#found him without his spiritual powers and all banged up

[bonesblubs]

If you want to, do you think you could draw Feng Xin getting really angry after Mu Qing gets hurt. Your art is so great!

yall better stop enabling me...

[artist-issues]

Ok, I've been thinking about your wish posts for quite some time, and I’m very confused, can't seem to follow them. Magnifico's main philosophy is to forget without regret (he, like Faciler, is taking the easy route of life).

Even if a goal doesn't come true or you give up, you should still reconcile with those scars, grow, and let them heal naturally. You say the star thing is sacrificial, but it's not saying Asha is a literal star; she's connected to stardust; it more evokes how God says we are made in the image of him (we are obviously not god, but we are all connected to him and his children).  

Putting aside that, I don't think this movie is religious at all, and I find the implication insane. I think Star is more god, and Magnifico is a false idol and a corrupt leader. Asha sings the lyrics, so I look up at the stars to guide them, much like how the shepherds followed the stars to Bethelheman.

Taking the lyrics of at all costs into account, I'll promise, as one does, I'll protect you at all costs. He's locking them up and stealing their souls, and he wants to seal his people's desire to live so he can achieve ultimate power.

When Asha says I'm a star, she's saying anyone should spread peace and reflect on their scars, and the wishes that are dangerous can be stopped, so if society (Magnifco) decides you are useless or not needed in society, do you listen?

Well, God would never say people's autonomy is useless, like Magnifico, nor do you have to grant everyone's wish, but you can't determine people's way of living or their souls. With no offense, I find your analysis posts to be rather anti-human and I’m curious if you have any answers to these points

First:

Every story is presenting a worldview. If you present a worldview, that worldview WILL come into conflict with other worldviews that say the opposite thing.

Wish may not be saying a word about any one religion—but by presenting the philosophy that human beings have the power of the stars in them, from the star matter inside of them—it is in conflict with several religious worldviews.

"Powerful Stardust Inside Humans" an actual "religion/"worldview out here in the real world. It's founded in the "big bang theory," which as far as I know, guesses that the ancient stars of the universe were made up of helium, lithium, and hydrogen. Then the other elements (the ones that make up us) allegedly gradually formed inside of those, then allegedly blasted all throughout the galaxy during the Big Bang. Therefore, allegedly, life on planet earth is made from star debris, or "stardust."

Then New Age believers take that a step further and decide that this means that a spiritual connection is between us and the stars, which are powerful, because of their religious astrological beliefs.

Which is exactly what Wish is also presenting, as a worldview, in "I'm a Star!" and in every moment where Asha claims she can understand what Star is trying to tell her, and in every moment where the effects artists specifically caused characters' chests to glow with a Star sparkle. Real people in real life believe that real stardust in humans gives them real power.

And that belief is either based on truth, or it's not. People who believe it are either wrong, or they're right.

Because other worldviews believe the opposite of both the New Age idea that stardust has supernatural power, and the opposite of the Big Bang.

Christians, as you know, believe that the world was created (and Earth, which mankind was formed out of, was created before the stars) by the word of Yahweh. They believe the Big Bang Theory is false. They believe that worshipping creations like stars through astrology, or attributing any supernatural power to humans, is false and also wrong.

Other worldviews besides Christianity also don't believe in the Big Bang, or astrology, or New Age spiritualism. But Wish framed Star and the whole "I'm a Star!" song as if these things are the truth...meaning, everything else is not true.

So you can say it had nothing to say about religion, but just by presenting a worldview that is contrary to many religions...it is saying something about religion. It is saying religion is incorrect. Passive-aggressively. But still saying it.

Second:

Star does not represent the God of the Bible in any way.

As I've said before, Star is presented as a higher power, because he is blatantly connected to the wishing stars of other Disney movies—which have been higher powers—but then he's able to be defeated. He's trapped easily by Magnifico. He is unable to rescue himself and has to be rescued by everyone else.

Nothing about that is like the God of the Bible.

Additionally, he's just one star. I feel like everybody is acting like there aren't other stars in the sky—the movie never presents Star the character as the only powerful godlike being in the heavens—in fact, the movie has a line from Asha's father about how "the stars (plural) are there to guide us." There's only one God, the God of the Bible specifically claims to be the only higher power.

Plus, even if Wish were saying that Star is the only wishing star, as a parallel to God's exclusive existence...he does nothing to "guide" Asha.

He doesn't suggest a path for her to take. She just decides she wants to go get Sabino's Wish back, and Star does cute little antics like any super-powered sidekick might to help out, and then she gets Sabino's wish back. Then later, he gives her magical tools that wind up being no help at all—she gets captured by Magnifico anyway. In the climax, he just sort of...pushes on the wishes, then gets sucked into a staff. He very simply does nothing super-helpful. He's just the regular amount of ordinary-helpful to Asha.

Besides, when we say a higher power "guides a character," we usually mean that they offer the hero a choice, and that choice challenges the character to choose what they need instead of just what they want. Like the Blue Fairy (the original wishing star) or Mama Odie. They aren't with the heroes every step of the way, jumping in to do part of the work of the adventure. Jumping in and doing part of the work is what Ray the firefly or Jiminy Cricket do. Star jumps in and does part of the work, like a sidekick; he does not give guidance or direction or a challenge that deepens the hero like the Blue Fairy, or Mama Odie, or The Enchantress. And like I said, he's nothing like God—

—except that he's presented like a higher power who gives guidance, only to actually do the opposite of that, which is a commentary on how the creators of Wish see "higher powers." I can't explain it any more clearly than that.

Also, just for point of reference, the phrase "made in God's image" does not line up at all with Asha's "connection" to Star. Because like I just said, Star's set up like he's supposed to be a higher power but then fails, so he's not that high of a power. Asha's "connection" to Star is a direct link to real New Age Evolutionary spirituality—they say, word-for-word, what New Age Evolutionary Spiritualists say in real life in the song "I'm a Star!"

Which is it: is the movie not religious at all, or is Star God while Magnifico's a false idol?

See, you can't even talk about Wish without acknowledging that it says something about higher powers, I.e. God.

I've already explained why Star isn't an accurate representation of the God of the Bible: he's more an accurate representation of what humanists believe about higher powers: they believe we're all "higher powers." (Which is to say, everyone is powerful and nobody, not stars or gods or nature, is higher than humans.)

But listen—they borrowed the idea of "look up at the stars to guide me" from several different places. One, yes, the Bible. Two, all of navigational history, which uses stars like maps. Three, astrology, which believes that stars give literal spiritual guidance and have an effect on everything that happens on earth. So no. It wasn't a direct one-to-one comparison to the wise men who followed the star to Bethlehem.

Your Claims About What the Movie is Saying:

"He wants to steal people's desires to live" - No, he doesn't, that's not in the movie. All the adults in Rosa's no longer have their wishes; none of them act depressed or suicidal. Not even Asha's mother, after her wish is literally crushed in front of her.

"When Asha says I'm a star, she's saying anyone should spread peace and reflect on their scars" - That's just a theory of yours; it's not supported by the movie. Nobody in the movie wrestled with "their scars." Not even Magnifico. The movie just hints that he lost something in his past—it never fully fleshes out that he's still upset by that, or afraid of losing anything he cares about except power. Asha's father is dead, but other than one line about how nobody should have to live with that pain (which is the opposite of "reflecting" on scars) the loss of her father is never treated like a deep emotional wound she needs to acknowledge or overcome. It's never mentioned again in the movie.

The thing is, none of your points are supportable from what's in the movie. You're reading more meaning into it than the movie actually has—and some of that meaning, the movie itself contradicts.

About how my posts are anti-human:

They're not anti-human. They're anti-humanist, maybe. I don't believe humans are the center of everything. I don't believe they are just as powerful as "higher powers." The point of "higher" powers is that they're HIGHER than what? Higher than humans.

God absolutely does determine what's right and wrong; He invented "right." And He does judge people's lifestyle, and their souls. Sure, Magnifico had no right to do that—but you know what, it's not because "nobody should decide how an individual lives except the individual themselves!" —it's because Magnifico is human. So he doesn't get to judge. God however? God gets to judge. God gets to decide. And He always makes the right decision.

[tawneybel]

Note: I didn’t add a violence-filter because, despite being a crossover between the R-rated Ringu and Saw series, this imagine isn’t too bad. As of queuing this, I’ve seen up to Saw: The Final Chapter and Ringu 2.

Imagine Sadako appearing behind Billy while you’re stuck in a trap.

It occurred to you Jigsaw himself might also become cursed, if he watched her edit. To your amazement, Sadako paused before knocking the dummy aside. You held your breath. It broke, but it wasn’t rigged. No nail bomb, no shots of any sort. Only a shattered toy. Lying on its side like you, when watching her video. Over and over. Before nodding off, beguiled by the actress’s then-ethereal movement.

Sadako’s real, just not alive.

Only an exorcism might rid anyone of her. Nothing Jigsaw had built would thwart her. For all his industrial mastery, you suspected he wasn’t knowledgeable about ghost lore. Otherwise, he wouldn’t dare kill his victims in such gruesome ways. John Kramer was a killer, despite his insistence otherwise.

You had no patience for his hypocritical, sadist philosophy and you told him so. So you found yourself disoriented, naked, and tethered to a damned device. Either on his orders or because one of his piglets didn’t like their mentor being insulted.

And/or. Maybe unrelated copycat. Probably not.

Kramer’s engineering was unparalleled. Amanda had purposely fixed games. Made them inescapable. You clearly wouldn’t be able to escape the machine without some grievous injury. If breaking out was even possible.

At least Sadako Yamamura didn’t deny her violence was vengeance-driven. Sadako, who was oozing out of the grainy screen.

Her palms, no doubt cold as the grave, silently hit the floor. You wouldn’t be surprised if that leeched skin remained pristine on this “cutting-room” floor. Or as pristine as skin whose wearer perished in a well could be. Yet she was technically “alright.” Oddly comforting, the thought you might soon be joining her… Perhaps in Sadako’s own viral afterlife. Hopefully not with Jigsaw’s other victims.

She continued her crawl, dress dry yet weighed down as if soaked. The onryo tilted her head. You weren’t going to die of fright. Not tonight. Oh, tonight she had plans for you two, but she had been transported out of Japan. That much was clear. Underneath her dark strands, a grin nearly split Sadako’s face in two. The first grin in a long time. The first of many, all for you, Sadako decided. The curse would- had proliferated. Spread farther than she had hoped. With your help.

Jigsaw was dying, but his end would be as excruciating as her power allowed. After your release, she could retaliate. It wouldn’t occur to Sadako until later that everyone involved, minus you, was ignorant of her existence and yurei in general. She just felt the same rage that birthed the curse and bound her to it.

Sadako knew you sympathized with her. A peek through her lengthy bangs rewarded her a glimpse of your impassive face. Anger ebbed. Your physical and her spiritual binds. Now you two could empathize with one another. Plan out how you would copy and distribute the tapes for her.

She reached you.

Corpses’ nails continued to grow. Did ghosts’? You weren’t sure. Because Sadako’s fingernails had been ripped clean off in her attempted ascent out of the well.

She drew herself up, her cold, cold hand on the apparatus. Warmth withdrawn from your body, you collapsed into her outstretched arms. 

But not before noting the frozen countdown.

[havendance]

You Can't Spell Kuzon without Zuko

AO3

Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender

Featured Characters/Relationships: Aang & Zuko

Wordcount: 7800

Summary:

While suspended in the avatar state, Aang harnesses its spiritual power to visit the great-grandson of his past life, a Fire Prince named Zuko. When he emerges from the iceberg to find that same prince, it's a simple decision to help him out.

Meanwhile, Zuko has to wrestle with Kuzon, his goofy childhood friend, and the Avatar, the ancient master of bending and his ticket home, being one and the same.

This was not the fic I was expecting to show up with first, but I got hit by a burst of inspiration over the weekend and banged out the last 600 words this fic needed to be complete so here it is! This has been haunting my drafts for the last two and half years and I am finally free of it!

Inspired by this tumblr post.

Excerpt:

“Looking for me?” The Avatar’s voice rang out clearly in the cold winter air.

Zuko picked himself up off the ground. This was it. The moment that he’d spent all his time training for. He locked eyes with the Avatar, getting his first look at his ticket back home. (His real ticket back home, not like all of those false alarms he’d found before. This was the real one. His destiny. He could feel it in his gut.) Wait. The avatar looked familiar.

“Kuzon?” This couldn’t be happening. What was his childhood friend doing here?

The Avatar, Kuzon , lowered his staff and grinned. “Zuko! What are you doing here?”

Zuko lowered his fighting stance. “Looking for the Avatar. What are you doing here? And why are you still twelve? And bald?”

Kuzon scratched his head sheepishly. “It’s kind of a long story. But I am the Avatar, so congratulations! You found me!”

“ You’re the avatar?”

“Uh, yeah, I am.” Kuzon waved his hand and a gust of wind buffeted Zuko and his men. It was definitely airbending. “So what did I miss? Why are you looking for the avatar?”

“It’s a… long story.” All the Water Tribe peasants were staring at them and he wasn’t about to tell everyone the details of his banishment. Not after that stupid peasant had already made him look like a fool with that boomerang of his. He had to get this situation back under control. “You should come onto my ship. I can, uh, have Uncle make tea or something.”

“That sounds great!” Kuzon started to walk forward but the stupid boomerang peasant stopped him.

“Hold up, Aang, this sounds like a trap. You’re just going to walk onto a Fire Nation ship?”

Kuzon shrugged. “Zuko’s my friend. I trust him.”

“He attacked gran-gran!”

“I’m sure he’s sorry.”

Zuko was not sorry. And he did not attack the old woman. He just grabbed her and shook her about a bit. He glared over at the water tribe peasant.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” the peasant said. “Look, I just have a bad feeling about this.”

“I’m telling you, it’ll be fine. Hey I know!” Kuzon turned back to Zuko. “Hey Zuko! If I come with you will you leave all these people alone?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t just going to terrorize them if had the Avatar. Or at least, Kuzon who claimed to be the Avatar and seemed to be an airbender for some reason.

“See? You’ll be fine. Zuko’s super honorable. He’ll keep his promise.”

Kuzon didn’t seem to notice the way Zuko flinched at his statement. He’d gotten very good at hiding it. “Look, are you coming or not?” He may have snapped the statement a little.

“I’m coming! I just need to grab Appa!”

What was an Appa? And what had Zuko just gotten himself into?

Continue reading on ao3!

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

~*~

Hello Mojo, hope you're doing well and that you had a good break! I wanted to signal boost the MDZS May Diaspora event collection on AO3, and point out my favorite fic from there: 归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home by dragongirlG! It's both tender and bittersweet and it features such mature writing. The author got some hate for it when it initially got posted so I wanted to counter that and give it some love instead! [Who would do such a thing?!  @dragongirlg-fics I’m sorry that happened to you, and here, have *so many hugs!* I’ll try to do a thing just for the diaspora event, but meanwhile, I’ll just treat this as a follower rec.]

归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home

by dragongirlG (M, 8k, wangxian)

Summary:  The destruction of the Yin Tiger Seal does not kill Wei Wuxian; it ages him instead. He takes shelter in a cave expecting to die, but instead he lives, slowly learning to embrace life with each new day.

Thirteen years later, a young man with a Lan forehead ribbon stumbles into the cave. His name is Lan Sizhui.

~*~

Hi Momjo!!! I recently read the most *adorable* fic, and I loved it so much that it dragged me out of seclusion (read: social anxiety cave) to rec it. It's called 'Covered in Bees' by ScarlettStorm in which the Cloud Recesses is an apiary, and Wei Wuxian has suddenly found himself host to a swarm of bees. ~ @akyra-talanoa

Covered in Bees

by ScarlettStorm (T, 8k, wangxian)

Summary: “Cloud Reccesses Apiary,” says a toneless, deep masculine voice, with zero question in it. Wei Ying doesn’t care, because whoever possesses that voice is probably going to come save him from bees like a fucking hero while wearing like, a suit of armor. That’s what you wear to catch bees, right?

“I have like, so many bees outside my front door right now,” he says, mouth running out ahead of him before he can even begin to think about reining it in. “It’s like a sandstorm of bees out there. There are so many bees. I got out of my car and there were just bees and I don’t want these bees. Do you want these bees? Please tell me you will come get these bees. I can’t leave my house and I have enough food for maybe a week but then I’m gonna have to learn how to cook dry beans and no one wants that, especially not me.” Wei Ying runs out of air, takes a breath, and belatedly adds, “My name is Wei Ying. Hi.”

Or: The beekeeping AU that no one asked for.

~*~

Hi, you are a bless to this fandom. Your blog feels like a library, so thoroughly arranged and always within hand reach. [Thank you, wow!]  Recently, I was going through Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn is a Wēn tag and came across a fanfic, it has 3 chapters till now and is so intriguing that i thought to recommend it to you. I don't know if I can recommend or if you have already checked the story, The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon by Devipriya. I am in love with this story. I hope you will enjoy it too, do check it out

The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon

by Devipriya (T, 7k, wangxian)

Summary:  Wen Wuxian, the essence of who he is, he is a naughty child, a prankster, an enchanting dizi player, a graceful dancer, an irresistible lover, a truly valiant warrior, a ruthless vanquisher of his foes, a man who left a broken heart in every home, an astute statesman and kingmaker, a thorough gentleman, a righteous individual of the highest order, and the most colorful incarnation.

He has been seen, perceived, understood and experienced in many different ways by different people. Different people saw different facets of who he is. For some, he is God. For some, he is a crook. For some, he is a lover. For some, he is a fighter. He is so many things.

But the phoenix, seen from the eyes of time was just a playful man. A man who plays with his awareness, with his imagination, with his memory, with his life, with his death. An individual who does not just dance with somebody. He dances with life. He dances with his enemy, He dances with the one he loves, He dances even at the moment of his death.

To taste an essence of who is Wen Wuxian, be with me in the journey of exploration, NO! playful exploration of life of a playful man.

~*~

Hi! Thanks for running this blog, it's helped me find so many fics. For your next follower recs post, I wanted to rec "This love like a flood, a fire, a fear" by natcat5. Its summary is vague (which I suspect is why it isn't better known) but it is a beautiful retelling of canon from LWJ's POV with slight canon divergence. I love the author's characterization of him and the prose is gorgeous. It is easily my favorite fic in the entire fandom, and I don't say that lightly. ~ @nyanja14

This love like a flood, a fire, a fear

by natcat5 (M, 57k, wangxian, lan wangji & lan xichen)

Summary:  “I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch everything go wrong.”   - Lemony Snicket

~*~

i came to this ask to rec this baseball one called "Waiting for Spring" by thievinghippo on ao3. It somehow made me care about baseball soooo 'nough said ~ @scifikimmi

Waiting for Spring

by thievinghippo (E, 131, wangxian)

Summary:  “It is a well-known fact across the major leagues that one does not smack Lan Wangji’s ass.”

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. Everyone smacks everyone’s ass in baseball. It’s how the game is played. Lan Wangji does not get to be exempt from this most sacred of baseball traditions.

Wei Wuxian will make sure of that.

Or, a Major League Baseball AU

~*~

hi mojo! i wanted to rec Something Good by boxoftheskyking (a loose sound of music/canon divergence au) and also MDZS: The Golden Engine by iffervescent (immortal wangxian modern au where they gotta solve a mystery and save china, featuring jiang cheng/lan xichen)

Something Good

by boxoftheskyking (T, 43k, wangxian)

Summary:  "That Wei Wuxian, you know he used to be such a promising cultivator. Head Disciple of the Jiang Clan, can you believe it? You see, juniors, the punishment for traveling the path of demonic cultivation. No golden core, not so much as a whisper of spiritual power."

As a punishment for real and imagined crimes, Wei Wuxian is sentenced to work at Cloud Recesses as the lowest of servants. When a surprising reassignment lands him with eleven children to care for, everything changes again.

A Sound of Music AU

MDZS: The Golden Engine

by iffervescent (E, 82k, wangxian, xicheng)

Summary:  In the modern era, immortals Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian return to Gusu. New evil and old friends + new friends and old evils.

~*~

Hi Mojo! First of all let me just tell you that you are amazing and this blog is like a gift from the gods! Bless you and your endless patience and hard work. [Oh, thank you so much!]  I know that you have just accepted follower recs and I have missed miserably but I still wanted to write and bring attention to a writer by the pseudo Xiao_Hua on ao3, I think they are quite good and I just recently found the account with so much content. If you do have the time to check them out, I'd rec catfish, my fox or the red ribbon.

The Red Ribbon

by Xiao_Hua (M, 21k, wangxian, TGCF crossover)

Summary:  Wei WuXian died but not before saving HanGuang-Jun and A-Yuan, leaving so much more behind than just his ribbon.

My Fox

by Xiao_Hua (E, 13k, wangxian)

Summary:  Once he headed to YiLing that all changed for him. His priorities have been mingled with and ordered in complete disarray even without him noticing as he was left heavily influenced by a creature.

Or one where Lan WangJi is a dragon-spirit and he finds his mate in the form of a fox.

Catfish

by Xiao_Hua (E, 15k, wangxian)

Summary:  Wei WuXian has a common sense that believes it has a nine-to-five job while Lan WangJi finds that incredibly hot.

Or one where two catfish realise that neither of them truly catfished.

~*~

Hi Mojo i'm recommending this amazing fic it is called song of joys and regrets. it's a time travel AU it's amazing. And your Blog is a Godsend Thank you! [Aw, you’re so sweet!]  ~ @highgoddess

Song of Joy and Regrets

by HelloKitten (not rated, 59k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary:  The Archery competition at Qishan this year has hit a snag. As the Sects face the wrongs perpetrated by their future selves, Wei Wuxian finds himself adopted by half of the cultivation world who are determined to save him from himself.

Baby Wangxian suffers. Adult Wangxian's job here is done.

"I'm starting to see a pattern to all his plans..." "Do they all involve him being bait?" "Yes" came deadpanned responses.

~*~

Here’s a 2021 Reverse Big Bang entry, in time for Father’s Day; [Oops, my bad, sorry!]  Under a Blanket of Black Wings, by ChaoticAndrogynous (#31398395); LWJ, recuperating from the 33 lashes, tells A-Yuan a series of fairytales about a heroic monster and the brave little boy he befriended. Vampire! WWX (in the framing story as well as the story-within-the-story); happy ending.

Under a Blanket of Black Wings

by ChaoticAndrogynous (T, 19k, wangxian)

Summary:  Lan Wangji tells A-Yuan a bedtime story about a beautiful monster and the brave little boy who was his friend. Thirteen years later, the monster returns.

~*~

Hello Mojo! Have you read ‘Key Differences’ by Pupeez4eva? Its a MDZS!WWX meets CQL!WWX and its really good! [It’s on my list!]

Key Differences

by pupeez4eva (T, 6k, wangxian)

Summary:  “I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian said, while his alternate self continued to stare at him with almost a look of hurt in his eyes. There was longing in there too, which Wei Wuxian would have easily recognised if he paid enough attention. “How could you not get together, after everything. What even went on in the Guanyin Temple if you didn’t confess?”

“The Guanyin Temple,” Wei Ying repeated incredulously. “You’re asking me if I confessed at — honestly, a lot went on that day. It was a life and death situation. There was no confessing.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him, appalled.

(Wherein Wei Wuxian ends up meeting an alternate version of himself who, much to his horror, never married Lan Wangji. Obviously he has to do something to fix this).

~*~

Hey Mojo i would recommend this fanfic if you already haven’t, it’s called “ take me back to a time “ by DizziDreams. It’s sooooo good

take me back to a time

by DizziDreams (T, 144k, wangxian, 3zun)

Summary:  Wei Ying has a lot on his plate right now.

It’s finals week -- which isn’t so bad. He’s never had to study much to do well in classes. But that just means that things are that much more tense with Jiang Cheng, who, as far as Wei Ying can tell, only takes study breaks long enough to glare at Wei Ying where he sits on the couch playing video games.

It’s not studies that have Wei Ying stressed out. It’s everything else. It’s the recruitment for the research trial he’s coordinating. It’s jiejie and her impending marriage to His Royal Douchebag Jin Zixuan. It’s the volunteer work at the palliative care facility. It’s Wen Ning’s worsening condition. It’s Wen Qing working herself thin to care for her brother and Wen Yuan. It’s the way Wen Yuan never seems to have enough food.

So, yeah. There’s enough on Wei Ying’s plate already, meaning it’s not entirely welcome when he comes home and finds a man standing in his bedroom. A man in extravagant white robes, a ribbon tied around his forehead, long hair gathered into a topknot, fist clutching a sword at his side, who asks him, “Where am I?”

~*~

Idk if this has already been rec’d (I’ve been off the grid for a while now), but there’s this absolutely incredible fic called Restitution by an anon on ao3 people should definitely check out!

this one?

on restitution

by Anonymous (M, 78k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian, lan sizhui & wei wuxian, WIP)

Summary:  When Wei Wuxian regains consciousness, he is in a bed. A real, proper bed, not the slab he called a bed in his cave in the Burial Mounds.

Jiang Cheng is glowering above him.

Wei Wuxian doesn't die during the siege of the Burial Mounds. Rather, he is captured in secret and confined at Lotus Pier. Things change accordingly.

~*~

Hi momjo! I feel like every time I come to your blog there's twenty more new and amazing fics for me to read. Thank you for everything you do for this fandom!  [Thank you, sweetie!  And yes, I think there ARE 20 new fics every day out there in the fandom.  It’s amazing!] Today I come bearing my own rec to you. I've recently read this and it's IMO one of the best fics out there. It's called Lapsteel by carriecmoney and it's a modern stormchaser AU featuring country songs and coming home. ~ @manaika-chan​

Lapsteel

by carriecmoney (T, 42k, wangxian)

Summary:  Now and then, I think about you now and then...

It's been thirteen years since Wei Ying ran for the prairies, leaving behind a family in shambles and a secret on the Pacific wind. What happens when the storm he swirled catches up to him?

Modern AU with country music star Lan Zhan, stormchaser Wei Ying, and shared crossroads.

~*~

[ailuro-mania]

She’s Just Like You

Reposting because for some reason the og post got whacked 

My AO3: here 

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Inuyasha let the sun soak through his clothing, absorbing the spring light. His hair trailed unchecked behind him, the wind caressing the silver strands. His amber eyes scanned the river in front of him, claws prepared to snatch a fish from the stream. Admittedly, he’d been at this longer than necessary. It wasn’t that the fish were hard catches today, it was simply a nice day out and his wife was busy off in the village helping another family out with a sick child. He’d decided then it was his turn to cook dinner for his family. Kagome couldn’t always be the only one doing it, though it was domestically proper for their time that the wife be the one cooking, he’d long ago decided they were far from domestically proper.

A sound from beyond the trees had his ears both twitch at it. He chose to ignore it, focusing on the water before him. Another sound, a twig snapping under weight. The half-demon’s eyes adverted ever so slightly toward the forest, then back to the water. Another snap, then rushing feet. He braced himself.

A tiny body he was extremely familiar with came colliding onto his back, a triumphant “Gotcha!” squealed once their bodies collided.

He couldn’t help but laugh, quickly wrapping his arms behind himself to support his daughters weight. Moroha gave off a toothy grin, arms wrapped securely around his neck. “Hi, daddy!”

“Moroha,” he turned his head to look at his daughter, her lose black locks swishing into his face, “Where did you come from?” Of course he knew, but it was a lot more fun for his 4 year old to think she’d really snuck up on her father.

“The tree’s!” Her grin didn’t falter, letting go of his neck. She threw her head back, letting Inuyasha carry all her weight from behind. She hung her arms above her head, swishing the water around.

Made perfect sense. Inuyasha let go of one of her legs, swinging her around to the front of him. Moroha let out another squeal. She weighed absolutely nothing to him, but then again neither did her mother.

Inuyasha slipped his one hand from her thigh to her ankle and held her up in front of his face, hers upside-down. Moroha crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out then, “I wanna play with the water!”

Inuyasha raised a brow, “Oh?”

He let his grip go and she fell right into the water with a splash, she popped up almost instantly, “Daddy!” She yelled at him, a pout donning her face. Kagome would tell him she looked exactly like him when she made that specific face. He smiled down at his feisty pup. It took a second, but she eventually smiled back.

“Are you going to help me catch dinner?” He asked.

“Yeah! I got this!” Moroha cracked her knuckles in front of herself, her wet bangs spread across her forehead in tendrils, her pony tail sagging down from the weight of the water along with her bow.

He nodded approvingly and started to walk out of the water, Moroha immediately gapping at him, “Where are you going?” she demanded, hands settling at her hips.

And that was when Inuyasha would tell Kagome she looks exactly like her. He snorted at his girl, “You said you were going to catch dinner.”

Moroha stared at him, “I said help!”

Inuyasha tilted his head, “I don’t recall that. I clearly remembering you saying you were going to catch it.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and started to chase him the remaining way out of the water. He played along by running from his daughter and quickly leaping back up onto the grass. With Moroha close behind, she balled up her fists and threw a splash of water at him, the water only sprinkling his feet. Moroha quickly weasled her way back onto the dry land, comedically struggling only slightly as she swung her little leg up. Normal children, human children, would normally not be able to manage such things with the streams little but consistent flow. However, she was no regular 4 year old, both Inuyasha and Kagome consistently busy watching over her before she hurt herself. But it was a job they both loved. Today was a little different however, Inuyasha thought she was supposed to be with Kaede and the other village children to learn about plant life.

“Aren’t ya supposed to be with old Kaede, Moroha?” Inuyasha squatted down to even their eye level, her caramel eyes shining bright with the sun sneaking in and splattering bits of her iris with specks of gold.

Moroha shrugged, “I got bored. And I caught your scent, so I thought I may as well track you like you were showing me yesterday about tracking bunnies!” She smiled bright.

Inuyasha snorted. He couldn’t reprimand his daughter for getting bored of plant life. Sure, it was needed for survival and he was confident in his own and Kagome’s ability to teach her how to survive off the land. Perhaps himself more than Kagome, he’d done it for 150 years before meeting his wife.

“Daddy?” Moroha ducked her head a little, eyes peering up from underneath thick bangs. She was about to beg for something.

He sighed and sat cross legged in front of her, tilting his head to the side in silent question.

“Can I braid your hair?”

“Can you… braid my hair?” His brows pulled together.

“Yeah! All the girls do it in the village and I wanna try but I don’t wanna hurt anyone with my claws and scare them away an-“

“Yes, Moroha. You can braid my hair,” He cut her off to quiet her down. It wasn’t that he was annoyed with her run on words, just simply the idea of his daughter fearing she’d hurt someone with claws she’d inherited from him. Perhaps the only feature of hers that suggested her heritage.

He watched as her grin grew and quickly lapped around him to the back, pulling his hair away from the front of body. Once every bit of silver was displayed before her in a heavy heap, he leaned his head back more to let her gain access even to the top. “You know, your claws can’t hurt anyone unless you let them,” he muttered.

She shrugged nonchalantly, eyes growing bigger at the gold she’d struck that was her own fathers hair. She racked her fingers gently through some strands. None of which pulled at his head, Inuyasha’s hair being somewhat a mystery even to the half-demon himself. It never got tangled and refused to abide to any blade. In a way, his hair was just as much of a shield as his fire-rat robe.

“I know, you’ve told me. And plenty of the older girls compliment them! They tell me how they wish their nails could grow out,” she begun to pull out sections, deciding his hair was far too thick to do one long braid. “I think they’re pretty too, mama loves them! She lets me practice all the time whenever it’s just the two of us.”

Inuyasha nodded to that, his heart swelling at the idea of his little pup braiding his wife’s hair on the nights he’s away on a hunt or exorcism with Miroku. He stayed silent for the remainder of his girls braiding, listening to her sing a melody she’d entirely made up about his hair as she messily braided strands and left them to fall out without any security. In all honesty, the half demon could probably easily fall asleep to the sounds of his daughter and the flow of the water before him. But he wouldn’t, not with them out in the open. The village was a generally safe location without many demons daring to cross the line that was both Miroku and Kagome’s spiritual power. Not to mention his own. What a confusing energy that must be to an stray demon.

A scent he knew all too well was suddenly surrounding him as it blew in with the wind. He heard Moroha turn on her feet and take off in the direction of the scent before he could even turn his head.

“Mama!” The little girl cried out as she ran straight towards Kagome.

Inuyasha remained in his sitting position as he watched Kagome lift their little one up in the air and swing her around before pulling her into a tight embrace. Kagome’s nose burrowed into the top of Moroha’s head momentarily, her gaze landing on Inuyasha with a small smile playing at her lips.

Moroha pushed off from Kagome’s chest to look at her, “Mama I thought you were with Yui’s mama?”

Kagome smiled fondly down at her daughter still clutched in her embrace, “I was. Then I caught word of you sneaking off without Lady Kaede’s permission,” she raised a brow. Moroha smiled sheepishly and looked toward Inuyasha for an out. He simply shrugged at her, Moroha’s smile quickly shifting into a frown.

“I got bored…” She finally answered, looking back at her mother with the best puppy dog eyes she could possibly conjure.

Kagome struggled not to laugh, this time raising both her brows. “You got bored so you ran away from where I dropped you off this morning?”

Moroha mimicked her father and shrugged.

“Moroha… You can’t wander off like that. Of course daddy can follow you anywhere but I can’t. I need to be able to know your safe,” Kagome’s smile turned into one of a frown to match her serious tone, “I know you can protect yourself, and I know you know you’re safe so long as you’re around here. But you need to tell someone before you run off.”

Moroha pouted, “But you found me!”

Kagome nodded, “I did. I found you because I know you. And maybe I could track you, but the matter at hand is that my little girl went missing from a group of children that were meant to stay together.”

“I promise not to do it again,” Moroha wrapped her arms tightly around Kagome’s neck and burrowed her face in.

Kagome’s eyes met Inuyasha’s then. The side of his lip tugged upward, a small sign of approval. They raised their girl together, Inuyasha knowing more so about how it is to be different, Kagome knowing how it is to be a girl. They’ve discussed how to raise her several times, and at this point they’re doing a damn good job.

Her eyes lingered on the braided strands still weaved into his hair and her smile grew. She gently set Moroha back down onto the grass and nodded her head at the river, “Catch me a frog?”

Moroha put her hands on her hips in a superior fashion and nodded her head before quickly taking off in the same direction Kagome nodded.

The priestess made her way over to her husband still sitting in the grass, plopping down next to him. Their shoulders touched as she rested the side of her head against him.

“The child okay?” He asked, eyes trained on Moroha in the water.

Kagome nodded, “Just a small fever, I got it to break hours ago but I did not want to leave without helping them with dinner. It’s not easy raising three children, one of them sick, along with needing to provide dinner. Rei’s husband is off with business, I’d feel awful if I didn’t help.”

Inuyasha turned his head to look at her then. Kagome’s bright brown eyes reflecting the water before them. She was so beautiful, in every light. He pressed his lips against the top of her head and breathed her in.

Suddenly water was splashed into them, Moroha quickly apologizing as she hopped onto rocks a bit further out in the stream on the trail of some poor small creature. He chuckled and looked at his entirely dry wife. She shook her head, “She’s just like you.”

“Really? Earlier she put her hands on her hips and yelled at me. I was afraid I was going to end up face first in the dirt, flashbacks hitting me at all” he smirked.

Kagome gapped at him and hit him gently, “She clearly did it for a reason then! Maybe you deserved it.”

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes, leaning forward, “Deserved it, hm?”

Kagome nodded, not at all phased by the sudden lack of personal space.

He let out a soft, nonthreatening growl before kissing her deeply, his left hand pressed into the dirt, right supporting the back of her neck. Kagome grinned into the kiss, her arms going immediately around his neck. It wasn’t until a “gross!” shouted from a distance away was when they pulled apart. Kagome looked over to see her daughter sticking her tongue out at them which earned a laugh from both parents.

“Aren’t you supposed to be frog hunting?” She reprimanded playfully.

Moroha scrunched her nose, “I was! Until I saw daddy smush his face into yours!”

Kagome turned her eyes to Inuyasha who met her gaze momentarily, shifting back to their daughter, “You better get back to it then, unless you wanna see us smush more!”

Moroha fake gagged and turned on her heel in the water to continue looking for creatures to terrorize.

Kagome let out a soft sigh, “I still think she’s more like you.”

Inuyasha shrugged, “I fear the day one of them comes out shouting for me to sit.”

Kagome smacked his shoulder again despite the laugh she failed to conceal, “One of them? As in more? Kami help me…”

Inuyasha ‘smushed’ his face right back into Kagome’s, all the wonder of how his life managed to flip so beautifully quickly answered. The woman in front of him, and his daughter to his side. They were what made it beautiful, they were worth every ounce of agony he’d endured within this long life. If he was required to do it all again, he’d go through every bit of it so long as they were always safe at the end of it all, waiting.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Chizuru Town (End) Heaven and Hell

Caesar and the MC are let off the chain.

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The boys all erupted into cheers as you closed your eyes. The man in the striped suit hugged you and then kissed you on the mouth. You didn’t struggle or open your eyes so they wouldn’t see what you were up to. 

Your Soul Skill relies on connecting to the energy of the ground. Already, millions of filaments of your spiritual energy were penetrating the ground like a root system, forming a solid foundation for what was to come. Once your Soul Skill was firmly rooted, you could kill them all in an instant. So you didn’t care about what was happening around you right now. That is, you didn’t care until the ground began to give you feedback that something terrible was happening to Lu Mingfei.

You open your eyes ever so slightly.

Lu Mingfei was backed against the wall of the Internet Cafe. He was holding the empty gun as if he could still shoot but no one was buying it. Another group of boys were firing into the hole left by the Black Viper. If Caesar was still alive in there, he couldn’t come back out without getting shot. 

And there was still no sign of Chu Zihang.

You’d waited to act long enough. At last, you could see the sparkle in the eyes of the elk. 

You raise your golden eyes in the sky and scream. Your hair lifts from where it hung in a wet curtain to straight up, stiff in the air. The ground sparks with electricity and cracks form in the pavement with light shining up through the cracks. 

The boys stop harassing Mingfei and stop firing into the hole in the building and stare in terror as the ground splinters beneath them. In the next second, the energy below the pavement erupts into blazing fire. Their clothes catch fire and so does their hair. They run away from the cracks in the ground, to roll on the wet pavement, steam rising from them. Their lungs have been seared by the heat and they’re choking and gasping after running such a short distance. Their hair is scalded off and they have no eyebrows.

They were the lucky ones. The unlucky sank their feet into pure lava, the heat turning all the moisture in their body to steam instantly. They could only give voice to their blinding pain for a few seconds before they passed out from lack of blood and oxygen and expired.

The air is filled with screams and moans and burning flesh. The street has turned to Hell.

Eruption is a Soul Skill of the King of Earth and Mountains. It summons the magma in an area, so it can usually take some time to charge if the magma is very deep, but here in Japan, the ground is floating on rivers of it and it is nothing for you to call a thin injection up and to squeeze through the plates beneath the earth.

The cars tip down into the widening cracks and their tires pop and shoot up flames in the escaping air, melting the fine paint and metal. The van you’re sitting on is an island in the middle of the destruction.

A phone rings. The man in the stripe suit is pale with shock. He silently read the text message and put down the phone. He stood up, staring down at you with a pale face full of fear. “This scare tactic is no big deal! Japan is our territory! And Chizuru Town is also our territory! You’re not going to win! Put your guns up and kill them!”

Your jaw drops. You had spared this last man because you figured Caesar would want to end him personally and now he - this last rat - was rallying his troops against you? Who was that text message from? How was this Lord so terrible that he could inspire some lowlife to face your power and defy you immediately after you’d just instantly obliterated so many of his gang members?

You smile and laugh! “Hahahaha! I really have to kill all of you! I really do! I can’t believe it!”

The wall Lu Mingfei was pressed against suddenly reverberated with a majestic roar and cracked open with a loud bang. The four-meter- high backhoe rushed out of the fire in the building, the huge gravel shovel dragging Lu Mingei into the air. Those remaining fired at the shovel with a dense shower of bullets.

Caesar sat in the cockpit of the shovel, his right hand holding the steering wheel and his left hand holding the body of the girl. Her blood was dripping down so much it formed a crimson strip on the metal under the cockpit.

You raise your chin to him. The redness of that blood was like a flag, marking you and Caesar as comrades in sorrow.

Caesar turned the backhoe to face away from the attackers. “Lu Mingfei! Get in!”

Lu Mingfei used all his strength to jump towards the shovel and Caesar pulled him in by his arm. 

Caesar turned the back hoe back around. He handed the body of Makoto to Lu Mingfei who immediately looked like he was about to cry. Caesar’s face was as smooth and calm as granite as he looked at you and your river of destruction.

“Boss, are you okay?” Mingfei whimpered.

“I’m fine… I’m fine.”

The magma you called up was rapidly cooling in the rain and the steam rose up smelling like fresh asphalt. The charred corpses of the gangsters who had died were like black statues sticking out of the ground, frozen forever in their state of agony like the ash sculpture corpses of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

He breathed in and out. “MC. Stand down.”

“Ah.” You sigh. “Alright.”

“You lied to me. But I forgive you.” He said.

The man in the striped suit is staring at you and you stare right back. He finally understands that you were not a prize for him. Caesar Gattuso had deceived him into inviting a bomb right in the middle of his troops. 

“Grenades! Grenades!” The man in the suit yelled.

The dozen gangsters that remained pulled grenades from their belts and flung them at the backhoe. The grenades blew through the wheels of the machine, rendering it motionless.

That’s when the dark clouds suddenly broke open and a giant B1 bomber descended like a black bird from the sky. The stirring back draft of the low flight swept the whole length of the street, shattering some of the windows, and nearly knocked you off the van . When you regain your balance, you see something descending on a white parachute from the bottom of it near Caesar.

He snatched the box out of the air, opened it and revealed two new weapons. He calmly started loading up his weapons. Was this the power of Cassell? Or was it the Gattuso family? Caesar had to have called someone...

“Boss! That bullet can kill people!” Mingfei gasps.

“The old guys in my family are usually a bunch of dirty bastards, but one thing they say is true. They say that God created the world to be fair and just, and if someone makes a mistake, he should pay the price. Hand for hand, foot for foot. If someone doesn’t pay for their sins, then who will believe in God’s glory?” After he finished loading the rounds, he made the sign of the cross.

“Is that what this is all about? Converting me to Catholicism?” You laugh with incredulity. Even after all this destruction, staring into the face of the black abyss, it was this religion that kept him grounded in his view of the world. “I think our beliefs will stay different. But I don’t mind calling you brother, Caesar. Ow!” You cry out as your hair is suddenly seized.

The man in the striped suit quickly picks up the shotgun and points it at you but then his hand bursts into a shower of flesh and bone. With nothing to hold it, the gun falls into the cooling magma and sticks in upright.

The man in the suit wails, clutching his now empty wrist. The bullet had accurately penetrated his hand. The rounds from the Desert Eagle guns have no difficulty in shattering the skull of a rhinoceros. A human hand was no problem.

Caesar fired both guns, and after emptying them of bullets, he threw the guns to Lu Mingfei for him to help reload. He took out an Uzi from the same box to continue shooting. The gangsters completely lost their fighting spirit, leaving their companions crying and jumping into the vans that were undamaged by the magma. Some were able to jump in but most fell in the rain before they could touch any vehicle. Each bullet passes precisely through their calves. 

They had asked Caesar to cripple himself by shooting his hand and calf and now he was crippling them that way. It was casual genius. Caesar simply would not budge from his ideals, nor would you budge from yours. You simply provided space for each other. You found your niche, and he would work around that. So you do stand down and watch Caesar work, your heart icy cold, but warmed by the fires of his company in this wintry dark world.

The van’s wheels spun to get going in the rain, and the vehicles fled to the end of the long street, leaving behind their wounded companions. With them on the run, Caesar leaped from the backhoe and walked over the ruined ground. He raised the Uzi in a smooth arc and fired six shots at the apex, blowing out the tires of the vans.

The vans still tried to roll on the lopsided tires. But then they suddenly stop. The man in the suit got out of the vehicle, dragging the driver with him. Your smile fades a little and your heart rate jumps. But Caesar told you to stand down and these two wouldn’t serve any resistance, right?

The vans of the cargo doors burst open and the dark interiors shined with the lights of roaring motorcycles. Caesar stood like a pillar and closed his eyes.

The guns made a sound you had never heard a gun make before. Like an explosion but beginning and ending with some sort of snarl, like he was holding a vicious dog in his hands. The modified Desert Eagle shot extremely fast. Caesar blasted out a direct rain of bullets. When these gangsters were in range they entered Caesar's exclusive battle field. The tide of the bikes and the rain of the bullets collided head on. The bullets pierced through fuel tanks, broke axles, tore through the wheel wells, and shot out sparks. One by one, the heavy machines collapsed in the puddles, caught fire and exploded and the boys tumbled to the ground, crying out in disbelief. Caesar fired mechanically, his face without expression, not happy or angry or sad.

As for you, the MC, you were still uneasy. You understood what it was like to be herded into battle, as not all the orphans at the facility wanted to fight. Those weak ones were tossed headlong into the ring with more vicious and bloodthirsty opponents to fight it out and learn to like it. They didn’t have a choice. 

Just like observing those reluctant kids, you realize suddenly that this whole scene is wrong. These people are being driven to this fight like slaves. You just now noticed their chains when they stopped trying to escape and turned around.

There were still three motorcycles coming in a second wave. Even from this distance you could see the striped suited man, hand missing, eyes white with frenzy, carrying a long knife. Caesar casually tossed a grenade on the ground and rolled it in front of them. It burst and sent the bikes on either side of the man in the suit flying, but he was so determined that he popped his front wheel in the air and rode the explosion, just like Caesar had ridden the air to save Makoto. His blade was aimed directly at Caesar’s heart. 

You leap to your feet, but Caesar didn’t move other than to sweep his leg up and kick the fuel canister on the bike.

The man in the suit suddenly realized that his motorcycle was gone and he was floating by himself in the air. The bike had been kicked out from under him and he landed hard, smashing face down right in the road.

Caesar bent over, picked him up by his hair and forced him to watch, feet dangling, as he poured bullets into the motorcycle, smashing its four cylinder engine, axle, silver-plated tailpipe and handle bars, the leather seat, and the precious logo… his beloved motorcycle, that was like his beautiful woman, was turned into nothing more an scrap metal.

“My …” you say to yourself, glancing at the black corpses surrounding you and wondering who was better off.

“I’ll kill you,” Caesar was saying, “But before that, you have to tell me who that “Lord” behind the curtain is.” Caesar shot the man in the ankle, and one of his feet disappeared.

“I have little patience for forced confessions.” Caesar fired another shot, hitting the knee and the man’s calf disappeared.

The man in the suit was struggling to speak in pain, but then Caesar called Lu Mingfei to him. “Translate.”

Lu Mingfei, who had been hiding in the backhoe, fell clumsily from the machine and hurried over, trying not to trip over any charred bodies.

“He said he’s going to take a long time to explain and he’s going to pass out. He’s asking for some wine.” He puffed breathlessly.

“He wants to drink?” Caesar was a little surprised by this lecherous man’s courage.

From your vantage point on the van, you notice that someone is moving in the darkness behind the abandoned vehicles with the flat tires. You leap off the van and hurry over to the back hoe. There were still guns left there. One a Beretta. You snatch it and and run towards Caesar, eyes on the target.

The man in the suit fished out a test tube of purple liquid from his sleeve and sucked the liquid out faster than Caesar could react.

“Poison?” Caesar was taken aback, but it was too late. The test tube fell and shattered in the rain and the man hung limp. You slow to a stop. You thought the shadow was there, but now you don’t see anything.

The man in the suit’s body suddenly twitched feverishly. His flesh started to morph, like he was rapidly healing, yet dying at the same time. The man’s eyes opened with golden pupils! Caesar did not have time to dodge before the man’s fingers - now a pair of vicious bone claws - stabbed into his chest. 

He pounced on Caesar with strength that overwhelmed him, hugging him tightly with the claws digging into his back and teeth closing on his neck. 

You fire once. The man’s skull ragdolls back.  And then again. The man in the suit releases a stunned and bloodied Caesar who lets him fall in a heap to the ground. Lifeless.

Chu Zihang was standing there. Evidently he was the moving shadow. He had run to help Caesar himself but your gun’s bullets reached him before he could. They were still some distance away from you. Between you and them were several of the wounded who were still crawling away, cowering behind trash cans and trying to hide between wrecked cars. All of them could turn into monsters, as far as you were concerned. 

You catch the eyes of one who was crouched behind the mailbox. He held up his hands. He cried “No! No!” before his head shattered to pieces. You moved to the next who was scooting away behind two black trash bags. You pull the trigger and he dropped like a stone.

Chu Zihang is racing to meet you. You trace your fingers to draw a line across the street. The ground opens up and a river of lava’s heat comes between you. Meanwhile, you keep shooting, ignoring the gangster’s pleas and prayers. They have to die. They all have to die.

Chu Zihang suddenly seemed to fall from the sky. His eyes are blazing gold, his sword raised.

“No.” You say. You wave your hand and the ground lifts beneath you forming a jagged edge pointed up at him. If Zihang fell on it at this speed, he could have broken ribs or worse, but he rolls in the air,  casting a spout of fire to blast him away at the last second.

Your eyes follow the trajectory of his arc. A crack in the pavement follows your gaze. Such extreme control of eruption is only possible thanks to the amount of filaments in the ground. The liquid rock underneath you is almost like a second limb. The ground is shaking and unsteady when Chu Zihang lands and he stumbles and falls. But now his eyes are wide with terror, but  looking behind you. You turn and stare down the muzzle of an old revolver. You feel a flash of intense pain. The world around you spins. Colors and images blur together. You land in a puddle, coughing blood. Your world goes dark with Chu Zihang calling your name.

[thecreaturecodex]

Asura Rana, Cas

Image by Daarken, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Heroes of Horror Art Gallery here

[Furtober finishes off with a big bang and a Big Bad. Heroes of Horror introduced Cas, the Lord of Spite, and I remember a lot of people making fun of him at the time. The idea that a supervillain evil god has the head of a moose was seen as ridiculous, and comparisons to Bullwinkle were common. Nowadays, the fact that moose are huge and terrifying relict megafauna seems to be more appreciated, and there’s something I find appealing about the idea of a prey species becoming the hunter. Appropriate for a god of spite and revenge. The knee pads and codpiece made of human skulls are admittedly silly, though.

The original Cas was NE and a god, and his CR 25 avatar was basically just a 20th level ranger with some extra outsider HD and a few surprisingly weak SLAs. I’ve moved him to LE to fit with his retribution theme, and because his hatred of the gods seems very appropriate for the asuras. I’ve left some of the ranger abilities, but added some inquisitor material as well, in addition to a few new surprises.]

Asura Rana, Cas CR 26 LE Outsider (extraplanar) This giant has reddish brown skin and the head of a moose, the antlers stained with blood. It has clawed hands, cloven hooves and brandishes a large mace of black metal. Its body seems to shimmer with heat.

Cas Lord of Spite, the Red Grudge, He Who Balances the Scales Concerns spite, disproportionate retribution, vengeance Domains Destruction, Evil, Law, Strength Subdomains Corruption, Ferocity, Hatred, Judgment Worshipers inquisitors, vigilantes, the wronged Minions asuras, devourers, revenants Unholy Symbol a rack of blood-stained antlers Favored Weapon heavy mace Devotion spend one hour ruminating aloud on those that have wronged you, beginning in a whisper and culminating in a scream. Gain a +4 profane bonus on Diplomacy checks to gather information, Survival checks to follow tracks, and Intimidate checks. Boons 1: bestow curse 1/day; 2: transformation 1/day; 3: energy drain 1/day

Cas the Lord of Spite is an asura rana who nurses hate and frustration, stoking the fires of vengeance until they erupt destructively. According to his cult, he was once a mortal huntsman with a loving family. He and his family grew isolated from their community, until violence erupted and his whole family was slain. Due to the social standing of his assailants, he could not turn to the law for recourse, and so turned to the gods. When divine intervention was not forthcoming, he swore vengeance against both his assailants and the divine order, fueling his apotheosis through pure rage and resulting in the destruction of the entire kingdom.

Cas’ ultimate hatred is towards the gods, making him a natural member of the asura ranas. His ambition is still greater; he is currently brooding over his lesser position surrounded by more powerful asuras, the Lords of the Nine and even Asmodeus himself. Cas covets true divinity, but he knows he has a long way to go, and this sulking bitterness fuels him. His violent outbursts at every slight make him a fiend of few allies and many toadies, but more powerful archfiends attempt to steer his rage into useful directions.

The Red Grudge enjoys combat, but he even more enjoys drawing out the hunt of a victim and increasing their terror. He is rarely found without the Ebon Rod of Cas, which he wields in two hands in order to feel more savagely its crushing blows. Cas’ blood boils with the heat of his rage, and the shimmer this causes makes him difficult to strike in combat. Cas is a skilled spellcaster despite his love of violence, and uses magic to inflict pain, forbid actions and heal himself and his allies.

Cas’ faithful are few and far between, and often keep a low profile. His cult broods in dungeons and cellars, not meets in exalted temples. He delights in perverting those with legitimate grievances, as he once was, turning them into ruthless vigilantes who kill to punish minor crimes. His priesthood believes that civilization is a thin veneer beneath which lies nothing but chaos, and it must be kept in order through savage violence. They also believe that anyone, even the most holy and pure, can become a follower of Cas if wronged sufficiently. The faithful of Cas have an unfortunate tendency to rise as undead upon their death, continuing their campaigns of violent revenge beyond the grave.

Ebon Rod of Cas (major artifact) The prized weapon of Cas, he occasionally loans it out to his devout in order to strike somewhere where he cannot go himself. The Ebon Rod of Cas is a Large +3 vicious adamantine heavy mace. It acts as a bane weapon against any creature that has caused injury to its wielder for up to 1 year. It is effectively immune to sundering and other forms of direct damage; a creature that deals damage to it must succeed a DC 25 Will save or take that damage instead. The Ebon Rod of Cas can only be destroyed if it is carried for 100 years by an empyreal lord devoted to peace and forgiveness, whereupon it evaporates into mist. 

Cas      CR 26 XP 2,457,600 LE Large outsider (asura, asura rana, evil, extraplanar, lawful) Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect good, Perception +39, see in darkness, true seeing Aura frightful presence (60 ft., DC 34) Defense AC 44, touch 26, flat-footed 36 (-1 size, +7 Dex, +1 dodge, +9 profane, +18 natural) hp 573 (31d10+403); regeneration 25 (deific or mythic) Fort +23, Ref +23, Will +28; +8 vs. mind-influencing, improved evasion DR 15/good, epic and cold iron; Immune ability damage, ability drain, charm effects, compulsion effects, curse effects, death effects, disease, divinations, energy drain, fear, fire, petrifaction, poison, polymorph; Resist acid 30, electricity 30; SR 37 Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, hateful ward, heat shimmer Offense Speed 50 ft., fly 100 ft. (perfect) Melee Ebon Rod of Cas +48/+43/+38/+33 (2d6+25 plus 2d6 vicious/19-20), gore +40 (2d8+7 plus 2d6 fire) or 2 claws +45 (2d6+12 plus 2d6 fire), gore +45 (2d8+12 plus 2d6 fire) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks agony beam, favored enemy (dragons +2, good outsiders +6, evil outsiders +4, humans +4, magical beasts +2) Spell-like Abilities CL 26th, concentration +35 Constant—detect good, freedom of movement, mind blank, true seeing At will—bestow curse (DC 23), enervation, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. material only), malicious spite (DC 23), permanent image (DC 25), vampiric touch 3/day—command undead (DC 26), fire storm (DC 27), greater dispel magic, instant enemy, quickened major curse (DC 25), summon asuras 1/day—energy drain (DC 28), unhallow, wail of the banshee (DC 28), wish Spells CL 20th, concentration +29 6th (6/day)—blade barrier (DC 25), harm (DC 25), heal (DC 25), mass fester (DC 25), overwhelming presence (DC 25) 5th (7/day)—dispel good (DC 24), geas/quest, greater command (DC 24), mass castigate (DC 24), unwilling shield (DC 24) 4th (7/day)—cure critical wounds (DC 23), divination, divine power, fear (DC 23), greater invisibility, spell immunity 3rd (7/day)—arcane sight, deeper darkness, dimensional anchor, heroism, terrible remorse (DC 22), ward the faithful 2nd (7/day)—cure moderate wounds (DC 21), howling agony (DC 21), knock, resist energy, silence (DC 21), spiritual weapon 1st (8/day)—bless, comprehend languages, cure light wounds, divine favor, expeditious retreat, shield of faith 0th—bleed (DC 19), brand (DC 19), create water, detect magic, read magic, resistance Statistics Str 35, Dex 25, Con 37, Int 22, Wis 28, Cha 28 Base Atk +31; CMB +44; CMD 61 Feats Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Dazzling Display, Dodge, Improved Critical (mace), Intimidating Prowess, Mobility, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (major curse), Shatter Defenses, Spring Attack, Staggering Critical, Stand Still, Stunning Critical, Whirlwind Attack Skills Appraise +29, Bluff +35, Escape Artist +11, Fly +41, Intimidate +47, Linguistics +29, Knowledge (arcana, history, nobility, religion) +29, Knowledge (local, planes) +32, Perception +39, Sense Motive +35, Spellcraft +29, Stealth +31, Survival +35; Racial Modifiers +6 Escape Artist, +4 Perception Languages Celestial, Common, Infernal, 23 others; telepathy 300 ft. SQ asura rana traits Ecology Environment any land or underground (Hell) Organization unique Treasure double standard (Ebon Rod of Cas, other treasure) Special Abilities Agony Beam (Su) Once every 1d4 rounds as a standard action, Cas can unleash a beam of pure pain in a 120 foot line. All living creatures in the area take 12d12 damage and are filled with pain for 1 minute, suffering a -4 penalty on attack rolls, skill checks and ability checks. A successful DC 34 Fortitude save halves the damage and negates the penalties. Multiple failed saves cause the duration of the penalties to stack. This is a pain effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Asura Rana Traits (Ex, Su and Sp) Cas has the following traits:

Cas can grant spells to his worshipers as if he were a deity.

Cas’ natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful, epic, and evil for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Infernal Resurrection (Ex) Cas rules an infernal domain. If he is slain, his body rapidly melts into corruption (leaving behind any gear he held or carried), his soul returns to a hidden location within his realm, and it is immediately restored to life (as true resurrection) at that location. Once this occurs, Cas can’t use this ability again until a full year has passed. An asura rana that is slain again during this year or is killed by unusual methods (such as by a true deity or an artifact created for this purpose) is slain forever.

Immunity to ability damage, ability drain, charm effects, compulsion effects, death effects, energy drain, and petrification.

Regeneration (Ex) Only chaotic, epic and  good  damage, or damage from a creature of equal or greater power (such as an archdevil, deity, demon lord, or protean lord) interrupts Cas’s regeneration.

Resistance to acid 30, and  electricity 30

Summon Asuras (Sp) Three times per day as a swift action, Cas can summon any asura or combination of asuras whose total  combined CR is  20 or lower. This otherwise works like the summon  universal monster rule with a 100% chance of success, and counts as a 9th-level spell effect.

Telepathy 300 feet.

Favored Enemy (Ex) Cas gains the favored enemy ability of a 20th level ranger. Hateful Ward (Su) Cas gains a profane bonus to his armor class equal to his Charisma modifier. Heat Shimmer (Su) Cas’ body radiates heat, warping his position and protecting him from attacks. Creatures gain a 20% miss chance on attack rolls against Cas if they use sight, and a creature that strikes Cas with a melee weapon, natural weapon, unarmed strike or touch attack takes 2d6 points of fire damage. Weapons with the reach property do not endanger their wielders in this way. If Cas takes 30 or more points of cold damage from a single spell or effect, this ability is suppressed for 1d4 rounds. Spells Cas gains spellcasting as a 20th level inquisitor. He does not gain other class abilities of inquisitors, such as the judgment ability.

[bloodandpie]

Supernatural fanworks masterlist

collaborative works by @monicawoe​ and @quickreaver​

(updated 11/1/2020)

Hello lovelies, here’s our most up-to-date masterlist including our 2020 contribution to the @spneldritchbang​:

Behold the Beast, Behold the Lamb - Season 4 AU.  Sam tried to free Dean from Hell, but angels intervened and took Dean for their own purposes. Sam is determined to get Dean back and will do whatever it takes, embracing his abilities fully. The more demon blood Sam drinks, the more demons he kills, the more he changes inside and out until it’s impossible to hide his monstrous side. Ruby, Uriel and Castiel push Sam to fulfill his destiny and become his true self—the Beast of the Revelation. (gen, Sam/Ruby, 20k words)

Here is a list of all our other combined works thus far, in no particular order:

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

word-count:  - written for the 2012 spn-genbang | sequel to The Devil’s in the Details When Sam opened Lucifer’s Cage, the only thing he found inside was Lucifer’s grace – his grace. With the return of his grace, Sam remembered his past – his war against the Host, his Fall, and his plans to bring about the End. The thing is…he doesn’t want the Apocalypse anymore. He likes things the way they are, and tries everything to keep his identity a secret- especially from Dean. Of course, the four Horsemen, Hell and Heaven have other ideas.(gen, 13k words)

Last Drop -  Written for the Twisted Tropes event - Sam/Brady AU set while Sam’s at Stanford:  Sam is slowly adjusting to his new life at Stanford University. He’s left his life of hunting behind, and traded it for endless studying and tests, but he’s plagued by dreams of Dean and Dad in danger, dreams of blood and violence. Then he meets Tyson Brady, who’s always there with a smile and a cup of coffee to get Sam through all-nighters. Sam’s dreams start to fade, but just as he’s getting used to a nice normal life, he starts to develop abilities—powers he can’t control. Brady thinks they’re great, but Sam knows power never comes without a cost. (Explicit Sam/Brady, 14k words)

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Best Self - written for @alyndra9​​  for the prompt: King of Hell Sam meets Kale!Sam and they have many differences of opinion to work out. (aka the only one who knows what Sam really wants is Sam.) words by monicawoe art by @quickreaver​​! (~4k words, Explicit Sam/Sam)

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All Our Wrath and Cutting Beauty

word-count:  written for the 2011 spn-reversebang:  Sam killed Alistair, but not before Alistair reminded Dean of who and what he'd become in Hell. Dean knows Sam can take down Lilith, and he'll make damn sure Sam gets strong enough to do just that. They'll stop the Apocalypse -- together, no matter how many bodies stack up, or how much blood is spilt. (gen, boyKingSam, demonDean,11k)

MANY more, beneath the cut:

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The Two Ravens

word-count: ~3,500 | written for the sammessiah antichrist-mas fest: Your brother he is, and heir to my throne. He’ll feed on the damned and he'll turn them to bone.

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The Last Days in the Land of Nod a comic adaptation of the fic by the same name

word-count: ~2,000 | The year is 2014. The Devil is wearing his finest, the Angel is human, and the Brother protects the survivors at Camp Chitaqua.

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We have also done collaborations with other talented writers and artists, including:

He Who Fights Monsters

word-count: ~52,000 | co-written with nwspaprtaxis for the 2014 GenTeensyBang: Demonic-MMA-fighting AU of the summer between Seasons 3 and 4. Dean's dead, dragged down kicking and screaming to Hell. Sam's not dealing well. And Ruby’s got her work cut out for her.

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Burdens, Doublefold

word-count: ~70,000 written for the 2012 spn-j2-bigbang, art by @ileliberte​What if Dean left Sam at Stanford after the fire, hoping it would keep his little brother safe and make things better? Somehow, 'better' never seems to be in the Winchester Family cards. Sam gets tangled up with his ex-roommate Brady, tracking psychics, but dealing with demons is never honest business. Dean carries on until his father is put in grave danger. He is left on his own to deal, stumbling into Harvelle's Roadhouse for help, where Dean gets just a little more than he bargained for. Eventually, the brothers’ paths twist and turn their way back to each other, but the results could mean the End of Days.

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Impala’s Run

word-count: ~23,000|written for the SPN Gen Big Bang, art by adrenalineshots | Sam and Dean Singer (aka Winchester) aren’t your average young Kansas farmers. Their home is very, very far from Kansas, in fact. Many light-years worth of ‘far’. The boys may look human, but certain talents set them apart: Dean speaks the language of machines, and Sam can heal through manipulating energy. Hidden on Earth by their father, their agricultural lifestyle gets rocked when warring alien races discover where they’ve landed, and Sam and Dean are forced to make the run of their lives.

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and here some other illustrated, shorter fics of ours for your enjoyment:

Instinct (Prophet of the Lord remix)

word-count: ~3,000 | (Kevin's POV of the same prompt) After the trials, Sam doesn't get better. Kevin's theory is that it's cancer: the trials are supposed to purge him of all physical and spiritual impurities, so tuberculosis is out, and cancer is the only reason left for Sam to be coughing his lungs up when he's supposed to be the pinnacle of human perfection. Nope. Sam's falling apart because the demon blood is gone.

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Instinct

word-count: ~1,300 | After the trials, Sam doesn't get better. Kevin's theory is that it's cancer: the trials are supposed to purge him of all physical and spiritual impurities, so tuberculosis is out, and cancer is the only reason left for Sam to be coughing his lungs up when he's supposed to be the pinnacle of human perfection. Nope. Sam's falling apart because the demon blood is gone.

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Bliss in Emptiness

word-count: ~41,000 written for the 2013 spn-j2-bigbang |As a reward for her loyal service, Lucifer brings Ruby back from death. When Sam throws himself into the Cage, Ruby slows his fall — just enough to grab a hold of his body, but not his soul. Together, they hunt the ever-increasing monster population and uncover evidence that Crowley and Castiel might not be as antagonistic as they seem. As the situation unfolds, Eve's interest in Sam piques and she gives him a gift that changes the very essence of what he is.

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Pattern Recognition: A Hannibal/Supernatural fusion AU

word-count: ~33,000 | Sam and Dean split after River Pass, and their confrontation with the Horseman, War. Since Will’s escape from the Baltimore Institute for the Criminally Insane, he and Sam have been in hiding. They have a cabin, in the middle of nowhere, that keeps them off the radar; they find comfort in each other. But they can’t stay off the chessboard forever, especially not when Lucifer, wearing Hannibal Lecter as a vessel, is tearing the world apart around them.

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Bones

word-count: ~1,800 | The third trial sounded way too easy.

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In the Cards

word-count:~3,600| written for the 2012 spn-reversebang:  Fate wasn’t hers to change. She was an oracle — there to tell them what the future held in store. Nothing more, nothing less. And people were so desperate to know, even though it changed nothing.

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Diary of a Madman

word-count: ~3,500 | Lydia's newest patient, Sam Winchester, suffered from hallucinations, delusions, and regular bouts of insomnia. He also thought he was Lucifer.

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Unless Its Roots Reach Down to Hell

word-count: ~2,000 | written for the evilsam-spn fright-fest 2014: Sam spent months piecing the spell together—he'd crafted it himself out of slivers of handwritten, ancient journals—the ones even the Men of Letters kept hidden away in a man-sized curse-box on lockdown in room 26.

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[vicecityhq]

██████████████]99% LOADING...SUSPECT INTO THE APD DATABASE...

WITNESS(ES) SAY HE REMINDS THEM OF: the last plump dumpling on the plate that you and your friend fight over, the betrayal you feel when you drink a milkshake that’s too cold and get a brain freeze but it’s too good to stop, and the buzzing of a bumble bee flitting from flower to flower. With a slight resemblance to LEE JOOHEON  (JOOHONEY) of/the MONSTA X.

CLICK BELOW TO VIEW ENTIRE FILE.

FULL FILE:

Last Name, First Name: Kkul Beol (actually his full name. He doesn’t have a surname) ALIAS: Yellowjacket Realm of birth(if earth, nationality): Divine Realm Age: Unknown, but has lived 26 years in Earth realm Date of Birth: May 20th (aka World Bee Day) Gender: Male Preferred Pronouns: he/him or they/them Species: Spiritual Fairy Occupation: The Howlers, Dealer Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

VISUAL FILE:

Skin Color: Milky, pale Eye color: Varies Scars: None Piercings: Ears, Dimple piercings Tattoos:When he doesn’t have his wings out, they manifest as bold linework that follows along his shoulder blades and down his back. He has a colorful fairy pinup girl on his right inner forearm. A bumble bee design on his left upper arm that blends into a fairy circle tattoo on that inner forearm. Various weeds and flowers on his legs. Hair color: Varies Abnormalities: Since Beol can reinvent his physical form to his liking, his features may change on a whim. However, he does tend to stick to the same form, with only his hair and eye color varying. Transformed form:As a spiritual fairy, Beol’s physical form is only a formality that allows him to better experience the world. His spiritual presence is formless and genderless. It is almost like looking at dust when it catches the light.

PERSONAL FILE:

RELIGIOUS BELIEF:  N/A SINS:  greed  /  gluttony  /  sloth  / lust  /  pride  /  envy  /  wrath VIRTUES: chastity  /  charity  /  diligence  /  humility /  kindness /  patience /  justice KNOWN LANGUAGES: Korean, English, Gaelic SECRETS: Beol manages to get out of being prosecuted for his crimes by charming the officers who try to arrest him with his fairy dust or using illusions to escape. SAVVIES: drawing, getting tattooed, playing pranks. Powers & Abilities: fairy dust manipulation, healing, wish granting (but it usually has a hidden caveat), semi-immortality, empathy, energy manipulation and absorption, energy barriers, energy blasts, malleable anatomy/shapeshifting, spirit physiology, illusions, intangibility, possession, telekinesis (via fairy dust manipulation), teleportation.  Traits: (positive) chipper, animated, fun-loving and playful. (negative) fickle, impatient, gets petulant when things don’t go his way, doesn’t realize his pranks can be harmful or perhaps he feigns ignorance. Aesthetics: the last plump dumpling on the plate that you and your friend fight over, the betrayal you feel when you drink a milkshake that’s too cold and get a brain freeze but it’s too good to stop, and the buzzing of a bumble bee flitting from flower to flower.

BACKGROUND CHECK:

Date of Birth: May 20th, year unknown Date of Death: N/A Crime Record: Beol knows that he should avoid getting entangled with the authorities at all costs, but his innately mischievous nature contradicts rationality. He rather enjoys skating on thin ice when it comes to getting caught. When he was a “teen,” he often got in trouble for truancy, vandalism, and theft. Now, as an “adult,” he has to be far more conscious about getting caught. He has been charged with possession and possession with the intent to distribute, but - miraculously - has not served any jail time.

Background/Biography:

In a time long ago, Celts used to believe that when a person slept or entered a hypnotic state that their soul left the body in the form of a bee. Sometimes those souls got lost on the way back (or perhaps were detained) and found their way to the divine realm of the fae, where they would become what is known as spiritual fairies. Or at least that was the story Beol’s mother told them, but the reality was that there was no living fae who remembered exactly where they originated. Their mother would affectionately call them their ‘wandering little bee’ because Beol was an adventurous child who could never be tied down in one place. It came as no surprise to them when Beol decided to leave the realm they’d always known and venture out into the human world.

When Beol crossed over to the mortal plane, they embraced the incredibly different way of life with childish wonder and enthusiasm. At first they explored in their spiritual form and enjoyed playing all sorts of pranks on unsuspecting humans, but - as is typical of the fickle nature of fairies - that grew boring quickly. Beol eventually constructed a physical form so they could better interact with others around them. Being a young and playful soul, Beol chose the façade of a school-aged child since their fun-loving antics were very similar to his own. What he didn’t take into account, though, was that a parentless, vagrant child stood out and it wasn’t long before his friend’s parents became concerned for his well-being.

In his naivety, Beol didn’t think much of it when they’d asked where he lived and who looked after him, telling them that he took care of himself and stayed wherever he wanted. That naturally led to the police being contacted and Beol was placed in an orphanage until they could find a family for him. Truthfully, he could have simply flitted off and ventured someplace new, but the idea of living with other kids sounded like an eternal sleepover to him and how could that be bad? Of course, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies in the system. Many of the orphans came from broken homes and were passed around to fosters that were no better. They’d come back with new scars and bereft of their smiles, their innocence gobbled up by the darkness within others.

Beol couldn’t stand seeing them hurt. He could vividly imagine how they’d gotten each bruise like he’d experienced it himself and felt their anguish like a bottomless pit in the center of his chest. Yet he wasn’t powerless to fight against it like they were and Beol quickly went from using his abilities for harmless fun to avenging his friends. He would go out of his way to be assigned to their previous foster parents and would make sure to traumatize them so much with his illusion magicks that they never dared to take in another child again. While it did make him feel better, his habit of terrorizing parents tarnished his record and made him increasingly difficult to adopt out. Not that that bothered Beol. Sure, it was hard watching his friends eventually leave to go with loving parents, but protecting those that remained had become his responsibility and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do that if he left. Besides, he had parents and didn’t need new ones, even if his counselors never believed him when he told them.

As he “aged” into teenage years, Beol’s outer image evolved to suit his interests and style. He became close with the more rebellious crowd, other lost boys and girls like himself who couldn’t care less about authority or conforming to what society wanted. They spent more time in seedy pc bangs and back alleys sharing a pack of smokes than they did in school or hoping for families that would never accept them. It was around this time that he actually came out about what he really was and where he’d come from, though that identity seemed like a far off memory now. He was no longer a shade wearing the suit of a man and could freely embrace his quirkier side without worrying about anyone disapproving.

INTERVIEW QUESTION (para sample): “Just run us through what happened that night”. - Officer

This charade always amused Beol. Every time he found himself in this position, with an officer staring him down on the other side of the table in the cramped interrogation room, he wondered why their initial play was to put on this veil of ignorance. As if they didn’t already know what he did or have evidence against him. Did it actually work on suspects? He assumed that most people dug themselves into a hole trying to weave a pitiful fallacy with the same gusto as a scared child blaming the broken vase on the cat in the hopes that it would exonerate them. Beol, on the other hand, was a sophisticated liar and not burdened with the pressing need to evade something. He could phase out of the room right before their very eyes, after all. So the only reason he had to deceive them was simply because it was fun.

“Well, I can’t just start with last night, officer. That’s not how good storytelling works.” He countered coyly and rocked the chair back onto the two rear legs so he could kick his clunky boots up onto the table. Dirt and grime broke loose from the deep grooves in the sole and fell onto the open file set out before the policeman who was trying his best to see unperturbed, but Beol relished in the neigh imperceptible way his jawline tensed in annoyance. “It all began when my parents died in a tragic car accident and I was adopted by my rotten aunt and uncle. You know, they always told me my father was a drunk and that the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree. So at least I’m exceeding someone’s expectations. Anyway, this one day, we went to the zoo for my cousin’s birthday and there was this enormous python-”

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

One man’s curse is another man’s blessing (Prompt: Nightmare)

The raven monster looked around frantically for an escape, he was in the woods again, his woods, his home. But he was being hunted. He could sense the villain pursuing him, like so many of its kind, it came with fire, traps, and a crude understanding of what he was. But unlike the other hunters who had all fallen before him, this one knew the ways of magic and knew how to use them against the feathered king of the forest.

“Mr. Lawrence?”

For the first time in the beast’s life, he genuinely feared what would happen to him, he was terrified of this one-legged hunter who would otherwise be nothing but an appetizer to him. His eyes widened as he caught sight of the hunter, the man was looking directly at him and taking careful aim with his gun...

“Mr. Lawrence?”

Not wanting to get shot with whatever magical concoction the hunter undoubtedly put in the bullets, the raven spread his wings and flew away.

*BANG*

*CRRAAACK*

As the tree fell on his back and he fruitlessly struggled to get out of his self-made prison, he cursed himself for being so stupid! The hunter wasn’t aiming at him, he was aiming at the old tree!

“Mr. Lawrence?”

The Raven king’s blood turned into ice as he heard the uneven yet steady footsteps approaching him, his life flashed before his eyes as he part of him wondered what the hunter’s goal was. Did it come to strip the beast of his lovely iridescent-black feathers? Did it come to take him down for sport? Or did it come to avenge the others that he had killed? He howled and flapped his free wing as hard as he could as his hunter came closer and closer to him...

“’EY SAMMY! SOMEONE’S TRYIN’ TA SPEAK TA YA!”

Sammy snapped back to the present; he was human, in the studio’s break room, there were other people here, some of them looked at him like he was either hurt, crazy, or both.

“Huh?! What?! Oh. ...What was the question again?”

“I just asked how you and Joey met each other...”

“Right, that...” Sammy pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath and recited the detail-scrubbed truth he had told many times before. “He was on a hunting trip and he trespassed on my property. It was dark, and he was firing his gun near me. So at the time, I thought he was out to kill me.”

“Oh.”

“He’s still embarrassed about it and I don’t like remembering it.” Sammy took a long sip from his coffee. “And for future reference, my name’s not “Mr. Lawrence”, Just call me Sammy.”

“Okay then...”

“If that’s all you wanted from me,” He stood up from his seat, taking the coffee mug with him “then I’m going back to work.”

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

His talons were dulled and cut, his sharp beak was given the same treatment, his beautiful, glossy feathers that practically sparkled under sunlight and had been the envy of the world of monsters and world of mankind alike had all been plucked out. He stood naked and helpless in a form he had called his prey as long as he could remember, and was told that it was his true form.

Sammy Lawrence woke up from his nightmare in a cold sweat to discover that he had fallen asleep with his charm on, keeping him in what he called his “work skin”. Reaching for the charm Joey gave him and ripping it off, he sighed in relief as he saw his human body getting covered in feathers. But paused in confusion as he saw no further changes take place.

“Don’t panic...” he told himself as he fumbled around in the dark for the phone. “Don’t panic...” he repeated as he punched in Joey’s number. “Don’t panic...” he repeated again as the phone rang.

“Hello?” Joey’s groggy voice answered “Sammy, what time is it-”

“JOEY SYLVESTER DREW, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOUR CURSED NECKLACE DO TO ME?!”

“Sammy, what happened?!” The bird monster heard shuffling on the other line, most likely Joey getting his shoes and coat on. “Can you describe the problem?”

“When I took it off, it wouldn’t let me change back all the way!”

“That’s... unusual...”

“Does sleeping in it effect the charm’s power?”

“Physically, no, it shouldn’t do that.” Joey grabbed some of his spell books off the shelves “Unless you were wearing it for literal years without taking it off, but I highly doubt that’s what’s going on.”

The bird monster heard the sounds of tires screeching.

“Joey?”

“Yes, Sammy?”

“...Are you driving while talking on the phone again?”

“That’s not the issue at hand, are there any other details about your condition that you need to tell me?”

“Joey you idiot, you’re going to get yourself killed if you keep pulling shit like this! Either hang up the phone or I will!”

“Good news, I’m pulling into your driveway as we speak!”

Sammy slapped his forehead in frustration as he hung up the phone. Sure enough, as he looked outside his window he saw the familiar beat-up Rolls Royce that had somehow managed to survive being Joey’s car for at least fifteen years. The same car Joey threw him into all those years ago.

He exited his house and saw Joey hobble out of the driver’s seat trying to balance the almost comedically large stack of books he had brought with him with his cane.

“Need help?”

“It would be appreciated.”

Sammy wordlessly took the large stack out of Joey’s hands and led him into his ‘home’.

As soon as the pair were in, Joey immediately went to work on trying to figure out what went wrong, flipping through his large stack of books and poking and prodding at Sammy’s feather-covered form.

“Did you recently eat or drink anything that felt ‘off’ to you?”

“No.”

“Have you recently been in or near areas that belong to the fae and or any other supernatural being?”

“Do I look like an insane dumbass?”

“First off: Hey! Second off: What about people, did you recently meet someone who you felt was out to get you and or had strong magical abilities?”

“Not any that know about my “Condition” as you call it.”

“Oh dear...”

“What is it?!”

‘Oh dear’, ‘oh no’, ‘oops’, and ‘oh well’ were the four worst phrases Sammy could ever hear Joey say.

“Sammy, how much are you aware about the nature of your condition?”

“I’ve been a raven monster for as long as I could remember, sometimes I would change my size for convenience's sake and could somewhat alter my form to have an extra pair of talons in my wings if I wanted, and then after you stole me from my forest, I could look like a somewhat-normal human being with your charm.”

“I meant, what do you know about the background of your condition, do you know why you have it?” 

“Well, there was what Allison said, but I still think she was just spouting hogwash to convince me I’m one of you people...”

“What was it?”

“According that fortune teller friend of yours, my ‘curse’ was put on me by my mom’s relatives. They couldn’t stand the fact that she eloped with a black man so they “cursed me to take the form of a monster he’d grow the boy into anyway” and that it would only be broken when I found my “Real family”. But I’m pretty sure that if I had a human family that wanted me, they’d look for me.”

“That makes explaining this slightly easier;” Joey sighed. “Sammy, did you know that magic takes more than just blood relations into account of who your family is? In fact, spiritual family connections that are mutual between two parties tend to be stronger than blood family connections.”

“I think you’ve said something like that before...” 

“I’m telling you this because I think that you’ve loosened your curse.”

The bird man blinked in disbelief.

“Are you telling me..?”

Joey twiddled his thumbs sheepishly as he spoke, the man was clearly uncomfortable to break the news to him.

“You are genuinely a human being, and your curse is slowly but surely being lifted.”

Sammy stared at Joey wide-eyed with his visible skin was white as a sheet. He left the room and Joey heard muffled screaming coming from that area.

“Now Sammy, I’m sure you have a lot of mixed feelings about this, but I know we’re bound to find a solution somehow!”

The muffled screaming continued as Sammy was still taking in the fact that his worst personal nightmare was real and happening right now. The songbird musician felt sick to his stomach... He used to eat humans for fuck’s sake! They were one of his favorite meats before meeting Joey, and now he was being told that he was one?!

“Sammy?”

And the pack... Without him, what would happen to the werewolf pack in the studio?! He needed his wings to properly watch after them! Even if they knew his scent too well to attack him while they were wolfed out, a human being is much slower and weaker than a pack of werewolves, they could get themselves hurt, or worse, killed if he couldn’t keep up with them! And what if one of them accidentally turned him?! None of them would ever be able to live with the emotional turmoil of that!

“Sammy..?”

He was useless now! Nothing more than a pathetic wreck of a human being who had thrown away all his value because he let his guard down, got too soft in the humans’ world, too comfortable talking with them... And now he doomed himself to be one of them, and the wolf pack to a terrible fate.

“Sammy.”

The musician felt a reassuring hand on his back, and looked up to see Joey Drew’s concerned face.

“Take a few days off if you need them, I can understand if you need space to sort all of this out.”

He stayed silent as he thought over his situation.

As it turned out, taking some space was exactly what he needed. All it took was a few days back in the woods, far away from the studio, and the people there and he was back to his former glory, only turning human again when he put on Joey’s cursed trinket.

He knew he’d have to return eventually, but when he did, he’d know better than to let his guard down again.

[pocket-luv101]

Across Time || Chapter 27

Fandom: Servamp Ships: KuroMahi (main), LawLicht (side) Characters: Kuro, Mahiru, Hyde, Licht

Summary: Mahiru falls into a well and is taken to a new, fantasy world. He comes across a half-blooded cat demon trapped in a tree. After he frees Kuro, he helps him collect the shards of the sacred jewel. (KuroMahi, InuYasha AU)

Ch.1 || Ch.2 || Ch.3 || Ch.4 || Ch.5 || Ch.6 || Ch.7 || Ch.8 || Ch.9 || Ch.10 || Ch.11 || Ch.12 || Ch.13 || Ch.14 || Ch.15 || Ch.16 || Ch.17 || Ch.18 || Ch.19 || Ch.20 || Ch.21 || Ch.22 || Ch.23 || Ch.24 || Ch.25 || Ch.26 || (Ch.27) ||

A bright light filtered through Mahiru’s eyelids and it pulled him out of his sleep. As he slowly regained consciousness, he became more aware of how stiff his body felt. Mahiru opened his eyes and he was confused when he saw the industrial light above him. He had become accustomed to seeing a blue sky whenever he woke. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming.

Mahiru moved his hand and he felt a light grip around it. He turned his head to find Kuro sleeping beside him in a chair. He also realized that he was in a hospital room and they were in his era again. Kuro must’ve taken him back through the well after the fight with Mikuni. Memories of the night came back to him and he tried to sit up. His body refused to move and he groaned slightly.

His voice woke Kuro and he jumped to his feet. He leaned over him and carefully ran his fingers through Mahiru’s brown hair. With his era’s advanced technology, he thought it was best to take him back to his time to treat his wounds. Kuro couldn’t remember the last time he had been so scared. Even now, he was afraid that the slightest touch would hurt him.

“You’re awake.” He whispered as a reassurance to himself more. Kuro brushed his bangs from his forehead and then pressed a soft kiss to the spot. His uncle drove them to a large building and Kuro didn’t understand what they intended to do to help Mahiru. The doctors didn’t allow him to see him until an hour after they took him to another room.

“How long have I been sleeping? Are Tsurugi and the others safe as well? I purified the castle but I don’t know if it was enough to break the spell over them. Touma was there and—” Mahiru paused when Kuro placed his finger against his lips. His warm hand calmed him and Mahiru took a shaky breath. He closed his eyes and leaned into his hand. “He took my jewel shards.”

“We’ll get them back. Don’t think about the sacred jewel or Touma and focus on recovering instead, Mahiru. You used too much of your spiritual energy and I was worried that it would damage your heart. The doctor said you’re fine though.” He made a weak smile. Mahiru stretched out his arms to him and Kuro climbed onto the bed to accept his silent invitation. He hugged him and rested his head against his chest to listen to his heart beat.

Mahiru reached up to touch Kuro’s cat ears but he had a hood pulled over his head. He understood that he had to hide them because doctors would question why a man had cat ears. He slipped his hands beneath his hood and threaded his fingers through his hair until he could scratch his ears. Kuro started to purr and Mahiru chuckled lightly at the sound. His laughter ran through his chest and Kuro could feel it.

Kuro sat up and his bell rang between them. The sound drew Mahiru’s attention to the pouch he wore and the jewel shards glowed through the fabric. They had fought countless battles to collect the shards yet Touma took them from him so easily. He was already injured and he couldn’t use his spiritual power at the time. Mahiru still felt guilty.

“Are you thinking about what happened? Mikuni made that trap to take all of our jewel shards but you were the one who stopped him. Your arrow broke his spell and he ran away after that.” Kuro knew how Mahiru took on too much responsibility and he wished he would acknowledge his own strength. “We’ll go back and make a plan with Hyde and Licht later. For now, rest.”

“I don’t know if I can relax.” Mahiru admitted and laid back against the pillow. “Who knows how many shards Touma has now that he had stolen my half? He might have a majority of the sacred jewel now.”

He thought of what Touma told him before he took his jewels. He called him weak like his mother. What kind of relationship did they have and why did he resent him? His mother briefly appeared with a pinkish glow around her. He didn’t know if she was truly his mother or the version of her that lived in the past. He recalled how she also protected him from the centipede demon.

Mahiru was pulled out of his thoughts when Kuro took his hand. “I asked your uncle if there was anything that I could do to distract you from what happened and help you feel better. He said I should take out on a date so you would have a break from collecting the jewel shards. I don’t know what a ‘date’ is but I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

“A date isn’t a place. People in your time would call it a part of courting where you take your lover somewhere for fun. It doesn’t matter where as long as we’re together.” He explained. They spent a lot of time together while collecting the jewel shards but they haven’t been able to go on a conventional date. Mahiru wanted to spend time with him on a date, he didn’t know if it was the right time.

Kuro placed his finger beneath his chin and he turned his head to face him. His red eyes were earnest and Mahiru felt his heart quicken. Kuro could see how hesitant he was and he moved his hand to hold Mahiru’s. He gave him a tender squeeze before he said, “You uncle also told me that you like simple dates like going to the movies or eating out.”

“I know a local place that has great ramen and somen where we can eat.” Mahiru said. “But I need to be discharged from the hospital before I can leave. They’ll probably want to do a few tests and speak with me. I don’t know how to explain to them that a wind sorcerer threw me against the wall.”

“Your uncle told them that you fell off your bike. He’s in the cafeteria right now and I’ll go tell him that you’re awake. I’m sure you want to talk to him after being gone so long.” Kuro stood up and kissed his forehead before he left. His consideration touched his heart and Mahiru glanced at the chair beside his bed. He had likely stayed beside him the entire night.

Mahiru called to Kuro as he opened the door. “I’m looking forward to our date, Kuro.”

Licht studied the strange contraption that he often saw Mahiru use to travel. He had never seen something similar before. Mahiru called it a bike and it was unique to his village. He didn’t explain much about the bike and Licht wondered if it was a demon in disguise or a strange wagon. He touched the cold metal and closed his eyes to listen for a heartbeat. “What are you, Mr. Bike?”

Something tickled his neck and Licht instinctively flinched away from the touch. He almost fell into the bike but an arm caught him before he could be hurt. Licht wasn’t surprised after he heard Hyde chuckle in his ear. The demon seemed to enjoy sneaking up behind him to play small tricks. He was more confused with himself since he hadn’t sensed him approach him.

Kirara hadn’t warned him about Hyde behind him either. Instead, the cat demon reached out its tiny paw to him and purred happily. He reasoned that she didn’t warn him because she trusted him after all the time they spent together. Licht petted Kirara and he hated to admit that he felt the same. They were so accustomed to Hyde’s presence that they didn’t react to his approach. Despite everything he learned as a demon slayer, he considered Hyde a new comrade.

“Are Kuro and Mahiru back from their mysterious village?” Licht asked and moved out of Hyde’s arms. Kuro had immediately taken Mahiru back to his village and he forgot to bring the bike and backpack in his rush. He brought the two items back to Toru’s village for them. “I wonder if Mahiru is also from a village of demon slayers for Kuro to keep their location a secret. He didn’t allow anyone to follow him and he destroyed his tracks.”

“Who would believe a lazy bastard like my brother would go through so much trouble for a human? Even though he was panicked, he thought of Mahiru’s wish to keep his village a secret. I was curious about the place since Mahiru is different. I considered tracking him but I’m sure Kuro would be mad if I did. Mahiru must be something.” Hyde joked but Licht started to feel strange. He was jealous of how he spoke of Mahiru. Licht respected Mahiru and he knew Hyde only saw him as a friend yet the feelings turned his stomach.

He looked away from him and flicked the bike pedal. Licht wanted to push aside the confusing feelings to focus on the twirling pedal. Then, he felt Hyde’s large hand on his head and he tousled his hair. He looked back to see him grinning. “As strange as Mahiru is, he can never be as unique as an angel. I’ve never heard of a demon slayer with a pet nekomata.”

“I didn’t know Kirara was a demon at first. She wandered into my crib when I was a toddler and I assumed she was a regular cat. I adopted her. According to my mother, I cried loud enough to attract demons when they tried to take her away from me.” Licht slipped the cat from his shoulder and cradled her in his arms. “She’s my family and I didn’t want to be separated from her.”

“Kirara adores you too. She’s not fully grown and intelligent like other nekomata but I can understand her when she purrs.” As Hyde petted the cat, he leaned closer to Licht without thinking. “I heard you talking to ‘Mr. Bike’. This thing is probably a tool for travelling though. It doesn’t have a demon presence and Mahiru doesn’t talk to it like he would a pet.”

“Mahiru sits on it like a horse.” Licht picked up the bike and he imitated how Mahiru would sit on it. He swung his leg over the seat but he found it difficult to balance on the bike. The wheels were thin and the ground was uneven. “Mahiru places his feet on these two stirrups. Will it go forward if I press on them?”

The moment he took his feet off the ground to press the pedal, the bike started to tilt sideways. Hyde reached out to stop the bike from falling but then he felt a sharp pain on his feet. Licht had hastily placed his foot on the ground for balance and he accidentally stepped on him. The spikes on his boots made the pain worse. He saw him wince but he didn’t become angry like he expected. Hyde only laughed.

“Maybe we should wait until Mahiru comes back so he can properly teach you how to ride that bike.” He playfully ruffled his hair again. “I don’t know why you’re suddenly interested in the bike. You already have Kirara and she’s faster than this contraption.”

“Kirara is wonderful. She’s the fastest nekomata alive and she can even fly.” Licht agreed and nodded proudly. He petted the cat on his shoulder but his smile became tainted with regret. “We weren’t fast enough to reach the castle before Kuro and Mahiru were attacked by the wind sorcerer. I’m supposed to be the fastest in my family but I was too slow again.”

Hyde knew that he was thinking of his father who had also died in one of Touma’s traps. He didn’t know what he could say to comfort him. He placed his hands on the bike and Licht sat in the loose circle of his embrace. “In a fair fight, angels always win. Touma doesn’t fight fair though. When Mahiru sent that familiar to us, it couldn’t take us to the castle because of the barrier.”

“That’s what I hate most about demons. They can never be honest and resort to tricks when fighting us. Demons already have an advantage with their power and we tried to fight back with our numbers. We worked so hard but that demon…” Licht looked up and his words trailed off. He was a demon and he would feel offended that he had insulted his kind. Hyde was different from the demons he fought and he forgot that he was an oni. “I was talking about Touma.”

“I’m a demon and I’ve used cowardly tricks too.” Hyde snapped his fingers and a wind circled them. He let go of the bike but his wind kept it from falling again. Licht cautiously placed his foot on the peddle and pushed down on it to make the bike crawl forward. Hyde walked beside him. “With my knowledge as a demon and a monk, I’ll strip Touma of any tricks he could use. The only thing left is for an angel to purify him. Then, we’ll both have our revenge.”

“A demon slayer, an oni monk, a priest and a half demon. We make a strange team, don’t we?” Licht chuckled and the subtle tilt of his lips was surprisingly attractive. He rarely smiled and Hyde wondered what he could do to see the expression more. An eccentric demon slayer shouldn’t affect him so much when he already promised that he wouldn’t become attached to a human again.

Kirara jumped off his shoulder and shifted into its larger body. He was confused when it growled at them since it was rarely aggressive. Licht stepped off the bike and he walked to the large cat. He reached out to it but Kirara walked past him to the bike and picked it up in her mouth. He watched Kirara carry the bike towards the river and he realized its intention too late.

Kirara dropped Mahiru’s bike into the water.

“Bad girl, why would you do that?” Licht ran into the lake to retrieve the bike before it could be carried away by the current. A small tug on his shirt stopped him and he looked back to Kirara. She whined softly and he wished that he understood what she wanted to tell him. Kirara rarely misbehave so he couldn’t guess why she would throw the bike into the lake. “What is it, Kirara?”

“She got jealous that you were riding on the bike instead of her.” Hyde told him and he had chuckled at the situation.

“You should know that I could never replace you. You’re my family. But Mahiru’s also our family and he’ll be sad if something happens to his bike. Let’s get it and then we can take a ride around the village.” Licht reassured the cat and stroked its fur. Hyde imagined if he held him and he found that he was the one to feel jealous. He didn’t want to be a companion to Licht like Kirara was though.

“You need to catch the noodles, Kuro. I thought you would be better at this since you love ramen and you have cat-like reflexes. Here, you can have this one.” Mahiru used his chopsticks to catch the cluster of nagashi somen that slid down the bamboo shoot. He dipped the noodles into the broth and then brought it to Kuro’s mouth to feed him. He took Kuro to a restaurant that offered a variety of noodles for their date. “How does it taste?”

“Good. You said you were a cook for a restaurant. Did you make dishes like this? The food at this restaurant tastes different from yours. I would like to taste yours since the food you make back home has a different seasoning. It’s simple but good too.” While Mahiru brought him cup ramen to eat, Kuro also enjoyed when he would cook for them.

“I actually work in a curry shop but I know how to make noodles like this. Once we have an opportunity like this again, I’ll make somba from scratch for you. It would be difficult for me to carry all the supplies I need to make homemade noodles to the past.” Mahiru offered. “My uncle bought this toy version of a bamboo shoot where you can slide down noodles like this. Maybe I can find it for the occasion.”

Mahiru had a bright smile whenever he spoke of his uncle and Kuro couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to him in that moment. He brushed his bangs from his forehead so he could see his brown eyes better. His casual touch caused Mahiru to pause as if he were spellbound. They were always together in the feudal era but his touch felt more intimate now that they were on an official date.

“Is there something on my face, Kuro?” Mahiru tried to hide that he was blushing by rubbing a napkin over his cheek. The action only drew Kuro’s attention to his lips and he forced himself to turn back to his bowl. He was tempted to kiss him but he didn’t know if he should with so many people around them.

“Pardon me,” A voice came between them and Kuro leaned away from Mahiru. A waiter held up a pitcher of water and asked, “Would you like me to refill your glasses?”

“Yes, thank you. We’re finished eating so can you get us our bill? The food was great.” Mahiru said and reached for his wallet to pay for the meal. He was a little confused when Kuro stopped him by placing his hand over his.

“I’ll pay for the food. Your uncle said that it’s my responsibility to take care of you as your mate.” Kuro told him. Mahiru didn’t know how he intended to pay the bill when he didn’t have money from his era. He was happy that his uncle supported their relationship but he hoped he didn’t give him money to pay for their date. Then, Kuro said: “I have a rare mummified kappa claw and that should be enough.”

“Wait, you have what?” Mahiru saw him pull a claw out his pocket and he started to panic. He could only imagine the panic that would occur after they saw the claw. He needed to stop him. “Sit, Kuro!”

“Sorry about using the incarnation on you, Kuro. The waiter would’ve freaked out if they saw a demon’s hand. I might’ve caused a bigger scene by using the spell though.” Mahiru and Kuro held hands as they walked home from the restaurant. It was night and Kuro was surprised by how bright the street was with the lanterns lining the path. Mahiru moved closer to him and leaned his head against his arm.

“Are you cold?” Kuro took off his red robe and placed it over Mahiru’s shoulders. He slipped his arms through the sleeve and drew the fabric to his nose. Mahiru wasn’t cold but he liked the opportunity to wear his jacket and walk close to him. No matter if they were exploring the feudal era or having a simple walk in the modern world, he was happy to spend time with Kuro.

“We ate a lot. How about we burn off all those calories by playing in the park?” Mahiru took his hand and led Kuro into the park across the street. Most would find the park childish but he wanted to see what his reaction would be. The feudal era didn’t have playgrounds with swings and slides. He experienced new things in Kuro’s time and he wanted to give him a similar experience.

Since it was late, the park was empty and they were the only two in the area. Mahiru sat on a swing and lightly kicked off the ground. “I don’t know if you have something similar to playgrounds like this. There are forests next to the village where kids can play and explore. We don’t have as many vast landscapes like you do. Sit on the swing next to me, Kuro.”

He accidentally used the incarnation and he jumped forward to stop him from crashing into the dirt. Mahiru hugged him but the power of the spell was stronger than he expected and he was pulled to the ground as well. He fell onto his back but he wasn’t hurt by Kuro. Kuro caught himself before he could fall on top of Mahiru.

They laid on the ground but Mahiru found himself laughing. He reached up to play with the bell hanging from his neck and rang it lightly. “When we have the chance to speak with my uncle in the past again, we should ask him how to break the incarnation. He cast the spell so you wouldn’t try to steal the jewel from me. We don’t have to worry about that so you don’t need this.”

“The incarnation is troublesome but I want to keep the bell. It’s the first thing you gave me.” He said and sat up. Mahiru had his arms around his neck and he moved with Kuro. He tightened his hold around him lightly and thought of how well they fit together. His arms made him feel safe and protected and Mahiru didn’t want to let go of him.

“You know, Kuro, when you said that you talk to me uncle, I was a little scared. I thought you two would’ve said that I should stay in my time here. Touma was able to take my jewel shards from me.” Mahiru placed his hand over his heart where he would wear the necklace that held his shards. “Without the shards, I can never go back or see you again. That scares me more than Touma.”

“I can never leave you behind again.” Kuro took off his jewel shards and slipped it around Mahiru’s neck. He cupped his face and leaned down to kiss his forehead. The fight before them was dangerous but he understood Mahiru’s wish to face the challenge together. He was the strongest person he knew yet he would fight for him and future together. “I won’t let Touma or anyone else hurt you again.”

“Touma didn’t hurt me and I think it was because my mother was there. She also protected us from the centipede demon the night we met. At first, I thought I hallucinated her but there could be a chance she’s still alive. Touma wasn’t surprised to see Mother so he must know something. I want to talk to him.” Mahiru decided. “It’ll be more difficult to defeat him than simply killing him.”

“It’ll be troublesome but we’ll find a way.” Kuro agreed to his plan quicker than Mahiru expected but his answer warmed his heart. “We should head home before demons come out. It’s night. I don’t know what kind of demons live in this park but I would rather not fight them.”

“My time doesn’t have demons but it is rather late. I wanted to enjoy the park but I think there’s something you’ll enjoy more. I like sleeping under the stars with you but you haven’t tried sleeping in a bed. It’s more comfortable then the ground.” Mahiru hugged Kuro’s arm and grinned up at him. “I don’t usually have sex on the first date but I’ll make an exception for you, Kuro.”

“There’s no rush to go back so we can stay the night.” He leaned down and kissed him softly.

[noonymoon]

JUSTICE FOR JESUS — Misconceptions & Prejudices about the Faith in the Biblical Jesus Christ.

PART ONE: Christianity is not a Religion, it is God‘s plan to redeem mankind and have a relationship with us forever

I‘ve used to think that Jesus is about Religion, Church, Pastors, Dogma. When you look around in the world it makes sense: Everyone believes something different, all faiths are entirely valid for the people who practice them. Of course you throw Christianity in the same pot as Islam and Judaism, they‘re called „the Abrahamic Religions“ (because Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, and Jacob is „Israel“, but also Abraham was the father of Ishmael who was only born because Abraham and Sara didn‘t put their faith in God to have a child like God promised, they were impatient and didn‘t have faith, because Sara was already old and could actually not get pregnant anymore, so Sara suggested that Abraham should have a child with Hagar, the handmaiden of Sara; and from Ishmael‘s lineage basically the Arabs and Islam came along, since God had promised to make a great nation out of Abraham, this blessing went worth to both sons of Abraham) - so basically YES, Jews and Christians worship the same God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as it is written all over the Old and New Testament. The only difference is that Christianity has been infiltrated by Satan a loooong time ago, and Judaism (for the most part) rejects Jesus as their Messiah, even though Jesus was prophesied from the FIRST LETTER of the FIRST WORD of the FIRST BOOK of the Bible/Torah FOR the Jews! When he finally arrived FOR the Jews, the Gospel (the message of Salvation) was preached to ONLY Jews for 7 years (3 and a half years of Jesus‘ ministry, 3 and a half years after His death preached by His Apostles) and only THEN (after the Jews for the most part rejected the Gospel and persecuted everyone who believed in Jesus; our best example for this is the Apostle Paul who was actually Sha‘ul; he was formerly an extremely Jewish Pharisee who relentlessly persecuted Christians but then Jesus Himself appeared in a vision to Him and asked Him „Why are you persecuting me?“ and by seeing Jesus‘ glory and majesty, He was born-again and wrote ~70% of the New Testament) God decided to spread the message of Salvation to Greeks/Gentiles as well, because He wants to save all humans, and His chosen people would not do the work that He hoped they would. God‘s priority was always Israel until they have entirely rejected the Salvation that is ONLY found in God‘s Son, the Messiah, the Anointed One: Jesus Christ. Gladly there are a lot of messianic Jews nowadays who do their best to bring Israel‘s saviour to the Jewish people, just like it was supposed to be.

Every single Religion or Faith that there is that does not teach that you can find Salvation in Jesus Christ, the literal Son of God, will not give you peace, love and the Truth, will not give you Eternal Life (and if „Heaven“ and „Eternal Life“ sounds too ethereal for you try „different non-linear dimension“ and „consciousness transferred into a spiritual body“ - because THAT‘S how it was supposed to be before our Earth fell into a linear timeline, away from God‘s presence) and that‘s just how it is. There are tons of Religions, Faiths, even pretty much ALL Christian denominations and all the Christian cults, each one of them has a different way of denying the only thing that leads to Salvation: Jesus is the LITERAL only-begotten Son of the one true God & He died for our sins & was raised to life again by God the Father. Satan literally tries in ANY way possible to deny the LITERAL Sonship of Christ whose Father is God Almighty, YHWH. [...by the way, if you believe in that Zecharia Sitchin nonsense, please visit http://sitchiniswrong.com/ - by an ACTUAL scholar of Biblical Hebrew and of Ancient Semitic Languages]. And for the people who don‘t even bother with Jesus at all, he developed a plethora of options, to believe in something else, his first and only goal is to keep people away from Jesus, and he literally does not care how he accomplishes it. Every single Faith that does not lead to Jesus and into the Kingdom of God, has its roots in Ancient Babylon and leads into the Kingdom of Darkness. There are literally only two options, and that’s the absolute Truth, no matter if “truth” today is a “subjective matter for everyone”; that’s exactly what Satan wanted to achieve, and he sure did it. People are always extremely offended when Christians claim to have the only true God, the One who brought all things into existence despite the circumstance that they don‘t even believe in the FACT that we were brought into existence by this one God through Jesus Christ (who is the „Word of God“, and as you all know „God said: Let there be light, and there was Light“ - basically God spoke things into existence BY his Word, and his word IS Jesus Christ, the Son of God).

People rather believe in an extremely ridiculous and propagated concept of a „Big Bang“ that caused things to just „happen over time“, that our Earth is millions or billions of years old, that it is sheer „luck“ that we can survive because if we were just a tiny bit closer or less close to the Sun we would either burn up or freeze, that we evolved from ape-like men who were not very intelligible, that our extreme complex languages also probably evolved from ape-like sounds (you have no idea how ridiculous all of this sounds, when you are awake, I can‘t even type it without putting it in „quotation marks“, and you literally can NOT UNSEE the Devil’s work once your eyes have been opened) when there is literally an abundance of undeniable evidence that the Creation by an intelligent and brilliant God is a LOT more plausible; or let‘s say: there is a LOT of evidence that the public narrative is simply a deception (for example, tons of GIANT human bones have been found since at least the 1800s but of course not a single person informs us about stuff like this, and of course we don‘t make an effort to research it, because we‘re all brainwashed until we realize the Truth; people who study their Bible know EXACTLY who these giants were and they also know exactly who all those other spiritual entities are which we see in Mythology from ancient cultures) - and when the public narrative is a deception, the only logical conclusion is that something different must be true. And which book contains the entire story from the very Beginning to the very End of humankind, which fulfilled a massive amount of prophecy throughout human history 100% accurate, and is by „sheer conincidence“ the most translated and printed book of ALL time? Exactly! The Bible!

„In the beginning (TIME) God created the heavens (SPACE) and the earth (MATTER)“ — Genesis 1:1 

(parantheses added)

Isn‘t it AMAZING how the inspired Word of God through the Prophets conveys complex scientific concepts in only a little sentence? THAT‘S how incredible God is! He is a Mastermind and good beyond ANYTHING. Sadly Satan has accomplished that the world sees our Creator like a hateful, narrow-minded, strict and arrogant Ruler who just wants to dominate us and put His Religion on us, but that could not be further away from the Truth. God, in fact, HATES Religion, all He ever wanted is to be loved by His people, acknowledged by His people and praised by His people (and honestly, He DESERVES praise for Everything He has done for us and for Everything that He is!) .. And then of course, you can look all around in nature! I swear, being born-again is like being a child again, before this world and our „education“ brainwashes you. When I walk outside, I just MARVEL at God‘s handiwork, it‘s literally AMAZING. When I look at flowers, veggies, fruits, animals, insects of all kinds (I even lost my fear of spiders and wasps and even hornets, it‘s just amazing to look at them), when I taste different kind of nuts, herbs and spices (by the way, isn‘t it amazing how there‘s a herb or plant for every health issue a human can have, just like the Bible says? if we really evolved from a Big Bang to THIS, how do we explain the miraculous powers of all of these things? Have they just „happened“...?) look at the funny shapes of everything; everything just blows my mind, it‘s incredible. Someday I really want to ask God what He thought when He created Romanesco Broccoli because each time I see that thing, I just marvel at its weirdness and beauty. The world is just so ridiculously beautiful and NO ONE can see it except born-again Christians (I‘m really excited for eternal Life because this Creation is in a fallen state and the Bible says that the actual glory of the actual Creation is even more magnificent, WHOA...!!!) and I sometimes literally cry because it‘s SO SAD what Satan has made us believe about our planet, about ourselves, about literally everything. And why? Just because he hates Jesus, he hates God and he most certainly hates EVERYONE else, you, me, everyone. He loves only himself and he doesn‘t care if he‘s robbing us from the most astonishing experience ever: Life! He enslaves us through spiritual warfare to desires that we would naturally not have (social status, money, power, career, material objects of all sorts, fame, success, other people no matter how toxic they are for our health, drugs, likings and addictions of all kinds, literally ANYTHING can be the work of spiritual warfare) and makes us believe on top of that that we‘re just a bunch of random Apes in a random world, that our purpose is to make money and survive in a society that grows more and more into cold robots each year, only so that at the end, we die, never knew Jesus, and perish in Hell with him. It‘s literally the saddest thing EVER.

So yes, „Religious Freedom“ is a thing; everyone CAN believe whatever they want and feel drawn to, but ONLY born-again believers in Jesus Christ will live with God forever and ever in a different dimension that is not bound to time. Just like God wanted to live with us from the very beginning! We are His masterpiece of creation! Did you know that we are more cherished than angels? He sent his LITERAL SON to die for us, ALL of us, just so that we can live with God! Isn‘t that incredible??? I’m just absolutely in Love with God and Jesus and I’ve never thought that I’d EVER say this, growing up as an Atheist and then, over 2 years deceived in a spiritual bubble that is not even real.

My prayer is that the people who are written in the book of Life and belong to God’s kingdom find Jesus Christ, and experience His Love, because once you have, there is not a single day that is sad or empty, not a single day that seems pointless, you will have peace and a blessed hope for eternity to come. Amen.

TESTIMONIES

From Buddha to Christ. Powerful Testimony.

Chinese Triad Gangster Finds Jesus In Death Encounters

SATANISM, WITCHCRAFT, DRUGZ, DEPRESSION this is my testimony

"New Age" Occult Practices Nearly Ruined My Life | Warning & Testimony

Raves, drugs, vanity, new age to Jesus Christ | My Testimony

[ruensroad]

The Ghost Boys

A silly AU with the Junior Quartet that sits in my Psychic Dective AU, believe it or not, though in the future quite a ways. Featuring ghost hunter chaos boys, Empath!Jin Ling, and Fairy being the best emotional support doggo.

For @this-solaris-life because she’s been having a rough couple of days. Hope this makes you smile! --- “I want it known, for the record, that this is a terrible idea,” Jingyi said the moment the red lights of his friends’ cameras turned on, so they and the world at large would know he was the only voice of reason in this whole fiasco. Of course, he was ignored, as he usually was, which probably meant they were going to die.

No one ever listened to the smart one in horror movies, after all. And maybe this wasn’t exactly a horror movie, but it was close enough!

“Alright Ghosties, listen up,” Jin Ling huffed at his camera, as though Jingyi wasn’t currently whining at his back, flawless as ever, “do not try this at home, or do not do it alone if you do it anyway. And remember, safety first. Always protect your dog’s feet if you bring them along.”

Jingyi sighed as the camera panned to him, or rather to Fairy, who was happily leaning into the hug Jingyi was giving him. The huge husky’s tail wagged and he lifted a paw when Jin Ling wiggled his fingers, which had a proper shoe-booty on it.

“Keep your ghost hunting dogs safe,” Jin Ling ordered, all seriousness, and Jingyi pouted up at him.

“What about your ghost hunting boyfriends?” he demanded, already fighting a chill, and it wasn’t just from the cold. This place was seven levels of creepy and it was just the outside.

Jin Ling’s expression was all coolness, a front Jingyi knew for the camera given his warm eyes were downright laughing at him. Rude. “Eh. You can be ghost food.”

Yuan quickly lifted his own camera and stepped between them, running over Jingyi’s squawk of outrage with a soft laugh. “No one will be ghost food,” he reassured, before beaming at their unseen audience. “Hello Ghosties! Today we’re in Hong Kong to film an abandoned Love Hotel.”

He tilted his camera to pan behind him while Zizhen’s followed him too, as it usually did, the man’s eyes soft and content over his fluffy scarf. “It was built in a housing boom during the eighties, but abandoned in 2003. Lots of interesting stories about this place too…”

As he rattled off a few, filming the discreet outside of the building, Jingyi moved over to Jin Ling with Fairy in tow, shuddering as a breeze blew over the back of his neck.

“We’re not going to die, right?” he asked, needing reassurance. The perks of dating an Empath, he’d found, were that said boyfriend could feel out all ghosts and warn him beforehand. Even if he used this power for evil teasing more often than not, it was still a valuable skill to have and Jingyi leaned on it every time he agreed to do this insanity with the rest of them.

Jin Ling considered that. “Well, it won’t be ghosts that kill us if we do,” he said, because he was a demon, and Jingyi swatted his arm, cracking his cool exterior with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I got my pepper spray.”

“And I got the dog with fangs,” Jingyi said, struggling for some calm. He knelt down to muss the dog’s squishy cheeks, which did nothing to make the dog seem frightening. “You’ll protect me, right Fairy? You’re the best boy. You won’t let anyone hurt me!”

Fairy wiggled in agreement, wagging his tail so hard his whole butt moved too. Jingyi laughed, feeling slightly better, and for a blessed moment cooed at Fairy and pretended he was not about to walk into a death trap because he was obviously an idiot.

It didn’t last nearly long enough before Jin Ling was calling them all to order and holding open a break in the chain link fence they’d found to get in. Yuan ducked in first, followed by Zizhen, who finally moved his camera off of him to film a broken window; then it was Fairy’s turn to pull Jingyi along, followed by Jin Ling, who set a comforting hand on his lower back as he passed by.

“They said a woman hung herself from the third floor banister,” Yuan said as Jin Ling tried the door handle. “I think that’s a great place to try our spirit box.”

Zizhen hummed a little, considering that, as the door creaked open in an ominous scream. “Do we know why she hung herself?” he asked Yuan, doe eyed. “Was it a broken heart?”

“You will make a love story out of everything, won’t you?” Jingyi asked, appalled, and Zizhen just shrugged a helpless shoulder.

“It’s romantic, though.”

“Guys,” Jin Ling sighed, drawing them back to focus, and pulled his breathing mask out of his hoodie. “Safety first. Masks on, I can already smell the mold.”

It was another blessed pause, where Jingyi could pretend he wasn’t about to enter some apocalyptic nightmare. He pulled on the breathing mask, then knelt down to slip on Fairy’s. He gave Jin Ling the thumbs up when he was certain Fairy was having no trouble breathing through it.

“Remember, everyone,” Zizhen said, turning his camera on himself as he adjusted his scarf around his mask, “mold is no joke. If you’re going to be as crazy as us, you need to be as smart as us too.”

“How is this smart?” Jingyi scoffed, ignored as Jin Ling led the way inside. He wanted nothing more than to hide behind his boyfriend’s confident back, but he’d been put in charge of Fairy and Yuan’s spot was always after Jin Ling so they could watch for glass and nails on the floor. He had to settle for sighing and doing his best not to jump at every tiny noise, which was much harder in practice than he’d like.

Already the floor was creaking under their feet and his mind flashed to horror movies all over again. “We’re going to die.”

“We’re not going to die,” Jin Ling sighed from the front and panned his camera slowly around the front atrium. “Maybe lost, though. This place is huge, so stick close to me.”

“It must have been so pretty when it was in business,” Zizhen gushed, gooey-eyed already over a heart-shaped archway. “And didn’t you say something about themed rooms, A-Yuan?”

“I did!” Yuan grinned in excitement, eager as always to share the facts he’d researched. “I’m not sure what all is still here, but I know they had an ‘under the sea’ love suite, as well as one based on Camelot.”

Okay, so that was kind of cool. Still, “I would not sleep in a room with a suit of armor watching me,” Jingyi shuddered. “No thank you.”

“Agreed,” Jin Ling said, nose wrinkled in distaste. “Armor is such a ghost magnet. You’d have so many eyes on you while you slept. Disgusting.”

“It’s because of the iron, right?” Yuan asked, curious, and Jin Ling nodded.

“Metal is a conduit, no matter what type,” Jin Ling said, shrugging a shoulder as he pointed his camera up the stairs. “It draws in energy, so it’s easier for a spiritual imprint to remain on it.”

“Like fingerprints,” Zizhen hummed and slowly turned down a long hall. “Do we want to check this one out? Or just look upstairs?”

“The energy down here is more residual,” Jin Ling told him and started up. “We won’t get anything more than a few standard bumps in the night. The good stuff is up here.”

“I am more than okay with standard bumps,” Jingyi lamented as he was more or less pulled up the steps by Fairy. “What’s wrong with lame noises? It’s still creepy.”

“Come on, Jingyi, you know the viewers want the really good stuff,” Yuan laughed, though sweetly as though to soothe him. It only had him more on guard. “And I’m curious about a few spots that actually have stories attached to them.���

“That’s worse,” Jingyi sighed, then squeaked as something above them slammed. He was instantly behind Yuan and squishing Fairy close with a hand. “Oh no, oh fuck, I’m not ready, no, no.”

“You’re never ready,” Jin Ling pointed out, already hurrying towards the sound like an idiot. Yuan, ultimate traitor, hurried after him, which had Fairy tugging Jingyi along. Zizhen, unconcerned, followed at a more sedate pace, getting them all into a clear shot.

“Hey, another heart arch!” he said when he’d caught up and peeked into the room that it led to. “Do you think this room was a heart theme?”

He asked this of Jin Ling, who stood the best chance of feeling out the truth of the past out of all of them, Empathy and all that. Even with the room in obvious, vandalized shambles, he took it in with a slow sweep of his camera and his eyes focusing hard.

“Definitely red, is what I’m feeling,” he said after a moment. “So a heart theme wouldn’t be a big stretch.”

Zizhen sighed happily and made eyes at Yuan, because of course he did. “Romantic.”

“I think a flower room would be nice,” Yuan mused, smiling back at Zizhen, and Jingyi felt the urge to smack their heads together because they were going to die, this was no time to be gooey!

“Is there a flower room?” Zizhen asked, excited.

Jin Ling considered that. “Third floor, second room.”

“Oh hell yes.”

“If you two make out in a ghost love hotel and consider it romantic to be surrounded by spirits and mold, I will disown you both,” Jingyi threatened, though his voice jumped at the end when another bang echoed above. He immediately squished Fairy’s head into his leg again. “Fuck… how could you even be thinking of romance when we are clearly about to die.”

“I mean… it is a Love Hotel,” Zizhen wiggled his eyebrows, charming Yuan into a round of sweet laughter. Jingyi needed new, less insane friends stat. “And for a good chunk of our viewers, it’s close to Valentine’s Day. Romance is in the air.”

“So is death!” Jingyi waved his arm out at all the wreckage. “And mold! And shit, what was that noise?”

He squished in behind Jin Ling and under the hood of his jacket, whimpering as what sounded like footsteps creaked up the next flight of stairs. “We’re going up there, aren’t we.”

“Not a residual haunting,” Jin Ling agreed, a grin in his voice, and immediately left Jingyi without a hiding place as he charged up the stairs. “There’s something up here!”

Yuan was hot on his heels, as were Zizhen and Fairy, who whined when Jingyi didn’t move fast enough. Swallowing hard, he followed them all up to the infamous third floor and immediately felt far too cold. And watched. With nothing but black ruins behind him, he felt like he was being followed, and quickly reclaimed his spot in the group.

“I don’t like this,” he said and lifted his arm to Zizhen’s camera, pulling back his sleeve. “All my hair is standing up, you see that?”

“Mine too,” Zizhen agreed, though looked far less worried about it than he should. Jingyi maybe mimed strangling him when the camera turned away.

Jin Ling, meanwhile, was edging around a fallen post to get to a door, this one with peeling, off-yellow paint around the rim. “It came from in here,” he told Yuan, who immediately gasped out some facts about the room while Jin Ling slipped inside.

There was a beat of quiet, save for Yuan telling the viewers about the room - 32 - which had been the room where the woman had stayed that had hung herself, before a low curse startled them all quiet. Then Jin Ling was hurrying back out, blushing hard, and quickly dusted himself off, like whatever energy in there was contagious.

“That… nope,” was all he said, and despite the chills and feeling threatened, Jingyi started to cackle, because for all his cool guy routine in front of the camera, Jin Ling was also easily flustered, and that wide eyed look was hilarious. 

“Spirits still in love in there?” Zizhen asked, laughing too. Even Yuan was covering his mouth and shaking in silent mirth.

“Something like that,” Jin Ling muttered and glared when Jingyi busted up even harder.

“Oh my gods. Only you would walk into a ghost love session!” he wheezed. Fucking karma. “That’s what you get for trying to kill us on the regular.”

“You come willingly!” Jin Ling sputtered and smacked him in the stomach when he got close enough. Jingyi doubled over, losing his grip on Fairy’s leash, and kept on laughing. At least until the creaking started behind him, and given he had a good view of everyone's shoes, a creaking that should very much not be happening.

“There’s something behind me, isn’t there,” he whimpered, feeling a full body shiver shoot from his toes to his head.

“Yup,” Jin Ling said, smug bastard, and immediately he shrieked. It said far too much about him that Jin Ling’s arms were already up and ready before he started climbing his boyfriend like some rich housewife would jump onto a stool to flee from a mouse. Fuck.

“Oh my gods, get it off, get it off!”

The treachery didn’t stop with Yuan, it seemed, because now Zizhen was laughing at him too. He flipped them both off, but refused to detach from Jin Ling until the creaking stopped.

“That is not how it works,” Jin Ling sighed, all long suffering, and obediently stayed still until Jingyi was willing to let go. Well, willing was perhaps a stretch. He would stay in Jin Ling’s arms forever if he could, but that would mean being stuck in this place even longer, and that would never do.

“I don’t care, keep them away from me,” Jingyi ordered and wrapped Jin Ling’s arm around his shoulders, pouting there. Zizhen had already grabbed Fairy’s leash and handed it to Yuan with minimal kissing of his gloved hands, which meant he could stay here as long as he wanted and Jin Ling could just put up with it.

Amazingly, he seemed agreeable to the unspoken plan, arm tightening around him in a soft squeeze. “I will always keep them away from you,” he promised, warm and almost sweet, and Jingyi could believe it, even in this terrible place. He’d believe anything Jin Ling said when his boyfriend looked at him like that.

“Well good, because if I die I’m haunting you forever,” Jingyi pouted and wrapped his arms around Jin Ling’s middle to anchor himself there when they moved on to the next room. “And into the next life if I have to.”

A soft sigh, but a smile followed that, and he grinned despite himself.

“Noted.”

[mikrowrites]

all hail the magic man

•part three•

Doctor Strange x Apprentice!OC(platonic)

A/N: this one’s a long one~

Charlie had found after three years of apprenticeship in the Mystic Arts, wearing just a pair of jeans and a tee shirt felt... weird.

It was a quiet morning in the Sanctum, and excitement flowed through the fifteen-year-old’s veins at the thought of a free day without sitting in front of books or cleaning the Sanctum or polishing her Sanskrit. Just a normal day.

Stephen had lured Charlie out of bed (at 10:46 am, yes) with the sweet promise of a sandwich from the local shop, causing her to run out to the foyer to meet Stephen and Wong on the staircase.

“Seriously, you don’t have any money?” Stephen sighed at Wong, Charlie handing her mentor her five bucks.

Wong shrugged dismissively at Stephen. “Attachment to the material is detachment from the spiritual.”

Stephen shook his head while playfully nudging Charlie’s shoulder. “We’ll tell the guys at the deli.”

“Maybe they’ll make you a metaphysical ham on rye~” Charlie sang, cutting Stephen off and turning back to Wong teasingly.

Wong rolled his eyes at the girl, rummaging through his belt. “Oh! Wait, wait, wait, I think I have 200!”

“Dollars?”

“Rupees.” Wong replied, Charlie snorting in laughter.

Stephen sighed. “Which is?”

“Uh... buck and a half?”

Stephen let out a louder sigh, shaking his head and continuing down the stairs with Charlie following behind. She tapped Stephen’s shoulder, pulling out an extra few bucks. “I’ll take care of it, Mrs. Mendota paid extra for me to walk her dog this week.”

Charlie turned to Wong. “What do you want?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a tuna melt.”

Suddenly there was an explosion on the stairs behind them, causing everyone to stumble to their knees on the floor. It appeared some rainbow light was flowing violently into the stairs, causing a gaping hole.

Once the light subsided, the three ran forwards, Stephen’s cloak flying to him as Charlie and his clothes suddenly shifted into their robes. Stephen and Wong cast shield over their fists while Charlie summoned her weapon, a bow and arrow made from the magic orange sparks.

A deep groan came from within the hole. They looked down to see a man, whose skin was shifting from a green color to a normal peach skintone. Charlie lowered her bow slightly her eyes widening in recognition. “That’s... That’s Dr. Bruce Banner...”

The man shifted his head to her, panic visible in his eyes and body. “Thanos is coming,” He gasped, his voice raising to his normal pitch. “He’s coming...”

Stephen turned to Wong and Charlie in confusion before looking back at Bruce.

“Who?”

- - - - - -

Stephen cast a portal in the foyer, nodding to Charlie as they both stepped forwards, Charlie looking back to give Banner a reassuring smile.

They were in a park, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts stood before them in shock.

“Tony Stark, I’m Dr. Stephen Strange. I need you to come with me.” Stephen commanded.

The two still looked panicked, Tony with a protective arm on Pepper, with the woman grasping it like a lifeline.

“Uh, erm—congrats on the wedding!” Charlie smiled nervously, attempting to diffuse the panic.

“I’m sorry, you giving out tickets or something?” Tony asked defensively.

“We need your help. It’s not overselling it to say that the fate of the universe is at stake.” Stephen responded calmly as Charlie stepped through the portal to retrieve Bruce.

Tony scoffed. “And who’s ‘we’?”

Bruce stepped out of the portal towards the couple, Charlie staying behind in the foyer with Wong. “Hey, Tony.”

“Bruce.” Tony acknowdged in surprise. Suddenly Bruce walked forwards, pulling Tony into a tight embrace.

Around five minutes later Tony say on a couch in the Sanctum’s foyer. Charlie cast an illusion as Wong began to speak.

“At the dawn of the universe, there was nothing. Then, boom.” Wong paused as Charlie continued casting the illusion, a number of stars and a galaxy forming as Charlie created visuals of five of the infinity stones. “The Big Bang sent six elemental crystals hurtling across the virgin universe. These Infinity Stones each control an essential aspect of existence.”

Each stone illusion glowed as Charlie named them off. “Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Mind...” Charlie turned to Stephen who opened the Eye of Aggamoto, revealing the sixth stone.

“... and Time.” Stephen finished.

Tony bit his lip. “Tell me his name again.”

“Thanos.” Bruce responded quickly. “He’s a plague, Tony. He invades planets. He takes what he wants. He wipes out half the population. He sent Loki! The attack on New York, that’s him!”

“This is it.” Tony muttered. “What’s our timeline?”

“No telling. He has the Power and Space Stones. That already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe. If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony—“

“He could destroy life on a scale of hitherto undreamt of.” Stephen finished.

Tony did some runner’s stretches casually in the foyer. “Did you seriously just say “hitherto undreamt of”?”

“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?” Stephen mocked, his cloak flicking Tony as he stopped his stretches.

“If Thanos needs all six, why don’t we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?” Tony reasoned.

Stephen shook his head. “No can do.”

“We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.” Charlie crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at Tony.

“And I swore off dairy... but then Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after me, so...”

“Stark Raving Hazelnuts.” Stephen commented in disgust. “A bit chalky.”

Wong shrugged. “A Hunk if Hulk of Burning Fudge is our favorite.”

“Wait! That’s a thing?” Bruce gasped. The banter continued on for a while, Charlie eventually sat on the of the steps with her chin resting on her fists.

Suddenly Charlie was pulled out of her thoughts but a distant rumbling she stood up, looking around before turning to Wong and Stephen.

“Say, Doc, you wouldn’t happen to be moving your hair, would ya?” Tony questioned.

“Not at the moment, no.” Stephen concluded.

Charlie began to tense at the sound of muffled screams. Whipping her head to the door along with the four men in room. Tony walked to the door, opening it to see total chaos. People screaming, horns honking, a heavy wind blowing debris and even people over.

Stephen turned back to Charlie. “Shields up. Stay behind me. No funny business, if we get attacked, hide. Do you understand?” Charlie nodded, summoning her shields. “Good.”

The remaining three followed Tony out, to see him helping out a woman who had fallen before a care crashed into a pole beside them. “Help him!”

Wong gestured to Bruce and Charlie, the girl creating a shield over them as the two men helped the guy out of his crashed car.

They all stood in front of a weird donut shaped shape ship, Charlie staying behind Stephen and Wong with her shields up. Two beings were phased down in front of them a couple yards away. Stephen glances back at Charlie, who gave him a nervous glance, before directing his attention to the creatures.

The smaller creature spoke. “Hear me and rejoice. You are about to die at the hands of the Children of Thanos. Be thankful, that your meaningless lives are now contributing to th-“

“—I’m sorry, Earth is closed today.” Tony shouted. “You better pack it up and get outta here.”

“Stonekeeper.” The creature addressed Stephen directly. “Does this chattering animal speak for you?”

“Certainly not. I speak for myself.” Stephen stepped forwards, himself and Wong summoning their shields. “You’re trespassing in this city and on this planet.”

“He means get lost, Squidward!”

The creature dismissively glanced to the other, bigger alien. “He exhausts me. Bring me the Stone.”

The lumbering creature began to stalk over, Tony nodding to Bruce. “Banner you want a piece?”

However after a few quite embarrassing attempts, it appeared that the Hulk wanted to part in this fight. As the creature began to charge, Tony tapped his reactor, a impressive nanotech suit covering his body as he shot the creature back, before the smaller creature used his powers to shoot Tony out of sight.

Stephen turned to Charlie. “Go. Hide.” He demanded, but she felt like her feet were glued to the pavement staring at the smaller creature in terror. Stephen turned around fully as Tony recovered. “Charlotte! Go! NOW!” He yelled, snapping her out of her daze.

Charlie, seeing the desparateness in his eyes, nodded and ran, kneeling behind a car as she created a shield around herself, covering her head with her hands as she squeezed her eyes shut.

- - - - - -

“-rlie! Charlie! Hey, kid!”

“Charlotte!”

Charlie opened her eyes, removing her hands from her head as she looked up to see Wong and Bruce kneeling in front of her shield, concern in their eyes.

She quickly tore down the shield, standing up. She turned to Wong. “Where’s Stephen?”

The man was silent, his mouth etched into a thin line.

“Wong... don’t... where is he?” She demanded.

“They got him.” Bruce murmured, Charlie whipping her head over to him. “They took him and the stone. Tony went after him.”

Charlie places one of her hands on the back of the car, nodding. Tony was with him. They’d be okay, Stephen was the strongest man she knew. “Okay... okay, what do we do now?”

Bruce walked over to a pile of rubble pulling out a battered flip phone. Charlie followed him, looking at the phone with interest.

Wong created a portal to the Sanctum, drawing their attention. Bruce cleared his throat. “Where you guys going?”

“The Time Stone’s been taken. The Sanctum remains unguarded. What will you do?”

“I’m gonna make a call.” Bruce responded, holding the flip phone up to his ear.

Wong nodded to man before turning to Charlie, nodding his head towards the portal.

Charlie figited with her hands. “Wong?”

The man turned towards her.

“I’m... I’m not coming with you...”

The man furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, turning fully towards the teen. “What?”

“I’m staying here with Dr. Banner.” Charlie reinstated.

Wong��s face hardened. “No.”

Charlie stood her ground. “You are completely capable of protecting the Sanctum yourself. Dr. Banner is defenseless.”

“Stephen would never-“

“Stephen isn’t here!” Charlie hissed. “I’ve been training for three years! I want to be goddamn useful!”

Wong was silent for a moment.

“Fine.”

Charlie smiled, running up to Wong and embracing him. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Wong chuckled, pulling away before fixing Charlie with a stoic face.

“No you won’t.”

With that, the portal closed and she turned towards Bruce, inhaling deeply.

This was still not quite when Charlie met death toe to toe.

- - - - - -

Taglist: @knightofreaders @imabookworm31 @lizlil @viarogers

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Episode 27 “Bizarre! Gran Torino Appears!”

mysterylover123

The Internship arc starts off with a bang! Let’s see that Full Cowl, Deku! 

SORA NI UTAEBA! While the song in this intro is kinda meh to me, the visuals are amazing. I love the symbolism for all the events of the ep - tho not gonna lie, this core’s ED is better than the OP. Anyway tho, go punch that wall Deku!

We start with Gran Torino pretending to be crazy. I’ll admit, I’m kinda eh on this bit, though I love  Gran. It’s probably because I found it annoying when Yoda did it, so I find it annoying here as well. (It’s really just my inner fangirl talking. Nobody makes Deku unhappy except Kacchan. Who can get away with it.)

But actually, this sets up an interesting difference between Deku and Luke, though admittedly situation isn’t the same because Deku knows Gran is Gran. But Deku’s response to this is to call All Might to tell him Gran’s gone senile. He’s so empathetic Deku why aren’t you real? (no shade at Luke there,e I love him too. Just not as much).

“I don’t have time to mess around.” Deku did not come to play.

New costume! It’s incredible how much better it is than the old one. Like, not even funny how much better. Day-um, Deku. 

Pfh Gran knows exactly how to piss off Deku: Insult All Might. You clever little scoundrel.

So onto Deku’s character flaws: 1. He’s overly analytical. Deku doesn’t know how to act quickly, partially due to circumstance, but partially that’s just how he is. Hesitant. Over-cautious, over-thinks things. He needs to learn how to take action - and in this arc, he does indeed do so without hesitation, and saves Iida’s life by so-doing. Box 1 checked off.

2. Deku admires All Might too much. Like every MC in BNHA, his Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Tragedy (insert me telling you to read that essay again). It’s a problem because he doesn’t believe in himself. So he needs to learn not to imitate All Might and be his own hero. That one doesn’t really sink in until the PLE arc. But check.

3. Deku is insecure. He has a massive inferiority complex (which fits nicely into his foil’s inf-sup complex,  wouldn’t-cha-know) and doesn’t believe in himself. So he needs to learn to be more confident. (Is it wrong that I want this to end with him breaking through Instrumentality to a chorus of his friends saying ‘Congratulations’?)

Gran is my favorite Teacher, as a teacher, in BNHA. I’m a teaching-major, and I kinda aspire to his techniques. What I love the most is helping students figure it out themselves. Just telling someone the answer doesn’t help them. It’s so satisfying seeing a student make that breakthrough thanks to your guidance.

Now we’re cutting away to Iida’s internship to remind you Iida Wants Revenge. This is a little exposition-y, let’s cut somewhere else.

OK good, the villains! Right off the bat, we’ve got some great Parallels with the Heroes, as Tomura decides to basically Intern with a Pro-Villain. He even calls Stain a pro. Tho Tomura really needs to work on his recruitment strategy. “Stain join us. Cause.” “Bakugou. Join us. Cause”.

I want Deku and Tomura to build a grand Hero-Villain rivalry. Tomura basically hates him for no real reason right now, and I want there to be a good reason. Other than “He’s All Might’s successor”. I want them to be the Joker and Batman of BNHA with a real complex hero-villain rivalry, where one reflects the other. They’re getting there but I want more.

“Bloodlust without conviction is meaningless.” Ooh I love me some Stain. He really elevated this series’ philosophical side with his ramblings on heroism and villainy.

OK am I creeped out by the fact that All for One just said the same thing I did about learning? A little.

Deku is so brilliant and such a fast learner tho. It doesn’t take him long to put it all together. And Gran actually really admires him for that - I enjoy their mentor dynamic a lot, since Gran has some real respect for Midoriya in a different way from All Might.

Bakugou with Best Jeanist! OMG the comedy gold of this. Though I just want to take a sec to gripe about a change from the manga to the anime: Manga! Bakugou does not charge at Best Jeanist and yell at him. He’s not dumb enough to try that on the #4 Pro Hero and his teacher. He sits still and listens to Jeanist’s lecture. The only Bakugo line here that’s from the manga is “Didn’t you make an offer for me?” This completely changes the way we perceive Bakugo in this scene, and in general. Bad change.

 But in Good Storytelling-ville, I like the continuing parallels between the Wonder duo this creates: Izuku interns in a rundown neighborhood with an unlisted hero, Bakugo in Tokyo with a top pro. Izuku needs to learn to control his power and believe in himself. Katsuki needs to learn to be kinder and more humble. Izuku learns his lesson her, Katsuki doesn’t. Parallels!

Kirishima and Tetsutetsu again! 4th kind is ok. He’s probably the least memorable of the internship pros, since his gimmick is simple and his design kinda dull.

Uraraka and Gunhead! I love how well they get along. He’s kawaii and she’s a hardcore badass. Don’t you forget it!

Now for more of Momo’s arc. The Uwabami internship is usually dismissed by fans as Just Fanservice, but think about it in context, and it becomes really interesting. One, the Hero Killer arc is about Stain protesting the commercialization of heroism, so we do need to have a Pro-Hero demonstrate the problematic nature of that commercialism. Uwabami does just that. Two, we need to have Momo’s internship be unfulfilling to her, to complete her downward trajectory (before the Final Exam arc can bring her back up), so it’s useful for further embarrassing and developing her character. 3, it sets up Momo and Kendo’s future rivalry.

I’ll take more about it in future eps where it appears.

Izuku practicing and constantly hitting his face on the wall is one of those things that makes me wonder if either a) he has a secret endurance quirk or b) OFA just naturally ups your durability. How does he still have a face after that.

Here’s a hot take: Izuku with his face smashed up from spending a night with no sleep training in garbage all night is still prettier than any other guy in this series.

One of the reviewers I follow made the comparison between All Might vs Deku’s using of OFA and Korra vs Aang’s role as the Avatar. You know, All Might and Korra, both master the power pretty quickly so they get to be strong fast but lose out on the spiritual connection a bit, while Deku and Aang take their time learning ofa/the four elements, but get as a tradeoff more of the spirit-y side...(ATLA & BNHA. My 2 favorite shows, alongside FMA. I swear these are like, three sides of the same show).

While I’m watching in the Sub this time around, i wanted to note a dub-ism in this scene: it’s localized to ‘hot pastries’ instead of taiyaki. There’s a lot of bits like that, where they take Japanese food and translate it for us dumb Americans. But well, maybe that made sense in the 90s, when there maybe wasn’t as much cultural crossover, but...even I knew what mochi were before watching BNHA (Uraraka’s fave, and the dub always localizes it to ‘sweets’) and everyone has google if they’re confused so why not just say ‘Taiyaki?’ Ah well, it’s a stupid nitpick but still.

Gran’s metaphor here is so great. As a teacher I aspire to learn from this man. Teach me your teaching ways.

“THIS TAIYAKI IS ME!!!!!” Another dub-ism has him say “I’m not really a dessert” I saw a reactor once comment on this ‘Yeah, but you are a snacc, Deku.’ I wholeheartedly agree.

FULL COWLLLLLLL!!!!!!! FYEAH!!!!!

OK so there are a lot of reasons I love Full Cowl. it’s one of the series’ finest moments, emblematic of what makes it cool. And what makes Deku cool. He’s smart, and has to work his way around problems, and this solution was just...it was there, for us and Izuku the whole time, to finally sit up and take notice of. It’s about applying power in a different way. About taking what you can do and doing the best you can with what you’ve got. A big central theme for the series.  

Also dayum that slow pan up Deku’s entire body as he activates it...he just looks good in this arc. Actually, post-cavalry battle Deku in the sports festival arc always looks weird and odd (because he’s beat up and in pain, duh) and prior to that he was mainly just adorable...this arc, however, is his official transition into Best Boy for Reals. He’s just...swoony. and also really cool, smart, and all sorts of great fangirl-y things. 

We end on a confident Deku smile and Daiki’s adorable ‘hai.’ Basically, i really enjoy this episode. A little slow at the beginning, maybe. But that conclusion is amazing and so worth the payoff. It’s even got this amazing rhyme and rhythm to it, cutting back and forth between the different students and teachers and just having themes echo between each other like poetry. It love it.

To close off: ED4, AKA BEST ED EVER!!!! This is seriously, no sarcasm, best ED. So for those of you who don’t know, the story behind ED4 Datte Atashi no Hero is, 1: The Fantasy AU theme comes from the second popularity poll, which came out around Chapter 120/Episode 61 (yes, THAT one) and for which Horikoshi drew the top 10 in fantasy garb. 2: The Song was written by LiSa and was explicitly stated by her to be effectively about Izuku’s feelings towards Kacchan. I wrote a post analyzing it. It is, basically, the anthem for...

BKDK CORNER

“Loose…” Guess who the first person Deku thinks of to create Full Cowling is? If you sad Kacchan, ding-ding-ding!

On an analytical note, I think it’s very, very significant that the first real breakthrough Deku makes in handling his power comes by observing Kacchan and imitating him. This is one of my Top 20 Favorite BKDK moments, even though it’s completely indirect, because of how important that is in the long-run. But what about the Imitation theme? Why is it OK for Izuku to imitate Katsuki, but not All Might? Well, first of all, he does use Gran Torino’s moves as well, but mainly, I think the series is saying with this distinction that it’s OK to imitate someone if you see their flaws and acknowledge them, but if you hero-worship them and see them as perfect, you’re only going to screw yourself over.  This is why Iida imitating Ingenium, Shoto imitating his mom, Deku and Kacchan imitating All Might, and yes, Uraraka imitating Deku, are all so bad for them. If you see someone as perfect, and want to imitate them, you’ll never achieve that in your mind, because you already view yourself as imperfect. So Deku can imitate Katsuki because he thinks he’s a jerk, but also an amazing fighter, and Gran because he thinks he’s weird, but tough.

Also Deku just automatically thinking of Kacchan first is so damn shippy.

BEST GIRL OF THE EPISODE: Uwabami!

RANKER: Ranking the Internship Pros, least helpful to most.

10. Uwabami

9. Mt. Lady

8. 4th Kind

7. Endeavor

6. Death Arms

5. Manual

4. Selkie and Sirius (anime only)

3. Gunhead

2. Best Jeanist

1. Gran Torino! (Deku lucked out)