#era: molded by flames

[perfectlyoongi]

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who dreamed of you every day. it wasn't necessary for Jungkook to know you to love you; in his dreams, when the stars blessed his unconscious thoughts, Jungkook met you daily, sharing a feeling as old as the stars themselves, feeling immediately at home when in your presence. “i only had to look at you to realize that you are the one i’m looking for; the way you warm my heart is too familiar for you to be a mere stranger.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who counted the days until he met you. in love with love, Jungkook only tried to find you as quickly as possible, knowing that, from the moment he saw you, he would know that you were the one he should love — every day of Jungkook only made sense because it became one day closer to meeting you. “it’s close, i feel it. inside me, inside my heart, there is a force that pulls me closer to you, pulls me closer to my happiness.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who swore that the colors became more vibrant the day he met you. and, oh, when he met you, all the greens became more intense, the blues more tender, the reds more fiery; meeting you was like opening a coloring book, where your soul was the color of the rainbow and painted every nook and cranny of Jungkook's life. “it seems like i only started to see the world as it really is when you appeared in my life. it was as if everything before was just grey and white and you brought with you fireworks to color me.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who loved you from day one. already in his dreams, Jungkook knew he would love instantly; your essence had been part of his for decades; your soul was molded from the same cosmic dust as his; you yourself were the magic that came out of Jungkook's core; it was obvious that Jungkook would love you right away — you were destined to love each other. “i only had to look at you once to realize that it was you i had to stay with; didn't you feel your heart calling me? mine wouldn't stop screaming your name. it just wanted to go home.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who always knew that his place was by your side. as if written in the stars, your love story was as old as the universe itself, your souls existing long before the first star died; and you were made of the same dust, carved from the same star, shaped by the same gods — you and Jungkook were always together long before you were human; and Jungkook only felt complete next to you, next to his half. “we are born from the same flame that we consume right now; our hearts hold within them the fire that created us and brought us together in this life and in others.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who believed in past lives and lived stories. it was your connection, the way your and Jungkook's complicity was too ancestral to be from this time; the way you and Jungkook understood each other, loved each other, came from past times, accompanying all of your lives and growing with the passing of time and eras “since i met you, i realized that i had already met you in another life. you feel like home, you soothe my soul as if you already knew every particle of it. you and i, we come from past times.”

SOULMATE!JUNGKOOK who would love you even if the universe didn't allow it. and if the gods were more cruel, if the universe itself gave up on your love, Jungkook swore to you that he wouldn't stop loving you; with you being his heavenly half, you being the only person he was destined to love, Jungkook swore that this love would not wither, only expand throughout the cosmos to show the universe that it would not win. “it doesn’t matter if destiny doesn’t want it. it doesn't matter if the gods want to steal us. i promise you that my love for you will paint all the stars and constellations and forever remind them of their mistake of separating us.”

[everyones-fangirl]

Delectable Little Pet

Warnings: 18+ This will be about after ascension Astarion so expect some extreme dark romance and future triggers.

Word Count: 4,233

Chapter 13

Astarion

A deep sigh left my lips as my right hand rose once more to rub at my temples, as if that action alone would fix the mounting issues piling up around me. The council chamber, usually a place of authority and control, felt like a cage. The absence of Lucian, that treacherous snake, was a constant reminder of my own precarious position. He had vanished without a trace, evading every attempt to track him down. Even the council was left in the dark—his cowardice knew no bounds. I stared at the empty chair where he once sat, my mind awash with a thousand unformed plans. Each one began and ended with the satisfying image of his blood pooling at my feet. It was a visceral need, a primal urge to make him pay for his betrayal. But the how and when of it eluded me. My thoughts raced, a chaotic swirl of strategies and fantasies of vengeance, none of them concrete enough to act upon. The chamber itself seemed to mock my frustration. Elaborate tapestries hung on the walls, depicting scenes of ancient battles and glorious victories—symbols of a time when control was absolute and dissent was met with swift, merciless justice. The long, polished table in the center, around which the council would convene, was empty save for a few scattered parchments and quills. I rose from my chair, pacing the length of the chamber. The floor beneath me, a mosaic of dark and light stones, echoed with each determined step. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the occasional creak of the wooden beams overhead. I could almost hear Lucian’s laughter, feel his smug satisfaction at having eluded me once again.

My mind drifted to Cassara, to the turmoil I had thrust upon her in my desperate bid to save her. Her transformation weighed heavily on my conscience, a constant reminder of my failure. And yet, it also fueled my resolve. I couldn't afford to be distracted by Lucian's games. I had to protect her, to ensure that the darkness I had pulled her into would not consume her entirely. Lucian's betrayal was a festering wound, one that demanded retribution. But Cassara was my priority. She needed me now more than ever, and I couldn’t let my quest for vengeance blind me to that fact. As much as I yearned to see Lucian's lifeblood spill, I knew that my focus had to remain clear. I stopped pacing, letting my gaze settle on the flickering candle that stood on the table's edge. Its flame danced and wavered, much like my own resolve. But I steeled myself, drawing a deep breath. There would be time for vengeance, time to settle scores. For now, I needed to be the pillar of strength for Cassara, to guide her through the darkness I had so recklessly thrust her into. With renewed determination, I left the council chamber, the echo of my footsteps a promise of the bloodshed to come. Lucian would not escape my wrath forever. But first, I had to ensure that the woman I loved was safe, even if that meant confronting my own demons in the process.

Once I got back home, my steps carried me automatically to my personal office. The weight of the day bore down on me, making each step feel heavier than the last. The office was a sanctuary of sorts. The room itself was vast, with high ceilings that seemed to stretch into eternity, adorned with intricate moldings and carvings that hinted at a bygone era of opulence. The walls were lined with towering bookshelves, each shelf packed tightly with ancient tomes, scrolls, and grimoires that chronicled the knowledge and histories of countless civilizations. The scent of old parchment and leather permeated the air, a comforting aroma that was as familiar as it was suffocating in moments like these. The centerpiece of the room was the massive, imposing desk that dominated the space. Carved from dark, rich wood, its surface was scarred with the marks of countless plans and decisions made over the years. The desk was always kept meticulously organized, with maps, documents, and writing implements arranged in perfect order, a stark contrast to the chaos that often surrounded my life. On the opposite side of the room, a small seating area provided a space for more intimate discussions. A pair of high-backed armchairs, upholstered in deep crimson velvet, flanked a low, intricately carved table. Here, I often met with my most trusted advisors, the setting lending itself to confidential conversations and secretive plotting. A side table held a crystal decanter filled with a rich, amber liquid—an indulgence for moments of reflection.

I blindly collapsed into the large, leather chair. The weight of the desk’s history seemed to anchor me, grounding me in moments of uncertainty. I leaned my arms against it, feeling the cool, worn wood beneath my palms as if its solidity could ground me in this sea of turmoil. Thorne appeared in the doorway almost immediately, his presence a silent, steadfast reminder of my own capabilities and resources. His dark silhouette was framed by the dim light of the hallway, his face unreadable as always. The anticipation in the room was palpable, a coiled tension waiting to snap.

"Anything?" I asked, my voice betraying the desperation I felt. I had sent out my own to hunt Lucian down, not fully trusting the council to do so. Their loyalties were too easily swayed, their motives too murky. Thorne was my blade in the shadows, my assurance that Lucian would not slip through our grasp unscathed. Thorne only responded with a shake of his head, his expression grim. The sight of it made my blood boil. A string of curses erupted from my lips, raw and unrestrained, echoing through the room with a violence that matched my internal fury. The failure to locate Lucian was an open wound, and each moment he remained at large was salt ground into it. "Dammit, Thorne," I hissed, my hands clenching into fists on the desk. "He can't have vanished without a trace. He has to be hiding somewhere. We need to be smarter, more ruthless."

Thorne nodded, stepping into the room with the grace of a predator. He closed the door behind him, the soft click a prelude to our next move. "We'll find him, Astarion," he said, his voice a low rumble of certainty. "He's not as clever as he thinks. Desperation makes men careless."

I nodded, taking a deep breath to steady myself. Thorne was right. Lucian's disappearance, though infuriating, was a desperate move. And desperation was a weakness we could exploit. "Double the efforts," I commanded. "I want eyes everywhere—every alley, every shadow. If he so much as breathes, I want to know about it."

Thorne inclined his head, a silent acknowledgment of my orders. He turned to leave, but paused at the doorway, his gaze meeting mine. "We'll get him," he reiterated, his tone a promise. Then he was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the relentless thrum of my anger.

I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling. The ornate moldings and intricate carvings seemed to mock me with their permanence, a stark contrast to the chaos roiling within. Lucian's betrayal was a personal affront, an insult that demanded retribution. But it was more than that—it was a threat to everything I had built, everything I stood for. As I sat there, the weight of the day's failures pressing down on me, my thoughts drifted to Cassara. She was my anchor, my reason for fighting through this storm of treachery and bloodlust. Her transformation, her suffering—it all stemmed from my actions. I couldn't afford to fail her again. I had to find Lucian, had to make him pay for every ounce of pain he had caused. For her, and for me. Lucian would not escape. I would see to that personally. And when I did, the world would know that betraying Astarion was a mistake that cost more than just a life. It would cost a legacy.

Speak of the minx, as if she could sense me thinking about her, the door opened and she walked into the quiet room. Her eyes were vibrant in the dim light, a striking contrast to the shadows that played across her face.They were a brilliant emerald green, more vivid than I had ever seen before, and they seemed to glow with a brighter inner light. It was as if the life she had regained was now radiating outward, drawing everyone who looked into those eyes into her orbit. She moved with a sort of poised shyness that made me want to get down on my knees and give her whatever she was about to ask for. She stepped closer into the flickering light of the candles on my desk, casting an ethereal glow that made her look almost otherworldly. I cocked a brow at her expectantly, my heart rate inexplicably quickening. She was a vision, her once frail frame had filled out, her curves returning with a graceful yet undeniable presence. Eating more had not only restored her physical vitality but had also brought a renewed sense of life to her demeanor. Her skin, once pale and almost translucent, now held a warm, healthy glow. The blood she had consumed had worked its magic, infusing her with a vitality that was impossible to ignore. Her cheeks had a faint blush to them, a sign of the renewed life coursing through her veins. The dark circles that had marred her eyes had faded, replaced by a vibrant sparkle that drew me in every time I looked at her. Her hair, which had appeared dull and lifeless, now shone with a lustrous sheen. The rich waves framed her face beautifully, cascading over her shoulders in a way that begged to be touched. Each strand seemed to catch the candlelight, creating a halo effect that made her look almost ethereal. The deep chestnut color was interwoven with strands of gold and auburn, adding depth and richness to her appearance.Her lips, full and soft, were often tinged with a hint of color, making them even more enticing. When she smiled, it was as if the room brightened, her entire face lighting up with a warmth that was impossible to resist. Her teeth, sharp and slightly elongated now due to her vampiric nature, only added to her allure, giving her an edge that was both dangerous and captivating.

The dress she wore tonight accentuated every inch of her revitalized form. The tight corset made mostly of dark blue lace hugged her chest perfectly, emphasizing the gentle swell of her breasts. It flared out into a simple skirt that brushed against her thighs, hinting at the strength and grace that lay beneath. The intricate patterns of the lace highlighted the curves of her body, drawing the eye to the delicate yet powerful figure she now possessed. As she moved, the dress shifted with her, the fabric clinging to her in a way that was both elegant and seductive. The dark blue lace contrasted beautifully with her glowing skin, creating a striking visual that was impossible to ignore. Every movement she made was a testament to her regained vitality, her steps confident and sure, her presence commanding and undeniable. As she approached, the soft scent of her perfume—a blend of jasmine and something darker, more mysterious—wafted towards me, enveloping my senses and making it difficult to think clearly. I watched her intently, every step she took drawing her closer, increasing the tension in the room. There was an elegance to her movements, a grace that was impossible to ignore. Her presence filled the room, making it feel both smaller and infinitely more significant. She finally stopped just before my desk, her eyes meeting mine with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine.

“What brings you here, my dear?” I asked, my voice a low murmur that barely broke the silence. I couldn't help but lean forward slightly, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. “Is there something you need?”

She hesitated for a moment, her eyes flicking to the side before returning to mine. “I... I just wanted to see you,” she said softly, her voice carrying a note of vulnerability that tugged at my heart. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Her concern, genuine and unguarded, was a stark contrast to the hardened world we both inhabited. It was a reminder of the humanity we still clung to, despite everything. I stood, closing the distance between us in a few swift steps, and gently took her hand in mine. "I'm here," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

Her fingers tightened around mine as I pulled her back toward the chair I had been sitting in. I helped her perch on my lap, her feet barely grazing the floor in the tall chair. The warmth of her body against mine was grounding, a comfort I hadn't realized I needed until that moment. "I met someone in the library," she started, her voice soft and hesitant. I looked at her in confusion. "She said her name was Zariel."

I knew every single one of my spawn—personally. I knew their names, what they looked like, and where they were at all times. There was no Zariel on my team and I think I would remember turning one of the rulers of Avernus. My mind raced, trying to place the name and the potential threat it could represent. "What did they look like, my pet?" I asked, keeping my voice steady to avoid alarming her. As I waited for her response, I found myself absently winding her hair around my fingers, the silky strands providing a small distraction from my growing unease.

Cassara took a deep breath, her eyes flickering with uncertainty. "She had greenish skin, almost like a faint tint. Her hair was black and curly, cut short around her face. She had sharp black horns and a round pair of glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were red, and she seemed...familiar somehow." She paused, searching my face for any sign of recognition. “She said my friend Caty had caught her eye.”

My mind continued to work at a frantic pace. A green-skinned tiefling with black horns and red eyes. Realization flooded my features, and I shook my head in familiar disappointment but couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. “Her name is Sanna.”

Confusion passed over Cassara, and I could see her body tighten in anger. “Why would she lie to me?”

I forgot how sheltered the poor girl had been, briefly remembering how she told me about growing up in a Druid village. She had no idea who Zariel even was, let alone why Sanna had used that name to mess with her. “Darling,” I began, gently taking her chin in my hand to make her look at me. “It is a prank she pulls on everyone that walks through these halls. You are new and close to me, and I swear she’s a kind of trickster.”

Cassara's eyes searched mine, the initial anger giving way to a mix of confusion and hurt. “But why would she want to trick me? I don’t understand.” Her voice trembled slightly, the vulnerability in her tone tugging at my heart.

“Sanna enjoys causing a bit of chaos,” I explained, my thumb gently stroking her cheek. “It's her way of testing newcomers, of seeing how they react. It’s nothing personal, my pet. Just her twisted sense of humor.”

Cassara’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, though the hurt lingered in her eyes. “I don’t like being made a fool of,” she admitted softly.

I pulled her closer, wrapping my arms around her in a comforting embrace. “You are no fool, Cassara. You are strong and smart. Sanna's tricks mean nothing compared to your strength. She will learn that in time.”

Her body melted into mine, the tension slowly easing away. “I just want to fit in here, Astarion. It’s all so new and overwhelming.”

I pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting my lips linger there for a moment. “You will find your place here, I promise. And I will be here with you every step of the way.”

She nodded against my chest, her breathing evening out as she took comfort in my words. “Thank you,” she whispered, the gratitude in her voice making my heart swell.

She shifted her position so she faced me, straddling my lap, and I felt myself freeze underneath her. What was she— My thoughts were cut off as she blinked up at me through her long lashes with a look that could only equate to that of a small, innocent animal. A look that stirred many conflicted feelings and thoughts within me. When I saw her teeth begin to nibble at her bottom lip, I couldn’t hold back any longer. My hands found her waist almost immediately. “Pet, you are treading dangerous waters.”

“I just have a question,” she began, blatantly ignoring my warning. “Would it be possible for me to see Caty again? I’m sure she’s worried.”

My grip tightened around her at her question, and I took a deep breath to steady myself. “That is up to you, my sweet. I can arrange it if needed, but I need you to be prepared for what might happen.” I couldn’t help but think back to my own personal experience of trying to reconnect with old friends. They had told me they’d sooner drive a stake through my heart than converse with me anymore—not that Cazador would have let me anyway.

Cassara’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of hope mingled with apprehension. “What do you mean, what might happen?”

I sighed, my thumb tracing soothing circles on her waist. “When you see someone from your past, especially someone who hasn’t been through what you have, their reaction can be... unpredictable. They might not understand what you’ve become, or worse, they might fear you.”

Her expression grew troubled, and she lowered her gaze, her fingers absently playing with a loose thread on my shirt. “I just... I miss her. She was my best friend. She deserves to know I’m okay.”

I cupped her chin, lifting her face to meet mine. “And she will know, but you must be ready for whatever her reaction might be. You need to be strong, for both your sake and hers.”

She nodded slowly, determination flickering in her eyes. “I understand. I just want to see her, even if it��s just once. I need to know she’s okay too.”

I leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Very well, my sweet. I will make the arrangements.”

My gaze stayed on her as her hands found my chest, her palms resting lightly against the bare skin my open shirt displayed. I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat. In all of my sexual escapades, I was the one in control, relying on manipulation tactics to ensure my survival. To be in this position with someone who might actually care for me was an unfamiliar feeling. It left me feeling vulnerable but in a way I never thought possible. Her soft lips pressing against mine pulled me from my thoughts, and I held back a surprised moan. She shifted to pull herself flush against me, and in doing so, she brushed against my hardening cock. The noise her actions produced from me was something I couldn’t replicate if I tried—a deep, guttural sound that seemed to come from the very core of my being.

Cassara's lips curved into a small, knowing smile as she felt my reaction. Her fingers traced delicate patterns across my chest, sending shivers down my spine. “Astarion,” she whispered, her voice a seductive purr that made my heart race. “I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

Her words ignited a fire within me, a longing that went beyond mere physical desire. It was as if she could see through the layers of my carefully constructed facade, reaching the vulnerable man beneath. I couldn’t help but be drawn to her, my hands finding her waist and pulling her even closer. “Cassara,” I breathed, my voice thick with emotion. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

She leaned in, her lips brushing against my ear. “Then show me,” she murmured, her breath hot against my skin. “Let me in, Astarion.”

Her invitation was both exhilarating and terrifying. I had spent so long guarding my heart, hiding my true self from everyone. But with Cassara, I wanted to take that risk, to let her see the man behind the mask. My hands moved to her hips, guiding her movements as she shifted in my lap. The friction between us was intoxicating, a heady mix of pleasure and anticipation. As our lips met again, the kiss deepened, becoming more urgent, more desperate. I felt her fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer as if she couldn’t bear to be apart from me. The intensity of our connection was overwhelming, and I found myself losing control, surrendering to the feelings she evoked in me.

When we finally pulled back, both of us were breathless, our foreheads resting against each other. “I’ve never felt like this before,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. “You make me feel...alive.”

Cassara’s eyes softened, her expression filled with a tenderness that made my heart ache. “You are alive, Astarion,” she said softly. “And you deserve to feel loved.”

I froze. It was as if my brain short-circuited, and no response graced my mind. The room began to spin, the edges of my vision growing fuzzy. The only thing I could think about was getting away. I gently but firmly moved Cassara off my lap, my hands trembling. “I...I need some air,” I muttered, barely able to get the words out. The weight of her words, the sheer vulnerability they implied, was too much for me to process. I stumbled towards the door, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The walls seemed to close in on me, each step feeling heavier than the last.

Cassara called out to me, her voice tinged with concern. “Astarion, wait! Please, talk to me.”

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her, couldn’t confront the whirlwind of emotions she had stirred within me. I needed space, needed to regain my composure. As I stepped into a back corridor, the cool air hit my face, providing a small measure of relief. I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes and trying to steady my breathing. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, each beat reverberating in my ears like the echo of a death knell. The corridor around me seemed to shift and warp, the walls narrowing as if trying to suffocate me. I felt the crushing weight of countless years of manipulation, the ghostly presence of Cazador’s control tightening its grip around my throat. I clutched at my chest, gasping for breath, my vision blurring as panic overtook me. Memories I had long tried to bury surged to the surface, each one a sharp blade cutting through my mind. Cazador’s cruel voice echoed in my ears, reminding me that I was nothing more than a tool, a pawn in his twisted games. His face, twisted in a sadistic smile, loomed before me, the image so vivid it felt real. The idea of being loved, of being worthy of love, felt like a cruel joke, a dream too fragile to hold onto.

I sank to the floor, my back against the cold stone wall, my mind a tumultuous storm of doubt and longing. The thought of letting Cassara in, of allowing her to see the broken parts of me, was terrifying. My breaths came in shallow, erratic bursts, each one a struggle against the invisible chains that seemed to tighten around my chest. I pressed my hands to my temples, trying to force the memories away, but they only grew stronger, more insistent. The hallway felt like it was closing in on me, the darkness pressing against my vision. My fingers dug into the stone floor, searching for some anchor, something to hold onto. The past and present blurred together, and for a moment, I was back in Cazador’s lair, his voice taunting me, his touch a constant reminder of my powerlessness.

I stayed there, curled up on the cold floor, for what felt like an eternity. Each breath was a struggle, each heartbeat a reminder of the chains I thought I had broken but still felt. Alone in the corridor, I was a prisoner of my own mind, grappling with a past that refused to let me go and a future that seemed uncertain and terrifying. Finally, I forced myself to stand, using the wall for support. The world was still spinning, but I had to move, had to get away from the suffocating confines of the castle. I stumbled through the halls, my thoughts a chaotic swirl, needing the solace of the night air to clear my mind. Cassara’s words echoed in my ears, a haunting reminder of what I had been given and what I was so afraid to lose.

[vomits0cutely]

My opinions on Marauders era ship names (my opinions no hate)

— Wolfstar - 7.5/10, I really like it it’s like a wolf howling to the moon but expect to a star, which is strange but beautiful. I’ve heard it sm it’s kinda normal for me idk, it doesn’t strike me that much. ~ Moonstar - 8.5/10, I love this also, I prefer this one tho. This one feels right and just seems more like engaging ig?

— Jily - 8/10, very cute name. Jily is the og name and I love it but.. ~ Flowerpot - 9.5/10 i love this name SM better, it sounds more iconic and rare idk, Flowerpot does different stuff to me. Gives me more love and home-y vides which fit them sm

— Pandalily - 9/10, it’s reminds me of a sunny day with rain: the perfect mix of warm and cooling down. It’s so cute ‘panda’ and ‘lily’ is such a cute mix and I love it

— Marylily - 5.5/10, very cutey I love lesbians friends to lovers. It’s such a beautiful fun name and I think the ship dynamic changes my opinion but I still love it

— Marlily - 6.5/10, sound smooth, I get kinda confuse this with Marylily cause they look similar but they’re still both very cute, I still like this name.

— Dorlene - 5/10, love this ship sm but this name is so weird, it doesn’t spell, sound or look nice. Just gives me weird vibes idk. The ship >>> the name

— Jegulus - 3/10, sick ship, the most known name even though I very much dislike the name. This name doesn’t sound or look that nice, it’s just weird to me but.. ~ Sunseeker/Starchaser - 8/10, much better, more iconic, more unique, more interesting. I like this sm better. It’s also real cause James be down bad for his lovers and is definitely chasing them. I think I like Sunseeker better tho, like Regulus seeking out James and making him fall inlove with him, makes me feels thing

— Rosekiller - 8.5/10, very luck fits their vides it’s just so perfect and I love it. I think it is kinda basic because it’s been around so long, but I don’t think anything else can fit their relationship so well into a name

— Bartylus - 2/10, I don’t really like this shop but the name just makes it worse, it’s just sounds dirty and messy and idk how to describe it idk ~ Starkiller - 8/10, that’s such a better name and is savage asf. I don’t really like this ship but this name is amazing, I don’t why but this name reminds me of flames for no reason and I think it’s real fitting

— Sunkiller - 6/10, sick name, sounds like something that would be a bad guy name like deadpool or smth. Like damnn, this ship is growing my and I think this name is helping. It’s a sick name and it kinda fits their vides, Barty’s part of his ship names being ‘killer’ always fits, and this is another one that shows it so well

~ Darksun - 5.5/10, savage, reminds me of an ellipse or like an apocalypse movie idk why but I ain’t complaining

— Moonwater - 8/10, I don’t like this ship cause I prefer them to be platonic but it sounds good. It’s such a great and smooth name and it’s calming and I just like it. Reminds me of the moon reflecting on water and it look so pretty and I like it

— Rosewater - 4.5/10, it sounds smooth and reminds me of rose petals in a bath with candles and stuff, but I don’t like the ship

— Rily - 0/10, so bad, sounds like that annoying boy that was in your class called Riley and ew ~ Moonlily - 3.5/10, sm better, reminds me of a waterlily and it’s so pretty. I don’t like them together but their friendship >>>

— Jeverus/Princechaser - 1/10, ew, that doesn’t look, sound or spell nice. It looks like it would be like green mold for no reason, I do like Princechaser a lot better than Jeverus tho, but.. ~ Stagposion - 8/10, like something that a person would drink and die from. Like a poisonous drink that you’d find in a bottle with the skull on it. Don’t like the ship, love the name

— Rames/Jamus — 0/10, also ew, I don’t like it at all. It doesn’t look appealing at all, it makes me feel gross. Just looks uncomfortable ~ Moonchaser - 9/10, 10x better, I love friends to best friends and lovers sm and they would be so cute together, I don’t really ship them tho. This name is very cute tho icl

— Jeter — 1/10, reminds me of that saying some white people say after something dramatic happens “jeepers!” Idk why but I think the J is throwing me off. It’s just a funky name ~ Prongsfoot - 5/10, much better, just give me a hella tall person with a tiny person for idk why. I don’t like this that much but it’s sm better

{idea from @jiangyanlissidepiece )

[intercomkris]

🍅🦇 @birdietrait did someone say vampire ?

Josiah, formerly known as Jafaar, carries the weight of centuries on his shoulders, a vampire born in the desolate landscapes of Somalia, forever bound to the shadows after a fateful encounter in the mid-1720s. Captured and turned by a Syrian vampire, he was whisked away to the unfamiliar terrain of Syria, where he was reluctantly introduced to a royal vampire family.

In his formative years, Josiah immersed himself in the pursuit of knowledge, studying languages and literature, and clandestinely devising intricate plans for the royal family that held him captive. However, the flame of his ambition was extinguished when the longing to find his birth parents, a desire he had harbored since adolescence, was abruptly silenced.

Growing up as an oppressed and envious teenager, Josiah transformed into a bitter young adult, seeking refuge in the intellectual haven of Europe—specifically England—during the mid-1840s. University life exposed him to capitalist and economist ideologies, molding his worldview as he delved into the intricacies of societal structures.

His journey into the nocturnal realm began with a sinister twist, as his first taste of blood was drawn from one of his professors. A predator in the shadows, he continued his nocturnal pursuits without ever being exposed. As the decades unfolded, he evolved with the changing times, returning to Somalia in the 1970s with a desperate quest to reunite with his birth parents, only to be met with the harsh reality of their long-departed lives.

Returning to the United States, Josiah adapted to the ever-evolving social landscape of the 21st century, attempting to blend in with the trends and norms of the time while clinging to his deep-seated beliefs. His younger sister, a relentless force of change, compelled him to undergo a transformation – tattoos, piercings, a new hairdo, and a wardrobe overhaul – all in an attempt to assimilate into contemporary society. Yet, beneath the superficial alterations, Josiah longs for the simplicity of his original attire, appearing almost robotic in his detachment from the ever-changing fashions.

In the present day of 2023, Josiah finds himself in the forgotten hollow, a place that holds a singular purpose for him. With an enigmatic goal set firmly in his immortal mind, he navigates the delicate balance between adapting to the current era and preserving the essence of his timeless existence, forever haunted by the echoes of his past and the insatiable thirst for the unknown.

TRIVIA:

Fashionable Anachronism: Despite his sister's attempts to modernize his appearance, Josiah secretly hoards a collection of clothing from various eras, finding comfort in the timeless elegance of garments that reflect the epochs he has traversed.

Literary Pursuits: Josiah's love for languages and literature extends beyond his mortal life. He has amassed a private library filled with rare manuscripts, preserving the stories that have shaped his understanding of the world. One of his prized possessions is an ancient tome written in a language long forgotten by mortals.

Musical Tastes: While he outwardly adapts to the music of the modern era, Josiah secretly cherishes classical compositions from his youth. He has been known to haunt hidden concert halls, drawn to the haunting melodies that echo the melancholy of his immortal existence.

Hidden Talents: Josiah possesses a keen talent for calligraphy, a skill he developed during his youth while studying languages. He often spends the quiet hours of the night crafting intricate scripts and inscriptions, each stroke a testament to his centuries-long pursuit of perfection.

Artistic Reflections: In a concealed chamber of his dwelling, Josiah maintains a gallery of portraits capturing moments from his past. Each painting tells a silent tale of the people he has encountered and the cities he has watched evolve, providing a haunting backdrop to his eternal existence.

Nocturnal Philanthropy: Unbeknownst to the mortal world, Josiah channels his capitalist inclinations into philanthropic endeavors during the night. He discreetly funds projects that align with his vision of societal improvement, drawing from the wealth accumulated over centuries.

Unquenchable Thirst for Knowledge: Josiah is a perpetual student of the world, and he continually enrolls in university courses under various aliases. His insatiable thirst for knowledge spans disciplines, from cutting-edge technology to ancient philosophies, allowing him to seamlessly blend into different intellectual circles over the years.

Classical Arabic: Being born in Somalia and later taken to Syria, Josiah mastered Classical Arabic, delving into its rich literature and linguistic nuances.

Syriac: A language with historical significance in the region, Josiah became fluent in Syriac during his time in Syria, connecting with the ancient roots of the supernatural world.

Latin: As a young adult in Europe during the mid-1840s, Josiah immersed himself in the study of Latin, a language that granted him access to the scholarly and philosophical works of the time.

English: Moving to England for university, Josiah not only learned English but excelled in it. His linguistic proficiency allowed him to navigate the rapidly evolving social and intellectual landscape of 19th-century England.

French: Embracing the cultural diversity of Europe, Josiah added French to his repertoire, finding himself captivated by the elegance of the language and its literary treasures.

Somali: Despite his nomadic existence, Josiah retained a deep connection to his roots, maintaining fluency in Somali to honor his heritage and communicate with those from his homeland.

Italian: In his pursuit of art and culture, Josiah picked up Italian during the Renaissance, allowing him to appreciate the masterpieces of the era and connect with the intellectual elite.

Spanish: Venturing into the exploration of the New World, Josiah acquired fluency in Spanish, enabling him to engage with the diverse cultures and civilizations flourishing in the Americas.

German: With a keen interest in the economic and philosophical discourse of the time, Josiah became fluent in German, immersing himself in the works of influential thinkers from the German-speaking world.

Mandarin Chinese: Embracing the advancements of the 20th century, Josiah learned Mandarin Chinese, recognizing its growing importance on the global stage and adapting to the changing geopolitical landscape.

[forrestdabeevee]

Can I request sfw + nsfw relationship headcanons for Ceruledge please?

Sure! However since you didn't really specify gender I'll be kind of vague with the headcanons, also ngl researching stuff for this pokemon was a pain since the dex entries aren't too helpful lol.

SFW

This pokemon is quite difficult to give and receive affection from, mainly due to its swordlike hands, however they can mold the flames into other shapes just don't try to hold the flame hands, it's not worth the burns. Thankfully they can still give and receive affection in other ways, they can still give small kisses, or using its ghost type powers it can still hold you and your hand. Just not physically like either of you would probably enjoy.

If your Ceruledge approaches you with its swords inactive and holds them out to you that is its sign of wanting affection and polishing. The best and easiest way of caring and giving love to your Ceruledge is helping to polish and clean it's armor and wrists, it loves the feeling of the cloth and polisher on its body. Of course make sure you ask your Ceruledge if you can do this as otherwise you may end up getting yourself burnt and or cut from them by accident, and if this does happen then expect your Ceruledge to feel awful and attempt to isolate itself as injuring or being the reason why you got injured is the greatest shame Ceruledge's can get and trying to calm or snap them out of this self doubt or self hatred is incredibly difficult even for partners or masters who have been bonded with their Ceruledge for a long time.

For some odd reason Ceruledge partners are the quickest to understand human terms and policies, many professors can't figure out why this is but some theorize that Ceruledge's were once humans from a bygone era but there sadly isn't enough evidence for the professors to accept this as a hard fact.

NSFW

If you have a Ceruledge that is dominant or wants to be on top then I'd highly suggest getting something for their blades to hold onto or moving to someplace where they can stab or slash the ground without worry, due to their lack of hands they kind of have to do this just to keep stable on top of you.

You won't find Ceruledge's to be quite fast when they are breeding with you, instead they often take things slow and steady. Almost painfully slow and steady sometimes, this can either be from their merciless nature in battle merging here, their more teasing nature running dominant, or their love for you and just wanting to relax and enjoy this rare moment of relaxation.

Of course this isn't to say they can't be fast in bed, in fact when they do move much faster and rougher you best keep some ointment and potions or berries nearby to patch yourself up afterwards as they can get real rough in bed when they want to or are provoked enough. Don't worry they will constantly try to apologize or take care of you afterwards, especially if you have very prominent burns and cuts on your body. With them practically forcing you to not leave bed in that case.

[aaa-bdsm-instruction]

Pornography is almost entirely biased toward predatory consumption. The content appeals to those who get off on predatory consumption.

Generalizing…

This, in the self created content era, tends to be submissive leaning women and the men who enthusiastically consume them and mold them to service their consumption and often predatory kinks.

This is not some wild revelation. It is the point and the structure of the whole porn reality.

Women who get off on it accept that objectification, degradation, and humiliation, create exciting images for the many men who get aroused by these things. Women feel how dirty it is to serve themselves into the arousal of these men. It feels disgusting. It feels humiliating. Yet… in that a great many women find their own arousal couldn’t be greater.

There is nothing wrong with a woman enjoying the energy of being degraded, humiliated and objectified.

Letting these things stimulate your own cravings is your right as a woman to enjoy. You can not only let yourself want it, you can practice growing your role within it. You can like it. It is your right to want to serve men who are offering up an erotically predatory craving to use you. For you to want to service their craving because it feeds your own cravings.

Cravings to serve. To please. To receive attention. To earn praise. To feel dirty. To ache from hard use. Etc…

It is ok to not only accept these experiences, but it is your right to enjoy and pursue them.

Practice it. Serve it. Want it.

Let it ignite your cravings and fan those flames.

Seek out the porn that you crave. Accept that it serves filthy things within you as it helps shape you into a woman who allows herself to enjoy whatever perverse kinks she enjoys.

Degrading, violent, male centered sex gets you off and there is nothing wrong with that.

It is not exciting for all women, just as it is not exciting for all men. But if it does excite you, there is no reason not to enjoy, accept, and grow that which gets you off.

[kj-bishop]

Wigs In Space, an AI adventure, Episode 10: Ep 1 (see for notes), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Final episode!

The slime mold had a noble purpose in escaping. While no one was paying attention, it had achieved sentience. Merging together to form massive pseudoplasmodia, the slime molds head for the raging fires. Thanks to their evolved instinct for altruistic self-sacrifice, the moist, gooey masses flow into the burning drum cores and, at great cost to themselves, extinguish the terrible flames!

Radiation doesn't worry Slime Mold Green!

The remaining human ships and crews are saved. But the drums are silent, and the AIs are reduced to feeble regurgitation of familiar themes. The diminished fleet limps home on bass power. The war is not lost, exactly, but it is abandoned, since the aliens are pretty knackered too, and are starting to feel that their time could be better employed in other ways.

Peace accords are duly signed, stipulating that anyone claiming to be the fairest of them all must preface the statement with "imho", "just my 2c", or similar language, and that all parties will try to do better at masking their insecurities in public.

A proposal to outsource risk assessment to AI is, however, left on the shelf, on the grounds that while sophisticated organic brains can be dumb as fuck, they're still not quite as dumb as computers.

The agreement leads to a new era of putting up with each other...

dating...

...and deciding it's time to move on and see other people.

Space fleet personnel, still bearing the visible scars of spatial distortion, gradually return to peaceful missions...

...and their arts and crafts.

The saviors of humanity are duly honoured:

And now come free with every purchase of Slime Mold Chocolate products! Collect the whole set!

The peace lasts far into the future...however uneasily at times.

And as for the feline consultants, they, too, find better things to do.

End of Episode 10. Credits roll.

End credits scene: "We just wanted to tell people that we were in this show too, man."

"I wasn't."

Farewell folks, and thanks for watching Wigs in Space, altruistically brought to you by Slime Mold Chocolate! Always remember: to be a successful, popular person who others envy, but in a good way, eat Slime Mold all day, every day!

And before you go, a special announcement: For a short time only, Slime Mold is available in limited edition, intriguing Golden Brown flavour! It's Golden Brown, with texture like fun!

(Different voices interjecting: "Fun...gi." "But it isn't a fungus." "I said like fungi." "Slime mold and fungi aren't even in the same kingdom. I don't think we should be perpetuating mis--" "For Pete's sake, it's just a pudding. It's never been near a forest floor. I don't know why we had to go down this weird branding rabbit hole in the first place." "Well, we paid those cats so much that it would have been a waste not to use--" (Static) Sorry about that, folks. As I was saying, enjoy Slime Mold Golden Brown, for a limited time only while stocks last. Hurry up and buy some, or you'll miss out, and spend the rest of your life feeling like something important is lacking but you just can't put a finger on it, leading you to become a bore at parties and eventually join a cult, so get down to the store today! When Slime Mold's your friend, the good slimes never, ever end!

...

"What even was that? I don't want to see any more of this AI wank. First Mate, change the channel."

THE END.

[insane-control-room]

crooked grin

He needs to perfect it. It's driving him mad.

ink demonth - obsession Rated: G Warnings: death at end, obsession, ocd, obsession turning into madness, fire mention AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58831696/ Length: 500

Crooked smiles. It was such a small, insignificant thing. And yet... they seemed to be the source of all of Shawn's problems. Extraordinarily simple- all he had to do was make a stamp, a mold, and then he would be able to print those smiles sans issue. Quick and efficient, too.

There was one tiny, miniscule issue with that, though.

Something about the simple, curved grin of the damn devil pulled him in; like a fly drawn to sap, ensnared and then encased in amber. It was perfectly even, with four teeth on each side, seven perfect strokes. A genteel slope, elegantly curved.

What a gorgeous smile.

Too bad he could not get it right. Each and every time Shawn believed that he had accomplished replicating that straight smile, he was left with a crooked grin. It was maddening, to be so enticed and yet never fulfilled, a modern era tantalusian task reserved solely for the toy maker.

Straining for perfection, he painted over and over, only to find himself constantly dissatisfied and frustrated by that stupid smile. The beatific lines of teeth shifted to look like frustrating prison bars, locking Shawn behind their uneven, imperfect alignment. He had to get it right. There was no escape or reprieve from this calling, the black eyes above the twisted grin appearing malicious and taunting.

Shawn's frustration increased exponentially, beginning as a small ember and quickly morphing into a blazing, raging inferno. As time went on and he failed to replicate the smile repeatedly, dozens and dozens of misprints growing behind him, the desire to engulf those toys in the fire in his heart stoked as well; to destroy them in the flame to be rid of them all, freeing himself of their ghastly, overwhelming gaze. Yet they were still taken up the conveyors and to shops and sold, somehow infuriating Shawn even further. Yes, he had received critique on those crooked smiles, but they were still stolen from him and distributed to unknowing children. Those wrong dolls, those broken souls unable to scream behind the prison bars of warbled teeth.

Shawn felt the unbearable urge to correct that wrong. To fix the smiles, to get rid of the taunting, wicked grins and never have them plague another living being. Shawn was aware that the root of the matter was not the dolls, though, but rather the original smiling demon that spawned in the studio.

And the studio was wooden. And ink burns.

With the cunning of a man thoroughly gripped by a singleminded passion, Shawn began his preparations. Day by day he took a strand of cotton and wove it, dipped it in ink, and hid it along the inside of the conveyor belt system. Painstakingly slowly, he found the end again at the end of the month, satisfying him. Each shelf was filled to the brim with those evil smiling things.

Eager to culminate his goal, Shawn struck a match.

When they found it, his corpse' smile was perfectly straight. 

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Anima Mundi

Infinity could break a mind. Attempts to truly wrap the mind around the infinite were doomed because the mind was forever cursed with limitations.

Infinity could break a soul. Eternal it may have been, yet reaching for both things within its grasp and the unattainable would stretch it thin, to the point of tearing itself apart.

Inviolable laws of the cosmos.

The only path to infinity was in making peace with its power. Making peace with one’s self. One or the other: accepting the things within one’s grasp, or forever reaching for the unattainable. Surrendering to the limitations of one’s mind, or reaching out to infinity and seeing what lies beyond once the mind had broken like a dam, allowing the forever ocean to swallow all.

The Shadow knew this. A thousand tiny white dots glimmered in its intangible shape, thousands of eyes eagerly watching, eagerly awaiting while Michael worked his magick. It hovered and peered over his shoulder like an oversized parasite of roiling pitch-black. Like a demon. Liquid ink. Spiritual tar.

Dancing darkness, cast by the flames of tiny fires in the chapel, set among small piles of stone and old wood the necromancer had set ablaze with his lighter to illuminate the ruin’s bowels. In that starry night, Michael needed light to complete this magnum opus. The Shadow waited with great patience.

Michael dipped two fingertips into FBI Agent Parker’s open wound, like the painter wielding his palette. The decrepit old wall behind the altar served as his canvas. His fingertips kissed the coarse sandstone bricks, painting upon them the shape of a large triangle.

The beginning of a door to another world. To another time. The beginning of an end.

Parker moaned softly, though her consciousness had slipped into the arms of oblivion.

The Shadow smiled as it waited and watched.

The Shadow’s ghostly tar dripped from other places now, too. It oozed from all the cracks in reality it had wrought. It had invaded this world by crossing through a different door. Hailing from different times. Arrived from a different year, and a different era before that.

A dark traveler in the dark void of time and space. A projection, burnt into the fabric of reality. And yet, it had no true shape.

Eyes and dark tendrils extended like limbs of invisible mold, connecting all the people and places it had visited and infested.

Its tar-like imitation of SUBSTANCE still dripped from the dead machinery of THE HIGHWAY which it had corrupted, deep inside the Heart, in the basement of the Way King’s ranch house. Clockwork systems and steam engines no longer dripped with water, but with weightless matter, with the viscosity of tar.

Even the door where Klemens had opened a pathway between our world and the House of Change now oozed dark matter from its bottom crack.

It gathered in the cracks of a supermax prison cell in Kentucky, where Freddy Fletcher had been incarcerated. He stared at that shadowy stuff, pooling in the darkest corner of his small, confined space, pushing his sanity beyond its final frontier.

Droplets coalesced on the concrete of a basement wall in a mall in Kentucky, where the Shadow’s original form had originally crossed into this age. The sleeping wall, locked away in storage for nobody to see, sweated with tiny beads of dark matter.

In the train graveyard, far away, the same intangible matter pooled in a pit between two blobs of fleshy eyes and tentacle-like appendages. Once been human, THE SUBSTANCE had transformed. Evolved. A remnant of a lost world.

I am what awaits at the end of all roads.

The Shadow spoke in its Whispers to Michael.

Your king’s highway is dead, and I await you all at the end of its final road.

I am inevitable.

The sorcerer did not respond to the Shadow’s Whispers in his mind. He continued to work. Focused on the ritual he was conducting, he painted that triangle to completion, inch by inch, line by line, each edge of its shape drawn to the width of two fingertips pressed together.

Parker’s body lay motionless on the altar of this ruined chapel. Michael dipped his fingers into the wound on her belly again, salvaging more blood from the dying woman.

She was still alive. Barely. For once she died, the blood would no longer be useful to him. Beyond committing his focus and spirit onto the current ritual, keeping Parker alive continued to chew away on Michael’s focus. It sapped him of his meticulously harvested reserves of magick energy, sacrifices upon sacrifices of human lives he had taken in the past.

The Oracle of New York. A dark luminary in the world of occultists.

Spirit speaker.

Necromancer.

Behind even the Shadow, imperceptibly, a cloud of screaming souls swirled behind Michael. The many lives he had taken—most often against their will, sometimes through deception, and on rare occasion, even by honest seduction—all drawn to power his magick. They hated the living they could see through the veil, trapped just behind it. They screamed for his demise, and they screamed for freedom. Freedom from the prison he kept them in. The lives he had traded for arcane power.

Usurper of the throne. The Way King now slept, and his highway, the greatest glyph of all times—the totality of all roads in the world—slept with Klemens now. All owed to Michael’s winding path of dark machinations and betrayal.

Michael desired to open that triangle-shaped door. Just like the Shadow.

They dreamed of the possibilities. A new world shaped by their dreams. A new dawn.

Together, they yearned to usher in a new future.

Thus, Michael painted in the flickering light shed by small fires in the ruined chapel. A reflection of the primitive world they all came from. With Parker’s blood, Michael painted strange symbols along the lines of the triangle. In his other hand, he held the jade tome, the Thaum of Thritain, studying its alien hieroglyphs, and replicating them around the triangle in a fingerpainting in blood.

Getting closer and closer to completing this ritual.

And the Shadow watched with glee.

Outside the chapel, clouds cleared the sky for the moon and distant stars to shine through. They bathed the deserts of Las Vegas in an eerie, cold light. The winds howled, cold and unforgiving, and they fed the flames of Michael’s fire inside the chapel.

And a group of people stood outside the ranch house, down the path along the dead fields, leading to that ruined chapel.

In reality, this path extended merely over a few hundred yards of crushed gravel and sand, flanked by decaying fence and desert.

But the Shadow had altered reality. That pathway now stretched into infinity. The closer one got to the chapel, the farther that path became. And its Shades, its deranged spawn, lurked between the fence posts, and the stray stones, and the cacti. They hungered for human spirit.

Outside the ranch, four people waited. Helpless. Unable to cross that distance.

Special Agent Derek Wells stood out in the open and his tattered bureau jacket fluttered in the cold wind.

Aria Chambers in her dirtied designer dress, and her bodyguard, the bulky mountain of meat in a suit named Barry, stood behind Wells.

Behind them, in turn, FBI director Anthony Collins sat on the sagging steps of the ranch house porch, hands bound behind his back with cuffs.

All four of them gazed across that stretch of unnatural infinity, that warp in the way, stopping them from reaching the ruined chapel on Klemens Weidmann’s dead ranch.

Or, at the very least, the infinity stalled them long enough for Michael to complete his work.

Their palpable impotence filled the Shadow with a sense of sadistic glee.

A sense of victory.

The porch to Weidmann’s home, where hundreds of bullets had pockmarked and torn up the wood and windows, squealed. The fly trap door, barely hanging from its hinges, opened. Three figures pushed out from the bowels of the darkened building. Their boots and shoes clomped down on the porch steps as they stepped out into the open.

Two more people, and a copy of a human.

In their leather jackets, the fallen Way King’s knights, Jericho Kane and Karma, joined this strange gathering.

The Way King’s final homunculus, a clockwork automaton—a perfect copy of Agent Parker’s appearance—followed right behind them.

They, too, came to stare in awe at the impossible distance between house and chapel. At the dancing Shades, mocking with their awful and monstrous presence.

Wells shot a glance over his shoulder to the new arrivals. He grimaced, recognizing the vicious woman named Karma, who had almost sliced his throat open with shards of glass.

He still wore the bandages from that confrontation.

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered while he glared at her. “Don’t look at me like that. Your partner shot me.”

His hand twitched around the pistol in it. But he held his tongue.

She exuded no threat to him. The symmetrical features of her face shed no spite for him any longer, and she stared like the everybody else into the distance.

“Cool your fuckin’ jets,” Jericho said. His eyes were reddened with recent tears, and that struck a first nerve in the FBI agent. Jericho struck a second nerve when he continued speaking, cementing that he was addressing the evil beauty by his side, and not Wells. “This ain’t the fucking time or place. We all wanna get to that motherfucking snake over there.”

“That thing is no demon,” Aria said, repeating what she had told Wells and Barry earlier, upon their first failed attempt to cross the infinite distance to the chapel.

Jericho peeled his gaze off the distant building and locked onto Aria. His eyes sparkled in the starlight and he swallowed emptily. He tried to find the right words, to convey his concern, or to convince her to get out of dodge before their world ended.

Instead, he only blurted out something stupid.

“Why the hell are you here? You shouldn’t even fuckin’ be here.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “I go wherever the hell I want. And I have unfinished business with Michael.”

“We all do,” spoke the homunculus. The red-headed facsimile of a woman spoke evenly, calmly, in a monotone that rivaled Parker’s regular demeanor. Staring into the distance like all others, she added, “She is there with him, and dying. The longer we wait—”

“Nah, fuck that,” Jericho said.

“Well, what’s the fucking problem?” Karma asked. “We’re all here to ice that piece of shit, so why are we standing around like jackoffs and talking?”

Barry pointed a meaty finger towards the chapel. Aria spoke in his stead.

“Bad mojo. That entity warped the space around the chapel. And do you not see those things out there?”

As if to underline her words with a threat of ill-will, the Shades danced madly between fence posts, stones, and cacti. Hungry, and wiggling their shadowy claws in anticipation of human contact. Grasping at the gravelly path, like they wanted to slice through hapless legs.

“So fuckin’ what?” Karma asked. She smirked, showing teeth. Having escaped the House of Change unchanged, her sadism returned to the fore. “Are you all stupid? Do you not realize what I am capable of?”

“I don’t even know the hell who you are,” Aria fired back.

Wells swiveled, gravel crunching underneath his scuffed shoes, and his eyes went wide. He stormed up to Karma with wide steps.

He knew.

“Yes. Do it,” he ordered. “Take us there.”

“Yo, cowboy,” Karma said, the smirk fading from her lips. “Hold your fuckin’ horses. Are we all on the same page here? What do all you dipshits think we’re gonna do when we get there?”

A beat of silence. Then everybody answered at the same time.

“Save Parker,” Wells growled.

“Stop Michael,” spoke the homunculus.

“Find and destroy that fucking book, which I bet that asshole has already,” Jericho drawled out.

“Squeeze Michael on where to find the book,” Aria said.

“No clue,” Barry replied.

“Wait, you think he found the book? When? How?” Collins asked. His questions lingered the longest out of all their conflicting responses.

“Shut up,” multiple people told Collins in groans with varying levels of annoyance.

Karma’s smirk widened into a wicked smile. “You dipshits should be way more worried about that thing with Michael. You all know what I’m talking about. We need to get rid of that thing.”

“I don’t think we can,” Aria admitted, deflating more with each word she uttered. “I don’t even understand what it is.”

“It’s bad fuckin’ news,” Jericho growled. “It could just come and go in the House of Change, so it’s clearly out of this world, above our fucking paygrades.”

“Until we figure out how to deal with it, let’s focus on what we do know, and know how to do right,” Wells ordered again.

He puffed his chest out. The anxiety and stress gnawed on his nerves, but he recalled the bureau’s motto. Like a silent mantra, it repeated in his head. Echoed in his mind in Parker’s voice, from the time she had said it out loud in earnest to him, he let it loop.

Fidelity, bravery, integrity.

He let it repeat in his mind while the wind howled over the desert, and all their eyes came to rest on him with expectation.

Even the Shadow’s millions of starry eyes. Even as it smiled.

“We get over there, we save Parker, we stop Michael, and if he has that book, we take the book away from him. In that order. Then we can bicker about the consequences until we’re blue in the face, but until then, we’re in this one together. Ride. Or die.”

Jericho sighed. Jutted his chin out. “Yeah, okay, fuck it. Yeah, let’s do it. I’m game, let’s go, come on.”

Aria sighed and added nothing. She glared at Jericho, for she sensed where they were headed. He only stared ahead into the impossible distance of the chapel, avoiding all eye contact with anybody else. Aria wasn’t ready to let him burn his life away.

The homunculus stared in the same direction and she suddenly spoke, bursting out into a flood of words.

“Agent Parker and I both dreamed of a long valley, where rain fell eternal, and all the stones on mossy grounds were of perfectly geometrical, spherical shape. In the fog, at the end of that valley, a forest of crystal trees awaited, and in its clearing, a tar pit bubbled, from which Shadow rose. It assumed our shape, a dark mirror of the self. Shadow, we all are. It is neither here nor there entirely. SUBSTANCE in an incomplete, corrupted form, twisted by human ambitions. A corruption of all things that exist. It cannot be destroyed without destroying reality itself.”

She fell silent.

All stood stunned, mouths agape at the homunculus fashioned in Parker’s image.

The Way King’s final act of peace, as he had declared himself.

The homunculus expected no response.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jericho grumbled.

“Anima mundi,” replied the homunculus.

Aria squinted at the red-headed homunculus. As a true Witch of the West Coast, Aria was the only person present who knew enough to glean any sense of her cryptic message.

“Who gives a shit?” Karma asked. “Let’s go, people. Time’s wasting. Start holding hands like we’re some kinda hippie protest chain. Come on, chop chop.”

She extended a hand for Jericho to take. He seized it, grabbed Aria’s hand. She, in turn, took Barry by his hand, who snatched Wells’ hand in a meaty fist, the one not occupied by the FBI agent’s pistol. Wells holstered his service weapon in the confines of his jacket, and then took the homunculus by her hand, unsettled by how much she looked like Parker.

Karma led the way, back up to the fly trap door into the ranch house, right past Collins, still sitting on the steps dumbfounded. The train of people passed him by, steps thumping up the decrepit old wood, and he gawked at each of them.

“Uh, what—what about me? Hey! Are you leaving me here?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jericho snapped at him in passing.

Karma stepped through the door, and they chain of people bypassed reality, one by one. Stepping through the darkness of the fly trap door, they did not enter the ranch house, they instead emerged inside the chapel.

Her strange and unnatural power had crossed the impossible distance with her improbable ability. The liminality of all thresholds in reality served her as gateways between disconnected places. It could boggle the mind, though the people present either already knew of her terrible power, or possessed the faculties to process its effect in action.

Or, as in Barry’s case—they tried not too hard to think about it. Like anybody exposed to the unnatural, trying to rationalize it with conventional logic, and filing it away in the dustiest and oldest forgotten drawers of the mind, before it could chip away at and erode too much sanity.

The six figures crowded inside the far end of the chapel.

They gazed across the broken pews, to the altar upon which the dying Agent Parker lay. Michael had crossed her arms over her chest, like laying an ancient Egyptian pharaoh to peaceful rest.

Dim light flickered from the three tiny fires Michael had lit. He paused amidst painting the final glyph outside the triangle’s lines, rearing his head to gaze upon the interlopers. Surprise flashed in his bright blue eyes.

And the Shadow, creeping in the darkest corners of that cavernous ruin, it blinked its thousands of tiny stars. It oozed with malice.

Hatred for those six who had simply bypassed its attempts at keeping them away. It had worked so hard to corrupt THE HIGHWAY, distorting the distances of reality to create a pocket of infinity around the chapel, and one of the people present was capable of ignoring that awesome might altogether.

Well, well, well, look at this. Just in time to play the party poopers?

They now all heard its Whispers in their minds, provoking shudders to run down every spine. Then the mental Whispers turned to menacing Growls.

DO YOU NEED TO FEAST ON HUMAN ENTRAILS LIKE VULTURES? TO BE TAUGHT OF THE FRAILTY OF YOUR FLESHY MEATBAGS?

The light from the three flames dimmed and flickered. But it had not been the Shadow to do so.

Nothing but the howling wind, sweeping through the ruined chapel, whistling through the holes in sandstone brick walls.

Michael’s wide-eyed surprise gave way to a half-lidded, relaxed gaze. He picked up the switchblade from the altar, where it lay hidden behind Parker’s dying body.

The threat was clear. The sharp little blade glinted in the dim light, hovering above the unconscious red-headed woman. Its tip, however, was pointed at them.

He smiled at the six witnesses to his ritual.

“An auspicious gathering,” he said.

They would empower the energy he invested in it. They would serve perfectly to seal the sacrifice. Witnesses were almost better than the faithful.

“Karma,” Michael muttered, staring coldly at her. Confidently. He clicked his tongue between uttering her name and his next words. “And here I thought the House of Change would leave you forever… changed. Maybe fix your attitude, or your lousy manners. A shame you show up to sabotage me at the eleventh hour. I really, truly, should have known better.”

Karma smiled at him, but there was no joy behind it. Then the trauma of her entrapment in the otherworld all bubbled to the surface. Her face twisted into a mask of rage and malice.

She screamed at him, “I’m gonna gut you like a fucking fish!”

“God, I’ve had enough of this shit,” Wells muttered.

His pistol was slung up in a flash, and the former ranger shot Michael in the dead center of his forehead. The necromancer crumpled onto the floor behind the altar.

“God fucking damnit!” Karma spat, yelling. “He was mine!”

“Holy shit. Are we already done here?” Jericho said, taken aback by the sudden turn of events. “I mean, fuck, I’m not one to complain.”

His chin crinkled and he took a single dauntless step towards the opposite end of the chapel, towards Parker’s body on the altar.

The entire ruin rumbled, quaked. Its walls shook, and dust rained from the crumbling ceiling. Howling winds swept through the abandoned abode, and the three fires flickered till they nearly died down. Only embers remained and the Shadow grew. Intangible claws crept across every solid surface, closer and closer to the six intruders. The shifting Shades crowded outside the holes in the chapel’s walls, peering inside with tiny white dots for eyes, like a hungry sky of glimmering starlight.

The Growls in their minds rumbled, matching the force of the earthquake.

WE ARE FAR FROM DONE, YOU AND I. NOW YOU ALL ARE GOING TO HELP ME FINISH THIS.

The six people huddled together, back to back now, surrounded by swelling darkness. Terror gripped their hearts, a fear of the unknown paralyzed them with inaction. The agents of dark matter closed in on them.

Get back up, Mikey. GET UP.

Michael’s hand smacked onto the top of the altar, leaving a handprint in blood. His splayed digits trembled as he slowly pulled himself back up.

Heal her. And I’ll take over from here.

“Gimme your gun,” Jericho told Wells. He grabbed at it.

The FBI agent slapped Jericho’s grabby hand away.

Jericho growled, “Just keep shooting him, for fuck’s sake! He can’t keep doing that shit forever!”

Barry and Aria reacted, drawing their own pistols.

“Stop!” Wells’ command sliced through the howling wind. “I don’t trust you to not hit Parker.”

Michael chuckled darkly. Blood wept from the third eye that Wells’ bullet had punched into his forehead. The necromancer poked a finger into it, and smiled upon seeing his own blood and bone, clinging to his quaking fingertip.

HEAL HER. I WILL DEAL WITH THESE INSECTS.

You can sacrifice your own blood, and heal from it again.

“That violates the laws of cosmic transaction,” Michael breathed in protest, wobbling as he stood on buckling legs.

He braced himself against the altar, leaning over Parker. The dark priest. His power was divided in every direction.

The walls of reality are already crumbling while this event ripples forward and backwards through time. Reality is as malleable and decrepit as this old chapel. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel its flesh rotting away as the Way King now forever sleeps? His reign has ENDED.

You can remake everything. You can make up the rules as you see fit.

HEAL HER.

“This is bullshit,” Karma exclaimed. “These are just fucking shadows! What the fuck can they do, anyway?”

She pulled a large hunting knife out of her jacket. Then she snarled, casting a sneering grin at Michael.

“Now… to make good on my promise.”

Michael couldn’t help but shudder. She meant every word and she didn’t care about any consequences.

Everybody else hesitated as Karma charged at the altar, boots clomping down the aisle between all the broken pews, until others broke from their paralysis.

Karma had spoken true. The Shadow and its Shades only postured with menace. The touch of their dark tendrils instilled a dark chill in their hearts, yes, but it carried no substance. As the homunculus had said.

SUBSTANCE in an incomplete form.

The entire group advanced, three firearms drawn upon Michael, waiting for the right moment to shoot him dead.

DOOM.

An explosion of invisible energy repelled them. Karma tumbled backwards over the ground, struck strongest by that powerful blast. The others merely stumbled and stopped in their stride.

The cloud of screaming souls behind Michael had manifested momentarily, surging outwards from him in hateful waves. Each pulse that followed the blast deepened a feeling of sickness in their bowels. They all reeled with a sense of vertigo, feeling unable to reach the sorcerer.

He stood behind the altar, arms wide open, his head cocked back to the crumbling roof, like a dark messiah channeling divine wrath through his entire body. The vision of the cloud of screaming souls dissipated, but one thing was clear to everybody present.

Unlike the Shadow and Shades, Michael’s power was all too real.

The pulses from his cloud of death waned and the sinuous vision dissolved.

In its wake, the Shadow and Shades were all gone.

On the altar before Michael, Parker stirred. A pained moan escaped her parched throat. Uncrossing her arms, she pawed at her belly, where blood still soaked the fabric, yet skin no longer yielded to pressure in form of an open wound.

Healed again. By grace of Michael’s dark sorceries.

She sat up and let her legs dangle off the side of the altar, her back turned to Michael. Her head bobbed up and down, eyelids more closed than open, speaking to volumes of delirium, reminiscent of someone who had just woken up from a long coma in a hospital.

Karma groaned on the floor where she reeled, crawling towards the altar with painful slowness, her face twisted and cringing with agony from the blast, and a bloodthirst that raged in her, urging her to murder Michael.

All others stood still again, paralyzed with a new fit of indecision, and a deep-rooted fear of the unknown unfolding before them.

“Why?” croaked Agent Parker through her haze.

The embers and tiniest of flames in Michael’s fire cast a long Shadow behind her, looming above them.

The Growls had died down into Whispers, now isolated to Parker’s mind again.

As tender as they ever had been… just as when they had first met.

Because we can open the door, you and I. As I always said, and I will say again: you listen.

You let me in.

Tar-like droplets of dark matter began beading upon the lines of the triangle on the wall behind them, oozing from the cracks between the bricks upon which Michael had painted the symbol in Parker’s blood.

“What if I don’t want what you want,” Parker breathed. The pain subsided as Michael’s magick continued to work, and she recovered from all the blood she had lost. “You are threatening these people’s lives. You are… I don’t even understand what you are or what you really want.”

The necromancer tilted his head. The reflection of embers in his icy blue eyes flashed with curiosity as he blinked, listening intently to Parker’s side of her telephone call with the Whispers.

I want to be whole again. To fill the hole with THE SUBSTANCE your sister from another world deprived me of when we crossed over together.

“What does that… mean?” she answered in question anew. “Explain, and I will consider—”

“Parker! Please,” Wells shouted. His gun lowered by his side. “Do not negotiate with these God-damned Whispers!”

Wrinkles creased his forehead above his furrowed brow, and he stared at her with wet eyes, concerned for his partner’s well-being.

Yes. You listen. You understand. We open this next door, and we reshape reality. We cross the sea of stars. Dive into the dark depths of the ocean of time, where everything folds into the present.

The Whispers spoke to her with infinite tenderness.

But you’ve done me so much harm, she answered the Whispers in her own head. No longer speaking aloud. Becoming one with the Shadow, wrapping her entire being around that parasitic entity in a gentle embrace. You have threatened, and hurt, and endangered myself and others. Time and time again. Why would I help you?

As the fire in her being grew, so did the flames of Michael’s externals fires. A cold wind from the desert let the embers and dry wood flare up again with new flickers. Parker’s Shadow grew behind her, and even Michael’s fear began to grow while he craned his neck to behold the swelling presence, towering over them.

“Naw, fuck this,” Jericho muttered. Then he shouted at them. “I know you got that fucking book, and I’m gonna destroy that stupid fucking book, you stupid fucking assholes!”

He didn’t make a step towards the altar. He didn’t need to. His intent was enough. He was moments away from burning down his entire life to finish the job, to ride into the sunset, with all his connections, and affections scattered in the wind. His friend, Klemens, had wanted that book so badly, but Jericho believed it needed to stop existing. And as a final “fuck you” to all the “mystic psychos” around him, Jericho was hellbent on annihilating the tome in one final blast of his own. He only needed to see it to destroy it.

The Thaum of Thritain, the jade tome from another time or space, it rested on the altar, right behind Parker, between her and Michael. It radiated with unnatural gravity. An opposite pole to the screaming cloud of souls that followed Michael through the ether; the jade tome sucked everything in like a black hole. Everybody sensed its presence, even if they weren’t aware of it.

That unreal presence only intensified, as if it was responding to Jericho’s threat.

“Don’t,” Aria whispered. Firmly. Glaring at Jericho, her voice cracked. “Do not throw your life away.”

Jericho clenched his jaw and spat out a string of incoherent expletives before he settled on a plan B. “Fine, fine. I don’t even need to tap my own mojo. Klem gave me a little something and I’m going to make some good fucking use of it now.”

Look at how they struggle to grasp the gravity of what is about to unfold, the Whispers told Parker. They resist without understanding what they are resisting. We can bridge the future and past. Connect all humanity with a higher enlightenment, and move this world one step closer to a greater evolution. Take my hand, and open the door with me, and we will be whole again. You always wanted to see what lies beyond, right? Beyond the confines of the only reality you knew?

“Right,” Parker breathed. “I do.”

It was true. Not only despair had invited the Whispers and Shadow in.

Earnest curiosity drove her. Had always driven her.

Michael burned with the same intensity. He studied the profile of her face, his eyes glittering with adoration of someone he considered his equal, despite the disparity of their occult power. In a mystic sense, they had become husband and bride.

“Yes,” Michael whispered. Oblivious to their conversation. He sensed it beyond words, he caught the glint in her, that subtle change, shifting from resignation to determination.

Yes, whispered the Whispers. Yes.

“Yes,” Parker repeated. She locked eyes with the homunculus down the aisle. Her doppelganger stood still, and rigid, and she stared back at her, mirroring the same calm resolution. “Promise they will not be harmed, and I promise to open this door with you.”

I PROMISE.

The chapel shuddered again with a quake, causing all people standing to stumble, and more dust rained upon them. The desert wind whistled through all holes again, howling.

“No!” Wells shouted.

He whipped his gun up, held in both hands with the same discipline and drill that had allowed him to shoot Michael in the head. But he knew not what to target.

Wells stared down the iron sights at Parker. But he didn’t have it in him to pull the trigger.

Not after all they had been through on THE HIGHWAY.

THE SUBSTANCE, usurper of THE HIGHWAY, thrummed from beyond the triangle door. Dark matter oozed and dribbled from the triangle of lines drawn in drying blood. The walls wept with the intangible tar. The symbols pulsed with the same pull, the same gravity as the jade tome.

“Yes. It’s time, isn’t it?” Michael asked.

He walked around the altar, interposing himself between Parker and their unwitting crowd of witnesses. Michael walked as if he had never been shot, neither in his side nor his head. And he only stopped once he stood in Wells’ line of fire.

The artificial third eye on his forehead no longer wept blood, having healed entirely.

It is time.

“Parker,” Wells spoke up again, no longer shouting. Tremors shook his voice, but he spoke with sharp clarity. “Where do you see yourself when we close the lid on this case?”

His face flickered like the flames, fighting back the despair and finding it in him to muster a feeble smile.

The homunculus and Parker answered in unison, identical words, sharing the same cadence and pronunciation. A strange chorus.

“Kicking back with some damn fine coffee, cherry pie, and so many chocolate donuts that I might just grow sick of them.”

Parker’s lips curled into the same kind of feeble smile. Wells’ smile widened.

“No, absolutely fuck this, and fuck all of you,” Jericho growled. And like Karma before him, he charged at the altar to stop this ritual.

Michael’s cloud of screaming souls exploded outward again, blasting them back, this time yielding even greater force. Jericho learned the same hard lesson as Karma, the same hard way. Everybody else stumbled backwards several steps, thrashed by the hate-waves.

Jericho wound up on the ground, curled up into a fetal position, mere steps behind Karma, gripping his head as if it was about to explode. The teeming mass of screaming, angry souls were threatening to do exactly that. The paradox of their hatred towards Michael extended to his victims.

“Goodbye,” Parker said.

She swiveled on the altar and hopped off the opposite side. In the same fluid motion, she seized the Thaum of Thritain, scooped Michael’s jackknife up off the floor, and then approached the triangle painted onto on the wall.

As soon as she pressed her hand flat against the center of the surface, feeling the thrum of infinity hidden between all worlds, Wells clicked his tongue and shook his head.

He steadied his aim. He unloaded every bullet in his pistol into Michael. Barry and Aria soon joined in, discharging all three pistols in a blaze. The hail of bullets staggered the dark messiah. Every shot caused a spasm, made him dance, like a puppet being jerked around by countless strings, and spraying the world around him in his blood.

Perhaps he would have recovered even from that, with all his dark magick—

But Karma latched onto his ankle. Just as the others ran out of bullets, she clutched, yanked, and sent Michael hurtling sideways through the world, slamming his temple against the edge of the altar, only to bounce off that and crash into the ground where she crawled onto his back to straddle him.

Her hunting knife gleamed in the dark, raised high above her head.

The jackknife in Parker’s hand gleamed the same way.

Parker cut her own arm. Deep and wide. Letting blood flow onto the jade tome, and then drip from there to the ground. Spattering out in rhythmic, gushing bursts.

Sacrifice. Others readily sacrificed other human beings to power their magick, but Parker knew no other choice. Her honor demanded it.

Self-sacrifice.

A simple act, but an honest one. A powerful one. Its rule rippled backward and forward through the ocean of time, a cosmic law, eternal.

Yes. You are kind. And with you, I know, we will evolve together to be so much more.

So much more.

We are so much closer to being whole again. You complete me. Now… finish this.

Others shouted behind her, but their words all blurred into an unintelligible haze, a slurred soup of syllables which she was readily capable of shutting out.

Parker smiled as the warm fluid escaped her to the rhythm of her own heartbeat, painting the floor beneath her in a bright crimson.

The necromancer would ill have a chance to heal her like this, as Karma sat on his back, and plunged her knife into him, over and over again. Michael would only be able to heal himself.

Karma cackled and smiled as she stabbed Michael for the twentieth time. She could have been faster, even, but she relished it every time she sunk the blade into Michael’s back.

The others, meanwhile rushed to Parker’s side. She reached out to the triangle, ready to seal the ritual with the final act necessary: she and Shadow had become one, possessed the will to complete it, and the sacrifice was rendered.

Inches away from touching bloodied palm against stained sandstone, hands grabbed at her. Pulled her away.

Through the darkness, where her field of vision narrowed while the consciousness escaped her again, she saw their faces, huddled over her. Concerned, fearful, and confused.

And among them, the peaceful mirror of her own, that unsettling doppelganger; the homunculus stared back Agent Parker. A strange mirror. Blue eyes like crushed diamonds, fleeting and memorizing every inch of each other’s countenance. The short crop of red hair to frame the freckled pale face of one another.

Agent of Peace.

Damn it all. The Shadow and Parker thought in unison.

The Whispers caressed her mind. Maybe… you were just too kind.

Jericho’s face was the only one absent from those who rushed to Parker to save her life. Wells’ jacket flew off, and he tore up his shirt to improvise new bandages.

Jericho seized the Thaum of Thritain. He had wrestled it from Parker’s weakening grasp in the shuffle. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the tome in his hands, and the jade covers began to crack.

But the Shadow could no longer do anything to prevent any of this.

One vessel, Parker, was already too weak to finish the ritual; and the people present had dragged her away from the triangle.

The other vessel, Michael, was being dragged down the chapel’s aisle by Karma. She cackled again as she dragged her nemesis away from the group, all the way through the dark doors leading outside. Instead, she teleported through that portal, dragging her most hated foe with her, back into the Heart inside the ranch house; the center of the Way King’s machine, where she would continue to drag him to the next and final door.

To the door to the House of Change from which they had escaped, thanks to Klemens’ self-sacrifice.

Past where Klemens still sat on his brass throne alone, eyes closed, deeply asleep, and oblivious to the chaos of the world around him.

Karma continued dragging the bleeding, broken body of Michael. She stabbed him every now and then for good measure, preventing him from regaining enough strength to break free from her clutches. She spat out strings of expletives to spite both him and the screaming cloud of death he commanded, the angry spirits who hated the women who kept adding to their legion, until she booted Michael’s body through the door into its infinite corridor, her final act of disrespect towards the necromancer.

“Maybe you’ll come back out as something other than a flaming piece of shit,” she spat. She cackled by the end.

Michael raised a helpless hand, covered in his own blood, but Karma kicked the door shut between them, banishing him into the House of Change.

And Jericho, well, he indeed no longer needed to burn his life away with magick to destroy the Thaum.

We were too kind, Parker thought.

The Whispers answered her. No. To be whole again, we need kindness, too. You were the right choice all along. A shame we failed, so close to the end.

That kindness was mirrored in the mess of hasty hands, all scrambling to offer Parker first aid, to stop her intense bleeding, and prop her up.

Wells held her head against his chest and told her to stay awake, and stay with him, but everything sounded like she was underwater; a million miles away. They even looked like they were peering down on her through the shimmering veil of the ocean’s surface. Wells, Aria, and Barry all stared into her face, their expressions ranging from panic over dread to concern.

The face of the homunculus vanished from that group, appearing next to Jericho with the calm of a ghost. The flames of Michael’s flickered, and all shadows returned to normal.

Natural.

“Are you sure you want to destroy it? You nor anybody else will be able to use it again to open these doors,” the homunculus told Jericho.

He paused. Some part of him still hesitated from doing the deed.

Maybe Aria could still use the book and travel through time to prevent what was slowly killing her. Or maybe time travel would only invite greater disaster. They would find another way.

Jericho clicked his tongue.

“Nah, fuck all of this. This one’s for Klem,” he growled.

His nape bulged where the Way King’s clockwork spider had drilled into his flesh and latched onto his spine, and the inhuman strength it infused him with exploded outward with all his fury, an unnatural physical might once more unleashed.

The alien tome crumbled in his crushing grasp. The covers cracked apart into chunks. His fingers curled and ripped the ancient parchment to shreds, like a strongman tearing apart a phonebook, and then ripping it up into tiny pieces. He scattered the relic’s remains into the nearest of Michael’s fires, feeding the flames.

They flared up ever so gently, lapping at and then devouring the old parchment, all soon to be ashes joining the dust of the desert.

This is not the end. There is another way, said the Whispers.

But the Shadow was no more. Spread too thin, latched onto the dying Heart of the Highway, and the otherworld of the House of Change, its grasp on this world finally faded. The loci of power it had piggybacked on all waned, and fell apart, devoured by the sands of time. Gone was one vessel, crawling, bloodied, and helpless; lost in the House of Change. Asleep, another, a mind forever obliterated, liberated from his memories.

Only one vessel remained, though her grip on life slowly faded like the rest.

The oceans swallowed the Shadow. The Whispers remained.

Agent Parker’s consciousness faded to black.

[the-nsr-family]

Hi! Is it okay if we can hear your idea for the SU AU? Have a nice day/evening!

Oughfshsdfji hell yes. I have a bunch of ideas for the backstory and the current events but no real way to bridge them atm. It gets kinda long, most of this is just explaining Tatiana’s backstory in this au.

“I’m just a fire giant. I’m just a woman made of rock and lava/crystal! I was born on this planet 100%”- The CEO blatantly lied about her past to her family/coworkers who are technically family.

In doing so, she also lies about her dead twin brother’s past (yes I *am* bringing Nickolas and his wife into this bc I love those mfs)

Tatiana and her brother are people made of stone, yes, and they have veins throughout their body made of pure gemstone. Yes, they are walking volcanos...but they are so much more than that in the terms of their past. 

To put in in the simplest terms: they’re living experiments. When the Diamonds got curious about their abilities of creation, they decided to push their limits, essentially: Nickolas and Tatiana were created during one of the many “Fucking around and finding out” parts of Homeworld’s history. On the most basic level, they’re supposed to be Diamonds. That’s what the gemstone veins in their bodies are/were comprised of. But they weren’t made with pure essence, and they certainly weren’t supposed to be polished and perfect. They’re just parts of a planet all mashed into two humanoid beings. The results of the Diamonds going: “lmao what if we did THIS” and it actually creating two sentient beings.

They didn’t even have their current names, at that time they were simply called Rouge Diamond (Nickolas) and Scarlet Diamond (Tatiana), but they wouldn’t really be recognized as Diamonds for years to come.

They can get sick, they have organic parts to them, they seem incredibly human even though Earth was not in the minds of the Diamonds at the time, as this was BEFORE Pink was created.  They weren’t really “born”, but they were babies at one point, they did grow up. Which was something that none of the Diamonds were used to. White had such a big hand in their creation that they (Tatiana more specifically) attempted to emulate her behaviors. They clung to her. Unluckily for them, she had absolutely zero interest in raising kids who need to eat and have far more organic functions than they should’ve. She did enough to keep them content, but she never spent more time with them than she had to when they were kids. Blue was the only one who actually tried to give them any kind of affection at that age, but even she had her limits.

When they were older? She had plenty of interest in molding them to be as perfect as she could make them. Thankfully they did grow, but they were both shorter than Blue, Nickolas being the taller one. Tatiana found herself so happy in her role, so was her brother, but eventually she got tired. The one bad thing about growing up and White actually caring for her? She can’t have fun anymore. Being rebellious is discouraged, all that shouting and having fun is even less acceptable at this age, she found that all her freedom was stripped from her. She *hated* this.

So she got vocal. When she got vocal, she stirred thoughts in her older twin, when she got vocal, she stirred thoughts in the Gems around her. When she got vocal? She stirred thoughts in the newest Diamond around: Pink Diamond. This made her predecessors very upset, but they tried to keep their cool. She didn’t. Her era of rebelling against her caretakers led her to discovering new powers: She exploded into flame due to her extreme passion one evening, and she felt so free in that form...the others were less partial to it. She discovered that she had the ability to control time. That...the others liked that. Not for the reasons they should’ve.

Because Tatiana discovered her fire, her brother unleashed his, and they accidently started many small fires within the palace.  Pink got her colony, and when she began to feel the need to begin the rebellion, to plant those seeds, she turned to the half organics that bothered White to no end with their antics. They understood her. They understood exactly how she felt, trapped, unhappy, they want free from this dreadful cycle as much as she does. 

Pink shared her plans, the twins agreed whole-heartedly, they contributed by turning up their actions, they took the heat for her while she went masquerading as Rose Quartz. Tatiana’s time powers were used sparingly, but they did a lot of good. Plan didn’t go right the first time? Loyal rebel shattered or locked away? A bit of time travel fixed the issue right away. Messing with time may not have been a good thing, but they were a bunch of young Gems with hardly any self-preservation.  While Pink did her best to save the humans, Tatiana became a little enraptured by them, and she realized that maybe she could make her own planet. She could do what Pink was doing, but for other planets. And she’s still a Diamond, she can create life if she needs to. So she went off with her brother, they found a planet, they rescued species from other planets that would’ve otherwise been killed, and they created an entire community, an entire world together. 

They used Tatiana’s time travel abilities to the extreme. They would pop by earth from time to time, they borrowed the ways humans developed and suggested these ways to the ones living on their new planet. They made sure that everything developed almost entirely the same, and eventually put these efforts to rest. The planet was covered in towns and cities, it had unique biomes that resembled earth’s, animals from Earth that hardly changed, but still changed. They stopped their efforts when their favorite little city was starting to get big on rock music.  Everything fell into place from there. The twins fabricated their past, they made up stories about their parents, and used this to rant about White in a way that didn’t expose them. Nickolas got his sister a guitar made just for her, he began to play the bass. He met his wife, she met some humans she was interested in, they started a band.  She went from Scarlet to Kul Fyra, she started the Goolings, her brother began to go by Nickolas. Everything was perfect. Almost perfect, at least. As glamorous as a rockstar’s life can be, there was still a lot of bad that happened (addiction and crime and whatnot).

They moved on. They forgot about their past. They immersed themselves in the world they created.  A Diamond has their urges to lead, though. Fyra listened to her band, but they had spats now and then. She and her brother were always in charge, because being in charge was what they were raised to believe they deserved. When the band split up, Nickolas had a child with his wife, Fyra went on as Tatiana Qwartz, her brother kept their fake family name, Onyx, and they just. Let their lives go on. They were as normal as any of the other crazy superpowered people were on this planet. And Tatiana made her company.  And the music revolution happened. Tatiana adopted herself a pair of rebellious young adults. Mayday turned out to be her niece, her brother’s daughter, and after a lot of heartache, everything was finally happy again.

But someday, somehow, she’s gonna end up back on Homeworld. She’s going to face her “mother” again, and her whole family, coworkers and all, are going to see her real self. How??? No fucking clue. That’s the part I don’t have planned out.

[ninjago-dragon-reviews]

"Fire Dragon (Flame)" from Fire Temple

Number: 2507

Year Released: 2011

SPECS 

Head: Rubber Head mold w/ Ball shooter

Body: Saddle on neck

Tail: 1x1 rigid clip tail

Wings: Foldable blade pieces

Feet: One piece bionicle claw

Advancement?: YES

If yes: A neck (although it is not poseable), Rigid hinge tail, Rigid technic joints on wings

REVIEW

Poseability: 6/10

This dragon is an upgrade to the Ice Dragons structure from 2011. Although rigid, the neck adds space for the head to move more. It would have been nice to have the neck move as well, but it functions well enough for including it when most others of this generation did not. The wings are the same build seen throughout the original elemental dragons, but the larger wingspan allows, once again, for space to move and position, with the added bonus of being connected by rigid technic joints, which provide good movement to an otherwise flimsy and lackluster design of that era. The back legs still possess no knees, but they are spaced out in a way that allows the wings to provide structure and unique positions. The downsides of the feet are noticeable as there are still no ankles, leaving the feet looking awkward at times.  The tail has a strange linier rigid hinge structure; It is not the worst for function, but it is but a downgrade from ball joints known and overused today. 

Durability: 5/10

Simple blocks provide a decent durability to the body, but the rest of the dragon is lacking in this category. Wing details come off per usual and the chains on the head and neck either block movement or snap off due to the stress of movement. Blocky rudimentary body design is hardy during normal use, but if dropped, full portions of the body can come apart due to the lack of intricate structure within the build. Messing with the legs can also slip the Bionicle feet out from their sockets easily. Other than the cones and flag, however, there are very little details that will fall off and get lost. 

Playability: 8/10

Lots of personality and play for this dragon. Eye catching colours with a printed head brimming with expression make it a good action figure for roleplays and scenes. The wyvern design provides a nice array of body language and It holds up well enough with basic handling with a decent amount of fun poses. The massive wingspan is a slight let down as the body is so compacted in the front of the build there is no room for a hand to grab and fly it around, rendering it mostly a grounded beast, but still a fun one at that. When you do get it in the hair holding the back of the build it does look very cool flying around. The ball shooter mouth will always be a plus in this category. 

Displayability: 5/10

A classic looking build that falls short as many of the earlier dragons tend to do. It is far too rigid and simple (too action figure) for a shelf long term. It has a good size and can squeeze into tight spaces well, which is nice to see with a wingspan this large. It can work on a shelf, but the inconsistent colour pallet (constantly switching colors without finesse) and blocky design lend it more a play toy than a masterpiece. 

Look/Design: 5/10

The colours are strange together. It appears to use two separate shades of yellow (one being more mandarin orange and the other being more saturated) and they clash greatly when stared at too long. The grey joints are blended well into the scheme, but the transition between the colours is jarring and unnatural. Overall the dragon is unnatural in design, as the unmovable neck bends down at a strange angle and the wings are blank with many open unused studs. The body has good molding that blends nicely into the tail and the feet are a grand improvement from prior dragons. A classic Wyvern look that's lacking in many areas. 

OVERALL SCORE

6/10

[anadrenalineslut]

"My hearts been borrowed and yours has been blue" this lyric is so personal to me actually but let me tell you, this is such beautiful characterization of who she and Joe are, like we don't know much about Joe because he's very private and shy but here she is saying that his heart has been blue or sad/depressed, most likely and we also know that she views herself as blue too "you paint me a blue sky" "losing him was blue like Id never known" and like okay this is a jumbled mess let me start over okay

This is wedding superstition "something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new" revamped and I think the fact that she often talks about how Joe made her believe in love again after losing it quite brutally the last time (hits different outro is ouchie infinity taylor what do you mean "is it okay is it you or have they come to take me away" ma'am) is very relevant here I think. I love how optimistic taylor is in her last 4 works intermingled with grief, I really do.

Okay, so we have her comparing both her and Joe to being borrowed and blue, respectively. I don't know much about Joe, so I'm just going to say that she is probably saying that his heart is blue in the same way that her heart has been blue in the past (see losing him was blue like Id never known, you paint me a blue sky... she's talking about how when she loves someone, she depends on them to bring fair weather to her mental landscape... and the fact that she calls his heart blue is referencing that same tendency in Joe... twin flame vibes... Taylor has a best friends to lovers kink and it SHOWS). But calling her heart borrowed is so introspective and self-aware like I truly cannot express the beauty in this line.

Like, okay, I'm not taylor but I've struggled with an ED and I've also struggled with religious trauma to my sexuality as a woman who likes both men and women and I'm autistic so I can especially understand the impulse and desire to use sex and romantic partners as a stand-in for self-esteem and I feel like she really said a lot with "I hosted parties and starved my body like Id be saved by a perfect kiss" when I listen to "I looked around in a blood soaked gown and I saw something they couldn't take away," I see her in a white gown, strapless, with an anatomical heart cutout covered in red surrounding it like an explosion of blood but the heart is still in her chest and beating because I'm gory as fuck but honestly it's my analysis so let's go with it okay hush

And her heart being borrowed, like this is such a self aware line because she is saying that her heart was given to the wrong people but she got it back in the end... if you borrow something, you're only holding it temporarily (teenage love taught you there's good in goodbye... and then we get betty... bro, I'm sorry if you believe in grammy gate after those LOVER ERA leaks you're just braindead at this point the mold in your walls has gotten to you) and she is also admitting to a very self destructive behavior because in order to literally give your heart to someone, that's a gruesome statement tbh maybe it's my autism showing here but like you'd have to take it out of your chest and hand it over... that's inherently a self-destructive analogy. There is nothing good about that imagery, but she is saying that she got it back in the end. She made her way back to who she is, like you know how people talk about the heart of a character and we use heart as the physical representation of your soul like listen to your heart means do what will allow you to stay true to yourself but if you give your heart away that can be taken to mean something very different to autistic women (or people pleasers in general but my headcanons will not let me rest) who literally mask in relationships, especially straight relationships, in very self destructive ways because the norm in society is to uphold white supremacy values (no deal, that 1950s shit they want from me is so feminist bitch of her and I will not be taking critique on the contrary... she is saying fuck white supremacy as she should) okay like for white women in america, to mask yourself especially if you grow up undiagnosed autistic inherently makes you kind of a bad person if you're trying to be a good woman because to be a good white woman is to ignore oppression that doesn't affect you.

It's being influenced to be quiet about your sexuality because you're the #1 white woman in the world and you crave validation so badly, you give your fucking heart away to people who you are taught to want, men who want to abuse and groom you and women who have EDs because that's all white women strive to be (skinny, beautiful, attractive, seen but not heard unless they're talking about their husbands or sons) and you let yourself play the role of the daydream in your relationship until they disrespect you or gaslight you and make you feel stupid or crazy or insult you until you feel worthless standing next to these bland ass white men or cheat on you to show you how fleeting the power you've harvested from your beauty actually is and you're so caught up in gender roles and the status quo that you realize you don't actually want any of these awful people around you because none of them actually care about you they only care about what being with you feels like for them and as soon as things get real and you ask them to do things that take YOUR well being into account, all of a sudden you've changed and you're a bitch and you're being so fucking insane right now you know that it was just a hand drop I was just caught up with my friends god you're lucky you're so pretty when you look at me like that I can't stand seeing you cry please don't cry okay don't make a scene come on be a big girl now be good for me smile more why don't you

I just wow I got carried away here but yeah, for someone like taylor, my hearts been borrowed is a self aware admission that she gives away the core of who she is when she gets into relationships, she is so scared of fucking things up she lets awful people have second, third, hundredth chances because she just wants the pain to mean something, she just wants to feel in control of her own damn life and not like she's a fucking doll dressed up for entertainment for strangers who don't see her, who don't understand her, who can't be bothered to read her lyrics and hear the things she sings about and the themes in her music and who think she's just a mediocre white woman who only sings about love, which.... like everyone does, love is the only thing worth singing about and it's such a simplistic and sexist way of looking at music sung by women (because all women singers go thru this) by implying she's not saying anything with her songs because it's simple themes like love isn't the most complex and painful experience of people's lives but especially women and especially the more dark their skin gets, the most painful their love lives become. Not just romantic love but friendships and family and even coworker love or stranger love. Like, ugh okay fuck, I'm not gunna start my spiel on the patriarchy again but I'm thinking it and you should be too

So taylor is saying my heart's been borrowed, which is such a pretty line on the surface but really exposes the pain of her past because you don't want people to borrow your love, putting it back when it stops being convenient for them to play around with. But also, this is interesting as a line because she could have said your heart's been borrowed and mine has been blue, which would be a stronger indication and reminder of the painful and abusive relationships she's had in the past but the fact that she didn't makes me think she said it the way she did as an obvious role reversal to call attention to the fact that obviously, if his heart has been blue it's probably because it's been borrowed (again all the girls being cut from lover is my villian origin story) in the past as well, the same reason that her heart has been borrowed and been blue as a result, like, I live for this line specifically because then she goes "all's well that ends well to end up with you" which again calls back red era aka her heartbreak album which I think we should take to mean that album is a representation of how she behaves in a relationship, not so much focused on the specific relationship that influenced those specific songs you feel especially when we do analysis of calling back red era lyrics, but also the "to end up with you," is such a cute but also painful addition because we know that taylor goes into relationships hoping they'll be the last one she's in, that all or nothing mentality is also a huge thematic contrast that goes away after reputation, where she learns to live in the moment of her relationship and that's why conspiracy kaylors don't really like the normalcy of her love songs for Joe because she's just relishing in her healthy relationship and there is no fighting, like lavender haze and paris are both songs written about being bed with your lover and just having silly conversations or not having conversations at all with them but enjoying their company and they just want the passion of red and 1989 back, but it's gone forever because that type of passion is unhealthy loves okay anyways

Like I love this line so much because it showcases how taylor ended up with everything she ever wanted (a twin flame best friend who falls in love with her, the ultimate bi girl fantasy) but it came to her packaged with trauma on both her end and his end, but it's also a promise to remember that disagreements in healthy relationships are not all or nothing events, and it's just both of your traumas butting heads and you have to take a moment to breathe and remember that in those moments and make the effort to look past temporary hurt and forgive them for not knowing they were being hurtful to you because you can't punish people who accidentally hurt you when they don't know it's gunna hurt and it's such a beautiful little line that highlights they're perfect for each other because they took the time to grow up apart from one another until life gave them enough lessons on their own that by the time they started dating, they knew exactly what worked for them and what didn't and they knew what made other people leave so they were able to make the home they were always looking for with another

It's such a beautiful bridge, one of her best of all time but this line is one of my favorites of all time

[strangetorpedos]

hello library of lensa enjoyers and/or fans of d&d mechanics. beloved hollis @beatricexbenedick let us revamp our character sheets (narratively bc we’re going to be doing so much training next downtime session, metatextually bc a lot of us did Not build our characters well). and bc i love talking mechanics i wanted to go through what i did to my bestie nox <3

CLASS & LEVEL

before the revamp, nox was 5 levels divination wizard & 1 level rogue. this was not a good multiclass. it made sense narratively when we started, but nox as a character has changed so much since their inception that it barely makes narrative sense anymore, so i decided to scrap it and make nox a full div wizard. i played around with multiclassing him with something else, and i still might eventually, but nothing was really calling to me, and full wizard is also just. very fun. so for now they are 6 levels divination wizard!

ABILITY SCORES

this was the part i was most excited about, because i rolled the WORST stats for nox when we started. by the time he was level 6, they had 10 str, 13 dex, 13 con, 18 int, 10 wis, and 10 cha. it was truly abysmal. in our game, we roll stats by rolling 3 sets of 6d20 (rerolling below 5s), so his new stats are 11 str, 12 dex, 20 con, 20 int, 17 wis, and 9 cha. this also brought his hit points from 40 to 58.

FEAT AND ABILITIES

not much changed here, but i knew i was gonna miss having expertise, so i gave nox the skill expert feat, taking proficiency in arcana and expertise in investigation (hello +11). as a level 6, he also has the expert divination feature

SPELLS

there were a few spells i had taken towards the beginning of the campaign that i truly never used or found weren’t useful anymore that i was able to trade out. funnily enough, these were mostly cantrips: i traded true strike for mage hand, blade ward for green-flame blade, and minor illusion for mold earth. i also got to change out mage armor for catapult and melf’s acid arrows for cloud of daggers, as well as adding witch bolt and slow

there were a couple little things i did (realized i have an instrument proficiency, so i guess. nox plays the clarinet now 😭) but that’s the basics of it!! i love nox and i can’t wait to play him in their new era of being good <3

[yeniasworld]

The world is shifting, not crumbling down,

It’s a rebirth, a cycle—no end, just a crown.

The stars realign, and I feel it inside,

Though fear grips my chest, I refuse to hide.

This storm in the air, this trembling night,

I breathe in the chaos, yet cradle the light.

I miss my mother, her warmth, her grace,

My twin, lost in a different space.

Their minds drift afar, caught in their seas,

But I’ve been chosen to stand on my knees.

God—yes, selfish, no hand to hold,

He whispers in riddles, breaks me to mold.

He pushes me deeper into the wild,

With no map, no compass, like a reckless child.

Yet I rise in the heat, where fear used to rule,

To find that my fire has made me a jewel.

I’m learning to bend, to master the flame,

To wear my own courage like a sacred name.

Yes, I’m gay, and proud, and soon to be more—

Maybe a woman, or something beyond the door.

With pride on my back, I’ve learned to fly,

No shackles of judgment, just open sky.

LGBTQ+, my tribe, my guide,

In their love, I flourish, I no longer hide.

Fashion, performance, spirit set free,

In art, I lose myself and find me.

The world has tried to bind me tight,

Tried to smother my voice, dim my light.

MJ, Beyoncé, Chris, all chained by fear,

But I see through the veil, I see it clear.

Y’all tried to cage them, their wildest dreams,

But energy speaks louder than it seems.

God freed me, taught me the game,

I’ve shed the weight of belief and shame.

I’m whole now, untamed, alive in my skin,

Free to lose, free to win, free to begin.

I no longer bow to the world’s disguise,

For I see the truth through awakened eyes.

A witch? Perhaps—but only in name,

For we all hold magic, we all hold flame.

Intent is the key, dark or light,

And I choose to dance in the infinite night.

Religion gave comfort, and fear its place,

But now it too drifts, leaves no trace.

The world spins mad, and I question it still—

Is any of this real, or just God’s will?

At the edge of my awakening, I stand alone,

Afraid of the power I’ve finally known.

Freedom, too vast, too wild, too wide,

But I embrace it now, no more need to hide.

I’m healed, I’m whole, I love who I am,

No more bending to the world’s cruel hand.

I play the game when I choose, when I dare,

And when I don’t, I rise in the air—

Untouched, unbound, a force undefined,

This is my freedom, this is my era.

[augusttalescomics]

Jenny Sparks: The Authority Reborn

A New Era for Jenny Sparks and The Authority Jenny Sparks #1 reignites the rebellious flame of The Authority, bringing back the anarchic energy that once shook the comic book world. Written by Tom King and illustrated by Jeff Spokes, this new series marks a significant return for Jenny Sparks, the iconic “century baby” who once led the team that defied the traditional superhero mold. In this…

[japanesepenguin]

+ Well, I went on an exploration day on Sunday... Street view of Ofuna, a city about an hour south of Tokyo; I've never been here before and I have no idea what's here since it's not particularly famous beyond "a place where you transfer trains"; let's see what we find!

+ First up, from the station during arrival there appeared to be a giant Buddhist statue in the hills, so that seems like a good first destination; the traffic cone on the walkup up has been molded into a Buddhist guy

+ And sure enough, there's a big Buddhist statue

+ Ahhhhhhhhhh... アジサイ... I seriously forgot the name in English again...

+ Anyways, this is Kannon, the goddess of mercy; they started building her in the 30s but had to stop due to the war; she costs 300 JPY to see up close like this

+ More アジサイ

+ The only other thing here other than flowers and the big statue is this flame that... well, I just some research; an atomic bomb survivor kept some of the fire from the Hiroshima bombing (in memory of someone he had lost) and brought it (the flame) back to his home town, keeping it active until he donated it to his village... This flame was lit from that fire...

+ Wouldn't be a real exploration trip without some "atom bomb guilt"; here's a neat road; the mountains in this area are made of some soft rock so I guess it was easier just to dig straight through them

+ So there's also a big temple in the area, and they've got an original Edo-era house on the grounds, which is neat

+ The sign says something like "there's a hive of Japanese bees; please be careful" alongside what is not even a passable drawing of a bee

+ I could forgive the artist if he had never seen a bee, but... he had like a hundred of them to use as source material?

+ I mean, spots? Bro, bees have stripes; Uh... the temple

+ The next stop was a botanical garden; for 400 JPY you can walk around and look at all the pretty flowers

+ Weird guy in the greenhouse

+ Bunch of flowers...

+ These are flowers; I write the best captions

+ Oh, turns out lotuses are like, incredible; check it out

+ Even unopened they're sexy AF

+ Like seriously, c'mon; leave some room for the competition

+ But this place did weird things to the lotus leaves... They cut two off and stuck hoses onto the severed stem, pumping water through their propped-up corpses...

+ ...because it makes water squirt out of them like a inverse-umbrella...

+ But they had a lot... The garden is known for having the most (~2,000) varieties of peonies in the country, but... they're not in bloom, so too bad

+ How am I not at the picture limit? Here's haniwa in someone's garden... these are amazing and someday I will have haniwa in my garden/farm; I promise