#unedited unrevised

[blugrlgroup]

i guess you were right.

i gave you

what you begged for,

what i meant to be

a gentle, enveloping comfort

a familiar embrace, draped

around your neck,

like a favourite scarf,

fell victim to my terrified grip,

like a child

clutching their mother’s hand,

a bouquet strangled

in hesitation,

you look down and see

the knife

i held to your throat,

blinded by the light reflecting

in your eyes

you saw a white rose

and forgot about the thorns

i forgot too,

you never liked scarves

[mistyheart]

THINKING ABOUT… 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐎𝐒𝐒

You were the assistant to a well-known magnate in Tokyo. You've seen the man on magazines, both as a big-shot business lord and as the wet dream of women all over Japan. When you decided to study business and finance, you never thought you would land an important job in a prestigious company. Sure, you had dreams and what no, but never actually thought you would be accepted as anything more than just another 9-5 office employee. But despite the great salary and the luxuries that surrounded you, the heir to the Gojo clan made it impossible to like your job. He represented everything you loathe in a man; Satoru Gojo is condescending, self-centered, a playboy, and is not ashamed to flaunt his money. He makes sure to annoy you whenever the opportunity present itself, like complaining when you bring him a coffee from his favorite café claiming that “you don’t know how to order it” knowing you use the exact words he gave you. To your experience, he’s insufferable, it’s why you don’t understand why your heart fires up when he looks at you with those majestic eyes for more than a few seconds, or why your hands get clammy at the thought of being stuck in his family private jet when you have to accompany him in a business trip. Even when you went to sleep, flashes of the white-haired man invaded your nights, dreaming about his fingers caressing your body, getting on his knees like you are a goddess worthy of being worshiped, gawking at you like he might get punished for not taking in your essence. And when you wake up at deadly hours of the morning, you might even wish it wasn’t a dream.

[little-peril-stories]

“I’m not a dog you can summon to your heels at a single command, Mr. Regent.” Realizing how tightly my fists are clenched, I uncurl my fingers and draw a deep breath. “With all due respect.”

“With all due respect, my good man, that is exactly what you are.”

[summonernoctis]

Day 10: Episode Ignis

He holds his arm to his stomach and bows, perfectly proper, as he’s trained since childhood to do. When the dutiful seconds are up, he lifts his eyes to the throne. To his king, long may he reign. Each time he looks upon that face, it’s like seeing it for the first time in ten years all over again; he takes his time recommitting each smile line to memory.

For royalty, Noctis’s expression is casual. Relaxed, as if this is the same routine they’ve followed each morning for years and will continue to follow for as long as they live. And they will live. He’s made sure of it. Ignis’s arm falls to his side, and he stands tall.

“Your Majesty,” he addresses, and revels in the way it brings a spark to Noct’s eyes. Exasperated by the formal address, but fondly. He knows. Not just what the mere freedom of sitting in a room cost, but the depth of all that Ignis is imploring him to receive. 

Noctis opens his mouth to speak just as Ignis’s one good eye opens to darkness. It’s as though the power went out unexpectedly–and in a way it did. Whatever magic allowed him to glimpse this possibility has run its course. So has the possibility itself. If Ignis had only made the right choices, gauged the situation more wisely. If he hadn’t let his fear get the best of him, then…

The Carbuncle statue is cold in his hand. Well, then that might have happened. A miraculous win at the Crystal, a fruitful decade of research, and all of them at their king’s side in the end. It would have all led to that moment: Noctis on the throne, a kind and benevolent king.

Noctis is dead. Ignis had clenched his bloody shirt with dirty fingers, searching hopelessly for a pulse, a breath, a sign of any sort. Instead, he was forced to relinquish his hold for good.

It’s foolish to believe otherwise. Ignis has placed his whole life firmly on the foundation of science and reason. A person dies, and they never come back. Even with all the wonders of magic and the Crystal, wishing cannot reverse this fate. This death in particular had been fated long ago by the most powerful of wills. And yet…

He thinks of the spark in Noctis’s eyes. The Noctis that he just looked upon, confident and regal and heart pumping with a magic embedded beyond any gift of his family. He thinks of the soft edges of Noctis’s smile.

“A power greater than that of the six.” The astrals were not the most powerful beings in the cosmos. If the vision that the messenger gifted him were any indication, Noctis could defy their wills. He’d have the strength to carry on after the battle, to thrive despite the crushing weight of his heritage and enemies. 

And maybe if the vision were the least bit plausible–just maybe–Ignis could be stronger, too.

If I believe in wishes, if I can find the key, Perhaps it’s not too late to change the course of fate – Cause after all, I must be pretty great if you believed in me. (”If I Believed,” Music by AJ Holmes, lyrics by Kaley McMahon) @ignoct-week

[tokkiyuna-rabbit]

Thread of Hope

Summary: The war had taken everything from Henri: his family and his home. Now as an orphan, Henri tries his best to survive, but hope is only a small string and his will to live is an even smaller thread. In the first winter of being an orphan, Henri is pushed into an underground resistance. Will he be able to succeed as a member of the Resistance or face death itself?

Unedited, Unrevised Chapter 1

Notes:

I am not tagging the fandom that this fanfiction was supposed to go. I do not want it to be found lol

I have posted this before on a different account before deleting it. I am the same person

I do not have plans to continue this story, but maybe I will talk about what I had planned out?

Though, I do have a second chapter almost done from what I can tell based on looking back at the document.

Chapter is too long, so I put it under cut.

January 1941

Henri coughed as the cold air-dried his throat as he made his way down a street. The winter wind makes him shiver, and it does help that his clothes are worn out. Henri had never liked winter since he hated the cold, but he also hated winter as it symbolizes death. Thinking of the symbolism makes him want to cry, but he was not allowed to cry, especially during these times. War. A word that he despises. Henri kicked a rock into an alley. If it wasn't for the war, he would be at home with his parents. A warm home and even warmer parents.

He walked into the empty alley and fell to the ground. He cannot help to shed tears as he thinks about what life could have been. Scratch that, what life should have been. He shouldn't be an orphan digging food out of the trash can. An orphan that slept in boxes. An orphan that had no hopes. Henri let out a small whimper as he pulled his knees to his chest. He tried to warm himself up but to no avail. The wintry winds blew, and the sun was too weak to share its warmth. Henri squeezes his knees as he becomes more desperate to warm himself up. Eventually, he angrily stands up and marches out of the alley. There was no point in sitting still if he was going to freeze. He quickly calms down as acting differently from others around him could make the German soldiers suspicious of him. He quickly realizes it was a good thing as he starts to hear shouting. He stops on track and hides behind some men.

"What is happening?" Henri whispers.

"Don't be speaking French. You know that's illegal. To answer your question, apparently the man in that house is a resistance member," the man whispered.

"I thought he was a criminal. Not a resistance member," another man whispered.

"A resistance member is a criminal!" the man hisses.

"What will happen to him?" Henri asked.

"You want to know what happens to that scum?" A rough voice spoke. Henri and the other men jumped as they call turned around. They quickly recognized that the new man was a German soldier. "Those scums are executed. There is no need for pathetic man to be around. Oh, and do not speak in that language. You look like an orphan, so I'll let it slide today." Henri nodded, but he was not entirely sure what the soldier said as he spoke too fast.

"I'm sorry," Henri whispered to the men, who had all turned around and ignored his apology. Henri watched as the man was forced into the back of the car and taken away. People began to walk away, but Henri stood there in disbelief. He hoped the man could escape death. He watched as people started to slowly hide in the nearby stores or in their homes. Henri sighed as he turned around and walked away. These scenes were no longer a surprise, but they didn't stop him from being frightened. He couldn't imagine one day being home and sent to death the next. Henri began feeling sick and hurried down an alleyway, where he vomited. His throat began to burn even more, and his legs shook like a newborn lamb. Eventually, his legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the floor. Henri breathed heavily, hoping it would slow down his heartbeat and bring some coolness to his burning throat. Henri leaned against the wall. He grabbed something from his pocket. The small item was covered in a small cloth. He uncovered it to reveal it was a small doll. The doll was a handmade wooden wall. It had no limbs but looked beautiful. He held the doll close to his chest as he sang a lullaby that his mother used to sing to him. As he sang the last note, he heard footsteps. He quickly covered the doll and put it in his pocket; while the doll was important to him, it was embarrassing that he had had one since he was a boy. Henri looked up to notice a soldier was walking down the alleyway. Henri sat still, wishing he could turn invisible. Of course, the soldier noticed him and stood in front of him. Henri breathed in and stood up, looking at the soldier. The soldier took a quick look over him.

"What are you doing here?" The soldier said. Did the soldier ask why he was here?

"I felt sick, so I threw up in the trash can," Henri responded in Luxembourgish. The soldier looked perplexed.

"Answer me in German," the soldier demanded. Henri looked down. He was hoping his Luxembourgish could help him since the language was quite similar to German.

"I can't speak German," Henri responded. He could hear the soldier becoming irritated. Henri felt terrified, but luckily, he heard more footsteps.

"Stein, we are in the French-speaking areas. He's probably speaking Luxembourgish," another voice called out to the soldier. Henri looked up to see a young soldier.

"I don't care! He should be speaking German," Stein yelled. He looked at Henri with absolute disgust. "I don't know why you are not speaking German, but you better learn it if you know what's good for you." Stein pushed Henri and marched down the alleyway.

Henri pushed himself from the wall and placed his hand on his shoulder. He's ashamed to admit that he was quite frail and weak. He suddenly felt another hand on him, which he knew was from the young soldier. Henri jumped as he backed away from the young soldier. The young soldier apologized.

"You should really learn German. I think there is a school nearby that can teach you," the young soldier said in French. Henri could feel his mouth hanging.

"I can't go there. I don't have money to afford the classes. I learn German through hearing the people speak around me," Henri whispered. The young soldier looked at him with pity but soon looked stern. Heavy footsteps returned. Henri knew it was probably another soldier.

"You! How old are you?!" Henri turned around to see it was Stein again, but with another soldier.

"How old are you?" Henri heard the young soldier hiss. Henri then realized what was happening. They wanted to draft him into the war!

"Véierzéng (14)!" Henri responded. He didn't remember the age when he could be drafted, so he held his breath in.

"You're 14? He's too young then. Even if he was the age, just look at him. He's too frail and week. He'll be dead within a day," the other soldier said. Stein nodded. They both turned around and walked away. "Beilschmidt, you better come." The young soldier nodded as he walked with them.

Henri breathed a sigh of relief. He was just terrifying enough to see a German soldier, but to talk to one? That was death looking at you. Henri spent no time standing around as he quickly made his way out of the alleyway. He did not need to speak to another soldier today.

The sun began to settle down, and Henri was now freezing. In the daytime, at least a small amount of the sun gives him warmth, but the nights are when the cold really begins. His breath was shaky, and his body was shivering. He would walk faster, but his legs would not move faster. It ignored his pleas to go faster. Soon, Henri walked under a bridge where he gathered wood. Over the year of being an orphan, he had luckily learned how to build a fire. He used all his strength, drilling the stick into the others. Sparks flew, and flames emerged. The immediate heat brought comfort to Henri. He leaned as close as he could to the flames. He smiled as the cold soon disappeared, and he could relax. Henri built a fire near the edge of the bridge so he could look at the stars. The stars were his favorite thing about the night. It would remind him of all the times his father took him and his mother to go watch the stars. His face began to freeze, so he turned to the fire but was startled. Henri turned his head completely to the other side and noticed a man sitting beside him. It wasn't uncommon for homeless people to sit with him for the warmth the flames provided, but that didn't stop Henri from being nervous around them. He turned to look at the flames once again but kept his hand on a pocketknife that he had taken from his home. It belonged to his father, and Henri did not want the blood to smear it, but if he had to defend himself, then he will.

"I don't know what you are grabbing, but I am not going to hurt you," the man whispered. Henri loosened his grip on the knife. He turned to look at the man, who was staring at his hand. "Let go of whatever you're holding."

"Why? So, you can rob me? That is not happening," Henri hissed. "Being robbed twice is enough for a lifetime." The man rolled his eyes and looked back at the flames. Henri took the pocketknife, setting it on his side of him. He placed his hands on his knees. Henri could see the man instantly became calmer and relaxed. He turned to Henri.

"You know what? You look familiar," the man said and leaned in. Henri quickly grabbed the pocketknife. The man immediately moved away from him. "I swear I have seen you before. Move your hair."

"If I look familiar, wouldn't you know my name without me moving my hair out of the way?" Henri asked. The man sighed and leaned in again. He quickly grabbed his arm, the one that held the knife. Henri tried to fight the man, but the man was stronger and managed to move his hair.

"Henri? Henri Friedan?! What in the world are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home?!" The man shouted. He moved away. Henri moved the pocketknife in front of him. The man knew Henri, but he didn't feel safe with him after what he did.

"Yes? I don't know? I can't exactly make fire out in the open," Henri replied. The man shook his head.

"Where's Lucien, your father?" The man asked. Henri then realized that the man knew his parents. He could feel his eyes watering up now that he had to face reality once again.

"He was sent to the military, but died soon after joining," Henri whispered. He looked at the flames as tears began to fall from his face. He had always been the type to cry, but he hated it. After all, boys don't cry. It's the weakest thing a boy can do. Henri wiped his eyes as he waited for the man to speak again, but there was nothing for a while.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Henri. What about your mother? She still has to be around," the man spoke. It seemed like the man still believed that one of his parents was alive. Henri whimpered as he shook his head. Why could he stop crying?!

"She's gone. I'm out here waiting for the war to be over. Maybe I can find a job once that happens," Henri responded. This time, Henri looked at the man. The man was looking at him. As Henri looked at the man, he noticed that he was wearing a pin. The colors of the pin were ones he was not expecting. It was the colors of the Grand Duchess. "Wouldn't you get in trouble with that pin?"

"No. I don't think I will, and even if I do, then it would be worth it. My loyalty lies with the Grand Duchess, not that toothbrush mustache man," the man laughed. Henri snickered as he heard what the man referred to the German leader as. Now that he thought of it, that man's mustache does look like a toothbrush. Henri then began to laugh out loud. It was the stupidest reference he had ever heard.

"Be quiet!" The man hissed as he covered Henri's mouth. Henri took the pocketknife and placed it on the man's arm. "Ssh! Soldiers!". Henri instantly put the pocketknife away. He turned to the flames and shoved snow onto them to extinguish the fire. Henri and the man sat in silence.

"You two! Out under the bridge now!" Henri and the man looked at each other. The man quickly took the pin off and placed it in his pocket. The man grabbed Henri's hand and walked out from under the bridge. There, Henri saw Stein and three other soldiers. His heart jumped when he noticed the young soldier! Was his name Beilschmidt? "What do you think you are doing here at these hours?"

"I was checking up on this young boy. I thought he was lost," the man responded. Stein looked at him and growled.

"Not you again! Go home or else I'll put you in the army early!" He yelled at Henri. Henri stood still. He was scared. He didn't want to run in case they thought he was trying to escape. He didn't want to be shot. Stein seemed to get angrier as the seconds passed. Luckily, it appeared that the soldier beside was a rank higher than Stein.

"Stein, let the boy go. He's of no threat. That man doesn't look threatening either. Let them go," the high-ranked officer tiredly spoke. The man took no time to run off, leaving Henri alone. Henri sighed but then noticed a glint in the snow. Henri looked at the soldiers, who were walking away. Seeing they were gone, Henri picked up the small item on the floor. It was the pin the man wore! The pin with the colors of the Grand Duchess! Henri placed the pin into his pocket and ran. He had to find a new sleeping spot. Luckily, he could find a box with no snow on it, which meant it was barely thrown out. Henri moved the snow off the ground and found a smaller box to lay down on. It seemed like the night ended in his favor.

He was wrong. Henri was dead wrong. When he awoke, he noticed that something was wrong. He sat up and saw that he was covered in snow. Great, someone had stolen the box he was using for cover, but that wasn't the worst of it. He looked down to see his shoes were missing as well! Henri growled as he held his feet. What kind of scumbag steals from a child?! Henri sat still for a while as he tried to warm his feet up. Once again, his eyes began to water. Out of all the times, why was he crying now?! Henri cursed under his breath and noticed a man and a woman staring at him. The man looked angry and held a hammer in his hand. Henri realized that the man didn't want him here. Before the man could get near, Henri ran down the alleyway.

Despite his feet being practically frozen, he was able to run away. He guesses that's what adrenaline does to someone. He slows down and slips onto the ground. He lifted his feet on a brick. He breathed in and out, hoping to catch his breath. Henri wondered where he could find some shoes. He didn't want to steal shoes, but he didn't have the money to afford shoes anyway. Luckily, Henri, over the months, learned how to sneak around. After all, how was he supposed to feed himself? Once he caught his breath, Henri stood up and walked around. He finally found a shoe shop. He walked to the back and noticed some shoes were thrown away! He quickly hid in a hole in the wall. He would have to skip eating today as he needed to wait for the dark to cover him. Henri began to hum a lullaby once again. In times of stress or sorrow, he could always turn to the lullaby for comfort.

Henri opened his eyes to see that the sun had set. He smiled as he looked out of the hole. Henri slowly walked out of the hole and tiptoed to the garbage can. He peeked and saw several shoes. Henri sighed. Most of the shoes were so worn that it was worthless, but there was one shoe that was barely worn out! He grabbed the shoes and put them on. He then walked down the alleyway. It felt nice to have shoes on again! The best thing is that he was asleep for the whole day, which meant he could stay up for a while to make sure he found a better spot to sleep. He did not need his shoes to be stolen again. Henri found a small makeshift home. He walked around the home and looked in the window. The makeshift home appeared abandoned! Henri quickly entered the house and blocked the entrance. Henri yawned as he sat down on the makeshift bed; before he knew it, he was asleep.

The light of dawn hit Henri's eyes as he woke up. He groaned as he knew he would have to leave the safety of the makeshift home, but he knew he couldn't stay here. There was a reason why it was abandoned. Henri swung his leg off the bed and put on his shoes. Henri held his stomach as it cried a sorrowful cry. He was starving. It was time to find food. Henri quietly and hurriedly walked out of the makeshift home in search of food.

The town's streets were empty, and a slight, white fog blanketed the town. It was an eerie look, but Henri didn't have the time to be frightened. This was the perfect opportunity to find food. He quickly turned to the corner onto a street where he knew there was a bakery and a grocery store. He snuck into the grocery store through one of the windows. When Henri became an orphan, he quickly learned which food was best when homeless. He needed canned food. He realized that he liked canned pork and canned corn. Maybe he could grab an apple to go. Henri needed to eat something but didn't want to eat the canned food until it was necessary. Henri found the canned foods and began to put them in a bag. He had to be quiet and fast. He packed at most a minuscule 10 canned meat and 10 canned vegetables. Henri started to hear footsteps, so he quickly grabbed two apples and climbed out the window. He felt bad for stealing, but he thought he had no choice. Who wanted to hire an orphan anyway? Henri used many boxed to walk on to avoid leaving a trail. Once he was far enough, he got off the boxes and ran into an alleyway. Since he had left footsteps at the store, he couldn't risk returning to the makeshift home. He walked down the alleyway looking for a place to settle for a minute.

Finding a place to settle around these areas was difficult. Henri knew that it was because the business didn't want the homeless here, so it was no surprise many of the spots that would have been good were teared up. Eventually, he found a large box and hid under it. Henri took out one of the apples and bit into it. The apple flavor quickly covered his tongue, and it had been the sweetest food he had eaten in a while, so Henri couldn't help but smile. Unfortunately, the apple was soon gone. He wanted to eat the other apple but would save it for the night.

"Those boxes? Nah, it's all trash. You can take them," a woman's voice was heard. Henri realized that he may be under a box about to be taken! He crawled out of the box and sat still. Henri peeked around the trunk to see the young soldier and Stein! This was terrible news. Henri quickly made his getaway, and it seemed that it did not go unnoticed.

"You! Stop right there!" An angry shot rang. Henri's heart jumped, and he began to run. He ran as fast as he could. The best part about being born in a town and living in it is that you know almost all the shortcuts and hiding spots. Henri could crawl into a hole in the ground and push cardboard onto it. "Where did that kid go?!" Henri could hear the shouts of the soldier. He sat still and waited for the footsteps to disappear. Once they did, Henri sprang from the hole and ran into the streets into a new alleyway, but he crashed into someone. Henri looked up, and paper flew around him.

"I'm so sorry!" Henri shouted as he collected as much of the paper as he could. He held them close to his chest. The man growled as he got onto his knees.

"Watch where you are going!" The man shouted and picked up the other half of the paper. The man looked at Henri as if he wanted to yell at him more but then ran.

Henri turned around to see a German soldier! The soldier noticed him and started to run at him. Henri bolted out of the alleyway and into the streets. He ran as fast as he could while forcing the papers into his bags. He ran into another alleyway and climbed over a fence. Henri began to slow down, but then he heard shoes slamming onto snow and concrete. Of course! Henri should have known the soldiers would be able to jump over fences! Henri tried to leave the alleyway but was slammed onto the ground.

"What's in your bag?!" The soldier shouted. Henri managed to remain on his knees and began to kick the soldier.

"Let me go!" He shouted as he managed to kick the soldier's stomach. The soldier groaned and loosened his grip. Henri used that as an opportunity to turn around and push the soldier. Still, the soldier quickly composed himself and grabbed his left arm. Henri flailed his right arm, hitting the soldier in the face. He used his left arm to hit him, and Henri then grabbed an item from the soldiers' pocket. He pointed the thing to the soldier's face. It was his pistol! Henri's heart dropped as he realized that he had stolen the soldier's gun and could have possibly killed the man. The soldier backed up. "G-go away! I don't know what's in my bag, and I don't want to hurt you!"

"Kid, you can hand me the gun, and we can see what the paper you were carrying was," The soldier pleaded. Henri didn't want to comply. Something about the papers didn't seem right, and the soldier reacted even worse. He shook his head.

"No! Go away! Please!" Henri yelled. The soldier nodded as he backed away from him. Once the soldier was out of his view, Henri ran out of the alleyway without bothering to hide the pistol. He was too startled to think straight and ran into another alleyway. He collapsed onto the ground and hid behind a box. He panted. He needed to catch his breath. Who knew Henri would one day get into a fight, no less with a soldier?! Henri didn't know whether to feel proud or stupid for his actions. Henri grabbed one of the flyers and looked at it. Henri was right about the flyers being suspicious! The leaflets were in French and were propaganda flyers! He decided to feel proud and relieved about his encounter with the soldier. After all, being caught with propaganda flyers could lead him to jail. Henri placed the paper back into the bag. He then remembered that he had that pin with the colors of the Grand Duchess. He took the pin out and looked at it. Would he be considered a criminal now? Fighting a soldier and carrying propaganda flyers wouldn't exactly make him a law-abiding citizen, now would it. He placed the pin back into his vest and held the gun to examine it.

"I was sure the kid ran into an alleyway around here!" Henri gasped as he realized the soldiers were near and we were looking for him. Henri ran from the spot he was in and took the gun with him again. He was not going to jail.

Now in an alleyway further away, Henri decided to take out the flyers from his bag. These papers were only bad news. He had to get rid of them. A hand grabbed Henri's shoulder as he was about to throw them away. Henri spun around and saw a man. The man had spiky blond hair, light stubble, and blue eyes. The man's eyes widened, and he backed up. Henri could feel one of his eyebrows rising. He was confused. Why would the man back away from him? That was when Henri saw the pin with the colors of the Grand Duchess. This man was of no danger to him.

"Umm, why are you carrying that?" The man asked nervously. He kept eyeing Henri's hands. Henri lifted the flyers up. Was he talking about this?

"I accidentally knocked into someone, and he dropped these. I tried to be nice and pick it up for him, but then a soldier came. I had to run from him, so yeah. That's why I have these," Henri rambled. He shoved the flyers in front of himself. Henri looked at the man, who looked confused but relieved. The man even began to chuckle.

"I was talking about the gun," the man pointed at the pistol Henri was carrying," though, that does answer my other question!" Henri sheepishly put down the flyers and looked at the pistol. Henri mentally facepalmed. Of course, the man meant the gun! Why would he be worried about flyers anyways?! Henri looked back at the man.

"Oh.," Henri whispered. It was the only thing he could say. Henri took a step back. He wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out of it again. The man seemed to notice Henri's hesitation and walked up to him.

"Look, give me that gun," he demanded as he grabbed Henri's arm. Henri dropped the gun out of sheer fear and surprise at the man's action. The man grabbed the gun and placed it in his pocket. "Come with me." The man began to pull Henri with him. Henri tried to stop the man.

"Where are we going?!" He shouted. He tried to hardest to remain on his feet, but the man was strong. Henri fell to the ground. He began to hyperventilate. Was this man undercover?! Was he pretending to be on the side of the citizens to make it easier to capture resistance members?! What did he want with him?!

"I'm not going to hurt you! Get up now!" The man growled. Henri shook his head. He didn't want to go with the man. He wanted to stay where he was. The man sighed and stopped pulling but did not let go of his arm. Henri sprang onto his feet, but he felt like the man wouldn't hurt him at this moment. "It's best for you to come with me. Soldiers have recently been catching anyone who appears to be a resistance member. With your bag and having a gun, they might've spotted you and are looking for you. I'm going to take you to an area that is safe."

"H-how do I know you're not an undercover soldier?" Henri sputtered out the question. The man began to chuckle. He dragged Henri close to him and leaned in.

 "I would never be with those people. I would rather die than serve for them like a dog," the man hissed. Henri nodded. He was still scared of the man, but now he felt he had no reason to truly fear him.

"Ok, I believe you," Henri whispered. The man smiled and patted his head. He then pulled Henri towards him.

"You're still going to come with me," the man said. This time Henri did not object. He walked with the man to wherever he was going. Though, he wanted to know where they were going.

"Umm, Mister, where exactly are we going?" Henri asked. The man did not answer, and they continued walking down the alleyway.

The man pushed a door opened, and Henri entered. There were a lot of beds in the room. The man pointed to one of the beds.

"You can sleep here for now," the man said. Henri nodded and sat down.

"Is this an orphanage? I rather not be in one. No one wants to adopt a 14-year-old boy," Henri spoke of his concerns. The man shook his head and grabbed Henri's bag.

"No, this isn't an orphanage. Don't worry, you're safe. I'm going to take the bag to see what the flyers were about. I won't take anything of value," the man explained. Henri sat still and watched as the man left with his belongings. Did he just get robbed? Again?! No wonder his mother was always concerned with him with strangers. He was not observant enough of their personality. Henri groaned and laid down. Luckily, he still had his four most prized possessions on him, so everything will be ok. Henri wrapped himself around the blanket and slumbered off.

"Hey, wake up!" Henri groaned as he slowly woke up. Was someone talking to him? "Can you wake up already?!" Henri's eyes slowly opened to see that the room was dark. He yawned and looked to the side. "You take forever to wake up. Get up." It was the man from earlier. Henri pulled himself out of bed.

"Umm, isn't it nighttime? Why are you waking me up now?" Henri asked as the man again pulled him out of the room, but not into the streets.

"There's something I want you to see and meet," he said. The man opened the door, and there stood a group of men. "Henri, meet the Resistance members, and you all, meet the new recruit!"

"What?!"

End of Chapter 1

[snapdragons-sunshine]

Lost Paradise Status Update

(because maybe if I do these I will be able to hold myself accountable better with the damn editing process)

been typing up Lost Paradise from paper and i have now reached 116 pages on the document (with probably still the same number to go *shrug*) oof this wip is a loooong one

i'm going to have to cut so much when i finally get around to the actual editing

also, oh yeah, the word count is now at 59, 115. once again, oof

I've also decided to provide a snippet of the last five lines that I've typed up (also a thing I want to start)

Angel shrugged, but relaxed comfortably into the easy banter as the three of them started down the cobblestone street, Dante trailing a few steps behind. “Maybe you’re the one who forgot, Fin. I didn’t see you in the corridors this morning.”

Fineas shrugged, and ran his gloved fingers through his hair, mussing it up even more than it was usually. There was a jolly spring in his step that was at odds with the grave scene of the night before, but Angel didn’t dwell on it. He hadn’t had to have been friends with the demon long to know Fineas Milani was a study in contrasts - human yet demon; mortal yet immortal; jolly yet grave. It was just one of the peculiarities Angel was starting to accept as a part of his ordinary life, now.

“Probably didn’t,” Fineas agreed amiably, drawing Angel out of his thoughts and back to the present. His tone took on a mischievous quality. “I did see your brother there, though. He was with that di Casca girl again.”

“Diana?”

Fineas frowned. “No, the youngest one. Zanobia, or something like that. He’s been spending an awful lot of time with her.”

[bamsara]

I make eye-contact with the unedited, unrevised 36k chapter and and then collapse on the floor and all the cats gather around to start eating my hair

[erotic-writhings]

Imagine though, wet tentacles constricting around your legs and arms holding you mostly still despite the fact you're writhing and thrashing, doing anything to try and escape. Your panic only grows when you feel one of its cool, wet tentacles graze along the outside of your underwear.

You open your mouth to scream when suddenly the creature has found its way there too, it fills your mouth so quickly and is so girthy you gag. Whatever coats the tentacle tastes bitter, but there's something about it that almost subdues you. Your thrashes and muffled shouts grow less and less as whatever substance coats it's tentacles calms you down.

You feel it brush over your crotch again and you make another noise, more of a whimper than anything, but it's not made out of direct protest, so the monster continues, pulling your underwear off of you.

The cold sensation of its tentacle pressed against your hole makes you choke almost. Shivers go up your spine as you feel it begin to rub itself against you. You moan involuntarily as it finds the right place and shoves itself in. It thrusts in and out shallowly which you find actually frustrates you. All resistance has faded and now you simply want this thing inside of you. But despite your protests the beast takes it slow, slowly loosening you up.

After a while of the same slow, shallow pace, the tentacles' thrusts begin to deepen. You moan loudly and your teeth prick along the tentacle as you bite down, your mouth suddenly floods with more of the bitter fluid and you find yourself enjoying it almost like you would coffee. Your body relaxes back into the mass of tentacles as the monsters thrusts make your body clench.

The tentacles were starting to get more eager, the ones holding you gripped you tighter and the one inside of you was going at a mind dizzying pace, you attempted to close your legs on it but you couldn't, the substance had made you limp and pliable.

Your vision was blurring due to the feeling of it all and your moans began to echo louder than the squelching sound it made. There was something thick and knot like at the base of the tentacle and you nearly screamed when you realized what it was trying to do. It was trying to force the bulge into you.

You knew your body couldn't take it, from how it felt around your legs, it was about the size of a grapefruit. You once again attempted to writhe and struggle but it was futile, you were weak, and soon whatever it had in store for you would be inside you.

It kept pushing and trying to force its way in, the tentacles holding your legs held them far apart and you were already feeling stretched to your limits. Despite everything you felt an orgasm building in you, as the tentacles pressed into your walls you could feel them getting so close to finding the perfect spot, with what little strength you had you began rocking your hips against the bulge, when suddenly pop. The bulging part of the tentacle slid into you completely and you saw white.

The orgasm rocked your body as you came on the tentacle, your whole body ached and trembled as you realized you now had a visible bump in your stomach, the tentacle pulled out and you realized that whatever it had just put inside you was here to stay.

The tentacle treated you tenderly for a moment, running its slimy arms up and down you almost as if it were petting you. You leaned into its touch, too fucked out to think of anything but the soothing feeling and the new weight that accompanied you as you shifted.

After a while of resting and being comforted by numerous tentacles, you felt a shifting near your leg. You looked down hazily to find another tentacle poking near your crotch, this time you could already see the bulge of its egg already and you spread your legs willingly.

You wouldn't resist this time.

Some of you guys wouldn't even let a tentacle monster use you as an incubator and it shows

[jschladderall]

Oh no, Schtepbro!

A Jschlatt smut story…

Pairing: stepbro!Schlatt x fem!Reader

POV: Second-person POV*

Summary: You’re trying to get your laundry done when your older stepbrother, John (you refer to him as Johnny), finds you in a vulnerable position. (Schlatt here is meant to be “Johnny” from the OTK IQ test video where he’s wearing the jersey.)

Word Count: ≈1400

Author’s Note: This is going to be my first “proper” story post. It’s unfinished, so it’s going to be left on a cliffhanger for now; I just want some feedback and more ideas. Please keep in mind that this is largely unedited and unrevised. (I also wrote it in a typical “story” format, how you’d see in books.)

The story is also very dialogue-heavy! It's also kinda dub-con, but not really. It's meant to be consensual; Reader is just morally conflicted at first.

* This was originally written in the third person, using a name and female pronouns, so if there are any mistakes, please let me know! I’ve replaced the name with “you” and all pronouns with the proper second-person versions. I’m hoping that it doesn’t get too repetitive. 😅

Warning: Schlatt here is a pretty mean stepbrother! He refers to Reader as a “slut” sometimes and is generally degrading.

@moistcl1tikal-ao3 r u proud 🧍🏻‍♀️

—————

You had some laundry to do…

You trudged downstairs to the laundry room with your basket full of dirty clothes, completed your normal routine of getting the clothes in, putting the detergent in the little compartment, and… waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

…

Ding! The timer was up. Once more, you completed your second routine of transferring your wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. Your knees started burning from the carpet you were resting on, and you groaned, pausing for a second. You shifted your weight to momentarily ease the pain before returning to your work.

Once you finished the transfer, you leaned into the machine to evenly disperse your clothes for the drying process. You went to back out… before your ass had bumped into something.

“Not so fast, Pumpkin.”

Your stepbrother, John, had placed himself on his knees behind you while you were distracted with your laundry.

“Johnny, what're you doing?” you asked, confused.

“Mm, nothin’,” he replied, thrusting his hips forward, careful to not bang your head on the dryer.

“I- I kinda need to back up so I can clo- close the dryer, Johnny,” you mumbled, now embarrassed.

John chuckled, admiring your form from behind. “You'll get t’do that, Princess.”

You whimpered as your stepbrother placed his hands on your hips, rubbing back and forth.

“John- Johnny, you can't do that t- to me,” you stated, your voice wavering.

“‘N’ why not, Pumpkin?”

You were frozen in shock, unsure as to what you should do. You had known your stepbrother to be a pervert, but you had never expected him to approach you.

“We’re … we’re stepsiblings, Johnny,” you squeaked out, “‘s not appropriate.”

John had pressed his growing erection into your ass again, this time holding himself there as he continued caressing you.

“Sto- Stop, Johnny!”

“Yeah? ‘N’ why should I?” he asked, quizzically. “Does it make ya feel dirty, Sis?”

You were blushing profusely at every word that came out of your stepbrother's mouth. Your head hung low as you tried to mentally deny your arousal. Once more, you attempted to verbally shut down the situation, but all that came out of you was a moan.

John again chuckled, spanking you, eliciting a sharp gasp from you.

“Nasty slut, huh? Yer stepbro has you bent over ‘n’ ya like it.”

He grabbed at your leggings and ripped them open. To his surprise, you had nothing on underneath: “Stupid slut, was this f’me? Y’wanted yer Johnny's cock that bad?”

Despite your protests, John tore your leggings open further, ensuring his full access to you. He teased your slit with his finger, coating his digit in the fluid that had gathered and started dripping.

“John- Johnny! Y- You can't … no, please! We- We can't do- ”

You were cut off by your stepbrother's finger abruptly sliding into your drooling cunt. You whined at the intrusion, “accidentally” pushing back onto John.

Snickering, he mocked you, “Y’still gonna tell me y’don’ want it? Yer just a stupid slut fer yer stepbro, huh?”

Pulling his finger out, John left a hefty spank on your ass, causing it to sting. He pulled your front half out of the dryer by your arms, having your back pressed flush against him.

Leaning down to put his lips next to your ear, John murmured, “When were y’gonna tell me about those li’l fan’asies of yours, hm? Th’ones that y’text yer friends about, talkin’ ‘bout how much y’want yer Johnny's cock, yer big bro’s cock.”

You, completely flustered, squeezed your eyes shut out of embarrassment. John chuckled, pressing his scruffy cheek to yours.

He continued, “Y’seem t’like this jersey ‘specially, huh? Whizzat? Y’like how mean I look?”

With another scornful laugh, John said, “I can show ya how mean I can be, Pumpkin. Yer li’l pussy might not be able t’handle it, though… Pipsqueak…”

You moaned out and pushed your ass back into your stepbrother. Your fluids left a mark on his shorts, right where his cock enticingly stretched the fabric. John groaned at the sight before him, your leggings torn open, exposing your drooling cunt to him.

“How d’ya want yer big bro’s cock, hm? Doggy? I think doggy's good,” he playfully suggested.

You acquiesced before another heavy smack came down on your ass. “Attagirl. Fuckin’ ... who knew you'd be such a dirty slut, huh? My slutty li’l stepsis.”

John let you down into your position before he pulled his shorts and boxers down, revealing his hard cock. It sprung up before bobbing to a stop. Precum had already started leaking, glistening in the light. He rubbed the tip of his cock against your cunt, coating it in your slick, but you had jumped forward.

“Sor- Sorry,” you mumbled, “‘m just nervous.”

John smirked and said, “Jus’ let yer big bro do the work, yeah? Yer Johnny’ll make ya feel good, Pumpkin.”

He corrected your position before holding your hip steady with one hand, using his other hand to guide his girthy cock towards your dripping entrance. You tried so hard to stay still, but …

“John- Johnny, ‘m really scared.”

“Y’on’ gotta be, Doll,” John replied as he started pushing his flushed tip into you.

Despite trying to move away, you were held in place by John's strong grip. You were being forced to take his cock.

“Johnny- Johnny, fuck-,” you sobbed out, “‘s too much, too big, ngh- ah- ”

“My li’l pipsqueak can't handle bein’ stretched ‘round my cock, huh? S’okay, you can take it,” he cooed, “you can take yer big bro’s cock, yeah?”

After another moan, you buried your face into the carpet. You were embarrassed and ashamed, yet still oddly aroused, and very much so.

“How much more, Johnny?” you impatiently asked, desperate to get used to the size of your stepbrother's cock.

“How about y’find out?” John snarled, snapping his hips forward with a lewd groan of his own. “Fuckin’ slut. So eager fer this cock, huh, Pumpkin?”

A sharp gasp left you as you tried to adjust to the sudden intrusion. Your stepbrother was balls deep in your little cunt, stretching you out on the laundry room floor. You couldn't help but whimper, gently pushing back on John.

“Can't believe ya told yer friends about how you could take this cock. Look at yer li’l cunt strugglin’ to fit me. I’m tearin’ ‘er at the seams, Pipsqueak.”

He pulled out a bit before gently pushing back in. Your tight hole made obscene sounds as it squeezed him, and it made him feel dizzy. John was so drunk on your pussy. Grabbing his phone, he started recording your misdeeds.

You pushed back on him again, almost to challenge him once you’d realized that he was capturing it all on video. With a confident yet quivering voice, you dared your stepbrother, “Thought- Thought you were mean. What happened t’it- ”

John had roughly slammed his cock back into you, holding himself at your deepest point.

He scoffed, “I decided t’be gen’le with you, ‘n’ ya just have to be a brat. ‘s that right? Y’still have t’act outta line with yer big bro even when he's balls deep in this pretty pussy?”

You tried to get some purchase on the carpet to deal with the overstimulation, but to no avail. You tried ignoring John’s presence, both in and on you, but he had leaned down again to put his lips to your ear.

He murmured, “Yer little friends are gonna watch ya take this big cock when I'm done wi’ you, y’hear? They're gonna watch how much you struggle to take yer big bro."

John leaned back, making sure to emphasize the stretch on the recording. He grabbed your ass and spread it, showing off the perfect view of how tightly your cunt was wrapped around his fat cock.

“Look a’ this, guys. Look a’ yer best friend takin’ ‘er Johnny so well … She's so stretched out. None ‘f ya are gettin’ this from ‘er. She wants her big bro,” he said with a sinister laugh.

You again moaned, your cunt fluttering around John's cock.

“Ain’t that right, Sweetheart? Huh? Y’want yer big bro?” he mocked.

Spanking your ass, John laughed sadistically at the notion that his stepsister was cockdrunk only for him …

[drawlfoy]

benefits of journaling p.2

read p1 here!

pairing: diary!tom riddle x ravenclaw!reader

summary: you pick up an unassuming journal in diagon alley during an antiques sale without knowing that it's actually a part of a late dark lord's soul. sort of no voldy AU, set in the golden trio era where voldemort was defeated in the first war and thus harry has parents still.

warnings: recreational drug use, language, mild gore, snakes, a mouse gets eaten (thoughts and prayers), tom is a little bit gaslighty, the quality of my writing declines sharply

a/n: note that this is not finished at all, but i'm not planning on finishing this series unfortunately :/ i just have too much going on. this is unedited, unrevised, unoutlined, etc. so adjust your expectations accordingly. i just kind of want to get this out so i've given u guys at least *some* semblance of closure for this series. (UPDATE: now that i’ve written this i’ve changed my mind. i will be working on the next part. i forgot how much i love tom)

wc: 6.7k

enjoy !

This time you were unceremoniously dumped into a hard wooden library chair. You gasped as you braced yourself against the hard table in front of you, drawing in shaky breaths as you gathered your bearings. 

 A loud bang startled you into wrenching your gaze up. Tom had dropped a thick book with an ebony cover right next to you, nearly atop your hand. 

“Here you are,” he said pleasantly. “Happy reading.” 

“Do you think I can take this back with me into my world?” you asked. The cover was smooth under your fingertips. 

“Unlikely,” said Tom, dropping elegantly into the chair beside you. “You’ll have to read it here.”

You gulped. “Alright.” 

The papers were yellowed and fragile against your touch, and you couldn’t help but wonder just how old it was. 

“Any section you’d recommend starting with?” 

The book was around 700 pages with tiny, fine print.

“Perhaps the beginning.” Tom waved his wand and wordlessly summoned a stack of books, lifting one up and beginning to read for himself. 

You’d thought that you’d be less intimidated knowing that he was also doing something besides staring at you reading, but the back of your neck still prickled as you pulled the book to the edge of the table and began to dig in.

It was bizarre, reading next to a boy like this. The only one you ever studied with before had been Ishan, and he hardly counted. It was different with Tom. His presence hung in the air around you, a tension so tangible that it wasn’t unthinkable that you might feel something if you let your fingers sift through the space between you.

Despite all you’d told Tom, spending time around him made you unfathomably nervous. He was too good-looking to feel even remotely normal around him, and it was all you could do to hope that he didn't notice how much you blushed whenever he spoke to you.

The book he’d given you was dense and horrific, detailing magic so ugly and foul that you felt dirty just reading it. It covered topics you’d heard of before, like cases of the Imperius curse or the misuse of love potions or the nature of dark magic. 

But there was nothing pertaining to Tom’s situation.

“Can’t you at least point me towards a chapter? Or…a general section of the book?” you asked him. 

Tom lifted his gaze from his work, quirking a brow. “Having trouble?”

“This is going to take me forever to read.” You motioned at the width of the book. 

“Then I guess I’ll be seeing much more of you.” 

You couldn’t fight back the flush that spread across your face. “Well, this is an easily solvable problem. You really ought to just point me to the most relevant part.”

“And here I was, thinking I was doing you a favor,” said Tom. His eyes locked onto yours, and for a moment you thought you saw the slightest suggestion of a smirk on his lips. “Given that you’re such a glutton for knowledge and not at all singular in your academic pursuits.”

“That’s not—” You paused when you saw the amusement on his face. He’d been playing with you. “I’m flattered that you remembered. I suppose you’re right.”

And since you refused to let him win, you flipped the book back open and picked up right where you left off. 

It was really stupid to feel so light at the fact that Tom had remembered a sentence you’d said verbatim, because even if it implied that he’d thought about your last interaction enough to commit it to memory, it was hardly a surprise. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do in his empty version of Hogwarts except read books he’d probably already read many times before.

You snuck another look at him a few chapters later. A few waves had fallen across his face, dangling over his brow. For a moment, all you could do was keep yourself from reaching out to tuck them back into order, to know what it felt like against your fingers.

But that was a boundary you hadn’t crossed yet—if you even could. Who knew how the rules worked in this dimension?

You resolved to believe that you couldn’t touch him. That it was impossible. Because if you believed that, maybe you’d stop wanting to. 

“You never ended up telling me if you were a Parselmouth,” you realized aloud after you’d completed another gruesome section about ritualistic Dark Magic. 

You watched him closely but didn’t detect even a glimpse of surprise. 

“I didn’t,” he agreed smoothly. He didn’t look up from his page. 

“So? I gave you a secret. Many, actually.”

“I think you already know.” He turned the page, dark eyes darting across the next. 

“Well—” You paused, worrying your lip between your teeth as you realized that he was right. “What’s it like?” 

That was what prompted him to finally lean back in his chair and lift his gaze from the book to your eyes. 

“What’s it like?” 

Repeated back to you, it did sound very silly. 

“I mean,” you said, cheeks hot, “What do you even talk to snakes about? The weather? Whether or not there’s enough mice in the area?” 

“It’s unlikely to find snakes that do more than listen to me,” he said. “Most aren’t very good conversationalists.”

“A boy in my—our, I guess—year has a pet ball python,” you told him. “I just don’t understand why he’d want one. They don’t seem like very good companions.”

“Why not?”

“Because they have no emotional depth,” you said. You could feel your voice slipping into the tone you used when you tutored younger students, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You’d researched this extensively in the library after the Incident in third year when you were looking for any good academic reason for how terrified you were of Malfoy’s pet. “They have no limbic system, so everything for them is about survival. There’s no—no mutual concern or love like you’d get from something normal, like a cat or an owl. As their handler, you only matter because you’re what keeps them alive. I don’t think I’d ever be able to get over that.” 

“So all your companions have to love you?” Tom was resting his chin in his palm now as he looked at you. “They’re worthless otherwise?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you responded. “But I like my company to see me as something more than an avenue for survival or a means to an end.”

“Their companionship isn’t enough?”

You blinked. Everyone else that you’d given your reptile spiel to had completely understood. You couldn’t quite figure out why Tom wasn’t agreeing. “It’s just nice to be cared about, don’t you think? And it’s…it’s nice to care about something without it feeling meaningless.” 

“I imagine that that’s true,” Tom said evenly. 

Something deep inside you twisted at the implications of his answer. You’d sort of forgotten that he grew up in a muggle orphanage and likely didn’t have any sort of emotional closeness during his early childhood. But he was so pretty and sharp and witty that it was hard to imagine no one caring for him. Perhaps that had changed upon his admission to Hogwarts. He had said that witches and wizards found him charming. You could attest. 

~

You passed the following Potions lab with flying colors and a perfectly brewed Draught of Peace that made even Snape nod approvingly. It was thrilling. It was incredible. All you wanted to do was get Tom’s diary out right then and there and document it as it happened—as if he were right beside you—but you refrained. You told him that night instead, when you were back again for another reading session.

You were falling into his world on a daily basis, devouring as much of the book as you could without forgoing any conversations with Tom. He’d been impressed to hear about your potion in his own very Tom way. He didn’t tell you outright that he thought that you were brilliant or smart or incredible. Instead he seemed entirely unsurprised, like he thought you capable of nothing less. Somehow that made you glow more than any explicitly stated praise that he could’ve offered.

When you weren’t reading, you were walking around the grounds with Tom and just talking, much like you used to write to him. At first you’d been nervous and uncomfortable with being as open with him in person as you’d been in writing, but Tom had a funny way of making you feel seen. Despite his slight aloofness and obvious air of pretension, he listened to you and appeared genuinely interested in your life by way of remembering things you’d said months ago.

Like when you’d told him off-handedly that it was raining back in the real world and that it was your favorite weather, and ever since the Hogwarts you were transported to was constantly overcast with torrential downpours unless you two were walking outside. 

You still never dared to touch him, though. That was a line that you refused to cross. Tom seemed to hold the same opinion, keeping a wide berth around you whenever tactile contact was in the realm of possibility. 

“How did you become a Parselmouth?” you asked him one day while you were taking a break from reading and walking through the Transfiguration Courtyard. 

His eyes narrowed as he turned to you. “Do they not teach you about Parseltongue in Defense Against the Dark Arts anymore?”

“No,” you said. “I’ve only ever heard about it by reading a book from the Restricted Section. It was very vague. All I know about it is that it’s the language of reptiles.” 

“No one becomes a Parselmouth.” Tom turned his attention back to the walking path, adjusting the cuff of his robes for just a second. “All Parselmouths are born. It’s entirely hereditary.” 

“So did you have to learn it?” you asked. Your interest was piqued—you’d never heard of a language that was passed through genes.

Tom shook his head. That one rogue strand of black hair had escaped its orderly wave, just like how you remembered him from his yearbook picture. “I’ve never had to think about it. I’ve just always known how to say what I want.” 

“Do you think that you could…” Your voice trailed off and you swallowed thickly. You weren’t even sure why you’d started asking him that question. Of course he couldn’t teach you Parseltongue. You didn’t even really want to know it, either. You’d never use it. But you hated being told that you didn’t know something. That you couldn't know something. 

“We can give it a try,” he offered. 

You dared to glance back up at him and found him already looking at you. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

“I don’t know.” He appeared to be making a valiant effort to quell a grin. “I suppose it has something to do with your approach to acquiring knowledge. One could almost call it…gluttonous in nature.”

You sent him a glare.

Tom shrugged, properly smiling now for the first time in front of you. He had shallow, almost perfectly circular dimples. “Anyway. I’ve never taught anyone before. I actually don’t believe it to be possible, but we might as well give it a go.”

“You’ve never tried?” you asked. “None of your friends at Hogwarts asked you to teach them?”

“No,” he said. “No one knew I was a Parselmouth. I kept that a secret.”

“Why?”

He shrugged again. “I enjoy my privacy. Right, then. Serpensortia.”

A large, hissing snake appeared at your feet, thrashing about in the grass as it unhappily acclimated to its new environment. 

You yelped, leaping nearly a foot in the air. Tom simply stood still, watching you with an amused expression on his features.

“Having second thoughts?”

“No,” you said through gritted teeth, refusing to let your eyes move from the wriggling snake in front of you. “I’m just—surprised.”

“It won’t hurt you.” His voice was low, gentle. “Don’t be afraid.” 

“I’m not,” you said, but the slight wobble in your tone betrayed you. “Just—get on with the lesson, alright?” 

He stood silently, his head tilted in concentration.

“What’s it saying?” you found yourself asking. “Is it—I dunno—threatening my life or something?”

Tom sent you a look that you couldn’t quite decipher. “It’s scared of you.”

“Really?” A spark of smugness lit up within you.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“It’s expressing how upset it is at how suddenly I’ve conjured it. Apparently we’ve interrupted the start of its meal.”

“What do I say if I want to apologize?” 

 He appeared to consider your request for just a moment before opening his mouth and making a hissing noise that you didn’t think you could replicate if you had a thousand years. 

The snake immediately quieted and stopped its thrashing, its tiny head lifting from the ground to regard Tom curiously. 

He looked back at you, expectant.

“Again, please,” you said. “A little slower this time. I didn’t quite catch it.” 

He obliged, going through each syllable separately.

You felt very much like you were back in muggle school before you’d found out you were a witch, being forced to read out a passage in French. The sounds that came out of you were clumsy and not at all what you thought they’d sound like.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you accused. “For the record, I know it was bad.” 

He didn’t address it beyond just the slight upward twist of his lip before he repeated it again, syllable by syllable.

You tried once again with the same outcome. 

“Your tongue should be a little behind your teeth,” he said. “You have yours too far back on the roof of your mouth, which is why you’re losing control. Try again.” 

This time, it came out much cleaner. The snake took notice of you for the first time, its dark scales glistening under the cloudy sky. It hissed something back. Tom’s mouth split into a grin.

“What did it say?”

“It wants to know if you have any food,” he told you. 

“What’s ‘yes’?”

Saying yes in Parseltongue was much easier than saying sorry—it only took two syllables, both of which were made up of sounds that you were pretty sure you had in the English language.

The snake was giving its full attention to you now. Its forked tongue stuck out for just a second. 

Gulping, you accioed a small stone into your palm and cast a quick charm to transfigure it into a mouse—something that you’d learned years ago. 

You set it on the ground and watched the snake lunge.

“Gross,” you said under your breath, wincing as it began to swallow it whole, its body twisting and contorting as it shoved it down.  “I—I think I’m done with the lesson now. I’ve learned enough.” 

“You really didn’t need to feed it,” Tom pointed out helpfully. 

“Yeah. I know that now. I just felt like it deserved something for the trouble.”

Once the snake had succeeded and the only evidence of the mouse was a bulge in the adder’s scales a little past its head, it lifted its head again to meet your eyes, its tongue slithering out as it made a sharp hiss. 

“What’s it saying?”

“It thanked you,” said Tom. He was giving you that look again—like he was reconsidering you. 

“And if I wanted to say ‘you’re welcome’?”

“I thought you said you were done with the lesson.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Consider this my last request. I’d like to be polite.” 

Tom let out a sigh, then made a sound that glided from a long S to a few sharp, pointed consonants. 

You clumsily mimicked him, feeling like your tongue was much larger than you’d ever bothered to notice. 

To your surprise, the adder slithered towards you, dragging itself onto the rock of the courtyard and in front of you. It coiled around your shin, slowly pulling itself up your body.

“Tom!” you whisper-screamed through your teeth.

“It’s alright,” he said. 

“Do something!” 

The snake continued up your leg, looping once around your waist as it continued its ascent up to your shoulder. It was cold and oddly heavy, its scales clammy against the bare skin of your neck.

For one terrifying moment, you thought that it was going to coil around your neck and squeeze until you asphyxiated. Your breath caught in your throat as it came around behind your neck, both ends dangling around your neck as you were paralyzed with fear. 

Then it did the most peculiar thing; it stopped, just hanging in a loose hold around the base of your neck, its face nestled into the collar of your robes. 

“What’s it doing?” you whispered. You tried to ignore the lump in its body that you could feel at the side of your neck.

“It’s resting on you,” said Tom. 

“Why?”

“Because it likes you.” 

You stared at him, floored. “It does not.”

He hissed something to the snake around your neck. It responded with something you couldn’t even begin to understand. 

“It just told me so,” said Tom.

“How do I know you didn’t just make that up?” you said, mentally crossing your arms across your chest but refraining since a snake was taking residence there at present. 

“You don’t trust me?” asked Tom. “I’m hurt.” 

Before you could respond, you felt the slow, languid movement of the adder as it lifted its head from your collar. Without thinking, you offered it your hand, watching in quiet fascination as it slithered around your wrist.

“Hi,” you said shyly, like you’d speak to a nervous cat.

“It won’t understand—”

“I’m aware, Tom,” you interrupted, sending him a look before turning back to your wrist. “We’re bonding. Bugger off.” 

He held his hands up in exasperation. “Bonding? Are you going to take him back to the real world as your familiar?” 

For a moment, you actually considered this.

“Because that’s a terrible idea,” continued Tom, crushing your dream right then and there. “Adders are venomous. Once you don’t have me around, you won’t be able to communicate with it. It’ll probably bite someone.” 

“Then perhaps we should start brainstorming ways to bring you back,” you said. “For safe snake handling, if nothing else.” 

Tom didn’t say anything to this; instead, he reached out and gently unwound the adder from your wrist, his skin not brushing yours once. 

“Surely there’s someone wondering where you are,” he said once the snake had been deposited on the ground. “You’ve been here longer than usual.” 

“Do you not want to get out of here?” you asked, frowning. “It hardly seems like you’re trying.” 

“I’ve been doing research when you’re not around,” he said simply. “I think I just need to theorize for a bit longer—figure out the best course of action.” 

“The process would be sped up significantly if you let me help.”

“I won’t ask that of you. It’s very complicated magic—” He paused for just a moment, noticing the derisive curl of your mouth. “—Not that I think you incapable, of course. But you’ve better things to do. It would distract from your exams, and I tend to work better alone in this stage of research.”

“Oh,” you said, hoping the hurt wasn’t showing on your face. It made sense that he would want to work on this alone. You understood not wanting to have to explain things to people when you could already be going down a rabbithole that you’d deemed important. Plus, your current Tom rendez-vous schedule was eating enough time as it was. But it still stung. 

“You’ll be the first to know if I stumble across anything conclusive,” said Tom.

You snorted. “Obviously.”

“Well—” Tom stopped himself. You thought for a moment that you detected the slightest flush across his pale skin, but that was likely because of the chill outside. “That was more clever in my head. Sorry.”

“I imagine that being in solitary confinement for half a century might addle your mind a bit,” you offered diplomatically.

“My mind is not addled.”

“I was very graciously giving you an easy out.” 

“Someone is probably wondering where you are,” he repeated, his jaw tense. “So I’m going to send you back now.”

Without giving you another chance to argue, you were catapulted back into your desk chair.

~

“You look like you could do with a night out,” Lucy observed as she watched you storm into your dorm and send your satchel flying through the air to land messily on your bed.

“Casting my first and last Unforgivable on McLaggen would be preferable,” you said through gritted teeth. 

He’d been your partner today in Arithmancy to work on a partner problem set. It apparently wasn’t enough for him to be dreadfully stupid and slow—he had to be an absolute chauvinistic arse about it. Whenever you attempted to correct him, he’d look at you with so much amusement that it made your head pound.

He didn’t even need to say anything—the look in his eyes told you that he didn’t even see you as a person. 

The last person to treat you so dismissively had been Pansy Parkinson, but at least she’d been smart. And a witch. McLaggen dripped with conceit and smugness and was disgusting towards the most pureblooded witch on a good day. 

It’d been nearly 3 hours and your blood was still boiling. 

“Well, I can’t arrange that,” said Lucy. “But I can tell you that Hufflepuff is throwing tonight. McLaggen probably won’t come—Ernie hates him, and he’s the one who put it all together.” 

You considered this, looking longingly once at the bag on your bed. You hadn’t done anything with your friends in forever; nearly all the time you had was spent either studying or with Tom. 

The Hufflepuffs were always gracious hosts, too. The last time you’d gone, they’d given you something to smoke that had smelled like a meadow on a sunny spring day and made you feel like you were floating. You’d giggled all night with Lucy, clinging to one another. You’d gone on some tirade about how much you loved her, touching her face and tearing up as you said something about how you didn’t know what you’d be without her. Lucy’d beamed back at you, her face wide open with raw gratitude. 

It had been sappy, but it had been fun and one of the few positive memories you had from the disaster that had been O.W.Ls season. 

“You know what,” you said slowly, watching Lucy’s face light up, “I think that’s just what I need.” 

Tom could wait. 

Lucy squealed and got right to work. In seconds, all the clothes you’d brought from home were strewn across her bed as she scrutinized each one. 

“I thought this was just going to be, like, a chill thing,” you said. 

Lucy picked up a sequined top, held it up to your chest, and wrinkled her nose. “Too loud.” 

“Lucy—”

“I never get to go out with you,” she interrupted, yanking a black slip dress from the pile that caught the warm overhead light. “Thoughts? We could do some fun earrings or something to dress it up.” 

“Are we not just going to sit in a circle and smoke again? This feels a little overkill.” 

“Well, it’s not,” said Lucy, throwing it at you. “This is hardly a ballgown. Plus, this is your annual outing. Dress to impress.” 

You rolled your eyes and slipped the straps off the hanger, throwing it over your shoulder as you turned around to change.

Lucy continued her rampage, ooh-ing and aah-ing upon seeing it on you and immediately cornering you with a scary looking brush.

“For your eyes,” she said, like that made you feel any better. 

“What?” 

“Close them.” 

You squeezed them shut, willing this to be over. You’d had your own experience with muggle makeup, which was tame and not at all exciting. The Wizarding World always had interesting takes on beauty tools, like charmed kohl that could turn your entire eye black if you weren’t careful enough. 

Something cool and wet swiped across the corner of your eyes. Lucy mumbled something under her breath, and there was a slight ruffling at the end of your lashes, like a light breeze had swept through them. 

“Open.”

You blinked, your lashes feeling a little heavier. 

“Pretty,” said Lucy, nodding seriously. “Hang on. Do you have a lip color preference?” 

You stared. A lip color preference? “Er—whatever you think makes the most sense with my undertones.” 

“You would say that,” Lucy replied, already holding a wand of lip gloss. “Put this on.” 

When you turned to look into the mirror she was holding out, you nearly started at your reflection. Lucy had done something insane with your lashes, curling them up and adding length that didn’t look too obvious. That weird tool she’d used on your eye had created a sharp, clean line that followed the contour of your lashline and licked out at the end. 

You looked really pretty. Not quite Tom Riddle level pretty, but pretty nonetheless.

“Thanks,” you said, turning back to Lucy after you’d applied the gloss she’d given you. It smelled faintly of something that you couldn’t quite place—like old parchment and the memory of walking through the library in the middle of the night. It was the strangest scent you’d ever encountered in a lip product. 

Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs did not disappoint. They’d bribed house elves into bringing an entire spread of food that was fragrant and under a constant stasis spell to keep an optimal temperature. You spent the evening chatting with your Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff friends and feasting on ripe slices of pineapple and bites of strawberry that stained your already glossy mouth a vibrant pink. 

Then Hannah Abbott reached into her pocket and pulled out a stash of corked bottles. 

“Party Potions,” said Lucy in wonder as you both stared at the swirling liquids.

You’d heard of them before but had never personally had one. You weren’t entirely sure what they did, in all honesty, and that stressed you out enough to keep you from giving them a whirl. 

They were different vibrant colors—one an opalescent pink, one a vibrant orange, one a blood red, one a deep, midnight blue that reminded you of your house colors. 

“Anyone want one?” asked Hannah, motioning to her pile. Terry Boot raised a hand and plucked the orange one from the table, uncorking it and downing it in one go. 

“What do the different colors mean?” you asked. The longer you looked at them, the more you were mesmerized. 

“I don’t remember,” admitted Hannah. “Nothing crazy, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think,” you repeated.

“Just because I don’t remember why I bought each color doesn’t mean that I would’ve purposefully bought something that did bad things,” Hannah told you. “Here. Take one. It’ll help you relax.” 

The midnight blue potion sat on the fingers of Hannah’s outstretched palm. 

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“I promise it’s nothing too intense,” said Hannah. “You’ve smoked before, right? I’ve had one and it was honestly just like getting crossed. You’ll be fine.”

At the mention of smoking, common sense flew out the window. The last time you’d been offered an illicit substance in the Hufflepuff Common Room, things went really well. Who were you to deny that again?

“If you’re sure it’s alright for me to have it,” you said. The bottle pulled easily from Hannah’s hand and into your grip.

“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Lucy was grinning at you widely. 

Up close, the midnight blue wasn’t solid—there were specks of silver in there, like thousands of stars littered across the night sky. It was stunning. You felt almost bad uncorking it and downing it, but you didn’t give yourself a chance to second-guess.

It tasted like lavender and honey and something burnt that was horribly gross but faded away with time and went down like water. 

“You didn’t save anything for me?”

“Sorry, Luce,” you said, swiping the back of your hand across your lips. 

You weren’t feeling anything yet. Or were you? Was this how you normally felt? The ceiling of the Hufflepuff common room definitely didn’t move, right? And Lucy typically wasn’t outlined in a fuschia pink. That you were sure of.

“Whoa,” you said dumbly.

“I think Y/N’s feeling something!” called out Hannah. “What’s it like?”

You stared at her, watching as a warm brown that reminded you of English Breakfast tea with milk stirred in surrounded Hannah’s edges. 

“You’re such a good person,” you said, feeling tears prick at your eyes, because Hannah Abbott truly was. “And so are you.” 

You turned to Lucy, trying your best not to cry. “Did you know that you’re the color pink?”

Lucy nodded gravely. Later she would laugh about this, but not now. “That’s very kind of you.” 

You spent the evening in a daze, staring open mouthed at your friends as you saw different colors swirl around, some overlapping and blending. 

It was beautiful. Then the sadness kicked in. It wasn’t clear to you exactly what caused your sudden rush of melancholy—but all of a sudden you were staring at the happy people dancing around you, the colors blurring and mingling, and all you could think about was Tom. Tom, who was all alone. Tom, who might never get out. Tom, who was destined for an eternity of loneliness. 

“I’m going to go back,” you said to Lucy, tugging at her sleeve to get her attention. 

She frowned. “Aw, why? Are you not feeling well?” 

“The potion Hannah gave me is making me feel really tired,” you said. It wasn’t a lie. Your eyelids were heavy and the thought of curling up under your blankets sounded better than anything. Well, almost anything. There was something you needed to take care of first. 

“Booooo,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Do you want me to walk you back?” 

“No! I mean—” You gulped. “You’re having fun. I’ll be fine getting back. I think Ron’s on the rounds in our part of the castle. He’s not going to write me up.” 

“You sure? I’d be happy to take you.”

You started pushing her in the direction of the other party-goers. “Very. Go have fun. I’ll see you when you get back.” 

By the time you’d burst back into your room, your chest was heaving with exertion from sprinting up the stairs as you wrenched open your desk drawer and pulled out the journal.

Tom you wrote. Can you let me in? 

He didn’t answer; instead, you were falling through space and into the warmly lit Hogwarts library from the 40s. 

“Tom!” You couldn’t stop the grin that came across your face. 

“Oh—hello.” Like always, Tom was standing tidily a polite distance from you, his hands tucked neatly behind his back. Unlike always, he was staring at you like you’d just shot his dog. 

“Is everything okay?” The potion you’d taken was definitely still in effect. An inky blackness was hanging around his shoulders—a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. 

He swallowed, his eyes darting up and down. “Yes. Sorry. You just look a bit different.” 

“Oh. Yeah, I was at a party. Did you know you have a black aura?”

“What?”

“Your aura is black,” you repeated, slower this time. 

He just stared at you. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, averting your eyes. Maybe he was insecure about having such a lame aura color. It had been a bit rude of you to point that out all willy-nilly. 

“I’m not—” Tom stopped, pressing his lips together before continuing. “I’m sorry, is there a reason why you asked to see me? Surely you don’t mean to read after you’ve just stepped out of a party?”

“Oh,” you said, and suddenly you remembered why you’d come. A somberness dropped over you. “I was just…I was having so much fun tonight. And then I thought about you.”

He stayed silent.

“What’s going to happen to you if I can’t get you out?” Your voice wobbled as tears pricked at the back of your eyes. “Are you just going to be stuck here forever? Won’t you be lonely?” 

When he didn’t immediately answer and opted to stare at you in shock instead, you continued.

“Because I keep thinking about what might happen if something happens to me or I lose your journal,” you confessed, now ardently choking back tears. “I really worry about you. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t help you leave.” 

“Are you…” His eyes darted up and down you again. “Drunk?”

“Hardly,” you said, swiping angrily under your eyes as you collapsed onto the loveseat that you so often read on, pulling your knees to your chest. Then, quieter: “It was just some potion a friend gave me.”

“If you’re so worried about something happening to you so that I’m left alone…” You weren’t looking up at him, but the increase in volume told you he was coming nearer. “...May I suggest not taking mystery potions?”

Before you could issue a retort, the loveseat cushion shifted to accommodate the weight of a second person, sending you toppling over to the other side. 

Right onto Tom. 

Your hands went flying to the opposite armrest, fingers digging into the worn blue velvet with a death grip as you righted yourself, pushing your knees from where they’d landed sprawled in Tom’s lap.

Which you could actually touch, by the way. The implications began rolling in once you were back on your respective side. He’d been solid and warm and completely void of any attributes that may suggest he was a ghost. Which meant that it was probably possible to…

No. No. You weren’t going to think about that right now. 

“I didn’t realize I could touch you,” you heard yourself saying, staring at him in wonder. “I just assumed I couldn’t.” 

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Oh.” 

And for purely scientific purposes (no reputable academic came to a firm conclusion based off of a single trial), you reached your hand out and experimentally poked his forearm again. 

“Wow,” you said.

“Will you stop that?” said Tom. 

“Yes.” You retracted your hand and placed it firmly in your lap. Then, because your manners hadn’t completely abandoned you: “Sorry. That was rude of me. I just sort of assumed that since you’re—well, whatever you are—it’d be like touching a ghost or something.” 

“Whatever I am,” he echoed, looking off into the distance with what you could only describe as a very harrowed expression. 

“I’m sorry,” you said again, but you weren’t entirely sure what you were apologizing for. 

Instead of responding, he buried his face in his hands, heaving a heavy sigh as his fingers tangled into his hair. 

“What’s wrong?” you asked. 

He just shook his head, scrubbing his face with his hands once before he let them fall. 

“Er, all right then,” you said. “Would you like me to leave? I’m sorry for bothering you.” 

“You really shouldn’t worry about me,” he finally said. The awkward, slight pauses between his words gave you a sneaking suspicion that he was choosing his words very carefully. 

“Of course I’m going to worry about you.” Now that you knew that you could touch him, nothing stopped you from reaching out to flick his arm indignantly. “We’re friends, and I like to think that my friends would worry about me if I was stuck in journal jail. Or whatever this is.” 

He was still staring at where you’d touched his arm. 

“...Unless you don’t want to be friends,” you added, suddenly feeling a little silly for jumping to such rash conclusions. “Which I’d understand. I can give your journal to someone else. A Slytherin, maybe. Someone a little more your speed.” 

You decided to blame the potion for the obvious hurt that had seeped into your voice at the prospect that there was someone else who was better suited as his confidant. 

“I don’t want you to do that,” Tom eventually said. He wouldn’t meet your eyes. 

“Then what do you want?” The strength in your words surprised even you. “I don’t understand you. You tell me you want to get out, but you still won’t let me help you. You let me talk to you and come visit you and read with you, but then you expect me not to care. It doesn’t make any sense. You don’t make any sense.” 

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Tom, thumbing the ring he always wore around his finger. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“So help me understand!” Your voice rose sharply, echoing off the walls of the empty library. 

Tom finally turned to you, his face split open with something so uncharacteristically raw and open that it takes everything within you not to gasp. 

“No.”

“What?”

“No.” He drew in long breath. “Not right now. I need more time.”

“Oh, a half century wasn’t enough?” you retorted. “Need another?” 

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Tom, an edge of franticness in the way he spun the ring around his finger quicker. “I never thought that I’d—I didn’t think I’d ever be found. I wasn’t supposed to be found.”

You didn’t know what to say to this. Instead, you sat there with your hands clasped tightly in your lap, eyes set on the floor, your mind racing with all the implications of everything you’d learned.

A moment passed. Then another. Once it appeared clear that you weren’t going to say anything back, Tom spoke up again. “You’re angry with me. I understand that this is…” He paused. “Unconventional. But I am grateful you’ve found me, and I’d really rather prefer that you don’t give me away to another student.”

You were just about to respond when—

“But of course I’d understand if you did,” he added hastily. 

It was the most unnervingly emotional speech you’d ever seen come from Tom, ever the stoic, and under the influence of the potion that Hannah had given you, it was almost enough to make you give in and move on. But not quite.

“You said ‘supposed to’.” Your eyes still didn’t move from where they were trained on the scuffed wooden floor of the library. “You said ‘I wasn’t supposed to be found.’”

“That’s right.”

You turned to look at him, inky black aura spilling over his equally dark hair. “‘Supposed to’. Like you knew this was going to happen. Like this wasn’t an accident.”

And the change you saw in him was so miniscule that if you hadn’t been spending enough time studying his face, you might not have noticed it. But you had, and the slight dilation of his pupils and twitch of his jaw was enough to betray his panic. 

Then his mouth split into a smile and his face smoothed over, his eyebrows furrowed with just the right amount of concern. The shift was startling, like he’d slipped on a mask. “Of course this was an accident. Do you really think that I’d choose to be stuck here for eternity?”

“That’s—” You paused, shaking your head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” 

“I wouldn’t,” he pressed, and this time his arm came up to drape over the back of the couch. You tried your best not to think about how you could feel warmth radiating from it, how if you tilted your head back, you might brush against it. “Are you sure you’re well?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll send you back,” he said, a polite smile set on his lips. “You should really get some rest.”

And for the first time since you’d first discovered the journal, you fell asleep feeling a little bit afraid of Tom Riddle.

[blugrlgroup]

how awful for you,

to have someone

who loved you unconditionally,

who would give you everything

you ever wanted,

needed,

begged for,

how awful

for you,

to have screamed for love

and be smothered by it,

to be loved by someone

who couldn’t even love herself,

you stole

what you thought you wanted

and what i knew i needed,

like a cat

crying for milk and getting water;

this is not what you asked for,

maybe

you never actually wanted it,

or maybe you just didn’t want it

from me

[melpomenismask]

Ketu Moon Natives and our Ketus 🖤

(an unedited, unrevised, stream-of-consciousness vedic astro note where I understand more of the point i was trying to make as I wrote it.)

Rando thought but I was analyzing my own astro today and if you’re a ketu moon you should especially pay attention to your ketu sign and nak!

I have a little theory that us ketu—and likely rahu— moons are more “susceptible” to the intense energies our destiny points signify—we can conquer using them, or become devoured by them, and I imagine wielding such forces can break those of is who might not have the luckiest charts/best spiritual, mental, and emotional foundations. Thus, it’s crucial we ground ourselves in the present—feel the sun on our skin, feel the time come and go instead of passively watching it, participate in life rather than floating through it. If we don’t put energy towards it we could find ourselves horribly lost, unrecognizable to who were once were or considered ourselves to be.

For an example, I decided to look up Bobby Fischer’s vedic chart—if you aren’t aware of him, he’s considered to be one of the best chess players of all time, if not regarded as THEE best because he just left that significant of a mark. He is a Purva Bhadrapada sun and Ashwini moon, Purnavasu asc, and his Ketu is in Dhanishta. He rose to fame meteorically as a child prodigy and famously broke down after he had won the title of the World Champion and didn’t return later to defend his title; he had a full mental breakdown and disappeared from the public eye—it’s a familiar story about how high and bright Dhanishta stars rise before cruelly plummeting back down to earth.

Luckily, Bobby isn’t a primary Dhanishta placement, as the archetypal Dhanishta story ends in death; Bobby is an Ashwini moon AND Magha rahu. He remained quite eccentric and unstable due to being so isolated as part of his paranoia, but he recovered sufficiently for the most part after he disappeared from the spotlight, but he lived peacefully in Iceland despite his mental and emotional struggles until his passing (I believe he had Saturn in the 12th).

Ashwini is also associated with very high intelligence, according to Claire Nakti’s research, and being one of the best chess players of all time requires a pretty impressive and sharp intellect!

Now, Magha is another factor here that I wanted to take a glance at, just because it also gains more significance through the lens of the Ketu placement/Ketu relationship, also it’s a small note.

Bobby rejects some of the Dhanishta mold in favor or satiating that Magha Rahu. He didn’t fall in line as Dhanishta does as a kind of servant, which is how so many famous natives of the nakshatra are tragically exploited and/or “drained” until it they and are replaced by another. That is his Ketu; Bobby gladly leaned into his Rahu in Magha. Of course a Purva Bhadrapada sun contributes to a bit of edge imho, but Bobby famously threw his weight around. He wasn’t shy about the fact that he was the best, he had a bit of a “Kingly” attitude!

For example, Bobby nearly didn’t go to his final title match for the World Champion title! Luckily he was convinced and he went.

The reason he suddenly refused to participate was because he wanted the prize money to be increased and he couldn’t agree to a location he wanted. He was famous to being this pedantic about game conditions: if his demands weren’t met, he wasn’t coming, so you better get ready to dance. His ego was absolutely huge, no doubt! This is quite a Magha thing to do, as he intends to run the show and “rule” the game, even to the point of where it is or what bulbs are shining over him and the board, because he’s the “King”. He’s the best and he knew it, and he proudly swung this weight around.

Once his mental health declined and he never defended his title, the rest of Bobby’s life became a poignant drift into being forgotten and unwell. In a way, he fulfilled the Dhanishta story—the “King” Bobby Fischer died much earlier than the man himself. He lived peacefully, but very lonely and disturbed. (This is something associated with ashwini moons in particular, of course, but I haven’t looked into that personally.)

It seems to me that the ketu moon’s relationship with ketu is extremely important because after he abandoned his Magha path, he fell into a Dhanista-esque afterlife of emptiness. One thing I particularly remember him for were his words “Nothing soothes as much as the human touch”. Bobby’s Venus was actually exalted in the Nakshatra of Revati, but he had a very anemic emotional life—not much is said about love throughout his life save for after he fell into that Ketu “void”. He married the president of the Japanese Chess Association in 2004, and reportedly had lived with her for years prior, but life had different plans for him: he was a fugitive by the time he had met her, as he had become wanted for arrest by the U.S. government for playing a game against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, which violated the President’s UN sanctions against the country. Bobby literally spat on the Presidential order in the match’s FIRST press conference. This was Bobby’s life after he refused to continue onward with defending his title. He was arrested in Japan and sustained injuries because he resisted arrest. He was fortunate to have Iceland give him a visa on Humanitarian grounds thanks to his Title Match in the country (Saturn in the 12th returning a karmic gift.)

He had no children.

I want to take a final moment to touch on an important thought for us ketu natives: it’s extremely important to fulfill those node missions for us. After Bobby stopped acting out his Rahu it turned against him because he had simply let go of his fate—the U.S. government quite literally attacked him and kicked him out of the country, a simple chess player! He refused any of Rahu’s energies after he had left the stage; he was already a relic of chess during the 90’s because he was still playing the chess of his time; he was already a “forefather” in his own lifetime, a mad king with a dulled crown, solitary despite the few connections he did make.

Maybe it’s because I’m a magha moon, but Bobby’s story always tugs at my heart. It’s so saddening and tragic when I think of the greatness he could’ve continued to build if he had more stability available to him. He still tried to act as Magha even when he was no longer in his Rahu path and I think the Martian nature of his Ketu’s nakshatra and the Saturn rulership of Aquarius absolutely ripped him apart every time he did. Magha is of course Ketu, but I also think of the fact that it’s also Leo. The Sun, the light! Bobby seemed to fall into his ashwini moon later in life, and lunar energies are obviously unstable (hence his mental illness), but that connection to his Dhanishta ketu made it even rougher in my opinion. It made everything even more heartbreaking considering he was so deep in shadow that only the smallest slivers of light could reach: his friend’s kids were fond of him; he had safety and security, but Bobby only had emptiness after the ketu energies were no longer being led by him, and ultimately pulled him down and into a time capsule ; the smallest world possible. Another negative effect of Magha is the danger of becoming racially superior—he was notoriously anti-semitic despite his Jewish heritage; he denied this and was also a Holocaust denier. He remained arrogant and proud as if the 1970s had never passed.

Ketu moons, we must make sure we don’t fall into our ketu’s energies helplessly, or we will waste away, and it can happen as quickly and permanently as it did for Bobby if you’re not careful with your mind, body, and spirit. (This goes for 12 housers too!!) I know it’s hard to stay on the ground, keep following the light when you don’t even know where to start to look for it, but you must persist.

Your destiny awaits.

[acid-lovecore]

Have an unedited, unrevised…thing. I enjoyed writing it.

“You should be sleeping.”

Like clockwork, or perhaps, like the ticking gears in its own body. Rhythmically, endlessly, ticking.

You didn’t look up from your white, burning screen of death, littered with the ramblings that made up the poor excuse for a final paper.

“As should you, you were only charging for fifteen minutes.” You deadpanned.

A sharper click, a tilt of the head. Narrowed, annoyed eyes glaring red. The fervent tap-tap-tapping of your hands on the keyboard hesitated, not even a millisecond of silence passing before you resumed your panic-writing.

The clicking, ever so gentle, ever so piercing, grew louder. Closer. Your hand shaking now. A typo, a backspace, recapitalize. Rewrite.

“Different.” Moon’s hissing whisper. “I can function. You do not.”

“I have two days to finish this.”

“One day. This one is over.”

“It’s not over till I sleep.” You scoffed, finally looking up at the robot, the eye-bags lining your eyes almost made him cringe. How sweet.

He only clicked. A grimace, yet delighted by banter. “Then sleep.”

“Make me.” You went back to your computer, continuing your typing.

Wrong choice of words.

You could barely hear the smile in his voice before long, sharp robotic fingers clamped around your waist. It didn’t matter how big you were, it was as easy for him as you picking up a vegetable.

“MOON-“

His delighted, eerie laughter was all that met your indignity. Throwing you under his arm like a sack of potatos. “Sleep sleep sleepy time~”

“Moon please I can just sleep in tomorrow…!”

“Sun will want to play~” He answered, still in that annoying sing-song voice. “Best rest now, while moon can stay~”

“I don’t-“ you struggle in his grasp. Iron-clad and immovable, metal hands and arms cold against your skin but the heat of his circuitry humming underneath. “NEED you to stay I NEED-“

You’re jostled, being held with hands underneath your armpits. He static giggle grinds on in your ears, a crunchy, chewy sound.

“Rude so rude…~” his head does a full rotation, peeking at you at a three-fourths angle, holding you closer. “Found little kitty in need of a nap, now it hisses back~”

Your frustration hit a fever pitch. The hot ball of anger in your throat rising, a heat behind your very eyes. The jostling, the grabbing, the lack of choice.

“Moon! Put me the fuck down right now!!”

The clicking finally stopped.

Finally.

The quiet, like water in the desert, despite still being suspended a foot off the ground. The animatronic’s eyes red and blank, locked in that three quarter’s tilt. One click.

Two clicks.

A tilt. A look.

Your feet touched ground. The hands removed.

You stood.

You stood you stood you stood. Staring, him staring, and you.

You were waiting, waiting for either one to say something. Were you free to go? Was he upset?

His voice box remained silent. Staring at you know with wide blank white eyes. That smile as wide as ever, though not nearly as happy. You took the silence as your cue, and began to walk around him. Back to your computer.

“Please do not swear.”

You stopped, glancing back at him. Moon still stood in the same spot, facing the same way, a slight hunch in his shoulders as if he were still looking down at you.

Please.

“I’m sorry.” Your hand fidgets with the sleeves of your sweatshirt. Slight guilt I. Your stomach. “But don’t grab me like that.”

He clicked, slouching more. “Sorry.”

And for the first time in hours, you smiled. A small, pathetic, and sad smile, but a smile no less.

“…Listen…” you ran your fingers across your neck, scratching. “I’ll go to bed—“

He finally turned, a quick crack of his head to look at you, his body still remaining in the same spot, but attention fully on you.

Eugh.

“If.” A pointed finger emphasized your statement, “you promise not to force me to bed tomorrow until I finish my paper.”

He spun his head, clicks and gears abound. Turning to you and approaching in an almost skipping fashion. Until he was seated before , hands on the ground and practically at your eye level.

“Deal~”

You laughed, more of an exhale of air, but it counted. Finally walking past him to your bedroom, the moon animatronic close behind. Happily humming, if not a bit eerily.

“Sun will help. Tomorrow.” He hummed.

You opened your bedroom door, neglecting the lights for courtesy. “How so?”

Moon hopped over to your bed ahead of you, removing the covers and perching on the other side, eagerly waiting for you to get in and lay your head to rest. “Helped the children with homework, programmed to.”

You nestled into bed, forgoing changing into proper pajamas. You were wearing house-lounging clothes anyway. “It’s a little more complicated than a book report, Moon.”

He grinned, the raspy giggle like a music note in his throat. “Programmed for university level.”

“Well damn.”

“Language.”

You laughed an apology, the blankets and pillows now reminding you of the time, and of your exhaustion.

“Goodnight, Moon.”

“Goodnight, friend.”

[miraclesnail]

Random question and not sure if anybody cares but I have a pjo fic I've been working on since 2017. It's around 70,000 words with the bare minimum revision and editing. I wanted to write it all and post it weekly because my biggest problem is the long long long update time in between chapters and sequels due to writer’s block 😅 But Should I just go ahead and post it here? Or should I just wait until I actually finish it to be post on ao3? At the rate I'm going, it might be done in like 2 years or more lol

[echidna-cosmos]

oooooo you wanna tell me you r thoughts about corruobserver so baddddddddd

um so well . i liek it

off the top of my head i dont have any like theories or actually reflective analyses or anything . um. but i think just generally i am in love with the way the world [and the way you play in that world] is built into the game. for one all of the gameplay is really amazing and just fun, and varies wildly enough that it never really gets boring . also just how expansive the world itself is. like you'll never find a point that doesn't contain even a little bit of information about the story- and there's definitely more than one story. within the game i kind of see three seperate "storylines" [not what they are. bad word to describe it. you will have to bear with me] and those are the current physical events happening with moth and interloper inside the fbx, the activity of lucid thoughtforms like funfriend, the council, even drowning kazki, and the rigid experiences like the embassy memories. and i really love the way all of those aspects blend into each other, you very rarely ever feel like just one thing is happening to you. one thing may be the focus of that section or chapter, but they will always bleed into each other. which is cool. to me. i would have more to say but i am about to go to bed so take my unrevised unedited Why I Like corru.observer Paragraph . i want to draw fanart so bad also which i think will make my actual opinions on the story more clear because i'm allergic to using words. so watch out

[nixedsignals]

Sitting and Waiting // Viktor

Viktor x GN!Reader Ficlet

AN: unedited and unrevised. this is just something i was thinking abt. pure fluff. i love this man, he is so precious to me <3

you’re sitting with viktor. he’s working on some hextech device that you don’t recognize. he has been for two and a half hours.

you’ve spent that time half reading the text in your lap, a tragic piece of classical literature, and half mesmerized by the intricate work of the long, thin fingers belonging to your lover.

your own fingers are curled gently into his pants pocket, a way to hold him without interrupting his process.

another 30 minutes pass before Viktor places the contraption down, looking satisfied with his progress. his hands lift over his head and he stretches, arching his back in a way the reminds you very much of a cat. then, he turns to you, blinking owlishly before speaking.

“how long have you been here?”

the question isn’t accusatory. it’s almost sympathetic. ‘how long have you been waiting’ is the meaning that echoes behind the words.

“not long at all. i brought you coffee, but it’s probably cold by now” you smile and kiss him on the cheek.

you don’t mind waiting for him.