#verse: ghost in the machine

[horrifichaunts]

Big ol barrel of movie tag stuuuuff

[sammy8d257]

Hiiiiii!

I’ve been trying to find all of your aus, but I can’t find anything. Could you maybe post the links?

-Sorry for being a bother 😅

Hi Anon! Sorry it took literally a month to get to this ask but here you go!

Although I will warn you, I haven't updated a lot of these AUs in a while because life and other projects have taken priority, but if anyone's ever interested, send an ask and I'd be so down to infodump about them!

I have all my AvAM AUs + Main Series stuff on this webpage (It really only shows up well on desktop, sorry!)

[AvAM CONTENT]

Otherwise you can check out these tags!

Watered Down Hot Chocolate: Canon adjacent, A collection of stories exploring Purple’s past, present, and potential future in a world of colorful stick figures, kings, games and more. [#AvAM WDHC]

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Mad King AU: An AvM AU where after falling and dying in the End Void of Minecraft, Purple starts slowly going mad. Featuring slow burn madness arcs, Purple overthrowing King and making him their servant, the Color Gang stumbling upon Purple acting unhinged, and the cosmic horror of an all-consuming void that got bored one day. [#AVM Mad King AU]

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Cartoon Villain Verse: An self-indulgent AvA AU, first created before AvM s3 started where instead of Dark coming back messed up and evil, he comes back with the silliness of a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Purple becomes his henchman (because why not?) and the rest is history! [#AvA CV Verse]

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A Ghost in the Machine: An AvA horror-esque AU, featuring Victim body snatching Orange and the consequences that brings. Includes an entire comic + QnA event [#A Ghost in the Machine]

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Human Band AU: CURRENTLY BEING REWORKED - An AvA AU where all the stick figures are humans and the Color Gang are both in college and in a band. Purple owns a bar, King is their landlord, Dark and Chosen are roommates and Victim is the manager of a boy band. I have a bunch of old stuff up for it but I haven't gotten around to actually making anything new yet [#AvA Human Band AU]

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Mafia AU: An over the top AvA AU. What if Noogai made Chosen, Dark, Victim and Second for a Mafia inspired animation but later abandoned it? What if the Noogai Stick Figures still wanted to fulfill the roles they were created for and formed a Mafia Gang called the “Noogai Gang”? And what if later, 4 brightly colored Stick Figures blackmailed their way into this gang? Yeah that's the AU. [#AvA Mafia AU]

[saraminia]

📣📣📣📣 YOU SAID ALL MY FRIENDS ARE ON MY PAYROLL YOU'RE NOT WRONG YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE SCREAMING AT YOU IN THE LUDLOW I WAS YOURS FOR FREE I DON'T GET EXISTENTIAL I JUST THINK ABOUT MYSELF AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT ME STANDIN' ON MY OWN IN AN AIRPORT BAR OR HOTEL LOBBY WAITING TO FEEL CLEAN THAT'S SO FUCKING BORING!!!!

[justabookworm39]

Another year-end roundup of my zine work! Most of these are just reposts of the preview graphics, but a couple were edited together by me since there was no graphic for that specific zine or 'fic.

This was a hell of a zine year for me: got to write for two of my biggest interests for multifandom zines, got to write about some NEW favorites for multifandom zines, got to play with the horror OCs again, somehow landed a place not only in my first DanganRonpa zine, but my first Fire Emblem zine (and Three Houses at that?!)... And not included here are other writing misadventures with things like Marble Hornets, Traffic Life, some other OCs, and oh yeah...

I've started posting 'Try Again?,' my new FNAF multichapter 'fic inspired by the pile of headcanons and ideas that got me started writing for that series back in 2015. Phone Guy lives, Mike Schmidt continues working the night shift, both try to grapple with the trauma Fazbear Entertainment dropped on them and, if not actually end the long-standing tradition of tragedy, at least find some closure. It's being posted on both AO3 and Fanfiction.net (my username on both is Bookworm39), so check it out if you also enjoy horror protagonists trying to heal in the aftermath of The Plot. (Hopefully since I'm past the daisy-chain of illnesses that took me out the *week* after I uploaded Chapter 1, things can move faster from here.)

[artheresy]

Made a renheng edit to Curses by Crane Wives and I feel great,

I can and will connect The Crane Wives to any fandom I’m in, Curses IS a Renheng song

The edit^^

[silversin]

TAG DUMP.

[goodvulture]

Tags Dump

[lymtw]

Nonsexual Intimacy

Thinking about those soft, nonsexual, intimate moments where you and Toji are lying in bed, with you on top of him. You're straddling him and your arms are thrown over his shoulders, clinging onto him like a little koala. Your face is buried in his neck and your eyes are shut as you bask in the warmth of his body.

"What's wrong, baby?" He asks, letting his arms come up to rest on your back. Having Toji's arms around you was like leaving every bad thing you've ever experienced behind. He radiated the warmth of a thousand suns, and it soothed you like nothing else.

You didn't respond to his question, instead your lips pressed to his neck, brushing against him with the gentleness of a light breeze. You're smart enough to know that if you kiss him too hard, it'll start a fire in a moment where one isn't necessary.

He's smiling, softly, at your sign of affection. His palms rub your back, comfortingly, with little to no pressure. Toji is all for having sex with you, all the time and anytime. He's well versed in this method of intimacy with you, but he's not an emotionless machine. He recognizes well enough when you need more than an orgasm. He understands that you have a heart, and sometimes it needs to be tended to, regardless of whether it's damaged or not. Sometimes you just want to feel loved, and when times like these are presented to him, who is he to ridicule you for needing him?

He chuckles, softly. "Just wanna love on me, don't you, baby?"

His hands lower to the hem of your shirt, sliding beneath it to get to the warmth of your bare skin. The tranquilizing motions on your back return.

"Just need you to be with me, right now," you mumble into his neck. "I know this probably seems weird, but I just wanna stay like this for a while."

"Shh... you're alright, my sweet girl. We can be quiet for a bit."

You go back to lazily kissing his neck. You can feel his heartbeat thrumming against your lips, a rhythm that makes your own heart start to pick up that same pace. You take a deep breath and slowly let it out, pausing your movements to appreciate the distinct smell of his cologne. It makes you want to squeeze him until he can't breathe, or at least attempt to squeeze him that hard.

"Toji," you say, quietly, like you're saying it to yourself.

"Hm?" He responds, stilling his hands.

"Nothing. Just wanted to say your name. I like saying your name."

Another laugh rumbles through his chest, the movement shaking you a little. "It's yours to say."

"Can I keep saying it? Until it doesn't sound like a name anymore?"

He smiles, pulling one hand out of your shirt to place it on the nape of your neck. "By all means. Don't need my permission."

You giggle, the sound so clear beneath Toji's ear. If he had the warmth of a thousand suns, you had the beauty of the night's guiding moon.

"Toji," you say, softly. After every repetition of his name, you ghost your lips all over his neck. Toji thinks he could stay like this for longer than a bit. He feels at ease, knowing you're there, acting as his most cherished blanket. He feels so light, like he's not even in his body anymore. You don't even know how happy he is. You can't see the soft smile on his face and how it's failing to disappear.

"Toji," you repeated one last time.

He had lost track of how many times you said his name, but not once did he get tired of hearing it. He wanted to answer your call, this time. "Yeah, baby?"

"Love you."

In all your gentleness and loving, you offered him serenity, and he enveloped himself in it. If your love could be bottled, he would live off of it. He would cook it into his every day meals. He would blend it into his protein shakes. He would bathe in it. He would mix it with his cologne. He would live off of it like it's the secret to a life spent with you loving him the way you do. So what if he's addicted? It seems like the perfect way to go.

Toji could hear your light breathing. You stopped kissing him, and your arms went limp on his shoulders. You fell asleep. It was a common occurrence whenever you shared moments like these with him. It was the security, and his embrace, and his warmth, and his scent... all things that made you feel safe enough to doze off.

He pressed multiple quick kisses to your temple. Both of his arms returned to your torso, wrapping around it with a slightly tighter hold than before. "Love you, too, mama," he muttered against your temple. He ended up falling asleep to the sound of your breathing.

[wonyowonyo]

Static Echoes (U. Aeri/Giselle X M! Reader)

Wc: 9.6k Tags: Angst? In a captivating city humming with static, a faded musician haunted by a lover’s ghost-voice and a photographer who blurrs every truth must choose: burn in the clarity of what they almost were, or drown in the beautiful ruin of what’s left. A/N: No scene banners for this one, just pure emotional angst. For the lad who asked for Giselle, I'll write a fluff to make up for this, trust hehe

Rain sluiced down the window of Y/N’s cramped third-floor walk-up, distorting the neon glow of the pawn shop sign across the street into a bleeding halo. Inside his dim apartment—a cramped realm of mismatched furniture, scuffed vinyl floors, and peeling posters of bands that once stirred his soul—Y/N hunched over his battered acoustic guitar. His fingers, worn from years of relentless practice and broken promises, plucked uncertainly at new strings he’d just installed. Somewhere in the background, a demo of “Moth Wing Hours” played on an aging laptop, its fragile melody looping relentlessly like a half-remembered dream.

Y/N’s apartment reeked of rosin and stale coffee, and every surface was cluttered with the detritus of a life half-lived. Amid scattered guitar picks, dog-eared notebooks of scribbled lyrics, and dusty vinyl records, the air pulsed with an undercurrent of longing—a ghost of musical glory days when his voice had burned with the reckless promise of forever. But now, that promise had faded into the static of everyday drudgery.

He had once believed his music could set the world ablaze, but time had a way of dampening even the brightest flames. Today, he was less a celebrated poet of chords and verses and more a reluctant music teacher, offering guitar lessons to disinterested teens. Their boredom was palpable, their questions laced with teenage cynicism, as if each chord he strummed was a reminder of the disconnect between his faded dreams and their insipid realities. Corporate gigs had replaced smoky dive bars; the sterile ambiance of upscale hotel lobbies and overpriced cocktail lounges left him feeling like nothing more than a ghost—a relic of a 20-something’s Spotify playlist that had long been forgotten.

As he tuned the guitar, Y/N’s eyes drifted to the rain-streaked window. Outside, the City of Seoul pulsed with neon life, a chaotic mix of transient lights and forgotten promises. The rain blurred the boundaries between past and present, and in that liminal moment, he could almost believe that the static in the background wasn’t just electronic noise but something more—a whisper from a memory he’d long tried to escape.

A sudden hiss from the ancient coffee machine in the kitchen shattered the quiet. The sound, almost spectral in its persistence, seemed to carry an echo of a laugh—low, smoky, and hauntingly familiar. For a split second, Y/N thought he heard Aeri’s laugh amid the hiss, a sound that had once lit up the darkest corners of his heart. In that instant, time fractured, and memories surged forward like a tidal wave: the clink of ice in a glass, the soft murmur of conversation on a fire escape, the reckless abandon of youth.

Distracted by the ghostly echo, his hand jerked, and the mug he’d cradled slipped from his grasp. It tumbled onto the linoleum floor, shattering into a constellation of ceramic shards that cut into his palms. He stared at the scattered pieces, each fragment a silent testament to a past filled with hope and now a present marred by regret.

Y/N’s thoughts raced. How had life reduced him to a curator of almosts? Almost-famous, almost-healed, almost-in-love. He glanced at the list on his cluttered desk—a litany of student names and dates, each entry a quiet reminder of those who had slipped away. Hannah W. flashed before his eyes, the note beside her name a sarcastic parenthesis: “nursery rhymes” from a canceled lesson. Fifteen years ago, such a cancellation might have ignited a fury worthy of a thrown phone, but now, he felt only numb resignation.

He ran a hand through his tangled hair and let his gaze fall on the cracked screen of his laptop. The demo of “Moth Wing Hours” continued unabated, its melody merging with the rhythmic patter of the rain. In that fragile moment, the past and present blurred—a bittersweet fusion of what once was and what might have been. The static in the apartment wasn’t just background noise; it was the heartbeat of his disintegrating dreams.

————————————————————

Miles away, under a different kind of light, Aeri’s world unfolded in stark contrasts. Her studio was a converted loft that doubled as a darkroom, its atmosphere thick with the smell of chemicals and the red glow of safelights. Here, she reigned as both artist and chronicler—a trauma paparazzo who captured the raw, unfiltered moments of human devastation. Images of bombed-out hospitals in Kyiv, ashen faces of wildfire survivors, and the solitary photograph of a child’s shoe half-buried in flood mud hung from the walls like spectral memorials. Each image was a frozen scream, a testament to chaos and loss.

Among these fractured narratives, one photograph stood apart with startling clarity. It was a portrait of Y/N, captured in the vulnerable quiet of sleep, bathed in the gentle glow of dawn. His face, soft and unguarded, bore the delicate lines of a man haunted by memories yet still clinging to fragments of hope. Aeri’s eyes lingered on it, her pulse quickening as she recalled that moment—a rare instance when the chaos of her world had paused, revealing a truth too intimate for her usual repertoire.

Her phone buzzed insistently on a cluttered table, its screen lighting up with a reminder of an impending deadline. Aeri’s agent was on the line, his voice crackling through the speaker with the brisk efficiency of someone used to demanding perfection.

“Look, Sash, The Times wants a quote about ‘UNSEEN.’ I need you to give them the usual—‘It’s about the elusiveness of truth’—and stop overthinking the damn artist statement,” he barked, his tone a mixture of impatience and exasperation.

Aeri pressed a thumb against her scar—a faded, jagged line from the ’16 riot in Istanbul that had nearly cost her more than just her pride. “I’m not overthinking,” she snapped, her voice low and tremulous with defiance. “I’m curating, shaping fragments of reality into something real.” She swept a hand through her ink-black hair and looked around her darkroom, where each photograph seemed to pulse with unspoken stories. “Truth isn’t elusive, it’s blinding. Sometimes it’s just too bright to face directly.”

Her agent’s voice cut through her reverie. “Just stick to the script, Aeri.”

As if in response to the mounting pressure, Aeri reached for a freshly developed print of Y/N’s photo. She held it up to the dim red light, marveling at the clarity that set it apart from the other blurred images—a moment of pure, unedited vulnerability in an otherwise chaotic portfolio. In her trembling hands, that image represented all the contradictions of her life: her success as a trauma chronicler and her inability to process the intimacy that this one shot demanded.

But as she adjusted the print, a misstep sent a splash of developer solution cascading over it. The clear lines of Y/N’s face blurred into a golden smear, the vivid detail dissolving like memories fading in the rain. For a long, heart-wrenching moment, she watched the image twist into something unrecognizable—a casualty of her own inner turmoil.

“Fuck,” she muttered, her voice barely audible over the steady hum of the chemicals. With shaking fingers, she retrieved the ruined print and, as if performing a ritual of both guilt and preservation, she tucked it away into a drawer labeled “UNDEVELOPED.” In that secret compartment of her studio, Aeri locked away not just a ruined photograph, but a piece of herself she wasn’t ready to confront—a reminder of the man whose sleep had betrayed his true self.

Outside, the rain eased into a gentle mist, and the city began to stir with a hesitant vibrancy. The blurred boundaries between past and present, reality and memory, persisted like a half-remembered dream. Aeri exhaled slowly, her mind a tangled web of creative passion and self-imposed isolation. Each ruined print, every blurred image, was a step in her journey to capture the inescapable truth—no matter how painful or beautiful it might be.

————————————————————

Later that evening, Y/N mounted his aging bicycle and pedaled into the night. The urban landscape, washed clean by the relentless rain, was transformed into a series of luminous reflections and fractured silhouettes. He navigated the slick, glistening streets with an air of weary determination, his mind heavy with the ghosts of unfinished songs and missed opportunities.

As he passed under a mural on 5th and Vine, a colossal billboard came into view. It was an arresting display—“UNSEEN: PHOTOGRAPHS BY AERI UCHINAGA’’ sprawled boldly across its surface. The image that dominated the ad was Aeri’s own, her face a study in defiance and vulnerability, half-consumed by shadow and light. Her eyes, sharp and inscrutable, seemed to challenge the viewer to uncover the secrets behind the facade. The billboard glowed with an almost otherworldly intensity, daring him to confront the specter of their shared past.

Y/N’s pulse quickened as he slowed to a stop, the chill of the evening mingling with the heat of buried emotions. Every detail of the billboard—the stark typography, the interplay of dark and luminous hues—spoke to the unresolved tension between him and Aeri. In that suspended moment, he felt the weight of every nearly-spoken word, every lost chance at redemption.

He fumbled with his phone, hesitating as he opened a new text message. His fingers hovered over the screen, a message forming—a tentative greeting, a whispered admission of his lingering feelings. “Heard you’re in town…” the message began, each word a tentative bridge between past hurts and uncertain hope. But as quickly as the words appeared, doubt flooded his mind. What if reaching out would shatter the fragile peace he’d fought so hard to build? The tension between longing and fear was as palpable as the damp chill of the night air.

In a moment of desperate indecision, he deleted the message. But the act of deletion felt like a small betrayal of his own yearning. His heart pounded in his ears as he stared at the dark screen, the silence more oppressive than the constant hum of the city. The electric tension of unsaid words and unfinished conversations surged within him, igniting a fury that he could no longer contain.

In a burst of anger and sorrow, Y/N’s hand clenched around the phone. With a swift, impulsive motion, he hurled it against the wall of a nearby building. The impact sent a shudder through the quiet street, and the sound of cracking glass echoed like a final exclamation mark to a conversation that would never be finished. For a few heartbeats, he stood motionless in the rain, the bitter taste of regret mingling with the dampness on his skin.

A bike messenger whizzed by, his whistled comment barely audible above the steady patter of rain. “Bad breakup?” the stranger teased, his tone light as if life’s hardships could be distilled into a single, offhand remark. Y/N managed a bitter smile in response, but the gesture was hollow—more a mask for the turmoil swirling inside than an expression of genuine amusement.

The billboard loomed above him, its vibrant, defiant image of Aeri a constant reminder of the unresolved chapters in their shared past. The rain continued to fall, each drop a muted percussion in the symphony of urban solitude. Y/N’s eyes traced the contours of her face on the billboard—the half-shadowed jawline, the fierce determination in her eyes—and he felt the sharp sting of memories both beautiful and painful.

In that fractured moment, as the rain softened and the city settled into a contemplative hush, Y/N realized that the static in his life—the noise of lost opportunities and unsaid apologies—was something he could no longer ignore. Whether it was the echo of Aeri’s laugh in the hiss of the coffee machine or the blurred remnants of a photograph hidden away in a dark drawer, the past had a way of intruding upon the present, demanding to be seen, acknowledged, and, ultimately, resolved.

As the neon lights danced on the wet pavement and the echoes of his shattered phone reverberated in his mind, Y/N stood at the crossroads of what had been and what might yet be. The city, drenched in rain and bathed in the fractured glow of memories, beckoned him forward. Somewhere between the static of his fading dreams and the promise of a new, uncertain dawn lay the truth he had long evaded—a truth as elusive as the fleeting smile of a ghost, yet as persistent as the rain that never ceased.

In that final, lingering moment before the night swallowed him whole, Y/N closed his eyes and listened to the symphony of his past—the haunting refrain of “Moth Wing Hours,” the whispered echoes of a love lost and found in the static, and the promise of redemption hidden within the fractured reflections of neon light. The journey was far from over, and with each beat of his determined heart, he knew that the search for truth, however painful and elusive, was one worth the risk.

————————————————————

The night deepened, and as Y/N finally mounted his bike once more, the city around him seemed to pulse with a renewed urgency. Every raindrop, every flickering streetlamp, every shard of broken glass on the pavement was a reminder of both the beauty and the brutality of a life lived on the edge of memory and possibility. He pedaled on, the remnants of his anger slowly dissolving into a quiet resolve. Tonight, beneath the relentless rain and the indifferent glow of neon, Y/N would confront the static that had haunted him for so long—and perhaps, in that act of defiance, find a way to reclaim the fragments of himself he’d long thought lost.

The urban night was alive with possibility, each corner and shadow a silent promise of stories yet to be told. As Y/N disappeared into the rain-soaked maze of city streets, his heart whispered a tentative hope: that even amid the static of shattered dreams, there might yet be a spark of something real—something that could light the way forward, however uncertain the path.

————————————————————

The memory of that humid summer night still burned like an old photograph in Y/N’s mind—a moment when uncertainty danced with reckless possibility. It was his first open mic at The Iris Room, a dive bar where the walls were as worn as the stories of its patrons. Y/N, just 24 and armed with a hopeful guitar and a pocketful of unsung songs, stood on a rickety stage beneath a single, sputtering spotlight. The audience, a ragtag collection of night owls and lost souls, leaned in with half-expected indifference.

As he strummed the opening chords of a song he’d never fully finished, his voice wavered between passion and apprehension. Every note carried the weight of his insecurities and the tender promise of new beginnings. Mid-performance, when he dared to let his guard down, a sharp voice cut through the din. “Stop singing like you’re scared of the mic, poet,” came a taunt from the back of the room.

He paused, heart pounding, and then spotted her—Aeri, 23, with eyes alight like flares in the dark. Her tone was mischievous and daring, a challenge that stung yet invigorated him. The remark hung in the smoky air, a spark that ignited something inside him. Instead of retreating into his shell, Y/N found himself grinning, a flush of adrenaline and defiance coloring his cheeks.

After the set, with applause mingled with playful jeers, Aeri made her way to him. “You’ve got guts,” she said with a wry smile, leaning against the peeling backdrop of a backstage door. “But you’re holding back—like you’re afraid to let the real you out.”

Her words, sharp yet tender, cut through his uncertainty. The moment crackled with the electricity of two lives colliding unexpectedly. They traded barbed compliments and earnest confessions in the haze of cheap beer and neon reflections. When the night was winding down and the band’s final chord lingered in the air, Aeri whispered, “Come on. Let’s ditch this dump and do something reckless.”

Y/N hesitated for only a heartbeat before grabbing his coat and following her out into the sticky summer night. They left The Iris Room together, laughter trailing behind them like a shared secret. The humid air was thick with promise as they hopped onto a beat-up car and sped away from the dim lights and stale smoke of the bar.

Their destination was as unconventional as their encounter—a towering, abandoned water tower on the outskirts of the city. Its rusted metal skin and precarious perch promised both danger and freedom. As they climbed the narrow, creaking stairs, the city below spread out in a patchwork of lights and shadows. At the top, the world seemed suspended in a moment of both vertigo and liberation.

Aeri pulled out her camera with practiced ease. “Hold that smile,” she urged, aiming the lens at Y/N. With the cityscape behind him and the wind whipping his hair, Y/N’s laughter echoed off the cold metal—a pure, unguarded sound. In that moment, as the shutter clicked, she captured not just his face but the raw, unfiltered joy of that reckless defiance.

Barely containing her delight, Aeri teased, “You’re like a chord that won’t resolve.” Y/N’s grin widened as he retorted, “Maybe I’m a bridge to nowhere.”

Their banter mingled with the roar of the wind and the distant hum of a city that never slept. In that dizzying height, every word, every glance, vibrated with the intensity of newfound chemistry. When Aeri’s hand brushed against his, the connection was immediate—a live wire that seemed to electrify the very air between them.

As the night deepened, the duo settled on a battered metal bench near the edge of the water tower. Aeri, ever the provocateur, pulled a worn flask from her leather satchel and offered it to him. “Here,” she said, eyes twinkling, “for the bold and the brave.” In a moment of playful rebellion, Y/N snatched it from her hand and pretended to take a swig, only to toss it back with a laugh. The flask, like their burgeoning connection, was both a challenge and a token—a symbol of defiance against a world that had too often demanded conformity.

Their conversation wove through the night like an improvisational melody—stories of past heartbreaks, dreams too wild for daylight, and confessions whispered over the hum of a forgotten city. Every word felt charged with meaning, every pause pregnant with possibility. As they descended the water tower, their fingers remained intertwined—a silent promise of adventures yet to come.

By the time they reached the ground, the horizon was a blur of deep blues and emerging hints of dawn. That night, in the raw, unfiltered glow of urban rebellion, they had forged an unspoken pact: to live as though every moment were both a beginning and an end, a snapshot of perfection in a world of nearly-there moments. Their first meeting had been a collision of contrasts—a clash of vulnerability and audacity, leaving them both forever marked by the brilliance of a summer that almost was.

————————————————————

In the weeks that followed, their whirlwind romance unfolded like a montage of vivid snapshots, each moment as fleeting and fragile as moth wings in a summer breeze. Aeri dragged Y/N into her nocturnal world, a realm of abandoned factories and forgotten landscapes, where the ruins whispered secrets of a once-thriving industrial past. At 3 a.m., when the city slept under a veil of darkness, she would lead him to places that pulsed with a raw, melancholic beauty.

One such night, they arrived at an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. The building, draped in ivy and bathed in the ghostly glow of moonlight, seemed to breathe with memories of its past. Aeri’s camera was an extension of her steady hand, capturing each decaying detail with an artist’s eye. As she framed a shot of a rusted machine half-submerged in shadow, Y/N’s presence disrupted the serene stillness of her composition. He wandered into the frame, his eyes filled with wonder and a hint of mischief, transforming the image from a static relic into a living narrative.

“You always ruin the shot,” she laughed, shaking her head as she snapped a quick picture of him. But the irritation in her tone was softened by the affectionate glimmer in her eyes. In that brief exchange, Y/N felt both exasperation and adoration—a realization that she saw the beauty in his spontaneity even when it disrupted her meticulous plans.

In quieter moments, Y/N retreated to his notebook, scribbling lines of poetry and song lyrics that seemed to capture the duality of their connection. One passage in particular resonated with him as he wrote in a cramped diner booth, the words flowing almost unconsciously:

“You’re the flash that ruins the shot I’m the darkroom, begging for light.”

The line encapsulated everything: Aeri was a burst of brilliance that threatened to overwhelm the careful, shadowed spaces within him. Her presence illuminated parts of him he’d kept hidden away, and yet, it also unraveled the fragile fabric of his carefully curated persona.

But as with all passionate affairs, the summer was not without its fractures. One rainy afternoon, a letter arrived that upended their fragile idyll. It was from Aeri’s ex—a reminder of a past that refused to be forgotten. The letter was laced with bitterness and regret, accusing her of betraying what was once real. That night, in the cramped intimacy of her apartment, Aeri’s facade cracked.

Over clattering dishes and the low hum of an old fan, she confronted Y/N. “You’re romanticizing chaos,” she accused, her voice trembling with a mixture of fury and sorrow. “Every time you spin your tales, you turn our moments into some tragic myth.”

Y/N’s eyes, usually so soft in the face of her intensity, hardened in response. “And you,” he shot back, “are nothing but an emotional tourist—riding the waves of every storm without ever letting the calm in.”

The argument reverberated through the night, punctuated by sharp words and longer silences. Their love, once a spontaneous burst of light, now flickered uncertainly in the shadow of old wounds and unresolved grief. Yet, even as anger spilled over, the undercurrent of desire remained undeniable—a magnetic pull that neither could fully resist.

After the fight, they found themselves drifting into a fragile silence. In the quiet moments that followed, Aeri’s eyes wandered back to the ruined letters and half-packed bags, and Y/N’s mind returned to the pages of his notebook stained with hastily scribbled verses. The vibrancy of their summer began to show the scars of reality—a reminder that even the most luminous moments can be marred by the ghosts of the past.

Despite the pain, there was beauty in their chaos. Each spontaneous adventure, every whispered word and stolen glance, was a piece of the mosaic that defined their summer. Their love was a collage of moments—bright, blurred, and sometimes broken—but it was entirely theirs. In the dim light of early morning, as they lay side by side on a threadbare rug in a forgotten loft, the echoes of laughter and argument blended into a haunting melody. It was a love story written in stolen snapshots and fleeting verses, as transient and unforgettable as the moth wings that fluttered in the heat of summer nights.

————————————————————

Dawn crept in with an unforgiving clarity that shattered the illusions of the night. In the cold predawn light, Aeri moved silently through the narrow apartment they’d once shared, her footsteps echoing against tile and worn-out memories. Y/N lay still in a tangled heap on the bed, his eyes closed as if he could escape the painful finality of what was about to unfold.

She had always been the one to seize the moment—the wild, untamable spirit who never hesitated to break free. And now, as the first blush of morning painted the sky in pale pastels, she was leaving. The weight of their fractured summer pressed down on her with every careful step.

Y/N’s eyes fluttered open just as she paused by the door. He forced himself to remain still, feigning sleep as he watched her prepare to leave. In the quiet hush of that fateful morning, he sensed the end was near. The silence was thick, punctuated only by the distant hum of traffic and the soft clink of her keys in the lock.

Aeri lingered in the doorway for a moment longer, her silhouette framed by the weak light of dawn. Before stepping out, she pulled out her camera with a practiced precision. There was a final ritual she needed to perform—a goodbye captured in crystal-clear honesty. In a single, decisive moment, she turned the lens on Y/N, freezing him in a tableau of vulnerability. His face, relaxed and unaware of the significance of the shot, bore the deep lines of a man who had given his heart away too many times.

As the shutter clicked, Aeri’s hand trembled with the weight of what she was doing. In that silent snapshot, every unspoken word, every tear unshed, was captured in a moment of raw, unedited truth. Her eyes flickered over the image, then to the worn notebook on the bedside table where Y/N’s poetry had once spilled like secrets.

For a few agonizing moments, she fumbled with a crumpled piece of paper—a note that she had scribbled in a fit of conflicting emotions. The words were hurried and raw: “I’ll ruin us faster than art ever could.” The note, however, never found its way to him. In a sudden impulse, Aeri crumpled it into a tight fist and tore it up, scattering fragments of regret and unfulfilled promise across the cold floor.

Then, without another backward glance, she slipped out the door into the early morning haze, leaving Y/N alone with the echo of her departure. The apartment, once a sanctuary of shared dreams, now felt unbearably empty—a mausoleum of memories and lingering echoes of laughter.

Y/N remained still for a long while, the silence of the room pressing in on him like a suffocating fog. He listened to the distant sound of footsteps receding, each step marking the slow death of what had once been a blazing, uncontainable flame. In that quiet aftermath, he felt the sting of loss so acute that it seemed to tear at the very fabric of his soul.

He turned his head toward the window, where the first rays of the sun filtered through in brittle strips of light, and wondered if this was how every ending felt—both inevitable and shattering, like a masterpiece unraveled stroke by stroke. The crisp clarity of the morning betrayed no hint of the wild, transient passion that had defined their summer. Instead, it was a mirror reflecting back the broken shards of a love that had burned too fiercely to last.

For hours, Y/N lay there, caught between the desire to call out and the resignation of silence. He replayed every laugh, every heated argument, and every tender touch in his mind—each one a delicate thread in the tapestry of their brief, chaotic romance. And as the sun climbed higher, warming the cold floor beneath him, he realized that even in the midst of heartbreak, there was a strange, unyielding beauty in the truth of it all.

————————————————————

Years later, the echoes of that tumultuous summer still resonated in the present, converging in a singular, charged moment. Y/N arrived at the gallery with his battered guitar strapped to his back—a silent testament to a life that had wandered far from the reckless days of youth, yet never quite escaped their shadow. The gallery buzzed with the hum of murmured conversations and the clink of glasses, the air thick with anticipation and the scent of polished wood.

Across the room, under the cool glow of strategically placed lights, Aeri stood framed by a backdrop of her photographs. Dressed in a tailored blazer that contrasted sharply with the raw, unfiltered images of pain and beauty she had captured, she exuded an air of controlled authority. For a moment, as she interviewed a particularly enthusiastic art critic, her composure faltered. Her eyes lifted and met Y/N’s across the crowded room—a silent collision of past and present that sent a jolt through both of them.

Time seemed to pause as memories cascaded between them—the fevered nights on water towers, the stolen laughter under abandoned factories, the quiet devastation of that final morning. In that suspended second, the gallery, with its pristine walls and hushed whispers, transformed into a stage for their unresolved history. Y/N’s heart pounded in his ears, the sound mingling with the ambient chatter, as he took a tentative step forward.

The critic’s questions faded into the background as Aeri’s gaze held his, raw and unspoken. For a brief, fragile moment, they were transported back to that summer of almosts—the incandescent flash of youth, the daring risk of vulnerability, and the bittersweet taste of what might have been. Aeri’s hand twitched near her side, as if reaching out to bridge the gulf of years and regrets. And Y/N, with a mixture of hope and hesitation, wondered if the unresolved chords of their past could somehow be tuned to a new melody.

In the charged silence that followed, both recognized that the distance between them was measured not in miles or years, but in the scars and memories that each carried. The gallery lights, soft and unforgiving, illuminated every wrinkle of regret, every lingering smile of nostalgia. It was a moment where the weight of their shared history pressed against the fragile present—a reminder that even as life marched forward, the past never truly let go.

As the room slowly returned to its normal rhythm, Aeri cleared her throat, regaining her professional poise, while Y/N lingered at the edge of the conversation like a ghost from a time when every note mattered. In that brief, electric encounter, the silent promise of unfinished music hung in the air—a promise that perhaps, someday, they would dare to play their old song once again.

The past and present, woven together in a delicate tapestry of memories and unspoken truths, revealed a love that was never entirely lost—only transformed into a haunting refrain that echoed through every chord and captured frame.

The evening had settled into a heavy, indigo twilight as guests filtered into the gallery. The space, a converted industrial loft with soaring ceilings and exposed brick, was filled with hushed conversations and the soft clink of wine glasses. Overhead, a single spotlight traced slow circles around Aeri’s photographs—a sprawling body of work that oscillated between raw brutality and a fragile, dreamlike beauty. It was as if every image was a confession, a whispered secret meant for those brave enough to look beyond the surface.

————————————————————

Clusters of guests drifted among the images, their voices a murmur of appreciation and critique. One guest, a sharply dressed critic with a wry smile, stopped before a series of images that captured urban decay and intimate despair. He leaned in, appraising the photos with a measured gaze, then remarked loud enough for those nearby to hear, “Brave… if you like emotional voyeurism.” His tone was mocking yet laced with admiration—a dismissal that somehow validated Aeri’s work as both daring and disturbingly honest.

Y/N stood in a quieter corner of the gallery, a silent observer amid the well-heeled conversation. His gaze was fixed on a photograph titled “The Bridge to Nowhere.” It was a blurred shot of a water tower, its structure distorted by motion and shadow. The image seemed to capture something essential—a moment suspended between hope and futility, echoing the restless nights of their shared past. The photograph, much like the memory of that summer, was both haunting and achingly beautiful. Y/N’s thoughts swirled with the recollections of a time when every risk was a promise, when every misstep was a note in the symphony of youth.

The dim lighting in the gallery transformed the image into a ghostly vision. He could almost hear the echo of their laughter on that water tower, feel the electric thrill of their first encounter mingled with the uncertainty of what was to come. In that moment, every critique, every whispered appraisal in the room, faded into a background hum—insignificant compared to the relentless pull of the past.

Across the room, Aeri navigated her own storm of emotions. Dressed in a sleek, tailored blazer that belied the chaos of her inner world, she moved with a practiced grace. Yet every so often, her eyes would stray to the very photograph that haunted Y/N’s attention. It was as if, through that blurred image, both of them had found a piece of themselves they could never quite reclaim—a truth too raw to be confined to memory alone.

————————————————————

As the exhibit drew on, the tension between past and present reached a fever pitch. The gallery’s polished interior gave way to a narrow, fire-escape landing behind the building, a shadowy refuge from the pretension of art critics and connoisseurs. Here, the rawness of the night reigned again. The metallic scent of rain and the chill of concrete underfoot were a stark contrast to the curated beauty of the exhibit.

Y/N found Aeri leaning against the cold railing, her gaze fixed on the city skyline—a tapestry of neon lights and distant sirens. The space between them was charged, a silent battleground for words unspoken for too long. Y/N stepped forward, his voice trembling with a mix of anger and yearning.

“You took the truth and smudged it into something safe,” he said, his tone both accusatory and desperate. His words cut through the night, raw as the wind that whipped around the fire escape.

Aeri’s eyes flashed with a storm of emotions—regret, defiance, and a deep-seated pain. “You think I didn’t try?” she shot back, her voice low and measured, though every syllable trembled with the weight of old wounds. “I’d point the lens at you, and it’d feel like… like aiming at the sun.” Her words were a confession, a brittle admission that the process of capturing truth was as dangerous and blinding as confronting it directly.

For a long, suspended moment, the only sound was the rustling of their breaths mingling with the city’s distant hum. The fire escape, lit only by the feeble glow of a streetlamp, became the stage for a collision of their two worlds—one forged in the incandescent heat of passion, the other cooled by the bitterness of memory.

Aeri’s gaze dropped to the small leather case slung over her shoulder—the one that contained all her most intimate photographs, the images she’d hidden away from prying eyes and the relentless scrutiny of the world. Slowly, almost hesitantly, she unlatched it and drew out a single print. It was an image she had never dared show anyone—a photograph captured in the darkness of a forgotten night, a moment when vulnerability and raw emotion intertwined to form something irretrievably real.

Y/N’s eyes widened as he took in the image. The photo was of him—at a moment of complete exposure. His face was lit by a soft, almost unearthly glow; his expression was one of tender anguish and hopeful defiance. It was as if every line, every shadow on his face, had been etched by a memory too painful to forget and too beautiful to ignore. The clarity of the image was in stark contrast to the blurred aesthetics of “The Bridge to Nowhere.” It was the unvarnished truth, stripped of artifice.

“I—” Y/N began, but his voice faltered. The room around him seemed to dissolve, leaving only the image and the haunting echo of a song in his mind. The static of all his past regrets, hopes, and dreams crescendoed into a familiar refrain—a melody he had long tried to bury but could never forget.

In that moment, as if summoned by the intensity of his emotions, the first notes of “Moth Wing Hours” began to swell within him. The song, raw and unpolished, rose from the depths of his memory. It was a piece Aeri had never heard, a melody woven from the threads of their shared history and the silent spaces between their words. Its strains were both a lament and a declaration, a summoning of every lost moment and every almost-forgotten promise.

The sound seemed to transform the night. The city below, the cold metal of the fire escape, even the distant hum of traffic, all receded as Y/N’s inner world surged forth. He could almost see the images of their past—flashbacks of a summer ablaze with possibility, of stolen kisses and reckless confessions. The song was more than music; it was an outpouring of every fragment of his soul that had been buried under layers of static and silence.

Aeri’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she watched him. For so long, she had hidden behind her camera, behind her carefully curated images, in an attempt to capture the truth without facing it. Now, faced with the raw, unfiltered emotion of the man before her, her defenses crumbled. The photograph in her hand trembled as if it, too, could sense the gravity of the moment.

————————————————————

The confrontation on the fire escape marked a turning point—a precipice between what had been and what could be. With the hidden photo still clutched in her hand, Aeri took a tentative step forward. The quiet urgency in her eyes spoke of regrets and unspoken apologies, of a love that had once burned fiercely but had been dimmed by time and circumstance.

Y/N, still clutching the weight of the photograph in his mind, slowly retrieved his battered guitar from the case slung over his back. The instrument, scarred and weathered by years of neglect and forgotten melodies, was as much a part of him as the memories that haunted his every chord. He sat down on the cold, metal step of the fire escape, the city lights flickering like distant memories around him.

With deliberate care, he positioned the guitar against his knee and began to strum—a single, raw note that cut through the stillness of the night. The sound was unpolished, rough around the edges, yet it carried with it an undeniable truth. Each chord resonated with the cumulative weight of every missed chance, every whispered regret, every spark of defiant hope that had flickered in the darkness of their shared past.

As the melody built, so did the intensity of their unspoken exchange. Aeri watched, transfixed, as the notes of “Moth Wing Hours” filled the space between them. There was a vulnerability in his playing—a surrender to the truth that had long been hidden behind layers of static and distance. The song unfolded slowly, each refrain a delicate tapestry of sound that intertwined with the fragile remnants of their memories.

Tears welled in Aeri’s eyes as she absorbed the raw emotion in every note. Her camera, once a tool for capturing the fleeting beauty of the world, now hung limply by her side—a silent witness to the convergence of art and life. The layers of artifice and carefully contrived images fell away, leaving only the bare, unfiltered essence of who they once were—and perhaps, who they could still become.

For a long while, the two stood there on the fire escape, the night embracing them with its cool, indifferent arms. There was no physical contact—no desperate reach or trembling embrace. Instead, there was a communion of souls, a recognition that in the interplay of light and shadow, truth and art, they had found something worth preserving.

The music swelled, a crescendo of emotion that echoed through the empty streets below. Y/N’s fingers danced over the strings, coaxing the final notes from the guitar as if to seal the past and herald a new beginning. The song, filled with every fragment of their broken history and every glimmer of hope, hung in the air—a fragile promise that the static could finally fade.

In that suspended moment, the relentless noise of life—the criticisms, the ghostly echoes of mistakes, the ever-present reminder of what had been lost—began to dissolve. The collision of their worlds, so long marked by the fractures of time and regret, softened into a quiet understanding. The harsh lines of memory blurred, giving way to a tender, unspoken possibility.

Aeri’s tears fell silently as she listened, each drop a small testament to the emotions that had been held at bay for far too long. Y/N’s playing was not just a performance—it was an act of confession, a desperate attempt to reconcile the shards of a past that had been shattered by the weight of dreams deferred. The notes of “Moth Wing Hours” wove around them like a cocoon, a fragile barrier against the relentless tide of the world outside.

When the last chord finally faded, the silence that followed was profound. It was a silence filled not with emptiness, but with the unspoken promise of renewal—a moment where every raw, painful truth was met with the gentle possibility of forgiveness. Y/N’s eyes met Aeri’s, and in that exchange, both knew that the collision of their lives had not been an end, but a chance—a narrow, trembling opportunity to rebuild something honest from the ruins of what had been.

Without a word, Y/N set his guitar aside, the echo of his song lingering in the night air like a benediction. Aeri, still trembling, slowly retrieved the hidden photograph from her jacket pocket. In the weak glow of the streetlamp, she allowed herself a final, shuddering breath—a silent farewell to the ghosts of their shared past and an acceptance of the fragile, uncertain future that lay ahead.

For a long, aching moment, neither spoke. The raw, unvarnished emotion between them was palpable—a truth too heavy for words, yet light enough to bear hope. The static of all the past, the noise of regret and the clamor of what might have been, had finally begun to fade into the gentle hum of a new beginning.

As the city resumed its nocturnal rhythm, Y/N turned away, leaving the fire escape and the echoes of the past behind him. Aeri lingered a moment longer, her heart full of all the things unsaid and undone, then stepped back into the gallery. Inside, the harsh critiques and the polished facades of art awaited, but for a brief, transcendent instant on that cold fire escape, the raw pulse of truth had reawakened something long dormant.

In the days that followed, neither could entirely erase the memory of that night—the night when art and life collided, when every fractured note and blurred image spoke of a love both haunting and redemptive. Y/N continued to play his music, the unpolished notes of “Moth Wing Hours” now a permanent refrain in his heart. And Aeri, her camera now a little heavier with the weight of remembered truth, sought out new images—each one a step toward capturing not just the fleeting beauty of the world, but the unyielding truth of a love that had once dared to defy the static.

They never touched that night, never bridged the distance with a single embrace. But in the quiet resolution of their separate paths, there was a promise—a promise that though the static of their past might always echo faintly in the background, they had finally chosen to let the unvarnished truth shine through.

As dawn broke over the city one crisp morning, the remnants of the night’s collision lingered like a soft melody in the air—a reminder that even in the midst of shattered dreams and blurred memories, there existed a fragile, defiant hope. And somewhere in that hope, the truth of who they once were—and who they might yet become—was etched in every fading note and every captured image, waiting, quietly, for the day when the static would finally be silenced.

————————————————————

In that silent space between yesterday and tomorrow, the choices they made—of art, of truth, of love—resonated far beyond the confines of a single night. The exhibit had been a canvas for Aeri’s struggles, a testament to the pain and beauty that had always defined her vision. The fire escape had been their confessional, a place where raw truths were spoken in whispers against the roar of the city. And the final, tentative notes of “Moth Wing Hours” had been both an ending and a beginning—a declaration that, no matter how fractured the past, the future was theirs to create.

The collision of their lives, so vivid and violent in its intensity, had not been about reunion or reconciliation in the conventional sense. It was about confronting the ghosts of their shared history, accepting every imperfect note and blurred memory, and choosing, despite it all, to carry forward the fragile light of truth.

For Y/N, the music had always been a refuge—a sanctuary where every dissonant chord and every melancholic refrain held the promise of redemption. For Aeri, her lens was a way of seeing the world in all its painful, luminous detail. And for both of them, the choice to stand on that fire escape, to let the static fade into a quiet, unguarded melody, was a small act of defiance—a declaration that, even in a world awash with half-truths and muted regrets, there remained the possibility of something real, something unyielding.

And so, as the gallery lights dimmed and the night retreated into memory, the echoes of that fateful collision lingered—a testament to the power of truth, art, and the indomitable human spirit. In the space where music, memory, and image converged, a new chapter was written—a chapter not of perfection, but of raw, unvarnished beauty, where every note, every captured image, and every silent tear told the story of lives that dared to defy the static.

————————————————————

As the new day dawned, a subtle shift had taken place. The unresolved tension between art and truth, between the photographer and the musician, had not been erased but transformed into something more profound. The static that had once drowned out their voices now lay softened by the resonance of honesty—a reminder that, in the end, even the most fragmented hearts can create a symphony when they choose to embrace the full spectrum of light and shadow.

In that delicate balance between loss and hope, between memory and renewal, Y/N’s song continued to play—a song of truth, of love, and of the promise that the static would, at last, fade into silence.

Y/N’s world had shifted again. The past—every chord of regret, every flash of passion—had receded into a gentle hum, replaced by the steady cadence of life’s next movement. Now, he found solace in the familiar rhythms of teaching, where each imperfect note held the promise of discovery.

————————————————————

In a small community music school tucked away in a weathered building downtown, Y/N stood before a semicircle of students. The room was cluttered with worn instruments and scribbled sheet music, its windows streaked with the soft light of a fading afternoon. Today’s lesson wasn’t about scales or technical perfection; instead, Y/N introduced what he called “imperfect songs��—melodies that bore the scars of real life and the beauty of unfiltered truth.

“Music,” he began, his voice warm yet edged with a quiet intensity, “is never meant to be flawless. It’s the little mistakes, the unexpected pauses, that make it ours. Every off-key note, every stutter in your rhythm—it’s part of your story.” His gaze swept the room, catching the nervous smiles and tentative nods of his students, each clutching a guitar or keyboard as if it were their lifeline.

He led them through a simple chord progression, encouraging them to let their imperfections speak. “Play it with feeling,” he urged, “don’t try to make it perfect. Let the music breathe.” As the students hesitated at first, they slowly began to relax into the exercise. The room filled with a chorus of hesitant strums and tentative notes, and Y/N smiled, thinking of the songs that had once defined his own restless nights.

After class, a few students lingered, eager to ask questions or share fragments of their own stories. One student, a shy teen with a passion for lyrics, approached him quietly. “Mr. C,” she said, her voice soft but determined, “do you think it’s okay if my song isn’t… perfect?” Y/N knelt down to meet her eyes, his expression gentle. “Absolutely. Perfection isn’t what makes a song memorable—it’s the heart behind it. Remember, every masterpiece is born out of imperfection.”

As he walked home that evening, the city’s neon glow bathed the sidewalks in shifting hues. He thought of the moments when his own music had been raw and unguarded—a collection of fragments that somehow merged into the haunting refrain of “Moth Wing Hours.” Tonight, at a nearby dive bar, he would revisit that melody, offering it a new ending that spoke of transformation rather than despair.

————————————————————

The dive bar was a sanctuary for the misunderstood and the outcasts—a dimly lit den where the air vibrated with the sound of guitars and voices that had seen better days. Y/N took his usual spot on the small stage, his battered acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder like an old friend. The familiar murmur of the crowd wrapped around him, a living echo of his former life.

As he tuned his guitar, Y/N’s mind wandered back to the countless nights spent strumming the same chords in empty rooms, each note a testimony to his journey through loss, regret, and hope. Tonight, he would share a rendition of “Moth Wing Hours”—a song that had once captured the fleeting beauty of a love lost in the static of memory. But now, something within him had shifted. The static had faded, replaced by the warm afterglow of acceptance.

When it was his turn, Y/N stepped forward and began to play. The opening chords filled the room, gentle and unassuming at first, then building into a rich, resonant melody. As he sang, his voice carried both the weight of his past and the promise of a new beginning. When he reached the final verse, he paused, a moment of silence that hung heavy in the air.

Then, with a quiet certainty, he sang the final line: “We were the flash, Now we’re the afterglow.”

The words, simple yet profound, resonated with everyone present. For a moment, time seemed to slow as the audience absorbed the transformation encapsulated in that fleeting phrase. In that subtle shift from a burst of intensity to a lingering warmth, Y/N had captured the essence of change—the transition from the tumultuous brilliance of youth to the steady, enduring light of experience.

————————————————————

Miles away, in a quiet corner of the city, Aeri’s world was taking shape in stark, deliberate focus. Her studio was a space of creative solitude—a converted loft where sunlight filtered in through large industrial windows, illuminating rows of meticulously arranged photographs and scattered notebooks filled with handwritten thoughts. Here, amidst the controlled chaos of her artistic process, Aeri prepared for her final act of catharsis.

For weeks, she had wrestled with the decision of which image would define her upcoming exhibit. Every photograph she had taken was imbued with fragments of truth, yet one image haunted her—the clear, unblurred shot she had secretly kept, the one that captured the essence of what almost was. In that photo, Y/N’s features were rendered in sharp detail—a moment of vulnerable authenticity that had eluded her in every other frame. Now, with trembling resolve, she selected that image for submission, titling it “What Almost Was.”

Late into the night, with the exhibit deadline looming, Aeri composed a final email to the gallery curator. Her fingers moved hesitantly over the keyboard as she attached the image, her heart pounding with a mix of apprehension and exhilaration. In the message, she wrote: “This is the piece that captures the truth of our imperfection—the clarity in the chaos. It’s the one shot that reminds us that sometimes, the most honest moments are the ones we try hardest to hide.”

After sending the email, Aeri retreated to her studio’s back corner, where a small, worn mirror and a vintage camera awaited her next experiment. Tonight, she was determined to capture a self-portrait—a raw, unmediated look at herself that bore no filters, no distortions. With deliberate care, she set up the camera on its tripod, adjusting the focus until the world beyond the lens receded into a soft blur.

As she sat before the camera, Aeri allowed herself a rare moment of introspection. The image that would soon materialize on the screen was more than just a self-portrait—it was a declaration of self-acceptance, a recognition of every scar, every triumph, and every moment of vulnerability that had led her to this point. With a deep, steadying breath, she pressed the shutter.

The camera clicked, capturing a single, unadorned moment of truth. In the photograph, Aeri’s eyes met her own with a clarity that was both shocking and beautiful. There were no shadows obscuring her features, no layers of artifice to mask the raw emotion that lay within. It was simply her—unfiltered, real, and unmistakably present. For the first time in a long while, she allowed herself to see the full spectrum of her identity—the artist, the wanderer, the woman who had loved fiercely and lost deeply.

————————————————————

In the quiet aftermath of their separate acts of transformation, a subtle shift rippled through the city. Y/N’s classroom echoed with the sound of imperfect songs and tentative chords, a living reminder that beauty often emerged from the flawed and the unfinished. His dive bar gig had been more than just a performance—it was a reawakening, a reaffirmation that even the most battered heart could produce a melody that resonated with truth.

Aeri’s exhibit, bolstered by her final, unfiltered submission, garnered unexpected acclaim. Critics who had once dismissed her work as “emotional voyeurism” began to see a new depth—a vulnerability that transcended mere spectacle. The photograph titled “What Almost Was” became a focal point of the exhibit, its clarity standing as a testament to the unvarnished reality of love and loss. In the hushed reverence of gallery halls and intimate discussions, Aeri’s work spoke of both the fragility and the resilience of the human spirit.

As the days passed, the city continued its ceaseless rhythm—a blend of neon lights and whispered confessions, of dreams pursued and quietly abandoned. Yet, amidst the din, there were pockets of silence where new beginnings took root. In one such corner, a small, dusty radio in a second-hand shop began to hum with life. The static that had once obscured the truth of the world had finally faded, replaced by the clear, steady sound of a familiar melody—a song that echoed the journey from chaos to clarity.

Y/N, in his classroom, continued to inspire his students with his unconventional lessons. He often spoke of the beauty of imperfection and the strength found in vulnerability. His final line in “Moth Wing Hours”—“We were the flash / Now we’re the afterglow”—became a mantra not only for him but for every student who dared to embrace their own flawed, radiant journey. At every gig, at every lesson, the echo of that line reminded them all that even in the aftermath of brilliance, there could be a gentle, enduring light.

In her studio, Aeri hung the self-portrait next to “What Almost Was,” creating a small gallery of truths that were as clear as they were raw. Each image, each captured moment, was a step toward reclaiming her identity—not as an observer of chaos, but as a participant in the unfolding narrative of her life. With every click of her camera, she found solace in the fact that the clarity she sought was already within her, waiting to be acknowledged and celebrated.

The resonance of their separate journeys began to intertwine in subtle ways. A new student in Y/N’s class would ask him about the inspiration behind his teaching, and he’d speak of a summer long past—a summer where imperfections were not mistakes, but the very notes that composed the music of life. Meanwhile, a quiet art critic writing a review of Aeri’s exhibit remarked on the unexpected warmth and lucidity of her latest work—a testament to an artist who had finally learned to let go of the blurred boundaries between memory and reality.

On a crisp morning, as the city stirred awake under a pale sky, both Y/N and Aeri found themselves standing at the threshold of new chapters. Y/N, after another lesson filled with tentative strums and off-key harmonies, sat quietly by the window of the music school. He watched the rain wash away the remnants of yesterday’s melancholy, the droplets creating a transient mosaic on the glass. In that reflective moment, he realized that every imperfect song his students played was a promise—a promise that the beauty of life lay not in its flawless perfection, but in its raw, unedited truth.

At the same time, Aeri revisited her now-familiar studio, pausing to admire the self-portrait that had, in its unvarnished clarity, become a mirror of her own transformation. The image was a quiet revolution—a defiant declaration that she was no longer the haunted artist chasing ghosts, but a woman embracing her truth, every detail sharp and unblurred.

Somewhere in the gentle hum of the early morning, a solitary radio in a forgotten corner of the city sprang to life. Amid the soft whispers of a new day, the familiar strains of a song filled the air—a melody that had once been lost in static, now emerging with a crystalline clarity. The transformation was complete, the collision of art and life forging a new harmony in the wake of all that had come before.

Somewhere, a radio clicks on. The static is gone.

[p4lm5prings]

MCU character playlist masterpost

*Crossed-out playlists are playlists that will be linked eventually!

Thunderbolts* The New Avengers

Yelena Belova / Black Widow Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier Bob Reynolds / Sentry Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian Ava Starr / Ghost John Walker / U.S. Agent The New Avengers Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster Valentina Allegra de Fontaine

Fantastic Four

Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic Sue Storm / Invisible Woman Johnny Storm / Human Torch Ben Grimm / The Thing The Fantastic Four

Avengers (og6)

Steve Rogers / Captain America Tony Stark / Iron Man Thor Odinson Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow Bruce Banner / The Hulk Clint Barton / Hawkeye The Avengers

Avengers (and just who I assume will be avengers in doomsday lol)

Sam Wilson / Captain America Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel Wanda Maximoff / The Scarlet Witch Shang-Chi Scott Lang / Ant-Man Peter Parker / Spider-Man Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk Stephen Strange / Doctor Strange Joaquin Torres / Falcon James "Rhodey" Rhodes / War Machine Hope van Dyne / The Wasp The Vision Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver

Young Avengers

Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel Kate Bishop / Hawkeye Cassie Lang / Stature Billy Maximoff / Wiccan Tommy Maximoff / Speed America Chavez Riri Williams / Ironheart

Daredevil / Defenders saga

Matt Murdock / Daredevil Foggy Nelson Karen Page Frank Castle / The Punisher Ben "Dex" Pointdexter / Bullseye Kirsten McDuffie Nelson, Murdock and Page Maya Lopez / Echo Jessica Jones Elektra Natchios Luke Cage Billy Russo / Jigsaw Trish Walker / Hellcat Ray Nadeem Claire Temple

Spider-Verse

Peter Parker / The Amazing Spider-Man (Andrew) Peter Parker / Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man (Tobey) Michelle "MJ" Jones Ned Leeds Mary Jane Watson Gwen Stacy Felicia Hardy / Black Cat

Agatha All Along

Agatha Harkness Rio Vidal / Death

Guardians of the Galaxy

Peter Quill / Star-Lord Gamora Rocket Raccoon Nebula Mantis Drax the Destroyer Adam Warlock

X-Men / Mutants

Wade Wilson / Deadpool Logan / Wolverine Scott Summers / Cyclops

Asgard and TVA

Loki Laufeyson King Valkyrie Jane Foster / Mighty Thor Lady Sif Darcy Lewis Hela Odinsdottir Sylive Laufydottir Mobius M. Mobius

Wakanda

Shuri / Black Panther T'Challa / Black Panther Nakia Okoye Namor the Submariner M'Baku Erik Killmonger

Moon Knight

Marc Spector / Moon Knight Steven Grant / Mr Knight Jake Lockley / Moon Knight Layla El-Faouly / Scarlet Scarab

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. / Agent Carter

Maria Hill Sharon Carter / Agent 13 / Power Broker Peggy Carter Phil Coulson Daisy Johnson / Quake Melinda May Jemma Simmons Leo Fitz Bobbi Morse / Mockingbird Lance Hunter Alphonso "Mack" Machenzie Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez Deke Shaw Grant Ward Daniel Sousa Edwin Jarvis Dottie Underwood / Black Widow

S.W.O.R.D. and S.A.B.E.R. (and other agents)

Monica Rambeau / Photon Nick Fury Everett Ross Jimmy Woo

Eternals

Sersi Thena Makkari Phastos Druig Kingo Ajak Gilgamesh Ikaris Sprite Eros / Starfox

Werewolf by Night

Jack Russell / Werewolf by Night Elsa Bloodstone

[fandomtrumpshate]

Unlisted Fandoms Challenge

While we pull together the post on the various types of fan labor being offered so far, here's a quick update on the *hundreds* of write-in fandoms we've received ...

At the top of the list we have Jeff Satur holding onto the lead with 7 entries, but Zhen Hun/Guardian is right on his heels with 6. And then there's a three-way tie for third place with 5 write-ins each for BBC Ghosts, Control (Remedy Game), and Dungeon Meshi / Delicious In Dungeon. Schitt's Creek claims fourth place with 4 entries, and in fifth there's a 14-way tie:

Alien Stage Cabin Pressure Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast) Fire Emblem Awakening Fire Emblem Fates Iron Widow Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Roswell New Mexico Stand By Me/The Body by Stephen King The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison Transformers Voltron: Legendary Defender White Collar Zhen Hun / Guardian (drama) RPF

All it would take to upset the apple cart and reset the leader board is one signup. Manage two and it's a whole new ball game. Yes, we're mixing metaphors. And we're not done yet!

Below the cut are the 133 fandoms that have so far received only ONE signup. Want to really shake things up? Get two more signups for any of these and watch them leap into the fray on the leader board ...

10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Among Us Arctic Monkeys/The Last shadow Puppets Around the World in 80 Days (TV 2021) Baseball RPF BBC’s Musketeers Bendy and the Ink Machine Beyond Evil Black Doves Boygenius (Band)(RPF) Brokeback Mountain Bullet train Canji Baojun De Zhangxin Yu Chong (The disabled tyrant's pet palm fish) Cassette Beasts Castle Challengers Charmed (1998) Danger Force (TV) Dark Deception Dark Rise Dead by Daylight Descendants Destiny 2 Dimension 20 Downton Abbey Dr. Stone Dragonball Dragonlance Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey Due South Dune (Villeneuve) Emma - Jane Austen Etta Invincible Fangs of Fortune Farscape Fields of Mistria Finder no Hyouteki / Finder Series Flight Rising Formula 2/3 RPF Frieren Fruits Basket Gangsta (Anime & Manga) Giselle Grantchester (TV) Grimm Hatoful Boyfriend Haven (TV) Helluva Boss Henry Danger (TV) High School Musical (Movies) Hikaru no Go HLVRAI - Half-life VR But the AI is Self-Aware House MD In Other Lands In Stars And Time IndyCar RPF It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Jeeves and Wooster Jet Lag The Game RPF Jurassic Park (Extended Universe) Kamen Rider Gotchard Kane and Feels Kraven the Hunter Kuroko no Basuke / Kuroko's Basketball Law & Order Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Lays of the Hearth-Fire Series - Victoria Goddard Lies of P Live A Live Lord Seventh/Qi Ye Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3 Mononoke (2007 series and 2024 movie) MotoGP RPF My Time at Sandrock Mystic Messenger NBA RPF Nerdy Prudes Must Die Norah Grant Bruce's Billabong books Oh No! Here Comes Trouble Once Upon A Time Order of the Stick Outlast games Over the Garden Wall Pacific Rim Pathologic Peaky Blinders Persuasion - Jane Austen Phandom Pirates of the Caribbean Power Rangers (2017 movie) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Prodigal Son Puella Magi Madoka Magica Quantum Break Ranma 1/2 Resident Alien Resident Evil Rise of the Guardians S.C.I Mystery S.W.A.T. (2017 show) Saint Seiya Saw franchise Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated (2010) She-Ra Netflix Shipwrecked Comedy Sonic the Hedgehog (Games) South Park Spinning Silver (Novik) Spirited Squid Game Starkid Musicals (no hp) Stephen King's It Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical Super Sentai That 70s Show The A Team (either the 2010 movie or the 1980s series) The Coffin of Andy and Leyley The OC The Pairing - Casey McQuiston The Paradise of Thorns The Radiant Emperor The Silt Verses The Umbrella Academy the vampire diaries universe The Venture Maidens The Walking Dead The West Wing Thousand Autumns Tokusatsu Tron Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles Turning Universal Century Gundam video games by Arkane Studios Wander Over Yonder Warriors / Warrior Cats Watcher Entertainment/BuzzFeed Unsolved RPF Wind Breaker Wonka Word of Honor Yellowjackets Young Wizards (Diane Duane) บ้านหลอน ON SALE / Peaceful Property (TV)

[homestuck-fanauthor-coalition]

The Homestuck Fan Author Coalition is having a songfic contest! Authors were asked to write any fic that they'd like based on a song and now the fanfics are revealed... but the authors are not!

Follow the link above to the collection, and once you've read through all of the entries, vote on your favorites using our voting form!

Then, if you're feeling like reading some spicier fics (and you are 18+), you can check out the explicit side of this competition here!

All Fics Submitted

A Girl Named Yiffy

A story about a girl with all odds against her.

they don't believe in the ghosts or forms you take

Sollux and Karkat go ghost-hunting.

find your yesterday in your tomorrow

When Vriska Serket ends up on an universe where everyone who didn't make it to Earth C is there and vice-verse, she'll have to face a difficult decision.

i'm made be He, despised by They

The universe wants to see its inhabitants in pain.

you should come with me to the end of the world (without telling your family or any of your friends)

Terezi has to juggle three relationships and several friendships. Her partners have to deal with her. Mind the tags!

i don't want to be afraid (when father time ticks in the hour)

in which roxy is stuck in a house with dirk, jane and jake.

F.E.A.R

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

- John Malkovich

Your name is JANE CROCKER, and you’ve been feeling a little nervy lately.

I've Been Waiting, Waiting

Jade is put on a ship for her own protection in the midst of an inter-galactic war. All she can do is wait.

if you stick with the program, maybe one day you'll be (more than a machine learning how to please)

My name is CDOCRS01, which is short for Cognitive Development and Offensive Capability Robotic Structure, but Jake calls me Brobot. In appearance, I am a sixteen-year-old boy of average height and weight, which means that I am 70 inches tall and weigh 145 pounds. In actuality, I am seven months old.

Before The Breakdown

After Trickster Mode, Roxy thinks.

Made My Way to LA

“We had a plan… Move out of that town…” He whispers

Drowning Lessons

You steal from convenience stores together; the mania invades your blood, a virus spreading through your system, replacing you until all that’s left is your aching chest, and intensity of want. It consumes you easily, and you think it may consume her, too. The two of you were never really people, anyways.

Soap

Eridan and Sollux are the final trolls living on a satellite in orbit around their new planet- a bright place neither of them long to explore.

The power system is overheating.

The Prideful Pink Princess and Her Servant of Evil

Dirk's job has always been to look after his twin sister. And he intends to fulfill it. Even as she becomes the princess of the kingdom of Derse, he stands by her side. For better or for worse.

I think I understand you, but I don't

"I just wanna get you high tonight."

Jane, Jake, a crumbling relationship, and one last good night together.

The Flame of a Revolution

A look into the wayward vagabond's revolutionary origins via lyricfic.

Would You Fall In Love With Me Again?

Rose reunites with Kanaya after the events of the meat timeline.

I Am Selfish, I Am Wrong

Eridan did something very wrong, then paid the price. Is it enough? Will he ever be accepted back into his team? And will he ever tell Karkat how very pale he feels?

Look, I Love You but You Really Fucked Me over Big Time

A series of pesterlogs over the course of six months.

war is over (and we are beginning)

The first morning after creating a new universe, twelve people wake up to the dawn of a new day.

No Leverage / No Pleasure

Your name is Dirk Strider. You are sixteen years old. You’re currently on a date of sorts, slaying skeletons and whatnot, only most of the actual slaying is over now.

Most Days We Watch Our Best Friends Die

A little bit of what I think Davesprite and his Rose were up to during those 4 months.

My dawn

Your name is CALIBORN. And you won.

Coming Home

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you’ve been waiting your whole life for this moment.

......

Jane Crocker is suddenly feeling very uncertain.

Or: Dirk is a solo-flight astronaut on his first trip out to orbit. Jane is his launch director.

red flags

John's on a blind date that's going really well! But there's just this one red flag…

i recovered from this

It's the First Annual Resistance Fundraiser and you can't wait for Rose Maryam-Lalonde's interview!

[mother-of-thots-returns]

Hey yall making a playlist for Daemon from date everything. I want to make a few fanfics for my favorite glitch in the game so if you have any suggestions or recommendations of songs that remind you of them their greatly appreciated

Some of the songs that remind me of them are

Plug me in by lit soda boy: the singer talks about wanting to be close to the listener despite the digital barriers between them. Wanting to be more to the listener much how deamon wants to be both more then just code but to his own being rather then just lost amongst 1000 assets as stated in his day 4 dialog.

BeetlejuiceBeetlejuiceBeetlejuice by life after youth: this time the singer compares themselves to someone haunting the listener call themselves a ghost floating through the walls in the second verse. Combined with the more rougher guitar reminds me of how he actively messes with not only the game but the Mc directly. He is alive, he can see you and he wants to be more to YOU. He wants to take you out of bounds both metaphorically and physically in game. To be more then something broken breaking more things as he dose seem to bond with the Mc depending on your choices.

John does carnival of error by blanck mass: this song especially remind me of what it would be like to actually talk to them as their constantly glitching out, communicating through text files as well as scrapped voice lines especially while mysterious vibes lean into how this ghost in the machine keeps themselves held back on purpose to either ‘not bite’ or to live on outside of his code just as he wants to do.

I am very normal about them

[siri-ike]

I've gathered the dp tropes from this post and sorted them. Let me know if you see any missing.

Thank you to @ourrechte-blog @shiho7567 @hyperfixationherewecome @darcy1432 @orbitalpython @duck-withaknife @holidaypdy @pokeperson1000 @catgirls-reading-stuff @the-autistic-spider for providing more tropes.

Scenario

Field trip to the Ghost Zone, Time travel, anti-ecto acts, Amity is hidden from the world, de-aging,

Danny

Trans Danny, Danny is cis, Danny is intersex, Danny is called Mom, Danny is called Dad, Danny drops corpses when he does, Danny has to commit suicide to transform into a ghost, Danny is a Greek god, dogboy Danny, catboy Danny, Danny is Constantine's bio kid, son of [everyone], Eldritch Danny, Danny is a clone, long lost twin, Danny and Dan are twins, is Ghost King, isn't Ghost King but everyone assumes he is, mistaken for Pariah Dark, mistaken for pariah darks child and/or consort, is a Fright Knight, sees Clockwork as a dad, sees Frostbite as a dad, sees Pandora as a mother figure, mad scientist, eats things that are not food, Danny is creepy, Danny is Dani's dad, Danny is Dan's dad, mom Danny, teen dad Danny, Danny doesn't age, immortal, dies many times, reincarnation of Ras/Martha/Thomas, dating [everyone], Talon nip, secretly rich, nonbinary, banshee, siren, space core, massive lair, soulbound to ghost zone, Danny and Phantom are separated, Danny and Phantom are separate people but Phantom has amnesia so they thing they're one, Danny is a good cook, Danny is a terrible cook, everything Danny cooks reanimates, Danny is paranoid around food because he thinks it will reanimate (it wont), Danny is paranoid around food because he thinks it will reanimate (it will), Danny thinks he's being cheated on because of vigilante schedule, part Kryptonian/Atlantian/Amazon/Martian, hates clowns, loves clowns but has high standards, Danny is an ancient God thanks to time travel (Earth/Krypton), has too many powers, can copy powers, time police, Clockworks apprentice, Selinas apprentice, Danny is [everyone] from an alternate reality, territorial, can't stop adopting, Danny accidentally marries Alfred, Danny fought in the civil war, Phantom is just a bunch of LBMs in a suit, Phantom is LBM, LBM doesn't have cat orientation, Dani is Danny's bio parent, vivisection/dissection, everyone knows, no one knows, the people of Amity know but keep the secret, ancient of space, protection spirit, Danny is Diana's mom, Danny is mistaken for a vampire, Danny is a naga, Danny is a mer,

Tucker

Tucker is a brainiac drone, Tucker is smarter than the DC verse, impossibly good with machines, reincarnation of Pharoh, Tucker gets his memories of Duulaman back, Tucker is a werewolf,

Sam

Sam is a reincarnation of a tree spirit, Sam is enamored with poison Ivy, witch, plant powers, Sam is a vampire,

Jazz

Jazz is Athanasia, Jazz was the one who brought Danny to the Fentons, Jazz practically raised Danny, Jazz is an Amazon, Jazz is related to the Harpers,

Vlad

Everyone assumes Vlad is the wrong kind of creep, Vlad actually IS that kind of creep, divorced energy with Danny, one-sided divorced energy with Jack,

Jack and Maddie

Bad parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, Good parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, neglectful parents Jack and Maddie Fenton, have been experimenting on Danny since before he was born,

Dick

Dick has adhd, Dick loves being a big brother,

Jason

Jason is undead, Danny calms the pits, Jasons obsession is protecting kids, Revenant,

Tim

Tim is sleep-deprived, Tim drinks too much coffee, Tim drinks anything caffinated except coffee, Tim is impossibility good at hacking, Tim has a rough relationship with the Pentagon, Tim is gay,

Damian

Damian dislikes Danny, Damian dislikes everyone but Danny,

Talia

Damian is Talias favorite, Danny is Talias favorite, Talia loves both her sons, Talia has no love for either of her sons,

Bruce

Bruce is getting old,

Alfred

Alfred can never die, Alfred died and kept it a secret, Alfred is a ghost, Alfred has been/is in a relationship with Clockwork,

Wonder Woman

Diana is war buddies with Danny and Alfred

Constantine

Constantine has outdated information, Constantine is/has been in a relationship with everything, soul split in too many pieces which Danny collected,

Flashes

Flashes recognizing Danny as the World Ender when it's actually Dan, Flashes realizing deaged Dan is the World Ender and Danny is the only one keeping him from becoming said World Ender, Flashes assuming Danny becomes World Ender because something happened to his kids,

GIW

GIW is actually a fashion brand that just got too invested, GIW are bad at their job, GIW are scary good at their job, GIW inadvertently made Danny Ghost King, team up with Jack and Maddie, scared of Jack and Maddie,

Joker

Joker is a ghost, Joker and Freakshow are related,

Valerie

Valerie is a minor antagonist, is on the team, hates ghosts and will go to any length to destroy them,

Misc

Everyone in Amity is an alternate/clone of someone in DC, everyone in Amity is liminal, JL dosnt know about Amity/GIW/Ghost Zone, JL did know but chose not to act, Wes Weston, the ring of rage is a lantern ring, the ghost council is anoying, the ghost council is helpful, the ghost council, Ghosts are dragons,

[five-rivers]

providence 5

[Prompts used are from @kinglazrus@lexiepiper and @ash-rabbit. Special thanks to @jackdaw-sprite@datawyrms and Lexie for beta and encouragement! You can read the full fic here.]

“... anyway, I was hoping that you could point me in the right direction to find these rivers,” said Danny.  “That’s all I really need.  I brought my own bottles and everything.”  He held up the pair of two-gallon jugs he’d brought from home.  They’d gone through a bunch of them last month, when the plumbing got contaminated with ectoplasm via a sample left in the kitchen sink.

Pandora frowned down at Danny from her throne, leaning forward slightly.  “Little warrior,” she said, “are those plastic?”

Danny, who hadn’t expected Pandora to know what plastic was, nodded.  “Yeah?  Is that a problem?”

“The Phlegethon is often called the River of Fire,” she said.  “That is because it burns.  Correct me if I am wrong–” she tapped one of the jugs with a nail that was very nearly the same diameter, “--but plastic melts.  As for the Styx…  No.  You require something more solid.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Well, maybe I’ll get some glass jars…”

Pandora snapped her fingers, and the Box Ghost appeared at one of her four elbows.  “YE-esss?” he said, modulating his volume halfway through the word.  “What do you require of the GREAT AND– Ahem.  The great and powerful Box Ghost?”

“Fetch two of the amphorae that were fired last week.  The larger ones, if you would.”

“The amphora, not the MIGHTY PYXI–”

“The amphora,” confirmed Pandora.  

“Okayyyy…”

“Pixie?” asked Danny, when the Box Ghost was gone.

“It is a type of box,” said Pandora.  

“That makes sense.”  He put the jugs back into his bag, then paused, looking up at Pandora.  “The Observants didn’t tell me much about why they wanted this stuff, or what they were making.  Frostbite said they’re reliable and they watch the timeline, but I don’t know much else about them.”

“Nor does anyone.  They do have a tendency to recruit seers and diviners.  All of Greek history to draw from, and I have only three oracles, thanks to their machinations.”  Pandora shook her head.  “I cannot say I care for them.  They hoard knowledge like a miser hoards coin, never mind that knowledge shared is often knowledge increased.  But I know that even Clockwork bows to their wisdom, at times.”

“What would it mean if he’s not bowing to their wisdom this time?” asked Danny.  

Pandora frowned.  “Nothing good.  But in what way, I could not guess.  If I thought this endeavor altogether unwise, I would not help you, but from your questions, I think you see something amiss.  A contradiction.”  

“Maybe,” said Danny, shrugging.  “I’m not sure.  I was kind of hoping you'd know more?  At least about what they're making.  They won't tell me anything, and neither will Clockwork.”  Although Clockwork had spent hours going over the basics of how the time viewers worked with him, so… maybe that was a hint?  Danny didn't know.  Clockwork already had time viewers, after all.

“Read your list to me again,” said Pandora.  She leaned back in her throne and closed her eyes as Danny rattled off the six entries.  “Hmm.  I am not well-versed enough in the mechanics of time to guess at the end goal.  However, between the Phlegethon, the Styx, and the metal…  I would presume they mean to forge something, using the fires of the Phlegethon, then douse it in the waters of the Styx.  Such a method often makes the materials more durable, and binds them to their task.  As for the time sand, I would expect them to use it to make something out of glass.  What, I couldn’t say.”  She smiled at Danny.  “If it were just the sand, I might suggest an hourglass.”

“That would make sense for fixing time, wouldn’t it?”

“But the other items suggest something more mechanical.  Perhaps a pocketwatch, or something that could prune away excess time.  Shears, perhaps.  Or a guillotine.  Although the former would not need chains, and the latter should not need glass.”

Danny would prefer it if it wasn’t a guillotine, all things considered.  That sounded disturbing.  On a number of levels.  

But if it was, what would it be used for?  Danny would like to say that he couldn’t imagine, but that would be untrue.  For something like that, the most obvious leap would be cutting a specific person out of the timeline.  Executing them and making it so they wouldn’t exist all at once.  

Pandora was right, though.  That wouldn’t explain the glass.  Unless the parts that were usually made of wood were made of glass instead?  That didn’t seem very robust, but Danny could make ice that didn’t melt, so he was sure ghosts could make glass that didn’t follow any of the usual rules of glass.  But Clockwork wouldn’t let Danny help the Observants, or anyone, make something like that.

Right?

(He didn’t need something like that, anyway.  He was perfectly capable of un-personing someone through the butterfly effect alone.)

(But, at least in Danny’s case, that didn’t kill the person at the same time.)

“Maybe it’s a clock,” said Danny, finally.  That was the only thing he could think of that needed metal, glass, and chains.

“That isn’t an impossibility,” said Pandora.  “But I cannot imagine that there is a clockmaker better than Clockwork.  Even among the Observants.”

That was true.  “A really big telescope?”  He made a face.  “Have the Observants ever had you–?”

“THE TERRIBLE AND AWFUL BOX GHOST HAS RETURNED!” 

He had.  And he was carrying two clay vases with stoppers.  Amphoras.  Amphorae?

“Thank you,” said Pandora.  She stood, and plucked them from the Box Ghost’s hands before passing them on to Danny.  “Come, let me lead you to the rivers.”

.

The Phlegethon was just as Danny had imagined it, when Pandora told him it was made of fire, except for one vital detail.  The Phlegethon had no banks.  Unlike an earthly river, it flowed through the air, twisting, spiraling, climbing, falling, flattening, and stretching, all without any regard for the laws of physics.  It looked almost as if someone had made a sculpture of wire, doused it in oil, and then lit it on fire.  

“It isn’t always like this,” said Pandora.  

“Do you mean on fire, or one of the other things it’s like?” asked Danny.  

Pandora chuckled.  “It does not always flow through the air.  There are several islands that it travels across, but this is closest.  And, in my opinion, the most interesting visually.”

“Well, I’d say it was really cool, but I don’t think that’s really appropriate right now…”  Smoking?  No, that had the same problems as ‘hot,’ and, despite being on fire, there wasn’t actually any smoke coming off of it.  

“And I would direct you to scoop up some of the flames, but you are a cold-cored ghost, yes?”  She held out one of her lower hands.  

“I can make fire,” said Danny, handing her one of the amphorae and pouting a little.  

“Yes, quite an unusual talent for a cold-cored ghost.”  She pulled out the stopper, then leaned forward to dip the vessel in the river.  The flames licked her fingertips, but did her no harm.  “But why risk harm when a fire-core is willing to do the job?”  She pressed the stopper back in, then handed the amphora off to Danny.  

Although the Phlegethon seemed to be made entirely of fire, the amphora was heavy, and when it moved Danny could both hear and feel the movement of water (or at least some kind of liquid) inside.  The clay sides of the amphora were warm.  Between the movement of the water and the warmth, it almost felt alive, like a heartbeat.  

“And now,” said Pandora.  “The Styx.”

.

Luckily for Danny (who was starting to feel very sensitive about the time and how much of it he’d have to sleep, even if it was the weekend), the Styx wasn’t far away.  That river, apparently, had the same headwaters as the Phlegethon, along with several others, although Danny was pretty sure that arrangement wouldn’t have been possible in the real world.  He wasn’t the best student when it came to geography (or anything else), but he did know that rivers tended to flow together rather than splitting up.

Then again, rivers in the real world generally weren’t made of fire.  They didn’t even catch on fire all that often anymore, even if Sam was prone to showing old video clips of rivers catching on fire to illustrate various points against pollution and big business.  

The Styx wasn’t on fire, but it did look like it was going to catch on fire.  The river was black.  Where it rippled, there were oily, iridescent rainbows.  Its path through the air and across the nearby small islands was much… calmer than that of the Phlegethon.  It flowed at a slight angle, except when it suddenly dropped in waterfalls or spiked upward in… water-rises?  Or were they just…  Well, gravity wasn’t only one way, here.  If Danny flipped upside down and stayed that way for a while, his sense of gravity would reorient.  

Danny wondered if ghosts had names for this stuff.  It would make things a lot easier to talk about.  

“Is this… safe to touch?”

“Compared to the Phlegethon, yes,” said Pandora.  “But I would advise against drinking it.  Or touching it more than necessary.”

“Wasn’t there a story,” said Danny, “about Achilles, I think?”

“There was a legend that Achilles’ mother dipped him in the Styx, granting him some measure of invulnerability, with the exception of his heel, which she dangled him by.  But you will notice that she did not touch it herself, even to dip her child in it more completely.  There is a seed of truth in the story, but there are risks to overexposure.  Too much honesty.  Difficulty with promises, or even changing one’s mind.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “That doesn’t sound great.”  It was petty, but Danny had actually wanted to fill one of these up himself.  Getting some water sounded like such and easy thing, but he wasn’t even really doing it himself…

“But it should be safe enough for you to fill an amphora.”  She nudged him forward.  “Go ahead.”

Danny approached, and carefully dipped the jar into the river, making sure to keep the handle he was holding far away from the dark liquid.  He waited until it seemed to overflow, poured out a small amount, and equally carefully put the lid back on.  

“Very good,” said Pandora, giving his head a pat.  “That should be enough for whatever the Observants will make.”

“Really?”

Pandora shrugged.  “If it wasn’t, they should have written down an amount.”

.

Danny felt like lugging around two jugs of magic water (at least one type of which was flammable) for an indefinite period of time was a bad idea, so, before he returned home, he went to the Observant’s headquarters.  

(He didn’t remember the official name of the place, and he wasn’t going to ask.)

When he got within sight (well, his sight) of the place, he slowed.  He’d gotten the impression that the Observants didn’t like him being there all that much, and he didn’t want to give them any reason to take offense.  

(That he felt so… threatened… when he was just dropping off something they’d asked for wasn’t a good indicator of the Observants trustworthiness, but both Pandora and Frostbite said the Observants were legitimately interested in preserving the timeline, and Clockwork, well, Clockwork hadn’t said much about them at all.)

But before he could get very close at all, one Observant started to fly towards him.  As they grew closer, Danny could see that they were the same Observant that had first approached him.  Or, at least, they felt like the same Observant.  

They didn’t look happy to see him.  

“Phantom,” they said, folding their arms to hide their clawed hands in their sleeves, “you are aware that the fate of time itself is at stake.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, even though that had sounded more like a statement than a question.  He held out the amphorae.  “So, are you going to take these, or what?”

The Observant glared.  “You ought to be more prompt with your deliveries.  You delay our work.”

Danny sucked in his lower lip.  “I get that,” he said.  “I don’t want the timeline to be destroyed, either, but I really work better with a deadline, if you know what I mean.”

The glare intensified.  

“I’ll also work better if you take these,” said Danny.  “I might have ghostly strength, but I’m not a zombie.  I don’t want to hold my arms out like this for the rest of my afterlife.”

Grudgingly, the Observant unfolded their arms and took the amphorae, holding gingerly by the handles, as if Danny had somehow contaminated them.  Which, rude.  

“Seriously, if we have some kind of actual time limit or countdown or whatever, I’ll try to get you the stuff before then, but, otherwise, I do have other stuff to do.”

“None of which are more important than the preservation of the timeline itself.”

“Maybe not,” said Danny.  “But if we’re talking about priorities, feeding yourself is more important than cleaning your toilet, but if you don’t clean your toilet, things in your bathroom can get pretty dire.”

The Observant stared at him.  

“I can’t tell if that’s just your normal face or if you don’t understand something I said.  Are you not getting it because ghosts don’t eat, or because they don’t have bathrooms?  Because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Technus in a bathrobe, and the Far Frozen definitely–”

“You ought to take this seriously,” said the Observant in a rather severe tone.  

“You should take it seriously and tell me if there is a deadline.”

“Do not make light of our oaths, child,” growled the Observant.  

“Are they heavier than, you know, the timeline collapsing?  Because that’s what you’re telling me here.”

Instead of answering, the Observant whirled and started flying back to the headquarters building.  

What a jerk.

[whumpbby]

Thinking that because it seems that the Demonic Cultivation was mostly something that Jiang Cheng took care of - either as a way to unload his grief or as taking responsibility of his shixiong's mess - it's possible that the Jiang disciples were the ones that were the best versed in dealing with DC.

Now I am headcanoning that - because JC seems like a man that has shit in hand and runs a tight ship - there's a group within the Yunmeng Jiang trained and experienced specifically to deal with Demonic Cultivation specifically. Like their Spec Ops. They are prepared to come in fast and hot, deal with the issue asap and start the clean-up - armed with talismans made to deflect DC, tame the corpses and help send them on.

So, like, one day WWX hears that there's some Demonic Cultivator causing problems in the area he's hunting with the Lan juniors and goes to deal with it. It still pisses him off that his only lasting legacy is not about his genius or his heroics (or even his good looks), but it's this thing he invented out of horrific desperate need and that's now used to cause chaos and hurt people. So, he feels it's his duty to go there and talk some sense into the person in question.

Except, as soon as he arrives at the scene and ascertains that yeah, the issue is serious and maybe it's better for him to send the disciples back home and call in reinforcements (Lan Zhan), because he can take the DC down, but the clean-up will be immense - when suddenly a group of cultivators land in front of them with a swish of purple robes and gets to work.

The battle is almost sad. In no time at all the fierce corpses are tamed, the cultivator thrown down and bound with talismans, and the cultivators are dispersing across the area to set up burials for the corpses and arrays meant to send the ghosts onwards.

It's all precise and quick, sure steps and short commands. A well-oiled machine with soldier-discipline cleaning the area of resentment. So unlike the usual exuberance and free-style of the Jiang.

Wei Wuxian is kinda stumped. How are these people, and why are they getting in his way? He didn't even manage to get any fun! You, baby Lan disciple, explain!

"They're the Red Brigade", the disciple explains in a hushed voice. "Jiang-zonghzu's personal guard. They hunt Deminic Cultivators."

Red? Ah, their uniforms are adorned with a red ribbon on the shoulder. How sentimental of Jiang Cheng. His shidi really missed him! (or wanted him dead, there's also that option). But no time to contemplate that, because these guys are super efficient and if WWX wants to do any investigation of his own (translate: being his nosy self) he has to haul ass before they clean up everything!

So, he goes to the leader of the pack with an intention of comparing notes! The guy is respectful, but so cold! Eh, is he even a Jiang? So much like A-Cheng! Well, he knows how to deal with people like that - everyone will fold when bothered for long enough!

So, he keeps following the leader and talking bullshit, as his brain takes notes on everything he can see around. The talismans they use, the arrays, the spells - that's all pretty high level and super interesting. Huh, even their clothes are embroidered with talismans (a page out of the Lan book, maybe? Sneaky, Jiang Cheng, sneaky!) and their they use ghost flags...

But something is strange. He can see traces of his own work here and there - and he's used to seeing is tools ironically used across the cultivation world, but these are... kind of not? There are traces of his work, but the sigils are not his, the flags are not his, the talismans are not his. Like someone engineered his work backwards and created something that was similar, but entirely different.

As if someone wanted or needed tools to deal with Wei Wuxian's creations specifically, without the risk of being used against them in the heat of battle. One of the cultivators has a qinqin strapped across her back - the strings are made from metal, so it's not for musical cultivation (huh, so that's how Jiang Cheng came up with the idea of disrupting Su She's music in the Guanyin Temple, it wasn't coincidence.). They came in prepared to counter anything a Demonic Cultivator would throw at them.

Hell, he can admit that going through them on his own wouldn't be easy (because he was always helplessly optimistic about his own skills)...

Oh, Jiang Cheng did his homework.

"Wei-gongzi, can I help you with anything? Shouldn't you be taking the Lan juniors home?"

Uh-oh, he was getting on someone's nerves. Better retreat for now.

But he wasn't about to drop the matter.

The Jiang Sect had a SPECIAL OPS! how was he supposed to leave that be?

He was invested, he wanted to discuss! He needed to compare notes!