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blood-orange-juice · 7 months

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Inspired by a discord discussion.

I keep seeing characters from snowy places portrayed as unbothered by cold or missing it, and every time I remember that it's completely counterintutive if you didn't grow up in freezing temperatures

So I thought I should write this post.

We are very bothered by cold. We are way more bothered by cold than southerners. Being bothered is what keeps you safe. Warmth is a resource.

There are few lucky people who simply never get cold (mostly guys of endomorph body type) but it's not a given and generally northerners start to complain and wear warm coats at the tiniest hint of cold.

Humans can only adjust up to a certain threshold.

For example, Irish and British winters allow you to ignore weather almost completely (you'll be miserable but you'll probably live), so there's a culture of stoicism, not heating your house above 16-18°C (60-65°F), wearing shorts and sandals (and a Very Big Scarf) when it's snowing and all that.

(I quickly got used to leaving the bathroom window open at 4°C when I was living there. who cares really)

So there's a common misconception that you can do the same with even colder weather.

However, once you are past that adjustment threshold (for most people it takes as little as -5..0°C/23..32°F lasting for more than a month per year) there can be no special built-in resistance to that type of cold (unless you are a yogi or a Taoist monk), instead you learn a bunch of behaviours that help you. You start to preserve warmth religiously.

You also start to differentiate between types of being cold and avoid some of them (some build up over time and it wears you down, so it's best to avoid them entirely). Anything that drops your core temperature (this is noticeable long before you start shivering, shivering is the equivalent of fire alarm) is a huge no. Fingers getting a bit numb from building a snow castle is nothing major though.

It can be hard to unlearn that even if you moved to a warmer place years ago.

Stoic northern characters who have moved to a warmer country are very likely to Complain About The Cold.

They'll start wearing coats at higher temperatures than southerners (because, well, the weather might get worse, or you might stay outside longer than you planned, or move less).

They'll get cold hands more often because their body panics at the tiniest signs of cold and diverts blood to the centre (my first impression of the Irish was how warm everyone was when we shook hands. I'm the same now).

Most will heat their houses to the point where it's possible to walk around in a t-shirt no matter how cold it is outside (those who don't will comment "thank gods that people don't do that in your country, I hated it back home").

They'll whine at +5°C (40°F).

Apart from heavier clothes they'll have a bunch of weird habits like Walking Really Fast when the weather is bad (it's for when you don't want to wear heavier clothes).

They might have a fondness for scarves and good winter shoes (warm shoes and a warm hat are even more important than a warm coat. the lack of hats in fantasy upsets me. scarves are less important but they are pretty).

When locals get surprised they'll reply with "yes, but this is *damp* cold, *dry* cold is different" (it's more complicated than that but this answer usually stops further questions, so we go with that).

It's not like they are actually less cold-resistant, they just take cold more seriously.

At the same time they can be weirdly unbothered by things that freak some of the southerners out because they know how their body deals with low temperatures and which things have no consequences.

(it's not something that you learn from books, it's practical knowledge of what you personally can get away with. for example, I often get completely numb thighs during winter walks, takes an hour to start feeling anything when I get home. but I know it's all right as long as my feet are warm and my core temperature is within normal range)

They also won't suffer consequences when it gets truly cold, while more nonchalant southerners won't notice when they get borderline hypothermic or just cold enough to get sick.

They'll probably consider -30°C (-22°F) exciting. It becomes enjoyable again, because the outside world is now a death zone and there's some macabre fun in resisting it. Oh, and your eyelashes get covered in frost and it looks dope. What's not to like.

Kids will make a point to eat ice cream outside in -30°C (no, they won't get sick from it). I can't explain it, it just works like that.

Generally people from colder countries are not bothered by cold if they can return to a warm place soon enough, it's the prolonged exposure to cold (even mild) they are worried about. Going out for a smoke without a coat is common.

If they are still in a cold country, it's also a bit different from what you expect.

There's a trope of drinking to keep warm. It doesn't work like that. You can drink alcohol to feel warm but not to keep warm and it's an important difference. When it's cold your body's proper response is to constrict blood vessels and to divert blood flow from extremeties to slow down the loss of warmth. Alcohol reverts that.

This means it's perfectly appropriate to drink eggnog or mulled wine at a fair (when you are supposed to get to warmth soon enough, so the illusion of not being cold is not harmful) or hard spirits when you get back from the cold (it will help you warm up faster), but not if you are staying in a cold place. During a hike through winter woods a thermos with sweetened tea and fatty food are your best friends.

Some won't know it and get drunk and frostbitten/hypothermic. People are stupid.

Food gets weird, fats start to seem even tastier than usual. People in Antarctic expeditions are known to crave sticks of butter. In certain weather sandwiches with frozen lard are delicious.

Anything can and will be made into tea.

Some tropes I personally disagree with.

Pain. Pain levels depend on the weather. Cold eases any kind of external pain (cuts or burns) but makes worse anything internal (broken bones, cramps, most headaches).

Hypothermia feels nothing like peacefully falling asleep. It's the most miserable state I've ever experienced, psychological trauma doesn't even come close.

Well, maybe there are people who do fall asleep but other people I've talked to seem to share my experience.

I'm not sure how exactly it works, I think it messes up your self-regulation, since most chemicals in your body require a certain temperature range to work properly. Basically you become Not Yourself. Your emotions go whack (usually it's either extreme self-pity or extreme anger). It feels awful. I hope you never get to experience it.

Most of us don't really miss cold.

Well, some perverts do, but there's a general consensus that cold is awful.

We do miss some things that only happen during cold days though. The stillness and the quiet or how pretty snow looks. How bright the stars are on a clear night. The colour of sunsets and twilight sky when it's freezing.

(in my opinion, the best experience happens around -5°C, it's already pretty but the world is not a death zone yet)

There's also an appreciation of contrast with things that are Not Snow.

Walking from the cold into a greenhouse with orchids.

Watching a blizzard rage outside your window while you sit in warmth with a cup of tea.

Jumping into a lake straight out of a sauna (then going back. do not do that if you have a heart condition).

Fireplaces. Holiday food. Mulled wine. Saffron in pastry.

There's also a lot of beauty in the world that is frozen. I keep stumbling upon the fact no one around me shares these experiences anymore and it saddens me.

The xylophone sound of first ice being broken by a passing boat.

Sea moving under the ice — when it's not too thick it rises and falls like some large animal breathing.

The whale-song-like sounds of ice cracking on large lakes.

There's a very special mood of waiting for first snow. The world is too cold and dark without it and then you wake up one night from the sudden quietness (snow muffles all sounds) and you know it's there even before you look out of the window,

There's the exhiliration of spring. The moment when the wind starts to have a scent — thawing snow smells a bit like watermelons but clearer. Winter smells like nothing at all.

The first tiny yellow flowers in mud. They are our hanami.

(I don't think anyone in Europe truly appreciates spring if they are not from Nordic or Baltic countries)

There's a certain attunement to the scent of ice too.

Like that barely perceptible tingle in the air in late September, long before you can see any ice.

I feel the scent of ice when there's wind from the right part of the Atlantic. No one ever notices but it's there. I love it.

It's nostalgic in a way.

But it's never missing the cold itself for me. For very few people it is, I think.

This is, of course, personal perspective and my experience is not universal. I'm a person from continental climate with harsh winters and hot summers and a city dweller with occasional visit to country houses and a tiny bit of mountaineering experience.

An indigenous person from a place with barely any summer or a character from a fantasy everwinter country will probably differ from me.

There are, after all, simply people who genuinely love cold. A lot of them. It is, however, not the default northerner's experience.

But hey, it's still more complex than it's usually written.

If you want to read something focused on winter descriptions, there's Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg.

It's hauntingly beautiful prose and the main character is from Greenland.

‘It’s freezing, an extraordinary -18 °C, and it’s snowing, and in the language which is no longer mine, the snow is qanik – big, almost weightless crystals falling in stacks and covering the ground with a layer of pulverized white frost.’

And then there's Moominland Midwinter. I think it gets better when you read it as an adult and it's probably still the best thing I have ever read about winter solstice.

Anyway.

I think we need more good winter stories.

#'the centre of the universe is always warm' says one of our poets #and I still live by that #writing #snow

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imagine-shenanigans · 8 months

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sighs dramatically.

Okay but the ghost distribution system as we call it is hysterical but can we tlak about how None Of The 141 are built to date.

Like, sure, Gaz is great at flirting, and he's charming, but DATES? He's the type who asks you on a date because he thinks youre pretty/handsome/adorable/etc but by the time the two of you actually go on a date he's ready figured out like. the whole rest of your lives together. He's already imagined up 20 different scenarios of different dates, stalked your front-facing social media and found your secret or hidden accounts that theoretically don't link back to you. Sure, he's scrounged through your discord servers and your private messages and texts and a thousand other things while he was bored on leave. He knows enough to know that he's happy with what comes next. All dates are simply... ritual at this point? Something obligational, other than the fact he gets to spend time with you.

You're not going anywhere, he's just the least heavy handed of them, the one who'll let you think its your choice to keep him around until he's got his ring officially on your finger. Life won't go according to plan but he's prepared for that too. In his head, you're already married anyway, he's just working his way up to that part. He'll manufacture any scenario to keep you with him, because he wants you to be. And he'll make sure you want to be too.

Soap on the other hand is WAY less tactful about it. He's charming, and he'll take you on dates, sure, but the moment he spots you it's incredibly easy to get obsessed. He immediately drops an arm around you, purring in your ear and talking to you. Doesn't ask you on a date so much as demands it, puts his number in your phone and presses a kiss to your temple, his fingertips squeezing your chin before you leave. God forbid you let him into your home - he'll never leave if you do. Johnny's SUCH a physical guy that while, yes, personality matters, it seals the deal for him the moment he's got his tongue down your throat and his fingers in your pants. Something about the way you settle in against him makes him feel like he's home, and you will never get rid of him.

He's willing to take you on dates if you need more proof, but he won't even pretend like he doesnt already have a copy of your key. Like he's not telling the guys about the bonnie little thing he's going home to - he slips into your apartment/house/etc and into your bed without changing, barely finding time to slip his boots off. Presses one hand to your mouth and just... holds you. He'll fuck you within an inch of your life later when you're less panicked, sure, but he just wants to press his nose to your neck and breathe you in. If his hips rut against your ass, ignore it for now. (Haha... unless? No? okay in a minute then)

Price is just as manipulative as Gaz can be, just as charming as Soap and Gaz too. But he just... doesn't care, just like Simon. There's a reason so many people have Price with like... mail order bride or a "one day you look up and hes your husband" scenario and thats because he's good at what he does. And by that I mean being a husband and pumping you full of kids whether or not its physically possible. (Btw check out Ceil's mail order bride western au its good shit, or Bo's Kingpin Price drabbles, makes me lose it every time.)

He sees you walking about and the MOMENT you do anything remotely domestic - pick up a neice/nephew/babysitting kid/etc and put em on your hip? Rock hard. play peekaboo with a baby across from you at a cafe? pick up after yourself just to be polite to the waitress? he's already stalking you on multiple platforms theres no goddamn way youre getting away from him. He'll figure out where you go in your free time and insert himself there as naturally as possible. He's not particularly hiding what he's doing either - he likes to test you, to see if you notice things missing or moved. If you do, he'll be a little more cautious, use it as reason to drive you into hsi arms. If you don't he jsut views it as all the more reason to take you away - poor thing, you just can't help yourself can you? You're lucky nobody else has got their claws around you, hm?

#price cod #gaz cod #soap cod #cod #strawberry writing

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box-dwelling · 2 months

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I put this in discord but fuck it it's post worthy. I missed the month but AA charcaters and are they publicly out (like in terms of being legal celebrities, not with friends and family) and do they attend pride.

Phoenix: He is not out because he doesn't like talking about his personal life at fucking all. But if asked directly he's gonna admit to it. But he does definitely go to pride every year with Trucy and is the guy to give dad hugs to queer kids who's parents don't support them

Apollo: The press will wrestle his sexuality and being trans from his cold dead hands. He does go to pride but very specifically because he's trans, not because he's gay. Given his taste in men he does not think that's something to be proud of

Mia: 100% out publicly and does go to pride.

Athena: Not really famous enough for people to care but she's not hiding anything at all from the public. She goes to pride every year and loves it

Maya: Out publicly as a deliberate stance around the complicated gender politics of Kurain. Loves pride and brings pearl along who loves the rainbows but will stare homophobically at any gay person she sees.

Ema: not famous enough for anyone to care but she will absolutely mention it if she ever is. She is going to pride and she is getting wasted and high and then having a questionable hookup

Miles: Literally started this train of thought. He is not out publicly. He would find the very concept of revealing his sexuality publicly demeaning and invasive. He doesn't like pride for introvert reasons, he only ever goes as a chaperone for Kay and Seb.

Franziska: Very very out. But she is not going to pride unless she's asked to do a speech because she is a god damn workoholic. She only goes personally if Maya drags her along and then she does actually have a ton of fun.

Godot: I don't think he's even out to himself.

Klavier: He is very very out publicly but his fans still debate it. A lot of people think he's queerbaiting for his career despite all evidence to the contrary. He is at pride EVERY yeah and will go to as many parades as he can manage. Huge pride guy. He also probably performs there 99% of the time.

Simon: Robert Patterson levels of out. He is not here to represent anyone, he is here to baffle. He goes to pride mostly with Athena and refuses to wear any colours.

Gumshoe: Again not really famous enough for it to matter. But he fucking loves pride. He enjoys himself so much. Honestly even if you don't interpret him as queer I think he'd still go to pride as a loud as hell ally.

#ace attorney #phoenix wright #miles edgeworth #apollo justice #mia fey #athena cykes #maya fey #ema skye #franziska von karma #diego armando #klavier gavin #simon blackquill #dick gumshoe #trucy kay pearl and seb dont have their own secirons because i mentioned them else where

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cosmic-ghost-hermit · 4 months

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Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t but always be open to new experiences. ALSOOOO join my divination discord!!!! Link in bio

Pile 1

Crystal: Moss Agate

Song: Timeless by Jon Bellion

God/Goddess: Hermes

Astrology: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces

Vibes: 🌸🌿💖💚🪲🌷🪷🥝🍑🍣📗🧠🧚🏼🩲👛🦚🍐🍉🍡🎀🐷🪴👚👅🧑🏼‍🎤

Hi, pile 1! What makes you extraordinary is your mind. You are extremely intelligent. You are fantastic at looking at a situation and seeing the secrets that lay in wait. You see past the smoke and mirrors to the important matters easily. It’s not something many people like about you unfortunately. You catch a whiff of their dirty laundry before they even tell you about it’s existence. Which can be kind of scary to experience if you aren’t used to it. However, this weeds out the people who can’t handle your intellect. It removed the people who are jealous of you or who would lie to you or try to manipulate you. You are a purifier. You are a lie detector. You are also extraordinary because you are a defender. You use your knowledge to help the people you care about. You arm them with information. You equipt them with communication skills they didn’t have before. Your heart center is very strong which tells me you are fiercely loving and want the best for all your friends. You always keep your promises. I also see you are very understanding. Pile one even though you can lift the facade of most people, when you do it is never something you bring judgement into unless it is necessary. You might see someones anxiety in the way they chew on their nails. You meet those conclusions with kindness and grace. If others had your skills they wouldn’t use it the way you do. You are such a kind soul. Pile one you are extraordinary no matter what others say about you. Just because they can’t control you it doesn’t mean you are what they say you are.

Pile 2

Crystal: Sunstone

Song: Bad Reputation by Avril Lavigne

God/Goddess: Hades, Persephone

Astrology: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn

Vibes: 🤎✒️🎓⌛️♠️🕶️🫚🥐🪵🦫🐌🧳🐻🕰️🪜🧸🐗🖤🦇🕷️🦅🪨🕸️🧋🏹🪮🗝️🎱🎻🐶🎮🦽⚰️🚬🏉🪑🏴‍☠️♣️

Hello, pile two! You are extraordinary because you are unconventional. I see that you are very fashionable in an alternative way. You have a crow like energy to you. You collect interesting things and keep them in line of sight. There is this depth to you that is absolutely fascinating. Sometimes that depth can scare people because they haven’t been through all that you have experienced. The depth you hold isn’t always obvious. It sits right underneath the surface. You don’t offer your depth to those who don’t ask. You don’t offer your depth to those you believe don’t deserve you. Even so, you are brave, bold and never look for permission to do what you please. I would see you on the street and would whisper “Ohmygods that person is so fucking cool do you see them??!?!?!?!” You also have a voice that stands out from the crowd. You can project your voice in a powerful way that rings in peoples ears even after you have left the scene. Your words linger on their minds. What you said sticks with those people and will never leave them. They can hear the wisdom dripping from each syllable and they understand there is experience behind what you say but can’t quite pinpoint what you lived through. You have worked hard for your place in life and there is a richness that you resonate even if you aren’t wealthy. You take no shit. The universe loves that about you, baby. You don’t let your heartbreak keep you down. You might have had hard times but that has never and will never define who you are. Holy fuck you are so cool.

Pile 3

Crystal: Howlite

Song: Renaissance Girl by alybob

God/Goddess: Iris, Artemis, Apollo

Astrology: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius

Vibes:🩵🐭🤍🌨️🫐⏱️💙🦢💎🛁🍙🧿🪬✈️🧊🍭🛼🏳️‍⚧️🥶🦋🐻‍❄️🦕🧢👟🥽🥼🗣️🛬🗽💦🐚🐁🪼❄️🌊☁️🐰🎧🎹🌎⚗️

Hey, pile three! You are extraordinary because you haven’t been invented yet. All you were is gone. All you are is yet to be born. You get to decide. I see you may have recently discovered you are changing into someone new before your eyes. You didn’t even notice for a while. You were charging into life with little thought to how you wanted it to go. You perception has been twisted and you have a new angle to look at now. You are extraordinary because you could become anything. You could become an activist, an painter, a musician, a model, an engineer, a programer, a runner or anything you can imagine. You are a dream. I’m kind of jealous at how raw your energy is. You are iron ore that has yet to be melted down and molded into what you were meant to be. The richness of your soil could nurious any plant or tree. You are the star that is transforming into a supernova. Wow. You are such a lovely and beautiful soft energy pile 3. Your energy is like delicate piano with a soft bassline. You are full unlimited potential. I’m sure hearing this might not be what you expected at all. You might not even really like this answer if I’m honest. Please understand that I see you have come out of an act. Who you were is nothing compared to who you will be. You masked your truest self for a long time and now you are moving into new power beyond your old self’s dreams. If past you met current you they would be strangers to one another. My advice moving forward is to explore yourself. Carefully map out your new self. Voyage to your new interests with excitement because you will be crafted from stardust, my friend. The world can’t wait to meet them.

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evansboyfriend · 1 month

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blonde or brown?

i woke up from my ill-advised late afternoon nap to see the discord girlies were talking about buck's hair colour and insisting it's brown. so i had to set the record straight

first things first: to judge the true colour of your hair, it needs to be dry and free from product (unless it dries with your hair like certain oils and serums, but let's not get into that right now) and you need to look at it under a light - natural light preferably, but artificial will do trick. and obviously, it needs to be virgin hair that's not been dyed.

(yes, some charts go up to 11 and 12, but let's stay away from bleach-blonde shades for the purposes of this post, yes?)

so i'm trying to find pictures of oliver stark in a setting with good lighting to match his level with the chart above

not sure what year this is from, google credits "2019 Arnold Jerocki" (it does look like s2-s3 buck?)

but this one's definitely recent (7x04 which was filmed in 2024!)

and the most recent BTS of oliver from that video abc posted on instagram (i took a screenshot from this gifset by @rylivers)

first photo (from 2019) looks like a level 8: blonde

second photo i would say is level 7: medium blonde. (at most it's level 6: dark blonde)

third photoset: this one i'm including to show the difference where the sun is hitting the hair vs when it's not. overall it looks like his current hair is at the 6-7 level.

moving on...

"maybe buck had blonde hair in s1-2 but then it got darker so he's brunet now" is that it? or...

is it possible that oliver has been dyeing his hair for some time to hide greys? they're visible in this (zoomed in) pic (from his instagram)

i cant find any other photo where you can see the greys, so i'm inclined to believe the hair is being dyed to cover it. and not sure if this is a personal choice or something the hair&makeup department are instructed to do to keep him looking young (because god forbid a 32 year old has greys, i guess?! welcome to TV land). also, i'm not a professional colourist, but they may have gone a level or two darker to cover the greys.

in conclusion,

oliver's - and therefore buck's - natural hair would be classed as blond. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

PS. before anyone @'s me: yeah, yeah, ginger undertones, i hear you. here, i'm mentioning it as acknowledgment. i have nothing else to say on that because it's related to tint, not level. cheers.

#evan buckley #oliver stark #send post #my meta

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elysianymph · 1 year

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🔥 anything about sirius because i am being a little hater towards some characterisations too

i've already talked your ears off about this on discord but i'm happy to talk to about it again bc i fucking HATE new sirius black with a burning passion. i hate him as much as i love my sirius black that marauderstok can pry from my cold dead hands bc i'm not letting him go. i don't know when it happened and why but marauders fans are particularly persistent on taking away any interesting traits sirius had and leaving behind a whimpering pathetic twink that cries when someone looks at him the wrong way. sirius has been scrubbed clean of any morally grey traits he might've had (he's not allowed to care for his family (unless it's regulus) or long for them bc they are bad, he's not allowed to have any prejudices even though he was literally raised with pureblood mentality and taught he was superior to everyone else from the day he was born, he's not allowed to be an asshole bc he's not like his family guys!! and when he is an asshole it's always used to victimize the character he's being an asshole to and sirius is painted as the villain with mommy issues that can only be fixed by getting dicked down apparently)

i cannot stress this enough: LET THIS MAN BE A COMPLEX CHARACTER!! and no, giving him mental illnesses that miraculously disappear when he gets together with remus and making him attempt to kill himself post prank because he feels bad is NOT making him complex! you're just weird. you're just romanticizing mental illnesses and i can't believe you don't see anything wrong with it. giving him bipolar to justify his actions is?? not??? representation??? it's offensive to people who actually have to deal with these issues in their day to day lives and yet here you are using something that will impact their life forever as a plot device for your uwu sadboy mlm fanfic.

and that's what new sirius boils down to. he's a plot device, an accessory to everyone else's story that's never given much depth other than "oh his mom used the cruciatus on him and now he's traumatized". no hate to jegulus but hate to specific jegulus fics that turn sirius into an overdramatic caricature of his former self for the sake of drama and angst.

also, some of these wolfstar shippers... wtf are you guys on?? idk when and why (that's a lie i do but i'm not gonna say it) remus became sirius black in a werewolf costume but here we are. oh sirius was cool and effortlessly smart and handsome and girls wanted him? well guess what? snatches all of those character traits and throws them onto remus they're his character traits now. ignore how it doesn't make any sense for the werewolf child who was isolated from the rest of the world to be a smooth talking alpha casanova who plays basketball actually. while we're at it, ignore how unrealistic it is for a boy who was raised in a family that believed they were superior to everyone else based on blood status, who was raised to be the perfect heir and checked off all the traits needed to be one to be insecure?? and unsure of himself?? and stupid??? and a loser??? i don't understand what the point of flipping the wolfstar dynamic was when you're left with a shallow copy of the original but ok. you do you ig.

to summarize, my sirius is cool and effortlessly smart and egotistical and a complete asshole who thinks he's the best thing ever. is it an act to cover up how damaged he thinks he is because of his family? possibly. but i also fully believe sirius thought he was a god amongst men and everyone should be glad to be in his presence. he talked down to other people because he considered himself smarter, he rolled his eyes when students asked stupid questions and made fun of them when they got an answer wrong. he's a teenage boy let him be a dick with no excuses.

(also i find it funny when people write about sirius getting into a fight with james or remus and crying because they said something mean. as if sirius wouldn't throw hands the moment someone started criticizing him. he's toxic and that's what makes him interesting. that's his purpose! characters exist to make stories interesting, to start drama, not to be your moral guide on how to act. stories become so much more fun once you let go of the need to make every character a good person. also liking a character doesn't equal liking them as a person. i love sirius but i would hate his guts irl)

#i feel like i can never fully write what i want to say and i hate it #wish i could take you guys on a tour of my brain. it's crazy up in here #thank you for letting me talk zandra it's almost like you knew what was bothering me znjzjzj #it's really not that deep (i say after writing an entire post about it)#(it's not i just like to talk to myself and hope someone will listen bc i am very very passionate can you tell?)#sirius black #mwpp #marauders #marauders era #nymph answers #hating hours 🔥#just to be safe #tw mental illness #tw sui attempt

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just7frogsinapeoplesuit · 4 days

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Finished reading Harrow the Ninth last week! It was a lot smoother than the previous book, and another fun read. Thoughts (spoiler free):

- This may be the only book I've ever read where 2nd person narration didn't make me want to pull my hair out, because it's the only time I've seen it done for a clear reason! The narration switching between chapters helps set a discordant tone and creates mystery in a unique way, and the bit where it switches to first person for just a few words 3/4 of the way through the book hits like a truck.

- Continuing to love how puzzley this series is. Piecing together stories from scraps is soo fun and satisfying. The pacing at which we receive information is (again) perfect and (again) we never get the entire picture so there's always something extra during a reveal.

- I felt this in Gideon but it's more relevant now: 10,000 years is way too long a timescale for the setting and characters, and the absurdity of it makes it feel less real. It should be 1,000 years maximum given how little it seems humanity has evolved since the resurrection, and nearly every length of time stated by a lyctor should be about 1/10 of what it is. The single reason I would accept for it really being 10k years is if it's a setup for an "over 9000" joke which, to be fair, is extremely plausible.

- Every new character has a name that's 3 syllables or less! I could actually remember who everyone was!

- It's even clearer in this book how unique and complex the characters' relationships are. I don't often encounter series where I genuinely couldn't give a concise answer for how anyone feels about anyone else. I'm so glad there's more.

- The one alien planet with substantial life we encounter is almost exactly like earth, down to Harrow assuming there are mammals and annelids. Unless these planets were purposely set up with Earth flora/fauna (despite being supposedly almost inaccessible) this feels like a cop-out to not have to make up alien biology and frankly it was disappointing. Really hoping this was done for a reason.

- Having a narrator we know is unreliable adds so much depth to the mystery of the story, especially the 3rd person segments. I said this before but I really wish more people wrote from the perspective of deeply flawed or ignorant characters.

- The visuals are detailed and often stunning, but sometimes they're just redundant. We do not need to be reminded what the lyctor robes look like every time someone is wearing one, I am going to assume they are still the same two pages later. The constant focus on the color of people's eyes could be considered an exception since it's a very plot-relevant detail, but even that was a little much at times.

- The lyctors and God read like an office drama where everyone involved is an objectively shitty person and I enjoyed every moment of it.

- I thought I was prepared to encounter none pizza with left beef. I was not prepared to encounter none pizza with left beef.

- The prose has been smoothed out a lot. The voice feels consistent even across chapters (and even near the end!), and the number of unnecessarily long and/or obscure words is slightly less but still got irritating at times. Muir definitely has a handful of favorites she overuses, namely:

Tessellate: Fair for the setting but unnecessary when telling us the wallpaper has a pattern

Scintillating: We see synonyms for this maybe once, it's used every single time something sparkles or is shiny

Deliquesce: Again great for the setting, but again it is used every single time something is melty (and a few times metaphorically). She even uses it to describe a soggy biscuit once. I don't know how to express just how much biscuits cannot deliquesce without going on an unhinged rant about the mechanics of rot.

- There are also still instances of clear thesaurus overuse, such as fog being described as "lubricious". I am assuming this was because in context it's supposed to be contrasting cold weather and that's a listed antonym for "frigid" but explicitly in a metaphorical sense. Did Muir know she was telling us the fog was horny? I want to believe there was some hidden joke but I couldn't find one, and it's far from the only time a college-level vocab word is used instead of a simpler synonym in a context that just doesn't quite work (because it adds connotations that don't make sense).

- On the other end of vocab things, there are a few obscure words she uses only once that are so vividly relevant to the setting it's almost weird they never come back. "Flense", for example, is probably the most necromancy-friendly 19th century word imaginable and using it metaphorically is a brilliant choice, but Muir has given priority to other less grotesque (but higher in syllable count) 19th century words and it only appears a single time. Yes, my irritation is showing. Unnecessary syllables irritate me.

- None pizza with left beef aside, my personal favorite meme was the Miette reference, but "wake me up inside" was a close second.

- Overall, similar in enjoyment to Gideon but easier to read. Excited to start Nona when I get the chance!

(Gideon the Ninth review here)

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #tlt series #my posts

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ominous-auburn-orbs · 10 months

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@obamerzslop yo it's the thing, the wonderland au thing, the wonderland au piano kingleader thing

the thing

I've wanted to write for one of these au's for a while so this was a glorious opportunity that got dropped into the discord server

Mad Caine was performing his usual duties as jester, entertaining the Kinger of Hearts and delighting in his laughter. This time, his routine involved music, with him pulling a variety of peculiar things out of his hat and somehow using them as instruments. It brought a specific memory back to Kinger of Hearts' mind, of when he used to play the piano. It was a regal instrument and thus believed to be important for a royal to play. Now with no family in his castle to pressure him into it, Kinger played very rarely. He never felt much of a need to, anyway.

"You know, I can play the piano." Why was he telling Mad Caine this? It didn't matter and was unimportant to either of their roles in the monarchy. Yet it was still a part of him that he wanted to share with his jester. "It's been a good while since I've practiced last, so I've likely gotten rusty."

"Oh my, Your Highness! I had no idea you were so musically talented!" Caine paused his enthusiastic gushing for a moment. Did that sound passive-aggresive? Did the king think he believed him to be talentless? "O-of course, it's far from a surprise, someone as wonderful as you is bound to have skills in near every field!"

Kinger's face became warm, which he hoped was unnoticeable. "Thank you kindly, Caine." He always felt like he was doing something wrong, crossing some unspoken line whenever he said 'thank you'. It was near only ever to Caine, but it still showed weakness. Weakness would cost him his power. It would cost him his life.

"If you don't mind, Your Majesty, could you please play a piece for me? I'd love to hear it!"

"Caine, like I told you, it's been a long time since I played last. I won't be any good."

"Nonsense, you'll be wonderful! Plleeeeeaaasse?"

God, his ridiculous voice and shining eyes never failed to make Kinger's stomach fill with butterflies. But he couldn't yield, as much as he wanted to.

"Caine. No means no." His tone was harsher than he had intended, making him feel a pang of guilt, which really shouldn't have happened.

"Oh. My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty." Mad Caine continued on with his routine, Kinger's piano mention seemingly forgotten.

The next day, Caine entered the throne room only to find it empty. Although, he had come early that day, so it was to be expected.

"Your Highness? I know I'm ahead of our typical schedule, but I had this wonderful routine idea that I know you'll love, and Bubble Hare insisted I show you as soon as possible anyway, so-" Caine stopped short, fully realising that there was no one around.

"Huh..." His eyes scanned the room, looking for any sign of Kinger's presence. When he found nothing, he began to call his name, "Your Highness? Kinger of Hearts?... Kinger?"

The last word he said quietly and with caution. No one was to call Kinger by his first name unless they were beyond close with him, and no one was. Despite how it risked his life, saying that name spread warmth throughout Mad Caine's chest.

Still getting no response, Mad Caine dared to venture further into the castle. He really should've stayed in the throne room and waited for Kinger of Hearts to arrive, or even left and came back later. However, Kinger always loved his performances, and for all he knew something could be wrong. He simply had to find His Highness!

He walked down a high-roofed and elegant hall. Caine became somewhat distracted by the beautiful heart patterns on the walls, but was snapped out of it by the sound of piano music.

It was soothing. Majestic. Gentle. Grandiose.

The hatter followed the music further down the hall, entranced. He eventually reached its source, a room with its door ajar. Peeking in, he found Kinger of Hearts playing a large piano. The king wore an expression of both focus and serenity. Caine's eyes were locked on the chess piece's face as he repeatedly glanced between the keys and his sheet music. Mad Caine couldn't tell if he loved the music or the view more.

The rather peaceful moment was disturbed by Kinger playing a note that sounded off, followed by him loudly slamming his fists on the keys with a yell of frustration. Caine gasped, causing Kinger of Hearts to quickly turn to him, just as startled.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mad Caine. I didn't realise you were here." Nervousness spiked in Kinger, which he hoped was hidden well. He hadn't wanted Caine to see this yet, if he was ever going to show him at all.

"No need to apologise, Your Majesty! If I may ask, what's frustrating you so much?" Caine fully stepped into the room and stood next to Kinger. The king turned on his chair to face him.

"I've been trying to learn this new piece, but like I told you yesterday, I'm quite rusty. It's not going as well as I would like it to be." Kinger of Hearts sighed.

"Well, I thought it sounded wonderful. I'm sure you'll master it if you just keep practising! When did you start learning this piece?"

Kinger's eyes darted to the floor, scared to admit the truth. "I started yesterday. Just after you left."

That was when it clicked for Mad Caine. He had asked him to play a piece, and despite his original refusal, Kinger was now learning an entirely new one just for him. His chest felt close to bursting. He really cared that much?

"Do you mind if I sit with you? I'd love to hear you keep playing." Kinger's eyes widened in disbelief before he shuffled to one side of the long bench. When Caine sat down, he could've sworn he saw the king's cheeks darken in shade. After a moment, Kinger of Hearts' gloves made contact with the piano's keys again and he began to play the song once more.

Over the next week or so, instead of performing his comedy routines, Mad Caine would sit beside Kinger of Hearts on his piano bench and listen to him play. Caine's eyes would be trained on Kinger, mesmorised by how hints of his thoughts were visible in his eyes and the movement of his shoulders. Kinger would occasionally return his gaze before getting flustered and looking back to his piano with a new intensity that always pulled a chuckle from Mad Caine.

Gradually, the hatter would scooch closer to Kinger, chasing the heat radiating off of him. He knew how risky it was, but there was risk in every interaction had with the seemingly, and ironically, heartless ruler. There was more to him than that anyhow, which Caine was more than well aware of. The two would sit close enough that their legs(?) touched. While he loved it, Kinger of Hearts would desperately avoid Mad Caine's eyes. He was supposed to be powerful, unfeeling, and yet he found himself wanting more of this small insane man's touch. Kinger wanted it more than anything.

Kinger would still get annoyed whenever he played the wrong note, but Caine's reassuring praise and head resting on the absurd fluff of his coat quickly calmed him down. Mad Caine never said it, but he loved all of his off-key mistakes. It showed who Kinger of Hearts really was, underneath the mask he had secured tightly around his face, never to slip. Yet Caine had loosened it. Wonderland knew their king as a ruthless man, executing all who dare go against him. Mad Caine could never see him like that, not after hearing his mirthful laughter and softened voice. Those wrong notes were who he was, breaking through the refined and strict demands of the music notes written on the paper. Those flaws were what made him perfect.

When Mad Caine entered the throne room once more, he prepared to walk to the usual room Kinger would play his piano in, but instead found the chess piece and his aforementioned piano in front of him.

"I believe I've finally gotten it right. I wanted to perform it to you here, if you don't mind." Caine stared up at the king, almost forgetting to respond. He nodded vigorously, fixing his posture to be standing as upright as possible. While it was only shown in his eyes, Caine saw Kinger's gentle smile.

Kinger of Hearts sat down on the bench at his piano and began to play. Mad Caine was nothing less than enamoured. He noticed that Kinger had chosen to change some of the notes, making the song even more beautiful than it had been before. At some point, Caine removed his top hat and held it against his chest. He never took his hat off, but he felt like this moment deserved it.

When Kinger finished, he let out a quiet exhale to try and relieve the last of his nerves. He couldn't tell whether he wanted Mad Caine to see this performance for what it was or not. If the hatter knew it was an act of pure love, who knows how he would react? Kinger of Hearts stood, somewhat unsure of what to do at this point, simply looking at Caine. He hadn't seen him without his hat before. He liked it.

"My king..." Caine's whispered tone paired with the new title felt like it would bring Kinger to his knees. The hatter had never called Kinger his king before. All it did was make the chess piece maybe even more insane than Mad Caine himself.

Remembering himself, Caine fumbled to return his hat to the top of his head. "That was- absolutely magical. I loved it, Your Majesty!" Caine didn't dare to say what came to his mind next. This really was the point of no return for both of them now. Doomed to fall for one another, or perhaps simply doomed to fall.

"Why, thank you, Mad Caine. I'm-" Kinger of Hearts took a deep breath, still needing to calm himself, "I'm glad you liked it."

"Of course! I know how long you spent on it." He had spent far longer than what anyone thought he would for someone else, let alone his jester. But Caine was a special exception for him. He always was. Maybe one day, Kinger would even tell him so.

#mutual pining save me #mutual pining #save me mutual pining #caine x kinger #kinger x caine #kingleader #royalteeth

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lavenderchqn · 1 month

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𝐶𝛨𝛢𝑃𝑇𝛦𝑅 𝟎𝟎𝟖 — SOLITAIRE (1K WORDS) 𝑅𝐸𝐷 𝐿𝐼𝑁𝐸𝑆 — lyney x f!reader smau

𝑆𝑌𝑁𝑂𝑃𝑆𝐼𝑆 —

Second year of university should've been everything you thought of it - more studying with human interaction sprinkled throught... What it definitely wasn't supposed to be was an investigation saga where one of your friends goes missing out of nowhere

𝑃𝑅𝐸𝑉𝐼𝑂𝑈𝑆 — 𝑀𝐴𝑆𝑇𝐸𝑅𝐿𝐼𝑆𝑇 — 𝑁𝐸𝑋𝑇 𝐸𝑃𝐼𝑆𝑂𝐷𝐸 content information: mentions of league of legends stuff

The atmosphere turns cold, all eyes now on Furina. She looks as if she’s just seen a ghost.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lyney tries to get her out of her frozen state by touching her arm as delicately as possible. “What do you mean by that?”

“T-They… all… worked at the Troupe.” She answers, uncertain in all of her words.

Angelique used to write scripts back when she still acted for them… the barista would act as an extra… and the student from the business and economy department was their side accountant. All three girls now seemingly have a connection between them.

“Furina, do you need a moment?” Navia looks at her, concern in her eyes. “Let's cover this up, not to stress you further.”

[Y/N] seems to agree that a break is needed. She opens a window, getting desperately needed fresh air into the room.

“I-it’s alright, don't worry about me.” She tries to act all tough, yet nobody in the room seems to fall for her act. “It’s just… I need to think.”

Lyney brings her to a more comfortable spot to have her sit, his mind lost in thought. It seems as if, he just solved something, albeit unsure about the current situation. A glass of water suddenly gets put in front of her, signalising that she should have a sip.

“Oh my god… should I tell you…” Furina mutters to herself, lost in trying to figure out her emotions. “We don't know each other all that well, but if it matters.”

“Is it about the thing?” Lyney inquires, soon getting a small nod of confirmation. “Well, it might be valuable to the investigation Charlotte is doing…”

“Hey, no.” Charlotte buts herself into the conversation. “I don't wanna force anyone to talk about painful stuff for my gains.”

“It’s okay… I’m pretty sure part of the theatre troupe knows it anyway. Besides, maybe it will be better for me mentally if more people know?”

She starts recalling her story from back when she still acted alongside Fontinalia Group.

“At some point, somebody began to stalk me… Think like letters and pictures of me outside the troupe being left in my bag, locker… I think we found razors in there one time?”

“Holy shit, that sounds terrifying,” Charlotte says, her eyes wide with shock. In all honesty, her reaction mirrors all of the girls from the tabletop troupe club.

“Did you report it to university authorities?”

“Oh yeah, we did,” Lyney answers. “Department authorities, the troupe management.”

“In the end, they said they couldn’t do much about it. With no evidence, there was ‘no need’ to look into security footage.”

“What about the police?” [Y/N] chimes in. “Personally, razors being left in my locker sounds like an obvious threat to my well-being.”

“Unfortunately…” Clorinde begins to answer her. “Police are unlikely to start a case unless there are visible injuries on the victim. The same goes for a lack of protective/no-contact order.”

“Yeah…” Furina agrees. “All in all, I decided to leave the troupe… which seemingly ended the stalking?”

“My heart goes out to you, Furina.” Navia moves closer to the girl. “Nobody should have to fear for their safety—“

Suddenly, a phone lights up — a cute black cat inside of a magician’s cat on a wallpaper flashing everyone.

“New notification from discord: Neuvillette is now streaming solitaire” A mechanical, text-to-speech says, sending everyone into laughter — Furina included.

“WHY DO YOU HAVE TEXT TO SPEECH NOTIFICATIONS?!” Charlotte asks, laughing in between the words.

Lyney can barely breathe, from how much he’s laughing at the situation happening.

“Holy fuck, I didn’t even know I have that on!”

By the time the board game night ends, it’s already after midnight. Clorinde has graciously offered Furina, Lyney and Lynette a ride home during a game of monopoly. It seems she’s about to act upon her promise now.

“Thank you so much for coming!” [Y/N] says, giving a hug to all the girls. “Please let me know when you get home. It will ease my heart a lot.”

“Will do, bye girls!”

“Cya!”

“I’m unsure what to do next... I can't see any other possibilities.”

“I dunno if your eyesight is just getting worse, or it’s due to the time right now,” Wriothesley answers. “You can move the entire deck on your second batch that starts from red 8 to that black nine on the 5th batch”

“Oh, you’re right.”

The door to Furina and Neuvilette’s flat opens up, followed by the sound of closing the door. Well, there may also be a sound of stuff rolling around and a tiny curse.

“Furina just got home. She tripped on something.”

“I HEARD THAT!”

“Good to know she’s back. Only Lyney’s left.”

Soon afterwards Furina joins the voice call, the last member of the beverage gang mere minutes behind her.

“What is up gamerssss— oh you’re still playing solitaire?”

“I am.”

“Good to know you also made it home — remember to tell [Y/N] we did,” Furina says, not even opening the stream. She still has some work to be done this late into the night.

Lyney can be heard shouting said request to Lynette, who doesn’t even answer back. All he gets is a simple phone message saying she did so.

“[Y/N] wishes us a good night!”

“Please tell me, you didn’t get home on foot.”

“Clorinde and Navia gave us a ride, don’t stress out, Dad.” Lyney chimes in, still thinking about what to play. “Should I try and rank in League tonight?”

“Honestly, no. Your brain rots whenever you have to go against Yasuo.”

“Not my fucking fault that bitch has wind wall… Whoever thought that skill was a good idea deserves to play Yuumi mid against him.”

“I’m with Wrio on this one…” Furina sighs. “Also, speaking of Clorinde and Navia…” Furina starts recounting some of the information they have learned the past evening. She doesn’t have any malicious intent by doing that, just making sure her friends are aware of what’s been happening.

“So people are going missing… and they’re all connected to that wicked troupe of yours?” Neuvillette asks as if she didn’t just say they did.

“And one of the journalism majors is doing a full fucking investigation into that.” Lyney chimes in.

“I know I should’ve punched that fucking bitch back when you were leaving, Furu.”

She only sighs in response.

𝑇𝐴𝐺𝐿𝐼𝑆𝑇 — OPEN

@state-of-grac3 @santaluna @meigalaxy @romyoia @meurtreofcrows @floweringanna @moonjellyfishie

for the people who's @ are in italics, it's because for some reason whenever I tag you it just doesn't show up whenever I save the chapter...

date of posting — august 10th 2024

#lavv.writes #lavv.redlines #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact smau #genshin smau #genshin fanfiction #genshin fanfic #lyney x reader #lyney smau

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g1amours · 1 month

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hello! i'm 25, in the eastern timezone, and go by she / her pronouns. i am looking for someone 21+ to write over discord with! it’d be preferable if we were in similar timezones, or if you were active at the same times as me! i am most active from 2pm-11pm, my time. if we’ve written in the past or things never kicked off and you see something you’re interested in in this post, please reach back out! i’m always down for rekindling old connections. i’m a fan of angst - heavy plots. i am okay with smut and fluff, but i get bored if it is all fluff and no angst! do not interact if you are not going to contribute to the plotting process. i want someone who is going to actively participate in the plot and be excited about our ship(s). that being said, i’m also looking for someone that can reply frequently. real life happens and i’m a victim of that as well, but right now i’m looking for a partner that can do frequent replies and has time for rapid-fire replies at times too! because of this, i'm looking for shorter 1-2 paragraph replies. love including text threads too! all of that being said, if this sounds like we'd be a good match, go ahead and click the read more button for wanted plots! <3 all of the below plots are listed with f/m and m/m in mind, unless stated otherwise. if you're interested, like this post and i'll reach out or you can shoot me a message!

but daddy, i love him!

a plot where muse a is a celebrity (we could decide what kind) known for their awful habits. drugs, alcohol, sleeping around. cue muse b coming in like i can fix him (no really i can). muse b could be a celebrity, or an assistant, or someone working with muse a. bonus: muse b is a normal person who loves this celebrity and they happen to meet. extra bonus: a wrong number plot with this one.

i love you (it's ruining my life)

this one is specifically made with m/m in mind. muse a and muse b play on either the same or opposing hockey teams. they're both stars, and oh god do they hate each other. like really, truly hate each other. different teams can be rivals, whereas the same team can be always competing for the top spot. maybe muse a is given captain over muse b, maybe muse b refuses to give muse a a pass that could win the game. complete enemies to lovers. bonus: hockey is a very straight sport and coming out could jeopardize their careers. for this, i'm looking for one of the muses to be more hot-headed, aggressive, and more of a temper while the other is a little more level-headed. bonus points if one doesn't even realize he's gay. bonus bonus if it's the more hot-headed, temperamental one.

come back... be here

another sports based one. obsessed with hockey tropes but love basketball too. muse a is an up and coming athlete and is dating muse b. they've been dating since high school, and when muse a hits their big break and is finally drafted onto a big team, he becomes a celebrity. angst from muse a having to constantly be on the move, always be busy, and from having to leave muse b behind. it's a huge hit to their relationship. muse b can't leave because they're passionate about their career and they're established in their city. they're happy from muse a's success, but at what cost? possible tropes could include: cheating, lovers to exes to ?, tabloid scandals, accidental pregnancy, etc.

your wife waters flowers, i wanna kill her

credit to this person for this plot idea inspo! a plot where muse a and muse b are dating in high school for years but muse a gets into their dream college across the country. it was never part of the plan, muse a was supposed to stay local while muse b was supposed to take over the family business that they're oh so passionate about. muse a eventually breaks it to muse b and they try to make it work, but muse a could tell how muse b wasn't happy with long distance and they were starting to shrivel, their relationship deteriorating. knowing that muse b would never admit it and let muse a go, muse a decides to make up a lie and say that they lost feelings. maybe muse a even says they cheated. they break up. flash forward, muse a graduates and moves back to their hometown and finds muse b engaged to muse a's former best friend. bonus: wait... how old is that (four-year-old) kid holding your hand?

i can fix him (no really, i can)

double celebrity plot, muse a is america's sweetheart and is loved by all, while muse b is the opposite. muse a and muse b get connected, and while muse a wants to fix muse a, their reputation is taking a hit. scandals, tabloids, fans, muse a's awful decisions. is it worth it?

i just wanna stay in that lavender haze

wrong number plot. muse a accidentally texts muse b who is a famous celebrity. they text for a while and slowly fall for each other. will small town muse a ever be able to adapt to an international sensation muse b? what happens once reality comes crashing in like a tidal wave and they can't ignore the outside world from invading?

look at this idiotic fool that you made me

muse a is a famous musician and muse b is their partner who has been there since before muse a became famous, supporting them through their dreams and goals. muse b goes between travelling with muse a and spending time in their hometown to get away from the spotlight. it's a normal weekend of muse a's shows, who has been increasingly getting involved in more famous crowds, when muse b wakes up and sees pictures of muse a leaving the bar with someone. muse a admits to cheating and muse b ends the relationship. but no matter how hard muse b tries, they keep going back, and muse a keeps spiraling. it turns into a toxic, cheating, fucked up relationship and muse b is torn between helping them get better and finally going towards turkey. after all, this isn't the muse a they knew and loved. can't they get back to being that person? bonus if m/f: accidental pregnancy. extra extra extra bonus for this.

if i'm dead to you why are you at the wake?

muse a and muse b are married and find themselves in an accidental pregnancy situation. they're both excited, their relationship is stable, and they decide it's a good time. except when muse a gives birth (this could also be adoption if m/m), their relationship struggles. they're fighting all the time, they can't get along, they haven't been physical in months, they have different parenting styles. maybe there's even cheating on one or both sides. muse a maybe is struggling with postpartum depression or has in the past and is extremely overprotective and bossy, maybe muse b isn't adjusting the best to being a parent.

#1x1 roleplay #1x1 rp #discord 1x1 #indie 1x1 #discord rp

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wishsparkleemoji · 7 months

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Sky iceberg tier 2: Assembly braids

Full iceberg

Nintendo playground: In the golden wasteland lobby, just past the closets, there is a locked gate which won’t open unless you or a friend you’re holding hands with has one of two specific capes on (like the Office). If you or your friend do have one of the capes, you can enter the playground— which is an area that locks the camera so you can play in “2D” (there is an option to turn it to 3D in the level). The capes are available to buy to anyone playing on switch.

The war: If you’ve spent any time looking at Sky’s lore, it is fairly clear that, at some point, there was a war. The general themes of the golden wasteland (spirits, elder, the battlefield), the Aurora concert (the seed and eyes of a child), the consistent sword and shield imagery… something definitely happened here, though it’s unclear what.

Megabird: In Orbit, if you look up at the sky, there are a bunch of stars— many of which forming what looks to be a birdlike head. You can see it more clearly during the credit sequence. This is believed by many to be an entity known as the Megabird, who is basically the god of this world— the one who created everything.

Eggs in boneyard: To the right of the broken bridge, there is a tree that has some light blue eggs in its top.

King/Prince: An entity/entities which appear(s) most in concept art and the statues from the battlefield in GW. Very little is known about them, apart from them being the king of Sky at some point before the events of the game— completing the trials of prophecy and henceforth becoming ruler. It’s unclear if the King and Prince are separate entities. It’s a common theory that they were a skykid, or the first skykid, hence why the trials were easier for them. Their concept names are Alef for the Prince, and Resh for the King (more on that later).

Darkstone: Darkstone is most present in collecting it during the Season of Abyss and activating some doors, and has been theorized to be the downfall of the kingdom of Sky, acting as a metaphor for climate change and nature vs technology. It has been theorized that this is what caused the war— the Isle, Prairie, and Forest not wanting to go further, while Valley, Wasteland, and Vault wanted progression. It has also been proven to originate from what looks to be sucking the Light from light creatures, primarily mantas presumably.

Constellation: In the “Concert in the Light” album, the song that plays during the credits can be found, so people can finally listen to the song on platforms other than YouTube (though the official version cuts off the second half, only including the part with Aurora’s vocals). In this album, the name of the song is “Constellation”.

Elders’ old names: In concept art, the elders all had names based off Hebrew letters. In order from Isle to Vault: Daleth, Ayin, Teth, Samekh (sometimes Sah for one and Mekh for the other to differentiate, but they share the name), Tsadi, and Lamed. They’re also sometimes referred as the time of day their realm represents: Dawn, Day, Rain, Sunset, Dusk, and Night.

Light Awaits: An early version/prototype/beta of Sky, before it was released as what it is now.

Chinese servers: Like many multiplayer games, China has their own version of the game with its own servers, and a slightly different way of running things. Based off some discord messages, they might choose the traveling spirit based on what the community wants rather than it being random, and have different events.

#iceberg chronicles #sky tag #sky cotl #sky children of the light #sky game #thatskygame #skyblr

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simplegenius042 · 3 months

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'Which of the 16 Main Archetypes is my OC?', 'Assigning a Bullshit Aesthetic to my OC' and 'Would my OC actually be a Good Parent?' Quizzes

Tagged by @raresvtm and @strafethesesinners

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Three OCs from various series for each of the three quizzes. 16 Main Archetype Quiz Here, Bullshit Aesthetic Quiz Here and Good Parent Quiz Here. Results below the cut:

Here's the 16 Archetypes quiz results for OCs from The UnTitledverse, The Silver Chronicles and Life, Despair & Monsters. Results below:

JOAQUIN COBALT (THE UNTITLEDVERSE)

I don't think the Sidekick fits Joaquin's archetype, but he likely wishes he was. Though in his own self-perception, he's trying to compensate his accidental existence by trying to be something significant, despite the fact he doesn't believe he's much of anything than an accidental miracle.

SILVA OMAR (THE SILVER CHRONICLES (FAR CRY 5, FAR CRY NEW DAWN)

Regret isn't the only thing Silva is filled with... trauma is a close second. However, ultimately I agree (mostly) with this archetype, unless I do a bit more research on Archetypes that is. But this result is pretty solid.

HAOYU ANABUKI (LIFE, DESPAIR & MONSTERS)

I think this mostly applies to Haoyu way down later at the completion of their arc, though before all that they're a selfish little twerp.

Bullshit OC Aesthetic Quiz results for OCs from An Old Ballad Of Chance And Ember Hearts, A Radioactive Calamity Of Love, Bombs & Gore and lastly The UnTitledverse.

DISCORD, THE MAD KIN OF CARNAGE (AN OLD BALLAD OF CHANCE AND EMBER HEARTS TRILOGY)

I don't think this fits Discord at all. He is literally a walking wasteland, everything around him reverts to its most basic form (which is eventually nothing). He is as close as to the embodiment of the end as possible, but as well as a abhorrent denial rebirth. He just destroys things, lets it wither away horrifically. He's more close to the dirt than he is to flesh.

ELRAND BRANDT (A RADIOACTIVE CALAMITY OF LOVE, BOMBS & GORE (FALLOUT (1997))

I don't think Twilight is an aesthetic for Elrand. However, due to living in a post apocalyptic world, I think it would smell a bit like old burns. I don't know just my take on it.

MARU (THE UNTITLEDVERSE)

Being an Illusion Spirit, I think this aesthetic fits Maru very well. She is after all dead and does work for the Wicked, which are mostly made up of dead and evil spirits.

Lastly is the "Is Your OC a Good Parent Quiz" which dear god, I hope everyone from The Silver Chronicles gets a good result.

SILVA OMAR (THE SILVER CHRONICLES [FAR CRY 5, FAR CRY NEW DAWN])

Silva is definitely a good parent... I'd argue a great one even! Though she can be a bit overprotective but that's not abnormal considering all she's been through. She fought Paul and the Apostles of Zachariah to get back Persephone (even if that ended in tragedy), and went rogue to fight for a peace between Eden's Gate and the Resistance after given some perspective from Azriel. That's not even to mention everything she does for Azriel (and Mercy) when the Congregation of Adam's Guard arrive in Silva's Hope and the Highwaymen in Old Dusk.

PAUL YELLOWJACK (THE SILVER CHRONICLES [FAR CRY NEW DAWN])

In her adolescence he was. Paul was what Silva needed at the time; someone supportive, understanding, and loving. He raised her into the morally strong woman she is today. However, that's not to say his darker aspects which he develops more late in life weren't present. The thing about Paul, while raising Silva, was that he was sometimes overbearing, possessive/co-dependent and had a fear that she'd abandon him, something that worsens after he finds out she's alive (years after the Tumultite Massacre and answering "The Call" and founding the Apostles of Zachariah), and since he lost his morals over the years and had Zachariah of all entities as his guidance, he's not above breaking Silva down for her "betterment"... though he does realize he goes too far after murdering Persephone in retaliation of Silva dismantling the Apostle's operations and killing his fellow heralds. Even after his resurrection/reincarnation, he still cares for her, but is too trapped in his self-loathing to break away from his dark path.

KAMSKI NEON, THE GOOD DOCTOR (THE SILVER CHRONICLES (FAR CRY 5)]

I'd say Kamski's kind of a good parent, just an overprotective helicopter parent is all. I also believe that he's the kind of parent who'd be like "my opinion is correct and everyone else is wrong so you best listen to me". Irene, his blood daughter, likely never questioned this, but after her death and the Tumultite Massacre, when he reunites with Silva, they're basically the only family they have left, so Kamski pretty much pushes this harder onto Silva which is something they have to work through... as well as the pressure and the responsibility he burdens her with too. There's also the fact of trust, since Kamski goes behind Silva's back more often than not when they disagree on something and lies to her about it. So yeah, it's very "so-so" with me. He's good parent with good intentions however he does do some drastic shit since he thinks he knows best plus his "us vs them" attitude with him and Silva as the "us" and literally everyone else as the "them".

FATHER ADAM OMAR (THE SILVER CHRONICLES [FAR CRY 5])

"Bad Parent" and "Too Harsh" is an understatement when it comes to Adam; he's an absolute irredeemable evil hypocritical piece of shit who abuses and murders his children. Silva and Elsa were just the most recent pair out of who knows (me, I know) how many, and the longest surviving too. Adam's a dictator who uses his status as a Prophet to oppress others and is extremely bigoted and xenophobic to the point he doesn't bat an eye when causing a massacre of his slave labour... or when invading Montana. Fuck this guy, I can't wait to write his death.

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piinfeathers · 8 months

Text

the scars we bare

it's a mid-january miracle, i actually wrote something. after threatening to finally start writing captain swan fics, i actually did it. thank you to all my beautiful friends on discord who encouraged me and to @dykelilypage i'm so glad you liked your gift <333 this is chapter 1 of 2, second one should be up tomorrow probably maybe who knows? :)))

summary: emma swan came to the underworld with one purpose; to rescue the man she loved from hades' grip. and she would do anything, sacrifice everything in order to that happen. when hades offers her a deal, a test of their true love, she takes it. in the end though, the bargain might just take more for them than they have to give. S5B canon divergence

tw: minor moments of gore and torture, also pregnancy and child birth

✨ ao3 link ✨

***

Emma had made plenty of bad decisions in her life. Big, catastrophic decisions, she could admit that. If she were to rank them though, willingly letting herself fall under a sleeping curse to rescue the man she loved from hell, probably would have ended up pretty high on the list.

She stared at him, across the wide airy field of middlemist flowers that wasn’t actually there, but felt nearly as real as she remembered, and wondered if he would feel the same.

“Swan.” Her name sounded like a prayer, rasped from his too-dry throat.

She was running then, or maybe she had started running before, she wasn’t sure. Her arms circled him when they met, his own grip nearly crushing as he lifted her off her feet. Frantic kisses and searching hands probed each other as incomplete pleas stuttered out of each of them.

“You alright?”

“-m fine. You can’t be here-”

“-made a deal. Hades, he had a deal.”

“-have to go back. Please, you have to go back.”

“I can’t.”

The last two words dropped like a stone between them and Killian jerked back. His face was the same as it had been when she’d last seen him alive. It was no longer the swollen mess of throbbing bruises Hades had left it in, when he’d shown Emma her lover’s broken body that was being torn and burnt and flayed apart until she had screamed to make it stop. Killian’s hand, the fingers still intact and no longer snapped and broken, cupped her face. He was trembling. Or maybe that was her. It was hard to tell at this point.

“Emma,” her name came out as a whisper. “Emma, where are we?”

She smiled as something huge and terrifying in her chest threatened to burst open.

“Somewhere... Somewhere in my mind. I think? Maybe,” she glanced around again, trying to focus. “A memory. He kept saying something about memories. Our memories.”

“Love, you aren’t making any sense.”

She laughed and it sounded like a watery hiccup. “Hades. Hades and I made a deal.”

The hand on her face tensed as she watched his expression grow brittle. “Emma-” his throat bobbed. “Emma. What kind of deal? What did you promise him?”

She held up her right hand, her index finger raised. A small droplet of blood welled up in the sensitive pad of flesh at the tip where she had pricked it only moments earlier.

“Sleeping curse,” she tried to keep her voice calm as she risked another glance at him. His face was ghost white, completely drained of colour. “I think he thought he was being funny. Something about “the old Charming family tradition.””

Killian’s head was shaking, his eyes darting away from her as he scanned the edges of the tree line behind them, looking for a way out. “We have to wake you up. Emma you don’t understand, Hades he-”

She watched his gaze go unfocused, the nerve in his jaw popping.

“Hey,” she said quickly, her hand curling around his neck, pulling him back to her. “He can’t get you, not here. Not unless he feels like breaking our deal.”

His eyes were still nervy, and she could feel his pulse jumping beneath her palm, but he focused on her again. God she had missed him. Missed the way he smelled, the way his scruffed jaw felt when she held it. It suddenly seemed so hysterically unfair that they’d only had a few months together. They deserved a lifetime.

“This deal,” he rasped after a moment. “Tell me exactly what he asked of you.”

“He wanted…” she trailed off, trying to remember what he had said. “He said he wanted to test us. To see if what we shared was true love or not. That we needed to really see every part of each other before we made our decision.”

Killian was holding very, very still, his expression unreadable. “And for us to do this test, you needed to be cursed, is that right? Am I cursed as well? Is that how I’m standing here with you?” His voice sounded calm, almost reasonable, as if they were discussing the rules to a complicated board game. But Emma could still feel his panic, could see it starting to edge into the corners of his eyes, turning them glassy. Another one of her huge, catastrophically bad decisions alright.

“No. No you aren’t under a sleeping curse,” she tried to make her voice comforting, but doubted it had much effect. “He said that souls without a living body don’t need curses to be moved to the dream realm, as long as they’re tethered to someone alive they just sort of- “hitch a ride,” or something.”

A smile started to spread across his face, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “So I’m tethered to you then?”

“Seems that way,” she said, her heart feeling like a dead weight in her chest. “I’m not exactly sure about the next parts, he was talking about memory magic, about old wounds needing to be opened up. He said the dream realm made the magic more…” she waved her hand. “Potent or something. Made it easier to find old memories.”

Killian’s hand dropped to her shoulder, his hook resting against her hip. “Why does he want us to explore old memories? Which memories? What does he gain from that?”

“I have no idea, I’m pretty sure he was just talking to hear himself speak at some point.”

“I don’t like this. Hades wouldn’t make a deal unless it was to punish or to trap you here. Emma, please,” his tone was growing frantic and it was making her own nerves start to fray. “Try and remember exactly what he said. Every word. If he’s trapped you here-”

“I don’t remember all the specifics! I was a little distracted watching you get tortured. Hades didn’t exactly have my undivided attention.”

Killian’s eyes shuttered and Emma could feel the slight tremor in his hand as it fell from her shoulder. She wished she hadn’t mentioned the torture. The second she had, she’d seen his face go blank. When this was over, she would kill Hades. She wasn’t sure how exactly, but she would get creative. Somehow she would figure out a way to make the god of death hurt in the same way he had made Killian hurt.

“Look,” she said, her voice thick. “All you need to know is that he can’t hurt us. I made him swear it. He can’t touch you here, and he can’t kill me. Everything that happens now is up to us.”

He looked up, staring at something far away from them, like he was remembering something he’d rather forget. “And if we fail? What then? Does he get both of us to torture for eternity?”

“We won’t fail,” she told him. They wouldn’t. She couldn’t let that happen. Even if it killed her, she would never let Hades touch Killian Jones again. “I got down here didn’t I? And I found you. The hard part’s already done.”

He huffed out a laugh that sounded wrong to her ears. “Your confidence is admirable, Swan. But you don’t know what Hades is capable of. What he does to you once he has you.”

She could feel him slipping from her, could feel the despair coming off him in waves, and it killed her. “There’s a fail safe,” she told him quickly. “I can call off the deal at any time.”

He jerked his attention back to her, suddenly alert.

“But Killian, if I call it off, if I choose to end this, you go right back where I found you. Back to Hades,” she said, a world of meaning in her words.

“But you’ll be safe?”

She looked at him. She should tell him. Tell him the entire truth. Tell him exactly what she had promised to keep him safe, to bring him back home. What she had signed away. But if she told him, if he knew everything, he would never agree to it. He would refuse and send her back and all this would be for nothing. He would go back to the endless, screaming pain that Hades had cleaved into him until there was nothing of him left. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be fine. But you won’t. Please Killian. Please just let us try this first. We have to.”

He blew a breath out of his nose, looking down when she grabbed his hand in both of hers and squeezed. “Alright,” he said. “Alright, we'll try.”

She grinned as she wrapped her arms around him, kissing him, holding him. His hand moved up to her hair, cradling her head, his forehead coming to rest against hers.

“So. How exactly does this trial work? What do we have to do?”

There was a quick burst of magic to the left of them, and a door twisted into existence a few feet away. The carved wood groaned slightly as it seemed to sway towards them, rocking on its frame, before coming to a stop. They both stared at it.

“Well. Guess that answers that,” she said.

“Indeed,” he sighed, turning back to look at her. She saw a question, huge and all consuming in his stare that went unasked. Right, this was her deal. Her curse. He would follow her lead. Like he always did. Whatever happened, no matter how much it took from her, she would do whatever it took to make sure he got out of this.

“C’mon,” she nodded towards the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

He grimaced as they walked towards it, reaching down to grip the brass handle and opening it for her. “Any idea what’s awaiting us on the other side?”

She squeezed his hand, raising her brows. “Nope.”

They walked through. And the ground beneath their feet vanished.

***

She was falling. Her hair was whipping around her head while the wind rushed up and made her eyes water. Images and noise strobed past like flickering television screens as she plummeted down towards a huge, white nothingness. If she focused she thought she could make out faces, blurred and half formed, but they streaked past her, faster than her eyes could follow. She tried to reach out, tried to find something to grab a hold of, something to slow her fall, but it was like falling through light and sound and a great vast emptiness eager to swallow her whole.

Was this it? Was this what Hades had planned all along? No harm to her physical body sure, but trapping them in some fucked liminal space for eternity? Well. That was a different story.

She tried to look up, or whatever passed for up in this space and suddenly felt something grab her arm. Killian, his grip tight on her, was falling beside her. His mouth was open, mouthing something she couldn’t hear over the roar of noise and wind and her own frantic heartbeat. She tried to reach for him, her fingers outstretched-

When everything slammed to a sudden stop.

Her mind lurched, feeling like the contents of a car with its brakes hit too hard. The tunnel of noise, whatever it had been, was gone, and a blindingly blue sky stretched out in front of her. She tried to blink and turn her head, but her body was locked in place, no longer listening to her.

Only…only it wasn’t her body.

She heard someone call for her, but it wasn’t her name she heard, it was Killian’s. She twisted and when her mouth opened it wasn’t her voice that boomed forth, but a man’s, low and accented, and oh-so familiar to her.

She’d dealt with memory magic before, had stayed up long, magic-drunk nights as the dark one weaving dream catchers together in order to snare memories. She’d been expecting something closer to that, where memories played like snippets of old tv reruns. This was something completely different. She wasn’t just watching Killian's memories, she was living them. In his head.

“What news do you bring me then?” he called.

He sounded happy, and Emma could feel it then, he was excited about something. Somehow, inside his head, she could feel thoughts, could almost reach out and touch them.

He stood on the top deck, near the massive helm. Below him, near the rigging of the sails, a woman with dark hair and seafoam eyes grinned at him. Even before Emma felt the sudden rush of love and recognition, she knew exactly who she was looking at. Milah.

“No news that can safely be shared among mixed company, captain ,” Milah called with a wink. She had Henry’s smile, Emma realized distantly.

The crew around Milah laughed uproariously, and her wide grin was a twin to the one stretching across Killian’s as he swung round the deck to go meet her.

Just as Emma was greedily drinking in the image of the image of the woman who had her son’s grin and Killian's heart, the world suddenly melted and shifted around her. It was as if the memory smeared, all the unimportant bits forgotten and discarded. She moved through short, foggy glimpses of old points in time. Moments alone with Milah, the sound of her laugh, the feeling of her eyes watching him, her laugh lines fanning out from the corners. At the core of it, his love for her was like a warm, even glow in his chest. Emma was suddenly sad that she would never get to meet this woman. This woman with the sharp wit and an easy laugh. She thought she would have liked her.

She kept floating through memories until they solidified all at once into sharp focus. Killian was back on the deck. Only he couldn’t move, something tight twisted around his chest and pinned him down. In front of him, Milah was on her knees. A man stood before her. His hand was buried into her chest.

Emma recognized Rumpelstiltskin as blind, frantic panic tore through Killian, choking her. Killian had never told her explicitly how Milah had died, only that Gold had killed her. But she knew this moment. She knew what happened next.

Rumpelstiltskin's hand tore free, Milah’s beating heart in his grip. He stared at it almost hungrily. Emma heard Killian shout, felt him pull himself free from the ropes binding him and dive for Milah as she slumped back. He caught her, begging, pleading words stumbling from his lips. She felt so light in his arms, a hollow empty shell. They shared a look, Milah’s gaze full of an unspoken farewell.

She heard, rather than saw the crunch of the heart as Rumpelstiltskin crushed it. Milah gasped, dead even before the ashes crumbled and fell to the deck.

Rage built in Killian, blinding and useless. It pushed him to his feet, surged him forward. He cursed Rumpelstiltskin, his hands in fists, desperate to drive them into the scaled skin and rotting teeth of the man who took his love. Rumpelstiltskin's grin was sharp. A blade flashed. Men shouted. A horrible, exquisite pain erupted from Killian’s left wrist and drove him to his knees. Emma wanted to scream.

Everything started moving too fast. The memory grew blurry again, every part of it dulled by the all consuming pain and rage boiling in Killian. He was screaming, driving a hook into Rumpelstiltskin's chest, mocking laughter meeting his ears. Then hands were grabbing him, pulling him back. Pain. Oh god there was just so much pain. Emma felt herself being dragged down with it, Killian’s vision growing black. But even in the darkness she felt the agony, unable to escape it. All alone in his head, she ached.

The memories came and went. Bright flashes of faces crowding into his vision, frantic voices and bloody rags. Blood. There was so much blood. She could smell it, the sharp, copper tang of it. It felt like it coated his tongue, filled his nostrils and tried to drown him. He was being moved, every bump and bounce he felt sending jolts of pain through his system and forcing him back into blank unconsciousness.

Then heat. It was so sudden and sharp it brought him back to bleeding, screaming life. The world around him was thrown into abrupt focus as molten heat was pressed against the agonizing, throbbing stump of his wrist. He looked at the white hot blade being forced against his skin, watched as it melted his flesh and made it bubble around the edges, cauterizing it. He was screaming. It filled his head, an endless bellow of animalistic pain that crashed into Emma like a blow.

When the darkness came for him again, Emma welcomed it with a sob.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when he started to wake again. She didn’t care. Every part of his body was one, long, endless agony. She couldn’t breathe from the force of it. Above him, it grew dark, then light, then dark again. Time moving on with or without him.

A noise woke him at some point. She blinked the grit from his burning eyes, trying to look at where Killian's hand had been severed. His wrist was an angry, mottled thing, the skin around it too pink, too tight. Thick blisters, fat and stretched taunt, seemed too shiny in the pale light below the deck of the ship where they had left him.

Her head lolled, their shared vision turning syrupy around the edges as the pain rose up again and smothered her in burning heat.

She could hear voices, pitched low, all whispering with a panicked edge.

“Fever.”

“ Infection…”

“The amount of blood he lost-”

“No one could survive that.”

Emma writhed inside the shell of the memory. Killian , she sobbed, unsure if he could hear her. Was he in here with her? Was he reliving this too and she just couldn’t feel him? Or had Hades taken him away from her again? It was so quiet now. Killian. Killian. She repeated it again and again, his fever touching her own mind, choking the air from her lungs. How could he bear this? How could anyone bear this?

Fresh pain shot from his wrist and Emma threw her head back and screamed. Tears rolled down her cheeks when it was Killian’s voice, Killian’s pain she heard echoing endlessly in her head as she was pitched sidewise into another memory.

He was vomiting, heat and misery burning him, leaving him feeling feverish and delirious. He was fading in and out of consciousness, through the days, maybe weeks, he could no longer tell. Food and water had to be forcibly shoved into his mouth until he swallowed it, all the while he cursed at them for daring to try and keep him alive in his grief.

Emma watched it all, helpless inside his head. Killian had been right. Hades had found a way to torture them after all. Because this? Watching Killian break apart, unable to help, was agony. She wanted to fight, wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. But she could do neither. She could only sit and witness it all.

More memories faded in and out. In his rare moments of lucidity, the image of Milah, her heart torn from her chest, burned across his brain. His heart felt empty, like a hollow burden, sinking his body down deeper. His love for her burned itself away, twisted and malformed from grief. In its place, only one thought remained. Revenge.

The word repeated itself, over and over, until it became a mantra. As his body healed, as the scar tissue on both his wrist and his heart thickened, he swore it to himself, again and again. He would have his revenge. No matter the cost.

Trapped inside his tortured mind, Emma mourned for him.

***

Killian woke in agony. Pain snaked around his spine and sank into his bones, leaving him too weary to move. For one, terrifying moment, he thought he was back in the underworld. That all this had been a ruse. Emma had never come for him, Hades had simply split open his head and planted the idea of her, giving him hope and then taking it. Yet again.

But this place didn’t feel like his hell. There were voices around him, low murmuring, distinctly human voices.

He tried to open his eyes, but they stayed stubbornly shut. Another wave of pain twisted inside him, washing over him as his back arched and a low, sobbing moan filled his head. Emma. That was Emma’s voice.

“You’re doing great Emma, just a little longer now,” a strange voice near his feet comforted.

He felt her then, Emma. She was scared and exhausted and so, so heartbreakingly sad that it nearly swallowed her.

He wasn’t here, he realized as her emotions buffeted him and surrounded him from all sides. This was Emma’s body. Her memory.

Her eyes opened and Killian looked across the room through tear blurred eyes. She was on her back, doctors and nurses standing around her, their faces hidden with masks and hair coverings. Blinding, overhead lights seemed to beat down on her, making her even more uncomfortable. She tried to move and Killian felt something tug on her wrist.

She let out a small sob of annoyance and pain, looking down at the silver cuff that chained her to the bed. They’d restrained her. She was in pain, she needed help, and they’d restrained her.

Fury raced through him, though he couldn’t tell if it was his or hers he felt, or a combination of the two. She felt so small in the bed, and so completely alone.

Another rush of pain, this one stronger than the first two, sent stars across their shared vision and Emma fell back.

“Okay Emma, you’re ready. It’s time to push, alright?”

She was shaking her head, and Killian felt her panic and his own bleed together. She was giving birth. He was about to witness her giving birth inside her own mind. For some reason the complete invasion of it flooded his brain, made him want to climb out of her head and simply hold her. This was her memory. Hers. He had no right to witness this and Hades certainly had no right to take that choice from her.

But he was here. There was no taking back what had been started. So he sat in the mind of the woman he loved and felt her body tear itself apart.

She was screaming, her body bearing down, the act of giving birth overwhelming her rational brain and simply taking over, trying to push. Sweat poured down her face as she strained, her pain now just a constant steady stream of misery. She wanted it to end. She needed it to end. She just wanted to lay back and sleep and never wake up. She’d fought so hard her whole life and now she had no fight left. She was done.

“You've got this Emma,” a nurse soothed from her left side, her gloved hand rubbing circles on her back. Emma liked her, Killian could feel it. This was a kind person, the only person who treated her like a patient and not a prisoner. A good person, a decent person. Someone who would make an amazing parent. Unlike her.

“Emma, I need you to work with us,” the doctor positioned between her legs called. “You need to keep pushing, your baby is ready to come out.”

Her baby. Killian felt a spark of something light inside her. Emma was too scared to give the feeling a name, but Killian recognized it instantly. Love.

Oh how she loved this little baby. She adored it. She sang it songs in her head and read to it in the bed of her prison cell when everyone else was asleep. She would give anything to her baby if it asked.

So she pushed. She pushed even as she felt like she was tearing in half, when the pain grew knife-sharp and carved her open. Voices blurred around her, all speaking over each other, telling her to take deep breaths, that she was almost there, that it was almost over. She gripped the sides of the bed, shoving forward and pushed until she thought her bones would crack and she would break apart until there was nothing of her left.

“Big push now Emma! Big push!”

She screamed and it was like the ozone in the room ignited, the lights in the room glowing white hot and shattering. Killian felt a punch of raw, primal magic explode from within her and then-

A baby’s cry, small but strong, broke through the silence. Henry. He was here. Killian wanted to look at him, wanted to see the boy's face, the feeling nearly overwhelming him. But Emma didn’t turn to look. She squeezed her eyes shut, and sank into the mattress.

“It’s a boy Emma,” the doctor said, a smile in his voice.

A boy. She had a son. A beautiful, perfect son. He cried out, and Killian felt it drive into Emma's heart like a knife. Every part of her wanted to turn, wanted to take him in her arms and hold him, to soothe his cries and protect him from every bad scary thing in this world like it was her only job in this life.

But…she couldn’t. She loved him more than anything. She would give him anything to make him happy, to keep him safe. And because of that she knew that meant he had to go away. As far away from her as possible. He deserved so much, he deserved the whole world. And she couldn’t afford to give it to him. All she had to give him was a chance. A chance at a better start. Without her. She couldn’t be a mother, couldn’t be his mother. She would ruin him. Taint him somehow. She wouldn’t do that to him.

Killian felt the decision form in her mind, felt her shake her head and grit her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as tears spilled down her face. He heard the doctor tell her that she could change her mind, that it wasn’t too late. But he knew. He knew what happened next. He wanted to beg her to change her mind, to see that she already was a mother, he wanted to be there and tell her over and over until she believed it. But he couldn’t change the past. He could only watch it.

“No. I can't be a mother,” her voice was so small, it broke him.

He felt her heart tear itself in two. When the doctors carried her baby away from her, when Henry’s small, searching cries faded down the hall into silence, Killian felt as a piece of Emma’s heart went with him. Heartbreak didn’t come close to describing this feeling. It was as if a huge, yawning emptiness split open in her chest where her heart had once sat and consumed her.

***

Killian woke with a start, jerking up and dragging air desperately into his lungs. Beside him, Emma shot up, panting, eyes darting until she saw him. Her face was pale, her hair damp from sweat and sticking to her face. She opened her mouth, her eyes rapidly moving over his face, before flinching away from him and vomiting into the tall grass. He shot forward.

“Emma, breathe. It’s alright, it’s over. What did you-?”

“Probably a good idea to give her a minute,” a taunting voice called from behind them. “She had a hell of a ride in there.”

Killian’s head spun, white hot rage spilling into his blood. Behind them, Hades sat back in a plastic lawn chair, one ankle crossed over his knee, grinning.

“You bloody bastard,” Killian was on his feet, his hand clenched. The overwhelming urge to stomp the heel of his boot into Hades’ cold, dead smile, nearly blinded him.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Hades warned, a single finger raising in the air. “We wouldn’t want to do anything rash now, would we Emma?” He leaned over, calling to her. From her kneeling position, she shoved her middle finger over her shoulder without turning and spat in the grass.

“Hades if you’ve hurt her-”

“Me? Oh no, I didn’t do anything,” he said with mock innocence. “All I did was show her your memory.”

Killian felt his blood run cold. What memory could he have shown her for her to react like that? He knelt back down when Emma moaned, wiping the back of her hand against her mouth.

“Ignore him,” she rasped. “I’m alright. It was-it was just intense.”

“Emma love, call off the deal. I won’t have you in pain like this, I can’t-”

“No!” her eyes burned as she reached up to grip him. “Killian, no, I can handle it. Please. I promise.”

Killian blew a sharp breath from his nose, trying to keep his composure. “Emma,” he tried to make his voice gentle but it still carried an edge. “Love, what memory did he show you?”

Her eyes went distant for a moment, and Killian felt his stomach tighten. He had lived centuries, had done countless brutal things. Any of them were enough to have her react like this. The question was, which one had Hades chosen?

“It was Milah,” she said after a pause. “The moment Rumpelstiltskin killed her, and took your hand.”

Killian went still, staring at her. Hades had shown her that moment? Milah’s face, frozen in fear, floated in front of his eyes, there and gone in seconds. A phantom twinge of pain jolted from his wrist reflexively.

“How much-” he swallowed. “How much did he show you?”

“Oh, I showed her everything, don't worry!” Hades's cheery voice called. “No gory detail left out. Gave her the full surround sound experience, didn’t I Emma?”

Beside him, Emma's face turned pale, her tongue darting out to wet her dry lips. Killian remembered the pain he had felt trapped inside her memory of Henry’s birth, the agony she had gone through, and felt dread turn his skin cold. She had experienced him losing his hand. Even in his most lucid recollections of that day, Killian had never managed to remember that pain in anything other than hazy, blurred-over recollections. He had pushed it so far from his mind to protect himself from reliving that brutal torment.

And Hades had just made her experience it in full, merciless detail.

“You bastard Hades, there was no bloody need to show her-”

“Show her what? The moment you decided to dedicate your life to avenging your one true love?” Hades asked, his eyes growing wide with mock innocence. He turned to Emma and grinned. “No offense of course. No shame in being the runner up.”

Killian surged to his feet, blood pumping, hook raised. He would bloody end him. Here and now.

“Don’t let him get to you.” Emma said, pushing herself up on shaky legs, to grip his arm. “He's not worth it.”

Killian spared her a glance. “He doesn't have the bloody right. He doesn’t have the right to reach into our heads and pull out our pain just to torture us with it.”

“Oh I’m pretty sure I do though. After all,” Hades steepled his hands together, his gaze locking on Emma. “We made a deal.”

“The deal was to test our true love, not whatever twisted game you’re playing at Hades,” Killian snapped.

“And that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Hades said, his tone taking on an edge of false sincerity. “True love isn’t just some cheap card trick, it’s the most powerful magic that exists. To have it you need to love so fully and completely that it’s like second nature. And you can’t have love like that when you don’t really know a person, now can you?”

The god of death gestured with both hands, like a demented talk show host. “Seriously this is a once in a lifetime opportunity here! I really wouldn’t pass this up if I were you. You,” he pointed to Killian. “Get to finally see inside the head of the saviour, finally learn what makes her tick. And you,” his hand swung to Emma. “Get to learn what kind of man Killian Jones really is.”

His words felt ominous. A promise and a curse all at once.

“Ignore him,” Emma said. “I already tried to tell him earlier that this whole test was pointless.” She turned to look at him, her mouth turning up at the corners as a fire lit behind her eyes. “I already know exactly what type of man you are.”

“Mmmm, do ya though?” Hades asked with a hiss of breath, tilting his head to the side. “See, I'm not so sure about that. I mean you two have known each other, what, a few months at most? He’s got a whole three centuries worth of history before meeting you. Entire lifetimes lived before you were even born.”

His gaze sharpened, the edge of his smile growing pointed. “Are you really sure he’s even worth it?”

“Yes.”

Killian sucked in a sharp breath at her sudden certainty. She turned and looked at him, her eyes holding promise. “Yes, I know he’s worth it.”

“Touching,” Hades said dryly. “Really. And for your sake, I hope you’re right. We’ve got a hell of show left to get through.”

Killian could feel the magic starting again, could feel the rush of it start to build, and shook his head. He still didn’t trust this, any of this. He knew how Hades made deals, and he knew there was no way he would give either of them up so easily.

“Emma said you agreed on a fail safe, a way out for her if she needs it. How do we know you’ll honor that?” He asked, stopping the god from conjuring another door.

Hades turned to give them a bored look, as if the question was barely worth his time. “Emma isn’t dead, not yet anyway. I don’t have any way of keeping her bound in the underworld with me. She has the ability to leave whenever she wants.”

“Yeah sure…one small problem though,” Emma glanced between the two of them. “I can’t exactly get up and walk out while I’m stuck in a sleeping curse, can I?”

Hades’s smile turned wolffish, his eyes lighting as if she’d finally said something interesting. “Well now, how funny you bring that up. I was wondering when you would.”

When they both only stared at him, the god’s face fell.

“Hello? Sleeping curse?” he said, gesturing to Emma with a flicking hand. “True love’s kiss? Big flashy light show? Thought this was all sort of obvious? Gods you two really are slow. Here.” he jumped to his feet, hands tucking into the pockets of his pants, and stalked towards them.

“Let me break this down for you. You have two options, one; you see my test through to the end and test the strength of your love, or two;” he held up two fingers on his left hand. “If at any point you want the trial to end, all you have to do is kiss her. She goes back home, no hard feelings, thanks for playing, and you,” he turned to Killian, his grin predatory. “Stay here with me. And we go back to our fun little games.”

They were still for a moment, Emma hand in his squeezing tight. They could. They could just end this now. He could end this now, and save her. He turned to her, caught her tortured gaze. Her head gave one, barely noticeable shake, no.

“Unless, of course,” Hades continued, taking a step towards them. “You’re worried it won’t work?”

Killian blinked. An old, nearly buried dread rising in him like ocean water in a sinking ship. That old fear that Hades was right. That it wasn’t true love at all.

Oh he loved her of course. He had never loved anyone the way he loved Emma Swan. Even the way he had loved Milah had been different. Not any worse or any less but…different. Loving Emma Swan was like loving the sun. It came as natural to him as breathing.

But in his weakest, most torturous moments of doubt he wondered. He wondered if she ever felt the same. She loved him, of course, in her own quiet way. And he had taken that love and cherished it, held it closely to his heart and lived off it, satisfied with all she gave him.

But. True love? In the depths of her heart was it really true love? The uncertainty of it killed him. And he knew that Hades was perfectly aware of that fact. He had practically split Killian’s head open, torn out chunks of him. Every fear, every doubt, every agonizing thought that Killian had ever felt, Hades knew. And now he planned to torture both of them with it.

“We’ll keep going with the trial.” Emma said, breaking Killian’s thoughts apart and scattering them. “But we need real memories this time, not whatever sadistic thing you find in our pasts that you feel like torturing us with.”

“Ugh. Fine then, since you two want to be boring, we’ll do this your way! Let’s start at the beginning.” He flicked a hand through the air and another door appeared before them. “No more skipping to all the fun bits first. Off you go!”

They stared at it for a moment. It seemed to pulse with magic, threatening and inviting all at once. In his hand, her fingers were cold, the knuckles white where they gripped him tightly. He shifted, lifting his hook and brushing a lock of hair from her shoulder. Her eyes found his and locked on, a question in her eyes. He waited.

“What memory did he show you?” Emma asked finally, glancing up at him. “I’m guessing it was one of mine. Which one?”

Killian debated not telling her. Did she really need to know how Hades had stolen that moment from her? But her face was resolute, her gaze steady. There was no point withholding this from her.

“You were in the hospital,” he said, watching her face. “Giving birth to Henry.”

“Oh.” she said, so quietly he barely caught it. Pain flashed across her face, fast and sharp, before her walls went up again and her expression grew blank.

They both turned to look at the door as it swung open, the hinges squeaking slightly. He gripped her hand tighter, felt her hesitation before she squeezed back. Side by side, they walked through together.

#captain swan #killian jones #emma swan #there is probably a lot of spelling mistakes in this #i wrote all of this on my phone 💀 not a joke #steph writes #cs fics #cs fanfic #captain swan fanfic

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