#survive is meant both literally and figuratively

[dissolving-mansion]

I just realized why servants of the Beholding, particularly Jonathan Sims, are so sympathetic compared to servants of other Fear entities.

As we know, the Beholding represents a fear of knowledge; the fear of being observed, the fear of withheld knowledge and the fear of gaining dangerous knowledge. 

We talk often about how the Beholding is a god of ‘voyeurism’ and about how its servants are ‘voyeurs’. Several characters from the main cast (including Tim, Basira, daisy and others) express their discomfort with being the subject of unsolicited observation. Julia Montauk discusses the voyeuristic nature of consuming ‘true crime’ and similarly titillating true stories. Jonathan Sims himself expresses resentment towards the recording of his own story.

As the audience, we tend to feel bad at these moments, do we not? But, as the audience, do we ever stop listening? Do we ever give up our role as the audience for the very things that rely on the existence of an audience to themselves exist?

No, we don’t. Here’s the thing: there are two sides to every coin. An audience can be a ‘sadistic voyeur’ in one light and simply a person seeking catharsis and comfort in another light. Human’s need stories. We thrive on them. 

For this reason, it is difficult to condemn servants of the Beholding for seeking something that humans need so badly. Jon, Gerry, Gertrude, Jonah... They were all looking for stories that would help them survive their own.

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

sorry for diary posting so much on main but this is the last one today prommy

[nickmarini]

Ayden’s Build 

TL;DR: Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 8 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 9 (Peace Domain). Feats: Squire of Solamnia, Remarkable Recovery, Warcaster, Knight of Crowns, Spelldriver, Tough.

Building Ayden was a joy and a journey. To begin we were told we had 20 levels to work with and stats of 20 across the board. The only thing I knew about Ayden from the session 0 was that he was going to be a Cleric of the Everlight and that I wanted to make him the best support character I could. I also knew that the Dawnfather was aware of the mission briefing and so would have directed his growth to the task at hand. 

Stats of 20 meant multiclassing into any class was possible and that any ability score based bonuses or proficiency based abilities were going to be very good. I figured that with a warlock and a sorcerer we’d have some pretty good counterspelling and 9th level spell access, so I didn’t worry myself about either of those, instead focusing on making sure we all survived. 

The Dawnfather and The Everlight share 2 of 3 Domains. Life and Light. The Everlight’s 3rd domain is Peace. The Peace Domain cleric is an excellent subclass and its 6th level ability, Protective Bond, was something I knew I wanted to build around. The ability to take hits for, and aid, my siblings while teleporting around the battlefield is an excellent support ability and it also lets allies in the bond do the same, fostering sibling unity and cohesion.

With the Dawnfather having Nature as his unique domain separate from the Everlight, and literally sending himself to Exandria to infiltrate a city full of the greatest mages of the age, the Oath of Ancients Paladin seemed like an obvious path. It is the nature Paladin, (his domain) and 7 levels gives you both Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding. This means as Ayden moves through the battlefield with Protective Bond he will be granting allies +5 to saves from his cha as well as resistance to damage from spells. Incredibly good going up against the wizards of Aeor he knew he would encounter. I didn’t want to go to 10 with Paladin because I didn’t want to be immune to frightened. I just felt that fear played too large a role in the reasons the gods were here and although aura of courage is probably my favorite ability going back to 3rd edition, I felt like it wasn’t right for Ayden. He had to fear in order to reinforce his need to hope. 

These two classes were set relatively quickly and then I began looking at how else I was going to build him out. 

I really liked the idea of being able to grant my allies some extra attacks and so I was looking at battle master to get commanders strike and goading attack as well as maneuvering attack to help take hits for and position my allies. Action Surge is also a great ability that could really come in handy if I needed to save someone and needed one extra action to do so. 

I was also looking at the 2nd level Divination Wizard ability Portent. The ability to fully dictate 2 rolls is very powerful in certain circumstances, especially if the numbers are very high or very low.

Both these seemed good but weren’t feeling totally right from a character perspective. They felt too forced.

As I was playing around with these two classes I was also building Aydens backstory. I really liked the idea of him being agriculturally focused, as this aspect of the Dawnfather is actually his youngest. Sun begets days, and thus time and seasons, and as civilization evolves agriculture follows. The fighter levels lent the idea that he has spent some time training under a knight or some such warrior, and I knew that he would eventually find his way to Trist to begin his tutelage and become her cleric. I liked there being these different eras of his life. 

It was around this time that I got an awesome email asking me to describe Ayden visually so that the incredibly talented Hannah Friederichs and Cael Lyons could begin to bring Ayden and the Dawnfather to life. I wanted Ayden to be a simply dressed with a shield he took from his mentor, but no sword for striking. They sent 4 sketches and told me I could mix and match as I desired. Image #1 however was exactly as I had envisioned him. It was the simplest and had this depth to his eyes that told the story of a much older soul in this 15 year old body. It was so perfect that it made me realize I had been going in the totally wrong direction with fighter and wizard. The concepts of nature and agriculture were suddenly staring me in the face. It was not wizard, but druid, and his mentor could have taught him to be a paladin as easily as fighter, but if he is the bringer of agriculture who has he brought it to? A remote tribe still hunting and gathering was the answer. Barbarian therefore replaced fighter. I can’t tell you how influential the sketch I received was. It felt like a bolt of lightning suddenly clarified everything. 

I was for sure cleric 6, Paladin 7 and now looking at druid and barbarian. 

I didn’t know Druid subclasses very well but Circle of the Stars jumped out from the pack just with its name. The Sun after all is a star. When I read its 2nd level abilities Starmap and Starry form it was so obvious. I can cast Guiding Bolt to set up those attacks I wanted to grant, and I can glow instead of wild shape and either heal more or have a massive bonus to maintain the concentration spells I knew I wanted to cast. For the keeper of time to know how to read the stars just felt right. It also feel right that the druids of a tribe that had been hunting and gathering during the tumultuous Calamity would have learned to navigate by the stars, a singular constant in an every changing age. 

Barbarian has a number of interesting subclasses but none felt like they clicked. 1 level of Barbarian though, for a character with 20 dexterity and 20 constitution, catapults your AC to 20 and it also gives you a proficiency in Constitution saving throws if you take it as your first class, again reinforcing those concentration rolls. He was found as a child by this barbarian tribe and his first class is also his first community. Barbarian was the strong foundation I would build upon. 

I was now Cleric 6, Paladin 7, Druid 2, Barbarian 1. Reorganized to be the order Ayden would have taken them in it becomes the following:

Barbarian 1, Druid  2 (Circle of the Stars), Paladin 7 (Oath of the Ancients), and Cleric 6 (Peace Domain)

4 more levels to distribute. As a player who has mostly played 3.5 (I think downfall just about doubled the amount of 5E I have played) feats are my absolute favorite things, so getting to multiples of 4 in class levels to grab some was something I wanted to do (also I didn’t have to worry about ability score increases)! I had already given one feat up by taking barb and druid but I made up for it with the human variant. I also took the Knight of Solamnia background to give me Squire of Solamnia, the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns which would give me the ability to grant attacks to my allies without needing battle maneuvers. 

So I upped paladin from 7-8 for a feat and then decided to take Cleric from 6-9 because it gave me a feat and access to the spell Dawn. I mean the Dawnfather should be able to cast Dawn after all! 

Now to feats

1) Background: Squire of Solamnia to give me the prerequisite for Knight of the Crowns

2) Human Variant: Remarkable Recovery. I knew I’d be taking extra damage so having 5 extra hp from any healing I get might just be the difference. It also plays into his background. He had to leave the Barbarian tribe he brought agriculture to because his skin could not retain the ceremonial tattoo ink that would have symbolized his initiation into the community. 

3) Cleric 4 Warcaster to get advantage on those concentration checks, that along with proficiency and starry form of the dragon means I need to take 28 damage (56 if it’s a spell) to even have to roll, and when I do I get advantage and proficiency on the check. Getting me to lose concentration is gonna be a task. 

4) Paladin 4 Knight of the Crown getting to grant an attack proficiency times per day combos wonderfully with Starmaps free guiding bolt, conveniently also proficiency times per day. 

5) Cleric 8 Spelldriver I’m gonna be casting a bunch of spells so the ability to cast multiple each turn is going to make my support spells come out much faster. I have a big fam to take care of!

6) Paladin 8 Tough I really went back and forth between this and Inspiring Leader. Granting all my siblings 25 temp hp is amazing but ultimately I decided that as I’d be tanking a bunch of damage I’d need toughness. Toughness gave me 15 more hp than Inspiring leader would have, and I ended up going down to 14 at one point so it was a decision that very much paid off by a single HP! Don’t wanna pop a deathward if you can help it!

Last but not least we were granted 2 magic items. One very rare and one uncommon. For my uncommon I chose a cloak of resistance, a parting gift from the tribe that Ayden could not join. This upped my saves to 11s or 17s and took my AC to 23. For his very rare magic item I took a spellguard shield, inherited from the knight who brought him from the remote tribe to Trist‘s school, giving me advantage on saving throws vs spells and magical effects and inflicting disadvantages on spell effects targeting me. Combine that with resistance to spells from Aura of Warding and that’s a nasty nasty combo v wizards. 

All in all Ayden’s build is an incredibly hard to target tanky support character who can move through the battlefield protecting his allies and being an absolute nightmare for enemy spellcasters. The only thing I really didn’t fully consider was just how much damage he would take from Warding Bond which totally bypasses all those wonderfully crafted defenses. As crazy as it is, I think we barely got to scratch the surface of Aydens full potential and it’s probably good those mages decided to cast spells at everyone else because Ayden was going to be a tough character for a spell caster to crack. The Commanding Rally did get to shine allowing characters who specialized in weapon attacks to get a little extra out of those 20 level commitments. Ayden’s build was crafted to keep his siblings alive and let them shine as bright as possible together. I’m very proud of him!

If you read all this then you’re as nerdy as me and deserve a reward!

[velvetures]

Honorifics

A/N: Yeah... I don't know about this. I'll probably take it down since I'm unsure if it's got enough of a consistent vibe. Let me know if it's actually something you enjoy since I don't write angst or hurt/comfort often. I ALWAYS WRITE HAPPY ENDINGS THO. That's a damn promise. Summary: You've given Ghost a title he hates, and takes it out on you. The situation goes too far, and you're both left trying to figure it out. Reader is nicknamed "Brass" since she's a long-distance shooter/sniper. T/W: angst, cursing, Ghost being an emotionally unstable human, yelling, the reader having a breakdown, smidge of not eating, smidge of not drinking anything, comfort, feelings, female reader, not proofread.

When you joined the task force, things didn’t exactly go as smoothly as you had hoped it would. Training sessions usually ended up with you either getting your ass beat or nearly surviving a full-on embarrassment by the skin of your teeth just to be told that you still weren’t in good enough shape to keep up with them in the field. Surely being a woman didn’t excuse you from being in shape for the kind of work Laswell and Price had brought you in for, but damn if it wasn’t difficult to try and have a one-on-one fight with someone like Soap or Ghost without the benefit you would typically have in a real-world battle situation. The reality that all of the men in the squad were literally the best of the best aside, there could be just barely enough room for you to compete on the same level when it came to sheer physical strength. While that wasn’t your specialty anyway, the Captain made it clear you needed to prove you could handle your own against serious physical fights without assistance. After nearly five weeks of having one of your squad mates slam you on your ass one too many times in the training hall, you finally were able to prove to Price that you could go out in the field and he didn’t have to extend any extra worries for your ability to survive.

Logistically as a sniper, it meant you frequently held a much more distant role in missions. By watching from a scope you could ensure that infiltrations, covert ops, and other hush-hush kinds of operations that typically the 141 wouldn’t have the luxury of. Being the skilled marksman you were, it made sense to take advantage of your talents and also extend you a job that progressed past what you’d experienced in your “standard” military career and multiple tours overseas. However, that meant communications were essentially the backbone of your usefulness aside from your rifle. Next to nothing else, your daily and mission-based work almost exclusively went through Lieutenant Ghost. Which… often proved to be the largest obstacle that you faced aside from making sure that your scope didn’t get bumped off sight the -often- rough flights and drives to insertion points.

The Lieutenant was particularly mean… he certainly didn’t give a single thought to if anyone thought that he was a little too harsh of a personality to swallow. That went for everything you came to learn about Ghost. From his lack of willingness to speak unless required of him, to his unique ability of appearing and disappearing from anywhere without the slightest sound or hint of where he’d come from or gone to. Trained as a distance marksman, even you were impressed that such a massive man could move around like smoke on water. That and his physical appearance; good god above. Surely a man like Ghost had never graced the face of the Earth before, else he’d have been just as mythical in his legendary life and would’ve been known by thousands of people. He stood towering over just about everyone, in whatever room he was in, and compared to your own height it was downright laughable the difference between the two of you as operators.

The one thing that made the biggest impression on you after meeting the Lieutenant was his voice and how he spoke. That thick accent always sounded rough and a little gritty. His deep timbre gave such a commanding authority that if given the choice between getting yelled at by Captain Price or Ghost… there was no choice you’d sit for hours listening to Price threaten you over Ghost. He just sounded so scary and attractive all at the same time. Unsurprisingly, it developed into a subconscious dynamic where you saw Ghost as such a superior officer -and human- that no matter how much you liked to daydream about Ghost in less-than-professional situations… You gave him the utmost respect at all times. Easiest of all to recognize was that from day one, you had never addressed Ghost to his face as anything other than ‘sir’. Not even his rank gave enough nuance to his character and presence, so for you, Ghost was inextricably attached to the name.

Ghost however… didn’t like it.

Such a simple address actually made Ghost grit his teeth beneath the shield of his mask. When he heard you call him that, he automatically related it to how he had called General Shepherd ‘sir’ as a subtle sign of mockery and defiance. Thinking about that made him more than necessarily angry and confused, but he couldn’t really accuse you of having ever been given much of a reason to detest him. Therefore, he had to come to the conclusion that you were doing it out of some kind of respect that a drill sergeant or boot camp instructor had bashed into your brain so hard that it stuck permanently. Not surprising since you were much different from the rest of the task force. Yet he had to revise that after the first six months of you being with them permanently. You had gotten settled in. Enough so that you called the Captain, ‘Cap’… Soap, ‘Johnny’… and Garrick, ‘Gaz’ like everyone else did. Exceptionalities only appeared when it came time for you to be around him or have any sort of interaction that wasn’t the occasional silent nod of acknowledgment when walking past each other in the hallways.

He honestly tried to ignore it and you altogether for that matter in an attempt to keep his bitter anger at a minimum. Seeing such a small and fucking happy woman always lingering around somewhere in the corners of his sight couldn’t be anything but a distraction waiting to happen. A bad habit that he didn’t have the mental capacity or emotional willingness to take on. Fuck… he already had to worry about the 141 as a whole, to begin with. Now you on top of that? It was more responsibility than he’d signed up for initially. Hearing you call him ‘sir’ day in and day out began to take its toll on his self-control. Ghost needed to either find out why you were hellbent on calling him that, or at least be enough of a bastard to you to be reassured that you did it because you wanted a polite way to tell him to shove it up his ass sideways.

The Lieutenant had been being nothing short of a prick in the last few months.

He was making paperwork back at HQ a nightmare that couldn’t be solved alternatively through someone like Gaz or Soap who often didn’t mind playing the part of the unbiased third party. Refusing to sign things when you stopped by his office, outright ignoring your necessary questions, and stonewalling you at every single stop along the way just to yield at the last moment and do everything you’d been asking for so the both of you wouldn’t face heat from any higher-ups. That alone was enough for you to consider talking to Soap privately since he knew Ghost the best… but you’d kept putting it off hoping that it was just a passing phase of shitty attitude.

Your patience and emotional strength fell through the floor after attempting for the third time in a week after something so fucking simple as trying to get his approval and official signature on a post-mission report Price had delegated to you after being called to Washington D.C. for a meeting. It wasn’t a major task, but knowing that the Captain had given you the responsibility first over anyone else made you want to impress him and take care of business without incident. God forbid you do something as simple as ask Ghost to pick up a pen and scribble his name at the bottom of a page so that you could send it on through the higher-up channels. It resulted in the Lieutenant straight-up yelling at you in the middle of the hallway outside his office when he’d found you standing there patiently waiting for him to show up. He wasn’t threatening physically, but it cut much deeper into your pride and feelings than it should have.

With every word that dripped venomously out of his masked mouth, you lost a little extra peace of mind on having such an untouchable and unshakably good opinion of Ghost for so long. This moment of undeserved verbal punishment was enough to make the corners of your eyes burn with inner disgrace, self-doubt, and plain old sadness which motivated you to get the hell out of there before the Lieutenant saw you cry. When you turned your back and walked away right in the middle of his berating for you being “too fucking annoying to tolerate”, your only destination was your personal quarters on the other end of the building where a lock on the door could shut out the entire base for as long as you saw fit. Upon the first estimation, it would be after Captain Price returned so that you could have at least one single chance at not getting a second punishment or dismissal from the squad. The sound of your door slamming shut and your back sliding down against it on your way down to the floor silenced the entire room around you, leaving just enough room for the papers clenched to your chest to flutter onto the ground and your weak cries to sounds amplified.

It was hours before you could drag yourself off the floor and into bed, too tired and wanting to fall back on the trained and instinctual desire to hide away somewhere isolated and not move for hours on end. Being a long-distance marksman gave you the talent of patience insurmountable to the average person, allowing days to pass by without you needing to do more than go to the bathroom before coming right back to a motionless position. That’s what you wanted tonight. You needed to focus all of your energy into your brain alone and use it to sort through the hurt burning through your eyes and throat, and the questioning that gave such a sickening feeling a chance root in your stomach. Questions of if it had been foolish to trust Ghost as much as you did the others, knowing how you’d been warned that he would be difficult to work with. Hoping you hadn’t been truly so ignorant of judging behavior to think that the Lieutenant was something much greater than his behavior had been not only today but for the past months.

The next two days were spent laying near motionless… not hungry or thirsty.

Just thinking, sleeping, and staring at the wall across from your bed.

A solid knock on your door was the first human sound that hadn’t been made by you in over forty-eight hours. You’d not looked at your phone or any communications since locking yourself inside, and there was a good chance someone from the squad had come searching for you after such a long period without seeing or hearing from you. When you refused to answer right away, another harder knock banged on the door twice and rattled the steel in its doorframe. Impatient. Testy. Quite familiar with everything you’ve been through lately. Recognizing the Lieutenant was the one outside made your gut churn all over again. Questioning whether to get up or not wasn’t hard. Laying perfectly still in bed, you waited. If you were being honest though, it’d been a long time since you’d spent so long restricting yourself from basic needs for the purpose of acting like a living phantom. Close to three years since any sniper position had left you utterly abandoned without resources. Only this time it was self-induced and nothing short of a trauma response you wanted to hide away from. Truthfully you couldn’t tell if walking to the door was an easy feat or not. After not drinking anything, using the bathroom wasn’t necessary and the last time you’d stood up didn’t cross your memory clearly.

Ghost slammed his fist against the door again one last time. But he didn’t wait long enough for you to answer before rattling the handle to the door with a heavy sigh that was audible through the cracks separating you. Metal on metal gritted softly and moved the door handle a bit further. Recognizing that as nothing short of Ghost picking the lock to your quarters without the slightest care of how he’d be breaking multiple stipulations laid out for them living in HQ. Either your physical or mental state kept you from giving a damn when the handle gave way fully, leaving a bright fluorescence light flooding in from the hallway into your pitch-black room. It made your eyes water and the urge to turn your head away was strong enough to budge your head into the blankets and pillow surrounding. Heavy boots made the paperwork scattered on the floor crunch softly and the sound of his deep breaths gave away his current state of frustration. Clearly not appreciating being locked out of a room that he had no fucking business being in. A long pause led to shuffling around, and the sound of your desk chair creaking under his weight.

“Gonna say somethin’?” He sounded no less irritated than the last time you’d spoken.

It made your throat burn to even think you’d allowed his to get in your head so deeply just to utterly rip every last bit of security and respect away from you for no damn reason. Your silence made quite the statement, even if the actual task of speaking hadn’t been a totally voluntary one. You’d not moved your jaw in days at this point.

“You’ve missed five drill sessions, two mandatory meetings, and one phone from General Shepherd.”

Listing off your offenses hardly bothered you. The consequences of this had been fully accepted days ago, and Ghost would have to do a lot more to get you up from this bed. You’d trained for hell, and no matter how badly Ghost had ruined your almost loving and patient view of him there weren’t enough men on the planet to make you get up voluntarily. Drastic… yes. Satisfying to your own pride… undoubtedly. When you didn’t even let out a single breath loud enough for Ghost to hear instead of that instant apology or willingness to appease him… please him even, with that little quip of ‘sir’ ready on your tongue, the Lieutenant was up out of that chair so quickly you heard it roll into the wall behind him hard enough to thud against the drywall.

“Goddamn it Brass, I demand a fuckin’ answer!” His loud bark caught your attention, but the feeling of your blankets being ripped off your body was a far more startling sensation.

Baring you to the cold air of the room, all your body managed was to raise chills on your skin in a feeble attempt to keep you warm or alert you to seek out that heat again. Tension exploded into shocked silence when Ghost didn’t utter more than a sharp inhale after getting one, shadowed glimpse of your body totally frozen on your stomach. You knew it couldn’t look great. Snipers could come back looking like skeletons sometimes after a long mission if they were given the orders to stay put. You’d not been laying nearly long enough for that to be the case, but dehydration was certainly a symptom you were ignoring quite easily, as well as the possibility of some minor pressure ulcers that would linger for a few weeks if you didn’t move soon. Ghost wasn’t as familiar with the sight of how you felt internally. Snipers weren’t commonly used or in collaboration with Task Force 141. You’d been their first real look at how the inner workings moved or didn’t, and much of your personal way of doing things had dispelled or blown away any misguided assumptions they’d made about your skills early on. Viewing a sniper after days of doing literally nothing, of her own free will…? That wasn’t healthy or accepted in general military companies. Lucky Ghost got the front-row seat though.

When you heard his movement next to you, weight pressed down the mattress at your side in the shape of his hands, and a low sigh registered.

“Brass…” Failing to even say something, you wondered if your own assessment of yourself wasn’t accurate. “It’s been five days.” His faltered tone was truthful, and it destroyed your semblance of time that had been misled by the absence of sunlight coming in through your room.

You thought about trying to say something, resolve falling flat when swallowing felt difficult. A gloved hand rested against your thigh and Ghost almost growled again, sounding a lot more like he was resisting the urge to squeeze you hard. Only his fingers traced along your hip and over the curve in your waist with a tense and heavy swallow. He was being gentle beyond your concept of his depth of emotion and understanding. Nearly loving as he paused over your ribcage with another pinched sort of sound. Staying like that for what felt like hours, you struggled to keep yourself awake. It had been a struggle to move your tongue in your mouth, testing what mobility you’d lost in the short term. Only Ghost wasn’t leaving like you expected, and suddenly his voice returned it its normal stature.

“This’s Ghost. Get a bay ready now, I’m bringin’ someone in.” The reverb of his voice crackled in a radio you knew hooked to his vest. A backup short-range alternative in the case that SAT couldn’t be established or wasn’t clear enough to rely on in the field. Apparently, he used it to keep in contact with someone on base. Or multiple people for all you knew.

“Copy Ghost.” A static voice could be heard and quickly the room was pitched back into a silence you wanted to remain in, but Ghost was adamant to keep infracting alone with a whole list of other rules that, for whatever reason, just didn’t fucking matter or apply to him.

His other hand searched around the dark until he found your face resting amongst the fabric of your bed, curling his hand around your head and meticulously lifting you so very slowly away from the bed with his other arm steadying your legs that had also been taken up off the mattress. You’d never touched Ghost once in all the time you’d known him. Understanding that with his sour attitude, there couldn’t be a single chance in Hell that touching him was an acceptable action. Whereas with Soap, Gaz, and even on occasion Price: hugs, handshakes, shoves, and other physical touches were common, Ghost totally ignored all human contact. Maybe Hell had frozen over outside of your quarters for your weak and still motionless body to be lifted up against the Lieutenant’s chest and carried preciously outside of your room into the burning light of HQ. His chest heaved deep and quickly against you. Both hands curled around you and flexed tighter each time you were able to hear another set of shoes approaching closer to you. Possessive like a soldier. Silent like a Ghost. Determined.

He takes you straight to the medical hall where three nurses and two of the on-shift doctors are fast to respond to your condition. Only Ghost refuses to let them take you away from him for any reason. Stoically stonewalling them just like he habitually did to you as they begged him to lay you down on a transport bed so they could take you back to a room for assessment. The Lieutenant took you there himself, with the group of nurses and doctors hot on his heels and surrounding your bed once Ghost had you settled down inside a private room.

The whole place smells sterile and like alcohol. It’s not the first time you’ve been here, but these are far different circumstances. You’re still too sensitive to open your eyes, but hands are all over your body, gloves fingers touching around the sore places on weight-bearing points on your body, pricks in your fingertips, and a needle poke to the back of your hand. It’s overstimulating, to say the least, and you’re worried they’re going to think you’ve tried to starve yourself to death or decided that living altogether wasn’t worth it and simply wasting away into your bed was the solution. Right away, one of the voices of the medical professionals breaks that worry in your mind by calling for some of the tests to be staggered, needing time between them for nothing other than your own benefit.

“Treat this no differently than prolonged active reconnaissance,” The female voice states softly. “Being on-the-gun for this long is detrimental to all senses, and she’s going to need a while to wake up in a meaningful way.” She added, voice coming clearer the closer she got to your head.

“You’ve been working very hard, I suspect. Maybe not in the field… but you’re one tough lady.” She commented to you quite personally, her hand falling to your shoulders. “We’re going to get you plenty of fluids and start you on a vitamin drip to get everything running as it should again. You’ve also got some slight bedsores, but as long as we take care of them now, you’ll be right as rain soon, sniper.”

Tests were run, treatments began, and nurse after nurse was brought in with both doctors running rotations in and out of your room for the rest of the night. All of them were under the hard watch of Ghost who’d not moved from his position sitting in the corner of your room where he could see not only you but anyone approaching the door. He’d been very quiet throughout the process, watching and waiting for someone to give him some news about your condition with actual certainty. Stewing over the guilt he felt knowing damn well he was the reason you’d shut down so far and were still unable -or unwilling- to come out of it yet. You’d been nothing but the perfect little woman, doing her job with skill and grace, making everyone around you happier just with one glance in your direction. But fuck, he couldn’t stand seeing someone do the callous profession of killing people with one single squeeze of her finger and still have so much innocent and emotional humanity inside such a small body. Ghost couldn’t wrap his mind around it. So instead of trying to do the right thing and figure it out, he did what a man so out of touch with empathy did: Try to snuff it out.

You threatened him whether you or he realized it in the beginning.

But now he could see it with that crystal fucking clear hindsight. How monstrous he was for punishing you with no foundation other than his own selfish fear of seeing a dynamic he didn’t know was possibly wrapped up inside of you. Sweet and little you, never saying anything to him other than a ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’. Goddamnit Ghost knew he’d nearly killed you in a way. Seeing days of neglect in your sallow expression, darkened under eyes, and weakened body was more than even his cold heart could take all at one time. Wasting away for someone as useless as himself, all because he’d never given you enough credit for finding something worth liking in him where no one else had. Screaming at you. Cursing your existence. Right in your face, while he’d been too big of a pussy to even take off his own mask he hid behind every day as he utterly destroyed your meaningful position and life working alongside of his and his squad. Owing you his life wouldn’t nearly cover his offenses. Laughably, Ghost admitted his own life or death couldn’t measure up to yours. So instead of saying any kind of bullshit apology, he sat in the corner of your room and denied himself sleep, food, and water because there wasn’t anything else he could do until you’d been considered healthy and strong again.

Almost one week to the day you had been signed off for return to duty with zero restrictions. Your physical and mental evaluations came back clean, and with both Price and Ghost signing off on the doctor’s orders, you returned to your quarters where you expected to see your room exactly as you’d left it before Ghost brought you into the medical wing. Only nothing was as you’d left it. All the paperwork left on the floor was gone, as well as the other documents that had been left on your desk that still needed finishing. All of it was gone. Your bed and all of the bedclothes you’d been taken from were also missing. Replaced with totally brand new bedding in dark hues of dark green and navy blue with a decidedly feminine pattern on the quilt. Items you didn’t own. Or have any idea where they came from. Even the smell of stale air was traded for a woody, and familiar smell that wasn’t of a candle, or room spray; It was from a person. The person who sat in the corner of your room in your desk chair with his massive arms crossed over his chest and dark eyes staring at you through the painted visage of a skull gracing a black compression mask.

“Sir,” You greet hoarsely, still working through some of the non-significant parts of your recovery that lingered. Ghost stood from his seat and met you halfway across your room with a silent nod, his hand reaching out and motioning for you to step closer to him. Warily but complicit, you make the few steps forward and watch his hand turn to slide against your jaw and stay there firmly. “I expected you to be at drill.” You say with a tinge of surprise at the touch of his bare hand resting against your cheek.

“Should be,” He replied flatly. “But I’m not.” You nod a little, biting your tongue when his fingertip rubs over the curve of your ear. His eyes were soft and his unarmored physique was highlighted by the shadows made by the lamp on your side table. He’s inspecting you, you know as much. Clear by his thumb pressing over your pulse point and the minute exactly that he waits before speaking again.

“Do you like the color green?” His question knocks you off guard and his eyes slide over the quilt laying neatly over your bed. You were quick to answer honestly out of mere habit.

“Yes, sir.”

His hand stiffens against your cheek, and Ghost takes another step closer. His boots graze the tips of yours and his chin is nearly tucked against his chest to look down at you properly. You’re breathing a little harder, anticipating another break of his patience and an onslaught of screaming all directed at your apparent mistakes made right in front of his face. Judgments you’d still be unable to solve no matter how much you thought about it or what you did to try and find a solution of healthy -or not- motives. Ghost doesn’t yell though. He actually lowers his face down to yours, eyes locked right on you and an intensity burning there.

“Why do you call me that?” His low growl made you shiver, especially when his hand dropped lower to your throat. Now squeezing, but holding your gaze steady on him, reminding you of his strength. The power over you he’d always held, and given you the instant to call him ‘sir’ in the first place. Everything about Ghost was overwhelming, and you’d always been one wave away from drowning under him.

“You deserve the honor…” You answer, certain. Even if he’d broken your spirit and came back in the aftermath with questions you still believed to be much too complex for a single-sentence answer. Hopefully, he understood a little bit better but the way you leaned against his hand, letting him actually feel the pressure of your throat pressing into his palm. Literally offering your trust in him over again, testing the Lieutenant and watching as his eyes widened. His other hand came up to your face, counteracting the pressure you’d applied to keep your breath and blood flow uninterrupted. His face is still only inches away from yours but unflinching at the close contact.

“Brass,” He murmured, masked face teasing closer with his own lack of control. “I’m not what you think I am.” Your chest tightens with his words, soaked in desperation that heats your lips and cheeks.

“What’s that, sir?” You question, earning another flinch of his fingers against your skin.

“Safe… Trustworthy… Honorable.” He replies, getting even closer. The smooth material ghosted over your lips, and his breathing fanning over you wetly through the damp material. You sigh, feeling lightheaded. Weak in his hands, confused yet happy to have your life held in the palms of his hands. Confused about where his mistrust comes from, but gaining perspective every time he flinches when you address him in the way you always believed he’d feel the most revered and… loved.

“You’re wrong,” You challenge, hands moving from your sides to run up the thin shirt covering his chest. “You’re a man of fear. One that death shakes at the mention of. Even looking at you through my scope a mile away is enough to remind me you’re capable of inhuman things…” Your voice lowers, hearing thoughts straight from your soul escaping without filter from your brain. “Yet you’re human. So much more than anyone sees. Because it’s not evil that keeps you going. It’s the fear and hatred of losing anything that means something to you.” Your hand rests over his chest, hearing his heart thundering against his ribs.

“You’re not a monster, you are terrified of losing everything. That is why I call you ‘sir’, is because you’re a man unlike any other, Ghost.”

Hearing your own voice say his name like that feels so foreign. Coming off your tongue with the letters not fitting together in a way that you’d experienced. But Ghost… he reacts differently. His hands tightened around you and he hugged you against his chest tightly. His chest heaves up and down and the thunder of his heartbeat impossibly quickens until your left ear can’t hear anything but the repetitive thrum of blood coursing through his body. Heavy arms snake around you, one around your head to secure it to him and the other clinging to your waist with his hand fisting into your shirt until it’s skin-tight on your stomach. The Lieutenant practically shakes against you, using your much smaller frame to steady himself.

Yet he’s dropping to one knee on the ground, bringing you down with him until he’s nearly cradling you and softly rocking your weight back and forth. Soothing himself in much the same way a child would after scraping their knee on the sidewalk and the tears have begun to dry up. God, it made the massive man feel so weak; much like you did after he’d yelled at you a week ago. Both of you kneeled on the floor now with all of your wounds opened up to each other and had silently found a calm within the eye of a destructive storm that had been raging against the pair of you while everyone on the outside had been simply looking on with bated breath to see how the ending would play out.

“Brass - I…” Ghost’s voice choked up again, his arms tightening around you. “God, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t ignore you anymore… I’m losing my mind.”

You lean into his chest harder, arms struggling to reach all the way around his wide back in an attempt to support him a little bit. You understood through the way he was grabbing at anything on you he could desperately. So you did all you could and rubbed your hand up and down his back quietly allowing him the time to work through his thoughts. Both of you had been hurt by this, and while the Lieutenant’s form of apology came in the way he’d ushered you for help when you needed it most and unquestionably been the reason behind the way your quarters looked. Now it was you, cradling a man who’d never shown a single crack in his armor, feeling the weight of so many emotional wounds that he was practically bleeding out with pain and palpable regret.

“You don’t have to…” You whisper, resting your forehead against his.

Ghost just nods his head, panting heavily and giving a low sort of whine. “I’m so sorry…”

You smile sadly. “I’m sorry too.”

His eyes soften more, blinking away at wetness brimming at his waterline. “Say it again… please. I need to hear it. God, please.”

“It’s okay…” Your hands cradle his cheeks, feeling the sharp lines and hard muscles. “I’m right here, Ghost. We’re going to do this over again… Together, Ghost.”

Nodding weakly, he meets your gaze as you say his name again. Reveling in it. “Together… together, with you.”

[shorthaltsjester]

trying not to set myself up to start spiralling back into c2 (i’m always like. a slight gust of wind away from it if i’m being honest) but i was confirming a quote from ep 141 and in general the conversation between fjord and vandran makes me insane, it’s truly some of my favourite rp from travis across all the campaigns, it has one of my personal top 5 cr Thematic™ quotes when fjord tells vandran “you showed me kindness, and love, and honour, and it meant the world to me.”, it has lore drops about vandran and avantika and uk’otoa, it has a silly sweet interaction of jester shouting out a greeting to vandran and fjord going “she’s wonderful.” and vandran saying “she’s a handful.” and fjord agreeing only for vandran to add “she’s perfect for you.” but beyond all that wonderfulnesss packaged into a mere 30 minutes, i am once again struck by how fjord and imogen are very interesting foils in terms of like. the absence of a parental figure who has knowledge of the curse you bear that your own curiosity for has led you through your recent life.

especially with (relatively) more recent imogen literally pretending to be her mother for utility versus fjord who took on aspects of vandran hoping to feel more assured in himself (featuring nightmares sponsored by a malevolent being intricately tied to said missing parental figure and occasionally featuring their presence). like both imogen and fjord start off their campaigns being like I Would Like Answers About My Powers (at any cost implied by the apparent possibility both of them had early on to be swayed away from the Good™ side) only for it to become clearer to them that the person who might have the most answers for their questions was not only their parental figure but was a parental figure they assumed dead only for that assumption to be undermined. and the fact that vandran and fjord stay apart so long because fjord is scared and busy and hadn’t even considered that vandran could’ve survived and because vandran made the same assumption that fjord hadn’t lived — but who also had a sense of hope that maybe that meant the cycle of violence had ended only to be met again with a fjord who tells him “despite your best efforts, your curse is now mine.” versus imogen and liliana who stay apart so long because of liliana’s choices, her insistence that imogen stay away from her even when imogen made it clear over and over that she wouldn’t stop without some answers or some clarity. the fact that fjord is reunited with his father figure and says i have so many questions and vandran gives him answers, even hard ones. that imogen has to beg just for her mother to actually hear her and not just the paternalistic idea of an infant she left behind decades ago. even fjord asking vandran if he wants to leave with them, and vandran making in clear he doesn’t intend on staying with them long term but whose happy to join them. versus imogen who begs her mother for help and to come with them and who ultimately can’t trust her to be telling the truth when liliana offers to come. i just think they should meet. i am always vying for a fjord cameo just because he’s my best friend but i think they should meet.

[ursemma]

"You're all that I need" Theodore Nott × f!reader

Pt 2

Summary: where Theodore realised you're all he needed but maybe it was little too late for that, or was it?

Warnings: angst ig

This is based on my favourite song CO2 by prateek kuhad!! Part two will come out shortly and better than this. I was in deep sleep while writing this so this is poorly written ik, sorry for that!!

"oh come on Theodore! You really can't treat me like someone you can have at any time you want without giving any labels to our relationship!!" I yelled at him as I shut the door of his dorm so that no one could here us.

It's been a repeating cycle for entire week.

He treats me like his gf and the next min he's flirting with random chick at Hogwarts.

Whenever I ask him about our status all he says is he needs time to figure out, to be himself and to know what he wants.

We've been seeing eachother (if you can say that) for almost 5 months and went without labels now it was too much for me.

"oh come on just give me a little more time please" he pleaded with teary eyes, and I can't help but look away.

"no Theodore not anymore, if you can't commit fully towards me, then you can't have me." With that I left his dorm, in hope that he would atleast try to stop me, stop me from running away, stop me from walking out his life, but no nothing happened.

The next morning I entered our common room and sat near pansy, who was reading a book.

Theodore and his friends sat exact opposite to us, and our eyes met.

Both of our eyes held the same emotions. desperation, desire, love, and heartbreak. One emotion was missing and that was acceptance.

Maybe we both haven't accepted it. So I guess there has to be a hope from both the sides right?

I swear to god if there was peace around us, we both could hear the literal words.

And maybe this is meant to be this way.

For us to be away.

I mean that's what happens in most of the love story right? The lover gets seperated because they weren't ready.

Ready for eachother, for the commitment, for the price they would've to pay.

After few minutes I saw him leaving the common room. Just like the day i left his dorm.

I'll be fine right? I mean I've experienced this beforehand.

I have dealt with people leaving me.

It won't caused much harm right?

Oh how wrong I was.

Theodore is like oxygen for me. I need him to breath, to survive, to live.

And without him I'm nothing.

I was walking down the corridor with Enzo by my side, we were laughing at his silly jokes and I felt someone's eyes boring into me.

I looked at my surroundings to see Theodore glaring at us.

Even if he never see it, he was all I needed, all I wanted. Not Enzo not anyone but him.

Maybe he won't see it now, but in future he will right?

I was deep in my thoughts, wondering why I love him? Why can't I get over him? Why do I need him? Why do I want him?

Maybe it's the silence in his eyes,

Or the deep red when he's shy,

Or the Mystery of our love,

All I need is the sign from stars above,

Maybe it's the way he breath in me,

Or it's the way he heals the girl in me,

Maybe it's the fragrance of his hair,

I just want to kiss him when he's there.

I shook my thoughts away as they were taking a different turn.

I just him all around me, but why can't he make it happen.

Why does he have to be so complicated.

I laid down on my bed thinking the possibilities of us. Will we ever happen? Or will we drift apart just like that?

[writing-intheundercroft]

Falling Hard

Summary: A story about how Garreth fell first (literally and figuratively).

Word Count: 5,416

Rating: T (boner alert, but that’s about it)

A/N: Thank you to @cuffmeinblack and @ellivenollivander for arranging @garrethweasleyfest!! And a special thank you to whoever submitted banana peel as a prompt lmao

Read on AO3

Garreth Weasley laid flat out in the center of the Great Hall, staring at the candle lit ceiling. He could hear laughter echoing around him, and a sharp pain radiating through the lower half of his back. Garreth shut his eyes tightly, wishing he was anywhere but the middle of his school dining hall, spread-eagle with banana pith on his heels.

He supposed he deserved this, after all.

And then, Garreth felt her hands cupping his cheeks, the soft pads of her fingers brushing his chin. When he opened his eyes, he blinked heavily, her face hovering over his. Wisps of her hair brushed his skin as she leaned over him, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Okay, he would survive this. Especially if it meant being in this close of proximity to her.

“You’re an idiot, Garreth.” She shook her head, staring down at him with wide eyes.

He smiled up at her, blinking to clear his eyes. She was kneeling, hands flat on the ground at both sides of his face. He could smell her, the faint hint of mallowsweet lingering over her distinctive perfume. If he craned his neck up, he could probably kiss her—

“Yeowch,” Garreth groaned, a sharp pain crackling through his head like lightning. The sensation was enough to drive him back down to the ground, grasping at the flagstone floor. She shifted her hand, this time to cup the back of his head. He heard her inhale sharply, examining reddened fingertips.

”Is that blood?” He asked weakly.

Leander scampered forward, gasping when he saw his best mate’s current state. She was frozen at his side, fresh blood dripping down her hand.

“Somebody call Blainey!”

It sounded like Natty. Leander sat at his side, bracing Garreth’s head in place. He tried to move, to pry himself from the other redhead’s grasp, but the sharp pain returned. Someone was saying something to the effect of conjuring towels, and he saw her sit up, the offending yellow culprit in hand.

Fuck bananas, Garreth thought. Horrible stringy fruit. Who even liked bananas anyways?

She did. She’d always bounce over from her table, snatching a banana from the fruit bowl closest to him. She’d smile, say good morning, and that interaction would make his entire day.

”Garreth,” he heard her voice. He tried to crane his neck upwards again, but the ringing continued in his ear.

And then he passed out.

“I can’t believe you,” Aunt Matilda huffed. “Seriously Garreth, cracking your skull a week before graduation. Your mother will have my head.”

”I’m sorry,” Garreth repeated for the umpteenth time, wincing as Blainey wrapped another bandage around his noggin, flattening down his red hair. It was late afternoon already, and he’d missed the majority of his classes. With exams on the horizon, few of his friends had the free time to sit by his side. Therein, he was sequestered to his hospital wing bed with only his aunt for company.

“Garreth, you’re nearly a grown man and I still have to mind your behavior.” his aunt snapped. “How can an employer take you seriously when you’re still acting like a third year? Let alone a woman—“

”I get it, Aunt Tilly,” Garreth grumbled. “I have to wisen up.”

His Aunt Matilda’s face softened, lips pursed as she gave him a flat lipped smile. “I know the final days of term can be stressful. I just don’t want to see your talent wasted on trying to be remembered as a goofball.”

Garreth wasn’t trying for anything in particular—in fact, his stunt in the Great Hall had been an attempt to get everyone to forget what he’d blurted out in the heat of the moment.

Someone cleared their throat; Garreth and his aunt turned their heads to see Nurse Blainey standing next to the fabric partition.

“Visitors for Mr. Weasley,” she announced, gesturing to the now visible doorway.

”Oh thank Merlin,” Garreth wheezed, sitting up. He smiled weakly at Natty and Leander, who were walking into the hospital wing with his textbooks and assignments in their arms.

”Sorry it took us so long,” Natty said apologetically. “Had a double potions session with Sharp.” She dumped Garreth’s book bag onto the bed, books and papers spilling out the top.

”Thank you for bringing his homework,” Aunt Matilda said kindly. She redirected her attention back down to Garreth, eyes narrowing. “Now, don’t get into any more mischief, young man. I’ll be back in the morning.”

”Yes, Aunt Tilly.” Garreth said dully, crossing his arms. Natty and Leander watched the deputy headmistress walk out of the hospital wing, disappearing down the stairs.

”How do you feel?” Leander asked, pulling up a chair. Natty sat at the end of the bed, rearranging his book bag.

”Like shit,” Garreth grumbled, rubbing his head. “Cracked my skull, remember?”

“While skele-grow works wonders, I’m sure it can’t taste all that good.” Natty winced, shivering at the thought. “What did it taste like?”

”Chalk,” Garreth tapped his chin. “Think I blacked out all over again while taking it.”

Leander snorted, opening his own book bag to deliver a pumpkin pasty wrapped in a napkin. “I know the hospital wing food is tragic, don’t eat it all in one go.”

”What’s the damage then?” Garreth asked, swiping the pasty from Leander’s outstretched hand. He took a big bite, chewing thoughtful as his eyes flitted between his two friends.

”It’s fine—“

”Awful, mate.”

Leander and Natty shared similar sharp glances at one another.

“Alrighty then,” Garreth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Give me the play by play, what people are saying.”

”Well,” Natty said hesitantly, playing with the end of one of her braids. “People are saying you’ve…er, gone a bit mad.”

”Me?” Garreth balked. “Gone mad? Over a banana?”

”It’s not just the banana.” Natty sighed. “It’s how you were speaking to her.”

”To her?” Garreth posed the question, still confused.

”Well, you sort of shouted at her.” Leander said slowly.

”I did not shout at her,” Garreth retorted.

Natty winced. “Yeah, afraid you did.”

Garreth blinked, trying to remember exactly what had happened at breakfast that morning. “I…I shouted at her?”

”She came over to the table to take a banana, like she always does.” Leander recounted. “And you asked her to sit with us. She just about did—“

”Until Sallow yelled at her to come back and sit with him and Ominis.” Natty finished his sentence. “You kind of lost the plot then.”

”I don’t remember this at all,” Garreth groaned.

”I think that’s for the best.” Natty said reassuringly, patting his hand.

“No, tell me more.” Garreth beckoned them forward. “Tell me how bad it was.”

”You sort of…well, you got into it with Sallow, told him off for interrupting you. And you both stood up at the front of the table, got in each other’s faces. And then, Sebastian yelled—“

This part Garreth remembered. It came back to him like a punch to the gut.

It’s almost like you’re in love with her, Weasley.

“Fuck,” Garreth swore. “I told everyone I was in love with her.”

Leander and Natty shared a painful glance with one another. “Just about. I mean, really, you were screaming it, so I’m not sure everyone truly understood.” Natty offered.

Leander scoffed. “It was pretty easy to put two and two together, Nat.”

Garreth buried his face in his hands as the memory formed in his head. Completely red in the face at Sebastian’s remark, he stared at the Slytherin with balled up fists. Garreth had stepped up, puffing his chest out as he blurted out his confession.

Maybe I am, he’d shrieked. IkindofsortofamkindofinlovewithherandI’vebeeninlovewithhereversinceourfifthyear.

”Merlin’s saggy tits,” Garreth muttered, hanging his head low. “I need to move continents.”

“I’m sure it’ll blow over,” Natty assured him. “It’s the last week of school, everyone who didn’t hear you will just assume you had—“

”A mental break?” Leander interjected. “That’s plausible. What’s not plausible is the fact that he decided to throw a bloody banana peel and crack his own skull open.”

“It was for comedic effect,” Garreth argued. “To uh, deflect the problem at hand.”

”Joke went out the window when everyone saw your blood on the floor.” Leander pointed out.

Garreth slumped in his bed, a hand flying up to adjust the gauze bandage around his head. He opened his mouth, shutting it rapidly as he tried to form his next thought without making his brain explode.

”It seemed like the best possible plan at the time.” He said miserably.

”It was funny at first.” Natty shrugged. “Don’t dwell on it, Garreth. Peeves has already stopped singing about it.”

Garreth ripped his pillow out from behind him, screaming into the feathered cushion.

”I told you we shouldn’t tell him that part.” Leander muttered.

Hogwarts was known for its decadent meals, but that service didn’t seem to translate up to the food offered in the hospital wing. It was nearly eleven o’clock at night and Garreth was still playing with his spoon, dragging it back and forth the cold, half-empty bowl of chicken broth a house elf had brought in for him. He wished he hadn’t been so quick to finish the pasties Leander had smuggled in for him.

“You should eat, Mr. Weasley.” Nurse Blainey clucked. The school nurse was clad in her pajamas, hair set in curlers as she prepared for bed. “Your bones will heal faster if you’re properly nourished.”

”Not much nourishment in this soup,” Garreth wrinkled his nose.

Blainey ignored his complaints, instead brushing the edge of her robe. “Now, it’s lights out, Mr. Weasley. I’ll leave you with your tray, but otherwise you should get your rest. I’ll be in my office; should you need me, just ring the bell.”

Blainey disappeared behind the partition; Garreth could see the outline of her walking back to her office, waving her wand to dim the lights. The door clicked shut, and all that was left in the hospital wing was poor old Garreth and his bowl of cold broth. He winced as he shifted in the creaky bed, setting the tray down on the bedside table. If he was going to be stuck here all night, he might as well get a good night’s rest before facing ridicule from the entire student body.

”It’s only one more week,” Garreth mumbled to himself, pulling the woolen blanket up to his chin. A singular week separated him from graduation. In seven days, he’d be a free man. Free to explore the world, to finally start the research on his potion ingredient almanac the way he’d planned on doing his entire school career.

A week before he’d likely never see her again.

Garreth turned on to his side, groaning. Perhaps that was for the best, he thought. He probably frightened her. That, or at least made her think he was completely off his rocker. Who in the right mind would shout their undying love, followed by trying to annihilate oneself with a banana peel?

Fuck, he’d never live it down. The ghosts would tell stories of his tragedy for years to come.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d responded. If she had understood his ramblings (which Leander had confirmed to be an unmistakable declaration of love), she hadn’t visited him in the hospital wing at all during the day. He’d been optimistic earlier, after Natty and Leander left for supper. But with every passing hour, Garreth lost a little bit of hope that his affections might be returned.

How could she love him, he thought. They were friends, that’s all. It was his own fault he’d taken the bait from Sallow, who’d given him that annoyingly smug face at the breakfast table.

Garreth was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice the footsteps, or the creak of the partitions being moved. He only became aware of a second body in the hospital wing when the mattress dipped. He furrowed his brow as he looked over his shoulder, blinking at nothing.

”What the?” He grumbled, sitting up.

“Revelio,” a familiar voice muttered.

“Bloody hell,” Garreth gasped. He clutched his heart, as if it were going to beat right out of his chest at the sight of his crush materializing out of thin air at the edge of his bed.

She smiled at him, wild hair flying around her face as she dropped her wand onto the blanket. “Hi.” She whispered, nudging his legs. “Scoot over.”

”What are you doing here?” Garreth whispered, eyes wide.

Figured you could use some company.” She said nonchalantly, smoothing out the edge of her dressing gown. “And some snacks—the hospital wing food is atrocious from what I can remember.” She reached down to her little purse, undoing the flap. Garreth stared at her in confusion as she shoved her arm down to the elbow.

”Undetectable extension charm,” she murmured, pulling her arm back out to reveal a tin can. “Here, eat this.”

Garreth looked down at the tin, which she’d placed in his hands. Banana flavored candies from Zonko’s.

“What are you doing here?” Garreth repeated, peering up at her through his copper lashes.

She gave him a funny look. “I’m here to see you, silly.”

”But why now?” Garreth insisted. “You had all day.”

”Excuse me, I had a full diary today. I wasn’t factoring a trip to the hospital wing in the schedule.” She scoffed, handing him a chocolate bar from Zonko’s. “Classes, studying for NEWTs, some errands for a few folks in the highlands, checking in on the shop.” She herself opened a tin of licorice, tipping it his way as an offering. “The usual.”

Garreth gladly took a piece. “You do too much, you know.” He pointed out, followed by a big bite. “I have no idea how you manage.”

She shrugged, playing with the edge of the blanket. “I just want to be helpful while I’m still around the highlands. Who on earth is going to help these villagers with all their tasks when I’m gone?”

Garreth chuckled, shaking his head. “You do too much.”

She chewed on the candy, eyes twinkling. “I know I do.”

”And you should probably be sleeping,” Garreth pointed out. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. “Merlin’s beard, it’s nearly midnight. You’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

She swallowed thickly. “I just wanted to see that you’re okay.”

Garreth felt his face heat up in a blush. “I’m fine,” he sighed exasperatedly. “Just a bump.”

She raised her brow. “A bump? Garreth, you were in a puddle of your own blood.”

”My own fault.” Garreth pointed out. “As everyone has reminded me.”

She shook her head, fighting a laugh. “Garreth Weasley, only you would try to take yourself out with a banana peel the week before graduation.”

”It’s pathetic.” Garreth wrinkled his nose.

”It’s hilarious,” she said sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “But I must plead with you to be more careful with yourself.”

Garreth chewed his bottom lip, avoiding her gaze. He instead focused on the woven pattern of the blanket, pulling on the frayed edge. “I thought I might have scared you.”

She tilted her head. “Scared me? How so?”

“Because I said some things…perhaps I screamed them at you, I don’t quite remember.”

Her face softened, and she tilted his chin up to look at her. “Sebastian can be cruel sometimes, I don’t want you to take it to heart. He felt awful, you know. I gave him a proper scolding afterwards. He didn’t mean to egg you on like that.”

She’d completely glazed over the confession, Garreth noted. A clear sign of her feelings towards him. Just friends, that’s all they were. They’d been friends since she arrived at the beginning of fifth year—she’d been the only person brave enough to sneak into Sharp’s office to get him a fwooper feather, and then she’d boldly traversed the One Eyed Witch passage to gather him some billywig stings. Letters exchanged over the summer holidays, stolen glances across the cauldron from one another in Sharp’s seventh year seminar. He’d memorized the sound of her laugh from all their shared classes, always endeavoring to make her giggle at least once every lesson. And for the last year, she’d volunteer to be his partner every night in Astronomy, shivering together as they charted their stars.

But, there was Sebastian.

Garreth had nothing against the chap, except for the fact that he was a Slytherin. In fact, he and Sebastian had quite a jovial acquaintanceship going before she arrived. But as soon as they’d returned for their sixth year, things seemed to change. Sebastian was more withdrawn, keeping to himself more than ever after his uncle’s death. And she stayed at his side, always fussing over him at meals or passing notes with him during study periods. It was the kind of treatment one would reserve for a loved one, an intimacy Garreth could never seem to cross with her.

Sebastian always hogged her, especially at meal times. She only ever left his side at breakfast to get her daily fruit from the Gryffindor table, exchanging pleasantries and a kind smile with Garreth in exchange. If he were lucky, they’d have time for a cup of tea between classes. On even luckier days, he might catch her walking home from Hogsmeade, electing to take the long way home just to hear her speak.

Even if she was taken, his crush on her grew stronger, made even more alluring by how unattainable she was.

”It was stupid of me,” Garreth mumbled, pinching the blanket. “To say all that in front of your boyfriend.”

She wrinkled her nose. “My boyfriend?”

”Yeah,” Garreth sighed. “Sebastian.”

Her eyes softened once more, and she took her hand in his.

”Garreth,” she said carefully. “Sebastian and I—we’re not together.”

Garreth looked up at her in confusion. “You’re not?”

”He’s just my best friend,” she murmured. “He’s had it tough the last two years, and perhaps I’ve babied him a bit too much. But trust me when I say there is absolutely nothing between us. He’s like a brother to me, Gar.”

”A brother,” Garreth repeated.

”A brother who is very protective of me,” she chewed on her lower lip. “Especially around a boy who might like me.”

“Yeah,” Garreth breathed in sharply. “A boy who might like you very much.”

She started to trace a circle in the palm of his hand. “And if I’m to believe the confession he gave at breakfast this morning, a boy who might love me.”

Garreth gave her a weak smile. “It’s stupid, I know. We’ve hardly had time together, let alone to properly…uh, properly grow those feelings. But it’s true.”

”It’s not stupid.” She shook her head. “Not when I feel the same way.”

Garreth sat up straighter, sucking in sharply when he felt his head ringing. At this point he wasn’t sure if it was the wound or the blood pounding in his head from her own confession.

“You should lay down,” she said, coaxing him back into the bed. “I’ll lay next to you, okay?”

Garreth scooted over to the edge, letting her slip under the covers next to him. He felt as if he was dreaming—his wildest dreams coming true, having the object of his affections curled up into him a week before graduation? He pinched himself as they shuffled on the small bed frame, getting closer.

“You like me,” Garreth said slowly as the top sheet fell over their heads.

”I like you,” she affirmed. “Have for a while, actually.”

”Since when?” Garreth asked, feeling his heart drop into his stomach.

”Since the party at the end of fifth year,” she confessed. “When you let me try fizzing whizzbeer. You…uh, you put your arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. Said you couldn’t have done it without me.” Her face was pink, flushed from her own confession.

“Merlin, I’m an idiot.” Garreth groaned.

”Just a bit,” she snorted. “I tried to drop so many signs. Why else did you think I wanted to be your partner all the time in Astronomy?”

”Because I’m good at Astronomy?”

“Garreth, you’re terrible at it.” She chuckled. “I kept trying to cuddle up with you, but you were always speeding to get the star charts done as fast as possible so we could go to bed. I thought—I mean, I took that as a sign you weren’t interested.”

Garreth’s eyes widened. “That was why you kept wearing such thin cloaks to class?”

”I wanted you to put your arm around me.” She retorted.

Garreth tilted his head, putting two and two together. Now it made sense why she was always shivering, backing into him as they took their evening class. She’d once stepped right between his legs, her backside pressed right against—

Shit. He was an idiot.

”We’re bad at this flirting thing, aren’t we?” She tilted her head.

”Awful at it,” he moaned. He lifted his hand, letting it rest on her hip. She seemed to like it, melting into his touch.

”Sebastian was getting so frustrated hearing me whine about you.” She murmured. “I think that’s why he was pushing you so hard this morning. I think he and Ominis had a bet you’d say something before graduation, and Seb didn’t want to lose his galleons.”

”I’ll have to thank Sallow then,” Garreth pointed out. “For helping me across the finish line.”

“You shouldn’t, his head can’t stand to get any bigger than it already is.” She chuckled. Garreth could feel her breath on his cheeks, and his eyes fluttered at the sensation.

”So, you like me.” Garreth repeated. It felt like a mantra he had to repeat over and over again, lest it not be true.

”And you love me.” She said coyly, lifting her hand to touch his cheeks. When her finger brushed against his lips, he pressed a tentative kiss against them. ”You love me enough to save me a banana every morning.”

”It sounds silly, doesn’t it?” Garreth murmured, his grip tightening on her waist. She shifted closer to him, legs tangling between his.

She looked up at him, eyelashes fluttering as the hand on his cheek drifted upwards to touch the bandage around his head.

“Does it hurt?” She asked.

Garreth shook his head a little. “Just a scratch.”

“That’s a shame,” she pouted. “I was hoping to help you feel better.”

“Oh no,” Garreth blinked heavily. “Oh, it’s actually so painful.”

She smirked, rolling her eyes. “Does it now?”

”So painful,” Garreth groaned, feigning dramatics. “I don’t know how I’ll ever carry on.”

Her hand snaked around his head, fingers threading through his copper hair. She scratched his scalp, and Garreth leaned into her touch in return.

“I’ll make it better,” she said coyly, nose brushing against his.

Garreth had kissed other girls before, but nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of kissing her. He just about moaned into her mouth when her lips touched his, melting into her touch. He immediately tried to roll over, to cage her underneath him against the mattress, but his body had other ideas.

”I can’t—“ Garreth huffed through gritted teeth, “roll over.”

She let out a breathy laugh in exchange. “Let me, then.” Her voice was low as she swung her leg over his lap, straddling him in his pajamas. She pulled the thin sheet over them, just the two of them under a cotton canopy. Garreth swore under his breath as she leaned over him, hair tickling his chin.

“Is that better?” She whispered.

Garreth grinned against her lips, his nose brushing against hers. “This just might heal me,” he murmured, arms circling around her waist to bring her in tight. She hummed approvingly when he nipped her lower lip, delicately licking into her mouth. Everything was new, yet it felt so right—every kiss she returned was just an affirmation that she felt the same way. She liked that he was silly. She liked that he was loud. She liked the way he saved her a banana in the morning, the way he’d lean his body against hers during the cold nights in the astronomy tower—

Maybe one day she might love him too.

The sheet went flying, exposing both of them to the cold hospital wing. Garreth blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to the darkness; instead, Nurse Blainey materialized, holding a lamp with the world’s largest frown on her face.

”Young lady,” Blainey hissed. “What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?”

She quickly hopped off Garreth’s lap, taking the sheet with her as she slid off the bed. Garreth squeaked indignantly as the warmth of her body disappeared, pulling one of the pillows to hide the rather obvious erection she’d left him with. His partner in crime adjusted her dressing gown, giving Blainey an awkward smile as she patted down her hair.

”I just wanted to check in on Garreth, that’s all.” She said smoothly.

“And you thought it appropriate to crawl into his bed?” Blainey snapped.

She winced, scratching the back of her head. “I wanted to see if his bandage was still alright?”

“Nice try.” Blainey rolled her eyes. “You’re very lucky the two of you are of age, otherwise I’d have to call your aunt in, Mr. Weasley.”

”Oh come on,” Garreth whined. “It’s just a week before we graduate—“

”And I certainly don’t feel like filling out any detention paperwork at this hour.” Blainey hissed. “You, go back to your dormitory straight away. And Mr. Weasley, if you do not rest—“

”Right, right,” Garreth grumbled, sinking back into his mattress. “It won’t heal properly, and I’ll be stuck here longer.”

Garreth wanted to protest as she balled up the bedsheet, tossing it back into his lap. She gave him a sheepish smile, grabbing her wand from the stone floor. “Er, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Breakfast?” Garreth asked hopefully.

Her face flushed red, a smile blossoming on her lips as she backed away. “Yes, breakfast.”

Blainey cleared her throat, saying her name one more time. “If you don’t go back to your common room right away—“

”Alright, alright,” she rolled her eyes, walking backwards towards the entrance. She waved one last time before she turned on her heel, slippers thwacking against the floor as she made her escape.

Blainey looked down at Garreth, coughing as he tucked himself back into bed.

”You won’t tell my aunt, will you?” Garreth asked hesitantly.

”I should,” Blainey narrowed her eyes. “But I won’t. Your aunt has too much to worry about without having to find out you tried to deflower a young lady in the hospital wing.”

”I did not,” Garreth guffawed. “I would never!”

Blainey shrugged. “And at least your case gave me a good chuckle today. Your friend Mr. Prewett is correct. You will always be remembered as the boy who’d cracked his skull open slipping on a banana peel, after all.”

”Oh come on,” Garreth huffed as the matron walked away. “You’ve had to have seen worse cases.”

”Self-inflicted banana related wounds are a first,” Blainey snorted as she walked back to her office. “Go to bed, Mr. Weasley.”

Garreth fell back against the pillows, wincing slightly at the sting from his wound. He stared up at the ceiling, touching his lips. He hadn’t dreamt it—he’d held her in his arms, kissed her until she was breathless. Quite content, Garreth fell asleep with little effort.

He had breakfast to look forward to, after all.

“Good as new,” Nurse Blainey nodded, balling up the wad of bandages from Garreth’s wound.

”Oh, thank Merlin.” Aunt Matilda cooed. “I’m glad the skelegrow was able to sort out the skull fracture.”

Garreth averted his gaze as he glanced at his watch. The house elves had brought up a fresh uniform for him, so he at least wouldn’t have to stop at the Gryffindor dormitory. He tapped his brown boots against the floor as Nurse Blainey went through her concussion checklist once more.

”Can I please leave?” Garreth wheezed, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Breakfast is nearly over—“

”What has you in such a rush this morning?” Aunt Matilda asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I just have friends I need to meet up with at breakfast,” Garreth said quickly.

Nurse Blainey snorted as she tapped her quill against her clipboard. “Right,” she drawled. “Friends.”

Garreth drummed his hands against the iron rail of the bed, nodding his head. “Yes, friends.” He repeated. “And I really, really don’t want to miss them.”

“Well, you’ve passed the test with flying colors,” Blainey checked the assessment. “No flying, floo travel, or apparating for the next forty eight hours. Overall, please limit any physical activity.” She waggled her eyebrows at Garreth, prompting a ferocious blush on his cheeks.

”Thank you,” Garreth said quickly, snatching his book bag from the edge of the bed. He could hear his aunt yelling after him as he scampered down the hall, feet drumming against the stairs as he made his way down.

”Garreth!” Aunt Matilda roared. “I can write you a note if you’re that worried about being late—“

”Gotta run,” he bellowed, skipping the last two steps. “See you later, Aunt Tilly!”

Despite Blainey’s instruction to limit his physical activity, Garreth had never run faster in his life. He nearly mowed down a pack of first years trying to scamper through the hallways, prefects and portraits yelling at him to slow down. He tore past both Natty and Leander, their mouths agape at their best friend making a fool out of himself yet again.

There would be plenty of time to explain later.

Garreth pushed the doors of the Great Hall open, panting as he doubled over, hands on knees. He scanned the Great Hall, praying to Merlin he would find a familiar face. The room was mostly empty, most of his fellow students off to their first classes of the day.

Except her. His heart thumped in his chest as he stood up straighter; she was perched on the Gryffindor table, sitting next to the fruit bowl. Like every morning, she had a half eaten banana in her hand.

Garreth willed himself to walk over, a big goofy grin on his face as he approached her. There was a twinkle in her eye as she leaned back on her elbows, appraising him.

”You look well rested,” she hummed, taking another bite. “Good as new.”

Garreth rubbed the back of his head. The injury was gone, the thatch of hair ant the spot of his wound already grown back thanks to Blainey’s tonic. “Better than ever,” he announced, setting his bag on the ground. “Are you going to finish that?”

She carefully peeled the fruit, breaking off a chunk to hand to Garreth. He took it gratefully, savoring the bite as she ate the rest. He cocked a brow when she folded up the peel into a neat square, tossing it onto the table.

”Have to be careful, you know.” She shrugged. “There was a guy in here just yesterday, cracked his skull slipping on a banana peel.”

Garreth rolled his eyes, snickering. “Very dangerous.” He tiptoed closer to her, his thighs pressed against her knees. He shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking into her. “A fall like that might cause a head injury. Would make someone say some pretty crazy things.”

She snorted, tilting her chin up to face him. “I’m pretty sure you said you loved me before you slipped on the banana peel, Garreth.”

”I did,” Garreth admitted. “I love you.”

She didn’t have to say it back, he thought to himself. He was just happy it was out there, that she might reciprocate his feelings even fifty percent—

She grabbed his tie, tugging it to pull his face closer to hers. He could smell her perfume again, and the faint hint of banana on her lips. Her eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, and she pressed a delicate kiss to his lips. Garreth returned it eagerly, pulling his hands out of his pockets and resting them on the table as he leaned into her embrace. Her kiss was soft and sweet, a reassurance of her feelings for him. When they pulled apart, foreheads resting against each other’s, she smiled once more.

“I love you too, you idiot.”

[dykedvonte]

RE: Your post on the AU of Jimmy being in the cockpit rather than Curly.

I think that Curly would think that Jimmy was reaping what he had sown, but in a way would feel a twisted sense of relief that Jimmy was brought down by his own actions rather than Curly himself having to be the "executioner" in the situation, so to speak.

With "taking responsibility" and the fix-it mentality that he and Jimmy share being the overarching theme, compounded with Jimmy flat out insinuating that all of his crimes on the Tulpar will be "Curly's tragedy" in that one scene, I think Curly would almost find comfort in the irony that the choice was forcibly taken away from him. Which in itself is messed up, but it might be a bit cathartic. There's an interesting polarizing dynamic within Curly's relationship to his own responsibility in that it's his greatest burden and the thing he, too, avoids the most.

I don't think Curly would find any relief in this actually. While Curly didn't/doesn't like the responsibility he had, he defiantly doesn't avoid it, he just goes about it in a weird way.

A thing I noticed is that its less about taking responsibility with Curly and really what that responsibility meant objectively and then subjectively to Curly. The leniency that he applies to Jimmy also applies a bit to the others as well. He thinks his responsibility is more towards keeping the peace and things in order more than dolling out punishment. He has even more choices to make and responsibilities as he literally has to make sure they survive/ration long enough to be saved. Or figure out how to save them himself. The correct issue with Curly and responsibility is the prioritization in his head. He sees the big picture and prioritizes that. He doesn't notice the little things that he should but it's not a active dismissal, perhaps not even conscious despite how dismissive he seemed. He takes too much responsibility, espcially in regards to Jimmy, and I think this situation is when he realizes that is also a bad thing as he can't "fix" all of his wrongs.

I think he'd regret not making a choice, because in the end this happened because he wouldn't directly choose who to comfort and help. He tried to help both and ended up doing nothing for either and letting Jimmy fuck them all over. In this scenario/au he's thinking about all the times he let Jimmy inadvertently make his choice, and how he chose to let it happen. He regrets all of it and would be so bitter that he was giving his choice up for so long. He chose wrong and it affected everyone. The only thing he'd find cathartic is the fucked up truth it will never happen again, not with Jimmy at least.

But he's not happy he's getting joy from that. I think it's a point not a single character other than Jimmy is depicted at deriving joy from another's pain. Even Swansea is being more sarcastic when he cheers on Curly about crashing the ship and ending his sobriety. He's happy Jimmy was forced to take responsibility, but this? He wanted him to learn a lesson and do something with himself, this is hollow in a way it's just embittering. Jimmy didn't get what he wanted, he can be happy about that but no one else did. This isn't justice or closure for Anya, he's stuck in a place he was so desperate to leave with even more pressure on his shoulders. Daisuke is just a kid and Swansea doesn't deserve this after all his year making himself a better man.

Like in his sections, Curly is preoccupied thinking about all the responsibilities he has, taking on things he shouldn't have to and trying to keep the peace when he doesn't have peace in his own mind.

[crooked-wasteland]

Do you think songs being diegetic can work if it’s tied to the world building in someway? Maybe something like Centaurworld where the characters literally live in an overly saccharine colorful world where singing and dancing are common things to do?

Tl;Dr: It is not the existence of diegetic songs that make Hazbin a bad musical. It is the lack of non-diegetic music and how it is treated within the story that is the issue.

Based on this question and the reblog of my post, I didn’t convey my point adequately. I had said I was going to expand on this topic more in the essay, but I see that the lack of in depth context resulted in the wrong message being expressed, so please allow me to try again.

First let’s address the reblog:

To answer the question if Steven Universe does the same thing, the simple answer is no. To expand further, diegetic means that someone is literally singing. Non-diegetic is when a musical number is meant to be a figurative representation of emotions, inner thoughts, or events.

For the examples provided, when Jasper tells Sapphire to stop singing, Sapphire is literally singing and it actively plays a role in the story. Sapphire sings to let Ruby know she is okay and sets the groundwork to introduce her into the story in a manner that isn’t jarringly abrupt. That is an appropriate use of diegetic singing: it serves a story/character purpose. Whereas Stronger Than You, Garnet is not literally singing. It is meant as a representation of her feelings about her relationship and her rebellion against Homeworld’s customs on the matter. While we as the audience see her sing, Jasper does not. That is Non-diegetic.

From what I am seeing in both these questions, I failed to convey that competent use of musical theater utilizes both Diegetic and Non-Diegetic music.

In Hazbin and Helluva Boss, ALL songs are diegetic, as in all musical numbers are literally happening in the world. It is meant to be a joke when characters address the singing in the series, but instead it comes off as a mean-spirited, vapid criticism of musical theater as a genre. It also creates a disconnect when the world is designed to not have musical numbers as a norm, but then all the songs are diegetic regardless. In the effort to make all these songs diegetic they fail to delve further into the characters and their inner feelings in a meaningful way and shows a physical discomfort in doing so. Meanwhile, the story has to make excuses that don’t always make sense for these songs to happen.

I briefly touched on this when I mentioned the “Heightened sense of reality.” The example I can best come up with is A Goofy Movie. In A Goofy Movie, the world itself exists in this extremely heightened sense of reality. This is a film where Big Foot is real, cars can float, and Goofy literally survives an explosion unscathed. This is an absurd world that establishes that absurdity in a way where a song like On the Open Road can possibly be non-diegetic, but just as easily be diegetic.

Goofy starts the song by hearing sounds that are part of their world: the engine chugging, the pots and pans rattling, the keys jangling. The music is introduced diegetically, but then escalates to such a degree that it revels in the world that musical theater lends itself to. So when we ask if the song is diegetic or non-diegetic, it doesn’t matter. Because this sort of world building allows for a dead man to crawl out of his coffin to dance on the roof of a hearse in the middle of traffic. That just is the world we are in.

By Hazbin drawing attention to the song numbers being embarrassing, the show has established that we are not in a world where something like A Goofy Movie can take place. There is a sense of decorum that mirrors our own sensibilities in the world building that makes diegetic songs unnatural occurrences. That isn't to say that no character can diegetically sing in this sort of world, but that diegetic singing should be limited to those specific characters. Yet we have background characters singing along and it fails to set up an understanding of where the music is coming from.

Going back to Stronger Than You as a non-diegetic song, there is a different sense of heightened reality that comes from non-diegetic songs being interwoven into a scene. The level of suspension of disbelief that comes with not needing to question whether a song is or is not diegetic because the world has established music as a main component of its reality. Hazbin did the opposite in its effort to make fun of the idea of musicals in the first place and not incorporating music into the characters and their identities.

The issue I was trying to convey has nothing to do with the existence of diegetic songs, but how the world was never designed to support them, and the writers’ discomfort with breaking that boundary to elevate a scene to being partly metaphysical through the use of non-diegetic music.

.

.

.

.

.

And no, Moxxie's Bad Trip does not count as being non-diegetic. While it is taking place in Moxxie's mind, it is not representing anything happening in the story. Instead acting as a wholly different subplot about Blitz and Moxxie's relationship that has not been a part of the story until the Truth Serum was released. And by showing us that Moxxie and Blitz are actually not doing anything except tripping balls, that makes Moxxie's hallucination still diegetic to his reality.

[sicksadgames]

As the Sun Forever Sets - Terror in the time of the Telegraph

It’s nuts I’ve been working on this game for over 4 years at this point. As the Sun Forever Sets is for sure my biggest and most capital G Game. It even has a publisher and everything. It’s also my first game! Wow! It's been tough, though. We'll get into it!

Britain, 1899

As the Sun Forever Sets is a survival horror sandbox based on the War of the Worlds, utilises the Forged in the Dark ruleset, and is about ordinary people surviving a Martian invasion of Victorian era Britain. We play to find out how they rise to meet the storm of destruction, the ways in which it shapes them, and if they survive to see a new world emerge, or die amidst the rubble of the old.

In the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the British Empire stretches across a quarter of the globe, and under the guise of genteel progress and civilisation, it commits theft and murder on a global scale. Britain itself is on the verge of the modern era, the Second Industrial Revolution pushing people into the cities to drive the factories and forges owned by the greedy industrialist class. But beyond the common causes of humanity and unbeknownst to the men who impose their rule over it, vast wheels have begun their inexorable turning. Across 40 million miles of void, the Martian invasion hurtles Earthward. Screaming across the stars, instruments of annihilation unlike anything believed possible lie ready for assembly, alongside the Martians themselves. They are truly inscrutable beings, but their intent is as clear as it is terrible – they will suck the literal and figurative blood from the Earth, and nothing less than the complete and utter subjugation of humanity will be enough.

If this sounds cool to you... well, you gotta wait, it’s not done yet. Sorry! But you can come and hang out in the Sick Sad Games discord, where I post excerpts and occasionally organise playtests.

The Hard Times of (Old) England

Be warned, this is a long one - over 4000 words (if you don't have a Tumblr account, you won't get to the end before it starts bugging you to register one, so go read this on Medium instead.) It turns out when you work on a game for a long time, you have a lot to say about it. Strap in, grab your gin and laudanum, and let’s destroy an evil empire just by existing.

Thanks to the wonderful @hendrik-ten-napel for taking a look over my disorganised thoughts.

(Potential) Spoilers for: The Bear, The War of the Worlds, The Last of Us, Children of Men, Threads, When the Wind Blows, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, The Thing.

Roleplay in the Pre-Post-Apocalypse

TTRPGs love a good post apocalypse. It's understandable - gas up and ride glorious on the legally distinct fury road, run a commune of like minded weirdos in the ashes of the old world, go digging through retro-futuristic ruins to find retro-futuristic treasures. Who wouldn't want to do any of these? But As the Sun Forever Sets is about an apocalypse as it begins, not after it’s over. 

There's a lot of crossover, of course. There’s a focus on similar things - disaster and spectacle, relationships and trust, scavenging and survival. But the bonus of the world not yet being over, is that we get to roleplay out dealing with that terrible, inexorable reality.

HG Wells wrote a book about blowing up all the places he used to live, and it's a banger. I was surprised to find there wasn't a TTRPG based on the War of the Worlds, being the tantalisingly public domain ur-alien invasion story it is. As the Sun Forever Sets is very explicitly an adaption of it, to the point that before I came up with the name it almost got released as The War of the Worlds: The Roleplaying Game (lol). I'm glad I didn't, doing my own thing has meant both me and the people playing are way more free to fuck around without the expectation that it must adhere to a canon.

The book is good, strikingly modern feeling in parts, and obviously massively influential - so much science fiction can be traced back to our nameless Narrators tormentuous trek across the south of England. But Wells’ prose is typical Victorian - overly wordy and florid (any book that contains the word “ejaculating” meaning “to shout” might be difficult for readers who aren’t used to the style), so when it comes to recommending an actual adaptation, there’s only one true king. Whenever I bring up Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, the usual reaction from anyone outside of the UK is to say "... they made a what?"

My mom was very keen to get me into musicals, but nothing really stuck until she tried this, the secret best War of the Worlds adaption (sorry Steven Spielberg, but you were doomed from the start.) It's the bombast and drama you'd expect from a disaster film, the horror and pathos of Wells’ classic, all expressed through vivid narration and sick nasty prog rock - wailing guitar and crunchy 70's synths operating at full effect. It's not completely faithful to the book, it doesn't matter. It’s the best.

Ah yes, the film bro's favourite mid 2000's film. Did you see that sick oner? That’s six minutes without a cut, that means the film’s good right? Children of Men is a slow burn apocalypse, dressed up like a world that’s already ended. Plenty has been written about all the little ways the film is prescient about the state of the UK - the slow belly-crawl into facism and nationalist fervour, the particularly British decay and class divide exacerbated by the desperate times, even the willful ignorance and the explicit sense that everyone’s just given up, it’s all here.

All that thematic stuff seems like it’d be really relevant to As the Sun Forever Sets, right?

Unfortunately, we are in fact here to talk about the long takes. The unbroken moment-to-moment action scenes evoke The War of the Worlds to a tee. Theo navigates danger with the same fraught tactical tension as War of the World's Narrator - dashing between doorways, groping for an axe handle in the darkness, desperately trying to start a car as assailants sprint towards him. What’s the best way out of this situation? How do I get from here to where I need to be? He lives his life in rolling, fleeting 5 second intervals, because he’s forgotten what it means to think in the long term - about the future, and what it might hold.

I was always fascinated and terrified by the idea of nuclear war. I guess it comes from watching a lot of 90’s disaster movies, but those are often ultimately fun romps where the day gets saved at the end, or at least the main characters find themselves alive and well at the end of the saga of destruction. Instead, As the Sun Forever Sets asks you to reflect on the horror and sadness present at the end of the world. Things are going to change forever, and change is always hard.

There’s not many clips of Threads and When the Wind Blows online, so it’s a little hard to demonstrate their particular nuclear inflected pitch black darkness. They’re grim - Grave of the Fireflies grim - differing in focus but united in their horrible impact.

When the Wind Blows is a story of an elderly couple living in rural England when the bombs drop, based on the comic by Raymond Briggs. Yes, The Snowman’s Raymond Briggs made a film about 2 lovely grandparents dying of acute radiation poisoning. Jim and Hilda are completely unprepared for what’s to come, their only reference is the Blitz - terrible in its own way, but not a patch on the scale of death they’re about to experience.

They survive the blast and wait for the good old British Government to arrive to save them, as it did in the 40’s. Slowly liquifying in the nuclear fallout, they hold onto each other and keep their spirits up, eventually making the decision to clamber into the paper sacks they mistakenly believed might protect them from the blast. Clutching their medical cards and birth certificates (for the ambulance, sure to be along any minute now), Jim mumbles painfully through a final prayer that morphs into a misremembered Charge of the Light Brigade, and they slip into a perpetual slumber together.

The most tragic part is Jim and Hilda’s unshakeable faith that their government is there for them - ready to catch them when they fall - borne out of Britain’s post WW2 renewal but absent in the 1980’s of the film’s plot, and the Britain of today. It’s a masterful film, shockingly sad, but the shock is the point.

Instead of aiming for your heart, Threads aims for the head. It’s a drama that aims to be as accurate as possible to government research into what a nuclear war might look like, plainly and forensically setting it out without any thought of softening these hard facts for its audience. Rather than focusing on a personal story, Threads flits around several groups of characters - minor government figures and ordinary families. Like Jim and Hilda, they too are woefully unprepared for the end of the world, and those in charge know there’s no way the UK could ever be ready for such a thing.

As mundane life is quietly intruded upon by news updates detailing far off geopolitics and the subsequent escalation that leads to war, the tension rises subtly then suddenly, like a spacecraft on the launchpad. People we’ve seen pottering about their normal lives are maimed and evaporated in the subsequent shocking nuclear exchange, whilst stark statistics flash on the screen - the hundreds of thousands instantly killed, how long the millions more fatally irradiated have left to live, the woefully inadequate tonnage of stockpiled food to feed those who survive. Each zero hits like a gutpunch.

And when you think the film must nearly be over, it keeps going. 1 week later. 1 year later. Threads grinds to an excruciating halt 13 years after the bombs fall, after year upon year of failed harvests from a destroyed earth barely able to support a population level equivalent to medieval Britain. At one point, mute children watch a warped and scratchy VHS of classic kids educational programme Words and Pictures on a TV powered by a steam generator.

The friendly presenter spells out the word “cat” through the thick veil of static, accompanied by a picture of one - an animal the children watching will likely never see. As they watch with blank, emotionless faces, the image of the cat fades to one of its skeletal form. “A cat’s skeleton” the presenter enthusiastically intones. The unrelenting bleakness might feel like a punishment, but Threads doesn’t mean it to be. This is just what would happen, after all.

Love in the time of the Heat-ray

In fact, someone in a Reddit thread said As the Sun Forever Sets “wasn’t just endless misery” and I’m glad that comes across. I wanted there to be moments of tenderness, quiet joy, anger, frustration, love and loss to punctuate the action and the horror.

People are messy and complicated even at the best of times. Under pressure, this is amplified a thousandfold - a little crush becomes a whirlwind romance, small disagreements become full blown fights, and not fully understanding someone might transform them into an enemy in your head.

The little town Bill conspires to be left alone in ends up comparatively untouched by the horrors going on elsewhere, as untouched as anywhere can be in The Last of Us. He hated the world anyways - so he isolates himself as he prepares for it to end, and it makes sense that his life only really begins as the show does. When Frank arrives, Bill is forced not to just engage with the broader world outside of his little enclave, but in the act of truly living in it.

There’s no prepper’s guide to romance. A human heart can’t be field stripped for maintenance. By choosing to exist as a vulnerable, emotional being, Bill opens himself up to a different kind of apocalypse. Frank becomes the flowering vines that slowly crack the flat concrete wall of a world that Bill created, and when those vines die, the wall can only crumble. It’s so fraught and lovely, delicately yet absolutely gut wrenching. At least their apocalypse was one they decided to have together.

“I’m old. I’m satisfied. And you… were my purpose.” - "Long Long Time”, The Last of Us

While several of my TTRPG writing friends were gushing about how great The Bear is, Em Acosta, author of the wonderfully inspirational Exile pointed out something super interesting - a lot of the show is about how you deal with people you’ve found yourself stuck with. No matter how much they piss you off, or whatever they do wrong, there’s something that means you can’t ever let them truly exit your life. They’re there, like it or not, until the bitter end.

Turns out this is very similar to how As the Sun Forever Sets handles Player Character relationships. In both it and The Bear, nothing’s ever truly resolved between characters - every relationship is like a cooking pot perpetually simmering. You might’ve apologised, made a truce, or just ignored your issues for so long that they seem to disappear, but no matter what, you’ve got to keep your eye on that pot.

Because suddenly a crisis will hit, and someone says something, or a diceroll comes up bad and all of a sudden the pot boils over and things are once again fucked. You storm out, start screaming, throw a fork. Even in the worst case scenario where a Character leaves because they’re absolutely sick of the rest of the group, they might show up at the end of the game for one last scene. Who knows how you’ll all feel at the end - nothing is ever truly fixed, and only the dead are truly broken. 

“I quit, chef, is what’s going on. You are an excellent chef. You are also a piece of shit. This isn’t on me. Goodbye." - “The Review”, The Bear

I’ve talked about The Thing a little before, John Carpenters sweaty, paranoid antarctic masterpiece. Along with the incredible effects and the (mostly) restrained use of action and bombast, the thing that makes... The Thing work is that the staff of the stricken research base lack any and all emotional intelligence.

It’s sort of the ultimate reverse Dudes Rock movie. Nobody knows anything about each other, so when their bodies and minds are colonised by the titular chameleon from outer space, they’re just another stranger to the rest of the crew. I’d ask you a question only you would know the answer to, but uh.. I don’t know anything about you. Whoops!

Over the course of the film, the whole operation falls apart as they try their best to work together to deal with the alien interloper, but their complete lack of ability to trust or relate to each other - present even before the crisis they find themselves in - is their ultimate downfall.

That final excellent shot of MacReady and Childs sat in the snow at the end of the film as their compound burns around them is the subject of a lot of unnecessary theorycrafting youtube videos, which kind of misses the point. Each suspects the other, but ultimately it doesn’t matter if one of them’s a Thing. One stranger is the same as another. Why bother getting to know each other now?

“Well...What do we do?” “Why don't we just... wait here for a little while? See what happens.” - Childs and Macready, The Thing

Science Fiction Revenge Fantasy

I’m not a historian, but the parallels between 1899 and now are pretty plain to see. Increasing class disparity, a lack of political will to help those in need, rampant cronyism and profiteering. As long as you’re in the place for it, roleplaying in a fictionalised version of the past to air out the issues of the present can be super fun and cathartic. You’re not expected to get a degree in British history to make it work, either.

The title is a play on the phrase “The Sun Never Set on the British Empire”, and it’s plainly stated in the book that Britains Empire acted as a mechanism of genocidal oppression, and that the Martians are here to end it - intentionally or not. It’s appealing as a premise on the face of it, but it goes a little deeper. Memories of Empire echo across time in Britain like the ringing of a malevolent bell, a cause celebre for braying Tories and fascistic right wing cunts (two very close circles in the venn diagram.)

We used to be a great country before this woke nonsense. Things were better back in the old days. The DEI contingent is trying to destroy our noble past. Yada yada yada, fuck offff. I’m sure someone somewhere will accuse me of “wokewashing” the past for including explicitly trans and queer characters as part of the book, along with the historical facts around how we fit into the oppressive Victorian conception of sex and gender. Unfortunately for them, we’ve always been here.

To be a little pretentious about it, every game of As the Sun Forever Sets reaches back into the past and cuts the myth of a glorious and benevolent Empire, and the good old days enjoyed within it off at the neck, purely in the act of beginning one. That sparks a little joy for me. Destroying a racists dream is fun, even if it’s only in the abstract.

A horror game about the most literalist Victorian industrialist imaginable hearing the phrase “Eat the rich” and getting right on that. I’ve not played Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs despite fond (??) memories of playing The Dark Descent in a room full of jumpy friends, and seeing Dear Esther played live on stage, with a live orchestra and narrator - an exquisite way to experience that game.

The mechanical chops of Frictional Games mixed with the narrative verve of The Chinese Room, how could this game be anything less than incredible?

After The Dark Descent I fell off’ve the “scary guy chases you around” genre of game until Alien: Isolation revitalised it, and the reviews of A Machine for Pigs were mixed - kind of boring, middling gameplay, too dark - so I never went back. I was planning on writing a little about its vibe - dark, gothic Victoriana that rhymes nicely with As the Sun Forever Sets - but after a bit of research, Mandus’ quest for his missing sons strikes an unexpectedly resonant and terrible chord.

The writing and voice acting is phenomenal, Mandus’ split consciousness - the self you play and the other half of him that’s seen the horrors of the forthcoming 20th Century and is compelled to act, imbued into the myopic machine he built - is extremely compelling. He feels compassion for the poor and wants to save them, but they fill him with fear and disgust. He knows the industrialist class is killing the world, but feels a deep shame in the fact that he counts himself amongst them. So his machine grinds the rich into meat for the poor, who it distorts into grotesque pig homunculi and forces them to operate the machine’s inscrutable workings.

It’s Mandus’ twisted way of saving the world - kill the rich for their crimes, enslave the poor for their own good, all hail the new machine/god/manager of the 20th century. It’s a neat reflection of the way modern politicians contort themselves to the whims of big business and AI snake oil salesmen to avoid doing the simple and obvious things that’d better the world. It’s a nightmarish refutation of Victorian Liberalism, that only the upper class know how to fix the problems of the lower class. It’s brilliant, and we should play it. 

"Do you hear me Mandus? This is what you planned! This world is a machine! A Machine for Pigs! Fit only for the slaughtering of pigs! Whores, beggars, orphans, filthy degenerates. Pigs all. But I will purify the streets, cleanse this city, set the great industry free. I will clean the world, make it pure." - The Machine, A Machine for Pigs

Song of the Year, of the Century

Not long after I came out as trans, I was asked what (in an ideal world) would make transition easier. I replied - never having to leave the house. One day I'd shut the front door as a man and another day, months or years later, I'd open it again as a woman, neatly sidestepping the terror of being perceived in a notoriously transphobic Britain.

In 2020 I shut that door and didn't open it for 4 months. At work, I remember calling the nearby shelter to donate our excess hand sanitizer and toilet roll, figuring out at the last second how support workers could take calls from their already isolated clients via their mobile phones, and fixating on the steady stream of scared coworkers leaving early. Tearfully, I felt the urge to hug those that remained as we locked up, before we remembered we probably shouldn't.

I've never been more aware of the minutia of moving through a space on the way home - How many people had their hands on this handrail? Have I touched my mouth or eyes without realising? Is anyone in the office already sick? Or on this train? How many more people are going to die? - My heart was in my chest, I heard the blood whoosh through my head to the beat of my steps on the pavement. At home, I realised my boyfriend had to go into work the next day. After he went to sleep, terrified he might die, I cried.

"I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious death—as swift as the passage of light—would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down." - "The Heat Ray", The War of the Worlds

Writing As the Sun Forever Sets was my way of coping with the disconnect with the world I felt, the fear of both Covid and the rising transphobia kept me inside even as the lockdowns eased. That feeling of throbbing death creeping at the window took a long time to wrestle under control, and getting deeply obsessed with a big project became part of that process. It seems incredibly maudlin to make a TTRPG dealing with darkness and death during a pandemic that killed (and continues to kill) millions of people, but I suppose I’m kind of a maudlin person.

“I haven't written a song in a month, So I'm playing the same chords again. I know I need to get lost in the moment, But I get lost before it begins. Fingers stretching out into space. Reaching as a thought slips away.”

It also burnt me the fuck out. After years of constant work and testing (beginning long before Evil Hat picked up the game), I ran out of steam. I spent the months after Evil Hat’s public playtest ended not really able to write anything ATSFS related at all. The game kind of froze - I knew what I wanted to change or fix or add, but the moment the google doc opened I couldn’t make myself start typing. It was incredibly frustrating to have the switch flip from endless obsessive writing to constant nothing, and I don’t think I truly recognised the burnout I was feeling until recently. It turns out spending years staying up past midnight writing is bad, who know!

A lot of Forged in the Dark games don’t get finished (or more accurately, get stuck in perpetual development), something that the excellent and dearly missed +1 Forward podcast recognised in their episode collecting their thoughts on the FITD games they looked at back in 2021. I think that’s because, at least to me, writing a Forged in the Dark game is like trying to hold a plate of spaghetti without the plate. It’s deceptively simple at its heart, but the system squirms when you poke at it - write one thing and it affects 3 other things. Tug one piece of pasta out and you lose a meatball without realising it.

When I listened to that episode, I took it as a challenge. Part of me now wonders if it was a curse. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. But a little part of me did think it might be better to give the game up.

That’s not going to be As the Sun Forever Sets' fate, thankfully. Evil Hat has been there to support me when I’ve felt guilty about shifting another deadline or replying to a check-in email with another late “Not much progress this month, sorry!” The frozen writers block is thawing, and I’m so tantalisingly close to finishing the final text. This blog is part of that process, another chip in the icy dam.

The wheels of dread Martian terror turn once again, and it feels good. Part of that is down to not beating myself up about a lack of progress. The more important part came when I realised I felt able to return to the world again - living in it, not hiding from it. Staying connected to it, even when there's times I'm not able to inhabit it physically. Covid, Britains particular brand of transphobic brainworms, and the shadow of Empire all continue to exist, and so do I - a weird maudlin transsexual woman - in spite of them all.

“The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air!” - “The Stillness”, The War of the Worlds

You made it!

Thanks for sticking with my messy thoughts. If what I talked about here sounds cool to you, please stop by the Discord, we'd love to have you. Look forward to seeing As the Sun Forever Sets come to a crowdfunding platform of Evil Hat's choice (I assume backerkit) at some point in the future ♥.

[thegnomelord]

I desperately need MORE background on how hound became the vicious beast (that I love just the way he is) and how Makarov tamed him!

Please

It's kinda hard to come up with background when I literally made hound on the fly lol, I didn't plan to give him any backstory and that blurb about being betrayed by price just came at the last moment.

But here's my current ideas:

CW:SFW ish HUGE SPOILERS for Hound's backstory (not cannon yet but the major themes), angst, discussion of torture, conditioning, SA, and Hound just having a very bad time.

Hound already had behavioural/aggression problems when he joined the military (the reasons for which are left open for the reader to imagine). Price pissed off some top brass officer and got Hound dumped on him as punishment and because no one else wanted Hound. But Price figured out that all Hound needed was a firm hand from someone he could respect, and with Hound, respect was a hard thing to earn. But Price earned it and in turn got himself the most loyal Sargent he'd ever seen.

Now for the angsty Makarov bit.

Hound was loyal as hell to Price when he thought he would be saved. It took Makarov like a solid year just to make small dents in Hound's will. Since Hound didn't know Russian, he'd get annoyed at the commands Makarov used, leading to more beatings. This was around the time Makarov started using shock collars and really leaned into turning Hound into his dog.

The whole conditioning thing was similar to how cult indoctrination works, Makarov made himself look like the only 'safe' source of comfort Hound had. He especially liked making Hound fight in a pit, be it putting him against actual dogs, people trying to join Konni, or other Konni members, with the prize being that whichever soldier won would get to use Hound however they wanted. And while Hound may be big (hc Hound around Konig's hight/whatever the max height for being in the army is), being regularly beaten, starved and sleep deprived meant he lost more fights against the soldiers than he won.

This made it easy for Makarov to effectively 'save' Hound, rough orders making his soldiers stop, giving Hound soft touches and a low soothing voice to listen to while he lay on the floor covered in blood, gore, cum, and god knows what else, just trying to recover. And Hound's brain hated it, was disgusted by the touch, but his body craved any form of comfort it could get regardless who it came from.

The real conditioning began when after a year in captivity the files for Hound's mission were released, and had been rewritten to make him K.I.A. and a traitor. And they were official documents too (Makarov had eyes and ears everywhere, including the C.I.A). Makarov had been putting the idea that Price had betrayed Hound for a while, so those docs just confirmed it.

Hound became a lot more anger prone and aggressive after the betrayal, going back to his old ways before Price became his CO, something Makarov played into.

Violence became both a coping mechanism and a way to survive; the more violently he fought and killed in the fighting ring, the better the rewards he would get (more food, more rest, more of Makarov's affection to distract him from what was happening), the stronger he would get and the more his body would recover, the more violently he could fight. Leading to a type of cycle where physically getting healthier turned him more violent.

Makarov was very keen on training Hound, taking away the small comforts as quickly as he gave them if Hound stepped one foot out of line, steadily conditioning him to be eager for his touch, his praise, his affection, to want to pleasure him and silence the parts of Hound's brain that begged him to stop.

In six months or so, Hound was already kneeling at Makarov's feet, head tilted back so Makarov could cut his initials into Hound's throat, desperate to have a collar wrapped around his neck, to belong to someone who wouldn't betray him like Price did.

And in another six, Hound was utterly devoted to Makarov, carrying out any orders given with extreme precision and violence all in the hopes of just getting a scrap of his attention.

Or something like that. The thing I like about reboot Makarov is how charismatic and tactical he is in comparison to the unhinged Makarov from the old series. This one gives me like cult leader vibes, which is why I think he would have been able to condition hound into being his. Makarov values loyalty and saw how loyal hound was to Price, so sought to have the same.

[mvrtaiswriting]

Hi!

I’m wondering if I could request a sanjixreader about the reader taking a hit that was meant for Sanji but he didn’t realize, yet the reader kept fighting? I’ll leave the ending up to you.

Thank you, and I hope it’s ok

Keep fighting x Black Leg Sanji ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :

i'm really sorry for the amount of time this request took me?? it had been sitting in my drafts FOREVER and I kinda forgot about it I am so DEEPLY SORRY. this was so fun the to write and literally one of my favourite requests ever, so I hope this matches your expectation and that it would be worth the wait!! thank you for being patient with me. hope you enjoy this <;33 +1k words | gender neutral | mention of needles? | usual one piece violence. feel free to reblog, like, and leave a comment. i would very much appreciate it. if you enjoy my works, click here to read more or buy me a coffee.

A soft breeze blew out Sanji's burning cigarette, brushing through his blonde hair almost revealing his left eye. There was no way he could have survived the next attack - he was exhausted from the battle, his enemy being the strongest he had ever met before. Trying to take a puff from the cigarette he kept holding between his lips, Sanji wanted to taste nicotine one last time. As death approached him, all he wanted was the bittersweet company of his dearest friend; he wanted to feel his lungs being hugged by the warm smoke entering his airways, like a mother holds her child. That was it - he didn't have any strength left. Maybe that stupid marimo was right all along, maybe his captain deserved a stronger wing by his side.

Sanji stood still in the middle of the battlefield, waiting for his final act. He kept his eyes closed, his mind wondering what could have been if only he had a better father, if only he didn't let everyone down.

"Wake up, you useless cook!"

Was this death? Did Zoro follow him into the afterlife? No, no. It couldn't be.

"Sanji!"

Zoro screamed again, the metal sound of his swords almost serving as a background melody for the horrors of the battle. Passing an hand through his hair, Sanji noticed he wasn't bleeding - he wondered where was the headache coming from. Running his hands over his body, he noticed how he didn't feel any excruciating pain: no broken bones, no bleeding. Yet he passed out - maybe he just overestimated his enemy; maybe, he underestimated himself. Finally regaining conscience, Sanji looked around the battlefield - and a part of him wished he never did.

Your figure was moving swiftly on the battlefield, but your attacks were slower, weaker than usual. All you could do now was avoid any fatal blow, trying to recover from the one you just received. It didn't take long for Sanji to notice how you were covered in blood, your usual combat style being impeded by the metal piece stabbed in your leg, crossing your limb from one end to the other.

Biting his bottom lip, Sanji lit another cigarette. He was furious, rage galloping through his veins and giving him a rush of adrenaline he never felt before. He felt his muscles tighten, full of a strength he didnt believe he possessed - you protected his life with yours, using your own body as a shield. How could he be so weak? How dare he put you in so much danger? A sea of emotions flooded Sanji's thoughts; he was proud of you and your strength, yet he was scared, frustrated - mad at how he failed to protect you. His eyes were filled of admiration and worry - you endured a critical hit yet you kept fighting.

"Let me."

Sanji was quick to step in, putting his body between you and your enemy. Winking at you with the sexiest smirk painted on his lips, Sanji finally put an end to the battle you both had been fighting for too long. Before he could realise it, you were already lying on the floor unconscious, exhausted from the battle and all the wounds you endured.

The next thing you saw when you opened your eyes was a torchlight, pointed directed at your pupils. Too confused to follow the light as Chopper just ordered you, you tried to stand up. An heavy hand on your shoulder stopped you from moving, forcing you to lay on the mattress.

"Not so fast, mon coeur."

A familiar voice finally said, the French accent in his words revealing his identity straight away. You smiled weakly, realising the hand on your shoulder was Sanji's. Sighing, you stayed still whilst Chopper finished his job. You were full of bandages and stitches, an IV drip connected to your arm.

"Was it really that bad?"

You whined, when Chopper finally closed his medical kit bag. You saw the reindeer nod, dragging one of his little hoof onto his face.

"You're lucky to still have your leg!"

Chopper whined, frustrated with the way you were minimising your injury. Tears started forming in his tiny eyes, making you nod and fall silent - you knew he was genuinely worried and he was probably right about it.

When Chopper finally left the room, you felt Sanji slowly sitting down on the side of the bed, your mattress slowly sinking.

"You shouldn't have done that."

Sanji finally says. His tone is calm and full of worry, yet his words stung like salt on an open cut. His hand slowly reached your face, caressing your cheeks, his fingertips delicately tickling your skin. Biting your tongue, you hold back your explanations - he probably knows you were only trying to protect him, yet he was ready to scold you like a little child. You were fine, injured but alive. And you would do it again if you had to - protecting the love of your life from a potentially fatal blow? You would do it again in an heart beat.

"I love you."

These three words slip out of Sanji's mouth in a whisper, almost as if he didn't want to let them go. But now they were out in the open, filling the hospital room you were lying in.

"I love you and I want you to stay alive."

Sanji reiterated, clearing his throat. The words almost got stuck in his throat - flashback of the battles coming to him again in a blur. Seeing you collapsed on the floor, covered in blood with countless wounds all over your body. It was too much to take. He always thought nothing could scare him anymore, he always thought that there couldn't be a bigger pain than the one his father inflicted on him. But that was before this, it was before always losing the love of his life because he wasn't strong enough.

"I love you too, stupid cook. I love you and will stay alive to save your ass." You giggled, causing him to blush. Sanji stared at you for a second, the softest of smiles forming on his lips before he leaned down, placing a sweet kiss on your lips. You were safe, you were his.

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

can i ask why did people genuinely think hanma was the time leaper? i’ve rewatched the anime twice and read the manga and not once have i suspected hanma to be the time leaper.

Ok it's been a while so I might be misremembering some bits now but it got super popular after it was revealed Kisaki wasn't a time leaper. The idea was someone is the second time leaper but it's not Kisaki, so naturally people considered it to be Hanma. And there were a few reasons too (there was also a separate theory about him not being a time leaper but being like a God or some other un human being who knew about the situation. There's a bit of overlap between those two theories.) Also you're gonna find that a lot of these "clues" are really small and don't really mean anything, especially now that we know what happened. But at the time, we were all really reading into everything to try and figure out where the story was going. And everything stacked together seemed to make a lot of sense.

Firstly, Kisaki seemed to know about time leapers existence, which we all kinda assumed meant someone had told him aka a time leaper. With Hanma being the most obvious choice since they were shown to be close and working together a lot.

There was also Hanma's inside cover, which had on top of train tracks, train tracks which were heavily associated with time leaping and Takemichi in the past.

It was also thought that Hanma's boredom could be a hint, like he was bored all the time because he already knew what was going to happen because he'd lived it before. Things got more exciting for him when he met Kisaki, a new face.

And of course there's the story cliff hanger, where most people assumed something important was going to be said/ revealed. Something important like time leaping maybe.

In the final fight he also said this, which I think he was talking about how they made it this far in the fight but at the time it was pointed out that all of them had died in different timelines before. So if he knew then he was probably talking about them surviving death literally.

And of course there was maybe the biggest hint of them all, his name. We already know how Wakui likes to put little hints when choosing their names sometimes so this made a lot of us think the second time leaper could be Hanma.

There was also a few bits to do with dates, I'm not sure if I've remembered them all but these are the ones I do remember, Hanma met kisaki and Takemichi first leaped in July 2005. Then in June 2008 we have both Hanma's main chapter where it jumps forward to him visiting Kisaki and Takemichi doing his 10 year time leap.

Aside from that it was just that he was generally quite a mysterious and suspicious guy. Not telling Kisaki why he's following him, always being around in the arcs, the way he acted etc. And with there not really being any other obvious hints at the time, it made sense he was the one the fandom thought of most as being the second leaper.

[jo-harrington]

Stranger Than (Fan)Fiction - Chapter 3: Lore Dump

Previous Chapter: Out of Character

Summary: After your bombshell revelation, Eddie finds it difficult to wrap his head around what is now his reality to empathize with your shared predicament.

Word Count: 8k

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!Reader

Warnings/Themes: No-Upside-Down AU, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lore Dump (literally), Isekai, Mentions of FOI-compliant events and characters, Various References to Movies and Television, Criticism of Fanfiction, Meta Fiction

Note: Ok besties here we are and the chapter, or at least one part of it, is very much as the title says. It's a Lore Dump as we figure out how Reader and Eddie have found themselves in this predicament. Warning everyone that it might be a little mind-fucky but a lot more will be explained in detail in future chapters. We've only just scratched the surface here.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

You'd never run so much in your entire life.

Alright, that might have been a little dramatic.

But that didn't mean it wasn't true.

"Is it always like this?" you panted as you chased after the flopping brown coat of the man a few steps ahead of you. "With the running?"

"Oh yes!" he called out. He looked back at you with a charming, crooked grin and pointed ahead. "You'll get used to it. Allons-y!"

This whole nightmare started when you crashed your car into, what you thought was, an unassuming blue "police box."

And now, several days later, you were running, ducking, diving...surviving all manner of monsters that seemingly popped up out of nowhere in the middle of Texas. With a goofy man with unbrushed hair and a buzzing screwdriver called The Doctor, and his companion--whatever that meant; it sounded suspicious to you--Martha, who kept staring at you like you'd grown another head.

You supposed adventure was the idea when you left the borders of Port Geneva proper, but this kind of adventure wasn't exactly what you had in mind. Static monsters who could literally take the words out of your mouth and a hive-mind controlling overlord whose goal it was to steal knowledge.

You might have been a lover of fantastical stories, but this was something beyond your wildest fantasies, and apparently something Martha and the Doctor encountered regularly, if their cool reaction to some of the atrocities you'd seen was indicator enough.

They both seemed to have it in mind that you were joining them for this type of ordeal from now on, though.

Especially the Doctor, if that "you'll get used to it" was something to go by.

"Come on, faster, faster," Martha called out to you from the threshold of a solid metal door just up ahead. "They can't get in through the iron."

You pumped your legs faster and ignored the burn in your lungs as you passed the Doctor and joined Martha in the safety of the bunker, with the man of the hour himself following shortly after. Martha slammed the door shut and then used the sonic to ensure the lock would hold.

They let you have a moment to catch your breath as they strategized plans for the next steps, which seemed impossible now that you were stuck in a bunker filled with junk and no exit.

"Nothing's impossible," the Doctor exclaimed as though he could read your mind. Maybe he could; you wouldn't put it past him. "And we're not stuck."

He removed the brown trench coat and got to work sorting through the junk in the bunker, while Martha took a seat beside you and patted your knee.

"You should be proud of yourself," she said gently. "It's really hard, dealing with all of this. And I've been with him for almost a year now. All the running, the monsters, all of the...impossible--

"Nothing's impossible Martha," the Doctor interjected.

"--improbable things," she amended. "It doesn't get easier, but you will get used to it. Besides, you'd think you were on the track team like Sam with how fast you've been running. Maybe you should have been the star relay runner instead of her."

Martha might have laughed.

But you didn't.

You felt a cold sense of dread overtake you. You'd told them about your friends back home earlier in the day, when you'd panicked over your impending doom. You cried and told them you wished you were still back there, safe and sound; in hindsight, it was a pathetic moment.

It wasn't what you'd said that gave you pause now, though; it's what you hadn't.

"Martha," you muttered nervously. "How did you know that Sam did relay?"

Martha's eyes went wide and she looked to the doctor in a sudden panic.

"I...I never told you she was on the track team."

It was a standoff.

A staring contest.

You and Eddie watched each other, unblinking, as if to see who would break first.

Eddie knew it would probably be him because his mind was racing, but he would give you the chance to repeat yourself, or elaborate, or maybe yell "surprise" first.

None of those things happened of course, so he was left in stunned silence trying to formulate the words to respond to your groundbreaking revelation.

We are in a fanfiction.

Fanfiction.

He had heard about fanfiction before. Drove the guys out to some comic book shop in Fort Wayne to celebrate Jeff's birthday and the nerds behind the counter were talking about a Star Trek fanfiction they read in some celebratory fan magazine.

He'd honestly never thought about Kirk and Spock like that and he really didn't want to again.

Even though it kind of made sense.

He just wasn’t that big of a Trek guy either.

But damn, even though he and the guys might not have been the popular kids, they were definitely not dorky like that, were they?

Except that they were. He was.

He wrote his favorite characters into his DnD campaigns as NPCs and he fantasized about what it would be like if he was Han Solo instead of Han himself, and tucked away in a drawer at home, there was definitely that story about you...

"Shit," he finally breathed out, blinking and breaking eye contact with you. "Shit, I did this. I mean, I know I did this, but did...did I do this?"

"What?" You frowned at him. "What do you mean, did you do this? Eddie, did you hear what I said?"

"No, yeah, of course I did," he began rambling. "I just...before you showed up in Hawkins, I...I wrote about you. I wrote about you leaving Port Geneva and coming to Hawkins and meeting me and...fuck...that means you know."

You stared at him blankly.

"You know that Port Geneva is a TV show," he clarified and then ran a hand through his hair. "Jesus Christ, how did I...how could I have done this? Shit. Shit."

You crossed the short distance and took a seat on the couch beside him, comforting hand finding his knee instantly.

"Eddie--"

"I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I just...you're my...my favorite character and I..."

"--you didn't do this. Someone else did."

He took a few breaths, heart pounding in his chest, and then swallowed hard.

"Who?"

"That's...a little harder to answer. But I think the thing you need to focus on right now--the thing you're missing--is that we are in a fanfiction. You and me. Together. Because I'm not the only one from a TV show. You are too."

Eddie was dumbstruck for a second.

Well, he was pretty dumbstruck about this whole thing. But he only had a second to really process it, because the next thing he knew, you were in his lap, lips pressed to his, hands fisting his jacket, and the door to the greenroom burst open as his friends walked in.

You pulled away from him as the catcalls and whistles and jokes began and glanced over your shoulder at the guys to bite your lip bashfully.

"Ah, looks like the original song worked after all," Jeff teased.

"Good, cuz then we don't have to play it anymore, bleh," Gareth stuck his tongue out. "You know, for everything you preach about metal and only metal Eddie, you sure wrote some sappy Greg Brady shit."

Eddie's ears rang as he answered. Well, as his mouth moved and voice spoke, saying something that got everyone laughing. Something that he had no control over once again. You turned back to him and he widened his eyes in some silent plea but you simply shook your head at him.

Instead you leaned forward and kissed him again, softer this time. Gentler. Different from the unexpected kiss just moments before, this was one of understanding and comfort.

He relaxed under your touch.

"Alright guys," you announced as you pulled away, words and tone of your voice not quite matching the softness of your gaze as you continued to watch him. "Your set's over. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here. Bev wants you out."

"What was all of that?" he demanded as you stepped out of your car.

After driving the guys home, he sat on your porch and waited. Chain smoking and lost in his thoughts until you got back to Forest Hills after your shift.

"Can I at least get inside first?" you asked with a nervous laugh. "Do you want to wake Granny up? Jesus."

He was on your heels as you unlocked your door and stepped inside, almost followed you to your bedroom when you said you'd wanted to change into PJs, and even declined a soda when you got settled back in the living room.

And once you couldn't stall for any more time, sitting next to each other on your couch, he stared at you and begged, "please, I need to know I'm not in a nightmare here. Or dead."

You let out a honk of laughter and then reached over to take his hand in yours, and he felt the slight edge of abject terror start to lessen.

"You're not in a nightmare," you reassured him. "Or dead."

"Then...then what is this?" he whispered desperately. "Is this a trick? A joke? Start from the beginning. Please."

You took a breath and began.

"It's fanfiction." You hummed contemplatively for a moment. "This is...I don't know when it started, actually. For me, that is. For you...well, there's no way we could say for sure; I can only talk about my own experience."

You paused and then said your name, the same way that you had introduced yourself originally. And then Eddie realized that you were introducing yourself again as you squeezed his hand in yours.

"I was born and raised in Port Geneva, and then in 1985 after graduation, I left to start my adventure. And from that moment on--for years--I got to have it. I got to have...a hundred adventures. A thousand. A million maybe? As many adventures as there have been people to imagine them. As many adventures as there have been fans to write them.

"Fans like you, Eddie," you smiled at him. "You said you wrote a story where I came to see you."

"Yeah," he nodded, cheeks hot under your gaze. "I did."

"And I'm your favorite character?"

He thought about you, thought about himself and the countless nights that he watched you on the screen.

"How could you not be my favorite?" he asked gently in return.

Your gaze turned soft and you looked down at his hand, clasped tightly within yours, and then you continued with your story.

"I got to see the world, got to meet so many people, I got to fall in love...except I never realized it. Until...until I met him."

"Him?" Eddie asked sharply, thoughts immediately spiraling.

Love.

You said love.

Who was this Him that you were in love with? Even through Eddie's confusion and panic about the predicament he was currently in, he could still feel a bitter jealousy roiling deep inside his gut.

"The Doctor," you whispered.

"Doctor Who?"

You snorted. "Exactly."

"I don't get it," he shook his head.

"Doctor Who...that's...it's the name of a television show. Been around for a long time, but I'm not sure how popular it is here. If it even exists. You have a lot of media that we didn't have in Port Geneva but there's a few things that...I dunno...that your writers haven't mentioned. Or The Writer hasn't included yet."

You explained it to him, or the gist of it at least.

An immortal time-traveling alien and his usually human companion, all of the adventures and misadventures and danger. Being able to go to different times and timelines and universes.

In any other scenario, it would have sounded cool. Maybe a little scary. But now, all Eddie could think about was this mess you were in.

"And...this Doctor...he's what brought you to Hawkins?" he questioned hesitantly, figuring that it made the most sense. "He thought he was bringing you back to Port Geneva's universe and brought you here instead?"

"Uh, no," you frowned. "That was The Writer. The Author. Whatever you want to call them."

"Because this is a fanfiction."

"Yeah. That was. And this is. I just...didn't know it yet. I didn't realize it was fanfiction until later. But, uh, whoever wrote that crossover story just brought me from my world into Doctor Who, and that was when I realized I was a fictional character from a TV Show. Because they wrote me as a character who jumped from a television show into the 'real world' of the Doctor and his friends."

Just like you were now: a fictional character in his world.

"It's hard to explain, but the Doctor made me aware of it. Made it make sense." You faltered. "Well...not really, but that's when it started. He told me that I wasn't real--"

"Wait,” he interrupted you. “But you said I was from a tv show back at the hideout. So you're telling me I'm not real?"

"Ed--"

"Because you’re from a tv show and so am I and this Doctor is too.”

“I wouldn’t try to think about it so hard.”

“Is that...the Doctor told you that you were a character in a TV show and you weren't real? And that's what you're telling me right now too?"

"It's hard to explain--"

"Because I don't know sweetheart," Eddie chuckled sardonically and shook his hands out of yours so he could run them over his face, through his hair. "I...I feel plenty real. And if there's anyone who isn't real here...well, I have a stack of video tapes back home that can provide enough evidence."

He’d thought about the barebones of it when he’d been outside waiting for you to get home, but faced with the truth of it now, the dominoes were starting to fall.

He was real, he had to be. His whole life, all of his memories, all of his friends, what about th—

"Can you let me fucking finish?" you snapped at him with a sharp clap.

His shoulders heaved and he stared at you with wild eyes.

"You're real," you explained calmly. "I'm real. We're both real. Real people. Real lives. Real memories. For the most part."

Eddie didn't like the sound of that.

"But this world...is your world and I don't belong here. Just like I didn't belong in the Doctor's world either. He explained it to me in some way I didn't quite understand; I'm just a girl from the midwest. I barely graduated high school and suddenly he was telling me there was some cosmic anomaly that pulled me out of my world, my tv show world, and that I was transported into his world. It was wild.

“The important thing though was that he didn't know how to get me home. So, until he could figure it out, I was stuck. And I traveled with him for a while. With him and his friend Martha…and then with another friend Donna. Until somewhere at the end of it all...I died."

Eddie's heart stopped in his chest; you...died?

The question was stuck on his lips, the demand to know more, but he felt himself choke up when he thought about it. Even more when he watched the tears well in your eyes as you remembered your own death.

"I died alone, bleeding out in the middle of an alien planet..." you recalled, wrenching your eyes shut. There was a beat of silence and he let you have a moment to recover. He watched your eyes dart around beneath your eyelids as you gathered your thoughts, as you recalled whatever horror you went through. When you were through, you blinked and looked up at him with the weight of a thousand truths in your gaze. "And then I wasn't dead anymore."

"What?!"

"Well obviously I'm alive,” you motioned down to yourself. “Maybe I’m a little worse for wear inside but I’m fine. Back then though...I was dead. One second I was in oblivion. And then next, I woke up in the driver's seat of my car, outside of a hotel in Odessa, Texas. With a man from the future named Hiro Nakamura, who told me I had to save the cheerleader if I wanted to save the world.

"And it all just started over again," you sighed.

You recounted this next place to him. Places, actually; plural. Names that meant nothing to him but seemed to mean something to you--Hiro, Claire, Peter, Sylar--and it all sounded fantastic. Another unbelievable adventure, but there was still something off.

"I...I tried to ask questions. About where I was, about where the Doctor was. It was always ignored. I tried to control things but it seemed like I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. Tried to do things that I instinctively knew I wanted to do, but I just couldn't. It seemed like there was something controlling me instead. Like I was a puppet on a string. And everything that happened around me...never seemed to make any sense, no matter how hard I tried to wrap my head around it.

"Sound familiar?" you asked.

Eddie scoffed, thinking about the traumatic, out of control moments he had had the past few days. That hopeless, helpless, sinking feeling he'd had.

"It fucking sucks, sweetheart. You feel like that...all the time?"

"You get used to it." You shook your head. "Get used to playing along. I learned that really quickly; I resigned myself to this life where I was just a passenger in my own body. Until I realized if I just played the part that whatever forces-that-be wanted me to play, I could have a little more control."

There was a tense pause as you let Eddie absorb the information. And absorb it he did. He didn't like it, the idea that he had to play a part; it was something he'd been fighting all his life. But maybe if you said it was something that would make him feel more in control, he could try.

He turned to the next thought ever-present in his mind.

"So," he cleared his throat to start again. "How do you know this is a fanfiction? When did you figure that out? Because...when you showed up, I thought about all the possibilities--a dream, a nightmare, hell, heaven, a portal, a wormhole like in a comic book--and that was never one of them."

"Because of the interviews."

"Interviews..."

"They're fun and silly, I guess," you shrugged apathetically. "You'll be in the middle of your life, middle of your day, middle of a fight...and then the world goes dark and you'll find yourself sitting in a room alongside the people you know...and The Writer. An Interview with the Characters.

"I was already familiar with the fact that I was from a television show and in a world I didn't belong in. But I was the only person aware of that fact; to the Doctor, I was a fictional character, but here Port Geneva the television show...didn't exist. I was just another citizen of planet earth, and my home was a real place on the map, as real as Odessa or New York.

"But suddenly my friends and I were in that room sitting in front of someone. A writer. The Writer--SylaireIsMyOTP117--and they were all aware that they were characters in a television show called Heroes, that I was a character from Port Geneva, and that we were all in some kind of...story in another universe, written by this SylaireismyOTP117. Something they never seemed aware of before.

"And SylaireismyOTP117...she acted like she was our friend too, like she had our best interest in mind and valued our opinions. Everyone laughed along with all of her jokes. Answered all of her questions. Except me, because then it all came into perspective. She was the one playing with our lives--playing with my life--and putting us in danger. She made us travel through time to dangerous places, she created more dangers, she even killed Peter's older brother--something that apparently hadn't happened in the show. Well...not yet anyway."

Your hands clenched and unclenched.

"I thought I figured it out," you said through gritted teeth. "Found the person responsible for this predicament I was in. Because she was so...sure of herself. She even had the audacity to apologize for pulling me out of my world and into Heroes. I asked her why she made me die with the Doctor just so I could be a part of this world instead... but she didn't know what I was talking about.

"Suddenly she had this pink magazine in her hand. Pulled it out of her back pocket and waved it around, saying she found it in her mom's childhood bedroom. Said I must have been thinking about one of the stories from it. The Port Geneva Teen Fanzine. SylaireismyOTP117 told me she was sad that people had written me the way they did. Out of Character. That she wanted to give me something better than than had. A better adventure. Then the interview was over. And that was the end of that. Or just the beginning actually.

"Mystery solved." You held your hands out in front of you like you were presenting the secrets of the universe. Eddie could even imagine a glowing sphere floating there if he tried hard enough.

You started naming names then, of movies and books and television shows. Heroes and Lost and Vampire Diaries and The Dark Knight.

And. And. And.

The list just kept going and going.

It made Eddie's head spin to hear all of the places you had been, all of the lives you had lived, the things that all of these Writers had put you through.

To hear how sometimes you'd wake up in a new world, sometimes you'd seemingly get your happily ever after, sometimes none of the above. Sometimes you were even back home in Port Geneva--relieved--only to get ripped away all over again.

It never seemed to end the same way, but it always started with you in the driver's seat of your car. Chugging along to the next destination. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

"And that's how you ended up here in Hawkins?" Eddie asked, then paused. "Do you know...what my show is called?"

"Uh," you winced and folded your hands together in your lap. "Yes. I do. And I know it seems like I know all of these things. I don’t. Rarely, actually. But sometimes the Writers think they're funny and they work the title into the story; that’s how I find out. Because it's out of place.

"But, uh, it’s not the first time I've been here in Hawkins, actually."

It was a record scratch moment for Eddie.

"You...you have?" He smiled and suddenly felt a sense of hope; alright, so his love for you was so undeniable that this wasn't the first time someone had brought you to him. To give him something good in his miserable shit life. "Well so, what happened last time? Why can't I remember? Is that just...well, I guess, what makes this time different? Why am I aware of it all this time?

"Wait! Wait! What's my show about? Is it...is it like...the Misadventures of a Wannabe Rockstar or something? You said that when we had breakfast at Benny's. Is that the title? It has to be."

He rambled for a second, excitedly trying to predict his future, a future where you got to see the ups and downs of his life as he and Corroded Coffin navigated their way to fame.

You let him ramble, let him live in hope for those few moments. Until he realized you weren't chattering excitedly with him.

Until he saw the pain in your eyes.

He deflated, mind suddenly turning to the worst scenarios. At least in his mind.

"We don't make it, do we?" Was the conclusion he could come to. "But it's Wannabe Rockstar, right?. Not Future Rockstar. I'm gonna end up working at Thatcher Tires instead or something. Dead end job, stuck in this town..."

"It isn't your show," you whispered. "Just like Port Geneva...wasn't really mine."

Eddie swallowed hard.

"It's called Stranger Things," you explained. "And it's...I dunno...there are monsters. The first time I was here, I wasn't transported in as someone's favorite TV character. It was 1983, Port Geneva was a real place, and I was a transfer student at Hawkins High. And awful things happened. But there was no Eddie Munson. They must've written you in later in the show."

You continued your own rambling then, as you tried to make him feel better about it all. How he must've been a beloved character for someone to write a story about him. How whatever story they were writing was a good story too, because there didn't seem to be any monsters in Hawkins, not like there were the first time you'd been there.

"And...and The Writer of this story must love you a lot," you concluded. "To bring your favorite tv character in to be your girlfriend. For us to...like each other, love each other--and I do like you Eddie, I want to make that very clear. You make me feel like I'm close to home for the first time in a long time--but it seems like they want to give you a happy ending too. One you deserve."

But your words didn't help. The sinking feeling was back, but this time The Writer didn't have anything to do with it.

It was him, all him. All this misery and he wasn't even the main character of his own show. He should've seen that coming. And yeah he could live with being someone's favorite, enough for them to write a happy ending or something but...

"'s that mean I have a sad ending in the show?" he wondered. "If there are usually monsters here but there aren't, and I get something...something good, does that mean I die or something?"

"Eddie, it's..." you trailed off, but the rest of the sentence was hanging in the air, clear to both of you.

It's better not to think about it that way.

He nodded slowly and pulled his hand away from you to run it over his face.

It was confusing, it was upsetting.

All of it.

The cherry on top of the shit sundae that was his week. His life.

Fuck, but none of it was real, right? Contrary to everything you said. So could he really be upset? Should he? At least he knew he had something good to look forward to. A happy ending.

But how could he look forward to it when he knew that...well, when he knew that he didn't deserve it in the first place. That wasn't what fate had in store for him.

Or the writers of this Stranger Things show.

His happiness was at the whim of The Writer. At the whim of some...loser nerd writing about him in another universe.

A nerd just like him.

Fuck, it was giving him a headache.

"I uh...have a lot to think about," he whispered. You nodded as he stood and crossed towards the door of your trailer so he could leave. He paused at the door, instinctively remembering that he had to kiss you goodbye. Until everything hit him all over again and he decided it was better not to. "I'll, uh, I'll call you. Ok?"

"Yeah," you nodded eagerly. "Call me whenever. Please. It's...it is a lot. And honestly, we only scratched the surface. But we can figure the rest out together. I can help you through it. I promise. I'll be here."

He left without another word.

Denial was the easiest way for Eddie to go about this whole ordeal, or so he thought. How the fuck else was someone supposed to come to terms with the fact that...

Nope he wasn't gonna go there. Not yet.

He knew that he would need to deal with it eventually--need to think it through and talk to you--but until then, he was just going to live his life like he normally would.

So he avoided those feelings, and avoided you.

And it seemed to work.

School, home, trip to Rick's to re-up his inventory on Wednesday, grocery run for Wayne on Thursday, Hellfire on Friday, no date on Saturday.

Dealing at a few parties, band practice where the music was all normal, and then finally back at the Hideout for their gig on Tuesday.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

It was a normal week and aside from the still-obvious markers of this new life he was living, like the mess in the trailer and the fancy renovations at the Hideout, Eddie felt relieved and a little less like he was about to lose his mind.

It was both a blessing and a curse though, because at the end of every day he realized just how much missed you.

You'd rooted yourself solidly in his life--both on tv and now in the flesh--for years. Even when he didn't have new episodes to watch and stories to enjoy, he had his reruns. His tapes. Then you were suddenly there in person and on the phone.

So the you-shaped hole that he punched in his life, when he decided to ignore his predicament, was gaping and obvious.

Yeah, he could tell Wayne about the great battle he'd come up with for Hellfire, or complain to the guys about the bogus chemistry homework. But it wasn't the same. Not anymore.

So he resolved to talk to you on Tuesday after the set, only you weren't there.

"Shouldn't you know Junior? That's your girl," Bev dismissed him with a wave of her hand. She must have taken pity on him at the sight of his sad eyes, and she just sighed and continued. "She called in sick. Took the night off. She seemed fine yesterday; better not be cuz of you, kid."

He feared you might have left town, maybe to spare him or something--how that would work with the fanfiction Gods? Weren't you supposed to stay in Hawkins? He wasn't sure--but your car was in front of your trailer by the time he got home.

Everything was quiet, and all the lights were off, even the porch light which you usually kept on. He debated knocking on your door, waking you up, but decided against it.

If you really were trying to give him space, or simply avoid him like he had avoided you, it was best not to wake you up and piss you off.

"Tomorrow," he told himself. "I'll talk to her after school tomorrow."

Of course, that was the plan and fanfiction or not, sometimes even the best laid plans went awry.

He was still Eddie Munson, after all.

Things never went his way.

Once again, he had Chrissy Cunningham to thank for his plight.

It was on this, the day of his reconciliation with you, that she decided her hunt or conquest or humiliation of him would take place.

Maybe all of the above.

It was raining, he was running late.

He would have cut classes--should have just cut--but despite all odds being against him now more than ever, he promised himself that he was going to try when it came to school.

He had just opened the door to his locker when she appeared, the tips of her pristine white sneakers kissing the sides of his muddied converse.

"Hey Eddie!" Chrissy greeted with a too-big smile and sparkling eyes.

Eddie jumped and looked around the hallway, conveniently lacking its usual amount of students who loitered around before class. Thankfully, no other cheerleaders or jocks in sight either, though; it was either a blessing or a curse, he couldn't tell for sure.

"Hey, uh," he coughed and glanced at Chrissy for a second, before distracting himself with the contents of his locker. Fuck, it was pretty messy in there too; now was as good a time as any to clean it. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you," she beamed.

He felt a bubbling of annoyance build within him, somewhat out of his control.

"You can't want to talk to me and also not want anything Chrissy," he scoffed pretty harshly as he grabbed a handful of papers to sort through. "So do you want to buy weed for a slumber party or something? Or have you suddenly decided to throw your Homecoming crown in the trash so you could join Hellfire ?"

She shuffled her feet and clutched her books to her chest and then took a deep breath.

"I wanted to know if you'd like to hang out some time," she announced loudly, bravely. Eddie froze in shock and then turned to her; her cheeks were red but there was a resolve in her eyes that he'd never seen in her before. "There's a new movie playing at the Hawk. Clue. I don't know if you've heard of it, it looks a little spooky..."

She rambled on and Eddie was left to stare at her, dumbfounded.

Chrissy Cunningham? Asking him out? Ok so Gareth was right?

But was Gareth right? Was she really hot for him or was she just using him for her own amusement? Or was this another little...storytelling mishap that the Writer was putting him through?

Shit, how could he tell?

This kind of shit sort of always, sort of never happened to him before.

Plenty of popular girls thought it was fun to go out with The Freak just to get off or to have a laugh, sure. But everything else in his life was turning upside down thanks to the Writer. So was this just another layer to that absolute shit show?

Gah, what the fuck could it be?

The anger bubbled inside of him again, and he had the vaguest realization that the anger didn't really belong to him. It felt too intense, almost manufactured. He was hit with the sense of deja vu that he'd felt this way before--in the cafeteria before the almost-food-fight and then at Family Video--and he decided to put a stop to it immediately.

"Listen Chrissy," he interrupted her with a cool, indifferent tone. "The movie sounds cool, but I'm really not interested in going out with you." He turned back to shut his locker and get to class when she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"If this is because of Jason," she began softly. "I'm...you don't have to worry. I'd break up with him if we went out."

"It's not about Jason," he snapped, out of control once again. Well and truly out of control. He felt himself shrug her hand away. "I have a girlfriend. A girlfriend who is actually cool and nice and interesting. Who likes the things that I like and doesn't like silly things like magazines and cheer and scrunchies." He watched in horror as he lifted his hand and flicked at her ponytail, and then felt angry at himself, at this situation, at The Writer when Chrissy flinched and dropped her books on the floor.

"It's almost funny that you'd think I'd be interested in someone like you," he spat at her venomously.

He felt the sudden urge to slam the locker, felt the urge to walk away, felt the urge to laugh in Chrissy's face.

But he resisted all of those urges with every fiber of his being.

He just stood there until the puppet strings were cut once again and he felt the rage and anger dissipate.

All the while, Chrissy went from a fearful, trembling mess in front of him, eyes welling with tears, to...nothing.

She just stood there too.

She looked down at her feet, shuffled back and forth for a moment, and then she scuffed her shoes against the floor, nudging the fallen textbooks.

She suddenly didn't look like Queen of Hawkins High Chrissy Cunningham, or someone that was afraid of the Wrath of the Freak, or some lash-batting temptress like she had been just moments ago.

She just looked like the girl who was hiding in the Auditorium at the Hawkins Middle School talent show all those years ago.

A person. Just like him.

Eddie cleared his throat and knelt down to help Chrissy pick up her books.

"Sorry," he muttered when she knelt beside him. "Sorry I--"

"No, it's ok. I guess...I don't know. I guess I just felt a little lost for a while," she explained softly. "And the only thing that seemed like it could fix it was you."

Interesting.

"But not anymore?" he wondered.

"Uh, no," she shook her head. "I don't even know...why I asked you out Eddie. No offense...but you're not really my type."

The two of them laughed for a second as they stood back up.

"You know," Eddie turned Chrissy's books over in his hand, "if you wanna break up with Carver, you can just do that. You don't need to use me as an excuse."

She froze in front of him, cheeks red again, as she hummed nervously.

"Thanks Eddie," she whispered. They both smiled softly, a silent understanding shared between them, and then Chrissy held out her books so he could stack the ones in his hand atop them.

And that's when he saw the book--magazine--at the top of her stack.

A pink-covered, handmade looking thing with a familiar name printed at the top of it.

Port Geneva Teen Fanzine.

His heart stopped.

That was the thing you said your Writer had shown you once upon a time, in your Interview.

For a second he wondered how Chrissy had it, but then he tried to figure out the logic that you were from a TV show and transported here. If he was a fan, there must be other people watching the show and fans of it too. Maybe the magazine transcended universes. Just like the show did.

It honestly made his head hurt trying to think about it.

"You...you like Port Geneva?" he asked, trying to remain as casual as possible.

"Hmm, yeah," Chrissy smiled down at the 'zine. "It's one of my favorite shows. My mom and I used to watch it together. Sam is my favorite character."

Somehow, that didn't surprise him one bit.

"Do you watch?" she questioned, brow quirked curiously. "It doesn't seem like your kind of show."

"I mean, I'm full of surprises," he teased, trying to keep his tone as lighthearted as possible. "But, uh...yeah. I used to."

"It's a bummer that it's over right?"

"Yeah...hey Chrissy, I know you don't owe me any favors or anything but, uh, can I borrow that?"

"Seriously?" she snorted. "It's just got like personality quizzes and little stories and stuff in it. Nothing special."

Little stories? Bingo.

"Yeah, just curious."

"Sure." They traded her textbooks for the magazine, and then with a shrill ring of the bell overhead, they went off to class.

He sat in his room after school, holding the Port Geneva Teen Fanzine like it was some sacred document not meant for the eyes of a mere mortal peasant like him.

The Dead Sea Scrolls or the Magna Carta or The Declaration of Independence.

It had burned a hole in his backpack the whole day, anticipation getting the better of him, but he knew that he didn't want to read the 'zine in front of his friends.

"So stupid," he scoffed at his own antics. "What was gonna happen? Davey wouldn't want to take the 'which character would make the best chemistry lab partner' quiz."

Maybe just in case there was something just inside the pink paper cover that would change his life forever.

"Like what? It's not like your yearbook picture's gonna be on the first page, idiot," he sighed and tightened his grip on the magazine. "Just gotta rip off that bandaid."

He closed his eyes tightly, took a breath, and flipped open the cover.

When he cracked one eye open to take a peek, he sighed in relief.

His face wasn't staring back up at him. No faces, actually. Just a table of contents that looked a little grainy, like it was copied on a Xerox machine and haphazardly thrown together.

There were different headlines just like there would be in a regular magazine--interviews, behind the scenes, quizzes--and then some unique ones--fan art, fan submissions, show theories. At the bottom of the Table of Contents, there was a little slip that could be cut out, filled, and mailed along with a few dollars to some address in California to get the next copy of the 'zine.

Eddie flipped through the pages curiously, and he truly enjoyed some of the pictures of fans visiting the set and getting pictures with a few cast members. Then an interview with the actress who played Sam's mom, who said what a joy it was to see her young co-stars grow up and come into their own, just like their characters.

Then about half-way through, he reached the Fan Submissions.

A section filled with fanfiction stories.

A section where your name was plastered practically everywhere.

Stories of you getting to go to big cities, ones where you finally returned home. A heartbreaking one where you returned in time for Sam and Pat's wedding and you cried because...

Because...you'd actually been in love with Patrick the whole time?

Eddie made a noise of shock as he read the detailed description of your heartbreak and the way that you recalled how sad you had been the day Pat had come to ask for your help with the proposal.

"Were we even watching the same show?" Eddie scoffed.

There were a few fanfiction submissions that characterized you that way, having this unrequited love for him.

But you never really showed any interest in him, other than friendship. Aside from Mark, you never had any romantic feelings in the show.

How had these so-called fans misread your relationship with Pat so terribly?

Or had Eddie's obsession with you clouded his ability to perceive the signs? Maybe he had been watching a different show than everyone else.

He wallowed in that feeling as he waded through the fan stories slowly--although one story about Bonnie and Bill seemed a little interesting: a Bakery/Flower Shop soulmate romance--until he got to one at the very end that caused the hair on his arms to stand on end.

A story about you...and Alex P. Keaton?

It was the only crossover in the fan submission, and it made Eddie nervous once again that he misunderstood your character.

Alex P. Keaton who read the Wall Street Journal for fun?! And you, and artist who followed your heart and went on an adventure to find yourself?! No, there was no way.

"This is a bunch of bullshit," he muttered. He shut the magazine and ran a hand over his face and into his hair.

Eddie wasn't the one who misunderstood you; it was everyone else who did. And if they had written you so wrong in this magazine, he could only dream of how wrongly they'd written you in all of those other stories you told him about. How miserable you must have felt in all of those different worlds.

Shit, and it was not only you who felt miserable, but him now too.

The wild events of the past few weeks had made him feel like he was going crazy. Yeah, at least he had an explanation for it now, but it didn't negate the fact that he suddenly felt like a stranger in his own life.

And if he felt like that, God only knows how you must've felt.

"Shit," he muttered.

He needed to talk to you.

He quickly got up from the bed and raced out of the house, panting as he jogged across the trailer park to get to your door.

He knocked frantically and impatiently waited for you to answer.

His resolve broke when you finally did.

Clothes--pajamas, actually--mussed, eyes bloodshot and puffy, you looked a lot like you had during the episode where Mark had broken your heart and you'd cried to Sam.

Had you thought that he was ending things with you because he had been avoiding you? Because of this whole situation? He ached to think that he'd hurt you like that.

"Sweetheart," Eddie whispered softly. "I should've called. Shit. I'm sorry I--"

"No," you sniffed and shook your head. You were smart enough to put two and two together and realize what he was apologizing for. "No, it's...Eddie this isn't because of you...I mean yeah, actually it is but..."

"I'm sorry," you both said simultaneously.

"I'm sorry that I just left the other night," Eddie elaborated. "I'm sorry that I avoided the whole thing, but I needed...I needed some sense of normalcy in all of this."

When he paused for breath, you immediately swooped in with your own apology and explanation.

"Well I'm sorry I seemed to have brought all of this bullshit with me to Hawkins," you stared at him pathetically. "I've never...no one has ever seemed aware of it before. I've been dealing with this alone for so long. I know I sort of dumped it on you; not only to explain, but maybe because I found some sort of relief that I wouldn't be going through it all alone anymore. I'd have you with me at least.

"And then, after you left, I really had time to think...how long it's been. My show aired in the 80's. And your show...Stranger Things? I mean...between my last time here...someone put me in a modern movie for a short time...and then I guess your season was a few years later maybe? Twenty-twenty-something?"

Eddie's throat tightened. They were still writing stories about the 80's that far in the future? Sure there were war movies and stuff. Man, people must've been really nostalgic and weird otherwise...

"It must be like...a historical documentary at that point," he laughed dryly.

"You calling me old?" you choked on a laugh, and then looked down at your hands. "I guess I am, though. I've lived through all of these different stories for...lifetimes. One story might take...I dunno, a few months for its Writer to finish, but it spans years. Years that I've lived through, one day at a time, with no break."

"Shit...that sounds..."

"Terrible?"

"Yeah."

"It is. I've been dealing with all of this...alone...for hundreds of years at this point I guess. Through stories that still write me as a teenager, or a middle-aged woman. I've lived and died over and over. I've been an artist, a writer, a dancer, a private investigator...I can't even remember the last time I got to go back to Port Geneva.

"And now that you're stuck in this hell too," your voice dropped to a whisper. "It made me sort of dread that for you too. Dread what kind of life that Writers might put you through, especially if your story in your show had a tragic ending like you said. They could give you everything you ever wanted, or they could just kill you again and again, for fun.

"And it's horrible and beautiful and great sometimes, but at the end of it all, it's tiring. Talking through it with you made me realize how much I wished I could be free, that maybe...maybe this Writer who brought me here would just be happy writing a story about the two of us for the rest of their lives or something. Spare us both anymore torture.

"Because at this point...I don't even know who I am anymore."

Your eyes welled with tears again and your shoulders heaved as you held back a sob.

And Eddie wished that he could tell you that he understood.

That his few days experience being aware that he was in a story could compare to everything that you'd seen.

He could tell you he appreciated your concern, that he felt that sense of dread that you felt for him. Assure you that he'd be fine. That it would be alright as long as you were in it together, just like you said.

But truthfully before hearing you say it right now, he hadn't come to that conclusion that he might be stuck in some endless loop of happiness and misery forever.

Because he did what he always did: he avoided the bad things. He ran away from this problem.

So what could say that could help you? That would make you feel better?

He wracked his brain for a moment, coming up with the right words.

But if there was anything Eddie did better than run away, it was say the right thing at the right time.

And he did.

"I know who you are," Eddie finally found his voice.

He took one of your hands in his and then cupped your cheek so you could look into his eyes.

"You might have forgotten who you are, but I know. I've always known. From the first time I saw you on screen, I felt such a connection to you."

He felt nervous, revealing his feelings to you. Confessing his fanatic behavior, his love for you. They were things he never said aloud to anyone and it made him nervous and vulnerable. Made him feel like he needed to run again. But your eyes glittered with unshed tears, and he knew he had to soldier on.

"Meeting you was like...the happiest day of my life. And you weren't anything that I expected, but everything I knew you were, deep down. And you...you've always seen the real me too, which is something very few people have the patience for. You're exactly who I've been waiting for.

"So maybe," he paused and cleared his throat. "Maybe we only have a few weeks together, or a few months, or maybe it'll be a few years for this Writer to give us a Happily Ever After. Maybe they'll put us through hell. But at least we're in it together. And I'll be here to remind you who you are if you ever forget, and to make sure you're not alone for as long as I can. As long as you promise that you'll do the same for me too."

In hindsight, a kiss was probably not the best end to his little declaration, but it felt right, so he did it anyway.

He leaned in and softly kissed your forehead, then the tip of your nose, then caught the softness of your lips between his.

The sound of your sigh, and the feeling of you melting against him, were the sweetest sensations he'd ever felt. It was a relief.

For a moment, right before he pulled away, Eddie felt a smug sense of superiority over everyone. All the writers who had made you question who you were, all of the love interests that they'd written for you--Alex P. Keaton could get fucked--and he resolved to make this a story for the ages, even if it never wound up on some fanfiction writer's page.

"Thank you Eddie," you whispered against his lips when all was said and done.

"We have a deal?"

"Yeah," you bit your lip and grinned at him. "It's a deal."

You backed away and, hands still locked together Eddie looked around the trailer park and sighed.

"So..." he scratched the back of his neck. "What happens now?"

Next Chapter: Reader Suggestions

There is no taglist for this series, please follow the STFF Updates tag or check the series out on AO3.

[almightyhamslice]

Queen Bouncelia redesign!! I might sound like a broken record here but I feel like the bros rlly missed a lot of potential with her! She presents herself as a kind angel of a character, but she's the Naughty Ones' mother and she was a part of Sir Dadadoo's conspiracy-- she was aware of his plan and was ok with raising her children to be an army. I think that's so interesting but she's just a plain good guy who dies in the game!!! not fair. Maybe someday we'll find out she's not rlly dead n we'll understand what her deal is?

My AU differs from canon in that Bouncelia was actually a fully active mascot in the resort, allowed to interact with the public in two character greeting areas: an extravagant castle and a trampoline park. She was very popular with young girls back in her prime. She was a very charismatic person and had a sense of warmth and comfort to her that many of the other mascots lacked.

She and Sir Dadadoo were always somewhat warm towards each other, they'd meet during evenings, between the end of Bouncelia's shift and the beginning of the resort's curfew, when Dadadoo would be active. They'd spend most of their nights together. He would often muse to her about his plans of escaping the resort and going out into the real world, and she was enthralled. Soon enough, she began scheming with him and working out a proper plan. Sir Dadadoo figured they'd need an army, so he invited Syringeon to help him create his own "subcases" (or rather, mutants). After lots of trial and error, it was decided that Bouncelia and Dadadoo should create the mutants with a combination of both their DNA, and so Bouncelia agreed. Though they were initially both very clinical about the creation of the Naughty Ones, Bouncelia grew attached to them and doted on them. They were a family after all, in a strange kind of way.

Of course, everything went wrong when Bouncelia and Syringeon were caught. Management realized Dadadoo was the mastermind and would be unreasonable and unpersuadable, so they sought to target his cohorts in hopes they'd all gang up on him (under the threat of their lives). So, they did, though Bouncelia begged and pleaded management to spare his life and the lives of their children. Management heeded her request, but in a very twisted way. Syringeon was ordered to sedate Sir Dadadoo and the naughty ones, and seal them inside Queen Bouncelia's pouch using givanium entrapment, stitching and fusing her pouch shut. The hope was that the Naughty Ones and Dadadoo would slowly suffocate and starve, but the Naughty Ones were desperate to survive and began to cannibalize each other like fetal tiger sharks do (please don't look that up if you're squeamish!).

Queen Bouncelia couldn't be allowed to know that this was meant to slowly kill her family members, so was put on a heavy dosage of sedatives while the resort was still active. The function was twofold-- the drugs clouded her mind so she wouldn't realize what danger they were in, and they kept her from jumping around and potentially ripping her pouch open by mistake. Bittergiggle, her most trusted friend, was tasked with delivering her medicine every day; however, they never knew what the true purpose of the drugs were.

Post attempted rebellion, Bouncelia still tries to keep a kind and warm demeanor, but everything is so scrambled now. Thanks to the steady supply of intense sedative drugs, she always feels half asleep and half awake, finding difficulty in telling dreams from reality. Not so much a perpetual hallucination (though she is likely prone to hallucinating as well), moreso thinking on a completely new and almost alien plane. Things she says make sense through word associations in her head, but are nearly indecipherable to outsiders other than Bittergiggle.

I love her so much. I'm going to cry if she's literally just dead in canon n the skeletons in her closet were like, accidental lol. I had lots of fun designing her especially her mask n cape! Also I really don't think the scepter is magic I'm sorry that's just jumping the shark for me lol.

[luna-writes-stuff]

Time In A Bottle, Astarion

Song link

Fanfic, gn! reader

Hurt/comfort, fluff

Word count: 2584

Tw: pls it’s so difficult to write for BG3, idk how y’all do this. Looming anxiety, act II. Mentions of alcohol/local drunks (you’re a tavern keeper). No race, gender, or class specified. One (1) innuendo, but it’s hidden.

Summary: Travelling through the Shadowlands seemed to bring more anxiety than you would have initially anticipated. In the Last Light Inn you’re all caught up in your head when Astarion finds you. Trying his best to soothe you, you discuss whatever the future holds once you’re finally free.

Requested by @bogginswritings

Buy me a coffee/force me to write more

“If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I'd like to do Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away Just to spend them with you.”

He never believed in fate. Hell, if fate had been real, it had been terribly cruel to him. And fate had always been a positive daydream. Never of the material only seen in your nightmares. Thus - fate was a lie. It was purely a coincidence that you happened to be everywhere he was.

Yes, just a coincidence that you happened to meet him whilst a gang of thieves tried to sneak up on him. You hadn’t even known the elf, but part of you had urged you to step in and pretend to know him. You couldn’t quite tell how or why, and though he seemed perfectly capable of handling himself, you had stepped in, dragging him by his arm into clear sight - away from the shady alley he had found himself in. Besides a short introduction and a brief nod of gratitude, you didn’t exchange many words.

But then you met him later in a bar. By rights you shouldn’t have even remembered his face, but somehow you did. And he did as well. Finding him somewhat owing you some form of gratitude he had treated you to a drink, and you started a short conversation.

Then, again, you wouldn’t see him for weeks, until stumbling back into him upon market squares, theatres, libraries, and harbours. The more you saw him, the more you found yourself longing to see him again. You had never hoped to see him on an alien ship, though.

It was a brief glimpse, a wandering eye over a room you weren’t meant to see, but your eyes caught his figure in a pod for a second. Then, everything had gone dark.

Having come across him after your escape, it seemed logical to stick with him - he had been the person you knew the best. But what initially started out as sheer survival instincts and panic had begun to grow into something similar to fondness. A feeling he couldn’t deny either. Be that as it may, you both remained silent about it. There were more pressing matters in your head, both literally and figuratively.

“If I could make days last forever. If words could make wishes come true. I'd save every day like a treasure, and then Again, I would spend them with you.”

Bravery had been your growing companion the close you got to Moonrise Towers and salvation. But it had begun to waver the second you had stepped foot into the Shadowlands. Words could not express your gratitude once you found the Last Light Inn, but the pressing urgency of complete darkness never once faltered from your mind. Your eyes couldn’t seem to tear from it either, as your frame sat on a lone balcony, staring into the abyss outside the dome, silent stares giving you glares back, washing shivers up your spine. You had already been on edge, so when Astarion decided to sit down next to you without as much as alerting you of his presence, you couldn’t help the panicked skip in the beat of your heart.

“Great mother of-“ You shrieked, clutching your chest as you forced yourself to halt your words. “Astarion, don’t do that.” “Oh, but I do love to scare you,” He replied through a laugh, letting his legs fall between the bars, dangling over the tiny river below. You didn’t reply to him. It wasn’t the first time he scared you, but unlike then, you couldn’t find yourself appreciating the gesture anymore.

“You’re no fun,” He sighed when you failed to respond. “Too caught up in this looming death thing?” “Well, yes,” You affirmed. “We don’t have any sense of direction here and the shadows have eyes - quite literally. So, yes. I am ‘too caught up in this looming death thing’.” Taken aback by your quick fire of words, he leaned back a little. “We have our fairy friend.” He tried to console. “Ah, yes,” You agreed. “That’ll teach them.”

A scoff of entertainment came from him as he gently observed you. The trail his eyes made over your body sent a slight shiver down your spine, but you pushed it away. “I sense a faint scent of stress on you.” He spoke. “Truly?” You asked, raising your eyebrows in mock-surprise. “Then, I shall indulge you: there is panic, fear, and loneliness also.” “That sounds awful.” Astarion commented, causing you to shrug, your eyes falling back into the darkness in front of you. He seemed so calm - almost at peace: “How are you so okay with all of this?”

There was a beat of silence before he spoke. “Well, someone has to keep the spirits up in this group.” You nodded once, a faint smile on your face. “Tremendous job you’re doing at that. I am quite sure Gale will break down once the first person asks him how he's doing.” “He is going to blow himself up.” Astarion mumbled, tilting his shoulder from side to side in understanding. You cast him a look over your shoulder. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do once you find them.”

He was quiet for a while, watching your eyes stare at nothing, the absence of light almost reflecting on your face. “If it helps,” He began. “I don’t like it either.” Furrowing your eyebrows together, you looked back at him. “Gale blowing up?” “What? No.” He said quickly, before shaking his head. “I mean - I don’t like it, no, but that is not what I meant.”

You sighed. As much as some tried to deny it, you had grown very fond of your travelling group, and you were almost certain the feeling was mutual. You hated to think of what would happen if the tadpoles were to transform you - or what would happen if you managed to actually get them out of your heads. You might never see Astarion again. He’d get his revenge and vanish, free to do his own bidding. You couldn’t blame him for it, but the thought hurt all the same.

“I hate it here too,” The elf admitted. “It has this sense of emptiness. Feeds into loneliness.” You didn’t dare to ask him more of it. You knew his struggles and buttons, but you weren’t going to push them now. Not when there was too much going on in your head as it was. Thus, you tried to change the topic: “If we manage to somehow survive everything, what is to become of you?”

The elf gave you a curious look. His eyes - however - hardened slightly, before they fell to the bannisters in front of him. “I think you know.” “I mean,” You tried. “After you have had your peace. What will you do?” That seemed to make him think for a while. You were grateful for the harpers talking in the yard - you could not have dealt with absolute silence now. “Whatever I want.” Astarion finally revealed, almost struggling with the words. “To not have to obey one's commands or wishes would be something…” His voice trailed off, trying to find the right words. “New,” He settled on. “I wouldn’t know what I’d do now. That is all for later.”

Then, his eyes met yours, an unknown glint within them, the hint of a smirk on his face - a drastic change to his expression seconds earlier. “Why?” At his look and undertone, your face heated up slightly, your eyes involuntarily dwindling down to your hands, which had grasped each other in light anxiety. “Just a question.” You justified.

“I've looked around enough to know That you're the one I want to go through time with.”

You could hear his chuckle, his eyes never leaving your form. “I see.” He answered, “What is to become of you when we survive?” Coughing up the uncomfortable feeling in the back of your throat, you shrugged nonchalantly. “Back to Baldur’s Gate.” You answered truthfully. “I had a life there - a job. Friends and family who might still live.” A sudden jolt of daring shot through you as you forced your head to rise, a cheeky grin now covering your face. “Why?” He could laugh at that, following your words as he shrugged. “Just a question.”

A second, comfortable silence followed. You ignored the irregular beating of your heart of Astarion’s eyes almost drilling holes into the side of your skull. Had it always been so abnormally hot?

Shifting under his gaze, you turned slightly, now giving him your full attention. “Won’t it get boring?” You dared to ask, taking him by surprise. “I’m sorry?” He returned, unsure of what you were asking or what you were insinuating. A frantic knock against his chest from the inside was forced down as you continued to speak: “You’ll live forever,” “Well, not exactly forever,” He interrupted. “I’m not invincible.” “You have no plan for the future, so you intend to wander alone forever?”

That question took him aback. Sure, he had fantasised about what his life would be like once he was finally free, but there never had been a solid plan or bucket list. Just a handful of things he longed to do - such as swim or walk under sunlight without growing uncomfortable, but these weren’t life plans. These were simple goals.

“Well, there’s no one I can really share it with, is there?” He questioned, trying to bruh the matter off, as if he hadn’t wondered about it himself. “Of course, there are brief entertainments, but no… settlements.” The hint in his voice caused your shoulders to lower slightly, a small amount of defeat watching over your back staring, staring at you menacingly. You pretended it didn’t bother you, though. Instead, you smiled for him, another shrug passing you as you leaned your head to the side.

“I suppose.”

“If I had a box just for wishes And dreams that had never come true. The box would be empty Except for the memory of how they were answered by you.”

“And you, then?” He returned, matching the gesture on your face. “Cursed to spend your life being wed off to some low life farmer?” You chuckled at him, shaking your head in dismissal as you recounted your working days in a local tavern, serving visitors and locals ale whilst they would rant and talk about everything. It was something you never thought you’d find yourself missing. But those now appeared to be the simpler days, and the longer your travel became, the more you find yourself urging to go back to those days, having taken nothing for granted.

“More like cursed to spend my life aiding drunks.” You commented, a fond smile on your face as you silently recounted all those times you had to throw out old drunks. Bothers then, that seemed to be a daydream now. “That sounds dull.” Astarion dismissed, not at all pleased with the image of you having to throw out drunks who might have been twice your size.

“No,” You returned sarcastically. “Wandering the planes of this world on your own for all eternity sounds lovely.” “Again, not for all eternity.” The elf corrected, but you ignored it, ranting off your bothers with eternity: “Everyone you know will be dead by the time your end comes, so it might as well be eternity.” You swallowed harshly as you processed your words, casting him a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry,” You apologised. “That sounded harsh.” But instead of a frown, that ever-apparent smirk was still on his face: “Don’t fret, darling. I’ll visit your tavern until the day you die.” “Oh, I really hope I won’t serve my entire life there.”

Both of you laughed at that, your arms falling against the bannisters as you leaned against it, resting your head on the side, directed Astarion’s way. He simply looked at you, almost seeming hesitant - carefully choosing out his next words.

“You don’t have to.” He settled on. You didn’t quite catch his underlying meaning. “Maybe you don’t, but most of us have to participate in society.” “No interest in wandering the planes of this world?” That caught you off-guard. Sure, he has flirted with you before, but never with the intention of starting something serious. You weren’t sure if you were imagining this. Perhaps you were. Best to laugh it off: “With you?” You feigned humour. “Where’d I get my happiness from?” “Oh, you’re hilarious.” The elf mocked, but his voice turned serious again. “You wouldn’t want to travel the world?” “Of course I would,” You confessed quickly. “But with what money?”

“But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do once you find them.”

Silence once more. Astarion hadn’t really worried about money before, even when he was still a normal elf. Wealth had become relatively easy for him, whether he wanted it or not.

“You know, once I’m done with everything, I’ll have enough money to accompany me for decades. Money wouldn’t be an issue.” Nope, you weren’t imagining things. If you were, this had been a terribly cruel joke. He would have never spoken like this if he had no intention of keeping his promises. And though you would have loved to join him, the glum setting of your current journey had drowned your spirits slightly.

“Well, there is the precious issue concerning time. We don’t have the same time.” He could see the conflict and pain in your eyes, but - as always - he seemed to have already prepared his next line: “I have a very easy answer to that.” “Oh, that’s kinky.” You tried to brush off, pros and cons silently ticking off in your head. “Don’t tempt me, darling.” He returned in a low voice. You sighed at that, your gaze falling back upon the distance, only now from the side. “Astarion,” You muttered. “I’d love to. But I have a family out there. You’re important to me, but I can’t just disappear from them forever.”

He understood. Well, maybe not entirely, but he knew it would be a big matter for you. It would have been for everyone. Everyone but him. He knew how important your life was, and as his had been taken too early, he could only imagine what it would be like to that to another. “So, we’ll take care of your stupid drunks for a couple years. Then, we can leave.” He convinced, drawing a chuckle out of you. “That’s romantic.”

Taking you by surprise, his hand fell upon yours, which had been clutching the bannister. “I just want to spend it with you.” He spoke sincerely. No laugh, no smile, no crinkle by his eyes. There was nothing but truth and resilience in his words. You grew weak at the simple touch, but it was his face which drew you over the line: “If we live, I’ll help you get your revenge. We’ll see what happens afterwards.”

He couldn’t suppress the smile on his face, his fingers squeezing your hands once, before letting go, a dramatic groan coursing through him. “Ugh, an eternity with you?” “You brought it up.” You countered. Again, his hand found yours, this time intertwining his fingers with yours.

“Darling, I can’t wait.”

“I've looked around enough to know That you're the one I want to go through time with.”