#you fought well really

[satoruhour]

a/n: jjk 236 spoilers, mentions of suicide from reader’s side, no comfort, cry. around 1.4k. tagging @jabamin @hyomagiri @saiki-enthusiast @arminsumi @shotorus @satohruu so yall can suffer w me

the first signs of grief manifests in you when there’s a bright light that signifies gojo’s disperse of cursed energy, the familiar hollow purple that obliterates half the buildings around the two strongest sorcerers — one from the heian and the other one from our times. surely, your lover wouldn’t do something as foolish as involving himself with the blast, but gojo satoru is always one to take risks.

when he took up the job of taking care of megumi and tsumiki at just eighteen years old and providing all the things they needed to fluorish. gojo is risky as he convinces a kid with a terrifying curse to make some friends and learn about cursed energy. he sometimes puts himself in danger when he takes up more missions he can shoulder just to show the higher-ups that he can kill them any time.

gojo satoru has the world of jujutsu in his hands; how his birth had changed the trajectory of the society, altered the balance of the world and now—

“satoru!” you call out once the smoke clears and he’s still there, intact, smiling a sick smile like the many times you’ve seen him done at megumi and after burning french toast. you brief a sigh of relief and the pounding of your heart calms down momentarily before sukuna emerges and he’s missing a hand and a leg and your heart pulls lower and lower seeing the kid you raised be such a ragdoll for sukuna’s entertainment. but there was always the hope to isolate the king of curses’ soul and save megumi somehow. shoko and you had discussed it, you know it to be true, it has to be true, until there’s a sharp noise that cuts through your ear drums.

it’s high-pitched, like a flash of light that shines in your eyes too abruptly and you have to cover them. but it blinds you as much as it deafens; an attack from god knows which end and you swear you hear the reaper’s scythe.

gojo thinks you look beautiful like this; hand on your cheek and head in your hand as you watch him and the melodic sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board. you’re so concerned about him cutting his hand again that you’ve dragged your chair all the way into the kitchen to watch him closely, which was counterintuitive; the whole reason why he had bled in the first place was because he was looking at you so much.

he admires the way you curl into yourself on the beanbag in the apartment, a book on your lap on how to get to know your teenager better, hair falling over your eyes and the reading lamp not even helping that much in illuminating the words. gojo skims over your features and the way your chest breathes slowly, like everything good in the world. he hopes he’s able to get that with you in this life, for as long as he lives.

you feel it before you see it in the screens that the fight is broadcasted from — something is missing. a light has switched off, satoru has stolen the blanket at night and left you freezing again, seeing your favourite snack missing from the fridge. and you run. past the students you’ve raised, past the bright blinding screens and into the battlefield, past the debris and each crunch of cement under your feet brings a fresh bout of tears to your eyes. the tokyo winter is cool, snow starting to slowly fall upon you and the saltiness on your face seem to crystallise and harden and you’re not even sure any more. there’s a tingling feeling in your feet, in your finger tips and a pull of your heart. you know where gojo is before you see him.

“s— satoru…” you mumble, eyes welling up with more tears when his bottom half stays standing, baggy pants stained with red, red and more red and you’ve never hated a colour like you do now. you hate it, you hate it, you hate it even when he’s proposed to you with a red velvet box and gotten you valentine’s day chocolates in that same darker red and there is just too much blood.

and then it’s like the hierarchy of grief doesn’t matter any more. all those articles you’ve read preparing yourself after gojo’s fated meeting with death at sixteen, and then after shibuya — you think you can’t handle any more of the collecting and patching up and crying and headaches and holding a finger up to your chest and hoping you’d kill yourself with your own technique. the only time you’d accept the absence of the bright blue on his face is when he was sleeping and his chest moved with even breaths, not like this.

not like this. 

“satoru—” your voice cracks and you cannot even see. tears and tears and mucus and the fresh crunch of snow under your feet as you step closer to his severed body.

“baby…” he mumbles, barely above a whisper, hand twitching and reaching out in the direction of your voice because this is infinitely worse than getting stabbed in the neck by toji fushiguro, perhaps a little worse than seeing your best friend of your high school life get manipulated by a cursed user. satoru wants to demote all of that and say that seeing you stumble to your knees in front of him while you hyperventilate and sob hurts the most. 

“d-don’t move, ’toru, we— we’re going to get you b-back, okay?” you’re playing with god now. “shoko!” the doctor stifles a sob at your cry, broken up by the feedback of the sound system. she knows you’re trying to defy god.

“i don’t think—” the light is slowly dying. the world’s light, the student’s light, your dawn and dusk. “m-my love, everything is…”

“satoru, please, you need to—!” they say the last sense to go is touch and hearing. you crouch to his face to see him react to your warmth, eyes moving an inch to where he thinks you were and puts all of his cursed energy into one hand just so he could hold your cheek. you, warm as always as the sun and everything good in the world, a new rush of warmth overtaking his hand when your tears flow over his battered, tired hands, the same hands that has drawn over his love time and time again over your body and you are a canvas made of gojo satoru’s endless, unconditional ardour.

“i-i’m…” it fades out, his voice box is almost gone and you wail again and the snow from below wets your knees. his name is all that leaves your lips and you think if you can’t play god, you can only beg, even if your religion is solely gojo satoru.

“no, no, no no nono, satoru, c’mon, baby, stop it!” you scream in his face, words all mushed together when you feel the breath of life leave his chest, the blues die out in his eyes, “i love you, i love you, darling, i love you—” your lover barely manages to muster a small smile and you scramble all over his chest, clutching at the tattered black t-shirt and his hand that is starting to go cold and he has the energy to mutter out a stupid remark like gojo satoru always does.

“i’m sorry i got y-your favourite outfit stained with red, princess…” satoru whispers and that breaks the dam fully. you sob and groan and cry and wail until your voice is hoarse and you cannot speak any more and gojo wants nothing but to full heal himself again just so he could stop your crying. perhaps hold your face in his hands and kiss your forehead and nose and lips and embrace you until you couldn’t breathe. perhaps even to tell you he loved you more than anything and everything; more than poems and that foolish line he just had to say at the end and kikufuku and waking up next to you.

but in what world will gojo satoru ever get repose and a normal life? you hope for every other universe to have him be a preschool teacher, or maybe a florist, or even a superstar. but not in this one, no.

the hand that caressed your cheek is replenished again with cursed energy.

satoru gives you three squeezes.

[ganondoodle]

i think im here too early, hes not even finished marinading

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

wanted to try my hand at a fake screenshot thing with a scene from one of the bttf fics of all time, Time Is a Flat Circle by @fourth-dimensional-thinker! i set in to draw only the "little canary" line but. as you can tell. my hand slipped and fell down a 6 story building

if you haven't read it already please check it out PLEASEEE it's very good. i read the whole thing in basically one sitting. the vibes are perfect for the spooky season too!

versions without the filter/subtitles under the cut:

[wantonlywindswept]

Definitely True Facts About Commander Vertex #3

He has negative Force bacteria.

[forgotten Fox AU tag]

"Midichlorians," Patches said, for the third time, his head in his hands. "They're called midichlorians."

"Tiny little buggers that live in your body," Jek scoffed. "I might have barely scraped by my biology modules, but that sounds like bacteria to me."

Patches whimpered.

Jek grinned and reached over to pat his babiest of brothers on the head. Their youngest medic really was too easy to rile up. 

Still, at least Patches was capable of taking a break on occasion, even if it was just to sit at Jek's bedside in the medbay while he recovered from a round of Force cleansing. He always felt a little like the mess hall slop after every session, squishy and mostly-liquid, though the effects had been lessening as the treatments went on. 

Turned out that working in close proximity to an evil Sith overlord for an extended period of time could be 'damaging' and 'harmful to the spirit', and as soon as the Jedi got the okay from Marshal Commander Thorn they'd instituted regular healing sessions for the Guard. Some of them weren't overly affected--the ARF division hadn't been allowed in the Senate Dome that often anyway, and the medics rarely left the infirmary, much less Guard HQ--but the majority of them were on rotating schedules to get their minds checked for Sith residue or whatever.

It was even worse for the Force-sensitives.

No one was more surprised to find Force-sensitive clones than the clones themselves, and a frankly unsettling percentage of the Guard tested for above-average midichlorian counts. That was just those who agreed to submit to the assessment, too--a lot of the Guard refused to do even that. It wasn't like they could be Jedi, and with the war over, what did it even matter?

(Except it did matter, a lot, because apparently evil Sith overlords could also drain the life force from sentients around them, and particularly enjoyed ones with the Force. Palpatine got a little tasty burst of power like they were some kind of energy snack, and it wasn't like the Guard weren't already exhausted anyway.

That kind of siphoning left even worse traces of Sith influence; Jek's cleansing sessions made his bones feel like wobbly gelatin, but Glitch's sessions hurt.)

"I bet Defib's m-count is the highest in the Guard," Jek mused absently as he watched their CMO stalk around the medbay between the beds--and the Jedi--with a scowl on his face. 

Patches lifted his head to give Jek a horrified look.

"Don't say that where he can hear you."

Jek, who lacked both bones and a sense of self-preservation, merely shrugged. Defib had refused testing, scoffing that he didn't need the Force to heal, but he wasn't named after a defibrillator for nothing: he'd brought more than one brother back from the brink of death against impossible odds.

Jek had his suspicions about Patches, too. 

Even with Defib hovering suspiciously over their shoulders, the Jedi healers--there were four of them, led by Master Rig Nema--moved around the medbay with an almost unearthly poise. Jek was more familiar with ordered chaos in the infirmary: medics shouting across the room to each other, rushing back and forth to see how far their meager supplies could stretch. The Jedi were quiet, coordinating with each other soundlessly while still seeming to be aware of everything else happening in the room.

The mesmerizing little dance wasn't even interrupted by the main doors opening, which drew Jek's attention to Commander Vertex stepping into the medbay. The commander had his bucket tucked under one arm, and sharp eyes surveyed the room in a quick glance.

Patches waved at Vertex, because he was adorable. 

Vertex waved back, because he was a sap.

Defib immediately veered off his self-appointed task of looming to intercept Vertex before he got too far into the room. They ducked their heads together in a brief conversation with far too much angry gesticulating on Defib's part, and the calm competency Jek had come to expect on Vertex's. Jek watched, fascinated, as Vertex managed to settle the fuming medic with just a few words and a gentle touch to his shoulder. 

Defib made a bitchy face, but he did seem to lose some of his protective bristling; at Vertex's nudge he sidled over to his desk in the corner of the medbay, dropping into his chair to finally take a break and...to angrily chew on a ration bar?

Incredible.

The Jedi, meanwhile, had continued on with their Force nonsense, which lasted up until Vertex tapped one of the healers on the shoulder and their serenity shattered with a resounding squawk.

The poor Rodian who made the noise spun around, flailing wildly, and would have fallen back onto one of the beds if Vertex hadn't grabbed her to keep her upright. The other three Jedi's heads snapped up in eerie synchronicity, startled expressions on their faces, and Master Nema took a jolting step forward before seeming to register what had happened.

In the frozen stillness that followed, Defib's sullen crunching took on a distinctive note of glee.

"Apologies," Vertex said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"When did you even..." 

"How can we be of assistance, Commander Vertex?" Master Nema asked, stepping away from her patient to take the place of the still-baffled apprentice healer. Both she and Vertex smoothly ignored the disbelief radiating off the other Jedi, who were looking at Vertex like they didn't know how he had appeared. 

Jek wondered that sometimes, too, but it didn't bother him.

"Hey," he said, nudging Patches with his elbow as the two bigwigs conversed, "What do you bet that Commander Vertex has negative Force bacteria?"

Patches stared at Jek like he'd kicked a baby massiff, and then slowly sunk lower in his chair with a low, despairing whine.

So easy.

[skrunksthatwunk]

KUWAMESHI SKETCH DUMP KUWAMESHI SKETCH DUMP in which they are little shits who cannot stop messing with each other

also obv zoom in to see everything bc this shit is CRAMPED. but it's all neat i prommy

[bestworstcase]

your point about team rwby being the maidens’ liberators made me think - do you think blake is going to have a special connection to the summer maiden? I noticed that she’s the only one who hasn’t been close to a maiden yet

i think gillian asturias is the summer maiden (and this post is hysterical in hindsight. at the time i wrote it, the full-length v9 epilogue hadn’t been released yet so we’d only seen qrow’s section and about half of winter’s – hence my pausing to lay out the argument for salem going to vale next and making a pretense of hedging my bets on the crown being narratively central in v10. lol)

now! with regard to blake and the summer maiden, the common thinking here seems to mostly run along the lines of “…and that’s why summer maiden ilia,” or the more general speculation that the summer maiden will be a faunus character.

to this i say:

it’s a fallacy to conflate “blake will probably have a strong narrative connection to the summer maiden” with “the summer maiden necessarily is or will be blake’s old friend,” and the argument for ilia being due for maidenhood is quite thin otherwise, and

blake can and does have important narrative connections to characters who aren’t faunus, and it’s a weird to presume that in order for the summer maiden to have a meaningful tie to blake, she must be a faunus herself.

to expand on that first point, let’s consider the personal relationships between each of the maidens so far and ruby / weiss / yang:

pyrrha -> ruby’s friend

cinder -> ruby’s personal enemy

raven -> yang’s estranged mother

penny -> ruby’s friend

winter -> weiss’s beloved sister

the takeaway here – other than that if you’re ruby’s friend and someone offers you to become a maiden you should refuse – is half the relations between maidens and members of team rwby are antagonistic. (raven seems likely to at least try making amends with yang in v10, but as it stands in the narrative right now things between them are very fraught.)

it is just as likely that blake’s narrative connection to the summer maiden might develop through a personal conflict between them, rather than friendship. yes?

and, if i’m right about gill being the summer maiden, well—stop me if you’ve heard this one: a girl with a driving, passionate ambition to uplift her people from the ashes of centuries of conquest and subjugation is radicalized by a boy she loves who pulls them both deeper and deeper into violent, spiteful extremism that ultimately harms the very people they claim to fight for, until he finally crosses a line she can’t accept and she says no i will not.

that’s blake and adam but it’s also gillian and her brother. the difference between them is that blake’s red line was adam glibly revealing that the train heist was actually intended to be a massacre whereas gillian’s was jax stating his intention to commit suicide rather than retreat and live to fight another day; she helped yatsu subdue him specifically to save jax’s life, not because she had a crisis of conscience about their movement.

(there is a certain—really irritating—contingent of CFVY novel readers who project their own dislike of jax onto gill and insist that she turned against him because he demanded she ‘sacrifice her life’ to save him, which 1. he didn’t, he asked her to give him all her aura and then bodily shielded her because he’s physically bigger than she is so this was at worst a “if we’re going down together, i’ll make them go through me first,” 2. if gill only wanted to save her own neck all she had to do was rip her aura out of him and bounce, and 3. she explicitly says that the reason she did what she did is because he’s her brother, she loves him, and she couldn’t let him die.)

the point being, gill is still a radical; her soft betrayal of jax revealed her priorities in that she loves her brother more than The Cause, but in no way did it represent a break from her belief in the cause. if the epilogue is any indication, she’s just as committed to overthrowing shade academy as before. (and i think there’s a real chance that her actions will have improved her relationship with jax to some degree, because he believed she didn’t care about him at all! he thought she only stuck with him because his semblance compelled her to do so! and then gillian exploded his mind by revealing that his semblance straight up doesn’t work on her and she just loves him. which, if the twins are on the same page now, cuts down on the internal tension and likely makes them more dangerous adversaries to the coalition.)

but her history, the way she became like this, is eerily similar to blake’s radicalization in the white fang, and i think blake would certainly be able to piece that together. she’s also by far the member of team rwby i would say is most likely to recognize and relate to the genuine pain at the heart of the crown’s movement—vacuo has suffered.

vacuo wasn’t even a state until the end of the great war. it was a mistrali territory. its people were enslaved and worked to death in a systematic and horrifyingly effective project to extract every last speck of valuable resources from the region, and then even statehood was a slap in the face because they were left to fend for themselves in a barren wasteland whose ecosystem had been completely and utterly destroyed.

the crown is a mirror held up to the white fang; blake is insightful and empathetic enough to realize these similarities and see herself and her past mistakes reflected in gillian, but this time she’s an outsider to the movement—she can’t effect change from within or reclaim the true, important work from the vengeful extremists. so she’s limited in what she can do, practically, even as it’s going to be painfully clear to her that the crown is falling into the same trap adam did.

and at the same time, the new white fang will in all likelihood either be in vacuo or show up to join the coalition in v10, so blake’s part in her own movement, her place in her community, can be directly juxtaposed with her opposition to/empathy for the crown.

v9 sets up for this with blake’s advocacy for the afterans—v7-8 do as well to a lesser extent, because blake is still dealing with the personal fallout of v4-6 and thus is quieter about mantle than say, nora is, but like. blake draws a comparison between her experiences in the white fang and with adam and the moral compromises ironwood starts making after the election. it just seems… pretty clear to me that the narrative has been setting up blake to play a pivotal role in relation to the crown since at least v4 if not earlier, depending on how granular the vacuo outline was during v1-3.

so this is a narrative connection i very much expect blake to have with gillian regardless, but… if gill is the maiden…

well, she’s certainly not trapped inside ozpin’s vault/key maiden paradigm! so in that case what does it look like for a member of team rwby to fulfill this narrative role of liberation? probably something like de-radicalizing her and her brother by convincing them there is a better way forward than their divisive, violent, paranoid ideology. and blake is unquestionably the member of team rwby best equipped to get the ball rolling there.

further, blake’s semblance is a really strong counter to gill’s – that’s true of ruby and weiss as well, because gillian has to touch a person in order to steal aura and so agile, fast opponents are going to be tougher for her in general. but blake has two more things going for her beyond the basic mobility advantage, vis-a-vis making it personal:

the illusionary aspect of blake’s semblance will allow her to create decoys, which is a very powerful tactical advantage against an opponent who really wants to grab her, and

blake’s girlfriend is a hand-to-hand fighter, and an incredibly brave one with an intense protective instinct at that.

clears throat. we all remember yang getting possessed in rwby x jl part 2, yes? and blake clocking it instantly? well.

if blake and gillian are meant to be not just foils but personal adversaries in the vein of ruby and cinder—yang’s gonna get got. agile though she is, as a hand-to-hand combatant yang is unavoidably much more vulnerable to the twins’ contact-based semblances than the rest of her team, her personality will make it very hard for her to play it safe and stay back if it comes to an open fight, and there is nothing the narrative could do to lock in that personal enmity that would be punchier than yang being compromised.

even if gill as a personal adversary to blake isn’t in the cards i expect yang to get got anyway because, let’s be honest: do we really expect crwby to set themselves up with a golden opportunity to do a climactic love-overcomes-mind-control scene with the bees in v10 and then not take it? with how nuts the entire creative team goes for these two? after the climactic battle in ice queendom hingeing on yang being able to free blake from a nightmare with the mere lesser power of unrealized lesbianism? do we reeeally believe they would pass that up? lol.

[nicorobinphd]

Oh, don’t mind me… just thinking about how Ace is the only character with whom both parents are confirmed to have the will of D- something we know to be major though we still don't know why for exact, & Ace used his own will to care. To try to look out for those disenfranchised like he was growing up. To treat its ethos as an unimpeachable code when he finally found a place that finally wanted to protect him. To put every effort into being a good brother.

He set out trying to define himself, for himself, and yet became increasingly littered by nods to the people he loves- his public surname, the tattoos, the necklace, etc.

He wanted to live to the fullest, with no regrets. To give meaning to the man he was without the imposition of legacy. And, at the end of the day, that looked like making the choice, the active & fought for choice, to be loving. Then he died giving thanks for the ways in which that love was returned.

If that’s not beautiful, then I’m not quite sure what is.

[deus-ex-mona]

favourite stupid relationship dynamic: idiots who would immediately protect and defend the other but never themself

[gothwizardmagic]

looking for reference pictures to doodle lister and i cant stop laughing at this jacket

cant stop thinking abt him scouring the ship to find as many officers badges as possible just to piss rimmer off

[alexjcrowley]

I am all against the "social" social media (that's why I almost esclusively used tumblr) but I think TikTok should have existed in 2009 to make very shirt aesthetic edit of Jenson Button at Brawn being sad during the entire second half of the season + montage of various people Luca di Montezemolo saying he's not world champion material/he doesn't have that one extra bit with the audio "There's really no way of winning/ If in their eyes you'll always be a dumb blonde"

[viperwhispered]

It is here! The playlist for Emi's first year at NRC, and her relationship with Jamil.

Don’t get spooked by the Finnish in the first song, the rest are in English.

Basically, this mostly follows the timeline of Emi’s first year in NRC (for more details, you can check her intro post and the timeline of her relationship with Jamil). All from her pov, pretty much.

You can probably tell when the Jamil feelings start to take hold, lol.

Funnily enough, My Land was the first specific song that came to my mind when I started this up (hi Azul apparently the mood for your schemes is very specific). For the rest, I combed through my spotify library (and oop did it take longer than I anticipated).

There’ll also be a few bonus songs in a reblog, including some for Jamil's point of view (because tumblr likes to be silly about showing posts with links and I don't wanna try my luck more than I already am).

Also if someone would prefer a youtube version to more easily access the songs, do let me know!

Anyways, there'll be some rambles and explanations under the cut, both for my thought process and for what each song was chosen to represent.

Taikatalvi

I wanted to start off with something in Finnish, to express where Emi’s coming from before waking up in the coffin at NRC. Palasia by Harmaja was also a very strong contender, but I figured this had more of a magical and fairytale vibe which suited this occasion. Plus, like, Nightwish as a band has been with me about forever, so it was quite fitting from that perspective, too.

The Worlds Forgotten, The Words Forbidden

It seems to me this one might be reasonably self-explanatory. Emi doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t remember where she’s coming from, and she’s not exactly having a great time trying to figure out what is happening. The joys of surprise isekai 🙃

Whatever Makes You Feel Superior

Our first overblot song. Emi’s rule following has its limits, too, and her first impressions of Riddle sure ain’t the most favorable.

Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams

Basically, about Emi generally trying to cope with her situation and keep her hopes up. I also thought of using Turn the Page by Blind Guardian or Wishmaster by Nightwish to specifically refer to her escapism via books, but unfortunately those had to go when I was cutting down the playlist.

Mindfall Remedy

For Leona’s overblot - yep, Emi doesn’t have a huge amount of sympathy for Leona either, at least in the moment when she’s just scared. It Won’t Fade by Sonata Arctica was also a strong contender, especially with all the pack and animal imagery, but it didn’t quite fit - plus we already had another song from that album, and I figured I’d go for more variety instead.

Day Three: Pain

Emi struggling to come to terms with the fact that welp, she could’ve died, and this place is dangerous, and scary, and strange, and everything. Basically, things are not great.

My Land

I felt the mood suited book 3 and Emi’s feelings there quite well. Azul basically got Emi on a warpath - Azul’s taken something of hers, her home as much as she has one, and she wants it back.

Plus, this has been a very motivational / inspiring / uplifting song for me for ages, getting me pumped up for dealing with difficult things, so I figured it’d be very fitting here, with Emi squaring up to deal with Azul’s schemes.

The Rest Of The Sun Belongs To Me

Basically Emi’s mood after book 3 / as winter break approaches. She’s still struggling, but she is hanging on, and seeing more of a light at the end of the tunnel as she’s adjusting more.

Asking For It

For Jamil’s overblot. This was a tricky one to pick a song for, because it’s like Emi’s angry and hurt, but not completely without sympathy. My other options were Chameleon Halo by Entwine or Sin With a Grin by Shinedown. Honestly, all of them could’ve worked, but again trying to pick just one. Girl’s fear and all sure is turning into anger here, tho - and she sure doesn’t appreciate the feeling of being fooled and used.

Life

For ADeuce and friendship in general. It’s not all bad here, is it, and Emi’s gonna be very touched when she realizes the lengths they both are willing to go for her.

Clevermind

Some reflections post Jamil’s overblot. Honestly partially included this just since it talks about what could've been in December, it just felt too fitting. Like, Jamil could've had more sympathy and stuff from Emi, and Emi recognizes it, but boy did he squander it.

Arabesque

I’m sure y’all can figure out who this refers to. (I’m thinking the Scarabia duo in general, tbh, but yeah Jamil in particular when book 5 rolls around.)

Plastic World

For Vil’s overblot. I also considered Curtained Life by Entwine. Nothing much to say tbh, I feel it fits quite nicely.

State of My Head

Grim’s gone (and so are a few others), and turns out Emi cares enough to be feeling very protective. Not like she can rush STYX guns blazing but yeah, she’s not exactly feeling meek here.

Bleeding for the Cure

For Idia’s overblot. Was a bit tricky finding something exact for this, but I think the mood’s pretty fitting here. Plus how Idia's feeling like she doesn't have a chance for a future outside STYX and all that fun stuff.

The Symphony

Things are looking more up, Ramshackle’s starting to get more cozy with what Emi & Jamil have been doing to fix it up, some of the anxieties have been leaving Emi. And, mayhaps, there are some feelings stirring?

A Dark Switch & Aquaman

Emi’s starting to realize her feelings for Jamil and commit to it. I could've stuck with just one song but I could not bring myself to do so.

The Looking Glass

For book 7. Comatose by Ayreon would’ve also been great, but again, trying to cull things down.

The rest is basically more or less sappy love songs for Jamemi’s future, lol. Still, it’s not all sunshine and roses - there’s times of separation in their future, with them being on different years on NRC, they gotta lean on each other, and it’s not like they always see eye to eye.

Honestly it was so hard not to make this too long with all the songs I wanted to include, but I’m quite happy with the range here.

And like, how could I not dedicate some time to being thoroughly sappy with these two.

Tagging @scint1llat3 @moonyasnow @bibi-cha

If anyone else would like to be tagged for Emi things, do let me know!

[ferronickel]

In typical Ferronickel fashion, I am now plagued with thoughts about how the Brontë's juvenilia would be different in a world where the military had dragons, a subsection of interests that is so irrelevant to everyone else that it's barely every worth mentioning on this site, let alone creating any fanworks about.

I'm gonna do a little incomprehensible rant in the tags about it and the go on my merry way. Please ignore the following

[hanzajesthanza]

this looks like a long time but initially it said 1 MONTH 15 days

[icarusbetide]

washington's resting bitch face game so strong his countrymen treated him like a god and elected him unanimously for all sorts of shit.

[chiarrara]

I don't know I just feel like....

We just watched a man self-immolate in his military uniform. And I don't want to sound like an idiot, because it's much more than this but, couldn't you say that was a very extreme form of conscientious objection?

He could not be complicit anymore, but there is literally no way out of being complicit in this genocide if you live in America. For him especially, being trapped in military service. But for all of us. All of us are trapped in complicity in some way, and we can try to counteract that sin with as much meaningful direct action as we can possibly do, but all of that action comes with some proportional level of risk.

So, a man burned himself alive in an extreme form of conscientious objection (the only form available to him - one of great violence)

And people are still on here telling people to suck it up and vote for Biden.

I just... maybe I'm really stupid and I just can't see the logic y'all are putting forward. Because the way you lay it out it all seems to make so much sense to you. I understand we're trapped in a two party system. I understand the Republicans don't have the same consciences we do and are gonna vote en masse for Trump. I understand Trump is a danger globally and domestically. I understand all that, and I don't want his second term to come to pass. I'm not ignorant of how dangerous he is.

But a man self-immolated to object to the system of complicity he's trapped in, and the most logical response y'all have to a bunch of people wanting to opt out of complicity in this election, and the next four years of horrors that will be done in their name is to tell them, you just have to suck it up and be complicit. Your only tool is to make a phone call. You can try to protest, but there's a non-zero chance you'll be beaten and arrested and have your life ruined, by the way. You can donate to try and put a bandaid on the horrors you're seeing through your phone screen everyday (and you should, but God it's sure not stopping anything). But you're not allowed to object to being complicit in the selection of the Genocider-In-Chief.

It's not going to stop the genocide. We know this. It's not going to stop the election. We know this. It's not going to change anything directly, and Trump is going to get elected (which he will either way. most people who would vote against him are doing it anyway, y'all are fighting a very very small online minority).

But a man self-immolated in his military uniform. He didn't think that act was going to directly stop aid from going to Israel, or stop the genocide, or destroy the US military industrial complex. He didn't think his one small (but extremely brave and impactful) act was going to solve everything. Everything that was going to happen is still going to happen just with one less man in uniform.

But it wasn't nothing. It didn't do nothing. It's not his fault that the military will keep on chugging. It's not his fault that things are getting worse in Gaza every day. But he's not complicit anymore and he sent a message. And he had to die to achieve that.

And y'all are telling us we can't even do the very small act of not being complicit in the presidency. It's a less effective act of protest, but I also don't have to die for it.

It's not a boycott (I've seen this strawman, i don't know why you think we think that). It's not going to "send a message to the government" (obviously, we're not ignorant). It's to the Party that runs these candidates, and makes money off of "pick us because we're not the other guy" then commits crimes against humanity. I don't want to roll over and be fucking complicit in that.

Parties and candidates look at those numbers. they see how many people voted for them last time and how many people this time.

They don't care about our voices, and our protests, and our emails. They care about donations, and they care about votes. That's it. That's all they look at. If the emails and the phone calls and the protests don't result in a drop in one of those two things, they don't fucking care.

I don't know. This is a long ass ramble, but I'm trying to work out my feelings about this. Because we can't opt out of paying taxes, we can't really opt out of the benefits of living and being born in the Global North, we can't opt out of work, we can't opt out of the military, we can't opt out of following the law without extreme violence being brought against us. We can't do a whole fucking lot besides call, email, donate, and protest in a way that doesn't get us beaten and arrested, and if you do get beaten and arrested, you'll be dealing with the legal consequences for years or potentially the rest of your life.

And a man burned himself to death to object but I can't withhold my vote???

[blackjackkent]

The usual three prompts :)

Karlach - Sunflower

Jaheira - Sweet Pea

Isobel - Dandelion

(Flower prompts meme)

Finally responding to this! I ended up picking both the Karlach and Jaheira ones and combining them into one fic, and also making them both about friendship stuff even though I think the prompt definitely intended romantic. And then it grew legs and became an AO3 one-shot instead of a drabble fill. More bang for your buck. XD Really hope you like!

Sunflower - drunken rambling about their adoration Sweet Pea - a tender moment

-----

We Who Have Faced Gods

Pairing: Karlach & Jaheira, Tav & Jaheira, Karlach/Tav Characters: Karlach, Jaheira, OC Male Tav Rating: G Warnings: Drinking Descriptors: Fluff, humor, drunk silliness, cross-generational friendship, mentorship. Chapter Word Count: 3.0k Chapter Setting: On the road to Baldur's Gate, between Act 2 and Act 3.

Summary: A brief interlude of rest for three heroes on the road to Baldur's Gate, in between one battle and the next.

read on ao3 | send me fic requests!

-----

“I can't fuckin’ believe it,” Karlach slurs happily. 

Hector grins. “So you've said - a few times now.” 

He gently pries the bottle of ale out of her hand and takes a sip from it himself before setting it aside next to the tree they’re sitting against. Another bottle, already empty, is nestled there in the grass, damp with condensation in the crisp evening air.

The camp’s much-needed celebration at finally escaping the Shadow-Cursed Lands has also turned out to be an excuse to clear their supply packs of the unreasonable quantity of alcohol they’ve accumulated. Karlach has been doing her part in the drainage effort. Hector himself hasn’t had too much; he is, however, very much enjoying listening to her increasingly exuberant ramblings as the night has gone on and the bottles have slowly trended towards empty.

He stretches, draping his arms loosely around her waist as she settles more comfortably into his lap. “But go on. Tell me again.”

“I’m serious. I can’t believe it,” she says earnestly. Her whole face scrunches up with concentration as she tries to focus her eyes on him. “Jaheira. In our camp. That's her tent right over there!” She points unsteadily in a vague direction. “D'you know how many stories I heard about her as a kid? SO many, Hec. Like…” A pause. “So many.”

He chuckles. “Yeah?” He kisses the tip of her nose, then her lips. “I’d love to hear them.”

“She’s so cool. She can turn into a panther,” Karlach says dreamily. “I saw her do it at Last Light. An’ she cut up those winged horrors like they were nothing .”

“A very impressive show,” he agrees, nodding. 

She considers for a moment, her eyebrows knitting. “Bet I’d make a good panther.”

“I'm sure you would.” Picking up one of her hands, he interlaces their fingers, kissing each of her knuckles in turn. “You've already got the claws for it.”

“I should get Jaheira t’ teach me,” Karlach decides. Her gaze drifts out of focus again. “And then we could be panthers together and slash everyone up. And then you'd run up and punch them too. POW POW.” She thumps her fist lightly into the pit of his stomach. “Like that.”

He slumps dramatically against the tree trunk, clutching at his abdomen. “You got me. A wicked strike indeed.”

“Hrrrrrmm.” She clicks her tongue dismissively and gives her head an exaggerated shake. “C’mon now, Soldier. You fought that weird Myrkul bone motherfucker,” she points out. “You can take a gut hit from me, I bet.”

“No doubt,” he agrees. His eyes narrow teasingly. “Only you've seemed rather fond of some parts down there, and I'd hate for you to damage them accidentally.”

“Oh, shit, you're right.” She bursts into a fit of giggles and slumps against his shoulder. “Gotta be careful.” She kisses his neck, under his jaw, up to his ear, and nips gently at his earlobe. This elicits a soft, involuntary noise of eager satisfaction from him, and she snickers, pleased at the reaction. “Better?” 

“Much.” He runs the tips of his fingers down the back of her neck and feels her shiver pleasantly in return. “I love seeing you so happy, you know.”

This seems to give her some pause. “Happy. Yeah.” She fidgets her fingertips at his jaw, pushing against the grain of his beard with an air of deep absorption.

There's silence for a moment, filled with the noise of the living forest around them - so different from the desolation of the Shadow-Cursed Lands. Damp leaves rustle against each other in the slow, warm breeze. Somewhere above them, a hawk screeches a hunting call. 

 “We're gonna kill Gortash, right?” Karlach asks abruptly. 

His lips purse tightly and his smile fades. He remembers the mop-headed bastard in the long coat, standing alongside Ketheric and the Bhaalist in that pit of horrors beneath Moonrise. He remembers the rage in Karlach’s face and how it echoed in his own heart. “Yes,” he answers. “We will.”

She presses her face into his neck. “An’ Jaheira's gonna help us. An’ I can kiss a hot monk any time I want, an’ he promised me nothing bad is ever gonna happen, ever again.”

He blinks, then chuckles, the grim mood easing again. “All true things.”

“Then yeah.” Her voice is muffled and increasingly drowsy, but he can hear the smile in it. “I'm happy.”

He digs his fingers gently into the small of her back to pull her tighter against him. “Good. I am too.” 

It isn’t a lie - he is happy, here at this moment, blanketed in her warmth. But uncertainty lurks very close at hand. They have a plan, a goal - a purpose that will save thousands of lives if they can hold to it. But their enemy is horrifying beyond comprehension, and everyone, even to the daughter of Selune herself, has trusted him to be equal to it.

What if he’s not?

He’s jarred from his thoughts by the soft thump of a footstep, and he looks up to see Jaheira rounding one of the nearby tents. The High Harper also has a bottle of wine in one hand, but her steps are steady and her bearing straight. Only her eyes - softened from their usual sharp glint and peering languorously into the middle distance - betray any sign of inebriation. 

She comes to a halt just shy of tripping over Hector's outstretched legs. Her eyes take a moment to refocus, and she tips her head to one side as she takes in the scene.

“Good evening, Carlisle,” she says with exaggerated gravity, inclining her head at him. 

He tries to straighten up respectfully, although the effect is somewhat marred by Karlach’s weight holding him pinned against the tree trunk. “Good evening, High Harper.” 

Karlach stirs in his arms. “Oh, fuck. Is that Jaheira?” she mumbles, still muffled against him. 

He grins, ruffling her hair gently with his fingers. “Seems so,” he answers.

“Shit.” She makes an uncoordinated (and unsuccessful) effort to lift her head. “Don' tell her I'm drunk…”

Jaheira’s eyes narrow with sudden humor and she crouches at Hector's side. With a deft jerk, she lodges the butt end of the bottle she’s carrying into the dirt next to the others. “Do not worry, Karlach,” she says gravely. “Your secret is quite safe.”

“Good,” Karlach mumbles sleepily. “I want her t’ think I'm cool…” She squirms and grinds her face more firmly into Hector's neck. “And teach me about… panthers…”

Jaheira quirks one eyebrow up and her lips twitch. “I believe she vastly overestimates the number of ‘cool’ people I have traveled with,” she says to Hector, her tone deeply dry. 

Hector grins cautiously. He does not quite have Karlach’s level of hero worship, but it still feels mildly unreal to be sitting here talking with one of the heroes of the Bhaalspawn Crisis, a woman he read of in countless historical texts in the monastery’s library. In person, Jaheira has proved to be remarkably down-to-earth, despite all the lofty tales that speak of her, but Hector’s instinct for deference towards her is hard to shake. “Well, we’re all very pleased you’ve chosen to travel with us,” he tells her earnestly. “And honored.”

“Bah, the honor is mine, Saer Carlisle.” She grins crookedly and raises one shoulder in a half-shrug. “It is an exclusive club, we who have faced down a god and survived. It is so rare that we get new members. I should be thanking you for the company.”

He relaxes a little with a laugh. “I never imagined facing anything like this,” he admits.

Jaheira snorts. She slowly lets herself topple out of her crouched position to sit next to him on the dew-damp ground. “In my experience, a world-ending crisis is not something one plans for. It merely happens, and you are swept along in the rising flood, will you or no.” 

Her eyes flick from his face to Karlach, draped in his arms, and her expression softens slightly. “But you have been equal to it, so far. What we faced in the Shadow-Cursed Lands… not many would have come out of it unscathed.”

Hector drifts his fingertips over Karlach’s back, feeling the slow rise and fall of her chest and the pulses of heat from the infernal engine - and the subtle rough texture of one of the new scars she gained at Moonrise. “Unscathed might be putting it a little strongly,” he murmurs.

“True enough. Let us say… alive,” Jaheira says with a flash of gallows humor. “An accomplishment that should never be taken for granted.” A pause. “I am proud of both of you - of all of you. And proud to face whatever lies ahead at your side.”

Karlach’s head has become heavier on his shoulder and her breathing, against his ear, has settled into a steady rhythm, but at these words, she looks up suddenly. Her eyes are at half-mast and her nose rubs against Hector’s throat. 

“Soldier?” she mumbles.

“Yes, love?”

“Jaheira just say she’s proud of us?”

Hector smiles and presses a kiss against her hairline. “She did.”

She gives him a bleary smile. “I think I’m dreaming,” she murmurs. “But it’s a nice dream, so don’t wake me up, m’kay?”

He rubs his fingers gently at the base of her neck. “You have my word.”

She makes an inarticulate, happy sound and buries her face back into his chest. 

Jaheira chuckles. “Perhaps I am not so sorry as I thought that the bards have made so much of me,” she says lightly. “One could get used to such adoration.” She draws a long inhale through her nose, savoring the scent of the forest around them, and then exhales it in a heavy sigh. “You should get some rest, cub,” she adds gently. “We’ve a long walk in the morning, and many more to follow.”

Hector lifts an eyebrow at her. “I could say the same of you.”

She laughs. It's a sharp, almost barking sound - a trifle bitter, but not without humor. “It has been many, many years since I last slept a full night, Carlisle. I think tonight will be no different. But there may yet be hope for you.”

He shrugs - carefully, trying not to jostle Karlach's head. “Perhaps. But…” He smiles sheepishly. “I need to bring this one along with me, and I don’t think she’s much in the mood to move at present.”

“Mm. I will help you move her, then. You have both earned a better bed than the cold forest ground.” Jaheira glances at the two bottles sitting side by side against the tree trunk, and snorts softly. “She has told me something of her story. I suppose a decade in the Hells must lend one a certain tolerance for the weak drinks of the material plane. All the same, I have seen stronger warriors than her felled by the combination of Balor ale and fireswill. I am impressed that she is still conscious.”

He frowns. “It’s a special occasion,” he says with a shrug. “We all needed to let loose a little, I think.”

She grins. “Oh, do not mistake me - I am not judging. Besides, practically the whole camp is passed out. I was surprised to find anyone else awake at all. Well, besides Dame Aylin,” she corrects herself with a low laugh, glancing over her shoulder. “She keeps a vigil in the moonlight and was quite uninterested in the revelry. Perhaps the daughter of a goddess sees little point in the meager wine that mortals brew.”

Involuntarily, Hector looks up, following Jaheira's gaze to see if he can spot the aasimar in prayer. But wherever it is that Aylin is apparently keeping vigil is out of his sight, masked by the tents or the trees or the gentle, moonlit darkness. “I still can't believe it,” he murmurs, slowly starting to squirm out from beneath Karlach's weight. “My Lady's daughter, here in flesh. She laid a hand on my shoulder and said she would follow me.” He pauses and then smiles ruefully. “It's the only thing that could possibly be more astonishing than you saying the same thing.”

Jaheira looks at him curiously for a moment. Then she catches Karlach by the shoulder and helps to lift her up so that Hector can wriggle sideways onto his knees. “For so many years, you have had faith in Selune,” she points out. “And yet you are surprised to receive it in return, in the hour of crisis?” 

Hector grunts and pushes himself to his feet, hooking Karlach's arm over his shoulder. Between them, they lift her onto her feet; she's definitely almost asleep now and mumbles inarticulately at the motion.

“I don't deserve it,” he says quietly, more to himself than to Jaheira. 

Jaheira smiles faintly, bracing herself to help hold up Karlach's considerable weight. “A thing worth knowing, Carlisle, if you are on a path of which songs will be sung,” she answers, “is that you no longer get to choose what you deserve. Least of all the faith that is put in you.”

Hector doesn't answer directly at first. “Come on, love,” he tells Karlach gently. “Let's get back to the tent.”

“Tired…” Karlach mumbles. 

“I know. I’ve got you…” He drapes one hand around her waist to keep her upright, and they take a few awkward steps forward. On Karlach's other side, Jaheira moves easily, adjusting to the rhythm of their movement to help support her. 

They're almost to Karlach's tent before Hector finally speaks again, and it’s so low Jaheira probably has to strain to hear it. “I don’t want to let you down,” he mutters. “Any of you.”

To his surprise, Jaheira laughs softly. “Hector,” she says, “you still have the bone dust of the god of death on your fists. What right would I have to feel you have failed me?”

He crouches at the flap of the tent, lowering Karlach carefully. “Myrkul was one thing,” he says. “But there is so much that lies ahead. We face an elder brain. And those two other Chosen, the Bhaalist and Gortash…”

Karlach squirms suddenly, her eyes opening halfway. The sudden movement overbalances Hector and he falls sideways, hitting the ground next to the bedroll with a grunt, Karlach half on top of him. “I’ll kill ‘im,” she growls unsteadily, struggling to right herself, one hand planted in the middle of Hector’s chest. “Gortash… that fuckin’...”

“Shhhhh…” Jaheira leans forward and presses her palm gently to Karlach’s shoulder. “Not now. Rest. You are no use to anyone if you do not sleep.” 

Karlach blinks blearily, and then lets the pressure of Jaheira’s hand guide her backwards, until she sprawls out onto the bedroll, her head lolling into the pillow. Her gaze drifts out of focus, and then her eyes fall closed. “‘Kay,” she whispers, the burst of energy fading as quickly as it came. “G’night…”

To Hector’s intense surprise, Jaheira doesn’t draw back immediately. Instead, she settles her weight down on her knees next to the bedroll and simply looks at Karlach in silence for a little while. Then she reaches out and brushes a stray bit of hair off the younger woman’s forehead, with a gentleness Hector has never seen from her before.

“Rest, Karlach,” she murmurs. “There will be many battles to fight in the morning… but none of them call you tonight. Rest and breathe nature's clean air. Let it bring you peace while there is peace to be had.”

Hector listens in silence. It is hard to imagine Jaheira singing a lullaby, and yet there is something of that cadence in her words - and something like a prayer, too, gentle and meditative. As she looks at Karlach's half-sleeping form, her thoughts seem for a moment to be far away. Something of the brittle, sardonic mask has slipped, just for a moment, and he can see age and weariness and regret through the cracks. 

The remaining tension in Karlach's body fades and she sags, her head slumping against Jaheira’s fingers. “Where's Hector?” she mumbles, just barely audible. 

Jaheira smiles. “He is here. I do not think he would leave your side if I tried to drag him away.” She turns, rests a hand gently on Hector's arm for a moment, then draws back and out of the tent, looking back at him sitting in the opened flap. 

“I will not tell you, Carlisle, that all will be well,” she says quietly. “Nor do I think you would believe me if I did. But it is well for tonight. And tomorrow… we will meet what comes. I am not mistaken in you, nor is Aylin; of that you may be certain.”

He feels a sudden tight lump in his throat, and for a moment he can't quite speak. “Thank you,” he finally murmurs. 

“And take care of each other,” she adds gruffly, jerking her head to indicate Karlach. “The road is hard, but to travel with someone you love is a gift. Treasure it.”

“I do,” he answers, following her gaze back to the woman he loves. Karlach is certainly asleep now, facedown on the bedroll. Her shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm, lacking the tension and twitching energy of her waking hours. “Every moment.”

She nods slowly, and for a moment seems to look through him, back towards some memory long out of her grasp. “Then you are doing all I can ask of you,” she says softly. 

Suddenly the moment breaks. Her head snaps back and her gaze hoods over with wry humor again. “Now, ye gods, lie down and rest yourself as well, boy. We are free of the shadows at last; I can breathe again and I mean to enjoy it. It would be a poor ending to my night to have to knock you out.” She laughs sharply and gives him a gentle nudge with her boot to push him fully back inside the tent. Then, without waiting for a response, she turns and walks away, disappearing like a shadow back towards the warm dark of the forest.

read on ao3