#and I think I fused with another fragment of one

[vampirecatprince]

Oough- our headspace is such a fucking disaster right now

Ves has been refusing to speak with me for weeks, we've split AT LEAST three new headmates, I think I fused with a fictive fragment earlier today, traits have been free-floating and are being reassigned randomly, I had probably THE worst headache of my life earlier today, and I'm honestly surprised I'm as lucid as I am considering everything?

[blainesebastian]

ex-something

word count: 11,109 ship: Nick Leister x reader rating: NC-17 (for some smut, suggestive sexual language and expletives) summary: Just because you and Nick are broken up doesn’t mean that you’re over one another. notes: really appreciate the overwhelmingly positive response on my first nick x reader post :) hope this is just as enjoyable! i have a masterlist! notes 2: gifs from this gif pack

You get it—relationships change, that’s true with anything. You’ve had friendships that have evaporated into thin air or have fused together thanks to one night, boyfriends who promise they’d hand you the moon but couldn’t even show up when you needed them. You’re also different, you’re not the same person from year to year, nor day to day. Small, minute shifts sometimes make the greatest ripple effects. It’s good to see how something can adapt, how you can realize one thing and decide on another. 

Maybe you should have realized that you and Nick were never going to work—a thought that’s ugly that sprouts in your mind like a weed. Like ivy twisting around your ribcage and squeezing. You know him like the back of your hand, have been part of the same circles for so long—the orbiting around one another felt inevitable. 

So maybe the disintegration was too. 

Nick’s come a long way since you’ve known him in opening up, both of you bringing so much baggage to the table that you could no longer see the surface. Everyone has their own weight to carry, their own shit to get through, but it felt like…what you were carrying was no longer heavy when he was around. You both shared things, secrets in the dark, things you felt like couldn’t be shared with anyone else. While that should have caused the bond between you to strengthen, it created cracks and fragments that were sharp enough to cut the skin. 

Nick has trouble trusting that people won’t leave him, and you have trouble trusting that something will last the way it’s supposed to. As awful as it sounds, you never thought you and Nick would be together long-term. It’s not about him, but about yourself—about not deserving something good, about losing someone you were never supposed to have in the first place. 

When you began to pull away, creating distance and space, Nick overcompensated by yanking harder. He leaves you before you can leave him. The break-up, though surprising, is…somehow amicable, even though the devastation of it ending was clear on both your faces. Like a roadmap of a decimated city, the skyline crumbling into itself. 

The sudden destruction is so ugly that neither of you can look away. There’s regret almost instantly, that much is obvious, and yet neither of you speak up to change anything. You just…part ways, Nick leaving first.

You let him go, you allow him to push you and keep that chasm of space, because it was never meant to work out, right? 

“He’s in love with you, babe,” Jenna tells you one night over her house. “That’s never gonna change.” 

“Guess not enough.” You mumble—but you’re not innocent. You didn’t chase after him. 

“Well I never said he was smart,” Jenna teases, attempting to lighten the mood, and a smile twitches the corners of your mouth but you can’t reply. You shake your head, running a hand over the side of your face before lying back on her bed. 

But Nick is smart. He’s smart, and calculated, and even though he sometimes thinks with his fists, he knows the consequences of actions before he makes them. He knows exactly what choice he’s made and why he’s done it. 

Which is one of the reasons you can’t bring yourself to tell him he’s wrong. 

—

You miss Nick like you never knew you could. It’s one of those cliché things that you don’t understand what’s missing until it’s gone. There’s an absence that feels like a force, that sits on your chest, that makes it hard to breathe. An ache that begins behind your ribs and pulses outward. You miss things that aren’t altogether obvious—things you never knew you thought about until they pop-tap-pop like morse code in your mind. 

You miss his hands, the way they felt on your body, his fingers brushing through your hair or lingering along your hip. The squeeze on your knee or the gentle pattern of circles along your spine. You miss his mouth, the way the corner quirked up when he found something ridiculous, the way it felt on your own, his lips on your cheek, your shoulder, between your legs. You miss the way your bodies felt lined up, curled up in bed to sleep or slotting together during sex. You miss the sounds he used to make. You miss the gentle crinkle of his nose before he laughed, you miss that too; the laughing. 

But most of all you miss the way he stood by you, protected you, cared about you, a driving power that’d run anyone else over if you needed something. You miss the way he made you feel loved, actual love—something real and tangible and consistent. Something you didn’t know you deserved. 

It’s too late to take back what you’ve done and you lay awake at night, sometimes, wondering what would have happened if you would have tried to talk to him instead of letting your thoughts get the best of you. 

—

Just because you and Nick are broken up doesn’t mean that you’re over one another. 

—

Jenna drags you to Anna’s party—literally, she has to drag you. 

“Enough moping,” She sing-songs. “Time to put on your tightest dress and your best lipstick and have a fucking good time.” 

You roll your eyes but…she’s not wrong. So you follow her lead. Little black dress, comfortable shoes, red lipstick. It brings out the color of your eyes, it matches with the tiny, ruby, heart-shaped earrings you’re wearing and it draws people to look at your lips. But most of all? It makes you feel good. Your mother has always had a saying, to ‘dress your best when you feel your worst’, and you suppose that’s what you’re doing. 

Surviving. 

And sometimes? That’s more than okay. 

“Wish this party wasn’t here, though.” You comment, a soft sigh leaving your lips as you enter the lavish home of Anna. Anna who is probably salivating at the concept that Nick’s single again. You’re sure he’s here tonight, you don’t need to ask Jenna to know. You smooth your fingers along your dress, adjusting your small purse so it sits on your hip. 

You and Jenna wouldn’t exactly call Anna a friend…a frenemy, maybe? Maybe not. But Jenna smiles over her shoulder, “Shouldn’t let her expensive booze go to waste, should we?” 

You let out a soft laugh���you suppose that’s true. 

The night swirls forward with a lot of dancing, a messy game of darts, and almost too many shots. You roll your hips to the beat of the music, a grin on your face as Jenna bounces in time to the base, her hands finding yours and squeezing before giving you a twirl. It’s in that spin that you see him, leaning against the back of the couch on the outskirts, watching you. 

Or maybe that’s a trick of the light, or the hazy alcohol licking your common sense. Either way, you don’t look back over your shoulder towards him, you can’t. You wish that Jenna doesn’t call over the music that she needs water, because your knees suddenly feel like jello at the concept of staying on this makeshift dance floor alone. So you don’t. 

You make your way through the crowd to follow her, lingering, and hate yourself for your eyes being pulled from the task at hand…towards Nick. 

He looks gorgeous tonight, but you suppose that’s not a surprise. Jeans, a white t-shirt, an oversized jacket. It’s pretty textbook and yet it’s enough to practically sway you off kilter. Without being close to him, you can smell the leather of his jacket, the expensive cologne, something purely him tying it all together. You can feel the heat of his body, the chill of the thin silver chain he’s wearing and the rings on his fingers over your skin. 

An ache begins low in your stomach, which only turns sour when his eyes flitter to you and then look away. It’s so quick it feels like a slap to the face, his own expression impassive, like he has a million better things to do than be standing around at this party. You know his masks well, the ones he puts on when he thinks no one is looking, the ones he peeled off when he was around you. You know this is his favorite one—pretending he doesn’t care, when he does. 

Chewing on your lower lip, you take a step towards him though you’re not sure why. To speak to him, maybe? To make a joke about how his face looks like it was carved in stone? That if he keeps making that expression it’s going to stick like that. But then he shifts when someone comes up beside him—

fucking Anna. 

You stop short, trying to tell yourself to turn around, to get some water, to go back to having fun with Jenna. And yet, like a car crash, you can’t seem to look away. Anna has always been obvious about her feelings for Nick, whether it’s something genuine or just purely physical—it doesn’t matter. She practically molds herself to his side, a pretty grin on her face, talking about something that you can’t hear about—but her hand glides down his arm. 

There’s a small, gentle tilt to Nick’s lips, ever so subtle, but it’s enough to make it feel like the floor is opening up underneath you. 

Turning on your heel, you move through the crowd towards the bathroom, trying to quell the nausea rolling in your stomach. You try to tell yourself that you’re overreacting, that it’s not fair for you to have a reaction like this, that Nick is single and he can do whatever the fuck he wants… regardless that Anna is the worst. 

It hasn’t been too long since you’ve broken up, and yet you find yourself trying to rationalize that it shouldn’t hurt like this. You know that’s a defense mechanism, that trying to convince yourself that you’re okay is just something to keep yourself from hurting. But maybe it’d be good to feel that hurt, to let it in instead of shoving it deep in a box that’ll remain unopened. 

Maybe if you let yourself hurt, you wouldn’t be spiraling over Nick’s almost smile at Anna. 

When you go for the bathroom door, it’s locked, and a groan leaves your lips because of course. Running a hand over your forehead, you lean back against the opposite wall, waiting, allowing your eyes to close as your head tips back. 

“You look a little nauseous.” 

Nick’s voice jolts you out of your position against the wall, almost setting you off balance. When your eyes dart to him, there’s that playful quirk to his lips, warm amusement in his brown eyes. His jacket is missing—you hate that you wonder if it’s around Anna’s shoulders. You straighten your shoulders, letting out a breath as you turn to look at him. 

He’s not wrong, you are nauseous. But it’s not from the alcohol. “Think this house just does that to me.” 

Nick smirks, shaking his head as he takes a few steps towards you. He stops short, too short, leaning his shoulder against the wall. His eyes dance over your form, making you squirm, hating how he seems to see right through you. Like you’re made of glass. Heat gathers low in your stomach and pulses between your legs, that familiar ache comes back in the center of your chest. You miss him and you fucking hate that you do. 

Tearing your gaze away, you curl your hair around your ear, glancing back towards the bathroom door. Sheesh, what is someone doing in there? 

“Is it the house or is it someone in particular?” 

You scoff out a soft laugh—fuck, he’s got a lot of nerve. “Is that any of your business?” 

The smile he gives you is something slow and knowing, his gaze wandering to your lips, lingering on the red lipstick there. Butterflies erupt in your stomach, fluttering up towards your ribs, living there on the bones. The way he’s looking at you digs under your skin in the best way. 

“Think it’s completely my business.” He replies, sticking his one hand in his pocket. You can picture his fingers flexing, maybe trying to resist touching you. You love the sound of that. It’s one of the reasons you decide to flip the script, to take a little power back when he won’t stop staring at your mouth. Two can play this game—whatever game this is. 

Taking a step towards him, you say, “Is my lipstick your business?” 

Nick draws in a slow breath, it may seem causal, but you can see the heat darken the color of his eyes. Regardless of how things have played out between you two, things that maybe should have never happened in the first place (breaking up sounds like it was a stupid idea), you know that you feel safe with him. It’s that safeness that has you eliminating space, the toe of your shoe bumping into his. 

He’s not that much taller than you but it feels like he’s towering, eyes zeroed in on your lips. He lifts his hand, brushing his thumb over your lower one, purposely smudging your red lipstick, 

“You never seemed to be jealous of anyone when we were together.” He whispers, his breath fluttering over your cheek and yet it feels like a bucket of ice water tossed over you.  A reminder. Dick. 

You lean further into his touch, your noses bumping, close enough to kiss him but you don’t. Nick goes dangerously still and licks his lips. 

“Unsurprised that you didn’t seem to know me very well.” 

And with that you pull back, putting distance between your bodies. You wish it was enough to get your head on straight. Nick rubs his fingers over his thumb, erasing any traces of lipstick, like it never even happened. 

You wished it didn’t sting to see it. 

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want to keep Anna waiting.” You cross your arms over your chest, a clear defensive move but almost creating a shield as well, protecting yourself. 

You’re not looking at him but he lingers, a soft hum leaving his lips. He then moves to the bathroom door that…still hasn’t opened? Jesus, who’s in there? Though you try not to think about how often you and Nick found an empty bathroom during a party, a dark corner, a place where hands could roam and lips could nip. 

He jiggles the handle and pushes, your mouth falling slightly open—

“The door sticks,” He says, amused, eyes bright. And then turns to head back down the hall. 

Well, fuck. 

—

Nick leaves the party before you do but you’re not going to deny that you feel a zing of enjoyment that Anna’s left behind. And she looks pissed. 

—

Time crawls forward—it’s somehow achingly slow at the same time that it spins like a top. You and Nick are unfortunately like magnets, stuck in one another’s orbit. You suppose that’s the downside of having the same group of friends, seeing one another is unavoidable. It’s not…the worst thing, despite the prickly conversations you’ve been having. You know the fallout is a reflection on how good your relationship could be. There’s still strong emotions lingering—guilt, regret, love. It stains everything around you both. 

There’s a moment that comes and goes, just like your feelings, about having a conversation with Nick. About explaining to him why you were pulling away—that your parents have a shit relationship, that their divorce and their problems and their burdens sometimes sit in your bloodstream in a way you can’t put into words. You’re used to people disappointing you, you’re used to relationships not carrying merit—the only good one you’ve ever been in had been with Nick. And sometimes you were afraid that you weren’t worthy of it, that eventually he’d realize it too. 

That he’d leave. That all good things come to an end. 

Maybe then he’d crack wide open and explain that he likes to hurt people before they can hurt him. That it was a mistake. 

That you can start over. 

That thought is gone as quickly as it comes. Everything happens for a reason, right? There’s no need to go backwards when you need to focus on what’s ahead. Just because a relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean that…you and Nick can’t be what you were before. 

Friends. Good friends. 

—

“Can you check again, please?” You ask, rubbing the back of your neck as you hold up a line at this charity event that your parents were supposed to attend. 

Well—your parents decided to get a divorce three months ago and neither of them wanted to get dressed up and go. You get it, you really do, they don’t want to spend time with one another anymore. They want to continue separating their assets and not be in one another’s lives unless they have to. You're the bridge between and that’s…that’s something you’re coming to terms with. 

You tried to explain to both of them that you’ve been wanting to go to this, that this charity event is about donating money to cleaning up the ocean. That plastic removal and creating turtle sanctuaries and doubling-up efforts on proper recycling is really important to you. It always has been—this shouldn’t be some sort of surprise. 

And yet neither of them can get their shit together to just be present. To go with you. 

So whatever, fine. At this point you’re used to feeling like you’re doing things by yourself, and that’s how you decide you’re going to go. By yourself. 

Except for some reason, your name isn’t on the guest list. 

Vanessa, who’s in the same social circles as you, scowls behind the podium. She must be some sort of volunteer in whatever rotations that rich kids fall into, her nose wrinkling as she taps her fingers down the so-called list that you’re missing from. 

“Sorry—who are you again?” 

You feel your cheeks heat in frustration, refusing to get flustered even though you’re sure that’s her intention. There’s this group of girls that are always hanging out with Anna at any party you’ve ever been to. Vanessa knows exactly who you are. 

You bite down on the inside of your cheek, can feel people getting restless behind you, wanting to get inside to escape the chill in the evening air. You’re not sure whether your parents took themselves off the guest list when they decided they weren’t attending or whether Vanessa is just being a bitch. 

“Y/N,” You say your name and add your last, just in case there’s any confusion. 

Vanessa purses her lips, about to say something nasty, when her gaze catches something over your shoulder. Her entire demeanor changes—her shoulders relax, there’s an easy smile on her face, eyes soft. You already know who it is before he speaks. 

“Is there a problem?” Nick asks, the warmth of his body at your back. You feel yourself bristle, not turning around. 

“Nick, hi,” Vanessa offers. 

Nick ignores her, his gaze falling to your own when you finally tip your chin. You turn a little, crossing your arms over your chest. He’s dressed in all black; slacks, dress shirt, overcoat, it makes the softness of his brown eyes and the golden curls in his hair stick out even more. 

“You alright?” He lifts his eyes away from you just briefly and you know he’s checking the crowd for your parents who aren’t there. 

“She’s not on the guest list.” Vanessa sounds altogether too pleased at informing him. 

“Your parents made these reservations months ago,” His attention doesn’t waver from you.  

You swallow, giving him a small smile as another podium opens up to get guests inside since this one is obviously backlogged. You resist the urge to just give up, to head back down the steps and go home.

“I know.” You reply, and Nick’s head tips back just slightly, recognition flashing in his eyes. Months ago. Your parents. The divorce. 

He turns to Vanessa, finally acknowledging her. “There’s space at my table for her.” 

“Nick,” You say gently, touched by the sentiment, by him trying to help, as Vanessa visibly bristles. 

“All the tables are filled—“

Nick cuts her right off, voice cold and sharp as glass. “Then I suggest you figure it out, Vanessa, because Y/N’s my plus one.” 

Vanessa scoffs, waving us in, muttering whatever under her breath. Nick’s hand falls to your lower back, encouraging you to step forward to walk inside. You roll your lips together, glad you’re not wearing lipstick tonight before turning to look at him in front of the coat-check. 

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

Nick gives you a soft smile, motioning you to turn around so he can help you take your coat off. “Like I’d get in-between you and saving the otters tonight.” 

You can’t help the bubble of laughter that threatens to slip out, amusement pulling your mouth into an honest smile. Something warm and comfortable and feels far too familiar with him. 

“Sea turtles.” You correct. “I’m worried about the sea turtles.” 

You’re not sure why he’s here if he doesn’t really know what the event is for, but you bite down on the inside of your cheek from saying that to him. A twinge of warmth butterflies your stomach in hopes that he came because he knew you’d be here. 

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” 

Your lips twitch and you smooth your hands down your dress, removing imaginary wrinkles. “Thank you.” You add. 

Nick’s hand slides effortlessly into yours to tug you towards the open doors and awaiting tables. He doesn’t say anything back, but he does squeeze your fingers. 

—

When you donate an amount at that charity event, Nick doubles it. 

—

It’s easy to get lost in those simple touches, it’s always been something so easy between you and Nick. That communication runs deep. Sometimes, you think, that words often get in the way. A misplaced phrase, a misunderstanding, syllables stuck under tongues or behind teeth. There’s never been any confusion in how you touch one another, in how Nick’s hands convey a love language that maybe words can’t. 

The problem is that touch between you two is sometimes too much, too honest, too real. Too complicated. 

How are you supposed to move on and get over him if you’re constantly near one another? If one brush of his fingers turns into a playful squeeze at your hip, if one lingering gaze ignites into him brushing his lips against your temple? 

You convince yourself that you can somehow create space, that it won’t be so difficult, that the universe has to be on your side here—that even though it’s hard? It’ll be good for you in the long run. 

Turns out the universe is a bitch. 

—

There’s too many moving bodies on the dance floor, it pushes you and Nick closer and closer together. 

To be fair, you’re in a tight circle of friends and beats are pulsing through the tight spaces. You’re in a tiny slip dress, a pair of high-top converse sneakers to move easily, which just ends up being a bunch of bouncing and swaying to the beat at a wicked pace. Jenna’s grin is wide as she throws her arms around you and you laugh, tipping your head back towards the ceiling. 

You love nights like this, the feeling of freedom, your heartbeat loud in your ears, no concerns other than when the next drink is gonna be bought. Lion tugs your dance partner away, twirling her into a circle and you back up to avoid the spin—

And bump right into Nick. 

The man is like black hole—endless, all-encompassing. He’s dressed simply, but he could probably wear a paper bag and still have the same sex appeal. Lean, tapered body, intricate line tattoos on muscled biceps and you try not to think about the set of Roman numerals that you used to love to kiss on his collarbone. You’re close enough to see the light sheen of sweat sticking to his skin, deepening the scent of his cologne and him somehow. You want to run your hands through his curls and tug—

You must show how you feel right on your face because Nick steps closer, his hand reaching for you, sliding it around your waist to pull you flush against him. It’s so confident and knowing that it nearly takes you out at your knees. 

You know you could pull away and that he’d let you, but the moment his fingers curl against your back, the moment he gathers a bit of the fabric of your dress between his fingers—you know you’re not going anywhere. 

The weight and heat of his body against your own feels like coming home. 

You dance like that for a while, pressed against one another, your arms resting on top of his shoulders, fingers against his neck, curling into the bottom of his hair. He slips close enough at one point to press a kiss to your shoulder, something that you ignore. You have to. 

And yet your fingers dig into his shoulders and Nick pulls back, eyes dark, on your lips. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

You’re about to say something, maybe mention grabbing water or stepping outside—but Nick’s thumb begins to trace circles through the thin material of your dress against the underwear line on your hip. A struggled gasp leaves your lips, and he must feel it more than hear it, a slow smile curving his handsome mouth. 

“I need to—“ You take a step back, almost running into someone else. Nick’s arms stabilize you from stumbling, even though he eventually lets you go. You immediately regret opening your mouth. “Bathroom.” 

You turn and make a b-line towards the restrooms before he can say anything. The sharp coolness off the dance floor manages to shake reality into focus and you run a hand over your face, a soft laugh rumbling in your chest. 

Jesus. 

You don’t end up using the bathroom, just leaning against the wall near them and breathing, trying to center yourself. It’s blissfully devoid of people back here and you need that. Your body aches in a delicious way, a throb of heat still present between your legs. 

And apparently it’s not going to go away, because Nick rounds the corner. 

“Nick—” His name barely slips out from between your teeth before he’s pressed against you again, and your resolve goes right out the fucking window, your mouth crashing down onto his. 

You thread your fingers into his hair and yank him forward and you can feel him chuckle against your body as he has to balance himself with his hands on the wall on either side of you. His thigh slides between your legs and a full body shudder passes through you as you allow yourself to lean down into him. 

Fuck. 

Nick pulls back just a little, brushing your lips together. His hand slides between you, tugging your dress up so that the only thing between your cunt and his jeans are your underwear. 

“Do you want me to stop?” He asks, mouth at your ear. “I can stop.” 

That’s something you’ve always loved about Nick—he checks on you, he makes sure you’re okay. Doesn’t matter if it’s something soft or like this, heated and desperate. You know you shouldn’t—you know that this will only complicate things that are already complicated…

And yet you don’t want to stop. 

“No,” You reply, assure your response with your hips pivoting down, grinding against his leg. Nick’s hands fall to your waist, holding you in place, a groan vibrating in his chest. 

The pulse of the music is muffled, you can hear the uptick in his breathing, can feel how hard he is against you. You’re not ashamed of the tiny whimpers that leave your lips as you roll your hips down against him, the pressure incredible but not enough—he feels so fucking good. You’ve missed him terribly. All logical thought evaporates when his one hand comes up and cups your breast through your slip dress. 

“Can feel how wet you are for me,” Nick says. “Desperate for it, aren’t you?” 

Jesus. You need more. You need him to help—to do something. You can only use the momentum of your legs to get off on him to a certain point. There’s not enough leverage, there’s not enough friction to sate the heated ache quickly building in your lower belly. 

“I—I need—”

“No,” He nips at your lower lip. “If you want to cum, you’re gonna have to do it just like this.” 

An exasperated noise leaves your mouth, and you’re stuck between wanting to throttle him and kiss him. He drags your hips down, and you wish his fingers were inside of you, wish his thumb was circling your clit. The thought alone is enough to uptick your pleasure, and you’re so fucking close. 

“Nick,” You moan, “Please.” 

He licks his lips, smiling a little as his hand tugs down your dress over your breast. “So polite.” He teases, before he dips his head, taking your nipple into his mouth. 

There’s a snap of your hips when he drags his teeth over your puckered flesh and then you’re shattering. He holds your body up as you shudder, waves of pleasure slamming into you like the base of the music pulsing in your ears. 

He doesn’t let you go, even when your breathing settles, even when his leg moves out from between your thighs. You’re sure you look absolutely wrecked—you feel it. Underwear ruined, sweat sticking some of your hair to your neck, your heart thrumming for a completely different reason. 

Your eyes find Nick’s, the port that’s always been in the center of your storm, and a sudden thick emotion lodges itself in your throat. 

“I miss you.” You choke out, blaming the almost waterworks on endorphins, on the bliss that’s still kissing your nerve endings. 

Nick visibly swallows, brushing your hair over your shoulder after he fixes your dress. You think he might say something, he even opens his mouth, but no words come. 

Jesus. One good orgasm and you’re tumbling head over tincups into emotions too heavy to come with words. Nick broke up with you—you should be furious, you should push him away, except this is how the whole problem started. You pushed first. 

You straighten your shoulders and he takes a step back. You expect him to turn and leave, but he doesn’t, hovering—waiting? You’re not sure for what. He runs both of his hands through his hair, as if to compose himself, as if there’s words stuck in his throat that he doesn’t know how to say. 

Instead of saying anything at all, he reaches his hand out for you to take. A peace offering, of sorts, a promise that even though things aren’t okay, the door isn’t completely closed off. 

You discreetly wipe away a tear that’s slipped down your cheek and take his hand. 

—

You don’t talk about what happened at the club but things don’t change between you. It’s the same heavy glances, the same shared, soft smiles, the same brushing of fingers and calling it an accident. 

It should be fucked up. But it’s not. 

—

You haven’t been to an underground car show and race in a while, so the thrum of engines and the smell of gasoline is exciting. Comforting, even. You come with Jenna even though you know Nick will be there. Avoidance doesn’t work and trying to ignore the crackling energy between you two just…ends up with you getting off on his leg in a darkened corner at a club. 

“Don’t get me wrong, babe,” Jenna says over her shoulder as she moves to lean against her car. “I love Nick, I really do. But…whatever this is between you two—”

“I know,” You put your hand up to stop her. 

She smiles a little, “I was hopin’ you two would talk, figure it out.” 

“Oh, you mean you ruining my favorite pair of underwear wasn’t ‘figuring it out’?” You laugh a little, rubbing the back of your neck. Despite it probably not being the best decision…you can’t find yourself regretting it either. 

You still love Nick. You don’t think that’ll change. 

You look down at your shoes, a pair of sneakers, high waisted jeans  and a crop t-shirt. You’re showing off your shape but nothing that overdoes it; comfortable. You feel like you need that tonight. 

“I told him I missed him.” In an orgasm induced haze, but still. “And he didn’t say anything.” 

You know Nick isn’t exactly very forward with his words all the time, his actions speak the loudest. But…you needed to hear something then, you needed some sort of assurance that…maybe you both made a mistake. 

Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking on your part. You can’t quite picture ripping yourself wide open to talk to him about why you pulled away if he can’t admit he purposely let you go. 

You run a hand over the side of your face, glancing over at another set of cars pulling up and guys getting out, greeting one another, the space turning into an outside party with music and beer. While you’re glad you came, it’s been a while, part of you feels like curling under your comforter at home with a book. 

“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to branch out?” Jenna asks, tossing an arm over your shoulder. “Not saying you need to have another orgasm,” You laugh softly. “But maybe talking to some handsome strangers wouldn’t hurt either.” 

You breathe in through your nose, looking out at the crowd of cars and people. You suppose it wouldn’t hurt. 

—

Turns out talking to guys about cars is fun. You don’t know much about them? But they like responding to your questions—and none of it has been mansplaining, which you’re grateful for. You’re really not in the mood tonight…just trying to sink into your own skin, enjoy something that’s a little different, not think about Nick. 

Even though you can feel his eyes on you. 

You know he’s here because you saw him drive in, park his car, and find Lion and Jenna. He doesn’t come find you; wouldn’t be surprised if Jenna told him to give you some space. Either way, you can feel his gaze every so often, lingering, something open and warm that you miss. That you feel like you can dive right into. 

Your heart flutters in your chest as you lock eyes, the guy you were talking to, Pete, headed to the bathroom. Nick crosses the pavement, giving you a small wave. 

“Hi.” 

You smile, the word somehow too simple , but you say it back. You try to think of something else to say, to fill the space between you, 

“There’s not a race tonight, is there?” 

His eyebrows crinkle together, smiling, “Why? Did you want to give driving a shot?” 

You laugh and he takes a step closer, “No, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Even when you’re driving too fast sometimes I get nauseous.” 

“I’m always under the speed limit.” 

“You are not,” You scoff out a sound but you’re grinning. 

“Very responsible,” Nick tacks on with a playful tilt of his lips, sticking his hands into his pockets. 

The banter is familiar but it makes you miss him even more. That gnawing pit in your stomach rears its ugly head as you think about the other night, about saying something so vulnerable and it not being reciprocated. Nick must see the shadow pass over your face because he clears his throat, tilting his head in the direction of the bathrooms. 

“I’m gonna—” He trails off and he turns to leave but then pauses, “I’ll see you later?” 

The question sinks into your skin and blooms before you give him a small nod. You then look at your shoes, unable to watch him walk away. 

—

Having another sip of the drink in your hand, you smile as Pete finishes his semi-cute rant about the first car he ever owned. Some sort of thing he and dad fixed up together, which is how he’s come to love cars. It’s nice, having that connection to something special, something that becomes a passion project. You thought for a long time that might be art for you but…you’ve learned that you’re much more someone who appreciates viewing art than creating it. Maybe you’ll end up going to school for something that involves the ocean.

Shifting on your feet, you curl your hair away from your face. There’s a soft headache pinching the back of your head, behind your ear, but it’s probably from the muffled sound of music constantly pulsing against the concrete down here. 

“So would you say you like driving or fixing up cars more?” You ask, running your thumb over the rim of the cup. 

He opens his mouth to reply, but then his gaze narrows to someone behind you. Turning, you come face to face with Nick, who looks furious. It’s not so much in his face, it’s the way he’s holding his body—like a tight band about to snap. He zeroes in on the cup in your hand, 

“Give that to me.” 

You blink, “What? No.” Seriously? You thought you kinda parted from one another on good terms and now he’s here? In your business while you’re trying to talk to a guy? To have a decent night that doesn’t include him? 

You open up your mouth–

“Y/N.” There's something in the way that he says your name that makes you feel cold, your gaze wandering down to the cup. It only takes a moment to connect to dots about why Nick would approach you like this, pissed. A sour feeling develops in your stomach, connecting to pinpricks of dread as the cup leaves your hand.

Nick takes it, your fingers brushing, setting it down on the pavement. And as if he wasn't moving carefully before, he suddenly whirls his body in precise movements, suckerpunching Pete in the face. His body bows and he lands on the ground, screaming about his face—

"You broke my fucking nose!"

"You think someone wasn't going to hear you in the bathroom, you fuck?" He snaps and you stumble a step back, bumping into the driver's side of a car nearby. You’re trying to piece together what’s going on but your thoughts are sluggish, which just serves to make you feel more panicked. 

"I didn't know she was your girlfriend, man, she said she was single." 

You put your hand over your mouth, swaying a little on your feet, though you're not sure if it's because Pete...he put something in your drink or because of the blood on Nick's knuckles as he throws another punch, this time hitting him square in the jaw. Pete's head snaps back like a ragdoll but all he does is groan. 

It’s unclear if Nick says anything else because the garage begins to spin and you let out a short, sharp breath, bending a little at your waist to close your eyes. Fuck. Whatever Pete gave you? It's strong and working fast—you only had a few sips of that drink. Terrifying to think if you'd been alone with him...

Someone comes up beside you and wraps an arm around your waist and you begin to squirm until you hear Nick's voice against your ear, "Shh, it's me." A small, uncomfortable whimper leaves your lips—your body feels weird, like it's disconnected. Bone by bone, muscle by muscle. Your cheeks are hot and your stomach is dipping in nausea. "I know, I got you. Hold onto me." 

You stretch your arm across his shoulders, squeezing your eyes shut as everything spins. There's movement, but you have no idea how you're even walking with how heavily you're leaning into Nick's side. 

Flashes of movement, sound, and pitches of light. You can feel warm leather underneath your body, head lolled back against the headrest, Jenna's voice? Then Nick's. 

"No, I got her." He closes a door, opens up another, "I get it Jenn, but it’s not happening. I’m not leaving her.” Confusion prickles along your forehead, unable to make heads or tails of that conversation. You want to ask but your veins feel like they're filled with cotton as the world goes black. 

--

Sleep is uncomfortable and dreamless. You wake up several times with a pounding headache, a sour stomach, and shaking that makes you feel like there aren’t enough blankets in the world to keep you warm. When you wake up and it sticks, you blink as you try to get your vision to adjust. The room is a little dark, sun trying to shine through drawn curtains. There’s an anvil that’s been placed on your head, there has to be, because when you turn to lie on your back the pain in your temples is unheard of. 

You close your eyes again, pinching the space between your nose and forehead with your fingers. It doesn’t help. A weight sits down near your legs, an arm stretched over them. When you manage to pry your eyelids back again, Nick comes into slow focus. He looks tired, eyes not as bright, curls a bit mussed. 

“How you feeling?” He asks, voice nearly a whisper. 

“Like I swallowed a tire and then was run over.” You wince, sitting up just a little, which somehow makes everything worse. Your hand covers your face and Nick threads his fingers through your hair, brushing the strands over your shoulder. The room is quiet for the moment, birds chirping outside, the even movement of Nick drawing in breath. 

“I can't believe this happened,” You mumble, “I feel like an idiot.”

“This isn't on you,” He says, voice gentle but firm. “If Pete knows what's good for him, he'll never think about doing shit like that again.”

You raise your eyebrows, the corner of your mouth twitching in a smile as you finally look at him. “What are you, like, the mafia? Did you cut off his hands?”

A wisp of a smile, and yet something dark in those eyes that make you swallow, “No, but I did threaten to slam them in his car door if I ever saw him at another event you were at.”

You shake your head even though your entire body bursts with warmth. What does it say about you? That you're willing to accept such a violent sentiment? You draw in a long breath through your nose. Maybe a thought for another day when you don't feel so sick. 

One of Nick's hands lace through yours, his thumb brushing circles around your knuckles. "Seeing you like that..." He was scared, you realize, you can see it on his face—plain as day. He's quiet for a moment, licking his lips before he speaks again, 

"Can I get you anything?" 

You shake your head, not wanting him to leave, drawing in a breath as you finally notice that you're in his bedroom and not your own. You pick up hints of the smell of laundry detergent and his shampoo on his sheets. He drove you back to his place, 

"Didn't think I'd end up in your bed any time soon." It's a small joke, just something to break what feels like a vice-like tension around your ribs. 

Nick's gaze holds your own for a moment, something unweighted and unsaid, "I miss you here." 

You swallow over an instant lump in your throat and you have to tear your eyes away and blink, trying to get rid of the sudden onslaught of tears. Partly because of the situation that landed you here, but also because you didn't realize how much you needed to hear him say it, to hold that same sentiment as you. 

You sniffle, a tear slipping down your cheek as you try to play off the comment with a light laugh, "Well your bed does have the best pillows." 

Nick doesn't reply but instead leans forward until his arms are wrapped around your back, gently pulling you to his chest. His one hand slips through your hair as you press your face into his shoulder, while the other rubs up and down your back in firm, even strokes. 

Nothing is fixed between you two, not by a long-shot. But some of the visible cracks, you think, begin to heal. 

—

You were wrong. 

That much is clear. You’ve had so many good moments with Nick that you’re not sure why you allowed your unfounded anxiety to control you, to convince you of something that wasn’t true. But that time spent with him in his bedroom after the whole Pete thing only solidifies what you’ve been feeling for a while. 

You fucked up. 

You pulled away based solely on fears that were baseless, something you thought you didn’t have a claim to. But you do. You do deserve to have someone be there for you, to take care of you, to look out for you. To miss you. 

You’re ready to own that you didn’t make the best choice…but Nick needs to own his mess too. 

Y/N: Can we talk? 

It takes a little for your phone to buzz— Nick: You’re not gonna convince me that diner food is somehow better than Italian, you’re just not. 

A small smile tugs the corners of your mouth, Y/N: I mean…

You’ve had this banter back and forth before and it’s easy to fall back into similar patterns, something comforting. That feels like home. 

Nick: You’ve never had homemade carbonara. Life-changing. 

Y/N: Are you offering? 

Not what you were originally trying to text him about but spending time with him wouldn’t suck, either. Who says you can’t bring up past mistakes over pasta? You chew on your lower lip, as you wait for a response. 

Nick: What do you want to talk about? Nick: I might be out of London next week, my dad is traveling for work and I think I’m gonna go with him.

You stare at the messages for a moment, almost getting whiplash. You know that tone completely disappears sometimes with texting but…you also get the sense that you and Nick are on the same page. And he doesn’t want to be. 

You swallow over unspoken words in your throat, not wanting to lose your nerve. If Nick leaves, you’re almost worried that you’ll be at square one when he gets back. 

Y/N: Something important. 

You curl your hair around your ear, pulling yourself up in bed. You do your best not to pace, trying to clean up your room instead, something more productive than wearing the carpet down. When your phone pings, you deny practically diving for it. 

Nick: Then I’ll make time for you. 

—

That conversation doesn’t happen. Not because neither of you want it to happen, but because the next day, your grandmother passes away. It’s not something you were expecting—you thought your grandma was in pretty good health for her age. You just saw her a month ago…went over to her house, baked cookies and watched episodes of Magnum P.I., because your grandmother’s thirsting commentary over Tom Selleck was one of your favorite things to participate in. 

You were close. Sometimes you talked to her about relationships  because she was married to your grandfather until he died a few years ago. They were in love in a way that made you feel like…like maybe it’s one of the best and worst things to happen to someone. That maybe not all relationships are doomed from the start. Your gram talked about her husband every day, even after he passed, something warm and gentle in her eyes. That love never faded. 

Sometimes you and her talked about Nick. 

When your parents tell you, you don’t cry. You just kind of stand there staring at them, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to turn this into a warped joke, a morbid sense of humor. It doesn’t feel real. How does one day have your grandmother in it and then the next just…doesn’t? How are you supposed to keep going through each of them moving forward without her? Someone who was always willing to listen, someone who made you laugh and feel at home in your skin. 

Someone who just saw you. There’s only been one another person in your life that’s made you feel like that. 

The days slip forward but you don’t end up leaving your room, spending time in bed, unmoving. You ignore your laptop, your pinging phone that eventually dies, the pleas of your parents to eat something. You just…you can’t. Not right now. There’s an ache in your chest that is beyond anything you’ve ever felt before, it immobilizes you. In the back of your mind you know you should take care of yourself, that the last thing your grandmother would want is this. 

But today isn’t that day. 

You shift in bed, adjusting your head on your pillow, hearing your bedroom door open. You don’t turn to look at who it is—probably your mother, either setting food on your nightstand or maybe deciding she’s gonna force your hand. Yank the covers off and encourage you to get a shower. You cover your face with your hand, listening to the movements as the door closes again. 

Blankets are pulled back, but someone crawls in, your heart lurching into your throat as you realize who it is. 

Nick drags his hand down your arm, shuffling closer until his front maps against your back. “You don’t have to say anything,” He murmurs, “But I’m going to lay here with you. Alright?” 

You lick your lips, the bridge of your nose stinging as you realize he’s supposed to be gone this week. He mentioned he was going to travel with his dad and yet he’s here, with you, offering you comfort and space all at once. You lean back just a little into him, a silent reply, squeezing your eyes shut. Nick’s hand rubs your shoulder, thumb tracing back and forth along your elbow, a kiss pressed to the back of your neck. 

The weight of his body and the heat of his skin make tears gather in your eyes. You’re not sure how your heart can feel so full and empty all at the same time. Sniffling, you turn your body so that you’re facing him, Nick leaning back just a little. His hand comes to rest on your waist, his head perched on your one pillow. Your eyes begin to trace the soft blonde curls that are near his forehead, the slope of his nose, his strong jawline and full lips. 

He’s here—and you love him even more than you already do, which doesn’t feel possible. 

Nick’s eyes explore your face, his one hand cupping your cheek and brushing underneath your eye, removing invisible tears that haven’t fallen yet. “I’m so sorry.” He whispers. 

You bite down on the inside of your cheek, trying not to cry, but on the next intake of breath tears spill over your cheeks. You cover your face with one hand, your shoulders shuddering, and Nick closes the space between you. He draws you into his chest, tucking you under his chin, and you find yourself clinging to him as each sob wracks your body. All the pent up emotions you’ve had since you found out empty against his chest—and Nick takes it all. 

He steadies you, wrapping his arms tightly around your frame, pressing his nose and lips into your hair. He squeezes every so often, your fingers gathering his shirt into your hands as if you can ground yourself in him. 

“That’s it,” He threads his hand through your hair, rubbing his thumb against the back of your neck. “Just let it all out.” Nick knows you far too well, knows that you haven’t given yourself time to feel, to be. To let it all wash over you. That you need this and didn’t realize how much that was true until it was happening. 

You exhaust yourself, until you’re a mess of sniffles and stumbled breathing. Nick pulls back a little, cupping both sides of your face to brush your hair behind your ears. He presses a kiss to your forehead, reaching over your shoulder to grab a few tissues from the box on your nightstand. 

“Thank you.” Your voice is a bit strained from lack of use and you try your best to clean up your face, crumpling the tissues into your palms. You’re not just thanking him for the tissues though, it’s for everything, for being here. 

Your chest hurts but…you feel a little bit better. You’re not sure when you’ll feel like yourself again, but it’s a good, small, first step. Your gaze finds Nick’s, who’s watching you with a careful expression. Not because he thinks you might start crying again, but because he’s concerned. Worried. You lift your hand and brush your thumb over his lower lip, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“I love you.” You tell him, feeling him go still beneath your touch. You know this might not be the best time, that maybe these thick, heavy emotions are driving forth how you make decisions, but…if anything? You’ve just been reminded that life is short. That you shouldn’t go through it without sharing how you feel about things, about people. 

“I know it’s…I know we still have to talk and I understand if—” If you don’t feel the same way, is what you want to say but the words get trapped underneath your tongue. 

Nick’s hand falls to your neck, tipping your chin up with his thumb, “I love you too.” He replies, stealing the air right from your lungs. “That’ll never change.” He holds your gaze a moment, playfully pinching your chin between his thumb and fingers. “Okay?” 

You give him a soft, watery smile, nodding before he tucks you in close again. 

Nick stays as long as you need him. 

—

A handful of weeks pass by—the pain of losing your grandmother doesn’t completely disappear. But you do feel better. They say that time is capable of healing all wounds, and maybe that’s true, but honestly? You think it has everything to do with Nick. 

—

Jenna’s birthday is celebrated at her house, a large party underway. You’d expect nothing less at celebrating someone so vibrant. You’re over there early to help set up, to hang out and do your makeup, to eat a little too much cake with sweet icing. Her house fills up fast, people you’ve never even met before spilling into all the rooms of the lavish London estate. You’re looking for someone specific though. 

You and Nick haven’t spoken with the intention of clearing the air since your grandmother passed. He’s been giving you space to breathe and work through your emotions, which…you appreciate, but you don’t want space anymore. You don’t want to spend one more day caught between a ‘sometimes’ and an ‘almost’. 

“You seen Nick?” You call out to Lion who’s mixing drinks in the kitchen. 

“Playing pool I think.” He volleys back. 

Making your way through the crowd of people, you turn towards the dining room were the pool table is located, but stop short when you hear Anna—

“C’mon Nick, at the very least we used to be good friends.” 

“Jesus Anna, I’m just trying to take a piss.” Which tells you she cornered him outside the bathroom. You chew on your lower lip, debating turning the corner and revealing that you’re standing there or going about your business to the dining room…or maybe even go back the way you came. 

You shouldn’t be eavesdropping, you know you’d be annoyed if someone was listening in on you, but…your feet feel glued to the carpet. You’re not sure you can move even if you decided to. 

“I’m just trying to say,” Anna replies, softer than before. She must have stepped closer to him because her voice is no longer carrying like it was. “That I miss you.” 

There is no reply from Nick. 

“We’ve always known how to have a good time.” 

When Nick finally does speak, his voice is matter of fact, “That hasn’t been true for a long time.” 

Anna bristles, “I just thought that since you’re single now, free from that—”

“Don’t,” Nick interrupts, a warning. You can picture the muscle in his jaw working, the way it clenches when he begins to get pissed off. Then, “You thought wrong.” 

A door closes, effectively ending the conversation. You know you should probably move as Anna storms down the hallway, but you don’t and when she turns the corner, her eyes go wide. You straighten your shoulders at her scowl, offering her a bright smile…before heading in the direction she came from. 

Down the hall, towards Nick. 

You wait patiently outside the bathroom for the door to open, his eyebrows lifting in soft surprise as he sees you leaning against the far wall. Warm amusement blooms over his face, erasing the earlier attitude lines from his expression.  Nick’s shoulders drop from his ears, his entire demeanor relaxes around you, as if he’s peeling away a version of himself. That he’s showing you something real. You have no idea why you hadn’t noticed it before. 

He props himself against the doorframe, “This feels vaguely familiar.” He smirks, glancing down the empty hall. 

You move towards him, a fond smile on your face, “I was looking for you.” 

Nick draws in a soft breath, tipping his chin down as you come to stand in front of him. “How have you been doing?”

It’s a large question, one you’re not sure you have a complete answer for, but you love that he asks, “I’m alright,” You nod, “Some days are better than others.” 

He nods, silence stretching between you both but it’s not uncomfortable. Your heart hammers a little into your ears and you resist the urge to straighten your dress when you know it’s perfectly fine. 

“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” You ask after a moment, “Anna waiting to have a good time?” 

Nick lets out a soft laugh that sounds like a breath leaving his nose, rolling his eyes, “Heard all that, did you?” 

And yes, you may have admitted that you were eavesdropping, but he doesn’t look put off in the slightest. “Was a valiant effort on her part.” 

His gaze is warm as he shakes his head and suddenly the silence between you two feels electrically charged. “She didn’t come close.” 

You feel heat splotch across the back of your neck and fuck, you have no idea what it is exactly about Nick and how he can make you feel like this. Like everything you thought you knew has been flipped upside down. You breathe in through your nose to settle the butterflies, straightening your spine in resolve so you don’t chicken out—

“This…distance between us, it’s…it was my fault.” 

Nick’s eyebrows draw together a little and he takes a step forward and you’re almost breathing the same air. You can feel the heat of his body through his clothes, his cologne achingly familiar, his fingers brushing yours as he takes your hand into his. You turn your wrist, your thumb playing with a ring on his index. 

You expect him to make a joke about there not being distance at all, but instead, he shakes his head, not allowing you to take all the blame, “I knew what you were doing,” Pulling away, “and instead of trying to talk to you, I made it worse.” 

“You wanted to hurt me,” You admit in a small voice. 

Nick glances away, a twitch in his jaw that tells you everything without him even having to say it. Not something he’s proud of, yet true. 

“Is that what you really wanted?” You ask, quickly clarifying when pain flashes in his eyes. “To break up?” 

He lifts his hand and plays with a strand of hair near your ear before tucking it behind. There’s a soft smile playing with the corners of his mouth, but it’s like he’s afraid to give into the full emotion. 

“Think we both know I’m not exactly over you.” 

You smile back, “So I’ll take that as a no then—”

Nick leans down to kiss you. It’s gentle at first, wary, asking for permission—just in case. But the moment you thread your fingers behind his neck, when you lean your body into his and make a soft, pleased noise, that’s all it takes for him to deepen the kiss. The atmosphere shifts around you and Nick leans down, lifting you up into his arms, backing up into the bathroom as your legs wrap around his waist. 

Sometimes Nick reminds you of fire—warmth, crackling energy, unpredictability. All-consuming. It’s one of your favorite things about him, how undeniable he is. 

The kiss breaks for a moment, you breathe and Nick’s one arm keeps you close while the other slips between you. His hand cups your cheek, thumb toying with your lower lip. “Whoever thought breaking up was a good idea is an absolute tool.” 

A giggle slips out, making Nick smile against your lips, and he backs up until he becomes flush with a wall. When that happens, he carefully loosens his arms so that you end up back on the floor, pressed against him. Your arms lazily wrap around his waist, up and under his jacket, a soft squeeze following. 

He purses his lips, “You think Jenna would be angry with us for leaving her birthday party early?” 

You really like where that thought is going, “I think she’ll understand,” You tip your chin up at him, smiling, “Besides, I have one of those faces that’s hard to say no to—sure she can’t be mad at it, either.”

Nick sighs softly, grabbing your hand to lace his fingers with your own. He begins to tug you from the bathroom, “Don’t I know it.” 

You grin, wandering back down the hallway and through the party towards the front door where all the cars are parked. You pass Anna on the way out, her eyes zeroing in on your joined hands. You know it’s petty of you to wave goodbye to her with your other hand—yet you do it anyways. 

—

Nick’s kitchen is filled with the scent of spices, herbs and fatty pork. He kept his promise about making homemade carbonara and you should have known that if he was going to cook, he was going to go all out. You lean against the counter as you sit on a high stool, chin pillowed in your hand, eyes on the back of him as he twirls pasta on the stove with tongs. Your gaze follows the long line of toned muscles in his shoulders, down to his waist. 

One of the hottest things a guy can do, you think, is cook. 

Jenna playfully snaps her fingers in front of your face, breaking your staring contest. You’re not even embarrassed, you just grin at her. She shakes her head, amused, “I’m so glad you’re back together, babe. No offense, I love you, but you both were just absolutely insufferable.” 

You scoff out an affronted noise, your hand on your chest in mock offense as Nick turns around to plate pasta. He’s smiling, his eyes flickering to yours before concentrating on the task at hand. He pulls long noodles from the pot, twisting even helpings onto serving plates. 

Everyone eats their fill—Jenna, Lion and Giles headed towards the pool for a late night swim. You and Nick will join them, eventually, but for now you have another helping of pasta as Nick cleans up the kitchen. You smile a little as you hear Jenna laugh outside, splashes of water. A pleased breath is drawn into your lungs as you eat the last bit of pasta on your plate. 

It’s gone—a tragedy. 

“Not going to lick the plate?” Nick asks, voice full teasing, a warmth in his gaze as he takes the plate from you. 

You narrow your eyes a little, “I mean, it was good, but check your ego.” 

Nick smirks, “Alright, so what’s the verdict?” You pretend to give it some serious thought, pausing for dramatic effect. Your boyfriend laughs suddenly, shaking his head— “Oh come on, you’re not serious.” 

“I’m still thinking!” 

“What’s there to think about?” He asks, “Homemade carbonara.” 

“Yeah, but like…have you ever ordered a cheeseburger with a perfect side of cinnamon pancakes?” You ask, purposely trying to jerk his wire, “Only a diner can do that.” 

Nick sets the plate down behind him, turning to lean against the counter. He gives you an incredulous look, “You are absolutely wrong for that, don’t know how else to put it.” 

You preen, a grin on your face, “You love me.” You toss it out rather carelessly, not expecting Nick to catch it. 

And yet he does, handles it with care, keeps it close. “Yes,” He nods, a small smile on his face. “I do.” 

A soft breath catches in your throat and warmth, affection, gathers in the center of your chest. The sensation used to make you feel like running away, but not anymore. You tilt your head a little, 

“Come over here and kiss me.” 

Nick pushes himself off the counter, rounding the island counter as you shift your body on the stool. He’s moving almost too fast, eager, and you don’t have time to open your legs for him as he leans down and captures your lips. That’s just fine though, his hands splay your knees apart before he sinks between them. 

A soft noise leaves your lips, an ache beginning in your stomach and blooming lower, your one ankle hooks around the back of his leg. There’s a distant thought in the back of your mind, shouldn’t we be getting back to our friends? — but that is quickly overshadowed when you feel the beginning of Nick’s hardness against your inner thigh. 

He seems to read your mind because in one quick motion, he’s lifting you up into his arms and you steady yourself with your legs around his waist, arms draped over his shoulders. 

“What are you doing?” You laugh, noses brushing as he tips his head up to look at you. 

“Making up for lost time.” And carries you towards his bedroom. 

[derived-centrosaur]

Arrhinoceratops brachyops

(Re-upload because I forgot to sign it)

This is the first of a series of paintings I plan to do on the fauna of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation.

This image took me quite a while. There was a lot of digging and cross-referencing and swapping taxa. Originally I was inspired by a small farm pond near where I live, the pond scum, dead leaves, and dark branches looked like a good setting to plop a dinosaur into.

But which one? My go-to is always a ceratopsid because they're my favorites, and I'd been wanting to do some Horseshoe Canyon stuff for a while. So, the initial candidates were Pachyrhinosaurus (because it's my favorite) and Anchiceratops (because of the body fossil, more later). I decided against Pachyrhinosaurus as it's known from at least 3 separate monodominant bonebeds, one for each species within the genus, and at least 2 of those are floodwater accumulations. So, to me I think Pachyrhinosaurus + water would equal a wildebeest crossing the Mara composition, rather than a moose in a lake situation.

So I began on an Anchiceratops in the water.

But I couldn't leave well enough alone, I knew a little about the odd body fossil assigned to Anchiceratops and it's potential implications from an old TetZoo post (on TetZoo v2, which now no longer works properly so no images). So I went to digging and found that particular fossil got a proper description by Mallon and Holmes in the New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs book.

Side-note: This specimen is referred to in older works under the accession number NMC 8538 but in Mallon & Holmes (2010) it is referred to as CMN 8547. My best guess is that the designations got changed when the National Museum of Canada restructured itself into the Canadian Museum of Nature. I spent an entire day trying to find Lull's 1933 overview only for it to get a passing mention under the old number, but with a photo to confirm it was the same thing

Regardless, this fossil is a complete skeleton from the first to last vertebra, including every rib and every toe and every finger save for 2 hooves on the left hand. Unfortunately the skull is almost completely gone, only 4 fragments of the frill remain and they're barely enough to show it must've been a chasmosaurine. So, why was this touted as Anchiceratops for almost 100 years? In their description the authors make a compelling argument that Sternberg assigned it to Anchiceratops by default as he was likely unaware of any other ceratopsids from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Edmonton Formation at the time).

This body fossil is odd amongst ceratopsids for a couple reasons. normally ceratopsids are very conservative in their postcranial morphology, with the only notable differences manifesting as slight familial differences between centrosaurines and chasmosaurines, and differences due to different absolute sizes. CMN 8547 conversely has a few trait that ordinarily could be diagnostic, but without sufficient overlapping material (the head) it can't be directly compared to any of the chasmosaurines within the Horseshoe Canyon Formation. These include 2 extra sacral vertebrae, 1 extra dorsal vertebra, and 1 extra cervical vertebra. That extra cervical is particularly interesting because it's part of the syncervical, a uniquely ceratopsid structure composed of the first 3 (in this case 4) neck vertebrae fused together to hold the weight of their massive heads. The ribs are very thick for its size and additionally the olecranon process of the ulna is large and the deltopectoral crest of the humerus is HUGE. Taken together these traits have been interpreted as possible indicators of semi-aquatic habits; a Mesozoic hippo!

But who is it!? I'm painting a very specific body fossil, standing in the water where it's less than visible, and it's a ceratopsid. It needs a head! Another specimen is mentioned in the Discussion section of the description that preserves a skull and left forelimb, ROM 1493. This specimen, they report, had been previously assigned to Arrhinoceratops and later to Torosaurus. Torosaurus? that's an odd dinosaur to show up at this time and place, so I checked their citation on that; Farke (2007) in a different book on my shelf! There is no ROM 1493 mentioned, but ROM 1439 is! It's only mentioned in passing, basically stating that 'a thin frill is not enough to diagnose fragmentary fossils.' The mention is not suggesting this mystery overlapping specimen is actually Torosaurus. So I checked the Arrhinoceratops citation, Tyson (1981), which was also mentioned within the Torosaurus paper. In that paper this second Arrhinoceratops specimen is mentioned right near the beginning and is labelled as ROM 1439. So Mallon and Holmes made a typo. Further, Tyson states that at the time of her study ROM 1439 is both not fully prepared and its location unknown.

I done a Hail Mary and google searched ROM 1439. Lo, and behold! that specimen was both found and prepped, and then described in 2014! It has a badly crushed skull, partial neck and most of the left arm. Of the overlap with CMN 8547 the two important elements are the syncervical and the humerus (the ulna is not preserved in ROM 1439). The humerus does have the huge deltopectoral crest, but what is left of the syncervical is composed of only 3 vertebrae. Still not helpful.

I'd gone about as far as the fossils could take me, it was time to make a judgement call. I reckoned that the large deltopectoral crest was a unique defining trait that I could use to justify the pairing. The syncervical mis-match could be due to the poor state of preservation of ROM 1439, so maybe. This leaves Arrhinoceratops as a very tenuous identification for the body fossil, and while this is a super shaky referral, it's better than Anchiceratops which from what I could find has no known postcranial material; several skulls, but no bodies. Therefore, I continued on with my painting!

Below is my master process file from after my taxonomic super sleuthing spree.

I got a little wrapped up in the dinosaur and lost the focus on the environment I originally started with, but I do like how it turned out.

More Horseshoe Canyon to come!

References:

The body fossil CMN 8547:

Mallon, J. C., Holmes, R. (2010) Description of a Complete and Fully Articulated Chasmosaurine Postcranium Previously Assigned to Anchiceratops (Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) in M. J. Ryan, B. J. Chinnery-Allgeier, & D. A. Eberth (eds.) New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium, pg. 189-202. Bloomington; Indiana University Press

The Torosaurus 'identification"

Farke, A. A. (2007) Cranial Osteology and Phylogenetic Relationships of the Chasmosaurine Ceratopsid Torosaurus latus. in K. Carpenter (ed) Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs, pg. 235-257. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

The Arrhinoceratops mention

Tyson, H. (1981) The Structure and Relationships of the Horned Dinosaur Arrhinoceratops parks (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae). Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 18: pg. 1241-1247

The Arrhinoceratops second specimen

Mallon, J. C. et. al. (2014) New Information on the rare Horned Dinosaur Arrhinoceratops brachyops (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 51: pg. 618-634

[soul-collectors]

SOUL Collectors 101 - #2 : SOUL Collectors

Presented by Edu! A sci!Sans Variant, featuring Soul and Vess, both SOUL Collectors!

(previous class)

-What are SOUL Collectors?

Vessels, of any shape or form, specifically molded or created with a SOUL Fragment from their “Maker”’s SOUL embedded in them. The SOUL Fragment must be shattered to fully fuse with the chosen vessel.

-What’s a Maker?

…Anyone who makes a SOUL Collector..pay attention.

anything with a SOUL can be a Maker, they just have to find a way to safely shatter a piece of their SOUL off without dying...

-How are they different from a “Souless” being (Floweys and their variants)

Soul Collectors and all their brethren (Created by the same Maker) are directly connected to that Original SOUL that made them.

Their bodies cannot absorb SOULs, Only able to Contain or ‘collect’ them.

Unlike “Souless” Beings, The SOUL fragment in SOUL Collectors doesn’t provide any hint of emotions, awareness, or consciousness. Only after collecting a SOUL do they gain them.

Think of it as just, existing. No thought, no reason, no nothing other than the PURE need to feel a SOUL inside them. That’s how Soul described it to me.

-Why Create them?

(Answered by Soul!)

Each Maker has their own reasons for creating their SOUL Collector-!

Other than that We’re pretty helpful since we’re the only beings able to contain Anomaly SOULs properly!

-Types of SOUL Collectors

Identified by which type of SOUL They’re able to Collect.

The Process of which type the SOUL Collector will end up as depends on the first SOUL they collect.

Human SOUL Collectors

SOUL Collectors able to Collect ONLY Human SOULs. First SOUL Collected being a human’s. An example of this is Soul!

2. Monster SOUL Collectors

SOUL Collectors able to Collect ONLY Monster SOULs. First SOUL Collected being a Monster’s. An example of this is Vess!

3. Human+Monster SOUL Collectors

SOUL Collectors able to Collect All SOULs. First SOUL Collected is a SOUL Containing both human and Monster SOULs (Monster absorbing a human SOUL or Human Absorbing a Monster’s SOUL)

I haven’t personally met an example face to face, so I can’t directly talk about Him- or any of them I guess…

-Why do SOUL collectors collect SOULs?

Soul described it as a “need” at first then a choice.

So, I’d conclude it’s a sense of primal instinct to collect SOULs, it fills SOUL collectors with life, a need to fill their vessel. 

Another is the moral obligation some of them feel to protect the timelines they visit, since anomaly SOULs will always pose a threat to the timeline, even if they don’t currently.

-Is the SOUL Safe inside a Soul Collector?

(Answered by Soul!)

Yes! Absolutely! If they’re content or calm, the collected SOUL would be in a sort of..dream-ish state!

The ones that aren’t content..they’re a little more..aware- and they take shape as horns growing on the SOUL Collector.

-Can SOUL Collectors use magic?

Soul collectors have little to no magic, they usually use the SOULs they collect to aid them by calling for help.

"Calling for help" allows the SOUL Collector to use the magic provided by the SOULs, even the specific ones tied to each SOUL trait.

They may "call for help" from the SOULs they collected, if the SOULs are content, they would let the SOUL collector use their abilities. If not, the SOUL collector's cries for help may be left unheard.

SOUL collectors can communicate with collected SOULs telepathically, knowing if they are pleased or not. However the more SOULs they collect, the harder the communication becomes

Soul: it's like talking to an entire stadium at once-!

Although They're able to teleport:

A. to and around a timeline they or another SOUL collector had already visited.

B. A random timeline with SOUL anomalies present.

C. directly to another SOUL collector.

D. To the Void and Anti-void.

-''Silencers''

Whenever SOUL Collectors fight using the help of the SOULs they’ve collected, the clothes they wear act as a "silencer", softening the blow on the SOULs so they won't shatter immediately or counter back in retaliation and attack the SOUL collector.

The basic Theory I have is that the amount of clothes they wear distributes the magic more freely rather than it being trapped directly to their bodies...

Soul uses the jackets he collects from different timelines/universes as his silencers, Lygo uses a Flowey variant I believe is named “bud”, Vess uses random items they find and keep in their inventory!

each SOUL Collector has their own unique method!

-Basic Facts;

Not all SCs share the same Maker. obviously–

SCs usually look similar to an already existing person, rarely ever seeming original in their appearance. (Soul looks like a sans, Vess looks like a chara, so on..)

SCs are naturally grayscale, only when they collect SOULs would their appearance begin to obtain colors slowly.

SCs' tastebuds are different from those of humans or monsters. They usually describe food as “sweet, sour, salty” but also “Soft, cold, painful.” …I’m not sure why.

There's still so much to learn about SOUL Collectors! but I wouldn't want to push Soul with so many questions haha-!

-Creator Notes;

I Based SOUL Collectors on the Vessel from Deltarune, I once saw an idea that Gaster created those parts of the Vessel himself, to me it basically meant he could create vessels-

I loved that idea so much that I used it as inspiration for SOUL Collectors.

A lot of the characteristics and stats for SCs you might see are somewhat inspired by the Survey section :>>

[a-bit-of-writing]

16/30 - Delicate

Fandom: Five Nights at Freddy’s Characters: Springtrap Words: 709 Summary: Springtrap’s not what he used to be - more rot than man, more wires than will - but he still remembers how to move quietly. How to wait. How to break things that don’t know they’re fragile yet.

30 days of fanfiction challenge

The corridor breathed with him.

Old air wheezed through cracked tiles, catching on trailing wires and the greening lace of mold. Every surface glittered faintly with decades-old moisture, as if the pizzeria itself were sweating out memories. Somewhere overhead, a failing fluorescent bulb sputtered like a dying heartbeat and Springtrap answered with one of his own.

A delicate one.

Because after all the screams and the silent years entombed in a back room, even rage had to be rationed. One wrong twitch and the spring-locks might bite again, grinding bone and rust into powder. One indulgent breath of fury and the frayed tubing along his spine would finally tear free. Like a marionette held together by resentment, he had learned a terrible patience: move slow, think slower, and never, ever let the rotting husk forget its purpose.

Afton remembered pieces.

A birthday banner sagging above a stage.

The chemical snap of purple gloves.

Laughter that tasted like frosting and later tasted like copper.

He tightened on those fragments until they splintered. Memory was brittle; obsession, elastic. Delicate balance.

Tonight new footsteps disturbed it.

Click. Click. Click.

Quick, eager, living steps - the kind that hadn’t haunted these hallways in years. A night guard with a cheap flashlight and cheaper optimism was patrolling wholly unaware that hope, in this place, was porcelain thin.

Springtrap straightened.

Inside the suit, sinew rasped against corroded mesh. Wet strands of hair - no, moss - clung to the inner skull. He felt the familiar slide of something loose in his chest cavity: a child’s party whistle fused to rib and wire, chirping faintly whenever he inhaled. It was comical, tragic, and made his hatred diamond-sharp.

He shuffled forward. One foot dragged, metal grinding tile; the other landed soft as a cat’s paw. A rhythm: scrape, whisper, scrape, whisper like a lullaby with razors hidden beneath each note.

Around the corner the guard’s flashlight swept past an open doorway and froze. The beam quivered, bounced once off the peeling pirate-cove mural, then settled on the thing blocking the hall.

Springtrap let the light crawl over him. Torn ear hanging, jaw stuck half-open like a crooked grin, eyes gleaming gold where the suit’s mesh had rotted to lace. He heard the guard gasp, a sharp, delicate intake that trembled on the edge of a scream.

“W-who’s there?”

The voice was young. Too young to have learned a truth Afton knew by heart:

Fear doesn’t shatter.

It splinters.

And each splinter spins a story sharp enough to draw blood.

He took one step. Scrape, whisper.

Another. Scrape, whisper.

The guard stumbled back, radio crackling useless static at his hip. “Stay back! I-I’ll call for-”

Call for what? Police? Morning? God?

Delicate things, all of them easily broken.

Springtrap lunged.

For a breathless second the corridor lights flickered bright, pinning them in mercury glare: the gargled screech of rusted servos, the guard twisting, the suit’s fingers flowering open like skeletal petals- 

-then darkness swallowed the flash, leaving only the sound of a body hitting tile and the slow, grotesque creak of metal hinges settling.

Silence settled, but not peace. Never peace.

Springtrap crouched over the fallen guard, studying the fragile rise and fall of a chest still sucking air. How thin the boundary between beating heart and broken machinery. He could almost feel the pulse through his own ruined glove, faint as a moth trapped in paper.

Delicate.

With care uncanny for so monstrous a creature, he reached down and plucked the security badge from the guard’s collar. Bent, inspected it, let the nameprint smear beneath a damp, moss-stained thumb. Then he pinned it back. Precise, thoughtful, like a craftsman admiring frail work before shattering it.

Because balance required sacrifice.

He leaned close until the guard could smell rotted fabric and dried blood, until a single murmur escaped the fetid speaker inside Springtrap’s jaw.

“Shh.”

A lullaby with razors.

When the music box in the prize corner chimed the half-hour, Springtrap straightened. Wires strained, bones protested, but hatred pulled marionette strings tighter. He turned and retreated into the dark, leaving hope bleeding quietly across cracked linoleum, another porcelain dream crushed underfoot.

Behind him, the suit’s shredded ribbons brushed the floor like wilted blossoms.

And Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza breathed out in relief, already hungry for the next delicate thing to wander inside.

[ask-outside-stars]

Hi, it's me again. Yes, I'm still here, with another two questions for you! One- did you see my bribe? And TWO- what if Bill returned in chapter 51 instead of Will, but because the two of them were whole again, Bill felt the same way Will did for Ford, but Ford hates Bill because he thinks Will no longer exists? - cryptid <3

What an excellent idea! Here's an alternate ending to Chapter 51 below the cut >:3

He was Ford’s light. And now he was gone.

So heartbroken, so lost was he, that Ford didn’t notice the tiniest tremor, stiff and uncertain, in Will’s hand on the other side of his body. Ford was too consumed with grief and guilt at what he’d done, what he’d driven Will to do. He had failed to uphold his wedding vows. He had failed to protect one of the handful of people in the world who meant more to him than life itself. What good was a man who took the best thing that ever happened to him and destroyed it? 

He really was no better than Bill, and he would never forgive himself.

Then, impossibly, he felt the fingers in the limp hand he held curl inward, a sluggish attempt at a handhold. He sat bolt upright with a terrified gasp and stared at the body on the bed, whose hand was now weakly holding his own. What was happening? And then he saw the tiniest movement of Will’s chest, almost like a hiccup. Unwilling to release Will’s hand, Ford’s free one rubbed desperate circles onto Will’s chest, gently coaxing him to breathe more. “Come on, sweetheart. That’s it. Just a little more for me.”

How was this possible? Will had been dead for at least an hour. Even in instances of the Lazarus Phenomenon, it had never occurred past ten minutes. How was-

Then a thought slammed into Ford hard enough to cause him to nearly vomit.

Was Bill possessing his corpse?

It wasn’t unheard of, Bill had done such things before. The nausea was instantly replaced with a burning hatred that Ford hadn’t thought himself truly capable of until that very moment. Even during Weirdmaggeddon when he was being electrocuted, even when he was tormented with threats to steal his eyes, he never hated Bill more until this singular moment in time. The only way to know for certain were his eyes. Just one glimpse, that’s all Ford needed. 

He reached over to manually pull up Will’s eyelids, but he withdrew his hand sharply when Will’s once-blank expression now twisted into something like discomfort, mouth turned down in the corners and eyes scrunched.

Then, with agonizing slowness, Will finally opened his eyes.

Yellow.

Well, yellow was perhaps the wrong color to describe them. They were more like a honey-gold color, with pupils a bit too narrow to be truly human. The sclera were still white, so if this wasn't Bill possessing a corpse, what WAS it? Will grinned widely, stretching the corners of his mouth and crowed, "Heya, Sixer! Didja miss me? Admit it, you missed me!"

The rage that was steadily burning inside Ford's chest was immediately stoked to an inferno and he seized Bill's shirt in both hands and shook him as if that could somehow rattle Will loose.

"Bill, you sonofabitch, where's William?" he demanded.

Bill just looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Are you blind, Sixer? It IS me! He's me, remember?"

Ford's throat bobbed as Bill lifted a shaky hand to gently caress the side of his face, thumb sweeping over the stubble there. "I came back to you, Fordsy, because I love you. And you love me."

With a cry of disgust, Ford flung Bill back down onto the bed and lurched away from him. "No. You aren't the one I married. Give him back NOW before I break whatever fragments of you remain!"

Bill goggled at him. "Ford, it's ME. It's always been ME. That's MY ring on your finger."

Ford clapped a hand over his mouth and staggered away from the bed. Uncaring of his turmoil, Bill plowed on. "Chip agreed to fuse with me again, so now I'm back, baby! I meant what I said when I told you he didn't exist. Well he DEFINITELY doesn't anymore! So come over here and gimme a welcome back kiss."

Ford screamed and slammed his fist into the wall, punching a hole clean through the drywall. He rounded on Bill and jabbed an accusatory finger under his nose. "The only reason I haven't broken your neck right now is because I believe William is still in there somewhere. And I am GOING to bring him back, one way or another. Even if I have to tear you apart brick by brick."

"You're insane!" gasped Bill in genuine shock and offense. "How can you see me sitting here and still act like Chip and I were separate people?!"

Ford didn't answer him and left him there on the bed, helpless and too weak to get up on his own. He stormed up the stairs, scrubbing at the furious tears he hadn't even realized he was shedding until he felt them soaking his cheeks. At least Bill was completely at his mercy now, and that was the only thought that gave him comfort.

Because if Will was truly gone, then Ford was going to make Bill regret coming back.

[moonfang256]

Is Chara with us in Deltarune?

First of all, let's take a step back in time, to Undertale’s world.

When Chara and Asriel died, the prince turned into dust, but his human friend's body was left behind. Because of this, fragments of their soul remained embedded in it and somehow Chara was still conscious, pretty aware of what was happening around them.

After a while, Toriel took their body and buried it where the flowers from the beginning of the game were, where it seemed they would have their eternal rest, but that wasn’t the case...

Everything changed one day when we, the players, burst in with our determination and we called them. Such action caused Chara to awaken and what was left of their being (which was scattered among the flowers) combined with our soul.

While it’s mentioned in “Entry Seven” from the True Lab that humans can’t absorb the souls from other humans, there’s nothing that says that a human soul can’t fuse with another. In other words: Chara attached themselves to the player as a human amalgamate and from there they accompanied us on our adventure with Frisk through the whole underground.

You could say they became a kind of narrator-guide for the player and Frisk, kind of like what Navi is for Link in “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”. They were in charge of giving us advice, choices, guide, and even in the neutral and pacifist routes, they helped us to stop Asriel as a way to make amends for their past actions.

(Note: They’re also the ones who heal us when Flowey attacks us.)

Once we finish the game in Pacifist and let Frisk go, if we go back in we’ve a chat with Flowey, but he doesn't just talk to us, but to Chara as well. He has understood that Chara, Frisk and us are all different entities, that Chara merged with our soul and somehow Frisk became our vessel.

Throughout the game he confused Frisk and us with Chara because in our soul he detected the fragments of Chara's soul. He basically thought we were all Chara or at least a reincarnation of them, when in reality we aren’t.

Flowey recognized his mistakes and speaks to us one last time to ask us to leave things as they are. He doesn’t want us to become like them, so he asks us to move on.

After that, we appear again at the menu screen with some creepy music playing in the background, right? What happens here is we aren’t really alone.

Even though there’s no one in sight, Chara is still there, waiting to see what we’ll do next.

If we leave and don’t intervene in the game anymore, our soul stays behind and they’ll be satisfied, showing us from time to time how everyone is doing on the surface through Frisk I think (like what happens if Frisk stays with Toriel or the Alarm Clock dialogues.)

Things should have ended there, but something else happened...

---------

We players became obsessed with finding things about Gaster and he contacted us, asking us to be part of his new experiment to create a new future. We accepted without questioning the doctor's intentions, but Chara realized the situation and got to work.

Before continuing, we must clarify that Chara and Gaster seems to don’t get along due to something that happened in the past.

Evidence of this is how Chara acts when we’re in the True Lab.

They try to act strong, but probably inside they’re just as confused and disturbed as we are in this place.

There’s also Gaster calling them a “demon” in the “demon texts codes”, in version “1.05A” (he doesn't even bother to respect their pronouns.)

Back to what concerns us: Chara, realizing we were being dragged into this, decided to look for the closest thing to a Frisk in Deltarune, to prevent Gaster from putting us in the vessel we created and try to do something to us. This is the reason I think we ended inside Kris.

Now in this new world, they, like us, follow the same roles we had in Undertale, with the exception that Kris is fulfilling Frisk’s role of being our vessel and now we’ve more allies.

In addition, Kris intervenes more than Frisk when suggesting choices to the player or do some actions, so Chara may have some small conflicts with them that can be resolved over time.

Another thing to clarify is Chara isn’t possessing Kris, since their remains are still fused with us, unless there’s evidence they can control Kris with our soul while we aren’t in the game, which would explain anything related with the birdcage.

The conclusion of this theory is: Chara (the one from the pacifist, non-genocide route) became our friend and wants to help us and the Fun Gang to get out from this situation we’re in (though things might be different regarding the Snowgrave route).

They’ve always been there for us no matter what and they’re probably the ones singing “Don’t forget”, basically telling us:

"You’re not alone in this, I’m with you”.

[virto-the-weirdo]

13 cards magic future AU

So this is basically me combining several of my smaller au ideas (ghost fedor au, clone puberty au, future au, magic superheroes au n whatever else came to mind) into one big au. I might shove more concepts into it if I come up with stuff.

On another note, this au, as big as it is, is completley unrelated to the rof au. Consider these different things.

Everything below the treshold!

Another important note, for this huge au, the theory that i wrote the other day abt how the cards work is canon, with a minor edit that after death, clone souls always return to the card world, they are magically connected to it

So if you want to catch up on that, heres the link to the post with the theory:

Anyhow moving on with the story:

it all begins with the regular 13 cards - clones are free, fedor is taking care of them

now, he wants them to become independent as soon as possible, seeing how emotionally and phisically draining it is to take care of 8 other people

after they got the paperwork forged, clones were now kind of legal citizens and could do a lot more such as get a job, go to university, move out etc. at this point, none of them are ready to leave the apartment, or dont have enough money for their own place. most of them goot jobs, kuromaku decided to go to university and has a part time job, and he also has a hobby on the side where hes attempting to decode what exactly magic is, how it works, and most importantly how cards work. sometimes other clones join him for the adventures, and at this time clones realise they can use magic with the help of their cards, but theyre still learning abt it so yknow not many big spells

now as time goes by, fedor becomes more and more tired, he thinks its cuz stress since hes basically parenting 8 ppl, but something larger is at play

he has been sleeping a lot latley, and it seemed fine untill it went out of hand

at one point when everyone was taking a walk together, fedor collapsed and seemingly fell asleep

when clones took him back to the apartment and he woke up, everyone realised he became somewhat transparent

fedor was fading away and they didnt know why.

it obviously had to do something with the cards and although reluctant, kuromaku theorised its because all of the clones have been free for a very long time, which naturally upset everyone because it implies they need to be trapped back into the card world in order for fedor to be ok again

also, later on they start to fear that, if fedor dies, they all might die with him, which is also a terrible option

thus begins the arc of learning abt the cards as clones race against time to find out how the cards work, why this is happening to fedor, and most importantly, how to reverse it. As they do, their number keeps dropping, because each time fedor fades more, a clone needs to go to the card world in order to slow down the fading process and buy them more time.

over time they learned more about the cards and their soul trapping mechanic, coming to the realisation that not only do they all have a piece of fedors soul in them, but that fedor is fading because his soul is currently incomplete

clones are linked to cards and fedor to clones, when all the clones are inside card world, fedors soul fragments are all in one place, so while they are there, fedors soul is more complete and not drained of energy

they also learn that there are still souls trapped in cardworld, maybe at some point the clones in the cardworld try to contact them in an attempt to learn what i just said (mybe they learn it from joker's soul but he asks for a favor in return, more on that later)

in the end they found out that, to cure fedor, they need to remove fedors soul fragments from themselves and fuse them back to him

seeing as how now they knew enough abt magic to craft and preform a spell, they do that, so fedor gets better in few days, but now all clones have only their own souls left in them

and with that arc closed a new one begins - the clone puberty arc

seeing as how the clones are now no longer connected to fedor like they were before, they start to change and differentiate more from fedor. some in more usual and some in more unusual ways

this is a very turbulent time in their lives as lots starts to change

fedor, although now cured, has a new problem, and its helping clones overcome the challanges of clone puberty, poor guy cant catch a break lol

anyways, clones resume their adventures, learning more about themselves and magic and so on, i already shared some headcannons for this part of the story so i think u get the gist of what u may expect, i have some comics saved up too

also somewhere here id expect some clones to move out and become more independent

also kuromaku is still studying and he lives in the dorm

and ofc the researching magic shenanigans still happend as there is still more to know abt the cards, lets say they havent yet grasped everything abt them, but enough to cure fedor b4

anyhow somewhere at the end of this arc, they are reminded of something by someone

basically, if we take into account that they got info they need to cure fedor from joker, he wants to cash in the favor and asks for his freedom (he probably communicates via spooky magic, mirrors or appears on his card or idk something like that)

not only that but there is this guilt upon everyone as they learned that there are still souls trapped in the card world

after a long discussion, even though they werent keen on the idea of more clones, especially not fedor, probably due to jokers threats and possibly nightmares and their sence of justice and morals or whatever, clones decided to free the rest of the souls, promising fedor they will take care of them

and so the new arc begins

the queens arc

clones, with the help of fedor, summon the queens and the joker, immediatley doing the seperating spell so none of the queens or joker have fedors soul fragments, as to avoid the fading situation from reocurring

now the queens and joker are very chaotic, excited to be free, and also probably having their own clone puberties

now this time, its on clones to take care of the new clones, fedor gets a well deserved break

at this point all the main clones are independent from fedor (also kuromaku graduated by now) so they have lots of opportunity for shenanigans with new clones as they attempt to show the queens the ropes

now joker probably has his own mini arc, hes like the most magical out of all of the clones n knows the most so he doesnt really need to be protected and taught as much as he needs to be contained cuz he screws around a lot

or not, mybe he flips everyone off and flies away to claim his freedom idk what weird fae creatures do these days

anyways, queens get to hang out with clones a lot, probably getting a lot of screen time if it were a show as they go trough their own stuff n misadventurres

kuromaku and nicole hang out a lot, bcuz nicole has an obvious passion for science n stuff, she goes on to follow her 'brother's' example and decides to go to a university, she has lots of fun explosive adventures

anyhow i imagine emma has lots of beef with og clones, being really rebellious and all but at the end of the day she realizes they just be wanting to help, and she chills a bit once they stop looking down on her (assuming they consider her as younger sibling that needs to be taken care of, while she sees them all as equals)

helen is excited to be here although a bit scared of this huge new human world, so she sticks around others a lot, trying to be as helpful as she can as she wants to repay them for setting her free

cleo... cleo is vibing. idk what else to say, she might go n become a psychic or something, scamming ppl untill others stop her, that would be a fun lil episode

anyways the magic shenanigans continue

after a while once queens are settled down as well, they all have their own lives, but theres a catch

they can all do magic now

after so long learning about it, each clone has learned a set of spells and abilities they can now use with the help of cards

and often when they do, they can firsth transform into their card clothes (magical girl style) and then be all superhero (or antihero or supervillian) abt it if they want to, but most of them are very responsible at this point and dont use magic that often as it aint needed that often

also if some of them do have some kind of superhero arc, they go under their card roles pseudonyms (for example, felix's hero name would be jack of hearts), and their identities remain unknown bcuz *magic*, probably some kind of cloaking psychic spell that prevents ppl from recognising them, even though they got no masks at all

they still have magical adventures here and there, kuromaku is still trying to uncover and scientifically explain magic n stuff so yknow, theres still lots of adventures to go on

there would probably be more characters that meet the clones n are friends or enemies or whatever

mybe some clones even start families

also just one note abt this au, it might be a bummer to some but like its my au so yknow

I do what i want

clones here are like a family and thus there is no shipping between them

Okay thnx for coming to my rambling about this giant au. I might post some sketches n stuff I have on it that I made for fun but dont expect anything too grand, this one is just for funsies.

I have some sketches and fics for it from all over the timeline saved up so you may expect those altho they may be angsty lol.

[haniebnie]

And I can hear her sing And I know she's giving up And I don't know what to do, how to help her How to bring her home And I can hear him break And he doesn't understand And I wish that I could take his hand But where I'm going is for me and me alone [ inkpot gods by the amazing devil ]

i think a lot abt mythal and what is left of her. what we get in datv is NOT mythal, not actually her — merely her fragments, parts of her that were there but are NOT her. i think calling the 2 fragments we've got in datv the whole and completeness of mythal is too definitive and declaratory.

it's as if only your anger or passivity was remembered abt you after you. the tragedy of mythal — and the whole dragon age i'd even say — is of history. and what history remembers abt you cuz it's based in who writes abt you and who reads it. every codex is biased, not objective, but biased and political, made with agenda in mind. who mythal actually was is nowhere to be found as she is dead and nothing can be done abt it, nothing can fix it (but maybe time travel ig lol). we as the audience and players do make assumptions of her either that she was a heartless tyrant or a proactive player in the arlathan Game or that she was just passive and subjected to the command of elgar'nan. it shows our bias I'd say or more adequately our focus.

the fragment of mythal we got to know with knowing flemeth is not mythal as it's a fragment of her that flemeth found while angered, hurt, and vengeful after being betrayed. fragment of mythal is a spirit — a manifestation made out of the shattering of mythal's soul when the evanuris killed her (which accuracy should also be questioned cuz we're told she was killed and what if something else happened — we're told she was killed by people and spirits who were not there or who want it to be what is remembered) AND flemeth's anger and hurt. i think it was said in game that it was the hurt and anger that beaconed that fragment. and that's it — a fragment of what mythal was and felt ever. of course a part of her must've been angry and vengeful after being killed and/or dead, of course that part responded to feelings of anger and betrayal and all that might come from such a situation as being killed by assumed loved one. this fragment responded to the parallels of anger and betrayal. it is the most similar to what we have with anders and justice and that is so important to me as anders enjoyer and supporter. whatever you prefer to call it — the derogatory abomination or the neutral fusion of spirit and a mortal (or half-mortal cuz i don't remember if it was confirmed who made flemythal live that long, almost or fully immortal). so they fused and connected due to the shared values and of embracing them literally and more metaphorically as part of themselves. just that acceptance by Anders of his need for reaching justice and flemeth's acceptance of anger and hurt (or all the other possibilities that might've connected that spirit fragment of mythal and flemeth, there's so many things and i don't want to definitely say it was anger or vengeance or even empathy cuz it could've still be benevolence or something more trickstery or just that the point was that both flemeth and mythal were difficult to read as 100% one thing. i personally have not made my mind what feelings connected flemythal). i think what happens then with morrigan is the passing of the fragment that was with flemeth for all those years and flemeth's memories and feelings but not flemeth, i think flemeth died when solas took her powers.

recalling the all faded for her mission from dai — Solas says that spirit killed doesn't stop existing but basically returns, reseted, a blank, a tabula rasa of a spirit. i think it's not definitively said that they do have to return as the spirit of the same value as they died embodying. i'll return to this thought later on or in another post.

i personally believe that what is offered in the well of sorrows choice both is and is not a fragment of Mythal. similarly as we don't exactly know what is time exactly, we just created measures and ways to achieve a repeated motion that appears in that exact repeated measurement we've created for time, in the literal sense what we have in well of sorrows is not mythal nor a true fragment of her soul, her spirit. depending on how much of magical impact does faith have in the dragon age universe (is it like for instance of the jester & traveller situation from c2 of critical role or even the anime noragami — if the believers believe then you've gathered more power and if they stop believing in you, you loose power?) well of sorrows could be more metaphorical but made tangible or it could literally impact mythal and offer her power or even the faith of the followers had an actual impact on how she was and changed her with their power of communal manifestation. they literally made her be how they wanted and assumed her to be. i really loved the idea in the dimension20 fantasy high of the moon goddess who literally was altered due to the faith of the elven country that wished her to be ephemeral and soft, a perfect epitome of an elf, when she appeared first as chaos and wolflike and the two opposite sides of her fought inside her constantly. if they had such power over mythal with their faith and the shared manifestation they literally could've made her change herself as to reflect their strongest feelings, needs, and wants as the spirit she both was and wasn't at that point. and in dai it was said and i personally focus on this fragment that well of sorrows was the collective of mythal's most devoted priestesses and the power lies in that — in that they were so devoted and felt their emotions so strongly that it actually transcended and offered the power, not exactly the connection to mythal. maybe she felt responsible or devoted back to them to repay their credit of trust they gave her, that they believed, maybe she felt indebted to them as they offered her her power, maybe she literally cared for all of them or she wished to make them feel so strongly and to the extent of what a material being can and could ever possibly mean. maybe feeling every emotion to it's full extent and with layers and complications truly was what gave her magical power (cuz of the manifestation and nonexistence of veil back then tempering the power of magic and thus manifestation) or maybe it just motived her to act in their name, as their representative, just a political figure. or maybe she didn't know herself as she was both a spirit and material, maybe it was both, maybe it was all of it at the same time. all that to say, well of sorrows both was and wasn't mythal's fragment (imo).

The fragment we get in the crossroads also is not mythal. righteous and with short-temper, bitter and resentful, cold but slightly separated from the past. i have little to say here, i think we've got little of her in the game and i only played datv once so i might return to this fragment later on if i play through datv once more.

even if these 3 parts of mythal were to be connected into one like we've got in that one ending in datv with the 2 parts of her, we would've not gotten back mythal as she was. we'd get a spirit made of 3 other spirits, they could've created a fusion of the three of them (creating further questions of what is needed to create a fusion of spirits and what it'd offer etc) with some parts of mythal but the tragedy still stands — mythal is dead and nothing can be done about it. thus why i don't think the ending hits for me as solas would actually know that that isn't her. still he could've reacted very emotionally seeing her say that to him but at the end of the day he'd know mythal is dead and nothing can be done abt that.

this reminds me so much of the ending of c2 of critical role. spoilers ahead but when they defeated the threats of somnovem and the cougnoza and retrieved the body of lucien whom they knew as mollymauk tealeaf to return their friend to them — it all failed and they got another fragment of what once was the soul of the tiefling they knew who also just was a fragment of what was once a complete thing. unreturnable, irreversible, unable to make whole or get what they wanted. the tragedy of mollymauk was that they were never whole and nothing could be done abt it, i think even a wish could not return him but maybe it'd have made him whole but that'd be somebody they didn't know. who they got was kingsley. and i think this same thing happens to the fragments of mythal we've got. we should've been offered a new name for these fragments but maybe we already know it as morrigan — the 2 (or 3 if she was the well drinker) fragments and the soul of morrigan. just as we know anders as Anders which also isn't his actual name but it works for him and justice now.

[the-indigo-symphony]

Heya! I saw your& post on fusion, and I have to admit it was pretty eye-opening? Talk about fusion has always made me nervous, because I deeply associate it with pluralmisia. If you& don't want to deal with some fairly intrusive, kinda shithead questions and a bad take, please ignore/delete this ask- I don't know where else to look for answers, but I know you& probably hear this crap several times a week.

When you say you're 'both' still here, how do you mean? My association with fusion is still very "all parties involved no longer exist in any meaningful way and something new has been created in their place", and even though I would never accuse anyone that bc I know my experience is not universal, that's always kind of in the back of my mind when someone talks about it. And I know you& compared this to the transphobic equivalent, but I can't really wrap my head around the equivalency. I'm trans (and plural), if it helps.

It's alright, I'm fine with elaborating

So, it's not that our past selves have been "destroyed"; the previously separate parties are not "gone in any meaningful way". It's not like cutting up two pieces of paper to make a new craft. Rather, it's like melting down two crayons to make a new one with a combined color. Yeah, the distinct, individual identities of "yellow" and "blue" are gone, but no wax was lost in the creation of this new green crayon.

I think I'm/We're a very clear example of this, since we used to be fragments – the two (maybe three now) of us, back when we were separate, had specific things we could offer the other if we fused. One of us had a strong presence and "will" (idk how to describe it, sorry), but no steady identity, while the other had an identity, but no will beyond that. Now that we've fused, we have both a will and sense of steady identity. What we're looking for in the future is something to tie us together further; someone who can provide more personality to round us out. We feel much more like an actual person now than we did before, and even in internal appearance, we look like a combination of both the fragments we were before.

I am Sanae, I am the nameless fragment, I am both and both are me. They're not gone; we're both here, just as one. We weighed the loss of individual identity against what we stood to gain from fusion, and determined that there were far more pros than cons to the idea. We also considered fusing with another headmate, Mel, but there wouldn't have been as much to gain from merging together, and even if he wouldn't have been "gone", it would have brought us distress to not have him as a separate being we can interact with and depend on, so we decided not to.

I compared anti-fusion views to the transphobic view on transitioning because there are a lot of parallels to us. Our internal body has changed and we're a lot happier now, whereas before, what we lacked made us feel hollow and distressed. It's similar to how HRT can help with gender dysphoria. Moreover, people liken fusion/transition to murder a lot, but no one's dying – we're different now, but no one was sacrificed to make us this way. Someone who is post-transition is no more "dead" than either of us are, but because of this large change in identity, appearance, etc., people like to treat us as if we are. Our past selves are not murdered – not in a trans context, and not in a plural context. We're just different.

It's true that forced fusion usually comes from pluralphobia, whether that's internalized from the plural in question or from others pressuring them into it. But this isn't the same as purposeful fusion done with full consent, desire, and understanding. In these instances, it's much more like if you forced someone to medically transition (which it should be noted actually happens to some people, namely intersex people) – it usually causes distress, if not over who they are and what they look like, then over the loss of autonomy and choice. Forced fusion and forced transition come from a place of wanting to make those that fall outside the norm as close as possible to the norm, no matter what pain this causes the patient/person – this is why such things might be likened to/called death or mutilation, as it is "killing" one's natural selves/body/deviance from the norm through violence. Those who have gone through forced fusion have a right to express their feelings of losing their individual identities as their selves being "killed", even if they're technically still around. But this is very different from transition or fusion done with full understanding of the process, acceptance of possible downsides, and with the expectation of an improved quality of life. We have not gone through any violence to become who we are now. We have autonomy and are exercising it freely by choosing exactly how we will ease our suffering and make our life better. No one was forced into anything.

Unintentional fusion is a wild card in how it effects people, but I don't feel qualified to speak on that. What I will say is that it rubs me the wrong way to call fusion murder in part due to how unintentional fusion can cause distress. You're going to look at someone grieving who they were before and essentially accuse them of manslaughter?

I hope this helps you understand. Also, I think you're overestimating the amount of comments and asks we get, haha! We're not that popular – not on this blog, at least

[en-esprit-de-corps]

Hello Ladies, Gentlemen… and Others.

What better way to start off an introduction than with a David Bowie quote eh?

Anyway hi! I’m Kit. You can call me a girl, or a boy, or whatever. This is the internet so go crazy. My Family is Franco-Gaelic (Irish and French, duh) and I’m -if I do say so myself- quite well versed in all things Gotham. Alright personal info time.

Name: Kit Tierney Chevalier; you can call me Kit, KC, or KT, doesn’t really matter to me.

Age: 17

Pronouns; She/They/Any

Height: 5’3” or 160 cm if you’re not American

Physical Descriptors: Not super athletic but not necessarily weak, hypermobile and extremely flexible. Pale as hell, red hair, the most subtle heterochromia you have ever seen, seriously one is blue and the other is like greenish-blue.

Oh, yeah and I’m really into Disco Elysium.

See you on the other side losers.

Yo! Mun here! Both me and Kit are minors so don’t be weird for the love of God.

This blog is specifically affiliated with @bluesheep23 and some others in basically a DC Magical Girl group pretty heavily based on PreCure and Madoka Magica that may or may not end up being affiliated with the Lanterns in some way. We’re not really sure yet. I also run the @/morally-ambiguous-bird blog.

So yeah basically this is for shits and giggles.

LORE SECTION

Dimensional Constant.

That means exactly what it sounds like, a version of her exists in every timeline, continuity, and canon. If you think that may take a toll, that’s because it does. Kit often displays dramatic mood swings, going from calm to erratic to borderline manic. (I wouldn’t characterize it as DID necessarily, this is heavily based off Mun’s personal experiences and I’m currently being evaluated for a dissociative disorder so i’ll get back to y’all on this) This is due to the fact all iterations of her are essentially linked together. So like, voices in her head but they’re all technically her own.

Dimension hopping is another part of this. Specifically Arcane style minus the need for machinery, She essentially hops into the body of her alternate universes self and their consciousnesses merge.

This has understandably caused a bit of a fracture in her psyche, unable to differentiate which thoughts, feelings and even memories are her own. (They all technically are, but she can’t wrap her head around that.)

Her first few jumps were unintentional, before she was unable to control her abilities, and was unable to find her way back to her original dimension and timeline.

Spent ‘years’ (time passes differently when outside her dimension) searching through countless dimensions for her younger brother, whose name she has forgotten after so much time. Her memory of her home dimension fading has only added to her fragility, making her extremely protective over younger children.

Rudimentary Time Travel

Literally just think Five from Umbrella Academy, right down to the simultaneously immature and old person personality.

Weird Biology

Idk what else to call it, when two versions of her merge there is a slight DNA overlap despite the fusion being mainly mental, leaving her with some more than peculiar gene sequences. And apparently eyes that glow in the dark like a cats. Weird.

Physical effects of Universe Jumping

Time sink - distorts the way time passes for Kit, part of what allows them to remain physically around 16 or so even after all this time.

Physiological warping - In order to jump Kit’s molecular structure has to physically tear apart in order for their energy to transfer from one universes version of herself to the other. (don’t come at me I’m not a physicist, this just makes sense in a weird sci-fi way in my head) This can cause a number of physical issues or malformations. Usually small, like a slight shift in size or density, but occasionally she may gain whole new bones or bone fragments. So far having dealt with extra vertebrae, a second ulna in one of her arms mostly fused to the original, and extra ribs on occasion. This is all only to their knowledge. Kit has an extremely high pain tolerance as a result, but isn’t afraid to pretend something hurt them more than it actually did if it means gaining an adults sympathy.

Uncanny Recall - or, “Weird Forbidden Knowledge” as she calls it. Accumulated knowledge and experience from previous and connected universes versions of them, being able to tap into said knowledge on just about any given person.

Last Updated 02/11/2025

[aspd-culture]

thank you for your reply! lowkey convinced I might have a dissociative disorder now—I literally am the child who’s a completely different person before bed and can entirely forget that I’m hungry and every feeling I had in the week before therapy at the ripe old age of 23! tbh I’d thought the emotional impermanence was the adhd but I don’t know anyone else w/o some sort of dissociative amnesia who has the same problem that they can’t remember anything when they go to therapy. but I am capable of having lots of emotions at once (in fact I can never point out one singular thing I’m feeling) so idk!! anyway I’ll look further into it that was wonderful

So there’s more to a system than the failure of the ego states to fuse - but that is the step that causes the system to form and to current knowledge, a system is the only thing that can cause those states to fail to fuse.

As with other children their age, a child who has developed a CDD system will develop emotionally mostly as expected with exceptions given for the delays and disruptions to this that whatever trauma they’re experiencing may cause. A 10 year old that has developed into a system will still be meeting those developmental milestones, except now it will be alters doing it.

We don’t stay as those ego states forever; instead each alter will emotionally develop individually. So now that a system has formed, each alter will - as entirely separate people and therefore at entirely separate rates - develop things like complex emotions and the ability to remember having them. This is why structural dissociation disproves the concepts of an original alter and the alters as “parts”. While the community still uses the terms “splitting” and “fragments”, we do so with the understanding that it isn’t a true breaking into separate pieces of one person in the way we used to think (though in a split pieces can technically “break off” another alter but they would still be entirely separate people vs pieces of a person) with the theory that was replaced by structural dissociation.

These alters will then each live their own lives - having different experiences entirely separate of each other, developing their own interests and hobbies and biases about the world and the people in it, etc. - and therefore become very different people. Alters may be more difficult to notice as children than as adults because they appear to be a child going through normal phases. Alters may also be misunderstood as ADHD (and, to complicate things, the system as a whole may *also* have ADHD) due to memory loss and what appears to be flights of ideas and hobby switching as various alters take the front for various lengths of time.

If you’re autistic, by the way, the thing about being a different person before bed may be explained by that (tiredness can lead to more severe symptoms of autism showing) as can the forgetting you’re hungry (autism often comes with a decreased ability to recognize body cues for needs - so many autistic people struggle to realize they’re hungry until they’re starving, or that they need to go to the bathroom until it’s an emergency, and also forget while engaging with special interests). Autistic people can also struggle to recognize and name emotions, with some of us often failing to recognize emotional changes by anything other than their physical symptoms (some emotions make your stomach feel sick, or a head rush, or a warm sensation, etc.). These things can also be attributed to some other disorders that I’m not specifically aware of but you can check out the differential section for diagnosing DID and Autism to find them I’m fairly sure.

However, it does sound like you’re describing amnesia, and specifically amnesia popping up at a time that a gatekeeper who isn’t feeling ready to process emotions might take the memories from you. Especially if you’d be able to recall those memories immediately before or after therapy, that could be a sign of a dissociative disorder that you could look into and bring up to your professional if you’d like.

Noting here that I am not a professional, and even if I was (I’m not) I’m not *your* professional, so I cannot speak to your diagnoses in any way other than non-professional guesses. Additionally, it’s important to remember that most symptoms of disorders can be from various ones, or be non-disordered traits, and that’s something you’d need to get into it with a professional or do heavy research before deciding on. And I wish you all the luck in doing so!/gen

If you’re after additional research, there is, unlike with ASPD, a decent amount of unbiased information. Be aware of and avoid sources that claim that systems can be fakeclaimed based on literally anything as these sources are not unbiased. The only one who can know if a system is faking or not is an unbiased professional who has spent many hours with their client. For example, I was not diagnosed with DID until I had known my professional for over 3 years, and she still hadn’t considered it until I said something (albeit that that was because she said she wasn’t experienced with this and actually - with my permission - went through my diagnostic tests with a couple trusted colleagues before diagnosing me). One of these resources is the diagnostic test itself which can be found if you look hard enough for it BUT I do not recommend anyone who ever currently plans on pursuing a diagnosis does that specifically. There are two reasons for that - the first is that the diagnostic test is triggering by its nature. You can skip any questions you want but for a truly accurate test result, you ideally would openly answer all questions. As hard as it was, I did not choose to skip any questions in my assessment. That means if you do have a system, you’d be arming your gatekeeper (who may well not want to be found since, when a system is first discovered by the host, the first response is often for it to be hidden from the host as much as possible by backing up, going quiet, giving or taking away memory access, etc.) with the questions you need to answer to get your answer and giving the gatekeeper time to create amnesia towards those questions or to have another alter come out and refuse to answer them or lie to avoid diagnosis. The best way in my opinion to get that assessment done is blindly, without knowledge of the questions, if you have as of yet no or little solid interaction with your alters. The second reason is that these diagnostic tests are difficult to score without the paid for score sheet so if you have the opportunity to let a professional do that, it’s best to allow for that. Because of this, taking that assessment at home would not in any way be the only piece of research you’d need in order to self dx anyway.

Plain text below the cut:

So there’s more to a system than the failure of the ego states to fuse - but that is the step that causes the system to form and to current knowledge, a system is the only thing that can cause those states to fail to fuse.

As with other children their age, a child who has developed a CDD system will develop emotionally mostly as expected with exceptions given for the delays and disruptions to this that whatever trauma they’re experiencing may cause. A 10 year old that has developed into a system will still be meeting those developmental milestones, except now it will be alters doing it.

We don’t stay as those ego states forever; instead each alter will emotionally develop individually. So now that a system has formed, each alter will - as entirely separate people and therefore at entirely separate rates - develop things like complex emotions and the ability to remember having them. This is why structural dissociation disproves the concepts of an original alter and the alters as “parts”. While the community still uses the terms “splitting” and “fragments”, we do so with the understanding that it isn’t a true breaking into separate pieces of one person in the way we used to think (though in a split pieces can technically “break off” another alter but they would still be entirely separate people vs pieces of a person) with the theory that was replaced by structural dissociation.

These alters will then each live their own lives - having different experiences entirely separate of each other, developing their own interests and hobbies and biases about the world and the people in it, etc. - and therefore become very different people. Alters may be more difficult to notice as children than as adults because they appear to be a child going through normal phases. Alters may also be misunderstood as ADHD (and, to complicate things, the system as a whole may *also* have ADHD) due to memory loss and what appears to be flights of ideas and hobby switching as various alters take the front for various lengths of time.

If you’re autistic, by the way, the thing about being a different person before bed may be explained by that (tiredness can lead to more severe symptoms of autism showing) as can the forgetting you’re hungry (autism often comes with a decreased ability to recognize body cues for needs - so many autistic people struggle to realize they’re hungry until they’re starving, or that they need to go to the bathroom until it’s an emergency, and also forget while engaging with special interests). Autistic people can also struggle to recognize and name emotions, with some of us often failing to recognize emotional changes by anything other than their physical symptoms (some emotions make your stomach feel sick, or a head rush, or a warm sensation, etc.). These things can also be attributed to some other disorders that I’m not specifically aware of but you can check out the differential section for diagnosing DID and Autism to find them I’m fairly sure.

However, it does sound like you’re describing amnesia, and specifically amnesia popping up at a time that a gatekeeper who isn’t feeling ready to process emotions might take the memories from you. Especially if you’d be able to recall those memories immediately before or after therapy, that could be a sign of a dissociative disorder that you could look into and bring up to your professional if you’d like.

Noting here that I am not a professional, and even if I was (I’m not) I’m not *your* professional, so I cannot speak to your diagnoses in any way other than non-professional guesses. Additionally, it’s important to remember that most symptoms of disorders can be from various ones, or be non-disordered traits, and that’s something you’d need to get into it with a professional or do heavy research before deciding on. And I wish you all the luck in doing so!/gen

If you’re after additional research, there is, unlike with ASPD, a decent amount of unbiased information. Be aware of and avoid sources that claim that systems can be fakeclaimed based on literally anything as these sources are not unbiased. The only one who can know if a system is faking or not is an unbiased professional who has spent many hours with their client. For example, I was not diagnosed with DID until I had known my professional for over 3 years, and she still hadn’t considered it until I said something (albeit that that was because she said she wasn’t experienced with this and actually - with my permission - went through my diagnostic tests with a couple trusted colleagues before diagnosing me). One of these resources is the diagnostic test itself which can be found if you look hard enough for it BUT I do not recommend anyone who ever currently plans on pursuing a diagnosis does that specifically. There are two reasons for that - the first is that the diagnostic test is triggering by its nature. You can skip any questions you want but for a truly accurate test result, you ideally would openly answer all questions. As hard as it was, I did not choose to skip any questions in my assessment. That means if you do have a system, you’d be arming your gatekeeper (who may well not want to be found since, when a system is first discovered by the host, the first response is often for it to be hidden from the host as much as possible by backing up, going quiet, giving or taking away memory access, etc.) with the questions you need to answer to get your answer and giving the gatekeeper time to create amnesia towards those questions or to have another alter come out and refuse to answer them or lie to avoid diagnosis. The best way in my opinion to get that assessment done is blindly, without knowledge of the questions, if you have as of yet no or little solid interaction with your alters. The second reason is that these diagnostic tests are difficult to score without the paid for score sheet so if you have the opportunity to let a professional do that, it’s best to allow for that. Because of this, taking that assessment at home would not in any way be the only piece of research you’d need in order to self dx anyway.

[little-shadow-club]

Because of your texts I'm obsessed with SLR... Just freaking out over your gay texts about Suho and Tiel.

Although I don't know which chapter of the novel the Manhwa is in...(Could you send more of that lovely Suhiel/Tieho dialogue?

Also, I read your Pirates Au fic.... IT WAS DELIGHTFUL TO READ

I would love to see more of your writing work.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH AND YIPEEEEE MORE SLR FANSSS, and I'm so happy you read my fic thank you SO MUCH I'm on my way to either send more or crash out because I've yaoi too close to the sun, 50/50 possibilities. Either way I'm really happy to know you enjoy Sutiel/Tieho. As for the Novel we uhhhhh Tiel doesn't exist in the novel (still it's such an amazing novel for me tho, hope the author just manifests Tiel in the future to yaoi about novel suho and him there— no seriously I KNOW the novel author's other work. I KNOW he can write that homoerotic shit while also not giving in to the 'male power fantasy must have waifu' trope LIKE OF ALL PEOPLE I TRUST WITH PLANOTIC FRIENSHIPS. IT IS DAULLLLLL. If Tiel had been in the novel I would have assended as the Yaoi Bodhisattva, that author can write God bless him every day.) and the manhwa has decided to just completely go off the rails, so he's a manhwa only character (I'd even go as far as saying someone decided to omniscient reader' it and place themselves in the story to be homoerotic foils with MC).

They haven't met in canon —kinda. As far a I remember this started first with just being funny 'haha Suho but evil' but then it spiraled from the moment someone on Reddit went "Suho is going to Miho from a dangerous situation and fall in love with him." Classic damsel in distress style, and then I re read the chapter where Tiel got rescued by Suho and I was like... Oh Oh he... he questioned why Suho save him which means he's questioning the reason of why we protect others, which is the main archetype of Suho, that he's protecting others... Upon fusing with 3rd fragment he decided to make Suho his ally, oh, oh, he thinks he can sway Suho to his side, the one person that can literally tilt the scales of war in this galactic battle. Oh he's apostle, a ruler to an extent, controlling over the living while Suho controls the dead. He's a blind follower for his creator destroying the world while Suho is reconstructing a world his father once destroyed. *Gets hit with flashbacks of Link Click, Alien Stage, Devil man Crybaby, ORV, and other shows with black and white yaoi* OH THIS HOMOTRON 3000. IVE HEARD OF THIS YAOI BAIT BEFOREEE. IVE KNOWN THIS DOOM GAYS BEFORE

AHHHHHHH. And now I'm here. Currently on the twelfth bloc note, 4 docs, 100+ messages of brainrot on discord and 1 hour recording of the divergence plot. I have written drabbles these past 4 weeks so much you'd think it was my 2025 resolution (it is).

Anyways outside of this one shot, and the other series I posted on anon (scared moots know I'm making yet another series) I have shared a lot of my thoughts on discord since it's a more relaxed format than posting the blogs, so if you wanna share brainrot with me on Sutiel, I recommend entering @jdah 's server.

Beautiful server (tho I have been away there for a month since I got exams... in <12 hours rn. But anyways thank youuuuu so much for reading this long rant. I will be sure to post more Sutiel content as I go! (Maybe even Greek Mythology content since my next semester's studies are all about that. Same on taking notes for ceramics and Arts so I can allude to so many romantic moments for a uni AU. Or maybe A lost kingdom AU. Ghosts AU. Mythical AUs. Canon divergence where Tiel meets Suho years before. Some arranged marriages. Some Isakaid! Deserted Villain x Duke. Gosh there's a lot! I've even got some screenshots from the notes I've been taking just about everywhere ;-;.

[atowncalledher]

hmmm I can't remember if I made a post about the two different layers on which our system operates so imma do it again.

We have the top layer that we talk about, where we have all of our different named members and their sometimes overlapping identities, but underneath that we have the color layer.

The color layer is made up of parts and fragments and more simple, base level brain functions (I call it the color layer because a lot of more general pieces of it have strong color associations. idk if it's just synesthesia or what but. whatever lol). But these are the actual building blocks of our system, and i think our brain as a whole.

The main parts of the color layer are (or in some cases were; it's a little hard to tell where some of them are and whether or not they have fused); Sky (Green), Sable(Black), Mika (Pink), Grey, and mTau (Yellow). (Those first three have names because they are actually the first pieces of our system the N met when she discovered we were plural; we're not really sure how solid some of the top layer identities were before the point where she met them. Taylor, for instance, started out as a fragment before fusing with another fragment to get where she is now. Four turned into KK (who was Mika but also light blue) before she fused into Chloe). These different pieces contain different parts of our identity and history. Green is our caretaker tendencies, Black is rebellious, righteous anger, and Pink is our little. Grey is actually a dissociative barrier that surrounds those three, as well as I think some loose unnamed parts (while also in some ways being a protector for our system as a whole). Yellow is actually on the other side of that barrier, and I think that's because it contains some bad shit from our teenage years (high school bullshit, gender dysphoria stuff, and maybe some other stuff. the primary reason i think that is because Ash is yellow and so is mTau but we'll get to that in a sec).

So the color layer contains more basic pieces of our identity, and each identity on the top layer (which again is where we have our properly named and defined members) each draw from or contain sections of these parts from the color layer. Sky is, well, Green. Leo is mostly Grey. Sierra is pretty much all Black. mTau is all Yellow, Ash and Ren are both part Yellow and part Black. N is a lot of Green, and so is Emma, though they both contain other small parts. Saai is yellow too. Like half of our masculine identifying and masc leaning parts are yellow (Leo and Alyx are an exception, though Alyx is bigender). There are strange associations like that. A lot of Green headmates use She/They, it seems to have some correlation to gender identity.

At some points though it gets really hard to tell who's who and what's what. Like Four was initially Silver, and then when she broke apart and those formed KK they were a Light Blue, and then now Chloe is definitively Red. Idk if those are just unrelated synesthesia things or if they are smaller parts in the color layer that just never got properly identified. And like Dizzy was partially Black (all the Emo Kids contain Black) but we also associated her with purple, but that association disappeared when she fused into Chloe. Was purple just a color she liked? Does Chloe contain Purple, or is Purple now a loose unaffiliated part in the color layer? No idea tbh. Doesn't seem to be around anymore though.

The color layer is also more varied tho. I think some of the pieces in there are just loose memories. I think there might be one in there, completely isolated, from a pretty bad car crash we were in when we were 12. Just a loose part containing those few seconds of memory. Interestingly I think that part is a shade of Light Blue but was unaffiliated with KK, who was also Light Blue.

Honestly who knows. Brain works in weird ways. I try to understand and I'm kinda the member of our system who keeps track of all this but like. fuck dude i dunno. brain works weird who knows. I'm just out here doing my best.

[littlest-bugz]

What's a C-DID system? How does it feel do be like that?

I hope I'm not too insensitive, I don't want you to be uncomfortable answering to something as sensitive as this, if you even want to answer, don't feel pressured.

Hey Anon! No worries about being insensitive! I actually really like this question!! Thank you for asking it!

Going to start by saying I am not medical professional, nor am I the most well versed at this current moment in time [its a memory skill issue], but I can tell you what I know and anyone can respond to correct anything I may have gotten wrong! I've read a ton of studies and books but </3 It all escapes my mind because I am not the alter who studied all this stuff.

First, I have to start off with the fact that the DID aspect of C-DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID is a dissociative disorder in which a person has multiple states of identity, referred to as alters, accompanied with periods of amnesia, and, of course, dissociation! It used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder [MPD] but this is no longer accurate! Honestly, I would read this tumblr blog post about DID because I'm not the best at explaining it [this is a link].

C-DID stands for Complex Dissociative Identity Disorder. This is a community term if I'm being honest, but we feel it describes our system very well [though we are formally diagnosed with DID]. In our eyes, our system functions very much like a polyfragmented system [which is a type of studied system, just not very well], minus the fragments [don't worry I'll explain this]. I'll give you a very basic understanding of what is commonly seen within C-DID, which is taken from the current understanding of Polyfragmented DID. Polyfragmented DID, and by extension C-DID, is characterized as having a complex system structure, complex splitting and fusing patterns, high fragment count [the part that differs in C-DID, another explanation coming], having a lack of non-dissociative coping skills, and early life trauma.

Complex System Structure : This means Layers, Subsystems, and other divisions between alters. These divisions are built up via amnesiac barriers between alters For our system, this presents in how our subsystems function and look like. We have 3 main subsystems in our system. One only has a handful of alters, the other has 2 other subsystems in it [often called nested subsystems! Think of it as a Russian nesting doll], and our 'main' subsystem is a series of 10 layers that present as floors in an apartment [it used to be 13! but as we heal more, it has lessened due to fusing of entire layers :)]. There used to be NO communication between any of the layers, or other subsystems. Not until we got into therapy with a specialist LOL If you need an explanation for subsystems, they are systems within systems! There are a few types, the only ones I remember are Nested Subsystems, and for that I apologize </3 If anyone can rb and help w/ this one, I would love it.

Complex Splitting and Fusing Patterns: This presents as splitting multiple alters, subsystems, and/or groups from a single traumatic event, splitting alters who only hold an aspect of trauma [such as, alters splitting from different emotions and feelings during the trauma, feelings or sensations, and more], and splitting due to seemingly perceived minor stressors. Complex fusing patterns are not actually a studied or listed characteristic, but I know other C-DID and Polyfrag systems would be able to relate in this aspect. This can mean alters seemingly fusing into multiple alters [x alter fused parts of themself into a, b, and c alters], unwilling fusing [fusion is a part of healing but sometimes alters are not ready to give up their perceived individuality], and what I personally called failed fusion [two alters that are in the process of fusing, but due to a traumatic event, it results in two or more alters- Like complex splitting but somehow more complex]. Take all the fusing pattern stuff with a grain of salt because I am not a professional and this isn't formally researched. In our system, we have very very complex splitting patterns, and we do not even label ourself as having a 'high' or 'low' splitting frequency because of this. Individual alters in our system have higher or lower chances of splitting. The Bugz subsystem [which we are relatively open about because they are our namesake] is a subsystem of copies of the same alter [a former host] in having each alter being him during various different times of our life, and on top of that, one of The Bugz split his own nested subsystem with all alters that represented an aspect of a single trauma.

High Fragment Count: This is the part differs in C-DID. Fragments are defined as an alter that is not fully differentiated or developed. Fragments may exist to carry out a single function or job, to hold a single memory or emotion, or to represent a single idea... Fragments usually have not been exposed to enough complex, different, or interactive experiences to incorporate more into their sense of self and so become more developed and differentiated. C-DID does have a high alter count, but it is not made up of fragments. In C-DID, which again, is a community term at this current point in time, alters that split in complex ways are fully or mostly differentiated. This is hard to explain, as it's up to anyone's interpretation due to it's origin being within the community. How this looks for us is that we have a "shared memory bank". This includes all the memories that are common knowledge in our system [this can include anything from the memory of getting a job to a whole traumatic event]. We have worked hard in therapy to expand and refine this aspect of our system, but because of the good ol' CEO, it still happened pre-diagnosis [which we didn't know we were a system until we were diagnosed- we actually thought we had BPD]. This means when alters split, they will still retain some of the common knowledge, which can lead to them being more differentiated than a fragment. For example: Alters X, Y, and Z split of from a traumatic event- One holds the feeling of helplessness during the event, one retains a repeated phrase or thought we had during the trauma, one holds the fear during the event. X retained knowledge of a favorite color and place from the perceived 'memory bank', leading them to have a different Identity than Y or Z who may hold different parts. These usually [in our system] correlate with the trauma that occurred. So lets say its a Religious Traumatic Event [very terrible example but I'm rolling with it]. Y may retain the knowledge that we currently hold a spiritual practice, and knows certain aspects of it that X or Z would not know. And Z might remember a time in our life when we had no religion or spiritual belief, and maintains that set of beliefs. X might be more fearful of religion as a whole as a result of the religious trauma, but might only remember a time where we were a part of whatever religion. If this makes no sense, or you want further clarity, feel free to ask! I feel like this aspect of C-DID is not talked about in the community or anything. I have never seen anyone's experience with this aspect.

Having a lack of non-dissociative coping skills or mechanisms: systems typically split as a last resort to a traumatic event- In polyfragmented systems [and by extension C-DID systems], a system can split from daily life stressors and other similar things. Having a lack of non-dissociative coping skills, in my non-professional opinion, may stem from not being allowed use or taught coping skills during integral parts of childhood development, or even further into adolescence and adulthood. But that's a theory- A game theory. /ref/ This we experience a lot less in our current stage in healing. Our 'automatic' response is to dissociate, but as we have been in therapy and learned how to regulate emotions and cope with traumatic events, it's gotten better. Sometimes we have to 'fight' dissociation. It's doing everything I can to stay in the present here and now- Forcing myself to ground even though dissociation is an instantaneous reaction. It's harder or easier depending on the alter, but we try to help each other out with remembering our skills [shout out to our beloved caretaker-gatekeeper! Love that guy].

Early Childhood Trauma: Typically, this means trauma that stems from infancy to 3-5ish y/o. Don't quote me on that one, but that's what I've seen be described as 'early childhood trauma'. This can range from Severe or Organized Abuse to a disruptions in primary caregiver attachments [don't quote me on that one]. I-- Don't have to explain how this one works in our system LMAO. Just know our trauma does meet that 'criteria'.

Commonly seen in Polyfragmented Systems and C-DID systems is a higher frequency in switching, but this is not a necessity.

About how it feels to live like this, It's very complicated. Even as healed as we are, and continue to do so, it is still really rough and confusing. There's a lot of things that most singlets wouldn't think about, but are pretty common as a system.

We have, as of today, 83 documented alters. That's not including the ones we refuse to put in because they're oc introjects or abuser + familial introjects. Like can you imagine me putting one of my abusers into my pink, cutesy aesthetic alter log LMAO. That's just ridiculous to me. I acknowledge their existences, and they're included in meetings, but I feel uncomfortable documenting, like, my abuser introjects especially. But having 83+ alters is complicated- it makes life messy. Some of us love certain friends- others want to cut contact every day- Some don't even know how to socialize. Just today we had a job interview and someone who switched in hadn't ever been in an interview, didn't know what to say. We had planned in a meeting a specific alter to front, but DID switches are very hard to control. Our gatekeepers tried to help, but when an alter is triggered to front, it's mostly out of our control.

Speaking of meetings: We have to hold meetings with all, or most, of our alters. It helps to keep everyone in the loop, and prevent those amnesiac barriers, but they can become quite unruly and fights can happen because some of us don't like others [but we're working on that]. Getting everyone's voice in can be nearly impossible at times. We have a 'conference room', but visualization can only do so much [especially when there is 83+ of us]. But these meetings are super important for communication, but we don't always remember to do them.

Communication with us is very good, generally. We have near complete co-conciousness, as well as multiple fronters at all times, but it's still hard to remember things. I have made modifications for remembering things. For example, Right in front of my bed, the first thing I see, is a white board with important dates during the week [like birthdays, events, appts]. That helps with that stuff, but we forget a lot of little stuff.

Voting is a necessity in our system. We can't make many decisions without voting, and... THERE ARE SO MANY OF US. It's like a town vote or something, it's just wild.

There are some good things about C-DID. We have a complex innerworld, and I think that's pretty cool because!! I love making maps and floorplans and all that kind of stuff!!! There's also times where my alters have made me laugh until I cried [last night, literally], and I don't get that joy often. I love my alters, they're all goobers!!! Even the abuser introjects lol

Again, thank you for asking!! If you want any more information, I can answer follow up questions <3

I encourage other C-DID systems to respond to this post with their experiences! Anyone can correct me with articles nd such!!

[lividria]

i've seen a few people do AUs where sectonia gets resurrected, even less have some kind of idea for a Sectonia Epilogue (my pitch for one coming soon), but i've only ever seen exactly one idea like this but for haltmann being alive and even that was in the most technical of senses, and exactly one for robobot of a haltmann epilogue where he goes to another dimension after star dream was blown up because of the whole afterlife theory, and that wasn't elaborated on since it was just a hypothetical design for him

and it mde me want to think of my own take on a robobot epilogue-style mode because i just had no clue how haltmann in another dimension could be interesting lol no offense to the person who made that, and i already did all the legwork for a sectonia epilogue (again, coming soon) so like maybe i could at least work an outline out here too even though i'm way more invested in taranza & sectonia lol, i tried to come up with a premise that could reasonably be what HAL would actually do at least in the abstract there so i wanted something for this as well

my initial idea was actually a Susie Prologue, where a young susie explores another dimension when she was initially raptured by star dream, maybe encountering one of the parallel susies or even becoming one temporarily? but i couldn't come up with any actual plotline beyond that or even how that'd play

but rn i'm replaying forgotten land with my brother and we got to forgo dreams, and it got me thinking, this establishes souls can be shattered and then rebuilt, i saw someone postulate that haltmann's memories were added to star dream's database as they were sapped and that's the real reason susie wanted that database, so what if you could do that here and that's the fruit fragment equivalent

and there was this entire weird train of thought me & The Friend I Mention In All Of My Kirby Posts™️ went on that started out unrelated but led to us thinking about the virtual reality from the last levels of robobot, which the true arena seems to take place in due to the wireframe backgrounds being used towards the end and it being called a simulation, and i had already caught that in meta knightmare returns galacta knight is freed when summoned but resealed and thrown into a wormhole when beat, then in the true arena he's sealed when summoned then just flies off when defeated, so it does seem to be like a genuine location not some bizarre hologram so there's my setting

so maybe a Planet Robobot 2.0 would have Susie Epilogue and it'd be her accessing the virtual reality again via star dream's remains (that helmet from the cutscene?) and hunting down any data from haltmann that may have been left behind (i know it's said his soul was deleted, but that's just in Soul OS' pause screens and every soul boss of the Wave 3 trilogy is presented as a soulless husk, it's actually really weird, but point is with regular star dream it's only said that it fused with his soul not deleted it or got rid of it), instead of trying to come back to life like magolor she's trying to bring her dad back to life

and like with magolor epilogue susie already has a moveset they could recycle basically one-to-one lol