#who the fuck wants to watch other people? It aint even art

[bardicious]

I mean.... tumblr Live just looks awful.

[quillkiller]

broooo thank GOD your talking about grindledore. Like they were the one who got me into the Marauders (and fandom in general!). They were everything to 12 yo me. I’ve been neglecting them for years and now you’ve awoken an age old beast that’s just filled to the brim with grindledore and shitty amvs.

anyways this is just a long winded way of saying I really love that your into them and would love to know your head cannons on them <3. (I am kicking my feet and giggling)

GRINDELDORES UNITE !!!!!!!

me and kara have been going crazy over them .. we watched dumbledores secrets the other day and we’re watching the other two this week 🤍 so here’s some of mine and kara’s yapping in neat little bullet points !!

neither one of them is good and neither one of them is bad. they both become leader figures for the oppossing sides (good and evil) out of pure spite and pride, refusing to back down. it’s canon that grindelwald regretted everything, and it’s canon that albus tells harry that he’s not a good man/and is power hungry. THEY COULDVE MET IN THE MIDDLE !!!!!! INSTEAD OF FEELING BETRAYED !!!! but they were so young and so ambitious and passionate and they were going to change the WORLD

i think that. if they had met in the middle / if we’re talking a canon divergence. they wouldve just continued to be a little morally fucked up, albus would become a professor but not headmaster, gellert wouldve been his creepy mysterious husband, and they wouldve just continue to experiment with dark arts on the weekends behind closed doors (<- and also. for sexual reasons)

since we’re talking hc’s. aint no way albus didnt use the blood pact trying to strangle him if he even so much as thought of hurting grindelwald while wanking. so jot that down

i also think they wouldve been a better support system for harry together … albus is too reckless and doesn’t communicate or talks in fucking infuriating riddles and i think gellert is the only one who can sort of see through him and properly understand him. i think albus often wishes gellert were there whenever he had to make difficult decisions. gellert is canonically his equal, and albus misses him like a lung and can never tell anyone because gellert is the one he has to defeat.

i believe gellert wanted albus to save him during their last battle. he gives up so easily, doesn’t fight back just because his plan was revealed ? stupid. he wanted albus to save him. ’i was never your enemy, not then not now’

also. ’who will love you now, dumbledore?’ lots of people will. lots of people love and respect albus but NO ONE KNOWS HIMMMMM. the only two people who actually really know him is his brother who can barely stand to look at him and his first love whose locked up in nurmengard. and if i said albus is a lily evans variant . what then. never actually being seen . always cursed to be the saviour while harbouring so many complicated and dark urges .

we also talked about ^ the canon divergence and how gellert would be such an exasparated husband. everyone loves albus. gellert isn’t capable of being pleasant in the same way albus is pleasant. albus is able to blend in and make people like him, gellert was expelled from durmstrang and is a downright cunt who wont put in an effort to be liked by people he doesnt care about

i also believe they wouldve been in a secret relationship. like they meet in 1899 and even if it IS the wizarding world, i dont think they were that open-minded about same sex couples back then. so it would drive gellert INSANE !!! he can’t even put a possessive arm around albus at the #function to mark his territory . albus would tease him for how grumpy he is. as if albus isn’t listing dark spells in his head whenever someone flirts with gellert and whispers them in his ear while they fuck in some gala closet or whatever

also. me and kara fully and completely ignore the fucking quillin or deer or whatever kneeling for albus. like what the fuck was that. albus being pure of heart and having good intentions ? when it’s canon that he tells harry he’s not good and shouldnt be trusted in a position of power ? we are blatantly ignoring that as ’canon’ . like, the heartbreaking thing about them is that neither of them are bad and neither of them are good and they couldve met in the middle. but didnt . and the result is a two month summer fling haunting you for the rest of your lives until both of you die in your own towers. THEY COULDVE HAD IT ALLLLLLLL . THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS YOU IS THE PERSON YOU HAVE TO DEFEAT !!!!!!!!!!! sick and twisted .

[onyondump]

Just a Touch : Rough Night Soldier?

Arthur x M!Reader/OC!Karsa Hendriks

Summery : Arthur is in a daze after disposing a 'rat' in Tommy's request and ended up in front of his friends apartment.

Masterlist | Moodboard | First | Third

this is my first time uploading my fanfic and my grammer isn't great so please don't eat me alive thank you

'Rough night soldier?'

The comforting smell of burnt wood, tobacco and jasmine waken Arthur's tired eyes. Unbeknownst to him, his body took itself to the front steps of a familiar friend's apartment and now he's sitting on his sofa with a hand covered in blood, not his ofcourse.

"Aye" he couldn't bring himself to look anywhere but his shaking bloody hands. Another job to take care off, another body to dispose and another maddening night.

A warm towel envelopes his hands, scrubbing it off the remains of his victim. A victim to his viciousness with a beating pulse and a life, but of course anyone who dares cross the Shelby's will face the consequences. Even if their only sin is to breath at their direction.

'Heads up, let me clean your face!'

He does as he's told, like always, from his father, his comander and now his brother.

It's for the good of the family, sacrifices have to be made, they will all reap the reward in the end. But every time he follows orders, why is he in a deeper pit then the rest? It's so dark

'Hello *snap* *snap* Art!! Don't daydream too much or a spirit will possessyour body'

A small chuckle escape his thin dry lips. His friend sometimes have the same superstition as his aunt. How interesting that two people from each end of the earth would have the same believes.

"Don't worry mate, I'm already the devil yeah? No spirits will possess me" He laughs as the other scoffs

'Should have known the only way for you to wake up is to make fun of me' as a revenge the man infront of him scrub his face harder and a white shirt is thrown onto his lap as his companion plops onto the space besides him. Watching him.

'Thats the last good shirt I have this week before laundry day. You better not come here dirty again!'

This is their new routine now. Arthur would come to his friend's house either drunk, high, in a trance or all three at once and his companion would take care of him until the song bird calls for his return.

He would feel guilty about using his kindness like this but it doesn't seem like the other man mind. So he assumes he's welcome anyways.

When Arthur finish putting on the shirt, a loud cough followed by a puff of heavy dark smoke emits from his companions mouth.

'SHIT!!'

Another laugh comes from Arthur this time with a booming sound,

"HAHAHA Your really bad with cigars eh?"

'SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU PRICK, this shit is strong'

Arthur's snatch the fat cigar from his friends fingers and takes a long hard suck as the heavy smoke travels his lungs, coating it with tar. He puffs out slowly but surely, the kiss of death.

"This shit! Is for real men. Not like yours small ones"

'Whatever Art' he snatches back the cigar he lit and tries to do the same but failing at the last second and was mocked again with the chuckle of the moustached men as they countine to share the cigar between eachother.

Nights like these would make him forget what he was doing just 5 hours ago. It's certainly no Tokyo but it does the trick and usually leave no side effects. Just two best friends together in a smoke filled room, alone.

"Do you think I'll ever be normal?"

'There aints such thing as normal Art. Just work with what you have and try to move forward'

"But what if I'm tired? What if I don't want to move forward? I can't shut the door like Tommy tells me to!"

'Then you fix the hinge, oil it up and air out the smoke once in awhile. It's not like a door is just for closing'

With that comment, finally every thread in Arthur's body snapped. Another booming laugh emerge, what a stupid thing to say. Tears and sobs accompany his laughter he couldn't stop himself its almost hysterical. The dam is broken and everything is on fire.

'Uh..Art.. the Cigar?"

The last light of the cigar finally went out, burning Arthur's finger in the process but the man was too caught up in tears to react as his companion hold his burnt fingers and rubs it with his own. Arthur laughed and cried for a long time that night and through it, his friend didn't say a word while calming the wound. And for that, Arthur never felt more thankful.

Notes : YEEHAW!! I hoped you all understand my incoherent writing. I wrote this as I was waiting for my lecturer to come for assistances. I have not sleep and I crave Arthur. YEEHEE!!! 🍉🍉🍉

Also I have no idea the differences of the different smokes, just pulling it out of my ass.

[gleefullypolin]

Can we all just sit down and have a chat...

Like family dinner or some shit because seriously you all are being fucking mental.

Sorry this is long and I'm just ranting to myself. DNR

I didn't have social media until the start of the year for Bridgerton. Mostly because so much of the fandom is fucking mental. My only socials were for Captain swan and don't get me wrong, that place is a cesspool of shit too but come on guys...this is crazy shit for a romance show about a family.

On my last one, I got it...the fandoms hated each other because the ships cross pollinated. (you see what I did there) lol. Captain Swan hated Swan Queen, Swan Fire, everyone wanted to burn each other alive and nothing was happy. I know discourse.

But this is literally no reason at all. They are brothers and sisters with no incest. They aint out here fucking each other.

Now, what I do want to say is, I sit back quietly and watch but I also keep a lot of receipts. So seeing a lot of people talking like they are up on a high tower of purity is pretty funny, because I also watched the shit show that happened at the end of S2. Trust me, there is no high tower to be sitting on, when that tower had sniper guns and you were literally shooting at people from them.

Polin's for the most part are quiet. Their reddit is pretty peaceful. There is always something being talked about, a competition to be voted on, pretty art, a fun meme, interesting conversation to be had. It's not a hate fest. That was necessary because the main sub is a rotten piece of shit that cannot be navigated for the most part and is not safe for Polin's to be in.

If you have been there, you would know that every six days or so, someone will post the same tribe, "I didn't like S3 and can't get through all of it, please help me understand why" usually followed by a sentence that says "S2 is the best and I love X or I was so upset when Ben got shoved to the side" Again I have no idea why these posts are necessary. If you don't like something, don't watch it, don't ask us to help you figure out why you don't like it. But also, these posts aren't actually there for them to ask us anything, its simply there to boost the negativity around S3.

There is no need for this, but it continues to happen.

The anti blogs continue to spew stupidity toward Polin that doesn't even track with normalcy. If you are an adult with this type of blog, please go back to your job and re-evaluate your life. But you cannot be NOT part of scripting, casting, shondaland, bridgerton, and still have so much insight into the scripts, casting, shondaland, and bridgerton. Please be so for real and go to work.

The Kanophies have spent so many years torturing the Polins that it has become normal in this fandom. So normal that now anything that happens for S4, it is just expected that Polin world shut the fuck up and take their medicine and if anything outside of that happens, it is bad behavior on our part. I think the Polins have earned their voice.

S3 was SUCCESSFUL, let me say that for the dumbass idiots in the back who do not understand how things work and twist themselves into pretzels to try and misconstrue numbers, try and talk to you in facts that don't add up, make you feel like the world is upside down, or speak like this:

"Every season builds on the next and so it makes sense that each season is more popular as the next comes out so it only makes sense for S3 to see these numbers."

If that was the case, S2 would have done better than S1 and yet here we are. With that not being the case. Also if that was the case, shows would not get cancelled so often because viewership dies down as shows continue their seasons. Math doesnt math because they are simply wrong.

The things they are saying are only to help them feel better. Look I'm not wanting Bridgerton to be cancelled. I'm happy when all seasons do well. S1, S2, S3 are ALL on the Top 10 list. I'm incredibly proud of S3 and how well it did, mostly because those parts of our fandom OPENLY ROOTED FOR ITS FAILURE. They wanted it to flop, they prayed for it to flop, they told our leads out in the open they wanted them to do terribly and hoped they sucked. This is what we are dealing with, again, we have receipts....you are not on a high tower.

And yes, its not the whole fandom, these are sub sets of the fandom, I will give you that IF YOU WILL ALSO GIVE US THE SAME GRACE AND STOP BLAMING ALL POLINS FOR OURS!

But also, is it not odd.....completely that when something does go down....on the Polin side, its from an account that was created that day or from a week prior who is suddenly being incredibly racist or homophobic. OUT OF THE BLUE. We should all be wary of accounts like that and call them out.....WHICH POLINS do immediately.

Sadly, what I'm seeing coming from the other side, is from long time accounts calling Nic fat, trashing our side of our ship. Being rude to Luke. Just go read some comments on Netflix for any post on Bridgerton. S3, S4, doesn't matter, I dare you. It's not nice from our beloved fandom.

So spare me your lectures. Look at yourselves in the mirror. Stop telling me that I have to be nice. I'm done with this.

Yes, the video came out yesterday and some Polins made a comment about chemistry. And why did that happen?

BECAUSE THE FIRST THING A BENOPHIE ACCOUNT SAID WAS:

THANK GOD we finally have leads with chemistry again.

Isnt it good to have leads with chemistry again

THIS is what chemistry looks like instead of that fake stuff from before

Ok that is what bullying is. So we punched back. And I'm sorry, but sometimes you just get fucking tired of being talked shit to all the damn time. And yeah I didnt see chemistry either. I didnt respond to anyone about it, but you know what I'm not going to lecture anyone who did. And the ONE comment that stirred the pot was LITERALLY not directed to ANYONE and all it said was ERM. so spare me the clutching of the pearls.

I'm over being attacked and being called the bully.

Polin fanfic writers can't even write fic about Pen being friends with Anthony or a story with Kanthony without being bullied in their comments. They can't write a fic about Newton with being trolled in their comments and called racist or worst because they dared take a dog away from a POC. I wish I was making some of this stuff up that I have seen in comments. It is brutal out there and I have never seen it going the other way. I'm sorry, I have gone out and searched. It's always some account created brand new and faked. These are long time accounts commenting on people who wrote a nice fic and tagged a ship APPROPRIATELY.

So how about you sit down and enjoy your season and maybe, just maybe if you spent more time writing your own fics, speculating on your own season, enjoying your own leads and keeping S3 out of your mouths, you might spend less time worrying what Polin's are doing.

It's just so fucking tiring.

Sorry for the rant.

edit: I'm not just yelling at outside our fandom either. some of our own polin's need to cut shit out too. L/N are having to alter their own behavior cuz our side act like fucking freaks too. Stop stalking them. Luke's had to alter his SM profile or posts how many times because you guys are calling around to his hotels to ask about his GF. Would you all act like the adults you all actually are.

[my-own-lilypad]

This is a post just about my thoughts about Luca Guadagnino and Timmy and others. It's just personal musings, feel free to ignore and keep scrolling if it's not for you. Or block if you feel the need.

The thing about Luca and Timothee is, so there are scenes in CMBYN where Timmy is naked and we see his ass. Not full-frontal but he is naked. And we see him walking around like that. Now, that is pleasurable for viewers, for us, for certainly the many gay men watching the film, and there is nothing wrong with that, I want to make that clear. I don't find anything wrong for example, with an older gay man desiring a younger man. I do not equate pederasty with paedophilia, absolutely not, they are not the same thing. I am not attacking the relationship between an erastes (the older male) and his eromenos (younger male). I understand the nature of that relationship. Therefore I understand gay men coming to this film and getting pleasure out of seeing Timothee Chalamet playing a 17-year-old and being butt naked. Timothee is an erastes' wet dream, that is just a fact. Nothing wrong in it, I'm sure Timothee must be well aware of it. So the thing is, Luca chose to have Timothee nude in the film. That was his choice. This is where it starts to get complicated. Timothee's body was used to create that desire in Luca's audience. Luca was selling his eromenos to an audience of eraste, particularly men who had lived through the 80s and been either Elio's age at the time or Oliver's. Timothee walking around nude is a great incentive for them to watch the film, and also the peach fucking and the blow-job scene etc. Now put that in the context of a long warm summer amongst the trees of Northern Italy, good food, good wine, books and learning, cultured people and it all seems very romantic and sweet, innocent even. And it is, the film is all of those things, that's what makes it great art. But the relationship still exists between Luca and Timmy, that Luca sold Timmy's body and Timmy consented. I'm not saying there is necessarily anything wrong with that, I'm not on some moral rampage, and the film was not overtly sexual but more an exploration of desire, you can't fault the film on that, it was done very well, but that relationship exists. And it's there again in Bones and All in the field scene, I mean any eraste would look at Timmy in that scene and get aroused. It was a very sexy scene, Timmy is a very sexy guy, he can turn that on when he needs to, and he was really sexy in that film in lots of different ways, overtly and in more vulnerable and intimate ways-it was the only good thing about the film. What's the point I'm trying to make? Well there isn't one, I guess.

Luca brushed AH's accusations away and now he is directing a film based on a book written by a man who thinks AH is innocent (Bret Easton Ellis), and that book is pretty misogynistic in a good old fashioned 80s way, see previous post. I just feel like something aint right there. It just does not sit right with me.

[suzakushimon]

Thoughts on Jing Liu quest?

AHAHAHAHA (negative connotation)

u came to the right person anon, i have a lot to say...

IT WASNT THAT GREAT..... at first i spent a whole night convincing myself it was a reasonable way for the story to go but they did dan heng WAY too dirty. idk why luofu writing is so SHIT but if the current scandal is true and an employee rly has been messing w the story just to mess w the female fans, it explains a lot 💀

there were parts i liked: the art + the fight scene was a banger + how jingliu points out dan heng fights exactly like dan feng. it emphasizes how, whether he likes it or not, there are some things dh has inherited from df and he cant escape that. his appearance, his spear, his bracer, the ribbon, his vidyadhara powers, etc etc... if it wasnt for df, dh wouldnt be who he is today-- thats the truth, and its something dh can grow to accept.

but holy FUCK. the way they handled everything else. dan heng's memories. jingliu's introduction and her motives. blade's characterization. THE PLOTHOLES. just....ITS KINDA ALL WRONG!!!!!

IN MY OPINION. dan heng's whole POINT is that he doesnt remember his past life/his "past". he considers those memories as "not his", and asserts himself as his own individual person without them. its IMPORTANT he doesnt remember anything + that he doesnt NEED to bc this way he contrasts march 7th and the trailblazer, who also dont have their past memories-- but those 2 WANT to remember, are actively trying to, and they DO consider their past memories/past life as part of "themselves". whereas dan heng runs from his past and tries to find his "true self" without it, march and trailblazer run towards theirs, trying to catch glimpses of their "true selves" through it.

SO THERE'S LITERALLY NO REASON HE HAS TO REMEMBER DAN FENG'S PAST. it completely messes up his character arc/the message his character is trying to send!! they backpedaled so hard on their stance towards dan heng... first it was "only u can determine who u are, no one else; the expectations others hold for u dont matter" and now its "u are him no matter what u do, these sins are yours". like WHAT???? jingliu's quest just made more people equate dan heng with dan feng when the story is SUPPOSED to emphasize that they r DIFFERENT PEOPLE💀💀💀💀

dan heng did decide to face dan feng's sins, but he's NOT a part of the quintet. he's a WHOLE NEW PERSON. so why was he invited as a part of the quintet, but bailu wasn't?? its like theyre saying bailu is a whole new person, but dan heng is still dan feng, WHICH GOES AGAINST HIS CHARACTER THEMES(i am silenced and forced to sit down) anyways imo if bailu didn't have to attend the worlds worst high school reunion, dan heng shouldn't have had to attend either!!!! THIS AINT HIS PROBLEM. DAN HENG GET BEHIND ME!!!!!!!!!

his convo with blade at the end was so ooc it killed me. like, a little walk with his past life's old friend, and suddenly he's willing to forgive blade's literal years of stalking and attacking him??? now hes willing to play along with the vengeance he spent his whole life insisting was directed at the wrong person???????? i only chose that option bc the one on top sounded so wimpy/out of place it also felt ooc to me 💀 he wouldnt show weakness to blade, but there's no way he'd be that accepting either. maybe 3 years later and x patches in, but not NOW...

and jingliu. ooooh girlie. JINGLIU. THEY DID HER SOOOO FUCKING DIRTY. she's a new character. casuals/people who dont dig through lore don't know anything abt her except that shes jingyuans teacher. so why is her INTRODUCTION a fucking CONCLUSION TO HER CHARACTER ARC???? shes already DONE wandering and finding an answer in her heart. shes already DONE deciding whether or not to keep running or face her past. now shes mourning for a PERSON WE DONT EVEN KNOW. we watch her get closure for her dead girlfriend. BUT SO WHAT??? WE DONT EVEN KNOW EITHER OF THEM!!! SEEING HER GET CLOSURE MEANS NOTHING TO US. ITS JUST AWKWARD. why was her INTRO her fucking CHARACTER ARC'S CONCLUSION!!!!!!! they should've made her quest like luocha's, where all we did was speculate and her real motives remained a mystery. then we couldve been spared from this shitfest!!!!

the difference in quality between belobog story and luofu story is insane!!!! like, just compare luka's quest to jinglius....hello??? its crazy how unsympathetic they made her. it was literally "tell not show" instead of "show not tell".

anyways im just upset at dan heng's treatment. like, this character has a clear message/direction they were going for, but jinglius quest kind of stomps all over it, and her quest was supposed to introduce her but her introduction flopped hard. she was so much cooler when we saw her during yanqings quest and she was half insane. its awkward to mourn for someone we dont even know and its awkward to watch someone we dont know mourn. and, ngl, it rly felt like they only added dan heng in there bc they want more ppl to care abt the quintet. that whole quest couldve been through jingliu's pov where the reunion only happened between blade, jingliu, and jingyuan, so why wasn't it??? as opposed to those three, dan heng already moved on from the past. it was awkward for dan heng and for the audience💀

tldr i had high expectations bc i thought hoyo cared abt the quintet but not only did it flop it also dragged dan heng's characterization through the mud

[moonvalecrossing]

Alright, top 3 favorite and least Gym Leaders of Paldea?

Hell yeah Fam lets do this! PROBABLY MORE SCARLET AND VIOLET SPOILERS KIND OF. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING. Also unpopular opinions probably! I aint stopping you from liking what you like. Nobody attack me for the following!

Favorites first.

#3. Kofu. I like the colors in his design. I like that he's a friendly old man. I also liked how they used him to introduce a side activity in the game that I might otherwise have completely passed by. Even though I wound up climbing the mountain around Cascarrafa in order to get to the other town he went to because I was scared to cross the desert and run into the part of Arven's quest that was out there. I want to try his cooking.

#2. Grusha. The last gym leader is always supposed to be the strongest and I did not expect to find the Ice Type gym in this slot. Of course, but his point in the game I was a tad over leveled. By this point in the game, even when I was swapping out and training entire teams for a gym/team star/legend battle I was already thinking about what mons I'd take to the elite four and any other endgame stuff so I already had a pretty good party set up. I sorta pulled the rug out from under this cool cucumber's sassy ass. It was absolutely adorable how he was clearly embarrassed when our character asks for a picture with him after earning the badge.

#1. Larry. Larry is we all. All of us are Larry at some point. This man is so tired you guys. He just wants to get his job done. He didn't want to be a gym leader, he's just really good at it so that's his job now. The poor thing is even one of the elite four. How did they manage to make a tired salaryman a pokemon trainer? I don't know but I'm so happy he exists 10/10 I would hang out and share a meal with him when he had some time off.

Honorable mention: Ryme. Her hair is dreadlocks shaped like skeleton parts. She's a rapping old lady and that is rad as FUCK. Yes, queen! SLAY! RAISE THE DEAD. NECROMANCY!! The only thing I didn't like about her design was the fact the people who made her model made her dress so damn tight that you could see her navel through the fabric as well as the damn creases where her thighs meet her abdomen. Not even rapping grandmothers are safe from the male gaze anymore, folks. Every woman wears vacuum sealed plastic in the future.

Now the least favorites! Preface: I don't HATE these characters. Well besides the unlucky duck who's sitting at the top of the #1 slot. I kinda really hate them but we'll get to that. <3

#3. Brassius. PUT DOWN YOUR PITCHFORKS, DID YOU SKIP THAT PARAGRAPH UP THERE JUST NOW? I don't hate him. But... I don't really like him too much either. I want to, don't get me wrong. I'm a sucker for artist characters. I've always considered myself an artist. But... this guy is a lot of what I hate about artist characters. A bit abnormal? The dude was standing on the damn windmill before the battle started and implied he watched us collect those sunflora from all the way up there. He uses the word 'avant-garde' way too much. Also, gonna say it now. His pieces of art aren't that great. He's got like 200 of the same sunflora statue all over Artazon. It's not even that impressive of a statue. Just slightly exaggerated of a regular Sunflora. And whatever that other work is supposed to be... yes, okay sure Brassius is such a skilled artist that his weird thorn ring thing needs to be shown on billboards all over that one city. At least they decided to give the multiple copy pastes of this piece different colors. And then there's the class he joins in during Mr. Hassel's teachings at school. If you pick the wrong emotion when he asks how he was feeling when he made that damn sunflora statue? "No no no... completely and utterly wrong!" Look here you avant-asshole. If there's one thing that really rustles my jimmies its 'artists' who get offended at someone having an incorrect interpretation of your art. You made a mildly constipated looking sunflora statue, not some great piece depicting Arceus mourning over having no choice but sealing Giratina away. Get out of my art class before you spread your bad personality to the younger students. Don't glare at me when those creepy eyebrowless eyes. You look 24 going on 79. Burgh will always be the superior artistic gym leader!

#2. Tulip. Okay, so overall I love this woman's design. Well besides whatever the Kentucky fried fuck is going on with her eyelashes. Like, goddamn woman. Stay away from open flames they might catch fire. How do you hold you eyes open with that much weight on them? However, the design is about all I like about her. We're introduced to her gabbing on her phone. She's not thinking about the gym battle she's about to be challenged to, oh no. She's too busy planning out a makeup line with someone. And this cake-up faced woman has the gall to decide the tagline for this new line of cosmetics should be 'naturally beautiful'. Uh, honey, no. Please do not enforce the idea that 'natural' beauty needs eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick, and the whole nine yards. It's bad enough that women end up trapped in a Schrodinger's Box of being 'slutty' and 'fake' if they wear too much makeup, or looking like a corpse or they're sick if they don't have enough makeup on. When she finally deigns to get off the damn phone she's quick to let you know that being gym leader is just a side gig and that her make focus is all about makeup. She then calls our character cute and says that her ESP training made us all the more beautiful. Woman your challenge was possibly my least favorite of all of the gym challenges. It was obnoxious and all it made me feel was a strong desire to have my Annihilape break your nose. And when we finally beat her? One of the first things she says is that she should take you under her wing before we find our big break somewhere else. You stay away from me, lady. This tube of purple lipstick is all I want in life. Oh, and I hope you trip on your heels when you get back to your absolutely packed schedule. Seriously, don't quit your day job. Quit your side gig. Let me battle someone with a better personality. Also? Ryme's got better taste in makeup than you.

#1. Iono. I hate this child. I hate this child so, so much. Gamefreak did an amazing job of recreating everything I hate about the stereotypic streamer girl persona. LOL SO CUTE AND RANDOM INTRODUCTION? Punny name? Oh, Iunno, looks like it! A weird-ass crazy vtuber design? Hot damn this kid's got it all! It's a good thing she's got simps like Electro King throwing money at her because after she filed her teeth down to get those absurd spikes her dental work must be an absolute nightmare. Like Tulip, Iono is clearly more focused on her job outside of working as a gym leader. She only cares about how many views you can get her. She even says as much before introducing her gym 'challenge'. We can't 'collab' with her unless we play a cheap man's version of where is waldo with some random guy she pulled off the street (who luckily just so happened to be someone we could easily recognize). If we can't get this narcissistic cotton candy brat the views she wants, we'll fail. Were I actually in this universe, my gym challenge would have ended right here because I would have called her out on that shit, walked right out of the gym, filed a complaint with the league, and bought tickets to the furthest away region I could as well as got my legal name changed as soon as I touched down. I'll be carrying my best pokemon on me at all times because there's no way in hell I'm getting jumped by rabid manlets because I called out their waifu. My brother keeps telling me she's a grown ass woman. Yeah, okay. I don't care how many thousands of years old that dragon loli is she looks like a child. The final cherry on this sundae is how she signs off after losing her gym battle. I'm guessing she's supposed to do that heart symbol with her hands as the camera zooms in on it but, unfortunately, her designers decided to give her some bigass sleeves that cover her hands. So in that split second zoom we get, all I saw was the camera zoom in on this child-looking streamer's non-existent boobs. Fantastic and not the least bit unfitting. I bet Electro King had more pokebucks for her after that one. Also she did what I absolutely hate and had an electric type that's immune to ground types because of FUCKING LEVITATE. Fuck. I hate that ability so goddamn much. How dare you make me dislike Mismagius in any way.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[namodareads]

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

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

OK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

looks at nikoo.

i know what u are dot png

anyways <333

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

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

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

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

and . holy shit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

^ heh. gojo fucker /j

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

^ uncontrollable sobbing dot png

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

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

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

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

^ 487 DEAD 2948578 INJURED

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

^ 1 dead 1 injured (gojo)

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

1 dead 1 injured (me)

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

^ YOU FUCKINGGGGG WISH GOJOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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

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

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

You are afraid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

BONUS if u've made it all this way:

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

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

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

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

For the eighth time.

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

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

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

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

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

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

You think it's the ninth time now.

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

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

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

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

“...hey,” you say softly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Help! Help!”

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

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

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

You can’t save her.

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

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

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

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

This is the tenth time.

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

For now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For?”

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

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

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

You don’t.

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

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

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

You die for the tenth time.

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

This is the fourteenth time.

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

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

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

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

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You die a fourteenth time.

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

This is the seventeenth time now.

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

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

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

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

This is borderline horror.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

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

And this is the eighteenth time.

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

It does not work.

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

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

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

But not you.

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

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

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

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

All you feel is dread.

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

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

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

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

Whether you want it or not.

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

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

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

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

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

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

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

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

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

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

This marks the thirtieth time.

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

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

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

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

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

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

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

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

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

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

Would you even have a choice?

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

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

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

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

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have a bad feeling about this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You die for the thirtieth time.

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

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe you can do this.

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

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

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

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

And you are utterly confused.

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

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

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

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

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

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

Miraculously, you do.

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

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

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

Again.

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately, you know better.

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

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

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

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

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

Groggy.

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

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

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

You need to find out what’s going on.

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

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

Were you like that too before you woke up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

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

That makes you even more nervous.

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

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

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

He hums. “How interesting.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time doesn't flow in the box.

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

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

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

Time doesn't flow in the box.

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

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

You're scared.

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

Time doesn't flow in the box.

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

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

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

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

And you're trapped.

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

You are so very tired.

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

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

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

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

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

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re going to need more time.

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

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

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

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

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

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

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

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

You need to make him.

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

And his attention is on you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...mind handing me your phone?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is not good.

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

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

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

You'll just have to try again.

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

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

It’s just so frustrating.

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

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

You have to convince him.

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

“Yes?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

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

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

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

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

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

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

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

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

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

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

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

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

He does not even acknowledge you.

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

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

This fucking sucks.

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

If only you could fucking break it.

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

You don’t.

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

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

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

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

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

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

And you are causing a commotion.

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

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

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

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

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

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

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

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

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

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

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

What the hell is going on?

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

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

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

Or someone.

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

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

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...unfortunately.”

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

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

“Really now?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

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

“...okay.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You almost wish that it would.

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

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

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

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

“Yes, but—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m not.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...Like in a video game?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So what did you learn?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“More or less.”

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

You nod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You certainly hope so.

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

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

“I'll protect you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

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

Despite all that, you want to believe.

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

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

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

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

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

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

Now, all you can do is wait.

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

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

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

No.

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

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

You are afraid.

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

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

You just have to trust Gojo.

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

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

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

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

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

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

Is this Gojo’s doing?

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

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he’s gone.

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

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

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

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

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

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

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

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

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

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

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

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

Which you're not, not really anyway.

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

Disgusting.

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

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

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

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s going to kill you.

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

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

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

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

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

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

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

What the hell is going on?

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

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

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

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

Everything will have been for naught.

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

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

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

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

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

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

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

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

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

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

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

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

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

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

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

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

You tell him your name.

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

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

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

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

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

Will it be quiet inside?

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

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

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...well, if you say so.”

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

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

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

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

“Prison realm, gate open.”

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

[xvnexx]

Random Twitter, Instagram Bios

“Mornings are for coffee and contemplation.” - Jim Hopper

“I always thought stuff like this happened in movies and comic books.”- Bob Newby

“let the bridges I burn light the way”

I think a lot, but don’t say much

Be more than what you’re worth

did you not see the crown I wear before you spoke?

any maybe one day you’ll find peace with yourself

this place aint for the faint hearted

don’t touch my crown with your filthy hands

make your own rules

yes I know im dramatic

surround yourself by those that will understand your heart and your mind

women power

emptying my life onto here

everyday is a different story, unless you’re me where everyday is one story about eating, sleeping and tv shows

what you’re about to see may be explicit

in conclusion Im bitter

story strong for yourself.

the heart is full of many secrets

all I want in life is glowing smooth skin

always aim for progress

you can still create art even with just one colour

collecting the moments

happiness is a great colour

when ever she/he comes close to me I alway hear the sirens

yes I still fucking post pictures of food

“lifes to short to be wearing boring clothes”

this is my story. it’s my art

don’t become dependent on others

nothing ever works out for me

don’t let the words of other change what you believe in

we can be friends if you understand my vine references

be someone who always keeps going

live life like you’re creating art; capture the beauty and erase the mistakes.

open your heart just enough to let the demons escape, not your soul.

always think positive, you’ll be happier

stand out from the crowd

lover of all thing pink and pastel

never give up on what you believe

never let other touch your crown, they’ll be quick to kick you off the throne

It’s you that I remember whenever my favorite songs are playing

she has thorns in her heart but still smiles

collecting the memories

happiness looks great on you

if show me your knife and I’ll show you sarcasm

Don’t let the actions of others portray you. paint your own picture

welcome to my art

inhale creativity, exhale originality

bitchin

I easily often everyone

try to find happiness in every situation

I still have that 2008 tumblr emo side to me

break the rules and create your own

queens supporting other queens

problematic but funny

you know its bad yet you still let yourself explore

hold on tight this ride is never stopping

just say it how it is and you’ll find the people that’ll never leave you

kindness is so slept on

sorry only I can touch my crown

if you believe their lies, you’ll become numb to the free and beautiful

if you never lay out the right foundation the future will never stand

see good in all things

do what bring light in your life

you’re not doing it right if you’ve still got money left in you bank account

good vibes only

let happiness override the sadness

bring out the light

find what puts the soul on fire

even just a gentle touch would break her/his fragile heart

put yourself first

yup thats right I still watch spongebob

self-care is important

a gallon of water every day, I still got bad skin I just gotta pee more

put it in reverse

finding the definition of life

the world beneath was crumbling and he/she still stood strong

back off bitch hiss hiss

im moving to bikini bottom bye mom.

short but simple

try even if you know you’re going to fail

when its dark let the smile shine through

On a never-ending journey on an adventure I’m still to find

Find yourself before you rescue others.

the heart still beats ever after its been broken

“Don’t you know I ain’t fucking with them good boys?”

always try to learn something new everyday

its okay to fight your own battles first before you fight in other peoples.

match my energy

watch me finesse yo dumbass

yes I own more than just one black shirt. I own 10

we’re all just stars lost in space

don’t let other make the rules for you

I want to create

comfortable silence is so slept on

and all it took was a touch of gold

“Ain’t you ever seen a princess be a bad bitch?”

never listen to those that they to darken the light in your life

im proud of myself

neither lost nor found

have a positive mindset

im honestly a troubled kid looking for dank memes

don’t look back, chase whats in front

no thanks, I don’t want leftover

I stare at the stars every night thinking what could have been

lets the sadness fade away

I should socialise more

the mark he/she left was eternal

ephemeral: lasting for a very short time

and she/he was idyllically innocent

scintillate: to emit sparks; to twinkle, as the stars

she/he was a psychedelic drug

I never listened to her/his mistakes but always heard her/his smile

choose life

you really tried it

its fine we all make mistakes, you were just born as one

explore to find what defines you

she cute but she also a psycho

sorry but the page you’ve found may be toxic for you

how far will you go?

Everything pours out

Break through the cage around her/his heart

She/he’s calling for a name, but it’s written in stone

if I let go of you, I’ll drop you to the ground

one you start counting the stars you’ll end up stranded

jammin to 2000 bops

its lifeless art

a princess

[venomous-ko]

Wine Drunk while watching Godzilla vs Kong

Some major spoilers up ahead!

Mans really just annoyed the shit out of his coworker until he left so he could hack shit, huh?...I love it! 🤣🤣

——————————————

You mean to tell me that the explanation for why Godzilla attacked the one tech company site by the dude who studied Kaiju communication and behavior for a living is just, “sometimes people (and creatures) change”???? Like some dumbass justifying a toxic person/relationship??? Like excuse me???? Why are the literal teenagers making more sense than you?????

Also, we’re all in agreement that this facility is either housing Ghidora’s dead head, Mecha Godzilla, or Mecha Ghidora, right?!?

——————————————

Lol! “Apex Cybernetics!” That’s not foreshadowing! 🤣

——————————————

Apparently, I didn’t get my fill of white nonsense from Falcon and Winter Soldier, bc someone decided to put this blonde-hair-blue-eyed little bitch in charge! That’s not ganna go wrong somehow. 🙃😑👀

Like this bitch literally wanted to send a fucking child into unexplored hollow earth territory without a second thought! 🙃🙃🙃🙃 I was literally like 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 for that entire convo.

——————————————

I’m sorry! This conspiracy man just met these teenagers, and his first impulse was, “yeah, theses seem like some good people to break into a tech conglomerate with!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

Why are these people surprised Kong knows sign language? These are people who study Kaiju (and presumably other animals in order to draw conclusions about certain behaviors) for a fucking living!!! We have primate species that recognize and communicate in sign language already! Why is this surprising???!?! Like...has NO ONE except this precious child tried this????

Also, nothing bad better happen to this child.

——————————————

That ship literally fucked around, and Godzilla let it find out! Lmao!

——————————————

Kong: Hey, Godzilla...look at me...

Godzilla: >:[

Kong: ...bitch.

——————————————

Precious girl: Thank you, friend 🧏🏽‍♀️

Kong: ☺️😴

THIS GIRL IS TOO PRECIOUS!!!!

——————————————

Bitch-ass White Man: How’s Kong with heights?

BITCH, you really ganna try that?!?! You really think you ganna find any aircraft(s) that are ganna be able to support all that weight?? Never mind any other problems with Kong trying to nope the fuck out of that situation and all kind of other hosts of problems!

And if you do somehow have one (or multiple) WHY TF DIDN’T YOU USE THAT BEFORE KNOWING FULL AND WELL YOU RAN THE RISK OF GODZILLA MERCING KONG’S ASS IF YOU TRAVELED VIA SHIP!?!?!?!

——————————————

Down the Hell Naw tunnel we go!

——————————————

“I think it’s romantic,”

I fucking love Millie Bobbie Brown’s character!! 🤣❤️🤣

——————————————

WHY IS THIS TEENAGER SMARTER THAN EVERYBODY OMG!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

“This is page one in the ‘Playing God’ handbook, right?”

I’ve decided I love this character! 🤣

——————————————

WHY YOU GETTING INSIDE THAT THING—Oh god! 😨 Why y’all got eggs!?!? This is like if Weyland-Yutani succeeded in getting Xenomorphs! 😬

——————————————

Oop! Locked in! THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HIDE OUT IN MYSTERIOUS ROOMS!!!!

——————————————

Oh shit! Apex Cybernetics think they on that Wakanda shit now!

Also, why was that one Apex Cybernetics bitch bitching about how one of those HEAV crafts could power Vagas for a week if y’all clearly have a whole network or transportation using this tech!

And I never understood how tech companies kept that shit to world domination shit! Build a public transportation system with that shit! Boss man said he likes ideas that make him rich! Pretty sure that would do the trick!

——————————————

WINE BREAK!!!

Saving the rest of the last bottle for coking Gumbo, so gotta open up a new bottle

——————————————

Aw, Kong is so sick of this bullshit! 😂😭

——————————————

“It’s not working”

Bruh! Give it more that two seconds!

——————————————

HOW DARE Y’ALL USE KONG’S LOSS AGAINST HIM!!!! HOW DARE Y’ALL!!!

——————————————

HEAV go Brrrrrrr Shoooooooooooom!!!!

——————————————

LMAO!!! Monarch has their own brand of bottled water!?!?! Idk why that amuses me so much!

——————————————

This hallow earth portal thing is some Pacific Rim bullshit right here, lol!

——————————————

NYOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM

——————————————

Are we...are we really Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaur-ing this shit rn??? 😂😂😂

——————————————

“It’s beautiful,”

Of course it’s beautiful! No hoomins have touched it! Lol

——————————————

Y’ALL GOT FUCKIN DRAGONS IN THIS BITCH!?!?!?!!! 8D YO!!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!!!

——————————————

*marvels at the creature creation ideas*

——————————————

Kong’s first thought: *nom the dragon guts*

——————————————

THE ROCK HAND OMG IM GANNA CRY!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 It’s the same gesture the Precious Girl did OMG!!!!

——————————————

“We going in?”

“Yeah”

The BALLS on this child!

——————————————

“AAAAHH 😐”

*fear*

LMAO!!!!! I’M FUCKIN WHEEZING!!!

——————————————

“Sacrifice Pit”

OMG 🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

I KNEW IT!!!! MECHA-GODZILLA MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!! 8DDDDD

——————————————

YO PACIFIC RIM RAN SO MECHA-GODZILLA COULD FUCKIN SPRINT!!!!!!!!

——————————————

YO IT’S A GOOD THING I AIN’T SEEING THIS IN THEATERS BC I’D BE FLIPPING MY SHIT!!!!

——————————————

“Humanity, once again, will be the apex species,”

THERE it is!

——————————————

Why Mecha-Godzilla so skeeny?!? He need ta be thicc if he ganna take down REAL Godzilla!

——————————————

*Ryan Bergera conspiracy voice* Is this the real reason Kong was contained!? So this douche could snatch up Skull Crawlers without Kong intervention???

——————————————

OH SHIT!!! I think this thing is emitting alpha waves (or whatever we’re calling it) and THAT’s what set Godzilla off!!! He fought Ghidorah, heard this shit and went, “Nu-uh, bitch! NOT AGAIN!!!”

——————————————

Monarch dude: Yo, Godzilla’s headed to Hong Kong for some reason?

FUCKIN CALLED IT!!!

——————————————

This look like the door to fuckin General Grievous’s lair,da fuq?!? 🤣🤣🤣

 ——————————————

I got waaay too emotional over that handprint, y’all! 😭😭😭

——————————————

Y’all, the fucking art history major in me is fuckin screaming at this temple scene! The fact that some of these Kaiju not only had the urge and drive and capacity to build a fucking temple around this power source or some shit and create weapons like the axe that Kong just fucking Excalibured the shit out of that one skull crawler’s skull fucking implies the fact that there is intelligent civilization amongst these fucking Kaiju and all that shit! I want to know more about this shit! Take that you fucking racist-ass white historian motherfuckers!

(Note: I definitely needed to use talk to text for much of this bit, because there was no way I was going to be able to contain all my excitement in just typing, alone, lmao)

——————————————

BRUH!!! Why y’all exiting g the HEAV without no breathing apparatus or lead suits or nothing!?!?! In previous movies, y’all implied that these Kaiju lived in environments in which their environments were hella radioactive compared to our own!!!

——————————————

Kong is s the true heir to the iron throne, Lmao!

——————————————

FUCKING CALLED IT!!!! THEY HAD GHIDORA’S REMAINS IN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!!

——————————————

OH FUCK!!!! Y’ALL AINT JUST SENDING OUT ALPHA VIBES WITH YOUR MECHA-GODZILLA!!!! YOU SOMEHOW USING GHIDORA’S HIVE MIND OR TELEPATHY SHIT TO DO IT!?!?!?! AAAWWWWW SHEEEEEET!!! Y’ALL ARE BONED NOW!!!! FUCKIN BONEROWNED!!!!

——————————————

Godzilla! My bruh! My dude! You didn’t HAVE TO get up right where that bridge was!!! 😂😂 Ya douche bag!!!

——————————————

At the same time, tho, I can just hear him going, “Ah! FUCK! NOT AGAIN!!! Sunova bitch!! Motherfuckin!! STOP BUILDING sHIT SO DAMN HIGH!!! Goddammit!”

——————————————

You know, with all the Bright twinkly lights in Hong Kong, I can’t help but think of the sequel to the original Gojira movie ( that I can’t remember the title of ,rn) where he was fucking triggered by fucking lights. And I wonder if this little scene where he’s stomping all through Hong Kong is a tribute to that or whatever. But I’m probably overthinking it.

[Sober Edit: it was Godzilla Raids Again]

——————————————

*GASP* HOLY SIHIIIT!!! The axe is made out of Godzilla skute!?!?! GOLY BALLS THAT’S NOT ONLY COOL BUT CONTRIBUTES MORE TO THE FACT THAT THESE KAIJU (likely Kong’s species, in particular) WERE REALLY FUCKING INTELLIGENT AMD TJOUGHT, “Imma beat this muthafucka with their own spiky thing! Bc that’s what screws us over, so, why WOULD’nt it hurt them!?!” I need SO MUCH MORE of this Kaiju/Kong culture studied and shit! HOLY FUCK!!!

It even fucking glows!! Like ... they managed to fucking piece together that its glow was a fucking warning sign like Sting or some shit!!!! Holy fuck!!!!

Also, how does that work? How are the skutes still connected even after dismemberment???

 ——————————————

NO FUCKIN WAY WRE YOU—AAAAAAAAHHH!!! Excalibur that shit my boi!!!!

——————————————

I FUCKIN LOVE YHIS MOVIE HOLY SHIT!!!

——————————————

“ that’s Apex property now,”

Excuse me bitch! Are we really not gonna listen to the scientist who saying “hey we don’t understand the shit out of this fucking power! Maybe we should hold off on taking some fucking samples!”

Are we really just gonna ignore that shit???????

 ——————————————

Kong said: TRY ME BITCH!!!!

——————————————

Oh thank the GODS this Serizawa dude is taking precautions like his old man! Also, what is his relation to Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa!?!?!

——————————————

UH OH!! SOLDIER DUDES GETTIN ATE!!!

——————————————

OH SHIT!!! PILOT JUST GOT ATE!!! FUCKIN DRAGON BASEMENT UP IN THIS SHIT!!!

——————————————

BITCH YOU REALLY GON THROW A ROCK AT IT!!! FUCKIN NONSENSE OF THIS BITCH!!!

——————————————

LOVE AND FITE ME ENERGY IS STORED IN THE ATOMIC BREATH

——————————————

“Shoot him!”

WHY!!!???!! He literally had NO problem with you before then!!!

——————————————

Why does white man who don’t know anything about this vehicle suddenly know how to pilot this shit!???!?!!!!!

 ——————————————

Y’all love had SO MUCH wine!

——————————————

The FUCK this dude got a flip flop phone for!!!?!????!!!?

Da fuq!?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yeah that’s the most unrealistic part of this entire fucking movie! Not the fuckin Kaiju robots. Not the fucking hollow earth bullshit! The fucking flip phone! LMFAO!!!!

——————————————

“Maintenance! I’M MAINTENANCE!!! This bitch ain’t buying it”

That made me laugh WAY FUCKIN harder that it should have!!!!

——————————————

Y’all really ganna try to shoot at a kid!?! REALLY!?!?!??!

——————————————

GAWD, I’m so glad I impulse bought these oatmeal bites from Dominos! 🤤😋

[Sober Edit: I have no idea how my autocorrect managed to convert “Parmesan” to “oatmeal,” but okay! 😆😅]

——————————————

Kong be like, “Hey, bitch!!! You lookin’ for me!?!?”

——————————————

Find you a partner that bites your neck like Godzilla does! Lmao!

Sorry, I’ll be crawling back into my hell hole, now.

——————————————

EAT YOUR FOOKIN VEGETABLES GODZILLA!!!!!

——————————————

Did Godzilla just axe throw with his fuckin teefs!!!????!?!?!

——————————————

THIS IS THE FOOKIN MONSTER VS MONSTER FIGHTS IVE BEEN CRAVING SINCE KING OF THE MONSTERS HOLY SHIT!!!!

——————————————

“Really? Groupies, again?”

First of all, again!?! What happened last time???

Secondly, where tf are YOUR grpupies, asshole! No need to judge! Ya cunt!

——————————————

“There can only be one alpha,”

Really! You really gotta bring your toxic masculinity into a fuckin monster fight, my dude!?!

——————————————

Kong said, “Yeet! YEET SELF!!!”

——————————————

I am living for the feral fight scenes!!!!

——————————————

Kong’s expression , tho! 🤣🤣🤣

Like, “Can you ducking NOT, Godzilla?!? Can you, like, fucking chill??!!? Aight, fine! ASDASHKLSDJKLDZJL ADKLKDZDJ!!!!!!”

——————————————

Awwwww! Godzilla let Kong go, bc he knows what it’s like to be the last of his species! 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭

——————————————

“This is how we [...] win!”

Oh, honey, you ‘bout to die! Lmao! 😂

——————————————

Oh god! I knew he was going to use the sign for “coward” at the most inappropriate time! Lmao! At least the Precious Girls is smart enough to know what Dumbass White Man means, lol

——————————————

Oh, thank god we do t see this dumbass in any sequels!

——————————————

Dammit, he escaped!

——————————————

This girl is too good!

——————————————

Did y’all really think you were ganna break into a semi-sentient Mecha-Godzilla by GUESSING ITS FUCKING PASSWORD!!?!?!?!!!!???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

YEAH!!!! TEAM-UP COMING THROUGH!!!!!

——————————————

“I was hoping to die with adults, but that’s okay,”

🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

“I’VE GOT TO DIE WITB YOU AND SOBER!!?!?!”

GOD, I love this movie!!!!

——————————————

OOOOOOHHHH HOLY SHIT!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱 He powering up the axe!!!!!

——————————————

YOOOOOO KONG WENT PREDATOR/YOUTJA ON MECHA-GODZILLA’s ASS!!!!

——————————————

Kong said, “I’m done, y’all! Imma take a nap!”

——————————————

“Dad. Uh...Bernie.”

I fucking love Bernie!!! 😂😂😂😂

——————————————

JIA NOOOO!!! Don’t go running between two disgruntled Kaiju bby!!

——————————————

Yo, why do monsters have less toxic masculinity than we do??? Lol!

——————————————

Yaaaaaay! Kong has a new home!!

——————————————

WELP!!! I fucking loved this movie, and I highly recommend it to everyone!!!

[theficplug]

Next Lifetime l Erik Killmonger l

previous chapters : Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 part 4

erik killmonger x black reader

part 5 (18+)

“I love you more than you’ll ever know, but because I love you. You know that we can’t stay like this. They’ll find you before nightfall.” you say Erik as he places kisses to your shoulder and wraps his arms around you tighter.

“2 days ago Shuri and Okoye saw you and they’re not just gonna let that go. Iridia and Tika are going to take you with them. Iridia’s dad has a few connections. They can hide you there until I can put an end to this. We both know there won’t be a 3rd chance, Daka, you know that.” you warn and run his fingers up and down your side to try and soothe you. 

“I don’t know if I can do that again. I’ve been without you long enough as it is.. But if that’s what it take. I’mma do it.” he says quietly like the words sit as heavy in his mouth like they do on his heart. 

“Well .. Hey. .. You know , you never really told me what you wanted for Christmas. It’ll technically be a few days afterwards but we make our own rules. I remember saying something about wanting to just go away for a bit. Me and you. After this is all over we can just go. Anywhere you wanna go. Maybe somewhere with snow and mountains and a view that just takes your breath away. Maybe Sweden? We’ll drink hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and bust our ass while trying to ski. We can find new art pieces and i’m not sure of how good the food is there but it’s worth a try. We can do it all. Our whole lives ahead of us.” you say, trying to fill the deafening sound of anxiety that hung in the air.

 “Sweden? I’ve never been there but my dad used to talk about going there when he was younger. My mama would say that she wants us to go visit the island though. She would always talk about beautiful growing up in Kapolei (hawaii) was. I don’t know why I thought you would say somewhere warm. But going somewhere cold gives me a chance to hold you closer. Kiss all over your lil frozen face. We can even put on all them lil cheesy Christmas songs you like. I bet Sweden aint never heard nobody drunk as hell off of hard apple cider singing Santa Clause Is A Black Man at the top of their lungs. But I don’t know about skiing bae. I’d like to keep my ankle bones intact.” N’Jadaka says laughing. 

You put your hand over your eyes before laughing until the point of tears at the fact that of all things he remembers that too. It was one Christmas Eve when he was off duty and back home. Things were different. You knew that things were different between the two of you. 

Your center was freshly opened and you had enough trauma shared between your story, the girls at your center, and Erik to need the relief of several drinks. You were holding onto Erik and singing All I Want For Christmas and soon as Santa Clause Is A Black Man came on you giggled and shook your head. Leave it up to your cousin Aaliyah. You were singing at the top of your lungs along with everyone else before holding a mistletoe over E’s head and leaning in . Before his lips could connect with yours you were heaving all of your lil elf shoes. That holiday part was...interesting.

The way that some of the girls who had accepted the invitation to the holiday party laughed when you walked in. You were branded as the cool auntie from then on. 

“I can’t believe you remember that. And the way I was still trying to be down to try anal that night and you just said to me “if you don’t drink this water and take your tired self to sleep”....You know I love you more than anything, right?” you reassure him while rolling onto his lap and swaying your hips down onto him.

“I do. Do you know that I love you more than anything. I mean I basically moved heaven and hell to come home to you.” he says to you before trailing his hands up from giving your cheeks a squeeze to your sides to take off your shirt.

You two hadn’t bothered with putting on much clothes after coming home and taking a warm bath to soothe your nerves. So there was nothing more than a blanket separating the two of you . 

“Don’t look at me like that.” you whisper to him . 

“What you mean?” N’Jadaka asks dipping his hands in between your legs rubbing at you softly and you lean down to capture his lips with yours. 

“Looking at me like this is the last you’re going to get to do this. I don’t like that…. This is only the beginning my love. So… give me something to hold me over until you come back. Or better yet, fuck me like you mean it.” you whisper against his lips 

“Why don’t you just come with me? We could go and start over.” he suggests

“Daka. You know that we can’t just leave. Things are different now. We have family. I have my girls. I don’t want to live on the run.” your words float in between moans as he begins to scissor his fingers in and out of you and softly massage you with the other while you lean back on your elbows.

“I promise. You’re gonna be alright this time. We’re gonna be just fine. You trust me?” 

He nods his head yes before rolling you over onto your stomach and moving your hips up at an angle so that he can dip into you slowly and then all at once. 

In the wee hours of the next morning you were standing in the kitchen with Iridia, N’Jadaka, and Tika. 

“We still don't really know the hows or the whys. But we don’t need to. You’re our girl and you know that we’d go to hell and back for you if you needed it. And Er- N’Jadaka we know that you may not remember a lot about us now but we got you too.” Tika explains and Iridia nods along while listening to her.

It all still didn’t make sense to all four of you but for some reason life decided to give him a second chance and you wanted to make sure that it was a good one. 

He had already told his parents that he would be back in a few days to a week and that he had finally been accepted that job abroad in Wales. 

Iri and Tika gave you some time to take alone as they watched you both from the door. 

N’Jadaka stood there eyeing you for a second seemingly unsure of the right words to say or what exactly to do. 

“See you later , alligator.” you say to him and watch his face break into the sunshine-y smile that was usually hidden under worry lines and pout on his lips in the past. 

He didn’t get all of his memory or what happened to him, yet but he remembered you and for now that was enough. 

“In a while crocodile.” he says before pulling you into his arms and in for a kiss. 

“Alright , alright. Lover boy , the sooner , the better.” Tika reminds you both and you nod before smoothing out his hoodie and sending him on his way before you changed your mind and left with them.

You paced around your home for days  trying to keep yourself busy. You cleaned. You went over plans to expand the housing projects. You even tried doing yoga and meditation to help soothe yourself. 

2 days later, the knock at your door came as no surprise. You were sitting at the small dining table slowly sipping on the cup of coffee to soothe your nerves. 

You look through the peephole to see Okoye, Shuri, 2 of the Dora Milaje, and T’Challa standing shoulder to shoulder while whispering amongst themselves. 

“The King himself. Tea or coffee?” you ask as you open the door and they storm in after Okoye.

“Where is he?” Okoye asks as two of the women shoves you back and out of the way with their spears slightly and you set your eyes from them to T’Challa with a raise of an eyebrow.

You accessed the situation and realized that it wouldn’t be wise for you to lose your composure now. 

While smoothing out your hair, you turn your attention to T’Challa. “This is still my home and I would ask that you’d hold the same level of respect that I would have for yours.” you warn and sit down at the kitchen table again , sipping slowly on your coffee. 

They rip through the home, checking every room for any sign of Erik, leaving nothing in their paths unchecked. 

You slide the other cup towards T’Challa and he sits at the table with you before asking Shuri and Okoye to relax.

He takes a look at the cerulean coffee mug and then back at you while tapping his fingers on the table. 

“If I were going to kill you T’Challa, I would’ve done it already. You fell asleep in my arms for months. I could’ve done it then.  Or have you forgotten me already? Seems like you have been keeping tabs on me. You found me in two days.” you start the uneasy conversation off slowly.

You and T’Challa dated for some time when you met while working on a similar project in the area. E hadn’t told you everything at that point about Wakanda and what happened so you had virtually no idea who T’Challa was. Your relationship with Erik was on the rocks when he left for the army and he was already seeing someone else so you thought that it’d be alright to move forward with yours as well. 

After dating for a few months, you and T’Challa both decided that with your conflicting schedules and different life paths that it wouldn’t work out between the two of you and you both decided to end things on good terms. Looking back on it you thought the problem was distance and where you both stood in life, but now you’d say the world is a lot smaller than you thought. You never connected the dots until it was too late. Your heart still belonged to N’Jadaka but T’Challa still had a soft spot for you. He also knew more about you in that short time than a lot of people did. 

He chuckles softly and accepts the cup of coffee. He sips the warm drink slowly while eyeing you. The silent conversation spoke loudly as his eyes never left yours. 

“How’ve you been?” you ask him cautiously trying to see where the conversation is going to go.

“Uthando (love), I thought that you would’ve outgrown him by now. You know that he’s a prisoner of Wakanda and is a threat to society. Where is he, hmm?” T’Challa questions in that calming tone that he has always had. The honey-tongued, brown eyed devil could talk a starving bear into not attacking. 

“I love him, T. I couldn’t have ever outgrown him. I have loved him since we were children and I know he’s not a perfect man. He’s made some horrible choices. Ones that he could never take back. I can’t explain what happened. I don’t even have the words for it to try and explain it to myself. All I can say is that he’s home with me now and we’re trying to build something. He’s not trying to harm anyone.” you plead before leaning up and grabbing his hands in yours gently.

“That’s bullshit. He sure as hell wanted to harm the last time we met.” Shuri retorts from her position by the window. 

Okoye tenses up and steps forward while quickly looking from T’Challa to you and back to him. 

He nods at her before giving her a small smile and a quiet “it’s alright”. She reluctantly huffs and stands back with her arms crossed. 

“And would you have executed your father for the blood he has on his hands. Because his body count is sitting at 2. One for N’Jobu, his brother and one for N’Jadaka , his nephew. Your father was a murderer. His hands were not clean. ” your voice wavers as you try to get her to see things from your perspective.

Shuri let’s out a  loud scoff and then a defeated sigh as she stands near the kitchen window and tries to wrap her head around the words leaving your mouth.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. . . I apologize. I’m saying we can sit here and talk about good and bad. The innocent and the evil all night. But at the end of the day we all exist in the grey. We can all just hope that we leave this world better than we found it. T’Challa, Shuri, you can set it right. You can give him the life that he was robbed of. Could you imagine being a confused little boy trying to comfort your father as he took his last breaths? You were allowed to look at your father as a hero, a leader, and you were comforted by hot chocolate at night when you couldn’t sleep and the dreams of one day becoming The Great Black Panther. He had nothing.Wakanda failed him once. I’m asking that you please don’t fail him again. ” you explain while looking him in the eyes. 

“He had you… I know you and I know your heart. But I also know Killmonger-” he says before you cut him off.

“YOUR COUSIN. COUSIN. FAMILY. YOUR OWN BLOOD.” you raise your voice as you sit the baby pink mug down and back away from the table.

You take a moment to gather yourself as you turn away from the 3 Wakandans. 

“My father did what he had to do.” T’Challa says setting her gaze on you and then back to Okoye whose jaw is clenched so tightly you thought that she’d burst a vein. 

“And now so will you. Your father was a coward and his policies were bullshit. But you have the power to do something about it. Shuri, what would you do if it were T’Challa in those shoes. N’Jadaka isn’t perfect. I know that he has done some shameful things. But if you were in his shoes. What would you have done? Wakanda failed him and all I’m asking is for you to set it right. Let us live our lives in peace. You’ll never have to hear a single thing from us again. For fucks sake T. You know that I did what I had to do. When we first met. How did really  meet me? Frantic in a diner … After I had just emptied the clip into a father on behalf of a girl that showed up at my center’s doorstep looking like a piece of her soul had been stolen from her that night. We do not exist in the black or white. A lot of us are floating in the grey. I’m not asking you to play God and absolve him of his “sins”. I’m asking you to find some humanity.” You garner and wipe at the tears falling freely on your cheeks  and look to all 3 of the faces staring back at you. 

Okoye and the other 2 Doras look at you wide eyed before turning their heads to wipe a lone tear from their own eyes. 

You drop your arms as T’Challa steps closer and asks for permission to hug you. He embraces you for a moment before grabbing your hands and kissing them gently. 

“I will have to confirm this with the council. He reports back to Wakanda every 3 times a year to show the progress he has made. We want to know that he’s doing something with this … second life. . . And I will be expecting an invite to the wedding from you. You have my word." He promises and you nod before hugging him back fully and squeezing him gently. 

"But you ca-" Shuri says and T'Challa turns to her and shakes his head. 

He lets go of you to walk over and comfort Shuri .

"We can't carry the sins of our father. This has to end with us." He reasons and she nods. 

Okoye steps in and walks over to you to get her last message across. "If he does not abide by the promises and plans that you have made… Then, you know that I will not hesitate." She warns as she stands with you eye to eye. 

You bare your teeth and square your shoulders as you narrow your gaze. "For him, well, you know neither will I. You have a good day Miss Okoye." You end the conversation and turn to walk towards the door and usher them out. 

You lean up to kiss T'Challa's cheek before whispering to him to not be a stranger this time. You even offer to have him and Nakia over for dinner whenever the tension doesn't run so high. 

You quickly make it inside of your apartment and drop your shoulders before letting out a small sob. It was a wash of relief and a fleet of happy tears. N'Jadaka was finally able to start over and start over with you.  

"Holy shit-"

(tag list :  @doublesidedscoobysnacks @chaneajoyyy @mirandkimy​ @doitforthevine67 @dasia21 @depressionandfandomsinc @sinfully-dope @ambitionwood @heybriheyyy @wholelotta-melanin @theesotericqueen @mbakuwife @spookys-girl @teardropzih @bigchoose @ceo-of-baby @sweetpeachjones @lost-ssoull @love17us @beautifullmelodyxx​ @ghostfacekill-monger​ @shyblackgurl​ )

[deviantartdramanow]

Reddragondraws/leeny caught in 4k being a incel cuckstain

Mod note: if anyone wants to ban him from any discord servers, his user is pictured right below. but i must remind you all, NO WITCH HUNTING!!

Well well, lookie here; Red has his own lil callout; daw they grow up to be like their cunt pedo queen so fast. https://www.deviantart.com/lovesickdoll378/status-update/Look-guys-leeeny-is-treating-909359617 https://archive.ph/WawBm https://www.deviantart.com/lovesickdoll378/status-update/https-www-deviantart-com-lovesickdoll378-status-909357179 https://archive.ph/LJUuq (Gotta say, the discord picture is hilarious since it legit fits the title of this entry, legit caught being a pile of shit to others and us finding it as he has no way to explain himself LMFAO HI LEENY/REDDRAGONDRAWS! ENJOY YOUR SHAMING ON HERE!) Seems the asshole was treating others who had autism like shit, acting like HE was the only one allowed to wave the ‘i have autism so you cant tell me off for being a prick’ card. Also was misgendering too. Tut tut Red, not very nice of ya. Seems you are no different from that bitch Talltheirfy29, and you will be shamed and banned right alongside her. No wonder no one fucking likes you except groomers and creeps; since you are turning into one yourself. Also; your art is cringe bro, stop kissing Tall’s ass with fanart to her, it’s PATHETIC. Watch him bawl and cry that he was outted. Honey, when you bash on others with autism, misgender, and block evade; THE FUCK did you expect? People to pat you on the head for being a literal garbage pile? Do you see us BASHING on you when you claim to have it? No, we just keep telling you to stop fucking using it as crutch. I have a relative with it but he doesnt act like a giant asshole to others, nor does he go out of his way to slam on others with it since he knows how hard it is having autism. Yet you think it’s perfectly fine to be an asshole to others with autism? What the hell makes you special dear? NOTHING that’s what. you are a pile of fucking shit, shaming and bashing on others that also suffer with autism. What’s the matter, sad that they are a better human than you, that why you gotta be a literal cuck stain to them hmm? You are garbage buddy, you sicken me, you spoiled as fuck shit head. I hope you get shamed so badly you want to leave and never come back. The other blogs are having a good laugh at ya too, some even showed your dumbass 'my oc is an adult so it’s ok’ excuse around to some reddits and other blogs to show just how delusional you are. Face it kid, you lost, and the fact you protect your groomer just makes you look worse. She aint safe either, both of you are legit piss stains that are hard to scrub out…oh but dont worry; Mr Clean will come along and erase both of you very soon with more callouts and a sweet ban when you both FUCK UP again. :3 ~ Angel Dust

[blackvelvetwriteson]

Hi, could I get a one shot fem! black reader x Kakashi, please? (can be nsfw or fluff, it's your choice)

Hey there! Thank you for the request 🥺🥺 I had a bit of a roadblock with this one simply because I couldn’t think of a prompt, BUT I eventually thought ‘why not write about the holidays’ so I got into a groove with it! Once I got into it, it was a really fun write! I hope that this is what you expected and/or lives up to your expectations! 

𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐒

                                            (  ~ Kakashi Hatake x Black Female                                                                   Reader Insert ~ )

GENRE: Fluffy Fluff!                                                                  

FANDOM: Naruto Shippuden

TRIGGER WARNINGS: There really are none for today, it’s pretty fluffy for today!

SUMMARY: Reader-Chan wants to celebrate the holiday season this year because she never got to, but she doesn’t necessarily know how to approach Kakashi about it since he never celebrates the holidays (or ever even heard of them for that matter.

WORD COUNT: 4303

(Headers are mine, but the art inside of them are not! Please don’t steal or repost without credit!)

     For some reason, you were in an incredibly festive mood this time around. Maybe it was something about how the gilded sunlight made yours and Kakashi’s home feel more… Well, home-y. Maybe it was the remnants of your food that you’d made earlier for your lunch still lingering around the house, or the kids of the village running around outside of your windows, whether subliminally training or not undeterminable, reminding you of your youth. Time had gone by so fast, and already you’d been in Japan for about two years and a half. You already knew that, in general, the people of the area didn’t celebrate Halloween, and actually it was a week AFTER Halloween would’ve taken place in America, but something about today… Something about today made your festive bone quiver and you decided to do SOMETHING to celebrate. 

Since you’d picked up on the shinobi not celebrating American holidays like you were used to, you avoided asking Kakashi about it. Come to think of it, he never really did anything you were accustomed to besides the staring thing; and when you got together he tried to give you food related nicknames. You had to sit down and explain to him why it wasn’t okay and why it made you uncomfortable and then he thoroughly apologized and left it at that. He didn’t really have any nicknames for you, and from research you found that most women in Japan (and men) only go by their given names with -chan/san at the end which was cute, but if everyone had to call you that then it’d lose meaning and it wouldn’t be as cute.

Even still, though, you decided that today would be the day that you participated in the festivities of the holiday season that, in America, would be fast approaching. The only question for you was who you were going to dress up as and suddenly a thought formed in your head as you popped up from the couch and scurried to your guys’s room. You’d dress up as your hero, your boyfriend Hatake Kakashi! He wouldn’t expect it, you’d be able to see how everything fits, AND it’d be cute- at least you thought- and it’d give you something to do so that the crisp, perfect day didn’t go to waste.

You sifted through the closet with eager eyes as you hummed softly, some of your curls coming loose and falling down by your face, your dark brown beautiful eyes twinkling as you pulled out the parts to the outfit he wore from day to day, your eyebrows knitting a little as one corner of your lip lifted a little. “This man, so help me black Jesus,” you whisper softly noticing how much heftier your wardrobe was than his. He had the same outfit to go over about 5 or 5 times, black sweatpants, black shorts, and 3 different headbands all crushed, neatly, together on one side of the closet while your clothing took up the other half. You shook your head and closed the door with your hip once you were sure you had everything you needed for your little plan. You looked it over excitedly, your slender auburn fingers contrasting almost perfectly against the colors of his uniform. “Damn… I never noticed that till now,” you laugh softly as you remove your shirt and start to pull on articles of the outfit, trying to mimic exactly how you saw Kakashi wear his so you didn’t accidentally disrespect him. Of course he only had 2 masks and a shirt with a mask that you’d sewn onto it, and you decided not to mess with any of it. You didn’t want to hide your face at all whatsoever, especially behind masks that might’ve well have been your boyfriend’s comfort items. You had pretty much everything on, the worn out navy blue bringing everything together, the green brightening your pretty almost black eyes. You giggle softly as you look in the mirror and decide to do something with your hair before it dried completely- you’d taken a shower only 30 minutes prior and your hair was a little damp. You scurry off to the bathroom with the bandage and garter in one hand, your yellow hair pik in the other. You looked extremely excited, for once taking a moment to completely love and indulge in yourself. Being in an area where your existence was offensive to others to suddenly going to a place where absolutely nobody looked even close to you was an extreme shift, but Kakashi made it okay, literally brawling with anybody that so much as looked at you the wrong way. You had a small bit of tummy, but he loved that about you; and it’s not like it slowed you down any, made you unreliable, or made you any less attractive than you were. In fact, to some people it wasn’t even really noticeable unless you were wearing certain things. You also had to drop the American style and adopt the Japanese locale and honestly, while that was a HUGE shift, Kakashi helped with that too. Sometimes you’d get yourself in trouble with how you spoke though; that American lingo that’d been generationally passed down to you finding its way showing up and showing out, especially when someone wanted to make fun of your hair, or your physique and compare you to the other local girls, most noticeably Ten-Ten, Lady Tsunade, Sakura, and Hinata. They argued that the more pale girls were more attractive; because you could play in their hair and you wouldn’t have to worry about one slowing you down- at which remarks you stuck the shit talkers to a tree with your kunai for hours after you thoroughly cussed them out and ribbed them a little, telling Kakashi what’d happened so he could go cut them down. On the flip side, the kids absolutely adored you and loved when you were out so they could play tag or ask you unnecessary questions or get some treats from you.

You quick-washed your hair in the sink and started to blow-dry it deciding that you’d give yourself an at home blowout so that you could complete the look. Being the multitasker you were born into being, you found something to prop the blowdryer up while you piked your hair out quickly, smiling as you watched your hair fluff up, watching your coils straighten and then get bigger until it couldn’t anymore. Then it hit you; Kakashi hadn’t seen your hair blown out except once and that was while you were braiding it back and his eyes were fixated on your fingers as he wondered how a person could do that. At this point, your hair was halfway done, and while you let the tool dry your hair even more, you attempted to wrap the bandage around your thigh and it only BARELY made it, your thigh utterly choked in the process. You looked down at your leg and then pensively looked at the garter and decided that wouldn’t fit around your leg and you let out a frustrated sigh. “That man, is fine as fuck, but why he built like a bean pole,” you huff quietly as you let the bandage loose from trapping your thigh before your mind wandered to him. “…. Aight so maybe he got a LITTLE bit of muscle, but we aint talkin’ about that right now,” you laugh softly before looking at your phone seeing that he sent you a text signifying that he was on his way back from training for the day and that he was fine. You smiled cheerily at your text and tilted your head some at yourself, using your pik to fluff your hair out more before you scurried back to your guys’s room and snatched one of his spare headbands up, securing it quickly and tactfully. You looked at yourself in the mirror, your hands coming up and sliding into the arm holes of his navy green vest. You turned to one side, then to the next, then finally you looked at yourself from a front profile and your eyes glistened a little. “You’re… so heroic,” you mumbled under your breath before you heard some clatter coming from outside of the room.

“Oh right… You can do that,” you say as you open the door and watch him freeze completely in his spot, his eyes slowly raking over you from head to toe then back up again, his stoic expression unchanging from what you could tell. “H-Heyy… Honey,” you smile nervously as you wave with one of your gloved hands. He walked towards you and slipped one side of the headband over one of your eyes and then he stifled a soft grunt under his breath.

“It’s Kakashi. We’ve talked about this,” he said softly before he looked over his shoulders, his hands sliding in his pockets again as his back straightened out some. “….Why are you wearing my clothes,” he asked with a slight edge to his voice, meanwhile you were still frozen in place, your legs starting to quiver some. You didn’t know why he was being so cold to you and it made you just a little insecure. “Particularly… Those,” he said as he stared at the wall below the TV you both had, his legs crossed as he leaned back into the couch.

“Damn so you not gonna say ‘hi.’ Or ‘I missed you,’ or nothin’ like that hm? Well… My bad, I guess I’ll just go take it off,” you say softly, the spirit of the day becoming crushed. He mused softly and his head only tilted a small bit. He didn’t even look at you and you noticed this. The whole time you were here… The whole time you were together the only thing you wanted was his eyes on you and his praises. You were struggling and it was on you for the most part because you hadn’t reached out to him for help. He was a real big one for “say what you mean or need,” or something like that. You LOVED the idea behind the last stretch of the year; the days designated for giving thanks, hanging out with the ones you love, amazing food, and gifts, and movies, and music. All of it… But having come from where you had, you never really had good times or a good chance to make memories. Now that you were old enough to have someone of your own and actually be able to create memories, you wanted to… But instead you’d been trying to force it out of your life to make your man happy, however you weren’t having it anymore. You just didn’t know how to bring it up.

“Mm.. What’s-“

Before he could even finish speaking, you’d vanished back into your guys’s room and shut the door behind you. He sat back in the seat and he let out a low drawn out breath and then stood up. Within one second he vanished from the living room and appeared right in front of you with his arms crossed.

“I asked why you were wearing my clothes, not that you had to take them off,” he said as he looked blandly at your hurt expression. “And I was trying to ask what was up with you,” he said as he reached one hand out and gently tipped your head up, his free hand reaching for where your bangs covered your eye but then he stopped as he usually did and he tilted his head some. “May I?” He spoke from behind his mask. You push his hand out of the way and move your hair out of your face by yourself, your sharp eyes peering into his. This time his eyebrows rose a bit more noticeably and usual and he waited for you to talk so he could listen, his hands now in his pockets.

“Yknow… I’ve tried to work what is normal to me out of my system… And when I was younger, that would’ve been… Easier. But now, it’s not… Kakashi, when you don’t look at me it makes me feel undesirable… Because nobody else looks at me unless they’re making fun of how flat and wide my features are… or how damn burnt I look even though this is my natural skin tone! I just… Want you to call me your baby once in awhile damnit! I want to call you *mine* and not just… Ka-ka-shi. Everybody calls you that… And… I get jealous when I see the other people hanging out with you, the cooler people with the sharingan variants, or the cool eyes and the people with the slim builds, or the people with the advanced shinobi skills that are greater than mi-“ You hadn’t noticed that while you were talking, Kakashi pulled his mask down, then you were interrupted with a kiss. It was a soft, but soulful kiss; the kind where one of his gloved hands had you by the chin and the other by the back of your head. The kind where you could feel his body heat completely wrapping you up. The kind where you felt his trembling breath break his completely calm composure. Your hands were gently pressed against the back of his arms, one of your hands at his elbow as he pulled away and allowed his eyes to slowly open. His shadow was cast down onto you and you saw his eyes squint a little, his smile hidden by the mask he’d pulled back up after the kiss. On the other hand, your eyes were wide and your lips were barely parted, your eyes glistening as you looked over his mostly hidden smile. Your knees buckled under you and he helped make sure you didn’t fall, his chest pressed against yours.

“You done?” He asked as he helped you stand upright again. You were dazed just staring at your man and he smirked a little as he pulled his mask down again still standing close to you. “I see… You want everyone to know that you’re mine and vice versa? That’s it? That’s why you’re wearing my clothes today…? You want me to… Call you mine? Right?” He spoke quietly, he was ONLY talking to you, his deep voice getting a little more hoarse as he continued to drone on, his hands on your hips pulling you closer to him, his intense gaze still cast into your eyes. You swallow hard and nibble the inside of your cheek. “You want you to call you my baby? My beautiful, perfect baby girl? Hm? Is that why you’re acting out? Or… You want me to show you that I care more, right? Maybe… You want me to make dinner once? Or bring you flowers? Or watch you train? Or… Cheer you on? Right? Perhaps tease you a little… Or hold you this close all the time?”

You nod slowly and then look away already knowing what this was sort of leading up to but his slender fingers forced your gaze back on him.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, baby,” he said softly as he tilted his head a little. “If you wanted that… Why didn’t you just say so? I can’t read minds… And I’m still relatively new to this whole… Romance scene,” he said softly as he gently stroked your cheek with his thumb. “You know this. I’m a little… Dense? I’m not sure if that’s the proper word. But…. You’re just… Ugh… I didn’t know that me hanging around people made you jealous- perhaps it’s in my best interest to just tell you how much you mean to me all of the time. You’d want that too, right? I know you would,” he said softly as his fingers gently trailed up your back. “Or… Maybe you want to have a little bit more sex? Is that apart of it?” The question made your eyes wide, skin burn with an invisible blush, and your jaw drop a little. He let out a hollow laugh in turn, gently pushing your jaw up to close your mouth with the tips of his fingers. “Baby steps. I got it. For now, let me just say this: You’re beautiful… All of your scars, curves, marks and all. Those coffee colored eyes of yours are so much more… Stupefying than any sharingan I have seen and will ever see…. The little spark they get when you’re determined, or that soft glisten when you get embarrassed,” he said as he looked over your whole face. “Your body… Your whole body… Is amazing… You don’t have to be slim to be an amazing shinobi; and so help me, my beautiful queen,” he says softly as he leans down so he’s eye level with you. “If you ever discredit yourself like that again, I’ll work you out so that you’re not able to move for the next week. You’re right on the fast track to be a fine shinobi- possibly even the greatest at that. Well… Not greater than me, but that’s another story and another conversation,” he said quietly as you were pushed back onto your bed while he stood over you. “Are those idiots getting into your head again?” His eyebrows furrowed a little as his hands slipped back into his pockets.

Finally you were able to find your words again and you crossed your legs out of habit. “Y-Yeah… For… Like… The past 3 weeks they’ve been telling me that I’m too slow… Or I’m too… Wide… Or making fun of me and my eyes, or making fun of how dark I am… Or making fun of my hair! My damn hair! It hurts… A lot… And we’re together, but I don’t want to be known as that abnormal girl that calls on her boyfriend every time she needs saving. I got it… Aight? I can handle that… But… That’s why I need YOUR praises…. To validate me I guess… I already know I’m THAT… girl… But I want to hear it from you… I want you,” you mumbled softly. “And the reason I’m dressed up like this is because I’m dressed up for Halloween- In America it’s a day where people dress up and do their makeup and hair and have fun at parties or go trick or treating to get candy and stuff! I’ve always loved it despite not being able to… Participate much,” you say softly as you rub your arm. “I dunno, I guess I just wanted to celebrate the holiday season this year- even if we never do it again, I at least want one memory of a great holiday season with mine… With you,” you say softly. He listens to everything you say with an opaque grin on his face.

“If that’s what you wanted, then why didn’t you just say that?” He said softly as he climbed over you, his hips barely resting in your lap as your heart skipped a beat. He pushed you to lay down on the bed and his hands rested right by your head, your eyes peering up at him with a soft grin rested on your face.

“I-I d-didn’t w-want to get told no… I d-didn’t want to… Bother you with something that seemed so insignificant… I didn’t want you to think of me as weak,” you say softly as he gently kisses your neck. You shuddered a little and bit your lip as you tilt your head up some.

“Well now’s your hot seat,” he huffed quietly against your neck. “Tell me what you want, tell me everything you want, and I’ll do it until you tell me that you don’t want it anymore,” he said as he looked back into your eyes, your hands rested against his chest as you thought for a moment before speaking again. “W-Well… I want you to call me your baby and vice versa… Or come up with a nickname or something… I want you to watch me train and root for me, I want you to let everyone know who I belong to, but allow me to show who you belong to, too… I want you to tease me and hold me close… Everywhere… I want you to go on dates with me and do holiday stuff with me… I want you to make me feel wanted and loved… I just fucking want *you* Kakashi…” you say softly as you look up at him. Upon gazing, you notice that his expression had soften significantly, and the hold he had on you was more protective than ever. “A-And I guess more s-sex would be cool,” you say softly and he chuckles quietly in return. You reach one of your hands up and gently cup his face, your thumb gently caressing his cheek. “You know… You should smile more… You’re quite handsome when you do… Well I mean you’re fine as hell either way, but I like it when you smile… And laugh like that…” you say softly as he leans his head into your hand a little more. He kisses your clothed palm and smiles just for you and suddenly you took on a breathless expression, your eyes halfway open as he blushed a little and you just took this moment to adore him, everything about him. “That’s what you want from me? Okay,” he said softly before moving to pin your hand weakly to the bed above you, his eyes both gazing into yours- well as much as he could anyway seeing as your hair practically swallowed your face leaving your bottom half of your face exposed for him. You could see him just fine, he just couldn’t see you… And for the moment that was fine. His gentle lips pressed against yours from above and your eyes fluttered shut as usual when this happened. You felt a little touch starved because he didn’t like contact very much, but he was warming up to it a little more. You wrapped one of your arms around his waist and pulled him closer, and then the two of you melted into each other on the bed in a fit of grunts, deep, passionate, soft kisses, dulcet giggles coming from the both of you, his hand wandering up your waist up the natural curve of your body as yours tried to find where his clothing allowed you access to his skin. You found it, your warm fingers contrasting against his lukewarm skin. He jolted a little and let out a groan before looking at you again, nibbling your lip gently before he pulled away. “You’re amazing,” he whispered quietly and breathlessly against your lips as you tried to control your breathing again.

“Says one of the most notable and historic ninja warriors of all time,” you say with a soft chuckle, moving your hair out of your face so you could look at him and so he could look at you.

“You know… Paths like that carry plenty of… Skeletons in the closet, right?” He said softly as his gaze intensified only a little bit.

“Yeah, and? You still made it… Everyone looks up to you… You’ve killed people and seen plenty of your own killed… And people that couldn’t handle it… Y’know… But, Kakashi Hatake,” you say softly as you turn his head back towards you and your own expression hardens a little. “No matter what, I’ll still love you like the day that I met you… Just like that day you first came to protect.. Well the other person- after they were bullying me… After you checked to make sure I was okay… Baby I love you, and as long as you love me too, I’m gonna be on your side. I’m your woman- I’m your queen, right? A queen needs her partner in royalty, and this house is our kingdom. You’re my king, and unapologetically mine… And I’m the same for you,” you say quietly as you sit up and smile a little. “I know you haven’t been sleeping, Kashi,” you say softly as you gently kiss his lips. “I’m not a super heavy sleeper… You’re safe now, though,” you say softly as you run your fingers through his hair. “Let me go make dinner tonight and… C-Can I decorate?” You whispered softly, expecting a no as you turned and gently pushed him to make him lay on the bed and he chuckled softly, gently grabbing your hand.

“If decorations are what you want, then I don’t have a problem with it,” he said softly, kissing the back of your hand gently. Your skin burned with an invisible flush and you pulled the covers up on him, trying to make the room just a little more homey so that he could sleep better.

“I… Wow… Um… Okay,” you say softly, lighting a candle and setting it on the nightstand, standing in the doorway. “I d-don’t know if I said this already, but I’m gonna make a hot pot for dinner… And I’ll go see if there are any pumpkins in the area… I’ll make us some pumpkin bread and make some cookies for the kids,” you say with a beaming smile, looking at your sleepy man who was already cuddling a pillow on his way to sleep. He admired your soothing voice, able to relax for the first time in a long time, and how the golden sun gave you a gilded glow that made your skin twinkle and your eyes illuminate the room. He had never felt so lucky to have someone as good as you to him, and that was the last thing he saw- or thought- before he slipped off into dreamland and you disappeared behind the door to excitedly start dinner.

[thiswasinevitableid]

for monster march, ghost + indruck + nsfw?

Here you go! I borrowed some ideas we’ve tossed around on the Discord

A sketchbook, new pens, a Hershey bar, and a bag of jumbo marshmallows. A small but lively fire. And a new, huge, fuzzy sleeping bag waiting for him in the tent. 

Not a bad camping set up for a city-boy art goth (as Barclay likes to call him).

Indrid sticks another marshmallow on the fork, roasting it until it’s deep brown, the smell of burning sugar curling through the air and settling in his hair. He’s never liked Graham Crackers, so he jams a square of chocolate into the molten center of the marshmallow and shoves the entire thing into his mouth. 

Kepler is small. Barclay hadn’t been kidding about that. He’d also been right that one of the two tattoo shops in town was willing to hire Indrid after looking through photos of his work and confirming he completed his apprenticeship. 

He’s been living in the Eastwoods campground in the Monongahela National Forest while he apartment hunts, and the tattoos he’s done so far netted him enough cash to buy his luxurious new sleeping bag. He might be waiting on a place for some time, so he may as well camp in style. 

Three “s’mores” later, the moon is up and the night is chilly enough that he wants his sweatshirt. Ducking into the tent, he can’t find it on his pillow, where he swears he left it this morning. Maybe he accidentally buried it getting dressed.

A splashhiss interrupts his rummaging. Scrambling from the tent, he discovers his fire is now a pile of soaked ashes and logs being angrily stirred by a thick piece of kindling. 

“Excuse me, but what the fuck?”

A man in a ranger uniform appears, the stick falling through his hand as he gives Indrid a disapproving stare. 

“Look here, I know you’re new here, maybe to campin entirely. But you can’t just leave a fire burnin when you go to bed.” He doesn’t sound mad, more like he’s a disappointed big brother scolding his sibling. 

“I wasn’t-”

“And all this” he gestures to the food on the table, “has gotta go in the bear box. Black bears are real good foragers and we don’t want ‘em comin’ into camp and gettin to comfy around humans.”

“Of course, but-”

“You didn’t take any food into the tent, right? Wouldn’t want somethin to decide to join you ‘cause it smelled a snack.”

Indrid pinches the bridge of his nose, “I am aware of all of these rules, and plan to follow them. Once I actually go to bed instead of ducking into the tent for my sweater. But since my evening appears to be over…” he grabs the marshmallows, roasting fork, and chocolate, carries them to the bear box, and slams it closed. 

When he whirls back around, the ghost is still there, chagrined. 

“Uh, sorry. I kinda jumpy about people leavin fires alone.” In the lantern light, his smile is as charming as his drawl. His stocky, bearish shape and unassumingly handsome face command Indrid’s focus, which is why his revelation comes so quickly. 

“You...there’s a statue of you at the visitor center. Which makes you, ah, damn it what was the name-”

“Duck. Duck Newton. They put my legal name on there, even though Juno tried to stop ‘em. But my name’s Duck.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Duck. I’m Indrid.”

“Nice to meet you too. Uh, sorry for ruinin your campfire, looks like you were havin a nice time.”

“It’s alright. I suppose I’m grateful there’s someone haunting the campsites to keep them in order.”

“You’re takin me bein’ a ghost surprisingly well.”

“I’ve always been interested in strange things, to the point that I earned the nickname ‘mothman’ in high school.”

“Huh” Duck watches him a moment, then shrugs, “well, guess I better be goin’. Have a nice night, mothman.”

With that, he’s gone.

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

“Hello again.” Indrid says as the campfire smoke curls around a human form, “Doing your rounds?”

“More or less. I like my job, and ain’t about to give it up just because I beefed it and turned into a ghost.” A creak as Duck joins him on the picnic bench. When he materializes, he floats slightly above the worn wood, watching Indrid draw. 

“That’s incredible, it’s so realistic it’s like you pressed the leaves into the pages instead of colored them.”

“Thank you.” adds depth to the leaf, “you know, I looked at the statue again today. It hardly does you justice.”

From this close, he can see a blush spread up semi-opaque cheeks. Then he starts fading.

“Oh, ah, I’m sorry. I was aiming for a benign compliment, not to make you uncomfortable.”

“S’alright, just surprised me. Not many folks wanna flirt with a dead guy.”

“I’m more interested in what the ‘dead guy’ wants.” Indrid smiles, hoping to convey he would submit to spectral touches as readily as he’d keep talking. 

Duck floats closer, “Kinda curious about your other drawin’s.”

Indrid turns the sketchbook back to the beginning, “they’re half portfolio and half travelogue. Here” he holds up a fade, detached piece of paper,  covered by an Morpho Butterfly that looks ready to fly away, “this is the first tattoo I ever designed.”

“Damn. Guessin’ that means you did this one” he touches the Rosy Maple Moth on Indrid’s forearm (or tries to). It’s chilly, but not in the way Indrid feared. More like taking a cool shower on a sweltering day.

“I did. Here, it gave me an idea for my first series of flash tattoos…”

They go over the illustrations page by page. Slowly, Indrid weaves in questions to Duck who, instead of recoiling from discussion of his mortal life, tells him rambling stories about the woods and which places serve the best food in town. 

The conversation doesn’t end until the fire goes out on it’s own, Duck standing automatically, grabbing a water bottle, swearing, and then disappearing so he can pick the bottle up. 

“Do you think that’s part of why you’re still here? Some unfinished business having to do with the woods?”

“Nah.” The water bottle thunks back on the table as Duck reappears, “I tried to live a normal life, improve the world the way I knew how, make some kind of difference to this town. Then I had to go play the goddamn hero.”

“I would say saving two dozen people from a forest fire makes a considerable difference in the world.”

A sad huff of a laugh, “Yeah, guess you’re right. Just...I meant to do somethin’ with my life, not my death, even if it was a small somethin’, and the closest thing I got to unfinished business is a model ship.”

“I...what?”

“It was four-masted and everything! I had Leo order it in special and everything and then I never, I never got to-”  He tilts his head up, sniffs once, “never mind. I better let you get to sleep.”

By the time Indrid calls “goodnight,” the ghost is gone. 

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

“Please tell me you’re gettin a place soon so you stop eatin everythin outta a can?” Leo bags the last of groceries.

“No such luck. Ah well, there are worse things than canned soup and Pop-Tarts.”

“At least let Barclay feed you, half the point of havin a friend who can cook is to let ‘em do it for you. You need stamps or anything?”

“N-” A box behind the counter catches his eye. It’s at an odd angle, as if whoever put it there is hoping no one will see it. Indrid can just make out an illustration of a four-masted ship.

“Is that for sale?”

Leo looks where he’s pointing, and for a moment something in his gruff affability wavers. Then he nods, “Yeah, suppose it is.”

“Can you ring it up for me?” Indrid nearly bounces on his toes when Leo sets the box on the counter and confirms his hunch. 

The older man sets a gentle hand on the cardboard, sliding it across to Indrid, “Don’t worry about that, kid. It’s yours.”

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

“Duck?” Indrid turns in a circle by the picnic table, “Duck, I have something for you!”

He saw the ranger briefly last night, but he didn’t hang around. Gingerly, he sets the box on the table, tearing off a piece of sketch paper to write a note in case the ghost stops by while he’s asleep. 

“Holy fuck.” Duck floats across the table from him, “‘Drid, where did, how did--why?”

“Leo still had it. As for why I, ah, it seemed like you still wanted it. If you can douse a fire and over my camp stove, I figure you can build a model ship.”

Duck disappears and Indrid’s heart sinks; that must have been too much. Then he’s squished in an invisible, wonderful bear hug.

“Thanks, ‘Drid.”

From then on, Duck spends every night at his campsite, building the ship while Indrid draws, reads, or talks with him. The model lives in the safest corner of the tent during the day.

“I mean, I’m up durin the day too, but I scared a few folks on accident and I don’t want people avoid the forest because of me.”

Indrid also learns that Duck is stuck within a certain radius of where he died, and that his attempts to talk with Juno when she was in his part of the woods only lead to his friend thinking she was hallucinating and Duck feeling miserable for three solid days. Indrid offers to act as messenger and invite Duck’s friends (many of whom have, by chance and by proximity to Barclay, become his friends) to the campsite to see him. The ranger is quiet for some time after that offer.

“Not yet. Maybe someday, but not yet. I, it ain’t even been a year, ‘Drid. I think a lot of ‘em are still hurtin. And, and maybe this is selfish but...I ain’t ready to deal with them findin’ out I aint fully gone. It’d be so much all at once.”

Indrid doesn’t bring it up again. More than once, when Aubrey tells a story about Duck only for her eyes to sadden halfway through, or when he sees Juno looking at Duck’s statue a little too long, he struggles to keep his promise. 

A cold front blows into town and, since he’s still in the tent, he pops into Kepler Thrift N Find in search of an extra sweatshirt. Tucked in between one reading “Ranchos” and one with a picture of Garfield is a soft, well-loved hoodie with “Monongahela National Forest” on the front. He buys it and wears it home, the fact it’s loose in the arms making it even easier to tuck in his hands when he gets cold. 

He stops by the visitor center out of habit, checking out the new plush wild animals. There are also hints of Duck here and there; his name on displays, his face in group photos. As he contemplates a small, squishy black bear, he notices Juno looking at him more than usual.

“Hello again” he sets the bear on the counter.

“Howdy. This all?

“Yes, please. Are you alright? You look, ah, tired.”

“Yep. Or, uh, just noticed that sweatshirt. It was one that got made special for staff a few years ago.”

Indrid fidgets with the cat-bitten drawstring, “It was Duck’s, wasn’t it?”

“Uh huh. He put that patch on the sleeve. Guess it startled me to see it on someone else.”

“I understand.” 

“Knew him since we were kids. Hell, he’s my daughter’s godfather. Still don’t feel right, bein’ here without him.”

Indrid pushes the bear towards her and she pets it.

“What was he like?”

In the empty visitor center, Juno tells him. In her stories are echos of every conversation he’s ever had with anyone who knew Duck. When it’s time to close up, she asks if she can hug him, and thanks him for listening to her. 

“Guess you weren’t kiddin about wanting to sleep with a bear” Duck teases as Indrid sets his new purchase inside the tent. Indrid whaps at him, arm going through his torso. The ranger floats nearby as Indrid heats up ravioli and opens a can of Mountain Dew. Indrid tells him about the conversation with Juno. 

“Huh, guess that is my old one. Glad someone is gettin some use outta it. And it looks good on you.”

Indrid sets down his bowl, “We talked a lot, Duck. And it made me think about what you said to me one of the night after we met. You said you wanted a chance to make the world, the town, a little better. Everyone I’ve talked to, and I mean every one, has a story about you. How you helped them, how Kepler is worse off with you gone. You did so much, even with your time cut short. I, I wanted you to know that.”

The ghost looks away, “I wasn’t done tryin to help.”

“You still aren’t. You do what you can to keep the forest and the visitors safe. And you, you’ve made my life immeasurably better Duck. Seeing you is the best part of my day and I think I’m falling--ah, that is, you’re not done making a difference.”

Duck hasn’t moved since Indrid started talking about his feelings. When Indrid tries to meet his eyes, he disappears. Hurried, he reaches out to offer a reassuring touch and gets only air. 

“Duck?”

Nothing, even after he calls his name three more times.

He slumps onto the bench, “well, fuck me I guess.”

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

This is a terrible idea. But it’s his last, and therefore his best. 

Indrid even asked Barclay’s boyfriend, Joseph, if anything in his impressive library of the paranormal advised the reader on dealing with upset ghosts. A few did, always from the perspective of trying to get the specter to go away. They said nothing about what to do if your upset ghost was missing, leaving an ache in your heart you didn’t know you were capable of feeling. 

Instead, after a week of silence, Indrid changes tactics: if he can’t coax Duck back, maybe he can annoy him into appearing. 

Tonight, he finishes dinner and cleans his dishes, puts the bulk of the food in the bear box, and then tears open a bag of chips, scattering them across the table. He eats one, then leaves the open bag laying amongst the potato shards. 

Next, he dumps his remaining water on the fire, which takes it down to embers but does not extinguish it. When none of that gets a reaction, he decides to narrate.

“Hmm, that should be fine, it’s not that dry and I don’t think sparks can go over the edge.”

“Should I leave these juice pouches out? Yes, I think I should, in case I get thirsty at night. Maybe I’ll take one into the tent, just to be safe.”

He already feels silly and like no one is listening, and so he escalates. 

“I know I shouldn’t leave food out for the wildlife, but since there’s no handsome, ghostly ranger here to punish me for my transgressions, I am just going to leave some nuts out for the raccoons. I like raccoons. They deserve nice things. Hell, how about I just leave them a whole buffet since no one is stopping me!”

All he gets in reply are the few bugs awake this early in the spring and the crack of brush as a small mammal runs away from the weird bipedal thing yelling at his camp fire. He doesn’t leave out food for the raccoons; he climbs into his tent in a huff. What a bad idea, to think this of all things would bring Duck back to him. He’s being childish and bratty and selfish; Duck doesn’t deserve that, no more than he owes Indrid his company. 

He changes into his pajamas pants and sleep shirt, intending to go back out to make the site safe and tidy. Except.

Except something just opened the bear box. The chip bag crinkles and the fire hisses out a minute later. He should be running outside to apologize, but his mind has simultaneously  registered the full darkness of the night , the possibility that Duck is not the only paranormal thing in these woods, and the fact the nearest other campers are on the other side of the campground, meaning he is very, very alone.

The zipper on the tent moves, the flap falling open so his lantern shines on nothing but April air.

“Duck? Please say that’s you.”

A low chuckle, “It’s me, ‘Drid.” The fly zips shut, “mighty peeved about that trick you pulled.”

“I’m, I’m sorry. I missed you, but that was a bad way to communicate that.” He can’t see him, and the lantern only picks up the odd shift of sleeping bag or tent floor, so Indrid’s eyes’ dart about trying to pinpoint him.

“Oh, you communicated plenty, sugar. Like what you want a certain, uh, ghostly ranger to do to you.”

“Oh god” he winces, “please, forget I said that, it’s humiliating.”

“Not all that surprisin, truth be told. I mean, you and I flirted now and then. And you told me enough about yourself for me to suspect that you’re a kinky little weirdo who’s dyin to get fucked by a ghost.” 

“I, I feel I should point out that I only want to fuck one ghost. You. I want to fuck you and that means fucking a ghoOOOst.” He gasps as cold lips press into his neck.

“I can make that happen, darlin, all you gotta do is say it. You were a pain in the neck earlier, so now I expect you to be real polite and use your words.” Duck’s voice has never been like this before, rough and possessive yet still, under all of it, the same warmth draws Indrid in like a flame. 

“I want you, Duck.”

A bite to his ear, strong arms wrapping around his waist from behind him, “Want me to do what?”

“Fuck me” this is like every wet dream he had as a teenager, the supernatural being coming for a fellow outsider. 

That gets him a tender kiss on the cheek, “That’s better. Though, if I’m rememberin correctly, word you used was punish.”

Indrid yelps as Duck turns and shoves him to lay across his lap, kicks his legs out in surprise when his waistband slides down to his upper thighs. 

“Yesss” he wiggles his ass as Duck palms it, “yes, Duck, pleaseAHgod” the first strike stings, and Duck doesn’t let him recover before delivering five more, three to each side. His cock perks up at the pain. Stranger still, because Duck is invisible, all Indrid has to do is tilt his head to watch it harden and twitch with each slap.

Twenty strikes later Duck pauses, hand rubbing soothing, cool circles on the burning skin, “Learned your lesson?”

“Mmhmm.” Indrid presses an awkward kiss to Duck’s knee. 

“Glad to hear it.” Duck hauls him up onto his knees, slides a hand under his shirt and up his chest, “I’m rarin’ to feel more of you--holy fuck” 

“AH!” Indrid arches as Duck toys with his left nipple piercing, his other hand quickly finding the right. 

“God, fuck, you’re fuckin hot, if I were alive I woulda taken you home first time I saw you.” Messy kisses cover his neck as Duck tugs the piercings.

“Gaahnnyes, that’s, that’s very flattering.”

“Ain’t flattery, sugar, it’s the truth. Never could turn down some skinny punk with piercin’s and messy hair, not when I was a teen burnout hidin in the woods and sure as hell not now.” He moves Indrid onto his back, rucking up his shirt as his legs twist in his half-down pants. The ranger cups his face, and Indrid is positive he’s meeting his eyes, “tell me what you want sugar, tell me so I can treat you right.”

“Marks, I want marks anywhere you’ll give them.”

A growl from above him, then lips smashing into his, drinking him in before continuing down his throat, biting and sucking hard enough that he cries out every time. Duck pauses, teasing his nipples with his tongue as he rakes his nails up his sides. He sits up and for a horrible moment Indrid loses him. Then with glee he watches five red marks drag down his chest. He moans, rolling his hips and discovering just how closer Duck’s clothed cock is to his own. The contact only feeds the rangers eagerness, and Indrid is tosses and turns as he sucks, bites, and scratches, laying claim to the illustrated expanse of his body. 

“More, please, god that all feels so good.” 

“Don’t worry darlin, still got plenty of you to mark up, but we’re gonna do somethin else while I do.” He eases Indrid onto his stomach, slaps his ass fondly, “don’t go nowhere.”

Indrid’s duffel bag unzips, clothes and pens moved aside until a bottle of lube hovers in the air. The tube compresses and drips coat the rough outline of fingers. When the two digits press into him he sighs, eyes closing as he melts under Ducks watchful eyes. 

“That’s it ‘Drid, relax for me. Got well over a year of horny to work out, so this cute ass needs to be ready to take it.”

Indrid pushes his hips back in reply, taking as far as the fingers will go and whimpering excitedly when he presses in the tip of the third. Duck works that one more carefully, kissing Indrid’s face and shoulders as he whispers about how good he is, how much he’s wanted this.

“I want it too so for, for goodness sake please fuck me soon or I’ll leave my entire cooler out for the bears.”

“Only one bear in this campsite tonight darlin.” Duck laves his tongue down the base of his spine, bites down hard on his ass. Indrid’s still moaning from the pain when his cock pushes in.

“Fuuuckme that’s good. Shoulda snuck into your tent sooner, sugar, made you a fuckin cocksleeve you feel so fuckin good.”

“Ohgod” is all Indrid, voice muffled by the sleeping bag he’s biting, manages before Duck adjusts them so Indrid is on his knees. The ranger isn’t gentle, pounds into him like he’s nothing but a warm hole and chuckles whenever Indrid moans. 

“H-handprints, Duck, want hand prints GAHyesyesyes” he struggles to move in time with the ghost as the air fills with ear-splitting slaps. He’s so close, the pain and the sensation of phantom fingers claiming his body making his body beg for release. When he slides a hand down to jerk himself off, the arm twists up and stays trapped against his back. 

“You wanna cum, you know what to do.”

He blinks away the ecstatic tears, words raw in his throat, “Please let me cum, Duck. I want to, need to cum while you fuck me pleaseplease-” he cuts off into whine as the ghost works his cock hard, all the while jamming into him hard enough that the smooth fabric of the sleeping bag burns his knees. When he cums it’s with a weak cry of Duck’s name, which is swallowed up by hungry lips as Duck kisses him over and over, repeating Indrid’s name like an incantation as he pumps his hips and cums, pulling out as he does so it splatters on the reddened patches of his ass. 

A final kiss to the top of his head, and then there’s no contact between them and the zipper is moving.

“Oh no you don’t” Indrid scrambles, sweaty and exhausted, between the tent fly and the invisible man somewhere in front of him, “for goodness sake, Duck, I thought you liked me enough to at least let me fall asleep before you ran.”

The ranger finally appears, hair a mess and cheeks noticeably pink, “‘Drid, all that was amazing, but it’s all I can give you. I, I can’t...you said you were fallin for me and I can’t give you that.”

Indrid cocks his head, “Why not?”

“Because I’m a fuckin ghost, ‘Drid! You deserve to be with a livin’ fella, you deserve someone who can be a real part of your life.”

He crosses his arms, “Duck, you are a real part of my life. Honestly, what part of all the nights we spent together, all the ways we take care of each other, all of this” he points at the rumpled sleeping bag, “suggests otherwise?”

The ghost doesn’t speak, simply hugs himself (or tries to).

“If this is too much, if I’m offering something you do not want, then please tell me. But if this is you thinking that some paranormal quirks keep you from being a worthy partner for me, kindly think again.”

Duck disappears and Indrid is gearing up to try and tackle a supernatural entity when a familiar face buries itself in the crook of his neck. The ghost clings to him, and Indrid clings right back. 

“You really wanna give it a go?”

“More than anything.”

Duck lifts his head so their cheeks rest together, “Then fuck it. Let’s see what happens.”

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

Indrid finishes hooking up his lightly used Winnebago, AKA his solution to the lack of available apartments. He’s in a different section of Eastwoods, but he’s happy with his new spot. He opens one of his few boxes, gently lifts the completed model ship into a place of honor, and waits, humming happily, for an unseen hand to knock on his door. 

[stinkfacestories]

Bull’s Eye

"Vaaashended.." Iron bull cursed. He and the Inquisitor found themselves at a dead end. The room was filled with large steel trimmed boxes. There was no escape.

"We fight then" The Inquisitor drew his sword.

"Not this one, boss. I'm not one to turn away from a fight but we have no exit. The whole base will flood this room if they catch us." Bull said. He was feeling the wall for hidden doors. Sometimes these bandits were smarter than they looked. He tapped one of the crates. Then another. He found a hollow one. 

"Get in boss, we can hide till midnight then when there all asleep we can escape" Bull lifted the heavy hinged lid.

"You first" you said.

"Nah, if they find us I wanna be between you and the sharp edge of a weapon"

Bull lifted you up and set you in. He crawled in after. It was a tight fit for just a single human, let alone a qunari of bull’s swole size. The hatch was heavy though and when it closed it latched. A few moments of squirming and you were as comfortable as you were going to get.

The crate was well sealed, but not airtight. The body heat between you made you and Bull break out in a sweat.

"Boss? You good?"Bull asked.

"Good as I can be at the moment"

"That's your face I feel isn't it boss"

You paused. In the wriggling and wiggling to get the lid closed and be in a comfortable position Bull had squat squarely on your face.

"It is" you replied

You couldn't see but you bet Bull was smiling.

"Shit boss, I wasn't trying to. Here let me see if I can.." he tried to move. There was no way for his big body to fit inside the crate any other way. The shifting just resulted in his muscular cheeks slapping your nose side to side.

"It's fine, it's fine" you said, stopping him. 

He stopped. "Hopefully we won't be in here to long"

The sweat was bad enough, but you were privy to the noxious fumes and odors of Iron Bulls rear.

"Less then four fucking days and here I am giving the Inquisitor the world's longest Rik'na a'Ishi"

You were picking up a few qunari words since bull joined but that one was new.

"Oh. It's just a stupid kid thing. Bullies tend to do it to weaker boys in the houses. I think the closest translation in human terms is smell, or stink face. Care to guess why?"

You didn't need to think very hard. Your nose clued you in. "I can guess Bull. I got a good nose and I don't think you bathed in a while"

A normal Rik'na a'Ishi would only be a few seconds. Have a friend kneel behind the target, push him so he falls, then rub your ass in his face. 

"What's the point?" You ask.

"Kids being kids; make sure they know you're the dominant type; sometimes just for a laugh."

"From the outside I could see it being funny," you said.

Bull chuckled

"Yeah go on you can laugh" 

"No boss, it's not that. I can feel your breath and it tickles" Bull said.

You moved your face around in the darkness. You notice that your nose has wedged itself in a hole torn in Iron Bulls pants. You traced the curve of his taught skin till it found the hair mangled valley of his cheeks. The Iron Bull was going commando. Your nose jumped over the chasm. The way he had been squatting had peeled the cheeks apart slightly; there was still miles of nutty brown flesh between you and the bullseye.

"You got a hole in your pants I think" you said.

Bull chuckled. "Yeah, that was a good Farakes" He suddenly got real quiet, as if he let some secret slip.

"What's a Farakas?"

'It's nothing boss."

"Is it like a party?"

"No. Some things are best keep secret boss"

"Well now I really want to know. Tell me what is a Farakas?" You blew out your nose. If Bull wasn't going to tell you he could expect a lot of tickling.

"I'd nothing. It's like a belch.." he trailed off muttering something under his breath.

"I didn't catch that last part; say again?"

"It's like a belch..but from your ass."

"You split a hole in your pants with a fart?"

"No, I split it with a good fart." He shifted again. "It's bad luck in the quen to say the word fart when your trapped in a cramped place; doubly so if it's the Bull who has his ass wedged in your face"

You recall your times in the barracks as a soldier, your older brothers and uncles. "Give me some credit Bull, I'm no featherweight mage."

"Oh boss, I know you're as badass as they come, but you don't know how bad the bulls ass can be. You know how Cullen keeps getting reports about a bear roaming around the camp at night but can't seem to find it?"

You had read the reports. For the past three nights just before dawn the night watchmen had been reporting low and long growling sounds. They were expecting a bear woken from hibernation, but they had yet to find any signs of the creature.

"Those are me," Bull said. "A sure sign I'm about to wake up is me letting slip with some slow growling juicy ones"

You shuddered "Maybe when we're back at base we can share a drink and I can experience this legendary beast. From a safe distance downwind that is."

You heard Bull's stomach groan. It was the cry of a tortured soul.

"If we have to stay in here much longer you may get to experience it up close. I'm gonna pinch it off as long as I can boss" Bull said.

What felt like hours passed. Guards kept coming in on routine patrols, none the wiser that two stowaways were crammed in one of their boxes. Your shoulder had begun to cramp. You needed to stretch it. With some working you managed to press it between Bull's legs.

"Woah, boss. Hello." Bull jerked as your arm ran along something long and rubbery.

You gave it a squeeze. "Feels like some sort of toy snake?"

You heard bull chirp. "Close boss. That's my toy snake"

You let go, red in the face. “Im sorry Bull I didn't mean to” “It's all good boss; I just usually like to know someone more than a few days before we get to the tug of war.”

Frantically you try and think of a way to change the topic, only to fail utterly by asking “So, what's got you so excited?” You squint so hard. You wish you could slap your own face. Of all the things to ask.

“Well I was just thinking about the last time I ripped one in someone’s face. The chargers and I were on the storm coast. We were waiting for some nobles to finish whatever shit nobles do when they are together. I was leaning on a rock just watching the waves. In and out. In and out. Really hypnotic. Guess I nearly dozed off. Snapped back to life when I let off a real tak’rethanka-- the wet roar of a dragon--. Rocky and Grim were behind me at the time. Poor grim took the brunt of the black. Rocky was ok. Nutty dwarf lost most of his sense of smell working with explosives. Grim though. That was the last day I remember Grim talking. Now he just grunts. I think I may have melted something in the guys brain, ya know boss?”

As Bull talked about the past you could feel his big rubbery snake bobbing and weaving up and down over your arm.

“That’s the kinda thing that gets you… excited… bull?” You say.

“Shiiit boss. No one really knows about that. I'm not usually with someone this long talking with them having my ass in their face. I’m into some weird shit aint I boss?” “Bull, if it's one thing I've learned about the world so far, it that there is too much crazy shit to worry about what makes people happy. If it makes you feel good I say do it.” You tell him.

“You’re alright boss. More than all right. Don't you worry though I won't let it mess with the job. And i'll make sure your plenty clear before I let rip” Bull says.

“That's gonna be kinda hard in here don't ya think. My face has been wedged in your ass for over an hour.” “I can hold it back boss”  Bulls stomach whined again, this time louder. “This is a nasty one though. It's taking all my willpower to keep the beast at bay.”

“Just get it over with and let it rip. I don't want you to explode” You tell him.

“Nah I can't do that boss. This is a real bad one.”

“I know you want to Bull.” “No, no I want nothing of the sort” He tells you.

You reach out and slap his rubbery cock. “Your ardor gives you away. Trust is important, and truth is the basis of trust. You want to do this.”

Bull cursed in qunlat. “You see right through me boss.” He shifted again, “By the way I wanted to ask. That thing you do with your sword when you draw it. Where did you learn that?” “Well it's a funny story, a few years ago” You start, but you never got to finish the story. As soon as he had distracted you, bulls cheeks let fly with a low rumbling fart. It was like staring into the mouth of a dragon. It washed over you like rain. The entire crate vibrated. Your nose was assaulted with the smell of fresh steaming shit. Bull was a consummate master of the gassy arts. He could have just let things out in one monstrous crack, but he metered it out, just enough to maintain a low droning hum. He caught you mid breath so you were forced to breath in a lung full through your nose. Your eyes watered. Suddenly you knew why Grim may have lost his ability to speak. 

The rest was silent.

You and Bull were in a sauna now. The floor was wet with buckets worth of sweat between you too. Bull just let out a sigh. 

“I tell you boss, very few things feel as good as letting it out after you’ve held it that long.” There was no answer. “Boss? Are you still alive down there?” You coughed. “...Bull” you weakly groan out. Alive, but possibly barley. “How in the the maker can you make such a thing inside you”

Bull was blushing again. “I know. I know. I'm a master. Bet you regret giving me the permission eh boss?” “Shit no Bull. Out of all the farts I’ve ever been privy to in my life, that one will go down as the most epic, the most legendary. You have my permission to let rip whenever, wherever, you want.” Bull stifled a belly laugh. “I don't think the camp guards are gonna be happy about that.” “If anyone gives you trouble, you have my permission to sit on their heads. You can even sit on mine again if you ever want” You tell him.

There was a tender silence between you. As if you were both having a conversation about something more meaningful than farting.

“Boss….” Bull said. “Feel free to say no if this is outta line but, after this mess here is over. Do you wanna fuck?”

[aclosetfan]

For the Salty asks: 1, 3, 5 and 6?

Thanks so much for playing along! Ima be real with you 2 out of the 4 questions you asked really opened up a can of worms for me, and I’m so sorry. I put the less stressful ones first, and the other two are under the cut! Anyway, these were super fun to answer, but plz don’t hate me for it!! 😂😂

for anyone wondering, here’s the ask list: Salty Asks List 

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

lmao yeah. It’s petty, but honestly, people’s personal morals really bleed through into their fandom opinions, and I’m not willing to put up with any unnecessary hate, especially in environments that are supposed to be fun. I’ve even blocked a few people. In the ppg fandom specifically, I’ve blocked a person who, I guess, thought it was necessary to try to gate-keep with racist/sexist/etc. terminology and ideologies, and I truly don’t have time for that 🤷‍♀️ (a lot of people probs know who I’m vaguing, but if you don’t, you’re lucky)

I can’t say I’ve ever unfollowed anyone for any innocent/not-in-conflict-with-my-morals fandom opinions. Usually, if I don’t agree with something, I just keep scrolling because lol whatever. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

but ngl I have unfollowed people who just get annoying 😬😬 lol

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I went into this fandom without having too many preferences, so I didn’t have a pairing that I’ve previously hated!

I guess I could say that while I never really hated them, the color-mixing and color-clashing ships weren’t ever on my radar until I came across the fandom content. Now, I really like them! Particularly, Brick and Bubbles!

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Before anyone gets pissed off at me, before you get into my answer for this question, I’d like to really stress that you’ve got to go into it with absolutely zero fanon context. Like, erase all your headcanons from your mind. I’m dead serious. Because I literally DO NOT get why ANY rrbxppg ship would realistically work ever.

Okay, canonically, these six little funky science experiments were dead set on ending each other. The boys were absolutely horrible to the girls. And the girls literally KILL the boys. I know in fairytale romances, nothing stops love, but bruh, it’s hard to come back from murder 😂 And yeah, I know Clipsville showed the girls and the boys together as older teenagers, and they weren’t trying to kill each other, but that was an obvious gag. In the documentary, it was revealed that that particular “clip” was made because a bunch of people wanted the boys and girls to interact again, and CN gave into the demand. (also, lol I know it super embarrassing, but I did watch the documentary. I just really like Craig McCracken) I just don’t think that realistically a canon pairing between the two sets of triplets would ever be considered a healthy relationship. 

Also, ethically, I just—okay listen, I go back and forth with this allllll the time, but the ppgxrrb ships make me confront the “Would I sleep with my clone?” question way too often. Depending on my self-esteem, the answer changes each time. Like sometimes I’m like fuck yeah I would! Other times I’m like, ew, no, I’d have to consider my clone as a twin! I know counterparts aren’t technically clones, BUT the boys really do come across as identical to the girls in the show. The only difference really is their moral alignment (I’m nixing any gender argument). So, I’m like, omg, can I honestly pair these six together in any way??? Are they too close to each other genetically in some sense for this to be morally right??? Like if you ship Brick and Buttercup together, would that just essentially be shipping Brick and Butch/Blossom and Buttercup together in some messed up way??? Is Brick just Blossom, and Blossom just Brick?? Is it better just to ship color-matching instead of mixing???  

On top of all of that, wouldn’t the boys and girls be pseudo cousins since Mojo was the Professor’s lab monkey? Technically, in canon, Mojo ends up being both sets of triplets “creator,” so could the rrb and the ppg be considered siblings of some sort? Some of you are probably like, wow, calm down. Stop thinking about it. They’re science experiments. It’s not so deep. Which I get, but I can’t stop, so let me hit you with something ten times worse: should the girls (or the boys) actually be considered biological siblings? Does sugar, spice, and everything nice make you genetically related? Nothing put in the stirring pot was organic—just a bunch of chemicals. If you ship the boys and girls together this could be a good thing! BUT, but, could some sick fuck use this information to somehow justify shipping siblings (ppgxppg or rrbxrrb) together??? This is a literal nightmare to think about!!

All in all, I can’t think about these pairings too much without getting caught up in the logistics of their existence even if they’re fictional lmaoooo! If it wasn’t for the fandom, I wouldn’t ship them together at all. I just think it’s amazing that the ships took off like they did lol, because their literal (fictional) existence is just one giant mind fuck for me. Anyway, I ship them at the end of the day, but tbh I do it with a bit of a guilty conscience. Is it morally correct to ship clone-like counterparts? Or should counterparts be treated like twins? Does it even fucking matter at the end of the day, it’s just fiction? I don’t know the right answer. But I do know the pairings don’t make sense. 

Aside from the ppgxrrb, I don’t think there are many other BIG fandom wide pairings. Still, I just want to say that I don’t get why people ship Ace and Buttercup together. The pairing sounds off a few major alarms in my head for obvious reasons. There’s also a bunch of crack ships that involve crossovers with other cartoons. Generally, I don’t mind them, but it seems popular to ship Aku (from Samurai Jack) and Blossom together. And I’m real sorry to those devoted shippers, but again I do NOT get it. I see a lot of romantic fan art depicting romantic situations with Blossom still drawn as a child, and like I get Aku is an immortal demon, so “age is just a number,” but again, BIG ALARMS go off in my head.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

🙃 🙃 Kind of don’t want to answer this, but I will anyway because only a few people actually read my blog lolol, so lol, yep! And it’s the reds. Don’t shoot me lol. When I was in middle school, I got into this fandom, forgot about it, and then came back when I was hit by a round of nostalgia. I’m finishing up college now, and I can confidentially say that the fanon content for the reds hasn’t changed one bit. Or the demand for it.

I tended to find that a lot of red content follows many archetypes that I’m just not into. Their stories can get a real cringey, real fast. Blossom is always written like this “perfect, except she’s not (but she really is)” character. Like she’s the girl you WISH you could be, but she’s also going through a shit ton of stuff that no person IRL would be able to handle without having a mental breakdown. And sometimes, in some stories, Blossom does have a mental breakdown, but in a sexy way, so she’s still perfect. Generally, there’s still something problematic about Blossom that makes it easy for a reader to relate to her on some level, unlike the way people write Bubbles. And then there’s Brick, who’s broody, hyper-possessive or jealous, and hot figuratively and literally (gotta love the fire/ice trope). He’s the only boy—no! Wait!—the only person who could ever possibly outwit Blossom, and he is just so undeniably attracted to Blossom. They’re the smart power couple that should honestly just hook-up in Chapter One to save everybody time, but they don’t. Nah, they’ve got to survive at least two love triangles before they even consider admitting they’re attracted to each other.  

And don’t get me wrong, none of that’s bad, but there are a million fanfics that go through the same song and dance with these two. And it’s kind of easy to tell when someone’s hardcore projecting onto Blossom because the type of person they’re personally attracted to is the way they write Brick. And I’m not knocking anyone self-projecting onto characters, sometimes people got to do that to give themselves a fun mental break, but bro, I don’t want to read about it. For one, smart broody assholes aren’t my type. Maybe when I was in middle school, but not anymore. And two, it’s just not interesting to me, which is a real shame since the reds are a majority of the fanon content.

Maybe if I found more red stories where the plot isn’t character-driven but plot-driven, so I see the romance between these two characters in a context where it’s not the main focus of the story, it would solve my issue with the pairing. I haven’t found many fics like that, though.

I can’t really think of any reds fic where I’m like ey, this aint bad unless it has a “major character death” tag attached to it lmao (which are always plot driven stories). However, in all honesty, since I’ve stayed away from red content for a while now, I don’t know the current state of things. Maybe there’s been a load more development for these two, or people have broken away from the same plotlines, but I’m too busy to check. I do browse people’s fic rec lists from time to time, but it sort of feels like everyone just puts the same fics on their lists and moves on.

And before someone’s like, “well, you can say all this about the greens or the blues,” just know I’m fully aware. The greens make me cringe too because there’s a shit ton of possessive and abusive storylines filling their story tags. And what makes me super uncomfortable is how people make Buttercup hit Butch or call him derogatory names, oftentimes unprompted. I don’t know why people make Buttercup such an unlikeable and overly aggressive person. I also don’t get why they make Butch some perverted idiot, but to each their own, I guess? Still, I see these green-character patterns most often in red-focused stories, which is another reason why I avoid them. I’ve found a lot of green-focused content that strays from the abusive tropes I try to avoid. Considerably less than I’d like, but the greens are typically the b-plot pairing, so that’s to be expected. Personally, I’d really like to see more content with the greens finding some kind of inner peace, and recently, I’ve seen a few fics that have tried to tackle this concept.

And lol, if you’ve read some of my posts before, you already know that I think the blues are an underdeveloped fanon pairing. The fandom can’t ruin that pairing for me because it never does anything substantial with it.  

Anyway, at the end of the day, I’m just personally not into the way the reds are popularly written, but I get why people are and that’s good with me.