#but this one was MEANT to be greyscale from the get-go until i realized it was making his injuries hard to read

[south-sea]

Three weeks, four days, and six hours

a mission shadow takes on is only supposed to last for two weeks. it goes horribly wrong and leads to a lot of new/reopened injuries. he spends four days in a haze recovering, and then finally returns home to find a worried housemate waiting.

could not figure out the style i wanted for this even after spending so much time on the lines, so it really stopped being fun. figured something was better than nothing so i cut my losses and wrapped it up however i could manage

[darubyprincx]

So what you're saying... is that... it gets better? Please?

bro. Bro. Look into my eyes. I am putting my hands on your shoulders. Let me tell you something:

It gets so much better.

those three words go from a prayer, a desperate promise you whisper to yourself over and over at night when all your worlds are collapsing around you and you're curled up in a shaking ball under the blankets to something that you can see, something you can touch with your fingers and press yourself gently against as a soft proof.

at the start, that proof arrives in little moments, little beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds. everything is tedium and fear and ragged monochrome survival until you perk up at the smell of cinnamon floating from the kitchen one morning and with that little bit of increased awareness you notice the softness of your shirt and the familiarity of the room you kept yourself pent up in like a feral tiger in a cage. it doesn't quite feel real, nothing really does at that point, but still you linger on it out of habit if nothing else. you keep your eyes open for the next little bit of color, find yourself yearning for it, and that yearning and the glimpse of a kinder world right beyond your fingers (so close!) keeps you going until the next one.

and the next.

and the next.

until you're in the middle of hell again and you realize with a small burst of surprise that over time, you've memorized the patterns of attack your brain takes against you. you start to think about the why and when of it instead of the how. and with that knowledge you sidestep and dodge out of there before you're left bleeding and broken on the floor again.

it's kind of like that, you know? it's a complicated process. it doubles back on itself and it snarls and it bites and it's annoying and it's brutal. but its progress and a necessary evil, and you know it for what it is, so you keep stubbornly going on in time after time, chasing after that one hope: it gets better.

and then eventually you blink and it's been months maybe years and the things that used to come hard to you, the fighting and the forging on, have become as easy and natural as breathing through time and practice. the bandaid's come off and the wound underneath- still raw, still aching, still healing- is far less tender than it used to be.

and you no longer have to make the conscious decision to be gentle to yourself. and the sunrises that you used to hate because they meant that you had to suffer through another day shine a whole new color of gold- did they always used to be that bright? and when someone laughs you take that little molten kernel of joy and eat it hungrily piping hot like a star and find that it's part of a new constellation you've been piecing together inside of yourself out of scraps and spare wire and tears and blood and spit and desperation. and when you are tired you lie down to rest and let yourself be gentle.

its not a sudden thing. in fact, 98% of the time you spend getting better you're too busy focusing on everything else to realize it. but you start to live it and become it instead of just holding onto it as a lifeline. and when you finally see it, or a glimpse of it, you have to laugh despite everything because damn, it's been there the whole time! it's been there for months!

you know how in the start of the wizard of oz in kansas dorothy's whole life is in greyscale and when she opens the door and steps out suddenly the whole damn world is in color vision? it's like that. everything is so bright that it almost blinds you and its so much joy out of nowhere that you really just go around picking it like flowers before you really start to settle into this strange new life and get to know the place. the softness of a blanket. laughing like an idiot over something stupid with friends. the way the wind smells when you go out for a walk, so fresh and pure that when you inhale through your nose it makes your lungs ache. little things like that.

so yeah i can tell you with certainty that it gets better and it is fucking BEAUTIFUL.

[omegaremix]

Full Moon Music.

We’ve always featured darkness since our very first broadcast on Omega WUSB. By our fourth show, we came close in completing our first full-fledged darkness set in a more dis-organized era when we were still trying to figure ourselves out. Back then, ‘darkness’ meant any amount of well-known industrial, metal, and electronic acts with an evil, deviant, or negative tinge to it. Think Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA, Whitehouse, Godflesh, NON, and etcetera. We finally achieved full force during a bonus summer broadcast (#21) and since then things evolved in how we did those shows. We’ve made a point in doing at least one but no more than two of these dark broadcasts per year, usually in the winter as it’s the best weather, and that’s not including the Halloween broadcasts we’ve done. That’s a whole other class in itself.

It wasn’t until November 2017 when I attended Hospital Productions’ 20th anniversary, a night I’ll never forget. It was the culmination of nine months of benefits and stay-at-home recovery from three life-saving shoulder surgeries. It felt so good being in my element in Brooklyn (Greenpoint) with all the industrialists, goth girls, and noise aficionados dressed in black. Ten hours of paying personal tributes to Dominick Fernow and his label made me realize there was more to look forward to. It’s something never experienced on Long Island, and don’t even get me started with what that “culture” consists of.

That event left a lasting impression on me. If the label had its’ magic on me with Cocaine Death, then I was totally mystified with its’ own showcase. Even everything surrounding it - the train rides, playlists, playbacks, the weather - felt significant to me. And then some. The following month, Omega WUSB opened up the winter broadcasting season / year with more Hospital Productions and Sacred Bones music to air. Both of those labels had their 20th and 10th label anniversaries respectively and we loved what they’ve released. Philip Best’s Alien Existence and a shipment of RRRecords’ cassettes and vinyl arrived at the residence; both which made me feel proud of myself. By Year Six, Omega WUSB was more focused in playing darkwave, synthwave, soundscapes, and even witch house. As the colder months progressed, I discovered a Brooklyn goth girl who followed me and liked my posts on the regular. She was that rare person I really identified with and gave me a serious run for my money like no other.

Through all the euphoric ups, heartbreaking downs, and greyscale steadies, the show must go on. The events of Hospital Productions and identification still surround me. They are a reminder of who I am, where I’m from, what I look forward to, and who I associate with. The darkness broadcasts still go strong and we look forward in doing them like you wouldn’t believe. By now, Omega WUSB has been more organized. Of all the different genres we play, we make it a point to do these dedicated darkness sets when the weather’s suitable and as long as the music’s current. Aside from that, we still run dedicated bonus (and even our one-and-only deluxe Leap Day) noise shows and we aim to make all of our other goth rock, black metal, classic industrial, minimal, and other midnight finds when and where applicable. All of our listeners know that organizing at least 15 different genres and making them all fit is a challenge.

This past winter, we aired one broadcast of dark electronics from Avon Terror Corps and the L.I.E.S. label, doom metal, no-tech, and some textural noise. Somehow we fell into the rabbit hole of darkwave, synthwave, minimal, and EBM and we’ve had enough for a great three-hour idea. With WUSB’s ethos of independent radio and our ethos of everything new, current, and relevant, we had a case to go off-the-board.

Here’s what I / we’ve been feeling and experiencing for the past four winters. This soundtrack supplements the pristine spectre of full moons and constellations in the clear frigid black skies, plus all the positive events that still stays with me make for a distinct spell I can call my own. No Wax Trax, no Bauhaus, The Cure, The Cramps, Siouxsie Sioux, or Depeche Mode. No doubt they’re all legends, but not every tracklist or mix has to be that way. Everything found here is current and on a different level. If at any time I need to get myself up, I’ll reach back to this and know I’ll come back to something I can call what’s mine.

Drift.: “Social Front”

Body Of Light: “Let Me Go”

Beta Evers: “Move In My Body Rhythm”

Makina Girgir: “Livides Clartes”

Kontravoid: “10,000 Voices”

La Scaltra: “Rhythm Of Our Dead Hearts”

Vore Aurora: “In Out And Thru”

Void Vision: “Body Says”

Aurat: "Shaitan” 

Violet Tremors: “It’s So Good”

Popsimonova: “No Contact”

U.Z.O. / Uho Za Oko: “Medsvetovje”

Colouroid: “Eye Shadow”

Boy Harsher: “Tears”

Crazy P: “The Witness”

Molchat Doma: “Sudno (Boris Ryzhy)”

Hante.: “One More Dance”

Jennifer Touch: “Chemistry”

Minuit Machine: “Don’t Run From The Fire”

Figure Study: “Interaction”

Drift: “Calculations”

Las Eras: “La Esclava”

Gold Zebra: “Invisible Disorder”

Brusque Twins: “What Else Is There To Say?”

Schonwald: “Rays”

Dolina: “Sorrow”

Technoir: “Dying Star (Mesh)”

Sally Dige: “Forget Me”

Drab Majesty: “Cold Souls”

Opale: “Sparkles And Wine”

Boy Harsher: “R.O.V. (New Beat)”

Minimal Kommando / Andreas Ohler: “Minimal Waver”

Linea Aspira: “Hinterland”

Rue Oberkampf: “Tokyo”

Marie Davidson: “Balade Aux USA”

Xeno & Oaklander “Sentinelle”

Aurat: “Pari”

Flesh Of Morning: “Death Becomes Bitter”

White Hex: “Paradise”

Kindest Cuts: “Cold Eyes”

Phosphor: “Another Time”

Girl Pusher: “Where The Fuck Is My Ambulance?”

Debby Friday: “Treason” (f. Lana Del Rabies)

Lana Del Rabies: ”Darcy” (Lav Andula RMX)

NGHTCRWLR: “Firestarter”

Zonal: “System Error” (f. Moor Mother) Wrecked

JK Flesh: “In Your Pit”

Ciarra Black: Stasis

Filmmaker: “The Love Market”

Provoker: “Theme”

Parole E Azioni: “Karaoke Night track #1″

Aurat: “Ilzam”

Essaie Pas: “Danse Sociale”

Drift: “Say It Right”

Deep Red:“Pray For Death”

Ciarra Black: “Dupont Street”

Cabaret Nocturne: “Moon Invaders”

Boy Harsher: “Tears” (Silent Servant RMX)

Kanga: “Going Red”

Promiseland: “Take Down The House”

Lead Into Gold: “Hard Won Decay”

Rosa Damask: Heroes

Zanias: “Follow The Body”

Azar Swan: “Jungle Law”

Canal Street Electronics: “By The River”

Salford Electronics: “Deconstruction”

JK Flesh: “Trinity”

Ron Morelli: “Disappearer”

KVB, The: “In Deep”

White Ring: “Shaken To Sleep”

Pink Turns Blue: “I Coldly Stare Out”

Cabaret Nocturne: “Blind Trust”

Figure Study: “Wait”

Boy Harsher: “L.A.”

Soma Sema: “Artificial Heart”

Natural Assembly: “She Walks In Beauty”

Void Vision: “The Source”

KVB, The: “Afterglow”

John Carpenter: “Vortex” (Uniform RMX)

Emptyset: “Dissolve”

Consumer Electronics: “Co-Opted”

Alan Vega: “Prophecy”

Ninos Du Brasil: “Em Que O Rio Do Mar Se Torna”

Vatican Shadow: “Weapons Inspection”

Molly Nilsson: “A Slice Of Lemon”

Lebanon Hanover: “Babes Of The 80′s” (Tobias Bernstrup RMX)

Urochromes: “Night Bully” (Boy Harsher RMX)

Body Of Light: “Holding You”

Broken English Club: “Channel 83″

White Ring: “Leprosy”

Flesh & Peaki: “Veiled”

Ghxst: “Ride”

Strahinja Arbutina: “You Don’t Need This In Your Life”

Mirrors For Psychic Warfare: “Tomb Puncher”

Ron Morelli: “Golden Oldies”

Azar Swan: “Silent Like A Father”

Boy Harsher: “Face The Fire”

Clay Rendering: “The Pest”

Ron Morelli: “Radar Version”

Vatican Shadow: “Take Vows”

Silent Servant: “The Silent Attractor”

Ninos Du Brasil: “Vagalumes Pirilampos”

Lust For Youth: “Display”

Gary War: “Don’t Go Out Tonight”

Appetite: “Bordeaux Gallow”

Believer/Law: “Foxhole Prayers”

Ciarra Black: “Series Of…”

Silent Servant: “Dissociation”

Vatican Shadow: “Interrogation Mosaic”

Boy Harsher: “Pain”

Contrepoison: “Heartbeat”

Led Er Est: “Scissors”

Molly Nilsson: “I Hope You Die”

KVB, The: “Always Then”

Princess Century: “Crummy Bones”

Natural Assembly “Life Blossoms”

Adult.: “Dance Avoid”

Grun Wasser: “The Deep”

Believer/Law: “Ashes”

Military Position: “Babes Ov Babylon”

Drvg Cvltvre: “Waging A War Against God”

Actress: “Dancing In The Smoke”

Peaches: “Convincing People”

Grimes: “Genesis” (Blvck Ceiling RMX)

Algiers: “Death March” (Prurient RMX)

Rrose: “Surgeon General (Her Insides Laid Bare)”

[northisnotup]

Continuation of the amnesiac!Damen fic 

"I don't know how to do this."

It’s been a long day. Nik went home hours ago, with the firm instruction to text if he needed anything, both Egeria and Hypermenestra have called to wish him a speedy recovery, the sun is setting...and Laurent shows no sign of moving anytime soon.

He came back at three and has stuck like a burr ever since. Through the blood work, the scans, the neurological tests. Everything. Laurent knows things about Damen’s medical history that Damen doesn’t even know - and not just the things he wouldn’t expect to know, missing almost four years of memories. But things that Damen himself forgot. Like the concussion when he was thirteen from when Kastor pushed him down a flight of stairs. Or the bumpy keloid scar behind his ear from a dirty hit during high school gym class. The way he found out he was allergic to a certain type of sedative by experimenting...also during highschool. 

"Do what?" Laurent says, paging through the book in his lap too fast to really be reading it. Damen almost frowns. It's a good book. 

He makes himself consider. The spine is cracked, the pages dogeared, it's missing the jacket entirely and there is a stain on the cover which marks this specific book as the one Damen has had for years and years because that stain is mid range scotch from the time in his life that Damen was trying to drink scotch. He thought it would impress his father, but all it really did was give him wicked hangovers and mess up his insides. 

According to Nik, corroborated by Jo, Damen’s known Laurent for three years. They met in college. They dated for one year, and have been engaged for another. The wedding is set for next year at Damen's mother's summer home. 

So. It's entirely possible that Laurent has read this book before.

That's...weird.

He's had lovers before who knew his favourites. Jokaste would often order for him when they went out just to get him to try something new. But Laurent caresses the worn, scratched cover with gentle fingers. He pauses every few chapters to linger on a page or two before he continues to browse.

Laurent knows Damen's favourite novel well enough to have favourite scenes, and there is no reason why that should steal his breath. 

"I didn't like you, this morning," Damen says. He feels like he should be apologizing for it, but it just makes Laurent bite back a smile, finally looking up from the liquid warped pages. He looks rumpled, in leggings and what is probably one of Damen's t-shirts, his hair mussed and finger combed into a bun. He looks exactly like someone Damen would have been happy to take home.

And Damen was going to marry him. Or he is, when he remembers him.

Things are coming back already, a slow trickle of knowledge that appears without strain. Kastor texted him and he remembered the heavy emotional weight of sitting next to him at their father's funeral. Their mother's side by side in front of them, clinging to one another and crying quietly. He can remember the way Kastor grabbed his hand during the eulogy and hadn't let it go until they were following the procession.

“You don’t like me now,” Laurent says lightly, unfolding one of his long legs and poking his bare toes into Damen’s side. He’d kicked off his shoes to contort himself into his current position in the visitor’s chair and looks effortlessly comfortable, though Damen’s not sure how that’s at all possible. 

He swipes at Laurent’s leg, hand closing around his ankle and is hit with the sense memory of holding it before. Of pressing his lips to the delicate looking arch of that foot, wet and sudsy and of Laurent swearing at him for it.

“Damen?” all mirth has drained out of Laurent’s face, and the ankle in Damen’s weakening grip flexes and strains. “Damen, let go, I’ll get one of the nurses.” 

“Did I call you Achilles? Was that,” Damen blinks, trying to focus his blurred vision. His head hurts, but he’s had a low level headache all day. “Was that seriously the pet name I chose?” 

Laurent’s pale skin hides nothing when he blushes. Pink glows out from the high arches of his cheeks and across his nose. The tips of his ears look like miniature suns, rising. “Once,” he rasps, and clears his throat, tugging his ankle out of Damen’s slackened grip and curling himself back into a ball. “You compared me to him, once. Golden warriors both, I think were the words you used.” 

“I love the Iliad,” Damen says, helplessly. 

“And you don’t even like me,” Laurent returns. 

Damen thinks he’s starting to understand Laurent’s sense of humor, as sharp as the rest of him and dry as a desert. But that wasn’t a joke, that wasn’t even an attempt at a joke. “You probably already know I was planning on asking Jo to marry me,” he says. It’s a poor olive branch, but it’s about all he has. 

They both woke up this morning and had their hearts broken, so, they have something in common. 

“I was your rebound fling,” Laurent surprises him. “You didn’t like me then, either.” 

Damen opens his mouth to deny it, and then shuts it without speaking. Laurent would know better than he would, but… he doesn’t sleep with people he doesn’t at least like. Other people can. He tried, once - Kashel broke up with him for being clingy, which, in that case, meant wanting to get dinner before they fooled around. 

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Laurent drops his eyes back down to the book. 

“Maybe I want to talk about this,” Damen says it on impulse, just to be contrary but he’s surprised to find that he means it. 

“You shouldn’t be taxing yourself.”

“Laurent -” Damen watches him startle, and to his shame he realizes why. They’ve hardly been apart all day, and it’s the first time Damen’s called his fiance by name. “I asked you to marry me.”

“You did,” Laurent agrees, voice tight.

“And you said yes,” Damen wonders for the first time if Laurent has spent all day wondering when that would be taken back. “help me figure out why.”

“You were kind to me, back then. Kinder than I deserved.”

Maybe he got better about being casual, about feelings - but looking at Laurent in this light, the ring on his finger, the one Damen put there...he doesn’t think so. “Kindness isn’t something you can deserve.”

Laurent stills. Damen hadn’t even registered the jiggling of his knee until it stopped. “I’m going to go get a coffee,” he says, standing suddenly.

“Hey, wait -”

“No,” 

“I just -”

“I said no.”

“At least take my wallet,” Damen sighs, gesturing at the small pile of personal effects Laurent had grabbed this morning. 

It was only this morning.

Laurent sneers, looking down his nose like he always does when he’s upset. “Why would I need your wallet?” 

“Because…” Damen trails off, the trickle of memory becoming a flood, until between one heartbeat and the next, his life goes from greyscale to full colour. There are a million ways he could answer that. ‘Because you always put your debit card in your pants pocket and forget it there if you don’t have time to plan your outfit.’ ‘Because you never carry change and will talk yourself out of using your own money for a coffee, but using my money is fine.’ ‘Because you’re not really getting a coffee anyway, you just need an excuse to step out for a second.’ 

Looking at Laurent is like finally finding meaning in abstract. 

Laurent hates that book. Specifically, he hates the wildly popular movie that was made out of the book which tramples all over the themes and reduces the narrative to a cheap trope that people fight about on the internet. But when Damen is sick, or he’s had a bad day, Laurent will leave the book on his nightstand, along with a cup of strong tea. 

He can’t help the softness of his voice, “Because you don’t drink coffee after noon, sweetheart, and if you’re getting a tea, I want one too.” 

“What did you call me?”

Damen smiles, lopsided, and pats the side of his cot, which has felt Laurent’s absence since his goodbye that morning. He did too, even if he didn’t know it. “Hi, sweetheart. I missed you.” 

[stevesbestgirl]

Could I please request Bucky Barnes and Soulmate au + enemies to Lovers?

Thanks so much for sending in a request, sorry it took me a few days to get to it! I decided on the soulmate AU where you only see in black and white until you make eye contact with your soulmate, so hopefully this works as well as it did in my head!

To put in a request, the link for the prompt list is here!

Disclaimer: I haven't done my rewatch of FATWS yet, so this is all based on my memory. I'll chalk up any inconsistencies with the source material as differences in the AU

Shades of Gray

fatws!Bucky Barnes x enhanced!FlagSmasher!Reader (3116 Words)

Warnings: canon-level violence, kind-of angst

Crouching in the darkness of the truck you were tasked to guard, the pitch blackness closed in on the greyscale of the outside world.  You hadn’t been on the road for nearly long enough when you heard the clang of a bay opening.

You listened; the rumble of the truck would have covered up the faint sounds of a fight only two weeks ago, but now you could hear it clearly. Hauling up the hatch to your truck, you climbed onto the roof and scanned the scene.

The others were converging on a man with a metal arm that glinted in sun, and he seemed to be putting up quite the fight. You leapt from your truck to the next one, a grunt pushing out of your lungs as you were intercepted in mid-air.

Wrenching yourself around, you caught a half-glance of a set of large wings. Twisting, you wrenched on one of the wings, pulling it down toward the trucks so both of you veered sharply back toward the fight.

“Hey!” The man in the wings tried to right his course, so you wrenched your arms apart, forcing him to drop you. You landed on the truck with a clang, drawing the attention of the others. Dovich and Lennox rushed to your aid, forcing your opponent to take some distance.

You had them outnumbered and things were tipping in your favor after Karli destroyed the bird-man’s drone. But when their reinforcements arrived, things went to hell. Suddenly, the Captain America shield was flying around and your advantage was gone.

You paused; watching your opponents argue, you realized you had an opening. You left the others, leaping toward the metal armed man, who seemed more distracted than relieved at the appearance of Captain America. Landing on the truck with a roll, you kicked at his legs, but he was more perceptive than you gave him credit for; he spun around and blocked, knocking you onto your back.

You were already winding up for another kick, sending him a dirty look when the air disappeared from your lungs. The eyes that had been glaring right back at you were no longer gray. The world came to life around you; his eyes were the same color as the sky. The trees along the horizon were suddenly vibrant and full of life, the field of flowers on the side of the road pulsing with color as they swayed in the breeze.

You’d heard stories about the vertigo that came with locking eyes with your soulmate. After decades of black and white and gray, color was almost too much for you to process; it was like you couldn’t see and breathe at the same time, but you were afraid to blink and go back to the way things were.

His mouth fell open and he froze in place, his fist cocked. The moment seemed to stretch as the fight raged on around you. Unfortunately for him, you recovered first. You kicked, sending him flying off the back of the truck. You hated the way guilt flooded your heart and even more, you hated the relief you felt as his partner intercepted him mid-air, sending them both tumbling into the field.

Glancing around, the others had dispatched Captain America and his partner, leaving you to make your exit. You stood on the back of the truck and watched the field, hoping for another glimpse of the man you were meant to be with, but by the time his figure stood, you were too far away to make out his face.

*

“Are you alright? What happened back there?” Karli demanded. You were at Rudy’s safehouse and it seemed like your little mid-fight delay hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” you murmured dimly. You were reeling. It took every ounce of your willpower not to gaze around the room with your mouth ajar.

She sighed, “Sort yourself out, we’ll talk later.”

You collapsed on your cot, grateful for a moment to sort out your thoughts. You wanted to tell Karli about what had happened, you really did. But if you told her that your soulmate was on the opposite side of the cause, she might take you out of the action. Not only would losing one of the supersoldiers be devastating to the team, but then you might never see him again, a thought that made your chest ache.

So, you kept your mouth shut. You didn’t say a word about the kaleidoscope of color that now made up your world and you tried to suppress the anticipation of seeing him again.

Time ticked by, although Karli had you too busy to sit around waiting anyway. The only break you took from working was Mama Donya’s funeral. Despite the sobering grief that laid on the room like a blanket, your heart leapt when you saw the man from the bird suit, who you now knew was Sam Wilson. If he was here, his partner would be too.

Karli gave you all the okay to leave her alone after the service; she wanted to talk to him. So, you patrolled the building with the others, reminding yourself that even if you saw him again, your work came first. When Karli came blasting through the room you were stationed in, you crouched, waiting.

Heavy footsteps followed, and you hurled yourself from your hiding place, knocking her pursuer off his feet. Straddling him, you pulled your fist back, intent on following through, but his voice caught you off guard.

“Wait.” His gruff voice was soft, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Yes, it does.” You surprised yourself with a quick response, your fist still raised, though you didn’t strike.

“You can see now too, right?” He sounded afraid, but not of being hit. He was afraid that you would say no.

“It doesn’t matter.” Your voice wavered, so you added firmly, “I won’t abandon my cause. This doesn’t change anything.”

Suddenly, he had hold of your wrists and he twisted so you were pinned beneath him, “This changes everything.” You struggled against his grip, but that metal arm had strength enough to make you feel powerless. “Would you just listen to me?” he hissed, his patience growing thin. “We can help you, but you have to leave the Flag Smashers, right now.”

You couldn’t lie, in that moment, you wanted to do it. Even in the midst of a fight, you felt drawn to him like a magnet. You wanted to know everything about him. To stare into those blue eyes and not feel the sense of shame that plagued you now.

“I won’t,” you grunted, trying to wrench yourself free. “I joined this fight to do something that matters. To accomplish things bigger than just myself. And I’ll sacrifice for it if I have to. So let me go.” You spit each word with venom, trying to make it clear that you wouldn’t be swayed, although you weren’t sure if you were trying to convince him or yourself.

“You want to be allied with someone who blew up a building full of people? Is your cause worth that?”

“I don’t agree with that! But this isn’t about me!” You hated the way he made you feel guilty; you’d voiced your disapproval at what Karli had done, but there was only so much you could do.

“It doesn’t matter what you agree with. You support her, you enable her. And if you keep helping her, everyone else she hurts is on you too.”

“Stop! I’m not abandoning them!” His words hurt. They struck right to the core of everything you were afraid of, a reminder of the things you already regretted. Karli had always said there would be hard decisions and you’d already made several- and not always the right one.

“Then I’m taking you into custody,” he snapped. “I’m-”

You didn’t find out what he was. You brought your knee up between his legs and his grip went slack. You pulled your arms free and shoved him away from you, scrambling to your feet and sprinting from the room. You didn’t look back.

But when Karli called Sarah Wilson, the guilt got the better of you.

“Why would you do that?”

“I needed to find out who Sam Wilson is. He’s becoming a problem for us and I need to know how to deal with him.”

“There was no reason to involve civilians in this,” you snapped. “You just threatened his nephews and you don’t even feel bad about it!”

“You think I want to do these things? I don’t want people to think of me as a bad guy, but if someone has to be in order for things to change, I’ll do it. Because I care about this cause more than anything and I’m not going to stand by and let it fail.”

“There are other ways to accomplish things. I want the same world you do, but I don’t want to be complicit in hurting people who don’t deserve it.”

“Then maybe you should sit this meeting out. I can’t have someone who doesn’t have my back in there if a fight breaks out.”

“You can’t-”

“You’re out, Y/N. Stay here.”

You paced the safehouse floor, fuming, as the others left to meet with Wilson. This was all Barnes’ fault. You couldn’t stop Karli from taking extreme measures if you weren’t even there. You’d been benched and you were more powerless now than you had been before.

And to make matters worse, you would bet money that Barnes would be there with Wilson. And you were angry that you wouldn’t get to see him. You wanted so badly to not care, but you couldn’t. It ate at you that he thought you were guilty by association- that he didn’t understand why it was so important that you fight.

Hours passed as you waited at the safehouse, getting more agitated by the minute. They should have been back by now. So when the door slammed, you rushed out to the entryway to meet them, greeted by tearstained faces and red eyes.

Your heart plummeted, “What happened?”

Karli met your gaze, the fire in her eyes burning brighter than ever, “You said you didn’t want to be complicit in hurting people who don’t deserve it. Did Nico deserve it?” You scanned the group; Nico wasn’t among them. Your throat grew tight and tears pricked your eyes as you shook you head- Nico couldn’t be dead. The fire in your belly surged; they obviously didn’t care about you or your people, so why should you care about them?

But the seeds of dissent planted by Bucky didn’t stay suppressed for long. You held your tongue during the meeting with Batroc, but once he was gone, you rounded on Karli, “So, we work with real criminals now?”

“We’re criminals. They made us criminals.”

“They call us criminals, that doesn’t mean we are. That guy is only here to get revenge on Sam Wilson and you’re gonna let him?”

“Sam Wilson isn’t our problem.”

“He’s a good man.”

“So was Nico.”

There was no arguing with that, so you bit your tongue. But you weren’t happy about the change in Karli. What had once been righteous determination was now bitter and angry.

*

The night of the vote, you were posing as a guard, shuttling the hostages down to the parking garage and ignoring the pit in your stomach that was threatening to swallow you up. Once they were loaded into the trucks, you, Dovich, DeeDee, and Gigi made your way outside to meet with Karli.

She went over the plan, making pointed eye contact with you when she explained that if things didn’t work out, the hostages would need to be disposed of. She was daring you to argue, but the dissent this time came from DeeDee and no one looked comfortable with what she was suggesting.

“If we die tonight, the movement will live on. One world,” she prompted. The silence stretched as no one said the other half. “One world,” she snapped again.

“One people.” The echoed response was half-hearted. The words felt hollow on your tongue- they no longer felt right on your lips like they had before.

You climbed into one of the armored trucks, steeling yourself for the inevitable fight. You weren’t going to let Karli kill the hostages. Barnes’ words echoed in your head, “If you keep helping her, everyone else she hurts is on you too.”

Karli stopped her truck, climbing out to drag the barricades out of the way, Dovich at her side. You heard the roar of a motorcycle approaching and climbed out of the truck just in time to see Barnes tackling Dovich.

Karli dove in to rescue Dovich. You knew you should be joining the fight, but you couldn’t find it in you to do anything other than watch on in horror as one of the trucks went up in flames to cover their exit. Karli began climbing back into the truck as Barnes was distracted by the fire, urging you to get back in, but you darted off toward the flames instead.

“That lock won’t open unless Karli releases it,” you shouted at Barnes.

“Then I’ll pry the damn door off,” he growled. He wrenched at the metal, digging his fingers in the groove between the doors.

You took the other side, pulling with all your strength. This made you a traitor to your cause, but you didn’t want the deaths of the people inside this truck on your conscience. Too many people had been hurt already.

The doors gave way after what felt like ages of pulling and you helped the hostages out, directing them toward the street. The last man out of the truck paused, saying a thank you to Barnes, who looked stunned at the words.

Once the hostages were safe, Barnes pushed you away from the flaming truck, running back into the fight. Karli was engaged with John Walker, so Barnes took over with Dovich as you followed, arriving just in time to see Barnes knock Dovich out. Guilt pooled in your gut; those were your friends. You didn’t want to see them hurt.

Enraged by Barnes’ attack on Dovich, Karli yanked a parking meter from the concrete and swung it at him like a baseball bat. Barnes dodged, but missed his chance to counterstrike, and Karli kicked him swiftly off the road into the river below.

“Karli, stop! This has gotten out of hand!”

She rounded on you, eyes blazing, “You don’t get to tell me a damn thing. You’re a traitor and we’re done with you.”

“I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” you defended tearfully.

“Good people have already gotten hurt! What about Nico?”

“Nico knew what he was signing up for! He knew the risks! You don’t get to decide who’s important enough to live and who’s not just because you’re angry!”

Karli shook her head, “I thought you understood. Thought you were one of us.”

“I guess we were both wrong. Because I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone else.”

“You can’t stop the movement, Y/N. You can’t even stop me.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” You both wheeled around; John Walker had recovered and was only looking more unstable than he had when he’d arrived. “It’s over Karli.”

You left the two of them, climbing down the ledge to offer Barnes a hand out of the river. He hesitated for only a moment before taking your hand, allowing you to haul him up onto the side of the canal.

You ran down the edge together, climbing down into a construction site as the final truck containing hostages barreled toward the edge of the road above, Karli throwing herself from the driver’s seat at the last second and making a run for it.

The truck slowed only when it tangled in the scaffolding, teetering over the edge. Moments later, John Walker grabbed hold of the bumper and pulling. Karli and the others converged on him and hopelessly outnumbered, Walker went over the edge into the riverbed.

Karli climbed down, eyeing you distastefully, “So, what? You’re on his side now?”

“I’m on the side where innocent people aren’t getting hurt. It’s not too late to fix this, Karli.”

“Oh, it’s way too late,” she shook her head. Hefting a metal pole from the debris, she hurled it at Barnes like a spear. He twisted, grabbing it out of the air, distracted just long enough for Karli to rush at you. The other Flag Smashers watched, looking unsure if they should get involved.

She tackled you to the ground, fist connecting with your cheek, “I didn’t want to do this, but you’re getting in the way. I can’t let you hurt our cause.” She pulled back for another blow, but Barnes hurled himself at her, sending both of them sprawling in the dirt.

Before they could get into it, Captain America’s shield soared into the site, knocking them to the ground like a ping-pong ball. Sam Wilson was decked out in a new suit, new wings, and the red, white, and blue shield that was conspicuously missing from John Walker as he joined the crowd down below.

Wilson righted the truck that was dangling up above, despite being the only one present without supersoldier strength. Karli shouted at him, “Why would you ever want to become Captain America?” She sounded disgusted and disappointed, but before Sam could respond, there was a rattling sound as two metal balls rolled across the ground.

You felt Barnes’ arm around your waist as he yanked you down the ground, his body between yours and the grenades. There were two pops and the site was filled with smoke and you heard the sound of your former friends scattering.

When the smoke cleared, Wilson, Karli and the others had disappeared. Barnes stood, offering you a hand up.

You met his gaze, thinking idly that of all the new colors you’d seen, the blue of his eyes was probably your favorite. “Thank you.” You blushed, “For protecting me.”

He nodded, his voice gruff, “No problem.”

“We were supposed to meet under the bridge. That’s where the others will be heading.”

“We can head them off. Let’s go.”

You caught the sleeve of his jacket, “Barnes- James- uh-”

“Bucky.”

“Bucky, wait a second.”

His brow furrowed, “I thought-”

Your fingers burrowed beneath the collar of his jacket, tugging him down to meet your lips. He went stiff in surprise, but his lips quickly softened on yours, his fingers brushing your arm softly.

“Is now really the time?” John Walker’s indignant voice came from behind you.

“Shut up, John,” Bucky mumbled.

[katsukisbeatingheart]

capella and rigel

au where you don’t see color until you meet your soulmate. they come to you one at a time the longer you’re together.

word count: 2,530

a.n.: you guys are BREAKING MY HEART you’ve been so sweet and receptive with the last one ( sing to me ) im such a mess ( ´༎ຶv༎ຶ`) i SEE YOU i WILL kiss you i am not playing. anyway!! im posting these soulmate works in an order backwards from which i started - which is funny, because that way it goes from least angstish to most. 

here are the others!

Shinso

Sero

Bakugou

ao3

When the blue exploded, you weren’t ready for your world to change with a rushing suddenness. You were blindsided with the odd experience of a first time that felt like memory.

First off, you didn’t know how you knew blue would be it, but you did.

When someone told you that’s what color that sweater you liked to wear all the time was, you just knew. When someone told you that’s what color some of your favorite fruits were, you just knew. When someone told you that’s what color the sky was, you just knew.

When someone told you that’s what color the ocean was—because it reflected the sky—you cried because you just knew.

There was something revelatory of such a relationship—the rhapsodic truth that two forces of nature could be reflections of the other, even with completely opposing standpoints.

In your greyscale vacuum, you were none the wiser to a life that could promise that yet. From a young age, you hoped and prayed for that day to come, until it became a hapless strain of static that took a backseat to growing up.

In general, you hadn’t known what to expect; you imagined that cats were probably the color of sprinkles on ice cream, trees were balloons floating in the air, and pavements were the color of spring. When you looked up to the night, you thought that stars might be like lighting a candle. You thought that might mean yellow.

And even when it was so dark, you hoped the sky would still be blue.

It tore through every crevice of your vision, crowding your sight and singeing your senses.

Blue wasn’t supposed to come to you in a maelstrom on a previously peaceful Sunday morning. It wasn’t supposed to burn through the pages of one of your favorite books, or weld your utensils together.

It was supposed to bump into you on a tramline station, at a park, in a crowd, and then apologise quickly; it was supposed to be in widening eyes and stuttering breaths that gave you a name you’d knew like an old friend you had yet to meet.

It wasn’t supposed to be in so much pain.

It wasn’t supposed to cause any of it, either.

You’re on your back, starry eyed and afraid all at once, suffering the memory of your first time seeing color. It’s burning you, you realize, and the tears evaporate before they touch skin.

Blue fire is attention grabbing—it’s blue, you know it is—and watching it move like you imagined blue waves would was mesmerizing. It soaked the ground with scorch marks, scarring bedlam and terror into the earth.

Your eyes blown wide catch every moment, frozen in blue.

Though, as more of the hue crops up in all different directions, your eyes are suddenly the only part of you that can’t sit still. If the fire does anything else better than burn, it’s cast light—as it throws your vision farther than usual.

You don’t miss a single detail.

The sea of people around you scatter in fear— there’s chaos but you just can’t move—and you’re anchored to the ground like roots of a tree that didn’t get to choose its growing place. You’re trapped somewhere off centre in a spiraling vortex of entropy simultaneously inhaling and granting your newfound freedom.

Across the street in spots on a mailbox, the smallest pieces detailed the metal in cool colored rivets; in the scorching bed along the stone wall cafe lay crisped, blue calla lilies; the delicate hue accented in little flora shaded your spilled and shattered tea glass.

With the proximity of unimaginable heat, noise, and overall calamity shuffling so quickly around you, you felt encased in time. An hourglass tipped in your throat and the scalding sands ran through your veins. The inferno raged on until you noticed your place in it. It spun in a tempest around you and everything melted away.

Your vision shifts and you find the catalyst to be a tall, dark, and lanky shadow of a man. He contrasted the unyielding light—that he was producing, you agnised—to an almost sardonic degree. He held his hands in his pockets and shoulders in a slouch that said all of this was of no consequence, concern, or effort to him. He looked bored.

That is, until he saw you, too.

Freezing blue eyes glistened back at you in a cacophony of emotions.

There’s comprehension, apprehension, indignation—you try to settle on one, though absolutely fruitless with a whirlpool of your own at your feet.

You tried to speak your disbelief, a sense of joy, a simple admission to life, but your voice died on your tongue. The fumes coiled at your throat, still you held your ground. It was all you could do in your dormancy, and it was all you were going to do on the precipice of eruption.

It was like watching someone conduct a hurricane, what he did next.

His hands hummed an unknown melody to the flames, and you watched and waited and listened to the music that poured out if him—quickly becoming a little more afraid at the prospect of becoming an unwittingly unwilling participant from the audience.

However, the coiling and dissipation of the blue told you that this was the grand finale, and in a voiceless and motionless dance, he swayed out of sight under the haze of blue hellfire—so searing it was cold to the touch.

•.•.•.

When the heroes arrived, the police whisked you away to take your statement and check for injuries. It was like talking—and mostly listening—through a thick pane of glass, though. You said very little, and perceived even less.

What were you going to do? Include in your witness report that the perpetrator was your soulmate? That fact alone changed everything, and you knew that if you were to speak up about it now, the authorities would take you in. You weren’t about to be used as an asset when you had barely any time to process the truth yourself.

Everything was running smoothly, until the heroes came around to check on the injured. An expressionless man with two-toned hair and a nasty scar over his eye stepped before you, an ‘Are you alright?’ soft on his lips, contrasting the sternness in his features.

You took one look at the color of his left eye and fainted against the ambulance doors.

•.•.•.

Waking in a sweating bundle on your bedcovers was not a good way to end the day. It skewed your sense of reality, and you had to wrestle away the idea that the whole thing might have been a dream. The headache didn’t help, but it was proof you know what you saw. And what you were currently seeing.

A lot of everything else was still in greyscale, but your eyes weren’t lying to you as you took in your room. Blue comic books, pens, decals, posters, pictures; the laundry overflowed your basket, spilling in a pile of blue onto your carpet.

Blue eyes in the corner of your room.

“What did you see?” you whispered. He’s there like the shade of gossamer window curtains, a figureless concept of existence, and yet you speak knowing he’s suddenly the most solid thing there.

“You.”

You inhaled sharply, barely a pinprick to the weight in the room.

“You know that’s not what I mean. I’m not a color.”

“You were the brightest thing there. Might as well have been.”

“Impossible,” you laughed, waving your hand absently to dismiss your incredulity. “You set everything on fire.”

“Makes no difference,” he affirmed in a tone that sounded rich, drawled, and deep like molasses and a smoky room. There was silence as his voice drizzled along your skin, a safe distance in the uncertainty. It doesn’t break, even when you speak the opposite of what you should be uncertain about.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Yet here I am.”

There’s a flutter by your open window, and you unfold yourself from your stagnant place on your bed. Without argument, you wisp to its side, facing the world like it was unchanged.

His presence is permeable next to you, yet you were sure you had never felt anything as real.

Everything and nothing was the same.

“What do you see?”

“Still you.”

You glance to the side and see an almost facetious simper gliding across his features, even though you knew he was probably being anything but flippant.

“Dabi.”

He shifted almost imperceptibly, coiling with the dark to a time and space closer. He smelled like amber pine and sawdust, collecting evening dew.

“So you do know who I am.”

You picked at the peeling paint along the sill. It was still white.

“I follow the news. I’ve seen your face stuck to faded alley posters.”

“Now what would you be doing in alleyways?” He chuckled lowly through thinly veiled, amused bewilderment.

So he didn’t know who you were.

Just as well, it wasn’t like you lived a life of any consequence.

Truth was, you were simply a curious person with an awkward and clumsy sense of direction—finding yourself on adventures you could easily get yourself out of, only with a little time, effort, and backtracking. Even though you’d much rather see it through to the end, no matter how dark, twisted, or ugly.

The truth wasn’t meant to be pretty.

But he didn’t need to know that.

And if this were to keep up anyway, he’d find out soon enough.

You peered at him through your eyelashes and his shape almost disappeared. Instead, you leaned forward into the open world, trying to catch life as it moved below you. Your eyes spotted grass and trees, and you gasped before you could stop yourself.

“They’re green.”

“So I’ve been told.”

You turned your head to face him, chewing the inside of your cheek.

“I’ve never seen green before.”

He’s quiet as he stares at you. He had leaned against the wall beside you, hip and head propped like he wouldn’t rather be looking anywhere else. You stare back softly, still not used to the visceral experience in eye contact.

“What do you see?” he asks like holding glass. You’re tempted to keep it to yourself for at least a day longer—safeguard the truth like you were the only one in the world who could see colors. An innocent secret you’d never have to share with anybody.

And yet here was a thread presented to you by the universe, asking to be pulled from the tangle.

You looked at his frayed edges and twisted knots, feeling your own pull tighten like a lifeline.

“Blue,” you breathe. He’s beside you now, angled to the open window, eyes still burning answers and questions—so many questions—across your very surface.

You both stretch out, casting your eyes up to the night sky, in your own world like he wasn’t who he was and you weren’t who you were. Collected in a jar of your own making, you spill your breath across the open air, and he’s there with you like a pooling splash of ink you don’t want out. Oh, the memories you could write with him.

“So these are the stars, huh?” his tone hasn’t lifted from that tedium, but he talks like he’s standing among them.

Tears prickled the corner of your eyes. You couldn’t tell whether from happiness or nostalgia or disappointment or confusion or another nameless thing—you only knew that you were looking at the stars. You were looking at the night sky and suddenly seeing the stars, and—

“Some of them are blue.”

Dabi traces the bottom hemline of your sweater with his thumb, breathing clearer air than he had in a long, long time.

“There’s yellow up there, too.”

The tears spill down your cheeks, but his hand is there to catch them with cracked fingertips.

“You know,” you begin with a small sniffle, “I don’t remember the night being this… luminous.” His face splits in to a grin.

“That’s your fault.”

You roll your eyes, peeling back to lightly shove against his arm. You had barely touched him, but his heart beats as though he’d been caught in an earthquake. He’s unsteady, and grows more and more terrified by the second of the anchor in your eyes. He’s not strong enough to try and move it.

You watched him pull back, startled by the alertness in his movements. He sweeps his legs up and over the side, perched on the windowsill as though he made to jump through it.

“You’re leaving?”

“I thought you were the one who said I shouldn’t be here,” he grinned, though not without that bitter glint in his already harshly blue eyes. Your lip finds its place pulled between your teeth.

“I think there are still some things I want to see.” You glance to the side, searching for words in the spots of color blooming along the edges of your world. “With you.”

Dabi bridges small gaps between you two—some rickety and many burnt, but still there—leaving space for you to jump ship. His fingers brush warm trails across the skin of your face again, like forfeiting a whittling candelabrum to the shaking hands of a blind man.

You suppose someone like him defies all laws, even the ones of the natural world as he ghosts down the siding of the building, just another wandering shade looking for its way back.

In a day of unforseens, you try and convince yourself that it was the stars that got to you. It’s easier to place blame on things you can’t control, and part of you feels liberated knowing this was just not one of those things you were meant to expect. You let your hopes and predictions solidify the labyrinthian ground you walk on.

But as you lean through the window, you call out to him and realize you’re swallowing your assumptions like antifreeze.

“Wait!”

His head turns to the side to catch you pouring out of your mundane and into his living underworld.

“You have to come back.” The yellow on your sweater burns into your irises, and he has never been more wary of his place in the universe. Especially when it glows back at him through the eyes of a future he didn’t know he even had.

“I want to know what sunrises look like.”

The tempest in him glares up at the beacon your window—no—you provide and he feels a weird, opposing sense of mitigation and incertitude. A ubiquitous tangibility his first instinct declares a malignant impediment.

Still, he can’t help but feel as though a tide were in the process of crashing his lifeboat—a stray piece of driftwood—on to obscure shores.

That can’t be all that much of a bad thing, he considers.

With a small, barely there and imperceptibly honest smile, he places a two fingered tap to the crown of his forehead—throwing an ignition to the wind in a quiet promise.

The light fades, and you clutch the matchstick, watching the blue disappear with him into the dark of night.

[wolveria]

Unable to perceive the shape of you - Ch. 9 [End]

Pairing: Connor x f!Reader x Nines

Summary: After breaking the RK twins out of the MarineLife facility, you  were determined to return them to the ocean before getting caught by  your employer.

What you hadn’t counted on were the brothers deciding you belonged to them.

Prompt: Mermay! (Shape of Water/Splash AU)

Word Count: 1.8k

AO3

There was nothing in the bitterly cold darkness. Just a sea of inky black where you were lost and unable to remember.

There was something important you had to recall… but you were very, very tired. Hadn’t you struggled on for long enough? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to sleep and forget the events that were already slipping from your mind?

You might have surrendered to the nothingness, but the frozen sea around you was illuminated with a soft glow. The light increased, shining brighter, blue and luminous from two pairs of hands, touching you with a tenderness that was achingly familiar. It called you back, pulled you away from the edge of nothing.

That’s when the burning started. Igniting you from the inside out, molten liquid in your veins as unbearably agony dug into your stomach.

You tried to scream, but you had no voice. No air. There was nothing you could do but suffer, because there was no enduring this.

When you thought you couldn’t withstand the molten fire under your skin, you did. The heat moved from your chest and stomach down to your legs. The agony worsened beyond anything you imagined was even possible.

The hands were still cradling you with gentle firmness as if trying to comfort, but you knew this had to be Hell. Punished for some terrible deed you could almost remember.

What had you done to deserve this?

I failed them.

With a shuddering gasp, you opened your eyes. Clear, bright sunlight caused you to blink rapidly, your heaving chest taking in the salty air. It was cold against your heated skin.

Everything around you was the exact opposite of the damnation you’d expected to find. Shimmering blue water expanded out before you as far as the eye could see, lazy seagulls wheeling overhead against the cloudless sky.

Barely able to move, your limbs uncooperative and heavy, you turned your head and saw you were lying on a sandbar, barely crested above the waterline. You were propped up against something warm and alive.

Your heart leapt in your chest as adrenaline surged through your body. Everything was too much. Too loud and too bright, and there was an animal panic rising to the surface you couldn’t control.

Someone spoke a name, you thought it might be yours, and a hand reached toward you.

Snarling, you bit down on the pale, muscled forearm. Warm, blue fluid filled your mouth; you almost let go but you were too terrified to do anything but latch on tighter.

Words were shouted in a panic. Your brain was slow to catch onto them, struggling to form them into something you could understand.

“Nines!”

“I’m fine, Connor.”

The voices spoke above you. Again, you felt that sense of familiarity, but you also noted the deeper timber of their words. They were larger than you, bigger and stronger. You ground your teeth down harder, trembling and growling in your throat.

“Don’t move,” the second voice spoke again. “Give her space. She feels threatened.”

It took you a moment to process that they were talking about you. There was an undertone of concern there. As if…

…they knew you.

You squeezed your eyes shut.

The lab… driving in the car… the motel pool…

Your jaw went lax.

The campsite… the bridge… the river. Gunshots ripping you open. Nines unmoving on the ground. Connor, in agony, but still trying to comfort you in your last moments.

Releasing your hold on Nines’ arm, you finally lifted your head.

Connor stared down at you from where he was kneeling on the sand, hands curled into fists on his thighs and his face pale. You’d never seen him look so worried before, as if he wanted to reach out but held himself back.

You tilted your chin up to realize your head was resting on Nines’ crossed legs. They were both naked and without their tails, and you saw pale star-shaped scars on their skin. Two on Nines’ torso, one each on Connor’s chest and thigh.

The gunshot wounds. They had healed through them. They were alive. Impossibly, incredibly alive. And somehow, so were you.

“H…How…”

Your voice was hoarse and abused, barely sounding like you at all. You tried to sit up but Connor placed a hand on your bare shoulder. You, too, were naked, and you should have been freezing in the chilly water and morning air. Why weren’t you cold? Instead, you felt almost… warm. As if the earlier fire was still inside you, reduced to a faintly glowing pile of embers.

“You shouldn’t move.” There was something in Connor’s tone that set the hairs on the back of your neck upright. “Just… stay still for a while.”

Frowning, you tried to pull your legs up so you could at least turn toward the two brothers to speak—

Panicked welled inside you. Thrashing clumsily, terror gripped your throat as you writhed on the sand.

“I can’t—I can’t move my legs!”

Nines’ hands were on your arms to hold you still, but you twisted harder, feeling a dull, strange movement in your lower body as you heard the sound of splashing seawater.

Connor was at your side in an instant, your face in his hands as he tried to get you to look up at him, but it was too late. You’d already looked down.

You shook off their hands, propping yourself up on your elbows as your heart thudded in your chest. The slapping sound of the water stopped as the panicked limb stopped thrashing.

“…oh,” was all you said as you stared at the sleek, muscled fin that used to be your legs.

You couldn’t stop staring at it. It was impossible, and yet there it was, staring you in the face. An actual, real tail. Thousands of questions should have been flooding your mind. How this was possible? What exactly had they done to you? Why had no one documented this kind of transformation before?

All the questions were silenced as you reached a tentative hand forward and touched where your thighs used to be. It was warm and rubbery under your fingertips, the pattern a sort of greyscale gradient. The fin was dark along the back, grey along the sides, and a pure white on the underbelly.

You gave it an exploratory pull on a muscle you had no idea how to use, and the fin twitched in response. It definitely didn’t seem as deft and precise as a pair of legs, but you could sense the power lingering in the muscle mass.

You could have stared at it forever, but you eventually tore your eyes away to look back up at the brothers. Connor’s expression was wide and vulnerable while Nines was closed and grim.

“We… we didn’t know what else to do.” Connor’s voice was tight, as if on the verge of panic himself. “You were dying. We had no choice.”

“There was no other way,” Nines added, softer than his brother. “Allowing you to die was… unacceptable.”

“You’re… one of us now.” Connor bit the inside of his cheek, brown eyes wide as he silently pled with you. “Please… don’t be angry. We had to-to do something.”

“Angry? Connor, you…”

You found it difficult to speak past the tightness of your throat. You forced it through, needing them to understand there was only one wrong that had taken place, and it wasn’t theirs.

“You… you saved me. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”

You lowered your gaze to the bite mark on Nines’ arm that was still trickling blue, but the apology was meant for so much more than that.

“I... made a promise to keep you safe, and I broke it. I let you both down.”

The lump in your throat grew as your eyes burned and your vision blurred.

“I should have known… it wouldn’t be that simple to get you home. That someone was following us. I should have known Gavin—“

It wasn’t Connor who moved toward you first, but Nines; he pulled you into his arms and against his chest, holding you tightly. Connor joined him immediately after, one hand planted on your back while he pressed his cheek against your shoulder.

Your world narrowed down until there was nothing but you and the brothers. That was appropriate, because they were your world, and without them you would have lost everything that made it warm and beautiful and alive.

Connor and Nines said nothing, allowing you to fall apart within their arms, your soft sobs barely heard above the lapping water. Words were unnecessary, always had been with the two of them. You’d understood them, truly and in all the ways that mattered, before they’d ever said a word.

One of them softly stroked your hair while the other trailed his fingers along your back. You didn’t know which touch belonged to whom, and in the end, it didn’t matter. You loved them both with everything that you had left in you to give.

You clung to them both as tightly as possible, unable to truly believe they were here, alive, and you were there with them. All of your knowledge and education and expertise told you it shouldn’t be possible.

Perhaps humans had a lot to learn about what that word actually meant.

They held you until the last of your tears dried and your hitching breaths had become smooth breathing. You didn’t want to move, wrapped in solid warmth that made you feel truly safe in such a long time, but the strange, new limb was already itching to be used. It flexed almost on its own, gently flicking at the water as if it knew exactly what it was meant for.

And you realized, for the first time in as long as you could remember, there was no pain.

Too soon, Connor and Nines pulled away, their hands never leaving your skin. Now that they were touching you, they seemed as reluctant to let go as you were.

“What do we do now?” you asked as you looked up at them, feeling for the first time that you were the one out of your element, relying on them for guidance. The future was tenuous and unknown, and you hadn’t begun to figure out what it meant yet.

Nines’ brows rose as a subtle curve touched the corners of his lips. But Connor’s smile was wide enough to show teeth, his eyes bright and full of something too indescribable for you to name.

“Now,” he said. “We swim.”

Unable to perceive the shape of You,

I find You all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with Your love.

It humbles my heart,

For You are everywhere.

[omegaplus]

# 3,685

Full Moon Music.

We’ve always featured darkness since our very first broadcast on Omega WUSB. By our fourth show, we came close in completing our first full-fledged darkness set in a more dis-organized era when we were still trying to figure ourselves out. Back then, ‘darkness’ meant any amount of well-known industrial, metal, and electronic acts with an evil, deviant, or negative tinge to it. Think Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA, Whitehouse, Godflesh, NON, and etcetera. We finally achieved full force during a bonus summer broadcast (#21) and since then things evolved in how we did those shows. We’ve made a point in doing at least one but no more than two of these dark broadcasts per year, usually in the winter as it’s the best weather, and that’s not including the Halloween broadcasts we’ve done. That’s a whole other class in itself.

It wasn’t until November 2017 when I attended Hospital Productions’ 20th anniversary, a night I’ll never forget. It was the culmination of nine months of benefits and stay-at-home recovery from three life-saving shoulder surgeries. It felt so good being in my element in Brooklyn (Greenpoint) with all the industrialists, goth girls, and noise aficionados dressed in black. Ten hours of paying personal tributes to Dominick Fernow and his label made me realize there was more to look forward to. It’s something never experienced on Long Island, and don’t even get me started with what that "culture” consists of.

That event left a lasting impression on me. If the label had its’ magic on me with Cocaine Death, then I was totally mystified with its’ own showcase. Even everything surrounding it - the train rides, playlists, playbacks, the weather - felt significant to me. And then some. The following month, Omega WUSB opened up the winter broadcasting season / year with more Hospital Productions and Sacred Bones music to air. Both of those labels had their 20th and 10th label anniversaries respectively and we loved what they’ve released. Philip Best’s Alien Existence and a shipment of RRRecords’ cassettes and vinyl arrived at the residence; both which made me feel proud of myself. By Year Six, Omega WUSB was more focused in playing darkwave, synthwave, soundscapes, and even witch house. As the colder months progressed, I discovered a Brooklyn goth girl who followed me and liked my posts on the regular. She was that rare person I really identified with and gave me a serious run for my money like no other.

Through all the euphoric ups, heartbreaking downs, and greyscale steadies, the show must go on. The events of Hospital Productions and identification still surround me. They are a reminder of who I am, where I’m from, what I look forward to, and who I associate with. The darkness broadcasts still go strong and we look forward in doing them like you wouldn’t believe. By now, Omega WUSB has been more organized. Of all the different genres we play, we make it a point to do these dedicated darkness sets when the weather’s suitable and as long as the music’s current. Aside from that, we still run dedicated bonus (and even our one-and-only deluxe Leap Day) noise shows and we aim to make all of our other goth rock, black metal, classic industrial, minimal, and other midnight finds when and where applicable. All of our listeners know that organizing at least 15 different genres and making them all fit is a challenge.

This past winter, we aired one broadcast of dark electronics from Avon Terror Corps and the L.I.E.S. label, doom metal, no-tech, and some textural noise. Somehow we fell into the rabbit hole of darkwave, synthwave, minimal, and EBM and we’ve had enough for a great three-hour idea. With WUSB’s ethos of independent radio and our ethos of everything new, current, and relevant, we had a case to go off-the-board.

Here’s what I / we’ve been feeling and experiencing for the past four winters. This soundtrack supplements the pristine spectre of full moons and constellations in the clear frigid black skies, plus all the positive events that still stays with me make for a distinct spell I can call my own. No Wax Trax, no Bauhaus, The Cure, The Cramps, Siouxsie Sioux, or Depeche Mode. No doubt they’re all legends, but not every tracklist or mix has to be that way. Everything found here is current and on a different level. If at any time I need to get myself up, I’ll reach back to this and know I’ll come back to something I can call what’s mine.

Drift.: “Social Front”

Body Of Light: “Let Me Go”

Beta Evers: “Move In My Body Rhythm”

Makina Girgir: “Livides Clartes”

Kontravoid: “10,000 Voices”

La Scaltra: “Rhythm Of Our Dead Hearts”

Vore Aurora: “In Out And Thru”

Void Vision: “Body Says”

Aurat: "Shaitan” 

Violet Tremors: “It’s So Good”

Popsimonova: “No Contact”

U.Z.O. / Uho Za Oko: “Medsvetovje”

Colouroid: “Eye Shadow”

Boy Harsher: “Tears”

Crazy P: “The Witness”

Molchat Doma: “Sudno (Boris Ryzhy)”

Hante.: “One More Dance”

Jennifer Touch: “Chemistry”

Minuit Machine: “Don’t Run From The Fire”

Figure Study: “Interaction”

Drift: “Calculations”

Las Eras: “La Esclava”

Gold Zebra: “Invisible Disorder”

Brusque Twins: “What Else Is There To Say?”

Schonwald: “Rays”

Dolina: “Sorrow”

Technoir: “Dying Star (Mesh)”

Sally Dige: “Forget Me”

Drab Majesty: “Cold Souls”

Opale: “Sparkles And Wine"

Boy Harsher: “R.O.V. (New Beat)”

Minimal Kommando / Andreas Ohler: “Minimal Waver”

Linea Aspira: “Hinterland”

Rue Oberkampf: “Tokyo”

Marie Davidson: “Balade Aux USA”

Xeno & Oaklander “Sentinelle”

Aurat: “Pari”

Flesh Of Morning: “Death Becomes Bitter”

White Hex: “Paradise”

Kindest Cuts: “Cold Eyes”

Phosphor: “Another Time”

Girl Pusher: “Where The Fuck Is My Ambulance?”

Debby Friday: “Treason” (f. Lana Del Rabies)

Lana Del Rabies: ”Darcy” (Lav Andula RMX)

NGHTCRWLR: “Firestarter”

Zonal: “System Error” (f. Moor Mother) Wrecked

JK Flesh: “In Your Pit”

Ciarra Black: Stasis

Filmmaker: “The Love Market”

Provoker: “Theme”

Parole E Azioni: “Karaoke Night track #1″

Aurat: “Ilzam”

Essaie Pas: “Danse Sociale”

Drift: “Say It Right”

Deep Red: “Pray For Death”

Ciarra Black: “Dupont Street”

Cabaret Nocturne: “Moon Invaders”

Boy Harsher: “Tears” (Silent Servant RMX)

Kanga: “Going Red”

Promiseland: “Take Down The House”

Lead Into Gold: “Hard Won Decay”

Rosa Damask: Heroes

Zanias: “Follow The Body”

Azar Swan: “Jungle Law”

Canal Street Electronics: “By The River”

Salford Electronics: “Deconstruction”

JK Flesh: “Trinity”

Ron Morelli: “Disappearer”

KVB, The: “In Deep”

White Ring: “Shaken To Sleep”

Pink Turns Blue: “I Coldly Stare Out”

Cabaret Nocturne: “Blind Trust”

Figure Study: “Wait”

Boy Harsher: “L.A.”

Soma Sema: “Artificial Heart”

Natural Assembly: “She Walks In Beauty”

Void Vision: “The Source”

KVB, The: “Afterglow”

John Carpenter: “Vortex” (Uniform RMX)

Emptyset: “Dissolve”

Consumer Electronics: “Co-Opted”

Alan Vega: “Prophecy”

Ninos Du Brasil: “Em Que O Rio Do Mar Se Torna”

Vatican Shadow: “Weapons Inspection”

Molly Nilsson: “A Slice Of Lemon”

Lebanon Hanover: “Babes Of The 80′s” (Tobias Bernstrup RMX)

Urochromes: “Night Bully” (Boy Harsher RMX)

Body Of Light: “Holding You”

Broken English Club: “Channel 83″

White Ring: “Leprosy”

Flesh & Peaki: “Veiled”

Ghxst: “Ride”

Strahinja Arbutina: “You Don’t Need This In Your Life”

Mirrors For Psychic Warfare: “Tomb Puncher”

Ron Morelli: “Golden Oldies”

Azar Swan: “Silent Like A Father”

Boy Harsher: “Face The Fire”

Clay Rendering: “The Pest”

Ron Morelli: “Radar Version”

Vatican Shadow: “Take Vows”

Silent Servant: “The Silent Attractor”

Ninos Du Brasil: “Vagalumes Pirilampos”

Lust For Youth: “Display”

Gary War: “Don’t Go Out Tonight”

Appetite: “Bordeaux Gallow”

Believer/Law: “Foxhole Prayers”

Ciarra Black: “Series Of…”

Silent Servant: “Dissociation”

Vatican Shadow: “Interrogation Mosaic”

Boy Harsher: “Pain”

Contrepoison: “Heartbeat”

Led Er Est: “Scissors”

Molly Nilsson: “I Hope You Die”

KVB, The: “Always Then”

Princess Century: “Crummy Bones”

Natural Assembly “Life Blossoms”

Adult.: “Dance Avoid”

Grun Wasser: “The Deep”

Believer/Law: “Ashes”

Military Position: “Babes Ov Babylon”

Drvg Cvltvre: “Waging A War Against God”

Actress: “Dancing In The Smoke”

Peaches: “Convincing People”

Grimes: “Genesis” (Blvck Ceiling RMX)

Algiers: “Death March” (Prurient RMX)

Rrose: “Surgeon General (Her Insides Laid Bare)”

[crime-bot]

! Creature Gets Lost in a Bootleg OmegaMart, More at Eleven !

A small, grey weasel of a dragon was in the dim and cool alley of a street. They were rummaging through a garbage can, making a little mess of clatters and clangs, but coming up with nothing edible. They paused to droop and lament over their misfortune. In the middle of the pause, and through the midst of discarded cans and empty bags, they caught a glimpse of yellow, clear as day. It must’ve been a banana! Or cheese! They gasped with some new vigor ignited and reached their scaly arm in to get it, but when they got hold of the thing and pulled it out it was just a plastic lemon. They grumbled and angrily threw it at the ground. It bounced away and stopped, resting near the alley’s wall opposite of them.

Their stomach growled.

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” Greyscale said, “I’m trying to find something! Can’t you have any pa-”

They looked up as they hollered and noticed some smoke in the sky, above the surrounding brick buildings.

“Oh, what now, a fire-?”

They had to admit, they’d be intrigued by the idea of a fire somewhere, and at least that’d take their mind off their stomach. What else could smoke mean, after all? They knew the saying: where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

They lept to a pipe that scaled the side of the alleyway and climbed it to the rooftop only to discover the smoke was coming from a particularly not-up-to-code shipping truck, but what wasn’t what caught their eye.

Behind it was a large building with the words “DELTAMART” displayed proudly over a set of clear doors, standing tall and sure in the light of day. A grocery store! That’s just what they needed!

“Actually, I don’t think we’ll have to wait for much longer,” Greyscale said.

They lept and bounded down from roof to windowsill to dumpster. Right as they hit the ground, they made a dash through the parking lot desert, behind the truck, and right right up to the doors, then abruptly stopped and clung to the wall in an attempt to stay out of the eyes of anyone from inside.

They did a double-take, looking for anyone nearby. No one was around. They poked their head around to peak through one of the glass doors of the building that towered over them, a looming mass of bricks and corporate design.

There were some people walking around inside, carrying overflowing cornucopia baskets and pushing carts full of different treats, tools, and other products, but that wasn’t what got them the most. The aisles they could see were filled to the brim with food, and a couple of visible setups of fruits and vegetables looked so delicious and tantalizing in their array of colors that they sparkled to the dragon like precious gemstones.

Greyscale drooled a little with wide eyes.

They anxiously waited until there were barely any people near the doors, and anyone that was there appeared too thoroughly occupied to notice anything sneaking in.

They whispered, “the coast is clear!”

The creature sprang from their hiding spot and scrambled ins-- wait, no, nevermind, they just bonked headfirst into the glass door.

A first-time customer in a nearby checkout aisle got startled out of her waiting stupor and looked over to the sliding doors. Nothing was there.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“I hear everything,” said cashier #23,457, mid-scan of a bag of milk with one of his hands.

Understandably, that monotone answer concerned the customer, but she tried to brush it off. She just needed some milk for a recipe quick, and this was the closest store to her house.

“So-- Um,” she pressed on, “what about that thud from outside?”

“Ohh, haha, yeah I did,” he admitted, “Someone probably just walked into one of those doors again.” He handed the customer a grocery bag with her bagged milk inside and said, “Anyways, have a good day!”

Warily, she took the bag.

“You’re... not going to check on th-”

“H-H-Have a good day!” He said.

Now truly weirded out, she quickly said, “alllright thenIwill!” and walked out as fast-yet-also-not-running as she could.

It’s safe to say she’ll make the effort to not come back.

Seeing their chance, Greyscale scurried in under an exiting woman’s line of sight before the glass doors closed behind her.

At last, they made it into the glory of fluorescent lighting and vibrant food! In the midst of their wave of triumph, they continued to make the effort to stay hidden, taking cover behind some shopping carts.

The store was very nicely kept, they had to note. The white and navy blue checkered floors were spotless, and all the aisles and displays of different sorts were a combination of white, and/or blue, with some yellow, too. From where they were hidden, the whole place smelled cold and vaguely sterile, but they didn’t complain about it. They knew that was just how supermarkets were.

They took a great big breath in preparation and ran from the cover of the shopping carts, still with the effort of being undetected. As they perused in their own only slightly feral way, they dove behind grocery aisles, clambered up shelves, and hid in crates to stay out of workers’ and customers’ perceptions.

During this act of stealth and agility, they noticed an aisle with no people in it full of candy from atop a set of shelves.

“Aw, how sweet of fate!” they mused.

The creature made a B-line for it, jumping across gaps between short distance of aisles, and snagged a small bag of candy that had fallen to the checkered floor. They tore into it and began to eat a mouthful of the tart, brittle sweets inside.

Among the midst of the corporately pleasant music playing throughout the store, its jingle chimed in.

It sang, “De-De-deee de DelllltaMart, you have NO ideea what’s in STORE for YOU-u-u!”

They noticed the jingle and stopped their snacking to chuckle.

“You’re right about that,” they said, “I wonder what other good stuff this place has!”

They focused back on their bag of Candy Spiders (Now With 70% More Spiders!), just in time to notice one of the confections moving amongst its kin with its bone-pick legs.

A shocking moment of registration passed. They yelped at the realization and threw the bag away from themself as far as they could.

They sputtered, “Did-- did that--? No-”

They paused and slunk back up to the bag, warily.

The bag was motionless.

Slowly, cautiously, they batted it with their paw. They reeled it back away from the bag, as if it might jump up and bite them. Still, nothing inside moved.

They blinked a couple times and began to doubt what they thought they saw.

“Huh, h-ha, maybe this candy’s expired..” they said.

Greyscale left the bag behind to wander about some more(and put some distance between them and the Candy Spiders, but they didn’t want to fully admit that), and checked the rest of the products out.

They trotted through the deli area, passing by a stiff employee who was still in the process of regaining energy from his charging deck, fixated on the selection of meats. They even tested grabbing a slice of ham, and he didn’t notice one bit!

Once they were done with that, they visited another place that no one was in at the time. It didn’t have anything meant to be edible, but it sure was beautiful. Countless flowers were displayed in rainbows of colors, and the air was chilly to keep them all preserved for longer. Greyscale stayed there, smelling the roses both figuratively and semi-literally, until they had enough of that. They walked out of the section and past a sign that read, ‘HYBRID FLOWERS’. One of the tulips opened its eye.

After that snack and slice of ham they had, Greyscale was undoubtedly more content with their level of hunger, but they wanted to try to make the most of this place. After all, when they’re amongst a bounty of food, it’s good to get as much as they can before they go. They put their two front paws up on the ledge of a refrigerated bin full of organized fruit and poked their snout in, looking to choose which might be tastiest. Should they have a pear, or maybe an apple? Oh, but the peaches looked good, too!

Out from under the side of a display pyramid of apples behind them, a glitching, writhing tentacle rose to inspect its produce.

Ah, yes, every apple was shiny and in order... It had the pigeon grease to thank for that. It was about to retreat back under the apples, but something caught its attention. What it noticed was grey, and.. It wasn’t shaped like a customer either. It was rummaging around in a nearby refrigerator bin full of fruit strictly for customers.

Greyscale felt a couple of taps on their back and jumped, then turned to face-

“aAh-!!”

Nope! Nope, nope nope! They scrambled into and out of the freezing bin of fruit and away from the shifting, glitching-- thing in front of them. It lunged, and they turned and ran only to skid to a halt before smacking into a glass display case of ears.

Oh nonono, they shook the shock from that off and sprinted left into an aisle, only to see one of the store workers pulling can after can out of his mouth to put on the shelves.

They quickly turned again to climb up a shelf from the opposite side of the aisle as fast as they could. They really, really, really shouldn’t be here-

They tried to escape, find a way out, but the more and more they ran and jumped and turned, shifting from running on the ground to balancing on top of aisles, the more the grocery store grew and stretched into a labyrinth.

“NononononoIcan’tbetrappedthere’sgottabeaneXIT-”

They stopped briefly, shuffling and turning in place and trying to catch their breath, looking for anything that could possibly function as a sign to point them out. They launched themself from where they stood again only to smack into a pair of legs they hadn’t noticed.

The owner of those legs, a tall, nicely dressed woman, looked down at whatever had bumped into her.

Greyscale screamed and ran as soon as they realized they got noticed yet again.

“Huh…” she said, “one of the fish they’re selling must’ve got out again.”

She shrugged and continued to read the label of some canned wood she grabbed from a shelf of assorted canned inedibles.

Still thoroughly spooked, Greyscale bolted through the open door of a storage room to hide, but it only led to an expansive area of ventilation pipe trees and tubes protruding out of the ground and sky and distant walls in a variety of angles, all painted in a mess of glowing neon patterns.

The little dragon darted about the dark and dizzying manufactured forest, too worried about getting caught by any foe to realize the nature of the location surrounding them until they finally looked back. They began to slow down to a trot when they didn’t see anyone.

“There’s…” they huffed, “no one.. there…?”

Upon that realization, they slowed down even more, but that wasn’t enough to keep them from losing their footing on a pipe nestled into the glittering ground.

“HuhuUuAH-!”

Before they had a chance to save themself, they were swallowed into further oblivion and shot down the pipework with a series of clunks and shouts, thumping, denting into each abrupt turn going deeper, deeper, faster, faster until they were finally spat out to the end.

Greyscale was flung from the mouth, still held at the whim of momentum, and tumbled to a stop, toppled over themself. The result of that disorienting ride was a dizzy, discombobulated dragon, complete with stars going around their head as it bobbed about, trying to get their bearings despite their eyes having trouble focusing on anything for the time being.

They knew it was bright, or-- maybe it was dark? They couldn’t tell, they could still only see stars and an ever-shifting background. Their ears picked up on a further dizzying soundscape of moving, shifting, falling, corporate music, but the more they strained to focus on and determine a sound the more and more difficult it felt to tell any sound apart from another. It was a surrounding, pattering swarm of noise, and as their vision cleared and they tried to stumble up, they only fell back down onto the soft, squishy.. mahogany(?) surface they had been spat onto by the pipe.

Wearily, they picked their head back up and finally witnessed the shifting, unending world surrounding them. Cans floated through the air, worlds of their own, great candy spiders spun threads and webs of sugar on even more pipes that ripped out of the ground, checker patterns slid across surfaces, and everything seemed to pulse with an underlying life.

They were then aware, horrified, of the unavoidable fact that they were now utterly, hopelessly lost.

Amidst the cacophony of sights and patterning and a ground they couldn’t get a hold of, Greyscale thought they heard a familiar yet muffled jingle, far away in the distance yet echoed everywhere throughout these caverns.

“De-De-deee de DelllltaMart, you have NO ideea what’s in STORE for YOU-u-u!”

Their heart sank.

“Oh no-”

[piracytheorist]

I... started replying to these questions and only near the end did I realize that @spellcasterdouxie tagged me in their similar post, but not (directly) for me to answer these questions. But they did leave the tag open and by the time I realized it I had answered almost all the questions, so I’m going through with it, lol XD

rules: answer the questions and then tag 10+ other creators to answer the questions!

first creation and most recent creation of 2020: My first one is also my very first Grim Fandango ficlet titled Have You Forgotten Yours?, which I wrote pretty much after finishing the game at the beginning of the year. My most recent one is this Captain Amelia gifset :)

one of your favourite creations from 2020: I think I’ll go with this gifset and meta of that Douxie and Merlin scene. Making the gifset and writing the meta made me pretty emotional, and it meant so freaking much to me that tenyai replied to it too.

a creation you’re really proud of: Full context aside, this one from Gordo and Trudy doing the frickle frackle was a pain to make because the scene was not only super dark, it was also chokeful of noise, so with the content I had I’m quite happy with how I managed to make it look.

a new style you tried this year and a gifset that uses it: I don’t use greyscale a lot and I have used it before, but I am pretty happy with this one of Gordo having an angsty shower but this time in B&W, and totally because of the style and not what the gifset shows, of course, why would you think otherwise my good sir

your favourite colouring: I don’t do much colouring in my gifsets, I mostly fix brightness, contrast and the colour tone, so the difference is rarely discernible unless you compare the gif with the original. But this gifset of Detective Rogers was interesting to toy with :D (also how was it that I made it in APRIL it feels like I made it a year ago and tbh that feeling isn’t surprising with this year is it)

a creation that took you forever: Definitely my Douxie’s leitmotif video. I had to rewatch the whole show looking out for his leitmotif (and I still missed one or two moments, shame on me lol), then transcribe all of its appearances into sheet music, then edit the whole thing, scenes and sheet music, together. I don’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure that organizing the whole thing took like, a week, until the video was ready. And then youtube took it down because of copyright and I had to downgrade its size so that I could upload it to vimeo, lol. It didn’t get a lot of popularity but I didn’t really expect it to, it was a bit too technical and was mostly made for my own entertainment.

your creation from 2020 that received the most notes: My gifset of Douxie and Claire high-fiving!

a creation you think deserved more notes: This one and like, I’m not one to beg for notes or complain but it was surprising it got so few notes considering a) it’s from a scene not many people have made a gifset from, b) said scene has great comedic timing and like, why not and c) pretty much every other Douxie gifset I made got more than 200 notes so this one stands out. Again, not complaining, it was just weird why this specific gifset flopped (in comparison to my other Douxie gifsets), lol.

a creation with a favorite scene/quote: Oh, fuzzbuckets!

a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it: The Douxie fandom (I haven’t watched the other ToA shows so I don’t consider myself a part of the whole series fandom), and here’s the very first gifset I made of him!

a creation you made that breaks your heart: Oh that’s definitely this gifset of Douxie in that scene with Charlemagne and the staff. I can’t even. My boy T_T

a ‘simple’ creation that you really love: This gifset of Douxie throwing some “Magic fire!” in a BoOksToRe because while it was quite simple to colour it and stuff, I really really enjoyed how well-timed the gifs are.

a creation that was inspired by another one: I guess the “[Character] + TV Tropes” is a common theme for gifsets and stuff here, so this one I made of Douxie + TV Tropes is probably fitting for this question :D

a favourite creation created by someone else: One??? Uh... This Grim Fandango fanart (skeleton alert)

some of your favourite content creators from the year: @carpedzem, @valentimmy, @dahliycia, @inhonoredglory, @spellcasterdouxie, @a-s-levynn​ and @nikibogwater​​.

and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love: 1) Silver from Treasure Planet with the pirate flag waving behind him, 2) Gordo and Trudy having a quiet moment and giving the sweetest faces to each other what do you mean it didn’t end there, 3) Douxie fighting with Morgana 4) Douxie hating those twits, 5) Douxie being 919 and not knowing how to read (Ancient Draconic) and 6) Colin characters wearing Among Us hats.

I’m bad at tagging people so if you want to do it, or if you do the same mistake I did XD do it and tag me :D

.... And then I clicked “Save draft” again instead of “Post”. That’s why this comes like three days later XD

[ask-the-good-creeps]

can we get some of the carney groups interactions

The mechanical whirring was cut short as Davie switched off his tattoo gun. He wiped the latest piece on his newest client a couple times with a clean towel as he set down his supplies and encouraged the canvas to take a look at the finished image. It would need a bit of time to heal, but this wasn’t her first time getting inked - she was well aware of that. She thanked him for his work and told him how much she loved the art he’d permanently drawn into her shoulder, and he finished the administrative tasks associated with her session today before wishing her well and sending her out the door.

Emma had been his last appointment for the day seeing how the guy who had been scheduled after her had suddenly called it off. Davie was both disappointed and relieved that the man had quit on him; he was glad he didn’t have to work with someone so difficult, but at the same time...strange things tended to happen when he was the only one in the shop. Things that nobody ever believed him about when he tried to tell someone. He found himself hoping for a surprise walk-in as he began doing random housekeeping around the place.

Be careful what you wish for.

The little silver bell on the door rang out. Davie called out a quick greeting to whoever entered as he threw out some garbage in the back room. He heard conversation as he walked back out to the front, and he felt a sinking unease in his gut when he entered to find the front room empty...but the conversation didn’t stop. That could only mean one thing...he was back, and he must have brought a friend this time.

Davie felt sweat start to bead on his forehead as his eyes scanned the room. The voices seemed to be coming from all around him, but there were no people in sight to attribute them to.

“H-hello?” Davie called shakily. The conversation paused for a moment - that was all it took. Oh no.

“Hello!” He appeared out of nowhere, leaning down so his eerily-grinning face was both level with and inches from Davie’s own. The tattooist was almost glad there wasn’t anyone else there; a grown man shrieking like a child and falling back on his ass was usually cause for a little light-hearted ridicule from his coworkers.

“Ah, sorry about that! I always forget how easily startled you are.” the jester laughed and though Davie didn’t think he intended to sound like a maniacal villain, he most definitely did. 

“Are you sure he’s alright with us being here? Are you really sure?” Davie turned his attention to the blue-haired maniac’s friend. If his eyes could’ve bulged from his skull and exploded like in a cartoon, they would have. 

This questionable character was taller than his already-too-tall companion. The greyscale scheme of his outfit seemed to have leaked out into his very being, as if the clown had been soaked in a vat of magic bleach. His black lips were set into a frown as his creepy eyes bore into Davie’s soul. He had a single black brow raised in question, and his seemingly boneless arms were loosely crossed as he waited for the jester’s answer.

“Of course it’s fine with him, Jack! I’ve been here at least three times already - he knows me!” Candy Pop offered Davie his hand, and the artist reluctantly took it. Pop hauled the man to his feet and turned to face a still-skeptical Jack. Davie’s throat was so dry it hurt to swallow, and he was sure the clown saw him shaking before he realized it himself. The jester had never seemed determined to harm him on any of their previous encounters, but Davie was reluctant to drop his guard around a creature of supernatural origin...especially one capable of things like Pop.

“W-what can I do for you?” Davie asked with a forced smile. He didn’t want to offend these two. Pop opened his mouth as if he intended to answer, but the clown - Jack - beat him to it.

“We can leave if you don’t want us here. It isn’t our intention to terrify you, but this unholy cretin,” Jack gestured to Pop, “has a habit of not knowing when he’s crossed a line with people.”

“Oh, but lines are meant to be crossed, old friend! Life is so much more interesting outside our comfort zones!” Pop laughed again and did an exaggerated spin before looking back at Davie. “I don’t trust anyone else to mark up my skin anyway.”

Davie was too focused on the painfully-wide smile splitting Pop’s cheeks to see Jack roll his eyes. The jester started to tell him about the latest art piece he wanted on his back, but Davie wasn’t paying much attention to his words at this point. He nodded his head almost reflexively until the jester stopped talking.

“Can you do that?” Pop asked at the end of his explanation. Davie snapped back into reality.

“Y-yeah, sure, I just gotta get a sketch down...” he mumbled. Pop clapped his hands in excitement as he turned to head to the chair he always sat in here to get work done. Davie turned to follow him but was stopped. A cold chill ran down his spine as he saw the long, dark claws resting over his shoulder.

“You sure you’re up for this? We’ll leave if you say so.” Jack rasped behind him.

“It’s f-fine,” Davie gulped, “I just...didn’t know you were real before this, that’s all.”

“Pop told you about me last time he was here, then?” there was a curiosity behind the clown’s words. It didn’t sound malicious, but it was hard to tell with how creepy his voice was.

“He, uh...he did a little more than that.” He heard a confused hum from behind him as the sharp-tipped fingers disappeared from his shoulder.

“Did I forget to tell you about that?” Pop was already sitting shirtless on the chair, even though he didn’t need to be for the next half-hour at least while Davie sketched the design he wanted.

“What did you do?” Jack’s voice sounded exasperated, tired, somewhat defeated in the face of his jester friend’s ever-present smile.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter now, all things considered, but...”

“But...?”

“But I may have gotten a picture of you feeding little ducks inked into my back a couple visits prior.” Davie heard a sound behind him akin to a hard slap, followed by Pop’s echoing laughter. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see Jack with his palm covering his face. The demonic clown seemed completely fed-up with Pop’s antics; having dealt with him a few times now, Davie could easily understand where that sentiment came from.

“Are we going to get this show on the road or not, boys?” Pop asked in a light, sing-song voice. Jack sighed as he and Davie both went over to get started. The tattooist wasn’t surprised to see the jester’s back completely blank. Every tattoo put on this guy faded away after a little more than a week, and it seemed even Candy Pop himself didn’t know why that was. Davie wondered why the guy kept getting tattoos if they weren’t even going to stay for long. What was the point of doing all that work only to have nothing to show for it later on?

He sighed quietly as he grabbed his sketching tools. He remembered the first tattoo the jester requested. A rainbow unicorn that took up his whole back. At the time, Pop had really creeped him out in general, but he hadn’t known the guy wasn’t human. The next tattoo was a snake slithering up his arm, and Davie still hadn’t suspected supernatural issues.

Then, Pop came in for his third tattoo...a full back tatt of Jack feeding ducks. Davie had tried to say that he didn’t think there’d be any room around the unicorn piece, only to stop mid-sentence when Pop exposed his tattoo-less back. His jaw had dropped when Pop responded by saying, “That would have been a really cool idea for my first tattoo, but I’ve got my heart set on this one.”

He had done the piece while doubting his own sanity. 

It was the fourth time that started to make him afraid. Pop had come in with a cardboard mustache photo-prop held in front of his face to ask for another full-back tatt. The jester tried to deny he’d been there before when Davie mentioned their previous interactions, and seemed genuinely upset that Davie ‘saw through his clever disguise’ when he finally admitted his identity. And of course, his back was blank again that day.

The jester always requested the strangest, most outlandish things after that. There was a piece of a female version of himself flipping the bird and saying ‘fuck off’, an upside-down giraffe with green square spots wearing a yellow bandana, what could only be described as an alien lifeform offering a striped banana to a faceless cow...his requests never made sense or seemed to have any meaning, and Davie had never expected to see a physical manifestation of one of those images here in his little shop.

He set to work sketching his otherworldly visitor’s latest request, and wasn’t surprised to Jack hang his head in his hands after Pop approved the sketch. Davie found it interesting to know that Pop’s ideas were odd even by the standards of other creatures like him.

The tatt took about six hours; they finished an hour and a half after closing time, but Davie hadn’t been willing to ask him to come back and finish it another time. He could suck it up. Jack had been quiet through the whole thing, while Pop had been his usual chatterbox self. The jester admired his back in the mirror for a few minutes before snapping his fingers. There was a puff of blue smoke, and his shirt was back on. 

“I can’t wait to show Jason.” Pop smirked mischievously. Jack had shaken his head in disapproval, but didn’t say anything.

The two entities thanked him for his time, paid and tipped well, and headed out the door into the night. Davie wondered as he locked up the shop later why they didn’t just teleport away. Part of him hoped he’d never see the two living examples of nightmare fuel again, but part of him didn’t mind the thought of it so much. Sure, they were terrifying, but they never hurt him...and he couldn’t deny they looked familiar somehow. 

He briefly wondered who Jason was...and why the nude redheaded woman Pop had inked into his back tonight was important to him.

[howdidyoufindthis]

A small, grey weasel of a dragon was in the dim and cool alley of a street. They were rummaging through a garbage can, making a little mess of clatters and clangs, but coming up with nothing edible. They paused to droop and lament over their misfortune. In the middle of the pause, and through the midst of discarded cans and empty bags, they caught a glimpse of yellow, clear as day. It must’ve been a banana! Or cheese! They gasped with some new vigor ignited and reached their scaly arm in to get it, but when they got hold of the thing and pulled it out it was just a plastic lemon. They grumbled and angrily threw it at the ground. It bounced away and stopped, resting near the alley’s wall opposite of them.

Their stomach growled.

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” Greyscale said, “I’m trying to find something! Can’t you have any pa-”

They looked up as they hollered and noticed some smoke in the sky, above the surrounding brick buildings.

“Oh, what now, a fire-?”

They had to admit, they’d be intrigued by the idea of a fire somewhere, and at least that’d take their mind off their stomach. What else could smoke mean, after all? They knew the saying: where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

They lept to a pipe that scaled the side of the alleyway and climbed it to the rooftop only to discover the smoke was coming from a particularly not-up-to-code shipping truck, but what wasn’t what caught their eye.

Behind it was a large building with the words “DELTAMART” displayed proudly over a set of clear doors, standing tall and sure in the light of day. A grocery store! That’s just what they needed!

“Actually, I don’t think we’ll have to wait for much longer,” Greyscale said.

They lept and bounded down from roof to windowsill to dumpster. Right as they hit the ground, they made a dash through the parking lot desert, behind the truck, and right right up to the doors, then abruptly stopped and clung to the wall in an attempt to stay out of the eyes of anyone from inside.

They did a double-take, looking for anyone nearby. No one was around. They poked their head around to peak through one of the glass doors of the building that towered over them, a looming mass of bricks and corporate design.

There were some people walking around inside, carrying overflowing cornucopia baskets and pushing carts full of different treats, tools, and other products, but that wasn’t what got them the most. The aisles they could see were filled to the brim with food, and a couple of visible setups of fruits and vegetables looked so delicious and tantalizing in their array of colors that they sparkled to the dragon like precious gemstones.

Greyscale drooled a little with wide eyes.

They anxiously waited until there were barely any people near the doors, and anyone that was there appeared too thoroughly occupied to notice anything sneaking in.

They whispered, “the coast is clear!”

The creature sprang from their hiding spot and scrambled ins-- wait, no, nevermind, they just bonked headfirst into the glass door.

A first-time customer in a nearby checkout aisle got startled out of her waiting stupor and looked over to the sliding doors. Nothing was there.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“I hear everything,” said cashier #23,457, mid-scan of a bag of milk with one of his hands.

Understandably, that monotone answer concerned the customer, but she tried to brush it off. She just needed some milk for a recipe quick, and this was the closest store to her house.

“So-- Um,” she pressed on, “what about that thud from outside?”

“Ohh, haha, yeah I did,” he admitted, “Someone probably just walked into one of those doors again.” He handed the customer a grocery bag with her bagged milk inside and said, “Anyways, have a good day!”

Warily, she took the bag.

“You’re... not going to check on th-”

“H-H-Have a good day!” He said.

Now truly weirded out, she quickly said, “alllright thenIwill!” and walked out as fast-yet-also-not-running as she could.

It’s safe to say she’ll make the effort to not come back.

Seeing their chance, Greyscale scurried in under an exiting woman’s line of sight before the glass doors closed behind her.

At last, they made it into the glory of fluorescent lighting and vibrant food! In the midst of their wave of triumph, they continued to make the effort to stay hidden, taking cover behind some shopping carts.

The store was very nicely kept, they had to note. The white and navy blue checkered floors were spotless, and all the aisles and displays of different sorts were a combination of white, and/or blue, with some yellow, too. From where they were hidden, the whole place smelled cold and vaguely sterile, but they didn’t complain about it. They knew that was just how supermarkets were.

They took a great big breath in preparation and ran from the cover of the shopping carts, still with the effort of being undetected. As they perused in their own only slightly feral way, they dove behind grocery aisles, clambered up shelves, and hid in crates to stay out of workers’ and customers’ perceptions.

During this act of stealth and agility, they noticed an aisle with no people in it full of candy from atop a set of shelves.

“Aw, how sweet of fate!” they mused.

The creature made a B-line for it, jumping across gaps between short distance of aisles, and snagged a small bag of candy that had fallen to the checkered floor. They tore into it and began to eat a mouthful of the tart, brittle sweets inside.

Among the midst of the corporately pleasant music playing throughout the store, its jingle chimed in.

It sang, “De-De-deee de DelllltaMart, you have NO ideea what’s in STORE for YOU-u-u!”

They noticed the jingle and stopped their snacking to chuckle.

“You’re right about that,” they said, “I wonder what other good stuff this place has!”

They focused back on their bag of Candy Spiders (Now With 70% More Spiders!), just in time to notice one of the confections moving amongst its kin with its bone-pick legs.

A shocking moment of registration passed. They yelped at the realization and threw the bag away from themself as far as they could.

They sputtered, “Did-- did that--? No-”

They paused and slunk back up to the bag, warily.

The bag was motionless.

Slowly, cautiously, they batted it with their paw. They reeled it back away from the bag, as if it might jump up and bite them. Still, nothing inside moved.

They blinked a couple times and began to doubt what they thought they saw.

“Huh, h-ha, maybe this candy’s expired..” they said.

Greyscale left the bag behind to wander about some more(and put some distance between them and the Candy Spiders, but they didn’t want to fully admit that), and checked the rest of the products out.

They trotted through the deli area, passing by a stiff employee who was still in the process of regaining energy from his charging deck, fixated on the selection of meats. They even tested grabbing a slice of ham, and he didn’t notice one bit!

Once they were done with that, they visited another place that no one was in at the time. It didn’t have anything meant to be edible, but it sure was beautiful. Countless flowers were displayed in rainbows of colors, and the air was chilly to keep them all preserved for longer. Greyscale stayed there, smelling the roses both figuratively and semi-literally, until they had enough of that. They walked out of the section and past a sign that read, ‘HYBRID FLOWERS’. One of the tulips opened its eye.

After that snack and slice of ham they had, Greyscale was undoubtedly more content with their level of hunger, but they wanted to try to make the most of this place. After all, when they’re amongst a bounty of food, it’s good to get as much as they can before they go. They put their two front paws up on the ledge of a refrigerated bin full of organized fruit and poked their snout in, looking to choose which might be tastiest. Should they have a pear, or maybe an apple? Oh, but the peaches looked good, too!

Out from under the side of a display pyramid of apples behind them, a glitching, writhing tentacle rose to inspect its produce.

Ah, yes, every apple was shiny and in order... It had the pigeon grease to thank for that. It was about to retreat back under the apples, but something caught its attention. What it noticed was grey, and.. It wasn’t shaped like a customer either. It was rummaging around in a nearby refrigerator bin full of fruit strictly for customers.

Greyscale felt a couple of taps on their back and jumped, then turned to face-

“aAh-!!”

Nope! Nope, nope nope! They scrambled into and out of the freezing bin of fruit and away from the shifting, glitching-- thing in front of them. It lunged, and they turned and ran only to skid to a halt before smacking into a glass display case of ears.

Oh nonono, they shook the shock from that off and sprinted left into an aisle, only to see one of the store workers pulling can after can out of his mouth to put on the shelves.

They quickly turned again to climb up a shelf from the opposite side of the aisle as fast as they could. They really, really, really shouldn’t be here-

They tried to escape, find a way out, but the more and more they ran and jumped and turned, shifting from running on the ground to balancing on top of aisles, the more the grocery store grew and stretched into a labyrinth.

“NononononoIcan’tbetrappedthere’sgottabeaneXIT-”

They stopped briefly, shuffling and turning in place and trying to catch their breath, looking for anything that could possibly function as a sign to point them out. They launched themself from where they stood again only to smack into a pair of legs they hadn’t noticed.

The owner of those legs, a tall, nicely dressed woman, looked down at whatever had bumped into her.

Greyscale screamed and ran as soon as they realized they got noticed yet again.

“Huh…” she said, “one of the fish they’re selling must’ve got out again.”

She shrugged and continued to read the label of some canned wood she grabbed from a shelf of assorted canned inedibles.

Still thoroughly spooked, Greyscale bolted through the open door of a storage room to hide, but it only led to an expansive area of ventilation pipe trees and tubes protruding out of the ground and sky and distant walls in a variety of angles, all painted in a mess of glowing neon patterns.

The little dragon darted about the dark and dizzying manufactured forest, too worried about getting caught by any foe to realize the nature of the location surrounding them until they finally looked back. They began to slow down to a trot when they didn’t see anyone.

“There’s…” they huffed, “no one.. there…?”

Upon that realization, they slowed down even more, but that wasn’t enough to keep them from losing their footing on a pipe nestled into the glittering ground.

“HuhuUuAH-!”

Before they had a chance to save themself, they were swallowed into further oblivion and shot down the pipework with a series of clunks and shouts, thumping, denting into each abrupt turn going deeper, deeper, faster, faster until they were finally spat out to the end.

Greyscale was flung from the mouth, still held at the whim of momentum, and tumbled to a stop, toppled over themself. The result of that disorienting ride was a dizzy, discombobulated dragon, complete with stars going around their head as it bobbed about, trying to get their bearings despite their eyes having trouble focusing on anything for the time being.

They knew it was bright, or-- maybe it was dark? They couldn’t tell, they could still only see stars and an ever-shifting background. Their ears picked up on a further dizzying soundscape of moving, shifting, falling, corporate music, but the more they strained to focus on and determine a sound the more and more difficult it felt to tell any sound apart from another. It was a surrounding, pattering swarm of noise, and as their vision cleared and they tried to stumble up, they only fell back down onto the soft, squishy.. mahogany(?) surface they had been spat onto by the pipe.

Wearily, they picked their head back up and finally witnessed the shifting, unending world surrounding them. Cans floated through the air, worlds of their own, great candy spiders spun threads and webs of sugar on even more pipes that ripped out of the ground, checker patterns slid across surfaces, and everything seemed to pulse with an underlying life.

They were then aware, horrified, of the unavoidable fact that they were now utterly, hopelessly lost.

Amidst the cacophony of sights and patterning and a ground they couldn’t get a hold of, Greyscale thought they heard a familiar yet muffled jingle, far away in the distance yet echoed everywhere throughout these caverns.

“De-De-deee de DelllltaMart, you have NO ideea what’s in STORE for YOU-u-u!”

Their heart sank.

“Oh no-”

[cxmetery-gates]

SURREPTITIOUS - DRACO MALFOY

CHAPTER THREE: DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS

SUMMARY: After getting her schedule, Leslie realizes that exams and essays just might be the least of her worries. WORD COUNT: 2.7k NOTES: Hello! It’s been a century..... whoops. WARNINGS: none!

MASTERLIST

THE NEXT MORNING, FOLLOWING THE feast the night before and catching up with others over breakfast, all the Slytherin six years patiently surround Professor Snape, the Head of Slytherin House, in the Great Hall as he files through their schedules thoroughly. Before the sixth years could be off on their way to class, their schedule had to be confirmed, ensuring they are fit for N.E.W.T.-level courses, considering how miserably difficult each class is.

Some of Leslie's housemates were already on their way, now leaving the young witch with just a few other students, all clad with a serpent emblem and matching emerald-and-silver ties.

"Greyscale," Professor Snape drawls.

The brown eyed girl takes half a step forward. He skims over her desired schedule, along with her O.W.L. scores, taking as much time as the previous students. Meaning, there was a heavy downpour in Leslie's racing thoughts for quite a few moments. Despite the beating of her heart, Leslie passed with high marks on her chosen classes. She was only worried about one in particular.

"Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Transfiguration are all fine. I must admit, I was pleased with your Potions mark and to see your continuation."

Despite Leslie's company and social inabilities, the long-time Potions professor (now Defense Against the Dark Arts) had a good standing with the girl. She did her assignments well and always lived up to his unrealistically high standards without complaint. Not many could say the same, so Leslie took his statement as a compliment. While the witch let out a breath of relief, Professor Snape had yet to confirm the last.

"But, I must ask: why the interest in Alchemy?"

Leslie had known her answer for a while. "My mother excelled in the practice, and I have always had an interest." Many years before Leslie was born, her mother had been gaining recognition for her work in the art, the Daily Prophet once even had a column titled "Witches You Should Know" with the mother's name at the top. Eve Greyscale was a talented, intelligent, and kind witch with a life ahead of her, but the world is unkind even to the most gentle of souls.

"Fair enough," the professor replies in understanding.

Professor Snape did not feel the need to question the girl further. After all, last term when she and the professor sat down for the mandatory meeting on what her last two years of Hogwarts should look like, Leslie informed him that she was still mostly uncertain which career path she desired. Perhaps Leslie would continue what legacy was stripped away all those years ago. "Lucky it was offered this term. Be sure you and Mr. Malfoy make Slytherin proud."

The girl could have blanched, but the parchment was held in front of her face, egging her to move and get on with her day. Leslie took the paper from the head of Slytherin House and glanced over to the pale blonde for a split second. As quickly as her eyes shot towards him, she looked away—she had not expected to see the young wizard already staring her down.

Leslie let out a long breath as she begun to head out of the Great Hall. Glancing down at the paper, her eyes absorbed her schedule for her sixth year at Hogwarts:

MONDAY:        10:00-11:00 : Defense Against the Dark Arts        11:00-12:00 : Lunch        13:00-15:00 : Potions

TUESDAY:        13:00-15:00 : Potions        15:30-17:00 : Charms

WEDNESDAY:

THURSDAY:

FRIDAY:        09:00-11:00 : Alchemy        11:00-12:00 : Lunch        13:00-15:00 : Transfiguration

The schedule is almost ideal, happy to see her Wednesdays and Thursdays would be free. Though, Leslie knows the off-days are intended for students to work on the vast amount of assignments. Nonetheless, she feels content.

"Hey, Leslie," a voice calls almost lazily.

Upturning her head, Leslie searches for voice, coming across a ginger boy. A distinct memory of her and different ginger boy, though a couple years her senior, alone and in very close proximity pops into her head and she feverishly tries to calm a blush. However, Ron Weasley spots it and it takes effort on his part to not laugh. Harry is with his friend and no doubt knows about the story in the two's head, having a twitch at the corner of his lips.

Leslie almost wants to run to the Slytherin common room, but instead, she smiles sweetly.

"Harry and I were comparing schedules," Ron informs her. "What's yours looking like?"

"Well, I have a free period now," - to this, Harry and Ron made a unanimous 'us too' - "And after, I have Defense Against the Dark Arts and then Potions later." Once again, the two Gryffindors make the same sound, the group pleased they share the same Monday schedule.

As the comparisons went on, Leslie discovered she also has Charms and Transfiguration with both Harry and Ron. It appeared the only class she had alone, at least so far to her knowledge, was Alchemy. The two Gryffindors made a face when they read the name on her timetable.

"Professor Snape said Malfoy is also in it." With a curl of her lip, Harry and Ron visibly see her lack of comfort in the ordeal. The duo understands all too well, and it only took befriending Leslie a year prior to propel their disdain.

"Malfoy is into that sort of thing?" Ron questions, his brow arched in disbelief. "Huh. I wouldn't have put him as someone interested in anything, except for being a royal git."

Leslie smiles though her eyebrows draw close. "Git or not, he's allowed to have interests. He's still a human, you know."

Ron scoffs, glaring at the platinum blonde now walking out of the Great Hall. "Hardly," is the ginger's reply which earns a good laugh from Leslie and Harry.

Now that the corridors were beginning to thin, Leslie decided she could afford to go back to the common room to grab more ink, having realize she only snagged a single bottle. "I'll see you in a few," Leslie tells her friends before taking the stretch to the dungeons.

══════════════════

Almost an hour later, Leslie's march ends at a queue leading to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. She was nearly late, but luckily, Professor Snape is very punctual about when to let students inside his classroom, leaving them all to wait outside until 10 o'clock exactly.

She just reaches the end of the line when the door is swung open, revealing the professor.

"Inside," is all he says.

Leslie did not miss Ron's bright hair and while she would have chose to sit next him and his friends, Professor Snape made it a habit to sort his students by House. So, Leslie took to one side as the other houses took to another. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws took the front while the house of serpents and lions took the back.

Unfortunately, due to Leslie arriving last, the very back row had the only available seating. And what made things worse was who sat in the spot next to the last stool.

Despite her glancing around, there was no other option but for Leslie to sit next to the blonde Draco Malfoy, not having realized (nor is she surprised) he was in the queue for the Dark Arts class. It appears his lap dog Pansy Parkinson and his goons did not pass or choose to take a N.E.W.T. level Defense Against the Dark Arts, otherwise he'd have his own posse to take up the remaining seats. For once, Leslie is upset she and the Parkinson girl do not share a course.

What had happened on the train did not falter in retellings. She felt almost thankful Malfoy created a distraction for her head, that much she will admit, but a giant part nagging at her was the fact that it simply was Malfoy who triggered the silence. She doesn't know whether her bumping shoulders was just a break in the wiring or if his presence meant something else. Leslie also was not wanting to find out. Not to mention, the ordeal made Leslie uncomfortable with their history considered.

"You are the worst person I have ever met, Draco!"

"If you would just listen to me, instead of acting crazy—!"

The witch blinks away a fight from last term and, ever so reluctantly, Leslie lowers herself on Malfoy's left, keeping her eyes far from his figure as a scar across her right hand replays a story. She sets her bag down, knowing Snape will use the first few minutes as an introduction to the course.

Leslie waits for a remark, something cruel to come out of the boy's mouth. But nothing of the such passes his lips. Instead, she finally notices his eyes are angled at her hand that was fiddling with the quill on her desk. Faster than a Golden Snitch, she redacts her arm under the table.

It was only then did Leslie notice how Professor Snape turned the old classroom into something of his own— truly his own. The atmosphere is heavy and gloomy, curtains pulled over the windows and the only source of light comes from lit candles. There were pictures, too, that rose goosebumps on Leslie's arms; they all depict what she assumes is the aftermath of evil curses and dark magic.

"I wish to speak to you, and I want your fullest attention."

Every wandering gaze fell upon the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.

"You have had five teachers in this subject so far, I believe. Naturally, these teachers will all have had their own methods and priorities. Given this confusion, I am surprised so many of you scraped an O.W.L. in this subject. I shall be even more surprised if all of you manage to keep up with the N.E.W.T. work, which will be more advanced." The statement did nothing to calm the nerves of each student. They all went in knowing the difficulties of N.E.W.T. classes, but the reminder from the monotone professor makes everything more real.

"The Dark Arts," Professor Snape continues having rounded the edge of the room towards the gruesome photos, "are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible. Your defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse" - all eyes absorb the sight of a witch shrieking an agony - "feel the Dementor's Kiss" - then a wizard with sunken, lifeless eyes huddled in a corner - "or provoke the aggression of the Inferius" - finally, a bloody mass.

"Has an Inferius been seen, then?" Parvati Patil asks. "Is it definite? Is he using them?"

The mere concept of an Inferius makes Leslie shudder. To reincarnate the dead to do one's bidding is far too disturbing for her to stomach.

Professor Snape's eyes shows he did not appreciate the interruption. "The Dark Lord has used Inferi in the past which means you would be well-advised to assume he might use them again. Now, you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of nonverbal spells. What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell?"

It was an answer every student knew, but Hermione Granger shot her hand up anyways. Leslie had to bite back the humored smile as the professor surveyed the rest of the classroom, hoping for another hand to raise. But no one wanted to deflate Hermione's ego.

"Very well. Ms. Granger?"

"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform which gives you a split-second advantage," says the Gryffindor.

"An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six..." Professor Snape says dismissively. Next to Leslie, she hears Malfoy snicker, leading the girl to roll her eyes, a small huff escaping her.

The boy shoots his eyes to the left, eyeing down and smirking at Leslie. "I see the summer did nothing to kill that newfound feistiness. I almost miss the old you."

"And I missed it when you weren't speaking."

Dark brown irises roll once more to glare at silver grays, though the later holds a mischievous glint. Malfoy makes an exhale, the sound of a laugh being hidden. Leslie knows he is trying to get under her skin. Part of her feels it working, the other part truly just wants the boy to shut up. "Those Gryffindors really did a number on you. Especially that one twin—"

Before Leslie can retort, a voice comes from the front of the classroom. "If your conversations during my lecture are so important, Mr. Malfoy and Ms. Greyscale, perhaps a free period would be better suited."

Eyes from all around shoot towards the pair in the back. Leslie notices Ron give her a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, Professor," Leslie utters, as Malfoy was too busy smiling to himself.

The rest of Professor Snape's lecture was simply instructions on how to cast a non-verbal spell. Luckily, Leslie was already halfway to success, having learned how to perform a Shield Charm thanks to D.A. last year. However, they never learned how to cast it without using words. Leslie felt her nerves kick in even with her professor preparing them with the essential steps.

"You will now work with the person next to you. One partner will attempt to jinx the other without speaking. The other will attempt to repel the jinx in equal silence."

Oh, how lovely, Leslie thinks bitterly.

The back of the classroom held a wide space, wide enough for each pair to have room to practice standing up. Malfoy stood before Leslie when Professor Snape sent them off on their way. Leslie suppresses a groan when she pushes her stool back.

From behind her, she hears Harry whisper, "Good luck. If he does anything stupid..."

Leslie tosses a reassuring smile to the boy. "I'm sure I'll be fine, but thanks."

Malfoy already stands waiting with his wand out as Leslie approaches. There's a sly smirk on his face. It makes Leslie uncomfortable: does he thrive on making her queasy? "I'll go first."

"Go figure," Leslie replies wandering a few paces away. A few feet from the Slytherins, two Gryffindor boys named Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were paired to spar but only stood glaring at the blonde boy. Both boys made the assumption Malfoy was going to put Leslie in the hospital wing. Unbeknownst to them, however, the gift that allows her to know their very thoughts will aid her during the exercise, avoiding whatever the reason was behind Malfoy's smirk.

It took a matter of five minutes before Malfoy's smirk fell clean off his face. Much like the rest of the students, he had grown frustrated by the lack of progress. Leslie was gaining some improvement, but of course Hermione had seemingly mastered the skill before anyone else. Her efforts should have given Gryffindor at least 20 House Points, but all Professor Snape was interested in regarding that house was taking points away.

"Excellent progress," Snape tells the Slytherins. "But be more demanding, Greyscale. It is not your strong suit obviously, but defending yourself against Dark Wizards require it."

"Yes, thank you, Professor," Leslie responds as her professor and Malfoy share a brief moment of eye contact.

Malfoy twirls his wand and then goes still once Professor Snape moves on. "Try screaming the spell in your head. It's slowly working for me so far."

Leslie's eyebrow raises. Truthfully, the advice would have made her laugh if anyone would have given it to her. But she's stubborn, and not ready for Malfoy to earn her praise. "I didn't ask for your help."

He shrugs. "Yeah, well, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go back to hating each other."

"I've always hated you." Her eyes narrow but it's a lie, and Malfoy knows that well.

The same sly smirk fell upon his face once more. "That's not how I remember things."

Malfoy would regret his advice a second later as he flies backwards, not yet ready to block the spell from Leslie's wand.

"Powerful, and effective. Twenty points to Slytherin," Professor Snape announces as Leslie wears the proud smirk Malfoy once had.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

TAGLIST:

@isabellamur​

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[very-grownup]

THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 12

Episode 24.

It seems very unfair of us to watch Dorohedoro after Evangelion, because each episode of the former concludes by telling us things we've learned. I feel like all I've learned from Evangelion is "fuck the colour orange".

This is also the episode where I cursed that the episode length of Devilman Crybaby and Madoka didn't sync up with Evangelion so we never got the power trifecta of 'my first homoerotic teenage nihilist crush'.

The actual episode report under the cut.

So, so, so after last week's upsetting underground tang aquarium of Reis adventure the series remembers to check in on the super-traumatized Asuka (which is more than the adults within the series do). We get a greyscale small child Asuka running down an orange (bad) corridor. She's excitedly telling her mother about how she's been chosen to pilot a giant robot and protect humanity and it'll be with other kids and she won't be alone and won't need to depend on her father or anyone else and the excited child shots keep cutting to an ominous door. Eventually the door opens enough to show the red behind it and, knowing what we know from the Asuka episode a few weeks back, you can interpolate pretty easily and upsettingly what opening door onto solid red means.

There's a fight between Shinji and Asuka that we're catching the climax of, with thrown and shattered mugs, and Asuka calling Shinji a liar and Shinji apparently reiterating that fuckin' Kaji is gone (I can't tell if he's trying to tell her Kaji is dead or just that he’s bailed on them).

Misato's gotten notice from Seele, the obelisk council, that the Fifth Child is being sent to replace Asuka and Misato recognizes something hinky is going on and senses conspiracy which is ... pretty reasonable at this point. I'd also be seeing conspiracies everywhere. I wouldn't know what they meant or even whose conspiracies they were, but I'd definitely suspect multiple conspiracies going on if literally anything new happened.

Asuka, naked, maybe bloody? in a bathtub in a destroyed apartment with the ceiling crumbling down. Her eyes are vacant and her cheeks are hollow and she's mumbling about her sync rates falling. It's weird and haunting and the building is as destroyed and non-functional as Asuka. Someone from NERV finds her and it turns out Asuka's been missing for a fucking /week/ in this destroyed city and they've only just found her since I guess she ran away after her fight with Shinji and you know it's at least partially because they don't care about finding her. NERV barely cared about Asuka back when she could get in the robot, they absolutely don't care about her now and it's unclear who, if anyone, is responsible for her since fuckin' Kaji's death. Is there even law in Tokyo 3?

My point is, everything is falling apart in the structure of the show and the world within it and the first ball to truly get dropped and broken is the used up and now valueless teenage girl and it's heartbreaking.

Things are getting so real that Misato is /sending Penpen away/ for his own safety and I'm glad Misato cares about Penpen but I wish Misato could find it in her to care about, say, Asuka (Misato is a fuck up and trying her best, but at the end of the day she's still a fuck up). Is Misato the best adult in the series or is she actually the worst adult in the series because she recognizes how she is failing but fails to take action to correct her failures? As a viewer I can't be disappointed in Gendo because he's shit and I have no expectations of him. But I love Misato and so it hurts more when she lets me down and by this point she is letting me down HARD (but I suppose Misato disappoints herself).

Shinji is also in a bad place and he's contemplating the orange tang wreckage of the city and how the small thread of normalcy has gone now that everyone's evacuated. Shinji misses his friends who ... hoo boy.

The one Shinji last saw in the hospital after nearly killing him via giant robot and the other he last heard calling him to tell him how much he sucked for not wanting to pilot a giant robot. It's sad that those two are as close to friends as Shinji has had.

Shinji desperately wants to talk to someone right now about, you know, the /underground tang aquarium full of Reis/ which it seems to be implied is a result of forbidden science experiments combining Adam Trevor flesh with the remains of Shinji's mother? No one SAYS it but yes?

So Shinji can't talk to Rei about this because he feels weird about the whole thing. Asuka's missing. His friends, such as they were, are gone. The poor kid just needs someone to talk to, to confide in, and he asks Asuka, Misato, and his mother, in that order, for help. Are all women ultimately mother for him? Rei, Misato, and Asuka all got conflated when he was absorbed into the EVA which were all part of an ur-mother thing so ... maybe? I don't know. Probably nobody knows. Shinji certainly doesn't know.

Then Shinji's thoughts are interrupted by Akira Ishida humming "Ode to Joy" (gorgeous piece of music, loved it since I was a little girl) and Akira Ishida is here! Things are not going to get more sensical when Akira Ishida just appears in your anime.

So this is Kaworu, who is sitting on some picturesque rubble jutting out from the orange tang, and he's the replacement EVA pilot. His hobbies are having mysteriously deleted records, perching on things, knowing about Shinji, and talking deep and cryptic, but in a friendly way.

AT SOME POINT IN THIS EPISODE Gendo talks to Shinji's EVA and refers to it by his dead wife's name and is glad the spear of Longinus is on the moon, actually, because with it on the moon it can't stand in the way of their plans and Gendo has an eyeball in his palm.

The obelisk council have a meeting where they are once again berating and complaining about Gendo and it is unclear if they realize that Gendo's not there.

Misato is pretty sure Kaworu is a spy or agent of some sort sent by the obelisk council and she and the dude NERV subordinate who's always around are trying to do some side snooping to figure out what his deal is.

Hey where's Ritsuko? Sitting on a chair in a black void telling Gendo about how her cat died and she didn't think about it at all for years until her grandmother called to tell her it was dead and now she's having feelings about it and Gendo doesn't care about symbolism. Gendo wants to know why Ritsuko destroyed the dummy plugs and Ritsuko is like, I didn't destroy the dummy plugs, I destroyed Rei which ... I don't know, I don't know, are we all operating at cross-purposes here Ritsuko? Are you and Gendo even having the same conversation?

Gendo's like ... is this because I stopped having sex with you? And ... maybe that conversation went further but I think my brain strangled itself rather than contemplate Gendo viewing sex with anyone as a favour he's doing them and one Gendo finds inconvenient (and gross at that).

Rei's having a time and as is often the case with Rei it's unclear what she thinks about what she's thinking? Rei seems like she's a cypher to herself more than she is to anyone else. Rei's maybe trying to figure out what her purpose in life is or who she's alive for? She thinks about Gendo's glasses and something's different with this Rei, I guess, compared to the other Reis. I think something's breaking down, like maybe each new Rei is less and less connected to Gendo? I don't know.

At some point, Rei encounters Kaworu and he's like oh hey, you're like me, I thought so! Maybe they're at NERV or on their way to NERV? Look, the budget ball got dropped with Asuka, this shit is getting impressionistic. So maybe Kaworu doesn't have any background for Misato to dig up because, like Rei, he's a construct from some weird genetic fuckery (I think Misato even compares his lack of background to Rei at one point) anyway he's like it's episode 24 time to drop Lilith references!

Why are you doing this to me, Akira Ishida? If I had one of those murder evidence string boards it would be such a mess right now as I tried to find room for /Lilith/.

Misato's reached the point of fuck it, let's just throw all the kids into the robots for tests and Kaworu is /suspiciously good at robot numbers/.

After robots, Shinji is just sort of hanging around when Kaworu exits ... something NERV-y and Shinji is awkward and shy and doesn't want to go home and needs to take a shower and Kaworu is ... intense and suggestive and friendly. So they shower together and then bathe together and there's, like, an entire wall in the baths that's dedicated to a screensaver slideshow of NERV propaganda and Kaworu just wants to talk to Shinji and get to know him and hold hands in the bath and it's obviously weird.

Shinji is so desperate for friendship and someone to talk to and you don't want to see conspiracy or shady shit here because at this point I just want something /good/ to happen to Shinji for once in this constant tragedy train of a show. Just let him have this weird friend who wants to talk to Shinji about his intimacy issues and how his fear of being alone makes him keep to himself and causes the aloneness because chosen aloneness is better than risking connection and getting rejection. So probably the biggest red flag about Kaworu is that he's talking to Shinji about the things Shinji is concerned about without any overt robot-centric motives.

Then Kaworu invites himself over for a sleepover. Shinji takes the floor because of course he does and they talk more philosophy and fate and destiny and depression and Kaworu is intense and tells Shinji he likes him and no one has given Shinji even this crumb before.

The obelisk council has a meeting that isn't in the void but is over the tang craters of the ruined city and they're meeting with Kaworu because of course Kaworu is their construct of some sort being sent to ... something ... Gendo ... moons ... Lilith ... Adam ...

Misato is watching all of this from the highway through highspec binoculars and cursing that she can't read Kaworu's lips. She's looking at the back of his head, mind you. But I heard what Kaworu said and I don't fucking know, Misato, so don't feel bad.

Misato meets Ritsuko in the black void at some point and if I knew why in the moment I have since forgotten. I don't take notes. I just watch. Misato's angry, though and Ritsuko is just ... overcome with a sense of her own failure or maybe grief or anger at her inability to not repeat her mother's mistakes? There's definitely mom-stuff involved.

I'm aware that these reports are becoming longer and less coherent and also probably less interesting for people to read but once I decide to do a thing I do it. There's definitely a loss of narrative cohesion as the series nears its end, probably due to budget stuff.

It's an episode for people to talk to the EVAs in their giant hangers and Kaworu goes to have a chat with Asuka's robot where chat means 'starts floating and establishes some kind of mental link with the EVA and turns it on'.

In the NERV control centre everyone starts freaking out at the sudden activation of the EVA. IS IT ASUKA? they ask (no, she's shown to be barely conscious in a hospital bed, so someone's caring for her to some degree). NO PLUG, NO PILOT, JUST KAWORU'S PSYCHIC MANIPULATION.

Oh, and Kaworu's an Angel which means an Angel is now using an EVA to punch through ... NERV ... ground ... basement ... heading to where Adam Trevor is, the orange tang ocean, and that's really bad. If he/they succeed ... Third Impact?

Shinji's called in (and Misato hasn't talked to Shinji once about Kaworu even though the last time there was a new surprise EVA pilot it went ... poorly and, well, here we are now) and he's angry and sad and disbelieving (echoing Asuka's disbelief at the beginning). Shinji feels so /betrayed/ and he compares what Kaworu has done to his relationship with his father which is ... a lot to unpack. I suppose the friendship Kaworu offered is the most obvious affection Shinji has been offered by anyone. He wants affection and recognition from Gendo. But any affection, any seeing and noticing of him, must be like water in the desert to Shinji at this point, and if Gendo's greatest betrayal of Shinji's hopes was overriding his will to make Shinji nearly kill Tohji I guess Kaworu, the only character who's shown any interest in being Shinji's friend, being revealed to be an Angel, something Shinji /has/ to kill, is comparable. I'm sorry, Shinji.

Shinji fights Asuka's EVA, controlled by Kaworu, as they descend deeper and deeper into the bowels under NERV, the two EVAs locked into a very cool looking combat that Shinji doesn't want to be involved in, and Misato and her underling confirm plan SELF-DESTRUCT NERV.

"Ode to Joy" is playing throughout this. It feels very natural.

Kaworu gets to where Adam Trevor is, weird and white and bulgy, looking very pregnant and Adam Trevor is also Lilith and they are the parent of humanity while the Angels are maybe less tainted children of god and are siblings to the EVAs?

Shinji throws Asuka's destroyed EVA through the ... wall? into the orange tang ocean zone with Kaworu and Adam Trevor Lilith and since Shinji's the victor of that fight, he seizes Kaworu, who he still does not want to fight, let alone kill. Kaworu's calm about all of this, though. He's ready to die. He expects to die. He also is ready to live but he recognizes this is a situation where for one of them to survive, the other one can't, and he smiles and tells Shinji he wants Shinji to live.

There's once again a really excellent use of the budget and animation limitations the show was hitting at this point, as there's a long, still shot of Shinji's EVA holding Kaworu as "Ode to Joy" soars, the music the only sound for the static shot.

Then the screen flashes and a small shadowy shape sinks into the orange.

Gendo and Rei wear raincoats as blood is hosed off Shinji's EVA.

Shinji sits by Misato, devastated, and tries to express his feelings to her, express his grief and regret. Kaworu was a good person. Kaworu was his friend. Kaworu told Shinji he liked him and Shinji confirms that /no one has ever told him that before/. Shinji feels like he should have died instead of Kaworu. He felt awful about Tohji's near-death at his unwilling hands. Tohji wasn't even really his friend. His grief and culpability in his own loss here is ... huge. And all Misato can say is that Shinji did the right thing in killing his friend. She's the only adult who's been sometimes sympathetic to Shinji, who he's been forging a real connection with, but by this point she's had to deal with so much shit of her own that the fragile pseudo-parent-child relationship between them has shattered. Misato is just another adult who isn't hearing Shinji. He doesn't know why it's changed, he just knows she's telling him killing his friend was right. This concludes my report on Episode 24 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Edit: I know there was a lot of discussion and criticism when Netflix released their new dub and sub, particularly with respect to the line "worthy of his grace" and we can all agree, I think, that Netflix's subtitles are sloppy, their localization flawed. But regardless of the words used, it's clear that Kaworu offers Shinji everything he isn't getting from the rest of the world: affection, understanding, intimacy, a sense of being valued, a sense of safety. Love in whatever form, every form Shinji needs and wants.

I guess I wonder how genuine this offer of love is although I suppose it doesn't matter to Shinji because the betrayal happens, the universe punishes him for risking emotional intimacy, and Kaworu's sincerity doesn't change how awful Shinji is left feeling.

[artemismoon12writes]

Title: Gradients

Daltonfic Big Bang 2020: Week 2, Day 2: Soulmate AU “When was the last time you saw grey?” 

 “When was the last time you saw grey?”

The question took Dwight by surprise. For as long as he could remember, he’d seen in shades of grey. Grey skies with grey clouds; grey houses lining grey streets; grey trees, with grey shadows, underneath which his friend sketched a grey picture. He had known there was colour, his Uncle described it all in lurid details- the blues, the greens, the golds. Dwight knew if he had a favourite colour, maybe it would be red? Or purple? They seemed to have all the good things.

“You said I should use the other one. Dwight, green and red look the same in grey.” His hesitancy gave way to excitement, “This is amazing! I’m so happy for you!”

Reed had been making a still life for art class; Dwight beside him trying not to mess up on his own project. Dwight took a look at the pastels between the two of them; none of them were grey. They hadn’t been grey for ages; but Dwight hadn’t noticed. Muted purples in with a pale green, cut with shades of yellow and peach; Reed’s hands were covered in colours Dwight wouldn’t have been able to distinguish when he was a kid. But today, he could pick out the yellow against Reed’s blazer. When had that happened?

“You met your soulmate!” Reed almost sprang up, but hit his head on the tree trunk. Dwight caught his stumbling friend.

“I must have.” Dwight said cautiously.  

“Must have? You can see colours! I was so overwhelmed when it happened. It was just boom!” Reed gestured, his hands wild. “It was like, bye greyscale. How can you just guess?”

“I don’t know when it happened.” Dwight admitted, staring around them at Dalton’s grounds. He hadn’t noticed. How had he not noticed every fleck and gleam of colour around him? Had it snuck up on him? Every single story he had heard of soulmates described the rush of colour, flooding your vision as you met them, your soulmate. He’d even looked forward to it; he’d wanted to know who it was, the exact moment he’d found that person who would understand him like no one else.

Reed cut through his thoughts. “What do you mean, you don’t know? It’s, it changes everything? I mean, I didn’t think I’d find mine so early, but god Shane practically fainted when he saw colour. I get you may have wanted to keep it private, but, I can tell you the second it happened.”

“I didn’t notice.” Dwight admitted.

He hadn’t noticed. Oh god he hadn’t noticed. What kind of soulmate was he?

“So, you don’t even know who it is?” It dawned on Reed, with a soft look of pity. Dwight didn’t want that. Not from his friend.

“I, I have to go.”

Now that he was aware of it, Dwight couldn’t unsee it. Even his own clothes, purchased by his mother specifically so her son would never look like a mess; black came in so many shades. The shirt was slightly purple, a black verging on green, and grey laces that looked blue in comparison to that grey he had just assumed everything was.

How had he not seen it? When did it change? What changed? Who?

Who was it? Who was it that brightened a world without him even realizing it? No. He couldn’t have one. Not like this.

God it was a trick. It had to be. Some creature that could make it seem like he could see colours. He couldn’t have met his soulmate yet. They’d have mentioned it. It had to be like, a demon, or a fae- oh god what had he done to piss off a fae? Where was his iron? Where was the salt?

His jog turned into a run, scared as he hopped a hedge back to Windsor’s back door. He had to get to safety. There was something out there. His instincts must be so dulled from this spell. What else were they making him see? What else were they trying to fool him into believing?

The inside of Windsor was blue. So blue it hurt his eyes. He had to have noticed how blue it was. It was like a paint bomb went off. Maybe it did and it was another thing he didn’t notice- or was noticing only because of the fae. Shit. Shit!

Dwight sprayed his hand with holy water. Did that help? He threw some of the rock salt from his pocket over his shoulder. That didn’t help either. The rest of his supplies were in his room. He’d be safe there until he could figure this out.

Without a doubt, Dwight knew the world was grey that summer. Sadie’s tears, Lucas’s freckled arms, Morgan’s glasses- all stoney, clear grey when they enveloped him into the warmest hug when he made it back to them alive. Sadie had brushed his hair back, kissing his cheek. Lucas kept holding him when Morgan rambled on, more than he’d ever heard him speak at once. He couldn’t imagine what colours they all were. They’d been grey. What changed?

The stairs flew by, two at a time in a blur of blue and brown. He almost tripped staring at the colours beneath his feet. Why were things they walked on so bright? Who decided to make it all so loud and distracting?

David nearly slammed into him, Dwight had to throw himself against the wall before he bowled the other boy over. He could hear Wes yelling things at him as he rolled and continued; he had to get back to the room. He could figure things out back there. It was safe there.

Padlocks. He had padlocks. Oh iron ones even! Thank you Morgan, you mad genius. The door was unlocked when he got there, but he got to work immediately, diving into the closet to grab the box of locks and incense (labelled by creature it repelled). The lighter was out of his pocket as he started to wrestle with the bolts- no- no wait.

“Hi, what’s wrong this time?” Todd asked from behind him, barely fazed by the armful of supplies. He was leaning back on his chair- his… his grey chair.

“Was that chair always grey?” Dwight asked cautiously.  

Todd caught where he was staring, gaze travelling down then back up to Dwight. He couldn’t interpret what his roommate was thinking. He couldn’t usually though.

“Yes it was. I thought it looked good.”

“So you can see colour?” Dwight asked, clutching the padlocks to his chest. His hands were shaking. Maybe Todd could help. He could help him figure this all out.

Todd nodded slowly, expression unreadable. “For a while now.”

Dwight held his thoughts together. Okay. Okay. Padlocks first. Got to get this figured out. Todd already had a soulmate. Good. Maybe they’d be able to help break this curse. A tricky fae was the last thing he needed right now.

He felt Todd’s eyes on his back as he bolted the door closed. He took the lack of argument as acceptance they’d be locked in at least for the rest of the night. He had told his roommate to keep a supply of food in case of emergencies; he could only hope out of all the advice he’d given Todd, this would have stuck. He felt like he was the only one trying to keep people safe here. His advice wasn’t annoying! It was practical.

“Nails?” Todd asked, opening the window to disperse the strong smell of incense. It was fine for it to go outside; let the fae know he would not be intimidated.

Dwight turned, the iron nails nearly all lined up at the foot of the door. “I think a fae’s cursed me.”

“Really?” Todd sat back down. The window helped, but there was no crosswind to help it along. The writer’s expression was pensive. Dwight assumed that meant explain.

“Yeah.” Dwight set the last nail in place, lining the whole thing with salt. He was nearly out of his supply. Oh what a time! “I can see colours. I think a fae is messing with my perceptions; its either that or a demon, but a demon would have clearer motives.”

“You found your soulmate?” Todd sounded worried.

“No.” Dwight said firmly, standing up and closing the door to the closet. “They’re messing with my mind. I would know if I met them; I wouldn’t just, not?”

The last bit was bitter in his mouth. Because what if he didn’t? No! Besides, the only new people he’d met that term were the freshmen. And they all treated him the same as any other upperclassmen. You’d think if it was one of them the gossip would have spread. They were the worst secret keepers ever. Not a single prank on Stuart had gone right since they started babbling to anyone who’d listen. It was a trick. A nasty trick.

“So it just happened today?” Todd asked.

Dwight shook his head. “I can’t remember when it started. But, I know for sure when I was home in the summer it was all grey.”

“Huh.” Todd said, arms slumped over the armrests of his chair. “Weird.”

Dwight looked around the room; chair aside, everything was still kind of grey in the room. His own side was more colourful than Todd’s for godssake or else he’d suddenly think the curse had lifted. He could see the brightness of the plaid on his Supernatural poster; the jewel colours of his books; the little rainbows that the crystals threw from the daylight on them. Todd’s side in contrast was dull; muted hues with barely a shade to them. Maybe he’d just not changed it up since he found his soulmate; but, he’d had this stuff for ages. Morgan always vowed he’d dress like a clown as soon as he found his soulmate- why only use greys if you could appreciate so much more?  

He heard himself speaking, “When did you start seeing in colour?”

Todd smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were a hazel-green. He’d known that. How did he know that? “That’s a rather personal question, don’t you think?”

“I’m trying to figure it out.” Dwight said, sitting down on his bed with the incense burner, holding it out like the teak would protect him. “Everyone says you see your soulmate, and everything is suddenly focused. That’s how it was for Reed and Shane- they knew right away.”

“It’s a little more complex than that.” Todd said, turning back to his laptop.

“Are you talking about broken connections?” Dwight asked. He’d heard about one-way connections. People shrieking in delight as colour flooded their vision, only to have the other stare at them confused. That had happened to his Uncle Ford. He’d gotten over it, but there was a reason he’d never married. There were a lot of exceptions, like three-way connections, potential connections, or the complication of natural colour-blindness; but his mother said he would never have to worry about it because he and his soulmate would know the moment they laid eyes on each other. But, a broken connection… did that happen to Todd?

“Maybe.” Todd admitted. “It might have happened to you.”

“I’m under a curse. At least since the start of term.” He said, pensive over the possible fae candidates.

“Then I’ve been under a curse since freshman year.” Todd said, starting to type; like he wasn’t really interested in the conversation. He couldn’t hide the regret in his voice, creeping through the nonchalance. “I saw… I saw him when he arrived at Windsor, and I have to say I didn’t expect it. But, well, even after getting to know him he still saw grey.”

“Who was it? Do I have to kick their ass?” Dwight sprang up, “I bet they’re the fae! No way you don’t have a two-way bond! You’re awesome!”

Todd paused, looking away. “Yeah, no. I don’t think it’s them.”

“Well then, I’ll get Sadie to curse them! Or I’ll find the real fae; they’re probably holding your soulmate’s colour hostage.” Dwight declared. “It’s probably something like that.”

Todd shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ve got everything under control. I’ve got these contacts; they make it all-”

“No! It’s not fair.” Dwight knelt down next to Todd’s desk. “Whoever is doing this to you, I promise I’ll figure it out. Because I refuse to believe you have a broken connection. It’s not right! You deserve someone who cares about you; who gets you like a soulmate is supposed to. That’s the whole point! So whenever you’re lonely, there’s someone you can go to. Or whenever you’re happy, there’s someone who can make you laugh even louder. Or whenever you’re scared, they’re there to make you feel brave. And like, you do that all for me and you’re just my roommate- whoever they are, they’re missing out!”

Todd stared at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“What?” What. What?

Todd looked between mad and frustrated, raising his hands from the keyboard before closing the lid. “Just, ah, just leave me alone okay? I don’t want to talk about it. If you’re convinced this is a fae, you have Trinny’s email. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But-”

“I don’t want to talk!” Todd snapped, grabbing his laptop and going into the washroom. “If you want to pee, go out the window for all I care.”

The lock clicked. Dwight looked between the open window and the two locked doors. What had he said?

No matter. He had a fae to hunt. Whoever Todd’s soulmate was, he would have to wait to put them on Sadie’s curse list until after he got the colour out of his eyes. He took another look at the greys of Todd’s side, a soothing balm of soft colourlessness in the confusion; it really was almost like he could see greys again; remember any loneliness was not permanent. He’d find his real soulmate, and so would Todd. He was sure of it.

[clarasimone]

Part 1 and 2 of @Wizfrog’s Dany x Jorah fanfic challenge

You recall  @wizfrog‘s fanfic challenge ? The one I foolishly and daringly answered ? Well thanks to a few of you, I’ve found the courage to come up with part 2 of my 3-part wee fanfic.... It’s really not polished at all, and english is still not my first language, argh etc etc...

But to recap @wizfrog prompt:

Small Request

Can anyone write this somewhat crack jorleesi fic for me, pls - Jorah gets concussed, and when he wakes up, he doesn’t remember who Daenerys is or much of the last X years.

Extra special 🙏🏼 if at some point when he and Dany are talking through things, Jorah sees a look in her eyes and asks if they were lovers. 👀

Anyway - would be a fun way to bring her face to face with certain things about her relationship with Jorah.

@lodessa @toas-tea @clarasimone @makimurakaori @sanziene

PART 1 (a did a few corrections)

Her knight was lying in her bedchamber, on her bed that is, where she had asked them to put his bloodied body. Winterfell’s maester had suggested the infirmary but Daenerys wouldn’t hear of it. Ser Jorah had risked his life to bring back a wight, a foolish endeavor if there was ever one, and he had even saved Jon’s life… Therefore there was not one living soul who would have kept her from tending to her general’s wounds herself. It was the least she could do for him. Her brave, foolhardy knight. She knew why he did this of course. She left him no choice really:  what else could he do to prove his valor and devotion and love to her if she kept insisting on this distance between them, if she kept bringing to her bed these younger men, unworthy for the most part, even Jon, a crucial political ally, to be sure, and someone who stirred something deep in her… but a soul mate ? No, of course not. Then again, was there such a thing as soul mates ?  Strange thoughts to entertain but Daenerys found herself unable to focus on anything else while tending to Jorah’s wounds, amidst a whole array of helping hands… until all sounds faded away. Her hand holding a wet cloth to Jorah’s forehead, Daenerys froze for a second, her eyes taking in her knight’s manly form, ensconced in her white sheets, his head resting on her very pillow. He looked like he’d always belonged there. A maid brushed her aside and broke the spell, irritating Daenerys.

“All of you, leave now.”

Secured that Jorah was out of danger, Daenerys wanted to tend to him herself. Alone. It should be just the two of them, the way it had been in the desert. Oh why weren’t they still in Essos ? Daenerys’ thoughts had been tormenting her ever since her arrival in Westeros – was her quest what it should be ? Were her actions legitimate ? Did the people here even want “The Wheel’ to be broken ? etc… and she discovered she only experienced true peace while in the presence of her knight. She would turn to him -he was never far; he belonged at her side- and she’d look into his eyes, and she’d know. She’d know if she was right or foolish, in danger or safe. He simply had to smile at her with his eyes and…

"You came back.”

Daenerys was startled out of her reverie by Jorah’s deep, scorched voice… and there they were, those deep blue eyes looking at her with such… wonder. She would have thought their expression strange, given time to reflect, but seeing as Jorah was trying to raise himself out of bed, she applied herself to setting him back down on her pillows. Which proved to be harder than expected. Even injured, her knight was a force of nature.

“Jorah… please !” Had she often called him by his first name, without referring to him by his title first ? Did it matter ?… “Of course, I did. I would not leave you behind, not when…” 

Jorah lifting his hand to her cheek stopped her mid-sentence. “You are more beautiful than when last I saw you. How is that possible ?”…

She should have gasped, or chastised him, but she did neither. Transfixed by Jorah’s amorous, immodest, completely open glance, all Daenerys found herself able to do was to wet her parched lips. She wasn’t even sure she understood or even recognized her knight. These words. The unguarded expression in his eyes. He’d never dared look at her this way, not even that day in Essos when…. and, oh Gods, now he was caressing her cheek. And before she could stop herself, Daenerys found herself leaning into the caress and putting her own hand lightly over her knight’s, her fingers shaking a bit. Yet she had to find her voice again, her queenly voice with a dash of jest in it, to break this strange spell…

“Jorah, you’re injured and you are speaking nonsense.” Taking Jorah’s hand in hers to squeeze it, Daenerys endeavored to push his frame back down on the bed, but Jorah gently fought her, pulling her hand to his chest to whisper close to her face: “How… How is it that you are here by my side though surely I am still not worthy of your grace ?”

Gods, what is happening ? Fighting the urge to run away, Daenerys found herself whispering to her knight: “I have long forgave you, sweet Ser, you know this. Now lie. Rest. I command it.” But Jorah wouldn't have any of it. “If this is true, if indeed I have redeemed myself in your eyes, then tell me… why ? Why do you continue to break my heart so ?”

W-What ? Daenerys feels her knees buckle from under her and she needs to lean on the bed, her hand reaching for Jorah’s face to search his eyes. Something is amiss. This is not right. But Daenerys can’t fathom what. She can only hear herself answer in a shaky voice: “Jorah, shall I tell you of all the many nights I cursed myself for turning you away, for banishing you…”

“Then take me back !” Oh what fervor in these words as Jorah once more finds the strength to pull himself up on one of his elbow, his face just inches away, his free hand bringing Daenerys’ fingers to his lips to kiss them fervently. “Take me back and let me into our bedchamber.”

And that’s when she finally understands. Ser Jorah, her knight, her forever knight, is not addressing her, but his wife, his long-gone wife Lynesse. And with the reckoning, a searing pain, like a dagger through her heart strikes her where she stands.

PART 2

It takes Daenerys a few seconds to find her bearings and her voice back, and when she manages to raise her eyes to Jorah again, she's unable to hide the hurt in them... though she doubts he can see it: her knight sees past her, her knight doesn't even recognize her. 

And why does this hurt so immensely ?

"Jorah..."

"My love ?"

Gods, please make him stop... Daenerys shuts her eyes and opens them again. She has to find a way to not let this get to her. Jorah is not himself; he's injured. This is a momentary laps. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that all this time, it was Lynesse that held his secret heart captive. And that she, Daenerys, was but a pale surrogate, a reminder of what he had lost and maybe could taste anew, if she'd let him. But she hadn't. She should be glad she hadn't, then why wasn’t she ?... Stop it. Stop it now, Daenerys is silently screaming to herself.

"My love, what is it ?" These words again. And his voice. Had she really listened to his voice before ?...  If this does not stop, she will go mad. But it doesn't stop because now his hand is moving to her forearm. Daenerys looks at Jorah's bruised hand caressing her skin, and it's giving her goosebumps. His palm is so warm, his whole body radiates warmth. Jorah is so close to her again... Raising her eyes to his, she feels her breath catch: How could Lynesse let go of this man who loved her so ? Who looked at her like this, every day ?

"No one has ever looked at me that way," Daenerys hears herself say out loud, "the way you do now. I wish... I wish I had let you before." 

Confused, something wavers in Jorah who can only smile and... Oh but she knows that smile, the bashful smile he gifts her from time to time, and recognizing her knight in that instant somehow gives Daenerys the strength she needs to navigate through the charade which fate has imposed on them. At least until Jorah falls asleep. She sets both her hands on her knight's naked shoulders, marveling briefly at the sinewed muscles underneath the scars left by the Greyscale, the malady he would not have incurred had she not banished him... and wincing inwardly at the thought, she gently sets Jorah back unto her pillows, fluffing them against the headboard of her bed, all the while feeling her patient's amorous glance following her every move.

"And no one has ever fussed over me the way you do now," Jorah whispers, one of his hand reaching out to brush along the silk of Daenerys' garment.

"Haven't I ?" The question comes out rather abruptly, and Daenerys checks herself. She meant to speak as Lynesse but the question applies to her too, and she finds she despises both Lynesse and herself. She also realizes, with a start, that is jealous. Jealous of the woman she is embodying just now in the eyes of her knight. Her Knight. Hers.  “Have I never fussed over you, my...darling ?” The word makes Daenerys blush. 

"No, and you know so." Now it is Jorah's turn to sound and look hurt. And Daenerys feels it deeply. Moved, and feeling guilty, both as Lynesse and as herself, she reaches out and takes Jorah's hands in hers.

"I have been horrid to you, haven’t I ?" There, she said it. Who knew play-acting could let one completely free to utter the truth ? 

Jorah's face twitches slightly, the hurt there even more visible now, but he doesn't say anything. 

"Jorah, I wish... I wish I could undo everything." And that, again, is the truth. The whole truth. Years and years of unrequited love she wishes she could undo. Nights in Essos they will never get back. What has she done ? Is it too late for them ?... Tears are welling in Daenerys’ eyes. "I have made such a mess of things." She steals a glance towards Jorah and the love she sees again in his eyes just cuts through her, making her ravenous for that very sentiment that is cruelly not directed at her. Love me. Love... 

Daenerys doesn't hear the end of her inner scream because all of a sudden she feels herself engulfed in the warmest embrace possible, her bear's strong arms pulling her to his breast. "Hush, hush... My love..." Holding on for dear life, Daenerys buries her face in the nook of Jorah's shoulder, one of her hand clinging to his neck, her cheeks brushing desperately against the gruff of his beard, to better feel him, to mark her skin with him. She wants to put her open mouth to his skin but if she does, she won't simply kiss him, she'll sink her teeth in his skin so as to never let go. Daenerys never thought possible such an unleashing of emotions. She is crying in her knight's arms and it frightens her. 

"Shhhhh, my love, I am here. There is nothing to forgive." Between every passionate utterance, Jorah kisses a part of Daenerys' face: her eyelids, the tears on her cheeks, her temples, her hair, the line of her jaw, a trail of adoring kisses which makes her breathless. "We shall go back to Bear Island. I will carve us a bed in which I will cherish... and worship... and ravish you... every day... and every night."

"Don't think, just hold on to his words, just get lost in them. Believe them to be meant for you," is all Daenerys can think about, her thoughts as feverish as her skin wherever Jorah kisses her.

"I have seen us in my dreams, in our Keep, your eyes so different from before, like the rarest of gemstones and so bright with laughter... Love, look at me." Shaking, Daenerys raises her eyes to Jorah's who cups her face in his hands to bring her lips next to his, his next words brushing over her panting mouth : "Listen to me. There is only us now. You need but wish it so."

There is only us now. By the Gods, why not ? Why not embrace this folly ? Let this "us" be him and I, right now, before he wakes up, before I am Queen again. Finding all her beautiful, regal strength back, Daenerys shifts in Jorah's arms to be the one embracing him, her face over his, her silky form pressing against his torso, her hands snaking their way to the back of his neck, until with one final look into her knight's adoring, pleading eyes she presses her swollen lips to his, moaning her consent.

(Part 3, if lucky, will be written on the plane tomorrow !)