#would make writing easier

[fallloverfic]

I totally understand where people are coming from when they comment on my Jinx fanfics saying they wish this or that happened in the comic or, amazingly, that Mingwa should take notes or something. I am, however, probably the very wrong person to say this to lol

Mingwa is far and away (obviously) a better writer than I am. And also I adore the manhwa. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single episode, including the ones that came out in the nearly two months since I first read the manhwa, and reread at least parts of it every single day. I know fanfiction can be a fun stopgap between updates, and I'm glad my fics are enjoyable to other folks from that perspective. I get that the manhwa is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and there are things people want to happen that are not happening (at least yet). I am sympathetic to frustration with the thing you are reading and on some level enjoy and wish were more like what you wanted. I am also interested in analysis of the story and love fanworks for it. And I'm very open to critiquing stuff you enjoy. I love doing it, and it's a great way to better appreciate art (and it's part of why I write fanfiction in the first place).

I am, however, truly not the sympathetic ear for anger about Jinx from a story or character perspective that people seemingly think I am, nor do I wish for my fic comment section to be the dumping ground of such stuff. As I've said with ENNEAD before this, I write the fanfics I do because I love the comic, not because I hate it or its author. Jinx is imperfect - as all art is - and I have criticisms (minor ones, though, like a few art errors or the overuse of stock assets solely in lieu of comic art). But I do not hate the story, the characters, or the direction the plot is going (I have tons of drafts of basically "I really like this thing about Jinx" that I just don't post for my own sanity and time). Maybe that will change, who knows! I liked BJ Alex well enough before I dropped it around the 1/3 mark due to something Dong-gyun did (though I did not like it even close to how much I love Jinx before dropping, and the thing that got me to drop it was good writing and understandable narratively, just also squicky for me). There are things I would like to see happening in the story. But also, there are at least 40 episodes left of the story (if not more, given Mingwa's comment that season 2 would be longer than season 1, and I doubt she meant just 1 episode longer). That's a lot of time for stuff to happen, and even if everything I wanted to happen happened next episode, I'd still be hungrily waiting for the following episode.

My fanfics are for fun, to ease the hungry monster in my head that wishes for more Jinx between updates. Mingwa is pacing the story well, in my opinion, and I trust in her ability to continue to do so. I am, however, less patient in my own writing (in part because I'm in a lot of fandoms and writing several fics at the same time), so I unfortunately kind of rush through things to get to the catharsis faster, which I know would be better served in a longer story. That's fine, because it's fanfic, and obviously it works for more than just me. But Jinx the comic is a lot better than that, which is part of why so many of us love it.

Now excuse me while I return to fic editing and rereading the latest episode another 40 times.

[keferon]

So uh..I sure hope no one’s personality reshapes after that experience haha

[sparticus2000art]

Revisiting my nightmare design and giving him another outfit for fun!

Also some practice with expressions based on the expression sheet by @/capochiino because I need to work on drawing faces more expressively-

I’m not quite there yet, but it’s not doing terribly I think…

Nightmare was made by jokublog

I also drew this cause I wanted to explore a better dressed nightmare- personality wise I feel like it makes more sense to have him be a bit more extravagant or well put together than his cannon design with just the hoodie.

For my own interpretation of him, I feel like it would be interesting to approach his character in a way where he does both- the more elaborate or fancy outfits preferably, but the hoodie fit as more of a crutch for when he needs it, linking his outward expression and appearance to his stability and control over his own emotions/ the corruption.

I think when he first turned, the corruption would’ve made him quite unstable emotionally, and taken away a lot of control- being visually represented by it soaking through and staining all of his clothes to be the same colour as the corruption itself. Kinda showing him being overwhelmed by the new influence. But the more comfortable he becomes, the better he’s able to manage the new state, giving him the opportunity to do things more to his own taste.

This also allows him to experiment with adding some pops of colour to his clothes, though he’d still stick to darker tones to protect his pride- so that it’s not as obvious when his control lapses and the corruption seeps through to contaminate the garments. On particularly bad days he’d revert to his cannon clothing, both to save the clothes he likes from being tarnished, but also as a way to seek comfort.

I’m not sure if I explained that super well lol, but those are kinda my personal head cannons.

[ckret2]

Above: Bill showing off the messed up things he can make the Nightmare Realm do.

Below: Bill literally an hour later.

Here, have a fic. In which the gods try to figure out what to do about the new omnicidal chaos god who would rather destroy reality than politely exit Dimension Zero so they can arrest him for burning down multiple dimensions.

This is part 7 of a ???9-ish??? part plot about the Axolotl meeting this friendly harmless innocent little triangle in the wake of the Euclidean Massacre and then getting repeatedly slapped in the face with all the atrocities Bill's committed. If you want to read and/or look at the pretty art on the other parts, here's one, two, three, four, five, and six.

####

There was fresh fear amongst the many gods crowded around the site where Dimension 2 Delta had once stood.

The perimeter around Dimension Zero's turbulent border had pulled back dramatically, leaving a barren no man's land between the police cordon and the triangle's territory.

The fires in the 1D and 2D universes, for a moment so close to doused, had returned with a vengeance—and by the sound of some chatter amongst the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force agents, they suspected it was a literal vengeance. The storm cloud heading the ATTF operations had needed to personally visit the burning dimensions again—see which previously contained fires had reignited or jumped their firelines, and see which new fires had broken out so that it could redistribute the available firefighting forces appropriately.

The Time Giant had gone along to inspect the damage and figure out which dimensions could be repaired—provided they ever stopped the fires—and which would ultimately needed to be rebuilt.

And anyone who wasn't actively engaged in trying to control the fires was still trying to process the newest crisis: the leader of the mortals who'd fallen into Dimension Zero wasn't a fellow mortal victim, but an out-of-control new god with the power to move and burn entire universes who didn't seem to understand that he was about to destroy all of reality, himself included.

VENDOR had finally run out of excuses to avoid the media, and was now reluctantly holding an impromptu press conference with the reporters on the scene—and THEY looked so miserable the Axolotl nearly felt bad for THEM. He overheard THEM blurt out, probably far louder than intended, "I will not be remembered as the god who was in charge of the emergency response efforts that got the entire multiverse destroyed!" and he wondered whether VENDOR remembered either that THEY weren't in charge or that, if the multiverse were destroyed, THEY wouldn't be remembered at all. No one would be.

From the conversations he overheard, the Axolotl got the impression that no one, even the most senior ATTF agents on the scene, had ever dealt with a threat to the multiverse this dire. No one knew what to do about the triangle—least of all the Axolotl, who was only here because everybody still hadn't realized that he wasn't supposed to be.

So while everyone else was arguing, privately panicking, or actually doing something useful, he was floating at the cordon holding people away from Dimension Zero.

####

There were a few stars and rocky bodies on the wrong side of the cordon. The triangle's sun—the star that had once shone down on his 2D world before it burned down (before he burned it down)—was still out there. Once again, it was falling toward Dimension Zero.

He glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then swooped under the cordon, scooped up the sun, and carried it back to the safe zone. He opened a portal to his tank, slid the star inside, then shook out his forefeet and inspected the burns on the soft skin. He'd been playing with a lot of fire today.

"Axolotl!"

The Axolotl looked up. He wasn't surprised by the familiar sight of his Oracle's soul emerging from the aether—she'd already come by once—but he was frustrated by it. One more person he had to protect in this mess.

"Something happened—"

"I know." He quickly curled around her, doing his best to shield her from the other gods in case any of the nearby arguments escalated—or the triangle decided to lash out at the third dimension again. "You shouldn't be here now. It isn't safe."

Of course, she ignored him. She wouldn't be the kind of person he picked as one of his Oracles if she weren't the kind of person who ignored gods' warnings. "Our seers heard the whole sky scream in pain, and then saw a vast eye—"

"Over there." He lifted his tail out of the way just enough to let her see the border of Dimension Zero.

No matter where you looked at Dimension Zero, that golden fleck of light seemed to twinkle in the center of your field of vision. The Oracle squinted. "The little flat yellow creature?"

"He was bigger earlier."

"What happened?"

"A showdown with the cops."

The Oracle paused as she tried to reconcile that with the seers' apocalyptic vision. "Who won?"

"He did."

"Good." And she wouldn't have been the kind of person the Axolotl picked for his Oracles if she didn't say that, either.

On most days, he'd agree with her. But after seeing what the triangle could do—knowing what he would do... The cops weren't the answer, but he had to be stopped somehow.

(He could feel the triangle's eye on them. Was he listening to them now?)

"He's shaped like a triangle. Is he connected to the blind seer's final vision?"

The seer who'd seen the sky burn and collapse into a blinding triangular light. "He is. He's the last survivor of the first dimension to burn. His people called him the Magister Mentium; he was a seer to his people, too." It tore the Axolotl's heart to say more than that—but he wouldn't mislead his Oracle. "Somehow, he started the fire."

Before the Oracle could ask him how, a faint voice yelled, "Hey!"

They turned toward Dimension Zero. The triangle was on the border, looking straight at them. He shouted again, "Hey! You with the pink freak!"

"What?"

"How many fingers do you have!"

She gave her four arms a puzzled look. "Twenty!"

"Wow!" The triangle sounded genuinely impressed. "What do you use 'em all for?!"

"Normal finger things?" She asked, "Why's your hat so skinny?"

"What hat?"

She paused. "Never mind!" She turned back to the Axolotl and whispered, "Is the hat part of his body?"

"I don't think so. He didn't have it the last time I saw him."

She kept trying to look at the triangle until the Axolotl curled around her to stop her staring. "That's the seer who's destroying universes?"

He wanted to make excuses for the triangle. He wanted to defend him. "Yes."

She was silent a moment before asking the question she'd really come for: "Is my world in danger?"

"Not yet. Not directly. But... if he isn't stopped, it eventually will be," the Axolotl said. "He's fallen into the center of the multiverse and is trying to build a kingdom there. If he fails, it will collapse and kill him; but if he succeeds, it will destabilize and kill all of reality."

"Wh—?!" She gave him a look of disbelief. "But—that doesn't make any sense! He loses either way!"

"I know."

"So why is he endangering everyone for nothing?!"

"I don't know."

"I'm going to find out."

"Wait—!"

The Oracle's astral projection could be very slippery when she wanted; she was already past the Axolotl and flying toward Dimension Zero. "Hey! Magister Mentium! I want a word with you!"

"Don't cross the border between dimensions!" The Axolotl clutched the police tape in both forefeet as he watched.

After five minutes of shouting and death threats, the Oracle flew back to the Axolotl.

"I think he's stupid," she said.

He smiled sadly. "I fear it's something much worse than that."

He had the skin-crawling feeling that the triangle was staring at him. He forced himself not to turn and find out for sure.

####

The Time Giant was the first to return from the frontlines of the fire. She joined the Axolotl next to the police tape, muttered something about needing to pick up some "stuff" from "a couple centuries ago," snapped out a length of time tape, and returned three seconds later in a different shirt with sleeves rolled up and carrying a folding table, a bundle of blueprints, and an energy drink. She unfolded the table in the void, spread out her blueprints on it, chugged her drink, hunched over the table, and ignored the rest of the universe.

The Oracle gazed up at the Time Giant and instantly fell in love. The Axolotl politely pretended he didn't notice.

VENDOR was the second to float over—slumped forward, lights dim, looking like THEY were returning from a war zone rather than a press conference. Heaving a weary sigh, THEY positioned THEMSELF next to the cordon with the Axolotl and Time Giant; which was the point at which the Axolotl realized he'd accidentally formed a club of people who didn't want to be in charge of this mess but were. "Any change?" 

The Time Giant grunted distractedly. The Axolotl said, "No." The Oracle said, "I accidentally taught the triangle an obscene gesture." 

VENDOR turned toward Dimension Zero.

The triangle sprouted two extra arms and gleefully pantomimed something filthy.

VENDOR turned away from Dimension Zero and sighed even more heavily.

When the storm cloud drifted over, VENDOR said, "Go away unless you have good news." The arrogance had drained out of THEIR voice; what little pomposity THEY had left was a thin mask over exhausted fear. (The Axolotl could sympathize; he felt the same dread weighing low in the pit of his stomach.)

Before the storm cloud had left to check on the other dimensions, it had still been hailing in fear; by now, it had whipped itself up into a furious blizzard. It had to stay back from the group to keep from freezing them too, and even at that frost still crept across VENDOR's glass and the Axolotl had to shield the Oracle from the cold. "Well," it said stiffly, trying to rein in its rage and sounding even colder as a consequence. "Almost all the new fires have already been contained. I'll say one thing for that—" It paused as it mentally glided over what was no doubt a long and creative list of insults, "—guy; at least he's making an effort to be more careful of where he kicks the neighboring dimensions so the damage doesn't spread as fast." It sighed a chilly, angry gust of wind. "Unfortunately, he's gotten more aggressive about kidnapping mortals from other dimensions. He's narrowed his focus, but he's kicking ten times harder."

"That wasn't very good good news," VENDOR whined.

"Sorry. Fresh out," the cloud said. "Fact is, if we don't stop him, we're toast."

Nobody was surprised by that. VENDOR asked, "How much time do we have?" THEY turned to the Time Giant.

While VENDOR had gotten pathetic and the cloud was seething with barely-restrained rage, the Time Giant had only grown more stoic. Her face was set in a stony mask; her jaw was tight enough that she could bite an airplane clean in half. Since she'd come back, she hadn't glanced up from the stack of blueprints she'd retrieved.

It took her a moment to realize the question was directed toward her. She jerked her head up as if ready to snap at whoever had interrupted her; but caught herself as she processed the question. "Uhh, pffff..." She squinted toward the horizon of time, face scrunched up to expose her teeth. "If we get the fires put out? Few years. Couple decades at the outside. Reckon it's more than enough time to jury rig something that'll keep reality propped up while we get in a construction crew to set up a new Big Bang, no problem."

The Axolotl whispered reassuringly to the Oracle, "A couple of decades to us is over a thousand of your people's generations."

"A couple of decades," VENDOR muttered, voice rough, a few stray moons rattling around behind THEIR product dispenser door. "This multiverse was built to last an eternity. To think it could be destabilized enough to collapse within a couple of decades, all because of one..." THEY fell silent. They could all feel the steady staring eye watching them from deep within Dimension Zero.

The cloud said, "And if he doesn't let us stop all the fires?"

She pursed her lips, brows knit tightly. "If the fires keep spreading and that triangle keeps destabilizing things, the whole thing could collapse in a week tops."

"That's still a few years for your people," the Axolotl told the Oracle optimistically.

She swatted his paw. "Aren't you powerful enough to, just—stop him? You're gods." They must have seemed undefeatable to her—living beings the size of mountains and vast world-moving machines and forces of nature. That was how the gods always looked to mortals.

But unfortunately, when you got right down to it, they weren't much more than weirdly big people.

VENDOR muttered, "Well, I don't have the authority to call in the kind of reinforcements that can take that thing down." (More cautious now that THEY realized this wasn't a threat THEY could effortlessly crush in THEIR gears, weren't THEY.)

The cloud said, "The Apocalyptic Threat Task Force can make that call in any situation that poses a credible threat to multiversal safety and security, but..." It asked the Axolotl and Time Giant, "Just how strong do you think he is?"

"Could be omnipotent," the Time Giant said. "Wouldn't be surprised."

The Axolotl reluctantly nodded in agreement. "He doesn't understand what he's doing yet, but he's already manipulating the fabric of reality with his bare hands."

VENDOR made a tiny noise like a malfunctioning motor at that.

Grimly, the cloud said, "I could put in a call to HQ. We have a few higher dimensional types on call. Creator gods and the like. They're probably the only ones who'd stand a chance against an omnipotent god that can make a whole universe do a barrel roll. But if we aren't sure we could win the fight, and fast..."

The assembled group of gods cast a nervous look at the gaping hole into Dimension Zero.

The triangle, smaller than one of the Axolotl's fingertips, stared back from the border. He solemnly spread his arms wide. "You wanna go? Come at me."

They did not want to go. They turned away.

"Bad idea," the Time Giant said. "If the laws of physics are unstable, even the strongest god wouldn't have an advantage. It'd be like putting the fastest sprinter in the multiverse on a racetrack without gravity. And since he's the one running the physics, he could practically hand himself a win."

"And on top of that, any fight down there risks knocking the multiverse down," the cloud said. "It's too dangerous. We can't risk attacking him."

"We'll just have to hope he doesn't attack us first," VENDOR muttered.

The Axolotl's stomach flipped. He knew something they didn't. "Actually, I... don't think he can."

All attention was on him. VENDOR said, "Please tell me you have some actual good news."

"I don't know." He wasn't sure whether it would make any difference. All he knew was that he felt like he was betraying the triangle. He lowered his voice to what for him passed as a whisper. "But, I think... I think his power is limited to the borders of his realm." As he said it, he knew he was telling the truth. Some beings got like that when they were old enough; they could just feel when something was right. "He can't impact anything that isn't touching his dimension. He's essentially harmless to the rest of the multiverse. The only real threat is... well." He gestured helplessly at the frothing chaos. "The fact that the dimension is like that."

Voice hushed, the cloud said slowly, "Hold on. So... he's trapped in the crawlspace beneath reality."

"No—he's trapped in the 'dream realm' he's built inside the crawlspace. He can drag the realm out with him, but... we saw what happens when he does that." They'd all heard how existence had howled in pain. They'd seen how even the triangle had been scared enough to stop.

"So we have no hope of fighting him in his bunker—but if we drag him across the threshold... the fight's over." THEY turned to the two cops THEY'd been leading around all day.

The crab and burning wheels tried very hard to look like they hadn't noticed the conversation at all. 

VENDOR and the cloud exchanged a frustrated glance. Sarcastically, the cloud muttered, "Yeah. Easy."

The Axolotl said, "I'm not even sure we can drag him out of his bunker. I don't know if he won't leave, or physically can't leave—just that his power stops at his borders."

VENDOR sighed, "So we're back where we started."

The Time Giant smacked her mess of blueprints, making the other gods start. "No we aren't! If his influence can't spread outside his dimension, then I've got a fix." She held up a thick binder. "It's a fiddly chrono-construction technique to shore up brittle dimensions. It can work as a stopgap measure to stop him from destabilizing any more dimensions." She looked at VENDOR. "It'll make a lot of extra work for the urban planning committee."

VENDOR's lights flickered off. The Axolotl could see the numbers on THEIR digital display as THEY slowly counted to ten. Then THEY turned their lights back on and said, with an air of forced calm, "All right. I don't think there is any getting out of this without extra work. Tell me the idea."

"Right now, all our dimensions are connected adjacent to each other—corner to corner and edge to edge. It's simple that way. But, if we restructure the dimensions parallel to each other, we can use the pressure of the outside dimensions to press in on the crawlspace and keep its contents in place. It's gonna be a mess. Forget about the Dimension 1, Dimension 2, Dimension 3 system we have right now; by the end of this we're gonna have Dimension 143 and Dimension M and Dimension 6.5 and Dimension -17 and imaginary number dimensions and quadratic dimensions..." She shrugged helplessly. "But if we can't get this bozo out, it might be our only option."

"Parallel universes? It sounds ridiculous." VENDOR let out a low moan of pain, "We'll have to restructure the whole multiverse."

"Yup. Probably."

"Everything's so nice and tidy now. A perfectly arranged planned community. Nice, straight, gridlike dimensions..."

"Parallel dimensions do have some potential benefits over adjacent dimensions," the Time Giant offered comfortingly. "Easier interdimensional travel—"

VENDOR grumbled, "Oh, I know, I know, Municipalitron's been pushing to experiment with parallel dimensions for the past two hundred billion years. He won't shut up about how it would benefit mass transit."

The cloud said, "All I care about is the multiverse surviving long enough to worry about mass transit."

The time giant said, "The biggest downside is that once we've completely closed up the crawlspace, when that dimension he's set up inevitably collapses, there's no easy way to get back all that energy and dark matter. If we ever decide to rip open a rift big enough to drain it out, it could take trillions of years if we don't want the flood to destroy the receiving universe. We might never clear out the rubble. But on the other hand, if it's sealed up well enough, it won't matter if the ruins are left to rot."

"What about the hostages?" the Axolotl asked. "Won't that trap everyone inside?"

"We'll have to leave manhole covers and maintenance shafts, obviously. Until the fabric of reality's finished unraveling, we'll have a chance to get them out," the Time Giant said. "Even that 'Magister' can leave if he decides to surrender himself. Assuming he's willing to leave his construction project behind."

If he could leave it.

VENDOR let a heavy whoosh out THEIR vents. "Balls. Very well, submit your proposal to the committee. I'll vouch for it. But I won't like it." THEY muttered, "Municipalitron's never going to let me live this down."

The storm aimed its sunbeam at the Time Giant. "Can't start construction as long as he's still starting fires and picking fights, though—can we? Unless you can build new dimensions on top of an active inferno?"

"N—Hold on." She squinted toward the future to check. "Nope. Though once I get down a fireproof foundation, we won't need to worry about it anymore. Got a trick called timeline splitting: you reformat a dimension so that the timelines fork infinitely, any time a choice is made. If he tries to burn 'em, they split: one timeline he burned and one he didn't. He'll just add more timelines and thicken the foundation every time he tries to attack the neighbors."

Horrified, VENDOR said, "I've been trying to pass an ordinance to ban timeline splitting for an eon."

"Has it passed yet?" the storm asked.

"No!"

"Great. Then that's our plan," the storm said. "We just need somebody to talk him down long enough to put out the fires and get the fireproof foundation in place." Its sunbeam turned toward the Time Giant. "Maybe if someone explains the stakes to him—?"

She shook her head, expression flat. "I'm a civil engineer, not a hostage negotiator. If he didn't get it the first time I laid it out to him, he ain't gonna get it the second time."

VENDOR asked the cloud, "Isn't the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force trained in talking down apocalyptic threats?"

"Yes, but no," the storm cloud said.

"What does that mean! Just... go up to that thing"—THEY tilted toward Dimension Zero—"and keep him calm."

"Are you kidding? I'm not suicidal!"

"This is your job, you're an apoc cop!"

"Apoc agent!" It raised its voice, "And talking down threats is not my speciality! I was sent because we thought this was a structural issue, not an actively malevolent entity!"

"Hey!" the triangle shouted. "Who are you calling malevolent?! Hey! Hey! Look me in the eye and say that again, I'll kick your base! I'm the most benevolent entity you've ever met!"

They wordlessly avoided eye contact with the triangle, scooted another solar system farther away from Dimension Zero, and lowered their voices again. 

The storm cloud asked VENDOR, "Shouldn't this be your department? We're dealing with the possible genesis of a new god, and his first act was destroying a dimension and destabilizing reality. Sounds like politics to me."

Delicately, the Axolotl said, "I don't think THEY're the best choice."

"I'm certainly not. I handle the urban planning committee's budgeting," VENDOR said. "I deal with accountants, not terrorists! The only reason I'm here is to provide planets for those flat refugees, and I am sick of being at every humanitarian crisis in the multiverse just because I vend planets—"

The Axolotl had taken all of VENDOR that he could. He rounded on THEM, snarling, "Why are you even in politics, if it's not to help mortals? Is that not why you accepted the title of 'god'?" He flared his gills and his eyes glowed in rage. "Because it's why I did! I wish there was more I could do to help! And you, you can do more than anyone, and you're complaining about it?!"

VENDOR jerked back from the Axolotl. For a moment, the whole group was stunned silent. The Axolotl's eyes stopped glowing. He had to fight the urge to shrink back self-consciously from their staring. His Oracle patted his side comfortingly.

And then VENDOR's lights brightened. "You know how to talk to mortals like that. This triangle is just like the omnicidal monsters you represent every day." THEIR camera whirred as THEY sized him up. "If you want to help more, then why don't you?"

Ah. The Axolotl paused to swallow his anger. 

He glanced down at his Oracle, who had been hiding in his shadow as she took notes and attempted to surreptitiously ogle the Time Giant. He said, "I think..."

She nodded. "I'll wake up." And then she faded out as her spirit sank back down to a lower plane.

The Axolotl tried to avoid looking at VENDOR—how could someone without a face look so smug?—and focused on the Time Giant. "What do you need me to get him to do?"

####

Biologically there was really no such thing as a god, in the same way that botanically there is really no such thing as a vegetable. Tomatoes are fruits; spinach is a leaf; carrots are roots; broccoli is an unfinished flower. The word "vegetable" just indicates the cultural role a plant performs in the kitchen.

The word "god" indicated the cultural role an entity performed in cosmology: a god was anything that people considered powerful enough to be worth worshiping.

A trillion trillion priests and philosophers and theologians and politicians had attempted to pin down a firm definition—but any definition was only ever valid to the worshipers who agreed it was right. The simple truth was that a being who had created a universe could be called a god, and a particularly impressive tree could be called a god, and a con artist who used clever stage magic to convince people he could teleport and raise the dead could be called a god, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to prove than any one of them "really" was or wasn't a god, no trait that universally separated the false gods from the true. If other gods thought you were a god, or if enough mortals worshiped you that the other gods had to bow to public pressure, that meant you were a god. 

Different beings honored with the title "god" handled it in different ways. Some, unsurprisingly, developed a god complex. Some picked up debilitating scrupulosity in an effort to be perfect enough to be worthy of their people's worship, and their people developed scrupulosity in an effort to live up to their god's perfect example, and so it went in a vicious cycle until somebody finally got therapy. Some printed their titles on the party invitation flyers they tossed out on busy streets. For the Axolotl's part, he thought it was a useful designation to help with networking, but mostly it was a pain that meant he was put up on a pedestal for doing his job.

The Axolotl was a god of justice. Not the god of justice, but one. He held dominion over an abstract concept; over millions and billions of years, his words and decisions slowly, inexorably altered the idea of "justice" on a multiversal scale. Mercy, retribution, punishment, rehabilitation, equity, equality, fairness, and righteousness were like multicolored clays he could twist, squish, sculpt, and blend in his wet little salamandrine grip, permanently altering what those ideas meant to the mortals they affected.

Which was to say: he was a lawyer.

He was also known as a god of rebirth. Which was to say: he specialized in afterlife law. Before going into law he'd only been a psychopomp, but after having to escort too many despairing souls to afterlives he felt were too severe for their sins, he'd decided he wanted a say in where he took his souls. For a while, he helped clients get their charges reduced so they were eligible for a higher-tier reincarnation, or got their purgatorial sentences reduced. Though for a long time he'd steered away from damnation cases. He didn't always win—and those ones were too depressing to lose.

And then he'd thought he should be doing more. It wasn't enough for him to help his clients get the best option available under the system to which they were subjected; he wanted to change the system. He'd started pursuing bigger cases.

Now, he had a reputation.

For the past few centuries, he'd been working on a damnation case. He was defending a supervillain who'd developed a weapon that could slice open the fabric of spacetime so severely it could rip clean into another dimension—a mortal who'd committed an interdimensional crime against reality. The villain had died in the jurisdiction of an afterlife that had legalized eternal damnation.

Case law had long established that, unless other arrangements had been made premortem, the dead were to be sent to—in order—the afterlife of their birth, their death, or their choice, provided that the afterlife in question accepted them; and that they would be judged and sentenced by that afterlife's laws.

But if this villain had been extradited to his home world, the heaviest sentence he could have faced was a thousand years purgatory with an option for early reincarnation for good behavior after a hundred years.

So the jurisdiction he'd died in had summoned up some bureaucratic red tape to dismiss his native afterlife's extradition request, and he'd been sentenced where he'd died. Crimes against reality were often handled differently from regular sins; and the gods of vengeance in the domain where he'd died would love to see the courts declare that the gods who'd brought down a criminal against reality could call dibs on punishing him, rather than hand him back to his motherland. They hoped they would get away with it just for lack of anyone protesting the move. After all, everyone involved would much prefer that a mortal wicked enough to damage spacetime and obliterate multiple populated planets receive eternal punishment.

Everyone involved except the Axolotl. 

Taking this case hadn't made him many friends. He didn't care; he had his principles. Let an interplanetary supervillain be dragged away to a foreign afterlife just so that he can be forced into damnation, and next it'll be a planetary dictator; let a dictator be dragged away, and next it'll be a murderer; and next it'll be a burglar; and next it'll be a jaywalker that a psychopomp has a personal grudge against. If the Axolotl could establish that even the most undeserving mortal imaginable still deserved the right to be sentenced in his home afterlife, then he could ensure that everyone less evil received the same right.

If he had anything to say about it, in two or three trillion years he'd see eternal punishment outlawed completely; but until then, he was not going to sit idly by and let this flagrant abuse of interdimensional law become the new meaning of justice! He would get that supervillain out of eternal damnation, personally escort him to his native afterlife, and see him reincarnated on his own home world; and mark his words, he would rain so much bureaucratic hell on the judges and psychopomps that had let this abuse of justice take place—he would wreak such vengeance upon the vengeance gods who had tried to claim his client—that no god would dare keep a soul from its rightful afterlife ever again, or he wasn't the Axolotl!

All of which was to say:

Yes, unfortunately. This triangle was like the omnicidal monsters he represented every day.

And so he was appointed hostage negotiator.

####

(Thanks for reading!! If the art lured you in and this is the first chapter you read, this is part 7 of a probably-9-part fic about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. I'll be posting one chapter a week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna watch the Axolotl almost fucking die.

It's ALSO chapter 67 of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. So if you wanna read more of me writing Bill, check it out. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a one-shot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: okay THIS is now probably the least cosmic-horrifying chapter of this arc. Which is a necessary interlude, because NEXT CHAPTER is the big climax woohoo!

Even if not much horrifying happens this chapter, I like the worldbuilding in it. The section on what being a god of justice means to the Axolotl was one of the first things I wrote for this arc.)

[niccolites]

green cliffs: lessons in mortality. chapter five

highlander!johnny x fem!reader. cw dubcon and period typical violence. read on ao3 here.

You assume that Johnny will get bored of you now that you are officially married.

In that slow ride back to the Keep, you imagine that it was all about the chase for him. Catching you as you fled, the snap of teeth at your heels. There is nothing for him to run after now, you were suitably caught, on your back with your soft belly up. The picture of defeat.

You were wrong. If anything, Johnny is hungrier than he was before. The first night that you are back, he barely lets you stumble into his bedroom before he is on you. Discards your dress like it’s a personal offence, saliva slicking your chin with how he kisses with his mouth open against yours.

He doesn’t even let you reach the bed, bucks into you on the floor until he spills into you with a whine that you echo. You protest at the ache in the muscles in your back from being on the stone floor.

He makes it up to you, lifts you onto the bed and seals his mouth over your cunt until you howl.

It’s relentless, you watch him constantly out of the corner of your eye, waiting for the moment that he loses interest, when he decides that you bore him.

It doesn’t come, you aren’t running but he’s still nipping at your heels. Pulling you back into him so he can grind his erection into your backside in the corridor. Tugging you into alcoves so that he can hitch your skirts up and wrap your legs around his waist.

You think he is trying to eat you alive. His hands are always just too tight, clenching around any give in your flesh. His tongue in your mouth, all the way to the back of your throat while he groans, vile and titillating.

It’s dizzying, leaves you on edge before he pushes you over it and you let him.

You seem to fascinate him, more so now than you did before. You wake up in the morning and find him studying the strangest parts of you. His chin on the curve of your belly, smoothing his thumb over where the skin of your breast disappears into the skin of your side. Other times it’s the slide of his hand up your throat, tilting your head back until his thumb frames the curve of your chin into your throat. A delicate hollow of flesh, the heel of his hand digging in as if to make it wider.

He frightens you, but you’ve also never experienced being under someone’s attention like this. You bask in his affection at times, flattered at his open adoration of you. Then you shy away later, when his attention is too much, a sun that burns you and leaves you red and raw. It doesn’t seem to matter either way, there isn’t far that you can get with Johnny following you there.

“I’m gettin’ a ring forged fer you, later,” Johnny announces, popping up in the doorway to the kitchen and spooking you. By the grin on his face, you suspect that was his intention.

“A ring?” you query, giving him an irritated look before you look away again, pulling more linen into your basket.

“We’ve been married fer a few weeks, but we have nothin’ to show fer it,” Johnny continues. He slides his arms around you, tugging you back into him. You are swallowed up in the breadth of him, thick forearms crossing over your stomach.

You hum in response, continuing to sort the dirty linens to wash. Most of them were the sheets from Johnny’s room, which is why you insisted on washing them yourself.

You hadn’t thought much of the physical show of your marriage. Johnny’s father had accepted Mrs Duncan’s nephew as a witness, and the two of you had shared a room since. You were referred to as Mrs Mactavish, something that you forgot to respond to half of the time. In your village there was the exchanging of rings, but that was usually if a family had a family ring that had been passed down, or could afford a strip of metal to mould into a ring. It wasn’t something that you had thought much about.

“Dae y’want a ring?” Johnny asks, suddenly quiet. His head next to yours as he watches your hands, temple to temple. You feel the inhale of his chest against your back and mimic it, subconsciously.

“I hadn’t thought about it, honestly,” you answer, hands hovering in the air, pulled to a stop. You were used to Johnny being brash, pulling you to where he wanted you to be. His sudden moments of contemplation always left you uncertain. He had never raised his hands to you, but looking down at the thick of the back of his hand reminded you of the violence that he enacted when he wanted to. “My mother had a ring, but my father buried her with it, so I barely remember it.”

Johnny smoothes his hand up your side, warm even though your stays and your shift. You turn your head and see a slight frown on his face, his eyes faraway, but he blinks, focuses on you. “Hello,” he murmurs, his arms squeezing you, making you wheeze slightly, which makes him smile. He turns you around, still not allowing for any room between the two of you. Picks your left hand up and frowns at your bare skin.

You stay silent, studying him in return. He shaved just after your wedding, after you complained too much about the burn on your thighs, but it was growing out again. The hair peeking out of the collar of his white shirt seems darker as well. You had pointed it out once, delirious after he had worn you out. “Makin’ a man oot of me, angel,” he had responded, grinning as he pulled you closer to him.

You tilt your hand into his, linking your fingers between his own. Your movement is clumsy, unpractised, but it knocks the frown off of his face anyway. “Hello,” he repeats, knocks his nose against yours, fingers squeezing yours.

“I need to wash these sheets,” you say, which he barely seems to notice. “I was going to go down to the stream.” You know that he will take it as an invitation, in the way that he does with all of the closed statements that you say.

“I’ll come wae y’,” he answers, kissing a wet trail down to your neck, sucks a little at your pulse point which has you jumping. He laughs, a buzz in the column of your neck. Everything you do amuses him, like you are a puppy that is trying to bark at him but can only yip.

“I need to go now,” you say, unlacing your hands but not getting far before he catches your wrists and wrestles them to the table behind you.

“I’ll be quick,” he answers again, licking at your collarbone before he drops to his knees and hikes your skirts up.

“Johnny,” you hiss, kicking him in the shoulder and only get that same laugh pressed into the curve of your knee. “You can’t do this in the kitchen.” You try to wriggle away, but he has you pinned to the table, hands shoved up to catch your hips and press you back.

“Sure ah can,” he responds, his words muffled beneath your skirts. You try to shove him off and you get a bite on your thigh that makes you squeak. “Keep still and let me get my fill.”

You shudder, staring anxiously at the door as Johnny pushes aside your shift and coos at the sight between your legs. “Johnny -”

“She’s achin’ fer me, angel, just look at this,” Johnny murmurs, voice muffled beneath your skirts. You see the lump shift, almost frown at how silly this must look before your knees buckle as he presses his mouth against you.

His hands are there, tight on the back of your thighs, hoists you up so he can pull himself in deeper. It’s vile, his mouth wide open against you. Saliva slicks until it drips, but he doesn't seem to care.

He kisses your cunt like it's a mouth, laves his tongue up until he sucks. It’s not the first time that he’s done this, but usually you can see him while he does. Make sense of what he’s doing through sight if not touch. You feel jumpy, legs kicking like a startled rabbit. His teeth make you gasp before they are gone, replaced by the loving slide of his tongue.

“Johnny, I can’t,” you whimper, arms shaking as you cling to the counter that you are leaning against. He pulls one of your legs over his shoulders and you feel split. A tear that Johnny wrenches his fingers into, always so greedy when it comes to you.

He doesn’t seem to hear you, or more likely chooses not to hear. He hums, sucks a kiss against the top of your sex that has you trembling. He leaves one hand on the back of your standing leg, but uses the other to slide a finger inside of you. You hear the groan he lets out as your flesh parts for him, feel ashamed as you also hear the wet noise that comes from you even through the fabric.

It’s messy, his tongue pressing around the split of your cunt around his fingers, like he’s trying to cram his mouth in there as well. You turn your head to the door, praying that no one comes in, or worse, that someone can hear the way that you're whining - worse than Johnny is.

Sickness blooms in your stomach until it takes, a split that becomes a cavern. One of your hand drops from the counter to the lump that you think is Johnny’s hand. You hold him there as you cry out, hips bucking out. You sob as he keeps going, fingers relentless even as your flesh wrings out everything that you have to give.

You collapse back, chest heaving. Johnny doesn’t move, and you think he would keep going if you didn’t thump the back of your foot on his back to get him to stop.

He pulls your skirts out of the way, and stands up, grinning at you. His stubble is wet and you would flush with embarrassment about how unabashed he is about it. He grins, hunches over you as he takes in your sweaty face.

“Go wash your mouth out,” you mutter, cringing as he pushes his nose into your cheek and you feel his skin stick to yours for a moment.

He snorts, his hand cupping your chin as he drags you up to meet his mouth. It’s a perverted rush that slinks up your spine as he kisses you the same way that he kissed you between your legs.

He seems content enough, with his tongue in your mouth. Forced relaxation upon you, muscles un-knotted enough to let him smooth his hands up and down your spine.

You jolt, caught again, as grinds his cock against your hip. Your mouths separate with a wet noise as you rear back. He grins down at you, unrelenting. “Cannae blame a man for this, not with those pretty noises that y’were just singing fer me, angel.”

“Johnny, I should really clean these sheets,” you start, trying to lean back.

You’ve misstepped, you know it in the way he suddenly frowns. Not in the usual way he might, before he purses your mouth with his hand and coos at how sweet you look. Irritation is a dark mask that cracks across his face, leaving him scowling.

“Oh, ah see,” he says, towering over you. “Yer allowed to use yer husband as y’wish, but God forbid he ask anythin’ in return fae his wife.”

“I never asked you to -”

“But you were happy enough tae take it, weren’t y’?” he snaps. The blunt edge of his teeth hides the pink of his tongue. Hard to imagine that the same mouth was pressed against the tender spot between your legs moments ago.

He’s working himself up, angry like a bull. You picture standing your ground, fantasize about spitting in his face.

You wouldn’t. You don’t. His hand is guiding on your shoulder and you kneel in front of an angry god.

-

You get your ring later, sat atop a wide stretch of fabric of the same red that his plaid is made with. An arasid, in your husband’s colours.

The ring is barely on your finger before Johnny pins you down and huffs like a beast, his eyes on your hand when he comes inside you.

-

Johnny doesn’t let you hide within yourself for long. There is a retreat in a recess of your mind, where you can let him pull you around as he wants, a haggard doll that he is a little too rough with most of the time. And you rest, separated from it all, aware enough to hum and gasp as he wants you to, but apart, dreaming of open fields and a bed you wake up alone in.

You thought that you had been getting away with it, but Johnny is intent, a bloodhound for every bit of you.

“I love you,” he tells you, his hands cupping your face, thumbs pressed into your temples. He’d been sitting at his desk when you had approached him, asking him if he wanted to come down for dinner. Now, his fingers cradle your skull, wide enough that you think he could separate your head from the rest of your body if he wanted to.

You blink back at him, still. Prey animals know when they are caught, and you’ve been hanging from this wolf’s mouth for a while now to know when his teeth are especially sharp.

“You love me?” he asks, half a question, half a demand. Fingers press into the skin of your scalp, thin like he wants to press into your mind and form the words for you.

“I-” you start, helpless. He inhales as you speak, as if to taste the words as they sit in the air between you. You can’t continue, mouth working silently. You’ve only known this man a month, you think. You will spend the rest of your life with him, if he doesn’t get tired of you. These are already impossible to reconcile before you start to wonder how you feel about it.

He steps closer, presses his forehead against yours. He’s usually unintentionally rough, fingers bruising in his haste to pull you where he wants you to be. Instead he’s slower, his hands soften as they frame your head. Nose rubs against yours, gentle.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, eyes hot on the curve of your mouth. One hand slides down to cup your jaw, as if to aid the forming of the words he wants to hear. “Tell me, please.”

Something trembles inside of you, an ancient ache that you think started up the moment that you saw him. You can’t do it. It is one thing to let him touch you, burn his hands on you until you give in. It is entirely another to lie and let him infect everything about you, even the parts of you that he can’t parse his hands over.

His hand tightens on your jaw, the hinge giving at his grip. You remember those Englishman, his own man that he beat into the ground. All for you, back when he didn’t know you, then when he knew you and you didn’t want him anyway. You don’t love him, you know this. Not the way that you’ve come to know love, steadfast and consistent. Some viscous expression is creeping across his face, the longer that you stare up at him, quiet.

You don’t love him, but he frightens you sometimes, even when he doesn’t mean it. And sometimes when he does, a satisfied glean in his eye after he gets what he wants. A lie, just for you, to cradle like a newborn. “I love you,” you murmur, give it life.

The snarl on his breath gives way to a sigh, and he presses even closer. “I love you,” he says, louder than you did. He says it, over and over again. Your lie is suffocated in the air, strangled in his confession.

You suspect that he knows it’s not true. The same way that his brow smoothes over when he reaches for you and you hesitate for a moment. Flesh stiff and unyielding in his palm as he passes over it. You tell him what he wants to hear and he goes soft, but his eyes look like ice, a tension around them that doesn’t fade even as he smiles at you.

He exhales like relief against your mouth, eyes boring into yours.

You thought that being unchewable would make you discardable. Unwanted, half-digested and ruined. Instead it seems to make Johnny more intent on you, teeth sharp as he digs into you further.

“Say it again,” he demands, sitting back in his chair, his hands wide on your hips. He presses his face into your dress. You don’t understand it, he seems to know that you’re lying, but he wants to hear it anyway.

Either way, it’s easier to admit it to the open air in front of you. Unbidden, your hands cup the back of his neck, feel the way he shudders, fingers flexing. “I love you,” you murmur, voice brittle.

“Ah know,” he responds, tugging you closer until you’re half in his lap. Unbalanced, caught with his desk digging into your back, the rest of your weight on the edge of his knees. Your hands cling to his shoulders, nails biting which makes him grin. “C’mere, angel, ah love you, ah do.”

More intimate to let him vow this to you than it was to stand in that church and have him bind the two of you together.

You let him kiss you and grunt at the graze of his teeth.

He bounces you on his lap, his fingers in your mouth. Right to the back of the throat, as if to touch the words before they even form yet. Takes that from you as well.

-

The journey back home isn’t long. Memory has elongated it into an endless beast, as if it were multiple nights and days. Endless and snapping like something wild.

You’d let the dust settle for just over a month before you approached Johnny with your desire to go home. It sat like an ulcer on your tongue, polluting the air around you. The stinking pull to leave. Johnny always seemed to know, always quick to skip past it, drag your mouth up to his, or hike your skirts up. Anything to push it back until it sat like a lump in your throat.

Finally you’d found the courage to suggest taking the trip back to your village to meet your brother, half-expecting Johnny to decline it outright. After all, your last attempt to go home had involved leaving Johnny behind.

Johnny surprised you, agreeing to go but had snapped his hips in yours sharply afterwards, as if to leave you a reminder of where you belong now.

It ends up only taking a single night that you spend in a village rather than the woods this time. “Nothin’ but the best for my bride,” Johnny grins, teeth pressed to the column of your neck. It is on your mind to point out that when you were unmarried and vulnerable, he’d slept with you on the forest floor and spent himself on the back of your skirts. The idea that he will march you back to the Keep if you anger him is what stills you.

The next morning and you are on the edge of your village, finally recognising some of the hills and the bends of the path.

You murmur to Johnny, telling him stories of the daffodils that you would pick in spring, the cow that you only had for a few years, the dogs that Ian had to keep in check because you were always a little too soft.

It’s likely the most that you have ever said to Johnny, but you feel the need to justify yourself, to justify why you want to be here. Johnny seems largely indifferent, as if you could be going to any village, and you want to start leaving the groundwork for future visits here. You aren’t silly enough to think you could come back permanently, but if it went well enough, you imagined a future where you could come back whenever you could.

You leave Cerberus tied to a tree and walk with Johnny when you reach the edge of your village. The way that you’ve come, by path rather than wildly through the woods, your home is on the opposite side, so you have to pass through the rest of your village before you can reach it.

Everything is as it was the same few houses are still standing in the way that they did before you left. Everything has stayed, even after you have left and came back changed.

There is a post that is used for whipping, standing in what made the rough centre of life here. You remember the man who was tied there for stealing money from some passing Englishmen, how they had painted his back red until he collapsed and they finally untied his hands from the stand.

This treatment was not granted to the man that was tied to the post. He’s been left to rot in the sun for days, weeks likely. The birds have been at him, picked away, most of his flesh gone. Rotted, down to the bone.

You’d know your brother in death, though. The same shock of hair as your own, dangling above what’s left of him.

You stare at him, unable to comprehend what you are seeing. You wait for him to stir, to look up at you and witness your return.

The wind blows and his hair stirs before it stills again.

Johnny murmurs your name, tries to reach out and catch you when you step forward. You dodge his hands, try to dart forward but he catches you around the waist.

You howl, mindlessly trying to force yourself forward again. A woman stops at the sight of you, and you barely recognise her. Animal brain at the forefront, any cognition capable of calm conversation has been buried.

She gives you a sad look, exchanges some words with Johnny that he barely responds to. His hands are full, as you try to scramble forward again. You need the truth beneath your hands. Your sight has failed you, you will only accept that your brother is dead if you can feel his dead flesh beneath your palms.

Johnny tugs you forward, but past the post and up towards your childhood home. You reach a futile hand out, only brush the post. Soaked in blood but dried so it doesn’t even stain, but you imagine it can.

Johnny lets you go when you step foot on your property, as you stop struggling to get back to Ian and instead throw yourself into your cottage.

The door is swung open and you force yourself inside, stopping in the kitchen. You look at everything in here, the cups washed and left off to the side, ready to be used again.

Everything is tainted, all of it is ruined. You had expected to come back and find your brother in here, to let him scold you for running off, feel the moments before those Englishmen dragged you outside and changed you.

You’ve turned back time, but no one is waiting for you here. The house that you grew up in is empty, and you are an intruder in it.

You sit on the chair by the kitchen table and stare down at the floor. There’s blood here, spilled from Johnny’s wound on his calf. You stare at it until your vision blurs and you cry until you feel wrung out.

You sob into the table, barely able to get a breath in. Johnny must come in at some point, because suddenly there are hands smoothing down your arms, trying to tug your hands away from your face. You howl, nails digging into your face. Johnny suddenly yanks your hands down, restrains them by your legs with one hand before he pulls you out of your chair and into his lap.

You let him comfort you, let him tuck your face into his neck and cry there until his shirt is wet with tears. He lets you sit like that for what feels like hours, until you manage to speak, wrung-out and ruined.

“I killed him, it’s my fault,” you croak, not lifting your head from where Johnny cradles you. You don’t deserve any comfort, but you soak it up anyway. Johnny has warped you, made you something greedy.

He shushes you, rocking you back and forth. “That would’ve been you up there, if ye’d stayed,” he tells you. Voice hardening at the end, fingers digging in just a little too much. Angry, at even the idea of it. “Ah couldnae let that happen. No’ tae you.”

A life traded, in a bargain that you didn’t want to make. Here is the knife, here is Johnny’s hand on yours, guiding it down until it sinks into flesh. Who is the one holding the knife?

“My fault,” you murmur, suddenly cognisant. Forehead pressed to Johnny’s pulse point. You are finally telling the truth, but it is stripped of meaning now. Weeks too late, your words no longer have any weight to them. Coming back here is stripped of meaning, a fruitless endeavour that has only left you sick.

Johnny pets his hand over the back of your head, down to the nape of your neck. Hand wide there, swallows up the vulnerable parts of you.

You expect Johnny to start shifting impatiently, maybe stand you up and announce that you have to leave. He doesn’t. He is still beneath you, kneels and holds you to his front. His knees must be sore in this position, you can feel the tension of his thighs beneath yours, but he stays silent. Just pets the back of your skull in his palm, until you feel trance-like, lulled into complacency.

You stir finally and stand up. Johnny follows behind you, a warm wall at your back.

You feel scraped out and empty. Look around the kitchen, unable to reconcile that this was once yours, that you once sat here and ate breakfast. Step outside into the yard, all of the animals gone, likely taken by the English.

Everything is empty and unlivable, but you shouldn’t be surprised. You were the one to leave dead men in the yard, and let their blood pollute everything.

You turn to your right and look at the pitchfork left in the hay. You know it was you that left it there now. Careless, and unthinking.

You walk over, and pull it out. It’s rusted, left out here. This is why Ian was always scolding you to put it back in the shed. The handle is uncomfortable and flaking in your palm but you endure. Walk the few steps it takes to put it back where it belongs, hanging in the bare shed. The rest of the tools that once hung here are gone. Gutted, as well.

You fix it where it used to hang. Futile and yet all you have left to give.

Johnny watches you, face still, except for the slight dip of a frown across the cleft of his brow.

There’s nothing left for you here, now. You leave the rusted pitchfork and walk back over to Johnny. Let him take your hand and smooth his thumb over your ring.

Time folds and presses into each other. This is the same moment as when he first saved you from those Englishmen, everything in between is squished and flattened until it is now. A month is nothing, it was all already decided. Futile to fight the tide that pulls you into his side and presses his face into the crown of your head.

You’ll let Johnny guide you back to Cerberus and you’ll go back to the Keep. You’ll most likely fall pregnant soon, and then you’ll have that child and then the next one after that. Time is nothing, this might have already happened, you can feel it unfolding in front of you now.

Johnny steps back and you echo his movements exactly. You step into the future and force it into the present, shudder with the ache of it.

Both of your feet kick up red dirt. Maybe in the coming seasons it will grow green again, but you won’t be there to witness it.

[marlynnofmany]

It would be interesting to write a time loop story where something small actually did change each time, but it takes the character a while to notice it, and longer to figure out what to do about it.

Maybe a single plant is getting taller while the others look exactly the same. Maybe the paint/clay/etc for an art project are actually drying while other things are still wet. Maybe one piece of food left out is actually getting moldy among the rest.

What's special about that one? Is it tied into the reason for the time loop, and the key to break it?

What else is subtly different?

[lieutenant-amuel]

I’ve read a lot of posts about Lilo and Stitch 2025 and I see the topic of Pleakley’s cross-dressing being brought up quite often.

I haven’t watched the remake and I doubt I will so my goal is not to compare Pleakley from the animated movie(s) with Pleakley from the live action. I just want to share some of my thoughts on this topic too because Lilo and Stitch has always been one of my most favourite Disney franchises with Pleakley being one of my most favourite characters of all time, not to mention I’m getting into this franchise again so I’m starting to have more to say about it.

Just note that those are only my thoughts that I decided to share so I’m not claiming to be a Pleakley expert or anything and I’m sorry if I’ve worded anything wrong.

One of the takes made in favour of Pleakley NOT cross-dressing in the live action is that him disguising as a woman is taken more as a joke and hence seems offensive to trans people. I’m not going to deny that it was definitely used for a comic effect in some scenes but I think it’s also fair to point out that Pleakley seems to be genuinely interested in feminine clothes and feminine looks in general. Otherwise he wouldn’t put on a wig and admire himself in the mirror (or even keep the wig after he didn’t need his disguise anymore) in the campsite scene.

Is it a minor detail? I’d say yes. But it does imply that Pleakley is interested in feminine clothes and this is why it’s grown into such a significant part of his character in the next movies and in the series.

Pleakley is an Earth expert, and he’s spent many years of his life studying this planet and familiarizing himself with its customs and traditions (which we see A LOT in the series, from Pleakley doing yoga to singing Christmas carols), and there’s no wonder Pleakley would get interested in the Earth attire as well. I don’t remember where I read it but I’m pretty sure Pleakley didn’t even know that clothes he took in the og movie were feminine* so it only kindled his interest. It’s unknown, and it makes it exciting.

An interesting thing I find about Pleakley’s character is that despite leaning towards feminine clothes and clearly favouring them (and even disguising as Lilo’s aunt on Earth) he doesn’t stop wearing masculine clothes. He wears them both depending on his mood, and nobody comments on his preferences.

One of the episodes from Lilo and Stitch: the Series that really stood out for me in regards of Pleakley’s identity and the way other people/aliens treat it is the episode Nosy, the one about an experiment that reveals secrets and loves gossiping.

We learn that Keoni, Lilo’s crush, has a crush on Pleakley, and when Nosy reveals that Pleakley is not a woman, the first thing Keoni does is asking Lilo about Pleakley to make sure he’s indeed not a woman. What is his reaction after this confirmation? He’s just glad that it was revealed because yeah, he’s a simple straight guy (who’s also much younger than Pleakley but this is not what we’re talking about now).

Keoni never asks why Pleakley, a male, would even wear dresses, have long hair, and call himself an aunt. As I mentioned above, literally nobody in the series (and also in movies) cares about the way Pleakley dresses. They never asked him to explain or God forbid justify his preferences.

They’re cool with it, and it makes Pleakley’s presence in the franchise as natural and genuine as possible because the way he dresses is not his whole character, this is something that blends neatly with his other traits to make him a memorable and compelling character.

As I said in the beginning, I haven’t watched the remake so I have no idea how they pulled off the rest of Pleakley’s character but I’m one of those people who’s convinced that Pleakley (read: an Earth expert who was sent to that very planet, getting a chance to learn more about its customs and traditions and accidentally stumbling across Earth feminine clothes just to embrace it as a way of self-expression and find comfort in it) is not Pleakley without cross-dressing.

*Added some more thoughts on it in the tags because those are mostly me thinking out loud and I wouldn’t want to ruin the structure of my “essay” with random babbles.

[luckycharms1701]

Oh, please, I must know now… Donnie during mating season??? :D I’m loving ur writings about this :)

alright you thirsty purple fans, it’s time!

sidenote: i am. so glad. that people are enjoying these. they’re a lot of fun to write!

double sidenote: i have added a link to my masterpost to all my bayverse mating season headcanons! you can also find them here

sooooo donnie. he's a freak in the sheets, you cannot change my mind. so especially strong spicy warning for this one 🌶️

Donnie is extremely matter of fact about mating season. The first time he brings it up with you, he’s more nervous about your answer than he is shy about explaining what it entails. (You couldn’t hear the words, but you did hear him muttering to himself before he came up to ask you. You suspect it was a pep talk.) He is very thorough when explaining mating season in general and how it affects him in particular. You are grateful and also a little turned on by the time he’s done.

Before you were in the picture, Donnie used to work himself until his system overloaded and he passed out during this time. Now he finds himself working a lot less, because he has you to focus on. He appreciates that you make him spend more time on leisure and don’t let him overwork himself. He also appreciates that you do let him work at least a little when the desire hits. Getting to cuddle with you is a surefire way to get him to rest when he needs it though. As long as you’re nearby, he’s happy to do whatever.

Donnie is a talker in general, but it gets ramped up to 100 when it’s his season. Unless his mouth is busy doing… other things… it’s basically a 24/7 stream of consciousness fest. Mostly it’s about you. How much he loves you, what in particular he loves about you, how exactly he wants to make love to you. His morning star, his starlight, his celestial beauty. Sometimes, though, he’ll interrupt himself to talk about something that just occurred to him about one of his projects. It never fails to pull a laugh out of you and make him rub the back of his neck in (adorable) embarrassment.

He enjoys physical affection and often seeks it out from you, and this holds true during his season. He won’t whine or get grumpy if you don’t want to be touching him all the time (*cough* like his brothers will *cough*), but he does prefer if you’re in contact with him somehow. He enjoys watching movies with your head on his lap and your hand in his. He especially likes it when you're on top of him.

Donnie is used to just taking care of himself whenever necessary, AND he is used to handling delicate things during his season. So there is a lot of gentle manhandling when the time comes. You can't do anything particularly engaging because he will come up and interrupt you whenever to have sex. IF you are wearing clothes at all (not often), you cannot wear underwear or pants, at most a skirt. That way he can just lift it up and enter you whenever the urge hits. He is especially fond of doing this when you're sitting on his lap while he's working (... "daddy's little cockwarmer").

Having you around does not mean that all of his toys go unused, oh no. He is very considerate, and would rather resort to them when you're getting rest. (He got your permission to stare at you while you slept and he used his toys. So considerate.) He also came up with some new toys that the two of you can use together. Having toys custom designed for your pleasure? Well. It really adds to the experience of mating season.

He likes to take his time and study you. He is always coming to you with a new experience he wants to try. He does get a lot of pleasure out of trying new things, but he mostly just wants to know how you'll react. He is intimately familiar with your body and how it reacts, and he wants to see if those reactions hold true when different stimuli are applied. His prodigious brain is always working. He particularly likes when something catches you off guard and a surprised gasp comes out of your mouth.

Donnie is not overtly possessive, even in his season. But there is always one hickey very carefully placed somewhere noticeable that you can't cover easily. He knows just how much force to use to leave an imprint of his hands without hurting you more than you enjoy. And if he catches someone looking at you? You will probably be walking a little funny the next day. When he ties you up (he enjoys tying you up. a lot.), he'll take a minute to sit back and observe you, pleasuring himself to thoughts of how you belong to him the same way he belongs to you.

When his season is over, his favorite thing to do is cuddle with you while the both of you sleep it off. He won't leave the bed, not even to work, until he deems you fully rested. (He will work in bed while you sleep on his plastron though.) His second favorite thing to do is bathe you. He takes his time to make sure every inch of you is clean and cared for. It's a lot like going to a spa, because Donnie did a lot of research into spas so that he could replicate that experience for you. And if you give him a little pampering in return? You'll get to hear him chirp and churr in complete satisfaction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

head bonks: @yorshie @avery73 @justalotoffanfiction @thejudiciousneurotic

[thesweetnessofspring]

Hey Suzanne drop the District 12 toasting song PLEASE. 🙏🏼

[an-insignificant-flower]

Tasogare no Hauringu 黄昏のハオリング

Music and lyrics by Imai Hisashi

I think there has been some sentiment among some (certainly not all) fans that Imai's headstrong optimism and push forward can sometimes seem cold. I have long suspected that's more of a cultural clash, as in the west, a man who doesn't shed tears is doing it to keep a "stiff upper lip" because of the underlying belief that emotion is weakness (except for anger, of course). However, while forms of toxic masculinity do exist in the east as well, you're just as, if not more, likely to run into a motive to keep everyone together, and to not shed your own tears so as not to spread sadness further. I always felt such was Imai's motivation, especially after his tender speech at the 2023 Genshou performance.

I had been thinking that I wish Imai would show his sorrow a bit more. I think it's a vulnerability fans need to touch as much as for his own message of "Be Happy" as for the validation of their own tears. After all, if the man who can find contentment in this hell can also mourn, than can't we who mourn also be able to find contentment?

If there was any remaining concern that Imai might not be capable of tears, publicly or privately, this song blasts them out of the waters.

The Twilight Howling

Tasogare, as a modern term, refers to the time between sunset and night. An older version of the same word, tasokare, refers to the time of night when it has just become too dark to clearly see others' faces. In the Chinese zodiac counting of the day, it falls during the "hour of the dog" (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.) when he takes his place to guard the gate.

While Japanese has many words for dusk or twilight, tasogare specifically also has a colloquial use as an expression of melancholy or nostalgia. As with twilight in English, it can refer to one's "twilight years."

Though I wouldn't say it necessarily applies to this song, but it does to the rest of the album, tasogare can also be used metaphorically to mean that, while the brightest time is past, there is still enough light worth pushing a little further.

And there in just the title alone we have a coming darkness, the inability to see the face of even a friend, the loyal guardian, melancholy, nostalgia, physical decline in aging, and the drive to continue regardless. Now on to the lyrics themselves...

オーロラの地へ　魂のパレード Oh Flyaway ōrora no chi he　tamashī no parēdo　oh fly away

to the land of the aurora, parade of souls, oh fly away

Okay, so, I'm already a hot, sobbing, facial tissue-consuming mess; how is everyone else???

Right off the bat, we know the album has been leading up to this song from the very cover. The aurora as not simply a visual metaphor, but here a lyrical one, specifically the parade that Acchan has ascended to, and the one we all will eventually join.

3000年後の　荒野に立て Oh Memory sanzen nen go no　kōya ni tate　oh memory

standing in the wilderness 3000 years from now, oh memory

Narratively, the lyrics here are less clear, but I'm inclined to see it as the end of humanity, that we as a species as much as we as individuals will leave nothing but a memory, with nature returning to take her place where our cities once stood.

エンジェルの群れ　虹色　風 Oh Flyaway enjeru no mure　niji iro kaze　oh fly away

a flock of angels, rainbow wind, oh fly away

More metaphoric descriptions of the aurora as the place where Acchan and all other beloved souls must be.

薔薇の下　獣たち　Oh Oh bara no moto　kemono-tachi　o-oh

we beasts under the rose, oh

In 2018, Sakurai Atsushi completed a performance in very obvious pain. After apologizing to the audience for not performing his best, he was rushed to hospital, where he was found to be bleeding internally from a gastrointestinal hemorrhage. While in recovery, he penned Kemonotachi no Yoru, ("Our Night" with "our" meaning "we beasts"). A few lyrics near the end of that song imply his promise, for the sake of his fans, to never leave the stage: "Dance for me, Pierrot / Tonight you stay on that stage till the end" (trans. by Cayce). If such was Acchan's intention, then it was in this song that he predicted his own death.

Kemonotachi ("we beasts") here means as much the remaining members of the band as the entire fandom, and "under the rose," the literal translation of "subrosa," the Latin meaning "done in secret," is the unique connection we share, having loved so dearly the one we all lost together.

黄昏のハウリング　歌うように　歌うように　Oh Oh tasogare no hauringu　utau yō ni　utau yō ni　o-oh

the twilight howling, like singing, (like a song), oh

Using the base noun "song" twice would probably be the more natural choice, if only to avoid the repeating continuous -ing form, which is not as it appears in the Japanese.

There's also an implication that what we the audience hear as music, and have heard throughout this album, has actually been the sorrowful cries of a lonely pack this whole time.

黄昏のハウリング　哭いている　咆えている tasogare no hauringu　naiteiru　hoeteiru

This line has two translations. If you're just listening to the lyrics, you might assume naiteiru and hoeteiru are 泣いている and 吠えている, which are the common characters used for those words, leading a listener(-only) to hear:

the twilight howling, crying, howling

with the second howling being the typical Japanese word for the howl of animals. However, with the very specific and uncommon characters used, the meaning is closer to:

the twilight howling, wailing, yowling

While the common "crying" with 泣 very simply means "crying" with no particular nuance, the "crying" with 哭 is a noisy cry, a wail, a sob. It implies uncontrolled emotions and a demand to be heard.

Likewise 咆 can mean "howling" like its common counterpart, 吠, but this roar, this howl, has a distinct undertone of violence, anger, or rage. There is no good direct translation for this one in English. Any word animalistic enough isn't dangerous enough. Any word dangerous enough isn't animalistic enough.

Harkening back to the previous line of "sounding like a song but (is actually) howling" we have a line that sounds like simple "crying, howling" but is actually far more gut-wrenching and unleashed.

From here on out, we repeat the previous lyrics:

オーロラの地へ　魂のパレード　Oh Flyaway

3000年後の　荒野に立て　Oh Memory

エンジェルの群れ　虹色　風　Oh Flyaway

薔薇の下　獣たち Oh Oh

黄昏のハウリング　歌うように　歌うように Oh Oh 黄昏のハウリング　哭いている　咆えている

Oh Oh　歌うように　歌うように Oh Oh　哭いている　咆えている

🌌

This song is only ever so slightly slower than Mudai and follows a similar chord progression. Sakurai has never clearly revealed what he intended for Mudai's message to be, but personally, I'm inclined to see it as the horror and confusion of being brought into existence—a trauma many of us never really recover from—and the inclination to pursue the darkness that once felt safe. From darkness we come and to darkness we go.

Even without interpretation, the theme of birth in the song is obvious. How poetic then, to end the album mourning Sakurai's passing with such an homage to it, reminding us that death and birth are part of a (painful) cycle.

After lyrics such as these, the sound of Imai's guitar ends on the same tones as ended Mudai, more discordant, more painful. A furious and heartrending howl you would almost mistake for a song.

[habitual-truant]

as a persona fan. i HATE atlus. like, theyre always SOOOO close to having really good social commentary on like, pretty much anything in general i guess. but. they pussy out and it has the opposite effect!! like, biggest example that i actually have well formulated thoughts over is persona 4.. i wrote a long ass essay type thing that id honestly like to rewrite now that my thoughts are more solidified on this but, tl;dr… :

kanji isnt gay and naoto isnt trans. kanji’s story is about accepting that hes got feminine traits and learning to stop internalizing what everyone says about him to be true. naoto’s is about accepting that she is a girl, and she IS everything that people look down on her for, and learning to stop rejecting herself just so she isnt disrespected and dismissed by others.

kanji isnt gay and naoto isnt trans, but they should have been. being queer is very obviously a theme in their stories, and without looking deeper into the characters and their arcs, on the surface level, the story is saying that they’re learning to accept that they ARENT queer. which is pretty clearly homophobic and transphobic.

the entire game is about accepting yourself for who you truly are. for the character that is EXPLICITLY stated to be gay and for the character who EXPLICITLY lives socially as a male despite being born a girl to both have their true selves actually be “normal” is… counterintuitive. while it does fit within the theme of accepting yourself, it’s saying to accept yourself as “normal” and “correct”, not as someone who doesnt fit into societal norms. it undermines the idea of being true to yourself. it’s SO close to being a great message that anyone, no matter who they are, can relate to, but it singles out the unusuals, the people who really need to hear that it’s ok to be whoever you are. i could go on and on about how it’s honestly impressive that the writers managed to miss the mark by such a small amount that it ends up completely undermining the entire thing, but it would be redundant (just like my use of the word ‘undermine’ within two run-on sentences..), and i want to take this back to my original point

the writers at atlus are very, very skilled. its amazing, i really really respect them. but at the same time, i think that their ability to write amazing characters and themes and weave them together into a universe with such inconsistent rules is exactly what makes this so infuriating. i KNOW they’re 100% capable of not being misogynistic in their portrayal of women, i KNOW they’re capable of not being homophobic, i KNOW they can take topics like misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and explore the reasoning behind why people are close minded and hateful, and how it affects people who are at the receiving end of the hatred.

but they dont, because either the writers themselves are prejudiced, or what i think is faaaarrr more likely, the executives think it’s too “risky” to talk about and criticize bigotry, and that they want it to be as palatable to everyone as possible. unfortunately that means no gay people, no trans people, no “controversial” minorities in general.. sure, we can have a few complex and well written women as a treat, but they either have to be fanservice or largely irrelevant to the rest of the plot.

no conclusion paragraph this isnt english class

thanks if u read my 11:00 pm hyperfocus fueled rant i am sending you joy and happiness and good things

[a-lilacsong]

This was originally meant to be a 100% goofy funny comic, but somehow it turned into angst halfway through. I still think it's funny that Minimus canonically learns the truth before Amber and James though.

(And thanks to @ograndebatata for helping me rewrite the script to be more fitting).

Comic Script: Roland: … So, now you know the truth about my first wish on the well. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. If any of you has anything to say, please do. Roland: Okay… one at a time please. James: Does this mean I'm half-wishing well? If someone put a coin in my mouth could I grant their wishes? Roland: WHAT?! NO! Absolutely not! Sofia: I'm sorry dad. Minimus and I already knew, and I think he has told every horse in the kingdom by now. Roland: That's not… how did you…? Amber: Daddy… does that mean I could have killed Sofia when I turned her into a cat? Would she be dead because of me? Roland: No Amber. That wouldn't have happened. Don't worry, no one got hurt. Amber: But Sofia almost was! Roland: But she wasn't. She's alright. All of you are. I'm sorry I only told you now. but please remember we both love you all very much. And we'll all get through this together.

[yarrowleef]

I think at a certain point we all gotta stop referring to the wc incest issue as "accidents." Like, it can only happen so many times before it's obvious someone made an executive choice to ignore it. it feels like...removing/lessening blame to keep calling it a clueless accident

with the way these books are written, I suspect the wc team mindset is "anything the middle-grade target audience wouldn't remember/question doesn't need to be considered." Like, if Nightheart didn't acknowledge last arc that Bayshine was related to him, then he effectively isn't related to him in the eyes of whatever new reader picked up this arc for the first time. Therefore, might as well not exist. Nothing in this world matters except whatever will get them through the current plotline.

the fact they are writing about animals and consistently refuse to use relatable familial terms like cousin/aunt/uncle/grandparent etc probably makes them comfortable shrugging it off.

the new team especially writes as if they are soft rebooting every other arc. it's the ultimate have your cake and eat it too: they don't want to do the work required to change the world/status quo to prevent this problem (doing so might slightly impede the ease of their break-neck writing speed), but they still want to do standard cliche romantic drama with their new next-gen-protag kits, so…they deal with that road block by ignoring it. There hasn't been a financial incentive not to.

this lack of care is all deeply annoying to me. but we gotta stop calling it an 'accident' b/c that implies they would be motivated to avoid it if it were pointed out to them. dog they know 😭 and they clearly decided it doesn't count if they don't acknowledge it

[slasherflicks999]

erm what is slashers relationship with the other creepypastas :3c

before we begin im so sorry this took me legitimately SOOOO disgustingly long to answer holy SHART 💔💔💔 i needed to solidify some of his relationships ngl and i didn’t wanna give a half baked answer :,33 but now that it’s finally hereee…..

slasher room reveal GASP yes he’s sitting at his little computer answering this for u personally :3 i wanted to make it more fun hehe plus background practice…… thank u the sims 4…,,.,,

but anyway THE LITTLE CHIBI THINGS OF THEM WERE SO FUN TO DRAW and also nina with glasses canon i don’t make the rules sorry she’s just too cute with them :,,o

i haven’t been active much at all lately unfortunately BUTTTT more slasher content is soon to come..,.😈😈 TRUSTTTT i shan’t abandon thee tumblr my beloved :333🫶🏻

[thomasjeffarc]

teacher made a mistake by letting me make my final essay about hamilton

she WILL be getting atleast 3 pages of work. ughhh although it’s argumentative i lowkey wish it was informational I would 100% write about thomas jefferson

[marlynnofmany]

It occurred to me that it would be fun in some fantasy story to have squirrels with wings, but then I remembered that their tails are so fluffy as a way to slow them down when they jump from branch to branch (and occasionally fall out of trees).

A squirrel trying to flap enough to move forward with that kind of drag would be a sad thing to see. Flying with the brakes on.

And well, there's always magic in fantasyland to make things easier, but that's just cheating.