#and it is through this growth that the curse is broken. through love. IT ALL CIRCLES BACK TO LOVE BABY FFFUCKING HELL

[hannahwashington]

okay yeah im gonna start being abnormal again. have you guys heard that i am fucking obsessed with time loops

#the fact that ive only written ONE fic w it... i should do an until dawn time loop. #wish i knew more movies that utilised them too i only know FOUR and one is a SEQUEL #(groundhog day. day after tomorrow. happy death day + 2u) #which is to say if you have recs lmk #ANYWAYS. THEYRE SO. OOUUGGAAAHHHHHH. THEYRE SUCH A DELECTABLE CONCEPT. #SUCH A DELICIOUS STORYTELLING DEVICE #guys when they see someone endure the same horrors over and over and over again trying so hard to break free in vain #whether those horrors are being stuck in an average town you couldnt care less for or a killer stalking your every move #but in the end they learn. they grow. they come to love the mundane. learn the name and life of every person in that town. #come to find love in an unexpected place. a softness you would have rejected before it all started. #and it is through this growth that the curse is broken. through love. IT ALL CIRCLES BACK TO LOVE BABY FFFUCKING HELL #yeah im very normal about them :) #EDIT WAIT FUCK NO ITS EDGE OF TOMORROW. THOSE ARE VERY SIMILAR MOVIE NAMES OKAY

[ronkeyroo]

A positive Update

Friends, kind folk - Hello Again 🤍

Ever since my last update post, I've been thinking about it , a lot ;; I knew I needed time to cook and reflect, and im so glad I gave myself that...

2024 started rough for me; I fell severely ill again - I was too busy cursing my life and dwelling over how betrayed I felt by things still not getting better despite my efforts that I didn't realize I was walking into a self fulfilling prophecy. Its true that the struggles I'm going through are yet to be solved, that its gotten so much to the point giving up seemed easier, and that a couple individuals haven't been making it easier on me either; I swayed and i rattled and I steered within feelings ranging from confusion to anger to dismay and all of this back and forth did nothing but remind me of yet another self-destructive loop I just don't want to allow in my life anymore. Its exactly the kinda stuff that made me ill to begin with, and I've been so lost dealing with everything in between that i forgot to tend to the actual core centering all of this...

It grew unbearable how much emotional and physical turmoil I was pushing myself into, and knowing how intertwined these two elements have been; I had to draw a line before i majorly screwed myself over, gathering any bit of inner will to discipline myself back into some sort of clarity, enough to at least look through a lens OUTSIDE my pain for once, towards the kind of life I want to lead, and the kind of life I don't; and I came to an understanding.

From my physical state to my mental, to the people and memories I've experienced, both the good and the bad - I want to prioritize the good.

Not in a shitty ass, toxic optimism kinda way but in a "I want to prioritize knowing and living the possibility that even when it hurts, even when i want to be gone, even when life doesn't align - There's still every good reason in the world to keep moving forward, to face things from a perspective of growth & compassion, and to grow to love the promise of a better tomorrow even when today was unbearable." To know that I don't end or begin in my suffering, that the infinite potential I speak so fondly of applies to me, as well...

I want to be able to wield and create and share that goodness, too, Especially when it is already in decline...And for all gods sake, to internalize that all of this STILL exists and STILL matters even when it doesn't work the first couple or dozens of times.

As for my place here in Tumblr...I know the sentiment might feel silly to some but the experiences, memories, and connections I've made here have truly been such a significant force in my life, and i don't want to give up on that ;; Not because of my own insecurities, or an inner state of hopelessness, and especially not over a bunch of emotionally immature Anons that dont know how to handle themselves; I want to forgive all of that.

I'm stubborn, and there's an unyielding force within me that no matter how many times it is struck down, it proved itself ridiculously resilient. I'm perking up with with a fiery confidence realizing just how many times it rose back up, enough to realize it is an unchangeable part of me ;_; I shouldn't underestimate that force, and I want to keep living by its side. Whatever positive change I can sprinkle onto my life and the lives of those I care for, I will! And the reason why this space in particular is so important to me, is because so much of that already exists here, alongside you folks;

THAT'S the kind of energy i want to nourish and walk into the new year with! I want to continue growing as a person, challenging my inner turmoils, undoing the self punishing dogmas that still haunt me, stop flexing my teeth over things that don't deserve my time and god DAMN, just - indulge in the stuff that makes me happy, even when I'm going through unhappy times.

So yeah...I guess that means, I'm back & I'm staying ;_;)🧡

I know i may seem like a broken record when it comes to expressing gratitude but - Thank you, thank you thank you everyone who have reached out for me, who so fondly kept me in their thoughts and kept encouraging me whenever i was hurting, both then and now...You folks mean more than whatever ailment or struggle I can go through, and while I'm unsure of how the future will look like as I'm still going through various challenges- I couldn't have asked for a cooler, sweeter audience to have by my side whenever Its time to take a rest or hype over our sexy delicious blorbos!

Speaking of which....................I have been cooking quite a lot of things in the time i was away 👀✨ I most definitely intend to serve them, eheheh

#Ronkey Posts #Waving a tired yet happy hello #Back from the dead and ready to SLAY or just to relax and chill and remember that goodness is a force undying ;_; #i missed you folks so much...

[shellem15]

Thinking about the Dawnfather. A god of light, a god of harvest, a god of the sun itself. Good but not nice, kind but not soft. Life-giving but also scorching. Protective, warm, and kind, but also stern, harsh, and abrasive. His light can foster growth, can protect and guide, but it can also scorch and burn. The sun is warm and nurturing but don’t stare at it too long, child, it’ll blind you.

Was he always so hard? Did he always hide his face with the harsh light of the sun? Or was there a time when he smiled and laughed, let others see him as he truly was?

Thinking about the Schism. Was the Dawnfather close to the Betrayer Gods before they turned? He must have been, Asmodeus wouldn’t be so hung up on him if he wasn’t. Speaking of Asmodeus, he was once a being of light, like the Dawnfather and the Everlight are now. Were they closer than the others? When the Gods came to Exandria, did they come from the same place or were they scattered, a ragtag group of survivors fleeing from predators seeking to devour them? And if the latter is true, did these three beings of light come from the same place? Siblings, born from the same stuff, forever tied to one another?

If this was the case, then, what was their relationship before the Schism? Did they call each other “Brother” and “Sister”? Did they hold each other when they were scared, dry each other’s tears, laugh and joke and tease and fight and make up because they were siblings and they’d always be together, and they loved each other with every fiber of their being and they only had each other. When Predathos came, when it devoured two of their newfound siblings, did the Dawnfather hold them both and promise them that everything was going to be okay because he was their brother and he was going to protect them, all of them. The gods, mortals, the world itself, they would not be devoured, they would not be destroyed, because he was there and would fight until his very last breath to keep them safe.

Wondering then, was that the moment when Asmodeus truly grew to hate their creations? Seeing his brother and sister and siblings risk their lives just to protect some mewling mortal wretches when they could just leave it all behind and start somewhere new. Was that the moment when he realized that mortals had done something to them, changed them when they were not supposed to change. Why else would they risk being devoured by Predathos, why else would they suffer through war with the Primordials? Why else would they choose them over him!? Was this the moment when he decided to conspire with the Primordials and the other Betrayer Gods? To destroy this world and the mortals on it so they could finally leave. And they would leave, of course, because the Dawnfather was his brother and the Everlight was his sister and the Gods were a family, and at the end of the day, they would always be together, and once the corrupting influence of those mortals was gone, they would surely all see reason.

And when the Dawnfather discovered this betrayal, when all the Prime Deities did, he must have been furious. How could they!? His kin, his brother, who had always been by his side through everything, how could they turn around and destroy their creations, their children. And so he and the other Primes took up arms and fought against their own family to protect this world they had created, and their children who inhabited it. Those battles must have been brutal, bonds of comradery broken, kin clashing against kin, screaming curses as they tore each other apart.

During those final battles of the Schism, when the Dawnfather clashed against Asmodeus, did they scream at each other in rage? A twisted reflection of previous squabbles, different because this time it was real, this time there is no forgiveness, no making up. When the Dawnfather knocked Asmodeus down, crushed his throat under his foot and banished him to the Hells, was he yelling when he disowned him? Or was he quiet when he did it, his voice going into a low growl, deadly calm as he told him that he was not his brother anymore. And moments previously, when the Dawnfather could have easily killed him, did he look into Asmodeus’s eyes and see his brother? Scared and hurt by his hands, hands that once held him and swore to protect him. In that moment, did the Dawnfather realize he couldn’t kill him? Because that was his brother and despite everything, he still loved him, and hurting him brought him more grief and pain than he could ever imagine. So instead, he banished him, locked him and all the other Betrayers away because he and the other Primes couldn’t bring themselves to kill their family, but they also couldn’t let them free.

Was this when the Dawnfather obscured his face? Hardened his heart because otherwise he would break, and he cannot break, because the other gods need him to be strong, because Exandria needs him to be strong. And so he stayed strong, despite the grief, despite the guilt, despite the pain of heartbreak, of hurting the ones he loved to protect the ones he loved. And this hardening must have continued, running himself ragged during Calamity, beating back Tharizdun, protecting Ioun after she almost died, sheltering the Everlight after Asmodeus once again betrayed her, stabbed her in the back and left her broken and weak when all she wanted was to do was get her brother back, to save him from his own wrath. Failure after failure after failure to protect those he cared about, to protect his siblings and mortals and Exandria itself. The guilt of his failures must be overwhelming, and these are his failures: Predathos devoured his siblings under his watch, his siblings betrayed them under his watch, Calamity ravaged Exandria under his watch, and even now, the threat of Predathos has once again returned under his watch.

No wonder he is so harsh now, so controlling now: because every time he has failed in his vigilance the world has suffered for it. He can’t fail again; he can’t lose any more siblings. And so, he continues hardening his heart, continues fighting, because the sun must always rise again in the morning, no matter what.

#did i make my first post a 1000+ word essay about the dawnfather? yes #did i write this instead of doing my work? also yes #would i do it again? absolutely #i have so many thoughts about the gods of exandria #i want to shake them in a jar and examine them under a microscope #it is my foremost belief that pelor has eldest daughter syndrome #like surface pressure from encanto is literally the perfect pelor song tell me im wrong #he is so stressed. all the time #like pelor IS a dick. absolutely #he has definitely done some fucked up shit #but he's not malicious or evil. hes doing what he thinks will protect everyone #he is in desperate need of a nap. a hug. and a therapist #this definitely delves into headcanon territory but i dont care #critical role #cr spoilers #cr meta #cr headcanons #dawnfather #everlight #cr asmodeus #pelor the dawnfather #cr sarenrae #cr gods #shelley's overdramatic character analysis

[myreia]

FEBHYURARY XXI: SEASON

In winter, an encounter.

He finds her. Or she finds him. Stumbling her way through the back alleys of the Brume, lugging a greatsword twice her size—Fray’s greatsword—on her back. He is furious with her then, this stranger who burst into his and Rielle’s lives unwanted and unasked, dragging the asinine politics of Ishgard—and the weight of the world—with her. She claims to be a mage, yet cannot spark a whiff of magic. Until her rage takes her. Until she gives herself to the Abyss. Then it comes surging out of her, setting her blade—that blade, cursed blade, holding so many memories—aflame with violet violence. The all-consuming depths of fury and wrath burning, burning, burning, and yet at its core, a gentle warmth. A tender flame. She loves as deeply as she has been hurt, and she is the last to recognize it. This time with her is short. Brief. A moment crystalized in the Coerthan snows. When it is over and she is gone, ascending to the heights of the Pillars with her Scions and her High Houses and whatever other political machinations she has gotten herself involved in, he knows he may never see her again. He wishes he would. For Rielle’s sake, of course.

In spring, a reunion.

It has not been that long. Her hair is longer now, growing out from the shorn cut she told him she gave herself. He does not ask about Ishgard. He does not ask about the Lord Commander, her apparent paramour. Her life has moved on, higher and higher, and the stories he hears of her feel distant from the person he knows her as. They take Rielle to Gridania, soaking in the spring sun and the loamy scent of new growth. In her company, Rielle is happier than he has ever seen her. He is thankful.

In summer, a journey.

It has been two years since he saw her last. She is different now—the fury and the rage diminished to weary numbness. The red streaks have returned to her hair, she is no longer dyeing it. Perhaps she no longer feels the need to hide, to meet the expectations set on her. She is more honest, more raw… He fears something has happened. Something she will not speak of. She puts on a brave face, but inside she is as broken as her shattered soul crystal. As they traverse the scorching russet landscape of Gyr Abania, he wonders how much of this is an escape for her. An escape from her duties, an escape from her role. The further they go, the more she opens up, telling him things in confidence she has not shared with any other. It is on an achingly normal day when the realization hits. A stop by the river, where they set their blades aside and strip down to their underthings to enjoy the cool, refreshing water. As he sits on the bank, pale skin burning in the hot sun, and she looks back at him with that gentle smile… Ah, shit.

In autumn, love.

It starts in an inn on the road to Coerthas. Rielle tucked away for an early night, the pair of them retiring to his room after one too many dark looks from the other patrons. Two dark knights in the darkest corner of the tavern were bound to attract attention. Perhaps drink is to blame for their actions, perhaps not—that first night is a blur of many things unsaid coming to fruition—regardless, the end result is the same. Love that blazes darker than the abyss in their hearts. It’s a poor decision on both their parts. This thing between them—the seed for it sown years ago in bloodstained snows, only to bloom now at the worst possible time—is precious and fragile and must needs be sheltered from the tempest of her life. She is torn in so many directions—Alliance, Scions, Garlemald, friends, allies, enemies, all devouring pieces of her until there is nothing left. He swears he will not place those demands on her. He has become the eye of the hurricane, the calm before the storm. It’s the least he can give her. This happiness is not forever. They know they must relinquish it when they reach their destination. For everything there is a season. And for every season—as certain as the falling leaves—there comes an end.

#febhyurary #febhyurary 2024 #ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #gpose #gposers #sidurgu orl #sidwol #ffxiv wol #half-elezen #hyur midlander #heavensward #stormblood #aureia malathar #myreia screenshots #oc tag

[animeyanderelover]

hey! if possible, id like to request general hc for akito, yuki, kyo, hatori, shigure, ayame, hatsuharu and ritsu.

So, I already discussed it and apparently this person only watched the 2001 anime version and for that was unaware of Akito being in reality a woman in the manga.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, paranoia, guilt-tripping, manipulation, jealousy, stalking, delusion, isolation, abduction, trauma, Akito in itself is plently a trigger warning

Yandere Fruits Basket Hc's

Sohma Yuki

🐭 Yuki suffers from a low self-esteem thanks to all of the abuse Akito put him through and has been stuck acting like the charming yet cold prince for a long time due to his belief that no one would love his true personality. So it's a must for him that his s/o is kind and understanding. He can't love anyone, he shouldn't with Akito there yet it happens anyways. Yuki can't seem to prevent his infatuation with you with every refreshing smile you give and how you carry yourself. The realization that he's fallen in love with you scares him to his core simply because he's terrified what Akito will do if she ever finds out. In an attempt to save you by avoiding you, he only hurts himself that much more. He can't get you out of his head and his heart clenches painfully when he sees how you're so completely unaffected by it whilst he's probably spent some nights crying because he longs for you so painfully much. He doesn't blame you though, after all he has never introduced himself to you.

🐭 This avoidance already showcases that Yuki is very protective, he knows what Hatori had to go through after all and it utterly terrifies him to think that he might end up putting you in such a situation too. Despite doing his best to not interact with you, he always watches you though and if he wouldn't be so popular, he might even go out to stalk you a bit. Cleary obsessed as he memorizes everything you say or do and whilst you might not pay it much mind when you greet him or help him with something since his anti-social and awkward side sometimes breaks out of him, he never forgets it as it makes him only fall more for you. It isn't until Tohru, Machi and Kakeru appear in his life and slowly help him to heal does he gain the courage to talk to you. He's admired you for a longer time from the distance so he feels flustered and nervous when he approaches you, heart pounding in his chest and palms clammy as he finally talks to you for the first time and turns completely lovesick.

🐭 He is prone to jealousy a lot which mainly ties into his low self-esteem and the fact that all he is able to do for months on end is watching you silently. It's selfish and dangerous to wish that you'd give him your smile and your laugh all the time but whenever he catches you acting very close to someone else, he gets quickly insecure and has to leave, tears stinging his eyes. Yuki can only direct his frustration at himself because he doesn't have the courage to talk to you, let you know that he also wants to be a part of your life. He always leaves whenever he sees something like that and ends up being depressed for the rest of the day, lamenting over his hurting heart. The insecurity never leaves him, not even after he's gained the courage to talk to you and befriend you nor even after the curse is broken and he's your boyfriend. The lingering fear to not be good enough and to be replacable always lingers inside his heart although to your pleasant surprise in front of certain people he expresses more confidence, maybe even slight arrogance.

🐭 Yuki has been traumatized with Akito's unstable and violent behavior so I feel like he'd be one of the last people who would want to inflict the same pain and fear on others. With his inner growth comes more confidence and more maturity so Yuki always attempts to talk about something to resolve a conflict. Generally talking though, I can totally see him manipulating the situation to paint him in the better light and let's be for real, he's very good at it. For the most part, he tries to avoid all conflict though and is most of the time anyways too focused on loving his darling and sucking up any affection they could give him like a dry sponge. He can fight quite good though and can be more snarky and say stuff that provokes the other person.

🐭 Behind his kind and very sweet behavior lies still a somewhat broken person and Yuki is far more possessive over his s/o than he lets on. He's been feeling lonely and isolated his entire life so after he's finally freed from his curse, he knows exactly that he wants to stay together with you for the rest of his life. It's genuinely not hard to fall in love with Yuki since he's so charming and loving to you. Sometimes he cracks though as his low confidence and his paranoia speak out of him where he grows desperate for some reassurance from you. He'd definitely guilt-trip his s/o if he's paranoid and afraid that they might leave him since he is somewhat clumsy and simply not good enough. He's extremely fragile at such moments. Whilst he should technically know that such emotional manipulation is toxic, Yuki is probably just more on a semi-aware side. The fear of rejection and abandonment outweighs his guilty consciousness.

🐭 He often feels insecure because he's often more clumsy and isn't a good cook although he tries his best to get better for his s/o. Sometimes you find him going to far though when he puts your needs in first place instead of his own which happens especially often when he wants to prove himself and feels stressed. He tends to overthink simple things such as when you ignore him or don't return the kiss he gives you. He's slightly shaken and thinks he's done something wrong although he always asks you first, doing his best to calm his paranoia and lingering trauma down. He's skittish with physical affection at first since he's been abused by Akito so you have to be gentle with him at first. He learns to love everything you do to express your love for him though and physical affection is included. You give him security and more confidence, have patience even with all of his relapses and Yuki desperately hopes that he can give you in return the love and care no one else can give you.

Sohma Shigure

🐕Summarizing Shigure up in one word is quite difficult simply because you have troubles making up your mind. What you can't deny is that he's quite annoying at times as he always seems to visit the places where he's bound to find you and doesn't shy away from being very friendly with approaching you. Behind that laid-back and light-hearted facade, Shigure is very hyper-aware of his own feelings though. He knows that he's just a tad bit too obsessed with his darling but the undeniably worst thing about Shigure is that he doesn't care about his toxic mind. He knows himself best and for that is aware that he's far too possessive to leave you alone anyways so why should he feel guilty? That possessive emotion of his is quite fearsome though as he's willing to hurt the feelings of other people, sometimes even including you, and is ready to sacrifice everything if it will guarantee that he can be with you.

🐕Exceptionally manipulative too and his normally goofy behavior helps him to conceal his true side. He's annoying but appears harmless in your eyes although you already have a good hunch what he wants from you. You can't deny that the wise advices he gives you at times or moments where he's made you laugh with his silly behavior haven't helped you at least a bit. That's why you endure him in your life and that is according to Shigure's plans. A lot of his actions have a hidden motive or some plan behind it all such as the time where he makes acquaintance with people you socialize with and get all friendly with them only to use them to find out more about you. He's a shameless stalker too who waits for you in spots you pass by quite often to bump into you there, although he won't outright deny your claims that he's been here on purpose to find you. It's a bit risky, gambling like this whilst fully aware how Akito might react but Shigure can't help but find this all a bit entertaining.

🐕Despite being the oldest of the zodiac signs, when it comes to Shigure getting hurt emotionally, he's without a doubt the most immature and petty one. He wants his darling only for himself if he could do so and whilst he hides it well behind his silly mask, he secretly despises about everyone who is close to you. It doesn't even have to make a difference whether the interaction is purely platonic or gives romantic undertones, he finds a way to interfere somehow. You can't expect him to be decent enough to let you live your life after all. No, he has to be always part of it and ruin you quite a few things. Worst is though that he can be petty enough to effectively ignore you for a few days just to have you approach him and ask him if he's fine. Worry about him, but forget all about that other person.

🐕Self-serving, selfish, cunning and deceptive. Shigure is a menace and there's no way to put that lightly or in any positive way. He's willing to cause people around him pain and ruin even you relationships. That makes him the worst person you've ever met and who everyone in general can be unfortunate enough to meet but he doesn't care. Not as long as he can have you. Shigure is a master manipulator who manages to make the people around him always look worse than him. Friendships or even ties with your potential lover or crush will be cut by him and he will spread rumors and lies about you and the people you hang out with. He watches then from the sidelines how you end up having argument after argument and take devastating blows to your heart before he always comes in and cheers you up. It's only a question until you find out about his true personality though.

🐕Whilst Shigure can drag you into harm's way and sometimes does so willingly, he knows better than to repeat a Hatori situation with Akito. Kidnapping you isn't possible as long as the curse still lasts but he's fooled almost everyone else so far and he can do the same with you. You're most likely a bit sceptical around him anyways and truthfully, Shigure wants it that way at times. It's cute in his opinion to see you on your toes around him. At other times he just wants you to rely solely on him and for that fools around with the ties you have. Bad experiences regarding the friendships and strong ties you have with others makes you more cautious to get to know new people and causes you to cling more to him because he made himself look like the only person who sticks through with you. Strangely enough even when you discover what inhumane things he's done all along and demand him to leave you alone, he doesn't abduct you. No, instead all emotions leave his face and he promises you that he'll never leave you alone. You will be his, sooner or later.

🐕When the curse is finally broken and everyone is free to go, Shigure goes all out of his way. If he hasn't been able to properly touch you before, he will now absolutely smother you in affection. Bonus if you're bashful and embarrassed about it because then he'll do it to just rile you up a bit. People like Ayame and Hatori most likely know about his interest in you even before the curse is broken and also about his twisted ways of courting you but Shigure finds it all rather entertaining how they attempt to convince him that this isn't the right way to do it. It's better to always be on edge with Shigure around since you never know what's going on inside his head. He could be on one day an annoying and clingy man who dotes on you and teases you simultanously and on the next day gets all possessive and willing to even attack you emotionally to release some of his petty emotions when you've made him angry in some way.

Sohma Kyo

🐈Kyo wears his emotions on his sleeves and for that has an easier time socializing than Yuki has yet he is very adament to avoid and reject his darling as often as he can. He's very aggressive about the fact that he loves his darling and keeps his fair distance from them as he is used to people in his life only pitying and hating him and doesn't want to witness you undergoing the same process. Additionally he doesn't think that he's deserving of your love and affection either since he's terrified of hurting you. So every time you try to talk with him or every time someone asks him if he harbors feelings for you, he reacts brash and defensive, ends up saying something that will hurt you and your feelings and he feels incredibly guilty later on but he tells himself that it's the right thing to do. He stalks his darling a lot though.

🐈Watching over his darling from the shadows fills him simultanously with longing as much as with happiness. He wants to be with you too but knows that he'll be locked away after he finishes high school. You'd only get hurt if he would get close to you right now only to be left by him then because he can't do anything against his cursed fate. Kyo is extremely overprotective though and will do whatever he can to make you happy, puts your own needs actively above his own as well as his happiness. He always steps in as soon as someone makes you uncomfortable to protect you from then even if it ends up putting him into a situation where you want to thank him and feel the need to get to know him better. Underneath all that stubborn and aggressive behavior is in reality a very sensitive and affectionate person though who is just too traumatized and afraid to be hurt by you, the one person he's so in love with.

🐈He has a hard time really suppressing his jealousy but doesn’t want to to show his own feelings so initially Kyo just resorts to avoiding the scene as good as he can. He’s visibly stressed for the rest of the day though as the image won’t leave his head and serves to only make him even more irritated. He’s going to be a lot more brash and sharp-tongued if he meets the person again too. He mellows out after he has successfully managed to overcome his insecurities and decide to just enjoy the time he has left with you. That doesn’t deter his jealous streak quite obviously but Kyo wants his darling to be happy and feels inferior and not in the right to interfere with people you’ve been friends with and known for way longer than him. The boy is still bound to snap when he realizes that someone flirts with you and he’s really intimidating when he’s really pissed. Glowing, orange eyes staring at whoever thinks that they can just carelessly flirt with you because they take you for easy and the clear way he steps in front of you to shield you from their vision.

🐈Definitely one to get quicker aggressive and defensive over you than some others. Kyo can be a hothead and at times very possessive but he matures emotionally over time and learns to at least control his temper a bit better even if it still bursts out at times. The moment someone harms his s/o though and puts them under unnecessary stress, he is quick to get triggered due to his overprotective side. He’s very skilled in martial arts and it has been one of his biggest passions in his life before he met people he can trust and his darling so he’s quite obviously really good in it. He tends to stop thinking rationally for a bit when someone truly messes with his darling as he’s utterly consumed by rage.

🐈He never tries to dream about living together with his darling as he’s aware of his looming fate but that doesn’t stop his thoughts from betraying him at times. It makes his whole chest ache. You might even marry someone else later in your life and that thought infuriated him as much as it makes him depressed. He’s such a fool for letting his feelings escalate that far. After the curse is broken and he’s freed from Akito, he’s in shock as he slowly begins to realize that he will now be able to spend his future together with you. He’s free to be with you and when the truth finally sinks in, he storms to your place and the first thing he does is giving you a tight hug, something he couldn’t and/or didn’t want to initiate so far. With nothing to hold him back anymore, Kyo becomes as determined as obsessed to stay with you.

🐈Whilst he mellows out and grows softer after his curse is broken and he can finally be with his darling, his obsession also cranks up a good notch. He’s been holding back so far because he kept repeating Akito’s words inside his head, thought that it would be useless and hurt and tormented himself with it. There’s nothing to hold him back though as soon as the shackles of the cat zodiac are gone, everything that he has been trying and failing to bury deep inside of him bursts all at once out of him. Kazuma knew pretty much all along and is delighted when he finally gets to meet you, although Kyo is constantly a bit on edge since he fears that Kazuma will tell you something embarrassing about him. Common for most Zodiac members but Kyo is quite starved for affection and gets grumpy when you don’t give him any.

Sohma Hatori

🐉Hatori has resigned himself to the belief that he doesn't deserve any love since he has hurt people by erasing memories. Yuki's friends, Momiji's own mother and his own lover Kana has caused him to develop a rather low opinion of himself. Loving someone again isn't his intention so the experience of gaining an infatuation with his s/o is a scarring one. He's hurt already enough people and the personal trauma of what Akito did to Kana push him to distance himself as good as he can. You shouldn't get involved with him nor with any of the Sohma since it's safest for you. Very lucid about his own feelings too and it does nothing to help his already low self-esteem. There's fear and trauma as much as there is a low-key possessive longing somewhere inside his chest, one that suffocates him yet he's unwilling to let you suffer for his own selfish emotions.

🐉At the same time Hatori is also awfully protective over his s/o and if you two happen to cross paths, he can't help but let his eyes constantly wander to you. Any sign of stress or sickness from your side causes him to feel instantly the need to check on you and even dote on you slightly. If he catches you ignoring your own health in favor of going outside and working, he will usher you instantly back to take a day off and caters to your needs. It's wrong, Hatori shouldn't get himself so actively involved but he can't help himself whenever he sees that you're physically or emotionally unwell. He eventually decides to stop the constant attempts to distance himself since he always comes back to you, settles on becoming an acquaintance in your life who you can trust. He doesn't want to take it any further though but his darling always manages to break his already fragile resolve once again.

🐉Composure is one of the key words for Hatori together with his overall kindness. He isn't petty like Shigure is nor is he as open with his emotions as Kyo and even his insecurities are better tamed than some other of the zodiac signs. His darling makes them happy and if he can somehow help them feeling better and brighten up their daily life, he absolutely will. Hatori is rational, he has to be since his somewhat more unhealthy feelings are a silent burden on him at times. He's all about icy politeness and arctic stares when he's jealous, slightly passive-aggressive with a tad bit more edge to his words. He isn't as possessive as some other members are but definitely feels the need to be when someone is overly nice to you which leads to slightly more affection from his side, as much as he can give his s/o if his curse should hinder him.

🐉It's rather interesting considering that he could just erase someone's memories with hypnosis but I feel he's done it too often and has harmed others because of it that he's become hesitant and unwilling to use it at all. Honestly, Hatori is rather tame and is someone who prefers to talk then to harm others, something he believes he has done enough already. His overall kindness gets a tad bit tainted by his obsession though which leads in certain situations to anger and hatred that isn't typical for him and startles him a bit when he reflects on it. Before anything can happen though, he would always opt for hypnosis and prevent and accident before it can happen. He always has to keep his darling away from that person afterwards though and vice versa since there's no guarantee that the memories he has erased will stay hidden forever.

🐉Considering that he's been imprisoned for years because of his curse, Hatori values your own choices and personal freedom very much and similar to most members of the Sohma family, it's only after the curse is broken that he is truly able to think about his own future. There's always only been one thing he wanted ever since you shined on him like a single star of guidance in the darkness he was imprisoned in. Hatori wants to stay with his darling and he's very open to admit that to them as soon as he's freed. Probably the one who can lead the most normal relationship with you although at times when he's very worried about you or gets a bit paranoid, he becomes a tad bit more controlling.

🐉All the care and love he provides aside, it's probably quite good for his own mental and emotional health too when his darling is with him. He doesn't allow himself to indulge in some basic human needs like eating and sleeping which somewhat makes him a hypocrite since he points it out to you immediately when you skip a meal or couldn't sleep very well on one night. So you sometimes have to straight-up push him to bed or insist that you won't eat anything until he has consumed something too. You might be sometimes a bit too persistent but it shows that you care for him and that always manages to flatter Hatori in the end. Considering that his own profession is one of a doctor, he's almost always the one who caters to your needs and nurses you back to health when you fall ill and yes, he can't deny that this boils also partially down to pride of being able to provide for you and protect you, something he wasn't able to do in his past.

Sohma Ayame

🐍Ayame was never really traumatized and hurt by Akito which is why he's in comparison to other members of the Sohma clan not as shackled down and emotionally damaged. Instead he's flamboyant, confident and vivacious. When he falls in love with you though, he loves with his entire mind and heart and that definitely gives him a fine obsession as he's not able to keep you out of his head. Admittedly, Ayame doesn't even try much to help it as he throws himself almost willingly into his never-ending infatuation. Mine catches him more than once daydreaming about you with a grin on his face and just him waiting hopefully for ou to enter his shop again. Whenever you do, he tries to keep you busy and with him as long as he can since he absolutely despises to be away from you. He's clingy and his presence at times almost overwhelming which admittedly allowed him to get your number so now you have him spamming you and calling you multiple times a day just to hear your voice.

🐍Ayame is highly affectionate and if he can touch his s/o, they will be drowned in hugs and smooches as this man has zero shame about the public display of affection. If he can't be physically too affectionate then he does about anything else, which he also already does if he can be as touchy as he wants to be. All cheesy and romantic nicknames you can imagine, presents and cute gifts and he even designs couple outfits for the both of you and starts pouting when you refuse to wear them. What's worth mentioning is that the gorgeous man is highly delusional as everything others may perceive as wrong and creepy, he perceives as a sign of his dedication and love. Whether he just follows you around outside since he can't bear being separated from you or coaxes friends of yours to tell him stuff about you, it all just shows to him how much he loves you. He in fact sees you as his missing half, as his soulmate of sorts because why else would he adore you as much as he does?

🐍Ayame is even with his sometimes downright ridiculous behavior deep down still deeply possessive over his sweetheart. That is only fueled by his delusion that his darling is basically his soulmate. Only his. He’s an attention whore, loves it when his sweetheart pays attention to him and only him and starts sulking and pouting fast when that isn’t the case. Ayame is an exception among many Zodiac signs since the man is quite confident in himself and knows that he looks gorgeous, not to mention that his delusions give him this additional boost that really just makes him a bit arrogant. He gives your counterpart little to no chance to talk much with you as he does almost anything to interrupt you to and get your attention back on him, is very extra whenever he introduces himself to your acquaintances. Ayame calls himself already your lover even if you don’t see it that way.

🐍The eccentric man is probably more malicious and cunning than he lets on at times but that mainly stems from the fact that most of the time he has better things to do than waste his time on others. What could be after all more important than paying attention to his darling sweetheart? He draws a very clear line though when it comes to someone potentially thinking about courting you since you’re already his lover. He’s aware that you might not think of it the same way as he does but he’s even more convinced that eventually you’ll realize your mistake and see things just as he already does. His zodiac sign is the snake and that animal is known for it’s cunning and manipulative nature so just don’t underestimate him.

🐍Despite the freedom he’s able to enjoy in comparison to his younger brother, the tragedy of Kana and Hatori still serves as a reminder of what might happen if he were to ask Akito for your hand in marriage. So even if Ayame persuades a relationship with you rather freely, he’ll still keep it a secret from Akito. He always calls you over to his shop for the most ridiculous and trivial reasons and essentially keeps you there with him for hours, more than just once so that you can give him your opinion on clothes and even wear them, he adores it to see you wearing the dresses he makes, no matter your gender. He always run the risk of transforming when the temperature is either too hot or too cold so it’s safest for you and him to stay in his shop. He’s already quite overbearing but surprisingly he still holds back due to the looming threat of Akito. He goes fully out the moment he’s no longer cursed as the snake.

🐍That’s meant quite literally because in the very moment where his curse is broken, he instantly seeks you out and proposes to you. He’s bought the ring already a long time before but had to wait . He probably would have proposed to you even with the curse but now that he has quite literally nothing to worry about, he asks you for your hand in marriage. His clingy behavior only intensifies as the man is up your ass every waking second. Hands are always somewhere on you and he is unashamed enough to even walk in when you plan to shower or take a bath and insists that he should join you. He doesn’t have to hold you a secret from others either so he always rambles and gushes over how sweet and beautiful you are in front of his friends and younger brothers, flaunts you in front of everyone.

Sohma Hatsuharu

🐮Hatsuharu basically has two personalities where he is very calm and placid as "White Haru" and very foul-mouthed and aggressive as "Black Haru". Due to that he expresses his own feelings very differently depending on which Haru he currently is. Overall Hatsuharu is frighteningly nonchalant about the whole aspect of his own obsession though. Whilst he is aware about how this technically isn't something that is healthy and does attempt to not turn too overbearing and potentially hurt you, he doesn't really worry about ti overall too much. He deals very relaxed with it and isn't that shy to at least approach you and talk to you differently from even some guys here older than him. He still has to be careful with everything since Akito is still a threat. He attempts to follow you around and stalk you but has been shown to have a terrible sense of direction so he more than once gets lost the moment he loses sight of you.

🐮His terrible sense of direction is frequently taken advantage off by him though since the person he asks in most cases for help when he gets lost is usually you. A bit dirty but Hatsuharu has little to no shame. Black Haru has even less shame than he does and it happens that he gets triggered in cases wher his possessive or overprotective side flares up. Hatsuharu is almost casual about his possessive and protective tendencies but Black Haru is a completely different story. He's aggressive, gets in fights, provokes and insults others and is not even afraid to make it clear to you that he'll be your boyfriend at some point, even if he isn't now. Until then you better not fall for everyone else because he'll scare everyone away threatening to steal your heart before he does and he is even quite touchy with you in such times, especially if he has nothing to worry about.

🐮Jealousy is an ugly feeling, one that has someone's blood boiling when he sees you being affectionate with someone else or when he catches some fool daring to flirt with what's his. Hatsuharu does make attempts to try to push down his black side simply because he knows that his vast switch in personality tends to scare you at times and make you uncomfortable and he cares a lot for you. There's nothing he can really do once he gets triggered though and in his black personality he has very little to no shame. He's violent, loud and rude and ready to start a fight with anyone who he deems in that moment as a rival for him. Black Haru is also quite confident, brags about himself in front of you and is a total show off.

🐮If it's fight someone wants, fights they shall get. White Haru is passive-aggressive, a prankster who embarrasses people without resorting to violence. This is the more pleasant way to deal with him since he knows how bad he can be in his black personality which is why he gives someone who has been getting on his nerves lately for stressing you or trying to ask you out always receives a warning from him beforehand. If he snaps though, Black Hatsu won't hold back at all with his punches and kicks and tends to leave someone with bruises which will last and hurt for weeks. It becomes especially brutal if someone actually harms his s/o because he snaps just like that and sees red for a while. Because of that, Yuki, Momoji and Kyo tend to supervise him a bit because god knows what he might otherwise do to someone who has been messing with you. It's most of the time effective to just quickly retrieve you and have you stop Hatsuharu.

🐮Hatsuharu has already made the decision that he wants to live his life together with his s/o and he doesn't care what Akito might say about this. At the same time he will do absolutely everything to keep this a secret from her as well since he knows that she might do otherwise some horrifying thing to you that might traumatize you permanently. He will still try to enter a relationship with you even if he has to keep it a secret because he literally can't control himself otherwise. Black Haru tends to come out more often as soon as he hasn't been able to see you for a whole day or when someone has made a move on you which bothers him and worsens his mood for the rest of the day. Similar to Ayame, he's very shameless in his approach as soon as his curse has been broken and he literally asks you if you'd like to move in with him. His whole behavior at this point just screams "choose me".

🐮He spends a lot of money on his wardrobe and ends up buying his s/o lots of clothes too, his favorite is leather so expect a lot of that. Alternatively he just adores seeing how you wear his clothes since it is a small boost to see you walking around in what he normally wears. You are genuinely the person who can keep him the most effectively calm which is why his friends always run to you the moment he switches to Black Haru and goes out of control. Admittedly, one of the main reasons he turns is when he isn't able to find or see you. It's the worst when he's had an argument with you, you ignore him or even reject him and his affection though since this leads him to having essentially a mental breakdown which takes him a long time to recover from and that only when you help him with it.

Sohma Ritsu

🐵This man stays the heck away from his darling but the fear of Akito is in this case not even the main reason. He's plagued with insecurities, has an inferiority complex and deep issues when it comes to his own self-esteem and deems himself to be utterly useless and to only be a burden. What could he possibly do to enrich your life somhow with his presence? He's such a disappointment after all, you'd be better off not knowing him. Ritsu sees everything wrong with him but he deeply adores and loves his s/o, thinks of them as perfect even if they obviously also have things they're terrible in. His anxiety makes it about impossible for him to approach you properly because if he as much as sees you passing by anywhere he already topples over and turns into a clumsy mess. The only thing he seems to be able to do is stalk you for a very long while, too insecure to do anything else. He's beyond horrified of you thinking badly of him and since he has some suicidal tendencies as it is, this would only drag him even further down.

🐵For Ritsu his darling becomes really important though when he decides to live for their sake. He's always questioned what his reason for life was after all and at one point is genuinely convinced that you are his reason for being born. This thought consumes his mind and turns him into a somewhat delusional person even if he still knows that doing hings like stalking you is still creepy and he loathes himself for doing this. You'd surely be disgusted with him if you'd ever find out. He feels like fainting when you actually approach him and talk to him since you've noticed him for a while now although you're surprised to find out that he's in fact a man. Something Ritsu instantly apologizes for. He is prone to overreacting and apologizing for every little thing so that is something that you have to get used to if you want to hang out with him. The worst is that he knows that his behavior might tire you out which only pushes him into more anxiety and leads to more tears and apologies.

🐵He feels like crying, he genuinely feels like crying more than anything. His jealousy always ends in an overwhelming pain and insecurities because he has poor social skills and is very well aware of that. Undeniably one of the most toxic thing he does is putting himself through al of the pain though as he is just as aware of the fact that separating himself from you would hurt even more. He can't give you what so many others in this world could give you, he's too useless for that. It should be enough already that you accepted him into your life as the wreck he is. He never tells you either about his problems because you have better things to do than listen to his trivial feelings. He always lets it out when he's home though, bursting out in tears and regretting and hating himself for his own cowardice. He really is a good-for-nothing, is he?

🐵He couldn't hurt a fly, let's be real here. Ritsu is probably the most harmless guy to have. He's too kind-hearted and gentle to be malicious to anyone, at the same time would rather die than witness his darling having any troubles which sadden them and cause them pain. Funnily enough witnessing how you end up in a risky situation gives him enough adrenaline to shortly go beyond his comfort zone and shield you before basically making a run for it with you together. He's rather self-sacrificing, doesn't care if he has to suffer for you if it means that you will end up being better off because of it. It's the least he can do to help you, isn't it? At least he can be of some use then for you. Alternatively he asks some of the other zodiac members for help as he learns to have a bit more faith in himself with passing time.

🐵He's one of the few members who has been shown having a good relationship with his mother and she has always wished that he'd find someone who would accept him. Ritsu isn't exactly discreet about his crush, the only one he is always careful around is Akito. His mother knows about you at some point though and invites you over to their onsen, something that nearly causes Ritsu to pass out again because what if he says something or does something that might insult you? Ritsu has to spend a good portion of the day with his darling though to prevent himself from suffering from a lasting meltdown and for that he's extremely clingy. Sure, he always trails a few steps behind you and steps back when you're conversating with someone else, otherwise he might as well look like your little duckling. Of course he wants to be together with you, he admits that tearfully to his mother when she asks him but he's feeling like he won't be able to give you anything in return for the love you provide him with.

🐵The whole co-dependency follows you through the whole time as Ritsu continues to hail you as his reason to be born. His darling would definitely have to be the patient and encouraging type though to help him slowly gain more self-confidence in himself and therefore be a major part in his character development. In Ritsu's eyes most likely the most important person. When the curse eventually fades away, he's finally freed from the last shackles that might have prevented him from fully wanting to spend his entire life with you. He's nervous when he approaches you for the first time dressed as a male in fear you might not like him in this appearance. Sometimes the habits of frantically apologizing and blaming himself for everything return to him just as much as the sometimes unhealthy signs of the co-dependent attachment Ritsu has developed over time and won't be able to get rid of ever. The delusion that he lives for your sake and that you helped him gaining more confidence are still present on his mind and he wouldn't be able to know what he should do with himself if you wouldn't be with him.

Sohma Akito

⚫️Congratulations, you're screwed. Akito is mentally unstable, insane, short-tempered and above all awfully possessive. If her darling has managed to gain her twisted and wicked heart, she will cling to them with everything she has. Akito has some issues going on herself with the emotional abuse Ren put her through and for that is in a way almost desperate to be loved but in order to achieve that she expresses it in horrible and inhumane ways. Her obsession with keeping the zodiac signs by her side and having the male ones essentially only loving her, she becomes overly focused on having her darling only love her to the point where she sort of drops her attention from the zodiacs as she is now obsessed with having her darling love her. Because her darling is no zodiac though and for that she isn't their god, there is a deep fear inside Akito's core that she might not be anything special to you and that thought disturbs her whilst at the same time clinging to the words of her father and thinking that she is in fact "special" and for that entitled to your affection.

⚫️Her possessive tendencies really only allows herself in your life as she forces you pretty much into everything. She is no more lonely now that she has you but you on the other hand end up losing everyone you had since Aktio flips out when you do as much as mention someone else in front of her. You have her! Forget them and just focus on her! Her mood can range from her sitting silently next to you to throwing angrily furniture around and whilst in most cases she is genuinely calmer when you're with her, you can just as easily set her off when she realizes that you aren't happy with her and in fact want to be with the people you love. You can't fathom how she can't understand that what she puts you through and what she has done to other Sohma family members is wrong whilst Akito at the same time can't really understand why you would blame her. No one ever taught her what's right or wrong, she's been as spoiled as traumatized during her childhood so it's either that she genuinely can't see her terrifying obsession as wrong or she chooses to actively not care.

⚫️Don't. Just don't. Not with someone like Akito who actively demands for you to show her your affection. Akito is immensely jealous and prone to her violent tantrums and outbursts and if you know her only a bit, you know what she's capable of. She won't allow anyone besides herself inside your life and your heart besides herself so you're better staying quiet because mentioning even a name can set her off and throw her into a nightmarish jealous frenzy. She's hurt other people before who stole the attention of her zodiac animals away from her so she's very much capable of doing the same to the people you hold dear, even your family members wouldn't be spared from her. She forbids you pretty much to love anyone else besides her.

⚫️It isn't really necessary to talk too much about that topic since Akito is pretty self-explaining already. She harshly punishes everyone who tries to take away what's hers and that has never been more true with her darling. The woman is cruel to everyone who does as much as waste some of your time she wants and demands you to spend with her and doesn't hold back from blaming you either, especially if you call her out for the terrible things she does. You should know better after all! Since Akito is a feared and respected woman and the head of the Sohma family, almost no one has enough guts to interact too much with you and risk meeting the furious jealousy and rage of Akito though which leaves you just as isolated as Akito.

⚫️Considering that her darling is the only person that can keep her somewhat calm and pacify her, you're pretty much never allowed to leave her side. Most of your days are spent secluded in the Sohma mansion by her side and the maids who serve her are no help to you at all. Some of them are too terrified to help you and others pretty much just chide you for wanting to leave Akito's side since she is the God of this family and allow her and actively help her to keep you imprisoned. The woman is awfully clingy, wants you extremely close to her with some sort of physical affection all of the time and if she has to leave, you're always forced to tag along with her. She's paranoid, fears that as soon as she leaves you alone someone will make a move and for that you're never allowed out of her vision.

⚫️Akito is the worst Yandere to have since she's openly violent, abuses others and manipulates and guilt-trips her own darling into staying with her as well. You're going to be emotionally scarred one way or another although she never seems to physically hurt you, at least not deliberately. With the way she functions and rages on, chances are that you end up getting hurt within all the chaos and her fuming wrath. As soon as she realizes that she's hurt you though, she drops whatever else she was doing just seconds before and shouts for the maids to help you, shaking hands grabbing you too harshly for your own comfort to see whatever damage she has inflicted upon you. The tamest you'll probably ever see her is when the two of you are completely alone and you've essentially learned the hard way how to keep her from exploding where she reminds you at times of a insecure child as she constantly clings to you, asks you if you love her and demands you to show her that in all sorts of affection.

#yandere fruits basket #yandere furuba #yandere yuki #yandere sohma yuki #yandere shigure #yandere sohma shigure #yandere kyo #yandere sohma kyo #yandere hatori #yandere sohma hatori #yandere ayame #yandere sohma ayame #yandere hatsuharu #yandere sohma hatsuharu #yandere ritsu #yandere sohma ritsu #yandere akito #yandere sohma akito

[naranjapetrificada]

Fic recs based on what bits of s2 promotion made you go 👀

So obviously we only have a couple days left and I shouldn't have put this off for so long, but I've been making connections between fics I've encountered and questions raised by the teaser, trailer, and BTS video and thought I'd share some of them. Light (extremely light, like you've just emerged from an isolated cave light) s2 spoilers possible, although it's still mostly speculation?

Anyway this obviously got very long, so I'm throwing in a break now so I don't slow your scroll.

Maybe time in nature helps Ed do some healing?

Fallow Land & Bigger Sky, which I can't ever seem to shut up about was such a rewarding and healing read for me. Especially recommended for people who are interested in Ed's inner life, healing journey, and coping mechanisms, maladaptive or otherwise. Also folks who are excited for him to have an animal friend like Stede Bunnet, although in this fic it's a sweet little black lamb that he sometimes carries around in his shirt.

It begins with Ed having spent a year since The Dock living incognito on a remote (but not deserted!) island trying to get his head around everything that happened and looking for something like peace, however he can get it. It's written in an evocative, poetic way and includes some incredibly lovely flashbacks, believable character growth, important realizations, and tender emotional moments. The vibes are more pastoral than castaway, but Ed is still given time and space to do the work he needs to do in rugged, isolated surroundings so it still scratches that itch for me.

[There are definitely some triggers to be aware of but it feels like the author did a good job of mentioning them at the beginning of each chapter.]

Maybe they do some healing together?

There's no need to reinvent the wheel so I'm going to borrow heavily from an earlier post I made about healing and fanfic two make the case for these two:

Brace Yourself and Nestle into Me: The premise is that Ed and Stede figure out that they're into each other around episode 7, and they're deliriously happy to know that they feel the same way about each other. But Stede has some (understandable) sexual dysfunction around being queer thanks to the horrible society that he grew up in. Ed is a darling trying to help him through it all, and along the way he realizes he also has some of his own hangups he needs to work through, and that they can both support each other's healing.

I appreciate that this one doesn't treat healing like a straight line because it never is, and emphasizes that trust can't just be implicit, you really have to talk it through as a crew, even if it's just a crew of two broken middle-aged men who are desperately in love with each other. It also gets into some of the stuff I've been talking about on here about grieving your former selves and the selves you never got to be, which was validating as hell. That sounds heavy and there are concepts that are literally part of modern therapy modalities woven into the story, but there are also warm and loving and hilarious moments too, including this gem:

“Also can you just imagine how proud little horny baby gay Stede would be know you would be to know that whatever he went through, today you’ve got your own ship and are getting completely railed by Blackbeard? I mean, just absolutely dicked down by the most famous pirate in history? He would lose his mind.”

Adrift Between the Dreaming Seas: Based on my usual filtering on ao3 I probably never, ever would have come across this fic if it weren't for a recommendation someone posted here. It's got fantasy elements, allegory, metaphors stacked on metaphors, talking animals, and so many other things that would have kept me from ever discovering it on my own. My life would be poorer for it.

Basically Stede is cursed to be a lighthouse keeper on an island that seems to move around the world. Animals show up and the ones who talk to him are members of the crew, and Ed is an actual kraken. It's all this symbolism about monstrosity and trauma and maladaptive coping and the messiness that is Stede's kindness scraping against his self loathing. I shed tears of many kinds along the way, and it made me think hard about community and recovery and the things we do to and for ourselves and others.

It's just a lovely little gem of a story that made me feel so much so deeply while also making me laugh much more than I was anticipating. I'm so glad I gave it a chance.

Maybe there's a massive, life-altering storm?

A World of Tempestuous Things, which is nearly finished and has been such a rewarding, moving journey to follow as it explores another take on their reunion story. There's the expected angst and misunderstandings, but also wit and warmth and longing and rage and these casually devastating historical asides, some of which still haunt me out of the blue because of the staggering and inescapable nature of the passage of time. Speaking of passages and being haunted, dig if you will, this picture:

so little time to dwell amongst strangers as a citizen of the world will never, ever stop reverberating in my head like a cymbal crash and I guess that's just something I live with now. @lostakasha, you've given me the existentially beautiful prose version of tinnitus.

Maybe Stede's slut party era is finally upon us?

If so, good for him, he deserves it so much.

When the Light Shines In is a missing scene/lightly canon-divergent take on s1e06, if you just like the idea of meeting a jolly version of Drunk Stede (vs that "unhand me or bleed" guy, who is hot in his own way or course but can't beat messy earnest bossy Stede in my opinion). It's set immediately after the fight with Izzy. Ed is patching him up and trying not to vibrate out of his own skin, while Stede is affectionate and chatty and besotted whether he knows it or not, and steadily working his way through a bottle of rum for the pain. So not really related to season 2, but it will still scratch that same itch and make you smile real big.

Well, I Ain't Tactful is actually set during season 2, inspired by the moment in the BTS video where Ed sees Stede getting drunk with his new leather buddies. If you asked yourself what might happen if Ed felt compelled to keep an eye on Sloppy Stede and tuck him in with a glass of water, then this one will be fun. Ed is caring and lovely about it all even while still being a bit mad at him for everything, and Stede is a mess but so sweet and still so, so in love.

Maybe we'll get to see young Ed on Hornigold's ship?

There's no evidence of that so far beyond the whole ghost of Hornigold thing, but it certainly would be a treat. But even if it doesn't, if the idea of more young Ed appeals I cannot possibly recommend the pre-canon Never Shall We Die enough.

Now there's no getting around two crucial things that may be dealbreakers for some people: first, it's long. It's very, very long. Second: it's a WIP. Only one of two I've allowed myself to follow in this fandom so I don't get overwhelmed or bogged down. But!

The writing is so impeccable that it stands head and shoulders above almost everything I've ever read on ao3 and honestly above a lot of commercially published original fiction I've encountered in the same span of time since I've started it. The settings are deliciously (and sometimes, due to the realities of life on a pirate ship, disgustingly) immersive, the action scenes are perfectly paced, and the emotional beats, when they hit, hit hard and ring true and stay with you.

Starting at at age 13, young Ed's growth and development over time is equal parts rewarding and harrowing. Threads are pulled together from canon and from earlier parts of the story to coalesce into a portrait of a living, breathing version of our favorite guy trying to find his place in the world, stumbling along the way, and eventually realizing that if he wants a place he'll have to make it himself. The secondary characters leap off the proverbial page too, and the connections he does or doesn't form with them have interesting, believable fallout for everyone involved.

I mentioned action scenes earlier, but I want to circle back around to them again because NSWD takes Izzy's season 1 comment about Blackbeard being the greatest sailor he's ever known and says the same with its whole chest. I know I'm not alone in hoping to see Incredible Sailor Ed in season 2, but in the mean time this is more than scratching that itch for me. We see Ed set foot on his first ship with no skills beyond attracting (mostly) unwelcome attention and observational skills that become the foundation of his later abilities with the sea and with the art of fuckery. From the outside he looks like a savant but on the inside he builds his skills slowly over time, delighting in learning new things and seeing a plan come together. But best of all, he delights in the skills of others, eagerly learns from them when he can, happily teaches what he can to the few people he trusts, and takes pleasure and pride in their own success.

I could literally keep talking about this fic until the next chapter gets posted, but the good news is that happens regularly! I know it can be tough to trust a WIP but I for one am so thankful for the moment of poor impulse control that led to me starting this one. New chapters come roughly every two weeks, and looking at @tresdem's output elsewhere helps me feel secure that we'll actually get to the end.

#fic recs #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd season two #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd speculation #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 speculation #ofmd s2 trailer #ofmd s2 teaser #ofmd bts #I literally can't think of any other tags to save people from spoilers but I'll add them if they come to me #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #edward teach #stede bonnet #ed teach #not queued #ed x stede #edward x stede #our flag means death

[writinginthesecrettrees]

Hi! For the prompt, what about unrequited wincest, pining Dean doing his secret pining for years and years, until Michael takes him for a ride and gets intrigued by Dean's overwhelming feelings for his brother? Sam loves his brother, but not in that way. Please feel free to ignore this prompt if you don't like it or if you're not into it.

He was never going to give the vessel back. It is his, made for him (or the other him, but that him is safely locked away and he has no desire to seek himself out) and the human soul that let him in is of no interest to him.

Except...

Except when he looks at the vessel that should have been his brother. The vessel called Sam.

That vessel is beautiful - it should be, it was made for Lucifer, and Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels. And when he looks at it, his vessel responds. A quickening heartbeat, a hitch in the breath, and the human soul struggles and cries out, yearning towards what should have been Lucifer.

The feeling is odd. Unsettling. A danger, he decides, so he takes himself away from that other vessel while the soul called Dean curses impotently in their shared head. It settles with distance.

His brother's vessel, his vessel's brother, and something else. A threat, Michael decides. The Sam vessel is a threat. It gives strength to the Dean soul in a way he does not quite understand. He needs to understand.

So he lets the Dean soul take control - not completely, not enough to take the vessel back, but enough that the soul can believe it did. He hides in the back of its mind, watches through its eyes as it goes back to its home. Its brother.

Its love.

He knew there was love there, of course. Dean never would have given him that crucial "yes" without love. And Michael understands love. He loved his brother before the rebellion and he loved his Father before the abandonment. But the love he's known pales beside what his vessel feels for its brother.

There's love that he can recognize, of course. A brother's love is something he knows. It's a stronger love, and looking through his vessel's memories he can see that it's been tested but never broken, not even when the Sam vessel rebelled against their father and he doesn't understand that. There's pain, too, whenever the Sam vessel gives attention to any of the other humans that share their home. A twisting in the gut, and looking though his vessel's memories show that same twisting many times in the past.

The twisting pain when the Sam vessel took a waitress in the backseat of their car, the twisting pain when the Sam vessel had a woman named Amelia, the twisting pain that led to his vessel killing a kitsune, the twisting pain when the Sam vessel took a demon for a lover, the twisting pain of finding him settled with a woman named Jess. The same twisting pain every time the Sam vessel looked towards anyone but Dean, and as Michael delves deeper he starts to recognize that twisting pain as jealousy.

He finds another pain, too. An aching pain in the chest in random memories, often combined with a swelling in his vessel's penis, when he looks at the Sam vessel. Michael understands that, too, though he has never experienced lust himself. But, like Dean, he can see the beauty of Lucifer's vessel. And the aching pain of not being allowed to touch, to satiate that lust in the flesh that inspired it...

Michael is just starting to understand that pain, and his vessel has been feeling it almost all its life.

The Sam vessel removes the excessive hair growth from its cheeks and chin, and Michael and Dean are sore tempted to stroke the newly smooth skin.

we could make him ours he offers, and his vessel's instant rejection almost expels him, firm in the knowledge that Sam loves Dean but would never, could never, love him the way he dreams of, and Michael is forced to wipe away the offer from his vessel's mind.

#wincest #unrequited wincest #pining dean #michael!dean

[androideqlstuff]

The Fall

YGO DM fanfiction Puppyshipping/violetshipping.

After falling from a considerable height, Kaiba shouldn't have survived, and yet he's alive and not where he should have been.

Hurt, some comfort, angst. Post-breakup. Minor injuries. Includes either the beginning of a time loop or main character death depending on how you want to interpret it. Ambiguous open ending.

Written for day 1 of Whumptober 2023 Prompts: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.” Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”

-----

His head was still spinning by the time he was done falling. It had not felt like a moment, but a long stretch of semi-conscious numbness. He'd gone through a string of questions that didn't get past the first word. A brief sample of a timeline pulling like an elastic band before it snapped in his hands.

Kaiba blinked and tried to prop himself up. He managed just barely. He had not hit the floor, but something softer, something that groaned and cursed beneath him. It had a head full of thick blond hair. The deep relief he'd felt to have Katsuya right there turned into panic once it dawned on Kaiba that he’d broken his fall.

Scrambling to his feet was impossible with his head in such a state, but he did move aside. His mouth opened. It closed. “There’s nothing to say here,” a part of him was telling him, even though when his eyes glazed over the scene, he was sure the blood on the pavement belonged to the nasty scrape on Katsuya’s elbow.

This wasn't the street, though. It was no longer the middle of the night either.

“God, what were you thinking?”

Thinking? He didn’t know. He’d fallen from the second floor, right? He’d stepped on a trashcan, then on the box with the fire extinguisher, and he’d grabbed onto the ledge of the window and…

That wasn't right. He'd fallen from much higher. From a balcony on the fifth floor. Katsuya had been in the apartment right before that moment, and there was no way he could also be down here to catch him. But now he was at school, near the bushes, not far from the empty track, and it was probably around time for lunch. They had left this place ages ago, and yet here he was, in his uniform and in a body that didn’t feel as strong as it should.

Did he fall trying to climb up to the faculty room, or did he fall years after that? And what about all the time in between? The dangers he'd faced, the fears he'd fought, the mourning he'd done?

What about the temporary happiness he’d found in Jounouchi? What about dinner last night, when the words “I think this isn’t working out” had sent him to bed alone to ponder, and the taste of expensive spirits had renewed his determination. It was then that his head had begun spinning in retrospect. When Jounouchi hadn’t let him in, he’d taken it upon himself to climb on the small ledges of the building.

The sight of Katsuya by the window, who looked at him like he was trying to comprehend a monster at his doorstep had told Kaiba it was hopeless. He'd done the wrong thing, influenced by the alcohol, and his efforts had backfired. Light-headed and with his hands and feet going numb, he’d lost his grip and footing. He barely registered the fall. He hadn’t even felt it.

Had all of that actually happened? Perhaps he’d never stopped being this lanky kid who’d yet to hit a growth spurt, anger an ancient spirit, and fall in love after the worst had already happened.

He closed his eyes. It almost felt like the alcohol was still there. The breakup still haunted him, even if it had never happened. He yearned for Jounouchi, even though in this situation he now found himself in, they did not know each other. They had never talked. Kaiba had never even noticed he existed. It was still early in the year, and even Yugi was a thing of the near future.

How could he miss the quiet nights together and the mature scent of Katsuya's cologne then? This younger version smelled like deodorant and urgent teenage energy, and he seemed uncomfortable with their silence.

“Seriously,” Jounouchi said, dusting himself off and hissing at his bleeding arm. He winced as he tried to move his wrist. “You’re in my class, ain’t you? Kaiba, was it? What were you trying to do up there? Just take the stairs, man. Those little arms of yours ain’t getting you anywhere like that.”

Perhaps it had all happened. He might have fallen, and his brain might have become splatter on the pavement. Maybe the last bits still attached to his skull were giving him something to think about in his last moments so that he would not have to face the truth.

Jounouchi stood up.

“Are you OK? Did you hit your head?” He reached out his hand and stopped midway. “Wait, can I?” He waited, and as Kaiba said nothing, he touched the side of his head, just a little above the temple. “Dude. That’s already getting swollen.”

“What is…” he started and trailed off. He could not focus on anything other than the differences he kept spotting on Jounouchi's face. The light crinkle next to his eyes was gone. The thin line close to the corner of his lips as well. Different shade of blond, missing an earring, a little more fat in his cheeks.

“Your head, dumbass.”

Jounouchi looked away and nodded worriedly. A gesture he usually did to soothe or encourage himself. Sometimes to think. Oftentimes because he was biting his tongue to stop himself from saying something he didn’t really want to say.

Hey. Katsuya, what are you thinking right now?

“You… Hey, do you know what day it is?”

It's not late enough into the school year for you to hate me for some of the things I did to you.

“October 1st,” Kaiba said.

I’d made plans for us this month. Two weeks off. Tickets to Italy. You always said you wanted to see the Coliseum in Rome.

Jounouchi grimaced.

“Does it really look like October to you..?”

It should have been obvious to Kaiba that he’d given the wrong answer. It was probably still April. But he’d been so certain. The last couple of months after they’d broken up were so fresh in his memory, it couldn’t have been any other way. He’d thought so much about everything that it had made him sick. He’d counted the days. When he took September off his calendar, he was greeted with a circle around October 23rd, the day of their flight.

I know I didn't ask you. I know I never ask you anything.

“Alright, alright. I’m gonna go call the nurse. I’m sure she’ll know what to do.”

I know you're upset that it's always my plans and never yours. I know I always said I would try, and that I never really did. I mostly wanted you to calm down first. Once you weren't angry anymore, everything I ever promised you kept getting postponed.

I know that I left your sister's graduation party early and that I didn't seem any different when your dog died. I thought it was fine. With a good gift and the cremation paid for, I thought that would be enough. I thought you understood that I did care.

"… I'm sorry."

I’ve always believed that words are cheap, even though it’s harder for me to say it than it is to throw resources at my mistakes. But you like the words, don’t you? You like what I find the hardest, even though it’s the least helpful.

"Dude, don't worry about it. Just be grateful that I was here. Falls like that aren't a joke."

“My head hurts.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Jounouchi said. He suppressed a chuckle. “You’re gonna make me feel bad for laughing, c’mon. Can I count on you to not pass out while I’m gone?”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“OK. I’ll make it as quick as possible. Keep your eyes open. I mean it. Don’t doze off.”

Jounouchi crouched in front of him. Their foreheads were barely touching, but it wasn’t the affectionate gesture it had once been. A concerned threat was patent in every inch of Jounouchi’s face that Kaiba could see.

“Also, they’re going to ask what happened. And you better be clear about it. You fell, and I caught you, and you have to tell them that immediately. Otherwise, no deal. Can you do that?”

If I say I will, you will probably believe me this time, right?

“Because they’ll think you hit me if I don’t. I know.”

Jounouchi clicked his tongue.

“And here I was thinking I didn’t have that kinda reputation here…”

“You bleach your hair.”

Jounouchi reflexively touched the top of his head in an attempt to cover dark roots that weren’t even there. He was always so careful with those.

“You don’t know that. Can you do it or not?”

It was an easy request compared to the ones before.

"Of course."

Kaiba watched him leave. He still wasn’t sure what he was dealing with exactly, just that he felt so drowsy and that keeping the first half of his promise was getting difficult. If this was a vivid figment of his imagination, it was making him sad that the last moments of it were of him alone again.

What if it’s real? Strange things have happened before.

Wasn’t that just wishful thinking? He couldn’t get attached to that idea.

He wanted it to be true anyway.

#yugioh #ygo dm #puppyshipping #violetshipping

[visiting-naturalist]

August 1

I believe I am recovered from my experience enough now to record what happened to me after I entered the cave of Pikaman. 

Entering the gloom with my lantern held aloft, I immediately felt a sort of all-over shiver, an electric force running up and down my body as if I’d just stepped through an invisible curtain. 

I passed by hoards of fascinating artifacts and growths lining the cave walls that I longed to stop and examine: glowing crystals, humming moss, twisting golden filaments that squirmed along the stone, moving and alive. But I made myself move quickly along, until I reached a larger room, where stalactites and stalagmites met in tall columns. 

And in the center: Pikaman. 

His large ears swiveled forwards. He rose from his nest of colored string. 

“I’m the Naturalist,” I called out, “I’ve come to meet you—to ask you some questions—?”

No reply. 

I was, I’ll admit, wholly terrified. He was close now, towering over me. The prehensile feet which had made the prints which led me here—the shiny yellow fur—and those inhuman eyes, black voids, boring into me.

And then I realized: he did not understand me. I cursed myself—what prejudice I brought with me! To simply assume that any creature would be able to converse with me, even if he were willing! I suppose knowing of his impressiveness and intelligence I had thought—oh, but it hardly mattered now what I had thought. It had all been for naught, that much was apparent. I could not make my peaceful intentions known to him, so he would fall upon me in fury for entering his den, and nobody would ever hear of me again. My poor Intern, stranded, alone in a strange land…! I felt ashamed of my idiocy. I wanted to cry…

And then, as Pikaman bore down on me, looming, his mouth curling in a grimace, I heard the voice of the meme peddler echo in my ears… 

For when words fail. 

“🌿💡💓!” I shouted. I raised up the rings on my fingers and pointed them at Pikaman. 

He stopped in his tracks. The grimace turned to a smile.

“🌿💡💓? 👆⚡️🏆💖!” 

Suffice to say, we were then able to converse in a language we both spoke. Alas, he did not wish to have his origin known. I could not get him to tell me from whence he had come, or what his purpose was in coming, or if there were more of him—a whole distant land of Pikamen, as I had idly imagined. 

But he told me that he was proud of me for braving the wilds of Tumblr to visit him: something nobody had yet done, and he had been quite lonely. And as a reward for finding him, in lieu of knowledge of his own history, he would give me knowledge of something else. 

“Give me knowledge?” I asked. “But how?”

He beckoned me close. His fingers were very very long, and tipped with fur. Electricity sparked between them as he reached out to place them on my forehead. 

And for one blinding infinite moment I saw it all. Tumblr in its entirety — machinery, magic, love — my consciousness flung out to the very periphery of this land, understanding everything, brilliance and darkness and laughter and pain and comfort all at once, the way thousands of souls slotted and slid together simultaneously in that dance of delight —

Then it was over. He had taken his hand away: the connection was broken. 

“👁?”

I stammered, “Yes—yes, I saw it—I saw it all—😵‍💫👆👁👌.”

“🏞2️⃣.” it all saw you too. 

Which meant, I suppose, that my face or form has now been scattered temporarily across the land, just as Pikaman’s was. An unexpected honor, I think. 

I don’t remember much after that, only I somehow made it back to my camp and slept for what seemed like at least a full day, exhausted by the experience. 

Among everything else I must consider over the journey home, I find I’m most concerned about Pikaman’s loneliness. It is a trial of a journey, true, but perhaps now I must do my best to encourage others to pay him a visit. I was the first, but surely I shall not be the last. 

And now I must make my way back to my base camp, where the second half of my Guidebook to Tumblr still remains to be written…

#quest #visiting naturalist

[rfaromance]

Saeran had spent most of his life avoiding his reflection.

His mother had never kept mirrors around for them, aside from a small one she reserved for herself in her bedroom when she tried to primp herself up to go out in public, lest people know she was exhausted, hungover, and had creases and fatigue on her body from harboring two children in her basement.

He only caught glimpses of his reflection in dirty windows and broken bottles of booze, and he could only recall golden eyes that were dull like hay instead of shiny like coins, as well as thick tangles of crimson curls that were wild like a forest fire instead of smooth and shiny like velvet.

He tried to imagine that he looked more like his brother, but Saeyoung seemed to glow in a way that Saeran never could. Saeyoung's skin had a faint honey-tinted hue, kissed by the sun, bringing his freckles into full view. When he held Saeran's hand, Saeran had always noticed how his skin was far more pallid in comparison. Saeyoung had a strength and sturdiness in the way he walked and moved, even though his eyes were as sunken and his hair as messy as Saeran's.

Weak. Useless. Sickly.

Their mother insisted that Saeran never should have existed, that he was a burden and a scourge upon the earth. She hated him; he knew that, no matter how much Saeyoung insisted she was spouting nonsense and lies in her drunken rage.

He came to hate himself, too.

His life at Mint Eye had not been much better in that respect. He spent most of his time in front of the mirror fussing, doing his best to eradicate any traces of the child he loathed. Bleaching all traces of pigment from his hair, combing it until it was flat and applying any amount of spray or gel he could to hopefully kill his curls for good. His eyes no longer were gold but instead had taken on the minty hue of strength, or so he had been told. A sign of dedication, of growth, of change, of being on the path to revenge and then his happily ever after.

But he still saw someone weak, fragile, and pitiful, in the vibrant magenta coat that his "Savior" had thrust upon him, so big that it swallowed his slender frame and accentuated how ghastly pale his skin was. He looked like a child pretending to be a man.

Maybe, in a sense, he was still that child until he'd taken his first breath of freedom and his first step of his own accord, of his own free will.

He was free. He was safe. He was a new person, but he was the sum of every person and every action and every memory he had of the past. Saeran struggled to even let that name roll off his lips, from time to time. It tickled his tongue. It was his name from birth, but it was a new name. The weight it carried intimidated him, from time to time.

His heart was light and his shackles were left in the dust, but liberty had a heaviness that he could not always comprehend. It would catch him by surprise, more often than not.

Tonight was one of those times, as he sat draped in the blankets on his bed--no, their bed--as the weight of anticipation, anxiety, and apprehension tugged on his soul.

His freedom belonged not only to him, but to her as well. His true salvation. An actual angel, like the ones Saeyoung told him about. Someone who had shown him what love and light and life were all about, and someone who had stuck to his side through every trial that faced them. She was the reason he could stare at the sunrise every day and inhale the fresh morning air, without worrying if each day would be his or his brother's last.

But she had never seen him like this. Facing the horrors of the world was one matter, when she felt she had full confidence in Saeran and who she believed him to be. If she saw the feeble person underneath, the ugly, weak, scrawny that had been cursed by his mother and Rika and Saeran himself, constantly trying to turn into someone else, anyone else--

Would she be disenchanted?

He didn't have time to ponder these thoughts anymore as she entered the room, for the mere sight of her took his breath away. Hair down, framing her face. A sheer black nightgown that hugged her curves in the right places and also fluttered freely with her movements in others, turning her into an ethereal shadow, more like a fairy traveling on the wind than a human taking steps.

When she finally planted herself onto the mattress, crawling forward on her knees, Saeran could feel his resolve begin to slip. He did his best to sit upright, but when he felt the cool air tickle his ribcage he couldn't help but shiver. Shyly he grabbed at the sheets and tried to pull them up to hide his face, not wanting her to see just how quickly his face had flushed redder than the roses in their garden. He had been eating and drinking better than he ever had done in his life, but he was undeniably thin. He didn't have muscle tone. He was soft but not squishy, just thin paper-white skin. He still couldn't overexert himself, because his lungs and heart had never been strong, even if he had gotten tougher with age. His bones were his only saving grace, but even then, he could only attribute their tenacity to the ungodly amounts of ice cream he consumed, providing calcium that he'd desperately needed. What would happen when he turned around and she saw the scars on his back, from beatings? What would happen if she saw bruises that had never fully healed? How about the tight grip of chains that had never entirely left his ankles?

Would she find him weak and resent him, like everyone else?

His eyes flitted to the side, not wanting to meet her curious gaze. She was leaning forward slightly, glossy lips slightly agape as she looked over him. She did not make a peep, just turned her beautiful eyes that even glittered in the half-light of the bedroom, onto him.

Out of morbid curiosity, he allowed his gaze to travel back, and he had no doubt that his face was on fire with embarrassment and his riling nerves. Maybe they would at least accentuate his freckles that had begun to appear from spending more days outside.

"...ran."

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"You..."

If he could face his demons, then he could face the love of his life. He gazed into her eyes, hoping his trepidation wouldn't disgust her, on top of everything else.

"You are so beautiful," she breathed at last. "You are... so beautiful, Saeran."

His breath hitched in his throat.

The trembling hand that he had drawn into his chest was slowly pried away from him, and he couldn't keep it from shaking as she gingerly cupped it in between her hands, planting a gentle kiss onto the back. "You're stunning," she whispered, letting the words slip out as she unfurled his fingers and began to kiss his calloused fingertips one by one. "Strong. Hardy. Kind. Resilient. Warm." Praises upon praises spilled from her lips, and he was absolutely speechless.

Finally she raised his hand to the side of her face, and he caressed her cheek timidly, still trying to steady his quivering. "I love you, so much."

Saeran's vocal cords still would not cooperate him, as his swirling thoughts and adrenaline-pumped body had rendered him mute. But he could drop the blankets and scoot closer to her, to let her know he felt the same. I love you, his mind screamed. I love you more than the clouds, more than the sky, more than the sea. He used his other hand to pick up one of hers, now, and place it on his chest, where his pounding heart was threatening to burst out of his ribcage. He had no doubt she could feel its powerful beats that spoke on his behalf. This heart beats for you. Her eyes grew wide as she felt the erratic thumping against her palm, but she did not pull away. She just turned a somewhat amused gaze onto him, her lips curled into a serene and knowing smile. I live, I laugh, and I love, because of you.

Suddenly she pulled her hand away, and she pulled his hand away from her cheek and rested it on top of her shoulder. He could feel the thin strap of her nightgown beneath his fingertips, and it wasn't until she guided him to slowly slip it off her shoulder did he realize what she was trying to say.

Perhaps her boldness was what provided the spark in his own body to be able to finally utter, "I love you--"

But she cut him off before he could finish, pressing forward to push her lips against his, swallowing his words and his breaths. She pressed another hand against his shoulder to support her, keep her upright as she melted into the kiss. His lips were probably chapped, and possibly even cold and clammy.

But her touch and her love and her closeness warmed him up immediately, and he stopped trembling enough to wrap one arm around her waist and slide his other hand beneath the hem of her skirt to rest beneath her bottom, and he pulled her closer than she already was.

Sometimes words failed, but actions could convey so much more.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

(inspired by the gorgeous art by @amagicalduckling !)

#saeran choi #saeran x mc #mystic messenger #mysmes #mysme #fem!mc #is this nsft? #tw abuse mention

[katakuna64]

OKAY SO I just read all of the Once Upon a Broken Heart books and OH FUCKING BOY DID I LOVE THEM, I can't stop thinking about Eva and Jacks, man and it's ruining my life. :')

Anyway, yes, I read them all and loved them all so god damn much, but there were a few questions and wants that I had by the end of the book.

First of all- wasn't Jacks supposed to become human if he fell in-love with a human??? Wasn't that LITERALLY THE POINT OF TELLA AND DANTE/LEGEND'S STORY IN LEGENDAY/FINALE?? Someone please answer this for me because I have no-clue why Jacks wasn't immortal anymore by the end of A Curse for True Love.

Second- justice for Luc! Damn, I wanted to see more of this boy!! And not just because he was a side character that didn't get enough time in-story, but because it would have been really nice and fun to have seen a little more of him and it would have made sense! Like, out of all of the side characters, I would have loved more of him in the second book. It would have been so funny to see him hanging around in the the Magnificent North still after all that went down with him in the first book. I also think that he could have helped Eva re-jog some of her memories and we could have seen them become truly good friends. Not only that, but I think it'd reflect so much growth from both Eva and Luc from who and what they were at the beginning of the book and I think that would have been a really nice way to tie up their story (but I get it, it's about Eva and Jacks, which I don't mind. Just wanted to see them grow enough to become friends through everything that they had both gone through)

Thirdly- the last book was so much shorter than I anticipated it would be and for that I was a little sad, but it was still a fine book and I loved the ending!

All and all, no book is perfect, but these were near perfect books for me and I still loved them and will for sure be reading them again soon! :)

#onceuponabrokenheart #a curse for true love #the ballad of never after #evangelineandjacks #evangeline fox #jacks of the hollow #appollogokillyourself #stephanie garber #tella #tella dragna #legend #tellaandlegend #caraval #evajacks

[deadlyflames]

Swanfire Month Day 14: Classic fairy-tale that reminds you of Swanfire: Orpheus and Eurydice

Emma was a poor girl. You might say she was touched by the gods. She would to bring the world back into tune, and fix what was wrong.

Baelfire was a hungry young boy. A runaway from everywhere he’d ever been. He was no stranger to world, no stranger to the wind.

It's a love song. It's a tale of a love from long ago.

It's a sad song. We keep singing even so.

It's an old song. It's an old tale from way back when.

And we're gonna sing it again and again.

This one is a bit of a weird connection. You can blame my obsession with Hadestown. I drew a lot of comparisons between Orpheus and Eurydice and Emma and Neal. Both work in either role. But I went with this interpretation.

I have this very specific image of a Swanfire version of the Underworld storyline. Like, it’s so easy for me to picture that arc being done for Swanfire. I mean, Rumplestilskin would obviously help Emma get to the Underworld for his son. Henry would follow for his dad. Regina would follow for Henry and Snowing would follow for their daughter. Even Hook would go with them for Baelfire.

But I think a really interesting way they could have used the Swanfire relationship in the Underworld was for Emma to do the Orpheus test. Because it makes so much sense for them.

(I think that’s what they were trying to reference with the true love test? Maybe? but it fell kinda flat in my opinion, but that’s a whole other thing)

Because it’s a test of trust and with their history, that trust was shaky, and still in the process of being rebuilt.

Just picture it though.

Emma walking through the dark.

She can’t look behind her and, for added uncertainty, Neal can’t speak either.

You can hear the echoing of footsteps and you can see the shadow behind her, but it’s uncertain. Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe it’s not.

Maybe he only said he would be behind her because he wanted to get her out of the Underworld.

She’s talking about all the hurt she felt after he abandoned her. All the pain they’ve gone through since they reunited. How he broke her heart and how she’s not even sure if he’s there now.

From Emma’s perspective, her and Neal are always being separated by powers beyond their control. When he left her when they were young, because of her destiny and his father’s curse. When he fell through the portal after being shot. When the curse was erased and they were ripped from each other again.

Why should this be any different?

It takes all her strength not to look behind her. To take that leap and believe that this will work.

When she’s just about to exit the underworld and return to the world above, she hits that pivotal fork in the road.

She can let her doubt take route, and turn to look behind. She can loose him one final time, and this time will be for good. But it will be the last time she gets her heart broken.

Or she can continue on. She can reach across all that hurt between them, and put her trust in him once again. She can open her heart up, even though letting him in risks the chance of losing him again.

The trust vs doubt dichotomy would be so interesting to tackle. Because that kind of blind faith is something that Emma has always struggled with, and it would be especially relevant to her relationship with Neal. It either ends in tragedy or a happy ending. I would lean towards happy ending because I feel like Emma choosing trust would be a good moment of growth.

Xxxx

Though the tragedy angle would break me. Can y’all freaking imagine. Emma turning back and Neal is there. She’s stunned and horrified.

“It’s you?”

He’s shocked but gives her a broken, comforting smile before he fades away.

“It’s me.”

Emma’s next arc is about the aftermath of guilt and grief. And then we all cry forever.

Anyway, sorry this part of the post was totally incoherent. The Underworld plot was a total missed opportunity. Hadestown is great, listen to it if you wanna cry.

#swanfire #swanfire month 2022 #ouat #emma swan #baelfire #nealfire #neal cassidy #once upon a time

[multitrackdrifting]

G-Witch Episode 22 Thoughts/Theories

First things first: Calibarn is Unicorn.

At first I thought the similarities were merely aesthetic, but I don't think it's a coincidence. There's not a lot of pure-white gundam out there and that Calibarn exists alongside Aerial & Schwarzette really does complete the trifecta of Unicorn, Banshee & Phenex. Phenex is Aerial because Eri is a ghost inside a machine, Schwarzette is Banshee because it's very much the sibling unit to both of them constructed to foil the Calibarn (well, Suletta specifically).

This episode was pretty nice because if you noticed, Suletta doesn't stutter or squeak out any of her sentences, when she's reciting the mantra with Guel she speaks with resolve, when she talks to Mio and everyone else in the episode she speaks like she's found herself.

She pretty forwardly addressed the fact that a lot of what has happened in her life is not her own, and I said in previous weeks that her choosing to do this for herself is proof of her own autonomy and growth as a young woman.

She's made precious friends, found someone to love and be loved by, and even if her existence was not always hers, when has that ever stopped a clone from being able to self-actualise (points at Tales of the Abyss).

Calibarn's entrance is quite literally a reference to Unicorn, so I am not reaching with this one at all.

While the three gundam play different narrative roles, it is really cool they found a way to tie together the tempest with an homage to Gundam Unicorn that does actually go beyond the surface.

When Suletta is panting from the stress the Permet is applying to her body, she sounds exactly like her father piloting Lfrith, so that was a cool detail. As I expected, she is not exempt from the curse (as I argued Eri was not either, hence the entire premise of this show).

Miorine spends the episode still pretty broken up by everything, but she shows a lot of resolve to face the atrocity she unwittingly facilitated in the previous episodes - whether she intended to do this or not is beside the point, do you really think the people of earth would welcome Mio with open arms and just go "well that makes perfect sense", no way, there were children that saw her face appear before their entire towns were destroyed in an instant - of course she's right that it's terrifying to face what's taken place.

Still, she manages to come out of her shell after Suletta's words reach her, for once, she is the one relying heavily on Suletta to save her where their relationship began by and large through Suletta being the shield that protected her from potential suitors yes, but she also gave Suletta the kick in the butt to go out there and seize the life that she could make for herself. The nice thing about the two of them is that they make each other better, and that's a nice way to write a blossoming romance where not everything is about kissing or holding hands - it's in the way that they fill the gaps in their aspirations and desires and make each other whole without being like some entity the other depends on. They had plenty of time apart this season, and that's good because it let them grow in any which direction without one another and that's more interesting then being conjoined at the hip imo.

Being cooped up in her room, shut away from the world outside - Suletta knows all too well what that means and how she wanted to move beyond that, and for the first time, she was able to help someone else find the courage to step out the door - as her mother did before her, except the difference between the two of them, is that she just wants Miorine to be happy and to be free, she doesn't want anything in return despite the very give and take world they live in.

Something crazy about this episode is the tomato's genetic code having a message to miorine in it, but I think that also means that one of the deactivation sequences is also given by that phrase.

I won't over-analyse the background details & diagrams, that's for twitter nerds (jk)

I'm sure this week's discourse will be whether Guel let Suletta win the fencing duel or not and my opinion is that he did, not because I don't think Suletta is good - Fencing is such a specific type of combat and you can't do some anime shit and just crouch to win a duel. A fencer would just bop your head if you tried to do a crouch that low lol.

Guel is good with melee weaponry, so I figure he's probably a good fencer.

I've done a little fencing before and the crouch Suletta does is surprising but a fencer wouldn't really let that catch them off-guard, that's not to say that Guel let her win either by the way - I'm just saying that the scene was pretense to give up the role of holder so you don't really take away "who is better" from the situation because the scene places different circumstance and demands on you as the viewer to understand what has to happen.

The Guel that would lose a battle is larger than life, talks a lot, and very loud - but he's dead silent, he's very laid back the entire time because he knows what's at stake here is more than pride.

Guel doesn't want to play the bad guy, nor does he intend to stand in the way of Suletta like he did in the first three episodes - that's not who he is and he has not been for over 19 episodes. This is why he's like "what a fool I am", because he likes Suletta, but has zero plans to act on that because what is there to be done, he already got rejected and he respected her decision. By feigning a loss here all that's happening is him reversing the sabotage that lost her Miorine to begin with.

I believe that Suletta is by far the best pilot in the series because of her ranged capabilities, that's never been in question, but yeah I can see this scene drumming up inane discourse because people don't understand a narrative device even when its bonking them over the head with a sign that says "This is not the f-ing point of the scene".

The way that Guel encounters his brother is exactly like his fight with his father, forced into battle with little to know information about the enemy but Lauda reveals himself quickly as the Schwarzette pilot.

Now to my final point of discussion: Lauda

Lauda is Guel Jeturk's half brother,

he has been robbed of his father, the parent that binds him to Guel, and then his brother, who has been "taken" from him by Suletta Mercury.

The way he has made sense of the world and carried himself the entire series has centred on his attachment to his brother, and now that this everyday life centred on Guel has disappeared, and Patra is in the ICU, he wants to lash out at the ones who have taken everything from him.

To this end, he probably wants to kill Guel and here's a crazy thought: I think he will actually succeed in mortally wounding Guel. The story seems to suggest that Guel will win, but if they're baiting for another season they might pretend to kill Guel off.

What's more likely is that Lauda is killed by Guel and he has basically nothing left and becomes a nomad or goes to earth and takes care of the kids - it's not super clear what they're going to do with Guel if another season takes place.

I'm a diehard Guel fan but honestly his endgame is up in the air, he's not going to be a Char clone though, he's far above things like revenge and whatnot since Shaddiq is off the table.

If they sequel bait he will die, if they don't he won't.

Anyway, it was a great episode overall and this ties up another week of my thoughts & theories.

The unicorn thing was the best part by far tho imo.

TL;DR ANOTHER WEEK OF G WITCH LOVING OTHER GUNDAM SERIES

#g witch spoilers #g witch #the witch from mercury #gundam #gundam unicorn

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

QUIT: a One-Shot Magnus Archives Fic

It’s a stupid-drafty manor—huge, never properly lit, all its frippery fraying at the edges. It has literal skeletons in the walls. It has too many rooms, a foyer right out of Crimson Peak, an empty cement hole with crumbling cherubs in the back yard that might have once been someone’s idea of a pond, and a library with more cursed books than Gerry could shake a match at.

The part of Gerry that once used Sharpies to blacken his eyebrows loves this place with a truly unholy passion.

If only it didn’t belong to the reason the world was going to end.

——-

Tragedy one-shot? Check.

Extinction Martin? Check.

Gerry/Jon if you squint? Check.

Bittersweet ending? Check.

Major character death. Y'all are warned.

AO3 link | Playlist

QUIT

“Really?” says Gerry.

Jon won’t look at him. Instead, he exhales, smoke funneling between his lips in a slow, controlled fog. “Really.”

Gerry rolls his eyes.

“I felt that,” says Jon, who isn’t looking at him, who doesn’t need to look at him anymore to know what Gerry does.

“So today’s a day of broken promises, is it?” says Gerry, leaning on the wall beside him. The brick shows through his arms; breeze picks up, erasing the evidence of Jon’s transgression, but doesn’t move Gerry’s long hair at all.

“I’m not breaking a promise,” says Jon. “I’m… relapsing.”

“Elias?” says Gerry.

“No,” says Jon, and takes another drag.

Gerry’s sigh matches pace with Jon’s exhale. Elbow on the wall, he props his head on his hand, watching Jon.

“So it’s floors and short walls, now,” Jon remarks, still not looking at him. “Or are you just pretending to lean on that? Getting a ghostly core workout? Or is it only horizontal structures that support you?”

Gerry laughs softly. “Keep asking, Archivist. I’m sure it’ll all make sense someday.”

“There have to be rules of some kind,” Jon says, and points at Gerry with the cigarette. “And you know not to call me Archivist.”

“If you’re going to be a twat, I get to call you what I want,” says Gerry.

Jon doesn’t rise to that, doesn’t respond at all, and that’s how Gerry knows it was really bad today.

Jon exhales again.

The smoke drifts away from them, lingering over dead grass, past the few old-growth trees in the back of the estate, dissipating in the direction of the town.

“So,” says Gerry, drawing the word out. “What’d he do?”

“Made me watch,” says Jon, which means exactly nothing.

“That’s every day.” And he guesses. “Did you finally find Martin?”

Jon’s jaw tightens. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s nice,” says Gerry, who never learned good boundaries growing up, who never lived in a world that rewarded them. “What was it then? Basira hot on the trail?”

“Fuck,” says Jon, so quietly it almost didn’t happen, and finally stubs out the cigarette on the wall. Defiantly, he leaves it there.

“You know that won’t upset Elias, right?” says Gerry as Jon walks away. “You’re littering, Dickavist.”

Jon pauses. “Pick it up yourself, then, unless the rules say you can’t,” he snaps, and walks away.

Wow. It was really bad today.

Gerry shrugs to no one and floats back inside.

#

Gerry still doesn’t feel things the way he should.  There’s a numbness there, silently stifling; it got really bad when Herbert and Montauk still had his book. When he still was a book.

But like his ability to touch, it’s been slowly getting better, too. Maybe it’s because of Jon, maybe not; this is all unknown territory.

One thing Gerry feels quite keenly now, as he floats inside: Elias is a monster, but damn, the man has taste.

It’s a stupid-drafty manor—huge, never properly lit, all its frippery fraying at the edges. It has literal skeletons in the walls. It has three cellars and an underground rail line to an abandoned coal mine. It has too many rooms, a foyer right out of Crimson Peak, an empty cement hole with crumbling cherubs in the back yard that might have once been someone’s idea of a pond, and a library with more cursed books than Gerry could shake a match at.

The part of Gerry that once used Sharpies to blacken his eyebrows loves this place with a truly unholy passion.

If only it didn’t belong to the reason the world was going to end.

“Still here?” says Elias, who manages to pull off the velvet dressing gown look. The man looks sleepy; he’s got tea in a china cup so fine that even the diffused light of this place makes it glow. “You’re free to wander, you know. You could go elsewhere and bother other people.”

Slowly, languorously, Gerry flips him off with both hands.

Elias sighs. “I will find your book, Mr. Keay. When I do, there are many things I could do with it that do not involve your… release. One might think you have better things to do than aggravate me in the interim.”

“One might think you have better things to do than suck a dick,” says Gerry with great cheer.

“So you talked to Jon.” Elias sips his tea.

Gerry doesn’t deny it. He knows he’s always bitchier after Elias has finished with Jon for the day, and he is long past the point where anything like that could embarrass him. “Get anything out of the daily torture session?”

“Yes,” says Elias. “Martin’s taken a secondary school.”

Ah.

Gerry sighs. “Well, that explains that.”

“Indeed.” Elias sips. “Unfortunately, it seems to have brought out Jon’s more… obstreperous nature.. He walked out before we were finished. Quite inconvenient.”

Even knowing how awful he is, some days, Elias still takes Gerry’s breath away. “Wow,” Gerry says. “Wow.”

“Yes, yes. I’m quite the monster. If you see him, do tell him we need to continue, won’t you? Unless he wants more schools to be taken, of course.” And Elias continues down the hall toward whatever psychopath thing he has next on his agenda.

Gerry had been going to give Jon some space. Jon wasn’t fun to be around when he was in his head quite this deeply, but a school…

Children…

Gerry sighs. “Damn,” he mutters to himself, going through the trouble of walking up the stairs instead of floating.

He doesn’t want the Extinction to win.

He doesn't care that much about what any of the Fears are doing these days, particularly. But the Extinction just feels so… personal.

Offensive, Gerry realizes, and puzzles over that thought. He finds the Extinction offensive, and isn’t sure why.

He doesn’t bother to knock on Jon’s door.

#

Jon’s on the canopy bed, fully clothed, face down.

“Nice,” says Gerry, floating over. “I’d paint this, if I could still hold a brush. Call it, Perfectly Useless Despair, and hang it on the front wall.”

Jon is silent.

Gerry goes for broke. “Elias told me it was a school.”

“Secondary school,” says Jon into his pillow. “Children. Small children, turned to pieces of warped plastic and concrete. Small children, their shadows ripped away from them with screams and transformed into Inheritors that only vanished in the sunlight because we got damned lucky. Children. Martin… Martin’s…” Jon stops.

Gerry climbs onto the bed and lies on his back next to Jon, staring at the faded canopy. “Well,” he says. “That sucks.”

Jon pushes himself up on his elbows just so he can scowl at him.

Gerry looks at him, expression mild.

Jon’s scowls are cute. Gerry wants to muss his hair. He suspects he might be able to, soon. He’s getting a lot better at touching things these days.

“So?” says Gerry. “What’s to be done about it?”

“Nothing,” Jon snaps. “That’s the… that’s the whole thing. There’s nothing to be done.”

“Not according to Elias,” says Gerry.

“Elias is wrong,” says Jon, just because.

“Then why are you still here?” says Gerry. “Letting him use you like this.”

He wonders if Jon has any idea how good his sad puppy look is. Probably not.

“Because he might not be wrong,” says Jon, softer. “What if I can stop him, somehow? What if I…” Jon flops back down, face into the pillow.

“I mean, you can’t,” says Gerry. “That’s not what you’re trying to do, remember? Not stop him. Expose him. But you still think you can save him instead, don’t you? Pull him back from the fire, and all that?”

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” says Jon into the pillow. “He’s not… evil. He’s lost.”

“I think you’re half right,” says Gerry. “He’s lost. He’s lost his hope, lost his way, lost everything. Thinks this is what has to happen, somehow. But he does know what he’s doing.”

Jon makes a small, heartbroken sound.

Gerry likes Jon’s sounds—he’s such a vocal person—but not the bad ones. Not this.

So he goes for truth as the only healing balm he knows.

“I can’t even see him like you do, and I know he knows what he’s doing. You won’t be able to help him if you don’t acknowledge that much.” Gerry’s tone isn’t gentle. He doesn’t really do gentle; it seems like false comfort, unfamiliar and cheap.

Jon shakes a little. Possibly crying.

Gerry purses his lips. “Hey.”

Nothing.

“Hey. Let me ask you this. If you could talk to Martin now—but not as he is now, before Peter got hold of him, and it all went wrong—what do you think he’d want you to do?”

“You sound like Elias,” says Jon, and the tightness in his voice says Gerry was right about the crying.

“Stab a man in the heart, why don’t you,” says Gerry. “Really, though. Would he ask you to just let him wander around doing this? Or would he ask you to stop him?”

“He’d ask me to save him,” says Jon, and they both know it’s a lie.

“Uh, huh,” says Gerry. “So you think he wants you to save him, while it’s costing lives. Not stop him. To let more people die while you try to figure out a way to rescue someone completely consumed by a Fear.”

No one can undo that. They both know it.

“I,” says Jon.

“First time he’s done children, right?” says Gerry. “Won’t be the last. He’s been building up to it.”

“I know,” whispers Jon.

Gerry sighs.

Gerry knows Elias is waiting upstairs in hopes that Jon will resume their session—this intense diving into the Eye via both their powers, extending Jon’s abilities, utilizing Elias’ experience.

It’s brutal. It’s violational. It’s increasing Jon’s strength tenfold by the day, and… that’s what seems to be needed.

The more keenly Jon can see Martin, the better chance he has of seeing past his protections, making him vulnerable, somehow. Because apparently, Martin can’t just be shot, or blown up, or whatever, so it’s going to require something extra.

No one from the other powers will go near him anymore. Not since Martin turned Peter Lukas into a pressed-ash statue of himself. Not since Martin reduced Jared Hopworth to a pool of grease like dirty fossil fuel. Not since Jude Perry’s fire turned toxic, and she burned, screaming, leaving weird, sulfurous smears all over the road.

The Extinction isn’t vulnerable in any of the usual ways.

But Martin Blackwood might be. Which would require seeing him, stripping him free like peeling off his skin. Gerry’s not fully clear on how it works because he was never an avatar of anything. Just knew how to work the system, like his mum.

It’s all a mess.

“So,” says Gerry. “I have a growing suspicion.”

“Good for you,” mutters Jon.

“I think you’re already strong enough to do it.”

Jon goes so, so still.

Bingo, Gerry thinks, and is inordinately pleased that he knows something Elias (possibly) does not. “I’ve got an idea.”

Jon grunts.

“Let’s go for a walkabout.”

Jon turns his head slowly to stare at him.

Oh, hi, Gerry thinks, because their faces are inches apart, and it’s nice.

“A walkabout,” grumps Jon.

“Yeah,” says Gerry. “I’ll go with you. You don’t have to do anything. We’ll just… walk and see. Get out of the Haunted Mansion. Remember why you’re even bothering to try to stop the Extinction in the first place.”

Jon scowls.

“Afraid?” Gerry smirks at him.

“Don’t be absurd. Of course I am.”

“Good. You’ll go all superpowered then.”

Jon rolls his eyes.

Gerry thinks he can almost feel Jon’s irritated huff. Or maybe not, but it’s nice to imagine. “You really just want to stay here playing Vulcan mind-meld with Elias all day?”

“Ugh, no,” says Jon.

“Sooo?” says Gerry.

“You can do that?” says Jon, brow knitting thunderously. “Walkabout?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“How? Are you ever going to tell me how you’re getting stronger?” says Jon. “You don’t even seem to be… suffering anymore.”

He isn’t. “Sure, someday, I’ll tell you,” says Gerry. When Elias can’t see. When Elias can’t get involved, ruin things, bury them both in a bog.

Jon balances on the precipice of decision, and Gerry dearly wants to tip him over.

“You can eat ice cream while I moan lasciviously,” he says.

Jon laughs. “All right, all right,” he says, struggling off the over-soft mattress.

Gerry grins and hopes Elias is keeping score.

#

“I just don’t know why Martin came to Wales,” mutters Jon, his greatcoat fluttering in the wind, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Why we all had to get dragged here.”

Here is a lovely town called Caerphilly. It’s picturesque. There’s a cheese named after it. Merlin filmed here. It even has a castle.

It’s currently quarantined, traffic nearly gone, silent in the eerie way cities can be when humans have to stay inside.

“What, Elias’ Playboy Mansion doesn’t make it all worth the journey?” says Gerry.

Jon snorts. “He stole it.”

“Color me surprised. Did he kill anyone?”

Jon sighs. “Not exactly.”

Gerry waits. Jon doesn’t fill him in.

“Evil overlord, just less evil than the other evil overlord,” says Gerry, striding along beside him and absolutely unconcerned if anyone thinks he’s a ghost.

Jon doesn’t care, either. It’s all gone beyond that.

A woman hurries by, almost running. She’s carrying an umbrella, which she holds up to hide her face.

“They still think if he can’t see you, he can’t get you,” Jon murmurs, not turning his head to see her.

He. Martin.

“Makes sense,” says Gerry. “He was Eye, first. They all feel watched.”

“It’s not going to protect anyone,” says Jon. “They’re still going to work. They’re still going to school. He’s aiming for gatherings. Someone needs to tell them.”

The news hasn’t told anything much. Terrorist attacks is all that filters through, because nobody knows what it is, and the ECDC doesn’t know what it is, and whatever Section 31 officers are involved here have either succumbed to the trouble or have found nothing of use.

They won’t, either. There’s nothing of use to find.

“Good news,” says Gerry. “Nobody will tell them, and it’ll all get swept under the rug, and the conclusion will be utterly unsatisfying.”

Jon eyes him. “Thanks for that.”

“Not my first merry-go-round,” says Gerry.

“It’s the Senghenydd Disaster,” says Jon suddenly, knowing it. “It wasn’t the worst colliery tragedy,  nor even the most damaging, but… for some reason, that’s the one. That’s the reason he came here.”

“A coal thing? Huh. Guess that works. Pollution, or whatever.”

“This isn’t Captain Planet,” Jon mutters.

Gerry beams at him like he won something. “A pop culture reference? Really?”

“I don’t live under a rock.”

“Debatable,” says Gerry, pleased that he can pull Jon out from under said rock.

“He came here because it’s the only vacation he remembers taking when his father was around, and he learned what happened, and that hundreds died because the recommended safety updates were ignored. Greed mattered more than lives. Martin learned about the explosions, and felt awful,” says Jon. “He got angry. Angry at humans for it. It seeded… something in him.”

“That’s sad,” says Gerry, and means it. “How does it all feel to you?”

“Doomed.” Jon sighs and hunches his shoulders. “I think he could be moving much faster than he is, though.”

“But he hasn’t. Maybe he’s waiting for you.”

Gerry hadn’t meant that to punch Jon in the chest, but it seems to have. Jon stops walking and closes his eyes.

“Hey. You’re supposed to eat ice cream while I moan at you, remember?” says Gerry.

Jon smiles weakly. “Yeah. Even though it’s cold.”

“Shop up there’s open.”

Jon doesn't order ice cream. He does get a tea.

The person behind the counter won’t look at them. Is wearing a hat with a visor that covers the top half of their face.

Jon sighs.

“What are they calling him now?” says Gerry.

“The Smoking Man,” says Jon. “That’s what the children who—“ He stops.

“They called him that? To his face?”

“They never even saw him. He walked into the school, and just… just walked through the halls, doing nothing, doing… everything. He didn’t even stop. He just walked through one door and out the other, and when he left, nothing in there was alive.”

“Definitely escalating, then.”

Jon stares at his tea.

“How many people live here?” says Gerry.

“Currently, down from 43,407 to 34,248. Most have left, but… quite a few have died.”

Gerry whistles, low. “And the rest can’t leave.”

“Definitely not. The ECDC won’t let them.”

“You’ve been strong enough to end this for a while now, haven’t you?” says Gerry.

Jon looks… so sad.

Gerry gets it. Sort of. He suspects Jon’s love is different from his in manifestation and form, but he sort of gets it. “Why, then, are you letting Elias do this to you every day?”

“As long as I cooperate, he won’t… he won’t just… try to use someone else,” says Jon.

“Can’t, can he? Long as you’re the—“ Gerry stage whispers—“Archivist.”

“He could do loads of things with cannon fodder. He could shoot me and pick someone else, too. But…“ Jon stops.

“But?”

“Something I figured out, is all. During our sessions.” Jon finally sips his tea, and makes a face. “Ugh.”

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

“I don’t know if he can hear us now, or see us, or anything,” says Jon. “I can’t say.”

“You think you know something he doesn’t know you know? He’s literally splashing around in your head like a kiddy pool half the day.”

Jon says nothing.

“You know, you could just… remove the problem,” says Gerry.

Jon understands what he’s saying. “If I kill him, I kill everyone who works at the Institute.”

Gerry sighs. “You can’t save everybody, can you?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jon looks up, eyes burning, power thrumming through his gaze, and it’s so much.

Wow, Gerry thinks, and almost has to look away.

“You think I don’t know I can’t save everybody? That I keep having to… watch them die in front of me, or find out they died after a coma, or—“

“People die. It’s awful, but it happens.” Gerry puts his hand on Jon’s, and it works.

Jon freezes. Stares down.

His hand shows beneath Gerry’s, like an optical illusion.

“I know,” says Gerry. “All right? I know this isn’t easy. Neither of us have ever had easy choices to make. I get it.” It’s not gentle, but it is real, and it undoes some knot in Jon.

Jon slumps forward over his tea, not moving his hand. He covers his face with his other one. “I can’t save Martin. I know that.”

“So you’re just putting off the hard thing.”

“I… don’t want him to be him when I have to do whatever it is I have to do.”

“But if he’s gone that far, how many people will he have killed?”

Jon says nothing.

“What are you going to do, anyway?” Gerry says. “I get the exposing him, or whatever. But what then?”

“There’s a sniper.”

Gerry blinks. “What, really?”

“At least one. I haven’t looked that closely.”

“That would be a thing,” says Gerry, shaking his head.

Jon looks at their hands. “How did you do this?”

“Doesn’t matter right now,” says Gerry. “Wasn’t actually sure it would work.”

“Feels like a puff of air, almost.”

“Better than nothing. Hey—you’ll be able to share that cigarette soon.”

“After you made me promise to quit? You hypocrite,” says Jon, smiling weakly.

“Can dead people even be hypocrites?”

Jon laughs softly. It’s got a note of wonder in it, and Gerry privately determines to make him laugh like that again. “I don’t think even Thomas Aquinas thought of that one.”

“Bet you he did,” says Gerry. “And it’s in a weird manuscript that somehow got written by him three years before he was born, and Leitner got hold of it in 1973.”

“And it belongs to the Vast, and makes you dance on the head of a pin,” Jon says.

They both laugh.

Jon’s smile fades, and he holds Gerry’s gaze with one that no longer burns, but is just a man’s. “Elias wants me marked by the Extinction,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s why he’s so determined it’s got to be me. That… desire is enough for him to keep me alive, and not go after anyone else. And it’s important to me he doesn’t go after anyone else.”

“Marked by the—why?” says Gerry.

Jon looks down again. “I don’t think he wanted me to know, but… a little late for that.”

“I usually know more than you do in terms of the esoteric stuff,” says Gerry, “but you’ve lost me on this one.”

“He wants me marked by all of them. All the Fears. Then he thinks if I… do the Eye’s ritual, for the Watcher’s Crown—”

”But why would he… that wouldn’t just bring the Eye. If you were actually marked by everybody. That’d…” Gerry inhales. “Fuck me, that would work.”

Jon looks at him. “You got it already?”

He snorts. “The way I was raised? Yeah, of course. And yeah, it really would work. Heh—my mum would be eating herself if she found this out because she hadn’t thought of it first.” Gerry makes a face. “Though if she had….”

“She’d have tried it with you,” says Jon, quietly.

“Maybe,” he says. “After she figured out the whole von Closen legacy thing wasn’t going to happen.”

“You’re not exactly old,” says Jon. “She gave up on it awfully quickly.”

“Yeah, well.” Gerry shrugs. “She took it personally when I came out at fourteen. What can you do?”

“My grandmother never asked, nor addressed the topic in any way,” says Jon, looking at the table. “I have absolutely no idea how she’d have responded to something like asexuality. Physical intimacy did not exist in my house.”

Gerry shakes his head. “Meanwhile, my mum used to bring in random men for rituals she made up, and whatever she did to them, they always left tasting blood.”

“That’s… specific,” says Jon.

“Yeah, breakfast conversations were real fucked up,” says Gerry cheerfully.

“Makes me wonder how we aren’t all completely insane,” says Jon.

“We’re miracles,” says Gerry, so seriously that Jon laughs again.

“Dancing on the head of a pin.”

“Wings?”

“Of course we have wings, if we’re taking the place of angels,” says Jon, and it’s a smile like the hint of sunrise.

Then Jon goes very still. All the color drains from his face.

Gerry doesn’t even have to ask, but he does. “What?”

“He’s here.”

That was fast, thinks Gerry.

“Did you know this would happen?” whispers Jon.

“No.” It’s mostly true.

Jon stands, leaving his tea half-drunk, and heads out the door.

#

Gerry really wishes he’d been there to see Martin take out Peter Lukas. Though from what Jon told him, maybe it wouldn’t have been so good to see.

It had all been building for months to that one moment beneath the Institute, in the heart of the Panopticon that Gertrude hypothesized but never really found.

Months of Martin forced to study the Extinction, to obsess over it, to consider it from every angle.

Months of avoiding Jon while trying to save him, of bleeding himself out to keep Jon from drowning.

And there, standing over Jonah Magnus’ body while Elias and Peter had a smug-off, Martin was quietly breaking.

It must have been happening for some time, but who knew? It wasn’t like he’d talked to anyone.

And when Jon had arrived, trying to help, desperate to save Martin, Peter had just… reacted, shoving Jon into the Lonely without so much as a by-your-leave.

Because of a bet. Because, somehow, of Elias.

Jon had been trapped, separated as if by glass, and won’t talk about how it felt—but oh, he could still see what was happening.

Saw Martin’s face twist, something behind his eyes breaking.

Saw Elias’s expression change when he realized there’d been a miscalculation.

Saw Peter’s smirk as he turned back to Martin and told him to get stabbing.

Instead, Martin turned Peter into volcanic ash.

It wasn’t fast.

It wasn’t quiet.

Elias had already run, or he’d probably have died, too.

Jon had watched, his shouts muffled as if in snow, his self insubstantial and forever alone. Crying words he could not hear as he watched Martin sob on his knees, watched him beat his fists bloody on the ground, and then watched him… calm.

Watched Martin lift his head and look right at him, trapped in thick and choking mist.

And Martin watched Jon aching, watched Jon weeping, watched Jon feeling more separated than he ever had in his life.

And Martin had nodded, and just… walked away.

Like this had decided him.

Like he was done.

It had taken Jon a week to walk out of the Lonely on his own.

By then, it was far too late.

#

Gerry understands being done.

He’s been done. It’s a bad place to be.

Jon understands, too, though, and that’s… not so good.

Jon’s like a bloodhound now, marching up the street, up the hill, unerring in direction while Gerry follows behind.

It’s surprising to Gerry that he can feel Martin coming. It’s cold.

Not temperature-cold. This is some other kind of thing, a sucking thing, draining color and air and life.

They crest the hill, and there he is.

It just looks like Martin. A large man, sweet-faced, in a simple cable-knit sweater and jeans. There is nothing in his body language or expression that indicates any kind of threat.

With one exception.

Martin’s eyes are gone, and smoke curls from his skull like the lazy smolder from a dying junkyard fire.

“Hi, Jon,” says Martin, and it’s his voice, but it isn’t, and it itches in Gerry’s head, even though he doesn’t have a head to itch.

Jon is already crying, though quietly. Tears stream down his face, dampening his beard.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” says Martin, and it’s so gentle, and so kind. He holds out his hand.

Not what Gerry expected, that’s for sure.

“I’m so sorry,” says  Jon.

“It’s okay,” says Martin. “I’ve fixed it.”

“Fixed… Martin, you’re killing people.”

“I’m saving them. Do you know what happens if they stay here? Do you?” And no one with smoke pouring out of their heads should seem so kind, and so certain, and so good. “They get eaten, or burned. Or chased, or manipulated. They get twisted, and isolated, and burrowed into, and stared at until they go mad. But you know that, Jon. It’s all happened to you already.”

His hand is still out, and it feels like the world has gone still.

Gerry says not one word. He has no idea if Martin could do something to him or not, but if they all get through this, he wants to be there after.

It surprises him, honestly. But it’s a good feeling, so Gerry settles into it and waits.

Jon seems to be trying to answer. He keeps swallowing, over and over, looking from Martin’s face to his hand. “I don’t understand.”

Martin smiles, and it is sweet like setting sun shining on honey. “I know. But I do.”

“Martin, they… were children.”

“Remember when you asked me to gouge out our eyes together and run away?” says Martin as if recalling a date.

Well, Jon hadn’t told Gerry about that. Mental note made.

“Yes,” whispers Jon.

“And I wouldn’t do it. Remember?”

“Yes,” whispers Jon.

“I’m sorry. You had the right idea.”

“I…”

Martin’s hand is still out.

Jon, seemingly unaware, has taken one step toward him.

“You put the choice on me, and I didn’t listen. Remember?”

Jon doesn’t answer this time. He’s unblinking, staring.

Martin waits. He’s as unmoving as the mountains.

“Why are you… telling me this?” says Jon. He takes another step.

“Because I made the hard choice this time. You don't have to, Jon. It's okay. Take my hand.”

Jon looks at it for a long moment, then back at Martin. “And what then?”

“And then we stop all of this. No rituals. No Entities. It’s all over. Take my hand.”

“I don’t… want to kill anyone,” says Jon.

“You don’t have to. I’m doing the hard thing so you don’t have to. I’m done, Jon. So are you. I’m done watching you be hurt. You’re done with all these people and everything as much as I am.”

Jon’s voice breaks. “I… I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Just be with me? I love you, you know.”

Jon’s shoulders slump. “I love you, too.”

“Just be with me. That’s all I want.”

“Until… it’s over?”

“Until it’s over. Just be with me. I don’t really want anything else.”

Jon’s walking, and reaching out.

And then Martin has him by the hand, and Martin is pulling him in, and they’ve come together with a slow perfection like the inevitable clash of stars, and Jon’s eyes close as they kiss, but Martin’s don’t.

And Martin’s dipping him just slightly, just enough to keep Jon off balance, and Jon’s arms are around his neck, and the kiss goes on, and on, and on.

Gerry forgot that Jon doesn’t need to have his eyes open anymore to do things.

Things are changing.

Jon fits in Martin’s arms, fits in a way Gerry has trouble parsing, a way he’s never seen fitting before. Martin’s arms go from steady to tight, his hands from holding to clutching, and desperation speeds their kiss into something like gasping, into starvation and sharpness and need.

And when Jon opens his eyes, he is in grief and at peace and on the precipice of great sorrow, and it pierces even though Gerry isn’t the focus at all.

“Until it's over?” whispers Jon.

“Until it's over,” whispers Martin, and his voice doesn’t itch, and tears are sliding down his cheeks and onto Jon’s collar. Smoke still rises from his empty eyes, but it’s turned white like a clean, sweet fire of freshly hewn wood, and he is trembling. “I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry.”

“I love you,” Jon whispers back.

The shot rings out.

Gerry thinks, Oh. We were being followed by a sniper, and then Jon is sobbing, and all the sound in the world comes back, including all the sirens they hadn’t known were there.

#

They couldn’t make Jon leave Martin’s body until it had completely turned to dust.

Dust is the wrong word, but it… well, it didn’t decay. There was no odor, and no rot; it just… wasn’t alive anymore, in a way that defied paltry things like bacteria and the release of gasses.

What’s left looks like cotton so old it’s gone brittle.

Organic matter is what Gerry hears some of them mutter when Jon is finally coaxed away.

It’s all been so weird of late that nobody even cares that Gerry’s hovering around like a ghost.

Jon has not spoken.  Daisy speaks—Daisy, who made the shot, who’s been following Jon since they came up here, waiting for the one moment her shot would actually count.

Jon ignores her. And the emergency workers. And everyone. He sits in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a thin, silvery blanket, staring at nothing.

Gerry is familiar with grief, has always known sorrow. He doesn't know how to do comfort like an ordinary person, but he can be here, so… he will.

Gerry sits beside him. “Hey.”

Nothing.

“I’d like to share that cigarette now,” says Gerry.

Jon manages to look at him. “It’s over.”

“It—” says Gerry, then realizes Jon isn’t looking at him. Jon’s looking through him.

He turns to find Elias.

Elias, who looks like Christmas came early. “Jon. You’ve done so well.”

“It’s over,” says Jon. “I know what you planned. It won’t happen.”

“Of course, Jon, whatever you say,” Elias lies through his teeth, and smiles. “I take it you’re going back to London right away?”

Jon doesn’t answer. He keeps staring.

Elias’ smile falters.

Gerry can’t see a change in Jon’s look, but he can feel it.

A heat, this time, the opposite of what Martin was doing, a tidal thing, a filling thing, renewing color and air and life.

And whatever it is, it is making Elias shake in his fancy shoes.

Elias looks like he’s seen… well, a ghost. He can’t seem to look away from Jon.

“Do you believe me now?” says Jon.

Elias nods sharply. He sets his jaw. “I’ll see you back at the Institute,” he promises, dire, and walks away.

“Go to hell,” Jon mutters, and huddles under his thin silver blanket.

“You have got to tell me what happened there,” says Gerry.

“I started to unravel him.”

“Right. What’s that?”

“Untie him from his god. I can unhook him.”

“You… what?” Gerry stares. “You can make someone unbecome?”

“No. No, he can’t be… freed. Nobody can. But I could end him.”

Gerry whistles, low. “Would you really do it? What about all the other people connected to the Institute?”

“I can’t save everyone,” Jon says darkly.

This is a hard day to be Jon, Gerry thinks, and touches his hand.

Jon looks up as though swimming up from a deep well. Tears still fill his eyes, unshed.

“Let’s get out of here,” says Gerry. “Not back to the Playboy Mansion, either. If you’re willing to do a little impersonation, I do have a good bit squared away in the bank. Bet it’s still there.”

“Look, this is absurd. Can you even do that?” says Jon. “Where is your book? How can you run around like this, and… do this?” He puts his other hand over Gerry’s, and it works.

Gerry grins. It’s a naughty grin, the one his mum used to call up to trouble. “Still haven’t figured it out?”

“No, I haven’t figured it out. You just appeared, a few days after the Lonely. You’ve been with me ever since, and you haven’t told me how.”

“Some Archivist you are.”

“Gerry…”

“It’s you.”

Jon blinks at him in confusion that Gerry honestly finds adorable. “What?”

“Sims,” says Daisy, wandering over. “They need a debrief.”

“I won’t give one,” says Jon.

Daisy ignores Gerry with a will. “You have to.”

“No, I don’t, any more than you have to report all the bodies you buried in the woods. Make it go away, Daisy. I’m done.”

Daisy gives him a searing look, but she walks off.

Jon turns back. “Explain.”

“Like I said, it’s you. When you read my page. It didn’t matter that you burned it, because I’m… archived, I guess.” He shrugs. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m written in you. So, uh. Bit awkward, but you’re stuck with me.”

Jon stares. He wipes his face on his sleeve. Looks more than a little lost. “I… I think I’m… actually fine with that. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me, though.”

“I’m not. Though I’m sorry about Martin,” says Gerry, trying.

Jon smiles a strange smile, small and sad and final. “I did save him, in the end. In a way.”

“He was himself when he died.”

“Yes.”

“The thing you didn't want to have happen.”

“This was about him, not me. It… was all I could give him.”

Gerry studies him. “I don’t know how to be… comforting. But I can be with you while you figure it out. And I still owe you some inappropriate ice cream. So… let’s go, Jon.”

Jon hesitates.

“It’s a choice, you know? Grief has to be walked through. You can’t outrun it, or hide.”

Jon exhales slowly. “I… I think I understand. What will we do?”

And Gerry says the first thing that comes to mind. “Quit.”

Jon laughs weakly. “I can’t. I can’t quit being Archivist. Quit the Eye. Any of it.”

“Maybe not, but we can do it our own way, can’t we?”

“I…”

“Look,” says Gerry. “I followed Gertrude around, and she did whatever the hell she wanted for fifty years. I think the world can handle you going just a little bit rogue.”

Jon looks him in the eye.

It’s almost too much.

Gerry loves it. “Intense,” he says.

Jon looks at their hands. “Like touching a whisper,” he says.

“Is that a yes, or…” says Gerry.

“Yes. Let’s go. Back to London, and then…”

“Quit.”

“Quit.” Jon smiles a little. “Somehow, some way. We quit.”

“They’ll never know what hit them,” says Gerry, hopping down from the ambulance.

He offers his hand. Maybe it’s too soon; maybe it’s wrong of him, to do this just after Martin.

But Gerry doesn’t think so. He thinks it’s maybe the most important thing he ever could do.

Especially when Jon takes it, grips, and it actually works.

“I won’t be okay for a while,” Jon says, softly.

Gerry nods. “I think you’re allowed.”

Jon smiles. It’s barely there, like Gerry’s hand, but it is there.

They’re gone before Daisy or anyone even notices, only the thin silver blanket left behind.

#tma fic #the magnus archives fic #magpod fic #jon/gerry #extinction martin #the extinction #tma fanfic #magpod #mag pod fic #gerry keay #gerard keay #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

[archive-of-artprompts]

Send in a trope and I'll draw or write an OC/Character with that prompt - Horror edition

tropes from tvtropes

Abnormal Dental Growth: Growing another set of pearly whites to replace the lost ones.

Absurdly Sharp Claws - Claws that are unrealistically sharp.

Afterlife Express - A train/vehicle that takes souls to the afterlife.

The Ageless - Characters who can't die from old age but can still be killed through other means.

Anomalous Art: Works of art that possess strange, paranormal powers.

Anthropomorphic Personification - Living, roughly hominoid embodiments of abstract concepts.

Bad Black Barf - Black vomit is a sign of oncoming Body Horror or Bloody Horror.

Barred from the Afterlife - A dead character cannot enter any form of an afterlife.

Beast Man - A humanoid character with animal traits.

Becoming the Costume - A magic spell that transforms people into whomever they're dressed up as. When this happens on Halloween, expect the victims of this curse to be turned into all kinds of monsters, fictional characters, or famous persons.

Becoming the Mask - A façade permanently warps a personality.

Bedsheet Ghost - A white sheet with eyeholes to look like a ghost.

Belly Mouth - When your stomach not only growls, it bites.

Blood Bath - Bathing in a significant volume of blood.

Bloody Hallucinations of Guilt - Guilt over another's death has a character seeing blood where there isn't any.

Broken Ace - Being The Ace (someone who is ridiculously good at what they do) came at a terrible price.

Bloody Handprint - A handprint made of blood.

Came Back Wrong - Please make sure your necromancers are highly trained professionals.

Creepy Asymmetry - Something about this character's body is uneven and unnerving.

Creepy Ballet - A ballet — or the events backstage — are spooky.

Creepy Doll - A doll which is malevolent or just spooky.

Dead All Along - A character is revealed to have been dead the whole time.

Deadly Game - A game in which losers are killed.

Despair Event Horizon - All hope is lost.

Death Is Gray - Fading to gray upon death.

Dying Candle - Death indicated by a candle going out.

Eldritch Abomination - A being that just makes no sense.

Extra Eyes - A being with more than the standard number of eyes.

Eyes Do Not Belong There - Or there. Or there. And definitely not there.

Flaming Skulls - Skulls on fire.

Flower Mouth - Flower shapes look less pretty when lined with teeth.

Frankenstein's Monster - A monster made from being sewn together from dismembered corpses

Freak Lab Accident - While running experiments, you become the experiment.

Ghost Amnesia - A ghost who has forgotten details or the entirety of their former life.

Ghostly Animals - The spirits of dead animals.

Haunting the Guilty - A character is haunted by the visions of those they've murdered

Headless Horseman - A headless rider who haunts certain areas.

The Kingslayer - Someone who kills a king or other person in position of leadership.

Kiss of Death - A kiss that causes death.

Klingon Promotion - Someone gains a position or title by killing the last person who possessed it.

Living Doll Collector - Mere toys are not enough for this person.

Mad Artist - Death is as good a medium to work in as any…

The Mad Hatter - Crazy and loving every second of it.

Mad Scientist - A scientist who doesn't let little things like ethics or practicality get in the way of their work.

Madness Mantra - A (usually threatening) line being shown repeatedly all over the screen, or a voice saying it over and over again.

Man in the Machine - You are locked in a metal coffin, but at least you have internet access.

Mask of Sanity - Doing a very good job of concealing the madness within.

Monster Clown - Clowns that are disturbing in various ways.

Odd Organ Up Top - When a different body part or organ is serving as a head.

Ominous Obsidian Ooze - Black goo can only mean disaster.

The Ophelia - A fragile, delicate young woman whose madness inspires more pity than fear.

Organ Theft - Someone stealing your blood or one of your organs while you're helpless to stop it.

Pumpkin Person - Monsters with jack-o-lanterns for heads.

Pyromaniac - Loves fire to an unhealthy degree.

Reluctant Monster - An Always Chaotic Evil species is oblivious/reluctant to their deeds.

Room Full of Crazy - The decor of a room reflects someone's mental state.

Scream Discretion Shot - You hear the scream, but you don't see what they're screaming about

The Secret of Long Pork Pies - The secret of a popular food item is human flesh.

Seven Deadly Sins - Seven vices that are believed to be very sinful

Shapeshifter Mashup - Become all of the things!… at the same time.

Stepford Smiler - Employing a cheerful façade to mask how you really feel about your problems.

Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl - The ghost of a girl with long hair that curtains her face.

Symbolic Mutilation - And sometimes it's done to represent something.

Tainted Veins - Very much not the color blood is supposed to be.

Uncanny Valley Girl - Girl seems wholesome, but there's something about her that screams suspicious.

The Walls Have Eyes - You're being watched…

White Shirt of Death - A character dies in white clothing that visually contrasts with their bloody demise

Wight in a Wedding Dress - A female ghost dressed in a wedding dress

Windmill Crusader - Being obsessed with attacking an enemy that doesn't exist.

Wolf Man - Wolf-like humanoid.

#monster prompt #horror prompt #oc prompt #words prompt #art prompt #writing prompt #character prompt #tropes #tv tropes

[dicenne]

AUGUST DWC DAY 7 - GROWTH

‘Change is inevitable, but personal growth is a choice.’ It was something his great-grandfather Dicenne, the man he was named after, had always told him while growing up. Great-grandparents aren’t supposed to have favorites, but there had always been a strong connection between the two from the start. Along with the name, they both shared the same orangish-red hair color, the taller than average height, and extreme strength; traits that none of the other Amberlights had been blessed with. There was a running joke within the family that one of the Amberlights had a child with a Vrykul somewhere along their line and only a scant few since had been touched by those genetics. (A joke, but honestly it would explain quite a bit.)

The quote was a good lesson that Dicenne had carried with him throughout the years. Change was impossible to avoid in a world cursed with nearly constant war, and survival was all about adapting to whatever life threw at you - and life had thrown an awful lot at him. He had lost his entire extended family and most of his friends in the Scourge invasion, his blacksmith shop had been completely razed during the Legion invasion, both of his parents had passed within years of each other, Kara had been taken and traumatized for life, he nearly lost his life during his time in the military, and so, so much more. All of those events were awful and life-altering, but he had managed.

It was the death of his wife and newborn child on the same day that had broken him, and if it weren’t for his great-grandfather Dicenne, he probably wouldn’t be here today. The elder Amberlight had gone through a similar experience back in the day, he too had lost a wife and a child, but in an accident. It was something he had never known about his great-grandfather, considering the man was now happily married with plenty of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

No one ever truly gets over that type of loss, but you eventually learn how to smile and have fun once more, and you remember how to give your love again. The healing process had felt excruciatingly slow and as if there would never come a day when he didn’t feel absolutely crushed. But the time passes regardless, and then you look back to where you once were and realize how much you have grown since then

He would never be fully healed, but he realized that he didn’t need to be. He still had so much more love to give in this life, and he was no longer going to allow his past to hold him back from doing just that.

@daily-writing-challenge

#augustdwc2023 #dwc2023 #story #dicenne