#This + the ring shape of the Lands between make it seem like the world was once the 'pot' in which the Erdtree sprouted

[conjoinedpubes]

The Old Crucible

[14dayswithyou]

Meowdy Saint! ^^ What sort of havoc does Teo get into? Like besides smashing taillights.... aka... what am I going to see when Im stalking checking up on him?

✦゜ANSWERED: He's quite literally tied up in your closet right now...... I fear he's not doing much!! /silly

"Teo, I don't think this is legal..."

"Aw, don't get your panties in a twist, doll." Ignoring your words, Teo easily hoists himself over the chainlink fence and throws a casual look in your direction. "You're the one who said it was getting stuffy in the nightclub. Didn't you want to cool down?"

You glance between Teo and the empty public pool on the other side of the fence. "...I did. But this wasn't what I had in mind."

"No, but it's what I had in mind." Rolling his eyes at your hesitancy towards being rebellious, Teo throws a leg back over the fence once more and jumps off. He lands in his previous spot in the dirt with a grunt and offers you a hand. "C'mere. I'll help you over."

It takes one very large, noticeable moment before your feet start to move. Hesitancy is still thick in the air — and even in the forefront of your mind — but you somehow find it hard to say no to Teo when he's giving you those soft eyes and trademark smirk.

"C'mon. It'll be fine."

"We'll get in trouble." You manage to breathe out before you feel a pair of muscular arms around your waist. There's no time for you to react as Teo wordlessly hoists you over the fence and sits you atop the large steel bar that holds everything in place — before hoisting himself over as well.

However, he doesn't seem to wait for you to join him as the taller male takes a few steps toward the pool to suss everything out. And with a satisfied nod, he finally turns back to face you once more.

"We'll get in trouble?" With a scoff, he crosses his arms over his broad chest — making a point to flex his muscles and cock out his hip. "By who? That broken diving board?"

With an eye roll, you push yourself from the fence and jump down. "I don't know, but the... authorities... or something!"

"Don't see anyone around. Just you and me here, doll."

"W-Well... What about the cameras?" Even with nothing but the moonlight to illuminate your surroundings, you can still make out the shape of something circular in the corner of the main building.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot about those." Teo drawls as he begins to tug off his shirt. "Then we should probably give that lucky security guard a show, huh."

"Are you serious?!" You purposefully look away once he starts to remove his belt buckle. Suddenly, the questionable stain on the concrete was far more interesting than your half-naked companion. "No way!"

The sounds of something metallic hitting the floor ring in your ears before more rustling follows... Until the obnoxious sounds of water splashing everywhere drown out Teo's laughter and the rapid beating of your heart.

"Aw, you feelin' shy?" Teo's teasing lilt can be heard from somewhere within the pool as you fight the urge to look in his direction. "Gonna cry? At least let me see it."

At that, you whip your head and send him a sharp glare. It's your turn now to cross your arms over your chest, but Teo doesn't seem to acknowledge it with the way he dives back into the water and sloshes around without a care in the world.

Admittedly, it did look like he was having fun — and the droplets from all his splashing did feel nice against your bare skin.

But when your silence finally kicks in and makes itself known towards the dark-haired man, he turns to you with a serious expression and ceases his antics.

"If you really don't wanna be here, then I'll drive you home." Teo mentions offhandedly, "But the water's nice 'n cool. You're honestly missing out, dollface."

Not that you'd ever admit it out loud, but Teo did look all sorts of breathtaking as he casually waded through the water. His wet, tanned skin was glistening underneath the moonlight, and it was one of the rare occasions where he'd slick his hair back to give you the perfect view of his grey eyes — which seemed to be staring back at you with an intimate gleam to them.

Choking out a stutter, you try your best to brush it off by perching yourself on the ledge and dipping your feet into the pool.

"People have probably peed in here, y'know." You kick a bit of water in your companion's direction, but he easily brushes it off and splashes you back with his hand. You don't miss the way Teo fully turns his towards you, nor how he seems to be slowly inching his way closer to your spot by the edge of the pool.

"We can do something more indecent in here if you're up for it."

"Teo!" Your voice raises a few octaves, though you don't show any other signs of protest. "Don't you have your own pool, anyway?"

"Aw, where's the fun in that? Don't you wanna experience a new kind of thrill every once in a while?"

"..."

You despised the fact that he was right. Perhaps one of the main reasons you often found yourself drawn to Teo was because of how much excitement he brought into your life. Sometimes, it was nice to break the cycle of monotony... And Teo just so happened to be one of the very few people who could do that for you.

With a resigned sigh, you glance back at Teo and move to take off your shirt.

"See? Knew there was a reason I kept you around." He gives you a genuine smile this time, but you were too preoccupied with discarding your clothing somewhere safe to notice it. "This is why you're more fun than the others."

Teo swims closer to your side now — close enough to rest against the ledge and cage your thighs with his muscular arms. And had you chosen to look down at him, you would've noticed the soft look in his eyes and the faint blush on his cheeks.

"...Thanks for indulging me all the time."

[sillovn]

Marika, Messmer and the Hornsent World

OK, finally collected and wrote up SotE lore thoughts. Specifically, want to talk about godhood and details of Marika’s ascension. There's a lot to cover...

1. Divinity and Order

Godhood and the Elden Ring now appear to be entirely separate concepts (though it’s still likely that only gods can use the Elden Ring). Ascension to godhood seems related to accessing a skyward divine paradise, the ‘Higher Spheres’ as the Grandam states. Meanwhile, the Elden Ring appears to “only” be a tool a god uses to create Order.

This is significant, as it now appears that Marika is the first god in many ages (possibly ever) to wield the Elden Ring. The pre-Erdtree Hornsent make no reference to it in their belief systems or visual culture. Her ascension thus represents a major shift in the world’s history, rather than simply being the passing of ages (which was a fair idea pre-SotE).

As a side, SotE also introduces a new class of divinity; the ‘Old Gods’ who seem to be long buried and gigantic in size. The single known weapon related to them appears inspired by IRL stone-age arrow points? (Yes, I know it’s referred to as meteoric ore. But AFAIK, the practice of using meteoric metal seems to predates the ‘formal definition’ of metal ages.)

2. What is the Original Sin?

It is something kept in the Land of Shadow and then what? Marika’s Gold-Shadow creation event would make thematic sense as the Original Sin, again lending credence to the idea that Marika represents a significant break with tradition.

Its notable that Enir-Ilim remains untouched by the razing of the surrounding country, also it was already shadowed at the time of the crusade. As others have stated, there’s an intentionally concealed past here.

3. Marika and the Hornsent

There is a specific relationship here – abandonment and betrayal (ie. Marika was known to the Hornsent and they expected her to uphold something). This is to say that narratives where Marika is ‘a survivor who slipped away and returned with vengeance’ don’t add up.

Instead, Im going to suggest that Marika’s godhood was supported by the Hornsent. Firstly, Enir-Ilim is held by the Hornsent to this very day, Marika ascends using their rituals and Divine Gate. Next, note the religious similarity between the Hornsent and Marika.

Tree Worship and accompanying ideas (gold is holy, sap blessings, fear of Fire Giants).

Note how compared to the present day Erdtree, the Scadutree is a physical sap-dripping tree.

Crucible worship (fades away in the Erdtree faith over time)

Jar Sacrifice. The Hornsent create Saints, the Erdtree followers use gladiators to make gargoyles (again, fades after Godfrey)

Shared motifs with dual meaning (punishment vs. fertility). Barbs vs. Arcs, Crucifixion vs. Dripping sap.

Marika’s braids and jewelry are spirals

Point Im trying to make is that the Erdtree religion is an evolution from the Hornsent one – especially when considering the initial ‘Age of Plenty’ of Marika x Godfrey.

Maliketh’s existence also complicates any idea where Marika and the Hornsent were enemies from the start. A Shadow is tasked with safeguarding their Empyrean; Marika’s only use for Maliketh was to seal Destined Death, suggesting the path to the Divine Gate had little resistance. Lastly there is also no mention of any Hornsent divine candidate, so consider – it was always meant to be Marika. As you can imagine, this changes the relationship between Marika and the other Shamans significantly (but note how Godwyn’s assassins were Numen).

So, what did the Hornsent want out of their god? Perhaps it was the ability control the Elden Ring?

The Scadutree’s asymmetrical shape is blamed on a lack of ‘capital O’ Order. The Elden Ring as is known, can be used to create Order. I bring this up because there is a symmetrical ‘Spiral Tree’ motif that appears in Hornsent culture.

Did the Hornsent plan to create a god because the Scadutree failed to achieve its prophesized form? Was the hope that Marika would succeed with a new order-infused tree? If true, then the Serosh-Godfrey conflict was likely about claiming the Elden Ring from Farum (note; you can find Crucible Knights and Beastmen fighting there).

The elephant in the room for this theory is whether Marika was ever subject to the Jar-Saint ritual? It certainly gives a neat explanation for Radagon’s origin (a Lord is needed for a god to incarnate, and Marika stands alone at her own ascension). I don’t have a good answer, but (as stated earlier) we can rule out ideas where violence was forcibly inflicted on Marika. This leaves 2 options…

Marika was the only Shaman never put in a jar. She rose to power off the sacrifice of her kin.

Marika willing chose the jar. Which sounds completely insane, but religious ordeals seem commonplace in pre-Erdtree religion (see. Curseblades, Lamenters, Tutelary Deities).

4. Messmer’s Crusade is later historical event

Consider the following.

Messmer is familiar with Tarnished as a concept

Messmer is a demigod, but has no Great Rune

Messmer’s relationship (in terms of seniority) to Rellana, Gaius and Radahn

Messmer’s army includes troops that are standard of later eras; Perfumers, Omenkillers, Tree Sentinels, Abductor Virgins and various Carian troops. Which could be over-interpreting game-assets, but eh?

Ritual combat exists in the Land of Shadow

This is to say; Messmer’s Crusade occurs after Godfrey’s exile, but not too far into the Marika-Radagon era.

If revenge was the motive, why wait for the passing of an entire age and the exile of the land's foremost military leader?

5. Messmer’s Crusade is about Purity

Its explicitly stated that Messmer’s Crusade was about purity (see. Crusade Insignia, Queelign and the various ghosts). With regard to the timeline above; the rationale for exterminating the Hornsent is simply the emerging Crucible taboo put into action (see. Crucible Talismans). This also explains why the Hornsent were not attacked during the Godfrey era.

So what changed? Perhaps Radagon returning to Marika created Golden Order Fundamentalism and all its present-day taboos?

In fact, the crusade as a whole seems to be a bloodbath between the Golden Order’s rejects - Messmer the serpent, Gaius the Albinauric and the Crucible worshipping Hornsent.

Couple more points...

Prejudice vs. Albinaurics might be an emerging opinion at this time, Gaius is both second in command but also a subject of mockery.

Messmer and the crusade are such a dishonor in Leyndell that it is later covered up. Again, if the motivation was to avenge Marika, then why such attitudes?

Belurat does not have a standing army. Sure, the tower has guards, but Ritual Dancers had to be repurposed to fight the invaders.

What Im saying here is; rather than being a foreign nation, Belurat was simply a city within Marika’s empire. Purged for practicing the ‘old ways’ (ie. Crucible worship).

6. Messmer’s Curse?

What is the Abyssal Serpent? What is Messmerfire? Other than the general Erdtree taboo, each of the other ‘flames’ have a distinct property (both in gameplay mechanic and lore) - Blackflame can kill divine beings, Frenzied Flame melts anything into primordial elements.

Messmerfire has a unique aesthetic, and that’s it?

7. A Tower to Heaven

Some ideas about the nature of Divine Ascension.

As per SotE; there seems to be an implication that the sky above holds a tangible divine paradise; the ‘Higher Spheres’. Ascension to godhood quite literally involves reaching into heaven via. Divine Gate.

The building of a Divine Gate also seems to merely be the final step in the process, establishing a connection between Higher Spheres and the mortal world.

Enir-Ilim provides a template to how the whole process might have worked. Firstly, the Divine Gate must be positioned to reach the sky – in the case of the Hornsent, a tower was used (though there might be other options). Vast amounts of sacrifices are also needed, potentially related to the earlier point as throughout Enir-Ilim, architecture is blended with bodies (are corpses used to make buildings fly?). Given that the Divine Gate continues to function at present, long after becoming petrified; Id’ argue that the sacrifice was about creating said gate, rather than a repeated ritual necessary for achieving divinity. I think it’s also safe to say that the main reason for making Jar-Saints was to provide said sacrifices.

The main point however, is that this ‘Corpse Architecture + Sky’ template can be found in 2 other instances – Farum Azula and The Eternal Cities.

This is not a comment on timeline, just shared goals in creating divinity. In Farum Azula’s case, it suggests that the city has always been airborne, flying due to the numerous Dragons and Beastmen entombed within the city (as opposed to meteor aftermath). Also note that Maliketh’s room (which holds a depiction of the Elden Ring and a statue of an unknown woman) sits at the top of a vast spiral stair where the lower part has since been lost.

As for the Eternal Cities? They seem to be attempting divine ascension without finger influence (see. Fingerslayer Blade), with the sky and lord both being ‘created’. Recalling the Nox-Numen-Black Knife-Marika connection, the Eternal City version of this ritual might very well be direct response to Marika’s own ascension.

8. Great Chain of Being

Next, I want to talk about the nature of the paradise. Rather, the idea that Paradise, The Crucible and the Primeval Current are elements within a larger system (if not entirely synonymous).

SotE gives a glimpse into the Crucible’s appearance: it’s an outpouring of ‘golden stuff’ (see. Divine Bird Feathers) that can be stabilized into a spiral column that links gods and humans (see. Spira). With this in mind, take note of the form of Elden Stars. Compare with the creation account (both Ymir and Hyetta versions); The Greater Will fractures the One Great, spilling stardust (carrying life and souls) across space.

Sure, this is *very handwavy*, but one can imagine a cosmology where life is carried in stardust (Primeval Current), reaches physical worlds and pours from sky to earth (Crucible current, also Bird Warriors are closest to the Crucible). A chain linking back to the very origin of all things.

As commonly noted, ER is known to homage old ideas with regards to philosophy/science. Consider here the ‘Great Chain of Being’, an idea that classifies things on a descending scale of God>Angel>Human>Animal etc. Under this classification scheme, a chain/ladder motif is used to depict these relationships (see. Spira), but more importantly; Angels are thought of as beings of pure spirit (more on this below).

Usual disclaimer that history is not my expertise.

9. God Incarnates

Given the Divine Gate does not seem to lead anywhere physical, are the Higher Spheres a realm of pure spirit? The Sculpted Keeper custom (incl. Lion Dancers, Bird/Beast Warriors) involves the invoking/possession of mortal beings by spirits from the Higher Spheres. The whole practice of horn cultivation exists to enable this.

Going further back in time, the Rauh society had a practice of carving stones to act as homes for spirits. Rauh also seems associated with Golems, Ruined Forges and Divine Towers (details on this culture are for another time) 

You could argue that invoking divinity is the connection across time between Rauh, the Hornsent and then finally Marika.

The passage of history is: God inhabits a statue (Idols), God can be channeled (Mediums), God walks among man (Messiah).

----

Thanks for reading.

[french-unknown]

𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖒𝖊

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖘: luffy, zoro, nami, usopp, sanji, robin 𝖈/𝖜: fluff, domestic 𝖜/𝖈: 2.6k +

| m a s t e r l i s t | - | p t . 2 | - | p t . 3 | | e v e n t . s u m m a r y |

𝖑𝖚𝖋𝖋𝖞

trick and treat

Attracted by all the lights on in the residential area of the island, you approached them with Luffy.

To your great astonishment, there were a large number of children wandering between the different houses in different costumes, more or less frightening. You were confused to see so many children outside at that hour. And above all, without supervision. However, after all the islands you had visited, the costumes didn't surprise you that much.

You then fixed your gaze on a particular group who went up to the steps of the house to your right.

They knocked on the door, and when a woman opened the door, they said "trick or treat" as they handed out each of the containers. Then, much to your confusion, the woman laughed before taking out a bag of candy which she shared among the children. As if it were perfectly normal to give candy to a group of costumed children who ring the doorbell after dark. You stayed where you were while the woman closed the door and the children left for the next house.

The same process began again.

On every street corner, with all the groups of children, everything happened the same way. Always with the same sentence.

Trick or treat?

As you glanced next to you to talk to Luffy about it, you noticed that he had also disappeared. You looked around in panic and ended up finding him alone at the entrance to a house a few meters from you.

You could only run toward him at the same moment he knocked on the door.

A woman came out as you reached him. She looked at you strangely and looked you up and down.

"Trick or Treat?" the black-haired boy almost yelled.

"Aren’t you too old for candy hunting?" She asked, perplexed.

"We’re never too old for candy!" Luffy declared with a laugh.

Faced with the innocence of the response, as well as the relaxed behavior of your partner, the woman also relaxed and laughed in turn. She seemed to be more comfortable.

"And what are you dressed in?" she questioned happily as she pulled out a bag of sweets from her back.

Immediately, Luffy took his straw hat off his head in order to turn it upside down and hold it out towards the woman as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"As pirates, ma’am!" He responded with good humor.

"You should improve your disguise, then." She laughed. "You two don't really look like them. You're not scary enough!"

"We're not this kind of pirates." He retorted.

The woman then stepped back before closing her door, not without greeting. Luffy then took your hand and walked away as well, waving.

You spent the rest of your evening being pulled from house to house by an excited Luffy who couldn't hold still at the thought of having more candy. He wasn't your lover anymore, just a little boy.

𝖟𝖔𝖗𝖔

haunted castle

It was evening, and night would soon fall.

However, thanks to a certain swordsman whose sense of direction equated with his abstinence, you found yourself at the exit of a dark and foreboding forest, looking at a gothic castle that seemed anything but welcoming. Nervously, you passed the large black wrought iron gates that demarcated the land and thus entered the gardens that surrounded the fortress.

Everything was fallow and unmaintained. The shrubs and bushes were in random shapes while the grass was tall and lush. The trees were so gnarled that you wondered if it was really normal. The winding sandy walking paths didn't make you want to venture into the plots either.

However, what terrified you the most was the feeling of being observed from the moment you went through the gates.

Unfortunately, the boot prints you saw in the sand—made obvious by the lack of other marks—forced you to move forward into the green space of the property. At first, you huffed loudly but you still went anyway.

You followed the footprints, eyes glued to the ground because of the fear, praying to find Zoro as quickly as possible.

Around you, you heard the vegetation rustling with its branches, leaves and thorns clashing. And this even if there was no wind. Furthermore, despite the abundance of shelter for animals, you heard no birdsong or rabbit footsteps. You understood that an October evening was not the most favorable but you still found it quite suspicious in such a lush environment for animals.

Something cold then touched your hand.

You jumped so hard that you felt the tension in your neck go down to your shoulders. A shiver of fear ran through your entire body and goosebumps immediately covered your arms without you being able to do anything.

Yet, when you looked at where the contact was coming from, there was nothing.

You wanted to leave.

From there, you started trotting to find Zoro and you finally found him walking between two bushes. Hands in his pockets, he walked quietly. You immediately jumped on him to ask him how he ended up there.

"I wanted to see if there was anyone in the castle to offer me a drink but I can’t get out of the garden." he explained naturally.

Suddenly, a child's laughter was heard behind you and when you turned around, there was nothing.

You immediately grabbed the swordsman's hand and towed him towards the exit. You ran as fast as you could with fear coursing through your veins as well. You were so scared that you were convinced that, if he put up the slightest resistance, you would have been ready to knock him out so you could drag his unconscious carcass out of there.

When you passed the gates, you didn't stop and continued to rush towards the boat.

𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖎

horror movie night

You and Nami were the only two who were assigned to guard the Sunny during this stopover. And the navigator wanted to spend the evening watching a movie.

What Nami wanted, Nami got!

So she convinced Sanji to keep the ship for a few more hours and took you to the nearest town to find a movie rental store. As soon as you entered the shop, you were immediately intrigued by the simplicity of the store. There was a desk, where a paunchy man was reading, as well as two shelves full of binders whose spines were annotated with words such as "romance", "detective" and "autobiography".

To your greatest amazement, Nami went straight to the one marked "horror".

You tried to hold her back at first but she avoided your hold and opened the binder. She flipped through the pages. You then noticed that, on each page, there was the title of a film with its summary and its official poster. But all these images of blood, killers and weapons made you a little uncomfortable.

"Um...Nami?" you called her.

She muttered in response, too busy reading the synopses.

"I’m not sure about the horror movie?" You continued, unsure.

"Come on!" She said, looking up at you. "I really want to see one. And then, if you're afraid, you can just snuggle up against me!"

The idea of being able to cuddle up to the girl you've been crushing on for a while made you shut up for good. You had been looking around for a few months but nothing had come of it yet. Still on cloud nine, you didn't follow when she retrieved one of the papers that interested her before bringing it to the man behind the counter.

When you reconnected with the outside world, the man came back from the back room with a Den Den Mushi who had probably already recorded the desired film.

"It’s 1,000 Berry to rent the Cameko. Do you have anything to project?" he asked then, facing Nami who shook her head, and he returned with another snail even bigger. "It's 1,000 more for the Proko that goes with it. That will, therefore, be 2,000 Berry. They must be returned in good condition and their care is your responsibility for the entire duration of the rental."

Nami tried to bargain, and when she reached a price she thought was fair, she paid the man so that you could finally leave with your two Den Den Mushi.

Arriving on the ship, you found Sanji waiting for you to leave and he had prepared hot chocolates for you as well as snacks. So you both settled into the beds in the women's quarters, warm under the covers, with your hot chocolates and snacks.

Nami started the movie and you spent the night pressed together, shaking in fear.

𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘 SOURCE | onepiece.fandom.com - Den Den Mushi - The Cameko (カメコ, Kameko, VIZ: "Cam-snail") are baby Visual Den Den Mushi who have yet to gain the ability to display signals from other Visual Den Den Mushi. They are able to store images and videos, as well as transmit them as signals to their adult form, the Proko. - The Proko (プロコ, Puroko, VIZ: "Pro-snail") are an older Visual Den Den Mushi that have gained the ability to receive signals emanating from the Cameko, while simultaneously projecting and disseminating the visual content captured by the Cameko onto larger video displays either via wires connected to a display or by using their eye to project the light.

You just found my 1st Easter Egg!

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐞! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ (・º. • )

𝖚𝖘𝖔𝖕𝖕

pumpkins carving

"Mine is better." Usopp declared confidently as he wielded his scraping tool.

The two of you were sitting face-to-face, cross-legged, on the floor of his workshop. An old blanket was under your buttocks to protect the floor. Between you stood a dozen tools of all kinds, ranging from knives to scrapers to markers as well as, most importantly, two large pumpkins.

It had been at least an hour since Usopp came back with a pumpkin under each arm and asked you to dig one with him. You immediately jumped at the opportunity and, very quickly, this whole experience had turned into a competition.

Who would make the best Jack-o'lantern?

As soon as you had started gutting them—keeping the parts removed so Sanji could cook them, obviously—the sniper was already taunting you. He talked to you about ratios and measurements so that the eyes and mouth were perfectly proportioned to the size of the food.

But you preferred to go by instinct with your marker and your imagination.

Throughout the process, you saw him trying to cheat to see what your Jack-o'lantern looked like from trying to kiss you to peeking into or waiting for you to go to the toilet to go to your side of the blanket. Even after a few strokes with the spatula, he was still trying approaches.

Finally, after two intensive hours of pumpkin carving and with a sticky floor and hands, the Jack-o'lanterns were finished.

Then came the time to decide between you.

Obviously, you each voted for your creations so, to find out the winner, you asked the entire crew to vote for their favorite pumpkin. Unfortunately, the votes didn't help because, after four more votes from each side, you were still tied.

It was only when Sanji called a truce for the meal that you stopped bickering.

Despite this, when evening came, the little arguments were back. So you were still bickering when you were getting ready for bed and then when you were in the bed itself. When you were both exhausted, you decided to declare both winners as well.

Satisfied, you lay down comfortably to sleep. And there, in the crook of his arms, with the warm blanket covering you and his smell of gunpowder surrounding you, he kissed you on the forehead before whispering to you in the dark.

"Mine was better."

𝖘𝖆𝖓𝖏𝖎

winter dessert cooking

The kitchen of the Thousand Sunny was exceptionally mess-like.

Ingredients and dishes were lying all over the counter and it was mainly your fault. Whether it was the pot of honey that wasn't put away, the flour that you had unintentionally sprinkled outside of the bowl or the whisks and spatulas that were lying here and there, it didn't at all resemble Sanji's clean habits.

However, for the moment, he didn't really care.

For him, cooking deliciously smelled of honey and spices. His discerning nose even detected slight traces of citrus and vanilla. Besides, what mainly occupied him was you, in an adorable apron—at his request—who was stirring the dry ingredients in the bowl while keeping a nervous eye on the pan on the stove.

"It’s boiling!" You exclaimed hastily. "Sanji! It's boiling!"

"Pour the liquid into the bowl, then." He laughed at your disheveled but still adorable appearance.

You then rushed to the pan to put out the fire before carefully lifting it to pour its contents into your first container. Then you put the pan down and started stirring again.

"Sanji!" you called him. "There are lumps."

"Stir more." he replied, still leaning on the counter next to you to admire you.

But, instead of stirring more, you suddenly let go of the whip before turning towards him. In passing, you collected a small handful of flour which you threw at him meanly on his own apron. You rested your hip on the counter and crossed your arms before looking into his eyes.

"If I asked to cook this with you," you began."it was to cook WITH you. Not for you to stand and watch me."

At your sulking tone, Sanji just laughed lightly, even though inside he was exultant to see you pouting. So he approached you, smiling, and took your place in front of the bowl to start mixing again for you. Satisfied to finally see him working, you stayed by his side to watch him whip skillfully.

"Amour, can you get me the melted butter, please?" He asked, looking at you. When you returned with the requested ingredient, he temporarily stopped his task to lean towards you and kiss you gently. He finally pulls away from your lips after a short while. "Thank you."

And he mixed the butter with the preparation and poured everything into a dish that he handed to you. He then opened the oven and watched you put the gingerbread in the oven. Once he closed the door, he came up behind you to place kisses on your neck.

"We have 20 minutes of cooking time," he explained to you. "Any ideas for what to do until then?"

𝖗𝖔𝖇𝖎𝖓

exploring graveyards

When Robin had asked you earlier in the evening to get ready because she was taking you on a date, you had been ecstatic. You had imagined a walk in a romantic place, a meeting at the library or even, let's be crazy, a restaurant.

Yet, now that you found yourself walking with her through a cemetery, you were starting to regret it a little.

"I'm not sure we're allowed to just wander around here, Robin." You tried, hoping it would get you out of there.

She looked at you.

"It’s not like they’re going to come and complain to anyone." She answered you, smiling.

You smiled back at her even if yours was somewhat shaky. While you were uncomfortable walking around in the middle of the night, with no one around except your partner, among the graves of people you didn't even know, Robin seemed to be peaceful.

Happy even.

So you didn't dare say anything more and you simply took her hand before moving closer to her. But, while her discreet smile on her lips and her almost sparkling eyes told you that she was happy to be there, she said nothing. Not a single word to distract you from the unromantic or even terrifying setting.

The hooting of an owl above you made you jump.

As Robin chuckled at your leap, you asked her why she wanted to come here.

At first, you had simply asked the question to break the silence—and to make her forget your startle—but, as soon as she started to answer you, you were glad you had asked.

In fact, she then began to tell you that she was looking for the tomb of a very well-known researcher in the world of archaeology. Since she started, she continued by telling you what research he had carried out and how it had advanced her study circle. A soft, enjoying smile curled her lips as she spoke quietly and her eyes shone with her passion for history.

You then drank in her words as she focused on her interest in studying skeletons and what it could teach her about the person's life as well as the society that surrounded them before their death. She continued her speech throughout your visit to the cemetery to the point where, when she finally wanted to leave a few hours later, you had not noticed the time had passed.

You had been captivated.

𝖘𝖊𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖙𝖔𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖜!

𝖏𝖔𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖎𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖉𝖔𝖓'𝖙 𝖜𝖆𝖓𝖙 𝖙𝖔 𝖒𝖎𝖘𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖞 𝖚𝖕𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖊

𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙: @iheartamora @bontensh0e @opchara @idsmash717 @lys-ada @xomingyu @parkyrr @yasmiinberkaa @dozcan123 @anotherproblemsos

[gretavanmoon]

an omnipresent force• ch 1

Chapter 1- DARK PHENOMENON

Jake x reader (we'll get there... I promise)

Words: 10.5k

A/N: Semi-AU// Set six years in the future, the world has decided to cast humankind aside, starting with the poisonous entities that are destroying her the most.

Warnings: Dystopian Horror Cursing, Smoking, Mention of Alcohol, Feelings of Fear and Uncertainty, An Apocalyptic World, Hunting, Violence (mention of firearms), Looting, Kidnapping, Wounds and Pain, Blood, Death & Dying, Burials, Lying, Deceit, Sadness

enjoy my dabbling in the sci-fi world

•

Cheatham County, Tennessee 2030

Y/N

It feels like only yesterday that I noticed that the hillside beside my garden seemed as if it had taken on a different shape, the sycamore tree perched at the foot of it tilted and stretching way lower than it normally did. I squinted in question at the sight, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me. The day was chilly and windy but the sun still shone, casting late-evening shadows across the garden ground. ‘Strange,’ I’d thought to myself as I realized. ‘A sinkhole?’ 

I stood from my knelt position, wiping my hands against one another as I cleared the dirt from them.

I wasn’t wrong, the ground was sunken and almost rutted, almost as if it had quietly shrunken itself down five or six feet sometime throughout the day. When my toes poked up to the edge of it, I backed away quickly, realizing that the ground could potentially give way again at any second, and take me right along with it. The wind had picked up as I skipped backward, putting as much distance as I could between it and me. A strange type of fear had taken over my body, one that I’d never felt before. ‘Sinkholes don’t happen here, do they? Don’t they normally occur in sea-level land, or near river beds where the bedrock is weakest?’

Hell, I didn’t know for sure. I’d never seen a sinkhole in real life before, nor had I ever really done much research on them. I made my way back inside as a light drizzle began to coat my face, letting the door slam behind me with the vacuum pull of the wind mixed with my open windows. I sat down at my kitchen table, pulling my phone from the charger as I searched up my grandfather’s contact. 

I pulled the phone to my ear and listened to the tone ring out, and his gruff voice greet me on the other end. 

“Evening, youngin’! What are you wastin’ time with today?” he joked. 

A smile cracked across my face. “Nothing, Papaw… was just cleaning up the dead weeds from the garden. Hey, I noticed something out in the yard, I think I have a sinkhole…”

I heard him inhale his cigarette smoke. “A sinkhole? How in god’s name…? You sure, youngin’?”

“I’m positive. Look, I’ll send you a picture.” I turned my phone and snapped a quick few photos out the kitchen window, showing the land he knew just as well as I did, and how it now sat very, very differently. “There. Should be coming through, now.”

I listened as he puffed his cigarette again and clicked around on the screen of his phone, still very uncomfortable with the thing, and why it was really necessary in his life. “Hell’s fire, you’re right. When’d you notice it?” he asked. 

I sat back down in my kitchen chair, crossing one leg over the other as I peered up at the ceiling. “Just… Now…” My voice trailed off as I inspected the ceiling and wall in front of me, seeing that a giant crack had formed right along the load-bearing wall in the center of my small home. “Damn, Paps, there’s a crack in my wall, too…”

Suddenly, I felt panicked, standing up to run my hand along the fracture. It was big, almost a centimeter thick, all the way from the floor to the ceiling. 

“You’re kiddin’ me. Go downstairs, go to the basement, see if there is a crack there…” he ordered, so I did. I kicked the old paint cans to the side as I rounded off the bottom step of my basement, trying to make sense of where the floor would line up with the walls above me. Sure enough, there it was, the old stone foundation that was holding up the footers of my little home had begun to collapse, sinking down into the ground right in the center of it all. 

“Shit, it’s here, too. It’s bad, Paps, what do I do?!” I panicked, looking around for something as if I could prop it all back up. 

“Get everything that you can, all your valuables, sis. Pack it all up and come here. Come stay with me and your Gran. Don’t be afraid, just be aware. I’ll call your Daddy and tell him what’s happened. Me and him and your brother will come out and assess it once’t this rain passes.”

I felt as though my chest was starting to heave, the sudden mind-bending fear that my whole home was going to cave in on itself and crush me now scaring me more than anything I’d felt in a long, long time. “Okay, okay I’ll be there soon. Thanks, Paps,” I said as I hung up the phone, making sure to snap another few quick photos before I dashed back up the stairs in search of my suitcase. 

Little did I know that that would be the last time I would ever set foot in my tiny little cottage, the first home I ever had after I moved from my parents’ in Nashville after college. I’d bounced from apartment to apartment before I finally moved back out to the country to be near my grandparents. The cottage was tiny, and it wasn’t much, but it was mine. I’d stayed single for the majority of my life, never settling on any one man, finding flaws in damn near all of them that I brought home with me. I was 32 at the time, and settling down into a relationship or marriage was the absolute furthest thing from my mind. I’d cherished that home, filling it with antiques and spice racks and multicolored lace curtains… transforming it into the home I had always wanted while maintaining my steady work-from-home career. 

I remember my head spinning like a top as I packed up my valuables… my laptop and my important paperwork, my toiletries that would last me a few days, along with a few practical outfits that would keep me warm with the changing season. Surely I didn’t need to pack for more than a few days, long enough for my dad and brother to come and see if they could fix the footer under my house and allow me to grab a few more things.

But I was so, so sadly mistaken.

I never got to set foot in my little cottage again. That home eventually got eaten up in what turned out to be the first sinkhole in Tennessee. Well, not the very first, obviously. But the first one that would spawn a series of many more across the state of Tennessee, and Kentucky, and all the way down into Alabama and into Mississippi. 

That was so long ago, now, and the way of life I knew and loved changed forever that day, as the world as we knew it tilted itself on its axis, never to be the same again. 

That day, that very day, the Earth had decided that she was going to rid herself of these heartless beings that someone had decided would inhabit her, stretching and breaking and destroying everything in her power to extinguish all of mankind and all that mankind had created in spite of her. The Earth didn’t need us anymore, and though we were all completely reliant on her, we had also created an invisible force of a blend of scientific knowledge and powerful mechanics that, inevitably, had drained her completely dry of her natural resources. 

No one believed it was the end of days, there was no giant announcement that came across our radio waves and on our phone alert systems. There was no dark, biblical occurrence or seven plagues like those who believed in such things had predicted… it just… happened. 

One day I was weeding my garden, and the next, I was coming to terms with the fact that I had no choice but to thrust myself into full on survival mode. Living with nothing more than what I had at that very moment, and watching as everything in my life dwindled down more quickly than anyone could even fathom. 

Earthquakes shook the planet. The rivers all over the world had begun to overflow, the trees began to uproot themselves and fall like timber. Animals would be dead on the side of the roads, even animals that seemingly had absolutely nothing wrong with them. Birds, bears, wolves… lying and littering the hillsides as if they had just laid down to go to sleep.

Even the sun wasn’t the same. It just felt different. The normal heat that fell onto your skin seemed to sear it now instead of warm it. The wind, when it did blow, made a hissing noise as it’d pass by. The sinkholes continued, even some as big as lakes, swallowing up unsuspecting neighborhoods and taking everything with them in their wake. 

In the weeks following that day, my father had forced my grandparents and I to come back to Nashville, given that there hadn’t been any disturbances in the land there, yet. So the three of us packed up what we needed, saying goodbye to the home that my grandparents had lived in since marriage, and loading everything into their old pickup truck. We made the short drive back home to my parents’ where they had prepared the guestroom and my old bedroom for our arrival. 

My younger brother James still lived at home with them, still young but never having the want to move out and be on his own. He was eight years my junior, twenty-four years old and working on his master’s degree in engineering and technology. Truly, he was too smart for his own good. My parents had allowed him to live at home as he was a very quiet creature, devoting most of his life to his studies instead of being any type of social butterfly. He was strong, though, and never hesitated to be the one to come and pick me up after I’d had one too many drinks at the bar. 

“Hey, sis. Sorry your house got swallowed up,” he’d said as he took me in his bear-hug embrace, patting the back of my head with his giant hand. 

Though my body was reeling with fear of the unknown, James was the one to bring me back down to earth with his overwhelmingly warm embrace and matter-of-fact way of speaking. My only sibling, though much younger, always knew exactly what I needed, right when I needed it. “Thanks, pipsqueak. Kinda fuckin’ sucks, actually,” I’d replied with a defeated lilt. “Didn’t think I’d be living back at Mom and Dad’s during the apocalypse,” I joked. 

I still remembered how his face had contorted hearing that word, still a shock to the system to hear it said out loud. It shocked me too, even as I said it. The two of us retreated to the living room as my parents assisted my grandparents in getting their room unpacked, which at the time seemed like nothing more than a menial task to mask the reality of what was happening around us. Menial actions to make the situation feel less threatening and more like something we could ignore. 

“Is this shit really happening, Y/N? Like are we really going to have to–”

“Yes, James. You saw my house, you’ve heard the talks on the News… it’s happening. And it’s happening fast. Everywhere.” I was always a very straightforward person, getting right to the point of things instead of beating around the bush. I always thought it was a waste of time, ignoring the reality of things. 

“Fuck,” he’d mumbled under his breath, his leg bouncing up and down as he hugged one of Mom’s old decorative pillows on his lap. My little James, always wearing his heart on his sleeve and possessing the inability to hide his emotions. Though his stature was monstrous, his personality never mirrored it. 

My eyebrows furrowed as I pondered him, feeling that strange aura that only siblings share bouncing right off of him. “What is it, James? What’s wrong?” I’d asked, now really getting worried as I watched his eyes scan the room aimlessly. 

He sniffed hard through his nose, scooting closer in the chair. He held his giant hands out to me, palms down, his knee still bouncing furiously. “What?!” I asked. “I’m confused… What is it?”

He swallowed and finally flipped his hands over, revealing to me something that I had never seen on him before. His palms and fingers were covered with some type of bruise-like rash, marks that resembled heavy birthmarks but a very deep purple as opposed to a light pink. “What happened? Did you burn yourself?” I’d asked, taking his wrists in my hands to observe him.

He shook his head. “No, they just… it just appeared a few days ago. It started out like weird bumps, then it’s turned to this. And it’s spreading, sis. I don’t–” his voice trailed off as my eyes met his, full of worry. 

“Does it hurt?” I asked, not prepared to hear the truth. 

“Yeah. It doesn’t feel good… I’ve been hiding it from Mom and Dad, I don’t want them to worry any more than they already are, ya know?” 

I shook my head in agreement as I let my fingertips brush over the strange marks. “Anywhere else on your body?” I asked. 

“No. Not yet, at least…”

“Care if I take a photo, just so we can try and look it up? I’d make you an appointment, I just don’t think…” I trailed off again as the same thought process flew through both of our heads. There won’t be any more going to the doctor.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” he muttered as he exhaled and I snapped the photo, my recent album now no longer full of my lavish boardwalk lunches and blurry nights out with friends, but instead screenshots of international news articles and how to tie paracord.

We’d holed up there with my parents for a month or so before our next greatest fear came crashing down over us. Suddenly, like a blackout in a storm, every piece of technology as we knew it ceased to do its job.

The big stuff went first– internet telecommunications and hubs… then went the cell phone towers and television broadcasts, little by little it all began to fail, thus cutting off communication between us and the rest of the world completely. There was no such thing as using your cell phone anymore, and those who still had landlines only were able to get them to work some of the time. Wind turbines, hydroelectrics, newer vehicles… all of it simply just stopped performing. Though the most intelligent scientists and blue-collar employees on earth tried as they might, nothing worked. Nothing held up. It was like all technology had forgotten its only purpose, the only reason it was created in the first place.

We knew things were bad when we caught word that the major hospitals had closed down and had already begun resorting to old medicine. A new sadness fell upon us as we realized that my grandma would no longer be able to just run out to the pharmacy for her medications, and the realization of that was almost harder to swallow than knowing that James’ hands were being eaten alive by something inside him.

But I would find them. I would venture out and get them for her, no matter what it would take. None of us had really bothered to leave the confines of our home, knowing that anything past our neighborhood was probably a warzone of greed and looting. Or worse, full of more sinkholes. We truly had no way of knowing, except for the quiet and quick conversations held with our trusted neighbors over the fence line. Everyone was simply terrified.

We’d already started to notice a strange amount of people walking the streets by my parents’ house; the normally calm and quiet neighborhood full of retired musicians and elementary school teachers was now teeming with sketchy foot traffic. My dad and grandfather wasted no time in resorting to armed protection, pulling out my dad’s arsenal of weaponry he kept locked away in the basement since my childhood. Never did he think he would actually think about using it.

The days were long, and the nights were even longer. Each day brought a new fear to us, a new way of questioning how we were going to survive, if we were going to survive. It was almost like we were sitting around waiting for someone to tell us what to do next. And when we expected to hear something from our government, all we got was silence. It was like they had left us all for dead, never once giving us even a sliver of advice.

There were days when my mother would have a complete mental breakdown, her fearful tears turning into full-on panic attacks that would leave her exhausted and still, my sweet father and grandfather by her side whether she needed them or not. 

Next came the fall of electricity as a whole. The whole world, shrouded in darkness as panic fell upon everyone surrounding us. No longer did we have the simple luxury of being able to turn the lights on and off. Hot water had to be heated manually, and we learned to cook over a small campfire in the back yard. 

One night, as the weather began to cool, the six of us gathered in our living room, cooking over a propane stove Papaw had thought about packing last minute. The wind was blowing a lot colder, now, but we managed to keep warm as the season began to change over into winter. Luckily, the almanac had said this was to be a mild winter, and we still had enough supplies to last us through, but my grandfather and I had noticed that it would be necessary to venture out for food, soon. 

He and I were always on that same wavelength, speaking to and through one another and making decisions far ahead of time. We were both doers, and pretty smart ones, at that. 

“We’ve got to go back,” I whispered to him after supper that evening as we did our best to clean the dishes. “You know that, right?”

His crows feet became more prominent as he winced at me. “I know we do. But the question is when? And how will we convince them that we need to retreat back to Cheatham?” It’d become obvious to me in the past week or so that it was time to go back out into the country to my grandparents’ home, away from the middle of the city where the dangers were creeping in around us at a quicker pace.

“There will be an argument, I’m sure. I know your mother won’t want to leave her home, and she will say that the city can give us more supplies than my farm could,” he whispered. What my grandfather and I both understood was that while that much was true, the supplies would only last so long before they’d be all gone, forcing us all to retreat anyway. Not to mention the stores have probably all been looted clean, by now. 

“Dad and James and I will go into the city for last minute supplies. Gran’s medications and anything else we can get our hands on,” I decided as he dropped his dish, grabbing my wrist firmly in his, holding it steady. 

“You’ll do no such thing, youngin’. I’ll go. You stay here, with your mother and grandmother.” His voice was stern, and though I was a full-grown adult, I knew better than to argue with my elders. 

“But Paps, you’re… no spring chicken,” I said with a hint of warmth in my voice. One last attempt to make him stay, and let me go. He may have been old, but he was still stronger than any man I had encountered in the past few years. 

“No matter. You’re stayin’ with them,” he said, picking up his dropped dish and rubbing the cloth over it again. Deep down, I knew it was because if it really was as dangerous as they said it was out there in the new public, he’d selflessly choose to put himself in the middle of it if it meant saving my life. 

I sighed. “First we’ve got to convince them to leave.” And that was going to be the hardest part.

+++

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of my grandmother shrieking in pain. It woke all of us, actually. My family and I met in the hallway of the freezing cold home, all of us rushing to my grandparents’ bedroom to see what was happening. 

We pushed the door open to find them both in the floor, my grandfather hunched over my grandmother’s body in the fetal position, her hands gripping at her chest. 

“Dad, Dad what’s wrong with her?!” my father yelled as we all fell to the floor with them in a panic. “Is it another heart attack?!”

“No,” my sweet and timid grandmother was able to choke out. “My skin, it’s– it’s burning so–” just as her words stopped, her body lurched backward, her muscles tightening so rigidly that my grandfather had no choice but to catch her. Her hands still gripped at her chest, her fingers now scratching  and ripping her pajama top off, the buttons flying all across the room. “It burns!” she cried.

My father and I crept closer, my brother helping my grandfather to hold her body. I ordered my mother to grab a flashlight, and when she returned, we shone the light on the area that my grandmother was grasping so tightly. And there on her chest, right below her breastbone, right where her heart was, was the exact same bruised rash that had overtaken the skin of my brother’s hands. 

My eyes shot to him, both of us falling into pure panic as we simultaneously realized what we were seeing. 

“Is it a heart attack, Jane, are you–”

“NO!” she cried. “My skin is on fire, right there, right here–” she pointed, and another look to my brother told me that the fire sensation was the exact same that he had been experiencing on his hands. Suddenly he shot up, rushing into the living room while the rest of us tried to console my grandmother in the pale darkness of the morning. He returned quickly with a cloth in his hands, soaking wet and sopped with water. 

“Here, Gran. Let me… this will help,” he begged, kneeling beside her as he flattened the cloth over her rash. She yelped in pain again, her hands and legs growing stiff at the reaction as he forced the cloth to her. But after only just a few seconds, she relaxed, her once screwed-shut eyes finally opening to look at us.

A tiny cry of relief left her thinning lips as her muscles fell limp, obviously feeling somewhat free of the pain. 

“James, how did you– How did you know that would help her?” my grandfather asked as we all stayed sat in the bedroom floor. 

I watched as James swallowed, finally sitting up enough to bring his hands into the barely-there glow of the rising sun through the window. He slowly turned his giant palms upright, showing my family the wounds that he had been secretly hiding from them for some time, now. Except since he showed them to me last, they’d doubled in size. Exact same color, exact same shapes as the bruises on my grandmother’s chest. 

“James, what on earth is that?” my mother cried, rushing to his side to hold his hands and inspect them more. “Why didn’t you tell us?!”

“Couldn’t worry you more, Mom, I just couldn’t add to the…” James shook his head, unable to finish. 

“Do they hurt, son? Like Jane’s…?” my grandfather asked him. 

James nodded, swallowing harshly. “Yeah, and they’re only getting worse.”

+++

A bit later that same morning, James found me in the hallway, bringing his face close to mine as he spoke quietly. “It was her pacemaker,” he mumbled.

His eyes avoided mine as they shot around, his words catching me off guard. “What?”

“Her pacemaker. In her heart,” he said. James had always been a man of few words, but right then was a time when I needed him to explain to me his thoughts in grave detail. 

“Yes, James, but what do you mean? How do you know that?” I pressed, trying not to upset him.

“Think about it,” he said, grabbing my arm and twisting me away from earshot of the family. “My hands… All I’ve done my entire adult life is touch technology. Hold it, work with it… hell, I build computers, sis. I held my phone day in and day out. My laptop… My entire life was spent on them. And Gran, her pacemaker, right at the skin above her heart…” 

His words didn’t make sense to me at first, and they honestly confused me even more for a few seconds, until he turned his hands over to me again. The rashes had begun to centralize over his fingertips, the places on his hands that made direct contact with the technology he worked with. 

“James, you don’t think…?” I breathed, my heart suddenly falling. He maneuvered his hands to mimic holding a cell phone and how his fingers would hit the screen, the rashes sitting exactly where the phone would have touched his hands most. Then again, he moved them as if he was typing on a keyboard.

“Radioactivity?” I asked, still shocked and confused. 

He shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. But, does it not kind of make sense?” he asked, leaving me unable to answer. “If I had to bet, I would say that Mom and Dad will be next.”

My heart had gone from swimming in my stomach to sitting in my throat, making my breathing chopped and anxious. My father had climbed cell phone towers and repaired them, and my mother was an x-ray technician. 

“Fuck, James,” I said, crossing my arms. “It can’t be, what about me? Why haven’t I gotten any rashes, I’m around technology, too,” I argued.

He shrugged again. “Not really, though. Not as much as we are. Hell, Y/N, you spend more time in your garden and with a book in your hands than you do anything else. You lose your phone fifty times a day, you never even watch TV for Christ’s sake,” he blubbered, his voice also becoming pained. 

I was left stunned, unable to disagree with him. But still, shouldn’t my parents and I be showing signs of the rash, if James’ suspicion was true? He pushed past me, grabbing his winter jacket from the hook on the wall as he carefully slipped his arms through the sleeves. 

“We’re going into town. Stay here with Mom and Gran. We’ll be back tonight. Don’t come looking for us if we don’t make it back by dark,” James said. 

“James, no! I will go! It’s too dangerous! Paps needs to stay here, plus your hands–”

“Fuck my hands, sis,” he growled, his face close to mine again as his jaw clenched. I could tell he was in pain. He rounded the corner and plucked his shotgun from its place against the wall. “We’ll be fine. Take care of them.”

JAKE

I’d never seen my twin look at me that way, before. We’d shared everything… every first, every win, loss, every new experience and every happy moment, we shared them all, together. Feeling the exact same emotions at the exact same time because our shared DNA told us that we had to. In our 33 years, I’d never seen his eyes so full of fear, so full of uncertainty that I was sure if I didn’t act, my chest was going to collapse. 

And he’d only glanced at me for a second, maybe two.

We’d been preparing to wrap up the tour of our fifth album when the world shut down. Yeah, we’d all been through the whole Covid thing, but that was no match for this. A drop in the bucket compared to the entire earth as we know it ceasing to work alongside us anymore. It’d begun giving up on us, pushing us out as if it didn’t even know we inhabited it. Mother nature was fucking us, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Just those short ten-odd years ago, the four of us had gathered in that cabin out in the mountains to write what would come to be The Battle at Garden's Gate… running away from the infected world and hiding away from the virus to drown ourselves in our instruments and sound. The uncertainty was wild then, but now, fuck. This… this is something more wicked than any of us could have ever anticipated. 

Josh’s eyes bored into mine, speaking a thousand words before he downcast them, then looked back onto the hands and arms of our sound engineer. Completely covered in purple bruises and blisters, his fingers swollen to the point that they looked like they may explode. He was the first one we saw with the rash. 

We’d canceled the last half of our tour as shit went south, not like we’d have been able to do anything anyway, as all the technology falling to shit would have held us to strictly little acoustic sets. But we were stupid to even think about doing that. We were naive to think we could even go on. That anyone would even show up for the shows. There wasn’t even any point.

We’d heard the rumors about the rash, but we hadn’t seen one first-hand yet, until that day. It was the same day that our mother called and said our aunt and uncle’s home had been swallowed by one of the sinkholes. We were all terrified, no one even had any clue what to do. Where do we go? Back home? Do we stay together? Do we run?

I knew why Josh’s eyes were so cripplingly fearful that day. Not because of what was happening around us, not because of the bewilderment of being faced with a thousand situations at once, but because he was scared I would be next. I knew that, because after his eyes left mine, they shot directly to my hands. 

Our sound engineer had only gotten on board with us less than a year ago, but he’d been in the business longer than any of us had been alive. Our hearts broke for him, as he explained his pain to us and how he wished he could stay along with us, helping to play around with our sound as we distracted ourselves from the world falling apart. 

But we knew it was all for nothing. Things were only getting worse.

+++

“Tell me you don’t have any rashes. Tell me right the fuck now that none of you have anything on your hands…” Josh barked at Sam, Danny and I as we shut the van doors behind us, enclosing the four of us. We’d decided on doing the same thing we’d done a decade ago- retreating to the wilderness to write. Or, whatever the fuck. There was hardly any electricity… how I thought I could finalize anything without an electric guitar was beyond me. Shit was so fucked.

Sam and I glanced at one another from the two backseats, shaking our heads quickly as we both understood we’d be the ones most likely to show signs first, our instruments being ones with the most electricity pulsing through them. “No,” we both muttered, holding our hands up. “Nothing.”

“Good. Daniel?”

Danny mirrored our actions, holding his hands up after buckling his seatbelt. “No, I’m clean so far,” he said quietly from the passenger seat. 

Josh put the old van in reverse, taking a deep breath as he backed from the space of the parking lot. Our decision to retreat like this was a quick one, none of us really knowing what the best route of action was. Everyone around us had dissipated, gone back to their homes and families, and apparently the outside world had truly begun to crumble. We’d been a little hidden away from it all, having just returned from a leg of touring in Greece where things hadn't hit too hard, yet. Things in the US were apparently much, much worse. And when we returned home, we found it to be absolutely true.

Luckily, our families had all decided to meet us there, and hunker down together as a unit. We were all we had left, at this point.

“The first sign of any of it, we tell each other. Got it? I don’t care if you think it’s nothing. If you see it, share it,” he commanded of us. We all nodded and agreed, knowing that if the rumors were true, the three of us would most likely be the ones to see it first thanks to our constant use of our instruments.

It was quiet in the van as we drove through the looted and abandoned city we once loved, people roaming the streets aimlessly as the pure confusion began to set in. There were no stop lights, no heavy traffic, hell, there weren't even any storefronts open. Luckily we’d filled up fuel tanks at one of the last remaining gas stations before the electricity had shut down, and hit the road running North, back home to Michigan to gather our families and go to Yankee Springs. Anything was better than nothing, and where better to be than away from the looting and rioting and hide in a secluded few cabins, able to fend for ourselves and worry about nothing more than taking care of one another. 

+++

Naive, naive. 

Little did we know that our rations would run out quickly. Little did we know that we’d quite literally have to live off the land. Fish for food. Mom had to re-teach herself to can. Dad and Sam caught fish and killed squirrels with his old BB gun. 

There was no time to write. Fuck, there was no time to even play. We spent our time surviving. We’d had almost no contact with the outside world in almost a month. It was then that a few other families had gotten the same idea as us and joined us there, breaking into cabins and preparing winter camps.

We warmed ourselves with the fireplace, and we boiled our water to drink. We collected tools and stashed them away, and we hid every bit of food we brought deep in the basement of the cabin. Many nights were spent gathered around the fire talking and telling stories, trying our best to keep some type of normalcy about ourselves. But most nights we were all too exhausted to even care, crashing into our beds that we considered ourselves fortunate to still have.

I was scared. Of course I was scared. Things had happened so fast that three months felt like the blink of an eye. I hardly even kept up with what day it was. We'd gone from traveling the world and playing shows for thousands to hiding away in unmarked cabins in the woods, praying that we'd survive into the next day. I remember my mind being in a constant state of buzzing awareness, while at the same time feeling so numb and unable to grasp the fact that the world was ending that I could hardly see straight. 

Ending? No, maybe not. I’d read enough books and was educated enough to know that the Earth goes through her changes. She doesn’t care for the fact that we’re here. She’s going to go through it whether we are here, or not. Her job isn’t to protect us. Her job is to stabilize herself through her ages, making sure she doesn’t implode from the inside out and return to stardust to join the other millions of stars of our universe as she’s simply unable to keep the life that lives on her, alive.

The Ice Age, the Pleistocene, Quarternary… all of it happened, and is happening. We’re just here to witness this one it as it does, and record it in history books. 

“Holy fucking shit, man,” Danny exclaimed as we all had reclined on a hillside that night, passing around a bottle of Irish whisky. The wind was absolutely freezing, but luckily, we’d all become acclimated to it again. “Wait, are you saying… wait.” Danny sat up, his curls a mess as he’d long forgotten about his hair routine. “Josh, did you write…?”

I’d been drunkenly sharing my wise words and hypotheses about this supposed ‘end of the world’ with them all evening, accentuating my tales with my grandiose words to make them seem more intriguing. Just like I always did. Just to fit the bit.

“Did I write Age of Machine to go along with the literal historical changes that the earth makes? Yes, I did,” Josh replied matter-of-factly. “Though I wrote it to be inflicted by humans and not the Earth itself, but…”

“...Did you not know that, Daniel? Really?” Sam butted in with a slur.

Danny leaned back on his elbows. “I mean, yeah, I guess I kinda remember you explaining it as you wrote it, but god, that was ten years ago. And if I remember correctly, Sam and Jake were the ones that put in the work for that one because I had smoked a bit too much that night. But yeah, I guess I never really put two and two together…”

I smiled at Danny’s realization, and the fact that it took him nearly a decade to understand what Josh’s lyrics to that song had meant. And how eerily terrifying and ominous they were even still. I would have explained my hypotheses more in-depth had I known that Danny hadn’t ever put everything together.

A silence had fallen over us again as we watched the only constant in our lives these days– the moon gliding and rolling on her backdrop of stars. Without the filter of light pollution, every single one was visible, now. 

“How did you know, Josh?” Danny finally whispered.

“How did I know what?” Josh replied, and I could tell there was a lump in his throat. He didn’t want to talk about this. 

“That song… everything literally fucking happened, is happening… how did you…?”

“I didn’t, Daniel. Of course I didn’t fucking know this was going to happen,” Josh argued with venom in his voice. “Not in our lifetimes, at least.”

I heard Sam swallow hard. Finally, it was out on the table. The one thing we’d all been thinking, all too scared to bring it into the light. Except Danny, I guess. That damned haunting song we wrote ten years ago, somehow predicting the near future almost to a tee.

“Wait,” Danny rolled to his stomach to look at us. “This is insane… man, we… we wrote a song about this, about this exact shit happening… how in the fuck did we do that?”

Just then, a bright white and purple light lit up the dark night sky, a giant ball of exploding flashes so close it made us all jump to our feet in fear. It made no sound, of course, but the streaks of light burned bright as the sun for just a few seconds before fading away, the light burning down into blackness again.

“What the fuck was that?!” I yelled, looking to my brothers for confirmation. 

“Satellite,” Sam said. “It exploded…”

We all stood for a few seconds and watched to see if anything else was going to happen, and I remember my heart was beating so hard that I swore everyone could hear it. There’s no time to fall into fear, Jake. Embers of burning metal fell into the atmosphere, floating in space to maybe one day hit the earth. A contraption created by man and thrust out into the universe to give us knowledge of things we couldn’t see, exploded and died right in front of our eyes.

Just then I watched as Danny lowered his head, turning toward Josh to shove the bottle into his hand. “God machine… really malfunctioned and blew, hm?”

Y/N

My mother’s rashes came next. Deep purple bruises and red blisters began covering her entire body, centralizing over her hands mostly, too. They ate away at her, sending her into an almost comatose state as her body shook and vibrated in pain. We tried to keep her in a cold bath, and it brought some relief, but the rashes spread so quickly that we were nearly unable to keep up with them. We found that basic Ibuprofen did help with their pain control, but as the rashes worsened, the drug was little help. 

My father and grandfather and I were beginning to reach a point of helplessness as we were caring for my mother round the clock, my Gran and James doing whatever they could to help us, while still suffering with their own pain, too. 

We talked to the neighbors, and they all had begun to experience the same thing. Some had even made contact with health care professionals in their families, all reporting the exact same things, with no care plan in sight. The government apparently was still silent about it all, causing riots in the streets and parades onto our public law buildings. People looking for answers, guidance. Anything to help us. There was no such thing as seeing police patrolling the streets anymore. No ambulance wails heard in the distance. Nothing. We were helpless. Confused, lost, and utterly at our wit’s end. 

The day my mother finally succumbed to her rash was quite literally the worst day of my life. We all sat gathered in the bathroom, letting her body try and be soothed by the freezing cold water we’d submerged her in. We held her hands as gently as we could as she cried out in pain, my father nearly inconsolable as he crouched in the floor beside her. 

“I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry… If I could take this pain away from you, I would. I’d take it in a heartbeat,” he’d cried as his head fell onto the side of the tub. 

I’d gone numb. I was unable to maintain and regulate my emotions as life had begun happening so fast. I cried into my pillow the day she finally passed, trying not to let my screams be heard by the rest of the family. I could do nothing. My father, my grandfather… none of us. The house sat silent for hours.

James had sat on the back porch steps as he was unable to grip a shovel handle, watching as Paps and I dug a hole in the frost-dusted ground of the back yard. None of us spoke. Hell, none of us really even breathed. Dad carried out the body of his beloved, his face straight and emotionless as he dropped her lifeless body into the cold ground. I tried not to think too much about the action I was performing, knowing if I did I would surely lose what little food I'd eaten the past few days. 

The loss of my mother sat heavily on us as a few neighbors brought over what rations that they had barely been able to prepare, themselves. We allowed ourselves a few days to mourn her as the weather grew colder, and James’ rash spread to his arms. 

It was a week later that James had become unable to care for himself any more, and a week after that that a rash appeared on my father’s chest and hands. Both of them, being eaten alive by the ravishing blisters, leaving my grandparents and I in a mental state so disconnected from reality that we were hardly surviving. No longer did we care for ourselves. No longer did we enjoy the simplicities that came with life. Round the clock care, constantly. Ice baths, unending doses of pain killers, preparing scrap meals, and trying to get them to eat and drink while they all were being blinded with pain. 

Most of our neighbors had left. The street was nearly empty. Packs of wild dogs rummaged through homes that had been deserted, and what few people had stayed behind hid away in their homes in fear. Our plan of retreating back to the country had been put on the backburner when my Mother passed. And by some act of god, or maybe of sheer luck, my grandfather and I showed no signs of the rash, at all. My grandmother’s was spreading, of course, but at a much slower pace as everyone else’s, and her pain wasn’t nearly as horrific. James and I knew it was because she wasn’t exposed to technology, as much. His prediction had come true. 

First we buried James, and then we buried my father. Right there in the backyard, next to the garden that was now a pile of old, dead weeds that we hadn’t bothered to clear from the soil as Autumn turned to Winter. 

My grandfather cared for my grandmother as best he could, and I in turn cared for them both. Somehow, some way, I was able to compartmentalize it all, my brain going into overdrive as a trauma response, I guessed. I was the protector, now. The young and able one, stepping into the role of caretaker of my elderly grandparents. Truly, I had no other choice. 

I packed up my hiking bag with everything that I could, and convinced my grandparents to do the same. Paps agreed, it was time to retreat. There wasn’t anything here for us, anymore. 

There, we’d at least have a wood stove and firewood. Gran’s cellar full of canned vegetables, and a fenced-in yard with a barn where we could capture chickens and goats that were most likely still roaming the countryside of neighboring farms. Why we had ever agreed to come to the city in the first place was beyond me. Thought it would be easier, I guessed. Bigger house, close to the city and resources. Never did we think that things would get this bad. Never did we think that my grandparents’ homestead would have been the better option. But then again, never did we think we would lose three of our family in a matter of a month.

But now, as a cold and blistering wind blew across the shutters and creaked the house on its foundation, I made the executive decision to move my grandparents back to Cheatham County. Back to their farm, back to what they knew, in the house that they’d built. 

At dawn that next morning, the three of us stashed as much as we could into my Paps’ old pickup truck, and filled the tank to the brim with the diesel fuel my dad had stowed away in the garage. We prayed that their house wasn’t eaten by a sinkhole, and we prayed that everything would be just as we had left it. The three of us bundled up and clambered into the bench seat of the truck, and I mentally prepared myself to see the city I once knew and loved in a state that was going to be no less than jarring. 

I stuck the key into the ignition, hearing the old gears roaring to life. The sound was truly like music to my ears, a noise that none of us had heard in what felt like years. I pressed my foot to the gas pedal, revving the cold engine to come to life even more. We can do this… We can run away…

The sound of the engine ignited something deep in my chest, giving me an urge that I hadn’t felt in so long. It was the feeling of freeing myself, running away from all of the horrific scenes that my parent’s house had just been witness to. It was time to run. 

“You ready for this?” I asked my Gran as my fingers sat on the gear shift, ready to thrust it into drive.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she replied, her gaze downcast on the street ahead of us. 

“Paps?” I asked. 

“Hit the gas, sweetheart.”

He rolled the crank window down and let a cold gust of air fill the cab as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting one up as I pulled out onto the street, completely unknowing of what we were about to encounter. The smell of his smoke lit a new fire inside me, filling me with a newfound encouragement. And for the first time in months, I saw a glimmer of hope in my grandfather’s eyes. 

JAKE

Josh hadn’t spoken to us in days. Only the necessary words needed to get us through the motions of preparing meals, cutting firewood, and the like. Danny had questioned him about it again, the same conversation that had happened a few nights ago, when we watched the satellite explode. Danny didn’t intend to piss him off or whatever, but he had just had time to sit and think back on it, and dig a little deeper into the caves of Josh’s mind while we wrote that damn record. 

“This is the fucking New Age Crisis, isn’t it?! The one you wrote about?” Danny had said as mom cleaned up the dinner table one night. “You wrote about the fucking age of machine way back when we were writing Black Smoke, man!”

“Why in the fuck are you just putting all of this together, Daniel? Huh? Those words have been written for over a fucking decade, and you’re just now figuring all this out?!” Josh had retaliated, leaning his body across the table.

“No, I fucking knew it all, Josh! But don’t you think the fact that it’s kind of all coming true isn’t a little fucking weird?!” Danny replied, raising his voice. In the days since that first conversation, Danny had done nothing but appear to be in a constant state of thought. Deep thought. “It’s like you told the fucking future! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!”

“God damnit Daniel,” Josh said as he shoved his chair under the table. “I’m not going on about this anymore, you don’t see anybody else caring about it.”

Danny looked my way. “Do you not think this is fucking weird, Jake? Seriously.”

I opened my mouth to speak, not wanting to further their argument. “I–I don’t think it’s that serious, I mean, there are similarities but…” I said calmly, running my nervous hand through my hair that hadn’t seen a wash in days. “Josh isn’t like, psychic or some shit…”

Danny slammed a fist onto the table, startling us all. “Why the fuck did you tell the video directors to make the whole Age of Machine video spin, hm? Did you want it to look like the viewer was being hypnotized? Just like you wrote about in Brave New World fucking years before? We fucking did what the literal lyrics said the other night, Josh. Outside, looking at the dark night sky and watching a satellite or a power of lies fucking die, just like you said. Kill fear. It all happened!”

“Daniel! Calm it the fuck down,” Sam said. “You’ve known this, we’ve all known this… he intertwines all his lyrics, he always has… why is this such news to you?”

Danny lurched himself to Sam’s face. “Because it’s coming fucking true Sam!” he spat, yelling in his best friend’s face. I raised my hand up between them, hoping to calm them before anything got out of hand. This was way out of character for Danny. 

Danny stood quickly from his chair, shoving it backward as the rest of our families came storming into the dark, candle-lit room to see what all the fuss was about. “I’m not fucking stupid, Josh. I know you know what the hell is going on. And I want nothing to fucking do with it,” Danny grit his teeth as he spoke, pointing his finger into Josh’s face before turning and retreating up the stairs of the cabin. 

“What in the hell is going on here?!” my mom asked, coming to Josh’s side.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Danny’s mom followed him up the stairs. 

“I don’t think there’s any getting through to him,” I stopped her. I hadn’t said anything, but I wholeheartedly had picked up on Danny’s strange, obsessive behavior lately. “I think he’s…” I swallowed. 

“He’s what, Jake?” she asked.

I slowly brought my finger to my temple, poking at it. “Getting in his head, a little,” I said gently. She gave me a sideways glare before her lips turned into a half-smile, and she finished rushing up the stairs. 

Yeah, Josh hadn’t talked to any of us since then. And neither had Danny, really. He spent his days locked away in his room, practically freezing himself to death and ignoring all our knocks as he sat at his desk with a notepad and pen. It was so strange of him. Completely out of character and it honestly started to worry us. 

One morning I woke and walked out onto the porch that faced the lake, looking out as a few random folks checked their fish nets and began their treks toward the woods to hunt. It had gotten significantly colder, and I could see my breath in the air. As I gazed out, something on the lake caught my eye. 

It was Josh, out on the John boat, paddling further out around the bend of the water. 

“Josh!” I yelled, signaling for him to turn around and come and pick me up. I needed to talk to him; Sam and I were going crazy without the two of them speaking to us. I bounded down the porch steps, rickety and soft from their old weathered age. “Josh!” I yelled again. Finally, I caught his ear. “Come here! Come get me!”

His shoulders dropped but he listened, paddling slowly back to the shore until the side of his boat tapped the grass. “What?” he asked. 

“I wanna go too,” I said, kicking my leg around to step into the boat. The misty fog was just settling over the calm water as Josh huffed a breath. 

“Why?” he asked as I made myself comfortable. 

“Because, you won’t talk to me, and I don’t like it. Figured I gotta resort to forcing you,” I replied with a smirk. I could feel the tip of my nose getting cold. 

Josh stayed silent but began paddling again, pushing us back out into the open water. We faced one another in the boat, my fingers interlaced as I watched him go stroke for stroke. Once we got to the middle of the water, he finally stopped, resting the paddle across his knees. I would wait for him to speak. No one could hear us out here. Just him and me. 

“It was all based on a dream, you know,” he said solemnly, his eyes cast out across the water. 

“What was?” I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting him to tell me more. 

“All of that shit, all the stupid fucking lyrics. I had a dream when I was like, what, 15? A nightmare, actually. A bunch of them. It was like I had… built this world in my sleep-state, like once a month I would have another one that built on top of the last. I wrote them all down, as soon as I woke up. I’d go to these other worlds that felt real in my head, as I dreamed them. I created so much while I was asleep. And the fucking weed and booze didn’t help the matter,” he went on, using his hands to talk, now. 

I was having trouble understanding. “...But, we all kinda helped write that stuff, Josh. Like, a lot of it…”

“Yeah but how do you think I was able to expand on that weird fucking world we built? You guys putting your two cents in, making me think so hard about it all, then going to sleep that night and having the most realistic dreams about it. Then waking up, and turning it into music,” he explained, biting his cheeks in as he gave me a devious smile. “Danny’s fucking right. All of it is happening. Maybe not really in the same context, or the same order, but. It’s happening. We’re watching it. I dreamed about the video we made for that fucking song. The setting, the context, all the weird props and shit…” 

“The drugging?” I asked, remembering jumping from my skin as we filmed those scenes of saline being dropped into our eyes.

“Yeah. The fucking drugging. The big white building. The cots, us being held hostage there by someone… it’s exactly how it all happened in my dream. I made sure of it. And I’m fucking scared, Jake…” he said, leaning across the boat and pulling on the collar of my coat. 

I looked into his eyes and swallowed. I knew why he was scared. If things kept going the way they were, the only thing that would come next would be an entity coming in and taking us… using us for some experimental bullshit like we’d had them do in the video. 

“Starcatcher was a little bit of a break from the norm of my nightmare worlds… I tied it all in, but I really based it off of one of those side-story ideas that you and Sam got that one night. Cults and blind faith and all that shit,” he whispered, rocking the boat a little. “But this last album…”

This last album. 

The one we didn’t even get to finish touring. We’d managed to fit one in right after Starcatcher had wrapped, continuing on with the world we’d built all those years ago. The world that I guess, now, came straight from Josh’s dreams. That one concentrated a little more heavily on love and romance and the freeing of oneself through intimacy, but this latest one, it was some of our darkest work, yet.

“Danny wasn’t kidding when he said that was only the tip of the iceberg. Shit got a little fucking dark with this last one, didn’t it?” he muttered, reminding me of all the lyrics we’d stayed up late writing just a couple of years ago. 

Lies, deception, control, death… we really did get a little heavy with it. We wound lyrics into symbolism with governmental control and all that. We really tapped back in to lyrically beating around the bush. And unfortunately, things seemed to be moving right on par with life as we fucking knew it, right then. 

“Yeah, it really did,” I agreed. “But listen, you don’t need to put that on yourself. Danny’s just… going through something I think. Getting in his mind too much. We’re isolated out here, Josh. Our lives just fucking stopped, now we’re out hunting to feed ourselves?! I think we all deserve to give ourselves a little grace right now, don’t you think?” I tried to reason with him as I felt my toes freezing in my boots. 

He sat almost emotionless, staring at the water beside us as he tapped the oar in his hands. “I wish you could see into my mind,” he breathed, almost soundless. “My nightmares… Danny’s right." He sighed heavily. "It's only going to get worse."

"How the fuck do you know that, huh? How do you know that shit won't go back to completely normal tomorrow?" I pressed, trying to fight an unending battle.

Josh's face turned green. "Did you not hear me just now? I said I wished you could see into my mind...see those dreams that I had." His voice was raising, chopping up with enraged tears. "It's like I'm fucking watching it all come to life. Every bit of it."

He leaned in closer to me on the bench of the boat. "Remember those damned symbols we put on Garden's Gate? I'd stayed up late one night reading through old symbology books and finding runes and shit just because I thought they looked cool... I picked out the ones I thought might go along with what we had for the album. Hell, I didn't think it would ever end up like this..."

"Like what?!" I squealed, raising my hands into the air.

"I don't know, Jake. I swear, it feels like I knew this was going to happen before it ever even did. And that sounds crazy, but I swear on everything, I thought I was just writing about my nightmares. Using them as fuel for lyricism. Never did I think I'd watch it all play out in real time..."

My heart hurt for him. I could tell he was truly internally struggling. He looked like he hadn't slept or eaten in weeks. But this notion that he had seen all of this happen before? No. It made absolutely no sense.

"You can't feel responsible for this..." I muttered.

"No. I don't. But I do feel like I had a hand in perpetuating it. Like I could have stopped it or--"

"Stopped the fucking apocalypse? Yeah..."

He dropped his head into his hands. "Shit, this is all so fucked up."

I watched his shoulders rise and fall as he shuddered through deep breaths, trying to calm himself, trying to make sense of what was happening in his mind.

"So you know more?"

He lifted his head, his eyes swollen and dripping with tears that weren't there for sadness. He was terrified.

"Yeah. I know more."

+++

It was three nights later that all hell broke loose. I was awoken in the middle of the night to the sound of the front door crashing open, and loud, heavy footsteps barging across the hardwood floor. In my half-asleep state, I thought it was maybe Sam trudging back inside after a late-night smoke, knocking the snow off of his boots, but when my gut felt that feeling of uneasiness, I shot up from my bed. I threw my sweatpants and a sweatshirt on, shoving my door open to rush down the stairs of the cabin. 

I was met with Josh already at my side as he had heard the commotion, too, and then we were met with the sound of my dad’s voice yelling and echoing off the wood walls. 

My dad’s voice had always carried, and he tended to be a very lighthearted man, but we all knew the way his voice sounded when he was serious. Scared. 

It was pitch black, but luckily I knew that cabin like the back of my hand, and Josh and I undoubtedly could navigate it even with our eyes closed. My shoulder was touching his as we finally hit the landing, my stomach churning with nerves to see what the hell was going on. 

I was met with a scene that I was sure I had seen in a movie before– silhouettes of tall men in dark clothing, black masks covering their faces as the weapons they held illuminated the space with tiny red laser lights. One had his boot across my father’s chest as he lied on his back on the floor. My mom was shrieking, pushing against one of the men as they held her back from getting to my dad.

“What in the fuck is going on?! Who are you? Get the hell out of here!” I yelled as I pushed my way through in the darkness, tripping over chairs and rugs and Josh’s feet as I moved to shove myself into the man holding my father down. All I remember was chaos. Fists, yelling, darkness… my mind wanting to protect my family and Danny’s family but also wanting to protect myself. It felt as if there were six other people in the cabin with us. And looking back, I think my count was about right, though I could hardly see a thing. 

I heard the sound of breaking glass, or maybe a plate or something as I caught a shadowed visual of Danny breaking a heavy ashtray across one of the men’s heads, but Danny was promptly thrown onto the floor, himself.

I felt the butt of a gun smack across the back of my head, knocking me forward to land in what I learned to be Sam’s arms, stumbling back as he caught my weight. It hurt, and I instantly felt a rush of blood to my skull and a metallic taste in my mouth. The red laser lights flitted around the room, only illuminating objects and people here and there. My vision was blurred and I felt like I could vomit; I saw quick flashes of Danny and my mom… Josh and Danny’s dad… But I couldn’t tell you a damn thing that happened from then on. The rush of confusion was blinding, my body on auto-pilot.

Some time thereafter, I woke up in the back of what felt like a truck, the walls high and metal around me. My arms were bound at my back, and my mouth was taped shut. I could hardly breathe, my head was pounding, and I could feel dried blood resting at the crook of my neck. The vehicle roared beneath me and I could hear the tires screeching around every turn. 

Yes, definitely in a vehicle.

When I had finally gotten my wits about me again, I tried my best to look around and get my bearings, and all I saw were the painted black walls of the truck, and the rugged rusty metal of the bed of it below me. I was enclosed. I screamed from behind my taped lips, unable to make hardly a sound as my chest and lungs felt deprived of air. I looked, I searched- nothing. No one. I was by myself. My mind raced back to what had happened at the cabin, and my memory only gave me that same blurred chaos. Six men. Weapons. No words, violence. 

And then, for the next hour, I was alone.

•

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[boytumms]

Random thoughts i've had today: A warrior in some fantasy world, captured by the enemy when his army is defeated in battle. But they don't execute him, no, he's strong and valiant in battle, qualities that are too admirable to just be wasted... So he is brought to the temple of a deity of fertility, and the soldiers who have captured him begin to fuck him right there at the deity's altar, taking turns breeding him until he is full of their seed, his pain and his pleasure a suitable sacrifice to the deity to make sure that it will take.

Soon he is pregnant, carrying the children of the best warriors in the land, and when he's a warrior himself as well, his babies are sure to grow to be strong, to have the best possible chance to become fine warriors too.

How many children he's carrying, he has no idea, but there must be many, because within just a few months, his captors no longer need keep him in chains, his already-massive belly is enough of a hindrance that he can't escape. And the babies do indeed seem strong before they've even born, kicking with vigour at the walls of the womb, rarely giving him a moment of peace. His captors prod eagerly at the tight skin of his stomach, they too trying to guess just how many children he's carrying.

By the time he reaches the ninth month of pregnancy, he can hardly move from the weight of his belly, and his captors barely bother keeping an eye on him anymore, since it's not like he's going anywhere anyway. So, when the contractions start, there's no one around at first, no one even within earshot to hear him scream at the pain...

ooooohh imagine after hours of being stuck on the ground screaming in labor and unable to give birth to his massive babies, the guards finally come back to find him writhing in agony. They lift him up by his arms and drag him out of his cell, and he thinks they're taking him to a doctor, but to his horror, they drag him outside to a stage outside the castle walls instead. He's tied up with his hands above his head, left to hang from a wooden stake, barely able to hold the weight of his enormous belly on his weak trembling legs.

Below him, he sees the army of his fellow warriors, looking up at him in horror as fluids squirt and drip between his legs, squeezed out as his belly contracts over and over. He realizes he's being used to humiliate his own kingdom, forced to give birth to the enemies offspring in front of his own people. As hard as he tries to stay stoic and hide his pain, the contractions are so strong he can’t stop the screams and cries of pain that rip from his throat every time a contraction tears through him.

Now that he’s standing, he can feel the first of many babies start to slide down his birth canal, aided by the force of gravity pulling it through his body. The stretch is unbearable as the massive head slowly inches it’s way out, forcing his body to widen in a way it was never meant to stretch. He grunts and moans and pushes with all his strength, trying to give birth to his babies as quickly as possible, but their massive size proves to be difficult even for a warrior like him.

Below, he feels the hundreds of eyes staring up at his struggling body, shame and humiliation burning on his face while he writhes and struggles. His legs spread open against his will, forcing his body to widen around the baby's head. He can now feel it start to press against his hole, battering against the tight ring of muscle with each push. Despite his efforts, the baby refuses to crown, slipping back each time he stops pushing through his contractions.

He bucks his hips wildly and wails in pain, too tired to care how he looks in front of his army anymore. He's so desperate to get these babies out of his overgrown belly but the first one is stuck and no matter how hard he pushes, it wont move any further. His tummy twists and deforms with each contraction, the shapes of his massive babies thrashing inside him becoming visible as the skin tightens around their bodies.

His captors decide he’s taking too long, not wanting their offspring to be damaged in labor, they lower his ropes, letting him lay down on his back and spread his legs as wide as he can. After hours of pushing, finally the head crowns, stretching him wide open for all to see, his hole bulging obscenely around the head as it slowly slips from his body. It pops out with a gush of fluid and a cry of agony from the exhausted warrior. He lays there panting and moaning with his baby’s head hanging from his body, mustering up the strength to keep pushing.

The crowd below him watches in horrified silence, listening to him pant and moan and scream through the pain. Now that he's on his back his captors order the guards to get the babies moving. They move to stand beside him, one on each side, and place both hands flat on the top of his heaving belly. The warrior cries and begs them not to, but he's too weak and helpless to stop them as they shove his tummy down, crushing his belly while it contracts, forcing the shoulders of his first born to tear their way out of his battered hole.

He shrieks in agony as they shove down on his tummy over and over, thrashing wildly against his restraints. The pain is so bad his vision goes white and all he can feel is his belly being squeezed and the burning pain between his legs. Even with the help of the guards, it takes them the whole day to push all eight babies out of his belly, the last baby slipping out of his ruined hole just as the sun goes down.

It's finally over, belly empty but still swollen and puffy after being so hugely pregnant for so long. He pants and wheezes, barely hanging onto consciousness as his captors laugh and jeer and him and the horrified crowd that watched him labor for hours. The last thing he feels before blacking out is his ruined body being dragged back into the castle, and hearing his captors warning his people that any who oppose them will end up just like him

[m1dori-eyes]

Be wary of linguistics rant, Elden Ring ahead

Ok so I just made a different post about this but I need to elaborate: The Elden Ring messaging system is legitimately such an interesting microcosm about how language is used as a tool and shaped to suit the needs it's being used for. I could actually make an entire study about how this can be used to better understand the formation of pidgin languages in the same way that epidemiologists studied the Corrupted Blood Incident in World of Warcraft to better understand the mechanics of how disease affects human behavior. Video games as an academic lens into peoples' minds has always been a fascinating topic to me, and by the end of this, you'll see why.

First off, message.

So for those not indoctrinated into the series/game, Elden Ring is a big open world game made by From Software, which won game of the year 2022 among some other awards (if you've played it or know anything about it, just skip to the next header). Each player plays as a Tarnished and explores this massive environment called The Lands Between individually, but if another player is walking in the same area that you are, you can see their "ghost" moving through the world, and you can "invade" or "be summoned" into another player's iteration of the world in order to briefly interact with it before returning to your own iteration. This occupies a weird space in between singleplayer and multiplayer, with these heavily limited and kind of random methods of interaction between players, but that's not the most interesting way of communicating with your fellow Tarnished; that title goes to the messages system. You can write a message onto a small stone, and leave it on the ground, and then that little stone with the message on it will have a random chance to appear in any player's iteration of the world for them to read. This is a tradition which has been going in From Software's games long since before the inception of Elden Ring, although I'm mostly going to be focusing on the message system of that title, because documenting the history of the 13+ years running Soulsbourne franchise is way too much, even for a nerd like me. The point is that messages are a lot more likely to be seen than any other method of player-to-player interaction, and you can even leave little "gestures" to go with them, where the reader can see your character striking a pose while they read the message. What a neat little mechanic, which definitely doesn't have any hidden layers of depth, and certainly wouldn't spawn an entire emergent system of pseudolinguistics, right?

No message ahead, be wary of mimicry

Well, when I said that messages are written by other players, that was a lie. To make a message, you don't type it out with your keyboard, you select what you want to say, from a big list of preset phrases. It works that way for a lot of reasons, foremost of all as a profanity filter, but also to prevent too many spoilers and maintain atmosphere. The sets of phrases are incredibly limiting, famously requiring players to use weird fake old-english diction in order to express a simple thought (Strong foe ahead, be weary of death. Look carefully ahead, visions of item. Suffering, o suffering, why is it always bad luck? etc). This seems like a limitation which would put a serious damper on anyone trying to actually communicate their thoughts, but gamers are a persistent sort, and have a lot of trouble taking no for an answer. They also have way too much time on their hands, and like to solve puzzles, a terrifying combination of traits, and the perfect one to accidentally create a conlang. With the unexpectedly massive audience that this game picked up on launch, millions of people left messages desperately trying to get something across, and if the game's preset vocabulary didn't contain the phrases to express it, they would forge their own path. Any big fans of linguistic history can already tell the direction that this might be going, as we move on into the next chapter:

Teacher, Liar, Lovable Sort

When the game released, there was chaos. The Lands Between are fraught with hidden passages, deception, and blatant bullshit, and the first kind of players leaving messages tried to helpfully communicate what you could trust, and what you couldn't. This is what the message system was intended for after all, giving advice to your peers, and what many people still use it for today. The second kind of players tried to do the opposite, deliberately leading people to their doom, just because they could. The third, and most numerous sort, were simply awestruck at everything the game had to offer, and left a series of remarks on the beauty and humor of the world. The messages left by each group are pretty easy to differentiate to the trained eye, which is the main feature causing me to point out this division of players. Let's call these groups the teachers, the liars, and the lovable sorts. A teacher can be recognized if their messages suggest something within reason, and being backed up by the peer-review of nearby messages to the same effect. If three messages are all sitting on the ground next to eachother, each saying something along the lines of "seek up, look carefully ahead", then a local collage of teachers are trying to let you know about a secret path ahead leading you up towards a hidden objective. However, a single message next to a bloodstained cliff-edge stating "jumping required ahead" is almost certainly a liar, trying to deceive an unsuspecting player into making a dubious leap. Liars sometimes use slightly simpler grammar than teachers do, being less committed to getting their point across. Wait a minute, linguistic variance based on intent? No no, this is just a video game about fighting monsters, surely such an interesting emergent system wouldn't arise from something like that. Lastly, the lovable sorts have the most ranging grammar, spanning from a simple word such as "dog" (a word used colloquially to describe all creatures, from turtles to dragons), to complex sentences requiring the combination of many phrases. However, a lovable sort can be differentiated by the fact that they merely remark upon the world as it is, instead of trying to offer advice to other players, as a teacher or liar might. Some of their most iconic phrases are "Elden ring ahead", used to sarcastically denote a dead end where a player might have been expecting treasure, "you don't have the right, o, you don't have the right" which indicates a locked door, or the world-famous "try finger, but hole", a phrase which explains itself. The most incredible thing about the words of the lovable sort, is that they all require a little bit of thinking to understand their actual meaning, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes like a second language to you! Wait a minute, a second language?

Message? Wasn't expecting introspection

As time went on, the three main groups of message-writers still kept chugging along, creating new works of writing every day, but advancements in understanding of the game's inner workings allowed these messages to become more and more complex. Compound words started to be formed to represent concepts outside of the preset vocabulary, like "skeleton, house" for coffin, "dung, key" to describe the donkeys accompanying traveling merchants, and "edge, lord" being used to refer to the NPC Ensha, a man wearing flamboyant armor made out of bones who takes himself way too seriously. It's worth noting in this section that for a specific period of time, The Lands Between were overtaken by a horde of messages stating only the words "fort, night". Despite the crude and humorous nature of the entire thing, it was clear to see that the linguistic patterns of the Elden Ring community were evolving into their own beast, far beyond the usages that the developers had intended. Words had shed their original meaning, to instead take up contextual meanings based on how players used them, effectively becoming different words entirely. Depending on how you define this, it's either a microcosm of incredibly fast and severe linguistic drift, or the emergence of a new pidgin or conlang entirely. If you really stretch things, you could almost call the message system of Elden Ring an entirely new language in and of itself.

Well done, victory ahead!

I think that video games are an excellent way to observe human behavior under conditions which are controlled, accelerated, and completely recordable, and this is the closest that we've ever seen to an entire language growing completely from scratch. People are always the same, whether you want to call it instinct or just cyclical tendencies, but normally the formation of a new language can take incredible periods of time, hastened only by tragic events like diaspora or massive losses of cultural knowledge (research what's been happening to Gaelic as a spoken language for more info about this sort of thing, it's kind of depressing but is also important to learn about, and there's a lot of people on this site talking about it who can do the topic way more justice than I can). Even for other topics which either require great passage of time, or great tragedy in order to research (I.E. geology or epidemiology, respectively), there are a lot of simulations and predictive models which can tell us how these systems behave without actually experiencing them. Linguistics has never had this sort of thing...until now, perhaps. Obviously there won't be any academic breakthroughs based on a bunch of people online all writing "rump ahead", but it's an incredibly interesting thing to see happening for a field which is so hard to actively advance, and it could lead to actual scientific methods of generating new languages via human interaction for research purposes. Of course, there's always the sizable chance that this goes nowhere and I just wrote this insane rant because I like to type, but if nothing else, I at the very least exposed some of my mutuals to "try finger, but hole".

[bellepeppergirl]

The Pthumerians

The Pthumerians were/are an ancient race of humanoids who lived deep below ground in Pthumeru Ithyll, or the Chalice Dungeons. It is unclear if they always lived down there or if they merely moved down there and then evolved into their current form from one that looked more human, but what is known is that they were the servants of the Great Ones. Not just servants, but likely a slave race whose sole purpose was to care for the Great Ones and expand the Chalice Dungeons endlessly.

Regardless of whether or not the Pthumerians originated above or underground, descendants of them can be found in both orientations. It seems an ancient branch of Pthumerians, or perhaps several branches, eventually breached the surface and subsequently created Yharnam and Cainhurst. There could be other locations in the world of Bloodborne that were created by the Pthumerians as well, as we don't know just how far the tombs sprawl beneath the surface, and it is very likely that some of their descendants could have simply traveled to new locations as well.

The Executioners are said to be from a foreign land, and among their ranks are the likes of Martyr Logarius, who is notably very Pthumerian in appearance. This could mean that there are more Pthumerian-descended civilizations out there, or that Logarius was simply a member of the Healing Church, which also employs (or really seems to enslave) many of these people themselves, and Logarius was simply appointed by them to lead the Eexecutioners during their siege and genocide of Cainhurst.

I mentioned Logarius having a very Pthumerian appearance, but what does that mean exactly? Throughout the game, we can encounter many Pthumerians. Each of these individuals have incredibly pale skin, straight up alabaster in color in some cases, with sunken, black eyes and somewhat strange mouths. Build-wise, Pthumerians have a number of shapes they can take, with some being rather tiny and frail, but most of them seem to be quite large, with their height being anywhere from slightly taller than a hunter, to almost twice as tall, to being literal giants. The variations between these Pthumerians could indicate that there are different branches, something like humans having once had homo sapiens, neanderthal, and denisovans, but they could also simply just be prone to intense levels of diversity, or even be affected by arcane arts or the influence of the Great Ones they serve.

The arcane arts seem to be a very important thing to the Pthumerians, as the tombs they live in are full of items and alters for ritual. Not only that, but we can find many Pthumerian witches who will assault us with magic. The Bell Ringing Women, who also seem to be Pthumerian, can also summon enemies to attack us. I am inclined to believe that the enemies they summon are the spirits of the dead and that the Bell Ringing Women act as necromancers, though it is also possible that these enemies are from different realities as well, similar to how player invasions work. Another point towards necromancy however is the fact that, within the dungeons, we can find several Pthumerian giants who are labeled as being undead. They look far different from the living ones we see above ground and are often adorned with candles, making them look like walking ritual alters. We can also find the occasional ghost wandering the dark corridors of the tombs.

I mentioned earlier that the peoples of Yharnam and Cainhurst are descended from the Pthumerians, but how do we know that? Well, for Yharnamites, it is much more obvious. Yharnamites have a distinct look about them. It isn't quite the same as that of the Pthumerians, but it is still quite different than the average person, like the hunters we meet from foreign lands. Yharnamites are tall, lanky, with seemingly mismatched proportions. These traits could be chalked up to the affects of beasthood and the Old Blood, but it seems odd that characters seemingly unaffected by the plague, such as the old woman or distrustful man we can send to Oedon Chapel still have these characteristics. On top of that, the city of Yharnam itself is named after Yharnam, the Pthumerian Queen.

"Yharnam" has been posited to be a name passed down from queen to queen. I think this is likely true and that the name is a thing of power and ritual. When a Pthumerian woman becomes queen, she also becomes Yharnam. The city was thus eventually named after the Pthumerian queens, though its possible its people have forgotten the origin of the name, especially with the Healing Church's take over and the burning and abandonment of Old Yharnam - Old Yharnam having an aesthetic and culture that seems much more in line with those below ground than those of Central Yharnam and the Cathedral Ward.

Old Yharnam is home to many statues that are bestial in nature and, while other parts of Yharnam aren't exactly strangers to fucked up looking statues themselves, Old Yharnam's still feel much more in line with what we find underground; much more archaic and dark. On top of that, the most damning evidence is the Church of the Good Chalice, where we can find the first Pthumerian Chalice on an alter. We can also find ritual blood on a separate alter. These two findings offer a direct link to the tombs, and thus to the Pthumerians, and paint the other oddities of Old Yharnam under a much more suspicious and Pthumerian-themed light.

But what about Cainhurst? Cainhurst's connections aren't as clear cut, but I believe the clues are there. For starters, the people of Cainhurst, the Vilebloods, are even more Pthumerian in appearance than the Yharnamites are. The people were see have drastic changes in sizes, some being short and hunched over little goblin men, kind of like the Pthumerian leg witches we see in the tombs, while the ghosts of victims we see are rather tall. These ghosts are also incredibly pale like the Pthumerians, but they are also ghosts, so who knows which is the cause.

Queen Annalise, on the other hand, is not a ghost, yet still bears these traits. Her skin is pale and grey, and almost shiny. Now, Annalise being a queen who isn't named Yharnam could be a flaw in this theory, but the people of Cainhurst and the people of Yharnam are enemies, so it makes sense that they wouldn't keep the same name. On top of that, some have posited the idea of a Pthumerian civil war, as thousands of corpses and ancient sets of weapons and armor can be found underground. These could all be from explorers, but the sheer number of these corpses and items makes it seem unlikely that they are JUST from explorers, possibly indicating that the split between Cainhurst and Yharnam was a lot further back in time.

Other possible links to the Pthumerians are the fact that we can find gargoyles and blood lickers in Cainhurst. Now, blood lickers can be found in other places as well, such as in the Hunter's Nightmare, as the creatures are simply attracted to blood. Blood lickers very well could be some form of interdimensional beings who just seek out blood, since the ones we encounter in the Chalice Dungeons mainly come out when we kill an enemy via visceral attack, but the fact that in the base game, these were the only two places we could find them could still be a link.

The gargoyles on the other hand are not found in the DLC, nor anywhere else. They can only be found in the Chalice Dungeons and Cainhurst. The gargoyles are rather humanoid in nature, so it is possible that they themselves are another form of Pthumerian. Alternatively, they could be beasthood afflicted Pthumerians, as beasthood affects people in a number of ways and the people of the dungeons did commune with the Old Blood. These beasthood afflicted Pthumerians could have been subsequently used as guard dogs, seeing as they tend to wait in inconspicuous places to jump out and grab any intruder who passes by.

Another potential connection is the fact that, when we arrive at Cainhurst, the courtyard we first enter has a strange hole. A sloping path leads down into the ground but seems to dead end. I personally believe this is, or was, an entrance to the dungeons that has since been sealed off and possibly where the branch that would become the Vilebloods first ascended. We can find a similar location in Yharnam, that being a cave below Iosefka's Clinic and the Forbidden Woods that is full of poison water and Pthumerian Giants who do not seem to be under the control of the Healing Church. Notably, these two locations also features the annoying worm enemies, which can also be found within Loran Silverbeasts where killed. Loran Silverbeasts can be found within the dungeons, and within the nightmare, and could possibly link Loran to the Pthumerians as well.

It is also interesting to note the fact that the streets of Yharnam are filled with coffins. This very well could be due to the plague that is ravaging the city, but it could also be one of the few remaining remnants of Pthumerian culture that hasn't been fully abolished yet; that connection to death and necromancy. The School of Mensis in Yahar'Gul seems to use necromancy themselves, as we can find abominations like wolves made of corpses, or the Cramped Caskets that are sentient masses of limbs that are fused together and inhabiting, well, cramped caskets. Yahar'Gul is also where we fight the One Reborn, a failed attempt at creating a Great One, or a vessel for a Great One, who is also made up of corpses and aided by Bell Ringing women, who I already discussed the connections to necromancy and Pthumerians. Yahar'Gul is also where the Snatchers reside or bring victims to, Snatchers once again being very clearly Pthumerian in appearance and located within the dungeons.

So that was my random ramble about Pthumerians and the culture likely descended from them. I may have missed some aspect that I wished to talk about since I got carried away a few times, and maybe some of this stuff is pointless, already well known, or simply not cared about, but I enjoy rambling about Fromsoft lore, especially my precious baby, Bloodborne. To anyone who read this, thanks! Would love to hear any thoughts.

[thelastwarriornun]

24 for avatrice?

Bang. Bang.

Beatrice’s ears ring with it in the absence of Ava’s shouting, or the shrill clicks and shrieks of the clicker. Beatrice’s breaths are a loud rasping thing, only  interrupted by the rhythmic wet tap, whether from the recently deceased clicker, or her own injuries Beatrice isn't sure. 

It comes back in fragments. Ava, patrol, the creek trails, all very routine. Nothing Beatrice would consider even a challenge. They’d found broken glass, and a fresh trail of blood leading them into a local minimart. Unusual certainly, but they were experienced with this. The building was old, rot having set in from all the moisture, another commonality. 

All very routine, until the floor had given way, wood shrieking and splitting as it collapsed, taking Ava with it. A gaping hole left in its stead. Beatrice remembers shouting, dropping onto her stomach with an outstretched hand as if she could undo the damage. She remembers sliding through the fractured wood, and dropping despite the height ignoring the ache in her knees. 

It wasn’t until Beatrice had landed, taking in the dark room around her, that she heard it. The telltale clicks and shrieks of a clicker. Beatrice's hand barely finds her holster before it’s there just two feet from Ava, Ava who’s groans come with tightly closed eyes, still reeling from the world falling out from under her.

It was too close. Too close to take a shot without putting Ava at risk. Too close to do anything except shield Ava from the fevered snap of jaws. It was an easy choice to make. It was the only choice. It doesn’t make it any less painful, Beatrice throwing herself into the shambling form, as teeth tear and rip through her shoulder, taking flesh and fabric indiscriminately.  Well this will be much harder to cover up with a chemical burn. 

Beatrice somehow manages to find her pistol, pressing the barrel against the clicker's head. Well head was probably overly generous, whatever once resembled a skull had given way now to the fungus blooming into something bright orange and ovular shaped. Beatrice fires twice, two shots in quick succession that spray blood and flecks of fungus against the ceiling. They fall together, and the clicker makes for a terrible cushion, smelling of rot, and full of varying lumps, manifestations of the infection. 

So Beatrice finds herself rolling off the infected, a groan on her lips as her back collides with cold tile, ears ringing. “Fuck.” It felt like an appropriate time for cursing.

“Beatrice.” Ava’s voice is faint, confused, likely still regaining her senses.  

Beatrice finds that pushing herself upright is a losing game, her right hand useless between the painful ache in her muscles, and the slick sticky puddle of blood now coating the tile. Right then, laying will have to do.  

“Beatrice!” More urgent now, and hands are on her. They’re gentle, as they pull Beatrice up, propping her against a nearby wall as Ava tries to fix something that can’t be mended. “This isn’t– it can't be– it’s from falling right? It didn’t bite you?” 

Beatrice laughs, a wet sound, ignoring the waves of pain that echo from her shoulder. Even she can see the distinct rows of teeth now memorialized in the cut of her shoulder. “Ava listen to me.” 

“Shut the fuck up Beatrice. Just give me a second to think.” Ava tears her flannel open, buttons scattering across the floor as Ava turns it into a bandage.

“That was one of my favorites.” Beatrice’s complaint is quiet, but Ava scowls all the same, tying the fabric in a tight knot against the open flesh, as Beatrice grits her teeth. 

“Now you want to be funny. You’ve barely said a word to me this entire patrol. But now you can’t seem to shut up.” Ava’s tone is harsh but her hands are gentle as they grip onto the front of Beatrice’s t-shirt. “That should slow the bleeding. Maybe I can buy us some time. They won’t come looking for a few hours–” 

“Ava stop.” Beatrice manages to catch Ava’s hands, hates the way they threaten to slip away between her own red stained fingers. Still Beatrice holds fast, and really this would be so much easier if the edges of her vision would stop blurring. “I have to tell you something, and I need you to promise me you won’t speak until I’ve finished.” 

“Beatrice there isn’t time.” Ava protests, and Beatrice can see it’s a losing battle, understands it really. Even now Beatrice finds herself caught between this moment, and a dream, a time when Beatrice’s curses were interrupted with inappropriate laughter, and the rising swell of grief. We’ll lose our minds together. 

It was so many years ago, and yet here Beatrice was. Once again watching love turn someone to insanity. Except this time Beatrice can stop it, can quell the rising tide, be the stormbreak she couldn’t before. 

Beatrice’s good hand slides along the curve of Ava’s arm, finding its way to the knape of her neck. It catches there, fingers tangling in the hairs that have escaped Ava’s ponytail. It seems silly now, their fight earlier, thinly veiled jealousy rearing its ugly head in both of them, Ava jealous over a girl Beatrice hadn’t spoken to in weeks. Beatrice, already steeling herself for the next time Ava makes up with Michael. They’ve been doing this dance for years, too afraid to speak plainly lest it ruin this. 

“Bea.” It escapes in a sob, Ava’s breath warm against Beatrice’s cheek. 

Fingers press against the knape of Ava’s neck, and Beatrice closes her eyes, unwilling to see the rejection she might find, or even worse, a reflection of herself all those years ago. Ava’s lips are soft, gentle, as if Ava’s worried she might break her. But Beatrice has spent years damming her own want and desire, and the soft press of Ava’s lips is enough to send the whole of it crashing down. Beatrice’s fingers are no longer gentle, as she surges forward, as much as the press of Ava’s body will allow, nipping at Ava’s bottom lip. 

Beatrice swallows a gasp against her lips, as Ava’s palms press flat against her chest, as if torn between returning the kiss, or pushing her away. Beatrice retreats, opening her eyes, expecting to find rejection. Instead Ava is afire, eyes wide, stuck somewhere between desire and grief, the two twisting together until Beatrice can hardly read the difference. Beatrice doesn’t make it far, only softens the press of her fingers against Ava’s neck when the tension of indecision seems to snap, and it’s Ava this time who closes the gap, molding their lips together. 

Beatrice's head bumps painfully against the wall, but she’d do it a hundred more times to keep Ava’s lips against her own. Ava’s hands cup along each side of her face, thumbs brushing along her jaw. And fuck immunity, fuck dying, because Beatrice is sure that there’s nothing she wants more than to fade into oblivion like this, with the press of Ava’s lips against her own, and the thud of her own heartbeat filling her ears. 

Ava’s hand slips down along her neck, and Beatrice hisses from between clenched teeth at the sharp wave of pain that rolls through her. But Beatrice doesn’t want to lose this, the starstruck look in Ava’s eyes, or the clench of her hands in Beatrice’s tattered shirt. So Beatrice smirks,” if I’d have known that would shut you up I would’ve tried that years ago.” 

“You should’ve.” Ava doesn't miss a beat. 

“Who’s being funny now?” Beatrice pauses sucking in a breath. The weight of years of secrecy, of hiding was a tough vow to break. Especially when so many people had paid the cost to keep it so. 

“I don’t want you to die.” Ava’s voice is soft, tears glistening even in the dim light of the basement, and Beatrice hears it again, an echo of the past, I cannot watch you die. We’ll go together then. 

“I’m not going to turn Ava.” Beatrice flips her arm displaying the fully healed tattoo on her arm, biting back a laugh when Ava scowls. 

“Really? You want to show off your stupid tattoo now?” 

“Not the tattoo, the burn. I’m immune, Ava.” It falls flat, and Beatrice presses a hand to Ava’s cheek forcing her to look at her before she can withdraw much. “I’m serious Ava. The only people who know are Mary, Shannon, and Suzanne. I was bit back in the QZ, that’s how I met Shannon and Mary. It was a long time ago, they were worried how people might react so that’s how I got the chemical burn. I’m going to be fine.” 

It’s not much, a flicker of something, hope, in the softening lines of Ava’s face. “Swear to me.” 

Beatrice doesn’t look away, simply brushes her thumb across the remaining trail of moisture along Ava’s cheek. “I swear. Assuming we make it out of this, I’ll be fine.” 

“Okay then.” Ava glances around, frowning slightly as she straightens up, as if just now recognizing the gravity of the situation. Ava extends an arm to Beatrice, who takes it with a grimace allowing herself to be pulled upright. “Don’t think bleeding out will stop you from having to talk about that kiss.” 

Beatrice laughs, ignoring the way the world seems to tilt beneath her as they look for an exit. Because of course Ava would take this in stride, and god Beatrice would do it again, throw herself into the jaws of a monster if it meant spending just another day with her. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

[jungkwok]

for the first time in forever | pjm fluff | bts disney series

jungkook | taehyung | jimin | namjoon | hoseok | yoongi | jin

≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫

pairing: jimin x reader

tags: fluff duh, kristoff!jimin x reader, based off plot of 'Frozen'

word count: 497 words

≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫ ≪ °❈° ≫

You find yourself in a winter wonderland, surrounded by pristine snow-covered landscapes. The air is crisp, and the snow crunches beneath your boots as you make your way through the enchanting forest. You're not alone– in fact, you’re far from it. 

“Jimin, what on earth is taking you so long? Hurry up!”

You don’t notice the mischievous sparkle in Jimin’s as he scoops up a handful of snow, shaping it into a perfect snowball. A playful grin plays on his lips, and before you know it, he launches the snowball towards you. You duck just in time, feeling the rush of cold air as it whizzes past, narrowly missing your cheek.

"Careful there, Y/N," he teases, his laughter ringing through the winter air. You retaliate, gathering your own snowball and hurling it in his direction. Jimin effortlessly dodges, his agility matching that of a wolf. The snow fight ensues, the two of you darting between trees, giggling like children in this magical realm.

As the banter continues, Jimin's eyes suddenly lock onto yours, and his expression shifts ever so slightly.. His teasing tone softens, replaced by something more tender. He takes a step closer, his gaze lingering on your lips. The air becomes charged with an unspoken energy, and a gentle warmth blossoms within you.

"Y/N…" he murmurs, his voice soft as a snowflake landing on your skin. "You know, we make quite the team. What do you say we become something more than that?"

His hand reaches for yours, fingers intertwining as he pulls you into a dance amidst the falling snowflakes. The world around you fades, leaving only the two of you twirling in a delicate waltz. The snow crunches beneath your feet, creating a melody that seems to echo the beating of your hearts.

Jimin's eyes lock onto yours, his unwavering gaze hovering on your lips. The playful snow fight transforms into a flirtatious dance, each movement drawing you closer. A snowflake lands on his eyelashes, glistening like a tiny diamond, and you can't resist the urge to brush it away with your fingertips.

The forest around you melts away– the world disappears as if you're the only two souls in existence. The lingering tension builds, and the air is thick with anticipation.

Unable to resist any longer, Jimin leans in, his lips gently meeting yours. The kiss is soft, like the delicate touch of falling snow. Yet the warmth of Jimin’s lips made the kiss anything but, with the heat from your cheeks being able to melt an iceberg. Time stops, and for a brief moment your heart does too. 

As you pull away, Jimin's eyes regain their usual glint, and he grins. The warmth of the kiss seemed to linger in the winter air– as if the snowy landscape was applauding your union. The two of you continue your journey through the enchanted forest, hand in hand, the magic of the moment etched into the snowy canvas of your memories.

[flyingsquirrely]

Incomplete list of things in QPB’s (TWSB’s?) worldbuilding that make me laugh:

(heavy spoilers up through recent, untranslated chapters)

Demonic Beasts: What are they? We just don’t know. As far as I know, their existence hasn’t been explained beyond a couple of points, like their danger levels. For some reason a wide variety of angry, magical animals that really hate divine items populate the entire continent. Types of demonic beast range from poisonous boars to palace-sized griffins to electrical t-rexes. They live in caves called dungeons. Some dungeons make monsters increase in power level. Any other story, dungeon diving would be part of the plot, but TWSB has waaay too many other priorities. Possibly demonic beasts can be tamed because people seem to accept that the divine beasts could be tamed demonic beasts very easily, but I don’t think we’ve actually seen a real case of this either. They appear to exist purely as animate plot devices, and while I kind of respect it, I want to knoooow. Sookym, release the forbidden demonic beast research papers. I’m sure some wizard is looking into it. François?

Cardinals automatically get Latin as a second language, no studying required. Like, the Cardinal level up rewards are:

Awesome power

+1 Trauma

Language proficiency: Latin

Hyunseo loves martial arts novels so much that it infected QPB’s Europe-esque setting, but he’s pretty good at hiding it so it only appears in the most northern, middle-of-nowhere part of the Holy Kingdom. Realistically, there would have been no reason to ever go there in QPB, but the Fates decided to do some sequence breaking in the new worldline so now everyone gets to experience the random Far-East Asian set pieces in the middle of a Germanic-analogue country.

With the reveal that holy knights are only born in the Holy Kingdom in order to protect the Goddess, the implication that the Empire went from 0 holy knights in 1000 years to 4 holy knights of significant power in 1 year solely because Yeseo (second son of the Goddess) crash landed there. Like, sure, the actual characters did the hard part, but his existence had the world itself just start spitting out holy knights like a broken vending machine (including, currently, 3 whole Cardinals, at least 1 of whom may not have existed at all in the original work).

All wizards are magic nerds, even combat wizards. A wizard will look at a magical mystery and ask “anyone else going to investigate this?” and not wait for an answer.

All the worldbuilding that’s inappropriate for minors goes on the islands of Admah and Zeboim because they didn’t make it into the original work. Most of the population of that region is also atheist for the same reason.

Even though the genre changed from romance fantasy to action-adventure fantasy between worldlines, a bunch of romance tropes have enough genre inertia to keep popping up, which then proceed to interact with the new genre in fun ways. The character roles swapping around is a big one (secondary male lead -> female lead, female lead -> best friend, [file not found] -> secondary male lead), but also stuff like:

Fake dating – the participants are etherically incompatible and hate each other. When asked what they like about each other, they would rather talk about their mutual partner.

Late to school with bread in their mouth – somehow there are sea anemones involved.

(make-your-own) Soulmates – actually, this one is rather interesting because I get the impression that while it existed in QPB, it wasn’t really that important to the plot, but it’s very important in the new worldline. There’s also that unrelated accidental soulmate event that happened, though, which was very traumatic for everyone involved.

Magical item in the shape of a ring – does get exchanged! But not between Yeseo and his main pursuant. Instead, Johann took the opportunity to troll his students and his students exploded a house.

Kiss cam – somehow this exists, but not standard cameras?? François’ mind is a mystery.

Romantic personal information (the middle name thing) – ends up mostly being used practically for identity verification, or in familial contexts.

Romeo and Juliet motifs – Gain completely misuses them wonderfully. Though the background radiation of Cedric being associated with Romeo and Yeseo associated with Juliet remains fairly intact.

Etc.

The Empire is the good guys. Sorry, years of Star Wars pop cultural influence has made me default to thinking Empire -> Bad Guys. It feels very strange rooting for the Empire.

The Holy Kingdom hates wizards, even the ones who only practice white magic, so the Big Bad (who operates in the Holy Kingdom) only employs warlocks, who use black magic. Except the Holy Kingdom also (nominally) hates warlocks, and they work underground (literally!) anyway, so Wilhelmina could have just used standard wizards…? I feel like she really missed out by not tapping into the standard wizard talent pool. I guess she had an ample supply of warlocks from Liliana’s leftover followers, but still. Did no one in the Holy Kingdom’s lengthy history of Trying To Usurp God ever think “wow, maybe it would be a good idea to have mages with a wide variety of specializations, not just ‘evil’”?

I should have put this one earlier, but the power ranking names of priests and holy knights being based on Catholic church clergy hierarchy cracks me up. The only cool ones are Cardinal and maaaybe Archbishop, because adding Arch- to a title immediately adds +1 coolness. It’s fortunate that all our main characters are Archbishops at minimum.

Also, the Vatican exists. Just, the Vatican. Not a thinly-veiled Vatican-analogue, it is straight up called the Vatican.

This one's more sweet than funny, but I love that probably the reason therapy exists in QPB even though many other fantasy novels don't have such a thing, and in such a positive light too, is because Hyunseo was writing it for Eunseo, who went to therapy for her depression, and now it's helping Yeseo with his PTSD.

I have a lot of thoughts about the ways Hyunseo and the trio’s mom shaped the world of QPB in a way that has looped back to affecting the “IRL world”, but most of them ended up more tragic than funny so theeey’re not going in this post.

[freckle-face-ace]

Portgas D Ace X CisFem Reader

14

"Like...Donquixote," Ace paused unsure if he should finish the question, "Doflamingo the Shichibukai?"

Rosinante gaped, eyes wide and dropped to the foot of your bed.

<You know Doffy? He's a Shichibukai?>

"Saw him recently." Ace recalled, "But I didn't know him."

You clapped your hands gaining the attention of all three men, "What?"

<He's from our world.> Ace typed.

<Pirates?> the blond interrupted.

Thatch lifted his shirt and tugged at his jeans revealing a tattoo of a jolly roger with a white crescent shaped mustache on his hip.

"Whitbeard." Ace confirmed.

Rosinante was brimming with excitement. His fingers couldn't seem to keep up with his racing thoughts.

<When you saw Doffy...did you see the family? One boy in particular...well he'd be a man now.>

"Family?" Ace quirked a brow, "I don't think so. What man?"

<Trafalgar Law. I'm sure Doffy took him.>

"Oh... The Surgeon of Death." Thatch confirmed remembering the man's wanted poster.

<What?!> Rosinante  gestured frantically.

"He's the captain of the Heart pirates." Ace added.

The blond's expression fell as his brows knit. He was happy that Law had survived and was not connected to the family or so it seemed. But he was also a little disappointed that he became a pirate with such an aggressively haunting epithet.

A small smile bent his lips realizing he'd called his crew the Heart pirates which seemed to be a clear nod to his code name. He hadn't played over those last memories with the boy from Flevance in such a long time. It hurt too much knowing he'd failed him.

After collecting himself and getting settled with you, Ace, Grace and Thatch he told his story. You sat back wondering just how many people lived among you from that world. And why did it seem they all landed in Portland?

<It seems something happened with my devil fruit when I crossed over. Since then I've been mute. Doctors haven't been able to explain it. I just can't make a sound.> he sighed and continued to type, <For the last fourteen years I've been teaching sign language to help ease others into this life.>

"Thanks for sharing with us." Grace smiled politely.

<I'm so sorry it seems I've taken up all of our time.> Rosinante frowned, <F/N, you'll be released in two days. Once you're settled at home I'll come by for two hour lessons three days a week. I'll email you the schedule.>

You smiled and nodded as the blond stood.

___________________

Four days after being discharged, you laid awake staring at the ceiling with Ace enveloping you. His head resting on your chest, you could feel the vibration of his snores. It was strange and frustrating only being able to remember the sound of his voice, hearing it ring though your mind but not your ears. You hoped you wouldn't forget the smooth deep tone, especially his laugh and his sultry timbre you'd only just been introduced to. Your favorite song, babies laughing, Kuma's playful woofs, none of that compared to Ace.

Suddenly the raven in question was shifting to lean over you a concerned look in his eyes. His right hand came up to thumb away tears you hadn't realized were falling.

"I'm ok." you managed to whisper, though it was obvious to him you weren't.

He rolled over to get his tablet sparing you the closeness you were desperate for. Having to use a device to communicate wasn't helping your mental state. All you had to do before was lie there and talk. Hearing your defeated sigh Ace placed the tablet in your lap and sat up against the pillows before gently pulling you between his legs to rest your back against his chest. Reaching around you he picked up the tablet and began to type while resting his chin on your shoulder.

<Bad dreams again?>

Though that had been a problem lately you hadn't even been to sleep yet. You shook your head raising your hand to type a reply.

It was a little too embarrassing to admit you wanted to hear his voice.

<It's too quiet.>

Ace frowned against your skin placing a chaste kiss over the dip of your shoulder. There wasn't anything he could do to really fix that. He hummed trying to think of a way to cheer you up, noting how you shivered at the action.

<You can feel that right?>

You nodded, <It's the closest sensation to sound I can experience.>

Ace placed the tablet back on the nightstand and shifted you to face him as he snuggled back down into the mattress. He ignored your puzzled glace as he began to hum one of the many songs you played while you worked. You focused on the rumbling in his chest while he encouraged you by drumming his fingers over the small of your back until the words bubbled up your throat.

"When you hold me, in your arms so tight, you let me know everything's alright. I~ I'm hooked on a feeling." it came out off key and slurred but to Ace it was beautiful.

A soft chuckle escaped you, surprised by how much better that made you feel. Ace kissed your forehead and continued to hum until you finally fell asleep.

You were driving, admittedly a little distracted singing along to the radio. Something slammed into your bug jerking you sideways and sending you airborne. You watched in horror as the road made contact with the passenger side door jostling you violently about in your seat. The sound of screeching metal and shattering glass filled your ears.

When you came to you were lying in the snow, a familiar voice shrieked nearby. Scrambling to your hands and knees you saw Ace writhing on the embankment screaming for Luffy. His voice slowed down like a broken record player, not matching the desperate movements of the freckled male. Eventually the scene was void of sound and you were too weak to reach him. The ground beneath you rumbled dragging your gaze back to the beetle as it shifted forward sending nearly a ton of steel on top of you.

A loud gasp raked up your throat while you sat up blinking frantically. Ace's arms wound around your waist pulling you back into his embrace.

"S'ok, I'm here." he mumbled forgetting in his drowsy state that you couldn't hear him.

He opened his eyes as your sweaty shivering body made contact with his. Knowing it was the same dream that has been plaguing you since the accident he reached for his tablet just as his alarm went off to start the day.

<Let's get in the shower.>

You shook your head slowly not really wanting to leave the bed.

<I have to get ready for work and it won't hurt you to feel a little refreshed. You can go right back to bed after.>

Wanting to spend time with the raven before you were alone for the day you sat up slowly earning a triumphant smirk from him. You were still terribly sore and couldn't stand for long periods of time without being in pain so, it helped to not shower alone.

Ace held you close under the hot water before helping you wash your body and hair, the shame of him bathing you having long since passed. He was right it, did seem to help refresh you and bring you out of the trauma of your nightmare.

You realized he was humming again, aside from feeling it from the source you could sense it reverberating off the tile walls. It was something upbeat that you couldn't quite place, but that didn't matter as long as your raven seemed content with the current situation. Who wouldn't want their naked girlfriend pressed up against them in the shower? It was the best way to start his day.

After your joint shower you slipped into one of Ace's shirts and crawled back into bed. Your boyfriend entered shortly after you in his work clothes, hair tied halfway up he leaned over tipping your chin up for a kiss.

<Thatch is here. I'll text you on my break. Just get some rest.>

"Have a good day." you muttered receiving another kiss.

"How is she?" Thatched asked as Ace slid into the passenger seat.

"I think it'll be a while before she's over the trauma. She's still having nightmares." the raven sighed.

"If you don't want to leave her alone we can find someone to cover your shift." Thatch offered.

"I would much rather stay home. But there are bills to pay, plus Kuma is here for her."

The elder chuckled, "Look at you."

"What?" Ace asked defensively.

"Fire Fist Ace settled down and paying bills." the brunette teased.

"If it were anyone else I wouldn't be here."

Thatch took that last statement in for a moment before breaking the brief silence, "Pops would be proud."

Ace hoped that was true. For the second time in his life he felt like he belonged and was truly loved without condition. For the first time he didn't have the urge to keep exploring; he wanted to stay here with you.

After the short drive the brothers arrived at the restaurant.Thatch headed to the kitchen to make sure the staff was prepping for brunch while Ace headed to the break room to get his apron and notepad.

"Acey!" he sighed at the sound of Katie's voice entering the break room.

"Uh, hey."

"Hey," she rubbed her nape ruffling her purple locks, "I just wanted to say I was sorry for Christmas. I was a mess and I don't remember everything but Thatch said I broke your phone and you still managed to make sure I had a safe place to stay for the night."

"It's no big deal." he avoided eye contact tying his apron.

"Well, I still wanted to thank you." she hugged him.

"You're welcome." he stepped back a little uncomfortable by her proximity.

"Oh I heard what happened to your roommate. Must be tough for the poor thing." the purplette clicked her tongue in a pitying manner, "Will you be moving out?"

"What? Why would I move out?" he couldn't hide the offense in his voice, "She has a name and you know it. I really don't appreciate the way you talk about my girlfriend."

Katie took a step back a little shocked by his stern tone and the news of your status. An embarrassed flush crept up her throat as she swallowed passed the knot that was threatening to suffocate her.

"Ah ...Oh. I'm... I'm so sorry." she spun on her heel and ran for the restroom.

Ace sighed, he could have been a little less gruff but it did feel nice to announce your relationship to someone other than Thatch and Grace.     

[nightsandreala]

something short i wrote in april for reala day 🥺 post-canon (kind of au?) fic where nights finds a nightopia based on a mall and gets reala a stuffed animal (it’s very unserious). can also be read under the read more lol 🤭 thanks for reading

For most Nightmarens, collecting things was almost instinctual. They would take bits from each Nightopia they ravaged: any Ideya the dreamer possessed was the first and foremost goal, of course, but they would also take pieces from the world’s landscape, any effects that happened to strike their interests. NiGHTS certainly wasn’t any different— in only a matter of decades the elegant nighttime garden scene that made up their lair had become absolutely trashed, cluttered with anything and everything they could find during their daily searches through Nightopia, the dark grass and cobblestone walkways littered with out-of-place seashells and jewels and stones of all shapes and sizes. Stray feathers and scraps of cloth and linen formed makeshift nests among beds of thorny vines; out-of-place flowers, long since plucked from their original lands, decorated the heads of stone-carved statues. NiGHTS’ things weren’t so much trophies as other Nightmarens claimed their possessions to be, just things that made their lair feel more ‘theirs’— it was the least they could do, a lair and whatever was inside it was the closest any Nightmaren could really get to owning anything, and even so, their lairs could be destroyed by Wizeman just as easily as their bodies could be.

Right next door, however (or at least as ‘next door’ as lairs could be in a world as twisting and turning as Nightmare), was quite a different room: Reala’s. Reala, as far as NiGHTS could remember, had always kept his lair the same way from the very beginning: red and black everywhere, making up a majority of the room from the checkered floor to the backing of Reala’s majestic throne. Jagged spires of rock lined the outside of the ring, but he made sure that not even a pebble strayed out of place if they happened to crumble. The three blue-flame lamps flickered on eternally at a steady pace, keeping a constant, comfortable level of warmth and low light. Reala’s room was always immaculate, and he had prided himself on that fact in those days, had tried to use it as an example of how NiGHTS should have kept their own space. Of course, it never worked.

“It’s so… empty, though,” they would argue, shifting uncomfortably in the seat of Reala’s throne, “You don’t have anything, it’s like you don’t even live here!”  

They would offer their twin some of their own trinkets, or perhaps sneak some in when he wasn’t looking (only to have them promptly returned soon after). And Reala, time and time again, would explain, “Everything we need, Nightmare gives us. All of your… things aren’t necessary.” 

NiGHTS would never admit it, but when they made that sudden decision to leave Nightmare behind, all their things did seem unnecessary. Maybe they had forgotten how fun it was to be able to collect things, living the way they had for so long— wandering between dreams without settling in any one place for too long, residing in the nearest tree or riverbank or warm, grassy field. With no permanent place to come back to, nowhere to keep things after their journeys ended they had learned to travel light, with only their own outfit and their flute, really, and it wasn’t as if that took up much space (none at all, actually, they would simply summon it when they wanted it and wish it away when their performance was through). More important than the lack of storage space, though, was the need to stay hidden, to not leave a single trace or clue as to where they’d been, should Reala be sent looking for them.

Those days, at long last, were far behind both of them now, though. And NiGHTS wasn’t going to be a minimalist ever again.

A majority of their house’s decor were the results of NiGHTS’ newest hobby— traveling to new Nightopias not in search of Ideya, not even in search of food or building materials for the house or anything remotely useful in Reala’s mind, but in search of things. Human things, at that. They had explained the process with a joy Reala couldn’t comprehend, about how they’d found a Nightopia fashioned after some kind of Waking World market, full of different shops, full of various items, empty of any dreamers. They had come home that day with as much stuff as they could carry with only their own two arms, absolutely beaming with delight.

“It almost reminded me of how humans used to dream back when we were still… you know, hunting,” they’d said, offering a vague hand gesture as they spread out their items on the floor to show off to Reala. “Remember? How they were always dreaming about castles and markets and feasts and all that?” 

Reala couldn’t help but smile— perhaps humans were still just as disgustingly greedy even now, but he had to admit that outrageous human desire had always made for fun dreams. The two of them had crashed many a royal banquet in centuries past, made quick work of the dreamer’s Ideya and then spent the rest of their time making even quicker work of tables of dreamed-up food, helping themselves to tastes of the Waking World that simply couldn’t be found in their regular meals of Third-Levels. 

NiGHTS had spun a similar tale of their adventure that day: “It was bigger than a castle, I think, and it had these staircases—“ They were all but flailing their arms about at this point, in a wild attempt to replicate something, “—that were moving! All the shops were inside, and each one had different things… look!” 

They had gone back several times since then, always returning home with arms brimming with whatever piqued their interest: soft and warm things to cover their bed with, small and colorful things to line their windowsills. Anything and everything in-between. Reala had to admit that their room was neater than their lair had been, at the very least. And, knowing Reala’s dislike of trinkets, they only ever brought things home for themself. Except for this particular day, when they’d merrily entered Reala’s room and tossed him… this.

“…What is this?”

“It’s a cat,” NiGHTS told him, like he already should have known. “Well, y’know, a stuffed one. I would have gotten you a red one, but pink was the closest they had.”

Reala stared at the object in his hands, soft plush material looking out of place in his rough, calloused hands and sharp yellow nails. A cat? That was the creature Clawz was supposed to resemble, if he recalled correctly. But this didn’t look anything like Clawz, save for the little triangle-shaped ears and sewn-on whiskers, maybe— and he doubted that, in pretty pink fur and black plastic bead-eyes, it looked much like its Waking World counterpart either.

Reala tried again. “But what is it, what is it for?”  

“Well, it isn’t for anything, really, you just have fun with it. I felt like you needed something like that, y’know.” NiGHTS lightly tossed their own ‘cat’ (theirs was a nice shade of light purple) in the air and caught it again, switching it between hands like a basketball. “But you could use it for a pillow, maybe. Or you could use it like this!”

Reala, too distracted and, admittedly, slightly enchanted by his new acquisition, completely missed NiGHTS winding up across from him, and only looked up just in time to be met with a faceful of stuffed animal. He reacted a second too late, clumsily swiping at nothing but air with an annoyed grumble. NiGHTS hesitantly reached for their cat, gathering it back into their arms with a hint of shame. “…I could keep yours if you really don’t want it, Rere.”

Reala tested the plush again. It would make a nice pillow. And it was soft, easy to hold and squish and knead his claws into. He could see himself becoming used to it, really, just having something for the sake of having it.

“No, I suppose I’ll keep it,” he told them, rubbing the cat’s ear between two fingers. “Just as long as you don’t bring me any more. I don’t need my room ending up looking like yours.” 

NiGHTS grinned, tossing their cat upwards again. “Fine! I’ll only get them for myself, and then I’ll have more to throw at you.”

…And just as long as he could hit them back soon enough.

[morgulscribe]

The Topography of Second Age Arda (Before the World Was Made Round)

Map of Second Age Arda from the Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad.

I believe that Karen Wynn Fonstad was using older illustrations by Tolkien when creating some of the maps of unexplored lands, so I'm not sure if this map is completely accurate to Tolkien's concepts of Arda as a whole at the time of Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, I doubt that we will never know for certain, so this map is probably as "canon" as it gets.

Since Arda is an alternative universe version of our own world, the face of Arda must change multiple times in order to appear as it does today, in the Seventh Age. I consider the landforms of Middle-earth to be somewhat compressed versions of the real world, with analogous landforms that have not yet evolved to their current appearance.

Eriador is analogous to Western Europe; Rhovanion is analogous to Eastern Europe and part of Asia. Middle-earth does not have a Mediterranean Sea, although the Bay of Belfalas does have a similar shape. Near Harad seems to encompass part of the region that the Mediterranean Sea would take up if it was dry land instead of water, as well as part of northern Africa and the Saudi Arabian peninsula. The continent of Far Harad appears to be a narrower prototype of Africa. (The First Age version of Far Harad looked more like modern day Africa, but part of the western region went beneath the waves after the War of Wrath.)

It is interesting to note that Middle-earth does not appear to have a corresponding river to the Nile. Far Harad does have a major river which starts in the Grey Mountains and runs southeast to the eastern coast. The only real world counterpart I could find that looks vaguely similar would be the Niger River.

The Girdle of Arda is the Equator, naturally.

I think that the bay between the words "Hinter" and "Lands" appears to be a proto-version of the Red Sea. The little peninsula which sticks up on the southern mouth of the bay resembles a tiny Horn of Africa.

The two eastern rivers which drain into the Inner Seas bear a slight resemblance to the Tigris and Euphrates.

The Orocarni, the Mountains of the East, might be ancient versions of the Ural Mountains.

I always thought that there should be more land to the east of the Orocarni Mountains, to accommodate the continent of Asia. Perhaps when the world was made round, Eru added more land to Middle-earth, making Rhun much larger than it was in the Second Age.

Possibly the separate continent called Dark Land (South Land) is later broken up, becoming the Indian Subcontient and Australia. A poster on this Reddit post claims that the Dark Land/South Land continent and the Walls of the Sun ceased to exist when the world was made round. Maybe Eru turned Dark Land/South Land into proto-versions of India and Australia, and the Walls of the Sun was added to Rhun, becoming the central and eastern parts of the continent of Asia.

It is my own personal theory that at some point during the Fourth Age, the face of Arda is changed once again, becoming what it looks like in modern days. As for why this great apocalypse occurs?

It's all SAURON'S fault, of course.

[sillovn]

The World Before #3: The Farum Crisis

A short entry - from where came Farum Azula? Additionally, some points on Marika's origins. all entries -> #worldbefore

3.1 The Wandering City

As it currently exists, Farum Azula is beyond the Land’s Between - both in space and time. But was it ever a part of the world?

Its commonly thought that Farum Azula is flying thanks to the residual gravity magic of the meteor that struck it. This is a fair statement, as Farum Azula being essentially in-situ makes the Lands Between into nice solid ring shape. However, fallen Azula ruins can be found across the southern regions - strewn from Liurnia to Caelid. The implication being that the city traveled to its current location west-to-east and was already airborne and crumbling when it entered The Land's Between.

As much as I like the idea that Farum Azula flew in from elsewhere, there is one very major issue: the Elden Ring definitively fell in the Lands Between (see. Elden Stars) and the Farum civilization was cleared based around it (see. Part 1). One solution, is to simply acknowledge Farum Azula is incredibly ancient - perhaps the Lands Between did not yet exist as a continent in that ancient age? After all, there is extensive buried architecture almost everywhere you look.

Stone dragons can be seen embedded in the city’s bedrock. Placidusax is also not classified as an Ancient Dragon (likewise, the Placidusax’ Ruin spell belongs to no school). Sure, it could be an oversight - but it could also suggest an even older generation of ‘Primeval Dragons’ of which Placidusax is the last.

3.2 From Another World

All that handwringing over the city’s origin was really just to ask – are the Numen from Farum Azula? The Numen are clearly stated to be from elsewhere, but how far afield is hard to say. In favor of this idea are a few points.

Numern are ‘long-lived, seldom born’, which seems fitting for the people of time bending city. Caveat to this is the ‘Draconian’ character preset, but it’s never seen in-game, so eh?

Marika’s half-brother was a Beastman cleric

Marika’s Hammer is made of stone (see. Bestial Sling)

Marika was found to be an empyrean, implying the society she came from was familiar with the process of ascending with the Elden Ring.

It’s also possible the Numen arrived from elsewhere but became integrated in the Farum civilization at an early date. This conveniently preserves the Numen’s ‘migration from another world’ narrative while keeping Farum Azula’s origin in the Lands Between.

Numen live a long time, though it’s not explicit as to how long that may be. Marika could have come from Farum Azula, or she could be from a later age after its inhabitants fled the meteor catastrophe. That particular detail isn’t really important, but her connection to the city’s clerics probably is.

One could write about how this background gave Marika the knowhow to structure an entire religion – but that’s off topic for this series.

3.3 The Fall

Though timeless, Farum Azula is ultimately destroyed by meteor strike. It’s safe to say this catastrophe ends the reign of Ancient Dragons - their god flees the city with the Elden Ring, and so they lose the favor of the Greater Will.

As a side note; the present form of Farum Azula is only a fragment of something much larger - be it a city or entire landmass. Ive often wondered if the mysterious land depicted on dragon talisman items is the unbroken Farum Azula. The current city is too fragmentary to say anything conclusive, but having dragons embedded in the land is the closest to the mentioned 'wall of living stone'.

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This is all for today

TLDR: Farum Azula's original location is enigmatic. Marika's origins can be tied to the city's clergy.

next entry - The Fled God

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars Ahsoka: "Time to Fly" - Review

Ahsoka and Sabine begin their mission and the series starts to find its footing in an improved, if not great, third chapter.

As Hera Syndulla reaches out to New Republic leadership for help, Ahsoka and Sabine set out for the mysterious world of Seatos. However, they find much more than they expected upon arrival.

Finally, things are starting to come into shape. "Time to Fly" doesn't exactly solve the many issues that plagued Ahsoka's two part premiere, but it takes some decent strides towards getting back on course. Despite it's remarkably short runtime, Dave Filoni manages to accomplish a decent amount in "Time to Fly" delivering some much needed exposition and character study and an entertainingly unique action sequence.

While it may be a strange thing to be thankful for, I'm very glad that such a large portion of this chapter is spent simply letting Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang interact with one another. Sure, Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka is still too detached and mysterious to make much of, but we are finally starting to understand the ins and outs of her mentoring of Sabine Wren. Unlike the premiere where both women were defined mostly by quiet frustration, we begin to see a more fruitful, fluid, and dynamic relationship between both characters here. Ahsoka wonders aloud if she's a quitter and too eager to abandon her callings. Sabine struggles to live up to the steep expectations that come with being a Jedi. We are still missing the origins of this dynamic and Ahsoka's rationale for wanting to change a non-Force Sensitive in the Jedi arts to begin with, but "Time to Fly" at least lets us understand a bit more why this is a dynamic worth following. And even if Dawson's performance is still failing to land, Bordizzo seems to be settling into Sabine while creating her own spin on the character.

There's also some welcome clarification on the state of the larger galaxy in "Time to Fly" as Hera Syndulla approaches members of the New Republic with concerns about Grand Admiral Thrawn's return. Intentionally or not, Ahsoka seems to put the audience in the position of the skeptic here. While Hera is one of the show's heroines and a beloved character to franchise fans, viewers who are new to all of this have no context as to why they should care about Thrawn's return or about Hera's desire to rescue Ezra Bridger. We may understand that Hera wants this, but viewers haven't exactly been given reason to stand by her side during her debate with Mon Mothma and Kazuda Xiono's asshole dad. It's a bizarre moment of narrative dissonance and if intentional, could be an interesting move in the long run. I'm not inclined to give that level of credit, but it still makes for an interesting sequence

Also Jacen is here. He still has green hair. He looks a little less like a horrific mash up of a Rugrats character and a head of broccoli.

The highlight of "Time to Fly" is undoubtedly the extended dogfight that takes place above and in the skies of Seatos. The initial reveal of an ornate and massive hyperspace ring is a fun spin on Star Wars' forever fascination with big secret space objects and I like that for a change it isn't a superweapon. And the dogfight that follows is fun Star Wars spectacle. It may be lacking in any form of true narrative tension, but the execution by director Steph Green and the production team is pretty damn fun. I mean, Ahsoka gets in a space suit and slices at any enemy ships in zero gravity. It's the kind of Star Wars set piece that many fans have dreamed about for years and the results are filled with all of the whirring laserswords and sliced up starfighters that you'd hope for.

And then, "Time to Fly" just kind of stops. Given the episode's short runtime it doesn't really make sense why Dave Filoni didn't write more of a coherent third act to this chapter. It speaks to the clunky serialization of Mandoverse shows that want to be episodic without the actual storytelling chops to do so.

All in all, "Time to Fly" feels remarkably more competent than its predecessors. Sure, this is faint praise, but I do want to see this show succeed. There's some genuine joy and creativity bubbling beneath the surface in Ahsoka and I want to see it break free. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.

Score: B