#I don't even know what to tag this with

[pomefioredove]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Cauldron of the Reborn: Escape from Black Castle

a fanwritten Halloween event

summary: when Malleus receives an invite from a distant relative to a historic castle in Briar Valley, he can't refuse characters: malleus, lilia, sebek, silver, vil, rook, epel, jamil, kalim additional info: reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu

[I needed a break from requests. no idea if I'll continue this or not, I figure most aren't too interested in this sort of thing, but I love halloween events and wanted to write one]

Main Street - Evening

"A little lower," Crowley says, standing with a hand on his hip as you rebalance yourself on the rickety step ladder.

Grim is beneath you both, grumbling about being woken from a nap to help with the annual Halloween event.

"Like this?" you ask, lowering the black crepe banner an inch or two.

Crowley hums, his hand on his chin. And then he nods. "Well enough. I'll have more work for you to volunteer for soon, so keep lively, Prefect!"

You climb down from the ladder, shaking your head. That man...

"Well," you sigh, hands on your hips. "What do you want to do now?"

Grim scratches his head. "Eat?"

"You just did,"

"Ehh, I'm outta ideas. Let's not bother 'lookin for anyone. I don't wanna get dragged into helping. Let's just go home,"

You sigh, but you can't argue with him; you've been decorating since classes had ended for the day, and it's almost dark.

On your chilly walk back to Ramshackle, though, someone comes looking for you.

"Prefect!" a voice calls from behind you on the beaten path.

Grim sighs. "Oh, brother. Here we go..."

Jamil Viper stops behind you, and gives Grim an unamused look. "I heard that, you know. I wasn't looking for any favors. I simply wanted to know if either of you have seen Kalim,"

"Kalim?" you and Grim share a look. "You lost him?"

"Lost? Certainly not," Jamil crosses his arms. "He has relatives visiting for the weekend, and he left to purchase more food for their party a few hours ago. I haven't seen him since."

Grim sighs. "So... you lost him?"

Jamil glares at the direbeast, though his eyes soften when he looks at you.

"He insisted on going himself, and I foolishly let him. But he's not at Sam's, and no one has seen him. Kalim has a tendency to wander, and I'm afraid something might have happened,"

Grim tugs at your coat sleeve, trying to pull you towards Ramshackle, but your feet stay firmly planted on the dirt path.

"We'll help you look for him," you say, ignoring Grim's groaning.

Jamil sighs. "If it's not too much trouble... I would appreciate that,"

Pomefiore Lounge - Evening

"I really doubt he's in here," Grim mutters, clinging to your leg.

Jamil sighs again as you all wipe off your feet before entering the dorm. "We've checked the library, the halls, the courtyards, the cafeteria, Sam's again, and Scarabia twice. Trey Clover, Jack Howl, Azul Ashengrotto, Ortho Shroud, Sebek Zigvolt and Silver have all confirmed he is not at their respective dorms. This is the last place he'd..."

He trails off, and you follow his eyes to a head of white hair and a blinding smile.

And then a frown. "Took you all long enough," Vil Schoenheit says, waving Kalim al-Asim away from a length of lace.

Jamil's dark circles suddenly look much darker.

"Jamil!!" Kalim exclaims, jumping over an expensive couch (to Vil's dismay) and stumbling to the three of you. "You have to see this! It's the best thing in the world!"

"Kalim... what are you... how long have you been here?"

"Two hours and fourteen minutes," Vil mumbles, smoothing out the delicate black skirt he's in.

Jamil grimaces. "Kalim, did you even go to Sam's at all?"

"Huh?" Kalim's smile drops, and he crosses his arms in thought. "...Oh, right. I forgot all about that."

You place a reassuring hand on Jamil's shoulder.

"But- look, I ran into Vil earlier, and he said he needed help!"

"I did not say that,"

"So I had to!"

"Kalim," Jamil pinches the bridge of his nose. "Your cousins will be here in mere hours. We have not the least amount of food to host them."

Vil rolls his eyes and returns to collecting the black lace, pins, and thread strewn across the floor, no doubt the aftermath of Kalim's "help".

"But it was an emergency!" the boy protests. "A fashion emergency!"

You raise an eyebrow. "A what?"

Jamil sets a hand on your shoulder, but when you turn to him, his arms are crossed and close to his chest, which-

"Une urgence couture, Trickster,"

You jump, and the light, merry sound of Rook Hunt's laughter fills your ear. He circles around to your front, Epel Felmier following, mouthing a quick "sorry" for his upperclassman's behavior.

"Pomefiore will be hosting a magnifique fashion spectacle the weekend after this, courtesy of our own Roi du Poison!"

"Yes, yes," Vil waves him off and looks at you. "I was planning on surprising you with invitations at the Halloween event, but I may as well just give them to you now."

He leaves the room to retrieve your invites, leaving you with a chatty Kalim, an exhausted Jamil, a smiling Rook, a whiny Grim, and... Epel.

"You doing okay?" you ask him, and he sighs.

"Vil's 'havin me 'an Rook in the fashion show, so he's cut all processed sugar from our diet for a month,"

"A month?!" Grim exclaims. "What about Halloween treats?!"

Epel shakes his head, sadly, and Rook grins.

"For the best, Monsieur Pommette. As I recall, you have a penchant for stomach aches when you indulge,"

Epel blushes and crosses his arms. He looks about ready to argue, but then Vil returns with invites for yourself and Grim, and so he keeps his mouth shut.

"I hope to see you both there," Vil says. Epel rolls his eyes.

The upperclassmen leave to talk, Jamil drags Kalim outside, and Grim sniffs the scented envelopes Vil had given them.

You smile at Epel. "Hey, at least it's almost over, right?"

He sighs, sulking a little.

"I guess... I just wish there was some way I could enjoy Halloween this year, without Vil knowing a thing..."

Diasomnia Lounge - Evening

"Mail's here,"

The imposing doors of Diasomnia swing open and Sebek Zigvolt and Silver return to the dark lounge with a stack of letters in each hand.

"You know, I really don't know why more fae don't switch to emailing. It's much faster," Lilia Vanrouge says, draped over the arm of a couch as the boys hand out the scrolls and envelopes.

"Or instant messaging. I hear "sliding into DMs" are all the rage nowadays."

Silver rolls his eyes.

"For you, oh... this one is mine, and another one for me..." Sebek says, smiling. "And another, from grandfather... and this one-"

He pales, and his eyes widen. Silver stops between letters and raises an eyebrow.

"Sebek? What is it?"

His hands are shaking. "It... it's for OUR LIEGE!"

"Volume, Sebek," Lilia says merrily, kicking his feet up on the couch.

"B-BUT... IT'S AN INVITATION... FOR LORD MALLEUS!"

"An invitation?" Silver walks to him and reads the yellowed paper. "Is it from the Prefect?"

"CERTAINLY NOT! OBSERVE THE PENMANSHIP! THE PAPER! THIS IS BRIAR VALLEY QUALITY!"

"There's no name on it," he remarks, handing it to Lilia.

Lilia squints, reading the fine calligraphy aloud.

"To the Prince Malleus Draconia,

I, blood relative of the Draconia line, would be honored to host yourself and an entourage of your choice for the holiday week-end at my family's ancient castle. Food, drink, music, and tours of local ruins and wildlife will be provided at no cost. Yours."

Silver and Sebek wait in silence as Lilia reads it, reads it again, and then smiles.

"No name. How peculiar. I recognize the coat of arms here, though- this is certainly a distant relative of Malleus, but I can't remember which family it belongs to... no matter,"

"And the castle?" Sebek asks. "I've never heard of it."

The elder fae hums. "Oh, yes. Black Castle is thousands of years old. I thought it had been abandoned a millennia ago, but I haven't been keeping up with politics," he smiles. "This part of Briar Valley is rather isolated, after all."

Silver crosses his arms. "You're sure this is a relative of Malleus?"

"Positive. It's far too obscure to be an impersonator. Not even the Senate has records from Black Castle,"

"What's this about a castle?"

The three go silent and look towards the mouth of the room, where Malleus Draconia is standing, arms crossed. Silver still looks wary, and Sebek is restless, but Lilia is smiling.

"Oh, Malleus- it's the strangest thing. You've been invited by a distant relative for a weekend getaway,"

"A getaway?" Silver mumbles under his breath at the word choice.

Malleus' eyes widen, and he comes into the room and takes the letter from Lilia's outstretched hand.

He reads the cracked, yellow paper... and then he smiles.

"...My. How kind. We should accept, should we not?"

[secondbeatsongs]

can you believe they're milkshake duck-ing the pope

[dead-sp1der]

I think these are accurate

I'm probably gonna do Bdubs, Joel and Gem later, but for now take this graph

Some things to note:

I do not want the Hermits to be aware of this graph, because while making it I realized I would hate to see this if I were a Hermit. I made this for my own data-driven curiousity only

I am a human so I there is a chance that I missed 1 or 2 names somewhere along the line. I will reblog this with the raw data for if anyone wants to check my measurements

Bdubs, Tango and Gem are the top 3 most frequent mentioned Hermits in Etho's videos, do with that information what you will

Bdubs is the only hermit Etho has mentioned every single video, for some reason, what is wrong with him

Stress and Zedaph are (afaik) the only Hermits who's names are never said by Etho, but they do both appear and talk in his videos

[smoldering-violets]

So, my bestie (@pending-trans-action-2) thinks that wanting to be put down like a puppy is normal and hot. What do you think?

[jackmaster187]

It's 9/11 that means it's time to post my favorite image ever

[garethgobblecoque]

"God, all these fucking yokel hick bigots keep voting for conservative parties, why can't these filthy gun-nuts see that I'm right ? "

"Who cares about fighting bigotry in rural areas ? Just move to the city, why would you want to be in the country anyway ? "

Do you people fucking hear yourselves?

[pynkhues]

#i have such a specific headcanon for why the bite on lestat's next looks like that

do tell....unless you want to save it for the fic (WHICH I NEED)

(x)

Ahahaha, look, I'm still working out the exact logistics in the fic, so have the reasoning below the cut:

I do think Louis bit him there, and that he bit him from behind, given the placement, but it looks more like the leftover bruise of a bite under crescent moon cuts to me, the sort that fingernails leave, so I think it probably started to heal at some point and Louis dug his nails in (likely from somewhere above him / maybe during oral sex, maybe dragging him up off the floor) to reopen it. Kind of the opposite of Lestat healing Louis' in 1.01.

[cerpiscool]

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and @r3dnumb3rzzz is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off! It is my lord. Oh, it is my love. Oh, that they knew they were! He speaks, yet he says nothing. What of that? Their eye discourses. I will answer it.- I am too bold. 'Tis not to me he speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat their eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if his eyes were there, they in his head? The brightness of their cheek would shame those stars As daylight doth a lamp. His eye in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how he leans his cheek upon his hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!

[justurtypicalinternetnerd]

okay so i genuinely just had, no joke, legitemately, on god, no cap, how many different ways can i express that this is not hyperbole, THE CRAZIEST experience of my entire lifetime

This is a long one, so strap in.

Here's all of what I think may be relevant context:

I've been vaguely interested in plural for a while now. It started with this post and my interest has been growing - i even tried to introduce some new voices in my head, with no real success

I'm autistic, but have no other mental disorders and have never dissociated in my life

I live in a city, but go to school quite far away from my house. Most days I bike, but today I took the bus instead. Our bus service, while not always on time, is very reliable imo and I have had very few negative experiences despite hyperfixating on public transit

I've been pretty stressed out for a while, and was not working off a reasonable amount of sleep today

Related to that last post, I've been unhealthily busy with school, but today was my last day, and I've planned out a week-long "chill period" before jumping into my summer plans. For the first time in months (if not years tbh), I genuinely felt like I had nothing important to do. Also it was perfect weather (which for me is hot and humid. agree to disagree), and I'm wearing my favourite dress!

Anyways, I'm finally free from the torments of school, and ready to get home. But halfway home, the bus driver just like stops. He calls "last stop" at a random station on the route, and refuses to start driving again. I'm a little upset about this, so I confront him a little rudely about it. He tells me off, and insists I get off. So now I'm not feeling great.

Out of pure spite (and that hazy "whatever" feeling that comes with the heat), I decide I'm going to walk the rest of the way instead of finding a new bus. I'm a solid 5 km from home, btw. And I am typically not one for long walks.

I text my family to let them know I'm gonna be later than expected, figure out my route (which is gonna take me along a bike path I'm familliar with and past a beach) and start walking.

This is where it starts to get weird

This process happens over the course of an hour, btw, but very slowly, my primary motivator shifts from stubborn spite to apathetic "whatever idc" to mischevous "wouldn't it be funny if..." I run into a random empty lot to rescue a plastic bag drifting in the wind (which I dispose of properly). I sit for too long on a tiny play structure hidden just off the bike path. When I get to the beach, I decide I'm going to go sit. In the water. In my clothes. (I rationalize that I'll be dry by the time I get home, which was pretty much true) This is a pretty normal progression for me, but it feels like it's going even further. To the illogical extreme, I guess. The summer haze even has me envision some fantasy of romance, where some cute girl spots me in the water and sparks up a conversation. This does not happen, obviously. (Touch-starved transbian btw hmu)

But despite all that, today still feels important somehow. I reflect back at the ridiculous number of things that coalesced into this exact series of experiences, and decide that "fate" must be leading me somewhere. (Note that I'm not in any way a religious or spiritual person, and there was a part of me screaming this entire time that this was illogical, but I was too enveloped in the narrative to pay it much mind)

So I kept following fate. And the instruction kept getting more direct.

Soon, I found myself in a neighbourhood by the beach that's not quite in the right direction. But who cares? I have nowhere to be. I am a little worried, however, as to how I'm getting out, because the most logical route would be through a forest that I don't go into very often. It's not that big, and I've walked all the trails before, so I have no interest in going back. But sure enough, I'm in the forest now.

By this point I'm starting to suspect that I'm being led by something more tangible than the nebulous concept of "fate".

Now, I come upon a fork in the road. Either left or right would have been fine, probably. But instead, I kept moving straight.

I spontaneously discover a smaller trail and follow it straight to the edge of the lake. The view is beautiful. This is where I finally stop and go, "you're a person, aren't you?"

As if in response, I am willed to turn around and keep walking before I'm ready to leave.

Now, I have no idea what an out-of-body experience is like, but this felt pretty dang close. I definitely wasn't entirely out of control, but I also wasn't thinking about where I was going. It just happened. They were making it happen. In fact, they were even kind enough to give me a name: Alex. The moment I stumbled upon it, my body shivered with energy. That was their name.

We found another secret pathway, and another lookout onto the lake. Peering over the ducks, there's a bridge I've never seen before. I recall the forest went through some rennovation quite recently (it messed up the bike path); this bridge is brand new.

Alex and I have the same thought. We're going to the bridge.

The movement is the same as before (out of my control), except now with a purpose. I do want to make it clear that I absolutely could have regained control at any time, I just didn't. I didn't want to.

Finally, we reach the bridge. A smile appears on my face - I didn't put it there.

We find a lookout spot built into the bridge and we rest. We can see the spot we were at earlier. We've done it.

Suddenly, the muscles contract. The smile fades. We almost fall over, and have to catch ourselves. Now we're standing motionless in the middle of the trail.

I call out from in my head: "Alex?" No response.

Eventually, I fully take back control. I heave a sigh. They're gone.

I walk the rest of the way home. It's about 30 minutes. At some points I lose focus on my movements, but it doesn't feel like it did.

I doubt I've ever walked that much in my life. My feet are sore now. I don't care.

God I hope Alex comes back

[oldsargasso]

ficlet: self cast shadows

soooo I did the five fun facts for a winnerdean spy au and then @le-trash-prince left a perfectly innocuous comment: "God it’s gotta be hard for North to just watch Dean suffer when he’s been told not to do anything 😭 He and Sonic better mother hen Dean to death" and I required no further encouragement to lose my mind first thing on a Monday morning.

~1k, North/Sonic&Dean. the car ride and what comes after.

The car stinks like dried blood, fear-sweat and something acrid that burns North's nose as he gently, carefully, holds Dean steady as Kim takes corners slightly too fast to be sensible. Sonic's on the other side, rummaging through the first-aid kit they'd spent hours checking and re-checking that it was fully stocked with everything they thought they might possibly need. Dean silently refuses to take the painkillers they offer.

"It'll be easier if you just get him in a shower," Kim says, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror as Sonic lightly dabs at the crusted blood on Dean's face.

"Yeah, sure," Sonic answers, and keeps going.

By the time they get to Alan's place Dean's face is clean and horrifying. Both eyes black and swollen, most likely a broken cheekbone, his mouth a mess of his own teeth-marks and cuts from something like a ring on a closed fist. North's own hands clench hard; Dean's stuttering inhale has him furiously relaxing his grip.

"It's okay," he soothes automatically, petting at Dean's shoulder—the least damaged looking part he can see. Dean doesn't relax, exactly, but he does take a slightly deeper breath.

Kim parks neatly right in front of where Alan's waiting all alone, arms crossed and lit from behind with all the lights on inside the house. North slides out first, taking most of Dean's weight (noticeably less than when he left, bones so fragile in North's arms it feels like he'll snap) as Sonic hurries around to help, first-aid kit clutched in one hand. Kim keeps the car running, waiting until they're clear to move it around to the garage.

When Alan reaches out, tries to take Dean from them, Sonic snarls, a sound from deep in his chest like North's never heard before. North feels Dean's aborted flinch shake all the way through him.

"Just—" North starts but doesn't know how to finish. It's Alan, of course: their boss, their pack alpha. He's safe. It would be safe to hand Dean over to him. It's expected. But North can't let go and Sonic is fierce and protective like he gets when he's in heat, except he's definitely not anything; still the only real smell is Dean and his bitter injured scent. "We got it, uncle."

It takes a moment, but Alan nods. "Okay. I got—Everything's all set up in Dean's room." He steps out of their way, arms folded again, face set stern like when he thinks he's not allowed to cry. North feels unkind about his lack of sympathy, but it was Alan's decision that brought them here. He doesn't get to feel bad about it. Not yet.

Sonic leads them not to Dean's room but to their room. It settles North a little when they cross the threshold and lock themselves in. Everything smells like the two of them: Sonic's sour apple and jasmine is all over their bedding, while North's subtler lemongrass and cedarwood drifts through the air.

The comfort of it must hit Dean as well, because he becomes true dead weight the moment they're fully inside. His eyes are open, when North checks, but he's not focusing on anything.

"Shower?" Sonic suggests uncertainly. "Or do you think, is the water going to hurt him?"

"Maybe a bath," North agrees. They move into the bathroom and fill the tub, lukewarm because Sonic thinks that's the best temperature. Dean flinches violently away when Sonic tries to take off his clothes, so in the end they all three clamber into the tub fully clothed.

Mostly North is used to keep Dean propped up and not in any danger of drowning, while Sonic works his way through cleaning Dean up: tenderly washing his hair with the fancy stuff Way gave him for his last birthday, the softest washcloth he could find to wipe away all traces of anything that isn't Dean. Whether it's the soft touches or the cooling water or the fact that's it's just them, just North and Sonic, Dean comes back to fully conscious and cooperating partway through.

He still doesn't really say anything, but he lets North manoeuvre them all so they can get at least their shirts off. North doesn't have it in him not to growl at the sight of Dean's chest all battered and bruised. He'd known what was hiding under the shirt, but it's very different seeing it through a screen than seeing it in his arms.

He wonders how much more he's hurting Dean, holding him up like this.

"Yeah," Dean sighs, laboriously lifting one hand to pat Sonic's arm. "I know."

Sonic hums, blinking furiously, as he carefully cleans Dean with the unscented body wash he usually uses before a heat, or when he's homesick.

North presses his face into Dean's wet hair and inhales deep. "You sure you don't want that painkiller?"

"When I go to sleep," Dean says. He's trembling all over, the exhaustion and the pain definitely hitting him now. Sonic works a bit faster. It's too difficult to get Dean's pants off when they're all tangled together in the tub, so they climb out and let their wet clothes clump on the floor in favour of wrapping the biggest towel they could find around Dean.

Sonic makes them stay in the bathroom while he organises their bedding; building a nest, North assumes. It will be good, to get Dean into their nest, and let him sleep while they keep watch. While they wait he braces Dean against the sink and dries his hair.

"Thanks," Dean breathes out when the hairdryer shuts off and their ears ring in the quiet left behind.

North doesn't know how to say that something like this feels like moving a small pebble from the mountain of guilt he has for leaving Dean, for watching over him without helping for so many days, for letting fucking Winner do what they wouldn't, so he says "you're welcome" and carries Dean to the nest when Sonic finally lets them in.

[masterofrecords]

I know I owe you a new chapter of Aquarium. I know. I was going to post it today. But I had a terrible day yesterday, and I felt the need to vent some of those feelings out, so - this is the result of it.

Rook and Jade, a little 1500-word interaction in the Aquarium universe set some time after the Rook chapter of the main fic.

[the-algebra-thing]

my irl sent me this and I was telling flynn about it bc he's in his bed across from mine. and I was like yeah they got princess bubblegum on there, and both jayce and viktor, and I was looking around for others he would recognize and I said and I think this is a warrior cat??? and our little sister, who is supposed to be asleep on the twin bed between us, whipped around and went huh?? and then went on to identify the warrior cat as jayfeather within seconds. so

[anonymousfog101]

does anyone else have strange dreams about A) a hotel, B) a school, or C) a rail yard?

Like it's always the same hotel, the same school, the same rail yard, but every time I go to any of them it might look drastically different.

The hotel always seems to be like, near or where my house should be. The school and rail yard are pretty close to each other, and should be around the same area where I went to school in the next town over.

So I think that some real world influence affects that, but like why is the hotel always next to my house?

The hotel is always very large with long to indefinitely-long hallways (shorter halls for taller hotels), and the taller ones always have a nice elevator. Once it was *just* a hallway. Another time it was extremely grandiose and huge. But weirdly enough, the fancier it is, the more people are there. I lied. There are no people. There's monsters. Except while they're always big and intimidating, they never get hostile. Yet I'm still anxious around them.

The school is always awful to be at. Half the time I'm being chased by every single student whether it be like a zombies thing or like a horror game where everyone is insane or possessed. The other half of the time always feels like I'm trying to blend in while also trying to escape. I can tell people get suspicious of me after I ask for directions. In my most recent visit (which saw a glimpse of the rail yard nearby), for some reason after i had escaped by going over a chain link fence, rather than walking away through town, I had the strange urge to escape through the woods? And then I was being chased by guards and dogs? Anyways the school's layout doesn't make a single bit of sense, fuck ass non-euclidean geometry, hell once I went down a set of stairs and ended up in the same room (which was a cafeteria, which had stairs for some reason) each time, and the room was always at ground level.

The rail yard is interesting. Whenever I'm here I'm like, on a mission? Like it's some kind of spy game. There's sometimes guards who wanna shoot at me. Or maybe it's a pedestrian train and there's an assassin who is both trying to kill me and avoid being killed by me, and both of us are trying to avoid people. Sometimes the train moves to another yard. But I feel like it's the same one, but it looks different. All I know is that every time, I'm trying to get aboard a train without being noticed to I can go from point A to point B for reasons I do not know. There was one time thought where I simply happened to pass the rail yard on my way somewhere, and after I did there was a huge wall I had to get over to get into a town.

Ah fuck, I can't believe I've forgotten about D) the campgrounds with D2) the lake.

It always seems to be a combination of the scouts camp i used to go to while in scouts (you know, the one formerly called boy scouts of america) and the lake park from that other town I went to school at. These dreams are always adventurous in a way, like I'm exploring somewhere i have not been before. There's always some kind of danger, but it's more like just a vibe that there is, nothing ever actually comes out. There's a campground, and next to it is a lake, but sometimes the lake is next to a small rural town. Every time I'm here I always see the lake. I usually get close to it, and there have been a few instances in which I was in the water, but honestly I think it felt safer there? Like whatever the ever-present hidden danger is, it's on land. Unless I'm in the rural town I mentioned. That one always feels... safe. Like there's nothing to worry about.

I do occasionally dream of towns and cities. The rural ones are nice, sometimes the places are run down and I just get the vibe of "I'm not in any danger but I feel like I should leave because I am a stranger and these people might feel unsafe with me here", and in places with taller buildings i always feel lost and confused.

Anyone else get weird, reoccuring locations like this?

[indelibleevidence]

One problem I have with the whole afterlife-with-your-family-will-be-perfect narrative is that it doesn't take into account the absolute DRAMA that would happen if your first spouse died, and then you remarried later in life.

So then you die, and your two life partners are there to joyfully greet you, and your relationships in life with both of them were faithful and monogamous, and you're supposed to what, pick one of them? Expect one to gracefully step aside so you can play happily ever afterlife with the other? Or smush into the world's most awkward, forced polycule?

Or say you didn't remarry, spent your whole life grieving the partner you lost, and on your entry to the afterlife you look around eagerly for your spouse, who died forty years before you did. Only now they've moved on and found a new partner, and they're WAY happier, or at least they've gotten used to not having you around.

Meanwhile, if you're aromantic, you've been dying to find your dog in the afterlife, but he died when you were fifteen, and you lived to be a hundred, and he's got a whole new family of ghosts to live with. Are you going to deprive your dog of his literal forever home?

[theroundbartable]

Answer below the cut

It was the laundry line outside. Father, I have questions.

Proof:

[thelovetheystole]

They'll have magazine articles spelling out the *sexual tension* for us well before we get the chance to see them in a scene together.