#survive long enough for the world to end and die there instead

[etruatcaelum]

Heaving memories break against older certainties battered by fierce gales of emotion: fear, anguish, rage, the pain of ancient hurt screaming across the surface with a violent celerity. But that old lost music stirs in the deep under the skin of the sea, strange-familiar song from beyond remembering.

Evernight is safe, now. They know it and the knowing is a half-forgotten secret scratched into the marrow of the earth, faded long since and found again. In the quiet place beneath the world, relief stanches the wound. Sometimes, when the pain is very great, it can be answered only through cautery; as wildfire reinvigorates the forest. But it is better not to forget.

Peace will come after the storming is ended and the wound made whole again. The parts of Evernight that are not grimm cannot know this: they are like froth on the wave, like the wave that shatters on the rocks, knowing nothing of the deep current.

Light illuminates; light blinds.

Sorrow ripples through the horde when the death-light floods their nest. The fire-blind parts hurt in their ignorance, and Evernight cannot teach them without the speaking parts of itself. But– but! Evernight knows something of the proper care and keeping of the fire-blind parts of itself.

These are fragile little creatures. Should they want for food, they slowly wither and die. If they want for water, they wither quickly and die. For want of enough time lying still, their minds wither as they die. The smallest imbalance in bodily chemistry sickens them, and sometimes they die; and they are warlike, innately warlike, for any unknown organism passing through the membraneous outer bounds of their territory meets an onslaught of self-destructive violence. This, too, sickens them, and of course sometimes they die.

Pitiable children of the God Unliving!

So it is when the fire-blind wounded-and-wounding part falls weeping before them, the guarding part prowls forward to nose at quaking shoulders: the better to know. Evernight understands a little of the patterns and their meaning, enough to know that this one asks for help.

What ails, the guardian determines, is the withering and imbalance wrought by want of food. It nibbles at the hair, which cannot feel pain, to no avail; then stands without motion for their contemplation. Many small-souled creatures dwelling in their territory are good for the fire-blind parts to eat, with much effort first to prepare it for feeble jaws and brittle teeth. No, Evernight will deliver this one into the care of a different fire-blind part instead. Sometimes it is best for like to care for like.

It is good, then, that the guardian is very large. Smaller parts could carry this one, but not so easily without hurting. The guardian opens its jaws and scoops the fire-blind part up in its mouth, and it is so gentle and careful that not one of its fangs pierce the skin even as the limbs dangle and flail about. In this way, Evernight bears this one to the nest-chamber where the fire-blind guarding part is making the food preparations.

———

"–what."

The honed steel in Cinder's voice is so like the tone Salem takes whenever she feels unsettled that Summer almost manages to smile, even through her dread. Red mist swirls within the seer's head as the two young women on the other side trade darting glances; Winter ventures, "I didn't know the summer maiden was one of… our… assets."

"She's not," Summer says.

Uncomfortable silence emanates from the seer while she gives the reheating soup a vigorous stir. From the sound of it, Cinder is scratching the table with her claws—back and forth, rhythmic—but she holds her tongue.

Probably, if Summer had to guess, fuming that Watts had survived just to go and do this.

"I see," Winter mutters, glancing at Cinder again; then, with very careful neutrality, "Do you think she'll strike at Vacuo if– when she fails to open the vault?"

"She isn't like—"

"Salem," Cinder cuts in, more silk than sharpened steel now, "isn't in Vacuo."

Winter's mouth pinches again, just as it did when she learnt of the connection between Cinder and Salem—worried, Summer thinks—but she keeps it to herself; Cinder whirls away from the desk to pace furiously.

"Where–" Summer begins, but a gritty rumble interrupts her. She turns.

She blinks.

It's so unusual for the larger grimm in Salem's horde to roam this part of the house that Summer often forgets that the monstrous doors and archways of Evernight are not comically oversized after all. Fourteen years, and the sight of an ursa the size of an airbus lumbering into the kitchen with Tyrian limp as a ragdoll its mouth still startles her. Grimm look so much bigger indoors.

Rumbling again, the ursa lays Tyrian on the table and then retreats the way it came. Summer blinks again. No sign of blood, and even if Tyrian had taken it into his head to provoke the horde into mauling him, or whatever, they're not cats. The grimm would've just eaten him.

Maybe he'd fainted.

"…Up and at 'em," Summer says, deadpan. "Heating up soup. You want a bowl?"

Great. Now he has two insane Salem fanatics trying to threaten everybody else with eye displays.

Yes, yes, he thinks, tired, but for once knows better than to say, the main characters of the universe are actually the immortal divorcees who are gambling with all of our lives in the hopes that the gods will either pity us or be destroyed. Trust me, I am under no illusions about that.

Really, about the only thing that keeps Watts from flinching away from the sudden outpouring of angry white light is that he and Tyrian would probably have been killed on impact if Summer was trying to hurt them. Still, his expectations that Tyrian will cower are unmet: if anything, he's pretty damn sure Tyrian's eyes have taken on an even brighter purple glow, in contrast to Summer's silver-eyed fury.

"I'm not," Watts tries, "going to try and convince you of all people about anything to do with my thoughts on Salem. But-"

"Funny to hear you, Summer, speak of sympathy," Tyrian is half-snarling, though, anxiety replaced with a fresh round of anger that Arthur is sure will get somebody killed if he doesn't find Tyrian an acceptable outlet. "As if I don't feel worse than you do about-"

Watts grabs Tyrian hard on the arm to stop him from following Summer, not hard enough to really hurt him but surely hard enough that Tyrian will read a warning in the gesture as Watts starts to tug him down the hall.

"Stop it, before you're the next one to say something you regret. Let her alone. She's your friend and she's right. This has gone on long enough. It won't be any good for anyone if we all tear each other apart-"

"Ah! But it wasn't enough when you drove Salem to suicide?" Tyrian yells, and Watts is starting to think that grabbing a serial killer when every instinct in Tyrian's body was screaming about wanting to live up to that title wasn't his smartest move.

"What do you want me to say, Tyrian?" (and he does his best to keep his eyes on Tyrian's and not on the arch of the tail) "I can't- apologize to Salem or make amends or do anything at all to help her if I don't know where she is. She's immortal. I never thought- I never meant-"

"You-" Tyrian's eyes are practically leaking venom of their own, their glow really is rivaling Summer's, and Watts is convinced that Tyrian is going to try and tear him apart with his bare hands. "You- this is- your fault- I'm so- I know you're scared and in pain and I want to help you- but- I'm- I'm angry- with you-"

"You have every right to be. And whatever Summer makes," Watts says, softly, in what he half-expects to be his last words, "don't eat too much of it, or you'll get sicker. Alright?"

Tyrian freezes at the sudden display of care, then shoves away hard and flies off down the hall. Watts doesn't even have a chance to call out in warning- perhaps it's fortunate, then, that Tyrian goes past Summer and disappears down some side corridor.

"...I'll be in my lab," Watts whispers, although he doubts anyone can hear, and teleports away.

(He thinks, briefly, that he should make use of the airship after all - pack his bags in it and fly away, back to Anima.

And then he counts to ten, and lies down.

He doubts he'll sleep, not knowing where Tyrian is or what he's doing, but it's worth a try, especially when to follow after his partner right now might just upset Tyrian more.

I will tell him goodbye, I will build him that server, but - it will be in all of their best interests that I don't ask him to come with me.)

--

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments.

Tyrian feels like he could tear his own throat out. Or go to the moor and find some hapless animal to hunt and drink the blood of. Or steal the airship and go to Vacuo himself.

Summer, who had willingly abandoned her own children and seemed to treat their apparent deaths as nothing. Watts, who had faked his death due to his own ego and had driven their master to hers. At least Tyrian was open about being a monster-

He rounds another corner and there she is.

Gwendolyn.

A particularly large Ursa that Tyrian had taken a liking to and named. She had always seemed tolerant or even appreciative of his presence - letting him lounge on her back, standing still so he could help her shed her atrum, even approaching when he entered rooms.

As purple as Tyrian's eyes are, his tail stays still.

"Salem," he chokes. "She can- hear me- through you, sometimes. Can't she? Please- tell her- I'm-"

His eyes turn yellow. He hits the floor, bowing before the creature. He knows his misery must be tantalizing, and he doesn't care.

"I'm sorry, my lady. I've- I thought I had- been of use to you and helped you- and I- I wanted to- enact your new plan with you and make you happy and- I've failed. I know I- I should have-"

Should have what? Used his stinger without envenomating it, the day he was attacked by a stalker in Mistral so long ago? Turned Arthur down when Arthur had confessed to him? Swallowed down the grief when Arthur had seemingly died? Dredged up River and been kind to Cinder, so no one had to die at all? Just let Salem and Summer insist that he and Arthur both had done more and worse to Cinder than they actually had? Been passively accepting of all his failures, of all his punishments and tortures, of all the things no one else seemed to get? Just let them assume his desire to see the girl punished was out of jealousy when it was confusion about the favoritism shown in allowing her to get away with murder, and pain over Arthur and anger and why couldn't he ever be devoted properly why why why- Should he have tried to stop at least one of Summer's daughters from falling? Made himself eat every time he didn't feel the hunger? Never left the farm in the first place?

What's the point in wondering. Really, truly, what is the point.

"Please- let the horde do whatever it must to me to make you feel better. I don't- I don't want to hurt you, or Artie, or Summer. And I'm afraid I will, afraid I have, I- Please don't- go away. Come home. I do care about you, I'm sorry- I'm so sorry."

This is groveling. Don't grovel. Repulsive-

"I'm sorry."

[arolesbianism]

If I was more of a fanfic writer I would totally write like 50 oni timeloop ai fics and Id have to fight myself so hard to not make Olivia a significant part of all of them. Just like yeah Quinn timeloop au. They and Olivia regular at the same bar actually. Don't worry abt it.

[falling-endlessly]

The Finer Things in Death

Alastor x Soulmate!Female!Reader

Summary: An AU where your soulmate's first words to you are tattooed on your body in their handwriting.

Oh dear, where's your smile?

You knew those words by heart. Could recite them backwards, in your sleep even. Those damning words have been inscribed on the inside of your ankle for as long as you could remember, the elegant cursive strokes poking out of your shoe line.

In theory, somewhere, someone else was supposed to be sporting your own neat, boxy handwriting. You'd say you lucked out with yours. Some soul marks were less than pleasant, and others were downright embarrassing (imagine having the words move, asshole written on your stomach for the rest of your life. No thank you).

At least your soulmate was trying to cheer you up, right?

Yeah, but there was just one teeny, tiny problem.

Your soulmate was dead. Long dead actually.

Were they stillborn? Did their toddler self die in a house fire or something? Night after night you laid awake in your bed, pondering what the hell could have possibly happened to have altered the entire course of fate.

All you really knew was that your soul mark was a light gray (indicating a severed bond) instead of the usual inky black, and it had been since the day you were born. Everyone was in shock to see the faint words on your little ankle. After all, how could a soul mark exist if the other person wasn't even alive to speak those words into existence?

Simply put, you were a conundrum, and it had been some time since you had dedicated effort into figuring out why? You'd accepted it. Your soulmate was dead. Life went on.

Besides, you'd spent enough time grieving over someone you'd never met before.

Your lifestyle was not extravagant by any means, but it was comfortable. You had a steady income, lived on your own in an apartment in the city, and survived off of more than ramen bowls. Every day you would come home and read in your little fluffy alcove that you'd built yourself by your window, or pop open a bag of chips (and the occasional bottle of wine, if you were feeling fancy) while you watched the latest crime show releases from your couch.

Yes, so comfortable was your little routine, that you didn't notice the robbery happening in the convenience store you were browsing in, or the stray bullet coming for your head until it was too late. Your skull exploded in a world of pain, eyes rolling back as your body crumpled to the ground.

Dying was an interesting experience, to say the least. Your soul floated from your body, the final notes of music that blasted from your earphones fading into nothingness like the sound of a car driving away.

There was a brief moment where you were struck numb, hovering in the air as you stared down at your glassy eyed corpse, blood pooling alarmingly from the circular shaped hole in your head. You heard screams of the other customers behind you, but they were kind of muffled, like you were underwater.

It didn't last long though, because before you knew what was happening, you felt an almighty tug downwards,  like an anchor had just chained itself to your stomach.

And that was how you ended up in hell. Fun. What were you here for? You had no idea. Maybe God got mad that your teenage self stole a few packs of gummy bears in high school. But a life of eternal damnation and suffering seemed a little harsh, didn't it?

Before you could contemplate the semantics of it though, something...strange happened. Your ankle, right where you'd tried countless times to forget your soul mark existed, was burning like a fucking brand.

You hissed sharply in pain, frantically pulling down your sock to assess the damage. Was the eternal punishment starting already or something? Shit, you had terrible pain tolerance.

But what you saw made you gasp. In fact, you could hardly believe your eyes.

Because in the place of your faded grey soul mark, the letters had been reinvigorated, darkened with a swift hand and—glowing they were glowing holy shit.

"Hah," you huffed in disbelief, shaking your head slowly. "So that was it, huh? I was destined to meet my shitty soulmate in hell this whole fucking time?" You punctuated the last words with a few angry kicks to an unassuming patch of weeds. What a cosmic joke at your existence.

But, like you always did in shitty situations, you gathered all of your raging emotions, stuffed them tightly in a box at the back of your mind, and cooled your head. Freaking out in this place would do you no good.

Turned out hell was pretty much like the world you'd left, except for the fact that you could kill someone on the street and nobody would bat an eye. Like all of the depraved aspects of humanity were on full display now in a somehow still functioning society.

You managed to snag a job at an old record store, the owner giving you one look before grunting and gesturing to the register—but not before lifting his jacket to show you the long assault riffle strapped across his chest. Yeesh, you got the message.

It wasn't a bad job by any means, especially considering where you were. Sure a little boring and monotonous, but you'd restock thousands of old albums if it meant staying away from the overlords.

Oh, yeah, another thing. Overlords were like the big shots around hell. Messing with them usually meant a death sentence, or worse, a contract.

And if there was anything at all that you picked up from all those nights of watching television, it was that you do not make deals with the devil. Really, elementary level shit. And you'd never actually seen Lucifer, mind you, but these demons were probably a close second, right?

Yeah, so really, you were just living a shittier variant of your life on earth it seemed. Repetitive, safe and comforting. You were even starting to like the scent of musty cardboard, as weird as that was.

And once again, all thoughts of your soulmate slipped your mind.

Until one day, when everything went to shit.

****

It started like this: with the sad sight of your empty fridge.

You groaned, dragging a tired hand down your face. Seriously? You thought you'd restocked already, damn it. 

Your stomach growled achingly, and you sighed, wondering if you'd actually die again if you starved yourself. Begrudgingly, you decided that you didn't really want to chance it, throwing on the first set of clothes that you saw and slipping out of your dingy apartment to make a quick grocery run.

You generally hated leaving your apartment, and didn't do so except to retrieve bare necessities or walk across the block to go to work.

Why? Well, see exhibit A to your left: some poor, random demon screeching and running around on fire. See exhibit B to your right: a turf war between two rival gangs. And finally how could you forget, cannibal colony, slurping up intestines like bloody, chunky spaghetti. Disgusting.

The worst thing about hell wasn't the fact that you were in hell, it was the fact that the worst of the worst people were all cramped together like some fucked up refugee camp, and some people were significantly worse than others. Which sucked, for the poor unfortunate souls just trying to get by. Like you.

You sighed, ducking under a stray stream of bullets (you weren't falling for that shit twice) and side stepping pools of blood and guts. Just a regular Monday morning in hell. God damn it.

It seemed luck wasn't on your side though, because an ugly, dog-headed demon blocked your path, sneering down at you smugly. "Hey bitch, it's your lucky day. The big boss is hiring, and you fit the profile."

You clenched your grocery bags in a white-knuckled grip. Nobody would give a flying fuck if you were dragged off of the street in broad daylight. "Not interested."

"Oh it wasn't a suggestion," he chuckled darkly. You tensed as you were surrounded by at least four other demons. Shit, you knew you should have slept in.

"You like apples?" You nodded sharply at the demon in charge.

His face twisted in annoyance. "Why the fuck do y—"

You reached into your bag, before hurling a granny smith straight at his forehead. He yelped as it made contact, stumbling back as he shook his head in confusion. While everyone was still in shock from your weapon of choice, you shoved your way out of the circle, gunning it straight down the street because your second life did depend on it.

"Get her!" You heard a yell of absolute rage, making you shiver. Fuck, that did not sound promising. That apple must have really pissed him off.

Putting your limited aerobics to use, you ducked, dodged and lunged through the crowd like a pro. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest, air burning your lungs as you pumped your legs faster. But of course, your grocery bag ripped open, sending all of your food tumbling and you by extension, tripping and face planting in the dirt rather pathetically.

A meaty hand gripped a handful of your hair, yanking it up harshly. You cried out as he pulled, hands uselessly trying to smack his away, but his hold only tightened. A liquor-filled breath and cheap cologne invaded your senses, making you cough.

"Uppity bitch," he growled, giving your scalp a painful yank for good measure. "You actually thought you could get away? Maybe I should teach you a lesson, huh? Sample the goods."

You froze, every nerve in your body going cold. So far in your stay in hell, you'd managed to avoid the more depraved souls here. You kept your head down, didn't draw attention to yourself, and were mostly left alone. Looked like today, your luck had finally run out.

"Get the hell off of me!" You spat, twisting around vehemently, only for your head to snap to the side as you were harshly backhanded.

"Stop your fucking whining and stay still!" He snapped, narrowing his eyes.

You bared your teeth, snapping at him aggressively.

A round of mocking chuckles went around the group of your kidnappers, the one holding your hair giving you a wicked grin. "Shit, that was cute. Really—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because his head exploded. Literally exploded, blood and brain matter dripping from your face. His hand went slack, dropping you on your wobbling knees.

Everyone was silent for a second, staring at the bloody mess where the demon was standing two seconds prior.

And that was when you heard it. Static. Loud, crackling and ominous.

Your mouth went dry. Shit. Shitty shit shit. You knew what that meant. How could you not? The asshole broadcasted his killings all over hell like a fucking psychopath. And now, it was your turn to become hell's gory entertainment. Fan-fucking-tastic.

You stood frozen, breath stuck in your throat as dark, menacing tendrils slowly curled along the walls. A large, grinning shadow rounded the corner, before the culprit himself stalked into view, razor sharp teeth on display as he tilted his head. "Oh," his grin widened. "Am I interrupting?"

"N-No man," one of the braver demons stuttered, taking a step back. "You can have her—"

Splat.

You turned slowly to face the bloody wall, eyes wide in disbelief.

"How distasteful," the radio demon shook his head. "As if I'd participate in your brainless thuggery. No, no. Unlike you gentlemen, I have class. Truly," his eyes lit up like glowing radio dials, a dark shadowy mass rising behind him as his antlers branched out like a gnarled, rotten tree. "Did your mother never teach you any manners?"

Faster than you could blink, the demons around you were reduced to blood, cartilage and splintered bone. The overwhelming irony scent made you want to gag, but you didn't dare move a muscle, eyes fixated on the terrifying sight before you.

When the radio demon noticed your staring, his smile sharpened, antlers shrinking as he leisurely approached you. Oh no. Nononono.

You struggled to keep from hyperventilating, your body going into shock as he leaned into your personal space. Two bloody fingers pushed into your cheeks, forcing your mouth into a morbid, artificial smile. "Oh dear," he tutted in amusement. "Where's your smile?"

You jerked back violently, eyes wide as icy cold realization washed over you. Dread squeezed your lungs as you stared at the grinning, bloody figure of your soulmate in horror.

The radio demon. Psychopath and mass murderer.

Your soulmate.

What the FUCK.

"T-This," your voice shook. "This is not happening."

There was a sudden screech of radio static, before his own eyes widened. Shit. "What," he said sharply. "Did you just say?"

"A-Ah," you trembled, leaning back. Every single nerve in your body was alight, screaming at you to get the ever-loving fuck away from him.  In what was probably the stupidest and most desperate plan of your life, you pointed over his shoulder fearfully. "Look! Another one!"

As soon as he turned his head, you bolted down the street.

****

You slammed your front door closed behind you, double—triple checking your lock before sliding down to the floor in a panting mess.

Immediately you grew paranoid. What the fuck were you thinking? A lock wouldn't keep the radio demon out. You needed fifty more locks and ten more doors. You needed to barricade yourself inside for the next month. You needed—

"Hello there!" An exuberant voice chirped.

You screamed, throwing the first thing you could grab in his direction. He caught the house slipper, inspecting it in amusement, before tossing it over his shoulder.

"My, did I scare you sweetheart? Apologies," he grinned smugly, relaxing in your recliner with a mug of coffee. Your favorite mug.  

You blinked. What the fuck?

"What are you doing in my house?" You squeaked, fingers digging into your welcome mat.

"Oh dear, allow me to introduce myself," he set the mug down on your coffee table, leisurely rising from the couch and offering a hand. "I'm Alastor! A pleasure to be meeting you sweetheart, quite a pleasure."

You didn't take his hand, instead choosing to gape at him like a dead fish.

He retracted his hand, tilting his head with a shit-eating grin. Twirling his cane, he continued like there wasn't just an awkward and terrifying pause. "I hope you don't mind that I followed you! You see, I believe our conversation was cut a bit...short." His eyes glowed as unidentifiable symbols floated in the air around him.

As quickly as they appeared however, they disappeared like they were never there. Jesus Christ, this man was giving you emotional whiplash. "Anywho!" He perked up again, ever the charming grin on his face. "Enough about me! I've yet to catch your name, darling."

Fuck. You really didn't want to give him your name.

But before you could open your mouth, he leaned closer to you, grin widening ominously. "I hope you're not thinking of lying, my dear. I must say, I'm not very fond of that quality."

"Y-Y/n!" You said quickly, raising your hands to shield your face.

There was a slight pause, before a gentle touch swiped at your cheek, retracting after a moment. You peeked your eye open, only to become vaguely ill at the sight.

"You had a little something on your face," he chuckled in amusement, holding out a clump of brain matter. With a swift flick, it was magicked away.

"What do you want?" You whimpered, overwhelmed with the entire situation.

"Oh dear, is it really that strange for me to want to get to know my soulmate?" He tilted his head, leaning towards you uncomfortably close.

"Y-Yes, actually," you stuttered, trying to look anywhere but his prominent red eyes. "I thought you'd do something more along the lines of...killing and eating me." You shrunk back as his grin widened. "Please don't eat me."

"How morbid, I would never!" He waved it away, like the idea was preposterous. "My word! What awful rumors you've been hearing about me!"

"You frequent cannibal colony and I just saw you tear apart six demons like they were freshly baked bread," you stared at him incredulously. "What hasn't been spot on?"

He paused, before giving you a humoring chuckle. "Well it seems your impression of me needs correcting!" Before you knew what was happening, nimble fingers encircled your wrist, pulling it forward gently. He pressed warm lips to the back of your hand, before giving you a charming grin. "Enchanté, ma chère."

You blinked, breath stuck in your throat. "What—What does that mean?"

"Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about it!" He gently set your hand down, before pinching your cheek condescendingly. "Well my dear, I'm afraid I have other responsibilities I must attend to!"

He stood up with a flourish, leaning on his microphone cane as he smirked at you. "Not to worry!" He snapped his fingers, and a slim, feminine shadow emerged from the ground. "Missy here will watch over you in my stead."

"What? No, I—"

"I'll be back before you know it!" He offered a chilling smile, before melting into a puddle of shadows.

You gaped at the spot where he once stood, trying to process what the actual fuck just happened. Your gaze slid over to the feminine looking shadow, still standing in the corner of your living room. She grinned at your attention, teeth sharpened.

You closed your eyes, head thumping back against your door in exhaustion. 

"I'm so fucked."

****

Enchanté, ma chère : Charmed, my dear

[gojonanami]

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄 - 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎

summary: it's gojo's birthday, and he can't help but reflect on what birthdays have meant to him over the years, especially the year you decide you don't really want to do anything for his birthday (but it turns out you do).

contents: angst then fluff, i promise there's a happy ending, you just have to earn it, shibuya does not happen in this timeline, instead we celebrate gojo, slightly angsty, reflections on events of jjk 0, crack, all of gojo's students (aside yuta and hakari and rirara make an appearance), mentions of sex/pregnancy, innuendo

word count: 2,821

December 7, 1989. 

A day that had changed the balance of the jujutsu world irrevocably — the day Satoru Gojo had burst onto the scene. 

But to Satoru, the anniversary of that day had meant nothing to him for most of his life. It was another day in the calendar — the caretakers from the Gojo clan cared not for his birthday, as they did his development as the head and face of the Gojo clan. He had received the best of everything — the best foods, the best training, the best room in the compound. 

At least, the strongest sorcerer had. 

Satoru Gojo had barely received anything more than reverent bows, averted gazes, and hushed whispers — and he saw them all, with the six eyes he never had asked for. And Satoru Gojo had grown up without affection or anything of the sort — to the point where he had thought he was simply beyond that — love, compassion, or friendship — no, the only thing he had was duty. 

And birthdays only served as a marker that he had lived another year. 

Until they meant something more — when he had met Suguru, Shoko, and you. And then it had meant something for a little while. It meant a celebration with his friends — with a cake that you and Suguru had hastily made after a mission, while Shoko hung decorations (with the help of one of Suguru’s curses reaching the high points). It had meant forcing Nanami to wear a party hat against his will (Shoko and Haibara’s doing), and Satoru inevitably smearing cake on your face to start an all out food fight (which only ended with Satoru getting scolded and smacked on the head by Yaga, even on his birthday). And it meant you, Suguru, and Shoko giving him his first real birthday present — something he had never received in fifteen years of living. It meant something more. 

Until it didn’t, again. 

Because, now, it was another year he had spent without his best friend. Another year he watched other sorcerers die. Another year he had to spend apart from you and Shoko because you or he had been sent on missions while Shoko was stuck in the infirmary or the morgue. 

And now, this year it was the first time he had a birthday that Suguru wouldn’t age. He would never age again. He would stay 28 forever, and Satoru — he didn’t know what age he’d turn. He hoped he would die before old age or disease took him — he rather not live long enough for that. Although you and Suguru always joked that he would be even better looking as an old man. 

But all Satoru could think about was growing old alone — without anyone else around him. He was the strongest after all, how could anyone else survive? People around him were killed off one by one — and he was left all alone. And maybe that’s why he didn’t like birthdays — it was just another year, another year older — another year marking who had left him. 

And so many did. 

And how many birthdays would pass until he lost another? Would it be one of his students? Would it be Nanami? Would it be Shoko? Would it be you? 

You…you were someone he couldn’t bear to lose. He had already lost you once. Pushed you away after Geto defected, pushed himself into work until he was burnt out, and pushed away any thoughts that he had of you. It didn’t last. It wasn’t a year until you had battered at his walls and his actual door, forcing your way back into his life. 

And he was thankful you did, because he didn’t know if he would have found his way out of the hole he had dug himself in — before the dirt covered and buried him. 

You — you would never let his birthday go. You never let him go a year without making him feel special, in one way or another. Last year, you had baked him his favorite cake, took him on a trip to a hot spring, and made arrangements to make sure the two of you weren’t disturbed the entire weekend (which was a feat of miracles on par with his six eyes and limitless itself). 

“C’mon, just tell meeeee,” 

And the strongest sorcerer’s snatching your gradebook out of your hand for the millionth time, and you surely look unamused, brow knit together, as you rub your temples, “You know living with you is worse than a child,” 

“Wanna test your theory? I could fill you up right now and nine months—” 

“I’m going to murder you,” and he only shrugs, all too smug. 

“You’d miss me too much,” and he adds, “plus I know you’re strong, but you couldn’t—” 

“Finish that sentence and you’re sleeping on the couch all week, I don’t care if it is your birthday tomorrow,” and he meets your gaze, and you’re unwavering, as he sighs, and hands over your grade book. 

“We really aren’t doing anything?” your husband asks, raising a single eyebrow curiously, “you always have something up your sleeve, sweetheart,” 

You frown, setting your grade book aside, “I just thought with everything going on — Yuji’s appearance, the special grades running around — I don’t think we should be away right now, and I thought we could do something small, just you and me,” 

He nods slowly, a smile shoddily crafted and pasted on his lips, “Yeah, bet if I leave, the higher ups may try to pull something on Yuji,” he sighs dramatically, leaning his head back on the couch, “what a curse to be the strongest,” 

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” you press a kiss to his forehead, “you sure you’re okay with not doing anything?” 

“Of course,” he finds your lips in a kiss.  

But why wasn’t he? 

He wasn’t one to care for things like this. He thought he was beyond caring about things like this. But all he could feel was the festering urge of disappointment seeping into his thoughts. Even the next day, the universe seemed to be against him, sent on a wild goose chase mission to hunt down a supposed special grade only to find two grade A curses that he took care of with ease. 

He trodded back home to you — lips still in a pout that he couldn’t even enjoy his morning with you on his birthday. He didn’t even get to enjoy cuddling with you — woken up to travel across the country to deal with some curses he didn’t need to handle. 

It didn’t used to be like this — sent off to do missions alone. Again and again. Heavy was the head that bore the crown, but no one had mentioned how lonely it was. Lonely even surrounded by those who tried to understand him — and he had you, he had you, but how could anyone truly see him for who he was — when he didn’t feel like he knew who he was anymore. Suguru’s question still rang in his ears — was he the strongest because he was Gojo Satoru, or was he Gojo Satoru because he was the strongest? 

And all these years later, he still didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know if he would ever know the answer. 

But he didn’t have time to linger on his thoughts as he spotted his home in the distance, but that wasn’t all he saw — there was a lot more cursed energy at home than usual — multiple people in his home, and his lips curled. 

He sneaks up, diminishing his presence to nothing, as he pressed his ear to the door, and he could hear them — 

“Too high, Itadori, lower!” Nobara barked, and Yuuji groaned, “come on, how long is it gonna take you to do this?” 

“Then why don’t you get up here and do it?” he snaps back, and Nobara scoffs. 

“I’m supervising, that’s why,” 

“EH? Who else are you supervising besides me?” 

“Stop messing around you two, and get the banner hung,” Megumi sighs, and Satoru could imagine him scowling, “Inumaki-senpai, do you need more balloons?” 

“Salmon,” 

“Maki, hurry up with cutting those strawberries, Nanami is almost done frosting the cake,” Satoru could hear Panda chewing and then a distinct THUNCK. 

“THEN STOP EATING THEM YOU DAMN ANIMAL!” 

“Alright, alright, stop fighting guys,” Satoru heard you sigh, “Nanami, I hope the frosting and cakes I baked were decent — I followed the recipe you gave me to a tee,” 

“You did a good job from what I could tell, but I’m pretty sure you could feed that idiot a plain cup of sugar, and he’d like it just the same,” and Satoru pouts, hearing Shoko laugh as well. 

“Especially if it’s from you,” Shoko teases you, as you scoff playfully, “can’t believe you two got married still — won’t be long until there are little Gojos running around, if Satoru has his way, with the way he’s been railing you,”

“Can we change the subject?” Nanami asks, disgust evident. 

You only chuckle, “Well, he’s insisted that we start trying once things settle down, saying it never hurts to practice, but—” and then your phone chimes, “Yaga said Toru’s on his way back for a while, he should be close.” 

There’s a mad dash and scramble as they put everything in its place, and Satoru leans against the side of the house — they even put up a curtain to hide their cursed energy on the inside, prioritizing invisibility. 

And Satoru grins  — all this for him? 

“Let me video call him and see where he is — I think I can distract him enough,” and he teleports down the road from his home, as your phone call comes through, “hi birthday boy, are you almost home?” 

“Almost,” he hums, “need something, sweetheart?” 

“Just my lovely husband home so I can cuddle him,” you smile, and he can see you’re walking into your shared bedroom now, sound of the door closing behind you, “got a surprise on for you under this dress,” 

And he’s pausing, “is that right?” And the party ebbs away from his mind, as your fingers slid the straps of your dress down, and teasing the baby blue and white lingerie set underneath, “my perfect birthday gift — all ready for me to unwrap?” 

“As soon as you get home,” and all blood flees his brain and heads southward, “I’ll be waiting,” 

And you disconnect the call — and he’s rushing now, party be damned. He would have you in bed, even if he had to sneak away with you upstairs for five minutes. 

He unlocks the door, and hears several bangs from poppers, as all of his students, colleagues, and friends shout “surprise!” And he smiles, glancing around at the birthday decorations, the birthday cake precariously balanced in Yuji’s hands, and you — grinning right at the front of the group, holding a bouquet of red roses. 

Everyone is stepping up to wish him a happy birthday, even grumbling happy birthdays from Megumi and Maki, as his arms curl around you after, “did I fool you?” 

And he only smiles, “I’m always a fool for you, sweetheart,” and his lips find yours, only yielding disgusted groans from most of your students, “and don’t think I forgot about my present,” he whispers, while pressing a quick kiss to your cheek, “I have a feeling I’ll be tearing off the wrapping soon enough,” he winks. 

You roll your eyes, “Party first, presents later,” your hand finds his as you take him to mingle. 

Satoru doesn’t get his wish of a secret rendezvous with you — but he does get several other gifts from his students — a blue ray of Human Earthworm 4 from Yuji, Crocs from Nobara (“they’re as tacky as you are”), Megumi gives a gift card (Yuji: “No creativity,” Nobara: “Seriously how boring,” and Yuji earns a fist to the head from Megumi). The second years’ pitched in and bought him a book on ‘how to date’ (“it was Yuta’s idea — he’s not sure you know how to date even after getting married”). 

He’s being pulled over to cut the cake that Yuji miraculously only dropped once (but Maki had luckily caught), you at his side, as everyone crowds around for him to cut it, and he thinks, maybe he doesn’t need to be understood as the strongest — maybe he can just be understood as Satoru Gojo, and that can be enough. 

And he blows out his candles, as your fingers interlaced with his, and he’s cutting a particularly big chunk to feed you, nearly smearing it over your lips, “What did you wish for—umph—” and he’s kissing you, the sweet frosting didn’t compare to the sweetness of your lips, your fingers finding his shoulder, and he barely hears the groans of his students, parting as you softly pant, beautiful smile spread on your face, “Toru—” 

“I have everything I could wish for,” and he’s pressing his forehead to yours, before you kiss his nose, only to drag some frosting across his cheek, “oi!” 

“That’s for smearing cake all over my face,” you brush the crumbs from your chin, and he only grins wider. 

As he’s pulling you close with an arm around your waist, his breath warm against your lips, “Will you help clean it off?” and you roll your eyes, as his students grimace at his words, booing him. 

You only give a small smile, and kiss his cheek, whispering, “...after they leave,” and they do soon enough, after everyone enjoys their slice of cake and a few drinks (Yuji sneaking a glass of wine when Nanami isn’t looking), they leave to go back home. 

Satoru collapses on the couch first, and then you toss yourself beside him, throwing your legs over his lap, “Tired?” you curl yourself against him, your head finding his shoulder, nose brushing against the warm nape of his neck. 

“Was that mission earlier your doing?” 

“Well how else would I get you out of the house with all your pestering? And knowing you, you would have kept me in bed all morning,” and he laughs, as his arm wraps around your waist, pulling you properly into his lap. 

“How’d you see my birthday wish list?” and you scoff, as he presses sweet kisses to your neck, “you still have one more gift to give me, one that you teased me with earlier,” and his fingers are creeping up your bare thigh, squeezing teasingly at your flesh. 

“Two more, actually,” and he’s tilting his head, as you grab the bouquet of flowers from the coffee table where he had left it, “you missed something in here,” 

And he’s smiling, as he pulls a small box nestled in the middle of the roses, “What’s this—” and his fingers are too quick for his question, as he’s met with your gift. 

Positive. 

He stares — stares if it would disappear before his eyes, that somehow the six eyes were wrong this one time — the one time it mattered. 

“Are you really surprised with all the practice we’ve been getting in?” and he gives a brief chuckle, shaking his head, as you chew your lip at his relative silence, “wow, have I rendered the great Satoru Gojo — the man who never shuts up even when he should — speechless?” he still says nothing, “Toru? Say somethin—” 

And his arms are wrapping you in a hug, pulling you fully into his lap, as he engulfs you in his warmth, burying his face in the crook of your neck, “Are you sure I’m the father?” 

You snort, “Satoru, I swear to god, I’m going—” 

And his lips find yours in a sweet kiss, palms cupping your cheeks, as his blue eyes swim with a happiness you’d rarely seen before, as he presses kisses all over your face, until he’s kneeling before your stomach, pressing a sweet kiss to it. 

“You better look like your mom or I’m going to demand a re-do,” 

You huff, “Satoru, we aren’t having another kid for at least three years—” 

“We didn’t mean to have a kid right now, but we are,” he gives a devilish smirk, before you cross your arms, unamused. 

“I swear, we have another kid before three years are up, and I’m sleeping in a separate bedroom,” and his arms are looping around your waist to pull you close. 

“You can’t resist me for that long,” and he’s pulling into a kiss again, your arms wrapping around his neck, as your lips part. 

“Try me,” and he pouts before you laugh, tugging him to the bedroom, “come on, birthday boy, I believe I owe you one last present,” and his lips are curled again as he follows you eagerly, your dress over your head and on the bedroom floor before he’s two steps into the room. 

December 7, 2018. 

A day that changed the balance of Satoru Gojo’s family life — for the better. 

a/n: this was supposed to be pure fluff but turned into angst / fluff - as always. i can't write anything w/o angst.

tag list: @merzel69695, @senseiigojo, @forest-fruits-jam, @forest-hashira, @amanemisamisa, @ririthedevil, @a1is0n-png, @chosomoso, @hawkwithsocks, @aliyalala, @icecubesaredelicous, @sugurusdiscordmoderator, @acewoo, @sodoney,

[steddiealltheway]

The upside down is colder than Steve remembers.

To be fair, he only wearing a vest, pants, and no shoes at the moment, and he may be actively bleeding out even with the bandages because of the damn bats but… he just doesn’t remember it being this cold.

He probably didn’t spend long enough in the tunnels to truly get a feel for things. But now that he’s fully here, he can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for Will.

The place is dark enough to even give Steve nightmares although he has Robin, Nancy, and Eddie at this side. How did Will survive with no one?

Steve looks down and carefully steps over a vine as he makes his way through the woods. Did Will ever step on-

“Is this a bad time to mention that I haven’t kissed anyone?”

Steve and the girls turn to Eddie, giving him looks of confusion at the random outburst.

Eddie keeps walking, staring at the ground as he tries not to activate the hive mind. “I’m just saying, it kind of feels like the end of the world here, and it makes you think. Like, do I really want to die a virgin? Not really, but dying without kissing anyone… I feel like that’s a bigger problem in my book.”

Robin and Nancy share the same look of confusion mixed with an air of why are you talking to us about this? But Steve thinks he gets the nervous rambling. He wouldn’t want to die unkissed either.

Eddie slowly stops and turns around, finally noticing that the three of them stopped when he made his first comment. He just stares at them for a moment before sighing, “Forget I said anything. I just hate walking in silence with all these thoughts of impending doom.”

With that, the girls start walking again, quickly catching up to Eddie, but Steve struggles as he thinks a little too hard about what Eddie said instead of thinking about not stepping on a vine. So he compromises speed for a very important thought.

Eddie wants to kiss someone. Probably. Definitely.

He can’t kiss Nancy because she’s with Jonathan, and Steve’s pretty sure Nancy would not be the greatest choice of a first kiss - since she would be unenthusiastic.

And Robin… well. She would be equally as unenthusiastic, probably even more so.

And really, everyone must be thinking the same thing. Because there’s one obvious solution.

“I’ll kiss you,” Steve announces as he steps over a vine. He watches as the three of them freeze in front of them, and Eddie almost even trips on a vine.

Once he catches up to them, Steve says, “It’s the clear solution to the problem.”

Robin shoots him a look of bewilderment and mouthes what??

Steve just looks away from her. It’s not a crazy thought really. Eddie wants to kiss someone before the world maybe ends, and Steve is just a really generous person who would like- enjoy- no, volunteer very very generously to help the good cause.

“You’re kidding, right?” Eddie asks.

And oh. Steve hadn’t really thought about how Eddie might not want to kiss him. Shit. He shakes his head. “I’m not kidding, but I wouldn’t do it unless you wanted to. And it’s okay that you don’t. Let’s just keep going.”

Eddie reaches out and grabs his arm. “I never said that I didn’t want to,” he says quickly.

Steve’s pretty sure he hears Robin snort at the comment, and he can sees Nancy trying to hide an amused smile behind her hand. He ignores them and puts his hands on his hips. “Alright.”

“Okay,” Eddie says.

They both stare at each other not moving.

“We’re going to give you some space,” Robin says, grabbing Nancy’s hand and pulling her deeper into the woods.

Steve doesn’t pay much attention to them as they walk away, he’s too busy staring at Eddie. And yeah, he’s a good looking guy. He knew that from high school whenever he would go on his rants, and Steve had an excuse to stare. And really the thought of kissing him is definitely not the worse and actually… he’s kind of looking forward to it, if the fast beating of his heart is any indication.

Eddie though, he looks… scared. Maybe just nervous. But his expression definitely isn’t in any way happy.

Steve takes a step toward him and softly says, “We don’t have to do this, okay? And it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Eddie shakes his head and laughs humorlessly. “It’s not that I don’t want to it’s just… you’re Steve Harrington.”

“And?”

“And that name means something. And it shouldn’t be tangled up with my name.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at him. “I’m pretty sure we already crossed that line a while ago.”

“But you know what I mean,” Eddie sighs, looking at the ground.

Yeah, he does know what he means. But… “The world might end. I think there are stranger things than you and me kissing.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I think that would be the most shocking thing out of all of this.”

“Then get ready for me to rock your world, Munson,” Steve says with a smirk, stepping closer and brushing a curly strand of hair out of his face.

Eddie takes a deep breath and settles his hands on Steve’s waist above the wounds he’s forgotten about. “Is this… okay?”

Steve nods and wraps his arms around Eddie’s shoulders. “Yeah. Is this?”

Eddie just hums mhm, his eyes get a little wider and his cheeks flush a deeper pink.

Steve can’t help but look over Eddie’s face, taking in what he looks like at the closer proximity when he’s allowed to look. His eyes wander down to where Eddie’s full lips are slightly parted as if they’re just waiting for him to kiss them. But Steve looks back into Eddie’s dark eyes, searching for hesitation but only sending nerves and anticipation.

“I like that you’re the same height as me,” Steve randomly blurts out.

“Why’s that?”

Steve feels a blush creep up his neck. “Because my neck won’t strain when I kiss you.” Eddie laughs, and Steve decides that if the world really is coming to an end, he should be fully honest. “Plus, it’s easier to look at your eyes when they’re at my level.”

Eddie’s grin turns into a soft smile. His eyes glance down at Steve’s lips.

He knows the moment has come. “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay,” Eddie says, leaning in closer.

Steve smiles before closing the distance between them and kissing Eddie slowly as if they have all the time in the world. He breaks the kiss and pulls back enough to take in Eddie's expression - eyebrow raised in astonishment, lips slightly parted, and eyes still closed.

And yeah, they might not make it to tomorrow, plus Eddie looks hot. So, Steve doesn’t pull away. Instead, he kisses him again, this time with much more fervor and… yes, tongue. Sue him. He just wants to make Eddie’s first (and second) kiss memorable.

Eddie’s hands press into Steve’s back, pulling him closer as Steve slows the kiss, needing air. He pulls back and breathes in deep, staring at Eddie’s kiss swollen lips and feeling… many things.

But instead of giving into those feelings, Steve just pats Eddie on the arm and says, “See, you’re a natural.” As soon as he walks away, Steve wants one of the vines to drag him far far away so he doesn’t have to think about what he just said. Christ. He’s not smooth.

As soon as he catches up to Robin, she practically yanks him back so Eddie and Nancy can wander off out of earshot.

Steve crosses his arms and stares at her. “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. You know exactly what this is about,” Robin says, jabbing a finger into his chest.

Steve winces. “Okay. Yes. I kissed Eddie. But what else was I supposed to do? Make you or Nance kiss him? No way.”

“You realize that he was just thinking out loud, right? You turned his thought into an invitation.”

Steve shrugs and walks toward the other two, trying to make sure they don’t go too far. “It sounded like an invitation to me,” he says with a shrug.

“I’m sure it did,” Robin mutters.

Steve turns to glare at her.

Robin sighs and lays a hand on his arm. “You can talk to me, you know? Even if you’re in the process of figuring things out and can’t get a true read of things.”

Steve turns and looks back at Eddie, noting how his heart beats a little faster and his body wants more than anything to get closer to him. He looks back and Robin and asks, “How obvious am I being?”

The tension in Robin’s shoulder goes away slightly at the question, and she smiles. “With the ‘you’re a natural’ comment? Totally fooled. No one would guess a thing.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “You were watching that?”

“How could I not? And do I regret it?” Robin pauses before answering her question, “A little when you started using tongue.”

“Jesus, Robin,” Steve says, trying to sound annoyed, but he can’t help but laugh.

Robin smiles and nudges him. “It seems like you have a type.”

Steve raises an eyebrow before he looks to where Robin is staring. He watches as Nancy and Eddie talk quietly about something, both sharing a small smile, amusement evident in their big round eyes, and dark, curly hair framing their faces. Maybe Robin has a point.

“Maybe I do,” Steve says as Eddie glances back at him and smiles. When he turns back, Steve asks Robin, “Do you think we could talk more about it when we’re not in an alternate dimension, and I have time to think about things?”

“Of course,” Robin says and squeezes his arm. “But for now, I’m going to give you things to think about!” she announces before running ahead to Nancy and quickly starting some type of hushed conversation.

Steve looks at where Eddie lingers behind the girls and quickly runs up to him, deciding maybe he can figure things out now. And maybe he can verbally thank him for saving his ass instead of just kissing him and hoping he gets the message.

Gosh, he doesn’t know if he can get through this without getting distracted by his lips. But he’s going to try.

(And he’s going to fail)

[gce-hiiragimare]

Memory and magic are sealed (for now)

She's acting more and more like that person, and Emma had to in order to keep Gynger from ending up like that person.

Prior to that, Gynger had been missing for two years (since after Hogwarts graduation) One of the reasons Sebastian chose to become an Auror was also to find her. At first Sebastian's job wasn't all that special, some minor wizarding strife, some dark wizards who had gone astray, and so on, until slowly, more and more names of Valtyci's appeared on the list of dead people, and he'd even heard that the squib of the Valtyci's had risen from the dead, and that it was she who'd killed them.There'd also been some disturbances on the Ominis' side of the family, because the Gaunt family has been in a relationship with the Valtyci family for years, and now more people are dying, Ominis is being asked to find out what's going on.

Sebastian vaguely thinks that these things have something to do with Gynger, because during a pursuit operation, his magic was almost able to hit the murderer, but in a flash, his blood alliance vial with Gynger suddenly reacted, the chain tightly wrapped around Sebastian's arm, and the sudden tingling sensation caused Sebastian to stop the attack in his hand.Ominis was puzzled by this.Ominis was puzzled by this, they were obviously about to catch the culprit, why did Sebastian stop at the critical moment, "What are you doing? Why did you stop? It's not like you to do anything."

"I ......"Couldn't tell Ominis about the fact that he'd made a blood pact with Gynger. At least, not yet, "I might be a little dizzy, sorry."Sebastian apologised. His heart was pounding, could that be Gynger?

"I need your help, you're investigating this aren't you, one by one the Valtyci family personnel have been killed."Suddenly one day, Emma, a former champion of the Triwizard Tournament, came to the Ministry of Magic to find Sebastian.

"You know exactly who did this, don't you?"Emma asked Sebastian, "It was Gynger. although she did it at first to help avenge her mother, now she's gone a little too far and we need to stop her. You want to find her too, don't you?"

Of course, Sebastian wanted to see Gynger like crazy, he hadn't heard anything about her in the past two years, it was like she had suddenly disappeared from the world. He even tried to write to her as usual, however these mountains of letters simply wouldn't reach her. There was a time when he felt like he was going to break down, and instead of going to work at the Ministry of Magic for days on end, he lay in bed and kept stroking their Blood Alliance vials, and it was only when the Ministry asked Ominis to go to Sebastian's house to see how things were going that he managed to make things better.

"I'll help you."Sebastian immediately agreed to Emma's request, he didn't care what Emma wanted him to do, he would do anything to see Gynger.

With only the last branch of the Valtyci family now left on the list of surviving members, Sebastian and Emma arrived at their mansion early. However, it seemed they were still a step too late.

"Congratulations! My loves."A white haired woman sat on the stairs of the main hall, "I knew you would come, miss me?"

Sebastian looked over at the woman on the stairs, his heart began to beat wildly, he had a feeling that it was Gynger, but the likeness was a little different.

"Ah, you care about that?"The person seemed to notice Sebastian's gaze as she pointed to her cheek, "I like the look of my mother."As he spoke, a bolt of lightning streaked through the window, the harsh light of the thunder reflecting the original colour of the person's hair - a familiar, flame-like red. "I want all the Valtyci family to see that face before they die."

"Enough! You're looking more and more like that person, wake up!"Emma led the attack, but Sebastian froze in place. The person he had been longing for was right in front of him and he didn't want to perform any actions at all, there were so many things he wanted to say to her, so many questions he wanted to ask her, he even wanted to use the spell Accio to take the person into his arms and hold her tightly. Why did she leave without saying goodbye?Gynger used to be a very cheerful companion, but ever since she went on a trip to her aunt's house a few days before graduation, everything changed.Gynger started to be quiet, and didn't even attend the graduation ceremony, she just left Hogwarts without a word. What the hell happened?

"What are you gawking at?"Ominis's voice came to her ears, it turned out that Emma had already known that Sebastian and Gynger had made a blood oath (Emma's divination ability was excellent, she had foreseen this scene in her crystal ball), she knew that Sebastian probably couldn't move, so Emma contacted Ominis as well.Ominis's eye disease was still not getting better, but his hearing was excellent, andhis wand, having been subjected to more refined adjustments after graduation, Ominis was now no less capable than an accomplished Auror.

The intense magical duel continues, and even with Emma and Ominis' excellent abilities, they still struggle to resist Gynger's ancient magic. Sebastian also finally came back to his senses, but it seemed that he chose to side with Gynger. After all, he can't attack Gynger, and he doesn't want to send Gynger to Azkaban. But facing his former best friend, he couldn't do anything to kill him, so he could only try to create a magic shield for Gynger.

"Sebastian? What are you doing?"Emma looked at Sebastian who was standing on the opposite side, "We're losing!"

"Ah, you're really going to help me after all, I'm so happy!"Gynger looked towards Sebastian who was walking towards him And just then Emma aimed for the opening, she pulled out a small black crystal and used the shockwave of magic to hit Gynger with it The moment Gynger was hit the space around her began to distort and a piercing noise began to emanate from her surroundings. She began to hold her head and scream in agony, it seemed to be an unbearable magic, like the crucio spell. She fell through the air and onto the marble floor Seeming to pass out, everything was calm again, except that the objects around Emma and the others seemed to start disintegrating and dissipating.

Sebastian saw Gynger fall to the floor and rushed over to her, taking her in his arms, "What did you do to her?"Sebastian questioned Emma

"I sealed her memories and magic."Emma seemed a little helpless, "I'm sorry, it's all I can think of at the moment. Her soul seems to be gradually on the verge of being taken over by another, and it's the only way I can find a way to change her back to her old self."

"You mean ...... she doesn't remember me?"Sebastian froze, he looked again at the passed out person in his arms, the one he had longed for, his once best friend. They had been through so much and now they were all going to forget?

"It's only temporary, I'll try to restore her memory when I find a better solution, it's just ......" Emma hesitated a little, "The Ministry of Magic will make you hand over the prisoner while I'm gone, right? "

"Can't let the Ministry of Magic take her."Sebastian lowered his head and hugged Gynger tightly, "She'll be fine with me, don't worry."Just as Gynger didn't turn him in back then, this time, he wouldn't turn Gynger in either, and more importantly, he didn't want to be separated from Gynger. The longing for two years had finally been relieved at this moment, and he wouldn't let her go again.

[vee-nyx]

sorry to my star wars/marvel followers but i just need to talk about A Quiet Place: Day One for a minute because i feel like it’s one of the first mainstream “end of the world” movies that taps into the potential storylines of people with chronic illness/pain. like one of my first thoughts anytime i watch a movie where infrastructure collapses and transportation goes out i run through a mental list of pharmacies in my area and think about which ones i could reach on foot within a day. or how obstacles that just inconvenience other travelers could fully stop me from getting my prescription. i worry about how different pharmacies are organized and if they’d have enough of my specific medication to get me through however long it takes for the world to come back, if it ever does. Lupita acted that feeling so well, and her outlook on the apocalypse was so different than any other character i’d seen because Sam already knew she was dying, and she was going to die whether or not the creatures came. so she’s not worried about getting to safety or trying to rebuild a life, because she’s been preparing to leave life behind for years now. she just wants to be in her home neighborhood in places with good memories and good food, and go out on her own terms instead of waiting for the disease to catch up to her. she couldn’t just do that before the arrival, though, but she can once what was left of her life collapses and she knows everything she loves (Frodo, memories of her father, her poetry) is safe with someone she trusts. it’s such a reverse plot to the usual apocalypse where everyone’s fighting for long-term survival and trying to rebuild what they lost, while Sam takes her losses in stride and slowly relinquishes her important belongings to Eric so she can die in peace. god it’s just such a genius reversal of the usual fight-for-your-life storyline with huge untapped potential that i hope inspires other movies to explore similar plots because there’s so many directions a writer could take with a chronically ill character in an apocalyptic situation, and i would love to see a horror/scifi subgenre of people with chronic illness in survival situations. okay that’s all.

[elkkiel]

Okay! Here's a transcription of the tier 4 bundle page from Sumerian's twitter. Please let me know if I screwed anything up or if it's tough to read at all; I tried to work around the obscured parts as best I could, but all the notes might have made it cluttered. There's also several words I couldn't read, as well as some partially-visible words I couldn't figure out lol

15 days since convergence of the Lunar Anomaly

When I was a child, I was frequently beset by certain recurring dreams. There is one such dream that I remember more than most—one in which I found myself standing on a vast shoreline gazing out at a flat, wide sea. Slowly as I watched, the horizon gradually began to lift. Before long I was able to observe that this lifting expanse was approaching me— a wall of smooth, black water that curled into an impossible lip at its peak. Rather surprisingly, I do not recall being afraid at such an ominous sight. well, to be more precise, I was afraid— I was terrified, but on of the wave itself. Instead, it was the thought of what was beyond it. This vast, unstoppable force sweeping forth to herald the end of everything, to drown the world and then eventually sink back into itself. A careless shrug of entropy enough to sever the thread of all fates. I felt that were I to somehow survive this limitless tide, then I would be left in a world that would not recognize me. I would become an element unto myself and myself alone.

An echo stuck in the throat of a dead god.

Yet here I am. it has been over two weeks since the emergence of the lunar anomaly. Our teams spent nearly two years attempting to anticipate what this event would mean for humanity— analyzing endless [UNCLEAR] of lunar topography along with every known form of spectroscopy, all amounting in one hopeless conclusion: to burrow inside the bowels of the earth and simply [wish?] that whatever emerged from within would reach us there last.

As it would turn out, this one final act of humble surrender is what won the last of the right to our own lives in these final days. Those of us alive now are not those who sought to barter with [destiny?] and defiantly cling to a civilised existence at the... [OBSCURED; line break] ...–esce at all.

[OBSCURED] –of this phenomenon, we were best served by our most base instincts, where shame found no place to... [OBSCURED; line break]

[OBSCURED] –who [sp_ _ ;UNCLEAR] their [hubris?] and hid desperately down in the mud like rats.

[OBSCURED] –made every effort to warn the others, though naturally we could not [provide?] much of a [ha _ _ s ;UNCLEAR] upon... [OBSCURED; line break] ...species was facing imminent and utter demise besides a few fissures at the southern lunar pole. With... [OBSCURED; line break] ...underground facility once we realized that the moon's orbit was rapidly decaying in a way that was... [OBSCURED; line break] ... [–sical; UNCLEAR] model – I find it hard to believe that none of them followed our lead – Perhaps some of them... [OBSCURED; line break] ...of knowing now.

[OBSCURED] [s]urface expedition was [bleak?] at best. In all honesty, I was shocked to discover that our intial... [OBSCURED; line break] [UNCLEAR] ...a breathable atmosphere. Perhaps in all this turmoil, I found it easier to commit my mind to the... [OBSCURED; line break] ...turn.

[OBSCURED] [–dare; UNCLEAR] the event—despite two years of efforts—didn't prepare us for the havoc we now face. To say that... [OBSCURED; line break] ...explain the phenomena would be a gratuitious understatement. The cataclysm that occurred two weeks... [OBSCURED; line break] ... [UNCLEAR] rule about this new world we now hid beneath – to gaze upon the moon is to die.

[OBSCURED] [deve]loped wearable countermeasures for the surface teams that would prove vital in allowing them to... [OBSCURED; line break] ...could have known that this was far from the only threat that awaited them. To say that we find... [OBSCURED; line break] ...the phenomena would be a gratuitious understatement.

[OBSCURED] is affected by the lunar anomaly, but that of all life, albeit in vastly different ways.

[OBSCURED] of emergent biology is beyond the boundaries of what we would be able to study and understand.

[OBSCURED] guilt over those we lost. More than that however, I feel more guilty about the way I reacted to... [OBSCURED; line break] ...elements that attacked our team. I felt strangely comforted, despite the deeply disturbing nature of... [OBSCURED; line break]

[OBSCURED] [UNCLEAR] at the conclusion that this feeling came from a sense of familiarity, human beings fighting... [OBSCURED; line break] ...that has plagued us all since time immemorable, but here in the wake of such deeply unfamiliar and... [OBSCURED; line break] ...hard not to feel almost comforted by such an immediately recognisable problem.

[OBSCURED] [you]rself deeply troubled by the prospect of humans remaining on the surface in that state. The... [OBSCURED; line break] ...is that their actions were not [UNCLEAR] of their own will, though there is every chance [that] this is [a]... [OBSCURED; line break] ...a preference over the [UNCLEAR] alternative.

[OBSCURED] [-ing; UNCLEAR] the precious remnants of human life is the desire to understand what has happened, though in... [OBSCURED; line break] ...do. Perhaps this is the only way we can cling to our humanity– by continuing our constant battle... [OBSCURED; line break] ...the very end.

[ravenofazarath2]

I’ve been seeing a fair amount of discourse over whether or not Ricky September was a good person, and I feel like a lot of it takes a very black and white view of Ricky as a character.

One of the recurrent themes in this season (and, well, a large portion of the show), is the importance of hope. And I think that’s what Ricky is supposed to represent.

Hope that there’s kindness in the world.

I think we can all agree that that was basically his thing, right? He didn’t have to help Lindy through the slug monsters, but he did. He didn’t have to try to save her life, but he did.

Everyone else we meet in FineTime is self-centered, vain. Their friendships feel artificial. And that’s probably because they are artificial since they never talk face-to-face. They literally live inside a spherical object that also acts as an echo chamber they can personally curate. That’s one of the most literal metaphoric interpretations of “in a world of their own” I can think of.

And right when it seems that life this way will be the death of them all, here comes this ray of sunshine named Ricky September. He immediately shows Lindy kindness even though she’s a complete stranger. And then they hug, what is likely the first empathetic touch ever in her life. Tells her that he spends most of his time unplugged and reading and learning. He does the Doctor grabs a hand and yells run thing. And when he sees that Homeworld was destroyed, he lies to Lindy so that he doesn’t kill the hope that’s keeping her running for her life—to see her mom again.

I know can’t be the only one who thought, “Oh, maybe his kindness will rub off on Lindy, and she’ll be a better person in the end!” That’s the hope.

That’s what Ricky represents; he’s the hope that, as long as empathy exists in this world, things will get better.

Hope that people can change.

The only shadow in this perfect ray of hope is the fact that, just like everyone else in FineTime, Ricky September is racist.

His micro-agressions aren’t as, well, aggressive as Lindy’s, but they are there. His hands are fidgety and he's distracted. He's giving awkward smiles and chuckles. He does seem uncomfortable working with the Doctor.

But we know that Ricky has empathy. He shows it when he saves Lindy, but I think the most jarring example is when he says he read about manual labor and said, "That life was tough." Lindy's response. "My sit at a desk for two hours and gossip with my friends job's not easy. I get chapping." And he learned this empathy through reading instead of spending all his time online. Which is where he learned about pulse codes, too. So he's empathetic and willing to learn.

(On a side note: Lindy's lack of empathy by this point should have clued us in that she was beyond redemption)

And that's I have no doubt that, had he survived, he would have pushed his biases aside and taken the Doctor up on the offer to travel. He would have worked to unlearn the institutionalized hate he was raised in. He's the hope that people—that we can change, become better people.

Unfortunately, Ricky is just different enough for Lindy to other him in order to justify sacrificing him to save herself.

The real lesson Ricky September teaches us.

Unfortunately, Ricky being a symbol for hope is exactly why he had to die by, essentially, Lindy's hand.

Hope simply existing isn't enough to bring change. If we just sit back and hope for a better world, nothing will get done. We have to act on that hope, be that hope, because if we don't, those trying to maintain the hate will snuff us out. And not just for ourselves, but for our fellow man.

If we just sit back and hope for a better world, nothing will get done. We have to act on that hope, be that hope. And not just for ourselves, but for our neighbors, too. If we show each other empathy, we can reach more, spread more kindness, be the change.

But if there's no empathy, then there's no hope for our survival.

And that, I believe, is the lesson RTD wanted us to see.

[tethrras]

show me where my armor ends, show me where my skin begins

vittoria de riva x lucanis dellamorte. smut/porn with plot. click here to read on ao3.

-

Vittoria de Riva is going to die tomorrow.

She is tired of deluding herself. Tired of pretending that she’s going to survive this. She will tell the others that this is not the end, of course, insist that there is still so much more left in the fight, but Harding and Neve are dead, their allies are tired, and Vittoria herself feels like a dead woman walking. She’s going to die tomorrow. One moment - a lapse in focus, a mistimed assault - is all it will take. 

But for now, all she needs to think about - all she deserves to think about - is Lucanis.

Spite’s wings come to settle on either side of them. Lucanis kisses her. Like all his other skills, his kissing is well-honed and precise, and for a moment, she’s left struggling to find an even footing. She hasn’t done this in a long time, after all, doesn’t know where to put her hands or how to move her legs, but in a few seconds, and after enough distraction, all those unwelcome thoughts and worries leave her head. In their place is a list of sensations: the scrape of his beard on her chin, the gentle intrusion of his tongue in her mouth, the feather-light sensation of his hair falling against her cheek. One of his hands comes to rest at the base of her neck, the other fisting the fabric at the curve of her waist, and Vittoria arches her back on an instinct she didn’t know she had. She feels sensitive, vulnerable, like a burn with no scab.

“Lucanis.” 

“Vittoria.” Even the sound of her own name makes her shiver when it comes from him, and she’s so distracted that she almost doesn’t notice him pulling the tie from her hair and letting it fall across the cushions. “What do you wish of me?” he asks, running a hand through the tangles above her head. “Tell me and I will do it.”

What does she wish of him? She wishes he could bundle her up in his arms and take her far from here. She wishes he could go back in time and take notice of her sooner - train with her, stroll the canals with her, invite her to coffee at Cafe Pietra in the evenings and watch the sunset over Treviso for another decade. She wishes that he would take off his pants and fuck her. “Everything,” she answers instead.

He chuckles and presses a kiss to the skin beside her mouth. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.” 

“Fuck me,” she says, then nips at the lush curve of his bottom lip. “Fuck me however you want. Make me forget.” Make me forget I’m going to die tomorrow. Make me forget that you might die first.

He takes a sharp inhale. She knows him well enough to know that he’s thinking about the next steps before he’s even started. “I can do that.”

Of course he can. He can do anything. It’s why she loves him. “Then show me.”

Lucanis sits back in her lap and reaches for the buttons of his shirt. Vittoria sits up, at first to watch and then to help, pressing kisses to each sliver of bare skin as it’s revealed, reveling in each of the sounds that he makes - the helpless sighs and strangled groans and breathless invocations of her name. She didn’t know he would be so sensitive - he, with all his confidence and experience - and like all good assassins, she takes note of it for later as he shrugs the shirt off and tosses it into an unseen corner of the room. “Your turn,” he tells her, reaching for the buttons of her shirt the same as he had with his own. But she swats his hands to the side instead.

“Let me look first.” 

Scars cover his torso, some sharp and white, others dark and deep. In another world, at another time, she would ask him where each of the scars came from and listen to the stories that lie beneath them, but she makes peace now with the knowledge that it doesn’t matter where the scars came from - all that matters is that none of the blades responsible for the scars struck true. 

Aside from the scars, decades of fighting has sculpted him into a marvel of muscle and flesh. While she can’t see his back from here, she runs her hands over the muscles there at the same time she trails kisses down the front of his chest, over those scars. How long she spent wanting this, she thinks, how long she spent watching him train, watching him walk the halls of the Diamond or the streets of Treviso, wishing that he would look at her the way he’s looking at her now; how long she spent wanting him, then wanting him to want her in return, and all it took was the elven gods returning to Thedas to get his attention. If Vittoria could find a way to tell her younger self that, she wouldn’t have believed it - which is good, because if she had, then she wouldn’t have trained as hard as she did to get where she is right now, and instead died a meaningless death all those lonely years ago.

“That’s enough touching.” He pulls at her collar, the roughest he’s ever been with her, at the same time he pushes his lips onto hers. The following command is muffled between kisses as he fists at the fabric of her shirt: “This. Off. Now.”

She pulls her hands from him and fumbles with her own buttons while Lucanis watches. His face is dark and shadowed, and she knows without question that he holds all the cards now. She can feel it - feel Spite stirring under the surface, feel that Dellamorte stubbornness rearing its handsome head. When she finishes with the last button of her shirt, he tears it from her torso and throws it onto the other side of the room. He uses that same hand to grip her shoulder and shove her down onto the cushions, not giving her a moment to catch her breath before reaching for the laces of her pants.

“It’s been… a while.” Vittoria watches as he works the piece of clothing off. She’s not sure which of them is breathing harder. “Since I did this.”

“Vittoria.” He shakes his head and, despite his fervor, a small smile appears on his lips. “Do you honestly think that matters to me?” He moves off her lap for a moment so he can pull her pants down over the swell of her muscular thighs and then stops, looking up at her from underneath his eyelashes. “Does it matter to you?”

“No.”

“Good.” He finishes with his task and then crawls on top of her to kiss her hard and flatten her underneath him. “All that matters to me is that you’re here, that you’re alive, and that I get to do this.” 

She hears the words before she feels his fingers, first one and then another, brushing through the hair between her legs, his hand moving to cover the surface of her cunt. It feels indecent to have him touch her there, to watch his brow furrow with focus, not for a kill but for delving deep inside of her, deeper than she’s ever gone herself. She’s so wet that she can hear it, and she’d be humiliated by the sound if it weren’t for how much she loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. Her hips cant upwards into the cradle of his hand, chasing the pressure, the pleasure, the relief that his fingers offer her, and when she reaches for his face, he turns his head to take her thumb into his mouth. 

To have him taking her in so many ways at once…

“Lucanis.” She has said his name so many times but knows she’s never said it like this, like she’s trying to suck the marrow from each letter. “Please, I -”

Her thumb falls from his lips and she winds her arm around his shoulders to hold him as close as possible. “I am fucking you with my fingers, Vittoria,” he states with a raised eyebrow, somehow managing to sound unimpressed even with his pupils blown black the way they are. “Is that not enough?”

“No. It’s not.”

“You want my cock, then, hmm?”

He moves his fingers fast inside of her, pulling farther out and diving further in each time, and her face flushes with a heat she's never felt before. This is the most vulnerable she’s ever been with another person, after all. As a Crow, you learn to never let your guard down - anyone can betray you, any location can leave you exposed. And right now, all of her weakest points have been exposed to him. Any assassin worth his salt could kill her in an instant without even pulling his fingers out from inside of her. But Lucanis does not want to hurt her. He crooks his fingers inside of her like he wants to anchor himself to her forever. She did not know it was possible for a man to feel that way about her, let alone this man.

“Lucanis...”

“I’ll give it to you, Vittoria, I promise.” He nuzzles his nose against her cheek. “On one condition.”

“Anything.”

His fingers slow to a crawl. She doesn’t know if it’s better or worse, but her thighs tense regardless. “Tell me that you won’t leave me again,” he says, “now or ever.”

She’s glad he didn’t ask for a promise, because she can’t give him a promise. “I won’t leave you,” she tells him anyway. It’s not a promise of her survival, but a vow that she will do whatever she can to achieve it. Because she will. Even if she has to go to the end of the world and kill a god to prove it. “I won’t leave you again. Now or ever.”

“And tell me that… that...” His mouth opens and then closes and then opens again, uncertainty creasing his features. “Tell me that I’m yours.”

“You’re mine.”

“And tell me that you’re mine.”

“I’m - I’m -” She wants to tell him what he asked of her, wants to reassure him of her feelings, but his fingers shift inside of her, and even that small movement renders her speechless. 

By now, her fingernails are cutting crescents into the meat of his neck, but if he feels the pain, he doesn’t let on. His fingers start to move again, faster and deeper and harder than before, and he clenches his jaw in concentration. “Come for me, Vittoria,” he says through gritted teeth.

The pleasure splits her open at the seams and seems to fill her with the same blinding light of a falling star. She can’t remember the last time she came like this. Perhaps she never has. Perhaps she was waiting her entire life for Lucanis, for his touch to bring this ecstasy out of her. When the wave finishes washing over her, she tries and fails to catch her breath, and when her vision clears, she notices that he’s doing nothing but watching her come back to herself with a gentle tilt of his head. She meets his gaze and gives him her best attempt at a reassuring look. He gives her a look of his own and then raises his fingers out from between her legs, lathing his tongue along them and licking them clean.

The silence hangs between them for a moment, dense as a fog. And then, as slowly as she can manage in her near-delirium, she draws his hand towards her mouth and repeats what he had done moments ago, licking the last remnants of herself from his skin. A flash of violet light flickers through his fluttering lashes, and, sensing his impatience, she pushes her hips towards him. 

“Now,” she demands, and though the word is muddied around the width of his fingers, she doesn’t want him to take himself out of her mouth. She won’t do it, either. She wants him everywhere inside of her all at once, and even when she has him, that might not be hard enough, fast enough, deep enough. Nothing with him could ever be enough. But she’s tired of waiting, and she can tell that Spite is, too. “Please, Lucanis, please.”

“Whatever you want.” He pushes his pants down his thighs with his free hand and kisses the part of her mouth where his fingers aren’t. “Anything you want.”

Lucanis makes quick work of the rest of his clothes and shifts on top of her to line himself up with her entrance. Vittoria would watch if she could look anywhere other than his face. How is she so lucky? Yes, the world is ending, and yes, she might die tomorrow, and yes, there are people out there with the power to move the moon over Thedas, but she gets to be here, with him, gets to count the moles on his forehead, gets to press her hand into the small of his back, gets to feel the burn as he stretches her out around his cock. She wouldn’t change a thing. Glory, godhood, all the gold in the world - she wouldn’t take any of it if it meant losing this, and none of it matters if she loses it tomorrow.

There’s pressure that she’s not used to as he pushes inside her, and fresh tears cling to her lashes. He kisses her closed eyelids, and then, in one quick move, sheathes himself to the hilt.

“Mierda.” She almost doesn’t hear the word over the sound of her own moaning. He tucks his face into her neck. “You feel so good ,” he whispers, starting to move with slow, exploratory pumps of his hips. “So tight. Mmm… So wet.”

She answers with a whimper, wishing she could take his fingers further down her throat.

“You are so beautiful, Vittoria. Have I told you that before? How beautiful you are? It's too much, sometimes, to look at you.”

Another whimper. Her face must be as red as the blood in her veins, but her embarrassment means nothing if the sounds bring him pleasure.

“You have saved my life more times than I can count.” The confessions sound strained in his effort not to come before she comes a second time. “You have not only saved my life, but you have… made my life.”

It’s impossible to lie still with the onslaught of feelings and she throws her head back, breathing hard. He takes it as an invitation to sink his teeth into her neck, and when she clenches around him, the answering bite is strong enough to draw blood. But she doesn’t care. How many scars does she have on her body from people who mean nothing to her? She would take a scar from the man that she loves. She’d take a hundred.

Instead of continuing to bite her, he sucks a bruise into the skin of her neck. She clenches around him again. The even pace of his hips stutters. She’s not going to last much longer, and she doesn’t think that he’s going to, either.

“I am not losing you.” He hits a place inside of her that feels different than the others and her hips jerk into him of their own accord. It punches a moan out of him, which prompts a similar one from her. She loves the sounds he makes. She loves the feeling of him inside of her, and clenches around him again in the hopes that it will keep him there. “There it is. Ohh. Oh, there you are, mi vida. Stay with me forever, Vittoria, just like this.”

“I will.” A tear falls down Vittoria’s forehead. Lucanis keeps fucking her into the cushions. “I’m yours, Lucanis. I’ve always been yours.”

After they finish, after they return to themselves, he draws his fingers out from between her lips, brushes the hair from her face, and laughs. She laughs, too. Whatever happened in the previous months, whatever happens tomorrow, she forgets it all for one long, shining moment, and for that moment, it’s just the two of them held tight in each other’s embrace. She and the man she loves. But did she tell him that? In her mania? She can’t remember. Unwilling to waste the moment but unable to form words, she kisses his forehead, across his temple, down to the hollow of his cheek, hoping each brush of her lips serves as a confession. He chuckles as she continues to make her way from one side of his head to another. After her eyes have been opened long enough to focus, she can see that he’s blushing.

And then his lips meet hers again, the resulting kiss intense enough to make her toes curl. He licks into her mouth like he thinks he can find salvation inside of it, inside of her, and... maybe he can. Maybe he already did. She knows that she found the same in him. Because no matter what happens, no matter how hard it gets, she does not want to die tomorrow, and, if nothing else, loving him has taught her that the things you want the most have a way of coming true, even when it seems impossible.

[shybluebirdninja]

FADED DAYS: PART 5

Summary: In a bleak world where Logan has lost his purpose, an unexpected connection with his nurse brings a spark of humanity back into his fading life as an Uber driver.

Pairing             : Uber-Driver!Logan Howlett x Nurse!Fem-reader

Genre              : Heavy Angst

The drive to your apartment is unusually quiet, even for Logan. His usual gruff comments are absent, and you can tell something is brewing beneath the surface. He looks... distracted. You’ve seen Logan in bad moods, in pain, in just about every kind of miserable state, but this—this feels different. It’s like there’s something eating away at him from the inside.

“You seem... off tonight,” you say, breaking the silence.

Logan grunts, his eyes fixed on the road. “I’m fine.”

“Right. Because ‘fine’ for you means looking like you're about to punch the steering wheel.”

He sighs, long and heavy, but doesn’t deny it. For a moment, you think that’s the end of the conversation. But then he surprises you.

“Do you ever feel like... no matter what you do, it’s never enough?” His voice is low, almost too quiet to hear, and it’s a question that sounds like it’s been building up inside him for years.

You blink, caught off guard by his vulnerability. “Yeah, I think everyone feels that way sometimes.”

“Not like this,” he mutters, and there’s a bitterness in his tone. “Not like me.”

You don’t know what to say to that. Logan isn’t exactly the type to open up, and when he does, it’s like walking through a minefield—one wrong step, and he’ll shut down completely.

So, you tread carefully. “What do you mean?”

He grips the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles going white. “I’ve been fighting my whole damn life. Lost more people than I can count. Watched them all die while I just keep... going.”

His voice cracks at the end, and it hits you like a punch to the gut. The weight of his words, the loneliness that clings to him—it’s suffocating. You realize then just how deeply Logan is drowning in his own grief, how every loss has chipped away at him, until there’s barely anything left.

You swallow hard, trying to find the right words. “Logan... that’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Maybe not,” he says, his voice hollow. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still here, and they’re not.”

His words hang in the air between you, heavy and unmovable. You’ve never seen Logan like this—so raw, so broken. It’s like the years of pain and loss have finally caught up to him, and he doesn’t know how to bear it anymore.

“Why do you keep doing it?” you ask softly. “Why keep fighting if it hurts this much?”

He doesn’t answer right away, his gaze still locked on the road ahead. When he finally speaks, his voice is strained. “I don’t know.”

It’s a confession that cuts through you, because you realize—he really doesn’t. Logan has been fighting for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to live for something other than survival. And now, with nothing left but the ghosts of the people he’s lost, he’s stuck in a never-ending cycle of pain.

You feel a lump form in your throat, but you don’t let it show. Instead, you reach over and place your hand on his arm, a small, simple gesture. Logan tenses at first, but then he relaxes, just a little, and for a second, you think you might have reached him.

“I don’t think you have to do this alone,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper.

He doesn’t look at you, but you can see the tension in his shoulders ease just slightly. It’s not much, but it’s something. A crack in the wall he’s built around himself.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice rough. It’s the closest thing to gratitude you’ve ever heard from him, and it makes your heart ache.

The car pulls up to your apartment, and you hesitate before getting out. There’s so much more you want to say, but you’re not sure if Logan’s ready to hear it. So, instead, you give him a small smile and nod.

“I’ll see you around, Logan.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, staring straight ahead. “See you.”

You close the door behind you and watch as he drives off into the night, his figure disappearing into the shadows.

The following day...

You’re at work, going through the motions of your shift, but your mind is somewhere else—still lingering on Logan’s words from last night. You can’t shake the image of him sitting in that car, so weighed down by his own guilt and grief that he could barely speak.

It’s strange, really. You never expected to care this much. Logan had always been this grumpy, closed-off guy, a storm cloud with claws. But now? Now, you can see the cracks. The pain he’s been hiding for so long. And for some reason, it’s making you want to reach out to him in a way you never thought possible.

You’re lost in thought when the nurse, Heather, walks in, catching you by surprise.

“Hey, I heard Logan was back yesterday,” she says with a knowing grin. “The cranky one who likes to pretend he’s invincible.”

You try to hide your smile, but it’s impossible. “Yeah, that’s him.”

Heather chuckles. “He’s a tough one, but he’s not fooling anyone. I think he’s just lonely.”

Her words hit you harder than you expected, because deep down, you know she’s right. Logan’s tough exterior is just a shield, a way to keep the world at arm’s length. But underneath, he’s just... lost.

“I don’t know how to help him,” you admit, frowning.

Heather shrugs. “You don’t have to fix him. Just be there. Sometimes, that’s all people need.”

You nod, but the truth is, it feels like more than that. Logan isn’t just someone who needs company—he’s someone who’s been drowning in his own pain for so long that he’s forgotten how to reach out for help. And now, you’re not sure if he even wants to be saved.

But you can’t shake the feeling that you’re supposed to do something. That, somehow, you’re meant to be part of his story, to pull him back from the edge before he falls too far.

That night, when you leave the hospital, you half-expect Logan to be waiting in his car again. But he’s not. The street is empty, and the cool night air bites at your skin. You pull your jacket tighter around you, shivering as you walk to the bus stop.

As you wait, your phone buzzes in your pocket. You glance down and see a message from an unknown number.

Need a ride? – L

A smile tugs at your lips, and without hesitation, you type back, Yeah. Always.

[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 ♥.

[lxmelle]

Gojo’s beliefs of “when you die, you die alone” & “there is no curse more twisted than love”.

We know these were his personal beliefs. At least the latter was confirmed by his own mouth as a personal theory in jjk0. What he told Megumi during the 1on1 training wasn’t a lecture but a piece of advice for how he hoped Megumi could overcome his limitations. It must’ve worked for, or been personal to, Gojo himself who reflected on how this was inaccurate in ch236.

It got to thinking about how he came to believe these. It’s normal to philosophise following personal experiences and form our worldview. So within the context of the world in jjk, here are my reflections, right or wrong:

As a jujutsu sorcerer they’re expected to embrace death at any moment. They were trained to take lives and therefore they expect the risk that comes with it to some degree. Those whose lives they wish to take will defend themselves, and they can be killed instead. Those with an exceptional burden, whether it be as a teacher or as a talented sorcerer, they’d have to be prepared to lay their lives on the line for others.

We see even adults expressing reluctance over this - like Kusakabe and MeiMei - who have something greater they wish to protect through their survival. Of course it’s not easy to embrace death. Especially when you have a lot to lose. Nanami said he wouldn’t be married for as long as he was a sorcerer. Maybe that’s why they trained them young... but that’s by the by. The greater the strength, the greater the responsibility. This is what the strongest duo shouldered with the mission from Tengen, and this was what they had to get used to when being sent on missions separately.

Meaning, there was always the need to accept the high possibility of going alone. Risking just yourself. Alone.

And it’s not hard to imagine that Gojo and Geto both accepted that death equated to a sense of being alone after they parted ways.

Because they weren’t a duo anymore. The end, the death of it. Even if they were, like in HI, they might still have “died” separately. Helplessly.

So in that sense we can see how the ideal about dying alone could have come about for Gojo, who tended to learn things experientially (e.g. not only as a talented & gifted sorcerer - a genius, but also in the matters of decorum, love, etc.) so in terms of loss and grief, it should not be any different.

When Geto embarked on his path, he accepted that this alone-ness equated to a certain death. He actually sought to be alone (like killing his parents) aside from the girls he protected and found a family who were considered outcasts/minorities within the conservative Japanese society.

He embraced his own self sacrifice - his death - so much so that he proclaimed it would have meaning for Gojo to take his life. Gege wanted him to caution Gojo not to take others’ lives along with his (since they had opposing ideologies too), encouraging Gojo to stay on that path and not follow him. It was like walking alone to his death, living on borrowed time.

And Gojo for certain left behind.

Maybe the pain of having left behind, feeling alone as the strongest, felt like death too. It was not enough to be strong if you were alone. Loss is grief. Being alone was a loss and grief. Grief and loss have roots in separation, in death.

And in being the strongest, being left behind, being alone, being prepared to die, watching someone be prepared to die, and seeing others die - he might’ve felt that his death would equate to being alone too. This was the worst pain he had ever known after all.

So I HC that, just like “love is the most twisted curse” he believed that “when you die, you die alone” based on his own lived experiences.

And for what reason did his greatest hurt/pain emerge? Why was he left behind…? Well, it was out of love.

Love really could make the most twisted of curses. It can bind someone to your soul. We know the parallels with Yuta & Rika and Gojo & Geto.

From HI we can delve deeper. For the sake of humanity, out of compassion and love, Geto became twisted and cursed himself by having crazy ideals that required him to sacrifice himself and humans. Out of love for Gojo, he also cursed them both to separation & loneliness. Out of love, Gojo was twisted himself, cursed as he couldn’t kill his friend, had chosen to abide by the principles and values shown to him, could not move on … and therefore this personal theory was born.

It of course got worse for Gojo (😭) and all hell broke loose when he had to kill his beloved bff but couldn’t let his corpse go.

Sigh.

Love is also salvation though. Gojo made sure Geto didn’t die alone. And Haibara made sure Nanami didn’t. Maybe Nanami made sure Haibara didn’t all the way back then too.

When Gojo died, Geto picked him up.

Love also gave meaning and purpose. It drives humanity. But it was also a curse and Gojo theorised right.

Maybe the two beliefs are linked, in that if you didn’t know love (humanity?) you might die alone, with regret. If you hung onto love and lived purposefully with humanity in mind, you might die a good death.

Who knows what themes Gege is cooking...

Thoughts? Feel free to comment or reblog with them!

[ghysry]

Character pairing: Five/Reader, Five Hargreeves/reader, Five Hargreeves & Reader, Five & reader

Tags: Mentions of death, slight fourth wall breaking, Reader has the power to change the narrative, the first part is boring, the second part is under construction, basically an introduction to what the reader can do! Honestly you don't have to read this but I needed to get started on something, wow that is one long tag, Red text is when reader changes the narrative/fourth wall breaks!

Parts: Part one (you are here!), part two

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

"The narrative"

There are plenty of things you regret in life. Whether it be telling someone about your feelings or the death of a family member you just wish you could turn back time to stop from happening - the regret is there, or maybe it isn't, but the clear wish to change the narrative is strong enough that you can't ignore it. Which is why you're a particularly lucky one. Being one of the children born from one of the 43 mothers around the world who either had their kids stolen or bought from them, died or killed. Some, you're sure, probably killed their own mother in the time of their birth. A stomach not welded for a child after all isn't a stomach that will survive.

Fortunately enough, your power wasn't anything that would physically change your appearance either. Actually, your power would've helped you change your appearance at any time, it was honestly convenient had you not gone insane decades ago because of it. The power to change the narrative, or in other words, control, was gifted to you simply because you were born on a specific day at a specific time. You were allowed to play god...kind of. You had to write out the original god for every universe and made sure to rewrite in the narrative that you are truly the one and only. Doesn't seem very hard to change the narrative does it? Well, until they started introducing scripts.

Which is what led you to here, on your pastel painted bicycle paddling around someone's version of heaven, waiting for Klaus to die and end up here so you both could talk. Being someone who had control over everything was extremely overwhelming, and of course sometimes you can't just use your power for everything, so, you have to do things the normal human way. Aka, posing as a god to one of Five's brothers so you could pass on a message. You and Five have met before a considerable amount of times, in the first script while he was in the apocalypse, you erased the part where The Handler came and got him, instead, you did.

Long story short, he kind of likes you, but you're a really big fan of those niche slow burns so you decided it would be best to change the narrative to fit that type. Blinking in and out of his life was easy enough, finding the right time to do so was harder than you thought it would be. First, you initiated first contact - aka appearing beside him while he was travelling through the apocalyptic world at the physical and mental age of 17, yet to time travel nor join the commission. Then, you slowly gave him doses of affection over the years, even going as far as to change your appearance to make him believe you were growing up with him. And after he trusted you enough, you pulled him into the commission. It was a cannon event, as they say, so you didn't want to interfere that much, because like it or not, you started falling for him too.

It's raining, the patter of water droplets hitting his clothing was enough to alert him of your presence. It always rained when you got here, that much was certain. It was only where you'd end up in that he had to figure out for himself. Once, it even rained for a week straight before he found you, in some abandoned old house with a TV that was still working. He was shivering by the time he got inside, and you laughed, telling him he looked like a wet dog before handing him a coat jacket. This time around though, you appeared right behind him, his senses alerting the nerves circulating his body that the love of his life was here. Well, the love of his life..as he knew it. It was common knowledge to him that you didn't like him like that, which is why it's only in his head that you two are happily married.

He swivelled to look at you in the face, the similar smile you held every time you appeared was something he didn't want to erase from his mind, never in a million years. "Marigold, you're back." He gulped, pulling at his collar and looking around nervously like a high school boy who was partnered with his crush for a dance. You nodded along, stepping forward and being wary of the rubble surrounding the two of you, this was your big time to shine, you couldn't afford to trip on a little rock now. Well, you could, to be fair, but rewriting the script again would make you lose more marbles than you already lost. "Five, I have to show you something." You, Marigold, well, that's not your actual name but you thought it would be really funny if he called you a nickname by the flower that doomed him and his family from the day they were born.

Eventually you got him to join the commission.

And now you're here, getting annoyed that the person you were supposed to meet is almost late. Well, everything is always on time but you pride yourself on being early, which is why you expected everyone else to be early too - could this guy really take any longer to get here? All he has to do is die for godsake. With the sudden sound of a flutter, grass being pushed aside by a body that just appeared, you stopped peddling your bike and waited for Klaus to gain his lucidity back and notice you there. "Klaus." You called out, hearing him groan before getting up to stare at you, he wasn't exactly standing but he wasn't sitting either, he was kind of on his side with his arm propping him up and a slurred look on his face.

"Oh hey god thing..person..ma'am," Klaus hummed, smiling cheekily. It wasn't the first time you two met and it definitely won't be the last. "I need you to tell Five that Marigold said he looks good in the outfit with the hat." You whispered, still however being on your bike, making it a little hard for you to say what you needed to say. "Your name is marigold?" , "Shush, druggie. Go back to the land of the living now." You tapped him on the shoulder with your shoe, hearing his protests disappear into thin air, and so did he.

"Brrrhhh," Klaus shook, feeling his body return to him, it felt like he just dreamt of a place called the void, but then again in the void it also felt like he was dreaming his entire life up. He coughed and stuttered, Diego's hand on his back bringing him closer to real life faster than usual. "God you really have to stop scaring us like that Klaus." Allison, to his other side, dipped down to discipline him like a child, which is in tune with her character, seeing as she is a mother. "Wait wait wait uhm, uh, where's Five?" Klaus snapped back in - or dare you say, locked in, before aggressively getting up and almost dragging Diego down to trip and fall flat on his ass while using him as a support.

"Five? Well-" Allison stepped backwards, a look of confusion on her face before she was cut off with Five blinking in front of Klaus, apple juice in a fancy glass on his right hand and the will of America - aka a gun - in his left. "Right here," he sipped his pretend margarita, staring Klaus up and down judgementally like a blonde middle aged soccer mom towards the college drop out cashier in a random Walmart. Klaus snapped his fingers, trying to remember whatever it was he had to say to Give that was so important. "Err, uhh, okay here it is, Marigold told me to tell you that she really liked your outfit with the hat," Klaus looked at Five's face for any kind of reaction, violent or not.

...

"You know Marigold?!"

[screamingatanemptyroom]

Screaming at an Empty Room -

Reintroduction/Update

Hello everyone! Probably too late to do an intro, given that I've been writing on this blog since 2017, but since I've returned after a few years away from writing, I wanted the opportunity to talk about my blog and projects completed and my upcoming plans!

I go by Avaleon everywhere else on the internet, but respond to pretty much anything, including Screaming, hey you, etc! Started this blog in my mid 20s, and aged normally into the early 30s from there. I love writing, have always loved it, but between work and life, it's definitely something that I mostly do late at night and on weekends. I love hearing from people, but I usually answer asks in bunches, and typically right before I post writing. Love hearing about other people's projects as well!

I write short stories, novellas, and occasional full length novels. I am not published, but actively working on self-publishing some of my full length works. Everything I write is posted online, I enjoy sharing my work. The main reason to self publish for me is to have physical copies for myself or anyone who might want one!

My short stories can be found under the #writing tag on my blog. As for the long completed stories, I'll post them below the cut!

Love you Tumblr, happy to be back!

A. Full Length Novels (100,000+ words)

Please Fix the Story!

Description:

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I’m trapped in this never ending cycle of rebirth. All I know is that I wake up inside the worlds of unfinished stories, with a mission to accomplish the author’s wishes and stabilize the worlds now headed for destruction. I do my best, hoping, praying that maybe if I complete enough missions, I’ll be able to remember my past and return to my home.

It’s just fixing stories, it should be simple enough.

So can someone explain who this random villain is who keeps following me to each world?

Masterpost linked here

2. I Can’t Eat Love

Description:

Lenora did not have a wonderful life. After her engagement to Prince Ronan is broken, she loses everything… her reputation, her home and her family. Starving on the streets, she dies angry and bitter at how her life unfolded… only to wake up in her old bed, fifteen again, five years before her death. 

Now she must struggle to change her fate, and the fate of the around her. This time she won’t trust in something as flimsy or changeable as love. No, this time she’ll have the power and the money she needs to protect herself. 

Lenora has already lost everything once. She’s not going to lose again. 

No matter the cost. 

Masterpost Linked Here

B. Novellas

I Refuse to be a Named Character

Description:

I woke up inside the world of one of the best selling fantasy book series “Deadly Crown.” Intrigue, handsome heroes, adventure… sounds great, right? Just one problem: all the named characters except the main hero and villain die, are replaced and their replacements die. Being important in this story is a death sentence, so I plan to move to the middle of nowhere, and avoid the plot! 

It should be a fool proof plan, so why do the main characters keep dragging me into the story?

Masterpost Linked Here

2. Living in a Rewrite of my Own Book World

Description:

This is the story about an author who gets hit by a car right before she can finish her bestselling book series. Trapped in the role of a terrible side character antagonist, she must find a way to change the story’s ending. Not just for her own survival, but for the characters that seem just a little too real to be fiction. (30K words)

Masterpost Linked Here

3.Baby’s First Revenge!

Description:

When Charlotte is betrayed and killed by the friend she sacrificed everything for, she thought it was the end. Instead, she found herself reborn as a baby, with her killer still enjoying the fame of stealing her work. Now, she's coming after him, and plans to make him pay... But first, nap time.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7

4. The Supervillain’s Daughter

The story of Erica, a girl who finds out that her brother is the kidnapped child of superheroes, and that her parents are villains. Years later she is the best agent in the Villain Suppression Unit, and hates everything to do with superheroes. So of course she isn’t pleased when she is paired with the strongest man alive, especially because she knows him. But with even darker parts of her past surfacing again, she will have no choice but to join forces and save the world. 

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

Other smaller works and the incomplete ones can be found on this page

Thanks everyone!

[romanoffsbish]

A Whiskey Lullaby (A Cruel Life)

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Heavily Inspired by:

Warnings: Neglect (All Kinds) | Alcoholic Nat | Sick R | Death (Romeo & Juliet, but make it sapphic - Cancer / Suicide) | NonCannon IW/EG Allusions | Happy Ending (all Things Considered) | WC: 1,604

You were tired. You always were now that you knew you were dying. The doctor said at least a year but they were too enthused; lying to you, because it was only two months since then and you knew very well that the day you die is here.

And now — You wanted to talk to your wife, to get to maybe share one more dance beneath the stars but she wasn't available. She hadn't been for awhile, before you stopped running from your fate. The drinking started a month before, the lying and constant evasion came next. Natasha was mad at you, and you were dying. Dying to know why, dying to hear her say I love you one last time, but, she was dying to strangle you, to take you before the cancer.

——

Dying to know why, and as she laid on the couch with a puddle of beer staining the carpet you told her, "There's never a right time to say goodbye my dear, and I hope you'll forgive me in due time for leaving you this way." Forgive you for what? She'll never know because she was too drunk to hear you verbalize what she already knew was in your heart (and lungs).

Cancer took you and the world mourned first.

Natasha woke up to the deafening silence. Not even the birds were singing. The dead leaves not falling, and you weren't answering her pleas. Natasha crumbled to her knees beside the bed. Her guilt laced grief rattling through the cracks in the walls she'd recklessly built.

The bright leaves fell then. As did your limp hand from hers when she felt the chilled skin.

The redhead stumbled from your room and sent Yelena a text, "Izvini." (Sorry). Then she returned with a poisoned bottle of whiskey.

Natasha failed to love you like she solemnly promised (vowed). She let grief consume her. The waste of time drinking started the moment that she knew you were leaving her behind. It wasn't the actuality—the cruel world taking you—nope, it was you, breaking a sacred promise.

To stay with her til the end, hers; not yours.

How could you take her lifeline away? Then actually expect her to breathe right some day?

Natasha wouldn't give you that satisfaction.

You neglected yourself for the sake of her for years. Not complaining of pain when she was met with financial problems after Tony died and his estate froze the Avengers funds until they could unveil his final will and testament.

During the blip she was running out of money every time she thought she stood a chance at bringing you back; you, who was already sick.

A daughter lost her father, a wife her husband. Millions were brought back from extinction, surely it counted for something, but what did all of the sacrifice mean if she lost you too?

Her mind plays a loop of every time you'd coughed while you were on the run with her. Never near a hospital long enough to tell her that something was wrong, because you would never risk losing her to Ross as you got cured.

She would have turned herself in to Tony for him to swear to it you were covered. The man loved you enough to put differences aside, and Ross wasn't stupid enough to let you die.

Natasha would have survived because she would have gotten you back eventually. She was well known for her ability to make herself disappear and return when the time is right.

Timing was always tough for you two. Like when you missed the first date because you saw someone in need and tended to them instead.

You felt peace for a glorious few seconds.

Then once you realized you blew the redhead off you ran around the city on a mission. It started with you getting wine, then a pizza and ended with you pleading with the owner of the flower shop to unlock the door, and then once more pleading with a fist at Nat's front door.

You knocked, and knocked until she opened. You handed her the smushed up tulips in a rash wave of anxiety and she spluttered the petals from her lips and stared at you blankly. Green eyes holding a grudge against her perfect match, a foolish wager to take a chance on.

Natasha's anger nearly blew it, but you beat her with your rushed words: "I'm sorry for missing our date Natasha. I love pasta, and you too."

Natasha's eyes widened and you shrugged with a playful smile. "Surprise if you didn't already know! It was unrequited love in the start babe," you reminded her and she pouted. You flashed her an even dreamier smile, "But it worked out in the end," and teased her with a smug wink.

"It did, didn't it?" Natasha smiled and planned to kiss you breathless, to seal the deal of your hearts greatest desires. Then you ruined it.

Well, at least partially... Halting her game.

"I don't actually apologize though, because I couldn't leave that little boy crying beneath the dimmed streetlights of a ruthless city. He clung to me before I even saw him, so I put on my hero cap and helped him to find his mother."

Natasha's dagger eyes twisted into hearts.

"After four blocks of searching I heard her calling for Dylan, the little stinker lifted his head and cried. His mother was on me in an instant and only refrained from punching me when she saw I was an Avenger. If it were me I still would've swung. But she didn't. Only took a photo then thanked me in a rush to fame."

Natasha watched you in amusement as your face revealed your thoughts first, you scoffed humorously at that, it was just peculiar to you because: "If you share that story, all you are saying is 'I'm the mom who lost sight of my toddler in the streets of a devious New York.'"

You went to catch your breath, but the redhead needed you to stop blabbing, so she pulled you into a kiss that took your next to last breath.

Then she had to go and silence you to never have to face the ramifications of the true last breath. It left your lips while she slept in torment, her dreams were always cruel now.

As she took the last sip she sighed, because at this time she'd be escaping the wake up call.

Natasha shed a relieved tear, her dulled eyes closed and the empty bottle in her hand slipped onto the ground and shattered. The birds cried and the trees stood barren. The sun that just rose eventually set. Your lifeless bodies connected like lovers unlike they'd been prior.

That doomed night, the angels and birds sang in a practiced symphony; a whiskey lullaby.

The world lost two more heroes in the aftermath. Everyone mourned, Yelena buried you both beneath the willows, and cried as she yelled at you two for being so selfish. Laura clung to the blonde because now she was down a husband and sisters, by blood and marriage.

Yelena gave into the reality that this was all the family she had left. Losing the same sisters left them bonded now, in a morbidly unfair way.

It was frivolous really, to grieve the loss instead of celebrate the conquered life. They cry out; but to a void, neither of you could hear the mourning; eternally booked and busy.

Too busy rejoicing in your afterlives together.

Natasha got a second chance at loving you.

She'd found you in a field, out of breath from all the racing to get to you, but also because you were glowing brighter than ever before. Wearing a vivacious smile and looking pretty.

Much like when she found you earth-side she crumbed to her knees, sobbing. But this time her tears were a mix of bitter joy. You quickly shushed her though, and pulled her to her feet and right into a deep, meaningful kiss. It was free of sin, but the deviants would get off to it in a porno because they'd feel the authenticity.

The love was palpable and renewed. She cried into your mouth but you continued smiling.

"I'm sorry," Natasha whispered into the warm skin of your neck. Not like blood pumping beneath skin, but more so a sensational bliss. "I ruined our happy ever after moya lyubov'."

"Don't be sorry Natasha," you refuted her while spinning her around by your grip on her hips. Forcing her to see the dreams you shared in front of her. Day flashed to night and you spun her around beneath the light of the moon.

When you finally stopped spinning her she fell into your arms in a graceless way she detested. Her brows furrowed once again but you kissed her lips and devilishly distracted her mind. Pulling away you gasped, then smiled so soft that she finally deemed this moment reality.

You were her angel always, but you were finally free of the cruel restraints of a limited world. Natasha jumped and you caught her, she wrapped her arms around your neck, her legs mirroring them around your waist. You pecked her lips then said: "We lived that life full of regrets, always forgiving, but unable to forget. Let's save the now for absolution, we're free."

"In paradise baby," Natasha cheered and the sun set. Then it rose without conditions, and you lived out your dreams with your lover.

Eternity was kind to you, oh the places your love could've gone if only life had been too.

——

Heartbreaking Angst | Not Even a Happy Life so Why Would the End be Any Different? | Exactly | Just Kidding Babe | The end is for making amends 💕