#this is not a happy story

[criticofallthings]

5:37am EST its been a damn hot minute (more like a couple of years prolly) anyway cant sleep wont sleep dont sleep I'm thinking back to a time where seasonal content was interesting with the spoicy lore drops. Also angst because why not since the Guardian x Crow ship cannonically sunk 😩 idk what a title is and no beta test readers so typos & issues abound, dont be a dick if u want me to fix it tho. This one kinda picks up waaaaay down the road from the other one I did about these two???

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

"Uldren Sov, Awoken Prince."

"Brother. To the Queen."

The titles fly out with cold dissociation. Crow pauses a moment, unable to meet the Guardian's gaze. He speaks another, vehemently, his voice quaking with furious emotion:

"Murderer."

The Guardian watches, unable to speak words of solace, knowing there is none that they can say. It tears at them, rips into their gut, to see Crow like this...to know they have no right to console him. To know just how fragile this simmering warmth that had hatched between them through the Wrathborn Hunts and Hawkmoon, truly is. The Guardian had reconciled with Crow's past, they know that Crow is not him, the two are different men...but how would Crow feel about it all?

What does it feel like to suddenly know that you have kissed the lips of your past self's killer? To know that body you enjoy waking up next to was once the same body hunting you down for revenge? That the hands that caressed his face so gently this morning, yesterday could have been wrung around his neck until it snapped like dry firewood beneath an axe?

The Guardian is stone, signs of life only showing by the whitening of their knuckles, tightly clenched into fists at their side. Crow shifts awkwardly and the Guardian's heart squeezes, breath hitching as they see Crow slowly turn to look them in the eye. At first his expression was unreadable, but then he spoke, voice low and hissed: darkened by what he felt but did not show.

"And you," his voice trembles with effort, hands moving to gesture at the Guardian "you, YOU knew everything!"

The Guardian takes a half step back, Crow's sudden outburst unexpected and deeply piercing. Hurt lines the corner of the Guardian's eyes and in shame they cannot maintain Crow's burning gaze.

"Just...how could you??" Crow's voice returns to a whisper, trailing into a choked back sob. "You, I-I-how could you...?"

The Guardian raises their head to look at Crow, they see him half extending a hand out to them. Palm upwards, pleading, his face contorting with anger and disgust, grief and wholly heartbroken. When be speaks, its barely above a stuttering whisper:

"I-he, no m-me...I've hurt you so much."

Time trails on, mere seconds but now an eternity. The Guardian can't respond, they dont know what they could do here, if there's anything to be said. Their own lack of words frustrates them and the Guardian can only moreosely return Crow's gaze. He breaks it off and turns his face away, half of it fully obscured in the dark shadows of his hood and the other half sharply illuminated by the Helm's lights.

"I'm sorry."

It was spoken gently, cautiously, as if the Guardian was the one who had been suffering. They take a tentative towards Crow, still trying to find a remedy dor the situation. But before they can begin to speak or draw closer, Crow withdraws.

The coil around the Guardian's heart constricts ever tighter and they find themselves rooted in place once more.

"I...I understand. I don't think I would have told me either." A heavy sigh causes his shoulders to rise and fall, curving inwards, instinctively protective of himself. Crows looks up at the Guardian once again, seemingly shruken and by far the most uncertain the Guardian has ever seen him as.

"I need to get out of here." Crow's voice is slow and trembles slightly, still just barely more than a whisper.

"I'm afraid...of who I used to be." Discomfort and fear linger in his next words and Crow must look away to say them.

"That he'll come back somehow...that somewhere deep inside, you do too."

Crow tugs on his hood, covering his eyes, turning to walk away from the Guardian. They reach out to him, heart racing anxiously, trembling slightly as they realized what Crow was preparing to do.

"I need to get out here. I need to get as far away from her as possible. Somewhere I know my choices are my own."

The Guardian's fingertips barely graze the edges of Crow's cloak as he transmats out. The Helm is woefully quiet as the sounds of the transmat firing fade into the low mechnical background noise of the ship.

"I'm sorry." [please stay]

Without Crow in the Helm, no one is around to hear the Guardian's whispered apology or try to figure out their innermost thoughts. And no one at all would hear their anguished cries.

[starspanner]

I've been playing Final Fantasy XVI

[totaldramafan-lauri]

Naivete

IT'S. FINALLY. DONE. GOD, it's been a long ride.....When I outlined this thing....t-two months ago....I was NOT expecting it to turn out to be such a huge undertaking.....Ugh.....

S-so, if you’re seeing this, and are put off by the length....y-yeah, I-I completely understand if you don't have the patience to read all of this. Once it became clear to me that this was gonna end up the longest thing I've ever written, I mainly just kept it going just to see if I could finish it......a-and I did! I-I guess you could call it a passion project.....f-fueled by.....s-simping.....>///////> S-safe to say that I’m gonna be taking a break from writing for a while, to recharge my creative batteries.....a-and I don’t think I’ll EVER write something THIS long ever again. I-I really do prefer one-shots....This one just got super outta control....Th-this is the exception, not the rule......

If you don't wanna read it, you're valid, and I won't force you....but I’m linking all four parts here from Google Docs. I-I was gonna post them here, but the sheer length of each part, and how it’s either “one MASSIVE post” or “four posts one after the other”, I feel like Tumblr’s format really doesn’t lend itself well to multi-part behemoths like this. Which comes to my next point: I-I’m.....considering getting an AO3 account. D-dunno if I’m gonna go through with it, cuz it depends on if this fic is WORTH doing that. S-so....I guess this is my trial run. I-if this goes over well enough on Tumblr and Discord, then I’ll do it. (And I’ll put Drowned there too) WARNINGS: Standard content warnings in the tags. -This takes place before episode 13, and if I get things wrong, do NOT tell me, cuz I am literally at 12-30 right now and am mostly unspoiled (outside of stuff revealed on the Wiki, such as information about the setting, character dynamics, and Caramel's banishment, which is apparently already a flashback) If I learn I got something wrong, I will happily call MYSELF out so no one else has to, kay? J-just please no spoiling, I’m so close! -(If I DO get details wrong, then.....pfffff, this fic was already an AU (the “Caramel has a little sibling figure” AU) so I’m prepared) -Finally, uh....I-I'm REALLY REALLY sorry if Caramel Arrow is OOC. I started planning this when she JUST came out and I didn't have her myself yet, and all I really heard about her personality was "just Black Raisin again". Now that I DO have her, it does look like I was mostly right, but if she's less of a kuudere in story mode, then....th-this is another thing I will call myself out on if I'm wrong XD S-so sorry in advance about that..... Now.....*gulp*....h-here I go.....

-Part 1

-Part 2

-Part 3 -Part 4

[trustmeifyoudare]

The Wonder Twins (Chapter 1: Make a Wish)

Allegra and Felix had been best friends for as long as they could remember. It was just how things were. Their parents said that they were acting as all children do when they finally meet someone their age: form a friendship because there is nothing else better to do. That once they grew up and went to school they wouldn’t even remember each other. But the pair didn’t care what their parents thought. To them it was real.

Despite their parents’ best efforts to keep them apart so they could “grow out of childhood illusions”, they were put into the same class, year after year. It was almost like the universe had other plans for them. Everyday after school they would meet up to do their homework together. The would sneak into their parents’ wine cellars and steal bottles just to say that they could. They would stay up all night, watching the stars in Allegra’s backyard where there wasn’t that much light pollution. When they were together it was like they could forget the increasing pressure put on them from society and their parents and just be themselves.

One warm summer night, Allegra and Felix laid down on a hill, looking up into the stars They were quiet, something that did not happen often. Allegra looked over at Felix, who was ripping apart a blade of grass. There was obviously something wrong.

“How long is forever?” Felix asked, breaking the silence.

“Well, it’s forever. It never ends, I guess. It just keeps going on and on.”

“We- we are going to be best friends forever, right?”

Why did Felix feel like he had to ask that? “Of course we are, Fe. Nothing could ever separate us.” She smiled at him and he gave her a little one back.

Felix pointed up at the sky, where a shooting star was flying past. “Make a wish.”

Allegra wished for the normal things that a child wished for. An ice cream cone, a pony, that her parents would love her.

“What did you wish for?” Felix asked.

Allegra paused. Thought. “That everything could stay like this forever.”

Forever. 

They fell quiet again. It wasn’t until what felt like hours later that Felix said, “I’m moving.” It was so quiet that Allegra almost didn’t hear it. She froze. Looked over at Felix. Who was crying.

Some people think that the universe is kind and benevolent, giving us friends and family out of the goodness of its heart. But in that moment Allegra knew the truth. The universe is cruel. It gives so it can take away.

She shook her head. “No. You can’t be.”

“Mummy wants us to be closer to my uncle because of some business deal that they have, so we are moving to Paris.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

“We are still going to use the mansion, but it will just be a vacation home. It’s not like we will never see each other again.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile but it came out as more of a grimace.

The universe is greedy. It takes what it can: our memories, our lives, our happiness. It gives us a false sense of security and then crushes it before our eyes.

They stayed there until the sun was well over the horizon. A week later Felix was gone. He never came back. After his father died a few months later, his mother couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the empty house, so she sold it. Forgot about it. Like the family that lived there never existed.

Allegra and Felix moved on. Pretended to forget about each other. About the friendship they used to have.

Eventually you will forget the promises you make, whispered in the times you thought anything was possible. You won’t remember the birthdays and the times you snuck out of the house. The memories will fade until its like they never really happened.

It turns out that forever does have an end, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

[carladuquette]

No body, no crime// Taylor Swift+Elite

Lu&Carla edition

I’m in a Taylor mood this weekend, so here’s a throwback to one of my fav entries in my TS/Elite collection!

Carla's eyes drifted out the window into the jet black night. Her chest ached as if she'd taken a hit with the hammer herself.

With a shaky exhale, she turned back to Guzman, whose right side of the face was covered in blood from where she had smashed in his forehead.

"I should have pushed her away. I should never have become Lu's friend, because that was how she got close to you. Through me."

Carla pressed her lips together. Come on. Don't stop now.

"She fell so hard for you almost immediately, I could tell, and I played into it. The double-dates, Polo and I and Lu and you… I thought it was fun. I encouraged her, because I didn't see it yet – you were my friend and I never believed you would be so cruel. And by the time I realized, it was too late. She was in too deep and she never managed to get out again. Maybe if I had been more insistent in college while you were broken up… But the second you stepped back into her life it was obvious she would be pulled under by your current again."

For a moment, the pain was so overwhelming that Carla thought about jumping overboard and sinking to the bottom of the sea. Then she looked at Guzman, who was fading fast.

She had let Lu down, and her best friend had died as a result. Carla was not going to do it again. She would stick to the plan and finish this.

[salamispots]

dream wip

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[saewokhrisz]

2/2 "gift"

[egophiliac]

I've had a beast of a cold for the last few days, but I wanted to get this out before the new year! while I've sort of made my peace with my first take on Lilia's UM poster, I really wanted to do a version with the new context that chapter 6 gave us. because. c'mon.

(don't worry, Lilia can carry ALL HIS KIDS AT ONCE)

[axwaitaru]

Legacy✨👑

[nerdpoe]

Danny, after going on a walk through the Ghost Zone, comes across a very friendly couple who quasi-adopt him.

They're super cool, too!

They used to be a part of a traveling circus, and they know how to do all sorts of neat tricks and flips and they teach him how to do them too!

Honestly, with their help his flying becomes next level; they forced him to obey gravity long enough to learn how to ignore it without using his abilities, and as such he gets a greater understanding of how to maneuver through it.

So when his Freshman class goes to Gotham on a field trip (scare tactic to prevent them from becoming drop outs because "oh if you drop out you'll resort to being a thug and you'll be trapped in this cursed city foreverrrrrr ooooooooo~") Danny decides to show off to Sam and Tucker in a small park.

He does a quadruple flip off of a wall he ran up.

Barbara stares in disbelief through her cameras.

That.

That shouldn't be possible?

She calls Dick to ask if he had any siblings or cousins he wasn't aware of.

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

Clone

~

Danny has heard about Superman's dislike for his clone,

Dead men do tell tales.

Danny grows angry with Superman,

There he was showing hate to his clone, his flesh, his blood,

Conner wasn't in the wrong,

He was just a child

He didn't ask to be created this way.

Danny hated Clark Kent

More and more with each story he heard from the ghosts around him, Danny knew what it was like to be cloned to feel that violation of his person, but he could never hate Ellie,

His clone

His cousin

His sister

His daughter

His family

She was precious to him and her being a clone would never lower the amount of love he held towards her.

So to see this hero, this adult, not give two shits about Conner?

Oh that burned

So he decided to do something about it, If Superman didn't want Conner then he would take him, show him the love and care that should have been his from the very beginning from what should have been his own family.

Danny could teach him more about Krypton than Superman could ever wish to know, show him his birthright.

~

Danny & Ellie on their way to surprise adopt Conner: "New family, new family~!"

Connor: "Why do I feel like something very important is going to happen?"

~

Superman feeling like he's being followed

The Krypton ghosts following him around being disappointed in him, and going back to the King to tell him all the things he's done.

~

The Justice League summoning King Phantom

Danny takes one look at Superman and is ready to give him the beating of his life

Danny: "You want a deal? Sure! In return for it I want 20 minutes alone with Supes over there, no reason why!

~

Danny seeing Superman after another ghost told him how bad he's been treating Conner:

~

Just an Idea

[fluidnet]

I was half asleep and thinking about all the stories like She’s The Man and Mulan (1999) where a woman dresses up like a man in order to do something ManlyTM and how they all inevitably fall in love with the masculinity of it all while still being women (or not, I guess, fiction is flexible and gender is more so)

and I went “give me a man who chooses to dress as a woman instead of resorting to violence. Give me a man who, in finding femininity and softness, can find himself. Give me a man who chooses kindness and love over war and aggression, but the only way he can do so is finding solace in the feminine. Not because femininity is inherently softer, but because society has told him as such. Give me a man who, through trial and error, finds himself learning to love the traditional women’s tasks he’s been clumsily attempting. Give me a man who could never truly fit in with other men, and the women around him protect him and love him unconditionally. Give me a man who cannot stand for himself at first, and then rises stronger together with the people who took him in”

And I realized that “give me a man who dresses as a woman in order to avoid going to war” is just. Achilles. And I want that classically animated movie now. I don’t even care if it’s sanitized like the Disney Renaissance Mulan or Hercules, in fact I’d enjoy that. I want Achilles to choose kindness and love and beauty over the war he never wanted to fight. I want a lighthearted, playful version of Achilles where there’s a happy ending. I know it’s a tragedy, but so were a lot of things that got animated at the time (not even Disney, Anastasia and Quest for Camelot come to mind as well) and I think he and Patroclus can have a happily ever after, too

I also want it to be gay, but I think that goes without saying

[munchymunchkin]

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

A guy doing marine research into phytoplankton is far out to sea and waiting for the samples to be ready when he spots a fast-moving ripple in the water up ahead.

Fully aware that this spot is home to a migratory orca pod, he assumes he's stumbled across an orca hunting a seal and settles against the railing to watch, because it's not every day you get to see that.

The ripples get closer, the shadows in the water more defined, the water choppier, and suddenly the orca and its unfortunate prey are zooming directly towards the boat and he's waiting, breath held, for them to duck right underneath--

When the water breaks, the ocean sprays, and he's suddenly smacked fully in the face by a very wet, very confused, and very pretty merman, throwing them both down onto the deck while the boat rocks as a confused and now quite hungry orca dives beneath it.

The merman, it turns out, thought that the boat was an ice float and didn't realise his mistake until it was too late. But he's very thankful for the impromptu rescue, and wow don't you have nice arms, and holy shit you've got legs, can I touch them? Is that weird? Can I touch them anyway? And your hair--

So of course they get to talking because they're both utterly fascinated with the other, and soon the sun has set and the samples are long-since ready and the moonlight is making the ocean look black and they part with the knowledge that they'll never meet again, and a kiss, and a lingering look over the shoulder for all the things that can't be...

And the researcher gets back to land, moors his boat, readies his samples. He packs up his things, shoves them into his bags, and prepares to go home. He steps onto the jetty boards and thinks of the merman and the solid wood beneath his feet seems to sway for more than one reason.

There's a splash. He turns, pulled as if by the tide, and there's a ripple in the water. A face. A pair of eyes made black by the moonlight.

And this is how the researcher acquires a merman boyfriend who helps him find samples and the merman acquires a human boyfriend who rescues him from whales.

[whatohitsonfirewelp]

You know what? I don’t WANT an awkward double date. I don’t WANT buck coming out and people having the ‘I know’ reaction or the ‘is it Eddie’ reaction.

You know what I do want?

I want Buck panicking over what to wear for the date. I want Buck flopping on his bed like very teenager after their first kiss all giggly and happy and touching his lips because he kissed a boy

I want Buck smiling every time he says Tommy’s name because maybe it isn’t forever and maybe he’s not even looking for forever anymore but he’s so happy and he’s so light and being with Tommy feels good

I want Tommy to keep calling him Evan, because before Buck was Buck he was Evan and Evan deserves to be happy to be treated so softly and lovingly and Evan deserves to be free.

I want Buck to be happy. To be happy and free and queer in the way we all deserve.