#Excised Sign

[toxictoxicities]

A bunch of silly sketches I've done

AOS @distant-frontier-simp SF @csavii (also sona) CS @trashiiplant

[toxictoxicities]

A- AAA MY BELOVED SON- I'm rlly glad u like Sign he's probably one of my favorites I've designed

Also those sketches are so on point RDFTYGUHIJ I love this

Excised Sign by @toxictoxicities

I love his design, I will eat him

Some doodles under the cut :)

The cats were not allowed to sleep on the bed anymore, and borzoi spearmaster,

the amount of long snoots in Emergence is very good.

[yourlocalxenomorph3]

boo has a scary lump :(

[safert0fu]

character reference sheet of yuun, done by tr_xiv (:

[daisyachain]

Haven’t posted enough of late. MAGP listening experience has been pleasantly noncommittal. I’m in no danger of getting back into it. Works with a formula are a certain kind of catnip to me when I enjoy the formula, because then I can eagerly set my clock and wait for each beat to fall into place. Redwall, MAGPOD original, Furuya Nagisa manga. MAGPOD worked best for me when it was:

So I was going to my job, a rare occupation which logically has to exist, but which doesn’t have enough of a market to open many slots

When I received some kind of reminder of a) my emotionally cold parents, b) my ex with whom I had a committed relationship, c) a childhood friend with whom I have little in common

I completed my relationship-triggered detour and continued to my job and/or then returned to my overpriced and run-down home with black mold (British)

A mundane incident caused me to go on another detour, putting me in a worse mood due to the unearthing of some uneasy emotions earlier

Something went wrong that I chalked up to the break in routine

I failed to return to safety until a second thing went wrong, by which point it was too late

I, myself, enjoyed the formula. Trivia tidbits about weird jobs, estranged relationships, bad housing. The horror relied on a sense of realism to become scary; the thing that made it get to me was how likely it all seemed. The glacial pacing contributed to the effect. By grounding the work so heavily in an extremely boring daily routine, each whiff of the supernatural had an outsized impact. The sense was of a very, very slowly tightening noose. The breaks are few and far between: in s1, it’s Martin’s spider outburst, Sasha’s Michael encounter, and then the finale that mark the only events. Each one stands out in the stark minimalism of the fore/afterwords. [old woman voice] I remember when it was an event to talk to more than one character. You gotta make ‘em wait

MAGP, on the other hand, doesn’t take time setting up a status quo in its statements or in its plot. The audio drama parts introduce subplots right off the bad without much buildup—each character has their assigned schtick, which, fine, storytelling 101, but crucially it transforms an atmospheric attempt at a Twilight Zone type thing into a mid-tier network drama. The horror becomes more cliche’d, turning to tropes like the scary mascot (boring) rather than the in-between zones where Magnus flourished. Seriously. Between the 2012 deviantart nonsense of the needle man and the 314th ranked creepypasta Bonzo, the audience is informed of the need to feel weird rather than just allowed to interpret it. Compare the far more abstracted horror of the s1 two-parter Confession/Host, where the grounded storytelling of muddled events leaves you feeling like you’re the one who can’t tell up from down. The safe rituals of life perverted are a lot creepier to Moi than The XFiles Comedy Episode creatures of MAGP. I genuinely would’ve thought that it’s meant to be a parody if it weren’t for the fact that Bonzo is apparently our arc villain. Good grief. Maybe they’re trying to do something Savile-analogous? There are a lot more creepy ways to go about it while still being tasteful

Regardless, Magnus original flavour didn’t reinvent the wheel. For 4 good seasons it was a purveyor of ghost stories in the classic horror style, adapted surprisingly well to the anxieties of the developed world (eroding relationships, drudge work, housing crisis). MAGP neglects what Magnus did well while doing poorly what almost every other serialized piece of media in the world does at least as well, if not better (episodic work dramedy). Rip. Alas.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Words & Phrases to Avoid in Writing

When you sit down to write an article, essay, or novel, you’ll have to make decisions about word choice and phrasing.

Whether you’re a writer of novels and short stories, a teacher proofreading a research paper or other academic writing, or a content marketing specialist trying to eliminate weak words from your infographic, there are certain unnecessary words you should eliminate that can improve any piece of writing.

Here is a list of words to avoid, as well as some general writing and editing tips to follow in order to become a better writer:

“Very”: Though “very” is meant to be an intensifier, it is clunky and provides no additional information beyond the word it’s magnifying. If you find yourself writing that someone is “very hungry” or “very tired,” it’s likely a sign that you should be choosing stronger adjectives. Instead of “very hungry,” try “famished.” Instead of “very tired,” try “exhausted.” Substituting “very” with stronger adjectives will help decrease your word count, make stronger word choices, and develop a sharper writing style.

“Is” and other “to be” verbs: “To be” verbs, including “is,” “am,” “are,” “was,” “were,” “being,” and “been,” are among the most common words in the English language. That means they’re also among the most overused and should be rejected in favor of stronger verbs. Oftentimes, “to be” verbs are a sign of passive voice, which results in needlessly complex sentence structure. Here’s a good example: Why write “The line was flubbed by Alex” when you could write “Alex flubbed the line”? Active voice helps eliminate useless words while making the sentence more dynamic and easier to understand.

“Thing”: “Thing” is a vague word—it can mean many different things, and vague words force the reader to spend extra time and effort to determine their meaning. When a writer uses words like “thing” and “stuff,” they’re often ignoring a potential replacement word that’s far more vivid and clear. Whether your preferred medium is fiction writing, copywriting, or online writing like blogging, one of the most common writing mistakes you can make is using “thing” and “stuff” instead of a word with more specificity.

Redundant phrases: “Join together.” “Armed gunman.” “Unexpected surprise” are all examples of redundant phrases (not to mention clichés). These unnecessarily wordy phrases can cause a reader to become distracted, and editors will often ask writers to get the same point across in fewer words. If you notice any of these phrases in your first draft, you should eliminate them in your rewriting process.

Extra words and crutch phrases: When it comes to the English language, native speakers tend to use extraneous words and filler phrases in their everyday speech. Bloggers and long-form writers alike should try to eliminate these phrases from their writing. Removing filler phrases like “at the end of the day” and “in spite of the fact” will help you use fewer words and improve the overall clarity and efficiency of your writing.

Prepositional phrases: Prepositions are frequently necessary to indicate the relationship between nouns, pronouns, and action verbs, but writers who are overly reliant on prepositional phrases can find themselves writing needlessly long and complex sentences. Thus, one of the most essential writing skills you can develop is the ability to excise prepositional phrases from your work. If you find yourself staring at a sentence with a bunch of prepositional phrases, try shifting to active voice, substituting adverbs, or omitting nominalizations.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[ellipsus-writes]

Ellipsus Digest: April 2

Each week (or so), we'll highlight the relevant (and sometimes rage-inducing) news adjacent to writing and freedom of expression. This week:

Meta trained on pirated books—and writers are not having it

ICYMI: Meta has forever earned a spot as the archetype for Shadowy Corporate Baddie in speculative fiction by training its LLMs on pirated books from LibGen. You're pissed, we're pissed—here's what you can do:

The Author’s Guild of America—longtime champions of authors’ rights and probably very tired of cleaning up this kind of mess (see its high-profile ongoing lawsuits, and January’s campaign to credit human authors over “AI-authored” work)—has released a new summary of what’s going on. They’ve also provided a plug-and-play template for contacting AI companies directly, because right now, “sincerely, a furious novelist” just doesn’t feel like enough.

No strangers to spilling the tea, the UK’s Society of Authors is also stepping up with its roundup of actions to raise awareness and fight back against the unlicensed scraping of creative work. (If you’re across the pond, we also recommend checking out the Creative Rights in AI Coalition campaign—it’s doing solid work to stop the extraction economy from feeding on artists’ work.)

Museums and libraries: fodder for the new culture war

Not to be outdone by Florida school boards and That Aunt's Facebook feed, MAGA’s nascent cultural revolution has turned its attention to museums and libraries. A new executive order (in that big boi font) is targeting funding for any program daring to tell a “divisive narrative” or acknowledge “improper ideology” (translation: anything involving actual history).

The first target is D.C.’s own Smithsonian. The newly restructured federal board has set its sights on “cleansing” the Institution’s 21 museums of “divisive, race-centered ideology.” (couch-enthusiast J.D. Vance snagged himself a board seat.) (Oh, and they’ve appointed a Trump-aligned lawyer to vet museum content.) The second seems to be the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a 70-person department (now placed on administrative leave) in charge of institutional funding. As we wrote last week, this isn’t isolated—far-right influence overmuseums and libraries means this kind of ideological takeover will seep into every corner of the country’s cultural life.

Meanwhile, the GOP is (once again) trying to defund PBS for its “Communist agenda.” It’s part of a larger crusade that’s banned picture books with LGBTQ+ characters, erased anti-racist history, and treated educators like enemies—all in the name of “protecting the children,” of course.

NaNoWriMo is no more; long live NaNo

When we initially signed on as sponsors in 2024, we really, really hoped NaNoWriMo could pull it together—but its support for generative AI and dismissiveness toward its own audience prompted us to withdraw our sponsorship, and many Wrimos to leave an institution that helped cultivate creativity and community for a near-quarter century. Now it seems NaNo has shuttered permanently, leaving the community confused, if not betrayed. But when an organization treats its community poorly and fumbles its ethics, people notice. (You can watch the official explainer here.)

Still, writers are resilient, and the rise of many independent writing groups and community-led challenges proves that creatives will always find spaces to connect and write—and the desire to write 50k words in the month of November isn’t going anywhere. Just maybe... somewhere better.

The continued attack on campus speech

The Trump administration continues its campaign against universities for perceived anti-conservative bias, gutting federal research budgets, and pressuring schools to abandon any trace of DEI (or, as we wrote on the blog, extremely common and important words). In short: If a school won’t conform to MAGA ideology, it doesn’t deserve federal money—or academic freedom.

Higher education is being pressured to excise entire frameworks and language in an effort to avoid becoming the next target of partisan outrage. Across the U.S., universities are bracing for politically motivated budget cuts, especially in departments tied to research, diversity, or anything remotely inclusive. Conservative watchdogs have made it their mission to root out “woke depravity”—one school confirmed it received emails offering payment in exchange for students to act as informants, or ghostwrite articles to “expose the liberal bias that occurs on college campuses across the nation.”

In a country where op-eds in student newspapers are grounds for deportation, what part of “free speech” is actually free?

We now live in knockoff Miyazaki hellscape

If you’ve been online lately (sorry), you’ve probably seen a flood of vaguely whimsical, oddly sterile, faux-hand-drawn illustrations popping up everywhere. That’s because OpenAI just launched a new image generator—and CEO Sam Altman couldn’t wait to brag that it was so popular their servers started “melting.” (Apparently, melting the climate is fine too, despite Miyazaki’s lifelong environmental themes.) (Nausicaa is our favorite at Ellipsus.)

This might be OpenAI’s attempt to “honor” Hayao Miyazaki, who once declared that AI-generated animation was “an insult to life itself.” Meanwhile, the meme lifecycle went into warp speed, since AI doesn't require actual human creativity—speed-running from personal exploration, to corporate slop, to 9/11 memes, to a supremely cruel take from The White House.

“People are going to create some really amazing stuff and some stuff that may offend people,” Altman said in a post on X. “What we'd like to aim for is that the tool doesn't create offensive stuff unless you want it to, in which case within reason it does.”

Still, the people must meme. And while cottagecore fox girls are fine, we suggest skipping straight to the truly cursed (and far more creative) J.D. Vance memes instead.

Let us know if you find something other writers should know about, (or join our Discord and share it there!)

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[pompous-old-windbag]

"It's Been A While, Morgott"

To me, this moment of tenderness all but confirms that Godfrey must have visited his Omen children in their sewer prison.

Consider everything we know about Godfrey. He actively venerated the Crucible and its primal manifestations. His knights wore helms decorated with horns and utilized its animalistic magic:

Even after the Crucible fell from favour, these knights were tolerated right up until Godfrey was banished. Therefore Godfrey must have been preserving them even despite Marika's decrees. This makes sense, because Godfrey was born in the ancient era when the Crucible's wild power was considered a blessing, not a curse:

"A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution, it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced."

To Godfrey, his Omen sons would not have been something to revile. This is supported by the fact that their horns weren't excised. I doubt it was Marika's choice, since she had turned against the Crucible by then. It MUST have been at Godfrey's behest. Likewise, who else could have commissioned THIS?

A "memorial fetish fashioned in secret" that CLEARLY depicts Morgott. Someone CARED about this secret Omen infant. Enough to memorialize their their existence at the risk of the entire Golden Order. It literally ONLY could have been Godfrey.

Lastly, there's the circumstances of Godfrey's banishment. Most people say he was simply cast aside after he ran out of enemies to fight, but this CAN'T be all there was to it, because Raya Lucaria still existed. A FAR better explanation is that Godfrey began to show signs of disobedience. Godfrey was a man of instinct and emotion. Could such a man have sat idle while his children were imprisoned and his comrades reviled by the very order HE helped build?

No. And so Godfrey began to visit his Omen children in secret, where he told them stories of their lineage and their origins. In Morgott his stories instilled a Lord's sense of duty for the Erdtree and everything it could be.

In Mohg, his stories instilled an Omen's sense of pride for the Crucible, and everything it once was.

Until Marika learned of her husband's treachery, and the Omen Twins never saw their father again.

EDITED IN EXTRA OBSERVATION:

Someone pointed out that Serosh exists to channel Godfrey's emotions, and what's the first thing we hear/see when we approach Godfrey holding his son? Serosh roaring in anger. Beneath that kingly countenance, Godfrey is a lot more distraught than he's capable of showing.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

I think to make sense of how Marika feels about her Omen twins, you need to follow a string of:

1/ how bad is Marika’s PTSD?

2/ how bad are people in the Lands Between in general feel about the Hornsent? The Hornsent is very much leading a whole empire that is hunting down anyone they deem inferior, even their own brethren. the fanbase tend to forget that people of Land of Shadow and Lands Between have every reason to already feel grievance towards the Hornsent royalty, even without Marika’s influence.

They were the Golden Order before Golder Order was even a thing (and they want that, btw, the Greatsword of Damnation skill description very much pointed out that the Hornsent royalty wanted to build their own Golden Order under the banner of the Spiraltree, they are just pissed as hell Marika wrenched that divinity from them and made it under the Erdtree instead).

And Marika, even as a God, was still just one person, with an ailing son at the beginning. If she wanted to consolidate power, she had to unite other people under a common cause. And I do think she promised them a world abundance of healing blessing and no death, and no one will suffer under the Hornsent anymore (sounds awfully familiar, isn't it. except that Marika was always gunning for revenge as well). Omens being shunned that badly can’t be just because of Golden Order propaganda, it’s also because people in fact did suffer under the Hornsent and still remember it too.

3/ Messmer, who is fanatical to the point of even though he admits the Tarnished has Marika’s sanction, he will still hunt them down because he considers them lightless / unworthy, who was very much around when the Omen twins were born, why did he do nothing about it?

I’m pretty sure he has no qualm about killing babies, he doesn’t gaf about his siblings chasing something doomed to fail, he very much goes extra miles to torture any Hornsent on his way. So who protected the twins from him? Who hid them from him?

1 + 2 + 3 = you have a Marika who still very much suffered PTSD from what her people went through, she thought she had escaped, she thought she had managed to build a world where everyone was free from Hornsent’s cruelty and always bathed in gentle ray of healing - something the minor erdtree in her village could never do, because there was no one there to heal. But now she gave birth to … Omens?

It’s a sign that whatever the Hornsent once did to her, it’s left a taint forever inside her (yes i very much believed she was under the Hornsent capture before she managed to run away, either via the Mimic Veil or other means). That she never really escaped that cold dark gaol. And for all of his belief in her sanctity, I think Messmer knew that too, that it’s a wound he could never heal, and now all he could do was to make sure she wouldn’t be tainted further.

And after distress, came fear. Fear for the Omen twins, even though she should hate them, she still loved them, she couldn’t help it. She carried them for months and had loved them all that time. That wouldn’t stop even when they triggered all of her trauma at once.

I think it should be noted that in the DLC there is an item that is the same as Omen Bairn item in the base game, which points out that Omen (or in their case, Hornsent) babies with overgrown horns meet a frightfully early demise. Morgott and Mogh both have overgrown horns. But they are alive! They are ! Very much alive! And grow into adulthood!

Who healed them? Who kept them alive? Who else but the woman who used to make several blessing flasks for her cursed firstborn, whose innate power is healing, right?

Before the Omen twins, Omen babies had their horns excised, causing them to perish, but once there are ones born into royal linage, exile is on the table? and again, they have overgrown horns, and still live to adulthood. if they were left to rot in prison, they would have already died.

Marika built a world with a promise that the cruel shadow the Hornsent cast would never befall there, but now… she gave birth for two of them. Her position as a God Queen was of no use if her people clamored for the twins’ death, her duty to them will always outweigh her personal feelings. But she sure as hell would not let her sons die, either.

They weren't exiled to faraway land, they were kept under the capital, presumably so Marika could visit and heal them if their horns caused them pain, the shackles were made so they wouldn't wander up above and ran into civilians that pretty much would call on the Omenkillers to go after them. it was a cruel existence, yes, but it's all she could do for them. she tried her best out of love.

That is why Godfrey never held it against her, even when it's apparent he loves Morgott (as he cradles his son's body gently in the boss cutscene). Godfrey knew she had done everything she could.

All of that above answers this 4th question: why Morgott was accepted as Lord of Leyndell, even went so far as having command over a whole army of the Night's Cavalry?

In the time of unrest, Omens were welcomed in the army, but they were distrusted, even their weapons have an enchantment on it so it could be taken back if they tried something funny.

But Morgott was trusted to command a whole army and held the walls of Leyndell for that long?

The only way I could rationalize that is after she was forced to separate from Messmer, Marika brought both Morgott and Mohg back to live with other demigods. A big part of the Erdtree's power force was in Messmer's hand, now that he was not there anymore, I imagine people would become more accepting of letting Omens join their rank. And because Messmer was not there, the twins would actually not have to deal with him. In a twisted way, when Marika lost her beloved firstborn, she gained the other two back.

Even though they weren't officially recognized as her child, but more as warriors serving in Leyndell army, Morgott proved himself with his tactical mind and combat prowess (while Mogh used the resources brought by his new position to secretly started funding his blood cult, and this is how I think he met Miquella and all the stuffs in that part of the lore happened. Like you can't convince me he built that whole palace and had all that fancy clothes without money or resources taken from somewhere else).

Then Godwyn died, and Morgott witnessed everything thereafter. and the rest of the story, we knew how it played out.

So yeah, that's my take on the timeline and story of the Omen twins. I know it doesn't have a strong official description backup as my theory on Messmer, but I feel like this makes sense with all of my other interpretation, and if you agree with those, they are what actually back up this one.

If I draw Morgott in the future, it'll also be based on this premise.

[toxictoxicities]

The Bloom n Flower Local Group, finally fixed up their designs and I'm very happy with the outcome~

[cafterdark]

You always struggled with doing tasks. Between the procrastination, executive dysfunction, and exhaustion, even cleaning the dishes was a herculean task. It got so bad that it started to affect your work, leading to a stern talk from your boss. That's why, when your friend Jess, told you about her job's, Auton Industries, new productivity improvement services, you were willing to give it a shot.

The tech itself was simple, just a pair of dark sunglasses, indistinguishable from any normal pair. When you put it on, it prompted you with the text "Unit 4372 Settings" and hundreds of sliders and buttons. It overwhelmed you, so you picked the default options. A nice ding played and the actual software began.

On the right side of your vision, a list of task crept down, tasks and subtasks ranging from "Clean Dishes (32)" to "Improve Health (15)." The glasses highlighted various objects, with commands like "Clean", "Move", "Throw Away." Every time you completed a task, the highlight went green and dissipated, a speaker whispering sweet encouragement into your ear, followed by the same soft ding.

Put away some loose papers.

"Good Job!" Ding!

Finally take out the trash

"Great Work!" Ding!

Vacuum the floors.

"Keep Going!" Ding!

Every time you completed a task, that little bit of encouragement, that pleasurable ding, sank into your chest, making you feel warm, even more, appreciated. It was a feeling no other job or hobby had ever given you. When you were done with all your tasks, the shower of praise and dings you got was intoxicating.

You didn't admit it, but it was addictive. Soon, you began chasing the high of completing tasks, a depression following after finishing. You felt so useful following its commands, so appreciated when reviving its praise. You started helping friends clean their houses, just to get more. When you cleaned Jess's house, she had this grin that said she knew, as impossible as that was. Something fluttered in your stomach as she observed your work, giving her own compliments on top of the glasses. By the end, you could hardly stand with how much appreciation you received.

After, a new notification popped up on your glasses as you put them on in the morning.

"Due to your overwhelming success with our program, Auton Industries extends the offer to join our Advance Productivity program."

Needless to say, you joined immediately, and after many, many lengthy terms of service signed, a new piece of tech was sent to your home.

It was a full face mask, the face impenetrable black glass that reflected yourself. The instructions were simple. You put the mask on before you went to bed, and took it off in the morning. While you slept, the mask would play subliminal messages that increased the effectiveness of the productivity training.

You expected strange dreams from it, but all that greeted you was some beeps and soft static. In the morning, you felt better rested than ever before. Your exhaustion was gone.

The effects were immediate. Each completed task's made you feel so appreciated, each compliment and ding rocking through your body. On top of the mask, the glasses had gotten an update, with a whole new host of compliments.

Get dressed for work

"Good girl!" Ding!

Clean morning dishes

"Good Unit!" Ding!

Any discomfort with the wording was washed away by the appreciation you felt. It was complimenting you! You were useful! That couldn't be bad. By the time you were done, you needed to change underwear, and any thought of taking them off for work was excised from your mind.

The rest of the update showed itself as you began your job. Tasks had been made specifically for your work, and even what to say on calls, something you always struggled with, was automated. You found it so easy to sink into a pleasurable trance, following what the glasses told you to, shaking with every compliment. By the end of the shift, you had gotten more work done that ever before, and even got appreciation from the boss.

This process of wearing the mask while you slept, glasses while you were awake continued. And despite a few occasions like accidentally almost wearing the mask to work, things were going great, it... you were feeling so appreciated. Jess checked in on you more, keeping track of your progress. She seemed overwhelming happy with the results, calling you one of their best units. Something about the way she said that made it you shiver.

Then one day, a new package arrived at the door. You didn't remember ordering it, but then again, you didn't remember a lot of stuff now days. You fell into a loving haze of appreciation and usefulness and let the programing command it you.

A new task popped up, top of the list, most important:

"Open Package"

You followed without question.

"Good Girl!" Ding!

Inside was a latex suit.

"Put On Uniform"

The suit slipped on like a glove, each part lovingly crafted for your body. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you noticed it was a lot curvier than you, a lot more feminine, but it was soon buried by:

"Good Unit!" Ding!

"Put On Headset"

"Good Unit!" Ding!

Silly you, you already had it on!

"Repeat"

"It is a good drone"

"It is a good drone," You said

Ding!

"It is a Useful drone."

"It is a useful drone."

Ding!

"It is an Appreciated Drone"

"It is an Appreciated Drone," it said.

Ding!

It shuttered

"Calibration Complete, State Designation."

"Unit 4372"

"Good Drone" Ding!

If it still had control of its body, its knees would've buckled.

"Assume Transportation Position"

It fell to its knees, arms crossing behind its back and locking.

"Wait for Unit's owner to arrive, repeat mantra."

"It is a good drone, it is an useful drone, it is an appreciated drone, it is a good drone..."

... ... ...

"So there she is."

"Owner Arrival Acknowledged, cease previous instructions."

Unit 4372 looked to the voice, and saw its owner. Something in the back of its systems screamed recognition, attempting to hijack its programing to give Owner a name. Something that started with a J, but a simple touch by Owner drowned it all away.

"My star unit," Owner said. "Look how you've turned out."

Unit 4372 squirmed. It was so appreciated, so useful

"Come on, let's get you home."

If it could, Unit 4372 would've smiled.

[therainscene]

While I'm on the topic of Will being on Vecna's side after the destruction of Castle Byers -- I have to point out the how well the colour symbolism in Will's costuming reflects his connection to Vecna.

In S1 he wears his iconic jacket with the giant red collar that evokes a Demogorgon's maw. For now, this is an innocent choice that simply serves as foreshadowing for the horrors to come.

During his S2 possession, he wears only grey, blue (symbolizing Mike perhaps?) and Vecna's signature red. But interestingly, the more control Vecna has over Will, the less red is present in his outfits. I can see two ways of looking at this, both of which are probably true:

It symbolizes his loss of individuality: S1 showed us that he likes wearing red, after all, and he wears it prominently in 2x01 as well. His efforts to reclaim the boy he was before his kidnapping aren't working.

It symbolizes how agreeable he is about having Vecna in his head: some red stripes remain on his pyjama bottoms while he still has enough control to spy on Vecna, but it's gone by the time Vecna starts using him as a spy in turn.

S3 begins with Will still only wearing blue and grey... but the red is back.

Vecna's back too, of course, but it's worth noting that this season brings with it the onset of puberty and the obnoxious reality that is Mike Wheeler spending all his time with El Hopper -- perhaps Will's anger about that can't help but splash onto his outfits.

Either way, red never appears on his neck (the area which most strongly symbolizes his connection to Vecna) until he fights with Mike and destroys Castle Byers -- after which his collar turns solid red and stays that way for the rest of the season.

(If you were skeptical about red symbolizing how agreeable Will is about having Vecna in his head before, maybe now it's making a bit more sense -- he spends this portion of the season choosing to be a glorified Geiger counter for the party.)

Red continues to dominate his wardrobe after the gate is closed, but it's gone from his neck. At least, his collar is blue when he affirms his devotion to Mike in the S3 epilogue:

It doesn't stay that way, though. After six months in Lenora with no contact from Mike, the collar is red again. Will can't sense Vecna here, but he certainly can sense how lonely and different he is.

(And just because Vecna isn't literally in his head doesn't mean he isn't on his mind. It's probably not a coincidence that the flirty girl is a Patty Newby lookalike who just so happens to share a shot with the word "HENRY" appearing behind Will's neck. He relates to Henry way more than he's letting on, I think.)

The instant Mike returns to him, he immediately excises almost all red from his wardrobe -- just swinging directly from one extreme to the other, with emphasis on blues and greys at first followed by generic Byers earth tones for the rest of the season.

I don't think this is a promising sign. The only other time red was this absent from his wardrobe was when Vecna was crushing all the individuality out of him -- and now he's doing it to himself.

Anyway, then S5 happens.

:)

[markrosewater]

You often say something akin to "If you don't like something Magic has done, don't build a deck with it", but that ignores the actual problem. If I don't like something in the game, I don't want to PLAY against it either. I can't control what other people play but if the things I detest keep getting made, and at a higher and higher power level, the idea of just not putting them in my own personal deck doesn't solve anything. This is doubly true with things that are competitive or exclusively with strangers, ie Arena or FNM.

Let’s me try to approach this from a slightly different vantage point. One of the core things about Magic is that it constantly reinvents itself. Much like how we design the game, it iteratively adapts.

That means we try something and then the audience, the collective whole of all the players, gives us feedback. Note, for the rest of this answer, I’m going to use the word “players”, but I’m using that word to mean the totality of everyone playing. If it’s something players like, we make more of it. If it’s something players dislike, we make less of it. If players despise it, we don’t do it again.

My example for the last point was ante. For those unfamiliar, ante made you play an extra card exiled from the game which the winner permanently took from the other player if they won. The game started with ante as a core part of the rules. Originally, it was the default. You had to opt out of it.

Players hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. I remember, whenever you would meet a stranger, you had to start by saying “no ante”. It didn’t take long for the game to reject ante. Eventually, we even banned all the ante cards in every tournament format.

Part of the social contract of playing Magic is agreeing to experience what the players want in the game. Yes, you can build your deck however you wish, but other people get to do the same.

This means if something exist in any volume, it exists because the players want it to exist. If the players didn’t want it, like ante, the will of the players would force it from the game.

A common note I get on Blogatog is “I don’t like thing X. Can we please remove thing X from Magic? Thank you.”

My answer is always some form of this: The players (again the totality of the players) have said that this is something they want in the game. It’s now part of the game because people want it to be.

This means being part of Magic means to signing up to anything the players have said they wanted. I keep focusing on how you can control what you play with, but yes, part of being in the Magic ecosystem is the agreement that each player gets to play with the parts of the game they enjoy most.

So, let’s talk Universes Beyond. The reason we tried it in the first place was because we had data that made us think players would like it. That’s what R&D does. We extrapolate based on player feedback and try new things.

The players will embrace or reject it. If they embrace it, we’ll make more. If they reject it, we make less of it. If they reject strongly, we might never make it again. Look at March of the Machine Aftermath. The players hated it, and we excised it from our future plans (surprisingly quickly, by the way).

Why are we making more Universes Beyond? Because the players are saying loudly that they want it to be part of the game. The best selling Secret Lairs of all time are Universes Beyond. The best selling Commander decks of all time are Universes Beyond. The best selling large booster release of all time is Universes Beyond. It’s not “sets” because we’ve only ever released one.

It’s not just sales. We do market research. Market research also strongly says players want Universes Beyond. Note, each individual player wants specific ones, but the collective data is they want it.

We also look at data about what creates the biggest online discussions. Universes Beyond rules supreme there as well.

I could go on and on. There are many metrics we look at to reflect the will of the people, and Universes Beyond is crushing it in (almost) every metric.

My point is Universes Beyond follows the pattern of every new thing we’ve tried. We try it in small samples and then increase its usage as the players show acceptance.

Why do you have to play against it? Because, by being a Magic player, you accept the will of the people. You accept that part of being a member of the community is allowing the community, as a whole, to dictate what the game is.

It doesn’t want ante, but it definitely wants Universes Beyond.

That’s why you have to play against it.

[babyboywilson]

If youre still doing hilson requests...

Can you do one about them examining Castiel (spn) and have it be a funny mix between the two?

Idea that i have is house just assuming dean/cas are together and dean assuming house/wilson are together and it just becomes the spiderman meme akskaksjjk

the file on house’s desk detailed a man who was near death - ribs shattered, punctured lung, lacerated spleen, bloodwork that indicated DIC. but that wasn’t why the file was on house’s desk. the case was shunted to house because, after performing CTs, MRIs, and x-rays, there was no abnormalities seen. the man had been wheeled into surgery, and when chase had excised into the abdomen, the spleen was perfectly intact. the thorax showed no sign of a punctured lung, and the ribs were completely normal with no signs of any breakages.

“i’m telling you, this man came into the ER a few hours ago and he was minutes from death. and now… he’s completely healed. its as if nothing happened in the first place,” cameron said. “people barely heal from all those injuries to begin with, let alone being perfectly healed in 3 hours.”

house dropped his cane down onto the floor and marched out of his office. “only reason i’m going to the ICU right now is to prove you wrong,” house said. “clearly your skills have slipped since you left the team.”

cameron rolled her eyes. “my medical skills are perfectly fine. i’m telling you, this was some kind of miracle from God.”

“no such thing,” house grumbled.

pushing into the ICU, house glanced at the apparent patient cameron and chase had been working on. the man seemed perfectly normal, standing and tugging on a long brown trenchcoat. another man was perched on the end of the bed, quickly handing some silver object to the man in the trenchcoat. the man in the trenchcoat brushed his fingers against the other man’s and he offered him the softest look as he uttered his thanks.

veering off to the side, house spied wilson sitting at the nurses station. moving to perch himself on the edge of the desk where wilson was hunched over, house bumped wilson’s shoulder with his leg. “get a load of the guy in bay 5. apparently he came in a few hours ago looking like he’d fucked a meat grinder, and now he’s up and walking like he’s danced through a healing portal.”

wilson glanced up, leaning his forearm against house’s left thigh as he twisted around house’s body to glance at the man in bay 5. “who knows, maybe he’s blessed with magic healing from a deity?”

“asshole,” house muttered, shoving wilson’s arm off his leg and grinning when wilson half fell out of his chair from the unexpected movement.

without another word, house bent down, snagged wilson’s sandwich and took a bite. “be back once i’ve interrogated handsome man and his leather-jacket boyfriend.”

“don’t talk with your mouth full,” wilson grumbled, snatching the sandwich back from house and taking a bite just to prove a point.

“yeah yeah,” house muttered, snagging his cane and thumping over to the men in bay 5.

“let’s get out of here before anyone notices-” the leather jacket wearing man started to say.

house thumped his cane down in front of the trenchcoat man. “too late for that.”

leather jacket man pushed himself off the bed and smoothly stepped in front of trenchcoat man. “you’ve got the wrong guy. cas just had a mild concussion. he’s fine.”

house dragged his eyes up and down leather jacket man’s body. “not from what the file says. your boyfriend should be dead. and yet, handsome over there is walking out of here as if nothing ever happened.”

“nothing happened,” the trenchcoat man - cas - said.

the other man cleared his throat, dropping his eyes to the floor as he muttered, “he’s not my boyfriend.” house watched, analyzing, as the other man half leaned back into cas’ space and his hand settled onto cas’ lower back. “we’ll be leaving now.”

house took a half-step back, pretending to let them pass, but at the last second he flicked his cane out in an attempt to trip cas. the man moved quickly, almost in the blink of an eye, shifting out of the way of the cane as his hand reached out to wrap around the other man’s bicep to steady him from the rapid movement.

house raised his eyebrows. “doesn’t seem like you have a concussion at all, do you, handsome?”

“back off,” the other man snarled.

“dean,” cas said, squeezing dean’s arm once. cas and dean’s eyes locked and they clearly had some silent conversation before dean stepped back in silent submission.

house smirked. “not your boyfriend, hm?”

dean glared and his gaze darted across the room, lighting up when he saw the man at the nurse’s station watching them closely. “I don’t think your boyfriend appreciates you hitting on cas.”

“i don’t have a boyfriend,” house snapped.

“oh really?” dean asked, stepping closer into house’s space and nodding his head towards wilson. “looked like you were sitting in that man’s lap. seemed pretty cozy to me, sharing food and touching.”

house glanced over at wilson and snorted out a laugh. “wilson isn’t my boyfriend. he’s my best friend. i just happen to steal his food just because i can.”

dean let out a derisive laugh. “looked like he couldn’t keep his hands off of you. seemed pretty boyfriend-y to me.”

“you can’t keep your hands off handsome man,” house pointed out.

“cas is my best friend.”

house glared at dean. dean glared at house. a recognition passed between them, a hint of panic. they both tore their eyes away from each other.

“c’mon cas, let’s go,” dean said, snagging cas’ wrist and pulling him towards the door. house let them go.

“what was that about?” house could hear cas asking as they left the ER, but he couldn’t catch the rest of the conversation.

moving back to the nurse’s station, house leaned against the desk by wilson; his eyes still on the place where dean and cas were.

“you just let them go? what happened?” wilson asked.

house didn’t reply, his gaze on the two men as they climbed into an impala. house caught the way dean watched cas get in first, something tender in the way his shoulders tensed and then relaxed as he watched cas settle into the car before dean climbed in himself. a moment later, they were gone.

waving a hand in front of house’s face, wilson called out, “earth to house. what’s going on?”

clearing his throat, house shook his head. “nothing. must’ve been a patient mix-up.”

wilson followed where house was gazing, but there was nothing outside the doors of the ER. shaking his head, wilson patted house’s knee and held out his sandwich for house again in a silent offer to share his food.

house took the sandwich without a word, suppressing a shudder as his fingers brushed against wilson’s as he took the sandwich.

[solspina]

Doting Effacement

fulgrim ⋆˙⟡

a little warm-up writing before i start getting through some other super super old requests, this one is short and not proofread so i am sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies :(

word count: 900ish

warnings: neglect, emotional abuse, implied reader death (kinda)

Fulgrim was abnormally calm tonight.

It was the last thing his young baseline companion had expected of him at a time like this, and even more so the last response they had wanted from their near-divine husband. His blissful ignorance hung in the air in a way that was both suffocating and serene. His lips were pursed into the slightest of pouts, an emotional expression meant not for them but for the canvas before him.

They screamed still.

They had been doing this for hours - the ear-splitting screeching. He could hear the rawness in their voice by now, it had dulled into something frayed and worn thin by exhaustion, and yet still remained laced with pathetic dejection. More evident than anything was desperation for a reaction that was not coming.

He did not feel like arguing on a night as crisp and well-weathered as this one, and so he swept his brush over his canvas. His hand swept across his work in progress with silent precision, each movement more fluid and steady than the last.

The bristles were filled with paint subtly mixed to highlight their skin, the color a near-perfect swatch that the untrained eye would swear that it had been taken directly from its reference: a still image of a baseline who had wasted their voice causing an unnecessary and uproarious amount of noise.

He had become so immersed in the details that he had completely missed the moment their endless shrieking in argument had become nothing more than muffled, choked sobs. Noise - it was all it had ever been to him, insignificant when compared to his work. His concentration on his painting had become something obsessive over the past few hours, the imperfection behind his lover's raw, human pain would not sway him from the creation of a masterpiece, especially when their unraveling had been rather unremarkable, an act not even worthy of a stage with only his lowest ranking astartes in attendance.

"...are you done? finally?" The Phoenician asked, voice still eerily serene, filled with a complete absence of concern for a single word that had been said to him. His nonchalance should have been something considered divine when surrounded by a burning imperium. He should be the one screaming. Instead, this mortal he called a wife had the audacity to be ungrateful. 

Perhaps there was a time mere months ago when he would have abandoned the canvas immediately at a sign of distress from them. He may have rushed to their side, held them trembling in his arms, and cooed comforts at them until they fell asleep in his embrace. Now he sought only beauty, something that could not be found in them, not in this state. Not in swollen eyes and raw, hideous grief. 

 The baseline had shifted onto their knees, and their oversized robes pooled around them in a shape he would've loved to paint, effortlessly elegant and tragically perfect. Something beautiful, something to be immortalized, something so alluring that he couldn't help but think. 

A shame they had not been like this hours ago.

"The puffiness in your eyes is... undesirable. ugly. worry not, I will not include it here." His voice was cold and dispassionate when he spoke. It held no care for the lover of his who pathetically on their knees a few feet before him. The flowing purple fabric of their robes lined their body in such a way that begged to be immortalized on his canvas, their eyes nothing more than a stain upon his work to be artistically excised.

The feintest of whispers broke deafening silence. "You are not the man I love anymore, fulgrim."

 His hand seemed to release from his paintbrush, the clatter from its handle meeting the marble floor made a noise so imperfect it almost made the primarch of the third visibly cringe.

And yet he smiled. 

For in that moment - even despite a vital human detail missing from its visage - Fulgrim felt that his painting, his masterpiece, a portrait of them that would be hung within his walls until the end of time, had been completed. All but it’s eyes had been finished with gorgeous bouts of color, ones that matched his wife perfectly, without flaw, without imperfection.

“I was hoping to catch you before you said that to me.” He laughed bitterly, finally rising from his seat and allowing his own silken violet robes to fall over his body like a waterfall, something horrible and unsettling filled the air, something that smelled far too strongly of an expensive perfume that the baseline had had grown to hate, and paint that smelled too chemical to ever have belonged in the primarch's collection

“I have crafted such a beautiful home for you.” He whispered, as he walked forward until he met them on the floor. The primarch knelt, placing a huge hand on their cheek, gazing into their eyes almost as sweetly as he had on their wedding day many years ago. His smile was soft, loving, gentle, trustworthy, and yet piercing violet eyes sent a completely different message.

“Fulgrim… dear… what do you-”

He turned his gaze back toward the eyeless painting, his mind suddenly able to visualize the perfect way to make his art as realistic as possible, a piece of art so full of grandeur that generations to come would marvel in his final lover's beauty. He just needed one final thing to truly bring his work to life.

His grip tightened ever so slightly around his wife’s head, his opposite hand moved to wrap itself around their waist. His unblinking stare had become full of sickening obsession.

“I am sorry, to send you into solace so soon." He said, focusing his eyes back on his canvas. It was unsighted and gazeless, but not for much longer. "worry not, my love. I will ensure that you at least see what I become."

Solspina's Scribellum✎ (❁ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈) ༉‧ ♡*.✧

@astrohymn @moodymisty @undeaddream

@hatsubara-8chan @meervalv0 @ahrianee

@sharenadraculea @lemon-russ @kit-williams

@nereidof40k @jackalwolfsoul @beckyninja

@verylazykiwi

(please comment to be added/removed from my taglist !!)

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - The Stretcher - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

An ugly reckoning...

tw: gore, violence, medical trauma, limb loss

cw: suggestions of inappropriate relationships between mentor and student

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Silco walks on.

Inside, the odor of stale chemicals seeps through the air. Jinx's containment pod is a plexiglas sphere resembling a transparent hive. Inside, she is laid out on a narrow cot. Her left hand—the two clever fingers so cruelly excised—is strapped to a splint.  The stumps are a little red, but clean and dry. Each one is neatly sutured with black thread.

Black as the sucking hole in her chest.

Through the covers, Silco can see the delineations of the wound, a map of gauze adhering to her torso.  The flesh is still flayed. But it is no longer a disaster-site of hideous spillage. The raw tendons are scored with tiny stitches. Each one, a testament to Singed’s ruthlessly meticulous handiwork.

The rest of Jinx is bone pale as if the scant pigment on her skin has been sucked dry. Her freckles stand out in stark pinpricks.

Two bags of fluid hang on a metal pole, drip-drip-dripping down a tube into a needle jammed into her arm. The steady flow of antibiotics, morphine, and synthesized Shimmer will bolster her vitals and keep her under.  Her breathing—a tarred constriction of bubbles caught in her perforated lungs—has smoothed over the course of the night.  But it remains an effortful jag: deep, dragging, discordant.

Silco's guts churn. The instinctive grind of rage is offset by guilt.

Then: shock.

Jinx is not alone.

A longer body's curved around Jinx's small one. One arm, the sleeve rolled to the elbow, is flung over her hip. Fingertips splay against her thigh: an anchor. The other arm, metallic, makes a protective arc over Jinx's skull. The cybernetic fingers, tipped with steel, are threaded in her blue hair. The head, half-obscured in lank brown curls, is tipped to Jinx's own.

Their temples mirror. Their eyelashes kiss.  The cadence of their chests rises and falls in concert.

The Hexcore, with hypnotic rotations, bathes Jinx and Viktor in a violet glow.  

From his own extremities, Silco feels pure rage blast open as the Monster unlocks.

"What the hell—?"

Singed looms from the corner of the medbay: tall and fleshlessy thin as a mantis. He's clad in a white smock resembling a butcher's apron. The barest smear of blood is caught in the weave. He glances up at Silco's snarl.

Apart from an expression of insectile alertness, he shows no other signs of concern.

"Ah," he says. "You've returned."

"Open the pod." 

"I beg your pardon?"

"Viktor. What in the frozen hell is he—?"

"He's aiding her retrieval."

"What?"

"Her retrieval," Singed says, in the same imperturbable tone. "From what I understand, a plunge into the Void is not unlike falling into arctic waters. It takes a strong grip to pull oneself out. J17 is a skilled swimmer. But she remains partially submerged. She'll need a guide to drag her to the shore."   

"He has no right to—"

"To what? Hold his companion's hand?"  

"Companion?"

Singed nods.

Silco's jaw locks as the Doctor's meaning sinks in.

Guardians and Mages. He'd known, in his bones, that the bond between Viktor and Jinx held a strange, unearthly resonance. A tie that binds, like gravity does a comet: two celestial forces, inexorably pulled together by the galvanic charge of their shared potential. 

He'd assumed the nature of the bond was intellectual. That their kinship was a matter of mathematics: two minds, one wavelength.  Then Jinx's spells of strangeness and self-enforced secrecy began. He thinks of the audio recordings in the Aerie: the susurrations and whispers. The ungodly silence.

It wasn't sex—no matter the wildness of his paranoia, he knew Jinx was still too innocent, and that her tastes lay elsewhere. But the overtones—of communion, and a deeper, almost otherworldly intimacy—were terrifying.

Now, seeing them together—a tangle of arms, a knotting of fingers—his worst fears have been made manifest.

It's plain, from the ease between their bodies, that Jinx has slept in Viktor's arms before. Plain, too, that it's happened enough times for this closeness to take on overtones of trust.  A trust Silco had invited: to his doorstep, past his threshold, and straight to his daughter’s bed. 

A trust that’s been repaid with disaster.

Reflexively, Silco's fists ball.

"Open the pod," he says. 

"What?"

"Open it."

"With all due respect, that is not the wisest course of action." Singed remains maddeningly equable. He could be discussing a minor surgical procedure: the pros and cons of local versus general anesthetic. "The Hexcore—from what I gather—is acting as a buffer. It is protecting both J17 and Viktor as they work to draw her out. To separate them at this juncture would risk a backlash."

"Backlash?"

"I'm speaking in metaphysical rather than medical terms. From what I have gleaned, the Hexcore is a living organism. It has its own will and wants. I am not privy to the nature of the bargain it has struck with Viktor. But I hazard that it is his key to the Void. And that, in exchange for entry, it protects his and Jinx’s corporeal forms. To rip them apart would be... traumatic. For all parties present."

In Viktor's embrace, Jinx expels a sigh.  There's a subtle alteration in her breathing. The Void creeping across her brainwaves, perhaps. Viktor's arm flexes around her. His own breathing—that half-mechanical, half-organic rasp—deepens. His lips touch her temple. 

The Hexcore sings. The pitch is nearly ethereal.

Two spirits: locked in orbit.

Silco's jaw grinds. A vein ticks in his temple. Whatever's happening, it is not something he comprehends. Not something, he suspects, meant to be comprehended.  But that doesn't stymie the rage. Nor the dread.

The former, he can dissect with a cool eye, peel it down to the viscera of what it is: a primal need to keep his child safe. 

The latter, though...

That's a formless shadow stretching over his psyche. The sense of something very, very huge: a force the size of a godhead eclipsing the horizon. And the stormfront, lightning-laced, is rolling across the sea straight towards his ship of destiny.

It's not often Silco feels his smallness. But he does now, and the fallout is brutal.

"You knew," he says, deathly soft.

"Hm?"

"You knew. About Viktor. Compromising my child."

Singed is not a shrugger. Hedging is not his strong suit. But his silence speaks for itself.

"I would not call such a bond a compromise," he says at length. "In some ways, it was inevitable.  Viktor is extraordinarily gifted. J17, a creature of pure potential. They are both seekers in the dark. It makes sense that they'd find each other." A slight cant to his head: a gesture of self-reproach. "I will admit: I should have informed you. But there was no reason to believe the entanglement was of a carnal nature."

"No reason to believe they weren't fucking?"

The vulgarism stirs Singed out of scholarly calm. He doesn't smile. But his lipless mouth shows a glint of teeth. It's the same expression he'd wear when Silco would return to the Cannery after prowling the dank cloaca of the Lanes.

Always: with a plaything on his arm and ill-gotten gains in his pocket.  

He'd often likened Silco's gravitation toward vice as a form of self-medicating. The sex, the drugs, the power-plays: all symptoms of a man whose eye could not close, and needed other means to unwind. Other ways to blot out the light. 

It was a diagnosis Silco only partially agreed with. It was not autonomic impediment that kept his bad eye from closing. Simply the refusal to look away from the world as it was.

Now, his bad eye smolders in its socket. It's a marvel the Doctor doesn't wilt in its heat. Then again, Singed's always been a hard man to burn.

It's what he and Silco have in common.

"No," he says. "That, I do not believe."

"Is that so?"

"Given Viktor's... condition... it's unlikely."

"I'm not sure if you're aware, Doctor—" Silco's tone, beneath the frigid civility, is honed to cut jugulars, "—but there are ways around that."

The glint of teeth deepens. A grin, however cold. "Oh, I am aware.  But I'm also aware of Viktor's nature. I've known him since he was a boy. Frailty's always been his cross to bear. But that has not diminished his drives. Only... redirected them, as it were." 

"Sublimation."

"You sound dubious."

Silco's good eye slits. Singed's grin fades.

"I understand. We're men of pragmatic bent. There will always be a selfish component to our pursuits. A willingness to see the big picture, even if it means putting our better selves on the backburner."  He turns to the pod. "Viktor is different. His nature has a singular trajectory: up. He wants to ascend. To break free of limitations: both inborn and self-imposed. Sex, in comparison, is a dead-end. Love, though? That's something else. Something that can take him to the stars." 

Silco follows his stare. The pair, entwined, are haloed in violet. Their breathing is slow and steady.

A duet.

"The boy's always longed for a taste of the transcendent," Singed muses. "I imagine, in J17, he's found it. A force of pure creation. Pure entropy. It is only in chaos that order can thrive. The sense of a divine plan is what gives meaning to the world. And a multivalent, fractal reality is what allows a scientific theory to evolve into law."

Silco's knuckles pop. He says nothing. 

"If it helps," the Doctor adds, "I doubt the boy's done worse than hold her hand. The way he speaks of her, one would think her a... psychopomp. Someone to guide him to a higher plane of knowledge. Someone whose existence is to be worshiped. Not possessed."

"Worship and possession," Silco replies, in the voice of cold prescience, "often end the same way."

"Oh?"

"With someone on their knees."

Singed doesn't laugh, exactly. The sound's too measured. But his mangled lips stretch to show the full set of teeth. They hold the implacable sheen of scalpels. Each one slitting its careful way through the tissue of Silco's self-control.

"A cynic's view," he says. "And one I disagree with."

"Do you, now?"

"I'll grant there is a physical element to their closeness. But, I suspect, the physical is merely a conduit to that higher plane. A literal touchstone to guide them through the dark. The true roadmap, as it were, is the end each of them seeks."

"That end being?"

"Balance," Singed says. "If my theory is correct, they each serve as a counterpoise to the other. J17, in her unbound potential: a spirit of half flesh, half catalyst. A force in constant flux. Viktor, in his rigid catechism: a being forged in metal and magic. The very dictum of death. Each is, in their own way, an anomaly. Together, they are a paradox. One that introduces a new paradigm."

"Paradigm."

"Cause and effect." The grin's gone. Only Singed's eyes shine: a cold, methodical zeal. "Or, in your language: cost and reward."

A chill steals through Silco.

It's not the first time Singed's dissections of the metaphysical have taken a macabre turn. For the Doctor, the two are indistinguishable: the duality of life and death reduced to quantifiable variables of mess and mass. In his laboratory, Silco's witnessed the results firsthand.

The Doctor's a man who understands that knowledge only goes as deep as the knife cuts.  And Silco, a man who has cut to the marrow of humanity's ugliness, knows there's no limit to the incision when the rest's been pared clean. 

"If your intention was to disarm me," he says flatly, "you've failed."

"Disarm." Singed's chuckle is dry as bone dust. "Old friend, you are not the weapon. Only the steel that whets its edge."

"Flattery?"

"Fact." The corners of Singed's eyes crinkle. "We are, both of us, mere tools for a greater design."

Jinx cries out.

In the pod, the Hexcore spins rapidly. The rotations, faster and faster, become a multicolored blur. The fluctuating glow—sometimes blue, sometimes red—is phantasmagoric. Silco has the sense of something primordial unspooling into existence. The birth of a star, on a spiritual scale: chemical fusion gone mystic.

A subsonic hum fills the air. Jinx's cry spikes.

Her whole body begins shaking: a subtle network of pain radiating, it seems, from the epicenter of her wound. Viktor's embrace holds. But beads of sweat pop on his temples. His breathing goes choppy.  The pod's plexiglas walls turn milky as if with steam.

No—frost.

Silco can see the lattice of ice spreading. The cracks, fanning in jagged starbursts, resemble spiderweb.

Meanwhile, Viktor and Jinx may as well be under a full rig of stage lights: both of them are simmering in their skins.

Jinx's pallor is engulfed by a bright pink flush. Her breath comes in rapid drags. Her good right hand, fluttering, finds Viktor's good left. Their palms align, fingers twining. The twin rows of knuckles, flesh and bone, are deathly white.

The Hexcore's singing deepens. Jinx's own cry climbs to a keen.

Silco races forward. "Jinx!"

Before he can touch the pod, Singed seizes his arm. The grip is cold, cadaverous, yet somehow comforting.

"Not yet," he urges, as Jinx's wails echo and re-echo. "It's not done yet."

"Let go! She needs me—"

"No." Singed's grip is as unyielding as his gaze. "She needs to finish this. As does Viktor. Let them see it through."

Silco stares. Blood beats in his temples. He understands, remotely, that he is terrified. Paralysis, its predictable residue, clings like a second skin. It's a heaviness he despises. It's why he is so quick to reassert self-dominion with a dose of violence. To defend himself, monster and man, from threats that would otherwise devour him.

But what if the threat's taken root in the tenderest parts?

What if it can never be excised?

(Is that fatherhood?)

Tossing her head, Jinx screams. Viktor, gasping, shudders.

The Hexcore's pulsations go critical.

Then—with a flash of brilliant blue—the humming ebbs. The pod's opalescent frost, in icy bloom, evaporates. Within, Jinx and Viktor subside into stillness. Their hands are still twined, their foreheads together. Both breathe in unison. 

But there's a dissonance in the rhythm. A harmony, that, while still in tandem, is their own.

Viktor is the first to wake.

His arm loosens its cradle around Jinx. His head stirs, the dark crown dislodging against its blue perch of her skull. The gold eyes—with their black-rimmed core—flicker. They are glazed in shock.  Then he blinks, and they regain focus. The lineaments of his expression—grim-lipped and hollow-cheeked—are ones Silco knows well.

The sense of a spirit coming to the limits of its endurance, and shattering the barrier.

Now he's unsure what awaits on the other side.

Slowly, the golden eyes swivel. They find Singed. They find Silco. Then they fall on his and Jinx's still-linked hands. Something flickers across his wan face. Not a smile, exactly. But a certain softness around the hard brackets of his mouth.

As if he'd held on to a fear for dear life. And now, finding it unfounded, can let it go.

With a gentle tug, he unthreads their fingers.

Jinx doesn't stir. But she lets off a long slow exhalation that could be sadness, or a deep release of tension. Viktor disentangles their bodies. He does so with a delicate, deliberate care, keeping a light contact of fingertips all the way down her torso. Silco follows their path to Jinx's ribcage.

Under the gauze, the wound is closed. The meat is seared like a brand. But there's no trace of torn skin. Even the stitches—each raw suture point—have shrunk into a smooth pink furrow.

Jinx breathes. Each rise and fall—seamless—is a small miracle.

Silco is not a devout man. Contemptuous of all matters devotional, he treats prayer like a poor business transaction: an unstable currency of sacrifice, with no guarantee of success.

Now, the gratitude that floods his lungs is nearly a baptism. He hates every iota: the helplessness, the loss of agency.

But loves, gut-wrenchingly, what it's restored.

With effort, Viktor straightens. His bare feet, touching the tiles, let off a metallic clink. One hand grips the bedframe. The other reaches for his cane. Every muscle delineates the difficulty of keeping his balance.

The sheer exertion of willpower in holding his mind and body together.

As with all impossible endeavors, he does not falter.

"It is done," he says, hoarse but steady.  "She is back."

"Back?"

"Within herself. The Void... has touched her heart. She has seen its own. But she is intact."

"Intact?"

"She will recover." He swallows with a liquid click. "In time."

Silco nods.

On the rumpled sheets, Jinx sleeps. Her breaths hold a deep-sea serenity. Her delicate features are preciously girlish and lost-looking. The sight suffuses Silco with a tenderness that yet calls up the horror of it all.

He takes himself to a place of stillness, and allows himself to feel it. Not just last night's ordeal. Everything leading up to it. Strategy after strategy, error after error, so the outcome is the same as when Zaun first emerged from its ravaged shell.

His child in a sickbed. His paternal devotion in a deathmatch with politics. His and Vi's blood game no more than a war against specters.

A war they've both lost.

Badly.

Silco's eyes pass from his sleeping beauty to the man who'd saved her life.

"Doctor," Silco says. "Open the pod."

Singed does not argue. With a deft touch, he flips the controls. 

The plexiglas shell retracts. The air, trapped, is instantly sucked out. It is unseasonably warm from Jinx's and Viktor's body-heat. The smell holds a sterile bite of disinfectant. Underneath, a faint trace of musk lingers.

The unforgettable odor has been imprinted on Silco's olfactory landscape since Jinx began working with the Hex-gem. The permeating ozone-stink of night sweats and lightning strikes.

The afterglow of the Void.

Now Silco detects the component he'd not dared to put a name to: that singular, almost sexual tang. Two spirits, intertwined, coupling in a realm without flesh. 

Right under his roof.

His eyes lock on Viktor's. The younger man's ambivalent features, caught between exhaustion and relief, shift. Wariness creeps in. It's not the fear of reckoning. More the full awareness of a gamble gone sour.

Now the ruin, no matter how cataclysmic, must be accounted for.

The gold eyes—infinitely patient, infinitely reckless—do not waver.

"I believe," Viktor says, "you have questions."

"I do," Silco says. Then: "Doctor. Fetch the stretcher."

Singed's head takes on an insectile slant. As if he's caught the taste of blood in his mandibles, and is trying to parse its source.

"Stretcher?" he repeats. "Whatever for?"

"Viktor."

"The boy seems perfectly—"

Crossing the distance, Silco lays a hand on Viktor's shoulder. A steadying, almost paternal clasp.

The Monster, unsheathing its claws, rakes down.

His fist slams into Viktor's gut. The young man staggers with a strangled cry. His cane clatters. The rest of him slumps, jelly-legged, as Silco follows with a snapping right hook, smoking it straight through the boy's frail defense and connecting with his jaw.

There is a satisfying snap of bone on bone. The sound, visceral and rich, kickstarts a tidal wave of blackness that seethes from the balls of Silco's feet and climbs all the way to his hairline.

The Monster is awake, and it is hungry.

"Doctor," Silco says, as Viktor crumples to the floor. "The stretcher."

Wisely, Singed obeys.