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#[REDACTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!] is all i have to say

straycalamities · 10 hours

Text

Entre's 12th Anniversary Big Birthday Bash!

Alright! So I'd say in about 11 hours, we're gonna start the festivities for Entre's birthday/blog anniversary! He'll be turning [redacted] years old today! And his blog is turning 12 :) (Sorry about the short-notice. It took me this long to come up with something.)

Official start time is 12 PM (Noon) CT (UTC -5)

My plan is we start with a Magma board and have a good old fashioned draw party! If you want to check out Magma (or aggie.io as it was absorbed into Magma) ahead of time feel free to do so! You don't need an account to draw or chat, though! We'll do that for a couple of hours.

If you don't want to draw, feel free to put out prompts or suggestions for the ones that are drawing to pick up if they want! There's a chat feature in the Magma. (You click on your name on the top right to find it.)

(But, for the record, you don't need to be da Vinci to draw. Anyone can draw if they want to regardless of skill level.)

The board's limit is 30 people, and I don't think we're hitting it so feel free to pour in.

Then after that, we'll be headed to Hyperbeam to watch one of Entre's favorite movies: Inception! Unfortunately the viewer limit is 12 people so it'll be first come, first serve. :(

Of course it'll be the big guy all day and NOT me. So. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

If you can't join for whatever reason, feel free to fill his inbox with gifts/birthday wishes! I'll get to them as I can. :)

Under the readmore is the courtesy rules so that we make sure everyone has a fun time. If you break them, it's a 3-strike system (you'll get warnings) before you're banned (on the 3rd strike) from whichever location we're at. That sounds big n scary, but they're easy to follow so don't stress much about it.

Overall Rules: (For clarification on anything just ask me/Entre.) Rules with * are insta-bans and not subject to 3-strike system.

No NSFW discussion or behavior.

No bigoted or hateful behavior. *

Stay as polite and respectful as possible. Take all beef elsewhere.

No ship wars. No askblog/onceler fandom OC favoritism or hate.

No heavy negativity, heavy topics, nor inflammatory topics.

No trolling of any kind. (harmless jokes/pranks okay, but always use discretion/best judgement)

Magma Rules:

Do not draw on or edit other people's drawings in any way without explicit permission from the artist.

No NSFW imagery.

No triggering imagery. (Like the basic stuff: self-harm, gore, etc. If you have a question on what you're allowed to draw, ask me/Entre.)

Do not abuse the Magma permissions/tools. (excessively making layers, moving layers around, etc.)

Do not draw outside your area/draw all over the whole canvas. Leave ample space for everyone to have a spot.

Hyperbeam Rules:

No spoilers.

Do not spam the chat.

The movie has been chosen and there will not be a different one, if you do not like the movie choice, you do not have to join.

#entre bday

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atopvisenyashill · 3 days

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seeing how some greens act like rhaenyra being groomed by her uncle, and subsequently being unable to let go of him, is HER personal failure turned me into a rhaenyra extremist when i simply enjoyed her character beforehand.

im really glad you're speaking about it because even though it's fiction, it still perpetuates a very dangerous rhetoric

wait this gives me an excuse to ramble, pls excuse me if i phrase things maybe a little crassly here, it’s a delicate topic i’m speaking indelicately about but also, i think i should be allowed bc [redacted] BUT-

obviously i don’t like, love, some of the changes to the show but i think the first half does a great job of setting it up to where you can see both alicent and rhaenyra are surrounded exclusively by much older men who want to fuck them, and have just no way of knowing who is being genuine with them. because no one is really! so you have episode 4, where alicent is sleeping in a room with pornographic art on the wall and being called to her husband’s bed and she can’t say no, and he’s not going to do anything to make the whole thing even marginally easier for her. and then you have rhaenyra, pulled from her bed by her uncle to a brothel, and she’s completely exposed, and she’s experiencing new things, and he’s purposefully trying to make this feel good but also overwhelming for her, then abandons her drunk & confused & half naked. this is The Same Thing - they’re both being used and manipulated by a much older man, but because that manipulation looks different, they react different. but it’s still manipulation.

yes, the type of abuse is different when it’s like, your ugly ancient grandpa grooming you vs a handsome 30 year old stranger you met online that you tell all your high school friends is your boyfriend, but ultimately, both the grandpa and the 30 year old boyfriend are abusers but more importantly, the granddaughter and the high schooler are both victims!!! i think a lot of people when analyzing this whole thing, will pin daemon as a groomer but then completely forget that this also makes rhaenyra a victim. some people will even hee hee haw haw over it because “oh your feminist icon would rather marry her groomer uncle than her gay cousin in the book” DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF. could it possibly be that rhaenyra prefers daemon to laenor because daemon has manipulated her into thinking she is only free with him? she is only safe with him?? could it possibly be that he has been giving her gifts and taking physical liberties with her for her whole life, and being the Good Cop, Sweet Confidant to her parents Bad Cop her whole life, that she feels taken in by him because he is all she knows???? in the same vein that alicent just swallows all the poison and bullshit from otto because that’s her father, and his protection is all she knows????

honestly part of like ~the discourse~ that’s most frustrating is that most greens just refuse to see rhaenyra’s pov or see that she’s also a grooming victim grasping for power to protect her own children, again just like alicent, but on the flip side, most of the analysis from the blacks side is like “if you think nyra is a victim of grooming you are just as bad as the people calling her a whore for having children out of wedlock” and like, how do you even engage with that. with either of those opinions. you can’t wksjd so if youre, ya know, like a normal fucking person who can see how both girls are being manipulated, but you have like a fondness for nyra specifically, it’s just constant bad takes. there’s nowhere to go to escape the bad takes.

i thought we had already hashed out this idea that being aware or unaware of your victimhood doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not being oppressed during the main show with arya and sansa but no, we’ve actually just taken this exact same annoying fandom discourse about which teenage girl is dealing with being abused in the most acceptable way and made it a thousand times worse.

#and like the ~analysis~ side will be like ‘nyra is a dumb bitch for trusting daemon’ but if you said that about ali and larys you’d get shot #and i’m not even exaggerating the way people talk about her it’s always this ‘she should have known better’ HOW #if u get that ali couldn’t have ever known better when it comes to her own kids. why does this not apply to nyra.#perhaps………….it is bc you cannot concieve of her as anything but the aggressor.#asks #anons

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you-remind-me-of-the-babe · 3 days

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It’s Sunday! How’d that happen again so soon?

Here’s a little more from my Time Travel WIP, Back and Back and Back. Keeping the name, since I got a lot of positive feedback on it. As a reminder, this story features an older Simon who travels back in time and visits with a young Baz throughout his childhood. At some point, I might start worrying about sharing all the good bits on Tumblr before I’ve actually started posting this thing. Then again, I always love seeing tons of snippets in advance as a reader. Gets me hyped for when the thing finally gets published. So here you go!

“So,” he says, folding his legs in and scooting around to sit cross legged to face me. “Catch me up. What’s been going on lately?”

“Well, I’ve been taking tennis lessons at the club this summer. And Father gave me a violin for my eleventh birthday,” I remind him. “So I’ve been taking lessons for that, too. I’ve only been playing for six months but I quite like it.”

“Wait,” he puts his hands up. “You’re eleven now?”

I nod.

“So you’re starting at Watford soon?”

“I leave tomorrow,” I say quietly, pulling my knees up and hugging them to my chest.

It’s how I knew he’d come. He always comes when something important is happening. I prepared the [redacted] three days ago, and have been out here everyday, waiting.

He starts to smile, though it falters a bit. He forces it back in place, though it looks strained.

“That’s great, Baz.”

I feel the corners of my mouth tweak up. I’ve gotten quite used to his nickname for me over the years. I think I might even start using it with other people, when I get to school.

I’m loving writing these past bits. I’ve yet to find the rhythm of the parts in the present, though. Setting things up and having to wait for the conflict or character connections is always the least fun part of writing though. At least for me. Hopefully, I’ll hit my stride soon. Wish me luck!

Tags, tag backs, etc. I’m still working my way through posts from this last week, but I continue to love seeing all you guys are sharing! @whatevertheweather @cutestkilla @artsyunderstudy @emeryhall @whogaveyoupermission @thewholelemon @facewithoutheart @shrekgogurt @bookish-bogwitch @ivelovedhimthroughworse @aristocratic-otter @hushed-chorus @roomwithanopenfire @monbons @noblecorgi @forabeatofadrum @that-disabled-princess @youarenevertooold @prettygoododds @ileadacharmedlife @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @ic3-que3n @wellbelesbian @run-for-chamo-miles @rimeswithpurple @best--dress @mooncello @blackberrysummerblog @iamamythologicalcreature @valeffelees @orange-peony @angelsfalling16 @raenestee and anyone else who’d like to share!

#back and back and back #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #my writing #carry on fanfiction

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starpirateee · 2 days

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Hi!! Could you write one of the Curtwen prompts I made, yet didn’t cut it? I love your writing style!!

Honestly there was a bit of deliberation here because you put some really good ideas out there on the form, but I did say I'd write em myself, and by all means, I'll still do it! So, I decided to go for this prompt:

Would you take a modern au from me? Can I do that?

I mean, I'm going to anyway, because I have a dire need to call Curt and Owen husbands (and also for wider Starkid lore), but i just thought I'd warn you beforehand!

"Agent Carvour, have you found anything yet?"

Owen leaned back away from his research. He'd been looking at the same page now for a while, trying to make some sense of it. Redacted government files were hard to get hold of, but even harder to make ends of. His system had been trying to translate it, but not even he had the software for that.

"Quite possibly, sir. I have a few sources, at least."

"What have you got?"

With an air of something that was almost excitement and almost elation, Owen pulled up a series of documents and started the walk through them. "Well, sir, the easiest source was from a few years ago. There's a company in Michigan that's been trying to conduct various temporal experiments under their parent company— some kind of analyst company, I think. They're surprisingly ordinary. Anyway, apparently the experiments just… Stopped. They never drew a conclusion on whether or not their research was connected to what was on the other side."

This had all started when Chimera had dug up a series of centuries old reports about people claiming to have looked into the eyes of old gods. None of the people had known each other, but all of the reports showed some form of consistency, and all told of great, unknowable power.

So, they had decided to look into it, to see if there had been anyone else who'd dared to brave the process of trying to find an answer. Owen was one of those lucky enough to find himself with the resources to start a thorough investigation.

"They didn't finish?"

"No, I don't know what happened, but the reports just stopped one day."

"Is there anything else?"

"An american government report, but it's as hard as you can imagine to decipher. Most of it is redacted…"

"Anything worth noting?"

Owen nodded, carefully turning back and switching the tabs. This felt a little like he was giving a presentation that he hadn't prepared for, and he hadn't felt like this in quite some time. He took a breath, trying to slow down the rampage that was going on in his head. "They started in the early noughts. 2005, to be precide. That's the earliest I'd gotten without looking at those old reports from the pioneers. A branch of the military tried to build a gateway to the other side, to investigate what existed outside of our plane. I don't know names, only one. The name of the man who performed the experiment."

"They got this gateway open?"

"Yes, sir. And they sent someone through. I think there's a good reason why his is the only name they disclosed."

"Why?"

"Because he was declared dead, sir."

His screen still displayed the document, and the man's name sat among the black markouts, clear enough to see. Cross, W.D. Apparently, he'd ventured into the portal, and nobody heard from him or saw him after the date of the experiment. They gave up the search after a month, and after that, Colonel Cross was indeed declared dead.

"So, another dead end?"

"Maybe not. I'll do what I can to uncover this with what I've got available, but it was scanned, so…. It might take some time." Owen was normally confident in his abilities, and uncovering government documents was a difficult yet necessary part of the job. There was something almost genuinely enthralling about scraping off the parts that the world's governments wanted to keep secret. It felt like giving people a small yet surprisingly effective slice of justice every time.

"Keep looking, Carvour. We need to know if this is viable, or even worth our time…"

If Owen had any kind of normal life— if he and his husband didn't both do the dirty work for secret operation services— he would have a blast trying to decide how to describe the intricacies of what he'd been researching lately. The throws of domestic life confounded him to no end, which was why it was so funny when he and Curt tried to imitate that.

The otherwise simple question of "how was your day" turned into a battle of who could craft the most believable lie that better concealed what they'd actually done. Neither wanted to jeopardise their jobs, and Curt had always been brilliant at crafting stories, so it was never dull.

He started to think about what today's excuse would be. Something about pioneers, or the Oregon trail, or perhaps he could bring up that old, dead colonel somehow, that would be interesting to add to the pile.

"You know what I'm gonna ask already…"

By the time he got home, Curt was already waiting for him, and the mid-spring sun was starting to set. For anyone else, it was a day at the office, but the trails he had begun to uncover had really put all other days at the office to shame.

He laughed softly, having prepared this answer a number of hours before, and took up a position on the couch. "No, love, you first. I insist."

"Fine, okay," Curt answered with a chuckle. "It was nothing really, just your standard… But, the bear returned, and in about a month, I'm gonna get really rich and run off to central Europe, with a really pretty lady and a dollar store box of magic tricks."

"The same bear from last month?"

"Yeah. Bastard won't leave me alone."

"Sounds wild. Are you coming back after your plans to run off with this really pretty lady?"

"Plan is to cut myself off after three weeks, but at this rate, I might not make it two."

"Not good enough?"

"Owen, I'm a bit too gay for that." To sell his point, he flashed his wedding band, and Owen laughed harder. "Besides," he added, covering his own bout of laughter. "Who needs a fake wife when I've got my own right here?"

Owen shot him a faux-offended glance. "How dare you!"

"You might fool the guys at work, O, but you couldn't pretend you don't think about it…"

Or that he hadn't been experimenting in that part of himself in little segments since he was seventeen. Turns out he suited long hair better, and he wouldn't hesitate to admit that he both looked and felt rather good with the occasional flourish.

"You know me well..."

"I should hope so! Anyway, what're you keeping from me? How was your day?"

"Office, just like you. I've had a conversation with a pioneer, and tried to erase marker pen over the body of a dead soldier. Oh, and I tried to teach myself statistical analysis."

"Jeez, that was— that was a whole rollercoaster there, huh?"

"Mhm, I've been busy."

"You can say that again, god… So, a pioneer? Like those guys that travelled to Oregon?"

"Yeah. Quite interesting people, if a little paranoid." Something other than their oxen might be watching them would've been a perfect addition to the statement, but Owen felt that was a little too close to the line to pass, so he decided not to add it.

The important part was, apart from the knowledge that Curt was on an assignment in a month's time, both of them were none the wiser. Curt didn't need to know that he had started the deep dive into a pack of eldritch gods and was even slightly nervous about the outcome.

He didn't sleep well that night. He knew that he had right to believe that this was all one great hoax, that there was something in the water that made the pioneers mass hallucinate this supposed watcher. They all travelled on the same trail, it was entirely plausible that all of them found the same hallucinogenic and envisioned a thousand eyes watching them and their familes. It was less of a coincidence when two subsidaries of larger companies started describing details of experiments that led them to discovering other beings beyond just the watcher, of course, but he still wasn't sure whether he was privy to believing any of it.

There was something about redacted government files, though, that were meant to be believed. There was a reason they hid information from the public, and that was often because they had found something worth disclosing in the first place. That meant huge news, large press cover ups… The whole works… And that was the last thing any self-respecting government with something to hide would want. Owen imagined the size of the initial press conferences for dealings like Roswell, how many people must've shown up to that conference, under the impression that they were going to get answers, only for the press to redact the next day and claim that it was no more than a weather balloon.

He felt like he was dealing with a weather balloon of his own right now. This was something that this branch of the military clearly didn't want people knowing. The only reason they'd had to disclose any information at all was because one of their own had died looking for this information, and they had to provide the closure for whatever family he had left. Part of him wondered what they'd said, how they'd tried to cover up this man's imminent demise at the hands of another dimension. What did his family know? Was he ever given a sendoff?

When Owen tried to sleep that night, plagued with the thoughts of how much his research was worth, and what really happened on the other side, he couldn't get his head in the right place to take a suitable rest for long enough. Flashes of colour— brighter than anything he'd ever seen— danced behind his eyelids, chasing each other in sequence. Blue. Purple. Yellow. Pink. Green. White. Blue…. He didn't have much of the capacity to think, not when those colours started consuming his subconscious thought, but he spared a moment to the hope that he may get answers of his own if he stuck around long enough.

"He thinks he's brave… He thinks we don't know about him…"

Whatever dream he had been having was taken over by blurred edges and violent pangs of pain that he was sure he could feel outside of this existence. Everything faded out, leving only ruin in it's wake. Broken pieces, scrambled signals… Owen didn't even try and make sense of it, he already understood the futility of trying. There was nothing left in his mind but those colours and those voices— for he was sure there was more than one. A sickening chorus, holding perfect time with each other.

"He's foolish, if he thinks he can go further without us finding out."

"Owennnn…"

"We know what you're doing, Owen…. It's not going to last."

He'd thought about meeting his maker before. He'd thought about the possibility of death, the idea that he may not live to see another day eventually. It was hard to deliberate something so serious in his early thirties, but his line of work called for it. He knew that he had a dangerous job, and that there were few who would be able to save him if something happened.

But, he'd never considered the possibility of his own demise to this extent before. In the formless remains of his dream, where he was forced into hearing these voices talk about his death and how soon it would be to coming, he had pause for deliberation. And it wasn't good.

He had to strain to take control of his own voice, in this space that was once his own. Once so sacred, now scarce and left entirely to the whim of whatever was taking residence in his mind. This was a bad idea. All of this research was a bad idea, and he was suddenly more aware of that than he was anything else. Never before had he had such a violent urge to overturn everything he'd worked on for the sake of something this seemingly trivial.

"There's nothing you can do. It's already started. This is bigger than me…"

"We know that. You're not the only one we have heard trying to work your way into what is ours… Choose your next step carefully, Owen. I'm sure we would delight in taking you in the same direction as the others…"

Before he could really ask what that meant, he was left entirely alone. The ruin of his dream still stood strong, which was strange enough given that the voices had left him alone, but he had the strangest feeling that there was more to this landscape than just what he was being shown. He started to wander, to look around in an attempt to find the real end to all of this. His mind was a wasteland, taken over by the lack of colour and the apparently deafening absence of those voices that had only appeared a moment before. He felt empty without them, although he knew nothing more than the sequence of colours that paraded through his vision.

Blue… Purple…. Yellow…

The pattern was familiar, like he'd seen it before somewhere. And while he wasn't resting easy, he couldn't force himself to wake up, either. No matter how hard he tried, he was just left stuck, wandering the expanse until he found what he was apparently looking for.

Pink…. Green…. White… Blue…

The expanses of his mind stretched out into a road, occupied by nothing but empty space. He supposed that was mostly his own fault; he had known for years that his imagination was never one to be put on par with anything else. He couldn't so vividly picture that which others could, and he'd never really had much of a capacity to dream, either.

So, this warning was strange. Seeing such vivid, bright colours in the back of his mind, knowing that he couldn't have conjured them himself…

He started to walk the road, curious enough to want to know where it went.

"Owen?"

That voice wasn't like the ones who had left moments before. That voice had a personality, and a person to go with. It was warm, though scared. Human all the same. And Owen knew the shape of it.

"Owen?"

Owen let his instinct lead him down the road, through it's many curves and winds. Eventually, the road gave way to what could only possibly be a stage. There was a set of stairs to one side, that he let himself climb before he could think to wonder where they led, and then the familiar voice gave way to a man in the wings, staring at him with desperate, fear-lined eyes. Of course he knew the voice, and of course he had never tried to doubt himself on the matter.

He tried to advance towards Curt, but he took a hasty step back, shaking his head.

"Curt?"

"Prove you're Owen."

"I'm sorry?"

Curt hesitated, and then slowly emerged from the wings. Even though he stood on the light of the stage, it still looked like he was carefully enveloped in shadow, like the darkness was a comfort to him. Owen looked around, wondering what had made him so cautious, and whether it was still around. Had Curt seen what he'd seen? What had those things whispered to him?

"I'm not falling for it again. Tell me you're actually Owen…"

Owen frowned, not wanting to dwell too much on why Curt was so afraid to reach out to him and realise that all of this was as real as they could get it. "Curt, love, I don't know what you want me to say…" There was a certain desperation about him too. Improvisation had never been his strong suit, but he wass confident that, given the right prompt, he would be able to convince his husband that he was who he said he was, to quell any discrepancy that it may have been otherwise.

"Don't. Show me… What happened on your 25th birthday."

The pieces fit into place, and Owen nodded dutifully. He had been out in the field that day, a strikingly hot day in the middle of June. The two of them had barely ended up with three hours together by the end of it, and they'd gone out drinking to celebrate what little time was left of his birthday. He'd never been particularly big on celebrating, but Curt had insisted. They were newly married then, and getting used to the idea of sharing a life with someone else. That was one of the first nights following their wedding when Owen truly came to realise that he'd made entirely the right decision, and that there was nobody he'd rather share his life with than Curt Mega.

"My 25th… That was a home ground mission. I was in the state."

"What happened to you?"

Owen smiled, somewhere between fondness and a need to hide the melancholic air that hung about that question. He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, and huffed a weary breath of laughter. "I was trying to make my exit, but the suit jacket caught on a fence. Here…" With his sleeve rolled to just the right length, Owen held out his arm and pointed out a pale flash just below his elbow— a jagged scratch that had never quite healed right. "That's what happened after the fabric tore. Is that enough?"

Curt had known about the scar. He'd also known about the story. He was pretty sure that nobody else knew, though, so in his head, that had always been his fallback option in the event that he was ever sure Owen needed to prove himself. Those stories lined up perfectly, and while Owen had missed out on some of the details, in the grander scheme of things, he'd gotten it exactly right. He shifted, letting a knowing smile cross his face through the fear that still gripped him.

"It's really you…"

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

Curt's approach was still careful, premeditated. Even though he knew the truth now, there was still something about him that screamed a lack of trust directly into his ear, and it made actually reaching out for Owen so much harder. "You… You were trying to kill me."

"What now?"

"I know what I saw…"

"I don't doubt you, but I would never… I swear it on my life."

"I know, that's why it was strange… I— What the hell's happening?" This stage was the only thing connecting the two of them to reality. There was nothing beyond it but the end of the road that Owen had travelled down, and nothing behind it but black, empty space.

Owen let his instinct take over. If the two of them were going to face the unknown, whatever and wherever this was, then they were going to do it together. They always had, and they always would. That was the way things worked, especially for the two of them, because their lives were built so heavily on the idea of distrust that any semblance of the opposite they could get, they would cling to. Normally that was exclusively each other, and so the world wasn't usually much larger than the two of them.

Their hands connected in the middle of the emptiness. Owen pulled Curt Closer to him, and the two of them stood side, performers to an unknown audience, marionettes for something larger than themselves. They exchanged a glance, and Owen registered the warm, homely spark residing in Curt's eyes.

"I think we're trapped in a nightmare, crazy as it sounds," he tried to respond, but he wasn't entirely sure where this was going to go. "I can't wake up, but I remember falling asleep last night."

"Me too. I fell asleep before you did, you were still reading."

"Right, and now there's this. Whatever this is. did you, by chance, see those colours too?"

Curt nodded. "They came before you did, before the- other you. Blue, and purple, and yellow…"

"…Pink, and green, and white..?"

"And then blue again."

Owen heaved a sigh. "Curt, there's something I have to confess. It's safe to do so now, there's little that could get in the way of what I have to admit, but this is one of those things I wouldn't be able to tell you awake, you understand?"

There was a moment's pause, in which Curt tried to work around Owen's phrasing. Both of them felt the incredibly revealing sense that they were being watched, so Curt understood that Owen had gone into the professional mindset— switching off his senses for the sake of making as much sense of something as possible. It was always how he rationalised his way through situations, and it hadn't failed him yet.

Eventually, Curt nodded again, as the words started to sink in and he started to get a sense of what was being said. "This about what you told me this evening?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid there's a little more to it than what I told you, but I suppose that was rather obvious."

A nervous breath of laughter left Curt, only partially voluntary. "I thought there'd be a bit more to it than erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier…. What the hell kinda explanation was that, anyway?"

"One I spent a good hour crafting, thank you very much. I thought it was clever."

"Better than a pretty lady and a box of tricks?"

"And a bear, yes."

"… And the bear. Right. Well, what's that mean? erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier, what're you saying there?"

"I've…" This is not going to get you done for. Those documents were already top secret before you saw them. And if it gets you out of this nightmare prison, then surely it has to be worth it. "I've been uncovering sealed military case files that might explain what's happening to us right now."

Curt's eyes went wide. "Fucking what?!"

"It's all part of the job. I can't… I can't elaborate. Know only what everyone else knows: that the only reason any part of this is disclosed at all is because someone died during one of the experiments."

"What's that got to do with what's happening here?"

"That's what they were researching."

That seemed to click to some degree. At least, Curt seemed to understand a few of the larger pieces, perhaps the more obvious ones. "The colours?" In his head, there was an experiment, someone tried to make sense of whatever that was in their shared mindscape. Someone— a soldier, presumably, had died in the middle of these experiments, and now Owen had gotten tangled in this mess through his agency, and the two of them had been dropped into the same nightmare.

Owen nodded. "The colours."

At the moment he said that, a loud rumble disrupted their moment and forced their attention out into the expanse of nothing. Laughter— multiple sources with varying shrieks and gasps that couldn't be placed to a single source— burst from behind the wings, and from in front of them, and from the endless expanse of black that surrounded them. A loud crack followed, and Curt swore as the stage splintered beneath his feet. For a split second, his grip loosensed, and the next time the ground rumbled, they were torn apart by the growing crack in the stage. He staggered back, and the two of them ended on opposite sides of the stage, the crack between them growing and delving deeper into the unknown.

"Owen!" He called, trying to regain his footing but falling back.

"Curt! Hold on!" Owen yelled through the growing laughter, scrambling back to reach out for the pulley system backstage. He needed a foothold on something, a way to sturdy himself so he could regroup and think. It was too loud, he couldn't think in this kind of heat, with this kind of mess, and Curt, and-

Another crack. The stage was starting to fall away from itself, split not quite perfectly in two. Owen's breath ran short. In the swirls of colour and mayhem and possibilities, he saw a way out. One chance to get this right, and to make sure that they both survived the fall while they were still stuck here. He gripped the rope tight, levering himself further towards the crack, and looked to Curt. "You're gonna have to jump it!" He called, desperation winning over any attempts to stay sane. "Don't worry! You know I'll never let you down!"

"Are you crazy?!" Curt managed, staring into the gap. "I can't jump that, it's too far!"

"Curt, before the whole place splits in half, you have to get over here!"

"What if I don't make it?"

"Trust me! Please!"

Curt backed off a few paces. Owen stood ready, one hand gripping the rope wrapped around his wrist, and the other reaching out as far as he could, waiting for a move to be made. After a singular preparatory breath, he sprinted for the gap, and pushed off from the splintered wood at the edge.

He reached out.

Owen reached out.

Their fingertips connected briefly in the space, and then Curt slipped away beneath his grasp.

Owen threw himself forward, feeling the rope worming itself free and burning his wrist in the process. He'd promised. He wasn't going to let Curt fall. And he was nothing if not a man of his word.

Curt's eyes squeezed shut, preparing for an endless fall through the ineviatble. Something laced around his wrist and he felt himself stop moving. Exerting all the caution he knew to exert, he looked up, and caught a familiar whiskey brown staring back at him.

"I've got you!" Owen breathed, and Curt fought to angle himself so that he could get a better chance to grab the broken stage floor. When Owen started hauling backwards, Curt managed to get a hold of the edge of the stage, and made it a joint effort to haul him to his feet. "You're alright… You're okay…"

Curt essentially fell into Owen's arms. Owen held on tight, like he could lose his partner at any second to the swirls and the crevice. He stared out into the emptiness, ignoring the very real pain that he could feel at his wrist but cherishing the very reel feeling of Curt's shirt underneath his hands. The very air seemed to shift. Owen wasn't previously aware that colours could get angry, but this green that flooded the space behind his eyes was pissed. He could feel it.

So was he. Pissed, and way more desperate than a man ought to be.

"Alright," he muttered once, and Curt drew back ever so slightly. He noticed Owen was staring off into the greater expanse, and hoped for all it was worth that he couldn't see something out there.

"Alright!" His voice got louder, and he tried to mask his utter despair in an authorative tone. "I get it. You hear me? I get it!"

Everything fell eerily silent. The only sound that remained was the pounding of Owen's heart in his ears. He took a breath, strangely certain of himself. Glanced at Curt. Spared his attention on the void again.

"That soldier… Wilbur Cross? That was your fault, wasn't it? There's a good reason nobody can get very far into digs like these, and it's because you strive to kill them before they do. Nobody ought to know what's on the other side, and that's why nobody does…"

"Owen, what're you doing?" Curt whispered, but to no response and little avail. Owen was lost in whatever he was about to say.

"… But, I've heard talk of bargains being made here, so how about it?"

"Your desperation speaks for itself."

Owen had to pretend that that— the voice from the middle of nowhere or what it had said to him— didn't bother him in the slightest. He steeled himself, not sure where to direct his attention but knowing he'd probably have it right no matter what he chose. "What do you say, am I allowed to make a deal?"

The air shifted. Owen didn't receive a direct answer, but he knew that he'd been allowed to continue. "If I don't continue— if I go back, and tell my people that it's an impossibility, that it can't be done— would you let him go?" Another quick glance at Curt, as if the green something needed clarification, or as if he knew what he was signing himself up for.

Curt was frozen in place, his eyes wide. He'd heard every word as it echoed in the void, and he hated what it was implying. His gaze was fixed on Owen, fear blazing through his face. "No, Owen—" his voice came out weak. As far as literal interpretations go, that was not a good one. He didn't understand what was happening, but it terrified him to know that Owen was being so calm about this, while he could be selling his life away with nothing more than a few choice words.

Owen frowned, and muttered an apology he was sure only Curt would catch. The green grew angrier, setting a violent fire behind his eyes and forcing him onto his knees as the pain flooded his body.

"You better not be fucking with me."

"No! I— I wouldn't! I'm serious! I'll call it off, I swear on my life, just… He has nothing to do with any of this. It's not his fault."

The thing considered, holding Owen firmly in place while he deliberated. Curt couldn't move— he didn't dare, lest something happen to Owen that put him in more danger than he was already in. All he could do was force himself into keeping his breath steady, and not thinking about what a single wrong move could do to either of them. His eyes landed on the friction burn winding neatly around Owen's wrist, and he decided to focus on that for a while; the only other colour in a void of blackness and green.

"Very well."

That was the last thing Owen heard. Some part of his mind just shut down, and he collapsed to the floor of the stage. He didn't hear the way Curt screamed his name, or the return of the chorus of laughter. His eyes closed, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up with a start, underneath the sheets of his own bed, gasping for breath. He sturdied himself out, and once he was sure that he was real, and definitely in a familiar space, he looked over to Curt, and found him still asleep.

"Curt?" His voice was soft, but his mind was a knife point of tension. If that had gone wrong, then why was he the one to live through it ant not Curt? He tried again, biting his lip. "Curt..?"

Curt groaned. His eyes opened slowly. The relief that Owen felt hit him like a tidal wave.

For some reason, Curt was entirely surprised to see that Owen had made it through to the other side. He managed a weary smile, and tried to get his vision into focus. That was one of those decisions that he immediately came to regret. As soon as he brought himself a little more into the real worls, he noticed that the brown in Owen's eyes was stained with something else, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. Dripping down his irises was a flash of toxic, unsettlingly bright green.

#spies are forever #saf #starkid #agent curt mega #owen carvour #star mail #void offering #nova's tags →#wiggly would have an absolute field day with owen and curt huh #bc desires run deep. they want each other. they want to be free...#but curt wants to not be haunted by the ghosts of his past #and owen wants to move on. to get a better future where he doesn't have to devote his life to an agency #might be fun to play around with

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japhan2024 · 18 hours

Text

Dan was locked in position. His crease was coming in nicely on the new couch, in their new home. He was staring.

It felt like his world was spinning around him, he couldn't look away from his screen.

"...it makes me laugh and cry at the same time until I'm a shaking mess on the floor."

NOT ONLY did he get noticed by his idol, his celebrity crush, his [redacted] - who was sat at the other end of the couch by the way, but. Dan had never read a lovelier message I'm his entire life.

"Phil..." his voice weak but his heart full. He finally broke contact with his phone screen.

Phil looked up from his phone and shot Dan his trademark lopsided smile. He even added the annoying tongue-thing. Holy shit. Dan blushed from ear to ear.

"Do you like my little review?"

"Yeah," it was Dan's time to be cheeky now. "It was kinda gay, though."

"I meant it to be gay," Phil replied, looking all pleased.

"Phil!" Dan loved to say Phil's name just because. He thought it was the best name to ever exist. Phil! Phil!!!

Slowly, Dan plugged back into the Matrix. Hmm.. would he? He took a screenshot.

No, not tonight. Maybe he'd have the courage tomorrow. But something, something was different about this. Like the gears of the paradigm had shifted into a new reality...

#phan #phanfic for the algorhithm!#dan and phil #🧡

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empydoc · 2 days

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SOUL EATER AU porter & treasure

check out the masterpost here!

welcome to a redacted soul eater au post! here, i try and discover what it'd be like if you merged the soul eater world and mechanics within the redactedverse. this is the tenth (wow!) post in the series! we've got porter & treasure on the menu. enjoy!

༺♰༻

porter — soul type: meister strongest meister ability: soul adjust - an advanced meister technique involved in wavelength control. it allows the meister to adjust another person's wavelength as long as the meister is stronger than their target. compatible with: ?

since porter has a vampire soul, his compatibility with other vampires is heightened, but with non-vampires it's incredibly thinly met. (un)fortunately, porter is a persistant man, and strives to find a weapon partner outside of the vampiric roster. he, also, has a slight competitive streak with seeing who's a better meister between himself and vincent.

even though porter's strongest ability is soul adjust, he doesn't utilise it. it's something that, as he grew older, he wanted to perfect, but he wields it very carefully. he explicitly insists he hasn't used it with any human he's encountered, including treasure, so it's sometimes pondered on if he's lying or if he's simply fragile with such a power.

making porter an advanced meister (given his ability to adjust souls) was a last minute decision. i think it suits him, though, because even though he has this typical playboy personality, he takes things seriously and to heart. i do think he'd spend several years training specific abilities just so he can say he has them to utilise. (also, i like to think it's how he also doesn't use trancing, but can. in his first audio with treasure it's drummed into you that he's looking into their eyes, but isn't doing anything. i like to think he does the same with adjustment. he doesn't adjust treasure's soul, but he certainly could).

༺♰༻

treasure — soul type: demon weapon weapon type: sword types- dominantly a cutlass. compatible with: ?

treasure, as an unempowered, is considered pretty rare given that they're a demon weapon. this happens enough for it to be considered an occurence outside of need for research, but it's definitely a 'gift'. for treasure, their form can change between several different sword types, however they tend to utilise the cutlass form the most.

both surprisingly and not, treasure and porter do not have compatible wavelengths yet. treasure is the closest porter has gotten with someone on such a sentimental level, however, and so there's a steady incline with how close they're getting to being compatible. even so, this doesn't change their relationship, even if treasure has mentioned they wish they could be compatible for him as of now.

making vampires have a difficult compatibility with humans was a choice i liked making, because it makes sense! they have different souls, different way of life, and several humane changes that make it understandable for their wavelengths to rarely match. with porter and treasure i wanted to display that even though they aren't compatible yet on weaponry terms, they're still emotionally tact, and are nearing that point.

lite backstory: for every post i make for the characters, i'll add some au backstory to really fill in some details you may be curious about! (contextually: when someone's soul isn't met with their partner, the meister's hands will burn when attempting to hold the weapon. this is the wavelength's way of telling them that they aren't compatible)

"Don't say such things," Porter drapes a shaky hand over Treasure's head, petting them subtly before it drags down to their cheek, "This sort of thing doesn't dictate your worth at all."

"Your hands burnt," they whisper back slightly, and Porter's careless smile wavers a little, "I hurt you."

"It's nothing I can't handle." He insists, shaking his head. They look at him, and he presses a gentle kiss to their forehead. "Our relationship- it isn't anything more or less without the complications of a weapon partnership, treasure. We won't be anything less. You don't mean any less to me."

They meet his eyes, and he smiles again. He gives them a confident look, his fingers intertwining with theirs.

"When the time comes, it comes. For now, why don't we head back? Maybe a shower, hm?"

With a short laugh, they nod, pressing their lips against his. When the time comes, it'll come.

#wanted to write... at least a LITTLE dialogue #also sorry #this one is much longer i fear #but i wanted to explain stuff #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #📼.txt #redacted soul eater au #redacted porter #redacted treasure

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lollystocks · 2 days

Text

The Strange Case of Amity Park

So, the facts are these:

On April 12th, 2004, Annabelle Louise Robb goes missing during morning recess at Saleham Elementary, Illinois.

“No one realized until we were taking registration after recess, and she wasn't, just wasn't there. We were all calling for her, all over the playground- the panic, the panic actually didn't set in for a while.”

It's her tenth birthday.

Seven weeks later, another young child disappears from their bedroom, just a half-mile away from Saleham Elementary. Their name is not a matter of public record.

“We all of us in the town immediately knew something was up, that this wasn't no coincidence, cos things had been happenin’ for a while, things that made no goddamn sense. We'd been paying attention see, and this whole thing didn't start with the Robb girl, though outta-towners’d been calling us crazy.”

“Actually the curfews and all that, the paranoia, that started after little J- ahem, after the second kid. The cops needed three for a pattern, but not us.”

...

Over the next three years, a further twelve children vanish from the small town of Amity Park, Illinois, all under mysterious circumstances. No suspicious figures spotted, no signs of a struggle or forced entry, and no connection between the victims - other than that none was over seventeen.

“It was misery. Pure misery. We couldn't do anything to, to protect them. They were taken from locked rooms, from crowds, anywhere. Anyone's eyes left for a second’n they'd be gone. I barely slept those years. The whole town got sick from stress.”

Listeners might label this a classic case of serial murder or kidnapping, and officially, that's what it is - an unsolved case, of an unidentified subject taking kids.

But the official account fails to tell you the complete story.

“Amity Sheriff's Office does not provide comment on cold cases, now for the last time, please simply consult the official contemporary paperwork housed in the county library. Good day.”

“You have reached the answerphone of Amity Park Public Library. Please leave your message after the tone. You have reached the a̷͓͝n̷̪̣̾́s̸̗̎w̷̧͇̍ẹ̵̄͆͜r̶̨̬̊͝ṕ̴̢̝̓ẖ̵͛o̵͍͂͠n̸̫̍̓ĕ̵̫ of Amity Park Pu̴̮͚͝b̴̙͚̋lic Library. Please leave.”

…

Here's another fact - of the fourteen taken children, nine were found, all alive. Some within days, some over a year later. Or, as locals put it, Returned. Capital ‘R’.

None of these children could, or would, talk about what had happened to them or where they'd been. Most didn't remember.

“I ain't giving you their names because they're sealed. You want a story, talk about the dead kids, their names are a matter of record.”

“Don't look for the Returned. Stay away from Them, trust me, and stay outta town too while you're at it. Now are ya gonna pay fer that or no?”

There are other facts, too, that aren't published with the lists of unfound children and redacted names.

Power outages. Outbreaks of violence. Unprecedented levels of crop disease; print and online media rolling to a total halt; a water contamination scandal. A vast and unspecific incident at local employer Axiom Labs, which left thirty dead, and families without answers.

“Sorry hon, the Axiom Thirty weren't, aren't buried here. We didn't really do burials during that time, as a town. You'd understand if you knew.”

…

On the night of August 24th, 2007, the last child vanishes from Amity Park. Daniel James Fenton, age seventeen, says goodnight to his family, and isn't in bed the next morning.

He remains missing to this day, and is presumed dead.

What exactly happened to this sleepy Midwestern town in the mid-noughts? Why has such a dramatic, tragic case been so withheld from the American consciousness? And what can we learn from the way the town responded to this trauma: its unnerving slip into superstition, ritual, and secrecy?

“What, you never seen blood blossoms before? I don't care if you got an allergy, you either sniff the flowers or you stay outside. And besides, ain't you [redacted]’s cousin? Did he not explain all this already? Look, jus’- wait, are you recording me?”

…

Welcome, to The Strange Case of Amity Park.

#danny phantom #dp #dp fanfic #fanfiction #my fanfiction #podcast fic #cw mild horror #cw kidnapping #may not have the energy to ever write this sprawling au but i can sure write a snippet that lacks any context

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theloveinc · 2 months

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OlderDad!Bakugou who gets a haircut and his baby doesn't recognize him and he doesn't want his dad to pick him up 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Bakugou has a cry in the bathroom and you have to spend the rest of the night consoling him.

Also Hiiiiiii, miss u, hope youre gooooood

head in my hands bc of this, just thought abt bakugo growing out his hair a little bit right after baby's birth...takes him months to go and get a real haircut cuz he doesn't wanna burden you more than he already has and by the time he's okay with the thought (but only for "AN HOUR MAX," is what he says), he has a mullet thing going on and all this scruff on his chin🥺🥺🥺

so he gets home with his regular ol' haircut, maybe a little shorter just to account for ... not wanting to go again so soon, and baby's HOLLERING bloody murder as soon as they see him and refusing to be taken out of your arms, doing that thing where they're flipping their face back and forth to dodge a kiss...

it's so tragic bc not even a little cheek nuzzling helps to calm them bc bakugo's CLEAN SHAVEN and smells like aftershave instead of like dad when he tries!!!!!!

and after, you watch him kinda sulk into the bathroom, thinking like aw yeah thats a bummer but also pretty funny, too (esp bc the haircut does look good🫣🤓), AND HE DOESN'T COME OUT FOR LIKE an hour???

....until you finally have to ask him if he's okay in there and you're opening the door to him sitting on the toilet seat, arms crossed and red cheeks a little streaky with tears...

LJFKASDJFADSJK it's the cutest, most sad sight you ever did see!! ofc Bakugo tries to deny it, but the way he tears up again (after you're done assuring him he did nothing wrong) when his baby finally realizes it's him and smiles (and then how he refuses to give them up again until bedtime) has his ass. EXPOSED.

(i love and miss u more than air, earth, water, dirt + HOPE YOU'RE GOOD TOO BESTIE ILY)

#bakugo #HI PYGMY THIS WAS INSANE OF U TO SAY THANK U PYGMY MY BFFL #but sorry u said this and i had to rip the idea right out of your hands and put it straight into my mouth #i feel like i'm high on a drug i really do #bakugo doing that thing where he he refuses to leave baby or u for long periods and fights being told to go do something nice for himself #he's showing up to his first guys night in like 6 months and doesn't know what do with himself #needs a baby picture once and hour #and he gets home to baby asleep in the crib and YES he's upset he missed bedtime but also like. wow. alone time with y/n.#and he just wants to hold u🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 and watch a movie and be together #and he;s finally at a point in his life when he's able to admit vulnerability and talks abt feeling like an inadequate dad.#and finally u just have to shut him up by fuc-[redacted for profanity]#oh my god gonna think abt this all night #ALL NIGHT I LOVE U PYGMY #caitie things #kids tw #gen #pygmy lurks

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holocene-sims · 2 months

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next // previous

august 26, 2021 4:00 a.m. a balcony, somewhere

time somehow seems to simultaneously slow to a crawl and race beyond the speed of light. grant doesn’t remember when they’d ended up perched like lovebirds at the pinnacle of a staircase, peering out over the night-drenched landscape, but it must have been a while ago. customers have long since stopped streaming in and out of the restaurant on the street below.

he remembers in better detail the stream of their conversation–they’d shifted from food and a strangely peaceful, humorous discussion of kicking the bucket to movies, and at some point, paranormal stories came up along the way.

it’d be hard to forget talking to yunha.

there’s something curiously enrapturing about her, something that had drawn him to her when he first made eye-contact with her.

the look in her eyes, maybe. it’s piercing, like she’s baring right through your skin and into your soul, but not malicious or judgmental. it’s friendly, it’s curious, it’s playful.

the way she speaks, maybe. she’s the most engaged conversationalist he’s ever encountered. everything you say, whether she agrees or disagrees, is met with affirmations and a lot of nodding. yes, yes, of course. i see, i see. i understand. ohhh, wow! really?

she’s unraveling every shard of the puzzle that is his personality and piecing it back together in one whole picture, analyzing it. figuring it out. appreciating it.

or maybe it’s the sweetness that radiates off her. she appears unafraid to smile, instead all too happy to flash those pretty, crooked bunny teeth for the world to see.

“so, i'm going to guess you’re not accidentally good at singing.”

she seems not to mind revealing her own puzzle pieces either, and the more she says about herself, the more fascinated he is with her. with who she is. with what makes her tick.

“i hope it’s not an accident,” yunha replies, laughing, “because shit, then years worth of practice was a waste.”

“time enjoyed is never time wasted.”

the unabashed cringe of the line garners an immediate eye roll, but she still seems to find it funny.

they’ve definitely been sitting here a while. grant straightens his back, fixing his gradually slouching posture, and is is met with an immediate flash of pain, distinct from the chronic dull ache underlying every day of his life, that radiates down every vertebra.

“what got you into music, though?”

yunha’s rosy pink lips purse in thought as she dwells on the question.

“a lot of things. my parents like music. i listened to a lot of different kinds of songs my whole life, first with them, and then later with my friends. i had some time between classes and studying to spend having fun, but i couldn't spend any money, so my friends and i would go to this music store. we walked around and picked random albums to listen to on the headphones. we never bought anything.”

grant nods supportively. “what’s, like, the first album you remember really liking? or albums. you don’t have to pick one.”

“ah! i treasure so many albums. seo taiji and boys IV. i think that’s still my favorite nostalgic album ever. i also remember fondly, um, this girl’s in love with you by aretha franklin. i heard that at the music store, and i was so impressed by her talent. i still am.”

“i'm not a music expert. surprise! i know, i know, i'm sorry to tell you, i did not practice for centuries for that wonderful spice girls performance earlier. no, but seriously, i most often just listen to the same old emo stuff i liked when i was 13. so, unfortunately i don’t know the first album at all, at least not yet, but i do know the second one. you have fantastic taste, that’s a classic.”

despite his ignorance, yunha still smiles from ear to ear. “you should look up the first one! look up, like, seo taiji ‘come back home.’ that’s the most popular song on the album. i don’t wanna bias you, so listen on your own and make your own opinions.”

“wilco. and if you don’t mind me asking, how’d you turn the interest in music into a skill? you are talented, but i know it's very much a skill. it does take a lot of practice to become tangibly good at music.”

“to express myself,” yunha says plainly, “it’s easier to tell your story in art than talking about it, and singing is free. you don’t need supplies to learn it. but yes, i needed that kind of outlet, you know? i always liked singing, always did it, but i needed more than only entertainment from it over time.”

“oh yeah, art is helpful. i really should have gotten on that train earlier. i got on board about a year ago. it's much better for you than intellectualizing everything. or at least that's what i tend to do. do you perform, by the way? outside of karaoke, that is."

"sometimes. but also, not in a long time."

there falls a brief, but peaceful lull in the conversation. grant’s eyes draw to black night sky as he recalls the last haphazard art he’d created–the mushy-gushy attempt at processing the universe. seeing it hanging above him now, his thoughts are no less conflicting. light pollution washes out the shining sea of stars, but the sky still retains its beauty, its bewilderment. visible or not, an infinite chain of dimensions and celestial bodies exist in the vacuum of space, orbiting independent of him, yet factoring in the tiny fraction of his mass on the mass of the earth in their delicate ballerina dance across the fabric of spacetime.

the universe must have created me for some reason, for something other than anguish.

his own words. again. ever-present.

“i miss seeing the stars.” yunha’s buttery soft voice breaks his concentration. “you can’t see anything here.”

“polaris.” grant raises his left arm and draws his index finger across the sky until it hovers above the only star he’s seen thus far. “technically, that means we should be able to see sirius, too, but we don’t need to get all science-y and talk about magnitude and that polaris isn’t–”

“i would like it if you did.”

she was thinking of the stars, too.

synchronicity.

“aw shucks! well. i’ll say this, polaris isn’t the brightest star. we just talk about it way more frequently because it has the most cultural significance in the northern hemisphere for, you know, navigation reasons. but hey, give it about 12,000 more years, and it even won’t be the north star anymore. thank you, wobbly earth axis. but also boo, woobly earth axis, because it's a little sad to think about.”

yunha’s eyes glitter with fascination. “it’ll be something else?”

“yep! the next north star will be vega,” he explains, “come on down, you’re the next contestant!”

“maybe we’ll see it happen.”

“if my consciousness is still floating around as little dust particles, that’d be pretty sick. you know? forget fly me to the moon, fly me to vega. why not?”

“i don’t think i'll be dust,” yunha says, not missing a beat at all, even as her focus remains fixed on the faintest twinkle emanating from polaris, “it’s kind of troubling. you don’t want to be, like, stuck in the whole cycle of the universe, but if you’re still here, you can see some really beautiful things.”

“ah. reincarnation?”

“if you’re asking me, you’re not going to be dust. either you escape the suffering or you come back in some kind of physical form, human or not, and you try again.”

grant thinks about it for a moment. and then the feelings, like usual, spill out at once.

“i'm not going to lie, that idea has always given me the heebie-jeebies. i think it’s very cool as a concept, but i'm, like, man, i don’t want to do this shit again. also, look, we're doing the thing again. oh, and shit, that sounded judgmental. i just run my mouth too much."

"most people don't know they lived before. you can't really remember your other lives without a lot of study," she answers, "and no, you don't. i prefer to hear your real opinion. it's actually stupid when people tell you what they think you want to hear."

"do you ever wonder what you were up to last go-around?"

"not too much, but i always heard strange birthmarks and scars are signs from your last death. fears, too. things you avoid. so, i guess, like, a clown stabbed me in the neck with needles."

"are you afraid of storm drains, by any chance? if so, i think pennywise had it out for you."

"hahaha." yunha shakes her head. "wait, i have to ask. is it not worse thinking you can only live once? that's not uncomfortable? feeling like you have to make everything perfect in your one lifetime?"

"oh no, it's terrifying. dying and just being done with everything is eerie, too, because there are nice things to do and see here in the real world. you’re right about that. and yeah, there is a lot of pressure to get it all right. also, that's not even mentioning that there are people i love that i don’t want to be gone forever. i'd like to think they remain somehow. conscious or not. i kind of think they do, but i don’t know. am i contradicting myself? capital-P probably."

“you don’t know what to think.”

grant immediately bursts out laughing. “yeah, no, absolutely not. i do not know. i just kinda waffle around and hope some scientist throws out some numbers and whatnot that proves some explanation of everything correct. but that’s impossible. it’s literally impossible. we can’t even simulate or predict the wacky physics that were going on at the exact moment the big bang happened.”

“not to be, like, all quirky, but...” yunha reaches over, patting him on the shoulder. “maybe don’t think about it? you’re gonna go crazy. you can just not know? and it's fine. this doesn’t mean anything anyway. the answer to anything is already in you, it’s not out there.”

and then she, too, starts giggling all over again and her cheeks blush deep red from sheepish cringe.

another stereotypical line, but he doesn't mind. they sound better coming from her than him anyhow.

a second later and she checks the time on her phone. her cheesy smile erodes into a slight frown.

“ahh, i really need to leave soon. i have a schedule in the morning.”

grant checks the time as well, drawing the sleeve of his hoodie up just enough to read the minuscule roman numerals on his watch.

on the watch an ex-girlfriend gifted him. not päivi, but...

4:00 a.m.

fuck.

right.

you’re leaving the country in two hours.