.

“You did a very good job,” Luke said. “You created an entirely new person that you didn’t just pretend to be. You are Sarah van de Mere. You are Melthana Saint Felix.”

“So I assume that means that when I finally kick it, there’s gonna be some kind of cataclysmic fight over my corpse?”

Luke shrugged slightly. “I can’t promise that won’t happen. But there’s going to be a lot of trying to square your account. Technically it looks like you were baptized Anderlasian.”

“Fuck, actually that’s news to me.”

“I can see you didn’t ever really know your parents. Orphaned very young,” Luke said as he went through Melthana’s file.

“I’m good. I know my life history,” Melthana interrupted. “And we all know that we’re not here because of me. That was a pretense.”

“For what, I can’t quite tell,” Luke said, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

“I’m an officer of the law, and I have a case that a concerned daughter thought that her dying mother was defrauded by you. She filed a report, and here I am.”

Luke looked confused. “I’ve had my dealings with the fraud and insurance departments before. You don’t work for them.”

“I don’t. Someone wanted to fuck with me because I’m not very popular.”

“I’ll bet,” Marsha snorted.

Melthana was about to say something, but AJ put a cool hand on her forearm. Instead she just kept playing with the knife.

“Regardless of what you’ve done before, or what officers you’ve talked to before, we are here now, on this case. Past cases don’t grant blanket immunity to other instances of potentially the same crime,” AJ said.

“Haven’t I convinced you that I’m the real deal yet?” Luke asked. “Usually the background check is enough to convince most people.”

“I’m not most people,” Melthana muttered as AJ continued.

“I want to be sure that what you’ve done with Miss Remirez’s mother was above board and not just a scam hidden amongst dozens of potentially legitimate cases.”

Luke rubbed his eyes. “I know who you’re talking about. And I’m, firstly, not going to discuss a client’s confidential information without a warrant or the client’s permission. You have a relationship of some sort with Miss Remirez, why don’t you call her up. Secondly, any and all proof that I do have that this isn’t a scam, isn’t here and I’m going to need some time.”

“Mother fuck,” Marsha swore quietly to herself.

Luke held up a hand.

“I’ll make some arrangements,” Melthana said.

“I’ll call you when I’m ready, assuming you get permission.”

Melthana stood up, eager to leave.

“And if you want to discuss your… predicament,” Luke offered, “in a more private setting, we can do so. Just let me know.”

“I won’t.”

Melthana and AJ left the office in a tense kind of silence. 

“Can I assume you don’t want to talk about it?” AJ said quietly as they descended the stairs. 

“Correct, but I’m sure you have a question or ten,” Melthana said as she shivered and hugged herself as they walked back to AJ’s car.

The Arbiter didn’t say anything for a moment, they were just lost in the marvel of how utterly different Melthana and Sarah moved. She really did become another person and she didn’t even seem to notice.

“I assume the thing you did was referencing you breaking and reforging your font?” AJ asked as Melthana pointed all of the heaters directly at her and bundled up in her coat.

“Thats what I thought,” she replied from under her hood. “But I can’t be sure unless I see the file.”

“Will you look?”

“Can’t say I’m tempted. But I’m sure you want to know real bad so maybe you can hand it over to Justin. See exactly what I’m guilty of.”

AJ went quiet for a long time as they drove slowly down the streets.

“You think that little of me?”

“No. I mean… it’s not a negative thing against you, it’s a negative thing against me. I suck so much and I’ve done so many bad things that of course a good person would be repulsed by me and want to see me thrown in prison.”

AJ was quiet for another long moment. “I see how hard you work to change and be someone good. Even if you are not kind or come across as abrasive. Wish you wouldn’t think of me as someone who hates you.”

Melthana bit her tongue to keep from retorting that AJ may not hate her but they did fear her a decent amount. Instead she said nothing for a few blocks. “Well consider me shamed.”

AJ opened their mouth to say something else but Melthana cut them off.

“Yeah, I know it’s not about shaming me, or whatever.”

The rest of the car ride went on in silence. AJ dropped Melthana off at the station, and Felix spent the rest of the day making more phone calls than she would have liked.

Three days after the meeting with Luke, Felix arrived at a small warehouse converted to living space. It was a strange place to live, especially considering this was mostly an industrial part of town, but she couldn’t really judge people for where they lived.

Shelly Ramirez lived in this space with her wife, and Luke was extremely adamant that they do his ritual in a space that the spirit would feel safe in, surrounded by familiar objects and people so this was not going to happen on neutral ground.

Melthana was probably the first to arrive, judging by the total lack of cars on the road. It was for the best if she was first, might make this whole thing less awkward.

She called Shelly to let her know she was outside, because the building was large and finding the right door was going to be a struggle.

A moment later the same bright face appeared through a doorway calling out, “Detective Melthana! Over here!”

Shelly waved her over, and Saint Felix entered her home.

The whole thing was extremely cozy in ways that Melthana never could have predicted, but also surprisingly dark.

“We moved in right after we got engaged. And the rent is super cheap, so I have plenty of budget to decorate. Josinia has plenty of space to work and do her art,” Shelly explained as she gave Melthana the tour.

There was a lot of space, much more than Melthana had. And a lot of furniture that looked either antique or restored in some kind of fashion.

“What does your wife do?” Melthana asked, making small talk. She had to bite her tongue to ask if it was stonework.

Shelly launched into a little unrehearsed speech about her wife and everything she’s been doing and how proud she was at the slightest prompting. “Oh! She’s a very talented metalworker! She does all kinds of welding and sculpting with metal and she just sold a piece to someone in the Clutches!”

As they walked about the space and Shelly gushed about her wife, Melthana clocked the slithering in the dark. The very large snake was following them, well not quite following them, just moving about in the dark house some distance away, but not very far away.

Eventually the aforementioned wife came over to introduce herself.

She was large, beautiful, and easily twelve feet long. Melthana immediately noticed two things: her coloring was a beautiful combination of black and green with patches of red, orange, and yellow scales; and that there were more scars than anyone should have. Melthana could relate to all of those things.

“You are the detective,” Josinia said in a warm but raspy voice. There were some slight hissings coming from the network of snakes that made up the gorgon’s hair.

“That I am.”

“You have been helpful to Shelly. I.. thank you.”

Shelly smiled up at her wife, moving over to put an arm around her.

“I’m doing my best,” Melthana responded. “Thank you for letting us into your home. This shouldn’t take too long I hope.”

The gorgon nodded, and whispered something to Shelly before heading off into the darkness once again.

AJ arrived not too long after, and they waited in a small sitting room Shelly had arranged waiting for Luke Wellington to arrive.

Sure enough he arrived last, and a little late.

When Shelly opened the door for him, he stood outside for a moment.

“I thank you for inviting me into your home,” he said, sounding weirdly formal and rehearsed. “I have no weapons to present and I promise to bring no harm to anyone who calls this place home.”

AJ narrowed their eyes and whispered to Melthana, “Is he a vampire?”

She whispered back. “No, Ivory would have known him if he was.”

“I also bring gifts in thanks for your hospitality,” Luke said as he finally crossed the threshold. He handed Shelly a small bag that looked like it was bought from a convenience store. “I bring some wood for heat, some tea for drink, and mugwort for the pleasant scent.”

Shelly beamed as she usually does. “Oh thank you!”

Josinia appeared at that, which was surprising because she didn’t appear when AJ was let in.

She looked Luke up and down. “A proper greeting. An old greeting,” she said. “If you abide by the old rules, I welcome you to our home.”

Luke bowed slightly in thanks before Josinia took off once again.

“Oh shit,” Melthana whispered to AJ, “were we supposed to bring gifts?”

AJ shrugged as Luke and, to Melthana’s displeasure, Marsha entered the little sitting area.

“I did as you asked,” Shelly said after she finished putting away Luke’s gifts, “and this is most of my mother’s stuff that I inherited, all assembled together.”

“That’s good,” Luke said. “The dead like the familiar, and this will definitely help.”

Melthana crossed her arms and waited for whatever was going to happen to happen.

Luke pulled out a file and read off a couple of notes before giving it to Shelly. “First off, your mother was born into a cult. It is a cult that is not popular at all, and they are a ‘once you’re in you’re in forever' kind of deal. Not super fair, but that’s the belief system. She forgot to mention that on her application. Whether it was intentional or not, that’s not the point. Instead of fighting some minor bureaucratic celestial Corelletion for your mother’s soul, I was facing down some chaos demons from a layer of the Endless Abyss.”

“Layer 317,” Marsha interjected.

“Whatever,” Luke dismissed her comment. “See the Chaos Seekers were this small time cult based off of the Corellet religion, but their patron saint figure guy was obsessed with cataloging and identifying every layer of the Chaos Planes, because something something knowing your enemy will help them win their Endless War or whatever. I don’t understand it, never attended a service, don’t really know the Corellet stuff all that well. The important thing is that all of a sudden there’s a metaphysical chaos demon trying to consume your dead mother’s soul because all of the cult members on death are supposed to go chart the Abyss and fight demons or whatever. We were underprepared. I almost lost an arm.”

“I fracture six bones in my hand, and broke my orbital bone in a headbutt,” Marsha muttered darkly.

Melthana wasn’t too concerned about any of this before, but if something could do that much damage to a devil, then she was suddenly much more concerned.

“Ok, that sucks, but what does that have to do with us right now?” Melthana asked. “Is one of these chaos things coming through here and now?’

Luke looked at Marsha who shrugged. “Hopefully not,” he said. “We’re just going to try and summon your mother’s soul.”

Marsha laid out a few candles and a ouija board.

“Really?” Felix asked.

“It doesn’t actually do anything,” Luke explained, “but for some reason it helps. Something about it being around makes the summoning easier.”

The ritual started with all candles lit, and some old speech chants from Luke, complete with whatever runes he had on his arms glowing. Blue on his right arm, and red on the left. They pulsed with light, pulsed in time to the chanting rhythm.

After a few moments no chaos demons appeared to tear a whole in reality and consume all the flesh around, but there was a specter of an older woman suddenly floating there.

“Mom,” Shelly choked out, suddenly emotional.

In an instant, Josinia was there to hold Shelly’s hand. 

There were some emotions that Melthana was deeply uncomfortable intruding on. But shortly after they had the answers to Melthana’s few questions. It was fairly straight forward, the ghost of Misses Ramirez supported Luke’s version of events and there were apologies and everything.

“Thank you for your time. I think I’ve intruded long enough,” Melthana said with a slight bow to everyone as way of a goodbye, and left Shelly, Josinia, and Luke behind to talk to the ghost.

AJ and Marsha followed.

“Well that was awkward and too much,” Melthana said, “and seems like you guys are exactly who you say you are.”

Marsha shrugged. “That’s what I could have told you if you asked.”

“Like you would have said dick to me if I asked.”

“Now that I know what your deal is, sure.”

“You don’t know my deal.”

“I know a part of it. Enough to know that if you take up a contract with us, I will be the first in line there when you die,” Marsha said.

“That is not comforting at all. Also it’s going to be a long fucking line.”

“Yeah but some of the people that are going to be after your soul,” Marsha had a wicked smile on her face and her dark eyes burned with an inner fire, “oh that would be a fight worthy of me.”

Melthana turned to AJ. “I was right! She’s a war aspect. Battle angel, probably worshiped as a warrior god by some sects in the ancient past.”

Marsha deflated a little bit. “You figured it out that easily?”

“You learn a lot by fighting someone.”

“Yeah well you fight like you got a deathwish and that was only with like… what half your power?”

Melthana made a noncommittal gesture. “Sort of. I wasn’t nearly as prepared as I will be next time you want your ass kicked.”

At that point AJ started to turn Melthana away from the conversation.

“Thank you! We’ll be in touch,” they called. “What do you think?”

Melthana buttoned her coat all the way up and shoved her hands in her pockets. “We got nothing on them. After this, Shelly will rescind the case. There will be no charges. Luke is actually what he claims to be, and I never should have been given the case. I suspect that it is less about me, and more about him. He, or his associates, must have pissed someone off recently to get the case sent over to me.”

“What does that mean?”

“For once, it’s not my enemies I have to worry about. It’s kind of refreshing.”

“So what do you want to do about Marsha? And that Abdiel one? They are both likely illegal celestials. They shouldn’t be here, and I’ve never seen anything like what Luke did in there.”

“Me either. But they didn’t break any laws that I can see. And I’m not about to send someone back to Hell because they suck. Like I said before. Besides I hope Marsha is serious because I would love to die and watch her fight the Nine Eyed Dragon.”

AJ stopped in their tracks. “Wait. The dragon is real?!”

i have a kofi if you want to support this kind of thing

[esoteric-terror]

Two sides of the same coin

idk. i think theres a Lot of room for these two to be interesting together under the cut is how i would make them interesting To Me/partial avos rewrite, assume everything i dont mention is the same

about a year and a half ago @/cheecats posted this and i like this idea! it started making its rounds in my brain again and in my brain it Shifted, just a tad, and now we are here w this! thus we begin my madman rambling

prior to avos, rowanclaw is not a frequent character, he mostly just shows up to be mean and xenophobic, im p sure he shows up in night whispers as a good parent to his kids but for the sake of this im gonna ignore it and double down on the meanness, so for the rest of this im characterizing him as selfish, stubborn, mean, and someone who doesnt like being held accountable. do those traits sound familiar? they should, because im also describing onestar

we come to rowanclaw becoming leader, i want them to be Scarily similar, i need them to clash badly and be explosive because of said clash

they definitely differ tho! its just internally instead of externally. the biggest difference is that onestar is full of shame, regret, and self hatred. he knows that he shouldnt have ever met the kittypets. he knows he shouldnt have turned down darktail and because of him several kits died because he was a coward. he HATES that tallstar just had to make him deputy because that led to mudclaws death and him inevitably cutting off firestar. and he deeply regrets how he treated his old friend but he cant do much now as firestars dead! and he knows deep in his heart hes letting tallstar down. but if he drops the tough independent guy facade now and show how scared and regretful he actually is could lead to windclan being chased off again.

rowanstar on the other hand, is just Mean because thats all hes been surrounded by, 2 evil leaders, another who had a questionable history, and no shortage of clanmates who are just complete assholes. he doesnt have to prove shit to anyone in his clan, but he has everything to prove to the other clans as a new leader. hes not gonna be soft to them, fuck that! shadowclan can stand on its own w no help they got their shit down and everyone else needs to know that.

rowanstars cowardice isnt really recognized until after the kin shows up. he claims that he let them stay because theyre clearly strong. but hed never admit part of the reason he let them stay is because after bramblestar informed him that the rogues fought off onestar and his patrol that ultimately took one of onestars lives and killed furzepelt, he got scared to tell them no in case he met a similar fate.

in this hypothetical rewrite id switch the order of onestars and rowanstars deaths, so rowanstar dies at the end of the third book and onestar dies at the end of the fifth. because of that the circumstances around rowans death is changed a bit

so in some confrontation with the rogues, with rowan, tawnypelt, and tigerheart on one side with the kin on the other, tawnypelt ends up dying protecting rowanstar, because he let her take the killing blow. this is the first time hes shown visible terror, and because he didnt want to admit, even to himself, that this fight was his fault, and that because he was a coward and couldnt say no, he lost his mate, who was nothing but loyal to him.

skip to the end of shattered sky. theres another confrontation with the rogues. in this rowanstar doesnt step down! he still cant accept and doesnt want to admit that he was a coward, so he says the reason this happened was because he was too kind to his clan and to the rogues. the he gets killed.

this throws shadowclan under full control of the kin, and naturally this news spreads to windclan. and onestar is terrified out of his mind.

after a lot of projecting onto rowanstar, onestar realizes something: if he cant admit his faults, if he cant get over his pride, he will end up shamefully dying like rowanstar. and he recognizes that while he cant change the past, he can make the future better.

and so he tells everyone that darktail is his son and he steps down as leader. and in a way its freeing, this secret thats been eating him alive for years is now out in the open. he never knew darktail became this monster, onewhisker acknowledges that if it werent for his bad decisions as a young warrior, darktail wouldve never turned out this way, and he was gonna fix everything.

and then the battle that kills both of them happens the same as it does in canon, just later in the arc

-

ALL OF THIS TO SAY: rowan and one could have an interesting dynamic and it could be a cool parallel and i think if the erins tapped into that id like avos a lot more

[heyyallitsbeth]

so i let the hyperfixation win.

over the past several hours i rewatched Sword Art Online and SAO 2.

(this time dubbed, last time i watched it subbed)

here are my thoughts:

-anyone who said the dub was bad is just wrong. Kirito's VA really shines in the more comedic or sweet moments (like when first meeting Yui), he reminds me of like a Peter Parker. and oh my lord, the breakdown by Suguha's VA was just a masterpiece. Still have chills from watching it.

-i have such a big appreciation for every character. This time it really shined through how good of characters Kirito, Asuna, and Suguha actually are.

Kirito's internal conflict throughout SAO2 is so good, grappling with their actions they needed to take in SAO to survive. and throughout all of it you can tell how much they truly loves their friends and family, and how kind hearted they really are. Asuna definitely fits into that role as well, being so ready to take care of Yui and so desperately wanting her to be safe and loved and cared for.

And oh my gosh Suguha. I remember people absolutely hated her arc because it is problematic, but the fact is, it's played entirely serious, her feelings arent taken as a joke. She has a genuine and real internal struggle for feeling things she feels she shouldnt, and how she feels those feelings arent reciprocated or cant be reciprocated, and having her heart broken twice by someone who she loves and someone who also does still genuinely love her. Its absolutely heartbreaking to watch.

Man, Sinon is still fantastic. She's still my absolute favorite, and I think she is one of the best characters in the show, and pretty much steals the show from her introduction. Her arc ties in so seamlessly with Kirito's and how they help eachother heal and grow is fantastic. Only complaint is we never got a scene of the rest of the Gals being jealous about the grenade hug she gave Kirito. After Kirito and Sinon nearly died, wouldve been some nice relief so you didnt feel like you yourself were dying.

-Speaking of, while there was definitely a ton of fanservice, the pseudo-harem aspect with the jokes were kinda cute, between characters seeing flirting happen around them, getting embarassed over it, its fun. Especially when people got jealous of Sinon flirting with Kirito over Excalibur. That part was very fun, since they did that infront of everyone else, almost like they were trying to get a rise out of them. Theyre not exactly the pinnacle of comedy, its definitely a trope, but theres something nostalgic about it that makes it kinda enjoyable.

-Speaking of the psuedo-harem, guys if all of you are constantly flirting with eachother (not just Kirito surprisingly, happens between the other girls frequently) and jealous of any affection with that, just start a polycule. You're a group of gamer girls playing MMOs together and all of you have slept in the same bed with eachother. Stop snipping at eachother and start dating eachother. Polyamory is pretty cool. Kirito and Asuna can still be the main duo and be the parents to Yui and Strea; but yall gotta work on the jealousy or just do what every other group of girl gamers does, polyamory. Lisbeth you should not be angrily drinking while watching Kirito and Asuna talk. (this is mostly a joke, im not actually saying they *have* to do a polycule, its more of a joke because of how tropey a lot of the flirting and jealousy is, and yknow, gay girls do polyamory, so dont take this part toooooo seriously.)

-Speaking of girls dating girls, the LGBT rep aint half bad. Argo canonically using both male and female pronouns is really cool! Most of the girls flirt with eachother a lot too, which is nice. Between the female avatar, the willingness to pretend to be a girl, the introversion, the desire to be an avatar in a virtual world more than irl, Kirito might be transgender. All good stuff here.

Overall, SAO is honestly way better than I remembered, even if some parts definitely show its age. You gotta piece it together a little bit with headcanons, but i do that with every show, nothing is perfect. Except Sinon. And a world where trans Kirito is canon. Those are perfect.