#this photo was taken by a nokia

[reigningmax]

St Tropez 6/7 via sebmaxime83 instagram story

[fushipurro]

All That I Wanna Hear

☆ Synopsis: It's halloween night in 2018 and while you're home enjoying a good horror movie to pass the time, you get a text from someone claiming to be your long deceased husband. Your current partner isn't all that thrilled once he finds out, but soon the night turns into more than ghosts and goblins.

☆ Content: 18+ MDNI, f!reader, fluff/smut/angst all in one, breeding kink, creampie, praise kink, oral sex, established relationships, pet names, threesome, anal, foreplay, slight hurt/comfort, shameless smut, porn with plot, i meme a lot in this, toji and satoru bicker a LOT

☆ Word Count: 5.5k

unknown sender daddy long dick just landed in shinjuku baby, where you at, mama?

you excuse me?

unknown sender shit doll, you didn't change your number, did ya? it's toji.

you that's a sick joke, asshole

you at first thought it was just some kids having fun. it's halloween, right? the time for pranking others even if the "joke" is downright cruel.

hell, even satoru was playing into it when you got a notification of 10 million yen being added to your bank account on top of at least 500 missed calls from the same man and more coming.

he's supposed to be out chaperoning some of his students for some halloween fun in shinjuku. his group consisting of your two kids megumi and tsumiki along with a few others you've come to love like your own from their school.

you offered to come along with them to enjoy the festivities, but satoru insisted that you stayed home, all bundled up on the couch watching all your favorite movies and what not. a "well deserved break" he called it.

over the years he's done similar things ever since you first met him twelve years ago when life as you knew it completely shattered into a million pieces. instead of your husband coming home, you were greeted by a grim reaper clad in white hair and a school uniform.

before even attempting to respond to the flurry of notifications, yet another call from said reaper came blaring through with their face front and center. your own throat felt like it was closing in on you, desperate and grasping for air as every emotion fought to escape you. you picked up the phone, finally hitting that green button and instantly hearing the frantic voice of the man on the other end.

"you're home, right? stay where you are, i'm coming over right away."

"what's going on satoru? are the kids okay? what's with the money, the calls, the texts─"

"everyone's fine, just stay put! i'm almost there!"

your phone buzzed in your hand with a new message, a selfie image from the unknown sender with the caption "proof enough, sweetheart?"

sure enough, it was like looking at a ghost. a man with hair as dark as his surroundings, the piercing green eyes, the scar over his lip. not to mention the awkward angle the photo was taken at like he wasn't sure what he was doing or where to look when he took the photo. whatever phone he was using was nothing close to the old nokia he had in the past buried in your nightstand and it showed.

"...what the fuck?"

you could hear satoru asking, "what's wrong?" from the speaker of your device.

"there's no way, right? you're supposed to be dead??" you choked out, tears falling from your eyes onto the phone screen. this was a sick joke, right? there's no way your husband is alive after being dead for twelve long and grueling years, it's just not possible.

...right?

satoru burst through the front door to your home, "y/n!? where are you?!" he breezed to the living room hoping you were there, and sure enough you were.

he stood in the doorway panting, finally seeing your eyes lift to meet his with tears streaming down your face. "this is a prank, right? he's dead! i don't like this, it's not funny. . ."

he sped towards you, throwing your phone to the other end of the couch and pulling you in for a hug. there was no way he could lie to you, he saw it himself already while he was out with his students.

is it wrong for satoru to want to hide the fact that your dead husband somehow is now revived? 100%. he didn't like toji one bit especially not after almost losing his own life to him and surviving from the miracle of reverse cursed technique. he also hated how broken you became after toji died, because he killed him. he caused your pain. it was because of those actions that you were left alone to shoulder the weight of two kids in a cramped decrepit apartment you hoped to move out of someday soon at the time. satoru did not want to ever see that happen again to you after you finally allowed yourself to try and love again.

you aren't a sorcerer.

you aren't a killer.

you didn't deserve this.

toji kept a lot hidden from you about the jujutsu world and the many horrors in it, especially the acts he once committed. he changed for you as much as he could since the time he locked you down with a ring to the day he died. he forwent killing others and used his hands only to love and support life as best as he could.

he had no regrets over falling in love with you, but he also struggled to find his place in the world again. everything he believed he knew and did best centered around taking the lives of others and without that, he wasn't anything. but he had you, and the kids, and that gave him every reason to try.

when confronted about the impossible task of killing a girl being guarded by the one and only satoru gojo, he knew it wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world. toji also knew that he was the only one capable of doing it with the right methods and plenty of patience. the rewards he'd reap afterwards would be enough to coast through life in the way that you deserve and with functional appliances and hot water in the shower. even if it meant bloodying his hands one final time, it was always for your sake and yours alone.

satoru had no chance to even open his mouth before a deep voice familiar to both of you sounded from the front door he didn't bother to lock in his haste to get here. not that any lock or door could ever hope to stop the being that is toji fushiguro.

"daddy's home~, where's my angel at?"

"how the fuck did you find her?" he turned to face the man with a hostile glare.

toji scoffed, walking over to the couch, ignoring satoru in the process as he cupped your tear-stained chin to meet the smile always reserved for you.

"missed ya, sweetheart," he slowly admired all your features intently. twelve years is a long time and while you're still young, you're not immune to signs of aging. however, you can now say it's cute that you both carry the same small creases around your eyes. the idea of growing old with your soulmate and actually getting to is a miracle in and of itself.

seeing him once again like this made you sob mercilessly, if you could call whatever you were doing before that. the sheer force of many emotions overtakes your body. you're grasping his body and face praying your hands don't slip through like ghosts on TV. "toji, how are you alive? i buried you myself!"

"haven't a clue, but i couldn't care less about the reason. i'm back now and i'm not leaving you ever again."

he hooked his hands under your arms and pulled you up off the cushions and into a tight hug, one you've missed after the many years of sleepless nights in a bed far too big for one person.

sure, they were seldomly spent with satoru, more so as of late. he was there for you when no one else was or could be. you hated him at first, but you grew to understand everything that happened and he helped you learn to love again. you hated too that toji had done something so stupid that cost him everything, but you understand why and came to terms with it.

he shot a glare at satoru who was kneeling on the couch with his fists clenched and a sour expression. "you can go now, kid. my wife and i have some catching up to do."

"i'm not going anywhere." he hissed.

"i wasn't asking." toji growled in response. he leaned down to meet your lips, instantly making your body shiver. saliva coating your lips like gloss with a flavor that made long dormant senses come alive like flowers beneath a tundra.

it was like a dream, i mean, how else could your dead husband be kissing you again? yeah, cursed techniques can be crazy sometimes, given what you learned from satoru, but raising the dead? it was nigh impossible tampering with life in such a way.

there is no other way you could explain this. here before you is a man that looks like toji, sounds like toji, acts like toji, tastes like toji. everything about him is the toji you knew and you swear you can feel your soul humming for him like a human beacon.

one kiss wasn't enough. it never is with toji and you never used to complain about it. they start soft and supple and quickly turn into bites and feverish grabs, yearning for more. but the circumstances now are different than before. "t-toji, wait─"

"what's wrong, baby?" he interjected, "you know how much i missed ya?"

satoru shoved his hand in between the two of you, infinity protecting him from the possibility of toji's saliva getting on his perfect skin. "you've been dead for a long time, in case you forgot. people can move on with their lives."

"what are implying?" he narrowed his eyes at the man. "you been touching my wife in my absence?" toji got his answer when he saw your flustered gaze. "sweetheart, he did tell you how i died, right?"

"yes, but it's not like that, toji." you sighed, stepping away from the men and returning to your spot on the couch, resting your face to your palms. "satoru showed up out of the blue that day telling me exactly what happened. about everything, including the job you hid from me."

"yeah and she punched me too." satoru chimed in, making toji chuckle with pride.

"eventually, i forgave him, yes. it killed me that you went and died over some stupid pride. it's not like either of you are perfect people though, no one is, and i get that." your voice was cracking with grief and anger you haven't expressed since that day. "i just wish you would've talked to me instead of deciding for yourself what you thought was best. . ."

toji seated himself at your side, rubbing his hand on your back in an attempt to comfort you like he always used to. "i'm sorry, y/n. i never planned on dying that day and leaving you, i was stupid and i know it."

"i know... it was hard though- and satoru has been very kind in helping our family out after it all."

toji shot a look to the man keeping himself quiet to not disrupt the moment, but this time it wasn't one of anger. satoru returned his look with his own troubled expression.

"he took megumi and tsumiki in like they were his own kids, paid our debts, bought this house for us. he's even their teacher now, training and keeping them safe. oh you would be so proud of how they turned out, toji."

much to satoru's dismay, toji pulled you into his lap with your back to his chest. large hands resting on your stomach with his head in the crook of your neck delivering soft kisses to calm your relentless sobs of grief.

toji wouldn't say so right now, but he's the reason satoru came to you in the first place. he wasn't expecting much when asked what his final words were, but when regret washed over him over his choices, toji had one final hope to ensure you had the life you deserve.

"i'm home, sweetheart. m'not going anywhere ever again."

toji wasn't much of a jealous person. even after twelve years apart from you and another man filling the void, he only had himself to blame for leaving you and everyone else behind.

satoru on the other hand felt differently, but his jealousy wasn't about pride or broken promises. it was about you and sustaining your happiness.

the man you loved who got himself killed now walking back into your life by some blessing from above. the life of someone satoru has grown to love and care for. he never asked you for much in return, only that you'd give him a chance and you your own to love again beyond toji. at first it was merely about making things right for someone who didn't deserve the situation they were placed in, but it never stays like that. it always grows into something more. if you water and care for a plant, it will grow and bloom, as simple as that.

and just like with toji, it's never stops with one kiss. like a cactus waiting for a monsoon to drown it or the golden light of day to feed it. his soft kisses soon turned into bites, his breath fanning your neck behind your ears and his fingers kneading into the plush of your waist and working up to your chest.

"toji, w-what are you doing?" you blushed, squirming from not only the tongue striping your ear but the boner poking your back through the fabric.

"shh," he coos, "just lemme show you how much i missed ya, okay?"

"huh?" satoru groaned.

calloused hands began pushing back the hem of your shirt as he found his way in around your breasts.

"what do you think you're doing?"

"the fuck does it look like, brat?" toji hissed at the man. "gonna make love to my wife, right mama?" he said, moving his hand inside your shorts and over your mound, toying with the sticky fabric. a husky snicker filled your ears, "so wet for me already. can't wait to taste your pretty pussy again."

"fuck! toji~," you leaned into his touch, digging your nails into his thighs to balance yourself as he slithered his rough digit between your folds, gathering slick around his finger tip to work himself inside.

"so tight for me. fuck, i missed this. has he even been treating you properly?" he smirked at satoru.

the white haired man had enough sitting with on the sidelines, scooting in front of you blatantly ignoring the scowling husband.

"why don't we show him how i treat you, princess?"

oh how toji wanted to put him in his place, but then he thought about the fun you might have with both of your love interests filling you up. toji died, time passed, he gets it. but now, you have the chance to indulge yourself in something you never would've done before.

a mischievous grin tugged his scar upwards. he leaned back, propping his hips up to adjust himself and bouncing your body up onto his lap, back against his chest.

satoru took the invitation and closed the gap between you, muffling your moans with his tongue against yours while circling your chest with his hands.

you're toji's after all. your rings still nestled on your finger unmoving after all these years. what's the harm in some temporary enjoyment to celebrate his return?

from your mouth, satoru leaned down to tongue the buds on your chest after removing your top. toji took advantage of your now free opening to kiss you, slipping another finger inside your cunt and scissoring your walls open.

"you have the prettiest tits, princess. no competition, even from jackass back there." his voice humming against your nipple that sent shockwaves straight to your heart and other areas (read: pussy) that made your body flutter.

you were already in shambles, threatening to come apart. your whole body felt like it was on fire thanks to their onslaught of attention. toji's voice filled your ears, nibbling the lobe as he spoke, "you wanna cum, sweetheart? i can feel this pussy just begging for it."

you nodded your head as best you could, "y-yes fuck─ please." with a quick circle of his thumb to your pearl and a bite from satoru, your body unraveled turning your vision white. your body slunk further back against toji's as you settled from the high.

"that's my good girl." he praised, his voice like honey over your ears, "can't wait to feel you clenching around my dick again."

"please please daddy, i need you." you whined as he took his fingers out leaving you feeling void.

his deep laugh only made you shiver and perk up more, "so eager for me? always so good f'me, baby." he raised his fingers up to his mouth, admiring the clear dew before cleaning them off in his mouth. "best taste in the world right here."

satoru slid his head between your thighs, kissing your pearl and jolting your body in the process, "don't forget that i'm here, princess. lemme clean you up a bit."

"fuck, 'toru~," you mewled as he licked a straight stripe up your slit. his tongue savoring the taste before toji lifted your body up and placed you down on all fours on the cushions.

"uh uh, pretty boy," toji teased, "this pussy belonged to me first and will stay that way. but thanks for keeping it warm for me."

you heard toji unbuckling himself, cock springing free right up against your entrance making you squeal out in response. turning your head around, you could see the precum adorning the tip of his overwhelming size.

yup, definitely toji.

"why don't i fill up this mouth of yours then, beautiful?" satoru purred as he kneeled in front of you, freeing his own bulging length from his pants.

both of the men pushed their way into your holes at the same time, a guttural groan leaving you as you adjusted to toji's monstrous size. it worked in favor for satoru, the vibration making him throw his head back.

"shit─ almost like the day we first fucked." he flashed an arrogant smile to the man across from him, "the so-called 'strongest' falling short to a monkey like me?"

satoru returned toji's remark with a cocky look of his own, "so scary~, want me to hollow purple your ass again? that did the job last time."

so long as he wasn't distracted trying to throw hands, toji kept his pace was slow and sensual. savoring every moment he was connected to your body. his grip was sure to leave bruises later on your hips but you welcomed them proudly since it meant you had him again.

satoru had his hand at the back of your head, bobbing you evenly over his cock whispering, "you're so pretty, doin' so well for us."

the cock in your mouth was the first to show signs of his incoming release, now evident by his pace turning sloppy before ultimately releasing his seed as pure and white as his hair all over your tongue and throat.

he groaned deeply, cupping your cheek to admire his handiwork with soft eyes. "prettiest girl in the world."

your praise was interrupted by yet another challenge from behind, "look at that, he cums fast too." toji sneered. his eyes fell to the circle of cream glossing his own length.

"least i actually can." he shrugged in response, only taunting him further. "did you lose your touch in the afterlife, old man?"

"tsk." he clicked his tongue. with satoru out of your mouth, he flipped you so your back was against the cushions.

"toji!" you yelped in surprise.

"sorry sweetheart, but you know how i much i love seeing your pretty face when i fuck you full."

toji entered himself back into you, hips rutting at a faster more rough pace to chase his high. his breathing turned heavy with low grunts in between.

satoru leaned down, peppering kisses across your cock drunk face seeing stars. "hang in there, beautiful, you're doing so well."

with a few harsh thrusts, toji had shimmied himself as deep as he could inside. "want me to give you another baby? give megs and tsumi a new sibling?" you nodded furiously despite not being totally aware what he was even saying through the blood rush in your ears. "yeah? daddy can do that for you, my love. can't fucking wait to see you swollen again now that i'm home."

when you love someone as much as toji, almost anything they say sounds like a good idea when he says it so sweetly to you ten inches deep. you're even more willing to indulge in his antics now after all this time without him. you truly missed such moments, more than you know.

he hasn't even seen his kids yet, oh how shocked they're gonna be when they come home to the literal ghost in the house. inside your womb however was anything but ectoplasm from some spirit. thick ropes of cum shot out, burying you with warmth from the inside and out.

"thaaattt's it... fuck baby─milk me dry." he moaned pleasingly, leaning down to bite into your soft flesh as you screamed his name harmoniously until nothing else could sound.

after a pregnant pause, he finally pulled out, attempting to stuff his seed back inside you before satoru lifted you up onto your knees with your back close to his chest. "c'mere princess, you don't need that stuff in you." as he rubbed his length along your folds, he snaked his arms around your waist and chest to keep you up, leaning into your ear whispering, "only mine," as he smirked at toji's discontented face.

toji ignored him as he took your cheeks into his hand, kissing you oh so sweetly and full of love. you greedily kissed him back, a few tears falling from your eyes whether from satoru pushing up into you or toji's return to you, who knows. both, really. either way, you're beyond happy feeling your heart beating again like it last did twelve years ago. he wiped your tears with gentle kisses, "i love you, y/n, so fucking much."

he wasn't much with words of affirmation, especially in endearing ways. toji cared more about showing his love to you in small acts or teasing. but when your bodies are pressed together, be it through making love or holding each other to sleep, that's when you hear the words come straight from his heart and into yours.

"i love you─ahh too, j-jiji." you smiled blissfully, trying your best to get the words out as satoru's cock thrusted into your sweet spot over and over.

there were plenty of times satoru wanted to interject. as much as he disliked toji, this is the man you had chosen to love before and never stopped loving. despite his own feelings, your feelings are what matter most. that being said, when the moment's over, he's reminding you about the spot in your heart reserved for the honored one.

"if you want another baby, y/n, i'll give you one." he grinned, upping his pace. his balls made a splatter sound with each thrust thanks to all the cum and slick present. "i'm sure we can make the prettiest baby together."

"is that how it is? this is my wife we're talking about, pretty boy." he leaned forward to cup your cheek, trailing his fingers to the back of your head.

"is your memory falling short too, old man?" his voice becoming disheveled, "she's had several years without you to move on."

the hand twined within your hair urged you downwards. toji's hardened cock angry at the tip was begging for attention. before he could do anything, he turned your face up to meet his gaze.

"what's your surname, sweetheart?"

"fushiguro?" you responded, slightly puzzled given your headspace.

"not gojo, huh?" he lined his tip up against your lips, ever so softly saying "i'm glad," before impaling your parted mouth, thrusting deep into your throat. his face conveyed a victorious smile beamed right at satoru.

any attempt at moaning were muffled, or more accurately gagged. your voice straining with pleasure as you were being fucked in both ends. again. toji's girth was much harder to accommodate but all his gentle praises and cooing helped relax you. the burning in your jaw worth it just for this moment. it gave satoru some extra enjoyment on his end when every praise had you vice gripping his length.

satoru couldn't compete in raw size against toji. not to say that he's by any means below average, but toji's heavenly restriction keeps him above the already exemplary sizes. he does however have one secret technique only for his bloodline.

limitless.

simply activating his ability allows himself to essentially become a human vibrator. literally. through infinity, he can expand and retract the distance between your velvet walls and his shaft at any speed he desires. it does take some effort and obviously self-control, but this is a man with an endless pool of cursed energy.

domain expansion: infinite pleasure.

the two continued their race to cum, you had no choice but to be the first, followed closely behind by the other two. your body trembling at the mercy of their cocks pumping you full.

"fast enough for ya, gojo?" he scoffed, tilting your head up to his with a finger swiping prodding your lips, "open." you obliged, sticking your tongue out like a panting dog after swallowing his essence entirely. "good girl." he smiled.

you couldn't help but whine at the loss of satoru when he pulled out, but it finally gave you a chance to catch your breath. "can you guys stop bickering for one second. at this point, you two need to be the ones fucking like some good old hate sex."

the two men chuckled, "sorry sweetheart, but you're doing so well taking us." toji purred, rubbing his digits under your jaw like he was petting a cat.

"aww, don't tell me you're tired of us now?" satoru pouted. "toji's one of the few people that actually can put up a good fight with me and with you as our prize. . ." his voice trailed off as he pulled you away from the older man's grasp to kiss you. ". . .it only makes it more enjoyable."

"don't either of you get any bright ideas that leave me to grieve again, you hear me? i mean it."

toji hooked his arms under yours and pulled up onto his lap holding you at your waist with one hand and the other keeping your face in his neck. "i think we can agree to that, can't we, 'toru?"

"yeah, jiji," he replied mockingly while inching forward, "i think for the princess here, we can keep things neutral." his voice had a tone of mischief to it.

"what are you two doin─hey!" you yelped in surprise. toji had lifted you up onto his cock, sitting you down balls deep against your lips all the while satoru's tip rubbed between your ass.

"one more baby, i know you can do it." toji cooed with his voice just as full of shit as satoru's. "you want us to see eye to eye, don't you?" he smirked.

honestly... what the hell? why not?

your mind is so far gone with pleasure to care. all you want is to love and be loved by your two sacred treasures.

"god, fuck." you groaned as satoru worked his way in, agonizingly slow. toji kept himself still but the pressure of warming them both is downright insane. tears welled up which were quickly swiped away thanks to toji. he leaned forward, kissing you through it, humming into each other's mouths in ecstasy.

"ready, princess?" you nodded your head as best as you could with your shaky body.

"try and keep up if you can, pretty boy." you glared at toji with a hiss of disapproval. "i know i know, m'sorry. lemme put a sweeter face on you now, okay?"

toji moved his arms back under yours, this time hugging your chest to his in a tight bear grip as he rutted his hips into you. every time he pushed in, satoru pulled out. repeating as they set the pace while you raked lines down toji's back.

you were reduced to nothing but babbling nonsense, crying out jiji toru jiji toru and other incoherent swears. drool spilling from your mouth despite toji's best efforts to keep it occupied with his own. he eventually dropped his head to your shoulder, biting into marks he previously made. satoru pulled himself closer, opting to rest his head on the opposite side of toji and his arms coiled around your waist.

you were unable to hold out for long before coming undone but they didn't cease their own chase. despite their disheveled breaths and all the obscenities they growled, they continued on pumping. the rhythm they set soon fell apart and after a few harsh thrusts, the two pushed up deep inside you at the same moment washing you over in a second orgasm before the first even had a chance to settle.

"fuck... y'er so warm y/n. can't take it anymore, gotta cum sweetheart. take every last bit of us, you hear me? show us how good you are."

the best you could manage was a muffled "mphm" with haphazard nods as you clenched around them equally in force. the eruption of warm seed soon followed, coating your insides and spilling out with your arousal.

they finally pulled out after what felt like an eternity followed by the jungle juice of cum, slick, and sweat dripping further out from your body. you collapsed onto toji's sweat coated chest gasping for air. satoru couldn't help himself from doing the same onto your back.

"not bad, old man. i can see why she loves you so much."

"yeah?" a genuine smile crossed toji's face from his words, "you did fine yourself too, brat. may have to keep you around for her joy."

"you couldn't stop me even if you tried, i only take orders from our princess." he chuckled.

toji brushed his hand over your head, pushing strands behind your ears and admiring your beautiful fucked face.

"i am going to order you to get your ass off of us and go start a bath before she falls asleep for good."

"fine, fine." satoru groaned before pushing himself off the two of you, kissing you once before walking off to the bathroom.

"now then. . ." toji's eyes wandered to the empty slot on his finger. "did you bury me with my wedding band, love?"

with a groggy hum, you turned upwards to his face. "i thought about it but no, i still have it. i kept it with the intention of giving it to megumi someday if he ever wanted to get married to always keep you in our thoughts."

"guess he's gonna have to pick something else," he smiled. "death is one thing that will never separate us and even if it could, i would marry you again and again, as many times as it takes in every lifetime. we're bound to each other forever."

"jiji~," you sniffled. "i love you so much. welcome home... my sweet husband."

"i love you too, my precious wife." he kissed your crown, sighing peacefully before lifting you up into his arms. "time to get cleaned off before the kids get home, right?"

one perk to this nice house gifted to you is the master bathroom featuring a large enough tub perfect for the three of you to relax in. perfectly nestling you between your two loves as they took turns scrubbing and kissing every inch of you before bothering with themselves.

"i can't believe you tried to bribe me to not see my 'dead' husband, 'toru." you pouted.

he threw his hands up defensively, "hey you know we have history, princess. i didn't want to let you go that easily without a fight."

"well i'm not giving up either of you so you two better learn to get along and fast. i love you both too much."

"aww~, you're too cute, y/n. love you too."

toji barked out a laugh, shaking his head. "just don't forget your manners, she's first and foremost my wife." satoru rolled his eyes teasingly at the man before pulling you away from him into his arms.

after soaking for a good while, the three of you stepped out. satoru changed back into his clothes from earlier and as for toji, well you never could part with the majority of his favorites. each article still carrying trace amounts of his scent that bring you peace every time you're upset or need a reminder of him.

once dressed, you curled up once more on the couch to resume a movie from earlier, tucked in a blanket up in toji's arms with satoru close by.

the front door opened followed by a resounding "we're home!" followed by the footsteps of the whole group.

"hey mom, have you heard from goj─DAD?!" megumi had entered the living room first and immediately dropped his bag to the ground.

"megumi?" tsumiki followed in after, equally as shocked before the rest of the group arrived.

toji looked softly at megumi and tsumiki first, taking in how much they've grown with a smile and a stray tear glossing his eye.

"how are you even here?!" megumi said with an appalled expression.

toji shrugged, "beats me, guess even heaven couldn't keep me from seeing my family again in life." he smirked.

"welcome home, kids!" you smiled happily to the group, unable to move away from toji's lap to greet them better after the fucking you just went through. "come sit with us, tell us about your evening!"

megumi and tsumiki came over first, hugging toji again like they too needed to confirm it was truly him and not some apparition.

"so who are the rest of ya?" toji questioned, his eyes panning to the group that wandered over.

the pink haired boy spoke first, "i'm yuji itadori! megumi's boyfriend."

next was a chestnut haired girl, "nobara kugisaki, these guys' best friend."

lastly was a familiar name and face that earned a questionable hum from the older man when she approached, "maki zenin, nobara's girlfriend."

his eyes narrowed slightly, "zenin?"

"don't count her out just yet, gramps." satoru chimed in from the other side of the couch. "your cousin here is just like you, just not nearly as old."

"says the brat with white hair. i don't see any grays on my head just yet."

"well if your back isn't hurting then you can take over maki's training from now on. you're the best choice for her to learn from, her twin as well."

toji glanced her over, as if assessing her prowess, eventually giving a satisfactory nod. "sure, but don't think you'll pull me away from y/n that easily." he moved his mouth right up against your ear, "we've got twelve years of catching up to do, don't we?"

"oh toji," you laughed. "you'll have me every single day and night now. no more stupid missions for you."

"anything for you, sweetheart." he purred, pulling the blanket up over your tired form that clung to him tightly.

you did your best to try and stay awake to enjoy your time with everyone, but thanks to toji caressing your body softly, you fell deeply asleep. when the next morning arrived and you woke up with not only satoru at your side, but toji as well, you wept with pure hearted joy that none of this was a dream or a cruel prank. simply, the love of your life finally coming home.

home sweet home once again.

☆ Notes: the idea came to me when i was trying to sleep the other night and ended up making me stay up an extra hour giggling with all the ideas i was getting for it. i hope it's not been done before but either way i was so excited to write this, i had so much fun!! writing satoru more than usual was a bit tricky for me since i'm only used to toji brainrot, but we'll get there.

also if you wanna see a bad edit i made that inspired this whole thing, peep this link

[miamignonette]

“why is she being so public??” “she’s flaunting her new bf!!” it’s one photo of them sitting in a car together that looks like it was taken on a first edition nokia 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[sebbianas]

this photo was taken on a bloody nokia brick or something it was years ago but heres another boris pic with brutus in the background

and heres mittens sniffing my phone

that first pic looks like it belongs in a museum HAHAHAHAH

[spidertams]

dude i ADORE the drawing you did of concert hobie w the stripey sweater and i wanted to ask if you do anything to pictures you take of sketchbook stuff? like do you adjust contrast or brightness or anything? just because it looks SO good and i Struggle with taking sketchbook photos that don’t look like they were done with a nokia 😭😭

Aw thanks a lot, glad you like it!!!

I tweak the colors slightly to match the irl colors, but I don't have a general method that I use in every picture! I just adjust almost all the settings until it looks close enough to the real thing. I also always take pics in natural lighting, because otherwise they do look like they were taken with a nokia,,

One thing I usually do is to add more warmth to every picture of my traditional art, but that's just a personal preference for a warmer palette, haha. And even this, I don't always do either!

I'm so sorry not to be of too much help! All the good luck!

[albonoooo]

i was tagged by the lovely @monacotrophywife to post my wallpaper, homescreen, last song i listened to and a pretty picture! thank you <3 started doing this at work and then got interrupted by work. rude.

my lockscreen is oscar because. because!

i went to a james arthur concert a week ago (side note, it was beautiful) and this band was the opener, they were really good!!

i didn't include my homescreen because my background is a photo of my sister, my dad and i and it's not very interesting anyways lol. i have an ancient nokia 8 so there are no fun gadgets or anything like that.

as compensation for the lack of homescreen, here's two (somewhat) pretty pictures. they're both quite old because my phone camera has been shattered since september 2022 and all the photos i've taken since then look like they've been taken with a potato. to make matters worse, i clearly have no photography skills. picture one is from an early october morning dog walk from 2021, i think, and picture two is the stunning view from the roof of the st. peter's basilica in vatican city, taken in 2019 with shaking hands because i narrowly escaped a panic attack while climbing up to the top viewpoint (didn't make it, had to go back down because my body stopped walking lol).

no pressure tags: @f1-giuki @hrhgeorgerussell @blueballsracing @golden-fairylights @vroombeams (sorry in case you've been tagged already!!)

[lostforeword]

Rain on us, Saint Honesty.

I haven't felt this nostalgic in a while. The rain has stopped, but you can still feel the gloominess the dark clouds brought linger. The dusk is settling in, and the windows from other homes have started to light up. A beautiful sight, isn't it?

I was browsing through the Activity Log page on my Facebook profile and saw how inactive I am. I don't interact much, contrary to how I was, perhaps, a decade ago. I stumbled upon albums that I have set the access to Only Me just to realize how simple life really was back then. Photos taken from phones with two megapixel cameras, poses pretending to be magazine covers, smiles that carry no care nor fucks to be given, sceneries of bliss and innocence - all that and so much more.

What happened to everyone, to the world, to us, to me? Those photos were from at least fifteen years ago. I can eerily feel how old I am getting, as well as the people around me. That's life, you would say. We've changed so much.

Life was so simple back then. Fifteen years from now, do you think our future selves would say the same thing about the present that we have now?

Let's elevate this feeling of nostalgia, because I just can't pull myself away. I need to get a new casing for that old Nokia phone that I have. I wanna hear Jordin_Sparks_feat._Chris_Brown-No_Air.mp3.

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: current LOCATION: a graveyard PARTIES: @screadqueens (eithne) & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: eithne has been dying to meet local celebrity, emilio cortez. emilio is a little less enthused. CONTENT: parental death, sibling death, child death (mentions of past events), suicide ideation

She had not forgone her duty in her attempt to meet the legendary Emilio Cortez, because Eithne did not forgo her duty. As an instrument of fate as well as someone sent to this wretched town to ensure Saol Eile’s secrecy. And so she’d only slain those that fate was itching for and those who’d Regan and Siobhan (even thinking their names made her chest tremble with rage) had gotten too close with. Luckily, the town was filled to the brim of those for whom death waited. Luckily, Cortez was good at his job, despite the reviews.

Eithne was a diligent woman. She was a vicious woman. She had been for over a century. And so she knew how to deliver death. She knew how to leave a trail. It had been the spellcaster who’d helped Regan first, a murder done so prettily that she had taken a blurry picture with her decades-old Nokia. Then there was a woman for whom she had screamed, who she had subsequently killed and whose hand with neatly painted nails she had left boxed up and addressed to the investigator. There was the man bound to her words to enlist the help of Emilio Cortez and his admirable Yelp rating. He’d – if all went well – asked him to help find his missing partner, a man who Eithne had screamed for and subsequently killed too.

She’d left a nice trail of death leading to her. Hints, not too hard to pick up on. This Emilio Cortez did have a very low Yelp rating, after all. And so she awaited him in a cemetery where she was perched on a gravestone. It was new, the grave and the dead body in it fresh. She enjoyed it, which was a strange indulgence. She was not here for pleasure — and though her meeting Cortez was her giving into her intrigues a little, she still remembered her purpose. It was not to dig in a grave to figure out why the body in it had died.

So she waited, her notebook splayed on her knee as she went over her notes. She was something of an investigator too, or rather an exterminator. Siobhan and Regan were lotnaidí and had spread their foolish childishness around. She was the heel that squashed the cockroaches they’d left behind. She hoped Emilio Cortez would not prove himself to be part of the problem, as she didn’t want to step on someone like him just yet. 

—

Paranoia wasn’t the kind of beast you needed to feed to keep alive. It had survived in Emilio’s chest for so long now that he often forgot what life had been like before it made its home there, forgot that it hadn’t been a part of him for as long as he’d been breathing. Sometimes, he thought it should have been starving. Sometimes, there was no reason for it to remain fed, no specific event inciting it, but it remained just as lively and strong as ever, rearing its head and gnashing its teeth.

And sometimes, it was very well-fed.

Someone sent a fucking hand to his office. There was a blurry photo of a bloody corpse. There was a man at his door begging him to find his missing partner, and Emilio had no reason to think that all of these things were connected beyond that fattened paranoia that had been given a feast over the last few weeks, but he was sure they were pieces of the same puzzle anyway. He put them together, he gathered more. He started making a full picture, and he didn’t like what he saw.

It was a trap. He was pretty sure of it, and he didn’t think his paranoia was the cause of that certainty. It was a trap and it was for him and he probably should have avoided it at all costs, but people were dying and maybe there was some way for him to stop that. Maybe there was some way he could save the next one. Wasn’t that enough of a reason to try?

So he followed the clues to a graveyard, to a grave. He found a woman there, sitting on a grave marker and looking far too cheery to be in a damn cemetery. Emilio’s fingers twitched absently, though he didn’t reach for a blade yet. She wasn’t undead; that was surprising. Usually, when someone went through this much trouble to get his attention, they were undead. Still, Emilio could roll with the proverbial punches. He was good at that.

“You know,” he said slowly, “usually when things like this happen, I at least know why. You don’t make any bells ring. Did I kill a friend of yours or something?”

—

Regan Kavanagh had brought very little of note back to Saol Eile, but there had been the printed out reviews of a website called ‘Yelp’. (A bad name — who even yelped these days? It was the weaker version of a scream which meant it was vile in and of itself.) They had all flocked around the papers and laughed, cackling beautifully at this human man who was so bad at what he was doing that even other humans thought him incapable.

Eithne didn’t meet a lot of men. She killed a fair amount of them, of course, foreseeing their death and then making sure it was followed through, but that never left much room for conversation. She had tried when she was younger, to make conversation. To ask them how they felt about their impending death, if they looked forward to it and if this was they had imagined whenever they imagined their deaths. Most of them hadn’t wanted to speak to Eithne, though.

Besides that there was little need to speak to men. But this man? Oh, she wanted to know what he was about. What he’d done to make so many people discontent with him, how much death he saw as a – what did he call it? – private investigator. And also what Regan’s relation to him had been, but that was hardly a priority.

At the sight of him she hopped off the gravestone, inching closer. It was surely him. The Axis investigator. “You usually do? I have seen how people speak of you,” Eithne said. “They call you rude and inefficient.” She put two fingers in the air, quoting a review she’d learned by heart: “Do NOT use this service unless you want to be around a man who smells of whiskey and stale cigarettes who just wants your MONEY and not to help you.” 

She dropped her hands. “I am surprised you found me, considering your reputation. It precedes you.”

—

She dropped down from the gravestone, speaking in an accent that took him back to a factory he never wanted to return to and a situation he hoped to never find himself in again. It was hard not to stiffen immediately, hard not to let the paranoia ebb into his mind and flow through his veins. The fact that she’d been dropping bodies all over town in an apparent attempt at vying for his attention certainly didn’t ease the paranoid idea that this wasn’t going to end well for him, either.

Still, Emilio tried to keep his expression neutral as she inched closer, forcing himself to be as still as he could manage. It wasn’t a total stillness, of course; his fingers twitched as if searching for a trigger to pull, his left thumb brushed absently against the band on his ring finger as it was wont to do when he found himself in a stressful situation. He tried not to show any weakness, even as his leg ached with the stiffness he’d forced into it. Whatever this was, he was certain he wanted no part in it.

“People say all kinds of things,” he said, keeping his tone even. “That doesn’t mean they’re true. I am rude. I am not inefficient. I get the job done. Just not always in the way people want.” He didn’t tend to make attempts at sparing feelings when delivering the results of a case he found stupid, which tended to cause a lot of angry clients. 

People came to him sometimes wanting to be told one thing; when he told them something else, they were unhappy. And that wasn’t even accounting for reviewers who had never used his services to begin with. Plenty of people were caught, by Axis, with their pants down. There was nothing on the stupid star site that stopped them from writing a review as if they had hired Emilio and been disappointed rather than having been found out by him. 

Of course, none of that was really important right now. He had a feeling he had bigger things to worry about. “Did you really lure me out here to come at me over what people say about me online? Not a good move.”

—

She wondered how Regan had gotten to know the private investigator. What did she need privately investigated? Her traitorous ways? Where one could find bone-ios in this town, let alone a good novel? Eithne couldn’t begin to understand why the wayward banshee had turned to this apparently rude man. Not that she understood her in any other way, either. To walk away from Saol Eile as she had — well, it was incomprehensible.

She moved closer to the other, eyes inquisitive as if he was an interesting marking on a tree. She needed to decide what to do with him. To learn how much he knew about Regan. If what he said was true and if he really was good at what he did – despite being rude (which she didn’t think an unforgivable trait, to be fair) – then that could pose a threat. Would he search for the prodigal banshee? Would he privately investigate where she had gone to?

It was disappointing how invested Regan had become in the people around her. Siobhan, too, though Siobhan had done worse things to disappoint her community besides buddying up with humans and undead. It was hardly surprising any more.  

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “A rude yet efficient man, but people are disappointed with your results, is that it? Humans so often are when it comes to the truth.” They had their pitiful five stages of grief, the first one being denial. Eithne had never denied her father’s death, nor had she felt the anger, the need for bargaining or depression. She had accepted it, she had honored it, she had continuously revered it. His bones sat neatly in her home.

She nodded at his question, thought his analysis of the situation was rather boring. What constituted a good move? “I would like your signature,” she said, “And I wanted us to meet through your work.” She dug in her coat pocket and produced one of the print outs. “I brought a pen.” That too, was pulled out. It was a precious item. A fountain pen with a bone grip. “If you please.”

—

She moved closer, and Emilio watched her the way one might watch a snake in the grass or a lion circling. While his paranoia was convinced it knew more than enough about the situation, the actual facts were thinner and harder to hold. He was fairly certain, at this point, that she’d killed people to bring him here. She’d all but admitted to that, and it didn’t take a very good detective to follow the clues she’d left. It was the why that was a mystery, the why that continued to stump him. And the why was the most important part. Emilio could kill her here, could snap her neck or sink a blade into her heart, but what good would that do him if he didn’t know whether or not someone else would come along after her? He’d rather have answers. He’d rather have reassurances. 

Maybe the best way to get them was to play along.

“People think they can handle the truth,” he said carefully, “but they usually can’t.” Humans. She’d said humans. She had the accent. The pen she held was made of bone, unmistakeable. The clues were adding up in a way that made him think it wasn’t just his paranoia insisting upon the answer, made him think his first instinct might be closer to true than he’d like it to be.

(He forced himself to stay in the present as she got closer. His thumb rubbed the ring on his finger, twisting the metal around the appendage that was thinner now than it had been the first time the ring had slid onto it, and he tried to let the action ground him. He was here. He was in a graveyard. It was April. He wasn’t there, in the factory, in December. This woman wasn’t Siobhan, with her sharp knife and sharper tongue. And Rhett was dead, anyway. The last bit nearly sent him spiraling, so he pushed past it, ignored it. He was here. He was fine. He was.) 

She dug into her pocket and pulled out a printed page. One of the reviews from the internet, the ones Regan had commented on. He stared at it for a moment, the letters as good as hieroglyphs for how well he could understand them with his mind in this state of on-edge. The pen was in front of him; he made no move to take it. 

“I’m not going to do that,” he said flatly. “You’re not going to kill people just so I can write my name on a piece of paper for you. You can fuck off.” Regan said she was going to take his reviews to Ireland. Had she actually done it? Emilio’s nostrils flared in quiet fury. “All of you can fuck off.”

—

She had always lacked the sensitivity that humans had when it came to death. Eithne did not think on it much — she preferred to think of death in other contexts and frames, rather than what a pity it might be. It was around her every second, after all, from the bone that surrounded her fountain pen to the place she was calling her temporary home in Wicked’s Rest. 

That lack, though, it could only exist because something had been taken. As the oldest of her sisters, it had been her whose chéad scread had been triggered by their father’s death. And it had been an honor! Her mother had had three daughters (and one son) with said man, and it had been for Eithne that he got to die. Six years old, she’d been, and though she had screamed with a true horror when he’d died, she had felt victorious. Her sisters, they’d be activated through another death – a less significant one. And so, as she’d screamed, her sensitivity had been plucked from her like one would pluck feathers of dead chickens.

When people she had cared about more than her father (more an archetype than a true person in her life) had died, she had felt a reasonable amount of upset by her standards, but it had never upended anything. She, unlike Emilio Cortez’ clients, could handle the truth. “Can you?” Her interest was genuine, as far as genuineness went with her.

She frowned at his level of upset. He had not known any of the people whose deaths she had seen to, had he? Why would he feel this kind of indignation, when he was not affected directly by the corpses? Eithne had expected the detective to understand that sometimes people died. Very often, actually — about two every second, according to statistics. Eithne liked death statistics. They were soothing to her. “Can you handle the truth of death, Emilio Cortez?” 

Around them were the graves of people long – or shortly – gone. Surely he was at an age where he had lost one or two people close to him, if not more. “I did not just kill them. They were going to die — I saw it and then saw to it.” Eithne held out her paper and pen still. He was a rude man, indeed. “They would have died regardless.” It was a muddled version of the truth. Some of the people had been fated to die, and then some had been part of the clean up job. Perhaps he should blame Regan. “Your reviewers are quite right, I think. I’d still like an autograph.”

—

Can you? The question drew a stilted, humorless laugh from between his lips. He wasn’t sure of the answer. He and death were old friends, sometimes; he’d known it since he was a child. He’d grown up with it in his house, wearing his father’s clothes. Death was a part of their family in a way none of them ever spoke about. His father’s name was a spell scarcely whispered, a quiet acknowledgement of something come and gone before Emilio had been old enough to recognize it at all. His uncle spoke of his father fondly, his mother mentioned him occasionally in lessons with a disinterested tone. Edgar said he’d smelled like tobacco, Rosa said he was strong. Victor, with the firmest memories of him, said he was a good hunter, a good man. None of it meant anything to Emilio.

It wasn’t until he was twelve that he and death became better acquainted. Victor died, and he was more than just a story people told sometimes. He was more than descriptions of a half-remembered scent or a child’s belief that the adults in her life were bigger than they were — he was a person. He was someone Emilio had loved, someone he’d thought would always be in his life who, in an instant, wasn’t. 

And there were more after, of course. There were cousins and neighbors and friends from camp. Every other week, it seemed they were getting news of another death. That was what it meant to be a hunter, his mother told him. You held hands with death. It brushed your hair, it slept in your bed. And one day, when you were thirty-two and thought you knew everything, it tore through the streets of your home and ripped up your living room floor and hollowed you out in a way you’d never recover from.

So her question was a stupid one, he thought. It was worthy of that bitter laugh, of the way he rolled his eyes. “Some of us don’t get much of a choice.” He wondered how much of what she was saying was the truth. Fae couldn’t lie without consequence — he knew that. But they could believe things that were false. He’d seen it in Regan, in Ren. They could believe lies so wholeheartedly that they were sure they were telling the truth. If this woman was like Siobhan, like Regan, had she grown up in a community like the one Regan had returned to, the one where Nora was now? Had she had her mind twisted? At what point did you stop feeling for someone who had been forcibly shaped by the outdated beliefs of their elders and start holding them accountable for the things they did in order to uphold those same beliefs? There must have been a line somewhere.

“It doesn’t matter if they were going to die. It wasn’t on you to kill them.” And he found it hard to believe that all the bodies she’d dropped were as close to death as she was implying, even in a town like this one. He glanced down to the pen and paper again, pressing his tongue against the back of his teeth. Reaching out, he grabbed both from her. But instead of putting pen to paper, he reared back his arm and tossed it as far as he could manage before tearing the paper down the middle. A childish response, he knew; the type of thing Teddy would point to when claiming Emilio was a petty, petty man. It didn’t make him feel much better, though he pretended it did. He watched the pen fly, watched it land in a nearby pond with a rush of fleeting satisfaction. “There you go,” he said flatly, turning back to the woman. “There is your autograph.” 

—

Choice. What a dull concept. It was so human to speak of choice in such a manner, as if there was any agency to find in regards to death. People died, lives were lost and the world kept on spinning with new forms of life. The choice was, of course, in the approach. Eithne had spent a good ten years when she was younger attempting to understand the intricacies of grief. She liked the local stories most, those human interpretations of banshees. Wailing women who could only express their sorrow through those keens and screams. Or the women’s laments in Greek antiquity, those women who pulled at their hair as if that would somehow pull their mourning from them, too.

She liked those, but she hated most other forms of grief. It was perhaps not for her to understand. But when sources spoke of five phases – the first of which was so disgustingly human: denial – she found herself rolling her eyes. How very dull to phase out mourning. To give death stages that didn’t have to do with decomposition or something akin to it, but terms that some kind of psychologist had determined were fitting. 

“No one gets a choice when it pertains to death,” Eithne stated. “We do get a choice in whether we accept it for what it is.” Maybe that stage of denial was true. Maybe that was the only stage humans knew. Silly, pitiful denial. Hoping that death could be evaded, avoided, postponed. Pulling at their hair and whining and crying. Writing angry reviews when things didn’t go their way. Ah, they were so frail. She’d pity them if she didn’t find it so disrespectful.

It was Fate, who shone upon the death. Who extended her arms and invited them to a different stage of life. It was her decision. To deny it was to spit on her wisdom. 

“It was,” she said simply. “It was an honor for them, to have me help fulfill their fates. It is my purpose. You are too small minded to understand, for which I forgive you.” Finally Cortez moved to take her things, to give her the thing she had come from. Eithne did not intend to scream for him yet — that might come at another time, if he proved to be part of the problematic mess Regan and Siobhan had left behind. But the investigator did not sign his autograph. He threw her darling pen as far as he could (which was far — he had to be in good shape) and ruined her paper. She heard her pen fall into the water and her body seemed to expand with rage. “You —” Her lungs were filled with air inhaled sharply through her nose and she squinted at the man. Eithne opened her mouth and screamed. Not aiming to kill, just to maim.

—

In the end, death came for everyone. Emilio knew that. It came for little girls in their living rooms with their mothers by their sides just as brutally as it came for middle aged men who locked kids in vans and killed the mothers of their children. It carved into the people it left behind and hollowed them out, turned them into shells of what they’d been before. It didn’t ask for permission, didn’t care for consent. It ripped you up into the tiniest of pieces and, when you thought you couldn’t get any smaller, it ripped you up again. It would come for him sooner than it would for most, but still later than he deserved. It would come for Wynne and for Nora, though he prayed it wasn’t across the sea in Ireland. It would come for Teddy and for Xó, for Jade. It would come for Zane again, like it hadn’t come once already. 

And someday, it would come for this banshee in front of him now, too.

There was something almost comforting about that, something nice. Death would rip into her, into Siobhan, into Inge, into everyone he’d ever seen in his nightmares. He wondered if this was why banshees were so fond of death, if the idea of their enemies rotting and decaying under the ground made something slide into place like a comforting hand on the shoulder. He doubted it. This kind of bitter thirst for vengeance was probably the sort of thing they thought of as being beneath them, wasn’t it? If he voiced it, the woman before him now would likely take offense, would claim he’d defiled the sanctity of death, somehow. It might have been funny if not for the knot in his stomach.

“You say that,” he said lowly, “but you made a choice. Didn’t you? To kill those people the way you wanted them to die instead of the way they were supposed to. You don’t think that fucks with fate? Maybe their deaths, the way they were supposed to happen before, had a purpose, too. Maybe you took that from them.” It wasn’t something he believed. Emilio had never seen death as a thing with a purpose. It was a brutal end to a sad story. It was never anything more than that. “I don’t want your forgiveness. I want you to stop killing people.” 

There was a moment, after he threw the pen, where time seemed to stand still. He eyed the banshee, and he wondered what she’d do. He wondered if she’d kill him here, the way he’d been so sure Siobhan would in that factory. He’d be lying if he said some part of him didn’t want her to. After all, if Emilio died in this graveyard, whatever happened to Wynne and Nora in Ireland wouldn’t tear him into smaller pieces than he was already in. He wouldn’t have to think about Rhett and the blood on his hands, wouldn’t have to remember Ophelia’s wails in the living room, wouldn’t have to see his daughter’s corpse each time his eyes slipped closed. He didn’t know if he believed in any kind of afterlife anymore, didn’t think he’d end up in the same place as Flora even if there was a place to end up, but it was a nice thing to hope for in that quiet moment when the world stood still, when he held his breath and waited to see if he’d finally managed to find a good way to kill himself.

The banshee opened her mouth, and Emilio took a breath. His hands shot up to his ears, too slow to block anything out. They probably wouldn’t have been very effective, even if he had gotten them up in time. The scream was loud. Far louder than the small one Regan let out in the sewers when they fought those ‘rats’ to get her stupid necklace back. He wondered if it was what Siobhan would have sounded like if she’d killed him in that factory instead of just forcing him into a promise.

But Emilio didn’t die. His body wasn’t torn apart by the sound, his bones didn’t shatter. His ears rang and buzzed, but his lungs didn’t explode. It was a little surprising. 

(He couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved.)

— 

He was speaking to her with a sense of righteousness that would never tug at her heartstrings. People were so disgusted by the concept of murder, thought it an uglier death than all the others. Eithne found it rather disrespectful to think of someone’s death as ugly or cruel — and besides, wasn’t it better to die at the hand of a banshee? To by handpicked by an agent of fate, rather than succumb to illness or be hit by a car or have your heart stop in the middle of the street? She had chosen to kill those people in the way she saw fit and it was a gift.

She let out a laugh at the idea that Emilio Cortez, a human detective with bad reviews, could make her stop killing people. “I would not ask you to stop being an investigator only because people think you are bad at it, so please don’t be so presumptuous to ask me to drop my own role.” Humans made themselves feel important with their jobs and their hobbies, but it would never match up to being what she was — a follower and agent of Fate. They could never understand.

But Cortez seemed to know something, because he covered his ears with his hands when Eithne screamed. How well had Regan known him? How well did he know Regan and what she was? It was a mess best cleaned up, even if she would not scream for him properly today. She would not waste her breath. He was not yet destined to die, that much was clear.

She cleared her throat when the scream had left her body, though it was purely performative. “The reviews are right. You are rude and you smell.” She lifted her nose in the air and gave him one more look before turning on her heel and moving to the pond where her pen had landed and subsequently sunk. At the end of the day, she cared more for that than she did Emilio Cortez. Fate would come for him eventually, that she was certain of. 

—

Fate wasn’t a thing Emilio thought he wanted to put too much stock in. It was a terrible concept, the idea that things only ever happened how they were meant to. It was worse than God, somehow, worse than thinking there was some being with a guiding hand calling the shots. There was no comfort in it, no solace in the idea of looking at the things that had happened in his life and allowing himself to believe that they were meant to be exactly as they were. Who could look back at their daughter’s face and believe it had always been destined to rot and crumble with baby fat still filling its cheeks and a bright curiosity still shining in her eyes? Who could remember standing in a basement with the blood of someone they loved on their hands and chaos around them and accept that it was always meant to happen that way? The factory, the living room with Ophelia and that note with its familiar handwriting, Wynne and Nora in Ireland, in trouble a world away…

If this was fate, Emilio wanted no part in it. If this was God, he’d claw the heavens to pieces in protest. 

The banshee was screaming and his ears were ringing, and there was something both funny and horrifying about the fact that it was happening at all. He’d been so worried about Nora and Wynne that he hadn’t thought to spare any concern for himself. And wasn’t that how it always went? Didn’t Emilio make a promise to the last banshee he’d crossed to save his brother while forgoing any attempt to include himself in the safety net? But the horror was stark, was tangible. If this was happening here, what must be happening in Ireland? What must those kids be experiencing now? His — 

The screaming stopped, and he thought the banshee might have been speaking. Her mouth was moving, but his ears were still ringing. Sound was a fuzzy, far away thing, muffled and distant. He wondered if the banshee was going to kill him, still. He wondered if it would be easier if she did. Was it cowardly, the way there might be some relief in the concept of never knowing how it ended in Ireland? Was it forgivable to yearn for that?

But no second scream came. No knife found his throat, no hands snapped his neck. The banshee screamed, she spoke words he couldn’t make out, and she left. And Emilio, left alone in that graveyard, wondered about fate once more. 

(He wondered why, if it was real, his never seemed to be what he deserved.)

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

Lake Mungo (2008) is genuinely so fucking upsetting for what it manages to do with what is essentially the budget of a Happy Meal (adjusted for inflation), the title of a 80s disco album, and Very Blurry Photos taken by someone running full-tilt with a water damaged nokia. for reference, i watched Hereditary (2018) before bed so i could relax from the stress of finals. i ate a plate of spagetti while watching Martyrs (2008). my life's ambition is to be donated to a body farm.

i tapped out at the 15 minute mark of Lake Mungo and had to watch the rest of the movie with the lights on. and then i had to look at cute kitten videos for another hour afterwards.

[etes-secrecy-post]

Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

#OnThisDay: May 7th, 2011 (Photo taken on May 6th, 2011)

Title: BLITZ GUNDAM HG

To this day, I still have that old HG (High Grade) 1/144 Gunpla's Blitz Gundam 🤖 from my cramp space shelves, that will soon be eaten by termites. *GASP*! 😨🐜

So, should I checked? 🤔 Well, here are my snapshots using my new phone (Tecno Spark 20 Pro). 📷📲 ↓

1st to 6th Image(s) 📷📲: ↑

• The box itself was slightly dusted, and torn off the edges. On the bright side, it is slightly condition and well preserved without termite bites. *sigh* That's a good sign. Although, there are three eggs of cockroach laid out albeit moldy. 😖 So, I have to remove the eggs before taking shots.

7th to 11th Image(s) 📷📲: ↑

• As for the Gunpla figure itself 🤖, it is pretty intact (except the stickers slightly peeling off), with no damages whatsoever. 🙂 Except for that missing piece, though; the head camera part. 😥 I'm trying to re-pose from 10 years ago albeit slightly better than before. Maybe? I'm trying my best to make an awesome Blitz Gundam pose. After all, I'm no gunpla pose expert. hehe... 😅

12th to 16th Image(s) 📷📲: ↑

• As for the others, the folded manual also intact, as well as other parts (including a single runner plate peg and a sticker) for my HG Blitz Gundam. Actually, the single piece of grappling claw was also missing, as well. I also put my old Non-Grade headless Gundam Astray Blue Frame, with two beam rifles, and a shield from attending my good ol' 'Gundam Caravan'. 😁 Uh yeah, upon opening I saw two or three silverfishes bugs. 🐜 I don't mind these insect creatures, though. 🤷‍♀️

Edited and Photos (using Nokia XpressMusic 5130c-2 on the OG, plus my Tecno Spark 20 Pro) - created by ME!

[gantaiph]

I'll keep posting vintage type of photos taken with my Nokia, heavily inspired by Wong Kar Wai :)

[smartgirl1970]

Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

In 1981 the IBM Personal Computer model 5150 was released. My parents bought one for my 11th birthday, thinking it would be a great asset for school. I used it as a glorified typewriter. You had to essentially add the programs yourself, and that was not easy to do. I was too young to understand what all the bells and whistles did, and there were not many. The World Wide Web, or WWW, was not introduced until 1989, my freshman year in college (the first go-round).

My first video gaming system was Atari. This came out in 1977. However, I didn’t get one until I was about 10 years old. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t a big gamer. I skipped right over the Nintendo era. My cousins and friends had one, but other than Leapfrog and the first Mario Brothers game, it wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t good at Pac-Man either.

I bought my first cellphone in 1992. It was a Nokia. The first phone bill came in at $289. You got something for 1000 minutes free and were charged .30 cents a minute over that. I understand that in 2023, that may not sound like a lot of money, but in 1992, it took an entire paycheck to pay it. I made $7 an hour, and that was a decent salary working at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in New York.

My son was born in 1996, and the world of technology opened new doors for me. I bought him a LeapPad to be used as a learning tool for reading and math. He graduated to every gaming system created from an Xbox to Nintendo. I was introduced to the World Wide Web through social media when Facebook became a thing because I had to monitor his use of this platform. By 2008, my son was in the 7th grade, and I allowed him to interact with his friends on Facebook, but his time was limited, and it was conditional upon him accepting my friend request. My acquired sons (I dislike the word step) were older than him, and they kept me in the loop about how social media worked. Facebook was great for me because it was a link to communicating with my family in New York without having to call all the time. It was great for sharing pictures. Social media has taken a turn, and in some ways its great for activism, in other ways, people are very comfortable being contrary and saying things they would say publicly.

My concern with the development of AI is how easily things can be manipulated. AI’s voice generator can create words that do not come out of someone’s mouth. I see the dangers in that with a political leader’s voice. Manipulating photos can be fun. However, it can also be used to lie about where someone is, what they are doing, and who they are doing it with. Technology is changing rapidly. There isn’t much a robot can’t do. From driving a car without human intervention to soon enough, flying an airplane. My question would be, will there be a time when life imitates art, and we are faced with an iRobot catastrophe.

My technical literacy is almost nonexistent beyond the day-to-day life of social media and basic content creation. As a creative writer, storyteller, and activist, I took this class with the hopes that I will be able to better understand the basics of web design and create more enticing visual content when I use TikTok and other platforms to display my work. I am a Global student, so my entire degree has been online. I graduate in May of 2024!

Over the last year, I have learned to use social media sites like LinkedIn to further my writing presence and create an outlet to network with like-minded people. I am a self-published author on Amazon, and I had to learn how to utilize Canva when creating my book "Journal and Manifest with Your Ancestors." So I consider that to be an incredible success since I created this journal completely on my own. I followed someone on YouTube to learn the ins and outs of utilizing KDP Amazon and Canva.

[frostbite-the-bat]

I have one bunny to offer myself actually he's the best bunny on tumblr

This is jimmie... Photo taken in 2012-2014 estimated by the fact this was on an old archive of pics from the old nokia i had as a kid to make calls to my parents. I love him dearly my favorite plushie as a kid was named after him. He's just a black fluff and i adore him dearly

[ruttotohtori]

Last summer, view of lake Vesijärvi with Lahti harbour, towers of Lahti longwave transmitter, and ski jumping hill, photo taken with Nokia X2-00 camera phone (paikassa Lahti, Finland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeV5eUwqbUu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cristinazar]

I attended the Notting Hill Carnival (27 Aug 2023 – 28 Aug 2023) for the second time and high expectations were met. It was a great time, but I must admit, my interaction with the carnival isn't quite like most people's. I go there to photograph and document the event, but I do it as part of my “artistic expression” (sorry for the fake highbrow). While others revel with friends to party, I'm more of a memory hoarder and archivist for the carnival. A girl with a hump and cap looking through a camera.

Don't get me wrong; I dance, admire the stunning costumes, and have fun, but not quite in the typical way it's intended. It's my way of enjoying the carnival, and I can't imagine going and not photographing it. That's my main desire at the carnival—to be a mirror for it, a tiny grain looking outward into that vast sea of energy.

For the past two years, I've focused on a photojournalism style because the event itself and the people within it are fascinating to me. I want to reflect the carnival as it is, but even in this approach, it's still very subjective photography. I choose who to photograph, under what circumstances, how to frame the image, and later, I select and edit the pictures. So, it's not reality, but it's the carnival through my experience.

Btw I welcome any notes or comments on this series :)

I observed numerous photographers and videographers on-site and had the pleasure of discovering their work on social media. It's a joy to see their personal reflections of the carnival. Capturing this incredible party filled with culture and people who open their hearts and identities for the camera is like a gift for a photographer. They reveal themselves in all their euphoria, and it's an unforgettable experience to be a part of.

One of the reasons I feel very fortunate to be living in London (or more like surviving London) is the opportunity to attend this J'ouvert. It's one of the few parties where I have an absolute blast.

This year, it took me a while to process my own work and edit it. Part of the reason is that I took more pictures and spent more hours at the carnival than last year. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the pictures are better; there were just more to go through, and I needed to take my time. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed with this year's photos compared to last. I'm not sure if it's because the novelty has worn off a bit or if I wasn't at the top of my game those two days. I'm quite rusty since I hardly take my camera out anymore and I really should do it more since even the camera's batteries die on me from lack of use!

My success depends on finding stories and interesting individuals at the carnival and being able to react quickly to capture the moment. Many times, I've seen something worth photographing and fumbled the opportunity. I hate when that happens, but it's bound to occur.

Additionally, while editing the pictures, I quickly realized that I had used the wrong camera settings (What a delight!). The pictures were noisy and looked of low quality. They seemed fine on the tiny camera screen, but on the computer, they resembled images taken with a 2000s Nokia. Lesson learned, or maybe not so much, as it seems I did worse than last year. But I'll certainly be more cautious in the future, ensuring I set the right parameters on the camera and invest in a better lens for fast-paced events. There should be no excuses, but as I mentioned last year, I often have mere seconds to capture a shot, dealing with whatever light conditions the sun or tree shadows throw at me and the speed at which my subjects move. So, it's not easy.

The AI noise reduction tool in Photoshop has helped salvage some of these photos that might otherwise have been discarded due to cases of "this person looks amazing, but the picture is shit". So, if you notice unreal smooth skin or odd lines in shadows, it's probably the AI at work.

As I write this text, I'm using an AI to assist me (hi chat), and it will be processed and grammatically corrected by it. Thus, both the images and text in this series bear the touch of artificial intelligence. Part of it is due to my mistakes, lack of time and skill, but it's also because AI is a valuable collaborator. I appreciate the style it adds to the photographs (and the grammar haha), making it a great creative partner for now. Let's see how it evolves in the future…

Another noteworthy aspect is that I've been sharing a lot about my experiences at the Notting Hill Carnival with a close friend, Carmen (too humble/shy to share last name). She always provides interesting interpretations and insightful comments on everything I tell her. She seemed amused by my stories and photos of the carnival, so I asked her if she'd be interested in creating some text based on the photographs.

Carmen has done some great work to accompany one of these series, the LOVE series (the text is in Spanish btw). She has never attended the Notting Hill carnival, so she based the experience on these pics. I really like how she writes, so I was very happy to have her included here.

I hope you enjoy the photographs and the information I tried to dig up on the culture behind the costumes and the traditions I saw. Of course, if you want to know more do your research and don't stop here, as there's lots to discover. Also, I want to make a disclaimer that the specific meaning of these scenes at the Notting Hill Carnival can vary widely among participants. Carnival costumes and symbols are highly individualistic and can be influenced by a person's cultural background, personal beliefs, or creative inspirations.

Thank you for reading!

Cris

[ross-hori]

Went out for the first time this week. Face is still a bit funny, but I was going a bit stir crazy. And after binge watching #Ragnarok on Netflix, I was picking up a bit of a Norwegian accent.

Anyhoo, these were shot on my Nokia smartphone. Won't bore you with the grumbles about image quality now I've ditched Google One (or whatever it's called these days).

These shots of the Concerto, a ship that cruises the Inland Sea a few times a day, were taken using Pro mode. I had to crank the ISO right up to get anything decent, so apologies for the noise.

Although I haven't been on Concerto, I understand it's a nice trip and worth the money. I'd probably favor after dark.

And if you want to take some better photos, she sails at 19:30 from Kobe Harborland. Bring a tripod.