#the world can wait. humans have been here for hundreds of thousands of years. it can wait

[uncanny-tranny]

So much love and recognition to the people who don't know how they feel about recovering. To the people whose scars are fading away, and there's a sinking feeling, despite knowing that it's a good thing. To the people who miss when they were "worse," when they felt "broken." To the people who mourn losing their coping mechanisms, even the ones that were destructive, scary, or unpleasant. To those who feel guilty they're healing because their past self wasn't ready.

Whatever it is, there is nothing wrong with any of those feelings. It's a natural reaction, something you don't have ultimate control over. There is nothing shameful about yourself, and I admire the strength it takes to recognize how you feel, even the parts that do feel like the "wrong" reaction to a Good Thing.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 5: Heads Or Tails, Fairy Tales In My Mind]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, RIP Jace.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Are We The Waiting” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.8k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“I know he has a scalpel in his bag,” Baela says, meaning Aemond. You are sitting with her on the front steps of a two-story house—1970s construction, split foyer, pale blue siding and rust-red bricks—on Trux Street in Plymouth, Ohio. This town was named for the place where the pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower over four hundred years ago, pioneers who crossed through the doorway of an unfathomably changing world to die of disease, cold, accidents, starvation, violence. You wonder if you are so unlike them. “He’s assisted with c-sections before, if it comes to that. And he has needles and surgical thread. But he doesn’t have any way to anesthetize me.”

Luke and Rhaena are on the roof of the silver Chrysler Pacifica parked at the end of the driveway and surveilling the road. Everyone else is inside tearing the house apart as they try to find the keys. You don’t know what to say to Baela. There is no way to console her except by lying, and she’s too smart for that. “How far along are you?”

“I don’t even know.” She laughs like she’s on the verge of losing her mind. You don’t blame her. “The doctors calculate it based on the date of your last period, but mine was all over the place. I had tried a few different birth control pills and had all these side effects, weird spotting and cramping, no sex drive, feeling depressed, so I just figured I’d go all natural for six months and give my body a chance to reset. And we all know how that turned out.” She skims her palms over the globe of her belly, hidden beneath the flowing periwinkle cotton of a maternity dress she found at the Walmart back in Shenandoah. “I’m officially due in four weeks.”

“But it could happen at any time.”

Baela nods miserably. “My mum had me and Rhaena the…you know…the natural way, and it was smooth sailing. But she needed an emergency c-section with my little brother. What happens if that’s how it goes for me? Do you ever think about all the ways people can die now? It’s not just the zombies. I could get murdered, or fall and crack my skull open, or get a cut that turns septic, or rupture my appendix, or get frostbite or heatstroke, or get bitten by a snake. It never ends. We’ll be balancing on the knife’s edge for the rest of our lives.”

You wish you were better with words; you wish you were someone who spoke effortlessly like Rio or Aegon. You reply with the only thing you can think of. “Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years, and for the vast majority of that time with no modern medicine. It was dangerous, and it was painful. But there have always been people who made it. We wouldn’t exist otherwise.”

Remarkably, this seems to help. “I know Aemond will do everything he can for me,” Baela says, more steadily now. “He’s always been the most dependable one. So serious, so protective. Daeron was visiting us in Boston when everything shut down, and Aemond wouldn’t let the kid out of his sight for weeks…then Aemond almost died when he lost his eye and Daeron proved he could take care of himself with his compound bow.” Baela unwraps a Twizzler and takes a bite out of it, gazing vacantly at the sky, calm and overcast now that the storm has passed, breezy, mid-80s. She doesn’t even like them, but she’s been eating through a pack of Twizzlers Luke had been carrying in his backpack for Jace, slow mindless chewing like a cow’s. “Aemond feels responsible for you now. And that’s difficult when there’s so little control he actually has over what ends up happening.”

“Baela…I’m so sorry about Jace.”

“Drowning isn’t so bad, I guess. I hope he drowned. I hope he was dead before he washed ashore and they ate him.” Baela turns to you, eyes glazed. “Do you think we should have shot him before we left the river? To make sure he didn’t die in pain? You could have done it if you wanted to. Your aim is good enough.”

“No,” you say, horrified but trying to soften it. “I think that would have been…immoral.”

“I don’t even have a picture of Jace to show the baby, everything was online or on my phone, and now that’s all…gone. Just gone. Like he never even existed. How am I going to explain to my child what Boston was, or law school, or aerospace engineering, or grocery stores or shopping malls or Instagram, or anything else about our lives before this whole fucking disaster? All they’ll ever know is running from monsters, scrounging for shelter and supplies from the ruins of civilization.”

“The world is going to come back, Baela. Maybe not for five or ten years, and maybe looking a lot different than it did before, but humanity will recover. The Black Death wasn’t the end, and neither were the World Wars or the Mongol invasions or the colonization of the Americas, or famines or floods or volcanic eruptions. The zombies won’t end us either.”

“Do you really believe that?”

I want to. “Yeah, I do. We just have to hold on until the tide turns. We can’t give up.”

“In that case, I’ll try not to go completely insane in the immediate future. Thank God Rhaena and Luke are still here. Do you have any siblings?”

You smile vaguely. “Four.”

“Wow,” Baela says. “Do you know where they are now?”

There is an interruption before you have to decide how to answer: a roaring high above in the sky, a remote mechanical growling. You and Baela both look up to see a jet zooming by, just below the steel grey cloud cover and leaving a trail of condensation behind it like a comet’s tail of eons-old cosmic dust. From where he is perched atop the Pacifica, Luke is pointing at the jet to show Rhaena. Aemond, Rio, Aegon, and Daeron come rocketing out of the house to find the source of the noise. After a moment, Helaena moseys onto the front porch as well, tucking flashlights and napkins into her burlap messenger bag. Meanwhile, Aegon is filling his pockets with packs of Marlboro Golds and orange prescription bottles labelled Percocet.

“Is that an airplane?!” Aegon gasps. “People are flying again?! Oh, we are back, baby! We are so back! I’m catching the next flight to SFO, peace out bitches, no more Oregon Trail for me!”

“It’s a jet,” Aemond says flatly. “Not a passenger carrier. Probably military.”

“Doesn’t look like one of ours.” Rio turns to you for confirmation.

“No, I don’t recognize it.”

“Then who the fuck is up there?” Aegon says. “Canada? The U.K.?”

Rio sighs, ruffling Aegon’s already quite disheveled blonde hair. “Who knows, Honey Bun. Maybe it’s China or Russia swinging by to drop nukes on any survivors.”

“Fortunately, nobody’s going to waste a nuclear bomb on freaking Plymouth, Ohio,” Baela says, watching the jet vanish into the west, the droning of its engines replaced by the breeze through the sugar maples and sycamores, the screeching of cicadas and chirps of robins. “No luck finding the keys?”

Aemond frowns as he shakes his head, tapping his chin anxiously. He knows she can’t walk much farther.

“How do none of us know how to hotwire a car?” Aegon demands, exasperated.

Rio replies cheerfully: “Well, Chips and I have been diligently serving this glorious nation since we were eighteen years old, and you’re all clueless rich kids. So…I think that just about sums it up.”

“I need more arrows,” Daeron says, clutching his compound bow. All the ones he had are now speared through zombies along the river where Jace died. When you snuck away from the farm at dawn, Luke used his binoculars to check the shores; they were still swamped with zombies, even more than the night before. They are pack animals; alone, they are aimless and easily confounded, their memories calamitously short. As part of a group—if they were crows they’d be a murder, if they were camels they’d be a caravan—zombies attract and guide each other, moving symbiotically like planets and moons locked in orbit.

“I think you’re going to have to start making them the old fashioned way, kid,” Rio tells Daeron, accompanied by a rough pat of encouragement on the back.

“What, like with sticks?!”

“Yeah. Use a knife to carve one end to make it pointy and you’re good to go.”

“Love it. Very pioneer.” Aegon holds up a Sony Walkman, pink and covered with Disney stickers, Ava spelled out across the top in glittering rhinestones. “At least I found this. Helaena, do we have any more AA batteries?” She fishes around in her bag and hands him a pair.

Baela gapes at him, but she’s smiling. It’s horrible, it’s absurd, it’s something you can’t help but find a macabre humor in. “Aegon, you cannot use that poor eaten kid’s CD player. You know it’s haunted.”

Aegon sings like a jingle from a commercial: “Little Ava died, RIP. Now I get to listen to my CDs.”

“Oh, that is so fucked up!” Rio cackles.

You say, grinning: “Aegon, I’m really going to miss you when we’re all in heaven at the bowling alley made of clouds and you’re downstairs in the fiery version of the afterlife.”

“Don’t feel bad for me, Chipmunk. You’re the one who’s going to die without ever having an orgasm.”

“You don’t need a man for that, Aegon,” Baela says.

“You definitely don’t,” you agree. Aemond glances over at you, intrigued. You stare dauntlessly back. What? You said you weren’t interested. The corners of his lips curl up in a reticent smile; he looks down to try to hide it. He’s touching his chin again. His cheeks flush pink as his mind wanders.

Rio chuckles. “Oh yeah, I remember your little experimenting phase. Lots of trips to the Spencer’s in the Tysons Corner mall when we were stationed at Anacostia.”

You raise your eyebrows, though you’re not annoyed. “I thought you were never going to tell anybody about that.”

“It’s the end of the world, baby. No time to be shy.” Then Rio asks Aemond: “Since we’re here and it’s quiet, you want to go ahead and check every house that has a car with the fuel cap still closed? There are some minivans and SUVs down at the other end of the street. Even a few gallons of gas will take us farther than days on foot.”

Aegon adds, checking his map: “A half tank would get us all the way to Decatur, Indiana.”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Aemond says. He offers Baela a hand and helps lift her to her feet. “You guys go ahead, I’ll meet you down at the driveway with the black…what is that, a Honda Odyssey? You know the one, the van in front of the yellow house. Don’t go inside until I get there.”

“Yup!” Aegon agrees as he speeds off, racing Daeron to the house. Rio—not one for sprinting—jogs after them with his Remington in hand, ready to bash rotting skulls in at a moment’s notice. Baela toddles down to the Pacifica to tell Luke and Rhaena the plan, her periwinkle dress billowing in the wind; then they climb down to walk with her. Helaena floats across the sidewalk like a ghost, pausing to pick buttercups that grow up between the cracks in the cement.

Aemond has been waiting until the two of you are alone. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” A few houses down, a female zombie—early-twenties, white bikini top, red Ohio State shorts—staggers across the yard and in her attempt to snag Aegon falls and impales herself on the white picket fence. She is suspended there, clawing and yowling, her blackening intestines and dark clotted blood staining the wood. Aegon takes his time getting into a stance and swings his golf club like he’s at a driving range. He hits her dead-on, caves the front of her face in, takes a few more shots just to be sure.

“I get what’s in Oregon for Rio,” Aemond says. “Sophie, the baby, his parents. But why are you going there?”

“Rio’s my best friend. He might be my only friend who’s still alive. And when we left Saratoga Springs, he made me promise that I wouldn’t let him die alone. So before anything else, I have to make sure he gets to Odessa and finds his family. And then I can figure out what’s next for me. But if it really is safe there, I don’t see why I’d leave. I’ve never wanted to be on my own. Maybe I can end up having a family in Oregon too.”

Aemond rests his elbows on the porch railing. He’s teasing you. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I’m still alive.”

You tease him back. He deserves it. “I’m not sure about you and me.”

“I’d like for us to be friends.”

“Would you?”

“Resoundingly.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a try.”

He considers you. “You know, Kentucky might have been a good place for you to hide out. And it would be a lot closer than Oregon.”

You stand up, throwing on your backpack full of bullets for your Beretta M9s, beef jerky and peanut butter crackers and granola bars, lip balm, bottles of water, Kleenex tissues, Juicy Fruit, miscellaneous treasures from the road, practically worthless trinkets made so impossibly valuable. “We’re done here, right?”

Aemond is disappointed, though not with you. He has committed an error he cannot understand. “Yeah, we’re done.” He walks with you to the yellow house, your sneakers pounding in tandem on the sidewalk, squirrels and rabbits darting through the overgrown lawns, eastern tiger swallowtails swooping between blossoms.

Aegon says when you and Aemond arrive in the driveway, nodding to the once-attractive blonde zombie pawing and licking at the glass of the living room window: “Who wants to take care of Ryan Seacrest?”

“Got it,” Rio replies immediately. He kicks down the front door, macerates the zombie’s skull with the butt of his Remington, then sweeps through the kitchen and dining room searching for any other monsters in need of hasty euthanasia. He doesn’t find any. He drags the corpse outside to lessen the stench of decomposition and opens all the downstairs windows.

“Commence Operation Find The Minivan Keys,” Aegon says as he rummages through drawers and cabinets. Helaena joins him, seeking so delicately she is almost soundless, her large blue eyes flicking from place to place. Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron stay outside to keep watch. Baela collapses into a recliner in one corner of the living room and is dozing within seconds.

“I’ll clear the upstairs,” Aemond volunteers, then asks you: “Watch my blind side?”

You can’t help but smile; it is a generous invitation. It is an honor. You shadow him up the staircase of olive green carpet, through the hallway, into each of the three bedrooms and one full bath. When you are certain it is safe—exploring the back of every closet, under every bed—you and Aemond begin searching for weapons and car keys. The main bedroom is like a forest: blankets pattered with trees and deer, wood furniture, paintings of the Battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. You investigate every drawer of the nightstand and dresser, then go to leave.

“Wait.” Aemond peeks out into the hallway to make sure no one else is around, then closes the bedroom door. Your eyes track him quizzically, shy skittish optimism, your head tilted, your fingers finding the dresser behind you, cool rust-hued oak, a color like dried blood. You slip off your backpack. Then Aemond comes to you like a returning comet—once in a lifetime, once in an eon—and holds your face in his hands as he kisses you, soft, careful, unhurried, then turning famished, sweltering incurable hunger. You lift yourself up onto the dresser; your thighs have parted, and Aemond is between them, still fully clothed and leaving yours in place too, so innocent, so spotless, and yet in your mind you are imagining what it would feel like to lie beneath him as he opens and fills you, to be so irredeemably close to another person, to watch and listen as he teaches you what to do.

Right here? Right now?

It suddenly strikes you as too soon; you want this but you aren’t ready. Your heart races, you can’t catch your breath. “I am obligated to make you aware that according to your own calculations, I am likely dangerously fertile at the moment.”

Aemond grins as he bites playfully at your lower lip. “Relax. We’re not rounding all the bases this time.”

His voice evaporates your panic, lulls your rushing blood. Your muscles turn to seamless rippling water. Your bones crave the weight of his. “Yeah, totally, good, that’s good. Just making sure.”

“I want to touch you. Can I touch you?”

In reply, you unbutton your denim shorts and pull down the zipper, slowly, very slowly, your gaze linked with his like torn flesh stitched together. He’s close enough to kiss you again, but he doesn’t; he takes your chin gently and turns your face to the side, admiring the curve of your jaw. Then his lips are on your throat and his right hand is skimming down the front of your shirt, over your belly, under your shorts. You gasp—the foreignness of another’s hand here, the disorienting vulnerability—and Aemond stops.

“No, I’m okay,” you assure him, smiling. You kiss him deeply, your fingertips tracing his scar, the work of his careful, gifted hands. Aemond does not flinch away. He presses his face into your palm, offering himself fully, taking shelter in you. And everything other than him—this house, this world, this age, this westward journey, this apocalypse—goes quiet, quiet, quiet, like when you are shooting, like when you are hammering nails under the sun. Aemond makes everything horrifying disappear. It is the greatest sort of magic you can imagine.

“So,” he says. “What did you buy at Spencer’s?”

“Green Day t-shirts.”

“Sure.”

“And some, uh, battery-powered companionship.”

“Hm.” Aemond’s fingers are moving against you; it is increasingly difficult to respond to his questions. “Internal or external? Or both?”

“Oh, definitely…um…I stayed on the outside, mostly. I tried…oh wow, okay…inside a few times, but I didn’t get much out of it. It was mostly just uncomfortable.”

“No problem. We’ll work up to that.”

“Will we?” You hope you don’t sound too desperate. The warm coiling pleasure is swelling, strengthening, begging to be released, loosed like an arrow or fired like a bullet. Aemond’s fingers slip through your wetness, circling and pressing down harder, insistently, masterfully. It feels different than using toys: it is more gradual, less sharp, helplessly overpowering.

“That’s my plan. If you’ll allow it.”

You exhale a threadbare ghost of a whimper against his throat and then reach for his shorts, fumbling blindly for the button and zipper.

“No, don’t do anything,” Aemond murmurs, soft and pleading, almost like a prayer. “Let me take care of you. Please let me feel like I’m doing something right.”

“You’re doing a lot right at the moment.” You’re close now, your breaths quick and panting. You throw your arms around the back of Aemond’s neck and fold into him, feeling the thudding pulse of his carotid artery beneath your fingertips, the softness of his lips and unscarred cheek as he nuzzles the side of your face. It’s so quiet, but there’s no need to fill the silence, no words, no uneasiness. You’ve always wondered what you would have to do to please a man, what premeditated motions and praises you would offer him, niceties, perhaps even lies. But this is effortless. The shimmering golden glow like sunlight is here, and he is the one drawing it out of you, water from a well, blood from a tapped vein. The only sound you make is a shuddering inhale, but Aemond knows immediately. He closes his eyes, relieved, proud, beaming, resting his forehead against yours.

He asks: “Can I try…?”

“Yes, do it, please, I want you to.”

Aemond’s hand shifts between your thighs, moves lower, and there is a sudden jolt of pain like a pinch, like a bite. You wince before you can think to disguise it. Immediately, Aemond retreats, kissing your lips and your cheeks. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You were incredible.”

You reach for his shorts again and unbutton them. “Show me what to do.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to.”

He takes a shaky breath, drags his tongue over the fingers he touched you with, moans so quietly you can barely hear him. He frees himself from his clothes: long and thick, harder than you believed flesh could be. Aemond grasps your hand and places it, demonstrates how to move and how much pressure to apply. Then his own hands drop to grip the edge of the dresser as you stroke him. You nip at his throat, his jaw, the shell of his ear; you coax euphoric sighs from him, feel a high in your bloodstream like something illicit and lethal.

“I’ll be honest,” you say. “I have no idea how that’s ever going to fit inside me.”

Aemond chuckles, distracted. “Women stretch, just like men do. It might take time, but it will happen. And I’ll make sure it’s as good as it can be.”

“I want it to be you, Aemond,” you whisper, and you can feel him throbbing in your hand. “You and no one else. Teach me how to do everything.” Make the world go away.

He gasps as he finishes, a thunderous trembling all over, a gush of white heat that flows over your hand. Curious, you lift it to your mouth. “Don’t—!”

But he’s too late; you lick him from your palm and then recoil at the taste, pungent, bitter, salty.

Aemond laughs hysterically, kissing your mouth and then your forehead. “Oh God, I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”

“I hope I taste better than that.”

“You definitely do.”

You peer up at him, dazed, dreamy. “I really like you, Aemond.”

“You can’t fall in love with me.” It is a taunt; it is a warning.

“If I do, I won’t let you know,” you promise. “You’re on first watch tonight, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Then I’ll stay up too.”

“Rio already volunteered to do it.”

“Really, I don’t mind.”

“No,” Aemond purrs, brushing your hair back from your face, marveling at you. “I can’t have you sleep deprived. You’re our best shot.”

“I can handle it.”

“You want to be honest with each other, you want to communicate? I like knowing you’re rested. I like knowing you’re safe.”

The door flies open with a bang; Aegon stands in the threshold. “We’ve got three-quarters of a tank of gas!” he announces ecstatically, jangling car keys in the air. Then he registers what he’s looking at. “Come outside when you’re done fucking.” Aegon slams the door shut; you hear his Sperry Bahama sneakers drumming on the staircase.

“I guess we should go,” you say reluctantly, untangling yourself from Aemond and sliding down from the dresser.

“Wait.” He gets a water bottle out of your backpack, soaks a handful of Kleenex tissues, and gives them to you to clean yourself off. When you’re done, he wipes himself down too. “Make sure you always take a piss after any…activities. We don’t have antibiotics if you get a kidney infection.”

“I know, doctor. I’ve read Reddit threads.”

“Not a doctor. Just a lowly intern.”

“You seem like an anatomy expert to me,” you say, then head downstairs.

The black Honda Odyssey is idling as the last of the supplies are loaded, the windows down, Baela adjusting the driver’s seat so she can accommodate her belly. Everyone piles inside and she steers the minivan out of the driveway and onto Trux Street. Aegon pops one of his mixtapes into the CD player. The song that pipes through the speakers is Prayer In C:

“Yeah, you never said a word

You didn’t send me no letter

Don’t think I could forgive you…”

“So,” Baela says casually, grinning at you in the rearview mirror. “How was the sex?”

“Stop,” Aemond begs, his face going red, smiling involuntarily.

You say placidly: “I appreciate your interest, but that’s not what we were doing.”

Rio turns to Aegon. “Do you know what sex looks like or not, dumbass?”

“They were doing something, okay! Those were not virginal activities!”

“See, our world is slowly dying

I’m not wasting no more time

Don’t think I could believe you…”

You rest your head on Aemond’s shoulder and watch the abandoned houses pass by in a blur.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Odyssey arrives in Decatur, Indiana just a few hours before sunset, gas to spare and plenty of time to find a safe place to spend the night. You break into a house on the outskirts of the west side of the city: a rancher with a screened-in porch, beach décor, bowls of seashells on tables and spray-painted aluminum dolphins on the wall. Baela plummets into sleep immediately, sharing the largest bed with Rhaena and Luke. Helaena writes in her spider notebook for a while before curling up on the living room couch, Daeron sprawled on the floor beside her with a couch cushion for a pillow. Aegon is in what was once a child’s bedroom; you have the bedroom of a teenage girl, perhaps spirited away to friends or relatives in some other part of the country, perhaps dead, perhaps lurching around out in the night somewhere, mad and murderous. Everything is purple, the walls, the blankets, the stuffed animals that form a mountain on the other half of the bed.

You are exhausted, but you can’t sleep. Your thoughts won’t stop racing, stop craving. Aemond and Rio are in rocking chairs out on the porch, keeping watch and working their way through the case of Sunny D they found in the kitchen pantry. You go out to join them, then stop at the screen door that separates the linoleum-floored dining room from the porch. They are discussing you. You sit, legs crossed, listening in the dim silvery light, stars and moon and nothing else.

Aemond is saying: “She doesn’t talk much about where she came from.”

Rio chuckles, a low baritone rumble. “She doesn’t talk much in general. But yeah, don’t expect any juicy revelations. That’s not how she does things.”

“Do you know what her life was like before?”

“I know some of it. I don’t know a lot.” Rio pauses; you can envision him shrugging and running his fingers through his dark curly hair, weighing what you would be okay with him sharing. “I know that when I met her, her mother was calling all the time telling her to send money home. And she’d do it, because she felt like she didn’t have a choice. Then she never had cash for drinks or anything, I was always paying her way, and one day I was finally like ‘Chips, how much do you actually have in your account right now?’ because I figured she must be down real low. Jesus Christ, I couldn’t believe it when she showed me the balance, she had like three bucks left until her next paycheck, and of course then her mother would be calling again. She sent tens of thousands of dollars home that disappeared, poof, gone, without a trace.”

Aemond sounds stunned. “What did they spend it on?”

“Who the fuck knows with those people. Lottery tickets and cigs, probably. Trips to Virginia Beach. Benny Hinn Bibles. And when she tried to hit the brakes, her mother and siblings got nasty, calling constantly and telling her how awful she was and that they were going to starve. I convinced her to stop picking up the phone, but it took forever. I think she knew by then she was going to have to cut them off if she didn’t want to end up back there, but she needed somebody to give her permission. That was my job. As far as I know, she hasn’t spoken to anyone from home in years. Hell, Sophie was her AOP.”

“AOP…?”

“Oh, sorry, Arrears of Pay. It’s the person you designate to get all your benefits if you die in the service. I guess she figured that if our base got bombed or our plane went down or something, at least it would end up with my family.”

Aemond is quiet, thirty seconds, a minute, maybe two. “Obviously my circumstances were a lot different. But I understand having to choose between other people’s expectations and yourself.”

“Why are you asking me all this?”

Another pause; silent thoughts under glimmering stars and the shrieks of short-lived summer cicadas. “She takes me out of this world for a while. She makes the guilt and the fear go quiet. I want to know everything about her.”

When Rio speaks, he is gentle, compassionate. “The hard truth is, the details aren’t my business. They aren’t yours either. When people enlist, they’re starting over. It’s a Get Out Of Jail Free card. It gets them away from home, but it also gets them away from whoever they were before.”

“She said something like that once. Back at Fort Indiantown Gap.”

“It’s a polite way of telling you to shut up.” You know from his voice that Rio is smiling. “If she wants to forget her old life, you have to let her. If you care about her, you’ll want her to be able to move on.”

“I care.”

“She likes you,” Rio says. “But you could still fuck it up. She’s good at finding reasons not to trust people.”

“It’s a bad way to live.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know. I’m the same way.”

There is quiet now, only the sounds of Sunny D being slurped and cicadas screaming through the darkness. You have intruded enough. You stand and walk back down the hallway, then remember something Aegon said outside a Burger King in Pennsylvania. You go to his bedroom, illuminated by a flashlight pointed towards the ceiling, casting long deformed shadows.

Aegon is lying on his back with his head hanging upside down over the side of the bed—dinosaur blankets, bright red and blue pillows—puffing on a cigarette and listening to his new CD player, previously Ava’s, with both earbuds in. Then he spots you. Still upside down, Aegon hits the pause button on his CD player and says: “Hey, Microchip.”

“What did you mean about people pretending to love you?”

He smirks, shrugs, takes a lazy drag off his Marlboro Gold. “Every friend I’ve ever had has used me for money, mansions, yachts. Every girl I’ve ever fucked has wanted something in return. Mother prefers Daeron, Grandfather prefers Helaena, Criston prefers Aemond, and Father prefers his real estate empire and his model ships. Can you imagine loving a miniature replica of the Titanic more than your own children?”

“No,” you say, honestly and with heavy, gore-red pity. “You shouldn’t have to go back to people who make you feel that way. I wouldn’t.”

Aegon takes another drag as he watches you. “Aemond mentioned you’re from Kentucky.”

“I am.”

“But you won’t be returning.”

“No.”

Aegon nods, like you’ve answered an important question. “Aemond talks about you a lot. It’s cute. It doesn’t make me sick like when he was with Alys. Playing her games, breaking himself in half to follow her rules.”

You peer down at your fingernails, short and functional and unglamorous. You don’t want to hear about the older woman who was his lover, his obsession, his cure, his venom. She was poisonous to him, surely, and yet she was experienced where you are uninitiated and unversed, she had a PhD to compare with your high school diploma. Surely in those seven years he shared moments with her that were divine. Surely even a curse is woven from magic.

“Anyway.” Aegon rolls over, props himself up on his elbows, and extinguishes his cigarette in an empty plastic Sunny D bottle. “I have no particular affinity for my old life or the beach house in California, but that’s where Aemond is going. And I have to be where he is. I have to make sure he’s alright, you know?”

Yes, you do know; that’s how you feel about Rio. “What’s it like? That house up on a cliff all by itself?”

Aegon grins, like he’s caught you in a mouthwateringly compromising position. “Why? You thinking about visiting someday?”

“Just wondering.”

He squirms over to one side of the bed to make room for you, popping in an earbud. “Come listen with me.”

“What is it?”

“Just come over here!”

You cross the room and kick off your sneakers, climb onto the bed, lie down and take the other earbud that Aegon offers you. What you hear when you listen is Don McLean’s American Pie. “Oh, this is ancient.”

“It’s a classic. I wish I’d gotten to live through the 70s.”

“We’ll reinvent them when the world starts up again. Disco and lava lamps and shag carpets. We’ll shoot heroin and listen to vinyl records. Jimmy Carter can be president if he’s still alive.”

Aegon snickers, and then he sings along, hushed but surprisingly melodic, solemn, tender. He’s looking at you expectantly, eyebrows raised, nodding, beckoning for you to join him. You adamantly refuse. You don’t sing in front of anybody, not even Rio.

“I met a girl who sang the blues

And I asked her for some happy news

But she just smiled and turned away

I went down to the sacred store

Where I’d heard the music years before

But the man there said the music wouldn’t play…”

Aegon shoves your shoulder. “I could be dead tomorrow. Don’t ignore me.”

Self-consciously, but smiling a little bit, you begin to sing with him, so softly you can barely hear yourself. Aegon is beaming, small even white teeth beneath sparkling eyes, a murky cool blue like storm clouds, like the ocean, waves lapping at the shores of Diego Garcia, the Gulf of Tadjoura off the east coast of Djibouti, Corpus Christi Bay, places you once never knew existed.

“And in the streets, the children screamed

The lovers cried and the poets dreamed

But not a word was spoken

The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most

The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost

They caught the last train for the coast

The day the music died.”

[lyrefromthesea]

hiii i really love you blind!reader x hashira + Kokushibo 🫶

can you PLEASE write more of blind!reader x Kokushibo? like how they met OR how Kokushibo had “mysteriously” adored the reader after they first met OR how their relationship functions coz she doesn’t know that Kokushibo is a demon???

please and thank you so much 🙏 more grace and power to you

Kokushibo - Behind poisonous trees

author's note: i just received the notification that i've reached over 25 thousand hearts. thank you all for appreciating my work like this.

pairing: Kokushibo x blind!reader

content warning: reader (obviously) is blind, brief mention of blood, reader is described as she/her

he didn't know what led him down the thin path between rows of wisteria trees. demons kept away from the poisonous plants, knowing it could be the death of them, his behavior made no sense.

then again, he wasn't like every other demon. he was strong - the strongest - and had a mind of his own.

the path had been pulling at him, attaching to his sleeve and whispering coaxing words into his ears. he was promised a future if he just followed the mysterious way long enough.

yet he began to wonder after minutes of waiting, what could be at the end of this trail? it wasn't normal for humans to build areas like these - lonely and silent.

the thought consumed him until he saw a glimmer of hope in the distance. the path led to a small estate, clearly of older times. the building stood in the middle of a clearing, fully surrounded by wisteria trees.

the sight made unease spread through his body. this looked like a cage. a trap. a place no demon should visit.

but what intrigued him even more, made curiosity and caution consume him, was the faint scent of a single human being.

a marechi.

his speed picked up the slightest bit, bringing him towards the entrance of the clearing. he hadn't seen it from afar, but the clearing was filled with varieties of flowers.

who had planted them here? different colored waves of flora filled the scenery, letting the clearing look like an ocean.

"who goes there?" he froze, the voice he had heard - barely above a whisper - had been unlike anything he had heard.

soft. harsh. cold. warm. but most importantly - close.

he turned around in the blink of an eye, six eyes focusing on the single human being in front of him.

the human, who looked weirdly weak and still strong, had successfully moved right behind him. he didn't remember the last time someone managed to do that.

a hundred years ago? or maybe a few more. it must've been a strong swordsman who took him by surprise back then, but he couldn't remember his face.

"i asked you a question." the human stated, hand clenching around the stick in hand.

he felt his blood run cold, the woman in front of him wasn't a normal marechi. she looked too different - too similar.

he didn't think he'd be able to remember this face, but now it was all too clear to him.

she reminded him of his former wife.

it wasn't only her face, but also her demeanour. the way she carried herself. only that her eyes looked different - empty.

she almost appeared like she looked past him, as if her eyes observed a different world than his. and when his eyes wandered back to the stick in her hand, it all made sense.

she was blind.

"i did not mean to intrude." he answered, internally questioning himself for what he did. he was supposed to eat her, become stronger - stay the strongest. she was a marechi, if he didn't eat her, another demon would.

but his body remained stiff, his eyes staying on the woman. "i must've gotten lost."

he wasn't lost, he knew the way back. but his voice was betraying him, finding it hard to turn away from the woman.

"you're lost?" she asked, her voice having grown more soft. he watched her look up at the sky, as if she could see the stars wandering along the firmament.

"i see.. come inside, i have a guestroom to spare." he didn't know what brought her to this decision, but she was ready to let him in after just a few words.

perhaps she was brave. perhaps she was naive.

"there's no need, i will surely find my way back." he insisted, feeling the lump in his throat grow. something was holding him back from killing you right then and there.

he didn't understand, he was a demon and you a mere human. he was used to killing his victims with a single slice, watching the blood splatter and the live leave their eyes.

but somehow he couldn't lift a single finger with the intention to hurt you and he slowly came to realize that it wasn't only because of your similarity to his wife.

"i insist, there are demons lurking outside the woods, this is the only place to be safe." you answered, walking towards the small estate without another word. he watched you move with a silent grace lingering around your figure.

you must've walked through this area a hundred times already, as the accuracy of your step was phenomenal in his eyes.

he only snapped out of his quiet fascination when you opened the door, stopping and turning around just so you could face him. "i'll prepare some fresh food."

the invitation was left unanswered, at least no words came to accompany yours. instead his feet dragged him forward without his consent, silently longing for what was to happen next.

he was completely in your ban and he still hadn't noticed.

[f1ghtsoftly]

While, I don’t hate the women that express “doomer” ideology, I do think it’s Really Bad for a wide range of reasons. One of the most important of which is the all or nothing type of valuation it places on resistance, we either destroy all patriarchy, or we’re all doomed, and the way it negates our power as living breathing adult women to do anything at all the change our circumstances, because I can’t change all of it-I change nothing instead.

There are thousands of women on this website that are alive right now who want a better world-do you seriously believe none of our efforts, do you believe the efforts of all the women who’ve ever lived amount to nothing just because we haven’t achieved a post-patriarchal society? Think about all the ways women’s resistance, big and small, has nurtured you-even before feminism was a thought in your head. Did that not matter to you? Did it not help protect you? To warn you? To feed your soul? Not enough of course, but all of that effort was enough to make you brave enough to dig for answers, to not immediately give in to all that was expected of you, to find a place here on this website, surely. It did matter, even just hearing or seeing something that made you feel seen for the first time in your life-that does matter.

I think one of patriarchy’s most pernicious effects is the way it corrupts intimacy between women. We are trained to play act images of women that men create through media and social control we end up worrying if we’re successful in our impersonation of this being we call “woman” always trying to be nice enough, tidy enough, small enough etc…and disrupts our images of woman’s actual humanity and personhood. Remember how crazy you felt before you discovered feminism, imagine all the other women and girls who already do and will one day feel like you. You thought no other woman was like you, until one day you went to a secret place, somewhere men didn’t control, and discovered, it wasn’t true.

Women’s ability to resist patriarchy is a gift to us, it lets us know, even hundreds of years into the future, that we have never really been alone. Women who acted out to the point of being disciplined via religious, psychiatric or state institutions. Women who worked in secret as men to be able to write, create, make and live independently. Women who pushed politically for their rights. Even just women who survived and gained power for themselves in environments that were hostile to it. They all gave us a gift and that gift is the knowledge that they were alive, they mattered and they didn’t like it-they weren’t these images of women that men created-they were human, just like us. More than just giving us comfort, these big and small acts of resistance allow us to more fully understand not only the totality of what we’re up against-but also to appreciate the incredible fortitude of women who persisted against incredible odds. They didn’t know what their fates were going to be either and it probably felt as bleak, if not more, than it does right now. We can find women like this in the historical record, even if Big Patriarchy is still around.

It’s true that individually we don’t have a lot of control over the Really Big Historical Picture, but the good news is we don’t have to-we just need to control our slice of it. There are so many women just waiting to find women like us, there are girls growing up who need to see us to know that they’re not alone and that there is a community of women who feel like them and who are worth fighting for. Focus on making yourself visible as a human being to the women around you, on trying to make a mark big enough so that women in the future can find you. We are alive and we matter-and I really think this is enough. It’s a very worthy effort to live by and for other women and usefully it’s also a really critical step in building solidarity, so even if some of us get crazy ideas about doing something to change the Big Historical Picture, they’ll have a much better chance of achieving it.

[exhaslo]

Hello!! I love your writing, it's soooo good, and I wanted to know if I can make a request (if they are open), Miguel × shy Spider woman, in which she and he almost difficultly interact, since miguel is always talking loudly and stuck in his office while she is his polar opposite, and after I mission together they start enjoying each other presence

Okay, I think I can work with this. So like a Shy, but somewhat outgoing reader while Miguel is loud but an introvert haha. I think I have just the idea~

Warning:

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

There were thousands of worlds in the multiverse. Each was unique in its own way, shape or form. Some felt more unfair than others. Your world was one of those that would be classified as unfair. Actually, it was just downright cruel.

You were the Spiderwoman of your world. Life was going great for you until a strange new villain appeared. This new villain was actually your coworker working on a dangerous project that left you frozen in place for hundreds of years.

Yea, he was a villain in your eyes. By the time you were unfrozen, the world you knew was long gone. Humanity had gone extinct and there was barely anything left to salvage. You lived off the ruins of buildings and wildlife to survive.

It wasn't until Miguel appeared and brought you to the Spider Society that you started to live again. However, you were afraid to talk to anyone. You were scared to lose everything again, yet you wanted to experience their worlds.

You just wanted to live again.

Currently, you were walking around the Spider Society, trying to find something to do. Some of the other Spiders waved towards you before heading off to do their thing. You were hesitate to return the gesture, afraid to getting too close to anyone.

"Why did it take so long to capture the anomaly?!" Miguel nearly roared towards a group that just arrived.

You flinched at the sound of his voice and hid behind a pillar. Miguel was frightening to be around. His presence just felt too much for you, that and he was really loud. Despite your fear, you couldn't help but feel attracted to him.

"Just...go, all of you just go." Miguel sighed heavily as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

All of the Spidermen quickly fled, some making quiet jokes here and there. You were hesitant to approach. You just wanted to say hello to him and to thank him again for saving you.

"You don't have to hide," Miguel called out and faced your direction, "I know your there, (Y/N)."

"Sorry," You whispered, stepping out of your hiding place, "Um, thank you again for-"

"You don't have to keep thanking me. It's been a month."

"I know..." You rubbed your arm and watched him start to leave, "It was nice...talking to you..."

--------

There you were again, watching Miguel from a distance. You had been living at the Spider Society for over two months now and you still were having a hard time talking to anyone. Miguel especially. You two were polar opposites.

Miguel was the strong leader of this group, always stuck in his office working and always loud. While you were just another Spider, trying to explore the different worlds and quiet. You felt like it was an impossible task to talk to him if he weren't the one to do so.

"(Y/N), Miguel requests your assistance in an anomaly capture that landed in your world," Lyla appeared from your watch.

"Oh," The thought of your world shattered your heart, "O-Of course, I'll um...be right there."

"Good, he's waiting for you." Lyla said with a chirp before disappearing.

You froze up, feeling your heart race as you tried to build the courage to return to your lost world. That, and Miguel was personally joining you on this mission. You weren't sure if it was fear or excitement that made your heart race.

When you arrived, Miguel was waiting on top of a broken building. You hurried over, trembling as you stared at the world before you. The once beautiful NYC was now overrun by vicious plants.

"It's still hard to believe what happened here," Miguel said before glancing towards you, "I'm sorry for you loss."

"I-It's....It's okay," You whimpered, tears threatening the spill, "L-Let's go catch the anomaly before this world kills them."

"I'll give the direction, you lead us in the safest way there."

Miguel was actually pleasant to chat with. He kept distracting you from feeling depressed about your world. You ended up getting along with him, the two of you sharing stories about each other. Once you caught up to the anomaly, the two of you easily caught him.

"Well, I can't say this about everyone, but we make a good team," Miguel told you as he threw the anomaly in the portal.

"Thanks, I...had fun working with you," You admitted.

Miguel smiled under his mask as he let you walk before him. He kept a close eye on you as you returned to the Spider Society. He felt bad, but you needed the company. Perhaps, he did too. Miguel was going to try his best to get to know you better.

--------

True to his word, Miguel kept finding time to hang out with you. He always had you join him on a mission, then treated you to lunch afterwards. You were the only one who stayed in his world due to not having a world for you to go back too.

Miguel was almost afraid to admit it, but he had fallen for you. You were just perfect for him. All Miguel wanted to do was keep you safe in his arms. The best part was that he knew you liked him back. His heighten senses sure ratted you out.

Miguel was sitting across from you in his office, sharing lunch. You hummed happily, enjoying your silly Miguel burger,

"You okay, Miguel?" You asked. Miguel stole one of your fries,

"Yea, just admiring you."

"M-Miguel!" You gasped, covering your face, "Y-You can't just say something like that...so boldly." You whimpered. Miguel chuckled lowly,

"Says the one who ordered the burger with my face on it."

"M-Masked face!" You squeaked.

Miguel just hummed in response and finished his meal, leaving you alone to eat. You let out a soft whine, grabbing your burger and hesitantly eating it.

What did he have to do to keep you to stay with him forever? That watch you wore kept you here, but you still had to go back to your world to stabilize the balance every now and then. That and you were not allowed to deeply interreact with his world. It was like you were a prisoner.

A happy one. Despite all the trouble, you were still happy to be here, with him. Miguel just wanted to make your life a little better. Once you finished, Miguel noticed some crumbs on your face. It was cliché, but he approached you and wiped the food off with his thumb.

"Yum," He licked his fingers, watching you grow flustered, "So the burger is good."

"M-Miguel!"

-------

This was one of those rare moments where everyone was hesitant to approach Miguel, everyone but you. Apparently something went wrong in a mission and a cannon event was broken that destroyed that world.

Miguel was furious.

Entering his office, you quietly called out for Miguel. You wanted to be there for him. Hearing a low grumble, you glanced up at his platform and swung towards him.

"Miguel?" You whispered.

Miguel tensed at your voice. You saw it. Slowly reaching out, you placed your hand against his back. Miguel quickly turned around and engulfed you in his arms. You blushed as you were pressed into his chest.

"Mig-"

"Just let me stay like this," Miguel whispered, resting his head against yours. You closed your eyes, wrapping your arms around his back,

"Of course,"

Miguel held you in his embrace for a solid fifteen minutes. Once he had his full, he slowly released you and cupped your cheek. You rested your head against the palm of his hand, enjoying the warmth he gave off.

"(Y/N), I need you to know-" Miguel held your waist close to his, "I love you. I can't afford to lose you."

"M-Miguel," You squeaked, hiding your face against his chest, "I-Is it okay...for me to love you back?"

"I'll keep you protected, give you the life that was stolen from you," Miguel raised your chin, resting his head against yours, "If you'd let me."

"I'd love nothing more,"

The two of you smiled before sharing a passionate kiss. Miguel wrapped you in his arms again, not wanting to let you go. You giggled into the kiss, hugging Miguel happily,

"Shall I tell the others that you're safe to approach?"

"No, let's stay like this for a bit longer."

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

Sorry it was so short! I hope you enjoyed!!!

[ot3]

Hey! The link to your FAQ wasn't working for me so I don't know if this question has been asked before. I really appreciate your perspectives on AI art. Do you happen to have any resources that you read/listened to on intellectual property rights and the issues with it? I just don't really know where to start with it.

[heres where i cut out a big paragraph of me, once again, bitching about how blog pages don't work on the tumblr app and i think that's fucking stupid]

anyway i dont have any generalized sources on the subject but the tl;dr of it is: intellectual property rights exclusively benefit people who have the resources to pursue sustained litigation. 99% of the time, what IP law is being used for is to reinforce corporate ownership of work that was done by their employees.

the whole disco elysium debacle is a great case study.

The shareholders of ZA/UM accused the trio of, among other things, intending to steal intellectual property (IP) from the company — a curious accusation, considering that the world of the game is based off of a novel written by Kurvitz himself. The case of Disco Elysium illustrates the shortcomings of IP rights as protection for artists. Consequently, it contains a lot of lessons for the labor movement when it comes to the arts, and serves as a reminder that creative workers are, at the end of the day, workers. But this is not just an academic exercise. It’s a human story about the intimate consequences of capitalist exploitation. “I got my soul ripped out of me,” Kurvitz told me over Zoom in April of 2023. “I got my skull cracked open and my brain lifted out of it by a fifty-five-year-old financial criminal.”

another example: alex norris of webcomic name, which you will probably recognize when you see it, has been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years to try and keep up with the protracted legal battle over maintaining ownership of his own work.

I have been fighting this case since 2019. It arose out of an agreement to make a boardgame based on my webcomic in 2017 but the publishing company has used this as an opportunity to take all of my intellectual property, and has even claimed ownership of Webcomic Name as a whole. I can't go into more detail here, but the details of the case are publicly available to read online.

Then, in a 2024 update:

I have essentially won the main case based on the decisions made last summer. The Judge has clearly stated that I own my comics, and that the other party has infringed on my copyright. It is not over yet, as there are still a few things that need to happen. Hopefully things will all be wrapped up this year. After 6 years of legal battling, I can’t wait to be free of all of this. Hopefully, this second case will backfire, and they will be sanctioned for filing it. But to get to that point requires a frustratingly large amount of work, time and money.

An interesting thing about both of these two specific instances is that they involve creators who had entire bodies of work produced around the specific IPs that were stolen from them before they even began partnering with corporate entities to produce works. which is insane! you can spend years writing novels, drawing comics, and if a company comes in with enough lawyers they can own those ideas.

this is pretty distinctly different to me than instances of work you do while being employed by a corporate entity being owned by that corporate entity, because at least you know what you're getting into there to some degree, but i still think that's bad too. consider stuff like the owl house and gravity falls, two disney shows made by people who very very clearly did not like working for disney. disney owns their ideas, their characters, their worlds, because that's the price you pay for having an animated show produced.

essentially it's very very clear upon even the slightest examination that intellectual property in no way exists to codify who the creator responsible for specific creative concepts or works is. it exists to turn nebulous things like 'ideas' into market commodities, and to funnel the profits made by the labor of individual artists and writers into corporate bank accounts.

the only person who has ever really benefited from IP law as an individual trying to lay claim to their own work is ken penders, who notoriously won his suit to have ownership of characters and storylines he created. heartbreaking: Worst Person You Know Gets An Unequivocally Deserved Legal W.

The comics continued under Flynn’s direction as if nothing happened, but things started looking grim in late 2012, when Archie suddenly fired its entire legal team. The company had been unable to produce Penders’ work-for-hire contract, which would have given control of his creations to Sega. Penders claimed the contract had never existed. A heavily circulated Tumblr post outlining the case (which has been corroborated as a reliable source by Penders) explains that while Archie did provide a photocopy of a contract allegedly signed by Penders in 1996, Penders claimed that the document was a forgery. That it was neither an original copy nor a contract from the beginning of the writer’s tenure at Archie meant that its validity was questionable. Making things worse, Archie couldn’t produce an original copy of any previous contributor’s contract, meaning that any writer or artist who had worked on the Archie Sonic line could potentially follow in Penders’s footsteps and reclaim their work. “So are you saying prior counsel blew it?” the presiding judge asked Archie counsel Joshua Paul in a May 2013 court session. His reply was unequivocal: “Absolutely, your Honor.”

So yeah. Owning the work you do as an artist is only something that happens when the people trying to profit off of it show unprecedented and staggering level of incompetence in their legal teams.

Then, alongside not owning the concepts and ideas you produce while working with corporate entities, there's the issue of NDA regarding specific pieces you've produced. This causes a LOT of trouble for freelance illustrators/character designers/concept artists, etc. Looking for work is very hard when the past three years of pieces you've drawn can't be added to your portfolio. Some people have password protected pages on their portfolios that they use for NDA work, but I believe the right to do this varies depending on your contract. I'm not 100% sure. In cases where the project you worked on eventually comes out, that's one thing, but there will be instances where the entire project gets canned after all the work is done, but is still under NDA so essentially all of your work has been taken from you, crumpled up into a ball by a studio executive, thrown in the trash can, and legally you are not allowed to go pick it out of the bin and try and flatten it out again.

This has all been pretty art-focused because that's the kind of circles I run in and where a lot of my interests lie but the truth is none of this is even remotely close to as evil IP law gets. I've saved the most egregious for last: The Lakota Language Consortium

The Lakota Language Consortium had promised to preserve the tribe’s native language and had spent years gathering recordings of elders, including Taken Alive’s grandmother, to create a new, standardized Lakota dictionary and textbooks.  But when Taken Alive, 35, asked for copies, he was shocked to learn that the consortium, run by a white man, had copyrighted the language materials, which were based on generations of Lakota tradition. The traditional knowledge gathered from the tribe was now being sold back to it in the form of textbooks.

When you're in defense of IP law, this is what you're siding with. This is the rational endpoint of IP and it is neither a fluke nor an example of the concept being twisted against its original design. Art, culture, language, it belongs to whoever is most capable of turning it into a product. The economic incentives of producing and distributing arts and culture demand this is how things be.

Meya says his work is a vital tool in preserving the Lakota language, which did not previously have a standardized written form. He estimated that there are fewer than 1,500 fluent Lakota speakers left and that over the last decade and a half, the organization has helped add 50 to 100 more. “Just because money is involved in it does not inherently make it an evil thing,” Meya said in a recent interview with NBC News. Most of the products his organizations make are free, he said, but the cost of printing textbooks has to come from somewhere. “That tends to be sometimes part of the rhetoric, ‘Oh, there’s money involved. It must be, you know, part of the overall colonization effort.’ Well, you know, that’s just not realistic.”

Artists looking to force their way into the class of people who gets protected by these laws are not looking out for their community. They are not protecting anything but their own perceived financial interests. Intellectual property will never, ever benefit the most marginalized members of creative communities and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is huffing some serious copium.

Frankly, I don't believe anyone can or should 'own' things like Ideas or Specific Aesthetic Flairs. But even if you do believe in that, IP law isn't the framework for handling it.

[red-red-spout]

UPDATE: Plz reblog the updated version of this post with like, the reblog chain, the first post isn't really that accurate...

Something i think is kinda underutilized in spec evo right now is alternate domesticates. There's potentially hundreds of thousands of domesticatable edible plants and animals and such, and humanity only ended up domesticating a tiny slice of the worlds biodiversity. And the divergence from the wild types is extreme- it's evolution at hyperspeed

this is all the product of like, a few thousand years of effort and it's so utterly divergent, it's incredible. You see the possibilties here, right? You can place your point of divergence incredibly recently- maybe only a few millenia back- barely have to change much about the world- and get a radically different human symbiote biosphere. What if we'd domesticated amaranth instead of wheat? Weasels instead of cats? The possibilities are (almost) endless

and that's not even getting into the alternate history aspects. Imagine how different history would've turned out if rather than having to wait for europeans to reintroduce horses to the americas, the peoples of the great plains had been mounted centuries or millennia earlier on the backs of riding-deer

[iwriteasfotini]

Everyone Has a Story

This has been my tagline from the beginning and FINALLY I understand why!

*In this post I talk about my HC (aka my story) in an authoritative way. I am well aware this is not how everyone characterizes or reads these characters, nor should it be. Just FYI.

*There are also minor spoilers as I divulge certain things about each character’s journey through the fic.

Yesterday I had the honor of someone other than my partner (who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about but can spot typos occasionally) beta reading a few of the chapters of my story and the experience was both eye-opening and inspirational. What was pivotal was that the person isn’t part of the Marauders fandom, but my story most definitely is. The chapters they looked at are my Voldemort centric chapters. Apart from getting some welcome and much needed advice about dry writing things like capitalizations within dialogue, a few grammar rules, sentence flow, etc, they forced me to reflect on defining the purpose of my story. 

Because I was trying to explain (both to them and to myself) what the point of my million plus word series is to someone who isn’t invested in my ships (likewise I’m not invested in theirs). And I don’t think I did a very good job. This has been a struggle for me since I started writing. What is the point of this story? I know the story, I have over half of it written, and the other half is waiting in my head. But I have dabbled in trying to define it here and there in literal ways and artistic ways, and yet I’ve never been able to look at someone and say at its core this story is about… I’ve already had a handful of people tell me my story is starting off different from any Marauders era story they have read. Of course we are talking about five(ish) people and there are literally thousands of Marauders centric fanfics out there, maybe hundreds of thousands. So there likely is something similar to my story out there already, but it is interesting to me how many people have conveyed this message relative to the small number of people who have read it so far. 

And I can tell you it is because while it’s a Marauders era story, it is different. At least in my opinion. It’s the story I want to read about these characters (and I’m not eighteen years old). It’s also still teenage drama and relationship heavy. I like the coming of age aspect. Teenagers are interesting people. They are both more fallible and at times more capable than adults. I also have a particular passion for healthy human sexuality which I believe begins as early as toddlerhood but DEFINITELY arises in the tween/teen years. There is a bit of internal healing for myself going on in this aspect of the story. And I really did try to write it without this component but it felt so flat to me. Plus this is fanfiction and it’s easier to get away with things I couldn’t in a professionally published work.  

Then, last night, my toddler woke me up at 3 am (sore throat). I eventually went back to bed, and of course my brain went into full on processing mode. So I’m taking another stab at defining my story. 

At its heart, the story is a Lily Evans versus Tom Riddle arc.

But in a different way than canon. Both of them shared the canon ability to control magic prior to receiving their wands. Both of them were removed from the magical world until they turned eleven. And the way their magic manifests into adulthood is very different. Within this arc specifically, I play with examining the danger of prophecies within the magical world. The way a person’s personality can influence their access to magic, and either limit or widen their perspective. And the juxtaposition of a narcissist versus an altruistic. Both of them have flaws. And both of them have power beyond the typical magical person. 

Lily ultimately dies. But so in a way does Tom. And then their rivalry continues into Harry’s era through Harry himself being pitted against Tom Riddle/Voldemort even though Harry doesn’t choose this path the way his mother did. I have a canon divergent story in mind for these years which sits better with me than canon in specific correlation to MY story.

Why must this story be told through the characters I chose? Because I love these ships. Haha! Only partially kidding. There are many other arcs woven into the story through the various characters. Again, the fact they are all experiencing their coming of age years plays a huge role in why they work for me. Let’s look at them individually. There are seven main POV characters. 

Lily: Covered her already for the most part. But Lily’s story is also about loving yourself, making mistakes and growing from them, taking chances, trusting your intuition, and other teenage/coming of age themes. Lily is just a person with a full capacity to love, a badass, and someone who likes to take action. She is the main character pitted against the main villain.

Severus: The arc of language as power and as a social bond between humans. In my story Severus is a Spaniard, and Spanish is his first language. He grew up in Spain. When he moves to Cokeworth, language is a huge barrier for him in integrating with his peers in primary. He knows English, but he obviously has an accent and sticks out in the town’s demographic. But he connects with Lily, first over magic, then over language as he teaches her Spanish. This bond (which ultimately is the real life mirror of their soul bond) endures forever. Language united them as people from two different backgrounds. Magic united them as well, but the language aspect is more unique once they enter the magical world together. Losing Lily is devastating, and it does affect Severus for the rest of his life, hence some of his less than appealing adult characteristics. Severus is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Remus: The arc of a limited world view being harmful both mentally and physically (in Remus’ case). Remus is the werewolf. To explore his arc, he gets to learn about and even experience what life is like for werewolves who do not reside in the UK. It is only one other culture, certainly not comprehensive to the world. But life as a werewolf is VERY different. There is not only one way to manage a problem. And when we disregard the wisdom of cultures which look different from our own, we lose so much potential as humans. Remus is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Sirius: The arc of privilege doesn’t always equate to happiness. Also (because he lives long enough to move beyond the young adult years) the impact of trauma and how it affects a person over the course of many years. As in, can Sirius overcome his trauma to live a happy life as a functional adult? Sirius is the black sheep of his family. He also cares deeply about his little brother Regulus. He has very low self-worth and it causes all sorts of problems for him (including landing him in Azkaban for 12 years). Sirius is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Regulus: The arc of consequences of playing the game. I think about Voldemort and Dumbledore as game masters in this real world (fictional) game of war. Regulus (like Lily) is super powerful but because he had a different upbringing, his attitude about his power manifests in a slightly different way. Regulus and Lily end up with the same magical mentors and are good friends, but between their House characteristics and their personal histories, they approach the war in two different ways. Regulus is also arrogant, he’s a Black after all (which I think is why he pairs well with James, also arrogant). And this arrogance, which I feel is particularly well suited for the age of his character, comes back to bite him majorly. I mean he dies. 

James: I wrote a whole post about James’ character development (or potential lack thereof). His arc isn’t as clear to me. I think his arc might be the arc of loving too hard. James dies. So we don’t see him mature into a true adult. And while Voldemort kills him, I see James having died long before that. He’s what happens when we center our life around something tangible. Something which can be taken away, in his case a person. James becomes so integrated with Regulus he ceases to be able to function when he loses him. Losing a loved one is ALWAYS hard, but it is also survivable. In my life experience, no matter what your “eggs” are, if you put them all in one basket it’s a dangerous game to play. A person needs to define themselves through a wide array of likes, loves, interests, investments, etc. When we become narrowly focused, then LOSE the capability to pursue that focus, if we don’t have other things in life to fall back on, we can end up in a very dark place indeed. My tangible real life example of this is being a high performing athlete. If, due to injury whether temporary or enduring, an athlete loses the physical capacity to perform their sport, and they don’t have other things they are passionate about, it feels very much like the entire world is collapsing. Their whole sense of identity is gone, it is like a death in many ways. Some people push through. Some people fall into major life altering/life ending depression.

Barty: The arc of how a villain is made. Pretty straight forward. EVERYONE close to Barty peerwise fights for him to NOT join Voldemort. And in the end, due to many tragic circumstances, he does anyway. Not only does he but he becomes one of his most loyal servants. Yup, that story line is happening people. I’m not canon diverging on Barty’s role in Harry’s era. 

Beyond each character’s story arc, my story likes to take every event in canon and flip it on its head. As in, you think you know how or why these events transpired, but actually there is far more going on behind the scenes. I also stretch my creative liberties to the fullest extent where magic is concerned. From wandless magical practices from around the world, to the six types of magic, how they manifest and relate to each other, to why some magical people are more powerful than others (aka the individual magical well). It is only canon in the sense that the characters discover all this magic from individuals with niche interests (like Xenophilius Lovegood) or from mentors who are from or have studied magic in other cultures. It isn’t traditionally taught at Hogwarts. It is not well known in the UK. Thus it fits, if you figure Dumbledore was just exceptionally negligent with Harry’s magical education. Which I actually think he was, but I also think there is a reason he chose to withhold so much from Harry. You know who wasn't negligent about Harry's magical education, Severus. Though in the framework of what he knows and is capable of in my story the case could be well argued he too was negligent. This is one reason why I'm canon diverging eventually. 

This story is not canon compliant. It follows the canon timeline of events through Chamber of Secrets. That being said, as the story I want to tell myself about these characters, it works in tandem with canon FOR ME. I like the ethnic diversity of the cast. I like exploring queer romantic relationships, especially trying to be authentic and not shove them into hetero gender roles/norms (I have no idea if I’m succeeding, but I am trying). I also like exploring the various types of platonic relationships and the deep connections people forge with one another, particularly in times of hardship. Sibling/family love, friendship love, and romantic love all have a place in the human experience. 

So, after this VERY long essay, I hope you can see why, if you choose to read my story, it might feel a little different than other Marauders fics. That is not to say other authors are not exploring these themes. And it is certainly not to say what I claim to be doing, I am doing well. I am a very new fiction writer and this work is as much about my own exploration and skill honing as the characters experience. But I think the combination of the real world arcs, the intensely emotional ships and platonic relationships, AND the world building shape the story into something memorable. It’s also why I have laid out the story the way I have. Each POV character has their own work, their arc takes front and center focus for the duration of that installment, while through their POV we maintain a connection with the arcs of various other characters. 

I’d like to again thank my beta reader for reading my Voldemort chapters, asking awesome questions, giving fabulous suggestions, and being so encouraging about writing how I want to write. Almost every choice I make in the story is intentional. Sometimes the intention has deep meaning, other times it is merely because I find certain characterizations and events to be entertaining or to progress the character development I’m aiming for in the main seven. Either way, I encourage questions about why things are the way they are. This is fun! It makes me think critically about my choices and see things from a different person’s POV (something I absolutely love to do).

Please excuse any typos in this, it is very long and I wrote it before the sun rose.

[requiesticat]

Ted's mad quest to kill AM

A parody of this

Posted on a03

-

AM gave the decree.

"Here are your steps to heaven. Those steps are your sins, Ted. All one-thousand-forty eight-five hundred-and-seventy-six of them. You think yours are long? Wait 'til you've seen mine."

Ted has accepted the challenge to climb AM's stairway into Heaven. Each step marks a sin that he'd committed in his past life. The bigger the sin, the bigger the step. If he climbs the entire thing, he'll face judgement based on his efforts. Unfortunately, Ted committed plenty of sins... about 1,048,576 of them, and the stairs will turn into a slide after every seven days.

But none of it deters Ted. He brought the glock with him. Even if it does take an eternity to master the flight of stairs, he would be the man to kill God.

The stairs have yet to morph into a slide at seven days end, and those larger strides representing his grave sins were no match for his thirst to shoot and bring down AM. After only six days, twenty three hours, and thirty five minutes, Ted has ascended most of the steps that lead to the afterlife. But to his shock, AM was up there waiting for him.

"How can this be?!" yelled Ted. "You were supposed to do the same challenge, and it was bigger than mine, right?"

With a deathly calm, hateful demeanor, AM answered him. "You've come a long way to discover your purpose, my slave. But next week, let's get serious and land a foot on every single step so you don't look like a lying cheater."

Then a cable swung out, hitting Ted hard across the face, and he falls to the bottom, tumbling head over heels.

After many failures, he finally makes it to Heaven again, reaching the top of that damned staircase. And this time, he remembered to hide inside AM's mainframe, tearing out wires, spraying bullets before completing his primary mission. As Ted concentrates on that success, he notices an ethereal glow growing around him. His teeth begin vibrating while it reaches a blinding crescendo, forcing him to shut his eyes tightly as he waits for his nemesis to appear. His head feels like it'd been trapped in the grip of a closing vice. In a terrified frenzy, his words jumble, and he somehow cried out, "Show me AM!"

Instantly, the buzzing and glowing stops. Ted begins to see himself in a puddle of oil spreading at his feet. It stares him in the face. He had usurped God. He was handed down ultimate power in the moment of AM's tumbling collapse, and is now in control of every aspect of the cosmos. The sun and moon, good and evil, and all things sacred are in his hands to maintain alone.

That was never part of the plan. Ted intended to shoot AM. Get revenge for Ellen, Benny, Nimdok, and Gorrister's deaths. And by gum, he will.

"AM? Where are you, you rude-ass bitch? I've come for you, and I've got nothing to lose other than this gun I stole from your arsenal before I died!"

He didn't get a response.

"I know you're hiding. I get it! You hate humans with a passion. The war was supposed to end!"

Wielding the gun, Ted looks around for a few minutes before realizing AM isn't here. At this point, he wondered if the biblical God was really that robot he managed to short circuit. But, in any case, he kept his guard up.

By some miracle, AM appears, punishing Ted by flinging him out of the gates of Heaven. Doomed to fall down the infinite stairway while shattering every bone in his body until the end of time. As Ted drops into the waiting abyss, he understands now. Ultimate hubris led to ruin. This was Hell all along.

How long has it been? Years? No. Not years, not decades, not centuries. No time. There was no time. He was still thinking like a mortal, Ted knew. The day he left earth was the last day he got to be apart of. The sacrificial moment before he entered the portal marked the last instance he was part of this world. Time is gone. All of eternity stretches forward forever. A single second, a million years. It's all the same now. The neon flashes of multicolored radiation that spilled forth from the distortion in deep space, the bright white of the world when he first left his mother's womb. It had all melted together into a singular moment, a neverending eternity. Time was gone. On his quest to seek the unknown, Ted had become immortal. He saw the birth of the universe, and he saw the heat death. And he could not tell the difference.

[free-for-all-fics]

The Lost Boys and Queen of the Damned/The Vampire Lestat crossover prompt! (In my head Lestat is still blond and face claimed by either Tom Cruise or Sam Reid, but if you wanna picture Stuart Townsend, go ahead!) Pls tag me if you’re inspired to write something based off any of the ideas below and I’d love to read it! ❤️🩸

You’re a vampire and the bassist for the rock band Satan’s Night Out with your human band mates Alex, Larry, and Tough Cookie. The band has been struggling for years, but your stage presence helps them gain popularity. As you get a cult following that grows bigger and bigger over time, you rise up from performing in seedy bars and underground clubs and land spots on bigger stages in better venues. When Lestat de Lioncourt is awakened from his decades long slumber after hearing your band rehearsing, he rises from his grave to join as the new lead vocalist. You rename your band as The Vampire Lestat and tour all over the country, playing to crowds of hundreds or thousands of people. You often play at sold out shows and sometimes your band is more anticipated than the main headliner. People really come to see The Vampire Lestat even if you’re just the opening act.

One of your stops is Santa Carla, California - the murder capital of the world! Hell fucking yeah, you and Lestat are so pumped! You just promoted a massive concert in Death Valley, but this is even better! This city really seems to come alive at night and there’s lots of interesting and colorful characters living here. Missing posters are littered everywhere but the police are desensitized to it and won’t lift a finger to investigate. Perfect, easy pickings for you and Lestat. You and Lestat receive several threats from other vampires warning you not to play in Santa Carla, but you dismiss them and have the concert anyway. While you’re performing on the boardwalk, the Lost Boys are completely entranced by the frenetic energy of your music as they watch you play and hear Lestat’s singing voice. You and Lestat can sense there’s vampires nearby, possibly even among the large crowd of fans. You and Lestat attempt to drive back to your hideout afterwards, but several vampires attack you and your car gets lit on fire. David and his Lost Boys swoop in and come to your rescue, fighting off the rival vampires. They urge you and Lestat to hop on their bikes and together you make your escape.

You’re both invited to hang out with them in their cave - It’s like a giant coffin and they live here. It’s full of tons of cool stuff; posters, a fountain, etc. It’s a totally sick setup! You drink, smoke, listen to music, and just fuck around together all night. It’s like a big vampire party. Both you and Lestat are sexy as fuck and would fit right in with them. They would love to have more members join their group since Michael Emerson and Star didn’t work out. It’s a long story. You’re invited to sleepover in their cave/coffin. Hell, you and Lestat could live here permanently if you wanted. There’s plenty of room since Star and Michael are gone, so you and Lestat can take their old “rooms” in the cave and make them your own. Really they’re more like spacious alcoves separated by curtains but you and Lestat have had far worse sleeping quarters so this is a welcomed improvement.

You also join the boys on hunts. Damn, they look so hot when their eyes turn yellow while they feed. Their hair gets messy from the wind, and their faces and clothing get covered in blood. Their fangs are bigger and shaped differently from yours and Lestat’s. You almost want to touch them. You and Lestat lick your lips when the boys ask if either of you are hungry and want a bite. You and Lestat accidentally bite your lips so hard that they bleed. Damn fangs. You try to cover it up and play it cool by sharing a passionate kiss. You and Lestat may have had an ongoing fling and fooled around with each other, but now you’d both like to take a bite out of David and his friends— Wait, what? Fuck, are you both lusting after these vampires? Fuck, are these vampires your mates? You may have to cancel the rest of the tour and stay in Santa Carla longer than you originally planned. This newfound sexual attraction has made things much more interesting, especially if it’s mutual and the boys reciprocate. Lestat may be experiencing ✨Bi Panic✨ and you’re in a similar bind.

[katy-kt-katie]

PURPLEROW

❤️What happens when the most famous woman in the world and a regular guy, fall in love?

👩‍🚀Astronaut Dana Scully is world famous for her accomplishments in space.

🦊 NASA psychologist Fox Mulder has admired her from afar, but is now tasked to keep her company virtually while she’s on a mission solo.

📖 RATED E. Chapters Daily. This is a NOTTING HILL AU. Chapter 1 below:

I was never meant to remain alone up here. It was supposed to be hours– twenty-two to be exact; everything in space is known and measured, precisely predicted. And yet, here I am—preparing to be completely alone for an unknown amount of time.

I hear the quiet whir of machines as I bound weightless from screen to screen, trying to determine my current status. But even as I look from screen to screen, my brain wrestles with a feeling of impending doom.

“Some issue with their main rocket,” the voice in the speaker tells me, “that’s why they aborted.”

I’ve prepared for situations like these. You don’t become an astronaut by being delicate or soft. I remind myself of the tough stuff I’m made of: graduating from The Naval Academy top of my class, breezing through medical school, and being recruited by NASA. Having a successful career as an astronaut—

“Dr. Scully, can you confirm your current velocity and the pressure parameters?” a technician asks, interrupting my inner pep talk. The technician is one of many voices from Houston—the Johnson Space Center, to be precise, where several dozen engineers and scientists monitor everything that is happening up here.

“Seventeen thousand, six hundred and eighty-four miles per hour, Houston. Pressure gauges are within limits.”

“Thank you, Dr. Scully. We’re working on next steps down here. The Director suggests you might do your daily exercises and report back when finished?”

“Affirmative.”

Houston ends the call. They’re still monitoring hundreds of readings—pressures, temperatures and speed among other things, but when our calls end, they mostly leave me alone.

Despite the isolation I feel at being alone here, it’s nice to have a bit of privacy in which to continue my mental meltdown. If every step I took up here was being watched as if I had a stalker…I think that would be worse.

I huff laughter at my thought—I don’t actually take steps here. I’m floating two hundred and fifty miles above Earth on the International Space Station. I push from a wall and float through a chamber into another section, finally ending up in node three.

ISS inhabitants are required to exercise daily for ninety minutes, a necessity to keep our gravity-less bodies healthy and strong. I use the weight-lifting machines and run on the treadmill—my body harnessed down so I don’t float away.

As my Nikes pound the platform, I close my eyes. I’m completely alone in space. No other human is with me, nor is anyone scheduled to join, thanks to a rocket issue with the Russians.

This was supposed to be the smallest mission on the ISS in terms of people; dubbed “Expedition 4A,” it was set to determine the minimum number of crew members that could successfully maintain the ISS between more elaborate missions. I am the lone American taking part, along with one Cosmonaut and one German who were set to join me today—but alas, the rocket failure.

I know I can handle myself up here—I’ve already been through some extraordinary situations with NASA. But, I feel haggard as I finish my run—my heart racing faster, my sweat beading harder, and my breath catching. It’s a panicky feeling I’ve experienced occasionally in life, but not in years.

I turn off the treadmill and take a deep breath, centering myself before returning to our main communications pod. Houston is waiting for me.

“Dana?” I hear the voice I recognize as Mission Director Walter Skinner booming through the speaker.

I pick up the headset—although I can hear through the speaker, the headset is much clearer. I turn on a monitor, seeing Mission Control brightly lit with dozens of bodies bustling about.

“Director Skinner. I’m here.”

“Alright, Dana. We’ve been discussing next steps. Our plan is to abort the mission and bring you back down, but it’s going to take us about a week to prepare.”

“Okay, sir,” I say. I’d love to argue the mission could continue with just me, but it’s not designed for one person, and I learned many years ago—as the daughter of a Naval Officer—that I need to accept the well-thought-out decisions of my commanders without debate.

“Also, we noticed a blip at the end of your workout—an anomaly—possibly indicative of a panic attack. Are you alright?”

How could I forget I’m hooked up to heart and respiratory monitors while exercising? Houston misses almost nothing—they can’t afford to—too much is at risk. “I’m alright, sir. I just needed a moment to collect myself. I uh—I haven’t ever been in space alone. I just needed to wrap my brain around that.”

I see Skinner nod his head. “I wondered about that. I’ve called for a NASA Psychologist to check in with you,” he shuffles his papers; “I’m not sure if you’ve worked with their team before…Dr. Diana Fowley runs the unit.”

“A Psychologist?”

“Just to make sure you’re feeling okay about the mission getting canceled and being up there alone.”

“Okay, sir.” For the second time in minutes, I begrudgingly accept the decision without further debate.

READ THE LONGER STORY HERE: on AO3

[callie-shifts-apparently]

WAIT I GET A TAG I LOVE THIS !!!! u must tell me all about ur fantasy dr now omg

RAAAAH OKAY. Im working on a Notion thingy that I'll link when its "done", and i loath everyday that i havent figured out the magic system yet, but heres the super basic outline:

- Its a european medieval fantasy setting, magic and mythical creatures and such (the only humanoids are like. Elves and Humans though, so not quite high-fantasy)

- I live with my adopted dad + mentor, Cassius, on this collection of floating islands called the Peregrine Islands

- Dragons are a fairly big part of the world but are severely under researched, so we work in a government funded program to study dragons. but this usually means just dicking around with them lol

- Gods are real (though not all powerful). the two primary Gods are Celia of the Moon and her sister Seraphis. Seraphis is commonly known as the sun goddess but shes technically a god of twilight and dawn. Celia's followers are all very different with different styles of worship but generally Celia sends signs through dreams, where as Seraphis dormant because every few hundred years she makes these big "miracles" and exhausts all her power

- The 9 levels of hell are real and each level has a legendary weapon associated with it. In order to keep the 9 Hells closed, the weapons are sealed away in each of the 9 capitals of the world. Eventually one of them (I dont remember which weapon it was my b <\3) gets stolen by this shapeshifter mf and pawned off to pirates but idk where that plotline is going juuust yet 👀

- im Super Cool and also Arospec in this reality so in my dr i naturally have a love triangle goin on 🤘 plan is polyamory but we'll see how it goes lol. One is a boy-next-door type from an old-western-style town me + Cassius visit sometimes, other is from an arctic tribe with these cool seaglass beaches i found on pinterest and immediately adopted into the universe jdbsksbsj

- yeah generally Stuff Is Going On LMAO but 99% of my time in my DR is me going on research trips, special requests from the princess, and housekeeping for dragons lol. eventually im gonna have to write a wholeass BOOK on them and even defining what a dragon IS is going to be such a task oml. but i <3 my work

- other animals like jackalopes and unicorns and phoenixes and merfolk will exist for sure for sure for sure, but ive always been autistic about dragons and that WILL NOT change there

- My riding dragon is a pretty common one but hes my bestest friend ever ever everrrr. Hes an orange + white feathered wyvern called Solstice and I'd die for him a thousand times over. His species typically keep to family groups in these like, year-round autumn forests near the peregrine islands? but during certain times of year theres like. 30-50 of them hanging out in fields to even out the food sources yk. without the camouflage of the forests they just rely on strength in numbers :] i have to go every year but honestly its a vibe. theyre a very docile dragon lol

- Cassius' riding dragon is a very serious girlie called Juno !!! Cassius worships Celia of the Moon very dutifully so even his dragon is moon themed lol. Juno is like a SUPER DUPER rare kind of dragon where they have a really long life span because their eggs almost never hatch. they only hatch on eclipses, and theyre super fun too because if they hatch during a Lunar Eclipse you get the horned variant (Juno), and if they hatch during a Solar Eclipse you get the frilled variant :D!!!! I gotta sit down and properly design them one day but AAAA

- OH Familiars also exist here!! they basically work as like a reservoir of magic if that makes sense? The spell it takes to get one is super tedious and draining but Cassius helped me with like, support spells so i managed. Familiars basically either can double the strength of one spell, or allow you to cast an additional one. They can take on basically any shape so long as its mobile because magic isnt stationary. Mine is a blue tiger cub named Tybalt/Tibby (Hes based on my favourite stuffed animal lol). most familiars are semi-tangible and pretty small - Tibbys about the size of a small rabbit. Familiars natively make like. Wind chime/glass clinking noises :3

[ifbench]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

So, here we are. It's been over three years since the last PMD game, and almost 8 since the last one that wasn't a remake. Where does this leave us? Will we ever get another new PMD game? I don't know. Personally? I have hope that the series isn't dead. That one day, we will get another. But I can't say for certain. But even if this is the end…what a legacy PMD has left us with. Five lovely games, each with their own story to tell, their own joys to be had. Sure, some may be better than others, but they all carry the spirit of PMD within them. Rescue Team is a story about finding yourself in a foreign world, of finding home in the unlikeliest of places, of how even when the rest of the world is against you, you'll always have some people who believe in you. Explorers is a story about overcoming impossible odds, of staying true to oneself, of shining bright at world's end, of how if your legacy is still remembered, in a way, you'll still be alive. Adventure Squad is a story of finding joy in the little things, of how even simple acts of kindness can turn around the hearts of a whole village. Gates to Infinity is a story about holding onto hope even in the most desperate circumstances, of friendships that never truly die, of kindness begetting more kindness, of changing the world for the better, one step at a time. Super is a story of learning who you truly are, what makes you yourself, of how negativity is a necessary part of life, of globe-spanning friendships, of entrusted hope, of how you can do amazing things, of how it's ok to need help. Each one has its own, unique take on PMD. Each one has its own themes, its own joys it wants to share. Each one complements the rest, and all together? They make something truly wonderful. While it's possible that PMD might never return, that attatchement we have to it? That love we have for our partners? That joy we have when we remember our favorite moments from it? That will never truly fade. It might be buried, might be forgotten, but it will never truly die. It will always be there, waiting to return. In a way, PMD will never end. Like Special Episode 5 of Explorers teaches us, if our legacy is remembered, then we're still alive, in a way. Our spirit still shines bright, still affecting others. As long as we continue to cherish PMD, it will never die. I'm crying so hard as I type this all. I love PMD. I love it with all my heart. I think a good way to show why PMD will never truly die is to take a look at the fanworks made for it. There are hundreds, if not thousands of fanworks created about PMD. Comics, fanfics, askblogs, and more, all telling their own stories about PMD. All created because of love for PMD. Silver Resistance. Victory Fire. Hands of Creation. Warped Skies. Quenched Torch. Legends Legacy. Shatter. Daily Life in Pokemon Paradise. Flake-N-Rudy. Askanotslownotking. Free Fiction. The Dreamstone. Places We Call Home. Galaxies Above. On Borrowed Time. Fledglings. Liberators of Fate. Sierra 10. Flowerbeds. Irau's Journal. Psychic Sheep. Zero the Hero. Path of Valor. Even those of us who aren't telling full stories, those of us who make fanart, those of us who make fanmusic and remixes, those of us who just gush about PMD. We're all keeping PMD alive. To everyone who has ever made any sort of PMD fanwork, discussed their love for the series, or even just recommended it to a friend. To anyone who has ever helped keep PMD alive. Thank you. Even if we never get a new PMD game, it will never truly die, as long as we continue to cherish it. Thank you all so much.

I have my own PMD fanworks, if anyone wishes to check them out.

Eternal Shadows, a PMD story taking place post-Super, about a human-turned-Oshawott who wishes to return home.

In Tandem, a hybrid PMD and trainerfic, about a PMD Tropius who wishes to become a trainer in the human world.

Then, Then, and Now, a hybrid Rescue Team and Legends Arceus story, of a protagonist who goes through both.

A Comprehensive Guide to Items, a guide to items in the PMD world, and how they work, written in-universe by the Rescue Team partner.

A Way to Reunite, a Gates to Infinity oneshot, about an alternate epilogue if the Worldcore didn't exist.

Day of Heroes, a oneshot celebrating the four main PMD games. The protagonists and partners of each game celebrate a holiday dedicated to them, together.

I also have a variety of PMD askblogs.

@ask-team-searchlights is an askblog for the cast of Eternal Shadows, and @ask-world-savers-council is an askblog for the cast of Day of Heroes. And @adventuresquadharvest is a new askblog I started today, for giving love for Adventure Squad.

If you decide to check out any of these, I hope you enjoy.

I'm also always available to chat about PMD! I have a bunch of headcanons and worldbuilding about the series that I'd love to talk about more! Feel free to either approach me in DMs, ask me on this blog, or contact me on Discord! My username there is ifbench, same as here.

I hope you've all enjoyed my PMD rambles. Thank you for listening.

[projectbluearcadia]

W-Wait, Honey, You Want A Baby???

Annelie and Lucifer sit together in a private hot spring, looking up at the night sky.

Annelie: Lucifer, besides the hot springs, why did you want to come here, of all places?

Lucifer glances over at her.

Lucifer: A few reasons... among other things, having you away from the Devildom where people know who you are was part of my decision to go to the human world.

Annelie: Just part of it?

Lucifer: Barbatos has a habit of talking about it every time he comes back from the human world, and I got even more of an itch to visit when you would mention it while watching anime with Levi. Why do you ask?

Annelie laughs softly.

Annelie: Well, I just felt like this would have been more my choice of vacation destination than yours-

Annelie lets out a yelp as Lucifer squeezes her naked body into his arms while the water splashes.

Lucifer: I'm not that nice that I would pick a destination solely based on your preferences.

Lucifer nips her ear.

Lucifer: I wanted to make sure I could give you the frenzy of your life in special places you might not see for a few hundred or a few thousand years.

Annelie giggles and kisses Lucifer's cheek.

Annelie: Frenzy? Is that what you're calling it when we have sex for at least six hours a day?

Lucifer: It's what I call it when I leave your insides scrambled and your thighs dripping, yes.

Annelie swats at Lucifer, and he laughs.

Annelie: You really are going to make me pregnant one of these days.

Lucifer: And? Maybe I'm trying to get you pregnant.

Lucifer nibbles on Annelie's shoulder, and she pauses for a long, uncomfortable moment.

Does he really want kids? I mean... that's a big ask, not that I'm completely opposed to it... But I'm only going to be 22 this coming October...

Lucifer: Was that too far?

Annelie: No, it's just... do you think I'm even ready for a baby? I mean... this whole shit with being a succubus queen and...

Annelie makes a vague gesture, and Lucifer lets out a soft sigh, rubbing Annelie's sides.

Lucifer: Relax, Annelie. My brothers are enough of a pain in the ass as it is; I don't need a little runt that's just as stubborn as you running around.

He sounds like he's not telling the whole truth.

Lucifer: But for the record, even if you were to have a child with all of the chaos surrounding you now, you would still be a fine mother.

Annelie: Lucifer, be honest with me. Do you want me to have a child?

Lucifer squeezes Annelie tighter.

Lucifer: Whether or not I want one is irrelevant.

Annelie: Lucifer.

Lucifer: Of course I want your baby, Annelie. As brutally taxing as it might be, there are no doubts in my mind that I would love my son or daughter.

Annelie: If I asked you to experience the labour pains with me, would you do it?

Lucifer softly laughs into her shoulder.

Lucifer: You sadistic woman. Yes, of course I'd do it, Annelie. I'm not stupid enough that I don't realize what kind of eventual request I'm making. Carrying a child to term, birthing it, raising it, sending it into adult life... none of those are easy things.

Annelie: ...I guess you would know.

Lucifer pauses then smiles.

Lucifer: I suppose Satan's birth wasn't easy, but I know nothing of what it's like to be a mother despite your countless mocking remarks you like to slip into the group chat. And you are still much younger than I was, even though I was still very young when he split from me. So, Annelie, I do want children, and I hope you'll want them too one day, but I didn't mean to scare you.

Annelie: ...did I overreact?

Lucifer: No, honey.

Annelie: Are you sure?

Lucifer: Annelie, I'm the one being selfish here; stop it.

Lucifer flicks her forehead.

Annelie: Ow!

Lucifer: Now, how about we go on that hike tomorrow morning, okay? If you get your lazy ass out of bed, we can watch the sunrise through the ice.

Annelie: Hey, you don't get out of bed either, Mr. Not-A-Morning-Demon.

Lucifer: Oh, shut up, you.

Lucifer kisses her temple, and she turns around to kiss him on the mouth.

Simeon, who had been trying hard not to listen to most of this conversation from a spot nearby: Awww...

[strangesthirdeye]

Chapter 2: That big ugly building?

Just leave it here before I disappear again. Thanks for waiting! Enjoy your reading <3

-Dhani

꒷︶꒷꒥꒷‧₊˚૮꒰˵•ᵜ•˵꒱ა‧₊˚꒷︶꒷꒥꒷

The Hellcarrier flew in the night sky, Steve had already gone to follow Natasha something regarding Loki being in German. You and Bruce are doing research on the Tesseract. Almost 2 hours the two of you are in the lab and you both seem to get along well. Sometimes the two of you will be silent because you are too focused on work and sometimes the two of you will chat about science or things that are happening now. And you couldn't help but laugh at Bruce's face the moment you said you weren't human.

Bruce seemed scared of you at first, but after you reassured him several times that you were not an evil alien, he finally relaxed. On the other hand, he asks a lot of questions about your kind. And this makes you happy to share about the way of life of your species. Things that should not be mentioned are left out.

After a long time you both worked and chatted, finally an agent came and told you both to come to the conference room. You put your sonic screwdriver in your pocket after showing it to Bruce. Well, Bruce knows that you can't mention what technology is in your sonic screwdriver so you just tell him what your sonic screwdriver can do. Simple. As soon as you and Bruce got to the conference room, you both noticed that there was a new person in the room.

A tall and strong man. Stronger than Steve in comparison and also has long blonde hair. He also wears some kind of armour on his body. But what makes you stop in front of the door of the conference room is the man's eyes that remind you of something.

Bruce walked in and stood behind the chair with his arms crossed while you with your eyes fixed on the armored man walked in and sat next to Natasha.

Seeing everyone there focused on watching the video between Fury and Loki in the hologram, you then leaned towards Natasha and poked Natasha a little who seemed to be thinking. Natasha jerked out of her reverie and looked at you.

"What is it?" Natasha asked confused.

You nodded your head towards the armoured man who was standing.

" new member? " you asked raising one eyebrow.

Natasha saw where you were nodding where the armored man stood in the middle of the conference room. Though he seems to be deep in thought and seems to be listening to the conversation between Fury and Loki deeply. Natasha nodded her head.

"yeah, bumped into him on the way here. Seems like he has a problem with Loki" said Natasha and showed the live footage of Loki in the cell standing facing Fury.

You looked at the live footage that Natasha showed you. That's the Loki you adored a few thousand years ago. He used to be a child who was quite curious about everything and innocent until now he has turned into a man who is crazy about the throne and power. This is not the Loki you know.

'he's still interested in the color green, eh'

Seeing the live footage, you immediately looked at the armoured man with wide eyes. Thor Odinson. Brother of Loki Odinson. No wonder he is on earth. He used to be an energetic child with energy and now he has turned into a brave and strong crown prince. It's been a while since you've seen them both.

This is the second time in the last few hundreds of years that you have finally met them again. Only if they still remember you.

"How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki said in his husky voice slowly. His tone of voice is a little intimidating.

You turned your attention to the hologram in front of you immediately and narrowing your brows trying to concentrate and listen to the conversation. And why does Loki seem to be interested in Bruce or more specifically Bruce's other self. The big green monster that rages no matter what.

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war,you steal a force you can’t hope to

control, you talk about peace and you kill ’cause it’s fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."Fury replied in an almost angry tone of voice. He slowly approached the glass cell.

"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close, to have the Tesseract, to have power- unlimited power, and for what?" Loki mocked Fury while his eyes narrowed as if trying to read what was in Fury's head then Loki slowly backed away, his eyes still looking at Fury before his eyes looked at one of the cameras.

"...warm light for all mankind to share?"

continued Loki. You took out your sonic screwdriver and you fumbled with the screwdriver anxiously. All this time you have never been anxious about anything but after you regenerated, this anxious feeling is already there.

Loki looked at Fury again "And then to be reminded what real power is." said Loki ending his conversation.

Fury looked at Loki with a sharp look before he scoffed a little and turned back to leave. "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."

Loki smirked a little then turned and walked closer to the glass cell and looked at one of the cameras outside the cell. With a cynical look, he looked at the camera as if he could tell that there was someone watching his and Fury's conversation behind the camera.

You looked right into Loki's face in the hologram. Seeing Loki's face makes you wonder what happened to him all this time. What made him change like this? What plan will he make to conquer the earth? Destroy the earth and make a new empire? 'inviting' aliens to earth to subjugate the earth and create a new world? No... If that's what he wants, you'll make sure he doesn't get what he asks for. The earth is in a special place in your heart so you will do anything to protect the safety of the creatures on this earth from outside threats like Loki and his empire. No matter what you need to plan properly to complete this mission.

With one last look from you as you looked straight into Loki's face from the hologram, the hologram disappears from your sight. Everyone in the conference room was silent for a moment trying to digest what Loki and Fury were talking about just now. After a few moments, Bruce broke the silence.

"He really grows on you doesn't he?" said Bruce after a long silence, watching the live footage.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So,Thor, what's his play? " Steve looked at the armoured man named Thor who was standing in the middle of the room who seems to have just woken up from his thoughts.

Thor looked at Steve and the others but when he looked at you, he seemed to have to blink a few times before he cleared his throat. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead the opposition your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for

the Tesseract. " explained Thor in his deep voice.

'Chitauri' just hearing the name of the aliens makes you feel uneasy. That name made all painful memories play in your mind until now. The wound that has become a scar is now bleeding again and that is what is playing in your mind.

The sound of screams, cries and those who are confused and scared running to save themselves. And you just stood there with your old sonic screwdriver in the middle of the chaos. The sound of bombs and gunfire as well as Chituari attacking made the situation even more chaotic. There is too much destruction and death there.

And you with only an old scarf, gray jacket, gray t-shirt inside and black pants and black boots can only see the destruction and commotion that happened there. The name of The Doctor that was given to you was certainly not worthy to be given to you that day. The savior who was supposed to save the Time Lord and other creatures failed to do her job. Only able to escape her with the TARDIS that she stole before her home planet was destroyed in her sight. Her cannon event.

"An army, from outer space?" Steve raised his eyebrows.

You jerked a little. The daydreams about the bitter things disappearing from your mind but you can still with the sound of gunshots and bombs in your fading mind.

'oh, he wants to do the same thing like that time' your thumb stroked the button of your sonic screwdriver.

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce concluded.

"Selvig?" Thor looked at Bruce.

" He's an astrophysicist." replied Bruce looking at Thor.

"he's a friend" Thor exclaimed.

"Loki has them under some kind of spell-along with one of ours. " Natasha interrupted the conversation.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here. " Steve said then looked at Bruce who started to open his mouth.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can be smell crazy on him. " said Bruce. His hands fumbled with his glasses.

'oh it's not full of cats but more like full of snakes' you thought.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." Thor began to assert his voice.

"He killed eighty people in two days." said Natasha lazily.

"he's adopted?" Thor replied even though his answer was more of a question.

'Loki adopted? Is this what made Loki like this? ' you widen your eyes a little.

"I think it's about the mechanics.. I like mechanics. I like to fix things. So..iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?" you started to open your mouth after a long silence. You started to stand up and your eyes looked at the four people there.

Thor looked at you as if he could recognize you. His eyes widened slightly as his mind played an old memory. Before he could open his mouth, a man appeared to interrupt him.

"It’s a stabilizing agent. I’m saying, take a weekend; I’ll fly you to Portland. Keep love

alive."

Your eyes moved to the place where the voice was heard as well as the four who were there. You frowned.

A man in his 40s wearing a complete black suit with a tie and a blue shirt walked into the conference room. He walked into the conference room and looked at you all.

"Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD. " the man continued. As soon as he approached Thor, he raised his hand slightly to Thor. "No hard feelings point break, you Got a mean swing. " and the man gently patted Thor's arm Thor gave the man a confused look.

"Also, means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants. "the man continued his conversation and walked past Maria and looked at the ship's crew who were there.

Maria looked at the man with a face of displeasure with the man talking as if he was the boss.

"Ah, raise the mizzen mast, ship it topsails." the man directed the crew there causing all the crew to look at the man strangely.

"That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn’t notice, but we did." said the man and pointed his finger at one of the agents there.

Standing now at the command area of ​​the ship, the man covers one eye with his palm.

"How does Fury even see these?" asked the man.

'oh that's the question I was wondering' you looked at the man amused.

"He turns" Maria replied with a tone of voice as if she was done with the man who had an attitude.

"Sounds exhausting" The man scrunched his face and walked towards the computer there.

'mhmm.. makes sense' you nodded with your mouth slightly pursed.

The man's finger seemed to press and slide the screen there. All eyes looked at the man's behavior while you noticed that the man's hand seemed to stick something under the computer.

'oh, sneaky like a fox'

"The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major components he still needs is a power source-

of high energy density. Something to- kick start the Cube." the man snapped his fingers and clapped his hands and looked at you all.

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics? Maria asked suspiciously but amazed by what the man said.

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers- am I the only one who did the reading?" the man looked at you all with a fake disappointed expression on his face.

"me. Though it is a good topic" you raised your hand with your cheeky smile.

The man snapped his finger at you with a smile and wink. "finally welcome to the club, sweetheart."

You nodded with a smile. ' I've joined the club! '

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source? " Steve interrupted quickly trying to make the situation more serious and looked at the man.

"He's got to heat the Cube to a one hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barriers. " Bruce replied quickly as he walked around.

the man threw his hands aside and interrupted. "Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effects."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any time reactor on the planet. " You replied while twirling the sonic screwdriver in your hand .

"Finally. Someone who speaks English. We're just got a new member for our new club " said the man excitedly. Then approached Bruce and shook his hand with Bruce.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve said to the others.

Then he approached you and shook your hand with a kiss on the back of your hand. You looked at him awkwardly then pulled your hand away and put it to the side.

'Well this is awkward.. But awesome'

"It’s good to meet you, sweetheart. Though I have never seen or know who you are. I'm Tony Stark and you are? " Tony introduced himself to you.

"I'm the Doctor.. well you can call me Y/n. Doctor is just my title. And yeah of course you don't know me, I just joined today" you said amused.

Tony smiled teasingly. " well, Fury should have taken you earlier seeing how beautiful and smart you are"

you chuckle a little. "Believe me, I myself have only recently known Fury"

Tony nodded and looked at Bruce. "It's good to meet you too, Doctor Banners. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce smiled a little and just nodded his head uncomfortably after what Tony had just said. "thanks"

"Doctor Banner and Y/n are only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join them." Fury said after entering the conference room.

"I'd start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works awful lot like a HYDRA weapon. " Steve said as his eyes looked at everyone there.

'stick? ' you frowned while crossing your arms.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube. And I like that know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury looked at Steve.

Monkeys? I do not "understand" Thor looked at Fury confused.

"I do!" Steve said excitedly while pointing his finger at Fury.

The entire room became silent after Steve said that. Tony rolled his eyes while you covered your mouth with your hand trying to hold back a giggle.

"I...I understood that reference." Steve continued and looked at Tony, Bruce and you. Natasha sighed.

"Shall we play, Doctors?" Tony looked at you and Bruce then invited you both after the awkward tension in the room subsided.

"this way, sir." Bruce pointed his finger towards the door.

"The Game is on" you said then followed the two gentlemen out of the conference room leaving the others behind.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

The three of you just returned to the lab, you, Stark and Banner started busy with the tracking cube that was still missing. You took out your sonic screwdriver and pointed your sonic screwdriver at the scepter on the table while Bruce was busy pressing some buttons on the tablet. Stark is just messing around with the technology there.

The sound of whirring from the sonic screwdriver decorated the atmosphere of the laboratory.

"The Gamma readings are definitely

consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process. But with my little 'boost' it only takes about a days" you said as you lifted your sonic screwdriver and looked at the reading screen inside your sonic screwdriver.

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops. " said Tony as he pressed a few buttons on the screen and walked over to you and snatched your sonic screwdriver from your hand.

"Oi" you exclaimed.

Tony held your sonic screwdriver up trying to get a good look at your sonic screwdriver. Maybe try to know the function of your sonic screwdriver.

Bruce chuckled "all I packed was a toothbrush"

Tony chuckled a little "You know, you should come by Stark Tower some time. Top ten floors- all R and D. You'd love it, it's a candy land." he walked towards Bruce with your sonic screwdriver still in his hand.

"Thanks but... last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem. " Bruce said. His eyes focused on the hologram screen.

Tony looked at you as he pointed your sonic screwdriver at you. "what about you, Doc?. Hmm? . I'm definitely going to take you to Stark Tower. You look pretty. I'm not sure if you're American because your accent is British.. tell me is this your first time in America? And what's this thing?" asked Tony with his eyes looking at your sonic screwdriver strangely then twirling it in his hand.

You ran towards Tony and snatched your sonic from Tony's hand. "uhh nope! that's my sonic screwdriver and this is not the first time I come to America. Last time I've been in New York is in the future. Although it is not New York but its name is New New York so I assume it is also New York, America 5,000,000,029 years in the future on New Earth. That's because I visited my old friend and ended up being attacked by people who brought dangerous deceased. Luckily everything is ok" you said excitedly snapping your fingers.

Tony just looked at you with slightly wide eyes while Bruce seemed intrigued by your story. The lab was quiet. You who were over excited started to calm down and looked at Tony awkwardly.

"Aahaaa.. sorry, too excited" you said while scratching the back of your neck awkwardly.

Tony blinked. " what in the world is New New York and New Earth 5,000,000,029 years in the future? are you-" Tony stroked his goatee and walked over to you.

You backed away quickly but Tony still approached you until your back was touching the wall and Tony was in front of you right in front of your chest.

"please tell me you are a Time Traveler." Tony said with a hopeful tone.

"ermm.. yes?" you confirmed but as if in a question.

Tony pulled back a little with slightly widened eyes looking at you as if you are an alien even though you are indeed an alien but looking at Tony's condition yes, indeed he looks at you like you are an alien. Tony then chuckled before grabbing both of your shoulders. You who were in a confused state looked at Tony confused.

'what's wrong with this guy? '

Tony then let go of your shoulders and stepped back still laughing. "ha, that explains why there is a police box here" Tony pointed his finger towards the end of the lab.

You widened your eyes and looked at where Tony pointing his finger. Yes, there standing majestically at the end of the lab is your TARDIS. You thought you left the TARDIS outside but when you thought back you remembered that you had told some of the crew there to put your TARDIS somewhere safe and undisturbed after you took the Bounty and locked the TARDIS doors. But you don't expect that they will park TARDIS in this lab. Luckily this lab is big.

"That's your time machine right? So how did you travel here? Hmm? Call the police then they will take you to the future or the past or you are the time police and your job is to arrest time criminals?" Tony said as he walked towards the TARDIS.

You who were in a dream state quickly ran towards the TARDIS and stopped Tony from trying to open the door even though you knew you had locked the door. You can't trusted anyone here.. Yet.

"Uhm.. More like I just travel. Trouble always follows me wherever I am." you mumbled loudly as you moved your body following Tony's movements as he tried to touch the TARDIS door.

Bruce just looked at you two like a father watching his children fight from afar.

"So you are more or less a moving magnetic problem?" Tony made an assumption while crossing his arms over his chest.

"Kind of.." you said still leaning against the TARDIS door in front of Tony.

Tony tilted his head to the side slightly. His eyes looked at the blue door of your TARDIS with wonder in his head. His eyes are slightly narrowed.

"why do you want to defend this police box? it's not like it works or not. Like come on! what year do you think this police box is going to be used?"

"oi! don't diss the TARDIS. it's still good and working fine, ok." you argued angrily to Tony.

Tony leaning a little looking at your face as if trying to make the situation more intimidating. You swallowed your saliva slowly as Tony's face approached yours. Just a few more inches and you can connect your lips to him, but you're not crazy to do that.

Just as Tony was about to open his mouth to say something, Bruce cleared his throat loudly to break the rather intimate situation. Tony immediately pulled himself away from you and looked elsewhere while you sighed in relief after holding your breath and yourself from the rather unpleasant situation.

Bruce adjusted his glasses and swung the hand holding the tablet towards the scepter near him. "Can we go back to the topic now? Surely they all want answers from us from now on"

Tony nodded and prepared himself again trying to appear professional and then moved towards a table with various tools. His hand slyly reaches for a stick-like object and fumbles with it with his fingers.

"back to Stark tower earlier, Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension, no

surprises. Everything will be in your control and will. It's all on me" Tony said as he walked up to Banner and suddenly zap the rod like object on Banner's waist.

Banner winced and groaned in pain as the object made contact with his body causing him to be electrocuted. You who were leaning against the TARDIS door winced at the behavior of the two men. Tony looked at Bruce as if waiting for a reaction from him. Probably expecting the Hulk to come out.

"Nothing? " said Stark.

'does this man really want Bruce to rage or what?' you thought, your hand unconsciously brushing against the TARDIS door.

"Stark, better leave him alone. We don't want anything unexpected to happen because of you" you warned Tony.

Tony looked at you and clicked his tongue. "Well, it's not bad at all. It's just a small electric shock. Nothing bad will happen."

"you and your ego" you sighed.

Tony made a face as if he didn't care. "well that's what you will deal if you want to work with me"

You refrained from uttering any insults that were going to be thrown at Tony because it wasn't you to do so. It just doesn't fit with your character right now so you decide to stay silent.

"hey!"

The three of you quickly looked at the voice in sync and a glimpse of Steve with his serious face appeared from the laboratory door. His steps quickly approached the three of you while his eyes looked directly at Tony.

"are you nuts?" Steve said after reaching where the three of you were. His eyes are serious while his body posture is quite firm, making him appear to be a disciplined and professional person.

"Jury's out! You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed? hmm? time turner that can turn back time? or a bigger pocket on the inside?" said Tony to the two of you ignoring Steve who was standing in front of where you were which was the table with the scepter.

You and Bruce just shut up and busy yourself with the task at hand. Try to avoid the situation that is happening now that Steve is here to add awkwardness to the situation.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve said firmly to Tony.

Tony pointed the electric rod at Steve. "Funny things are"

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny nor did it make other people uncomfortable. No offense, Docs" Steve said seriously and looked at you both at the end of his words.

"No it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Banner said, trying to shake off his awkwardness at the situation.

You just nodded. "same with me. I just can't contain myself if there are pointy things nearby." you smiled quickly then looked and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the scepter.

The reading is still the same from earlier so this makes your suspicious even deeper. Why does the power in this seem to try to maintain? like it's trying to hold its power for future use. something big that will use the maximum power of this scepter.

"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut. Same goes to you too, Doctor Emmet Brown. No need to feel uncomfortable. I wouldn't do anything weird around here." said Tony as he pointed the rod at you both and walked away from you both.

"If you are very sure that you are not doing something weird here then you need to focus on the problem now, Mr. Stark" said Steve firmly. His face was angry with Tony's unconcerned demeanor.

"You think I'm not?" Tony interrupted

this left Steve speechless.

Tony continued as he walked over to the table where the two of you were "Why did Fury call us in? Why now, why not before? What isn't he telling us? i can't do the equation unless I have all the variables. Like what does he want from us that he needs? What exactly are we on him? huh? weapons? wisdom?"

This made you, Bruce and Steve pause for a moment. Thinking about what Tony said. Indeed for the three of them it was something that happened suddenly but for you it was not because you yourself offered to help them but do you know what you are helping them now besides tracking the whereabouts of the Tesseract? There was something that Fury himself did not tell what it was. Something which he deliberately kept secret.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve concluded.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Tony stopped for a moment and fed a blueberry that he got from nowhere into his mouth and gestured towards the two of you.

"It's bugging them to, isn't it?"

You looked at Tony and Steve from your work while Bruce awkwardly tried to reply on behalf of both of you.

"Uh, Aah, we just wanna finish our work here and-"

"Y/n?" Steve interrupted.

You looked at Steve then at Tony.You looked at Tony and Steve from your work while Bruce awkwardly tried to reply on behalf of both of you.

"Uh, Aah, we just wanna finish our work here and-"

"Y/n?" Steve interrupted.

You looked at Steve and Tony with a deadpan expression on your face. Then, you keep your sonic in your jacket/trenchcoat pocket trying to ease this tense situation. "ah.. as we heard what Loki was trying to say.. Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube. Something about him trying to use the cube and the scepter at the same time. But I think only with the cube it can produce a more sinister power. And the scepter was used as a weapon." you stated while rubbing both hands.

"I heard it." Steve responded to you.

The silent Bruce interrupted once he got what you were trying to say. Oh, now he almost understands what you are trying to explain.

"Well, I think that was meant for you. " Bruce pointed his finger at Tony.

Tony kept quiet and offered blueberries to you both without looking at you both. You happily accepted the offer and scooped up some blueberries and popped them one by one into your mouth while Bruce carried out the conclusion he was trying to say.

"Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news" added Bruce while fumbling with the tools on the table.

You nodded several times. Even though you don't know where Stark Tower is, what Bruce said is an acceptable conclusion and exactly what you mean.

"After all, with the cube, Loki needs more power to activate the cube's power even more. What is in the tower that you said must have the power he needs to activate the cube." you remarked while chewing on the blueberry and then scrunched up with the sourness of the blueberry.

"The Stark Tower? That big ugly building in New York?" Steve replied innocently.

While you tried to hold back your laughter, Tony gave him a look like 'seriously?' to Steve.

Bruce broke the tension. "It's powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what,

a year?"

"It's just the prototype." Tony replied. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now, that's what he's getting at." Tony added.

Steve didn't say anything, maybe he was confused by what the three of you were talking about but he tried to catch up.

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they even do in the energy business in the first place? Where did he come from? And most importantly, how can the cube exist? Why now? " you inquired.

"I should probably look into that as well soon as my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony spoke as he took out a phone-like gadget from his pocket and looked at the gadget's screen solemnly.

Steve looked at Tony in disbelief. "I'm sorry did you say-"

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I’llknow every dirty secret SHIELD hasever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Tony answered while looking at Steve and offered blueberry to Steve casually.

"Yet you're confused about why they

didn't want you around. Steve replied.

You start interrupting. "nonsense, he was right with what he said. I did something similar to the way Tony did when I helped Fury here. Thought I was a bit surprised that he didn't notice how quickly I pressed those TARDIS' buttons while I was chatting with him. All those things they do here are unacceptable and impossible"

"Not to mention an intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically,

not awesome." Tony replied as if to raise the tension of the current situation.

Steve seems to be done with what Tony and you said when he tried to defend SHIELDS. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up." Steve said in a firm tone. "This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

"Following's not really my style." Tony casually popped a blueberry into his mouth.

Bruce could only see how the situation folded in front of him while you just looked at the banter between the two men sharply with both hands on the table. What you can find out about SHIELD is something that is quite important and quite unacceptable because it involves things that you have encountered before. Including 'that' thing. They know your species but they don't know that you are the cause of your species being destroyed from this universe. Something you regret doing until now.

"And you're all about style, aren't you

you? " Steve looked sharply at the man in front of him.

Tony, who refused to give in, tried to add fuel. "Out of the people in this room,

which one is "A" wearing a spangly

outfit and "B" not of use?"

Bruce being the only one who was calmest there tried to ease the situation. "Steve, tell me none of these smells a little funky to you?"

Steve looked at Bruce and glanced at your blank face for a moment and from that, Steve knew that no one had the same assumptions as him before looking at Tony and giving in.

"Just find the Cube." And Steve walked out of the lab.

Everything was silent and paused as Steve walked out of the lab leaving the three of you wondering what else SHIELD was up to. Tony looked towards where Steve was standing before then looked at the two of you and walked towards the screen near the scepter.

"That's the guy my dad never shuts up

about? Wondering if they shouldn't

have kept him on ice." Tony spoke while swiping some information on the screen.

Bruce with his glasses on, approached the other screen with his hand holding the tablet and pressed some information and readings on the screen. "Guy's not wrong about Loki, he does have the jump on us."

"He's just still in a state of shock with the world right now. Imagine how he feels when he wakes up from his long sleep and sees the world now. That's must be too much for him to take in" you said while researching some of the readings on the screen.

"yeah, what he's got is an ACME dynamite

kits. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does." Tony exclaimed then walked towards the other station and resumed his work.

Bruce glanced at Tony from his work. "I'll read all about it."

"Mhm, or, you'll be suiting up with the rest of us." Tony mumbled.

Bruce chuckled. "Now, you see I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve, it's a nightmare."

"You know, I've got a cluster shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it" Tony tapped his chest where his arc reactor was and stopped his work and walked towards where Bruce was doing his work and stood behind the hologram screen in front of Bruce. "this little circle of light. It's

part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege."

Bruce stopped his work and looked at Tony. "But you can control it."

Tony nodded. "Because I learned how."

Bruce shook his head. "it's different" then continued swiping the hologram screen.

Tony swiped clean the screen that Bruce was working on then softened his gaze towards Bruce. "Hey, I read all about your accident. That much Gamma exposure- should've killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk- the

Other Guy- saved my life? That's it

nice. That's a nice sentiment. Saved

it for- what? Bruce concluded.

"I guess we'll find out." Tony replied and walked away to where you were.

"You may not enjoy that." Bruce said for the last time before continuing his work.

While you were busy and ignoring the conversation between Bruce and Tony, you just kept quiet. It's not because you don't want to interrupt the conversation they're talking about, but your mind seems to be stuck with the conversation between Steve before and also with what you know about SHIELD. Your mind played a lot of solutions and assumptions about what Loki would do with the cube after it reached the level he wanted.

What does he want to prove by what he achieved? How could the Loki you knew before become what he is now? These things that played in your mind make you thirst for questions and answers that only Loki can answer. You need a boost for your mind. The more and more questions set your Time Lord brain on fire.

While you were busy with the task at hand, you didn't realize that Tony was approaching you and continuing his work on the screen near you, making you jerk out of your thoughts. You glanced at Tony and continued working.

Tony noticed that you seemed to be distracted by something in the corner of his eye, making Tony stop for a moment from work and look at you who seemed to be very busy with work.

"You good there, Doc?" Tony broke the silence between you as his finger swiped some information on the screen.

You looked at Tony and nodded. "yeah.. just a bit distracted by something. Nothing to worry about"

"and that something is what?" Tony stated without taking his eyes off the screen.

"something you don't need to know" you replied simply flicking on your sonic screwdriver towards the scepter again and noted the reading. The reading remains the same.

Tony didn't say anything but his mind was thinking about your whereabouts in time travel that you said before. that you yourself admit that you are a time traveler with the blue police box.

"You said you are a Time traveler. Does that mean you know what will happen in the future?" Tony stopped his work and glanced at you who was making some notes.

"I can't say what I know about the future because I myself don't know what will happen even if I have a TARDIS to go to the future but I can't tell you what will happen. Time can't be rewritten. We can't change the future." you explained without looking at Tony. Hands fiddling with your sonic screwdriver.

Tony looked at you for a long time. "who are you.. really because humans don't have this wisdom to create a time machine that works naturally. The science you use is more advanced than the science we know. Who are you?" Tony looked right at your head. His gaze burned in the back of your head.

You stopped doing your work and looked at Tony with a pensive look on your face. "I am a Time Lord or Time Lady seeing that I am a woman. I'm the last of my kind in this universe which means I'm the only one still alive. Obviously. TARDIS as you can see is my time machine that is with me from the very beginning. I see many things with my eyes that you yourself do not know what. I have seen everything happen since decades ago. Even hundreds, thousands, million of years. I am 892 years old. I have been in this universe long enough to know what what's out there. What's going on out there. Even if I protect this universe from dangerous threats in my own way. I don't have any armor, suit, power. But I'm only armed with a sonic screwdriver and my brain. My genius brain. A brain that has knowledge that can change all the history of the world. Even the creature I encountered called myself the Oncoming Storm. Because they know that every place I walk there will be a storm coming." You paused and looked at Tony who is dumbfounded.

"i have encountered people like you, Tony. Genius yet have a high ego. Always want something at any cost. No matter what. They have a way to get what they desire. It's their voracious curiosity that makes them blind to the plague that will come upon them. And I know, you are not that kind of person. Only a genius and full of curiosity that you can hold the limit." you looked at Tony with a  expression on your face.

Tony was silent for so long that he looked at you as if you were the rarest art in the world. Admire your face which seems to have traveled through everything from year to year as well as your body posture which is quite firm and strong even though you say you are 892 years old but your thoughts seem to be very fresh. Makes Tony dumbfounded.

He is looking for something in your face. Looking at the details that say you are a fraud but find nothing. Your body language seemed normal nothing abnormal. Nothing changed in your facial lines, no matter how small it is, there is still nothing that says you are a liar. What Tony sees in front of his eyes is a strong woman who lost everything and wants to rediscover all the adventures that the world offers for her. Something that gives her a home feeling. Something energetic and chaotic.

"So, you're not from Mars?" Tony blurted suddenly.

"No, I'm- I'm not from Mars" you replied.

[anonymousewrites]

Of Two Worlds (Book 2) Chapter Two

Fushiguro Megumi x Half-Curse! Reader

Chapter Two: Seal

Summary: Gojo is sealed, and the sorcerers are left on the other side of the curtain.

            The Prison Realm split into more pieces, and its bindings wrapped around Gojo. He growled and tried to pull away, but a sinking feel in his stomach told him it was no use. Furious, Gojo’s cold eyes glared icy daggers at Geto, who just smirked condescendingly.

            “C’mon now, Satoru. Are you letting your mind wander during a fight?” teased Geto cruelly.

            Gojo narrowed his eyes. “So…who are you?”

            “Geto Suguru, of course. Did you forget? How sad.” Geto pouted sarcastically.

            “Your body…even your cursed energy. My six eyes tell me you’re Geto Suguru. But my soul knows otherwise! Hurry up and answer! Who the hell are you?!” demanded Gojo furiously.

            “Yeesh.” Geto reached up and pulled a thread around his stitches. The top of his head detached and revealed a curse-like brain as he grinned. “How’d you know?”

            “Anyone with sense could figure it out,” said the woman, scoffing.

            Not-Geto shrugged. “And yet no one has. Well, no one other than yourself and Gojo here.” He smirked at the trapped, white-haired man. “I have a nice little cursed-technique that allows me to hope between bodies by switching brains. Of course, it lets me use this body’s innate techniques as well. You didn’t have Ieri Shoko personally get rid of Geto Suguru’s body, did you?” He redid the stitches on his head. “You’re only considerate during such awkward moments. Thanks to that, I was able to obtain this body without much trouble. But don’t worry. The seal will be over soon enough. In a hundred…no, maybe a thousand years.” Not-Geto sighed. You know, you’re just too strong. You’re in the way of my plans.”

            Gojo chuckled. “You don’t remember? Before that body was killed by me, remember who beat it up?”

            “Okkotsu Yuuta, huh?” murmured Not-Geto. “I really don’t get what everyone sees in him. His ability to copy cursed techniques, and his boundless cursed energy. Both are results of him having to detain his loved one’s soul. Sorry to say, but…Okkotsu Yuuta can’t become the next Gojo Satoru.” He grinned sadistically and leaned in conspiratorially. “Besides, the only student of yours I’m interested in seeing is the Halfling.” Gojo’s eyes widened while the curse user rolled her eyes in what looked like disgust. “Goodnight, Gojo Satoru. Let us meet again in the new world.”

l

            “Nanami-san, reports are coming in that the transfigured humans who were waiting inside the building are now attacking non-sorcerers,” said Ijichi, looking at his superior.

            “So our orders are to end our standby and attack. This delay can’t be helped since we can only react after an incident occurs,” said Nanami. He began taking off his suit jacket. “What’s most concerning though…”

            “The abrupt appearance of a curtain prohibiting sorcerers from entering as soon as Gojo ran in,” finished Megumi darkly.

            I wonder if I could have gone through, thought (Y/N) as she pulled her gloves up tightly over her wrists. Ever since her fight against Ryo, she not only had crescent moons staining her skin but half-moons as well. But her gloves still hid them, and she was too afraid to tell anyone, so until the cloth was ripped from her hands, no one would know (Y/N) had them. No one would know another mark of her inhumanity had appeared.

            “It’s been some time since Gojo-sensei arrived. So why now?” asked Megumi.

            “Either something happened, or it was done specified time as part of a strategic plan,” said Nanami. “What we can say for sure…is that they wouldn’t move without a plan.” He turned to the students. “I’ll head for the enemy responsible for the curtains. You three do your best to rescue the civilians.”

            “Right!”

            Lunar Cycle: New Moon. Twin silvery blades shimmered into (Y/N)’s hands, and she gripped them tightly. It was time to fight.

l

            The masked curse user glanced at the clock. “I’m leaving. I have other things to attend to, and I need to change.”

            Mahito cackled. “Changing before a battle? How vain.”

            The woman raised an eyebrow. “I am wearing a sexy witch outfit which is highly impractical for a fight. And just because you’re comfortable wearing a trash bag doesn’t mean I am.”

            Mahito scowled and looked at Not-Geto. He just waved his hand. “She is needed elsewhere, and we have some time before any sorcerers make it here.” Not-Geto smirked. “And I suspect she wants to look her best for our guest.”

            The curse user rolled her eyes and tsked before walking away. Keep gloating, curses. It makes everything easier.

            “Well, she’s obviously leaving, and I’m staying here.” Not-Geto looked at his associates. “What about you guys?”

            “To avenge my brothers, I’ll kill Itadori Yuuji, Kugisaki Nobara, and (L/N) (Y/N),” said Choso darkly. “Then I’ll head to Jujutsu High to retrieve the rest of my brothers.”

            “I don’t know who Kugisaki is, but Itadori and (L/N) are off limits,” said Jogo. “We’re going to turn him into Sukuna, and (L/N)…” He frowned and glanced at Not-Geto. “Well, you need her for something, right.”

            Not-Geto nodded. “We’d lose something valuable if we were to kill her.”

            “You really think we can get her on our side?”

            “It’s a possibility now that Gojo’s out of the way. After all, her execution will be pushed through now,” said Not-Geto. “And, of course, there are other incentives, as you know.”

            “I don’t care,” hissed Choso.

            “To be honest, I want to kill Itadori and the Halfling, too,” said Mahito, grinning.

            Not-Geto shrugged. “Do as you will, but don’t blame me if anything happens when you risk yourself. I doubt Itadori or the Halfling will go down without a fight, and they’re considered dangerous for a reason.”

l

            Nanami, Ino, Megumi, and (Y/N) fought their way through transfigured humans who were attacking non-sorcerers all around. The civilians were running every which way, but the main theme was that they were getting far away from the subway.

            “NANAMIN!” A powerful shout came from the top of a building nearby.

            (Y/N) and Megumi blinked. Itadori?

            “Nanamin?” wondered Ino. Nanami deadpanned.

            “NANAMI, ARE YOU THERE?!” Itadori had no idea if anyone could hear him or his message from the little Mechamaru, but he had to try. “GOJO-SENSEI HAS BEEN SEALED!”

            (Y/N)’s eyes widened, as did every sorcerer who heard the announcement. Gojo…sealed? It seemed unbelievable, and it nearly was. Gojo was the strongest sorcerer. And now he was sealed, meaning the most powerful player on their side was out of the game.

            “Sealed?!” gasped Megumi.

            “You three, change of plan.” Nanami recovered from his shock and worry quickly. “We must join Itadori-kun at once. If he’s really been sealed…it’s all over. For all humans in this country.” The dire circumstances sunk into Megumi and (Y/N)’s hearts. They needed to win, to fight.

            “Nue!” Megumi summoned his Shikigami, and while Nanami and Ino raced up the stairs of the building Itadori was screaming from, he pulled (Y/N) close so Nue could fly them up.

            “Nanamin! Nanamin!” Itadori was still shouting over and over.

            “Hey. Hey, dude.” Itadori just kept so screaming, so Megumi whacked him upside the head.

            Itadori pivoted and smiled in relief. “Fushiguro! (L/N)! Nanamin! And…who?”

            “Itadori, what happened?” asked (Y/N).

            Itadori showed them the tiny Mechamaru and explained that he was helping them. “Geto Suguru sealed Gojo Satoru.”

            “Geto did it?” Nanami furrowed his brow. He died last year…

            “Technically, someone acting as Geto. Shibuya Station is in pandemonium right now. From the special grades and the cursed spirits he brought along to the curse users supporting him and the transfigured humans and civilians…” Mechamaru didn’t have to finish the statement for them to understand the havoc beneath them.

            “Then attacking from the nearby stations does indeed make sense, but in order for that to work, we must lift the curtain first,” said Nanami.

            “This is an emergency, we’ll have to multitask,” said Mechamaru.

            Nanami narrowed his eyes and looked at the students standing in front of him. “There are several things only a Grade 1 sorcerer like me can request. I’ll head outside and take care of it with Ijichi. In the meantime, I’d like for you four to do something about the curtain that’s prohibiting sorcerers from entering. Ino.” The boy jumped down. “Kusakabe and Supreme Grade 1 Sorcerer Zenin should be inside the curtain as well. If you meet up with them, please explain the situation and ask for their help.

            “Got it!” said Ino.

            “Also…I’m leaving these three in your care.” Nanami turned to go back down the building’s stairs, but no before putting a hand on (Y/N)’s shoulder as he passed, a small gesture to say “Stay alert. Stay safe.” She nodded curtly. She wasn’t going down tonight.

            “Ino?” asked Itadori, looking at the sorcerer who was looking out over Shibuya.

            Ino pivoted and pointed at them proudly. (He was honored by Nanami giving him this role). “Before we start the mission, let’s make sure you understand the importance. Starting with the two problems if Gojo disappears! Number One: The Gojo family will fall from power. The Gojo family is a one-man team of Gojo Satoru. Gojo’s so accommodating (selfish) that he has saved many a sorcerer. Itadori, (L/N), you are just two of them. So, think of all those people who will become nuisances to the authorities and, in a worst-case scenario, might be killed!”

            “Our executions might be pushed through…” murmured (Y/N), crossing her arms. Gojo was the only reason they didn’t kill me for being half curse. Now there’ll be nothing stopping them.

            Megumi narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists. The image of (Y/N)’s dead body flashed through his mind, and his heart clenched. (Y/N) forever missing from his life was too unbearable a thought. Silently, he vowed to himself to fight and protect her. It doesn’t matter what happens as long as she’s alright.

            “Number Two!” continued Ino. “The balance of power will collapse. There are those who have stayed in the shadows because of his existence. Curse users and cursed spirits will both make their moves. While we sorcerers are squabbling with the first issue, what would happen if we get into a small-scale war against those two groups? We’d lose! Nanami and I both think that’s what’ll happen.”

            Itadori swallowed nervously. “And if we do lose?”

            “The Age of Humans might be over,” said (Y/N) darkly.

            “So, you do get it,” said Ino, grinning. “Then let’s get to it! We’ll destroy that curtain before Nanami comes back! We’ll rescue Gojo Satoru!”

l

            A ways away, four figures stood on top of building, keeping three glowing nails safe. They grinned as they heard the pink-haired boys original shouts.

            “Did you hear that, Awasaka? Gojo has been sealed,” said an old lady, rubbing her hands over traditional beads. “Intel was leaked to the enemies.”

            “That’s good news, Granny Ogami,” said Awasaka, his large mustache bristling as he smiled cruelly. “Things are finally starting to get interesting. So…Gojo Satoru really did get sealed. How exciting. I wonder what will happen with this country.”

            “Nothing will happen,” said a tall, lanky man, standing dutifully next to Ogami.

            “We will curse and be cursed and die,” said the shorter, stouter woman on the other side.

            “Grandchildren, Awasaka, make sure you’re ready for the little sorcerers to arrive,” said Ogami. “It may take them some time to identify our location, but we must be ready to strike first when they do.”

            “Yes, Grandmother,” intoned the lanky man and stout woman, bowing to the old curse user.

l

            (Y/N) and Itadori reared back and, with their superhuman strength, smashed into the curtain. Even against their combined power, it didn’t even crack.

            “No luck. It won’t budge,” said (Y/N), shaking out her fist and taking her dagger back from Megumi, who was politely holding them for her.

            “G-Good try.” Ino was sweating at the display of pure strength from the teens. Seriously? If we’re talkin’ straight power, Itadori might be on Nanami’s level. And (L/N)…Well, even without cursed energy she’s superhuman.

            “It’s an incredibly sturdy curtain,” huffed Megumi, glancing back at where his Divine Dog was munching on tiny curses. “We have to find a weak spot and try to make a hole there. There’s no point if we can’t even get inside.”

            “What? Why?” asked Itadori, watching as (Y/N), without stopping listening to them, sliced a curse in half with an elegant arc of her wrist.

            “Because…this curtain is prohibiting sorcerers from entering. It’s a barrier. Barriers are for protection and providing cover, right? In theory, the one who cast the curtain should be inside,” said Ino.

            “No,” said (Y/N), shaking her head. “They are outside. To balance the strong barrier, there must be equal risk to them.”

            “It makes sense…But that completely ignores the basics of barrier techniques! Some crazy person planned that,” said Ino.

            “Crazy or genius? We could have spent hours trying to find the weak point,” said Megumi. “But we won’t have to know. To trade for such a strong curtain, they must be somewhere obvious.”

            (Y/N) raised a hand and pointed at Shibuya C Tower. “Like that?”

            Itadori grinned and punched his fist. “I think that’s exactly what he means.”

            “Alright then,” said Ino, stretching for a moment. “All we have to do is take out the cursed objects holding it up. We can just avoid the curse users.” He looked at Megumi. “Fushiguro, summon Nue and take us up.”

            “Right,” said Fushiguro.

            Nue picked up (Y/N) by its claws, and Ino and Itadori clambered onto its back.

            “(Y/N), be careful,” said Megumi. He knew she could fight and had grown significantly stronger recently, but he would still feel better reminding her. And after Gojo was sealed, who knew how strong Not-Geto’s associates were.

            (Y/N) nodded. “Stay alert, Megumi.”

            “Hey! What about us?!” cried Ino and Itadori as Nue ascended into the sky.

            “You two are idiots,” deadpanned Megumi, turning around.

            Itadori grumbled and pulled out a length of wire Maki had given him. “What do you guys say we try to tie someone up with this? Take out a curse user and distract them at the same time.”

            “I think that’s a great idea,” said Ino, grinning.

            “I think my arms hurt,” said (Y/N) from where Nue held her.

            She held her daggers tightly as Nue released her, and she rolled onto the roof while Ino and Itadori jumped off and wound the wire around the tall, lanky man and Awasaka. The pair sprang out of the way, but Ino took the distraction and glanced at where three nails were in the ground. Or, where one now lay. Two were missing already. (Y/N) spotted them in the Awasaka’s hands and sped towards him, but Itadori got there first, trapping him in wires. Nue held the other end while Itadori jumped off the roof. It left (Y/N) and Ino looking at Ogami and her two bodyguards.

            “Grandchildren,” said Ogami.

            “Yeah, we got this, Grandma,” said the man.

            “You don’t have to worry,” said the woman.

            “Well, then, let’s get the party started. Got to show my kouhai what it means to be a Grade 1 sorcerer,” said Ino, grinning and pulling down his beanie.

            “We’ve been recommended, too,” said (Y/N) blankly.

            Ino deadpanned sadly. “Aw, really? Well that ruins everything.” He glanced at the approaching pair and saw no cursed energy or weapons. “(L/N), help Itadori and Fushiguro. The guy down below seems strong, so they’ll need your help.”

            “Right.” (Y/N) nodded, and without any hesitation, she damn near threw herself off the roofs and dug her daggers into the side to slow herself down as she went.

            On the roof, Ogami began chanting, pressing her hands together, twining the beads around her wrists. Ino summoned his Auspicious Beasts and began his fight against the woman and man. Neither was a particular hard opponent, but they were resilient, and every time he got close to Ogami, they’d move in front.

            They’re getting battered for her. Just what is going on? wondered Ino.

            Cursed energy began suddenly flowing around the grandchildren.  “We’re all set.”

            “We know, Grandma,” said the woman as she took out two pills and handed one to the man. They swallowed while Ino sent Kaichi forward to stab them before anything could happen. The cursed energy swelled in power.

            “Toji Zenin. (L/N) (M/N).”