#had he not died prematurely at the end of the decade)

[risuola]

Please hear me out!

i’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I wanted to write it myself but I can’t write for shit 😭 Here’s my idea, reader (she/her) is close friends with Satoru and Suguru. She takes Suguru’s place instead, and Suguru ends up not going insane, and decides to stick around in Jujutsu High. But because the reader takes his place in this story, she spirals and abandons the idea of being morally good. (She’s a sensitive softie at heart 🥹 the cruel reality of being a sorcerer really took a toll on her). She commits so many crimes that the higher ups urge the strongest duo to finally execute her after dismissing her for nearly a decade. She dies in their hands, and doesn’t get a proper burial. Kenjaku takes her body and uses it as vessel. When Shibuya arc finally unfolds, she shows up right in front of Satoru and Suguru, alive and well. Soon reveals that it’s Kenjaku who has full control of her body. Of course their guilts eats them alive, and the reader (more like kenjaku) rubs salt on their wounds by taunting them about how she’s a great vessel and also a waste that she had to die so soon.

LOST CAUSE — F. READER x GOJO SATORU + GETO SUGURU, but there’s no romance whatsoever, guest appearance of Kenjaku

cw: an au where SatoSugu have another close friend; spoilers for Hidden Inventory/Premature Death arc and the very beginning of Shibuya arc, so much angst and the usual that comes with JJK – blood, hurt, tears and depression : D also, possibly inaccurate references to the original plot, reader's death — 5,5k words

a/n: I’m hearing you out dear! Thank you for the conception, it certainly fulfilled my need to write long and angsty <3

It was stupid. All of it was stupid. Why? Which decisions led you to where you now stood, all of your mind and body filled with devastation as you stilled in time – above the piles of little corpses, disfigured and permanently contorted in a grimace of dread and suffering. A stench of blood and burned bodies irritated your nostrils, your eyes were teary from all the smoke that still was filling the air and as you looked down at your hands, they were covered in blood and purple goo. Sticky. Repulsive. And the screams. In the dead silence of your surroundings, your head was still filled with an echo of those, who were now dead at your feet. Those, who you were unable to save. The imagery of them running, begging, dying carved itself into your mind. Why were you here, again?

* * *

“Hey, y/n, you’ve lost some weight. Are you alright?”, Satoru asked, playing with pencil that just a moment ago he asked you to throw at him. A showcase of his new skills, the techniques he’s been perfecting for the last year after encountering Toji Fushiguro. You forced a smile, squinting from the blinding sun of the summer at its peak.

“Yeah, sure,” you replied, patting Suguru’s shoulder, because his attentive eyes were scanning you already for any sign of disorder; you could hear his analytic brain cranking up, his golden pupils drilling holes in your head. “I’m good, it’s just too hot you know?”

“Wanna go grab some ice cream later?”

“Always.” No, you didn’t wanna go grab ice cream with them. You didn’t wanna grab anything with anyone for that matter and already you had come up with some half-baked excuse to sell later to your two best friends.

You, Shoko, Gojo and Geto were all in the same year in Jujutsu high. You joined them a little late, but quickly found yourself inside the love triangle with the two boys. You called it love, but it truly was nothing more than just a bonding friendship that you wished will last forever; a really close one and you couldn’t imagine your world without their chaos. They were like brothers to you, the ones you’ve never had and Ieiri was like a sister, but she was smart enough to keep her distance from the mess of SatoSugu. You were not as bright in that matter, but for two years, you couldn’t appreciate enough the yin and yang that they created, the casual bickers and deep talks late at night, the cuddles and pinches, the pats and smacks, the tears and laughs, sleepovers, sleepless nights and everything between. You loved them, you couldn’t think of your future without them.

That’s until not that long ago. Few months, maybe. You felt like you’ve been spiraling slowly into something that could only be named depression, because if not that, then what else? Why would you randomly tear up nowadays, zoning out completely in the midst of sentences. Why would you spend nights, blankly staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping, isolating yourself from your friends more and more? And why would you still hear that? The screams, the pleads of hysteric, the soul-tearing sounds of pain and frighten that you’ve been carrying inside your brain since that one mission.

Everything went wrong then, and you were alone. Shoko stayed at the campus, working her way towards becoming a doctor and you, Satoru and Suguru were assigned only to solo missions since the plasma vessel failure. You were strong, it was stated that your year was exceptional, that all of you have a chance to become special grades soon, but you hated that. Being strong came with a burden that you were not ready to take, and when you realized that, most of it was already heaving on your shoulders.

When you got to that school, it was already too late and it wasn’t your fault. You rushed there as soon as you were assigned with the job, but when you dropped the curtain and looked at the building, there was already smoke coming from the window holes, that some time earlier had glass in them. And when you kicked your way inside the little indoor sports arena, the view struck you in ways you couldn’t possibly prepare yourself for and certainly, you couldn’t process it as well. The school was primary, those people were just kids, but the curses pay no mind to age of their victims. This one was particularly playful – or rather, eagerly violent – spreading hellfire around, burning these children alive one by one, causing chaos, suffering and bloodshed. When you finished exorcising it, it was over. For the curse, for your job and for the lives of all of those children. None survived. Not even one.

Not always we can save everyone, Suguru always told you, rationalizing the sacrifices sorcerers have to make and you tried to repeat that in your head when you got out. You tried to play it over the screams, but eventually, the soft tone of your friend’s voice got lost in the catastrophic cacophony of sorrow, sizzling skin and burning death. And that, maybe wouldn’t be enough for you to lose your mind. Maybe you could recover from that, but soon after the incident you witnessed the group of people that stood behind the assault. A band of grown humans, men and women, who were convinced some of those children were possessed by devils or some other shit, so in all hypocrisy known to race, they hired a curse user to fight fire with fire. Quite literally. Those people were so blinded by their fear of unknown that they sacrificed lives of dozens of little children, they shattered so many innocent lives only because they believed in something absurd. And then, they tried to push the blame on you, on sorcerers despite the fact they hired one to do the dirty job. And then, they killed the user, fearing him too. When you’ve got to see the body of a sorcerer that you’ve never got to meet, or at least you thought so, you realized that probably, you wouldn’t recognize him anyway. You’ve seen corpses barely reminiscing of humans, twisted and broken as curses often chose the most petrifying, violent ways of killing, but this? This was something you’ve never seen before – a cruel, ruthless exhibition of pure hate, evidence of deliberate torture, the picture painted in stabs, burns and bruises. All of which, caused by people, who frankly, showed no remorse nor regret as their faces were painted in pride, origin of which you failed to notice.

Those humans. Used jujutsu to commit mass murder only to blame it on your people and kill them. Animals. No. Worse. Much worse.

“Y/n, please, let’s talk it through,” Suguru tried to reason, as you stood up against the two of your friends, in the middle of Shibuya’s scramble crossing. People were passing next to the three of you, unbothered by the way your worlds were colliding right here, in the busiest part of Tokyo. People didn’t care of others, they wouldn’t react if someone next to them would get stabbed to death, only caring about their own shoes to not get them stained in the dirt of blood.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not who you are,” Satoru raised his tone, but all you felt was nothing. The emotions you’ve seen on his face were real, you knew it. Satoru wears his heart on his shoulder, he pours everything he feels into the words he aims at people that are close to his soul, and you were no exception, but at this moment, you felt nothing. “I know you couldn’t do that.”

“Couldn’t I?”, you asked, thinking back on the last Friday, during which you executed those same people that used jujutsu sorcerers to wipe the floors of that primary school. To wipe the blood and burned bodies. You remember how they knelt before you, how the women cried begging for their lives, yelping that they have children, families and yet, those same children and families were nowhere in their mind when they ordered a mass murder in the primary school. “And why would that be exactly? Because you two think so?”

“Y/n, I get it,” Geto stepped forward, but stopped as you glanced at him. “I really do. You know me, we talked about it. It was hard for me too after Riko, I know what you’re going through.”

“I know Suguru.”

“I thought you keep his side, y/n,” Gojo threw his hands in the air, helplessly trying to find the words to dress his mind with. “I thought you believe in doing good with your powers. That people won’t understand so we shouldn’t look at them and just do what we do. Wasn’t that what you’ve told me?”

“I did, yes,” you gave it a nod and exhaled. “But it changed. Yes, they won’t understand. Anything that they can’t comprehend is pure evil for them and yet they believe in such absurd like gods. They will use us to do their dirty works and then blame us for it, because they cannot understand a single thing. And then, they will kill us, one by one and we, the strongest, cannot do nothing about it. We’ll have to go through life through the corpses of our friends. People don’t deserve what we do for them.”

“Y/n, please, let’s talk about it. Let’s get back to school-“ Geto tried, but you cut him off.

“You two, get back to school. I know I have a sentence already, there’s no point for me to get back there only to get executed. And frankly, I don’t want to get back there, to take part in what they teach us is right when we die for those people. We give our lives for them and they have no idea,” you said, taking a step back. You could tell the lights will soon switch. “Look around, Satoru, Suguru. They crawl around us unaware of our sacrifice and yet, even if they are so fragile a single blow can kill them, they think we deserve to be killed. I’m not gonna take part in this anymore. I’m sorry.”

“We can’t let you go, you know that, we-“

“Then attack me. I’m sure any of you can take me down. I’d rather die by your hands, than on a job of protecting them.”

You turned your back on them, and Satoru raised his hand, pointing at your silhouette, blue already on his mind as his cursed energy gathered in front of his fingers. Suguru’s curses sprawled out of their dimension, but none of them pursued with the attack, unable to do that. They couldn’t kill you. You were too dear to them. They loved you too much to take your life like this. So they let you go, and soon enough, they lost the sight of you in the crowd.

* * *

Nine years. It's been almost a decade and many things changed. You changed your ways completely, making a point of protecting sorcerers from people, even if that meant killing them, but care for humans was something you’ve lost many years ago, having it slowly replaced by disgust. Your once soft heart turned hard and dark and all the good in you vanished as you time after time solidified your beliefs that humans are simply not worth saving, therefore there was no need to keep them alive the moment they became useless. Over those years, you used those people to your benefit, raising money and gathering intel and then, the second their use to you has become nonexistent, so were them. Blood burned permanent stains on your hands but screams of hurt didn’t phase you at all. Have you become a monster? You might have. But for the lives of sorcerers, it was worth it.

It’s been almost a decade since you’ve been dismissed from jujutsu community for crimes, that over those years piled up rapidly and during this time, both Satoru and Suguru tried to stay out of this, whilst Yaga turned a blind eye to the corrupted path one of his students went down by. The now principal felt responsible for not doing enough, for not saying enough, for not noticing soon enough and though the rest of his students, now teachers in Jujutsu high told him that some things were inevitable, it wasn’t that easy to switch off the thinking. Same went for both the strongest, but for years, they waited in hopes for something to change.

That was until you killed someone seemingly important. A politician of sorts, high government pawn that you learned was funding a unit of so-called sorcerer killers, ones that modelled after Toji Fushiguro in cold blood were meant to take down a menace that jujutsu users were, as if it was them who were the ones to fear. Opposite to little no-one’s deaths, this one was loud, this one was medial and this one, Yaga couldn’t let slip. So, an order was given.

Kill on sight.

Almost ten years, and yet Satoru still couldn’t believe what happened. Whilst young, the three of you were almost inseparable and you, out of the whole group, were the most sensitive person he knew. You were soft and full of smiles, kind above all else and yet, you were strong enough to hold back the tears he knew were threatening to roll down your cheeks on many occasions. You were soothing, an oasis that was easily able to turn any darkness into light, and what Satoru couldn’t forgive himself was that once that same darkness started devouring you, he didn’t notice. Too focused on his own missions, on lighthearted shenanigans, on perfecting his usage of limitless and six eyes, he had no idea about your state of mind and when he realized, you have already been sentenced. Suguru didn’t notice either. Or maybe didn’t want to notice, because you talked through many nights about the doubts you both had. He knew about the utter devastation that was slowly consuming your soul but hoped you’ll overcome it, because you always were a sunshine, and a sunshine couldn’t die down to shadows. Turned out, this shadow was pitch black and no light made its way through it.

“Y/n,” they called you and the beautiful music that their voices created brought back memories of your youth. Ten years, almost, had passed since you’ve seen your best friends the last time, and with curiosity sparkling through your system, you turned to face them.

“Satoru, Suguru,” addressing them, your lips curved up slightly in a manner of soft joy. Your heart fluttered at the sight; your pulse raised just as it would for person who’s just seen the love of their life. “Long time no see.”

“It’s not as pleasurable as we would like it to be, y/n,” Suguru sighed and you took a moment to absorb the view.

Both of them changed. Suguru, still tall and broad, seemingly even buffier than he was before stood there with his hair now longer and partially knotted and partially left loose on his back. His facial features sharpened, jaw got more edge to it, eyes turned more narrow and focused, but still, some softness remained from what you remembered and probably he would seem even more familiar if not for the tough expression he had going on. Satoru, right next to him, became even taller. His white hair was now pointing up, kept by a white wrap that completely covered his eyes – something that he probably adapted during the time of usage of his six eyes. Not much of his face you could see, but with ease you noticed his features matured. Both were dressed in uniforms that you could only tie to their unbreakable bond with Jujutsu high.

“You’re now teachers, the two of you, huh?”, you asked, smiling softly, but keeping their moves in mind. “I’ve heard this year’s students are exceptional, now it makes sense. Good they have such amazing senseis.”

“You could have been one of the teachers too,” Gojo snapped.

“How could I teach anyone something I don’t believe in?” a chuckle rumbled deep in your chest as you thought of the image. Abstraction of it made you amused. “How’s Shoko? Is she a doctor now?

“She is,” Geto muttered, unsure why is he answering your questions. “Yaga is the principal.”

“Oh, is he? Look at him, climbing up that ladder,” you laughed, “so, it’s on his orders that you two are here?”

“You killed a fucking politician, y/n,” Satoru spoke, sounding calm but you could tell his blood was boiling. Both of his hands hidden in his pockets were visibly clenched in fists and even though you couldn’t see his eyes, you knew his brows were furrowed. “Almost a decade we allowed you to do whatever you tried to do, but this time, higher ups stepped in. The sentence is decided, we cannot let you pursue your goals further.”

“And why are you both here? I’m sure just one amazing special grade would be enough,” there was a certain amount of poison in your words, though it wasn’t directed at your friends and both of them knew it. “Are the higher ups so desperate to get me off the board because it’s them who give green lights to those assholes that kill us? Did you know that that pathetic politician I’ve killed was in midst of creating an army of little Toji Fushiguros? How do you think he even knew about the dude, huh?”

“An army of Toji?”

“Yeah, remember that guy, that cut both of you into slices? Yea, that one. And who’s giving away the cursed tools to said army? Well, it’s not me and I assume not any of you as well.”

 “Y/n,” Suguru made his way to the side in what seemed like an attempt on surrounding you, because in that same moment, Satoru began shifting to the other side. “I agree with you. People don’t deserve what we do. But no one else can do it. You’re killing those whom we swore to protect.”

“Tell me, Suguru… how many bodies of our friends did Shoko cut open?” you asked and the question made the dark-haired man tsk. It was the truth that hurt the most, he hated how precisely it hit the spot. “How many of our allies were spread across her metal table after Haibara was there? Well, half of Haibara?”

“That’s not the point,” Satoru scoffed and with an exhale, he raised his hand up to loosen up the bandages around his eyes. “We die just as people die. Sorcerers are not above death. You know that, right?”

“We’re not above that, but we are above people and we risk our lives, which we just like them have only one of, for them. And they fuckingstep on it. If I have to pick who’s gonna die from a curse, why would I pick a sorcerer, when a loss of a mere human will be much less tangible than the loss of one of us?”

“Because they cannot protect themselves from curses, and we can.” Geto replied and in a whiff, you felt the appearance of his curses around him. Both him and Gojo were getting ready for a fight, so you had to get ready as well.

“But can we really protect ourselves from them?”, you glared back at him; your tone calm but laced with icicles that pierced through Suguru’s mind as he struggled to see you inside of you.

All of the softness he had always equated you with dissolved into something he couldn’t quite place. Image of you killing someone just for the sake of killing somehow couldn’t materialize inside his mind and it pained him, breaking his heart to think that he will be the reason of your death. And it’s true that probably, just one of them would be enough for that fight, but there was no way they would be able to chose and no one else could do it. You were the strongest, you grew into a special grade quickly after leaving and your technique proved to have no flaws or holes. You were a threat above abilities of others, stepping down only to the two of your friends, if not being equal to them.

“Let’s do it quickly, Suguru,” Satoru sighed, tucking his wraps into one of his pockets.

“Oh, where’s your playful attitude, Satoru?”, you teased, but somehow it hurt you as well. It was your friend you were talking to. Both of them, that came here to kill you and only way for you to get out of it was to kill them.

And killing them, turned out, you couldn’t do. Even hurting them came with difficulty not physically, but mentally. But you fought them both at the same time, keeping a defensive stance, searching for an opening to vanish. From them, you wished to run away, to not make them take the burden of your death because you could see it in their eyes, you were just as dear to them still, as they were to you. But they left you no opening to run away, so you fought. Using everything you’ve got to immobilize them, because instead of taking their lives, that would give you more time.

The way you stood against them, with your cursed technique of energy manipulation, it gave them the hardest time since Toji, and considering they were both taking part in the fight now, ten years after and significantly stronger, just showed how much work you’ve put into your own development. And with pride you noticed, how strong both of your friends became as well. You countered all of their attacks, slashed away the curses and blocked the blues and reds, albeit it really was a matter of time and you knew that. And so, you pushed through, materializing in your hands weapons made from pure, solidified cursed energy, using swords and needles and creating armor around your body that effectively, shielded you from any attack. Your weapon was different from cursed tools. It was made only from energy, strong and unbendable, changing shapes and forms as you deemed it necessary, allowing you to use it in close combat and on long distances. Any curses Suguru summoned stood no chance against what you wielded, but the sheer amount of them was just short of overwhelming you. On top of that, Satoru’s constant offensive, his fists saturated in limitless abilities, the sheer strength of both bodies that were attacking you, slowly rendered you weaker. And it didn’t surprise you.

The end has come when one of the curses stopped you mid-way, engaging in a fight that distracted you enough for a hollow purple to reach your body. The blast threw you away as your body pierced through three buildings straight, through thick concrete bocks and hard steel reinforcements like it was tearing through wet paper and it’s only thanks to the full body coverage of your cursed technique, that it didn’t kill you on the spot. But it hurt. All of your body felt broken once you finally stopped, back pressed against the wall that still cracked underneath the impact of your frame hitting it. Blood covered your vision and a cough shook your body with painful wave overtaking your entire nervous system.

“So that’s the infamous hollow purple, huh?”, you muttered, leaning your head back against the cold solid behind you. There wasn’t much in your body that wouldn’t be fractured at least, you could tell without a mistake that your heart was still beating only because of the cursed energy that still circled throughout your frame.

Both men appeared in front of you, jumping from above – Suguru coming from one of his flying curses and Satoru, probably just teleported here.

“I’m sorry, y/n,” Gojo whispered, squatting in front of you and Geto followed his motion to level his vision with yours.

“’ts alright, ‘toru,” you muttered, feeling the dizziness taking the best of you. After the hit you took, you were certain not even a genius like Shoko could save you. “Sugu… both so strong.”

Exchanging a quick glance, both sorcerers sat down, on your sides, paying no mind to the puddle of blood underneath you. They took your hands, so small in comparison to theirs, now red and wounded severely, but the pain you couldn’t feel much of anymore.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take this mission for you. Back in our days. It was meant to be mine, but I was training,” Satoru confessed, squeezing lightly the fractured bones in your palm, reminiscing of the day that was the beginning of your end. The elementary. That day engraved itself in his memory as one of many days that seemingly mattered nothing. Yaga told him about the issue, the curse and fire in school for the youngest, but he brushed it off, focusing all of his mind on perfecting the last touches of his technique. He still remembers how sensei was mumbling profanities, but couldn’t care less because he was that close from teleporting.

“’ts okay, ‘toru.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there either,” Suguru added, his voice barely a whisper as you leaned your head against his shoulder, desperate to ease the heaviness. What Geto remembered from the day in question was that he had an issue with his own technique. Little difficulty, as he was absorbing one of the special grade curses he just caught. It wasn’t severe, it wasn’t even that important, he could have fix this on another time and take the god damn mission, but instead, he declined. “I thought if I don’t take the job, Satoru will, but turned out, it got to you.”

“Sugu, ‘ts ok.”

“Remember how we used to sneak out the dorms to get ice cream in the middle of the night?”, Satoru changed the topic completely – a defensive mechanism to lighten up the mood, to prevent him from crying. And you hummed in response, lowering your heavy lids.

“And how Satoru got drunk after three sips of a beer? That’s when we all knew he’s the lightest head in the history,” Suguru added and faded images of how Gojo discovered that he cannot drink to save his life rushed to the front of your mind.

You had no idea how long it took, was it few minutes or merely few seconds, but you listened to both men rambling above your head, reminiscing of your school days and everything that you did together. Of every prank you witnessed that they took on poor first years, of every little mischief and menace they performed, following Satoru’s lead, because it’s always him who stood tall in the name of chaos. You were humming softer and softer, quieter and quieter.

Until you were not.

“And then we put those cupcakes in Nanami’s bed and-“

“Satoru,” Geto cut him softly, looking down at your stilled frame. At your frozen chest and softened features, sensing no more heartbeat. And Gojo turned his eyes towards you as well, taking in the last picture of you, who he loved as his little sister, even though there was no age gap between you and him. And then they both cried in silence, spending another hour with your dead body before gathering you and taking home.

* * *

October 31, 2018

21:18

Only word that could describe what was happening in Shibuya at this moment would be chaos. Pure disorder, people frightened and running, some unconscious on the ground and some other hiding from what was happening in the Shibuya station. Most of them couldn’t see it but felt the terror, saw the blood, smelled the death in the middle of which, two men were standing.

Both Satoru and Suguru, when they came down here to fight whatever the hell was attacking people, couldn’t move; their heads void of any logical thoughts as memories rushed to the fronts of their minds. Stunned to the core and frozen, they looked into the eyes of the person in front of them, distrusting their own vision. The person that wore the familiar look of you, the energy of you and what seemed like – the same cursed technique, and voice, and face, and hair, and everything. Not one thing betrayed trickery or deception as there you stood, facing them both with a smile on your face – one of those soft ones that had melted their hearts on the spot a decade before. Your features relaxed, genuine, borderline joyous as you breathed the air around them once again.

“What…?”, Suguru snapped first, forcing his own body to move and smacking his friend’s shoulder. “How?”

“Who the hell are you…?”, Satoru whispered, voice stuck in his throat as all of the information that his senses were receiving contradicted with what his soul was telling him.

“Aah? It’s been few months, but do you not recognize me anymore?”, your voice flew through your mouth, the very same gentle and bright tone they used to fall asleep to. “It’s hurting my feelings.”

“Cut it,” Gojo snapped, now putting more pressure on his vocal cords, a groan escaping his throat in effect. “Cut the bullshit, you’re not her. You cannot be her. Y/n is-“

“Dead? Yeah, that purple really messed me up,” you chuckled, shrugging your shoulders slightly and stepping forward. “I have to admit, restoring the body wasn’t the easiest of all.”

“Reveal yourself,” Geto took the defensive stance, ready to pursue with attack if needed and his curses floating behind him on standby. “You’re not fooling us.”

“Ah, how stubborn,” another laugh brightened your face, only now more menacing, more teasing as your dainty fingers reached up to gather the lose hair out of your forehead, revealing a line of thin stitches across your skin there. “See, you really did me a favor by burying her body oh-so traditionally. Isn’t that the procedure to burn every deceased sorcerer?” your mouth was moving, spilling the words interlaced with taunt as the, what looked like, thread was pulled out of the horizontal line above your eyebrows and soon after, grabbed by the hair, the top of your head was lifted, revealing the terrifying image of a brain. With mouth of its own.

“What did you do to her?!”

“Oh, I just took what you two threw away,” you replied, slowly putting the upper skull part down on its place, matching the lines as the thread went through the holes by itself, securing the head together. “And I have to thank you for your little sentiment. If not for that, I wouldn’t have my perfect vessel. Ah, but it’s sad, isn’t it? Such a young, pretty girl had to die so early, and more so, killed by her own best friends. What a waste to jujutsu community, don’t you think?”

Both the boys stood there in shock, guilt eating them alive as the salt and acid was being rubbed into the wounds that just opened. The scabs of the past were ripped away, revealing the gushing pain and Satoru growled in anger, realizing that once again, he might have been responsible for what happened to you. This time, Suguru kept up with him in terms of fury, feeling his own blood boiling in his veins, unable to watch your body being possessed like this, used like a toy.

“Y/n, I know you’re there-“ Gojo called, but got stopped quickly by another pilfering laugh.

“Oh, but she’s not. Her soul is long gone and dead. You made sure to have her soul dead, and you have to know I nearly teared up reviewing her memories when I took the body. Such a poignant story, oh, so heartbreaking.” The teasing had no end as more and more poisonous venom spilled through your mouth, contradicting the carefree and joyful tone of your voice.

“What makes you believe that even if you take her body, you can win here? We’ve defeated her already,” Suguru narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, you’ve won but that’s because she let you two won. Wasn’t that surprising how easily you finished her? A special grade? How she didn’t even try to dodge the hollow purple, like the little curse that she was fighting with was really that much of a struggle? Oh, don’t be silly, you two. It wouldn’t be that easy if she tried.”

“We won’t let you-“

“You must understand your situation. What you’re standing in is a special grade cursed object. A prison realm, and to say it simply, you’ve already lost,” you pointed at the floor, from where the four corners of a cube stretched into a mass of flesh, with an eye – giant and bleeding, staring at its target, as the next stage of sealing began before either of sorcerers reacted. “And what’s more interesting, the prison realm can seal only one person at the time, but with the incredible technique of my current host, I was able to fuel its capacity to two occupants, by manipulating the cursed energy it used. Marvelous!”

The cursed object began enveloping both men, rendering them helpless and immobile, as their cursed energy became unavailable for their use.

“We’ll save you, y/n, you hear me?”, Satoru yelled in unison with his friend and the lone tear rolled down your face, before your hand reached up wiping it in amusement.

“Gate close.”

[fumifooms]

I think you made me start shipping Marchil

Your posts got me thinking about their dynamic then I wrote a fic that was supposed to be platonic but midway through I realized it could actually be interpreted as romantic too and now I'm just sad about how little time they'll have together

First of all, you have a lovely icon, second, I’m so honored… I finally read Not a bad way to go and it was soo so good like. My god!!! Pre-canon is underused and you did so many interesting things with it.

It sounded like a cruel joke, that the one who needed her concern the most was also the one least interested in it.

^^^ go read it go read it

Chilchuck was drunk enough that he needed to hold onto the walls not to fall, but apparently still sober enough to remember emotional vulnerability was his worst enemy, as he made sure to avert her eyes and said: “Namari made me come talk to you ” to make it clear he wasn't being nice voluntarily.

Yeah.

“Of course I'm scared of dying.” He scoffed. Did she really think so little of him? “But if I could choose, I would want to die doing something I love, like drinking. Or maybe fucking,”

Maybe you wish you didn’t know but my new favorite HC because of this is that Chil dies yes prematurely not of liver failure though but during coitus. Especially if marchil, the thought of him busting a nut and his heart giving out makes me laugh so hard. My god. Lmao. Oh god. Lmfao. Worst day of her life

Marcille knew Chilchuck wasn't a kid, but she often struggled to take him seriously as an adult because he was just so adorable and small. In this moment, however, she saw them exactly for what they were, even if it was just a glimpse. A sheltered, naive little girl trying to tell a tired, much more experienced man how to live the rest of his life.

Standing ovation

She tried to find an explanation to give him, but she couldn't even find one for herself. Why would she miss him? He was just Chilchuck, her coworker, Chilchuck who was cold, aloof, sometimes crass, evasive, and even outright mean. He who was level headed, reliable, trustworthy, perceptive and clever. He who had the least time left, even in a best case scenario. “I guess that despite your best efforts, there's still a lot to like about you.”

This fic goes so hard, standing ovation pt 2

“I just think it's better if we don't get too close. Don't you agree?” “I… maybe” she said, uncertain as he didn't know how to feel about that. Caring about people would only hurt her in the wrong run, she knew that, but unfortunately she couldn't help it.

I looove how they can be read to be similar on this aspect. My hand clenching around my phone as I rear up to rant about Marcille and the way she does keep people at an arm’s length subconsciously again my god my goood. Obsessed with this obsessed with this, underused for marchil. Terrified of loss through death vs rejection duo I love youuu

Brilliant ending I’m in shambles. I’m not gonna spoil it

You get marchil so much you truly do. The way they mesh, the way their views on mortality clash and both soothe & bruise… He doesn’t have much time left even in best case scenario (which Mr I won’t eat well I’ll drink and smoke a lot I’ll stress all day every day is determined to not make happen) which makes it all the more meaningful for Marcille’s arc when she learns from him to finally enjoy the present moments… It’ll only be a fraction of her life, but to him he’s giving her the rest of his life. What are some decades of love worth? Worth it, surely, if nothing else

[gatheringbones]

[“My father died in his sixties of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that affects multiple organs in the body, including the lungs and heart. The physician who performed my father’s autopsy told me that his lungs, heart, spleen, and brain were so damaged that he must have had undiagnosed and untreated sarcoidosis for decades, and that, given the widespread damage to his vital organs, it was surprising he was even able to remain upright toward the end of his life. For years before his death, his body was a Jenga tower one move away from collapse.

Though this appeared nowhere in the official cause of death, one could certainly speculate that my father’s premature death was the result of unrelenting social pressure on top of childhood trauma—or, in other words, weathering. And there was a generational legacy of weathering to contend with, too—not just his own, but the weathering that was passed down to him from his family, whose uphill battles began in the shtetl and continued after their escape from persecution in Russia, when they came to America as poor immigrants and settled down to a difficult life in a working-class urban ghetto. Being targeted for genocide, and suffering the losses of two of her children and the slaughter of her parents, plunged my father’s mother into depression and left her desperately anxious about the health of her youngest son.

In current parlance, we would speculate that my father was affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), a type of trauma that is associated with diminished health in later life. Examples of ACEs include losing a family member to death or to prison, being depressed or having a primary caregiver who is depressed, going hungry for long periods, and suffering neglect or abuse. Today, scientists have found evidence that if you were subject to ACEs during critical periods of your brain development, your brain architecture may be affected such that your threshold for physiological stress arousal is permanently lower (meaning it is triggered more easily). To the extent that you will live your life in similarly adverse circumstances, having this lower threshold can be adaptive. But what if the adversity you actually face is entirely different from the circumstances in which you were born?

Imagine what it would be like if your brain architecture was calibrated by a world rife with ACEs, yet, as you grew up, you entered an environment that contained none of the kinds of threats or stressors your brain had prepared you for. You went to school with, worked with, or lived next to members of communities whose neurological threshold for stress arousal was shaped by enjoying lives of privilege and safety. Your hair-trigger reactions to perceived threats could get you dismissed as uncivil, touchy, hot-tempered, a troublemaker, or a snowflake. Your more privileged classmates or coworkers or neighbors could feel superior as they patted themselves on the back for remaining civil and calm, letting verbal provocations roll off their back or, worse, being happily unaware that the substance of their civil discourse could, in fact, be a verbal provocation to race-conscious ears. They would not understand that your brain and body were adapted for responding to a world filled with threats and that you had been primed to be in a continuous state of vigilance. Or you knew that when the privileged performed civility, that alone did not imply they weren’t proliferating racist ideas.

This appears to have been my father’s lived experience as an adult. He probably lived in a permanently sustained or easily escalated state of physiological stress arousal, which over time weathered his body. For my father, achieving an advanced education conferred real material benefits and privileges. These were important prizes, and they offered my sisters and me a degree of financial security and opportunities he never had in his youth; yet, for my father, this alone was not enough to heal his early and intergenerational traumas, or to prevent the physiological damage that led to his early death.”]

arline t. geronimus, from weathering: the extraordinary stress of ordinary life in an unjust society, 2023

[taraljc]

I ended up reading all the Lockwood & Co novels, am waiting on Corgi editions to reread, and am trying to figure out what happened to Tom Rotwell. Did we ever find out anything apart from Marissa and Tom fell out, and his adult son grandson currently runs his agency?

ETA: I have a lot of questions about the timeline.

SPOILERS FOR ALL 5 NOVELS AHEAD!

I know the TV show is set a decade after the books and in the books Fittes and Rotwells first case The Mud Lane Phantom was in 1962, and Marissa died at age 40. But where is Tom's gigantic tomb and statue? Or did Marissa bury him literally and figuratively?

If they fell out only 5 years later in 1967, he still would have been all of 20 or so when he founded Rotwells. Yet Steve is greying when he first appears in book 3--and it's implied that the gate he created under the department store was his first, so he can't be rapidly aging the way Marissa did.

And who was Grace Peel, and how did she die? Was she really a martyr? Or was she just another person ground up and spit out by Fittes' ambitions?

Why did Tom and Marissa fall out? What's the real story there? Did he know when they first teamed up that Marissa was in fact the source of The Problem? Because it's not as if Marissa Fittes is a reliable narrator.

All we know is they both died young--and Marissa died in her 40s, prematurely aged by her trips to the Other Side. But did Tom know Marissa was in fact possessing her own granddaughters body, and had murdered her own adult daughter? Did Steve Rotwell even know anything about that, when he planned the attack at the Chelsea carnival?

What actually happened to Penelope Fittes soul? Was her consciousness suppressed, or was she completely ousted? How did Marissa even know how to possess a living body? What actually is Ezekiel? Could Tom see him with his Sight?

For that matter why is it that Talent fades? Is it physiological, or something else? Because one way to keep control of The Problem is definitely to limit who can see Visitors to children (who are presumably malleable and also immediately distrusted by adults).

Clearly Marissa Fittes never lost her Talent, so does that mean Lucy won't either? Does it have something to do with prolonged exposure to Type Three Visitors? Or is it like how due to the way our inner ears grow, there are high frequencies that even at high decibels people over 25 can't hear?

I'm just full of a zillion questions about who knew what and when, and how. Who started Sunrise? How does Tom fit in with the Orpheus Society? Who founded it?

I'm going to end up writing a novella. *facepalm*

EMETA: I should stress that me having a zillion questions in no way is this a criticism of Stroud. In fact, it's more likely a consequence of the books being written first person from future Lucy's point of view, and therefore the readers are limited to what she experiences and learns. I suspect that if the books had been from George's point of view, we would know way more about everything that happened from 1962 to 2017 before the first book, rather than little hints here and there because George is 300% all about the problem with like 5% of his consciousness reserved for Flo.

[bafflement]

RWBY and the protector god archetype

The one thing we really learned in season 9 was that the god of dark and the god of light have a history of leaving others to do the work they should have done themselves. Just look at the Cat as an example. They left the ever after to become gods to worlds they created, after all... but all they were looking for was the slightest excuse to leave.

The brothers are sort of... flaky. They come, create things, then disappear again as soon as their creations dare to disagree with them. They hold themselves to rules they themselves enforce, as though they see everything as a game. Which considering the tree created them, might not be entirely inaccurate. They, for gods, might be very young and very immature. After all, that was never their original purpose.

But they left Remnant to the Grimm and Salem and didn't do a thing to protect it. They killed off humanity entirely, knowing it would return but not really caring what would happen when they did.

So you have a single, cursed human wandering a very much empty world, learning to control the Grimm to have some sort of friends... and no longer caring what happens to humanity when they make that inevitable re-emergence. All Salem has wanted for countless centuries is to die, after all...

And then they grant her wish. Sort of. They bring Ozma back, charged with uniting - but not protecting - humanity. All they bother telling him is that he wll be bought back in such a way as that he's never alone, so when he finds that Salem is still around, he thinks 'I was meant to go back.' Which, of course, ends in tragedy, she can never be the woman he remembers after all.

But. But he wanders, after Salem kills Ozma 2.0. Sometimes he sinks into despair, sometimes he runs away, but that spark inside never truly dies out. Ozma was, and will always be a warrior, after all.

He gives the maidens their powers, maybe with a failsafe, maybe not. He passes out his own power because he no longer feels worthy of it.

Then he looks out, sees the Faunus and Humanity both struggling against... dying against... the Grimm. They can't protect themselves, they haven't got magic or powers or really any defence. So he grants them that power. Looks deep inside each of them, human and faunus alike and grants them the ability to create auras. 'You gave us magic!" They say, and he can only sigh and tell them they have a semblance of magic, not the real thing. But it's enough, it has to be enough.

Then he rests, hoping his magic will recover and it... does. Sort of, but not fully. It's in too many hands now, after all and no matter how much he wishes his power back, that everybody else is protected is far more important than whether he is. He'll come back, they won't.

Eventually, he wakes up in the body of a prince... and knows he can't hide who and what he is anymore. A prince running away and becoming a hermit isn't actually that plausible, after all. By then, he's asked the questions of the relics... knows he can never defeat Salem. But some evil never dies and as long as the world has hope, that has to be enough.

He tells a few of his advisors the truth of what he is. That he's the infinite man, that that rather embarrassing fairy tale has more than a grain of truth. To watch for the next one, because he never stays dead forever, whether that wait be months or decades. He tries to warn them that whoever he is next could be anyone at all, not even necessarily a warrior. They don't listen.

So he wins his war, knowing it's not truly the one that matters. Knowing it never will be, because if Salem had a hand in this one at all, it was unseen. As invisible as she ever is, like smoke in the wind.

But she is evil, will always be evil. So he founds the hunters academies and prays that those being trained to fight the darkness will realise that Salem is a monster, too.

Then he dies, a few decades after winning the war. Sinking down under the premature weight of the years he's lived and the lifetimes he has not. His advisors start to scan the four kingdoms for his successor. It's a long wait.

Finally a fragile child emerges. Maybe he's a native Vale resident, maybe he isn't. Maybe he's a runaway, a lost boy. Maybe he's a kidnap victim. But whoever and whatever he is, all they see is the fragility. The health issues, the limp, the sheer frailness of the child's shaking limbs. They're... not happy.

Because they expected a warrior and got a child who's probably never even picked up a weapon before. That doesn't know how to fight, to protect himself, much less anyone else. But his soul burns with a light too bright to look at directly. His determination to be more than just 'the next Ozma' pushes him to excel. If only he could remember what that 'more' was... if only he truly knew his own name.

But he persists. The gentle soul, who loves everybody and believes in everybody, whether human or faunus. Who sees the good in every soul and never the evil beneath. Who believes everybody can be saved. Except Salem [and maybe Jaques Schnee, even if he doesn't remember why]. Who is so easily taken and controlled and moulded and manipulated. That sound? Is the first crack in the child. The first sign of the shattering to come.

He grows up too fast, forced to become a Huntsman so young that it would be laughable anywhere else. Is laughable, a twelve year old should be studying at Signal, not out fighting monsters on the whims of the adults in his life. And yet, there he stands and there he fights and nobody ever asks if he wants to. Because of course he does, right? Nobody would give a child that young a licence if he hadn't proven himself?

Then there is one too many close calls. One too many accidents... one too many risks. Much though those in control hate this fragile child, they also know just how long it took to find him. They need another option.

Then they look to their own academy. To a head that's bowing under the weight, that's tired and think 'ah, opportunity.' So they install the small, fragile child as the headmaster, locking him up in the clocktower to remind him of the passage of time. Casual cruelties like that have become their bread and butter, after all.

The child is too beaten down, too weary to protest. Though he wrings a concession out of them, just the one. That Faunus be allowed to attend, too. No more bigotry, no more hatred. This little boy who should loathe them all still loves them far too much for that, even now.

So he stands, at fifteen, as headmaster. They fudge the numbers, add four years to his age and order him to dress older than he actually is. To a fifteen year old boy with millennia worth of experience in the back of his head, mature is a suit. Is changing out the glasses he needs for a medical condition for a set that make him look older. Is makeup to give the shadow of stubble to his jaw, concentrating on making all his words sound painfully polite, standing so straight they might have glued a sword to his back. At first, at least. He carries a mug everywhere, pretends it's coffee, not the cocoa that's comforting and familiar [and he doesn't know why, can't remember, it doesn't matter, right?], smiles and pretends. Most people buy it.

[That first faunus at Beacon, by the way, is a twenty one year old Leonardo Lionheart. He's admitted late because he couldn't have been admitted at all until then. He swears loyalty to the new headmaster, all five foot seven of him. Eventually, they'll all know just what that oath is worth.]

Team STRQ is suspicious. Well, Summer is suspicious and the Branwen twins, jumpy, wary of being discovered, follow her in that. Taiyang sees silver hair and those glasses and assumes he is older. But then, that's Taiyang all over.

Then he slips up. Gets a reference he shouldn't one too many times, moves like the teen he is instead of the adult he pretends to be. Hits a growth spurt and gains a foot in height in the course of eight months. Most people assume it's just a late growth, people have them, after all. Glynda looks at him and wonders. Summer, Raven and Qrow look at him and know. See him for who he is and start to befriend him. Sometimes violently so, they're not taking no for an answer, Tai, confused, is dragged along for the ride.

When he breaks, in the end, and tells them the truth of his age? Tai is the only one to be surprised. There are threats towards the Vale council, though he works hard to convince them not to go through with them. His loyalties may be misplaced, but he has them nonetheless.

Then team STRQ graduates. Team GILD, too, Glynda, Ironwood, Lionheart, Demarco. They go out to fight monsters and leave him all alone in that gilded cage the council placed him in. Glynda comes back, decides teaching is the better option, after her team loses a member and Ironwood decides that a career in the military is more important. Lionheart disappears, for now, but he truly believes he can trust them, his first teams. He is halfway right.

Summer vanishes, out on a mission that Tai and Raven seem to blame him for. He's never certain just what the mission was, knows he never gave her it, but how to you argue against the dead? It's his fault after all, it always is. The cracks grow longer, wider, glowing with a viridian light the same electric green as his aura. He doesn't notice.

He throws himself into running the school, protecting the students. Recommends LIonheart and Ironwood and a friend he's met since called Theodore as heads of the other academies. Hopes that, eventually, Tai and Raven will stop hating him. Tai does, Raven does not. But then, the Branwens know how to hold a grudge.

Then Salem, finally, makes her move. Beacon falls and he falls with it, his life for his students, always. He might return, but they never will.

And, of course, Cinder Fall breaks her word. That, too, is inevitable.

He wakes up in the back of Oscar's head and part of him weeps. Surely this one, at least, should be an adult? Should be mature and able to make their own choice? But no, of course not. He has to work with what he's given, but this one? This one he can try to save, at least?

Then the relics happen. The others ask the one question he never wanted them to and Jinn, as all of the relics do, gives a half answer. Sows division. She's been bound to the relic too long and, just like the others, all she really wants to do is rest.

Qrow, telling him that meeting him was the worst luck of his life. Flying into shards and hiding himself away in the hope that by doing so, he might be able to fade completely. To let Oscar be himself instead of just the next Ozma.

Then Oscar needs him. That protective instinct glues the shards of him back together enough to help. Even as he does so, he knows that the merge is becoming more complete, more real... that he can't stop it happening. He hates himself all over again. He takes most of the torture for Oscar, for all that he lets the boy believe that he hasn't done so. He deserves it, after all. Oscar doesn't.

They blow up the whale, knowing it won't kill Salem, but hoping it might get her annoyed enough not to follow for awhile.

The relics betray them again, team RWBY and Jaune fall into the Ever After. There are things there that they need to know, after all... that he needs to know, too. Hopefully they'll tell him.

Salem has two of the relics. Cinder used the charges for both, she wants to be the one true power on Remnant. Salem is reaping what she sowed.

The remaining group travel to Vacuo. It's hard there, proving they belong, that they deserve to survive. Headmaster Theodore blinks at Oscar, sees both him and the other soul... and wonders, will that be enough. After all, everybody knows about the witch now. But they don't know about the wizard.

The staff is recognised. There's a lot of confusion and the fear that Glynda might slap Oscar for a second or two, but they get over that. He stays quiet, watching those he called his friends. Scared to truly trust them.

Then those they lost return with a tale that he can't quite believe... if the gods were created by the tree, if the tree is the origin... then what does that make his curse? Salem's curse? Ruby and Yang go to find Raven, he's too busy trying to work out how to find the tree. He has so many questions.

The relics are united, the gods return. They want to condemn Remnant but Ruby gets the blacksmith involved. They take one look at Oscar, tut and spilt him back into two.

So now there are two, confused looking teenaged boys. One darker skinned, dark haired, hazel eyed. The other paler, all silver and gold. Neither of them are totally seperate, they'll always be linked, but they're both so very grateful to be themselves again. Then they make a mistake, call each other brother, and the blacksmith's eyes light up.

The tree knows everything Ozma has ever done for humanity and the faunus. And they know just how many mistakes the brothers have made. They elevate him to godhood without listening to his horrified protests, give him his magic back and the ability to deal with Salem and set him loose.

He teaches Salem what death is, slowly, patiently, and thus frees her in the end. He brings back Pyrrha, brings back Penny. Refuses to bring back Lionheart or Ironwood. They're rather confused, staring at the glowing teenager who seems so familiar, yet at the same time so much larger than the rest of the world.

He wanders, again. Doing good where he can, stays in contact with Ruby and Oscar, then their decendants. That's happiness. Of a sort. He never stops looking for Qrow, once old age takes him. Sometimes he finds him, sometimes he doesn't. But then, that's okay, too.

[mermaidsirennikita]

as someone who loves romance novels and considers them her favorite form of fiction, a few thoughts:

--all genre romances (which require a happily ever after or happy or now ending, which you might otherwise refer to as "endgame") are love stories; not all love stories are genre romances

--(I actually would argue that HEA and HFN do not inherently align with "endgame", though they usually do--I'd consider an ending like that of Reign, where Mary dies decades after Francis but finds her version of Heaven with him, to be a Mary/Francis endgame but not exactly a Happily Ever After)

--a great love story does not necessarily equal the HEA or the HFN; a great love story can tell the story of a love that was, narratively, meant to end prematurely or tragically

--see: Titanic (he dies young and inspires her to live a fulfilling life, a reverse-Fridge situation where we get an implied "in death" endgame but not HEA); The Way We Were (two people love each other a lot but can't overcome their fundamental differences to make it work, but it was an important relationship nonetheless); Roman Holiday (they fell in love hard and fast but couldn't be together due to class issues and obligations); Wuthering Heights (their passion was all-consuming but due both to societal issues and their own inherent problems as shitty people they couldn't get it together before her death; another potential "in death" endgame, but much creepier)

--all of these creations give us really compelling love stories but are not genre romances; because while something that is not a genre romance (usually a romance novel) should never be sold as a genre romance, you do not have to have an HEA to make people feel something

--in SOME cases I would argue that an HEA would kind of ruin the story; if Jack and Rose had lived in Titanic, a movie I consider a near-perfect romantic drama, bitch to your mom about it if you disagree, we would not only miss the total tragedy of ... Titanic... by having our leads somehow escape the mass carnage that incident was, but miss the character development in the true protagonist of the story, who began the movie suicidal but THEN experienced the worst tragedy she could imagine but felt motivated by the love she shared with the person she lost to live; one of the messages being that like, that relationship was short, but that doesn't mean it didn't MATTER; even if she's the only person who remembered that relationship and that man, it MATTERED

--if the main reason why you want an "endgame" for a love story is because you want to win, I feel like you're not enjoying fiction as much as you're enjoying a fandom fight, in which the opponent is often imaginary

[creepywrites]

Roadwalker

Warnings: mentions of suicide

Zayner died by her ex, she was a very controlling and manipulative person, and once she was losing control, ran Zayner over and framed her friend that was in the car with her.

Zayner didn't die on impact, she had multiple broken bones and died of internal bleeding.

Zayner became isolated from everyone she knew and was trapped in the relationship, afraid everyone would find out about the secret relationship.

She likes to sing at night, a few animals like to go up close and join her.

When she travels, Roadwalker has a habit of helping whatever being she can, which sometimes results in the beings gratitude leading them to become loyal to her/serving her in the form of familiars. This strangely has only worked on deer. At the moment she has three deer familiar, an adult doe nicknamed Amber, a teenage buck nicknamed Brood, and a male fawn (Amber's fawn) nicknamed Bambi. Like Roadwalker, these beings can only interact with other members of the undead but share a communal knowledge with other local deer, allowing them to always know their way around strange enviroments.

Roadwalker does not kill, she prevents people and animals the like from suicides and hunters.

This is because she grew fascinated with the cycle of life after her death, and won't let someone prematurely end it.

Roadwalker is a fairly weak ghost, and can't harm anyone living, she can only float, teleportation, feel others emotions and possession. What makes her weak is that her limited powers need a lot of energy, therefore she doesn't even use them often, only when  absolutely necessary.

People can't see her, only when she possesses them can they start to notice her.

She used to be a hippy when alive, though she still is, Roadwalker doesn't dress like it anymore.

Her favourite band is Queen.

She loves her hair, Roadwalker took really good care of it and always tried learning how to do things with it, she would sometimes experiment with it, like cutting it really short.

She has a feather with lots of colours, and a simple rose tattoo. Zayner didn't look after them and even covered them a lot of the time, they've became faded and lost some colour.

She became vegan in her teens up til her 20s.

She's a very stoic and closed off person, who doesn't like socialising with many people, she prefers animals.

She had a very good life until meeting her ex, a small group of friends, good parents and although they weren't that well off, they made the best of what they had.

She always believed in ghosts, so she wasn't as shocked after becoming one; if anything she was the most content out of everyone, because she can finally be more like herself.

Roadwalker started stalking her family and friends, she would often intervene with their lives and try to help them make it slightly better. She did this for 10 years until eventually moving on and living in a forest and befriending the mob of deers.

Her dad left them when she was little, he eventually comes back and steps up when she's a teenager, she manages to forgive him and get closer with him.

Roadwalker is very close with Weeping Forest, other than Sadie, she's her only friend.

She's not that close to the kids, she wants to be but doesn't know how to after decades of not socialising.

Her favourite food is chicken.

[writingmyversion]

“I intend to live a fast life, die young and be a beautiful corpse," [1920] ‘Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse" [1947] ‘Live Fast Die Young’, most of us groove to those words, and for many of us it hits deep, resonating with a raw intensity that transcends generations. But have those words been the same in 1920 or 1947 when Willard Motley first published the phrase. Back then, it was fuelled by the desire to live a life on one’s own terms and ‘to leave a good-looking corpse’ as Mrs. Luce would agree. “Live well” = “live a fast life” [1925] | “Live hard” = “Live fast” [1930] It was a lifestyle built on choices to give one freedom to become one’s true self and lead the path carefree. It was about leaving behind a legacy so beautiful it would echo through eternity. “The curse of James Dean car” [1955] So, was the curse of James Dean's car a curse indeed? An actor who breathed life into the phrase published by Willard Motley and followed it all the way with a premature and tragic death in 1955, made the headlines flash ‘James Dean curse’; ‘Curse of Dean’s car’ but did it fall upon the rising stars, the ‘music industry’ had ever birthed. “The 27 Club” or “Forever 27” A wave that shook the industry most post-1960s, constituted a club no one wishes to join yet some yearn to even reach its door. The Club emerged through the constant struggle against addiction, mental health battles, burnout, and the relentless pressure to stay on top. And when the inevitable happened, they left this world too soon; they lived fast and died young indeed but the reality of their passing seems far from beautiful. “What’s the 27 club, we ain’t making it past 21” [2017] But if we fast forward, then what’s that yearning we see in artists to make it to the club? Speaking of, while in the most eastern Asian part of the world Kim Jong-Hyun, (member of one of the most popular K-Pop band, ‘SHINee’s’) made it to the saddest and tragic, ‘The 27 Club’, the same year Jarad Anthony Higgins (Juice WRLD, Pop singer & rapper) from Western part of the world, America sang ‘Legends’ with yearning, “What’s the 27 club, we ain’t making it past 21”. And he most certainly couldn’t find that out, but he did make it past 21 which throws light upon the ‘Piner’s Club’ who meet their tragic end before even making it to the tragic ‘The 27 Club’. But then, would Avicii’s crossing the 27 only to reach 8 months afar, impact the 27 Club? Perhaps, an announcement left for another decade. Despite, all the pain, struggles, and tragedies, the bygones succeed in leaving behind something truly remarkable. Their music becomes their legacy, a timeless reminder of their talent and passion. It's a legacy that transcends time, touching the hearts of audiences for generations to come. ‘Live Fast, Die Young’ has shaped into a reflection of the complex and often turbulent lives of those who dare to chase their dreams. Because often the journey holds a blurry vision of ‘intentional and unintentional’ and living with own terms gets lost in turbulence. But as we reflect on their journeys, we're left wondering – is it truly necessary to live fast and die young to leave a beautiful legacy? It's a question that lingers in the air, inviting us to ponder the true essence of a life well-lived." PS: Seeing the phrase in the lyrics of one of my favourite songs, by one of my favourite Artists who are really young, intrigued me and led to this typing.[But they went on a BREAK!] Regardless of your life, in the journey to your beautiful legacy, I wish you reap the importance of having a break, taking a pause, or steering your life to your own terms.

[lux333]

untitled 1.1

intro to a thing i writing :P lmk what u think!

(pretext: after departing from their lover, narrator amir struggles to come to terms with themselves and their relationships and reflects through emails and a life-changing journey.)

4 January 2016

Stony Brook University, New York

I had class after you left. The walk back to campus was cold, colder than usual. It’s odd; the winter hasn’t been as cold as it usually is. I haven’t fallen on my ass from the ice that is—usually—accumulating on the sidewalks on the edge of the building. Dry air hindered my breathing as I completed the feat of climbing the stairs to the second floor, and I coughed. It was dry like our conversation last night when you were leaving my bed. Your words hissed around my neck, suffocating me like when I was walking the steep stairs to the second floor.

“I’ve never left the country,” I lied with enthusiasm. I know how you take pride in the things you do. Or, perhaps, how you take pride in you. I was born in Rome. My parents, laced entirely with lust and love, decided to sell everything, and move themselves to Europe when they got pregnant with me. My mother was nineteen and a Yale drop out, while my dad was pushing twenty-two and disillusioned from reality. He worked nights at a restaurant in Connecticut, despite having a trust fund from a dead relative that died when he was three. They had just reached Rome when I was born, prematurely. Prematurely, like the love and life they lived with each other. They didn’t know what to do, they thought it was a game. In shock, they decided to just start a life there.

I have little memory of actually living there. I remember that my mom and dad would fight but not a traumatizing kind of fight. It was a fight that ended, somehow, in kisses between hits of a cigarette. What I remember the most was the day’s my mom took me to the beach when my dad would be out working. That was where she told me all about herself. I was pretty young, but I could still feel, now, at least, that she was just really scared. What you told me about Germany reminded me of this. I, suddenly, felt the sand sticking to my body from swimming, and the heat from the afternoon sun. My mother had an estranged great-uncle that lived in Berlin. She didn’t know about him growing up, but she found, through snooping in decade-old diaries and photographs, that he was gay. He was pushed out of his family after he was found out to be in a relationship with another boy. The mystery man was an international student at his campus, and one thing led to another. It reminds me of us, except I’m staying in New York, and you are going to commit war crimes or something.

“It’s just Germany,” you looked behind your back, pulling socks over your feet. You talked with no emotion. It wasn’t like you. My stomach turned and I felt nauseous. Your slight sweet scent of soap and sweat turned sour.

“It’s cool, still.” I sat up and thought for a second. My mind hurt and my conscious felt heavy and foggy. I couldn’t tell if you were being belligerent. And you got up and left. I surrendered to you, though. I saw you, still, as you got in your truck. You, still, kissed me like you usually do. I got that same nauseous feeling I got in the bed, but this time you drove away, and I puked in the flowerpot.

I can’t stand your truck and I, with guilt, love you. At that point, I was hoping you were going to find a way to change or figure out yourself or something. Boys from Long Island don’t get out much. They let this dead-end consume them! Some after high school might move to Queens with their best friend if they were lucky. You are different though. I am, too. In the midst of your absence, I can’t help but let the thought of you, all the misery and all the pleasure, possess me endlessly.

I went out to the city. I’m writing now from outside of Penn Station. I just smoked a cigarette with a girl I met at the club, dressed in white and long braids. It was somewhat reminiscent of that distant memory I wrote about—of my parents after a fight. I kissed her, like them, with desire on my lips. I miss you.

Amir

[whumpinaheartbeat]

Open Your Heart To Those Who Wish To Love You

This fic contains premature death due to illness, death due to old age, and grief, please read with discretion.

Divine Dragons are not immortal. 

It was a simple, indisputable, fact. 

Given enough time without being slain in battle, the body of a Divine Dragon reaches a point where it grows old. It degrades. It dies. Divine Dragons, and Fell Dragons for that matter, are not immortal. But compared to a human, who gets decades maybe a century at most to live, they might as well be. 

For Dragons, a century could pass in the blink of an eye. Generations of humans could live and die and a Dragon will barely have noticed their existence, unable to comprehend such a short lifespan in the same way that humans could not possibly understand what millennia felt like. 

It was why the humans revered Dragons as Gods. How could such a long lived being with magical abilities not be a God to a race that at it’s average lived only eighty years?

Alear did not like thinking about this.

Prince Alfred had tried to breach the topic a few times, especially as their relationship developed into something more serious than just stolen kisses in the middle of a war, but Alear would sooner marry a Corrupted than talk about how he was going to outlive every single one of them.

Why talk about the future if the present was happening here and now? Why talk about all his friends dying when they still lived and breathed? Why bring up the fact that even if they beat Sombron and everyone is saved, they will all die in just a few years and Alear will be left all alone?

Decades, to the humans, were singular blinks to Alear and he did not like thinking about it.

There will be more, Alfred had assured him. More generations of humans. More friends. More lovers. Life would continue for Alear even if the rest of them were gone but there will be others to fill their places. Alear did not want these ‘others’. 

He wanted Vander to be by his side always, always so wise if a little over protective. He wanted Clanne and Framme running circles around him, their laughter so pure and their faces so young. He wanted long talks under the night sky with Diamant just as much as he wanted Alcryst to realise just how incredible he was. Alear wanted to try new teas with Céline, not just in her memory with somebody else who had never met her.

Alear wished that he could show Ivy just how much her policies would change Elusia for the better, just like how he wanted to make Hortensia feel safe enough to be her true self. Forgado and Timerra took everything in stride, living every single day as if it may be their last but Alear hated to wonder if Forgado would still be roaming around Solm even in his old age, he hated to think about who will inherit after Timerra grows old because what if they are not so cheerful as her?

Alear did not want ‘others’. He wanted Alfred. 

He wanted to spend eternity with the Prince of Fierene or even just a few decades with him if it meant that they got to grow old together. They would hold hands, strolling through the gardens, they would embrace each other at the end of the day. Alfred would always greet him with that bright smile and Alear would always fall for him every single second of every single day because Alfred was incredible in everything he did. 

But Alear could not shed his long life any more than Alfred could extend his own. And, as Alear had learned not long before the end of the war, Alfred would not even reach that seemingly too short life expectancy of eighty to a hundred years. Alfred was sick and he had been for a long time. 

If the war did not claim him, Alfred was still going to die young.

Alear didn’t remember much of that day, the day Alfred told him about his condition. Alfred had held him, rocking him gently as Alear let out wrenching sobs because Alfred was a kind loving person that even when admitting he had a terminal illness only wished to make other people happy. A part of Alear had felt guilty, he should not be wasting what little time Alfred had left like this, but the rest of him was too busy screaming at an unfair world to care.

Countless nights he had just lain there in his bed, watching Alfred’s chest rise and fall and wondering what it might look like if it stopped moving. What would it feel like without Alfred there, would he even be able to sleep alone in his bed like he had for a thousand years?

It would be seventeen years, seventeen amazing beautiful incredible years, before Alear buried Alfred in the Garden that Alfred had loved so much and yet it might as well have been mere days. No amount of time with Alfred would have been enough for Alear and no amount of condolences eased the deep ache in his heart as if it had been buried alongside his Prince.

After the funeral, Alear had tried to close himself off from the others. If Alfred could die despite how much Alear loved him then the others will die one day too. Vander may not be as old as he looked but he was already slowing. Jean was still small but he was no longer a boy but a man with a wife of his own and a child on the way. Clanne and Framme were still excitable as ever but one day they would be dead and buried too, they were already looking for the next generation of stewards to the Divine Dragon.

He could not fathom losing anyone else so Alear did the only thing he thought he could; He sent them away, Vander, Clanne and Framme included. His friends, his companions, should be able to live and die as humans do and he will not have to know. He will not have to mourn them the way he still mourned Alfred. The way he would forever mourn Alfred.

Rosado had looked him straight in the eye and laughed.

“Nice try, Divine One,” He had said. “But I think I like it up here.”

Rosado’s painting still hung in Alear’s bedroom. The colours weren’t quite the same anymore and the frame was cracking but Alear could spend hours just staring at it, remembering the hike they had done to get such a perfect view.

The stewards had stayed that day also, ignoring Alear’s pleas that they live their lives without him.

“I wouldn’t be a Co-President of the Divine Dragon Fanclub if I left you all alone, would I?” Framme had declared, every bit a splitting image of the young girl she used to be.

“Besides,” Clanne had said, mirroring her pose. “You need us.”

Vander had not made any bold declarations. He hadn’t needed to. All Vander did was hold out his arms before Alear was collapsing into them, staining Vander’s shirt with tears. 

“Queen Lumera said that one day you may feel this way,” Vander had said. “That you may feel it is easier to close your heart than to open your eyes to see the world decay around you. She wanted you to know that as much as it hurts, you cannot force yourself to be alone. There will be others, Divine One, if only you let them see who you are.”

Others. Alfred had spoken of others. Alear still did not want ‘others’, he wanted his companions that he already knew, already loved. No, he would not open his heart. Never again. Besides, Alear was not completely alone, he had Veyle.

It was a easier to know that Veyle was like him, she was his blood sister after all and shared the same Dragon lifespan as he did.

She would stay with him, even when all the others were gone, but that in itself brought its own complications. Veyle had been so alone for so long, the idea that he one day would die and leave her all alone again chilled him to the very bone but the alternative where he instead outlived her was somehow even more horrible. His little Sister was everything to him and yet he could not protect her forever any more than he could protect his short lived friends.

No, Alear could not open his heart to more pain. Except like Alfred had once said, it was in Alear’s nature to love and be loved so without realising it he had allowed himself to get to know these ‘others’ that Alfred and Vander had promised him.

The steward that Clanne and Framme had hand selected, was fond of jelly tarts. Alear felt guilty that he had only learned this fact years after they had come into his service but they had simply smiled to him and held up a fresh batch of tarts. 

Step by step Alear let himself feel again. He kept a box of trinkets that Zelkov sent him, he still had a deck of cards that Seadall had used even if its pictures had long since faded and the corners were all bent strangely.

Alear even let himself visit Céline the day of her abdication, meeting her daughters for the first time, one of which already old enough to inherit. There was a small boy that clung to one of Céline’s daughters, a boy who had the familiar blue eyes.

“Hello there,” Alear had said, crouching down. “I am the Divine Dragon, Alear. What’s your name?”

The boy had hesitated, glancing at his grandmother. Then his unsure expression turned to a bright smile as he declared that he was Alfred the Second, Prince of Fierene, and he was five years old.

Five years. Céline had a five year old grandson and Alear had not even seen her since Alfred’s funeral. How much time he had wasted lamenting over his long lifespan, how much time he had wasted when he should have been enjoying every day he was given for the miracle it was.

As difficult as it got some days, Alear opened his heart once more. He welcomed new friends to the Somniel, he found people he could speak to for hours under the stars, he even found someone who loved alpacas nearly as much as Amber had. It hurt to see the humans grow up and grow old so quickly but Alear kept their memories all the same, writing each of their names into his little book so that a piece of them might survive.

These new friends eventually started leaving too and Alear had almost let himself withdraw again. Veyle had held his hand then, promising him that it was worth the pain in order to experience the love of the next person who came to them.

Alear cherished his time with Veyle and when she came to him, claiming that she had found someone that she loved as dearly as he had loved Alfred, he had selfishly wanted her to stay. Veyle was the only one who would live as long as he did, Veyle was the only one to truely understand how temporary human lives were.

Alear had let her go as much as it broke his heart to do so because she was his little sister and she deserved the world.

She had had the courage to face him the day after she buried her new love after decades of being together. She had grown fond of the humans, choosing to live by their sides as Queen of Lythos like Lumera had once. She still felt like she needed to make amends for all the hurt she had caused but Alear had assured her that she was now as much as a Divine Dragon as Lumera had been, living solely in the service of the people of Elyos.

It would be difficult to lose her once more but he knew that they would still visit each other and he knew that Veyle at last had found where she belonged and for that he was glad.

Alear roamed the Somniel, taking in every piece of art, every little scuff and broken tile, every little piece of evidence of the people he had gotten to know, the people he had loved, the people he had lost. How long it had been since the war with Sombron, Alear did not know. He did not find himself thinking about the war in recent times, all of the people here spoke of it like ancient history.

It was history, Alear supposed, even if he still had letters from Alfred in a box alongside a embroidered piece of cloth that had long since fallen apart. 

Taking the steps up to his room, Alear felt his legs move slowly. He enjoyed the walk, absorbing every little detail around him. The staircase had been replaced countless times by now, a slightly different wood each time, yet it may as well have been yesterday when he stood on these steps with Diamant, looking out to the dining hall below. 

There was laughter echoing the walls, as there had been laughter all those centuries ago.

“Divine One!” One of them called. “Joining us for dinner?”

“Perhaps another time,” Alear told them. “But thank you all the same.”

Alear reached his room at last. The door had been replaced a few dozen times so he was careful in how he closed it, not wanting to disturb his companions down below. There was a sound at the door and Alear twisted around. 

He half expected one of his current companions but all that was at the door was Sommie who promptly strolled in, the same goofy smile on its face as it always had, apparently not too annoyed that Alear had locked it out accidentally.

“Come here, old friend.” Alear said

Alear picked up Sommie, his joints protesting a little at Sommie’s weight. He was feeling tired, a deep tiredness that he had not felt in a long time. Setting Sommie onto the bed, Alear did not bother to change before he too laid down, giving off a content sigh as Sommie cuddled up close to him.

“You know,” Alear mumbled. “I am glad that you are here with me, old friend. You would think I would be ready, after all these years, but I was so scared that I would be alone. I guess, I never have been truely alone, have I? You have always been there, waiting. I’m sorry that I did not realise that until now.”

Sommie blinked its big black eyes and Alear laughed, patting Sommie on the head.

“Thank you, Sommie,” Alear said. “For everything.”

———————————————————————————————————————————

When the sun rose, Sommie still lay nestled in the crook of Alear’s arm, its head on his chest. 

Alear had stopped moving a little while ago but Sommie could not bring itself to leave him just yet. It could almost fool itself into thinking that Alear was still here, that Alear would not leave it like all the others had over the millennia, that if Sommie just waited a little longer Alear’s heart would start beating again, that strong heart beat that Sommie always found itself listening to whenever they lay like this.

The strong heartbeat that had sounded like home.

Alear did not rise but Sommie stayed with him all the same, not wanting its old friend to be alone. He had been so brave for so long, so loving to all the humans around him for hundreds of generations. It was Alear’s time to rest and Sommie will miss him, just like how Sommie missed all those that came before.

Divine Dragons are not immortal.

It was a simple, indisputable, fact.

But Sommie is not a Divine Dragon.

[forthegothicheroine]

How other great detectives would solve the “Kira” murders

Requested by @libraryoftheancients . A series I do sometimes. Since the whole premise of Death Note rests on Light knowing a victim’s name and face, each of these detectives is going to have to either find a way to deal with that or else not ping Light as a threat until it’s too late.

Sam Vimes: Vimes makes a broadcast on whatever magical version of tv there is in the Discworld, saying :”Attention, citizens of Ahnk-Morpork and/or Japan. I am Sam Vimes. No point in hiding it, since I am unfortunately a public figure. The Watch is seeking information on the murderer known as Kira from local Shinigami. If you are a shinigami and provide us what turns out to be vital information leading to their capture, we will fast-track you into a steady job on the force. Why not. Non-shinigami may also offer information, of course.” Now the story is about Light vs Ryuk scemes!

Columbo: As has been noted, Columbo does not ever reveal his first name on the show, so I think he’d be especially suspicious of this kid for wanting to know it so badly. A big question here is, how does Light read cross-culturally, not to mention cross-decades? The reason this is important is because a lot depends on whether Columbo’s first impression of him is as a nice kid or as a preppy monster. I will tip the scales towards Columbo’s favor at the end, if only because Light is exactly the kind of guy he can bait into questions of “Hypothetically, why do you think the killer would have done this?”

Dale Cooper: No time for crime solving, I have too many questions. Are shinigami part of the Black Lodge? The White Lodge? Has Ryuk visited Dale Cooper in his sleep to give him cryptic messages? Did Light kill Laura Palmer as absurdly over-punishment for dealing cocaine and maybe running over that one guy from Fire Walk With Me? Will the Black Lodge let Light kill Cooper before his time? Will Ryuk refuse to kill Cooper because he has a greater destiny? After all their mutual scheming, will Cooper just catch him because Laura finally gets sick of waiting and whispers the answer to him? Is Laura now a shinigami? Is Misa going to fixate on Cooper and then be correctly told that what she really needs is a friend? If Light does kill Cooper, will a random adolescent prodigy from Blue Rose with prematurely white hair solve it for him?

Philip Marlowe: Marlowe appreciates a rambling plot. He has lots of rambling plots, strung together from short story installments that don’t really work as a coherent whole. He may be suspicious at first of Misa since he has so many female villains and she would strike him as a very unhinged show biz type, but it’s possible that they have a drunken confrontation where he sees how wounded she is, and whatever else she may be, she’s not an evil mastermind. He doesn’t have a good relationship with police, so he won’t be too charmed by dutiful cop’s son Light. He’ll think back to the Duchess of Malfi, and think of how a murderer trying to enforce justice on other murderers is always doomed to failure. Light could kill him if he wanted to, so Marlowe’s best chance is if Light decides it’s better to keep him around, distracting everybody. Maybe Marlowe comes to his conclusion by wondering why, the longer the investigation went on without finding anything, the higher Light grows as an investigator.

Miss Marple: She’s definitely going to fall beneath his notice! Just an old woman with old-fashioned sensibilities. The cops like and indulge her, and they just naturally tell her everything while eating her home baked scones. She reads newspapers and circles the date any particular arrests were reported relative to the time the criminals dies. I don’t know that she would ever really believe Light had supernatural power, though she might come up with theories about undetectable poison. I think she would figure out it was probably Light, but she wouldn’t accuse him until she could solve that one unsolvable problem. I don’t know if she’d catch him, but it’s possible she could influence the papers or police departments to change the way they dealt with accused criminals and ruin Light’s day.

Hercule Poirot: Look, Poirot already went through this business during The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Any new non-Hastings guy who shows up to be his new crime-solving buddy is guilty.

Sam Spade: I think this may be seriously above his paygrade, but I kind of want him to win here so he could give him some closing insult to the extent of “Aww, you look so sad that I’m not really a criminal!” If Humphrey Bogart is playing him here so he can repeat his brilliant alleged ad-lib, he can say that the Death Note is such stuff as dreams are made on.

Phryne Fisher: Light would definitely think of her as a dimwit and a potential pawn. She would think of him as a young man without a shred of fun in his entire soul. I don’t think either of them would succeed in seducing the other. He would definitely try and get her to catch the wrong person and distract everyone and get humiliated, but Phryne (who is hinted in the show to have been a former agent in the war, unless I imagined that) would figure out those supposed Kiras were getting orders from someone else, even if they themselves wouldn’t know who. Assuming she can keep Light thinking she’s a useful distraction for long enough to catch him in a tangle of lies, she might win. Otherwise she dies.

Kinsey Milhone: I can see her and Light getting kind of genuinely friendly, at least for a while. They have similarly strong beliefs about morality, and she has a lot of compassion for teenagers, but I think ultimately she will have to realize that his version of friendship and morality are both extremely surface level. She’s a former insurance investigator, her whole job was catching fakers. I like the idea of her finding out about shinigami, because that would result in a fun inner monologue about the meaning of existence. If she’s another detective he would think he could use to distract everyone rather than just kill, she might be willing to believe in a Death Note and catch him. She would reflect afterwards that death will get all of us someday, but that doesn’t mean we have to make it easy for them.

Sam and Peter: “On this season of Japanese Vandal, we’ve somehow gotten roped into solving actual murders. This is all because of Light Yagami, who had recently graduated. Here’s footage of him wandering the school ground and talking to someone who is not there but appears to be very tall. He’s a cop’s son, so he’s allowed to do that.”

[pleasantlyinsincere]

Older, long-ish article about and with quotes from Mal’s diary and manuscript. Maybe gives a small impression of what to expect.

First published in The Sunday Times Magazine, 20 March 2005

By Mark Edmonds

Exclusive: WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIEND

One man devoted himself to running the daily lives of The Beatles. So why do his diaries, seen here for the first time, strike a sad note?

HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE The Beatles were his life. He was their mate, driver, skivvy - even co-musician. Mal Evan's diaries, seen here for the first time, reveal the everyday secrets of pop's greatest band.

Mal Evans began the 1960's as a Post Office engineer in Liverpool. By the end of the decade, he'd appeared in three out of the five Beatles films and was an occasional musician on their albums. It was Mal playing the organ on Rubber Soul, Mal who sounded the alarm clock in A Day in The Life. On Abbey Road, it was Mal, not Maxwell, who banged the silver hammer.

Part of the Beatles' small but exceptionally protective inner sanctum, Mal was one of just two witnesses at Paul McCartney's first wedding. Among the hundreds of claimants to the threadbare title "fifth Beatle", he was arguably the most deserving. Wherever the Beatles went, Mal would never be far behind.

In the 10 years he spent as their road manager, Mal was blessed with a greater insight than most into the group's spectacular rise, their domination of pop in the middle years, and their painful implosion in a welter of recriminations. Throughout the decade, he kept a series of diaries and wrote an unpublished autobiography; all of this had remained unseen, part of an archive that went missing when Mal himself died in bizarre circumstances in 1976.

For many years, an ever-growing number of Beatles historians have regarded the Mal Evans archive at the Holy Grail. Last year, rumors surfaces that it had turned up in a suitcase in a Sydney street market (not true) and that it contained outtakes of unreleased Beatle songs (ditto).The reality is rather more prosaic: 10 years after Mal's death, Yoko Ono was told about a trunk full of his effects that had been found by a temp clearing out files in the basement of a New York publisher; she arranged for them to be shipped back to his family in London. Among those effects were his diaries, which his widow, Lily, kept for years in an attic at her home.

Together with the photographs on these pages, most of them taken by Mal himself, they amount to a fascinating collection: the unwitting historic recollections of a Forrest Gump of a man, who by sheer good fortune ended up in the right place at the right time.

The story, inevitably, begins in Liverpool. A keen rock'n'roll fan, Mal would while away what he called his "extended lunchtimes" at the Cavern Club before putting in a brief appearance at the Post Office and then heading off to his house in Hillside Road, Mossley Hill.

In 1961 he had married a local girl, Lily, whom he had met at a funfair at New Brighton. Their first child, Gary, was born in the same year. Mal's life was settled, mundane and ordinary; nobody could have predicted that the bizarre twists and turns of his life in the next 15 years would lead to his premature and avoidable death at the hands of the police in California.

At the Cavern, Mal was soon noticed by the Beatles, who had a lunchtime residency at the club. George Harrison felt that Mal, at 6ft 3in, would make an ideal bouncer. He was also of an exceptionally gentle disposition, and Harrison was canny enough to realize that this too would be useful in the years ahead.

In the first few pages of his 1963 Post Office Engineering Union-issue diary, which includes information about Ohm's law and Post Office pay rates, he reflects upon his good fortune. Looking back on the previous year, he writes: "1962 a wonderful year... Could I wish for more beautiful wife, Gary, house, car... guess I was born with a silver canteen of cutlery in my mouth. Wanted a part time job for a long time - now bouncing... Lost tooth in 1962."

With this, Mal sets the tone. We soon find he is more the Pooter than the Pepys. As The Beatles' road manager - and trusted implicitly by all four - he is presented with an "access all areas" ticket to one of the best parties of the century. Yet somehow he never quite realizes it.

The year 1963 is crucial for The Beatles, ergo for Mal. At the start of the year it is becoming clear that working with them, particular on tour, is a more engaging diversion for him than family life in Mossley Hill. The band, now managed by Brian Epstein, are beginning to realize their potential. Mal drives them to London for one of their early BBC appearances (see panel [end of the article]), and later they make the most of the capital.

January 21, 1963: "Lads went shopping. Paul and George bought slacks. George a shirt in Regent St. This was before the Sat Club recording and we lost them for a while. Back to Lower Regent Studios for recording talent spot. Met Patsy Ann Noble, Rog Whittaker, Gary Marshall, a really good show. Also on the bill was a Birkenhead singer. At about 8.15 the boys went to Brian's room in the Mayfair for a Daily Mail interview. I parked the gear and joined them later... We left London at about 10 o'clock, stopping at 'Fortes' on M1 for large dinner - bought by the Beatles - and so homeward bound. Met a lot of fog... suddenly after leaving M1 short time windscreen cracked with a terrible bang. Had to break hole in windscreen to see... Stopped for tea at transport cafe... and arrived home at about five o'clock. I was up at 7.45 but lads laid in till about five that night. Lucky devils. They were on that night at the Cavern as fresh as ever with no after effects. The Beatles certainly have gone up in my estimation. They are all great blokes with a sense of humor and giving one the feeling they are a real team."

For much of the early 1960's, touring became Mal's life. Against the wishes of Lily, left at home with Gary, Mal gave up his job at the Post Office in order to be at the Beatles' beck and call full time, clocking up industrial levels of mileage driving from Liverpool to London. He was also expected to attend to almost every personal whim. John Lennon, who had a predilection for enigmatic silences, would punctuate these with murmured requests such as "socks, Mal" - at which point Mal would scoot off to Marks and Spencer to fetch six pairs in navy cotton.

By the spring of that year, Beatlemania was under way, Mal and Neil Aspinall, another old friend from Liverpool, accompanied the Beatles on all of their tours, making up what was an astonishing pared-down entourage. Aspinall still runs the Beatles' Apple organization.

The Beatle' first European tour began in Paris in January 1964. The ever-loyal Mal was on hand, this time accompanied by Lily and their young son. Mal writes about a "big punch-up" with photographers in Paris. In the manuscript of his unpublished book he recalls that this was "the only fight I got involved in on behalf of the Beatles" - although he was terrified when he and the band were nearly beaten up by Ferdinand Marcos's thugs in Manilla in 1966.

To mark the news in 1964 that the Beatles had reached number 1 in the US for the first time, Mal writes that Epstein threw a party at the hotel. Some journalists then hired prostitutes to provide a lesbian show for the Beatles in the room next to Epstein's. "It was a little unnerving to have these ladies performing before our eyes with each othe in one room, with Brian and more staid members of the press in the adjoining living room. I guess celebrations caters to everybody's different tastes."

With Beatlemania in full swing, Mal seems strangely oblivious: there is no sense in any of the diaries that he is working for the most famous, most successful pop stars of the time. But odd, intimate little moments are recorded:

March 18, 1964: "Had plastic cups in top pocket - milk poured in by George. John says after sarnies, 'Mal, you are my favorite animal.'"

****

After two further exhausting years on the road, the Beatles were ready to give up touring: the whole tiresome process had ceased to be of interest to the group. The Beatles, and Mal, for that matter, were just worn out.

But now there was a larger role for Mal as a studio "fixer": as the music became more complicated, he was dealing with an increasingly outlandish inventory of instruments and equipment, and he sometimes contributed as a musician. More than any other year so far, 1967 presented Mal and the Beatles with undremt-of possibilities: it was the year of satin tunics, Carnaby Street and Sgt. Pepper; the band was its creative, cohesive peak. On a more mundane level, Paul found himself without a housekeeper at his house at St. John's Wood - so Mal moved in with him. Mal writes of this time fondly, but complains of Paul's dog, Martha, fouling the beds.

Within a few months, Mal had moved his family - his second child, Julie, had been born in 1966 - from Liverpool to Sunbury-on-Thames, about equidistant from Paul's house and the homes of the other three in the Surrey stockbroker belt - another indication of how he'd let the band take over his life. Mal was also beginning to enjoy some of the more illicit aspects of the mid-1960s rock'n'roll lifestyle.

January 1, 1967: "Well, diary - hope it will be a great 1967. Have not slept... Friday night's recording session and journey to Liverpool. Late afternoon went over to the McCartney's in Wirral, and had dinner with them. Paul and Jane [Asher, McCartney's then girlfriend] had traveled up for the New Year - also Martha. Fan belt broke."

January 19 and 20, 1967: "Ended up smashed in the Bag O' Nails with Paul and Neil. quite a number of people attached themselves, oh that it would happen to me - freak out time baby for Mal.

"Eventually I spewed but this is because of an omlette I reckon. I was just nowhere, floating around. Slept till 5pm. Flowers arrived for George for his anniversary tomorrow. Made up yesterday with new number I'm counting on it and ringing alarm [he is referring to A Day in The Life, Sgt. Pepper's closing opus]. So George came back to flat for tea tonight, that is before we went home. He was in bedroom reading International Times, I was asleep on bed, very bad mannered. Left for home with Neil driving.. On M6, starter jammed. 10/- to free it. Hertz van still no comfort... I spent some time in the rest room."

Mal's diary describes the recording of the Sgt. Pepper album in some detail, referring to the song "Fixing a Hole" as "where the rain comes in". But there were soon signs that he is beginning to feel a little hard done by.

The rest of 1967 was as busy for Mal as it was for the Beatles: the overblown, complicated Sgt. Pepper was time-consuming. As soon as it was was completed, Mal flew with Paul to LA to see Jane Asher who was touring with the Old Vic company. The three took a trip to the Rockies and returned to LA by private jet. Mal took up the story: "We left Denver in Frank Sinatra's Lear Jet, which he very kindly loaned us. A beautiful job with dark black leather upholstery and, to our delight, a well stocked bar."

When they arrived, they went to Michelle and John Phillip's [of the Mamas and the Papas] house and Brian Wilson [of the Beach Boys] came round. Mal writes of joining in on guitar for a rendition of On Top of Old Smokey with Paul and Wilson. Mal, however, was not impressed by Wilson's avant-guarde tendencies; at the time he was putting together the Smile album. "Brian then put a dampener on the spontaneity of the whole affair by walking in with a tray of water-filled glasses, trying to arrange it into some sort of session." Mal wasn't keen on glass harmonicas - he would have preferred Elvis.

When they returned in April 1967, the Beatles began work on what was to become the ill-fated Magical Mystery Tour project. The band, with Paul taking an increasingly dominant role, was showing signs of stress. Mal wrote "I would get requests from the four of them to do six different things at one time and it was always a case of relying on instinct and experience in awarding priorities. They used to be right sods for the first few days until they realized that everything was going smoothly and they could get into the routine of recording...Then I would find time between numerous cups of tea and salad sandwiches and baked beans on toast to listen to the recording in the control room."

Once they'd completed the recording, Mal, Neil and their families were whisked off to Greece by the Beatles at George Harrison's expense. They spent a month under sunny skies on a wooden yacht in the Aegean. But their return. however, darker clouds were forming on the horizon. Before the summer was out, Epstein was dead after an overdose. Without his guiding hand, the Beatles plunged into the chaotic Magical Mystery Tour project. As ever, Mal was a crucial element, organizing the coach tour that formed the centerpiece of the film, recruiting actors and extras, then flying to Nice with Paul to film the Fool on the Hill sequence.

According to Mal, this trip, as did many, took place on an impulse; without luggage or papers. Paul sailed through immigration with no passport, but they were refused entry to the hotel restaurant because they didn't look the part. They headed off to a nightclub. "We had dinner in my room... The only money we had between us had been spent on clothes, on the understanding that money was to be forwarded from England by the Beatles office. After the first round of drinks... we arranged with the manager for us to get credit."

The next day, Mal and Paul returned to the club. "We took advantage of our credit standing, as money had still not arrived from England. News about Paul's visit to the club the previous night had spread, and the place was jammed. Now Paul, being a generous sort of person, had built up quite a bar bill, when the real manager of the club arrived demanding that we pay immediately. On explaining who Paul was and what happened, he answered, "You either pay the bill, or I call the police!" It certainly looked like we were getting thrown in jail. It was ironical, sitting in a club with a millionaire, unable to pay the bill." Eventually the hotel manager agreed to cover the money.

Paul and Mal returned to London, where Paul was to edit the film. But it was panned by the critics when televised that Christmas.

****

The year 1968 saw the genesis of Apple, the groups tour to Rishikesh in the Himalayas at the invitation of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - and increasing tensions.

By the time the band arrives in India, Mal is already there, having carried out a recce a few days earlier. Ringo demands a doctor as soon as he gets off the plane. From Mal's memoir from February: "'Mal, my arm is killing me, please take me to a doctor right away.' So off we go looking for one, our driver leaving [sic] us to a dead end in the middle of a field, soon to be filled with press cars as they blindly follow us; so we explain to them that it's only Ringo's innoculation giving him trouble. When we arrived at the hospital, I tried to get immediate treatment for him, to be told curtly by the Indian doctor, 'He is not a special case and will have to wait his turn', so off we go to pay a private doctor ten rupees for the priviledge of hearing him say it will be all right."

The Beatles, accompanied by an entourage that included Mia Farrow, Donovan and the Beach Boy, Mike Love, write half a dozen songs in India, most of which are to end up on the White Album they release later that year. Mal's diary comments favorably on the sense of Karma that seemed to have settled on them. "It is hard to believe that a week has already passed. I suppose the peace of mind and the serenity one achieves through meditation makes the time fly." He even enjoyed the food, unlike Ringo, who famously turned up with a case of baked beans.

But the tranquility does not last, "Suddenly... excitement.. Ringo wants to leave... Maureen can't stand the flies any longer." Mal himself spent a month in India, before returning to London to help the others with the White Album sessions.

Later in the year, Mal travels to New York with George. They go to visit Bob Dylan and the Band, who are rehearsing at Big Pink, the Band's upstate retreat.

November 28, 1968: "Up at 10.30 to Woodstock... To Bob [Dylan] for Thanksgiving. Meet Levon [Helm] of the band, he is drummer, plays great guitar. Around the table after turkey, cranberry sauce, etc... & also Pecan pie. Bob, George, Rich, Happy, Levon... around the guitars while many children play; Sarah [Dylan] great - turkey sandwich and beer. To Richard [Manuel] & Garth's [Hudson] home for farm sessions - home to bed."

At this point, Mal's 1968 diary comes to an end; it has been an action packed year with two hit singles and a sprawling double album - but the Beatles are no longer a cohesive unit.

In the midst of a miserably cold winter, the band and Mal set off for Twickenham studios, where they are to start work on the project that is to become Let It Be, a filmed record of the Beatles at work. Already there is discord, and in front of the cameras they begin to disintegrate; from Mal we also get the first murmurings of real discontent.

January 13, 1969: "Paul is really cutting down on the Apple staff members. I was elevated to office boy [Mal had briefly been made MD of Apple] and I feel very hurt and sad inside - only big boys don't cry. Why I should feel hurt and reason for writing this is ego... I thought I was different from other people in my relationship with the Beatles and being loved by them and treated so nice, I felt like one of the family. Seems I fetch and carry. I find it difficult to live on the £38 I take home each week and would love to be like their other friends who buy fantastic homes and have all the alterations done by them, and are still going to ask for a rise. I always tell myself - look, everybody wants to take from, be satisfied, try to give and you will receive. After all this time I have about £70 to my name, but was content and happy. Loving them as I do, nothing is too much trouble, because I want to serve them.

"Feel a bit better now - EGO?"

The Let it Be film is to feature the Beatles in what is to become their last public performance, on the rooftop of the Apple office in London's Saville Row. Squabbles put to one side, the band, accompanied by Billy Preston on keyboards, are clearly enjoying themselves. Mal is unusually perky too.

January 24, 1969: "Skiffling 'Maggie May'; Beatles really playing together. Atmosphere is lovely in the studio - everyone seems so much happier than of recent times."

January 27: "Today we had the engineer to look at the roof of No.3. 5lbs sq. in is all it will take weight wise. Needs scaffolding to make platform. Getting helicopter for shot of roof. Should get good shot of crowds in street, who knows, police might try to stop us. Asked Alistair [Taylor, Apple office manager] to get toasted sandwich machine."

January 29: "Show on the roof of Apple. Four policemen kept at bay for 40minutes while the show goes on."

With the Beatles in free fall, Mal busies himself with jobs for other Apple artists and fetching and carrying for individual Beatles. Throughout the 1960's he and Paul had an affinity, and in March 1969, Mall was one of just two witnesses at Paul's wedding to Linda Eastman in London. The same day, George Harrison's home is raided for drugs.

March 13: "Big drama, last night about 7:30pm Pattie rang the office from home for George to say '8or 10 policemen including Sergeant Pilcher had arrived with search warrants looking for cannabis'. George went home with Derek and lawyer, and was released on £200 bail each. "

Mal, meanwhile, has financial worries.

April 24: "Had to tell George - 'I'm broke'. Really miserable and down because i'm in the red, and the bills are coming in, poor old Lil suffers as i don't want to get a rise. Not really true don't want to ask for a rise, fellows are having a pretty tough time as it is."

The Beatles record their last album, Abbey Road, in the summer of that year. Mal's diaries note that four alternative titles were mooted before the band settled on a title that celebrated the home of EMI studios. "titles suggested: Four In The Bar; All Good Children Go To Heaven; Turn Ups; Inclinations." Mal helps with John's Instant Karma, but he is finding Paul distant.

The next year, 1970, sees the Beatles continuing with their solo projects. The band is no longer recording together.

January 27: "Seem to be losing Paul - really got the stick from him today."

February 4: "To bed at 4:30am to rise at 7:45 to help get the children dressed... Lil had a driving lesson at 8am, then driving test at 9am which she passed. Bed after a couple of hours. Feel a cold coming on again. Walk into office late afternoon to meet Ringo go to shake he says ' Give us a cuddle then' its worth a million pounds that is and feel really recharged. George & Steve bass & guitar. Nanette. Ringo Drums."

February 5: "Bed this morning late.Up at 1 to phone. Conversation with Paul, something like this: 'Malcolm Evans' 'Yeah Paul' 'I've got the EMI [Abbey Road studio] over this weekend - I would like you to pick up some gear from the house' 'great man, that's lovely. session at EMI?' 'Yes but I don't want any one there to make me tea, I have the family, wife and kids there.' "

Mal clearly took Paul's distance to heart. There was now no group to look after. Mal continued to work with John, Ringo and George on their solo efforts and with the small stable of Apple musicians he had helped to build up. But for him, the adventure was pretty much over. When the Beatles broke up, there was a very strong chance that he would to.

Mal remained an employee of Apple until 1974, when he moved to LA, ostensibly to work as a record producer. He left Lily and the children the same year, moving in with Fran Hughes, whom he had met at the Record Plant studios in Los Angeles. The split from Lily had depressed Mal, and it was clear that he continued to miss the family, long after he walked out on them. Neither his family, nor the Beatles, his second family, were now close. "The times I had with him were brilliant. He was an extraordinary person," says his son, Gary, "But from the moment he met the Beatles to the moment he died, he wanted to live two parallel lives. He would have lived six months in the States and six months here, if he'd been able to get away with it."

On the morning of January 5, 1976, exactly two years after Mal had walked out, Lily took a phone call from Neil Aspinall. He told her that Mal had been shot in LA. "I immediately thought he'd been shot in a bank," says Lily, "I had to wake up the kids and tell them. I didn't know he was so low. He must have been missing the kids, depressed."

Mal had been killed by an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department, who had been called to a disturbance at his home in LA after it had been reported that he had been brandishing a weapon, which may or may not have been an air rifle. Fran had called the police. Gary believes he was drinking heavily and may have been on cocaine at the time. "It was all part of the rock'n'roll, '70s lifestyle." Gary added that he thinks his father may have been behaving like that in the knowledge that even if he was unwilling to end his own life, the LA police would show no such hesitation.

George arranged for Mal's family to receive £5000 in his death; he had no pension and he had not kept up his life-assurance premiums. Lily and Gary have met Paul twice to discuss the ownership of some Beatles lyrics Mal had tidied up, which she wanted to sell. Paul appears to have reached generous out-of-court settlements with her. Over the years, the Mal Evans archive has dwindled as Lily has been forced to sell other parts of it piecemeal.

As she looks back on the 1960s, Lily regrets the amount of time Mal gave up for the Beatles, but has fond memories; she and the children adored the huge fireworks parties that Ringo organized at his homes in Weybridge and Ascot. For Gary, who was 14 when his father died, memories of the 1960s are bittersweet. "The Greek holiday was wonderful. there were good times interspersed among the 'Where is he's?'

"I'd go to school on the Monday, and the teacher would say, 'What did you do at the weekend?' I'd say, 'I went round to John Lennon's house'. I thought that was normal. Sometimes I found it all a bit much. I'd be picked up from school by my dad in John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. He'd be wearing a cowboy hat, surrounded by kids. I'd think, 'I don't need this'."

Ultimately, Gary remains disappointed about the fact that the Beatles did not make proper provision for his father or his family. When Mal left, Lily had to return to work to pay the mortgage and keep the children going. "It was very tight," Gary recalls. "We were on free school meals. It's very galling when you look back at what my dad's imput into that band and we ended up like that." We asked Sir Paul McCartney to comment, but a spokesperson said he was "unavailable".

It's difficult to properly evaluate Mal's contribution to the Beatles, but for a long period he was regarded as indispensable. He was trusted, universally liked, and desperately loyal: his diaries give away no indiscretions, though he certainly would have been party to them. Even Lily acknowledges that, "he would have had a few flings." But none of that bothered her: she always seemed more concerned that he was "too nice for his own good" and that the band would treat him "like a dishcloth".

If he had followed her advise and remained a Post Office engineer in Mossley Hill, he would have missed out on Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles in India and his meetings with Elvis, his hero. And his passing, too, in the sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles, might also have turned out to be just a little less rock'n'roll.

****

EXCERTS FROM MAL'S DIARIES:

January 20, 1963: Mal drives the Beatles to London

Picked up George at about 10.45 then picked up John, Paul & Ringo... George bought me dinner at Whitchurch and took over the driving up to about 20 miles before the M1... My only wish was for better headlights on the van otherwise admirable to drive, and I could not have wished for better company. They [The Beatles] made me feel at home with them at once. After steady 70-75 miles down the M1, entered London via Finchley... The boys seemed to know their way and... took us to the door of EMI house. There we met Kenny Lynch, Jess Conrad & Carol Deene all nice people.

January 4, 1967: Recording Penny Lane

Traveled to London left about 11am. Lil's back acting up a little again. Recording "Penny Lane" but Paul and John still not satisfied so will do voices again tomorrow. Went to Bag O' Nails about 3.45 after session. Cyn, Terry and Stan. Jane came to studio in her car. Had fish and chips in studio. Joss sticks burning a plenty tonight, really do get to like the smell.

January 27, 1967: Sgt. Pepper

Started writing song with Paul upstairs in his room, he on piano. What can one say about today - ah yes! Four Tops concert at Albert Hall. Beatles get screams they get the clap. Off to Bag after gig. Did a lot more of "where the rain comes in". Hope people like it. Started Sergeant Pepper.

February 1, 1967:

"Sergeant Pepper" sounds good. Paul tells me that I will get royalties on the song - great news, now perhaps a new home.

February 2, 1967:

Recording voices on Captain [sic] Pepper. All six of us doing the chorus in the middle, worked until about midnight. Bag took Cynthia [Lennon]. Bed about 5.30pm after no sleep. Ugh! Cleaning lady Mrs. Turner. Cor!!! Had to go to doctor in 6 George Street. Bought Ringo some undies for his visit to the Doctor.

March 30, 1967:

Played cow bell on Ringo's number [With a Little Help From My Friends]. Paul asked after who played that great cow bell...

February 17, 1968: In India and recording The White Album

The press really tried kicking down the gates into the Ashram - the Indian people on the Ashram called me halfway through, but as soon as an Indian reporter told me "no bloody foreigner is going to stop me in my own country" I cooled it.

February 23, 1968:

The Beatles all met Maharishi on his cottage roof... off to the beach after lunch, well its not really the beach but the bank of the Ganges... Jane still not well although the other minor complaints have been 'faith healed', and Ringo had a dead rat in drawer.

July 9, 1968:

Oobledee [Ob La Di, Ob La Da] goes well and Eric Clapton plays [sic] a visit... Off to pub for toasted cheese sarnies, later Paul went to the pub with George, Neil and Pete for a pint. John and George guitars - Ringo drums for new version of 'Revolution'. Put up slide for kids and filmed Julie on it.

September 13, 1968:

Heard today that the police arrived at EMI to bust us after we had left. On further enquiries this did not appear to have happened - wouldn't matter anyway, what would they find?

March 12, 1969: Paul and Linda's Wedding

Paul and Linda got married this morning at Marylebone registry office, due to at 9.45 but Mike's train from Birmingham was delayed... When Peter Brown and myself passed the registry office at about 9.15 there were only a few photographers and ardent fans standing in the rain, but when we left at 11.30am or perhaps it was 11.15am we were mobbed by a crowd of about 1000. Heather [Linda's daughter] was carried out by a policeman and Ray of the hire car company... Back at home, they did a couple of TVs and then went to the local church to be "BLESSED". Off to the Ritz Piccadilly for a wedding lunch, where we were joined by Neil and Sue. Escargot for moi; TV interview in the Ritz and deliver Paul and Linda McCartney to home and feet up by the fire.

August 8, 1969 (Accompanied by drawing of Abbey Road album cover photo)

Up at 8.30am, arriving at 9.45am. Ringo first at 10.15 with the others arriving just after eleven. Policeman gets quite excited at a few people, and Ian missed the picture. George, (??) and I go to Regents Park Zoo and meditate in the sun. To Krishna temple for lunch and studio for 3pm. Yoko, John and Ringo went to Paul and Linda's for lunch. It was very nice.

[cloudberry-sims]

A Decade Through Time: The Alderberg Legacy: Year 1606

From the Beginning I Currently 

It was the first quarter of 1606 when Philip & Emma Alderberg,after only 3 months of marriage had a little girl.

Although the baby was healthy and happy , her parents were clearly not. They constantly argued and jabbed on each other, especially on what to name the baby. 

Phil didn’t believe the baby was his , yet he disapproved on every name suggestion from Emma and likewise. One night it all became too much and Phil just said -

Philip: If we cannot pick a name just name her after me! That’s probably the only thing she will have that’s mine anyway! 

Hurt by his words , Emma agreed. Because he would eat his words once Philippa grows up , for she is his daughter and Emma would make sure to remind him everyday until the grim reaper finally arrives and end their marriage! 

Meanwhile at the Rookwoods, Margery and Lambert continued to live their lives quietly with their twin girls. 

After 6 years of marriage , they have grown to view each other as friends ,  although Margery knew Lambert saw her in a romantic light , which she did reciprocate to make him happy , she still saw him as only a friend & father of her little girls. 

Although they won’t be so little much longer , as Isabel and Avis’s 6th birthday is in a few months. It felt like yesterday when they were just babies in swaddles.  

Speaking of babies in swaddles , Margery was getting  worried over her recent spells of nausea that came randomly during the day. She knew Lambert and her the twins would be happy for a new baby , Margery felt two was enough and hopes this would be her final baby. 

Life for the Alderbergs continued as normal. Griffyn together with his two older children working on the garden , removing pesky weeds and harvesting what could be harvest right away. 

Meanwhile , Priscilla was bonding with little James. 

Out of all her children , James was the most like her: He was active and always on the move. But she could see a  perceptiveness in his green eyes as he watch the world around him - perhaps as he grows older he would see things beneath the surface value where most sims cannot. 

On the second quarter of 1606 , on a hailing spring night , Avigail Friswell went into a hasty and  premature labor.

Everything happened so fast , Garitt wasn't even able to get help before his beloved wife of  nearly 10 years died from maternal shock , leaving her four children motherless.

Avigail was only 30 years old. 

And the baby? It was a boy , small and helpless , to tiny to breathe on his own. He was given the name of Edmund , as it was Avigails wish to have a daughter named Eleanor after her mother and it was the closes thing Garitt could think of. The 34 year old man could barely look at him , blaming him and himself for Avigail’s passing. 

It was Garitt who wanted a big , happy family and Avigail paid the price with her life. He swore on her death bed and the watcher he would never , ever remarry and raise their remaining children with all the love and care he could offer.

As the year continued forward , the Alderberg children spent time together , Marion being the dutiful sister entertaining the youngsters with fun stories and songs. 

Caleb , Lucy and James loved those stories as they played with the colorful wooden blocks. The boys liked more adventurous stories of famous heroes and kings , while Lucy loved the stories of talking animals with sim virtues. 

Griffyn & Priscilla were thankful to have such imaginative daughter who loved her siblings , so they could enjoy some alone time together. It was hard to imagining 9 years ago they were mere strangers to each other , and now they enjoy those quiet , intimate moments of being married. 

3 months after Avigail’s burial , the mood in the family home brightened slightly as Theodora Friswell aged up into a toddler.

She is the only Friswell to not have inherited the blond hair of her maternal family , which was a blessing in disguise. 

Interestingly , she inherited instead the brown eyes from her grandmother Eleanor and is one of the few , maybe even the last sims left with those eyes of our founder. 

At the end of the year , Margery and Lambert welcomed their third  and final child : Winifred Rookwood. 

The little baby was surrounded by her parents and two older sisters whom both shared different opinions of their baby sister- Isabel thought she was scrawny and ugly , while Avis thought she looked like any other baby in town. 

Both Margery and Lambert knew though that they would love their sister once all tree of them got older. 

Phil , what is wrong with you your overgrown man child! Like I know your unstable but stop being a poopy pants or else Emma will take Philippa and run! 

I know his my sim but I want to strangle him. 

I know that this might seem like Avigail died from her pregnancy roll , be it was actually her adult roll part 1 that killed her. 

[conradscrime]

The Kennedy Curse

January 23, 2022

The Kennedy Curse refers to a number of tragedies that have seemingly all happened to members of the famous Kennedy family. Over decades of horrific accidents, deaths and just unfortunate events have surrounded this family and some even believe a curse had bestowed upon them, as it seems they do have lots of bad luck. 

Ted Kennedy himself brought up the fact that it was possible a curse had struck his family after a car crash in 1969, when at this point, he had already lost 4 of his siblings at young ages. 

Here is a timeline of some of the most tragic events that have taken place over the years surrounding the Kennedy’s. 

Rosemary Kennedy who was the sister of John F. Kennedy, was the oldest Kennedy daughter, and many believe she had a lack of oxygen at the time of her birth. Due to this, she had experienced some intellectual disabilities, and her family had sent her to a school for it. 

In Rosemary’s early 20′s she began to act out, having violent mood swings and would often throw “fits.” It was becoming increasingly harder for the family to keep Rosemary’s disability hidden from the public, remember it was all about image and in these days having an intellectual disability was considered a shame by many. 

Rosemary’s father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., decided to allow them to do a lobotomy on Rosemary in 1941, which was a fairly new procedure at the time. Joseph Kennedy Sr. did not inform his family that Rosemary had this done until after.

The lobotomy was botched, leaving Rosemary with the capabilities of a 2 year old, and she lost her ability to walk and talk. She spent the rest of her life in private institutions and was hidden away, barley associated with the Kennedy name as they believed if the public knew of her it would be damaging to them in the political world. 

Another tragic event took place a few years later. Joe Kennedy Jr., the oldest Kennedy son had began his political career, and his father believed he would become President one day. Joe Jr. had enlisted in the US Naval Reserve in June 1941 and was training to be a naval aviator. 

He was then dispatched to Britain, and had completed 25 combat missions before volunteering to be a part of top-secret assignments such as Operation Aphrodite and Operation Anvil. 

In August 1944, Joe Jr. was on one of these missions when an explosive carried in his plane detonated early, destroying his plane and killing both him and his co-pilot instantly. The details of this mission were kept a secret until WWII ended. Joe was only 29 years old when he died. 

Also in 1944, Kathleen or “Kick” Kennedy married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and heir of the Duke of Devonshire. Kathleen Kennedy’s nickname was “Kick” due to her spirited nature. However, the marriage didn’t last very long, when just after 4 weeks, William died in battle against the Germans in Belgium. 

On May 13, 1948, Kathleen went to visit her father in Paris to try to convince him that her new man, Lord Fitzwilliam was suitable. They took off in a private plane from Paris towards the Rivera and at some point they got caught in a storm. 

The plane began to experience severe turbulence, and as they emerged from the clouds, the plane was in a deep dive, about to crash. They attempted to pull up, but the strain on the plane was too much and it disintegrated. All 4 people onboard died instantly. 

The next tragic event took place when Jacqueline Kennedy gave birth to a premature baby boy named Patrick on August 7, 1963. The little boy lived for 39 hours before he died from complications of hyaline membrane disease. Before this, Jackie had already gone through a miscarriage and a stillbirth. However, one good thing came out of this, with more research being done on infantile respiratory diseases and syndromes. 

Of course shortly after this, a tragedy hit the Kennedy family that is perhaps one of the most famous tragedies and assassinations in history, that of John F. Kennedy. 

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, who had been in office for just under 3 years, was shot dead in Dallas, Texas at just age 46. The man who shot JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed before he could be questioned or prosecuted, which sparked many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. 

The Warren Commission investigated the case thoroughly, but found no evidence of a conspiracy. This did not stop people from coming up with theories however, such as the Umbrella man theory and whether Lee Harvey Oswald could have committed this murder by himself. 

A poll was done which showed that over 60% of Americans believe that the JFK assassination was part of a conspiracy theory, and that this has been shushed by the government. 

Less than 5 years after JFK was killed, his brother Robert F. Kennedy was also assassinated. Robert had served as US Attorney General from 1961 to 1964, and was subsequently a Senator for New York. 

In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nominee, and won the California primary on June 5. Shortly after this he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a young man who claimed to have acted in retaliation for Robert F. Kennedy’s pro-Israeli stance during the 1967 Six Day War. 

The assassination of RFK changed things, as it was now allowed for presidential candidates to have protection. 

A little over a year later, in July of 1969, Ted Kennedy was the next victim of the Kennedy Curse, when he left a party on Chappaquiddick Island to drop a woman named Mary Jo Kopechne at the ferry landing. While driving, Ted’s car skidded off the bridge into the water, and he was able to escape, swim away and leave the scene. 

Ted Kennedy did not report this to the police until 10 am the following morning, after Mary Jo’s body had been recovered from the sunk car. Ted was found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident and got a 2 month suspended jail sentence and his driver’s license was suspended for 16 months. 

Many believe Ted Kennedy had purposely driven his car off the bridge, because if it was a drunk accident, how was he able to escape the car, swim away and leave the scene so easily? While many believe he had gotten away with the murder of Mary Jo Kopechne, the Chappaquiddick Incident did ruin his chances of ever becoming President. 

He did run in the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, but lost to Jimmy Carter. 

In 1973, when Ted Kennedy’s son, and JFK’s nephew, Ted Kennedy Jr., was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, bone cancer in his right leg at the age of 12. While he did need to have his leg amputated, it was successful, and the cancer never returned. 

David Kennedy, the fourth son of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel, had actually almost drowned as a boy, but he was saved by his father. 

At some point, David had begun using drugs to cope with the trauma he experienced, and when he was in a car accident in 1973, he became addicted to opioids. He went to rehab several times, but his addiction overcame him every time. 

On April 25 1984, David Kennedy was found dead from an overdose of cocaine and prescription medication. He was only 28 years old. 

When JFK was killed, his son, John Kennedy Jr., was 3 days away from his third birthday. In 1999, John Kennedy Jr. was working as a legal professional in New York. 

On July 16, 1999, JFK Jr. took a plane from New Jersey to Massachusetts to attend a family wedding with his wife Carolyn and sister in law, Lauren. The plane was soon reported missing after it failed to arrive at its scheduled time and stopped responding to communications. 

On July 19, debris was found in the Atlantic Ocean, and the bodies were found on July 21 on the seabed, Kennedy’s body was still strapped in the pilot’s seat. Many believed that JFK Jr. became disoriented while they were travelling over water at night, which is how they crashed. JFK Jr. was 38 and his wife, Carolyn Bessette was only 33 at the time of their death. 

Is it just a coincidence that a giant and well known family such as the Kennedy’s have experienced such tragedies in their lives? Yes tragedy strikes every family, but is it strange that so many plane crashes and young people dying in one family have occurred? Do you believe in the Kennedy Curse? 

[scotianostra]

Mary, Queen of Scots, was born at Linlithgow Palace on December 8th 1542.

Part One.

I never know what to post about Mary Stuart nowadays, as I try to keep things fresh.... I’ll start with her father, King James V, who, on hearing he had a daughter is alleged to have said  “it cam' wi' a lass, and it'll gang wi' a lass”  meaning that whilst the Stewarts came to power through marrying a princess, (Marjorie Bruce) the Stewart line would end with his daughter as queen. He then promptly died and Mary became Queen aged just 6 days old. The words might have sounded good and are still often quoted, but the Stewart's, by then spelled Stuart, plodded on for over 150 years, the last monarch being Queen Anne from 1702 to 1714.

From the very beginning, life was harsh to the girl. Born prematurely, she was fragile and had to fight tooth and nail for her right to stay in this world, dominated by men.  Mary was his only legitimate child and the presumptive heir to his throne. Once James V passed, that presumption became grim reality. Though envoys noted she was “weak and frail,” this babe was now Queen of all Scotland, and the entire country rested on her tiny shoulders. From the very first, it was one wild ride.

Though Mary was still just an infant and had regents doing most of her decision-making for the first decades of her life, this didn’t mean she was out of the action—far from it. Almost immediately after her crowning, the infamous Henry VIII of England started trying to get Mary betrothed to his son Edward, and he stopped at nothing to accomplish it, look for my posts about what became known as “The Rough Wooing” which involved him sending armies into Scotland  trying to strong-arm them into agreeing to the union through brute force.

In 1547, the first part of Mary’s destiny locked into place. Scotland, terrified of King Henry VIII and losing badly, turned to France and  The King of France, Henri II, agreed to provide military support against England, while Mary was promised in marriage to Henri's son and heir, Francis, uniting the two countries against the common enemy, England.

In 1548 Mary was sent her to France—and out of Henry VIII’s rampage—to live with her toddler fiancé. These were the years that shaped her life. She stayed at the French court for over a decade she developed a love for riding dancing, music, masking and embroidery, she obviously became fluent in French, but also spoke Latin, Greek, Spanish and Italian.

The French court was beguiled by the toddler who grew into a beautiful lady. She had a small face, a long, graceful neck, hazel eyes, and a head of thick, auburn hair.   Mary grew to an astonishing 5 feet, 11 inches tall, even by todays standards it’s tall, on paper her fiancé was not a perfect match for the Queen of Scots,  Prince Francis had a noticeable stutter, was constantly ill, and was somewhat shorter than average for the time. But they had a secret weapon. Odd couple or not, they got along “as if they had known each other for a long time.” and there is no doubting they loved each other. 

In 1558, Mary a flush 15 years old, and Prince Francis 14 years old and probably still dealing with his first wave of acne, were married in Cathedral, Paris. A year later, King Henri died  and Mary became Queen of Scotland and France. However, her reign of France was brief, for in 1560 Francis became ill and died. The crown passed to his younger brother. Mary’s mother (who had ruled Scotland as regent) had also died in 1560, and so Mary returned to Scotland in 1561. On 18th  August, she sailed into Leith. Dressed in mourning, Mary then travelled to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in a grand procession, where the way was lined with a cheering crowd.

I’ll leave things for now and will pick this up later today. 

[lorei-writes]

Play in Four Acts

Comte de Saint-Germain Gen Fic

Premise: A short story on life of Comte and eternity. 

Do I know what I’m doing? Of course not. But I’ll make it your problem, by posting this.

Content Warnings: general discussion of death and eternal life, its consequences

Saint-Germain knew few things were sure of human existence, webs of fate being spun at much too high pace for anybody to predict which would become weft and which were to be the wrap. In his lifetime, he saw quite a few fabrics being weaved together, all similar yet completely different at the same time.

Till death do us part. Yet he would never die.

Saint-Germain knew few things were sure of human existence, webs of fate being spun at much too high pace for anybody to predict which would become weft and which were to be the wrap. In his lifetime, he saw quite a few fabrics being weaved together, all similar yet completely different at the same time. Some were plain, mostly grey and brown, tainted by vermilion of wars, dirtied with famine, sorrow, mourning – some would end white, some would pick plum indigo, some would be torn apart prematurely. There was also another kind, one slowly growing in numbers throughout centuries, one dyed with subtle pinks and blues, the shades being calming rather than jarring… Lastly, there was also a selection he greatly admired, the threads being thicker, sturdier, more vibrant, coming together as to create a complete picture – a tapestry, the images telling stories of the greatness of one’s life.

Comte lived long enough to witness the creation process from the beginning to the completion numerous times. At first curious, he soon found himself mesmerised, lured into the world he did not quite belong to – or perhaps, a world which belonged to him, as he was exempt form some of the rules governing it. He lived, he lived as not to regret anything, the days of his youth being plentiful, far exceeding what others around him could hope for. The fear of his nature being revealed was reduced to a simmer, allowing him to bask in joy of exploration.

Yet all fruit loses taste in the presence of eternity.

His companions died, of course, no living creature being strong enough to resist the final call. However, Saint-Germain could not see them off before their departure to the land of the dead. He was not like them. He was not old and wrinkly, he had hardly changed since the day they met. In fact, he could not do as much as cross their way for decades prior to that – they would have recognized him by the mere sound of his steps, he was sure.

All his relationships with humans had to end at some point, to be cut short violently. He would change names, eventually almost forgetting his original one – although who could judge whether the first he donned was the truest? Perhaps he was equally himself in each disguise? Perhaps his essence was being a Saint-Germain, or a Comte, or something else entirely? Whichever it was, it was eternal, and as he realised, it was not only humans who were not made with endlessness in mind.

To be eternal meant to be lonely.

Humans had to develop, to mature in cycles he grew quite accustomed to. The same mistakes had to be made, the crucial experiences had to be repated – and although different, all seemed so similar to him. Saint-Germain knew it all already. He could have guessed plenty of the developments. He could have guessed the trivial parts! He could have stopped so many… No, he couldn’t have. He truly couldn’t have. For how could he know some of the things he had learnt throughout his time? Clearly… No. It was not his world, not when he was not one with his kind.

He did not mean to harm anybody. He did not mean to betray them, to deceive them… Yet he could not stay in this state either – so he used the door to turn the cogs of time, to reverse them or to push them into the future, as to reach the arras he found himself so fascinated by. The ones which were inspiring or, in few cases, like anomalies, turning the fate upside-down. He made an offer. Just an offer one could easily refuse. He would not press any…

They agreed.

It was a simple exchange, Saint-Germain reasoned. He gave them protection and enough time to pursue their desires, and he? He would… He would… He would be there, he presumed, just living, perhaps interacting, talking with them, being a sort of host. He did not need more, the outcome being satisfying enough this way. He would not chain them, he couldn’t have.

He was not sure whether he expected the woman to follow him through the door. He was not sure whether he wanted it, whether a being so soon to die, so similar to him yet so fundamentally different, had any place in his world. Regardless: she was there already, and he had never before seen a human living in a household of vampires. Perhaps he did not mind.

Tag List: @cheese-ception, @nad-zeta If you want to be tagged for my works, please, do let me know :D Please, specify fandoms as well (IkeSen, IkeVam, OM).