#Magic Tool (trope)

[carnalcrows]

NINE LIVES, ONE BULLET

pairing: outlaw! gojo saturo x male reader

synopsis: You’re a thief. He's a legend. All you wanted was the artifact — not a partner, not a bounty, and definitely not feelings. But there’s only one bed, one bullet, and maybe one shot at making it out alive. (And gods help you, you’re starting to like him.)

content warnings: 18+, outlaw/thief dynamic, bottom male reader, heavily inspired by puss in boots, Gojo is feral in a silk shirt, slow burn with explosive payoff, community bathhouse smut (fingering, p in a, reader receiving), one bed trope, fake marriage but the feelings are real, suggestive swordplay, magical artifact slowly corrupting the reader (he’s fine. probably), minor blood and injury, mutual possessiveness disguised as banter, major character death, emotional vulnerability in stolen clothes, they save the day but lose some of themselves, Gojo probably steals your boots.

word count: 10.5k 💪🏼

You were two clicks away from glory.

The last mechanism in the vault lock was nearly purring under your tools, an intricate thing of gears and whispers that had taken you three nights to decode. The room was dim, lit only by the warm flicker of a stolen lantern and the soft red glow of rune-etched stone along the floor. Whoever built this place wanted the treasure buried and forgotten, but they hadn’t counted on you.

You adjusted your gloves, fingers nimble as the final latch gave the faintest click. Satisfaction hummed through you, the kind that only came from outsmarting kings and walking away richer.

And then you heard it.

A crunch.

You froze.

Not the stone-shifting crack of an ancient trap. Not the telltale grind of armoured boots. No—this was sharper. Wetter. Smugger.

You turned your head, slowly, already dreading what you’d find.

And there he was.

Satoru Gojo. Leaning casually against the far column, biting into a red apple like he’d strolled into a marketplace instead of a cursed noble’s vault. White hair gleaming. Mask angled just enough to be obnoxious. His boots were dusty, his grin shit-eating, and his eyes—fuck. Of course, he didn’t bother hiding them.

"Don’t stop on my account," he said, juice running down his wrist. "You looked so focused. It was adorable."

You stared.

Then blinked.

Then said, flatly, “What the fuck.”

He gestured with the apple. “Hi.”

“Did you follow me?”

“Technically, I was here first. I just took a more dramatic entrance route.” Another bite. “Rooftops. Rope. Possible broken window.”

You looked past him, and sure enough, one of the stained glass panels high above was cracked open, edges glittering with fresh damage.

“You’re a fucking legend,” you muttered, turning back to the vault.

"Aww, you do know me."

“I also think you're a fucking nuisance.”

Gojo laughed, low and pleased. "You say that like it’s mutually exclusive."

You exhaled slowly, jaw tightening. “You planning on standing there eating fruit while I do all the work?”

“Actually,” he said, and there was the sound of something metal shifting behind you, “I was thinking I’d help.”

You spun, knives drawn in a blur.

But Gojo wasn’t threatening you—he was kneeling beside the pedestal now, peering at the exposed vault like it was a puzzle box.

He whistled. “Damn. You already disarmed the pressure plates?”

“You’re loud,” you said, circling him warily. “And messy.”

He looked up at you, bright-eyed. “But cute, right?”

Your blade hovered an inch from his throat.

“You’ve got five seconds to leave.”

“Oh?” His smile widened, infuriating. “Or what? You’ll stab the most charming outlaw in the land?”

“If it shuts you up, absolutely.”

“Harsh.” He leaned in, voice lower now. “You always this violent on first meetings, or am I special?”

You narrowed your eyes. “You’re impossible.”

"And you're hot when you're mad."

The moment stretched between you like a tripwire. His smile didn’t falter, but his fingers twitched near the hilt of the blade at his hip. Not drawn, not threatening. Just… prepared.

So he wasn’t an idiot. That was disappointing. You liked idiots. They bled easier.

“I know who you are,” you said finally.

“Everyone does.”

“I don’t mean your wanted posters. I mean your real reputation. You get people killed.”

His expression didn’t change, but something cold flickered behind his smirk. “People get themselves killed. I just make it interesting.”

You hated how good that line was. Hated more that it made you want to smirk back.

Instead, you sheathed your knives and moved past him to the artifact.

Small. Black. Humming with a pulse you felt in your ribs. The voidseed, they called it. One wish. One curse. Same odds, depending on how desperate you were.

Gojo stood too, closer now. You felt him behind you, tall and warm and irritating.

“Any chance you’ll split it?” he asked.

“Not even if you begged.”

“Mmm. I am good at begging, though.”

You straightened, turned, and faced him properly for the first time.

Sharp white hair. Lashes too long. Lips still stained from that damn apple. He was every kind of trouble, wrapped in silk and arrogance, and now he was standing between you and the exit.

You sighed. “I’m not fighting you in here. Too cramped.”

“Shame. I like it cramped.”

You stepped around him, slow, purposeful. “Touch me again and I’ll bury a dagger in your throat.”

He chuckled, following. “That’s not a no.”

You reached the exit passage, then paused. Looked back at him.

“You planning to follow me out?”

Gojo shrugged. “I’m not leaving empty-handed.”

“So rob someone else.”

“But you’re so much more fun.”

You stared. He smiled.

Then you threw a smoke vial to the ground and vanished into the haze, vaulting up the hidden escape shaft you’d scouted days ago. You didn’t bother looking back.

Let him chase you if he wanted.

You’d cut him off at the knees later.

---

The city was quieter at night—if you could call this a city. It was more like a stitched-together sprawl of forgotten temples, crumbling stonework, and wealthy cowards playing noble. Beyond the roofs stretched the distant outline of forest, where the real dangers lived. Where you were planning to disappear.

If not for the man currently chasing you.

You moved fast, vaulting from rooftop to rooftop, leather boots gripping slick clay tiles. The wind tugged at your coat and hissed in your ears. You landed, rolled, and sprang again without pause—muscle memory and adrenaline making you feel half-feral, half-myth.

Gojo was still behind you.

Gods, how was he still behind you?

You glanced back just as he landed a story down, arms outstretched like a damn acrobat, long coat flaring, silver hair glowing in the moonlight. He looked delighted. Delighted.

“This is the most cardio I’ve done all year!” he called, grinning. “Is this foreplay? Feels like foreplay.”

“Try dying!” you shouted back, and dropped smoke behind you again.

But he didn’t slow. Didn’t stumble. If anything, he laughed harder—like this wasn’t a chase at all but a fucking game, and you were the only one pretending to play it seriously.

You hated how good he was at this.

You hated that it was kind of fun.

You pivoted hard, ducked under a broken arch, and slid down the angled side of an old cathedral roof, boots skimming the rain-slick edge. You landed in the alley with a sharp grunt, breath visible in the cold.

Then silence.

No footsteps. No Gojo.

You waited five, ten seconds—ears straining—then exhaled slowly and melted into the shadows, slipping through the gap between buildings you’d marked earlier. It led into the narrow passage behind the bell tower, where the stone was warped from age and easy to scale.

You climbed three stories before you heard it again.

Crunch.

You looked up.

There he was.

Leaning against the spire like a gargoyle, eating another fucking apple.

You stared. “How—”

“I’m very light on my feet,” he said cheerfully, tossing the core into the dark. “Also, you take the exact same route every time. Predictable, but sexy.”

Your hand twitched near your knife. “If I kill you, does the bounty double?”

He cocked his head. “Are you flirting?”

You didn’t answer. Instead, you reached the top of the roof and sat, boots swinging over the edge, chest rising and falling from the sprint. Gojo watched you, then flopped down beside you like this was all part of the plan.

Below, the city was a patchwork of flickering lamps and watchfires. The guards hadn’t spotted either of you yet. You could still vanish. You could still shake him. But for some reason, you didn’t move.

“I should stab you,” you muttered.

“You keep saying that,” Gojo replied, voice lighter now. “But here we are.”

Silence stretched between you. Not tense, exactly. Just full—with things you weren’t going to say and things he probably already knew.

Gojo broke it first. “That vault was yours?”

“Obviously.”

“You cracked it clean.”

“Obviously.”

He grinned. “I’m impressed.”

You glanced at him. “That doesn’t mean anything coming from you.”

“It does to me.”

And there it was again—that thing he did, that flicker behind the jokes and showmanship. Like he saw something in you that he wasn’t supposed to. Like he was trying to get under your skin on purpose.

“Why do you keep chasing me?” you asked, finally. “You could be halfway to the next kingdom by now.”

Gojo stretched his legs out, boots scuffed and dusted with rooftop grit. “Maybe I like shiny things.”

You rolled your eyes. “You didn’t even want the artifact.”

“Nope.”

“Then why—”

“I wanted to see who got there first.” He looked at you. Really looked. “And what they’d do with it.”

You met his gaze and felt something tighten in your chest.

“You think I’ll use it?”

He shrugged. “I think you’re not as heartless as people say.”

You laughed once, short and bitter. “And what gave you that idea? The knives or the running?”

“The way you looked at it. Like it scared you a little.”

You didn’t answer.

He leaned back on his elbows, tilting his head toward the stars. “I’ve seen men go mad for things like that. Or worse—get hopeful. That’s always when it breaks them.”

“Hope?”

Gojo nodded. “It’s a fragile thing. Makes people desperate.”

You turned away. Looked down at the artifact in your coat pocket. Still warm. Still humming. Like it was alive. Like it knew it had just become yours.

“I’m not desperate,” you said quietly.

“No,” Gojo agreed. “You’re angry.”

You didn’t ask how he knew that. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was guessing. Or maybe he really did see straight through people the way they said he could. Whatever it was, it made your skin itch.

“You gonna tail me all night?” you asked, voice back to flat.

“Depends,” he said, stretching. “Are you gonna make it worth my while?”

You stood abruptly. “Don’t follow me, Gojo.”

He didn’t rise. Just watched you from where he lay, too relaxed for someone who could be skewered in two seconds.

“You’re not the only outlaw after that thing, you know,” he said casually. “You might want backup. Or a partner.”

You looked over your shoulder. “I don’t do partners.”

“You might change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

Gojo smiled, softly this time. “I’ll see you again anyway.”

You disappeared into the shadows before you could give him the satisfaction of a reply.

And still, somewhere behind you, you heard him laughing.

---

You smelled blood before you stepped inside.

The tavern was quieter than you remembered, and that was saying something—it was already a shithole on a good day. You’d holed up here before: halfway between two borders, just obscure enough to be ignored by local law. Perfect for laying low after a heist. Perfect for disappearing.

But tonight, something was… off.

You kept your back to the wall and your hood up, fingers tracing the hilt under your coat as you passed between half-empty tables. A few men looked up—one blinked too slow, another’s hand twitched toward his belt. You kept walking.

The barkeep didn’t speak. Just jerked his chin toward the back room.

You slipped through the curtain.

Kaito was waiting. Ex-fence, part-time drunk, full-time coward. But useful—if you were willing to stomach the smell.

“You got it?” he rasped, eyes wide. “You actually got it?”

You didn’t answer. You pulled the object from inside your coat, still warm and faintly pulsing. The voidseed sat between you like a heart torn from a god. Kaito leaned forward, reverent.

“Shit,” he whispered. “You really pulled it off.”

“I need papers,” you said. “New name. New country. And I need it fast.”

Kaito nodded too quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I got a guy—wait, no—had a guy, he moved east, but I can get—”

The door behind you slammed open.

You turned just as the first knife whistled through the air. You ducked. It hit the wall behind you with a dull thud.

Four bounty hunters. Maybe five. All armed. All grinning.

You moved before they could surround you, flipping the table and vaulting over it. The room exploded into motion—Kaito shrieked and disappeared under a bench, typical—and you drew both knives in one smooth motion, spinning as the first man lunged.

You slashed his thigh, ducked a club, kicked the third in the stomach hard enough to hear ribs crack. It was fast. It was brutal. But they kept coming.

They weren’t just here for blood.

They were here for the artifact.

Shit.

You were outnumbered, boxed in, and—

The window shattered.

Something slammed into the room in a blur of white and blue. The air twisted, and suddenly three men were on the floor, groaning or unconscious. One tried to crawl away. A boot stepped on his hand.

Gojo.

“Miss me?” he said, smile sharp and stupid and radiant.

You didn’t answer. You threw a bottle at the last standing hunter and watched it explode against his face.

“Charming,” Gojo said. “Didn’t know you could throw like that.”

“I’ll throw you if you don’t explain how they found me.”

Gojo crouched, yanked a bounty poster from one of their belts, and tossed it to you.

You caught it.

And froze.

Your name.

Your face—sketched, but unmistakable.

And scrawled beneath it in fat, blood-red ink:

WANTED – DEAD OR ALIVE – POSSESSION OF AN ANCIENT CURSE REWARD: 5,000 GOLD COINS

You stared. “Five thousand?”

Gojo whistled low. “Even I’m not worth that much.”

“This wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Which means someone talked.”

You turned to Kaito. He held up his hands. “I didn’t say anything, I swear—!”

You kicked over his table. He screamed and ducked.

Gojo chuckled. “So. What’s your plan now?”

“Run,” you snapped. “Fast and far.”

“You won’t make it through the border checkpoints with that poster circulating. Every pair of eyes from here to the capital’s gonna be looking for you.”

“Not if I move fast.”

“Not if you move alone.”

You stopped.

Gojo smiled, all lazy amusement. “Travel with me. We’ll cut through the cliffs and loop around the marshlands. No patrols, no checkpoints. I’ve got people there. We’ll be ghosts.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“That’s mutual.”

You glared. “Then why help me?”

He looked down at the voidseed, then back up at you.

“Because,” he said, voice lower now, “you’re not the only one who wants to know what that thing does. And I’ve got a map.”

You paused.

He added, “To the place it came from. The one no one dares go near. Not unless they want answers. Or power.”

You didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

You could stab him. You could go alone. You could disappear into the woods and take your chances with the bounty on your back and the hunters at your heels.

Or you could take the risk.

You sheathed your knives. “Fine. One week. Then we’re done.”

Gojo grinned. “Whatever you say, partner.”

“I’m not your partner.”

“We’re travelling together. You’re not not my partner.”

You shoved past him. “If you talk this much while we’re walking, I will kill you.”

“That’s fine. You’ll miss me.”

You didn’t answer.

But you didn’t look back, either.

Because for the first time since stealing the voidseed, you weren’t running alone.

And you hated that it made you feel a little less doomed.

---

You hated traveling with other people.

They slowed you down. They made noise. They had opinions about things like “breaks” and “which direction the cliffs are” and “not threatening every barkeep you meet.” And yet, here you were.

With him.

Gojo Satoru walked like a man who’d never feared a fall. Long strides, loose limbs, like the world was his to trip through. He hadn’t shut up for hours—about the voidseed, about local legends, about a mythical hot spring he swore was nearby and probably full of naked people.

You barely grunted in response.

Mostly to stop yourself from saying something you’d regret.

He didn’t seem to mind.

“So,” Gojo drawled as you both passed through the last arch of the ruined bridge, the cliffs yawning on either side like jagged teeth, “are you always this fun, or am I just special?”

“You talk too much.”

“And you glare like it’s a love language.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About killing me? Or kissing me?”

You didn’t answer.

Gojo laughed. “Ah, so both.”

The path ahead narrowed—just a crooked trail winding down into the ravine. No signs, no markers. You knew this route, barely. Smugglers used it sometimes, but it wasn’t exactly a highway. The wind picked up as you descended, sharp and biting, tugging at your coat and snapping branches overhead.

Behind you, Gojo sighed dramatically. “So… what’s your plan once we get across? Sell the voidseed? Hide it? Build a shrine and worship it?”

You glanced over your shoulder. “You really think I’d tell you that?”

“No,” he said. “But I like your voice. Could listen to it for hours.”

“You’re lucky I don’t slit your throat in your sleep.”

“I am lucky,” Gojo agreed. “Every day.”

You rolled your eyes. And still—somehow—didn’t stop walking next to him.

You camped that night in a hollowed-out cave, tucked into the cliffside like a secret. You’d found it years ago, when you were still running jobs with people who were now either dead or very, very far away. It was dry. Sheltered. Just big enough for two.

Which was annoying.

Gojo flopped down beside the fire you built, unbothered as always. He peeled off his coat, set down his sword with something resembling care, and stretched like a damn cat.

“You know,” he said, watching the flames dance, “you snore.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do. It’s kind of endearing. Like a very angry bear.”

You threw a twig at his face. He caught it, grinning.

“You know you’re insane, right?” you said.

Gojo shrugged. “Takes one to know one.”

You didn’t reply.

The fire popped softly. Outside, the wind howled through the canyons like a warning. But in here, it was warm. Almost… peaceful.

You hated it.

“You’ve done this before,” Gojo said, after a beat. “Stolen something dangerous. Run from a bounty. Lived with a target on your back.”

Your jaw tensed. “You haven’t?”

“Oh, I have,” he said lightly. “But I tend to leave a trail of ash and broken hearts. You’re more subtle.”

“You say that like it’s an insult.”

Gojo turned his head, looking at you through the flickering light.

“No,” he said. “It’s impressive.”

You stared at the flames. Let the silence grow teeth again.

“I’m not interested in your compliments,” you muttered.

“And yet, here we are,” he murmured. “Sharing fire. Sharing risk.”

“Not a team.”

He didn’t argue.

Didn’t need to.

The next day, you crossed the ravine and headed toward the outer reaches of the valley—closer to the forgotten routes that led to the Wastes. That’s where Gojo said the answers were. Where the voidseed had been found once before.

But first, you needed supplies.

And supplies meant towns.

You picked a smaller one. Backwater. No central guard. Fewer chances to be recognized.

Or so you thought.

The minute you stepped into the town square, Gojo nudged your side. “Don’t react.”

You didn’t move.

But you saw it.

A new bounty poster.

Your face, again.

And Gojo’s. Right beside it.

Same scrawled headline: WANTED FOR THEFT OF AN ANCIENT RELIC – EXTREMELY DANGEROUS REWARD: 7,000 GOLD – DEAD OR ALIVE

“Didn’t know you were that popular,” Gojo muttered.

“I thought you said your contacts were clean.”

“They were. Someone’s really invested in finding us.”

You ducked into a side alley, heart thudding. Gojo followed.

“What now?” he asked.

You were already scanning. Thinking. Calculating.

“They’ve got spotters,” you said. “We can’t stay long. We grab supplies and get out.”

“They’ll flag the wanted faces the second we walk into the market.”

“Then we won’t walk in as us.”

He blinked. “You’ve got disguises?”

“Better,” you said grimly. “A local custom.”

Gojo raised a brow. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

Two hours later, Gojo stood beside you in front of the town registrar, wearing ceremonial robes that didn’t fit and smiling like he was having the time of his life.

You, on the other hand, were trying not to punch someone.

The registrar blinked down at the paperwork. “So… you’re here to register a bond?”

“Just passing through,” Gojo said brightly, sliding his arm around your waist. “But my beloved and I are finally tying the knot. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

You gritted your teeth. “Ecstatic.”

The woman beamed. “Well, congratulations! I’ll just need you both to sign here—”

You grabbed the pen before Gojo could write something stupid.

You didn’t look at him when you scribbled your name—fake, of course—but you could feel his eyes on you. Amused. Curious. Warm in a way you didn’t want to think about.

“Done,” you said. “Can we go now?”

The registrar handed you a scroll. “Welcome to marital bliss!”

Gojo winked. “We’ll try not to kill each other.”

“Please don’t!” she called cheerfully as you walked away.

Later, back in the woods with the supplies stashed and your cover intact, Gojo laughed until he almost fell over.

“Oh my god,” he wheezed. “We just got fake married.”

You didn’t respond.

“Do I get a honeymoon? What about a kiss? Should we consummate the union?”

“Shut up.”

Gojo slung an arm around your shoulders. “C’mon, hubby. Admit it. You liked holding my hand.”

“I was restraining you.”

“Semantics.”

You elbowed him in the ribs. He laughed harder.

And somehow, you weren’t annoyed.

Not really.

Because for the first time since this whole cursed job started—you didn’t feel like you were running. You felt like you were walking beside someone who might actually survive the ending with you.

Maybe.

If he didn’t die first.

---

You knew something was off the moment the birds stopped singing.

It was dusk. The sky had softened into gold, trees slicing the light into ribbons as you and Gojo crept along the overgrown trail just past the ridge. You were supposed to be half a day ahead of any bounty trackers. Supposed to be deep enough in the forgotten woods that no one would dare follow.

But the silence gave it away.

Not natural. Not safe.

You stopped moving.

Gojo stopped too. “What is it?”

You didn’t answer. Just drew one of your knives and slipped into the trees.

Behind you, Gojo made a low sound—approval, maybe. He followed without complaint. Quiet. Efficient. Annoyingly graceful.

Then the first arrow struck the dirt near your boot.

You reacted instantly, diving behind a fallen log as the air exploded with motion. Figures burst from the brush—five, six, maybe more. Faces masked, blades out, a full ambush party and not the amateur kind. These weren’t bounty hunters.

These were bounty killers.

Gojo cursed behind you. “Friendly crowd.”

You gritted your teeth. “They were waiting.”

“For us?”

“For me.”

“God, you’re popular.”

You didn’t dignify that with a reply.

Instead, you moved.

Two in front. One on the ridge. Another circling left. You lunged for the closest figure, catching them by surprise, your blade slicing across their thigh as you twisted to avoid a second strike. Blood splattered the leaves. They went down with a grunt.

Gojo was beside you in a blink, staff spinning, cracking skulls with that infuriating ease of his. But you could tell he was holding back. Always did. Like he was dancing, not fighting. Like none of it really mattered.

Until it did.

Because one of them got close—closer than you expected. A blade slashed across your arm. Hot pain bloomed. You staggered, just a second too slow.

Gojo turned, face shifting from amused to lethal.

The man didn’t even get to scream before Gojo drove his palm into his chest with a sickening crack.

Then silence.

Not quiet like before. Not suspicious.

Just stillness.

Bodies on the ground. Blood steaming in the cool night air.

You hissed, clutching your arm. “Fuck.”

“Let me see.” Gojo stepped closer.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“No shit.”

“Stop being difficult,” he muttered. “You’re not impressing me.”

You glared at him but let him push your coat off your shoulder. He knelt beside you, fingers brushing the torn fabric gently—almost too gently. His hands were warm. Steady.

“Not too deep,” he said. “But it’ll scar.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

You froze.

Just for a second.

Then you scoffed. “You care about a lot of things that don’t concern you.”

Gojo didn’t answer.

Just tied the bandage tight and stood.

You stood too, slower this time. Wincing. You wiped the blood off your blade and sheathed it again, staring down at the bodies.

“They knew we were coming,” you said.

“Looks like it.”

“Which means someone’s tracking us. Close.”

Gojo was quiet.

Then: “Geto.”

You looked up.

He wasn’t joking. Wasn’t teasing. That brightness he usually wore like armor had dimmed, pulled back like a tide.

You swallowed.

“You think he sent them?”

Gojo nodded once. “Yeah.”

You didn’t ask how he knew.

Not yet.

But something in your chest twisted.

You made camp deeper in the woods, away from the blood. The night was colder now, as if it knew something had changed.

Gojo didn’t joke. Didn’t chatter.

You didn’t push.

Instead, you sat with your back to the fire, knife in your hand, watching shadows flicker against the trees. You could still hear the sound of that last man’s chest caving in. Still feel Gojo’s hands on your arm. Still—

“You were good today,” Gojo said softly behind you.

You didn’t turn. “I’m always good.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah. You are.”

Another pause.

Then:

“Thanks for not dying.”

You looked at him then. Really looked.

He was leaning back, arms behind his head, hair messy, eyes soft and unreadable in the firelight.

And for once, he wasn’t smiling.

You didn’t know what that meant.

So you said, “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

He met your gaze.

And this time, he didn’t look away.

---

The village wasn’t on any map. It didn’t even have a name, just a rusted sign by the gate that read STAY OUT in faded red paint. That didn’t stop Gojo from walking right in, of course—whistling like he owned the place.

You followed him reluctantly, steps slower, warier. Something about the place made your skin itch. The houses were squat, sagging under their own weight, and the streets were too quiet. Not the kind of quiet that comes with sleep or peace—but the kind that settles when something is wrong.

You passed a farmer hammering wooden planks across his windows. He didn’t look up.

Gojo leaned toward you, voice light: “Charming little vacation spot, huh?”

You didn’t smile. “Let’s find a place to rest. In and out. No distractions.”

Gojo just nodded, but you knew better. The man couldn’t resist poking the bear—especially if the bear was cursed, dangerous, or full of secrets.

It wasn’t hard to find the inn. It was the only building still standing straight. The sign above the door read The Hollow Lantern in cracked gold paint. You pushed the door open, and the air inside smelled like dust and oil and something faintly metallic.

A woman sat at the counter. Her eyes flicked to you, then to Gojo. “Rooms?”

“Two,” you said quickly.

She shook her head. “Only one left.”

Of course.

Gojo didn’t miss a beat. “We’ll take it.”

You didn’t protest. Not out loud. But the look you shot him could’ve burned a hole through stone.

He just grinned.

The room was small—barely enough space for your bags, your weapons, and the one creaky-looking bed shoved up against the far wall.

The silence stretched.

Gojo flopped onto the mattress like it was a king’s feast. “Not bad! Sheets even smell clean.” He rolled onto his back, arms behind his head. “You want left or right side?”

You stared at him. “I’ll take the floor.”

“No you won’t. You’re still injured.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to suffer through worse now.” He patted the space beside him. “Come on. I promise I won’t bite—unless you ask nicely.”

You flipped your knife once between your fingers before sliding it back into your boot. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Gojo smiled, but didn’t answer. For once, he let it be.

You didn’t lie down. Not yet. Instead, you stood by the window, eyes scanning the dark street below. Somewhere out there, the forest still whispered. The same forest that had nearly buried you both in bodies just hours earlier.

Something wasn’t right.

You turned to Gojo. “Why this village?”

He blinked at you, sitting up. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t ask. You didn’t hesitate. You just… walked in. Like you were looking for it.”

Gojo looked away then, expression shuttering. His smile faded—just for a moment, but enough to catch.

“There’s a rumor,” he said finally. “Old one. Says this place was cursed after a voidseed burst under the mountain. Says anyone who stays too long starts hearing voices in their sleep. Seeing things that aren’t there.”

You raised an eyebrow. “And you thought we should spend the night here?”

He shrugged. “If it’s cursed, it means no one will look for us here.”

You didn’t have a counter to that.

But you still didn’t like it.

You lay down reluctantly that night, fully dressed, your back to Gojo, your hand never straying far from the hilt at your hip. The bed was warmer than expected. You hated that. Hated the way your muscles loosened despite yourself. Hated the way Gojo’s breathing, soft and even beside you, almost calmed you.

Almost.

“You awake?” he asked.

You didn’t answer.

He continued anyway. “I get why you don’t trust me.”

Your jaw tightened.

“But I’m not your enemy.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to see his profile in the moonlight leaking through the cracked shutters. His eyes were open. Bright. Watching the ceiling like it held the answers.

“I’m not anyone’s ally either,” you said. “I work alone.”

“I know.”

Another pause.

Then softer: “You don’t have to, though.”

You closed your eyes. Tried to pretend it didn’t make something sharp twist under your ribs.

You dreamed that night.

Of fire. Of eyes in the trees. Of a voice calling your name in someone else’s tone. You woke up in a cold sweat, heart pounding—and Gojo was already sitting up beside you, alert. Barefoot. Shirt rumpled.

He looked at you like he’d seen something too.

“You felt it too?” he asked.

You nodded slowly. “Something’s here.”

Gojo’s voice dropped. “Voidseed.”

You stared at him. “How do you know?”

“I’ve felt it before.”

There it was again. That crack. That space where the mask slipped.

You sat up. “How many times?”

Gojo didn’t answer. Instead, he stood, crossing to the window.

“Geto used to track them,” he said finally. “Years ago. Said they were pieces of a bigger magic—older than anything in this world. Said if you collected enough of them, you could change fate.”

“And you believed him?”

Gojo gave you a sad smile. “I believed in him.”

You stood too.

And the floor creaked between you, quiet and heavy, like it was holding its breath.

Morning came gray and slow. You packed in silence. Gojo didn’t press you again. But something had shifted between you. Not quite trust. Not quite warmth.

But something.

You left the village by noon. The innkeeper watched you both with tired eyes. And just as you passed the edge of the woods again, Gojo looked at you sideways.

“One bed,” he said casually.

You grunted. “What about it?”

He smirked. “You didn’t stab me.”

You didn’t smile.

But you didn’t deny it either.

---

You’d barely made it past the village border when Gojo started whistling again. Same tune, same arrogance, like the ambush, the cursed bed-sharing, and the voidseed whispers hadn’t left even a scratch on his soul. You, on the other hand, were nursing a splitting headache and a very real ache in your side that you absolutely were not going to let him notice.

“Stop that,” you muttered.

“Stop what?” he said, cocking his head with a mock innocence that didn’t fool you for a second.

“That noise.”

“I’m creating ambiance. Mood. Vibes.”

“Your vibes are making me homicidal.”

Gojo grinned, “Well, at least they’re working.”

You didn’t dignify that with an answer. Just adjusted your coat, made sure your dagger was still where it belonged, and scanned the horizon ahead.

A town lay a few miles out—marked on Gojo’s stolen, half-burned map as “Rookridge.” He’d claimed there was a shortcut through its back alleys that would take you both to the pass ahead. You didn’t trust him, or the map, or frankly even the ground beneath your boots right now. But it was the only real lead you had. That, and the faint whisper of voidseed still lingering like smoke on the wind.

The town looked normal at first glance. Dusty. Quiet. The kind of place where people didn’t make eye contact unless you paid them for it. But Gojo slowed slightly as you entered the main square, steps lighter than usual. His hand brushed yours—barely.

“Careful,” he murmured, just for you. “We’re not alone.”

You didn’t ask how he knew. You felt it too. That ripple in the air. That hunter’s tension curling along the back of your spine.

And then they stepped into the street.

Two of them. Dressed like theatre villains, all leather and buckles and unnecessary capes. One was tall and lean, with a blade so polished it shone like a mirror. The other was shorter, broader, and carried a spiked flail that looked like it belonged in a torture museum.

But it was their faces that made your stomach sink.

They were smiling. Like they’d been expecting you.

“Well, well,” the tall one purred, pointing his sword lazily between you and Gojo. “If it isn’t the infamous sorcerer and his grumpy little bodyguard.”

Gojo perked up. “You think I’m infamous? Aww, stop.”

“I won’t,” the shorter one said, cracking his knuckles. “The price on your head is enough to buy a kingdom.”

You tilted your head. “Whose head?”

Both bounty hunters blinked.

Gojo elbowed you lightly. “Aw, don’t be shy. They’re clearly here for me.”

“You wish.” You rolled your eyes, but your hand was already on your dagger.

“Don’t fight over me,” Gojo sighed. “There’s enough bounty to go around.”

The tall one moved first—fast, practiced, but not fast enough. Your blade met his mid-air with a clash of steel and a flick of your wrist that sent him staggering back.

“Whoa!” Gojo laughed. “Look at you go, sweetheart!”

You didn’t answer. You were already moving—ducking a strike, spinning, slashing low. The flail swung behind you, a whistle of iron in the air, and Gojo intercepted it with a wall of crystal-clear magic that cracked the earth.

“Oh, come on!” the shorter bounty hunter shouted. “Magic?! That’s cheating!”

Gojo grinned. “I know.”

The fight spilled into the square, drawing attention from the nearby tavern and market stalls. But no one stepped in. They just watched—silent, sharp-eyed. Rookridge didn’t seem like the kind of place that interfered.

The tall one tried a fancy move—flipping off a crate and aiming for your head with a scream of overconfidence. You ducked, grabbed his belt mid-air, and slammed him into the ground.

He groaned. “You’re… stronger than you look.”

“Yeah,” you said, flipping your dagger once, “I get that a lot.”

Gojo, meanwhile, had turned the fight into a performance. He was laughing, spinning, summoning brief flashes of light to blind and dazzle. Every move was unnecessarily theatrical, but undeniably effective.

The flail came flying again, and Gojo sidestepped with a flourish. “You know, I thought about becoming a dancer once,” he mused. “But bounty hunters make such terrible partners.”

The flail-wielder screamed in frustration and charged.

Gojo just blew him a kiss and raised his hand—boom. A pulse of energy sent the man flying into a water trough.

Silence settled.

You stood over the tall one, breathing hard, dagger pressed to his throat.

“Still want that bounty?” you asked.

He wheezed. “You’re… both insane.”

Gojo popped a piece of dried fruit into his mouth and winked. “And you’re boring.”

The bounty hunters crawled off eventually, muttering curses and threats. You didn’t follow. You’d made your point.

“Do you always piss people off that quickly?” you asked Gojo, wiping blood off your blade.

“Only the people worth pissing off,” he said cheerfully. “That guy’s sword was too clean. He needed humbling.”

You glared at him. “They could’ve killed us.”

He tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. “But they didn’t. Because you’re terrifying and I’m fabulous.”

You exhaled hard and kept walking.

That night, you ended up at a tiny tavern on the edge of Rookridge. The innkeeper gave you both a once-over, eyes narrowing.

“You bonded?”

You blinked. “What?”

“Town’s prepping for the Moonbind Festival,” she said. “Only bonded pairs can stay the night. Security measures. Too many outlaws and opportunists about.”

You turned to Gojo. “Tell her we’re not staying.”

Gojo slung an arm around your shoulders before you could move. “Of course we are! My darling and I just survived a double bounty ambush—we deserve a real bed.”

The woman squinted at you both.

You forced a smile. “We’re very happy.”

She handed over a key. “Only one bed.”

Gojo winked. “Even better.”

You didn’t punch him. That counted as restraint.

---

You woke up to the sound of bells.

Not the sharp clang of alarms or the echo of church towers—these were delicate, wind-chimed things, threaded between banners overhead and strung along doorways like blessings. The whole village had changed overnight. Rookridge was unrecognizable. The market stalls were blooming with silk and smoke, incense curling between jewel-toned tents, and the streets were packed with masked dancers who moved like water.

Gojo was already outside when you stumbled down from the room, leaning against the inn’s outer wall with a pastry in one hand and glitter on his cheek.

“Happy Moonbind,” he said, offering a bite like you hadn’t nearly murdered him in the night for stealing the blanket.

You took it anyway. “What the hell is Moonbind?”

“Seasonal festival,” he said, chewing lazily. “Magic’s thin during the solstice, so towns get nervous. The masks confuse spirits. The dancing keeps things grounded. And the baths—oh, those are for purification.”

You arched a brow. “You sound like a tour guide.”

He winked. “I did a season as one. Got fired for seducing the clientele.”

You didn’t respond. Mostly because you were too busy trying to ignore the fact that he looked really good in the morning light. Loose shirt. Messy hair. Smudged charm and the kind of smile that had ruin me written all over it in invisible ink.

You hated him. You hated him.

You were starting to like him.

The festival carried on around you, full of performances and half-magic rituals. You watched a child pluck fire from a bowl with bare hands and turn it into confetti. A woman offered to tell your fortune for a coin and a strand of hair. Gojo convinced an illusionist to make him float six feet in the air, lounging like a cat on an invisible hammock, just so he could yell at you from above: “You should try smiling sometime, y’know!”

You did smile. A little.

Just not at him.

Not that he noticed.

Or maybe he did. Bastard probably noticed everything.

By midday, you reached the temple.

It looked abandoned—half-sunken stone and creeping moss—but the inside pulsed faintly with something ancient. The puzzle room was beneath it, down a spiral staircase so narrow Gojo kept bumping into you “on accident.”

“You don’t have to keep touching me,” you said.

“I know,” he whispered, too close. “But it’s more fun if I do.”

The trial was designed for two. Pressure plates. Mirrors. Glyphs that lit up when touched simultaneously from opposite ends of the room. It was built for partnership. Trust.

You hated it.

But you worked through it—together.

You read the symbols. Gojo solved the riddles aloud like a smug professor. At one point, he grabbed your hand to guide it toward a panel and didn’t let go.

Neither did you.

Not immediately.

At the end of the trial, a vision struck.

You touched the relic in the center of the room—and it hit you like a punch to the chest. You saw yourself, older. Alone. Blood on your hands. Gojo—gone. Or worse.

You stumbled back, dizzy with the weight of it.

Gojo caught you. Didn’t say anything. Just braced your fall like he’d known it was coming.

“Don’t touch it again,” he said softly, voice suddenly too serious.

“What did you see?” you asked, still breathless.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Something I deserved.”

You didn’t talk much after that. Not through the walk back, not through dinner, not even when Gojo tried to distract you by juggling apples for a group of children.

You kept thinking about what you’d seen.

Not just the blood. Not just the loss.

You were starting to understand why he moved the way he did. Like he was running from something.

Same as you.

The bathhouse was empty when you entered.

Steam curled along the surface of the water, warm and thick. The stone walls were carved with crescent symbols, and candles floated in little wooden bowls, their reflections soft and golden.

Gojo was already in, of course. Neck deep, hair slicked back, eyes half-lidded.

“You coming in or just planning to stare dramatically from the doorway all night?”

You didn’t answer. Just undressed, slow and deliberate, like it didn’t matter.

But his eyes tracked every movement.

You slid into the water across from him and leaned back.

Neither of you spoke.

The silence was charged—thick as steam, warm as blood.

Gojo broke it first.

“You really trust me this little?”

You opened one eye. “It’s not about trust.”

“What is it about, then?”

You hesitated. “I don’t know.”

He moved through the water slowly. Closer. Close enough that his knee brushed yours.

“You looked scared today,” he said. “When the relic showed you something.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I’ve been scared of that future a long time.”

You watched him.

He wasn’t smiling now. No jokes. No theatrics. Just Gojo—quiet and tired and real.

And maybe it was the warmth. The silence. The ache in your chest that hadn’t left since the trial.

But you moved.

Just a little.

And he moved too.

When your mouths met, it wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision. Desperate. Sharp. You gripped his hair. He tugged you closer. Water splashed between you, arms and mouths and heat tangled like you were both afraid the other might disappear.

His lips trailed down your jaw. “Still hate me?”

You exhaled hard. “You talk too much.”

He laughed, breathless, and pulled you into his lap like it cost him nothing.

But it did. You could feel it—in the way his hands shook slightly when they touched your waist, the way he kissed like someone trying to memorise the taste of safety.

You let him.

Let him press against you, skin to skin, steam rising around your joined bodies like a prayer.

It wasn’t soft.

It wasn’t rough either.

It was real.

Slow, gasping, fingers on hips, lips at neck. Your body burned. His voice broke. And for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel hunted. You didn’t feel like an outlaw.

You just felt wanted.

After, you stayed in the water.

Gojo rested his head against your shoulder, quiet. For once.

You let him.

You didn’t say it. Not out loud.

But you were falling.

And it was already too late to stop.

---

The last time Gojo saw Geto Suguru, the world was on fire.

Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally. Flames licked the rafters of the old church they’d hidden in for weeks, smoke curling like claws through the broken windows. Geto had been standing at the centre of it all, calm and golden and furious.

“You were never going to stay, were you?” he asked.

Gojo didn’t answer. He was too busy choosing which lie would hurt less.

Geto already knew the truth.

They’d grown up together—same orphan network, same underground circuit, trained to steal from sorcerers and run cons on temple grounds. Geto was the planner. Gojo was the charmer. And between the two of them, there wasn’t a vault in the empire they couldn’t crack.

They’d talked about building something. Not a gang—a sanctuary. A real home. For people like them. Outlaws. Half-magic runaways. Curse-born kids. No one else would give them peace, so they’d make their own.

But then the Voidseed came into play.

An artifact that didn’t just show the future—it rewrote it, anchored by whoever held it long enough to burn their soul into it. And Geto... Geto wanted to use it. Not to steal gold, but to change everything. Uproot the monarchy. Collapse the sorcerer courts. Win.

Gojo said no.

It wasn’t because he disagreed. It was because he knew what it would do to Geto. And to himself. You don’t touch a god and walk away unchanged.

So he stole it.

And ran.

Geto found him three days later with blood on his sleeve and the Voidseed gone.

“You always think you know better,” Geto said, voice like thunder in the silence. “You always think you’re saving people. But you only ever save yourself.”

The building collapsed before they finished that fight.

They haven’t seen each other since.

But Gojo still wakes up some nights with ash in his lungs and Geto’s words etched into his ribs like scripture.

---

You didn’t talk much after that night.

Which was funny, considering the things you’d done to each other in the water.

Gojo didn’t seem interested in defining anything. Just kept walking beside you like always—cracking jokes, stealing fruit, humming off-key under his breath like nothing in the world could touch him.

But it had.

You saw it in the way he paused before reaching for you now. The way his smile lingered longer than necessary. The way he said your name softer, like it meant something new.

He didn’t push. You didn’t ask. Whatever this was, it was becoming something more. And it terrified you.

The forest had grown thicker the closer you got to the outskirts of Serinfall.

Birdsong had vanished. The air was too still. Even the trees seemed to lean in, eavesdropping.

That’s when you felt it.

Pressure. Wrongness. Like the kind of curse that leaves no mark but still crawls into your bones.

You stopped walking.

“Don’t move,” you muttered.

Gojo froze, one hand halfway to his coat pocket. “You sense it too?”

Three shadows dropped from the trees. Silent. Sharp. Their movements weren’t human—smooth like oil, reeking of borrowed magic and blood money.

One of Geto’s, you realized. Or maybe all three.

“Well, well,” the tallest one said, voice like spoiled honey. “Look what the moon dragged in. Satoru Gojo and his latest fling.”

Gojo didn’t rise to the bait. He just tilted his head and smiled like he was bored. “You should’ve brought more than three.”

You didn’t wait for them to strike.

You moved.

It wasn’t clean. Fights never were.

Steel met steel. Cursefire crackled in the underbrush. You ducked, rolled, blocked a blade with your forearm and sent your dagger into the bastard’s throat before he even blinked.

Gojo handled two of them at once. No blindfold this time—just power barely held in check, lighting his hands like wildfire. He moved like sin, like something too beautiful to survive this world. You hated how much you liked watching him fight.

When it was over, you stood with blood in your mouth and a tear in your sleeve.

Gojo looked worse—cut lip, bruised cheekbone, smile still in place.

“You alright?” he asked.

You stared at him. “Did you let one of them punch you?”

“…Maybe.”

“Why?”

“I wanted you to worry about me.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You’re in love with me.”

You didn’t answer.

Because it was starting to feel a little bit true.

You set up camp that night under a sky full of stars.

The fire crackled. The silence stretched. Gojo poked at the flames with a stick like a bored child.

You finally broke it.

“Why’d you leave him?”

He didn’t pretend not to know who you meant.

“I thought I was saving him,” he said, softly. “And I was wrong.”

He didn’t look at you. Just stared into the fire like it held the answer to a question he still didn’t want to ask out loud.

“He had a plan,” Gojo continued. “A big one. Clean the slate. Destroy the courts. Give power back to the cursed-born. But the relic… it doesn’t work like that. It takes. It always takes. It would've eaten him from the inside out.”

“So you stole it.”

“I stole everything,” he said. “His trust. Our future. Maybe his soul.”

You sat there in silence for a long time.

Then you leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder.

“You don’t look like a hero,” you said.

He huffed a laugh. “You don’t either.”

You let his hand find yours in the dark.

Neither of you said anything after that.

But the fire burned warm, and the stars didn’t feel so far away anymore.

---

You felt it thrumming. Like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to you.

The Voidseed.

Still tucked safely in the hidden lining of your coat. Still pulsing like it knew you were close — too close. It had started earlier that morning, a low buzz under your ribs, and hadn’t stopped since.

“You’re twitchier than usual,” Gojo said, walking just behind you.

You didn’t turn. “Twitchier than you when someone tells you no?”

“Please. I thrive on rejection.”

The path narrowed as the trees thinned into pale, bone-dry rock. You could smell the vault now — stone and decay and something that didn’t belong in this world. A place that had been locked away for good reason.

And yet, you were headed straight for it.

Gojo adjusted the strap of his pack with a whistle. “So. End of the road.”

You exhaled. “Not yet.”

“Close enough.”

He caught up, his shoulder brushing yours. You didn’t move away.

“It’s still with you, right?” he asked, voice low but easy. “The Voidseed.”

“Yeah.”

“No sudden urges to use it? Wield a little death? Rewrite the laws of the known universe?”

You rolled your eyes. “Not today.”

“Good. Would’ve hated to kill you before dinner.”

You almost smiled. Almost.

The vault sat buried beneath the ruin of a forgotten temple — jagged stone stairs leading down into shadow. The door was etched in old language, crawling with vines. No lock. No trap. Just a sense of wrong that made the skin on your arms rise.

Gojo stood beside you, quiet for once.

“What happens if we open it?” you asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the door like it had whispered something only he could hear.

“Depends,” he said eventually. “What Geto wants… it’s not just power. It’s change. Revolution. Burn-it-all-down kind of change.”

“And you don’t?”

“I wanted it too,” Gojo said. “Once. But not like this.”

He looked at you, eyes clearer than they had any right to be.

“I want to live. That’s different.”

You looked away.

Because suddenly the Voidseed felt heavier.

Because his hand was brushing yours again, and you didn’t pull back.

Because you weren’t sure who you were anymore without the violence, the chase, the lie.

And because you might want the same thing.

---

The air changed the moment you stepped inside.

Colder. Thicker. Like something was pressing down on your lungs, or maybe pressing in—watching. The stairs spiraled tight, stone slick with condensation and old blood. Each step you took felt louder than the last.

Behind you, Gojo didn’t say a word.

He hadn’t spoken since the door unsealed itself at your touch.

Didn’t have to.

You both knew what this place was.

Not just a vault. Not just the end of the map.

It was the place the world came to die.

At the bottom, the space opened wide.

A dome of black stone, pulsing faintly with light from no source at all. Runes crawled across the walls like scars. And in the center — a dais. Empty. Waiting.

You felt the Voidseed in your coat begin to ache.

Gojo stepped forward slowly, gaze moving across the carvings.

“This is older than the clans,” he murmured. “Before the curses. Before the courts. Before the Nine.”

“You think Geto knows that?”

“I think he doesn’t care.”

He turned, eyes meeting yours.

“You know he’s here, right?”

Your jaw tightened. “How long?”

“Since the last town. Maybe longer.”

You exhaled through your nose. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t want to ruin the honeymoon.”

You almost laughed. Almost.

But the temperature dropped again—hard.

The shadows in the corners moved.

And then he stepped out.

No disguise. No mask.

Just Geto Suguru, dressed in travel-worn robes and half a smile.

He looked like a man who’d already won.

“Hello, boys.”

Gojo didn’t flinch. “You’re late.”

“I figured I’d let the newlyweds have their privacy.”

He glanced at you—at the Voidseed you hadn’t yet drawn.

And smiled.

“You brought it,” he said softly. “I knew you would.”

You held your ground. “I didn’t bring it for you.”

“No?” Geto tilted his head, almost fond. “Then why come at all?”

Gojo moved slightly—just a step, a shift in weight, the start of something violent.

And Geto raised one hand.

The air shattered.

A blast of cursed energy slammed the space between you, forcing you back.

Gojo caught your wrist to steady you, his own energy flaring like lightning beneath skin.

Geto didn’t press.

He just looked at the two of you like something hurt.

“You could’ve come with me,” he said. Quiet. Intimate.

“You could’ve stayed,” Gojo answered.

Their gazes locked. A thousand memories between them. All knives.

And you stood between them—Voidseed burning against your ribs, heart in your throat.

Because the real question wasn’t who was right.

It was who you were going to choose.

---

The air cracked.

No warning, no flare of ego, no last chance to run—just Geto, moving. His cursed energy split the silence like a fault line, and suddenly you were airborne, legs kicked out from under you by a wave of force that struck faster than thunder.

Gojo caught it before it could reach you again—his arm out, barrier flaring with that same searing white-gold burn that lived behind his blindfold.

“Language of violence, huh?” he muttered. “Guess we’re skipping the dance.”

You rolled to your feet. “Weren’t you the one saying he was sentimental?”

Gojo grinned without humor. “Yeah, and now I remember why that’s terrifying.”

Geto didn’t wait.

Another flick of his wrist and the temple shuddered, a wall of blackened energy exploding upward like a tide—jagged, writhing, wrong. Gojo met it mid-air, a flash of his Limitless energy spiraling into the blast and cracking it apart like glass.

You moved then. No hesitation. No warning.

Your dagger—your favorite one, the one hidden in the boot heel you never took off—was in your hand before your mind caught up, your body cutting toward Geto in a blur. He saw you coming. Let you come.

“You’ve been walking with him all this time,” he said as you struck. “Does he even know what you are?”

You didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. Your blade met the edge of his cursed barrier and burned—not from contact, but from your own energy spiking harder than you expected. The Voidseed pulsed once against your chest, like it wanted out.

Geto’s eyes flicked to it.

And then he struck.

A cursed lash shot out from his palm like a whip of shadow, aimed not at you but through you—targeting Gojo. You twisted, took the hit sideways instead of clean through. The energy scraped through your side like acid, but you didn’t fall.

You screamed something raw and wordless—maybe Gojo’s name. Maybe just rage.

Gojo answered with silence.

And violence.

He vanished. Reappeared behind Geto with that cruel smirk he wore like armor. His hand curled around the base of Geto’s skull and slammed him forward, into the stone floor. The ground cratered. Dust filled the vault.

Geto coughed blood, cursed energy flaring around his body like a second skin.

“Still hiding behind your pretty face, Satoru?” he rasped. “Still scared of what you could be if you stopped playing the hero?”

Gojo didn’t reply.

This wasn’t about philosophy.

This was about the Voidseed. About you. About the temple that was not meant to open, and a past that refused to stay buried.

You pressed your palm to the wound on your side, felt the hot, slow trickle of blood. The Voidseed thrummed harder now, wild and hungry, like it was tasting the end before it came.

The world narrowed. Geto was rising. Gojo’s hands curled into fists.

And you? You moved toward the center.

Toward the dais. Toward the thing you’d carried through storms and near-death and stupid arguments and fake marriages and quiet, aching mornings where Gojo let you rest your head against his shoulder and didn’t say a thing.

It was time to decide what to do with it.

Whether to keep running.

Or finally let the whole world burn.

---

The Voidseed was screaming now.

Not with sound, but with want. With a pressure behind your eyes, a song in your teeth. Your skin burned where it touched your chest, your blood responding in time to its pulse. It wanted to be used. To become something.

You staggered toward the dais, vision tunneling. Behind you, Gojo and Geto were still locked in war—flashes of cursed energy so bright they lit the room in strobes, tearing cracks through ancient stone and memory alike.

“Satoru,” Geto was snarling, somewhere in the wreckage. “You always were too soft.”

“And you were always too bitter to admit you lost me first,” Gojo spat back. “Don’t take it out on him.”

On him.

You turned sharply. Gojo wasn’t even looking at Geto anymore. His eyes were on you.

Blood dripped from his temple. One arm hung at an awkward angle. His barrier flickered like a dying star—but his focus was clear. Steady. Like you were the only thing keeping him upright.

“Hey,” he called out, half-laugh, half-desperation. “Don’t let it eat you. You’re more stubborn than that.”

Geto moved to strike him down. A flick of the wrist, a curse erupting in a black wave— —but you moved first.

You didn’t think.

You threw the Voidseed.

It spun in the air like a star too bright to touch— —and exploded.

Not outward. Not in heat or fire or destruction.

It unfolded.

The world warped inward, colors leaking, time hiccuping. Everything twisted like you were looking through broken glass. You felt your feet leave the floor. The dais cracked beneath you. Gojo and Geto were both flung backward like dolls caught in the mouth of a storm.

But you… You were still standing.

Because it had chosen you.

You don’t remember grabbing it again.

But suddenly, the Voidseed was in your palm, blooming like a flower carved from shadow and light.

And Gojo was dragging himself toward you, chest heaving, hand outstretched.

“Don’t—” he said, voice wrecked. “Don’t use it. Not like this.”

Geto, on the other side of the rubble, laughed—ragged, ruined.

“You think he hasn’t already?” he spat. “You think he’s yours now?”

Gojo didn’t look away from you. Not even for a second.

“He’s his own.”

You looked at him.

At the man who saw you break open a vault, who shared meals and bathtubs and one stupid bed. Who let you steal the Voidseed and never once asked you to give it up.

And something inside you—something poisoned by rage and survival and so many lonely nights—broke.

“I’m tired,” you whispered. You weren’t even sure who you were talking to.

Gojo was there in an instant. Hands on your wrists. Warm. Real.

“I know,” he said. “I know. Just stay here. With me.”

The Voidseed flared.

And then—

You turned.

You faced Geto.

And you chose.

---

You didn’t remember lifting the Voidseed. You just remember how quiet it got.

Geto rose from the rubble, his body wrecked and bleeding, but still standing. He looked at you like he pitied you. Like he thought you were still small.

“You don’t know what that thing will do to you,” he said softly, like a prayer gone bitter. “It’s not a weapon. It’s a mirror.”

You stepped forward, past Gojo’s outstretched hand. Past his warning. Past your own fear.

“I know,” you said. And you let it bloom.

The world peeled open.

No light. No sound. Just pressure — the unbearable density of everything at once. Your breath caught as the Voidseed unraveled in your chest, carving lines of raw power across your skin like constellations.

Geto braced himself. Raised his hand.

But he wasn’t fast enough.

The Voidseed reached out like a second spine, like your soul had teeth, like the universe remembered you owed it something — and this was how you’d pay.

You spoke his name.

Not out loud.

Not in a language with words.

You just spoke it, and the power knew what to do.

Geto didn’t scream. He just— folded in on himself.

Unmade. Quietly.

Not as revenge. Not even as punishment.

Just as balance.

When the light returned, the temple was cracked open like a wound.

You were still standing. Barely. The dais had crumbled beneath your feet, the Voidseed now dark in your palm — used, emptied, but still warm. Like it hadn’t left, just gone quiet.

You dropped it.

It didn’t bounce.

Gojo caught you before you fell, one hand steady under your ribs, the other cradling the back of your head like something fragile had survived.

“I thought I told you not to use it like that,” he murmured.

You blinked at him, blood in your teeth. “You also told me not to flirt with bounty hunters. We both ignore good advice.”

He laughed, then kissed your forehead like he needed to know you were real.

You didn’t speak for a long time after that.

You sat with him in the broken vault, backs against the ruins, breath syncing up again. The kind of silence that meant you weren’t running anymore. Not today.

Eventually, he nudged your shoulder.

“You still got one bed in you?” he asked. “Because I’m thinking hot springs, low ceilings, terrible fake names.”

You looked at him — messy, bleeding, half-destroyed.

And grinned.

“I’ve got a hundred.”

© carnalcrows on tumblr. Please do not steal my works as I spend time, and I take genuine effort to do them.

Taglist: @axetivev, @peekaboo, @yyuinaa, @zaynesyumei, @sageofspades, @onyxmango, @puccigucii, @the-ultimate-librarian, @sooobiinn, @calgurl, @kissenturine, @bleedingbl0ssom, @rarealienbutt, @mazettns, @al3xinnn, @kuchi-sabi-shii, @abarelysentientmagic8ball, @ino77777777 @i2innie @umbrathefury @umbrathefury, @odins-archives, @pearleafie, @unini, @abarelysentientmagic8ball, @xreyi, @someone0vx, @kizeru, @rarealienbutt, @ungommasilku, @hyperrnovva, @gayaristocrat, @sageofspades, @tintenka1, @timaas-blog, @sae_see, @alien, @jun, @BelovedEngie, @lysanderplume, @leron1108, @kauo-writez

[miralax-gatorade]

I just want everyone to know that when I use mushrooms/cordycepts as a major element in Chicken Scratch, that no it’s not inspired by the last of us or whatever franchise is using fungus it’s literally inspired by a nature documentary I saw like 4 years ago

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The Inspector’s trusty optic pocketknife can do just about anything he/she needs it to,

from shooting lasers to making calls like a mobile to scanning just about anything.

[hurtmyfavsthanks]

We all know about magical fatigue as a whump trope for magical overuse. Now I raise you: Magical euphoria.

Magic that feels good to use. It leaves the user dizzy and lightheaded, a giddy energy rushing through their entire body. It's enough to leave the most stoic whumpee giggling madly, to make the most obedient soldier go rogue. It's a power that ultimately, inevitably, controls its user.

Mages aren’t trusted to act on their own. They can’t be, not when each spell costs them their sanity. Not when, in a daze of manic joy, they’re just as liable to destroy the enemy as their allies.

And so they need a handler.

Imagine Caretaker in this situation. Forced to watch Whumpee throw themselves into madness, to turn themselves into an unthinking weapon under the demand of some uncaring general. Having to put aside their affection for Whumpee as a person, and analyze them as a tool.

It’s Caretaker who decides when Whumpee is still fit for battle. It’s caretaker who has to look into their dazed and distant eyes, blood dripping into a too wide smile, and decide if Whumpee has anything else to give.

It’s Caretaker who decides when they’re too far gone, when Whumpee needs to stop. And if Whumpee can’t, it’s Caretaker’s job to make them stop. Even if that means using force, even if it means hurting them, because letting them run wild isn’t an option.

And when the battle’s over, when Whumpee is either led or dragged away to the medical wing, Caretaker’s the only one brave enough to tend to their injuries. They wrap bleeding, scorched fingers without a word, the only sound being Whumpee babbling, mad ramblings. Caretaker knows they won’t remember any of this. They still talk to Whumpee anyway, soft, comforting words they hope will bring Whumpee back faster.

And when whumpee’s eyes finally clear, when their body sags with exhaustion they’re just now able to feel, Caretaker feels nothing but grief, because it’ll start all over again tomorrow.

[avelera]

Bizarre to me to see a Twitter hot-take that Viktor and Jayce would be against AI.

Like, I get the impulse to have your favorite character have the same politics and beliefs as you, but there’s fanon and then there’s headcanon that literally directly contradicts canon.

Because Viktor literally invents magical Hextech AI. He speaks reverently of the Hexcore as Hextech that thinks and adapts, aka literally machine learning, the other name for AI.

To be sure, post-evil future Jayce and post-Sky’s death Viktor and/or Mage Viktor can absolutely be styled as anti-AI but that would be from the standpoint of the end of their arcs, after they’ve seen its ultimate fallout.

Like, literally, Viktor’s entire arc is a magical, reimagined Evil AI cautionary tale. Bro isn’t against AI when he creates the Hexcore, he literally invents it within the world of Arcane and is excited about its creation.

In our world, he’d absolutely be one of those early machine learning/AI pioneers waxing poetic about the potential the technology has for improving people’s lives.

“But Viktor wants to help people, he’d never support AI!” YEAH, the people who invented AI wanted to help people too! That’s the point! That’s the cautionary tale! Viktor and other AI creators made this new technology, often in reality and very often in fiction, hoping to help people only to see their invention turned to evil uses. That’s the proverbial naïveté of the scientist. We see it over and over again in fiction. It’s a really common stock trope. Indeed, I often find the trope rather tiresome and Luddite and often used to make anti-scientific stories but the point stands that it can be used too to talk about real-life scientific cautionary tales.

Viktor is only anti-AI in the sense that he’s the original AI tech bro of Runeterra. And Jayce is right there supporting him! Viktor invents it, pioneers it, promotes it, and only after it kills someone in front of him does he turn against it and even then, he is then transformed against his will into the literal tool of a literal Evil AI. It is a stock trope. It is a stock cautionary tale.

Without Sky’s death, he’d probably be right there with Jayce still promoting Hextech Artificial Intelligence (or standing just behind him in the shadows, beaming).

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Miraculous vs The Power of Love

I've written several posts where I talked about Miraculous' poor use of the power of love trope and how that massively turned me off to canon. Three strikes and you're out! When this topic comes up I usually bring up Adrien and only Adrien. This has led to some anger at the fact that I didn't mention love failing anyone else as it absolutely has. I've also seen some anger over my desire for Adrien to defeat Gabriel's control and win the day since Adrien is a victim and that means that it's perfectly fine if he fails to beat his father's control no matter what the consequences of that failure are. After all, the failure isn't really on Adrien. It's on Gabriel. A sentiment I understand, but don't agree with since this is a writing blog. I'm discussing the message the writing is sending not which character gets the in-universe blame.

I'm not going to change how I discuss this topic since it is my honest opinion, but I can explain that opinion in depth to hopefully save us all from miscommunication! That's why I'm making this post! It addresses all of the above. I'll be linking to this whenever the topic comes up so that I can include some nuance without having to go into all of the detail I'm about to go into because - as you'll see - this is a long one which is why I don't go into this depth in other posts. It would just totally derail them. I'm also not going to go into the deconstruction aspect of things here because this is already really long, but I do have a post on that for even more nuance!

If you disagree with any of this, that's totally fine! I just ask that you keep the your counter arguments civil. Remember, we're talking about a badly written kids show that none of us have the power to change and the magical power of love isn't real so it doesn't actually matter if I'm right about this. Nor is Adrien going to thank you for coming to his aid. He doesn't exist and, as always, my issue is not him as a person. My issue is the way the narrative uses him as a storytelling tool.

What Is the Power of Love?

The power of love is a trope where either platonic or romantic love saves the hero from some type of conflict or upsetting situation. It's a rather broad trope that can be used in conflicts of any size, but even TV tropes acknowledges that it's primarily "applied in dire situations to make things better. In fact, in many Disney movies it's the solution to everything." That definition is how I approach the power of love.

To put it more bluntly, unless we're talking about a specific example, when I say "the power of love" I am thinking of a story's climax or, in the case of something like a multi-season show, one of the climaxes. More specifically, I'm thinking of the lyrics to one of my favorite cheesy pop songs:

There comes a time When you face the toughest of fights Searching for a sign Lost in the darkest of nights The wind blows so cold Standing alone Before the battle's begun But deep in your soul The future unfolds As bright as the rays of the sun You've got to believe In the power of love

If it's not the toughest of fights or the darkest of nights, then the power of love failing may disappoint me, but I don't consider it an unforgivable sin. In some cases, I'd even be disappointed if the power of love was brought in before the climax! The power of love is the ultimate cheesy move so it makes sense to save it for the last minute if using it earlier would lessen or even ruin that last minute epic save.

To show what I mean, let's talk about another trope that Miraculous has failed to use well, but that doesn't ruin the show for me. A trope that has led the show to do the exact thing we just discussed: ignore a small moment when love should have won to allow for a bigger win when all hope seems lost.

The Evil Clone Thing

[Image description: the Buzz and Woody meme with the words "Evil Clones. Evil Clones Everywhere"]

There have been an absurd number of episodes where the evil clone/evil twin trope came into play, but the three big ones are Ladybug, Optigami, and the season four final. In each of these episodes, we see a good character replaced by an identical evil version. We also see the good character's love interest fail to recognize that their crush/romantic partner has been replaced. That means that all three of these episodes see the power of romantic love failing. We also don't see a more platonic version of love show up to save the day.

The worst of these episode is the season four final where Marinette doesn't recognize that Felix has taken Adrien's place. That deception is how Gabriel steals the miraculous so it's obviously a pretty big deal and can be argued as a major fail for the power of love. I don't disagree. I think that Marinette's love should have let her see through the lies and dislike that the writers took this route to make her lose. However, I don't have this on my list of moments when the power of love needed to win for the story to work.

While Marinette failing to recognize Felix leads to her darkest hour, it does not happen in her darkest hour. Her darkest hour comes when she actually loses the miraculous which happens in a completely different scene from the one where she's deceived. It's also worth noting that Felix is not present in this moment of loss so there was no opportunity for the power of love to pull off a last minute win.

The loss of the miraculous leads to a scene where Ladybug is sitting alone in the rain, ready to give up all hope. And what happens next?

[Image description: Chat Noir standing in the rain, smiling, holding out his hand to Ladybug]

Chat Noir shows up to reignite Ladybug's will to fight via his love and support. She takes his hand, he draws her into a hug, and they stand together as one, ready to once again face their enemy:

Cat Noir: We're gonna get them back one by one…until the very last. And we'll make sure this never happens again. Ladybug: You...and me? Cat Noir: You, the best superhero there ever was... and me, your loyal partner.

A lot of people love this scene and it led to some major hype for season five which means that it's time to quote some more of that cheesy song that I brought up at the start:

Stand by my side There's nothing to hide Together we'll fight to the end Take hold of my hand And you'll understand What it truly means to be friends You've got to believe (you've got to believe) In the power of love

While I don't love the season four final, it is a B-tier execution of the thing I was talking about earlier. Canon let love fail in a small moment to increase tension and give Ladybug a "darkest night" moment. That darkest night moment then led to a semi-epic power-of-love comeback that understandably got a lot of fans super excited for season five because they assumed that it was going to be the season of Ladynoir. In other words, for a lot of fans, the power of love did its job in the season four final!

All of this is why I don't bring up Marinette when I talk about the power of love failing. It does fail her, but not in her darkest nights and toughest fights. Any time she's overwhelmed and ready to give up all hope, someone comes along to give her the will to fight on. That person is usually Chat Noir because he's her end game love interest so of course the writers use him! His "you and me against the world" moments may not be the most epic example of the power of love winning, but they are the power of love winning, so saying that the power of love fails Marinette feels like an overstatement of harm. She's never had a total loss.

The closest we get to Marinette truly losing is the season five final. That episode feels like an ultimate-level failure to many of us, on par with Ephemeral, but the writers clearly don't agree. For them, season five had a happy ending which makes critiquing that final fight tricky. I'll be arguing that Adrien lost hard in the next section, but I can't say the same for Marinette and this section is about her so let's focus on that for now.

No matter how much I hate the final, I can't look at the picture below this paragraph and argue that love failed Marinette because what did losing cost her? This isn't the season four final where she genuinely suffered. This is her getting everything she's ever wanted! The miraculous are back in her hands, she won the heart of the boy she loves, and no one is actively messing with her love life anymore. That's a pretty solid win even if she didn't win the actual fight.

[Image description: Adrien and Marinette at the end of the season five final, kissing in the spot that used to house Emilie's statue.]

This is further complicated by the fact that - as written - the season five final doesn't put Marinette in a position to use the power of love. She's never given a chance to save Adrien or even just talk to him. She doesn't know that's he's in trouble, locked up in a padded cell, suffering all alone! And Adrien's love can't rally her in her darkest moment when all hope seems lost because - for the first time ever in a season final - she never got one of those! She was a badass in the final fight! No pep talk or supportive teammates necessary! She would have had a total victory if the writers hasn't made her try to talk sense to the villain or sent her Adrien's ring just so Gabriel could make the wish, further adding to the problem of this show's absolutely vile messaging around love.

In other words, lack of love isn't why Marinette loses the final fight. She loses because the writers wanted love to empower Gabriel in his darkest moment, a move the writers have the audacity to call a mutual victory. (Gross. Abusive terrorist should not get power of love moments without a massive redemption arc first. It's yet another insult to the trope. Gabriel did not deserve peace while his son goes on to suffer.)

If you think about the episodes Ladybug and Optigami you'll notice a similar problem. The power of love failed to let Chat Noir and Alya recognize that their romantic interests had been replaced, but that failure didn't lead to their ultimate defeat. It didn't even lead the villains to a minor victory! Both episodes maintain the status quo.

This doesn't mean that I like those episodes. I would rewrite both of them to let love win because they're good examples of small moments where love can win without cheapening or ruining the season's big climax. I just don't view these episodes as times when the show needed to use the power of love if it wanted to honor its chosen genre. That requirement only applies when it's a darkest night or toughest fight.

Before we move on, please note that Ladybug was the power of Adrien's love failing, yet I never mention it when I'm complaining about the power of love failing. That's because I'm never purposefully listing every time Adrien's love failed and ignoring everyone else. I'm simply listing the moments when love needed to let the heroes win because we were in one of the show's darkest hours and that is the only time when I consider the power of love a true requirement. Love can fail in small moments to increase the tension, but if love fails at the moment when all hope seems lost, then why are we even here?

There are only three episodes that get that level of criticism from me and each one had a single character whose writing infuriated me: Adrien.

Adrien vs The Power of Love

There are three episodes where Gabriel's identity is revealed and the final fight goes down. Those episodes are Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, and the season five final. In each of these episodes, Adrien suffers on a scale that no other character has had to suffer:

In Chat Blanc he is akumatized and forced to use his cataclysm to kill both his father and the love of his life, dooming him to spend eternity alone in a dead word.

In Ephemeral he is akumatized and forced to use his powers to hand the love of his life over to his father, thereby allowing Gabriel to win and rewrite reality.

In the season five final, Adrien is left alone in a jail cell, tormented by nightmares while his father dies leaving Adrien an orphan. Adrien is then told some truly colossal lies about what actually happened, leading him to believe that Gabriel scarified himself to save Ladybug's life. Since Chat Noir's usual role in fights is protecting Ladybug, this is arguably the equivalent of Adrien being told that his failure to show up killed his father. I'm not even sure if that's the wrong message because Gabriel did die from a cataclysm and Adrien would understandably blame himself for that, too, so maybe this was a way to address that without going too dark for kids and why does that argument hold water? Wtf was this trash fire of a story line???

When you compare Adrien's treatment in these episodes to something like Marinette's treatment in season four final you can hopefully see why it feels like comparing a broken arm to a mortal blow. It's not that Marinette doesn't suffer. In terms of individual moments of suffering, Marinette beats out every other character! But while she may beat Adrien in breadth, he is the clear winner in terms of depth and the only one who never gets a true power of love moment.

Marinette's darkest nights and toughest fights ultimately work out so that she can go on to some new type of suffering, the old suffering fading away to nothing more than memory. Adrien's darkest nights and toughest fights lead to loss and suffering for which there is no cure other than rewinding time or rewriting reality. The season five final even has Adrien directly state that he's not worthy of Marinette's love:

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.) Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you. Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

This is literally Adrien's last scene in the main story line. He doesn't show up again until the happily ever after epilogue where he and Marinette kiss. In other words, the show had Adrien directly state that he's unworthy of Marinette's love and then did nothing to counter that statement. I guess this poor unfortunate soul is just lucky that Marinette likes him enough to keep him around in spite of his many failings...

Writers, seriously, what the hell are you doing? This is the kind of dialogue that should lead into a power of love moment! How is thinking about Marinette leading Adrien to despair instead of strength? Why is Plagg just accepting this? Plagg is a magical being who was assigned to watch over Adrien. Shouldn't a character like that help Adrien rally in his darkest night? Where's Adrien's you and me against the world pep talk? That should go both ways!!! Have him break out, call Ladybug to tell her that he's not coming, only for her to rally him so he comes and at least fights outside in the city while she does her solo fight! Don't leave him alone to rot while almost every other character in the freaking show gets to fight!

It would be one thing if Adrien gave up because he was alone and scared, but Plagg is there and the writers directly bring up Marinette and love only to do nothing to show those as positive forces in Adrien's life!!! Instead, Marinette is the thing that keeps him from the fight because Adrien's nightmare is him getting akumatized and killing Marinette even though Adrien knows nothing about Chat Blanc.

[Image description: Adrien's nightmare where he's a blue haired version of Chat Blanc, holding Marinette's body in his arms having killed her with a cataclysm]

To be clear, in each of the three episodes I listed above, Adrien is undeniably a victim suffering at the hands of his main abuser. They're also some of the worst moments of abuse in the entire show. It would be perfectly reasonable for a real life person to give into despair if they were put into this situation, but real life people don't transform into magical cat boys who wield the raw power of Destruction. I was not looking for realism here. I was looking for hope and inspiration!

I wanted to see Adrien win! I wanted his love for Marinette and/or his friends to give him the strength to overpower his father's control because that's what the power of love is all about! When all hope seems lost, it's there to let the hero win because love is stronger than despair, hatred, fear, and magical remote controls! It is the bright light that blasts away the darkness in your darkest night! Unless your name is Adrien Agreste, then no love for you! Suffer, feather boy, suffer!

Example of what I wanted from canon

There are many ways to fix these three episodes so love wins, but to keep this simple let's focus on Chat Blanc and what the power of love winning might look like if we let canon play unchanged up until the moment where Adrien loses control of his powers:

Hawk Moth: Cat Blanc, I'm giving you the infinite power of destruction!! Together, you and I will seize Ladybug's Miraculous and awaken your mother!!! Obey!!! Cat Noir: (tries to fight back but fails) I'm sorry, Ladybug! (He succumbs his akumatization and transforms into Cat Blanc. Ladybug watches in horror at his transformation.) Hawk Moth: Seize her Miraculous, My Son!!! (Cat Blanc lifts his right arm to Ladybug, activating Mega Cataclysm.) Ladybug: No, Adrien! You have to resist!! (Cat Blanc whimpers as he changes his mind and points his arm to Hawk Moth.) Hawk Moth: How dare you!? Not me, Adrien!! Cat Blanc: (whimpering while looking to both of them) I... I don't know what to do!!!!!!

Instead of having the mega cataclysm go off here, we instead see this: Ladybug and Hawk Moth both realize that Chat Blanc is incapable of listening to either of them. Hawk Moth's reaction is to turn and run away, desperate to save himself. Ladybug's reaction is to run to her boyfriend's side, not caring about the danger. She wraps her arms around him, closes her eyes, and tells him that it's okay. That she's here and she loves him and she'll stay here and love him no matter what. It doesn't matter who his father is, it's still him and her against the world now and forever.

The more she talks, the weaker the mega cataclysm grows. By the time she makes her final vow, the mega cataclysm is little more than a flickering glow. A black clad hand touches both of her hair ties, disintegrating them, leaving her hair to fall free around her face since that was a thing in this episode. The minor wardrobe change makes her pull back and look at her boyfriend to see that he's back to Chat Noir, a purified akumas fluttering off in the distance. Chat Noir is crying, clearly distraught, but he's himself again because Marinette's presence allowed him to focus on her love over his father's poison. They won. Love won. Fear and abuse lost.

The couple embraces. Hawk Moth's big gambit failed and they now know his identity so the fight is almost over. Paris will soon be free.

From there you can have an epic battle with the temp holders where the butterfly and the peacock are recovered. Nino gets to punch Gabriel in the face a dozen times or so as a treat and Adrien gets to cuddle up with some treats, sitting the fight out since he's already done his part by surviving the reveal of his father's identity.

You could also have Gabriel just give up because he doesn't have any moves left and the full implications of what he did are smacking him in the face, sapping him of the will to fight. Anything that lets this asshole suffer is fine by me! Emilie's fate is up to you. I like to make her at least semi-decent and revive her to give Adrien a happier ending and Gabriel the horror of divorce papers, but that's just me.

Final Thoughts

As I said at the top, I'm going to continue to complain about the way that Adrien was written in these episodes. I don't consider his victim status a reasonable excuse for the way these episodes played out. If anything, his victim status is an even bigger black mark against the writing!

I come to family-oriented media for hope and happy endings! I want stories about victims being empowered! I want Gabriel's controlling nature to totally backfire on him and not in a mutually-assured-destruction way like we saw in Chat Blanc. I want Gabriel's choice to cost him everything and for him to suffer that loss for the rest of his life while Adrien gets endless love and support, allowing him to survive the reveal and go on to live a happy life. If that's not what you're selling, then I'm not buying thus me giving up on canon after the season five final. There's just no coming back from that kind of colossal writing failure.

I will try to remember to use the word "forced" when describing the problems (as in "forced to kill"), but that's the only thing I can change while still sharing my honest opinion since my main problem with these episodes isn't Gabriel's treatment of Adrien. While I don't like how far these episodes took Gabriel, you don't need to rewrite him to make the episodes work. It doesn't matter how far the writing takes Gabriel, he should never be able to successfully manipulate Adrien while threatening Adrien's supposed True Love.

As soon as Adrien knows that Marinette/Ladybug is in danger, it should be game over for Gabriel because love is supposed to be stronger than all of the awful things that Gabriel has done up to and including the sentimonster crap. In fact, the sentimonster crap just makes it even more important for Adrien to win! Gabriel should think he has victory in the bag because he views Adrien as a perfect doll, but love proves Gabriel wrong letting Adrien overpower his amok and win. The trope is called "love conquers all" not "love conquers the mildly inconvenient." The more dire the straits, the more important the win!

Unfortunately, that's not the message Miraculous is sending. By letting Adrien give into his father's control in the show's darkest hours, the message is that Gabriel's control is stronger than love. That Adrien will never be free. That he was Gabriel's perfect doll and you were silly if you ever expected him to be more than that. That's not a message that I'm that ever going to agree with and is yet another reason why I only bring up Adrien + these three episodes when I talk about the power of love failing.

You are never going to convince me that Adrien being allowed to give into despair was a good thing unless you pair that argument with some major changes to canon like love square not being together and/or Adrien not knowing that his actions would endanger Marinette. Even then you need to design that fix in a way that ultimately allows Adrien to win otherwise you are sending a terrible message to the audience. There should never be a scenario where the final battle ends the way canon had it end.

Gabriel is the show's big bad, Adrien is his main victim, and the theme of their relationship has been control. That means that, when it comes to the final fight with Gabriel, Adrien needs to be involved in a way that gives him agency. I'm not saying he needs to fight his father on his own or even at all! I'm okay with him sitting out the fight so long as you pair it with something big like Adrien being the one to learn Gabriel's identity or something more dramatic like my simple Chat Blanc fix.

However, Adrien sitting out only works if it's his own, freely-made choice. As soon as you pair it with something like magic nightmare dust you are once again sending the message that Gabriel's control is the strongest force in Adrien's life. I truly don't understand how anyone can embrace that message and call it good, especially when canon didn't ultimately do something positive with it like letting Adrien become stronger as time went on. He actually got weaker as the show went on!

Chat Blanc saw everyone lose because Adrien was able to at least try to fight back, denying his father total victory. Ephemeral saw none of that fighting spirit and Gabriel just outright won. Season five once again saw Gabriel win only, this time, the show didn't even let Adrien be part of the fight. What an uplifting character arc for Adrien! (That was sarcasm.) Play the episodes in reverse order and you might actually have something if you add a fourth one where he finally wins!

If you want to talk about more minor conflicts where the power of love should have won then I'm happy to do that! Canon has lots of options to pick from! But unless you specify that you want to talk about something minor, these three episodes are going to be my only examples of the power of love failing because they are the only times when love completely failed the character in question. Total loss, no silver lining, writers wtf are you doing?

Listing times when love failed Marinette or Alya in the same list as these three episodes just feels insulting to Adrien unless the context is something like a list ranking the failures from smallest to largest. I'll once again point out that I don't even list the other times when love failed Adrien because my issue isn't Adrien as a person. My issue is Adrien as a tool of the narrative and the asinine message that the Agreste arc sends to the young children this show is aimed at. I wouldn't even be okay with this in a show aimed at adults unless it was clearly marketed as a grimdark take on superheroes. Miraculous should not feel like a kiddiefied version of The Boys and yet here we are.

Why was Adrien granted magical powers and allowed to fight his controlling father for five seasons if Gabriel was just going to die without Adrien getting a decisive victory? Why focus season five on Gabriel controlling Adrien to such an extreme if Adrien was never going to be allowed to break free? Why make Adrien the main love interest and focus the entire show on romantic love if you don't have anything positive to say about romantic love? Why bother getting the love square together before every single final showdown in the freaking show if their relationship status was going to mean nothing? Where is my power of love always so strong?

(Btw, that song I kept quoting is from the original English dub soundtrack to Sailor Moon R - The Promise of the Rose. It plays as love and friendship save the planet Earth from an asteroid. The updated dub replaced the song with the original Japanese soundtrack and the comments are full of people complaining about the change because the song just takes this scene to the next level! I bring this up because Sailor Moon set many people's standards for the magical girl team show genre that Miraculous is clearly taking inspiration from, but failing to fully embrace. If you don't want love and friendship to be on par with nuclear weapons and asteroid attacks, then don't write a show about love and magic aimed at kids.)

[asha-mage]

Okkotsu Yuta is such a funny character cause you're initially introduced to him as 'super powerful upperclassman studying overseas' and you go 'ah yes, I recognize this trope- this is a Secret Tool that will help us later, he will return an opportune moment when things look most dire to aid Our Heroes' but then you watch his prequel movie and realize it's all about him ending his toxic comp het relationship with his childhood best friend('s ghost) and getting what amounts to a magical divorce and then you realize he is a giant loser (affectionate) and actually he's not overseas training, he's off doing some 'eat pray love' white girl shit and trying to Find Himself post divorce, and you think "well good for him"-

AND THEN when he finally shows up in the story proper he's back in the EXACT SAME TOXIC COMPHET MARRIAGE he spent his prequel getting out of, because it turns out said marriage was the source of his Terrible Cosmic Powers and not only is he not here to help Our Heroes, he's gunning for the Main Protagonist specifically because said protagonist (accidentally) cut off his side piece boyfriend's arm and so he Must Die, and no it turns out that Yuta did not in fact learn anything from the events of the prequel about his attachment issues, co dependency, and letting go, and he fully intends to weaponize his toxic marriage to avenge his boyfriend in a conflict that could maybe level all Tokyo but who cares about that? A bad thing happened to Someone He Loved and it's Overreaction Time Baby.

Anyways, Okkotsu Yuta is a loser (overwhelmingly affectionate) and I support him 100%.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Ohio

This is a special rundown of some of the tabletop games found in the TTRPGs for Trans Rights - Ohio Bundle currently being offered on Itch.io! The offer ends on May 3rd, 2025.

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes, by Nerdy Pup Games.

Play misfit outlaws fighting against the authoritarian Powers That Be in a hyper-saturated, film-grained, retro dystopia. Save the future with the power of friendship, whoopass, and explosions! Features sticker-based character advancement, effortless cinematic vehicle action, and player-driven Ride-or-Die system usings d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, and d12s.

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes is colorful, with art that pops off the page and plenty of ready-to-use scenarios to jump-start play as soon as you sit down at the table. Dive into a post-apocalypse full of young punks in a world you build yourself, with plenty of tools to help you create settlements, beasts, gear, and much much more. If you like car chases and vehicle stunts, this is probably a game for you, with purposefully-designed vehicle scenes written into the game.

Songbirds 3e, by snow.

"Moon's haunted."

Songbirds 3e is a tabletop roleplaying game about undeath, supernatural powers, and the blue dreams of the moon. In the game, you create a strange survivor of the world who was chosen (or cursed) by Death. Spirits aren't able to pass on to the afterlife and grow monstrous with each passing day. You know the songs to send them on. You have the abilities that help you find them. You are the canary in the coal mine.

Songbirds 3e has received a great amount of critical acclaim as a beautiful, mysterious, tantalizing game that blends eldritch fantasy dungeon crawls with pieces of sci-fi blended in. It's inspired by Into the Odd, Persona 5, Blades in the Dark, Red Giant, Disco Elysium, Fallout New Vegas, and much much more.

Sound Check, by Misha.grifka.

Sound Check is a game about being in a band. Rehearse, party, get interviewed and get intimate - but don't forget, it's all leading up to one thing: the Big Show. Each player will have their own musician with a unique playbook, but everyone works together to tell the story of an up-and-coming band, in any musical genre you like.

Running on the Firebrands system, Sound Check will explore the story of your band through a series of scenes, using trope-centred playbooks to build a character with strong beats and clear direction. This game has one of my favorite kinds of mechanics: a stress track that eventually brings you to an explosion, which is an action that adds narrative tension and conflict, such as making an enemy out of a friend, or having an emotional breakdown. If you want drama and heightened emotion, you want Sound Check.

Dinocar, by Dinoberry Jam.

Imagine a world almost entirely the same as our own, except someone's magical wish to meet the dinosaurs came true. But after the welcome party, what were they all to do? Well, they went on to have regular modern lives alongside our own; bills to pay, families to feed, jobs to work. Most unfortunately of all, though, they have cars to drive–and none of them are really any good at it.

That’s what happens when you’re a 12-foot tall reptile with big legs and tiny arms, it’s just really hard to fit into a compact economy-size sedan and even harder to operate the dang thing.

In Dinocar, you and as many friends as you can gather will work together to map out a snippet of that world. You’ll paint a map, draw landmarks, slap buildings into place, and take turns going on chaotic road trips and commutes. At the end of a game of Dinocar, you’ll have a story to tell and a wonderful map to either frame on the wall or stick to the fridge.

Dinocar feels fun & whimsical, and feels perfect for folks who don't like to get messy, as well as kids.

The Stone Flesh Gift, by ATypicalFaux.

A silhouette blocks the stars, darker than the space it drifts through. Several amber eyes encased in crystal peer out from the shadows. When dappled in light from the closest sun, the remnants of petroglyphs can be seen carved across its hull, hewn from a single black stone harder than steel. The ship has no comms, no transponder, just a pulsating thump within a membrane running through the stone like a vein of ore. A glistening docking umbilical gently sways as it’s pulled behind the vessel, stretching toward anything that approaches, looking to touch, to connect.

The Stone-Flesh Gift is a 40-page TTRPG module with a focus on exploration and body horror, to be played with the Mothership sci-fi horror RPG. The players will wade through the innards of a lost ceremonial offering, an ancient alien bio-engineering factory and living ship called The Gift, as they work to avoid its dangers, discover its secrets, and plug their brains directly into its organs to feel their thoughts.

This is the only item on this list that isn't a game in itself, but instead a supplement for a game - but if you like space horror, The Stone Flesh Gift is a title I've seen time and time again. It's great for folks who love body horror, and gritty stories of addiction and disease.

In Conclusion...

If any of these games look interesting to you, get them for a steal by picking up the TTRPGS for Trans Rights Bundle on Itch.io!

[adragonsfriend]

Ways to Write a Meaningful AO3 Comment…

…or frankly, a comment on any writing or artwork where your primary goal is to encourage and appreciate the creator.

It occurs to me that comments are a mini writing task, I have been a writing tutor, and if I’m going to ramble about how not to form communities and have meaningful interactions on the internet, I could maybe also help make it a little easier.

This post is written on the assumption that people want to interact, but struggle for whatever reason: nervous, tired, didn’t realize comments meant that much, can’t think of what to say. I myself spent years at a time on ao3 not commenting on literally anything—something about stones in glass houses. But in my experience, while getting comments on my own fics is kind of my favourite, leaving the kind of comment I know I would cherish—and sometimes getting replies from authors replying to my comments and actually chatting with them—is pretty damn magical too.

In that spirit, this post is henceforth a how-to, not an argument, and I’m not going to address anything to do with bad faith comments. I’m gonna try and provide some structures and simple formats to start comments from. I cannot emphasise enough, these are all intended to be used from a place of sincerity. Tools for finding and formatting the appreciation which is already in your brain, just hiding from you.

That said, we’re gonna take this in stages—

1. The Chapter Kudos

“Chapter kudos,” a little “<3,” an “I loved this,” or similar simple expressions of warmth and enthusiasm, slapped on a oneshot or each chapter of a long fic. These are a nice small gesture that lets the author know you’re here and you’re still loving the fic. Not every author is in love with the these type of very short comments, but unless they have a specific note about it, they’re almost certainly glad for the knowledge you’re still reading. This is minimal—great for days or weeks when you’re tired, low effort, can’t think of shit to say about a particular chapter, and so on. Comments, like all tasks, must be allowed to vary in intensity with available energy and time.

2. The 1-2 sentences

A one or two sentence comment. Here, a combination of a general compliment: “this was amazing,” and a specific compliment: “character A’s dialogue felt so realistic” works really well.

General compliments are typically easier to come up with:

What an awesome chapter!

Wow ok I did not see that coming—

I fucking. Love. Your writing.

This was so exciting!

I screamed when I saw this updated

Maybe a little over the top, but you get the idea—it’s hard to go wrong with these.

Specific compliments are often a little harder to come up with, but they generally fall into two categories which are both wonderful: content and writing.

Content includes things like:

I love [character] so much, seeing them in [particular situation] was so fun

Wow there’s so little content for [niche fandom/character/ship/trope] it’s great to see it here

Your idea about [authors headcanon] is so smart—that makes [weird element of canon] make so much sense

I didn’t used to be into [trope/ship] but holy fuck am I convinced now

The point being you’re noting a particular element content of the fic—what and who it’s about—that you loved. These are great because getting really damn excited about a character/trope/headcanon etcetera, really is the heart of fandom.

Writing takes a slightly different tack, and talks about the author’s writing skills—what they do well:

You write such good dialogue, it feels really realistic

Your action scenes are so exciting!

The tone of this chapter was so perfectly creepy—the way you describe [setting/character] gave me the shivers

The spacing you used really fit the piece—it’s a neat way to show the character’s mindset there they’re struggling to think clearly

The combination of a general and specific compliment can make it easier to start writing your comment, while giving you a second to think of your specific thought. It’s simple, but it means a lot to get any kind of specific comment, because it shows the author that you are paying attention to their writing and that you appreciate or relate to them, specifically. These comments are fairly quick to write, but can mean so much.

3. The paragraph

Several sentences long, with a bit more room to explain what you loved. Everything from the 1-2 sentence section applies here too. A general compliment is still a great starting point, and specific compliments are still where we want to end up. The main difference is you’ve got a little more room to talk, and you can take that in a few different directions.

You can talk about one specific compliment for a bit:

I love the way you write dialogue—character A saying “[quote]” was exactly what they would say in that situation. And their banter with character B was incredible, i laughed out loud. The way they both use cursing, but in slightly different ways is fascinating. The way character B does it is…

Or you can go through several different ones quickly:

I love the way you write dialogue—character A saying “[quote]” was exactly what they would say in that situation. The fast dialogue kept the pace up and the whole chapter was so exciting—I loved that you brought up character B and character C’s relationship too, it gets so little attention but I love it…

There’s also room for wider observations and questions (these can also totally go in 1-2 sentence comments, it’s just easier to have a little more substance around them):

Your writing always makes me feel so [feelings]

Wait I’m a little confused did [event] happen the way I think it did, or am I being silly?

Your ideas about [character] are awesome, I love everything you’ve written about them.

I’m so curious, what’s your specific lore on [character/event]?

4. Multiparagraph

Several paragraphs, or a very long paragraph. Hot damn, the author is in love with you now. Either you’ve got a whole lot to say about one specific topic of writing or content, or you’ve got a couple of different topics you want to pay some attention to—as you start writing your comment, you’ll probably discover a few more. Let yourself ramble, make bullet points, just get your thoughts out, if you have this many. All the principles from before apply: general compliments, specific compliments, wider observations, questions—all of these can easily feature in a long comment.

5. Fuck Formating

Write comments in whatever format works for you. Bullet points, google translated into the necessary language, rambling, well organized, short, long, emojis, copy-pasting your favorite quote from the fic with an exclamation point, pre-formatted general compliments, whatever will get your thoughts and enthusiasm down.

If you are communicating, the format doesn’t matter all that much. The same information from a multi paragraph comment can be done in bullet points or by quoting. Whatever communication you do will be meaningful to the author.

It’s hard to go wrong—

Like most writing, making meaningful comments and picking out those specific compliments gets easier with practice. There’s no need to write multiparagraph comments all the time. Those 1-2 sentence ones can be full of so much love, and chapter kudos are sometimes all there’s energy for.

The most important writing advice ever in my opinion is this: you have interesting things to say. About yourself, about the world, about writing, about that damn fanfic.

Go forth and use the structures above, or come up with comments I couldn’t even dream of. Whatever you do, you will find fic authors are probably the most willing and grateful audience in the whole world.

[weirdsht]

How are you, beautiful?. How about your life?. If it doesn't bother you, can I make a request Cale Henituse x isekai reader?.. Where does the reader not want to interfere with the story even though the reader loves this story but the reader is more important and chooses a peaceful life.. However, the reader often ran into Cale and his group made the reader always run away (just helping silently) because the reader didn't sign for it...Cale started to suspect because they met often.Reader often rejected Cale's offers 😂😂..Comedy and chaos

Leave Me Alone! - LoTCF & Reader

tags: gender-neutral reader, transmigrated reader, cursing at the end

English isn’t my first language so there will be grammatical errors

Pls don't repost my work anywhere without my permission

Constructive criticisms and any kind of interaction are more than welcome

Requests are open and welcome

Buy Me Dessert

Navigation Masterlist

“Ugh… what time is it..? Wait am I late for my classes!?”

You jolted up and rushed to feel for your phone, only to not get a hold of it making your heart drop.

Frantic, you rummage through the bedsheets, hoping you will soon find your beloved device. However, instead of your phone, you instead notice how you don’t seem to be in your room.

As you finally look around your surroundings you can see that you’re in a completely different place. Everything around you looked extra luxurious, you were almost blinded by how shiny everything was. Aside from that, unknown tools are also neatly scattered around the room. You don’t recognise them, but they look like magical tools that one would see in a fantasy anime or manhwa.

Creek.

“Oh my! The young master is awake! I shall fetch the healer!”

Before you could think about where you were and what happened to you, a woman wearing a traditional maid uniform opened the door. She seems to be in shock to see you awake. And so, she disappeared as fast as she came.

Not even a minute later, she came back to the room you were residing in. On her tow seems to be a healer. Once they settled in, the healer immediately got to work to check your body. As they do you wonder how you would be able to play this off. It doesn’t look like you’re in your world anymore, nor does it look like you have a way to go back.

“Miss, who are you? Where am I?”

The amnesia route it is.

“Who am I?”

The maid looks like she’s about to cry and have a heart attack at the same time. You feel bad, you really do, but it’s not like you can pretend to know information when you don’t even know where you got transmigrated. 

“Everything else is okay now except for their memory. The cause is most likely from the impact they sustained during the accident. We don’t know when those old memories will resurface. In fact, we can’t be sure if they ever will. My only advice is to not force them to remember anything as it could do more harm than good.”

With that, the healer excused himself to go to his next appointment leaving you with the maid.

Looking at the maid made you wonder if you’re in a historical manhwa and that you’re a child of a wealthy noble. Maybe you’re in one of those cliche tropes where you transmigrated as the villain and need to try to take down all the death flags waving.

“What are we going to do now young master? First, you lost your parents and now you lost your memories…”

The maid sobbed for a few more minutes before gathering herself and finally explaining your predicament.

Apparently, the only part you got right was the wealthy part. Your name is still [Name] [Lastname] surprisingly enough and you’re a magician’s child. Unlike other magicians who are neck-deep into their research, your parents focused more on commerce. The result of their efforts is the wealth your family has now, the [Lastname] family are as wealthy as nobles because of various magical tools they invent and sell.

“Of course, we are not as wealthy as the Henituse family or any of the duchies in the kingdom.”

Well, that’s a given since the Henituse is on a different level.

…wait Henituse? Like Cale Henituse? From the holy trinity of web novels? Lout of the Count’s Family?

And so that was how you confirmed that you have been transmigrated in your beloved manhwa/web novel as a no-name extra that isn’t even mentioned once.

The life of a wealthy, orphaned amnesiac seems to be good to you. You have everything at your disposal as there are servants at your every beck and call. Income is also a no-brainer as your body seems to remember mana and how it works. Creating and modifying magical tools and potions come to you easily.

In the midst of everything you still manage to find time to support your favourite characters from behind the scenes. You don’t have any plans on stepping into the limelight but you also can’t help but meddle a little since you hold those characters belovedly in your heart.

‘If Cale Henituse can’t stay still and live as a wealthy slacker then I shall do it for him!’

That was supposed to be the plan.

“Good day I am Ron and I am a servant of young master Cale Henituse.”

So why is this goddamn assassin interrupting your tea time at your favourite cafe!?

“Ah, the new hero of the kingdom. What could such a person need with a humble person like myself?”

You blatantly put your guard up, showing the cunning man you won’t give in to his whims.

“A prodigy such as yourself can hardly be called humble. But on that note, our young master would like to avail your services.”

…what now?

“I’m sorry Mister Ron but I do not do commissions. I work to provide for the masses, free from the constraint of an employer even if it’s a temporary one.”

You composed yourself and pushed down the urge to throw a fit right then and there. But Ron didn’t seem to notice your efforts as he slid a bag of gold coins across the table. He probably thinks you’d do the job at the right price.

“Money won't change anything. I have enough to sustain me for a lifetime. Now please excuse me as I only wish to lounge around.”

With that, you stood up and left the cafe.

The days following that weren’t easy. Everywhere you go, you seem to bump into one of Cale’s people. It has gotten to a point where you have to pause your meddling endeavours because they almost caught you a couple of times.

But since when has fate been on anyone’s side in LoTCF?

“I’m Choi Han from the Henituse family I am here on behalf of Cale-nim.”

“I’m Hans visiting on behalf of young master Cale.”

“I am the priestess Cage, I am visiting with Marquis Taylor Stan to conduct business.”

“Can you help this poor soul named Bob?”

“Hello, I’m Cale Henituse. I’m sure you’ve met the people I sent to your house.”

Cale Henituse is more persistent than you thought. He wouldn’t stop no matter how much you try to refuse his antics. It even came to a point where he had to visit you himself.

But still, even if you love his character deeply… there’s no way you would let yourself be caught up in his whims.

It’ll be the end of your peaceful life once that happens.

“Young master [Name] the prince, his Highness Alberu Crossman has ordered your presence in his castle.”

“That fu–”

“Did you say something, young master?”

“Ah no… you must’ve heard wrong.”

You plastered a smile on your face as the maid handed you the summon letter. The maid excused herself after handing you the letter to give you privacy. 

Just before you could open the letter you could hear some rustling from the window. You cautiously approached it as the noise seemed to be deliberate. Once you got on the windowsill you noticed a piece of folded paper neatly tucked in.

Goodluck 

“That fucking piece of shit! Favourite character my ass!”

[mostlypetty30]

SJM, Research Things. I Beg You.

Things SJM could have researched that would have made the story a little bit better. Honestly, this is just me getting out my pet peeves. It's super picky so like ... take this with a grain of salt.

Village Dynamics. A small village often worked together to survive. There are also many parts to a village including hunters. We barely get anything about this village. It's weird.

Barter & Trade Systems. A poor town is not using only money for goods ... be so for real right now. Feyre should have been trading her furs for goods not coin. Small villages and areas even to this day primarily operate on barter and trade!

Hunting. Children 11 and 14 are not that young. That's average in modern times. It was often younger in older periods. Deer also weigh a lot. It's hard for a grown ass seasoned hunter to drag a deer out of the woods. Field dressing is a must.

Cleaning and Disease. I'm still mad about that dead bloodied deer being thrown and gutted on the kitchen table. That place is gross. They have a disease now.

Curing Meat. The meat could not have been cured overnight. At a minimum it would need 24 hours.

Weaponry. The fact that barely any weapons are mentioned in this story aside from swords, knives, daggers, and bows is a travesty. It doesn't matter that Feyre was just a hunter. There are more than just bows and snares for hunting. Illyrians having such base weapons for a warrior culture is abysmal. Did you know a lot of weapons were created from farming and building tools?

Disabilities. Enough Said.

Vegetable & Crop Rotation. I'm hoping Elain's book fixes this but as of right now it's criminal. Especially with Illyria again and not giving them crops and veggies to cultivate? Emerie has her garden, sure, but the rest of the camp? There are so many things you can grow in a cold mountainous environment. Imagine the stuff we could have had aside from just ... stew and porridge.

Foraging. Why isn't Feyre foraging? I get not many books mention it, but like it would be so cool if they did! Especially ones like this with a starving family and you are telling me hunting and Elain's failing garden are the only way?

The Arts: Dancing and Painting. ugh... at this rate if you know you know.

War, Battle, and Politics. I have a whole other issue with this trope, but these books really hone in on it.

Geographical Locations and Maps. Whole rant for distance and time here.

Biology and Anatomy

Hair color. Because not all red hair is the same. Thank you!

Political Power Structures & Government Bodies.

Magic Systems the magic use is basic (Except when Tarquin drowned those soldiers with sea water he conjured in them. That was cool!), the system has shown to have no balance, and there is no real power scaling.

Warrior Cultures. The way I am so pissed that her warriors nations have zero respect for Illyrian women but in the same breath says they explicitly breed for strength. Most warrior cultures while being patriarchal and having not great things for women. Still treat their women 100x better than SJM does her Illyrian women.

Also, because the village is roughly closer if not the same distance from the ocean as it is the wall ... why did Feyre not try to fish? They also have a lake near the village. It's where Feyre taught herself to swim, so again ... Fishing? No? Okay ...

[ariaste]

Do you have any advice for absolute beginners who are writing-curious? My education was cobbled together and I didn’t have to write much there. I’m in a professional field where I do very technical and structured writing, but self-directed writing feels like a stranger. Writing basics/advice seems like it’s either for someone who has way more practice than I do, condescending, or written by someone who is convinced that writing is pain. Sometimes all three…

I definitely agree that a lot of writing advice (especially the sort you find on the internet, written by people with dubious qualifications to be giving advice) is... less than helpful. Even a lot of the published books on writing are not very helpful. However, I have some recommendations!

Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer. If you buy only one book, let it be this one. It's fantastic.

Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin.

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. More about the flowers of rhetoric (that is, tools like metaphor, alliteration, metonymy, synecdoche, parataxis, etc) than WRITING, but it is genuinely one of my favorites.

There are also a buttload of amazing articles on writing from people who legitimately do know what they're talking about on the SFWA blog! (Example: Key Conditions for Suspense)

But honestly, if you are an absolute total beginner, my advice would be to ignore everything I just said. You don't need writing books or articles. Just give yourself permission to play. Read some of your favorite books and practice noticing things about how the writer did things. Every time you go, "Oh, I love this scene," or you notice your heart racing, or tears coming to your eyes, or WHATEVER -- pause and read it again and try to figure out where the magic trick is happening. You could even try transcribing a scene, either by hand or by typing -- this is an OLLLLLD apprentice-writer's trick to help trick your brain into thinking that IT is doing the writing itself so it can get used to what the movements of the dance are.

Another old, old apprentice-writer's trick is to make a list of all the stuff you really love in books. Character archetypes, tropes, themes, topics, vibrant sensory details, mental images that speak to you, whatever. Mine has things like: wizards, dragons, enemies-to-lovers, only one bed, etc. Then you can use that list (I call it a "Magpie Hoard" but people have a million different names, I did not invent this tool) to cobble together ideas -- and because the ideas are made up of raw material that you love, you are going to love the ideas too! You can even represent the genesis of an idea mathematically. The Idea Formula (and this one I DID invent) is: Idea = ❤️ + ❤️ (+ ❤️...) + "what if"

Where ❤️ stands for "thing from your Magpie Hoard". So for example:

Cozy fantasy + badass lady soldier + the smell of baked bread + murder mystery + "what if"... = "What if a grizzled lady sellsword retired from mercenary life, rented a room above a bakery in a quiet village, and immediately got caught up in investigating a murder?"

You can do this all day long, just generating story ideas based on all the stuff you love in books.

And then... y'know, just get out there and play! Make some messes. If you don't like what you made, nobody ever has to see it, and it's EXTREMELY easy to hide the evidence. :)

[yarrayora]

i like how falin being a maiden to be saved, a reward to be coveted, isn't a point to criticize in dungeon meshi. because we have various other female characters who are written as having their own agency

we have marcille, of course, whose story can be observed since chapter 1. how she's not depicted as the "girl team member" but "part of the team". when you're writing a protagonist group where there's only one female character among the male cast, you can always feel this sense of alienation in the writing, like she doesn't belong in the group as the story focuses on the rest of the boys. the way masashi kishimoto writes team 7 is a major example

but marcille is still allowed to be a "typical girl" who doesn't want to eat gross things and enjoy feminine clothing without forgetting the fact that she's a multifaceted person. she's a researcher who isn't afraid to get dirty when it's something relevant to magic and her goal, even though she's also grossed out at the idea of feces being used as fertilizer for crops

and when falin comes back as a monster who can't speak, it's still not a point to criticize. oftentimes stories involving female characters losing their speech (or, well, becoming disabled in some way) is meant to make her vulnerable, a fragile 'something' to be protected. but this is not an argument about how chimera falin is super strong, because that's a shallow way of thinking that ignores the fact that being a Girlboss doesn't ensure your female character is written as a fully realized person. this is about the fact that almost right after that Izutsumi joins Laios' party.

She joins late in the game, so it'll be easy for her to only be tacked on as an afterthought. A notable example would be Okumura Haru from Persona 5, where her character gets overshadowed a lot by the other party members' more colorful personalities, as if the writer wasn't sure how to integrate her into the already developed dynamic.

there's also how she's written as a sweet and shy girl yet the way her school uniform is designed betrays that image. it's heavily customized even compared to the trendy girl like ann which means it's impossible for her outfit to not go against school regulation. not something an obedient girl would have done. which makes me wonder if they couldn't decide on her writing until last minute.

but Izutsumi is different. her involvement and her own personal story arc eventually intertwines to the overarching plot. she hates having her options limited. she hates having responsibilities to uphold. she hates eating veggies! she hates that people expects her to do things their way! she wants freedom to do whatever she wants!

but in the end she learns that to have the freedom to choose, she has to uphold her responsibilities. starting from the simple things like taking care of her health by eating balanced meals, not just the ones she enjoy. she has to do work to get enough money for her food and travels. and she has to learn how society works so she can live independently. she has to learn which desire she has to prioritize that she can balance out with her responsibility as a living being.

her own self-realization culminates into her giving advice to laios that leads to him steeling his resolves to become king.

so you have Falin, who gets turned into a monster that cant communicate her desire and needs while under the mad sorcerer's control, and in exchange you get Izutsumi, the 'beastman' who knows exactly what she wants and throws a tantrum about it without shame, not understanding that what you want isn't always what you need. i think it's a really cool parallel!

this is a prime example of how tropes that get associated with misogynistic writing can be used as a proper tool that serves a narrative when you have more than multiple female characters having their own character arcs

in fact, you can apply this to pretty much every other things. when you're writing gay characters, having only one of them and they act camp can make people raise an eyebrow at whether this is meant to be a caricature of gay people or not. having two of them and one acts camp and one acts normie can be read as a bias against gay people expressing themselves. writing multiple gay characters, all with different personalities and desires will avoid accidental stereotyping.

even the minor female characters, be it the canaries or namari, help show that the way the narrative treats Falin isn't born from thinking that women are an alien breed compared to men. that her lack of agency means something for the themes involved.

[cadence-the-hypnotic-floret]

The HDG Storm Scale

Hey, any fellow magic nerds? Probably. In Magic: The Gathering design, there's this useful heuristic tool called the "storm scale". It's essentially a scale that defines how likely it is for keywords to come back in future sets, from 1 (evergreen mechanics) to 10 (Probably never making that mistake again). The scale itself is named after its peak, Storm, an infamously broken mechanic.

I had the idea of doing that with HDG Tropes. Obviously, I speak only for myself, and I threw this together in like 20 minutes, but I think I'm on to something.

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1-3: Evergreen tropes. Things that will probably show up in most HDG stories, and are very safe ground to tread.

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1. Non-con (individual or systemic, it's in there), tentacles/vines, hypnosis, Disability

2. Basically any mainstream kink, Intox kink, drugging

3. Piss, CGL, ABDL, Vore, a variety of other unusual kinks made much more doable by the setting

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4-6: Slightly Spicy. Things that are definitely possible in HDG, but which will want to be handled with some care.

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4. Sexual Assault (HDG genre typical), Addiction, Gaslamping

5. Character Death, Identity Death, Kidnapping

6. Sexual Assault (Played straight), Euthanasia (Class-Os)

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7-9: Watch Out! These are elements that have been done well in stories, but are famously landmines liable to break your story, the setting, or both!

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7. Floret Endangerment

8. Affinification, reference to a character's abusive childhood

9. Mass Death.

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10: Just don't! These are just axiomatically not okay in HDG. Yes, these are all things I've seen in fics... just very rarely good ones.

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10: an affini intentionally abusing or abandoning their floret, an affini intentionally killing another xenosophont, feral xenosophonts killing an affini

(11: Underaged characters. Seriously. We just don't do that here.)

A few quick notes.

HDG is fundamentally fiction. It is a setting made up of stories, with a specific tone and vibe. Certain things will work better or worse within that story environment. The question of "can this happen in this world" is not actually the most important one. The more important question is "what story do I want to tell with this". A lot of the most famous stories in the setting go hard on difficult subjects, because they had something important to say about it. But... you should have something to say about it!

To take up the example of death: there are lots of great stories about grief, or about recovering from the grief of losing a loved one. People die. Sometimes suddenly and tragically. But when it comes to mass death... Removing the question of whether it could happen, what HDG story do you want to tell where countless sophonts dying is an important plot point? Are you sure it's not better served as original sci-fi, or fanfiction in a different setting?

To date, I have seen mass death done well in... I wanna say almost one story. One Analyst's Opinion earns this moment, and it's a powerful, and deeply horrifying moment that mostly works. Even then, I personally have (literary) issues with how it was handled, and it wreaks havoc on the Affini-Rinan contact timeline if taken with the seriousness it deserves.

EDIT: I have been reminded that No Gods No Masters features mass death and does it really, really well. The overall point still largely stands, I think.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: High Fantasy

High fantasy (or epic fantasy) is a fantasy subgenre in which the story takes place in a setting very unlike Earth and deals with world-threatening forces.

The story might feature:

fantastic creatures

historic or unusual technologies

magical elements

other unearthly elements

High fantasy does not need to incorporate Western fantasy tropes like swords or dragons, though these are common characteristics of the genre.

High fantasy resides underneath the larger umbrella of the fantasy genre.

Other types of fantasy fiction include low fantasy, historical fantasy, wuxia, urban fantasy, sword and sorcery, and dark fantasy.

Characteristics of High Fantasy

A non-Earth setting: The key element of high fantasy (and what distinguishes it from low fantasy) is a setting unlike Earth. This “secondary world” might have many different things that make it distinct from Earth, including different animals, plants, races and cultures, cities, civilizational structures, belief systems, and more.

A world-level conflict: A major element that distinguishes high fantasy from other kinds of fantasy (like sword and sorcery) is a high-stakes conflict—one that usually puts the entire world in jeopardy. High-fantasy plots often use the archetype of good versus evil to further distinguish the “good guys” from the “bad guys.”

A hero: While it’s not a strict requirement of high-fantasy literature, most high-fantasy books feature a main hero who must fight off the evil forces and save the world. In many cases, this hero begins in a childlike state and must mature rapidly to stand up to the conflict. Alternatively, they might go on an extensive quest (or “hero’s journey”) to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to face the opposing forces.

Fantastic creatures: Many high-fantasy stories incorporate unearthly creatures into their stories—these fantasy species can include dragons, unicorns, vampires, or beasts of urban legend.

Historic or unusual technologies: Most high-fantasy stories take place in worlds with much different technology than currently exists on Earth. These stories often incorporate swords, knives, hand-to-hand combat, and other historical technologies or fighting styles.

Magic: Many high-fantasy stories have a magic system the fantasy characters use or are aware of, and the magic might be a powerful tool or a major force on the plot of the story.

High Fantasy vs. Low Fantasy

While book critics disagree on the differences between high fantasy and low fantasy, the most common definitions offer only one main distinction: setting. High-fantasy stories occur in a non-Earth or secondary world, while low fantasy stories take place on Earth or in a primary world very similar to it.

Examples: High Fantasy

A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin: In A Game of Thrones and the subsequent books in his series, Martin describes a fantasy world of two continents, Westeros and Essos, locked in political turmoil between warring families.

The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis: This series follows a group of siblings and their friends as they fight off an evil ice queen. Lewis set his fantasy novels in both the real world and an alternate dimension. Some critics categorize these novels as part high fantasy, part low fantasy.

The Cosmere works by Brandon Sanderson: The author designed a universe called the Cosmere, and he sets many of his novels and short stories on different planets within this interconnected universe. Notable works in the Cosmere include the Mistborn book series and The Stormlight Archive series.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett: Beginning with The Colour of Magic in 1983, the Discworld series comprises more than forty works with various recurring characters and storylines, including a cowardly wizard named Rincewind, a community of witches, and a personified version of death.

The Earthsea Cycle series by Ursula K. Le Guin: Comprising six novels and nine short stories, The Earthsea Cycle follows characters in the fictional land of Earthsea, a series of small islands and archipelagos with different cultures, magic, and beliefs.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin: Many readers describe The Fifth Season as a science fantasy book—a combination of science fiction and high fantasy. Set on a supercontinent called the Stillness, N.K. Jemisin’s book features a large caste system with a complex social structure.

The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee: Made up of Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy, Lee’s series takes place on a large island called Kekon. When world-building, Lee set out to create a fantasy series that didn’t center itself around tropes of medieval Europe, which has been common to many other high-fantasy stories.

The Lord of the Rings books by J. R. R. Tolkien: Readers and critics consider The Lord of the Rings trilogy to be archetypal Western high fantasy. The trio of books and Tolkien’s prequel, The Hobbit, take place in a fantasy realm called Middle Earth and feature communities of elves, dwarves, wizards, and hobbits.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: The first novel in Rothfuss’s series called The Kingkiller Chronicle chronicles one man’s retelling of his epic life in a fictional world called Temerant.

Source ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs ⚜ Fantasy Fiction Continuum

[lightningant]

Do you think it's poetic justice that in HP, all four of the most powerful/prominent wizards - Dumbledore, Voldemort, Harry, and Snape—are all half-bloods?

Despite the brouhaha over blood supremacy, we don't see manyrful pure-blood wizards, though - except for Grindelwald, I suppose.

We do see two pureblood witches - Bellatrix and Molly.

I think all this is entirely irrelevant; they are all powerful because they're major players in the plot, and they're all half-bloods because they're designed to be compared.

If we look at Dumbledore-Voldemort, Snape-Voldemort, Harry-Dumbledore, Harry-Snape, and Harry-Voldemort, we see pairs of extremely resonant, volatile and intense relationships between enemies and mentors. Much of the repulsion between enemies is the vulnerability of seeing insecurities about yourself in someone else who can do the same to you, and the mentorship based in yearning to be understood and acknowledged. (This is why I like Snape mentoring Harry so much as a trope - the idea that they could switch from one role to the other!)

I think these vivid connections make Snape and Dumbledore an intriguing question; Snape curates the memory bottle in such a way we never see what his private dynamic with Dumbledore was, and you kinda get the vibes that it was a weird combination of both - disapproval over antithetical values, and yet an easy comfort with one another. I have my own views on what the nature of that dynamic is of course (see my extra biased post on how Snape is the Consumed Daughter), and I am OBSESSED with the theory that some of Snape's intense hatred of Harry is actually because Dumbledore affords Harry a great deal of empathy and vulnerability that Snape craves. Sick. 10/10.

The deathly hallows felt undercooked as a Watsonian concept, but in the very least served as a strong narrative tool to bring a lot of disparate plotlines together, including that the half-bloods are designed to be contrasted and grouped together. Harry, Snape, and Voldemort each represent a part of the triad which Dumbledore serves as the observer of, and also reflects values where he fell short. It ties together in a way where I can go "yeah, that tracks fine" at Snape's death. And the super cool magical item set paralleling each major player Dumbledore set up is so aesthetically yummy.