#living for all eternity with an infinite time to fuck and read books

[crazycatgirl420]

Fuck Around, Find Out

Ghost King Danny tutors Impulse, Bart Allen, in Summoning magic after a horrible drunken Summoning disaster.

Part 1

Monday came much too soon. Danny had spent his weekend preparing his first lesson for Bart, considering he was so deep in his non-belief of magic that he nearly started a war, Danny decided they would have to start with the basics as taught to newly formed entities in the Realms.

Danny removed his pc and monitors from his desk, snapping on a white board attachment and putting several notebooks, pens, pencils, and markers in the drawers. He held his folder of lesson plans and his own notebook. At exactly four o'clock he put one hand on the desk and appeared right in front of his Contractor.

There was a crash sound behind him, and a wide eyed red-head on the couch, a game controller in his hand.

"We agreed on four to six for your lessons." Danny reminded him. "We have a lot to cover and I do not want to spend my entire existence teaching you."

Thee human grimaced but nodded. "What are we doing today?"

"You'll be learning to read and write," Danny said. "Magic is its own language, if you don't know it you can't effectively use it."

Bart spent two hours copying the Infinite Realms Dictionary of Magic into his first notebook while Danny read it aloud.

"There are six hundred and seventy languages used in this dimensions magical script," Danny explained. "As a living being born of this realm you only need to be fluent in those six hundred seventy languages, which is a lot less than what I had to learn as a being of the Infinite Realms-"

Bart paused in writing, glancing at the book he was copying from. '670 Alphabets, Beginning to End'

"I'll leave you with the Dictionaries to study in your own time. On Wednesday we'll go over grammar, and Friday we'll practice speaking. You'll have the weekend to practice as you wish and next week will be your first set of tests,"

"Tests next week?" Bart asked. "After only three days of lessons?"

"This is easy stuff," Danny said. "You're magical friends learn this as young children before they even choose a specialty."

Bart had a week to learn six hundred languages. He couldn't believe Raven or Zatanna knew all these languages, and only a week to learn them all was insane.

"Keep working," Danny said. "We don't have time for you to change your mind now. You signed a contract, I can't even explain what that entails until you understand magic script. The gibberish you scrawled on the floor in your drunken Summoning could've been the end of your deminsion and every deminsion that surrounds yours."

Bart kept writing.

Two hours for Bart tended to feel like an eternity but Phantom taught at the same speed Bart lived his life normally. There was no slacking off for milliseconds waiting for outside time to catch up. Phantom kept up, as soon as Bart finished a notebook another was handed to him. Phantom recited the dictionary and passages on culture, history, and traditions with ease, asking questions and having Bart read the passages as he copied them down.

"You have until I return on Wednesday to learn all six hundred and seventy languages here." Phantom said, pulling several stacks of books out of the desk. "Feel free to ask those magical friends of yours about magic script of you don't believe me, though your inability to believe them was what lead to this in the first place,"

Phantom left just like he has appeared, with a flash of light and an ice cold breeze.

Bart groaned, eyeing the stacks of books with regret. This was going to be a lot of reading.

#dpxdc #ghost king danny #Fuck Around Find Out

[beevean]

I find it very interesting (A.K.A. annoying) how the idw comic tries defending this whole "sonic never kills" nonsense by bringing up every bad person who's turned around. But they also blatantly ignore all the times Sonic did kill or was fine with letting someone die

Dark gaia

Time eater

King Arthur

Solaris

Erazor Djinn (eternal damnation)

Ifrit

Captain behemoth

Bio Lizard

Explicitly tells Infinite he's going to kill him

The Ifrit (the one from Sonic rivals 2)

Captain whisker

Black Doom (Shadow was the one who finished him off, but the point is Sonic has no problem with other people killing either)

The idw comic's writing only barely functions if you blatantly ignore everything outside of it, and even then, it's still extremely iffy.

Secret Rings is canon to IDW, btw. Sonic had a flashback to the events of that game in #16.

"Everyone deserves a chance to be free, even the evil doctors," Sonic says after he yeeted Erazor Djinn in lava :)

Also yeah, some of these are creatures whose level of sapience is questionable... but not all of them. Solaris never speaks in his full form, but Mephiles is explicitly his mind, so we know that he's a cunning, sadistic deity. Sonic slashed King Arthur fully believing he was a real person, and he did act like one. Also Sonic is the very first person Shadow meets in his game, and the very first thing he asks of him is to kill all the aliens in Westopolis, with the goal ofc of reaching the "big boss" if you go through the Pure Hero route. Again, the sapience of the Black Arms is questionable, but those are still living creatures who might as well be slaves for all he knows. Doesn't care! He'll kill them all!

Sonic doesn't have a rule when it comes to his enemies: he's not a pacifist, he's not the Punisher. He either listens to them, or cuts to the chase: it depends on how unrepentant they come across. The very idea of him having a "principle" about it is ridiculous. Sonic doesn't have principles, he doesn't follow rules, he does what he wants to do.

I get the moral dilemma around Mr. Tinker: he's a blank slate genuinely willing to do good, so does he deserve to be punished for crimes he didn't commit? I don't know why Flynn felt the need to insert such a moral dilemma in a book that he himself has said is for kids and thus can't properly explore the concept of identity and sins, but whatever.

Problem is that, somewhere along the line, they started to treat him not as a brain damaged version of Eggman who might as well be a different person, but as "Eggman reformed", which is insane and even creepy from Sonic. It's just absurd that IDW Sonic based his entire moral code, that everyone has the chance to become a better person, after he witnessed his war criminal of an archnemesis simply getting brain damage, and somehow thinking that this amnesiac personality reflected Eggman's real ego. What the fuck.

Oh, and then this ridiculous shit lmao:

Not only Sonic would never play villain apology for Eggman of all people, but those examples are nothing but proof of how selfish Eggman is. He never cared about protecting the planet because of some hidden depths. My man spells his reasoning out very clearly:

But now Sonic passes off those strained alliances as some good deeds and proof that Eggman is not so bad after all. "Grade-A jerk", huh? Is that how you describe the guy who broke the planet into pieces and was willing to destroy the spacetime continuum for the sake of killing you? What's next, is Black Doom with his plans of turning humanity into cattle "a big meanie"? Why are you trying so hard, man?

Ah, and then he has to resort to guilt tripping Shadow about his own "crimes" (read: being forced to follow Gerald's programming) to get his way :) piece of shit who pretends to be morally superior when in reality he's just an awful person.

#fans don't look #man this writing #it's so bad #btw unrelated but i want to be a bitch #i re-read 5 looking for some pages and jesus the level of forced references in early idw #'mr. tinker is a good man? but eggman is dangerous! hey remember the egg viper?' #bro i do remember the egg viper stop dangling it in front of me to pretend you're a fan like me

[necromancy-savant]

Multiples of 3 for book asks!

3. what is your preferred genre?

My preferred genre is the stuff you find in the nonfiction section that's all myths and poems

6. do you track the books you read? if so, how?

Nope; never occurred to me

9. do you have a favorite author?

John Milton \m/

12. which book will you read next?

Probably The Two Towers bc I read Fellowship, loved it, and then got distracted by like 5 other books. I need to finish reading Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion

15. have you been/are you in a book club?

I was in a Shakespeare club in grad school! I brought in the production of David Tennant's R2 for us to watch that @skeleton-richard introduced me to

18. do you have any rules if you loan someone a book?

I mean don't write on it or like intentionally be rough on it?

21. do you prefer to read or listen?

Read. I watch everything with subtitles if I can

24. what book to movie adaptation to you dislike?

I mean one time I saw some Iliad adaptation that didn't even have the gods and was boring af but I don't remember what it was. And one time I saw about 10 minutes of some CGI Beowulf bc it was so ugly I had to turn it off

27. is there a book that scared you?

Yes. Well, recently I was having a bit of trouble sleeping thinking about the demons in Camp Damascus, but also I used to stay up late in high school reading my giant Edgar Allan Poe book and then I could never sleep. I don't even remember which ones were the scariest. There was one about a coffin on a boat that fucked me up and wasn't even that scary.

30. is there a book that changed your life?

Phantom of the Opera, then Paradise Lost, then Richard III, and I think now The Locked Tomb

33. what was your favorite childhood book?

Redwall

36. what’s the most you’ve reread a book?

I literally have no fucking clue. I've memorized all of Richard III's lines in that play. I lost count of the number of times I've read Paradise Lost about 10 years ago. I can predict the next words in my translation of Phantom and read it in its original language just because I know what it's going to say, I know all the words to Earnest and Julius Caesar, I have no clue how many thousands of times I've read Enuma Elish or Ishtar's Descent to the Underworld or anything else I've every tried or had to translate. Basically I read the same few books and stories over and over and over and over and

39. favorite quote from your favorite book?

Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay curs'd be thou; since against his thy will Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I flie Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire? Which way I flie is Hell my self am Hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatning to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.

42. do you buy new or secondhand books?

I have so many books I got for free from the grad school English department that they were literally just giving away. I got a whole Faerie Queene that way. I got a complete Chaucer's works that way. One time I went in and some students were going through stuff and I was like "yo is that a fascimile of Poetaster??!!" and my classmate said, "here, it's yours: it should go to someone who will love it" and I was in Heaven

45. thoughts on separating the author from the work?

So...this gets into so much internet discourse and so much discourse within critical theory over the last like 40 years. Basically, yes, historical context matters and knowing who an author was as a person can give some insight into a text, but I'm also not going to give a currently living author money whom I don't want to support. You should read problematic stuff from hundreds of years ago to learn your history; hell, I'd venture to say that if you can do so without giving them money, you should read problematic shit written recently and today to know what it looks like and learn to draw your own conclusions

48. what book would you give someone if they wanted a glimpse into your psyche?

Richard III

[froggyfeetsies]

“The dawn of the Golden Age began after Lunar Lamas and the Pookhan Brotherhood had made the most important scientific breakthrough known to sentient life; the ability to manufacture the heart of a planet. The heart, also called the Light, of a planet allowed the art of creation magics to be applied to a planet as if it had its own soul to shape. It made the will and belief of the planet’s inhabitants tangible enough to move mountains, dig seas and forest the barren plains. Terra formation was a science as well as an art, and became one of the most difficult walks of life a youngling might tread. It allowed for the infinite expansion of the Empire, allowed for the infinite creation of garden worlds to populate and flourish amongst the universe, evolving into behemoth constellations sprawling across the once empty skies. Such a breakthrough became a lifeline during the Shadow War, after it was adapted for battle against the Dream pirates and the fear geas. After intense modification it was ready to be infused into living beings, to give them both the strength and fortitude to match their own heart and will; the blend of both immense destruction and a gift for creation. Blending these two principles, the new Enlightened were as horrific as they were the ultimate salvation against the Dream Pirates and Nightmare men. While they turned the tide of the war from desperation to jubilation, and in turn ultimately leading to our beloved Golden Era of Dreams, the Enlightened came at a steep price. The Eternal Light of a planet was meant for no mortal to hold in their hearts, and although some went on to become Enlightened, others did not and were torn meat from soul, completely obliterated even from Time itself as if they had never existed, leaving them lost even to the Pookah and their mastery of the Timeways. The presence of Enlightened after the War and the subsequent imprisonment of the Nightmare men and Dream Pirates left only the bitter reminder that fanciful notions like love wasn’t always enough.”

in my mind they had to create things to beat the fearlings, who’s gonna go at a living shadow with a plain sword not fucking me lol, and in the end made space paladins like nightlight since his kind wouldn’t be the only kind right? like different kinds of light, white light and gold light? They obvs know that some kind of light works since they have a living lamp near mim and I mean the flash he gives off puts pitch and 10,000 fearlings into a coma and he’s a child right? Imagine that but an adult infused with star heart and metal, nearly immortal but at the price of maybe being completely destroyed from existence, that used their power to make weapons like sandy makes his stuff like the plane etc. kind of like how blood is full of iron? Maybe have them full of metal blood that reacts to the star heart. like an amalgamation of the different races to try and stem the tide in the war, pookah lightbulb magic llama belief magic and star weapons. Tied into the idea that belief isn’t just an earth thing but an engineered thing created in the other universe being repurposed for war. Like they don’t fight with light but fight as infused with light that they can create metal/light weapons at will like sandy can, like you need the light to make the metal work. Or like infused with molten star metal that glows with spoopi light, and people call it light since it’s less emotionally damaging than “we pump you full of molten star metal that should actually be inside a star so you glow now.” Basically I like the battle!sandy idea but horrific rather than a natural born star you feel me as in “we replaced your heart with starlight and your blood with starmetal and it’s only your belief that stops it all working sorry bud.” Not sure the details but metal/light is the foundation.

I’ve never read the books, only the wiki and then vague memories from like 10 years ago from fanfics about book stuff (still no idea why Katherine and nightlight exist but they’re always cute so) so I’m not actually sure what’s cannon (I’ve tried reading the wiki but it just confuses me more like apparently now jack can now change age at will?) but in my mind eldritch metal light horrors that use the heart of a star to power themselves sounds about desperate enough for a universe under threat of eternal nightmares tbh, although the wiki says they didn’t kill them I am going to ignore that 😂

like the pookah were meant to have transcended time itself right, and then the lunar llamas were like peak spiritual awakening, and then the stars were like the dreams right? All make a nice balance imo, and almost sound like a magical girl formula to me tbh. And the pookah are said to be caretakers of planets who time walk so it’s not much of a jump to say they might be able to create planets imo especially if they’re meant to have enough garden worlds for an empire. Iirc bunny brought an egg lamp to earth to start a new world?? So 🤷‍♀️

basically I am completely baffled about what’s going on and this is my explanation for it 😂 (like pitch is woken by a curious moonbeam??? Like literally or) maybe I’m wrong but to me the idea of a theoretically immortal last bastion of hope getting demolished and repurposed to head the enemy army as a husk filled with nightmares is 100000% believable as a reason why the empire could fall to a single man. I’m not sure how far into the body horror I want to go tbh, but. Like is he alive is he aware like who knows but I’m horrified

anyway it’s 2am goodnight xoxo

#Rotg #rise of the guardians #guardians of childhood #pitch black #kozmotis #kozmotis pitchiner #My art #headcanon #Fearling #Nightmare #nightmare men #dream pirate #rotg fanart

[fandomdaydreamer]

Of a Sun and Flower

Pt. 2 You Fit Me

Pairing: Pedro Pascal/OFC

Summary: Conflict induces a positive development when Nini meets the right person at the right time.

Warnings: alcohol, drug use, a psychoanalysis by someone who is not in any kind of medical field (me), symptoms of anxiety and depression, mentions of past abuse and overdose, domestic fights (with resolution, phew)

Notes: Well well well, if it isn't my late ass. Sorry, is all I can say. Life gets in the way and this chapter was fkn hard to write. Actually, I'm working on making Book 1 a real novel now, might be a real published author. Wheee

Also find this fic on Ao3 -here- or the series' Masterlist -here-

Length: 8.8k

~

You Fit Me

The floor was littered with old chewing gum and spilt, sticky puddles of alcohol when I lowered my gaze at my mechanically piloted feet. It was hot, too hot underneath my wig, too hot between these strange bodies. With nothing but numbness in my mind, I made my hips sway to the rhythm of the heavy beat, felt the base resonate in my chest and alter my perception as my nostrils filled with the scent of people's sweat, cheap liquor and the stale dampness of the fog machines.

My eyes wandered into the dark corners of the club, where hidden figures were locked in a passionate kiss or lived out their high with their mouths wide open as they gazed into the flickering lights. They were but quick illuminations of limbs and faces, pale picture frames of colourful people dancing to a heavy electronic beat. A hypnotic voice was singing and people upon people danced to it like they were in a trance. The air was thick and condensation threatened to drip from the ceiling. It was easy to be sucked into their midst, give in to the alluring promise of forgetful hedonism and just float into the river Styx. Float into another dimension while fate would handpick the gluttons who would descend into the third circle of hell.

What would Pedro say if he saw me like this? Not having fun and denying myself any peace. Was I pretending to push myself into a nihilist universe to chase fatalism and toxicity? A blind person would have been able to see it.

Maybe I wasn't drunk enough to stop my mind from constantly wandering back home and wane between regret and anger. However, I was intoxicated enough to tilt my head into the sticky air, close my eyes and remain in the eternal Asphodel meadows for a little while longer. I felt so alone yet free of all that I knew. An anonymous, ordinary soul drifting through the night.

My state in limbo felt complete until a slimy touch seized my hip and I was promptly forced to take a step away. "No!" My protest fell on deaf ears.

"C'mon, baby. You gotta try this!" A guy in a gay club of all places forced a shot on me. He waved a friend over who brought more glasses that were filled with some kind of dark liquid.

I batted his wandering hands away and yelled at him to leave me alone.

"Fucking fa-." I could read the slur from his lips before he took another leering step towards me. How easily his words shattered against the heavy armour I had braced my soul with.

"She said no, dickface! Fuck off!" A woman with rhinestone eyebrows stepped in. Her shrill voice was loud against the music and she shoved him away. She flipped the man off and cackled at the range of slurs he threw back at us. "You okay?" My saviour hollered in my direction once he'd left us alone on the dance floor.

"Yeah, thank you!" I yelled back. I had seen and gone through worse things. Infinitely worse. "I'm sorry-" I gestured aimlessly when everything became too much anyway. In an attempt to escape, I made my way through the crowd and to the bathrooms.

I had no clue how much time I spent trying to sober up inside the stall that was plastered with graffiti and scribbles. A stick figure lay horizontal with x's crossed over instead of their eyes and memories of last summer flashed through my mind. Overdosed eyes had glazed over into a blur and I recalled how scary it had been to not be able to move my body as I nearly choked on foam and vomit. In a hazy fever dream, Pedro had found me just in time and in the worst way possible. How terrified he'd been. How stupid I felt about the way I behaved again.

In my overwhelmed state, I kept ignoring my phone as it buzzed for the millionth time this night. Pedro's ID blinked up again, the pet name I gave him mocked me along with all the hearts we'd sent back and forth in our recent past. Such a stark contrast to his currently unanswered texts. I wasn't tone-deaf to their urgency.

01:34 - Baby, I just need to know if you're ok, then I'll let you do your thing. Promise

Can you please pick up?

02:04 - Where are you? I can come and pick you up, wherever you are. I'm not mad at you

02:11 - Please just tell me you're safe

02:50 - Leonie, this has to stop! You've made your point ok?

03:00 - I swear tfg, the least you could do is answer! You care at all??

03:01 - *(Angel deleted this message)*

03:02 - Pick up the fucking phone.

The last text, I imagined he had written before pulling his hair out in sheer frustration. A full stop. Yikes.

"Fuck." I whispered to myself.

Inside the filthy stall, I closed my hands over my eyes and slumped over with my elbows resting on my knees. I tried willing my cramp to go away or at least deal with the pain of heavy guilt setting into another part of my stomach. "I'm such a fucking fraud," I admitted to myself in a moment of clarity and regret. Impulsive and short-tempered Leonie van Fleet, the misophonic asshole who doesn't know what she's doing, everyone. Round of applause.

A voice in the stall next to mine ripped me out of my thoughts. "Does anybody have a tampon?" They asked obnoxiously above the dull sound of thumping music.

"I do! Hold up." I yelled back immediately, pondering on my last one and deciding giving it away would limit my time here but maybe having no other choice was a good thing. "I'll trade you for some toilet paper." I put my hands through the bottom of the stall door and crouched down, hoping I wouldn't lose my balance when chipped white nail polish met equally broken black polish as they grabbed for the tampon.

"Thank you so fucking much. My night is saved." They said, made the exchange and I felt dizzy when I decided to end my crisis and finish up myself. "No problem, that's what uterus pals are for." I slurred before flushing and walking up to the sink. I felt a little more drunk than I had originally thought.

"What was that you were saying?" The voice sounded nasal like it's been through quite a bit of crying before. "You're a fraud? What do you mean by that?"

Nosey, this one.

"I mean uh... I'm pretending to be this destructive version of myself. Or what am I doing here?" I was reeling with thoughts while washing my hands with barely existent soap. With no option to dry them in sight, I let the water drip as I stared at my reflection. A stranger stared back, a vision of everything gone wrong.

"Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it." The voice ripped me out of my tunnel vision again.

I crossed my arms and the words somehow kept flowing out almost too easily. "I just keep making the wrong decisions," I spoke above the sound of the distant, thumping beat. "Just don't know why. Maybe just to punish myself for my perfect life." I narrated my unthought-through, impulsive actions and concluded my crisis with the afterthought of a selfish brat. "You know what? What's worse is that all I do is punish the person that matters to me most."

"Huh." The toilet flushed and out the stall came the same woman from earlier and a look of recognition washed over our faces. "Oh, it's you!" We burst out at the same time. She was of similar height, maybe in her early forties but it was impossible to say with that skincare routine she had going for her. Apart from the eccentric decorations on her face, she had black shiny hair and red-painted lips. "The self-punishment over a hypothetical would make sense if you think you might not deserve the positive things in your life. Have you been through some shit? Apologies for assuming-" She washed her hands messily and also noticed the lack of soap. "I'm drunk."

My brain caught up with her a second later. "Yeah, horrendous stuff." I dramatised in my tipsy state and leaned my weight against the neighbouring sink.

I lacked the ability to comprehend how she could have been so spot-on at first sight. Maybe my cry for help was painted above my head as obvious as the neon sign of this club. The woman spoke with an equal amount of compassion and anger. "Many of us have. Bullied and chased out of our homes. Fewer rights as a marginalised group. It's worse even for the trans community. So many places where you must have felt not accepted. I'm sorry, that had to be tough."

"I'm... Yes, that's true but I'm not trans." I informed her with a smile, amused she'd thought I was.

She froze like an elephant in a porcelain shop. "That wig-"

"It's a wig, yes." She had a fair point for assuming. It was a high probability in a queer scene club like this and my heavy makeup and a wig I hadn't even glued on.

"Well..." She grinned, making it obvious to me that my hairline was crappy enough for me to not pass as a woman. "Anyway then, your partner, she's the best thing in your life and you're emotionally dependent on her?" She asked before bending down and took a sip straight from the tap.

Feeling like such a fraud again, I suddenly felt ashamed. I was out of place. "He is. I hope I'm not but the truth is, I couldn't live without him. He's the best thing in my life." I corrected her and she coughed into the stream.

"Damn, I assumed you'd at least be part of the L in the alphabet mafia. What were the odds?" "No, it's fine. We're in a queer club so... I'm sorry for invading this space. I guess I just wanted a peaceful night out. Can't escape men anywhere though. Surprise." I chuckled at her before being serious again. "Karma. I haven't been treating my partner well these past couple of months." Suddenly admitting it felt devastating and my voice quivered so much, it made her turn her entire body and meet me with a worried frown. "I had a very abusive dad and I'm afraid, so fucking afraid I'm the abuser now." I was taken aback by my confession, for it was so unlike me to bring up my past, let alone to a stranger. However, there was something about this woman. Something so comforting and familiar, I had to reveal a well-hidden part of my life to an equally drunk stranger in a filthy bathroom.

Yet I received nothing but her entire attention and while her presence felt comforting, her voice was clear and cool as ice. "My best guess is you have tried to cope with everything yourself, depending on whatever distracted you and fed your love deprivation." She deducted.

I gaped at her. "How-"

"Do you mind?" She pulled a cigarette from a battered package and I shook my head 'no' when she offered me one. "I think I get it now. Wait for it-" She climbed onto the heater and blew smoke out of the tiny window. For a moment, she digested the first drag, smoking in a kind of club where nobody would bat an eye anyway. I felt like a lost little kitten, staring up at her with big hungry eyes. It nearly seemed she gathered information by scanning me from head to toe. "You have some kind of European accent, maybe you were new here at some point and lonely. You're a petite, pretty little thing with daddy issues in a queer club, still unable to escape that predatory behaviour from earlier. So in theory, you know how to protect yourself because you had trauma to deal with but you feel deep hurt all the time. Plus, a loving partner and a domestic fight, equals the fragile state you're in. Babe, you're trying to run away from happiness. It's called self-sabotage."

My throat hurt from having swallowed too hard. Mind completely blank from unadulterated surprise, I stuttered. "Self- self-sabotage... is that what this is?"

She clicked her tongue. "It's a behaviour that makes you think you have control over the negative outcome of your actions and be in charge of your pain. It's not real. You're just calming yourself with predictability." She had opened her arms like she had presented me with a magic trick and I was the stupified spectator who couldn't appreciate her art form. Although, what she said, sounded perfectly logical.

Impressed by her quick mind, I stood there with a frown between my brows while I took my time to process. "I was not expecting free therapy at three in the morning," I said numbly.

"Surprise." She grinned like a Cheshire cat despite the thin veil of tears that was still evident in her eyes.

"Are you in a psychological field of any kind? You seem so..." I tried to think of a better word than 'intelligent' and a kinder word than 'crazy yet wise. "Analytical."

She disposed of the burning cigarette through the crack in the window and hopped down to me. "Psychiatrist in crisis." She winked before turning to the mirror and giving her lips a fresh coat of red paint. A burst of frustration made her voice quiver. "But I have come to the realisation my work is fruitless in a world where people keep having normal fucking reactions to toxic post-capitalism. I'll never accomplish anything." She stopped doing her makeup to let go of her rage as she reenacted a conversation with one of her patients. "Oh, you're having a burnout and you live in a constant state of anxiety? You're a single mom working two jobs and you still can't pay rent let alone your medical bills but sure, you must have problems because Mercury is in retrograde." She was close to crying again and angrily tossed her lipstick into her purse. "I'm supposed to help people but all I see are unsolvable problems and stupid shit." She stared ahead in a nearly manic way and then breathed out like she was trying to get it out of her system.

Our tearful eyes locked in the mirror and I felt we had bonded in that moment. "I'm Giulia." My new companion introduced herself then.

"Nini." We shook hands and I came straight back to the point with something she said that had bothered me. "How did you know I have some unresolved issues?"

She didn't conceal an ironic smile. "You were talking to yourself in a bathroom stall. That's not a tough one to guess." She was right and my eyes started to become blurry before she interrupted me with a suggestion. "Wanna go outside? Dr Oswald will see you now." She offered with the grin of a siren who seemed to lure me in with a promising song of mental stability. After a short consideration, I sighed and nodded.

My path tonight had brought me to a club with a bright pink neon sign buzzing above its entrance. This hole-in-the-ground club's heavy electro-dance beat could only be revealed when its doors swung open. After falling shut, the soundproofing reduced the thumping music down to a dull ache in my memory. Some friends had shown me 'Nomi's' a few years ago and my disguise was either good enough to remain anonymous or simply nobody was bothered by the fact that a celebrity, and a hetero-normative one at that, was floating through an LGBTQ scene. The buff goth lady simply nodded at us before setting us free into the cold night.

Giulia poked me in the arm. "You hungry? I'm starving."

I shuffled about in the cold, considering if my anxiety was treatable with some food, then everything would be fine again. "I could eat."

"Wanna get kebab or pizza?" She held onto a street light and swung around playfully.

The corners of my mouth turned down into pathetic pout. "Chicago pizza?"

She smiled and frowned at the same time. "Yeah, why not? I know a place that's still open."

We talked on our entire way to the pizza place, shared our worries and doubts and she listened like we were two old friends who had finally reconnected but had never grown apart. The more she poured her interest into my problems, the more she lit up and somehow, I had overshared my entire trauma history. I was free to pretend to just be someone ordinary while in reality, I was opening up to a past life my public persona only dealt with when ugly rumours after a speculative peer-review turned into invasive interview questions. Giulia on the other hand had no idea who I was. To her, I was just another lost person.

The buzz of the alcohol had somewhat lessened during our cold morning walk. Some delis were already opening their shops for the day while the pizza place served their last customers.

A chosen New Yorker claiming Chicago-style pizza was superior was a dangerous opinion to have. Yet, I never felt more certain of it when the cheese string connecting to my piece seemed to never end. I chuckled darkly and groaned in delight while Giulia gave me an approving "Yeees, get in there."

"All I needed was some damn pizza." I sighed lowly, and yet again, battled my crisis with humour. "Can you believe that my ex-therapist advised me to go on a crash diet? All he wanted to talk about was my weight and my sex life. He wanted to stop me from being a massive kinky bitch and why would I want that?" Both of us cackled.

"Shit." She frowned, the doctor having a habit of leaning into me when she found something interesting. "I don't get how someone like that is able to keep a license."

"Yeah! Right?" I cried out, mouth full of hot pizza. I found enjoyment in being a hot mess when I mimicked his voice. "Oh, doesn't matter if you have a drug history. I have you under my wing, this is completely safe. Now here's some Ketamine. And boom, I'm dealing with withdrawal, cheers. Thanks a lot, dickhead."

"You weren't safe with him. Therapy shouldn't be manipulative." Dr Oswald stated.

"I swear, I have no verbal filter anymore. Being off meds is the worst." Though I had conveniently left out the part that I was famous, I remembered we were still in public and I shouldn't talk about too private things. I stared into the starless night above Manhattan and missed them as much as my sanity. "I can't help missing this... howling loneliness and complete lack of ego inside what was just mind fog." There wasn't any other way to describe ketamine to me. My nose clogged up at the pain and struggle of it all. "My sweet boyfriend- I was so mean to him and I know I'm also on my period and extra mean and the sauce I made was way too runny!" I sobbed at this point, nearly inarticulate, drifting off towards a point that was still very important to me.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad." "It was practically water!" I sobbed out at the memory of our unsatisfactory dinner last night, shoulders shaking from crying.

"No... I meant what you said about being mean." She clarified while I suppressed a threatening hiccup. "What's your underlying concern?" Doc redirected our conversation with an annoyingly stereotypical therapy question but I guessed that had to be part of it.

"You know, I lost my cat-" A gulp broke my speech and I breathed until I got it together. "And it shouldn't feel this marginal but watching her die and realising I wasn't over my mum's death and feeling this profound sense of grief made me realise that maybe I don't want to be loved like that when I die. This much." Thick drops of tears streamed down my face and I knew I must have not made a lot of sense. "Never expressing this much love again. Feel the way I'm feeling... in that moment. I never stopped grieving and I figured, if he'd hate me, that would be easier."

The look she gave me was one of full understanding. "Go on, you got this." She encouraged me with a firm hand on my shoulder.

I wiped my face with my sleeve, snot, tears and makeup got stuck on the black fabric. "You know what my angel said? He said he could never hate me and he would never regret loving me, that I taught him that." I stifled myself with more pizza.

"Sounds like your person is there to help you navigate your pain," Doc said. "Maybe you're looking to become the people who would rather love like no one has ever loved before than to avoid the greatest suffering."

It seemed Pedro and I kept growing together. Through good and bad times. Despite the hardship, we still remained a unit and maybe that was all that mattered.

I soon rediscovered that food made everything better again and I filled the hole in my soul with cheese until my phone started buzzing in my pocket. Pedro was calling again.

"That's him?" Giulia asked with a look at the caller ID showing that 'Angel' with a load of heart emojis was calling. I showed her a picture of him and me together from our last New Year's celebration and she cooed at our big smiles. "I miss him," I admitted.

"He looks sweet. A bit... older than you, I guess?" She slurred back.

Bless her heart, she didn't recognise him either. "A bit." I downplayed our eighteen-year age gap. "Truth is, I am lucky to be with this treasure of a man, he's kind, sexy, smart and so talented." I gushed over him.

"But you've not communicated about your argument?" A slight smile spread on her lips despite her seriousness and somehow, I saw someone competent past those rhinestone eyebrows.

"No. I ran. Like always." I said in pure disappointment in myself. "I don't know if I fucked up for good this time. I can be such a bitch these days. But imagine me going home after this, what the fuck." I chewed slowly. "He already worries so much." I already knew my eyes were puffy and my lips were swollen from biting them. "Pedro thought he'd get a fun and bubbly, nurturing girlfriend but then he met my insecure dramatic traumatised and needy ass. What if I can't give him everything he deserves? He somehow still settled for me." A fresh tear ran down my cheek, this time I thought it might have been a happy one.

"You don't think your relationship is healthy?" Doc asked with a cough and I shrugged my shoulders. My fingers played with my sea glass necklace. "Do you think it's bad that... I don't feel like I'm not constantly on fire?"

"You think about the mind games that kept you interested?" "Don't call me out like that." My eyes narrowed.

"Let me ask you something. Does your relationship feel like an up-and-down roller coaster?"

I felt stupified and stammered out. "No?"

She kept insisting. "When someone has a hard time, do you make time to be there for the other? Not to improve things but just to be there."

"We can be miles away from each other at times but... yes. He's my lighthouse." I smiled widely despite her not getting the reference.

Giulia licked sauce off her thumb. "Do you bring the inner child up in each other?"

"Always." I laughed with tears in my eyes at every happy memory. I recalled our Christmases, birthdays, interviews and public events or simply the ordinary evenings just between the two of us.

Dr Oswald's shoulders relaxed with a sigh. "I think your relationship is more than healthy. Healthier than average couples. Don't let your insecurities talk you down, grow from them." With that, she shoved her last bite of pizza into her mouth and clapped her hands-free from crumbs.

My eyes skipped between her and the floor awkwardly. "Thanks, I guess."

She hummed before sharing an amused memory. "When my ex was fed up with me, I made her a sock puppet and tried to talk about it. She never called again." She demonstrated it with her glove. "Why don't you trust people?" She voiced her hand.

I gave her a fond smile as we began our walk back. "You're weird," I said with a chuckle as I retrieved a pre-rolled blunt from my purse and held it up to Giulia in an offer.

She grinned before passing me her lighter. "You're a cliché." She watched me light joint and take a practiced drag of the spicy herb.

"You're the one who said she dismembered Barbies as a kid." I countered with a deep exhale.

"Don't pretend you're not just as weird. You probably tortured your Sims or played with scary spiders or something." Giulia assumed, judging by my goth outfit by all accounts before taking a drag herself.

I couldn't help but play a joke on her. "There were indeed only spiders in the basement to play with," I commented dryly and her eyes closed while mine widened. Having just listened to the story of my sad childhood and the fact that my father used to lock me up in the cellar, she choked on the smoke. For a moment we were both shocked by my words until I noticed she was slowly breaking into laughter. She tried to keep it behind her hand but now we were both finished trying to hold back and instead of trying to work through and process my trauma, we let go of a hollering laugh. She at least tried to remain decent. "That's not funny. That's so not... funny."

I thought I was allowed to think it was. "It's a bit funny." She shook her head no, tearing up when she gave me my weed back. "See, you helped me already. I could talk about my dad without having an emotional breakdown. It's been easier already but I haven't felt this... relieved in a long time." I blinked away my tears stubbornly, finally admitting to myself that I was not fine and I was constantly reacting to my trauma. I decided then and there that if I would ever mistreat a future child of mine, I would not deserve to waste any more oxygen on this world. "You're really good at this. Knocking sense into people." I said sincerely.

"I appreciate you trying to end my lost cause. You made me feel like I'm not a total failure after all." She said on our way back through the calm side alleys. Our steps echoed from the red brick stone walls as we passed the joint back and forth.

"Are you kidding me? I appreciate your work so much. You do matter. This was... this was really helpful. I mean it." I saw her bottom lip trembling at my promise.

"Thank you. You're very nice."

Like a cool cat, I flicked the joint away. "I have my moments." She let me drape my arm across her shoulders as we made our way out of the last alley.

The night was slowly lifting and my mind felt light as a feather when the club came back into view. "I don't think I'll go back inside again." I said at the end of our journey.

Giulia turned and her hands clapped onto her sides with a sigh. "Now imma tell you what I'd say as a therapist and imma tell you what I'd say as a parent from an Italian household." She took a step closer and lowered her voice, her concern sounding far from patronising. "I would very much like to test you for PTSD and bipolar disorder and I want to break down generational trauma and introduce you to the right medication and progressive, beneficial habits because you girl, are not making wise choices." She finally put her finger down. "Second, and this is my nonna speaking-" Suddenly she raised her voice and I jumped. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE? GET YOUR ASS HOME, PRONTO." She gestured like her Italian grandma and I chirped out a laugh.

"O-okay." I was met with a passionate grin I had to somewhat dampen. "PTSD has kind of already been diagnosed though." A deep intuitive feeling matched and I somehow knew she would be able to help me.

"No depression?" "It's more of an anxiety disorder." "Shame. People with depression have the best Spotify playlists."

I blinked at the sound of her disappointment. "I would very much like to become your patient." I decided then and there.

"Fantastic." She wrestled her hand into her boot in return to give me a white business card with a font that promised a brutalist interior design. 'M.D. G. Oswald' written on it with an office address in Manhattan not far from here.

"Fancy," I noted and tucked it away into my bra. She seemed genuinely happy at the encounter. "God knows, I've made my partner age ten years tonight. After this-" I began to walk backwards towards the street. "I owe him a lifetime of happiness... and no more runny sauces."

"Try creme fraiche next time." Giulia advised me and the only thing I could do was comment with an awkward 'ah.

I shifted my weight from one to the other foot, pointing in the direction of an approaching cab. "I should probably... I'll give you a call." I turned one last time after I had already managed to hail it. "Hey Doc, one more thing."

"What?"

I couldn't have addressed her with a sterner tone as I stood by the open door of my ride. "If you ever tell me I need to forgive my dad, I'll be out the door." I threatened and at first she looked puzzled, but then saluted me in understanding and we smiled at each other.

I was already inside the taxi when she whistled sharply with her fingers and provoked me to roll the window down. "Ey, one last word of advice." She began as she stood in front of the door back where our journey had originally started. "Make up with your fella. If he's mad, suck his dick. He'll get over it."

"Amen!" A bunch of suddenly cheerleading people roaming the club's entrance in their colourful outfits contributed with loud and some lewd additions.

I nodded and sank a little deeper into my seat with my cheeks heating up at her thumbs up. "Thanks." Giulia slapped the roof of my taxi for goodbye and as I drove off, I looked back to see her going back inside the club.

~~~

At around five in the morning, the house was dark and perfectly quiet. Everything seemed to go according to plan if it meant Pedro had finally gone to sleep. The key and wind chime at the door hardly made a noise when I crept inside, yet having to greet a pathetically whining Edgar who had been waiting for me on the doormat required an advanced level of discreteness. "Hey, good boy, hi! Oh, dear. Oh, dear." I went over to pacify our boy before I snuck inside bare feet with my shoes dangling from my fingers.

Completely parched, I passed into the kitchen, unloaded all of my belongings onto the counter and fumbled at my earrings with a sigh. My mouth tasted weird.

I was stretching towards the glasses when sudden bright headlight illuminated the entire room and scared the living hell out of me. His sudden appearance had been nearly enough to drop my glass before I could even retrieve it from the cupboard. "Kut, fuck! You scared me!" I cursed after swishing around to see one particular unpleased Pedro in the French doorway. His frown only deepened and he gave me a thin-lipped stare as he leaned against the frame and crossed his toned arms over his chest.

I knew I had to look like an absolute mess, yet I gestured around as if I couldn't see what the point of him busting me like a naughty teenager was. This was terribly like a bad childhood memory of my father doing practically the same thing, the only difference was that I wasn't scared of Pedro. He was dressed in his old pyjamas and his hair was adorably ruffled post-shower but his softness was entirely replaced by harsh tension. Deep bags cast a shadow underneath his eyes and it was then that I noticed the sheen of tears in their hardness, something between pure anger and also, relief.

"Hi." I gulped, sensing I was in deep trouble regardless. I slowly pulled my wig off my head, discarding the long black strands as they flowed off my shoulders. He didn't echo my greeting as usual.

My eyes skipped to the floor at the sight of his obvious disappointment in me and I wondered if I would manage to raise any kind of reaction from him other than eyes that stared daggers into my soul. Pedro's anger was a chilling thing to behold. It was rare.

His chest first expanded and he tore his hand over his mouth like he needed to stop all the necessary curses from tumbling out with his next exhale. "How was it?" He asked instead, ironically with a sharp edge to each word. His eyes radiated a kind of severe heat that promised this was merely the calm before the storm.

I forced myself not to stutter but my heart beat out of my chest. "It was... nice. I feel good. Really good. Better um... I thought you'd maybe be asleep by the time I get home."

"Oh, really?" He parroted with dripping sarcasm, finally stepping down the few stairs and stalking intimidatingly closer. I shrunk underneath him and bumped into the counter, wincing at his proximity more than the impact. "Where were you?" He growled, jaw clicking.

Irritation glared up at me at his patronising tone and I realised I wasn't done provoking him after all. It was like I couldn't stop myself. With an attitude, I raised my chin and snarked up at him. "Why does it matter? I'm no longer there."

"Did you take anything?" He turned my face into the light above with force and I blinked, irritated at the examination. The light was too bright and his grip pinched my cheeks a little too harsh for his gentle character. He held heated eye contact that made my pride resolve and finally crumble. "Leonie, did you take anything?" He bit down at me after he couldn't detect something unusual about the dilation reflex in my pupils.

I freed myself from his grasp. "No, I didn't! Let go of me." I pouted childishly and he let it be for the moment, stepping back and letting me go like my touch burned him. "I'm fine!" I added when he walked away from me.

He faced the garden, his broad back casting a shadow onto the blueish-hued floor when I dared to speak up again. "I'm... I'm tired. I think I should just go to bed." I tried to sneak my way out but he was quicker to strut to the couch and toss me a pillow.

"No, you're not." He ordered, clearly insinuating I was sleeping here tonight.

"Fine." I bit out and aggressively fumbled with a blanket while he turned around and didn't take another look at me. A gush of air pushed through his nose when he walked past me.

I could only watch as he went to leave, a rush of sympathy and guilt provoking me to finally do the right thing. "I'm s-"

He broke off my apology. "Go to sleep and sober up. We'll speak in the morning."

A heavy stone settled in my heart. "Pedro."

He went to go upstairs and not once turned to look at my sad, lost form that waited in vain for a sign of forgiveness.

~~~

When I woke about five hours later, it was by the sound of items banging in the kitchen. The smell of something delicious sizzled in a pan but my stomach dreaded it and my head felt like it could burst. The first wave of sickness crashed into me when I remembered the resemblance of hatred in Pedro's eyes. Mine opened to the sight of his chocolate curls bouncing as he chopped something with a knife. His gaze was still turned down even though he must have seen that I was up and the more I told myself that he didn't care for me anymore, the more I felt like I deserved it.

The smell of bacon suggested that the thick tension hanging in this house was merely a delusion. Normally it meant something different. A cosy breakfast with a newspaper and coffee, loving banter and plans for the future.

Pedro discarded something into the bin when I sat up and disturbed Edgar, who had been sleeping cuddled into my side.

Pedro sighed and tossed the towel he'd been using over his shoulder. It was like he needed to brace himself before acknowledging me with a side glance and a tight pull of his moustache. I threw my blanket off and felt nothing but awful at the sight of the fatigue on his face.

"Good morning," I muttered meekly and got up to go and sit at the table with my hands folded sheepishly in front of me. I didn't even dare to walk up to him and get myself a cup of coffee. Pedro on the other hand, knowing me inside and out, fetched it for me and the creamy liquid sloshed over the rim at the force he used to slam it down in front of me. A plate with a croissant followed next with a harsh clatter of porcelain on wood. Before this 'talk' I dreaded more than anything would ensue, he waited for me to examine my favourite breakfast that I still adored him for. "Thank you." I barely managed to say.

He watched me dunk a piece of buttery deliciousness into my coffee, slip it into my mouth and treat him to a careful smile. I knew he had gone out of his way to get me fresh croissants but I couldn't tell if it was a peace offering or should merely act like a little sugar to make the medicine taste not so bitter. I braced myself for the latter. "D'd you sleep well?" He muttered tiredly and I nodded.

"The couch is pretty comfortable, actually." I attempted to make an insignificant observation before returning the question and receiving a hardly noticeable shake of his head as he brushed it off.

"Pedro, talk to me," I begged him, still hoping I could fix this. "Please."

Yell at me, throw something. Just anything.

I could hardly swallow as he stalked through the room. He took deep breath before his agitation finally unfolded. "Do you have any idea-" he spoke slow and patiently. "-how worried I was all night?"

Finally, his eyes met mine and it was nearly devastating. A heavy gulp forced my food down and I inhaled to start with an apology but he stopped me from making even the tiniest approach. "I was frightened, I didn't know what to do. You just... storm out after we had a fight, I have no idea where you're going-" The heat still radiated from his eyes when his voice turned a mocking tone. "The problem is you don't fucking care about anything! I wait for a fucking sign of life from you but you ignore my texts, you don't answer my calls-" His voice rose in volume with each word. "And then, finally at five in the morning, you come home, reeking of alcohol and weed and I knew-- I knew that would happen. Who else but you would just disappear, then pop up like nothing happened?" He had bent over the table, hands splayed out across when he spoke to me in calm anger. "You know what you did? You mixed painkillers with alcohol and drugs, you're lucky you didn't end up in the ER! And don't get me started on the scandal you could have caused when you walk around fucking wasted like that." He shook his head at me and I decided to keep it to myself that I had been to a gay club on top of that. "Irresponsible, stupid, impulsive girl. Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn't think you're a fucking danger hazard to yourself!"

"I was 'not' wasted," I muttered under my breath, but he looked past my antics and the flaw of design I called self-medication. He was speechless. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Oh, you're sorry?" he chastised me, louder this time, ready to berate me a little more. "I'm sorry is not fucking good enough this time!" He was breathing irregularly.

"I needed a little bit of freedom, Pedro!" I cried out.

Maybe emotion made him irrational at this point too. He didn't care Edgar was whining at us. "Oh, remind me again how horrible living in LA was and make me feel guilty about it."

"I begged to come with you, to just leave New York, remember? Poen died and I wanted to leave." I yelled back, frantically wiping away the first couple of tears at his fury. "I love you, wherever you go, I go!" I sobbed. Silence hung in the room like thick fog clouding us.

He sighed, holding back the severity of his anger when he realised he had made me cry. Finally he sat next to me at the head of the table and with a terrible sigh, ruffled his hand through his hair.

He sounded so tired. "I was so fucking mad. Still am. You treat my concern like it's nothing. I get you're searching for yourself and what's good for you but call me out on my delusion if I assume it's not in self-medication but right here." He told me with his eyes closed. "Honey, I'm so invested in helping and supporting you and I also know you won't find that sort of thing while going out and risking your wellbeing. I have... a lot of empathy for what you're going through. Be selfish, by all means, but I am 'not-" he fixed my eyes with his and put his index finger onto the table. "deserving of being treated like shit. Trust goes both ways. If I can't convince you to do what's best for you, I trust that you at least won't disrespect my compassion."

Finally it sank in and I was struck by so much shame, my eyes stung violently and I hated myself for ever hurting him. Even if unintentionally, he was the only one who could stop me on my way down because he was in control of my heart. I was the first to break our tense silence. "I need help," I admitted in tears. "I want to get better."

We finally seemed to understand each other's dire struggle, for when he grasped my hand, it meant the world to me. "Maybe you want to try this clinic I found. I heard it's-" He began but I interrupted him and tried to conceal my disgust at even the mention of rehab.

"I already found a new therapist," I announced and he leaned back in a puzzled state. "Good, eh... good. What?" He stuttered.

"Last night." I finished and watched his jaw drop. He gave me a look like he was finally done with my bullshit and the hand he'd previously held so comfortingly let me go again. I aimed to pacify him before he could say anything. "A good psychiatrist, I met her in the club and I got a free session but I'm already a hundred per cent sure, she's the right one for me. She is... incredible."

Pedro was still too baffled to even process this piece of information. "That's... that's-" Pedro didn't know what exactly this was, he tried to think about his words but failed. He put his palm to his forehead to relieve the headache that had to be forming there. "I feel like you forgot everything I just said. You don't get it." Pedro looked at me, puzzled.

"I do." "No, I begged you to make more sensible decisions and then you barge in with this." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "God, you're a piece of work."

I tried not to take that past comment personally. "I mean something good came out of my manic episode. I realised important things. For example, that I'm self-sabotaging."

"Okay... okay. Let's think this through." Pedro had calmed down somewhat and ran his hand over his beard in an attempt to try and start over. "Does this therapist have any credentials? What's her background? References? Do you have any idea who she is?" His questions were all reasonable but I had no answers to them. All I knew was that none mattered because I had a good feeling I about her.

"She's extremely smart and empathetic, she's boisterous, a lesbian and she's a socialist. You'd like her." I explained and he blinked at me. Dumbfounded, he folded his hands and I felt free to tell him the entire story of how Doc and I met.

Even after I was done explaining, he was still not convinced. "You know can't have a personal relationship with your therapist. This meeting while going out... thing and smoking together doesn't sound good at all. Who parties with their therapist?"

"I know, I know we can't be friends. She already said something like that. That and, that I should suck your dick if you're still mad at me." His frown seemed edged in stone, causing my innocent expression to crumble bit by bit. "You don't want that." I assumed, quietly.

"No, I don't." He dismissed, low and pointedly. "This is a bad idea. And this... therapist suggesting a blow job would fix this-" he looked up with a spark of humour I fixed my hope on. "Maybe."

I raised my eyebrows and he pointed a finger at me. "No, I was joking." "Okay, jeez." "I'd appreciate it if you took this seriously."

Maybe it had dawned on me or my manic episode was finally tranquillized by cold sobriety but my eyes stung with tears and my voice cracked when I spoke under my breath. "I am taking it more seriously than ever." I tried and was met with a look of love and pain in his eyes that nearly broke my heart.

"Don't say that if you don't mean it." He begged quietly.

A heavy gulp got stuck in my throat and for several moments, I gathered the right things to say. "I know... I know you have a good reason to be angry with me but I felt... so helpless." I choked up. "So unseen."

For several long, insufferable beats, we stayed mute until the quietness became too much to bear. "I'm sorry if I made you feel that way." His voice had cracked mid-sentence. "Just the thought anything could happen to you... and it would have been my fault. When I didn't hear anything from you, I was so angry."

When his eyes filled with tears, I reached over the table to gently try and loosen the arms he had crossed in front of his chest. Reluctantly, he opened up and let me hold his hand.

"Baby, I know it's been hard. I know-" My voice quivered while he tried to compose himself and meet my eyes. He was right, I hadn't been myself lately and I was so sorry for everything. For last night, for what nearly happened in LA. He was the one person I wanted to keep trying for and I made a promise with the only words that mattered. "I'll do better."

Pedro nodded, the flicker of warmth in his moist eyes. He believed me. "Okay." He decided and merely the thought of ever disappointing him again broke my heart. Never in my entire life had I felt such shame. The tears that had gradually been filling my eyes spilled over and I watched them fall into my lap when I couldn't hold them any longer.

He cupped my cheek when a sob shook my body and raised my chin so he could look me in the eyes and make something clear. "I was scared, for you. And you- you don't understand how much it hurts when you run out the door like that. Please, at least let me know you're okay next time." He admitted quietly.

"I'm so sorry." I cried out.

"You were right, I was too controlling. And I'm sorry for letting you sleep on the couch and being too harsh on you." He sighed, wiped first mine, then his tears away before he regained his composure. "If you need time for yourself, I won't stop you."

"Not... time away from you but-" I sighed. "Maybe I just need to get back to work. Do my own thing again and work on some music."

"That's a very good idea." He smiled for the first time and it was soothing, even though something seemed to still weigh on his mind. "Can you promise me something?" His eyes snapped back up from our entwined hands and I braced myself to receive an expectation I would have trouble meeting. "Promise you'll tell me when you feel like I'm smothering you, so you won't start to resent me?"

Finally, the consequences of my actions had an impact when I realised he was definitely the more mature person about this. The fact that I made him worry about that deeply saddened me. "I could never resent you." I squeaked out, finally broken.

Pedro breathed out a relieved sigh when I threw myself into his arms and I could hold him tight. His shoulders sank low as he hid his face in the crook of my neck and hugged me close. He needed me as much as I needed him, right here and wrapped up in his arms.

"Lost my fucking Duolingo streak." He grumped, spoke muffled into my shoulder and triggered a peal of laughter to bubble up between us.

"I'm so sorry, angel. I really am." I replied nasally but somewhat relieved of all tension. Looking back at him, I wiped away the moisture underneath his eyes.

"It's okay now." He promised. "I promise it'll be okay."

I revelled in his gentle touch. "I'm sorry for being all wrong in the head." My voice thinned out.

He caught my chin between his finger and thumb. "Hey, hey, you're not. Look at me." I did, looking into his still glistening, beautiful brown eyes to see him sniff and brace me for some uplifting words. "You think there's something wrong with you? There's nothing. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you. Anxiety and depression fucking suck but you're gonna stop being so hard on yourself. It gets better, I promise. And when we fight, we fight hard but we love even harder." His eyes were so soulful and he was in every way, kindness and beauty while I was ashamed of the way I looked, felt and behaved. Somehow he made me feel deserving again just by looking at me.

"You don't know how much that means to me." I was hardly able to say through my throat closing up in tears as I held his face in between my palms. "I'm sorry, Pedro. My sweetheart." Gazing into his shimmery, yet determined eyes and finally seeing no sign of irritation in them lifted an enormous weight off my heart. A desperate need for closeness forced its way into our embrace. It was nearly too harsh, the way he pulled me closer when his fingers tangled into the roots of my hair like he'd lose me if he didn't but I needed it to survive.

He held me close for what felt like forever and again, I felt the need to just disappear within him. "Hey, I don't want a mentally stable partner. That's boring." I said in an uplifting tone and I nearly giggled. "Because that's not fun. It doesn't fit me. You fit me. I want you, with all of your issues. To me, you are perfect." He placed many, loving kisses on my head and made his devotion and immortal support finally resonate within me. I was a path without an end and he was happy to keep treading on it.

~

Part 3 - Coming Soon

~

Translation notes:

(it): nonna - (eng): grandma

(it): pronto - (eng): now

(dut): kut - (eng): cunt

#pedro pascal x actress #pedro pascal #series #fanfiction series #of a sun and flower #pedro pascal/original female character #fluff #domestic fluff

[zumpietoo]

imagine it's the year 2020 (sooooo long ago, we have to pretend, already?)

you are going thru the exact same pandemic everybody else is, except you're a millionaire, your job is shutting down temporarily like EVERY job....except, again, you're a millionaire. You're being dumped because your eternally too good for you BF has decided he's done, once and for all and would rather house sit in an empty home he was going to buy (and considered living in with you) than spend quaranteen with your crazy ass. Because he's done with YOUR cheating ass. And, per Silly/janASS, you aren't an adult with an extensive resources, entirely and easily capable (in fact, you do) of crossing the friendliest land border in the world to next sulk in LA. ---just as you'd routinely done for nearly 5 years. And you're still with your castmate, for the moment (she'll run screaming away from your crazy ass in short order). I have no idea WTF is about the suitcase, but I'd think Silly/janASS, being so wealthy and all, wouldn't GAF....

your castmates run screaming away from your crazy ass and chose to help others with him and were also fully aware YOU were the one fucking anything with a pulse (male or female). A dude you'd spent 5 seconds with here and there, cuz also famous, recognized your ex was the infinitely better person, to say nothing of actor....and cast him in his film. So you munchausen by proxy your poor new rescue dog, flip out repeatedly on IG stories (including a cringe weepfest), throw multiple temper tantrums, indirect your ex to sell you "poetry", join a cult and start a vanity project, knowing you'll actually have to return to the job that made you a millionaire/famous...and you make a point of whining about that, too. And use your family YOU ignore as your excuse for it, when all you GAF about is lying by your mcmansion pool in LA. you also share houses to quaranteen, multiple times, with "those bitches", while you're trying to fuck anything with a pulse. THEN you refriend "those bitches" when you realice you're gonna be truly alone in "prison". Cole continues to be the biggest star and your "poetry book" is a flop lol. i can't imagine WTF silly/janASS is even talking about, because, actually "the public" did....

No way could Silly/janASS have done being on a show, writing a flop book and making a shitty vanity project? While having a nervous breakdown, joining a cult and getting wasted? Honestly? I hope not....I'm pretty sure that's PP's future, too, Silly.

You were already a bad person. And REALLY upset about Cole's bday posts for Ari

Thanks for reading this batshit.

Her sock agrees!

It makes me super happy she's doing a limited one and done cult series (after saying she'd never do a series again, 5 seconds earlier), "dating" a cheap Cole imitation whose only claim to fame is he bagged on Cole, right after he bagged on her, whose friends hate her and she seems to see only for the cameras to "power couple" once a month and, per usual, has confirmed Plaiderdale "friendships" were the Pee ARR I always said they were

[langdhon]

One-Shot for @ravenskeeper because I was in the mood.

TW for horror, gore, burning, mentions of child abuse.

Alice will die someday. Of age, a force not even one born with Michael's powers can stop. Her fear, that she might meet her parents in hell... he couldn't shake it off, it haunts him to this day. A child tortured by their own parents shouldn't have to live with the prospect of reuniting with them. And Alice will go to hell. She murdered her mother, she fell in love with Satan's heir— among other things. Michael can't tell her what he will have done upon returning. Not sans revealing his origin too soon. But today, he prepared for this task, he descends to make Alice's future afterlife at least an eternal suffering devoid of those already hurting her in life.

Down a dark corridor he ambles. Past countless doors from behind which pleas and cries bleed through the locks; muffled, yet the only sounds to mingle here. Michael halts when he's found one among two he aims to open— and opens it to enter the father's personal hell.

Said father sits at a table, playing the 1.943 394th round Black Jack against a demon, still after losing every single round by now hoping to win. No wonder, given he seems to be dealt the perfect hand. Just to lay the cards down and their symbols suddenly punish him with far too low numbers. And each time he loses, a pair of clawed hands emerges from the void behind him to slash deep cuts into his back. Cuts that resemble those scarrings he carved into his own daughter's flesh in life. His screams are jarring, nails breaking while he paws at the table but cannot move away from his chair.

The demon laughs. It's boisterous, in mockery of his pathetic whimpers and cries. Michael finally approaches, the tang of fresh blood and the gambler's sweat permeating the air; said gambler sees him and something like hope glimmers behind his glasses. ❝ Hello, Daniel ❞, he greets him in velvety timbres, simpering down at him. ❝ A-are you he-here to s-ave m-me? ❞ What a disgusting piece of shit, playing the victim who needs saving. Michael leans down to plant his palms onto the table, smile widening in an almost sympathetic expression. ❝ But why would I do something silly like that? ❞ He shakes his head, enjoying Daniel's paling face and the shock which grows when he continues: ❝ I've come to save Alice. Or avenge her? Pick one. ❞ The 'what' is practically written onto Daniel's features, mixed with the remainders of a pained grimace.

❝ However, it's my pleasure to announce that, despite what the perverted fucks who called themselves her parents did to her, she found happiness. She's loved. ❞ Michael watches, delighted, how that man's mien twists into a mix of anger and regret before he snaps his fingers. And Daniel combusts on the spot. Erased from existence. Sent into a void where there's nothing but infinite loneliness, cold, soundlessness... emptiness. The demon tucks the cards into his pocket and grumbles under his breath about how he has to find another victim to play against now. Michael merely offers an impassive smile. Then exits as well. The mother is next.

Another few meters down the narrow floor, another door to push open, another room to enter. It's a cozy room. Like an old fashioned child's bedroom with colorful tapestry and some toys alongside an ungodly amount of books. At the center sits Charlotte together with a toddler. But it's not a girl, it's a boy. The son she's always wanted instead of the daughter she actually got. Michael finds himself almost endeared by this harmonic display, until he notices that they both read in the bible and the boy recites from it. Now disgust creases Michael's brows, a muttered " Seriously " released ere he approaches the pair. Not too close. He wants to see the inevitable plot twist to this bliss; after all, they are in hell. The boy is not real. Every time he recites something incorrectly, the woman's happy face turns into reproach.

And every time she points out the child's errors, said child morphs into its true demonic, grotesque form. To push her over, grab her legs and break them like twigs. Leaving them bent in impossible angles, all bones shattered. She, too, fills the entire room with her shrill screams and tears pool from her eyes... though her voice dies down the moment she sees someone new standing above her. It's Michael. Simpering down at her the same way he did to Daniel.

❝ Hello, Charlotte. How are you? ❞ Clear mockery. She's in unspeakable pain, watched by the innocent eyes of the demon who turned back into the guise of a toddler's skin. ❝ I've just met your husband. Still a gambler. ❞ Charlotte strains to somehow prop herself onto her elbows, legs unusable flinches with each attempt to sit up some. ❝ Who are you? ❞ Michael crouches down to meet her on eye level, head canting to one side. In lieu of answering her, he only continues where he left off: ❝ Just as you are still a pathetic excuse for a mother. ❞ Then he pauses, a touch of amazement flitting over his own mien ere he whispers. ❝ She really looks like you. ❞ And his smile resurfaces. ❝ No wonder she hated mirrors. But that's history ❞, he adds a dismissive wave of one hand. Enjoys Charlotte's bewilderment as much as Daniel's. The disappointment slowly clawing its way from their eyes into every wrinkle of their skin.

❝ You should be happy for her. She dances again, successfully! ❞ A laugh trails after that in ignorance toward her scrutiny practically stabbing him through a sharpening glare. ❝ See, you even failed to ruin her life. I can't tell who of you is more laughable, Daniel or you... ❞ Another laugh follows, this time accompanied by the demon's high-pitched giggle that hurls its echo across the room. Charlotte opens her mouth to say something, lips trembling and eyes brimming with fury. But she can't. Flames soar up from the floor to devour her on the spot— one last scream later, heavy silence falls into the space. The demon reverts into its true form again. Exits together with Michael, who soon shall ascend back to the living planes before hell won't let him go anymore.

The time frame is short, albeit a tad longer for him. Thanks, dad.

#ARC 2. #ravenskeeper #yo. dem parents gon get grill'd

[berenices-commas]

For the Recently Deceased

I’ve never much liked Heaven. Oh, it’s much better than the alternative, of course. And I suppose we should be grateful to the Blues for what they’ve made for us (not that our gratitude is worth spit to them even if they are still around, which I very much doubt). In retrospect, my life was really fucking awful. A lot of people say that. I’m glad we get a second chance, with less millet.

So maybe the problem was my angel. Everyone makes friends with their first angel, but not me. I got Yaami. Now Yaami, he’s not inscrutable or enigmatic, like some people say – look at the Ghost Mother, that’s enigmatic! I think he’s just bored. Bored of us, of humans. He’s second wave, so obviously it’s practically impossible to get an idea of what he was like at the start. But I’ve picked up rumours that he used to be much more personable, more involved. (Do not get me started on rumours. You get a hundred billion people and tell them they’re going to live forever, and what do they do? They gossip. Sometimes it seems like all of Heaven subsists on gossip, and I got enough of that when I was alive.) And somewhere along the way he just grew tired of it all. So he never really did much for me beyond the basics – he seemed perfectly happy to let my family take care of me.

Now that was truly dreadful, and had I known better I’d have had nothing to do with them. It was one of these clan things, going back eight generations and with my great-great-etc-grandmother lording it over everyone like the Empress Dowager. The less said about my parents the better. And eight million people in Cànchāng even back then, and everything so utterly different! After five months I ran off, didn’t say a word to anyone, and asked for a little cabin on a mountainside. I would have done it sooner, I think, only I still hadn’t gotten used to be able to just ask for things.

I liked that life. I learned to paint, to read. Or, at least, I thought I liked it. Normally if you spend a long time on your own the angels come and talk to you, prodding you to meet other people. It’s not good for us, that kind of total seclusion. But Yaami never bothered. I was alone for fourteen years, and I couldn’t even really understand the people in my books. They were just so different. More and more it got so I just got up and went to lie on the grass. I stopped painting after a while.

Until one day I woke up and just walked down into the forest. And by this point I don’t know what I was thinking would happen – the whole idea that this was a representation on a computer on a little box in the Kuiper Belt just seemed meaningless, a nonsense. But of course if you go far enough you end up in other spaces, with other people. I met some wolves in the forest, and I travelled with them for a while. Learning how to be something, maybe, so that I could start learning to find out what I wanted to learn to be. If that makes any sense.

All of which is a very roundabout way of saying: you’ll feel overwhelmed, and you might feel that all this is stupid and pointless. I still think that sometimes, eternal life and infinite possibility be damned. But you can find people who make you feel beautiful. Ok, now Nety is reading this and laughing at me, so I’ll leave it there. Be well.

(If you’re reading this, do not look me up, I hate people.)

(If you want things to be different, just ask!)

Flyer on wall outside Clear Springs Reincarnation and Integration Centre, Tamuuq, 72,511/2024.

Written by Zhāng Xiǎoméi. Born Guōdiàn, Hénán, 72,337/1852. Died Qūliáng, Hénán, 72,393/1908.

#celestials #worldbuilding

[danniburgh]

Of Shadows and Sights (Frankie Morales x f!reader)

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x f!reader

Summary: It didn’t happen at once.

It filtrated inside, spread like a vice, like a vicious thing that slowly grew into a shapeless, see-through, translucent cloud that fogged everyone inside that house. And when he finally looked, it was already too late.

Word count: +11.2k (i know)

Warnings: okay get ready, we have: 3rd person narrative bc of reasons, pregnancy and giving birth, soft smut, death, a dog dies, fire, haunting stuff, scary stuff, feelings, angst, DEATH DOVE DO NOT EAT HAPPY HALLOWEEN MONSTERFUKERS

A/N: PLEASE MIND THE WARNINGS

this is something that has been in my wips since april, it changed shapes, characters, tropes and plots and it ended up being this monster of a fic that im really proud of... i wanna thank the directors and creators of The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Conjuring 1, Insidious 1, Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen bc i was very fucking inspired by that, also Stephen King and Valeria Luiselli for their books and The Newton Brothers for the Bly Manor soundtrack, which i recommend listening while reading bc i listened throughout the writing process of this bitch, and also @wordsnwhiskey​ for reading the first half and telling me it was good and scary and beautiful ♥

Masterlist // AO3 // ko-fi

comments and reblogs are eternally appreciated 💓

moodboard by me

It didn’t happen at once.

It was all gradual; like water percolating through the earth and forming stalactites, drop by drop, shaping them and sharpening them, making them tall and dangerous.

It was all slow, like a mountain’s growth, pebble by pebble. And by the time they finally looked at it, it was already too late.

When she told Frankie the news, he was shocked.

And he didn’t try to hide it; he looked at her, absolutely dumbfounded at the two words she had told him, late at night, once Rodrigo was asleep and once they could find a comfortable silence to fall and dwell on.

“I’m pregnant.” she had said.

And he said nothing.

And she waited for him, there, lying down on the same bed, her hand on his chest, surrounded by a warm darkness that did nothing to hide her wide grin as she watched him processing the information she had just slipped to him.

“Baby,” Frankie had muttered back after a few minutes of silence, she hummed in response, “pregnant?” he had asked, his voice was barely a whisper filled with an emotion she, at the time, didn’t know how to name.

“Yeah,” she had replied, scooting closer to him and grabbing his hand, “we’re gonna have another baby.” she had whispered into his ear, putting his hand on her belly, the shape the same it had always been; but Frankie didn’t need to feel it swollen to feel it inside of him, there was something inside, someone, growing by the minute, and the thought of her, of the woman of his life, giving him another baby, another proof of the love they had for each other, another little person to fill their lives with even more excitement and love, made him feel like the luckiest son of a bitch there was.

So he embraced her, he held her tightly against his naked chest; he kissed her, kissed her and kissed her with such devotion she felt infinitely loved, he thanked her, because he knew how hard Rodrigo’s pregnancy had been, he knew how much of a toll giving birth to him had taken out of her and yet there she was, hugging him back and sniffling softly at his words, at his hold, at his kisses, ready to do it all over again.

“I love you so much.” he had told her, crowding her down, pinning her to the bed, brushing her tears of happiness away, kissing her trembling lips, nibbling at the skin of her neck, inhaling her sweet scent, letting her hands roam all around his body and taking her all over again, fucking into her softly, trying to let her know with his body how much he loved her.

It was a newfound bliss, something they didn’t live when she was pregnant with Rodrigo, with him, there had been fear, constant worry; they didn’t know if they were going to be good parents; they didn’t know anything of substance about babies and Frankie spent months worrying about being too old to be a first-time father.

But with the new one, they already knew for the most part what they were doing. Rodrigo was almost two years old and he was such a good, smart, perfect little boy they just knew that the one growing inside of her was going to be just as perfect. There was not a single doubt inside them as it had been when she was pregnant for the first time, there was only happiness and love and excitement and hope growing and growing.

It elated their families; the news of another little baby excited them equally, her mom cried for hours, thick happy tears at the way her little girl was getting everything she wanted with a man who loved her and respected her like she only hoped for; Frankie’s mom immediately started praying for a little girl, having only grandsons.

His team, his found family, his brothers, her best friends, went insane about it; another baby Morales only meant having a new, quiet, funny little person to play with and fawn over.

It was almost perfect.

___

Their house was the ideal love nest for them; they had bought it together and decorated it and renewed it together, they had lived there for years and received baby Rodri there and it was everything they wanted; but it wasn’t enough anymore.

They had outgrown it without even noticing.

And Frankie knew it when he saw a little boy’s room filled with toys and one single bed that they needed a new house before receiving their new child.

“We need to move.” Frankie had said to her as he saw her undressing before taking a shower. She had scoffed at him, rolling her eyes at the man who sat on the edge of the bed.

“You think?” she retorted, making him smile at her. Frankie had tilted his head as he took her in, standing in front of a full-body-length mirror, her body, soft in some parts and firm in some others, perfect and lovely as he always had seen it, had the small shades of her growing belly appearing slowly.

“I’m thinking of something far from downtown,” Frankie had commented once she walked back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her head, “what do you say?”

“I think a big garden, we can get a dog.” she had grinned at him as she threw the towel on an armchair and crawled next to him on the bed, resting her wet head on his naked chest and making him shudder.

It was almost perfect.

It took them exactly two months to find the perfect house.

Money, for once in their lives, wasn’t a problem; the blood-stained, stolen millions from the Lorea heist were getting a good use, according to Santiago, and they all got their clean cut each month, just enough to live a comfortable life without having to worry about making ends meet, just enough to support a family of four and buy a house without a mortgage.

They had been lucky to find a property like that; according to the realtor, it had been on the market for a few years and for some reason no one had been interested until them.

It was like the house had found itself for them.

And the moving began with the help of his friends, several trips from their old house in the suburbs from their new house in the outskirts in Frankie’s and Will’s trucks were needed but by the end of the day they had transported every single thing they owned to their new home.

When they were sure the house was settled enough; cleaned rooms, beds in place, less boxes crowding the space, they brought Rodrigo from his grandma’s place and introduced him to his new home.

The first thing the kid fixated his big brown eyes on was the trees; the driveway was long, sheltered by a decades old treeline and its tall branches that made it just dark enough to feel the difference in temperature when someone stood in the shade spots where the sun never touched the ground.

The road widened and the trees dissipated, giving way to the garden, which had the kid excited as he saw through the window the tall flower bushes that Frankie was still trying to figure out how to take care of.

And the house appeared on their line of sight; a tall, three story, mid-century construction. Painted in sky-blue and white, the house looked inviting. It wasn’t warm, and she had noticed, and sometimes, in the days that took them to get the house half-ready, she could feel odd air-currents drifting between her calves, but it was theirs, and it was home, and they could, she figured, warm it up along the days.

Rodrigo looked tiny as he crossed the threshold, slowly, legs wobbling as he made his way through the few boxes near the doorway; the living room and dining room were in the same large space, mid-height ceilings made the house look even bigger. The boy walked around the couches and stared at the open-wide mouth of the fireplace, turning back to his parents, who looked at him with expectancy, curious about his exploration, and babbled something at them, pointing at the dark, coal stained brick of it.

Frankie walked towards him and kneeled next to him, Rodrigo didn’t repeat what he had tried to say before, instead, he took his father’s hand and tugged him away.

Rodrigo guided his dad inside the kitchen, hidden behind the living space; it was half a sun room, the floor to ceiling glass door let all the light from outside come in and right above the stove there was a stained glass window that made the sunshine form small, shiny, colorful patterns on the wooden floors. Rodrigo called for his mom, who walked behind them, trying to contain her own laugh as she saw the boy throwing his head back when he looked at the wooden beams on the ceiling.

“What do you think, Rodri?” Frankie kneeled next to the boy, distracting him from the study of the light fixtures hanging from the beams.

Rodrigo had smiled at his dad.

___

Some parts of the house were bright; the wide windows on three of the four bedrooms let the sun come through them almost the entire day, warming the beddings and reflecting through the mirrors; one of those became Rodrigo’s, Frankie had placed his bed in the middle of the room, looking directly at the window, and around it she had made sure he had enough space to play or take a nap on the floor if the kid so wanted; they had painted the room a pastel green that made the kid look like he was in the middle of a gentle forest, ready to play with fairies and furry little animals.

The next room over was slowly becoming a nursery; with the move, they realized they still had some of Rodri’s baby stuff, and Frankie had committed to fix and paint the crib as she painted the room yellow, even though she knew, deep inside her, she was carrying a baby girl. The sun that shone through made the room the brightest spot in the house, colliding with the yellow walls and the white furniture, it was even brighter than the kitchen itself.

Some parts of the house were dark; being in the back of the house, the principal bedroom, their bedroom, was a dark spot inside the construction; the room was colder than the others, walking inside was like walking into a small church; it was the only room with high ceilings, as the attic above them ended right on the edge of the room, and an en-suite bathroom, the built-in closet was bigger than any of them really needed, and Frankie had gotten stuck inside it once while replacing the lightbulb.

“Buy a new doorknob on your way back home, would you?” she asked him one morning over her coffee cup; Frankie frowned at her in confusion while he peeled a banana and handed it to Rodrigo in two pieces.

“Why? we already changed the locks.” he said, stealing a small bite of the fruit from the boy’s plate. She looked at him and leaned to rest her head on her hand.

“I don’t want Rodri to get stuck in the closet,” she said, looking into his eyes, “like you.” she saw him hang his head between his shoulders, chuckling at him.

“I still think you closed the door on me.” Frankie pointed at her, she rolled her eyes.

“How? I was changing Rodri.” she challenged him, Frankie shrugged.

“You ran to close the door and left me there.” he said, grabbing his cup and sipping from it, she let out a loud cackle.

“Yeah, the three month pregnant woman is gonna run to leave her husband trapped inside a closet.” she mocked him, standing up to leave her cup in the sink.

“That’s cause for divorce!” he let out with a grin as she padded out of the kitchen.

But some parts of the house were darker; on the very top of the house, the attic was a half-wall, half-ceiling construction as large as the house itself; it was just high enough inside the gable roof for them to stand up straight while they were in there, but not as high as the first two floors, and certainly not as high as their bedroom ceiling.

The attic could easily be another room if it wasn’t for the only two squared windows on each end, fogged glass making it hard for the light to enter, small to not let anything –or anyone– crawl through them.

It was empty when they arrived, clean of someone else’s stuff, no forgotten boxes or mysterious chests to explore, –as she had pointed out, making Frankie laugh at her scary-movie-esque train of thought– only the two tiny windows staring at each other, dust and spiderwebs; but it got crowded as they unpacked and got settled, some boxes ended up there un-opened, and some other half-unpacked, and soon enough they had finished with the last box and the attic had been closed from the outside and neither of them went up there.

“Babe?” her voice came out of the kitchen, Frankie sat on the couch with Rodrigo on his lap and the tv on.

“Yeah?” Frankie lifted the boy and left him in the space next to him, standing up and walking towards the kitchen with the sound of cabinets being open and closed rising on his ears.

“Did we forget to unpack a box?” she asked as she saw him enter the kitchen, “I can’t find the strainer.”

“I don’t think so,” Frankie walked towards the pantry and opened the door to check on the lower shelf, finding pots but nothing more, “Rodri didn’t take it?”

“No, he’s bored of it,” she said, opening the dishwasher again “he’s into the small saucepan now.” Frankie chuckled as he closed the pantry door.

“Did you check the attic?” he asked her, she turned to look at him with a frown.

“I’m not going in there,” she crossed her hands on her chest, Frankie sighed, amused, and rolled his eyes, “what? it’s dark.” she let out, biting down her lip as he chuckled at her.

“Fine, I’ll go check.” Frankie dropped his hands in defeat and walked out of the kitchen; he checked on Rodrigo before going up the stairs, the kid was moving his legs at the rhythm of yet another song about sharing on his cartoon show and in the same place he had left him on the couch.

The kid was unfazed at the sight of his father leaving the room; but the noises in the kitchen grabbed his attention more than the show he was watching. He crawled down the couch slowly, having just learned how to do it, and padded his way into the kitchen.

The big glass door was open, and his mom was nowhere to be seen, but Rodrigo wasn’t looking for his mom, he was looking for the noise of something hitting on metal, something he had heard before in that same, big, shiny room, something he had heard when mommy fed him and daddy sat him on his lap.

He sat on the floor, just a few inches drop and the diaper softened the landing; his big brown eyes, the same ones he had inherited from his dad, widened at the air; colorful lights, reflections of the sunlight making their way through the stained glass window on the other side of the room, were dancing around him on the floor and hopping around his head. Rodri laughed when one of the lights landed on his chubby leg; he tried to catch it, but it moved away.

“Baby,” the voice caught the kid’s attention, ripping it from the little shining lights on the wooden boards before he could chase the one that got away, he looked around him for the owner of voice but no one entered the kitchen. “baby.”

Frankie walked down the stairs empty-handed, there wasn’t a single kitchen box in the attic, or another that could hold the strainer he was looking for. His heavy steps became heavier when he saw the couch empty.

“Rodri?” he called, rushing to the front door and opening it, scanning the front yard for the toddler. He closed the door and turned to the bathroom, finding the door closed, he rushed into the kitchen, finding the boy sitting on the floor, his back to him.

Frankie sighed, his brown eyes looking for her, the glass door to the backyard was open and he walked towards it, and he found her roaming around the bushes. He smiled, and Rodrigo’s laugh made him turn around to the kid.

Rodri’s eyes were glued to the air, it was like he was looking at something, and that something was making him laugh; the boy’s laughter was loud, like the one he let out when his dad tickled his belly, or when mom blew raspberries on his feet. But Frankie couldn’t see the cause of his laugh.

“Rodri?” Frankie muttered, frowning when the boy lifted a hand, as if he was trying to reach for something mid-air. “son?”

Rodrigo’s hand dropped to his lap, smacking his leg and the boy fell backwards to the floor, the back of his head hitting the hardwood floor in one single movement; he screamed and Frankie rushed to the kid, lifting him in his arms as Rodri sobbed loudly, calling for him as Frankie cupped his head and pressed him into his shoulder.

“What happened?” Frankie turned around, finding her walking into the kitchen with a heavily dirt-stained strainer in one hand and her face curled in worry.

“He fell.”

___

Frankie had the ability to undo her.

His hands were just big enough for her to feel them everywhere; his rough fingers roamed around her skin and his nails dug into her flesh just like she liked.

His lips nibbled at her neck and his tongue tasted at her scent, making her forget who she was and focussing only on what she felt.

Everything at the same time.

Frankie was on top of her, muffling her moans and whimpers with his own mouth, he rocked into her slowly; feeling her wrapped around him as he took her all over again; she was falling apart in his arms.

The silence of the room made him hear every sound that came out of her, the soft cries of pleasure, the gentle squelches of her as he fucked into her and his own groans as her cunt milked his orgasm selfishly. He could hear her whole, and that was making him drive into her faster.

“Yes,” she whispered out when he planted his knees on the mattress and sped up for her, “right there.”

Her hands were wrapped around his neck, and she brought him to her, taking his mouth in hers and exploring him with her tongue. She explored the skin of his back like she didn’t already know it and, in one particular, deep, heavy thrust of him into her, her hand landed on his ass, pushing him into her.

“Fuck, amor.” Frankie panted into her, hissing slightly at the feeling of her hand fisting the flesh of his ass and digging her nails into him.

Frankie fucked into her and hid his face in the crook of his neck, she whispered his name as he made her cum and encouraged him with her hands to do the same, he thrusted inside a few more times and spilled himself into her.

“I love you.” he heard in his ear, feeling her lips leaving sparse kisses on his shoulder.

“I love you too,” Frankie replied, easing himself off her and hovering above her body, she opened her eyes and furrowed her brow, but said nothing, instead, she leaned up and stole a soft, short kiss from his lips, “you got me good, baby.” he joked as he slid out of her.

“What?” she whimpered, stretching her legs under him and feeling his cum slide out of her.

“My ass,” Frankie left another kiss on the tip of her nose, “you scratched me.”

She frowned at him, unwrapping his neck and dropping her hands to the mattress.

“I didn’t grab your ass.”

Frankie reciprocated the frown, rolling away from her and kneeling on the bed next to her; she sat slowly, looking at him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, one of her hands instinctively reaching for her uncovered belly.

Frankie shook his head, and her eyes glided up and down his naked body.

“I swear I felt your hand.” he told her, sitting back on his feet and hissing when his heel made contact with the skin of his ass.

“Let me see,” she said, reaching for him; Frankie turned to let her look at his back. “fuck.”

“What?” Frankie turned his head to her.

“Go look at yourself in the mirror.” she whispered, covering her mouth with a hand.

Frankie’s frown deepened as he stood from the bed, he padded towards the full-body mirror in the corner of the room and turned to look at the back of his body.

“I swear I didn’t touch you.” she muttered as Frankie’s fingers grazed gently over the three deep scratches that covered half of his ass.

___

The house was silent when it wanted to be.

She hadn’t gotten used to it; there was an hour of the day, right when she put Rodrigo down for a nap, and she had nothing else to do around but sit and caress and hum to her small bump, in which the house huddled all the noise for itself.

She was sure that, if she concentrated enough, she could hear a needle falling onto the floor.

The honks of Frankie’s truck startled her out of her own body, she had almost jumped off the couch when she heard them but she was happy that he was home early, she felt relieved to not be inside that silence anymore.

She walked towards the front door and opened it to receive him; as soon as she did and stepped outside, a brown figure rushed inside.

The door of the truck closing, the chuckles of Frankie, a bark in the kitchen, and the house was filled with sounds again.

“What did you do?” she chastised him with a smile adorning her face.

“I got a dog.” Frankie replied, stepping closer to her and wrapping a hand around her waist.

“That’s pretty obvious,” she teased, leaning onto him as he brought her closer to kiss her. “it’s too big.”

“He…” he clarified, “is gonna take care of the house,” she rolled her eyes at him, “and his name is Paco.” Frankie whispered against her mouth, and she leaned back.

“Isn’t that a short version of Francisco?” she asked, looking down at her incipient stomach when Frankie’s hand settled on it.

“Yeah,” he chuckled out, “he’s old, already responds to it, we can’t change it.”

“Too bad for you.” she whispered, feeling the baby move inside of her.

“It kicked!” Frankie’s eyebrows shot up, giving her a smile.

“She…” she emphasized, “did not,” she smiled at him as he feigned a pout “she hasn’t kicked yet.”

“But…” Frankie looked at her, staring into her eyes, “Rodrigo started kicking at four months, didn’t he?” she nodded, giving him a small smile, one of those smiles she knew gave him peace of mind.

“Doctor says some babies do it first,” she told him, reaching for his face, making him lean into her to leave a kiss on the soft patch of his beard where he didn’t have hair, “I think she doesn’t like violence.”

Frankie snorted at her, turning her in his arms to walk inside the house.

The dog barked in the kitchen and they heard his nails scratching the wooden floors, in other circumstances, she would’ve hated the dog along with the scratches on the floor; but the sound, in some odd way, gave her comfort.

“Did you buy his food?” she asked as he grabbed her hand and guided her to the kitchen.

“No, he’s gonna eat the kid.”

___

The night was cold, colder than others. Frankie had noticed and she had blamed the lack of sunlight in that room, but they wrapped themselves in an extra blanket and into themselves, falling asleep with their hands together on her belly.

Sometimes, sleep would come too easy for Frankie; there were nights, long before they had moved into that house, in which he wouldn’t close an eye for an entire night; too many memories of past lives haunted him, and they would come and go at random times.

Since moving into that place, insomnia seemed like a long-lost friend whose face he didn’t remember, and the nights in which he would sleep deeply and even dream were increasing.

He rolled on the bed, and his hand fell on your place, finding it empty; his eyes half-opened, and he asked for you, his voice coarse, his eyes closing back by themselves.

“Shh,” he heard behind him, a soft whisper into his ears, “it’s fine.”

“Back to bed.” he mumbled into the pillow, feeling the soft caress of hands pulling the sheet over him, tucking him into the covers.

Frankie felt a soft press of lips on the back of his head, and he sighed contentedly as he sunk back into his dream, feeling the pressure of a warm body curling behind him.

“I love you.” the whisper came into his ear and settled inside his chest.

The warmth behind him disappeared and Frankie felt the covers being tugged next to him, he opened back his eyes.

“Go back to sleep, baby.” she said, covering herself and shifting closer to him.

“Why you changed places?” he muttered the question as she wrapped her arm around his waist.

“What?” she asked in a whisper, yawning into him.

“Other side.” Frankie let out, closing back his eyes, she didn’t understand him.

“I went to check on Rodri,” she whispered, feeling him wrapping himself around her, “this room is really cold, Frankie.” she let out, settling next to him as his own warmth crawled into her body, not expecting him to reply, as his breathing had evened out and he was deep asleep again.

___

“Amor?” Frankie called out from the kitchen; her head went up from her swollen belly and the two year old with his hands palming it.

“Yeah?” she replied, not daring to tell Rodri he needed to stop so mommy could stand up.

“Where’s Paco’s bowl?” Frankie asked, appearing through the kitchen entry and stopping in his tracks at the sight of his son pressing his forehead against his mother's baby bump.

“She’s kicking.” she whispered to him, Frankie grinned at her.

“Have you seen it?” he asked again, she shook her head, “dammit.”

Frankie turned around and walked back into the kitchen, sighing as the dog whined once more, announcing his hunger to anyone who would listen.

“Feed him in any bowl.” her voice came in from the living room, Frankie turned to look at the dog and shrugged, walking to one cabinet to get one of the bowls they used the least.

Rodrigo started babbling to her belly, and she put her hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair, which was starting to curl just like Frankie’s, the boy shuddered under her hand, and she smiled down at him.

One of Paco’s gentle boofs caught Rodri’s attention, and he leaned back to look towards the kitchen, her hand traveled down his head and to the back, and she felt the small bump on his scalp that that weird fall from a couple of months before had left on him; Rodri didn’t seem to feel any pain, every time she felt around the bump he was as good as always, but the way he cried, of pain and fear, was still ingrained inside her head.

She and Frankie had tried to make sense of how it happened, he had told her everything he saw, from the odd stare to the full laughter, but there was no way Rodrigo had enough strength to bump himself on the head and leave a mark. It was like something had pushed him.

But she wasn’t there when it happened, and it some way she had blamed herself for it; she was supposed to be looking after her son when she asked Frankie to go to the attic, and instead she was in the backyard, unburying the strainer that for the strangest of reasons, was halfway into the bushes’s dirt.

It didn’t make sense to her, neither to him; but once in a while something inside the house would go missing; nothing really of value, but most times things of common use; spoons and plates, the broom, Frankie’s watch, the tv remote, a phone charger, anything could get lost at anytime and they couldn’t find it for days. It wasn’t until they stopped looking, that the things would appear in the oddest places; amongst the ashes of the fireplace, inside the dishwasher, on top of the fridge, in Paco’s food bag, on the edge of the attic’s floor.

And they had no one to blame; most of the things that went missing were out of Rodrigo’s reach or just not of interest to him, Paco was too old to be in a hide and seek phase and spent his days lying down next to Rodrigo on the couch or barking at nothing in their bedroom.

It just happened, and there was nothing they could do, so they figured it was smarter and less tiring to just let it be.

But she wasn’t entirely convinced it would stop, and there was a feeling of uneasiness taking root inside of her, a bloom of intranquility that grew with the passing of the days and that didn’t leave her alone; she felt like she couldn’t trust the house she was living in, like at any time she would blink and everything inside would just be gone.

___

“You have everything?” Frankie asked, helping her get inside the truck, she nodded to him, leaving the clear-plastic folder with her previous five sonograms and her obstetrician information on the dashboard, reaching back for the seatbelt.

Frankie closed the door and walked around the truck, checking on Rodrigo, safely seated and tucked into his car seat on the back. He jumped in, turning to look at her as he clipped on his seatbelt; she was staring at the house, her expression unreadable as he turned on the ignition.

“You okay?” he asked, she turned slowly to face him, and nodded in silence. Frankie noticed the way she had pressed her lips to avoid saying something, but as her mouth was quiet, her eyes were loud, and told him a million things he wasn’t sure if he needed to know.

“Bye!” Rodrigo let out from the backseat. The both of them turned to look at the kid, who was waving his little hand to nothing in particular outside the window.

“Who are you talking to, baby?” Frankie asked him, turning back to drive away from the house.

“Bye, bubby!” Rodri let out, Frankie looked at his son through the rearview mirror and saw him smile, waving faster, “bye, bubby!”

“What’s bubby?” Frankie asked her, who was still turned around, looking at their son.

She frowned, her head racing at a thousand miles per hour; there were some things happening with Rodri; and most of them she had kept to herself. The kid would tell her, in his own way, about the dreams he would have of them, and sometimes, he would point at the attic door, and tell her about the mommy living inside.

She didn’t like when he would babble those things to her, and she would change subjects in any conversation she could have with her toddler; but she knew the kid wasn’t lying, he didn’t have that capacity yet.

She couldn’t fathom the thought of believing the things Rodri would say, but, after spending four months inside the house, giving into them appeared tempting.

“That’s how he calls Paco.” she replied, turning on the seat and looking to the front, breathing in deeply when Frankie stirred the wheel and drove out of the tree sheltered driveway.

She thought, a lot of times, that feeling a hundred pounds lighter every time she left the house wasn’t a good signal.

And she wondered, an equal amount of times, if Frankie felt that way too.

___

“Paco!” she called, opening the glass kitchen door, the soft scratches of nails got closer with the sound of the door opening, and the dog ran through the kitchen door, expectant, “out,” she pointed at the backyard, “run around a little you old thing.”

The dog looked up at her, shaking his body from snout to tail and walked out of the house.

“Bubby!” Rodrigo shouted from his highchair in front of the island, and she smiled at the kid, leaving the door open for the dog to come back when he got tired. She padded towards Rodri, leaning on the counter as she saw him eat.

Paco’s barks broke off the soft silence that formed inside the house, and she turned around with a roll of her eyes, getting closer to the door to look for the dog and tell him to shut up.

She saw him jumping around the bushes, barking at the roots.

“Paco! inside!” she called out, the dog didn’t listen, his barks got louder and she heard him growl at the same spot she had found the strainer months before. “hey!”

She walked out of the house, towards the dog and the bushes and whatever he was barking at, Paco got on his back legs, growling and barking ferally, menacing towards nothing, and she stopped on her tracks, grabbing her belly with two hands.

“What’s wrong with you?” she yelled at the dog. Paco turned to look at her and gave her one last bark, running past her and into the house. Her eyes followed him as the dog rushed inside and past Rodri, who she could see from the point she was standing on; she looked down, scanning the ground and in between the grass, trying to find anything that could tell her what the dog was barking at, but it was empty.

“Mama!” Rodrigo’s voice came from the house, and her instinct immediately recognized the scared tone of his voice; she turned back to the house, seeing the glass door slowly drifting closed, “mama!” she gasped, rushing as fast as she could towards the house while Paco’s barks inundated it once again.

“Rodri!” she yelled, the door closed shut on itself before she could run into the house, “fuck!” her hands landed on the handle, pushing it down frantically; it was stuck, and Rodrigo started crying for her inside. “shit!”

Paco’s barks were so loud that for a moment she felt like they were inside her head, and she rushed away from the kitchen door and around the house, she heard Rodrigo screaming for her before she reached the front door and she twisted the knob, pushing with all her strength, but the door didn’t give in.

Desperation invaded her body, it wasn’t good, none about it was good; her head started pounding and the sound of her son and the dog crying at the same time pierced through her temple like a lobotomy needle.

She ran back to the yard, tripping on her own feet; she steadied herself as she got to the glass door, tried the handle again with no success; Rodrigo saw her through the glass and shouted for her, she caught herself panting only as her breath fogged the glass and she ran to the bushes, trying to find anything to break the glass with.

A desperate bark from Paco that transformed into a loud whine and a high shriek from Rodrigo gave in to silence.

Unsettling silence.

She found herself trembling as the sound of the door unlocking made her turn. The door opened in the same gliding motion it had closed and she rushed inside.

Rodrigo was sniffing on his high chair, and she rushed to him, taking him out and into her arms as the kid clung to her.

“Out.”

A whisper, a current of air drifting through her legs, a silence that felt unwelcoming.

She started sobbing into her son’s shoulder as he grabbed fists of his mom and dampened her shirt; she was shaking.

She forced herself to walk out of the kitchen, Rodrigo’s sobs turned into shudders and she knew he was falling asleep; she walked with him into the living room and the brown figure of Paco presented itself in front of her; lying on the ground, legs stretched out, neck snapped back.

She stopped walking, feeling a heavy pressure in her chest.

That wasn’t right.

They needed to get out.

___

“Hey,” Frankie got her out of her absent-mindedness, she turned to look at him as he settled next to her on the bed, “you okay?”

It was a good question. She thought of the answer for a moment longer than she had wanted, and Frankie wrapped his arms around her, bringing her flush to his chest and leaving a soft kiss on the crown of her head.

“I don’t like this house.” she muttered, wrapping her own arms around his waist. Frankie sighed, tightening the grip around her, sliding down a hand to rest it on her belly.

“Have you decided a name?” Frankie asked her, and she felt herself deflate.

He wasn’t seeing it.

“Yeah,” she whispered, trying to drown down her own tears, Frankie was unaware of it, either he was blind to it or was trying to ignore it. But she knew she wasn’t welcomed there, and the fact that Frankie tried to make it bearable to her made her heart jump inside her chest, “I’m not telling you.”

“What?” he leaned back to look at her. Frankie was a lot of things, but he never missed any of her shifts, any of her movements. They had been together enough time for him to have every single one of her quirks and expressions memorized, and he noticed the redness of her eyes, the heave of her chest, the biting-back of her words. There was something inside of her she wasn’t telling him, but he knew not to pressure. “why not?”

“It’s a surprise.” she whispered. Frankie smiled at her, one of those smiles that tried to convey everything he felt for her, telling her everything would be alright.

She reciprocated, trying to believe him.

They laid there, wrapped around each other, peppering kisses around each other’s faces, whispering soothing nothings into each other’s ears, feeling each other’s bodies. A recognition, a recovery, a remembrance of who they were and why they were there.

Frankie fell asleep before her; she had lost the ability to sleep soundly after she saw Paco’s body a month prior, it was like his insomnia had traveled around the world and decided it liked Frankie so much it settled into her instead so it could watch him sleep.

His hand rested on her belly, moving with the rise of her own breathing; she didn’t like the silence; she loathed it.

Unwelcoming silence was everything she had then.

She closed her eyes, trying to think that maybe after the baby was born, everything would be better; wondering if Frankie didn’t see it because he couldn’t, asking herself if maybe everything was in her mind and she was dragging Rodrigo with her. But she knew, deep inside of her, that she wasn’t crazy.

Her eyes opened slowly, unfocussed and heavy with sleep; they scanned the room by themselves, stopping on the en-suite’s door.

She frowned, her heart started racing, but she couldn’t look away.

Her eyes were glued to the shadow standing on the doorway.

Formless and incoherent; dark and repelling light; heavy hands on its sides, the faceless shadow looked at her.

“Shh,” she heard, a woman’s voice, a distorted guttural noise that made no sense, it was one voice but thousands of them, “it’s fine.”

It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. She knew the coos were meant to calm her down; but they didn’t. She felt like her heart was going to jump out of her, like she would sink into the mattress and drop straight to hell.

Leave, she thought, leave.

The shadow glided out of the bathroom, closer to the end of the bed.

Leave, she tried to tell it, leave.

She felt a hand on her calf, cold fingers skimming gently up and down her skin. It burned her.

“Shh,” the noise came out again, and a pair of glowing eyes opened in front of her. She wanted to scream, she wanted to kick and push and run away, “it’s fine.”

“Leave”, she cried out, “leave.” her voice was barely audible, a whisper of her own, a blow of her heavy breath.

The shadow closed its eyes, retreated its hand and glided backwards from where it came from.

“Frankie.” she shook him awake, he shot a groan to her as she gasped for air.

He opened his eyes at the sound of her struggling to breathe, he sat up and turned on the lamp.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked her, helping her sit up on the bed.

“There’s something in the house.”

___

Silence, like a lot of things, could be comfortable.

They knew comfortable silence once; they had it before. It happened for the first time when they had a road trip for the first time; escaping to a cabin in a lake for a weekend was a good idea for both, but conversation had died out on the way there, and none of them complained about it.

The silence that ensued after the shadow visited her was not comfortable at all.

She had shut down almost entirely; she started sitting down on the couch throughout most of the day, she barely talked to Frankie, she barely looked at Rodrigo.

Frankie didn’t know how, but he was losing his wife to herself.

He had taken time from work, no one asked why –a perk of being one of the bosses– or when he would return, but he thought, selfishly, that maybe if he took a week or two, she would get better and everything would be like it was.

Two weeks became three, and then a month, and then another.

And she was quiet; so quiet it hurt.

She started sleeping with Rodrigo, and left him to sleep alone inside the dark, cold room where she had told him they weren’t really alone.

Frankie had tried to ask her what she meant, tried to find out if there was someone breaking into their house; but they lived close to nowhere, their house was far away from town and even from the road itself; it wasn’t possible.

Yet she was quiet.

Frankie tried to see it; the shadow she mentioned to Rodrigo once, he even tried to call it. He went up the attic, he sat there alone in the middle of the night and spoke to the air, but nothing came to him, nothing whispered into his ear, no one showed themselves.

And he hated it; he hated it.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear after sitting next to her on the couch. “I love you so much.”

She didn’t look at him, but her body reacted to his words; he saw it happening like it always happened; her face softened, her eyes glimmered, her cheeks blushed even after six years of being together; and it made him feel safe, it made him feel like there was a small glimpse of hope that everything would be okay.

She leaned down, resting her head on his lap, and Frankie smiled down at her; she didn’t look at him, but there she was, she wasn’t gone.

He wrapped an arm around her, resting his hand on the side of her belly, the baby kicked onto his hand, and Frankie sighed; there she was, she wasn’t gone.

___

Frankie’s bed felt cold most nights; he slept on his own. He would wait until she and Rodrigo fell asleep in his room, then he would crawl out of the small bed and walk to his own, shivering as the cold mattress welcomed him for another time.

But that night his bed was full; he had almost forced her to sleep with him, and she had brought Rodri with her.

Comfort; that’s what their bodies next to him gave him.

Frankie’s arms were wrapped around the boy, and they slept soundly together, their breaths almost synchronized as she watched them both intently; they looked so alike, Rodri was like a carbon copy of him, and when they slept, next to each other, it was like watching each other’s reflections.

She knew what would happen next; she had dreamed about it for the past two months, she had talked to herself over and over again and she had talked to it.

It didn’t care about her silent pleadings; it didn’t care how many times she had begged it not to. It wanted what it wanted and there was no way to change its mind.

She sat on the bed, leaning against the bed frame, waiting.

She waited until the night was dark enough, until the room was cold enough, until the shadow that had visited her in her dreams showed itself on the doorstep of the bathroom; she didn’t greet it, she didn’t smile at it, she didn’t want it.

Please, she thought, please.

Yet the shadow glided out of the bathroom, closer to the end of the bed.

Please, she tried to tell it, please.

She felt its hand on her calf, its cold fingers skimming gently up and down her skin.

It felt like burning, felt like stepping barefoot on a frozen lake in the middle of winter.

“Shh,” it whispered, it, like the previous times, didn’t calm her, it scared her, its voice was many and she asked herself who else was in it. Its glowing eyes opened in front of her and for the first time, it looked at her. She didn’t scream, she didn’t kick or push or run away, “it’s fine.”

“Please”, she whispered “please.” her blow of weak air made it stop momentarily, it didn’t listen, it didn’t care.

It glided to her side, and she looked into the lights of its eyes and she saw the sky; white, cloudy, grey, sunny sky. She felt its hand on her chest, and she only could think about the little girl growing inside of her body.

“Please,” she whispered inside of her, it pushed into her body, “please let her live.”

“Shh,” it whispered, its hand digging inside, looking for something to take, “it’s fine.”

She closed her eyes, waiting for it to finish.

It liked her inside, it found what it was looking for and sat on the bed, lying down on top of her.

Let her.

Let her.

Let her.

The voice that was many was now inside her head, and before she sank onto the floor, she thought that maybe it was her own voice instead.

___

Rodrigo ran from his mom.

Every time she tried to get close to him he ran to his dad.

And Frankie, as he always did, noticed.

She started sleeping again in the dark, cold, room, wrapped in a white nightgown he had never seen; but when he woke up in the middle of the night, her eyes were open, she stared at the ceiling, studied it, whispered to it.

It didn’t feel right.

Frankie stared at her intently; she carried herself differently, her look had changed, she kissed him in some kind of weird way; she didn’t look like herself.

The last thing he had told him, before her silence, and before her change, was ingrained in his memory; the five words repeated in a loop inside his head and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He had felt it, but he was sure she had seen it.

How could he not see it?

Frankie talked to her, he tried to talk to her every day; but she talked to herself, she talked to the bushes in the backyard, she talked to the house, never to him, never to Rodrigo, never to the girl that was still inside of her body.

He didn’t know tho that, her, –you– but not her, someone else, was; he knew that body, but it didn’t move how it used to, she didn’t have that small trip on her feet when she walked; he knew that face, but she didn’t smile to him or to Rodrigo when she walked by; he knew that voice, but she didn’t sing to her swollen belly when the night was falling.

He just didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted then, or what she would do.

Frankie just knew his wife, the woman who owned that body, the woman who knew him the most… wasn’t there anymore.

And he didn’t know how to bring her back… or if she was still inside.

“Who are you?” he asked her in the nights he woke up to her eyes glued to the ceiling. She never answered, she never tried to calm him down, she never mocked his question, she laid there, hands on her chest, eyes on the ceiling.

He started sleeping with Rodrigo, leaving her alone in the dark, cold room; leaving her to whatever she had in her head, leaving her because she wasn’t her, but she didn’t know who she was.

There’s something in the house.

She had said it, and he didn’t see it.

Rodrigo was more sensible to that than him, he felt it –as he always felt so many things– the change, the little slips of her but not her, of his mother who wasn’t his mother, and so he got attached to him, to his hip, to his shirts, to his arms when they sleep together, and Frankie wondered if the baby, the one inside her boy, the one whose name he still wanted to know, felt it too.

___

“Who are you?” he asked her in a whisper, she stood in the middle of the kitchen, right on top of the pattern the sun made when it crossed through the stained glass window, staring at the walls. “what did you do to her?”

As Frankie was slow to anger, he was also slow to sadness; he had seen and done things in his life that desensitized him to what he once in his life called normal human emotions. But there, standing in the middle of the kitchen, her back to him and his hands aching to grab some part of her, he couldn’t hold himself together anymore.

“Where is she?” he whispered out, stepping closer, tracing the edge of her arm with his hand, not daring to place it down on her skin.

“Shh…” she said, Frankie closed his eyes, “it’s fine.”

He let out a silent sob, his hand rested on her shoulder, her skin was cold, colder than he had ever felt it, it burned him.

“Please,” he breathed out, “please.”

She turned to him, his hand sliding down her arm and dropping back to his side, she looked at him, looked into his eyes; Frankie didn’t see her, he didn’t see anyone.

“She’s here,” she whispered, her voice was many, and Frankie’s hand flew to his mouth to stop himself from screaming, “but she’s leaving.”

“No.” he cried out against his hand.

“I was lonely,” she said, it said, “I was so lonely.”

“What did you do to her?” Frankie asked, breathing heavily.

“I’m here now,” it said through her, and she smiled at him, it didn’t calm him down, it didn’t make him feel better, “I’m here again.”

Frankie stepped back from her, his wet face didn’t seem to faze her, she didn’t look at him but through him.

“Is she still in there?” he wanted to know, he thought maybe he deserved to know. She, –you– it tilted her head to the side, empty eyes looking everywhere and nowhere, void of any emotion; gray, dimmed, not her but someone, something else’s and then, a smile, –not hers– grew on her lips, and Frankie’s tears ran faster down his face.

“Barely.”

___

That night was Frankie’s sixth night without sleep; he couldn’t, even when his body begged for it, even when his eyes closed on themselves and even when he yawned all day; he couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep.

If he did, he would dream of it; of her, of whatever it was that had her.

He didn’t know if she was gone, he didn’t know who was in her; but he couldn’t leave.

Frankie knew it wouldn’t be good, he knew there was nothing he could do, his wife wasn’t his wife but her body was still there, and he couldn’t leave.

He had tried to help her, to help it.

He had offered himself, but it didn’t want him, it didn’t want anyone but her –but you– and he feared her every time she walked around the house; silent as ever, she padded her way up and down at all times, like she was looking for something, anything.

Frankie worried about his kids, about Rodrigo, who screamed anytime he walked away from him, about the baby inside her, he wanted to know if the girl was okay, but she never answered any questions, she didn’t talk, she didn’t look. She just walked her way up and down.

He had tried to help, to help them, to help himself, to help it.

What Frankie didn’t know –and wouldn’t get the chance to learn– was that it didn’t want his help, it didn’t want help at all, it was beyond it.

There’s something that happens when a person gets rid of what it makes them one; life. A hole begins to form, somewhere inside them, and it fills with nothingness, ant the nothingness spreads through them and the hole grows until the person –or what’s left of them– is consumed by it.

That is why, when a person dies, the best thing to do… is leave.

Leave before they become a hollow shadow of what they were before.

But when someone is reluctant to leave, when someone gets attached to something; might be a feeling, a place, an idea, life itself. There's no option but to succumb to the void.

But Frankie didn’t know any of it. And it would take him a lot of time to find it out.

Rodrigo stirred in his arms, the kid mumbled something against his chest and Frankie sighed, he wanted to do something else but stay in that house, in that house with a wife who was a ghost but not quite; trapped in the middle of whatever it meant to be dead or alive.

Frankie, like many others like him, had his own ghosts; ghosts of the past, of his own decisions, ghosts of the could have beens and the would have happeneds, and the ghosts of his own nightmares; but when he referred to the ghosts in his life, his mind didn’t go to a presence, or an entity, or whatever it was that shared the house with him; and her and them inside that house, he didn’t imagine the word would carry any other meaning in his life.

A thunder startled him, the noise shook the house and woke Rodrigo up; the kid looked up at his dad, fear in his eyes and a pout that announced his sobs before it happened.

“It’s okay, baby,” Frankie tried to soothe him, they looked outside the window. A lighting then another thunder, roaring through the dark sky, Rodrigo screamed and clung to him as he saw the clouds tearing open and thick raindrops hit against the glass, “it’s just the rain, Rodri,” he cooed, holding the boy against his chest. “it’s just the rain.”

He tried to calm his son down, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as Rodrigo tried his best to stop crying; the noise of the wind moving the trees and the rain hitting the house deafened them, but Frankie could hear a clattering on the next room over.

“Mama,” Rodrigo whispered out, looking at him with his big, reddened eyes filled with tears, “mama.”

Frankie sat up, he unwrapped the kid off him and left him on the bed.

Rodrigo just watched him, and for a moment, Frankie saw a little understanding cross his eyes; something Rodrigo wouldn’t remember, but that his father identified; recognition.

Frankie stood up from the small bed and got out of the room, leaving the door wide open as he rushed to the nursery.

He found her, leaning on the half-empty dresser he had painted before everything, her hand on her belly over the nightgown, her eyes glued to the crib.

“Frankie,” she whispered, her voice, only her voice, came to him and washed over him, gave him warmth and gave him comfort and made him rush to her, he held her against his chest, he kissed her all over the face and looked at her, at her eyes, that were hers, at her face, that was hers, and tried to smile at her only to realize he was in tears. She looked at him, pain striking her body; she let out a whine and fell on him “it’s time, the baby.”

“The baby?” Frankie held her, keeping her on her feet, she groaned, nodding at him, Frankie breathed in as his military way of thinking kicked in, “where?”

“Here,” she gasped, breathing in and out as best as she could, “there isn’t time, it’s coming back.”

Frankie didn’t ask, he didn’t bother because he knew what she meant; he helped her sit on the floor against the wall and rushed for the crib’s bedding, putting it under her legs; he reached to turn on the lights of the room but it remained dark.

“Power’s out.” she panted, wrapping her belly with her hands, Frankie looked at her, he saw her pain-broken face and her sweaty forehead and leaned to kiss her; her lips were dry but they were hers.

“Gonna get candles from the kitchen.”

“Please,” she whispered, looking at him and to the window behind him, “there’s no time.”

Frankie stood up, he rushed out of the nursery and down the hall, rushed past Rodrigo, who stood on the doorframe of his bedroom, biting his small lip, brushing his own tears away with the sleeves of his pajama shirt, following him with his wide, tearful eyes.

Another thunder broke through the sky, Rodrigo covered his ears and she screamed; Frankie ran back upstairs with both hands holding several candles of different sizes and into the nursery with Rodrigo right behind him.

“Hold on, baby,” he panted out, she was barely holding herself with her eyes closed, scratching the floor at the pain that struck her entire body; Frankie put down the candles and lit them all up, and looked up at her, her eyes glimmered with the reflection of the candles and he felt relieved at her being back, Rodrigo stood next to his mom. “Rodri.”

“Mama” the kid called her, she opened her eyes and smiled at her son as a few tears escaped her eyes.

“Hi.” she gasped out, his small hands reaching to brush her tears off as he smiled down to her, Frankie grabbed her legs and opened them to him.

“I can see her, baby,” he whispered out, looking at her, she nodded, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes, pushing as hard as she could with her teeth gritted, “c’mon, you gotta help me here.”

“I’m trying.” she cried out, breathing heavily, her chest rose with each drawing of air and Rodrigo’s hands were still on her face, she moaned at the pain and pushed again, pushing herself off the floor; she groaned, and it made her sound like the thunder outside.

“Head’s out,” Frankie gasped, looking down at the small, sleeping baby’s head in his hands, “another, another one.”

“I can’t.” she whined, sobbing onto Rodrigo’s hand.

“Yes you can,” Frankie looked at her, she opened her eyes and turned to him, shaking her head, “you’ve done this before, love,” he nodded, his tears fogged his eyes and he blinked them away, the color of her face was draining, and her eyes weren’t shining anymore; Frankie let out a sob and breathed in to calm himself, he knew she wouldn’t stay, something in him told him she wouldn’t, and the thought of losing her for good made his body ache with pain, but at that moment, he couldn’t think of himself, he needed to think about the baby in his hands, “I need you to push again,” she shook her head again, “give me my baby, amor, please, give her to me.”

“Frankie.” she sobbed his name out, breathing the pain out.

“Please, she’s gonna be fine.”

She looked at him, her eyes –your eyes– emptied themselves as she pushed one last time with everything left in her, the baby slid out forcefully out of her and fell on Frankie’s hands.

“That’s it,” he whispered, Rodrigo stepped back from her as she closed her eyes, panting, Frankie looked around the baby's tiny body, she was perfect, small, but perfect; he palmed her small chest, pressed slightly and she woke up, wailing as she grabbed her first full breath of air, “she’s perfect.” Frankie whispered, looking around himself for something to wrap her, he reached to the crib and snatched the mattress cover, putting her on top as he tried his best to clean her.

“Mama.” Rodrigo gasped, catching Frankie’s attention, he looked at her and saw her staring at him, her eyes void, gray again, but her smile was still hers.

“Laura.” she whispered out, the word slipped out of her mouth slowly and settled on her chest as her smile faded. Frankie’s tears ran down his cheek, his mom’s name.

She closed her legs shut, and Frankie leaned to cut the umbilical cord with his teeth before crawling back.

Frankie held the baby tight as he saw her sit up and look around, she tilted her head at the baby cooing in his arms and lifted her hand to her.

“Stop.” Frankie let out, his voice strong but shaky, and she frowned at him.

“Mine.” she let out, more like a question instead of a statement. Frankie shook his head.

“She’s mine.” he whispered, sniffing as he stood up from the floor.

She looked up at him, and he looked into her eyes, she wasn’t her, –she wasn’t you– and he wasn’t sure if she would ever be back.

Her eyes lit up for a moment, for a split of a second, regained her color, her depth, her shine, and he, as always, noticed.

“Leave.” her voice –your voice– came out like a whisper, and Frankie, for once, didn’t stop to think about it. He watched her kick the candles down and several of them rolled to the wall, the curtains and the sheets on the floor. Frankie saw as they caught on fire and he looked at her, her eyes shifting on and off several times.

“I love you.” he whispered out, walking around her as she sat there, on the floor of the nursery while the wooden furniture around her lit up slowly. Frankie leaned down to take Rodrigo on his free arm and walked out of the room.

“Mama.” the boy cried out, reaching out his small hand to her.

“She’s not there anymore.” Frankie whispered, rushing down the stairs, grabbing the keys to the truck and getting out of the house.

The rain had stopped, the sky was clear and silent and his naked feet didn’t mind the wetness of the ground.

“Mama.” Rodrigo whined, pointing at the second floor, the flames inside the nursery were starting to escape from a small space on the roof, Frankie turned to look at her standing behind the window before the sound of the glass breaking made its way through their ears, the kid clung to him desperately, burying his face on his shoulder, his sobs were drowned by the sound of the fire making its way through the walls, Frankie held his kids both closer to his chest as he felt on his face the heat of the flames, slowly consuming the house.

Frankie stepped back, her figure retreated back into the fire and he broke down, sobbing out into the night.

There was something in the house.

How could he not see it?

He had been so happy, so hopeful, so eager about the new chapter of his life with her –of your life together– after all those years of suffering, of getting through things almost crawling instead of walking, of wanting to run but stumbling around, he finally got something he wanted and thought he deserved, he thought he was the luckiest man alive that he had chosen to look away.

The fire had spread to the next room over and the attic; and Frankie walked towards the truck with the two kids in his arms, Rodrigo was still sobbing next to him when he drove away; he looked back through the rearview mirror as the house was consumed by a fire of her own making, his eyes gazed down to the sleeping baby wrapped in a sheet on a car seat a little too big for her and back to the toddler sobbing into his chest as he turned out of the driveway.

He wondered if Rodrigo would remember what happened, he was small, but he was so smart that for a moment he wished to have something to erase his memory, or some device to alter his version of events, his version of her –of you–.

Frankie didn’t want him to remember his mother as the woman who neglected him over three months, he wanted him to remember her as the woman who sang to him to sleep, who danced with him when there was no song, who cooked for him and invented stories to tell him in the bath, he wanted to remember his mom as he remembered his wife; lovingly, as the woman who made their lives brighter and better, and he wanted him to share those memories with the baby that slept soundly in the back of the truck.

The sight of her standing behind that window was stuck to the back of his lids; every time he blinked he saw her, and he felt her, and he loved her and he wondered if he would ever stop seeing her like that, he wondered if she would stop appearing herself inside his head whenever he closed his eyes.

It didn’t happen at once.

It filtrated inside, spread like a vice, like a vicious thing that slowly grew into a shapeless, see-through, translucent cloud that fogged everyone inside that house. And when he finally looked, it was already too late.

How could he not see it?

let me know if you wanna be removed :)

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#Frankie Morales #frankie catfish morales #frankie morales fanfic #frankie morales x reader #francisco morales fanfic #francisco catfish morales #francisco morales #francisco 'catfish' morales #Triple Frontier #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier fic #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal #pedro pascal characters #dead dove do not eat #haunted frankie inspo

[uovoc]

2021 media consumption year in review

God tier

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden - graphic novel/webcomic. Hugely tender story about second chances for the crew of a historical restoration spaceship, and lesbians finding each other across the stars. The negative space in this is so fucking good and every full-page spread punched me in the gut.

Colza - animated short. Farming lizards, aeoroplanes, and gorgeous orchestral score.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead - Tiny heartfelt time travel mystery that unfolds among the neighborhood kids in 1970s New York. Well-deserved Newberry Medal winner.

Infinity Train - cartoon. Specifically seasons 2 and 3, worth getting through season 1 for. it's all about the raw emotion baby!!

Legend of Hei - urban xianxia webtoon about 10-yr-old cat yao's adventures with his human and nonhuman friends. Wholesome friendship and kickass animation.

Cherry Magic: 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard - jdrama. Adachi can read the mind of anyone he touches, including his officemate who has a massive crush on him. Hilarious and tender gay romcom.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore - for best results read the first 2 Graceling books first.

This American Life - podcast. Interviews and essays from the American public on a variety of topics. Sometimes moving, often fascinating, occasionally humorous, always deeply personal.

99% Invisible - podcast. Design and architecture. "No stories about people. Just stories about stuff." — Roman Mars, host.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Journal of a man who lives in an infinite labyrinth with an ocean trapped in its walls. Has its weak points, but overall incredible for its surreal atmosphere, gentle subversion of horror tropes, and distinctive narrative voice.

Decent entertainment

Space Sweepers - movie

O Human Star by Blue Delliquanti - webcomic

Leverage - live-action show

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - cartoon, quit 2/3 of the way through

A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Mitchells vs the Machines - movie

Nezha Reborn - movie. Cool worldbuilding, felt more like a videogame though.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vgo - novella

When the Tiger Came down the Mountain by Nghi Vgo - novella

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Fei Ren Zai - webtoon

All Saints Street (I really agree it should be translated as All Hallows Ave for maximum pun) - webtoon

Tangerine by Edward Bloor

The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang - graphic novel

The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells - book series

The Owl House - cartoon

Moonlight - movie

To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything - movie

Always Coming Home by Ursula K Le Guin

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland

Limetown - podcast

Dark Water by Laura McNeal

Disliked and often DNF

Bitter Root - graphic novel

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Archive 81 - podcast

Old Gods of Appalachia - podcast

SAYER - podcast

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego - cartoon

To Say Nothing of the Dog By Connie Willis

The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

Provenance by Ann Leckie

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Space Opera by Catherine Valente

The City We Became by NK Jemisin

Too like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

The Expanse - TV series

84k by Claire North

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore

Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Placemakers - podcast

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Ologies - podcast. Got bored after a while.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis Taylor

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

Assorted nonfiction books

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett - essays.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - Essays on the intersection of indigenous spirituality with natural science. Commits the sin of bad science metaphors.

The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander - how mass incarceration perpetuates institutional anti-black racism in the United States.

Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger ed. Lily Dancyger - the essay by Minda Honey was great, the rest of them were nothing new.

Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America by Shelly Mckenzie - concise and very readable history of how Americans have conflated physical health with moral virtue, starting in the 1950s.

Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener - critical memoir of author's career in tech startups. Her crippling insecurity and substitution of personal attacks for critical analysis were… not good.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Kolk - neurology of trauma. Pretty technical, more targeted towards practicing clinicians than patients.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman - history of autism research and perception of autism in America, starting with Kanner.

Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald - essays on human-animal interactions with GOOD science metaphors.

H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald - full of cool falconry facts in addition to being a memoir about falconry as a quietly feral expression of love and grief.

Loving Mr. Spock by Barbara Jacobs - memoir of author's marriage to an autistic man. Very dated and now reads badly. Quit 2 chapters in.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

Spectrum Women ed. Barb Cook and Michelle Garnett

The Way I See It by Temple Grandin

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman - how the transition from primarily print-based mediums to television has affected Americans' information processing and political engagement.

No Time to Spare by Ursula K Le Guin - essays.

Eating the Ocean by Elspeth Probyn - metaphysical-literary analysis of the relationship between humans and fish. Quit 3 chapters in bc I was expecting more environmental science.

First, Break All the Rules by Gallup - How to be a good manager, boiled down to: don't spend too much time trying to fix people's weaknesses; instead, figure out how to utilize their strengths.

Race after Technology by Ruha Benjamin - how digital automation deepens racial discrimination while appearing benevolent.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain - good insights into workplace advantages, but is suspiciously lacking in any mention of autism.

Change: How to Make Big Things Happen by Damon Centola - how the structure of relationship networks affects adoption of social change. Good stuff, would recommend.

Aliens in America by Sandra Tsing Loh - essays about growing up in a chinese-german family in LA.

The Madwoman and the Roomba by Sandra Tsing Loh - got maybe half a chapter in and DNF.

The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison - meh. At least it was short.

Where Land and Water Meet: A Western Landscape Transformed by Nancy Langston. Historical analysis of how human perception of water and land has directed wetlands management strategy, using the Malheur Basin as a case study.

The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families by Elisabeth Sheff. Ethnographic study of American polyamorous families with children. Pretty good outline of typical relationship models among the sample population.

They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. Meh. I think it's targeted more towards beginning writers.

The Lesbian Polyamory Reader by Marcia Munson and Judith Stelboum. Was published in the 90s and contains more 2nd-wave feminist philosophy than practical knowledge. TBH it feels pretty stale now.

#patter #not pictured: various articles #as well as piles of research papers #year in review #media consumption

[unpretty]

astielle ch 28 spoiler ask dump~~

anonymous asked:

Tauril-form is puberty, because that's when his voice changes. Abysscale-form is college-age because that's when he goes to his first orgy.

anonymous asked:

You called Abysscale-form college-age (which does not preclude teenage sexscapades given the ages that go to college) and that tracks with how I think of Tauril-form as going through puberty (because of the voice-change). But if Tauril is the horny teenager that's kind of sad. Because as Minnow has pointed out many times That Dick Will Kill.

not each other, it won't!! although i imagine taurils sleeping with each other would have the bro-iest vibe. very bill and ted. taurils also have Options with people who aren't giant bull centaurs, it's just awkward is all. fortunately for everyone taurils are actually adults and are not full of hormones, they just have zero impulse control and when they like someone they want to impress them and spend time with them and it doesn't necessarily occur to them to get their dicks involved in the situation (karzarul's mind was elsewhere the first time he was a tauril)

anonymous asked:

When Violet said monsters make the best mercenaries and throw the best parties I didn't think about it, but the fact that all the impyrs came into being with swordsmanship skills equal to Lynette probably had something to do with the former. Even if ten isn't that many, THEY COME BACK. (Eventually. In, like, a month.) And the others probably learned from Lynette, even if they died. Lynette's unintentional teaching, back again.

they learned from the best murdering them repeatedly

anonymous asked:

When Ari is repopulating, and he skips Black Drakonis, he says "Makes sense." But he's surprised when Violet points out that Black Drakonis is missing, so it sounds like he at least had a theory/assumption at the time for why she was skipped, but it doesn't match with the new information.

he initially just assumed that black drakonis had managed to avoid being killed the whole time, which made sense because she's a big dragon and she can just fly away if someone is trying to murder her. but generally if a bigass monster is alive someone is going to see it, especially her, because she likes finding population centers to try to guard.

anonymous asked:

"It also occurred to him that trying to get Minnow to act like she lived in a society since they were young may have negatively impacted his sense of what constituted an acceptable thing to say to a person while his dick was out." Is just HILARIOUS.

anonymous asked:

Honestly I can relate to Leonas cause just last week I was like 'I keep falling asleep in class maybe I should develop a caffeine addiction' and one of my friends was like 'pls eat more food' so I started to actually have breakfast and an after work snack and I magically stopped falling asleep in class

anonymous asked:

Minnow's hips don't lie, but castle ruins are strangely deceptive.

everyone who wasn't following along when astielleblogging intersected with kink taxonomy hell is going to be so confused if/when minnow finally gets stuck somewhere

@9ofspades asked:

Ari is my favorite again and I want him to have actual eternity to be happy with his poly soulmate throuple together. And also his big monster family. Also I think he's wrong about what the core of the Heir and Hero are - both of them have, deep in the core of their souls, the fact that they are Monsterfuckers.

for the record i have a post in my drafts with all of your readalong asks and i still haven't decided what to do with them but i enjoyed them IMMENSELY

anonymous asked:

>looking for food >ask the cook if their food is earthy or wet >she doesn't understand >pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is earthy and what is wet >she laughs and says "it's good food sir" >buy some food >its wet

@ivylaughed asked:

I love the tumblr meme references in Astielle. The guards bringing their own knives; there being an infinite variety of brassica oleracea; the fucking chocolate guy. I'm half-waiting for a children's hospital/color theory reference. Thank you for the easter eggs.

i'm glad someone read 'chocolate birdhouse' and immediately thought THAT FUCKING CHOCOLATE GUY AGAIN ashjasd

anonymous asked:

I just wanted to say that as a plant nerd and forager I deeply appreciated Minnow's surprisingly accurate botany lesson.

unfortunately all the books that leonas gave minnow are still at her house and so she cannot cite sources for the existence of hemlock, queen anne's lace, and giant hogweed

anonymous asked:

“I think you overestimate people’s willingness to admit when things don’t make sense to them," lmao Minnow has a point

will the two men she is with learn from this and start admitting when they don't know things they think they should and are confused? absolutely not.

anonymous asked:

XD Ari hears "Kavid" and immediately attempts a strategic retreat.

anonymous asked:

“‘you should get dressed’ is a complete sentence.” Is making me laugh.

it's probably for the best because if he actually had known all three of them were out there it would have taken him like an hour to get ready and he would have had at least one breakdown about how none of his outfits were good enough and it was all nari's fault

anonymous asked:

Kavid: I will be happy to HAVE YOU ALL *lascivious eyebrow wiggle* at my earliest convenience.

anonymous asked:

"he gets smaller" "in this weather who doesn't?" KITTY PLZZZ

anonymous asked:

I can't decide whether I love or hate Kavid - I have a very Specific idea in mind for his voice, though I admittedly can't figure out where I'm pulling it from. He is an Excellent character though. Lovely chapter as always :D

anonymous asked:

Before, I was entertained by Kavid. Now I love him.

anonymous asked:

Kitty, Kraven and Kavid have similar speech patterns on purpose, right??? Right?????

i was honestly imagining some kind of nonsense faux-european what-country-is-this-even-from hollywood accent but imagining that he has sounded extremely russian this whole time is extremely funny

@rose-and-bones asked:

SHE HAS A TYPE aghfgstjs

minnow having a thing for obnoxiously pretty men who think they're great aka self-recognition through the other (horny)

@speakingintothevoid asked:

“You are,” Leonas said, “an egotistical, self-important fop.” “Ye-e-es,” Kavid said without shame. “She has a type, does Starlight.” I! LOVE!! IT!!! Makes me almost think of Violet and Karzarul - our point of view character being faced with a version of themselves who are more comfortable in their own skin and our boys not knowing why that annoys them

@keleviel asked:

I rescind my earlier mild disdain, Kavid is great. Is he actually The Greatest Of Bards, or is that just more showmanship?

he rocks about as hard as you can rock on a lyre, which is probably harder than you'd think (especially if you brought a lot of drummers) (which he does)

anonymous asked:

Jakshahshsh every time a new astielle chapter comes out i read it at least twice. Kavid i love you. Leonas i love you also you fucked up lil man. And karzarul the seat. And minnow the mischievous. and just. poor nari. existing in the same world as minnow and her all-powerful boyfriends and also kavid. nari needs a raise

she really does

anonymous asked:

Bruce in Office Meeting and Leonas grabbing the wine when Kavid starts talking about Imperials solidarity.

anonymous asked:

"You would like to compare notes?""Always." Brilliant. Leonas to a t. Loving this interlude with kavid. Snuggly tipsy leonas is a treat. kavids talk of how the weather makes all of us smaller had me cackling. Also this batshit imperial conspiracy is gr8

anonymous asked:

I am suddenly much less comfortable about Leonas performing medical experiments on Minnow, though no fault of his own. :(

@mooseman13579 asked:

Leonas finding out about the weird sun empire truther stuff: haha I'm in danger

the real unanswered question is how much of this is news and how much of it is stuff he already knew and assumed was normal

@thegayknee asked:

Holy shit this is it, isnt it. This is how they fix karzarul's reputation and expose Leland. With the power of Kavid

anonymous asked:

Karzarul's Questlog: "Work on our Image" updated, The Tale of Hollow Monsters delivered to bard.

anonymous asked:

just how many of her lovers is minnow going to recruit into her questing party

she should probably be swapping people out to keep their levels consistent but instead she just keeps karzarul and leonas as her companions for every single quest

@flying-butter asked:

"Details! I need details!" "The king sucks." This is every conversation with any of the trio. Minnow likely knows how to complete half of Ari's quests and Leonas the other half, but no one talks about anything without prompting.

minnow just assumes that everyone knows what she knows because she can't possibly be the brains of the operation and meanwhile karzarul and leonas are both busy having shame

anonymous asked:

i was so excited for the lore drop but the moment Leonas sat in Karzarul's lap my brain just shut off

@themaidenisdeath asked:

oh yes, as we all know, "all business" and "taciturn" are the first words that come to mind when we think of Minnow. It reminded me of when she met Karzarul and he told her she was particularly chatty for hero. Sorry Kavid, you're just neither a Sweet, Considerate Monster with a Dick of Steel And Tentacles To Match™ nor a Twink Prince With Silky Hair, Dom Tendencies And Weird Dietary Beliefs™

@halfdeadfriedrice asked:

"what Hero business?" / "I'm the Hero. All my business is Hero business." You tell em Minnow! And then it turns out to be Quest relevant after all; all business is Hero business Also kavid's last night's makeup and messy convertible couch covered in laundry with half-empty wine bottles on the floor is THEE most visually resonant, I feel like I am visiting a college friend

leonas got very lucky that there weren't any cigarette butts floating in that wine because in his mood he might have just drank it anyway

#original #astielleblogging #writeblogging #astielle spoilers

[casxmorgan]

Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

It

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Next

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

#some of these are fucked up #but #all the better

[neonir]

LETS TALK ABOUT THE PLANES

D&D has a bunch of planes, these are essentially a whole list of universes within the universe, while most adventures will take place on the material, many will dive into some other planes, or at the very, very least will interact with some of their inhabitants.

Gunna go over a handful of them for now

Structure: What the plane looks like, it’s general layout

Inhabitants: Who lives there, what they do.

Main threats: What your tombstone will say

Notable things: Fun facts about a neat place!

Further reading: If you want some things to look into on your own time

THE BLOOD WAR DUO FIRST:

These next two guys *hate each other*. The exaaact reason behind this can change on the setting, but essseeeentially a whole bunch of angels came down to act as vanguards against the abyss to stop demons from coming up and ruining everything. But it turns out, being in a super evil charged plane for extended periods of time, doing nothing but killing and being killed will do a number on you. Needless to say, they all kinda "fell" and are now devils, holding onto their old lawful nature, but replacing their good with evil and remain almost entirely dedicated to just killing every devil they can get their hands on

Demons meanwhile just kinda wanna ruin everything cause that's just what they like to do.

Anyways depending on the setting the blood war is either done and demons are in an even deeper pit for now, it never ended and they’re still at it to this day, or maybe it wasn’t called the blood war in that setting they just hate each other. Either way this is one of those wonderful cases where the guy you hate and the other guy you hate, both hate each other more, and constantly kick each others heads in. It’s swell.

THE NINE HELLS:

Structure: There's 9 layers of it, each one is ruled by an archdevil. Each layer has a different theme, each theme is more or less based on the guy running it. Or vice versa. Don't ask me they're matchy is the point.

Inhabitants: This is where devils live. The Devil is in the details, because of this they make deals. Lawful evil. Bad guys, but when they agree to something, they'll keep their end of the deal. By the letter of the law, not the spirit. Again, ruled by Archdevils, which are just the most powerful (politically, magically and physically typically) of the inhabitants of that layer.

Main threats: Devils are rude and super duper want your souls. Also demons keep invading. Which the devils really, really, REALLY hate. Also each layer can be anywhere from "on fire" to "Literally colder than the antarctic" so just jot that down.

Notable things: Devils like to make deals for the souls of mortals, specifically because they can claim these souls and either use them as a fun alternative to firewood, or can have them turned into handy dandy devil soldiers to fight demons for eternity.

Further reading: Archdevils are each different types of interesting and have a lot of shared lore to play with. Asmodeus is the top dog and has a lot of drama history with pretty much every archdevil in the place.

THE ABYSS:

Structure: Depends a little on the setting, but it can be anywhere from 99 layers to infinite layers, but it's essentially a big roiling pit of bad. Nothing is consistent and the only thing it exists for is to tear the rest of the cosmology apart. It's bad limbo, and limbo's already a mess.

Inhabitants: Demons live here, yes, that's different from devils. Chaotic evil. This is just a bunch of assholes. Literally looked up "How to be a dickhead" in the dictionary and then ate the book and spat on its writer because that's literally all they know how to do. They're ruled by Demon Lords, who are just kinda the biggest dicks of them all.

Main threats: This whole place is pretty much just the worst. Everything here just wants to ruin your whole deal. The only organization is enforced by big bad dude's literally beating the less big bad dudes into submission so they can order them to beat up less bad big dudes.

Notable things: Many powerful beings have carved out chunks of the abyss to call their own personal homes. These guys tend to freaking suck.

Further reading: Really you're gunna wanna investigate the river styx, it'll kinda cover a lot of useful stuff about how these guys go about stuff. More or less these guys are just bad for the sake of it.

THE AXIOMATIC ANACHRONISTIC PALS:

So these two are just kinda "Raw chaos" and "Pure order" There's actually other similar planes that share a lot in common with each of them, Archeron and Pandemonium, but they're just kinda like "What if you had these two planes...but they were kinda BAD!!!!" And we've just covered the bad versions of law and chaos so screw that nonsense tbh.

MECHANUS:

Structure: A wonderfully designed infinite series of interlocking floating continent sized gears that are in constant motion, be it fast or slow all simultaneously fitting into one grand ever turning perfect machine. This'd probably be one of the most wonderful to behold things in the setting. Shame if you kick a rock over you might be sent to infinite jail.

Inhabitants: Modrons! The lovely little goofy mechanical box/ball boys who fly around with very specific tasks (Such as counting every single living thing alive in the entire universe) or just organizing things "The right way". Each one listens to the one above it, which comes to an ultimate point with Primus, the ultimate law in the realm of absolutes.  There are also some very cool dudes called "Inevitables" which are just the shit.

Main threats: Well, Primus likes for its shit to stay the way it put it. Don't make a mess. If you are here, be here the way it allows people to be here. Otherwise you get an inevitable on your ass and these guys *do not* fuck around. They literally can't.

Notable facts: Did you know you can go to get contracts done up in primus' halls to ensure legitimacy? Did you know if you try to break one of these contracts one of types of inevitable called a marut comes over and rather politely yanks you and the person whose contract you broke back to Primus. You may then attempt to justify WHY you thought it was a good idea to break your contract, and should it not be a good enough reason, the Marut will then proceed to beat you unerringly into a fine paste.

Further reading: Look into modrons and the plane itself mostly, it can be hard to find details on the inevitables so don't stress too much about that. Primus can be interesting to investigate depending on how much history you wanna look into.

LIMBO:

Structure: Man fuck I ain't even gunna try. This place is a mess. It's literally whatever the fuck it happens to be at the time.

Inhabitants: A lot actually! Lots of folk call this place home from the very zen and chill Githzerai and their "Live and let live" jedi vibes, to the remarkably less chill Slaadi, who are big funky many coloured frog men who vary from "silly frog man" to "Sentient Hole in Reality" depending on how far up the pokemon style evolution chain they've climbed.

Main threats: Well, the whole place is more or less non euclidean mass of ever churning raw chaos. Aside from that, watch out for Slaad Lords, which themselves can vary from "Funky dude with god like powers who uses them to wander around doing whatever comes to mind" to "Lord of entropy who wants to more or less bring about the heat death of the universe"

Notable facts: With some force of will, one can actually instill some amount of order into this place, which is how the Githzerai make their homes, literally just concentrating on keeping an area of it "approximately home shaped" collectively defining the place they live as what it is.

Further reading: Honestly the slaad lords are equal parts fascinating, hilarious and on occasion a little dissapointing. The history of the slaad is neat (Primus is kinda responsible for their existence) and the plane itself has been through some stuff. The githzerai are one half of the race that once gave the mindflayers an unparalleled beating before turning their sights on each other and then bugging off in their separate ways.

NEXT TIME MAYBE: ELEMENTAL PLANES, THE ETHEREAL AND THE ASTRAL.

IF I’M LUCKY I WILL NEVER HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT THE FEYWILDS OR THE SHADOWFELL.

#d&d #5e #neonir's personal rambles #I actually wrote all this up as a response to a fairly simple question #and then it was a page long #and so I figure #fuck it wrote all this shit up might as well post it somewhere else as well. #Dungeons and Dragons #dnd

[aprettyweirgirl]

more Linzumi content >:D 

this time ft. the Firekids

btw: in this AU, Iroh is 37 and Ursa is 29yo, they have 8 years of difference 

canon complaint

Izumi didn't had a real relationship with the father of the Firekids, they just were together because she had his son

but after Izumi gets pregnant with Ursa, he left, leaving her with a 8yo Iroh and a one month pregnancy

Lin and Izumi get together almost 2 years after that when Ursa is already 10 months and Iroh is 9yo

Lin doesn't want Iroh to feel displaced so every time she's with them, she takes care of Ursa and basically obliges Izumi to spend some time with him

some old politicans of the Fire Nation weren't that happy about Izumi and Lin being a couple and raising the kids together, so Izumi told them to fuck off

Lin always takes the metal cables with her in case she needs them, but she still a little scared of use them after what happened with her sister, so she never use the cables when she's with the kids

Iroh cried a lot the first time Lin came back to the fire nation after a couple of months, he thought she wasn't going to came back, like his father

Ursa and Iroh were the kind of kids who was always gross out when she saw their parents kissing (in this case, their moms)

Izumi always likes to point out how both of their kids adopted characteristics of Lin, like some her facial expressions and stuff like that (Ursa says Flameo the same way Lin does and Iroh grabs his hips)

as a kid, Ursa used to go in the mornings to her moms' bedroom, lay down between them and sleep with them for a while until one of they woke up and gave her breakfast

after book 3, Lin went to the Fire Nation and told the Firekids "what if i tell you you now have an aunt...and 5 cousins...?"

when Iroh is in the Fire Nation, he and Izumi will cook/bake something together, that's what they do

at some point, Ursa wants to go to live at RC, and even if Izumi wants to her kids to be independent, it is still hard for her to admit they're not kids anymore

Lin panicked at least 3 times after being in situations with the Firekids that were very similar to some she had with Toph, she was afraid of screw her kids up like Toph did with her. Izumi always helped her going through that

at the same time Izumi, after became the Fire Lord, she sometimes felt really overwhelmed having to govern her nation and taking care of her kids, that’s why everytime Lin was with them, she took care of the Firekids so Izumi could rest a little bit

Izumi is very strict but she has an eternal patience to their shenanigans while Lin tries to have a firm hand and to be tough but she absolutely melt for them and she can't say no to their puppy eyes (i stole this one and the next 3 ones from @dollvix )

Ursa calls Lin "mommy" just to annoy her

when there's people wooing her mom Ursa goes with her momma Linny and tells her to go mark territory (especially if Izumi is visibly uncomfortable) and the Fire Lord will complain about it? yes, but she low key likes it

Ursa does not like the Krew, Su's and Tenzin's kids (especially the first time), stays at Lin's side all day long and she's like "ok, so, i'm her daughter so clearly there's priority here"

sometimes, Iroh buys groceries for Lin and cooks for her, knowing that his mom is far away for caring about things like that when she's alone

Ursa is naturally curious and she’s really invested in history, so at some point in her life, she asked Lin to teach her things about her family and the culture of the Earth Kingdom (things that Lin learned from her grandparents because Toph didn’t cared about it)

Ursa has a Flying Boar tattoo in one wrist and the symbol of the Royal Family in the other one 

the four of them have a dinner together once a month and it's beautiful

i’m not saying Lin and Izumi got multiple times in a “ask your mom” infinite loop, but they did

when the Firekids were little and momma Lin was in charge, there was no way they couldn’t have whatever they wanted (with limits of course)

in that same situation, at night, Lin laying in the bed reading with a 1yo Ursa sleeping with her head in her mom’s chest and a 9yo Iroh at their side grabbing Lin’s arm, i think there is no need to say that Izumi arrives and melts completely

Lin was there for both of the Firekids’ births and she stayed the night at the hospital laying down in the bed and cuddling with Izumi after Ursa’s birth, they were idiots in love but they weren’t together, that's also when they kiss for the first time (Lin had broke up with Tenzin by then)

this may be my favorite hc list by now

#lin beifong #fire lord izumi #iroh ii #izumi's daughter #linzumi #the legend of korra #lok #hc list #canon compliant

[mihidecet]

Sbi&CO d&d AU: The Dream Team

Aka: Tibi's MCYT WritingTober, day 29: "A normal day"

Listen the original prompt, from @the-only-gamer-gost 's list, was evidently mc related but I just had to write this. Whops ahah

It's time for you to meet another part of this AU's cast! I do hope you'll enjoy reading this ahahah

George takes a deep breath.

He is in his study: the smell surrounding him is gentle, of old wood and older books, of the flowers he's growing on the windowsill, of the almost empty cup of tea his tutor insisted he drank before practicing - "you can't do magic on an empty stomach, I will not have you pass out like a fresh-faced student with no experience!"

It is quite easy to fall back into his own mind, he's done it so many times ever since he started training, but it is never quite easy to-

A light thump, the sound of a small metallic bead hitting his window, prompts him to open his eyes.

George purses his lips in barely concealed irritation and shakes his head. He has to focus. This is precisely why he wanted to skip breakfast, so that he could start before they arrived to bother him.

He's been meaning to try out a new theory - a new spell - for a while, and it requires him to be at maximum concentration because time is a fickle bitch that does not like being toyed with.

So George closes his eyes again and focuses on the pattern of his breathing. He feels for a moment in complete awareness of every inch of his body, and then he opens his eyes.

In front of him, millions of millions of shimmering particles float, gently, into the air in front of him, as if somebody had decided to hang an infinite amount of pieces of iridescent glass with invisible strings. George could live a thousand years and never get tired of seeing the figments of reality and specks of possibilities that exist in the time dimension.

Raising his hand to touch one of them feels like moving through thick molasses after a day of exercise - his muscles protest, scream at him, and it is such a strenuous act.

But he knows to persist - what's coming is going to be even harder - so after what seems like an eternity, but in reality is no time at all, the tips of his fingers brush against the burning cold of a figment of reality.

A fraction of a second later, George stumbles forward, head ringing as he's thrown out of his own personal pocket in time. In his ears, the sound of another of those damned pebbles against his bloody window.

George lets out a loud curse and stomps to the window, opening it with a gesture of his hand and then immediately raising his arcane shield as another pebble flies right at him - as it had been aimed at his poor window once more.

Filled with a righteous fury, George slams his hands on the windowsill - mindful of his poor and completely innocent Forget-Me-Nots - and leans forward to look down at the recently acquired banes of his existence.

"See, I told you it would work- George! George wanna come train with us?" Calls out the fighter, waving a hand frantically as he elbows his shorter monk friend.

"No! Leave me alone!" George yells back, and instantly closes the window and goes back to his position in the centre of the room.

He closes his eyes, focuses on his breathing, and-

Another pebble. He is going to murder them.

"What do you want?! I told you I'm busy!"

The fighter spreads his arms open - almost hitting his friend in the face, if said friend hadn't ducked down instantly.

"Oh, come on George! It's gonna be fun!"

"I'm not interested! Now, leave before I start throwing spells your way!"

The monk scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his chin up in defiance.

"As if you could catch me! I bet you can't, and you're scared, and that's why-" a pale green hand is suddenly covering the human's mouth, its owner looking awkwardly up at George with a tentative smile - as if that douche's attempt at riling him up could have worked.

On a completely unrelated note, George has had enough of that conversation.

"You bother me again today and you will regret it." And with that, he closes the window again.

Definitely not hearing the monk's confused "does that mean we can come back tomorrow?". He is just going to ignore it.

The moment he turns back around, he almost has a heart attack.

Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and a knowing smile on his face, is his mentor.

"Bloody hell, I didn't hear you arriving." George mumbles, moving to grab him a chair as the older wizard chuckles.

"I figured, you were having quite a spat." Scott comments, sitting down on the armchair and nodding towards the window, looking more pleased than he should be.

George gives a scoff, letting himself slump into his chair.

"They are relentless. I don't know what to do anymore." He mopes, but as he should have expected Scott has no pity to share and immediately tackles a new, equally pressing problem.

"Have you found your teammates for the tournament yet?" He asks, crossing one leg over the other and resting his chin in his hand. About two months ago, George had agreed, after ages of declining invitations and rejecting requests, to take part in the yearly tournament his mentor ideated - agreeing only on the terms that he would be able to choose his own teammates. Which is not that unusual, people can arrive with their friends and form a team. George's main problem? His sadly evident lack of friends - at least, friends that will take part in the tournament.

"Not yet. They're all so … various. And peculiar. I'm-" He halts, hands clasped together and squeezing one another, as if they were stress relievers. Noticing his discomfort, Scott seems to take immediately a step back from his usual flippant persona as his expression softens and his posture relaxes.

"You're free to speak your mind." He reminds him gently, so George takes a small breath and looks away, towards the door, ignoring the awkwardness of his admission.

"I'm worried my purely academic training will make me underperform."

"That is possible. It is also possible that you do well. Has the prospect of failure ever stopped you?" Scott challenges, one eyebrow raising in doubt because this is the thing: Scott chose him as his protégé, he knows what George is capable of. He knows him, how competitive he is, how his pride gets in the way despite how much his self esteem is rather low. But still.

"I never had to fail in front of a crowd."

"I understand. Still, I think it will do you good. You should find people to team with, not many get this opportunity."

"I know! It's just that nobody's stuck out! They all seem like incredibly talented people!" George protests, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping back into the chair - sliding down a little, so that his chin presses up against his chest. So now he looks and feels like a child throwing a tantrum. Splendid.

"Well. I think there are at lest two you know by name." Scott notes, smiling with a conspiratory look, and George feels incredibly stupid that he let himself be played like this - did Scott manage to bring the discussion back to the two dumbasses that have been bothering him nonstop for the past couple of weeks?!

Dream and Sapnap- he has no care for them. None at all.

"Shut up." George replies weakly and Scott simply laughs - ever so rude, laughing at his self inflicted misery - before standing up. He circles the desk between them and puts a hand on his head, messing up his hair with a chuckle.

"I have to go, I have matters that await me. But it was nice to see you doing well. I'll wait for the names tonight." Scott's sing-song voice calls as he leaves with a smirk, closing the door behind him.

George lets out a long sigh and resigns himself to morning of meditating and practice.

It was nice to see his mentor again - he's been worried lately, as if on edge. George figures it's the tournament's fault, but one may never be sure.

A couple of days later, Dream wakes to the feeling of a pillow hitting him square in the face. Followed by a ripping noise. Followed by the feeling of stuffing falling on his face.

"Oops-" Sapnap says above him: when Dream opens his eyes, he's holding his pillow, now with a tear in it and stuffing slowly falling on the ground.

"SAP! What the fuck did I tell you about the tusks?!"

After their morning workout routine - which definitely does not entail Dream chasing Sapnap around their room as the shorter man jumps around on the furniture to escape, and absolutely doesn't end with them rolling on the floor as the half orc holds his teammate in a headlock - they have a quick breakfast and then hurry to the Academy.

Today's the day: they will be announcing the teams for this year's tournament, and they both can't wait who they will be fighting with.

The announcement is a strictly participant-only event, and from that point on they will have about a month to train with their new teammates inside the Academy's facilities.

The Academy is a huge building that looks and feels like those castles they talk about in fairytales: sky high towers of iridescent colours, with strands of various shades of purple and orange connecting invisible points in space - and perhaps time too. There are stairs and bridges connecting different sections, and Dream knows, from stories told by Master Calvin, that it is as tall in the sky as it is deep inside the bowels of the Earth. A magnificent display of arcane power and architectural prowess. As one would expect from the creators of this tournament, but still.

The crowd that gathers around the entrance is one of the most varied assortment of adventurers Dream has ever seen, and he knows Sapnap is thinking the same thing because the human's head keeps whipping from side to side as he stares at the people walking by.

Dream shoots, from time to time, a look around. He's not particularly looking for somebody - he is - and he's not going to let the knowledge of who is competing distract him from trying to do his best - debatable.

But still.

All the participants are directed toward the entry, where after a quick scan - to avoid strangers from entering - they manage to get inside the main hall.

Now, Dream and Sapnap have been told, by their respective masters, about the Academy, but nothing can ever quite prepare you for something this grandiose and extravagant as what they are seeing.

One would expect a centennial arcane academy, built by two archmages and hosting the best of the magical world in terms of teachers, students and knowledge, to be a stuffy, old fashioned institution.

One would be quickly proven wrong, as just the entrance hall happens to be a stunning portrait of multiple colours, bright and radiant, with moving paintings of famous arcane masters casting spells side by side with rather sweet drawings of past winners of the tournament hugging each other and holding out their prizes.

When Master Calvin had first suggested he move for a while to the Academy, in order to fully develop his arcane abilities, he had been skeptical: how could he, when Calvin's house had been his home for so long? But now, seeing all this, he thinks that maybe he could come to like this place.

At the end of the hall, on an apparently clear glass panel, are displayed the names of each team member.

With all the chatter and cheers and noises of people looking for each other - some are already leaving, having found what and who they were looking for - it's hard to catch the sound of Sapnap's sudden gasp.

It is less hard to notice him gripping his wrist and vigorously point at the glass as he lets out an excited laugh.

Dream follows where he's pointing, and-

"George is with us?!" He exclaims, mostly out of pure disbelief, eyes wide open as he looks back and forth between his friend and the list of names on the board.

"We're so going to win this!" Sapnap answers with an elated smile before bursts out laughing, jumping up and wrapping him in a full body hug - Dream catches him, letting out a small "omf" that is mainly due to the unexpectedness of it all.

"I can't believe it, we got so lucky!" The half-orc comments, his eyes skimming through the names listed on the board - some he recognises, more or less unfortunately, and some he doesn't.

"I know, right?! -" Sapnap comments, leaning back and letting go in order to nod with his head towards the floating glass.

"Now we just have to find out who Eret is, I guess."

#mcyt writingtober #sbi dnd au #dnd au #now sbi&co #dream team au #dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #smajor1995

[ghostmartyr]

/clears throat/ so, Immi, I hear you like the locked tomb, which is fantastic! from one person also escaping the snk series into TLT to another, what did you think of the characters and plot in HtN? are there any things you're most excited to see when Alecto comes out in 2022?

-pats lifeboat- This baby can fit so much trauma.

SPOILERS, naturally.

With another paragraph informing the curious that unspoiled is the way to go into HtN, since if you aren’t lost and confused, are you really reading Harrow the Ninth?

I read it all in one day, and that was a choice. It does mean my memory and understanding of what all went on is slightly dependent on someone else on the internet exploding over a particular set of paragraphs and explaining their significance to me, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it.

HtN disappointed me on one front in that I was hoping seeing more of Harrow 1.0 would help out any future fic endeavors. On everything else, like the first one, being told the story is such a good time that I’m willing to wait on a full comprehension of where it’s going.

I also really like second person.

What I loved most about HtN is how even without Gideon mentioned until very, very late in the book, you can feel her absence everywhere. In the wrong bubble flashbacks you’re commanded to examine the strangeness, but even in Harrow going about her day, the isolation and the wrongness of it decorate her every action. She’s alone, and she shouldn’t be, and the loss she’s unaware of bleeds into a constant echo of grief.

I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated absence as a narrative tool so much. Obviously griddlehark hours go hard once they start in HtN, but even before then, there is so much power to their connection that looking into a world where it never exists still manages to punch you in the heart with how much each one inhabits everything the other is.

The whole series is amping me up with a few thoughts on loneliness, honestly. Gideon and Harrow grow up alone on the Ninth, save for each other. It takes leaving for that to be any kind of good thing. The first book is tag team Among Us with everyone in their little clusters, slowly learning what other people are about as they all drop dead.

The second book has a different vibe and different plot things going on, but it’s similar in that the protagonist gets thrown into a world they don’t fit and have to put on a show. Only now there are even fewer people to familiarize with, with that number correlating directly to how they all killed the person closest to keeping them from being alone.

Lyctorhood is taking the person dearest to your heart and trapping them there forever while they’re stripped of everything that made them who they are.

...Also Ianthe is there.

Gideon, Mercy, and Augustine are the last Lyctors standing after 10,000 years. There were only seven, starting out. Sixteen acolytes who came to the First. The only pair who didn’t succeed in condensing themselves is separated from the pack and sent to live away from their peers on a tiny planet that no one has anything good to say about.

Alecto is John’s -- who even knows, past A Lot, and he puts her to sleep and locks her in a prison no one but he can get past.

God has seven friends. More if you want to count the people in the Cohort, but realistically, he has seven friends. Then they keep dying.

Harrow spends HtN in a spaceship with five people.

One is trying to kill her.

One ordered that one to try to kill her.

Two could not care less about the useless baby Lyctor.

One is Ianthe.

There is no real endgame. There is surviving life, and life has become a game of running as far away as possible so you don’t share your ruin upon your inevitable death.

It’s bleak and sad.

Harrow’s healthiest relationships are with dead people, and some of them she didn’t know at all in life.

Reiterating it, the most plot significant bit of the world is finding someone else in the world, swearing yourself to them, and smashing your souls together until you’ve lost the connection entirely.

My brain’s not in the best place so I can’t do more than gesture loudly at it, but a few people have mentioned that the series’ thesis is a counter to Ianthe’s statement that love is acquisitive.

Harrow tightens her hold around Gideon until Gideon would rather she just strangle her and get it over with, all things considered. It fucks them both up, and when they start working to get past it, circumstance wraps a chain around both their throats.

The necromancers who become imperfect Lyctors have all acquired their cavaliers, and besides the cav, it kills that bond.

Harrow’s rejection of that is why Gideon’s soul is still in the world of the living (and John blood).

She has spent her entire life eating pieces of Gideon to keep herself a horrid imitation of whole, and when she is finally offered that, she refuses.

Grief and how Harrow just can’t are active elements of the book, and Magnus gives her more therapy in five minutes talking about it than she has ever had in her life, but the reason why that isn’t the end of Gideon is because, unlike all the other Lyctors, Harrow turns the offer down.

With the exception of Babs and Ianthe, the relationship between cavaliers and necros about to do the Lyctor thing is cavaliers promising to burn for an eternity while their necromancer lives off the fumes.

Fuck that is Harrow’s response.

Cytherea says, in the aftermath, that they had the choice to stop.

Harrow stops.

A lifetime of doing exactly what Gideon is telling her to do with her death, and Harrow chooses to stop.

Harrow remembers Ortus’ poetry. She regularly sees her congregation off to their deaths. She keeps Gideon’s glasses. She views Palamedes, head exploded and all, as an infinitely better person than she is because of the quality of his exemplary character. She pulls Gideon the First from the incinerator on the night she plans to kill him.

Kiddo has so many fucking issues, but somewhere, she has learned to respect people for being people. That’s why she and Gideon are the heroes of the story, ultimately, and Ortus saying that they’re heroes worthy of the Ninth doesn’t fall flat. They’re actually trying.

Where that puts us for Alecto, I don’t pretend to know.

Since the first book is the temptation of an end to isolation, only to have it snatched away, the second book is the continuation of isolation with a few promising sparks of human connection that pave the way for hope...

That leaves the third book to shed the isolation and allow the connections to thrive.

With Gideon and Harrow MIA.

I know that the books kick things up into high gear in the final acts each time, but if they’re both gone for the majority of the book, no matter how much fun it is, I’m going to miss them. They’re the core leads, and I don’t want to be without them in the final part.

The 2022 release date has aged my soul. I deliberately planned my GtN read to land a month before HtN came out, then suffered when that was delayed. When really that was nothing at all. I hate waiting.

(Insert note that I’m very glad they aren’t forcing Muir to rush anything out. It’s been a rough time, but also, just in general authors should have the opportunity to create the best versions of their art they can, so the extra time hurts, but it’s obviously for the best.)

What I’m most excited for is probably the cover art. The first two have been awesome, and the artist said he’d likely do print sales for all three when the third’s revealed. My wallet cries but my heart does not.

What I dare not be excited for is the potential for Gideon and Harrow meeting again and perhaps hugging. In their own bodies.

I’d take other bodies, but ideally, y’know.

Also I would love for Harrow to finally meet her popsicle girlfriend.

I doubt it would be a wholly positive experience, but by golly I want it. Maybe they could hug too. It would probably kill Harrow again, but who doesn’t expect several people to die again in the third book?

However it plays out, I’m expecting to enjoy AtN. The writing’s the sort that I’ll happily follow wherever it goes. For everything else, there’s fanfic. The only real worry I have is the whole book will be narrated by Ianthe, and while I mentally groan at that, I actually find Ianthe’s commentary delightful, so even in the worst case scenario I’m having a good time.

Thank you so much for the ask.

#Harrow the Ninth #Gideon the Ninth #The Locked Tomb #asks #oh I don't have an ask tag for the tomb yet #should work on that #tl;dr #viva la pluto