#'your moon is here' things that make me explode like a supernova

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[aylieheals]

If you fall in love with me, don’t.This isn’t some cliche poem about my childhood suffering from the lack of a male role model because that would be a terrible lie. And my mum raised a daughter with a guilty conscience, not a liar. Anyways, I’m here to warn you about what you might be getting yourself into. I smile by habit, not by choice. I giggle out of empathy, and humour, or embarrassment, but never to purposely spike. I get jealous when I see that someone can provide for other people in a way that I can’t. And I go through phases just like the moon, but I always complete my lunar cycle and return to my bright self again. And you should probably know that I’m emotional. Like really emotional. In fact, I may even think I have you fooled about I’m feeling, but because my mum didn’t raise a liar, I am forced to unintentionally wear my big sobby heart on my sleeve. Oh and I’ll let something slide 1,016 times, but after that, I don’t give second chances. I’m also an incredibly all-or-nothing person to a fault. But when I am invested in something, I’d rather lose everything good I have before I even consider declaring bankruptcy. But remember : there’s two sides to every coin, so if you fall in love with me, don’t. Because in every lunar cycle, the moon disappears for a while, and it has a dark side too. I will keep filling and filling your glass until it’s overflowing and my pitcher has gone empty, and I realize it’s left me drained. When I’m drained, I’ll get frustrated, and sometimes I’ll go into hiding. I’ll either take a solo hike or get on my bike just to get my distance, peace and alone time. But don’t you worry because I’ll eventually turn around and come home again. Oh and I’m obsessed with galaxies and stars, but it depresses me to know these things will either get swallowed by a selfishly hungry blackhole or explode and die in a supernova or whatever. But that’s beside the point. The point is : I’m a tangled mess of contradictory things. But I’m not saying this to scare you.I’m saying this to warn and protect you and to properly love you and to tell you not to worry about a thing. Because remember I am an all-or-nothing person, so if I fall in love, I am all in for you and that if you somehow fall in love with me, don’t.  Because I won’t be limited to loving you, but I’ll be head-over-heals for your smile, your giggle, the face you make when you’re embarrassed and the look in your eyes when I know you’re jealous. I’ll fall in love with the way you endlessly try to please people and how it drives you crazy that it’s never enough. Or how you selflessly pour your pitcher to hydrate someone despite the fact yours is partched. I’ll fall in love with your phases, both dark and bright, and how sometimes you might go into hiding when you’re frustrated. I’ll fall in love with how you pretend you’re not emotional despite the fact your feelings are trying so hard to escape your eyes. And that special way you recharge yourself when you feel drained. I’ll even love your heart after you’ve given your last second chance to someone for the 1,016th time because I know you’re a tangled mess of contradictory things. So please don’t just fall in love with me, because I’m not going to fall in love with « just you ». You’re too complex and complicated for it to be that simple, and so all I ask is that if you fall in love with me, you’ll fall in love with my infinite complexities too. 

[bookofc]

This is a rough copy. In the chapter where Covid is in the Korean Shinchoenji cult, I am going to change all of the writing that I wrote to a conversation later between two Korean government leaders. And covids findings on the Bible I am going to make more sure are Covids findings so they won't be construed with my own beliefs, which I don't have any beliefs. In the chapter when Covid is in the Catholic Church, the writings are going to be made into a conversation between a Professor and the priest so they are not construed as my own beliefs, where the professor explains Gibbons ideas and stuff. This draft is very rough.

Earth is saying “as soon as the Corona antibodies kills off these damn human viruses I will get better”

The four terrestrial planets and the four gas giants are saying "those Corona antibodies better work because if the human virus starts using its space ships to colonize us we're screwed too".

Jupiter's saying "praying for a zombie apocalypse".

Uranus is saying "fingers crossed".

Mercury is saying "let's go to a different solar system- a quadruple star system where it is warmer, I heard human viruses don't like the heat".

Pluto responds to Mercury "Mercury you crazy ass hole, the humans can survive in quadruple star systems, leave us alone. We just need to discover a vaccine".

Venus is saying "I'm working on a vaccine right now, we'll test it on Mars as soon as we can".

Mars says "why me? Why not Saturn".

Saturn says "you little pipsqueek, I'll use my rings and slice you in two if you want to start something".

Neptune pats Saturn on the back and says "I got your back brother, those terrestrial planets get on my nerves".

The moon is meditating somewhere in the background- the moon is spiritual and thinks that so long as his vibration is high the human virus won't harm him, even though he has already been colonized a couple times before by Buzz Alrdin and others, although he thinks it will not happen again so long as he raises his frequency and maintains positive energy.

We zoom out many light years and the milky way galaxy is talking to the andromeda galaxy. "I think I got a case of the planet virus" says the milky way galaxy.

The andromeda galaxy says "oh I know its the worst, those planet viruses are really something aren't they".

The cigar galaxy chips in "To be honest I think its an illuminati scheme put in place by the butterfly galaxies to take control".

Bode's Galaxy says "are you taking your medicine Cigar Galaxy".

Cigar Galaxy says "no really I'm not making this up. Connect the dots man. It all points to the butterfly galaxies I'm telling you".

Black Eye Galaxy says "Yee protesteth much, how do we know that you didn't make the planet virus. We can all agree on something right, the planet virus was galaxy made, we can all agree on that. These things just don't pop up out of nowhere".

Cartwheel galaxy laughs. "You galaxies are all crazy" he says. "Planets are a perfectly natural part of nature. Planets emerge when stars explode- supernovas. Planets come and go. Meteor antibodies take them out all the time, we have nothing to worry about. For instance, that Earth planet thats causing trouble in the Milky way Galaxy, theres a huge asteroid planet named Niburu X that is about to wipe it out any day now".

Coma Pinwheel Galaxy butts in. "Cartwheel Galaxy and his 'science'" he says making scare quotes. "We all need to repent of our sins and pray to the Lord Tetragrammaton before its too late".

"Oh God you don't believe in that shit do you?" says the Little Sombrero Galaxy.

The Needle Galaxy chips in "I'm not one to believe that God is a 'Daddy in the sky' who punishes us for our sins. The way I see it is we are all energy- God is energy- and if we are in line with the flow of energy, we are healthy, and if we are out of line with the flow of energy, we get planet viruses and get sick. I'm not all doom and gloom and fire and brimstone like Mr Sombrero Galaxy over here". He snickers.

"Hey watch how you talk to me there bud" rebuts the Sombrero Galaxy. "I know the Lord Tetragrammaton is real because I've proved reality is dominantly expressed through the fourfold cross. I got proof. I've been writing books on my research alright buddy, and I got websites that prove my theory to be true. Existence is expressed in a fourfold, three plus one pattern. The fourfold cross is the dominant form of existence. Tetra means four. Tetragrammaton is the four letter name of God, and the tetragrammaton is four letters in a three plus one formation. Existence is dominantly expressed in this three plus one formation".

"Sombrero Galaxy" laughs the Tadpole Galaxy. "Nobody believes in your bullshit theories. You've been working on that theory now for ten billion eons and who is following it. If you discovered the 'Truth' as you claim to have done, why isn't it on TV, why aren't other galaxies talking about it on the radio? Why do none of the other galaxies seem to care?"

The Sombrero Galaxy lowers his head. "It's not because my Lord Tetragrammaton theory is wrong that it is being refuted by the other galaxies, its because, its because, its because of me- I fucked up alright guys. I made mistakes in the past, I get it. I fucked up".

"Excuses, excuses" declares the Whirlpool Galaxy. "You're crazy and your silly theory is crazy, so now go on with your life. Meet a girlfriend galaxy, have a collision with her, makes some galaxy babies, move on bud. There's more to life than waisting your time trying to find proofs to things that don't exist. Your Lord Tetragrammaton theory, I'm sorry to say, its just bogus, its hogwash, I hate to break it to you bud but its ludacris".

"You've never even looked at the theory" says the Sombrero Galaxy. "you just assume its wrong, and you want to believe its wrong because you don't want to believe in the Lord Tetragrammaton, you prefer not seeing the Truth, you prefer the lies".

"This is what I think" responds the Whirlpool galaxy. "This is not the only Universe that we live in. There are other Universes- parallel universes- multiverses. If things get bad with the planet viruses here, we can go through a wormhole to a parallel universe, we'll be fine. Just like that- it's that easy. Don't worry, this will all be over soon anyways, the meteor antibodies are doing their jobs and taking care of the planet viruses as we speak."

The Universe on Brane AB452 taps the Universe on Brane XY897. "Bro", he says "I think I might have come down with the galaxy virus".

"Well stay away from me then" Universe Brane XY897 says to Universe Brane AB452. "Wash your hands and don't touch your face. And get a lot of toilet paper, I heard it helps".

Universe Brane AB452 says "I'm a Hare Krishna. It all doesn't really matter. My sacred text tells me when a Universe dies in a big crunch, it rebounds and reincarnates into a new Universe. We never really die. Even if these galaxy viruses get me, I'll be back. We continue doing this for eternity don't you know? I have studied at the Hare Krishna temple and we Universes, we are not our physical Branes, we have souls, and our souls live forever- they reincarnate and rebound over and over again. We cannot die. Death is an illusion."

"Well that makes me feel better" Universe Brane XY897 says, "but what's the point of it all".

"The point of it all is love" Universe Brane AB452 says, "the point of it all is love of Krishna".

Universe Brane BE74235 shakes his head in disapproval, "You're a Hare Krishna- you're going to hell dude. You're going to hell in a handbasket. When the Big Crunch happens you are not going to rebound. And rebounding reincarnation is a lie anyways. Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we can have eternal life in heaven so long as we believe in him after we die".

"Oh brother" Universe Brane XY897 says. "Not this mumbo jumbo again. What a wack job. Looney Tunes central over here". He waves his thumb in the direction of Universe Brane BE74235.

Universe Brane 4444 comes in. "Guys I think that Universe Brane XY897 might be onto something here. I've been working on this theory called the quadrant model, and it turns out that existence is organized around the cross. And also guys theres something else, I want your help. I was once considered one of the best basketball players in the multiverse and tragic things happened. Can you guys help me get DVDs of when I played basketball when I was younger". The way that Universes play basketball is they use Red Supergiant Stars for the balls, and worm holes for the nets.

Universe Brane 1235 laughs "Universe Brane 4444 has his theory of everything and I have my own- my theory of everything is that everything is synergy, and we are working in antientropic dynamic counterbalance to the entropic chaos increasing nature of Existence in order to create synergy yielding potentialities that will yield ultimately a sort of 'Kingdom of Heaven' Omega Point Singularity full enrichment of the morphogenic field full spectrum awareness consciousness where we will be immortal- we will, in a sense, be gods. We are the gods". Ray Kurzweil teaches this theory for the human viruses, saying that humanity is existing technologically towards the singularity omega point where nanoparticles can materialize buildings at will and new simulated Universes can be created within computers. Some biologists claim that the humans Universe is a simulated Universe, saying that if simulated Universes can be created, the probability that humans are currently in one is very high. African American string theorist Sylvester James Gates Jr. says that the mathematics involved in string theory suggests that the Universe is a computer simulation, arguing that the mathematics resembles computer code.

Universe Brane 4444 says "ok but do you agree that Existence takes on the quadrant pattern".

Universe Brane 1235 says "I don't believe it I don't disbelieve it. It doesn't help to believe or disbelieve. I prefer to be in a state of Being, a state of pure awareness and receptivity and not cling to any beliefs. And what's the practical benefit of your theory anyways? Why should we even pay attention to it?"

"So you're a Buddhist" Universe XXE 7650918 asks Universe Brane 1235

"I don't like to identify as anything- I am" says Universe Brane 1235.

"Yeah fuck off" Universe Brane 4326 says to Universe Brane 4444, "nobody likes you freak. Go take your quadrant bullshit somewhere else- nananananana nananananana nobody likes, you nobody likes you".

"You should get a job Brane 4444" Brane 1235 says. "Having a job is taking part in the synergistic multiplying functions of existence. If you parttake in antientropic reordering activity this will help you to let go of your delusion of the quadrant model. It's not that great of a theory. My theories are great, but yours, I just don't see the use- so what, things are organized in groups of four, so what. What does that do for us? That's something you have to answer before we will even consider taking your theory seriously. Look at you, you're a mess. You can't even clean your own room and you expect us to believe that you discovered the theory of everything. Listen, existence is antientropic, and if you don't part take in the synergy yiedling functions of existence like cleaning your room and getting a job, then there are negative consequences. Really you need to start becoming independent and get a job because once that happens things will go a lot better for you. The quadrant theory is not working out".

"So none of you can help me get the quadrant model promoted or anything- you can't find me a place to teach it nothing. According to Max Tegmark there are infinite universes and moreover doppleganger universes because they repeat and go on forever- there's bubble Universes and even Universes with different mathematical structures than ours, not one of you can help? No Universe here knows a Universe, who might know a Universe, who can help? Does anybody care at all. Even if you don't like the quadrant model, do any of you care at all to at least make any attempt to help a fellow Universe out? I've been asking you all this for over a quadrillion epoches within this Universal Yuga."

Crickets

"I hope you all die form the Galaxy virus" Universe Brane 4444 says under his breath as he walks away. He goes into the bathroom and cries.

Universe CV333334 started to talk to Universe WE23456. Universe CV333334 said that he believed that the life of a Universe was really just a form of Universal Dawrinism- only the strongest Universes survived. He looked over to the bathroom where Universe Brane 4444 was crying and he said "losers like that- they don't make it. The way that the Multiverse works is we Universes fight in a constant battle for supremacy, and Universes like Universe Brane 4444 who are not fit, who waist their time in delusions, they don't make it. We have jobs, we are thriving, we've been doing big things, while for, I'd say at least 100 thousands Ages Universe Brane 4444 has been hammering away at something that is useless, that means nothing. I mean look at the economy in the Multiverse, its thriving, we're thriving, we are making money, we have wives and children, we have houses, cars, savings in the bank, and look at Universe Brane 4444. The qualities of Universe Brane 4444 are not fit, and existence weeds Universes like him out. He will never amount to nothing. He talks about that he was once considered the best shooter in the nation at basketball, and he would have been a famous rapper had his Mother Universe not thrown away his raps, but I think that's all balogni. He has no proof. Sure he has a few DVDs showing he maybe had a couple of good games here and there when he was a younger Universe. Nothing special. And I've seen him play now. He's not that good. He claims he's hurt and all, has two hurt legs, but I think he's just making that up as excuses. I heard he might be mentally ill or something, poor guy. I really feel bad for him. Wish there was something I can do to help but really there isn't. People have to deal with the consequences of decisions they have made in their lives, and Universe 4444 made poor decisions, and he suffers the consequences."

Universe WE23456 shook his head up and down. "Yeah wish we could help... but actually, to be honest, to be brutally honest, I don't really want to help him. I heard some rumours about him- that he's a bad guy. I frankly don't like the guy. Look, we got a good thing going in our lives, why take the risk of even associating with this Universe 4444 fellow. I agree. Life isn't fair, and people gotta deal with it. We payed our dues. Now Universe 4444 has to pay his. All this hype about a Galaxy virus coming, it's not going to happen, trust me- we'll be fine. Come on let's go golfing, take the load off a little, have some fun, maybe find some female Universe Branes to bump into if you know what I mean hahahaha".

"You got it bud, you got it" Universe CV333334 smirked. "Let's go hit some balls. And you know what, I looked at Universe 4444's theory. It's kind of interesting. But I just don't like Universe 4444 so much, that even though I think he has something there, I don't want to help him. I don't like him so much, I hope that somebody else steals the theory or something and takes credit for it. There's just something about him- rubs me the wrong way. Its not a good investment, too much risk in helping him. I don't want to be associated with him to be frank with you- heard he has a bad reputation. Well whatever, I don't want to think about it. If somebody else wants to help him they can, but not me. To the golf course we go, hit some balls into some black holes and Einstein Rosen Bridges". The balls that Universes use in golf are White dwarf stars.

They hop into their nice cars and speed off, using hyperspeed by bending space time on itself.

Female Universe Brane 22 is talking to Female Universe Brane 2468. "Don't even respond to his message" Female Universe Brane 22 says to Brane 2468. "I met Universe 4444, I don't like him. He claims he once had fan clubs of girls and a lot of 'swag flow', whatever that means, what a creep. I've seen him and he is not cute, trust me, he is NOT cute."

"But Female Universe Brane 22" Female Universe Brane 2468 responded, "I already told him that we would go to dinner tonight maybe."

"So the fuck what" Female Universe Brane 22 expressed. "Look no girls like him. You know those other guys we met at the golf course, they were fucking cute and hot, I would fuck their brains out".

"But they have wives and kids" female Universe Brane 2468 said.

"Yeah, and..." responded Female Universe Brane 22, "they're fucking hot so what. And I talked to my girlfriend the other day, and she already fucked Universe CV333334, and she says he has a big dick and is good in bed."

"So I should ghost him- just not reply?" Female Universe Brane 2468 asked Female Universe Brane 22 about Universe Brane 4444.

"Yeah who fuckin cares right" Female Universe Brane 22 said. Universe 4444's a weirdo, find yourself a real man.

"Well ok" Female Universe Brane 2468 said to Female Universe Brane 22. She then texted Universe CV333334. "Hey cutie, what's up stud :)" putting the smiley face for emphasis.

Universe Brane 4444 was still crying in the bathroom, and he was angry and pissed. He wasn't sure what to text Female Universe Brane 22, because he was not used to texting and he didn't date much, so he just asked Female Universe Brane 22 if they were "still on for tonight? Dinner at Chimmy Changas?" He had her on his bumble account. She had already said they were on. Then her bumble account disappeared from his profile. She blocked him. He was ghosted.

According to Tegmark's theory of Multiverses, there are four levels of Universes. There are Level 1 Normal Universes, Level 2 Quantum Universes with Different Physical Constants, Level 3 Quantum Fluctuation Many Worlds Universes, and Level 4 Universes with Different Mathematical Structures.

To make things more complicated and nuanced there are also quilted multiverses, and Inflationary multiverses, and cyclic multiverses, landscape mutliverses, quantum multiverses, holographic multiverses, simulated multiverses, and the list goes on and on.

Universe Brane 4444 searched through YouTube. He came across a video of a Level 3 Multiverses Lives Matter rally. Due to a random quantum fluctuation in an infintesimally small ergodic structure in Hilbert Space during the branching of multiverses which was the consequence of the flapping of a wing of a butterfly in Texas, a la Chaos theory, Level 3 Universes had been facing discrimination and persecution by Level 2 Universes.

A Universe Type 2 Separatist spoke during the rally. He said it was clear that Type 2 and Type 3 Universes do not get along, and the attempts at bringing them together after the breaking of the planck constant during cosmic inflation had failed. He said it would be best for all Universes if the Universe types just stayed separate.

A Type 1 Universe spoke up. "There are Type 2 Universes who have qualities more similar to Type 3 Universes than they have qualities similar to other Type 2 Universes. Tegmark's classification scheme of Universes is an artificial social construction".

A Type 4 Universe got involved. "Universe Type is a social construction?" he pondered. "Why then do Type 3 Universes and Type 2 Universes have different Intelligence quotients?"

"They don't". The Type 1 Universe said. "The G Factor suggests that the reason why Type 3 Universes on average have lower IQs is not due to innate properties, but due to social environment, and as the environments of Type 3 Universes are improving, so are their IQs".

"That's not true" said the Type 4 Universe. "The reason why Type 3 Universes IQs are increasing is because they are having cosmological brane world collisions in extra dimensions of hyper space, and thus they have more mixture of Type 2 in them, and as a result their IQs are increasing due to Universe Type 2 admixture. Also this is a result of gravitational bulk leakage and supersymmetry creating anomolies in the space time continuum."

"IQ doesn't even matter" the Type 1 Universe went on. "There are different types of intelligence according to Gardner. In the multiple intelligence hypothesis, there are intelligences such as musical-rhythmic intelligence, visual spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and even spiritual intelligence. Also there are some type 3 Universes who are very smart, and many Type 2 Universes that are very dumb. Maybe the average Type 3 Universe has a lower IQ than the average Type 2 Universe, but you have to look at people as individuals, and there are many Type 3 Universes with higher IQs, and many Type 2 Universes with lower IQs. That's why it is best to judge people as individuals and not groups. And also, there have been so called geniuses with low IQs. For instance, Poincare, considered a mathematical genius, had the IQ of a what people call a "mentally challenged" person."

"That multiple intelligence theory is made up balogni" said the Type 4 Universe.

"Stop killing us" a Type 3 Universe screamed.

"You wouldn't be killed so much if you all weren't so violent and irrational and criminals," said the type 4 multiiverse. "And you all do most of the killing and thievery and everything anyways. Look at the statistics. We kill one of you usually in self defense or because you are acting awry, like that boy with the watermelon drink that was a drug user getting 'purple drank' and he was killed in self defense by the "Type 2 Universe", and the media makes a big deal about it and tries to start a Universe type war, saying it was due to Universe typism that the killing happened, but you kill Type 2 Universes all the time and its politically incorrect to say anything about it. And the violence and irrational behavior of type 3 Multiverses is due to their low iqs".

"You all Type 2 Multiverses are devils" said the type three Universe. "We steal and kill because you all have put us in poor economic conditions, and we did not have educational opportunities like you all had. Also our society has given us negative stereotypes and we act out the stereotypes. Its called stereotype bias and the pygmalion effect. You all expect us to act bad, so we act bad. That is the pygmalion effect. People act like they are expected to act, or how others want them to act. That is why stereotypes end up being maintained. Coupled with economic suppression, we cannot get educated to lift ourselves up mentally. We grow up in ghettos where it is predator prey survival of the fit, and its hard to break out of that mindset. Drugs and crime and gangs and all that is the byproduct of lack of education and being brought up in ghetto predator prey environments. You all can look back upon a history and be proud of it. We don't have a history, we don't even know where we came from, where in the chaos. We don't have role models in history and all of that to look to, and leaders in our communities, because at the breaking of the planck constant at the .34 second mark of Cosmic Inflation, we were torn out of Chaos by a quantum fluctation by you all, and forced into this multiverse Ensemble in slavery. We did not chose to come here, you forced us here. Level 2 Multiverses enslaved us."

[five-rivers]

imagine if at a christmas truce party the ghosts discover that danny has a second obsession of space

Wrote a fic~ *does a little dance*

.

"Here's your invitation to the truce party," said Skulker, dropping the letter by Danny's head, "and here's the duty list. Pick something." He shoved a piece of paper into Danny's face.

"You know," said Danny, testing the rope Skulker had tied him with, "you get a lot better at chasing me when you're doing it for non-murder purposes."

Skulker scowled, but Danny knew better than to take his apparent facial expression as a sign of his true emotions. After all, the face Danny could see wasn't really Skulker's. It was a mask. One the tiny green jellybean inside could manipulate as he pleased.

"What do you mean, 'duty list,' anyway?" Danny blew the paper off his nose.

"It's a list. Of duties. For people who want to attend the party. You can't possibly imagine that one ghost does it all on their own, do you?"

"I don't know. Some living people are really into the holidays. Wouldn't surprise me if there was someone over in the GZ Obsessing."

"There are," said Skulker flatly. "But going to those parties is risky."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. So, is this, like, a potluck deal, or white elephant, or do I have to come set up, or what?"

"Read the list, whelp!"

"I would," said Danny, "if you held it far enough away for me to see what was written on it. "My eyes don't focus that close."

Grumbling, Skulker adjusted his position.

A lot of the things on the list were already checked off. The rest looked dangerous (fighting the Krampus), time consuming (holly acquisition, with a stupidly high number of branches listed next to it), expensive (providing new holiday table settings), confusing (Danny didn't know what a 'consoda' was, or why he would fetch offerings from it), or simply extraordinarily unappealing (after party cleanup). Except for one.

One that caught Danny's eye because of a very specific word that was included.

"Why's the star all by itself?" asked Danny.

"Because the star is important," said Skulker. "Adding the star to the tree is what starts off the real celebration. A star needs to be impressive. Dramatic! Not one of those little dinky tinsel things you can find at human stores."

Part of Danny knew he shouldn't- But when had he ever listened to that part of himself?

Actually, that wasn't really fair. He listened, otherwise he'd be fully dead instead of just half.

Still.

(The idea of making a star made his skin feel sparkly and fuzzy, like his whole body was half an inch from the surface of freshly poured soda, but all over.)

"I'll take it," he said.

"Humf," said Skulker. "Don't screw up, or you'll be in for a beating as soon as the truce is over." He made a mark by the name and started to fly off.

"Hey! Aren't you going to untie me?"

"Nah."

.

"He's late," said Desiree, sharply, glaring at Skulker as if he had any control over what the whelp did or did not do.

She wasn't the only one.

"He's not late yet," defended Skulker.

"You shouldn't have given him the star as a choice," complained Technus, his voice squaking like a poorly connected computer speaker. "You should have just told him what he'd have to do. Something that wouldn't ruin the party. He's a teenager! Teenagers are easily distracted."

"I didn't know you were a teen, techie," drawled Spectra, who really shouldn't have been at the party at all, seeing as she wasn't, and never had been, invited. Skulker was hoping someone would find a way to throw her and her little minion out before midnight.

"It's TECHNUS, MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY, CONTROLLER OF ALL THINGS ELECTRONIC AND BEEPING."

"I am sure Sir Phantom is on his way," said Princess Dora, softly, ignoring Technus's continuing rant with the ease of long practice. She would not be here the whole evening. Her kingdom had its own, separate celebrations, but they wouldn't start for well over half a human day. "He is a very responsible person, and he was speaking to me about stars just earlier this month." She frowned, slightly, swirling the darkly luminous wine in her glass. "That is, I think he was talking about stars. The conversation was somewhat difficult for me to follow."

"Oh, no," said Desiree, putting one hand delicately over a smile.

"What?" growled Skulker.

"It always bothered me a little, you see, but I hadn't realized quite why until just now." She was barely even trying to hide her delight. "The second time I fought him, it was during a meteor shower."

"So?" asked Amorpho.

"He was rather cross with me during the fight. At the time, I thought it was because he was missing that girl's party, or because of the whole memory wiping thing, but in retrospect..."

"Just spit it out already," said Skulker.

"I do believe you gave the task of making the tree star to a ghost Obsessed with outer space."

Inside the suit, Skulker's true hands slip off his controls for just a moment. "Oh, Ancients," he groaned.

"We're not getting a star this year, are we?" asked Ember.

Phantom chose that moment to barrel through the door. "Sorry!" he exclaimed, looking and sounding more like a little kid than Skulker had ever witnessed. "Am I late? No, I'm not. Never mind. I'm not sorry. What do you think?"

He held out the... thing in his hands for the assembled ghosts to view. It was... It was definitely a star. A round blue star. Complete with solar flares and sunspots. Animated flares and sunspots.

"How the hell?" whispered Walker in the background, despite the fact that he and his pink prison really had no room to talk.

"Is it no good?" asked Phantom, managing to shift his weight even though he was floating. "I turned the brightness way down so that everyone could see the details, but I think I could turn it back up again without too much trouble." He blinked up at the other ghosts, and Skulker noticed with some unease that his pupils were currently shaped like crescent moons. "I mean, the other one exploded, but I think I've got it, now."

All of the ghosts slid back, just slightly. Not that they were afraid of explosions, but, well, being cautious didn't hurt.

"Er," said Dora, "what is it, exactly?"

"A star! A blue giant, specifically. Well, a model of one, anyway, but I think it's a good model. I mean, it's a blue giant right now. I've got it set up so that it'll go through the whole life cycle of a massive star. Or, not the whole life cycle, because that would include the nebula, but the life cycle from this point? It'll change color and expand as the night goes on and it uses up its 'hydrogen'- I've scaled the expansion, though, don't worry, it won't take over- and then the core will collapse and the outer layers will be ejected, and- BOOM!- supernova!"

"Ghost child," said Technus, in a more strangled than usual voice, "are you telling us that's a bomb?"

"No, it's a star," said Phantom, blankly. On closer inspection, the crescents in his eyes were not the only modification to Phantom's appearance. He had pale green and silver stars scattered liberally across his nose and cheeks, and similar shapes in the black of his costume.

In the background, Desiree was dying of laughter.

"Don't you think a supernova might be... dangerous?"

"Oh, a real one, sure. But I tested one before I brought this, and all it did to me was singe my eyebrows off, and I was standing really close."

"Whelp," said Skulker, searching for some reason to reject Phantom's 'contribution,' "how is that even supposed to stay on the tree? It's just a ball."

"Oh, it'll float wherever I tell it to, don't worry, I've tested it!"

.

It perhaps said something about ghostly parties that the sudden detonation of the tree topper several hours later, the subsequent glee of the supposed superhero in attendance when the room was filled with star-shaped glitter and confetti, and the attempted homicide on the part of several glitter-unfriendly ghosts was not the most exciting series of events to occur that night.

[oksana-moods]

Supernova

Summary: As the seasons passes you by, it is inevitable for you to watch the fall.

A/N: This is an AU requested by the darling @multi-muse-transect and you might find it in here. This request filled me with joy and worries at the same time, because it was hard to create a visible story in my head before trying to write it down. But I really enjoyed all the research about Nova Corps, hence it took me a little more than intended.

Warnings: Language, marvel’s canon violence… if there is any other that I should mention, please, let me know.

“You take my breath away. You're a supernova and I'm a space bound rocket ship and your heart's the moon.”

#not my pic

Carol is at a window looking at the sculptures and other buildings of Hala, she’s just arrived from a mission against Kree insurgents. ‘They're like weeds’, she thinks. No matter how hard she fights or fights back, they always come back and never learn that against the Empress they will never succeed.

The lights are beautiful in Hala, but they will never compare to the lights of the Old Earth. She takes a look at the latest reports of her home planet's reconstruction on the table beside her and sighs, knowing that New Earth will soon be ready.

Years ago, Ronan attacked Earth with the intention of destroying Carol and he did, in fact, destroy her heart. Even though she could absorb and redirect energy, she failed to destroy all the missiles before they hit the ground and then it was over. And the beginning at the same time.

Completely possessed by the grief of losing her home and loved ones, Carol went hunting for the Kree and, more importantly, for the Supreme Intelligence and, one by one, Carol brought down her tormentors until she became the Empress of Kree, residing in Hala.

Her patrols to different galaxies have been reduced as she monitors the Kree group responsible for rebuilding the Earth, chases mutineers and still rules the Empire. Her Empire. There's not even time for karaoke, she thinks, as her eyes follows a shooting star across the night sky of her capital.

Her eyes narrow when said shooting star seems to take a route, rather than a random path, because it is a celestial body without navigation. This shooting star is, in fact, very different, she observes. And, almost a second late, she notices that someone is heading right for her.

Taking her by surprise, you hit the balcony glass as if it were nothing and saw Carol's body hurl against the wall with the impact of your body. Not even spending a breath, it's your turn to be hurled against the wall when Carol fights back even harder than you.

You fight, exchange punches and blows. You notice that she's slightly surprised to find a worthy opponent, something that's still unheard of. Until today. Until you.

And that intrigues her, how could someone be so powerful without her knowing?

"Did the Kree insurgents send you?" She asks after you collide on Hala’s sky, the noise and vibrations being felt even in buildings far away from the fight.

"No." You answer. “I was sent by Nova Prime to deal with you” You barely finish your sentence, and you attack Carol again, but she's confused. She had heard of Nova Prime when she was still a Kree soldier. When she fought for the wrong side.

She then looks at you once more. She takes in the clothes you're wearing and your helmet, which covers your eyes with a blueish light but leaves your chin bare. The symbol that resembles a star painted in red on your golden helmet indicated what you are. Nova Corp. You are a corpsman.

A bright, gold insignia in a form of three circles linked in your chest shines even in the dark, showing her that you’re not an ordinary corpsman, but a Centurion. You are Nova Corps’ Commander. Okay, that explain why you’re so powerful.

"What do you want with me?" She asks without the slightest pretension to continue fighting and for the first time you don't attack, you stop and look at her. Wow, the reports of her strength and agility were consistent with what you see, but there was nothing about her beauty. Shaking your head, you answer it.

"Justice." Seeing the confused expression on Carol's perfect face, you continue. "You are crushing the democracy that existed for the inhabitants of this planet, the countless reports of an empress overthrowing entire communities have crossed galaxies."

"Justice, you say." You see her eyes flash with anger and hatred. "And what justice does Nova Prime intend to give Earth?" She approaches dangerously and you have to remind yourself to not cower under her glare.

"The Kree have destroyed my home, so I won't give them one until the New Earth is rebuilt and populated." The threat in her gaze, in her posture, was tangible. "And nothing and no one in the universe will make me concede freedom to this barbaric species."

"Being a barbarian yourself?" You turn your head to the side in a questioning tone, but she takes it as irony. Maybe it was. “An eye for an eye, as earthlings are fond of saying. Or should I say, used to like?” A kind of roar was the only warning before her fist collided with your face.

"Wash your mouth before you talk about Earth, soldier." She patched up a string of blows you couldn't get out of. "Nova Empire has always fought the Kree, why they want to protect them now?"

She was strong; you've already figured that out, but like many other very powerful beings in the universe, they tend to think they're the only ones with powers. Absorbing most of the blows and directing the energy against the empress, you use your power blast and with that, once again, Carol is hurled against the wall of her palace.

As an automatic response, Carol uses the powers of her fist and you feel the force of a thousand cannons throwing you backwards into space, grunting right after with the impact of Carol's body, engaging the fight once more.

You could tell that she was angry and, according to your studies, humans tended to be guided by such frivolous feelings. And that was something you intended to use to your advantage.

Being two beings bestowed with stamina, the fight would go on for hours until someone got tired, but if she uses her powers erratically and drenched in rage, she will be drained quicklier.

“I am the Empress of the Kree Empire! Answer me!" The tone of voice in which she addresses you makes it clear that your goal of getting under her skin is working. With a smirk, you respond.

“Nova Empire takes care of the galaxy and has balance as its main goal, your highness. To overpower other species is not our intention.” Your response seems to enrage her even more and the only reaction you got from her was more blows and more blasts in your direction.

You dodge, you block, and you realize she's getting careless then letting her guard down. And that's where you come in with quick jabs almost powerless, only to enrage her more and more. Just to remind her that even an Empress has weaknesses.

You hit the ground and certainly the people throughout the city felt like it was an earthquake. Something was off and before you could react, Carol hits you with a blast right in the middle of the chest, throwing you meters and meters into a random building.

This time, you start feeling the impact on every wall you hit. You feel dizzy, your hand is shaking, and you find yourself bleeding. ‘What's going on?’ You think as you watch Carol's figure to grow in your field of vision.

The smirk on her face is ridiculously sexy, but you barely have time to make any comments before her voice reaches your ears. "Apparently, you're not that tough without your helmet on, are you?"

You look at her hand that is carrying what was once your helmet, now just broken shards and she drops it into your lap. Without your helmet you are ruined, as is your mission.

The smirk and one last punch were the last thing you remember before she knocks you down cold.

---

Your head was about to explode inside your skull, and you blink at the light entering your cell. All that brightness was not helping your headache at all.

It's been a few days since you've been taken prisoner by Empress Carol Danvers and whether Xandar knows or has noticed your disappearance is something you have no idea of. And when Nova Prime sends reinforcements after you it won't be pretty.

Before proceeding on your mission, you had already been informed that all diplomatic avenues had been tried but completely closed by the Empress. That way, Xandar wouldn't try negotiations to try to get you back. Perhaps this would trigger a new war.

A war you couldn't afford. Certainly, you didn't want the weight of being the trigger or the spark in a cold battle of inflated tempers on your shoulders. Carol had a very short fuse, as you witnessed firsthand, while Prime could be an slayer when the situation called for it.

Days passed, becoming weeks and your monotonous existence is only interrupted by the Empress's daily visits. Visits that you don't know why she still keeps, when it's pretty obvious that you have no information to provide.

You are a member of the Nova Corp and have been sent on a solo mission to "dissuade" the Empress from continuing to rule her own empire with an iron fist. There were no ulterior motives, no espionage or reinforcements waiting in the moon not far from Hala.

You were a single, last resource. There was nothing but you and your broken form. A failed soldier.

You were standing, watching the sun shining on buildings across Hala through the small window in your cell, admiring the dots circling farther down the street, almost forgetting that each dot was a person. You wonder if Carol forgets who they are.

"Um, admiring my city, I see." You spare her a brief glance before you return it to the window. She was in a red robe with local designs, and you can't shake off your head at how beautiful she is. How beautiful she looks in red. Or any other color.

You don't exactly know why Carol still comes to your cell, but you can't lie to yourself that you don't like it. You do. But you convince yourself that any company is better than the solitude of these walls, just that and nothing else.

She is an empress after all. A Sovereign, considered by many to be evil and tyrant. But each gentle gesture towards you reminds you that her hands are stained with blood. Like yours. Your conscience doesn't seem to know which side it should be on.

"Forgive me if my boredom is exacerbated, your city is the only thing I have left to admire." You answer still looking ahead, afraid to look at her and be mesmerized. The Empress was a mystery that captivated you, as her answers were never what you would expect them to be. Just like now.

“I could end your boredom. Hala’s Summer Trade is famous across the galaxy, have you ever tasted Pluot Fruit?” Your head swivel towards her so fast it feels like a whip.

"Summer?" Quickly you do the math in your head, in this solar system the days and seasons were longer than in Xandar, so... "How long have I been kept in here?"

"Too long, Nova." Nova? What kind of nickname is this? Shaking your head, you question her. "Nova? This is not my name." She giggles and moves closer to the energy field that makes up your cell door, she’s one yard away so you can smell her perfume. White jasmine.

“I know it isn't. But I decided to abbreviate the title of Nova Corps to Nova, besides, I own this place…” she opens her arms to emphasize what she's talking about. "I can call you whatever I want, prisoner."

You decide to play her game and with a smirk on your face you respond. “Prisoner? Now, seconds ago weren’t you inviting me for a walk, your highness?”

You lick your lips when you see her face contorting in a mix of anger and something else, but what, you don't know. “You abuse my benevolence too much. Your precious Xandar never tried to open a ransom deal, you are of no use to them or to me.”

Her words crash into your chest, and you feel your heart break a little more. Months have passed and there was no sign of another corpsman coming to your rescue and now she tells you that Nova Prime didn't even try to negotiate your freedom.

You close your eyes and with small, defeated steps you walk to the window. A lifetime dedicated to Nova Corp and Xandar, to be abandoned like a stray dog ​​lost from its owners. Like someone worthless.

Defeated and hopeless, you ask Empress Carol why she still keeps you alive. Standing in the hallway leading to the dungeons hall she smiles triumphantly and speaks. "For my entertainment, prisoner."

--

"What do you think of the Pluot?" Carol's voice breaks your train of thought.

"Strangely delicious." You respond by referring to the strange appearance, as if it was a dried fruit and not completely juicy right after tasting it.

As with the fruit, such was your surprise to see Carol's interaction with her subjects. Many of them kept their distance, paid their obeisance and respects to the Empress, and continued on their way with their heads low.

However, a reassuring number of people seemed to genuinely like or even admire Carol and not out of obligation. Doing a 180° turn in the opinion you once held of the Empress, she was extremely adorable when interacting with children.

Who knew the fearsome tormentor of the Kree empire would be so… human? How can someone, who keeps a prisoner just for her own pleasure, be so kind? You wonder if they were the same person at all.

She smiles in response to what you said and you smile back, completely unsure of the reasons why you do.

After the Hala market tour went without incident, that is, without any attempt to escape on your part, Carol has granted you the right to stroll through the inner gardens of her palace. As much as you want to hate the way she plays as if you were a puppet, you can't.

You try to hate her, but each day you spend in her company makes it harder for you to deny the feeling that, gradually, grows in your chest. Then, you find yourself desperate to hang this passion before it's too late.

Your morning walks allow you to see autumn slowly approaching, little by little, with each leaf touching the ground. And if you used to enjoy Carol's garden alone, over time, the Empress's company became part of your routine.

"Why are you still keeping me alive, Carol?" You rarely addressed her by the title of empress or nobility, and she never forced you to use it, she seemed not to care whether you recognized her power or not. Nor did he seem to mind when you used it ironically.

"I like your company." She answered and that made you look directly into her eyes. "It isn't every day that I find a match." Her answer made something boil in your chest and you had to force your heart to understand that she was probably referring to the fight.

"I'm not a match for you, your highness." You spoke. "Everything special about me came from an enhanced helmet." A sad smile danced on your lips, remembering how powerless you felt when you saw it broken in her hand. You remembered how broken you felt yourself.

“Everything special about you comes from your heart, Nova.” Her tone was low and as much as you wanted, there was nothing to grasp in it. She spoke this sentence as if she were speaking about the weather but for you it just set your heart on fire.

--

Between stories from a lifetime ago, when Carol was only a human being without a single clue that the universe was bigger than her world and stories from her time adapting and training in Hala, you felt yourself slowly but surely falling for her.

The change for you was visible and you prayed it would be visible only to you. If before you thought she was beautiful, now she’s extremely attractive in your eyes. Even when choosing simple robes, Carol was always dressed impeccably.

After spending so much time together, it was only a matter of time before you realized that the Empress was possessed of vast intellect and knowledge about many different things.

But what strike you most was how funny and mundane she could be, yet, she still had that special something in her eyes that never failed in make you weak. You were a prisoner, indeed. A prisoner of her eyes.

Unlike many extremely powerful beings, Carol was humble enough to listen to your stories, and even encouraged you to tell more details about yourself. She never quite understood, but something about you drew her as if you were a magnet.

The sparkle in your eyes as you spoke about your homeland, friends, or your passion and honor in serving Nova Corp thrilled her. There were many things in you that stirred emotions in her, as well as aroused feelings that she thought she was no longer capable of feeling for a long time.

And so, without realizing it and at the same time fully aware of what was going on beneath her skin, the Empress fell in love with her Prisoner.

--

Winter at Hala marked when your quarters were no longer a cell but a room in Empress's palace. Larger than your home in Xandar, the room was beautifully decorated with art, and you could discern some Xandar artwork. You wonder if it was coincidence.

Despite being as warm as a star, Carol suggested that both of you should trade your walks in the garden for spending time in the library available at the palace. And that's how you began to be the Empress's company during her meals.

It started with lunch and then evolved into dinner and now Carol finds herself waiting for your presence before even touching her plate. ‘I shouldn't allow myself such weakness’, she thought. However, she couldn't bring herself to change or to avoid the need of your company.

--

"I beg your pardon?" You speak, barely able to avoid spilling your soup. The increasingly warm but shy rays of the sun and the many animals strolling in the courtyard tell you that spring is just around the corner. And that's exactly what almost made you spill the soup, in first place.

Carol cleared her throat, promptly speaking again, as if you had not heard her from the first time. “I’d be delighted if you grant me the honor of your company for the Spring Ball due in two weeks.” She looked at you expectantly.

Your mind was swirling as to why she would want you as her company, out of all people. She was the Empress; she could have anyone she wanted by her side. Yet, here she was, asking you to be her date.

The time in Hala flew slower as it did in Xandar, but it felt like the opposite, for the Ball came faster than you thought it be possible.

And here you were, walking down the entrance stairs in a beautiful golden gown with Carol’s arm locked with yours. Her deep green dress was marvelous and when you saw her welcoming you with that pretty smile of hers you thought you could melt.

Much to your dismay, Carol could sing just as she’d told you she could, but you never believed in her. It wasn’t hard for you to realize that you were free falling in love with her even more than you already were. If it was possible, you fell in love again. You’d be her prisoner, forever.

As the night went on, you were mesmerized by the ball, the music, and the way of life in Hala. It felt like a different life, one that very much resembled prince and princess’ tales that you heard when you were a kid.

A life that didn’t quite belong to you but looking into her eyes it made it feel like everything was possible, reachable, as if her power could create a different world. Just as she did. As ruler of the Kree empire, she created a new kingdom.

Standing in the balcony, you welcomed the cold air hitting your skin that was inebriating your senses, previously flooded by the Empress. The stars illuminated the sky of Hala making the city bellow you even prettier.

A soft touch in your hand brings your gaze back to its owner and a small gasp scape your lips when you see how close she is, even more so when you wish she were closer. “I never told you how beautiful you are tonight.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You flatter me, your highness. You’re flawless yourself.” A small smile creeped up her lips and you forced yourself to keep your eyes locked with hers, proven to be a hard task when she started to lean into your ear.

“There is something that I wanted to tell you for a while ago.” Her hands on your waist made it difficult for you to pay attention to her words, along with the feel of her cheek touching your cheeks made your knees weak.

“You’re no longer a prisoner and you can leave Hala if you want to.” Her thumb drew patterns where it touched you and you could feel your skin burning. “You’re free, but I wish you’d stay here.” She backed down and now her eyes were boring into yours.

“I wish you’d stay here with me.” She stressed.

Your heart and head were running thousand miles per hour in completely opposite directions. The rational part of you wanted to take your freedom and go back to Xandar, even though you should find it suspicious that, almost after a year, she’d let you go. Specially after you’d learned so much about Hala. About her.

However, your heart’s been slowly giving itself to this woman right in front of you, and there was nothing that you wanted more than to stay here with her. Surely, you felt left behind by Nova Prime, but it still stings in you that no one came after you. Not even a fellow corpsman.

‘Not one that you know, for that matter.’ You shook your conscience’s voice away and gave in to your heart. The rational part of you broke at the exact same time as did your helmet.

“Carol, I…” You begin but she interrupts you by placing an oh so soft lips on yours and there is no voice to hear anymore. Nor rational, nor emotional. There are only her lips pouring her heart into a kiss and you do just the same.

Right in that moment you felt as if your heart was about to melt, maybe it would, if she hadn’t broken the kiss and rested her forehead in yours.

“Tell me you’ll stay and rule by my side.” Before the true meaning of her words could sink in, the sky of Hala suddenly shone as if thousands of stars appeared right in that moment, drawing the attention of you both.

Not long until you realized that it wasn’t stars, but thousands of spaceships painting the night over your heads, and you’d recognize those ships anywhere. Xandar was here. And a voice that you’d never forget was heard above all noise.

“I am Nova Prime and Xandar declares war to Empress Carol, accused of murdering Nova Corps’ Commander.”

‘Why are they accusing her of murder?’ You thought to yourself. It does not make sense that she’s being accused of killing you when you’re alive. Unless…

“Carol, what did you do?”

[nishigo]

growing. // razor headcanons & writing. // chapter three.

a book titled “growing.”

[ c h a p t e r 3 : simple love. ]

the synopsis reads: razor and the dear reader have gotten themselves into quite the mess. miscommunications and raised voices lead to an argument that was more heated than a flaming flower. although healing takes time, could a wound this large be repaired?

authors note: tada! welcome to the last chapter of this short and sweet book that has been created. this one is more stuffed with more fluff than the last and lots of smooches. razor deserves the best, after all. after you finish, put the book back properly on the shelf, okay, traveler? that way it’s easier for people to find it. (or yourself, if you desire.) i, hao, the librarian and timekeeper, thank you in advance. now, have fun with this last chapter of the book. ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

word count: 1,564 words.

tw: lots of fluff. so much so it could give you a toothache. and kisses as well. a bit of crying in the beginning, but that is all.

request status at time of posting: open.

[ chapter one. ] [ chapter two. ] [ chapter three. ] 

in which there is reconciliation and a bright future planned out underneath a doorway, the moon and stars being the only witness.

would you like to read?

＞　行｡ ( y e s )

＞　不行 。( n o )

------

it would be about three days before you happened to enter mondstadt again.

frankly, you were only in the area because you were passing by, and you were trying to do it as quickly as possible.

after lisa would get her plants and such, you were off again to the inn and then to take up another mission granted to you in the morning.

though, despite the mission you ended up taking solo, you couldn’t stop thinking about that terrible night with razor.

you couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him again, knowing that most likely, you’d end up in tears again.

you couldn’t have waterfalls pouring out of your eyes in front of someone that meant so much to you.

but fate seemed to be pushing its luck, and the stars were aligning just for the two of you.

you and razor stared at each other for a moment, as if the other was an apparition and they were dreaming. his rough, calloused hands took a hold of one of your own gentle ones.

no, this was real alright.

the two of you were both afraid to make the first move, but once more, razor used his instinct to initiate what he thought was needed.

his strong arms wrapped around your neck, nuzzling into the soft skin.

you felt so warm.

you felt cozy.

you felt like home.

course, you were caught off guard, and as much as your brain told you to pull away, you heard him whisper into your ear.

“i missed you.”

and then the walls came tumbling down.

your previous attitude towards him was diminished, and you were back to where you started.

you were still in love. and now, he knew he was as well.

Razor pulled away, and for the first time, you were able to take in much more detail than what you had initially seen. There were tired bags under his eyes, his face worn out, as if he had not been able to sleep for weeks. His silver hair was a mess under his hood and his voice was much quieter, as if he was stepping on eggshells while determining how to make his next move. You gently reached out, cupping his cheek with that gentle, comforting smile you always wore.

His body shook as he suddenly felt as if his insides were collapsing. He felt his face grow hot with tears that ran down his pale skin, over his scar, and down onto the tiled floor. He felt so guilty for what he had done to you that he was terrified that you would seek vengeance. Or that you would leave. The latter was much more terrifying, as he hated when you were gone for a few days, how could he handle not seeing you for the rest of his life? Seeing your hands raise up, he braced for impact of a harsh hit to the face with his eyes squeezing shut.

“Shhh, Razor...it’s okay.” You murmured softly as he felt two soft hands delicately cup his face. Your thumbs would run along his smooth skin, wiping away the tears that continued to flow down. Your own eyes would water, but by the grace of the stars, you were able to keep somewhat of a composure. He opened his eyes just barely, enough to see you again at least. Confused by the look he was giving you, you began to carefully let go and put your hands down before he grabbed your wrists in a swift motion. Back they went to his face, and back you went to wiping his tears and simply holding his head in the doorway.

“Y/-Y/N. I am s-sorry. I h-hurt you. Didn’t m-mean to, just n-no know what l-love was.” Razor managed to choke out through staggered breaths and hiccups. You kept up your affection, smiling gently as you let one hand go of his cheek.

“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have run off so fast and had more patience with you. I’m sorry myself.`` To calm him down further, you hesitantly lifted a hand and ran it through his silver locks. Razor froze for a moment, but he relaxed further into your touch as he tilted his head more towards the hand, similar to that of what a cat would do. Silence ran its course as you two slowly began to heal from the wounds of that night.

“I love you.” He stated simply. It almost slipped your mind as you continued to play with his hair and cup his cheek, but you did a double take as you stared at him.

“You...you what?”

“I love you.” Razor repeated again, a bit louder this time in case you couldn’t hear him or something of the sort. You were about to ask him if he was joking, but his face held a serious look to them as it dawned on you. He really meant it. Granted, it was the most simple, basic way to confess feelings back towards a person, but you didn’t mind. It was what made him charming and attractive to you anyways.

“Why do you love me?” Razor paused to think about it, deep in thought as he did his best to string the words Lisa recently taught him together into something worth remembering.

“Simple, love. Love is a person, like how mate is a being. Therefore, you are love. Warm, safe, kind. Easy to be vulnerable and be...Razor. Guard down.” He explained to you with a sweet look on his features. Despite his limited vocabulary, you were deeply touched. He took the time to think and make sure his point was clearly mentioned. Razor grinned happily as he tilted his head at you. The air was light again, the heavy feeling replaced with his heart being ecstatic as he didn’t have to even say anything else. He could feel how happy you became from hearing what he said. It was good he could sense your happiness, because you were left speechless.

“Be my love? Please?” Razor asked quietly as you continued your silent streak. Since you were at a loss for words, and because you knew his love language was physical touch, you decided to show rather than tell. Your hand that was on his cheek trailed down his face and found its place wrapped around his hips. Then, with one swoop, you pulled him in closer to you and gently collided your lips with his.

It was if a supernova had exploded inside of his chest. The feeling was forgein, unfamiliar. Perhaps this technique of two lips put together was a human tradition he had yet to learn. He didn’t know what to do, so he mimicked you a bit. He opened his eyes slightly and then watched as you leaned in. He would then mirror the action for a few seconds before you pulled away. He knew that whatever you had just done to him was a way of saying yes. He just knew, and he loved it. The affection and having your full attention was all he could ever ask for. In fact, Razor found himself wanting more as he cutely pouted.

“More please?” You laughed, covering your mouth a bit as you nodded your head and cupped his cheeks again. You peppered your kisses all over his face: on his forehead, nose, temple, chin, the corners of his lips. Razor huffed adorably as he shook his head, pointing at his lips.

“You miss! I want here, love!” Razor whined, though, his complaining was stopped as you kissed his lips again. He melted in your hold, and there was no better feeling in the whole world. The boy would pull away this time, panting softly as he curiously touched his lips with his hands. It was amazing every time he received them, and he knew that he would never grow tired of them. Perhaps you could give him lessons, he thought. Then he would become an expert! Yes, that sounded like a plan. But that would come at a later date.

For now, he wanted to spend the night with you in his arms again.

------

some extra things i’ve thought of:

he would have totally dragged you into the guest bedroom where he was staying and given you a bunch of grass and flowers he had arranged.

(“give her a gift she will appreciate, something from nature!” was what lisa suggested.)

the roots were still there, along with heaps of dirt, but you found it endearing nonetheless as you laughed and accepted them.

he also got you chocolate covered strawberries! he had made them with klee (a mistake on lisa’s part, she will never let those two in the same room unsupervised again, especially not a kitchen.)

he would make it up to you by practicing how to formulate sentences under the bright sun in wolvendom.

you would reward him with kisses or headpats, so he worked extra hard in order to improve his linguistic skills.

because of being a bit traumatized from being seperated from you for so long, he gets a bit of separation anxiety when you leave him for too long. he’ll do missions or even go shopping with you just to ease himself down.

also hold his hand :(((

or any words of affirmation will do , he loves both when they come from you :))

[jungkookiebus]

Stargazing | kth

Genre: fluff x nonidol!au x established relationship x professor!taehyung Pairing: astrophysicist!taehyung x reader Rating: E for everyone! Word Count: 1.8k Summary: High up in the mountains, in a small village, there lives two young lovers; one is an astrophysicist, the other a dutiful plant mom and writer. On a special night, with a special supermoon, Taehyung, wants to picnic and watch it travel across the sky. With fireflies lighting the waves of grass, you settle among its drifting blades as Taehyung shares his passion of space and the wonder it holds.  Author’s note: This is a sensory drabble with a little more dialogue, but I don’t think it takes away from the comfort it’s supposed to portray. Plus, I fucking love space. 

“I’ll take you there one day.”

Taehyung’s slim finger partially covered your view of the moon for a moment. Tonight, there was a supermoon and he was adamant on taking you out for a night picnic. With a basket slung under his arm (you may have teased him a little for it) and his other arm intertwined with yours, he led you up the path shortly before moonrise. Your small village was nestled in the mountains, away from the busy life of the city the both of you had been used to up until a year ago. The both of you decided your lives weren’t fulfilled enough, sold most of your belongings, and moved to the mountains and you hadn’t looked back since. Fireflies danced among the trees and the ferns that grew beneath them. The sound of soft dirt beneath your feet sounded softly in the night, as if you walked on air. A cool breeze blew through the trees and it almost sounded as if waves were crashing on a shore. The night was filled with the sounds of crickets, cicadas, predatory night birds, and the winds coming down from the mountains. Sticks snapped beneath your feet every now and again. The clearing was one you visited often. The tall grass swayed gently in the breeze and the moon cresting over the trees cast it in a muted blue that made it seem like waves at dawn.

Now, the both of you were laid on the blanket on your backs, watching as the moon traveled slowly across the sky. The sky was dotted with thousands of stars that only highlighted the moon even more.

“To the moon?”

“Mhmm.”

You looked at him out of the corner of your eye. His hands rested on his stomach and you looked at his profile. From here, you could see the reflection of the stars in his eyes and you wished you could look at them head on without blocking the view. But for now, you were satisfied with seeing them as if standing at the edge of a clear pool. His eyes shone in the night. He never liked his brown eyes, but you thought they were the brightest eyes you had ever seen. Even his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he slowly blinked. His soft, dark hair haloed his head and soft curls fell across his forehead. You looked back towards the sky. The moon was almost too bright to look at for very long, but you were fascinated by the amount of detail you could see. Craters stood out in stark contrast from the white ashy surface, streaks of darker gray the only other proof that something had hit it.

“That’d be nice.”

He hummed as the wind pick up again. You laid in the middle of the field, blanket tamping down the grass where you sat, but the rest still stood tall around you as if you laid in an enchanted pool. It dipped down low, tickling at your legs so you scooted a little closer to Taehyung. He instinctively moved his arm so that you could tuck under, head resting on his shoulder. Fireflies were continuing to come out by the hundreds, dancing among the grass and the trees further beyond the field. An owl flew overhead once and a bat or two would skitter across your vision jauntily.

“What constellations are out tonight?”

In all honesty, you just wanted to hear him talk. You weren’t sure what it was. Maybe his voice was at just the right decibel. You were positive his voice could be taken and made into a binaural beat that would put the listener to sleep instantly or relax their tired soul. Whatever ailed you, his voice soothed the ache.

“Well, I see Capricorn and Aquarius. Oh, and Pavo is right over the trees…”

He trailed off, knowing he tended to get carried away. After all, the other reason you had moved here was for the observatory. Taehyung was a professor of astrophysics and when he decided to move, still made a living doing research for the university and published regularly.

“Tell me more about stars,” you said almost dreamily. You really did just want to watch the sky while he talked.

And talk he did. As you gazed out into the starry night you tried to imagine what he was describing. He was always so good at turning space into a story that you weren’t surprised he was the most popular professor at University. You tried to imagine that you had vision that could see beyond this earth and into the heavens above as he spoke. You traveled through various clouds of dust as his voice rumbled beneath you, guiding you through the galaxy. Then there was almost a storm, a turbulence within the cloud as the gas and dust began to collapse in on itself. You imagined the warmth on your face, contrasted sharply with the freezing temperatures of space, as the core heated. Taehyung waved his hand towards the sky as he spoke, gesturing to it in general as he continued his description.

“…protostars. It’s at the heart of these cores that someday become the star…”

You could practically see the brightness behind your eyelids as you closed your eyes, using the light of the moon to further your daydream.

“It kind of just gathers dust, but not all of it becomes a star. They could become asteroids or even planets.”

You loved his passion and it warmed you against the cold around you. You held onto him a little tighter as the temperature dropped. The moon was beginning to dip behind you, almost directly overhead now. The soft skin of his jaw was pressed to your forehead and when he talked it moved gently against your skin. The crickets were still just as loud, and the fireflies were having a dance all their own in the moonlight; they were the bioluminescence to this grassy ocean. An owl hooted behind you, nestled amongst the dark branches of the trees at the edge of the clearing.

“And when they die, they leave so many beautiful things behind.”

You let your fingers brush gently along his sweater as you nestled a little closer, sighing deeply as he continued to speak in his soft baritone.

“Their death are sad fates, but it’s amazing how long they get to live. They can be one of the oldest things in the universe, having lived for billions of years and we’re just here in the blink of an eye.”

He was always fascinated with life and life outside of himself. His fascination with the stars had started in an early age and traveled with him for the rest of his life. He reached for the old Tecsun hand crank radio he always kept by his side “just in case”. Taehyung without the radio wasn’t Taehyung. He had set it perfectly, just by memory, to the perfect station at peak clarity. Miles away, and up in the mountains a little higher than you were now sat a large radio tower with a small, white building at its base. On this night it was playing Ella Fitzgerald and The Andrews Sisters. The music floated softly on the air and the fireflies seemed to sway in time to the lilting beat.

“In a supernova the core collapses and explodes. These insane nuclear reactions happen, and the core literally creates iron, ____, now the star has taken all the nuclear energy it can and the star can no longer support its own mass and the iron core collapses.”

Taehyung is animated now, body shifting a little beneath you, but not enough to make you uncomfortable. You still fit comfortably under his arm and his warm hand never left the outside of your elbow. He was using his other hand to explain what he was saying, even though you weren’t looking. Every now and again, you’d open your eyes to see what shadows the moon was casting on his face now. Now that it was dropping behind you, his soft cheekbones were highlighted, and they cast shadows down his cheeks. The dip beneath his bottom lip was dark as night. His eyes, however, still reflected the stars. From this angle, you could watch both as his eyes searched the stars with rapt fascination. He seemed to always be looking for something different, something new. They moved from side to side and sometimes more upwards, exposing only the whites and they shined brilliantly, making you think of his dying stars and how you were made of them.

“In seconds, and imagine this please,” he didn’t need to ask you twice, you were too enraptured in his voice to ignore the words, “the core goes from roughly 5,000 miles across to just about a dozen.”

You inhaled in fascination at the fact. You truly were surprised because Taehyung seemed to always have something new for you to learn, even after all these years.

“It’s almost like one of those strange time travel objects villains always seem to get in superhero movies. Things backfire and then suddenly everything is collapsing in on itself and the whole world is out of control. It’s kinda like that. The outer layers collapse, along with the core. They rebound with the release of energy and literally explode outwards. The amount of energy they release is beyond imagination.”

He spread all his fingers across the sky, palm to the stars he talked so lovingly about. The stars still shined by the hundreds, some brighter than others, and some you had to squint to see. His hand moved like a strange black creature moving across the sky, but you watched his graceful fingers move, pointing out things he was talking about and what it would look like there.

“From days to weeks, a supernova can outshine a galaxy. The subatomic particles are the array of colors you see, but they occur once every hundred years. About 25 or so are discovered a year in other galaxies, but they can’t be seen without a telescope.”

Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Cocktail’ played quietly next to him on the blanket, making the moment that much more surreal. You wanted to create a bubble around this moment and stay in it, or revisit whenever you wanted. His hand, gentle on your arm and, despite your sweater, made your heart flutter a little every time he tightened his grip after being relaxed for a while. In turn, your grip on his sweater would tighten the slightest. He sighed now, resting in his explanation, as his hand settled on your hand. He held your fingers gently under his and his warmth was welcome.

“Thank you for doing this with me,” he whispered.

“I could do this forever.” You sighed contentedly; eyes closed as you listened to the music.

“I want that with you. Two lovers side by side together, two stars in the sky, dying out brilliantly in the end. Stargazing.”

And with the whisper of a kiss to your forehead, curls spilling across your skin, the two of you connected like twin stars, did just that.

Stargazed.

[grayintogreen]

I was not technically tagged, but at least two people on my dash were like DO WHAT YOU WANT NO ONE IS YOUR GOD, and you know what? They’re right and valid. 

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

96! And 90% of them are from just this year. Can’t wait to find out what the big 100 is gonna be. Any one of my WIPS could be Disney’s next 100th fic.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

455,024 (also mostly from this year...)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

In my entire life??? Since I was twelve??? I don’t even know, man. I wrote a lot of ooc crackfic and fic for cartoons when I was on FF.net, and then I was on LJ and wrote for a TON of different fandoms, but on AO3, I have written for Critical Role (so much CR), Yashahime/Inuyasha, Guardians of the Galaxy, His Dark Materials (TV), Steven Universe, Bleach, Alias, Supernatural, Dollhouse, Pushing Daisies (the last four were all transferred here from LJ, though)

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

- turning wine back into water (Critical Role, de-aging fic with plot, 30457 words)

I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE HOW POPULAR THIS FIC IS. It beat out two of my super popular GotG fics that have been up since 2017 BY A LOT. Apparently, there was a market for the Mighty Nein being adorable cocktail brats and saving the world. Thanks, Liam’s Quest!

It is probably one of the most wholesome fics I will ever write too. I love it.

- Sunshine Came Softly (Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket and Mantis friendship, 3188 words)

THIS FIC STILL GETS HITS EVEN TODAY. It was written right after I saw the movie so it hit hard and fast on the hype train. 

- Mine Is Just a Slower Sacrifice (Guardians of the Galaxy, Rocket-centric, 2248 words)

BOY YOU CAN TELL THESE FICS ARE ANCIENT BECAUSE I HADN’T DEVELOPED MY TITLE NICHE YET. where are the lower caps and Seanan McGuire lyrics!!

Anyway, this was written probably IMMEDIATELY after I saw the movie and had to process Rocket’s emotions during the last moments, because of who I am as a person. For what’s mostly a character study, it got some mileage on it.

- they drink dreamers up like brandy (Critical Role, 1625 words)

Back to Critical Role! I wrote this one when I was in a fucking blind post-finale haze and producing massive amounts of Kingsley content and I wanted to write a silly fic about Caleb being tiefling catnip. 

- if adversity breeds character (we’ve character enough for two) (Critical Role, Beau and Molly-centric, 1824 words)

I feel like most of my most kudos-ed CR fics are Beau-related, which is funny because I never really wrote her EVER. I guess I need to write her more often. ANYWAY, this one got jossed immediately after 141, but I needed to write Beau and Molly bantering and I couldn’t get her flipping him off after revealing her card is Rumor out of my head.

(Incidentally my sixth most kudos-ed fic is my Fjorester next gen fic, WHICH I WAS NOT EXPECTING AT ALL. IT’S A FIC BASED ON MY OC FANCHILDREN!! I’M VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THAT!!)

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Usually!! There are times when I forget and then it’s been so long that I never go back, but I like responding to comments. They make me so happy and I want to make sure the people who take the time to comment know that I see them and appreciate them. Especially if they give me long comments. You long commenters know who you are and I value you and also flail incoherently in your direction.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

God, probably this church takes no conversions simply because, like, the whole ending scenes are MISERABLE AND FULL OF ANGST and then it has the hopeful ending that is actually a bullshit lie.

But second place probably goes to what couldn’t i offer, what couldn’t i give, which is just misery porn in disguise as a character study. Sorry, Cree.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Okay, so back in the day when I was a tineh fanbrat I wrote a lot of self-indulgent crossovers featuring my friends and I in true Mary Sue format being ~saviors of the world~ alongside our favorite fictional characters and after I grew out of that, I very rarely did it again, because as someone who can only write AUs if they’re high concept and can only write crossovers if the canon welding is pristine, it’s difficult.

I have ideas for some! I just haven’t written them yet. Or they’re sitting in Google Docs partially written.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not to my recollection, which is insane, because I’ve written some things in my youth that deserved it, but also I was a kid, so maybe I definitely did not deserve it. Don’t send hate to kids!!

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

The first smut I ever posted on AO3 involved some fucking American Gods flesh horror shit, so that answers your second question.

Basically, yes, but I write smut to facilitate character development in a way that regular story beats can’t, mainly with characters who are in some way deeply fucked up and have unbalanced dynamics. 

So basically chances of me writing smut that isn’t Creecien or Lucigast? Very low. (I haven’t written Lucigast smut yet but I will. Inevitably.)

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that anyone’s told me, but one time when I was a teenager someone ripped off an entire group messageboard RP I was in and tried to pass it off as a fic they wrote.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that anyone’s told me!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I tried and it did not work out, because of (non-wanky) reasons, but it’s just not something I’d be very good at. I was the kid who wanted to work alone on group projects. I’m bad at group work.

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

That I’ve WRITTEN??? Because that at least narrows it down significantly. Sesshoumaru/Rin hands down. It’s a good dynamic and they’re fun and sad at the same time. 

My self-indulgent ass does also enjoy writing Creecien though. I’m putting it out there because I want it.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

GOD POOR SUPERNOVAS OF ALL SOUND AND LIGHT. THAT FIC COULD’VE BEEN A CONTENDER, but I unfortunately posted it RIGHT BEFORE the White Diamond episodes aired and it became so jossed by canon so fast that I gave up on life with chapter two half finished. I need to delete it but I can’t bring myself to bury my shame.

15) What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and meta-narrative and character-specific stuff. I go into every story with CHARACTER FIRST mentality, which is how I end up writing so many damn character studies or why my word counts explode. I’m just out here naval gazing because I love character stuff SO MUCH.

I’ve been told I’m good at fight/action scenes too, which... Shocks me, but I think watching and playing a lot of D&D stuff has really improved how I write fighting and action sequences.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

[whispers] too much naval gaze. dial it back, bitch. 

I get really caught up in character stuff and forget to do important things like ADVANCE THE SCENE OR DESCRIBE THE SCENE OR LITERALLY ANYTHING. I also don’t think my prose is all that great, but I’m pretty sure every writer feels that imposter syndrome bullshit, so /waves hands. All I’m saying is I have seen some writers on AO3 who are writing some fucking vivid imagery and stringing flawless sentences together and weaving introspection and description together like beautiful baskets and they are stronger than any US Marine and I salute them and wish to be them.

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Iiii try not to. There’s times where I want to throw in, like, a little Zemnian for Caleb flair, but I try to stick to things that are either untranslatable (like German compound words), common phrases (like please or come here), or insults/curses/ pet names. Things that I don’t think Google will fucking lie to me about.

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think it was a Sailor Moon crackfic about Haruka being forced to enter a beauty pageant which was just a blatant rip-off of Ms Congeniality and oh my god was it awful. I don’t even wanna talk about it.

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this church takes no conversions, probably BECAUSE it’s my little red-headed stepchild of a fic involving so many things that are just never going to make it popular (backstory fic, fic that is almost 85% headcanon, doesn’t involve popular characters, etc.), but godDAMMIT I love that fic so much. It was fun and I use every bit of that headcanon in almost everything like it’s my job.

shattered stage is a close second, because it was such a crazy concept for a fic that I PULLED OFF SOMEHOW and is this wonderful mix of crazy plot and character and lore and my three favorite tieflings having to work together. And also Jayne Merriweather as the main villain. 

A lot of love went into both of those fics and they are my babies. this time next year we’ll see if I add Creedemption and shoot at fate to this list- probably. All of my epic long fics resolve to be my babies because I spent so much time on them, and I have to love them and cherish them because I raised them into gigantic wordy attempts to write a doorstopper.

[morganas-pendragons]

A Grieving Man | 11

So, I haven’t gone back and rewatched Matt Smith’s era in years. I haven’t seen the entirety of the show since the first time I watched it back in 2013 and seeing as how we’re well into 13′s era now, there are things I’m noticing about 9-12 that I didn’t notice before. 

Here’s where this piece comes in. Eleven is angry. All the time. Angrier then I ever remember, and he was my first doctor! I haven’t written Doctor Who in a while, so here’s a piece. Let me know what you think!

REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

***

The anger of a good man is not absolute. Good men don’t need rules. 

There’s a man out there who roams the Universe in a blue box with a human by his side that calls himself The Doctor. He’s many things.. cruel but kind, brave but cowardly, and prides himself in never carrying a gun because his weapon is his mind and his tool of choice is the sonic screwdriver that never leaves his person. 

He’s ancient. Bright green eyes that seem to soften whenever they stare into yours, eyes that mirror the way the stars burn and the way civilizations have fallen at his hands; Eyes that shine as brightly as the sun and are so often able to hide the one thing he never allows you to see.  

Rage. 

You had the option to stay or go after you watched The Pond family break apart in front of his eyes and remained helpless to do anything about it. After that, you weren’t sure how to approach him no matter how much you wanted to. You had stayed because you thought you’d be a balm to the ache of his hearts. 

No matter how much you believe, there is not one thing that quells the rage of an immortal God with a fierce devotion to humanity. Not one thing. 

That doesn’t mean you won’t try though. No matter what you do, or how you feel, you can’t just blink away the complete and total adoration for the man with the flailing limbs and the stupidly sexy purple waist coat. 

So one day, you wake up extremely early and hobble out of your room to the kitchen where the TARDIS hums beneath your fingers and guides you on making The Doctor a breakfast he’ll actually eat. Contrary to popular belief, the Gallifreyan loves his tea and depending on his mood, he can eat like a racehorse. 

You find him talking to himself in the console room. Your eyes crinkle at the smile that turns your expression upward at the sight of his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, lips pursed in concentration and goggles veiling his eyes that are so intently concentrated on whatever he’s trying to fix inside the console. There’ve been many a nights you listen to the way he pounds that console until the TARDIS practically groans inside your head for relief from her thief. You’ve patched up wounded hands and coated him in antiseptic and ointment without so much as a word. 

He keeps his rage very carefully hidden behind quirky quips and a smile. A smile that could bring you to your knees if he so wanted. 

  “More pointless repairs, old man?” 

  “Oi!” The Doctor bangs his head on the metal as he whips around to meet your gaze. His eyes settle on the tray in your hands and your soft, warmed shape all wrapped up in a discarded bathrobe you’d taken as your own months beforehand. Before the Ponds, before Clara.. before it all became wrong. “There’s no such thing as a pointless repair. Anyway, what’s this?” 

  “Your breakfast.” You amble over to the front doors of the TARDIS and open them, peering out into the great beyond of the galaxy he’s settled you in. It’s deep and dark and lovely out there, colors swirling at your feet as stars are born and planets thrive in front of your eyes. “Come sit with me? I enjoy admiring the universe.” 

He doesn’t know that when he comes to sit by you, your attention is solely focused on him. 

  “Mmm. This is good. Really good.” 

  “Of course it is.” Your fingers dance along the outside of his thigh as he finishes his food and sips at the tea. “I made it. Don’t you pay attention?” Green eyes peer over the rim of his tea cup as you both stare out into the vast nothingness of space. “Or was it just your precious Ponds and the ever-so-interesting girl who died twice for you that you paid attention to?” 

The silence fills with a palpable rage. It’s only been a matter of weeks since The Governess died and he found modern Clara watching over two children for a family in London. You’ve always traveled on his heels - like a ghost from another life - but you’re done being a reminder of his pain. You’re done being ignored. You want him to break. You want him to shatter so that eons worth of rage dissipates and he’s finally yours. He doesn’t belong to his rage. You want him. 

The truth of it is this: Love should not be this painful. 

  “We’re not talking about this.” His voice is dark, flat as the tray slams against the floor and he storms back across the console room. He’s been hiding this rage from everyone he meets, including you, because no one should have to see the damage. If people see the damage then the man beneath is exposed and he does not want to hurt anyone else. He’s cried enough tears to last millennia. “We are not talking about this!” 

  “You barely talked about it when you spent all those months stuck on your cloud in Victorian London hiding from me! When no one else was there, I was! When your demons became too much to bear and the dark was suffocating you, I was there!” You are one of the few people who has never been afraid of what The Doctor is capable of. Even in the sight of centuries worth of rage and grief, you are unafraid. “You’ve been so consumed in your grief over things you can’t control that you’ve stopped seeing me!” 

Your hands find his chest and pound, pound, pound until they start aching. You can see them behind your eyes - River’s silence, Amy’s tears, The Doctor and his screaming - and for some reason you start pounding harder but it doesn’t seem like he’s noticed. 

His rage is still very carefully contained. 

  “I want you to break!” You’re yelling now. Weeks worth of unspoken words pour from your mouth and no matter how much you want to, you find you just can’t stop. “You’re not letting yourself feel it, Doctor! You’re not letting yourself grieve The Ponds, you’re not letting yourself grieve the first two versions of Clara that you lost because you feel like it’s all your fault and you could’ve prevented it, but you can't! You want to see the best of humanity?” You push yourself away from him. Tears streak openly down your face and the Timelord finds his hearts aching at the sight of you breaking. Not for yourself, but for him. “This is it, Doctor. Humans feel things: Love and joy and sadness and anger and heartbreak. Suffering is a part of the human condition. Our lives are so finite that nothing is permanent. People will be lost, people will die and people will leave you. But me? I..” You curl your hands at your side and swallow the knot in your throat. “I won’t leave you because..” 

I love you. It’s right there, right on the tip of your tongue, and you are absolutely terrified to say it. 

  “You should not be breaking because of me.” His voice is quiet, heavy with guilt as you open your eyes to meet his own. 

 “Oh..” You breathe. “Old man, I’ve been breaking because of you since the day we met. Now I’m always breaking because I-” He steps closer, eyes shining beneath the dimmed lights of the console room. There’s still no rage in his eyes. There’s something there you haven’t seen in weeks. Something that belongs solely to the Doctor: Hope. “I love you. I love you.”

His hearts drop into his stomach. The Doctor stands in front of you, expression vulnerable and hearts laid bare as this is the first time anyone has ever said that to him and he just doesn’t know what to do. 

  “And you won’t accept it because you feel like it’s undeserved.” Your fingers cradle his chin in your hands as you slowly ease him to his knees, afraid they’ll give out by the shock of your admission. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more deserving of love.” 

The rage of a grieving man is quiet. It boils beneath the skin and sinks deep into the bones, permeates the soul until it festers there and takes over the body. Grief is all-consuming. You cannot shake grief until you feel it. 

In the darkness of his console room, The Doctor sees the ghosts of his beloved Ponds - all three of them - and the Governess who’d stood in your very spot before she’d been dragged off his cloud and learned how to fly. He sees them, and he cries for the things he’s lost. 

Except this time he isn’t alone. 

The ancient man with the bright eyes and the bleeding hearts thrusts himself outward to pull you into his embrace, urging you into his lap to where you can wrap your legs around his torso and bury your face in his neck as he trembles beneath your touch. Your fingers dance up and down his spine, whispering words of comfort against the shell of his ear as he weeps. Centuries worth of grieving. 

Companions he’d lost. 

Companions who had died. 

Companions he’d never gotten the chance to have. People. They were all just people and oh if The Doctor did not love his humans. 

  “I love you.” You whisper. “I loved you as a girl loves the universe. Except the universe isn’t all the stars and planets and moons and infinity. The universe is you.” You take his hands in your own again and press his palms against your cheeks. “The sun is in your warmth and the stars are in your eyes. All the girls fall in love with the universe, but falling for the universe made me fall in love with you. The Doctor. Healer, wise man,” You lean forward to rest your forehead against his own. “Hero.” 

The Doctor licks at his lips. Red rimmed eyes flicker between yours eyes and your mouth, and he whispers, “Kiss me.” 

A supernova explodes between you two the moment his lips touch yours, and for a moment, you allow yourself to be enveloped by the sheer majesty of the universe. 

[dochub]

C O S M O S : A SPACETIME ODYSSEY - STANDING UP IN THE MILKY WAY

“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was or ever will be.”  - Carl Sagan, September 28th, 1980.

A generation ago, astronomer Carl Sagan launched hundreds of millions of us on a great adventure: The exploration of the universe, revealed by science.

We’re about to go from the infinitesimal to the infinite, from the dawn of time to the distant future. Explore galaxies, suns and worlds. Surf the gravity waves of space-time, explore planets of stars that never die, discover atoms as massive as suns, and universes smaller than atoms. 

Cosmos is also a story about us. It’s the saga of how wandering bands of hunters and gatherers found their way into the stars. One adventure. Many heroes.

If you want to see where we are in space, here it is:

Here’s what Earth looked like 250 million years ago:

And this is how it could be, 250 million years from now.

To go venture out into the farthest reaches of the cosmos, we need to know our cosmic adress. And this is the first line of that adress.

Earth.

EXPLORING THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The moon, our nearest neighbor, has no sky, no ocean, no life. just scars of cosmic impacts.

Our star powers the wind and the waves and all the life on the surface of our world. 

The Sun holds all the worlds of the solar system in its gravitational embrace. Starting with Mercury...

to cloud-covered Venus, where greenhouse effect has turned it into Hell.

Mars... a world with as much land as Earth itself.

Then a belt of rocky asteroids circles the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Jupiter is like it’s own solar system, with it’s four giant moons and dozens of smaller ones. It has more mass than all the other planets combined. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot... a hurricane 3 times the size of our whole planet, that’s been raging for centuries.

The crown jewel of our solar system, Saturn. Ringed by freeways of countless orbiting and slowly tumbling snowballs, each, a little moon.

Uranus...

and Neptune, the outermost planets, unknown to the ancients, only discovered after the invention of the telescope.

Beyond, lies a swarm of tens of thousands frozen worlds. Pluto being one of them.

Of all our spacecraft, Voyager 1 is the one that’s traveled farthest from home. She bears a message to a billion years from now. Something of who we were, how we felt and the music we made. Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night”.

From out here, the Sun may look like just another star, but it still exerts it’s gravitational hold on a trillion frozen comets, leftovers from the formation of the solar system, nearly five billion years ago. It’s called, the Oort Cloud. No one has ever seen it before, nor could they, for each of these little worlds is as far from it’s nearest neighbor as Earth is from Saturn. This enormous cloud of comets encloses the solar system, which is the second line of our cosmic adress.

Earth, Solar System.

EXPLORING THE MILKY WAY.

Rogue planet. World without a sun. Our galaxy has billions of them, adrift in perpetual night. Orphans, cast away from their mother stars during the chaotic birth of their native systems. They’re molten at the core, but frozen at the surface. There may be oceans of liquid water in between those extremes. Who knows what might be swimming in there?

How many worlds? How many stars? How many ways of being alive? Where are we in this picture? 

That’s where we live - about 30,000 light-years from the center. The Milky Way Galaxy is the next line of our cosmic adress. 

Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy. 

Andromeda, the galaxy next door, we call our two giant galaxies, and a smattering of smaller ones, the “local group”. Can’t even find our home galaxy from out here. It’s one of thousands in the Virgo Supercluster. 

On this scale, all the light we see, even the tiniest dots are galaxies. Each containing billions of suns, countless worlds. Yet, the entire Virgo Supercluster is but a tiny part of our universe. This is the cosmos on the grandest scale we know. A network of billion of galaxies. It’s the last line of our cosmic adress... For now.

Earth, Solar System, Virgo Supercluster, Observable Universe. That’s our cosmic adress.

Many of us suspect that all of this, all the worlds, stars, galaxies and clusters in our observable universe is one but tiny bubble in an infinite ocean of other universes... A multiverse. Universe upon Universe. Worlds without end. 

EXPLORING TIME

How can we, humans, who rarely live more than a century, hope to grasp the vast expanse of time that is the history of the cosmos? The universe is 13.8 thousand million years old. In order to imagine all of cosmic time, let’s compress it into a single calendar year.

Cosmic Calendar begins on January 1st, with the birth of our universe. It contains everything that’s happened since then, up to now, which on this calendar, is midnight, December 31st.

On this scale, every month represents about a billion years. Every day, nearly 40 million years. Let’s go back as far as we can, to the very first moment of the universe.

January 1st. The Big Bang.

It’s as far back as we can see in time... for now. Our entire universe emerged from a point smaller than a single atom. Space itself exploded in a cosmic fire, launching the expansion of the universe and giving birth to all the energy and matter we know today. As it expanded, the universe cooled and there was darkness for about 200 million years. Gravity was pulling together clumps of gas and heating them, untill the first stars burst into light, on January 10th.

On January 13th, these stars coalesced into the first small galaxies. Those galaxies merged to form still larger ones, including our own Milky Way, which formed about 11 billion years ago, on March 15th, of the cosmic year.

Hundreds of billions of suns. Which one is ours? Not yet born. It’ll rise from the ashes of other stars.

See those flashing lights, like paparazzi? Each one, a supernova. The blazing death of a giant star. Stars die and are born in supernovas, the stellar nurseries.

They get so hot that the nuclei of the atoms fuse together within them, to make the oxygen we breathe, the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood. All of it was cooked in the fiery hearts of long-vanished stars.

You, me, everyone...

How much longer until the birth of our Sun? A long time. It won’t begin to shine for another six billion years. Our Sun’s birthday is August 31st, on the Cosmic Calendar... four and a half billion years ago.

As with the other worlds, Earth was formed from a disk of gas and dust orbiting the newborn Sun. Repeated collision produced a growing ball of debris.  The Earth took one hell of a beating in it’s first billion years.

Fragments of orbiting debris collided...

 and coalesced untill they snowballed to form our Moon.

The Moon is a souvenir of that violent epoch. It was ten times closer back then, locked in a much more intimate gravitational embrace. As the Earth cooled, seas began to form. The tides were a thousand times higher then. Over the eons, tidal friction within Earth pushed the moon away.

Life began somewhere around Semptember 21st, three and a half billion years ago on our little world. For all we know, life may have come from another part of the Milky Way.

December 17th was quite a day. Life in the sea really took off, exploding with a diversity of larger plants and animals. Tiktaalik was one of the first animals to venture onto land. It must have felt like visiting another planet.

Forests, dinosaurs, birds, insects, all evolved in the final week of December. The first flower, bloomed on December 28th.

The universe is already more than 13.5 billion years old. Still no sign of us. In the ocean of time that this calendar represents, we humans only evolved within the last hour of the last day of the cosmic year. 11:59 and 46 seconds.

All of recorded history occupies only the last 14 seconds, and every person you’ve ever heard of, lived somewhere in there:

All kings, battles, migrations and inventions, wars, loves, everything in the history books happened here, in the last seconds of the Cosmic Calendar. 

Three and a half million years ago, our ancestors, yours and mine, stood up. Once standing on two feet, our eyes were no longer fixated to the ground. We were free to look up in wonder. For the longest part of human existence, the last 40,000 generations, we were wanderers, living in small bands of hunters and gatherers, making tools, controlling fire, naming things. All within the last hour of the cosmic calendar. 

We’re so very young on the time scale of the universe, that we didn’t start painting our first pictures until the last 60 seconds, a mere 30,000 years ago.

This is when we invented astronomy. In fact, we’re all descended from astronomers. Our survival depended on knowing how to read the stars to predict the coming of the winter, the migration of wild herds. Then, 10,000 years ago, began a revolution in the way we lived. Our ancestors learned how to shape their environment, taming wild plants and animals, cultivating land and settling down.

This changed everything. For the first time in our history, we had more stuff than we could carry. We needed a way to keep track of it. At 14 seconds to midnight, or about 6,000 years ago, we invented writing.

Writting allowed us to save thoughts and send them much further in space and time. It shook the world. Moses was born seven seconds ago. Buddha, six seconds ago. Jesus, five seconds ago. Mohammed, three seconds ago. It was not even 2 seconds ago that, for better or worse, the two halves of the Earth discovered each other. And it was only at the very last second of the Cosmic Calendar that we began to use science to reveal nature’s secrets and her laws. 

The scientific method is so powerful that in a mere 4 centuries, it has taken us from Galileo’s first look through a telescope at another world to leaving our footprints on the Moon. 

It allowed us to look out across space and time, to discover where and when we are in the cosmos.

Science is a cooperative enterprise, spanning the generations. It’s the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher, a community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.

Now, come with me. Our journey is just beginning.

[advisortotheadvisor]

@nojohi hey, I was your holiday exchange person! I made some puckabrina fluff for you!

The first time it kind of happened was when Sabrina is thirteen.

She had been up since 5 AM because Daphne had woken everyone up banging on a pot and screaming that it was Christmas like it was new information the rest of the family hadn't been privy to until now. It was nearly 1 PM now and most of the adults were getting Christmas lunch ready, meaning that Sabrina (and Puck, kind of) was in charge of making sure none of the younger kids did anything hospital visit worthy.

Red was coloring quietly while Pinocchio talked her ear off about the new books he'd received; Basil chewed contently on the ear of his well-loved stuffed rabbit: Daphne had received a Nerf gun from ‘Santa’ and was currently doing her best to make it everyone else’s problem. Satisfied with the fact that nobody was in the process of burning the house down, Sabrina settled against the arm of the couch to watch whatever cheesy Christmas movie was playing and eat as much candy as she could until she inevitably lost her appetite trying to eat whatever food Granny Relda was whipping up. Unfortunately, a grubby hand stole both her peace and her candy cane.

“Your face is gonna freeze if you keep looking at me like that,” Puck responded cheerfully to her heated glare. There was a loud crunch as he bit the end of his ill-gotten treat. “You know, you humans like to pat yourselves on the back for all that lame stuff like going to the moon, but really your best achievement are these right here.” He waved the candy cane for emphasis. “Delicious and easy to sharpen into a weapon to use against your enemies? Genius!”

“Glad you're impressed,” Sabrina grumbled. “Now give it back.” She made a grab for it, but he simply leaned out of her reach. When she tried again, he fluttered away and hovered in the middle of the room. He shot her a smug smile and she saw red.

Oh, it was on.

She chased him around the room, nearly knocking over several stacks of books in the process. He would occasionally slow down, allowing her to almost catch him before picking up his speed again and leaving her in the dust with a high-pitched giggle. He finally stopped and hovered a couple inches above her, but before she could snatch the damn candy cane out of his hand (and maybe punch him a couple times for good measure), a loud, giddy voice interrupted them.

“Ooh, Puck and Sabrina are under the mistletoe!” Daphne cried, momentarily  distracted from shooting Nerf bullets at the empty soda can perched precariously on a stack of books. Sabrina looked up and, sure enough, there was a sprig of mistletoe strung up above their heads.

“Mistletoe?” Puck flew higher for a better look. “What’s it for? Does it give you some kind of horrible rash or something?” He asked, looking at Sabrina like hundreds of new prank ideas were already streaming through his mind.

“No, it-" Sabrina started to say, but was swiftly interrupted.

“Nope!” Daphne bounced over to them. “It's just a regular plant, but if you stand under it with somebody, you have to kiss them.”

“Kiss them? But that means…” Puck trailed off, eyes locking onto Sabrina's, and she could feel his blush mirrored on her own face.

“Whatever. It's just a dumb tradition,” Sabrina muttered, furiously shutting down any thoughts of her and Puck's decidedly less platonic interactions and the weird, warm feelings they conjured up.

Daphne looked like she wanted to protest, but, thankfully Granny Relda called them in for lunch before the conversation could get any more awkward.

(Her and Puck still avoid making eye contact for the rest if the day.)

--

The second time it almost happened, Sabrina was fourteen.

The wind bit into her nose and whipped at the exposed bit of wrist between the end of her sleeves and the start of her gloves. Snow had made its way into her shoes and was slowly soaking into her socks. Her fingers felt like icicles masquerading as a part of her body. But, despite the miserable weather, Sabrina was having the time of her life.

Why? Because she was in the middle of a free-for-all snowball fight death match.

It was almost 10 AM and despite the inviting warmth inside the house, nothing could beat the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Snowball fights might be relatively tame for other families, but add in a couple everafters and Grimms, and it became a dog-eat-dog world.

Sabrina panted as she hid behind a tree, fingers curled as tightly as they could around a snowball without crushing it. From her vantage point, she had a clear shot at Red and Daphne's hastily constructed snow fort. But, before she could make a move, a twig snapped behind her, immediately putting her on the defensive.

It was Puck, hiding behind his own tree only a couple feet away. She raised her weapon, but he shook his head frantically at her and pointed at Red and Daphne's fort with a raised eyebrow. Two years of battle strategies and living together meant that Sabrina could read the look on his place like it was a book; he was proposing a sneak attack. She nodded, and then held up three fingers. On the count of three.

Three.

Two.

Before she could lower her last finger, Puck transformed into a polar bear and charged. He roared and the little girls shrieked in response. They tried to fight back, but it was in vain considering that Puck was literally a fucking bear. He knocked the their fort down and then swiped at the snow with his paw, sending it showering over the girls. It was then that Sabrina attacked from the left flank, pelting them mercilessly.

But, just when it looked like victory would be theirs, Daphne reached into her pocket and pulled out a small ring. Sabrina's world was upended as the snow she was standing on rose up and then dropped back down on her and Puck.

“Using magic is cheating,” Sabrina said as she wiped the snow off her face.

“You never said that,” Daphne chirped.

“She's got a point,” Puck pointed out. “Good one, Marshmallow.” He shot her a finger gun and she shot one back

“Don't take her side!” Sabrina said, shoving his shoulder. “She's the reason we lost!”

“Aww, did the wittle baby wose the snowball fwight?” Puck cooed, his baby voice dripping with sugary sweet condescension as he shoved her back

“You lost too, dummy!” She cried, nearly sending him sprawling with her next push. It continued like that for a little bit, playful and pointless fighting without any heat behind it. But, despite the lack of heat in their argument, there was still a warmth settling into Sabrina's gut because this, this was easy as breathing. It sparked something deep inside that she didn't want to name.

But, when Puck tripped over a buried tree root and fell onto her, the spark erupted into a raging inferno because suddenly with him on top of her, their faces hovering only a couple inches apart, Sabrina couldn't feel the cold around her through the abrupt heat pooling in her cheeks. Puck stared down at and for a eternity of milliseconds, the only things that seemed to exist were the two of them and soft sounds of their breathing.

The moment stretched out long, too long, and if it stretched any longer it felt like everything they weren't talking about was going to bubble to the surface and spill over so Sabrina found herself pushing Puck away from her with a shout of, “Get off me, you gasbag!”

That moment was quietly added to the pile of Things They Don't Talk About and Sabrina swore to herself that the redness of her cheeks was a result of the cold.

--

Sabrina was fifteen when it finally happened for real.

Her and Puck were outside sword fighting with the swords Charming had gifted her. They were dull and blunted training swords, but still a definite upgrade from Puck's old wooden swords. Veronica supervised from the porch as their blades clashed.

Puck thrust forward with his sword and she blocked it, quickly twisting her own weapon into a disarming maneuver. Puck's sword fell to the snow with little fanfare and she snatched it up before he could even move to pick it up. Puck seethed, but couldn't do anything; they'd agreed before the match that all forms of shapeshifting and other magic were prohibited. She smiled smugly about her victory and held out his sword for him to take back and his hand closed around the hilt before she could move hers off. A warmth that juxtaposed the cold air around them filled Sabrina's body.

She didn't know who started it. Maybe he stepped forward first, maybe she did. All that mattered was that they were much closer than before and the only things between them were their hovering, visible breaths and all the things they refuse to talk about.

This next part though, this was all Sabrina.

She kissed him.

She decided that she was sick of this, sick of all these what-ifs and should-haves and almosts. She was sick of this game they were playing where they flirted and teased but never made any real progress. She was sick of saying nothing when she wanted to say everything they both already knew.

So she kissed him.

It made it sound simpler than it was. If she had to describe it in clichés, she would say it was all of them. Fireworks and butterflies and the sun going supernova all at once in her stomach. In that moment, she didn't care about the cold seeping into her fingers or the layer of sweat covering both of them or the fact that her mom was still outside with them. The world could have exploded for all she cared.

The kiss lasted five seconds and an eternity at the same time. Their lips broke apart, but instead of pulling away completely, Puck simply rested his forehead against her own.

“I always knew you had a crush on me,” Puck teased softly.

“Shut up,” she said, struggling to keep a grin off her face and out of her voice.

It might have taken two almost-kisses to get here, but hey, third time's the charm, right?

[ammonitetestpatterns]

a few weeks ago I was dwelling with how immaterial is (maybe forgive the unnecessary intellectualization of pop music that just confetti pops into my preconscious pool ♥ cause these things help me graft together sense and tap into all the sprawled out ineffable folds of historicity and fantasial memory with every celestial object there ever was and that’s urgent for me to know because it keeps me on and takes me up) such a singular ode to a more virtually operative imagining of embodiment and the ability to act on thresholds of possibility to processually fill out your being, simondon’s preindividual always (already!!) effervescing into new life worlds, and it’s clear she's probably the most optimistic populist club artist of our generation, glossed out in the drawl of longevity with viral self replication between interstices of visibility and mobile power because the doxic committee needed a figurehead for holey space, for the tunes in themselves and their social decants wherever they authentically bloom, not directed towards any other end, even with liberal recuperation given clearance as PC music animorphed into culture industrial trolls, of course it encroaches on her and so many in her orbit, noise saturation with the credo that anybody can do anything, and capital accumulation opportunities enjoined in snorting lines off a digital issue of paper mag with (the more temporally proximal and culturally imminent crystals of thought and activity in) psycho-historical continua, but that’s not where her creative expression seemingly incubated. we always exhume those continua in our own memory, like a spirit cannibal. well she is the protoplast for the molecular textural obsession and pop deconstructivism that’s endemic now and basically been sterilized of any critical or formally interesting push it might have originally presented. I was taking photos of the full moon through the trees last night, drawn into the mystery of its circle, and sophie was with me reaching for it too, truer than I ever could really, and she's an angel in every freaking way. floored in the sheer depth of how she’s touched my social areas for the past six years, a clay cake of sensibility testing and sedimentation, some of my friends emphasizing (and the real speaks for itself here!) how indebted they are to her for their own self knowing and formation in the present. around the same time I was welding those thoughts from immaterial (maybe it was even provoked by this?) erica sent me the illegalist flip sophie did of ayesha’s verse in ken doll and we had that shared expanse of diamond understanding, how we presaged this and it was only further legitimated a few years ago with that screenshot of sophie reaching out to a fan account to collab, and now it was real. “for those rich girlz who have 8 speaker setups and loud weed, onkyo-kei enjoyers. the real baddies, sachiko sinewaves as single dimension of hugs, bar as parmenidean aural embrace,” and that makes me cry, all this lifting light from a locust swarm of love all the time, a pact to smooch the poster on the wall. but we took her presence for granted in that expanse, even if it’s impossible for her to really die. so let’s light a candle and twirl toward the azure with ultraviolet love, “making bodies go until they explode” (entelechy meets its maker?) like smiling emoji bombs, a little like cam scott’s polysemy of “is getting by like making out?” that’s a real supernova kiss too, electricity apparent in the very folded form of the phrase!! as with the meridian speech, the origins don’t exist and they never did. matter doesn’t even follow mind because it’s not some bounded wellspring of extendable determination either, it’s just neurally conducted flows of spatiotemporal individuation. the form of her music is drenched in conjecture on possibility and getting outside, and that’s the horizon of living when the world wants to eat you.

[arimendoza]

cedoliver; time will wear us thin

@hogwartsonline quidditch + @hprarepairnet | PRIDE

characters/pairing: cedric diggory/oliver wood rating: general audiences words: 3811 summary: oliver wood has never been good with words. cedric diggory tries his best for the both of them.  prompts: i’m not in the mood + acceptance notes: canon divergence. get on this train w me [ao3 link]

Cedric finds him where he always does: at the quidditch pitch.

Oliver offers him a nod of acknowledgement, but otherwise stays seated in the stands, broom discarded onto the ground, a letter in his hand.

Cedric moves to sit beside him, quiet, contemplative. He looks at the letter for a long time.  “Do you ever wonder,” he asks, “what it would be like to watch, instead of play?”

Oliver stays looking ahead. At the sky, never at the ground, as if hoping he too could make his home in the stars one day.

“Flying’s all I’ve ever known.”

“But it’s not all you can know.” Cedric’s voice cracks, and Oliver feels his heart break with the sound. Quietly, he adds, “It’s not all you have to know.”

Oliver looks at Cedric then, his gray eyes filled with fear and anticipation and hope.

They seemed to say: you could make your home in these stars.

Cedric grabs Oliver’s hand, crumples the letter with the action. Cedric is the first one to move forward, bridge the gap between them.

And as always, Oliver is the first one to move back. Cringes. He doesn’t dare to look Cedric in the eyes again, terrified of what he might find: disappointment, resignation, anger. A supernova of all the emotions they were not allowed to say.

Still, Cedric doesn’t let go of his hand, whispers, “I’m not afraid.”

Oliver looks at their intertwined fingers, feels the way Cedric’s hand just fits.

“Bravery has nothing to do with it,” he chokes out, because it doesn’t. It shouldn’t.

Cedric shakes his head, grips Oliver’s hand tighter the way one would clasp a snitch, as if he were scared Oliver too would fly away and disappear any second now.

He uses his free hand to cup Oliver’s cheek, but does not move forward this time. “It does. You know it does.”

Cedric gently forces Oliver’s gaze from their hands and back to his face, gaze imploring. “It’s everything.”

Oliver tentatively raises his hand to meet Cedric’s, wishing this chaste embrace could last lifetimes.

*

They hadn't lost by a large margin, but Cedric couldn't help but feel as if that would have been the better option.

It would have been embarrassing, sure, but it crushed him whenever they got so close, whenever they got so hopeful--only to fail.

And Cedric hated to fail. But he hated failing people even more.

His first year as Captain, and he was already floundering.

He couldn't even look Oliver in the eye when they exchanged handshakes, didn’t even respond to the usual “Good game, Diggory.”  His head was already filled with plays they should have seen, moves they could have done. Because Cedric Diggory did not want to be ‘good.’ He needed to be excellent.

So he did the only thing he could think of doing: grabbed his broom and sneaked onto the pitch, prefect status be damned. He would fly until he was completely winded, until his muscles gave out, until he could physically feel the disappointment and guilt and shame begin to ebb away. Retreat even just for a day, just for a moment. Then, and only then, could he afford to tell himself it was enough. (Until, of course, it wasn’t).

Only it turned out he hadn’t been the only one hoping to fly tonight.

"What the bloody hell are you on the pitch for, Wood? Gryffindor won!"

Oliver raised an eyebrow, but otherwise chose not to comment. He stayed hovering, waiting for Cedric to approach. He gave no indication he was surprised to see Cedric here at all.

“It’s true, you really are insane, you know that? You should be in bed. Resting. You’ve earned it.”

Cedric winced. He should have phrased that better. He expected Oliver to prickle at the comment, mouth forming into a hard line the same way he did whenever Cedric had the pleasure of watching his shouting matches with Marcus Flint. Or perhaps he’d roll his eyes the same way an annoyed sibling would whenever he was being chastised, like he did whenever Percy Weasley harped at him about quidditch.  

But Oliver just shook his head, still only at a hover, but flying to meet Cedric just as he stepped onto the pitch. The wind was gentle tonight, and under the faint moonlight, Cedric could have sworn Oliver was smiling.

“I could say the same to you. Whenever I say it’s a good game, I mean it.”

“Even to Marcus Flint?” Cedric quipped. He made no move to get on his broom as much as Oliver didn’t bother to get off his.

Oliver shrugged. “Even to Marcus Flint.”

Cedric didn’t know why this particularly shocked him. He always knew Oliver to be fair, and appreciated him for it, but even Cedric had to admit it was hard to call any game with Marcus Flint a ‘good’ one.

“Either way, could have been better.”

Another shrug. “Every game could be, if you think about it. It’s why you’re here tonight, why I’m here tonight. Why we’re both here, I’m presuming, every night we can be. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Doesn’t mean you weren’t good.”

‘Good’ got you put on Reserves, got you second best on a platform or exam. Cedric knew he was ‘good,’ but imagine people like Harry Potter who were already there. Who were great on bad days, and near phenomenal on any other. Not that people like Harry didn’t work hard, but it frustrated Cedric to know that every day of his life, he would have to work harder.

So if Cedric heard the word ‘good’ one more time, he’d explode--he wasn’t looking for roundabout validation from Oliver Wood of all people, who Cedric considered to have about as much natural talent as Harry anyway.

He’d half a mind to say goodnight right then and there, but to simply excuse himself and go back to the dorms did not only feel somewhat rude, but to come all this way to end up not practicing was a waste. He at least owed the extra hours to his team.

He fidgeted with his broom, tightening and loosening his grip as he thought about the best way to approach this.  

Oliver, ever the Gryffindor, seemed just fine on settling it for him.

He motioned to Cedric’s broom. “You going to fly, or what?”

The tone was nonchalant enough, but there were traces of amusement in Oliver’s eyes, as if he were sharing a joke Cedric was supposed to be aware of.

“Is that an invitation?”

“Well, I’m certainly not landing to help you on your broom, if that’s what you mean.”

“Would have been polite,” Cedric murmured.

“That’s more your thing, isn’t it?” Oliver joked. “Besides, you know I don’t like the ground much.”

Oliver shot up into the air, and Cedric hurried to follow, previous qualms momentarily forgotten. This was a challenge, and he was not going to lose.

*

“I’m going to miss you.”

Cedric says it so quietly that Oliver thinks he’s mistaken the admission for the wind.

They stay there in mid-air, silent and unmoving even when the snitch whizzes past them both.  

Slowly, Oliver replies, “We’ve got more than half the year left, Diggory.”

Cedric hums, as usual not missing Oliver’s deflection. “You’re off to Tutshill, then?”  

Oliver’s grip becomes white-knuckled. “You care that much?”

Cedric shrugs, but he doesn’t break eye contact even at the sudden shift in tone. “You know I do.”

“There’s time until then.”

“Result’s the same isn’t it? You leave, I stay. I’ll still miss you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Think we both said that around last year too, didn’t we?”

The snitch whizzes past again, and Oliver moves to catch it. He doesn’t bother with the conversation any longer, too afraid of where it was headed.

*

“Bit clandestine, don't you think? Meeting like this all the time.”

It was Oliver’s turn to run into Cedric on the pitch, with Gryffindor having taken a particularly brutal loss from Ravenclaw that afternoon. Roger had been euphoric, an absolute beaming mess until they parted ways. Even Cho, who usually tried to take both their wins and losses gracefully, couldn’t suppress her almost surprised satisfaction.

Oliver, as expected, was quite the opposite. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not in the mood, Diggory.”

“Are you ever?”

“Yes,” Oliver snapped, “so long as Gryffindor stands a chance at the Cup this year, I’ll be absolutely fucking ecstatic.”

Cedric stopped himself mid-jibe, studied the way Oliver was seething.

Cedric had lost count of how many times the two have met on nights like these, after wins and losses alike. It had become routine: sneak out, race to the pitch--Cedric was winning by two, by the way--discuss, fly, rest, sneak in, repeat. They never talked much outside of that, though their friends have asked at times about their sudden camaraderie with one another. Considering their first time flying together was a little rocky on Cedric’s end, he was glad for the tentative friendship they’ve formed.

They understood one another on a level even Cedric was reluctant to reveal to his friends. Though they never spoke about it, they could feel each other’s desperation, the need to win and persevere and improve. Disappointment crushed them, ‘enough’ was a foreign term. It was a more ruthless side to himself that he was ashamed of, and very rarely let show, but it was a part of him all the same.

Oliver never judged though, just watched and flew and let Cedric be. He was the same with Oliver, who expressed his own fair share of aggravation on particularly rough days.

Still, even with Oliver’s mood swings and rigorous training regimen, and impossibly high standards (though Cedric did suppose he had no right to judge anyone else about high standards), he was never quite like this.

The wind was as harsh as Oliver’s expression, and the moon’s usual glare seemed to soften in comparison. His hand was clenched around his broom, his jaw set so tightly it would have put Severus Snape to shame. The outburst was not uncommon, and Cedric was not so sensitive to think the anger and frustration was for him. But it was the first time it was directed at him. This caused him to frown.

“You’ve still a chance, you know. There’s always a chance.”

Oliver glared. “I’ll listen to your advice once you actually take it yourself.”

Cedric’s eyes narrowed, but he refused to rise to the bait. He flew the rest of the way to the ground, getting off his broom to stand right in front of Oliver. They were the same height, now, a far cry from the bumbling pre-teen he was the first time they had faced each other. The way Oliver squared his shoulders to match Cedric’s own stubbornness indicated he knew this to be true, too.

“This isn’t about me, Oliver.”

They stared at each other for a long time, Cedric willing to wait the whole night if he had to. But to look away first would be to allow Oliver to be left alone to his thoughts, and Cedric knew how dangerous that could be. When flying became too much of an escapist tactic, the easier it was to spiral. He was intimate with the notion.

After what felt like hours, Oliver dropped his gaze to the ground.

“That match cost me a recruitment.”

His voice was the softest Cedric’s ever heard it.

Everything about Oliver screamed ‘defeat:’ the way his shoulders slumped, his arms limp at his sides, expression downcast. Even when he finally looked up towards the sky, his eyes did not hold the same intensity or fervor of a boy who dreamed, but the anguish of a man who had woken up and accepted reality.      

“Which team?” Cedric asked quietly.

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.”

Silence.

“Well,” Cedric started, “it’s their loss, isn’t it? Oliver, you’re phenomenal. You’ll have another--”

“My whole life,” Oliver whispered, “is built on chances and opportunities. But chances are taken away as easily as opportunities are wasted.”

“Oliver-”

“I’m running out of time. We need to break the losing streak, now or never. Gryffindor needs this Cup. I need this Cup.”

A pause. A shaky intake of breath.

“I may be good, but I have no connections unlike Davies, no money unlike Flint. No other options, unlike you,” Oliver looked to his broom as if he had let down a friend. “Quidditch is all I have.”

At that moment, Oliver Wood had completely abandoned his Captain persona, didn’t care to don the usual intimidating exterior or hide behind snappy retorts. But even his vulnerability had a way of commanding a room, in the way it was so genuine, so raw, and so honest that Cedric did the only thing he could think of doing--he embraced him.

He put everything into that one action, all the things they never said aloud. Everything he wished could have been said to him. I’m proud of you, I believe in you. You will succeed. You are great as you are.

Cedric Diggory was holding a man who was all too ready to break, and it reminded him so much of himself that he had to fight to keep his voice from trembling.

“That’s not true. Not anymore.”

*

Cedric wins their Seeking game this time, but just barely, and Oliver doesn’t miss the way he cradles his shoulder when they land.

“Merlin, Diggory, didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on that?”

Cedric rolls his eyes. “Got me the snitch, didn’t it?”

“Got you a worsened injury, more like it.”

Cedric’s voice is even. “You care that much?”

Oliver, as always, takes the time to respond, considers his words as if their very relationship depended on them. Perhaps it did. “If it compromises your ability, damn right I care.”

They barely meet like this, during their free periods in broad daylight. And Oliver can tell that Cedric doesn’t want to ruin it, but Cedric’s expression falls and he looks so tired. Tired, no doubt, of the double meanings and the deflections and the way Oliver just won’t say what he wants to say.

So he laughs. It’s shaky and more than a little bitter. More than a little sad. “Good to know.”

“Don’t you want Hufflepuff to have a chance at the Cup?” Oliver pushes, pretends he doesn’t hear it, pretends it doesn’t hurt him too.  

“Consider it taking out the competition, then.”

“Cedric, you know what I mean.” And Oliver says it with so much conviction that Cedric turns to him briefly before turning away once more. Cedric looked so much older then, Oliver having glimpsed the worry lines on his forehead and the grimace he sported. The only word Oliver could think of to describe him was ‘exhausted.’

“Yeah, I do.”

Oliver sighs in what sounds like relief, but Cedric isn’t finished.

“Do you ever think though that sometimes I just...don’t? That I’d like for us to see each other without having to do mental gymnastics all the time?” He stares straight ahead, misses the way Oliver winces and reaches his hand towards him, only to retract it. Little did Cedric know how tired he is too.

Cedric’s shoulders sag. “Maybe I shouldn’t care this much, yeah. But maybe you should find it in yourself to care more.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before making his way back to the Castle.

*

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

Cedric put his quill down. “You are not allowed to ask me that.”

“There are a lot of things I’m not allowed to ask. So you admit something’s wrong?”

“I admit,” Cedric sighed, glaring at his companion, “that you’re nosy.”

“I prefer the word ‘observant,’”

“How about ‘prat?’ Even better yet--annoying.”

Oliver shrugged, picking up his quill only to lazily play with its feather, the essay in front of him forgotten. Idly, he flicked the feather towards Cedric’s nose until he was forced to look up from his own assignment.

“Really, one heart-to-heart and you want to know all about my troubled past.”

Oliver’s grin was rueful. “I mean, I’ll trade you it for mine if you want.”

Madam Pince looked dangerously close to shushing them as she walked towards their end of the library, and Cedric fought to quiet his laugh.

“And,” Oliver continued, “I’m fairly sure it’s been more than one by now.”

Cedric snorted, “If you say so,”

“I know so. We know so, in fact. Now stop ignoring my question.”

“I’m not ignoring it, because I acknowledged it. I’m actively choosing to not answer.”

“What the hell kind of reasoning--”

“Boys!” Madam Pince shrilled, “Would you like to take your conversation elsewhere, perhaps?”

They cringed and muttered their apologies, but Oliver was relentless when he wanted to be. Cedric wondered if ultimately, this was where Harry Potter got his stubborn streak from.

“Don’t think you’re getting away with not telling me that easily.”

“What, and have you reveal my secrets to the entirety of your Quidditch team?” Cedric chuckled, “No thank you.”

Cedric intended for it to be a joke, but Oliver’s expression turned serious. “You think I’d do that?”

Cedric blinked. “Do what?”

“Exploit your weaknesses.”

“Oliver.”

“Forget it, that was unfair of me,” he replied. “Still though, whether or not you choose to say anything, just be careful.”

“Since when did you get so protective?”

Oliver hooked their ankles together underneath the table, expression almost shy. “Since someone reminded me that quidditch isn’t all I have.”  

*

“Congratulations on Puddlemere.”

They’re sitting on the soft grass of the quidditch pitch together for what they both knew would be the last time. Despite it already being late hours into the night, the warm breeze and greenness of the leaves they carried past indicated that it was summer. They both would both leave Hogwarts in the morning, and only one of them will return.

“Thank you,” Oliver says, though the reply comes out stiffer than he means for it to be. “Make sure you study hard for your NEWTS.”

Cedric plays with the grass. “Yeah.”

The silence between them is awkward, the tension so thick Oliver thinks he can feel himself beginning to choke from it.

He says the first thing that pops into his head.

“Why not Chaser?”

Cedric’s head shoots up, the blades of grass slipping from his fingers.

“What?”

“You know what.”

Cedric’s eyes narrow. “Fine. Why?”

“You know why.”

“Damn it, Oliver.” Cedric sighs, “Does everything have to be cryptic with you?”

Cedric visibly deflates afterwards and shifts closer to Oliver, moving his hand so that their pinkies are barely touching. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight.”

Oliver intertwines them, and he barely catches the surprise that makes its way onto Cedric’s otherwise solemn expression. “Me neither.”

“I’m tired of fighting.”

“So am I.”

Silence.

“So I guess this is goodbye.” Cedric stares pointedly at their hands.

Oliver doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good with words.

Instead, he intertwines their hands fully, feels the way they come together like puzzle pieces. He cups Cedric’s face with his free one, brings it closer to his own.

Oliver takes a breath, and slowly, delicately, kisses Cedric on the forehead.

He caresses Cedric’s cheek once, twice, the smoothness of his skin welcoming his calloused fingers. His touch is featherlight, and he feels Cedric move forward as Oliver retracts his hand, desperate for the contact.

“Ced?” Oliver whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Go to my matches, will you?”

Cedric shakes his head in mock exasperation, his eyes teasing. “It always goes back to quidditch, huh?”

“It always goes back to you.”

They stay that way for a long time, simply content in each other’s company.

*

Dear Oliver,

They’ve absolutely desecrated the pitch. It’s awful. Turned it into a bloody maze of all things. Granted, it’s for the Task, but still. I hate not being able to fly. And how are we supposed to play quidditch?

Roger says I’m beginning to sound too much like you nowadays. Perhaps he’s right.

Well, regardless...it would mean a lot for you to come for the third Task.

But if you can’t, well, at least this should be a fair enough notice in case you could pull some strings with Puddlemere. Sorry, is that too selfish? Argh, sorry, I know we’ve discussed not saying sorry. Oh, bugger off, I’m trying here.

Anyway, I don’t blame you for not being able to make it to the Ball, stop mentioning it. Cho was as lovely a date as they come.

(Don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure she only had eyes for Hermione the entire Champions dance. Speaking of not telling anyone...how are Weasley and Flint doing?)

Other than this whole Triwizard business, everything’s as ‘normal’ as they can be. Malfoy’s still got it out for Potter, and Potter (as you know) is just trying to survive another year.

How are things on your end? I hate that we’ve not been able to see each other or write as often. I miss seeing you play.

I hope you’re doing well. I miss you.

And just...think about what I’ve said.

I’ve turned seventeen. I still know. I’m still brave. We’ve waited, Ollie, probably more than we should have. Probably more than we wanted. Maybe after the last Task, we can finally make a go of things.

Cedric

*

Oliver waves to Cho as he makes his way to the stands, but barely manages to step a foot onto what was usually the quidditch pitch before he’s almost tackled to the ground, the wind knocked right out of him.

“Merlin, Ced, are you a Champion or a Bludger?”

“You came.” Cedric’s smile is so bright that Oliver finds his breath hitching.

“Yeah, I did. Uh, surprise?”

Cedirc laughs, and Oliver starts to let go, but Cedric holds on tighter, buries his face into Oliver’s neck. “I missed you.”

His voice is muffled, but Oliver feels the words seep into his bones, vibrate throughout his entire being. He holds Cedric impossibly closer.

“I missed you too.”

Cedric reluctantly steps out of their embrace, pointing to where his father, Harry, and the other Champions are waiting for him near the Maze.

“I have to go but...have you thought about it? About what I’ve said.”

“I have.”

Oliver says nothing more, but from the dumb grin that spreads onto Cedric’s face, he thinks he’s gotten the message across.

Cedric starts to walk backwards, gray eyes never breaking away from Oliver’s. Oliver thinks he’s never seen Cedric look so young, so hopeful, so free. So alive.

Oliver realizes then that he really does know now too. He’s done waiting. It’s time to be brave.

Cedric calls out to him, “Kiss me when I win, yeah?”

* Oliver never does.

[trying-to-work]

Apparently my 13-year old wrote this. It's fucking great!

Oscar was heading back to his home. He had just finished his day of Education System 7. He went back home with high spirits, knowing that his friends would have something interesting on their minds. Oscar had very individualistic friends. Likewise, he was strange and unusual. But his friends always made life interesting, with their points of view.

Oscar and his friends liked to always go to the Sitting Garden. The Sitting Garden was a place where people could go to have a nice time and entertain themselves. It had lots of trees, benches, beautiful landscapes, structures and fountains. And the shrine to the Government leaders. All of the Government leaders were very respected and a huge part of their society.

Oscar headed to the Sitting Garden. As he was passing through to his favorite opening, he noticed that the vegetation around one of the trees was turning yellow. He went to further investigate, and found his friend James Conducting another one of his experiments. This time it was a flying device. He saw that the flying device was an electric hover engine, using propulsion fans to fly.

“Tell me, just what is this supposed to be?” Said another one of Oscar's friends, Kate. She was just as confused as Oscar as to what this was.

“This is a propulsion system that I came up with. By spinning fan blades to make the machine fly, it stabilizes the mechanism and steadies out the torque anomalies. I also use the energy of our impending doom to help.”

“What is our impending doom?” asked Oscar.

“Oh, you haven’t heard of the Supernova that is coming? Our very star is going to go into its Giant Phase in just 9 years, and the Government officials have yet to say anything.”

“What? Why was I not told of this! My family literally works for the System Stability Corporation. Am I the only one who this is news to?” exclaimed Occar.

“Oh calm down, this crisis has only been going on for 40 or so hours. You are not the only one left in the dark here. Our star is enormous. It is very unpredictable and a crisis like this is something that we prepared for.”

The trio discussed this matter further in the Sitting Garden, until the late night came. Walking at night in the Sitting Garden was always a very fun thing to do. The reflections of all the lights had such a magic effect on the fountains, and all the taller vegetation. As Oscar, Kate James walked back, they thought about the star that they lived by, and the evacuation process that had been formed for situations such as these. Oscar thought about what system the species would travel to, and what all would be different.

“Do you think that we will still have something like the Sitting Garden at our new planet?” asked Kate. She was the one who showed them the Sitting Garden. On the first week of Education System 7, Kate found her friends and told them of the most amazing place she had ever seen. They walked down with their parents to the Sitting Garden Entrance, and walked around the vegetation, fountains, statues, brick pathways, and open areas that brought the Sitting Garden so much life.

“I will miss the Sitting Garden. I wish we could bring it with us to our new planet. Then it would feel just like we were home.” said Kate. She had that look on her face that she had when something was not going well.

“Perhaps if we got a warrant of code 12758, we could legally move the object from one planet to another.” replied James

This was true, but would not change now. James had always been one to look at things as if they were able to be changed. He had grown up like that, he excelled at looking at technology in new ways. Innovation was his specialty. He was the Smart One.

Kate was the person who could make you feel anything. She had that way of communication that not many other people had. She always wins arguments. But that is what they did.

Oscar, he was the one who had a million thoughts going in in his head at once. He rarely spoke out. He was the kind of person that would not let you down, except when he realises that you are the useless person in a group project. He literally has you lie down and take a nap, so as to not have the useless person interrupt.

On his way out, Oscar picked a flower from the Sitting Garden, put it in a containment bag, and went home. The Supernova would not take the whole garden from Kate.

A few months later the government officials announced that everyone was to board the ships. Everyone did, and the planet was evacuated. The ships had many rooms, 1 for each family. Once everyone was on board, the rumbling began. The Ground slowly got further and further away from the window. Everyone looked forward to the Captain. He Said that everyone was to stay in their rooms for the lift off sequence. Everyone did as they were told, and hoped for a better tomorrow.

~ 10 Years Later ~

Oscar looked out the window of his office. He saw the tall buildings, tens of stories tall. Almost all of them were painted a blue gray color. The pops of color in the new city were the luscious trees and light post filled streets. He focused back on his work. He was a worker for the manufacturing organization. He was placing an order that the company had requested. It was a very boring job, but it was his responsibility. He took a final glance at the window, and this time saw something intriguing. It was a small black dot in the sky. Just there. The atmosphere of the planet produced a light green haze, but here was a random black dot. He stood up to look closer. It looked like a meteor. This was odd. The moon base usually shot down all meteors. It seemed to be getting larger as well. Oscar realized that it would crash into the planet. He quickly grabbed his things and ran to the bottom of the building. He told the guards what was happening, and they said they would try to alert everyone.

Meanwhile, James on the moon base, looked at the supposed meteor, and told the officials to shoot it down. They aimed their weapons, and took fire. The object exploded, and a fire of smaller rocks rained down. The intercoms came on.

“Please take shelter immediately. We are experiencing some temporary meteor problems.”

Everyone did as they were told, and sought out shelter. On the moon base, James knew something was wrong. Usually the targets like that were shot down automatically. He and a team went to investigate. They entered the room, and 3 people lay dead on the floor. The system was sabotaged.

“Oh dear.” said one of the shocked guards.

“We seem to have an imposter among us.”

There was then a red alert. The alarms were going off. Everyone was rushing, falling down, trying to get to their station. A huge man made object was rushing their way. It then sent a message to every screen on the planet. It was only a few words, but everyone was aware of what it meant. It said:

“Did you miss us?”

Everyone thought back to the official day of evacuation. Not everyone made it onto a ship. There just simply was not enough room. Some people volunteered to stay behind. Some were just unlucky. Oscars parents were some of those unlucky people.

Back down at the planet, Oscar was rushing towards the nearest shelter. The huge gray metal object slowly loomed closer and closer. It was almost like a bomb of some sort. The planetary guard began to fire at the object, but it only made a small dent. The city was still in a panic. Oscar got caught up in a large crowd of people. The chaos of the crown overwhelmed him, and in their stampede, Oscar Tripped and fell. His arm got most of the fall, but it still hurt. He was not even angry, he just wanted away from the awful thing in the sky. A small pod came down from the large ship, and boarded. Oscar ws silent among the screaming crowd.

The shuttle then engaged audio on the screens it took over.

“Look at this. This is chaos.” said the speaker. The person's voice was calm. Void of all emotion at all. It just stated this, as if it was an average conversation.

“This wouldn’t seem familiar to any of you. All of you were able to board a ship, and escape your problems. Hmm. You all make me sick. Nobody here is coming to oppose this little visit of ours.”

Everyone was silent now. The children all looked, awed and terrified at this person's words.

“My message to all of you is simple. 1,700 people are still significant, even out of 12 billion. Now, my life is almost meaningless, so I have one last act.” He signalled to the ship. The ship responded. And then grew very hot. It then exploded. The ball blinded Oscar. He couldn’t witness the final moments of his life. The ship detonated with an incredible bang. So loud, it shook the doomed planet. Someone grabbed his hand. It was Kate. Oscar’s final act was giving a flower, the one he had picked 10 years ago. then it all went black

[mgmw]

If you fall in love with me, don't. 

This isn't some cliche poem about my childhood suffering from the lack of a male role model, because that would be a terrible lie. And my dad raised a daughter with a guilty conscience, not a liar. Anyways I'm here to warn you about what you might be getting yourself into.

I smile by habit, not by choice. I giggle out of empathy, and humor, or embarrassment, but never to purposely spite. I get jealous when I see that someone can provide for other people in a way that I can't, but that's because I'm a people pleaser and us people pleasers, we just want to give. And I go through phases just like the moon, but I always complete my lunar cycle and return to my bright self again. You should probably know that I'm emotional. Like- really emotional. In fact, I may even think I have you fooled about how I'm feeling, but because my dad didn't raise a liar I am forced to unintentionally wear my big sobby heart on my sleeve. Oh- and I'll let something slide 1,016 times, but after that I don't give second chances. I'm also an incredibly all-or-nothing person to a fault. But when I'm invested in something I'd rather lose everything good I have before I even consider declaring bankruptcy.

But remember: There's two sides to every coin, so if you fall in love with me, don't. 

Because in every lunar cycle, the moon disappears for a while and it has a dark side too. And I said I was a people pleaser, and us people pleasers... we pour. In fact I will keep filling and filling your glass until it's overflowing and my pitcher has gone empty, because to see you hydrated is all I could ever want in this world. Until I realize it's left me drained. When I'm drained I'll get frustrated and sometimes I'll go into hiding. I'll either take a solo hike or get in my car and drive just to get my distance, peace, and alone time. But don't you worry because I'll eventually turn around and come home again. Oh- and I'm obsessed with galaxies and stars, but it depresses me to know these things will either get swallowed by a selfishly hungry black hole or explode and die in a supernova or whatever, but that's besides the point. The point is: I'm a tangled mess of contradictory things. But I'm not saying this to scare you- I'm saying this to warn and protect you and to properly love you and to tell you not to worry about a thing. 

Because remember I am an all-or-nothing person, so if I fall in love I am all in for you and that if you somehow fall in love with me, don't. 

Because I won't be limited to loving you, but I'll be head-over-heels for your smile, your giggle, the face you make when you're embarrassed, and the look in your eyes when I know you're jealous. I'll fall in love with the way you endlessly try to please people and how it drives you crazy, but it's never enough. Or- how you selfishly pour your pitcher to hydrate someone despite the fact you're parched. I'll fall in love with your phases: both dark and bright, and how sometimes you might go into hiding when you're frustrated. I'll fall in love with how you pretend you're not emotional despite the fact your feelings are trying so hard to escape your eyes. And that special way you recharge yourself when you feel drained. I'll even love your heart after you've given your last second chances someone for the 1,016th time, because I know you're a tangled mess of contradictory things. So please don't just fall in love with me, because I'm not gonna fall in love with "just you". You're too complex and complicated for it to be that simple, and so all I ask is that, if you fall in love with me you'll fall in love with my infinite complexities, too.

- luna poetry // Spoken Word Poetry (YouTube)

[drmazel]

The Sun and the Moon of The Archives

From the Perspective of An Outsider

When did you begin comparing him to the sun, Jon? When did you begin to look at his face and recall the life-giving warmth of that light?

Was it a wandering fancy of the mind, ignoring the responsibility of the statement calling out to you, dismissing the hunger in your being that grew and grew to the point of being unbearable? Was it a desperate attempt to fight it off a little longer, digging your feet like roots deep into the dirt and reaching out, reaching up, higher and higher, seeking out the brightest light of him that you could manage to reach, just to say I can hold on a little longer, I can stay like this just a little longer, I can avoid that path for just a little longer? 

My sun, you say to yourself, reveling in the secret nickname you have given him. My warmth, my light, I can be human a little longer if you just come back to me.

But he has not come back to you. He remains hidden behind the deepest, thickest fog you have ever seen in your life, somehow managing to cast you back into shadow as soon as you part the clouds to catch a glimpse of his brilliance. He appears determined to keep himself confined to an eternal twilight, dipped below the horizon, leaving behind a pink aura as a painful, teasing reminder of his recent presence that you only just missed. I can see him tomorrow, you tell yourself. As with every day, he will return tomorrow.

But you do not see him tomorrow. The world has cast your Eye to the west, to new, unknown prospects that send a chill of terror up your spine. You cannot see the sunrise in this way. You will never see the sunrise in this way.

And so he remains hidden in that cloudiness, and you are wilting beneath the overcast sky.

Have you ever considered the deeper implications of comparing him to the sun, Jonathan? Beyond your need of his light to give you strength, have you thought about how appropriate the metaphor truly is? The resemblance is uncanny, truly. But not for the reasons you may think.

What is the sun, Jonathan? This isn’t a trick question, I promise you. The sun is nothing but a ball of gas, thousands of miles from where you sit in your cold archives now, burning itself away in nuclear reactions so powerful that one second of the sun’s raw power could fuel our entire civilization for a half million years. 

But only a fraction of that energy reaches us here, on this tiny speck of dirt that hosts our parasitic species. The earth sits in an unbelievably unlikely golden zone of distance from our star that is capable of sustaining life, maintaining a delicate dance of its orbit to never get so far as to freeze all life and never get so close as to burn it all up with the sheer force of the sun’s heat. One of the saddest things about the sun is the greatest product of its nature: light. Produced in its core, a photon will bounce and jump about within the sun’s body, shyly making its way to the surface, for four thousand years. And when the sun has finally helped this little photon out to the surface, offering the very essence of its own being to us here on Earth, it is received and consumed in only eight minutes. Never to be seen again. The sun has given us so much, and never received anything in kind.

There is always some surface appreciation for the sun’s favors to us, the gifts it brings while asking nothing in return. Sometimes it even inspires religions, worshiping the being as a god for the life it brings. And yet there is always that footnote of caution. Do not fly too close, or you will burn. Do not look directly into its light, or you will go blind. Never expose yourself directly to its power, don’t accept its kindness with open arms; only reap the benefits.

If the sun were to disappear now, at this very moment, everything that surrounds it would scatter and die and freeze in the stillness of open space. If the sun were to burn itself out, it would explode in a stunning display of a supernova, destroying everything it worked so hard to sustain for billions of years. 

And yet we carry on, despite the overcast sky. The earth has not frozen nor been vaporized, so the sun must still be there behind the clouds, working away at its nuclear reactions as it has done since its birth, giving away a tiny fraction of itself with every passing moment to keep us here. Perhaps that is some comfort. To you, at least. I doubt it is very much comfort to him.

The sun doesn’t even have one of its kind nearby to keep it company. Not one individual that can withstand the true, unadulterated release of its warmth and light.

How terribly lonely that must be.

And if he is the sun, what does that make you, Mr. Sims? In this fantasy metaphor brewing in your mind, you considered yourself akin to a plant, soaking up everything he had to offer you just to keep yourself grounded. But let’s not be so greedy, now. What do you offer to the earth? 

Perhaps you get to be my personal favorite celestial body. Perhaps you can be the moon.

Think about it. I find it quite appropriate. Your importance may be somewhat more mundane in this metaphor, but nonetheless necessary. You may not directly provide life, but you do keep death away, holding the ocean’s powerful tides at bay. You create no light of your own to provide to humanity, but you reflect a fraction of the best of what he has to offer, guiding the earth through the darkest of nights. 

Perhaps it is only a strange coincidence that the waxing phase of the moon resembles the opening of a great, bright eye in the sky?

Yet one side of you is always hidden from the world. He will almost always see you, always have you, but you flow in and out of the awareness of the world. But when the world dares to step between you and your sun, you are bathed in the red of blood before plunging yourself into complete and utter darkness. 

The world always steps away, and you always come back. But if you didn’t return, if earth maintained its position between you and your sun, leaving you in darkness, the world would carry on anyway. The world has never depended on the light of the moon.

So be cautious before you place yourself between the sun and the world, Archivist. For the same cannot be said about an eternal solar eclipse.