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#both of them together are forgettable enough

bugcuti3 · 2 months

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What If Im Insane?

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀chapter one of More Than You Bargained For •°. *࿐ series masterlist

pairing : Luke Castellan x child of Aphrodite!reader

you remember how you figured out there was something wrong with you and made some genuine friends, or what you thought were genuine friends. You remember why you stopped talking to Luke Castellan.

Warnings: negative talk, neglect, mental health, negative thoughts, NOT PLOT ACCURATE, PRE TLT

aﾉn — AGAIN NOT A WRITER JUST A CRAZY CRAZY GIRL WITH A HYPERFIXATION. Reposting for the millionth time because im dumb as rocks LOLL

3.6k words

Luke Castellan and his stupid hovering.

Luke has been following you around camp for months now in a constant attempt to apologize and explain to you. You thought it didn't bother you. The whole not talking for a whole and suddenly hanging out all day together thing. You kept wanting to make excuses for him like, it's not like you were that close, you just went to the same school that doesn't mean anything.

You and Luke went to the same high school. You were both in the same grade, freshmen. You can't say you knew him, that's not true. You were best friends. Keyword: were.

He was always charming people even before he knew he was a demi-god. And so were you. Daughters of Aphrodite always have at least a handful of passionate admirers. None of them stood out, of course, you liked the attention well and good but you decided that when you fell in love you wanted it to be just right.

Not too tall. Not too short. Not short-tempered. Not abrasive. Just right.

He always stood out to you. And now looking back you were pretty sure he thought the same about you.

See, while you never really talked. The odd glances weren't forgettable, almost as if you could sense the other was different. just like you.

He didn't owe you friendship. You knew that but it stung that the one last piece you had of home seemed to forget the first time you both noticed that you and him were one and the same.

You thought you were going crazy. With both ADHD and dyslexia, you thought it was just your luck that you would have yet another thing wrong with your brain. You were convinced that your ugly brain had been mistakenly put into the body of a pretty girl.

The final straw had to be your favorite art teacher turning into something that more closely resembled a bat…no a dragon? You didn't don't know. Turned out that pretending to enjoy your art pieces and treating you like a daughter was just a ploy to get you close enough to bite your head off. But why???

It was all too much. You had about 30 seconds to react before you found a way to defend yourself and she burst into gold flecks of ash.

You splash cold water on your face in the bathroom for about the millionth time. I have got to get on some medication. The realization that you must genuinely be going insane suddenly felt incredibly heavy in your mind. so heavy it felt like your shoulders could no longer hold up your head. Or your body for that matter. Oh god, I have to sit down.

You rush into one of the stalls in the bathroom. And sit on the floor, practically crushing your head between your knees. Come on get it together, you're stronger than this. Nevermind. Large tears start to stream down your face. You make an effort to wipe them away harshly, making your face red and raw in the process. It's no use. You'll end up one of those people that get put away in an institution. You'll never be normal as much as you pretend to be.

Then the door of the bathroom opens. Shit. you cover your mouth in desperation to cover up the sobs that have turned more into hiccups when someone speaks.

“Hello? Is someone in here?”.

You are not sure why you bother to respond, the situation is hardly funny but you make a joke anyway for reasons you can't explain.

“No”.

The person chuckles and stands there for a second. Listening you guess, deciding whether they care or not. Why would they care why the girl in the bathroom is ugly crying on the floor?

“Can I come in?”.

You imagine the only reason you agree is because you miss that. Being understood. You don't acknowledge the thought usually but in this moment of desperation, you're willing to let someone in.

The stupid dirty bathroom stall that is.

You stand up to unlock the stall door not bothering to open the door for your bathroom company. You sit back down on the floor, I know gross but the sitting options are a little limited. Especially with the new addition.

“Hi”.

Why did it have to be him?

“Hi, Luke”.

“Sorry, I know it's kinda weird for me to ask to come into your bathroom stall”.

You laugh a little, continuing to wipe the tears off your face.

“It's okay”.

He smiles at you

“I think I'm going crazy”, you confess honestly.

He hesitates to respond for a second, probably mulling over the idea of calling the school counselor to deal with you instead.

“Me too”, he adds meeting your eyes.

Now that makes your ears perk up.

“What do you mean?”.

“I think we're the same… I mean I'm sorry about the art teacher…I know you liked her”

At that moment it should've been strange that Luke said that you both were the same but what stood out was why he knew you liked the art teacher and how he knew what had happened.

“How do you know that?”.

“I mean I was walking by and looked in the little window on the door y’know? And the room was a mess and I started asking around what happened to her, right? And everyone was pretending like she never even existed, nevermind the fact that she worked here”.

“No not that, how did you know I like- liked her?”, the event is so fresh in your mind, that you forget she is gone now.

“Oh”. He responds sheepishly and his ears turn a shade of red.

“I stay late for sports and when I pass by you're always there I don't know…I just notice you I guess”

“Oh okay”. You are about to leave it there but you suddenly remember when he said that you were the same. What did he mean by that?

“What do mean? Were the same?”.

“I guess I'm not sure myself but I have this friend. Her name is Thalia. I just get this feeling when I'm with her and I get the same feeling with you, I can't describe it”.

Okay, now it just sounds like he can't keep it in his pants. You turn your head to the side avoiding eye contact.

“Not that!! I just! I told you I can't explain it- oh god now I sound like an idiot”, his hand goes up to facepalm himself with a loud smack.

You turn your head back to face him and laugh at the fact that his ears have somehow turned an even deeper shade of red.

“Hey, you stopped crying”, he says as he removes his hand from his face.

“Oh yeah, I didn't even notice”.

You take your hand and wipe at your now dry face.

Luke and You sit there for a good thirty minutes as he explains the odd things that have been happening to him, school, and everything in between.

It was a short conversation but you swear you've never felt so understood before. It was as if he opened the top of your head and read all of your most deep and insecure thoughts. It felt…good.

You thought after that you had finally gained a real friend. A best friend even. And it seemed like you had for about a good couple of days. He introduced you to his friend Thalia and even invited you to eat with them. You felt seen. You had a pretty big friend group but it was always surface level it felt natural to have all the pretty girls sit at lunch together. That's just how things had to be you thought.

But now you can say you had real friends. friends that understood every part of you, even the ugly parts. They were easy to get along with. You had quickly become best friends. Going to each other's houses, and riding your bikes together, your freshman year finally started looking up!

Until one day they weren't at the lunch table as usual. Okay weird? But who knows maybe they caught the same stomach bug, they’ll be here tomorrow.

Maybe a doctor's appointment? A cold? A vacation? A terminal illness?

It had been a month since you had seen either Luke or Thalia. And it hurt. Bad.

The whole experience had brought up some ugly memories.

Your father left you with your grandma when you were just a baby. A stupid irresponsible decision on his part as she could barely take care of you let alone herself. Your dad told you that your mother died in childbirth. That was probably why he hated you. You took her away from him and there was nothing you could do to apologize.

You wouldn't see Luke again until the end of that month. A particular bad monster encounter led you to camp-half blood. A sanctuary recently made for demigods. Demigods like you apparently.

You had been at camp for a couple of days now, not that you could see much of it while you were in the infirmary. A new long scar made its way up the length of your neck. Injuries made from magic were always the hardest to heal an Apollo kid had told you.

You insecurely scratch at the new addition as you are escorted to the Hermes cabin. Where you would be staying till you found your place I guess.

After whoever was escorting you left, you didn't bother to remember his name and even if you had you definitely wouldn't now. Now that you saw him.

Luke Castellan, son of Hermes. Gods what a joke.

It was getting annoying now. When you first arrived at the Hermes cabin you were shocked when your eyes met Luke Castellan. His eyes trailed all over your face trying to figure out if you were a vision created by his brain to trick him. His eyes grew to saucers when he realized you were real. His smile grew when he realized that he was right. You two were the same. Demigods. no longer separated. you got here safe.

As quickly as his smile grazed your face it fell when his eyes made their way down to the new long scar that has crawled up your neck.

You didn't know it then but after Thalia, he was absolutely desperate for a piece of home and some reassurance that someone familiar to him wouldn't be ripped away from him again. So when he saw the new rough scar that ruined your once soft beautiful skin, his heart dropped to his stomach. The new realization hit him like a ton of bricks that yes while you got here safe and sound he almost lost you too.

A heavy sigh racks his lungs as he steps closer to you. Your face fails you when your eyes meet his, forgetting your anger you smile widely at him and launch yourself into his arms for a hug. You fit together like a puzzle and you almost forget everything that you lost to get here. The hug should feel strange and awkward but it doesn't it feels right and safe. You let out a relieved sigh and pry yourself from his arms to get a look at his face.

Luke gently traces the scar on your neck with a look of remorse and sorrow and you can't place why yet. Desperate, the words come out of his mouth like word vomit, he's so excited to see you that he's surprised that it isn't actual vomit.

“You're here it's really you! You're here and you're safe. What happened? Oh, look at your neck. What did this? Who did this?”

You shake your head vigorously in hopes the faster you shake your head the faster the worry will leave his trembling voice.

“I'm fine I’m fine”.

Still tracing the new addition to your skin he says shamefully, “Doesn't look like it”.

You take his hand off your throat and hold it by his side in your hand.

Suddenly you remember your second best friend, Thalia. you start looking around the Hermes cabin excitedly, anticipating your second reunion, but it never comes.

Again your eyes reach the Hermes boy searching wordlessly for an explanation “Thalia?” you say simply.

His head hangs low avoiding eye contact almost anticipating this question from your lips.

His reaction makes you sick to your stomach. “Luke? Where is she?”.

He raises his head finally meets your eyes and simply shakes his head. His lips are unable to utter the words in some kind of refusal to admit the truth.

The betrayal of losing Thalia is added to the long list of other betrails the gods have bestowed upon you. The sudden gain and loss of a friend strikes you deep in your gut.

Realizing this you take a big step away from Luke's arms. His blood runs cold.

“You left,” you say slowly and calmly.

Remembering the love and understanding that he had stolen from you just a month before. Being the son of the god of thieves suits him.

“Wait you have to understand-” he attempts to defend himself before you cut him off.

“You left me! You took Thaila with you and you both just left? Knowing we were the same you left me?”.

You're not able to hide the pain and sorrow in your voice and you cant bother to care. You deserve to feel abandoned. Because that's what happened, you were abandoned. Again.

“You don't understand- it wasn't a planned-out thing! Things got too much- we left in the middle of the night! We found Annabeth! We couldn't go back for you- i- im-”.

His attempts to explain come out unfinished and choppy leading them to sound like nothing more than excuses. Curse his stupid mouth. His mind is running a million miles an hour trying to figure out what to say, anything to stop you from coming to your own terrible conclusions. Of course that doesn't go to plan either.

“Save it Castellan”. It took all your strength to turn and walk away from him, if you were any weaker you're sure your legs would've failed you and you would've fallen to your knees right there.

…

Ever since your sour reunion with Luke, he hasn't strayed too far from your side following you like he was a dog and you were his man. Every word uttered from his mouth was another attempt to change your mind about his betrail. Thats what it was in the end though, a betrayal.

It was fine you decided. You didn't need him. You didn't need anyone. If people wanted to abandon you that was just fine, you would just leave them before they left you.

So every day and at every moment he spent either trying to explain to you or trying to coax you with sweet words and gifts. From lunch, to even the bathrooms Luke would give you bits and pieces of the story to try to change your mind. Doing everything in his power to convince you that he did not betray you but that it was all just a big misunderstanding.

But all you were hearing were excuses and lies.

It was late at night and you were getting ready for bed in the camp bathroom, brushing your teeth angrily and staring at yourself in the mirror. It has been a long day of your loyal dog nipping at your heels. At least you could find peace in the bathroom.

“Can you please just talk to me?”.

Nevermind.

You were committed to the silent treatment but even you had your limits, and besides his persistent attempts to gain your favor back were kind of endearing. If you could even call it that.

“What is there to talk about?”. You say simply spitting into the sink. The water washes away your toothpaste that has been stained red.

He responds baffled and exasperated, “What do you mean what is there to talk about?”.

You look at him in the mirror and quirked up your brow, if you were going to accept his apology you weren't going to make it easy for him.

He rolls his eyes, it's obvious you know exactly what he's talking about but he explains anyway. It's been months of him following you around like a lost puppy maybe you really did forget.

“Us, me, you? Ring any bells?”.

You finally turn to face him with an unimpressed look on your face.

“Please…say anything, scream, yell, hit me I just- I can't take the silence anymore”. Luke sounds desperate now. You've failed to realize how much this is actually affecting him. His last bit of home wants nothing to do with him.

His plee gets the better of you. The desperation in his voice a tone you know all too well. A tone that you recognize from your own, just a child begging her father for forgiveness and attention for a crime she did not commit.

“Can I be honest with you?”.

“Always”. He states simply. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Great come on”. You grab your small of toiletries and his hand and lead him out of the bathroom and into the woods.

“It's late you know, the harpies will be out soon”.

“What are you scared Castellan? I never took you for the rule follower type”, you smirk at him.

Now you were just trying to get under his skin.

He missed this playful tone in your voice, he’ll do anything if it means it'll stick around. So he plays along.

“Me a rule follower? Never”.

You reach a small clearing in the forest and settle yourself onto a log, patting the place next to you and inviting him a seat.

He takes it leaning in, it's been too long not hearing your voice. So he hangs on to every word you offer him scared that it’ll be the last time he hears them.

“Perfect so I imagine you won't go around spreading my dirty laundry”, You smile mischievously at him. Now you're just stalling and he knows it.

“Spill it”. Now it's his turn to spread the sass.

“Fine fine, but you have to promise to not interrupt. I'm really opening up here”.

He takes your hand in his and nods in reassurance. A wordless response that seems to say “Go on I'm listening”.

You take a deep breath, thankful for the pressure of his hand in your own. It helps stop your hand from shaking.

“I'll be honest and say I think you're an asshole for leaving me behind”.

His mouth opens with something to say but you place your finger over his lips to stop any words from spilling out. You know what he's going to say anyway. He's said it about a million times already.

“I know I know you're sorry, it's okay I believe you”. You take your finger off his lips and look away.

“Being here has just been hard you know, its a lot to process”.

You’d turn your head to look at him, but you can already see his intense and understanding stare in the corner of your eye and you don't know if you could look at him without breaking down. So instead you continue.

“He abandoned me you know… my dad. When I got a little older I would call and text him, begging him to come back for me…to love me”.

You look up at the stars now. The stars are so bright tonight, it must be your mothers…whoever she was…idea of an apology.

“I never knew why he left me, I assumed it was because he couldn't afford to take care of me.

It was just all because he said I looked too much like my mother”. Your face grows hot a red. You've never admitted this to anyone.

“Right before I came to camp. My grandma-she-”. Much like Luke, the words get stuck in your throat, scared that saying that your grandpa had passed would make the fact you were completely alone true.

“I was in the foster system for a little bit”. You stiffen and straighten your back, doing your best to regain your composure.

“They couldn't keep me for long though, I ran away before they could stick me with some random family. So it was just me alone for a while. That's when some monster attacked me and gave me this sick souvenir”.

You attempt to lighten the mood and point to the scar on your neck.

But the weight of your words are heavy and the way Luke stays silent makes it obvious that the joke didn't exactly land.

“So when me and Thalia left…”. Luke trails off connecting the dots, imagining all the horrible things you must have felt.

“Gods, I'm such an idiot”. His head falls into his hands. His shoulders were not able to hold up his head anymore as now they were holding pounds of guilt on them.

“You didn't know, no one does”. You pat him on the back.

“I’ll be honest I needed to think about things anyway, you know finding out that my mom isn't dead…but also some random goddess. It's a lot to think about, I don't think I would've been good company anyway”.

You smirk at him when he finally looks back up at you. Unfallen tears clear in his eyes.

“I am so sorry”. His voice cracks a little.

“I know you are”. You smile sadly at him.

You clear your throat, “Well let's head to bed, I wouldn't want the harpies to eat us after such a heartfelt conversation”.

You pick yourself up from your makeshift seat on the log and wipe the invisible dirt off your shorts.

You offer a hand to him. A symbol of forgiveness. A silent promise to stick to the other side. No more abandoning. No matter the circumstances. He didn't know how wrong he would be.

#luke castellan #pjo tv show #pjo fandom #percy jackson #luke castellan fic #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan fanfic #pjo luke #luke castellan x you #the lightning thief #percy jackon and the olympians #percy pjo #pjo disney+

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gingerbreadmonsters · 1 month

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HEART EYES CRY BLOOD!!

or: yours sincerely, wasting away.

gn!reader, blood, violence, and extended discussions of death, the world’s worst stress dream with a happy ending, i promise. life and limb and all that. my undying and eternal gratitude to @zozo-01 and @androgynouspenguinexpert, who sacrificed their time, laptop battery, and brainpower to feed my delusional mind, and all my love to @sincerelywhistler for creating possibly the most beautiful vega on earth and inspiring the barbie ponytail agenda. warden not wanting to miss a thing in 16,800 words or less.

this fic is the combination of two other series of mine, human nature and peaches and cream – it’s entirely possible to read this fic without having looked at either of those, but i think you’ll enjoy it a lot more if you know what’s happened so far in both of them!

human nature masterlist

peaches and cream masterlist

main masterlist

Recipe for undying love:

Add veneration, sacrifice, and subversion to a small saucepan, and simmer over medium heat until thick enough to coat the back of a teaspoon.

Stir in devotion until fully dissolved, then immediately remove from the heat.

Mix blindness and faith together in a separate bowl, then add slowly, mixing until fully incorporated.

Transfer mixture to clean bowl, then sift in persistence, stirring continuously until mixture becomes thick, smooth, and glossy.

Add fortune to taste, then transfer mixture to a greased and lined tin. Bake for 35 minutes at 180°C, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool slightly on a wire rack before turning out. Best served warm with cream and fruit, but can be kept forever in an airtight container until you are discovered, or until all escape conditions have been met and the universe can begin again.

It starts…

…to be honest, you don't actually know how it starts. It's a total mystery, as far as you're concerned – it could have been anything. You're not sure if you were even there at the time, or if you just stumbled in by accident. You don't know when it starts, or who starts it, or why it even starts at all.

More importantly, you also don't know how to get out.

The first time was a total accident. You'd not gone far, only for a little walk down to the park for some fresh air. It’s kind of a weekly thing, you see. Both of you have to do it – it’s important that the neighbours see you two doing ordinary human things like shopping and walking and laundry, so they don’t get suspicious.

Obviously, you have to modify your human form a little bit so that you can’t be recognised by anyone who might be looking for you, and it’s a little bit annoying. Hiding your demonic features is less comfortable than it used to be, so you’re always grateful to come home and shed the disguise. It’s just so itchy, so stiff and awkward – your gums ache with the quiet pressure of suppressed fangs, and your skull cries out for the horns that it knows should be there.

Sometimes you go together, and other times you go one at a time. Going alone is fine, even if it gets a bit tricky trying to field questions from your neighbours. The two of you came up with a cover story when you moved in, and you've done your best to stick to it – it's kind of a silly story, and you had to watch a lot of television to make sure you got all the details right, but it seems to be working.

You did your best to make it as bland and generic as possible – no details that anyone could use to try and track you down. Forgettable. You never mention how you met, or even anything close to it – in fact, you and Vega have never even heard of Dahlia. As far as your neighbours are concerned, you're newlyweds from the other side of the state, looking for somewhere to settle down. That’s a pretty normal thing, right?

Vega's job – you still haven't really decided what it is, but definitely some sort of dull office thing – lets him work from home a lot more than it used to, and your job (Vega suggested ‘copywriting’, which is apparently some sort of bookish computer-y thing to do with adverts) is mostly online too, so you thought you’d take the opportunity to get a bit further out of the city. Both of your families live out of state, which is why nobody comes to visit you, and nobody saw you moving in because… um…

…oh, because it was very sudden! Yes, that’s it. You’d heard from a friend of a friend that the family who used to live here had to move because of a work thing. Some sort of exciting opportunity that had come up, maybe? Or a promotion? In any case, they’d practically jumped at the chance to sell their house to you so quickly. You and Vega had been living in a tiny flat in the city, so you hadn’t really had much stuff – no need to pay for a huge moving van, right? It’s not surprising, then, that nobody had seen you arrive.

Yeah – yeah, it’s like you just appeared out of thin air. Yeah, that’s so funny. Haha.

Unfortunately, everyone seems very chatty in this tiny little town, and keeps asking difficult questions. It got a bit awkward when one of the neighbours asked about why you didn’t have a car – luckily, Vega had been there at the time, and managed to make up some lie about having taken it for repairs a few days ago. That evening, you’d both spent several hours on the computer trying to figure out what sort of car you were supposed to have, and you’d even gone on a little reconnaissance mission around the neighbourhood, to see which types and colours of car people living here tend to have.

It’s in the garage now, some generic-looking shiny thing in some inoffensive colour or other that Vega magicked up with the help of a very complicated-looking repair manual. Unfortunately, neither of you actually knows how to drive, which makes it a bit hard to actually look like you’re using it – the whole driving thing is much less intuitive than either of you was expecting, and neither of you have been able to make it do anything useful! It’s a nightmare!

You could probably make it go with magic, but if you’re honest, that’s a lot of effort and energy for not a huge amount in return. For now, you’ve just settled on leaving the garage door open and conspicuously washing it with a bucket of water and a sponge every so often, to make it look like you know how to use it. That’s probably enough, right?

It was kind of difficult, trying to figure out what things you needed when you first arrived. All those mundane human things that they like to keep in their houses, like lunchboxes and pianos and those bicycles that say they’re for exercising but don’t actually go anywhere. When you’d arrived the house had been furnished with all the stuff that the, uh, previous tenants had owned, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. If that means having to drag Vega all the way to the closest garden centre at 9am on a Saturday to go and choose a suitable plant for the empty space on the front lawn, then so be it.

(Obviously, it’s a peony. Dark pink and white stripes, big flowers with soft petals. What else?)

You know what, it doesn’t even matter. You’re just rambling, now. The important thing is that you’d not been home when you felt it, that very first time.

You’d been about five or six minutes away, walking back through the park. It was busy, so many humans around that you couldn’t do anything suspicious – but you’d felt it, all the same. Gravity failing, air rippling around you, something deep and vital being snatched away. Silence where it shouldn’t be, a dry sort of cold, bitter and biting. No moisture in the air left to freeze.

Panic – pure, unfettered panic, turning your body to acid. All you could do was run.

Fighting your way through the slow, stupid humans that blocked your path, streets flying past as you pushed yourself faster and faster. Something had been wrong, so incredibly wrong, pulled out from under you. Running across the road without looking, footsteps loud against the pavement, turning the corner, and-

You’ll never get your hands on us again. Either of us.

Yellow caution tape, stretched across the street, fluttering just outside the boundaries of a tall, solid ward. It’s enormous, a huge dome that ripples and pulses with power. If you were human it would probably have been imperceptible, but to your demon’s eyes it was more like frosted glass, obscuring what was inside but not quite hiding it. You could make out the blurred shapes of people inside, but no more – the magic was almost unbelievably strong, all thick and liquid. What could have been happening?

You’d known you had to get inside. But how? It didn’t feel like Vega’s magic, there was none of that familiar sherbet fizzle on your tongue, it didn't bleed into your aura in that seamless, easy way. This had been something else, something wrong – grim and cold and clumsy, more of a sledgehammer than a switchblade.

Ducking underneath the tape to face it, your stomach lined with lead. Someone else was doing this.

It recoiled from your nervous touch, or maybe it just pushed you away? It was like gravity, or maybe magnets – like poles repelling, your own face in the mirrored surface of the ward.

Gritting your teeth, you’d forced your hand into the seething mass of magic up to the wrist, and though it screamed for you to leave, you didn't give in. He’s taught you too well for that. The world swam around you as you fought your way inside, and it was like trying to walk through oil, sticky and solid.

Closer, closer. Your body, getting impossibly heavier the further you go, laden with the iron weight of so much magic pressing in on you from every direction, and oh, it hurt, it hurt. Crushing, grasping, squeezing pain, trying to trap you in its brutal fist – but with every torturous step, the picture got clearer. Cars, more than normal, parked haphazardly in the street. Trees, still and unmoving with the lack of breeze. And humans, all dressed alike, swarming around the middle of the street, running into one of the houses – wait, that’s your house – the sound of shouting, screaming, gunfire—

Are you there, darling?

Delta uniforms. It’s the Department.

They’d found you.

If you’re being entirely honest, you don’t really know what you did next.

You didn’t scream, you’re fairly certain, but you think you froze. Paralysed with panic, all you could do was stand and watch as the shrieking carnage began, a crashing wave of blood and death and fire, and the whole new life you’d built for yourself turning to ash in the summer sun.

Hidden behind a parked car, you’d watched in horror as more and more humans poured into your house, descending upon the eye of the storm. Windows breaking, walls crumbling, your lovely front garden set ablaze and trampled into nothing. Magic coursed through the air with every breath, every fabricated cell of you singing with vicious power as wards formed and shattered, as the earth slipped and shuddered, as pure, seething energy tore through brick and bodies alike.

Pain, raw and ravenous, the sort you thought you’d escaped from long ago. Flooding your body, lighting up every simulated nerve – the hateful heaviness of your physical body binding you to the ground. You couldn’t make sense of it. Falling down inside your own mind, dizzy spirals in the riptide of anguish that swept you away.

Away from home, away from him. How could you have been so stupid?

I can feel you, darling. You are there, aren’t you?

Vega’s voice in your head, fainter than you’d ever heard him, fault lines in the asphalt. Staked to the spot, waist-deep in the sand. You couldn’t say a word.

Precious thing, you have to leave. Leave now, and you must not return. This place will never be safe for you again.

Something building in the ground, in your core, in the atmosphere – magic, but whose? His words, fractured glass in your shattered mind – how you’d fallen to the ground, ears ringing, crushed under the incredible pressure. How you’d tried to crawl, dragging your pathetic form out from behind the car, brittle claws snapping and breaking on the ground.

A word that wouldn’t form, desperate and terrified. The liquid mess of your face, the bloody puncture marks in your lip. Panicking, panicking, all your insides turning out. You’d screamed aloud in agony, uncaring and unknowing of who might hear – your only thought was him.

I know it hurts, my sweet. I know. And I’m sorry.

Wanting him, needing him, every molecule of your existence set ablaze in horror. You’d been so utterly blinded by fear that you couldn’t even think about fighting it, so absolutely consumed by this new, most instinctual panic. A frightening crescendo in the Spellsong, so unbearably loud in your core. Drowning, drowning, clawing at your own throat for something that wasn’t there. Voice breaking, heart breaking, teeth and gore and hatred.

If only we’d had more time.

A celestial being, struggling to breathe. The unfeeling terror of the vacuum of space. Every nerve singing with pain, overwhelmingly bright and crushingly dark all at once – your skin peeling away, blistered and burning as your heart turned to diamond and your eyes turned to ash, and this world and this plane and everything in it—

Goodbye, my darling.

-ceased to be.

I love you very, very m—

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It starts…

…wait, it starts?

What?

Fuck, it feels like your head’s about to split in half. You crack one eye just barely open, before clumsily slamming your hands over your eyes with a weak hiss – it’s so bright, that single slice of sunlight, and it hurts.

Blinded, you can’t tell what’s happening at all. It feels like you’re lying down, something rough and painful scraping against your face and all down your right side, and through the insistent ringing in your ears you can hear something…. rustling?

It takes a few minutes for the worst of the pain to subside, but before long you’re able to peel one hand away from your face and push yourself up to sitting. Your head won’t stop spinning, but it’s progress, at least.

Timidly, you blink one eye open, peeking through your fingers just in case, but the worst of it seems to have passed. As your eyes adjust to the light, you realise where you are.

You’re… back in the park.

The roughness you were lying on is the paved path that you always follow on your way back home, and the unusual sound you could hear is coming from the trees overhead, leaves rustling in the gentle breeze. It’s just as busy as it was earlier, and the humans walking past seem to be staring at you warily, collapsed in the middle of the path – hurriedly, you check that your human disguise is in place, but it turns out you didn’t need to worry. You were already camouflaged, just as you were when you last walked through here.

But – but how?

The terrible aching in your head is the only sign – you can’t find anything else wrong with you, physically or magically. How did you get here? What happened to you? And what’s that – that feeling…

Staggering to your feet, you ignore the stupid human onlookers and their stupid whispers. It doesn’t matter what they think, and it doesn’t matter how you got here. None of it bothers you, nothing can touch you now. All that matters is what happens next.

You’ve got to do what he said, you’ve got to run – there’s nothing left for you here any more, is there? They’ve taken it all, haven’t they? This place isn’t safe anymore – the Department will be hunting you now, they’ll be here any second, and you aren’t far enough from where – from where they – they—

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

Looking away from the gates in the distance, back into the park, you can see the dark nest of trees that you’ll have to reach if you want to rift away unseen. It’s not far, maybe a little more than a hundred metres. If you ran, you could be gone in less than a minute. You don’t know where you’d go, but anywhere has to be better than here, right? You couldn’t possibly stay here, a fly desperately clinging to the web – he’d want you to escape, wouldn’t he? Isn’t that what he said? That he wanted you to be safe, and leave him behind?

Can you leave him behind?

It’s ridiculous. Even if you went back, what would you do? You’d be walking straight into a trap for nothing. Demons dissolve when they die, magic scattered back into the universe – there’ll be no body for you to find. Even now, at this very moment, everything that made him will have already disappeared, never to return to you again.

He’s gone, he’s gone. You try to suppress it, but you can’t – in your mind’s eye, you can’t help but see it – your house, your lovely warm house, with the photographs you took hanging on the wall and the flowers blooming in the garden that he grew for you. Perhaps they’re still there, or perhaps they’re destroyed – perhaps you’re the only one who remembers them now. Are you all that’s left of your love?

You look towards the trees.

You’ll leave. You’ll leave this place and never come back, and they’ll never ever find you. You’ll leave and live and forget him, forget this cursed place and this cursed plane, and you’ll become something new. Something different and demonic and utterly unrecognisable.

It’s what you ought to do. He wouldn’t want you to be so… so sentimental.

The air freezes.

What’s happening? What’s happening? Déjà vu hits you hard and fast – your insides turn to ice as you reel, knocked backwards by the sudden weight of the memory.

Floating, falling, lighter-than-air. The balloon of your skull pops and you spiral into silence, unknown claws tearing at your middle and all your insides falling out. All the warmth is sucked out of the air in a second, your skin raw and tender as all the nerves there start to sing.

It’s that same thing you’d felt before, that crippling, burning absence that had told you something was wrong before. It’s exactly the same, every agonising ripple of loss that tears through your core – and before you can even realise what’s happening, you’re already running as fast as you can towards the house.

You’re definitely going too fast for anyone to think you’re human, but you really don’t care, leaving a trail of shouts and curses behind you as you push people out of the way. At one point, you’re fairly sure you phase right through a man who doesn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the almost-certain car crash that you leave behind as you dart across the road isn’t exactly the most subtle thing you’ve ever done, but there’s no time for that now.

The ward looms above you as you turn the corner, stretching up into the sky, and you tear aside the caution tape to hurl yourself against it with a bitter snarl, clawing and biting at the bouncy, stretchy surface until you can slice a gash big enough to let you through. It repels you at first, but you bare your fangs and push, jamming your body into the gap and squirming inside.

Briefly, you laugh to yourself – you’re doing it exactly as he taught you, but with none of his finesse or elegance. What would he say, if he could see you now? Something clever, you’re sure.

The ward tries to force you out, just like before, but you won’t be deterred. The Department’s warding is no match for the white-hot force of your desperate fury, slashing blindly at the thick layers of magic over and over again until they crumble away in front of you. Gradually, the blurriness of the barrier gets clearer and clearer, and although your core aches with the effort, you keep throwing yourself at it until it finally lets you through.

The scene that greets you, stumbling from the suffocating grip of the ward, is no less horrifying than it was before. Deltas everywhere, laden with guns and sprays and shock sticks, filling the street and advancing on the house. It’s like a nightmare, those terrifying dreams that humans have when they sleep – it feels like watching the end of the world. Unmarked vans full of faceless, heavily armoured soldiers are parked haphazardly across the road, a peaceful suburbia turned to a terrifying prison.

But hold on – why are they doing this? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they be going back into the house, when you know they’ve alre—

Are you there, darling?

Blindsided, you stagger backwards as his voice echoes through your head. How is he…?

I can feel you, darling. You are there, aren’t you?

You must be going mad – what magic is this? It feels like him, exactly like him, as if he’d never been taken from you at all. How can this be happening?

Precious thing, you have to leave. Leave now, and you must not return. This place will never be safe for you again.

As the soldiers descend on your house, the same buildup of magic as last time fills the air, yet it barely registers in your frantic mind, smashed flat against the ward as the painful pressure swells and swells. Once again, you try to struggle against it, but it’s too strong. You can still see more humans throwing themselves at the house, even as others are engulfed in flame, or crushed by invisible force, or thrown screaming from the upstairs windows.

In the back of your mind, you realise that he’s saying it all again, the exact same way he had the first time.

I know it hurts, my sweet. I know. And I’m sorry.

The sound of gunfire, humans shouting, Your physical body starts to falter under the incredible force of magic pressing down on you, soft tissues disintegrating into nothing, and you watch in horror as your body starts to break down. Frantically, you flood your form with healing magic to try and reverse it, but it’s no good – the more magic you use, the less stable your body is, and the faster it erodes.

Is this how it ends? It would be poetic, you suppose. A second chance to live, and all you could do was die with him.

If only we’d had more time.

It’s getting harder and harder to think, crushed backwards against the unrelenting surface of the ward. As your body melts away, you smile with what’s left of your mouth, and close what’s left of your eyes.

Goodbye, my darling.

It’s not so bad. If you really concentrate, you can almost feel his arms around you once again.

I love you very, very m—

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It starts…

…well, you know.

Gasping for air, your eyes snap open as you sit bolt upright – the familiar sunlight sears your eyes, but the pain isn’t quite as bad as before. Air rushes back into your lungs, back inside your body and free of the suffocating force that only moments ago had held you, and even though you don’t technically need it, you’re pathetically grateful for the learned relief.

The pavement scrapes your palms as you push yourself to your feet. You’re here again, dumped back in the park just like last time, and as you look around – really, properly look around this time, you start to realise what’s going on.

It’s the same humans as before, the same breeze in the trees, the same clouds in the sky. It had been the same ward and the same soldiers, the same words in your head said in the exact same way. Déjà vu, on an unbelievable scale.

It’s a loop.

That’s what it’s called, right? A timeloop? Like the thing from that film you saw on the television, the one where the same day keeps happening over and over again, and they had to find a way to stop it. You’re stuck inside until you find a way to do some specific thing, and you’re supposed to keep repeating the day until you figure out the perfect way to do it.

(You’d asked Vega if these timeloops were real or not, some quirk of some branch of magic you’d never tried before, and he’d said they weren’t – just human flights of fancy. Oh, the irony.)

You can’t be certain that that’s what’s going on here, considering it’s only happened twice, whatever it is – wait, or is it three times? Should you be counting the number of resets, or the number of times the same things happen? Because they’re not the same, and if this is going to keep happening then you should probably make a decision on that sooner or later…

The air pressure plummets around you, earth swaying underneath your feet, and your mind is made up. Not about the stupid counting thing, that can wait – but about what all this means, what you’re going to do. For you, right now, the choice is clear.

You don’t know why this is happening, but you must have been put here for a reason. There must be something important you have to do, something that the universe can’t do without – something must be wrong, and you must have to fix it. Why else would this be happening to you, and why else would you, specifically, even know about it?

Nobody else seems to be clutching their head in timeloop-induced pain, nobody else seems to be crying and screaming about the existential horror of being forced to, perhaps indefinitely, repeat the same fifteen minutes of their life again and again. As far as you can tell with your limited knowledge, you’re the only one who knows.

There’s only one thing it could possibly be, one reason that you might be trapped here.

Vega.

You’ve got to save him. Whatever happens, wherever this leads, you’re going to get him out of there, no matter the cost. He’s too important to lose – to you, and seemingly to the rest of the universe as well.

Most likely, it’s something to do with his plan, his grand scheme to take back the Sovereigns for Aria. Could they be doing this? You can’t rule out the possibility. Who else would have the power to even try and pull off such an enormous magical feat? Time travel? You can’t even imagine how much magic it must be taking.

Then again, it’s not like it really matters who’s behind all of this. You’d do it no matter what. If there’s any chance that this could work, you have to take it. There can’t be a world without Vega – there just can’t be. It’s impossible. There’s just no way.

Goodbye, my darling.

You’ll fight for him, as hard as you can, for as long as it takes. He saved you, once before, and in doing so he gave you everything. You won’t fail him now.

The ground shakes again, and you start to run.

I love you very, very m—

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You keep running, and running, and running.

Loop after loop, you keep learning.

How many has it been, now? Fifty? Sixty? You’re starting to lose count. Every time, you try something new. You’ve given up on trying to maintain any semblance of humanity – something’s stopping you from rifting, but you abandon your disguise and let your demonic form take over, reaching the ward in about a minute and worming your way inside. After some experimenting, you’ve discovered that the weakest part of the ward is actually behind one of the houses on the opposite side of the street, so you’ve started aiming for there instead – it’s a little more difficult to get close to the action from there, but you’re iterating your way through finding a route.

You’ve tried to leave things behind, or leave yourself notes between loops so that you don’t accidentally forget anything, but nothing you do is ever permanent. Unfortunately, it all gets washed away at the moment you’re reset, so you can’t set things up in preparation for a future loop. It would be helpful if you could, but apparently it’s just not meant to be.

Right now, your focus is on trying to get into the house in time to help Vega escape. Something about the structure of this particular ward is designed to suppress magic use inside it, so you’re not as powerful as you should be, and it’s not possible to rift from inside the barrier either. You know you’ll have to get him out of the house and outside the barrier in time – but it’s not as easy as you’d hoped.

It feels like he’s set up a barrier of his own around the house that you’re not strong enough to break through on your own, and it’s blocking out almost all outside magic. That means you can’t talk to him and ask to be let in, or tell him about your plan, and it means you have to wait for the Department to break through before you’ve got a chance of actually entering the house.

You haven’t been able to figure out where in the house he’ll actually be, for when you do manage to get inside, but you suspect he’s in your bedroom, upstairs at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. It would make the most sense – even before all of this, it was one of the most heavily warded rooms in the house, and the physical distance between that room and the front door that they’re mainly attacking from gives him just that little bit more time to react before they reach him.

If he is there – and you’re fairly sure he is – then you can’t actually see him. It’s probably a good thing, because it means the Department won’t be able to see him either, but it makes your job a lot harder as well. You’ll have to figure out a way to sneak inside and convince him to come with you, then escape without being seen.

Goodbye, my darling.

If you could just get up to that room… but how?

I love you very, very m—

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It’s been days. Weeks, perhaps, or maybe months. You’re not sure.

Loops upon loops, the same neverending fifteen minutes. Four hundred, five hundred, six hundred – or is that six hundred thousand? It’s a good thing you don’t need to sleep.

You’ve managed to get a little closer, but it’s still not enough. You’ve tried to get in through the garden, through the back door, through the secret entrance to the basement Vega made that only you and he have ever known about. No matter what you do, you just can’t reach him in time – gunned down in the kitchen by the Department, burned alive as the hallway fills with fire, blown to bits when a grenade comes sailing over the fence and scatters you across what used to be your very neatly-kept lawn.

There’s just so many of them, filthy rats swarming through the street, flooding your house like the disgusting vermin they are. The stupid magic-dampening effect of the ward makes it almost impossible to cloak yourself for long enough, and there’s almost nowhere to hide once you get close enough to the house.

Electrocuted, clubbed, impaled, dismembered – and not enough magic to put yourself back together. You die every time, and you remember them all.

(You don’t know if the loop resets when you die, or when he dies – but with no way to record any proof for the next loop, there’s no way to tell. It doesn’t really matter that much, seeing as you – for obvious reasons – can’t do anything after you die, and whatever magic Vega does seems to wipe out everything inside the ward, including you and him at roughly the same time. So, in a very real sense, there’s no actual benefit to knowing. You’re just curious.)

Vega still says the same thing, no matter what you do, and you always hang on to his every word, no matter how much it hurts. It feels… comforting. Knowing that he’s so close, that you’re almost, almost there – a hopeful reminder that one day, this will all be over, and he’ll finally be yours again. He says goodbye as your broken body fizzles away into nothingness, and the agony of death is almost worth it to hear him again.

Goodbye, my darling.

It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? Two immortals, cursed to hear each other die over and over again. There’s a joke in there, one that if you weren’t so tired, you could probably think of. You’d say something clever, and Vega would laugh. He’d give you that mischievous, knowing smile, and slip his hand around your middle, and lean down to kiss you even though you’d have to hide your demon fangs and tongues because there's humans watching.

Waking up doesn’t hurt any more, though. So, you know. That’s something, at least.

I love you very, very m—

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It feels like years. Centuries, even.

You feel old. The blinding, neverending sun, dust gathering in the tiny creases of your palm. Your body doesn’t age, but your mind feels ancient – you haven’t seen the night in what feels like a million years. Has your life been longer inside the loop, or out of it?

You don’t give in.

Iteration after iteration, you keep trying. At times, you can’t help but feel like you’ve tried everything – that every possible option has been exhausted, that there’s just no way. That you’ve searched everywhere, killed everyone, heard and seen and done it all, and yet still it’s not enough.

Everything is always exactly, exactly the same. It used to be comforting, but now it’s just infuriating.

You’ve wondered if the secret might be to stay outside the ward altogether – if maybe you going inside distracts Vega in some way that means he always dies, or if you should try to dismantle it from the outside in the hope that it would force the Department to retreat and regroup. But, alas, neither of those ideas work either, any of the hundred or so times that you try them, and all that happens is you end up right back at square one.

There have even been loops where you don’t try anything at all. Instead, you’ve tried to make sense of the loop itself, figuring out how it works and where its limits are. As far as you can tell, the loop is always reset at the point when Vega dies, expending all his magic to shatter the ward from within, killing anything and everything that’s inside. You don’t know what happens after the ward breaks – presumably all of that force escapes outwards, devastating the surrounding area and likely wiping half the town off the map.

The loop also seems to have a sort of physical boundary, one that you’re unable to cross by physical or magical means. It’s roughly circular, with the house at its centre, extending about three or four kilometres in all directions. You can travel freely within it, but you can’t leave and you can’t signal anyone or anything outside.

You can’t rift – you can’t even open a rift, let alone travel through it, which you privately suspect to mean that there’s someone or something very powerful running this whole thing. Like this, you’re entirely cut off from Aria, and far away from anyone who could help – even the Spellsong sounds weak and strange, on the edge of changing key. How could such a thing be possible – what could have the power to do that?

Throwing yourself against the wall, the same impossible wall, forever. Who do you have to thank? Who do you have to blame?

The memories are a little less clear than they used to be, but it doesn’t stop you from dreaming. Dreaming about the life you used to have, the slow, golden days from before it all began. Are those days still there? Will they ever come again? Or is this all that’s left, now – is this the most you’ll ever have?

He still says it, even now – even when you’re not inside the ward, his voice still finds you. He tells you to go, to save yourself. To leave him behind. He says goodbye, time and time again, and you never let it stick.

Even after all of this, every torturous decade that passes in the prison of your stolen time, you can still picture him exactly. Every detail of his face, his form, his smile. As if he were right there, right in front of you. As if this had never even happened at all.

Goodbye, my darling.

The tiny bubble of eternity, stretching out in all directions. Does he smile as he says it? Or does he cry, and you’ve just never known?

I love you very, very m—

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The park, again.

You’re fairly sure you have the first part nailed down. After an uncountable amount of tries, you’re certain this is the fastest way to reach the ward. You need to revert back to your demonic form, with its elongated proportions and affinity for speed, and brace yourself to phase through the humans and cars and buildings that stand between you and the weak point in the ward.

This time, you’re going to try mind manipulation again. If you can just get a few more of them under your control, and take out the one who shot you to death from across the street last time, you might be able to hold them back a tiny bit longer…

Your human disguise disappears in an instant – teeth splitting and sharpening into fangs, bloody horns piercing through your scalp as they bloom out of your skull, and the screams around you begin. Good. It means they get out of your way quicker.

Smiling to yourself in grim satisfaction, you turn to run. There won’t be any obstacles in your path until you get closer to the gate, so you can just—

It’s you.

…What?

No, no, no.

This can’t be right.

You’ve seen this all before, every single part of it, every moment in excruciating detail. A closed system, a circular world, repeating over and over again. Nothing ever changes, and nobody but you can remember it.

Something must have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Never in a million million tries, a million million loops – not once, not ever has this happened before.

There’s a voice in your head. You can’t move.

Of course it’s you, the voice marvels, and you can feel someone behind you. Someone magical. But how? There’s never been anyone magical here before. Ever.

Your nonexistent blood turns to ice at the sound of quiet footsteps, starting to circle slowly around you. Sharklike. Predatory.

I should have known.

Slowly, whoever-it-is steps into your field of view, and you frown as you try to figure out where you’ve seen him before. Because you have seen him before, haven’t you? Why does he seem so… so familiar?

He’s a demon, that much is clear – his tail sways slowly behind him as he walks, and long, pointed claws catch the afternoon sunlight as he flicks his hair out of his eyes. His horns aren’t as tall as Vega’s, but they seem to be well-maintained and shiny. For some reason, it takes a little more effort than it should to make your eyes focus on him, like the world goes a little bit hazy around his edges.

He reminds you a little bit of a Concubus, although you can’t quite put your finger on why. Maybe it’s something to do with the way he walks, effortlessly smooth and steady, or the way his presence seems to draw you in without even trying. He’s not especially tall or short, and his features conform to mostly-human proportions – his fingers aren’t so inhumanly long like Vega’s are, his fangs not nearly as sharp or numerous, and his eyes don’t have the black sclera that you’ve come to favour. There’s just something so irresistibly, fascinatingly beautiful about him that leaves you unable to look away.

(Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you remember Vega saying something about an incubus. Or did you read it in his file? Oh, come on, come on – what did he tell you? It’s right there, on the tip of your tongue…)

(Hm. It’s probably nothing, and you’re probably wrong, but you just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something you’re forgetting.)

It’s weird, though. He looks so much like a demon, but he doesn’t feel like one. There's emotion there, certainly, but which ones – and why can't you tell? Your aura fizzes and pops as it touches his, like it’s unsure what to make of him, and the air tastes like a strange kind of energy you feel like you should recognise. It soaks into the song of your being, the invisible space between the stars, like something primaeval and powerful – an ancient, inevitable force.

He catches your eye, and something splinters in your mind as he smiles. Involuntarily, your legs give way underneath you, and if his magic wasn’t still keeping you upright, you’d be in a graceless heap on the ground.

Maybe you were wrong. He’s no demon, no ordinary one at least. He’s something new, something strange and ethereal, reality bending around him like light around a black hole. A walking, talking law of the universe – wearing a demon’s crown, and looking so very, very familiar.

You’re not… His mind is uncomfortable to speak into, multicoloured static filling your head like an ache, but you struggle through it anyway. You’re not from here.

I suppose.

The not-demon raises one perfectly-manicured eyebrow, looking you up and down. But, to be fair, neither are you.

A twinge in your chest, a niggling, scraping feeling in the back of your brain. You’re hardwired for the adrenaline of the chase, for the mission you’ve been fixed on for so long – it’s unnatural, to still be here in the park for so long.

I have to go. He needs me.

Is that so? muses the not-demon, pretty lips twisting into a wicked smirk. Are you sure?

He opens his hand to reveal what looks like a pebble of some sort, perfectly round and black and smooth, before tipping his palm and letting it fall.

I think he can wait.

Shocked, you stare as the pebble doesn’t fall at all – instead, it just hangs immobile in the air, frozen at the very moment that it left his hand. There’s no telltale ripple of psychokinesis that you can feel, no illusion cast over your senses. It’s like time just… stopped.

Seeing your surprise, he sighs, and leans slightly to the right. Behind him, the rest of the world is frozen, too. Humans caught mid-step, mid-smile, mid-breath. Trees that blow in the unmoving breeze, clouds that hang suspended in the breathless, staring sky.

A creature who controls time. Is he the one who’s behind all this?

I – I don't understand.

Your voice is so small as you try to push down the fear, the instinctive sense of danger that flickers wildly in your core. Who are you? And how did – what do you mean? How do you know me?

He shrugs, strangely casual. I know everyone.

But – but…

I know everyone, and I know everything, he says evenly, unblinking as he walks slowly towards you. I know every word in the world, every note in the Spellsong, every drop of blood and blade of grass that there ever was or will be. Little demon, I know every thought you’ve ever had, every speck of stardust that ever formed you, and I know how every single moment of your entire existence will end.

Paralysed, all you can do is watch as he stops just in front of you, expression utterly impassive. What is this? What is he going to do to you?

So, I have a question for you.

He leans forward, closer and closer, until his face is right in front of yours. Staring up at him in terror, you want nothing more than to back away – but you can't, you can't, trapped in his inescapable web and entirely helpless.

He sighs, sadly.

Does it ever work?

…Hang on.

Well, you’re not sure what you were expecting him to say, but it certainly wasn't that.

The not-demon continues, inspecting every tiny facet of your confused face like he might find his answer written there. It's not that I don't think it's admirable. It is. But don't you ever get tired?

Does it… work?

He nods. Yes.

I don't… You're so, so lost by this whole conversation – what on earth is he talking about? I don't know what you – what do you mean, ‘it’?

Oh, don't lie to me.

He says it lightly, waving his hand like it's a joke, but there's something sharp and steely just under the surface. Call it ‘professional curiosity’, if it makes you feel better. I want to know, and I’m asking you nicely. Does it work?

His gaze has turned hungry, almost manic in its intensity – reflexively, your magic recoils from the tidal wave of power that surges inside him, towering over you like a tsunami, jaws open to swallow you whole.

Tell me, little demon, ‘cause I want to know. Is it worth it? Is it better?

This change in him – is it mania, or is it madness? The realisation blossoms in the back of your petrified mind, fault lines in the frozen surface of the sea. This – this creature, whatever he is, that feeling that you couldn’t quite explain.

Does it make you happy, hm? Holding on so tightly to your quest, forever. Tell me the truth, if that's what this is – because your ignorance doesn't look very blissful to me.

It wasn't just fury, and it wasn't just fear. Yes, yes, you can taste it now, sweet and tart on your paralysed tongue. It's heat and blood and savage need, it's sweet revenge and desperate, ravenous desire – this is a man driven out of his mind with passion.

You’re not scared, are you? Of a little question like that? the man spits, like sour acid splattered across your skull. No, I don’t think so. So answer it, and answer me – are you pleased with what you’ve done? Is this the eternity you always dreamed of?

You can't move, can't breathe, can't think. It's like staring into a black hole, this incredible force looming closer and closer. You have to run, why can't you run? Your mind stutters, buckling under this crashing, crushing weight of stress and terror and confusion.

I don't know what you mean, you sob, wanting nothing more than to rub your eyes as hot, scared tears finally spill over. What is this – who are you? I don't know, I don't know – I want – please, Vega, I – I just want – Vega, Vega, I need—

The not-demon says nothing, face utterly blank as he just watches you cry. It's embarrassing – you can't help the awful wailing that tears its way out of you, every fraction of your being screaming out for help. You want him to go away, why won't he just go away? You don't want to be here, you don't want to talk about it, you don't want to be alone – you want Vega, Vega, Vega!

Lovely Vega, wonderful Vega – he's so safe and kind and precious to you, and you need him so much. You don't want to be scared. He keeps you safe from being scared. He should be here, but he isn't, and it’s not right, it's not right! Why can't he just be here?

Nothing moves. You cry and cry and cry, and it's the only sound in the whole wide world.

So you don't know.

He closes his eyes for just a moment, before he reaches out to slowly take your hand in his. Of course. Of course you don't.

It's strange, but he doesn't feel warm or cold – it's like his skin is exactly the same temperature as yours. All you feel is the pressure as his fingers fold around yours, both hands enveloping your own, and sweet magic ripples across your face as your tears suddenly dry up all on their own, as if they were never even there.

I’m sorry.

Why does he look so… so sad? It's frightening.

I thought….I thought that maybe you could have been like me, he says quietly, his thumb stroking slowly back and forth over your knuckles. Apparently not. Although, maybe it's for the best.

He smiles mournfully, and tosses his head in a mock show of vanity. You can have too much of a good thing, you know.

There's a sudden sort of crumbling, crunching noise, like an eggshell cracking, and your whole body drops to the floor like a stone as the paralytic magic holding you up collapses. Caught unawares, you only just manage to avoid landing flat on your face – he's still holding one of your hands, and you barely manage to get the other one underneath you in time to save you from a very nasty nosebleed.

Careful, now.

He watches you scramble to your feet in amusement, before swiftly looping his arm with yours and guiding you the wrong way down the path – well, the wrong way to you, seeing as you always go in the opposite direction. Walk with me, won’t you?

It’s not exactly like you have a choice, but you nod anyway. Okay.

As you walk, time begins to move again, but much more slowly than it should. You pass a jogger, running in slow-motion in the opposite direction, and for some reason you get the tiniest, nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right about her.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice the not-demon reaching out a curious hand towards the ground, and you watch as a dandelion growing by the side of the path is plucked from the earth and summoned to his fingers.

You’re confused. Was that psychokinesis? It looked like it, but it didn’t feel like it. If you had to be specific, you’d say it felt less like a physical manipulation and more like a psychological one, closer to telepathy or dreamwalking or something. But that can’t be right, can it? What kind of magic could he be doing, that seems one way but is actually another?

Regardless of your astonishment, he catches the dandelion out of the air and twirls the stem between his fingers, to the left, then the right, then the left again.

It’s a lovely world, isn’t it?

You nod warily, unsure what to make of all this. It seems best to just let him talk.

He holds the dandelion up to the sunlight, narrowing his eyes as he examines all of the little fluffy seeds, a soft white bubble atop the skinny, green stem, neatly sliced at the bottom from where he’d picked it.

I wonder…

Bringing it back down, he blows gently on the puff of seeds and watches as they come loose, fluttering in slow-motion through the air and leaving the bare stem behind. Some begin to fall to the ground much more quickly, while others are carried away by the wind, slow like air bubbles rising through thick honey.

So detailed, he murmurs, as he watches the seeds tumble away with the breeze. It’s remarkable.

Surprised, you turn your head to look at him. Detailed?

It's a strange word for him to choose – surely the world is just… like that? This is just how Elegy is, with all its rules and laws and creatures. What an unusual thing to say.

He doesn’t elaborate, but just keeps walking. You’re carried along by his arm in yours, a melancholy mockery of the way Vega used to walk with you, and you can’t help but close your eyes as the sense of loss swirls up inside you once again. So near, and yet so far.

I wish things had been different, you know.

At first, you’re not sure who said it. Then, you catch sight of his face, and realise he’s wearing exactly the same expression as you.

It’s not that I regret it, as such, he says wistfully, but I wish it hadn’t come to… this. To all of this.

His tail curls thoughtfully from side to side, just barely noticeable at the edge of your vision. When I noticed it, I thought that this might have been the answer I was looking for. A solution, at last. Or the model for one. A way that I could fix everything, for good.

Sunlight glitters off his fangs. All I wanted was what I used to have. What was taken from me.

There’s something hard and ruthless in his voice as he says it, form blurring ever so slightly at the edges. Not enough to really notice, but you feel the tremors of escaped emotion stirring in your own core as if they were your own.

Perhaps they are. You must not be as different as you’d first thought.

His words in your mind, full of longing, rhythmic like a prayer. I wanted it back – that life, that world, where nothing ever went wrong. I thought I would be willing to give it all up, if I could just have that world back.

Your shirt flutters in the slow breeze as you pass a woman walking a dog, holding the lead in one hand and her phone in the other. She shivers slightly as the two of you stroll past, and that irritating feeling of forgetting something tingles again in the back of your mind..

I wouldn’t want power. What would I need it for? the not-demon continues, a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes as he gestures mindlessly in front of him with his free hand. I’d give up everything. I’d let the universe spiral off in its own direction, let it tear itself apart the way it always seems to want, and I’d just keep that tiny little piece all for myself.

Idly, he reaches up and flicks his hair out of his face with a single, pointed claw. He seems distracted. You’d wager that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

I’d keep just enough to hide myself away, keep my little, perfect world protected, and I’d live forever in that little bubble of time where nothing could ever go wrong again.

He laughs humourlessly to himself, a quiet, grim little thing. Sorry. I think what I mean to say is… thank you.

Time stops.

You’re not just saying that – it really does stop again. Nothing moves except for you two, no sound except for your quiet footsteps on the path, slowing down.

Me? But I…

Something like dread crawls up your spine, slow and creeping. I haven’t done anything.

No, he replies calmly, you haven't. And I understand it now. Your little experiment – it hasn’t worked, which means I need to find another way.

Sorry, your what?

You must have heard him wrong. You must have. There’s no way he actually – there’s no way he means that.

I’m sorry, you manage to choke out. ‘Experiment’?

He takes a deep breath, but doesn’t say anything. In an instant, you’re seeing red.

You mean this whole time – time thing? The looping? you hiss, suddenly furious. It’s been nothing but an experiment?

He shrugs, suddenly cagey. In a manner of speaking.

How did you…? You don’t care who he is, or what he is, anymore – all you care about is tearing his stupid fucking head from his shoulders. This has all been a test? Hundreds of years of torture, losing your mind in the prison of this neverending spiral, and it’s never meant a thing?

What have you done to us? you scream, words turning to raging radio static as you hurl them into his head. What have you done?

What have I done? I’m hurt, little warden, he gasps, and that name, that name – right word, wrong voice, and it burns your skin like hot oil. For once, it’s not my fault.

Then whose is it? you snap, fingers twitching, simulated blood simmering with rage. Who do I have to blame?

Infuriatingly, he has the nerve – the nerve! – to just roll his eyes and keep walking. You won’t like it when I tell you…

You won’t like me if you don’t fucking say it, you spit, sharp claws digging into his skin as you try to struggle out of his grip on your arm – but he’s stronger than he looks, practically dragging you along by the elbow, and you can’t even draw blood. Who is it? Tell me!

Of course it’s got to be difficult, he mutters to himself, and your aura flares in fury at his exasperated tone – like you’re just a child throwing a temper tantrum. Why does it always have to be difficult?

He finally lets you go, and you skitter backwards away from him on pure instinct, your form swaying and changing constantly as magic rolls beneath your skin. Claws lengthening and shortening, blood freezing and melting, bones stretching and contracting. You can feel your magic surging, pressing against the bounds of your physical body, seething with your desperation to destroy.

You’re making a scene.

The man stands still, regarding you with what you can only describe as a miserable sort of rueful pity, and it makes you even angrier. Actually, I suppose that’s sort of the problem.

He knows you won’t respond, head too full of rage and mouth too full of fangs. I thought you would have realised, by now, but I guess not. Didn’t you think it was odd, how nobody noticed us?

The question takes you momentarily by surprise, before you realise what he’s talking about. Of course. You’re always in your demon’s body nowadays, so you quickly learnt to tune out the screaming. It hadn’t even occurred to you that nobody was panicking, at seeing two adult demons, horns and tails and all, walking through the park.

I thought it might be better if we weren’t disturbed, he says gently, hands raised slightly like he’s trying to soothe a cornered animal. I thought you might want to be alone when I told you.

Your laugh is a horrible, screeching thing, wild and frenzied as it forces its way free of you. Told me what? Told me that none of it was real – that this has all just been a game to you? That you’ve been playing with us for some sick amusement?

That’s not—

The air around you starts to shimmer as it heats up, grass just barely on the edge of catching alight. You say you know everything – you have no idea what it’s like! How many times I’ve died for this, for him – you don’t care! It doesn’t matter to you how much we’ve suffered, how hard I’ve tried, because it’s all just some fucking joke to you, isn’t it?

You think you can just take him from me? you spit, venom pooling in your mouth and dripping down your chin. He’s mine. And you could never understand what it’s like, to do what I’ve done – what I’ve had to do! Do you think it’s easy, to have him dangled just out of my reach, dying over and over again when I can’t save him?

The earth stands still and watches as you howl your grief at this monstrous, stone-faced stranger, utterly silent except for the ragged breaths you don’t even need.

The only creature in this world I could ever truly love, and he’s dead, you laugh, manic tears running down your face. He’s dead! He’s gone, isn’t he? He’s just gone, and I can’t follow him.

Shuddering with rage, you stalk forwards, thinking only of one thing. Is that what you wanted? Is this what you wanted to see? What it looks like to be cursed with false hope, forever? Your fucking experiment worked, then, because you will never, never know how it f—

I do know!

The man’s voice shreds through your body as he screams, a shockwave of sparking, glitchy static forcing you back several metres into the grass. Of course I fucking know!

Stunned, all you can do is reel as your mind is overwhelmed with emotion, washing over you like a tidal wave and knocking you flat on your back. Something like electricity courses through you, locking up every muscle, the stinging crack of a lightning bolt as it spears you to the ground, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!

Is this how he truly feels? Is this what drove him mad? You gasp for air against a raging torrent of grief, white-hot and agonising, consuming every atom of your being in torturous fire – images flash by, too fast to see, leaving only the impression of a handful of flowers and a lonely, sunlit grave.

It feels like your mind is too big for your skull, excruciating pressure as it fills with voices, vying against the Spellsong for control of your form – you feel as though even your demonic nature, that most base of things that creates you, begins to falter under the hellish weight. It’s morphing, changing, all the magic in your body burning up as it turns from the bubbling, aching lust that formed you into something else, into this starving, sobbing desire that roars into the empty sky.

You are made again, full of fury and love and sorrow. You are your mission, single-minded in your quest, a ravenous force and a never-ending power, seeking only to regain a world that is no more. This universe is yours, turned inside out at your will, and… and…

…hang on. This isn’t right.

Blearily, you try to force yourself back into your own brain, struggling to form the thoughts that you know should be there. There’s a lie – a false memory, that you should have seen coming from a mile away. That’s not how you came to be, that’s not the right story. You weren’t formed from lust. You’re an Inchoate, not a—

Concubus, you breathe, and the illusion shatters.

It takes a little while to come back to yourself.

When you do, you’re still lying there in the grass. Your tail is digging uncomfortably into your back where you’re lying on it, and your gums ache from your fangs constantly lengthening and retracting, but you’re still you.

There’s the soft sound of footsteps, and a hand appears in your vision. Grudgingly, you take it, and the man pulls you to your feet.

Sorry about that, he says sheepishly, the tip of his tail curling from side to side in faint embarrassment. I, um… well. You know. Sorry.

Time seems to still be frozen – no feeling of the breeze in your hair, or sound of the leaves in the trees rustling faintly. The sun is high in the sky behind you, and you wonder how you ever missed that he casts no shadow.

It’s you, isn’t it? you marvel, as the pieces fall into place. The incubus he told me about, the one who brought him to the Department in the first place. That was you.

It’s strange. You don’t have nearly enough evidence to prove it – it’s not like he’s the only incubus in the world, and Vega never showed you what he looked like, or even told you his name. He only ever mentioned him once or twice, back before you escaped. But for some reason, it just feels right, something instinctive deep down inside, telling you that it’s the truth.

He nods, wry smile playing across his face. I think his exact words were ‘you human-loving pathetic little upstart worm’ at the time, but yes, ‘incubus’ will do. That was me, a very long time ago.

Did you know, back then? you ask, curious. That he would come to me?

Not at the time, no, he replies. But, well – you know what they say. Everything happens for a reason.

You gesture vaguely with one hand at the lazy world around you. Even this?

Even this.

He ducks his head, looking strangely remorseful. And I meant what I said: I am sorry that I have to tell you. But you deserve to know, and it wouldn’t be right to keep it from you.

You’re about to protest, but he shushes you first. I know. I’ll explain everything, I swear. All you have to do is close your eyes.

Warily, you look around, but nothing has changed. Yet.

What are you going to do?

I won’t touch you, if that’s what you’re worried about, he says. Close your eyes, and just listen to me. Listen to my voice.

Hesitantly, you do as he asks. You can still vaguely sense your surroundings as your aura gently reflects off of them, feeling the grass beneath your feet and the leaves of the trees above you, and you can feel that the incubus hasn’t moved at all.

(Is he still an incubus, after everything you saw? Probably not. But he still hasn’t given you his name, so it’s the best you can do.)

I don’t want you to think, he says solemnly, I just want you to answer me honestly. Alright? However feels right – the first answer that pops into your head.

Okay.

Good. Where are we?

You nearly open your eyes out of reflex, caught off guard by the bizarre question. …What?

Nope, it wasn’t a joke – he sounds serious. I mean it. Where are we? Where is this place?

It’s – it’s the park. Near my house.

The incubus clicks his tongue in understanding, like he hadn’t known. The park, right. And your house! That’s very good. But where is your house, exactly?

Well, it’s close to the park, you reply, still confused. Shouldn’t he know that too? It’s only about ten minutes’ walk from here, back the way we came.

Ten minutes… I see. You can’t see it, but you’re fairly sure you can hear the minute sound of him nodding his head – the tiniest friction of skin and hair and fabric, and you strain your ears to try and focus on it. But if I want to go there and visit you, I’ll need more than that. Remind me what street your house is on?

Uh… I mean, it’s definitely nearby… It’s just on the tip of your tongue – fuck, what street do you live on? You know how to get there, but the name… If you turn right, then left, then keep walking, it’s sort of straight ahead.

Right and then left? Ah, I know the one, he muses, before his voice turns all puzzled. He sounds sad, and that feels… wrong, somehow. You don’t want him to be sad. But there are lots of houses on that street, aren’t there? And I wouldn’t want to get the wrong one. So what number is your house, then?

Oh, it’s number… You go to say it, but the answer isn’t there. Lost in thought, you snap your fingers like it’ll help you remember – because you do remember, obviously. It’s your house! Of course you know which number it is!

It’s, um…

There’s an uncomfortable pause, as he watches you try to rack your brain for the right number, and you start to get more and more embarrassed the longer it goes on. Come on, come on, why can’t you think of it?

Eventually the incubus just gives up. You know what, it doesn’t matter, he murmurs reassuringly. That was kind of a difficult question. Shall we do some easier ones?

Relieved, you hastily agree. Yes, please.

Alright. Alright, we’ll do that.

He thinks for a second, before humming quietly in satisfaction. You know what, why don’t we talk about Vega for a little bit, hm? That sounds good. You like Vega, don’t you?

Mmm, Vega. You smile dreamily at the name, letting the incubus’s low, calming voice wash over you. Yeah.

Yeah? Mm, I know, he laughs, not unkindly. And I can see why. He’s so handsome, isn’t he?

Mm-hmm. Vega…

Without even having to try, the thoughts fill your mind – the image of Vega’s form here on Elegy, and the warm feeling of being bathed in his astral aura. He looks…

Even after all this time, you can picture him as clearly as if he were right here in front of you. The gentle curve of his horns, long hair pulled up high, falling messily past his face and down his back. Tall and lithe, elegant fingers tipped with savage claws, the sly curve of his tail as it sways lazily back and forth. In your head, sweet blood drips from his fangs, gore smeared indulgently across his face and down his neck, running down over his chest, a slick, shiny trail that leads lower, and lower, and lower…

Dark eyes and a darker smile, ever knowing – ever hungry. Vega’s is a cruel sort of beauty, and no matter how long his absence, it never fails to captivate you.

He’s so pretty, you mumble, only barely aware of the words. He looks so nice.

Oh, I’m sure he does, replies the incubus, and you can hear the indulgent grin in his voice matching your own. And he’s so clever, too! Don’t you think he’s clever?

You nod, because it’s true. Very clever.

Clever and beautiful… I see, I see.

The incubus gasps theatrically, like he’s surprised himself, and you find yourself hanging onto every little sound. Ooh, but he’s got big plans, hasn’t he? Lots of ambition! And I do like that, in a man.

You can’t help but laugh delightedly at the way his voice dips all low and flirty when he says it, like a special secret from a best friend. But he’s not all work and no play, is he? That would be pretty boring. I bet he knows how to unwind, when he wants to. Is that right?

Absentmindedly, your hand drifts up to your neck, fingers pressing gently over the tender shape of Lyra that you know is there. It stings slightly, fresh as it is, the deep bite of his namesake star sitting just where your pulse ought to be.

Yeah, you breathe, only slightly embarrassed. Yeah, he does.

Obviously you can't see it, but you can practically taste the wicked smirk that spreads across the incubus’s face at your admission. Mmm, I thought so.

He starts to move, circling slowly around to your left, the quiet echo of his footsteps on the concrete floor. He even found the time to get married, didn’t he? That’s pretty impressive. And he found himself a real catch, too – you know, I heard the wedding was something very, very special indeed.

Your wedding ring suddenly feels like it weighs a ton as he mentions it, enormously conscious of the weight on your finger that you’d almost forgotten was there. So sorry I couldn’t come, by the way. But is that true? Did you have fun?

Oh, your wedding day… Hadn’t it been so wonderful? Flowers and ribbons and confetti everywhere, like a great big birthday party, and all those floaty, happy feelings you got to gobble up from all the people watching you. Vega’s lovely words to you – the special promises you made, to be together forever and ever. And the music! That big piano thing that the lady played for you, so loud and sweet-sounding, the whole song of your being singing along.

Even after you and Vega had left the ceremony, you’d still had fun. He’d carried you in his arms back into the room you’d passed through earlier, the one with all the balloons and chairs and decorations, and shown you the cake he found – it was the tallest cake you’ve ever seen! It had so many layers, and it had lots of flowers made of pink sugar stuck to the sides. There were two little figures made of sweet-smelling stuff on top of the cake as well, that were shaped a bit like humans, but you hadn’t really been paying attention to them.

You’d really really wanted to try some, but you hadn’t seen any sort of spoon to eat it with, or a knife to cut it with. And perhaps you could have made one with magic, but you couldn’t really be bothered – so instead, you’d reached out and excitedly clawed a handful of sweet cake out from the front, scooping it up into your mouth and enjoying the rich, buttery redness that had been hiding inside.

Vega had refused at first, but he’d relented when you’d taken a second helping and offered it to him, neatly taking a bite out of the red and white chunk of cake and icing sitting in your palm. He hadn’t wanted any more after that, though, so you’d helped yourself to the rest, burying your face in your palm until half your face was smeared with all of that sticky, gooey goodness.

Oh, it had been so delicious! You’d been tempted to take the whole thing home with you, but that would have been quite greedy – and you did already have plans for dinner, so you’d just settled for taking one more handful, as well as some of the sweet flowers from the sides of the cake as a snack.

Red velvet flavour, Vega had said after you’d got home, sugar flower dissolving on his tongue, peering at the list of cake flavours he’d found on the computer screen. How…. unpleasant. Why would humans even want to eat that?

You’d been so confused. Is velvet the shiny one? I thought they made music out of that.

No, I think that’s ‘vinyl’, dear, Vega had replied, although he’d looked a bit unsure. It’s the one that’s mostly smooth, but a little bit fluffy. Like a sort of fabric, I believe. Did you think it tasted like that, darling?

You’d shrugged, too preoccupied with licking the sugary, cakey mess of crumbs and icing from underneath your claws, making sure not to get any of the red stuff all over your nice white clothes. Whatever it is, it’s nice. We should find some more.

Lost in the lovely memory, you startle as the incubus quietly clears his throat, the sound echoing off the walls and bouncing around the room – shit, you were meant to be answering a question, weren’t you?

Lots of fun, yeah, you say happily, rocking softly from foot to foot in content. He’s so good to me.

Yeah? Oh, I bet he is, laughs the incubus, slowly coming around to your other side from behind you. Real husband material – you want to hang onto that one, for sure. And I bet he took you on a hell of a honeymoon, didn’t he?

You start to reply, but then you realise you don’t know what to say. Did you have a honeymoon? You must have done…

The air is cold and still, and you can hear every near-silent swish of the incubus’s tail as he walks, the tiny sounds of the building settling around you. No? Hm. That’s funny. I could have sworn you two went on holiday somewhere… And pretty recently, too. Don’t you remember?

Holiday, a holiday… why does that sound familiar? Did you go somewhere special with him lately? Did he take you anywhere unusual…?

It would have been pretty late at night, wouldn’t it? the incubus continues, thoughtful, and you let his voice lead you back into the maze of your memory. Yeah, that’s right. It would have been dark outside, and he’d have led you inside, wouldn’t he? Maybe by holding your hand? Or asking you to follow behind him?

Now that he mentions it, that sounds… yes! Yes, you remember! Walking side by side with him in the dark, streetlamps overhead as you’d got closer and closer to the building – oh, and how he’d said to stay close to him…

You remember going inside, don’t you? You’d just gone inside, and you were looking for the stairs. Do you remember the stairs?

He’s right, you had been looking for the stairs. How could you have forgotten? You’d been trying to find a way to get downstairs, to see what was going on. You’d been curious. Why had you been curious?

But you didn’t find the stairs. You saw someone instead, didn’t you?

Someone unexpected, someone who shouldn’t have been there…

A strange man, someone you didn’t recognise.

He’d been so odd. Saturated with magic, but no sound at all – singing with no voice, a terrifying emptiness where something ought to be.

The incubus speaks again, low and gentle. And he was scary, wasn’t he? You were so, so scared. Because it was frightening, there in the dark, talking to that strange, scary man.

Yes… you murmur, shivering in the chill of the empty room. Yes, I remember…

But it was okay, wasn’t it? he asks, and there’s something indescribable in his voice that you can’t quite name. You got away. You held Vega’s hand, and you turned and ran, as fast and as far as you could. You ran all the way outside into the night, and you kept running until you could run no more, and then you rifted away.

You start to agree, but there’s a strange sort of friction in your mind when you do. Is that not what happened? Why does it feel wrong?

No, you manage to force out, but the words are slow and painful as your eyes fill with tears. No, I didn’t hold Vega’s hand.

The incubus nudges your aura gently with his own, a silent question. You bite your lip to stop it trembling so much, and let him take you in his arms as you start to shudder uncontrollably.

Why not? he whispers sadly, and this time, you know he already knows the answer.

Streetlights flickering outside. I couldn’t.

Why?

Cold concrete under your feet. There was nothing to hold.

Why?

Because he wasn’t there, you wail, and the corridor is filled with the airless song of your grief. He was already dead.

Silently, the hazy spell of the incubus’s voice falls away, and you open your eyes. Not to the trees and sky and earth of the park that’s near your house, but to the grim, dark grave that is the CloseKnit headquarters, and the moment that the world itself ceased to be.

You’re back.

The incubus holds you softly as your body convulses with awful, aching sobs, lowering you gently to the ground when your legs start to give way and you can’t hold yourself up any more. I’m so sorry, he murmurs into your mind as he kneels with you, rocking you back and forth as you cry uncontrollably into his shoulder. I’m so sorry, little warden.

It’s torturous, how the memories come back all at once, as if they had never gone away. The sheer, absolute panic of that moment, of seeing the empty space where Vega had been only a fraction of a second before. How you’d felt something give way deep inside you, some buried well of power so immense and vital that to even think of it was to fall apart – all you remember was a sharp flash of light, brilliant and blinding, and the sudden feeling of falling.

A sickening crack, your body and your mind splitting open as magic poured from your being, rending the very sky and the entire universe that hid behind it. Nothing had been real, nothing had mattered – only you, only the murderous, vengeful fear that filled you, the agony of your terror and the fury of your fear.

How? you weep through tears, not trusting your voice to come out as anything but a screech. How could I forget? I thought – I really, really thought he – that it…

That it was real?

He quietly shushes you as you start to keen, pressing his face to your hair. I know. I know you did. And it’s not your fault. It did exactly what you designed it to do.

You couldn’t bear it – couldn’t bear to believe that it could even be real. That such a world, such a cruel and awful world, could ever come to pass. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be allowed.

Your body spasms and twitches uncontrollably as you cry, all messy and wet. Just another thing that’s out of your control.

You couldn’t believe that he could be taken from you, the incubus whispers, words full of the terror you can’t say. It was impossible, surely? For him to just… disappear? For everything he ever was or ever would be to have vanished in an instant, leaving you behind?

It had all been so fast. Trembling behind him, peeking out over his shoulder at the horrifying, empty shape of that – that creature, that thing. One second he was there, and the next…

Dissolving into the air, returning to the Spellsong as if he had never existed at all – the ring on your finger that suddenly had no pair. You hadn’t even seen his face.

Poor, sweet little warden. The real world was too horrifying, so you dreamed a new one for yourself instead. You needed comfort, you needed to be safe – so your mind took you to the one place in the world where that could be true.

But you couldn’t quite forget, could you?, the incubus muses, sounding strangely proud. Or perhaps… fond, in a bizarre sort of way. You had to make sense of it somehow. You had to explain to yourself why he wasn’t there, and why he never said goodbye. So you dreamed that too – a Vega who was still alive, but always out of reach, and whose last words were that he loved you more than anything.

Held tight in the incubus’s arms, your form trembles erratically, magic desperately melting and setting over and over again to try and keep up with the emotions that flood through it – even the air temperature starts to change, heating up and cooling down with every wave of grief.

Your hair grows long and limp, hanging miserably to the floor to hide your face, before suddenly getting shorter again with every spike of rageful sorrow that flares in your heart. Layers of fat and muscle writhe like snakes under your skin as it flickers between colours, freckles splattering themselves across your back before they fade just as quickly, and your whole face aches as everything moves – your eyeballs changing shape in their sockets, your cheeks splitting as your mouth widens, then sewing themselves back together when it narrows again.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, again and again forever, just to hear those precious few seconds of his voice again. To hear the words he never got the chance to say.

What do you look like now? Would Vega even recognise you at all? Acid tears burning trails down your face, searing tiny divots in the concrete when they fall. Try as you might, you can’t make your body stay still.

The incubus shakes his head sadly. You just couldn’t let him go. You couldn’t accept that there might ever come a time where you and he would have to be parted, so you clung to whatever pieces of him you could, whatever hope you could find.

His voice comes to you as if underwater, muffled and dim, and you feel as though you truly are lost in the darkness of the sea. A creature of the deep, sunken to the seafloor, tiny fish picking at the soft tissue until there’s nothing left but bones. Soon all you’ll be is sand, nothing but grit and stones rolling in the current, floating adrift and never to be put back together again.

The ultimate escape, your very own one-more-chance – if the only way out is to do the impossible, then you never have to leave. What else is grief, but love that doesn’t realise it’s already dead?

He smiles blackly, and you feel the still-tender bite marks on your neck start to burn. The most perfect prison, for the warden of demonkind’s worst. You really do never fail to impress.

A car that doesn’t go, and a cake you didn’t make. It’s all gone now, and you’re the only thing that’s left – an impossible spectre, risen sobbing from the grave. Buried under the weight of the life you thought you’d have, crushed under the rubble of a peony and a picket fence.

You don’t know how long you spend there, a puddle of limbs splayed across the concrete, crying your endless eyes dry. Perhaps it’s a day, or a year, or a century. Perhaps you’re there forever, never leaving, never stopping even for a moment. It’s impossible to know.

What do I do?

Brokenly, you nudge the words into the incubus’s mind, begging that he’ll have an answer. I don’t – I can’t, I don’t know how…

The words don’t come, but the incubus seems to know exactly what you wanted to be able to say. You don’t know what comes next, he says softly, and perhaps you don’t even know if there is a next. What could possibly come after this? The world has already ended. All you know is grief, and you can’t imagine a time when that grief is not your entire mind.

Creatures of emotion, and the magic that follows it. The great curse of demonkind, that we must become our love.

You feel sick. There’s nothing left. He’s gone.

The incubus pauses for a second, before sitting back slightly and tilting your head up so you can see his face. Gone, you say?

Where else could he be? you mutter, with a voice like smashed glass. He’s nothing, now. I can’t feel him, not at all.

He shrugs, face carefully blank. I guess.

Your sore eyes narrow. What’s that supposed to mean?

You’d do anything, wouldn’t you? Whatever it takes, whatever has to happen, for you to see him again.

He lets out a deep breath, a faraway look in his eyes. You don’t care what it is. You don’t care what it’ll cost. Reality means nothing, if it keeps you from him – you’d tear the world apart to find him again. In fact, you already have. He’s the only thing that could ever matter any more, and he’s the only thing that could ever satisfy the awful emptiness inside.

The half-smile on your face probably looks more like a grimace. How did you know?

Didn’t I tell you before? I know everything.

He laughs, but there’s no humour in it. You and I aren’t as different as you thought, little warden.

Does it change anything? you scowl, pathetically trying to cover your pain with frustration. No matter what I say, he’s no less dead.

Yes, well… His gaze flicks to the right, sliding sideways off of yours. About that.

He sighs.

I have a… a theory, I suppose. Untested. I can’t say it’ll work for sure.

A theory? you repeat, suspicious. What theory?

Look, he admits, it’s something of a work in progress. I think it does what it’s supposed to, but I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.

What does it do?

The incubus clicks his tongue, claws drumming quietly against your arm.

I’m looking for someone. Someone I lost, a little bit like you.

He blinks, suddenly thoughtful. Actually, a lot like you, now that I think about it. Hm. In any case, I want to bring them back – and I think I know how.

You stare up at him, perplexed. If you know how, then why wait?

There’s… well, there’s a lot that could go wrong, he replies gingerly. Messing with reality is a tricky business, little warden. If I’m not careful, it could do all sorts of… unpleasant things. Things that I can’t allow to happen.

There's an unspoken question there, and you have a horrible feeling that you know what it is. That you know what this has all been leading up to.

You want to try it out on me, you say. On us.

If you wouldn’t mind…

He says it so casually, picking lazily at his claws like he’s talking about the weather. Not to be rude or anything, but when we’re talking about magical experiments that might permanently delete us from every dimension of the universe, I do have some suggestions as to which of us should go first.

Ah. There it is. That’s why he’s hesitating.

Is this really what you want to do?

If this goes wrong – and for all you know, it will go wrong – you might end up completely destroyed. Past, present, and future. You’d be removed from time entirely, and the world would simply go on as if you’d never existed. You’d never have coalesced, never have gone to Elegy, never have met Vega at all. A new universe, one less star in the sky.

Would that be better? Would you even know you’d disappeared? Would anyone really miss you, if you had never existed in the first place?

For a rational mind, it’s dangerous – too dangerous. But what’s the alternative?

If you say no, what comes next? You’ll have to pick up the pieces, and learn to live with everything that’s happened. Knowing what you know now, you’ll have to find a way to live without him. You’ll have to make your own way, on the run from the Department – will you take up Vega’s mission in his stead, to fight for the survival of your species? Or will you crack under the pressure, faltering and failing alone, abandoning the fate of demonkind to someone else?

A world without Vega. You can’t even imagine it.

By all logic, you should say no. You should – but this chance! How could you live with yourself, if you threw away your only hope at bringing him back? What could possibly be left for you, in this new, terrible world, that you wouldn’t trade for the chance to see him again?

You’ve already lost everything. There’s nothing left to risk.

I think…

The incubus raises an eyebrow, pointed tip of his tail brushing his hair out of his pretty face, and your broken heart aches.

I think you already know what I’m going to say.

He smiles, wide and only a little sinister. I can see why Vega likes you.

In the back of your mind, you can very nearly hear some sort of dull, droning noise – a low, glitchy buzz like electricity. Your skin starts to itch, and you can feel some of your hair start to float as it goes all staticky.

The demonic mind is a funny thing, the incubus continues solemnly. If you had the choice, would you want to remember this? Or would you rather not know?

I don’t want to forget.

The answer is obvious – you don’t even have to think about it. I don’t regret it. Any of it. I don’t regret fighting for him like that, and I don’t regret who I’ve become. And if the chance ever comes for revenge…

The incubus nods, and you can feel his satisfaction mirroring your own. You want to know why you’re doing it.

Of course.

And all it cost…

He trails off, lost in thought, and you have the strangest sort of helium feeling in your head, your body growing almost imperceptibly lighter. You really do love him.

Light sparkling off the diamond on your finger, shattering into streaks of bright red and electric blue. I do.

Then remember him, little warden, the incubus murmurs, as everything begins to flicker and fade, colour leaking out of the world around you to leave only black and white and grey. Remember him, and let me do the rest.

He closes his eyes, and the humming, buzzing sound in your head gets louder. It clicks and cracks like the radio, a familiar sort of whirring sound underneath it, like the soft friction of something spinning. A record, perhaps? Or is it something else?

As the noise thrums through your body, you fix Vega’s image in your head as hard as you can, filling your mind with thoughts of him and the world you want to wake up to. His voice, his face, the feeling of his form curved around you as he holds you close to him. The song of his being, sweet and swirling, harmonising with yours.

Bloody fingerprints on the fridge door, claw marks gouged into the arm of the sofa. Wisteria growing up the trellis, stacks and stacks of spare hairbands in the bathroom cabinet. The shape of Lyra brands itself into your mind, the dim light of a fading constellation – and the radiance of your own namesake star cries out in return, reaching into the chattering sky like a lighthouse staring out to sea.

The static feels like a storm, strange winds blowing you from side to side as the noises grow. It’s getting more and more difficult to see, but you feel it as the incubus lets go of you, standing up and starting to walk away. Something about it sends an instinctual pang of fear through your body, and you hurriedly call after him.

Wait!

The figure in front of you turns, features beginning to blur until you can barely picture his face in your head – even though he’s right in front of you, you find yourself struggling to remember what he looks like.

Is this the end? you shout, desperate in a way you don’t really understand. Will I ever see you again?

He laughs, summer light and sunshine easy, and it sounds like a farewell. Who’s to say? he calls back to you, and you notice that he’s unmoved by the wind that beats furiously against your body. Perhaps, if this works, we’ll meet again someday. In a world where both of us can get what we want.

The gaps between your thoughts are getting longer, splintering and stretching, dissipating out into the universe like stardust. Reality twisting beneath you, swallowing you up, ever expanding and entirely unknowable. You can feel it, just barely – time turning back on itself, things and places and people not the way they were before. A new world. A new reality.

As your body crumbles into electric dust, you can feel that you’re almost gone. Your voice has nearly vanished, a blocky jumble of noise that tumbles away in the storm, but you know he hears you all the same.

I look forward to it already.

As your mind begins to dissolve into static, through the sandy, glitchy storm you can just about make out the shape of the mysterious incubus, silhouetted against the collapsing universe, and blowing you a kiss with the tip of his tail. Then I’ll be seeing you soon, little warden.

01001001 01000110 00100000 01010100 01001000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01000010 01000101 00100000 01000101 01010010 01010010 01001111 01010010 00100000 01000001 01001110 01000100 00100000 01010101 01010000 01001111 01001110 00100000 01001101 01000101 00100000 01010000 01010010 01001111 01010110 01000101 01000100 00101100

And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

01001001 00100000 01001110 01000101 01010110 01000101 01010010 00100000 01010111 01010010 01001001 01010100 00101100 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010010 00100000 01001110 01001111 00100000 01001101 01000001 01001110 00100000 01000101 01010110 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001100 01001111 01010110 01000101 01000100 00101110

Recipe for undying love (REVISED):

Add dread, rage, and sorrow to a bowl, and mix until a smooth dough forms. Chill in the fridge for at least one hour, then roll out it on a flat surface until thin and use it to line a loose-bottomed tin.

“I… I think I did the wrong thing.”

Line case with baking parchment and cover with baking beans. Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes or until crisp, then leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

“I can’t make a mistake… but I made one.”

Mix together denial and agony in a large bowl, then slowly add faithfulness. Stir continuously until fully incorporated. If mixture splits, add a small amount of vengeance and continue stirring.

“His magic is still there. At least part of it. Maybe enough.”

Separately, add misery, regret, and a pinch of self-loathing to the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat until soft peaks form. Fold in beaten ingredients to original bowl, then transfer to case.

“I have to go back.”

Dust generously with terror, and refrigerate for at least four hours, or overnight, until fully set.

“Doc.”

Remove from fridge approximately fifteen minutes before serving. Best served chilled with double cream, caramel, or chocolate sauce.

“Will you come with me?”

You knew the risks. Can be kept in an airtight container for as many cycles of your self-inflicted timeloop as you can stand, or until the reality you came from is manipulated enough to force your husband’s killer into bringing him back from the dead.

01010111 01001000 01000101 01001110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01010011 01000001 01011001 00100000 00100111 01000100 01001001 01010011 01000001 01010000 01010000 01000101 01000001 01010010 00100111 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01000100 01001111 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01001101 01000101 01000001 01001110 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000001 01010100 00100000 01000001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01000001 01001101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000010 01000101 00100000 01001110 01001111 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010010 01000101 00101110 00001010 01001101 01011001 00100000 01010011 01001111 01010101 01001100 00100000 01010111 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01001010 01001111 01001001 01001110 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 01010011 00101100 00100000 01000001 01001110 01000100 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000001 01001110 01000100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01010111 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01001110 01000101 01010110 01000101 01010010 00100000 01000010 01000101 00100000 01000001 01010000 01000001 01010010 01010100 00101110 00001010 00001010

human nature masterlist

peaches and cream masterlist

main masterlist

this is an original fanwork by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute.

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted vega #redacted warden #redacted echo #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters

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zirawrites · 1 year

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How do you think the fallout 4 companions would react to having traveled with sole for a few months and sole only referring to them as "pal, buddy, bro etc." and then finally braking down and telling them they can't for the life of them remember their name, but they were just too embarrassed to ask again

Cait: “It’s literally one syllable, Sole!” Cait’s face flushed when Sole just shrugged. “I’m your only companion with such a short name.” Then Sole reminded her of Danse and Nick, and Cait swung a punch that Sole barely dodged.

Codsworth: “The effects of cryostasis must still be affecting your long-term memory.” Codsworth rattled chipperly and blinked in the endearing way he always did when he wanted to mimic smiling. “Not to worry, sir/mum! I’m Codsworth; your faithful Mr. Handy from General Atomic’s finest!” He literally couldn’t fathom Sole actually not remembering him.

Curie: “I do not mean to offend, but I think I rather you have kept that to yourself.” Curie shook her head in pity. “That is embarrassing, Sole. I hope you feel very awkward right now.” Even though Curie was only partly-teasing, she still insisted Sole take extra vitamins to keep up their mental fortitude.

Danse: “I call you soldier out of respect,” Danse said, his mouth stretched in a long frown. “You do it because you don’t know what else to call me. How long were you going to keep up the charade?” Sole admitted they hoped until another Brotherhood soldier said his name, but everyone just seemed to call him Paladin.

Deacon: “If it makes you feel better, Deacon isn’t actually my real name. I tell raw recruits my codename is to safeguard my identity, but really it’s because my real name is... embarrassing.” Deacon’s blush seemed genuine, and he scratched the back of his neck until Sole finally asked what his name was. “Funnily enough, I’m Sole, too!” He giggled like a kid until Sole gave him a playful shove.

Hancock: “I don’t remember my name half the time anyways.” Hancock seemed completely unbothered by this revelation. It was nearly impossible to offend him. “You can start calling me Hancock, or The Best Damn Mayor in the Commonwealth.” Then Hancock tried to pronounce the last nickname as an acronym, and both of them laughed it off.

MacCready: “You’re kidding.” MacCready searched Sole’s face for hints of a prank. When it was evident Sole was telling the truth, his ears burned red. “We’ve been traveling together for, like, months! You don’t even know the name of the merc you hired? Next time we’re in Sanctuary I’m having Curie look at your head.”

Preston: “Oh, um. I’m Preston.” Preston absolutely internalized this as being so forgettable that Sole couldn’t even remember the first human they came into contact with after leaving the vault. Ouch.

Piper: “Need me to come up with a color for myself? It seems to be the only rudimentary thing you can remember, Blue.” Piper then only referred to herself as Red, which only made Sole feel worse.

Nick: “Sole, you come by my office almost every day.” Nick rubbed his face in sheer defeat. “Did the sign out front never jog your memory?” Sole admitted they thought Nick was just a hopeless romantic, and Nick threw a wad of paper at their head.

X6-88: “It has a lot of numbers. I completely understand, sir/ma’am.” X6 wasn’t offended. In truth, he literally did not care.

#fallout 4 #fallout 4 reactions #hancock #maccready #nick valentine #x6-88 #fallout deacon #danse #fallout curie #fallout cait #fallout piper #fallout preston #codsworth

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rachetmath · 17 days

Text

Jaune Vol 10 Character Analysis

You know what I planned to make this a few pages long, but screw it, let’s talk about it. In Volume 10, I want Jaune to have that same energy back in Volumes 9 and 6. I’m sorry, but after everything Jaune has been through should not go back to being a comic relief character. No, not a chance, considering they're in the kingdom of Vacuo.

Vacuo, the desert kingdom might as well be the crime invested, savage, and brutal nation in all of Remnant. And this was the best place to bring thousands of people to? Imagine the amount of stress Jaune will be under due to the amount of work needed just to have stability. And he just got back from the Ever After. Imagine how hard it will be for him to readjust to Remnant, especially if the people start losing faith in the hunters. Not only that despite being reverted to the age he left in, he still is mentally older than everyone else.

Remember what Jaune’s mother told him, “A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet.” Well, that’s debatable now after being betrayed by so many people. So imagine Jaune thinking twice about trusting anyone, regardless of good intentions. Hell, have him question Emerald so she can prove herself or his allies for a change considering they barely do anything for him. Either way, Jaune… won’t be as trusting as before.

Next, after failing his friends multiple times at least story-wise…Jaune might as well be more obsessed with getting stronger than ever before. Even though Weiss, Yang, and Blake slightly helped him, it’s not enough to help him move past the amount of pain he went through like isolation, paranoia, and self-doubt. These things can make Jaune question himself, and lead him to want to quit, leaving the hunter world for good. Or die. This isn’t a good idea, considering Jaune is needed and is a hero in other people's eyes. (Jaune has been doing a better job than most characters, despite being the weakest in the group.)

Sadly, his friends may be unable to talk to him about it. I’m talking about Ren and Nora, mainly due to relating. But it's because they are both horrible teammates.

Okay, I explain my beef with these two. Ren and Nora, I tolerated at the beginning volumes. However, after volumes four to eight, I got frustrated with them enough that I didn’t mind if either of them or both of them died. Jaune always has to be there for both of them but neither is there for him when he truly needs them. I get it he is their leader but still. And before you all say “Ren and Nora have moments with Jaune.” My counterpoint is that most of them are forgettable and were outweighed by their other actions. Don’t believe me? Then let us discuss the volumes.

In volume four, it’s crazy that Ruby knows what Jaune has been doing more than his team. Let’s not forget during a fight with a Nuckalavee they were conversing while Jaune and Ruby were fighting for their lives. Look I understand, the Nuckalavee killed Ren’s parents but still. And don’t get me started on how they were willing to stand aside in the fight with Tyrian. At least Jaune was trying to help in response to Ruby jumping in between Qrow and Tyrian’s fight by herself.

Volume five, not going to lie, Nora was worried about Jaune but that was in a trap set up by Cinder and Raven. And to make matters worse they fought one man together while Jaune faced a maiden alone. Then when Jaune was healing Weiss, not knowing how long it would take, the moment Ren got hurt, Nora rushed in to help him, knowing Jaune may need protection. (I know it was under Jaune’s orders but come on.)

Volume six…. No. Let us skip this because even though it was a bad time, at least Nora and Ren said the sweetest thing ever. It’s too bad I can’t say those same words held up for volume seven. Nora and Ren were barely with Jaune at all. Jaune is more with Oscar than they were combined. Then they were useless in the fight with Neo and argued half the volume onto volume eight.

In volume eight, I truly started hating these two even more. Nora seems to care more about Oscar, to the where she has hugged him more than once, while I don’t recall one time she ever hugs Jaune. So far, in many volumes, she was straight-up rude to him. And even when he and Ren return from almost certain death she never says “Hi” and after healing her, Nora and Ren start having their moment again. Nora never said “Thank you”.

Speaking of Ren, we can’t forget this man calling Jaune out like he did, over something they all agreed to do. Understand, the circumstances they were in. Oscar got kidnapped by an unknown enemy. They were in a snow field with no shelter insight and they could die. All while Oscar was in enemy clutches with no way to reach him. With the facts in mind, was addressing any of what Ren said, important? “No. Why?” because not only was it not of any importance, there were too many counterpoints to his statements.

And what makes this worse, is when the portal to Vacuo, appears before them, they immediately use Jaune as a test subject instead of Emerald. Nope, these two are unless to Jaune if he starts going on the deep end. Emerald and Oscar might be a better choice than either of them. Hell, I’ll take the red-haired woman over them. I want Raven to talk to him or at least Qrow.

I want Raven to come back and talk to him, due to being one of the same. The only difference is Jaune’s actions were based on circumstances, while Raven’s were purely by choice. Imagine Raven telling Jaune every cruel thing she’s ever done. And how some of the decisions she’s made in her life, caused her more grief and hardship than good. She tells Jaune not to make the same mistakes she did. Telling him to press forward despite everything he has gone through. I wouldn’t mind if Raven bothers to train him if Jaune asks of her. And if that can't happen then give that role to Qrow. However, there is one person Jaune needs to stay away from and kill. Tyrian.

Tyrian is one of those toxic individuals, who will use and manipulate people to do things recklessly. Like I said before, the people's faith in the hunters could be diminishing. People like Tyrian will take advantage of this by using violence and chaos as a solution. When it's simply him pushing his own agenda. Tyrian was already interested in Jaune, but he never expressed why. Tyrian, in theory was like Jaune but life changed him somehow to be a monster. Jaune who's already close to insanity might as well be another reason fueling Tyrian’s curiosity. Tyrian wants to see how long it will take to break the knight’s spirit until he becomes just like him. Or push him to become another ally for Salem. Basically, instead of like Marco where he just forgets and moves on with his life, Jaune, I agree, becomes more like Samurai Jack. Or in this case, Odysseus, who I probably talk about later.

Samurai Jack, as many know was a Samurai, sent to the future and out for revenge against a demon known as Aku. He has experienced multiple failures, especially trying to find a way home to the past. Soon, he lost all chances of getting home to his family. And to make matters worse, he loses his sword and his way. This led to Jack being on the run and hiding from Aku. Sending him into a downward spiral as he felt all hope was lost. It wasn't until he met Ashi and remembered the good he had done for the people is when he rose to fight again, overcoming his demons. Odysseus, on the other hand, learns a different lesson. Again later.

If that’s the direction Jaune’s character is taking, then these are the requirements. Jaune moves on and embraces the reality that he isn’t the same person he once was before the Ever After. And he needs to find his strength once again. Planning and making better choices than the supposed headmasters and rulers of the world. And the best way to do that is to work on himself while separating from the group. What I’m theorizing is, when Alyx said “You’re not meant to be the hero.”, what could she have meant by it? Probably because while being a hero is good, being a ruler and leader for the people is a lot better.

#rwby #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #oscar pines #emerald sustrai #qrow branwen #raven branwen #tyrian callows #samurai jack #marco diaz #odysseus #greenlight volume 10

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real-fire-emblem-takes · 2 months

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Honestly, one of the "best" parts of Fates' writing is that it's bad in so specific ways that there is just enough good stuff there that it gets people thinking about ways in which it could be better. For example, here are some of my own ideas:

Anankos, the Rainbow Sage, the Nohr Dragon and the Hoshido Dragon were siblings like the "modern" Nohr/Hoshido siblings, and the Nohr/Hoshido dragons were female. Those two and the Rainbow Sage sealed themselves into a human form to put off the madness that inevitably befalls dragons in old age, but Anankos didn't

Anankos eventually went mad because of course he did, and went on a massive rampage across the continent, only to be stopped by the combined efforts of his siblings and their respective human allies/partners. Valla gets flung into a seperate dimension sorta thing because of it, and Anankos gets super duper sealed away, first in the way that he can't leave Valla, and then in the way that he is sealed away within Valla

A Lot Of Time passes and Valla + Anankos get either forgotten or are erased from people's memories, but Anankos eventually manages to break free from his seal within Valla... but the one keeping him in Valla, no such luck. The people of Valla can leave, and his influence and power can extend beyond Valla, but he physically can't leave Valla

So, next actual change: Iago and Yukimura are both from Valla and servants of Anankos instead of Generic Evil Henchmen #1 and The Most Forgettable Playable Fates Character (which is saying something). Both are trying to corrupt the respective rulers of Hoshido and Nohr enough despair so that they become a suitable vessel for Anankos, who can use their distant familial connection to get his mind into their bodies and leave Valla that way

Speaking of respective monarchs: Sumeragi's first wive, Ikona is still alive, and the queen of Hoshido even in the present. Corrin also still ends up outside of Valla, but Mikoto gets yoinked back right after she gets Corrin outta there

The whole Corrin getting adopted and kidnapped stuff still happens, but both sides believe that they are Corrin's blood family due to some Magic Mind Manipulation™ from Iago and Yukimura. Corrin's not vital to Anankos' plans, but hey, can't hurt to have a potential backup vessel, right?

About halfway through Conquest, Corrin turns against Nohr together with Camilla and Elise who are already with them, they basically join forces with the rebellion in Cheve, and by proxy, Scarlet, and manage to break Garon out of his mind control a good ten chapters before the game is even over

But, there's still a perfectly good Hoshido to ruin, and so Yukimura gets to work on Ikona, who's also susceptible to that shit, especially since Iago had to flee and seek refuge in Hoshido

In Birthright meanwhile, Hoshido just doesn't get to be the Magical UwU Peace Kingdom, and their relationship to the people under them is similar to how it is between Nohr and say, the Ice Tribe. Speaking of which, Flame Tribe rebellion

In Birthright's ending, Ryoma abdicates the throne and lets Hinoka become queen because he thinks he doesn't make a good ruler

Endgame for both Birthright and Conquest sees the siblings of the side you didn't pick get pulled into the whole mind control/Being Influenced deal, and they form the last line of defence for Garon/Ikona. To get to the chamber where the respective monarch has sealed themselves, you only need to kill three of the four siblings, and it's your choice who it is! Chances are that the remaining siblings may not have the best view of Corrin afterwards, though.

Conquest has Garon join as playable in the endgame, Birthright has Ikona join in the endgame, Revalation has both of them join. Also, they have supports with each other there.

#changing fate #fe #fire emblem #fe14 #fe fates #fire emblem fates #story takes

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cabezadeperro · 4 months

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for the wrapped prompt: 34 and fox/echo/fives (you have hooked me on this trio!) 💜

i am very happy to hear that >:)

(i am being extremely slow writing these prompts and for this i apologize but i Will get to them.)

established relationship, G, ~900w. alcohol mention. the song was the deal, by mitski.

---

Fox gives one last tug at the tarp and steps away. The bike is half-hidden by the bins at the end of the alley, the thick tarp taking care of what’s left. It won’t stop any determined thieves, but it’ll do for a while. Fox stuffs his hands in the pockets of his leatheris jacket and starts making his way to the neighbouring street, his boots sinking slightly in the mix of trash and mud that covers the ground. The flashing neons of the ad boards slick off the shoulders of Fox’s jacket and the windshields of the speeders overhead. Fox blinks the light off his eyes, momentarily blinded, and doesn’t allow himself to stop. Across the street and down a set of crumbling duracrete stairs and into a different, crowded, crooked little street, loud with music and speeder engines and the general noise of the crowd.

Fox keeps his head down and doesn’t look anyone in the eye. He knows himself invisible: everyone’s gaze slides right off him, their eyes looking through him and around him. He’s deep enough under Coruscant’s surface most of the people he crosses paths with have never seen a bare-faced clone trooper, but he doesn’t want to risk it.

They don’t seem to care.

He finds Torrent’s ARCs in one of the smaller pubs along Hangsman’s Creek. They’re sharing a booth at the back of the bar, snickering at each other over empty shot glasses. They’re on the same side of the booth, their shoulders together, the low light reflecting in their dark eyes. Fives sees him first through the windows, his eyes widening in recognition, and when Fox steps into the bar Echo’s already turning to look at him.

They look very different: it’s not Fives’s beard and tattoo, or Echo’s shorter hairstyle. It’s in the way they talk, the way they hold themselves.

They are also perfectly identical, and the moment Fox bites the bolt and crosses the pub, the moment he stops in front of the booth—well.

Fox frowns and folds his arms, not bothering to speak. It’s too loud in the bar, and his throat hurts, and anyway—it won’t matter. It never does with these two.

For a long beat, they stare at each other. Fives’s elated smile slides off his face, and Echo tilts his head, his bright eyes turning knowing and sly, and Fox waits them out, the eyes of the whole room on them, burning a hole into the back of Fox’s head. Fox jerks his head towards the exit and then leaves them there, starts making his way back across the pub to the street.

There’s a small, run down park around the corner. It’s walled off, but the gate’s busted, and it gives when Fox pushes it open. Dead grass covers the ground, and the trees reach out to the bellies of the speeders over Fox’s head with gnarled, bare branches. He’s not the only one there: Fox zips down his jacket, lets the butt of his deecee reflect the light.

The voices precede them. Echo and Fives appear a few minutes later, still flushed and sweaty and bright-eyed. Echo’s hair is a mess, and there’s a new, angry-looking red mark on Fives’s neck, right under his jaw.

“Well,” Fives starts. He makes a show of looking around himself, hands in the pockets of his trousers. They’re both wearing civvies, well-worn and perfectly forgettable. “You always take us to the nicest places.”

Echo rolls his eyes. He stays where he is while Fives steps closer to Fox.

“I told you to wait in the safehouse,” Fox reminds them. Fives knocks his boot against Fox’s but doesn’t reach for him. He wants to.

“You were late,” Echo says. He’s crossed his arms: he’s annoyed. “We’re shipping out again in two days.”

Something came up. Fox doesn’t get time-off—not really. He has an off-shift, but he’s on call night and day.

The park is very quiet. The noises of the street outside fill the gaps between the dead trees and the dead grass. Fox looks away, lips pressed tight; he listens to Echo’s sigh, to the crunch of gravel under his boots. Fives hooks his fingers around Fox’s belt and pulls him in.

He tastes of liquor, but he’s so very warm. Fox opens under him, heat rolling down his spine and down into his belly, hands moving without his input to grab at Fives’s shoulders, hard and dense through the soft fabric of his jacket.

He doesn’t hear Echo coming. Fox opens his eyes to a hand on his jaw, and then Echo’s kissing him too, long fingers tucked right under Fox’s ear in a careful hold. He tastes like Fives.

There’s a bench there, half-hidden from sight by rotten vegetation. It’s made of concrete, cracked and pockmarked and overgrown with mold, but Fox’s missed them and—

“I need to leave,” he says. He leans away and hides his face in Echo’s warm neck, Fives’s hand under his shirt and rubbing his spine. “Senate emergency. I have—had—an hour and—”

“And you just wasted it looking for us,” Echo finishes for him, voice bitter. Fox says nothing.

He can’t just ask them to wait for him.

It should be harder to know whose hands are on him, but Fox knows it’s Fives the moment he cradles Fox’s cheek with his warm dry palm.

“We’ll spend the night,” he says, dark eyes warm. His gaze flickers in Echo’s direction. “Right? We’ll sleep at the safehouse and meet you tomorrow for some—breakfast. Lunch? I don’t know. Food.”

Fox snorts. He nods.

He wonders: when did sleeping around become this?

He leaves first. He looks back once before opening the gate: the dead trees mostly hide them from sight, and the dark does the rest.

#foxechofives #arc trooper fives #arc trooper echo #commander fox #maría writes #cloneshipping #spotify wrapped writing meme

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orcboxer · 3 months

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having painstakingly looked through every palworld creature design, I can confidently say I ain't interested. I wanted my negative first impression to be wrong but lord amighty it does not look better up close.

I was an absolute pokemon kid growin up and I love seeing people's fakemon and fangames and the idea of a poke-like game appeals to me, so I have a lot of thoughts. if you feel defensive of palworld then uhhhh don't read this because tldr I think it looks awful

I thought it looked bad when it was announced so I wasn't paying close attention, but lookin through the pals quickly killed what little interest might have been lurking in me. like I don't wanna be unfair to anybody tryna make pokemon-like games, but these things weren't made with love I can tell you that for sure. there's maybe like 5 that look pretty good and original but the rest.... where do I begin

So first thing, the ripoff pokemon designs. I thought people were exaggerating but oh my god, they weren't. I would be disappointed to see one knockoff pokemon model, but there are dozens of them holy shit. Like at least half the dex is badly-tweaked pokemon models. This alone is enough to completely turn me off to the game because creature design is the heart and soul of this genre so if you ain't even gonna bother making your own damn creatures, what's the fuckin point? Even on some of the more "original" designs, I can point to at least one element that was straight up copy/pasted from an existing pokemon.

Second thing, recycled models within the game. Why do so many bird pals use the same (ripped off) body model? Why do so many pals suffer from same-face syndrome? The first pal I saw was Chillet, I thought it was cute. When I looked through the pals, I kept thinking "oh that face looks like Chillet. oh hey that face looks like Chillet. that one too." The overall effect of this is that a majority of the designs are forgettable, they blur together and feel indistinct from one another. the dex feels increasingly hollow with each reused asset. if you got 10 bird designs and 6 of them look the same, you really only got 5 bird designs.

Third thing (sort of. it's related to the other two), I noticed that there are no object-mon designs in palworld, which I would guess is intentional. I get the feeling that the devs were like, "object-mon are stupid, everything has to look like a creature," which is a common discourse topic in poke-like fan communities, and I think that maybe this played a part in the reusing of assets, because making animalistic creatures that look both natural and distinct from each other is hard! Trying to fill a whole dex with no inorganic-ish creatures is a daunting task, and at a certain point you either need a lot of time, or a lot of artists, otherwise you get same-face syndrome and heavy asset recycling. (I personally enjoy object-mons, as they're reminiscent of yokai, it's like hey here's a mundane object that has been inhabited by a little spirit! I think it's cute.)

Fourth thing, the silhouettes are too busy. Chillet works because it's simple and distinct. Most pals, though, have too many features going on at once, and you couldn't really play "who's that pokemon" with them. Again, this is a consequence of trying to mix-and-match the same pool of assets instead of designing from scratch. In order to make them look more distinct from each other you have to just add a bunch of unnecessary frills and appendages that makes for a cluttered visual impression.

Fifth thing, varying degrees of detail? Some of those pals have smooth, almost textureless skin/fur, but then others like jormuntide have super detailed texture? (also I know I've seen jormuntide's face before, it's from a different game on the tip of my tongue but I can't place it right now, but that's beside the point) You generally want to keep your creatures relatively consistent in terms of like, level of texture detail. It's like some of them are just higher resolution. Which if I'm being honest makes me think they stole assets from more than just Pokemon.

Finally, edginess. Maybe this is just me being too cynical but it feels like this game hates Pokemon. It feels like middle schoolers making jokes about hurhur what if somebody killed Barney the Dinosaur with a gun. The whole making them work in factories and butchering them? Who is the target audience here? There's a pal called Hangyu which vaguely resembles a noose and its dex entry says it was used to execute people by hanging them and also ripping their skin off....Come on man.

in terms of pal design, I give palworld 2/10 because Chillet is cute

#orcspeak

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carlyraejepsans · 2 years

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since sans is of another world, is papyrus from another world too? are they from different worlds but just so happened to end up in the same one, or does papyrus belong to the world of undertale while sans doesn't?

things we know about sans in deltarune:

he has a younger brother, presumably kris' age or not much older considering he's very protective of him and acts like leaving them to hang out alone "in his house" would be irresponsible

that or he's just weird about his adult brother for no discernible reason. which I sincerely hope isn't the case because come on

ironically, while the skelebros house sprite in undertale is named sans' house, the one in deltarune is named "paphouse".

the game value that checks whether you've already talked to sans about his brother in ch1 when you see him again in ch2 is called "paptalk". it's not his full name, but i believe it's safe to assume that sans' as of yet unnamed brother in deltarune is still papyrus.

naming yourself or the vessel after papyrus in the goner maker sequence will get the prompt "an interesting coincidence" and the steam page (i think?) for deltarune says he's "busy" so it's highly lilely he'll play a role in the story.

still, like you said, part of the evidence that sans comes from deltarune is that he dies in a way that's different from every other character in undertale. papyrus included.

something else weird about his death: he's the only character who has color (red blood) in his sprite in the battle screen, which is strictly black and white. this is very obscure and likely means nothing, but there's a weird comment in the undertale crosstitch book about how you can color the battle sprites if you want to diversify things but they "won't be canon". what an interesting thing to say, why would they feel the need to specify that...

thing is, papyrus' death remains much more similar to ye average undertale monster death. so... what's up with that?

papyrus and sans showed up to snowdin one day out of the blue, though it's not explicitly stated, they most definitely got there together.

"where do skeletons come from" is a question posed more than one time, if jokingly, such as by the baby bunny in deltarune

the snowdin residents had never seen them around before. which can also mean absolutely nothing, because they didn't even recognize us as humans lmao

undertale papyrus appears to have never seen the sun before

there's always the "forgettable" check description in the genocide run that haunts my every waking hour.

which is a theme that recurs both in deltarune (the song "don't forget") and in undertale through sans' workshop and the hidden drawing with "don't forget" scribbled on it.

sans has an attack called "gaster blaster". in one of undertale's patches, a bit of dialogue was added when checking the box of attacks in his room if you abort your geno run with his fight about how with his special attack "you surely would've been BLASTED to..." with blasted highlighted in yellow. yeah. safe to assume he has those too.

his paper with Toby's original concept art/details about him had a bit about him having a [REDACTED] named [REDACTED], right under another line that read "has a brother named comic sans". if we take this mysterious presumed relative to be gaster, then his connection to him becomes even stronger

papyrus has a negative reaction to the CORE specifically (he gets inexplicably sad when we call him and he can see it in the distance) but also hotland in general.

Gaster created the CORE and "fell into his own creation". from the way it's phrased, it's highly likely it WAS in fact the CORE, even if it's just vague enough i have my doubts

i really have no idea! I'm heavily inclined to think that the papyrus we meet in undertale is NOT from deltarune/the papyrus we'll meet there, while sans is the same person. this opens some pretty complicated questions to answer, especially from lack of evidence as we're still in chapter 2 out of 7 and we haven't met papyrus yet.

what happens to deltarune papyrus by the end of the game?

if papyrus is from undertale, what happened to UNDERTALE'S sans when deltarune's version got isekaid

exactly how long ago did all of this go down?

sans likely worked with gaster at some point after arriving in undertale, where they found out about the anomaly "our analysis" (which is mostly flowey's work after being resuscitated ie: not in deltarune. the "our" also couldn't have been alphys instead because she gives no indication of being aware of the SAVE powers, the anomaly or time manipulation—though she DID study alternate universes! and she knows sans! interesting coincidence). if so, how is gaster involved with the fate of deltarune NOW, when sans is still there? sure, he was shattered through TIME and space, but wouldn't that constitute a paradox? of course, unless we take "another Him" literally and this isn't the same gaster as the one from undertale

if we go "papyrus is gaster" instead, why does he respond to "papyrus" in deltarune too, why isn't he just gaster (and why does the name "gaster" still crash the game)?

all in all, i DON'T think we have enough material to work with, especially with papyrus. sans had his arc, his lore you could find and piece together with a satisfying conclusion ingame (think of the narrative payback that's finally reaching the workshop behind their house) while papyrus', while still being as much if not even More befuddling, was... all over the place. unexplained. incomplete. you can't piece back much of anything about his past. which is why i have SUPER high expectations for him in deltarune. he's clearly being built up for SomeThing,and i think it's going to be a lore arc just like sans had in undertale, all to himself, while his brother is off having his hotgirl customer service summer with the local goats and... presumably getting sucked into another universe. whoops!

here's a link to the crosstitch page comment, courtesy of @undertale-encyclopedia (you're a godsend to theorists everywhere, thank you so much)

if you're interested in the otherworld/deltarune sans theory, then i cannot recommend @megaderping 's two videos enough, which showcase both its proof AND the contradictions and issues it brings up (HERE'S the original, and HERE's an addendum after some discussion on the previous video). she gathers and mentions pretty much EVERYTHING that made me believe in it in the first place, AND the bits that make me doubt my interpretation of it, though surprisingly i DON'T think they touch on the blood business, which is curious because it's such a big controversy even now. i also owe them and their discord friends credit for the "papvalues" discoveries in deltarune's code, as my hacking and cracking skills are non-existent.

#WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM. AAAA #answered asks #undertale #sans #papyrus #deltarune #otherworld theory #entry log #w.d. gaster #Psst. since you're here. go check out dorked's comic inverted fate. and her latest video on alphys. she's amazing

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leclsrc · 1 year

Note

hey! congrats on 1000 💓

need some angst so could you do a drabble of carlos and reader already broke up for a year bcs of some problem (but not cheating pls) and they finally met again and realized both still have feeling towards each other so they decided to start the relationship again, thanks!

saving grace — cs55

genre: angst, drabble, 1k celebration. title from this

There’s a sticky note tacked onto your living room corkboard, buried now under fresh reminders and receipts and grocery lists. You sometimes pass it by and forget it, but when you catch the orange peeking out from underneath the bits of life you’ve stuck atop it, you pause and remember. Tonight is the first time you seek it, fish it out from a trove of daily memories—coffee receipts, coupons, birthday cards—and hold it in your hand. You stare.

June 17, it reads. Anniversary dinner.

The memory of writing this out refuses to purge itself from your brain, along with many other memories of years past. The bad and the good ones stick themselves inside your brain like stubborn mildew, unrelenting, even a year after you stopped making them.

Lewis’ wedding reception is colourful, vibrant, and you’re half sure it’s Drake at the DJ booth—all telling of the kind of fun, sociable person Lewis is. You’ve gone around greeting and kissing people in a half-daze, having been stupefied by the sticky note earlier today, drowning the loudness of the thoughts with wine. It’s dark outside the venue, populated by cars and some staff, when you dip out to smoke a cigarette.

Your heels crunch against the gravel as you light yourself one and press it to your lips. And, as if conjured by your inexorable thoughts of him, Carlos’ voice penetrates the quiet midnight air. “You never could kill that habit,” he says, a few paces in front of you. You puff out a billow of tobacco smoke and smile.

“It’s gotten a lot better,” you say. You’re right: post-breakup, smoking was one of the things you turned to the most, and in an effort to make a change, you’d stopped doing it regularly. “I only do it when I need to.”

He nods, walking slowly toward you. “Why do you need to?”

When you see Carlos up close, you find nothing much has changed in the past year of his absence. His face is the same, chiseled, so very Spanish. His voice is the same, distinct and, when with you, comfortable enough to slide into occasional phrases of his own language. His hair is a bit longer, and he combs it back with his fingers, waiting for your response.

You pause, weighing your options. You could go the polite route, steer this conversation somewhere different, but that’s not what’s pulling at you. Yanking, almost, begging you to say what you wish to really say. So you do, in a breathless confession. “It’s June 17.”

Briefly, Carlos looks surprised, but it settles into a neutral expression. “I didn’t think you’d remember. Hace mucho tiempo que no hablamos.”

“I found a Post-it from two years ago. I wrote our anniversary dinner reminder on it.”

“We…” He pauses. He could use a cigarette, if he’s being totally honest with himself. “We made a lot of good memories.”

You’d be lying if you said he was wrong. Together, the memories feel like home, even when they’re of bad or forgettable moments. Your memories are waiting for the coffee to brew in the morning, washing race suits and getting bubbles of soap on your nose, mockups of a house you planned to buy together, faded photographs that went from being on the fireplace to being in a box, date night dresses, hungry kisses when you’d been apart for weeks, loud fights that are monitored by Pinon.

Carlos’ memories are folding laundry so you have extra time to sleep in, designing a nursery (red, he said, for Ferrari, and you claimed you would find another father if it went that way), warming up to cats, couch sex when neither of you wanted to get to the bedroom, cooking competitions that, despite his best efforts, you always won, tackling you onto the carpet when he finally got to be with you again, family dinners where nobody asked him anything and were too busy focused on you, realizing you were moving out.

Both of you realize that these memories, no matter how good, how concrete, how bad, are memories. They’re things gone. “Why did we stop making them?” He asks quietly, a follow-up to his own sentence.

You drop your cigarette and kill it. “I think we needed to, if just… for a while.” Sometimes, you think you’re tied to Carlos, fingertip to fingertip, a string always keeping you tethered. Loosely tied, infinitely long, stretching from New York to Spain, Rome to China, wherever to wherever. A totem of your connection, your relationship; a thing of the past, something lost. Something gone.

“For a while,” he echoes. You’d both been so caught up with work that the relationship took the backburner, and eventually, neither of you felt like putting out anymore. Domestic life was no longer a priority once work became more demanding, gave you both more success, and in the end that’s what you chose. Both of you. Work. And so you lived days out alone, and in clumsy moments, you’d say something intended for Carlos. It took weeks for the habit to die. For you to realize that, however much you wanted a reaction, it wouldn’t come.

But a while is just a while. A blip. A learning period. There’s a stretch of silence and the leftover tobacco. “It was nice talking,” you say with finality. Your brain swarms with these memories still, imperfect and impulsive ones.

As you turn, he speaks again, even more quiet. It stops you in your tracks. “I’ll call you.”

You smile. “I’ll pick up.”

#f1 #leclsrc1000 #carlos sainz #carlos sainz drabble #carlos sainz smut #carlos sainz imagines #carlos sainz fanfic #f1 x reader

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captainsigge · 2 months

Text

Get to know your Tav

I was tagged by the wonderful @my-favourite-zhent I am so sorry it took me this long, in my defence I was elbow deep in the zhent brainrot.

Let me introduce you to Tayvin, covered in blood as she should be <3 She is an high elf assassin rogue.

What is your tav’s…

favorite weapon?

two shortswords

style of combat?

Likes to sneak up behind her opponents and kill them before they even notice she's there, otherwise she will lull them into a false sense of security and then kill them.

deepest desire?

If you ask she will say it's to get enough gold from the mercenary jobs to retire lavishly. But truthfully? To find a place she belongs. (Like any other urchin)

guilty pleasure?

Stuffing her face with sweets, she has an enormous sweet-tooth. Would damage her reputation if they saw how much she gushes over good cake (one of the reason's she like Rugan so much lol)

best-kept secret?

Which one? She has so many? XD The fact that she is in love with Rugan... that secret is so well-kept because she is still sailing on the river of denial.

greatest strength?

Her assets *smirk* no one expects such a sweet pretty face to be a cold-blooded killer. Everyone just trusts beautiful people more. The things Tayvin has gotten away with by just batting her eyelashes and looking innocent? tsk tsk. She prides herself on being beautiful but forgettable, no tattoos, no piercings, no identifying marks. She is here to get the job done and then disappear.

fatal flaw?

Reckless and too self-assured in her own abilities, has bitten her and will bite her in the ass again and again. Someone give this woman a reality check. Given Rugan too many near heart attacks. He has gotten at least double the grey hairs.

favourite scent?

Cinnamon, loves cinnamon buns

favourite spell/cantrip?

Fire bolt, if all else fails, burn the fuckers.

pet peeve?

The sound of someone hawking up, makes her soul leave her body. Damn elf hearing.

bad habit?

Recklessness 100%. THINK BEFORE YOU KILL

hidden talent?

She can cook a mean steak, but will not step a foot in the kitchen unless absolutely necessary.

leisure activity?

Taking a nap

favourite drink?

Cheap whiskey

comfort food?

Warm bread with butter, used to be the highlight of her day when she was a kid.

favourite person(s)?

Astarion, at first they hated each other, too alike, but now they're best buddies. The rest of the gang is sweating when the two start whispering together, the madness that follows gives Gale an aneurysm. She gets along with Shadowheart quite well, their banter is hilarious.

Nothing to see here folks, just your regular rogue-on-rogue violence.

favoured display of affection?

Cuddling, once after some good ol' fucking with Rugan, they were both so exhausted they fell asleep cuddling, usually one of them leaves immediately. She keeps thinking about that night more than she should. Still sailing on that river smh.

fondest childhood memory?

When someone donated to the orphanage, and she got a nice pair of new shoes. New, not hand-me-downs. She cried. (She was only 12 cut her some slack)

Anything else you’d like to share?

Links to some videos of Tayvin:

Tayvin

Tayvin & Rugan

@orangekittyenergy @killerpancakeburger no pressure <3

#my tav #tayvin #bg3 tav #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #get to know your tav #screenshots

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drtanner · 19 days

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So I have a few favourite movies - Treasure Planet, Jurassic Park and To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar to name but a handful - but I'd never considered myself to have any movies that I actively despised until I watched La La Land with the FC last week.

I've never been more certain that The Cishets™ live on a different fucking planet than I was while watching La La Land. The whole story revolves around a woman who's trying to make it as an actress being told that she's wrong and essentially bullied by a pretentious wannabe jazz pianist, and somehow you as the audience are meant to interpret this as romantic. Their relationship is antagonistic from the start (that's how you can tell they're going to fall in love!) and it gets its proper, romantic beginning during a dance number in which the lady lead tells this prick that she's not interested in him, but he continues to pursue her anyway and Proves Her Wrong, which sets the tone for the whole relationship going forward. She'll tell him that she doesn't like something or doesn't want something and he'll tell her that she does, actually, and Proves Her Wrong, and then he'll turn out to have been right every time. This is an Oscar-worthy romance.

This Is What Hereosexuals Actually Believe.

They both get to achieve their aspirational dreams re: acting and jazz clubs, they don't wind up together at the end of the film, and maybe the point of the story is that the relationship was dogshit all the way down and not meant to be because how could it be, but christ, I've never wanted to reach through the screen and strangle a fictional character to death so intensely in my life. La La Land could be a deeply forgettable romance if it weren't for the fact that the male lead made me so fucking angry every time he said or did anything. Cishet women really do get bilked into shacking up with guys like him all the time, again because The Cishets™ live on a different fucking planet and all of this shit is considered "normal" there, so I can't even fault the lady lead of this film for putting up with it, but christ. I just know this shit got lauded as a Moving Story of Heartbreak™ or a Torrid Romance™ or whatever. This shit went up against Moonlight for Best Picture of the Year, can you believe it?

All of that and it was barely a musical, like it had a handful of musical numbers in it and none of them were compelling enough for me to remember them a week later, and certainly not compelling enough to eclipse the absolutely baffling and infuriating plot. La La Land was a musical that was afraid to be too much like a musical; knowing that real musicals are considered unpopular and cringe, it was too cowardly to commit too much to being one itself, only dropping in a handful of brief song and dance sequences so as not to embarrass itself. Incredibly disappointing.

I fucking hate La La Land. Fucking appalling film.

#Tanner talks

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adobe-outdesign · 9 months

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What are your thoughts on Luvdisc? And Alomomola too if you feel like it, because let’s admit it, those two should’ve definitely been related.

Luvdisc is... well, a disc. No false advertising there. It's probably one of the simplest Pokemon designs out there, literally just a heart shape with eyes, cheeks, and a bit of a mouth.

While the simplicity is nice to some extent, I do find myself wanting more of out it. I think it's just the lack of anything to break up the body—even just a small fin at the top or the side would've helped it look more organic (seriously, how does this thing swim) and would've given it just enough detail as to not feel so plain.

One thing I do like about Luvdisc is that it has some neat worldbuilding associated with it, such as being used as a gift to loved ones and being considered a good romantic omen if spotted. Outside of this, however, Luvdisc is fairly forgettable.

Alomomola is so obviously similar to Luvdisc (heart shaped, pink, water-type, associated with love and kindness) that I'm pretty convinced it was designed to be Luvdisc's evo before they decided that Gen 5 would only feature previous Pokemon in the post game, thus they decided to break it off into its own 'mon. It's a particularly weird choice to have both be separate, as we now have two lines with the same theme that are both single-stagers for no reason.

Looking at Alomomola on its own though, I do like it a bit more than Luvdisc. It's based off of the mola-mola or ocean sunfish, also known as one of God's silliest creatures:

However, despite being based on such an interesting fish, Alomomola is fairly unremarkable. It could've shared the mola-mola's gigantic size, maybe even having Luvdisc feed on its parasites in some regions if they really didn't want to go with the evo route. Instead, Alomomola is characterized as a loving Pokemon, which is fine but already done to death with Pokemon like Chansey and Audino.

Visually, the additional fins help break up the design a bit and work better than Luvdisc's plainness; mostly because it's clearly a (sun)fish that looks like a heart, rather than literally looking exactly like a heart and nothing else. I like how the mouth shape mimics the fin shape and how the black makes the eyes pop, but otherwise it's fairly standard. Nothing bad, just nothing remarkable either.

Seeing as GameFreak is never going to retcon these guys into one line, I think they could both use a little something. I could easily see Alomomola getting a regional—maybe a dark-type based on a broken heart or something obvious like that. Then maybe Luvdisc could get an evo that goes in a different direction, like it starts getting some cupid-like elements or something. That might help make the two lines more distinct, because if they're not gonna be together, might as well push them further apart.

Tl;dr: Both lines are decently designed and do what they need to, but suffer from being unrelated single-stagers for no reason, something that new forms could potentially fix. Between the two, Alomomola is a bit more thought out, but ultimately both are pleasant enough.

#luvdisc #alomomola #pokemon #pokemon reviews

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unrealisticlea · 14 days

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I never badmouthed season 6 while it was airing and I always went into episodes thinking “I’m gonna take what’s good and ignore everything else” and I always blogged what I liked and shut up about what I didn’t like (except the sperm donor storyline, I bitched about it all the time, fuck that shit) but now that I have nothing but praise for 911 season 7 I gotta get this off my chest: SEASON 6 WAS BAD!!! IT WAS SO BAD I DECIDED TO STOP WATCHING 911 AFTER THE GODDAMN AWFUL FINALE!!! The only good things were HenRen Begins, “Mom brought two kids into the marriage, you brought one”, Madney Proposal and 6x13!!! And THAT’s IT!!! I was bored out of my mind half of the time and appalled at the nonsense choices the other half!!! I fucking SKIPPED scenes!!! I’ll never forgive them for making me skip scenes IN MY FAVOURITE SHOW!!! Everything was immediately forgettable, I couldn’t tell you a single thing that changed the characters in a meaningful way!!! They fucking MURDERED Buck and did nothing with it!!! There was no Josh or Sue or Linda!!! dispatch was completely forgotten! The Jinx 2.0 episode was the episode where Eddie had the most screentime and nothing happened!!! They had a WHOLE EPISODE where Buck and Eddie were married and raising Chris together and 2 episodes later they had Bobby tell Eddie “you are a lonely single dad and I feel bad for you”!!! I hate that Chim lost the ring!!! I hated Danny’s father!!! I hated the Han and Buckley parents redemption arcs!!!! I hated Tia Pepa sending Eddie on dates!!! I hated that 6x11 had both Thunder by Imagine Dragons and Fix You by Coldplay!!! It was supposed to be most heart-wrenching episode and it felt like I was watching glee! And don’t get me started on whatever the fuck they were doing with Buck. Seriously, what the fuck were they doing with Buck??? They kept setting up life-changing experiences for him and they always went nowhere!He wanted to be enough to become Captain. He wanted to find happiness. And instead they took away his couch and gave him a dumb book about always saying yes, a bunch of cum jokes and old friends who really drove home the fact he’s only good for spare parts. They told us explicitly he was suicidal and they just made him chase and date a death doula about that!!! They put him through the worst things they could think of and he somehow ended up exactly where he started!!! The pacing was weird, they kept picking up storylines and then dropping them and then wrapping them like 3 episodes later in 5 minutes! The calls were absolutely forgettable! There was no big emergency! They kept pairing characters in weird ways and supposedly best friends went months without so much looking at each other! The finale was an high stakes emergency for like ten seconds! And the fact that it was supposed to be the last episode ever makes everything worse because it means that they wanted to end the entire show with everyone on its own, no firefam, just a bunch of republican nuclear families! How do you make the last episode ever of a 6 seasons tv show so boring that during the same week Lone Star murdered a beloved recurring character and my first thought was “well. At least something happened in this show!”.

that’s it. I’m done. I’ll never speak of this season again. Returning to normal posting about how I love everything and everyone.

#911 fox #season 6 review #definitely a skip in my rewatch #except 6x11 for Buck and Bobby #and 6x13 because of buddie and Buckley Diaz family

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lesbicona · 5 months

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why is season 6 of community your favourite /genq im just curious !! :]

the short answer is frankie

the long answer is: im very particular about endings, not in that i need them to have specific qualities (like sad or happy or epilogue-esque or what have you) but in that i need them to have narrative intent. we came close to living in a universe where basic story and basic sandwich closed community's story, and as much as i do genuinely like those episodes (mostly for comedy reasons), i only like them in the context of the full show we have now. i was not old enough to appreciate the show as it aired, but looking back i can see opinions at the time of the ending were divided. season 5 in general, honestly, seems close to season 4 in people's minds- in the post you're referencing where i expressed this opinion, season 5 received literally 0 votes. season 4 is controversial, but season 5 commits a worse sin- it's forgettable. (and i do like it, i really liked prof hickey which is truly a take on this webbed site, but this is my impression of the public opinion of it).

so in just existing, season 6 elevates my personal opinion of the show, but i mentioned public opinion in the paragraph prior because season 6 often gets lumped in with 4 and 5 as 'bad'. now while i have my own set of takes about even just season 4 (really guys, it's fine, it's just an ok season of tv in an excellent show, but it's not BAD) i will try very hard not to get into here, it is an objective divide between the widely acclaimed seasons 1 through 3 and the more controversial rest. my opinions of season 6 are very influenced by this, because it's like my little meow meow i must protect from the haters.

i feel season 6 closes up the themes of community, as evolved and changed as they are, in a satisfying way, and gives the characters themselves a logical narrative end. i especially enjoyed the themes of growing up continued from season 5, which are very pressing in a show about college. of course i realize this is a silly sitcom we're talking about, so i'm not saying that it put forward anything groundbreakingly subtle or even new, but any long-running show (especially one which could not keep the entirety of its main cast) that can wrap up so satisfyingly deserves praise.

and yet, because of the season 4 hurdle, which leaves many people with a bad taste in their mouth for the rest of the entire show, it is not as acclaimed as i think it deserves to be. i don't think people realize how much the show was probably going to change in season 4 even without dan harmon's departure. the idealized season 4 in people's minds seems to be season 3 part 2, which could not have happened for a successful season of television. seasons 1 through 3 are all already very different from each other despite being clumped together. yet people despise every single change to the show from season 4 onward indiscriminately. so of course season 6, with its many, many changes, is so far from season 3 that people blinded by the latter's glory cannot even see the former.

but most if not all of the changes season 6 brings are purely beneficial in my perspective. frankie and elroy are excellent additions to the cast; they are great comedic forces, with a strong role in relation to the others. they both play the almost-straight man jeff used to be, normal in reaction to most of the shenanigans of the original cast while bringing in their own insanity. they also represent the aging of the show. by bringing them in instead of, for example, freshmen students, the new, more grown perspective of the show is reinstated. the bits of their lives outside the committee that we get to see are interesting, funny, and bring them depth.

of course in particular im fond of frankie, who's normal to the point of pathology, whose line deliveries have a 90% chance of obliterating me on the spot, and who is just like me fr fr (a lesbian). she does not budge in her responsibilities, leading to her fluctuating role in the eyes of the cast, antagonist in some episodes and co-lead in others. her presence adds something new for each character to compare themselves to, for the better. in particular, annie, jeff and the dean are all improved because of her.

britta also receives some focus she hadn't since a few seasons past, and while i do not agree with the narrative framing of all of it (as clearly the show itself does not side with her in disliking her parents, as much as she, as a character, has proper reason to), the contents are extremely enjoyable to me. getting a chance to analyze the wannabe-therapist's relationship with her parents is perfectly ironic just as a concept.

season 6 offers some of my favorite comedy of the whole show. while my favorite line forever remains "i need help reacting to this" (which i saw you also enjoy <3), i was in tears of laughter at the end of a majority of season 6 episodes on my first watch. elroy's addiction to encouraging white people is absolutely unforgettable.

sorry for the Whole Fucking Essay! the medium answer, which you unlocked by reading the long answer, is: though perhaps not the objective best community has to offer, i love season 6 twice as fiercely to protect it from its undeserving haters. stan frankie, bring me 6 cans of olives, goodbye.

#thank you for the ask <3 #i think this is the most original words ive written on this blog ever #fun fact: wikipedia doesnt count s4 finale as a paintball ep LMAO

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tigertale · 1 year

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A/N: Interlude ~ Continuing whatever this is? Never planned farther then that lol

• F!Reader; Malleus; Lilia

•〔　！〕 Grammatical errors; not proofread

The boy was crying in her laps, a cold reminder that she could no longer comfort him. But as long as she was there, she would try her best to help him. To try and remove all those thorns hugging his poor heart.

It had been weeks and months since she had entered this dimension. Not only had Malleus warmed up to her, tearing up whenever Lilia would refuse his begging —He wanted to sleep with her, but ever since the warrior had come back, he was not allowed under the excuse that he was old enough, but they had even become more than friends. They were true partners in crimes, something that the young kid had never imagined having, but desperately needed. Just someone to hear his innocent woes.

She knew that everything would fade away once she woke. Nothing in there would last forever nor won't affect her reality. Not even their friendship. Yet, maybe that was the best. How much of a headache it would be to explain to Lilia and Malleus just why she was by their side hundred of years ago.

The dampness spreading along her skirt brought her back. The boy was still desperately begging for her to stay with him, to continue what they had built, not to leave him with this loneliness that had cradled him ever since he was born.

Lilia sighed as he finally decided to move towards the duo. "Malleus, now learn to take care of your emotions, you'r–" He was then rudely cut off by the boy.

He had turned around, eyes bloodshot as tears continued to fall along his cheeks. "Shut up!" It visibly ticked Lilia off. He had been lenient these past few years, treating the heir with more care than what he was used to. To see the boy so shaken by this new emotion taking over his body still managed to keep the slightest bit of restraint he had left. But Malleus had to learn.

Another deep breath left the man's nostrils. The sound of fingers snapping teared into the woeful sniffles of the prince, right after it all but disappeared as the presence of said prince also went with it.

Lilia kneeled down in front of her miserable self that was cowering now that her departure was more close than ever before. He pulled her chin up with a finger, and as she looked up to meet his eyes, she closed them just as fast. His lips were pressed against hers and relished her presence one last time. "Lilia."

He hummed as he finally let go, getting up and taking her with him as both their hands were locked together. "I won't forget any of you." He smirked as he walked her to the door. "And you won't forget me, right?

When he opened it, the endless void behind it almost startled her, but the warm hand on her back kept her consciousness locked in this reality. "But I know you won't, I'm hardly forgettable dear."

And so, he pushed her inside the darkness. The sound of the door closing behind her was the only thing she heard before she succumbed to her surroundings.

#twisted wonderland #twst #malleus draconia #lilia vanrouge #twisted wonderland malleus #twisted wonderland lilia #lilia x reader

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