megs pers fave night verse

sleep for the unfinished - v.w.

Leaving home for the first time can be so overwhelming. Slight happiness, slight sadness, slight excitement, slight anxiousness. You were dreaming of leaving for so long but when the moment comes, the reality hits. You leave behind everyone you love. The people who love you back, the people who have kept you safe all your life, gave you a home. But for the life you deserve, for the life you want, for that thrill, for the reason that you didn't choose this town, you wish to get out.

they should invent a waking up that isn't excruciating

No podemos obligar a la gente a elegirnos.

"You could come to see me in my dreams and comfort me. For they who love find a time's sweetness in the visions of night."

Euripides, Alcestis

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

- Sarah Williams

I like nighttime things ... ✨️ 🖤❤️🐾

- Victoria Erickson

WHAT A PATHETIC TALE

That moment

When I awoke

In the heart of night

Everything rested

Was only silence

And life no longer frighthened me....

Charles Juliet-"For more Light" (personal anthology 1990-2012)

To Walk a Mile In Each Others Shoes: The Homewreckers

Summary: The soulbonds have consequences, and for some they are more welcome than others. BDubs & Impulse

Characters: BDoubleo100 & ImpulseSV

Word Count: 160

General Note: I'm posting these as separate one-shot style posts for each soulbond pair. They are all written but I have them queued up and spaced out. All posted will be on this blog under the tag "to walk a mile in each others shoes," linked at the bottom of the other posted ones, and also on my AO3, which is linked on my pinned post.

-

The horns itch, around the base where they're growing in, and it is driving BDubs crazy.

Impulse is not at all sympathetic. "Scratching will only make it worse."

"I'll make you worse," BDubs grumbles back, still scratching. Impulse laughs and throws a damp rag at him to wrap around the irritated areas. Not having potions sucks.

-

Impulse doesn't usually spend a lot of time with Nature. Its just not usually something he focuses on.

But now the moss is talking to him.

It turns out that plants (is moss a plant?) are horrible gossips.

He glances at BDubs, yeah that makes sense actually.

It definitely helps with the home-wrecking endeavors, he'll give it that. Even if its a bit unsettling waking up in the morning to find lichen crawling up the bedposts and not just on BDubs' side.

He builds the house quickly and tries to ignore the stirring unease every time the sun begins to sink behind the horizon.

-

Team Ranchers || Team Box || Dessert Duo || The Boat Boys || The Homewreckers || Bad Math || Tilly Death Do Us Part

i was watching back the binary attacks bc i was trying to figure out what badboyhalo meant by “he found out three specific conditions have to be met for codes to spawn” (i have not.) but i DID notice something interesting during dapper’s death.

an important thing to keep in mind here is that, allegedly, the codes just want the players off the island. they don’t want bloodshed, but will kill if necessary. we’ve seen that they get more aggressive when players seemingly turn to the federation (ie cellbit), and their killing of the eggs has been largely interpreted as the players’ connections to the eggs keeping them tied to the island and/or the eggs being planted by the federation, therefore being enemies to the codes. again, their main goal is for the players to leave.

so dapper’s death took place while bad and cellbit were building the satellite, right? the satellite that, as we know, is what allows SOFIA to access information/i believe connects her to the internet? either way, the satellite is a clear tie to SOFIA, who was given to maxo by an agent that claimed to be against the federation, which is what makes this attack interesting to me. because yes, an argument can be made that the code just attacked because dapper was there, but that’s still. weird. sure, dapper’s there, but the players present (bad and cellbit) are building something to get out. they’re not being complacent. they’re doing exactly what the codes want—trying to find a way out. so why would the codes choose that time to attack? a time where the players are aligning with the codes’ ideals to a T. all of the other attacks i looked through were benign moments—roier and bobby were exploring, tallulah and phil were hanging with other players, so on and so forth. none of them were done at a time the players were so obviously attempting to escape. so why was this one different?

unless the codes didn’t know. unlike cellbit’s betrayal, which was loud and in everyone’s faces, SOFIA’s presence is, mostly, kept on the down-low. they don’t refer to SOFIA by name outside of the base if they can, and the projects surrounding SOFIA (the satellite, the antenna) are kept as secret as possible. it’s very likely the codes didn’t know what they were building that for, which leads to two things:

the codes, unlike the census bureau (who’s always watching), are not omnipotent.

either the codes don’t know of SOFIA, or they know exactly what SOFIA is, and her true identity is that of a federation plant (willing or not)

that second point raises another possibility: the codes were fully aware what the satellite was for, and additionally, fully aware what SOFIA’s origins are. this theory erases the first point entirely because that would mean they’re omnipotent, but different theories and all that.

the day maxo is attacked by the codes is day 56. day 56 is also the same day as dapper’s death, and the same day the satellite began construction (i believe. the wiki says this was the day the antenna began construction, but i think it just got things mixed-up). two days before that, on day 54, he’d finished construction of SOFIA, and began to feed it information. maxo’s attack is still a huge mystery to us. he was doing everything right! he was trying to get off the island! he built SOFIA, he was gathering information to give her so they could leave. why would they go after him when he was just doing the very thing they wanted him to?

unless SOFIA wasn’t given to him by an anti-federation spy. unless SOFIA was planted by the federation, and the codes know that. unless they attacked him and dapper to try to stop SOFIA’s construction/continuation. unless the players have been playing into the federation’s hands all along, only under the false pretense that they’re getting answers, when in reality, they’re just being fed the federation’s lies in a different flavor.

No, tell us about the dorm parties and Lily finding out about them, pretty please

ooooh a tag question! love these too hehe

okay so. a lil bit of backstory: i had a semi-wild teen life, ykno? like. not as crazy as ~american high school movies but in the context of the country i grew up in? pretty unreal. there were parties and alcohol and weed and a lot of hooking up. so much petty drama. so much irreverence.

point is: i dont like it when teens are portrayed as some pure, untouched, prudish creatures who've never heard of fun or drugs or sex. it just doesnt fit with what i know.

and i fully believe that hogwarts--a boarding school where kids have MAGIC (which really just means unending possibilites)--was a place where the students went wilddd. one of the ways? dorm parties. u have these private spaces for just you and like. 5 others. u can do a shit ton with ur wand. why wouldnt u use it for parties ykno?

so yeah, i think the common room had larger parties after like. quidditch wins and end of exams, but bc its more people and more younger kids, u had to be more careful. dorm parties tho? smaller, more intimate, and ur with the people u know/trust so crazier shit will happen.

the marauders were invited to a lot of them in the girls dorms (and vice versa) and ykno. they went to a lot. bc teen boys and girls. it was all very scandalous--booze and short skirts and shirts unbuttoned off their shoulders and hazy smoke filling the room and lipstick marks smeared over chins and necks and the like--and incredibly fun. just kids being kids, yeah?

lily, though. i've long been playing w the idea that her friendship w snape (and chastisement of james--and sirius, to a lesser extent) came w a substantial social cost. her defending someone who was so shady didnt win her any points and i hc as her a person who hid her insecurity w self righteousness (on top of just. being a bit of an abrasive person) which didn't win her additional favors. so even her dormmates maintained a certain distance and the dorm parties didn't often include her. she only found out accidentally when she went up to the room it was happening in to get a book back and saw everyone buzzed out and dancing and more relaxed (intimate) than she'd ever seen.

it was genuinely a huge shock when she saw the boys sprawled across the room in varying stages of undress (james had a girl and a guy on a thigh each, arms wrapped around both waists; sirius was hanging upside down w a joint dangling from his lips and its a wonder he didnt choke himself to death) and she squeaked out of the room in a moment of severe cultural shock.

it was only later that she worked herself into moral outrage and just. hurt-filled anger type stuff, ykno? her roommates sort of had to give her a reality check in that moment. the marauders only blinked at her in bemusement, amused at her high-handed attempts to manage them.

Nighttime at home is cozy.

Nighttime with friends is funny.

Nighttime in a train is life-altering, bending and twisting your very soul as you look out the window, focusing on the darkness in an attempt to escape your raging mind.

Tonight, with Hannah. 4.26.24

Time seemed to pause as I spent the evening with Hannah, lingering over dinner as she spoke passionately about her classes, the intricate beauty of Latin American colonial art history, and the contours of her upcoming thesis final. She shared vivid memories of last summer in Toulon and Marseille, painting each scene with the colors of the Mediterranean sun. We wandered aimlessly around town afterward, ducking into the bookshop and gift shop to escape the bustling thrum of Main Street.

Later, we found sanctuary among the mahogany walls in S, the walls infused with the whispers of the past, where we read in companionable silence for some time, each lost in our own worlds yet together. The walk around campus under the soft evening sky was another kind of conversation; her hand in mine felt like a silent promise, familiar and comforting. As we sat on the imposing bench, she told me stories of her life on the North Shore of Chicago, places with names like Winnetka and Glencoe, and her plans for this summer.

I listened, absorbed in the warmth of her voice, noticing the fleeting song of night birds—a serenade for whom, I wondered? Our walk under the glow of the street lamp, with the sound of rushing water as our backdrop, was a quiet symphony. After walking with her back to her house, and before she bounded up to her room, standing there in the soft light, she smiled like sunlight on a snowy morning—a moment so perfect yet so piercing, for I wished, so deeply, that I could be different, that I were different.

Tonight was a tapestry of moments, of stories shared and silences filled with meaning. I will miss her as our paths diverge with the coming summer. I keep silent about my worry that the physical distance of summer will become an emotional distance in the autumn.

This evening, etched in memory with the soft brushstrokes of twilight and the quiet intimacy of shared spaces, will remain a tender, aching chord in the symphony of my college days.