#stuck in a sort of limbo between life and death

[im-just-strolling-around]

Also I love how we're all just making electro's (and sandman's) situation sound so much worse in the tags. Love my undead guys.

So uhhh would you like to hear about how i kinda see electro as a kind of zombie. Like in general, most iterations of electro are technically undead in the sense that the accidents they have kill the person they used to be leaving them to be reborn with a new identity. This can kinda count for tssm electro in the sense that he might eventually feel like the name max just doesn't belong to him anymore. The max their talking about is the one before the accident. The one that was human. The one who wasn't so angry and distraught. But the person their talking to now isn't max anymore. They died long ago. Max is dead, and all that's left is electro.

In a way you can kinda compare electro's rebirth and rejection of his previous name to how people in zombie movies will often rationalize killing zombies with the fact that they're loved ones are dead and no longer the living people they used to be, husks that just hold on to their old faces, reborn as monsters no one wants to be around for their own safety.

Maybe electro gets this crawling feeling under this skin whenever people call him by Max. The name doesn't belong to him anymore. It belongs to a dead man. And he knows it.

Idk the earliest version of electro i was exposed to was the live action TASM version who is peak zombie to me so that's probably why it stuck to me.

Sorry if this is alot or incoherent I just wanted to get this out cuz it was on my mind.

HOLD ON UR ONTO SOMETHING.. WAITTTT

Also ooh that zombie bit it’s actually really interesting, honestly I see it…

I def have always thought of how electro feels max is dead after some point. Max is dead and Electro killed him. (Also sorta relates to a trans metaphor tbh…) like I think I even had this one drawing idea of electro being caught red handed with blood and there being text reading : Max Dillion’s Murderer has been Caught Red Handed ! Like agrhhhhh that version of him is dead and a part of him killed him.

But like I def see where you[re coming from, I have always associated electro with death (I always think of him when I hear the bit of lyrics from Vampire Reference in a Minor Key” that goes like “ If you need me, I'll be in my coffin. You could come knocking, and I'll raise hell for you”)

[ohbo-ohno]

wip wednesday? gaz x reader, cw for mourning a spouse

Here are all the things you know about Kyle’s disappearance:

1: It happened early in his deployment. He’d hardly been gone for three weeks when you got the message. It came in the middle of the workday, and you’d called out sick for the next week, hadn’t bothered showing up for another two after that. John Price’s voice haunts your nightmares these days, his low rumble and we offer our deepest condolences, Mrs. Garrick playing on repeat as you hug Kyle’s pillow close and sob.

2: He’s not the only one missing. His entire ship disappeared, and all its sailors went with it. Kyle was the highest ranking man on board, apparently, and only one of the other sailors was married. His wife tried to reach out to you a few times, but you hadn’t had the energy to even attempt holding a conversation at the time.

3: He’s not dead. Or at least, there’s no body for them to bury. The distinction between KIA and MIA isn’t lost on you. (You think this is what you mean when they say it’s the hope that kills you as you’re stuck firmly and permanently in the denial phase in the months following his disappearance.)

4: There’s no attempt being made to find a body. And oh, how you had railed against John Price for that. You’d screamed yourself hoarse into your phone, then become nearly incoherent with sobs as you begged him to find your Kyle, to bring him home. He had denied you, said he couldn’t get approval from his own superiors, said I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Garrick, I swear to you I tried my best, we all miss him, too. You’d hung up on him and thrown your phone to the floor, inconsolable. You’re not sure if he ever called back, since you blocked his number.

5: It has been thirteen months since you first got the call. Had Kyle not gone missing, you’d have already picked him up at the airport and made him his favorite meal, called out of work to spend days in bed with him, maybe even booked reservations at that fancy restaurant he always talks about wanting to try someday. Instead you’re telling yourself that it’s pointless to learn how to make meals for one, just in case someday you wake up to find that this has all been a terrible nightmare.

It’s not enough. Endless questions haunt your every thought, keep you awake at night. You think that this hellish unknowing is the worst thing you could ever experience, that it’s keeping you in a sort of limbo that you can never escape. 

The idea that he suffered, that he was in pain before his death – or somehow almost worse, that he’s not dead at all. That he’s crashlanded on some sandbank, starving and sunburned, a real-life Chuck Noland with no one even bothering to look for him anymore. 

Every moment spent not thinking about him, not remembering him, feels like a betrayal, like a dismissal of the trauma you’ve imagined him experiencing.

[hyog-blog]

Emotionally this scene is so hot and intense. Zhuo Yichen demanding answers from Zhao Yuanzhou, for it, for him to make sense, especially in the context of his own (already awakened) feelings. And it must be driving our boy literally insane - the contradiction of Zhao Yuanzhou being his family's killer, the one demon who single-handedly destroyed the Demon Hunting Bureau (which was kind of everything ZYC ever knew at that point, that it was it, his life was just that, and his future as well).

And Zhu Yan destroyed not only his family, nearly cutting down the whole lineage apart from Zhuo YIchen, but also the organization, that was put to a halt and nearly ceased to exist, and he literally took whatever meaning Zhuo Yichen's life had and threw it in the gutters. So ZYC was not simply alone, with his whole family dead, but also meaningless and without a place to go, or to be, or something to do in this world, his ancestral home becoming a limbo of sorts, with him - a lost soul that had no means to move on, to start living again.

Because he was an anomaly from the start and whatever he would become - would always be in the context of demons, and BIng Yi, and murders, and investigations, and all that weird stuff that most people considered as nightmares personified. He was already a part of all that even when he didn't really know it himself, just following his brother around, just being, just going through that archive of books and writings about monsters that were actually his kin in a way (and when he learns that Bing Yi was, actually, a demon, in my headcanon that would have shattered his self-identity quite a bit, at least for some time).

And now we meet this boy, already a young man, who has single-handedly restored the Demon Hunting Bureau, finding it in himself to build his own meaning of life from scratch, getting back that place in life he thought was his and that it mattered, and that his service to all those people was what he's supposed to do (and probably, the only thing he could do being an anomaly, an outcast, someone stuck between the worlds of humans and demons). He has more in common with Wen Xiao than we might think upon meeting him first. She's a bridge between the demon and human worlds, but he's also a bridge, or rather a shield protecting the human world from the demons and, as he later learns, maybe simply protecting the innocent, be it demon or human, from the ones that want to hurt them, no matter what realms they come from.

And so he meets Zhao Yuanzhou having just figured things out for himself, and suddenly learns that the world, again, isn't so black-and-white and even that gruesome hideous murder had so many layers to it and wasn't at all what he perceived it to be. And the man who had been his dreamless nightmare all these years turned out to be a whimsical creature that only appeared to be dangerous when he first saw him, yet possessed no killer intent whatsoever. And in fact, turned out to be a protector as well, trying to protect everyone from himself first and foremost.

And he watches this gorgeous mysterious man, as complex as he is, getting close to Wen Xiao, whom Zhuo Yichen adores more than any other woman in this world (emphasis on woman) and he already has feelings for Zhao Yuanzhou as well, however suppressed and unfathomable they are for now, and he wants this man to give him answers, but whatever Zhao Yuanzhou can give him - it's not that. It's not the certainty of being bad enough to just kill him and be done with it, and it's definitely not a certainty that he deserves to be killed at all. And even not the certainty of him seeking death at this point, even though he continues to talk about it, but it's not so strong now, not to the extent that it was before, when Zhuo Yichen first met the Great Demon.

And this is where he finds himself that night, when Zhao Yuanzhou finally approaches him for that don't-hesitate-to-murder-me pep talk, and Wen Xiao is brought up, and his newly found will to live (or something close to it) through that affection only, but Zhuo Yichen doesn't know it yet, that it's not just that affection that keeps this demon from deteriorating into the depths of despair facing that goddamn horrifying blood moon all over again, that destroyed so many lives, including the life of this gorgeous young and so very sensitive Zhuo Yichen. That there's another type of affection and feeling and need that draws him to Zhuo Yichen that night in an attempt to protect him from this, as best as he can, giving him that immunity from the one-word spell, and asking him to live well no matter what happens next, knowing already that it might turn into a bloodbath at some point.

But this time ZYZ is as proactive as he can be, and he trusts Zhuo Yichen enough to kill him or at least to stay alive and protect Wen Xiao. It will be bad, he knows that much, but at this moment and in this instance he comes to spend this time of his own uncertainty with Zhuo Yichen not only because the boy needs this to stay strong and to realize what he's actually facing, but also because Zhao Yuanzhou needs him to stay strong himself with whatever ZYZ is facing again, with that glaring possibility of losing control and wreaking havoc everywhere, with this one young man, truly, being the only one who could stop him at this point. Kill him. Save him from this torment. And it's heavy, and Zhao Yuanzhou knows it is, so he goes for that talk and talks carefully around the very notion of ending his life, but also - about that and that only, sensing Zhuo Yichen's confusion as if it was truly his own, and that turmoil of emotions, and that need to understand, to make everything make sense somehow.

And so they talk. And do some magic. And none of them gets much relief after that conversation is over, but there's a certainty now. That at least this one boy would be protected from the Great Demon's magic. And if he has a chance of surviving the blood moon, than so does Wen Xiao (who probably is protected by their contract anyway, but Zhuo Yichen isn't, and it matters to Zhao Yuanznou already oh-so-much).

And Zhuo Yichen is left even more strained and confused than before because of all the contradictions he's facing, this demon acting not like an enemy, even though he's about to become one, but rather like a caring friend. And what is he supposed to make out of all that? When he simply doesn't, just doesn't want to kill him, no matter what.

[opbackgrounds]

The present day party with the Straw Hats is taking place within the ruins of Thriller Bark, but I refuse to believe that Moriah owns a baby grand piano exactly like the one that the Rumbar Pirates used. That means someone had to go through the effort of hauling it onto Thriller Bark in the first place, which would be an enormous hassle, but also that Brook is starting his second adventure playing on the same instrument where he ended his first.

Really, you could look at Brook joining the Straw Hats as a sort of rebirth and his time stuck on the Florian Triangle as more of a Limbo state between true life and death.

[starryeyedwolves]

The Haunting of the Shrieking Shack

It started with a single, offhand comment from James.

It was a crisp evening in the Gryffindor common room, the fire crackling, the occasional pop of the flames punctuating the low hum of conversation. The first years had gathered near the hearth, whispering in nervous excitement about Hogsmeade weekends and the eerie presence of the infamous Shrieking Shack.

James, ever the performer, had leaned in with a smirk and said, "You know, the place is actually cursed."

Instantly, all eyes turned to him.

"Everyone thinks it’s just ghosts, yeah? Just a bunch of wailing spirits. But that’s bollocks. The truth is, years ago, there was this old Herbology professor who used to live there—Professor Oxblood. Proper nutter. Grew the most dangerous plants you can imagine. One night, something went wrong in his greenhouse—some kind of Venomous Tentacula mutation. It strangled him in his sleep. And now, every full moon, you can hear him rustling through the walls, looking for his lost plant. If you listen closely, you can still hear him muttering about improper pruning techniques."

A few of the younger students shuddered. Lily, sitting on the couch nearby with a book open on her lap, raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"A rogue houseplant, Potter? That’s your big scary story?"

"Excuse you, Evans, but rogue murder houseplant. That’s a very important distinction."

"Not quite scary enough," Sirius interjected from where he was sprawled across the rug, his head resting lazily against Remus’ knee. He sat up with a wicked grin, flipping his dark hair over his shoulder as he dramatically scanned the room.

"The real story," he announced, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "is far worse. Decades ago, a group of dark wizards used the Shack as a meeting place. They were trying to summon something—something ancient. No one knows what, exactly, because the spell went wrong. It backfired and trapped them in some sort of limbo, stuck between life and death. That’s why the howling changes each time. Sometimes it sounds human. Sometimes it doesn’t."

The first years leaned in, eyes wide.

"Sometimes," Sirius continued, voice barely above a breath, "you can hear them speaking. But it’s never a language anyone understands. They’re trying to finish their ritual. Trying to get out."

Peter audibly gulped. A second-year girl covered her ears.

James whistled low. "Alright, Pads, that was genuinely unsettling. Respect."

Sirius smirked and collapsed back against Remus’ leg, looking exceedingly pleased with himself. Remus, however, merely raised an eyebrow, his fingers absently twisting a loose thread in his jumper.

"Very creative," he murmured.

Sirius grinned up at him. "Why, thank you, Moony."

But Remus knew better than anyone that Sirius Black was always closest to the truth when he was weaving his wildest lies.

As the weeks passed, the stories grew more elaborate.

James claimed the Shack had once been home to vamire circus—a roaming band of cursed performers who had vanished overnight. Peter swore that Peeves avoided the area because something even worse lurked inside.

Sirius, however, remained the reigning champion of horror.

"Alright, listen up, you sorry lot," he declared one evening, standing atop the Gryffindor table with a butterbeer in hand, his grey eyes alight with mischief.

The common room hushed.

"I have it on good authority that the Shack isn’t haunted at all. No, no, ghosts would be lucky compared to what’s in there."

He let the silence stretch, enjoying the way the first years edged closer to one another.

"You see, the Ministry built it as a holding cell. Not for criminals—no, Azkaban is for them. This was for something… else. A creature so dangerous, so powerful, that they had to erase all records of its existence. And every full moon, the wards weaken. It wakes up. But here’s the worst part—" Sirius dropped his voice to a whisper, and the room collectively held its breath.

"It doesn’t want freedom. It likes being hidden. But it does need something to keep it asleep. Sacrifices."

There was a sharp inhale from somewhere in the room. A third-year knocked over a goblet of pumpkin juice.

"That’s right," Sirius continued, eyes gleaming. "Every month, someone disappears. Not a student, of course—too obvious. But think about the ghosts you used to see around Hogwarts but don’t anymore. Ever notice how Filch keeps hiring new caretakers, but no one ever really sees them after a few months?"

A second-year girl clapped her hands over her mouth. Even James, who knew Sirius was making it all up, shivered slightly.

Remus, however, just gave Sirius a look. One of those looks. The kind that said, I know what you’re doing, and you’re being ridiculous.

Later, when the common room had emptied, Remus found Sirius lounging in one of the chairs by the fire, legs hanging over the armrest.

"Sacrifices, Padfoot?"

Sirius stretched, utterly unrepentant. "Gotta keep things fresh."

"Fresh or dangerously close to the truth?" Remus asked softer now.

For a moment, Sirius didn’t answer. Then, finally, he muttered, "Maybe I just want people to fear the Shack for the right reasons. Even if they don’t know the reason."

Remus sighed.

He knew of course, that Sirius had always hated the way the school wispered about the howls in the night. He had been there every month, standing watch in the tunnel, waiting for Remus to come back. He had seen the aftermath— the exhaustion, the bruises, the blood.

And Sirius, reckless and stubborn as he was, had never let fear control him. But if he could control other people’s fear? Shape it into something less personal?

Well. That was just Sirius Black all over.

Remus reached over and ruffled sirius' already messy hair.

Sirius squawked indignantly, shoving him away.

Remus just chuckled, shaking his head as he stood up.

Outside, the wind howled against the castle walls.

The next few days arrived with a grey chill that seeped into the stones of the castle and made even the most enthusiastic students think twice about venturing out after curfew. The Marauders, however, were never particularly fond of rules—especially when Sirius was bored, and Remus was restless.

It was the night before the full moon.

They sat alone in the Astronomy Tower, cloaked in a stolen invisibility charm, the stars scattered above them like scattered glass. The wind was sharp, nipping at their cheeks, but Sirius didn’t complain—not when he had Remus curled up beside him, shoulder pressed to shoulder, his hand loosely tangled with Sirius’ beneath the folds of his cloak.

“I don’t like the way they talk about it,” Remus murmured after a long silence. His voice was quiet, distant.

Sirius didn’t ask what he meant. He didn’t have to.

“The Shack,” Remus continued. “Like it’s some myth. Like it’s all fun and games and ghost stories.” He shook his head. “It’s not. Not for me.”

Sirius squeezed his hand, just once. “I know.”

They were quiet again, but Sirius could feel the tension humming beneath Remus’ skin, the way his jaw was tight, his posture stiff despite the warmth between them.

“You started all this, you know,” Remus added, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “Your bloody horror show.”

“I was deflecting,” Sirius admitted. “Which I’m quite good at, by the way. Award-worthy.”

“You’re an idiot,” Remus said, though his voice was fond. “A dramatic, over-the-top, butterbeer-fuelled idiot.”

“Still like me, though,” Sirius grinned.

“Unfortunately.”

There was a pause.

“I just… I wish they weren’t afraid of it for the wrong reasons,” Remus said finally. “I wish they weren’t afraid of me.”

Sirius turned to him then, shifting until they were facing each other fully. He reached up, brushing a thumb along Remus’ cheek, just beneath the faint scar that curved down to his jaw.

“They don’t know you,” he said. “Not like I do. They just see the boy who reads poetry when he thinks no one’s looking, or who makes tea for every bloody Gryffindor who so much as sneezes. They don’t see the way you hold yourself together after nights that would break anyone else.”

He leaned in, pressing his forehead against Remus’.

“But I do.”

Remus let out a breath, eyes fluttering shut. For a moment, everything else—the fear, the stories, the weight of the coming night—faded.

Then Sirius added, “Besides, if they did know the truth, they’d all just fancy you more.”

Remus laughed, startled and soft. “What, the tortured werewolf aesthetic?”

“Please. It's very in vogue. Brooding scars, tragic eyes, sharp wit? You’re a teenage girl’s dream.”

“Good thing I’m taken,” Remus murmured, leaning in.

Sirius’ grin softened. “Yeah,” he said, “good thing.”

Their kiss was slow, familiar, something warm to hold onto in the growing cold. When they pulled apart, Sirius rested his head on Remus’ shoulder, content.

Below them, the castle slept. The wind howled against the stone, and somewhere far off, the Shrieking Shack stood silent and waiting.

Let them whisper, Sirius thought. Let them build their stories.

They had their own truth. And that was more powerful than any ghost tale ever could be.

[offracturedpages]

Four

I was thankful for the company I worked for. They understood I needed to be with my mother and sister for a few more days after the funeral, and I’d brought my laptop with me so that I could be part of meetings that I knew I needed to sit in on this week, but Paul and Andrea had things covered. They told me that in the first week of my new position as partner, I didn’t need to be in the office.  My mother was wandering around the house the first day or two, a little lost. It was tough, I could see it, trying to find a ‘new norm’ to a life that had been the same for well over forty or fifty years. Having us there with her helped, but it also wasn’t the norm, well, at least, having me around wasn’t. My sister still lived here, she was just a few minutes' drive away from our old home, and she came to visit often. My sister was a school teacher, Kindergarten, so she was finished early most days unless she had some things to help out with at the school. Today the lawyer was coming in to see my mother. Apparently my father had life policies and a will which they had to read out and let my mother know what was going to be coming to her as per his wishes. I was surprised that he hadn’t cashed any of those policies in and blown the cash on booze and gambling. 

Stop thinking like that. Yeah, he wasn’t ‘Dad of the Year’ towards the end but he still had sense enough not to do anything with those policies. He still loved your mother. 

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair then down to my neck rubbing at aching muscles. I didn’t have the best night’s rest, my mind refusing to shut down. I just wanted to wrap all of this up because I wanted my mother to start moving forward and begin healing. Yeah, I know she probably would never really heal and I wasn’t expecting her to start dating or anything like that, but when there was so much still up in the air, you were stuck in a sort of limbo. Yes, many I’m sure would think me cruel and cold for thinking like that as well. My father had just died and all I wanted was to close the door on that. What good was it lingering on it? He was gone, we hadn’t been talking so to me, I just wanted to be done with it. 

Or maybe you’re just trying to bury it.

“Shut up,” I muttered to the voice in my head just as the doorbell rang. 

I pushed away from the desk and headed downstairs. It was time to get all of this over with. Sign the papers if there were any and just, move on. 

Two Hours Later

I shut the door to my room, a deep set frown on my face as I looked at the envelope in my hand. It was addressed to me and it was from my father. I sat down in my chair, looking at the envelope still as my mind tried to work this out. Why the hell would my father have written me a letter? My mother had nothing to worry about, my father had made sure she would be well taken care of should he pass. My sister got a bit of an inheritance as well. I wasn’t surprised at all that I had been taken out of the Will, a bit of an awkward and tension filled moment but really, I didn’t want his money anyway. I just wanted my mother and my sister taken care of. I didn’t need money. Susan tried to talk to me as I had stood to leave but I’d raised a hand to silence her only to be stopped mid exit by the lawyer who presented me with the letter. 

I sighed and tore open the envelope and opening up the letter to read: 

Joseph, 

I know that we have drifted apart and I know that I haven’t been the best father. I know that I’ve disappointed you in so many ways. Seeing as we do not talk anymore, I thought this was the only way I could communicate with you. It saddens me knowing that you will get this in the event of my death because I would have preferred fixing things between us whilst I was still alive. But I also know that that’s probably also my fault there, not just yours. 

I’m sorry, Joseph. I’m sorry for all the times we argued. I’m sorry for making you feel like you were never good enough. I’m sorry for making you feel that what you had chosen as a career path wasn’t worth recognition or praise. I guess I was just scared. I was scared you’d become some big shot living life in the big city and you’d forget all about us, especially your mother and I knew that would break her heart so very much. But, it would seem, I ended up making that something that came true through my actions. I know you still called and  you still kept in touch with her and your sister, and I know you helped with money when it was needed. You never changed, the only thing that changed was me and I changed for the worst and through my actions, I brought the brokenness in our family. I just want you to know I was always so very proud of you. You are a man that has a passion I know very well. I was just like you in my younger days. It’s that passion that helped me build up the business I had. I had hoped you would want to take over the running of that business and I guess that’s also why I became a bitter old man in the end. I was stubborn and yes, childish, even in my old age. I’m sorry that it drove you away. You don’t know how often I had picked up the phone to call you and talk. But I had this fear that you’d just slam the phone down in my ear. The damage was done and I didn’t know how to fix it. 

You are my son. I’m proud of you. I love you and I’m sorry. 

I set the letter down on the desk and I broke. Regret and pain filled me as I cried but one thought flashed in my mind, not in a hostile way, but in a way filled with pain. 

Stupid old bastard, why didn’t you just call?

[brokenheartwithheartbreak]

Okay the response to the first snippet was basically like straight cocaine directly into my veins (thank you all for the kind words 😭) so here’s another piece from much later that I still haven’t written the build up to. Praying to the muses I find the strength to actually finish this fic because it’s chewing on my braincells like gum.

Excerpt:

“I think you pushed her, I think you liked it.” Stiles said and Theo hadn’t been able to refute him, to say a damn thing, too busy staring down the hollow walls of his own memory and realising he doesn’t remember. Tara’s face blurs in his mind, drowned out by her shaking voice asking him to help her, the rushing sound of the water freezing her blood in her body, and the more he looks the more broken spaces he finds in place of memory, gaps of hours-days-years where his life blends and blurs into an indistinguishable existence punctuated by flashes of leather masks and cold glass eyes and hands inside his chest and learning the difference between death and failure.

There are sharp, over vivid memories too, brittle and plasticky around the edges, images that sit in his mind like misshapen shards, pieces of a different jigsaw slotted into the puzzle that makes up his own mind. Those, he thinks the Doctors manufactured, implanted, reshaped somehow. He still doesn’t know why, just that they feel wrong, oversaturated and too clear, like watching someone else manoeuvre his body, his mind, through the motion of his own mistakes, but that’s his life rolled into a neat little metaphor and the fact remains he can’t remember the first time he met the Doctors, doesn’t know if it came Before Tara or After Tara, doesn’t remember when they opened his chest for the first time to rip out his broken heart and fix him with heart-break, the first of countless tests he scratched and clawed and dragged himself through blood to pass, just barely, just enough to justify his continued existence even when it would have been easier to crumble into a puddle of bloody mercury and failed experiments alongside all the others, some buried, shuttered, unkillable part of him screaming and flailing to survive, survive, survive, even when death would be easier, kinder, simpler.

Deserved, justified, barely enough to pay for the lives he’s ruined and the lives he’s taken and most of him never even cared because each completed task, each passed test, meant success and the faintest flicker of hope of being Enough, of being complete, a success standing atop the pile of failures, the pile of bodies, the pile of children not as broken and twisted and desperately hungry for something like approval, like permission to take up space, to exist, to be something more than the weak little boy who maybe killed his sister but can’t remember.

There’s a sharp crack crack against the window by his head and he jolts, didn’t hear the heartbeat over the uneven pulse of his own, the hum of static beneath his skin. He’s reaching for the key in the ignition before he can turn his head to wave the deputy away - You need to move alone - I know I know - and he wasn’t sleeping - anymore - this time but he doesn’t know how long he’s been stuck chasing himself down familiar echoing hallways trying to trace back all the bad, horrible, fucked up things he’s done to one specific point in his life so he can put a finger on where exactly he stopped being human but it’s always a futile endeavour because he doesn’t remember enough about being human to know when it ended, so he’s just trapped here in some sort of limbo between a monster and a broken-boy, fucked up-boy, too scared to live too stubborn to die, filled up to his eyes with artificial rage and what he thinks is guilt - the gnawing rabid hunger that chews on his ribs every time he looks at one of McCall’s pack - and a pervasive cold he’s lived with his entire life since they put his dead sister’s dead heart in his chest and tried to make it forget she froze to death while he stood there and watched. He’s beginning to think on a deeper level that feeling might be loneliness, a constant reminder of his self imposed solitude, of the first life he watched drain away, of the first corpse he robbed for his own benefit, of the first person who trusted the innocent-boy, sweet-boy and didn’t see the monster lurking underneath.

He’s a cold corpse wrapped around his sister’s heart and maybe that’s the only reason there’s any good in him at all, her last act of vengeance, because she ripped it back out of him and watched him die just like he watched her freeze, over and over until he crawled out of the morgue and accepted he deserved it, she deserved it - it’s okay, you don’t have to stop - but somehow he’s still alive, he’s standing above ground with no idea which direction to walk his aching legs while Tara’s six feet deep, dead and rotting for a decade now even though he still hears her voice when his dreams get too deep.

Maybe it wasn’t just the ability to pump blood that the Doctors meant when they said her heart was strong, maybe his condition, his weakness, was more than just physical, maybe he’s predisposed to weakness, to the path of least resistance, because he’s learning that good is hard, is pain and bleeding and trying not to drown in the weight of a lifetime of mistakes, where once it had been so easy and painless to take what was needed, what he wanted, without a thought of who got hurt in the process, the collateral damage between him and proving himself to three ancient creatures who marked him as insufficient before he hit his teens and moved on to their next abomination, left him trailing behind to clean up the messes because where else was he going to go?

His fingertips barely brush the edge of the keys, cold and rigid and real where he feels soft and malleable and jagged all at once, and then there’s a crash loud enough to drown out his laboured heartbeat and he thinks oh a second before the riflebutt cracks into the side of his head. Pain flares, sharp and vice like, crumpling him sideways across the centre console as his broken window rains down around him, shitty confetti, and maybe he should have looked, checked it was a deputy not a hunter - not that the two are mutually exclusive - but he’s tired and thin and maybe this is easier than trying to justify his continued existence. That same buried, half dead thing somewhere in his chest roars indignation at his apathy, despite it all, and he hears himself growl, feels skin split under his claws as he moves on instinct, on muscle memory, to swipe at the rapid, human, heartbeat pulling his truck door open to finish the job, vision tainted red by the blood pouring from his forehead and filling his nose with the scent of copper and iron, familiar as always.

Electricity, muscles going rigid mid swing, limbs locked and useless. He hits asphalt, tastes ozone and acrid bile on the back of his tongue as every nerve ending burns, red vision turned to splotchy black as his lungs spasm, trying to remember how to work, how to live in a world that doesn’t want him but keeps dragging him back anyway. A cruel laugh rattles over his head and he wonders distantly if that’s what he sounded like when he tried to kill Scott, except there was no joy in that, just a task he needed to complete to justify his existence, to take what he wanted, what he thought he deserved, and he didn’t feel sorry for it then, only angry that he had to do it himself, that his plan splintered at the ends like a rotten thing, that Scott got to look at him with that betrayal and hurt and sorrow even while he told Theo he was barely even human.

He gets it, now, he thinks. Is learning what sorrow and remorse and consequences feel like and maybe it’s some sort of cosmic karma that has him out here, alone on the edge of town in a deserted parking lot with one flickering streetlight, folded into the earth that only spat him back out because he was needed to complete a task while three figures in masks stand over him and declare him a failure.

Something jabs into the side of his neck, the familiar cold intrusion of a needle, the familiar burn of something foreign entering his bloodstream, spreading through his muscles like molasses. The shock they gave him must have been enough to down an elephant, his fingers twitching uselessly against the shitty surface of the parking lot even as a brief burst of anger-fear-memory washes over him, eyes burning gold for a half second of adrenaline. He thinks he should get up, should roll to the side, brush off the taser like he’s somehow managed to brush it off every other time lightning has tried to finally stop his stolen heart, but his body isn’t his own anymore, again, and all he manages is a low, guttural growl, a thought of fangs and claws and blood splattering the ground.

A boot connects with his ribs, overexposed and brittle, devoid of the padding they once had, curved around his heart like a shield, their only purpose to try and hold him up. Something creaks, doesn’t quite break, but the impact is enough to roll him over, limbs like jelly, the familiar chemical cocktail of something sedative and immobilising. If he thought about it hard enough he could probably name all the different agents, the chemical compounds, rattle them off from a list in his head, hope he doesn’t get any wrong or it’s back to the marked out corner of the sewers that serves as his room with no dinner.

He doesn’t see the boot coming but it’s somehow not a surprise when it connects with his face and sends him reeling into darkness.

He wonders if Scott will at least mourn the loss of a soldier in this war, or just breathe a sigh of relief that he doesn’t have to worry about how long it’ll be before Theo stabs someone in the back to keep himself alive a few hours longer. He doesn’t know which he’d prefer, doesn’t think it matters.

Nothing else he’s ever done has mattered.

[xuchiya]

"Aughost" || choi jongho || part.two

| genre: ghost! jongho. slice of life. angst. | mentions: | part.one this is to make up for you guys and for the chapters for my mini-series of Hongjoong (GO CHECK IT OUT "DIFFERENT [LOVE] LANGAUGE). I am a little busy with the other chapters and I have to re-write some of them since I plan of uploading them all of at once.

There, on your couch, was a figure you recognized but couldn’t quite believe. Jongho, like some sort of spectral vision, was float-sitting casually, watching you with an expression that was almost too normal for the situation.

“This... this can’t be real,” you muttered under your breath, half-convinced you were either dreaming or had finally lost it. Your hand tugged at the roots of your hair, a nervous habit you couldn’t shake, the tension in your body only mounting as you struggled to comprehend what was happening.

Jongho—Choi Jongho of ATEEZ, the maknae of the group—right here, right now, in your living room? The idea seemed absurd. “You? Choi Jongho of ATEEZ? The maknae of the group? Right here? Right now?” you blurted out, your voice edged with a mix of disbelief and confusion.

Jongho smiled softly, as if he could sense your doubt. “I know it’s a lot to take in. You’re probably thinking you’ve gone mad, right?”

You stopped pacing and stared at him, your heart pounding. “I-I mean, what could I have possibly done to make myself see— you! When I don’t even remember having a third eye! You’re... a ghost, for heaven’s sake! And you’re sitting on my couch like this is just a regular Tuesday?!”

He nodded, his expression understanding. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you without freaking you out completely.”

You backed up a step, your mind racing. “Was it you and that window?”

He nodded.

“Was it you when that black cat was here and it hissed at me and ran away?!”

He nodded again.

“Was it also you when I found the coin outside?”

He sighed, nodding once more.

“And was it you when the television changed?” you asked, crossing your arms as you tried to make sense of the situation.

His eyebrow arched, and he shrugged, leaning back on the couch as if he were still flesh and bone. “I was a bit surprised I could control stuff, but yeah.”

Your eyes narrowed in skepticism. “And why should I trust that you’re even real? How do I know I’m not just seeing things?”

Jongho’s form flickers slightly, a sign of his own uncertainty. “I can’t prove it to you in any way that would make perfect sense. All I can say is... I need your help.”

You hesitated, torn between the instinct to bolt out the door and the nagging curiosity that kept you rooted in place. “Help? With what?”

He sighed, the sound filled with a weariness that seemed too human for a spirit. “I need to find a way back to my body. I think I’m in some kind of limbo, stuck between life and death.”

You shook your head, trying to process everything. “And I’m supposed to just believe that? That this isn’t some hallucination or... or a dream?”

Jongho’s gaze softened, his voice almost pleading. “I know it’s hard to believe. But I promise you, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just... lost. And I think you’re the only one who can help me.”

You looked at him, still unsure but starting to feel the weight of his words. There was something in his eyes—a quiet desperation—that made it hard to just dismiss him. Despite the absurdity of talking to the "astral" body of Choi Jongho, you were still hesitant. Helping someone was one thing, but helping a ghost? It was like doing a private investigation without involving law enforcement.

You sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

His face hardened as if recalling the past was the most difficult thing in the world. You waved your hand to grab his attention, trying to ease the tension. “It’s okay if you can’t say anything or don’t remember anything.”

Finally, you gave in, unable to ignore the sincerity in his eyes. “Okay,” you said cautiously. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I believe you. What exactly do you need me to do?”

Jongho’s expression brightened, though his form remained as ghostly as ever. “Thank you. I know it’s asking a lot. I need you to help me figure out what happened to me, why I’m stuck like this. If we can figure that out, maybe... maybe I can find my way back.”

You took a deep breath, still feeling like you were teetering on the edge of reality. “Alright. But I’m warning you, if this turns out to be some weird trick my mind is playing, I’m going to be very unhappy.”

Jongho chuckled, a light, almost normal sound. “Fair enough. I’ll do my best not to make you regret this.”

Days turned into a blur of half-remembered places and forgotten faces as you and Jongho embarked on an unusual journey. There were also times where you and  Jongho would test stuff like eating food to which you found out they don’t feel hungry. Then you read online from the darkest place that if you burn a set of clothes, it would be able to be worn by them and to which you manage to successfully change Jongho’s t-shirt and pants to a long dark coat with matching inner parts. 

You sometimes caught him, inside your apartment, looking out the window. His hand would hover over the glass, only to pass through and you could see the way his shoulders would drop. You found yourselves wandering through various parts of the city, each stop stirring faint memories in Jongho’s mind.

At a playground near his old neighborhood, Jongho’s eyes softened as he recalled, “I used to come here as a kid. I’d sleep on the slides sometimes when I didn’t want to go home right away.” He smiled wistfully, his fingers ghosting over the rusted metal, though they passed through without contact.

Later, you visited a small convenience store, its neon lights flickering in the dusk. Jongho’s expression brightened as he recognized the place. “We used to come here all the time during our pre-debut days,” he said, pointing towards the shelves. “I’d grab snacks with the hyungs after practice. We didn’t have much, but this place was like our little refuge.”

And when you enter the said store, you notice from the provided tall stools by the window that there's multiple printed pictures pinned on the cardboard and one of them is pre-debut Ateez. You reach over, examining the old photo.

“I miss them.” You look over your shoulder to see him looking at the picture. Your faces were so close to each other that you, almost—almost, felt his entire presence. You cleared your throat, pinning the picture back to the wall, “I know you do…”

As the day wore on, you found yourselves in front of a large world map that was displayed in a tourist area. It is mostly built for foreigners, with the world map and the local map of the city but nevertheless, Jongho’s eyes lit up with recognition. “This... I remember this! We were here when we filmed our debut MV,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map. “I used to dream about all the places we’d go... all the fans we’d meet.”

You glance at his form. It is nearly human. The way he dresses, the way speaks and shows his presence is like a human yet it hurts you that his astral body is floating mindlessly in this harsh lonely world. You also thought of how long he had been searching for help, or any sign that could lead him to a new clue. 

His eyes, the bobba ones, that you had noticed. The way it sparkles when he speaks or a memory hits him. It's like he is literally alive and well but despite these brief flashes of clarity, none of the memories seemed to trigger anything that could help him remember where his body might be. By the time night had fallen, you were both exhausted, standing under a streetlight as the city began to wind down.

Jongho’s form flickered faintly in the dim light, his energy waning, going ahead of you on the flight of stairs. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice laced with frustration. “I thought... I thought something would come to me, but nothing’s working.”

You shook your head, offering him a small, comforting smile, looking up from where you were from the bottom of the stairs. Your hand on the railing as you smile softly, “It’s okay, Jongho. We’ll figure this out. It’s just... going to take time.”

He looked at you, his expression a mixture of gratitude and despair. “I don’t know how much more time I have,” he admitted softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your heart clenched, the weight of his words settling over you like a heavy blanket. Your breath shook as the realization dawned on you—a terrifying thought that maybe his body had already given up, and what stood before you was nothing more than the remnants of a soul clinging to a fleeting hope. “We’ll keep trying,” you promised, though your voice wavered. “We’ll figure it out. You’re not in this alone. You came to me for help after a long time, and I’ll keep helping you, no matter what.”

He smiled, but it was weak, almost as if the very act of it drained him. Hope flickered in his eyes, only to be extinguished the next moment when a distant, almost imperceptible ringing sound reached his ears. Suddenly, his face contorted in pain, a sharp gasp escaping his lips as he clutched his chest. The air around him seemed to thicken, heavy with an unseen force that pressed down on him, burning him from the inside out.

“Jongho?” Panic surged through you as you watched his form begin to waver, like a candle’s flame flickering in the wind. His hands—once so solid, so real—began to fade into nothingness. “I—I’m not feeling well,” he stammered, fear creeping into his voice as his body started to dissolve before your eyes.

“No! Jongho!” You lunged forward, your feet moving on instinct, taking the steps two at a time. But by the time you reached the top, he was already reaching out to you with a desperate, trembling hand. And then, just like that, he vanished—his form dissipating into thin air as if he had never been there at all.

Your heart plummeted into your stomach. For a moment, you just stood there, stunned and staring at the empty space where he had been. Then, reality hit you like a freight train, and your mind spun in a frantic search for him. “Jongho!” you cried out, your voice breaking as you jogged around the place, your eyes wild with fear. “Jongho, where are you?!”

“W-what?” His voice was soft, disoriented, but it was there—behind you.

You spun around, and there he was, standing just a few feet away, looking as bewildered as you felt. Relief and confusion crashed over you in waves, and before you could stop yourself, you were running toward him. Your arms wrapped around his figure, clinging to him as if he might disappear again if you let go.

His hands hovered awkwardly at his sides, but then he slowly brought them up to your back, feeling the warmth of your body against his. His eyes widened in shock, realization dawning on him as he whispered, “You… you can feel me?”

“I can,” you choked out, tears streaming down your face as you buried your head into his chest. “You’re alive. You’re really here.” The two of you stayed like that, clinging to each other, both shaken to the core by what had just happened. Neither of you knew what to say, what to do next. All you knew was that the thought of losing him again was too much to bear.

“Don’t disappear,” you pleaded, your voice trembling with emotion.

“I—I won’t,” he promised, though the uncertainty in his voice made your heart ache even more.

But as the days passed, things began to change. You started noticing the subtle distance growing between you and Jongho. It was small at first—a missed conversation here, a distracted gaze there—but it became harder to ignore, especially as one of your co-workers, a doctor, began to show an unusual interest in you. There was something off about the way they seemed to hover around you, as if they were waiting for something.

You were walking down the hallway, hands full of reports- as you read them thoroughly before giving them to your CEO, that is until you felt a presence beside you. You smile before spinning, “Jongho—”

You were met with your CEO’s personal doctor instead. Stephano. You have been seeing him around ever since your CEO fell ill only to conclude that she is having her usual winter sickness. You bow awkwardly, apologising softly, “Sorry .. I thought you were someone.” The way they glint their eyes at you before chuckling, so dry that you could feel it in your skin, “Do not worry but I have to get going now, I have to look after a patient of mine.” 

You notice the logo of his name plate pinned in his white coat, is a hospital you heard before. With a tilt of his head, he is gone while your brain works on where you have heard of the name before. And when you finally got Jongho alone, you demanded to know what was going on.

His expression was troubled, “I– I found my body.” Your eyes widen, looking around the rooftop of your apartment, moving closer to him, “How?”

 “An Atiny— they sent me flowers and then I followed the nurses”. It all led him to believe that his body was alright, still alive, but in danger even the risk of some of them kept replaying about sudden cold temperature around the,.

The two of you rushed to the hospital, determined to find him. But when you reached the room, you were met with a chilling sight—your CEO’s personal doctor, Stephano, standing over Jongho’s unconscious body, a syringe in hand, about to inject something into his IV drip. Your blood ran cold as you pieced it all together. The suspicious behavior, the unexplained illnesses—someone was trying to keep Jongho in limbo, trapped between life and death.

You didn’t hesitate. With a burst of adrenaline, you lunged at the doctor, knocking the syringe out of their hand and screaming for help., “Yah! Help me!”  Hospital staff quickly rushed in, restraining the doctor as you stood protectively over Jongho’s body, your heart pounding in your chest.

Soon, guards and the rest of the members of Ateez arrive with the manager. Them seeing you hovering the body of the youngest was a mixture of confusion, calm and relaxation. Of course, they would start asking questions. 

“I was looking around this hallway because my grandma is also here. I didn’t quite get the number but I was pointed to where her room is and when I saw this doctor doing something suspicious— I know but I saw the bottle because I studied medicine back then.”

The eldest, Seonghwa pats your back, his eyes red from tears and nose blocked, “Thank you. For protecting our maknae.” Your eyes trailed on his body on top of the white sheets of the hospital bed. Nodding, your heart pounding, “I’ll keep helping you, no matter what.” 

Later that night, when the chaos had settled and the hospital was quiet, you stayed by Jongho’s bedside, even after visiting hours were long over. His astral form appeared beside you, watching as his body lay still and pale, but alive.

You both stood in silence, just looking at his body. “This is it …”

Nodding aimlessly, “Yeah …” He turns to you to which you also turn your head at him. His hand hovers yours, you felt it. You felt the warm and soft padded of his fingers around yours. Your eyes shimmer in tears, he chuckles softly reaching over to wipe them.

"Thank you." You smile, giving his hand a squeeze.He gave you a small, grateful smile before walking over to his body, watching the whole thing as  his ghostly form blended into it seamlessly.

You held your breath, your heart racing as you watched him. Seconds felt like hours as you waited for any sign of life. Then, finally and miraculously, his eyes fluttered open, and you felt a wave of relief wash over you. You were ready to burst with joy, ready to celebrate the fact that he was back, that he had made it.

You reached over to him, touching his hand in yours, tears were in your eyes, “J-Jongho…”

But when his gaze met yours, it wasn’t the warm, familiar look you had come to expect. Instead, his eyes were clouded with confusion, his brow furrowing as he stared at you. And then he spoke, his voice hoarse but clear, the words cutting through you like a knife.

“Who are you?” he asked, and in that moment, the world seemed to crumble around you.

[yuzukimist]

My drops of tears I'll turn to sparks of fire

Summary:

The waves keep lapping at the shore, the seagrass keeps bending in a soundless wind, and Rang is no closer to figuring out how to get the fuck out of here than he was when he first found himself on this beach.

It's unpleasantly similar to that whole mess with the Darkness, really, although this at least is just some sort of limbo between life and death rather than a nightmare realm based on his own most frightening memories.

It's still frustrating, though, because he doesn't want to be here. He certainly doesn't want to be stuck here while the Imoogi is on the loose. The bastard's already gotten to Yu-ri once, after all, and now there's Su-o to think of, too.

Rang needs to get out of here.

He just has no idea how.

Except then he hears it.

He can’t not hear it.

Just as his ears had caught the whimpers of a dog being abused, just as he’d heard a small boy’s cries for help as his step-father beat him, just as he’d heard the cries of a trapped fox spirit clamoring to be saved from a life of torture and captivity.

Someone is crying.

And Rang wakes up.

[a.k.a. Episode 12 but Rang wakes up on his own]

Available here.

[elliebyrrdwrites]

Dead Dramione resumes

These are snippets from my soon to be published fanfic on ao3

Draco flicked the butt of his cigarette to the ground and reminded himself to steal another pack in the morning, before sitting down beside her.

“There are worse things that being Grim Reapers.”

Draco watched her brows knit together. “Like what?”

“Well, there’s the whole demon thing.”

She frowned at that, but added, “We could be stuck in Limbo.”

Draco grinned. “Exactly. We could spend eternity being bored to death.”

Hermione shook her head but he saw the slight lift of her lips as as she said, “We’re already dead.”

Hermione’s head tilted, and Draco watched as tiny drops of water were collected on her cheek. The light from above glinted off of her face and Draco enjoyed seeing her like this. With the mist clinging to the waves in her hair, tightening them up into curls and the shorter wisps creating a halo of fine hairs that pulled at the light shining from overhead.

He should have kissed her before they died. He should have kissed her a thousand times before and a thousand times after.

Instead, he was staring down at her as that thing between them lingered. A sense of sadness and want threading together because neither had made that move. Because she was engaged and he was in no place to take on anything serious. Or so he had thought.

Looking back at the tragedy of his life; the war that tore his family apart. The father who held a grudge toward him, even as he lay withering away on his death bed and the mother who was already mourning the loss of her husband...Draco couldn’t help but regret his decision to never tell Granger how he felt. Looking at her now, after life, he couldn’t help but think that it might have been worth the risk of upsetting the precarious balance he had found within his sad little life. Worth the risk of potentially breaking up a relationship. Worth the risk of her rejection, should she choose.

But she wouldn’t have, would she? Because according to Amaras, their fate was to kiss. They were meant to kiss and set a course of action dictated by the fates themselves!

“We should try to find a warm place to sleep tonight.” Granger murmured as he continued to stare down at her. As his eyes continued to trace the lines of her face with all of the unspoken words between them just waiting to be caught between their fingers.

“I think we should talk about the kiss that might have saved our lives.”

Her eyes rounded out and her cheeks burned bright pink. “Here?” She looked around the park and the abandoned swing set. The slippery slide, the seesaw. Anywhere but back at him.

“Granger,” Draco sighed. He’s always sighing when he says her name. It’s some sort of visceral reaction. A release of from all of the build up of oxytocin that he collects when he’s around her. Watching her, teasing her, listening to her. “I was going to kiss you.” He releases the truth into the wild and watches her eyes track it. Her teeth sink into her lower lip as she tries to concoct a plan of attack. He’s not letting the truth get past her, this time. He won’t allow her to trap it and tuck it under the bench, with plans to look at it at another time.

No, Draco stands in front of her and holds his hand out for her. Silently, his eyes tell her to take it. Silently, he begs her to just let go of the life they were forced out of. Her chin tipped up and her lips pursed as she dragged her eyes from his face, to look at his offered hand. Tentatively, her fingers grazed the length of his as she settled her hand into his. With her palm placed firmly against his, Draco wrapped his fingers around her and hauled her to her feet.

She was a full foot shorter than him, her petite framed accentuated by the roundness of her curves and she had so much fire encompassing her, so much spunk, that you often forgot how small she was. Because Hermione Grangers personality was big and demanding. She was bossy and clumsy and it was all so damn charming.

“What are we supposed to say?” She asked, her voice shook enough to alert Draco to how nervous she suddenly was. She was always quite brave in life. In death, she seemed to feel everything so intensely, that bravery was no longer enough of a façade to mask the heart she wore on her sleeve.

In death, Granger was more emotional and Draco found it incredibly endearing and he found the way her body trembled beneath his touch impossibly sexy.

He shrugged as his fingers pulled her into the little space left between them. “We don’t have to say anything.” Their chests were nearly touching and her breath seemed to quicken as his other hand slid to back. She was so petite that his hand spanned the entirety of her lower back and she was soft. So soft and warm, despite the damp texture of her clothes, despite the chill that was slowly seeping into their bodies.

Again, they found themselves warming with the burn of that want that seemed to perpetually hang and wait for them to wrap themselves in it all while enduring a chill that sunk into them, threatening to freeze their bones.

“Or, we could talk about the fact that, in life, we were actual geniuses.” She rushed her words into the space as Draco began to lower his face toward hers.

He chuckled and quirked his brow at her. “What?”

“Well, we did it, didn’t we?” She whispered. “We weren’t supposed to do it, but we were on the verge of discovering the truth about another dimension.”

Draco sighed, because there was that flare in her eyes, again. That little kindling flame that ignited every time she started to talk about work. “I feel like we are in another dimension.”

The trembling in her body seemed to calm down as she perked up at his words. “Maybe death is another dimension!”

“Granger,”

“I mean, look at us.” Her hand splayed over the center of his chest. “You’re breathing and I can feel your heart beating.” It was beating very hard and all of the blood in his body was traveling towards his pants. “Maybe we’re not really dead.”

“Granger,”

“How could we be dead? I mean, I feel everything I would feel in life, only it’s more intense. Like there’s no filter there. What if death is just a more vibrant life?”

She was rambling and he was getting impatient.

“I was going to kiss you and ask you to leave your fiancé.” Draco finally blurted out the truth, causing Hermione’s mouth to snap shut. Her eyes were round and full of disbelief. One corner of his mouth lifted in a subdued smile. “But, I hesitated.”

She swallowed, her fingers still pressed into the damp fabric of his shirt. “Why?”

With a shake of his head, Draco frowned. “I don’t know. Would you have been upset with me?”

There was a war of emotions on her face. Too many for Draco do discern but he could feel the nerves rolling off of her, turning her stomach. Perhaps it wasn’t fair, to put her in such a position, but honestly. What did it matter? They were dead. She was no longer Weasleys.

“I don’t know.” Her words dragged and scraped up her throat.

“Would you have kissed me back?” The question was asked and immediately Draco found himself trying to stuff the words back into his mouth. Because, he didn’t really want to know. He didn’t think his cold, dead heart could take it if she said no.

But her eyes dropped to look at the fingers that were picking, nervously, at his shirt and he felt the spike in her heartrate just before she replied.

“Yes.”

[yohohonabottle]

Thoughts on nephylim survival-mortality rates and such.

Thoughts, thoughts... maybe tinfoil hat nonsense.

Think Hypogeans and Gravecalling condition can have a grey area bridging them? Like a black to white gradient? I'm having this wild idea the factions are interconnected with these grey areas.

Like Celes/Hypo are 2 sides of the same coin (Beings, higher ones and spirits– Ying & Yang dynamic) Graveborn and the other 3 factions as in Life/Death … and limbo. Gravecalling is the thing between Life & Death. And spirits in general are kind of in that grey area too, this kind of … spectrum?

On far left you got Plagues, Hypogeans (Negative beings, negative spirits)

In the middle you got Gravecalling condition/Necromancy (Limbo)

And the other extreme end you have regular spirits/souls, Night nymphs, Celestials & gods (<- Positive beings, positive spirits)

"Hmmmm, depends for sure how you overly envision the fabric of this universe to be. What was that magic called that Hammie so vehemently tried to avoid Magister using? I somewhat see Graveborns as incomplete Hypogeans. Like... halfway there, muddied magic, experimental magic, as god-like magic as a non-god being can muster. So it definitely sits somewhere in the middle, but the HOW exactly it sits there, is quite another thing." — Wind "Graveborns being incomplete Hypos is a fun lil thing to ponder.. I guess even Graveborns got a spectrum going on. On one extreme are the incomplete Hypos (going w negative spirits/beings), the neutral like ghosts and just really neither fully dead or fully alive, then you got those inching to the other end which is Spirits... Closer to being dead/crossing off into spiritual lane But for some reason(s) cannot quite fully make the jump there yet." — Finch

"Hm, for the spirits, I'd say it's the circumstances that define their position on the scale, light or dark. Because their form of existence doesn't appear to have differences to me. The underlying magic should be the same: and absence of someone or something dealing with the dead in the afterlife (Annih sucking at his job one way or another). Gravecalling magic... right. Sounds like Qaedams domain, Annih's magic abused." —Wind

"mhm... This makes me wonder (or not) why Vic and his Muse are so compatible. I think Ludovic is more on the middle ground of the spectrum (Limbo- not 100% dead & not 100% alive) And these two aren't hurting each other, like how a Hypo trying to be with a Cele would; even if/when his Muse goes full spirit (True form - spirit. Firebird wyvern, Spirit perma stuck in reincarnating) — It doesn't hurt him in any way...Doesn't repel him/cancel each other out."— Finch

"Hm. A Celestian and a Hypogean wouldn't exactly hurt each other by mere physical proximity. Not that it's impossible, but generally, it's not an issue. It's only a problem when they try to "heal" each other. They could not magically support each other. At least according to my understanding. Pirin sounds a lot like the Obsidian Finches. Or the dragons. Some sort of special race that might come with a unique magic composition, that will sit between light and dark (or whatever Dura and Annih are responsible for) in their respective colour. Some "colours" might have better resonance with the Hypogean side, others with the Divine light side. If Graveborns are that last possible colour next to the Hypogeans and Pirin's colour is from the same area, then naturally they would be more easily compatible." -Wind

While an offspring with a Mauler, Lightbearer would be unstable a bit.. Really high mortality rate./chance of dying stillborn. And a Wilder nephylim isn't impossible... but those issues are probably cranked up by ten. (Going with Wilders being on the extreme end of the Alive/Life category.) "Wilders' colors aren't compatible with Pirin's – Almost have a repelling effect even". - Finch? Wind?

Wilders' colors aren't compatible with Pirin's – Almost have a repelling effect even. Or just with Night nymphs as a whole... Maybe those of his kin whom Bonded/had offspring with Wilders had to 'corrupt' those kids with Gravecalling/Hypo or Cele magic while in the womb to hopefully bridge the two ends on more neutral ground...? - Finch

[th3vo1dwalk3r]

Hey there, are you like.. stuck or something?? I mean with the whole 'if you are hearing this' thing, I dunno.

"Unfortunately yes. Due to that cursed mutt I am trapped between life and death, a sort of limbo if you may. But trust me I'll find A way out. Since it seems my transmission is going through I am one step closer to finding my escape"

[griffincloud]

desire or nightmare for peachleaf :3

Sorry for not getting to this sooner ^^", I was busy and now I'm sick so I may not be super coherent in my rambling

So this will require a "brief" worldbuilding synopsis since Peachleaf is very much intertwined with the non-WC canon part of this WCOC story. But basically, there are basically 3 levels/tiers of existing (best wording I got): you're either alive, in limbo (sort of like The Dark Forest but not really? You don't go there if you're evil; described as "having a paw between being alive and dead" by Tuftbee), and fully dead/StarClan. Most cats go from living straight to being a StarClan cat upon dying, but if you for some reason have some form of "unfinished business" or cannot accept your death, you are now stuck in limbo. A spirit cannot leave this state once stuck there and this limbo state isn't good for the "health" of the spirit. The spirit will slowly become sick or "corrupted" by their feelings of hate and turmoil over their death; if enough time passes, the spirit will fully "corrupt" and become unrecognizable from their former selves. The speed at which this happens relies on how well the spirit keeps themselves at peace, but no spirit is immune from corrupting as spirits are naturally emotional creatures

Corrupted spirits are known to attack and kill the living. But the presence of non-corrupted spirits isn't good either; extended exposure to one unknowingly causes sickness and unexplained stress usually manifesting as anxiety or paranoia

This is where Shepherds come in. Shepherds are unique in the sense that they can see spirits (as cats cannot see spirits with the exception of corrupted spirits when they're about to be attacked by them/when the spirit shows themselves to the cat first) and are gifted the power to help spirits pass on and purify the corrupted spirits. Each Shepherd is born from the same family, descended from the first Shepherd's littermates as Floodfog never had kits of her own. When one Shepherd dies, the eldest kit of the next litter born after they pass will become the next one. Peachleaf is the 11th Shepherd, succeeding Icefern

Now, onto the actual questions...

Desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

To have a voice in the clans (whether that be by taking up a higher-ranking role or otherwise). This isn't a bad desire at all, but she still tries to word this to herself as just wanting to serve the clans and make them better in an attempt to be humble/coy. She doesn't like to draw much attention to herself paradoxically

She chooses to be a Medic since she genuinely wants to help other cats and that is something she feels strongly about, but being a well-respected member of her society is a plus to her. She tries to work hard and aid her leader and clanmates any way she can to earn or keep their respect, even if they already respect her because she's their family (by blood or not)

Nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

Peachleaf has nightmares about seeing her friends, family, and clanmates become corrupted spirits because that means she could not help them not only in life as a Medic but also not in death as a Shepherd. As for how she copes with the idea, I can't particularly go into that too much as that would be leaning into spoiler territory (which I would love to talk about with just mutuals if anyone is curious but it's maybe not the best idea to go into that too much publicly if I wanna turn this into a comic one day) but let's just say, she copes with it in ways that progress the plot. But she largely keeps these fears to herself as she feels it is her burden to bear (and has been sworn to secrecy by Tuftbee, her great-grandmother and the 8th Shepherd as she feels that's what you're supposed to do) but she does console in a select few cats about her duties and fear of failing those duties such as Sterletcurl, Ripplingbreeze, Sizzlingpond, Xanthiawing, and of course Tuftbee

Prompts List

[free-for-all-fics]

Elisabeth Musical Prompts! I wrote these using “Death” and neutral pronouns for simplicity’s sake, so that you can pick whichever production/version you want. Der Tod, Halal, La Mort, etc. These are pretty interchangeable. Death can be a man, woman, non-binary, genderless, whatever you want it to be. I tried to keep reader neutral too. Words like “prince” and “bride” are meant to be gender neutral. Pls tag me if you’re inspired by any of these ideas and I’d love to read it! 🤎⚰️

1. Death and the Maiden AU: The famous German painting depicts that of “the early death of a young woman, often with erotic overtones. Death has seized hold of a voluptuous young woman's hair and is pointing down to a tomb in mock benediction. The distraught victim, fully aware of her fate, wrings her hands together, pleading for her life.” Write a story inspired by this famous motif. Instead of Elisabeth, you’re the human Death falls in love with. Death looks much younger and much more handsome/beautiful than you expected. They have the most hypnotic eyes and sing songs that are as dark as they are lovely. What would a romance or love story between you and Death entail? What would your eternity look like? It’s all up to you.

2. Elisabeth Musical Crossover AU: You’re a personification of Death and encounter one of your fellow counterparts under less-than-ideal circumstances. You both arrive to the same place of death at the same time. While a human lay dying, you and this other Death are too busy arguing over who has the right to claim their soul and escort them to your respective Realm/Kingdom of the Dead. All of your realms are technically connected and make up a vast and endless void that holds everything yet nothing all at once. But you and all the other Deaths sovereign over different regions of the world and tend not to crossover. It keeps things simple and orderly. You and all the other Deaths meet up maybe once every millennia or so, but that’s it. You’re all dreadfully busy with the never-ending obligations that come with your existence and try not to get in each other’s way. You and the Deaths share a long and complicated history older than the universe or time itself. It’s incredibly hard to explain and even more boring to listen to. So, back to the matter at hand:

The trouble is that technically this human died twice and was already buried once before. You’re either dealing with Margorie McCall or a similar situation. This human died first in your domain, then died again years later in theirs. Or the human was pronounced legally dead for a few minutes in your territory, then resuscitated, and later died again in theirs. Either way, you and this other Death need to sort out who has jurisdiction over this mortal. The mortal in question is just sort of awkwardly stuck in limbo and can’t move on to the next life until one of you gives them the Kiss of Death. They’re just kind of awkwardly stuck there and watching these two primordial entities argue like a married couple or siblings. What do you and this other Death do about this impasse you find yourselves in?

3. Death Takes a Holiday AU: For one day out of the year, Death becomes mortal and gets to humble themself as they explore humanity. They’ve done so through time, but never made attachments. Until the day they met you. When you were young, Death saved you from mortal danger, claiming it wasn’t your time yet. You weren’t afraid of them, but entranced. You held their hand and asked them to stay, but they left in the same manner in which they had appeared, vanishing soon afterwards. Even if they had wanted to, they couldn’t stay with you for long. While your worried parents hovered and fretted over you, you were left confused. Your head was full of too many questions that were left unanswered for years. You wondered if your near-death experience caused you to only imagine your Black Prince as a strange coping mechanism. It was like they came from a dream. Unbeknownst to you, they chose to save you that day because they love you and wanted you to enjoy life for a little while longer, before they came back in a few years to seduce you into their waiting embrace.

Every year, they wear a mortal guise and come to visit you for their one day. Always using a different face and a different name so you never know it’s them. For one day, they wear the skin of a mortal. They breathe, bleed, and feel emotion as men do. It’s that time of year again and they’ve come back for you. You unknowingly run into Death in a bar/pub just down the road on a quiet night and have a chat as you both treat each other to rounds. Your time has come. They’ll finally reveal their true self to you and give you their kiss. They’ll take you as their bride and escort you to your new home in their realm. You’ll remain by their side for all eternity as you sovereign over the Land of the Dead together. For the first time, Death has experienced true love with a mortal. You choose to go with them, revealing that you knew all along who they really were. Death then proclaims that love is greater than illusion and is as strong as death.

4. Death is finally escorting you to their Realm of the Dead in the afterlife. You’ve had lots of close calls during your time on Earth but they always had to give you back and leave the Land of the Living empty-handed because you’d always get very lucky at the last minute. The personification of Life always found a way to stop them, saying it wasn’t your time yet. Life is the only entity Death doesn’t mind losing to - but Life is using you to test Death’s patience. You see, every time you’ve been stuck with them between the veil of living and dead, you’d take every opportunity to flirt with Death. You’d only be able to see them for a few brief moments before you were sent back, so you’d make every single second count. You’d lay your flirtations on thick. Even after you die for real this time, you still shoot your shot and try to seduce Death. For a primordial being, they still look young and incredibly sexy.

"Hey, Death. Are you single? Someone as cool as you can't be single."

"Are you trying to flirt with me?"

"Hey, it's not the first time I've flirted with Death."

"And look where that got you."

5. Death comes for us all. Except Laszlo. Death doesn't like Laszlo. Laszlo knows what he did. (Laszlo is a tortoise).

6. Death comes for you on your deathbed. You’re surprised to learn they’re real, an actual entity with the face of a handsome man/beautiful woman who guides people to their afterlife. But instead of taking you away, they’re…in love with you? They’ve decided you’re too neutral to go anywhere and take you with them as their new undead lover/companion. Death has always had a random 'favorite', a human who’s given a choice to remain undead until they voluntarily choose to end their life. They’re not alive, but they’re not dead either. They’re somewhere in between and are given otherworldly powers similar to Angels of Death. Most lasted between 200 to 300 years, later choosing to receive the kiss and remain in the Realm of the Dead eternally after all of their loved ones had gone and life on Earth was no longer worth it. The current consort had just passed their 1000th year and chose to die, so Death was in need of a new love. And now they have you to accompany them and save them from their solitude. You’ll fill the bottomless void where their heart should be.

7. Death has one rule when it comes to their kind of clientele: Never get attached. However, they came across a puppy that drowned or was frozen in the snow. The cute little pup has refused to leave their side no matter how much Death urged them to stay with the Angels of Death in the Kingdom of the Dead.

“You stay right here. You stay. Don’t move. You understand? Great.” But the dog still follows Death, loyally sitting at their master’s side as it awaits instruction which it’ll probably ignore anyway. Death lets out a defeated sigh. “Fine. Come on then.”

800 years have since passed. You’re Life and you just alived Death’s dog, claiming it was time for the pup to be reincarnated. They know you’re just doing your job, but how dare you?? After fighting over ownership of the dog, you both just decide to share it. After it dies on Earth for the second time, you and Death give the dog special powers so it can freely travel between your realms. The pup doesn’t seem to mind this arrangement and happily switches from its living form and ghost form as it crosses over from side to side with ease.

8. Death falls in love with you and always comes back to you, no matter how many times you try to refuse them or send them away. They’re obsessed with you and persistently try to seduce you when you’re at your most vulnerable. They’ll caress your body and run their cold fingers through your hair while you’re trying to sleep, hoping to trick you into kissing them. They want so badly to whisk you away to their realm and keep you for eternity, but you’re stubborn and always resist their seductions, pulling away from them at the last second. You don’t wish to die just yet. As they depart, they promise there’ll come a fateful day where you’ll finally call. When you finally want them as much as they want you, Death will claim you as their bride, for you’ve always belonged to them and only them. Doesn’t matter if you have a spouse or not. You’ll be theirs and spend eternity at their side. Even after the universe itself ceases to exist, you and Death will remain. They’ve existed longer than time itself. Before the creation of gods and men, they were there. A few decades for you is nothing more than the blink of an eye to an eternal being like them. They’ll wait for you.

9. You’re in love with Death and dance with them at balls, despite knowing you’re putting your very life in their hands, literally. You know who and what they truly are, but aren’t afraid of them like everyone else. As they crash ball after ball just to see you, their ethereal presence hypnotizes you. They seduce you into their arms time after time, and when their lips come dangerously close to touching yours, teasing a fatal kiss, you find yourself enjoying the thrill of dancing with Death as they hold you and your very life in their hands. You dance upon the precipice of never knowing if Death will pull away from you or if they’ll kiss you. You never know when you’ll finally be kissed. It’s a high stakes gamble, but you’re not afraid to lose.

10. You’re Elisabeth's youngest child. Ever since you were 16, you’ve been haunted by recurring dreams that border on night terrors. In your dreams, you find a mysterious door standing in the middle of nowhere and open it, only to be met with a faceless figure who’s the God of Death. Their appearance is everchanging; sometimes they’re a prince in black who sings of their undying love for you, pleading for you to love them back and come with them to their palace. Other times, they’re a bodiless shadow. So on and so forth. Death persistently tries to kiss you, but you run away from them at the last moment, just before their lips can touch yours. They follow you, they hunt you. You always wake up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. For years you’ve suffered from these strange and unusual visions.

Unable to sleep, you wander the palace halls, only to encounter the Black Prince in the flesh as they appear in front of you. They hold out their hand expectantly, drawing you in as they sing to you. Everything melts away and it’s like you can’t control your body as you move towards them. Have they hypnotized you? You realize too late that this entity is actually Death itself and you’re not dreaming this time. They’ve come to finally take you with them to their realm. Death has grown tired of waiting for Sissi; she’s too independent and headstrong to ever love them back. She belongs only to herself and yields for no one, man or monster. So Death is taking you to be their bride instead.

11. Hades and Persephone/Beauty and the Beast/Sleeping Beauty-esque AU: You’re Elisabeth's youngest child, born years after Valerie. When you were young, Death came to take you, much to Elisabeth’s despair. They’ve taken your eldest sister and only brother already, what more could they want? Death has come to realize Elisabeth will never be theirs in the way that they want. Death will inevitably kiss her and she’ll exist within their vast and endless realm, eternally a subject in the Kingdom of the Dead. But she’ll never love them the way they want her to. She’s too headstrong, too independent; she belongs to nobody but herself. She’s a free spirit and cannot be tied down to anyone or anything. The responsibilities of an earthly empire are too restrictive for her; she wouldn’t allow herself to be tied to an eternal one. So Death proposed an alternative: Either they could take you now, or Elisabeth could keep you for 21 more years. In that time, Death would leave her and her family alone. She wouldn’t see nor hear from them nor the Angels of Death. She’d be momentarily left in peace. But when the clock strikes midnight on the 21st year, Death will come to retrieve their bride and take you to their realm.

The deal was a trap. Neither option was fair and only benefited Death, and Elisabeth knew that. But she was so desperate to keep you for a little while longer after suffering so much pain and loss that she’d do anything, even betroth you to the Black Prince itself. Death can be just as cruel and unfair as Life is. For 21 years you grow up in blissful ignorance, none the wiser to your forced betrothal or impending doom. Your mother was especially attached to you, since she was allowed to raise you and Valerie herself while her first three children were taken from her in infancy and raised by the Emperor's mother. She was completely absorbed by her love and care for Valerie and you. You were Elisabeth's favorite child by far, and she paid so much more attention to you than to your older siblings. You loved your mother, but often felt embarrassed and overwhelmed by her concentration on you.

As you grow into adulthood and the end of the 21st year is fast approaching, your mother has you sent away from the palace in an attempt to hide you away from Death. Now that your time is running out, she tries to find a way out of the cursed deal. But it’s all done in vain. Nobody can hide from or cheat Death. No matter where your mother sends you, no matter how far you run or try to hide, they’ll find you. You’ve always been and always will be theirs, just as they are yours. During a celebratory ball, Death hypnotizes you into dancing with them. By the time you realize who they really are and what’s happening, it’s too late. The clock strikes 12 and your bell tolls. Your parents try to save you, but Death freezes them and the entire ballroom in time. Nobody can move except the two of you.

You’re frightened and confused as Death kidnaps you and spirits you away to their Kingdom of the Dead, even if you’re not yet dead in the literal sense. You may hate them, you may fear them, you may resist and fight them, but their love for you is undying. Describe your fate as Death’s bride. You’re Persephone to their Hades, Beauty to their Beast. What happens next as you encounter the Angels of Death or explore more of this endless kingdom? It’s lovely, dark, and deep. It’s hauntingly beautiful and still, like an endless night. But nothing grows here and there’s not much light, if any. Whose souls do you encounter? Is your older brother here somewhere? Can you find it in yourself to love a man who isn’t even a man at all, but rather a primordial being who has taken so much from you and your family? Underneath it all, maybe Death is not much more than a tragic figure, condemned to an eternity of solitude as they traverse the endless darkness to guide souls to the next life. When your mother’s time comes, can you ever forgive Death for what they made their loyal servant, Luigi Lucheni, do? If you never love them, can you at least find it within yourself to be Death’s friend and/or companion?

12. You’re Life and the counterpart to Death. While you create and give life to all things, they guide souls away from the Land of the Living and to the vast emptiness of their realm once a human or creature’s time on Earth has come to its inevitable end. Death’s realm is endlessly dark and deep, but there’s beauty and a sense of calm in the silence. Many souls found a home there and have learned to make peace with their deaths. Some spend their eternity finding ways to keep themselves happy or, at the very least, content. Others aren’t so fortunate and have been stuck in a sort of loop. They relive their life’s events over and over, not yet able to let go of everything tying them to the mortal coil. Death is surrounded by wandering human spirits and their trusted Angels of Death, but can suffer from the black melancholy of loneliness just as mortals do. They’re everything and nothing all at once, everywhere yet nowhere at the same time. You’re the same.

Your realm is full of life yet you can’t keep any of it with you. Your creations, which you call your children, cannot stay in your realm and must be placed somewhere on Earth to live their lives. You’re mother to all things. Some of your children’s lives are long, while others are cut short. The most unfortunate ones are the unborn, whom are escorted home by Death before their lives on Earth can even begin. Death inevitably comes to take them all away sooner or later, but you’re never angry or bitter towards them since they have no control over their fate. Like you, Death inexplicably came into existence eons ago and is eternally bound by a force that cannot be seen or felt, but it’s always there. They must fulfill their duties of guiding souls to their realm when the time comes, just as you must fulfill your duty of creation. Yours and Death’s kingdoms are vast, and you spend your shared eternity exploring them with the freedom of black birds. Sometimes you’re near, sometimes you’re far away, and on occasion you do come visit each other. The realms you sovereign over and call home are total opposites, like night and day. But neither of you mind. You offer each other a respite from your mutual loneliness and enjoy each other’s company.

Death will occasionally let you say goodbye before they take yet another one of your children from you. They’ll let you hold souls in your hands. The souls are always so cold, but you still love them. You’ve created trillions upon trillions of living creatures, and you love them all. You miss each and every one when their time comes. But being missed so deeply is the price of being loved so much. You know all of your children will be in good hands once they depart for Death’s realm. Every life you bring into the world will never be forgotten in yours. There’s no hard feelings when Death comes to retrieve a soul that’s been legally dead for a few minutes, only to revive at the last moment. Death loves losing to you and only you, Life itself.

“I've grown you the prettiest flowers but they only wilt in your hands.”

“Don’t worry. Trust me, I’ve received them all.”

Are you Death’s sibling? Lover? Spouse? Friend? A manifestation of someone’s psyche? It’s all up to you.

13. After you suffer a fatal accident or succumb to an illness, Death comes to take you. But this is very weird. You’re the first mortal to completely refuse to even acknowledge their presence. While you’re dying, you plead for sweet Death to come and take you away. But when they appear in your room, you think they’re just a doctor or random human. You stubbornly don’t believe them no matter how many times they tell you they are Death. No they’re not! Death is supposed to be either a scary skeleton in a black cloak with a scythe like a grim reaper, or a kind elderly person. You narrow your eyes as you scrutinize them, thinking long and hard as you look them up and down. You finally shake your head and tell them that they’re too young and handsome/beautiful to possibly be Death. If they were really Death itself, they wouldn’t be so sexy and alluring. Uhhhhh what?? They have a very important job to do and instead they’re standing here like a fool and arguing with you, trying to prove to you that they’re not an impostor. Wait a minute, you think they’re sexy? Ugh! Why do they even care what you think?

Death has all the time in the universe and then some, yet they’re wasting it trying to convince you to come with them. All Death needs to do is kiss you, but they’re once again taken by surprise when you ask them to prove their identity by having sex with you. Surely if they’re a primordial being that’s existed before time itself, then they should know how to make you orgasm and feel a million times better than any mortal ever could. By the time you realize they are Death, you’ve come to fully comprehend exactly why humans call it “The Little Death” when they orgasm.

14. You plead for Death not to take your loved one and offer them everything you have, but the endless entity cares not for earthly possessions since they have no use for them in their realm. Over many millennia of human existence, Death has seen and heard every excuse and attempt to evade them. They’ve heard your same exact words many, many, many times before from countless mortals. They put on a tough bravado and act altruistic in the face of Death. They always try to bargain and make some sort of deal, but no human ever actually means it. They always try to cheat or back out at the last second. It’s never made a difference to Death.

When the bell tolls, they must take someone. An entity older than the universe itself that possesses immense unknown power, yet they’re still bound by rules and laws that are put in place by Fate to keep everything in a delicate balance. Death doesn't usually make exceptions, as this could disrupt the natural order and could start a chain reaction of disasters. For one soul saved, another must take its place. Just as they’re about to give your loved one their kiss, you offer them your life instead. To show Death you mean it, you ask them to kiss you and don’t resist or pull away as they lean closer and closer to your lips. A life for a life. You’re the first person since Elisabeth who’s never shown fear of them. You stare into their eyes, which are like endless depths that hold the entire universe and more. You’re not afraid, but entranced by their ever-changing irises. Unlike Elisabeth, maybe you can fall in love with The Black Prince and become their eternal companion. What happens next?

15. Death visits you in the middle of the night to warn you that your time is coming. You’ll die by midnight tonight and can’t do anything to prevent it. What’s coming for you is severe and fatal, but they refuse to tell you exactly how you’ll die so as not to distress you further. Nobody can intervene. Even if you had checked yourself into a hospital days ago, it wouldn’t have done you any good. Nothing can save you now. To soothe you, Death offers you the chance to let them kiss you and take away any pain before it starts. They don’t do this for just anyone, but because you’re one of the few mortals who doesn’t fear them and is in love with them, they’re also willing to grant you a last request. So long as it doesn't violate the laws of their purpose, Death will give you whatever you desire.

They’re a primordial being older than time itself and among their countless powers, Death is a shapeshifter. All those different descriptions of Death in books? Those are all the same entity, just in a different form. Death will wear any face and change into any form you want them to. Whatever you desire in a partner, they’ll become it. Man? Woman? Both? Neither? Take your pick. Death’s embrace is cold but they can keep you warm. It’s only their kiss that would kill you, so you get an idea. You ask them to spend the rest of the night and make love to you. You want them to kiss you just before the clock strikes 12 so that you don’t feel any pain, but not until after they’ve made you feel immense pleasure. Everyone’s danced with Death, but how many can say they’ve had rough sex with Death?

16. You’re Elisabeth's closest friend and confidant. You’re practically one of her Ladies in Waiting and live close to or within the palace so you can be there when your Mistress calls and has need of you. Death shapeshifts and goes by a false name to disguise themself as a mortal. They befriend you over time, conveniently crossing paths with you while you’re running errands or accompanying Sissi on her travels. The Empress spends less and less time in the palace most days, often wandering throughout Europe with you at her side. Death approaches you and engages in conversation only when you’re able to get away from your Mistress for a few moments, and they aways vanish before Elisabeth can see them. Despite their ever-changing face, they know Elisabeth would still see through their guise and they can’t risk being recognized. You turn away for a second and suddenly your new friend has gotten lost amongst the bustling crowd and you can never find them again. They’ll always find you. You grow closer and closer until they charm you into courtship.

Unbeknownst to you, Death is manipulating you to fall in love with them so they can kiss you and ensnare you in their cold embrace as revenge for Elisabeth refusing them again and again. They disguise themself as a doctor, a noble, etc. whenever they enter the mortal realm so they can get close to you without Elisabeth getting suspicious. Under their human guise, Death dances with you at balls and spends time with you in the palace or in your home whenever you’re alone. They’ve been plotting to seduce you with their sweet words and empty promises. At the eleventh hour, they’ll kiss you after you’ve made love. They’ll use your death to make Sissi emotionally vulnerable and suck out all the fight left in her. They’ll finally claim her. For years she has been stubborn in refusing their kiss, always finding the will to live at the last second. But Death has been both patient and persistent. However as you spend more and more nights together, the Black Prince unexpectedly finds themself wishing to stay with you longer and longer, until they realize they’ve forgotten their plan and their feelings of love have accidentally shifted from Elisabeth to you. Oh no. What happens now?

[planckstorytime]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Seven)

VII. This Isn’t About Saving the World – It’s About Me

My thoughts kept returning to the Gi tribe. Why did I find them so evocative?

In their pursuit of nonexistence, they cultivated their anguish, focusing it to corrupt a sacred relic. Their wishes and dreams could empower this materia – maybe they could’ve wished for a better life, a spot in the lifestream to accept them, or the fortitude to endure undying eons. But they didn’t. They did not want hope. They only sought deeper and deeper despair that could finally bring them the peace of oblivion. In the depths of their woe, they forged a power to bestow death to everything:

“Steeped in our one desire… Purest of materia no more… With pain and spite made black.”

Spite is one hell of a motivator. I felt so betrayed by the ending of Remake that I genuinely wanted Rebirth to be abhorrent. I stopped wishing for a game that would make me like the series as I once did, because I knew that hope just heralds disappointment. Caught between contradictory feelings of love and hate, I always felt dishonest to myself no matter what mindset I kept toward project. When I tried to be positive, I felt like I was dismissing my own hurt feelings; when I accentuated the negative, I had to force myself not to like the elements that I otherwise appreciated. I needed this internal argument silenced. Like the Gi, I couldn’t abide in limbo any longer.

A confluence of emotions got tangled up with these silly games. They mutated into a kind of cathectic reservoir, into which all the excess frustrations of my life flowed. Remake released in April of 2020. At that time, I had recently lost one of my best friends to a drug overdose. My beloved dog, whom I’d had since childhood, was dying. I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship. The United States political situation deteriorated further and further. And of course, a little thing called the COVID-19 pandemic struck. At the time, the world seemed cruel, and I resented my lot in life. I thought that the release of a piece of media that I’d anticipated for so long would help me feel better, but that escapism just resulted in more pain. With the literal years of isolation that followed (plus a nearly fatal snow storm), trapped at home and unable to see the people that I loved more than anything in the world, I just kept revisiting that disappointment, again and again. When every day is effectively the same, you endlessly repeat the same motions, the same feelings. In that manic state, FF7R became a sort of emblem for me, reminding me that I can’t have nice things and should not expect better from my life in any regard.

Life got better, though. Sort of. Daily life remains as challenging as ever, and new trials never stop emerging. At least I’m not locked up and scared anymore, though. Yet that game, and its impending follow-up, stayed stuck in my craw throughout the intervening years. I wish that I knew a less severe word for “trauma”, as I do not wish to trivialize the experiences of people who’ve suffered actual hardship – but this particular bugbear of mine acted as a conduit that would involuntarily drag me back to one of the worst periods of my life. Reliving that pain over and over, even as I turned these games into veritable lightning rods for my redirected negative energy, took its toll on me. The solution, to me, was to convince myself that I hated everything about them – that the hurt they gave me was all they ever were and all they ever would be. At least then they would be so unappealing that I’d never risk getting hurt again.

The results speak for themselves. I tried out Rebirth anyway, and it left me as conflicted as ever. This time, though, I feel like I’ve found meaning in that imbalance. I saw my petty struggle mirrored on the stage of a digital melodrama, and I gained a new perspective. The narrative focuses heavily on people and groups grappling with grief and spite, and the consequences of letting those demons consume you. Dyne’s rabid fury steers him to his end, denying him the chance of ever holding his daughter with an unsullied hand. Red XIII and Aerith both temper their impulses to maim Hojo after all the misery he’s inflicted upon them. Tifa divulges her previous desire for vengeance against Shinra, but how that hatred wasn’t sustainable. Cloud increasingly loses himself to murderous urges. Sephiroth’s new plan apparently hinges on a harvest of spite and sorrow from sufferers cursing their fates. Through these cases, Rebirth admonishes against obsessive anger, no matter how justified, because the true victim will always be the one reenacting their prior trauma. To draw from Aerith once more:

“It’s true that the pain and the anger we carry can make us stronger. But at what cost? What toll does it take? I believe true strength doesn’t come from any of that. True strength comes from our ability to forgive – to forge ahead in the hope of making things right. It comes from ourselves.”

It would be nice to have our problems solved for us – so that we had no reason to be angry to begin with. For me, that would’ve come in the form of a perfect adaptation: one with all of the charms that I love and none of the aspects that I hate. Y’know, just something made specifically for me, with no one else considered. Nobody’s that lucky, though. Not me, and certainly not the Gi:

“The Gi cannot rest until our sacred treasure has been restored to us. Moreover, in redressing the crimes of her ancestors, the Cetra may help us let go our ancient grudge.”

The only one who can let go of a grudge is the one who holds it. If the Gi got their Black Materia back, all it would accomplish is an extinction event. There’s no forgiveness there. The Gi must attain their peace through different means. Anger and depression must give way to acceptance – acceptance of others’ faults, acceptance of the reality of your situation, and acceptance of all the seemingly contradictory feelings swirling about that are, nonetheless, still yours.

I keep imagining alternate worlds. What if Square Enix had done this or that differently, and given us a better story? I can picture a game that would be easier for me to love. I see the contrast between what could have been with the real product, and it seeds dismay. Do these dreams help after a certain point? I realize that I cannot hide from my reality like Cloud does in the closing minutes of Rebirth. Contentment will never reach you when you’re holding out for something that will never happen. Hoping for a different fate gets you nowhere; despising your current one sends you backwards. When we linger on what we wish to be different, those unfulfilled desires, the futile hopes to rectify the past, invariably trap us in a state of permanent agitation. Only through embracing what we’ve experienced, the good and the bad, can we truly move beyond it.

As outlined earlier, I believe the third entry will likely flow with this theme, resolving on the cast achieving peace with themselves and their past woes. If it does not, so be it. I intend to internalize this lesson, even if Square does not. In the most unorthodox way, Rebirth spoke to me, and I will both acknowledge its flaws and consider its wisdom. I don’t think I’ll ever fully support the direction they took with this series. Maybe someday there will be a mod that serves as a “fan edit” to remove the distasteful elements. It’s halfway there, considering that most important scenes are intact, and the fact that you can skip Zack’s interludes on subsequent playthroughs. Until then, I have to accept a simple truth: I had fun, despite everything that bothered me.

At times, I frightened myself with how much I enjoyed the game. Knowing ahead of time that the ending would bite me in the ass, I even considered quitting to avoid that bitter sting. I thought, “What’s the point in pressing on if it all ends in disappointment?” Well, what’s the point in living, then? Sometimes we’re so afraid of pain that we would deny any chance of joy along with it. You could guess that such impulses might arise from our death drives, a primal push towards stasis.

No, I choose pleasure in the end. I choose life. Even if you know it will eventually end, I think there’s value in the transient moments of bliss. Just as it’s worth it to bond with a fictional flower girl, even knowing her tragic fate, because that story is worth experiencing regardless.

Believe me, the last thing I expected to get out of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, given my history,was a message about how life is worth living. You can’t wallow in impossible dreams, you can’t stew in impotent rage, and you can’t give in to a wish for nothingness. You must cherish what you love and accept that one day, it will fade. Nevertheless, it was real.

I won’t let my agreement or disagreement with Square’s story decisions dictate my enjoyment on principle anymore. Maybe the next game will stick the landing. Maybe not. Going by past performance, it’s likely to get 90% of the way there and then trip at the finish line. My cautiously optimistic outlook from my previous essay did not stick with me, so I cannot say that my uncharacteristically harmonious relationship with Rebirth will persevere either. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this ordeal, it’s that unexpected outcomes occur precisely because you don’t know everything. Either way, I’ll be back here in three or four years. Until then, I’ll do my best to live in the moment and be true to my feelings as they are now.

– Hunter Galbraith

Interview translations credit to @aitaikimochi and @ShinraArch.

Further Reading

Freud, Sigmund, et al. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Norton, 1989.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

[shadowspellchecker]

Rogue One Fix-it AU concept:

In which being Guardians of the Whills actually means something...

Jyn keeps seeing ghosts

Andor reverts to some old habits. Very Old Habits...

and Bodhi has had it with these mother-fucking snakes on this mother-fucking (hydro-)plane--whatthehellcaptaindon'teatit!

I've got zero time in my life and three in-limbo fanfics plus one fan-essay, so this is definitely a Sir-Never-Appearing-on-my-Works-Page. But the concept is there and demanded to be documented.

Basically, my take goes like this:

Remember that old thing about Qui-Gonn learning to manifest as a force spirit from a Shaman of the Whills? Now, in the Clone Wars series, that's explained as five Force Priestesses. But let's say for a moment that they're the same thing. Force Priestesses, Shamans of the Whills. Same difference, from a certain point of view.

So then what does that make Chirrut and Baze when they die? Not strongly Force-sensitive, but definitely Guardians of the Whills. And in a place where kyber is being experimented on, with a big-ass chunk of it looming overhead! It would make sense then that something...glitched. In this AU, I'd posit that Chirrut and Baze became manifest as Force Entities jumping between kyber crystals. Starting with the huge collection on the Death Star.

So these two wake up dead and haunting the Death Star's main weapon's most critical part. So they... interfere with the laser. Somehow. Or rather, Chirrut is; Baze provides color commentary. Ergo, Death Star needs more tweaking. Great? Great. Except, all that unfocused energy needs to go somewhere, and a good jot still runs through the transmitter and hits something flammable, blowing the facility up. Big dust cloud interfering with sensors. It's great news for surviving Rebels, but bad news at the same time: because now you have a bunch of seriously to critically injured individuals trying to survive an unwilling Beach Episode with no supplies (base destroyed) while both sides capable of rescue are scratching their heads thinking "Nobody could survive that."

Then you have Bodhi. Desert boy, fast runner. This fic posits that before the grenade blew, he managed to escape the blast by the skin of his teeth. Wouldn't do him any good whatsoever in canon, but in this case, he's just got to get out of the way of the battleground. Which he does by the time the facility goes boom.

Meanwhile, Jyn and Cassian are on the beach, expecting to die, and it goes...well, not as planned. So they're limping into the jungle, and Jyn sees Baze and Chirrut wander up and start talking. They point them in Bodhi's direction, they're the ones who suggest a useful localized painkiller (some sort of fish-like alien, just stab the afflicted area with some of those spines on it's back, don't worry the biochemistry is too different to affect you), they're the ones who discover that Krennic had left a hydrofoil further down the beach. Cassian's half-dead to comment on Jyn talking to no-one, and Jyn's too drained to notice they're blue. Eventually they run into Bodhi, find their way to the hydrofoil, Cassian collapses, and Bodhi asks Jyn who the hell she's talking to.

"Chirrut and Baze are here." "No, they're not."

What they don't realize is that their ghostly visitors are now haunting Jyn's mother's kyber crystal.

Whatever else, they're now stuck. And yes, there are snake-like eel things nesting in the hydrofoil. Good news? They biosynthesize bacta. No one realizes it until Cassian wakes up and, defaulting to dietary habits from Kenari, starts eating it raw.

And that's when the stormtrooper deserters enter the picture.

Other titles:

In which being Guardians of the Whills actually means something...

Jyn Sees Dead People...

Cassian is way too happy to play Dances With Wolves...

and Bodhi is quite reasonably done with this shit.