#do ants have integrity

[vainvaiheart]

behind every sandy man is a woman rooting for his downfall

[farfromstrange]

‘I Love You In Every Universe’

Chapter One: I Bet On Losing Dogs

Masterlist | List Of Installments

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Mutant!Reader

Summary: The day you lost Matt, you lost everything. There is no moving on from what Spider-Man put you through, and you plan to execute your revenge.

Warnings: ANGST, Major Character Death, blood, suicidal thoughts, mutant!Reader, evil Peter Parker, 18+ because of darker themes, multiverse (No Way Home Era), slight AU

Word Count: 5.8k

A/n: FINALLY! This took me way too long to edit. Today, we’re setting the scene for future installments, but you’re not getting all the details, even if the first 3000 words of this are somewhat a flashback. So, if you think that there is too little dialogue for a Prologue, that’s probably why. This chapter is integral to the future installments.

Read Me On AO3!

The world was silent when he died—an endless pit of nothingness, and above a sky full of stars. 

You don’t remember if it was raining. The moon was hiding behind a thick cloud, and the stars were burning, but you can’t remember if you were drowning in a river of tears or if it was the sky that broke that night. Everything else about that night, you remember quite vividly.

Hell’s Kitchen had become a battleground. The city lay at your feet in shambles; Wilson Fisk had become mayor after you tried hard to stop him, and the world fell apart. But it was his second in command, Peter Parker, who gave new meaning to the word ‘notorious’. Spider-Man infested your home like a parasite, slipping through your finger like dry sand. He knew what he was doing. He and Fisk held the city in the palms of their dirty hands, slowly crushing it like mealy little ants. 

When you met Matt Murdock, it was years back when things were still better, yet they were never perfect. He found you broken at the side of the road—or that was what it felt like, anyway. 

From the start, you have always been different. In a world where everyone wanted to be someone, your uniqueness painted a target on your back. Your nature was misunderstood by most; they either wanted to be you, or they were vying for your inevitable downfall. 

You stood out of every crowd. The target on your back remained no matter how hard you tried to turn yourself into a shrouded mystery. Eventually, you had to start running. You operated out of the dark like a criminal—a vigilante, and a mind-reader who could set the world on fire if she only tried hard enough. 

For most of your life, you were hunted. Scientists wanted to run experiments on you, tie you to a gurney, and study your brain until they understood how your abilities worked. Freaks wanted to sell you for millions to equally disturbed individuals. 

You couldn’t take it anymore. You were merely a scared child who grew into a terrified teenager who didn’t know any better: dead parents, dead everything, and a mind built to read those of others. 

Back then, your only instinct was blatant survival, so you ran. You ran fast and you ran far, an orphan so many would have rather seen dead than operating in the dark, but oh, you had to become something to feel like you were worth something.

When you landed in New York, beaten and alone with a bone-crushing fear of the future, the Devil found you, taking you home with him. He saved you. He picked up your pieces, glued you back together, and wrapped you in a protective glaze. All the heartbreak you’d endured, and the trauma you’d suffered getting there seemed worth it whenever he held you in his arms. 

You were Matt Murdock’s world, and he was yours. He showed you heaven and hell; he saved you from the purgatory you pushed yourself into and got you settled with a one-way ticket to paradise. After all these years, you finally found your salvation in a person.

He was your broken Catholic boy with a heart made out of gold. The universe didn’t deserve him, and yet he gave the world everything he had. He sacrificed his soul to God and his city. He prayed, he begged, and he fought hard for what he believed right at the time. 

Matt saw himself as the Devil; embodied him, too. Though in your eyes, he was an angel with an invisible halo only you could feel in every fiber of your being. His thoughts, his heart, and his soul; he gave it all to you.

You cherished him with all you could give him. It wasn’t much, but he loved you more than anyone had ever before. You were more than a mutant, more than a broken girl at the side of the road, and more than a potential test subject. With him, you finally learned what living was like—what it was supposed to feel like to be human.

The world tried to clip your wings. They took away your voice and your ability to breathe. Matt brought you back to life. He was not the love of your life; Matt Murdock was your soulmate. You lived for him. You existed for him. He was your heart, your soul, and the reason for your survival. 

It wasn’t healthy, how dependent you were on him. He made you see colors you couldn’t see with anyone else. You loved him fiercely. You loved him in a way that was pure agony. And you loved him in a way that you knew would screw you up forever.

It didn’t cross your mind that you could ever lose him. To you, Matt Murdock was immortal. He was the man you could see yourself growing old with. 

You got married in a small ceremony at the courthouse—it wasn’t just for love, it was also convenient, but he forever tied himself to you as you tied yourself to him with a golden wedding band—and you talked about maybe having children one day. A mini-you and a mini-him in your little farmhouse in the suburbs. For that, he would have left Hell’s Kitchen once it was safe enough to do so.

It was a foolish dream now that you think about it; you were foolish to think that happiness would ever be in the cards for you, but then he kissed you again, good morning and good night and in between, and all you could see was a sea of roses. 

He walked through fire (sometimes literally) for you and came back on the other side, hardly always unscathed but always alive, and always with a smile on his chapped lips. He crawled home to you even when he was broken. He crawled home to you when he was full of adrenaline. And he crawled home to you when he thought he couldn’t or wouldn’t anymore, both mentally and physically. He knew he could always come home to you, his best friend, his lover, his confidant, and soon enough, his wife.

You stitched his wounds and kissed his scars to breathe new life into him. You brought him back from the edge. You gave him something to live for. He told you that you saved him, and hearing that after getting on your knees every night, thanking him for the same thing, did something to you. It healed you from the inside out.

You kept him alive the same way he did you. You stood strong together against your enemies every night, fighting as a team. He taught you how to fight, and you taught him how to connect. Matt didn’t know what it was like not to push someone he loved away, but you made sure he understood. He connected to himself; he connected to his past, present, and future with you, and that made him a better man. 

You lost and you won, but at least you had each other to fall back on. You did it together. You did everything together. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Husband and wife. Lady Red and Daredevil.

The fragile little yet oh-so-big thing you had was raw, vulnerable, yet the most tragically beautiful love affair you could have possibly had the pleasure of calling yours. And pleasure, you had plenty. Love, you had plenty. You had everything until everything was ripped from your bare hands—until the very thing sustaining you shattered on a white cloth, spilling crimson blood everywhere, and what you swore could only be pried from your cold, dead hands slipped away in a moment in time. 

You both died, in a way, but it was Matt’s body you held as he took his last breaths in the dead of a hot summer’s night. You can’t remember if it rained, but he was certainly drowning in your tears.

“He’s going to kill you,” you warned him. “Parker and Fisk are out to destroy you. If Spider-Man sees you with your guard down, he won’t hesitate.”

Matt slid his skilled fingers into his pair of leather gloves. They were worn down, but they smelled like him. You could feel the unease sizzling in the pit of your stomach—a parasite. 

“I have to do this,” he told you, his voice laden. “The bastard is ruining innocent lives in my city. I can’t stand idly by and let it happen.”

You weren’t fighting, but the statement still hung deafeningly loud in the room, hanging itself from the ceiling with a noose that was threatening to take you down with it. 

“He challenged you because he knows you’d do anything—” 

He cut  you off, “He’s underestimating me.”

You stared into his eyes. It hurt. It hurt so much. The dark cloud was heading straight for you, but he couldn’t sense it. “You almost died the last time you came face-to-face with him,” you tried again.

“So did you,” he said. “Fisk is nothing without Spider-Man behind him, and those two have done enough damage already.”

“Matt, please—”

“I have to, sweetheart. This is the only way.”

“There is always another way.”

He shook his head. “Not this time. The city is about to fall. If I let them win, there is no coming back from this. You know that.”

“At least let me come with you then,” you said. You begged him to listen, but he wouldn’t see how worried you were. “We’ve been through hell together. We can fight this war together, too.”

“No,” Matt insisted. “He will see an easy target. You mean too much to me. Spider-Man is gonna use you to get through to me. I can do this. You just have to trust me.”

“I trust you. It’s him I don’t.”

“I’m gonna talk to him, and if I have to fight him again for the whole fucking world to see, so be it.”

The words slipped you before you could stop them, cutting through the air like a sharp-edged sword. “What if you die trying?” 

He stopped dead in his tracks.

“I don’t want to lose you!” you cried. 

You had not cried in front of him often before that night, but your walls cracked, and you broke. 

Matt cradled your face as he whispered, begging you to listen, “You won’t. I promise. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

The invisible string pulled you tighter together. Fear, anger, and desperation; he felt so many things—so many things running deeper than the ocean—but you swallowed them. 

“I’m not okay with this,” you murmured.

“I know. Here–” he guided your hands to his face, “Feel me,” he said.

You remember gasping when the floodgates opened. “I always feel you.” 

You stroked his delicate cheeks. He was here, home with you; why couldn’t he stay like that forever? Why did you have to let him go? Past, present, and future began to blur. 

I love you. He tuned out all other thoughts so you could hear him.

He was praying. He was hoping. Only a handful of times had he felt this way. You were so tightly interlaced that you could feel all of him without even trying, but that night, you tried. That night, he tuned out all of his self-deprecating thoughts. He allowed the silence of your connection to engulf him—for the city to disappear, and he allowed you in. 

I love you so much. Do you hear me? You’re everything to me. I love you.

Those three words weighed heavy like bricks on your heart. 

“Remember, three knocks,” he said aloud. “Don’t open for anyone else.”

“Three knocks,” you whispered in agreement. 

Three knocks like three words: I love you.

You read his mind, swallowing the words, but a big part of you wanted to spit them back out. You didn’t want to hear it. The universe was sending you a warning sign. 

Matt exhaled. He cupped your hands in his. The connection deepened, the string pulled tighter, and you became one. That night was the first night you saw glimpses of the future, and you didn’t want to accept it. You were such a fool to think everything could ever be fucking alright, both for you and for this magnificent force of a man you chose to call home—because home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling, and often enough, it’s a person.

He nuzzled his nose against yours. He kissed you. Softly, gently, passionately. You kissed him like you knew it would be the last time.

“I love you,” he repeated. 

The red flags waved, but you looked away. “I don’t want to say it back because you have to come back to me,” you confessed, “and this feels too much like a goodbye.”

He forced you to look at him instead. “Say it back, baby.”

“I love you,” you caved.

You shouldn’t have. You should have put up more of a fight. 

I will always come back to you. Cross my heart. He crossed his heart, but he hoped too much to die. Perhaps in not saying it out loud, he thought the truth would hurt less.

You refused to believe it until time had run out. You refused to cave until it happened. And when it happened, the city, for the first time since you’d arrived there, went completely quiet.

You followed him. Of course, you did. After a few hours of pacing the floor, you followed him. He was still in your head. You heard him from across the city, his thoughts loud and clear, and you could feel his pain like an inferno lighting up the night sky. 

When you arrived on that godforsaken rooftop though, you could only watch in horror as Spider-Man lifted the love of your life toward the sky. He wouldn’t accept your bargain. You offered yourself instead of him, but no; Peter Parker was not in the mood for bargaining. 

He lifted Matt toward the sky, and he drilled the dagger right through his chest. 

“No!” you screamed again. 

Silence. 

His blood ran through your fingers like quicksand, and sitting there, cradling Matt’s chest to yours as his heartbeat slowly faded into oblivion, you knew the end was near. The world could be so fucking unfair. You both died, but it was only his heart that stopped. You lost him that night, and your entire world stopped in an instant. 

You liked it better when he was angry with you. When he was loud, when he was laughing, even when he was just being sarcastic. You liked him better when he was alive. He turned into a ghost in your arms, forever and all eternity, and you fell face-first into the abyss. 

Maybe it was raining that night. Maybe you were being buried under the weight of your guilt and the never-ending flow of your tears. 

“I can’t…” you sobbed, tracing his cold cheek as the rain fell around you. “I can’t feel you.”

His heart stopped beating, and the invisible string pulverized. You watched it as it went with the wind. Without him. Without you. 

You screamed until your lungs gave out. Then, silence settled in. 

The night was quiet when he died; nothing but a sky full of stars and the endless black pit of death above and below you. 

The blood and his missing pulse weren’t the worst part, by far; the worst part was that you could no longer feel him, and that thought won’t ever not haunt you. 

You were certain that night. When you lost him, and you screamed your heart out, praying to a God you’ve never believed in, you swore to yourself that you would avenge him.

You were going to kill Peter Parker, and nothing in this world could ever stop you from watching this miserable motherfucker bleed to death. 

The bed shakes violently as you awaken. Dreams, so many dreams. Your nights are far from peaceful. They haven’t been for weeks. Months. What day is it? You don’t remember. 

Nightmares follow you like hunters after a fox. Your pajamas stick to your skin, and you’re sweating even though it is spring, and spring doesn’t have hot enough temperatures for you to be sweating quite like this. When you pull the comforter away in a sudden panic, the wetness seeping into your skin, there is nothing but white. No blood, no tears, just gaping emptiness in the farmhouse.

You pant heavily, dragging your nails across your skin. Your fingernails are tinted a charcoal black. In your heart, there had once been a bright red glow—like a ruby crystal sustaining your soul. You used it to channel other people’s thoughts. You could read them, you could hear them, and you could feel them. That Ruby has gone out now though; it has turned into a black smoke threatening to overtake anything it comes in contact with. 

The sun isn’t strong enough to break through the gray clouds. As you step out into the garden that stretches around your home, a gentle wind brushes through the bare branches of the dead trees. The wood is starting to splinter, turning hollow as sickness after sickness runs rampant through nature. 

You trace a finger over the poison ivy that has grown over the tombstone. The green fades, turning into a rotten brown. It dries out, and it dies right before your eyes, as do the roses you have been keeping in a vase ever since you laid a finger on the last bouquet. 

He liked the smell of roses, but you hated the look of it until Matt died, and suddenly, everything looked and smelled like a field of roses, reminding you of him. He was your daisy, your sunflower, setting fire to your freezing soul. He was sunshine, you were midnight rain. He liked to claim differently, but you wouldn’t let him. You may have been his sunshine, but out of the both of you, he shone the brightest. 

The poison ivy dies, and if you even manage to kill a plant with the word ‘poison’ in its name, what does that say about you? What has become of you; plotting a stranger’s death and killing the nature around you as you dive into books about mind-reading and dark magic to understand who you truly are? Dark magic sounds like a story out of a piece of fiction, but it’s far from that. 

You’ve known of your ability to manipulate the human mind ever since you discovered the creature hidden within you, the one who could touch another human being and see their thoughts so clearly. The one time you tried to manipulate someone, you caused them indescribably agony. You ruined their life. You broke them. You made them complicit and took all they were away from them, turning their fragile mind into ashes. That day, your fingers turned charcoal for the first time. 

If you try hard enough, you can kill him—Peter Parker. He took your husband and your city, now sitting in his ivory tower, overlooking the damage he’s done. He killed everyone and everything, even Wilson Fisk. He has taken the people of Hell’s Kitchen hostage, but no one has dared to make a move just yet, not since their beloved Daredevil disappeared off the face of the earth. With him, his Lady Red went as fast as she had come. 

You don’t want to fix what Spider-Man destroyed; you can’t get back what he took, nor do you want to, and the city doesn’t mean anything without Matt in it. 

You have to be the monster to kill another monster, only then you can join your husband in his tomb. Didn’t you vow to stay together, even in death? 

The city can burn, for all you care, but first, Peter Parker has to die. 

You scratch at the dirt in the engraving of his name. Matthew Michael Murdock. 1982 — 2023. Beloved husband and hero. 

You hate this. You hate that his grave is in your backyard, but this was the only place you knew his corpse would be safest. No one can touch him here, and you can talk to him, pretending you can still feel him. If you focus hard enough, you can still hear his voice in your head, telling you to move on. 

How could you though? How could you abandon all you’ve been through? You can fight, you can win or lose, but nothing will ever be the same again. And it is far from worth it to stay alive when he isn’t. You’ve made your decision; whether or not you’ve come to peace with it, that’s another story entirely. 

“Tonight is the night,” you murmur to the gravestone. Of course, you don’t receive an answer. 

Lately, you have been swearing to yourself you wouldn’t cry anymore, that there are no more tears left to shed, but every day, you end up crying anyway. It’s an endless cycle of despair.

You wipe your cheeks, untangling the chain that holds your golden wedding band close to your chest from around your neck. Gently, you guide it to your lips and press a kiss against the ring. 

“I love you,” you whisper.

For when you meet again in another life. 

You dig a small hole into the dry dirt where, six feet under, Matt is resting now. He always told you he would end up in hell when he died. You were never particularly religious before you met him, and when he struggled with his faith while you were together, you believed even less in an all-merciful God. Now though, with Matt gone and the world on the verge of falling apart and crushing you under its weight as you approach the biggest challenge of your life, the thought of ending up in an eternal life of nothingness after death—the thought of there being nothing but mindless darkness, no body, soul—scares you too much. Imagining the pits of hell or paradise with the love of your life, and reuniting with him, is a prospect you would rather see when you close your eyes than a world on fire. 

The necklace lands in the hole, and you cover it up. You couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of your ring before, but you won’t risk carrying it when you do what you are about to do.

Tonight, Peter Parker is going to show himself to all of New York City as the new mayor in all of his Spider-Man glory. He begged for you to come out, and he told the city he would be merciful in prosecuting you for the crimes you committed in the past alongside Daredevil. When you come out tonight though, you won’t surrender yourself. You will use the platform he is giving you and you will fight as you reveal him to Hell’s Kitchen and show the world who he is. You will tell Matt’s story, even if it’s the last thing you do. 

You have been burning for him for the longest time, and the flame is about to go out with a bang. 

That night, you put on the red suit Melvin made for you years ago before he lost his mind for what might be the last time. It has holes from where the moths dug their teeth into. The piece around the waist is starting to fade in color, and the leather is worn out, but it reminds you of simpler times. Better times. The black of your fingertips matches the lining of your outfit, and that’s all you need to feel the power sizzle deep within you.

You don’t have to remember the weather report because you can feel the rain soaking your skin through the fabric. The air smells salty, and it tastes the same on your cracked lips. Tonight, you will be Lady Red for the last time. Until the bitter end, you have sworn yourself. Matt did the same thing. You have to do him proud.

You make your way from that little farmhouse—your broken red castle—to the familiar streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Destruction surrounds you. The news didn’t do justice to what Peter has done to the city you once loved. But no one loved it more than Matt Murdock. 

Your fists clench at your sides. Oh, you want to tear this man limb by limb and feed him to the dogs. 

It starts with a low rumbling beneath your boots. You don’t pay much mind to it at first. You hide out on a rooftop across the courthouse. The spotlights are on, and he’s standing there at the podium, looking as though he is so proud of himself for ruining so many lives. You don’t usually experience joy when hurting people, but you will savor watching the life drain from Peter’s lifeless eyes. 

Your hands clench around Matt’s batons. The metal is heavy but flexible. You click your nails against them. Every move needs to be meticulously calculated, but tonight, the barons will remain in the holsters on your thighs. You won’t need them. You won’t need anything but your bare hands. 

You’re going back to your roots tonight.

The ground moves slightly, only a few inches. You could have missed it if you weren’t crouching to get a better look at the world below you. You catch yourself on the ledge, a frown finding its way on your face. 

“What the f–” you shake your head. Since when does thunder shake the ground?

You seem to be the only one who notices, or Peter Parker is better at brainwashing his decibels than you expected. He was born to be a dictator. His presence turned your fairytale into a dystopian tragedy.

“Tonight,” he says into his microphone, “is the last chance for Lady Red to reveal herself for a lesser sentence. A new era is on the horizon. I am your mayor, and I am Spider-Man. Without me, you would be nothing. Daredevil couldn’t save you. Wilson Fisk couldn’t save you. But I can, and after tonight, we will start anew. For this is the era of real heroes as we rebuild this city from the ground up, and we turn the City of New York, including Hell’s Kitchen, into its own world. Starting with the arrest of the criminal who is Daredevil’s accomplice Lady Red. I hope for her sake she will show herself tonight. If not, we will find her, and she will suffer the full extent of the consequences of her actions. That includes the Death Penalty.”

You land gracefully, catching yourself with your hand on the asphalt. The crowd parts with a gasp, and you finally stare into his eyes. 

After he drilled that dagger through Matt’s heart, he told you, “You will always be a monster, never a God.”

You deserve nothing, he thought. It has stuck with you since that night. Growing up, it was the only thing you heard. You were nothing but trash. A disgrace. A monster. What will they say when they see that you have finally become what they feared so much? 

You will burn down whatever is left of the world, including him. God knows you want to. 

Magic pulsates in the atmosphere like a growing spell in a small shoe box. The air vibrates, and the ground shakes again. This isn’t your doing, but the sudden charge that fills your veins as adrenaline sustains you. Your eyes glow red. This is who you were born to be. 

“I heard you were looking for me,” you declare. 

He doesn’t look surprised to see you. “Ah, just like clockwork,” he murmurs. “Are you going to make this hard on all of us or are you here to finally surrender yourself?” 

You purse your lips, playing with the energy between your fingers. “I came to destroy you.” Each step toward him on the big marble steps feels like a mile, and the crowd starts to move further back, dispersing in an attempt to save themselves. Most of them are eager to watch though. What has he done to them? 

“Destroy me?” Peter laughs, addressing the crowd again, “You see who you’ve been calling a hero all this time? This mutant? Look at her!”

All eyes are on you. They’re whispering. They’re speculating. Their thoughts overlap in disarray, and you’re drowning in a sea of judgment. They are trying to tear you down like sharks. You’re leaking blood, and God, they are angry. But it’s not you they’re angry at.

“You call me a mutant,” you say, “but wasn’t it you who was bit by a radioactive spider?”

His smile fades. 

“You are Spider-Man, no?”

“You are a wannabe hero with unregulated powers,” he snaps. His voice roars through the speakers, and the mood in the crowd starts to shift.

The ground vibrates again, stronger this time. You can’t be the only one feeling the quakes, but everyone else seems unmoved. They’re too focused on both of you to notice anything else, and you should do the same. However, the energy doubles and you are closer to bursting than ever. Something is happening, and you have no control over it.

Peter sneers. “You’re a failure,” he calls your name, “just like your husband!”

You stop dead in your tracks. Your eyes darken. “If you want to enforce the death penalty on me, Parker,” you growl, “why don’t you do it yourself?” 

Peter taps his chest, and his suit transforms into shades of black and spider webs. At that moment, panic erupts. People start running, but you tune them out.

The air begins to smell sour. Burnt. It is so high the pain consumes you whole. He doesn’t have to touch you to bring you to your knees, but looking up, you realize that it wasn’t Spider-Man who infused your ears with such a high frequency.

Someone is uttering a powerful spell, you can hear his voice in your head as he thinks of several names all over the place. Time passes by in a flash. Hours, days, weeks, and months. The universe falls out of control. The beeping picks up and you sink deeper into the ground.

You swear then and there that the sky starts to rip in two. The sky resembles a nasty cut on your forehead, a pair of hands ripping the cut further apart, causing the blood to pour out in rivers.

One of the cuts swallows you. With a scream, you fall through several rollercoasters passing by violet stars. 

The cut is a portal; one moment, you are flying through the sky at the highest possible speed, and the next, you hit the ground hard.

It’s not raining anymore. The sun shines down on you, and the heat creeps up your skin like tiny ants. The pain finally releases, but your head is still spinning. So many feelings, so many voices, and so many thoughts threaten to overwhelm you.

Not even an LSD trip hits that bad. You lazily open your heavy eyes to find not the courthouse but the New York skyline right before you.

You look down at your shaky hands. The charcoal is gone. The power in your veins feels different, all-consuming, but in no way bad. You take a deep breath. Even the oxygen tastes different. 

The world stops spinning, and you finally take a look around. A car honks, an SUV heading straight for your wobbly frame.

You’re in the middle of a road. What is it? A freeway.

Oh, shit!

You jump aside, hitting the sidewalk with a loud thud.

“Watch out, bitch!” the driver shouts out of his window. 

Where once used to be the courthouse, you are met with a street in the middle of downtown Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Stores line the side of the street. Tourists, foreigners, and those who are native to the city pass by you, and their gasps and whispers sound so different from the automatic voices Peter Parker raised them to be.

“Oh, no,” you breathe out. “Oh, no, no, no!” The air is getting thinner. 

“What are you thinking about, hm?” he asked into the darkness of the room. 

His heartbeat aligned with yours. His calloused fingertips traced your bare skin. You were in heaven. Beautiful, sinful heaven.  

His jawline appeared even sharper in the colorful lights from the billboard outside. His skin glowed white—paler than usual, even. You could stare into his eyes forever, such a beautiful hazel with hints of forest green. Perfect eyebrows, perfect lips. They bowed at the top, so kissable.

He pressed them to your bare shoulder blade, down your spine. The butterflies danced crazy in your tummy.

“You’re distracted,” he hummed again.

You chuckled, looking over your shoulder at the beautiful man in bed with you.

“Can’t help it when I’m with you,” you remember saying. 

Matt offered you his signature smirk. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I quite like the view.”

“And when I do this?” He trailed another finger down your sensitive spine. 

You shuddered. “That, too.”

He did it again. “Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”

“Thinking,” you said.

“About what?” he asked.

“A book I read.” You paused to turn on your back. “About the multiverse.”

It was a surprising change in subject, and he raised his eyebrows in a rather amused way. “The multiverse?” 

You nodded. “We know way too little about it. There could be more of me and more of you out there, and we don’t even know it,” you told him. “The multiverse… there is a chance it could be real. And that alone is terrifying because if it opens and we’re not prepared, chaos might ensue.”

He propped himself up on his elbow next to you, listening to the calming sound of your voice. It was always his favorite thing to do.

Matt used your voice as his podcast; it was his favorite, too. 

“Can we jump universes?” he wondered.

You shrugged. You didn’t know, at least not at the time. “Maybe,” you said. “But I’m not a scientist, let alone good at physics, so… let’s just go back to kissing. I’m much better at that.”

He laughed, but he did not object. At least with kissing, you both knew what you were doing. So, he brought his lips to yours, and the multiverse disappeared in a Bermuda Triangle of pleasure in your mind. Lost but not forgotten. 

Maybe.

But as you sit there, sliding back against the brick wall in the closest alley, you realize that you downplayed the probability. 

You were going to kill a man, but instead of blood on your hands, you are now cursed with the knowledge that the ‘maybe’ of your once-thought-silly pillow talk has always been very fucking real, and you have nowhere to run in this strange world you have fallen into that is New York City, Earth-616. 

Where do you run when you can go anywhere, just not home? 

Tagging: @nk1023 @sarahskywalker-amidala @ignore-mp3 @imonabitchparade @familyvideowithsteve @eyelessdemon

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 251: Decisive Battle in the Unhabited, Demon-Infested Shinjuku, Part 23--Megumi is back!! aaaaand it's not looking good

Well. In case you've been living under a rock, Megumi is back and everyone and their mom knows about it because Twitter demonstrated to be full of people who lack reading comprehension, basic human compassion, and an understanding of how trauma fucks with the mind. Only the latter is excusable, since this is domain-specific knowledge that I don't expect others to be aware of.

The number of times I've read the word "bitch" next to Megumi's name is appalling to say the least.

So... yeah... happy jjk-Sunday? Sorry, I wish I had a more upbeat intro to my ramble for this chapter but man... this fandom is something else and a lot of the comments about Megumi were just so...

Anyways let's taco'bout Megumi and share Megumi-love under the cut.

What is this irritating feeling?

Why does this matter? If you haven't seen me mention this over on the twt already, Sukuna makes a small gesture that is unequivocally Megumi body-language in chapter 248:

Megumi typically places his hand over his shoulder when he's stressed (although I have to confirm he only does it when stressed):

It isn't just the body language that is significant, but rather the way of thinking itself. I didn't catch this myself, but Ant and Danchou did, so I might not do it justice when explaining it.

This way of thinking is very Megumi-like in how he second-guesses himself. More than second-guessing, however, it also feels like a nascent sense of consciousness. All of this obviously presents a very interesting dilemma because, as Sukuna recognizes, sharing a body with Yuji has changed him.

I think we all knew Yuji or Megumi would be changed by Sukuna--because that is how Gege directed our attention by having Gojo mention Yuji could inherit Sukuna's CT by the mere fact that they shared a body. I know I also assumed that Megumi would maybe learn from Sukuna using 10s. But I also know I never even considered that the opposite could be true: Yuji and Megumi could also change Sukuna.

So, the way I see it, with that hand gesture, we have what appears to be Megumi's sense of self bubbling up from under the surface and changing Sukuna.

What's interesting to me is how subtle this is. Sukuna notices this as an "irritating feeling" that is incomprehensible to someone like him who rejects aspirational ideals.

So, part of what I love about this is that sharing a body with Yuji has deepened Sukuna's own experience of reality.

Sukuna is all ego, right? Ego is everything that is concrete...

So I have to wonder how much of this is also Megumi's own emotional turmoil given what we saw this chapter...

Wake up, Megumi!

Ok so let's do a quick recap...

We also know Tsumiki is integral to how Megumi sees himself. This is very important because Megumi basically makes her his raison d'être. In other words, his whole identity is framed around protecting her during the Culling Game. Aside from the obvious shock that it was to realize Yorozu was pretending to be Tsumiki the whole time, which meant Tsumiki was dead, the issue with Megumi was that he made Tsumiki his identity.

And if there is one thing we have seen happen time and time again in jjk is how being limited by your self-ascribed identity comes back and bites you in the ass.

So in Megumi's case, what happens when his whole identity was framed around a single outcome, and then he realized that outcome turned out to be a failure right from the start?

An identity crisis or basically no sense of self.

So what does he have to live for now?

What reason does he have for living if the person whom he had wrapped his identity around is now gone? This is what created the opening for Sukuna to possess him.

What's crazy about this is that even when he was weakened, he still put up a fight and elicited a "Fushiguro Megumi" from Sukuna. Sukuna had probably already considered the importance of the bath, but this likely solidified the need to have Megumi marinate in cursed energy. Like... this is what it took to bury Megumi's consciousness. Also, this is important because we're talking about marinating in negative emotions "to be near evil".

Now, it's midnight and I got to get to sleep, but the way jjk uses "evil" is not cliché at all, but almost like as a metaphor for chaos, hyper individuality, and instinct. I started writing about Naoki Urasawa's Monster, so hopefully I can get around to explaining the whole good vs. evil dichotomy (which is one of my favorite topics ever) soon, but this is all I'll say for now. I'll come back to this in a sec.

Next, Megumi's own Cursed Technique (which we know is tied to the brain and personality) and hands are used to kill Tsumiki's body and Gojo while Megumi can only observe.

And then, Gojo accidentally blitzes Megumi's soul with his technique.

Like are we for real expecting Megumi to just stand up and start throwing hands after all he's been through? What is wrong with people???!!!!!!!!!!! Have some compassion ffs.

Unfortunately, this isn't just about a lack of reading comprehension and compassion, it's also about lack of domain knowledge. This is Trauma with a BIG T we're talking about, and Trauma has been shown to limit how you see yourself and how you are able to think.

So, of course Megumi is distraught. The writing in this is so damn realistic.

Now, Gege has been paying special attention to Megumi's body language, and while the rest of the fandom is laughing at the "Mahoraga hands", I'm looking at how tightly closed those fists are. Even the way he's curled up in a tight ball... Almost like he's about to blow up from sheer pressure.

Quite the contrast to the last time we saw him in a similar position but with more relaxed body language.

And remember, he marinated in cursed energy so that he would be closer to "evil", right? Plus getting blitzed?

Listen, I am ready for Yuji's pep talk, I am sure it will be generational, but right now, I don't think Megumi is ready (or maybe even able) to hear it. Again, because Trauma with a big T.

Plus Sukuna loosing control of Megumi's body? You kind of have to wonder why Megumi's energy has been crescendoing to the point that Sukuna would be affected by it and not only think like Megumi, but also use body language that is unequivocally Megumi.

This feels like a Megumi is about to snap.

This is starting to feel ominous precisely because he's marinated in these self-destructive emotions for so long. Emotions which surely intensified as he saw the consequences of his inability to take action.

But then again... I was expecting a blood bath out of the culling game and it was everything but so 🤣 idk what to tell y'all. As predictable as he is, Gege is unpredictable af.

Ok I think those are my main thoughts? WHAT ABOUT Y'ALL?!!!!!! What are we thinking? What are the theories? oh mai gah.

Even if I'm responding to asks slowly, I'm still reading them as they come in guys. Sorry, school + work is kicking my ass because well... in typical Megumi fashion I haven't taken responsibility for bringing out my best.

That said, I go off to sleep 🫡 Thanks for reading!

[mariacallous]

It was almost two years ago that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As another winter of war arrives, voices skeptical of the country’s prospects are growing louder—not in diplomatic meetings or military planning sessions, but rather in news reports and in expert commentary. Most do not openly argue that Ukraine should simply give up its fight, but the pessimism, buttressed by supposedly pragmatic arguments, carries clear strategic implications that are both dangerous and wrong.

These skeptics suggest that the current situation on the battlefield will not change and that, given Russia’s vastly greater resources, the Ukrainians will be unable to retake more of their territory. They argue that international support for Ukraine is eroding and will plummet sharply in the coming months. They invoke “war fatigue” and the supposedly bleak prospects of our forces.

The skeptics are correct that our recent counteroffensive did not achieve the lightning-fast liberation of occupied land, as the Ukrainian military managed in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Observers, including some in Ukraine, anticipated similar results over the past several months, and when immediate success did not materialize, many succumbed to doom and gloom. But pessimism is unwarranted, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism shape our policy decisions going forward. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on track. A Ukrainian victory will require strategic endurance and vision—as with our recent counteroffensive, the liberation of every square mile of territory requires enormous sacrifice by our soldiers—but there is no question that victory is attainable.

Over nearly two years of brutal war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has upped the ante to the point that half-solutions are impossible. Any outcome besides a clear defeat of Russia in Ukraine would have troubling implications, and not just for my country—it would cause a global disarray that would ultimately threaten the United States and its allies, as well. Authoritarian leaders and aggressors around the world are keeping a close watch on the results of Putin’s military adventure. His success, even if partial, would inspire them to follow in his footsteps. His defeat will make clear the folly of trying.

STAGES OF VICTORY

Wars of this scale are fought in stages. Some of those stages may be more successful than others. What matters is the end result. In Ukraine, that means both fully restoring our territorial integrity and bringing those responsible for international crimes to justice—goals that are both clear and feasible. Meeting those objectives would ensure not only a just and lasting peace in Ukraine but also that other malicious forces around the world are not left with the impression that mimicking Putin will ultimately pay off.

The current phase of the war is not easy for Ukraine or for our partners. Everyone wants quick, Hollywood-style breakthroughs on the battlefield that will bring a quick collapse of Russia’s occupation. Although our objectives will not be reached overnight, continued international support for Ukraine will, over time, ensure that local counteroffensives achieve tangible results on the frontlines, gradually destroying Russian forces and thwarting Putin’s plans for a protracted war.

Some skeptics counter that although such goals are just, they simply aren’t achievable. In fact, our objectives will remain militarily feasible as long as three factors are in place: adequate military aid, including jets, drones, air defense, artillery rounds, and long-range capabilities that allow us to strike deep behind enemy lines; the rapid development of industrial capacity in the United States and Europe as well as in Ukraine, both to cover Ukraine’s military needs and to replenish U.S. and European defense stocks; and a principled and realistic approach to the prospect of negotiations with Russia.

With these elements in place, our effort will bring marked progress on the frontlines. Yet that requires not veering off course and concluding that the fight is hopeless simply because one stage has fallen short of some observers’ expectations. Even with significant challenges, Ukraine has achieved notable results in recent months. We won the battle for the Black Sea and thereby restored a steady flow of maritime exports, benefiting both our economy and global food security. We’ve made gains on the southern front, recently securing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. And elsewhere, we have held off enormous Russian assaults and inflicted major losses on Russian forces, including by thwarting their attempts on Avdiivka and Kupiansk. Despite their gargantuan effort, Russian troops failed to secure any gains on the ground.

Indeed, over the last year and a half, the Ukrainian military has proved its ability to surprise skeptics. Against all odds, Ukrainian forces have liberated more than half the territory taken by Russia since February 2022. This did not happen with a single blow. After the liberation of Ukraine’s northeast in the first months of the war, we lost some ground in the east before regaining momentum—a sequence that demonstrates why drawing broad conclusions based on one stage of fighting is misleading. If the war were only about numbers, we would have already lost. Russia may try to outnumber us, but the right strategy, advanced planning, and adequate support will allow us to effectively strike back.

THE FALLACY OF NEGOTIATIONS

Some analysts believe that freezing the conflict by establishing a cease-fire is a realistic option at the moment. Proponents of such a scenario argue that it would lower Ukrainian casualties and allow Ukraine and its partners to focus on economic recovery and rebuilding, integration into the European Union and NATO, and the long-term development of our defense capabilities.

The problem is not just that a cease-fire now would reward Russian aggression. Instead of ending the war, a cease-fire would simply pause the fighting until Russia is ready to make another push inland. In the meantime, it would allow Russian occupying troops to reinforce their positions with concrete and minefields, making it nearly impossible to drive them away in the future and condemning millions of Ukrainians to decades of repression under occupation. Russia’s 2024 budget for the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, amounting to 3.2 trillion Russian rubles (around $35 billion), is clear evidence of Moscow’s plan to dig in for the long haul and suppress resistance to Russian occupation authorities.

Moreover, whatever the arguments that such a scenario would be less costly for Ukraine and its partners, the reality is that such a negotiated cease-fire is not even on the table. Between 2014 and 2022, we endured approximately 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia in various formats, as well as 20 attempts to establish a cease-fire in the smaller war that followed Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukraine’s east. Our partners pressed Moscow to be constructive, and when they ran into the Kremlin’s diplomatic wall, they insisted that Ukraine had to take the “first step,” if only to demonstrate that Russia was the problem. Following this flawed logic, Ukraine made some painful concessions. Where did it lead? To Russia's full-scale attack on February 24, 2022. Declaring yet again that Ukraine must take the first step is both immoral and naive.

If the frontline were frozen now, there is no reason to believe that Russia would not use such a respite to plan a more brutal attack in a few years, potentially involving not only Ukraine but also neighboring countries and even NATO members. Those who believe Russia will not attack a NATO country after celebrating success in Ukraine should recall how unimaginable a large-scale invasion of Ukraine seemed just two years ago.

SUPPORTING UKRAINE IS NOT CHARITY

Skeptics also argue that supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom is too expensive and cannot be sustained indefinitely. We in Ukraine are fully aware of the amounts of assistance that we have received from the United States, European countries, and other allies, and we are immensely grateful to the governments, legislators, and individuals who have extended a helping hand to our country at war. We manage the support in the most transparent and accountable way: U.S. inspectors of military aid to Ukraine have found no evidence of significant waste, fraud, or abuse.

This support is not, and never has been, charity. Every dollar invested in Ukraine’s defense returns clear security dividends for its supporters. It has enabled Ukraine to successfully rebuff Russian aggression and avert a disastrous escalation in Europe. And Ukraine has done all this with American assistance totaling roughly three percent of the annual U.S. defense budget. What is more, most of this money has in fact been spent in the United States, funding the U.S. defense industry, supporting the development of cutting-edge technology, and creating American jobs—a reason that some local business leaders in the United States have publicly opposed withholding or cutting military aid to Ukraine.

Moreover, while the United States is Ukraine’s top defense partner—and Washington’s leadership in rallying support for Ukraine has been exemplary and essential—the United States has hardly borne the burden alone. As NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently noted, other NATO members, including European countries and Canada, account for more than half of Ukraine’s military aid. A number of countries have provided more support as a percentage of GDP than the United States has: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Germany's assistance continues to grow, making it Ukraine's largest European supporter in absolute terms.

Attempts by some skeptics to brand Ukraine’s fight for freedom as just another futile “forever war” ignore these facts. Ukraine has never asked for American boots on the ground. The deal is fair: our partners provide us with what we need to win, and we do the rest of the job ourselves, defending not only our borders but also the borders of global democracy.

The United States has spent decades, and hundreds of billions of dollars, building and protecting an international order that could sustain and protect democracy and market economies, thus ensuring security and prosperity for Americans. It would be foolish to give up on that investment now. If democracy is allowed to fall in Ukraine, adversaries of the United States will perceive weakness and understand that aggression pays. The price tag for defending U.S. national security against such threats would be many times higher than the one for supporting Ukraine and could spark decades of global turbulence with an uncertain outcome.

Scholars and analysts often warn of a World War III involving nuclear conflict between great powers. But they may overlook the risk of a world of smaller hot wars between states, with bigger powers feeling empowered to take advantage of their smaller neighbors—World Wars I, plural,rather than World War III. Without a common commitment to Ukrainian victory, Russian aggression could in hindsight mark the onset of such a world.

LISTEN TO UKRAINIANS

No country in the world desires peace more than Ukraine. It is not our side that wants this war to drag on indefinitely—Putin does. (We have a clear vision of the path to peace, as laid out in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ten-point Peace Formula.) And it is Ukraine that is paying the greatest price for this war. We are losing some of our best men and women every day. There is hardly a Ukrainian family that has not directly felt the pain of war. Our warriors have in many cases been serving for more than 20 months, stuck in muddy or icy trenches under daily Russian bombardment, with no return date in sight; the toll on civilians, whether enduring brutal airstrikes or occupation, keeps growing, and the horror of Ukrainian children being stolen and then “adopted” by Russian families for “re-education” continues to haunt us all.

Yet even with our suffering, weariness, and struggles, Ukrainians are not willing to give up, to opt for “peace” at any price. Eighty percent of Ukrainians oppose making territorial concessions to Russia, according to a recent survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Another poll found that 53 percent of Ukrainians were prepared to endure years of wartime hardship for the sake of a Ukrainian victory. Ukrainians would not be ready to give up even in the event of a significant decrease in foreign military aid: polling in November by the New Europe Center showed that only eight percent of Ukrainians think that such a reduction should push us into negotiations with Russia. (Thirty-five percent said that a Russian willingness to withdraw troops from Ukraine would be the necessary condition for starting talks, and 33 percent said that under no conditions should talks begin at all.)

Western analysts who urge Ukraine to accept a hasty cease-fire on unfavorable terms neglect such views. For years, policymakers and experts in Europe and the United States failed to listen to Ukrainian warnings that both diplomacy and business as usual with Russia were no longer possible. It took a large-scale invasion and enormous destruction and suffering for them to recognize that the Ukrainian warnings were right. They should not fall into the same trap again.

ALLIES AT WAR

In the summer of 1944, in the weeks after the World War II Allies’ D-Day landing, the headlines in allied capitals were often pessimistic: “Allied Pace Slows,” “Delays in Normandy: Overcaution of Allies and Bad Weather Seen as Factors Upsetting Schedule,” “Terrain Slows Tanks, U.S. Officer Explains.” Even after Allied success in Normandy, the massive Operation Market Garden in the German-occupied Netherlands in September 1944 proved challenging. It had been expected to bring the war to a close but instead yielded limited successes and massive Allied losses. Yet pessimistic headlines and disappointing, even costly, setbacks did not cause the Allies to give up.

At the end of last month, I attended a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. What struck me most was the disparity between the mood inside the chamber and the mood outside it. On the sidelines, reporters opened their questions by asserting that the war had reached a “stalemate” and that “war fatigue” would cripple support, before wondering why Ukraine wouldn’t offer to trade territory for peace. Yet such defeatist narratives were absent in the official discussions, with ministers making a firm commitment to additional military aid and sustained support.

However prevalent a false narrative of attrition becomes, we should not allow it to set policymaking and our shared strategy on a disastrous course. Nor should we be duped into believing that Moscow is ready for a fair negotiated solution. Opting to accept Putin’s territorial demands and reward his aggression would be an admission of failure, which would be costly for Ukraine, for the United States and its allies, and for the entire global security architecture. Staying the course is a difficult task. But we know how to win, and we will.

[ohraicodoll]

i absolutely love the feral reader x joel fics

omg like yaaas give me a murdering queen

Thank you! I use to primarily write a lot of action and horror and stuff so it's fun getting to go back to that and write someone who doesn't get hung up on "being good" lol.Have this little snippet I had written!

Joel wasn’t waiting for her to come back.

No, he just happened to be doing a crossword puzzle near the entrance because Tommy was working nearby and the house was too quiet. No other reason. Not because this was the first patrol their little group was separated for and he was feeling anxious. Not because he knew she didn’t exactly get along with the others in Jackson, a little too feral for settlement life. Definitely not because he was worried since the person she’d been sent with was fuckin’ Grant of all people who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes in his fucking head.

He tapped the pencil against the paper, eyes scanning the gate and the patrolmen up top to see if they would give any signal of an approaching party. “Fancy seeing you here,” Ellie joked and hopped up on the crate beside him, legs dangling over the edge. Joel grunted and turned his eyes back down to the page, doing his best to appear busy. “They left pretty early so it shouldn’t be long now,” the teenager hummed, eyes following the same path his had done moments ago, “Like I get we’re supposed to integrate, but maybe you can pull some strings with Tommy so you and her only do patrols together.” “And why would I do that?” he muttered, staring at the black and white squares that didn’t have a single letter in them. Ellie raised a brow, “I’m sorry, did you want her to murder fuckin’ Grant?” “He can handle her,” Joel bit out though the words tasted like shit leaving his lips. The cocky asshole couldn’t handle her. Hell, he could barely handle her sometimes. The laugh that abruptly left her was enough to cause him to look up at her, “Okay, sure. Keep acting like you don’t care that you’re here and she’s out there with someone else.” He set the pencil down fully, hands going to his hips, and stared at the girl, “Ellie, do you have a point to make or are you just here to annoy my ass? I’m not worried about her and I’m not going to pull any strings. We gotta do our part here and all that shit.”

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah cause you happen to be casually doing a fuckin’ crossword of all things right where you can immediately see when a patrol comes back. Dude, you’re so obvious.” Ellie chuckled and jumped down to her feet off the crate, “Which is Seven Down, by the way.” He glared as she cackled and walked off, glancing down at the page once her head was turned. Fuck if she wasn’t right. 

Joel wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of being right though and snapped the pages shut right as the upper patrolmen signaled a party's arrival. No, he wasn’t worried at all as they went through the process of opening up the gate. It couldn’t only be the three of them. They did have to integrate even if it felt like being eaten alive by ants. It didn’t mean he had to like it though. Didn’t mean he liked her being away from him. Grant was the first through the opening and he struggled not to grind his teeth, keeping the anxiety down even as he took in the man’s black eye and split lip, the way he limped through. Fuck, had they been attacked? He knew he should have argued with Tommy- But then she walked through behind him, perfect and intact as if she had only been on a stroll. Still the same wild girl as always, eyes taking everything in. She dumped the large canvas bag with the gatekeepers to take inventory, going through the process even as Grant limped away into town without a glance back. Joel tried to get a good look at him, but the man keenly kept his eyes to the ground as he trudged past. “Hey,” she greeted, giving him a nod and not showing any surprise at seeing him waiting, “Run went smooth. Found a decent enough stash that had been skipped past a few times. Some of these people are shit searchers. Didn’t run into any infected.” Joel nodded, eyes following Grant again before turning to her with a raised brow, “Went smooth, huh?” Her eyes darkened and she scratched at her chin, giving him a glimpse of slightly bloody knuckles, “Yeah, smooth.” Well that explained why she didn’t have a hair out of place and Grant looked like he fell down six flights of stairs. He chuckled and shook his head, any anxiety left over finally leaving his body. Of course she could take care of herself. Throwing an arm around her shoulder, they both headed back to their house, “Atta girl. Ellie was worried you would murder him.” Joel wasn’t going to mention that he was worried about the opposite, as improbable as that was, lest he wanted to get his ass handed to him. “Nah, threatening castration seems to work just fine. Didn’t feel like getting rid of a body today.” Suffice to say, Tommy stuck her with Joel for all patrols going forward. He didn’t complain.

[timeskip]

Thinking about Kite's thought that Gon is a real Hunter because of his connection to animals and to Killua, and how Gon ends up twisting this idea by the end of the series. Throughout all of chimera ant arc he's chasing after this ideal of who Kite is and how strong he is!! And Ging too as an extension of Kite, but so much of what makes Gon himself comes from the influence of Kite...

As a side note, I personally kind of hate how 2011 attributed the "Hunters are well liked by animals" line to Ging. While I do understand this from an adaptation perspective, since the viewer doesn't know Kite but DOES know Ging, it also undermines a lot of what makes Gon's relationship with Kite so important IN CONTRAST to his relationship with Ging. The ways Gon was inspired by Kite and Ging are similar, but VERY distinct, and though Kite doesn't mention the friendship part of it out loud, it's still deeply important to who Gon has become since the last time he met Kite!!

And also, just a chapter before this callback, Ging was saying how he wouldn't meet with Gon if he had friends with him (a sad comparison with how Gon wanted to introduce Killua to him) !!!

Of course, this is partially because Ging just doesn't want to meet Gon specifically (because he feels awkward) but I think it also shows how Ging's belief of what makes himself a Hunter is EXTREMELY solitary, meant to drift from place to place and hunt what he doesn't have. While I do genuinely believe he cares about people like the Greed Island game masters, his insistence on not meeting Gon paints a very different picture of what "being a Hunter" means to him.

The version of "being a Hunter" that Gon has learned is instead more similar to Kite's idea, with him having inspired Gon to become one directly: Kite fights and kills if he has to but hates it, especially when it comes to the animals he wants to take care of. And obviously he cares deeply for the people he brings with him, leading to a self sacrificial moment in how he protects Gon and Killua from Pitou, which Gon emulates at the end of the arc when he loses his arm, semi-intentionally.

This idea of Gon becoming a Hunter is connected to the people he looks up to from the beginning! And with what Kite thinks about having good friends at the start of the chimera ant arc, there's also this strong idea that he should seek out friends and allies (which he did! He's been blessed with good friends!!) and keep being good and kind :')

When Kite died and Gon fell into his grief, Gon's ability to look at the world from Kite's point of view and rely on his friends also fell apart:

But isn't it interesting that at the end of things Gon is still trying to emulate Kite? But not with this idea of having good friends and relying on them. Only with the worst things that happened to him, losing an arm or imitating the impression that was made on him of Kite killing an animal because that's what has to be done.

Yes, this is a reference to Kite making sure Gon killed the chimera ants properly when they were fighting the less powerful ones. But it's also so integral to who Gon is in that moment in the depth of his grief, a brutality that wasn't part of him before. Gon learned a lot about the cruelty of the world around him through the chimera ant arc, but he already KNEW that Kite was willing to kill an animal if that's what had to be done. Except that when he was a younger child, he rejected that. He took care of Kon and didn't let Kite kill him.

This is who Gon was, and it's still a part of him, but his admiration of Kite has twisted!! His optimism that everything would work out brought him down!!! Gon has so much kindness, but in the moment he fights Pitou he's stopped caring about that. And to a degree, yes, it has to be done--but finishing off Pitou like Kite taught him isn't the way he should have done it.

Because he's not asking for Killua's help. Doing it all alone, because that's what Gon thinks it means to be strong--and though Gon was unaware of this, Kite's ideals went against this. But Gon was simply trying to be who he thought Kite and Ging would want him to be! He's lost sight of what Kite actually wanted for him!!! It's another layer to the tragedy!!!

[crusty-chronicles]

Forgiveness And Acceptance

Ch 1: What Goes Bump In The Night

MASTERLIST

Synopsis: You feel guilty for Kite's Chimera Ant form. You don't think he really loves you, but you love him. So much so you let him use your body for his pleasure. Anything to rectify abandoning him during the fight with Pitou. Kite however, is trying to show you that's not the case. (Reader is based from the Moon and Sun insert)

NSFW, MINORS DNI

Warnings: brief cock warming, AFAB reader

An: Kite lovers, come and get y'all juice. Also I've decided to make this a mini series so keep your eyes out. Updates will be extremely slow.

------------------------------

It was never easy suppressing the memories of what happened with the Chimera Ants. Everything from the fighting to the casualties. The ants themselves being integrated into society. Sometimes it was easier to pretend it never happened at all.

The fight with Gon. 

Losing your nen. 

Almost dying a second time.

All of it you never liked to look back on. Never liked to think about. But there was a constant reminder you just couldn't ignore.

 Kite.

Pitou had killed him. Using his body as their puppet. And by some fucked up miracle, you were able to bring him back. Like with Palm, some things had changed. 

He was bulkier now. Not as lanky as he had been, with a few extra inches added to his height. Hair no longer an ethereal silver, but now a fiery auburn. The only indication he wasn't fully human anymore being the rat tail sporting from his back. 

He was different, but he was Kite all the same.

And although he came back mostly the same, it was still your fault he died in the first place. You were the one who ran away like a coward. You were the one who didn't bother looking back. You were the one who left him behind.

So imagine your shock when one of the first things he said after finally seeing you again was, 'I like you, too. I never got the chance to respond that night.'

Words of affection instead of hatred. 

You just couldn't wrap your head around why. Surely that couldn't be his initial response after finding out you were the reason he wasn't human anymore. It couldn't be.

But it truly was the first thing that came to mind. He died to protect you and the boys. And after hearing from Ging that you were okay (that you were all okay), the only thing he could think about was you. 

What he would say. 

What he would do. 

It was thanks to you that he was still here, after all. 

Then he remembered your confession back at the NGL, and how he never really said anything in response. Not because he didn't feel the same way, god no. He sure as hell felt the same way. But it was the setting, rather, that had him holding back. It was too dangerous to have been focusing on anything else.

So it was decided he'd give you a proper answer. Even if yours had changed. Six months was a long time. Maybe you wouldn't want him anymore now that he wasn't human. He wasn't that different from before, but maybe enough had changed for you not to find him appealing. Maybe you'd fallen in love with someone else.

And for whatever reason, that possibility hurt the most. 

His instincts, however, were telling him a very different story. That he was overthinking it and you'd still feel the same. That he had absolutely nothing to worry about. His hunches were never wrong, but for the first time Kite was doubting himself.

But when you assured him your feelings hadn't changed, all his previous worry and doubt disappeared. You still wanted him. Even if he wasn't the exact same as before. Everything seemed to fall into place after that.

Loving you had never felt so right.

It'd been a year since then. A year of being together. A year of trying to move past all that happened. And while many things had changed, some stayed the same. Like you and your disdain for the outdoors.

"You'd think as a researcher I'd be typing away indoors. You know, so the computer doesn't overheat?" It was a cheap excuse, but that didn't mean you weren't right.

"Half the fun is being outside. Getting experience out on the field," Spin gestured around to emphasize.

You gave a small grumble of 'Oh yeah. Plenty of experience.' Scratching at one of the many bug bites you'd gotten. The screen of your laptop lighting up with a notification.

N E W - S P E C I E S - F O U N D

A picture of a funny looking rat under it. You quickly started filling in its potential genus and feeding habits. Occasionally glancing over at Spin who was going through notification by notification.

She was way better at this than you. You don't know why you were paired up with her when she could accomplish much more by herself. You were basically useless.

Well, you weren't all that useful without your nen.

"I can't help but feel like I'm only here because of some special privilege." Because you were dating Kite.

It was true you had decent analytical skills, but you couldn't focus your eyes anymore to get the finer details. You weren't as precise as you used to be. Feeling as if you were given this job on a whim and not because of the few skills you still possessed.

"The only 'special privilege' he gave you was sleeping in his bed, if you can even call it that." Spin teased.

Your face immediately heating up. And although you were flustered, you seemed to shrink in on yourself at her words. The exact opposite of the response she was hoping to get.

"Hey, I'm being serious. He doesn't treat you any differently than us. Trust me, I'd let you know." She placed a hand on your shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze.

"Kite's really sweet on the people close to him. You probably feel it more because you're with him every day. And we all like having you around, so don't you worry about feeling out of place. Okay?"

You nodded, giving a small smile in return.

"Okay... Let's finish up here and meet up with the others."

"Now you're talking!"

------------------------

It was about an hour later when the two of you finished logging in data. Both rushing towards the jeep that could only fit so many people. Lin and Banana already there. It wasn't long before Mon, Stick, Podongo, and Kite showed up.

Everyone giving in their report for the day. Turns out 53 new species had been discovered. Mostly insects to your dismay, but still something to be celebrated.

"Good work everyone. Tomorrow should yield higher results considering one of the Chimera Hybrids who lives around the area volunteered to help. For now, let's head back." Kite instructed.

And as everyone started pilling into the small jeep, his gaze finally softened. Redirecting his attention towards you and reaching for your hand to have a brief moment of intimacy.

Relishing in the way your unoccupied hand went up to brush some hair out of his face. Almost leaning into you. He was sure this was the most touchy he's ever been in his life. (Well previous life) Wanting to always have you close.

It was a damn shame because he knew you were the exact opposite. You were fidgety with most contact. Especially around your face. And whether that was a result of your upbringing or what he'd done as Pitou's puppet, he couldn't say. But he disliked the reason for it all the same.

You were a lot more comfortable with touch now than when the two of you started dating. Reciprocating kisses and cuddles and occasionally initiating them. But it was still a longshot from being completely okay with it.

------------------------

You just about collapsed on the couch of your shared apartment. Exhausted mentally and physically. Knowing tomorrow would be an even longer day.

"You did great today, you know? You logged in more than usual." Kite praised.

You let out a tired groan and sunk further into the couch. You'd only done 13 of the 53 entries.

"But you can't sleep just yet. You haven't eaten all day." He snatched the pillow covering your face. Watching as it scrunched up in reaction to the light.

"Noooo. M' tired. And I did eat." You rolled onto your side to escape the brightness.

"Y/n."

At his scolding tone, you turned around to face him. A pout evident on your face. Knowing he hadn't bought your lie.

"It's no fair. You're looking at my aura!" At your accusation, he placed a kiss on the backside of your hand.

"I'm not. I promised I wouldn't until you got your nen back, remember? I can tell you're lying because you're always more exhausted when you haven't had anything to eat," Kite explained.

It was still strange to you how someone could know you so well. How Kite seemed to pick up on the smallest of things. You supposed you were the same way with him.

"Fine...But I know you haven't eaten either."

His soft expression turning into shock at your words.

"Don't even try to argue with me. We both left in a hurry this morning, so I know for a fact you had nothing all day. Order something for the two of us. And you better use my card this time." Your scolding tone mirroring his.

Except yours was a bit more practiced. Having been used on the boys and Alluka. He was sure you'd make a great parent. He shook the feeling off, though.

Not liking the way his chimera ant counterpart seemed to stir at the thought.

--------------------------

You went through each and every item on your list for the morning. Making sure to triple check you had everything in your suitcase. You'd only be gone for five days max, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Are you sure you don't want-" Kite started before you cut him off.

"I'll be fine. It's just a doctor's appointment. Besides, you've got an important job to do here. It wouldn't be right for me to take you away from that. What's the worst that could happen?"

You felt arms wrap around your waist from behind. Face pressed into the junction of your neck before he spoke.

"I love you, so please be careful."

The warmth allowing you to relax into him. Taking in his comforting scent before leaning back and looking up. Letting yourself believe he truly meant it when he said he loved you.

"I promise I'll be safe. You take care of yourself, too."

Although those weren't exactly the words Kite wanted to hear, he'd take them. You didn't have to say you loved him back for him to know it. Your actions told him plenty.

It didn't mean he hoped any less to hear them.

It was dark when you finished packing. The two of you preparing for bed. Sleeping arrangements had been another tricky thing when you first started. Neither of you wanting to sleep alone after everything that happened. The first couple of nights awkward with each keeping strictly to their side of the bed.

But within a month something had changed. You awoke one morning engulfed in warmth. One that almost lulled you back to sleep. You curled up a bit more before realizing something was over your waist. You tried to get up to see what it was, but stopped at the feeling of getting tugged closer to the warmth behind you. It was then that the dots connected for you.

In your sleep, you must've subconsciously moved closer to Kite. And his body's response was to pull you closer. Arm thrown over your stomach with his face pressed against your back. The feeling of his weight pressed against you ever so comforting.

So much so that when he woke up and started to apologize, you told him you wouldn't mind it happening again.

It'd become a habit since then. Meeting in the middle instead of opposite ends. Kite cuddling you close while you leaned back into him. On rare nights, even intertwining hands with the one thrown over your waist.

Tonight was no different. Small puffs of air hitting your neck as you drifted off. A feeling of content and domesticity washing over the both of you before completely knocking out.

-----------------

Kite didn't remember a lot from when he was under Pitou's control. There were a few flashes here and there, but nothing other than that. At least, that's how it started.

Soon enough, the memories started coming in the form of dreams.

Of nightmares.

And some nights it just became too much. He supposed he wasn't alone when it came to being haunted by his past. You both had your share of night terrors. Waking the other when things became too much. Seeking out their warmth to make sure they were real.

That they were safe.

Something about this particular dream though, had him trembling in his sleep.

A memory of being inside the nest. Fighting ant after ant until he was dismembered completely. Pitou stitching the pieces back together so the process could continue all over again.

It was one he'd seen before. One that although he didn't like, wasn't as bad as the others.

The next memory had you in it. Back when the circles under your eyes had been at their worst.

You stood in front of him, taking a step forward. His body immediately lunging for you against his will. Over and over again he'd hit you. Trying desperately to pull his punches to no avail.

And over and over again you would get up and smile so warmly at him. Never once defending yourself. His mind warning you to stay back before he hurts you any worse. But you didn't stay away.

"I know you probably hate me right now, but it's okay. You can let out all your frustrations on me. I'll be here every day until we get you back to normal."

And again came your loving smile.

He wanted to scream. Wanted to tell you he could never hate you. That he was being forced to hurt you. But he was simply a prisoner in his own mind.

Seeing you suffer by his own hands was the worst kind of torture.

He jolted awake. Shooting up and unintentionally untangling himself from you. Breathing erratically as he shook.

He hurt you.

He had hurt you.

Was...was that why you seemed to hate his touch? Why you used to flinch away when he cupped your face?

His distress had inadvertently woken you up. The lack of his warmth pressed against you an indicator something was wrong. And when the sound of his shaky breaths reached your ears, you bolted up.

Looking around to see Kite trembling with his head in his hands. Your body immediately kicked into action. Not wasting any time pulling him into your embrace. Resting your head atop his as you tried to provide a bit of comfort.

"Hey, hey, hey. Baby what happened? It's okay. I'm here."

Your very being engulfed him. Creating a small bubble of safety from everything negative. Your scent of rain invading his senses and pulling him back from his nightmare.

"I'm sorry." It was whispered against your skin.

The words temporarily catching you off guard. He must've seen something rough tonight. You held him a little tighter as you ran a hand through his hair.

"You're okay. You don't have anything to apologize for."

You felt him shake his head against you before returning your embrace. Arms pulling you impossibly closer.

"I'm so sorry."

Something was definitely wrong. Because while Kite was aware of you, he wasn't aware that he was here with you. Not stuck in whatever horrible dream decided to rear its head tonight.

You went to cup his face. Guiding it gently away from your neck so you could see each other properly. Your heart just about broke seeing him in full.

Eyes holding a heaviness you could only describe as regret peered up into yours. Quick stuttery breaths as he tried to ground himself in your touch.

"Oh love...What did you see?"

Lips quickly pressed themselves against yours in response. Your body tensing up for a moment at the sudden contact before giving in. Letting a hand wander to the back of your head and pull you in deeper.

He pulled back only to reattach himself to your neck. Placing desperate kisses against your skin.

"I love you. I need you to know that. Let me show you. Please."

He needed to know you were still here with him. That he wasn't stuck in his nightmare hurting you. That what he was wasn't driving you away.

The chimera ant part of him wanting to prove his devotion through intimacy. Too broken down at the moment to resist its primal need for your warmth.

"What do you need?" You asked.

You would give him anything he asked for. Whatever it took for him to feel better. If he didn't want to talk about what he saw, then you wouldn't push.

"You." Was Kite's answer.

He needed you.

Needed to be as close as possible with you.

"Then I'm yours."

He pinned you swiftly to the bed. Nudging your bottoms off while he continued to place light kisses against your neck. Giving a harsh bite when the scent of your arousal reached him.

Pulling down his own pants and boxers in a rush to free his hardening member. At the feeling of it brushing against you, you spread your legs apart.

Your lips once again enveloped by his. Tongue asking for permission before you readily granted it. Exploring every crevice in your mouth before dancing with yours in a steady symphony.

A soft noise leaving you, only encouraging Kite further. He pulled away, resting his forehead against yours as he lined himself up.

Reaching for your hand and intertwining it with his.

The head of his cock slowly bullied its way inside you. Stretching you out in a way that was almost painful from how big he was. And little by little he filled you. Letting out strained pants as he did so.

Sheathing himself into your cunt until his body was flush against yours. Fiery hair creating a curtain that seemed to shut out the rest of the world. Letting himself be completely vulnerable and giving you his love in the rawest form he could.

Your eyes met as he kept still inside you. The heaviness being replaced by something softer. His breathing steadying at the feeling of your warm heat around him. A snug fit considering you hadn't been prepped beforehand.

"Do you want me to..." You started. Legs wrapping lightly around his waist. Wanting to know if you should move or not.

It wasn't the first time sex was used as a means of comfort. A way to forget about everything for just a moment. And if he needed your body to find a bit of peace, then you would give it to him.

Because you loved him with everything you had.

Even if he didn't feel the same.

Even if he thought of you as just a body to keep him warm.

But instead of thrusting into your cunt, Kite sunk down on top of you. Wanting nothing more than to just be as close as possible to you. For your being to completely drown out everything else.

"Can we stay like this? I-I just need to feel you right now." Voice so incredibly soft as he turned the both of you on your side. Once again pulling you against his chest. Holding onto you as if you were a lifeline.

"Anything you want. Let's try to get some sleep now, yeah?" You cradled his head close from its place against your throat.

A nod with one last brush of his lips against your skin. The both of you managing to drift off sometime into the night.

----------------------------

An: Me starting another series??? Yes but Kite deserves so much love and it's unfair how little fics there are about him. 🥺

[alienpossession]

"Ahahaha, yeah sir, just trying to keep up with the role, you know? As you said it yourself, cannot let other people know that I'm not myself any longer so I just play pretend being this straight Korean prick. Would've let you do anything you want to me if I know it was you from the get go, please, get in, you'll have so much more fun by being inside of me rather than going around as the little twink,"

After a while, I usually like to check out and test my various vessels which are spread across the globe. Aside from trying to know how well they integrate to human society, I find it amusing to toy around with their feelings and how easy their personality switched between their human persona and my dutiful vessels. It's also a way for me to test my power, like how well I could hide myself to be undetected by their senses which would indicate how well I could hide from other beings that might come to Earth and spoiled my fun. I find it handy to use Vince as my base body since he's loaded and despite claiming to be a very busy businessman when I first met him back then, most of his works are done by other people.

It left a lot of flexibility in his schedule so I simply head to the airport and his private jet ready to drop me anywhere I wished in a moment's notice. After I landed, I usually just dropped Vince's body in the hotel while I did my test, wearing temporary skins that my vessels wouldn't recognize as other vessels of mine and could keep me incognito. Here's what happened in the past few weeks

---

I just smirked as I quickly kneeled and get my tongue out ready to give that sweaty abs some licking it deserves. He's this close to bashed me to death, just like the real homophobic Seulgi would. I turned my incognito mode off and he directly stopped his fist a couple centimetres away from this cute university student's face I slid into earlier. Now, his fist turned into a lustful grab of my hair as he used it to rub me up and down his abs as if I'm some kind of washcloth. His lustful moan is as seductive as I remembered when I took him over in that Hongdae nightclub, and I couldn't help myself but squirted some loads into this university senior's pants while transferred myself to Seulgi through his navel

---

"Oh that was hilarious. I totally didn't see that coming. I really thought you are just one hell of an annoying new client I should endure jist because they could afford me. Totally sorry for being so hard and rude to you Sir,"

I simply smiled. Francis is a personal trainer, a succesful one at that, but I know he's not good with people that are not at least a decently-built individual yet. I slid into this fat fuck when he left Subway and I quickly devised the plot to tick Francis off. I bought some gym clothes to be in character, signed up to the gym where he worked at, asked....no....demanded to have him as my personal trainer and said all the things I know he hated. He's this close to lash out on me, I could tell, but just like the real Francis, he kept himself together. I also didn't find any flaws on the way he behaved like Francis so after about an hour, I turned my incognito mode off and he quickly realized it

"Well Sir, please just left that fat retard quickly and get into me Sir. That look doesn't fit you and I know he only drained you and made you out of breath. Please, it's been a while too since you get inside me,"

---

"Why would you do that, Sir? We are totally fool-proof, you don't have to test us. Is this random test or did you hear anything about us raising other people's suspicion? Now I feel bad for not welcoming you properly, you really played that role a bit too well to, I was this close to slap your face and called you names,"

"No no, you two are doing fine. This is just random test as I'm visiting Egypt anyway. And as for her, I just know you would hate her. Argumentative and loud gym girl that dared to talk back to you? Yeah, that's your trigger, just need to up the ante by disrespecting your mom and boy, I noticed that balled fist yo, I quickly shut off my incognito mode hahah!"

"We felt bad that you have to meet us this way. Maybe you want to slide into Farhan? You've went inside me during Mr. Olympia a couple months ago anyway, Farhan has been longing for you,"

"Well, I'm gonna do it from this chick's body so maybe let's search for somewhere private,"

---

"Master, sorry for being a bit direct but this is not an effective usage of your time. You have so many vessels, why fool around with the ruse?"

"Because I like to do it. And I can do it. Why are you the one questioning me now?"

"Sorry Master. It's just---"

"What?"

"Strip, and where's a bathroom? I need to fuck you with a mirror in sight so he can see that he's just a bottom bitch that lost thr ability to even control his own body and he's not going to influence you anymore even when I'm not inside you all the time. I will make him trapped so deep within his own mind, he wouldn't be able to leak through and influenced you any longer,"

---

"Certainly sir, everything I own belongs to you, including the bitch I'm going to visit. She's all yours. Heck, even if you want to fuck a white twink with my body, so be it, you do what you want with me and my schedule. I'm just so honored that you even bothered to come all the way down to South Africa for me,"

---

"What? Huh....I guess you played Romain a bit too well. Calm down a bit. Get hard. Fuck around more. Stop being so business-minded all the time. It gets annoying to see more of that guy surfaced you know. He's one tough cookie back when I eventually subdued him, turned out he remained tough up until now huh? Giving you a hard time to be loose and free while fooling all the people worked for him. Strip,"

"Oh wow, really? Fuck, I really am going to smash this whole thing with you inside of me during the competition. What a chance encounter this is. I really thought you were just an annoying fan and I only wasted my time here interacting with a fans, but turns out it pays off acting all nice and pretending like I'm this sweet All-American boy when you revealed yourself. Please, you can just jump right in sir, it's been a while since my navel welcomed you,"

[belphiesreverie]

The tartaglia x book smart reader has me foaming at the mouth it’s just so perfect ??? My heart. I was thinking what if the reader was a bit forgetful. Like they forgot it’s their birthday but they don’t really care for it. How would Childe react? Would HE himself be sad they don’t wanna celebrate? Would he do or plan activities he wants or be more conscious and idk buy books that reader specifically wanted? 🧐 sorry for the random midnight ramblings ;;;

Dw bestie, I appreciate your ramblings greatly 💕

But omg, he’d be absolutely devastated. He’d been planning for your birthday for months, getting you a bunch of presents to absolutely spoil you and you truly don’t understand how hard it was for him to keep it all a secret. Only to find out that you didn’t even care for your own birthday?? He absolutely can’t have that!!

He was already planning to spoil you, all your dream books neatly wrapped up and waiting. Some collectors and first editions in the mix as well! But now he absolutely has to up the ante. Birthdays of people he cares about have always been important to him, but your birthday is so momentous to him that it’s basically a national holiday in his head. He’s theoretically doing all of this for you, but really it’s for himself and solidifying himself as an integral part of your birthday

He also can’t help his mind wandering to specially why you don’t care for your birthday? Was there someone in your past that ruined it for you? If that’s the case, you better not let him ever find out if you don’t want them to deal with the consequences…

[northwindow]

love your blog so much! and im wondering how you archive/document your day-to-day life and the information that you take in — whatever form: books, lyrics, trees, etc etc — ? im struggling so much w forgettttttting

i love this question! i’ve always longed to have a beautiful and consistent journal, but it’s something i struggle with maintaining organically so i’ve tried some different structures over the past few years. long-winded answer under the cut 💗

back in 2021, i was making a monthly journal on google slides which i really liked because it's so natural to integrate images. i just made a month of it public here as an example of what it was like.

from 2022 - now, i've been doing a new concept where on the last day of every season i write long, list-y answers to these prompts:

art that has been resonating with me (includes music, books, movies, visual art, anything really). i'll usually write a few words about it... "Decision to Leave dir. Park Chan-Wook—the eye shot! the eye shot with the ants crawling on it" or "'Train Ride' by Ruth Stone: 'Release, release; / between cold death and a fever, / send what you will, I will listen. / All things come to an end. / No, they go on forever.'" or "Chunky misshapen pearls and other organic, shiny shapes"

my favorite memories from the season... examples from past lists include "Swimming hole with Zoë where I stuck a twig in my hair and we waded around on our hands like crocodiles" and "Walks in my snowsuit at night, one in particular where the Gemenids meteor shower was just starting"

a checkup on 5 of my current projects/goals. currently these are 1. learn to lift weights, 2. write 50 "identical" poems, 3. write a new syllabus, 4. practice mindful spending, 5. improve at woodworking.

a checkup on 5 of my core values. currently these are 1. adventure, 2. connection, 3. play, 4. sensuality, 5. sustainability.

reevaluating projects and values to focus on next

since you mentioned wanting to remember things-- when i'm putting this together i draw extensively from my tumblr archive/likes, calendar, photos app, recent playlists, and letterboxd and storygraph accounts. curating this kind of ephemeral data into a more permanent and thoughtful record is really satisfying to me. i privately call this method "wrapped" a la spotify... like i'll have a big entry for "fall 2022 wrapped" and then "winter 2023 wrapped" and so on. i do all this on the app notion and file the seasons on one big page so it's easy to click into one and remember what i was doing and thinking about. (i also converted my dream journal to a notion database. i've logged about 300 dreams in here and love that i can tag by character/feature.)

over the years i've also kept a more classic diary via text documents that's less structured, just spitting out whatever's on my mind with the date at the top. i tend to do this frequently for a while, then ebb off, then restart another doc, rinse and repeat. i also have a few physical notebooks (including these two) but the digital stuff is way more extensive as i prefer to write on the computer.

if i were going to recommend any of this, i would say the visual format of the slides journal was really compelling because i liked the aesthetic freedom but i also love the "wrapped" lists because they seem to cut to the core of an era's texture. in the future i'd like to try to integrate these aspects together! 📓

[vainvaiheart]

No he couldn’t

[cyanide-latte]

5 6 7 FOR Cooper, Rin, Xi and the twins are PULLING on my hair demanding Talesin as well

OHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOOO EXCELLENT

This is going to get a bit lengthy so my apologies in advance, I'm going to be putting this under a read more cut.

Additionally! If some of you are looking at the name "Talesin" and wondering which of my OCs that is, I've not talked about them on here yet but Talesin is a nextgen OC for Kalim and my boy Copper. The biggest reason I've been mum about him on here is because, quite frankly, @blithesharem is the only person who can apparently coax Talesin into talking. He refuses to offer me anything to work with otherwise, and I only just recently figured out some things about him, again because Blithe and I had been chatting in DMs and it knocked something loose. (I did find out at least one other thing about him today thanks to a prompt from @inmateofthemind but that actually came from Copper, Talesin didn't tell me himself.) He's an elusive little scamp and I love him but boy is he hard to pin down.

5) Any animals you most associate with your OC?

Copper Benoit- ignoring the low-hanging fruit of Copper's unusual animal companions, I associate him with dogs. While you could say it's because Floyd's nickname for him is "Sea Dog", it's also due to the fact a lot of other people have said he's got the energy of a sad, lonely puppy. And I would say that's fairly accurate, especially at the start of his story. (And he probably grows up into the kind of dog that you'd love to have around but definitely don't want to get on the wrong side of.)

Wei Renqiao- Perhaps this is cheating but I associate him with phoenixes. His Signature Spell/Unique Magic, "Revenant Warlord", allows Ren to revive after he's died or been killed somehow. There are certain circumstances in which he can be perma-killed, sure, the magic has its limitations, but typically speaking it would be near-impossible to permanently kill him. And his body heals rapidly when he revives, so I've always seen him as a phoenix since I was first conceptualizing him.

Wei Xinyi- This one might seem a little odd, since Xinyi is an extrovert at heart, but I tend to see them as a tiger. Because we do tend to see more and more videos of tigers being playful or fun, and there are absolutely some endearing moments of tigers that are brothers being silly, but they're still tigers. And I think that's a fairly good rule of thumb for Xinyi: they come across as extremely playful, lighthearted, and affectionate with those close to them, but don't think for a second that's all there is to them.

Talesin- a ring-tailed lemur, apparently. It just fits.

6) Any flowers you associate with your OC?

BITCH FLOWER SYMBOLISM IS MY DAMN LIFEBLOOD

Copper- Blue iris. They symbolize hope and faith, both integral parts of where Copper's story begins, and they also symbolize mystery, which is appropriate to his heritage going unknown for so long (as well as how well he keeps his unique magic hidden.) The color fitting so well with him eventually ending up in Pomefiore is a nice little bonus!

Ren- Lotus, for its meanings of rebirth and regeneration. Emilia, for creativity. Periwinkle, for intellect and mental capability. And forget-me-nots, for fidelity, faithful love, resilience and memory.

Xinyi- it feels fitting that, as a Mulan expy, at least one of the flowers I associate with them the most is pink magnolias, for innocence, youth, joy, femininity and romance. Also sweet William for masculinity, gallantry and courage.

Talesin- Anthurium, for hospitality, and freesia, for joy and friendship. And rhododendron, for danger and a need for caution.

7) Does your OC have a favorite and least favorite food?

Copper- I don't know if he has a least favorite food, but his favorite foods are all fairly spicy. He's not the pickiest eater and I don't think he has a single favorite.

Ren- "Ants climbing a tree", if we're going for food from his culture. It's mung bean vermicelli noodles stir fried with minced meat and sprinkled with scallions. It's been his favorite since childhood and nobody makes it like his mother does! He's also extremely fond of red bean bread and he often bakes it himself! Not sure what his favorite dish is from other cultures, but I can tell you his least favorite food is anything with duck in it. Don't ask why, I don't know, he just doesn't like duck.

Xinyi- This one is interesting, because Xinyi loves cross-cultural exchange and a big, big part of that for them is other foods! They have a running list and their fave foods are subject to change, but (presently based on what they tell me) they love chocolate-covered strawberries, chili-cheese fries, and cheesy potato soup served in bread bowls. (A-Xin, did you go to a festival or something and not tell me.) Atm they don't have a least favorite food.

Talesin- His dad got him hooked on gumbo and cornbread, his baba got him hooked on lamb and rice, and Uncle Jamil got him hooked on beef curry. He also REALLY loves waffles. He immensely dislikes any dishes made with shellfish but he'll tolerate them (with a lot of dramatics) if he absolutely has to.

—————

Taglist: @ramshacklerumble @simons-twsted-children @tixdixl @elenauaurs @rainesol @distant-velleity @theleechyskrunkly @thehollowwriter (let me know if you want to be added to the taglist for my TWST OCs!)

[freakartack]

I love your Orbulon and space bunnies are sea creatures propaganda how do you even come up with that it’s so cool‼️

Thank you!! A fun fact about me is that i am actually insane about invertebrates. So when wario presented me with two made-up invertebrates i went a little insane. I do play it kind of fast and loose with these guys so i'm sure an actual specbio enthusiast would not be impressed but i'd say 40% of my creative decisions are also based in what would be the funniest (such as making sure the polyp looks like a bowling pin)

I have hinted at this via my orbiology poster but i have an entire orbulon corkboard living in my head so here is the bulk of that iceberg

Based on orbulon's aversion to heat, big ol' sunglasses, and milky complexion, i think that he is the interstellar equivalent of a cave olm. Instead of an underground cave i think he lives on a gas giant far from his system's sun, which would be cold, dark, and have a thick atmosphere for him to "swim" through. ("What about the air pressure?" You say. "Hold your horses" I say. "It will all be worth it in the end.") This reason i think it is worth it is because my model for this is uranus, the gas giant whose atmosphere contains notable amounts of, and i cannot stress this enough, methane. Tell me a more warioware planet

I also think that his planet is predominantly blue, not just because of the youranus thing but also because whenever he gets really scared he literally turns blue. Check it out

I think this is NOT the same as blushing, but a fear response similar to cuttlefish changing color to camouflage with their environment via chromatophores in their skin. Unfortunately when orbulon is scared shitless he does a bad job of it and just defaults to his home planet color, but when he actually thinks about it he can change his color and shape to be whatever he wants (such as a pretty woman).

3. On a similar note, orbulon does not have teeth but he can shapeshift his mouth to create the facsimile of teeth. This is a cool party trick but you need to know that the fake teeth are still squishy and it's really gross.

4. Orbulon's eyes are uber-sensitive to light which is why he needs those impenetrable coke-bottle sunglasses. He also doesn't have eyelids, so during his 24-hour naps his eyes are open the whole time. Sweet dreams.

5. This is going to veer out of plain biology and into his society so i'm not going to go too deep into this but basically i think that telepathy is an integral part of intraspecies communication and that their society is very communal as a result. Think like ants with pheromones, not a hivemind in that they lose their individual identities but they're definitely less atomized than humans. They're also wildly intelligent and have canonically developed time travel technology to the point where the average person can just have a time machine built into their car. This gives a little insight into orbulon's mindset here

(I don't think he's very clever by orbulon standards)

This is getting too long and crazy so i'm going to top it off with one more thing. I know orbulon is supposed to have smooth skin but in my heart i wish he had the texture of these bad boys

[xeno-bio-sociology]

Would it even be possible for a Mother Grub-like creature to exist on a humanoid species scale without magic, considering the vast caloric intake it would need just to exist even without constant egg-laying? Speaking of, how fast do you think it could produce eggs? I'm trying to figure out numbers for the troll population and that's my starting point.

Woof, hmmm....

It's interesting because I have wondered some of these things myself before, wanting a place like Alternia or any other giant-animals & dragons world to be plausible, but I don't have the background to get into the actual science of it. But let's see how far I can get and then hope that someone else can fill in the gaps.

Okay, so the three major constraints we'd be working with here are: structural integrity vs gravity and square-cubed law, air intake and blood circulation vs square-cube law, and calorie intake vs food chains and square-cube law.

For those who don't know, the square-cube law is the principle that the mass/volume/weight of an object grows faster (x3) than its surface area (x2) or the measurement of its height/length/depth in one direction (x1). An ant, being much smaller than a human, needs proportionally less muscle to fight back against gravity. Its exoskeleton doesn't need to be made of a super-tough material to withstand most of the impacts it receives or to easily contain all the bodily tissues. It needs less oxygen and what oxygen it has can reach all its tissues even without a special tube system to pump it all over the place, and it can survive on a very small amount of calories. If you simply embiggened the ant to a human size it would collapse and be unable to breathe.

So let's take this one at a time: structural integrity Our mother grub needs to be made of much stronger material than an ant is. There is precedence for this, found in other animal kingdoms. Elephants manage to move around despite their size, as did the dinosaurs before them, with huge dense bones and similarly meaty muscles. And both the scaly-footed gastropod and some rodents integrate metals into their bodies to toughen their shells and teeth respectively.

This is an alien from a different planet and evolutionary tree after all, we do not have to stick to the traits we can observe in the insect kingdom on our own planet here. Calling trolls and mothergrubs insects or insectoid is simply a shorthand for convenience and we can decide that they've convergently evolved these adaptations or whatever else we might invent to allow them to work as we wish, we just have to make the actual function make scientific sense. So, the mother grub's exoskeleton is metal-infused, and she might have a secondary internal skeleton to hold her up as well, as a solid core to hand things on is more structurally sound and mobile than a can around it. Or perhaps a more honeycomb-like approach, with supports scattered throughout; like a building with rooms. Maybe it evolved in a kind of opposite way to how a turtle did, where it had an internal skeleton that then grew into a shell. Or perhaps it is a new structure that we do not have an equivalent for in our insects. Either way, that's the exoskeleton out of the way.

As for muscles, while I think it's possible for them to have evolved them to the point that they can have the typical thin limbs of an insect, since we can see that mechanical devices can operate under such contraints, I think it's likely that that the limbs in general and the weightbearing and locomoting legs especially are significantly chunkier than we would see on an ant.

I will say however, that it is entirely possible that the mother grub in particular is not especially expected to move around by herself, and typically relies on drones and jadebloods to do much of anything. Pretty sure that’s how termites do. Perhaps Kanaya's virgin mother grub is also smaller than she is depicted; though the opposite could be true and most mother grubs do not regularly attain such sizes and either the lusus fluke or her being unmated contribute to her being as large as she is. We simply do not see any other mother grubs, though the implication that the skull on Terezi's scale is from one would suggest that the inverse is true and mother grubs can be enormous indeed. Either way, she probably doesn’t fly unless she’s much lighter than she looks and maybe filled with helium. Perhaps the wings are decorative? Or maybe they function as part of a heat-dissipation system or even for oxygen exchange themselves?

In any case, onto the next issue: air and blood circulation

As you probably already know, insects have a much different respiratory system to vertebrates. Instead of a central hole or three to breathe from and a sac to breathe into, where it dissolves into the blood and then a bunch of tubes all around the body to take the blood to the tissues, they tend to have what are called "spiracles," a bunch of little holes in their skin big enough for the air to enter and a tube to take the air to the tissues directly. The problem with this on a large scale is 1: less surface area:volume means you have less space for spiracles, 2: more volume:size means it's harder to get the oxygen to all the tissues you've got packed in there. Letting the oxygen essentially just passively absorb just isn't very efficient.

In past eons some invertebrates have gotten around this to get much larger than they are today by the simple expedient of there being significantly more oxygen in the air than there is these days. We can also get a heck of a lot more leeway by updating our mother grubs to have a heart and blood and veins and such. Something more complex than the simple book lung that spiders and such have. For reference, while the largest terrestrial invertebrate that ever lived was a 110lb millipede we think that the blue whale is pretty much the largest an animal can get with a mammalian circulatory system before the heart just can't pump the blood through the body fast enough, and it comes in at 199 tons (two-hearted whale when).

So pump up the oxygen level (not too high or there's fire explosionsm especially under the alternial sun), and maybe decrease the gravity on the planet and things can grow pretty big. Maybe you could even switch out oxygen and carbon as the main elements we're looking at here and get a boost that way too. I’m not big on chemistry or how things work, so maybe oxygen and carbon are the only things that’ll work here, but for instance the atmosphere on earth is 78% nitrogen and only 21% oxygen and humans don’t even do anything with the nitrogen, so even assuming that humans have to breathe the same air as exists on alternia (not a safe bet, as each species would have some wiggle room in terms of air composition and all humans were godtiered and capable of surviving in the vacuum of space [or at least the medium] by the time they were face-to-face with the trolls, and Earth C is both dubiously canon and potentially contains species that are not quite the same as those on either earth or alternia) you’ve got plenty of space to fill with some alternate gas in there.

So we’ve got a metal-plated, well-muscled mother grub who maybe doesn’t move around so much and has anatamy containing lungs, pumped blood, and veins. Maybe she’s got spiracles still and they work like our own airways or maybe she’s got a big honker of a nose like humans do, but either way we’re cooking with fire here. We’ve made the planet lighter and changed the O2 content and maybe we’re working with a silico-hydrate base for all our flesh-building purposes and thicken up the air so it’s soupy and bouyant. Heck, maybe we shrink everything we see over on alternia and the trolls themselves a bit, and they’re only depicted as of equal size as humans for story reasons or maybe everything gets resized to a default setting once it enters the medium for convenience’s sake. Whatever, it’s not important cause now comes the problem that I keep running into headlong each time I try to tackle an alternia-like ecosphere. The food web.

Cause, see, the mother grub by her self and trolls as a whole, they’re not a problem. (Well, not until they start taking all those nutrients to space)

The problem is this: Lookit how many giant predators and hyper-predators there are. Lookit this dragon. That is canonically a newborn. She can fly and breathe fire. Lookit this horrorterror. She canonically eats a ton of land and surface dwelling meats and isn’t just subsisting off of chemical vents or something.

All that mass, the energy to go flying off into the sky with extra to (literally) burn? That’s gotta come from somewhere. And on the one hand, we have maybe a partial answer: the sun. Specifically, that it is implied to be extremely hot and strong and maybe close. Not explicit, since Trolls could be unusual in their being nocturnal and even looking at our sun for long will blind a person, but the implications are there and we can run with them to a big, hot, super energy source ripe for the taking. The problem with that is that energy typically doesn’t flow down the food chain very far. We like to think of the food web as being a self-sustaining perpetual motion machine, but that’s just not true. So much energy is lost at each step, often as heat. And then that heat dissipates into the atmosphere and then escapes out into the greater universe. Think about it; how many seeds does a bird have to eat to grow to its adult size, and then to sustain it every day? Then how many birds does a cat have to eat to do the same? And how many cats does a fisher eat, and how many of those does a puma need in its life? It’s a lot. It’s exponential at each step, since a creature must spend so much energy just maintining its daily life and can’t put it all on body growth. And then all of that big long chain has to be sustained on vast quantities of plant matter, who generate their own bodies from the sun. There is of course a secondary chain that “starts” with detrivores like fungus and flies, but is by necessity focused on a much smaller amount of resources than the main chain.

So we’re limited by the following:

- how much energy the sun makes

- the % of that energy that makes it to alternia

- the amount that bounces off alternia or its atmosphere before it can be harvested

- the % of that energy that photosynthesizers can harvest

- the % they can store

- the % they need to live and propegate until they are eaten

- how much the herbivore needs to grow and live and eat and reproduce

- the efficiency with which the herbivore stores the energy gain

- how much the creature that eats the herbivore needs to use

- how much ITS fat can store.

- and so on

We can mess with any and potentially all of the steps in the chain to increase potential length of it and allow more and more massive and widespread superpredators at the end of it. We’ve already started that by increasing the potency of the sun, but each change will have repercussions. For instance, if energy is so widely available then why bother to evolve anything more complicated than photosynthesis itself? I once heard an author say that one needs to have two levels of answers to worldbuild convincingly – to solve the first problem and then to solve the follow-up question. That after that people will be satisfied. Something about fighting nuns. Where did the nun learn to fight? In the sewers. Why was she in the sewers? To fight the crocodiles.

So: We amp up the sun. Why bother evolving herbivory? The sun is too hot and withstanding it is costly and resource-intense. Not everything can be a plant because not everything has the sun-blocking resources, and there is a niche for nocturnal herbivores who don’t have to invest in sun protection. Why carnivory? The sun-block also makes the plants tough and hard to eat and digest; eating meat is relatively quick and easy.

The same thing can be done at other steps. Maybe we make animal life on alternia more efficient: they can do all work of living without creating much waste-heat, and their versions of digestion and fat pack in more calories denser.

But again, the nitty gritty science is not my area of expertise, and these are the questions that can keep me awake at night. What kind of solutions could make the food chain more efficient? What kind of pressures would encourage long food chains, large fat stores, and giant hyper-predators? How can we engineer an environment that will predispose this planet to logically evolving dragons?

[agoddamn]

@cardinalgoldenbrow yeah, the stuff Acrithis says just seems to have a different tone, a different type of integration into Duviri.

Teshin and Albrecht are always remembered as strangers, and strangers are so unusual in Duviri that they're often recalled in the same breath, ie "the hermit was the first stranger we've seen since the scholar" kinda dialog. Kullervo never comes up. New dialog was added with Kullervo's update so they could have put that text in if they wanted, but they didn't.

Further--what are the circumstances of people falling into Duviri? Some sort of large Void event, typically. The Drifter builds Duviri around themselves like a pearl over years from the Void itself. Teshin, the Operator, and Lotus's hand fall in during a galaxy-spanning Void tear that was so large it riled up the Man in the Wall. Harrow's death causing the rain of chains.

Where's Kullervo's big Void event? Where's his corresponding Origin System disaster that blew him out of reality? He's...sort of linked to the Collapse (but even Ballas says that he didn't do it*), and also sort of linked to a bunch of other events that we know nothing about because they were invented solely for his history. He's otherwise remarkably unglued from the Origin System's history for someone allegedly in love with an Executor (with Ballas?).

*"but you just said that Lotus did cause the Collapse"; everything out of the Warden's mouth is warped by Ballas's perspective as a selfish megalomaniac. He's strangely personally denigrating when he says that Kullervo didn't cause the Collapse.

That's one of the other reasons I think Kullervo is made from the Lotus, actually.

The Warden is so personally insulted by Kullervo's existence and choices and he really shouldn't be. Kullervo as a real preframe should be an ant to Ballas, to the Warden. Instead, the Warden is personally insulted by...Kullervo respecting someone other than him. Exactly like how he was so upset with the Tenno 'stealing' Margulis's attention from him.

[lets-try-some-writing]

⭐️ You got anything cool you wanna share? 👀

Of course!

Pretender AU Ramble:

The Pretender AU is currently my favorite Tumblr AU and let me tell you, I am slow writing for it because the plot THICKENS. The idea came into being when I saw an image of some creepy looking Megatron & Optimus artwork. Then as I sat down with my writing buddy to discuss the AU and go over some of the asks I have gotten for it to create a coherent plot, things got deeper than they originally were.

Literally no one is the good guy in the Pretender AU, despite how it may look. Megatron may seem like the hero, but he is still on his crazy train (which will be showcased later). Optimus may seem like a monster (which he is), but if you look at it, he is simply a being who was born of the wrong host. If ANYONE else had been his host, he would have been fine and the Pretenders could have integrated without issue most likely. Orion Pax would have learned of them, and possibly even gone so far as to create an alliance with these beings considering they operate a great deal like an ant colony and their abilities cannot be overlooked.

Why do I bring this up? Because Megatron is a hypocrite. He wishes to free all sentient beings. Well guess what? The Pretenders are very much sentient. He can't see that, or rather he refuses to due to the trauma of witnessing Orion Pax's slow death. He also does not see many others as sentient in light of his fear of the Pretenders. The Insecticons are on the chopping block just because they share traits with the Pretenders. Beastformers have never been looked on fondly, and in light of the Pretenders, they are also not taken to kindly. By seeing them this way, they have turned to the Pretenders (which will be shown in later writing I have planned).

By refusing to see the Pretenders are sentient beings, many other minor factions are also being thrown under the bus. This has unintentionally given the Pretenders the tools they need to endure. The Pretenders were made for a purpose, and they are really fragging good at doing their job. But Megatron refusing to let go of his personal vendetta was pretty much the only thing dragging out the war. And by doing so, he forced the Pretenders to become less emotive, more calculating, and hyperactive. It is a self destructive cycle and no one is the good guy here. Both factions make things worse for each other and they make the other group more and more fanatical just by existing. There is no victory here.

Well.

That is except for Smokescreen.

He plays the LONG game.

Extra:

Fun fact about the LTSW writing process:

Almost ALL of my fics and AU's are run past my dear friend @spreadwardiard. I come up with the concept and the base for the plot, and then they help me build the idea until we settle on an amazing story. Occasionally I work on something entirely alone, but at this point pretty everything except surprise gifts/small writing projects unworthy of serious note are given to them to think about prior to the actual written work being completed.

My work would not be nearly as interesting without their input. Having a friend to polish up an idea with really is a lifesaver.

You can tell which AU's I didn't run past them because I either don't touch them anymore, the plot/timeline is rather disjointed, or its a goofy thought rather than anything super serious. That's how much I lean on the commentary of others to really get the ball rolling for my work.