#and while yeah all of the chapters connect and tell one big story

[deathbecomesthem]

Roomies 7

Final Chapter | ~4.2K

A/N: This story has come to an end. I hope you all enjoy it.

Warnings: Lots of feelings, smut, a bit of talk of vomit. I wrote this, and I'm publishing it. As with the rest of this story, I chose not to spend a lot of time dwelling on the details.

---

You don’t think about Eddie. No, you don’t do that. You don’t think about what he thinks when he reads the note you left for him. You don’t think about the anger, the sadness, the confusion he must be feeling. You don’t know what he’s feeling. How could you, when you’ve hidden yourself from Eddie’s feelings since you became his unexpected roommate. 

You’re a selfish person. You can admit that now that you’re not face to face with him, not listening to his sleepy snores through the too thin walls of your shared apartment. Not pressing your nose into the throw pillow on the couch trying to catch the ghost of his scent when he’s not home. Sitting on the couch in your sister’s townhouse across town from your own apartment, you feel it happening. You’re putting distance between you and Eddie. Brick by brick, you are expanding the road that sits between the two of you, and soon you’ll not even be able to cross it. Too much space. That’s fine, you’ve decided, because the only way out of this is with that distance, and maybe in the end you’ll find a way to salvage what might be left of the friendship that will always connect you.

“Oh, is that what we’re doing again today?” Jamie is making her way from her kitchen through the living room. It’s Friday, she has work this morning.

“Doing what?” You ask her, running your hand down your face and bracing yourself for impact. You can already feel the welcome has worn thin, and it’s only been 2 days since you showed up with an overnight bag asking for sanctuary.

“Moping. Sitting in your sweatpants and moping.” Jamie looks at you with her typical disapproving older sister expression. “Nobody died, you know. You’re being so dramatic. Just go talk to Eddie.”

“I can’t talk to him right now. It might ruin everything. I can’t lose him as a friend.” You tell her. This is the same thing you’ve been telling her since you walked through her front door. Instead of the sympathetic look she gave you on that first night, this time she rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, because everything seems so great right now. I hate to have to be the one to tell you this,” you know she does not in fact hate to be the one to tell you whatever it is she’s going to say next, “but the damage is done. You can’t rewind the clock. Take a shower, get your shit together, and get the fuck outta my house. I love you.”

Jamie strides back over to you and gives you a kiss on the forehead before turning and sprinting back towards her front door. With a bang of the door, she’s gone. You know she’s right, and the time away from Eddie has done nothing but make you more miserable than ever. You take the shower. You pack your bag. You put on jeans and your favorite sweater of Jamie’s, a small revenge that will take her months to realize. You go home to face whatever is left of your friendship with Eddie, and pray to the gods devils that he will accept what you’ve decided. 

Friday. You promised him you’d be home. Time to face the music. Time to tell him that you’re sorry, and that you’re moving out. 

—

Eddie’s been fine. After that first night, when he went down to the bar and drank until he puked in the sink of the men’s room, he had an epiphany. It was simple really. While the whiskey rose in his throat, the lightbulb went off. He wasn’t the first person to come to big decisions in that bathroom, he was just the most recent. Only two months prior, Lenny Hendricks had done a line of the sick that is now covered in Jack Daniel’s scented bile, and decided he was going to go to medical school. Maybe it’s something about the poetry scratched on the walls. As Eddie cleans his mess, he sees a fresh scrawl next to the mirror - Just start the set on time. She’s not coming.

Eddie had walked out of the bar that evening with a sense of purpose, regardless of the sour smell of his favorite Metallica tee. He walked up the steps to his apartment and went to bed knowing that it was all going to be ok. Everything would be right soon enough, because it had to be. How could it not be? He’s been so stupid. No more, though. 

—

It’s heavy and weighing you down as you look up the stairwell to the dimly lit hallway. Someone, probably Eddie but you don’t know for sure, replaced the light with a red bulb sometime before you moved in. It suits your mood right now, the uneasy red tinted shadows trailing behind you as you ascend the stairs, the dread in your guts making your movements slower than normal.

You stand at the door and look at it. Do you knock? Do you use your key? Do you turn tail and go back the way you came, and check into the Super 8 Motel down the road until you can find your own shitty studio apartment that doesn’t make you wonder who you are and what the fuck you’re doing every time you step foot through the door? You try the knob and find it turns easily under your grip. So, you sigh and walk in.

Eddie is in the kitchen, back to the door. He’s wearing your apron, hands deep in a sinkful of soapy water. He looks back and smiles easily when he sees you with your duffel bag still hanging off your shoulder. This is not the way this scene played out in your head. The counters are clean, bottles of beer and cans of soda all sitting in the plastic bin underneath the side table next to the refrigerator. Is that -

“- did you bake bread?” you question, dropping your bag and heading to the rack sitting on the counter with a round loaf sitting prettily.

“Uh huh,” Eddie’s wiping his hands on a floral dish towel he has hanging from where the apron strings are tied together around his waist. “Smells good, don’t it?”

“Did you clean?” Another question that doesn’t need an answer, the proof is in front of your eyes. 

“Don’t act so surprised. Who do you think took care of this place before you moved in? Gareth?” Eddie shudders at the thought. 

You nod, not in understanding, because you don’t, but you nod because you accept what your eyes are seeing. Eddie’s fine. The place is fine. He didn’t burn it to the ground when you walked out of the door. You didn’t find him curled up in a ball on his bed. He didn’t punch a hole through the cupboard next to the sink when he found your note.

Eddie’s fine. So you nod, and make your way down the hallway to your bedroom, leaving Eddie in the kitchen. Your room, at least, is exactly how you left it. Bed unmade and drawers left open. A testament to the speed run you made out of this place. You shake your head, how stupid you’ve been. Eddie’s fine. This is all in your head, and there’s nothing else to it. 

You startle at the quiet rapping of knuckles on your door. From the other side, Eddie says, “I made Wayne’s famous chili earlier. Want that for dinner, or wanna go out and get something?”

Wayne’s chili is your favorite. It’s the grape jelly he adds to it. You asked him so many times over the years for the recipe, but he wouldn’t budge. He won a cook off the year after you and Eddie graduated from high school, and that was when you discovered the secret. He didn’t know you were standing in the doorway of the kitchen trailer that morning, watching him take a jar of Welch’s grape jelly from the cupboard and unceremoniously dump it into the crock pot he had set up in the corner. He let the meat and jelly cook down before he added a couple of handfuls of diced jalapenos and a mixture of dried herbs. 

“You got any Jiffy?” You asked him, leaning your head on the wall next to the door imagining it’s Eddie’s shoulder. You brush the door with the tips of your fingers and wait for his answer.

“Of course. Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?” 

You’re talking to Eddie, and he would never forget the cornbread.

—

You re-enter the kitchen to find the table already set, cornbread still steaming in the cast iron pan on the stovetop. The crock pot full of chili, a twin to Wayne’s own crock pot, sits in the center of the small table. Cheese, sour cream, and Cholula are laid out along with the bowls and spoons. 

“Wow, Munson. You know how to make a girl feel special.” You head over to the cornbread intending to pinch a taste of it, but Eddie slaps your hand away. “Ow. I take it back, you’re a tyrant.”

“Sit down, please. I’ll get your cornbread, don’t fuck with it.” Eddie has a potholder and takes the hot skillet over to join the rest of the food on the table. “Let’s eat, Baby.”

Baby, baby, baby, baby. The word plays over and over in your head while you float to the table. Baby.

Eddie puts a piece of cornbread in your bowl, and ladles chili on top of it. The way you like it. Baby. You watch his face, and he gives you an easy smile. Another one, like the smile he gave you when you walked in the front door. You suddenly feel like the ground is not as firm as you imagined it. Baby.

“How’s Jamie? She still got that stick firmly up her ass?” Eddie asks as he sits down across from you. You laugh, snorting a bit of chili upwards into your sinuses. You cough and take a drink of the lemonade he has set next to your bowl.

“She’s same as always. She practically threw me out this morning. She sends her love.” You reach for the hot sauce and splash some into your bowl. It’s good, but you think it lacks the heat of Wayne’s normal recipe. 

“I’m happy you came home to me.” Eddie’s words come out easily, and you’re left yet again feeling like the floors are tilting a little. 

You say nothing, just look at him with your spoon held in front of your face. Frozen, a deer in the headlights that are Eddie’s chocolatey eyes sparkling at you. You’re starting to wonder if you missed a very important conversation somewhere along the way. 

“You know, I realized something important when you left. That first night was… not great, but I think it was a good thing. We’ve been dancing around each other for a while now, and having you not in the apartment got me thinking about a lot of things.” Eddie’s talking, seemingly unaffected by your stunned silence. He just keeps on going, looking at you straight in the eyes with that small smile on his face. 

“I was thinking about how much it hurt to think of you not being in this apartment with me. Which is crazy, right? It’s not like you moved in here with some kind of long term plan to stay. We both knew it was the right thing for right now. So, why was I crying when I found your note?” Eddie takes a big bite of chili and looks to you in anticipation. He wants an answer, you realize.

“I don’t know, Ed. Why were you crying?” You ask him and place your spoon back into the bowl. Your hand moves instinctively to stroke the back of the hand he has resting on the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Because, Baby, I’m in love with you.” Eddie’s voice is firm. His words are spoken honestly, leaving no room for you to doubt them. You want to run, to stand up and bolt for the door. Eddie’s eyes hold you in your seat. Even as the floor beneath you feels ready to open up and swallow you whole, his gaze is steady.

“Eddie,” his name is a whisper, the breath from your lungs. You had thought that night with sighs of pleasure bleeding through the wall that separated the two of you was the point of no return. You were wrong. That point is right here in front of you. It’s sitting between you, Eddie, and the chili pot in your shared apartment. “What if it goes wrong?”

“What if I get hit by a car tomorrow? What if a tornado runs through town and takes me away? What if the sun explodes and burns us all up?” At some point, Eddie turned his hand over to hold your own. “I know you, and you know me. I’m telling you right now, I am in love with you. I want you to stay here, and I want you to bring your shit into my bedroom and make it ours. And if you tell me you don’t want that, ok. Fine. But the damage is already done, Baby. I can’t go back to not feeling like this, and I’m done lying to myself about it. You do what you gotta do, but don’t tell me you’re not feeling something. I know you.”

Eddie gets up without any preamble and begins to fill the sink with sudsy water, leaving you sitting stunned at the table with a bowl of chili that is now room temperature. You push it away from you and begin picking at the edge of the cornbread that’s left in the pan still at the table. And then you hear Eddie whistling quietly while he cleans up. A new feeling begins to creep inside of you, a familiar feeling. You’re annoyed with him.

“So, you think you can just decide that this is how it is, huh? That I’ll come home, you’ll pour your heart out, and I’ll do the same. And - what? Happily ever after, until you decide you’re bored with me? Because I fucking know you too, Eddie Munson.” Annoyance built to anger with every word that you spoke. You stood, grabbing your bowl of cold chili and head over to scrape it out into the garbage. Eddie’s whistling stopped. 

You drop the bowl into the water, pushing Eddie out of the way of the sink with your shoulder. You turn to head back to the table to start putting away all the dinner fix ins, but stop dead in your tracks when a wide palm grabs your forearm. He pulls you close so that you have to look up to see him. He places both hands on your face, moving hair that’s fallen over your eyes so he can see you better. 

“You don’t understand, so let me be very fucking clear,” his words are a whisper, his warm breath fanning over your face, “I have been in love with you for a very long time, Baby. I just didn’t know that’s what it was. But I know now, and this is it. I can’t make you believe me, and I can’t make you love me back. I just need you to understand, this is not just a fleeting thing.”

You reach up and push the curls away from his face to see him better. Bare faces staring at each other, the truth of this thing holding you in your places. You bring your hand to the back of his neck and tangle your fingers into his hair. You form a fist and squeeze tight. His mouth opens at the feeling, and you stare at him. 

“When? When did you start loving me, Munson?” You hold his hair a little tighter. His eyes open again, pupils blown out by your touch and your words.

“Remember that summer when you bought that red bikini?” He asks. You see his cheeks are turning red, and with this close proximity of bodies, you can feel a bulge growing in his pants. You stand up higher on the balls of your feet.

“You’re a pervert, Eddie.” There’s no bite in your words. You turn your face just as he leans down to bring his mouth closer to yours and whisper in his ear, “I bought that bikini because I wanted you to notice me. The way you noticed those girls with the mini skirts and bad perms that hung out at the bar when you played your shows.”

You kiss the skin of his neck and are rewarded with a whimper from Eddie. His hands are gripping your waist, hard enough to leave a mark. You kiss his jaw and move down his neck stopping along the way to press your nose against his skin and breathe him in. You can feel him swallow against your lips. He loves me. You think that maybe you can try to believe it. 

“Look at me.” His words vibrate against your nose as it runs along his adam’s apple. You look at him, desperately wanting the kiss you know he’s going to give you. Aching for it. He tells you, “I am so in love with you.”

Eddie tastes like chili, lemonade, and cornbread. Not at all unpleasant to your senses. Kissing Eddie is unlike kissing anyone else. The secret place inside of you that’s been hidden for so long has his light shining on it. His tongue dances against your lips, and you meet it with your own. A slow waltz, mouths moving together, noses brushing noses. Your faces are pressing together, trying to absorb as much of this moment as you can before you have to break apart. And then it’s heavy breathing, his sweaty fringe against your forehead.

“Fuck, do you feel that?” You don’t answer his question with words, but with your hands reaching under his shirt to feel his skin under your fingertips. “Baby, please.”

“Eddie,” his ears perk up like a dog’s at the sound of his name. The way it comes out like a whine. It’s that needy way you said his name on that movie night, and it grips him somewhere deep in his belly. 

Eddie drops to his knees on the kitchen floor, head resting against the fly of your jeans. He’s nuzzling you, in an animal way, fingers gripped at the waist of your pants. He can smell you through denim and cotton. It’s not enough. He makes quick work of unbuttoning and unzipping, of peeling back the skin of the fruit his mouth is watering to taste. Your bare ass is pushed against the counter before you realize your pants have been completely removed, and he hooks a leg over his shoulder. 

Eddie’s bulbous nose is fully breathing in your scent from the damp cotton of your panties. His nose is brushing against that hard button, and he’s smelling the way the blood is rushing to it. A coppery musk just for him. His finger pushes the cotton to the side so he can finally taste and feel you against him, and his whining mouth sends a rumble of pleasure through you. It’s like this, with his knees on the tile floor of your shared kitchen that he finally, finally, finds himself able to openly praise you until you’re shaking in rapture. The veneration of your body by this devotee is as genuine and beautiful as any congregant in any church the world over.

—

The food is still on the kitchen table, too far gone to save, but neither of you can care. The moonlight casts shadows around the otherwise dark room, it highlights the way your bodies move together. Joining, embracing, loving, and resting. And then it starts again. The moments your bodies are connected feel eternal, and as soon as you separate you feel an inexplicable grief. What is this, is something you have not voiced wonder in your mind.

No other man has made you weep this way. At the sight of the tears streaming down your face, Eddie’s cock buried deep inside of you, he did not wipe them away. He let his tongue taste it, running the firm tip up your cheek and under your eyelid. The feeling unravels that knot in your gut, and not for the first or second time tonight. And just like the other times, Eddie rocks himself with the wave of your orgasm, whispering into your ear, I love you, I love you, I love you.

It’s 4:30 in the morning when your bodies finally force a halt to your incessant love making, but your mind is wide awake. Eddie’s sweaty head rests on your breast, an arm lays heavy over your belly. You think he may be sleeping, but you need to quiet the thoughts that have started to invade your brain.

“Ed,” you shake his shoulder a little and he moans, “how do you know you love me?”

You feel a twinge of embarrassment at the question, but you need to hear his answer. Somehow, despite it being Eddie, you don’t know if you can trust it. What is love? It’s something you’ve learned you can’t trust. You try to not think of Drew, and fail. But it’s not just him, that most recent mistake - the list goes on and on. What is love, but a promise of future disappointment.

“I just know.” His breath fans out across your chest, and your nipple peaks at the feeling. Traitor.

“Well, did you just know every other time you loved someone? What happens if it’s like when you were with Naomi? Or Sandy?” You know it’s wrong to say these names in this sacred space, but the question needs to be answered. There’s a small spot that itches inside of you that threatens to grow. A spot, that if left to grow, will force you up and out the door. You know it, and you know Eddie knows it, too.

Eddie’s face peels from your skin so he can look to you. He runs a finger along the shadows of the lines of worry creasing your brow. It’s so tender, so loving. You feel a tear leak from your eye, unbidden. 

“I don’t think I loved them,” Eddie says while his thumb rubs away the moisture on your cheek, “or maybe I did. I don’t know, I can’t remember. But, Baby, I’ve never felt this before. This is - this is it.”

“What does that mean, Eddie? This is it? Like, what, you wanna run down to the courthouse and get married? Want me to pop out a whole litter of mini-Munsons? What does ‘this is it’ mean?” Your voice is rising in frustration, but Eddie doesn’t turn away. He keeps his gaze steady on your face. He’s looking for something there.

“Baby, you don’t have to feel any particular way right now. You know that right? I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to know how I feel. I love you, and I’ve loved you for a long time. Long enough that those other girls never got the whole of me when I was with them. I’m not telling you this so you’ll make me any promises. I’m just telling you because I fucking love you, and I need you to know it.”

And that’s when you realize it, something that scares the shit out of you. Because love, that overwhelming thing that beats inside of you when you look at Eddie, does not come with a guarantee. It does not promise anything more than what can be felt between the two of you. Love is pain, because nothing lasts forever. You know it now, and it’s a relief. The wrinkles at your temple smooth out, and you run your fingers through his tangled hair. You love this man, and that’s a fact.

“Ok, I believe you. I just have one more very important question.” Eddie’s face relaxes under the touch of your fingers along the side of his pretty nose. 

“Ask.” He says, kissing your palm.

You hold his face still, gazing deeply into his eyes. Black pools in the dark room that threaten to swallow you up. “Eddie, would you still love me if I was a worm?”

The tension in the moment is gone, and Eddie giggles like the boy you knew years ago. He pulls you down and kisses you hard on the mouth, pressing his body into yours. Warm, sticky flesh vibrating with bubbling laughter.

“If you were a worm? I’d set up a little enclosure for you,” he points to a spot under the window where the moon hangs low in the sky, “just there. I’d get you some really tasty dirt, and I’d write songs about the worm that is the love of my life.”

Your smile is a beacon in the night, Eddie can see you glowing. You kiss his forehead and tell him, “I love you, Eddie Munson.”

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson #asks #eddie munson angst #roomies

[glitchadeli]

Alrighty, I've been meaning to upload this to Tumblr for a WHILE but I knew it was gonna be a lot of texting / explaining so I had to brace myself for all of it LMAO! Get ready for a LONG explanation about all these guys!! ^^

~

These are the 'main' next gens for my TAWoG AU, which I dubbed a long time ago the "String of Fate" AU (SoF) - if you saw my 'intro' post to my AU you'd know that my AU started differently - that is true!

When I first started my AU I had a whole story planned, I wanted to write it like a full on fanfiction with chapters 'n storylines!! However I.. am not confident in my writing. Over time I got less and less confident in my ability to write the stories - I found the medium of making a timeline to be MUCH more simple so that's what I started doing! It made it easier to say "hey this event happens here" and it just became my preferred way of telling the 'story'.

So eventually I will have a whole post explaining the entire timeline of my AU but that's still in the works if I'm being honest. I still have some storylines that need to be finished. (They're not big elaborate storylines btw, some of them are just mini arcs that some characters go through. My AU isn't super serious, it has its moments, but for the most part I wanted it to be fun!! Ya know?)

For now I at least wanna introduce everyone since my AU has tons of characters. (Lots of next gens lol) so starting off with the Watterson boy's kiddos. (Anais has her own family too but they'll get their own chart / explanation eventually!) I just think it's easier to stick to Gum and Dar's kids first anyway!! Gumball ends up with Rob and they have 6 kids, 1 of them biologically being Penny's but Rob sees Cas as his own. (and Cas see's Rob as more of a parent than Penny (something to be explored later) so yeah!) Lemme introduce everyone properly ~

-

There's Caspian (Cas), Zipper (Zip), Cosette (Cos/Cozy), Elliot (Eli) and then the twins - Roe and Rem! (Cas and Zip joke that they're twins too because they're 3 days apart in age.)

I explained how Cas came to be in this post - so I won't go over it too much, what I WILL explain is Zip since his existence has confused a few people. "How is he 3 days younger than Cas?" / "How did 2 males have a kid?" / ect.

I won't explain the story aspects juuuust yet so all you need to know is - Rob went all science-y and took some of Gum's DNA. Mixing it with his own to create a kid - which is Zip. Zip was born from an 'artificial womb' / incubator for anyone wondering. I know that's not realistic but this is TAWoG we're talking about.. I could literally say Rob sneezed which caused Zip appeared and it could be canon. It doesn't matter if 'two males can't have kids' - they can in this fictional universe!! So get over it ~

Anyway, Cas was born on November 10th (1992 - yes my AU even has the years figured out LOL) and Zip was born 3 days later on November 13th. Skipping some story stuff; Rob and Gum have their first child together / after marriage, which is Cosette. She's born when Cas/Zip are 7. (Gum is 24 and Rob's 25 for anyone who was wondering.) Then Elliot was born 3 years later and then 2 years after that were the twins! Gum and Rob love their little big family very much <33

-

Then we get to Darwin's family - he's a single dad and his kids are Pearlene (Pearl), Lilith and Kid.

Pearl was just like him - a sentient pet who grew a connection in order to 'grow legs' (except she already had legs.. being a lotl so.. she grew lungs LOL). Her connection is to both Cas AND Zip! (Unlike Darwin being 2 years younger than Gum, Pearl is only 1 year younger than Cas/Zip.)

Then there's Lilith. She… oh man she's a weird creature. I don't even know how to explain her.. so she'll get her own post eventually!! (Cause Echo was the one who created the idea of her species so I'll try to have Echo's help in explaining them - Echo has one in their AU too!! His name is Kevin. I love Kevin. ANYWAY-) Lilith is just a creature™ and we love her :)

Aaaand finally there's Kid - a puppet come to life - situation. His whole story is still being finalized but let's just say.. certain puppets were involved. A certain purple one. A certain blue/green/yellow one. And a certain clown-based one. If you know you know. Darwin loves his babies very very much! <33

"Glitch, why is Darwin not with anyone / Carrie?" - Honestly that's just because… I don't know who I ship him with..?

Darwin was my first ever true comfort character but when I got into the show literally the Halloween episode (1st indication he ever liked Carrie) was still a NEW episode so I wasn't sure how I felt about the ship. And now as an adult… the age gap really throws me off. I'm sure 'ghost years' might be different or the show was just joking about the 300+ thing but… being 327 and dating a 10 year old… it just… makes me feel uncomfortable. So in my AU - Darwin and Carrie break up at some point in their early teen years. (er well.. Darwin's anyway.) They're still good friends and there's no bad blood whatsoever!!

As for why Darwin doesn't end up with anyone - I just don't have anyone in mind. As a joke I did wanna set him up with Hot Dog Guy but that doesn't really work for reasons I'll explain later. and I know some people ship Dar and Julius but the age gap there made it worse for me too. (In my AU Julius is like.. 6 years older than Darwin. I just always felt he was much older so I could see them being friends, but nothing more. Sorry Julwin shippers.) - but yeah, honestly I think Darwin's fine as a single dad - he's great and having Gum 'n Rob's support they're like a team, it all works out!!

-

"Glitch, what did you mean you couldn't have Guy and Darwin together?" … There’s a character limit here so I.. have to make a 2nd post about the partners!! I’ll link it here though!! ^^

Link to the explanation about the partners is here <- !!

#the amazing world of gumball #tawog #tawog gumball #tawog rob #gumball watterson #gumrob #my tawog art #rob tawog #tawog fanart #darwin watterson #glitch's next gen tawog #my next gen #my tawog next gen

[vinelark]

can you talk more about your writing process? do you outline? what does your drafting process look like? I love to hear about the ways my fave fic writers write because everyone is so different!

hello! a while ago i wrote a bit about the broad idea-to-ao3 journey my fics usually take, and i’m always happy to go more in depth about outlining/drafting since i find it really interesting when i see other writers talk about it too 😊

i do outline, and often extensively—my outlines start out long and get longer as i go. usually my initial outline is a basic version of me telling myself the story; i have all the major beats in chronological order and all the random details/scene ideas i’ve already thought of while brainstorming. it’s very messy and often just for me, so i’m barely even using punctuation at that point. but by the time i start drafting i know where the fic ends, even if i don’t know the exact final scene/beat. for example, before i started even drafting chapter 1 of bbts i already knew what all the 5 + 1 scenarios were, when the identity reveal dropped (and didn’t drop), who the Big Bad was, and how that overarching plot connected to each scenario, so i was ready to start filling in the actual story details from there.

after that my outlines are constantly growing documents because i jump around and add things as i go, getting more detailed the closer i get to drafting—by the time i reach a scene to actually write it, it’s usually pretty well beated out for me. i zerodraft scenes right in the outline document, and then draft over those zerodrafts, so the outline eventually becomes the fic itself.

here are a few examples of what some bits of bbts chapter 4 looked like in the outline by the time i started drafting it vs. the final fic (also copied under the cut because they’re a bit long for alt text):

i don’t write every day (i wish!) but i do usually at least open the document every day or jot down ideas. especially in a mad scramble after i shower, because i always end up planning whole conversations/action sequences in my head while showering or brushing my teeth or otherwise doing something where i can’t reach for my phone immediately 😅 i tend to outline/zerodraft quickly but draft slowly (details always take so much longer than i expect), but i do write faster and faster the closer i get to finishing a chapter/fic.

also, i workshop a lot as i go! going to friends like “hey i’m trying to [hurt a character in a specific way] but having trouble blocking the scene. can anyone help me achieve this more practically” is one of my favorite parts of the process.

text for outline vs. final snippets:

original outline:

have you ever been?

hmm? yeah i, uh, studied abroad here for a bit.

ah. kon should’ve figured;

before he can feel too disappointed, though, tim flashes a small smile and says, never seen it from this angle, though.

final snippet:

“Have you ever been?” Kon asks.

“Hmm?” The mylar crinkles as Tim leans further. “Yeah I, uh, studied abroad here for a bit.”

“Ah.” Kon probably should’ve figured.

Before he can feel too disappointed, though, Tim flashes him another smile and says, “Never seen it from this angle, though. Plane windows don’t really do it justice.”

original outline:

tim and bruce talking, bruce is like, yes, it’s safer the less people know who we are, but it’s not just about that. i want you to have something to return to. i want your civilian identity to be a haven—i don’t want robin to define you. if you ever stop being robin, i want you to still be able to be tim.

also if bruce wayne is compromised, it compromises my ability to keep you safe. i want you to be safe. but i also have another reason. it’s selfish of me. if tim drake is compromised, it would be much harder to keep you here with me, as my family. as someone i can care for as bruce wayne. and i want to keep you, tim.

final snippet:

Bruce holds up a hand. “It’s not that. That is—yes, the less people who know, the safer we are. But I’m trying to say…it’s not just about that. I have trouble explaining this part; it always comes out wrong. I think the first time I tried was the first time Dick called me a despot, actually.” He snorts, quiet and wry. “I’ll try to do better this time. What it really comes down to is this: I want you to have something to return to. I want your civilian identity to be a haven—I don’t want Robin to define you. If you ever stop being Robin, I want you to still be able to be Tim. If Tim Drake is compromised, it’s harder for you to have that option. And if Bruce Wayne is compromised, too, it compromises my ability to keep you safe. I want you to be safe. But I also have another reason, and this is the selfish part. The part I couldn’t explain right last time. Which is: if Bruce Wayne were compromised, it would be much harder to keep you here with me, as someone I can help in all of your identities. As my family. Not impossible—I would never let it be impossible. But it would make it harder, and that’s what scares me, more than the rest of it combined. Because I want to keep you, Tim.”

original outline:

oh, tim says. no, that’s. it’s fine. i didn’t. doesn’t know what else to say. it’s just. i’m robin, there on the tip of his tongue. he can’t say it past the hot embarrassment clawing at his throat, pulsing behind his eyes. he summons his mother, summons brucie wayne, summons normal, boring, see-through tim drake, and manages a vacant smile

final snippet:

The words have sort of been washing over Tim like a tidal wave, but he recognizes that he’s probably supposed to respond in some way. “Oh,” he says. “No, that’s. It’s fine. I didn’t.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. His hand is still resting against the mask in his pocket, I’m Robin right there on the tip of his tongue, technically irrelevant to whether or not Kon wants to date Tim Drake. But he can’t say it past the hot embarrassment clawing at his throat, pulsing behind his eyes. He wants to ask for a minute to think, to turn around so Kon can’t see his face, and immediately feels even more humiliated for needing that. He should’ve known. He should’ve known.

“Tim?” Kon says quietly.

Tim draws in a long breath. Another. He summons his mother, summons Brucie Wayne, summons normal, boring, see-through Tim Drake, and manages a vacant smile. “It’s fine,” he says. “I get it. Thanks for being honest.”

#the scene where kon dunks tim in the ocean was fully outlined before i even started chapter 1 i think #meanwhile the whole charcuterie board thing was a surprise to me until i got to that scene #asks #my fic

[imtooscaredforthis]

So Two Murderers Walk Into A Room…

Chapter Three: The Truth Isn’t So Bad

Mentions of: Murder, Homicidal Thoughts, Knives, Homicidal Tendencies, Mental Illness, etc.

A/N: I was super sleepy while editing this so please forgive grammar/spelling errors

Tags: @vandeaad @dead-bxxxtch-walking @moonshineinasippycup @stwbwwychan @mama-miya

He was right. You hate to admit when you’re wrong, but boy were you wrong. You truly are in some sort of fucked up dimension. And that entity thing, you saw it. After you sacrificed all those survivors. It was real.

In some strange way, you felt connected to it. Like it was controlling you. You shouldn’t want to be controlled. You never want to be controlled. But you like how you feel.

You get that familiar blissful feeling whenever you kill, but multiplied by ten. Right now, you feel amazing, the buzz and adrenaline running through your veins. You feel better than you’ve felt in a long time. Honestly, you wouldn’t mind doing this for eternity.

“Boo.” A voice suddenly whispered in your ear, making you shriek and turn on your heel, waving your knife around. A gloved hand caught your wrist, stopping you before you could do any damage.

It was that masked freak from before. He chuckled to himself lowly, and you could feel the smugness emanating from him. “Seems like I caught you red-handed, Sweetheart. You finally ready to confess?”

And just like that, your mood soured. Sweetheart. Who does this condescending prick think he is?

“Don’t call me that.” You hissed poisonously. “And I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You don’t, but I’m sure I can get it out of you. You do have quite a bit of blood on you after all. Cute. So how many did you get? Two? Three?” He examined the knife in your hand, before releasing your wrist.

“Four, actually.” You corrected him, doing your best to stop your smile as you felt some sadistic pride grow in your chest. What are you doing? Why are you trying to please him?

“Ooooh, four. You got them all?” He asked. “Yeah, not like it was hard or anything. I was a district champion in track in High school, and I did gymnastics in college. So I have some extra skill when it comes to the hunt.”

You can’t help but find yourself getting sucked into this conversation with him. No one’s ever talked to you about murder before. It’s such a taboo subject, and yet, you’re here, talking to this man and treating it so casually. It’s so…freeing.

“See? Isn’t it nice being able to be yourself? Your true self? I knew you’d admit it eventually.” He remarked.

“Okay, you might’ve been right about some things, but not everything. Who are you, anyway?” You asked, realizing he never told you his name.

“Mmm, I go by a lot of things, but most people know me as Ghostface.” He said.

You repeated the name to yourself, before giggling. “You’re so weird.”

“Laugh all you want, but that name terrified anyone who heard it, especially those who read my name in the paper. The stories of what I did kept countless up at night, and I would’ve scared you too.” He stated in an irritated, almost threatening tone.

“Oh really?” You challenged him. “Yep. I’d have you changing your locks and everything. Maybe I’d even get you to move.”

“Well, you’re wrong, Ghostface. Because I’m not a pussy. I’m not scared of anything.” You replied, gesturing at him with your knife in hand, a big grin on your face.

He was oddly quiet for a moment and stood as still as a statue. Still, you could feel his eyes following your movement. Then, he spoke. “I have a feeling you and I are going to be good friends.”

Huh? Just when you thought you got under his skin, when you thought you finally deflated his huge ego, he bounced back immediately. Seems like you can’t push his buttons like he can push yours.

“Now, there’s lots for us to do. I need to show you around to the other realms and have you meet the other killers. That’ll be fun.” He remarked.

“Other killers?” You repeated. “Yeah, you didn’t think it was just us, did you? Now c’mon, let’s go.”

He wrapped an arm around your shoulder, leading you out of the woods.

–

It didn’t take long, just a little more walking before finding the other killers. There were around eleven, all grouped up together, waiting for another trial, you assumed. Many had more monster-like features, but others appeared to be human.

You weren’t afraid, but you were intimidated, and curious. Why did they look the way they did? Did they always look like that? Or did something change them? Do you look like that?

It’s been a while since you looked in a mirror, but you don’t think you do. You hope you don’t. One of the few things you pride yourself on is your looks. You’re beautiful. You know you are.

Not only is it nice to be pretty, but it’s good for sex, and it’s also easier to lure in your prey. That’s how you’ve killed and gotten away with your murders.

“Hey guys, welcome our newbie, _______! Isn’t she just the cutest?” He pushed you against him, before reaching up and squeezing your cheeks. Glaring at him, you smacked his hand away, slipping out of his grip.

Feeling all the attention on you, you glanced at the group, suddenly feeling shy. “Uh, hi.”

It’s strange, being around people and creatures that all now know your secret, even though you’ve spent your whole life hiding it. It’s even weirder knowing that they’re just like you.

Well, not just like you, but they obviously have to have some involvement with killing to be there.

“Well, hello there.” A lilac-haired man purred. He approached you quickly, taking your hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. You blinked at him, processing his actions.

Okay, now some guy dressed in what seems like a ringmaster’s outfit is hitting on you. Not that you minded. He was quite good looking after all, with a pretty face, and a toned upper body. Great abs too.

“Oh, where are my manners? I’m-”

“Fuck off, Trickster. She’s mine.” Ghostface interrupted, shoving him away. He said something to him, you weren’t sure what because it was in another language, but whatever it was didn’t sound nice.

You opened your mouth to object to Ghostface’s statement, but the next thing you knew he was ushering you away from the killers. “You’ll get to know them later. Let me show you around.”

#dead by deadlight #dbd #dbd killer #dbd x reader #killer x reader #dbd ghostface #ghostface dbd #ghostface x reader #ghostface x you #ghostface #ghostface fanfic #dbd danny johnson #danny johnson x reader #danny jed olsen johnson #danny johnson dbd #danny johnson #dbd danny #jed olsen x reader #dbd jed olsen #jed olsen #dbd trickster #trickster dbd #ji woon hak #the trickster #killer x you #ghostface dead by daylight #dead by daylight killer

[snowydragon10]

‼️‼️‼️

I think we're approaching this... "Chapter" of the Showgrounds Saga from the wrong direction

Theory Time!!

(It's a bit of a long one, so take your time)

Ok, so we've all been thinking - most of us at least - that this would be SMG3's Focus Arc and his turn to get character development and/or Trauma via a big movie event, but it's not what we expected. When I asked myself why, I came to some questions and theories

So, we've seen the pattern so far, SMG4's Perfection, Meggy's Idolization, and then WotFI happened, which I think was SMG3's Chapter.

I think what happened was that WotFI was his main event. Instead of building up to the tension, they swapped it and had the big event first with the development after, henceforth all of the focus episodes after WotFI regarding his shop, his selfworth and his place with the Crew.

So, "If SMG3 already had his fair share of Puzzle/Adware interference, then who's the focus for this chapter?" You may be asking, and I have the theory:

It's actually Us the Audience

Think about it! There's always some kind of connection between each Movie/Chapter moving towards the next one! In IGBP, while rescuing SMG4, how did Meggy fight off SMG3? Her splatfest skills (Former Splatfest Champion Wren)!! In Western Spaghetti, what did SMG3 have that added to his character from that point onwards? His bombs (Coffe n' Bombs Cafe)!!

So now, what's one connection with WotFI and this one? We the *Audience* are allowed to add our input based on the situation! (The Heist Plan Votes and the Video Reviews!!)

Not only that, BUT when WotFI finished and we got that post credit scene, Mr. Puzzles didn't address just anyone. No, he wasn't talking to SMG4, he wasn't talking to Luke, Marty, or SMG3; he was talking DIRECTLY to us the *Audience* at the 4th wall!

Adware KNOWS that we're finally picking up the hints and pieces!! He finally acknowledged that we're ready for our turn!!

When the first movie came out and he appeared as that keyboard malware virus (when we dubbed him Adware), we didn't think much of it. We thought it was a one-off, a fluke, something to further the story via typical SMG4 Weirdness.

It wasn't until the Western Spaghetti movie hype was building up that everyone realized that there's a pattern happening. That was when fans started pointing out, "Hey! There's something Fishy going on (Ha), and here's the hidden clues to prove it!!". We became suspicious of that damn symbol, and became more vigilant... and then WotFI happened!!

(Addition: I feel like Adware was beginning to test how ready we were when we got that one Steam Link with Tari in an empty room and the TV at the front of the train. Yeah, it was to hype up the movie, but it was also almost like a... puzzle, you could say)

Which could explain why this time it isn't a movie event that lasts for one week, but instead nearly over an entire month! I theorize that Winston wants to test us for some reason, and for that, he needs to collect information. Information like maybe a certain interactive website with reviews. You can't get the audience involved with just a single movie, just saying. Plus, the fact that he said endless entertainment all Saturdays forever? Who's the most involved in that specific detail, hmm?

Also! The theme! Granted, I don't have much proof for this one, but the theme I've noticed is Nostalgia. Blue's Clues isn't something very important to any of the characters that got kidnapped (minus 4 hating content farms) but it can be something that a lot of us have a fond attachment to! Which Adware could use to his Advantage! What better way to get good reviews than to target what the audiences like?

(4th wall sidenote, after that TV song jingle, Winston glances over to the screen directly at Us)

Also, notice how weird it is that the Crew Members that got kidnapped are popular among the fandom? You know, characters that we've gotten attached to? (Don't tell me Bob doesn't have a fanbase of his own). Every time a "Victim" is targeted, their close friends end up getting dragged into the mess.

SMG4 (3, Megs and Mar)

Meggy (Tari, Mario, Axol, DESTI)

SMG3 (Eggdog got a Cameo, 4, Bob??)

Us (Our favorite characters)

....

So, all of this to say, we need to stay on our toes, especially for this chapter. Be wary and all of that. I may be overthrowing it, but hey, theorizing is fun!! What do you guys think?

#smg4 #I think I covered everything I thought of but if I missed something I might add it on later #insert charlie conspiracy board meme

[jackoshadows]

I do remember that GRRM said he wants the books to have a bittersweet ending like Lord of the Rings. Okay Lord of the Rings… the only Fellowship member who died was Boromir. The reason the ending was bittersweet was because sweet: Sauron was finally defeated for good, Aragorn became King like he was born to be, the Hobbits were recognized as heroes of Middle Earth, peace was restored. But bitter: Frodo’s wound never fully healed, the Fellowship was ended and they went their separate ways, Frodo and Gandalf and Bilbo and the Elves all leave Middle Earth never to return (man Gandalf saying goodbye always makes me cry). Perfect bittersweet. Which makes me think… GRRM won’t have any of the Key Five die (Dany, Jon, Arya, Bran, and Tyrion). Sweet: They will become the heroes of the Realm as the ones who played a huge part in destroying the Others. And they’ll survive and be able to live good lives. But bitter because they’re gonna have trauma to deal with forever, many of the people they knew died, and it will be a LONG time before Westeros and Essos are back to normal. I do not know if Jon and Dany will become King and Queen like I want but that would be part of the sweet. Still if they all survive, the Key Five, that’s really all I need. And I know Jonsas won’t be stopping with their bs but I would take immense pleasure knowing that they were wrong and their dumb theories were all proven false

@whitedragonwolf4961 Sorry for replying to your ask after a looooong time!

So yeah, I personally think that the key 5 will survive. I base this off the story so far in five books and also on GRRM's leaked 1993 original outline for the story, considering he has always insisted that he is heading towards his 1991 ending.

In the leaked outline, all of the key five survive. GRRM admits to using main characters like Ned, Robb and Catelyn to get the readers thinking that anyone can die while there's a set of characters - the key 5 - who will make it through all of the OG trilogy.

And yes, what would make it bittersweet would be the deaths of loved ones, friends and family, the large scale destruction that they would need to rebuild, their ongoing trauma - they have all gone through so much in these 5 books - the sacrifices they would need to make, the compromises. In that sense it's not going to be wholly happy - they are not going to come out in the end unscathed. Jon Snow has even died and we don't even know what version is coming back!!

And remember, reform and change is a major aspect of these characters:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and CHANGING THE WORLD and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.

The Key 5 have big political arcs, are involved in major events and are proactively in control of their own subplots in the books. The youngsters in particular - Dany, Jon, Arya and Bran - are angry about injustice and want to change how things are always done. Dany and Jon have big leadership arcs which are particularly about reforming city states and institutions. Arya's arc with the smallfolk is about her connection with them and the injustice they are facing. As Prince of Winterfell, Bran's empathy for his bastard brother Jon Snow means he signals that Lord Hornwood's bastard can be heir to the Hornwood lands.

I think that's the difference between the previous generation and the current one is that now our main characters don't look past terrible stuff happening and justify it in the name of 'I didn't know' while looking the other way or 'The oaths make it so I should let bad things happen' or 'This is how it's always been so let it happen'. They look past class and gender barriers and do things differently.

And after the Long Night, is when major reform and rebuilding needs to happen. Westeros needs leaders who are angry about what the smallfolk are experiencing, who put the people first, who have the leadership experience to rebuild and reform, in administration and politics and diplomacy, who can build bridges and enact laws - and GRRM has written all that for the key 5.

If they die at the end, then what's the point? So yes, they are very much surviving - in some form or other - though I suspect there will be a lot of sacrifice and compromise that will indeed be very bitter, precisely because good leaders/rulers care about the realm.

#ask

[twoidiotwriters1]

Daughter of Olympus (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: Okay guys, time to get serious -Danny Words: 2,251 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter / Next Chapter Listen to: 'A Troubled Mind' -by Noah Kahan

XXXII: I Ask My Bestie for Advice on the Stupid Thing I Did Already

Ara doesn't know how, but Lily sniffs lies from a mile radius, and it's obvious she didn't buy Ara's story yesterday.

"Remember how you asked me a couple of months ago not to report your absence from camp no questions asked?" She sits next to Connor while the Aphrodite cabin trains.

"You promised to never bring that up!" Connor argues.

"I want you to return the favor," Ara leans one arm on his shoulder. "No questions asked."

"Do I need my kit?"

She shakes her head. "I need you to distract Lily during the campfire."

"Oh. That's all?" Connor sighs heavily. "I'm a man of my word, so you got it, Aracles."

"Stop calling me that." 

Ara gets up and Piper approaches with Katoptris in hand. "The others want to know if we can go shower now."

Ara looks at the group over Piper's shoulder. "Go get rid of the smell!"

The demigods quickly abandon the place, but before Piper can leave,  Ara grabs her wrist. "I need to have a serious talk with you." She grimaces. "Yikes. No. A fun talk. A... sisters talk?"

Piper tilts her head with amusement. "You'll tell me embarrassing secrets?"

"One embarrassing secret," she squeezes the girl's wrist. "I need to know how you and Jason did it."

Piper blushes. "What?"

"The dating!" Her face flushes. "Oh gods, I suck at this..."

"Wait," the girl blinks. "Are you trying to date someone?"

"Er..."

"Who is it?" 

Ara's face gets redder. "Let's talk in my room."

The entire camp is holding its breath. 

A couple of miles out to sea, Percy Jackson and Charles Beckendorf will carry out a plan of attack on Luke Castellan's cruise ship. Charles is packing up the necessary materials, and behind him, two girls are waiting. The first is his girlfriend Silena, the second is me.

"Do you have everything?"

"Think so," he nods.

Silena approaches and adjusts his camp shirt. "Everything will be fine."

"I know."

I look away during the exchange, slightly uncomfortable to be witnessing their moment. I hear footsteps, and then the weight of a big hand on my shoulder. 

"Birdy," Beckendorf smiles. "I'll tell Percy you say hi."

My brother enjoys spending time away with Rachel, so I haven't seen him in like, a week. I decided to come and help the campers, I wanted to be useful. 

In the year since the battle of the labyrinth, I've grown six inches (I'm still shorter than most, though), my sword skills and forging have improved by eighty percent, and I'm visibly stronger. I'm doing well, the problem is my dreams.

I keep seeing weird stuff, Heracles and Achilles's battles, and those memories from my past lives. It feels like they're all connected, somehow.

"Keep an eye on that bronze dragon until I come back, alright?"

"'Kay."

My friend ruffles my hair and hands me a notebook. "If the plan works," he says, "I won't need this anymore, but I want you to keep it."

I'm beyond honored. "I'll take care of it. Good luck."

I follow him and Silena to the pegasus stable and, after greeting Blackjack, I leave the couple. 

Piper and Ara are on her bed drinking a six-pack of regular Coke, and Piper's having the time of her life. "You know, I think Leo got too lucky."

Ara's severely flustered. "Don't think so. This is meant to be, my friends always knew I'd end up dating a Cabin Nine camper. They thought it'd be Jake but—" Ara stops midsentence. "I was never interested in dating until now."

"Well yeah, you were a kid before," Piper agrees. "But I heard you've been avoiding love for years. Is that true?"

"No," Ara makes a face. "I was told I couldn't have it, but I'm not so sure. Chiron says it'll be hard to have a normal life, but he never said it was impossible, and even if it was..."

"You and Leo are masters of unlikely," Piper smiles. "That's what you said, right?"

Ara falls back on her bed, hugging her T-Rex. "But I've got no idea of how it's done properly!"

"No one does, just follow your gut and hope for the best."

"My gut is configured to deal with war stuff, not romance," Ara sulks.

"Then do what your mother said and just have fun. Leo can teach you, he's pretty good at that."

"Can I ask you something?" She sits up. "Do you think he likes me, or is he just starstruck?"

Piper tosses her empty can into the trash, landing a solid three-pointer. "I mean, you're pretty, but you also spent a whole week teaching us how to survive in this world. You're strong and you're skilled, I'm certain he likes you."

"Would he date me even if I didn't have all that?"

"Don't ask me, ask him!" Piper shrugs. "Then you'll know."

"Jackson!" Nico hollers from the stairs. "Lily needs you at the bunker!"

"Coming!" She starts to get up, then pauses. "Don't come to my room while I'm not here!"

"Like I want to see your stupid room!" He replies.

Piper stares at her. "Who was that?"

"The son of Hades," Ara leaves the room with Piper. "We used to be friends until he tried to kill my brother."

"Oh."

They get to the bunker and her sister goes to Leo and Jason—mostly just to be with Jason. Ara reaches the workbench Lily tends to use, as soon as she gets there, the dark-haired girl mumbles a question without looking up.

"What is it with you and elf-looking dudes?" 

"Wish I knew," Ara nudges her friend's arm. "But also, what is it with you and your elf-looking dude?"

"Nothing."

"Doubt it."

"For the last time," Lily looks up rolling her eyes. "We've known each other for years and we're still just friends, it's obviously one-sided."

"Or you're just cowards. One of these days, Connor's gonna get his shit together and he's going to ask you out, and then you'll have to eat your words."

"You didn't answer my question," Lily points out.

Ara grins. "I don't think it's 'cause they look like elves. Maybe I like guys with a good sense of humor."

Her friend snorts. "Yeah, right."

Ara pauses. Then, she speaks quietly. "I kissed Leo."

"WHAT!" Ara covers the girl's mouth, but the bunker's so loud no one hears her yelling. Lily slaps the hand away. "But why? Perché mi fai questo? Sai che ho bisogno di sapere le cose in anticipo in modo che tutto vada bene—"

"Se ti calmi forse posso spiegarti meglio, civetta!" Ara scolds her. "Listen, I talked to Piper—"

"You told Piper before you told me?" Lily exclaims. "Who else knows, Blackjack?"

"Shut up a minute!" Ara insists. "Piper's a daughter of Aphrodite! If Silena were here..." her voice cracks. "I just needed someone close to Mother."

Lily takes in her reply, blushing a little. "Right. I got carried away, sorry. So... Can I stab Leo if he messes up?"

Ara snorts. "No. I wouldn't even let Percy get tough with him."

"I don't see Percy doing that. Well, more like I never imagined him doing that if Mike had asked you out," Lily mentions. 

Once again, it's all well-intentioned and innocent, but Ara can't stand it. "He was different," she faces Lily with a serious expression. "Promise me something."

The girl tilts her head. "I'm listening."

"You'll stop talking about him."

I shoot up the lava wall, my hands and legs knowing by heart where each stepping stone is. I can climb with my eyes closed, with one hand, you name it. I'm the best climber in town.

"Fifty seconds!" Lily shouts proudly.

I seize the rope and descend swiftly, kicking against the wall on each leap. "You know what I think?"

"What?" Lily grins.

"This child of Olympus thing is going to be easy," I jump the last meter and land in front of her. "Woah! Did that look as cool as it felt?"

"You'll destroy your knees if you keep doing that," she responds unimpressed. "But yeah, it looked cool."

"Pff, I'm half-goddess, I'll be fine. I just couldn't wait to see you from up close," I tilt my head. "Occhi benedetti che ti vedono."

My friend stops smiling. "Da quando sai parlare italiano?"

I giggle. "I only learned a few compliments so I can shout them when you walk past," I shrug. "High-quality teasing." 

Lily face-palms and I laugh more.

"They're back!" Shouts a camper near us.

We run to where the group of demigods is, and I hear Silena's voice: 

"Where is Charlie?"

Time stops. When I see my brother's expression, I know I'll never see Beckendorf again. 

"No..." 

A pair of arms wrap around my shoulders while Clarisse leads Silena to the big house. 

"Ara..." Percy's the one holding me, I did not see him move.

Something's squeezing my lungs. Beckendorf is dead. Percy tells me everything, including that his father saved him. He tells me about the war happening underwater, and how it's time for him to listen to his prophecy.

We look at each other, neither of us is crying. We know this loss is greater than any amount of tears. I hug my brother. "You're okay," when I speak, my voice comes out shaky. "That's enough for now." 

I'll avenge my friend, I have a plan and a good reason to make it happen.

"You're getting stronger," Percy speaks hoarsely. "That hug almost breaks me in half." 

I know he's lying, but I appreciate it. 

Lily and Michael approach me with equally grim expressions. "Bug..."

"I gotta train." I walk past them, and they follow me at a proper distance.

"If you want to take a break..." Lily starts gently.

"Kronos's army doesn't take breaks," I reply, tightly holding the compass in my pocket. "Neither do I."

"What?"

"I need some distance between my past and my future," Ara continues. "I can't drag him along."

"Drag him?" Lily glares at her. "It's only been five months, Ara. He was your best friend—"

"And he's not coming back."

Lily seems even more insulted by this. "You're going to act like you never even—?"

"Hi!" Leo shows up with a huge smile on his face. "Bunker's closing..." The girls look at him with matching scowls, causing him to step back. "Unless... you don't want to go?"

"Doesn't matter what I want," Lily slams shut her notebook. "Ara speaks for all of us."

"Lily—"

"Don't bother."

Ara's glad she asked Connor to distract Lily, cause she'll need company after that. The former Aphrodite leans on the workbench and buries her hands in her hair. There is no way in which she can get her point across without sounding like a jerk, and she's getting tired of enduring anguish so others can feel better.

"What's her problem?" Leo lowers his voice. "You're the General, of course you speak for all of us!"

"Not what she meant..." Ara mutters grumpily.

Leo places a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, if you're not feeling well, we should postpone—"

"No!" Ara looks up, trapping his hand in place.

Leo gulps, he does his best to keep a low tone as he talks to her. "'Kay, not postponing it."

He's pondering whether to leave or stay when Ara speaks again, pushing herself up and glaring at the bunker's entrance. "You know what's annoying? If he hadn't sworn on the Styx, then we wouldn't be in this situation, but she acts like I was the one who caused this—It was his oath!"

Leo just looks at her, knowing she's not expecting a reply.

"If it wasn't for..." Ara wants to stop talking about this. She wants to leave it behind as soon as possible. "I am what I am thanks to my friends, that's all."

"Of course," the boy agrees. "And you love your friends."

Ara locks eyes with him, gaze softening. "You know, Beckendorf cared for this camp, and I bet that he's proud you're carrying on with his legacy."

"I've seen pictures of him," Leo shakes his head. "I'm nothing like the guy."

"All he wanted was to keep us safe, and you found the perfect way to do that. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. In more ways than one."

Leo lits up—his soul light, not in flames—and clears his throat, removing his hand from her shoulder. "So why is Lily angry at you?" 

"She wants me to look back," Ara answers vaguely. "But I can't, not when it's no longer of use. I've got to keep my eyes ahead."

My friends (Mike, Connor, Travis, Lily, and even Malcolm and Will) take turns to see how I'm doing throughout the day. I lost my mentor and with him any interest in the mortal world, I'll focus on securing the future of the demigods who remain.

I don't say another word for the rest of the afternoon, I pull myself together before facing all of Beckendorf's siblings. When I walk into the forges holding Beckendorf's notebook, no one's actually working. They're all there though, looking lost. 

Nyssa spots me at the entrance. "Ara's here." 

Hugs are received and I give a few in return. Tears are shared, but once everyone calms down, I show them Beckendorf's notebook. "I know we're not in the mood to think about work," I clear my throat. "But I need you."

"You saved our brother's life a month ago," Nyssa shrugs. "We owe you one, Birdy. You name it."

"I took a quick look at the notebook he left," I turn the pages as I speak. "He had a plan, in case blowing up the Andromeda wasn't enough." 

I turn the notebook so they can see Charles's sketches.

"We need tons of these—a full cabin if we can. You think it's doable?"

"Depends," Jake replies. "When do you want them?"

"I need them before the week ends."

Jake and Nyssa look at each other, and then the boy nods. "For Beckendorf."

"For Beckendorf," the group echoes.

I study the drawings, my fingertips grazing the notes like they're some kind of treasure.

"I'll look after them..." I whisper, hoping Beck can hear.

Next Chapter ->

Taglist.

@siriuslysirius1107 @ask-giggles1303 @ash-the-hoarder @im-planning-something-look @bandshirts-andbooks @coolninjapaper @thewaterlily @whenisthefall @1randomcomic @you-bloody-shank @sunflowergraves @owlalex44 @taylordaughter @typicalsolangelolover @writingmia @espressopatronum454 @slytherinnqueen @orbitingpolaris @obxstiles

#twoidiots writing #pjo fanfic #pjo hoo toa #pjo fandom #percy jackson and the olympians #leo valdez x oc #leo valdez fanfic #doo

[thedawningofthehour]

SORRY FOR THE LONG ASK but you activated my sleeper agent rottmnt brainstorming Re: The Video Game Question

Raph: would probably like low strategy single player games and lean toward arcade/motion control based experiences because they present a way around the "Hand Too Big Controller Too Small And Breakable" problem. As an Oldest Sibling (speaking from an Oldest Sibling Gamer pov) he would have been the Designated Single Player Driver (I have a vivid mental image of Raph playing old c tier single player wii games like My Sims Kingdom while Mikey, Leo, and Donnie yell instructions at him) and I think he's still gravitated towards those kinds of games. He also feels like the kind of guy who will thoroughly enjoy every video game he plays but his favorite is still inexplicably just like. Uno for the ps3

Leo: Would like competitive games. I feel like he's the kinda guy who cannot bring himself to give a shit about the story or aesthetics of a game and cannot care at all about single player video games outside of speedrunning or something. The point of games for him Is To Win. I feel like him and Donnie both played CSGO or COD at a young age with voice chat and thats why they are who they are. His favorite game is probably a competitive hero shooter or smth. He probably is playing Valorant as we speak.

Donnie: I feel like he's the only one who is a Capital "G" Gamer. Has the broadest taste but tends to like games he can "lose himself" in. (Competitive shooters, MMOs, lengthy and intricate single player games IE: Dark Souls or Elden Ring, metroidvanias, RPGs, fighting games) If the taste of Donnie Gamer Mode we get in the show is anything to go by, he seems the type to obsess over a game for like a month, beat it 120%, probably achieve some level or speedrunning or competitive infamy and then drop it completely never to be seen again.

Mikey: Would love sandbox games for Sure. Plays Minecraft but only on creative mode. Will play sims but only with cheats to make super intricate mansions or crazy houses or recreate something he saw in a movie once. He would 100% play single player games his brothers already beat so he can look around at the scenery and mess around in a character creator. Will play an open world game and never do a single main story mission and call it quits when he gets bored.

They've all 100% played a bunch of really weird and bad shovelware games or really cheap 3rd party titles because they were what Splinter could get for them. They all have 10 to 15 mobile idle games they'll rotate out bc they all need to be Stimulated at All Times. Yes they have played Mario Party and Killed Each Other over it but more importantly they have played Dokapon Kingdom and have started rivalries that have lasted several months over this game. They will hold grudges til they die over this game. They have never gotten to the end screen of this game and in all likelihood, never will.

Idk maybe my vibes are off tho lol but can you tell I've thought about this a lot to my own detriment

There's actually a point in the next book-I think it's in chapter 1 but I can't remember-where Galois mentions giving Raph one of Draxum's oversized keyboards when he has to do anything on the computer. (Draxum has large-print keyboards because he's Old) I think I've mentioned that the boys all have larger-than-normal phones because they only have the three fat fingers and that's just not gonna work with a standard iPhone. Raph I feel like is basically Strong from Fallout 4:

(bless him)

I'm reminded of when my sister would sit and watch my play Dream Life to 'learn', until I moved it into my own room. Really, their first console was probably 'whatever Splinter found in a dumpster and still worked', so unless it was something with connected controllers they were probably playing off whatever controllers he'd found as well, so it's entirely possible they legit just had the one controller for awhile. And yeah, they all crowd around to watch Raph play because that's annoying little sibling behavior.

Mikey would love games where the goal is to Make Something. He doesn't care about winning, only stepping back and looking at the finished product and going "nice." I do feel like he'd actually play the sims though-the twins use it as a building simulator, but he'd absolutely get into the lives and stories of his sims. He builds too, but he also gets into creating the sim. He plays Fallout 4 with the Sim Settlements mod and never finds Shaun because all he's doing is building shacks for farmers.

Oh, Leo is absolutely in it to win it. In any way, if it has a score he can use to compare to Donnie's he loves it. The sole exception to this is city builders, I can absolutely see him sinking days into Cities Skylines creating elaborate planned cities with complicated mass transit and beautiful walking spaces.

The other exception is if he can fuck around in a game and be chaotic. He plays Skyrim and installs the sex mods not because he's horny, but because he thinks going around in this incredibly inappropriately horny fantasy world is hysterical. He uses it more as a Medieval Life Simulator and if he completes a quest it's entirely by accident.

Donnie is absolutely the worst gamer and will learn literally everything there is about the game after playing it through once. He also probably mods his games, or even makes his own mods. Some of them to make everything look cooler or add quality of life and immersion stuff in, but he'll also do stuff like install the mod that replaces the Skyrim arrow noises with a man going "pew!"

Omg they absolutely played knock-off games as kids. They probably lied to Mikey about them being off-brand so he didn't feel bad about their situation, telling him that the title was a misprint and all the ads for the actual game were lying.

[procuder]

I don't get it why did Hellkaros want Kim Suho so much what more can he do for him?

Welcome to procuder's glue archive. Due to our lack of information, almost everything here comes from my own perspective. There will be slight spoilers. (railroad arc.)

If you asked why Hellkaros wanted Kim Suho that much, we have to go back and look at why Hellkaros became interested in Lloyd. (Kim Suho.)

For me, it started with Lloyd and Javier succeeding in killing the Hell Knight, Giolexius. That was a big achievement and one of hell's losses in manpower. Hellkaros became more interested in this man. At first, he was just interested in Lloyd's singing.

They meet for the first time in Lloyd's dream after Hellkaros takes up some of his precious free time and his busy work schedule to meet up with Lloyd. (definitely not gay sir I got you) They have some conversation. Lloyd says what he did was just self-defense and Hellkaros was also interested in using Lloyd's cries as a torture device in Purgatory lmao. At first, Lloyd thought it was just a weird dream, so he didn't pay any attention to it.

Of course, he later realized that it wasn't just a dream.

After they meet again in hell. Lloyd came to see him while Hellkaros was busy. Lloyd made a proposal that if Hellkaros listened to him, he would help Hellkaros achieve his goal, get off work. And that was the beginning of the whole story.

And after talking about the construction of the railway and various details for 20 minutes (that the Webcomic shortened it to just half a chapter), Hellkaros came to several conclusions from this conversation.

He is a smart guy who can quickly connect the dots. After living only work for 670,000 years without a break, he constantly worried and lived in hopelessness that one day he would have the same fate as the previous Hell King. That desperation disappeared after considering the benefits he would receive after accepting Lloyd's proposal. It's pretty simple, right? It's similar to how it's easy for people to fall in love with someone when they're in some difficult situations. To me, Hellkaros is like that (I mean it's similar...)

He will be able to live a life he has never been before in 670,000 years. He will be able to rest. He would no longer have to help those foolish Satans and work himself into pieces that he didn't have to do. He would be able to quit these sickening works that couldn't even be shared with the other Satans under his command at the castle. He would no longer end up like the old Hell King, and he would no longer have to worry about anything. These were all the enormous benefits he would receive if he accepted Lloyd's offer. Of course, with just a short conversation, Hellkaros would even want Lloyd to take his place. It didn't mean that Hellkaros wanted Lloyd to take over as Hell King. He didn't hate being the Hell King. It could be said that he preferred to do his own routine and let Lloyd do all of his work. It's like being a secretary.

You can read this post for more glue of course :)

Yes, if he had this man to work for him. He will definitely receive more benefits.

So yeah. When people finally know the taste of freedom, we want to taste it more, right? I have to say that at first, he was just going to wait for Lloyd to die and come to Hell in order to work with him. But because Kim Suho is a good person, it was proof that Kim Suho's bad krama would be gone and not enough for Hellkaros to keep this man by his side. (Unbeknownst to him, if he were a little more patient, he might be able to negotiate with Lloyd himself. I mean, yeah, the restoration force of destiny stuff if you see my vision.)

He often imagined what he would do after he could get off work: soak in a lava tub, drink his favorite beverage, watch a series, read a novel, tell, legend. His desires were no different from those of a hard-working office worker. (I think it's very clear that he is presented in a way that many office workers, including me, could relate to him. I mean, his throne is even an office chair lol) (AND THE WEBCOMIC DECIDED TO CUT HIS IMAGINATION OFF I'M COMPLETELY FINE OKAY??)

That's why he had to do something to get Kim Suho to be by his side. I think you'll understand because, God, imagine working non-stop for 670,000 years. If I had to be gay and bring the person I really wanted by my side to be by my side, I would do that also /j

#an ask i received #tged #tged spoilers #hellkaros #lloyd frontera #character study #why can't they just give me more Hellkaros crumbs this is unfair #please talk about him...please I want more people I want more people #I'm so lonely /j

[portaltothevoid]

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Chapter 35 - Spellbound

Pairing: Eddie Munson x OFC (Kat Ramsay), sequel to Foolin’

Summary: Kat returns to Hawkins after the battle.

Warnings: This is it. It’s the end of Kat’s story…. For now. 

Word count: 3.3k

Chapter song: Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Tag list: @munchabunch​ @madaboutmunson​ @earl-greater​

The medics were working on Eddie before the helicopter was even in the air. They took his vitals and changed his bandages, applying more pressure to stop whatever ones were still bleeding. Frantically, they were writing notes on various clipboards. 

An adrenaline crash hit Kat like a ton of bricks. She could feel herself spacing out as she tried to stay attentive to Eddie. The whole ride took no more than 15 minutes. They landed atop this building in the middle of the woods. It felt eerily similar to Hawkins Lab. 

Eddie was wheeled off in the stretcher. The woman had held Kat back, not letting her follow. She didn’t even fight it. There was really nothing anyone could do to keep her from him anyway, but she knew the doctors needed space to assess him and make him comfortable. Soon enough, she would see him.

Kat was led a few floors down to a fancy boardroom. There she saw her Uncle Hank who shot up to greet her along with a couple of his colleagues. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said as he hugged her. 

“Yeah, me too, honestly,” she said quietly, returning his hug. “They’ll tell me as soon as Eddie is stable, right?”

“Yes, yes, of course. He will be very well taken care of here,” Hank assured her as he pulled out a chair for her to sit.

“Where is ‘here’ exactly?”

“Knight Ridge Technical, a government research facility, about ten miles east of Bloomington.”

“Right…” she said tapping on the table. “It’s not the kind of research that brainwashes kids and experiments on them against their will, right?” With Kat’s blunt question it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. 

“No, no. Nothing of that sort. That was Brenner’s thing. Here at Knight Ridge we focus more on understanding physics and electromagnetic fields, things of that nature.”

“Yeah, sure. So are we here to talk terms or…?” she trailed off.

“Terms?” The woman asked.

“Uh, yeah. Eddie and I are prime suspects in murders that One did, and ya know, opened up a massive gate between our world and the Upside Down. So I want our names cleared. Specifically his name cleared.”

“That… that will come in time. I’m seeing to it you both are going to be very well taken care of. Right now we are just trying to understand exactly how that happened.”

Kat let out a big sigh. “So my friend Max was one of his victims. Basically me and El, Eleven, piggybacked from Max’s mind into Vecna… One’s mind. We call him Vecna. Sometimes One. Sometimes Henry? Anyway. He wanted us to watch him kill Max as his fourth and final victim to, in his demented mind, ‘save the world’ more or less, but wherever El was, her boyfriend gave her this peptalk. Which I could hear too. He was telling her to fight. I thought of Eddie. And I fought like hell to get back to him. Because the all-seeing asshole showed me a live feed of the demobats attacking him. El basically finished One off while I went back to my body and then, um, sort of became a human EKG machine. Um, so yeah, we sort of stalled him for the time being, but I mean, every place One killed someone turned into a gate. When Max… died…” Kat took a second to clear her throat. The weight and reality of that statement hadn’t even registered in her mind yet. “That’s what caused the giant earthquake. I saw it from the air. Every gate connected and formed a line to the center of Hawkins. I don’t know what it means, but… He said he would be there when the rest of the world burns and falls and he’d be there to pick up the pieces, to turn the world into something beautiful. Clearly we have very different standards of beauty. If only you guys got a look at him. He doesn’t need to bag just his face, but his whole body…” Kat shuddered at the thought and then looked at everyone in front of her. They all stared back at her blankly, mouths slightly agape. 

Hank cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “We’ve lost contact with Eleven after the disaster at NINA, but you said she was there?”

“Yeah, she’s on her way back to Hawkins.”

“You’re the reason that boy is alive?” someone else asked.

“Um, yeah. I– I– I panicked. I couldn’t… I can’t lose him,” she whispered as she looked at her hands on the table.

“You never cease to amaze me, ya know that, kiddo?” Hank said with a beaming smile. “So here’s what happens now. We’re going to set you up in an overnight suite here. You used an immense amount of power. To be quite honest, I don’t even know how you’re still standing right now.”

“Well, I’m sitting, but yeah, me neither.”

“You rest up and hopefully by the time you’re ready, you’ll be able to see Eddie. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure, but Uncle Hank? I mean it. When we get back to Hawkins I want his name cleared,” she spoke sternly.

“Who said anything about going back to Hawkins? Kat, honey, you can’t go back there. The town is like a war zone.”

“Exactly. It is a war zone. And I have to be on the front lines. This fight isn’t over. It’s only just beginning.”

Hank started to stutter when the woman spoke up. “The girl and her family will be staying in their secluded cabin. Surely there’s another one nearby we could set up for them. Temporarily they can stay there until we finalize everything.”

“I like this lady,” Kat nodded with a smile as she got up from her seat. Everyone else followed suit. “Don’t know who you are, but I like you.”

“Agent Stinson,” she said as she stuck out her hand for a handshake. “I’ll show you to your room.”

~~~~~

The next day Kat was waiting outside Eddie’s room, ringing her hands anxiously. She had been called here just moments ago, but when she finally got to the room, he was still asleep. One of the doctors finally came by and updated her on everything.

“He’s very lucky to be alive, you know. We honestly don’t know how he survived. Those wounds were deep and he lost a lot of blood. He has quite the road to recovery, but luckily you got him here in time. Truly, his case is baffling. Were you aware he was clinically dead for about a minute?”

“I… um, yeah. I just, um… I went by the book to save him, I guess,” she muttered. She’d never heard or seen this person before in her life. How could she know if she could trust him? Sometimes she felt guilty for how much of the battle she relayed to her Uncle, but it just kept pouring out of her.

“Is that so?” The doctor chuckled. “We’re all on your side here. You can trust us.”

“That’s what they all say,” Kat said with a weak smile.

“I get it, I get it. From what you’ve been through… It’s wise not to automatically trust everyone you meet. Anyway, his vitals are stable. We gave him fluids when he first got here. He was able to eat this morning. His upper body suffered the most damage, so you guys should be on your way tomorrow.”

“Does everyone know what I can do here? Jesus. Wait, on our way tomorrow? Are you serious?”

“You and Eleven are like our local celebrities here. We’re all in your corner. And absolutely. This is the most miraculous case I’ve ever seen. I mean, the improvement from yesterday to today is astonishing. I’ll send you home with a folder full of his care regimen. You’ll have agents and doctors close by, should any issues arise.”

“Thank you,” she said sincerely.

“Alright, I’ll let you see him. It’s best if he wakes up on his own, but there's a chair in there for you and the TVs still on, so help yourself. If you need anything, just buzz for one of the nurses.”

Kat nodded and had her hand on the door knob, but hesitated before she went in. “Wait, just tell me before I go in there… Did you have to cut his hair?”

“No,” the doctor chuckled. “His hair is still intact.”

“Thank god. I didn’t wanna be the one to tell him. He would’ve been pissed,” Kat laughed as she entered the room.

He was lying there peacefully. Bandages covered much of his body. But the color had returned to his face. His hair was fanned out around him. She was well aware the doctor said not to disturb him, so sat in the chair and sort of… followed his directions.

At this point, she had a handle on her powers so much that she could just enter the void simply by closing her eyes and focusing on it. The TV became background noise. The light didn’t bother her. It was just like falling asleep with the lights on, in a roundabout way.  

As soon as she padded across the shallow water of the void, something felt… off. Usually, she felt completely neutral here until she entered someone’s mind. This time it was different. Cautiously, she walked up to his hospital bed and went to reach for his hand. Before she made contact, his eyes flung open. He grabbed her arm with a tight grip and pulled her down closer to his level. His eyes bore right into hers, streaks of red brightened his dark brown irises. “No,” he said forcefully.

Immediately she opened her eyes, her chest heaving from whatever she just witnessed. She looked over at Eddie who was still peacefully sleeping. This was something that had never happened before. It was as if something else was there. Something else that didn’t want her seeing into Eddie’s mind. 

He began to stir and slowly started to wake up. His eyes fluttered open and when he glanced to the right, he softly smiled. “Hey,” he whispered groggily.

Kat flew out of the chair and to his side. She gripped his hand tightly like if she let go he would disappear forever. “Hey, hi!” she murmured gently. “Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”

“Just you to be here with me.”

She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I’m here.”

“Wait, they didn’t cut my hair did they?”

“No,” Kat laughed at how well she knew him. “You didn’t need brain surgery. Which is surprising considering how dumb you are!”

“Ah, here we go,” he chuckled. 

“I can’t believe you! After everything I told you! Sometimes running is okay, you know! Jesus. You scared the shit outta me. I almost fucking lost you. For good. For forever! Oh my god, and Dustin! Dustin had to see the whole thing. Poor Dustin.”

“You good? Got that outta your system?”

“I– Yeah. Just… don’t fucking die again, okay?”

“Not planning on it, but hey anything can–” he started to tease, but cut himself off when Kat shot daggers at him with the look on her face. “Yeah, no, definitely not planning on it. Um, how did I, uh, get here?”

“I called my Uncle and he got you airlifted here. It’s like Hawkins Lab 2.0. Supposedly minus the brainwashing and child experiments, but jury’s still out on that.”

“You what? You called the government? So, what the hell happens when we get outta here? Am I…” Eddie spoke so fast his words almost blended together.

Kat shook her head. “No. They’re gonna take care of it. We might have to stay with El in some cabin for a bit until they get us our place, but we’re going back to Hawkins after this. And my Uncle assured me we’d be well taken care of. Both of us. Eddie, this was the safest route. The doctors over at NINA that were working with El are also working with everyone here. We’re safe.”

“Great, so we’ll basically be under witness protection or some shit?”

“Why is this bothering you so much?”

“I just want my life back,” Eddie muttered.

“In time, babe, in time. Maybe. Who knows. Vecna still might destroy the world and we did all of this for nothing,” she shrugged. 

“Can’t we, like, run away to California or something? Stay at one of your parent’s houses or some shit?”

Kat shook her head solemnly. “I need to be in Hawkins. This isn’t over.”

“Yeah,” he snorted. “It’s not. Hey, does Wayne know I’m…alive?”

“I have no idea. I’m not even sure if it’s safe for him to know. We can ask?”

Eddie just nodded and stared at whatever was on the TV. Kat furrowed her brow, debating if she wanted to ask this question now, but why wait when it would just gnaw at her? “Hey, Eddie, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you remember anything from… um, anything about–”

“Dying? No,” he answered curtly. “And I don’t wanna talk about it.”

His tone took her off guard. He never spoke to her like that. And that’s how she knew he was lying. Her theory was proving to be correct. Something was definitely off. A knock on the door interrupted, or rather saved, Kat from coming up with a response.

The doctor gave them both a run down of his status and confirmed his release for the next day, after testing out his mobility. He struggled, but was mobile. They were just mere hours away from an actual peaceful rest. Hopefully.

~~~~~

Another helicopter landed atop the Knight Ridge building while Eddie and Kat were waiting for their ride back to Hawkins. Eddie had returned to his normal self. Or at least, he didn’t act weird like he did the day before. The couple leaned against an expensive looking black car with the darkest tinted windows. Eventually, Agent Stinson finally emerged from the building with another man and woman in tow. 

“Chief Hopper?” Eddie asked.

“Munson?”

“You two know each other? Oh, what am I saying? It’s Hawkins, of course they know each other,” Kat mumbled to herself. 

“Hi, I’m Joyce Byers,” a woman with auburn hair and the kindest, sweetest smile Kat had ever seen held out her hand.

“Hi, I’m Kat Ramsay, nice to meet you. Byers? You must be Will’s mom?”

“Yes! You know Will?”

“We know of him. Eddie is, well, was the DM for the D&D club at the high school. Dustin and Mike would always talk about him and El. You both seem like wonderful people, I’m so happy she found you guys after getting away from that prison of a lab,” Kat rolled her eyes at the thought of it. 

“You know El?” Hopper asked. He had a shaved head and the start of a beard. He looked like he was practically skin and bones under his baggy clothes. 

“Very well. I was, uh, number Ten at the lab.”

“Come on, we can catch everybody up to speed on the way there,” Stinson said, urging everyone to get in the car.

When they finally got to the secluded cabin, Kat had heard all about the Russians involvement with the Upside Down and how Joyce went all the way there to save Hopper. They also told her about how they destroyed particles from the Mind Flayer and demogorgons at Kamchatka prison to help give them an upper hand. From there, Kat filled them in on everything that had happened the past week.

As they reached their destination, Stinson sighed. “I thought you said this place was livable?”

“Well it was, but I’ve sort of been in a Russian prison. Haven’t been able to keep up the place.”

“We’ll send a crew out. I’ll give you all some time. I’ll be back later to take you all someplace in the meantime.”

Everyone left a chorus of ‘thank you’s to her as they got out of the car. Mike and what Kat assumed to be Will, ran to Joyce, followed by another boy that was with Nancy. She presumed that to be Jonathan, her boyfriend… for now at least. Kat would do her best to keep her comment to herself. She noticed another boy with very long, dark hair holding up a mushroom, like he’d found gold. Nancy ran up to Kat and gave her a hug.

“Oh my god, Nancy, you’re alive!” Kat exclaimed. “Did Robin and Steve make it out too? How’s Dustin? What about Max and Lucas and Erica?” 

“Yeah, our group made it out alive. Lucas beat the shit out of Jason, you would have been so impressed. He also didn’t make it through the earthquake…”

“Good riddance to him. Sorry, too soon?”

Nancy just shook her head and chuckled. “Erica is okay. Lucas has been at the hospital with Max–”

“Max is alive?!”

“Barely, she’s in a coma. The doctors aren’t even sure how she’s still alive.” 

Kat looked over at Eddie and then saw El emerge from the cabin with Hopper. “I think I do,” she whispered before she ran over to El and wrapped her in a huge hug. “Oh my god, El, are you okay? How are you?”

“I am great,” she said as she beamed at Hopper. “I am happy you’re here, Kat.”

Kat was formally introduced to everyone. When Eddie met Will for the first time, they stared at each other. It was only for a few seconds. No one else but Kat noticed. She was the only one watching him like a hawk for anything out of the ordinary. The exchange made her stomach flip. 

As everyone was mingling, a sudden chill went down Kat’s spin. At the same time, she saw Will reach for the back of his neck. Him and Eddie exchanged quick nods, before Will turned around to look up at the sky. Dark, ominous clouds were rolling in. Thunder rumbled and particles began to fall from the sky, exactly like ones that floated around the Upside Down. Will had grown visibly anxious, his breaths becoming short and shallow. Eddie stared up at the sky, biting his lip and tapping his fingers on the side of his leg. Telltale signs whatever was happening made him anxious too. From what Kat understood, besides herself and El, Will also had a connection to the Upside Down and to Vecna. 

Together, they walked through the woods to a nearby field that cascaded down the hillside. The bottom half of it, closest to town, was rotten and decaying. Everything was covered with fuzzy film, like mold almost that puffed and spread with it was touched. Everyone stopped in their tracks, overwhelmed with the view in front of them. 

El kept going to where the vegetation had died. She picked up a dead flower and examined it. Kat walked with her and knew she had seen this somewhere before. She bent down to examine it all more closely.

“This looks like how the pumpkin patch did…” she noted, looking up at El who looked at her with a forlorn expression and solemnly nodded. 

Everyone looked out over Hawkins. Plumes and pillars of smoke reached up to the clouds. The biggest one was in the center of town, where all four gates met. The same red lighting that they all saw in the Upside Down was right in front of them. Anger and determination took over El’s features. Kat stood up and looked back at Eddie. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the tornado-like columns of smoke. As she followed his gaze, fury started to rumble inside of her. 

Vecna wasn’t going to take Eddie away from her. Not again. The battle might be over, but the war had only just begun.

previous chapter | the end

A/N: If you’ve made it this far, you have my undying gratitude. If you’ve liked, commented, or rebloogged, even if you’ve only read one chapter, thank you. I appreciate anyone who’s taken time out of their day to read any parts of my writing. If you’ve been here since the beginning of Foolin’, I just cannot thank you enough. I wanted to give Eddie the ending he deserved and ending up creating a bad ass OC in the process. I’m still amazed I was able to see their story through to completion. Kat and Eddie will always have a place in my heart and I hope they will in yours too. Til next time!

#eddie munson #eddie munson au #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x ofc #eddie munson fix it fic #eddie munson x oc #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things 4 fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #nancy wheeler #argyle #jim hopper #joyce byers #will byers #mike wheeler #jonathan byers

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

slides into your inbox

hi i uh. drank a sinister potion (dr. pepper) on the way to school this morning and the problem with perfection filled my head for the fiftieth time so. i'm here now. soooo uh, warning for a very crazy caffeine induced audhd rant. 👍

i just like.... kinda wanna let u know how much this fic means to me. like fr. like seriously. it means a lot to me. we've been mutuals for a while so i feel like now's def a good time (and a long time coming lmao)

iirc i found ur fic when i was in the danganronpa trenches in like, 2021/2022 i think? it was summer and i had nothing better to do with my free time and i was super bored and ishimondo was my personality and i found it while going thru ao3 and was like "yeah. this sounds cool"

and i did NOT know what i was getting into let me tell you. adored the writing really fast. ur skill level actually blew me the fuck away like. instantly. all the characters were incredibly in character, everything was so detailed and i LOVED the fact that you made your writing very emotion driven. like you wrote a lot with like, exaggerated punctuation and pauses and spaces and stuff that i rarely ever see but i feel like your writing was like, so much better for that??? its something i've started to use in my writing because it just draws you in so much and just. puts you into their shoes almost instantly. like it sounds like you're in their head. like i think like that (got that narrator brain in me) and it was just so cool to see someone write like that. got a lot of good moments

and i honest to god binged that fic because it had me by a chokehold. like i'm talking i barely got sleep because i was so excited to read the next chapter the next day that my body would wake me up earlier. and i'd pull it out and binge the next chapter. and when i got to a point where the chapters where still being updated, i remember checking like. every sunday night or so every week to see if it got updated. so many cliffhangers that i was not normal about..........

and i recommended it to EVERYONE i knew that was into danganronpa. like i did not care if they usually read fanfiction or not i would sit there and go on infodump rants about this gay fanfiction i found on the gay fanfiction site and ik i confused them but like. that was how good it was to me. felt like it was a real book. and not only that i honest to god felt like i was reading about me.

like the way you wrote taka meant and continues to mean so much to me to this fucking day because i rarely ever see characters that are like me, at least in an honest to god way. and i was already connected to taka and loved him but i think you made him feel like an extension of me in a way and it just like. idk. it spoke to me man. ik i sound dramatic but it did.

like an autistic queer kid with a strict parent being thrown into so many situations where you just automatically assume everyone else is watching you, judging you, based on past trauma and experiences and just. at the same time so emotional and passionate and just genuine for lack of a better term. and the panic attacks that were written i actually almost had some during reading it because i felt it. that felt like me honest to god (not a bad thing btw!!! i am ok!! but that's a compliment because that's how accurate it was!!)

and during a time where i was dating people who just. idk its hard to explain. i knew they cared about me but there were so many times where there were disconnects. sexuality and gender (gender's not really a part of the story ik but yk what i mean) was a big one. and i felt how he would feel when mondo wasn't exactly the best when it came to his behaviors and expressions of love.

and now i'm with someone who is like. mondo at all his best moments. and even when he matches mondo's lower ones it feels like, there's more times where we can do what they did in the fic and work through it. be there for each other because even if we're both fucked up yk we can like. work through it. and that's so cool honestly?? its not transactional, it means something. i've felt both sides and it's so. crazy to me. it's just wild.

and while i didn't read a lot of it (mental health was NOT in a space where i could i'm gonna be so real) the other installment, the one where mondo comes over to taka's house and they gotta hide and stuff? i've felt that. god i've felt that. my current boyfriend (also a trans man) and i have had so many times where we've had to act as "friends" and hide our romantic gestures and being so deathly afraid of getting caught yk?

idk this fic made me feel seen, and i wonder if there's like... anyone else that feels that way. idk i feel like their definitely is. and i just kinda wanna like. thank you for writing something that just. made me feel heard in a time when i really really needed it. even if we didn't know each other it felt so wild to have a stranger sit there and give me and indirect hug and let me know that i am not the only guy struggling out there with this stuff. it's changed the way i view myself and how i view the world and it's so cool to me that even fanfiction of all things can do that. that's nuts man. you did that and i really wanna emphasize that you should be proud of that. that's so cool. you're writing is so fucking cool man.

and also another thing i. love. that you also wrote about sex being a form of like. expressing love for some people. i am demisexual so like. seeing a character that seemed to also exhibit that and really only feel and have that strong attraction to someone they love romantically and have a connection with, and do it to let the other person know they love them. it's like. that's cool. that's so cool. i'm shaking you that's so cool /pos

and while i'm not fixated on dr right now (as you can. probably tell. (btw obligatory "watch lego monkie kid but also you do not have to i just wanna let you know its cool" plug because of Tha Autism(tm)), and while my comic i was going to make is on a very long hiatus bc adhd is beating the shit out of me, i really want you to know how much i appreciate this fic and how much it just. lives in my brain. how much it makes me emotional to this day because it spoke to me; some random dude who was just getting out of high school who fucking needed that really really bad. and also i want you to know how excited i was when we become mutuals and i'm really really lucky to have someone so cool as my mutual, and you've become even cooler in my brain now that we're kinda yk. in a vaguely similar circle.

anyways i appreciate you so much!!!! and even if we're in different fandoms and stuff, and even if tpwp is also not being continued/on a hiatus i still appreciate what you did with it, and what you do now. don't understand all the fandoms you post but i got that respect for it. i'm in the corner with pom poms cheering u on.

so um. yeah! that was long. but i'm hyped up on caffeine and neurodivergent so ujhm. yea. hopefully this made sense lmao

~ your very much not normal mutual tyler 👍

Okay, sorry for the late response, I saw this when I got up this morning and needed the day to figure how to respond because this was. So much (in a good way I promise!!!!)

So, first of all, THANK YOU FOR THIS!! It's easy as a fic writer to feel discouraged with your writing, or to feel like you're not as "good" as other people, and it's things like this that remind me that whether or not I'm a "good writer," what I write does matter to people. And that's just... really special to me, so thank you for writing this all. It means so much to me.

I'm glad you like the dramatic pauses and the way I write, though! When I was younger, I always tried to limit doing that sort of thing, since I knew it wasn't considered "good" or "proper" writing. But with TPWP I just... decided to let myself write how I wanted to write and not think too much about it. I wrote TPWP kind of how I think, because I wanted it to feel like it was Taka's thoughts and emotions, even if it wasn't in first person. And I'm really glad that came across!

I've always been really big into psychology and introspection, which is one of the main reasons I write about things like that a lot. I like to get into characters heads and try to figure them out. See what they'd be like if this thing happened, or if this thing hadn't happened, etc. I write about struggles, because I struggled as a kid, but in more quiet ways. I mean, all things considered I had a good life. supportive, loving parents and older brother, good grades, people generally liked me and I never got in trouble. But I was so determined to do well that I psyched myself out. I was terrified of disappointing people and losing what I had, and I crumbled in middle and high school. Luckily I had good parents so I was able to stumble through it, but it always left me feeling isolated, since I could never articulate why I felt so off inside. It wasn't until I took an "abnormal psych" class in college that I even realized I had intense anxiety.

All of this to say that I'm glad I was able to resonate with you through my writing. I could never find the words to articulate myself when I was younger, so I took to writing to try and connect with people, to get a message across. Most of my stories have some form of "moral" or "lesson" that I'm trying to get across, lessons that I had to learn myself growing up. TPWP's was that perfection is impossible and that you have to learn to accept yourself for who you are. Honestly, I put the most of myself into Taka, since while I never had a distant parental figure who wanted me to be absolutely perfect, I was kinda that figure to myself. I wanted so badly to be "perfect" and "the favorite" and when I wasn't, I freaked out. I shut down and couldn't even explain to my parents why. So, with TPWP, I wanted to let other people know that it's okay to just... be you.

I don't know if any of this is making any sense, sorry. I had a long day at work and my head is a bit jumbled. Mostly just... thanks for writing this. Things have been tough lately between school and work, and it's nice to be reminded that my stories do matter to people. I never wanted to be a professional writer, but I did always want to write something that made someone, somewhere, feel something. Hopefully something good, something cathartic.

Oh, and as for the sex thing... that was honestly unintended, ha. But I'm Ace, so to me, that's what sex is. Or what it should be. A way to connect emotionally with your partner above all else. Honestly, the only reason I wrote sex into TPWP was to explore the way it would interact with their friendship, not to be like... sexual, ha. Glad you liked how I wrote it!

Anyway, thanks again for writing this!! And I'm glad we're mutuals too! Yeah, I am part of some interesting fandoms on my main blog, but I'm glad it's not too off-putting, ha. I'll try and check out that show some day, though! I don't have a lot of emotional energy to get into a new show at the moment (as I'm sure some people can understand, since starting a new fandom can be a lot at times), but maybe once (IF) things calm down for me I'll take a look! I have seen a lot of posts about the monkie kid show, not just from you, so it's something I might check out one of these days. I'm mostly waiting for Our Flag Means Death season 2 to air tomorrow so I can get washed away into Pirate Town for the next month or so, while the episodes release. 😅😅😅

#Ask answers #Personal post #Sorry for rambling. #I hope there aren't any typos but I'm too tired to read through it so hope it makes sense!

[ghoooooooooooooooost]

ok my opinion now that i finished y8's story (spoilers)

tldr; overall it's a flawed but better end for kiryu than 6 imo. n ichiban is there <3 don't play this as your first yakuza game please don't you will get so much more out of this if you actually know who tf anyone is

it wasn't as awesomesauce as it seemed like it was gonna n it fell into the usual rgg problems - while surprisingly fixing a big one

kiryu's story effected me a lot 🥲 while ichiban's was just mostly "well i get to see ichiban yay". not to say i didn't care at all lmao the hawaii plot definitely still had it's strong moments (especially the scene w chitose after the bryce boss!!!) it just didn't hit the same overall

positive: KIRYU. i honestly loved most of the kiryu stuff. letting him look back outside of traumatic flashbacks.... letting him have a nice time..... giving him all these new friends that won't die on top of reassuring him that his old connections are still alright.... getting his ass punched by akiyama lmao. it really makes you realize how weird of an ending y6 would've been if that was truly kiryu's last game. so nice to finally be able to acknowledge previously tossed out characters/story beats in-game. seeing shinada mentioned… i cheered (i wish he was actually in there tho). on the hawaii side: tomizawa n chitose r sooooo good i didn't even think i'd end up liking chitose but i lov her.... n ichiban is the ichiban as usual

n the main villains don't die this game!? they're expected to live w what they did, even the evil cult leader!?!? kiryu's line abt not being able to change anything if you're dead wow wow wow hearing that after the prev games where a lot of them die even when they were able to change wooooooow. the pre-credits ending was sooooooo strong. I LUV KIRYU :( :) :(

<3 the tweaks to gameplay were nice too + it was a very pretty game

it had to grow on me but i like kiryu's y8 look a whole lot it's very nice n goes well w his softer expressions

negative: not as well optimized for pc (or in general) as y7 it feels like? i already said i liked kiryu's plot more than ichiban's... yeah. pretty mad that hanawa died but whatevar i guess... i understand saeko's conflict w ichiban but don't really like how they wrote her at times it made me kinda frustrated. esp w the joke at the end. really the whole y7 party took a step backwards in some ways (tho they're still great mostly) it's just saeko got it the worst. also i really don't like how long they took to get me to actually like yamai bc his reason for being in hawaii was constantly in the back of my head n then at the very end after all the fun stuff already happened they were like "actually he didn't try to assault her she framed him" fuuuuuuck you at least tell us that way earlier instead of suddenly detouring in the penultimate chapter. "well they had you warm up to him so you'd know something was up! they wouldn't make an sa-er likable!" listen. listen. i love rgg but if you think i trust them w women.... n if you think i forgot y4......... i didn't realize they still had the dating thing from 7 in there either till i saw someone else mention it n i refuse to touch it :/

too many blonde blue eyed white ppl in the substories wtf why do they outnumber the natives

my one gripe abt the kiryu side is that we didn't get to see him actually reunite w haruka n haruto IN GAAAAME BEFORE IT ENDED. LIKE WE KNO HE WILL BUT I WANTED TO SEEEEEEEE ON SCREEEEEEEN

my current ranking:

y0 = y7 > y3 > y5 > y8?? (not entirely sure bc its like. the highs n lows are so drastic) > kiwami 1 = y1 > kiwami 2 (don't get mad at me) > y6 (doooon't get mad at me i started liking it less when 8 was announced) > y4

gaiden not there bc its a short side game but i liked it so i'll mention it. didn't play the og y2 </3

#text post #pk gayming #super text heavy in there

[i-am-beckyu]

Does tubbo have a role in this au? If so, in what chapter will we see him? Since Tommy has no idea how big the world actually is, and then he sees it on a map, does he think the world is flat? What about his backstory? Did he get bullied back at the colony? If he did, maybe he flinches whenever someone raises their hand. Do the crafts ask where he came from? If so, what's his excuse? Do they believe his lie, or are they suspicious? How do colony's work in this world? Is the reason he was so small to begin something to do with his size shifting ability? What if he meets one of the old borrowers from the colony? What would his relationship have been with Tommy? Nice to him, pitying him, or bullying him. What would their reaction be to him size shifting? I want to know everything.

sorry if I'm asking too much, you don't have too answer everything. Have some cookies as an apology 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

-✨anon✨

So for now the main characters are just sbi. I may add other characters if I can think of how it ties in with the story but for now just them. (Although Tubbo and Ranboo are mentioned in this somewhere so you never know)

This is canon. Yep definitely canon. Im going to say in a previous house he saw a map on a table once and heard it was the world. But doesn’t realise it’s obviously not to scale but def thinks the world is flat. He has a very heated argument about this with the twins and refuse to think otherwise without proof.

Constantly. As I said he’s different. The borrowers of this colony really did not like that he was different and they made sure to remind him of that. They’d either outright ignore him or deliberately make him do the worst jobs possible. Some borrowers (especially the ones around his age at the time) would deliberately go out of their way and hurt him for fun. So yes. Tommy in the beginning flinches a lot when he thinks he’s about to get hurt or someone moves to fast. Takes a long time for him to not be so tense about it but everyone is very patient about it and understanding when he semi outlines the abuse. The trauma of it all still a bit too fresh in his mid for detail

Yep of course they ask where he comes from! The Crafts wanna know who they need to go beat up. But I’m not gonna say if Tommy does or doesn’t say yet. Mainly because I’m not sure. But if he hadn’t yet, he’d tell them after the reveal properly.

Colonies in this world work a lot like the one in the 1997 The Borrowers movie in terms of how they have civilisation set up. There’s traders and stores and all sorts of things but they’re spaced out heavily and more built in underground caves then sewers. It’s more common for borrowers to live in forests and such then towns, but they have tunnels connecting places everywhere. This is how Tommy went from living in the smack bang middle of nowhere in the forest to living as an innie borrower in a house. Most borrowers know of the tunnels so a lot of innie borrowers are actually traders in a sorts that they’ll live in houses and bring back the ‘exotic human Bean’ things to trade in the colonies. Tommys parents however we’re not born in a colony, tho they knew of them, and lived mainly outside. But they were not very kind people and when Tommy was born, it just became more obvious to them that their child was different and so rather than waste supplies on a child they now didn’t want, they abandoned him.

Yes. Tommy being smaller than everyone else is because of his sizeshifter abilities. Sizeshifters born are kind of stunted in height. It’s part of how you can identify them. They’re also just a lot thinner and more lanky in appearance because they have the ability to change size and this somewhat allows them to do that. (Or I think it’s just funny to describe Tommy as lanky) but yeah even as they get older, they’re just a lot weaker physically too which would be fine because their shifting sort of makes up for that aspect. So while Tommy is an inch shorter then everyone else his age in the colony, if he knew he could size shift, he wouldn’t have been hindered as much.

If Tommy ever met someone from the old colony again, I think he’d probably just run out of the walls to find Wil, Phil or Techno. I think itd probably be one of his bullies that hurt him the most and Tommy would just go into panic attack mode and run for his life while probably being chased by them. He’d then run screaming into the room for someone while the bully still pursues them, and then of course he shifts. They’d be terrified and book it back to the walls and get away as fast as possible, while Tommy receives comfort cuddles.

Tommy is just scared child that runs from danger. He needs therapy.

You can never ask too many questions. Ask me more! I need the distraction. Thank you for the cookies ✨anon✨! Have some more lollipops 🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭

#✨anon✨ my beloved #giving my Brian more ideas for jornos and I love it! #just out of reach but never out of sight au #mcyt g/t #mcyt gt #tiny!tommy #sizeshifter!tommy #borrower!tommy #beckyu answers

[bracketsoffear]

Characters I submitted that didn't make it in but I think should have (with explanations :])

Buried: Nugget from kindergarten. Yeah I'll admit my description in the submission wasn't all that great but anyways, this toddler one day decided to start digging a hole into the schoolyard sandbox and did not stop until eventually he dug through the bottom of the box and over time created what is lovingly known as the "Nugget cave," a big hole in the ground. Buried behavior

Dark: Charles/ Black Bart from no evil. "I command this dark abyss that lays waste to hundreds- he should fear me, I shall be the neo-lord of the night!" <- actual quote from the character. He controls what is known as the black tezcatlipoca or "black ick" that covers people and sends them into an endless sleep. Need I say more

Stranger: koko the clown from betty boop cartoons. Clown grandpa! The og spooky clown. Look up betty boop st James infirmary and you'll understand what I mean. Similarly to that, a lot of koko's animation especially in the earlier days used a lot of rotoscope (tracing over live action footage) and showed the character coming to life and interacting with the real world as a sort of eerie mimicry of real life motion. Also the character koko was based on one of the creators, Dave Fleischer's, clown persona irl

Hunt: Myron van Buren from poptropica. This one has some personal connections to it because this guy canonically hunts you for sport. Yes, in this browser game aimed at elementary school children, this man specifically states that he wants to shoot and display you in his trophy room. That fucked me up a bit as a kid. Also, the character is based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game," which I'm pretty sure was actually featured in the tournament

End: Fran Bow Dagenhart from Fran Bow. Well, for starters, she watched her parents die in front of her. And second, after she gets her pills in the first chapter of the game she gains abilities very similar to Oliver Banks, except instead of black tendrils showing how someone will die very soon its black shadowy creatures telling the person they're following why they should off themselves

Desolation: Lilith the siren from borderlands. In the second game she gains the alias of firehawk and has powers that include wings made of fire and burning people alive. She also accidentally formed a cult of people who enthusiastically burn each other alive for her favor. Also also she watched her love interest die in front of her and directly after was used to almost destroy the planet of pandora

Corruption: phone/typegingi from dialtown. This one is probably my favorite of these. My cryptid gingi they have every disease <3, but also they embody the concept of toxic or parasitic love shown in the corruption because in the beginning of the game, they form a parasitic transactional relationship with one of the datable characters under the false pretense of love (getting a date on valentines day to pay them into the funfair so they can lay their eggs. Long story don't ask) and in a few of the endings, use the characters for their own gain while making the other's lives exponentially worse like getting Randy a job at the funfair and lifting him up only to shatter his heart and livelihood because he's complacent enough to let gingi in the funfair whenever they want, or gaining Bigfoot's trust only to sell him to the zoo for $2, or having Karen quit her job and taking her on a date to the zoo and then leaving her for a giraffe, and well Oliver, he knew what he was signing up for. My point still stands

.

#asks #not!character propaganda #buried poll #dark poll #stranger poll #hunt poll #end poll #desolation poll #corruption poll

[dp-marvel94]

(Not) Alone - Chapter 10

Summary: Consumed with worry and scared after watching Dani almost die, Danny begs her to come home with him and meet Jazz. He wants to see her safe and happy and taken care of more than anything. An important reveal also weighs heavy on him – Dani isn’t the only living clone… and the other is him. He needs to tell her the truth; maybe that will convince her to agree to the idea of telling his parents. And she'll stay in Amity Park with him, where he'll never have to worry if she's safe ever again.

Meanwhile, Dani has mixed feelings. Still reeling from the loss of her clone siblings, Danny’s unexpected worry and care make her uncomfortable. And her own guilt… she hurt him and helped get him kidnapped twice. How can he care about a mistake like her? But having clean clothes and a bed is wonderful. And things aren’t as simple as she thinks.

Will Dani accept the help she needs and let herself be loved? Or will she push Danny and Jazz away and run again?

Word Count: 3,778

First-> Previous

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net

Note: And here is the finally chapter of my Invisobang story! Thanks for reading!

Danielle’s eyes darted up from the magazine in her hand to Danny, her original. “Is that my copy of Space?” He asked, brow wrinkled in disbelief.

The girl sat up. “Yep. I saw it on your desk.” This was it, game time. She had to gain his trust. (Her stomach twisted, sickened by the thought). She widened her eyes, putting on her best excited face. “It looked really cool. Do you like space? I like space too!”

The boy blinked. “Yes…. wait.” He frowned, pulling the magazine out of her hands. “Who even are you?”

“I’m your cousin, Danielle.” She lied through her teeth, not even a hint of guilt. (But she should feel guilty, shouldn’t she?) “I might’ve ran away from home?…” She swung her tennis-shoed feet off the bed, jumping to the floor. “Hey, do you have any food?”

Before Danny had any time to ask, the clone girl high-tailed it out of the room. 

“Hey!” He called through the door. “Wait!”

Ignoring the call, Danielle hurried down the stairs. Soon, Danny followed, watching with crossed arms as she pulled food out of the fridge. 

“Spaghetti! Yum!” The girl dropped the Tupperware on the counter. “And… Oh! A burger!” She pulled the sandwich out of a paper bag.

The boy reached for the bag. “Yeah, that’s my… dinner.” His voice pitched down, disbelieving as she took a huge bite. “I guess it’s yours now.”

Oblivious, Danielle ate the rest of the burger and fries.

“You said you’re my cousin. Danielle, right?” He frowned. “ But I’ve never heard of you?”

She expertly side-stepped the question. “You have any soda?”

“In the door. And answer the question.” He pointed. “How did you even get in here?”

Again, the girl avoided the question. She riffled through the fridge, eating everything she could get her hands on. All the while ignoring Danny’s growing stunned confusion. Eventually he gave up on the questions, just leaving her to eat.

Danielle burped, patting her stomach. “So good.” She gushed dreamily. Much better than that nutrient sludge Father gave her and her brothers.

“Had enough to eat now?” Danny raised a brow. At the girl’s nod… “Good. Now,” He grabbed her wrist, pulling her to her feet. “We need to go talk to my parents.”

“No!” The girl tried to pull away, suddenly panicked. 

“We have to call your parents!” He argued.

“I said, no!” She broke out of his hold, running up the stairs.

“Hey! Wait!” Danny called after. 

As soon as she got into his room, she transformed and phased through the wall. Flying up to the roof, she signaled to Muscles it was time. “Let’s put on a show!”

And put on a show they did. Danny and his ‘cousin’ versus the big monstrous muscly ghost.

One of Danielle’s ectoblasts shakily connected with Muscles’ gut, sending him crashing to the pavement again. Another shot from Danny…

Light flashed through the alley, bathing the scene. And… a blink. A spatter of ectoplasm and… Muscles was… gone? No. No. He just disappeared, flew away, not-

Danielle landed on the roof, rings forming around her waist. 

Danny landed at her side, eyes wide at the sight. He bombarded her with questions, the words hardly perforating her watery brain.

“How are you half ghost too?! That’s-” The girl tipped forward, pretending to faint. (Or maybe with her head swimming, she wasn’t quite pretending) “Well, I guess I’ll have to wait.”

He dragged her downstairs, mutters sounding….. Confused? Incredulous? (Worried?). Her mind couldn’t grasp it, body slipping into sleep.

Muscles was gone. He was gone. That wasn’t the plan! But she needed Danny to trust her! He had to help her. He had to. (Guilt. Guilt. She was a horrible person, tricking him like this.) Father was depending on her. Daniel and Tiny and Bones too! They needed her. This had to work.

In the morning, Danielle slipped away. Then, later she appeared at school…. 

“...Super powered cousin I didn’t know anything about.” His brow scrunched, confused. “But get this, we don’t have any cousins. Dad’s an only child. Aunt Alicia doesn’t have any kids. I have no idea how this girl could be related to us. I even asked Jazz-” 

“Hi Danny!” In ghost form, she blinked into existence in the middle of his lunch table.

He startled, jumping back. 

“There you are.” Ducking under the table, she turned human.

Panic flashed across his face, paranoid eyes flickering around the cafeteria. Danielle poked her head out from under and Danny leaned down, hissing. “You can’t just come in here and use your powers like that.” (Again… guilt and hurt. She messed up again; that could have exposed him. She wanted him to like her….)

The girl laughed. “Aw come on. It was funny.” She waved it off.

Then twin ghost senses puffed out of both their mouths. Dashing across the ceiling came a neon green dot. (Her littlest brother, Tiny, Damian)

“Shall we?” Danielle offered her hand.

“I..I still have questions.” Danny furrowed his brow.

“Let’s just catch that ghost.” Her eyes widened, as innocent and earnest as she could manage. “Then I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

Face softening, Danny agreed. 

They ran out of the cafeteria, darting into the empty janitor’s closet to transform.

“Race ya!” The girl grinned, taking off.

“Oh, you’re on!” The boy laughed.

They chased each other through the sky. It was working! He was following her. Now she just had to bring him to Father. (Father… her insides writhed with disgust. No. No. That was a mistake. She couldn’t bring him to Vlad. She couldn’t) 

Dani managed to lose Danny.

“Funny joke around Vlad isn’t here today.” Father floated in front of her original, arms crossed. 

The man shot, Danny countering. Struggling in the air, the boy groaned with effort. His eyes lit up as Dani reappeared… “Help me!”

“Oh, I am.” Dani grinned sinisterly. 

“What-”

She shot the boy in the back.

Spayed on the ground, a look of betrayal painted his face. “I…I don’t understand.”

“Did I do good, Daddy?” Danielle looked up at the oldest half ghost, eyes full of admiration.

Father… Vlad’s hand gripped her shoulder. “You did excellent, child.”

(No. No. This was wrong.) Danny’s eyes, wide and hurt. (Guilt stabbed. No. She’d… she’d hurt him. This was wrong. She… she didn’t… She was so sorry).

Vlad shot him again and the boy passed out….

Images flashed faster.

In the lab, Vlad ranting. “I would watch a hundred more failures dissolve into ectoplasm to get my perfect clone, half ghost son.”

Her lip trembling. “Am… Am I an imperfection? A mistake?”

For a blink, Vlad looked caught. Then…. His face smoothed (lying through his teeth). “What? Haha, dearest. I wasn’t talking about you.”

She shot Danny in the back. “You’re not going anywhere! Stop fighting.”

A scream, her feet turning to goo.

“I don’t wanna hurt you.” Danny’s hand out, placating.

“Then let my father have your mid-morph DNA!” Dani’s fist balled. “So he can save me!”

“He’s not gonna save you. He’s using you.” Arms spread, desperate. “You’re just a mistake he’s not gonna clean up!” 

“You’re a liar!” Another blast. Her vision drowned in green.

Dani woke with her heart pounding and heavy. Laying on the cot alone, it was cold. Her core ached. Almost without thought, she rolled out of bed. She stumbled through the dark, a few feet to the bed her brother was sleeping on. Before she registered what she was doing, Dani was laying across from him, under the thick quilt.

“Dani?” The boy groaned sleepily, peering half-lidded eyes at him.

And the guilt came flooding back. The jolt of the bed moving as she got in must have woken him up. 

The older half ghost must have picked up on something in her facial expression. “What is it?” He asked, pushing himself up to sit. “Did you have a bad dream?”

A bad dream… Her throat felt thick, full of emotions. The girl nodded, tears stinging behind her eyes as she also sat. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The question was so gentle, so kind; Dani felt even more like she would cry. For a long minute, she didn’t respond, the shame stabbing at her. She’d hurt Danny. She tricked him, got him kidnapped, shot him in the back. He should hate her. He should have been furious. And yet… 

“You’re just a mistake he’s not gonna clean up!” 

The words, the anger in them felt like a stab to the core. 

“Did you really… really think I’m just a mistake?” The words (somehow easier than her own shame) tumbled out.

The boy’s eyes widen, confused and… hurt.

“At Vlad’s, when Danny… you… tried to convince me to help him…” She inexplicably rambled. (She didn’t want to be saying this. She didn’t want an answer so why…) “He said I was just��� just a mistake Vlad wasn’t gonna clean up. And… and that was right. Vlad never… never loved me. And… and I hurt Danny. I was bad. I hurt him. You remember that.” The tears finally broke loose. “You should be mad. You should hate me. Danny must have-”

“Shhh. It’s okay.” Her brother’s hands enveloped hers. “Dani, you are not a mistake, I swear.” Each word carefully emphasized… “I am so so sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it. And I’m not mad. I… I was hurt then. And scared. But I’ve never ever hated you.”

Dani wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it so badly but the question that had plagued her last night… “Are you just saying that because you’re Tiny?” She pulled her hands away.

The boy blinked once. “No. Of course not.”

“Do you just care about me because of the Dami part?” Her breath hitched. Why? Why? Why was she asking this? Why was she poking these holes? (She wanted to be forgiven… and she didn’t. She wanted Danny to love her… and she didn’t. She… she wanted to deserve it. And… she didn’t.)

Yet she still asked. “Danny, that Danny didn’t even know me. And I hurt him. How could… could that Danny love… love me too?”

The older half ghost paused for a moment. She could see it in his eyes, his mind spinning with the question. Then… those eyes softened. “Dani…” Voice so tender, so loving. “Loving you was the first thing we agreed on.”

Dani froze. “What do you…”

He smiled, though melancholy lingered deep behind it. “You were there, right after the fusion. You saw what I was like….”

Dani shuddered, picturing it. The boy in front of her, his black hair greasy with sweat and disarrayed. Glassy eyed and stumbling. Mind far away. 

“I.. I don’t think I’d have made it if you hadn’t been there.” The shaky admittance. “If you hadn’t been there to protect.”

She saw it, the moment in her mind’s eye. That vacant gaze passing over her and… focusing. The deliberate intake of breath, posture shifting with a look of determination. Danny (her brother) spread his arms, stepping in between her and Vlad. Shielding her.

A tiny moment, inconsequential in that earth-shattering day. But now… 

“You did protect me.” Dani breathed. She knew that, of course. Danny was a hero. He protected people all the time. And she’d just helped him, letting him out of the chamber, despite Vlad’s order. Of course, he’d fight with her. But… “That… that was both?”

The boy nodded. “I didn’t even know what had happened yet. Everything was brand new but… I remember needing to protect you, to make sure you were okay.” His brow furrowed, as if deep in memory. “I..I barely even existed yet. I was barely conscious. More of a we than a me. But both parts of me agreed. We wanted to protect you.”

They’d both wanted to protect her. Both. Tiny, the little clone brother she knew. And… and Danny, her original who she’d hurt and betrayed…

“So, Yes, Dani. Original Danny-me loved you. This Danny loves you too. And I’m sure if the fusion hadn’t happened and I was just the boy you were cloned from… I’d be telling you the same thing. I never hated you. And I never ever could.”

For a long moment, Dani just looked at him, processing the words. Then… “Even though I betrayed you?” The question was so quiet, full of pain and guilt.

His eyes…. Wide and kind. “That was never going to change that.” Full of compassion and… love.

Dani felt like she would break, her heart wanting to believe. But.... “I helped… I helped Vlad hurt you. I…I should have known better but…. I still did.” This. This was what had been burning on her tongue last night, the shame she should have voiced. “You… you never asked for this. To be cloned. Or responsible for me. Or… or even the fusion.” And oh, how those words hurt…. Because without that Dami wouldn’t be stable, wouldn’t be here at all and she’d… she’d really be alone.

“Dani…. Listen to me.” Again, her brother reached for her hand and this time, Dani didn’t pull away. “All the stuff Vlad convinced you to do wasn’t your fault. You’re a child and he was your dad. He shouldn’t have manipulated you. And he used you. He used you to do bad things that you regret.” His hand squeezed. “He hurt both of us, all of us. All us clones. You did absolutly nothing wrong.”

“But… But…” The tears dripped down her face, the hard shell around her heart cracking. “Danny… you still never… never asked for this. You shouldn’t have been cloned. You… you shouldn’t have to be responsible for me.”

“You’re right.” The girl stiffened at the words. Then… “You were made without my consent. But…” Danny wrapped his arms around her. “That does not mean you are a mistake. Or imperfect. Or any other horrible thing Vlad told you. And being responsible for you?” His voice pitched up, dripping with warmth. “That’s what family does. We take care of each other. And you are family.”

Another splinter in the shield… “So you’re not… not mad you have to deal with me or…” 

“Deal with you?” The boy squeezed her even harder. “When I saw you destabilize at Vlad’s… that… that was the worse moment of my life.” One hand rested on the back of her head, gently. As if she was precious. “I was so relieved you were okay. And I am so, so damn happy you exist.”

He’d… he’d said the same that first morning before she’d yelled at him. Before he’d told her about the fusion. He…he really did love her…. 

But… One last doubt….

Shakily, Dani wrapped her arms around him, returning the hug. “And the fusion?”

“I like who I am now.” The smile was audible in the words… “Yeah, neither of me meant for this to happen. But I’m happy it did. I’m happy Dami’s still here and you’re not the only clone who’s left.” Sincere, not a hint of doubt or bitterness. As if… it was as simple as that.

For a long moment, Dani said nothing, just processing the words and letting herself be hugged. 

Finally….“Everything that happened with Vlad, between us… There is nothing to forgive. I never blamed you, Dani. You can stop blaming yourself.”

The clone girl broke, the weight of the words crashing over her as the barrier around her heart shattered. “I want to believe you. I do. But…”

“It’s hard.” Danny completed her sentence.

Dani nodded, crying into his shoulder. She believed him, every word. Though it sounded incredible, impossible, she believed. He… Dami, her clone brother, and Danny, her original…. Loved her. He wanted her in his life, was happy she existed. And he forgave her for all the hurt.

No. He never blamed her in the first place. He was never angry. There was nothing to forgive. 

Part of her core still whispered that it wasn’t true, that she didn’t deserve any of it (Maybe it always would…). But… 

You can stop blaming yourself.

“I…I wanna stop blaming myself.” She didn’t… didn’t know how to. But she wanted to, needed to. She needed to forgive herself, to let go.

“You’re already doing so great.” Danny’s voice trembled. ”Just telling me all this, letting me help you.”

The girl just nodded again, burying her head in his shoulder. 

Danny held her and… Jazz eventually rolled off the couch, joining. Slowly, slowly, Dani opened her heart and started talking.

It was hard. Everything that had happened since she first woke up from her chamber had been hard. Vlad and losing her brothers and betraying Danny and being alone. Almost dying a week ago and coming to FentonWorks, despite her discomfort. Fighting with Danny, trying to push him away. But… he’d not given up on her.

“Thank you for… for listening to me and crying with me and forgiving me and…. And just being here.” 

So much in her life had been hard but… she’d experienced good too. Warm food, clean clothing, a place to sleep. Fun, adventure. Safety, companionship. Understanding, forgiveness… Love.

“I love you, Danny.” Another hug. “You’re a good big brother.” 

So much love. Her brother (Danny, Dami, and just himself) loved her. Jazz loved her. And she loved them.

“Jazz, you’re my sister too.” Dani finally said what her heart had been pushing her towards. “You’re a good big sister.”

The three hugged her with their own reassurances, their own promises of love. And Dani felt them down to her core. And that love, finally free of doubt, finally gave her the courage.

“I want to stay here, in the Far Frozen.” The girl pulled out of the hug, smiling softly. “Frostbite is really nice and so was Snowflake. I love the ice drakes and the sculpture garden. The murals are so cool. And the library. And I made so many friends at the dance tonight.” 

Dani took another breath, the nervous ramble slowing. Across from her, Danny and Jazz both smiled at her excitement but under the surface… just a hint of sadness lingered in her brother’s eyes.

The girl sobered, wringing her hands. “I know you guys want me to stay with you, at Fentonworks. And part of me does too. I love the idea of seeing you every day and hanging out but…” A final steeling breath. “I’m not ready to meet your parents yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. But I know I’ll be safe and happy here.” Her voice quieted, eyes fixing down. “Please let me stay.”

A heavy pause, the only sound her siblings’ quiet breathing. Then…“Okay.” 

Dani looked up, meeting Danny’s wide, compassionate eyes…

“It’s your choice, Dani. It always has been.” 

Jazz nodded, agreeing. “Don’t do what Danny and I want, little sister.” A gentle, earnest smile. “You can do what you want.”

That final permission made her core melt. The girl fell into her older siblings’ arms. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the morning, the storm had passed. Frostbite woke the three with promises of a hearty breakfast. 

Sure enough, the food was delicious. Snowflake, Icefang, and many other yetis Danny knew and Dani had just met the day before, joined the meal. Still others arrived to share parting words. Goodbyes were said, leftovers thrust in Danny’s hands. One of the mechanics and his apprentice checked the speeder, intent on ‘the Great One and his kin’s safe journey and departure’. Departure….

The word weighed heavy on Danny’s heart as he and Jazz prepared to leave… without Dani. 

“She will be well taken care of here, I assure you.” The yeti chief placed a comforting paw on the ghost boy’s back.

Danny turned, burying his face in his mentor’s chest. “I know.” He did know. He trusted the yetis; there was nowhere his little sister would be safer. But still... He looked up, heart twisting. “I’ll visit soon.”

“We will eagerly await your return.” The adult smiled warmly.

“Yeah!” Dani enthused, flying up beside her brother. “I’ll see you soon.”

Letting go, Danny pulled the younger half ghost into a hug. “If you need me for anything, tell Frostbite. He can send a messenger and I’ll be here before you know it.”

For a second, the girl squirmed, complaining. “Mother Duck.” Then… she returned the embrace. “Okay. I will.” Voice lowered, she muttered into his shoulder. “Love you”

His heart squeezed, feeling the same. “Love you too.”

Over Dani’s shoulder, a group of yeti kids called. “Dani!” “You havta come sled with us!” “Dani! Over here!” “We’re goin’ sledding!”

The girl pulled out of her brother’s arms. Her gaze flickered back hesitantly. 

“Well?” Danny raised a brow. Then, slowly smiling. “You should go play with your friends.”

Dani grinned. Then, after giving Jazz a quick goodbye and hug, she darted off. “Hey guys! Wait for me.”

The ghost boy watched his younger sister fly off, a bittersweet feeling crowding his core.

Jazz stepped toward him. After a pause… “Are you ready to go?”

Danny’s eyes didn’t move, still fixed on the other half ghost flying across the snow. He worried his lip, yet he still nodded affirmative.

“I’m still going to worry about her too.” His older sister laid an arm over his shoulders. “You are a good big brother.”

That drew the boy’s attention to the older girl, his anxious brow slowly un-creasing. He leaned into the half hug. “You think so?”

“Yes.” Jazz said without a doubt. Then, she muttered, close to his ear. “She'll be okay.”

Danny’s eyes fixed back on Dani, the girl now running up a snow drift with a circular sled of ice. She arrived at the top, sitting. One of her new friends gave her a push and…

“Woah!!! Yeah!” The girl’s elated shout rang through the square.

Dani sped down the hill, arriving at the bottom in seconds. Then… “Umph!”

She flew off the sled, landing in a heap. The supervising adult and several of the yeti kids rushed forward to check if she was alright.

But within two blinks, Dani shot up. “That was awesome!”

His core squeezed, the tension it had been holding for months releasing. Slowly, he smiled. “Come on. We should get going.” 

He floated towards the speeder, Jazz entering the craft first. 

Danny lingered in the doorway. Dani was running up the hill again. Now at the top…

“Bye Danny!” His sister waved.

The boy waved back. “Bye Dani!”

Finally. Finally, he let go. A soft, secret whisper to himself. “Yeah, she’ll be okay.”

#Danny Phantom #my fic #invisobang 2023 #Invisobang #(not) alone

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Ikevamp Act 2.5

Chapter 16 Romantic

On the night of the Paris World's Fair bombing, I returned to the mansion for the first time in a while.

After some deliberation, I took Halil back with me and showed him to my room.

Mitsuki: "I'm sure you're still in pain, so you should stay here and rest, Halil."

Halil: "Okay. Thanks, big sister."

I left the room and went to the living room.

Isaac & Jean: "Mitsuki!"

There, all the residents of the mansion are gathered around, perhaps being informed of my return.

Mitsuki: "I'm so sorry for worrying you all!"

A large hand patted my deeply bowed head.

Napoleon: "Whatever the case, I'm glad you're safe, Mitsuki."

Jean: "I'm sorry for not noticing you were gone."

Isaac: "Are you hurt anywhere? You're so reckless once you're on your own."

Napoleon, Jean, and Isaac were with me back then, so they must have been worried.

Mitsuki: "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm really sorry. Thank you for worrying about me."

Dazai: "I'm relieved that you're safe, Toshiko-san. By the way..."

Dazai suddenly shifted his gaze.

Dazai: "Who are those three unfamiliar faces over there? Are those who I think they are?"

Leonardo: "That’s right."

Vlad: "This is the first time we've met in person like this."

Vlad: "I'm Vlad. Glad to meet all of Comte's family."

Arthur: "So those two fellows over there are Johann Georg Faust and..."

Mozart: "Charles-Henri Sanson."

Faust: "I never thought we would meet head-on like this."

Charles: "................."

There is a tense atmosphere as everyone is gathered in the same room.

Jean: "So you're the one behind Gilles's manipulation and even Mitsuki's abduction."

Vlad: "That's right. Oh, Will. You're here too, long time no see."

Shakespeare: "Lord Vlad, what brings you to the mansion?"

Napoleon: "You didn't just come to drop Mitsuki off, did you?"

Comte: "Let me explain that to you."

Comte first tells everyone that I was at the World's Fair with Vlad and that I got caught up in the bombing.

Theo: "What are you doing at the World's Fair with these guys again, Hondje?"

Mitsuki: "That's..."

Charles: "I invited her to go. I wanted Mitsuki to smile."

Vincent: "For Mitsuki?"

Theo and Vincent both look surprised, but Comte continues his story.

Comte: "We took a boy into custody at the scene of the bombing. His name is Halil, and we brought him home."

Comte: "He was on display at the World's Fair as an exhibit."

~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~

Halil: "Please, find my sister!"

Halil pleaded with tears in his eyes.

Halil and his wandering clan were forced to participate in the Paris World's Fair after repeated negotiations with the showman.

However, when they were brought to Paris, his sister, who had come with them, went missing.

Halil: "When my sister disappeared, I saw the man who brought us here getting paid by someone."

Halil: "So I thought maybe she was sold somewhere."

(That's, don't tell me...)

Faust: "Human trafficking?"

Leonardo: "That means the showman is connected to the traffickers."

When Halil and his group questioned the showman, he told them that he had left the matter in the hands of the police, and they had no permission to go looking for his sister, so he was forced to work as an exhibit.

Halil: "If anything happens to my sister―to Ulfa, I..."

~~~~~~~Flashback Ends~~~~~~~

Mozart: "I'm starting to get the story. You want to save the boy and his sister?"

Mitsuki: "Yes. I don't know if the police will act, but I can't just turn a blind eye to this."

(Besides, it might be some kind of coincidence that we are all meeting like this.)

Mozart: "You seem very determined."

Dazai: "It's a very straightforward idea, just like you."

As I felt relieved that everyone was listening, Arthur, with a serious expression on his face, frowned slightly.

Arthur: "I understand how you feel, Mitsuki."

Arthur: "But why do those vampires even want to meddle in this case?"

(I was wondering about that too. Why did Vlad even show up in front of everyone and come with us?)

(He seems like he cares about Halil, though.)

Vlad opens his lips as everyone's eyes are focused on him.

Vlad: "Halil and his sister―they are a little different from other humans."

Vlad: "They are probably a Dhampir, one with vampire blood. A descendant of it."

(Dhampir?)

The fact that Halil has vampire blood and the unfamiliar word is confusing.

Comte: "A Dhampir is a hybrid between a pureblood vampire and a human."

According to what Comte tells us, pureblooded vampires differ in the way they relate to humans depending on their clan.

Some clans consider humans only as their prey and do not interact with them at all. Others hide their true identities and blend in with human society, but some reveal their true identities to humans and seek coexistence with them.

Comte: "Some of the purebloods made love to humans. Some tried to be together, while others parted, but..."

Comte: "Halil's ancestors probably bonded with a pureblood and miraculously produced a mixed-breed child, Dhampir."

Because of the difference in race between humans and vampires, it's difficult for both to have children, and in most cases, Dhampirs are rarely born safely or grow up to adulthood.

Vlad: "In a way, you could say that Dhampir is the end result of vampires and humans trying to coexist."

(Coexistence...?)

Leonardo: "Ancestral Dhampirs grew up and had offspring with humans..."

Leonardo: "I guess the end result of that cycle is Halil and his sister."

Comte: "I don't think he's aware that he has vampire blood in him..."

Comte: "Halil has a very little vampire in him. He wouldn't even need to drink blood."

Vlad: "However, the stories of his ancestors were passed down in the family as folklore."

Vlad: "The showman took note of their different ethnicity and strange folklore..."

Vlad: "I guess he brought Halil and his family along to make a show of it."

Neither the showman nor Halil and the others believe the lore to be true.

Vlad: "But what if they really have vampire blood in their veins?"

(Ah!)

Vlad's words brought to mind a scene I saw at the World's Fair.

~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~

Showman: "This boy here, Halil, is a descendant of the head of a certain family."

Showman: "And it is said that his ancestors once mingled with a fearsome vampire and produced an offspring!"

Onlooker 2: "You have the blood of a monster in your veins? Might as well see if you have any interesting fangs."

~~~~~~~Flashback Ends~~~~~~~

The sound of the onlookers' mocking voices is not something nice to recall.

Isaac: "Wait, not many people believe in vampires that easily, do they?"

Faust: "But even if there's no basis for it, if it continues to be talked about, as it was at the World's Fair..."

Faust: "The family could be looked upon as an abomination."

Charles: "You mean they will be hated and persecuted...?"

Sebastian: "I have heard that even now, people are being made suspects in bombings simply because they are of a different race."

(Place of birth, environment, race. Minor differences like that can lead to discrimination and suspicion.)

If such negative feelings develop among people, the family may be ostracized in the worst-case scenario.

Vincent: "Vlad, are you saying that you also want to help them?"

Theo: "Are you worried that the vampire's existence might be carelessly exposed to the world?"

Vlad: "Whatever the reason, yes."

(Then everyone and Vlad feel the same way.)

(If we all work together, we can even help Halil.)

If we could join hands as Comte and Vlad did in the past, we would be able to reach out to each other.

Such faint hopes are held in my heart.

Dazai: "Let me ask you something."

Dazai: "If you saved their clan, what will you do with those who preyed on them afterward?"

(----!)

Vlad: "................"

My heart made a sickening sound at Dazai's question.

(Vlad has the ambition to manage thoughts so that humans don't commit stupid sins.)

(He says he's willing to make sacrifices in the process.)

If he follows that belief, Vlad...

Vlad: "I don't need flowers that do evil. I don't need those who have become irredeemably ugly and evil in this world."

Vlad: "I will reap the bud of sin, even if it stains my hands with blood."

Comte: "Vlad!"

Vlad's relentlessness instantly caused everyone's air to tense up.

Mitsuki: "Wait, Vlad! If you keep making sacrifices like that, you will..."

(You'll crush your own heart, more and more.)

Vlad: "I just don't want people to make mistakes."

Vlad: "They hate and kill each other. No one should ever have to experience that kind of sorrow again."

For a moment, Vlad's eyes turn sad and shadowy, but they are quickly drowned out by his strong will.

Napoleon: "Is that your justice, Vlad?"

Vlad: "Yeah."

Napoleon's words poke at a gap that cannot be filled.

Vlad gave only a short reply, stood up, and turned his back on us.

Jean: "Wait. Where are you going!?"

Vlad: "I'm not going to excuse myself for what I put you guys through. You can come after me and put your sword through this chest."

Vlad: "I'm not going to die, though."

His crimson eyes looked back at me, and our gazes locked.

Mitsuki: "Vlad..."

Vlad: "Mitsuki, I'm sorry I couldn't give you what you wanted."

Vlad: "For the future of this world, I will make my choice, even if no one understands it."

Vlad: "Bye-bye, Comte, Mitsuki."

The smile he gave me as he said goodbye was so beautiful it made me speechless.

Faust & Charles: "............"

Faust and Charles also left the room after Vlad, and I just stood there.

(Why it's not possible?)

(Why can't we just go hand in hand...?)

Everyone watched in silence as their footsteps faded into the distance.

Vlad, noticing the presence following him, asks them both without slowing down his steps.

Vlad: "Both of you, do you not want to go to Comte and the others?"

Charles: "Nah, the only lord for me is you, Lord Vlad. Right, Docteur?"

Faust: "I simply prefer the more interesting guinea pig."

Faust: "If I'm going to go after a pureblood, I prefer to dissect an old geezer so creepy it makes me want to peek inside his head."

Charles: "You really are a twisted person."

Vlad smiles unconsciously at the unchanged attitude of both of them.

Charles: "Hey, Lord Vlad, do you want to help that family because you're like them?"

Vlad: ".............."

Vlad: "Pity and compassion may sound kind, but in the end, it's all about my staggering ego."

Faust: "Ego?"

Vlad: "Helping only those you can reach is a stopgap measure. This cruel world will not change."

Vlad: "I know that, but..."

Vlad: "A descendant of Dhampir, born of the coexistence of humans and vampires."

Vlad: "I just couldn't abandon that existence."

Faust & Charles: "............"

Faust: "Everyone's heart is so egoistic."

The conversation melted into the quiet night, and the three disappeared into the woods without looking back at the mansion.

Comte: "Vlad was once treated badly as a child by someone he trusted."

Comte: "Maybe he compared his own circumstances to that family."

Leonardo: "Whatever the past may have been, it's no reason to forgive inhumanity. We have no right to condemn his righteousness."

Napoleon: "But we can't just leave Vlad alone now that he's involved in all this."

(Vlad's heartfelt wish is for a kind world where vampires and humans live together.)

(Why are we so different from each other?)

We understand each other's feelings, but our hearts don't click like we are out of each other's reach.

I feel like I'm lost in a maze with no way out.

As I was thinking about this, I noticed a small shadow peeking into the room.

Mitsuki: "Halil?"

Halil: "I'm causing trouble for everyone. I'm sorry."

Mitsuki: "No, it's not your fault."

I crouch down in front of Halil, who apologetically slumps his shoulders.

He looked at me with big eyes. Suddenly, Vlad's words came back to me.

~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~

Vlad: "In a way, you could say that Dhampir is the end result of vampires and humans trying to coexist."

~~~~~~~Flashback Ends~~~~~~~

(Existence for coexistence.)

He has a faint hint of vampire blood in him, inherited from his ancestors.

In the distant past, his ancestors, both human and vampire, were united.

Even if they are of different races, live different lengths of time, or think differently, they surely seek to know the other person.

Connecting heart to heart.

(Everyone can be connected. Halil's existence proves it.)

Halil: "Big sister?"

I gently hold Halil's hand.

His slightly warm body temperature, distinctive of a child, overlapped with my own, and I felt encouraged by it.

(Let's believe again that we can hold each other's hands...)

(I'll connect us all...)

(So I'm not going to waver anymore.)

I stand up, still holding hands with Halil, and turn to everyone.

I look over at each person's face and speak my mind.

Mitsuki: "Everyone, I want to help Halil and his clan. And I also want to stop Vlad."

Comte: "Mitsuki..."

Mitsuki: "I know it's out of line to ask you to do this after the attack led by Vlad."

Mitsuki: "But I don't want his hands to be stained with more blood."

(Humans commit sins and mistakes. But if he still says he likes humans...)

(No matter how distorted that love may be, I want to be sincere with him as a human being.)

Napoleon: "Mitsuki, I don't know if your desperation will stop that guy. Do you still want to?"

Mitsuki: "Still. I don't want to give up before I've done anything yet."

Mitsuki: "I know this is all a selfish request. But please lend me your help!"

This is ego, arrogance, and pretense. But still, I bowed my head, knowing everything.

The silence continues for what feels like an eternity.

Comte: "This might be my last chance to find out what's in that guy's heart."

Mitsuki: "Comte..."

Shakespeare: "Lord Vlad himself has made a move. He will not abandon the family like this."

Dazai: "Then I guess there will be another chance for contact, huh?"

Mozart: "You're really reckless."

Jean: "It's not the first time."

The twelve of them smile and nod.

(Everyone...)

I felt our hearts unite, and my chest burns passionately.

I said "thank you" in a hushed voice and squeezed Halil's hand.

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