#Sequence Diagram

[a-tools]

Sequence Diagram Generator is an online tool for creating UML sequence diagrams. It could empowers you to effortlessly create comprehensive sequence diagrams to illustrate how actors and objects interact in a system.

[catboypalug]

venn diagram between magical girl transformation, Dark Souls boss second phase cutscene, and gender transition

[dbphantom]

does a magical girl transformation sequence but at the end I just look like this:

[quietwingsinthesky]

funniest thing about that post blowing up to me is that i don’t even really think about myself as nonbinary, that’s just usually the quickest and easiest shorthand to explain the experiences i have but as a label is not that reflective of how i view myself. for the sake of the bit, i’m nonbinary.

[frogshunnedshadows]

"Contact light."

[miirshroom]

Mechanics of the Astral Clocktower (Theory)

Scrolling around, see the Bloodborne image with Lady Maria in front of the Astral Clock. Was thinking about how instead of numbers there are 12 blank circles around the clock face, which is a motif that I recently noticed in the Dark Souls 2 Smelter Demon Boss room (was researching for miniature painting reasons).

And because of the direction that my thoughts have been in recently, I thought to myself: This reminds me of the album cover for Clockwork Angels (2012). Except in that case instead of circles there were various alchemical symbols that replaced the standard numbers, each symbol is generally believed to correspond to a song on the album - although not always in order. One interpretation in this 2012 blog post that I found. As sometimes is done with clocks, the top symbols are in the correct orientation and the lower ones are upside down. The clock hands are also positioned meaningfully: on a 24 hour clock the time would read "21:12" in reference to one of the early breakout albums of Rush.

...and then I zoomed in on the photo and realized what of course Bloodborne fans have long known, which is that there ARE symbols etched around the border of the clock. It's just that they don't exactly align with the circles.

I haven't played Bloodborne, I can't just go stand in the room. So I try some searching because surely it has occurred to someone before that this is a timeline. A few hits, but nothing too satisfying in my short search. I've already more or less cracked the timeline puzzle in the Round Table Hold of Elden Ring, so I figured I'd take a look at the Bloodborne version. What I found especially interesting is that the most potent versions of most of the runes are found in the chalice dungeons, which have connotations of Victorian era Egyptomania similar to the mummified husks of the Round Table Hold. But the lower level versions tend to be found around the world in various places.

Video research intensified. When the clock is activated the circles complete a single full rotation in a clockwise direction and the upper hand completes 8/12ths of a rotation in the clockwise direction. The lower hand completes 11/12ths of a full rotation in an anti-clockwise direction, also crossing below the upper hand, which on most clocks would indicate that this is the hour hand. Given the context that Kos's corpse is found through the clock and her discovery by the hunters is an event that occurred in the past, I assume that the general idea here is to "turn back the clock" in the sense of conducting historical research.

I assembled a reference of the runes and their relative locations. There are 14 of them, clockwise starting left of Lady Maria:

- Lake - [Unnamed] - Oedon Writhe - Oedon - Guidance - Eye - Moon - Communion - Radiance - [Unnamed] - Hunter - Beast - Beast's Embrace - Deep Sea

Observations and other thoughts:

1) In the start position the two hands of the clock are aligned as if to link opposite sides of the clock face. The lower hand is pointed just before the "Beast's Embrace" rune which is obtained by defeating Lawrence, the First Vicar and when equipped allows permanent transformation into a beast. The upper hand is pointed at the "Guidance" rune, of which the 1st tier version is found on a Carrion Crow elsewhere in the Research Hall before reaching Lady Maria, the 2nd tier version is obtained from Ludwig, the Holy Blade ("Aah, you were at my side, all along. My true mentor… My guiding moonlight…"), and the 3rd tier version is simply unavailable without save editing the game.

2) The lower area is illuminated in light and the upper part is obscured in shadow - implying that the upper runes are more mysterious from the perspective of the Hunters. This could perhaps be read as a conversation between present and past. The next clockwise rune from "Guidance" is the "Eye" rune, which is one of only 3 blue glow runes in the game, and associated with the idea of having eyes on the inside.

3) The "Moon" rune is directly opposite the "Deep Sea" rune which is itself behind the head of Lady Maria. The 3rd tier version of the moon rune is obtained by performing the "make contact" gesture in front of the Brain of Mensis. The arms are held out at right angles as if to mirror a clock hands at 12'o'clock and 3'o'clock positions and then grasp and manually rotate that clock anti-clockwise to the 9'o'clock and 12'o'clock positions (or vice versa to force the clock forwards by a quarter turn, if the player facing forwards is themself the clock). The Doll in Bloodborne is modelled in the image of Lady Maria and she also reacts by clapping when the "make contact" gesture is performed. The 2nd tier version of the moon rune is obtained in the nightmare of Mensis during the Micolash fight, in which he appears to be puppeteering many dolls. As I understand it, the 1st tier version of the moon rune is obtained by being kidnapped by a Snatcher, defeating the Witches of Hemwick, and then taking it from a location in the Hypogean Gaol guarded by 2 other Snatchers.

4) Unlike a typical clock where only the hand move, the entire clock face rotates. Also it is a portal to another location. Both of these remind me of the function of the Stargate, for which the last chevron locked in is the point of origin. For Stargate the last chevron lock is positioned at the top of the wheel. In Bloodborne, the two clock hands form a chevron surrounding the circles at the bottom.

So my guess is that the present day is "Deep Sea" on the timeline - one step beyond "Beast's Embrace" (which is basically the thing that is presently happening to the Hunters) and the destination is "Guidance".

5) There are 5 standard Caryll runes that are not represented on the clock border: "Clockwise Metamorphosis", "Anti-clockwise Metamorphosis", "Blood Rapture", "Clawmark", and "Heir". The implication might be that these are concurrent with other runes on the clock border. A question would be, should efforts focus on trying to place them as substitutions for the 5 mismatched runes (the 3 oath runes and 2 unnamed runes), or should a wider range of possibility be considered?

There are 4 other runes that contain a hint of either clockwise or anti-clockwise turning. These are: "Beast's Embrace" (clockwise), "Beast" (clockwise), "Guidance" (twisted as if vacillating between clockwise and anti-clockwise), and the unnamed snake tangle rune (three strands turning in multiple directions).

A commonality between the other 3 runes is that they are all associated with visceral attacks - the "Blood Rapture" rune allows visceral attacks to restore HP", the "Clawmark" rune strengthens visceral attacks, and the "Heir" rune causes visceral attacks to grant more blood echoes. Of all other runes on the astral clock, only the "Oedon Writhe" rune is also associated with visceral attacks.

6) There are 6 total runes that can be placed in a player's "Oath Memory" slots, 3 of which are not represented on the clock face: "Corruption" (symbol of the Cainhurst Vilebloods), "Impurity" (symbol of the League oath), and "Milkweed" (rune envisioned by Adeline, patient of the research hall).

The inventory depiction of these runes includes a sortof circular shape as if they might be inset into the circles of the clock, and in fact the 3 that are present on the clock border each match to clock face circles to varying degrees. I would place the "Corruption" rune with the "Moon" rune opposite Lady Maria (she is thought to be a descendant of Cainhurst), the "Milkweed" rune opposite the "Lake" rune (it is similar to the left part of the rune, as if it's the false "eyes on the inside" version of the real rune), and the "Impurity" rune opposite the Unnamed rune of similar shape. Another support for this interpretation is that the three symbols are counting upwards: 4 voids, 5 tally marks, 6 dots.

Analysis (?)

Edit: with further research, there are several flaws in the below text, especially related to the chronology of the Hunters vs Church Hunters. I keep this up as a reference anyways.

I have been picking over this for 2 days and perhaps I see a shape of what's going on. I want to try working it out anyways before I lose my train of thought:

The Runesmith Caryll believed that a person can predict the future by listening to the Great Ones who live outside of time. From their position at 12'o'clock on the dial they peer into the shadowy abyss on the opposite side and faintly divine the "Deep Sea" rune. Over time they proceed to discover a handful of other runes: "Anti-Clockwise Metamorphosis", "Beast", "Clockwise Metamorphosis", "Oedon", "Eye", "Moon", "Communion", "Corruption", "Heir", "Radiance". To my knowledge, only these 11 runes actually have the text "A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth." which would imply that "Caryll Rune" became a proper noun applied like a generic concept, and at least in the case of "Guidance" and "Milkweed", these are said to be discovered by specific other people.

So let's say you're Lawrence, one of Byrgenwerth's researchers in Bloodborne. It's around 4'o'clock on the dial (4 being a number associated with death in Japan) and Runesmith Caryll has just died. You're clearing out their office and you find all of these secret runes that they've been working on transcribing, as well as partial instructions on how to listen to the Great Ones. You get the idea this this is a recipe for immortality - a panacea that cures all ailments including death and will allow a human to become a Great One. You cover up the existence of the "Beast" rune deeming it forbidden - because implying that humans are animal is heretical and obviously humanity is destined for greater things. Could a beast have figured out how to comprehend the Great Ones? Instead you focus on the good stuff: "Radiance" awaits at the end of the future predictions as far as you know. To help you get there, the first new "Caryll rune" envisioned by the Church Hunters that you recruit is "Guidance".

The Healing Church starts to get rolling in the 6'o'clock timezone which is fixated on 3 concepts: "Eyes", "Moon", "Communion", and moves on to the 7'o'clock position as enthusiasm for the project grows, adopting the mythologizing of a grail quest/quest for immortality as inspired by the shape of the "Communion" rune. And also having people descending into the "chalice" dungeons to obtain the Old Blood.

The Unnamed rune at 8'o'clock might possibly represent that time that Old Yharnam's lake was poisoned and started an epidemic of Ashen Blood before the Church arrived to carry out blood ministration, as represented by the upcoming Oedon symbol. Or some other "unspeakable" event.

Research and human trials continue with the belief that all of the steps of the process are being followed as described by the runes. There tend to be outbreaks of people turning into beasts, but this is a "minor" setback. Between 9'o'clock and 10'o'clock something happens to cause doubt in the process. Communing with the Great Ones continues, but what they are reporting back is that there is something beyond enlightenment - a dissolution of structure. This rune remains unnamed because nobody can agree on what it means.

They decide to try again after inching forwards a bit further and discover the rune that would come to symbolize "Hunters". No longer an idealistic quest for immortality but a pursuit of elusive meaning of why things are starting to go wrong. They seek again and discover the "Beast" rune - they thought that they were following a linear timeline but instead they have been trapped in a cycle. This research into immortality will go nowhere - the Great Ones are not timeless beings, they're just dead and all that can possibly be perceived in their blood is echoes of the past. They are all now trapped in an ever deteriorating nightmare. With the "Beast's Embrace" being obtained in the Hunter's Nightmare it is acknowledged in retrospect that in declaring it forbidden to consider humans beasts they had given themselves permission to be monsters. They believed in an upcoming miracle despite all evidence to the contrary and deadened even emotion itself to justify treating people as slabs of meat to be experimented upon and dissected.

Future prospects are looking grim, and people figure that maybe Master Willem had the right idea after all and they should develop "eyes on the inside" to better understand their own current position, and figure out how the present zeitgeist is influencing perception of what comes next. So they do that and develop the "Eye" rune around 11'o'clock. And with this sudden injection of Madman's Insight the last threads of sanity in the Choir snap and they make the blood moon happen right on schedule at 12'o'clock by reanimating the Great One to whom the "Moon" rune belongs. Micolash is totally okay with being trapped in Samsara.

Meanwhile in the background of all this research stuff, probably Old Yharnam has been being rebuilt into Yharnam and the Healing Church has been waging war against Annalise and the Vilebloods until she is the only one left around 12'o'clock. The Executioners believe in a 14-spoked wheel, and in their version history will repeat itself and if man is diligent enough in destroying corruption for every revolution that will inch them slowly closer to someday reaching enlightenment and escaping that wheel - "Radiance" at 3'o'clock is their symbol because this is their aspiration. And true enough, Annalise seems to be immortal.

I'm guessing that a lot of the eldritch stuff happens between 10'o'clock and 3'o'clock - matching how defeating Rom triggers the blood moon and exposes all of the stuff that was previously only visible with high insight. Especially 1'o'clock and 2'o'clock - they need to repopulate the chalice dungeons with Great Ones for the next cycle of the Nightmare.

And by the time the clock is back at 4'o'clock the stage is basically set for the player who will soon be arriving. Badge or no, you are a Hunter of Hunters in terms of arriving and systematically eliminating the NPC Hunters.

[thelivingautomaton]

impulsively i decided to start off the new year by rewatching twin peaks, a show that i have not seen in its entirety in a grown-ass decade, and honestly watching it again with the benefit of A) knowing how the story plays out in both the original show and the return, and B) No Longer Being In Fucking High School, is making me go fully insane

me, 10 years ago: wow what a fun and quirky show! i love this cast of characters, they're so goofy! i'm going to dress up as dale cooper for halloween! :) oh i didn't like fire walk with me so much, i thought it was kind of slow...what was the point of all that?

me in the present (now that i Know):

[autistudyblr]

27.9 - lab work & maths

i had my first labs today! it was mostly just measuring things, learning to use the equipment and set everything out correctly. my lab partner was nice, and she's doing theoretical physics too!

we start maths classes tomorrow, so i'm quickly revising complex numbers, i want to know what i'm doing in case we're taught something new.

🎶 greek tragedy - the wombats

[rsstoai]

API Builder Sequence Diagram

i have ui backend to store and get configurations of the schema and api then another backend to store the data so for this partitions will u draw me a sequenc

#API #Builder #Sequence #Diagram

[imgtoai17]

API Builder Sequence Diagram

i have ui backend to store and get configurations of the schema and api then another backend to store the data so for this partitions will u draw me a sequence diagram for the lowcode apibuilder ?

[mazekingdom]

waiting on editing for ch2 so in the meantime I'm working on ch3 and. reluctantly scripting this chase sequence

[sam-keeper]

Hey Look At This Comic: Calvin and Hobbes

I liked the idea of putting some more daily strip comics into my rss reader, and gocomics DOES post old strips in sequence every day (keeping archival materials in lively circulation 👍), and there IS a site that generates an rss feed for gocomics (they don't provide rss feeds themselves because they want you to subscribe 👎) so, I added the current Nancy run to my feed, alongside Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. a few days later it paid off big time with this strip:

I love this strip, but it's a bit weird, isn't it? I'm sure some people read the way you're "supposed to" move panel to panel in a typical comic: left to right across the top strip, then the middle, then the bottom. Easy. I didn't, though. My eyes darted across the page, circled around the upper left hand panels, before zipping to the big point of interest on the page: that big panel of Calvin's teacher as a great pink alien monster! the second panel in strip two, the view through the spaceship porthole of the alien landscape, got orphaned, turned into something I glanced at after the fact as I pieced the sequence back together.

which might just be how comics reading actually goes, in practice. more recent theories of comics, particularly ones coming out of the Franco-Belgian tradition, suggest we take in the page as a whole first before diving in panel by panel. that bottom left corner is also kind of a privileged position on the page, with a beautifully lumpy and toothy monster filling up almost the whole frame. no wonder my eye was drawn there "ahead of sequence"!

is that a mistake? one of my friends, when I posed the question, thought so, that the strip means to build up to that point but the page composition encourages you to read ahead. She also, intriguingly, suggested to me that even though we enter the strip seeing the whole page, we induce a kind of forgetfulness in ourselves so that we don't get spoiled. when we see the monster, do we already know it's there while experiencing it for the first time? (hypnosis, she suggested to me, is "merely a set of circumstances to help the mind do a set of things that it already does every day".)

others corroborated the weird reading orders but suggested it was deliberate. for Sarah, the whole left side of the page draws your eye down compositionally, from Spaceman Spiff's (Calvin's alter ego) gloved hands on the wheel, down to the Z shaped mesa, to the monster. this cuts out almost two thirds of the comic! but for her and a few other friends, that made sense: Calvin is daydreaming in class, and the point where his teacher pops up in front of him to demand his attention is a moment of concrete interest in a hazy sea of nonlinear sensation. another friend drew a diagram of an even weirder reading pattern:

actually, I think this makes some sense. theorist Thierry Groensteen's notion of "braiding" in comics suggests that we're constantly recomposing comics in our brains, not just panel by panel, but over the whole corpus of panels, looking for rhymes and resonances and ways the story relates to itself. it feels a little like panels 2 and 3 rhyme, to me. the frames are long and thin more than any of the others, they both have this prominent horizon line, and they both sit on top of panels 4 and 5. they relate to each other, to the point where I see how you could jump from one to the other, then back up the page and over! if I understand Groensteen right, he's not suggesting we necessarily jump around the page this way, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I do think one of the implications of braiding and of taking in the whole page is that we might get off track and start wandering through time and space... which is exactly what Calvin is doing, after all.

I love that the actual joke of the strip hinges on these two little panels buried at the bottom of the page: the only shot not from Calvin's point of view, of him looking frazzled after Mrs Wormwood's dressing down, and then a little panel of him holding the book. that's braiding too: we understand the previous and future panels because we draw an analogy between all the perspectives we've seen elsewhere of hands (or claws) and get that Calvin is drifting into a daydream again, taking on a new role. the scenario shifts, and the color scheme changes to a complimentary one (red to green), but both daydreams are much more powerful, on the page, than the interruption by reality.

how do you read the page?

you can read more reviews in the Hey Look At This Comic tag and support me on Patreon.

[ghostedgwen]

inside her fantasy | s.black

notes : so, finally a very long 8.6k words fic for Sirius. I had scrapped this many many times, changed plots like 4 times and even tried to just eat my keyboard while writing this but FINALLY I finished!! Thank u for 900 followers, ily all!!! somuch!!!!!

warnings : reader has an ancient blood curse with no cure, based on sleeping beauty- loosely, LOTS and LOTS of angst, the first wizarding war plot line, character death(s), mention of war and grief and loss, marauders angst (yk the rest)

Sirius Black never thought he would ever stop playing and offer his heart to someone else until he met her, but how does a man out of time keep a girl awake and within his reach? In which a girl is cursed to fall asleep, never to wake, and Sirius is hopelessly in love with her.

. . . Trends change, rumors fly through new skies but I'm right where you left me.

It starts with a dare, like all good stories involving the Marauders do.

You swap a fellow Hufflepuff's pumpkin juice for firewhisky before breakfast, right under the nose of three Prefects and a hovering ghost. You flash your friends a triumphant grin, and the moment the poor bloke takes a gulp and splutters across the table, you let out a laugh that makes heads turn.

One of those heads belongs to Sirius Black.

He doesn't laugh like everyone else. No, he watches for a moment, assessing, then leans over to James with a smirk. "Think we got ourselves another pranskter."

You catch it. Of course you do. You raise an eyebrow across the table and say, loud enough for him to hear, "You say that like you own the rights for pranks, Black."

James snorts. Sirius pretends to be wounded. "And here I was, thinking I was being complimentary."

"Don’t strain yourself," you say. "You might pull a muscle patting yourself on the back."

Something flickers behind his eyes. Interest, maybe. Or the thrill of not being immediately adored - he was too deep in his and his friends' adventures to truly notice everyone else. Specially that you wore a yellow robe, too forgetable for him.

James grabs his arm. "We’ve got practice, mate. Come on."

He stands, but he throws one last glance over his shoulder before he leaves. Right at you, you give him a mocking wave and you get a shit-eating grin in return.

You were caught sneaking back in from the Owlery.

He was caught hexing Filch’s office door so it screamed every time someone knocked.

Now you’re side by side, polishing trophies that haven't seen the light of day since 1903. Your fingers are smudged with Brasso. The room smells like lemon and resentment and old.

"So," he says, halfway through a plaque commemorating a Gobstones champion, "what’s your best detention story?"

You grin. "I once convinced McGonagall that Peeves framed me. Drew a whole diagram and everything."

Sirius lets out a laugh that bounces off the marble. "That’s impressive. I usually just take the blame and try to look roguish while doing it."

"That explains the ego," you reply, smirking.

He narrows his eyes, mock offended. "You’re not as clever as you think you are."

You pause, toss him a sideways glance. "And you’re not as clever as you think you are."

There’s a beat.

Then he grins. Wide and wolfish. "Then I’ll have to try harder, won’t I?"

And just like that, the dynamic begins.

The pumpkins explode in perfect sequence: one after the other, like a line of golden-orange fireworks down the centre of the Great Hall.

Everyone cheers. The Marauders look vaguely shocked, for once caught off guard by a grand prank -

Because the original plan wasn't supposed to work that well. And definitely not with the added effect of floating bats that shriek "Boo!" in different languages.

You had overheard their plotting. Tweaked a few spell matrices. Subtle improvements. You're not a glory-hog, but thought to add your own flair.

Sirius corners you near the staircase hours later, after the chaos has started to die down - he looked like he had been hunting you since it all went off.

"You meddled."

You feign innocence. "I improved. There’s a difference."

"You should join us."

You raise your brow. "I work alone."

Nevermind the fact you just tinkered with their pranks, you decided against joining their little band of Marauders as you didn't fancy being the only girl in their little boys group.

You'd rather do your own thing.

Moments later, Filch comes stomping down the corridor, waving a list of suspects. You grab Sirius's hand without thinking.

"Hide."

He doesn’t question it. He lets you drag him to the small, tight place between walls where a statue was located, you squeezed yourselves behind it.

He whispers, "You really are a menace."

"Takes one to know one, Black."

Your breath fogs in the silence. His eyes catch yours. For a moment, the world shrinks. Just the sound of your heartbeat and the feel of his coat brushing your arm.

He doesn’t kiss you.

But he wants to.

He asks you like it’s nothing. Like it’s a joke, and perhaps it was. He had insisted so, justifying it in his head.

"Fancy a trip to Hogsmeade? I hear Honeydukes has a new licorice wand."

You smirk. "Only if you’re paying. And I want a scone. With clotted cream."

He blinks, not expecting you to say yes. He half-expected you to make fun of him for it or perhaps hex him at his audacity.

He broke into a grin at that, unbelievably successful. "Done."

You go. It’s cold and overcast and perfect. Sirius has managed to shrug James off who whined non-stop about being left alone for yet another date.

James Potter ever the brat was complaining that, "Mates before dates!" but Sirius left him.

You tease each other the whole way there, and the whole way back.

Inside the tea shop, he stares at the way you scrape the jam across your plate and says, "You’re not like anyone else, you know."

You tilt your head. "That sounds suspiciously like a line - am I supposed to swoon now?"

He sighs, knowing you'd respond with a bite like always. He leans back. "It’s not. I just meant - "

"I’m not interested in being Sirius Black’s next conquest," you interrupt, quiet but firm.

For once, he has no retort.

For once, something cracks in his expression. Just for a second, that you barely caught it.

Then he masks it with a grin. "I’d never break your heart."

You don’t believe him. But you wish you could.

The tower is asleep - but as always, one Gryffindor is out of bed.

Sirius sits on the edge of his bed, candle flickering low beside him. His parchment is blotchy with crossed-out lines.

He thought about practising it first, writing down his thoughts and feelings and words he dared not say on parchment before he blurts them out to you.

In fear that he'd say it wrong - or you wouldn't take it too well. He resorted to writing his feelings down, it made him feel almost embarrassed. Almost.

I don’t know why I keep thinking about you.

Maybe it’s because you don’t make it easy.

Maybe it’s because when I’m around you, I’m not just ‘Sirius Black’ - I’m something I don’t hate.

He finishes the letter at that after many revisions, numerous lines crossed out and ink droplets staining the edges of the texts. He stares at it, blinks once -

Then he folded it, tucked into the bottom of his trunk. Probably not to be seen ever again by any other soul, specially not the person it was written for.

He went to bed with a heavy weight on his chest.

Your friends surprise you with a pile of sweets and a stack of cards. Someone charms the banner to say Happy Birthday, You Absolute Legend. There’s music, and dancing, and laughter that lights up the whole room.

You were against them throwing a whole party but they insisted. Your dormmates had birthdays outside of school, right during holidays and summer breaks so they insisted on celebrating yours.

You couldn't dodge out of it any longer and it soon turned into a big thing with other people from the other houses piling into your common room, all invited, to celebrate your coming-of-age.

Sirius gives you a wrapped package the size of a wand. Inside is a quill - you eye it with distrust as it couldn't be that simple with him.

"What does it do?" you ask, raising a brow with a coy grin.

He smirks. "Try it."

You scribble your name across a napkin. The quill shimmers, then begins writing compliments beneath it: Wittiest girl in the castle. Eyes like midnight mischief. Dangerous in the best way.

You laugh so hard at the words that you felt tears in your eyes.

During the festivites, you decided you have had enough and snuck out so effortlessly, you climb the stairs to the Astronomy Tower.

Sirius follows, wordlessly, you didn't even mind him following you in there. Much too happy by everything that had happened to feel anything but pure happiness.

The stars are out, constellations drawn out to scatter across the night sky. You can feel the cold wind brushing past you, but you’re warm.

Must've been the Firewhiskey.

He stands beside you, watching how the moon illuminated your face. How the white light cast an almost blue hue across your features, like you were a painting come to life.

He leans in, despite himseld and you immediately caught it. Pressing a hand to his chest to stop him, your palms staying flat against his jacket. You give him a small smile.

"Not yet," you whisper.

He doesn’t push, he just slowly nods, accepting the rejection.

"Seventeen feels. . . big," you say, eyes on the sky, turning away from him before you could reject pushing him away before he could even close the distance.

"You’ve got time," he tells you.

You smile, soft. Sad, somehow.

"I know."

The library was unusually silent for a Thursday evening. You knew that most students had already left to their common rooms or gone to dinner, escaping the biting chill that had settled over the castle.

Even the ghosts, those eternal spirits who haunted the halls, seemed to have retreated into their own restless slumber, leaving the space in a fragile, almost sacred silence. Rows of towering bookshelves stretched into the shadows, their dark wood and brass fittings gleaming faintly in the low glow of the lanterns, like silent sentinels guarding ancient secrets.

You sat curled in one of the oversized armchairs near the far window, your legs tucked beneath you, a pile of books and loose parchment spread across your lap.

Your ink-stained fingers moved furiously, scribbling notes, ideas, or perhaps just trying to clear your mind. Your quill tapped rhythmically against your lips as you thought, lost in the world of your own making, unaware of anyone else’s presence.

The truth was, you weren’t supposed to be here. You hated the library on principle - so quiet, so organized, so full of reminders of work you’d rather avoid. But tonight, it was a refuge of sorts, a quiet space where you could escape the chaos of school and the pressure of exams.

Besides, you liked the solitude. It was easier to think when no one was around.

Until you felt that familiar, restless energy stir within you.

You weren’t sure what it was exactly - maybe boredom, maybe the need for distraction. Maybe a desire to defy the dull routine of school life. Whatever it was, it made you glance around and contemplate your options. Perhaps a little mischief. A quick prank to liven things up.

You shifted slightly in the chair, lifting your quill and preparing to scribble a note to yourself or perhaps an amused doodle. That’s when you noticed him.

Sirius Black.

He was leaning casually against one of the bookshelves, his dark hair falling into his eyes, a crooked grin curling on his lips. His eyes flicked over you with a teasing glint, as if he knew exactly what you were thinking. You tried to ignore him, but you knew better.

He sauntered over, boots silent on the stone floor, a devilish smirk on his face. You could see the glint of mischief in his eyes, the way he always looked at you when he was about to do something he knew you’d hate.

"Well, well," he drawled, voice low and amused. "What do we have here? A little angel hiding in the library after hours?"

You rolled your eyes, pretending to ignore him. "Not your concern, Black."

He chuckled softly, leaning down slightly so his face was level with yours. "Come on, don’t be like that. I thought we were friends."

You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but you couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at your lips. Sirius always knew how to push your buttons - in the worst and best ways.

He reached out, fingertips grazing the spine of a dusty, leather-bound tome on the table next to your chair. His eyes gleamed mischievously. "Thinking of a little prank, are we?"

Your heart skipped a beat, and you quickly looked away, trying to hide your grin. "Not this time, Black."

He leaned closer, voice lowering to a whisper. "Come on, I know you’re dying for some trouble. Just one little thing."

You hesitated. You knew he was right - your usual impulse was to stir up chaos, to shake things up. But tonight, you felt something different. A flicker of unease, maybe. Something about the way you were feeling - restless, distracted, almost jittery - made you pause.

Sirius, however, was relentless.

He reached for the nearest book on the table - an enormous, dusty volume - and grinned wider. "How about I give this a little shove? Bet it’d make a hell of a noise."

You rolled your eyes. "You’re hopeless."

He chuckled again. "You’re just afraid I’ll beat you to it."

You shook your head, trying to focus on your work again. But then, something caught your eye. You felt it before you saw it: the strange stillness in your body, the way your fingers suddenly refused to move, the sensation that your mind had gone quiet, almost as if you’d fallen into a trance.

You didn’t realize until a moment later that you’d gone completely still, your eyes fixed on a point far away.

Suddenly, Sirius’s voice broke through your concentration. "Oi, princess," he said softly, crouching down beside your chair. "You’re gonna fall asleep in the library like that? Not exactly the look you’re going for."

You didn’t respond. For a moment, you didn’t even blink. The silence stretched, heavy and oppressive.

He nudged your shoulder gently. "Come on, wake up. Hey."

Nothing.

Your heart fluttered - an odd, sinking feeling you couldn’t quite place. You were alive, weren’t you? You felt your chest rise and fall. But something was wrong. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t speak.

Sirius’s brow furrowed. "Oi, what’s going on?" he asked softly, reaching out to shake you more firmly. "This isn’t funny."

Still, you remained frozen, eyes staring blankly ahead. Your head lolled slightly to the side, your body slack in the chair’s embrace. A shiver ran down your spine; a primal instinct told you that something was terribly wrong.

He reached out, fingers trembling slightly, and gently shook your shoulders. "Come on, talk to me. Wake up."

No response.

His heart hammered in his chest. You weren’t responding. Your body was limp, unnaturally still.

"No, no, no," he whispered, voice cracking. Panic rising. His mind raced - what was happening?

He pressed his ear as close as he dared to your chest, listening desperately for a heartbeat. There it was, faint but steady - faint, slow, like a distant drum. You were alive, somehow, but not present. Not really.

His breath hitched as he stared at you, helpless.

"Please, no," he muttered, voice thick with emotion.

Without thinking, Sirius slid his arms under your body, lifting you carefully, cradling you against his chest as if afraid you’d shatter. Your head lolled against his collarbone, limp and unresponsive. His heart pounded harder now, pounding so loudly he was sure you could hear it.

He sprinted through the rows of books, knocking over stacks in his haste, ignoring the startled shouts of Madam Pince, who hurried after him.

"Help! Somebody, I need help!" Sirius shouted, voice echoing down the corridor as he burst out into the hallway.

The hospital wing smelled like lavender and antiseptic, a familiar blend that didn’t bring comfort tonight. Madame Pomfrey was at her desk, meticulously organizing vials and bandages, when the doors swung open with a gust of wind and Sirius burst in, clutching you carefully.

Her eyes widened in alarm at the sight of you, unconscious and limp in his arms. "What happened?"

"I don’t know," Sirius gasped, pounding his fist against his chest as he tried to catch his breath. "She was just sitting there. She wouldn’t wake up."

Pomfrey hurried forward, her hands deft and sure. "Bring her here," she ordered, taking you from Sirius’s trembling grip and laying you gently onto a bed.

"She’s alive," Pomfrey said, brow furrowing. "But she’s not sleeping. This is . . . different."

Sirius clenched his fists, helpless and desperate. "What do you mean? Is she hurt?"

Pomfrey shook her head slowly. "It’s not a physical injury. This is magical. Or perhaps. . . something darker."

He looked at her, eyes wide with disbelief. "A curse?"

She nodded grimly. "Most likely. A very old, very powerful one."

Sirius felt the ground shift beneath his feet. "A curse? How? Why? I - "

Before he could finish, the door swung open again, and Professor Dumbledore entered with his usual calm grace, his robes flowing behind him like a gentle wave. His blue eyes, however, were sharp with concern.

He moved swiftly to your bedside, examining you with quiet precision. His fingers hovered over your brow, then traced down to your wrist.

"Leave us for a moment, Sirius," Dumbledore said softly, voice calm but firm.

Sirius hesitated, his jaw tight. But he nodded, stepping back into the corner, watching helplessly as Dumbledore’s gaze flicked over your still form.

He could hear the whispering of Pomfrey’s concerned murmurs, see the way her brow furrowed as she studied you.

Finally, Dumbledore turned to Sirius, his expression grave. "This is no ordinary sleep," he announced.

"You said it’s a curse," Sirius pressed. "Can you fix it?"

Dumbledore’s expression darkened, the lines around his eyes deepening as he folded his hands in front of him. “I wish I could. But some magic was forged not to be broken. This is a blood curse - ancient.”

Sirius stared at you. At the way your head lolled to the side, still tucked in close to your shoulder like you’d just drifted off mid-sentence. Your hand was still curled around your quill, ink smeared at the base of your palm. You looked so alive. Too alive to be cursed. Too alive to be gone.

But you weren’t breathing right. Not deeply, not the way you did when you fell asleep in the Common Room after a long patrol. He would’ve teased you for it, if this were different - how you snored just a little when you were really knackered, how your mouth always parted like you were in the middle of some secret dream. But there was none of that now.

Just stillness. Just silence.

“She was fine,” he said again, voice quieter this time. "She was laughing at McGonagall’s robes in Transfiguration. Making that bloody stupid joke about animagus hats. She was fine.”

Dumbledore looked at him, and there was no comfort in his eyes - only something impossibly old. “These curses often lie dormant until they are triggered. A moment of emotional intensity. Prolonged exhaustion. Sometimes even something as simple as turning seventeen. We don’t always know what wakes them.”

Sirius blinked hard. His throat was starting to close. “And now what? What do we do now?”

Dumbledore sighed. “We wait.”

“No,” Sirius snapped, too quickly, voice breaking on the edge of it. “That’s not- that’s not good enough.”

The air around him tightened, buzzing beneath his skin like he was about to explode. He’d lived his whole life under someone else’s control - his family, his bloody name, the rules of the castle, the limits of what magic could and couldn’t do - but this was different.

This was you. You weren’t supposed to fall asleep in a library and never wake up.

“This isn’t happening,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair, pacing like he might wear a hole through the stone. “She’s not some fairytale. She’s not some . . . cursed maiden locked in a tower. She’s her. She’s stubborn, and she hates studying, and she always steals the last bit of toast when she thinks I’m not looking - she’s real.”

“I know,” Dumbledore said, quiet as ever.

“She can’t just - ” Sirius’s voice cracked again. “She can’t just go.”

“She’s not gone.”

“But you don’t know when she’s coming back.” The words scraped out of his throat like they’d been broken inside him. “You don’t know if she ever will.”

Silence.

And then, Dumbledore spoke again - gently, but with the weight of someone who had seen too much. “This curse runs in her family. Passed through generations. Few survive it more than once.”

Sirius’s hands curled into fists. “She didn’t even know.”

“Perhaps not,” Dumbledore allowed. “Or perhaps she did. But she hoped, as many do, that it would skip her.”

Sirius stared down at you, at your fingers, still ink-stained and human. “So what now?”

“Now we care for her,” Dumbledore said. “We wait. And we love her, even if she doesn’t know we’re here.”

“No,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “No. That’s not enough. That’s not me. I’m not going to just sit and watch her fade. There has to be something. Anything.”

Dumbledore hesitated.

And that hesitation - that split second - was all Sirius needed.

“There is something, isn’t there?” he said, stepping closer. “You’re holding something back.”

“It’s not something that can be done,” Dumbledore said slowly. “Not the way you think. This curse. . . it only yields to love. Not infatuation. Not obsession. Something older. Something that holds its shape even when time doesn’t.”

Sirius’s chest burned. “Then I’ll do it.”

“You don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I don’t care.”

“You would have to remain, Sirius,” Dumbledore said. “Through months. Years. Decades, perhaps. And never know if she’ll wake. Or if she’ll remember. You’d have to love her in silence. Without promise. Without return.”

“I already do.”

The words were out before he could stop them.

The air felt different after that.

Dumbledore didn’t speak for a long time. Then he said, “If that is true, then you may be the only hope she has.”

Dumbledore sent word to your family within the hour.

Sirius wasn’t in the room when they arrived - Dumbledore had gently, firmly suggested he give them privacy - but he could hear the voices. Muffled through stone and spellwork. Raised. Bitter. Desperate.

They’d known. Not everything, but enough.

It had happened once before - a great-aunt, long dead, whose name had been scrubbed from the family tree out of shame or grief or maybe both. You were supposed to have been spared. A healer had sworn it dormant. A ritual had been done when you were a baby. There’d been no signs. You were bright, brilliant. Uncursed.

They’d believed in the lie because it was easier than preparing for the truth.

You woke up just after 4 days. Those 4 days were spent with Sirius visiting you in between classes, meals, Quidditch practices. His friends were growing worried for him as they also worried for you.

He looked changed in just a span of 4 days. 4 cruel days spent on your bedside begging you to wake up, begging you to come back to him.

Promising you grand pranks you could pull together, more alcoholic concoctions to throw up in the morning. He offered everything to see your eyes flutter open.

It wasn't fair. He was just beginning to know you, to love you - it all felt to fresh and raw and real - this cannot be happening to him.

When you woke up, it was so sudden.

Just a sharp inhale that jolted your whole body and the whisper of your name as Dumbledore caught your shoulder before you could fall out of the bed in shock.

You blinked at the light, slow and sluggish, as if waking from years instead of days. You reached for your wand first - you did not find it. Then your face. Then the necklace under your collarbone. None of it had changed. But everything had.

They cried - your parents. But not the way Sirius thought they would. Not relief, not love, not wild, stupid joy.

No, they cried like cowards. Quiet, ashamed, as if your waking made it worse. As if the confirmation of the curse meant the whole thing had been real all along. Like you were some buried secret they couldn’t keep hidden anymore.

Sirius watched it all from the hallway, fists clenched, pacing outside the Hospital Wing like he was about to be sick.

The door creaked open. Madam Pomfrey slipped out. “She’s awake.”

He didn’t wait. Didn’t even think.

He was inside the room before anyone could stop him, blood still thrumming in his ears. You were sitting up in bed, hair a tangle, voice raw as you said his name - confused, hoarse, like you hadn’t said it in years. “Sirius?”

He didn’t answer. He crossed the room and pulled you into him like you were drowning and he didn’t care if he sank too.

You tried to push him away after that.

It started the moment you woke up, dry-mouthed and weak, in the Hospital Wing. Four days. You'd lost four days of your life to a sleep you hadn’t meant to enter, and everything had changed.

You saw it in your parents’ eyes first. The shame. The quiet devastation. You saw it in the way Pomfrey didn’t scold you for trying to stand, and in the way Dumbledore couldn’t quite meet your gaze.

But most of all, you saw it in Sirius.

When he ran to you and pulled you into a hug, like holding you meant that it was all real. He just breathed like he'd finally surfaced from drowning.

You couldn’t look at him too long. Because the guilt hit harder than the fear. You hadn’t meant to become a problem. A burden. A question mark in someone else’s future.

So you did what you always did. You joked.

"You should probably date someone with a better track record for staying conscious," you said over breakfast the next morning, stirring your porridge like it might give you answers.

He didn’t laugh.

You tried again in the corridor. "Seriously, Sirius, you don’t have to do this whole loyal boyfriend routine. I know it’s been a weird month. I give you full permission to run."

He didn’t even blink - not even when you finally addressed him by first name. A progress to your now, very complicated, relationship.

"You think I’m staying because I feel bad?" he asked one night, voice low and raw. "You think this is pity?"

You shrugged, but your fingers clenched around the edge of your sleeve. "I think I wouldn’t blame you if you left."

And that was the truth. The quiet, aching part of it. That you didn’t think you deserved someone who stayed. It was a burden you could never ask of anyone.

He stepped closer then, close enough that his words landed right against your ribs.

"Don’t you get it?" he said, voice shaking with something bigger than anger. "I'm not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you wake."

It should’ve comforted you. It only made your chest ache harder.

Because you didn’t want him waiting around like some tragic romantic figure. You didn’t want to be the girl people wrote poems about after she vanished too soon. You wanted to be solid. Reliable. Here.

But you weren’t. And he's decided to stay anyway.

Even when you stopped meeting his eyes.

Even when you flinched in the middle of a sentence, panicked that a yawn might spiral into something worse.

Even when you stopped touching him entirely, afraid that if you reached for his hand, it might be the last thing you ever did.

Still, he stayed.

And he started leaving you things.

A tiny mirror charm on your nightstand, bewitched to show cartoon dog ears on your reflection when you frowned.

A chocolate frog with a note tucked inside the box that said, Still here. Always here.

A prank exploding parchment that poofed glitter in your face during a Charms study session and made you laugh until you nearly sobbed.

Sometimes it was just small things. A folded jacket over your chair when you forgot it was cold. A sugar quill tucked into your books.

It should have been too much. But it never was.

Because you missed him. Desperately.

You missed the ease. The banter. The feeling that you were someone he chose, not someone he pitied.

You missed before.

But there was no going back.

One afternoon, you found him outside the library, sitting on the floor with his head tipped back against the wall.

He wasn’t doing anything. No mischief, no plotting. Just staring up at the ceiling like he was trying to stay still. Like the world had moved on and he was trying to figure out how to follow it.

You hadn’t seen him all day.

And somewhere in your chest, the idea that he’d finally given up had lodged itself like a splinter. The relief that washed through you at the sight of him was nauseating.

He looked up when your footsteps stopped.

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Then, finally: "I’m sorry."

Sirius blinked. His expression shifted from surprise to something softer.

"For what?" he asked, sitting up straighter.

"I don’t know," you said honestly. "Everything. Pushing you. Making you wait around for someone who can’t promise anything."

You hesitated.

"I wish you could love someone with less complications."

He stared at you for a moment, like you’d just said the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. And then, suddenly, he laughed.

A real, full-bodied laugh. Like it startled even him.

You blinked, thrown off by the sudden bark of laughter that escaped him out of nowhere. "What?"

"If this were easy," he said, still laughing, "I’d think it was some grand prank. I’d assume Moony and Prongs were hiding behind a tapestry ready to jump out."

You snorted despite yourself.

"Merlin, you’re so stupid."

And then you kissed him. Not planned. Not careful.

Just raw.

You kissed him like you were terrified and desperate and alive. Like if the curse took you tonight, you wanted this to be your last memory.

He didn’t pull away. Just froze for a breath. And then he was kissing you back with that same terrified urgency.

You pulled away after a second, just enough to murmur: "Just in case I don’t wake up tomorrow."

Sirius cupped your face with both hands then, thumbs brushing under your eyes like he was trying to memorize them.

His voice was soft. So gentle it hurt.

"Don’t worry about tomorrow," he whispered. "You’re awake right now."

You nodded. But your lip trembled."I’m so scared of falling asleep."

There. You said it. Finally voicing out the thought that haunted you at night. Bags hung under your eyes from nights you desperately tried to stay awake.

Your dormmates have all tried their best to offer any help they could. The whole castle knew your predicament by now - nothing ever stays a secret at Hogwarts.

You appreciated them, but nothing helped.

And when you finally said it, he didn’t flinch.

He just pulled you in again. Wrapped his arms around you like he could protect you from the unknown. From the curse that ran through your veins, as old as your magic.

"I know," he said. "I’m scared too."

And then he kissed your temple. Your forehead. The corner of your mouth, he wished he could kiss every inch of you.

"Don’t worry, love," he murmured. "I’ll be here when you open those pretty eyes."

And the thing is, you believed him. Even if it still hurt.

Even if you still woke every morning unsure if you'd made it through the night or it was some dream you have landed into.

He was always there.

And slowly, you started reaching back.

They didn’t have forever - so they started pretending like they did.

By late February, your hand had found a permanent place in Sirius’s.

He joked that the skin might fuse together if you weren’t careful, and you’d laughed - really laughed - for the first time since you’d woken from that cursed sleep. He’d grinned like a fool then, pride blooming in his chest just for being the reason your shoulders weren’t tight with fear, just for chasing the shadow from your eyes, even for a moment.

You’d made it through March. Barely. Some days your legs dragged beneath you like your body already knew the sleep was coming. Some nights Sirius had to shake you awake from dozes you didn’t remember falling into. But you were still here. And so was he.

Hogsmeade in spring felt like a stolen miracle.

He took your hand outside Honeydukes, lifting it to his lips with a boyish smile. “So, what’ll it be, darling? Chocolate frogs or a full day of snogging behind the Shrieking Shack?”

You rolled your eyes. “If I die in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius Black, you better be ready to fight off some angry ghosts.”

He beamed. “Then it’s a date.”

You weren’t hiding anymore. He’d told everyone. James had fist-bumped you and said it was about time. Remus had congratulated you as well, making a sarcastic remark that "Pads can finally stop moaning about how much he wants you now that you can snog him into silence." Even Peter had hugged you with the kind of gentleness that meant he’d heard. That he understood.

And the pranks - oh, the pranks.

It started with your idea, actually. A tiny hex that made Filch’s boots click like tap shoes. The look on Sirius’s face when you suggested it - pure, lovesick awe.

“Marry me,” he said, half-joking.

You tilted your head. “Better wait until I survive the school year.”

The boys had welcomed you into their chaos without question. You were a natural. A little louder than James, a little sharper than Remus, and exactly Sirius’s brand of reckless.

When you came back one night covered in soot and giggling from a dungbomb gone wrong, Sirius tugged you close on the couch in the Gryffindor common room, kissed your temple, and whispered, “You’re brilliant, you know that?”

But he was the brilliant one. The constant. Every night, after curfew, he would draw the curtains of his four-poster and you would curl beside him. The other boys never said a word - not one complaint, not even a tease.

You were terrified to sleep alone. And they understood.

Some nights you fell asleep tangled together, his arms around your waist, your breath uneven against his neck.

Other nights, sleep wouldn’t come. You’d lie awake listening to his heartbeat and whisper nonsense into the dark. Sirius would hold you tighter, thumb brushing lazy circles into your spine.

And every single night, he would say, without fail:

“Tomorrow will come for you, love. For us. I’ll be here, handsome as ever when the sun rises.”

You pretended to believe it. Most nights, you even did.

April crept in like a thief. The scent of rain on stone, blossoms blooming beside the lake, the castle lit with gold and promise. Exams were approaching. So was the end.

So was the sleep.

And then - you didn’t wake up.

It was a Thursday.

You’d said goodnight. You’d kissed him. You’d whispered your usual lie: “See you in the morning.”

And then - nothing.

The Healers said it was the curse reasserting itself. That your body was fighting to stay, but the magic was older than any potion. There was no way to stop it. No one knew how long it would last.

Sirius didn’t move from the Hospital Wing for a week.

James brought food. Remus sat with him in the early mornings. Peter left chocolate frogs on the table beside your bed. But Sirius - he stayed. He barely slept. He wrote letters and folded them beneath your pillow. He spoke to you like you were just resting.

“You’re not gone,” he said one night, voice cracking. “You’re just late. You’ve always been late to things, remember? You’ll wake up and tell me I’m being dramatic.”

But you didn’t wake.

You missed the N.E.W.T.s. Missed the way Remus clutched his results in trembling hands. Missed James and Lily getting into a blazing row about the future and making up in the courtyard two hours later.

You missed the last Gryffindor breakfast, the daisy chain crowns, the class photo with everyone laughing too hard to stand still.

You missed graduation.

Sirius didn’t walk. He refused. Said he wouldn’t cross a finish line you hadn’t.

By July, he was different. Gaunt-eyed. Brittle-tempered. The war had begun - the real one - and he joined the Order like his blood was already boiling for vengeance.

But still, he wrote you letters.

He left them at St. Mungo’s when you were transferred there in August. Left chocolates, enchanted notes, silly doodles. He threatened the mediwitch who tried to call you a lost cause.

“She’s not gone,” he snapped. “She’s just waiting.”

And then - autumn came.

And you woke up.

The world smelled different. Crisper. More distant.

You were eighteen now. But the world had moved on without you.

Your body was slow to respond. Magic flickered in your hands but didn’t sing the way it used to. You blinked against the sterile light of St. Mungo’s, head pounding, heart aching.

And then the door opened.

Sirius stood in the frame.

Older. Sharper. Shadows under his eyes, jaw tighter, arms crossed like he’d forgotten how to relax. But still - him. Still yours. Always yours.

He stared at you for a moment like you were a ghost.

And then he was at your side, sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing your hair back with shaking fingers.

“You missed a war,” he said, voice rough.

You tried to smile. “Did we win?”

He didn’t answer that. Just leaned forward and pressed his forehead to yours.

“And I missed you,” he whispered. “Every damn day.”

You moved in together. Shared a flat with creaky floors and mismatched furniture, patched together like your hearts. You tried to build a life between sleep and fear - fleeting moments of normalcy suspended in the quiet before sirens, the hush before screams.

The flat became a fragile sanctuary. You lit candles during power outages and cooked dinner over the radio’s static updates. Some nights you danced in the kitchen just to remember joy. Other nights, you held each other in the dark, neither speaking, just listening to the wind press against the windows like a warning.

You kept a journal now - small and leather-bound, pages inked with memories of what you missed, what he told you, and what you dreamed when you were gone. You wrote down things like: his laugh this morning, like something untouched by war. Or: he said “stay safe” like he meant “stay alive.”

You lived like it might all vanish again. Because it would. Because war takes everything, even the things you think are untouchable.

You both tried to power through it, despite the raging war around you and the brewing danger that curled like smoke under your door. Each day was a risk. Each night, a relief.

You were worried for him - for the way his name appeared in whispered conversations, for the work he did in shadows. But you knew it was right. He was trying to change the story.

Sirius sometimes talked about stopping. Once, after a long silence over cold tea, he said quietly, almost ashamed, “I barely get enough moments with you, with all this happening - what if I just get less and less time?”

You reached across the table, grabbed his hand like it was the only steady thing in a world falling apart. You shook your head, firm. “No. You don’t get to give up. You’re fighting for a good cause. Let’s be on the good side of history when people look back on this time.”

His eyes searched yours - tired but still burning - and after a breath, he nodded. “You’re right. You always are.”

So you both joined the Order.

Not because you weren’t scared, but because you were. Because fear can hollow you or harden you - and you chose to fight.

Then one night, in a small and quiet gathering of Order members - tired, battle-worn, but still fighting to hold onto something human - Lily stood up.

She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and smiled - truly smiled, not the brittle one she'd worn through grief and fear, but something bright and real, like the girl she used to be before the war.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

For a moment, the room was still - stunned into silence. And then it erupted like spring breaking through frost.

James laughed so loudly it startled the portraits on the walls. He beamed like the sun - the kind of joy that doesn’t ask permission. Remus stood and clapped him on the back, his eyes glassy with tears he wouldn’t let fall. Sirius made a strangled noise, like a laugh and a sob at once, and buried his face in his hands.

When he looked up, his grin was crooked and wild. Peter smiled too, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes - there was something distant in his expression, like he was somewhere else entirely. You noticed. But you hadn’t been around long enough to know what was normal for Peter anymore, so you let it slide.

The Marauders buzzed with pride, their joy loud and golden, filling every dark corner of that war-battered room. Your found family, in all its ragged glory, clung to joy wherever it bloomed - because joy was a form of resistance too.

Later that night, after the toasts and the storytelling and the laughter worn thin from overuse, the others drifted away. Candles burned low. The room emptied, settling into silence.

That’s when Sirius pulled you aside.

He looked different in the low light - softer somehow. His usual fire had banked into something slower, more careful. There was a tremble in his hand as he reached for yours, not from fear, but from urgency.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” he said. His voice was low, stripped of bravado. “I don’t want to wait. Not with everything going on. Not with how time keeps. . . stealing you.”

Your heart caught. Because he was right. Every day was a borrowed page, every goodbye heavy with the question: will there be another? Will tomorrow really come?

He pulled something from his pocket - a ring, simple but quietly extraordinary. It shimmered like starlight, charmed with a magic that whispered permanence in a world that promised none.

“Marry me,” he said.

There was no speech, no preamble. Just those two words. And then more: “I know it’s selfish. I know you’re scared. But I don’t want anyone else. It’s you or nothing. It’s always been you.”

You opened your mouth, the beginnings of protest forming. You wanted to say he might regret it. That the war could tear you away, again. That love like this didn’t always get a happy ending, not with your curse anyway.

But he saw it all in your eyes and stopped you before the words could shape.

“All we have is now,” he whispered. “Say yes. Say yes while you’re here.”

And something in you - some quiet, aching truth - answered him before your lips did.

So you said yes.

You were so afraid but you said yes despite yourself and the clawing fear. Because love, in this world, wasn’t a promise. It was a defiance, and in some fairy tales, love is how you beat war.

Your wedding was held shortly after his proposal and it wasn't big at all.

There were no grand halls or gilded arches, no glittering lights or towering cakes. Just a windswept clearing in the woods near Godric’s Hollow, with wildflowers bowing in the breeze and magic humming softly through the air like it recognized something sacred.

Only friends were there - the people who mattered, who had bled and laughed and fought beside you. The ones who’d become family when bloodlines stopped meaning anything.

Remus officiated, because of course he did. He stood in worn robes, clutching a piece of parchment he barely needed to glance at, his voice steady despite the tremble in his hands. He kept it simple, heartfelt. There were no flowery vows, no overly rehearsed speeches - just truth spoken between people who knew how precious time had become.

Lily cried, openly, beautifully - tears glinting in the sunlight as she clutched James’s hand. James looked at her like she hung the stars, then raised a glass and made a toast full of wit and warmth, ending with, “To love that fights, even when the world’s falling down.”

Sirius kissed you like a vow, like he could stitch you into the present with just his mouth on yours. There was no audience in that moment, no war, no future - just the weight of his hands on your face, the steady rhythm of his heart beating beneath your palms. A promise sealed in the kind of silence that means everything.

Afterward, when the sky began to burn gold and purple at the edges, and laughter floated over shared food and spiked cider, you pulled him aside. Looked him in the eyes.

“Don’t regret this,” you said.

He smiled at you - not the cocky grin he gave the world, but something gentler, quieter. A smile made just for you.

“Never,” he said. “Not in any lifetime.”

And for a while, things were good. The war kept brewing but you stayed awake, greeting him like it's the best surprise every morning. Only, he greeted you now as his Wife.

Then Harry was born - tiny, wrinkled, and loud enough to shake the walls of the cottage with his arrival. The kind of scream that said, I’m here. I survived.

You were there. In the still-soft hours after, Lily handed him to you, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion and something fierce and unbreakable.

She placed him in your arms like it was the most natural thing in the world - like she was giving you hope in human form.

He was beautiful. Small fists curled in sleep, a shock of black hair, his father’s stubborn chin already making itself known. And those eyes - not James’s, but hers. Green and bright and knowing.

For a moment, you all forgot there was a war. Just long enough to believe in a future.

You and the Marauders became the babysitters.

It wasn’t official, but it was understood. Harry would grow up surrounded by magic and mischief and unbreakable love - even if the world outside was falling apart. You rocked him to sleep in Lily’s favorite chair, humming lullabies that didn’t quite belong to you.

Remus read him stories in soft, calming tones, changing his voice for each character until the baby would babble back in delight. Peter would bring sweets and toys, always a little awkward, like he was trying to earn a place in a world that had started to drift just beyond his reach.

And Sirius - Sirius made him laugh. Real, belly-deep baby giggles, the kind that echoed through the house and made even the darkest thoughts scatter for a while. He barked like a dog, of course. Poked his tongue out. Pulled ridiculous faces that turned Harry red with laughter and left James wheezing from the couch. Harry adored him.

One night, after the baby had worn himself out and fallen asleep curled in James’ arms, the fire crackling low and quiet in the hearth, Sirius turned to you. His hair was mussed from Harry’s tiny fists, and his smile was soft - the kind that only came out in quiet moments like this.

“He’s so bloody cute,” he whispered, watching the baby’s chest rise and fall. “I think I want one of my own.”

Your breath hitched.

The air felt too still, too sharp. “Sirius - ”

You didn’t have to finish. He saw it instantly - the fear blooming behind your eyes. Fear of the future. Fear of hope. Fear of losing again.

He reached for your hand, lacing his fingers through yours like he was anchoring you.

“It’s alright,” he said gently. “It’s just a thought. We don’t have to. I just. . . I love this. I love you. And I’d never let anything happen. You hear me?”

He touched your cheek then, eyes full of that same vow he’d made the day you married. “If you ever fell asleep again, I’d hold the world steady until you came back.”

You nodded, even as your heart clenched. Because that’s what Sirius Black did - he made impossible promises and meant every one.

And time passed. Quietly, quickly. Like a thief.

Then came the mission.

Just another assignment with the Order. Nothing you hadn’t done before. Nothing worth fearing, not really. But Sirius was tense. He lingered at the door, kissed your forehead too long. Held your hands like they were glass.

You kissed him that night, trying to lighten the mood, trying to be brave for both of you. “If I don’t wake for a while,” you whispered, smiling softly, “tell me you’ll wait again.”

He kissed you back like he was sealing a spell, like he could pour every ounce of magic he had into your skin.

“Always,” he said. “Tomorrow will come for you, love. For us. I’ll be here - handsome as ever - when the sun rises.”

It did not go well. You encountered a death eater and was severely hurt, still alive and fighting but through your fight to stay alive - you slipped into the darkness.

Tomorrow came, and you didn’t wake.

Not the next morning.

Not the next week.

Not when Lily and James were murdered in their home, his body in the hallway leading to the nursery, her body found crumpled over a crib that somehow still held a crying child.

Not when Sirius found them first. Not when he fell to his knees on the floor, screaming James’ name so loud it broke something inside him forever.

Not when Peter turned traitor and vanished in the smoke of his own destruction.

Not when Sirius was blamed - framed - and hunted like a beast. Not when they cornered him on that street and stripped him of everything.

Not even when they dragged him to Azkaban.

You didn’t stir.

He screamed your name in that prison cell. Whispered your promises to the cracks in the stone. Waited for the sunrise that never came.

And still, you didn’t wake.

Not until three years into his sentence, when the war was over, the dead buried, and the child orphaned.

You had promised to be there when the sun rose.

But this time, time didn’t keep its promise.

you left me no, you left me no choice but to stay here forever. . .

end. masterlist

[darsynia]

Saw the creativepromptsforwriting post...

I would like to place a order :)

Steve Rogers, MCU/reader is an avengers hero, #12 corner mouth kisses/maybe #57 trembling mouth kiss

I can't believe I let myself think I'd do UP TO 500 WORDS! Steve/Reader, fluffy AF coworker love declarations facilitated by one ginger cat named Kirk. 2,200 words <- OOPS.

Excerpt:

You powerwalk over to the door and pull it open right as you hear the repulsors make their ‘ready to fuck shit up’ noise. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“Oh look, you’re alive!” Tony says, completely unphased by your vehemence. “As your friend and teammate, let me save you both some time here: you--” he points to Steve “--need to tell her you’ve been making secret drawings of this woman’s every possible facial expression and you--” he points to you “--ought to let him know you stay after sparring sessions to hand-sew the rips in his suit. I’m talking before it’s laundered. Now, go kiss or something. Note how I didn’t say ‘go play with the pussy?’ That’s camaraderie. Stark out.”

With his verbal grenades expended, Tony grabs the door handle from your nerveless fingers and pulls it firmly shut.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Steve says in a stunned voice.

The Trouble With...

When you woke up this morning, you had a ground floor apartment and a pet cat. When you got back from your day of team training an hour ago, there was no cat to be seen, and your front door was cracked open to the apartment lobby.

A frantic call to your landlord revealed that they’d sent maintenance workers to finally fix the leaking toilet in your unit (with zero notice. Pepper Potts said she’s ‘on it,’ and you suspect your landlord won’t enjoy that experience one bit). 

The following sequence of events was where everything kind of fell apart.

You love your cat, and your first instinct was to call your teammate and training buddy, Steve Rogers. Your voice had been shaky during the call as you wandered the nearby alleys calling for Kirk and shaking his favorite earth-shaped cat toy. Steve asked twice as many questions as you even understood on the phone, until finally he said he would be right there to help out. You’d thanked him, bent over next to a dumpster, and sobbed.

Two minutes later, Tony Stark had flown in to use his HUD to search for small animal-shaped heat signatures. “Wow. That’s a lot of rats.”

Thor had sauntered up not long afterwards, Bifrost smoke still following his footsteps, but his ‘special cat whistle’ appeared to be inaudible to humans and cats. Not rats though, according to Tony.

Clint texted you a search grid diagram that had suspiciously blood-colored smudges on it, but before you could ask him about it, Nat sent the larger frame image of his lunch (BBQ wings) beside the printouts. “Don’t worry about him, I have some leads,” she’d told you.

By the time Steve showed up on his motorcycle in street clothes, you were completely overwhelmed, and you’d spent more time managing the feelings of your fellow Avengers than your own. As soon as you saw him approach on the bike, you let out a long sigh, pasted on a smile, and headed straight for your apartment building. You needed to feel safe and at home for the coming conversation.

As soon as you touched your own doorknob though, you realized something.

Was that maybe how Kirk felt too? Maybe for Kirk, the enemy of the week was the maintenance man who invaded the ‘ship’ of your apartment, and your cat wasn’t equipped with enough Dilithium Crystals, Phasers, or Tribbles to deal with it this time. When you had found the door open, you’d called out his name and rushed all over the place looking for him, but what if the sound of your voice just wasn’t enough for Kirk to trust that things were back to normal?

Steve’s arrival forgotten, you rushed into your apartment and tried to think of where Kirk’s ‘safe space’ would be. There was a damaged vent on the wall under the bed that he sometimes fiddled with--could he have finally broken it enough to go exploring? You were on your hands and knees setting one of his favorite treats on the floor next to the bed when Steve tapped gently on the door. 

“When I heard how upset you were on the phone call, I--”

Without thinking about the exact words, you blurted out, “Rogers, I love you, but you need to get out, right now. I think I found Kirk, but if there’s someone else here--”

You were so worried about your cat that you didn’t hear what he said in response.

*

You wake up on your side a few hours later on the floor, head resting on your pillow, with Kirk sleeping peacefully on the rug beside you. The bag of treats you’d grabbed to lure him from the vent in the wall is lying on the floor nearby, completely empty.

“Are you serious right now? Ginger cats, I swear to God.”

A judicious application of duct tape patches up the vent hole, so you head into the kitchen to make yourself some coffee. As the machine whirs to life, you unlock your phone to find multiple messages from each Avenger, all demanding to know if you are okay, if Kirk is okay, if you and Kirk are okay, if your landlord is around for a ‘casual conversation,’ and so on.

“Nope,” you say aloud, popping the ‘p’ for Kirk’s benefit. Of course, that’s when there’s a knock at your door.

It’s Steve, and he’s hovering like something happened during the disproportionate Assemble. “Hey, can I-- Well, first things fir-- Safe to assume you found your cat?”

“Yes, thank goodness” you say, ushering him in. He’s holding back, shifting from foot to foot, which is strange. You’ve held game and movie nights here before, and once or twice you and Steve had stayed up late afterwards talking, but now he’s acting like he’s never been here before. “Kirk went adventuring in the ductwork. I lured him out with treats, but he took so long I fell asleep on the floor.”

A lot of Steve’s tension drains away at that, and he smiles sheepishly. “Oh! So not answering any messages was-- Not that you have to, of course, that’s not what I--”

“Left my phone in the kitchen!” you say briskly, settling onto the couch so that Steve will be forced to sit out of innate politeness. “I just didn’t want to spook Kirk any more than he already was-- which reminds me, I’m sorry I snapped at you, or whatever. I don’t really--” 

“About that,” Steve interrupts, lurching a couple more steps into the living room.

“Are you okay?” you finally ask. He’d taken off his baseball cap when he walked in, and has been twisting it in his hands in an anxious way ever since. “Sit down?”

“Right, of course,” Steve says, sitting at the edge of the cushion at the far end of the same couch as you. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” Kirk takes that moment to hop up onto your lap, and you let the moment stretch out as you smile politely, hoping Steve will explain what his deal is. It doesn’t work. He is giving off intense ‘waiting for bad news at the ER’ energy, and you can’t take it anymore. “All right, soldier. Spill it.”

Steve laughs weakly, and just like that, the odd suspense drains away. “That obvious, huh? Okay.” He swallows.

That comparison to the ER is starting to feel more and more plausible. “Is... someone hurt and you’re afraid to tell me?”

Steve answers in a headlong rush. “You said you loved me. When you told me to get out of your bedroo-- apartment.”

Suddenly all the obstacles to saying those words for real just melt away.

“That’s because I do!" you whisper, your voice becoming more and more confident as you continue. "I didn’t mean to tell you like that, of course. It slipped out, easy as breathing--because it is. Easy, that is. To love you.” Ironically, your chest feels like you’ve been holding your breath for a couple of months. Kirk’s still on your lap, but his ears show his annoyance at yet another disruption.

“I never-- I’ve dreamed about thi-- Right.” Steve stops himself, stands up, and takes two big steps closer to you before sitting down again, sending your heart into a rolling gallop and Kirk off to an away mission. “I’m falling in love with you. I want to be honest about that.” His eyes trace your face over and over as if determined to etch this moment into his memory. “I kept telling myself it wasn’t right to fall for a teammate--”

“Or, you know, the symbol of all that’s good and right with the world in superhero form,” you tease.

Steve takes your hand, looking at into your eyes with all the sincerity in the world and says, “What’s good and right with the world is this, us. If you’re okay with finding out what that’s like, that is?”

His phrasing is confusing, but the sentiment behind it has you even more in love with him than ever. Steve starts to lift your hand up to his lips to kiss the back of it-- and a loud knock sounds on the door.

“Shoot!” he says, jumping to his feet. “I told Tony to come by if he didn’t hear from me. Because there might be something wrong, or--”

“Open up, one of your neighbors told me I bought a bad replica of the Iron Man suit and I’m feeling a powerful urge to prove them wrong!” Stark says, tapping on the door again.

You powerwalk over to the door and pull it open right as you hear the repulsors make their ‘ready to fuck shit up’ noise. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“Oh look, you’re alive!” Tony says, completely unphased by your vehemence. “As your friend and teammate, let me save you both some time here: you--” he points to Steve “--need to tell her you’ve been making secret drawings of this woman’s every possible facial expression and you--” he points to you “--ought to let him know you stay after sparring sessions to hand-sew the rips in his suit. I’m talking before it’s laundered. Now, go kiss or something. Note how I didn’t say ‘go play with the pussy?’ That’s camaraderie. Stark out.”

With his verbal grenades expended, Tony grabs the door handle from your nerveless fingers and pulls it firmly shut.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Steve says in a stunned voice.

Your body has forgotten how to multitask, so you alternate between taking delighted gasps of air and feeling your heart hammer halfway through your ribcage. “You've made sketches of me? I love your art. I was trying to work my way up to telling you that you haven’t been drawing enough.”

“I’m doing it all the time, it’s just you, so I couldn’t, you know. Let you see them.” Steve steps close, herding you against the door, one hand coming up to trace an incredulous caress along your hairline. “You’re insane. I smell terrible after those workouts.”

Bursting out laughing, you bury your head in his chest, feeling and hearing the joyful laughter he lets out along with you. Steve kisses your hair, then your temple, creating a pathway of small steps toward your lips, symbolic of the way your association with each other has grown. By the time he’s pressing a heated kiss at the corner of your mouth, you’re grasping at him with both fists, full of anticipation.

Steve abandons his earlier restraint and takes charge, as though the wait set him on fire and the only way to quench it is through tasting you. One hand grasps your hip firmly, pulling you close, and you tangle your hand into his hair, pouring all the daydreams and late nights of wanting him into this first moment of connection.

It’s many minutes later when he finally gentles the kiss and steps back, apologetically holding up his phone. “I don’t trust Tony to tell everyone he’s made contact,” Steve explains. He taps at the touchscreen keyboard, frowning at the times his large fingers hit two letters at once, while you try to gather all of your molecules into a cohesive version of yourself ala the Star Trek teleporter.

When he’s finally done, you drop a kiss on his bicep, grinning at the thrill that you can even do something like that, even in private. “Thank you. I’m all people’d out today, I should have answered some of the messages that I got, but I saw them and my brain turned off. I’m all out of spoons.”

He snaps his fingers and points at you. “I know this one. You wake up with 100 spoons or something, and you spend them on--”

“Hold on. You might wake up with 100 spoons, but we’re not all supersoldiers!”

“Fair enough. Speaking of which, I’m sensing you’ve nearly run out by now. Can I take you to dinner tomorrow?” 

He’s doing that thing with his eyes, the one where he’s warm and understanding and the perfect man for you and-- Steve clears his throat, and you realize you were staring. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I get to draw those, you don’t,” he smiles, then chivalrously takes your hand to kiss the back of it. “Seven sound good?”

You nod. Two minutes later your sitting on your couch screaming into a pillow, and Kirk hops up to meow at you.

“I’m all out of treats, dude. You played yourself!” Another mrrow. “Yeah, okay, yes. You did play an integral part in my current state of delirious happiness. I’ll get another bag tomorrow, k, K?” Kirk rubs up against your elbow, and you take that as a ‘yes.’ “You know what? I think I’m going to refer to my spoons as Tribbles from now on, in your honor.”

Just like his namesake, Kirk the cat does not seem to like this idea, but you’re busy in your own mental holodeck, reliving the last half hour with a lovesick grin.

[angelinthefire]

I thought it would be fun to talk about all the musical segments in season 2 of Arcane. Here's where you can find other posts.

"Hellfire"

So I know this is a controversial one, because it can be interpreted as "police brutality is kick-ass". And the sequence is absolutely very aesthetically cool. But I think the viewer is supposed to feel more ambivalent towards the strike team.

The gray is depicted as a monster, and strike team is equated with the gray. Monstrousness is a major theme in the show, and this is Vi and Caitlyn showing their monstrous side.

And then immediately we're shown medical diagrams. Making it clear that this can do some serious damage to people.

And then there's this bit:

Jinx's sillhouette is next to the fan. It gets sucked into the fan with the gray. Then the gray becomes Caitlyn's eye, and then she fires her gun and it's the gray again.

There's this motif of Caitlyn overlapping with Jinx, in her obsession with her.

On top of that, Caitlyn is being equated with the gray itself. The gray becomes her, then she becomes the gray. In a sequence that begins with her mother saying, "the people of the underground deserve to breathe."

Then Vi comes in, and it looks like an out-of-register print. Which looks cool, and communicates the impact. But also - it's out of register. It's misaligned, it's wrong.

Then there's the fact that when the strike team is beating people up, they're masked and faceless.

This is how you depict the bad guys. There's no connection to them as people. They're alien and inhuman-looking.

Even when they're destroying shimmer, they're faceless and inverted.

Again, showing something upside-down is what you do when you want to communicate that something is wrong.

Of course, they're not faceless the whole time.

When Loris is about to trip the booby trap, we see everyone's faces. The viewer isn't supposed to stop caring about these characters *entirely*, it still matters that one of them gets hurt.

I also think this is interesting:

When they're interrogating someone, Jinx's scribbles appear over Jinx's poster. In a scene that is largely from Caitlyn's POV. So is that how Caitlyn feels about Jinx? Is it symbolic of Jinx's presence hanging over them? I don't know.

And on the point of Caitlyn and Jinx overlapping:

Their eyes are the same colour. That's not the actual eye colour in the poster, it's coloured to be the same as Caitlyn.

Last thing is that Jinx looks so cool in the last bit. It looks so good.

But of course, that's not who Jinx is, or what she's like. It is a caricature. It's a flat image. It's not how the audience knows her at all. But that's how Caitlyn sees her, for obvious reasons.