#the worst ending

[jackdaniel69nice]

Inktober 04/2024 “Tragedy”

Waking up alone

This is a sequel to last years inktober drawing where AFO successfully steals dark shadow. This is the aftermath of him in the hospital. He’s completely catatonic and unresponsive to all stimuli. When a part of you is ripped away there is no replacing what is lost.

[randomly--accessed--memories]

While I've decided that the main story of this AU will end "happily" with the Vees reuniting, there's a lot of wiggle room for what happens in the epilogue. @voxaholic and I have come up with several sad/bad endings this past week or two; now I'm curious how the rest of y'all see this story ending. If you have any specific ideas, feel free to share!

[artthoufruity]

Me watching Loki 2x06 and Sylk! is canon, Mobius loses his memories of Loki again and then dies, Loki never sees Thor again and never gets to meet his niece

[merge-conflict]

you and me and the devil makes three

cyberhanami day 7: "free space"

content warning: strong emotional distress, soul horror

summary: They could not be separated, Alt had said. All Rogue could do was wait for them to wake up. And just when everything is going to shit, they do.

song: Saveoursoulissa (from the Ravenous soundtrack / instrumental)

-----

The first sound they hear is the drone of an AV engine, shaking through the walls and calling them awake. Not a gentle call– not this one, arriving as it does in the twisted hellish spiral of dreams. They are born again choking and gasping into a hovel of a room just before the bullets start to fly. Instinct brings them to the floor, but the gunshots are farther away than that. The shouts that follow are closer. Much closer.

Arasaka, they think, and shiver. And then, with teeth bared, who else?

“Who else?” they ask, but it comes out wretched and weak. Laughter oozes, bubbles up out of their lungs like tar. “Who else!”

An explosion rocks the building just as they stagger to their feet, sending them into the doorframe. In the hallway a plume of dust and plaster sweeps over them, sending them into a coughing fit that protects them from the worst effects of the flashbang that follows. With clear eyes and deaf ears they press on. Today is a good day to die. Today is a good day to kill.

They meet the first person stepping through the cloud, but only then do they know that they are unarmed. One armed, a part of them thinks, through clenched teeth meant to muffle laughter. Nullhand. Adrenaline spikes all the way through them, hot like sparks, but the hand that catches their remaining fist is cool and uncompromising. The ringing is beginning to fade. Someone yells for Johnny.

Recognition besets them, startled and grieving. Rogue is calling for Johnny.

Now, the man holding them is no longer obscured, and his face is beautiful and his face is terrible, and everything is wrong. Panic, slamming through the same floodgates as anger, sends them lunging away in animal instinct. Dream they think, loud, as though they can drown everything else out with it, just a dream. But the dream holds tight– the dream is starting to grind away the bones in their wrist, and the man– he–

In the dream a man opens his mouth, and says with perfect chilly rage: “Silverhand.”

“Dead.” The word comes out a curse, lungs heaving in smoke and dust. In agony. “He’s dead.”

Everything is screaming: the building, the AV, the guns, all the warm bodies and their red threaded souls. Hell on earth. And him. Takemura. Saburo’s righteous right hand. That fucking bitter old guard dog. Goro–

His face changes with just the barest hint of relief. The wave of self-revulsion that follows rips them apart. In the midst of it they are unraveled, parceled out, found wanting. There’s not enough left to divide equally, and there never was. To let it continue will kill them all again.

They lean in a little closer and with a flat, snarling smile they tell him, “She’s dead too.”

[dingoat]

Epilogue II

[So naturally I had to get my vengeance on @askshivanulegacy for writing TERRIBLE SADNESS after we spiralled into a pit of what-ifs when Ahuska rolled really really badly against a venomous lake serpent and nearly died (it’s OK SHE’S FINE SHE’S OK she’s pretty much fine I swear). One thing lead to another and we wound up imagining The Worst Ending where nobody’s okay and almost nobody survives.

So anyway, what follows here is bleak. Really bleak. If you’re not keen on character deaths, especially characters choosing death, you’re probably best off turning around right here. Nobody’s having a good time.]

---

His bright blue eyes were the last things she saw before the lake swallowed her.

Good, she’d thought. He’s safe. He’s safe. They can still help him here.

She fought, still, thrashing underwater to free herself from the serpent’s grasp, not realising that it was her jolting movements that eased the venom further through her body, joints slowly seizing up until she could thrash no more.

Against man and metal she’d fought, she’d raged. She’d escaped the cages, she’d been freed of the traps and the lies and the years and years of being used, one master after the next. To finally succumb out in the wild, as part of nature’s great cycle, was not so terrible a thing.

Bubbles drifted upward as she sighed and went slack. Her spirit dissipated from her physical form before her final breath escaped her lungs.

—

Five had always known that his affection for Thirteen was a weakness.

When the remains of the hawkbat had been brought to him, one otherwise perfectly ordinary drizzly afternoon, he became aware of just how wretched a weakness it was. There wasn’t much left of him, and yet it had been enough, more than enough, to make Five finally feel something again.

Regret flooded his walled up heart, and it hurt.

Is this what my life amounts to? He mulled over his third glass of thousand-credit scotch, overwhelmed by the emptiness of his estate. Intelligence had officially retired him, his Ciphers all turned over to other Watchers, the team program abandoned.

Spread too thin, they’d said. Even regular Ciphers work best handled one on one, and the werebeasts always did require very particular care and attention.

A marvel, they’d said. Truly, a marvel, that he’d handled them all so well for as long as he had. He ought to be proud. 

Proud. Proud! Pride had no place in him, any more.

He’d lost his Hawkbat the day he’d turned his blaster on him, without even the nerve to follow through. Things had never been the same, and he’d never found the will to try and seek something new.

For the first time in his life, it wasn’t his sister in his thoughts when Five wept.

He made his arrangements that night, finding himself filling the paperwork for Thirteen’s star at some ungodly hour. Future generations of Intelligence deserved to know who had come before them, who would always be the best. Headquarters could have its star, but Thirteen’s body was his, only his, and his fireplace blazed white hot that night.

Dawn was only a few hours away when Five finally found himself climbing the citadel tower. He still possessed the right equipment from his years on the field, he still knew how to scale the impossible, and yet it almost felt laughable, out, alone, in the dark against the wind and the rain. He would have laughed, had he not remembered that Thirteen used to have flown him up here, for their exercises. Five’s face twisted as an ugly sob rent itself from his lips.

He let Thirteen’s ashes take to the wind and spread where they may. Thirteen had always loved to fly.

You are my undoing, Five had said, the night he’d proposed. He’d known it, even then, even if he’d never guessed it would eventually culminate in this.

He’d dressed well for the occasion, one of his best suits that had been a particular favourite of Thirteen’s. He’d done his hair, for what it was worth, already plastered flat and falling into his eyes after the climb. Lightning still split the sky, thunder rolled overhead. Thirteen was dead, and Dromund Kaas went on as it ever had, the Empire would carry on as it ever had.

Thirteen was dead, and there were few things Five still had the power to control.

He waited until he saw the distant burst of light that assured him his old family home would no longer be owned by anyone. He watched the hearty flames that would erase all that remained of the boy he’d been and the sister he’d lost, ensuring that nobody could take those scattered fragments and twist them into something untrue. And yet seeing his estate consumed by flame offered no balm to the aching, violent wound inside him.

He knew exactly where Thirteen had stood all those years ago, his back to the great and merciless drop below. Five had nobody to face, when his heavy steps took him to that same ledge, but he turned his back all the same. He spread his arms, feeling the rain on his face, the pull of the wind in his hair, and allowed his body to tip backward. By the time his innate survival instinct kicked in and had him claw at empty air, it was too late.

There were many spires and flagpoles between himself and the ground. He hoped one would have the decency to claim him.

—

Crow had felt it when Ahuska died, though he hadn’t know what it was, or why he’d been plagued with nightmares of drowning for a week.

When Thirteen died, he knew.

His grief was deep and profoundly alone. Blakk had left him some time ago, not that he could blame him. Crow had nothing to offer him any more, and it had grown increasingly difficult to try and connect with the little shadow who had robbed him of everything and given nothing in its place.

For a few days, he flew aimlessly, wretched with despair. It shouldn’t matter, not any more, not after all this time without a word.

But it did, it did, it did.

He stared blankly out into the void of space, spinning his ring endlessly about his finger. Why had he kept it? When it had come down to it, when it had really mattered to choose, Thirteen had made it blatantly obvious that he came second. Crow had been a fool to ever believe otherwise. An utter idiot. But he’d have been a happy idiot, living in the bliss of ignorance, had Blakk never returned to them.

He’d done the right thing, getting Blakk out of there.

And the right thing had destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Crow twisted in on himself, wracked with grief, and very nearly allowed himself to simply perish in the dead of space.

When his grief eventually took on a different flavour, Crow’s thoughts finally turned to Five, and with absolutely nothing left to lose, his weak and shaking hands set the ship’s navigation to Dromund Kaas.

He arrived far too late to change anything.

As he strolled, blank faced, through the charred and crumbled ruins of the Highbridge Estate, he jolted in shock to see another figure there, wearing the face of a ghost. The man was a little taller, his hair a few shades darker, and his face was perhaps a little narrower and leaner than Five’s had ever been. But in his eyes, his nose, the shape of his lips, the resemblance was undeniable.

“You must be the older brother,” Crow said, his voice rough.

“Mmm,” the man agreed mildly, his lips tight, his brow creased. “And you would be…?”

“Aahhh. I… lived here, for a little while.”

Eyes that may as well have been Five’s own appraised him slowly. “He did enjoy entertaining all types. So long as they weren’t blood.”

“Mm,” it was Crow’s turn to mumble a vague response. “If it helps, he left me with even less.”

“My brother never was particularly good at sharing.”

Crow found himself spinning the ring about his finger again, and nearly broke down at the memories that assaulted him. He shuddered, and swallowed. “Nah. He had a generous side, somewhere in there. Stars help me, but he did.”

Five’s brother’s expression was shrewd, and thoughtful. “You knew him in a way he never shared with family. Which is to say, you knew him at all in his adult life. It feels too late for any good to come of this, but… would you care to let me know my late brother a little better?”

Crow wasn’t sure he had it in him to see another dawn. But a conversation, perhaps, he could manage. He could make sure somebody remembered Thirteen, could talk about the man who’d brought out the best parts of the monstrous Watcher. “Offer me a few drinks and promise to tell me about Fi- about the brother you knew first, and you got a deal.”

—

Once she’d abandoned physical life, he had been easy to find. Her soul sung through the Force, and wove itself through all that had been lost, and he was there, she knew it, through every glittering thread that her self had become.

A tiny whisper of a soul, scattered and lost, she drew it in and pulled it together as part of her, and as a tiny, independent thought clawed its way free she realised, she realised that he had never been lost, he would never be gone, not in the way that she’d feared for so long.

Did you get out? Did you get away, are you free…?

The whisper tugged at her, the hope that he’d clung to, the one thing at the forefront of his mind when his soul had been loosed from his body. And there was nothing of him beyond that. These whispers of Blakk knew nothing of the mountains, of Manaan, of the forested world that had eventually taken her. But they knew the meadow, and the market, and the rainbow dew in the early morning light. The wolf wound around the fox, and in the Force they were one.

As they were with every other life that had shaped them and been shaped by them.

None of them could ever be the beings they were without each of the others. For good or ill.

Yes, my fox. I’m free.

[ninjasmudge]

(warning, may be loud 🔊)

x2 the torment!

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)

[yujateaandpi]

Thought Fiddlestan was a purely comedic ship for a while but now I get it, I see the light. It’s about a man who nurtures and cares for others to the point of heartbreak meeting a man who doesn’t remember what it’s like for anyone to care about him. It’s about them being warm together around the absence of someone they both love. It’s about Fiddleford’s innate domesticity comforting a man whose deepest desire was to come home. It’s about falling in love with the same face again but in a new context that heals your past trauma. It’s about Stan’s unbridled affection finally validating someone who desperately needed the recognition. It’s also about very funny old man yaoi.

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[iknowicanbutwhy]

Universe said we don't have enough wish power for your bullshit. this is your last fucking star

[kendyroy]

thinking about how this movie could’ve ended like any other superhero movie where they go their separate ways before teasing some future threat

but instead it ended with wade calling out logan’s name romcom-style, and them living a happy domestic life together with their newly adopted dog

[lazylittledragon]

mombin pt 9!! it's been too long i'm sorry

(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)

[randomly--accessed--memories]

Was joking around a bit with @voxaholic about how a RAM visual novel would work and I thought some of the stuff we came up with was amusing

The Heaven Ending and the Worst Ending are the endings that require the most steps, but the Other/Weird Ending is the hardest to achieve. You’ve gotta do a bunch of weird, seemingly unimportant stuff early on that eventually unlocks an option for Emily to come down to visit Hell and work some miracle magic. She thinks she’s helping. She makes everything ten times worse.

You’d play as different members of the cast depending on the scene because Vox would be an infuriating player character; you know what the right choice is, but the only options that ever come up with him are weird non-sequiturs and sad shit. Maybe you can play the whole story as him after completing your first run as a sort of optional Hard Mode.

After you’ve completed every possible route, you unlock a secret joke ending. You start up the game from the beginning and now have the choice to play as Alastor during the first scene instead of Velvette or Valentino. You have the option to just… choose not to do all this. If you select it, the game immediately ends on a happy note and tells you to stream Hazbin Hotel season 1. It’s truly the best ending.

[trypo-p]

If you drew Pootis and Medimedes dressed for the First Day Of School, I think that would be REALLY fucking cute

How am I going to stop some real bad stress from tearing me a structurally superfluous new be-hind? The answer; Draw a Pootis. And if that don’t work; Draw more Pootis.

[betaphannie]

Imagine you go to Dan and Phil's meet and greet as an american and you try to tell them how much they mean to you and changed your life and all they do is repeat back what you say in a terrible american accent

[pononoin]

Celebrating my three candy moments in the new special