#the poof poof memorial posting thread

[sevdrag]

Remember my boy. My mans. My sweetest of mans. (And his tan brother I lost years ago.)

Look how stupid he was! He was just a little guy! That was 15 years ago!!!

(He comes home tomorrow. In a box. Sent to ashes with his favorite pink kickeroo.)

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

WIP Wthursday

meant to post yesterday and then forgot bc of who i am as a person so, whoops. anyway, current state of affairs

embroidery:

absolutely 0 progress on the Hermit since i last posted it in like mid september. whoops. i WILL finish this thing by veilguard i swear but for some reason it's just grueling every step of the way. meanwhile, i'm banging out this mini version of The Tower in like 4 days. I want to post the pattern/thread colors I made for my big design, but i feel guilty selling a pattern for a piece where i hand-dyed at least 5 of the colors involved. So I'm making a second version with only commercially available colors as an alternative (and a slightly less saturated background), and I'll include both color guides as options.

haven't made any new digital designs/patterns since the last one of the qunari dialogue symbol. considering making a new one for another piece of art to copy out, but currently unclear on how to get the proportions for the frame accurately copied into photoshop because I want to try an oval frame instead of circular so... yeah. we'll see.

writing:

went digging through my old WIPs folder and found a k!meme prompt fic for Lavellan getting hit by a truth spell that I'd basically almost finished and then just... completely forgot about I guess? it's a silly premise and under 15k so it must have just poofed from my brain when I moved and lost track of all my then-projects.

           Just the memory sends a flush down the back of her neck, her heartbeat skipping inside her chest like a stone over water. She can almost feel it, even here, her legs aching after a days of travel. The warmth of his body against hers in the cold air of the mountains. The unexpected passion of their kiss, the pressure of his lips crushing against her own, driving all other thoughts from her mind.             The way just beforehand he’d still hesitated, almost tearing himself away.             That’s the real problem, she thinks to herself, as she tries to ignore the wet slapping noise the drenched fabric of her robes makes with every step. She just can’t reconcile the intensity of his words with the way he keeps drawing himself back again. Every time she considers making another move, she can’t help but think that maybe it will be what convinces him she’s not worth the trouble after all.             Ar lath ma, he’d told her, despite it all.             She has no idea how to respond to something like that.

the first two and final chapters are entirely finished, while 3/4 are more disjointed segments that need some fleshing out. but i'll probably just go ahead and post the first bit soon because why not. maybe that'll push me to clean it up faster. i'll also be honest. half of this fic is like... the prompt premise, and the other half is just. me wishing i was out backpacking. i wrote it the summer of lockdowns when i went from working outside 5 days a week to bedroom WFH prison, and its funny rereading now like. oh yeah so i was going fully insane about not being the one camping myself, huh.

Anyway. otherwise I also started another new short thing for my still currently nameless No-Longer-Lavellan from reunion, but it's only a couple hundred words and some vague notes so far. Not sure if I'll turn it into something more polished or leave it as general musings. I wish I could draw better because I have way more concrete visions for visual art for that whole scenario but, alas.

[summitclan-chronicles]

I'm curious about the one character rule, is there any specific reason for that?

Oooh, you just opened a 12-ft bag of Excited Nattering.

• Your knowledge is your character's knowledge. I'm gonna be transparent here, I have a massive pet peeve against metagaming (giving a character knowledge they don't have). With multiple characters it's insanely easy to accidentally give one character the knowledge of another, by accident or on purpose to give them the upper hand. If you and your character have the same amount of information, you can't transfer unknowable knowledge.

• Population Control. one thing I noticed about the roleplays of my youth was how big the Clans got, how fast they grew and how often the allegiances were mostly inactive characters. When you combine in-character births with "poof" characters and outsiders joining without rhyme or reason, it causes a Clan to explosively grow in size. There was very little opportunity to gather the entire Clan together, either due to inactivity or sheer volume, and much of the time I felt as if characters in all roles got lost in the shuffle. With fewer cats, the spotlight broadens and everyone can have their time.

• It makes being a parent or mentor special. With everyone having one cat, I can make roles to prevent certain players from seeing the lore. This makes them dependant on more experienced members to teach them, and everything they learn will be a true and genuine revelation associated with that more experienced member that brought it to them.

• It makes it easier to keep secrets. Some plots may be kept quiet for a certain period of time to preserve the shock factor! If everyone had multiple characters we'd have fewer replies written out of genuine emotion ;)

• It requires less time & brainpower. Remembering all the social ties and historical bullet points of multiple characters can prove overwhelming for some, and it can lead to crossed wires too! With only one character you only have to remember things as they associate to your memory - because this reflects your character's memory. Additionally, when you pop into Summitclan for replies, there's no steep expectation or pressure to be in multiple threads with multiple characters at once. You can rest easy knowing you'll only ever have to reply to one interaction at a time, so you'll never have "threads stacking up uncontrollably in the background while i cry on my desk." (<- me.)

• It means I can put your character in your nickname. That way everyone can figure out who is played by who simply by swiping left on Discord and viewing the member list. Easy correspondance!

• It's neat! It makes Summitclan stand out a bit, I think!

But those are (major) secondary reasons. The big reason has its own name I gave it:

The Joy of Immersion.

This is a little difficult for me to explain so bear with me!

Essentially, I first learned about & joined a wcrp when I was 12 (i know! i know! i was a toddler!) and I had one single cat now lost to time. I was so intimidated by the community at hand and volume of the lore (... relative to 2012, anyway) that I decided to keep one cat for now and I would learn as I read others' posts. I didn't have them for long, as petty tween drama burned the place to the ground. But the experience of seeing the fanClan from the perspective of a single cat was formative.

It felt like the difference between, like, The Sims and Facade.

When you play The Sims, you have everyone's thoughts and opinions and intentions directly at your fingertips. Sure, there's some significant autonomy, but if a housemate suddenly gets up mid-convo you can check and literally observe their intent to go eat yucky Mac and Cheese cus their hunger bar is at a cool 25%. There's no guessing when it comes to the people you live with, and in conversations with neighbors you can still see how they feel about you in clear text and color-codes.

In Facade it is a god damn minefield. At nearly every turn these weird gliding people are verbally sucker punching you. To this day I learn about new strings of dialogue that blow me down. In the moment, typing out your little statements, you have no way of knowing whether your statement will unlock the next step of the game or if Trip is going to ferry you directly out of his house like an unwanted Amazon package.

In short... Facade doesn't tell you anything it just victimizes you, and that was what it felt like.

I was only in control of one tiny piece of a great big bicycle, and everyone else whirled around me with their own lives, their own events, their own perspectives - there was no way for me to read them all, and no way one single character could appreciatively tour them all. I had an opinion about some characters that were not shared by anyone else, because we had two different experiences of that character. And because I only had one cat, one set of eyes, I never found an opportunity to see the character another way: impressions had already been set down, the characters already had history, and there was no re-doing it for a different reaction. Plus, every plot point I put into the air was mostly controlled by other players: I couldn't use older or higher ranked characters to help me along, I had to depend on the interest and cooperation of others.

A consequence of that was a serious, genuine sense of pride when my cat progressed. I managed to get her from 6 moons to about 2 years old (which was probably like, 3 months irl, you know how it goes) before the place fizzled away. Because I had spent much of my time learning the lore directly from my mentor and Clanmates both on purpose and through osmosis, and because I generally had only one lens to learn it through, I felt like I had actually accomplished something when the Clan leader messaged me about her warrior name. It felt like I had actually proven myself in a tangible way, which I could go back and point to - "That was the thread where I learned X thing about Y landmark," "[Name] told me about this rp's Warrior Code in this thread."

I have been chasing that precise feeling forever in order to share it with others. It was such a unique and fascinating experience that overcame my entire body during her warrior ceremony, something I had only ever felt when accomplishing things in my real, actual life! What a wonderful feeling to cultivate in others!

My greatest sadness is that, unavoidably, the first generation of members on SCC won't be able to feel that kit-to-elder accomplishment for their first exposure to the lore. But I hope that in the future, when former members come back and see a painting their character made on a rock 6 real-world years ago was retouched in a thread yesterday, that feeling will make up for it.

[fairlyoddfictives]

“hi kid, i’m poof!”

“at least I was- I changed my name to Peri! As in, periwinkle- check the threads, eh?”

INFO

Name: Peri

Body Age: 18

Age: 22

Pronouns: He/They

Additional: My memories are different to the canon of the shows, please keep that in mind when interacting. I’m also a real person, with real feelings; not some role player (no hate to them, of course. I’m just not one of them.)

ADDRESSING THE “OTHER”

I am not addressing him as the “other” to ostracize him; that is how he wishes to be referred to if and when I speak about him. It is not hard to figure out who he is, but please respect our boundaries. Do not refer to him as his source name, at least not yet. He is not comfortable with it at this moment. His memories are VASTLY different to the canon of the show, with only slight overlaps; but unlike me, he holds himself up to his canon actions. He does not like them, and he feels horrible that a version of him did what he did- even though it was not him that did it.

PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND IF AND WHEN HE POSTS

[parts-of-spop]

Post S5 the Best Friend Squad land on a planet occupied by Magicats...

Part 4/?

Catra and Adora have just undergone the trials necessary to make their marriage official in the eyes of the Magicats. Their final one is to spend a night apart. Catra... struggles...

Catra shudders, claws digging into the blanket under her as haunting images flash behind her eyes, her tail twitching wildly in her dreams.

A green pool of liquid... Chanting clones... His smug, smirking face looming over her as a symphony of voice echo around her...

Cast out the shadows! Cast out the shadows! Cast out the shadows!

She can't breathe! She can't think! He's in her head! Get OUT!

ADORA!

She jolts awake, lashing out reflexively with a panicked yowl as something touches her only for her to immediately recoil, eyes welling with tears as her eyes focus on the figure beside her.

One who is touching her own cheek, clawed fingers drawing away crimson.

Catra flinches, a weak whine tangled in her throat as she heaves ragged, panicked breaths.

Then vibrant green eyes drift up to her and her ears flatten as she trembles.

I'm sorry... Don't hate me. Don't toss me out. I'll be better. I'll-

Her non-bloody hand raises slowly and Catra cringes, stiffening in preparation for a punishment, and she shudders, eyes clenching shut against her building tears as a warm hand cups her cheek.

"It's okay... I scared you... You're not in trouble."

Her eyes tentatively crack open a peek and she's greeted by a tender gaze.

The scratches are deep and nasty, oozing blood but Cy’ra doesn't complain, stroking Catra's cheek like she hasn't just nearly blinded her.

Then she's purring deeply and Catra's shaking eases as she watches a faint glow form around the cuts and they steadily seal until they're nothing more than faint pink scars nestled within her fur.

She's still bloody but the wounds have gone.

"See? It's okay..." Cy’ra soothes calmly and Catra sniffles.

"I'm sorry. I didn't-... I h-had a nightmare and Prime-..." She falters, curling into herself. "I sleep best with Adora... She keeps the dreams away."

"What dreams?" Cy’ra coaxes, still stroking her cheek gently, back and forth. "What'd he do to you, kitten?"

Catra reflexively puts a hand to the back of her neck, feeling the scar there left from the implant.

It’s gone. Long gone but the scar remains in every way that matters.

She's starting to think some traumas never leave you.

"He... He had me brainwashed... chipped... I was in his hive mind for weeks... He... He had me pushed into this-... this pool... held under it... electrocuted until I could barely remember my name... then he put the chip on me and I wasn't me any more. He-... He took everything... and it's so stupid because it was so long ago and he's gone but I can't-"

The hand on her cheek cups her chin, guiding it up and she's greeted by blazing green eyes. It'd be frightening if it wasn't so reassuring. The anger burning in there is not for her.

"If he were not already dead I would claw my way through his ship myself for daring harm you so terribly," Cy’ ra tells her and her ferocity shows her honesty, her protectiveness, her righteous fury... She strokes the back of her fingers to Catra's cheek, careful not to stain her with blood.

"But you are safe now and I shall allow no force in this universe to tear your happiness from you again... understand?"

Catra nods mutely through a meek sniffle then lets herself be tugged into a warm, strong embrace.

She clings to her sister tighter.

"Your wife is near and safe with her two companions... I will stay with you until you are reunited. The moment the sun rises, you will see her again," Cy'ra says, firm but gentle as she holds Catra close. Then she's rumbling a deep purr that calms the lingering edges of her panic like little else can.

"Promise?" Catra croaks and Cy'ra nuzzles into her hair.

"I promise, kitten... I've got you. You are safe."

She drifts back to sleep a while later in warm, unrelentingly reassuring arms and when she wakes the next morning, she finds herself tucked into Cy'ra's lap, wrapped in a blanket with her strong, broad arms curled protectively around her as if to shield her from anything that may dare harm her.

Only Adora has ever made her feel so safe.

So she indulges, sinking back into her sister with a sigh and purring lightly as the world around the tent steadily awakens and warms beneath the suns rays.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Catra?" Comes a gentle call and Catra opens her eyes drowsily, smiling reflexively as she places the voice and Cy'ra's ears twitch as she stirs. Then she's tensing, clutching Catra tightly into her with a fierce snarl already in her throat, fangs bared before she spots Adora in the entrance, looking more than a bit wary at the warning sound.

Then Cy’ra relaxes but remains adamantly curled around Catra who feels a mixture of exasperated and appreciative by the firm hold.

"Sorry... Did I wake you?" Adora asks, soft and apologetic and Cy'ra's flattened ears perk slowly before she blinks fully to wakefulness and she finally slackens, looking down at Catra.

"Apologies," Cy'ra replies gently.

"You gonna let me loose now?" Catra quips and Cy'ra smiles toothily despite the blood still crusting her face.

"It would not do to delay your first day with your wife now, would it?" She drawls, lowering her arms and Catra looks to Adora who is smiling at her with such love that if it were anybody else she might find it nauseating.

"Hey, Adora..." She says breathlessly, untangling herself and sliding off the bed to bustle over to her, immediately pressing against her front to admire her warmth, her scent, the strong thud of her heart that's just skipped a few beats for her.

Her hands stroke around her neck and up into her soft, loose hair.

She will always love Adora's ponytail and cute, dumb poof but when it's down, it gives her claws so much more to card through and appreciate.

It's her favourite.

She purrs, tail lashing as she nuzzles into her neck and breathes her in.

"Gosh, you're cute this morning..." Adora murmurs, her own hands curling around Catra's waist, holding her closer, tighter, more against her.

"I missed you."

And it's testament to the truth of that that she doesn't even complain about being called 'cute'.

"I missed you too... The bed's all wrong without you..." Adora replies tenderly, hand gliding up Catra's back to gently thread into the soft fluff of hair at her nape.

Sometimes, she isn't sure why she's kept it short. Not as short as he'd cut it but short. And then there's moments like this when the sensations are just so rich and Adora so appreciative that none of those terrible memories can touch her.

"Yeah. I can't sleep right if you're not here," Catra admits quietly.

She feels another hand briefly rub at her back and smiles a tad.

"I'll leave you two alone and bring you breakfast in an hour. No one will disturb you. I promise. Catch up, okay?" Cy'ra says gently and Catra hears a rustle as her sister quietly drifts out.

"Your sister is awesome," Adora states and Catra grins, drawing back to look up at her wife.

Her WIFE.

Holy fuck, Adora is her wife now. Her wife.

"Almost as awesome as you," She says warmly and Adora beams back at her then cups her cheek.

"You're so beautiful... My beautiful wife..." She sighs and she sounds so dreamy that Catra almost forgets to breathe for a moment.

"My stunning wife... Perfect wife," She drawls back and then Adora's kissing her, smiling against her mouth and her hand finds Adora's forearm, stroking over the slightly risen, fresh tattoo that marks them as each other’s, tracing the symbol with her thumb gently.

Forever.

"I love you," She murmurs against her mouth and Adora hums contentedly.

"I love you too... so much..." She replies and Catra doesn't doubt it for a second.

[bloodsoakedfangs]

UPDATES:

I didn't get a stimulus. And I am struggling financially so

I have been essentially working from home to make ends meet, writing with my girlfriendddddd, and trying to avoid this virus while dealing with autoimmune condition issues. (Boo)

I want to come back and write but not while I'm all brain scrambled. My memory has been horrible and it affects the quality of my threads.

I miss my writing partners and I miss my blog!

This all his been INSANE honestly.

I just wanted to update because I know I kinda went poof.

Also...

@improbatus-venandi & I just picked out rings for a future engagement 😍

I am so in love, guys. (And gals, nonbinary pals)

Which is also part of the silence. It has been a whirlwind and the best time of my life.

I spend as much time as I can with her, and I have been working to better myself, and my life overall.

I am so happy and amazed with how my life is and I can't wait to hold my baby again.

I just wanted to post and announce because I care, about this blog, you guys, and especially my writing partners.

And my partner and I met here. Through our characters. And now we are so in love with so many plans and dreams for the future.

I can't wait to pick threads back up soon, everyone.

I hope you are all well and staying safe!

Much love,

Andrea

Bloodsoakedfangs

[madmaudlingoes]

I was tagged by @yaboyspodcastpalace​

Author Name:

Mad Maudlin (or Mad_Maudlin, or some variation thereof).

Fandoms You Write For:

At the moment? It’s all-MAG, all the time (with a tiny side brain devoted to the Daredevil/Chronicles of Darkness crossover of doom).

Where You Post:

AO3, with side announcements here and on twitter.

Most Popular Oneshot:

A Study in Natural Philosophy, a BBC Merlin daemon AU written during the very brief time I was in that fandom.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

Tongues of Men and Angels, a Stargate: Atlantis McShep AU I wrote for NaNoWriMo one year.

Favourite Story You Wrote:

Listen. Listen. I have 223 works on AO3. I have been writing fic since 2002. Let’s just stick to one-ish per fandom.

Once and Future, a Merlin/Torchwood crossover with additional references to Sanctuary and the rest of the Whoniverse. At some point this was going to be a whole Thing, with more elaborate crossovers and the Wandering Jew, but I fell out of love with most of the fandoms involved and at this point I can’t even decrypt my old notes. Something about “murder rehab” and Dropkick Murpheys lyrics.

Care and Feeding -- Harry Potter, my contribution to the grand traditions of super fucked up porn in that fandom.

Ghost Story, a Torchwood fix-it fic that nobody reads because it’s weird and long and in the first person a lot. But I loved writing it, and I think @marginaliana loved reading it, so who’s the real winner here?

The Story Needed Mending, Sanctuary, because I love Kate Freelander and I love Ashley Magnus and I just think they should be in lesbians, okay?

Apotheosis, BBC Sherlock, which, look. This fandom was massively important to men during my first couple years of grad school. I know how it ended, and I know it’s a punchline on Tumblr these days, but I found a lot to like in the first season, and this is probably still my favorite Sherlock fic of my own.

Dear John (WIP Remix), which I’m linking to the plain text form, because Photobucket took the images hostage. ::sigh:: I always enjoyed the Remix Redux, and this is probably my favorite remix fic I’ve done, going way beyond the original text but staying in the same spirit. Also I got to pour ketchup on it and devised cursive forms of the Pegasus gate symbols.

Frequently Asked Question, a comics!Hawkeye fic based off that one post about the lady with meningitis who lost all short-term memory. One of the few Marvel fics I ever wrote, based of the Fraction/Aja/Wu Hawkeye and the Kot/Walsh Secret Avengers.

The Stars My Destination, SGA in a Star Trek AU. This fic took two years to write and I was super burned out by the end of it, but it’s also got some passages I’m really proud of.

All You Holy Men and Women, Daredevil, because I think I really nailed the characters here.

The Minotaur and Other Poems, TMA. Which is funny because I was really, really unsatisfied with it when I posted it, but once I had a couple of months of distance I realized that it really achieved everything I was trying for?

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

Pretty much any “first in the fandom” story. Particularly “november in this house of leaves” and “Heave Cannot Hold Him, Nor Earth Sustain” since those were both preceded by multi-year writing breaks/mental health disasters.

How Do You Pick Your Titles:

Statistically speaking, most of them come from “Lullabye” by W. H. Auden.

Do You Outline:

Not formally -- it tends to kill my enjoyment of the story. If I outline at all, it’s very general. The good news is that I can hold a pretty complex storyline in my head without much trouble; the bad news is that, if i don’t finish the story quickly enough, it goes “poof” along with all my other memories. There are a loooot of abandoned wips in my writing folder, is what I’m saying...

How Many of Your Stories are complete:

...which is why I almost never post anything until I’m done with it. Even “Take Care of You (And I’ll Take Care of Me)” was almost done, I was just impatient for kudos and struggling to write out that last conversation.

There are a few unfinished tidbits float around various kink memes, but on the whole, I only post complete stuff. That was only I know how much I’ve abandoned. 

In-Progress/Coming Soon:

There’s a Basira-centric fic I’m stalled on which might be perma-WIP territory, and because MAG canon is hurtling into a pit of despair, I’ve been working on a ridiculous AU in which Jon is a literal cat and nobody dies or gets mutilated. (Well, “working” -- grading is hard, y’all.) And there’s a Little Mermaid AU still in the very early stages, but that one’s got an outline so I can come and go without losing the thread.

Do You Accept Prompts:

No, sorry.

Upcoming Story You’re the Most Excited For:

Jon Is A Cat And Nothing Hurts.

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions

Tag anarchy! Do the quiz if you want to!

[mittensmorgul]

ok ok i KNOW promos are little more than glimpsing the episode through a keyhole, BUT, if it is what it looks like, i think it’s safe to say that dean is doing his Classic Dean thing, and projecting the anger he feels at himself onto other people. because we KNOW how hard it was for dean to come around to jack, and accept that he wasn’t a threat, and dean even fully embraced him as part of the family, and then.... jack maybe kinda turns out to be exactly what dean thought he was from the start.

Yeah, that’s at least a big part of this. I mean, let’s go back and look at Dean’s trust-vs-acceptance arcs way back in s4. It’s not an exact parallel, but it’s thematically similar.

And for full owie factor, I’m watching 8.07 while I’m typing this up (thanks, TNT loop), and I have it paused on the scene where Dean and Cas are having their little talk while waiting for Linda Tran to show up… Dean’s angry and hurt, and has literally created a false memory of the situation because it was too painful. So yeah, we know this is something Dean does.

But back to the example I was gonna use here. In s4, Dean was being asked to trust Ruby, despite all his instincts screaming at him not to. Obviously Dean never developed a parental relationship with her, she never fully entered his sphere of trust the way Jack has, which only makes this a thousand times worse now. Because Jack DID get through Dean’s defenses, and proved he was worthy of being there, in Dean’s inner circle of family.

And despite everything, Dean’s gonna hate HIMSELF for what Jack’s done now. Because HE feels responsible for not being able to handle Jack’s death back in 14.08, because HE pushed to find a way to bring Jack back, because HE didn’t know how to handle things when Jack wasn’t doing well again, because HE allowed Jack’s “I’m fine” to stand even back in 14.14 before he burned up so much of his soul to kill Michael, and because HE didn’t know how bad things were getting for Jack now.

I mean, if DEAN had only been able to hold Michael back, Jack would never have had to risk his own soul to save them. If he’d just thrown himself in the ocean, Jack could’ve been FINE, right?!

I mean, Dean doesn’t know that Jack already wasn’t fine, and that he was already casually burning up more and more of his soul to hide his symptoms in 14.14. Dean ALSO doesn’t know what Cas sacrificed in order to bring Jack’s soul back in 14.08. And he’s gonna feel like crap when he finds out, because Cas did that for him, because he honestly believed that Dean would rather have Jack healthy and whole than him. And just D: D: D:

Cas and Dean are BOTH in this boat– Dean because of the guilt surrounding everything to do with Michael and his own personal perceived failings in that regard, and Cas who has now literally thrown everything away FOR NOTHING.

Cas staked EVERYTHING. HE. IS. on recovering Jack’s soul, and he’s horrified and had been in denial that it was lost forever. For NOTHING.

GEE. I WONDER WHY HE DIDN’T TELL DEAN.

He was so desperate he set out to find God again. Not for the reasons he did back in s5, but for incredibly PERSONAL reasons. I mean 5.02:

CASTIEL: I killed two angels this week. My brothers. I’m hunted. I rebelled. And I did it, all of it, for you, and you failed. You and your brother destroyed the world, and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep your opinions to yourself.

and from 5.18:

CASTIEL: I rebelled for this?! So that you could surrender to them? DEAN: Cas! Please! CASTIEL: I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me.

Can you imagine sacrificing literally everything you are, all chance at future happiness included, for someone who KNEW exactly what you had given up, only to have that person feel their “mission” was more important than anything else? Who was willing to sacrifice both of them to complete that mission? Because that’s what Jack has done.

If Jack’s soul really is gone forever, then Cas’s sacrifice has been for nothing. But Dean’s reaction is clearly coming from a place where Dean himself knows nothing about that sacrifice. Because Cas didn’t want to burden him with it. And Jack KNEW that.

But there’s so many of these threads coming together in the plot knot currently. and heck, this scene from 8.07 is on my screen rn:

DEAN: That was a bonehead move back there. You could have gotten yourself killed. Why didn’t you wait for me?CASTIEL: Well, I didn’t get killed. And it worked.DEAN: And if it didn’t?CASTIEL: It would have been my problem.DEAN: Well, that’s not the way I see it.CASTIEL: Hey, everything isn’t your responsibility. Getting me out of Purgatory wasn’t your responsibility.DEAN: You didn’t get out. So whose fault was it?CASTIEL: It’s not about fault. It’s about will. Dean, do you really not remember?DEAN: [laughs shortly] I lived it, Cas. Okay, I know what happened.CASTIEL: No. No, you think you know. You remembered it the way you needed to.DEAN: Look, I don’t need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I’ve failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don’t need it!

Sacrifice, self-worth, free will and choice… same themes, different go-around on all the loops here.

One last thought… Jack’s had a LOT of Star Wars references around his narrative journey. Dean’s been worried Jack could go Dark Side since the day he was born. I mean, Dean was worried at first that Jack was BORN dark, and it took him A LOT to separate out the guilt, horror, and grief of Cas’s death back in early s13 for Dean to even BEGIN to see that Jack wasn’t inherently evil. It took Cas coming back from the Empty (that metaphorical Dark Side), and then Jack’s time in the AU fighting alongside Mary for him to truly feel that Jack was growing into the Light Side of the Force.

It wasn’t that Jack killed Nick, because it had become clear that Nick was just Lucifer Lite (all the evil, none of the archangelic mojo), and despite being given several chances to stop, Jack did what we all knew had to be done. Only… the WAY he did it was just horrifying in itself. He could’ve just… zapped Nick dead instantly. He could’ve snapped his fingers and turned him to dust like he’s done to so many others, going back to the angels he poofed in the AU during s13. Heck, he could’ve shot him or just stabbed him with a knife. Nick was human. It would’ve killed him. But instead, Jack wanted him to suffer. Jack inflicted slow torture on Nick, believing he deserved to suffer. And that Jack was righteous in being the agent of that suffering.

That wasn’t a reflection on what Nick might or might not have deserved, but on JACK, and the fact he’s not in control of the Force anymore. The Dark Side got his claws in him, and it’s controlling him now.

It reminded me a tiny bit of one of Dean’s lessons during 6.11, while Dean was playing Death for a day. One touch and he could end the suffering of people slated to die and send them on to their afterlife– be it Heaven, Hell, whatever. It wasn’t DEAN CAUSING this guy’s suffering, but kinda… choosing to let it go on a lil bit, because the guy had been willing to shoot a KID just to rob a convenience store:

TESSA Hello? Tick tock.DEAN He’s in agonizing pain, right?TESSA Uh, yes.DEAN Give me a minute.

Dean then called the guy’s spirit a dick, and basically told him he was going to Hell… I mean, I get it, it feels good to watch someone get their comeuppance. But it’s another thing entirely to be the cause of someone’s suffering, even if they richly deserve it. To actively, vindictively feel justified in making someone suffer the way Jack did to Nick there. Nothing else mattered to him in that moment, and if Mary hadn’t been there growing more and more horrified, who even knows how long that torture would’ve continued. It wasn’t at all about what Nick “deserved.” We all get it, he deserved to suffer. It was about what this (and his actions in the next scene talking to Mary) said about JACK.

Like soulless!Sam, he can’t even see how wrong his actions are. He becomes defensive when Mary tries to explain, as carefully as she can, why she’s concerned for him. But Jack’s self-preservation, and the preservation of his beliefs about himself in a fundamental way, were threatened. He tried to rationalize and defend his actions. He told her Sam and Dean were GRATEFUL that he’d killed Nick and stopped Lucifer from coming back. And yeah, we all are, but that’s dusted now and we’re left with this deep concern for Jack instead.

He needed his actions to be justified, to be approved of, because without his own internal moral compass, he NEEDS the “What Would The Winchesters Do” validation. And Mary couldn’t give it.

At this point, I’ve typed so long I’ve got one last example from the TNT loop, at the end of 8.08. Fred Jones finally gets to confront the evil man who’d used his power to do bad things and got a lot of people killed in the process. When Sam and Cas confronted Fred, and woke him up enough to recognize what was happening, Fred used his power to kill the evil doctor. He didn’t drag it out, just forced the guy to turn the gun on himself while telling him that he’d never hurt anyone else again. But then Fred could see how his powers had been used for evil, and instead of attempting to defend or justify any of this, he voluntarily allowed his powers (and much of what made him him) to be extracted so that he could never be used that way again.

Jack… did the opposite.

This is all tied up in Cas’s personal issues with his own power, his identity, his endless struggles for and against Heaven, what he’s personally sacrificed for his loved ones. And heck at this point I don’t even remember the initial question, so I hope I’ve answered it…

*scrolls up to reread this before posting*

wow this reply went places…

[shinneth]

Gem Ascension Tropes (General: L - P)

Refer to the initial post for details on this. Here’s the full version on Google Docs.

Left Hanging: Unlike Change Your Mind, Gem Ascension Act III ends with loads of unresolved plot threads. This was deliberate, however, as it facilitated the means for the sequel stories that came out after the main series.

The Legend of Chekhov: Combined with Prophecies Are Always Right, this is what White Diamond exposits to the Crystal Gems in Chapter 7 of Act III when she talks about the “Diamond of Miracles”, a fusion between two Diamonds, which no one else has heard of before. Peridot immediately dismisses it; most others don’t put much stock in it, either. Steven, however, realizes that the important detail is that White believes in it, and she’s willing to risk undergoing a double-diamond fusion (which has never happened before) to make the Diamond of Miracles a reality. Sure enough, the legend ends up being absolutely true, but not in a way White wanted it to be. The Diamond of Miracles exists, but in the form of Chartreuse Diamond and Pink Diamond 2.0’s fusion. White Diamond was never part of the equation.

Lemony Narrator

Let’s Get Dangerous!: This is the premise for most of Act I; the Crystal Gems that are either new recruits, out-of-practice, or notoriously weak comic relief band together and take it upon themselves to rescue their more prolific teammates in a high-stakes mission where the odds are heavily stacked against them. Despite many bumps in the road, they perform competently and complete their objective.

Let’s Split Up, Gang!: Largely averted, save for a few justified exceptions. This trope is proposed early on, but Peridot sternly rejects it on the grounds that she’s the only one who knows her way around Homeworld, and given the circumstances, the risk of Bismuth and/or Lapis getting lost is far too great to take a chance on this strategy. 

It does happen in Chapter 5 of Act I, but this was due to Steven and Peridot needing an isolated, private place to heal the latter’s wounds while the others pressed on to rescue the rest of their teammates, now that Connie has reunited with the group and can guide them in Peridot’s place. Since Steven and Peridot split up using Lion, they’re able to quickly reunite with their teammates.

Pearl proposes this strategy in Chapter 7 of Act III – half of the team (herself, Connie, and Amethyst) directly confront Celadon Diamond to distract her while the other half of the team (Garnet, Lapis, Bismuth, and later Steven) track down White Diamond’s proxies and dispatch them so that once Celadon defuses, White won’t be able to hide behind an army of identical puppets like before and can be directly confronted. Luckily for the Crystal Gems, this works out perfectly for them.

Let’s Wait a While: Post-GA, Steven and Peridot both agree to this, especially when Garnet recommends specifically to wait until they’re 17 (or at least for Steven to turn 17) to go all the way with their relationship. Unfortunately, the nature of the work both of them have to go through invokes so much stress that they’re desperate to defy this after a few months on Peridot’s birthday. They ultimately succumb as of It’s a Birthday, Yes It Is Chapter 2, although given the performance of both parties, it’s a stretch to say they really defied it…

Like You Would Really Do It: Peridot IS the main character of this story, after all… dying less than halfway into the series just seems a little bit suspect, don’t you think?

Literal Split Personality: Steven and Peridot fall victim to this in Chapter 5 of This is Who I Am through Gypsum and 5XF’s powers. Their whole beings are now fragmented into a light and dark side; Steven and Peridot are forced to fight each other’s dark sides to the death in separate dimensions. The personalities are linked together, meaning Dark Steven will feel Light Steven’s pain and vice-versa. Should one side fall, the other will follow suit, resulting in the entire being’s death. 

Literally Shattered Lives: The only way a gem can be killed off for good is via a shattered gemstone, per canon. Yellow Diamond is the only one who might have averted this, as her gemstone was already damaged (but not mortally so) and it’s heavily implied she was forcibly assimilated with White Diamond, so… same end result, but possibly done a little differently. 

The pallid gems that were forced to merge and fuse together to make one single doppelganger of White Diamond will shatter instantly even if the proxy is poofed.

Living Bodysuit: What the pallid gems end up being for White Diamond… only they never regain their consciousness even after White’s done directly manipulating them. 

Losing the Team Spirit: How the Crystal Gems are shown at the start of Act II, which takes place no more than an hour or so after Peridot was Left for Dead.

Lost in a Crowd: In Chapter 7 of Act I, the Crystal Gems split into pairs while staying within sight of each other to maneuver through the mob of gems filling the hallways. The last team of Peridot, Ruby, and Sapphire end up like this when they take a moment to notice a swarm of pallids coming their way. The next time group leader Ruby looks ahead, she realizes Amethyst, who was not far ahead of her, is no longer in sight.

Love Confession: Peridot gives a bit of an indirect kind to Steven in Chapter 5 of Act I, though she’s clear enough that Steven understands and acknowledges her feelings (although given the circumstances, both agree this is not the time to even be talking about love). She delivers a much more profound confession in her Video Will to Steven in Chapter 8 of Act II, which she chronologically did before the confession in Act I. It also resonates with Steven much more strongly; to the point where there’s no doubt whatsoever he feels the same way for Peridot.

Love is a Weakness: Both Steven and Peridot suffer this individually in Act III. For Peridot, it was the belief that Steven came to save her (despite her orders for him and everyone else to not go back for her) that caused her to lose to White Diamond after being locked in a stalemate with her for nearly a week. Peridot’s love for Steven always gave her strength until this point, and her love for Steven is taken advantage of a second time later in Act III. The second incident is what makes Steven despair and blame himself, although Moonstone is quick to shake him out of that mindset and outright tells him he should never regard his love for Peridot (or her love for Steven) as a weakness.

Love Makes You Dumb/Crazy: Steven and Peridot are guilty on both counts of these tropes.

Dumb: Steven’s What an Idiot! moment in Chapter 8 of Act II when he’s compelled to return to Homeworld immediately to rescue Peridot despite having no plan and almost no recovery time since the last mission. Steven’s at least self-aware to some degree as he knows no one else will go along with him, so he opts to go out on his own by hijacking the airship. That point hammers in the dumb as Steven doesn’t take a moment to consider the fact that he has no idea how to pilot a spaceship. For Peridot, it might be a stretch to call it dumb, but she did fall for White Diamond’s mirage of Steven even after she had accepted no one would come to rescue her. Probably justified considering the degree of mental torture she’s endured up to this point and just had an understandable Moment of Weakness. Still, kind of sad she resisted White Diamond for nearly a week only to succumb like that.

Crazy: Steven’s triggered into being Blinded by Rage after witnessing (via flashback/memory projection) the instance of Peridot’s aforementioned dumb moment that results in her neck getting brutally sliced open. It’s hard enough to watch as it is, but then having that same scene on loop endlessly play in your head, and you can’t make yourself blind or deaf to it? That’s decisively his crazy moment. With Peridot, one can argue love made her crazy several times in the story. However, probably the most notable one is when she’s in Revenge Before Reason mode in Chapter 6 of Act III, getting revenge on White Diamond for the aforementioned scene that made Steven crazy. She was already driven insane by that point, but inadvertently enticing Steven to join her (and succeeding in that!) no doubt made her doubly crazy. 

Meaningful Name: At first, Gem Ascension was in reference to Peridot’s role “ascending” from Plucky Comic Relief to a Hero Protagonist. As the story was further developed, it expanded to Peridot’s ascent from the bottom of the caste system to the absolute top as a Diamond whose power was limited only by her own imagination.

Meet the In-Laws: They’re years away from being married, but not only does Greg already see Peridot as an imminent in-law, so does Pink Diamond, whose spirit meets Peridot (as Chartreuse Diamond) in person in Chapter 4 of Act III and wastes no time gushing over them and talking like she already expects grandkids. Peridot nearly dies out of embarrassment, though it’s a surprisingly amicable meeting considering Peridot’s low opinion of Pink based on what little she knows about her (which Pink is aware of). At least, it’s amicable until Pink points out how short Chartreuse is by Diamond standards.

Mental World: Peridot goes through this twice. The first time is voluntary, as she refuses to leave her gemstone to reform after she recovers from the injuries she sustained in Act I. White Diamond manages to manipulate Peridot’s own safe space with various horror worlds that force Peridot to fight for survival, though it doesn’t take her long to realize none of what’s happening is real. After forcibly being dragged back into reality, part of Peridot’s identity (namely her bold Determinator trait) is severed from her mind by White Diamond and locked away within Peridot’s own subconscious. That particular Peridot becomes aware of her new prison and tries to cope by clinging to her idealized imaginary Steven in hopes of recovering before trying to break free. Then the real Steven comes by to save her not long after this.

Mineral MacGuffin: The golden crystal 5XF obtains in This is Who I Am Chapter 4 embeds itself directly into her body in the following chapter and cannot be removed, which simultaneously makes it a Clingy MacGuffin from that point going forward. Since it’s strongly implied that particular crystal hosts the disembodied conscious spirit of Gypsum, a corrupted gem, and said gem was never properly dealt with in the story, it becomes a dangerous, yet necessary element to bring along in the upcoming mission where Gypsum will be directly confronted.

Mirror Match: Attempted, but Averted in Chapter 5 of This is Who I Am; 5XF knows this dynamic won’t work on Steven and Peridot, who went through a hellacious journey to achieve self-acceptance by the end of GA. To remedy this, 5XF employs an Opponent Switch to make Steven and Peridot fight each other’s Literal Split Personalities.

Misery Builds Character: Peridot and Steven easily fit in this trope the most, but it honestly extends to the whole cast to varying degrees. 

Most Annoying Sound: In Chapter 7 of Act II, Steven is finally awakened from his Angst Coma when he hears a deafening “STEVEN CLOD!”  in Peridot’s voice on loop courtesy of Pearl, who used this part of Peridot’s Video Will to her to wake Steven up.

Multiple Choice Ending: In Chapter 7 of Act I, Sapphire shares her vision of how the rest of the mission will play out with Peridot. Although the outcome is always the same in that one of the Crystal Gems will ultimately get left behind while the others escape safely, it becomes evident that who gets left behind has not yet been determined, meaning the one who doesn’t make it could be any one of the Crystal Gems. While Peridot elects herself to be the last one to escape, she makes it clear that she’s not choosing to sacrifice herself and will do everything she can to avoid that fate. While Peridot comes close to defying her fate, she unfortunately falls victim to it at the very last second.

Mythology Gag: Warrants its own page.

Necessary Fail: One could argue it was necessary for Peridot to be left behind in Act I, considering everything that goes down in Act III. Had Peridot successfully escaped with everyone else in Act I, there’s a high chance Homeworld would have been destroyed without the Crystal Gems even knowing about it, which would result in untold amounts of casualties and the colonies would still plunge into civil disorder. Considering Yellow and Blue were already dead by this point regardless, and pallification was becoming massively widespread, it’s evident that White Diamond was driven to run her own planet down into the ground regardless of whether or not she had Steven or a hostage to lure Steven back with. And while it would take a few hundred years to know for sure, Peridot’s diamond developing naturally could have been a much more dangerous process and no one would have any idea what was really happening to her.

Going even further back – and this bit was brought up a few times in GA – is just how much of a Manipulative Bastard Peridot needed to be when she lived on Homeworld. Had she behaved normally, Peridot never would have stood out as The Ace of her kind and likely wouldn’t have been selected for the mission to Earth, meaning she never would have met the Crystal Gems in the first place. So, she not only would never redeem herself and find her true identity, Earth itself might not have survived past the point of Gem Drill.

Never Split the Party: Mostly in play during Act I, save for Chapter 5 when Steven and Peridot split from the group using Lion so that Peridot’s injuries can be healed in a safer environment while Bismuth, Lapis, and Connie move on to rescue Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. It’s short-lived, however, as the team reunites before the halfway point of the following chapter. Before this, Peridot’s teammates propose splitting up on a couple of occasions, but Peridot firmly rejects it, reminding them that she’s the only one who knows her way around Homeworld, thus splitting up the group would only result in her teammates getting lost with a very low chance of being able to find each other again. In Act III, the group stays together for the majority of the mission for the same reason, with a single exception in Chapters 6 and 7. Every time the team is split up in Act III otherwise was beyond their control and engineered by their opponents.

No Loves Intersect: Ultimately ends up like this and for the most part has been this trope for the entire series. There’s a small bit of Early Installment Weirdness where Peridot presumes there will be competition for Steven’s heart (Connie), though she averts the Love Triangle prospect hard, being willing to concede to Connie before any fight can take place because she values her friendship with both of them too much to put that at risk. Peridot also considers she might be looking into the matter too deeply and there’s nothing between Connie and Steven at all (which ends up being the case due to past canon events making Connie want to step away from the love picture in general for a while), but nonetheless has no desire for a conflict despite how much she loves Steven. On the other end, when Connie finds out in great detail the extent of Peridot’s love for Steven in Chapter 4 of Act II, Connie is the one who wants to automatically forfeit the potential love triangle. Not only because she and Steven are already Amicable Exes before GA even started, but after finding out what exactly Steven means to Peridot, Connie can’t bring herself to come between them. By the time they reunite in Act III, everyone’s on the same page and Connie’s fully supportive of the relationship.

No One Gets Left Behind: Peridot’s very adamant about this during the Act I mission, and almost succeeds. When Sapphire shows her future vision that shows no matter what happens, one person is getting left behind, Peridot nominates herself. She still intends to Screw Destiny, but as a failsafe, can best live with not fulfilling her promise if she’s the one who gets left behind. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what ends up happening.

This trope is why the Crystal Gems spend six days preparing for the Act III mission. Peridot and her team had no choice but to go in blind during Act I. With a lot more help this time around and the gems at least having a good idea what they’re up against and what they need to do to rescue Peridot, they’re all upping their game to make it a certainty that they don’t lose anyone this time. Ultimately, they succeed.

Not-So-Final Confession: What Peridot’s Video Wills in Act II ultimately are, as she’s revealed to be very much alive by the end of Act II.

Nothing is the Same Anymore: After Gem Ascension, it certainly isn’t. After all…

Homeworld is gone. All gems who lived there are now on Earth. They’re left with no choice but to learn to adapt to Earth life and its culture. The heroes have been there and done that before with various individuals (Peridot and Lapis, most notably), but now the Crystal Gems have to figure out how to do what they did before with thousands of gems simultaneously. 

No more Diamond Authority. White, Yellow, and Blue Diamond are Deader than Dead. On top of adapting to a new planet, the gems have to learn how to live for themselves without being under a Diamond’s watchful eye, despite there still being two Diamonds left in existence (Chartreuse and Pink Diamond 2.0 do not want to follow in their footsteps). They have to learn how to think and feel freely, and with so many gems in this boat, it’s going to be a long, drawn-out process to wean them off the way of life they had before.

Again, Peridot and Steven have no intention of making a new version of the Diamond Authority with their Alter Egos. They will be playing a part in rehabilitating the gems, but there will be heavy emphasis that they’re nothing more than teachers helping them adapt to Earth life, and the gems will be set free to do as they like (within Earth’s laws) without having to answer to anyone. However…

Chartreuse and Pink 2.0 will be needed in some capacity to make some headway with stubborn gems, and their abilities will be needed to give the gems temporary residences, as there are way too many to just keep around the temple, or even Beach City. Peridot and Steven will be put front and center in Era 3 whether they want to be or not, as they’re the closest things the refugee gems have to some degree of Homeworld familiarity. Additionally…

They will need their Diamond forms to properly communicate with Homeworld’s colonies, which are still intact but just as Locked Out of the Loop as the refugees, meaning they’re likely to fall into civil disorder and total anarchy when they realize they no longer have a home base to report back to. The Crystal Gems need to bring their diplomatic A-game for this, as they risk luring these hostile colonies to Earth if they can’t come to an agreement. 

While Pearl has the means to make a cure, she won’t come across the right formula overnight. Plus, there are many more afflicted gems that need purification. Not only is there still a need to find a cure for the corrupted gems, but now there are thousands of pallified gems that are more than just corrupted, but are effectively in limbo. That means it’s highly unlikely that there’s a cure in existence that can treat both conditions simultaneously.

On a lighter note, all of the Crystal Gems are living under the same roof now. In short time, the new recruits will even have real rooms to call their own.

Not Used to Freedom: The Homeworld Gems who take refuge on Earth shortly before Homeworld’s destruction. So far, only 5XF has been shown to be released, but does indeed struggle with this for a while. It’s a foregone conclusion most gems will face challenges adjusting to this when they are eventually set free.

Novel

Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: This happens to Steven and Peridot mercilessly throughout GA. Though YMMV regarding when Steven and Peridot should be considered an Official Couple due to how events in GA play out (see Love Revelation Epiphany on Steven’s section for full details on that spectrum), simply going from the moment Peridot first confesses in Chapter 5 of Act I, there’s…

The mutual trauma of being split up at Act I’s finale when Peridot’s Twisted Ankle makes it so that she can’t escape Homeworld with the rest of her friends. 

Steven’s unable to cope with leaving Peridot to (potentially) die, and by the time everyone returns to Earth in Act II, he forces himself into a deep sleep just to avoid Peridot’s Video Will to him. 

When his friends finally wake him up in Chapter 7, there’s already hints of his powers going haywire due to his trauma. When he finally watches Peridot’s message, Steven comes very close to embarking on a suicide mission to save her as he can’t bear the thought of her being White Diamond’s prisoner a moment longer. His friends pull him back down to reality, but the fact that Steven went out of his way to lie to attempt this says a lot about how his mental state is rendered from the trauma (especially since he was able to deceive someone with a lie for once). 

Peridot, meanwhile, is tortured for the next six days mentally, physically, and emotionally. She’s already under the impression she’ll never see Steven again (she was very adamant in her messages to her friends to not come back for her) and is stuck with only White Diamond for company the entire time. Being the Determinator she is, she’s at least able to resist everything White Diamond throws at her… that is, until the latter uses Peridot’s memories of Steven to fool her into thinking he returned to save her. Even she can’t resist turning her attention to him, though falling into this Hope Spot makes White Diamond finally overpower her. This leads to Peridot’s Alter Ego Chartreuse Diamond’s existence, which is a life-long consequence Peridot forever has to live with. 

Shortly after being securely under White Diamond’s thumb as Chartreuse, the Crystal Gems return to save Peridot (while the main reason Peridot conceded to an alignment change was her resigned hopes of ever seeing them again). Now Peridot’s trapped in a situation where she has to treat Steven not only like a stranger, but an enemy. Once everyone except Steven is captured, a short talk reveals to Chartreuse that Steven’s figured out who she really is. In a panic, Chartreuse imprisons Steven as well, and is finally given an opportunity to explain herself and hopefully make amends when White Diamond lets her off on her own, though it isn’t easy for Peridot to know how to make amends. Especially when she’s had a fractured mind since her ascension that greatly impairs her judgment.

After a brief reprieve in Chapter 4 of Act III where Steven and Peridot reconcile, Steven is set on healing Peridot’s fractured mind. In the midst of doing so, however, he undergoes a trauma so great that it fractures his mind, and Peridot has no means of truly helping him without summoning his mother’s spirit and enduring a crushing amount of embarrassment in the process. 

Additionally, while Peridot manages to get Steven calmed down, it induced a Plot-Relevant Age-Up and hints of him being in a transitional state for what he would later become, which weighs heavily on Peridot’s conscience even though she knows it was unavoidable.

After a moment of self-indulgence, Steven and Peridot reunite with the rest of the team and Peridot owns up to being Chartreuse. While they get another moment alone out of the deal before everyone heads out to confront White Diamond directly, it’s later revealed this moment of reprieve and the last are greatly hampered by Steven and Peridot attempting to fuse and failing. Peridot knows if she can’t fuse with Steven, she has no chance to fuse at all, which is too heartbreaking even for Steven’s support to settle.

While it doesn’t change their relationship (which is when they fully acknowledge being an official couple), the previous scene makes the two rather distant from one another, with Steven barely speaking and Peridot holding the Jerkass Ball to everyone else. Even though everyone can see plain as day something happened between them, neither will acknowledge it.

During the White Diamond battle, Peridot’s sanity visibly crumbles. So many fusions are part of the battle, including Stevonnie, which Peridot forces herself to grin and bear. Then she gets an idea after seeing a certain part of White Diamond that makes her completely Ax-Crazy. Even worse, Peridot’s actions are not only understood by Steven, but he feels compelled to actually join her and eventually does so, breaking the Stevonnie fusion in the process. Peridot’s forced to become Chartreuse again to make any headway with her vengeance, and Steven is triggered enough to shift into the state he was previously in during his Blinded by Rage moment.

The battle abruptly turns in White Diamond’s favor and becomes a Curb-Stomp Battle where Chartreuse and Steven are captured by her while everyone else is moderately to severely injured. White forces Steven to fully awaken as Pink Diamond 2.0, which leaves him stunned in a Heroic BSoD while Chartreuse, unable to get through to him, is confronted with not being able to fuse with him and affirming her own feelings of guilt that she’s really just a Poisonous Friend if her rage could make Steven of all people violent and vengeful.

These points render Chartreuse vulnerable to White’s influence again, resulting in a forced fusion between the two while Steven’s still paralyzed in shock over being Pink 2.0. Celadon Diamond is formed, and Steven’s left with a final note that’s basically an order from Peridot to Kill Us Both (referring to Celadon) that puts him through another BSoD, though it doesn’t last long before Steven realizes a detail Peridot overlooked that basically ensures she will be freed eventually of White’s own volition despite her claims.

However, Peridot can’t break out of the Celadon fusion. Even when Celadon uses her own powers to destroy her spaceship (which Greg and Pumpkin are still inside of), Peridot’s unable to prevent it. While Greg barely survives, Pumpkin was not so fortunate. Only then does Peridot find the power to break the Celadon fusion.

Peridot’s Heroic BSoD after Pumpkin dies quickly invokes an Angst Nuke that’s tearing up an already-dying planet. With the ship destroyed, it’s looking like Peridot completely screwed over everybody.

After enduring a lot of pain from Peridot’s agony, things finally turn up for the couple from here on out when they reconcile and fuse to become Iridescent Diamond.

That said, the Pyrrhic Victory and the Dawn of a New Era that comes with it will make Steven and Peridot’s lives infinitely more complicated and busier as a load of responsibility falls on their shoulders after the events of GA. That greatly limits their time together and will surely test their relationship in the future.

The trope is still going strong in the Post-GA era, as This is Who I Am proves. Beyond the first official couple bickering, narrowly avoiding death by gators, and tension when going through traumatic suppressed memories, Chapter 5 gives the couple a major doozy of a trial. What was originally a Mirror Match between the Dark and Light halves of Steven and Peridot gets the Opponent Switch treatment, leaving Light Steven and Light Peridot fighting the dark sides of each other instead. The counterparts are linked; one can’t live without the other. The two fights occur in different dimensions, so Steven and Peridot can’t help each other. Dark Steven and Dark Peridot are incapable of feeling love, let alone for each other, and are both selfish enough to willingly off their Light opponents if it means they can leave with their lives. So, this situation is rigged so that only Steven or Peridot will come out of this with their life; not both. 

Luckily, Peridot inadvertently finds a loophole when she nearly kills herself in an attempt to stop her Dark self from strangling Steven (the Dark Steven she’s facing is also choking to death by proxy); this leaves all four combatants unable to finish the battle, but it was only through sheer luck that Peridot didn’t irreparably damage herself. By the time Steven and Peridot are brought back to normal, both are so traumatized by the experience that they leave taking care of 5XF in the hands of their fusion, Sphalerite, while they take a lengthy recovery.

Then they learn their own fusion took advantage of their inability to function by committing a multitude of lewd acts with 5XF while they recovered. Then after recovery, Steven and Peridot were trapped and unable to defuse for several hours because of this. So, after all the angst that came from Steven and Peridot presumably being incapable of fusing before… they finally manage it, but the second time they fuse brings about something like this. Now they’re terrified of ever fusing again.

Official Kiss: Probably not Steven and Peridot’s first kiss in Chapter 5 of Act I. Honestly, for this trope, an argument can be made either for the Big Damn Kiss they share in the battlefield during Chapter 8 (with Gem Drill references abound during that), or much later in Chapter 5 of Act III where Steven outright says he and Peridot are an Official Couple (and that scene itself is full of gratuitous making out).

One Steve Limit: Averted per canon; multiple Peridots feature to varying degrees in the story, only differentiated by their designated facet and cut both in-universe and the narrative. 

You Are Number Six: For convenience, the Peridots only address each other and themselves by their cut, so Hero Protagonist Peridot will always be called “5XG” by her fellow Peridots (and at times refers to herself this way when talking about her pre-Earth life), just as she simply refers to Facet-2F5L Cut-9FC as “9FC”.

Opponent Switch: Inverted: in Chapter 5 of This is Who I Am, 5XF divides Steven and Peridot into two separate individuals; one who represents the best in the pair, and the other who represents the worst. Gypsum reportedly intended this to be a straight Mirror Match of Steven and Peridot fighting their dark counterparts, but a Genre-Savvy 5XF, who was aware of the pair’s Character Development during the primary GA series, insisted on implementing this trope to ensure only one will come out of this trial alive, as the Dark Steven and Peridot have no love for each other and are selfish enough to be willing to off each other to ensure their own survival. Since the Light Steven and Peridot aren’t even remotely willing to harm each other in any way and have no way of helping each other, by design it’s almost guaranteed this will end with one of them dying. It very nearly succeeds; only thwarted when Light Peridot stabs her own gemstone to stop her dark side from choking Light Steven to death (which was also killing Dark Steven second-hand), ultimately leading to a draw as all four combatants are in no condition to fight after this.

Painful Transformation: Steven being forced to awaken as Pink Diamond 2.0 was definitely more painful for him physically, though plenty of emotional/mental torture came with it; his first time getting stuck in the transitional state made him completely lose his mind and act like a rabid wild animal. Peridot ascending to Chartreuse Diamond had more emphasis on the mental pain, though during the process of White Diamond forcing Peridot’s diamond to prematurely grow in order for the ascension to be possible, she damn near shattered Peridot from the physical stress alone, forcing White to go out of her way to ease the pain and stabilize her body so that she wouldn’t accidentally destroy her.

Parental Substitute: Per canon, Pearl and Garnet serve this role for Steven for parental roles that Greg can’t fulfill for whatever reason. Down the line, a similar dynamic forms between Garnet and Peridot (and one can argue Pearl is begrudgingly falling into the role as well); same can be said for Greg and Peridot. Lapis surprisingly has a moment in Chapter 8 of Act II where she and Steven have this sort of dynamic, considering how she goes about harshly reprimanding Steven for trying to steal the spaceship to go back to Homeworld by himself. During Act III, White Diamond attempts to be this for Peridot/Chartreuse and Steven/Pink 2.0, but the latter two harshly defy it.

Party Scattering: The end of Chapter 3 of Act III sees Chartreuse Diamond enforce this trope on the Crystal Gems, as they’re forcibly sucked down into interdimensional holes that transport them into a pocket dimension where they all end up separated and trapped. This is short-lived, however, as Chartreuse’s Heel-Face Turn happens soon after this. In Chapter 4, after reuniting with Steven in his pocket dimension, Chartreuse merges the Crystal Gems’ pocket dimensions (save for Steven’s) into a singular entity and keeps it hidden from White Diamond for their safety.

Passive Rescue: The plan of action for Act I. 

Personal Effects Reveal: Several characters learn more about who Peridot is once they watch her prerecorded Video Wills meant specifically for them in Act II.

Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: What Act II centers on from the perspective of the characters per Peridot’s dictation.

Propaganda Machine: The M.O. of the Diamond Authority after their supposed victory wiping of nearly all of Rose Quartz’s rebellion on Earth via corruption; after this, almost all details of the Gem War were kept under wraps. What little information remained available to the general public was heavily altered by the Diamonds themselves. The Era 1 gems on Homeworld directly involved in the war were all forced to adhere to a non-disclosure agreement. Consequently, Era 2 gems like Peridot were fully under the delusion of the propaganda they were fed (and even after Peridot herself was assigned an Earth mission, she was only given bare-bones details of what happened there – and little to none of it was true, given that Peridot was under the impression no gems remained on Earth and had no idea who the Crystal Gems were). Most were completely ignorant of Pink Diamond entirely, and White Diamond herself – while a known figure to the public – was largely a mystery as it was forbidden to even speak of her.

Prophecies Are Always Right: Sapphire’s vision of how/if the Crystal Gems successfully escape Homeworld at the end of Act I ultimately comes to pass despite Peridot’s efforts. This trope is also in play with a prophecy White Diamond reveals much later in Act III. See The Legend of Chekhov for more details.

Pyrrhic Victory: GA concludes with a full-scale revolution and the end of a war that’s persisted for several millennia. Most of Homeworld’s gems are liberated from their oppressive rule, and the Diamond Authority no longer exists. However, with Homeworld itself being destroyed, the Crystal Gems are stuck with the responsibility of thousands, if not millions of Homeworld gems – all of whom have no idea what happened – and teaching them not only how to adapt to living on Earth, but how to comprehend life without being ruled by a Diamond while living freely and independently. Naturally, many gems will probably not take this news in stride and prove to be stubborn at best; rebellious and hostile at worst. There’s the matter that there are far too many gems to keep all in one place, ensuring no humans are endangered by the refugees in their confusion, and that the sheer numbers advantage the refugees inherently have over the Crystal Gems doesn’t become an issue. There are also Homeworld colonies that are likely to collapse unless the Crystal Gems help, but there are similar (if not greater) risks to consider before getting involved. Peridot and Steven, despite having no desire to do so, have to be the centerpieces of this new era. There’s a load of long-term work ahead for every hero, and there are risks they’re forced to take every step of the way. No one’s resting easy anytime soon.

[incorrigibletenderness]

You, Disappearing by Alexandra Kleeman

When I went downstairs this morning and found Cookie missing, I knew that official emergency procedure called for me to phone all the information in to the Bureau of Disappearances. At the prompting of the prerecorded voice, I would enter my social security number and zip code. I would press “2” to report the sudden absence of an animal, “3” for “domestic animal,” and then at the sound of the tone I would speak the word “cat” clearly and audibly into the telephone receiver. The woman’s voice would then give a short parametric definition of a cat, and if this definition matched my missing item, I could press the pound sign to record a fifteen-second description. A three-note melody would let me know that my claim had been filed, and then that lovely prerecorded voice would read out my assigned case number, along with some instructions on how to update or cancel my claim.

Instead, I picked up the phone and pushed your number into it. I was always telling you about problems you couldn’t fix, as though multiplying badness could dilute it.

“Cookie’s gone,” I said, and waited for your response.

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Have you phoned it in?” you asked. Your voice was casual, like it was someone else’s pet entirely, a pet from a faraway land owned by people we’d never meet.

“I didn’t,” I said. “I’m kind of depressed,” I added. I was often depressed, but now we all had better reasons to be.

“I’m sorry,” you said back.

“Cookie loved to chew on wires,” I said.

“I know,” you said. You didn’t say you wished you could be here. I didn’t say it either.

There was nothing more to say. I hung up the phone. Sometimes I dialed you back right away just to hear you pick up and know that your hands were, at that very moment, resting on a chunk of plastic that threaded its way delicately to me over hundreds of miles of wire and cord. To know that even though your voice had disappeared, you had not yet. But recently I hadn’t been allowing myself any callbacks. I was getting more afraid of the day when you wouldn’t pick up.

* * *

The apocalypse was quiet. It had a way about it, a certain charm. It could be called graceful. It was taking a long time.

People prepared for an apocalypse that they could take up arms against, bunker down with. People hoarded filtered water, canned corn, dry milk, batteries. They published books on how to get things done in the new post-world, a world that they always imagined as being much like our own, only missing one or two key things. They might imagine, for example, that survivors would reemerge onto a planet stripped of all vegetable and plant life. First, the animals would grow vicious and then starve. It would be important to hoard as many of these animals as possible, pack them in salt and hide them away to keep. You’d want to have a supply of emergency seed to grow in a secure location, maybe using sterilized soil that you had already hoarded. Then you’d want to gather a crew. One muscleman with a heart of gold, a scientist type, an engineer, a child, and somebody that you thought maybe you could love, if you survived long enough to love them.

Nobody thought the apocalypse would be so polite and quirky. Things just popped out of existence, like they had forgotten all about themselves. Now when you misplaced your keys, you didn’t go looking for them. Maybe you went to your landlord and asked for the spare set, took them to the hardware store and made two copies this time, an extra in case the disappearing wasn’t a one-off but part of a trend. Or maybe you took this as a sign and decided to leave instead, walked out directionless into the world to find your own vanishing point, which meant moving to Chicago to stay with your brother, who still had the keys to his house and a spare set to give to you.

It was cute the way this apocalypse zapped things out of existence, one by one. It was so clean and easy, like clicking on a little box to close an Internet browser window. It had a sense of humor: a fat man walking down the street lined with small abandoned shops would look down and find that his trousers had vanished, baring his out-of-season Halloween boxers to the public. That kind of humor.

Videos of things like this used to show up all the time on the Internet, until the Internet went.

* * *

I thought I would visit the Ferris wheel at the pier before it vanished. I didn’t know when it would go. I had the idea that I could try to be the last person ever to visit it, but that would require a lot of work, a lot of waiting around and watching, and there were things to do even in the time of last things. I put two apples in a plastic bag and headed out the door, which I didn’t lock even though it would have been easy to do. I took the elevator down to the first floor and walked on East Jackson Drive to the edge of the water, then up along the highway holding onto the handrail with one gloved hand. A sedan full of teenagers drove by, and one of them shouted a blurry word at me that sounded like it had once been a taunt. It was winter, but it wasn’t so cold. There was less weather, the same way there was less of everything. This day resembled the day before: sleepy air and wan blue sky, no clouds but a vague foggy white that might just have been a thinning of the atmosphere.

At the pier I saw the seagulls huddling together on the boardwalk, pressing their dirty white bodies up against each other. They seemed able to eat anything—crusts, rinds, paper napkins. They were made to survive, even in a fading world that was unthinking itself faster than we could fill it back up with our trash. One seagull worked to swallow a little plastic toy lion, snapping its beak down on it with blunt patience. The Ferris wheel loomed up big behind them at the end of the pier, though it wasn’t as big as it had seemed the first time I saw it. The wheel was missing spokes at random, and some of the red seating cars had gone. It looked like the mouth of someone who had been punched over and over again in the face.

I walked over to it, right out in the open, but nobody saw me. When I reached the base the controls were all locked up. It had a big goofy lever that you could set to different speeds, like in a cartoon. I ducked the chain and climbed into the ground-level car, the one in starting position, and staggered from one side of the car to the other to try to make it swing, but it wasn’t any fun. Then I sat facing the water and put down the guardrail. The lake licked at the shore the way it used to. When water disappears, other water rushes in right away to take its place, you never see any kind of hole or gap. Then when I reached into my plastic bag, I only had one apple.

This apocalypse disappears objects of all kinds, and it swallows memories whole too. I didn’t want to be around you when you forgot me. I didn’t want to watch it fall out of your head so easily, I was hoping to forget you first. But sometimes I second-guessed that. Then I called you and tried to be angry, as though you were the one who had been so afraid of being forgotten that you needed to move out of the apartment, out of the city and into another city where nothing had any familiarity to start with, or any familiarity to lose. I thought you might have forgotten who did what to whom, but you haven’t yet.

* * *

When the first things began to disappear it had looked funny, like a continuity slip-up in a bad movie. You and I would make sound effects for them, shouting “poof!” or “boink!” as some flowers blinked themselves out of existence. This was how we’d make each other laugh. In those days the world still looked full, even though it was emptying fast. Then too many things vanished to keep making the sounds: we saw it was sad that anything in the world had gone and could not return. You joked around, saying there’d be fewer chores, our lives would clean up after themselves for a change, but still you went on doing the dishes, vacuuming the little spaces around and under the furniture, putting on a fresh shirt every day, making the bed. You folded cups out of paper for us to drink from when the glasses went away, and when the paper went you used the nice cloth napkins, which worked badly. You were the sort of person that keeps it all going, and I was the other kind.

This became clear two weeks after the first vanishings, when the news stations named it “The Disappocalypse.” On the day they called it irreversible, I walked out of the office just before lunch. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, I didn’t reply to the e-mails asking whether we wanted to cancel our health insurance and cash out retirement plans. I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. The subway was shut down so I walked all the way to our apartment on Myrtle Avenue, across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Flatbush Extension. On that day the world still felt crowded. The sky above was pure undiluted blue, thick enough to mask how much emptiness lay behind it, out past the atmosphere. Cars were lined up on the bridge, bumper to bumper. Drivers honked sporadically, without aggression, like migrating geese.

When I got home it was late afternoon and you’d be back by six-thirty. I tried reading the newspaper but I’d read all I could stand about the vanishing, and the other sections had been thinning out, some with blank patches nobody bothered to fill where the color of the paper showed through grayish and soft. Then it was seven-thirty, and eight, and still you weren’t around. I gave Cookie her dry food and refilled her water. I started crying and stopped again and then dragged eyeliner back over my lids so that I looked the way I had before. When you showed up it was close to nine, and you smelled normal: no sweat, no cigarettes, no liquor. Where had you been? You had been working late. Hadn’t you heard? They said “irreversible,” “imminent,” “end of days.” They used those words.

I put wet marks into your shirt as you held me. Then when I pulled away your chest looked back at me with two blurry eyes.

“Why did you do that?” I asked. “Why were you away so long?”

“I was working,” you said. “A lot of people have left, you know that. Toby and Marianne and all of the interns. We’re understaffed. I’m on two new building projects.” Your back was warm and real under my hands.

“There’s nothing to build,” I said. “The world is going.”

“I know that,” you replied. “But there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said.

I looked at you looking at me. I heard that we were saying the same thing, though I didn’t understand how it was possible for us to mean it so differently. Later that night I asked you to quit your job too, stay home with me during the days. We could get survival-ready, rent a garden-level apartment with barricadeable windows. We could walk around all day getting to know the things that wouldn’t be there for much longer. But you wouldn’t. You liked being an architect. You said it would make you happy to have added even one thing to a world now headed for total subtraction.

* * *

The walking path next to the highway passed under a bridge. In the cool dark beneath was a bench facing onto some empty lot full of broken glass from bottles that people had thrown, just because. When sunlight hit the broken pieces, the ground lit up like a reverse chandelier, a glittering patch of green and white. Now there was less each time I walked by. Also, no bench. I stood there facing the glass, eating my last apple.

There had been times when I thought I might be with you indefinitely, something approaching an entire life. But then when there was only a finite amount of time, a thing we could see the limit of, I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know how to use a unit of time like this, too long for a game of chess or a movie but so much shorter than we had imagined. It felt like one of those days when we woke up too late for breakfast and lay in bed until it was too late for lunch. Those days made me nervous. On those days we fought about how to use our time. You didn’t want to live your life under pressure, as though we’d run out, as though it were the last days. I’m not ill, you said. We aren’t dying, we don’t have cancer, you said. So I don’t want to live like we do, you said. There are two kinds of people, and one of them will give up first.

When we fought, you got over it first. I’d watch you from the kitchen, through a rectangular space cut into the wall, and I could see you studying the newspaper, ducking your head down to read small details in the photographs. I saw how gracefully you fell back into whatever article you had been reading before. Even then I knew: whatever hollow I made in you if I left would heal up like a hole sunk into water, quick as water rushing to fill some passing wound.

This far from the pier I could still hear the seagulls fighting over scraps, crying out with their harsh voices. Sounds carried further these days, tearing through the thin air like a stone thrown as hard as you can toward the sea. The bitten-down apple core wettened my right-hand glove, while with the other hand I pressed on the bridge of my nose. There are two kinds of people: one will only weep when the possibility exists, however remote, that someone will hear them. I put the core of the apple down on the ground and looked at it. Poof, I said. I waited for something to happen. Then I went and walked back up the path toward the high-rise.

When I got home I collected all of Cookie’s toys, her food bowl and water bowl, the little purple ball with a bell in it, the stuffed squeaking duck that was almost her size. I lined them all up on the mantle in the living room so that I could watch them disappear, one after the other.

* * *

Was the disappearing growing faster every day? No. Was it moving geographically from west to east, or east to west? Was it vanishing the world alphabetically, taxonomically, or in chronological order? It wasn’t. As hard as we tried to understand it, there didn’t seem to be much order to the disappearing at all. A week would go by with everything pretty much in its proper place, and then all of a sudden there was no such thing as magazines, not in your home or anyone else’s, and nobody to bother making new ones. Did it work its way down from the biggest things to the smallest? Was there a plan? When you were in the right mood, when you were too tired to care much, it was beautiful—like watching the house across the street as someone walked through it turning each of the lights off in order, one by one, for the night.

I sat on the floor of my brother’s empty living room and ate four chocolate-chip granola bars in a row. I had already called you once today, but I was working on a reason to call you again. Experts suggested that the things disappearing most quickly now might be intangible, metaphysical: concepts, memories, and modes of thought were just as vulnerable to erasure, they said, though they couldn’t give any concrete examples. I thought I’d better call you to see if you still remembered that Cookie had gone.

I pushed the buttons in order. It rang twice, and then I heard you.

“Hello?” you said.

“It’s me,” I said.

“It’s you,” you said back to me.

“I just wanted to call to see if you still remembered Cookie,” I said.

“Of course I still remember Cookie,” you said.

There was silence on both our ends, a blur of static on the line between us.

“What do you remember?” I asked.

“I remember that you picked her because she bit you,” you said, “and you decided it was important that you win this one animal over. I remember you didn’t know how to hold a cat at the beginning so you grabbed her just anywhere. You grabbed her in the middle and tried to pick her up that way. You got bit a lot,” you added.

“I have your number memorized,” I said.

“That’s good,” you said.

And I said I should let you go, and you said goodnight, and we hung up on each other.

I missed you more now than I had when I lost you. I was forgetting the bad things faster than I forgot the good, and the changing ratio felt a little bit like falling in love even though I was actually speaking to you less and less. I used to play a game I called “Are We Going To Make It?” You were playing too, whether you knew it or not. It worked like this: you’d forget that we were going to see the movie together and you’d go by yourself instead or with a friend, while I waited at home. Or you’d stay at work until four in the morning and forget to charge your phone, and you’d wake me up on the couch where I had fallen asleep trying to stay up for you. Then I would ask myself: Are We Going To Make It? And the next thing, whatever thing you did next, would become the answer, a murky thing that I’d study until I was too tired to think about it anymore.

An “independent physicist” living in Arizona had become famous for his theories on how the Disappearing might be a sort of existential illusion, analogous to an optical illusion. He said the fact that we still remember what’s been taken and can picture it in our minds is proof that it still exists. It’s like how you only see the duck or the bunny at a given moment, never both, he said. Only imagine that instead of knowing the bunny exists alongside your experience of the duck, you believe that it’s been irrevocably lost. It’s all about vantage point, he said, temporal vantage point: the way you might lose sight of your house when you drive away from it, but find it again when you look for it from the top of a hill. To think your house was lost, he said, would be loony. Disappeared things were like this, he said, coexistent but obscured in time. This was his theory of spatiotemporal obstruction. Those who believed in it believed that there was one special place that offered temporal “higher ground.” They made pilgrimages to a particular beach in Normandy where the cliffs were chalky white, the color of doves, and where it was rumored that recently disappeared things sometimes reappeared, soft-edged and worn and looking thirty or forty years older. In 1759, a twelve-year-old girl was said to have drowned herself there to avoid marriage to a much older man.

I sat on the floor and put the granola bar wrappers in a plastic bag. I put the plastic bag inside another plastic bag. Plastic bags were disappearing too, but my brother had had so many of them to begin with. Then I picked up the phone to call you back. I put your number in from memory.

Instead of you, I heard an error song and a recorded voice telling me my call could not be completed.

I dialed the Bureau of Disappearances. At the prompt, I pressed “1” for “person,” then “1” again for “male.” I pressed “3” to indicate “age twenty-one to thirty.” Then I was supposed to press “3” for “friend,” but instead I pressed “2” for “lover or significant other.” I hoped you wouldn’t mind. The beautiful female voice declared you a “male lover between the ages of twenty-one and thirty” and asked if that was correct. I pressed the pound key and then I described you.

* * *

I remember it was a bright morning in the fall and I woke onto your face looking in on mine. Some mornings when we woke together we pretended that one of us had forgotten who the other was. One of us had become an amnesiac. That one would ask: Who are you? Where am I? and it was the other’s job to make up a new story. A good story was long, and the best stories could make me feel like I had gotten a whole second life, a bonus one. Yellow leaves outside the window threw yellowish light on the sheets as you told me not to worry. I was safe, I was with you. We had been living together since grad school, we met on the hottest day of the year, near the gondolas in the middle of the park. We were sitting on benches facing the pond and eating the same kind of sandwich, turkey and swiss in a spinach wrap.

“But that’s what actually happened,” I said.

“I know,” you said, making a fake guilty face.

In the fall afternoon, leaves fell off whenever they fell off: it didn’t depend on their color or weight or the force of the wind outdoors.

You added: “I just couldn’t think of anything.”

The disappearing when it started happening was everywhere, subtly, it hung on our days the way a specific hour does on a moment, dragging it down and reminding you of how much time you’ve let pass. It was a flavor you woke up with in your mouth, like the taste of blood on a dry winter morning. This made leaving easier in the moments before I had realized what I was planning to do. I stood outside of our building with no keys and I was calling you over and over on the cell phone even though I knew you were at work. Each time I got your voicemail I imagined that you had vanished, until one time I imagined that you had vanished and I didn’t feel any way about it. It was like I had disappeared. I saw the things continuing without me, and I didn’t mind. I went to the ATM on the corner and pulled everything out of my checking account. Checking accounts were still around then, existing invisibly somewhere. Possibly they exist still, even though the banks went. I took the cash and our car and got on the highway, driving on I-80 west toward Chicago. If it hadn’t been the End of Days would we still be together? The most difficult thing about leaving you was discovering that I went on: that I had to be there sixteen hours a day watching myself live my own life, that I had to stay near myself all the time as I asked myself question after question, that I had to sit there in my body and watch the phone ring over and over next to me that night, after you had gotten home.

After the announcement, people did one of two things. Either they tried to care more, or they tried caring less. They decided to survive, to collect and hide and ration, or they decided to let the amount of time left in their lives work away at them. They tried to grow vegetables in their small backyards or they let the yard get overgrown, falling asleep drunk in the afternoon on a lawn chair encircled by weeds. For a while we did whatever we had chosen with dedication. But it was difficult to stay dedicated for more than a few weeks and eventually we middled, caring about things sloppily and in spurts. We poked at the dirt and then fell asleep feeling that we should have done more or maybe less. In the end, there was only one kind of person.

* * *

In the master bedroom I turned down the sheets. My brother wouldn’t be back again, but I made the bed every day to be a good guest. I made it the hotel way, everything tucked in, the sheets stretched tight across the mattress and leaving no room to shift or wrinkle. Sleeping in it meant that you had to tear it apart. I yanked the pillows out from underneath the blankets, pulled the sheets down to the foot of the bed, let the comforter fall to the floor. Then I climbed in.

I have one of the last working phones, I said aloud.

I had started sleeping with the lights on: I wanted more minutes of seeing, more things I could see if I happened to open my eyes. Outside the window there was snow falling, falling like movie snow, all the dreamy fluffy bits drifting around in the light of a single streetlamp. I wished that I loved the woman on the Disappearance hotline so that I could call and hear her voice anytime I wanted, and feel that feeling that it didn’t seem I’d be feeling again. Whoever loved her was lucky, if they were still around. I watched the snow slow down, thin out. Then it was two or three pieces at a time, falling reversibly, wavering up and down and up again like they didn’t know where to go.

The light stayed on for a few minutes. I saw my reflection in the window. Then the bulb blanked out overhead. In the dark I could hear the cord swinging empty above, but I saw nothing. I knew from the mounting silence that other things were vanishing too. They say everything in the world vibrates at its own specific frequency, each thing releases a tiny bit of sound. But nothing, nothing doesn’t vibrate at all. I felt the heat radiating from my body with no place to go. Dots of darkness that weren’t really there drifted past my eyes. How would I know I was vanishing if there were nobody around to see me? What would tell me that I wasn’t just falling asleep? In the darkness I couldn’t see the disappearing any longer but I knew it was all going, going far, far away. Until gradually I didn’t even know that anymore.

There was a woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, who claimed to be able to communicate with the disappeared. You could call her on the telephone and tell her who you were looking for, their full name, how old, how tall, how heavy. She would go out to the old well behind her house, a well that her grandfather had built decades earlier, and shout that information deep down into it. In the echo that came back they said you could hear whispers from the other side, your loved ones grabbing and molding the shouted words, distorting them to say what they needed said. You had to pay her in real gold, jewelry or bullion: it had to gleam. She wished we could hear their voices as she did, how happy they are, how they miss us. She said that everything that disappeared from our side went over to theirs, where they kept living normal lives waiting for the things still lingering with us to join them, and make the world whole once more.

[sevdrag]

WHAT A FUCKING GUY HE WAS EVERYBODY

[airanke]

Snowblind

Holiday prompt #2! Sent in by @nadiaofazeroth!

❄….admiring the snowfall /seeing snow for first time!

Characters: Jaina Proudmoore, Trigon (OC).

I’ve been really wanting to write more Trigon, and so I jumped on this chance to do that! Posting this before I head back to work~ And I’ll take any chance to flesh out my boy ❤

It wasn’t like he had never seen the snow before.

But there was something oddly magical about seeing it drift through a different sky, to different soil. Trigon’s dark armor at least let him catch the big flakes on his glove. Snowflakes truly fascinated him; to be so small yet so intricate often left him filled with some degree of wonder.

True snowfall too was brilliantly different from snow made by mages. Their snowfall tended to be the same: uniform, predictable, boring. Real snow was diverse, irregular, and unpredictable. Everything magic could not replicate.

“Snow here be different den on Ether,” he mused, continuing to look at the white flakes that landed on his glove. He heard his new companion sigh, and soon, she was standing next to him.

“It really is impossible to sneak up on you, isn’t it?”

“‘Course it be,” he said, giving Jaina a look, “I thought you be knowin’ dat, Jaina.”

The mage pouted, but a smile wormed its way onto her lips, “one of these days, you should just let me sneak up on you. To satisfy my own ego.”

Trigon snorted, turning his attention back to the sky. Up here in Dalaran, one felt so much closer to the clouds. And even if he knew - logically - that he would never be able touch the clouds, the child in him - that was robbed from me - wanted to experience the wonder of outstretching your hand toward nothing. To reach out and grasp what even a child knew he would never be able to hold.

His sigh caught Jaina’s attention. She looked up at him, searching his face - but as usual, he was a blank slate. Unreadable. Betrayed nothing. His expression was more solemn than usual. Jaina supposed he was putting no effort into hiding that.

“You know,” she breathed, watching her breath gather in the cool air before it dissipated, “I can make this snow even more different.”

“It won’ be de same.”

“You already said that the snow on Azeroth was different from the snow on Ether,” she placed a hand on her hip, then raised her other hand to let frost magic dance between her fingers, “so you can’t exactly say that it won’t be the same, Trigon.”

“Den lemme show you.”

Jaina furrowed her brows, and then flushed. Trigon had moved to stand slightly behind her, armored chest brushing against her shoulder with every breath he took. He held up his hand in front of her.

“Look.”

And she did, blue eyes squinted. The snowflakes were easy to see against his dark glove.

“And how is this supposed to show me that the snow is different?”

“Keep watchin’,” he growled, impatience obvious in his voice. Jaina pursed her lips, but she humored him all the same.

To her amazement, orange flecks of snow began appearing on Trigon’s palm, right next to the snowflakes that clung to the cloth.

“... I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Jus’ be from my memory, Jaina,” he replied, his voice distant. She knew from how even his breathing was that he was putting his concentration into showing her the difference.

It had never crossed her mind. Snow had always been snow, the same yet not. And here, on Trigon’s palm, she saw that he was right. The snow on Ether was different from the snow on Azeroth. She felt as though if she were to touch the orange flecks, that her skin would be cut. The edges were sharp, and primarily triangular - sure, each one was different, but none of them had the other polygonal shapes that the flakes from Azeroth had.

With a deep exhale, Trigon let the orange flecks fade away. Jaina looked up at him, “again, I didn’t know you could do that.”

For the first time, Jaina could read his expression. He glanced off to the side, his hand curling into a fist before he let it lower back down to his side.

“And? Wat ‘bout it?”

“Um?” she gestured to his hand, then him, then back to his hand, “you can use magic?”

Oh, she was treading on thin ice now. Trigon fixed her with a ferocious glare, speaking through his teeth, “and?”

Jaina crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her gaze to the open space surrounding Dalaran. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk about it. The longer he was back on Azeroth, the more she began to realize the many secrets he had, wrapped up sharp, steel thread. Trigon let no one in, and no one out.

The silence dragged on, and when Jaina glanced up at Trigon again, the solemn expression had returned.

“Let me show you my snow,” she said, to break the silence. Trigon raised a brow.

“No offence ta you, Jaina, bu’ it won’ be all dat impressive.”

She frowned deeply, turning to face him, “you don’t know that!”

“Magic,” he sneered, holding his hand out to catch more flakes again, “will never stand up ta dis. Nevah. You can be havin’ powah, you can be makin’ it flurry and storm and blizzard, bu’ you can’t be doin’ dis.”

He held his hand out to her again. She balled her hands into fists, keeping her eyes locked on his face. His nose twitched, and once again, she could read his expression.

“Magic isn’t gentle.”

Fear was there. Covered by the fierceness in his eyes, and the anger in his lips. The puzzle pieces began to fit together.

Jaina had always been convinced that Trigon’s dislike for being healed had everything to do with his pride - but here, right now, she realized he was afraid. He was afraid that even healing magic was going to hurt him, and without thinking, she reached up to touch one of the obsidian stripes on his face.

Smooth like a gemstone.

Solid like metal.

Cold like ice.

He shifted his head the barest inch back, and Jaina’s fingers slid off the mark.

“Give me your hand,” she said, holding hers out expectantly. Trigon sighed, giving her a displeased look.

“Jaina--”

“I want to prove something to you,” she kept her hand out, palm up, “give me your hand.”

He relented, holding his hand palm down over hers. His eyes blazed with fury - but as Jaina let her frost magic coil soothingly around his hand, she watched as Trigon flinched. His expression drifted into trepidation. No part of him was fascinated, or awed. He was rigid, still as a statue, eyes fixated on his hand.

By the Light, Trigon, Jaina pressed her lips together, willing the swirls of frost to rise slowly up his arm to his neck, what happened to you? What made you so afraid of magic?

A growl was in his throat the closer the swirls got to his face, and Jaina released the magic. It sprang into the air - Trigon’s fierce eyes followed - and shattered into a poof of harmless, sparkling dust. The rumble in his throat remained, his eyes focused on the dust. As inconspicuously as she could, Jaina made several gestures with her fingers, small as they were. The cloud of frost magic swirled together. Trigon flinched again - but Jaina could feel her heart swell. He wasn’t pulling away, or removing his hand from where it remained hovered over hers.

He trusted her. Trusted her enough to know that she wouldn’t hurt him, not deliberately.

As the frost formed into a small tiger, Jaina came to acknowledge why she hadn’t noticed Trigon’s fear before. In a duel, he would never take that risk. He would never show fear or hesitation.

With the flick of a finger, Jaina sent the little tiger she’d made prowling around Trigon’s shoulders. He slowly pulled his hand away from hers, watching the magic critter. A smile crossed Jaina’s lips when she caught the slightest spark in the assassin’s eyes.

“... so? Wat you be tryin’ ta prove?”

“That not all magic will hurt you.”

For once, he dropped his guard. Trigon looked at her, dumbfounded - and then his mouth twitched up at one corner. Her heart thumped a few beats faster, and then Trigon ducked his head to hide the smile.

The tiger of frost remained on Trigon’s shoulder until the two finally made their way back to the Legerdemain Lounge.

[saligiare]

a prayer for a life time (Pt. 1)

» Hide and Seek

It came to me as if in a dream. Or better: I woke up from it.

I could not have told how long I had been sleeping, or when exactly I had drifted off. All I knew was that one moment I felt gone - and the next I was back with myself again. The ghostly glow of a tiny creature floating in the darkness near my head was the first thing I noticed. I sat up, clumsily so like the first human to ever push himself off the earth, or like a baby deer that had only just seen the first light of the world. A compare not far from the truth.

Where I was? I couldn’t have told. Before me, the darkness stretched on past the world and consumed whoever lurked in its path, and for a while I was unsure if it had swallowed me too. I did not doubt that Hell was inhabited by beings that could have gobbled me down whole if they so wanted. Perhaps that was where I found myself. Deep within the belly of some gigantic underworldly worm crawling through the cracks and rifts within the Earth, its body so long that it reached from one side of the planet’s core to the other. The darkness around me seemed alive enough to agree with me. Although I could see nothing but myself - and quite clearly so, as if my body was the only thing untouched by the persistant lack of light down here, aside from my little illuminiscent friend - the blackness around me seemed to churn and coil and vibrate. There was not a single sound, and nothing forced me to abandon my original post; no movement, not a breath. Still I did.

I picked out a precise direction that suited my judgement and began to walk. The ground beneath my feet (I had two, to my initial surprise, since I had not made it a point to assume any form or shape at all) felt strangely soft, and warm. My sole companion followed close behind. Looking closer, I recognized the funny critter that I had spotted on my journey with Amduscias through the depths of Hell, and that had melted off part of my flesh upon contact. This could be no accident. How high of a chance was there for me to show up in that one spot within the whole void where the exact same little insect liked to crawl?

“Hey. You do not happen to know a way out of here, do you?”

Much to my misfortune, it did not.

                                                                    ______________________

The further I wandered the more I came to the conclusion that the little insect made for an altogether very unsatisfactory travel companion. First of all it did not speak, unless you wanted to count the quiet chirping and clicking noises that came from it as more than the mating calls of a lonely spider. Alas, I did not speak spider. Second of all its persistence to crawl into my hair and turn my skin into something mushy and undiscernible prevailed no matter how many times I flicked it off my body. Neither sweet charms nor violent threats seemed to impress it. And for the third point - as I found out after my very, very, very, very long thread of patience tore for good - it was also quite impossible to kill.

And so I moved on, through the darkness and the silence and with nothing else to entertain me but my own mind and a rather viscious abyssal arthropod whose sole goal it was to turn me into a bubbling puddle on the strange ground that I walked on. A few times I attempted to stop, either to listen closely to the nothingness around me or because I had gotten bored of moving without aim. However, staying in one place for more than a couple of subjective minutes turned out to be even worse. The floor, whatever it was made of, seemed to grow even softer then. A feeling like standing on jelly, warm and almost alive but neither sticky nor seemingly conscious. I watched with fascination how my feet started to sink further into the spot where I stood, and once again the notion of something big and unfamiliar trying to digest me made an appearance. A prospect that I was not exactly anticipating with great joy, and thus I reluctantly continued to walk again.

I kept on walking for hours. For days. Weeks. Maybe months.

Time did not really seem to exist here. I kept on going yet I never grew tired. I never turned around and yet I never got anywhere. The darkness around me never faded, never changed. Sometimes, though I could not say how often, something shapeless and pale seemed to move past just by the corner of my eye. Like a breath of wind it was gone when I tried to catch it with my gaze, and all I heard was a soft sigh coming from my own lips.

I tried to pass the time by singing songs, yet found that all the lyrics I had ever known had been crammed into a tight little box in the corner of my head, the keys not to be found. The same was true for poems, and movies, and quotes from people I could swear I had met although their faces were but blurry shapes without features in my memory. Music and poetry and company, they all had left me. Poof. Like I was but a foolish child whose parents had decided that I possessed no need for them anymore. My agitation grew.

                                                                    ______________________

My initial optimism to find a way out of this place at some point eventually gained cracks. Still my hard earned mental constitution and persistence pushed me on. Perhaps all of this was but an illusion, a cruel trick played by the void itself or simply a misunderstanding. While at first I had accepted my situation as simply given without wasting much thought on its nature, the gears in my head were now turning at maddening speeds to figure out what the hell this all was about. I could not possibly go on and on forever without anything happening, could I? The old and rational part of me that had seen and done and heard a lot many things about Hell and other planes already disagreed. And while at first I did not want to listen to that part out of pure stubborn defiance, I slowly caved in and gave the notion some thought.

Maybe I was dead? Maybe I had died somehow - died for good - and this was the place where people like me went after death. Though why would this little glowing beast still pestering me, in that case? There was no one and nothing here but the two of us. Swatting again at the hovering critter to keep it from landing on my shoulder for the thousandth time, I gave a little warning growl. Of course, there was no actual point in applying this kind of logic to anything at all. Hell did not operate on logic. The abyss did not care for your rational thoughts. And neither did God, that much I was certain about. Whatever event, musings, theories or memories I tried to chain together in a way that made sense would always be overthrown by this one universal truth: Even if they didn’t make sense to me, they might as well still be true. Therefore, since there was no actual way of verifying any kind of theory I came up with as right or wrong, all this mental work was essentially for nothing.

Again, I returned to the point where I had started. I did not know what was going on, except for the fact that I did not like it, and I had no idea on what to do to escape my unfortunate situation.

“This is so lame..”, I grumbled in a language foreign to mankind. My words disappeared the moment I had spoken them. They did not echo or wander, and they received no answer. I looked at the disgusting little insect hovering above my head.

“You hear me? It is fucking lame.”

Nothing happened.

                                                                     ______________________

In retroperspective, I should have been thankful for this shitty company, as it could be considered better than nothing at least. I suppose you never know how much you may miss a poisonous brainless tick in a dark empty space until it is gone.

More silence. More darkness. Now that I was completely on my own, there was nothing and no one to absorb my growing frustration. In contrast to my earlier experience, I did begin to feel tired now. Weariness settled within the bones I did not have and tugged at my tongue until lifting it to speak would have required more effort than it was worth. Was this the end? Would the infamous Asmodeus find his eternal unrest like this? All alone in the middle of nowhere..

But no. I knew this could not be. I knew it because my repulsion to the thought was stronger than the tiredness gnawing at my body. I had fallen once - no, twice - and I had risen again. I had made myself a kingdom out of nothing. I had persisted through all the hardships of this dimension and others, and I had come out of it waving the flag of victory. Succumbing to misery so easily did not fit me. There were still so many things out there in the world waiting to be explored. And I refused to give into thoughts of self-pity before I had seen and tasted them all. Every flavour out there in the world.

So I trotted on. It was all I could do, for now.

All the while something down in the pit, unbeknownst to me, began to stirr beneath my feet. Growling in a rumbling voice, like stone grinding against stone, and shaking the core of the Earth.

                                                                    ______________________

Ë̶͎̘͇͚͎́̃͌̍͂͋̑͡ͅv̢͈̹̞̮̳͋ͦ̏̏́ͮ̃͝eͯ̑҉̞͉ŕ̮͖̞̳͚̳̬̾ͬ̌̈̆̊͡ͅy  ̵̲̜̏̔̊̏̊f͈̱̬̟̜͈ͩ̌̓͠ļ̴̰͍̯̣̰̹͇̉̀̀ͮͫ͒̊̋ͅạ̸̼͒͊̂̆ͮ͗ͥv͇̲̮̾ͮ̍͆͐̌̚o̸̞̖̹̬̮̐ͯͩ͡u̡͓͇ͫ͞r̴̖̪ͭ͛̄ͥ ͉̤̯̘̼̬̫̎̓͗́ͫͦ ô͎͚̓ͤͯ͘͠ͅų̼͎͌̄ͤ̈́ͤ͟͟t͙͉̩͎͈̊̀ͯ̀͘ ͙͕̞̻̲̺̓͊͒ͨͤ̅̋̂͘ i͇̺͓͇̞̞͛̈́̇͢͡ṋ̢̙̤͂̆̆ͨ͐ ̼͙̩̮̯̦̜ͦ̎̂ͯ t̡̹̮̘̪͖̭ͧ̌̈͋͑̀̚h̵̢̢͕̖͇̐̆̊ͬ̎e̼͎͔͇̻̻̱̬̋̈́̌̇ͨ̔̓͟   ̣̱ͬ̉͛ͨ̀w̷͔͔͓͈̖̻̟̣̓̐͛̈́ͧ̋̉̚o̧̎͋҉͍̮̠͘ͅr͙̥̫̦̜͚̓ͩ̆̏͊ͯ̎̉̚ḻ̫̱͙͆̇̔̈ͣ͑͠d̶̗̱̼͔̮̰̹̾ͤͮͮ̉͊̎̋?̸̮̖͗̾ͥ̿ ̴̨̗͖̪̍̆̓ͫ͋̈́ͅ ̶̛̩͙̋̿ͭ̋͐ͫͬW̲͊̑̍ͫ̊e̢͖̬̭̤͉̞ͫ̈͗̄̄͐̽ͦ̀͘l̟̯ͭ͒ͮ̅̂l̷̫͔̿̄ͣͅ.̢̡̟̺̣͖̻͓̪͊̄ͭͤ͊̍ͮ͊͌͜ ̡̖̭̩͇͕̯ͦ̋̕ͅ ̡͚ͨ̌̄T̲̣͚̯̻͊̀̚͞h̰̭̙͂ͦ́̑ͩ͆ͪ̈ạ̧̫̘͚̱͐ͭ̂ͨ̑͌̓ṱ̸̭̖̤̥͆͑̄̾ͧ̀ ̡̰̤̞̺͇͗ͭͪ̐̀ͩ̾̚ c̍͌ͯͧ̇̌̚͏̯͓̣̥̟̕ą̺͍̹͕̳̯̈̾͢ͅn̨͇͎̾̓ ̵͙͚͖̜ͭ̇ͪ́͡ b̵͙̘̅͂͒͢͠ę̘͔̣͖̯̮͂̀ ͚̙͎͌ͭ́̏̔̿̔͝ a̠͈̣̲̲̗͍̦͋̿̈́ͨ̓̾̂ͅr̶̴̛̺͓͙̞͇̍͂ͯ͐̐͑͗̚ŗ͔̯ͤ̔ạ̭̣̳͎̹̹ͬ̇͋͂n̟̜̥̣̤̅͗̈ͪ̕͠͝g͛ͪ͂́͟͏͕͎̰̻̪̪͢é͍̰̣̹̯̗̬̫̩ͦ͆ͪͪ̽̒͌d̸̛͇͙͙̔͗̊͒́.̢̾͌҉̥̮̼̠͠

[testpulfire]

hey hey hey everybody! i’m crow (22, he/they, est) and this is kinda my first group rp?? i’ve done indie stuff here and there, but nothing quite like this, so i’m really excited!! this is my little goblin boy, kim dal, a cham dokkaebi who is super full of himself and thinks it’s his job to deliver good and bad karma to people who deserve it. i’ll put more info about this guy under the cut.

if you want to plot (or just chat about our muses, which i’m super cool with), you can find me at  cursed lacroix#0908 on discord! or if you want me to go into your tumblr ims with some thread ideas, reply to this post with anything and i’ll get back to you!

◜☾ ─ ◞ PARK HYUNGSIK, CIS MALE, HE/HIM — hold on, isn’t that KIM DAL walking around uiyeong ? there have been rumors spreading around that they HAVE NOT crossed through the veil. maybe someone will get lucky ! they’ve always been known to be rather AMBITIOUS & COMPANIONABLE, but can also be pretty OBNOXIOUS & SELF-CENTERED. as to be expected from a(n) FOUR-HUNDRED NINETEEN year old CHAM DOKKAEBI. hopefully the town of uiyeong doesn’t find itself in too much trouble !

HISTORY

he poofed into existence in the year 1600. his earliest moment involved waking up in the middle of a wheat field with no memory and no name, looking the exact same age he does now.

maybe he was a human before that?? maybe not?? he doesn’t really know where he came from, or why he is what he is

the first family he stumbled across was terrified of him. they drove him out of the village, assuming he was a demon sent to burn their crops and bring bad luck. he didn’t understand why until he learned that most other people couldn’t spontaneously set their skin on fire.

(which is a thing he can do!! the flames don’t hurt him though, its just for some added #Flair)

the next few villages were a lot kinder. he managed to convince them that he meant no harm, and even became the subject of worship for some farmers who thought he was a benevolent spirit. dal liked the attention and started believing that he was a god, because it was the only explanation he could find for what he was.

they dubbed him kim dal, and he kept the name. he went on to bestow several blessings; for the harvests, for the hunt, for romance, literally anything (and like, a solid 90% of his ‘blessings’ were placebo effects or all talk. if a blessing didn’t work, he’d try to convince them that he was new at this whole ‘being a god’ thing, and that they just needed to pray harder)

he never went near the any nobility bc... that would be too risky... if they thought he was a demon like the first town, they’d probably execute him or smth... so he stayed in a circle of really tiny families out in the countryside and basked in the attention. he learned to maintain a distant presence, only appearing at night to the extremely faithful, because that was the only way to inspire rumors and keep himself relevant.

life went on like that for a long time

[effymccall]

👥 What is your favorite experience together as mun and muse?💭 What does the mun typically dream about?⏰ What is the mun’s ideal evening spent alone?🎬 What is on the mun’s Netflix “continue watching” list?💙 What photos does the mun typically share on Facebook?📱 Does the mun take their phone with them to the bathroom?📖 What is the mun’s favorite fanfiction about the muse?👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 What is the mun’s relationship like with his or her family?

“Hmm talking about the mun huh? Well let’s dive in. Favorite memory is probably from a thread we did with with @calvaluna we answered an open back when Jackson had his own blog, and that was a thread where feelings were confirmed. The mun doesn’t dream often and when she does it’s usually that she’s gotten up and gotten ready and then poof turns out she’s late, or nightmares where she can’t move. Ideal evening alone? two words: Netflix BINGE. Speaking of netflix her continue watching list contains Hemlock Grove, Pretty Little Liars, Gilmore Girls (it’s a re-watch though), Naruto (She keeps going between watching on hulu and the netflix), Magicians, and Lucifer. The mun doesn’t share posts often unless they remind her of someone, and if she posts a photo than its usually a selfie or something withher fiance. The mun takes their phone most places honestly. The mun hasn’t read any fanfiction about me, and it’s slightly offensive. Well the mun has a pretty great relationship with her family. She loved her parents and siblings very much, and they love her. Hell her oldest brother helped pay for her books this semester. 

[miraculoustrashblogger]

Season of Miracles Chapter 11

What’s this?  I posted two chapters in two days?  It truly must be a season (cough weekend cough) of Miracles!  Wow!

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 X  12  13

AO3

Christmas Day, 11pm.

Adrien finally retired to his bedroom for the night.  As soon as his door swung shut behind him, Plagg flew to his favourite spot-- his garbage bin under the desk.  Adrien opened his minifridge and grabbed some cheese for his companion, leaving him to his snack.  The boy himself flopped down on his bed, staring at the ceiling.  He smiled.

Today had probably been the best day of his life.  He had spent all day with his father in a way he hadn't in years.  He spent time with his friend and her family, and just thinking about it all made him feel the need to hug something.  So he rolled over and grabbed a pillow and hugged it to his chest, beaming with happiness.

There was a knock at his door.

He sat up, dropping the pillow.  Checking that Plagg was still in his hiding spot, he called out.  “Come in!”

The door opened, and his father walked in.

“I realize we should both be heading to bed, but I almost forgot something.”  Gabriel said.

“Oh?  What did you forget?”

“Your gift, of course.”

“O-oh!”  He said, surprised.  Gabriel pulled a package out from behind his back and handed it to his son.  Adrien carefully peeled back the paper to reveal a very thick, heavy picture frame, despite it being only five or six inches wide.  There was a button at the bottom.  Adrien pressed it.  The screen lit up, with a video.

The video showed a snowball fight between his parents and Adrien when he was a child. His mom throwing snowballs at him and his father, his father dumping a handful of snow down the back of his moms coat.  Adrien himself even nailed his father in the face with a snowball.  How did he not remember doing that?  He watched it play through, ending in him being scooped up into a hug, all three covered in snow, and them turning to Nathalie, holding the camera, all smiles and happiness.

“There's sound, too.”  Gabriel said.  He gently took the frame and turned it over, revealing the advanced controls and the memory chip slot.  He turned the volume up, and Adrien watched the short video play through again, this time including the laughter, squeals, and faint poofs of the snow hitting its mark.  Nathalie's voice spoke quietly over the sounds.  “Never doubt that you are loved.  So much.”

Adrien stared in awe, speechless.  He didn't move for a few moments.  A tear rolled down his cheek.

“I-I thought she just took pictures that day?”  Adrien asked, not looking up.

“She did pull some stills, but it always was a video that she took.” Gabriel replied.  “I noticed you had put that photo out, downstairs.  I decided you needed to have a copy of the whole thing.”

Adrien looked back at the frame, and started crying uncontrollably.  He set the frame down and jumped up to hug his father.  “I miss her Papa. Every day.”

After a moment, his father hugged him back.  Gabriel wouldn't admit it, but he shed a few tears himself with his son that night, over the memory, over the loss of his wife, over the sorrow of his son, over his own shame of letting a distance grow between the two of them.

“I miss her too, Adrien.”

The two held each other, finally allowing themselves to share that pain, and maybe, just maybe... beginning to heal.

After a few minutes, Gabriel gently pulled away.

“I should let you get some sleep.  You still have a photo shoot tomorrow.  Since my schedule is clear, I think I will join you there. Perhaps afterwards we can find something to do together.”

Adrien wiped his tears away and nodded.  “I... I think that sounds good. I'd like that.  A lot.”

Gabriel turned to leave, but was stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Wait, I forgot something too!”  Adrien said.

He ran to his closet and dug around, pulling out a bag.

“It's uh... not wrapped.”  He admitted.  “I was going to, but I thought I had a few more days before I saw you next.  So... here.”  He handed his father the bag.

Gabriel reached in, and pulled out a CD case.  There was a hand drawn cover, and the back had a matching image, and the list of songs on the back. It didn't list a band name, or an album title.  The songs were by a mix of artists.

“I was really stumped on what to get you.”  Adrien admitted. “I asked my friends for ideas, and it was Nino's suggestion of a mixed CD.  He showed me how to do it, and even taught me how to remix a few of them.  Marinette helped me with the design on the cover.  She's done it before, for Jagged Stone himself, so I knew I could count on her to help me out.  Alya gave me ideas of what kinds of songs to use.  She's really smart, and was able to help me find the ones I was thinking of when I couldn't remember what they were called.”

Gabriel looked at the song list again.  The first song was the song his wife and he had danced to at their wedding.  Another was her favourite piano piece.  Her favourite song to sing around the house.  The song a famous musician had dedicated to her during her modeling days. Their favourite song from the first concert they attended together. Each one meant something to them.

“A few of them are mash-ups, like, you know, two songs blended together? Nino does that all the time, and he really knows his music theory. A few of them are piano only, and he helped me record them.”

“You put some of your own playing on here?”  Gabriel asked.

“Y-Yeah. I just didn't like some of the versions I found, the quality was bad.  So I made my own versions of them.”

Gabriel hugged his son again.  He didn't have words to describe how much he loved it, and besides that, he was very out of practice expressing himself.

“Thank you Adrien.  It's perfect.”

Adrien and his father smiled at each other, finally on the same page after years of being out of sync.

Gabriel said goodnight, and went to his own bedroom, putting the CD on while he prepared for bed.  Adrien changed into pyjamas, and turned off the light, climbing into his bed.  Plagg came out of hiding, landing on the pillow next to his chosen.

“Wow. I didn't think he was capable of any of that stuff.  He always seemed so cold.”  Plagg said.

“He comes off that way, but he's just introverted.  He does have a heart under it all.”  Adrien replied.  “He just hasn't shown it in years.  Mom always pulled out the best in him.  When she left, he kind of shut down, and shut me out.  I'm glad he's figuring out how to let me back in now, though.  It's been the best day I've ever had. I'm sorry you had to spend all of it stuck away in my bag.”

Plagg reached over and placed his forehead against Adrien's.

“Eh. I've had worse days.  I'm glad you're happy.”

“Thanks Plagg.  I wonder if Marinette has had a chance to look at my present to her yet.”  He yawned.  “I guess I'll find out soon enough.  I wonder if she'll call me, or wait until patrol...”  He mumbled, dozing off.  “Of course, she may not be Ladybug at all, in which case I'm going to get in a lot of trouble...”

As Adrien fell asleep, Plagg recalled his day.  Despite Adrien thinking he spent the day in the bag, he had actually snuck out and hung out with Tikki.  They had had a nice, peaceful day together, the first one in a long time.  He hoped she was faring well now...

“Goodnight Mama, goodnight Papa!”  Marinette called as she went upstairs.

Tikki flew out of her hiding spot, her little nook by the window.  Blocked from view by some fake potted plants, the pots actually had holes cut in them, filled with little pillows and a stash of cookies.  One of Marinette's more ingenious creations.  Sunlight, hidey-holes, snacks, and in the winter, a space heater only a few feet away.  She and Plagg had spent the better part of the day there, napping.

“Hi Tikki.”  Marinette smiled.  “I hope you weren't too bored hiding up here alone all day.”

“I wasn't!”  She chirped.  “I napped for a bit, and watched videos on your computer.  I hope that's okay.”

Marinette chuckled.  “More gardening videos?  Alya is always teasing me about my youtube history, why it keeps recommending plant-themed stuff.”

“Sorry, they're just so fascinating!”

“It's okay.  I don't mind.”  She kissed Tikki on the forehead.

She woke her computer up, and upon seeing the image of her and her friends that she had switched the background to, she was reminded of her gifts.

She walked over to where she had stashed them, and started putting them away.  She tucked the embroidery threads from Alya with her sewing supplies, and she tucked the art supplies from Nino in a nearby drawer.  She had the sketchbook from Adrien in hand, when she remembered she was interrupted while trying to read it.

She moved over to her chaise, and sat down, opening up the sketchbook on her lap to the first page.  She began reading, her eyes growing wider with each line.

'To my dearest Marinette,

To the girl I can't forget,

You, with your heart of gold,

You with strength and soul untold.

A fire burning beneath the oceans blue,

A volcano lifting islands new,

For you are the girl who will rise,

And now I see through your disguise.

With all nine my lives, to you I vow,

To be yours alone beginning now,

To always protect, always to serve you,

And never be anything but true.

My lady kind and brave,

From this impurrfect knave,

I willingly unto you impart,

Will you please accept my heart?'

She reread it.  And again.

Marinette wasn't sure whether to cry, scream, or jump for joy.

First off, it was clearly a love poem.  No two ways about it.  It was also from Adrien fucking Agreste, and the fact that he had written this himself, to her, by name, made his love confession all the more real  and terrifying and exciting.

But that wasn't the thing that had her on the verge of screaming.

“Tikki!”

“What is it, Marinette?”

“Is... is Adrien Chat Noir?”  She asked, her eyes searching the kwami for any hint of confirmation.

“What makes you think that?”  Tikki evaded.

“I mean, listen to what he wrote here.”  Marinette read the poem aloud.

“Wow, Marinette, he wrote you a love poem?  How romantic!”  Tikki swooned.

“That's besides the point right now Tikki!  I think he's hinting that he's Chat Noir, and that he knows I'm Ladybug!”

“Where does he say that?”

“Uhh, 'I see through your disguise'?  'My Lady'?  'Nine lives'? 'Impurrfect'?”

“What's wrong with 'imperfect'?”

“No, no, he literally wrote purr in there, like a cat pun.”  Marinette said, pointing at the line.

“Ooohhh. Well, that certainly seems to be hinting pretty strongly, doesn't it?  Do you think he's really saying that?  Do you think he's telling the truth?”  Tikki asked.  She knew the answer, but she needed Marinette to discover this and make the decisions herself.  It wasn't her place to meddle.  Adrien had discovered Marinette's secret, and was trying to tell her, even if it was kind of cryptic.

“I- I don't know, Tikki... it seems like too many coincidences at once for it to not be the case.  And Adrien-- and Chat too-- would never lie to me.”  She mulled it over.

On the one hand, Chat was a goofball.  Always punning, his lopsided smile, his playful flirty nature... but... Adrien punned a lot too. Hadn't she seen Adrien smile like that from time to time as well? Adrien flirting though... she reread the poem and realized this poem is really effing flirty.  Chat Noir was also protective, honorable, and kind.  Check, check and check for Adrien. Blond hair, green eyes, about the same height and build... after her argument with Chat about Christmas gifts, she had to admit, he probably was from a rich family.  The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.  Adrien and Chat were never in the same room at the same time.  She started thinking about every interaction she had with both boys, and it slowly started clicking in place.

“Oh my gosh Tikki!  Adrien's a dork!”  She covered her mouth with her hand.

Tikki giggled.  “You're only figuring that out now?”

Marinette giggled a little, and then again.  She started laughing harder, and it evolved into a full bellied laugh, tears streaming down her face. Tikki was briefly worried that Marinette was having a psychotic breakdown, but the girl started trying to talk through the laughter.

“P-poor Adrien!”  She choked out.  “During Simon Says!  Back and forth! Being in the shower!  It was a ruse!”  She broke out in laughter anew.

Eventually she settled down, laughter coming out in short spurts as she remembered funny events or imagined him changing back and forth for different akumas.

She sighed happily, clutching a pillow to her heart.

“Adrien is Chat Noir, Tikki.  He really, really is.  And he loves me.  Both sides.  He's my best friend, and I'm in love with him.”  She stared, eyes unfocused.  “Oh Tikki... what do I do?”  She bemoaned.

Tikki smiled fondly, and landed beside her chosen.

“You tell him, Marinette.”

Marinette pondered her words.  It really did seem to be the best course of action.  She smiled.  “Yeah.  I think I will.  During Patrol tomorrow night.”  She yawned.

“Get some sleep.  You'll need your energy.”  Tikki laid a kiss against Marinette's forehead, and curled up on the pillow beside her.  “Good night, Marinette.”

“Good night, Tikki.”

The kwami smiled as she watched her chosen fall asleep.  Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.

Well, now I’ve done it.  I’ve gone and gotten your hopes up for another speedy update.  Way to go me.

Unfortunately, I have plans all day tomorrow (visits with family), and then I work 3 days in a row.  I DO then have two days off, which might yield some creativity, but it may not.  A work shift friday, and a day trip to do some wildlife photography saturday, and probably work on sunday... yeah, it might be a week or so.

I think I’ll squeak it out soon enough though.  A little patience my little bugs and kitties.

I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, I love hearing your thoughts!  :)