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makeste · 5 months

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BnHA Chapter 407: Wait Why Are You Running Away

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan figured out how to control his quirk upgrade and was totally chill and normal about it. Definitely not terrifying at all. He actually spent the entire chapter smiling and laughing like the wholesome little boy he is. I don’t know why Kid For One is so freaked out about it. He even politely introduced himself using his childhood nickname. Clearly he just wants to be friends with you, KFO!

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “sorry to keep you waiting, here’s the AFO and Yoichi flashback you ordered at long last” and proceeds to serve a nightmarish stew of HUMAN MISERY and RATS and STABBING and CARNAGE and SO MUCH MURDER and THE SINGLE MOST FUCKED-UP CASE OF CODEPENDENCY ANYONE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I was not even remotely prepared for any of this, and if anyone else claims that they were, I will call you a liar to your face. If this chapter had a mouth it would scream. Or just sob, ceaselessly and uncontrollably. I’m really glad Horikoshi is on break next week because that man needs to take a fucking nap. My god.

okay WOW

anyone else read the first two words and just immediately say to themselves, “oh okay, so it’s gonna be one of those chapters”? I mean, I guess we were due for a darker chapter after last week’s Kacchan Comedy Tour. but idk, I just wasn’t expecting “homeless sick prostitute with a drinking problem” levels of dark

AND SHE’S PREGNANT?!

what exactly is this manga rated again? doesn’t this backstory seem just a little bit raw for the impressionable kiddos??

has anyone actually checked in on Horikoshi recently? you know, just to make sure he is okay??

what a fun and wholesome manga this is

the lil baby arm covered in blood with the AFO hole on the palm. lying next to the dead mom hand. what an image to sear into our minds. I guess it’s been a while since he killed any dogs. gotta keep us on our toes somehow

also wasn’t expecting AFO and Yoichi to be twins! that puts an interesting spin on their relationship, because it’s usually a closer bond than even regular siblings. especially with all of that delightful shared trauma from a young age!!

yes, exactly

ohhhh this chapter is gonna hurt me, isn’t it. okay. ooooooookay. let’s do this

OH I’M SORRY, THERE’S MORE?!

Horikoshi my dude. you do realize that their mom dying in childbirth and the two of them just barely surviving and growing up as street orphans would have already been MORE than tragic enough, backstory-wise. you did not have to turn this into a freaking horror show with RATS TRYING TO EAT THEIR NEWBORN SELVES jesus christ

and THAT’S where you chose to put a one year timeskip?!

what the fuck am I reading here, you guys. no please tell me, I am actually desperate to understand

so the narrator is saying that some of the quirks manifested later in life, in “pubescent and pre-pubescent stages”, which is interesting because it’s the first time I can recall hearing about someone actually manifesting a quirk that late. maybe Deku’s old OFA cover story was more plausible than I realized

anyway so eventually it occurred to everyone that they should maybe freaking study this shit, idk. and eventually the researchers concluded that the superpowers came from a new gene that apparently isn’t human. and upon hearing that, society apparently lost its freaking mind. which is fascinating to me because it implies that the turning point wasn’t actually the superpowers themselves, but the realization of what it meant

like, so they were apparently fine with it when they thought it was a “mysterious disease”, but somehow it hit different when they learned it wasn’t actually a sickness at all, but instead the Next Step in Evolution. and it became an “us vs them” thing, as opposed to a “we have to cure these poor people” thing. damn

anyway so now Japan is a dystopia and we’re cutting to a big crowd of merc-looking dudes who are getting ready to attack some “meta freaks”, how lovely

but who is this figure in the shadows

I ask politely, as if it wasn’t already beyond obvious that this is AFO about to wreck some people’s shit

ohhhhh my god lmao

hopefully Katsuki and Deku can take the present day AFO out before he winds up looking like this. because this little fella is clearly demonic and idk if anyone can stop him

you all don’t understand. you need to run the fuck away right now

oh shit it’s already too late for them

it’s too late for any of us. it’s over. it’s all fucking over

((((；゜Д゜)))

AFO I am putting the manga down. I am backing away slowly with my hands in the air. I mean you no harm. please for the love of god have mercy

holy

“you see, we told you he wasn’t human” okay Scientific Research Group, you know what?? you win this round I guess

“HE WAS LITERALLY EVIL FROM BIRTH” HORIKOSHI SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY??

HE WAS BORN AN ARROGANT BABY is literally the most terrifying sentence I have ever read

what the entire fuck

it’s a gorgeous sunny mid-November afternoon outside my window. but no matter how hard it tries, the light cannot reach this place

what kind of moron would throw a can of soda at him. officially the stupidest person we have ever seen in this manga

OH MY GOD OF COURSE IT’S HIM LMAO

(ETA: how come baby Yoichi has clothes that fit him perfectly but baby AFO is just stomping around wearing a tablecloth.)

BABY YOICHI. OH MY GOD. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GROW UP TO BE SANE AND KIND AND GOOD. THAT’S MY QUESTION THAT I NEED ANSWERED RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE LITERALLY A MIRACLE. YOU ARE AN IMPOSSIBILITY, DO YOU KNOW THAT

small and weak, but also so, so cute. all of the cuteness genes went straight to him. no wonder AFO was jealous

(ETA: just want to press pause for a second to speculate about what type of twins AFO and Yoichi are, since it has some relevance to the story, and especially to the OFA/AFO quirk lore. so! at first glance the two of them would appear to be fraternal twins, just based on the fact that they have very different appearances, and also the fact that Yoichi doesn’t have the AFO quirk – no holes in his hands, etc. identical twins are born from the same fertilized egg, so in theory they would both have the same sequence of DNA, which means Yoichi would have had the same quirk as AFO. but that doesn’t appear to be the case. so all of that points to them being fraternal, not identical.

on the other hand, there is one piece of evidence in this chapter that does support them being identical twins, and that’s the fact that per the narration, AFO absorbed most of the nutrients from their mother. a few minutes of google fu informed me that this condition is relatively rare, and only happens in cases where two twins share a placenta, which typically is only the case for identical twins. HOWEVER, for what it’s worth, there have also been rare instances where two fraternal twin placentas fuse together and become a single placenta. AND this apparently also increases the chances of one of the twins gaining more of the nutrients and causing the other twin to have a lower birth weight.

so based on the evidence here, my conclusion is that the two of them are most likely fraternal twins with a case of placental fusion. besides, you can’t tell me that stealing his baby brother’s placenta while the two of them are literally still in the womb doesn’t sound like exactly the type of BS that fetus!AFO would pull, lol.)

HEY!?!

okay?!?!?! well to be fair he did throw that soda at him

oh my god this is so fucked up. in like the best and worst way possible

I genuinely couldn’t ask for a better AFO backstory. it’s so incredibly twisted, and you actually do feel sorry for him. or at least I do. but it’s also beyond clear that this kid was FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON right from the get go. zero goodness in him. literally doesn’t see other people as people. sees them as possessions only. things to rule over. not other thinking, feeling human beings. and that includes his own little brother

but. even if it’s not actually what I would call love, there’s still... attachment, there. it’s the closest he can get to actually caring about someone. guh. just, somehow they have both managed to humanize him, and at the same time made him less human than ever. this manga, man. this fucking manga, though

lmao and here we go. Captain Hero

you know, all those times that I made fun of AFO for not knowing how to read, I never suspected that the twist in his backstory would be that he LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO READ dfksjdlfkjslkdf

but seriously though. because Yoichi appears to be self-taught, and I can’t see AFO having the patience for that, and CLEARLY no one else was around to teach him, sooooo...

oh my goodness it’s actually getting wholesome up in here

what a good fucking boy. poor AFO. fuck me, I can’t help it. it’s not your fault you’re the world’s greatest monster you poor bastard

now we’re cutting to THREE YEARS LATER. okay

is he going to declare war on the glowing baby

typical teenager concerned about nothing but likes and view counts. AFO you would be so much happier if you stopped worrying about all of that and just focused on your own growth

oh, lol. well that was quick

(ETA: r.i.p. Damien.)

“this guy had more instagram followers than me. so I killed him” honey. sweetie pie. you need therapy

omfg

all this time I was wondering who AFO’s middle school lit teacher was who had failed so spectacularly at teaching him reading comprehension. and it was YOICHI ALL ALONG. omg

“and, presumably, that’s how it always was and always will be.” dude. can you imagine listening to AFO’s oral book report on A Tale of Two Cities. “ahem. it was the Best of Times. the end” buddy noooooooo

it was at that moment when Yoichi knew, etc. etc.

oh my GOD I scrolled down to the next panel right after this one and I just IMMEDIATELY DIED LAUGHING

“WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID” ffffffffffffffff I fucking can’t omfg

NOW THIS HUSSY IS STEALING HIS BROTHER AWAY FROM HIM NOOOOOOO

HE’S HIS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!!

oh my god the hands. so wait, is this just the standard symbolic BnHA handholding, or are there More Levels To This. when exactly did Yoichi pass OFA on to Kudou. like is that why the sudden close-up and all that? omg

WHAT!!!!

OH THAT’S THE END, HUH? THAT’S THE END RIGHT THERE, AND THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS. I SEE. OKAY THEN. EXCUSE ME WHILE I PUT MY LAPTOP DOWN AND GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND SCREAM INTO A PILLOW

oh my god. and break next week too. this is what you guys have been dealing with this entire time huh. I understand your feelings now. godfuckingdammit lmao

#bnha 407 #all for one #shigaraki yoichi #ofa the first #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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radioisntdead · 1 month

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Good evening folks! Thank you tuning in!

I'm supposed to be finishing up a request right now but It's six am, I was missing my dog and this popped in my brain, Alastor who hates dogs and a reader who has one

and I can NOT write anything else until I get this out of my brain, I may be projecting a little bit here.

Alastor x reader with a dog headcanons + a drabble thing? in the middle [Romantic]

Warnings!

Brief mention of your dog passing on [it's implied from old age]

all dogs go to heaven but yours wanted to stay with you even if you ended up down below, Alastor being mean to dogs, also once again Alastor may be OOC or leaning into fanon, Apologies for any grammar mistakes!

Okay so it's pretty well known that Alastor doesn't like dogs because they were involved during his death [I think, I can't remember if that's canon or fanon but we're keeping it for this]

I don't think he's scared of them, he just thinks they're one of the worst things created, especially the hellborn ones, not hellhounds [to be fair he probably hates them too]

You know the dogs that fizzarolli has in Helluva boss? The tweaked out lookin' ones? Yeah Alastor hates em' if he saw one on the street he either moves away from em', moves them aside with his staff while giving the owners the stink eye, he doesn't go out of his way to do anything to them usually.

Point is dude doesn't like dogs and if he can help it doesn't interact with them, and I see him more as a cat person CURSED CAT ALASTOR

Unfortunately for him he somehow gained romantic intent for someone who ADORES their funky lil' dog.

You have no idea why your dog was in hell with you, they weren't a bad dog, they were a good one! The very best on fact!

Sure they had tried to murder your best friend by trying to suffocate em' in their sleep, several times, but they were a dog, a sweetheart and they knocked off the murderous intent if you gave em' a snack plus if anyone knew anything was that all pets, Dog, cat, raccoon, hamster they all went to heaven! So you had no idea why your lil' buddy was in eternal damnation with you!

You died so close together, it was maybe a month or so from their passing to yours, you couldn't wait to see your lil' elderly buddy again but you didn't think it'd be so soon! You still had a life to live and you knew that they'd want you to live on!

You woke up in hell alot nicer then other folks, with your dog sitting on your chest licking you awake,

A golden ring around their furry neck, they looked a little different then they did when they were alive with you, but you knew that this was your dog, there was just that feeling when you looked in their eyes.

Maybe everything wouldn't be too bad with them here, You could get through with them by your side after all.

It was hard the first few years but you managed, getting used to the chaos around, finding a decent job and having to carry around a weapon just in case some psycho decided they wanted to kill you that day, and respawning was a whole hassle and you had your lil' buddy waiting for you at home!

You got a Job at a local diner near your apartment complex, your manager sucked, as did some of your coworkers but the pay was decent and you got along well enough with the coworkers that didn't suck plus you got to take home meals and share with your lil' buddy, They didn't particularly like the hell dog food so it was a fair way to feed em' without breaking the bank

You had met Alastor there somehow, it was fuzzy in your memory, you think he came in for coffee or maybe it was to make a deal with some poor unfortunate soul, all you remember is that you had managed to catch the Radio's demon eye,

Looking back you were pretty sure he was trying to get your soul only for the two of you to end up courting.

You had neglected to tell him about your lil buddy until he came to your apartment for the first time, after maybe the fourth date for coffee,

it wasn't quite his style but it was nice, and he particularly liked the vintage radio that stood on your kitchen counter, he was having a pleasant time chatting with you before you went into the kitchen to make the two of you some coffee and some snacks, as you went into the kitchen he looked around your living room his smile straining slightly as he found a dog staring at him with the rage of twenty-five grown men, Alastor simply turned to the kitchen where you were making a charcuterie board for the two of you

"My dear, I fear you have a rat problem,"

Alastor said gesturing at your lil' buddy who continued staring at him, the murderous intent of 'who is this man and why is it in my home?' was clear

You looked up from your charcuterie board confused until you see your lil' buddy death glaring Alastor

"Pardon? What do you- Oh! Yeah that's my lil' buddy, I'm sure I mentioned them once or twice, don't mind em' they're mostly harmless."

"Ah."

And from there came a rivalry, Alastor came to your apartment? That lovely lil' pooch of yours would sit between you on the couch, Alastor would move them away with his staff thingy,

He wanted to dance with you with soft jazz playing in the background? Your lil' buddy lacking fear was running between your legs trying to grab your attention, only for it to backfire when you tripped and Alastor catched you effectively taking your attention

He straight up mocks your dog, your lil' buddy is too short to get on the couch? Bully time, doesn't matter how big your dog is they're getting called a rat, rodent or a mutt by Alastor, if your lil' buddy earned their wings they're getting called a winged rat,

I imagine he's probably more tolerant towards smaller breeds like Corgi's or Pomeranians for example and less inclined towards dogs typically breed for hunting.

He asked once if your willing to re-home the lil' buddy, and you probably almost stabbed him because the audacity of this man?

Definitely was a rough patch in the relationship.

He gets a lil' nervous now when your holding very very sharp knives outside of the kitchen and upset

Your lil' buddy definitely tries to bite off Alastor's ankles.

Later on in the relationship let's say when you and Alastor wed, your dog is your best man, maid of honor, flower girl, ring bearer whatever it's one of those and Alastor has to put up with it,

Rosie likes to tease about how Alastor gave your lil' buddy the stink eye as they waddled behind you as you walked around during your wedding activities,

Alastor specifically had Husk hold them during your dance, and the majority of your wedding after,

Husk thankfully was spared from the rage of your lil' buddy by giving them some of whatever dinner was served.

Now let's move on to house life once y'all are moved in and everything.

Alastor does NOT want them on the bed, he'd rather they be in a whole different room but if you truly desire it aka if it's the hill your willing to die on

He'll invest in a dog bed, or crate, and you can put it in the corner, FAR from the bed you share,

If Alastor falls asleep with you and your lil' buddy is in the room,

They are out for BLOOD, Alastor's in particular if he doesn't wake up immediately he will wake up with a dog on his face,

He can't do anything to harm the dog with you nearby but he can kick them out of the room, or pop's em' into doggy prison he locks them out of your shared room

He does somewhat agree to a truce with your lil' buddy after a few years

Alastor would take the lil' buddy on walks and make sure they stay safe and not attacked by any sinner with a death wish, after all you would probably go on a revenge filled bender and while he'd adore to see it because you know he's a murderous radio demon who likes despair,

he'd rather you not be upset over losing your beloved pet even if he thinks they're a disgrace.

Maybe if he's in a good mood he'll toss a piece of venison to your lil' buddy, and your lil' buddy would not try to smother Alastor in his sleep, or trip the two of you dancing as often as they did before.

Now when Alastor just dipped for 7 years your lil' buddy missed him,

For about three days at most

Your lil' buddy was happy to have ALL of your attention again and they got to sleep in the human bed! And had full reign of the house.

They held very little loyalty to Alastor.

And for good reason!

They were very displeased when the two of you moved to the Hazbin hotel and they spotted Alastor just smiling there, like he didn't just leave for seven years, the audacity!

Let's hope you have a quick reaction time because your gonna have to stop your lil' buddy from chompin' off Alastor's ankles, because how dare he vanished for seven years? Who does he think he is?!

You and Angel dust probably bond over Fat nuggets and your lil' buddy, a very small Pet parent club was formed, Charlie's in it.

Vaggie was probably a lil' concerned about the fact that your dog has a whole adjusted halo as a collar but that's the least concerning thing in the hotel.

If your lil' buddy is big enough Niffty rides em' like a horse,

She has to be watched when she does so.

If you like to dress up your lil' buddy dress em' up as Alastor and he is either flattered by it or your pet is getting a outfit change immediately,

you and Angel have your lil' buddy and Fat nuggets dress up in different outfits sometimes matching if they get along well!

Imagine if we bring cursed cat Alastor into it, I can see it doing two ways

Either Cursed cat Alastor is 100% worse, like Alastor doesn't like your dog but he's not actively trying to eliminate them like Cursed cat Alastor is, radio noises and growls can be heard if you don't separate them, like they are both getting injured, both have murderous intent and just feral time, it is NOT fun.

They team up, Alastor is just trying to eat his deer carcass? Not anymore they are double teaming to steal his breakfast, cursed cat Alastor just appears and starts vibrating while your lil' buddy is trying to drag the carcass off the table,

It never works and often ends with the both of them getting picked up by the scruff's of their necks and getting unleashed outside to wreck havoc on the others unless you find them first.

Thank you for tuning in and reading folks! Reader's lil' buddy is heavily inspired by my own dearly departed dog

hence the murderous intent your lil' buddy has and the tried to kill your best friend bit at the beginning

Also a little tidbit I was thinking was that your lil' buddy was your guardian angel for the time until you passed and then they just followed you down, their lil' doggy halo slipping from their head to around their neck like a really flexible collar, and the earned their wings comment, Alrighty goodnight folks!

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #alastor x reader #alastor x you

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rzyraffek · 1 year

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Oh, oh! I got one!

okay okay, so, don’t feel pressured to write this if you do t want to, but what about slashers (Vincent Sinclair, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, anyone else you wanna add) with a s/o who gets really distracted? Like, in the middle of doing something that should be simple, they zone out and forget what they were doing. (I have really bad ADHD so that’s why I’m asking-)

like, they even have to remind their s/o to take medicine and just nudges to get them back on track-

idk, do what you will with that idea, and again, thank u for ur time!!

btw, u look amazing today!!

You too look amazing today! Thanks for request! Why is everyone so spooked of requesting, the worst thing I can do is not answer🥰

Slashers with s/o that gets distracted A LOT

Sinclair Vincent

Imagine, s/o is in Vince workplace first time, he probably wants to turn them into wax figure, he leaves room for one second to grab some tools. Boom s/o is just walking around judging his wax figurines

Mans gonna be like 🧍in corridor when they are just amused by how cute and pretty some of those lil figurines are🥰

After they get along, Vince really enjoys slow walks thrue gallery or just near area, cuz its very pretty and there's no Bo screaming like child

He saw some pretty leaves, he went to pick them up so he can show them to s/o. He turn around... where.. where are they??!?!? Huuh did they leave him?? Dude will be overthinking hard. But after few minutes of looking for them, they just kinda spawn behind him "hey vince look i found this cool as rocks and then I saw deer's and I kinda fallowed them to this dope river come see!"they just grab his hand and lead him :(tbh vince was this close to mental break down, now he always holds hands

Myers Micheal

My dude is about to buy one of those backpack leashes that some parents have. He's like 80years young, ain't no way he's going to run around city looking for some guy who just saw pretty butterfly and almost got hit by a car 5times.

To be honest they should be ones making sure he won't just walk of and get lost in Forest judging by his age

When he notice that s/o didnt take their daily medicine he just takes it and slams it on desk/table next to them or just throws it at them! Take the pills dummy!

S/o calling him 'heya mickey im lost pick me up' happends twice per week. Really s/o be more careful pls

Voorhees Jason

If you thought that Vincent panicked? Oh this guy will have mental breakdown, cry and then search whole place

In forests signal sucks so they can't call him and screams won't do much cuz echo and Jason is mute so he cant yell back anyways

He won't buy leash but he will hold their hand 24/7 nuh uh you cant go run after those deers, no you can't go swimming we know what happend in 1957

Now he has ptsd and evertime he wakes up and doesn't see s/o in his eyesight he instantly thinks that she's in difrent country or dead

Heelshire Brahms

This dude knows the whole mansion no way he loses them here right?

Jokes on you brahms they are already on the other side of it

Even tho they are in closed space, which is safe and very known to Brahms it doesnt stop his abandment issues and... idk he has a lot of issues tbh. No matter how long he knows s/o he's is 100% sure that they are trying to leave.

He will probably speed run thrue corridors screaming their name and he just stubbles across them just watching paitinings on walls "this you? You were ugly ass baby" "WHERE WERE YOU" "I saw funny rats and i wondered where they have secret cheese hideout" "rats?😰" (its a reference to my old fic where brahms was beaten up by rats and now hes spooked of them)

He has calendar with highlighted date everyday they have to take pills and how many so every morning when s/o wakes up they see his face like few centimetres away from theirs, with aggressive eye contact holding pills "it is time my love" " oh :("

I added brahms cuz hes goofy, have wonderful day person reading this!! And never be spooked to ask for headcanons! We love that

#slasher x reader #slasher headcanons #brahms heelsire #brahms x reader #micheal myers #micheal myers x reader #vincent x reader #vincent sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair #house of wax #halloween ends #the boy 2016 #brahms the boy #jason vorhees headcanon #jason voorhees #jason vorhees x reader

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throwingmetothelions · 8 months

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It’s so important that you read this disclaimer/TWs. I am a southern woman and I will be until I die. When I was a CW major for a decade almost all I wrote were southern gothic pieces, and this does not read like any fic I’ve posted here. This is very much Auntie V’s old writing style. I am taking you to my roots. The other main character in this piece is black. This is your one reminder that I am a black woman. Don’t start no shit - won’t be no shit in terms of my descriptions. Second - I really kinda put a spotlight on Noah at his lowest as far as my writing goes in the beginning. There are a few potentially triggering mental health allusions; some regarding hygiene, and I just wanted to make sure you understand that you aren’t alone. TW: Religious talk, mental health decline, one singular mention of a baby dying with no details, blood mentioned right after that. Oral sex f receiving, D/S dynamic if you squint. I would actually go as far as to say there's a smatter of angst up in this bitch. Supernatural shit. Noah kinda spirals toward the end and slips into madness. Absolute smut because it's me and I have never written anything else here. Let’s get spooky. WC: 6k (I chopped it a lil bit so that’s why it’s all one)

NoahxOC? Is she really my OC? You be the judge.

It’s been exactly three hours and forty-one minutes since Noah decided that if that one dude in Pirates of The Caribbean could become one with the ship, he could become one with his mattress. No coral or sea stars to adorn him for the rest of his ever, just sweat and a little bit of deodorant, but nothing pretty. Thinks maybe he’ll turn to dust or something easily sweepable. No words and barely breathing. Continues inhaling the smell of incense he didn't light, and swallowing down saliva and self pity. Continues laying. Wallowing. Hits the play button on his memory bank and lets the hate scroll behind his purpling eyelids.

“It’s all autotune”.

“He was so shaky at the Cleveland show dude idk”.

“They started all that mysterious bullshit with the masks and the no socials and his vocals went to shit immediately. Fuckin’ wild”.

“Noah needs to let Jolly just …”

A well aimed throw from Nicholas ends with a pen hitting Noah in the middle of his back. “Snap the fuck out of it dawg. Since when have you listened to what people say about your singing? It ain’t true and you know damn well I’d tell you if it was,” Nick sighed as he leaned his acoustic against the desk. There isn’t much to say here. Nicholas has been there, albeit never there in the physical sense of not bathing for over a week and ignoring his best friend’s phone calls until the aforementioned friend threatened him with a welfare check from either him, or the cops.

People often forget that “blood is thicker than water” is a bastardized phrase. “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” but it is not thicker than the knots that Nick spent an hour combing from Noah’s matted locks after he threw him in the shower and helped him scrub yesterday. Do not speak to Nicholas Ryan about that fucking covenant. He wrote the anthology and dedicated it to Noah long ago.

“Remember the story your grandma used to tell us when we were younger? Robert Johnson? Maybe you can just sell your soul to a demon and bam. Never miss a note again in your life,” he pokes the last vowel into Noah’s kneecap as he tries to lift the soggy and molded blanket of depression off of that moment. Off of his best bud. “I’m telling you bro, it’s - it’s real. I feel like it really happened,” Nicholas cuts his eyes to Noah for a split second before continuing to thumb the strings of his guitar.

“You also felt like you had Covid that one time, but it was just the jalapenos on that sandwich fucking with your tastebuds so …" Noah dismisses Nick’s 2 AM Red Bull fueled theories and rolls over on the bed to face him. “Besides. If that shit was true I would have done it ages ago,” he chuckles a little bit, and the clearing in his throat reminds him that he hasn’t done that in awhile.

—---

I ain't goin’ to state no color

“The lynch mobs ran his family outta town when he was a boy. Been a travellin’ man against his will his whole life. Learned to play in a dark graveyard, though the dead can hear like us”.

But her front teeth is crowned in gold

“Went by many names, Robert did. Women and whiskey stole his soul long before he sold it to the devil at them crossroads. Only a beast would howl the blues like that”.

She got a mortgage on my body

“His wife and baby died bloody and hollerin’. They wouldn’t let him see the child that lived for that. Your loved ones are never spared from your debts, child”.

And a lien on my soul

“He was poisoned like a field mouse in a corner basement. Ulcers in his throat where the demons took their chords back one by one. May death be kinder now.”

—---

Noah shudders at the mental reel of his grandmother spinning that story from her recliner like a textile through her vein-blued fingers. He doesn’t hold on to many memories of her, and knowing that Nicholas is holding them for him settles in his gut like concrete blocks on the ocean floor. May death be kinder now.

“I think it works anywhere too. Johnson held up a guitar at the crossroad and the devil just popped up. I believe in you,” Nicholas whispered the last sentence while catching Noah’s knuckles with the flat of his palm. “I’m going to bed dude. Taking the couch because if you kick that one spot on my shin again I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he bites through a yawn as he drags himself over to the couch by the door. The unspoken knowledge that he would just be there until Noah was Noah again laid itself over the pair along with the dark as the LEDs timer faded out.

—---

The alarm on his phone vibrated under Noah’s pillow an hour later.

Gently kicking the blanket off of his body, he turned it off and put the flashlight on the lowest possible brightness. Through the white haze he could make out Nick’s chest as it swelled and fell with quiet breaths. No snores to give away his slumber, but his cracked mouth and the arm hanging down to the carpet told Noah that he was knocked, so his plan was still greenlit.

Listen. If anyone asked Noah - yeah, it was a weird fucking time to be taking a walk, but his mental health was in the fucking gutter and he’d happily have his band mates vouch for that if he got into trouble. A 3:30 AM walk was better than no walk at all. Fresh air was better than the stale and dust-littered cloud that hung in his bedroom that he’d been choking on for god knows how long. Stretching his arms into his faded navy hoodie (no shirt because they were all in desperate need of some laundry detergent and some scrubbing) and stepping into some gray joggers, Noah gently padded across the floor and thanked some God that the door was cracked already. He patted his pockets: phone, knife, lighter, cigs, keys. He popped his feet into some slides, opened the front door, and Noah Sebastian took off into a humid Appalachian night.

The stars looked something like crumbs swept from a placemat in their scattering.

Fireflies peeked through bushes like sun does clouds, and they swirled the same.

Noah thinks thoughts that adults would. This new asphalt they paved looks great. Glad the holes are gone. Anything to keep his brain moving. Not stuck. It’s kinda hot for this time of year. I guess August is still considered summer, though.

See, the rollercoaster of fame was something Noah had been standing in line for since he was 13. He’d been growing and stretching and waiting his turn, but he hadn’t anticipated the steep incline to success. All the eyes were on him all the time, and the urge to spread them around and give them to his bandmates had never been stronger. He thought he wanted this, but the critics came on strong and took the form of delusional children on the internet wavelengths from reality. He felt like shit because, at this point, his arch nemesis was probably a twelve year old that had never seen a concert and he was the grown man assclown that let it get to him.

Noah had been bracing himself for the inevitable drop that must come, but the only thing he knew for certain was that he absolutely couldn’t handle it. If it all came speeding down and stopped with screeching brakes and smokey sparks, he wouldn’t be the one in control and going off the rails with it all seemed like his only out.

Shaking his head from the fog, he noticed that the jagged white line of paint on the side of the road seemed to fade out. He pins it on a bit of “lazy painters” and a lot of “not my fuckin problem”.

Keep walking.

His complaint about the heat must have been heard by some alien brainworm because he’s suddenly quite grateful for the hoodie and the breeze that rummages through the leaves like a searching hand in a kitchen drawer. Feels good.

Keep walking.

The cicadas had stopped screeching. The noise, akin to a violin being played after all of its strings have broken, was gone. Maybe all things must sleep. Maybe they got picked up by an owl. May death be kinder now. Head down. Hood up.

Keep walking.

Head up. Hood down.

There is no dot of red inside a white paint can, there is no water droplet in an inferno, and Noah is certain that there is no fucking desert in the middle of Richmond, Virginia.

And yet.

He finds himself staring out at nothing. There is sand, and clay, something red and dusty and on the horizon there is nothing. Noah whips his head backward and sees the same scene behind him. The road was narrow now, and there was another narrow road of black going straight through it a few feet in front of him. No street signs. Nothing. He rubbed his eyes with his palms as one would if they were waking up from a bad dream, but when his lids opened again he found that nothing changed. Same dirty slides, same clothes, same desert of nothing. Noah walked forward. His steps felt real, and his stomach immediately started to ache. He remembered the story. Remembered the absolute conviction and strength in his grandmother’s voice and teeth when she told him that the crossroads come to you when you need them the most.

She pointed her finger at him in a way that Southern women do when she told him that praying and practicing, Jesus and magic, and your footpath and your heart’s blood compass could all align somewhere in this world. “All the trees aint your friends, and they keep their secrets in the Spanish moss”.

Noah grew up on gravel, backwoods revivals, and a fear of God that was overcome through alcohol fueled tears and some screams ripped from his chest by the man himself. Maybe God took a rib as payment, and maybe he yelled like Adam. He didn’t have long to think, because the tornado of realization and helplessness took him down to his knees. The blacktop dug into his skin as he threw his head back. Noah didn’t know what he was feeling, but he had accepted some sort of … fate? Was it fate? Did he deserve whatever was about to happen, and what did he do? Why did it seem like this road was lit up by stadium lights that he couldn't see? Questions on questions, so he closes his eyes once more, places his palms on the tops of his thighs, leans his head back so the ends of his hair brush his heels, and he parts his lips.Tries to breathe. He did not repent in his last moments, but there were pictures floating of Jolly, Nicholas, Nick, and there were late nights and popsicles and beer cans and being young and dying young and that’s all very okay. Noah’s life was okay. May death be kinder now.

All of a sudden, Noah felt two slender fingers slip past his lips, glide over his tongue, and purposefully gag the shit out of him. He felt cold rings catch behind his front teeth as the owner tried to wrench the fingers back from the wet of his mouth. His eyes flew open with immediate tears as he sputtered and coughed - the fit his reflexes threw landed him on his ass with one arm bracing himself. He hums and spits and jerks his head back and forth. His nose burns now.

“What the fuck,” he yells as he glares up. Noah catches a glimpse of the veins in his hand as they pop and flare under his tense skin.

“That’s a naughty word, boy,” the figure blew smoke from its mouth with every word effectively stopping Noah from seeing it clearly. It threw the cigarette to the side and cocked its head. “Try ya words again,” it spoke slowly.

With the smoke haze gone, Noah got a better look at what he was sharing this space with. If he wasn’t already on the ground he might have been sent there again. His eyes started from the ground up, and they turned around and went down from her head again so no detail would be missed.

She was at least six feet tall. She stood barefoot, toes painted honeycomb yellow and some symbols tattooed on the tops of her feet. Gold anklets, bangles, and various types of black cord wrapped each ankle. Her legs were long and brown like cattails, and they spoke to unearthly strength as she stood flat footed.

Noah couldn’t stop himself from memorizing the way the stretch marks on her exposed hips moved like sawgrass on a marsh plain when she shifted her weight. She wore a tattered skirt made of dull black leather and some other sort of hide. Her stomach pudged over the sides of her skirt, and he saw the same symbols her feet carried spread across it. Her chest was hidden by a bandeau made of the same black leathery material, but Noah caught the curve and fall of her tits and committed them to memory immediately. Her skin was the color of cassava and it held a sparkle. It could have been a sheen of sweat or something ethereal. Her arms ended in hands that held scars, a black hobo bag, and the same tattoos. Her fingertips were ink black, and her fingernails were short, and the same goldish yellow as her toes. Golden rings covered in ash and gems clung tightly to her digits, and her hair was piled high on her head; a beehive weaved of black locs adorned with glittering beads and small animal bones that hung and fell with the breeze surrounding them. Noah still swears he saw a Carolina wolf spider crawl around one. Her face. Her face was composed of freckled cheeks, sharp eyes the color of pitch, and that same mysterious tattooed symbol on the bridge of her nose. The plumped two-toned lips she had curled into a smile and revealed the gold capped fangs on her canines. A forked tongue shot out and licked over one, and he couldn’t help but assume it was some sort of warning.

“Try ya words. Again,” she spoke.

“This shit can’t be real,” Noah mumbled as he leaned his forehead on the palm of his hand. “Who are you and what the fuck is going on?”

She chuckled and shook her head at him, her necklaces rattled as she explained, “I am … well, the humans call me a few names. I know who you are though, Noah,” she sneered again as his pupils blew open.

At this point, he was ready to swing on whatever the fuck this thing was. She was a deadly brand of unconventional gorgeous that brought the fog right back to his brainspace, but he’d convinced himself that it wasn’t considered hitting a girl if that girl was some ancient all knowing being.

“They call me ‘The Tempter,’ ‘The Accuser,’ ‘Belial,’ ‘Satan,’ among others. I’ve never been one for formalities, love. Call me Luci. I am the one that they presumably told you to fear,” she said as she knelt down to Noah’s eye level. “... boo,” her fingers wiggled around her face as small flames erupted from the tips.

“You’re - you’re the …” he stuttered as if he’d been backhanded.

“The …” her eyebrows raised with the octave of her voice.

“The fucking devil? I’m gonna pass the fuck out. This isn’t … you’re not real. You’re not real. This isn’t fucking real,” Noah rose to his feet from shaking knees. Every childhood Sunday was spent under a weather-beaten willow tree memorizing historic ways to shame the devil. To shame her. There was no pulling him out of this dream state, though he wished to hell and back that Nicholas would. He was sure his body should be flailing if it was still on the bed at all. Surely Nick could hear the curdling screams he was trying to emit.

Luci brought a hand to Noah’s now tear streaked face, black smoke rising around them in billows. “Nicholas is - he is not going to make this decision for you. There’s nothing to be saved from because you’re not dreaming. I think you know why I’m here Noah. I know what it feels like to fall from grace, and I can pull you back from that ledge. You have somethin’ that I need, and it’s just a snap of the fingers,” she delivered a gleaming half smile and a raised eyebrow.

Was his soul that valuable? And why did the preachers leave out that the devil watches people like some sort of demonic pervert? Was she just a demonic pervert?

“I resent that,” she frowns over at him. “Trying to stop me from reading your thoughts is kinda dumb. Blueberry muffins, Pepsi, fuzzy blankets … grass flip flops?”

Noah decided that if he talked words with his mouth that his brain wouldn’t think too hard. Maybe. He’d accepted death twice that night already, and his music was his reason for breathing. Figured if his music career advanced, if he won, and he took the boys with him that … well, that all of his important things would be safe. No one could harm them. Call it selfish and narcissistic, but he felt that there was quite literally nothing on this mortal coil that he would be afraid to lose aside from them. As painful as it hit him, this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about this so there was no split second decision here. “So … what do I have to do to keep from falling? Like … to keep the fame?”

Luci wasn’t taken aback at how expeditious he was with his decision. She’d been tasting the drive and hunger that he held in his chest for years through the atmospheric ether, and she craved it. He was so much more powerful than he would ever know, and she cursed his maker for the insecurities he plagued him with. They were insecurities that Noah thought she’d caused for a long time, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. She was never the harbinger of the dark that nestled in his ligaments. “It’s not the way you think. It’s a bit more … personal and up close,” she mused as they looked each other dead in the eye - crow’s feather black to cracked chestnut brown. Luci reached a hand out and placed it on Noah’s flushed cheek. “Now,” she licked his pulse point, “I will give, and you will do the taking. I will speak, and you listen,” her voice flows out with another puff of smoke, and the smell of burning pine straw floats between them.

Noah mentally thumbs through the brain file labeled “Dumb As Fuck Things That Nick Folio Said While High,” and his mind pulls the page titled “Fear Boners,” to reference his current state. The devil was always shown as hot, but the realization that she was a leather-wearing tribal goddess that could kill him with a singular blink was a lot. May death be kinder now. This information was apparently well received by his conscience, and his cock.

Noah swears he feels her jagged fingernails carve a home in the nape of his neck, but her hands remain on her curved hips. He can make out whips and whirls of some sort of mist floating around her fingers. He feels his sweat dampened lips part open as the pressure around his throat increases and her stance stays the same. Unwavering and violently sure of herself, Luci relaxes the hold and speaks.

“Take it off,” she doesn’t ask. The devil doesn’t ask when she can smell how desperate someone is for her unholy helping hands.

He makes quick work of throwing his hoodie to the eastern wind, and he had a hand in the band of his sweatpants before it stopped him. It - that misty glitter magic she was using … “The Force,” or whatever the shit from Star Wars was. Is she where they got the idea for - regardless. Luci’s magic brought his hand to a halt.

She lifted her foot up and tapped the asphalt they stood on, her bangles gently clattering. The hard surface of black grit became a softer patch of Kentucky bluegrass; green, lush, and dew sprinkled. Luci walked behind Noah and let her hands wander down his torso. She stopped to pluck at his already hardened nipple, and the goosebumps Noah had been pricked with seemed to multiply.

Her fingertips danced over the happy trail Noah was suddenly made well aware that he had. The feeling of her magic and the warm southern breeze twirling through the light hairs there told Noah that she might break him, and that he would beg for nothing less. “That’s a good portrait of Grim,” Luci quips as she moves to kneel at Noah’s feet, “we go way back,” her golden fangs scrape the tattoo that spreads across Noah’s torso.

“Fuck yes,” he groans as his hips buck up at nothing.

Luci drags his pants down his legs slowly, just enough to let the band catch on the head of his dick before letting his cock spring up to smack against his stomach. She wanted to hear that hiss she knew Noah kept under his tongue. “Tell ya what,” her forked tongue darted out to catch the small pearl of precum that had gathered at Noah’s untouched tip, “I’m gonna have my fun, and you’re gonna let me know why you deserve to be up at the tippity-top where the angels play, hmm?”

She rose to her feet and met Noah’s eyes again. One finger underneath his chin, the smell of the pine straw again, and the gathering mist were enough to bring his mouth forward and onto hers. He moaned so deeply it would have been some type of embarrassing if he was anywhere else, but the feeling of sucking in her plump bottom lip and licking over her teasing tongue with his own was sending Noah to a different plane of feel-good.

Luci pulled away before she snapped her fingers and brought about a chair from some other universe. Nothing remarkable about it, Noah thinks, just plain brown wood. It looked like the broken seats that he’d seen off to the side of his grandma’s kitchen. No use sitting on it - those seats were for old newspapers and grocery bags and not the devil, but what the hell did he know? “Ya mouth may not always sing perfect, but you can come show me what else it can do,” she crooked a finger at him and pulled him over and to his knees in front of her. She sat in the chair and with a dismissive wave of her hand, her skirt caught the wind. Luci leaned back and spread her thighs open.

Noah knelt in a way that said that no object forged by man would keep his body down, and levitating up to her spread before him would be the only honorable end to this. May death be kinder now. He took in the glistening lips, the way the brown gave way to the pink of her core, and the way that his tongue felt magnetized to that spot. “Looks like honey,” he mumbled as wrapped an arm under each thigh and pulled Luci to the edge of her seat. Noah brought his mouth about two inches away from her cunt. He took in the dark patch of curls above her slit, the way that they faded where her puffy lips started, and the way that he knew he’d have to work to get to the heart of her.

Luci reached a hand down and used her middle and index fingers to spread herself further. Gathering a string of slick, she dangled it above Noah’s now open mouth and like a traveler finding water in the Atacama he took it down with a groan. Tasted like honey and something dark. “Come talk to her. Tell her why you deserve it all,” Luci threads her hand through Noah’s hair and beckons him forward with a tug.

The tip of Noah’s tongue applies so little pressure that you wouldn’t have known he made contact with her folds if she hadn’t arched her back off the chair. “I uhm. I think I deserve it because,” he pauses to give her clit a kiss, savoring the way that her bud fit perfectly between his pursed lips, “because I know I've given this all that I have to give. I’ve already given it my heart and soul,” he licks around it in a wide circle before stopping his sentence with one more peck.

“Keep going,” Luci mumbles as she lets her head roll back. Her locs fell around her as she let him worship her pussy. Feminine power brought the best of these mortal men to their knees, and she was not new to this. What she wasn’t prepared for was the stark smell of his yearning. This one didn’t just want to trade his soul for fame like the rest. A few touches below the belt and they were too bound by greed to be of any use at all. Luci couldn’t smell the green of that greed at all. Not just brimstone and hot guilt … he was all jasmine and cold water, moonbeams and sawgrass. Noah smelled like all he wanted to do was stay down on his knees with his lips on her lips, and it made her veins swell. She was losing her grip on her own magic, and bowing to the mercy of his.

“And I think that the world needs to hear my voice,” Noah sucked one of her lips into his mouth and softly pulled while she pushed his face further into her pussy. His hands gathered as much of her ample thighs as they could, and his fingertips pressed into the muscles until small circles formed. Anything to ground himself and keep him from floating up to the wispy clouds where his head already was. “And I think that I’m multi-talented. I write and produce my own shit ya know,” he brings her throbbing clit back between his lips, starts a slow suckling pace, and moans from the back of his throat. Noah’s eyes close, and the only thing that changes his rhythm is Luci’s bucking.

She brings her feet up from the grass to the rungs on the bottom of the chair and uses the leverage to lift her ass off the seat a bit. “Yes. Lick that fucking pussy,” she grits from behind clenched teeth as she brings both hands to his head and grinds her hips into his busy mouth. She was gone. The feeling of Noah working over her pussy with an expertise only found before in the mouths of gods was all but too much. “You're gonna make me cum on that tongue. Please make me cum on your tongue,” Luci feels the muscles in her upper back flex as she continues the filthy pace she’s set against his face.

Noah can feel her wetness spreading across his cheeks and down his chin as she does so. He knows he could drown in it, and he left the graceful art of giving two fucks back at home. This entire time he’s been ignoring the ache in his dick - scared that, at this point, he might be so hard that it would literally hurt to touch. In another universe, if this was some sort of sleep paralysis episode, he knew he’d wake up covered in his own dried cum. Wondered if he’d wake Nick up with the moans because he was probably humping the mattress, or fucking against the blanket.

Noah didn’t have to beg for her orgasm with his words. The burn in his bent knees, the panting breath he hadn’t been able to catch since her juices hit his lips, and the act of accepting of a distinguished death by drowning screamed at her - yelled with all their might to flood plains in the way that monsoons do.

Luci braced herself with one hand on the back of his head, and one hand gripping the side of the chair with such force the wood splintered. She came with a hard roll of her hips and a cry that could have stretched from one asteroid to another - wide and ringing. She thinks, for sure, that she obtained some humanity through it all. She offered Noah communion in a new way, and let him thank her for the gifts in a sense. Blood and body. May death be kinder now.

Noah never let her thighs go, but he traded his grounding grip for patterns rubbed in softly by satisfied hands. “I’m not saying I thought about it before, but the movies ain’t got shit on this”, Noah licked the inner crease of her thigh with a restless tongue and delighted in the jolt. He watched her regain her breath and thought about how, no matter the outcome, the power trip he’d just taken wouldn’t be matched. He, Noah Sebastian Davis, had made the devil herself fall apart underneath him. He was a force of nature that wasn’t to be questioned. He was the fucking king.

He remained knelt at this altar.

Devotion be damned, this one was holy to him.

That old song tangled through his bones like the veins on an arrowplant leaf. Noah could hear it thrum internally as it traveled around his chest cavity and flew behind his eyes.

I ain't goin’ to state no color

But her front teeth is crowned in gold

She got a mortgage on my body

And a lien on my soul

Thank you! We may see a part 2 if enough of you ask for it? But that definitely wouldn’t star Noah *cough*.

#bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fanfic #bad omens fic #auntievwroteit #noah sebastian fic #noah sebastian fanfic

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the-paper-monkey · 11 days

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I'm sorry if I have hurt you in any way because that was not my intention. I don't really mind who you ship or what you ship. It's just, I open my Tumblr and the first I see is someone calling something I like a crack ship while talking about their favourite ship. My point is why talk badly about something/someone else's ship when you're also shipping something which is also very unrealistic? Like I get it you have a favorite, but you can talk about your favourite without saying someone else's ship is not possible/crack for that matter. My bad if I made you feel bad because I really didn't want to do that. I just didn't want to the see someone bashing my ship as the first thing I see when I open Tumblr. I just don't get why people can't ship their own things without calling others' ship crack. Either ways, I'm sorry you felt attacked honestly; I really respect you as a person and a writer. And that's why I was sad to see you say those stuff. I really liked your fics as well and I love how you write Tom, I really do. That is why I was so surprised to see that post on my feed, but oh well. I do hope you have a good day and again I'm sorry if I made you sad in any way.

I appreciate the apology. I understand that it's not fun to see something that you interpret as critical toward your ship on your dash, however, I did not put that post in the Tomarry tag. If those kinds of posts are upsetting to you, then consider unfollowing me, because when I receive asks, I will answer them with my honest opinion. Coming into my ask box like that is not appropriate.

I'm just scratching my head here, because tbh that wasn't an anti post? To say that Tomarry requires a reimagining of canon or that there are plenty of things they could dislike about each other is not me saying it's a shit ship. Drarry's my OTP after all, lol, hate = spice. I also didn't call it crack, though I don't think crack is an insult either. Most Tom ships are crackish to some extent, especially ships that require an AU for the characters to even be the same age (Tomarry, Tomione, Taco, etc.). Harry Potter x the dude who tried to kill him a bajillion times is pretty implausible to most people, but that doesn't make it a 'bad' ship. You can make any ship work and there are many, many writers who have brought more life to Tomarry than Canon Hinny received from JKR (before someone else comes for me, this isn't a Hinny critique either, this is a critique of JKR's ability to write romance lol)

This is what I've said on Tomarry and Taco previously.

^FYI this was a joke

Finally, it isn't your ship vs mine. I've shipped Tomarry longer than I've shipped Taco. I'll ship Tom with a pair of snakeskin loafers if I thought they'd have chemistry. I can ship something without singing its praises endlessly. In fact, I reckon I've said way meaner things about Taco on here than Tomarry lol. I've said that Tom would loathe Draco under most circumstances and that he would murder him for sure since lil bro can't stop yapping. I've also said Draco is ugly an acquired taste and Tom has no game 💀. My DAD has come to Draco's defence over some of the things I said about him as we were watching the movies. Roasting is my love language, pls don't misunderstanding it.

#asks #anon #draco cant stop yapping and neither can i #✌

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madebypointlesswords · 11 months

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Rating all the Latin authors I've read in the past two years in honor of my oral Latin exam tomorrow

Caesar (De Bello Gallico)

This is a weird one because while his prose isn't extremely difficult, it was also the first unedited work I read, so for lil 15-year-old me, this was very difficult. But I learned a lot from Caesar (especially that he made it an art to making his sentences as long as possible. We read an entire 200 words, and IT WAS JUST ONE SENTENCE.), and the sense of nostalgia while rereading it is very pleasant, so I will give you a solid 6/10

Pliny the Younger (Epistulae)

Mixed feelings about this one again. This could also be just because I despise prose. I really do not like it at all. Pliny's epistulae were pretty okay. I liked them a little better than Caesar's because of their variety (for those that don't know, epistulae means letters). His letter about the Vesuvius was a lot of fun to translate, even with all the hyperbata, but his letters about or to his third wife were very uncomfortable. Like, I get things were different back then. BUT YOU WERE 45, PLINY. 45. SHE WAS WHAT? 14? 15 TOPS? MY GOD. THAT'S A BIGGER AGE DIFFERENCE THAN I HAVE WITH MY FATHER.

7/10

Ovid (Metamorphoses)

Ovid is life Ovid is love. He was the one who introduced me to Latin poetry, and I will always love him for it. He was an icon and a legend. The poems of his that we read (Daedalus & Icarus, Latona and the Lycian peasants, Diana and Actaeon) were all bangers, and I love them all to death. I never wanted to go back to reading prose after this (but unfortunately, I will have to next year. ew)

11/10 (I love you, Ovid)

Vergil (The Aeneid)

*deep sigh* Listen. I love his complex works, and I have great respect for this poem but by the GODS. Vergil's poetry is the most difficult I've had to translate by a long shot. He made me rethink my entire career in Latin. I have considered quitting so many times because of this man. I felt like a complete idiot most of the time. This is not a guy to fuck with. Luckily I got through it on my finals (barely.) but Christ alive this man made my life difficult.

5/10

Horatius (Satires and Odes)

Horatius will always have a special place in my heart. We read his poetry right after Vergil's, and it almost completely restored my faith in my abilities. He's just my little guy and I have fond memories of translating his works. We still know many Latin phrases that he wrote (Carpe Diem being the most famous. Hello, DPS fandom). Also, he and Vergil were most definitely in love. I don't make the rules. I have evidence if you want me to elaborate.

9/10

Catullus (love poems)

Ah, Catullus. Horny poet of the year. Had a wild affair with an older married woman. Nepotism baby. Sappho stan. Didn't know how to budget, but we aren't holding that against him. Just wanted to write poetry and dance (who doesn't, honestly). Gave fuck-all about education. Wrote nearly all of his poetry about the older woman he had an affair with. Might I add that this woman was married to one of his father's bestest buddies? Yeah. Icon. Here's a kid's choice award.

8/10

Martialis (Epigrams)

This dude had ZERO chill. Roasted everyone in the city. Literally, no one is safe. Wasn't afraid to call people out by their real names. Some people allegedly committed suicide after being roasted by this guy. Translating his epigrams gave me more joy than hearing we had seen the end of Vergil. His humour may be a little silly now, but I will not accept any Martialis slander on my blog.

10/10

And that is all folks

#latin student #latin memes #latin literature #publius ovidius naso #classics #ancient greek #martialis #how is that not a tag #this guy is the epitome of Tumblr humour #pliny the younger #pliny #julius caesar #roman history #roman literature #catullus #vergil #the aeneid #vergil and horatius were gay and in love pass it on #horatius

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the-lil-exorcist · 16 days

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Time for a Re-ban

PARTIES:@the-lil-exorcist and @uncannysam TIME: Recent WHERE: Wendy's SUMMARY: Lil finally gets unbanned from Wendy's! Unfortunately for Lil and Sam, Steve never got rid of that poltergeist :/ WARNINGS: Unsanitary tw

Sam was craving a Frosty. Not vanilla or that new creamsicle thing that was out, but the OG…chocolate. And considering she hadn’t had dinner yet, she figured she would treat herself to some spicy nuggies and fries as well. But first, she had to lock up and take Scout upstairs. This, unfortunately, would not be a Scout thread, as dogs aren’t allowed in fast food establishments.

Once she had said goodbye to the best boy, Sam made her way back downstairs and out to her Bronco. Climbing in, she started up the truck and put on Simple Plan as she left the parking lot and headed towards Wendy’s, “Chocolate Frosty and chicken nuggies here I come!” She could already see it being the best part of her day.

Sam had lucked into a spot near the front door. Shutting off the engine, she climbed out and started making her way to the front door, but as she did, she could see some commotion just within the doorway, “I swear if someone ruins my chance at spicy nuggies, I’m gonna riot...” The comment was under her breath more or less, but after a rough day of one rude customer after another, she was being serious.

—

Lil was having a fantastic day. Her decade ban from Wendy’s was going to be done and she was grinning ear to ear at the idea that she could just walk in and get a frosty no problem. She even told Jonas excitedly, marking it down on a calendar that for the first time in her adult life she wasn’t banned from Wendy’s.

It didn’t occur to her that the Wendy’s location that she had picked had been the one that the owner was still weary of her. “Steve - Steve I’m not banned anymore - You can’t just throw me out.” Lil said, trying to reason with the franchise owner. “Oh god I have the letter and everything.”

The manager didn’t look amused and Lil was getting more and more angry. “Dude really? Look at the letter my ban is lifted. Just let me have the frosty.” Lil couldn’t hear the ghost sitting behind the counter laughing, knowing that Lil was about to get banned again as the lights flickered a little.

Squeezing her eyes together, as much as she didn’t want to end up in the middle of an argument, Sam reluctantly opened the door. If she wanted her nuggies meal and Frosty, she was gonna have to make it past this commotion. Just keep your head down. You can make it. Just a few hundred feet, and you’re in the clear.

Sam had her eyes on the prize. The counter where the cashier was looking on at the argument going on, in amusement, along with the rest of the kitchen staff. Apparently, Sam had chosen a slow time to come in. But that didn’t matter. She wanted her food dammit, and food is what she was going to get.

As took a deep breath and let out a heavy, low sigh, she cautiously moved forward keeping her head low. No sense in looking the beast right in the eye, when it would just draw attention to herself. No, the key was to be sly. As sly as…

Lil’s eyes went up to the flickering lights squinting at them and then back at Steve. “So you going to serve me?” His eyes flickered up as well and back at Lil staring at the letter in her hand she could see he was wavering.

“Fine, Kid but if you do something weird again - I’m never letting you back in no matter what corporate says god it? ,” He said in a gruff voice signaling her to get closer so she could order. After all, she wasn’t seventeen anymore and even back then she had been a good kid - just messed up the frosty machine somehow.

For a moment Lil looked stunned that it had worked - something finally looking up as she heelied up to the front with a smile on her face. Something genuine and actually excited and not her normal half smile. For a moment she looked her age again, the dark circles disappearing.

“Alright alright alright,” She said, her hand going to the counter as she started ordering the frosty. Once Lil turned slightly to see the woman behind her she continued, “Hey I’m having a great day - what do you want? Pass it on and everything.”

The ghost whispered trying to get Lil’s attention, wanting the exorcist to notice him - and Lil heard nothing causing a little electric spark to go through the lights above. She wasn’t going to ignore him again.

“Uh, yeah, sure, if you’re offering.” Sam had made it successfully, but had still been noticed. At least it hadn’t been in a ‘please help me convince this man to let me into the store’ kind of thing. That’s what had worried her, but instead of zigging, the situation zagged, and now, she was about to get dinner for free, “8 piece spicy nugget, medium fry, and large chocolate Frosty?” She hoped that wouldn’t be too much, and if it was, she was fine paying for her own food and would still find a way to pay it forward.

It wasn’t until she was standing at the counter, that she noticed the lights flickering above. And while it had caught her attention, she hadn’t thought anything about it. The building was old, right? Probably the first and only Wendy’s built in Wicked’s Rest.

Letting her eyes drift back down, Sam looked to Lil attempting to make small talk, “So great day for Wendy’s huh? You come here often?” Yes, she had heard the conversation, but her nerves had easily gotten the better of her, causing her to sound like an idiot, “Shit…sorry, I…yeah.” Sam looked down at the floor trying to stifle an unexpected laugh from her ignorance.

—

Lil nodded and added it to the order feeling delighted in herself that she was finally getting a win. She was pretty sure everyone needed a win lately as she paid for it. Leaning against the counter waiting for the frosty and the other’s food.

At the question Lil chuckled, “No actually I’m not here often but hey! That can change now. See when I was a teen I got banned and bans only last for like ten years so I’m back now.” She said with a little grin. “Sorry - my name’s Lil - Lil Ballard and you caught me on a good day. Not everyday I can come in and get my own frosty. So are you new in town or have you been here awhile?”

The ghost shook the frosty machine slightly wanting the exorcist's attention. It wasn’t fair that he was still here and that she hadn’t noticed him yet yelling out loud at the audacity. He wanted someone to talk to and this medium was going to recognize him or he would do something about it.

Sam raised her head and listened intently at the story of how the woman standing in front of her was banned. Even though she didn’t know her and hadn’t seen her around, Sam had felt bad for her. She couldn’t imagine living a decade without Frostys. That must have been so hard, “Whoa! An entire decade without the chocolatey goodness of a Frosty? I don’t know how you did it. And that’s not me being sarcastic, by the way. If I’m having a shit day, Frostys always seem to make it better. I’m glad you know this freedom again. And hey, thanks for dinner.” She smiled warmly. “Name’s Sam, Sam Walker. I moved here with my parents when I was about nine. What about you? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

The shaking of the Frosty machine had caught Sam’s attention. Shifting her eyes from Lil, she couldn’t help but stare; her heart rate picking up slightly at the fear of this easily becoming a McDonald’s situation. “Speaking of, I really hope the machine isn’t about to die. I think we both came here with one thing on our mind, and I’m not ready to walk out of here empty handed.” She motioned towards the vibrating machine with her head.

—

“Oh my brother usually will come in and get me one, but it’s not the same you know?” Lil said knowing that Jonas never minded, but it didn’t feel the same. “They really do, don't they? They aren't too sweet and I really just like them a lot. - Oh really? Yeah I’m originally from here too, but I left for like ten years. Unrelated to the frosty thing to be clear.” Lil chuckled. “Nice to meet you Sam and no problem at all.”

Lil’s eyes focused on the frosty machine a light frown on her face. “It better not - I would like to have a frosty.” Something felt off, a weird sort of feeling in the pit of Lil as she felt the room getting colder. She hadn’t noticed it before - too excited about the frosty - but she could feel it now as the machine rattled more in it’s place.

“Oh not again,” Lil muttered under her breath as she leaned on the counter looking over to see a ghost grinning at her. “No - don’t you dare.- Not again you little brat.” Her hand going to her pocket to get salt to quickly dissipate the ghost for now she didn’t pay attention to how the machine sounded a weird keening noise as it started to vibrate at a higher frequency.

___

“Yeah, I get that. And unless you’re waiting outside or in the car, it’s usually melted somewhat by the time it makes it back to you. Not to say that melted Frostys aren’t good as well, but you know…not the same.” Sam laughed. “That was nice of your brother. I’m sure he’ll be happy to know you can get your own Frostys now though.”

Sam had noticed the frown start to come over Lil’s face. If both girls had a feeling, this couldn’t be good right, “Did it just get colder in here?” She looked around as if to spot the culprit of the coldness, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Turning her attention back to Lil, Sam narrowed her eyes, “Lil…” Trying to understand what the woman was seeing, she looked towards the Frosty machine immediately noticing the noise. “Is everything okay…” It didn’t take long for the barely noticeable shake to turn into something more intricate and a little on the scary side. “I don’t think we should be this close…” And with that, Sam slowly started to back away, along with one of the employees who was just about to approach the machine.

—

“Exactly frosty’s are always good but having one in hand is just the best,” Lil said as the place got more and more hostile.

She had been so sure she’d gotten the poltergeist last time. She could have sworn she did, but perhaps she hadn’t? Maybe it was a new ghost and this Wendy’s just hosted a lot of ghost vibes. Maybe spirits loved frosty’s just as much as the living did.

In anycase, she could understand - but it didn’t change the fact she got a sinking feeling this was about to be her fault again. Lil’s hand reached for the salt, but before she could pour it out on the ghost, the machine started worryingly vibrating more and her eyes moved to it. Hearing Sam’s warning she moved backwards ducking at the counter just in time as the frosty machine exploded.

Chocolate Frosty went everywhere as Lil tried to shield herself pulling the nearest cashier down with her so they didn’t get hit badly.

Again. Lil had a frosty machine explode at her again. She really needed to teach Wendy’s to ghost proof their places as she said “Sam - you okay? Is everyone okay?” She asked as she felt the ghost’s presence behind her.

Lil couldn’t hear it but she could feel him snickering. “Oh Pal I’m going to ruin your afterlife -”

It was as if everything was happening in slow motion. The machine became increasingly worse as the lights flickered again above where they were standing. How this was possible, Sam wasn’t sure? Mechanical error? Faulty wiring? Creature that went bump in the night? She couldn’t put that past her with all she had come to see within the last few months, and here she was again. Finding herself caught up in a freakish situation with nowhere to go, but down.

Ducking as the loudness in the restaurant increased, she finally pulled her head down with her hands out of safety as she heard the machine combust, sending a massive amount of creamy cold chocolate and creamsicle all over the front of the restaurant and its current occupants. It was cold when it splashed down on her and gave her a chill to match that of the cold air circulating within the restaurant.

When all was said and done, Sam slowly raised up to see if Lil and the workers were okay, including a very angry manager who came storming up from the back. Expected, but not what caught Sam’s attention. Instead, it was Lil who had said something about the afterlife, “I’m fine, but…what do you mean afterlife, Lil?” She moved in closer, with the sense that this was probably a conversation that didn’t need to be heard by all the Wendy’s employees who were flocking up front to see what had happened.

—-

Lil should have just pretended she didn’t know what happened. Last time Steve had gotten mad because she had ranted about ghosts and how a poltergeist had caused the frosty machine to explode- but even now she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

“It’s a ghost. There’s a poltergeist here - I know you probably can’t see it but that’s what’s happening. I’m about to get banned again so uh - probably don’t follow me. I’m sorry you aren’t getting a frosty today.”

Without any more thoroughfare Lil jumped the counter sliding through the chocolate frozen treat that she was hoping to you know - have again.

“Ghost. It’s a god damn ghost in the machine - Steve I was right, ” She huffed angry as she went to pour salt around the machine realizing that the ghost had jumped into the object. “Oh no you stay back for a moment - don't you dare try to kick me out yet. This is god damn personal.” Gritting her teeth she put her hand into the machine hitting the machine inside. “Come out you son of a bitch.”

Lil realized that Sam wouldn’t understand what she was doing, that she probably looked crazy but the ghost did appear over the machine smirking at her as she glared up. She would have looked intimidating if she wasn’t covered in chocolate. “It’s the same god damn ghost - Steve I swear to god.”

Sam paused, and in a quick jolt at the word ghost, her mind spiraled. The eclipse. Zach. Zach was a ghost that was really there. It wasn’t a dream or just in her head. That day had really and truly existed, and it was just something to add to an already confusing town that Sam was slowly adjusting to more and more each day, “A…ghost? Is there anything I can…”

Before she could finish that thought, she watched as Lil jumped over the counter. There was clearly a goal in mind, and she could tell the woman was pissed. With each passing word, she realized that this was the thing that had gotten Lil banned a decade ago, and Sam definitely didn’t want to be a part of that. She needed her Frostys, even if she was currently covered from head-to-toe in one.

Just as cautiously as she had come in, Sam had started to slowly back out. At least one of them had to be able to still get sugary, chocolaty treats for them both, right? And besides, this crap was cold and was starting to congeal to her hair, skin, and clothes, and it wasn’t very enjoyable either. “Uh, I’m just gonna…” Without much of a word, Sam skedaddled out the door, not wanting the wrath of Steve or the ghost to come down on her. She had enough stuff to process and figure out, like how she was going to drive home without messing up the seats of her Bronco. But she would find Lil again, because she absolutely wanted to know how this story ended.

#Unsanitary tw #Para: Sam #all that is shown to me; paras #this was the funniest thing I've written in awhile thank u Sunny #Lil's never gonna get a frosty #Steve is having a BAD work day too #poor guy

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anamelessfool · 2 months

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I woke up today screeching

"THE TIMELINE! RAHHH THE TIMELINE!!!!"

I appreciate everybody enjoying my worldbuilding so here's a lil process moment.

Sometime last year I put together a timeline for my AU. There's a few canon dates I wanted to keep, some I needed to tweak for dramatic purposes and because I do what I want. For instance, I decided Primo's reign starts in 1993. Whatever, they're a vintage-sounding band in Opus so it doesn't really matter. I figured out character ages, join dates, summoning dates, etc.

Then I started to notice some weird connections. Connections for plots!!! For drama!!!

My insane ranting below the cut, kudos to you for still being here. (TLDR: make a timeline for your characters and plots will appear!)

For instance: Marian joined in 2002. Was in a relationship with Secondo and his partner soon after. Secondo's son happened to be born in 2004. That could be a deal breaker. That could probably make Marian wanna break up with them. Secondo thinks the world revolves around him and Marian is a commitment phobe. PLOT DRAMAAA!

Ok, so when was Omega summoned? 2005. Terzo wanted to buy a gift for Omega. No idea yet why. Oh! 2006 is one year later, maybe Secondo got married then. Sure, ok he did, done! So commitment phobe Terzo is hit in the head repeatedly by a commitment ceremony. A story about commitment in the shadow of a big formal thing everyone is forced to participate in. That's how I came up with my domestic Terzomega "Ribbons and Ties". DRAMAAAA!

So my latest one came about after I posted my Papa Camino story with his death date on it: 1983

I decided for dramatic purposes Terzo runs away from home 1984-1986. Took me weeks to figure out why, but I did. And no I'm not telling why yet.

But how? How would he run away? And what would be the last straw?

Oh hey what if I had Camino die in 1984 instead and then the whole gang had to attend his funeral in New York City? Giant city to get lost in. To slip out when nobody notices. Sure, whatever, what's another year on this dude's life. Esp for drama. You're welcome.

Yes, a funeral would be the perfect place to contemplate your existence. And to see some fakers and shitheads be all weepy and performative. I've been there. I've seen it. Yeah this is a great environment for a "I can't take this anymore" major life decision.

I then thought of a scene where he just says "I can't take this anymore" and leaves. But we can't have him just say that to the wall. Somebody needs to hear. To once again ignore him. For drama. Who should he say that to? Who would be resistant enough to him wandering away AND pretty much powerless/too apathetic to stop it? (Aka bring the most drama possible?) Primo would convince him back, he's kind. Nihil would be like "hey sounds cool man happy trails" because he was a wanderer himself. Copia is too young to get it, and also they don't have a strong enough relationship. Who else? Who?

Secondo. Always goes back to that guy. I think because deep down he's the dumbest one of all. (At least when he's young and naive! He gets his redemption!)

And to be a little cagey, Secondo knows things in 1984 that Terzo doesn't. But can't say em if he ever wants to be Papa Emeritus. So...yeah he'd half listen to Terzo and then just let him leave. Let's throw that scene into this other fic I'm writing. Maybe it will motivate plot in the future. Will be subtext for a future conversation. Yes yes delicious drama!

So yeah this is how you go insane.

#worldbuilding #ghost scenes from the void #fanfiction writer

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collectorcookie · 8 months

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QUICK what are you current thoughts about Trickstar and their relationship dynamics? :0

ASVDJWKDVSJDHF you cannot ask me something like this and not expect me to write an essay about it. I will go through this one by one. Quite the long post btw.

Subaru and makoto: my silly beloveds <3 the reason i started producing trickstar actually. I saw them making puns with each other and my brain was like "i will sell you my soul". Funny lil comedy duo. Except later i would find out about their pasts and now thinking about how they were funny dudes in high school despite all the tragedies that happened to them makes me wanna cry. Subaru who had no friends due to being isolated because everyone thought his dad was a murderer (not true) and makoto who was always alone because child modelling crushed his sense of self (also potential sexual abuse was hinted at? Thats messed up). And then they find each other and they're friends and they make jokes and for the first time they BELONG SOMEWHERE.

Subaru and mao: very insecure mao who feels like subaru is a genius shining star and that he doesn't deserve to be by his side. Lonely subaru who admires mao for how dependable he is and how everyone relies on him, giving mao the nickname of sari/sally based on a magician (also why maos solo is called magicians trick). The mutual pining. The admiration. Mao's "you outshine me so i don't deserve to be with you" and subaru's "I love you and want you to be here regardless". my heart hurts

Subaru and hokuto: god. They hate each other, they love each other, they fight all the time, they would never try to actually hurt each other on purpose, they are in constant competition against the other, but they also rely on the other all the time. Hokuto being one the first people that actually reached out to subaru, who understood from a very young age from his super idol father seiya how corrupted this industry is, who understood subaru before he ever reached out to him and wanted to fulfill his dreams and for subaru to never be alone again. Subaru who first thought that hokuto was a prince and a figment of his imagination when hokuto reached out to him because of how lonely he was and then just sticking to hokuto like glue after that. Oh my god this ship has literally everything.

Hokuto and mao: the ones with braincells that constantly have to deal with trickstar's bullshit <3 until hokuto gets angry, then mao has the last remaining braincell and has to stop him from murdering someone. Also mao's guilt for being on the student council and hokuto reassuring him that it's fine and then later on hokuto's guilt for almost betraying trickstar during ddd and now mao's the one reassuring him it's fine. Oof.

Mao and makoto: typical insecure nerd x confident jock, except the jock is also insecure. All jokes aside, every now and then i think about their first meeting, and how makoto was a junior in the gaming club and mao was a junior in the student council and they both feel like shit. Makoto's typical "i feel like shit so i will escape into videogames" and mao's "i feel like shit because i'm the student council's errand boy with no importance". But then the game club gets into some trouble and obviously it's mao whose burdened with that so he meets makoto for the first time and...is a huge ass to poor makoto. But then makoto offers to help mao in his errands together (even though he doesn't have to) and then mao apologizes for being an ass. And makoto forgives him. And on their way home they just...feel better together. They still feel like shit but the world is a little bit warmer in each others presence.

Makoto and hokuto: HOW DOES NO ONE SEE HOW CANON THIS IS. Hokuto is so so worried for makoto and just wants to see him doing better and is constantly looking out for him. The starmine quote where hokuto is just "i wanted the world to see your smile as well. That beautiful smile you only ever show us". And then shangri la where hokuto is straight up saying "i love you" to makoto. And 1st ss tour where subaru is like "Hokke! Ukki says he doesn't like you!" And hokuto replies with "is that so? Well, i still love you regardless" LIKE COME ON . I also think it's funny how in !-era makoto is the jokester guy and hokke is the serious one but in !!-era somehow hokke became unintentionally a lot funnier and makoto is like "when did we switch roles"

I will be back for part two because i haven't even began rambling about anzu (trickstar is five!!!) but i have places to be at right now. Until then✨️

#enstars #ensemble stars #mao isara #subaru akehoshi #makoto yuuki #hokuto hidaka #lore rants

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gith-egg · 6 months

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I still have no finished art of my lil gith dude but I want to share him with yall so fuck it I'm making a post about him anyway

Drik ▪︎ Githyanki ▪︎ Ranger

Pronouns: He/They

Age: 22

Height: 6'0 / 184cm

Build: Scrawny, even by Gith standards

Alignment: Chaotic Tired™

Weapon: Heavy crossbow that looks comically way too big for him to use (and almost is)

Companion: Barley, his "cat"*

*half-undead half-gremishka half-cat

Long backstory below cut

In a crèche nestled deep in the Sunset Mountains, a young githyanki was condemned to death. Barely into its fourth year of living, the child had been frail and sickly almost from the start, and would not have been coddled even this long were it not for a particularly lenient custodian. It had become clear the child would not be fit to work, much less fight; to cull it now was as much mercy as it was pragmatism.

And then the child disappeared.

The ability to skim the boundary of the Astral Plane to achieve feats of great mobility is hallmark of githyanki warriors. This is a skill honed through years of disciplined training. Little wonder, then, that the toddler accidentally accomplishing it for the first time in the sheer panic of impending slaughter did so directly into a freezing river.

Perhaps a greater miracle that a dwarven merchant caravan was passing close enough for the sorry thing to be retrieved still alive. With no common language and no knowledge of the nearby crèche, the traders did the only thing they could and took the child along with them.

By the time they reached the next destination on their route - the city of Scornubel - it had become plainly apparent this would not be a permanent addition to their family. Even if the open road had been a suitable stage to raise a young one, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 one ate enough for three and kept getting into places that should have been impossible. Everyone knew the stories of "lost" fey children finding their way under a friendly roof and effecting utter chaos. The child had to go.

Conveniently the issue proceeded to solve itself: the child, again, disappeared.

* * * * *

Almost a decade later, a headstrong adolescent prepared to seek his independence. He was weary of life in this city - tired of the hostile gazes and quickened strides he was met with on a good day, while the others his age found work and opportunities. Drik (as his caretaker had dubbed him: a bug, a meager and invasive crawling thing, how astute) was keenly aware he was not welcome here.

Aishnak, the designator in question, seemed to regard this as a matter of little importance. The kindly old baker assured him there was no need to attain a job or an apprenticeship as there would always be space at his table. This was patently untrue - it seemed like every other week a new orphan showed up on his doorstep - and also, beside the point. Drik did not want to stay in a city that did not want him.

Just give it a few more years, said the old man, you'll find your niche. Just be patient. You're not ready to fend for yourself yet, you're still a kid, the wilderness is no place for one so young, you take the safety of civilisation for granted. Drik had heard it all. He'd also been training with a crossbow for a whole year now, and he knew how to butcher an animal and how to cook and follow a map and, not to be vain, but he was really very good at staying hidden when he didn't want to be found. Better than anyone else he knew. He was ready, and he wouldn't hear otherwise.

Within a week he was back at Aishnak's door. In Drik's defense, which he was very ready to give, this was not because he lacked the skill to keep himself alive. It was because he'd been careless with the life of another.

A feral cat, shot for dinner without difficulty. A litter newly born, discovered after the fact. A heart much less hardened than he'd given himself credit for. Now here he stood with an armful of kittens and a faceful of tears, begging relief from consequences like the child he was.

Aishnak had the grace to refrain from stating the obvious. He promised the kittens would be cared for - save one, as he picked out the runt, the tiny creature already limp and unresponsive. Keeping it with the others will make them ill, he explained; there's naught to do but bury it.

Drik understood. It was a miracle any of them had survived, being so small and left untended. He asked to take the dying kitten back, put it to rest himself. It was only right. Aishnak let him go.

He bundled it against his chest, walked it all the way back out to the place he'd found it, the nest its mother had made in the remains of an old farm shed. He dug a hole, deep enough so that only the worms and plant roots would have the body. He held the sad little scrap of meat in his hands, over its grave. And he cried. He cried and cried and he curled up on the dirt and cradled the thing he'd come here to dispose of and he couldn't do it.

Of course, there was really no alternative, and eventually he had no tears left in him to shed. He had no choice but to pick himself up and finish his work. It was then that he became aware of two things: firstly, that standing up was proving difficult, which was frustrating but not especially out of the ordinary. Secondly, and much more unexpected, the lump of fluff enclosed in his hands was wiggling and making quite a bit of noise.

Drik chanced a peek at the dead kitten and immediately confirmed it was not, in fact, dead, by the metric of it being able to prise its way past his fingers and stumble mewling across his thorax. He didn't have a chance to consider what to do about this though because the next thing he did was fall unconscious.

* * * * *

Another decade come and gone. Lounging in a forest clearing, Drik admired his most recent prize in the morning sunlight: a lavishly jewelled pendant, sparkling not just with the lustre of the gold and stones but with the unmistakeable radiance of magic. Barley corroborated his assessment with greedy scrutiny from where she perched atop his knees. The traveller they'd filched it from hadn't seemed anyone special at a glance, but that just went to show the folly of judging books by their covers.

Offering Barley a quick mental apology - for disturbing her seat and for denying her custody of this latest find, to both of which she shot back a tepid psychic grumble - Drik rolled to his feet and pocketed the necklace. It'd be worth a small fortune, to the right buyer. He was due for a visit home.

#oc: drik #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #githyanki #bg3 tav

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