I've noticed something about the Traffic SMPs: Each season is modeled after the previous winner's path to victory.
Third Life is the "base" form. Every season follows the same general rules that Third Life followed- (roughly) three lives, only red lives can kill unprovoked, the last one standing wins. Green-yellow-red as the life system's colors. The mechanics of Third Life exist in every following season, and it is only the seasonal gimmick that changes.
And the winner of Third Life was Grian. Grian, who spent the game trying to make up for a life he never meant to take. Trying to pay Scar back for what he did. 'Giving up' his own lives, in a sense. Grian, who regularly worried and fretted about how many lives his partner was on, and who would have had far less anxiety had his partner been able to have more lives. Grian, who broke the only-reds-may-kill rule from the very beginning.
Last Life, then, echoes these truths. Players are able to directly gift each other lives. They could hold onto as many lives as they were able to gather, with no upper limit, and could spawn in with double as many as they had in Third Life. There was a special role designed to push greens and yellows to kill before they were red. Grian implemented these actions into his time in Third Life, and so the universe gave him a world defined by them.
And then Scott won Last Life. Scott, who was defined in Last Life by his undying loyalty. By his connection with Pearl and, later, with Cleo; and by his refusal to betray them until it was absolutely necessary. Scott, who denied the bloodlust of being the boogieman because of a refusal to betray those he cared about.
Then Double Life implements soulmates, people who you cannot betray. Soulmates, who are bound by the fabric of the universe to each other, who are expected to trust each other implicitly and stand alongside each other until death does them part. They are defined by their loyalty to each other, and by their inability to kill each other. Just as Scott acted in Last Life.
So, then, the question becomes this:
When the victor of a Traffic SMP is defined by loneliness, by an air of doom that follows her, by being isolated from all who meet her, what mark does that leave on the world that follows?
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soulmate "we would find each other in every lifetime" au, but whenever you find each other there is always just a slight mistiming.
in some instances you meet mere moments before disaster strikes. in others you are forced to be enemies due to untimely misunderstandings. sometimes you only catch a glimpse of the other in passing before they disappear as though they never existed. there would be the odd occasion where only one of you recognised the other, with them not knowing who you are or of the history which haunts your conscience.
and then there would be times you find yourself desperately holding the other, the tears which burn tracks down your cheeks being the only source of warmth on their cold skin.
despite the unnerving predictability fate has in store for you, you both cannot help but to hope that maybe — just maybe — this next lifetime will be kinder to you both; kinder in a way that your souls are not torn apart before they can even meld together.
(though such sentiment never comes true, it doesn't stop the feeble hope from burning aflame when you cross paths every lifetime. repeatedly, incessantly, and without fail.)
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hey, so. funny thing.
@whinysteve and i have been going insane for like two days because we couldn't find this one fic we really liked, and we both remembered reading it not so long ago but somehow neither of us could recall how it ended? and we kept saying that it's so GOOD and how the heck did it just disappear? well, after hours of losing my mind going through my ao3 history, the steve/tony tag with various keywords, the findingstony blog... it. it hit me that i can't find it because it doesn't exist. because it was the soulmates au idea you posted like two weeks ago where their words only show up after they've met their soulmate.
i thought you might find this amusing. 😩 (i do, but i also need to lie down for a bit because i will never know how steve fixed that mess)
hahahaha omg liv if this is your way of peer pressuring me into writing the whole fic i might actually do it??? because your ask has got me thinking about what would happen next.
that said, steve still hasn't figured out how to fix this mess. i'm very sorry about this.
(stonyclunks soulmates au part one here)
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having been rescued by SHIELD, news of steve's recovery was immediately delivered to howard stark who, while not as involved with SHIELD as he used to be, still receives weekly reports as one of its co-founders.
he'd gone home that night and brought it up in the middle of cutting his steak. coincidentally, tony had been visiting that day and stayed for dinner, so he found out about captain america's miraculous resurrection before the general public did, and honestly, he had enough of hearing about how great this guy was growing up. he really didn't need to keep hearing about it as an adult after he'd finally worked through his issues with his dad and his obsession with a (not quite) dead war hero.
so after howard's announcement, tony politely requested howard refrain from talking about this guy with him.
"i know he's your friend, and you'll probably be spending a bit of time with him now that he's been found, and i'm really happy for you, but i think it would be better for our relationship if we could talk about literally anything but him," he'd said.
and, well. howard was trying. he knew he wasn't the best dad and he also wanted to do right by maria, who spent so many years torn between her son and her husband while trying to mend their relationship. they were finally in a relatively good place with each other which made maria happy. and to be frank, howard had actually come to really enjoy tony's company whenever he was home. he was quite happy too. so he agreed. they don't talk about steve and howard doesn't ask tony to meet steve.
that very night, tony made sure 'captain america' and 'steve rogers' were muted in all his news feeds and social channels.
he literally doesn't know a single thing about the man besides what he learned in his childhood, which he's blocked out. it's a peaceful two years of blissful ignorance.
fast forward to now, tony's packing up his suitcase and getting ready to check out of his hotel when he sees a text from his mom in their family group chat.
seems he's not quite the perfect role model you always made him out to be, howard 🤡, her message reads.
what follows is a link to an instagram post, and from the message preview he can see that it's steve rogers' profile, and under normal circumstances he wouldn't even bother clicking the link.
but 1) maria usually never brings up the man in tony's presence either, and 2) her comment made him laugh. so color tony intrigued.
he taps the link and sees the post. it's a picture of a coffee cup from the place he was at a week ago. the one where he got body slammed by his mysterious dick of a soulmate and unfairly yelled at for it.
he reads the caption and his legs give out under him.
i don't even know if you'll see this, but all i can do is hope. i'm sorry for the words that have made their mark on you. i know i don't deserve it, but i'm hoping you could give me a second chance. i won't yell at you this time, i promise. yours, a fucking asshole
one week ago, captain america was barely even a blip on tony's radar and that's how he preferred it. now, steve rogers is tony's mysterious dick of a soulmate.
what the fuck even is his life.
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genuinely can’t stop thinking about the fact that phillip felt so betrayed by caleb choosing evelyn over him that he killed his own brother and every time he tried to resurrect his brother through cloning him, the cycle continued. every time, every single time caleb was brought back to life, he’d meet a wild witch—he’d meet evelyn—and choose her over phillip every time. it didn’t matter how much phillip tried isolating or directing or controlling caleb, the result was inevitable
and after continuously choosing to leave phillip behind, the one lifetime where evelyn and caleb meet and they don’t choose each other, then they’re finally free from the curse. a final love letter from evelyn to caleb, setting him free from his brother even if now they won’t get to be together in this lifetime. the level of brain rot i’m experiencing just thinking about this
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