#... and i should have probably make the save system already

[trekkerac]

i can now cut open the walls 🎉🎉🎉just ignore the floating windows

[james-stark-the-writer]

just finished Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and it is a game written by cowards for cowards.

the final twist genuinely ruins the game. it's so stupid as a narrative decision. i hate it so much. it almost makes me understand what the people yelling about The Last Jedi being too subservient to its themes were yelling about (OBVIOUSLY not the ones that were being bigoted and loud and wrong about it, but just the ones who had actual issues with its narrative directions/execution). genuinely, the twist takes what could have been an extremely solid 8.5, maybe a 9/10 game down to a 4/10 game with nothing of interest to say deluding itself into thinking it's saying anything of worth by thoughtlessly repeating patterns as if that's supposed to generate meaning without any real effort of actually committing to that meaning, or seeing the world as anything beyond its basic binary worldview of Good and Bad.

putting that twist in fundamentally cuts the legs out from any actual, interesting and substantive critique it could have leveled at the legal system and our feelings about people on trial and their perceived guilt or innocence, and it just ends up reinforcing it as a power of good that Will Ultimately Prevail In The Search For Truth, as if that is even remotely a thing any legal system is concerned with, especially the one in the game that mostly just stumbles into The Right Choices because it's a game controlled by the player. it's frankly ideologically incoherent to the point of saying nothing because its critique is unfocused and toothless. best it can muster is "maybe some people are corrupt and lying, but if You take Advantage of The System, you can beat them" as if malicious compliance is supposed to change the system. fuck off.

ran out of tags but. i'm serious about this lol, i really hate it as a narrative and ideological choice. the game threatens to say something bold and interesting and then just pulls the rug out from underneath you. it sucks. it's very much like 12 Angry Men in that way, i think, except at least that movie Knows what it's saying and that its basic premise is its ideological downfall, this just doesn't really feel like it says anything much interesting or coherent, ultimately, because the criticism either drowns in the length and comedic nature of it, or just ultimately isn't focused and pointed and nuanced enough to actually say something meaningful. like ik someone's gonna do a "kid's game" thing but hello, kid's shit has always been nuanced and just bc it's "for kids" doesn't mean it has to abide by some binary ass morality that flattens all its interesting critique, especially when you're constantly led, structurally, to the more interesting and nuanced narrative choice only to have a twist completely ruin it and making it all feel like a waste of your time. plenty of things are nuanced and interesting and "for kids" without deflating their themes and messages by writing a stupid twist that undercuts the interesting parts of its arguments.

[brick-van-dyke]

It's gonna be 39C (102.2f) and we don't have an aircon fuckkk I hate Australian summers. Especially since, at least here, it's humid af as well.

[scrollypoly]

Ok, so with all these posts going around aboht election interference and calling for a recount, i wanted to find evidence that weren't twitter screenshots

Tl;dr - bomb threats yes, 3 fires at ballot boxes (1 had damaged ballots and theyre fixing it), 20 million unaccounted votes is FALSE, this shit takes time to count so be patient, cuz they are STILL COUNTING

Bomb threats at polling places:

This claim is legit, as well as the source being from russian email domains. No actual bombs were placed or set off.

Burning ballot boxes:

3 incidents of burning ballot boxes have been confirmed for this election in Portland, Oregon and one in Vancouver, Washington, both of which are suspected to be from the same individual. Republican and Democrat officials have spoken out against this, ballot boxes were guarded after the incidents started, and fire suppression systems inside the ballot boxes saved the majority of the ballots, except for one box where 488 ballots were damaged due to a malfunction of the fire suppression system.

Fires were also confirmed in Arizona by a man who apparently just wanted to be arrested and had no political motivations.

No fires were confirmed in Georgia, despite repeated claims that most of the fires were in Georgia. Georgia changed their election laws in 2021 in regards to absentee votes. Ballot boxes have been notably targetted for election conspiracy and mistrust. Take this into account when you see outcry about ballot boxes in any way.

Votes not being counted:

The screenshots im seeing particularly note California, which is the state with the largest amount of registered voters. California is also dealing with massive wildfires rn. Its gonna take a couple days, and the election isnt officially over yet. Calm down

20 million unaccounted votes:

Yall . . .

This shit takes time. Theyre not "throwing your ballots out" or "deliberately not counting votes". Be so for real

Some of this shit is valid, and should probably be known. Some of this shit is making yall sound like trumpers in 2020. Be smart. Have critical thinking.

If youre gonna reblog or comment with claims i better see credible evidence to back your claims up or youre getting blocked

Edited to add a TL;DR, no other changes

[meret118]

But what’s happened now is that this has happened so often with so many shows, that Netflix has created a self-fulfilling loop with many series that probably could have gone on to become valuable catalogue additions otherwise.

The idea is that since you know that Netflix cancels so many shows after one or two seasons, ending them on cliffhangers and leaving their storylines unfinished, it’s almost not worth investing in a show until it’s already ended, and you know it’s going to have a coherent ending and finished arc.

So you hold off watching new shows, even ones you might otherwise be interested in, because you’re afraid Netflix will cancel them. Enough people do this and surprise, viewership is low! And the show ends up cancelled. The loop is closed, and reinforced, because now there’s yet another example cited, causing even more people to be cautious the next time around. And now we’ve reached a point where unless a series is some sort of record-breaking fluke megahit (Wednesday) or established super franchise (Stranger Things), a second or third season feels like not even a coinflip, but more like 10-20% shot, at best.

Netflix’s cancelation policies have informed its viewers that if you want a show you like renewed, you need to watch it immediately, you need to tell all your friends to watch it immediately, and you need to finish all episodes in a short period of time. Anything less than that will result in likely cancelation, with the problem being, of course, that this runs contrary to the entire promise of a streaming service like Netflix in the first place. The core concept of “on demand” streaming was that ability to watch what you wanted, when you wanted to. But now binging a series in its opening weekend isn’t just an option to have, it feels almost mandatory, lest the negative data reflect poorly on a show you might otherwise like.

Something has broken with this model. It’s now created a system where creators should be afraid to make a series that dares to end on a cliffhanger or save anything for future seasons, lest their story forever be left unfinished. And viewers are afraid to commit to any show that isn’t a completely aired package lest they spend 10-30 hours on something that ends up unresolved, which has happened dozens and dozens of times, creating a vast “show graveyard” within Netflix, full of landmines viewers are going to be discovering for years.

More at the link.

------

I've wondered if it's driving creators to their competitors too.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

"If we use force against our enemies, our allies will remember it": an exploration of the Archon Quest in DAtV.

Not everyone will have gotten this quest, as it's only avaliable if you saved Minrathous over Treviso. So let me start by setting the scene:

Rook has just found a secret list of Venatori plans in a Venatori vault. This includes a list of magisters who have been engaging in 'illegal slavery' and also a list of the backers of said magisters.

Dorian and Mae are arguing over how best to use this information. They have decided that one of them should become the Archon, however, they both have different ways they would go about it:

Dorian wants to 'crush our enemies by any means neccessary' - 'destory them and their networks by any means neccessary'. Maeveas describes this as 'swords and spies and blackmail; the devious means [Dorian] learned in the South'.

Mae wants to 'do this in the open. Show the people of Tevinter that we're here for them'. She wants to make this information public in order to 'inspire'.

Both will support the other, depending on what Rook decides. Both of them want to abolish slavery and get rid of the rule of Altus mages; 'the Soporati deserve a say in their own governance'. They say they have the same aims, but they would go about getting them in different ways.

Except...none of what they say actually makes any sense whatsoever.

Tevinter is Not a Democracy

Tevinter is not a demoracy. People do not 'vote' on who represents them.

Instead, there is a magesterium made up of magisters. These roles are hereditary (although you can have apprentice who take your title instead). You rule, because of your birth, or because you were lucky enough that somebody who rules because of their birth picked you.

There is not an election cycle. The magisters do not have to do anything to remain in power beyond making sure people aren't angry/scared enough to stage a coup.

Political factions exist within the magisterium, but you have to work to gain those who already are in it onto your side, you can't just get people to vote more of your faction in.

So....with this in mind, how is Mae's plan ever going to work.

Mae talks about wanting to do things out in the open. She wants to show Tevinter that politicans can be here for them. But those people...don't have a say. They can't meaningfully change things, or vote, or do anything beyond have a (probably violent) revolution.

And yet, we are led to believe that Mae's option will be the path of least resistence. Mae's option is 'working within the system'. What system? Mae won't be able to do anything, even if the public is on her side. It doesn't matter.

The magisters who are Venatori may die by the end of the game, or they may simply step down and give their titles to their children to avoid public disgrace. Maybe, maybe if people are angry enough, the heirs and apprentaces from other houses and magisters will take their place. But I don't see how Mae publishing this list of people and their backers will get her into power.

Especially in a country where slavery is legal. You know the people who would want Dorian and Maevearis's plans to succeed? Slaves. Because they're the only ones unlikely to be culturally indocronated to believe slavery is a good thing. Those a 'rung above slavery' like Krem, may also want their plans to succeed, but they'd likely have to be convinced, or have something happen to them (e.g. like how Krem's family struggled to remain in business because slaves can do their work for free so the products never cost as much) to push them into seeing all this. I highly doubt most people in this society as is would distinquish much between 'legal' and 'illegal' slavery. What even is illegal slavery? Taking people from other nations into slavery without the consent of said nations? That's most of the nations in thedas then. And if slave imports are continuing then surely everyone already knows that this is taking place and that people are arranging it.

AND EVEN IF THEY DID THERE ISN'T A DEMOCRACY FOR THEM TO VOTE MAE IN. To get Mae in, Mae has to convince the magisterium - and that includes convincing them to let her back in ON TOP OF convincing them to elect her as their ruler OR she has to have a violent overthrow backed by the people. That is the only way that 'inspiring' the people can succeed here.

Meanwhile, We have Dorian. Tarquin acts like Dorians plan will mean another Anders style chantry explosion, with things getting worse before they get better. But Dorians plan is vague to say the least. Blackmail? Okay. Working within his place in the magisterium? Now that makes more sense to me; if he can work within his place that might get him to be archon which would in turn allow him to potentially effect meaningful change from the top down with less tape around what he can and can't do.

But Mae implies Dorian is going to start killing people; 'if we use force against our enemies they will remember it'. But....what? Okay maybe Dorian plans to assassinate some people? But if he does, their kids will just get in. Maybe he just plans to threaten to assassinate people (interesting move as that's what got his father, but I think that COULD be an intersting direction for him) and that's what it means by blackmail etc. But if that's the case, is he really going to get to be Archon for long?

Dorians way looks way more like working within the system or...maybe turning the system into some of kind of dictatorship in order to make it a democracy so that Soporati can vote? Do ex-slaves get the vote in this world?

None of this makes any sense, their plans are so so so vague, and what they pitch and what they want means their pitches should be switched.

Who should be the Archon?

Towards the end of this place, Maevaris and Dorian say that a quater of the magisterium are Venatori. This is the implied quater that we have information on, and who needs to be taken out of the magisterium. But...okay, how?

In DAI, three of our companions (Vivienne, Leliana and Cassandra) are up for the role of Divine. But the reason they're up for the role despite all three of them being in some way a break with the past, is that there is nobody else. Everyone else who was up for the position died in the conclave explosion. All three of them have also gained large leaps forward in their reputation based on their actions in the inquistion.

But in DAtV....even if that quater are all killed in the final fight with the Gods, that means 75% are left over. I can see perhaps Dorian - who has maintained his seat in the Magisterium - being able to elbow himself into that power vaccum, win over the 75% and become the Achon. But Mae has been kicked out of the Magisterium already. She's lost her title. How is she going to get herself back in. As detailed above, it won't be by democracy. The Viper talks about her 'triumphent return' but nobody has actually given me a plan to get her to that triumphent return???

Basically; it makes very little sense that these two people are up for archon, even now we know the current one is dead. The archon is usually an inherrited title, either by blood or by being the apprentace of the previous Archon. The Archon can be voted in by only the magisterium if the archon dies without either of these things, however, so that's what they're going for here. But why would any of these 75% of magisters vote for Mae or Dorian?

And even if you argue that the Venatori list had the illegal dealings of more than just those 25% so Dorian and Mae could blackmail them for the position; firstly, Mae has already said she's not blackmailing anyone. So that leaves only Dorian. But the Magisters can pass their seats onto their children, instead of giving in to Dorians demands. That way even if Dorian exposes them, they're no longer in the Magisterium. Similarly, it surely is well known that the magisterium are dealing in 'illegal slavery' and surely even if it isn't, there are ways those within the Magisterium can use their money and power to pretend that they weren't involved with that. Polticians in the real world get away with these lies all the time!

Violence and Thedas

I'm not planning on making this point at length, but I do think the quote I opened this with also makes no sense for Dragon Age. 'If we use force against our enemies, our allies will remember it'.

In a game. Which is. About fighting enemies.

Like, this is a fighting game. We fight our enemies in this game. We don't sit down for tea with the Gods. We don't invite the red templars over to discuss politics. We don't ask the darkspawn if there's any way they won't do what they want.

We've been killing venatori for the WHOLE GAME by this point. We've ALREADY been using force.

I guess that the writers are trying to make a distinction between political violence vs. the rest of the game but uhhh. That doesn't really work either, especially in a game series which has had political violence pretty much at its core (we start with a game about CIVIL WAR and then move swiftly into a game where one of your companions commits an act of terrorism to inspire an overthrow of an unjust system) but also like. The implication that all groups who are bad are just 'evil' and have no motivations beyond 'power' and 'being evil' is dumb, and dragon age games used to be better than that. The Venatori, the Antam, the Crows, Butcher, Illario, The Grey Wardens, all of these people are playing with politics. Dragon Age games used to know this, they ahve a whole thing about 'the great game'.

But. Whatever. I said I wouldn't labour this point and I won't, but this quote makes no sense in a game where we've already spent the whole time using force.

(and also...isn't trying to abolish slavery perhaps a good thing to use force against? This quote implies that both the enemies (pro-slavery) and the allies (anti-slavery) have a similar moral standing which uhhhh i wouldn't say is true)

Why did this happen; some closing remarks

DAtV is vague enough about Tevinter politics that I feel you could, without knowledge of the previous games lore/the codexes believe the following points

slavery is a fringe practice in Tevinter

tevinter is a democracy

In this set of circumstances, their plans would make a lot more sense. Mae really could hope to get people on her side to vote out magisters who are engaging in 'illegal slavery' and other unmentioned things. She really could try and get elected on the promise of honesty and doing things differently, but still working within the system and eventually being Archon.

But this isn't the case. What's happening here is 21st century Demoractic (American Centric) politics are being placed onto a system which is essentially ancient Rome with absolutely no effort to try and make either confirm.

These days there are serious questions surrounding democracy, truth and lies we tell the people, whether its better to work 'behind the scenes' for a better world or not etc. These are all questions that have becoming increasingly relevant in the rise of the far right since 2016. And those who think the system need to change have MANY MANY arguments about whether we need to burn down the system, or whether we need to work within the system and with the backing of everyone to achieve our aims.

But that doesn't work in Tevinter. It doesn't mean anything.

I think the writers were trying to short hand some contempary politics into this world, were purposely vague about the parts of tevinter that don't fit that mould, tried to act like slavery was some form of modern discrimination that can be easily brushed to one side, and then just...released the game like that, with this choice.

But thinking about it for more than 5 seconds makes it SO STUPID. I literally spent ALL of that cutscene going 'wait what??? huh???' i watched it back three times before I understood what they were doing and why Mae and Dorians views were supposed to make sense before I wrote this post.

Another example of the writers not taking established lore/politics/culture in this game seriously. Another example of this game not taking its setting into account. I just. Yeah. This one really pushes me.

td;lr this storyline about who is the future archon doesn't work because Tevinter is not a democracy and they don't actually take into account the political implications, nor lay out actual political plans on how they'd achieve their aims.

[luv4arinn]

Bayverse!Donnie headcanons bc his my bbg

Okay, lol, I really needed to let all of this out and just vomit all the ideas I’ve been hoarding about this man. I love him. I’ve adored him ever since the 2012 series, and that made me realize—I definitely have a thing for nerds. And glasses. Dear god.

I hope you guys like this!! Do you think I should do the same for the other brothers? Or maybe for the other characters? (I wouldn’t mind taking the risk and making headcanons like this for Rocksteady, hehe.)

Alright, bye!!

warnings: sfw & nsfw ( but not so explicit?) :p

- He’s a genius with confidence… until he isn’t.

Donnie is incredibly self-assured when it comes to his intellect and skills. He knows his worth and never doubts his ability to solve problems. Jumping out of a plane without a parachute? Easy. Hacking government security systems? A piece of cake. But confessing his feelings to you? That’s a whole different challenge.

This is where his anxious side kicks in. His brain, used to solving any equation, completely short-circuits when it comes to emotions. What if he misinterprets your signals? What if he ruins the friendship? What if you like someone else? Sure, he can design an exoskeleton in less than 24 hours, but love is a field where variables don’t always make sense.

If you think you can hide something from him, think again. Donnie notices everything. From the slight shift in your expression when you’re tired to the pattern of songs you repeat when you’re feeling down. (And no, he absolutely did not hack your Spotify, ahem—)

- That’s why, when you start falling for him, he already knows. In fact, he probably figured it out before you did.

He won’t tell you right away. Inside his head, there’s a storm of chaotic thoughts, organizing themselves into an ultra-detailed data table with every relevant piece of information. Give him a few days, and once his mind has fully processed everything, he’ll come back to you as a renewed Donnie—determined, confident, and ready to make you his.

- Donnie doesn’t just plan things; he breaks them down into a thousand strategies of action. His trash bin is living proof of the number of ideas he discards and reworks over and over.

Gifts? He’s not the type to grab something generic at the last minute. His gifts are so deeply personalized that they’ll make you feel like he knows you better than you know yourself.

Example: If you ever casually mentioned that you’d love to learn to play an instrument, he’ll build one for you—customized with enhancements. If you said you love the stars, he’ll create an interactive star map with the exact alignment of the sky on the day you were born.

Your birthdays, anniversaries, and any special dates are planned years in advance. It doesn’t matter if you’re not officially together yet—he already has ideas saved for when you are.

- Romance in his brain is an equation far too complex.

Donnie isn’t clumsy because he lacks intelligence; it’s because his brain moves too fast. His emotions and logic are in constant conflict, creating an ongoing battle between Confident Donnie and Nervous Donnie.

You’ll see him go from saying something with complete confidence to, “Uh, well… what I meant to say is… no, wait, forget it—” and then getting frustrated with himself because that definitely wasn’t what he had in mind.

But when he manages to organize his thoughts, he’s one of the most direct people you’ll ever meet. Once he crosses the mental line of “I’m doing this,” there’s no turning back.

- Gifts

He doesn’t believe in generic presents. Everything he gives you has a specific purpose. A bracelet that’s actually a disguised tracker (“For safety. Just for safety.”), or a stuffed animal that can record voice messages.

One day, you wake up and find a new app on your phone with your name on it. You open it, and it’s a virtual assistant designed specifically for you, complete with personalized reminders for the little things Donnie knows you always forget.

- Once he has you, you are his priority.

Once Donnie accepts his feelings and takes the step to be with you, he becomes the most devoted boyfriend.

He’s not excessively clingy or jealous like Raph, but his love is obvious in the time and effort he invests in you.

No matter how many projects he’s juggling, if you truly need his attention, he’ll give it to you without hesitation.

- Donnie needs physical contact, but his intellectual pride won’t let him admit it outright. Instead, he prefers to justify it with overly precise scientific explanations.

“Well, you see… my body temperature tends to drop faster than that of the average human, so it’s biologically beneficial for me to share contact with an external heat source.”

Translation: “Hug me. Now.”

If you confront him with something like, “Why don’t you just say you want cuddles?” he’ll turn bright red and start stammering, scrambling for excuses.

Don’t listen. Just climb onto him.

- Donnie can plan everything, but he cannot predict your spontaneous displays of affection.

If you surprise him with a kiss, his brain completely shuts down for 3-5 seconds before he can process it.

Unexpected gestures—hugging him from behind while he’s working, cupping his face in your hands, or kissing his cheek out of nowhere—leave him frozen, recalculating.

Sometimes, his first reflex is to adjust his glasses, only to realize that they have nothing to do with the fact that his vision just blurred from sheer shock.

NSFW

- He’s patient… but only to a point. Donnie will never pressure you. He’ll wait as long as you need, always making sure you feel safe and comfortable.

However… he’s already undressed you with his eyes a million times.

His mind is a machine of ideas and theories, and when it comes to you, he has imagined everything. Everything.

He tells himself he can be rational and controlled… but if you take too long, his thoughts will become a little more persistent.

- He’s not innocent. Don’t even think it for a second.

He may seem shy or awkward about relationships, but when it comes to this, his mind is a laboratory of hypotheses he’s dying to test.

He has analyzed you with surgical precision. He knows exactly how you blush, how you react to certain touches, which words make you tremble.

Do not underestimate him. He has read, he has researched, he has learned.

But nothing compares to the real thing. With you.

When he finally has you in his hands, his brain short-circuits.

No matter how many times he imagined this moment, nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of your skin beneath his fingers.

His jaw clenches, he exhales sharply, and his pupils dilate as if he’s just been electrocuted.

His entire expression changes—from his usual nervousness to something darker, more intense, starving.

- He becomes obsessive about memorizing every single reaction of yours.

He’s analytical. He will learn what you love and make sure to do it better every single time.

Eye contact and sounds. His drug.

Look at him. Don’t look away. Don’t ignore him.

If you dare to hold his gaze while he’s above you, he will completely lose himself in you.

Your voice, your moans, your gasps—they ruin him.

He needs you vocal. He needs to know he’s doing a good job.

If you get shy and try to cover your mouth, he will ask (or demand) that you don’t.

Kinky? Oh, absolutely.

Donnie lives to experiment. It’s in his nature.

Positions? All of them. But his favorites are the ones where you are on top of him.

He loves being dominated.

After spending his entire life controlling every aspect of his world, it’s a relief for his mind to surrender completely to you.

“Set the pace, beautiful. I’m in your hands.”

Toys? Oh, yes.

You can be sure he has researched every single thing about them.

But he won’t settle for the ones that already exist. No.

He will build his own. Upgraded. With precisely calibrated speeds and optimized materials.

“This one has five vibration levels, but if we increase the frequency by 15%, we could—”

May God help you if you walk into his lab at the wrong time.

May God help his brothers if they ever find out.

Dedicated and obsessed with you.

Donnie doesn’t do anything halfway. If he gives himself to you, it’s completely.

No matter how much time passes, he will always give his all to make you feel incredible.

He’s not a casual lover.

He is yours. And you are his.

“You are my greatest discovery.”

[glowettee]

🦢 you don't need more tips, you need to trust yourself

hey lovelies!! mindy here, back with another "no aesthetics post". so i've been thinking about this a lot lately (like, literally in the middle of the night when i should be sleeping but my brain won't shut up??) and i realized something that honestly changed everything for me. we're all obsessed with consuming advice, tips, strategies… but at some point we need to ask: is all this "help" actually helping?

i used to be that girl with 27 self-help books on her nightstand, 14 productivity podcasts in my queue, and approximately 10000 saved posts about "how to live your best life." i was drowning in good advice. and yet? i wasn't actually doing anything with it all.

here's the uncomfortable truth that i personally learned: collecting self-help is often just another form of procrastination. we trick ourselves into thinking we're making progress because we're "learning," but we're actually just avoiding the scary part, taking action when we don't feel ready.

✧ when you know it's become a problem:

you feel like you need to read "just one more" article before starting

you have notebooks filled with advice you've never implemented

you follow dozens of gurus but haven't committed to any single approach

you constantly switch systems hoping to find the "perfect" one

you know what to do but still feel paralyzed

you use phrases like "once i learn enough about x, then i'll start"

you feel overwhelmed by conflicting advice but keep seeking more

the most painful realization? all this consumption is actually making you less confident. every new piece of advice makes you question your instincts more. every contradicting tip makes you doubt your judgment. every perfect "before and after" makes you wonder what's wrong with you.

✧ why we get stuck in the advice loop:

consuming feels safe. implementing feels risky. reading about someone else's success story gives us the emotional satisfaction of achievement without any of the messy work or potential failure. it's like emotional junk food, momentarily satisfying but ultimately empty.

plus, there's something so alluring about the promise that the next book, the next course, the next system will finally be THE ONE that changes everything. we become collectors of solutions rather than solvers of problems.

✧ how to break free (ironic, i know… more advice):

declare an information fast. seriously. no new self-help for at least 30 days. it will feel uncomfortable, like an itch you can't scratch. that's how you know you need it.

pick ONE system or approach you've already learned and commit to it fully. not perfectly, just consistently. the magic isn't in finding the perfect system, it's in the consistent application of any decent one.

start before you feel ready. that knot in your stomach when you think about taking action? that's your growth edge. the discomfort isn't a sign to seek more knowledge, it's the signal that you're about to grow.

recognize that implementation creates wisdom that consumption never will. you'll learn more from a week of messy action than a year of perfect theory.

identify your "consumption triggers" do you reach for advice when you're afraid? uncertain? compare yourself to others? notice the emotional patterns.

create an "already know" document. write down everything you already know about your goal. you'll be shocked at how much wisdom you already possess.

trust that you are the expert on your own life. external advice can inform you, but it can never know the nuances of your specific situation like you do.

the truth is, you already know enough. you've probably known enough for a while now. the answers you're seeking outside yourself are usually already within you, buried under layers of doubt and other people's opinions.

what if the most radical act of self-improvement isn't finding new advice, but trusting the wisdom you already have? what if you already have everything you need?

so this is my gentle nudge to put down the self-help, close the tabs, unfollow the gurus (yes, even me if you need to), and start the messy, imperfect process of actually living instead of just learning about living.

because honestly, the world doesn't need more people who know all the right theories. it needs people brave enough to take imperfect action on what they already know.

xoxo, mindy 🤍

p.s. if you're wondering "but how will i know what to do without guidance?", that's exactly the point. you won't know for certain. and that uncertainty is where the real growth happens. trust yourself anyway.

[ironunderstands]

DR. RATIO IS GONNA RETRACE PATAVIA’s FOOTSTEPS, AND IN DOING SO HE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE THE KEY TO SAVING AMPHOREUS!!!!

Spoilers for 3.3 + some leaks (I think) ANYWAYS IVE BEEN INSANE ABOUT THIS FOR ~A Whole YEAR~ so yeah I’m making a tumblr post on it (cause even if TikTok users have no attention span, I know some people on here can read at least lmao)

For starters- who the fuck is Patavia?? (The love of my life/hj)

Well, she’s an NPC from the Council of Mundanites (which she helped form) that was alive during the Scholars Strife- which was essentially a fight that almost destroyed the Intellgencia Guild due to his members arguing and even battling eachother over how the remaining Scepters from Rubert II’s empire should be divided up and used.

Now, if you played the Amphoreus quest, you’d know that the game revealed that Amphoreus itself is made by one of these scepters- one that somehow managed to escape detection by the rest of the universe, concealing itself in the fabric of space time.

Back to Patavia, the situation of the Scholar’s strife eventually leads to her discovery of “solitary waves” aka literal manifestations of Nous’s calculations. By following them throughout the universe, Patavia eventually finds something incredibly important- the heart of the Scepter system.

Inside is the throne which Rubert II crowned himself on, and is also the center of the “brain” of the scepter system- basically the main control panel. Anyways, under the watchful eye of Polka Kakamond (who’s presence Patavia is aware of), she gains the opportunity to use THE WHOLE SCEPTER SYSTEM AT ONCE.

…And potentially to no longer be a Mundanite, and to become a Genius (Rubert III).

However, Patavia doesn’t believe she’s worthy of it, and although I haven’t mentioned it; the Mundanite’s core philosophy is the idea that knowledge should be used to benefit and uplift everyone before being used for selfish purposes (like many scholars in the scholars strife did).

Therefore, instead of asking for something new, Patavia wants to understand Nous’s calculations that they’ve already made (which unknowingly saves her life, as Polka Kakamond tries to kill anyone who pushes the boundaries of the Circle of Knowledge in a way that denies Nous’s calculations + advances the Finality).

She can’t comprehend it, but she does manage to propose the Solitary Waves theory, which Herta solves + causes her rise as a Genius.

This supposed “failure” is something the IG is so ashamed of, they used the History Fictionologists to cover it up, as they believe it proved that the mundane can never become Geniuses, due to how Patavia couldn’t ascend to becoming one despite the full power of the Scepter

Ironically, this actually saves her life, as the sense of doubt Polka creates prevents her from killing Patavia in the end since she stays within the circle of knowledge. While doing this, Patavia also fries the system in the process (good for her).

Now this is imperative to Amphoreus, as Polka, famous Rubert killer- would probably not approve of Lygus’s actions and how he’s suspiciously Rubert-ing too close to the sun.

In fact, that might actually be the reason why Amphoreus is hidden- as Lygus knows if Polka finds him, she’ll most likely kill him.

I think Screwllum and Herta are aware of this, as Polka is a firm believer in the Butterfly Effect, as depicted in the “Kill that Butterfly” curio, where even a small action can change everything (and if it relates to Nous, Polka’s gonna stop it).

When referring to Amphoreus, Screwllum says this:

-Meaning it’s probably not long before Polka comes knocking. GET HIS ASS QUEEN. KILL THAT FRAUDDD.

TLDR for this section: Lygus is probably gonna get slimed by Polka, Amphoreus is a Scepter and Patavia is a Mundanite that found the heart of the Scepter system, and “failed” to become a Genius while attempting to understand all the knowledge in the universe for the better of everyone.

So, as you’re probably asking: What the hell does this have to do with Dr. Ratio??

And I’ll answer: a lot actually.

_________________

PART TWO MY DOCTOR IS THE BUS DRIVER.

You probably noticed the me mentioning the Mundanites a lot, and that’s for a very important reason; Dr. Ratio is currently the leader of them RIGHT NOW.

(Aventurine also calls him the “Genius” of them in the 2.1 quest too hehe)

Meaning, if anyone’s going to be retracing her steps/mirroring her arc- it’s gonna be him, especially since they also share the same philosophy. We’ve gotten the other pieces from the Unknowable Domain like the Scepters + a hint at Polka’s involvement + a mention of the solitary waves theory, so it’s only a matter of time before the last part becomes relevant, especially considering that she’s the means where we learn about a lot of these things.

However, this doesn’t exactly point to Ratio saving everyone, even if I believe he will succeed where Patavia “failed” that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gonna be the key piece in fixing this shit.

Butttt, the 2.1 Cosmodyssey event (which I’ve been tweaking out about for over a year) suggests otherwise 👀

This is the first mention of Amphoreus ever.

And as you can probably tell- the character Sparkle is playing of the “Divine Mecha” is 1000% Lygus or whatever his “real” identity is.

He invites the Trailblazer to participate in the “show” of Amphoreus, and saying “yes” is when things get interesting.

He sends a very Ratio-coded woman to help, and if we “win” we get to destroy Amphoreus.

Therefore, freeing everyone from the simulation, and thus saving them? Also, only be improvising well and being true to ourselves does he let us succeed, which is both a very HSR and a very Ratio thing for him to do.

Now, this raises the question- how the hell does Ratio know Lygus?? Sparkle (Lygus) and Lady Greenday (Ratio) are fellow masked fools and presumably friends or at least coworkers, considering Lady Greenday agrees to help Sparkle out with this.

However, based of off everything we know about Ratio and Patavia, he’d probably want to set that motherfucker on fire the moment he steps on screen.

What happens next will only be apparent as time goes on, however I do feel confident in saying Ratio will play a significant role in helping Amphoreus break away from the simulation, even if he may seem like a villain in the process.

I have a few running ideas for what might happen.

Ratio learns of Amphoreus via Screwllum and checking in on the DU again (since we shoved a bunch of Amphoreus’s data in there) + using the power of the scepter, takes that data and finds a way to make it a real place, perhaps by asking the scepter system (like Patavia once did) something new this time- a question like “how do I fix this?” which may or may not end really bad for him depending on how you interpret the “Destruction” part of this

He’s known Lygus all along- in-fact Lygus might have made up based off the Titankin and then ejected him from Amphoreus like March was, except he remembers and is coming back to fix things. I don’t see a possibility where he is friendly with Lygus, but maybe there’s some mind control/coercion going on, who knows?

He shows up but only as a support for Screwllum and Herta, which I’m fine w but damn it would be boring (at least we might get Screwtio crumbs).

Or, a secret 4th thing which is probably what’s really gonna happen.

Anyways thanks for reading, and let me know what you think. I’ve been losing my mind over this for so long and 3.3 is literally making my delusions come true YEAAHHHHH. I can and will elaborate on this I just wanted to get the basic idea out of the way. Amphoreus will get a happy ending.

[opiopal]

sometimes, I like to imagine the brothers actually being shown as important to the governmental system in the devildom.

like, yeah we know they’re lords and stuff, and obviously we know that a few of them have some important titles, like Levi being in charge of the navy, but like, what if they were all important??

like, I could imagine Beel being talked to about food production/harvest. maybe he’s not directly in contact with any food ofc, but I feel like he’d be the best to go to about amounts of food and maybe harvest problems, he IS an insect(I think cicada?) so I feel like he’d know a thing or two, imagine him catching an issue with the soil being used to grow a lot of the devildoms food!

And then mams playing a part in finance. which.. prolly sounds silly but hear me out:

yes, he’s in debt, clearly, however what’s something he likes to do??? Count money!! So I could see him doing the math, counting, ect. And being able to spot if there’s something wrong or if something should be changed, and since ofc he cares about cash it would prolly be one of the things he ACTUALLY locks in for. (even though he’s horrible at school, there’s no way he ISNT good at math, idc what’s canon you need math when it comes to money. Also I think it would be insanely funny if he was in a bunch of honors classes for math when he’s still in the starting course for history and junk.) ((yall can tell me how wrong this hc is however I shall not be moved!!))

and I could imagine asmo maybe handling the affairs of sucubi?? And possibly other creatures that travel to and from the human realm for… yk those purposes. He could probably have some part in giving certain people permission to travel up, and possibly travel to the human realm in general! Like if you have any reason at all to go up there you gotta run it past him first.

now with s8n… hear me out. he keeps track of history, he reads documents that are to be published in devildom history books, and he will make SURE only facts will be included, no opinions or rumors or lies. And if he catches something at all either in a WIP document or something that’s already been published, you know it WILL be changed because no one wants to face his wrath.

And ect. Ect. And yk, they’re probably actually respected throughout the devildom. Even if some citizens don’t like them for being angels, there’s no way you WOULDNT pretend to have respect(and maybe a bit of fear) for the people who are basically besties with the future king. Yk? Honestly, I DO love the whole school thing, it’s a familiar trope and it gives more room for things to happen, but you CANT give people titles and status’s like them and NOT utilize it???

also I wanted to add belphie… but I couldn’t think of anything for him that he’d actually be willing to do?? The only thing I could think of for him would be like.. similar to asmo? Like he handles hauntings? Since there’s a large amount of demons that do their work via dreams and during the night. So he’s kind of like an HR..? But like.. DR instead? But I really don’t think he’d gaf about any of that, since yk.. he still kinda hates humans so why would he care if a bunch of demons were haunting&killing them??

Maybe he has an important job, but poor Luci just has to always do it for him since belphie can’t stay awake to save his life.

[theogonize]

house and you as pill/smoke buddies is on my brain rn mhmmm...

it probably starts when he catches you on the roof, blunt in hand, sighing into the void. your lab coat is abandoned on the sill. hard day at the hospital, child patient. couldn't save them. you know this is a high stress job, emotionally draining and you've never been good at coping. so there you are. some diazepam you swallowed down thirty minutes prior already in your system. must've kicked in already. house see's you and he's instantly intrigued by the arch of your back and the curve of your hips. perfect in those tight pencil skirts you wear. he doesn't know you but he's dying to figure out.

"i think you've stolen my spot." he clambers up to you. he's surprised you hadn't turned when you heard the cane. were you so deep in thought? you turn to look at him. register him. disheveled looking older man, 5 o'clock shadow, piercing blue eyes... and so you're type. you try to recall who he is. definitely a physician from the absence of a lab coat. is this the infamous...

"dr. house," he states. obviously the speed of your reaction, or lack thereof had intrigued him. your pupils were dilated and your breathing was irregular... though you might attribute that to present company "and you should not be this high while still in the hospital."

you breathe out the smoke you inhaled with a slight smirk. it makes him smirk too. you turn your back to the view and face him and subsequently eye his frame. he returns the favor, a lot less suggestively then you were. but of course he can't hold you to it, the way your eyes flutter is mostly because of the weed. heavy, intoxicating eyes. something tells you he doesn't mind it.

"don't tell. i'll leave in a minute and you can have your space back" you say.

"i said you stole my spot... who says you have to give it back?"

you smile and scoot over, tilting your head slightly gesturing him to join you. he pops two vicodin innocuously but you notice.

"damn, you swallow your pills dry? you're a sociopath" you giggle.

"i thought you as a doctor would be careful throwing around serious medical terms like that" he says, feigning an accusation. there's something about the intensity of eye contact you're holding. you've just met the guy and there's wayyy too much sexual tension in the air.

"not in the psychiatric department so no one can hold me to it," you say, blowing smoke in another direction. some part of house wanted you to blow the smoke right at him, not breaking the mutual eyefucking going on at the moment.

"how else did you get the lorazepam you've taken?" he asks, a sly tone like he has you all figured out. this was just a question to get you to spill the beans about your department. god you made him so curious. rarely had he seen a hot young doctor brazenly smoking after, presumably, taking a little something something. one so open to converse with an old man whose in her business.

you chuckle at his self assuredness.

"wanna take another guess?"

house uses this to shamelessly eye you. you're well put together, great sense of fashion. nice proportions. your body, not the outfits... he'd prefer you without them surely. no tremor. no injury, so no usual pain medication. you let out a heavy sigh and house darts his eyes towards your chest. great rack, he thinks, almost like he's going to put it in this mental patient report he's creating.

"hmmm, haloperidol? you don't strike me as the psychosis type though... i don't see anything indicating you inject yourself with ativan. diazepam?"

"you know your anxiety medication, doc," you smile. he sighs abashedly. god he's hot. something about that rasp in his voice, good god, paired with the vanity radiating off his skin... it does something to you. you finally introduce yourself, partially because you need him to call you by your name in the same raspy, smug tone.

"pediatric pulmonology..." he puts a hand to his chin, scratching his stubble as if contemplating something serious, "it's always the childcare specialists trying to overdose on the hospital terrace. dont blame you, if i had to deal with those parasites i'd want to kill myself too."

you shoot him a look. your sure you dont need to tell him the stakes of the job, the weight on your soul when a child with an obvious chronic and fatal condition comes into intensive care. the cruel hand fate plays on a mere baby. "kids are a product of their environment." you put plainly. you look away into the distance. "and i'm not trying to kill myself. not yet anyway." he stops prodding, obviously he's ticked you in some way.

"are you trying to kill yourself? doctor house?" you stare at him now, and then move your eyes to the almost empty bottle of vicodin.

"oh, i'm an addict. an addict whose due for a refill." he puts the bottle at eye level, as if examining a test tube. you can't help but give a defeated smile at his bluntness. you stare off into space again. a hollow silence follows. you don't dare look at house once.

"you mind if i take a hit"

his question catches you off guard. there's an earnest in his blue eyes. almost as if involuntarily, almost hypnotized, you hand him the joint. your fingers brush as if on purpose. your breath hitches again. and house notices, coloring his eyes a different shade of vain. he puts the blunt to his lips, your eyes follow his every move with heed. the pink of his lips soon emit the familiar smoke. he looks you right in the eyes as he blows it onto your face. you bask in the smoke letting it cloud you. cloud your judgement for a split second as you lean forward. for a kiss? maybe but

house puts the blunt to your lips this time, dragging his thumb across your bottom lip. you look up at him through your lashes, eyes blown out wide. he's so tall, even with his cane. he lets you intake the smoke for a second longer than you like, maintaining the intense gaze on you. there's a kick in your stomach. maybe it's something. maybe it's nothing. maybe you're just high. but you swear you've never been wetter.

[damnfeelings09]

Gorgeous - Shadow version

Authors note: This is my first Shadow POV, characters are all +18 and I try to keep em as reallystic as possible, I'll add a few thing here and there. If you couldn´t tell this pov is based on T.S song Gorgeous so you can totally listen to it while you read, it will help you to understand it better.

Party

Your idea of a perfect afternoon at home was a good book and a cup of coffee; however, when Rouge mentioned they were going to Metropolis Zone for something relaxing, you thought it would be a good idea. How wrong you were. Right now, you were at The Heat, a bar with loud music, people all over the dance floor, and a lot, a lot of alcohol. Saying you were stunned would be an understatement, but deep down you were grateful to Rouge for getting you out of your cave, even though you’d never admit it.

While you accompanied Rouge to the dance floor and both had fun, someone was watching you curiously from the upper part of the bar. Shadow wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol in his system or his senses being dulled by the loud music, but his feet started moving to the melody.

“You should take it as a compliment, that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talked…”

You, already having lost more than one sense, were laughing loudly as you ran her hands over her body and swayed your fluffy tail from side to side. “Hey, Moon! Look over there,” said Rouge, pointing toward the stairs. There, a figure stood that she couldn’t quite make out, probably due to the amount of alcohol you had consumed. “Wow, looks like we have a party pooper,” you said, mimicking his pose and laughing. You stopped in your tracks when you saw that figure glide gracefully through the guests, heading directly to the bar. Like a magnetic field, you followed.

“You should think about the consequences of your magnetic field being a little too strong.”

When you reached the bar, you looked around for him and found him sitting on a stool, staring into the vastness of his drink.

“You’re so cool it makes me hate you so much.”

You ordered two drinks: “Whiskey on ice, sunset in vine,” walked toward that stranger, sat beside him, and slid the drink closer to him. “Hello” you smiled. “I haven’t seen you around here before.” He didn’t take long to turn his face towards you. Two perfect crimson orbs locked onto you, analyzing you, as if he could see straight into your soul. His spines were jet black, fading into a deep red, matching his eyes. He wore a black vest, his white fur shining through it.

“You’re so gorgeous, I can’t say anything to your face, cause look at your face.”

You felt hot, all the heat concentrated in your cheeks, you could swear you were just as red as a tomato at that moment. Damn it, how were you going to speak now? Look at that face, you couldn’t say anything.

“And I’m so furious at you for making me feel this way.”

Although Shadow remained as stoic as ever on the outside, he was definitely not on the inside. All night, he had kept his eyes on that long-eared bunny in the short dress, admiring, analyzing every step you took, holding onto the railing to avoid saving you every time you looked like you might trip, and clenching his fists when someone approached you. Shadow found it peculiar that you wouldn’t dance with anyone, not even when that big yellow cat came over. Why were you talking to him now?

“You should take it as a compliment that I’m talking to everyone here but you.”

“I don’t usually come to places like this.” “Wow... well, neither do I” you said, pushing a drink next to his hand. For just a second, your hands brushed, and that second was enough to send a jolt of 100,000 volts. His spines flickered with small orange sparks.

“You should think about the consequences of you touching my hand in a darkened room.”

“I’m Moon.” When Shadow realized he couldn’t easily escape your company, he turned to face you.

“If you’ve got a boyfriend, I’m jealous of him, but if you’re single, it’s honestly worse, cause you’re so gorgeous it actually hurts.”

“Shadow,” He said, trying not to let his recently discovered liking for long ears show. Boy he was lost. Your big purple eyes, like the sunset, white fur glimmering from small droplets of sweat. I feel like I might burn so bright and die.

“You’re so gorgeous.”

What was happening? Shadow wasn’t used to this... this feeling of electricity running through his body wasn’t like using his chaos energy; it was something else, something foreign to him. He didn’t know if he liked it or disliked it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off your hypnotizing purple gaze.

“You make me so happy it turns back to sad.”

You stood like that for a few seconds, until your friends dragged you back to the dance floor. You didn’t want to leave. You wanted to know what it was about that hedgehog that drew you in. He was an enigma, and you wanted to uncover what he was hiding. Shadow didn’t want you to leave, but he wasn’t going to stop you either. He wasn’t used to wanting, to needing something. It was hard for him to get his thoughts and feelings in order. He raised his glass and drank the entire contents in one go, left a bill on the bar, and walked out, trying not to look back.

“There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have.”

Shadow got on his motorcycle, torn between whether he should go back inside and ask for your number, if he should say goodbye or just walk away as if nothing happened as always. That was stupid; you two just shared a drink and a look. It wasn’t anything.

“Guess I’ll just stumble alone to my house.”

You watched as Shadow leave the place, a void growing in your stomach. Quickly, you grabbed your coat and ran after him. What were you doing? Had you lost your mind chasing after a stranger who hadn’t even shown interest in you? But those eyes, you couldn’t leave without at least trying. Just before Shadow started his motorcycle, he saw the white bunny leaving The Heat. You were looking around, as if searching for someone. When your eyes met, you smiled and walked toward him.

“Unless you wanna come along.”

[thursdayinspace]

post-Milagro ficlet

I got an ask from a lovely anon a few days ago about *the* quote from Milagro: "Agent Scully is already in love." This is part of what will maybe turn out to be a larger WIP, or maybe not. It stands on its own for now. But who knows. Anon: thanks for the ask! I took a bit of a different turn with this, but I couldn't manage post-Milagro fic that didn't have some angst in it. tagging @today-in-fic

Agent Scully is already in love.

A look at the alarm clock tells her it’s 3 a.m. and she hasn’t managed to sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Every time she drifts off, the same thoughts jerk her awake again. She can still feel the hand around her heart, the horror and fear, the absolute certainty in her mind that this was it, she couldn’t fight this, nobody was gonna save her this time.

But she’s okay. She’s not even hurt. There’s even a decent chance that she’ll get the blood out of her clothes, even though she’s not sure she ever wants to wear them again. She’s okay, and yet she’s lying here wide awake at 3 a.m., the past few days replaying on a constant loop in her mind. She has no idea why she ever even talked to Padgett. Quite honestly, she has no idea why she did any of the things she did. She has no idea how she didn’t end up hurt or dead.

She knew the risks she was taking. Interacting with your own stalker—a really fucking terrible idea. But it’s only now that she’s truly afraid. Now that it’s over.

Mulder offered to stay with her. He would have let her stay at his apartment, but she had to get out of there, and he understood. A part of her wishes she’d have let him sleep on her couch the way he wanted. Having him close by might be a comfort now. Or it might not.

Agent Scully is already in love.

One more thing she can’t forget, no matter how hard she tries. Padgett was clearly not well, and she never should have listened to a word he said, but she did. She listened, and she heard things that were never meant to be spoken aloud.

And Mulder was there. Mulder heard. She turns her face into the pillow and squeezes her eyes closed. She doesn’t wanna hear it anymore. She doesn’t want those words.

If it weren’t for those words, maybe she could have let Mulder stay. Maybe it would have been okay.

Deep breaths, she tells herself. Breathe. Relax. Think about nothing. Think about puppies and nice hot baths and the smell of freshly baked cookies.

A hand around her heart, squeezing. She can’t move, the floor hard against her back, and she knows she’s dying, she can’t move, she can’t…

Fuck. She rolls onto her back and covers her eyes with her hands as if that could stop the images from flooding her tired mind.

Jolting back to consciousness, her body tight with fear and shock, and Mulder right there, Mulder with his worried eyes, Mulder’s arms around her holding her close, Mulder, Mulder, Mulder.

She wants Mulder. Oh god. She shouldn’t have sent him away when he dropped her off, when he asked whether she wanted him to come up.

She could call her mom.

She could deal with this on her own like a fucking adult who doesn’t need anyone to hold her hand every time she gets scared.

A tiny part of her brain reminds her that this was bad, that she has every right to be shaken up. But she wants her mind to be wrong about this. She just wants it to be over.

She wants Mulder.

Agent Scully is already in love.

Mulder is the last person she can call right now.

They have worked out a system a long time ago for when one of them can’t sleep. Call and let it ring once, then hang up. If the other one is awake enough to reach for the phone, they talk. Otherwise they let each other sleep. She could do that. He’d understand. Hell, he’s probably lying awake expecting her to call. Which makes her that much more determined not to do it.

The last digits she reads on her alarm clock before she drifts off into a restless slumber are 5:28.

At 7 a.m., her alarm rings. She feels terrible. Everyone would understand if she took a sick day. But then she’d sit here all day with her thoughts, with her memories, with nothing to distract her.

**

When she walks into the office, she doesn’t remember getting dressed, she doesn’t remember driving to work. She’s not sure whether she had breakfast or not. She’s not even entirely sure she’s awake.

“Scully!” Mulder sounds surprised, and she manages to lift her head high enough to look at him as he walks around the desk. He comes straight towards her to put his hands on her shoulders. “Scully, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m fine. Just. Didn’t sleep great.”

He doesn’t let go of her, just stands there biting his lip and giving her that soft look that makes her want to weep.

She doesn’t need this on top of everything. Maybe she should have stayed home after all. She’s so good at keeping her feelings locked away. Today, she barely has the strength to stand upright or formulate a single thought that isn’t Oh god, I’m so tired.

“Go home,” Mulder says. “I’ll drive you.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I need to… I just need to take my mind off things.”

A stranger’s fist inside her chest, forcing the life from her body, merciless, cold. Pain, panic.

Mulder squeezes her shoulders gently. “You shouldn’t be here. I didn’t expect you to come in. I’m sure neither did Skinner. Take a few days. You need rest.”

She shakes her head, regretting the movement as the room spins out of focus for a second. “What I need is to work.” What she needs is to know if Mulder knows. She knows her fear is safe with him. She doesn’t know about all the rest. She needs something to hold onto. Something stronger than the fear. “I’m not going home,” she tells him firmly.

He hesitates a long moment, an eternity. Finally, he nods. “Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Mulder looks very unhappy, but she can’t do anything about that. She just needs… she just needs something to occupy her mind. Before she passes out on the floor and dreams of a hand around her heart, squeezing the life out of her.

**

“Hey, Scully?”

She blinks her eyes open, disoriented for a second. Her neck hurts and her head is spinning as she sits up. Mulder is standing in the doorway. She’s sitting behind the desk. Right. She wanted to check something. He went to… do something else that she doesn’t remember. “Sorry,” she says, and wipes drool from the corner of her mouth. Falling asleep at the desk is probably not the best way to convince him she’s okay to work. A quick look at her watch tells her she can’t have been out for more than ten minutes. “What is it?”

He waves a file in her direction. “I think we should check this out as quickly as possible,” he says.

“Oh.” She manages a nod. Do they have a case? She remembers talking about something earlier that they decided to dismiss. She can’t even recall what it was. But apparently they settled on something. “Yeah, absolutely.” She pauses, not sure whether she wants to ask. She really doesn’t want him to know that she completely zoned out on all of it. But then again, she can’t exactly do her work if she doesn’t know what they’re even working on. “What, uh. What is the case again? Sorry, I guess I’m a bit… distracted today.”

“Yeah.” He gives her a long look. “The haunted hotel, remember? And it’s just an hour and a half from here.”

“Oh!” she says, pretending to remember, deciding she can read whatever is in that folder on the way to… wherever it is they’re going. “Right. Yes. Okay. And you want us to go there right now?”

“Why not?” he says, shrugging. “No time like the present.”

“Good, yeah, okay.” She suppresses a yawn and tries not to shiver too obviously. She has reached the level of exhaustion where her whole body hurts and she feels like she’s running a fever.

“I’ll drive,” he says. She doesn’t argue.

**

Out of sheer stubbornness, she manages not to fall asleep in the car. She even manages to make conversation. Her speech is barely even slurred. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t notice.

Unfortunately, he put the file in the trunk of the car before she remembered to take it from him, but he’s telling her some ghost stories about the place while they drive, so she feels reasonably well-prepared.

“Here we are,” he says, pulling into the parking lot of an expensive-looking hotel that looks not even remotely like she imagined. But after all these years, she’s come to expect the unexpected.

“This is it?”

“Yup.” He smiles at her and gets out of the car. She follows, her legs heavy, but she gets them moving, gets them to carry her towards the entrance of the building.

The spacious foyer they walk into screams “I’m way out of your pay grade,” and she notices guests and staff who all look very happy and not at all like they’re being plagued by ghost sightings. Business seems to be going well. Which is also not what she expected from a place that is haunted enough for Mulder to open an X-file on it. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, and something in his voice makes her turn her head and study his profile carefully.

“Mulder, what aren’t you telling me?”

He stops and turns towards her with a sigh. “I may have done something rash and stupid, and please feel free to yell at me if I completely overstepped any boundaries here.”

“Oh god,” she says. “What did you do?”

“I, um.” He directs his gaze at the floor next to her feet and grimaces. “I may have gone to Skinner and told him we’re both taking the rest of the week off.”

“You…what?”

“And I may have called here and booked us a suite. For two nights. A… vacation, I guess.”

“Mulder…”

“Two bedrooms. And there are go ghosts here, don’t worry.” He pauses before he continues, his voice low and careful. “As long as we’re anywhere near the Hoover Building, you’ll work. I know it and you know it.”

“Mulder, seriously…”

“You need to sleep, Scully,” he says, finally meeting her eyes. “You’re dead on your feet. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. She’s so tired. So very, very tired. All she wants is a bed. All she wants is for her memories to leave her alone. All she wants is to sink against Mulder’s chest and cry with exhaustion and the emotional hangover from almost being murdered. Again. “…Okay.”

“Okay?” He looks so hopeful, so relieved. Another thing that almost makes her cry.

Agent Scully is already in love.

Shit. He makes it really hard for her to feel any other sort of way about him. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Good.”

She frowns. “What about all those stories you just told me about this place?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I kind of made them up.”

Her laughter turns into a yawn and he puts his arms around her shoulders as they get their key and find the elevator up to their floor. She leans against him, letting him hold her upright. Now that she’s given in to this, the prospect of lying down and closing her eyes seems so overwhelmingly wonderful.

“Oh no,” she says, suddenly remembering something.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I don’t have anything with me. No clothes, nothing.”

He laughs and pulls her tighter against him just as the elevator door opens and they step out. “I’m sorry. I honestly completely forgot about that.”

“Yeah.” She feels such a rush of fondness for him it makes her aching heart flutter in her chest. “I’m noticing you don’t have a bag with you either.”

“Well.” He lets go of her to open the door to their suite and lets her walk in ahead of him. “We’ll just have to spend the next couple of days in hotel robes.”

“Maybe we should go out and buy a few things,” she suggests.

“Or,” he says, “you go and lie down and I’ll go out and pick up a few things for us.”

“But—”

“Scully,” he interrupts. “Trust me. I think I can manage to find a pair of sweatpants and a couple of t-shirts for you that will fit.”

“Underwear,” she says and blushes.

“I can manage that too,” he says, and she’s too tired to feel embarrassed about anything right now.

Agent Scully is already in love.

“Mulder?”

“Yes?”

“You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.”

“That’s not difficult,” he says, “since I’m the only partner you’ve ever had. There’s not really that much competition.”

In lieu of an answer, she hugs him, pleased when he puts his arms around her in return. She doesn’t feel the hard floor against her back when he holds her, she doesn’t remember what it felt like when her vision went black and she felt herself dying.

She really wants to ask him if he knows who Padgett was talking about. If he believed it. But she won’t. Not right now. There’s time. And maybe she already knows the answer. Either way, it’s true. And she’s too weak to fight it.

“Thank you,” she says.

He pulls her closer and sighs against her hair. “I just want you to be okay,” he says softly.

“I will be,” she promises.

Agent Scully is already in love.

Whether it’s friendship or something else that he’s offering, she knows that whatever shape his feelings come in, she’s never been loved like this before. By anyone. And even with all the ghosts in her mind, she feels like she might finally get some sleep after all.

[kikyoupdates]

Otherworldly Attraction ⭑˚🔮⭑ 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑦

yandere!jjk x f!reader

yandere, reverse harem, isekai, jujutsu kaisen x fem!reader, slowburn, slowburn yandere

You don't know how or why, but you've been isekai'd into the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. Although your first instinct is to stay away from the plot, you've been blessed with an abnormal amount of cursed energy, and for better or worse, you find yourself sucked into the storyline. You decide that you may as well use your newfound powers for the greater good, and if you're lucky, you might succeed in rewriting some of the characters' fates. But it turns out that your presence in this world is an even bigger deal than you first thought, and soon, everyone wants to make you theirs.

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I just want to go home.   

You feel like absolute shit—as one tends to feel when they’re being controlled by some freakish, unseen force. Even now, you swear you can still hear Sukuna’s voice echoing inside your mind, and although you struggle to fight against it, to turn on your heels and run, resisting proves to be immensely painful. It appears as though your only choice is to press forward, much to your horror.  

Man. You’re not sure what the hell is happening, but this is some isekai bullshit.   

Your very existence in this world is already strange enough, and right now, you simply don’t have the luxury to stand around and contemplate what’s happening. Something—or rather, someone —has taken hold of you, and the darkness beckons you closer, in the direction of what you can only assume is Sukuna’s finger.   

“Shit,” you gasp, pressing a palm to your chest and feeling how tumultuous your heartbeat is. “I feel… like I’m gonna pass out. This place is making me sick. This energy… it all just feels wrong .”   

The only silver lining is that Itadori is by your side. He lifts his brows and looks over at you in concern. You know that he’s strong, and in the worst case, he’ll probably be able to protect you if shit hits the fan. At this point, your fear is honestly secondary, because you need to make sure he meets up with Fushiguro in time to eat the finger. If one of those cursed spirits manages to consume it instead, you already know what will happen, and suffice to say, it's not going to be pretty.   

“[Name], are you good?” Itadori asks. He wraps an arm around your waist and steadies your body against his. “I agree that something about this place feels really off. I can tell that guy wasn’t kidding when he said it’s dangerous. I think maybe you should turn back. There’s no need to push yourself if you’re too scared. I promise to save Sasaki and Iguchi. No matter what happens, I swear it.”   

If only. You’ve been trying to turn back from the very beginning, but the second you resist and head in the opposite direction, a wave of pain envelops your body, paired with a thick, nauseating haze. It’s as if your entire nervous system is screaming out and refusing to comply.  

Sukuna is calling to you. That much is abundantly clear. You’re not sure why exactly, or even how , but you surmise it must have something to do with that encounter that took place inside his Innate Domain. Which means that it wasn’t a hallucination at all. It really happened.   

“I can’t turn back,” you grit out, squeezing Itadori’s arm in a desperate attempt to tether yourself to reality. “Let’s… let’s just keep going. We need to find those two.”   

And you need to eat Sukuna’s finger before it’s too late.   

Fortunately, you’ve been able to avoid curses until now. Most likely because they’re all being drawn in by the massive amount of energy being emitted by Sukuna’s remains. And since you can feel yourself being pulled right towards that crusty old finger, it might actually be smooth sailing from here on out. Itadori will find Fushiguro and eat the finger, Sukuna will be incarnated through him, and shortly thereafter, Gojo will show up to save the day.   

Well, assuming everything goes to plan. Which, so far, it hasn’t .   

This is further reinforced by you and Itadori turning the corner, only to come face to face with a medium-sized curse, which rotates its grotesque, bulging head in your direction, eyes swirling around all googly and freakish.   

Maybe if you hold your breath and stand perfectly still it won’t notice you?   

“ Ahhh!”   

…yeah, that plan was clearly destined to fail.   

The curse lets out a shrill, ear-piercing scream, and you brace yourself, shaking all over, prepared for it to attack.   

But for some reason, that doesn’t happen. Not right away, at least.   

Much like the smaller curse you saw on your very first day in this world—the Fly Head—the curse’s immediate instinct isn’t to barrel towards you. In fact, it does just the opposite. For a moment, it briefly falters and even steps back . Unless you’re imagining things, it actually looks a bit scared.   

“...intruder,” it garbles in a distorted, unpleasant voice. “In… Intruder. Intruder. Intruder !”   

The more it repeats the word, the angrier it becomes, and this time, it overcomes whatever was holding it back at first and charges straight ahead, clearly out for blood.   

You’re not a fighter. You don’t know any martial arts, or self-defense techniques, and you can’t say that you’re especially athletic either. So, when faced with something so deeply unnatural and horrifying, your immediate instinct is to freeze up, too frightened to react in time.   

But luckily, the same can’t be said for Itadori.   

He jumps in front of you and forcefully kicks the curse, hard enough that it gets knocked onto its back and lets out yet another scream. But you already know that it won’t stay down. Itadori doesn’t know how to channel cursed energy yet. And without any cursed energy, the curses can’t be defeated.   

Which is why the only option is to run .   

“This way!” you cry out, having snapped out of your fear-induced stupor. You grab Itadori by the hand and pull him towards the stairs, running as fast as your legs can carry you. There’s no point in trying to sneak around and play it safe anymore. The best thing you can do is reach Sukuna’s finger as fast as possible, and for better or worse, you can tell exactly where it’s located.   

Itadori grips your hand tight as you run through the building, and he doesn’t even question where you’re leading him to. It’s clear that he trusts you completely. He’s more than willing to follow you further and further into this hellscape.   

But perhaps he shouldn’t.  

“Come to me, girl. Come set me free.”   

You wince. Sukuna’s voice is stronger now, and the feeling is more intense, too. You can tell that the finger is close. Uncomfortably so.   

And perhaps you’re actually luckier than you realize, because you arrive right in the nick of time—just as Sasaki and Iguchi are about to be swallowed up by a curse, along with Sukuna’s finger.   

“Let go of them!” Itadori yells. Much like earlier, he attacks the curse with a flying kick, and in one fell swoop, he pulls Sasaki and Iguchi to safety, skidding backwards and catching both of them in his arms.   

Their deaths have been avoided, just like in the canon timeline. And even though Itadori wasn’t able to exorcize this curse either, his interference gives Fushiguro just enough time to get a proper attack in.  

The curse now lies on the ground, defeated, and Fushiguro’s Divine Dogs—that cute black and white wolf pair—begin eating the curse’s remains.   

Fushiguro lets out a heavy, somewhat exasperated sigh. “What the hell are both of you doing here? I specifically told you guys not to come in. Normally I’d be pretty pissed… but good job. I was worried I’d gotten here too late.”  

“So, that’s what curses look like,” Itadori frowns. “It’s weird that I’ve never seen them before. [Name], you were saying you’re actually familiar with these things? As in, today’s not the first time you’ve run into them?”   

You don’t respond. More accurately, you can’t respond. You can feel the blood pounding in your ears, and your breaths are becoming more labored by the second. Your chest hurts. Your heart hurts. It’s as if your body is throbbing all over, overcome by some dark, foreign desire.   

Sukuna’s finger falls out of Sasaki’s pocket, and Itadori quickly picks it up.   

“Is this the cursed object thingy you kept going on about?” Itadori asks.   

“Yeah,” Fushiguro nods. “Special-grade cursed object, Ryomen Sukuna. Well, one part of it, at least. In any case, it’s dangerous, so hurry up and hand it over. As for why you’ve never seen curses before, it’s because normal people usually can’t. The only exceptions are when you’re exposed to these kinds of life-or-death situations, which grants you the ability to see what’s actually in front of you. In [Name]’s case… she already has an abundance of cursed energy. More than enough to be considered a sorcerer. Which is why it’s strange that she’s never been trained to fight curses, but—wait. What are you doing?”   

Fushiguro isn’t talking to Itadori anymore. This time, his words are addressed to you .   

Because you’re in the process of wrangling Sukuna’s finger out of Itadori’s grasp.   

“Oh,” Itadori blinks. “Did you want to take a look at it too? Sure, I’ll pass it over—”  

Another curse descends from the ceiling, breaking through the upper floor of the building. You already knew this was going to happen, of course, and if you hadn’t been locked in a trance, you probably could have warned them in time. Fushiguro gets caught and injured by the curse, which is the natural sequence of events, and he’s violently thrown against the wall, only for it to crack and split open from the impact.   

Itadori cries out to him in a panic, but you can’t bring yourself to do the same. Instead, you stare down at the palms of your hands in abject horror, trembling from head to toe.   

Just now… you actually tried to eat that thing.   

“Fuck my life,” you sob, but since Sukuna’s finger is still at large, he beckons you forth yet again, and you chase after Itadori and Fushiguro, out onto the school rooftop.   

There, you find both of the boys locked in a fight with the curse, and having already taken considerable damage. You’re not even sure what grade this freakish monster is supposed to be, but it’s certainly not weak, and killing you would probably be child’s play.   

You’re well aware of all this. You realize just how dangerous it is to get anywhere near that ugly-ass thing.   

And yet, you drag your feet along, like some kind of zombie, enslaved by someone else’s will.   

“Come to me.”   

Itadori is lying on the ground right now. He’s wincing from the pain, and he’s sure to get up again in no time flat, but at this very moment, he’s defenseless. And you can see Sukuna’s finger sticking out from his pocket.   

You reach towards it just as Itadori presses up on his elbows, and he stares at you between furrowed brows, blood dripping down his forehead.   

“[Name]?” he blinks groggily. “It’s… it’s not safe here. Run away while you’re still—”  

“—eat it.”  

Unsurprisingly, he blinks at you. Even with the threat of the curse looming nearby, his confusion briefly renders him motionless, and he tilts his head to the side and gives you an adorable, disoriented puppy-faced look.  

All the while, your hand keeps reaching closer, mere inches away from the cursed object.   

Itadori wipes a sleeve across his brow. “What are you talking about? I’ve got practically no appetite right now. It’s not really a good time to bring up food—”  

“Eat the finger!” you scream. “Just do it! Please !”   

It only takes a single moment for everything to go wrong. In just a single moment, your fate could end be sealed, and Itadori doesn’t seem to know what else to do but stare at you in bewilderment. He can’t seem to understand why you’re reaching for the finger yourself, while begging him to dispose of it.   

But it turns out that your friendship is even stronger than you first thought. You should have realized as much when he followed you through the building without protest. When he blindly trusted in you and came all the way down from the hospital in the first place.  

Itadori cares for you, and he will continue to do so, forevermore.   

“ No !” Fushiguro desperately cries out—but it’s too late, because Itadori has already swallowed the finger whole.   

Your body instantly deflates, and you crumple to the ground, like a worn-out ragdoll. That sickening sensation is finally gone. Sukuna doesn’t have a hold on you anymore. You successfully avoided the worst-case scenario.   

Unfortunately, you’re not prepared for what will come next.   

“What did you do?!” Fushiguro exclaims, furiously shaking you by the shoulders. “Do you have any idea what this means? A special-grade cursed object may as well be poison! He’s going to die !”   

You stare at him, eyes glazing over from exhaustion, and then you tell him, very plainly:   

“No. He won’t.”   

The curse tries to strike again, but you don’t even need to look back to find out what happens. There’s a harsh, bloodcurdling wail, and the next thing you know, the curse falls flat onto the ground, lifeless. Its corpse is already disappearing, but you’re more concerned with what is soon to follow. An evil the likes of which you never thought you’d be faced with.   

The curse is dead. Itadori killed it.  

 Or rather, Sukuna killed it.   

“Ah! I knew it!” a distinctly deep and familiar voice cries out. “Light really does feel best in the flesh!” Manic, deranged laughter fills the air, and you watch as Sukuna rips Itadori’s hoodie off, revealing a collection of black, patterned tattoos.   

Fushiguro’s grip on your shoulders goes slack, and all the color proceeds to drain from his face. At first, he’s clearly in denial, but gradually, his expression gives way to pained acceptance, and he’s forced to confront the horrific scenario he’s just been presented with.   

“Killing a cursed spirit is no fun!” Sukuna cackles. “Where are all the people? The women?” He stops all of a sudden, pausing to take in the scenery. From his vantage point up on the roof, he can clearly see the city that sprawls out beneath him, bright lights sparkling like stars in the dark canopy of the night. “What a wonderful era to be in,” he remarks in delight, and he stretches his arms out wide, each laugh more unhinged than the last. “I can tell that women and children are crawling everywhere, like maggots. How marvelous! I couldn’t have asked for anything better! It’ll be a massacre !”   

Sukuna’s laughter steadily builds, and the most you can do is cower behind Fushiguro, waiting for Gojo to hurry up and make his appearance already—because holy shit, you’re so scared.  

Thankfully, all of this is predetermined. From here, you have full faith in what’s about to happen. That creepy, ominous sensation from before has completely disappeared. Itadori has become Sukuna’s vessel, which means that you’re safe, and soon—  

“...wait.”   

All of a sudden, Sukuna turns around, and for some reason, his blood-red eyes are clearly affixed to you .   

“That familiar cursed energy,” Sukuna says, almost in some sort of breathless awe. “You… you’re that same girl. I’ve seen you before.”   

You don’t know what to say. It’s one thing to see this guy as a fictional character. Even then, his cruelty and malice was so potent it made you want to repeatedly stomp on his balls, but he was simply a character, and thus, you found entertainment in his actions, depraved as they were.   

However, it’s a different thing entirely to meet him in the flesh, and not only that—but to realize that you’ve so clearly caught his eye.  

Sukuna knits his brows together. “Yes… I remember now. Part of me was calling out to you without me even realizing it. But it seems I’ve taken this boy’s body instead. What a shame.”   

“What… in the world is he saying?” Fushiguro blinks, rightfully taken aback. “You already know him?”   

You’re so scared that you still can’t form a proper response, and even if you could, you’re not sure what you could possibly say to defend yourself. The King of Curses himself is claiming that he knows you. How in the world do you refute that?   

Hurry the fuck up already, Gojo! You’re late!   

“I just can’t seem to understand,” Sukuna says, voice dropping eerily low. “Girl. I demand that you tell me right now. What are you?”   

Without warning, he lunges towards you. He’s so fast that even Fushiguro can’t react in time, and you watch as Sukuna’s hand menacingly reaches out to you. You swear he’s about to tear out your heart and crush it between his fingers.  

Without a doubt, death has you in its grasp.   

“...hey! Cut it out! What are you trying to do to [Name]?!”   

Sukuna stops just short of making contact with you, and you scramble backwards in a hurry, with Fushiguro quickly following suit.   

Holy shit. That was so, so close. If not for Itadori regaining control right in the nick of time, you would’ve been completely and irrevocably fucked . You’re shaking all over from how utterly terrifying that was. It’s honestly a miracle you didn’t wet yourself just then.   

“How are you able to move?” Sukuna mutters in disbelief.   

“What do you mean?” Itadori blinks. “You realize this is my body, right? And why’d you randomly get so close to [Name] all of a sudden? That’s creepy! Look how scared she is right now!”  

“It’s true,” you sniffle pathetically. “I hate it here. I just want to go home.”   

Sukuna keeps fighting it, but as expected, Itadori is able to suppress him with relative ease. The tattoos are gradually fading from his skin, proof that he’s the one in control right now, not Sukuna.   

And then, it happens. The long-awaited moment has finally arrived. Right as Fushiguro declares that he has no choice but to exorcize Itadori as a curse, a certain white-haired man appears, seemingly out of nowhere.   

That man, of course, is none other than Gojo Satoru—the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in the whole world.  

“Yo, Megumi,” Gojo casually greets. “What’s the situation?”   

“Wha—? Why are you here?!”  

“Well, I honestly wasn’t gonna come at first, but the higher-ups wouldn’t shut up with a special-grade cursed object gone missing, so I decided to stop by while I was sightseeing. But man, you’re pretty roughed up, huh? I’m definitely gonna show this to all the second-years.”  

He laughs obnoxiously while snapping pictures of Megumi’s bloody, injured state, and normally, this is the time when he would inquire about the location and state of the cursed object, but mirroring what Sukuna did earlier, he instead turns to you.   

“Also… what’s the deal with this girl?” Gojo asks, his cheerful, laid-back demeanor shifting for a moment. “Something about her cursed energy feels unnatural. It’s kind of giving me the heebie-jeebies, to be honest. Hey, you can hear me, right? You haven’t gone into shock or anything, have you?”  

He starts aggressively poking the top of your head, and even though you feel like you should be fangirling right about now—you’re being touched by the Gojo Satoru, after all—regretfully, that’s not how you react.   

Perhaps it’s the wave of sheer relief you’ve been hit with, now that you know you’re finally safe, or maybe it’s because of the absolute mindfuck that you’ve been put through today. Not just today, really, but ever since you somehow found yourself in this world. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter.   

Exhausted beyond belief, you sway unsteadily, fainting right on the spot.   

“Whoa,” Gojo chuckles. He reaches out just in time to catch you in his arms. Your eyelids are completely shut, and you’ve got a peaceful expression on your face, because finally, you can afford to rest.   

Gojo stares down at you. With these special eyes of his, he can see the flow of cursed energy in haunting detail. Naturally, that means that from the moment he caught so much as a glimpse of you, he knew something was off. He knew you weren’t normal.  

The special-grade cursed object, Ryomen Sukuna. That’s why he came all this way. To retrieve something incredibly powerful, something too dangerous to risk falling into the wrong hands. He figured he already had his work cut out for him, but now, it looks like the situation’s gotten even more complicated.   

Just like him, you too are an anomaly, and the realization makes a grin spread across Gojo’s lips.  

“Well, then. This should be interesting.”   

More chapters are available on Quotev and Ao3!

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[scary-grace]

certain stars (part 2) - a Shigaraki x reader fic

Nothing in your training prepared you for this: A deadly virus that burnt through Space Station Ultra, leaving only two survivors -- you, and Mission Specialist Shigaraki, trapped together in the command module. With time, food, and life-support running out, you have a choice about how you'll spend your final hours. You just wish you had any idea what you're supposed to do.

This is for @shigarakislaughter (happy birthday!) who asked for a forced-proximity roommates to lovers situation. Being me, I had to make it weird, and being one of my fics, it had to get away from me. Part 1 can be found here! Shigaraki x reader, rated M, space station au, angst + suggestive content. dividers by @cafekitsune.

part 1

You’ve been on the line with Mission Control for four hours, in a conversation that includes you only tangentially, and your eyes are starting to blur. This plan to save your life and Shigaraki’s without carrying the virus back to Earth was your idea. You have to be here to advocate for it, to address any questions Control might have, to find a way around any problems that might arise. You’re the pilot in command. It’s your job to get yourself and the last remaining member of your crew home.

But you’re so tired. It’s all you can do to write down the figures that are being named, calculating trajectories and fuel burns by hand to fact-check Mission Control’s results. It’s hard to do when they still haven’t decided if it’s safe for you and Shigaraki to return to Earth. The suspense would be killing you if you had any adrenaline left to spare.

As Mission Control continues to debate, no one willing to come right out and say that they’re not sure it’s a good idea to bring you back, Shigaraki slips into the seat beside you. You sent him into the shuttle with step-by-step instructions for running a full diagnostic, and he slides the results across the desk to you. You study them, the numbers difficult to read until you squeeze your eyes shut and open them again. Then you tap your mic and interrupt one of the flight director’s proteges in the middle of a soliloquy about reentry speed. “I have the shuttle diagnostics. All systems are operational.”

“What about the heat shield?”

That’s a sticking point. One of many. “Protocol is to do a visual inspection, but we can’t risk a spacewalk. Is there any way we can get a satellite view?”

You hear paper rustling, then a thud. It’s all too easy to picture one of the ensigns getting up in a hurry, tripping over themselves, and falling flat on their face before beelining to the comms center. “We’re investigating the prospect,” Director Sasaki says. “Every participating nation has offered their help, as have several non-participants and several corporate entities. If they elect to put their money where their mouths are, we should be able to give you multiple views of the heat shield.”

You nod, then remember they can’t see you. “Can someone check a compromise rate?”

“The compromise rate depends on your reentry angle,” the flight director says. You think her name’s Tatsuma. You’ve only met her once. “And your reentry angle depends on your landing site.”

“Which hasn’t been decided yet,” Shigaraki says, into your microphone, “because you jag-offs can’t make up your minds about whether we’re coming back at all.”

“Get your own headset,” you hiss, shooing him away. “Mission Specialist Shigaraki has a point. All of this is theoretical unless it’s safe to come home.”

“We told you that already,” Director Todoroki snaps. You roll your eyes. “Were you listening?”

You were probably trying to do math. You rub your eyes, and Shigaraki speaks into your mic again. “I didn’t hear it.”

Director Todoroki heaves a big, nasty sigh, and Director Bate, the current head of the space station program, speaks up. “Based on the data your crew collected, the virus thrives in the same conditions humans do. Extreme cold renders it inert, while extreme heat destroys it. The heat from reentry should cook that thing right off the exterior of the shuttle. Your return to Earth should be safe, as long as you land in the right place.”

“Only two concerns remain,” Director Sasaki says. “First, whether the damage your plan to purge the virus from Station Ultra will cause is worth the reward –”

You appreciate him giving it to you straight. “And secondly, whether the likely expulsion of your deceased crewmates’ bodies into space is an acceptable result.”

“Yeah,” you say. You’re too tired to stick to formal speech. “I thought that might be it.”

Your plan to clear Station Ultra of the virus involves blowing the airlocks on each of the infected modules, which will suck the virus back out into space, where it’ll go back to hibernating. It’ll work, but it’s likely to take the bodies of the crew with it. And the space program’s unofficial and unstated policy has always been to bring all the crewmembers home, dead or alive.

“Um –” Someone in Mission Control clears their throat. “I feel terrible saying this, but we can’t bring their bodies home. They died of the virus. They’re probably still carrying it. Asking the pilot and mission specialist to retrieve them is an unacceptable risk, and we can’t risk live virus entering the atmosphere.”

Someone protests. Dr. Shield, maybe – Dr. Shield, whose daughter died in the lab module, conducting research on the virus right up until it killed her. Director Tatsuma waits for him to finish, then speaks up. “The flight academy prepares its graduates for this. They are aware that this is the likely scenario if they should die outside the atmosphere.”

“The astronauts, sure. The mission specialists have families,” someone argues. You don’t know that voice. Your head hurts. “What are we supposed to tell them? That we just launched their loved ones’ corpses into space?”

“Yeah.” Shigaraki’s finally put on his headset. “Everybody who died here was a better person than me, and if I died up here, I wouldn’t care what the survivors did with my body.”

It’s quiet for a second. “Unless they wanted to eat it.”

You feel insane, hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of your throat and swallow it down. “I think you should ask the mission specialists’ families,” you say. “It’s their loved ones up here. Tell them what we’re up against and ask them what they want to do.”

“That’s unwise,” Director Sasaki says. There’s a pause. “We will reach out to them. Continue your preflight preparations, and we’ll contact you when a full protocol has been devised.”

The call drops, and you take off your headset. It doesn’t make your head hurt any less, but you’ll give it time. Next to you, Shigaraki does the same. “How long do you think it’ll take them to tell us no?”

You knew your crewmates, astronauts and mission specialists both. You met their families. You’re not convinced it’ll be a yes, but you’re not sure it’ll be a no, either. And there’s one crewmember you haven’t known long enough to make a guess. “Would you really be okay with your body being shot out into space?”

“Sure. Not like anybody’s waiting for it at home.” Shigaraki shrugs. “If you were starving, you could eat my corpse.”

This time, you don’t have to suppress your laughter. “Just me, though?”

“What, do you want to share or something?”

“No,” you say. You glance at him, noting the way-too-prominent bruise on his neck, remembering that there’s one just like it on his shoulder. He seemed into it, and you were into his reaction, so you went a little overboard. “I’m not good at sharing.”

Shigaraki’s pale enough that even the faint flush in his cheeks is as obvious as a neon sign. “Don’t act possessive. You only hooked up with me because we’re going to die soon.”

There’s a lot to address there, and you’re too tired to do it delicately. “We’re not going to die soon. I’ll find a way to get you home. I didn’t think you liked me. I only hooked up with you because I thought we were about to die. If we weren’t about to die we’d have gone on dates first.”

Shigaraki is staring at you now, eyes wide. Did you even speak a recognizable language, or were you just mumbling to yourself about nothing? You really don’t want to have to say it all again. You look away from him, even though it’s hard to do, and look down at your sheet of calculations. You can barely read them. You find a new piece of paper and start copying them down again. “What is that?” Shigaraki asks, peering over your shoulder as you rewrite equation after equation. “I thought we didn’t have a trajectory yet.”

“We don’t. But the basic reentry calculations were made assuming that the shuttle is at capacity, and it’s – not.” Not even close. “We’ll be coming down light. That changes things.”

“Huh.” Shigaraki’s chin comes to rest over your shoulder. “Why are you doing it by hand?”

“That was how they used to do everything,” you say. “Back in the early days. But the academy still teaches it, in case we lose contact with Mission Control or the onboard computer goes down. They don’t want us to be totally helpless without it.”

“Huh,” Shigaraki says again. “That’s a lot of physics for a bunch of meatheads.”

“Yeah. Almost like we aren’t meatheads after all.” You copy out the last equations, then elbow Shigaraki until he straightens up. “Check these for me, okay?”

“You don’t trust your calculations?”

“I can barely see straight,” you say. Shigaraki blinks. “I haven’t slept more than an hour or two at a stretch since this started, and this isn’t the kind of thing where mistakes are survivable. You’re an actual physicist. Just look at them.”

“Sure.” Shigaraki flips over the shuttle diagnostic and starts writing on the back.

You fold your arms on the console and rest your head on them, watching him work. You like seeing him locked in on something, even if you wish he’d stop scratching his neck with his free hand, and you wonder what his research profile looks like. What he works on when he’s not getting tossed into a shuttle he doesn’t want to be on. He must be in a lab or something. Or have his own. So –

Something occurs to you. “Should I have been calling you Dr. Shigaraki this whole time? Some people get mad about their titles not being used.”

“Some people are assholes,” Shigaraki says matter-of-factly. “I might be an asshole, but I’m not that kind of asshole.”

He frowns at something he’s just written. “Show me your first set of calculations.” You hand it over, and he identifies the mistake in seconds. “You rewrote it wrong on this page. With this reentry velocity we’d bounce right off the atmosphere.”

“This is why you needed to check it.”

“You got it right the first time,” Shigaraki says. His hand falls from the side of his neck to rest on the console, then edges out into the space between the two of you. You spend a little too long looking before it occurs to you to touch.

A green light starts blinking on the console, indicating a call from Control. You yank your hand away from Shigaraki’s and pull your headset on. “Yes?”

“The families of the mission specialists agreed to your plan,” Director Sasaki says, and exhaustion sweeps over you. Shigaraki is looking at you questioningly. You give a thumbs-up. “However, they requested some sort of commemoration before the airlocks are blown.”

You’ll think of something. “Understood. I’ve adjusted the reentry calculations to account for the lighter payload. Dr. Shigaraki is checking my work as we speak.”

Dr. Shigaraki is also rolling his eyes, but you don’t need to mention that. “We’ve developed a launch protocol,” Sasaki informs you, “which should account for a lighter payload. We also have identified a landing site for you, one which will render any surviving virus inert.”

“Yes,” Director Tatsuma says. “You’ll be aiming for the Ross Ice Shelf.”

You haven’t touched the airlocks, but it still feels like every iota of breathable air has just been sucked out of your lungs. “The – what?”

“A cold environment with little for the virus to feed on, in the unlikely event that any of it is left after reentry,” Sasaki says. “Rest assured, you will have plenty of runway. Do you have any questions?”

You can’t even get your mind around the thought. It feels unreal, like you’ve stumbled through a funhouse mirror into some other reality. Director Sasaki takes your silence for agreement and moves on. “We’ll plan to launch in six hours. In that time you will need to initiate a complete data transfer – everything from Station Ultra, in order to allow for proper diagnostics. Begin the procedure by –”

“I’ll do it.” Shigaraki cuts Director Sasaki off. He looks at you. “You’re going to sleep.”

You look at him blankly. Sasaki’s voice takes on a sharp edge. “The procedure is supposed to be completed by the commanding officer.”

“Yeah. Only you want the commanding officer to land the shuttle on an ice sheet in fucking Antarctica in six hours,” Shigaraki says. “The commanding officer’s going to rest until then. I’ll do your data transfer.”

It’s quiet for a second. “You will need to write this down.”

“I need to get a pen.” Shigaraki takes off his headset, takes off yours, and pulls you away from the console, back to the pile of blankets. “Why didn’t you say you weren’t sleeping when it was your turn?”

“You were having a hard time sleeping, too. It didn’t –” You break off as Shigaraki half-lifts you off your feet, then sets you down on the blankets. “I thought you hated zero gravity.”

“It has one or two perks.” Shigaraki pulls the blankets roughly over you, then fumbles in his flightsuit pocket. “Here.”

You find yourself looking at an old-style MP3 player, headphones already plugged in. You tuck one of them into your ear, and Shigaraki presses play. “What am I listening to?”

“The music,” Shigaraki says. You blink at him. “Musica universalis, on a loop. It helps me sleep.

You hear the first of the high, clear notes, reverberating off into infinity, and hide a yawn. “That’s not very restful.”

“It doesn’t need to be restful. It just needs to keep you calm.” Shigaraki tucks the other headphone into your ear without asking first, his roughened fingertips oddly gentle. “That’s what it sounds like in interstellar space. You’d hear it on your trip to Alpha Centauri and back.”

Your throat tightens, even as your eyelids grow heavy. “Get some sleep,” Shigaraki says. You catch his hand as he straightens up, holding on tight, wishing you knew what to say to him. Like you did when they told you about the landing site, you come up empty. The best you can do is give one more squeeze and let go, before you turn your head against a makeshift pillow that smells like him and fall asleep, the sound of space humming in your ears.

You settle into the shuttle’s cockpit, wrapping your gloved hands around the controls and watching the console come to life. You’ve piloted a shuttle up to Station Ultra three times, but this will only be your second reentry, and it’ll be a hell of a reentry. For a split second, you allow it to fill your mind, oozing into every corner of your thoughts, sending shooting pains through your fingers. What they’re expecting you to do is impossible. It can’t be done.

And then you glance sideways, at Shigaraki strapped into the copilot’s seat. The instant the shuttle detaches from Station Ultra, his fate is out of his hands and firmly in yours. He looks scared enough on his own. He doesn’t need to see it from you, too.

You take a deep breath, then let it go. “Walk me through the preflight checklist.”

Mission Control is in Director Tatsuma’s hands at the moment. One of her proteges takes you through it, system by system – propulsion, shielding, navigation, life-support, everything coming up positive. The satellite photos of the heat shield revealed a few tiny abnormalities, nothing that should cause trouble. Then again, there shouldn’t be viruses floating around in space.

Something occurs to you, and in the middle of a stir of the oxygen tanks, you find yourself laughing. “What?” Shigaraki demands. “What’s funny?”

“The virus,” you say. Shigaraki looks at you like you’re out of your mind. “It’s an extraterrestrial. We found the first alien.”

“From a research perspective, this was a very fruitful trip,” one of the ensigns pipes up. “The first confirmed contact with alien life, the first recordings of Shigaraki phenomena –”

Shigaraki coughs. “Of what?”

“And the first loss of a space station, Ensign Hado. Read the room,” Director Sasaki says severely. “All systems are go. Were you able to come up with a commemoration to share as you depressurize the modules?”

“Um, High Flight is traditional,” you say. “But it’s religious, and not everybody’s religious, so – I have a different one. Should I use that?”

“Can you deliver it while completing the depressurization sequence?”

“Yes.”

“Then begin the sequence with Module Five.”

Module Five was the dormitory module. Five of your crewmates died there. You blow the airlock and speak. “We never know how high we are, til we are called to rise.” Module One is next. You avert your eyes. “And then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies –”

You blow Modules Three and Four next, sending Station Ultra into a calculated spin. In the seat next to you, Shigaraki closes his eyes, his jaw clenched. “The heroism we recite,” you continue, blowing the airlock on Module Six, “would be a daily thing; did not ourselves the cubits warp –”

Module Two. “For fear to be a king.” You squeeze your eyes shut, thinking of your crew, dead in the atmosphere, lost to the void. How they kept fighting, kept studying, until the very end. “Depressurization sequence complete.”

“Detach.”

“Detaching in three – two – one.” You disengage the seal between the shuttle’s airlock and the command module, pitch the nose of the shuttle down, and let the stolen momentum from the station’s spin carry you down towards the atmosphere. “Departing high orbit. Any updates to the trajectory?”

“Not as yet, but owing to the uniqueness of the landing site, a pilot who had the opportunity to fly the route in the simulator will –”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Shigaraki mumbles.

You glance over at him and see him taking his helmet off. “If you don’t put that back on right now, I’m going to –”

“Trouble in paradise?” A familiar voice comes in over the intercom, and your frustration with Shigaraki takes an instant backseat. “Long time no see, airhead.”

“Not long enough, birdbrain,” you mutter, and Hawks chuckles into the mic. “Flew this in the simulator, did you?”

“Easy as pie, at least for me,” Hawks says. If you make it through this, you’re going to beat him to death with his helmet. “But don’t you worry, Dr. Shigaraki. You’re in good hands with Airhead here. Second in our class at the Flight Academy. Want to guess who was first?”

“We tied,” you snap, over the sound of Shigaraki gagging into an airsickness bag. Neither of you have enough food in your stomachs to really vomit. “You’re not first just because they called our names in alphabetical order. Do you want to talk shit or beta this trajectory?”

“We can talk shit when you land,” Hawks agrees. “Okay. Your current angle looks good. On the count of five, initiate a two-second burn from your starboard engine. Five – four – three – two – one –”

You trigger the burn, your grip on the controls as relaxed as you can make it, and the shuttle dips sideways. The flight roughens almost immediately, rattling the entire cockpit as you brush against the atmosphere, then skip off again. “Ooh, okay. It looks like you’re not in the atmosphere yet,” Hawks says. You can’t tell if he’s mimicking the flight simulator’s voice or not, but you’re still going to kill him when you get back. “Let’s do another burn – two seconds, both engines –”

The shuttle’s left wing dips into the atmosphere without being repelled, and you feel the lurch as gravity takes hold and pulls. “Autopilot will do the rest,” Hawks says. “Nice and easy.”

It’s not. The shuttle’s too light – too light for gravity to pull you the rest of the way in, and the longer you spend in the atmosphere, the more likely it is that something will go wrong with the heat shield. The cockpit is heating up way too fast. “I’m doing another burn. Both engines.”

“The autopilot said –”

“It’s not flying this mission,” you snap. There’s a reason shuttles aren’t flown completely on autopilot. Autopilot can’t adapt. “I am. If we stay in here any longer, the virus isn’t the only thing that’s going to cook. Burn in three – two – one –”

It works this time. The shuttle leaves space behind and plunges into the thermosphere, and the cockpit rattles and heats up, growing hotter and hotter with every nanosecond that passes. It’s killing the virus, you remind yourself. You’re in a shuttle with a heat shield, but the virus is clinging to the hull, and it’ll be destroyed. Reentry always feels like hell, anyway. Somehow it’s so much worse when you know you’re almost home.

Shigaraki’s got his helmet back on, finally. You can hear his ragged breathing over the comms. Is he conscious? “Stay with me, Shigaraki. This part is normal.”

“This part blows,” Shigaraki mumbles through clenched teeth. “Tomura.”

“Hmm?”

“My name is Tomura.” He’s slumping sideways in his chair, limp against the restraints, his speech slurring. “Call me that.”

“Okay, you got it. Tomura.” You feel a brief twinge of embarrassment that you didn’t think to ask his given name before you hooked up with him. “If I call you Tomura, are you going to stay awake? I really need you to stay awake. We’re going to lose comms with Mission Control in a second here and I don’t want to do this alone.”

Hawks chooses that moment to break in. “You were right about the burn, but you’re coming in way too fast. Hit the brakes.”

“I can’t do that. I need the parachutes for the landing.” You take your eyes off the windscreen for a split second to check your position on the map. “If I cut momentum right now, we won’t make it to the landing zone.”

“And if you don’t cut speed, you’ll pancake into the ice at Mach 10!”

“If I hit the water and there’s virus left on the hull, that’s it. For everyone!” You hate the way your voice pitches up, cracks. “I’m getting to Antarctica, Hawks. One way or another.”

Hawks starts to say something else, but the comms cut off in a static flatline, just like they’ve done at this point on every reentry you’ve flown. It’s the first normal thing that’s happened on this flight, and it hits you like a splash of cold water across the back of your neck. This is a reentry flight. You studied this at the academy. What does a pilot do on reentry to cut altitude and gradually reduce speed? There has to be something. Somewhere –

The answer occurs to you, in the same moment as Shigaraki stirs in his seat beside you. “Hey,” you say quickly, keeping your voice calm. “Welcome back.”

“Are we there yet?” Shigaraki’s voice blurs. “Is it over?”

“We’re through the atmosphere,” you admit, “but we’ve got a problem. I don’t know how much you heard, but –”

“Too fast.” Shigaraki sits up with an effort. His expression is grim through his helmet’s visor. “Either we crash into the ice and kill ourselves, or crash into the ocean and kill everybody else.”

“Or we land on the icesheet and everybody lives.” You reach for the control panel and start making the adjustments, ignoring the alarms that sound. “There’s a way to land this shuttle.”

“How?” Shigaraki’s hands clamp down tightly on the armrests. “If we were going to die anyway, we should have stayed up there.”

“Why?” you ask. You check your trajectory one last time, then kill the engines. “It wasn’t worth it to try to get home?”

“Maybe. Except –” Shigaraki peels one hand off the armrest and clamps it down over his mouth as you put the shuttle into a gentle bank. “Don’t ask. Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I need to cut our speed, but if I deploy the parachutes now, I won’t have them to slow us down during the actual landing. So I’m going to slow us down the old-fashioned way. Like a glider.” You can tell that none of what you’re saying makes sense to Shigaraki. You keep talking anyway, adjusting the controls to create a gentle turn. “In the academy they make us study all kinds of aviation accidents. There were a couple where the aircraft lost both engines and had to descend and land without them. One time a flight crew landed a plane on a river like that and everybody got out alive.”

You can tell Shigaraki’s getting nauseous. Then again, you’re flying the shuttle like you’re going down an endless set of switchbacks, trimming speed by fractions on each one. “You’re the physics guy. Tell me what will happen if I burn enough momentum on the descent.”

“If I open my mouth I’ll hurl.” Shigaraki speaks through clenched teeth. If you actually succeed in landing this thing, he’ll wind up with the worst tension headache in history. “You know what you’re doing. Keep talking.”

You keep talking, narrating your bizarre flight pattern as the shuttle travels around the world once, then again, spiraling down with painful slowness. If this was a normal flight, you’d have hit your landing site already, and space shuttles aren’t designed with long-term atmospheric flight in mind. But just because they aren’t designed for it doesn’t mean they’re incapable of it. You’re not putting this thing through any ridiculous maneuvers. Just curving gently down, one S-turn after another, letting physics and gravity take care of the rest. Pilots before you have done this and lived. Pilots after you will do it and survive, too. You just hope none of them have to do it in a shuttle.

When you drop out of the upper atmosphere, gentle flight goes out the window. You’re still coming down fast, and your landing site is approaching. One more trip around the world and you’ll be there, and if you don’t land then, you won’t have enough altitude to make another rotation. You bring the engines back gently, get ready to pull the brakes. “This is it,” you tell Shigaraki. You risk the smallest glance his way. He’s pale, his brow furrowed, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’ve got this. It’ll be okay.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.” You check your speed and your stomach lurches. Mission Control had better have given you the longest runway in aviation history. You complete a final S-curve, as long and winding as possible, then line yourself up. “Deploying landing gear.”

The landing gear won’t survive contact with the ice, but you don’t need it to; you just need the extra drag it’ll provide. Brakes next, starting out slow, then pushing harder by the second as your airspeed indicators begin to drop. You don’t even want to think about how fast you’re descending. The ground rushes up to meet you, and the ground proximity alarm starts to sound. TERRAIN. TERRAIN. PULL UP. “I can see it,” you snap at nothing. “Shut up.”

You’re not slow enough yet. You deploy the parachutes while you’re still in the air, and all at once you’re wrestling with the controls, diverting all power to hydraulics in order to maintain a steady flight. “Brace,” you order, like you’re a flight attendant on a plane that’s about to crash with no survivors. “Any second –”

The initial impact jars every bone in your body, and the next is just the same. The shuttle is acting like a skipping stone, touching down and bouncing up, and you already deployed the chutes. As if the bouncing’s not enough, every touchdown brings a series of jolts as the landing gear makes contact with the uneven terrain. You hit the brakes, pitch the nose of the shuttle ever so slightly up, and slam the back wheels down so hard that they crumple like a tin can.

Control’s going to kill you for how much damage you’re doing to the shuttle, but you can feel the drag reducing. Your skipping-stone maneuver devolves into a long skid across the ice, slowing by degrees, as you scan the horizon through the windscreen. No sign of the ocean. As far as you can see, there’s only ice.

Your console chimes, and you take a look at the indication. Hysterical laughter spills out of your mouth. “What?” Shigaraki asks. “Did we crash?”

“No,” you say, although you’re pretty sure the shuttle techs are going to disagree. “You’ll be interested to know that we’ve reached appropriate landing speed.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Shigaraki says, and you laugh harder. “We’re landing?”

“Landed,” you say. The shuttle bobs up once more, and you drop the nose down for a final time, planting it firmly into the ice. “Sorry. Now we’re landed.”

You cut the engines, open the comms channel to establish contact with Control, and start going through your post-flight checklist. Beside you, Shigaraki unbuckles his seat. “I’d stay down if I were you,” you say, knowing he won’t listen. “It’ll be just –”

He drapes himself over the back of your seat, his helmet knocking against yours. The move would startle you if you had any nerves left. As it is, you’re just bemused. “What are you doing?”

“If we died up there, we’d have died like this.” Shigaraki’s arms come up around you, holding on tight. “You’re not getting out of it just because we lived.”

“If that’s how it’s going to be, you owe me a date,” you say. You depressurize the cabin, taking off your helmet the instant there’s outside air to breathe. Shigaraki takes his off, then presses his face into the side of your neck in a way that makes your face heat up. “At least one.”

“That landing of yours took ten years off my life. You own me ten.”

Before you can argue back, the comms squawk to life. “This is Mission Control. Do you read?”

“We read, birdbrain,” you say, and Hawks laughs. You can hear cheering in the background, and you’ve been at Control during enough reentries to picture the scene perfectly. “You blew your landing site by a thousand kilometers, but we’ve got your position. Welcome back to Earth.”

“A drone is on its way to scan the hull for evidence of the virus,” Director Sasaki says into the microphone. “Once we’ve confirmed its absence, our extraction team will come to retrieve you.”

“In the meantime, sit tight,” Director Tatsuma says. There’s a pause. “Well done, Commander. That was quite a landing.”

“We made it,” you say. Your hands are shaking on the controls, and you pull them away. The instant they’re clear, Shigaraki grabs one, peeling it out of its glove. “That’s good enough.”

Tatsuma signs off, after instructing you to run a diagnostic and transmit the results, and you key in the command one-handed. Shigaraki’s got your other one pressed against his face. His skin is warm, his lips dry and cracked. His voice is muffled when he speaks. “I knew you could do it.”

“Yeah?” Your hand is shaking, no matter how you try to hold it still. Shigaraki presses it harder against his cheek. “How?”

“You promised.” Shigaraki’s voice is matter-of-fact, even if it’s rattling just as badly as yours. You give it a few more minutes before one or both of you goes into shock. “What happens now?”

“I don’t know.” There’s never been a mission like this in human history. You hope it never happens again. “Thanks for trusting me to get us home.”

This time, the pressure of Shigaraki’s mouth against your hand can’t be called anything but a kiss. “Any time.”

“I have good news, and I have news,” Yamada, the space program’s PR director, says from the other side of the glass. “Which one do you want first?”

You and Tomura glance at each other. “News,” you say, and Tomura’s grip on your hand tightens. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll start with the good news,” Yamada says, and Tomura rolls his eyes. “The good news is that you guys are cleared. You’re getting out of quarantine tonight, and there’s a hell of a welcoming party waiting for you. Your family’s here – and your friends, Dr. Shigaraki – and they’re hyped to see you.”

“Finally,” Tomura mutters. He won’t let you call him Dr. Shigaraki, or even just Shigaraki – it’s his name or nothing. “What’s the news?”

“The news is that there’s going to be press everywhere,” Yamada says, and sighs. “We’ve been beating them off with a stick, but we’ve been ordered to host a press conference, and they’re going to want to hear from you. I need to prep you for the kind of questions they’ll ask.”

“Go for it,” you say. Yamada grimaces. “What?”

“The media loves a narrative,” Yamada says. “The coverage of the Station Ultra disaster has been wall-to-wall for weeks, and so far, the only narrative they’ve been able to spin is a horror story. Which is what it is. It’s the worst loss of life in the history of spaceflight, and it was nothing anyone was prepared for. Things have been pretty dark. They want something else. And unfortunately, that something else is you.”

Tomura makes a face. You’re pretty sure you’re making the same one. “What does that mean?”

“If there’s anything redeemable about the mission, it’s attached to you two,” Yamada says. “The discovery of Shigaraki phenomena –”

“Stop calling it that,” Tomura says. “It sounds stupid.”

“It’s tradition, as far as I understand it. New stuff is named after the person who discovered it,” Yamada says. “There’s that, and then there’s that crazy landing the commander here pulled off. They’ve had pilots in simulators all around the world trying to copy that landing. Nobody’s been able to do it.”

“Because it was luck,” you say. Tomura elbows you. “It was. Any pilot will tell you that. I know how to fly, but I got lucky. All of this was us getting lucky.”

“We didn’t make it because we’re special or something,” Tomura says. “It could have been any of others, too.”

“I know,” Yamada says. “Everybody does, but nobody likes thinking about it. Like I said, they want their narrative, and they’re building it with or without you. You and me and everybody else in the program knows it was luck – mostly – but the media’s decided it was fate. The media likes a hero. The only thing they like better than a hero is a love story.”

“No,” you say at once. “They can’t make this about us. It’s not about us.”

“It’s not their fucking business,” Tomura says. “And they’re wrong about it.”

That’s news to you. “What?”

“It didn’t happen during the lockdown,” Tomura says. He’s glaring at Yamada through the glass at first. Then he looks to you. “I liked you before that. I was at the command module that night because I wanted to talk to you.”

His face always flushes awkwardly when he talks about his feelings, but he never backs off of it. It always gives you butterflies. “You still haven’t told me what you wanted to talk about. Are you going to?”

“I don’t need to,” Tomura says. “You already know.”

You smile in spite of yourself. Tomura’s eyes stay locked on yours, and you’re conscious of his hand in yours, his leg pressed against your own. You were in two separate chairs, but he dragged yours alongside his before you’d even sat down. On the other side of the glass, Yamada clears his throat. “You guys aren’t exactly beating the love story allegations here.”

Tomura’s face flushes worse than before. You look away with an effort. “What are they planning to ask about – us?”

“Like I said, they’ve already made up the story. They’ll just be looking for confirmation,” Yamada says. You grimace. “If you get a nosy one – I’ll try to avoid calling on those ones – they’ll ask you to elaborate. Don’t lie. The transcripts from the command module were made public, so they’ll call you out.”

Your stomach lurches. “Wait, all the transcripts?”

“No,” Yamada says. “You know the rules about documenting a mission. No filming in the bathroom, during a medical exam, or impromptu hookups in the command module. That got deleted on-sight. But there’s enough context in everything else for them to nail you two to the wall if you try to lie about it.”

The flush in Tomura’s face is slow to fade. “What else are they going to ask?”

“About what’s next for you two,” Yamada says. “If I were you, I’d work out an answer.”

He goes over the rest of the questions – lots of stuff about the mission for you, lots of stuff about his research for Tomura, things the two of you could talk about in your sleep. Then he leaves, and you and Tomura step away from the glass, retreating further into the quarantine unit. You’re still trying to catch up on sleep, so you climb back into the bed, which you haven’t made since the first time you turned it down. Tomura climbs in next to you without asking first.

Originally they were going to put you in separate quarantine units, but then they decided that they only wanted to risk contaminating one. It’s the size of a small apartment, ordinarily cramped for two, but compared to the command module it’s basically a penthouse. You and Tomura have all the space you could possibly need, if you wanted it. But you don’t.

You thought you and Tomura would be sick of each other after three weeks in close proximity, but the opposite’s happened. You feel better when you’re close to him, feel better knowing where he is, which works out pretty well with Tomura’s clinginess. You’ve felt okay here, with him. Not needing to go anywhere or do anything. Just being together, seeing what works, searching for something that doesn’t. So far, there’s nothing. There’s so much nothing that you’re dreading walking away.

He asked the question after you landed the shuttle, so it’s your turn now. “What happens now?”

“Press conference.”

“What about after that?” you ask. “If this is a thing, Tomura – you live in Japan. I live here.”

“Long-distance won’t work,” Tomura says, and your heart sinks. “I’ll move my lab.”

You roll over to stare at him, and Tomura looks back, like what he just said isn’t a little insane. “People are interested in my work. I’ve gotten formal offers from every research university with an astrophysics department. The offer from the one near here was pretty good. They aren’t even going to make me teach.”

“You don’t like teaching?” You fake surprise, and Tomura snorts. “If you’ve got offers from everywhere, you should go where you want to go. I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want us to hold each other back.”

“Sure.” Tomura shrugs. “But you’re going to be around here, too, aren’t you? They’re making you an instructor at the flight academy.”

You wince. “How did you find out?”

“Read your mail. It was open already.” Tomura shrugs again, and you shove him lightly. “I’ll move my lab. You’ll teach meatheads how to fly. It’ll be fine.”

“Your friends are in Japan –”

“And they work in my lab,” Tomura says. “If I move my lab, they’re coming, too.”

This is what you want. Exactly what you want. And it seems a little too easy. “Are you sure?” When he nods, you speak up again, your voice wavering. “How?”

“I thought we were dead up there. And I didn’t have a job to do like you did. So I had time to think about stuff while I was staring out into the void.” Tomura closes the distance between the two of you, crawling halfway on top of you and burrowing into your shoulder the way he does when he doesn’t want you to see his face. “The universe is so big that human minds can’t comprehend it, and the space between habitable worlds is enormous, and entropy’s ripping the whole thing apart – and there’s fuck all we can do about it. There’s always going to be fuck all we can do about it.”

This is why you never learned about astrophysics. “That’s dark.”

“No shit.” Tomura’s voice is muffled. “I realized that there was something I could do about it. Up there, or down here. Anywhere. I get to choose if entropy wins – not for the universe, just for me. I’m not letting it win. So I’ll find a way to keep the things I want together.”

There’s something a little absurd about him, something you’ve grown fond of. Maybe fond is understating it. “You’re going to fight the laws of the universe.”

“Yeah. And win.” Tomura settles against you, a contented sigh exiting his mouth as your fingers wind through his hair. “Say what you want. If the reporters ask me, that’s what I’m telling them.”

“We’re definitely not beating the love story accusations if you tell them that.”

“Never said I wanted to.” Tomura’s voice is starting to blur into sleep. If you close your eyes, the two of you are going to nap like this straight through the press conference. “If your apartment doesn’t allow dogs, we’ll have to get a new one.”

Now you’re moving in together. It makes as much sense as anything else about this, which is to say it doesn’t. In some ways it feels like you never left orbit, or like you never landed the shuttle – everything is surreal, hard to believe. But you remember Tomura’s music of the spheres brushing against your eardrums, impossible to imagine and impossible to refute. You don’t have to believe. All you have to do is trust what you can see and hear and feel. And that’s him.

For a little while the thought is peaceful. Then something else pierces through it, something you can’t hold in. “I’m still a pilot,” you say. “They’re making me an instructor, and I can’t fly until my psych evals come up clean, but once they do – the program’s down two pilots. They’re going to send me up again.”

It’ll be a while. Right now the mechanics department is designing drones that can repair Station Ultra, outlining a system that will eliminate the need for spacewalks, but it’ll be a long time before it’s ready. Not long enough, though. You’re a long time from mandatory retirement. You’ll fly again. And when you do – “I’ll go with you,” Tomura says. “I still have work to do up there. And I’m not flying with anybody else.”

He yawns. “Deal?”

“Deal,” you say, and when you kiss him, you let yourself believe.

<- part 1

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[help-itrappedmyself]

Dead On Main AU Part 4

Masterpost

Jason listens carefully to Jazz’s half of the conversation, but Jazz seems to be mostly listening. Jazz says he’s taking him to Nasty for dinner, which Jason can’t say he’s excited about. He doesn’t know if Nasty is supposed to be describing the food or the place. Either way it is not comforting that whatever Nasty is, it is somehow a better source of food than his soulmate’s house. 

Eventually Jazz hands the phone back to him. 

“Everything good?” Jason asks.

“Yeah, your dad, Dick, and Tim are going to be driving me over, but It’s a long drive so Jazz will get you dinner and then you can do whatever. I have a gaming system, and you’re welcome to use my bed. If you need help finding clothes, or really with anything, then Jazz will help you.”

“Got it.” Long drive with B, Dick, and Tim. They’re all going to interrogate him immediately. While he’s trapped in a box with them for hours. “Hey, my family is really nosy and they will pry and they have no emotional cues so they will not know when to stop. Just… Tell them if they’re bothering you, and you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to.” Jason doesn’t know who will be worse in this scenario. Bruce is going to interrogate him for literally everything, Dick is probably going to be all relationships and feelings, Tim is a nice in-between which just means he’ll probably support any and all interrogating. 

“Same goes for you. Jazz is studying to be a psychologist, and my entire family forgets that we’re not all test subjects for whatever they’re working on. Mom and Dad with their gadgets, and Jazz with her… studying and analyzing you. There are no boundaries.” 

“Oh, I’m familiar with that concept.” Jason chuckled.

“Well, given the circumstances I’d say if we can survive each other’s families that’s probably a pretty good sign.”

Kid is probably right. Fate and everything. 

Jazz goes out to clear a path to the door, making sure there are no weapons to run into. When she gets back she leads Jason out, but when they get to the ground floor Jason is grabbed. 

“Happy Birthday Dann-o!” The person holding him is tall. Very tall compared to Danny, and taller than Jason in his regular body. He has black hair and it looks like he's wearing a jumpsuit. After squeezing to the point where Jason couldn't breath for a second Jazz gets the man to put him down. 

“Dad, this isn't Danny right now.” 

“What do you mean princess, of course it is!” 

A woman comes around the corner to stand next to the man, she is also in a jumpsuit but she has Jazz’s red hair.

“Guys, it's his sixteenth birthday.” So Danny's parents remember his birthday but not how old he is? Could be that they’ve forgotten the significance of a person’s sixteenth birthday, but given it should be an important day in a child’s life, they should have remembered.

“We know it's his birthday dear.” The woman comes over to give Jason a hug as well, but this one is less painful. And she's tall too, Jason is not used to feeling this short anymore.

“Mom, Dad, this is Jason. Danny’s soulmate.” The both of them just blink for a second. Jason, this is Drs. Jack and Maddie Fenton, Danny’s parents.”

“Nice to meet you both.” Jason gets out.

“Well, this is wonderful!” Dr. Fenton-Maddie says. “Figures Danny would be the younger one. Are you going to be here for dinner?”

Jason glances over at Jazz.

“No, you told us that you would be busy, so we already made plans.” Jazz sidesteps the invitation. Jason couldn’t tell if that was true or a lie to get him out of the situation. Would they tell their son that they were too busy to have dinner with him on his birthday? He wants to think the answer is no. “Shame Danny will be missing out, but we’ll save his presents for him.”

“Alright, well you kids have fun then!” Maddie and Jack left as quickly as they came, rambling about something that Jason could not understand.

“They didn’t want to know where Danny is? Who he’s with? Where we’re going? Anything?” Jason turned to Jazz who had a pinched look on her face.

“Neither of us get up to much trouble, they’ve trusted us for a while now.” 

“Trust him to be magically transported who-knows-where?” Jason is almost stupefied by the utter lack of regard for Danny’s well-being. He is insulted on his soulmate’s behalf. “He could be in another country for all they know! They didn’t even ask!”

Jazz nods. “Best not to think about it. Everything is turning out alright anyways. Now come on, let’s get dinner.”

Jason is seething, but doesn’t think it will do much good to argue with her here so he decides to calm down. He startles a little when he realizes how easy it is to calm down in this body. Just decide to, and then move on. None of the lingering churning in his gut or fog in his mind. 

He frowns as he follows Jazz out the door, hoping that Danny’s not having too hard a time in his body.