#theyre letting the chaos happen despite everything

[xulips]

peace

[glitterincandles]

smiling friends playing minecraft ; ☆

glep

is the one who thought of the idea in the first place #socialmediamanager

brought it up to mr. boss as a "team bonding activity" LOL

in charge of their minecraft server and mediates any conflict that happens within it

the ultimate gamer actually a gamer GOD

is in the game 24/7, they never stop the grind

definitely the first one to find diamonds

yo glep the typa guy to have his whole house and storage decked out by the first day

has an automatic farm for everything (cobblestone, iron, gunpowder, slime, etc) like u name it they have it for some reason

he doesn't let everyone use them for free though

he makes the others "pay" (read: do something embarrassing, run an errand for him, give him iron or something) to get access to any of his automatic farms of their choosing for a whole day

they can negotiate w them tho

like if one of them comes up to him and they have something that he doesn't find valuable then they DO have a chance to convince him of its value but otherwise it won't work lol

in fact he'll be quite offended

like u think that red dye is enough to get access to my automatic iron farm?! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

undeniably the most powerful person in the server

his minecraft skin is definitely either one of those meme skins with an oddly realistic face on the torso or a skin that looks like some sort of lizard dragon monster thing

mr. boss

honestly barely knew what minecraft was before glep brought it up

he did assume it was some kind of game when he hears the word

like any other video game, he had to be introduced to it by the ppl around him

despite him approving of the game, he's barely ever joins the server

^^^^ he's more into rhythm games and fps

has no clue whats going on in the server tbh

he just gets bits and pieces based off of what others say to him or around him

because of that he tries to join the server more often but he really really can't get ahold of minecraft in general bc he gets bored very easily and needs outside stimuli

is the type to log into a server he hasn't touched in a hot second and be upset that everyone else is so far ahead

he always spawns in the middle of nowhere every time bc he hasn't made or slept in a bed yet

^^^ because he usually leaves the server within 5 minutes which isn't long enough for the day-night minecraft cycle to commence (minecraft days are 10 minutes long)

when he logs on while its nighttime in the server he literally BREAKS into allan's house (much to his dismay) and forgets to patch any hole he left in his walls or windows

he hits/kills everyone else in minecraft for fun

literally just logs in to cause chaos then leave

^^^ everyone is thankful that he doesn't have access to tnt yet

definitely uses the alex minecraft skin

allan red

he took a while to accept that they have a minecraft world together

he found it kinda obnoxious (he joined the server anyway)

determined to have the best house in the game

if he had to take any role, he would be the builder

the first thing he did when he logged in was start building a house... like wood enters his inventory, he just makes a fuckin axe then uses the rest of the wood to build his house ;w;

he's actually pretty good at it since he already is very detail-oriented and shit so he can definitely make a fire house

when it comes to mining or combat tho he's so shit

^^^ glep helps in this aspect LOL

only went to the nether for glowstone and it pissed charlie off once

bc theyre already pretty close, glep is more lenient on him and is usually on his side when it comes to any conflict that occurs in the server

not only does he put a lot of effort into his houses, he also puts a lot of effort into the outside of his houses

he just be building shit

built a whole mansion for his minecraft dog once (just bc)

every time he dies in minecraft he's like "ok that means its time for me to log off"

surprisingly has a very healthy balance of play time. he plays just enough to get very far in the game and keep up with everything and ALSO keep his real life stabilized and normal

he has a creative minecraft world outside of the server that he tries redstone in to get lights in his normal minecraft house to work without it looking too bulky and ugly

^^^ he also uses it to make booby traps for anyone entering his house without permission

^^^^ they never fucking work on mr. boss

he made his minecraft skin himself and its just him if he were yassified

charlie dompler

oh god fucking finally was probably what ran through his mind when he heard the news

he probably joked about it once to pim and was surprised that it actually came true

this guy is second to glep when it comes to gaming

like srsly bro probably has a gaming setup and/or is saving up for one

he was the second to join the minecraft server (second to glep again)

he is the opposite of allan; he hates building and only ever mines or fights mobs

in fact he made his whole minecraft hideout in the side of a cave and it only has like. one crafting table, six fucking furnaces, and like 10 chests full of random drops and bulllshit, then his singular bed in the middle of the room with a big path leading down to a random ass cave

looking at his minecraft hideout would make a minecraft builder CRY their eyes out its worse than u think

would often vc with pim and play with him on the server

spends a concerning amount of time on minecraft bc he always has something to do on it, he just gives himself random side quests

despite the disorganization of his minecraft home he's actually more organized in minecraft than in real life believe it or not

he probably hasn't touched grass since he joined the minecraft server

him and glep duel it out sometimes for fun, or they do like fighting challenges with each other like who can kill the most zombies without dying

extremely attached to a wolf he tamed when he first joined the server

he watched minecraft gaming youtubers and bc of that he enchants everything he owns bc those were his favorite episodes

his minecraft skin is some sort of character from one of his interests, like mr. frog or a random salty's mascot bc he finds it funny

pim pimling

his poor cheap office laptop can barely run minecraft omfg

when he boots minecraft up, it'd lag so hard and the fans in his laptop would go crazy, then after five minutes minecraft runs "as normal"... like it's playable but not to ppl who are used to 250 fps

^^^ it happens every fucking time he doesn't know how to fix it

he's ok with it though he's like ok give it a sec this happens all the time ^w^

^^^^ was the last person to join the server bc of this

sings a song while he's doing a minecraft chore, like in the silly halloween special episode when he was singing picking up twigs! picking up twigs! that'll be him while getting wood or something similar

he's real careful about how long he plays bc he doesn't want his laptop to overheat

his combat skills r pretty good bc of his experience playing gwimbly's games when he was younger

his favorite thing is definitely farming though

he's at a constant dilemma of using bones for either bone meal or taming another wolf to add to his mini army

^^^ the mini army is only making his lag worse charlie Really doesn't understand

settled down in a village in one of those empty houses and fight to protect them from any raid that occurs

talks aloud to minecraft villagers as if they can hear him

his village house is filled with many animals actually

he is charmed by baby zombies and baby villagers

^^^ he adopted a baby villager in minecraft once

^^^^ she died in a freak accident during a raid

^^^^^ pim was heartbroken for days

he does a lot of side quests with charlie for fun

like charlie, his minecraft skin is a character from one of his interests,, most likely gwimbly or a character from that game

[namodareads]

*cracks knuckles* alright fellas. let's get into it.

i want to start off this dissertation by saying that nikoo worked incredibly hard on this fic and it is magnum opus worthy, piece of art la pièce de résistance (chefs kiss) but nikoo has many more wonderful memorable pieces all about this stinky loverboy man gojo ✌️✌️

OK

this fic is so visceral and captivating, the opening is strong and gives a very clear message of: read me and figure out wtf is happening (teehee)

the way we are so instantly mercilessly tossed into the throe of it all (the screaming the memories the violence) is soooo brutal in a fascinating way, and the line abt gojo being freakishly tall was funny LMFAOOOOO (get bent).

and i have never really read time loop fics or consumed time loop media, but the horror of this one was so fascinating that no matter how many times i read it (or have it read to me, hehe) it's like there's always something new to pick up on or some new theme that emerges

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

^ and THIS. ouragrrhghhghhhhhh. THIS!!! is an example of smth that u pick up on only after ur 2nd or 3rd time reading; that reader touching someone at the moment of death makes them loop too!!! and the fact that it comes into play later on too... on my knees rn.. and i never watched madoka magica but. i see u . nods. and this moment also makes me wonder abt the other ppl that accidentally touched reader before dying, if there were others... imagine how fucked up that'd be </3 and the fact that no one remembers after the loop resets even if reader touched them once.... aourghhhh they are truly alone....

and there is something sooo sinister abt the way reader's deaths are counted up until a certain point, where it skips from loop 10 to 14 to 17 and ongoing.... siiiggghhhhh... get this reader into therapy yesterday (pls this is not a drill /j)

reader's slow mastery (or rather, adjusting) to their technique is done so well too; from the way they conduct themselves to recognizing that every second counts, going from terror and horror to a kind of ... numb acceptance also is a terrifying (/pos) aspect of this fic

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this.

things are going well even tho reader is definitely past the breaking point of "oh my fucking god what the fuck is happening" and they try to fight for survival ... agonknee dot png... no longer are they freaking out but ... theyre just tryna get out of this hell !!

"yet another information gathering loop" is just so devastating to read; that reader has resigned themselves to this torture!!! literal death and torture in the hopes it gets them to a solution, or an loop where they dont die... (me @ reader: i see u are good at compartmentalizing ur emotions... wuld u like to talk abt that.... also pls let me study u like a bug) and that they talk abt making the most of every death :(((( king... let me hold u.... makes me wonder abt how adjusted they were before they found out they could do this...

"Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick." oh buddy do i have news for u . KJDHSFJKHSDJH .

as someone who hasn't seen this ep/season its very easy to picture the absolute terror and chaos this fic entails, the crowd of ppl, the turmoil the fuckin.. SCREAMS. my god. also gojo grinding his thussy on jogos arm but this aint abt that

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

looks at nikoo.

i know what u are dot png

anyways <333

reader 😔😔😔 i cant even blame them bc if i had to die in multiple violent horrible ways a million gazillion times id also look for any ounce of entertainment that could keep my sanity somewhat in check, and them being morbidly entranced by the violence of his actions just 😔 i need to put them in those blankets firefighters give to trauma victims, also an ice cream cone

gojo satoru u are an insane little man. take a sip of water every time reader full names him /lh AND THE FUCKIN.

THE FUCKIN HOPE U GET FROM READER GETTING FARTHER IN THE NEXT LOOP THAN THE LAST ONE 😔 ONLY TO HAVE IT RIPPED AWAY WHEN THEY DIE AND HAVE TO START FROM SQUARE ONE... GIVING THEM A TASTE OF HOPE.... evil....... <- lying face down

and the fact that it jumps from 18 times to 26.......... reader..... blink twice if u need help 😔😔😔 and the fact that theyre able to remember and keep track of things after dying multiple times is just... argouh..... and then straight to 30!!!! girl!!!!!

and . holy shit.

the dread the fear the terror the HORROR when reader realizes theyre supposed to meet w their friends... and the fact that (aside from u telling me kjdfkjdhsj) that at least one of them definitely died during this.... OUCH????? OUCHHHHHHH... im in agony just thinking abt it 😭😭😭😭 this the only time loop fic im gonna read bc OUCH /j and the awfulness of reader thinking abt having to watch their friends die over and over if they met up... reader forcing themselves to remember they're capable of getting out of here even if it takes a million years.. THINKING ABT THEIR FRIENDS AND LOOKING AT THEIR LOCKSCREEN.... PAY FOR MY TISSUES!!! AGONKNEE DOT PNG

BUT I CANT HELP BEING PROUD OF READER FOR ESCAPING THE LOWER PART OF THE STATION AND MAKING IT TO THE SPOT WHERE MIMIKO AND NANAKO ARE :((((

the bigger the leap of loops is the more devastating it is i think ... 30 to 60... time loop fic makes the despair and helplessness go crazy haha <- dying AND THE FACT THAT READER DOESNT GET TO BUILD ANY MUSCLE EITHER .... AWFUL....

You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. ... He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

^ hword moment break. heh. ik what u are reader (cant even blame u gotta do what u gotta do) ok anyways

THE JUMP TO OVER 100 LOOPS IS SO BRUTAL TOO.... HOW COULD U... <- WEEPING CRYING... I WANT TO REACH THRU THE SCREEN AND PULL READER OUT OF HELL

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

^ FALLS TO MY KNEES AGAIN IN THIS WALMART!!!!!!!!! READER !!!!!! WAILING INCONSOLABLE WAILING

and the fact that them reaching gojo and gojos involvement allowed them to get further than ever ... reader realizing they NEED him to break this loop.... aaaarrrrrrggggggghhh.... and fucking. KENNY

KENNY WHEN I FUCKING GET U KENNY . at least he helped reader realize they need gojo's cooperation to stop their loops SDKJHFJKDS...

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

^ THIS WAS SO DEVASTATING BTW.... READER BEING TARGETED FOR THE FIRST TIME AND KNOWING THEY LITERALLY CANT DO SHIT ABT IT... AARRGGGHHHHHH IM IN AGONY

TEARS IN MY EYES READER I LOVE U ..... THEIR DETERMINATION THO... THEIR EFFORT THEIR HARD WORK.... IM IN SHAMBLES IM IN PIECES

AND THE FACT THAT. THAT THE LOOPS STOP COUNTING. WHAT IF I DIE !!!!!!!!!!!! READER .... AGONKNEE DOT PNG!!!!!! the desperation theyre feeling is so well executed tho.... sniff.... the fact that they are painstakingly stealing back minute by minute.... im on my knees weeping

Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming.

^ heh. gojo fucker /j

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though? “Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

^ im going to fucking kill him 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 GET UR HEAD IN THE FUCKING GAME GOJO!!!! LOCK IN GOJO!!!!!! FREAK!!!! this did make me laff tho

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all.

^ thats bc hes a little shit tied to u by fate reader DONT U SEEEEEEE DONT U SEE IT (no bc theyre dealing w immense psychological damage of having died 8736878 million times by now)

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

what if i just burst into tears... <- already crying. reader going thru this shit so many times but me as the audience finding comedy in this moment.. what if i CRY WHAT IF I SCREAM ... i dont even have the right words for how teary eyed this made me fr U_U despite everything its still u kinda thing.... cries....

BUT THEN READER BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF THAT BARRIER!!!! POP OFF KING !!!!!!

AND THE FACT THAT IT GETS HIM TO FINALLY TOUCH THEM AND PULL HIM INTO THE GODDAMN LOOP AFTER LOOKING LIKE AN IDIOT AND GIVING HIS NUMBER TO THEM AN UNGODLY AMT OF TIMES!!!! POP OFF READER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

^ YEAH U STUPID ASSHOLE IDIOT I NEED TO TALK TO U IVE NEEDED TO TALK TO U FOR 600 FUCKEN LOOPS IM GONNA CLOBBER UR EAR!!!!!!! <- THRU TEARS

but the way he teaches reader--helps them realize whats different abt the loop after he touches them...... on my fucking knees....... weeping sobbing.....

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

^ uncontrollable sobbing dot png

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

^ THIS THIS THIS !!!!!!!!!!!

i think i mentioned it before. but even tho we were jokingly calling it a halloween fic, this whole paragraph and the reveal to gojo just made me shiver so much!!!! the time loop stuff is terrifying of course, but every time i hear/read this line i just do a litttle "euughh" bc !!! rly there is nothing more terrifying abt the idea of something possessing ur best friends dead body!!! there is something so deviously sinister abt this delivery, abt the choice of words of "possessing the corpse" ... bc thats what geto is at this point, and its all kenny 😔 MANNNNNNNN ARRGGHGHHHHHHH

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

^ 487 DEAD 2948578 INJURED

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

^ 1 dead 1 injured (gojo)

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can. “I'll protect you.” You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

1 dead 1 injured (me)

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

^ YOU FUCKINGGGGG WISH GOJOOOOOOOOOOOOO

side note i like that gojo also calls jogo volcano head LMFAOOO... wait does he even know jogos name... anyways

So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

^ reader u are literally everything to me i wuld kill for u i wuld die for u i wuld eat a balanced diet for u my poor meow meow pookie bear shoves gojo aside

You are afraid.

^ i think this is the first time reader actually acknowledges their fear so plainly in this, and that makes it so heartbreaking bc its when theyve 1) successfully filled gojo in on what the fuck is happening and 2) they know what they have to do

and the fact that they ultimately DO let themselves trust gojo to protect them :(((( that he does save them from getting yoinked... MULTIPLE TIMES.... FROM HIS DEAD BEST FRIENDS BODY EVEN.... head in my hands ... pay for my tissues...

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

^ READER I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR U I WOULD KILL FOR U I WOULD DIE FOR U I WOULD EAT A BALANC--

AND THE ... !!!!! THEY GOT THEIR HAPPY(?) ENDING... THEY WERE ABLE TO STOP THE LOOP AND ALSO SAVE PPL AT THE STATION and also gojo ig. whatever (/j) AND THEY WERE ABLE TO DO IT ALL !!!!!!!!!

i love this fic truly, so so much , im holding this fic's hand, it's wiping my tears for me (pay for my tissues) and its tucking me into bed at night ... sniff... i love it sm and nikoo beloved worked so hard on it... blood sweat and tears.... FOR MONTHS !!! EVERYONE CHEER AND CLAP AND READ THIS 100 TIMES!!!!!!! OK... THANK U FOR COMING TO MY NIKOO TALK... going to lie in a puddle now....

BONUS if u've made it all this way:

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

notes: it's finally here. the long awaited halloween fic. yes, i know it's march, but i did start working on it in september. haha. there's so much i could say, but i will leave it at that this fic is, in every sense, a fic that i would not normally write. and yet here we are.

contains: f!reader (no physical description or gendered language is used), no explicit romantic pairing (though you don't have to look hard to find the reader x gojo implications), major character death (played with), semi-graphic depictions of death, blood and violence, minor suicide ideation, canon retelling (lines of dialogue are pulled from the jjk english dub because i'm a dirty dub watcher). opening poem is from higurashi no naku koro ni (minagoroshi-hen). fic title is from giga's beyond the way.

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required) || playlist

Please tell me what happened in this night. It's like the cat inside the box.

Please tell me what happened in this night. You don't know if the cat in the box is dead or alive. Please tell me what happened in this night. The cat in the box was dead.

The first time, it is instant— you don’t even know what’s happening.

The second, it is by flame, but you barely realize it, barely feel it— a second of mind numbing heat before nothing.

The third time, it is something slicing across your throat; you see the blood spilling everywhere, then the pain follows— a moment of pure agony before nothing.

The fourth time you realize what’s going on; what’s really going on.

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because the subway platform is crowded, insanely so— there are hundreds of people shoved into this space alongside you, packed like sardines in a can. You’ve never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you live in Tokyo. For the most part, you’ve learned to accept it, but even this crowd is a little much and you wish you hadn’t listened to your friends when they said you should go party in Shibuya for Halloween; you don’t even like partying.

There’s a sharp pain in your temple followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone is screaming it at you through a megaphone positioned right next to your ear.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

For the eighth time.

Before you can even question the thought, images flash in your mind’s eye, blurry at first before they come into focus. The platform gates open. Chaos ensues. People dropping onto the subway tracks— spontaneously bursting into flame— their heads, necks sliced off, stomachs cut open—

Bile rapidly builds up in your throat, and you clamp your jaw shut, trying to force it down. Not here. Not now. You try to focus on something else, anything else happening outside of your brain. There’s a pair next to you musing about the people standing on the subway tracks, wondering what the two (the four?) of them are talking about. You blink back tears as you look. You can only see two: a freakishly tall man with white hair dressed in all black, and another man, dressed in strange, yet more traditional looking garb. Are those costumes too? You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as another image forces its way into your brain.

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

You can’t hold it in any more. Every fiber in your being screams at you to get away from the subway tracks, but instead you rush toward them, shoving people left and right as your hands desperately reach the stability of the gate. You grip it like a lifeline as you retch over the side of it, the contents of your stomach spilling all over the subway tracks.

There’s a quiet murmur of disgust behind you but you can’t be bothered to respond. You need to get out of here. You need to leave. You need to do it before—

The gates open and the crowd starts to move like a tidal wave, pushing and shoving their way through the gate. You’re swept away, vomit long forgotten as you and a few dozen others tumble onto the railway.

Alarm bells go off in your brain, loud and deafening. A voice in the back of your head screams for you to get off the track! Get off the track now before—

The platform erupts into a cacophony of screams, drenched in horror, saturated in fear. You are surrounded by people, by corpses— beheaded, sliced open, bursting into flames.

Your terror roots you to the ground as the carnage ensues around you. It’s only when another person, another corpse, dressed in a magical girl costume collides with your body that you can finally move. But it’s too late, you realize, despaired and helpless, as your bodies fall to the ground.

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because it’s so hard to breathe, frustratingly so— there are hundreds of people squeezed into this space alongside you, packed like cattle for slaughter. You've never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you’re in Shibuya. For the most part, you’ve come to accept it, but this crowd is way too much and you wish you had just stayed home and ordered a pizza; though honestly, the thought of pizza kind of makes you sick.

There’s a dull throbbing in your forehead, followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone’s hollering at you from a loudspeaker that’s been installed in your brain.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You think it's the ninth time now.

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

Before you can ruminate more on it, images— memories assault your mind’s eye with a clarity that is absolutely sickening. That woman colliding into you, your bodies slamming into the subway tracks before you both— Your stomach churns violently,

and you feel like you’re going to puke, but you force it down— can't afford to right now. Instead, you make your way over to the woman.

Her head is in her hands as she mutters over and over again about how everyone is going to die. People around her figure that being stuck in here with the crowd has probably gotten to her. You, however, know better.

“...hey,” you say softly.

Her muttering comes to an abrupt halt and slowly she raises her head to look at you. There’s a flash of recognition in her eyes and she grabs you violently by the shoulders. “You! You know, don’t you? That we’re going to die?”

If it weren’t for the fact that you have indeed experienced death here eight times already, then you would have thought she’s lost her mind. Slowly, you nod and she seems relieved by it, her grip on you loosening.

You can’t help but feel a little relieved too— glad to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this nightmare. There’s a voice in the back of your mind that’s confused though. Why is she only remembering now? But then again, it took you a few times before you realized yourself.

Around you people start to gasp, and you glance back toward the railway to see an abnormally tall man with white hair and dressed in all black jump down from the atrium onto the railway. He lands rather gracefully for someone who jumped at least one floor and starts to converse with the other three people (you think they're people— two of them are in some pretty wild costumes) on the track.

Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be just two people: the tall man and the one in the traditional clothes? Where did the other two come from?

“We have to get out of here,” the woman says. “Before they kill us.”

Her grip shifts from your shoulders to your arms and she starts to shove at everyone around you, trying to force her way through. She seems to know, just as well as you do, that any second now the gates will open and the crowd will start spilling onto the railway, littering the tracks with bodies and ash. Neither of you can let yourselves get swept up with the rest. If you do and you end up on those tracks, you’re as good as dead.

People move aside at a snail's pace, many of them too focused on trying to see what is going on on the subway tracks. This isn't good. You need to move faster or else—

The collective sound of the gates opening echoes in your head, a metallic hiss that makes your stomach fold into itself. Before either of you can stop yourselves, you both whip your heads back to look, to confirm, but it’s a mistake.

The briefest lapse in attention is enough to pull you both into the current of people, and try as you might to fight against it, the crowd splits you and the woman apart as it swallows you both whole. You’re both spat onto the tracks at the edge of the platform and your head collides with the metal rails of the track. It feels like your skull is about to crack in two, and it takes every fiber in your being to scramble to your feet. You're close enough to the platform that if you can just climb up it, then you'll be—

“Help! Help!”

It’s the woman’s voice. You turn to see that she ended up a couple meters away from you. She’s staring at you, eyes brimming with fear filled tears as she extends her hand in your direction. You take a step toward her, reaching out.

And then, her entire body is engulfed in flames, the skirt of her magical girl costume a ring of fiery death around her.

Her blood curdling scream is the only thing you can hear, her burning flesh, the only thing you can see. You don’t know what to do.

You can’t save her.

There's something touching your back. You can barely feel the pressure, but it's hot, scorching hot, mind numbingly hot, painfully hothothot.

You know this sensation. You have felt it before. The scent of burning cloth, burning hair, burning flesh clogs your nostrils. It's too late, you realize, helpless, despaired as the flames eat at your body— your soon to be corpse.

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the tenth time.

Your head hurts, but you ignore it. There’s something more important that you need to attend to. You immediately make your way to the woman you met during your last round, the one you watched burn to death. Her costume is still pristine, unmarred by fire and death.

For now.

She’s not screaming this time and while there’s a little voice in the back of your mind that’s concerned by this, you try to ignore it.

“Um, excuse me?” you say when she doesn’t acknowledge you as you approach.

The woman turns to look at you. You’re taken aback by the distinct lack of recognition and it feels almost as if the woman you encountered previously and the one before you now are two separate people. In a way, they technically are.

“Do I… know you?” she finally asks when you don’t say anything.

Your mouth is dry. How do you even answer that? You don’t know her. You just watched her die twice. You know her. She begged you for help. You couldn’t save her.

If you explain all of this you know she’s just going to think you’ve lost your mind. Maybe you already have— you’ve died nine times after all.

You give her a weak smile. “I… just wanted to tell you that you think your costume looks great.”

She blinks, taken aback by your words. There’s no doubt that she wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s the truth though, her costume is nice; she’s dressed up as a character from a magical girl anime that was popular a couple years ago.

“Thank you! I made it myself!” The woman breaks out into a genuine smile and your heart hurts. In a few moments she’ll die and the costume she worked so hard to make will be nothing but ash on the subway tracks.

“Sorry,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“For?”

For watching her die. For not being able to save her.“...I just kind of came up to you all of a sudden…”

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

You consider telling her that she should try to move. That if she stays here she will die. You don’t want her to die. Again. You can still hear her screaming in your ears as she burned to death. You want to tell her.

You don’t.

“Stay safe, okay?” you say. It almost sounds like you’re begging.

She gives you another smile, kind and gentle and you think you’re far too undeserving of it for not telling her what fate will soon befall her. “You too.”

“I’ll try,” you say and move away from the woman just as the gates open and the crowd surges toward the railway. You do not fight it as you are swept up into the crowd and despite what you said, you do not try, this time, to stay safe.

You die for the tenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the fourteenth time.

There’s a slight ache in your head, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it. The pain you feel lessens with each round and you think it’s a sign that your body no longer feels the need to remind you of the precarious situation that you’re in.

Or maybe you are just becoming numb to everything: your death, the death of the people around you, the death of the woman in the magical girl costume—

You try not to think about it too much as you reach into your bag to check the time on your phone: 8:37PM. There’s not a lot of time: you need to move.

At the very end of your last attempt to escape this nightmare you realized something. You need to know exactly what is going on around you so you can plan accordingly: where to not stand, where to not go. Up until now, you’ve relied almost solely on the knowledge gained from your previous failures to try and survive, but obviously it’s not enough to keep you alive. You’re not sure why you didn’t realize this earlier. The panic, maybe? The fear?

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

Unlike previous iterations, this time you elect to move closer to the gate, positioning yourself somewhere against it where you’re unlikely to be pushed off the platform in a couple minutes when they open. You take great care to place yourself where you can see the ones responsible for the slaughter very clearly. At the beginning, you could only see one, the one who looks the most human, but with each repetition, the other two have become more and more clear. You wonder why. You don’t have time to think about it.

Murmurs nearby alert you to the arrival of the fourth major player involved in the night’s events. You look up and see the white haired man dressed in all black descending upon the platform like an angel from the heavens. This is your first time really looking at him and you realize there’s something almost inhumanly attractive about him. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it occurs to you that you shouldn’t even try; you don’t have the time to be drooling over some handsome stranger.

You’ve naturally never taken the time to try and listen to whatever the conversation the man and his opponents have before all hell breaks loose on the platform, but you try and lean closer to listen. It’s hard to hear over the dozens of conversations going on behind you, but you try anyway. There might be a clue to what’s actually going on— or better yet, a clue on how to get out of it.

It’s obvious that you’re missing context from what bits of the conversation you do manage to hear, but honestly it all sounds like stuff out of a shounen battle manga. There is one part of the exchange that you manage to hear with a startling sort of clarity. It feels almost as if your heart stops beating as your blood turns ice cold in your veins.

“If I run away, you’re just gonna kill everyone here, right?” the man in black asks.

There’s a pause, and if your heart was still beating it’d be long enough for just four heartbeats.

“If you run away?” The monster with cane repeats, the sadistic grin spreading wide across its features, displaying its charcoal black teeth. The gravelly sound of its voice sets fire to the blood in your veins, your stilled heart thumping wildly, in fear, in anticipation. Soon. It’s happening soon. You brace yourself. “We’re going to do that even if you don’t!”

You die a fourteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the seventeenth time now.

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this. Every little victory is worth celebrating, but you have to remain vigilant. This is yet another information gathering loop, and while you know that maybe this time you’ll be lucky and live, there’s still a chance, a big one, at that, that you will die again.

You have to make the most of each and every death.

It’s such a morbid thought, but the ends justify the means, or so you tell yourself. If you have to die a few times to make it out of this unending nightmare, then so be it.

The spot you’re in is a good vantage point; it’s easier to see everything happening below you. It’s so good that it’s actually sickening. You watch as the monster with the cane and one with what looks like branches for eyes slaughter the people on the track, mowing them down, setting them aflame. In another life, in another many lives, that was you down there, and for what feels like the first time in forever, you feel like you’re going to be sick. You feel like, at some point, you likened the scene before you to some kind of shounen battle manga, but you think that was wrong.

This is borderline horror.

Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were just an extra on set, but you know the reality is that you’re just an extra to whatever phantasmal battle is taking place in front of you. The monsters and the strangely dressed man all try to attack the man in black, but he manages to block every hit effortlessly, as if he is protected by some sort of invisible barrier. When it seems the two monsters are about to hit him, he merely jumps out of the way and the two monsters seem to collide, the force of their combined strength sending a gust of air throughout the crowd. The man in black neatly lands on a nearby platform half wall and says something about curse users, whatever those are, to the monsters, before he starts to mock them, pulling down his strange blindfold in the process.

And this, you’ve found, is where you start to get in trouble.

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

He drops back down onto the tracks, antagonizing his opponents in an arrogant tone as he approaches. When he comes to a stop between the two monsters, the second round of their fight begins. They try to hit him, but he dodges still, gracefully, fluidly, like the three of them are embroiled in some sort of passionate, yet violent dance.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he cruelly rips off one of the arms of the one-eyed monster.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he brutally kicks the branch-eyed monster in the abdomen, sending them flying to the other side of the platform.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he effortlessly hurls the one-eyed, now one-armed monster in the same direction, sending them smashing into the wall.

Only when the man in black seems to fly to the other side is the spell over you seemingly broken. Still, your eyes give chase, and your body too, rushing from one side of the platform to the other. You can’t lose sight of this fight, you tell yourself, settling in a spot you recall being safe during your last round. Doing so could mean another death, another loop, another October 31.

You watch as the man in black acrobatically dodges what looks to be vines or roots that the monster with branches for eyes seems to have summoned from the depths of the Tokyo metro. He lands on the monster’s shoulders, balancing on them as he uses its branch-eyes for leverage. The look in the man’s eyes is so crazed that you can see it from where you’re standing. He says something to it and then—

With a feral and sadistic smile, he rips their eyes straight out of their skull.

Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest as you watch the fight unfold. It is horrifyingly, disgustingly violent, yet still you watch as people on the track are killed by the human-like person, blood raining down as their freshly beheaded skulls go flying into the air. He and the one-eyed monster launch their counter attacks against the man in black and the blowback is so intense the power goes out causing everyone to scream.

There’s a faint glow where the man in black is standing that starts to grow brighter and brighter. You can make out his form turning to face the wall, and it seems almost like he’s slammed the monster that had branches for eyes against it with some sort of telekinetic power. Despite the panic from the people around you, you manage to hear him, chuckling like a mad man as he draws closer and closer to the monster.

The one-eyed monster yells out a name, a name you think must belong to the man, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as he extends his hands out toward the eyeless monster, exerting some kind of force that you can’t really see. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as the eyeless monster’s entire body is vaporized in a flash of blue light. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster, as the lights flicker back on revealing a smoking crater stained with purple blood where the eyeless monster once stood.

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And this is the eighteenth time.

You watch as the man called Satoru Gojo stalks through the crowd of people on the subway tracks, chasing after the one-eyed fire monster. It throws people at him, in a clear attempt to slow him down.

It does not work.

Satoru Gojo climbs back onto the platform in a way that you can only describe as inhuman, and the people nearby shriek and move away from him, out of terror, out of fear. You, on the other hand, draw closer, refusing to lose sight of him.

He is relentless in his pursuit of the one-eyed monster. It continues to throw person after person at him, but he does not stop and the people float there, suspended in midair before they are gently lowered to the ground by some unseen force and scramble away.

No one dares get close to Satoru Gojo, everyone on the platform seems to know that doing so means certain death, yourself included. But you still feel the need to keep an eye on him. The monster and the strangely dressed man are focusing more on him than the crowd— anyone in between is just collateral damage.

But not you.

Especially since you’ve made it this far— you’ve never made it this far before.

A voice echoes throughout the platform; you realize it’s the automated announcement.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You can hear everyone’s relief coming from all sides. The train is coming! The train is coming! A ripple of hope makes its way throughout the crowd. With the train comes the chance to get off the platform and the senseless violence that’s been happening here. Some of the people around you are talking excitedly and others are running toward the gates, toeing the yellow line they’ve been instructed to wait behind. And you, you should be excited, you should be hopeful.

All you feel is dread.

It eats at your stomach, at your chest, at your mind. Clawing and gnawing at you in a way that leaves you paralyzed on the platform. There’s something wrong here. You can’t be sure because you’ve never made it this far, never survived long enough for the train to come, but something is just not right.

No.

You must be paranoid. The train coming is a good thing. It has to be a good thing. You are just paranoid. It’s normal. It’s natural. Dying seventeen times would do that to anyone— rob them of hope, condemn them to an existence full of fear.

It is not lost on you that the thought of dying more than once, much less, dying seventeen times is not normal or natural in the very slightest.

But you need hope, you crave it, wildly, desperately. The hope of freedom, of escape is the only thing getting you through this unending nightmare. Every time you die, every time you wake, it is with the hope that maybe, just maybe this iteration will be different, maybe this one will be the one where you make it out, make it back to your friends who must be waiting for you, make it back home where you can be safe and sound. You need the hope to keep going. Because without hope, what will you have left?

The train screeches as it pulls into the station and the people around you laugh in both disbelief and relief. They start to push and shove toward it, fighting to be able to board because there’s no way everyone here will be able to get on an eight car train and being left behind at this point is practically synonymous with death. Unable to decide if you believe in the train as a symbol of hope or a new layer of fear, you are pushed along with the crowd toward it.

The doors of the train cars slide open and the current passengers all rush off as they disembark. You as well as everyone else on the platform can see with a horrifying clarity that the train is filled to the brim with monsters. Monsters that reach out and grab anyone their hands can reach. The woman to your left. The person to your right.

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

If there is anything this entire ordeal has taught you, it is that you are resilient. Whether it is some innate trait that you never had any reason to uncover before or just a byproduct of being trapped in an unending cycle of being dead and not dead, you don't know. What you do know, though, is that even if you no longer have hope, you at least have your resilience.

Whether you want it or not.

You check the time. It’s 8:35PM. Something flickers in your chest, like a faint light in a sea of darkness, but you ignore it. You don’t have time right now.

With a nimbleness born from your previous failures, you weave your way through the crowd. You’ve done this enough times to know where the gaps are— who will yield and who won’t. Your destination is the escalator that leads off the platform and up to a higher part of the station. You’d noticed previously that the escalator along with every other entrance onto the platform will eventually be blocked by vines or roots of some sort (the work of the branch-eyed monster probably). It’s not a perfect plan because you don’t know what happens on the other side, but whatever it is has to be better than whatever is happening on the side that you’ve been on.

You’d tried to get to the stairs during your last two rounds, but you’d just missed it. You hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caged and slaughtered along with the rest. But this time, this time you have more time. It’s just one minute, but it’s enough. You know it is.

The flickering in your heart grows stronger. Hope. You try not to pay attention to it— you don’t want to be disappointed yet again. But you want to so badly. A voice in the back of your mind tells you to focus on the good, tells you that if there was truly no way out of this endless nightmare, then why would you get more and more time with each round to escape your fate?

With that thought in mind, you break out into a run, recklessly rushing through the crowd, shoving anyone who will not yield to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the stark white of Satoru Gojo’s hair as he descends upon the platform.

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

If you remember correctly, the roots and vines don’t close off the area the moment he touches down, but a little after they start talking, so you think there is probably some time, but you can’t leave it to chance.

The stairs are packed, and for some reason no one is moving. The escalator right next to it is just as full and the power doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t have time for this. You clamber onto the escalator’s rubber handrail, ignoring the weird feeling that passes through your body as you do so. You don’t have the time to worry about whatever that is. The people around you start exclaiming around you, but you don’t care, you don’t listen. You wobble as you try to balance yourself and when you think you’re steady you try to run.

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This marks the thirtieth time.

And you have, finally, finally made it up the escalator, up the stairs with barely a second to spare. You pause, glancing back as the roots or vines or whatever the hell they are seal off the entrance to the platform. You notice that the area where the plants come down is actually fairly clear, despite the crowd. It seems weird, but you don’t dwell on it.

A strange feeling envelops your entire body and your legs turn into jelly. As you sink to the floor, you realize what you’re feeling is relief as all the tension, maybe thirty iterations of Halloween 2018 worth, seeps from your being. You don't remember the last time you felt anything other than fear and dread; it’s weird, but not unwelcome.

That voice in the back of your mind tells you that you can't relax just yet: October 31st isn’t over. Even though you have repeated this night again and again, burning the events that play out on the platform into your memory, you do not know a single thing that happens over here. It would be smart to scope everything out.

Legs still shaky, you rise to your feet and start walking. You think it’s probably for the best to try and head up to the surface and you make your way up to the next floor.

It’s packed with people here too, but relatively peaceful, especially when you compare it to the pandemonium taking place beneath your feet. Still, you can make out the undeniable hum of displeasure resonating throughout the crowd. People complaining about how uncomfortable their costumes are, people complaining about how much they want to go home, people complaining about how much their nights have been ruined because they couldn’t meet up with their friends and—

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

That’s why you were on the platform in the first place— you were waiting for them to arrive, but then the trains stopped working, and people just started pouring into the station out of seemingly nowhere (you think you heard some people say they’d come from the crossing?). Soon after that is when everything went to shit.

You check your phone, though, for once it’s not to look at the time (8:56PM). Instead, you open LINE to check your friends’ group chat. There’s no signal here, for whatever reason, so if there are any new messages, you haven’t received them. The last one was from Kei, mentioning he was enroute, but as far as you know, you’re the only one who made it to Shibuya before the trains stopped.

Did one of them maybe make it here though? Surely, you would have run into them if—

The image of a woman in a magical girl costume fills your vision, burning to death before your very eyes as her screams echo in your ears. It is the first time in what feels like forever that you’ve thought about her and your stomach churns violently. You couldn’t help her, you can’t even help yourself, so how could you even expect to do the same for your friends if they were here? The mere thought of having to watch them die over and over is almost enough to send you over the edge. You don’t know if you could do it.

Would you even have a choice?

No. You can't think like that. You have choices. You've had choices. If you didn’t then, you would still be down below, among the fire and brimstone. Dying, if not dead already. However, instead, you are up here, where, for the moment, it is quiet and peaceful.

That thought, in of itself, is enough to give you a shred of solace, a glimmer of hope.

You take a deep breath and fiddle with your phone a little more, changing your lock screen to a picture you and your friends took at a photo booth not too long ago. The four of you are huddled together, faces squished as if you're all struggling to fit in the frame, despite there being plenty of room. You're mid-laugh because it's the first time you've been in a photo booth in years, Mio and Shin are grinning mischievously and finally, Kei is smiling, but only just slightly, the embarrassment clear on his face. It's probably only been a few months since you all took this picture, but the fact that it feels like it's been years makes your heart ache.

You press your forehead to the screen, like a prayer, like a promise.

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

A shrill scream yanks you from your thoughts and you are instantly on your feet, alert as your eyes flit around frantically to identify the source. It doesn't take long for you to find it and when you do, you think you might have stumbled upon a new layer of horror to this nightmare.

It’s not the corpse, dangling by a noose, that terrifies you— by now you’ve seen dozens upon dozens of dead bodies that the sight of just one more doesn’t faze you in the slightest. The thing that’s the most mortifying, that’s the most disturbing is that right next to where the body is tied are two girls, two teenage girls still dressed in their school uniforms.

You can accept monsters and weirdly dressed men being responsible for the carnage tonight, but children too? Both girls look like they’re barely in high school and try as you might to rationalize things, to chalk it up to coincidence, you cannot ignore the ominous energy radiating from them.

The very notion that these two children could have killed someone here is a hard pill to swallow, but so is the fact that you’ve died.

And you’ve had to swallow that pill thirty times now, so what’s once more?

“Listen up!” one of the girls yells over the crowd, but she is mostly ignored; you don’t think everyone here has noticed her and the corpse dangling from the rafters. She scowls and turns to the other girl and says something quietly to her. The other girl nods and almost instantly she’s stringing up another person, another example. You want to look away so badly, and yet you cannot bring yourself to and you watch the poor soul choke to death.

“I said listen, you dumb monkeys!” the girl shouts, and this time she’s caught most of the crowd’s attention. “If you don’t want to end up like these two, you’ll listen to what we have to say!”

There is clear dissent among the crowd, people dismissive as they utter their disbelief. Some seem to think it’s a prank, but you know better. It takes two more examples before the crowd goes silent before the two high schoolers.

“About damn time!” The girl roars and then points toward the atrium, which is currently covered by roots and branches. “All of you move over there!”

You have a bad feeling about this.

Still, you comply; the girls have made it abundantly clear that failure to do so will result in death, though, at this point, you're almost certain this iteration is a bust and death is all but imminent. You try to keep positive— thinking you can at least gather information or, who knows, maybe there's a chance that this one is the one.

Yet when you step onto the mound of vines and branches that cover the atrium it feels as if you've crossed the threshold into hell. Your footing is stable… but for how long?

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

It's faint, but you can hear the announcement from below. The liquid in your stomach curdles at the sound as you recall the train and, in particular, what is on board. Soon enough, those monsters will be swarming the platform, massacring everyone in reach, guzzling down their blood, feasting on their flesh—

It dawns on you that the people on the platform are the monsters' first course.

And you, and those around you here in the shrubbery, are the second.

As you realize this, the branches and vines disintegrate beneath your very feet and suddenly you are mid air— falling, falling into the abyss below.

You die for the thirtieth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

After countless failures, you've decided that you're just not going to go upstairs any more. No matter where you try to go, you still end up herded onto the death trap above the platform where you ultimately fall to your death. You've tried positioning yourself in the same spot, tried bracing yourself for the drop— but nothing seems to work: upon landing, assuming you manage to land without hurting yourself or dying in midair (which has happened a couple times) you get grabbed and killed by one of the monsters from the train. It's probably not impossible, you just don't have the physical prowess or reflexes for it.

If anything, you can try again later, but you sincerely hope you don't have to.

It's 8:32PM, and you have plenty of time to get to your chosen spot for this loop— it's close to the stairs, in the very center of the platform. Here, there's little risk of getting pushed off onto the tracks when the gates open. You'll probably have to move when the train comes, or even before (assuming you survive) to avoid the monsters, but you'll get to that when it's time.

You can't really see the fight once it breaks out after Satoru Gojo arrives, but you still try to keep track of it as best as you can. You see when he hurls both monsters across the platform and you're not sure if it's muscle memory or what but you have to fight the urge to move to the side and watch. It's been a while, yes, but you've seen the fight countless times before— it doesn't change. Satoru Gojo will give chase. He will rip the branches from the branch eyed monster's skull. He will use some kind of power to eviscerate them.

You don't need to watch, but there's something in you that wants to.

It doesn't make sense, you've seen it all before; if you're unlucky you'll see it all again.

The lights go out and people start screaming; Satoru Gojo is ending the life of that one monster. Soon enough he'll be back on the platform, in pursuit of the other. You think at that point it would be good to move, reposition yourself as far from the incoming train as possible.

When he rises from the tracks like a demon straight from hell, you realize it's the first time this loop that you've actually gotten a good look at him. You remind yourself, again, that this isn't the first time you've seen this man, this scene. You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. His expression is an eerie sort of calm that's at odds with the acts of violence you've seen him commit— his eyes an unnaturally bright blue.

He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

The sound of the announcement sends your heartbeat into a frenzy, snapping you out of your little trance. The train is coming and you need to get moving. As you dart to the edge of the platform, the thought occurs to you that even if you avoid the initial wave of monsters, it's likely you will inevitably be caught by them and killed. It wouldn't be impossible for Satoru Gojo to turn his attention to them instead of the two he's currently facing, but he's just one man— can he truly defeat all those monsters?

You can see the train pulling in and you brace yourself, praying that it'll work out somehow.

The doors hiss open and the screaming starts again as the monsters come bursting out of the train, biting and mauling anyone they can get their hands on. Those who were lucky enough to not be at the front start to scramble away and the monsters give chase. Your body is taut, ready to try and dodge any that come your way.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice something moving through the air. A person? With blue hair? You take the risk to look— they're attacking Satoru Gojo. He tries to punch them but they fly away from him to dodge— disappearing into the crowd.

You hear a loud cracking sound over the cacophony of the crowd and your stomach twists; you know what that sound is. The roots above the atrium disintegrate and bodies from above start to rain down onto the platform.

And then, you're not sure what happens— it's so quick that you only manage to see what looks like an explosion of blood surrounding Satoru Gojo. Corpses litter the ground around him and even from here you can tell he is shaken by the carnage.

The monsters have finally reached where you're standing, and you duck under one as it lunges at you. Although it's big and scary, you realize it's moving kind of slow. Right after it another one comes at you and you take a side step to avoid it; this monster is kind of slow too.

Maybe you can do this.

As soon as you think that a strange feeling courses through you. Every hair on your body feels like it's standing on edge and the voice in your head is telling you to look at Satoru Gojo. You don't understand why because you think he's the least of your worries right now, but you do it anyway.

He's in some sort of stance, one hand raised to his face, fingers bent in some kind of gesture. There's some sort of aura, oppressive and frightening emanating from his form.

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are utterly confused.

Barring your first few loops when you weren't fully aware of what was happening, you have very distinct memories of how each of your previous iterations of this night have gone— of each and every one of your deaths. But for your last round, the last thing you remember was feeling the immense power radiating from Satoru Gojo's body, but that's it.

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

And yet, here you are again, back at the start: it's 8:32PM and the monsters and strangely dressed man are standing on the subway tracks waiting for the arrival of Satoru Gojo.

You don't understand what's going on; you didn't die but you're still stuck in this damn loop. Up until now, your death has served as the trigger to restart the loop. It's not impossible that maybe you suffered a quick and painless death but you're almost certain that isn't the case.

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

You have to find out what. If you don't, you won't know how to avoid it, and if you can't do that, then you really might spend an eternity stuck in this nightmare. And so you take great care to repeat the steps of your last round. You need to make sure to survive to the same point you made it to last time.

Miraculously, you do.

The moment you feel that sensation again, a prickling sort of feeling that envelops your entire body, your eyes are on Satoru Gojo— trying to figure out what the hell he's doing. His eyes are crazed with a desperate kind of focus. You see his mouth move— he's saying something. A spell? A prayer? A curse?

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

Again.

You do not know how many times it's been the night of Halloween in Shibuya: you stopped counting around the hundredth loop. It feels like it's been a while since then. Or maybe it hasn't? You don't know any more.

What you do know is that this night ends up going one of two ways before you are forced to repeat it. Either you die, in some way, shape or form or something happens just after nine that forces you to reset. You still don't know what it is exactly; you only know that Satoru Gojo is responsible for it.

You do prefer it to dying— it's far less painful.

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

Unfortunately, you know better.

The only good thing you’ve noticed about all of this is that you really do seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier. The last time you checked, it was at around 8:30. It might take hundreds of thousands of loops, but eventually you’ll certainly wake up early enough to avoid this damn entire mess.

But by the time that happens… will your sanity still be intact? Will you really be able to go back to a normal day to day life after living the equivalent of hundreds of years, repeating the same night over and over again? You don’t even know how you’ve managed to stay sane all this time and as much as you want to believe you could do it…

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the latter first.

There’s a dull ache in your head that feels foreign yet familiar. Your mind is foggy, all your thoughts hazy as you try to recall what the word for this feeling is.

Groggy.

It feels as if you’ve woken up from a nap and you blink the sleepiness away from your eyes. When was the last time you took a nap? It’s been a while… You think you maybe tried once or twice, but you were too nervous, too on edge. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter because, either way, you were doomed to repeat this nightmare.

As you think this, you realize that something is different.

You’re used to how the start of each loop feels like waking up suddenly and abruptly and it becomes clear to you that you haven’t looped. This is completely uncharted territory.

You need to find out what’s going on.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quiet. Almost eerily so, especially when the last thing you remember was screaming and chaos. You glance around you and find that it looks like all the monsters from the train are dead, the ground littered in their bloodstains and corpses. There were so many of them, you don’t know how someone could have wiped them out so quickly… Could it possibly have been Satoru Gojo’s doing?

More concerning than the complete eradication of the monsters is the fact that nearly everyone else on the platform is standing stock still, their mouths ajar with blank expressions on their faces. It’s almost as if their souls have completely vacated their bodies…

Were you like that too before you woke up?

You hear voices, and your body immediately goes tense as you turn your head in their direction. A little ways ahead of you, you see a man dressed as a monk conversing with the blue haired person from earlier and before them is—

Your heart nearly stops: it’s Satoru Gojo, restrained and on his knees.

Honestly, you can’t make heads or tails of the conversation they’re having; it’s more shounen battle manga nonsense. Satoru Gojo doesn’t seem to be enjoying their conversation either, and he interrupts them, clearly annoyed.

“Are we gonna do this or what?” he asks. “The view sucks and I’m just kinda bored.”

“I wanted to enjoy this sight for a little bit longer, but you are right,” the monk says. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen— gate, close.”

When he says that, Satoru Gojo’s restraints move, the weirdly shaped cubes at the ends of them closing in around him, trapping him in a giant red cube. It starts to shrink until it’s small enough to fit in the monk’s hand.

You gulp and hope they don’t notice that you’re awake. The fact that they haven’t slaughtered the rest of the people standing around you is a good sign, but you don’t want to find out what happens if they know you’re cognizant.

It’s not hard to play the part of a living statue, especially when you compare it to everything else you’ve had to suffer through on this night. You watch as the monk’s allies, the ones who had attacked everyone on the platform, wake up, but before they can do or say anything, the box holding Satoru Gojo slips through the monk’s fingers and makes a dent in the concrete. The look on the monk’s face makes it clear that it’s a problem he wasn’t expecting.

You don’t know a damn thing about Satoru Gojo, but you feel like this kind of thing is the norm for him.

The blue haired person suddenly looks in your direction and you nearly stop breathing. Have they noticed you? It takes everything in you to keep perfectly still, in hopes that maybe they didn't, that maybe they’re looking at something else. They raise their arm and it extends, their hand acting like some kind of projectile. You almost shut your eyes and brace yourself for impact, but their hand flies upwards and hits something on the ceiling, destroying it.

Inwardly, you breathe a sigh of relief— you’re still safe.

For now.

You listen to their following conversation and while you still don’t fully understand everything, it’s clear they’re talking about what to do next since they’ve taken care of Satoru Gojo. Something having to do with someone named Yuji Itadori? The group seems split on what to do about him but it’s clear he’s their next target.

Eventually, everyone but the monk (you heard the blue haired person, who is apparently named Mahito, call him Geto?) runs off, probably to find this Yuji Itadori person. Once they’re gone, Geto speaks and, at first, you think he’s talking to you, but it becomes clear he’s addressing someone else. “Those cursed spirits are actually smarter than the two of you.”

“Give him back!” a voice hidden among the crowd hisses. Your blood runs cold at the sound. You recognize it; it’s one of the high school girls from the upper floor.

“We cooperated with you fully and kept dropping monkeys for you,” says another voice; it must be the other girl that was with her, the one who hung all those people.

“Now give us back Master Geto’s body like you promised!”

“Don’t toy with Master Geto any further than you have!”

You blink in confusion. Isn’t the monk named Geto? The way the girls are talking it sounds like they’re talking about someone else… Is it possible that the body is ‘Geto’ but the person they’re talking to is someone else possessing it? It sounds kind of crazy, but then again, so is every single thing you’ve experienced tonight.

Your suspicions concerning this ‘Geto’ are confirmed only seconds later as he says, “Now begone, or is it your desire to be killed by this body?”

One of the girls vows her revenge and you hear shuffling somewhere else in the crowd as they scurry away. Now you think it’s just you and whoever it is that’s puppeting Geto’s body. You see him plop down in front of the box (the prison realm, you think he’d called it) that’s holding Satoru Gojo.

“You can come out, you know,” he says after a while.

You freeze. The rest of the platform is completely silent. This time you think he might actually be talking to you.

“I know you’re there,” ‘Geto’ adds, his voice casual. “If you’re insistent on hiding, you should know that I’m not afraid of using whatever means necessary to smoke you out.”

Given everything his allies have done, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s serious. You were hoping to hide out among the crowd until he decided to leave, but it looks like you won’t be able to now.

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

Your heart starts to race as you weave your way through the crowd. In every single one of your loops, you were always treated like a bit character, never noticed or singled out by any of the major players of the night. Although this is your first time encountering this ‘Geto’ it’s clear to you that he’s involved with everything that’s happened here and honestly, you get the feeling he might actually be the mastermind behind the massacre.

That makes you even more nervous.

You come to a stop in the place where Satoru Gojo was once kneeling before he was put in that box. Now that you’re out in the open, ‘Geto’ looks you over with some sort of nonchalant curiosity.

“You’re…” he starts, sounding thoughtful, "not a sorcerer, are you?”

Sorcerer. You heard that term thrown around by him and his group a few times. It’s what they’ve been referring to their enemies as. It probably wouldn’t be smart to lie and say you are one; you get the feeling he’d see through your lie anyway. “I’m not.”

He hums. “How interesting.”

“...what do you mean?” you ask before you can help yourself.

“It’s just you have an abnormally large amount of cursed energy for a non-sorcerer,” he explains. “Though, I suppose that all just sounds like gibberish to you."

You nod and look down at the box lodged in the floor. It has eyes, big creepy looking eyes. "...are you going to do the same thing to me as you did to that man?"

He laughs, "...fortunately for you, the prison realm only holds one person at a time and I need him sealed away more than you."

"...does that mean you're going to leave him in there forever?"

"If I'm feeling nice, I might unseal him in a hundred years or so."

One hundred years? At this point, you've probably lived roughly that amount of time through your loops alone, but for Satoru Gojo… "Won't he die first?"

"Only if he decides to," 'Geto' says, looking completely and wholly unbothered. "Time doesn't doesn't flow in the box, so when I unseal him, he'll be the same as he was just now. Physically anyway. Who knows how deteriorated his mind will be after all that."

Time doesn't flow in the box.

The words echo in your mind over and over. Time doesn't flow in the box. In other words, that means time has stopped in the box, and if that's the case then—

"Anyway, rather than worry about him, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

You look at 'Geto' and he's smiling at you, it's friendly, but ominous. There's no doubt what is going to happen next, though you had already resigned yourself to this iteration being a bust; it was only a matter of time.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I was thinking I might keep you around, even if you aren’t a sorcerer, your wealth of cursed energy would serve my plans well," he muses. "But… it would be too much trouble trying to teach you how to use it in time."

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

You're scared.

Even though you know that once he kills you, once you die, you'll just loop back to around 8:30 again. You'll be on the platform again. And you'll play out some sequence of events before you eventually die again. And again and again.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I'll be nice, though," 'Geto' says, raising a hand and another monster appears out of nowhere. You don’t even bother trying to figure out from where. It doesn’t matter, especially since this monster will surely be the one to end your life. "I'll make it painless."

"...I appreciate it," you say and close your eyes hoping that he's not lying about it.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you're trapped.

You don't know how and you don't know why, but you are stuck in a time loop— forced to suffer through the horrific events of the night before you die and begin it all again. It's been a long time since you stopped counting how many loops you've gone through, but if you had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the hundreds now.

You are so very tired.

But it doesn't stop. It won't stop no matter what you seem to do. You are stuck. You are trapped. You are doomed.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

Ever since that first loop where you heard whoever is possessing Geto's body say that, the words have been stuck in your head, playing on loop.

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

It's 8:25PM when you wake up; that should be plenty of time.

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

After hundreds of loops you've come to a singular conclusion: you need to prevent him being sealed in the prison realm. You've witnessed it enough to know that you won't be able to do it alone; you'll need his cooperation.

You rush upstairs as fast as you can, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine as you step onto the stairwell. According to your previous loops, Satoru Gojo arrives on the subway tracks at 8:40PM. With how crowded the upper floor is, you don’t know if you’ll have the time to intercept him and talk to him, but if you can at least figure out where to find him, then you can try and talk to him during a subsequent loop.

When you reach the fourth basement floor, however, you don’t know where you should even start. He’s pretty tall so you think you could spot him in the crowd, but… there are still so many people. It occurs to you that maybe it would be better to try and look from a higher vantage point so you head to the stairs that lead up to the third basement floor. You check your phone again. It’s 8:35PM; you need to hurry.

Luckily for you, you find him very easily on the third basement floor.

The only problem is that he’s in a hard to reach spot— squatting above a sign hanging over the crowd.

You check your phone again. It’s 8:38PM and he’s starting to move, presumably to meet with those waiting for him on the subway tracks. It’s good that you found him, but there’s no doubt about it.

You’re going to need more time.

The moment you wake up, you immediately bolt toward the stairs. It's taken many, many more loops, but you've finally brought the time you wake down to around 8:15. You're still not sure if it's enough time, but there's only one way to find out.

You barrel your way up to the next floor and zig zag through the crowd to get to the next flight of stairs. By the time you get to your destination, you're completely out of breath, your chest heaving as your lungs clamor for air. You’ve done this so many times, yet your body acts like it’s always the first. It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You slow to a brisk pace to catch your breath and check the time. It’s 8:27— a new record. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

The goal is to catch Satoru Gojo before he moves to his lookout point above the crowd. While not impossible, it would be difficult for you to follow him there. You eye the safety barricade that blocks off the area where he’ll be moving in just a few minutes warily.

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

You don’t want to think about it right now; you’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Especially since Satoru Gojo has now entered your field of vision.

Your heart starts to race at the sight of him and it feels like it’s beating a million times a second. There isn’t a lot of time. You need to talk to him, but your legs only wobble, your feet planted firmly to the ground. This is not good. You need to move. You need to move.

Finally, after what feels like both an instant and an eternity, your feet finally budge, propelling you in Satoru Gojo’s direction. The beating of your heart only grows louder as you make your way toward him, mingling with the single thought that’s echoing throughout your mind right now: will he even hear you out?

You need to make him.

“Excuse me!” The words nearly come out in a stutter as you realize that you are actually talking to Satoru Gojo. You have watched this man at a distance for so long that it almost felt like he wasn’t real, like he was just another fixture in this nightmare that you’ve been living for far too long. And yet, here he is, right in front of you, in the flesh.

And his attention is on you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming. Your mouth is dry and suddenly you don’t know what to say, but you need to say something. You need to say something before he thinks maybe you bumped into him by accident and just walks away without a word.

“I need to talk to you!” The words just burst out from your mouth and something about it is just absolutely embarrassing. You’re not sure if it's desperation or the fact that you haven’t really talked to anyone other than the existence occupying Suguru Geto’s body in nearly forever.

Satoru Gojo’s lips slowly start to form a smile, “Oh, yeah?”

The sound of his voice makes your mind go blank. There’s something different about it right now; more playful, amused even. Maybe it’s because he’s talking to you, a harmless human being and not a monster trying to kill him. It’s almost kind of jarring, but you know, with certainty, what Satoru Gojo’s voice sounds like. And the fact that he’s actually talking to you right now has you kind of excited. You nod, doing your best to not show how thrilled you are that he’s not ignoring you.

He hums thoughtfully, “Sorry… but unfortunately I kind of have some business to attend to right now.”

“I—” You start to say that you know that he’s headed down to the platform below to fight with…Choso and Jogo, you think their names are— you don’t know the name of the monster with the branches for eyes. “It’s— it’s really important!”

Gojo tilts his head a little, clearly thinking. You should probably say something else, something to try and convince him to stay a little longer and hear you out, but your mind is both full and blank. Where do you start? From the beginning? Or do you start with what is most important? Maybe you should say what you think will get his attention. You’re not sure, and you realize you really should have thought about this earlier because you’re running out of time right now.

“...mind handing me your phone?”

You stare at Gojo, completely and wholly confused, but he just holds out his hand expectantly. When you don’t move, he wiggles his fingers a little, a silent gesture telling you to hurry it up. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and unlock your phone before handing it to him.

“Kind of sucks that cell service isn’t working right now,” he remarks as he types something into your phone before handing it back. “But! Here's my number.”

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though?

“Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

He laughs, “Well, you said you had something really important to talk to me about, right? So just give me a call when you get home or some time tomorrow and we can talk then!”

You’re not going to make it home, or even to tomorrow, and neither will Satoru Gojo. As you start to tell him this, he steps past you. Desperate, you try to grab him, but somehow, for some reason, you can’t. You remember he did this with Jogo and the other monster, made himself untouchable.

This is not good.

He gives you a little wave, cheery as he says, “I’ll talk to you later!”

You watch, helpless as he hops over the barricade beyond your reach.

Gripping your phone tightly, you take a deep breath. It's fine, it's not like you didn’t expect things to go well anyway.

You'll just have to try again.

Every time you’ve tried to solicit help from Satoru Gojo, it has gone the same way. He just won’t give you the time of day, and in some ways you can’t blame him; he’s clearly here to deal with the monsters down on the platform. You’re fairly certain that he probably thinks that whatever is going on with you is a much lesser issue in comparison.

Plus, it probably doesn’t help that in the times that you’ve approached him, you haven’t been able to articulate yourself particularly well. Once you start talking to him, you just get hit with something akin to stage fright and the connection between your mind and your mouth just stops working. It’s gotten better with each attempt, but…

It’s just so frustrating.

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all. You’re not sure what kind of person you were expecting him to be, but after witnessing him literally and viciously rip monsters apart, you’d figured he’d be a little more somber. However, in the fragmented conversations you’ve had with him he’s come off as far more friendly and playful than you would have thought. Is he the type of person to get more serious when the situation calls for it? You can’t help but wonder, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that you’re able to convince him to help you.

You have to convince him.

“Excuse me!” you say, stepping in Satoru Gojo’s path. You don’t stutter this time, and your voice is more sure. This is good.

“Yes?”

His head turns in your direction and you gulp. Gojo’s gaze, despite that blindfold of his, still feels just as overwhelming as it did the very first time you approached him. You have no doubt that he’s sizing you up, but there’s just something about it that makes you feel like you’re being picked apart.

You take a deep breath and step closer to him, hoping your voice sounds firm enough as you say, “I need your help. I’m trapped.”

He chuckles a little, “I know, but yours truly is on his way to go beat up the bad guys keeping you all trapped here, so soon enough you’ll be all free to go on your merry little way.”

Right. You were so caught up in your own plight that you nearly forgot that technically you’re not the only one ‘trapped.’ Satoru Gojo obviously knows that everyone else is confined to this station, but you doubt he knows that you’re confined to this night alone.

“That’s not what I mean!” you sputter.

“Then what do you mean?” Gojo asks. Should you tell him that you mean that you’re trapped in a time loop? You’re honestly not sure— in the movies and manga you’ve read about time travel, revealing that sort of thing risks creating a time paradox which seems to be a bad thing. If you have to tell him, you will, but— “Oh, I get it.”

You stare, bewildered. Did you maybe just spew all of that aloud?

Gojo gives you a mischievous smile. “You’re hitting on me, aren’t you?”

“No!” The word comes flying out of your mouth. You can’t deny he’s attractive— you’ve thought it all this time, but that is not what’s happening here.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he continues, ignoring you. “I totally get it, so if you want, I’d be happy to give you my number!”

Again? You’ve received Satoru Gojo’s contact details in every loop you’ve talked to him, star symbol and all— you even have his number memorized. There’s something kind of odd about how he keeps giving you his number. Part of you wonders if he’s got some sort of ulterior motive, but you haven’t thought too deeply about it. There are way more important things going on.

“I don’t need your phone number,” you say. “I need to talk.”

Your response seems to give Gojo pause. Did you somehow manage to get through to him? No way. Your suspicions are all but confirmed when he gives you that familiar apologetic smile.

“Like, I said, I’m sort of in the middle of something, but…” Gojo reaches into his pockets and rummages around until one hand fishes out a folded up piece of paper. The other hand keeps digging around in his pocket and when Gojo seems to give up on whatever he’s looking for, he turns his attention back to you. “Got a pen?”

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

“I do, but…” You trail off, unsure why he’s asking.

He holds out his hand waiting for you to just hand him the pen. You still don’t get it, but you reach into your bag’s front pocket and pull out the pen and hand it to him. Gojo looks almost like an excited child when he takes it from you, quickly scribbling something onto his paper before shoving it and your pen back into your hand.

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

“If you change your mind later, just give me a call!” he tells you cheerily. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while!”

You gawk at him. He cannot be serious. You literally just told him that you didn’t need it and yet he still gave it to you. He must want you to contact him later, but you can’t even begin to understand why. It can’t have been something you said or did, right? Unless, he’s actually—

“Later!” Gojo’s voice cuts through your thoughts and you notice him walking off with a wave.

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

You crush the receipt in your hand and rush after him. Despite the crowd, Gojo seems to move through the people with ease and it almost seems like they are yielding to him naturally. It’s good for you. Makes him easier to chase.

“Wait!” you yell, but Gojo doesn’t even look back. Bastard. Your muscles strain as you try to run faster. You know you won’t be able to grab him if you get to him, but there has to still be something you can do to stop him. Circle around him? Cut him off before he—

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

“Wait!” you yell again. “Satoru Gojo, wait!”

He does not even acknowledge you.

You’re almost there though. Almost. If you reach out your hand, then maybe, maybe you can grab him. Something in your head tells you that it’s useless; you’ve never been able to touch him. But, you don’t care, you don’t care because you have to try. You stretch out your hand, desperate and hoping, but just as you do, Gojo effortlessly jumps over the barricade, moving to survey the crowd.

Due to your momentum, you almost collide into the barricade, but you manage to stop yourself. You stare at Satoru Gojo through the glass. He watches the crowd for at most three minutes. Is this just another bust? Is there really nothing you can do? There must be a way you can get his attention. Is it possible to climb over the barricade? No, it’s too high. There’s nothing you can grasp onto or use as footing either.

This fucking sucks.

Another minute or two and Gojo will be on the move again, and there will be no way you can follow, no way you can get his attention. You press your hands against the glass, pushing against it. Naturally, it doesn’t budge. Why would it? If only you could get it out of the way. If only you could break it. This stupid barricade is the only thing between you and Satoru Gojo and there’s no way you can climb it, but if only you could break it.

If only you could fucking break it.

Suddenly, the glass feels warm. Satoru Gojo’s image starts to look a little distorted as the warmth beneath your fingers grows. Something is happening. The glass starts to vibrate and shake. Violently. The tremors grow stronger and stronger. You should stop. You should back away.

You don’t.

The barricade starts to crack and fracture and soon the sound of shattering glass resounds throughout the entire room. Everyone starts screaming. No one knows what’s going on— not even you. But you don’t care. It’s gone. The barricade is gone.

You take a step forward, toward Satoru Gojo. He’s on a beam that’s about a two meter drop from where you’re standing. That’s fine. That’s okay. You can make it. You have to. Without a second thought, you jump—

And you land on the beam. You look up and Satoru Gojo’s attention is back on you. He’s finally, finally turned toward you, face twisted into an expression you can’t decipher or even comprehend, but—

Something’s wrong; your world is turning on its axis, but—

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are causing a commotion.

“Shit! Fuck!” you curse loudly. The people near you start to shift away but you barely notice; you don’t really care.

You were so close, so fucking close and yet… yet here you are again. It’s quarter past eight and you are back on the goddamn platform. You don’t know what happened; you remember falling and thinking you were going to die, but you are absolutely certain that, once again, this time, you didn’t die.

Is Satoru Gojo at fault again? Did he do something? Like he did all those other times you looped without dying? When you think about it more, you don’t think so. You don’t know what happened; all you know is that you tried to get to him, but you slipped.

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

You still don’t understand why you looped, but there’s not much you can do about it now; it’s not like you can go back anymore. It just sucks, because you think he might have actually listened if you’d talked to him.

Or he would have come after you for… whatever happened with the barricade. It could have been taken as an attack on the crowd… But if he thought you were doing that, then why would he catch you?

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

The only problem is that you don’t know how you managed to shatter the barricade. You think about it as you make your way up to where you’ll find Satoru Gojo. There is the possibility that it wasn’t you and something else happened to it instead, but that feels way too coincidental. It had to be you. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You just can’t figure out how you did it outside of wanting, wishing, praying for the barricade to break. It’s not like you have supernatural powers like Satoru Gojo and his enemies.

Despite your mind being completely and wholly occupied by trying to figure out how in the world you managed to break through that barricade, you still manage to make it to the second basement floor of Shibuya Hikarie by 8:25PM— a brand new record. Satoru Gojo doesn’t show up until around 8:34PM, so that gives you almost ten minutes to try and figure out what you need to do to try and replicate shattering the glass barricade again.

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

The thought that maybe you’re mistaken flashes in your mind before it’s quickly dismissed; there’s no way you’d mistake anyone else for him. There is absolutely no denying it: that is Satoru Gojo. Bewildered, you double check the time on your phone. Maybe you misread it and you’re actually late but sure enough you read it right— Satoru Gojo is here early.

What the hell is going on?

Of the thousands of times you have experienced this night, this hell, this sort of thing has never happened before. Everything happens at a specific time, as if adhering to an unseen schedule. It’s likely that what happened in your last iteration did delay Satoru Gojo’s arrival onto the platform, but other than that there has never been a deviation to the time table.

And yet, here Satoru Gojo is, nine minutes early now.

You realize that that’s not the only thing that’s strange: he’s not moving. In previous rounds, when you encounter Gojo here, he’s walking to the lookout spot beyond the barricade. But, right now, he’s just standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. It almost looks like he's waiting for something.

Or someone.

This unexpected turn of events has you rooted to the spot. You’re not sure what you should do. No. This shouldn’t change anything. You need to talk to him. As concerning as a change like this is, the extra time it gives you should be a good thing. Despite knowing that, your feet are still firmly planted to the ground.

The crowd shifts and you see Satoru Gojo start to move. Toward the barricade? No. He’s not heading in his usual direction, rather he’s—

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is absolutely mind numbing.

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

You try to answer but no words come out of your mouth. Are you dreaming? You have to be, right? There's no way that this is actually happening. Could it be that, after thousands of loops, you’ve finally lost it? Your mind shattering along with the glass of the barricade at the end of the last one?

Gojo tilts his head, indicating that he's still waiting for an answer. When you open your mouth, at first, nothing comes out, the words stuck in your throat. You force them out, your voice cracking, “...how did you know?”

He smiles, looking almost mischievous as he reaches up and lightly taps the side of his head. “I remembered, of course!”

All you can do is stare at Satoru Gojo. He remembered? How is that possible? From his perspective, this is the first time you’ve met and while it shouldn’t be possible for him to remember there’s something in your mind that’s keeping you from completely dismissing the possibility.

Gojo laughs, “I take it from the look on your face that you’re not used to this sort of thing happening. Is this the first time?”

“No.” The fact that the word is out of your mouth before you can even really think about it surprises you and you really have to think. Your face scrunches together as you try to remember. Is this really not the first time? Then, the memories assault you, overlapping as they replay simultaneously in your head— a woman in a yellow and white magical girl costume— begging you for help as she burns to death— smiling as she tells you she made her costume herself. “...it happened just once a long time ago.”

“‘A long time ago,’ huh. Sounds like you've been at this for a while now.”

“...unfortunately.”

Gojo hums. “So when you said you didn’t need my phone number…”

“You’d already given it to me a few times,” you say, figuring that’s where this conversation is going.

“Really now?”

Does he not believe you? Or is he just being an ass? You’re not sure, but since you had taken the liberty of memorizing Satoru Gojo’s phone number you recite it back to him to prove your point.

Just when you think you may have stunned Gojo into silence he starts to laugh, obviously finding something funny about the fact that you know his cell phone number. “Seems like you've got quite the fascinating technique there.”

Technique? What is he talking about? Your confusion must be plain on your face because he adds, elaborating, “The time travel.”

You continue to stare at him. You don't think you'd consider what you've been going through time travel, because traveling implies moving from point A to point B, but you've been stuck walking in circles at point A for a long time. What really gets you is… “What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“You mean you don’t— oh. I get it; no wonder you’re trapped.”

That does not answer your question in the slightest. “Can you please explain what you're talking about? What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“Right, right… So basically, a technique is like a special sort of power,” he finally explains. “Like I said, your technique seems to be a kind of time travel. Whenever you activate it, your mind is sent back in time.”

What he's saying makes sense, but… “How come you were sent back too?”

He laughs again. “Isn't it obvious? Think back to before— do you remember that I caught you as you were falling?”

You nod slowly. The memory of his arms around you is almost embarrassingly vivid. “...is it because we were touching?”

“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!”

Something about his tone annoys you, but you try to ignore it. He could have just told you rather than make you guess. “How do you know that for sure?”

“Well,” he continues. “You’ve done your little time loop a bunch of times, right? If your technique affected everyone, or even a few people in a select range you would have noticed for sure. And if it affected only just you then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, now would we?”

When you think about it, you do think that the woman in the magical girl costume might have bumped into you before the loop where she remembered.

“That’s honestly just conjecture, but I've got pretty good eyes, so I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Gojo gives you a grin and while you do think that his reasoning is sound enough his confidence is a little grating. More than that, though, you’re glad that this conversation is actually going really well.

“Either way,” he says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like you can control your technique. Usually a person’s technique manifests when they’re a kid, but you seem to be a special case… in fact, I bet your technique activated for the very first time tonight— probably under some pretty extreme circumstances, too.”

“...dying counts as an ‘extreme circumstance,’ right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Or legitimately thinking that you’re gonna die, but it seems like your body has been unconsciously activating your technique as a sort of defense mechanism. Which is why you’re trapped.”

“So, if I could control it I’d be able to make it out of this time loop.”

“Yeah, but in this case it probably wouldn’t end very well for you,” he points out with a chuckle. “It’s not like you actually want to die, right? I mean, if you did, then your technique wouldn’t even activate in the first place.”

You don’t; what you want is for this night to finally end. To be free from the endless cycle of dying over and over again and again. You don’t think death is quite the answer; even if you were to learn how to control this supposed technique of yours, there’s no guarantee that you would just unconsciously activate it when the grim reaper comes knocking on your door. No, the answer is…

“Anyway!” Gojo’s cheery voice cuts through your thoughts. “I highly doubt that you’re the type that makes a habit of jumping off ledges for the funsies, so the fact that you’ve been dying tells me that some pretty gruesome stuff is about to go down, so, tell me what happens tonight.”

The sudden drop of his voice sends a shiver running down your spine. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen how serious Gojo can get, the sudden shift in demeanor would probably freak you out a bit, but it doesn’t. This is the Satoru Gojo you’re familiar with.

You do have one concern though. “That… won’t create a time paradox or anything, will it?”

“Nah,” Gojo shrugs. “You wouldn’t cause one with the way your technique works, besides, if you’ve only been going back at most an hour or two in time it’s hard to believe you’d be making a really big impact… unless you really believe in the butterfly effect.”

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

“...okay.”

Anxiety is still gripping at you, but you try to dispel it, taking a deep breath before beginning your explanation. For the sake of brevity, it’s probably best that you’re as concise as possible. There isn’t much need to really get into the nitty gritty of things unless he asks specifically.

Naturally, you begin with his arrival onto the platform and how soon after a fight breaks out and how the crowd is unfortunate enough to be involved. Gojo’s expression is passive for the most part, but he does crack the faintest hint of a smile when you mention how he manages to eviscerate one of the monsters.

It disappears once you tell him about the arrival of the train. Between the dozens upon dozens of people being dropped onto the platform by those two high school girls and the hoard of monsters disembarking from the train, everything devolves into pandemonium.

“Wait,” Gojo holds a hand up and you pause. This is his first interruption since you started recounting the night’s events for him. “Everyone is able to see the monsters?”

You stare at him. What a weird question. “...yeah?”

His mouth twists and it looks like he’s thinking about something. You can’t even begin to imagine what. Finally, he comments, “Makes sense.”

It does not, but you don’t ask him to elaborate. Surely if it was important he would have just done so.

“Anyway, in the middle of all that, you… you do something.” Your brows bunch together as you remember the stance Gojo took, the crazed and desperate look in his eyes, the feeling of your head about to explode. “I don’t know how to describe it. At first, it would just force me to… activate my technique, I guess. But now, it just knocks me out for a few minutes.”

Gojo frowns and he rubs at his chin, obviously thinking about what you’ve said. Eventually, he raises a hand and bends his fingers into a familiar gesture. It’s the one that preludes whatever he does on the platform. “Do I do this?”

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

You wait to see if he’ll explain. He doesn’t. Great. Even if he doesn’t think you need to know, it certainly would be nice to. It’s annoying otherwise, but you ignore the feeling and continue. “I can’t tell you what happens when I’m knocked out, but when I come to everyone is basically a zombie and all the monsters from the train are gone. I think you kill them.”

“I probably do,” he says casually. “But what about Volcano Head?”

“...you don't…get a chance to kill him,” you say slowly. Gojo tilts his head, waiting for you to elaborate, but you hesitate. You have to tell him, you know you do, but…

You have seen the interaction so many times and though you don't know the exact nature of the relationship between them, you can tell that seeing Suguru Geto (or rather seeing his body) shook Satoru Gojo to his very core.

There's no doubt in your mind that he will not take this news well.

“Come on now,” Gojo's tone is light-hearted, unaware. “Don't keep me in suspense here.”

It's as if you're withholding the punchline to a joke. In a way, you suppose you are, but you don't think he's going to find it funny.

You take a deep breath. You need to tell him. The worst thing that could happen is that he doesn't believe you, but if that's the case… you'll probably just end up repeating this all again until you find a loop where he does.

Having made it this far, you'd like to avoid all that.

“Before you can get Volcano Head you get restrained by something called the prison realm,” you say slowly, “by someone calling themselves… Suguru Geto.”

The second the name leaves your mouth, there is a clear and obvious shift in the air. Gone is Gojo’s laid-back and frivolous demeanor, replaced with something more somber and almost frightening. The tension grows more and more palpable to the point that you think it might almost choke you.

You almost wish that it would.

“You can’t be serious,” Gojo finally says, once your words have fully sunk in.

“I—” You start to speak, but come to an abrupt stop when you see him shove his hand into his pocket to yank out his phone of all things.

The both of you know full well that there’s no reception here, but you don’t think that he’s planning on making any calls. Gojo scrolls and scrolls on his phone before he stops and shoves the screen in your face. It shows a picture of three people— a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth, a younger, happier version of Gojo sporting a pair of round sunglasses and—

“When you say ‘Geto’ is this who you’re referring to?” Gojo demands, using his other hand to point at the third person in the frame— a handsome young man with long dark hair pulled up into a bun.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s impossible. It can’t be him,” Gojo interrupts, his voice firm, cold even. “He’s dead.”

There’s a note of finality in his words that is definitely meant to leave no room for argument. It doesn’t stop you, though. Instead, you glare at Gojo’s stupid blindfold and say, “...being dead doesn’t mean a damn thing! I’ve died hundreds of times and yet I’m still fucking here, but—”

“Your situation is different,” he interjects, the temperature of his tone hiking up, his words like heated hissing. “I killed him almost a year ago. There's no way—”

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

The air between you both is silent as the grave. Though you can't see it, you can feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on you. He’s definitely having second thoughts about everything you’ve said so far. There’s a chance he might even think you’re his enemy now. You stare him down though, refusing to look away. You’ve made it this far, you can’t— you won’t back down.

“...you’re not lying, are you.” Gojo’s words are more of a statement than a question. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows the answer, and yet he’s still asking. You wonder if maybe he’s clinging onto some vain hope that maybe, just maybe this all a sick, cruel joke that’s gone way too far.

“I’m not.”

Gojo holds your gaze for a second longer before he lets out a curse. “Fuck!”

“...I’m sorry,” you say quietly, mostly because it feels like the most correct thing to say at this moment. You don’t know the whole story, but it seems like they were close. If so, then it must have hurt Gojo a lot to have killed him, and must hurt even more to know that someone is desecrating the body. You hate that you, a complete and utter stranger, happened to be the person to tell him, but…

It had to be done, for the sake of getting past this unending night, it had to be done.

Gojo runs a hand through his hair and lets out a ragged sigh. “Okay. What happens after that?”

You give him a rundown of what follows; he gets sealed, the monsters wake up and all but ‘Geto’ leave in search of their next target. When you mention the high school girls demanding the brain give Geto’s body back, Gojo snorts loudly.

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

You nod in agreement. It was clear to you that the brain parasite has no intent on giving it up any time soon. “After they leave, he… talks to me.”

“Probably couldn't ignore all that cursed energy you have,” Gojo remarks offhandedly.

You stare at him, expression twisted in a way that shows that you have absolutely no clue what that means. It should be fine for you to ask this one question; it actually concerns you after all. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, though… probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?”

You give him a pointed glare and all Gojo does is laugh.

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“...Like in a video game?”

“Exactly!” Then, Gojo tilts his head, clearly thinking. You don't bother asking; you don't feel like he'll explain.

“He does ask me if I'm a sorcerer, whatever that is. Is that why?”

“Probably. Ordinary people don't have even a fraction of the energy you're packing.”

‘Ordinary people’ he says as if you’re not an ordinary person who got caught up in all this supernatural sorcery bullshit. Or at least you were, but if the time loops are really a product of your own doing…

“Does he kill you when you answer?” Gojo asks to get the conversation back on track.

“Not right away. What happens next kind of varies,” you answer. “He usually lets me have a question or two before he kills me; I've asked him a couple different things.”

“Really taking advantage, aren’t you?” Gojo says and you're not sure what to make of his tone. Is he mocking you or is he easing back into that laid-back persona of his?

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

He’s definitely gone back to acting almost completely unserious— all signs of his earlier agitation are nearly gone.

“So what did you learn?”

“Well, the prison realm only holds one occupant. Once they’re sealed, time stops for them and the only way out is if the bearer unseals them or if they choose to kill themselves.”

“I see… And what about our body jacker?”

“He didn’t go into detail but he said something about… striving toward the evolution of mankind?” You frown a little at the memory. He didn’t explain further because he said that you wouldn’t understand.

“Huh. Interesting. Wonder how he was gonna go about doing that.”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine you'd like it since he goes out of his way to seal you into that box,” you say. “Said you’d get in the way because you’re too strong.”

Gojo shrugs his shoulders and grins a little. Cocky. “Well, I am the strongest sorcerer around, you know.”

You would think him overconfident if you hadn't seen the magnitude of his strength first hand.

“Anyway, that's as far as I ever go. When he's decided he’s done talking to me, he kills me and I loop back.”

“So, in short, what you want help with is getting past that point, right?”

“More or less.”

“And all I have to do is avoid getting caught by the prison realm?”

You nod.

“What’s it look like?” he asks. “A big cage with a bunch of metal bars?”

Now that you think about it, you haven’t woken up early enough to see it before it traps him, but you can’t imagine it looks that much different. “No.. It’s a small box with eyes… It gets big enough to fit you in it, though.”

“Huh.” He stretches his arms out above his head as if he’s trying to emphasize how large he actually is and shoots you a grin. “Should be easy enough then. I bet our body snatcher used the shock of seeing Suguru to trap me but since I'll see it coming, avoiding it'll be a piece of cake.”

Gojo makes it sound so easy, and maybe it really is as simple as that, but you can't help but be worried still.

“Don't tell me you don't think I can do it,” he says, tilting his head.

“It's not that,” you admit. “I'm just concerned I might die before we can get to that point.”

Truthfully, since you know that will just result in another loop you're less concerned with dying itself and more worried about losing the progress you've made in convincing Gojo to help you. Even though it's been clearly proven you can loop him as well, there's no guarantee you'll be able to make the physical contact needed to do it upon death.

“You've made it pretty far on your own, though, right?”

“Yeah, but… I’ve messed up plenty of times.” More than you can even count. “There's also the possibility that taking the time to talk to you might have thrown things out of whack.”

Speaking of time, you check your phone. It's 8:39PM. You curse.

Gojo leans over to check your phone. “Let me guess, I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.”

“Yeah, this is when you’re descending down onto the platform.”

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

That earns Gojo a glare from you, but he just laughs it off. “I doubt being a few minutes late is going to make a big difference.”

You certainly hope so.

“Don't worry,” Gojo says and you notice he's using that tone from earlier. “You won't die.”

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can.

“I'll protect you.”

You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

That catches you a little off guard. You're willing to admit he's hot, but surely he must be joking. “How could you even think of something like that at a time like this?”

Gojo laughs again. “Well, since someone is so worried about their time table being all messed up, I better head down there; can’t keep Volcano Head and friends waiting, right?”

You blink. Is that it? “Wait, shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

“Isn’t the plan for me to not get caught in the prison realm?”

Yes, but… “But what about me? Is there anything I can do?”

Gojo stares at you, or at least you think he does. “...I don’t know, is there?”

You’ve seen the encounter between Satoru Gojo and those monsters so many times and you try to picture a version of it where you intervene and… all you can see is yourself getting in his way. You’re no fighter, no… sorcerer, or whatever he is, you’re just some ordinary person that was unfortunate enough to get all caught up in this mess. The most you can probably do is kick the prison realm out of the way when the time comes, but otherwise… “...no, I guess not.”

His expression turns sympathetic. “You’ve done plenty by telling me everything that happens. So just wait up here, and let me handle the monsters.”

You almost nod. Almost. But then you remember what transpires up here above the platform. You know it sounds safer up here where you’re less likely to get involved in the carnage, but… “Wait, no, if I stay up here then I’ll fall to my death when those girls—”

Gojo laughs, interrupting you. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

“I…” It’s hard to. After everything you’ve gone through it’s hard to trust in anything, to believe in anything. Even though you’ve made it this far this time, the worry that something will go wrong and that you’ll have to do it all again still lurks in the back of your mind.

Despite all that, you want to believe.

You want to believe that you can make it past this unending night, that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll no longer be October 31, 2018. And the first step towards that is trusting in Satoru Gojo.

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

Gojo chuckles then asks, “Anything else before I head off?”

You start to ask if there’s anything you should say, in case things don’t work out, but you stop yourself. You’re choosing to trust him, to believe in him— you can figure out that stuff later if things end up going south after all. So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

For a split second, Gojo looks almost surprised, but then he laughs again, beaming widely at you. He starts to move past you and reaches out to give you what you think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder and then he’s off. You turn to watch him go, the crowd, once again, parting almost naturally for him.

When he reaches the barricade, he pauses, raising his hand as if he’s giving you one last wave. Then he jumps over it onto his little perch and then less than a minute later he’s gone, descending to the platform below.

Now, all you can do is wait.

You check your phone again and it’s 8:44PM. If you remember correctly, the high school girls start threatening everyone right before 9PM. With Gojo’s arrival being shifted back almost five minutes, does that mean that they’ll be shifted back too? It would make sense, but you’re not too sure.

Out of habit, you keep checking your phone and at nearly 9PM, you hear the shrill voice of one of the girls over the crowd, commanding everyone to do what she says, her partner stringing up bodies until everyone listens. Everything plays out just as you remember it, which is mildly comforting, though you know that the events that happen up here are more or less independent from what happens below.

Surely, just as Gojo said, a few minutes aren’t going to change anything, but—

No.

You agreed to trust him. To trust that everything would be fine.

When the girls start to demand that as many people as possible climb onto the roots and vines covering the atrium your heart starts to hammer in your chest. In just a few minutes, all the foliage will disintegrate beneath you, and you and everyone else here will fall into the abyss below.

You are afraid.

There isn’t a single loop where you’ve really survived this fall. If you don’t die in midair, you die right after landing. It’s a death trap, and that’s why you’ve stopped coming up here. There’s a part of you, the part that knows what’s about to happen, that wants to try and run back onto stable footing. But you can’t, because you know if you do then the girls will kill you for sure; you have to stay.

It’ll be fine, you tell yourself, it’ll be okay.

You just have to trust Gojo.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You hear the announcement faintly below you. It’s almost time. You brace yourself and try to stay calm. Gojo said he would protect you, that you wouldn’t die. You don’t know how he intends to keep that promise, but all you can do is believe in his words.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

The vines and roots start to crack and the ground beneath you starts to give out. You squeeze your eyes shut as that sickening weightless feeling overtakes you. It occurs to you that this is actually quite literally a trust fall— will Satoru Gojo really be able to catch you?

As you fall, you realize almost instantly that something is different.

You’ve experienced this fall dozens of times and so, even though it has been a while since you’ve gone this route, you are very familiar with what it feels like. Something is different. You’re falling faster. The trajectory is changing. It’s like some force, other than gravity, is pulling at you.

Is this Gojo’s doing?

Just as your body collides with the ground you hear the sounds of mutilating flesh meld with the screams surrounding you. Blood and severed limbs litter the ground, but you try to ignore it. You need to focus on your own survival right now. Quickly, you scramble to your feet scan the area around you; you’re on the platform right now and right in front of you is—

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

His back is turned to you, his focus currently elsewhere. Looking at him you realize you recognize this scene, though it’s much closer and at a different angle. He’s about to do that thing, that thing that knocks you out.

Something in you tells you to move closer to him, after all, he used his mysterious powers to deliberately bring you closer to him, right? You rush toward him and as you do something he said earlier pops up in your mind.

Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!

Whatever he’s about to do… Is that his ‘technique?’ And if it is, would it work the same way as yours? If so, there’s only one way to find out: you need to touch him. You dodge monsters and other people as you run toward Satoru Gojo and—

A monster still manages to grab you, its large hands wrapping around your wrist. You try and yank it free, but it's much stronger than you are.

“Shit!” you hiss as the monster starts to pull you toward it and away from Gojo. What do you do? Your other hand is still free, should you try to punch it in the face? Or—

Before you can do anything, something blasts the monster’s head clean off. Shocked, you stare as the monster’s body slumps onto the ground, its grip loosening on you instantly. You whip your head around to find that while Gojo still has his back to you, his arm is bent back in your direction, his palm open as if he fired some invisible blast from it.

Then you feel it again, something pulling at you, but this time it's more forceful. Your body is yanked toward Gojo and the second you feel his hand press against you, you see him make that gesture with his other hand.

“Domain Expansion,” he whispers in a strained voice. “Infinite Void!”

Something happens and your vision flashes for a fraction of a second. And then—

The room is enveloped in an eerie stillness; all the violence and bloodshed coming to an abrupt stop. Monsters and humans alike stand like the living dead, unconscious with their eyes wide open as if they are staring into an infinite abyss. You recognize this scene, you’re familiar with it because it’s similar to the one you wake up to after being hit by Gojo’s ‘domain expansion.’ The only difference is the presence of the monsters, who are all but gone when you regain consciousness.

The pressure from Gojo’s hand is gone and he says to you, his voice still low. “If you’re squeamish when it comes to blood and gore, it might be best for you to close your eyes.”

And then he’s gone.

You do not take his advice. You do not close your eyes. How many loops were you unable to witness what’s about to unfold? A few hundred? A few thousand? And if all goes to plan, then you will never get another chance again: there’s no way you could possibly look away.

And what you see unfold before you is that Satoru Gojo was right.

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

It’s not as if you really had any doubt, after all, it seemed like the most logical conclusion to come to and yet…

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

All the violence resumes and the platform is engulfed in the sounds of carnage and slaughter once more. The lack of terrified screams makes everything more disconcerting— without them, all you can hear is the squelching echo of mangled flesh and blood splattering all over the place. You can’t really see him, but you can tell where Satoru Gojo is in the crowd as he leaves dozens upon dozens of decapitated heads soaring in his wake. Once or twice, he leaps out of the crowd and even from where you stand you can see the crazed glow of his inhumanly blue eyes as he massacres monster after monster.

Even though you don’t think you have anything to be scared of, you are still terrified: Satoru Gojo is no longer a man, but violence incarnate. You want to move closer to where Gojo gets trapped, but you’re afraid to. What if you get in his way? What if he kills you by accident?

Dying again when you’ve made it this far is definitely not ideal, but isn’t being killed by Gojo the best case scenario? Because then the two of you would probably loop together again and—

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

It’s hard to believe when he’s in the middle of a massacre, slaughtering monsters left and right, but you remind yourself yet again that you have to believe in him.

You take a deep breath and start moving, taking care to keep an eye on where Gojo is. You don’t know how long this is supposed to take, but you do know where he ends up when he’s just about done. The closer he gets to that spot, the sooner the prison realm will be unleashed upon him.

There’s a small group of zombified people nearby and you settle yourself among them. It’s not super close, but you think it's close enough that you'd be able to run over and kick the box away from Gojo if you have to. You do a quick survey to see if you can spot the body snatcher, but he's nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hasn't noticed you moving around, or, if he has, he's more concerned with Gojo than he is with you. Given that you always seem to be the last thing he acknowledges, you'd like to think that he doesn't consider you a threat.

Which you're not, not really anyway.

The sounds of slaughter start to die down and you look to see Gojo approaching the spot where he gets caught. He looks beat, his eyes unfocused and his breathing heavy. You do another quick scan around him and notice a small box a few meters away from him, wrapped in what looks like paper charms or seals or whatever they're called. That has to be the prison realm— though it looks different than what you saw before. Gojo seems to notice it right after you do, his gaze honing in on it, examining it with some measure of bewilderment. Then, some invisible force slices through all the paper seals covering the box and it expands, the corners of the box floating up in midair to reveal what looks like a large sheet of dark red flesh with a large bloodshot eye stapled to the middle.

Disgusting.

If Gojo didn’t realize before, he seems to now, because he takes a step back, away from the grotesque thing. Good, good—

“Hey! Satoru!” Your blood runs cold at the sound of the body snatcher’s voice. He emerges from the crowd, smiling widely as he gives Gojo a wave. “Long time no see!”

Satoru Gojo’s entire body goes rigid. Shit. You told him, you warned him about what was going to happen, who he was going to see, but was that not enough? It’s possible that no amount of warning would have been enough to mentally prepare Satoru Gojo for the sight of the man he said he killed a year ago. After all, you know that there’s a stark difference between knowing and seeing. Even then, if Gojo doesn’t gather his wits and move now then he’s going to get caught and you can’t let that happen.

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

You scramble out from your hiding spot in the crowd and throw yourself in between Satoru Gojo and the prison realm. There’s no way you can kick it away from him now, not when it’s in this form, but maybe, if you get between them you can at least keep it from capturing him.

The eye quivers erratically, as it flits from Gojo to you. Every hair on your body stands on end as it watches you, the pupil dilating and contracting uncontrollably. You can’t look away from it, your own gaze fixed to your image reflected in the black abyss of the pupil. Something in the back of your mind tells you to stop, to get away, it’s dangerous, but you keep your feet firmly planted to the ground.

A second, or maybe even a minute passes and the prison realm shifts, its fleshy form morphing to restrain you.

The body jacker looks at you, his frown tinged with disgust. “Don’t you think you’re being rather rude by butting into what could have been a touching reunion?”

You scowl. Is he still trying to play the role of Suguru Geto?

He sighs and looks past you at Gojo. “Satoru, I thought bringing lesser sorcerers to fight alongside you was more trouble than it was worth?”

You hear Gojo snort from behind you, “It is… but this person here isn’t a sorcerer… Just like you aren’t Suguru Geto.”

The faker almost pouts and presses his hand to his chest as if Gojo's words have wounded him. “Satoru, I’m hurt, how could you say such a thing to your best friend?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Gojo snarls. “You can’t fucking fool me. You might be in Suguru’s body but I know with all my heart and soul that you’re not him.”

The corpse snatcher stares at Gojo, expression blank before he sighs once more. Then, his gaze shifts back to you, his eyes narrowed as he looks at you with sheer disdain. It feels as if you’ve been drenched in ice cold water. There's no smile this time but you already know what's going to happen.

He’s going to kill you.

“I intended to deal with you later since you seemed harmless enough,” he says, raising a hand to summon a monster— the same one he always uses to end your life. “But you’re in the way. So, I think it’s for the best if I just get rid of you right now.”

Instinctively, you try to take a step back but the prison realm’s restraints keep you in place. Not that it would have mattered much, even in the loops where you’ve tried to escape the faker’s monster, it still kills you, too fast and too agile for an ordinary human like you to avoid. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the monster to kill you. At least, it’s always painless.

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

Before you is the monster, wiggling and writhing only mere centimeters from your face. It gurgles and snarls at you, desperate to fulfill its master’s wishes and kill you but it doesn’t move any closer. You stare at it with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.

Someone behind you clicks their tongue— Gojo. You try to turn your head to look at him, but your movements are too limited, the most you can do is turn your head to the side. The sounds the monster is making start to change, sounding more frenzied, almost as if it’s in pain, and you flit your eyes in its direction just in time to see its entire body explode. The monster's guts and bright purple blood fly off in every direction, getting on the floor, the ceiling, the zombified bodies of the people unfortunate enough to be nearby, but not on you.

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

He steps in front of you, half turned towards you as he moves in between you and the body snatcher. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he loudly says, “Did you really forget about me?”

You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the body snatcher.

Past him, the imposter scowls, raising his hand once more, probably to summon even more monsters, but Gojo’s quicker, and it almost looks like his eyes are glowing even brighter, the blue looking almost white as he whips his head in the faker’s direction. The sound of mangling flesh and breaking bones echoes throughout the room as Gojo, using that mysterious power of his, seems to break the faker’s arm.

The body snatcher hisses loudly and despite the fact that his face is twisted in very obvious pain, he tries to shoot Gojo a mocking smile. “Do you really think you can kill your best friend again?”

“I already told you,” Gojo turns to fully face the monster inhabiting Geto’s corpse. He tilts his head a little to the side and some force starts to squeeze at the faker’s neck. “You’re not Suguru.”

You hear a loud crack as Gojo telekinetically snaps his neck.

The head rolls onto the ground and you almost look away, but then you notice his eyes still moving, looking around. Is he still alive? Then you remember: the thing possessing Suguru Geto’s body was some kind of parasite. “Gojo! Wait! The brain!”

He reacts almost instantly, head turning and in an instant the skull is crushed and all that remains is red splotch on the ground.

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

Horrified, you watch as it quivers violently before falling to the ground. Then what looks like dozens of black spirits start to erupt from the corpse and the entire room is engulfed with a shrill howling.

What the hell is going on?

“Those must be all the cursed spirits he consumed,” Gojo explains uselessly, voice barely audible over the screaming. “Guess he was empty before.”

You don’t bother asking what he means. There are bigger problems right now. “What do we do?”

“No choice to exorcise them,” he answers plainly.

For him to exorcise them, he means. You both know that there’s not much that you can do. You still can’t move and honestly, you don’t even know if it’s possible to get out of the prison realm’s restraints. Not without dying. And if you die now…

Everything will have been for naught.

You’ll reset time and have to do this all over again— assuming you can even get to this point again.

There has to be something, you just have to think outside the box.

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

“You need to seal me in the prison realm!” you exclaim. He turns to face you fully, looking bewildered and you start to explain as fast as you can. “Those things are going to attack any minute right? I can’t move or try to hide and I can’t expect you to protect me the entire time and if I die then I’ll end up looping time again, but— but, if you seal me in the prison realm then that won’t happen.”

Gojo frowns, looking conflicted. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you didn’t have to?”

He tilts head and you think he’s conceding your point.

“Please,” you beg, staring at him desperately. “We don’t have much time. The other… cursed spirits will wake up soon too!”

You don’t have to explain that you mean Volcano Head and friends.

It takes only a second for Gojo to consider the very few options you have. “...how do you seal it? Do you know?”

“I think so,” you answer. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work but I think that if you say ‘prison realm, gate close’ it should seal me inside.”

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

Gojo nods. “Do you know how to break the seal?”

“I… don’t,” you confess. You never asked, and you don’t think the body snatcher would have told you even if you did. He only told you that it holds one and that…

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

“...you don’t have to break the seal.”

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

You don’t know for sure if it’ll be better, but right here, right now, it seems like the best option.

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

“...fine,” he agrees and you don’t quite know how to feel about it. The howling around you all grows louder. You wonder why the cursed spirits haven’t attacked yet. Maybe Gojo’s power is holding them at bay… for now anyway. You both know that he can’t ignore them forever.

“...before I do, though, mind if I ask you just one thing?”

You blink. “Not sure what I can do for you in this state…”

He laughs. “I just want to know your name.”

What an odd request. Though, now that you think about it, you don’t think that during this loop or any other loop really, you’ve ever told him your name. It only seems fair to tell him, since you’ve known his for longer than he’s known of your existence.

You tell him your name.

He nods, looking as if he’s committing to memory. Probably easier to remember than his phone number. “Any last words?”

You try to think of something. Nothing comes to mind and you just shake your head.

Gojo takes a deep breath, “Alrighty then… Prison realm, gate close.”

Just as it did the many times you’ve seen Satoru Gojo sealed away, the boxes and restraints around you vibrate a little before they start to close around you, growing large enough to fit your body as they approach.

You won’t see it, but once you’re inside the box will shrink and become small enough to fit in the palm of someone’s hand.

Will it be quiet inside?

In your final seconds, some words, some last words come to mind, and you say them, hoping that he hears them in time. “Thank you, Satoru Gojo.”

You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

It’s November 30, 2018— morning on the campus of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Satoru Gojo strides through the school grounds, casually tossing a small silver box with eerie blue eyes known as the prison realm up and down in his grasp. Walking at his side is Shoko Ieiri, a pretty woman who’s been unfortunate enough to have been Satoru’s friend since high school.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shoko asks, twirling a few strands of her long brown hair.

“What do you mean?” Satoru responds nonchalantly. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

Shoko hums in clear dissent, but doesn’t say anything more. Even she knows better than to try and waste her time trying to argue with Satoru. “I’m just worried about their mental state. Didn’t you say that time doesn’t flow in the box?”

“I’d be worried if it was some normal person,” Satoru says. “But after what they’ve gone through I think they’ll be fine.”

“...well, if you say so.”

The two arrive at their destination: the largest training area on the Jujutsu High grounds. Satoru places the prison realm at the center and takes a few steps back with Shoko standing behind him, in case anything happens.

He doesn’t think it will, but it’s always good to take at least a few precautions.

“Gojo, are you sure we should be doing this?” Shoko asks again. “Didn’t they want to remain in the box?”

“Of course I am,” Satoru says with his usual air of confidence before looking back at the prison realm nestled in the grass. He grins and then—

“Prison realm, gate open.”

if you made it this far. thank you. it's my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride.

[thecontumacious]

can you make a mysta x streamer!gn!reader like the one you did with vox? except this time they're doing a cooking simulator stream collab and reader can cook so they're trying to teach mysta how to cook :] i'm an avid mysta fan and i really love your headcanons <3 keep up the great work, author-chan!

Infuriating

pairing: Mysta Rias x Streamer!GN!Reader

a/n: as a person who can cook decent meals myself AND a perfectionist to measurements, that cooking stream was painful to watch, man 💀 also, anon, i don't wanna say reader is exactly 'teaching' in this instance. let's just say that reader is teaching mysta the hard way--

y’all know the deal

you were a nijisanji streamer, particularly debuting earlier than mysta

your first meeting on stream officially was as a host and him debuting

and let’s just say things fell into place naturally after you decided to drop by mysta’s chat~

especially for mysta

this man adored your charm and always found himself enjoying his time more when you dropped by the chats

at that point, you and mysta talked a lot over discord and he always, always tried to invite you for any possible collabs

the chat thinks mysta is obviously down bad for you

“hi y/n!”

“y/n’s here???? hi y/n—wait, YOU GUYS TRICKED ME THEY'RE NOT HERE FUCK YOU GUYS” 凸(｀⌒´メ)凸

the chat has so much fun

[COOKING SIMULATOR] 🔴 mysta cooks for y/n and chat [NIJISANJI EN | Mysta Rias]

“aight mysta, i’m counting on you not to poison me, kay?” you giggle

mysta exclaims, “i’m not poisoning anyone! in fact i haven’t poisoned anyone!”

“it’s a miracle that hasn’t happened too”

“oh fuck you, y/n”

but despite this, mysta enjoys your company

he is well aware of his limitations in the culinary world and your actual decent skills in it

why does he (a terrible chef) think streaming cooking simulator with you (a decent chef) would be a good idea for himself, hm?

to mysta, it’s not rly about impressing okay maybe just a bit hush but he’s looking forward to imbedding the memory of it

it’ll probably end in chaos but if it has made you laugh, mysta won’t mind

“alright, what should we start with y/n? cakes and cookies or pizza?“

“ooh dessert or pizza… personally, i’d like to see you try cakes and cookies first, mysta.”

“cakes and cookies? chat what’d you think?”

“cakes and cookies probably”

mysta frowns, “whys that?”

“bcs it’s relatively harder,” you begin to wheeze

“WHAT CHAT IS THAT TRUE OH MY GOD AND THEYRE SAYING THEY WANT CAKES AND COOKIES TOO—CHAT WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SUFFER LIKE THIS”

“you’ll be fine, mysta,” you tell him, still laughing. “mostly.”

“you’re not really on my side either are you????” mysta whines, clicking on the cakes and cookies sim anyway

“i’ll try not to backseat, mkay?”

“you better fucking not. don’t flex your cooking skills on me. do that when vox is around”

but you just couldn't help but itch so much when mysta kept over measuring or doing the technique wrong ;-;

“you know what? it’ll be fine” mysta claims, flour overmeasured by a hundred or so grams

“no it's not mysta, that cake is gonna have too many solids now”

“IT'LL BE FINE!! believe in me for once!” he begins to protest once more, moving on to put in the next ingredient he's going to add too much of again

6:35 minutes of y/n being tortured by mysta’s inability to cook

y/n malds because of mysta’s food

continuation utc!

the gas tank arc 🛢:

“MYSTA DON'T PUT THAT THERE”

“WHAT WHY IT'LL BE FINE”

“EVERY TIME YOU'VE SAID THAT, EVERYTHING’S GONE WRONG”

mysta puts the gas tank on top of the stove anyway, just for the spite of it

“i’m gonna call it chat. if that thing explodes, i’m calling it—“

💥

“oh,” mysta deadpans

“i’m not even gonna say anything💀”

“guys look this looks so good!!” mysta exclaims as he pulls out the finished cake out from the oven, appearing with a surprisingly very decent result

“oh shit wow that does look good,” you comment to which mysta grins at

that camera may not catch it, but he’s very very flustered about getting your compliment(´ω｀*)

he's done something right in his life

“see? see? i can totally do this. okay okay let’s decorate it now! this one’s gonna be for you, y/n.”

“ah- thanks mysta-“

you had to call him out for all the unseiso references tho omfg

tbh mysta was just fishing a reaction from you lol

“mysta we’re in the goddamn kitchen this isn’t the time”

mysta could only giggle unseiso-ly moving on

the fact you call him out and react to it just makes him want to tease you even more hwjshsish

“mYSTA!”

“WHAT” mysta laughs his ass off

you can say that he kinda likes it when you scold him┐(-。ー;)┌

same goes for the pizza arc 🍕

“parme-SAN? what’s parme-SAN?”

you stare at mysta, absolutely baffled

“what’d u call it?”

“par-muh-SAN?”

“mysta it’s par-muh-ZAAN”

“… same thing.”

🧀 😭👎

“cant be surprised from someone who said it as ja-la-pe-no.”

“oh shut the fuck up”

🌶

the banter between you two is just the cutest thing the chat has ever seen, you won’t believe how many clips the clippers have made just you guys arguing over the most stupid things💀💀

“i wonder where food hygiene went,” you sigh upon seeing mysta drop the whole container of dough

“went up my fucking ass,” mysta retorts, casually putting the dough back in and on the counter again as though it hadn’t caught the floor’s bacteria

foodhygiene.file not found

“i’d never eat this pizza. i’d die first before doing that”

“come on it’s not that bad??? the worst outcome is prob like just a stomachache or sumn”

“food poisoning, lawsuits from the customers and probably the shut down of the actual restaurant mysta, that’s the worst outcome.”

“i’m not opening my own restaurant and it's just a game, y/n.”

“that’s not the point mysta—“

hardcore facepalm

“guys what cheeses have you tried? what about you, y/n?” mysta suddenly asks, picking up the mozzarella from the in game pantry

you hum before stating your answer

“huh i see,” he says. “i mean i have tried some cheeses. oh god but please not blue cheese. that’s literal mold. and you think i’d eat it because you’ve seen me eat mold”

“you eating bacteria aside mysta all cheese are mold, you idiot”

“no they’re not???? they’re just like processed milk right? and then like for blue cheese it’s left out for a long time until like mold forms,” mysta argues

you roll your eyes, “goddammit mysta that’s not how cheese making works. they’re all mold”

“well how do you know that?? it’s literally just milk and they add shit to it so it hardens to become cheese”

“exactly. it’s when it becomes cheese is it mold, mysta.”

“tHAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE??? MOLD TAKES LIKE A LONG TIME TO FORM, DOESN'T IT?"

“IT'S BASIC SCIENCE, BIOLOGY MYSTA. OF COURSE IT MAKES SENSE”

“OKAY OKAY DON'T FUCKING YELL AT ME”

“I WOULDN'T IF YOU HADNT BEEN SUCH AN IDIOT”

“ITS NOT MY FAULT CHEESE WORKS WEIRDLY”

“YOU'RE INFURIATING ME WITH YOUR LACK OF FOOD KNOWLEDGE”

“WELL YOU'RE INFURIATING ME WITH HOW FUCKING CUTE YOU ARE”

“YOU—“

wait what the fuck did he just say again

“what’d you say mysta?”

“I'M MAD YOU'RE SO FUCKING CUTE THAT I LIKE YOU SO MUCH AND IT'S MAKING ME SO STRESSED OUT”

even the chat was too stunned to say anything

you sit there, staring at mysta who is quiet, probably just as baffled by what he just sputtered out himself

you honestly… didn’t know what to say????

I MEAN WTF SHOULD YOU BE SAYING ANYWAY MYSTA RIAS HAD A CRUSH ON YOU AND LITERALLY ANNOUNCED IT ON STREAM

(ಠ_ಠ)????????

it’s only when the chat exploded, you had to say something

“m-mysta—“

“ALRIGHT ANYWAY ENOUGH ABOUT CHEESES THIS PIZZA ISN'T GONNA BAKE ITSELF” mysta cuts in, returning to his unfinished pizza and you to your own thoughts

chat wasn’t willing to let it go either, with the overwhelming roll of messages and supas waiting to be given attention by mysta about what he just said

“okay chat, we’re gonna speedrun this pizza okay? okay sauce first!”

how could this guy just move on from what he said like it was nothing???

you just sit there, dazed as though you had woken up from the weirdest dream while mysta continues to decorate his pizza

“wait it says garlic, did we get garlic?” you hear him say again. the chat was asking for your input on the matter too it seems, with how worryingly quiet you were

so you decide to follow mysta’s footsteps and play along with the causality, “no i don’t think we got garlic. go back to the pantry mysta”

mysta’s camera pans around, into the said pantry and quickly cuts up the garlic needed for the pizza, all the while you were unable to comment and the chat buzzing in with chaos

“okay let’s just put this in the rack thing—wait hold on, i can't interact with it,” you turn to the screen and indeed see the game glitching

you breathe a sigh of relief, seeing the open opportunity to take a break and... recollect

“is that a bug? you got bugged?” you inquire, leaning closer to the screen

mysta tries clicking everything on his keyboard and nothing reacts

while for the chat it was upsetting, you were never more glad for a game to bug

with how mysta was looking, he probably was too

“you’re moving tho, are you sure??” you ask again

“no! look! nothing is highlighted! chat i just broke the game,” mysta chuckles, aggressively running around the kitchen. “okay okay so i might have to end the stream now and probably start again after like 10-15 minutes because this is bugged.”

“yeah, you can’t even open the main menu either,” you add in

the chat hasn’t even calmed down from the recent “confession”

“okay chat i’ll see you in 15 minutes aight. im so sorry this happened. y/n thanks for coming too! i haven’t completely made you insane have i?”

“mysta you know fucking well enough how much that tortured me,” you hiss, to which mysta laughs

“okay okay fine i’ll buy you real pizza or something,” he says. “okay chat i’ll see you in a bit. mwah, bye!!!”

and with that, mysta’s screen switches to the ending display, finishing all misery you had to face that day

on the discord call, it’s quiet

and that’s when you realize mysta just went offline

the audacity

“THIS GUY HAS TO GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME” you curse out loud, grabbing hold of your phone to call the said culprit on discord

there was no way he’s gonna run from this. you needed clarification!! why the fuck did he say that??? what the fuck is going on even???

“mysta come on pick up…”

it took a whole killing 30 seconds before your call is answered

“he-hello?” mysta speaks, obviously shy with how he was stuttering

“mysta i-“ you inhale, admittedly nervous as well.

"THAT WAS FUN RIGHT? I ACTUALLY LEARNED SOMETHING FROM YOU!" mysta exclaims, shuffling around in a restless matter. he continues, "OKAY I NEED TO SET UP THE STREAM AGAIN, GOTTA GO NOW--"

“mysta don’t fuck around with me. what was that???? what you said on stream??”

the line is silent again and all you can hear is the erratic beating of your own heart and the shaky breaths of mysta

“alright,” he sighs. he takes a long breath in before saying, “i meant what i said. a-about liking you…”

oh

“i really do think you’re cute and it makes me so mad that you are. i just wanna make you laugh and hang out with you all the time. but i also don’t wanna bother you too much or annoy you with how i game. i’ve always wanted to say i like you but like i said, who the fuck would like me?” mysta’s voice is soft and the chaotic person he usually is online is gone

it’s almost as if you’re opening a different side to this man

“say something. anything,” mysta pleads.

“mysta i… “ warmth envelops your entire face, everything finally settling in. “you fucking idiot, don’t say that kind of shit to me. i-i like you too… you’re pretty fun to be around and i’m always excited when you ask me to collab. don’t just say no one would like you. i would, alright?”

the air hung awkwardly, not a single word spared.

sniffles

eh?

“mysta? are you okay?”

“no shit,” his voice is cracking up and it was very obvious he was breaking down.

your heart wrenches for him, “hey seriously what’s wrong? did i say something wrong?”

“no you idiot, i’m just—“ mysta sniffles again. “i can't believe you actually like me back. you’re just so cool and out of my league—“

“didn't i tell you not to say that kind of shit to me?”

mysta pauses and lets out a chuckle, “sorry.”

you sigh, “look mysta. you are an amazing person. look at how far you’ve come. you have so many good friends, co workers and a great audience! if anything, i thought you wouldn’t like me…”

“oh so we’re degrading ourselves now, hm?” mysta says, and you both laugh

“fuck you that’s not the point.”

“cheese nerd”

“shut the fuck up”

“… hey”

you reply, “hm?”

“i don’t know if you’re okay with this but,” mysta clears his throat once. “i-i don’t know like… are we a thing or something? like dating or whatever?”

“dating or whatever?” you snort, to which mysta begins to whine

“shut up. you get the idea”

your laughter dies down and you answer, “sure. let’s try dating or whatever.”

when you two finally end the call, for the first time, mysta feels like he doesn’t have to go for another sleepless night. he doesn’t feel like he had to miss your presence just as much. with the barrier finally broken between you two, it feels as though the one piece mysta had been looking for all this while is now here in his own two hands.

and he’s going to make sure he’s gonna take care of it the damnest he can.

🧡🧡

later post stream:

mysta rias 🟢: um y/n

mysta rias 🟢: can i ask for help

y/n l/n 🟢: with what?

mysta rias 🟢: i’m hungry and i still don't know how to cook

y/n l/n 🟢: pick up the phone ok

Masterlist!

[stellocchia]

Uhhhh... Motherfucking au where everything's the same but SBI is canon and techno is a person with morals and empathy.

So the 16th was an overreaction and he actually regrets it. He got really swept away with everything in pogtopia and Wilbur egging everything on didn't help. So when he starts his retirement he actually means it and there's no wither arc

He still forgets to tell anyone he's in retirement so the butcher army kinda happens as it did before. He actually willingly follows them back to lmanberg for a trial (he doesn't just immediatelly comply with them of course but no actual battle Takes place)

He gets executed without trial and wether he has the totem or not he doesn't use it. He loses a life, figuring that if he gives them their show of power this whole shitshow is finally gonna be over.

He finds Tommy and like any decent person but especially a brother he takes him in officially. No raccooning needed. He focuses on helping Tommy recover a bit, both physically and mentally while doing his thing and keeping an eye out for lmanberg, if they decide one life wasn't enough.

Hiding from dream and stuff is p much the same

Phil comes back by himself.

They don't exactly have any reason to go to lmanberg so they don't exactly do.

Well. Mostly. They sometimes sneak around especially when dream is there to kinda scout what's going on. It's a compromise. Techno is gonna support him in getting stronger and getting info for his endgoal of getting the disks back and Tommy will hold back for now and be patient.

Butcher army still moves onto dream anyways because... Idk I feel like quackity would've gotten to him anyways like. Why not yknow.

The festival happens and the community House scene is pretty similar

Dream blames it on Tommy, wants the disc tubbo has, Tommy reveals himself.

The whole thing is just hilarious because. Yknow. People didn't know Tommy was alive. So first they thought dream was insane and then Tommy fckin entered the stage. Techno backs him up. Tubbo is pissed. His reasons are pretty different while also being pretty much the same.

Tommy let him think he killed himself and was okay doing so while going after his stupid discs. He's alive so there's the possibility he actually did blow up the community House and give them trouble with dream. Lmanberg and techno aren't cool or anything. After the execution they were just mutually ignoring each other. Lmanberg thinking he was like. Scared or some shit.

Listen. Tubbos just been having a hard time ok.

They still kinda have their shouting match because both have been bottling up shit

Dream gets the disc

Dream announces doomsday

Tommy sides with tubbo

Techno is ok with that. He didn't have an agenda. He's in retirement. He makes it clear though that this means that that's where they part. Techno's taking his retirement very serious. Techno and him had the compromise that techno would help Tommy get ready to get the disks back before releasing him back into the wild. If Tommy gets involved now, this deal ends.

Techno's Not getting involved with this conflict.

Tommy pretends to think for a few seconds but there was never a decision to be made in his mind.

They hug and part ways

Tommy still rallies the people

It still falls apart after he leaves

People are still pissed at him

So doomsday arrives and it goes pretty much the same except. Yknow. No techno or philza.

Dream releases several withers like. One or two hours early because he's a fucking bitch. (Here he actually has wither skulls himself)

And when I say several I mean several

Once he has enough spreading chaos and keeping everyone busy he builds the tnt grid and yeah.

Lmanberg is a crater anyways.

However. Philza (who in this au actually bothered to learn about the country he helped rebuilt and lived in for weeks) went and got all of ghostburs stuff the night before because. Yknow. I want him to a bit more of a good person in this.

Also. Yknow. Friend.

There's still a lot of shit blown up. The minecraft-blade-soot-innit family ain't saints. They got ghostburs shit. That's it.

So afterwards most of the shit goes the same with dream. The scenes on the grid etc etc etc

When Tommy after a long day enters his house there's technoblade and Phil and ghostbur who've been waiting for him to come home after that shitshow. They comfort him, tell him he can always come visit them in the Arctic or even live there with them if he wanted. He declined but thanks them anyways

They spend the night just to make sure he'll be okay.

The next day they go back to the antarctic

Mostly the same stuff as in canon happens

Tommy and Tubbo still get the gear for the fight against dream themselves. Tommy made the decision to do the disc thing without techno during the community House scene and he wants to respect techno by not going back on that. Though he knows if really necessary he could go and barely need to do any convincing for Techno to help him out with some gear

Getting worried about tubbo he doesn't want to chance it but not wanting to put techno on the spot he tries to steal and very similar to canon techno just pretends to be too busy to care.

When they leave techno Phil and ghostbur are also waiting for them though not on the prime path. They're a bit off to the side and them and the duo don't talk. Tommy's already done that with them after he got dreams invitation. Theyre just there to see him go off.

They're not with the saving group but they don't need to be and one of the first things Tommy does after his victory is private message them that he's safe and they won and dreams in prison.

He comes over for dinner the next day to tell them in more detail so they know what's going on and that's about it for season 2

I'm not getting into season 3 now and probably never but a few tidbits about it

Tommy still has to somewhat earn the diamonds for his hotel from philza. The minecraft-blade-soot-innit family might be semi functional but that doesn't mean Phil just gives them money whenever they ask for it. That's not how you raise kids.

Tommy obviously sends them an invite to the hotel opening anyways and techno asks what the VIP perks are

Tubbo and Tommy still have to work through a lot just like in canon. Add to that that tubbo doesn't quite know what to think about Tommy and his family being this close again. On one hand they weren't involved with doomsday like in canon and have just been keeping to themselves since Techno's execution. On the other Techno's behaviour in season 1 is still fresh in his mind and "he was having a rough patch" kind of doesn't just give him closure on that. Like he's not mad. He just doesn't know what to think of it. Cuz like. Techno's not trying to redeem himself or anything. He started his retirement because after getting out of that ravine and the adrenaline fading and just having time to think and realize what happened he realized that he couldn't let himself be controlled by the voices anymore so it's like. Going from full on alcoholic to no alcohol at all ever within a day. And to make that possible he focuses just on his retirement. This isn't about becoming a better person per se it's about not getting so strung up in shit that you tell your younger brother to die while sicking withers on him. He recognizes that he fucked up. He accepted lmanbergs judgement of executing him. Now he just wants his fckin peace. And that's kinda weird to think about for someone in tubbos position. Because. Yeah.

Thinking about Tommy spending time with his family like everything's peachy irks him because. Kinda makes it seem like everything's resolved. Like he's okay with them just having a happy ending despite them not really deserving one. But with time he realizes that Tommy needs them as a support system and that getting worked up about it just isn't worth it.

Uhhhhh and that's about it I think

Ooooh, semi-functional family sbi and clingy duo angst? Love that!

I do wonder how the whole exile debacle would go if they were actual family, especially considering that Phil was in New L'Manburg and therefore knew about the exile and could go visit Tommy freely, same with Techno actually (except for the being in New L'Manburg part), but, like, for him we can pretend he didn't know. Like, would Phil try and go visit Tommy more then once? Or would Dream find a way to keep him away? Maybe make him think he has no right to meddle with Tommy's life just now?

Also I wonder how Ranboo would be involved in all of this. Because if Techno and Phil were not there during Doomsday I doubt they invited him to live with them and I doubt they made the Syndicate, so would Ranboo live with Tuboo? Would he try to act as a sort of mediator for Clingy Duo?

Like, there are so many possibilities for this....

[ynscrazylife]

YES PLS FOR THE CEDRIC X READER WHERE THEYRE BOTH TRIWIZARD CHAMPIONS AND HELP EACH OTHER AND FALL IN LOVE THATS EVERYTHING

The Champions | Chap. 1

Series Summary: Y/N, who transferred to Beauxbâtons in her fifth year, is the Triwizard Champion, not Fleur Delacour. What will happen when Cedric Diggory and her fall for each other? (I’m making Y/N a transfer student because not all readers will be French!)

Chapter 1 Summary: YN has just been chosen as the Beauxbatons Champion, where she meets the lovely Triwizard Champion of Hogwarts.

“And the Beauxbatons champion is . . . Y/N Y/L/N!” Dumbledore announced.

Y/N eyes widened as claps started to echo off the walls. She was excited, sure, but she had watched lots of other students in her school put their name in the Goblet - this was a one in a chance opportunity and it was given to her.

Y/N bit back a smile as she rose from her seat, feeling eyes burning into her as she made strides across the Great Hall, passing the Professors, and going into the back room. Stepping inside, she spotted the Hogwarts Caretaker, the Hogwarts and Durmstrang Champions, and the Headmaster and Headmistress of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.

Immediately, she caught sight of the one Hogwarts Champion in particular. He was tall and cute, with a charming smile and a confident gleam in his eyes. Y/N couldn’t help but feel like she was thirteen-years-old again, gushing over that handsome boy in her year (but this boy was way more handsome than him). 

“Dumbledore will be in here shortly,” the Caretaker announced, breaking the silence.

Everyone in the room nodded, and Y/N gave both of the other Champions a smile to greet them. A couple moments later, though, a figure entered. It wasn’t the Hogwarts Headmaster but it was Harry Potter - the Boy Who Lived. 

Y/N couldn’t help but furrow her eyebrows in confusion - what was he doing here? 

Dumbledore stormed inside to answer their question. “Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” He roared like a true Gryffindor. 

With the sudden outburst surprising Y/N, she stumbled back, and would have tripped if not for the Hogwarts Champion grabbing her arm and steadying her. Butterflies flew through her stomach at his touch, and she froze for a moment before scrambling to regain her composure. “Thanks,” she muttered, watching the adults in the room start to argue. “And, uh, sorry.” 

“No worries,” he said, flashing her a smile with his pearly white teeth. After casting a glance at the commotion, which had been drowned out by Y/N with the boy’s soothing voice, he continued. “I’m Cedric Diggory - Hufflepuff.” 

Despite not knowing what a ‘Hufflepuff’ was, Y/N introduced herself as well. “I’m Y/N Y/LN.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” Cedric said. Hearing him say her name sent a chill down her spine. 

Letting her smile grow, Y/N said, “It’s nice to meet you too, Cedric.” 

They then lapsed into silence, watching what was happening. Y/N hadn't a clue what was going on - but she tried to put the pieces together. Harry Potter was somehow a Champion too? Well, that wasn't fair. Then Hogwarts had double the chance to win. 

Cedric seemed to be thinking the same thing - great minds think alike - for he leaned down and whispered into her ear. “I hope you have some competitive-ness in you, ‘cause you’ll have to work twice as hard.” 

The teasing and playful nature in his voice relaxed Y/N. She suddenly felt at ease with him - she felt comfortable. Realizing that made her pale. 

She was beginning to crush on Cedric. He had the power to make her nervous one moment and relaxed the next. Her heart was pumping in his hands — his control.

And he didn’t even know it. 

“I guess I do. But you need to work twice as hard to be the superior Hogwarts Champion,” Y/N retaliated, a smirk on her face despite the chaos that surrounded them. 

Cedric chuckled, and the mere sound was music to her ears. 

What the hell was happening to her? 

“Not wrong there. You’re feisty, I like it,” Cedric said. 

Merlin’s Beard. Was she in a movie or something? She was teasing and joking with an extremely handsome teenager her age, who just so happened to be the person she was competing against, and she was falling for him. 

This was going to be a rollercoaster of a ride. 

[antiloreolympus]

6 Anti LO Asks

1. i would actually get the idea people look down on the underworld gods bc like yeah theyre scary and unwelcomed, but like its undercut by rachel making them the most desirable and most powerful for?? reasons?? like she wants them to be underdogs while at the same time being the best at everything, which is her issue with persephone too, she also has to be powerless and humble but also the most unique and powerful. she wants us to root for them when they have no actual struggles.

2. i dont take reviews for anything, tbh. the "professional" reviews LO got were all by people who are also at the same printing house, so theyre literally paid to say something nice for marketing even if they dont like it (i work in publishing, we do this all the time), and amazon reviews arent regulated, so of course LO stans will flood it to fluff it up. thats what let's play fans have been doing too for years now too, despite it being wattpad markipiler fanfic.

3. I know comparing characters isn’t right but honestly LO has enough wrong going on I won’t feel bad. Persphone isn’t interesting on her own in LO. A lot of her character is having things happen to her except for flirting with Hades and killing mortals (and maybe running away as a reaction to Zeus). Persphone we are told she is smart, naive, powerful but powerless. Her character literally is whatever RS thinks fits the chapter the best. Persphone has no clear goals other than wanting Hades, what’s her major? What was the next step after college? Do the other gods go to college? Why doesn’t she know what sleeping to the top means but knows so much about flirting with a man who has a gf? What was she suppose to be doing if she never met hades?

Although the other female cast may not be likeable, they do actually do stuff that drives their own character

Minthe may have fallen into a shitty relationship with Hades, but she feels sick about the ring and treats Hades because he doesn’t listen to her. She leads Persphone to the wrong location cause she doesn’t like her. She fights hades (not a good thing but does something to the plot)

Daphne has Persphones background, grew up in the mortal realm. However she’s a lot more interesting. Demeter probably isn’t strict with Daphne, but Daphne is now and influencer with business deals and when forced to Dave Apollo bits and threatens him. And even before with Apollo wanted to find out her own opinions on the guy.

Hecate isn’t a main character but enjoys to be in the plot and leaves the plot as she pleases, she’s support but also seems like there more to her than shown. She likes chaos, gardening, and expanding her knowledge.

Aphrodite, drove the plot with the drugs and car thing, NOT A GOOD THING but actually did something. Was looking for her husband, testing her son may not be the best character but actually leaves marks on the story telling despite not showing up a lot.

Artemis, invites Persphone into her home, has always been this sliver footed hunter, was doing fine before persphone, but also has her own family issues

Demeter fought in a war, has her own morals and ethics when raising a daughter, may have messed up but again actually contributes to the plot

Hera pushes HXP together and apart, has her own interesting drama, seduced Kronos and paid for it gravely, DID have an affair with hades. Not good things but contributions.

Thetis manipulates people

Persphone just doesn’t do much herself in the comic. She didn’t want to go to the party, she didn’t want the job, a lot of the plot is having her having something happen to her. The drugging, the Apollo the offers, Meg offering her clothes even. She doesn’t drive the plot other than flirting with Hades even knowing about Minthe, killing those mortals, and turning Minthe into a plant, but none of those things are even framed as wrong. It’s like even when she does make a “mistake” it doesn’t “count”

4. DID HADES ACTUALLY REALLY HONESTLY SAY ZEUS' RAGE IS MISMANAGED!?!

5. Since we’re talking about self-inserts, hell, I have like 3 characters in my book that can be argued to be my self inserts. But the difference is that while I project onto them plenty, I still remember they are my CHARACTERS, not me. I give them flaws, I write them how I would any other, and I make them suffer consequences when needed. There’s a difference between that and whatever the hell RS is doing with Persephone

-----FP Spoilers-----

6. Not to beat a dead horse but even with Hades saying he misspoke in calling Persephone his wife - considering they arent dating and have only known each other for a short time period, it still sounds weird, right? Like in the newer chapters (I think) Hades and Persephone discuss going on a "first date" after the trial is over which would be fine - except A). It sounds as though even if Persephone gets a punishment (like lets say its a Prometheus treatment kinda thing) that they'll just go behind Zeus' back + authority to go on dates anyway, regardless of punishment or not, and B). Hades calling Persephone his wife indicates that despite not even being on a proper date or even knowing her all that well that he already thinks of her as such, which seems a bit presumptuous considering everything thats been happening.

Also ive seen claims far and between that months have passed if not a year since Persephone went on the run / the beginning of the comic - does anyone have a source for that? (The timeline makes everything confusing).

Also, I was told that the trial doesnt take place in the underworld - that it actually takes place in Olympus?? Anyone got a source? Pls and thanks. 

From OP, not Anon: From the episodes currently on FP, the trial does take place on Olympus. The underworld is in a constant state of darkness and the place where the trial is being held shows it's visibly daytime. Also, it hasn't been months or a time skip. Some people were confused by Hades's wording because he said 'months'. Saying weeks would've been way better and less confusing.

[werewolfcave]

so for the next few arcs of gods below, vul kinda takes a backseat despite arc 3 and 4 having a very heavy focus on the goddess fucking over hollow and lemon respectively, and arc 5's villain literally trying to summon him and convince him to end the world again for funsies. he's kinda dealing with the fact that hes kinda sorta realizing his marriage isnt exactly good or healthy for those three. also ture is in the prison realm so he cant do shit here. but arc 6? our bestie vul is back! also he and the goddess have kids now because the goddess wanted more bitches she could control and convinced vul it would fix their marriage and make it happy. spoiler alert: it doesnt. in fact it makes him more miserable. originally they only had one kid, chaos (i bet you cant guess what shes the god of! /s) but after the goddess "accidentally" let her fall from the heavens and live a horrible life in the human realm she convinced vul to have 3 more replacement kids named order, malice, and kindness (once again, i bet you cant guess what theyre the gods of /s).

well we have everything with soul-catcher and dream-eater and the main shit with them doesnt really involve vul outside of the fact that he had to help make them fragments but he doesnt really get involved in the story until the end when soul returns chaos to them and chaos tries to kill him until they sorta reconcile but not really. this reconciliation really just makes vul hate the goddess more and he realizes that he needs a fucking divorce now cause his wife is like literally the worst. this is the end of arc 6.

several arcs come and go with very little of vul, most of it being the goddess. the only thing of note is arc 10, where at one point the heroes have to visit the god's realm and they discover vul has just been missing since shortly after chaos and soul-catcher disappeared and were sealed away and the goddes says she doesnt know what happened.

-Obsessed with how long it takes for Vul to realize this marriage sucks, the Goddess really is good at gaslight gatekeep girlbossing her husband huh

-CHAOS! CHAOS!

-Wow I sure hope that the God of Malice doesn't turn out to be the best of the kids or something because of the Goddess' idea of Kindness and Order

-Vul is the world's first transmasc absent father huh

-Glad Vul got to reconcile

-POV YOU ARE THE GODDESS AND YOU GET SERVED DIVORCE PAPERS

[roughentumble]

I'm almost afraid to ask...

What are your werewolf au ideas?

GSHBDKSND oh its not horny or anything its just like. kind of angsty, but like, in that way where sometimes angsty daydreams are fun, you know?? like

ok its like a geraskier thing cuz im a one trick pony, but basically geralt gets cursed, three nights a month he goes all wolfy. he's an intelligent werewolf with pretty great self control, BUT he's like, ridiculously worried that he's gonna snap and hurt people. (he's not, but, you know, he's had to put down werewolves for that before, and he's not a man with a lot of faith in himself, So.)

uhhhh i cant remember how jaskier finds out tbqh, but after traveling together a while, it comes to light, and jaskier is of course very "its just you, im not scared, and im not judging you." they hang out, they figure things out, and geralt starts to relax.

so all the time he's been cursed, he hasnt gone back to kaer morhen-- its only been a year or two, but still. he feels like they'd know right away, he's worried they'd just put him down, he doesnt think they should get used to "monsters in the keep", he just feels Real Bad about it, but jaskier convinces him that this is his family, they'd understand, and they must miss him.

geralt agrees, eventually, goes up to kaer morhen with jaskier in tow.

but once they get there, he just... totally refuses to explain anything. none of the other witchers have sussed out that something's wrong(other than jaskier's hushed whispering about how geralt should "just tell them, they'd understand")

geralt's genius solution is, he'll just sleep outside three nights a month, he'll bring blankets and his fur will protect him. jaskier doesnt like it, but he's not about to tell geralt's secret, and he cant bodily drag a werewolf inside, so. his only condition is that he gets to sit outside with geralt for a bit, cuddle with him n' such. their excuse is that theyre gross love birds who are going out for moonlight picnics. everyone buys this, partially because its sort of true, partially cuz no one wants to walk in(or out) on them fucking.

it actually works the first trio of nights, to jaskier's surprise, but the 4th night they try they arent so lucky-- they forget something inside(a bottle of wine, a blanket, who knows) and eskel is like "i'll fall on my sword, be the one to bring it out to the happy couple". he steps outside, and what does he see?

a gigantic werewolf pinning jaskier to the ground.

bit of a frenzy after that, eskel attacking and shouting for backup, trying to keep the werewolf in sight while also looking for geralt, getting between the monster and jaskier while jaskier shouts-- eventually jaskier gets through to him though. thats geralt, dont hurt him, its geralt.

geralt isnt saying anything though(despite the fact he's perfectly capable of it, even transformed), and eskel sortve misunderstands. doesnt really get that this has been a long-term affliction, and assumes this is the first transformation. so with geralt not responding, eskel says "not right now it isnt," and gets his hands on one of the training blades they keep in the courtyard.

more chaos-- everyone's outside now, jaskier is absolutely not having any of it but also three grown witchers versus one bard isnt much of a fight, no one's listening to him, and geralt's just pinning himself against the wall like a prey animal and not saying anything.

jaskier proves just enough of a distraction that geralt manages to hop a wall, takes off into the woods. jaskier is calling after him, while the three remaining witchers each make a gameplan(STILL not listening to jask). after a moment, jaskier darts and weaves and makes it just out of their grasp, so they've got a werewolf AND a bard loose in the woods in the dead of both night and winter, which. Bad.

eskel goes after geralt, vesemir stays behind because they need someone in the keep, and lambert's on bard wrangling duty. lambert doesnt have much trouble finding jaskier, but he does have trouble keeping a hold on him, because he's worried about breaking his tiny human limbs(and also he's wearing a lot of thick layers, which he has no compunctions about ripping to shreds to get out of lambert's grip.) he loses a boot and a sleeve to the ongoing tussle, as he keeps slipping out and darting away. lambert even tries axii, but the biggest trick to getting out of axii is just training a lot to resist it, so geralt and him'd run through that a long time ago, so his response is to go fake-limp, then kick lambert in the dick and run off into the night with one shoe.

lambert is extremely annoyed. its not jaskier's best plan.

he finds the cave that geralt had backed himself into by some miracle, and also because eskel'd made no efforts to hide his tracks and there are currently shouts coming from the cave. jaskier gets himself inbetween the two of them and refuses to budge. geralt's still pulling the silent routine, ears pinned back, looking like a kicked dog, and eskel's trying to coax jaskier away from the "monster".

lambert comes bursting in as well, pissed and sore, but stays near the entrance, the four of them locked in a sort of stalemate. the three of them argue about what to do, but jaskier is shivering because of his wrecked coat. eventually geralt breaks his silence to rumble out a worried "yourrr fingerrrs..."

(werewolves roll their 'r's in tw3. dont ask me why, just go with it.)

eskel and lambert are stunned into silence, and jaskier is immediately turning towards geralt, letting him fret and dote on him. slips his arm inside his jacket so his fingers dont fall off-- lets geralt wrap a giant, warm paw around his foot to get some heat back into it.

lambert's like "wait, so you CAN fucking talk?????"

it all got escalated way out of hand, partially because of eskel's reaction, but also because geralt was too ashamed to stand up for himself-- thought maybe they were a little bit right. was basically just going to curl up and let it happen, which he admits with some gentle prodding, and leaves eskel looking sick.

jaskier, though, is absolutely nuclear levels of pissed, because he was explaining everything, even how he'd known for months, and that geralt was perfectly safe to be around, but all the non werewolf witchers were just tuning him out. and geralt nearly died because of it. so he's, like-- he's unspeakably angry at all three of them.

eventually, they do all four make their way back to the keep(geralt carrying jaskier cuz he's still missing a boot), and explain everything one more time for vesemir. everyone looks pretty ragged, because it was a lot of drama very suddenly late at night.

geralt still hesitates in the doorway of the main hall, says he'll make the keep smell like monsters, that it's dangerous, but jaskier just gently encourages him inside and they curl up together in front of the hearth, nice and warm.

from there its little bits and pieces of geralt showing his werewolfy-er side, like dragging in a deer one night to devour raw by the fire. (he looks bashful about it, but jaskier insists its a part of their routine on the road, helps geralt clean his muzzle afterword.) and jaskier slowly encouraging geralt to relax, come deeper into the keep, curl up in a real bed.

jaskier gets less mad, but never quite gets over the fact that geralt's family proved his fears right. geralt gets less ashamed, but never fully sheds his anxieties about being allowed inside. everyone else gets less tense, but never quite sheds the shame of nearly killing their brother in arms while he was fully cognizant-- or quite comfortable with a "monster in the keep". it's still their first winter, tho, so with any luck things will someday get smoothed out.

[the porny ending is that geralt knots all three of them and this wildly smooths over any remaining tensions, but thats just a little fun off-shoot, not the Official Daydream Ending]

[ts-unpopular-opinions]

Side Tracks opinions part 2: Virgil

(Here we go again! I think I may have less to say about Virgil’s than Janus’, so I’ll try to make this one shorter)

1) Sunrise, Sunset: This ones about Virgil when he was with the darksides. Virgil is beginning to get tired of his life as a darkside and the monotony of it (“sunrise, sunset, swiftly go the days. Sunrise, sunset you wake up then you undress, it always is the same”). He feels like something is changing in him, but doubts that he will ever be able to escape the routine that he’s been living in for so long (“Because you've changed, Yeah, you've changed” “from a cradle to a casket, there is no way to escape” “The sunrise, the sunsets, you're hopeful and then you regret, the circle never breaks”).

2) Let’s Kill Tonight: Some of Virgil songs can be very vague and it can be hard to pinpoint who the song is focused toward (this is one of them). My interpretation of the song is that this takes place during Virgil’s first appearance with the light sides (“Make room we're taking over here” “Show them all you're not the ordinary type”) Perhaps the dark sides were aware of Virgil leaving and so Virgil’s initial view of the light sides was a bit more spiteful and angry than we thought. With this interpretation I like to assume that it was Janus’ plan to let Virgil out, perhaps in an attempt to get all the dark sides accepted, but it backfired when Virgil realized that the light sides weren’t as bad as he was raised to believe.

3) Sally’s Song: After the last song, this song shows Virgil’s realization that perhaps he does want to be with the light sides. He really cares about Thomas and wants to be with him, but he’s worried about whether or not he’ll be helpful and worthy (“And though I'd like to stand by him, Can't shake this feeling that I have” “And will he see? How much he means to me. I think it's not to be” “All though I'd like to join the crowd, In their enthusiastic loud. Try as I may It doesn't last”)

4) It Ends Tonight: Virgil is starting to be accepted, woot woot (“When darkness turns to light, It ends tonight, it ends tonight” “A weight is lifted on this evening”). Virgil seems to start to feel a lot of anger towards the other dark sides at this point. He feels as if he’s been tricked by them and that Thomas needed him all along (“A falling star, at least I fall alone”). He’s now showing anger and frustration towards the dark sides that really hasn’t been prevalent in the playlist up until this point. I think he’s realized that they’ve either been using him, lying to him, or fooling him (“I look at you with such disdain” “Now I'm on my own side, It's better than being on your side”).

5) I’d Hate to be You When People find out What this Song is About: Now that Virgil is with the light sides, he’s worried that he may not be good enough or helpful enough for Thomas (“Well, I'm thinking of the worst things That I could say to you” “But I'm tongue tied and terrified of what I'll say” And I'm sorry that this wasn't easy, When I asked you believe me” “I could only sing you sad songs”). He’s so worried about hurting Thomas because of his dark side origins that he doesnt understand why Thomas is trying so hard to accept him (“You never let go, But I let go”). He also refrains from telling Thomas about his true past probably out of fear or worry that Thomas won’t want him anymore (“But I never told you everything, I'm losing hope and fading dreams”).

6) A Decade under the Influence: Virgil is anxious™️. Despite how worried he is about his ability to help Thomas, he knows that he has to try and that he has to protect Thomas from the other dark sides (“Well, I've got a bad feeling about this, I've got a bad feeling about this” “To hell with you and all your friends, To hell with you and all your friends” “I’m a nervous wreck”).

7) Thnks fr th Mmrs: HUGE, SASSY middle finger to Janus. Honestly, thats it. Virgil has been fully accepted by Thomas and the light side gang and he is LOVING it. This song is just Virgil rubbing it in Janus’ face how much better off he is without him and the dark sides (“Who does he think he is?” “Thanks for the memories even though they weren't so great”). He also flaunts the fact that Patton is a much better parent/authority figure than Janus ever was (“He tastes like you, only sweeter”).

8) Be Calm: This ones cuteeeee. Virgil has been with the light sides for some time now and has begun to understand that he can be helpful to thomas (“As I walk through the streets of my new city, My back feeling much better, I suppose”). The entire song just feels like Virgil helping Thomas through an anxiety attack or some panic of sorts. He relates to Thomas on the feeling and tries his best to help him relax (“I close my eyes, I tell myself to breathe” “And be calm. Be calm. I know you feel like you are breaking down. Oh I know that it gets so hard sometimes. Be calm.” “Take it from me, I've been there a thousand times.” “You hate your pulse because it thinks you're still alive” “It just gets so hard sometimes”). Theyre starting to bond and finally understand each other and that is just super sweet 💜💜💜.

9) I’m not Okay (I Promise): Honestly... I’m not super sure about this one. It’s another vague one as to who it is aimed toward, but I’m just gonna assume it’s either Thomas or Patton. Virgil is feeling like he isn’t being listened to and needs to be taken more seriously (“I never want to let you down or have you go” “I told you time and time again you sing the words but don't know what it means” “I held you close as we both shook for the last time” “You said you read me like a book, but the pages all are torn and frayed” “But you really need to listen to me, Because I'm telling you the truth”).

10) Imaginary: Despite now being a light side, Virgil still worries about the darker sides that are hidden within Thomas (“In my field of paper flowers And candy clouds of lullaby. I lie inside myself for hours And watch my purple sky fly over me”). He knows that they will try to get out at any moment and may be harmful to Thomas, so he has to keep his guard up. (“Don't say I'm out of touch, With this rampant chaos your reality” “I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge” “Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming, Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights”).

11) Soft Shock: Oof guys... I really, really don’t know here. This song is SO romantic that it’s hard to even imagine why it’s on Virgil’s playlist to begin with. There is also a vague “you” referenced like in most of Virgil’s songs and I frankly have no clue who it’s supposed to be. I’ll just list some lines that I think are important and maybe you all could help me figure it out. “Well it's a shock, shock to your soft side” “Summer moon (this is like a period of summer where its very warm and things are in bloom)” “Better, back together” “Catch your shut eyes in my room”.

12) The Good that Won’t Come out: Virgil is still worried about his dark past and how that will affect the others and Thomas. He knows that he needs to tell Thomas, but he’s worried that if he does, Thomas will only be able to see the bad things that Virgil brings with him (“I do this thing where I think I'm real sick, But I won't go to the doctor to find out about it 'Cause they make you stay real still in a real small space As they chart up your insides and put them on display. They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it” “All of the good that won't come out of me And all the stupid lies I hide behind. It's such a big mistake, Lying here in your warm embrace”). He finishes the song out by comparing himself to his past, dark side friends (“Let's talk about all our friends who lost the war” “It's all of the good that won't come out of them And all the stupid lies they hide behind”).

13) Sick Sad World: Again... I’m sorry guys but this song doesn’t seem that deep to me (at least nothing stood out. Basically, all I got is that Virgil knows he makes a lot of mistakes, but he does his best to fix them (“My head's a permanent mess And I can't think for the stress” “I close my eyes and pretend That the ground beneath me has disappeared” “Rewind and overwrite, Hope life begins at twenty-nine”). Virgil also still seems to think that he isn’t being listened to enough and that he isn’t helping as much as he wants to with the light sides (“So what, is this is as good as it gets?” “So won't you let me in”).

14) Ignorance: Another Janus song! Whose shocked? Anyone? Yeah, me neither 😂. But this one is SUPER interesting as it gives us some insight into what Janus and Virgil’s relationship was like before Virgil left. The two seemed to be very close and perhaps had similar pessimistic views on the world (“Yeah, the friends who stuck together. We wrote our names in blood”). Virgil knows that the change in him was for the better and he wants Janus to realize this too, but he isnt about to feel bad for Janus if he refuses to see the truth (“But I guess you can't accept that the change is good” “If I'm a bad person, you don't like me, Well, I guess I'll make my own way” “This is the best thing that could have happened. Any longer and I wouldn't have made it. It's not a war, no, it's not a rapture. I'm just a person, but you can't take it” “The same tricks that, that once fooled me, They won't get you anywhere. I'm not the same kid from your memory, Well, now I can fend for myself”). Now, a line that I’m sure people will see as confirmation of Ignorance being the next side, has a different meaning to me: “Ignorance is your new best friend”. To me, this proves that Ignorance is a part of Janus. Virgil believes that Janus will be stuck in the dark forever because he is ignorant to what the real world brings. Janus is so stuck in his hatred for society and his lack of trust for others that he ignores information that could prove his thoughts wrong. That is ignorance at it’s core, and Janus is being intentionally ignorant to the fact that Virgil becoming a light side was a good thing.

15) The Ice is Getting Thinner: Another song that solidifies that Virgil and Janus were actually friends at one point (“We're not the same, dear, as we used to be. The seasons have changed and so have we”). Virgil knew that him and Janus were growing apart back when he split from the dark sides and he knew it was for the better, but it still hurt him (“There was little we could say, and even less we could do, To stop the ice from getting thinner under me and you” “And it saddens me to say, But we both know, well, it's true. That the ice was getting thinner Under me and you”). This perhaps shows that the ill-will between the two is not really due to Virgil hating Janus, but instead a sort of broken heart dynamic. Virgil knew he needed to leave, but Janus may not have been ready and may not have understood why someone he cared so much for would just leave him for the others.

16) Overkill: This one seems fairly straight forward to me. Virgil is scared of the dark sides and the implications their acceptance may have for Thomas. He can feel them lurking close by and is on edge because of it. He wants to protect Thomas from them, but at the same time thinks that he may be overreacting (“I can't get to sleep. I think about the implications” “Especially at night. I worry over situations. I know we'll be alright. Perhaps it's just imagination” “Day after day it reappears. Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear. Ghosts appear and fade away” “Especially at night I worry over situations that I know will be alright. It's just overkill.”

17) Under pressure: This ones a bit hard to decipher, but I’ve got an idea. Virgil really respects and values Patton as one of Thomas’ sides, but the other dark sides seem to disagree. Virgil wishes that they would be able to see Patton in the same way that he does and perhaps then they would be accepted by Thomas (“Watching some good friends screaming "Let me out!"” “Can't we give ourselves one more chance?” “Why can't we give love that one more chance?”). Basically, I think the reason that Virgil was accepted by the light sides was because he understood Patton (love and feelings) and what he means to Thomas. Janus has now shown after being accepted that this could be the case (seeing as he was accepted only when Patton accepted him, the other sides didnt really play a part).

18) Everything is Alright: When reading my thoughts on this song, keep in mind that it is connected to the next song. Virgil basically is very anxious about menial things in life that he shouldn’t be anxious about (“Because I hate the ocean, theme parks and airplanes, Talking with strangers, waiting in line..”). Virgil doesn’t feel like things are okay and he doesn’t feel safe, but he asks the person in the song to tell him that everything is okay anyways. Now a while back, I remembered Joan mentioning in a livestream that Janus would be the one to lie to Thomas about things being alright even when they’re not, so this got me thinking. Perhaps Janus and Virgil got along so well in the past because Janus would lie to Virgil whenever he was having a panic attack in order to calm him down. Virgil may have found comfort in this as lying to himself may have been the only way to escape his episodes (“‘Someday you'll be fine..’ Yes, I'll be just fine.” “Tell me that you're alright, everything is alright. Please tell me that you're alright, everything is alright.”). Idk It just feels like Janus trying to calm Virgil down to me.

19) The Middle: (remember how I said this was connected to the above song? Yep, keep that in mind) So right after the last song, this song began to play and at first I thought the two songs were basically about the same thing. Virgil is anxious and needs reassured that things are okay. This song seemed to have a different tone though. The speaker is reassuring Virgil, but in a different way. They’re not lying to Virgil and telling him just what he wants to hear, but they are feeling with Virgil and comforting Virgil with truth and honesty (“Hey, don't write yourself off yet. It's only in your head, you feel left out” “Don't you worry what they tell themselves When you're away.” “It just takes some time, Little girl you're in the middle of the ride. Everything, everything will be just fine. Everything, everything will be alright.” “You know you're doin' better on your own” “Live right now, just be yourself. It doesn't matter if it's good enough For someone else.” “Don't worry what their bitter hearts Are gonna say”) That’s right. This song is about Patton doing the exact same thing that Janus once did for Virgil only better. Not only that, but he’s reassuring Virgil about his worries regarding the dark sides. That must sting for Janus...

20) Vindicated: I think this song takes place right after Virgil confessed his past to Thomas. He’s scared that Thomas will reject him, but he explains that he’s trying his best to be better for Thomas despite the many flaws he may have (“I am selfish I am wrong. I am right, I swear I'm right. Swear I knew it all along And I am flawed, but I am cleaing up so well”). Despite his fear of rejection he has hope that Thomas will accept him as he’s begun to see things in himself that someone (probably Patton) has seen all along (“Hope dangles on a string, Like slow-spinning redemption” “I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself”).

(And there you have it guys! I realize this one is probably just as long as the last one, so I’m sorry about that 😂. Please let me know your thoughts 💜)

[blackicedragons]

Bro I must get the lore on Cyril and Ignitus. How did they get together? Why did they decide to have a kid (specifically for the prophecy if I read right)? When did their relationship start going wrong? And, most importantly, is there going to be a parent-trap style subplot to try and get them back together?

OH THIS IS A DELICIOUS ASK THANK U OMG

okay so i actually, admittedly, have way more of this thought out than i should bc i dedicated hours of my time to daydreaming about this........//////MAJOR SPOILERS for some elements of the rewrite btw!!

our four main guardians have, in my canon, been incredibly close for many years. ignitus was always known as the wise-man and the voice of reason, and despite cyril's bad attitude, he was always honest and kept up with tradition to a fault. ignitus was good at difussing the bad situations cyril caused with his rude comments, but cyril often stood up for ignitus when the red dragon found himself to be a bit soft-spoken. the two had a deep respect for one another and they spent alot of time together as close friends.

when the year of the dragon was drawing close and the prophecy reared its head, ignitus and cyril were asked by a council of elder dragons to make the egg that would become their savior (yes, it is because red and blue make purple. im incredibly creative, i know!!!) the council figured that two heavily respected guardians that had excellent handles on their elemental abilities would create an ideal purple dragon for the future. the two initially weren't very keen on the idea, but they understood that they were only being asked to do so for the sake of their fellow dragons. eventually, they accepted the plea. ignitus was the sire and cyril was the dame in the situation (in the rewrite, spyro is mentioned specifically to have ignitus's horns and frills while also having cyril's eye shape and scale patterns)

intially, the two of them only did this because they saw it as their duty as guardians. yet, ignitus found himself fretting over cyril often. he would guide him around carefully, making sure he didn't stumble around given the weight of his belly during pregnancy. he got cyril food, groomed him, cleaned his room, and spoke about how he wondered what their egg may be like. though cyril was a bit bratty about everything, he was incredibly grateful for ignitus's diligence and patience. cyril would ask ignitus to stay in his nest for the night, and exclusively sought out ignitus for comfort and care. for the first time, cyril was being fairly polite and even seemed to be happier, and ignitus had come out of his shell. they spoke for hours about their egg's future, and then about their own. volteer and terrador jokingly referred to them as the "new pair of love doves". after some time, cyril was actually the first to confess that he loved ignitus (he was always a little too honest), having said "no one has ever chosen to put up with me for so long" and, despite being a little surprised, ignitus reciprocated, telling cyril that he "could never really grow tired of him". despite not knowing what the future held, the two decided they would do everything they could to raise their child together, and to be with each other through whatever the coming year would bring.

and then the raid happened. the temple was destroyed, chaos was everywhere, and the eggs were all shattered. cyril was injured, and ignitus, feeling frightened and panicked, sent their egg away to hopefully find a safer place to hatch. the war began not long after. although ignitus cared for cyril and stood beside him in battle, his guilt only grew as the war waged on. he couldn't help but blame himself for everything that had happened. cyril tried to talk him out of it, saying he was being irrational, saying that none of this could all possibly be his fault, saying there was nothing more ignitus could do. ignitus refused to listen, and put the blame for the war on his own shoulders, feeling that it was the only way he could properly take responsibility. the two of them fought harshly. ignitus couldn't come to terms with his own self-loathing and grief, and cyril couldn't find his softness and reasoning in a time when things were so hard. after their last fight, they didn't speak again, and cyril was captured a few days later. of course, ignitus entirely blamed himself, and lamented that the last words he ever spoke to cyril were words of anger and sadness, and cyril lamented the same in his cage.

when spyro arrives and frees the guardians, ignitus and cyril are intially very tense! they both never imagined seeing each other again, and they don't really how to apologize to one another and how to make up for all the negative energy and time between them. they barely speak to each other unless they have to, and they refuse to be in a room alone together for more than a few awkward seconds. spyro, ember, and flame can obviously see how weird they're acting, but terrador won't explain anything. the three kids go to volteer who, of course, literally can not keep his mouth shut about it. he tells them that ignitus and cyril were once together and deeply in love, but the war tore them apart. ember, seeing a touching love story in the making, decides "HEY!!! LET'S GET THEM TO MAKE UP!!!!" and literally drags spyro and flame into her plans. the kids do anything they can think of; sending the two guardians flowers from """"secret admirers", throwing around mushy-gooey poetic love notes, lighting candles everywhere, decorating the temple, and trying to set the "perfect romantic mood" for the two sad-sacks. eventually, they get caught, and cyril and ignitus bring them into the training room to reprimand them. not having the courage to speak up, ember and flame are silent, but spyro eventually confesses that volteer told them everything, and that the kids just want to see their guardians happy again. taken aback, the two send the children away, and are alone in the training room for the first time. after a bit of silence, cyril speaks up first. "you never apologized to me.." he mumbles, the air around him feeling cold. ignitus counters that cyril refused to speak to him. the two begin arguing, and it seems like this is just going to be another horrible fight, but the two war-torn dragons break down. ignitus admits that he feels its his fault because he sent spyro away, and he could never make up for all the pain the war caused those he cared about. he couldnt accept that it wasnt his fault because he was the head guardian, he needed to be better, he was SUPPOSED to be better. and he wasn't, and now it was all too late. after hearing this, cyril, for the first time in many years, found his softer side. he spoke gently, telling ignitus that no one expected him to do this on his own, and that he needed to learn to count on the others instead of expecting everything out of himself alone. cyril told him that, even though their future wasn't a happy one, at the very least, they were both there. and spyro had come home. after a bit more talking, there's definitely like, a super passionated lovey-dovey kiss and make up scene, and it closes with the two stupid boyfriends deciding theyre going to tell spyro the truth

AND YEAH BASICALLY THATS ABOUT THE GIST OF IT i am soooo fucking sorry this response got this fucking long but i genuinely adore this plotline and it makes me soft and fuzzy inside!!! and yeah basically their relationship is gonna go thru some ups and downs but itll develop alot more as the story goes alone and i think itll be alot of fun to show u guys!!!!! anyway ajfjfjjfd thank u for asking me this bc i was looking for an excuse to gush abt them lmao BUT if u have any other questions abt my rewrite or anything go ahead and ask!! thank u thank u thank u!!!! <3

[just-a-dumb-gay]

I have an idea on how Handon could end and Hizzie could become a thing. (Warning: Long post)

And also a very rough half decent idea for how like all of season 2 can go. And the Hizzie part of season 3. (This is just hoping and assuming we'll get season 3 lol)

Now I'm thinking of season 2 having roughly 16 episodes again. So that's how im going to type this, just for a rough guestimates.

-

Okay so we know the magic of malivore is still active (because nobody remembers Hope) despite malivore APPARENTLY being destroyed.

So imagine someone remembers Hope. Said person (or people) then spend episodes 2x01 to 1st half 2x04 trying to find a way to get her out. Then the second half of 2x04 to 2x06 getting her out.

Even though she's out nobody remembers her other than said person (or people) that got her out. So 2x07 to 2x10 is then a somewhat peaceful time as they are trying to figure out how to make everyone remember Hope. Which they then succeed, but its kind of the 2x10 cliffhanger.

Now obviously trying to bring back and remember Hope wont be the only storyline going on. So 2x11 starts with us finding out they're plan to make everyone remember Hope worked. Then the rest of the episode is reunions and catching Hope up on the rest of the chaos going on.

In 2x12, Hope is helping out with other plotlines going on. Kind of a filler episode without much going on. Then the end of 2x12 is some confusing cliffhanger.

2x13 we then found out malivore isnt totally gone, bringing Hope out reveresed the magic. Kinda like how a normal stake to the heart kills an original vamp, but not permanently.

2x13 - 2x15 is then spent finding out malivore is actually up walking around again. Following leads and such to try and find out where it is. And at the end of the episode they're gearing up to go after him.

2x16 is then an epic battle pretty much. And the way malivore fights is by spitting out monsters. So they aren't fighting malivore as such, just the monsters it's puking.

There would probably be the twins, Hope and Landon, Ric and a vamp or 2. Probably MG and/or Kaleb. And to get everyone around, id think they'd be using that ugly car from the road trip episode.

So:-

- First quarter of 2x16 spent finding malivore.

- 2nd quarter spent going over a plan and everyone getting into position.

- 3rd quarter spent trying and succeeding at taking down malivore. Actually killing it this time.

- finale quarter. Everyone seeing to injuries and stuff like that.

They then find out Landon died during the whole fighting the monsters part. Hope is obviously upset, but doesn't worry too much thinking he'll come back.

So there's a small time jump (like a couple hours). The twins and Hope asleep in the car.

I'm thinking Josie asleep in the front seat after dozing off while talking to Ric who's nearby with Landon.

And then Hope and Lizzie passed out in the middle. Either one totally on top of the other simply cos that sounds cute. But most likely one has their head on the others shoulder or one lying down using the others legs as a pillow.

And MG and/or Kaleb just sitting in the back of the car minding their own business, maybe asleep too.

And Ric watching over Landon, waiting for him to come back.

Then, the last scene is Ric taking a closer look at Landons body before saying something like "You should've burst into flames by now." And boom season 2 ends.

Season 3 picks up immediately after, with Ric waking up Hope. Accidentally waking Lizzie at the same time.

So Ric explains Landon should've woke up by now and Hope grabs some research stuff they had about malivore that they brought with them. So the 3 of them sit beside Landon and have a look through it.

At first they cant find anything. Then there's a bit Ric explains he didnt understand, but now he does.

A bit explaining that the magic of malivore will dissapear when malivore dies. That magic including any abilities of malivores offspring. Meaning Landon became an ordinary human when malivore died.

So Hope is obviously upset, full on sobbing and everything. Ric is about to comfort her, but to his slight surprise Lizzie is quick to hug Hope. Obviously Hope and Lizzie being closer now and trusting Lizzie, she just collapses into Lizzie.

So after that, Lizzie becomes very protective over Hope. Doing everything she can to be near Hope, and everything she can to comfort Hope. Maybe even at Landons funeral, Hope clinging onto Lizzie's arm.

So Lizzie spends alot more time with Hope who constantly tries to push everyone away. Just puts up all the walls that fell down during season 1. Not wanting anyone to care about her because everyone that does winds up hurt or worse.

Lizzie is the only one who is stubborn enough to barge her way back into Hopes life (despite how cold Hope tries to be towards everyone).

When Hope is still trying to be alone, Lizzie would just sit somewhere in Hopes room and talk to her even though Hope is doing her best to ignore Lizzie in the hope she'll give up and go away.

Eventually Hopes walls start to crumble and they start to have short conversations in Hopes room.  And eventually that builds into going out and sitting by the lake, walking in the woods and visiting Landons grave.

Eventually, on one of their visits to Landons grave. Lizzie just looks at the gravestone before saying something like "Cant believe I actually miss you, Hobbit." without thinking. She's about to apologise but is surprised to hear Hope laugh a little. Not much of a laugh, like if you weren't listening you would've missed it.

So that happens. Then slowly but surely Hope becomes happier, mostly because of Lizzie.

They grow closer and we see Lizzies feelings for Hope become stronger, yet she decides not to act upon them because she doesn't want to be disrespectful towards Hopes love for Landon and give her a decent amount of time to mourn Landon.

Now I have 2 ½ ideas for their first kiss (and yes they are kinda cliche, but cute. So don't judge):-

1 - On one of their late night trips to sit down by the lake, they've got a big blanket wrapped around them both. Lizzie has her head on Hope's shoulder and Hope notices Lizzie starting to doze off. She lets Lizzie sleep for a while before deciding it's getting a little cold.

So she gently wakes Lizzie up and cant help but laugh at how cute tired Lizzie is.

Lizzie then says something but Hope doesn't notice cos she's to busy staring at Lizzie.

Lizzie then manages to snap Hope out her daze and Hope cant stop herself anymore and kisses Lizzie.

2.1 - They're out walking in the woods. Hope trips and Lizzie manages to stop her from falling. But the way she grabs Hope, when Hope regains her balance she's barely an inch away from Lizzie's face (or as close as they possibly can be considering the adorable height difference). And then they both stare for a moment before going in for a kiss at the same time.

2.2 - Theyre in the woods and Hope trips. Lizzie tries to stop her but instead gets dragged down with Hope and lands on top of her. Same thing as 2.1, they both stare for a second then kiss.

And then just a whole load more Hizzie couple cuteness and Hizzie endgame!

-----

I got so carried away with this lmao. Legit took me like 2 hours to type it all (well, between texting and coughing alot so maybe more like an hour and a half)

I wonder if I should use this for my writing? Yeah im using this.

I know posting this here means some ass might steal my idea, but I have other ideas I can weave into this and bits that need changed to fit my writing so it wouldn't turn out the same anyways. Doesn't mean you can steal my idea though, DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

thanks to a conversation with @declermontdiana i’m now thinking about the end of riverdale s2 and where all the characters were at after the chaos in town and the black hood reveal, and i think it’s time to talk about the fact that alice was perfectly positioned to be pulled into a cult.

because while she was vulnerable to the farm because of how traumatized she was, i’ve never seen a discussion of the way that she was also incredibly, horribly alone in the face of nearly being murdered by her husband and finding out he was the source of the town’s terror for all that time.

yes, we know that betty was trying to look after her, but not being able to pull herself together around betty could only have added ‘i suck as a mom’ feelings to alice’s emotional problems in the immediate aftermath. despite what betty thinks because she’s spent her life trying to be everything to everyone, alice would actually be a worse parent if she were using betty for friendship and emotional support, because that shouldn’t be her teenage daughter’s role.

and yes, polly also came and offered her support and potential help. but despite being a mom already, polly is her teenage daughter too, who she shouldn’t expect to lean on, so it makes sense that alice would be more likely to throw all her trust in with the adults in the cult that polly eased her into.

but why, after everything she had been through, would she decide to trust and get help from total strangers? we focus so much on the fact that she was an easy target, like her instability after hal and fake-charles and even polly is the only factor. but alice’s openness to the cult because of what happened to her is just part of it--the world around her matters too.

and the reality of it is that alice let the farm become her most trusted support system because nobody else was there for her.

alice doesn’t have a single female friend in riverdale. though she and sierra probably have the least antagonistic dynamic, that doesn’t make them friends...and hermione, mary, and penelope make it very clear how they feel about her. obviously there are valid reasons why she���s not well-liked, but having made more enemies than friends doesn’t change the fact that alice is a mess after hal and in need of sympathy and support.

arguably, the two people in town who you’d most expect might care about how alice is doing after she’s nearly strangled to death by her husband are fp and fred. with fp, there’s all the history and obvious feelings that s3 showed us were still there even after their affair ended...and fred has both known her forever and is a genuinely nice guy. he may snark back when alice is being a jerk about archie, but it’s hard for me to believe that he wouldn’t check in on his next door neighbor who’s just been through a tragedy.

however, that’s where the events of s2 really conspire to leave alice totally isolated. fp’s son is in the hospital barely alive, and fp dove into a losing fight with a rival gang--he’s in no shape to immediately rush to her side, even once word does reach him about hal. meanwhile, fred was hal’s first victim. he nearly died thanks to alice’s husband, which i imagine would make it hard to offer her unsolicited support, even though fred assures betty she’s not to blame when it comes up.

now personally for the sake of human decency, i think it’s totally crappy that alice was left alone in that house to suffer. i don’t care how little she was liked in town, anybody who’s nearly murdered should get checked on by someone. but as far as we’re aware, that doesn’t happen. after hal tries to kill alice, the only people who come to her door are reporters looking for more scandal. (you could argue that this part is a twisted kind of karma given how often alice’s reporting reveled in others’ pain, but that shouldn’t mean she’s also without other visitors.)

when you really think about it in context, alice and the farm make even less sense. the last thing alice cooper should want to do is trust a stranger just because her daughter vouches for him--the last time she did that, she had to bleach her whole kitchen! and by the end of s2, she’s found out that she can’t trust the last twenty years of her life, the most intimate partner she had, or her own judgement.

only desperation can explain her throwing herself into the arms of polly’s new friends, when she must have the worst trust issues she’s ever had in her life.

but honestly, of course she’s desperate. her entire carefully-crafted life unraveled a piece at a time over the last three years. she lost her older daughter to the blossoms, her younger daughter to the serpents, her husband to madness or evil or both depending on how you look at it, her credibility at her job once her history was revealed, and her rekindling with fp because they’re both idiots who can’t get it together. she wasn’t even left with a shred of normalcy--or the facade of it that made her life worthwhile before.

alice smith became alice cooper who reinvented herself again and again once things started falling apart, and it’s not clear if even she knows who she really is deep down. so she’s heading fast toward middle age, with very little to show for it, living in a house full of ruined memories with no one to talk to, and no reason to believe any of the other adults in riverdale would be there for her if she did reach out.

in the aftermath, all she has is one daughter she didn’t protect from her own father, who she never knows how to save...and another who’s offering her hope.

it’s terrible that she took it, as is everything alice has done since the farm became the center of her world. i don’t know anyone who’s blindly trying to defend her s3 behavior, or who isn’t expecting an awful reckoning someday.

but at the same time, of course she accepted the help that edgar evernever was reaching out to her, during the absolute lowest period in her life.

he was the only one who offered.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Hello, Haddock! Now that Voltron (sadly) ended, how would you rank the seasons? Also, could you tell how many times you've rewatched them?

Hey there, friend! WAY happy to chat Voltron and all its seasons!

Unlike most fandom culture, I’m not a chronic rewatcher, and the default assumption is that I’ve only seen any show once. It’s rare for me to see shows more than once, honestly, even ones I love. I certainly will be watching VLD more times, but because of my normal watching habits, I’ve seen a large portion of the show only once. I’ve seen S1 probably about 5 times, S2 thrice, S3-4 twice, and S5+ once. I’ve seen “The Last Stand” from S7 twice.

These are rankings based somewhat upon my emotional attachments and not simply objective elements like narrative structure! XD I already know my preferences are going to be different than lots of people in the VLD fandom, haha. These rankings are also based on memory, which is pretty strong admittedly for VLD, but it leaves room to change with a rewatch.

EIGHTH PLACE: VLD Season 8

Let’s be clear: I don’t dislike Season 8 and there’s much I enjoy. Give it up for S8 love!!! Standout episodes to me include “Launch Date,” “The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and “Day Forty-Seven.” The women going shopping together and Pidge dressing as 1980s Darrell Stoker made my life. Not to mention… it was fun spending time with the MFEs; they didn’t take a disproportionate amount of time, but gave us good moments to make us love them. I’m thankful for the S8 ending giving us both a sense of wrap-up for the plot conflicts, but also looking forward to what our Paladins will do to rejuvenate the galaxy. There’s much I’m thankful for with S8.

That said, S8 isn’t my jam as much as other seasons. I’m not much of a shipper and I wasn’t into the Allurance, nor did I get pulled into the magic-heavy plot conflict with Haggar and her Alteans. And while S7 does give great screen time to Allura, it felt a little less like an ensemble cast and more like a spotlight on her. Enemies’ minds changed too fast for me to feel realistic, and the magic-wonky plot didn’t feel as gripping and intense as S7. It’s the reason I’m placing S8 here: from my own preferences, I attached with other seasons more.

SEVENTH PLACE: VLD Season 5

For whatever reason, S5 didn’t make as much of an impression on me as other seasons. I wasn’t as invested in concepts like “Kral Zera” and “White Lion.” Given as S5 is an odd numbered season in the middle portion of Voltron, it has an innate disadvantage: it’s written in all but name as the first half of a season, which means story arc ending payoffs wouldn’t happen until S6. I also feel like S5 is where plot writing is at one of its most tangled or muddied, given as there’s lots being juggled and introduced conflict-wise and lore-wise and universe-wise and character-wise.

However, S5 - like all seasons - gives us cool stuff. We got Matt (one of my favorite characters) participating in an adventure, lots of Lotor screentime, and a callout to 1980s DOTU that I never thought they’d be able to turn into a good episode (“White Lion”). And!!! We get to meet!!! KROLIA!!!

SIXTH PLACE: VLD Season 3

I have particularly fond attachment to S3. This is the season where I started getting actively involved in Voltron fandom discourse, giving my own take on Project Kuron theories. This is the season that gave us the first glimpse of the Classic Voltron formation - Keith in Black, Lance in Red, Pidge in Green, Allura in Blue, Hunk in Yellow. I felt a thrill go through me as Keith, for the first time, said “Form Voltron!” Also… Lance really stepping up to show his leadership potential??? So good. And this is the season where we meet Lotor, another long-anticipated character… and oh my goodness is his character introduction gold. So there’s lots of stuff I hold strong affinity for in S3.

The reason I have to rank Season 3 back here is because it’s more about the Paladins floundering around than anything else. It’s meant to create a new sense of chaos and instability… their leader Shiro is gone, and now there are new unexpected threats like Lotor to handle. However, at the same time, since half of the season is just the Paladins floundering around not knowing how to work together, it makes me less attached to particular episodes. None of the episodes are favorites or standouts to me on their own. There’s lots of cool moments throughout S3, but I think the only episode I notably emotionally attach to is “The Journey.” But still? Good season!

FIFTH PLACE: VLD Season 1

I can’t believe I have this amazing season all the way back here. I want it to be higher, except that I do have to rank other seasons above this one. 

Season 1 is what gets everything started. It sets the stage for what Voltron’s all about, teaching us about lions and robeasts and Zarkon and the Galaxy Garrison and all that good stuff from 1980s nostalgia… all the while creating a new vibe and energy to the franchise. In retrospect, S1 feels much calmer and less high-stakes than the rest of the series (especially post S2). However, it’s a solid season with good episodes that never feel less solid and good. We get great Hunk material with him finding conviction; great Shiro and Pidge moments as they share different worries over the abduction; hilarious Keith and Lance clashes; lots and lots and lots of good things. It’s a very solid season, especially once we launch off Arus.

FOURTH PLACE: VLD Season 6

If you want to know how tight my season rankings are to each other, S6 was almost listed second place.

I attach to specific episodes in particular for S6. I love the visuals in “Razor’s Edge.” I died howling with laughter in “Monsters & Mana.” I fell into so many emotional feels regarding Keith and Shiro in “The Black Paladins.” We get one of the all-time best emotional, action-oriented episodes of VLD… and one of the most amazing, hysterical filler episodes in S6. Despite being seven episodes long, S6 is an incredible ride and adventure start to end. It’s hard to believe so much occurred in that amount of time!

There’s hoards of great stuff in this season. We get the Kuron arc resolved, with lots of emotional content between Keith and Shiro. We get the Lotor arc resolved, learning whether or not he can be trusted, with great Lotor and Allura time. We get Keith returning to the Paladins. We get the introduction of Romelle, which all DOTU lovers have been waiting for forever.

THIRD PLACE: VLD Season 4

I have to put VLD S4 here because of its emotional power. There are damned AMAZING moments this season, alongside some of my favorite episodes and moments of all time. I know I and some of the other fans aren’t huge on “The Voltron Show!” But fuck it, guys, S4 gave us “Reunion” and “A New Defender”!!!

Matt is a delight this season, from his first meeting of Allura, to his tour around the Castle of Lions with Pidge, to his technological connections with his sister and Hunk, to his participation in the Rebels’ fighting forces. We also get some of the funniest moments for me in Voltron, between learning how to milk Kaltenecker and seeing HOW Pidge finally managed to rig up the video game system.

Then there’s the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. “Reunion” is the single most emotional episode in all of Voltron for me. Even though I’d seen screencaps of Matt prior to watching S4, I felt as shocked and heartbroken as Pidge to come to his gravestone. There’s so much POWER to this gravestone scene; it’s one of the moments that resonates with me the most even after I’ve finished the whole show. It might even be my Number One FAVORITE moment in the entire show. It’s not my place to analyze that scene here, but DAMN. 

Furthermore, the climax with the battle of Naxzela was INTENSE, with Keith almost sacrificing himself getting me screaming. That was such a great battle and climactic moment in VLD. This was a great culminating moment, in which the series has officially built up from a small team to a universe-wide conflict.

We get standout moments with Keith being badass with the blades, Matt taking initiative, Pidge seeking out her family, Allura helping Voltron flee the gravity field, Kuron becoming increasingly more suspicious. VLD S4 ramps everything up from the emotions to the excitement, resulting in an awesome and intense six episodes.

SECOND PLACE: VLD Season 7

It’s really hard for me to put this as second place instead of first place. I originally had it in first place. I want it to be first place. I LOVE the second half of S7 so much. This is, possibly, my favorite season from an emotional standpoint because wow.

It’s all-around outstanding. S7 showed us how far the Paladins have come as heroes; they operate with great teamwork, skill, and professionalism that is oh-so-cool to see on screen. They’re still the characters we love and cherish, but they’ve grown SO MUCH since their first days on Voltron. This is fully-fledged heroes doing fully-fledged battles and it’s GREAT.

S7 gives us standout moments to so many characters, including Hunk, Shiro, Sam, Colleen, Veronica, and Keith. We even get some good adventure time with Romelle! And as far as character interactions are concerned, we get touching moments between Keith and Lance, Keith and Hunk, and so many other combinations.

The story raises the stakes to higher levels than ever before, with an emotional and exciting conquest of Earth. There’s nothing more horrible and high-stakes to audiences than a homefront war. We feel extreme pain for Hunk with fears for his family, and Shiro for the loss of Adam. We feel the great sense of danger and desperation starting with “The Last Stand.” We feel the drama of a long and extended climax fighting for Earth’s freedom, including moments where the Paladins control the Lions outside their body (so cool), Shiro commands the ATLAS (SO cool), and the ATLAS also transforms into a fighting robot (SO FREAKING COOL!). This has some of the most exciting, badass stuff of Voltron ever. I love it.

Highlight episodes for me are “The Last Stand” (two episodes without the Paladins about Earth fighting for its freedom? this was fucking amazing), “Trial By Fire,” and “Lions’ Pride.” Essentially - all of the second half of the season.

FIRST PLACE: Season 2

Season 2 is probably THE MOST solid season in all of VLD. 

Almost every episode is good, memorable, fun, lovable, enjoyable, classic. It highlights the full ensemble cast. It creates an EXTREMELY exciting, exhilarating, fun climax. It is a strong narrative season, cleanly and proudly finishing the first 26 episode long arc for VLD. This season shows VLD at its best. Since it consistently delivers, there’s nowhere else S2 belongs except the top.

We get great Shiro time, what with his arc spent learning to trust Black… leading to him being a badass unlocking the Lion’s wings and taking Zarkon’s bayard. We get great Pidge time, whether it’s her freaking out over video games or drawing deeper into the beauty of the world - technology and biology both. We get great Keith time, with him fighting for answers in the Blade of Marmora and infiltrating Zarkon’s base in an extremely dangerous mission. We get great Hunk time, between unlocking his Lion’s claws and taking initiative in the Weblum adventure. We get great Lance moments, where he shows us he truly can be a sharpshooter for the team. We get great Allura moments, especially in how she fought against Haggar in the finale. This season rocks it for EVERY Paladin.

Not only does every individual Paladin get good spotlighting, but S2 also rocks it with character interactions. How Allura handles Keith being Galra is a memorable moment of character development for both of them. How Hunk and Keith interact in “The Belly of the Weblum” is a delight. How Shiro loses his cool with Slav is hysterical. I can never complain to Lance and Hunk combinations, like in “The Depths.” And of course every episode focused on Keith and Shiro gives us good feels.

Standout episodes for S2 include “The Ark of Taujeer” (THE COLORS), “The Blade of Marmora,” “Blackout,” “Space Mall.” I cannot believe I watched an episode where the character dressed as space pirates and rode on a flying cow to escape a mall cop. That happened. It’s a delight. And S2 kept rocking it with the humor, down to Pidge creating all her Paladin buddies out of space junk and imitating them. But S2 also gives us some of the most memorable moments of VLD storytelling, what with “The Blade of Marmora.” That episode is a staple for many reasons. Not to mention… all of S2 works together cohesively for the long-term arc structure.

And then there’s the climax. So well-done. So exciting. So immersive. So intense. So cool. So badass. Great colors, great flow, great plot, great everything start to end. I was in a THRILL at the end of S2 because this climax was so unbelievably fun. In retrospect it’s got competition with S7, and S7 probably takes the cake now… but fuck it, S2′s end will always be awesome.

Every single season in VLD gives me something to be excited about. There are things to love each step of the journey. I’m thankful for every episode from S1 to S8. 

What a ride this journey has been.

[tumblunni]

Randomly thinking some more about that old game idea of mine that i just call Dark Pokemon for now, lol

Basically a monster catching game where they're treated as monsters? Normal people are all terrified of them and trainers get treated with a 50/50 mix of reverence and hatred. Because trainers are the only way that humans can try and exterminate the monsters, yet theyre seen as cursed people who dont even count as human anymore. Sort of a way to explain little cliches of the genre like kids being thrown out completely alone to travel the world, and you never really having any reason to revisit past towns after you beat the gym. I was thinking itd be a cool way to do it if the game started off seeming like a normal mon catching game and then before you get the big reveal of the darkness you can get subtle hints if you try and turn around and reenter the starting area. Because it goes against expectations it might be missed by a lot of players.

Also the towns are so small and the routes are so straight and narrow because thats how humanity builds society in a world of monster fear. 90% of the world is uninhabited wilderness where only monsters live. Human towns are sorta like sci fi dome cities without the scifi? Surrounded by protective salt barriers and charms and stuff. And if a monster even touches anything its considered cursed, so if one of them makes it past a salt barrier that town is abandoned and any people caught up in the chaos of the barrier's collapse are left to die just in case they've been corrupted. And the roads between the towns are manned by armed guards who are constantly vigilant to repair the salt barriers. But this means they have to live their entire life alone in these limbo spaces between society and the wild, and often most narrier breaches are caused by the guards getting paranoid from the pressure. You need to keep watch for monsters so any movement in the shadows could be one of them, right?? You get situations of roads being blocked off by some crazed guard who starts seeing people as monsters, or one of them pulling the alarm and getting a town falsely burnt down for being corrupted when the monster was really just a leaf blowing in the wind. Or the worst case scenario where nobody ever knows WHAT happened! You just find the road destroyed and the guard gone. It might have happened days ago and nobody knew until a merchant tries to travel between towns and discovers the only road of escape is gone and everyone is doomed to slow starvation. And you can still see the other end of the road just a few meters away, but the superstition is so strong that nobody will risk taking that single step into monster territory. You'll be cursed and that's worse than death, right? You don't want to turn into a trainer...

And then also nobody really knows what determines who's chosen to be a trainer. Inevitably whenever someone shows signs of powers the town will turn on them and make up any excuse that they somehow invited the curse by being promoscuous or athiest or something. And you need to be removed for everyone's safety! Thus begins the ten year old's journey walking the earth in search of a place they can belong...

Tho usually its not just kids, the protagonist and rival is a rare case. All your neighbours are torn between 'its so tragic it happened to kids' and 'they must be REALLY evil to get chosen despite their age!' And i think maybe the rival would be like a sympathetic gary type? Theyre so determined to be better than you because they think if they can prove theyre good then their parents will let them go back home. And this desperation leads them to make bad choices and reject the only friend they have left :( Also them being bad to their monster pals would feel more justified when they were raised in a society that says monster pals are evil and you cant let your guard down cos theyre just trying to tempt you. Listen to the assholes who dont care about you, because anyone being nice is a lying sinner!

Also i was thinking maybe you catch monsters with a magic song or throwing herbs at them or absorbing them into a jewel pendant or something else more magicky yknow? Maybe magical bandages enscribed with spell runes that wrap arpund them like a collar? And so trainers are divided up into weavers who make these catching tools, and then the actual kind of trainer who uses them to catch mons. Weavers are able to stay in human society and act like the pokeball shops, theyre sorta like a 'town witch' or something. Like 'we will tolerate your magic if you never actually make a contract with a monster'. But then of course catching monsters is necessary to defend against monsters, so weavers have to be allowed to make the catching threads and sell them to travellers. But only travellers are allowed to do that sinful mon hugging! But also hey sinful traveller will you please save us from our doom? Basically this is why most trainers work as mercenaries, all this bullshit means that you gotta be employed by some asshole who hates your guts just cos u need food to eat. But blablabla town limit of X days before you have to leave, etc etc...

Also i was considering an element of different towns having different mythology around monsters and trainers? So you never really know whats real or if all of it is bullshit. Every time you go to a new place theyre equally fanatically convinced that some new thing is the real sin and everything the last guy said is eeeeeevil corruption. Sigh! And a subplot i was thinking of is a town with very sexist mythology, where the roles of weavers and tamers are seen as one gender only. And the town weaver is this nice grandma thats trapped in an abusive relationship with a super misogynist gramps. And one of those cloyingly fake-softspoken "rational" sexists who's all 'im just trying to protec u, wrong gender roles are bad for your immortal soul'. And has a million "logical" explanations for why his bigotry is true. Like technically he's "valuing her as important" by not letting her leave the house or socialize with friends, because yknow "im a nice guy who's nice to you trainers, i know your job is important so shouldnt the weavers be working 24/7 to support you?" The frustrating feeling of starting to trust a guy cos he's not bigoted against your particular minority, but then finding out he's bigoted against someone else... Ugh. So ultimately in the end you can succeed at this sidequest and help the grandma make a pact with a cute fairy monster and kick his ass and leave. And possibly get into a cute and mutually healthy relationship with another grandma in another town, so you get to see that and have a bonus happy note to the sidequest, yknow? Also they give you a hug and bake u cookies. (The monster is wearing a cute chef hat!) And then you'd have a place to stay in that town that doesnt have the 'it gets more expensive every night to try and make you leave' bullshit of all the normal inns. And you get to see a cute animation of your monsters all cuddled up in bed too cos they dont force you to leave them outside in the Designated Monster Containment Cage.

Oh! Also randomly i was thinking of another way of foreshadowing! Like when you go to the first inn you dont know any of this stuff about people hating monster tamers and not trusting your tamed mons even if theyre tame. So you'd probably just think that you not seeing your monsters when you sleep is just the game's limited graphics or you keep them in some pokeball equivelant thing. But when you walk arpund the outside of the inn you can see a door to a basement cellar that's got weirdly heavy duty chains and bars even if you assume they store their valuables down there. And maybe when you heal at the inn it never restores your mons to full health, always 10hp away from maximum or something? Or other small hints that theyre afraid of going to the inn and your protagonist is wary about doing it even if you'd think theres no downside to healing. Or maybe you can see another monster tamer visit the place at one point and you can hear banging and growling from the basement...? Or see some of the chains have bite marks in the morning. And the townsfolk wpuld be all 'can you believe how much noise they made?' and expressing fear about monsters being in the town, though itd have to be written carefully to remain vague. But yeah 'lets mistreat these small animals because we fear them' -> they panic and cry for their one human friend in the world while theyre forced to sleep in a damp dark tiny room -> 'that just proves theyre inherantly violent!' Also the trainer is an ungrateful bastard for acting so sullen when they couldnt sleep from worry over their friends :(

But it wont be all depressing yo!!! All the darkness of the setting is dark but the monster pals are still just as pals! I give u grimdark world so i can give u a protagonist of kindness who fights the system and saves people in every town who eventually rise up and are swayed by their kindness into fighting The Old Ways and making a better world as the story goes on! Its like an adventure of creating the pokemon world? You try and sell everyone on the idea of trusting cute monsters instead of being so damn paranoid you inflict all these atrocities upon other humans and even yourself because 'sacrifices are necessary to keep the monsters away'. Fight the symbol of all bigotry!!! The evil team is Team Bad Dads And Politicians!!!

...sorry lol my story ideas are Weird.

[breastmiilk]

Heyy so i've been a long time fan of your writing and aus and a sort of long time follower of your blog. I just wanted to ask your opinions on infinity war? Because even as a major marvel fan i felt like this movie had a lot of lost potential and in the end wasn't as good as fan reactions have made it out to be? Also while i do love tony what made me slightly annoyed by him in this film is his lack of ability to think clearly and just panicking anytime asked for an opinion or plan?(1/2)

(2/2) and i just felt like it’s wrong the way peter has to fear disappointing him at every turn and just that kind of pressure being placed on him? so yeah just looking for some friendly opinions if this is rude just ignore it. Thank you! (oh also i think i missed when steve called tony the best defender? i cannot for the life of me remember where he says it? thank you for any help!!)

ajsdhjsdsfj anon!! 

xDD okay hi, um, idk why youre looking to me for counsel lol im not qualified enough for this, im just a marvel geek but hmm lets see. im one of those fans that really enjoyed the movie?? oop. sorry yeah, i really really loved it for what it was, at least i can tell you why; 

1) the villain. marvel has a way of getting me invested in their villains or at least getting me to like them even when theyre hurting the ppl i love. i enjoyed thanos a lot–he was an actual threat (terrifying grapes be terrifying), he wasnt even really pursuing the avengers (only fought them because they were stopping him from achieving his goal) and also i love villains that are morally grey/dark-grey. as far as thanos was concerned he was doing the right thing and so he continued with his plans, these pesky mortals can just *smacks them down* 

2) the fighting. you can tell when The Russo Brothers directed a film because the action scenes are always on point *flash back to the fights in winter soldier + civil war* so for the fights alone i was really pumped for that. and they delivered, as tense as i was during most of the fight scenes, i still enjoyed them (esp when people teamed up with their powers/put them to good use: e.g. peter + strange’s portals)

3) the character interactions. i loved the interactions they managed to put in despite the whole Thanos Be Among Us looming threat thing, they checked most of my boxes for those anyway (i.e tony + strange, starlord being starlord, drax being drax, rocket + bucky’s arm, etc.) these little things were what i was actually excited for and i got them so why would i be displeased?? lol

4) flow and character control. with a bunch of characters running around in one film from different universes its easy to become a train wreck and while they were even set in the different countries and planets the story and plot flowed into each other smoothly and it didnt feel like they just shoved a bunch of random supers into one movie just because they could, but have no idea what to do with them (no shade justice league, no shade). Also bearing in mind that these superheroes come from different mcu series with different directors yet they still stayed in character + within their abilities was really relieving to see, it didnt feel like different directors manipulating the characters 

5) SOME. OF. THOSE. SCENES. just the scenes in the movie itself made the movie epic for me?? like when we first experience the flying donut and the whole city is in mayhem (i got chills) or when thor crashed into the gotg’s ship or the fight with peter/tony/gotg/thanos, like. there wasnt a time in the movie at all where i was bored or uninterested in the ‘narrative’ i was like yes please give me more. 

6) when i was waiting to see iw i didnt even study plot i was just theorizing over who would die and if thanos tortured loki into the Invasion of New York lol so honestly anything that would have happened in this movie would have blown my mind, but even then if it was crap i would have called it out (*cough* thor dark world, avengers age of ultron)

7) its just the first part. i feel like this movie is nothing compared to the epicness thatll happen in part 2 “first we’ll break your hearts, then we’ll blow your mind”. this was like set up to the Real battle you know? and i can safely say none of us are ready, but bring it 2019.

honestly, i enjoyed this movie a lot. i loved the plot, the action, the interactions, the pain and the suffering lol just all of it was phenomenal for me, but theres always difference in opinions and thats okay too but for me this was by a long shot nothing at all like a bad movie; i laughed, i cried, i was in suspense, and i want to see it again honestly thats two thumbs up for me. 

(also i didnt find tony was panicking like all the time? the dude straight up was like chillin with pepper–okay bruce came out of a portal, weird–theres a wizard *follows him into portal*–ughhh call steve?? i hate all of you–chaos in the city, lemme just help this lady up real quick–dammit squidward, hulks not working so imma just *nanotech*–wow im trapped on this ship and probably gonna die so okay guys heres the plan, oh wait peter has a better one lemme hear it *actually listens to peter AND strange eventually too like, he was pretty chill to me lmao) 

and peter doesnt fear disappointing tony in a severe way; because he doesnt even listen to him half the time LOL yeah tonys his idol, he wanted to make a good impression in homecoming (you wouldnt want to disappoint anyone you love/respect) but like generally peter and tony are cool–their relationship/interactions arent powered by peter wanting to be ‘good enough’ lol he IS good enough, just that sometimes IronDad wants him to be safe and Peter’s like hell naw, imma fight this baddie real quick and you’ll just have to get over the fact that i snuck on board the ship lmao. its a very do first, ask later thing that all teens do–i dig it.

But yeah like i said, maybe the fandom got something from the show you didnt, maybe we saw everything in a different way idk my dude–we just came to have a good time and cry and stuff, because i guess thats what marvel fans do lol. hope that helped you with your own feelings about it ?? at the end of the day, its just a movie (HAHA yeah right) and im not a critic or an expert, just a marvel fan sobbing in misery and anguish–but like,,,the good kind.

;)