#saiintly apocrypha

[saiintvalentiine]

course-correction

Ken is sure, so sure that popular content creator Wifies is faking his videos. So sure, in fact, that he's willing to rope Wato into his personal pet project of debunking this guy once and for all. And then Ken realizes that what he's seeing is something much, much bigger than just simple faking. Something is horribly wrong in these videos, and Ken has never been one to let dead dogs lie.

this year's saiint day fic is up! enjoy <3

[saiintvalentiine]

Summary: Ken does some unconventional "magic" and meets a stray Wato while doing it.

Word count: 1,214

notes: you're confused, i'm confused, we're all confused. based on this post from earlier today. divider

Ken isn't a real witch. He doesn't think those exist, actually. But he gets results, so he doesn't think marketing himself as a witch is that egregious. 

[Need A Witch To Curse Your Ex? Contact MysticKenadian! Local Only.]

People pay him, like, 30 dollars a curse. And then he scrubs around their ex’s social pages, figures out where they live, and causes mischief. Is it ethical? Noooooo. But a lot of these people are huge assholes, so Ken feels fine doing it. It's mostly a side hustle anyway— Ken primarily works in remote IT and needs an excuse to touch grass and slash tires— so he only does it sometimes, if a request catches his attention.

He had 14 different lock out tickets today. He might start bashing his skull in if he looks at his computer for even a second longer. So instead of doing that, Ken clocks out, changes into a black hoodie and sweatpants, puts a brown contact over his odd eye, and leaves the house to do some witchy shit. Digging up the last curse request he accepted, he finds the address he had attached to it after some research and starts walking in the dying daylight.

Wato, it's an ex-boyfriend named Keith of all things, the guy had stolen money and some very nice tools, no hope of getting any of it back because the guy definitely sold it already, any amount of suffering is appreciated, so on and so forth. Ken checks that the money was sent. Everything looks perfect.

The address leads to a shitty little house with a camera on the garage and another on the front door. Good thing everyone is fucking stupid. Ken takes a stroll around the block, tapping away at his phone. Most, if not all, self-installed security cameras have incorrectly formatted software and leave a wide open door for anyone to poke their head into it. Ken easily finds the cameras and has them turn a full 180 so that they watch the sudsy paint job on the wall instead of him.

The first thing Ken does is round up on the beat up Camry in front of the house. In the blanketing darkness, he feels around for some tiny stones. Uncapping the tire pressure valves, he shoves a stone in each and then twists them back on, listening for the nearly imperceptible hiss of air escaping slowly. Next, he feels under the car for anything loose in the undercarriage and just shoves until something clicks and gives under his palm. Hopefully that’s something. Standing back up, he dusts his hands off and finds where the trash bins are. He scrapes a pocket knife across the bottom of it, scoring all around it over and over. Eventually it’ll give and drop all of the trash bags everywhere while the guy hauls it around. He also finds a spare key under a rock nearby, which is a sweet score. Ken warms his shoulder up and unceremoniously underhand pitches it across the street into a drain. He may not have been the best softball player in high school, but they got to nationals twice, so he’s definitely not the worst.

The final part of the whole thing is the firecracker. He’s scouting a good place to set it off when someone comes strolling down the darkened sidewalk. Ken ducks behind the Camry and peeks over the peeling hood as the person turns into the driveway. They’ve got an overflowing box in hand that they nearly throw at front of the door, silhouette tall and wobbling.

“Fuck you Keith,” they say, kicking the box a few times before turning around and spotting Ken. “Fuck!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Ken waves his empty hand around, pocketing the bright red firecracker again. Ken has a hunch. “Are you Wato?!”

“. . . Yes?” Wato whispers back, eyes wide and dark.

Ken breathes out a sigh of relief and stands up, pushing his hoodie off his head.

“I’m MysticKen. Thanks for the cash.” Wato blinks at him. Ken takes the firecracker out again. “Wanna help me place and light this?”

Maybe unsurprisingly, Wato agrees. They creep around until they find a faded garden gnome laying on its side next to the garage door. Ken lights the firecracker, shoves it into the poor gnome’s drainage hole, and then drags Wato away to run with him. They book it down the street and the sound of explosive, raining porcelain rings out behind them. Wato laughs under their breath, a little hysterical, but they follow Ken with more confidence and trust than Ken thinks is necessary.

Once they’re a few blocks away, they both stumble to a stop. Ken hunches over, Wato does the same, and they lean on each other until Ken can think again.

“Thanks,” Wato says suddenly, voice shrill. “Thanks for fucking with him. I thought you were a witch though.”

Ken takes a deep breath in, holds it, and then in a releasing hiss says, “Close enough?”

“Yeah, close enough.”

They untangle and Ken straightens out. Wato does the same after a beat, and they stare at each other until he stretches a hand out.

“Ken,” he says.

Wato takes his hand and shakes it.

“Wato,” they reply. “I’m starving.”

“I could eat.”

That’s how they end up at a sticky floored diner at 9 pm together. Wato has a choco-strawberry milkshake already half way done, and Ken is sipping some water aimlessly as they wait for their food.

“So like, what’s your goal with this whole— thing?” Wato asks, waving a chocolate smeared spoon around.

“Honestly?” Ken leans back, crossing his ankles. His eye kinda itches. He forgot to grab his eyedrops before leaving, though he remembered to grab three extra firecrackers, now laying innocently deep within his sweatpants pocket. “I just have a lot of spite in my heart, I think.”

Wato nods.

“I can understand why,” Wato sighs and leans back, looking much older in the overhead light. Their eyes are a deep green, and pieces of their dark hair are sticky with sweat. Ken can’t imagine he looks much better. “I lived with him, y'know. I’ve been living out of a hotel and storage unit for weeks now. It’s enough to make me consider doing something hateful. Well, more hateful.”

“That’s gotta be expensive as hell.”

“It’s killing my savings, that’s for sure.”

The waitress brings them their food, yellow-rimmed plates stacked with fries and burgers and hushpuppies filling the space between them. They both thank her and she smiles as she leaves.

Ken stabs a hushpuppy with his fork and says, “Want a roommate?”

Wato looks at him, face frozen. Ken smiles thinly.

“I’ve got a spare room.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. At least ‘til you can get your own place. It’ll probably be cheaper.”

“You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

Ken snorts and shakes his head. It’s a funny idea. Ken’s a lot of things, a hater being top five at least, but a killer? He would never.

“God no. Are you?”

Wato blinks and shakes their head slowly.

“Then we should be fine I think.”

They stop talking and get to eating. Ken has a strangely good feeling about this, all things considered. He’s sure that he and Wato will get along well enough.

[saiintvalentiine]

we’re callin it on this one !!!! this is my take on Avery’s POV after Derek shoves him off the platform. divider

Word count: 578

No, Avery wants to scream, no, no, but all he can do is stare at the Gate. The Gate back in his world. But to scream, he needs air, and there's nothing left in him.

He has to—

Avery has to get back. He's already moving in game by the time his brain kicks back in, rushing to get back to the platform Derek shoved him off.

He looked… lonely. Infinitely lonely.

Derek, alone, in the beaming light. Derek, alone, stood like a painted marble statue. Derek, alone, between Avery and his fate.

Derek, alone, a migraine spread across his temples. Derek, alone, at his computer with strained eyes. Derek, alone, in his house with nobody around.

He can't let this stand. He can't stop now, after everything. He won't.

Each doorway that leads to each ethereal world mocks him, enormous sublime behind each, and Avery hates it all. A mockery of life. Mockery and mockery and mockery. Even Derek’s little trick— mockery.

Avery shakes his head. That's not true. Not true.

I have it all under control. Leave.

The last thing they'll have done is argue. The least Avery can do is give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's like he's clawing and tearing throug the landscapes, careless about what he breaks and what trails he leaves behind. The church makes his eyes sting.

You are real. You are special. Don't forget who you are.

If he could trace his nails over those words—

They have more time. Don't they? Avery wants them to have more time. They have to have more time. He doesn't even touch the idea of what he'll do if he doesn't have more time.

The white spire of the— whatever the building is, it looks like a weird castle— it spears through the dark sky and Avery tries to hurry up, even though he's going as fast as Minecraft will allow. He bursts in.

[TheMostMayo]: DEREK

Picking through the dark, he returns to where that strange symbol rests below him and that singular, burning light falls upon him. The eyes are gone, and so is that terrifying pressure from the King, but so is Derek.

[TheMostMayo]: WHERE ARE YOU 

[TheMostMayo]: DEREK

[TheMostMayo]: dont do this to me

[TheMostMayo]: derek 

Avery struggles to leave the platform without dying, and fruitlessly, he opens his chat to try and change to—

—It works.

/gamemode creative

It works. It works, it works, it works, which means there's nothing to stop him, which means Avery can swap to creative and buzz around the whole castle, which means the King—

Avery heaves and gags, the first noises he's made in probably hours, who knows, he can hear fireworks outside his window, a world away.

If there’s no King, then Derek’s plan worked. And if Derek’s plan worked, then Avery is too late. He’s out of time. They’re out of time.

”Derek,” he croaks out between the roiling nausea overwhelming his whole body. The sound goes nowhere, means nothing, but to Avery it’s all he really has left. The shape it makes in his mouth. The cadence of it. “Derek.”

They’re out of time and all Avery has is his recordings and a name. He drops his head onto the edge of his desk.

Derek, he whispers, over and over, Derek, Derek, and then, Thank you, Derek, thank you, thank you, Derek, Derek.

The world outside sparkles and cheers, unknowing, and Avery cracks open over his desk, alone.

[saiintvalentiine]

tgcf inspired thingy. launches it at u and runs away.

Ken is not freshly ascended, but she is foolish. This, she has been told since before she was a god, and she is stubborn enough to never change her own foolishness. And while she has no real reason to pick bones with Calamities, this purple flower guy or whatever his name is, is really fucking with her style.

A god of clever escapes and path forging, bleeding believers to a ghost! She really, really is going to kick his ass about it. What can a ghost do for humans anyway? She mulls over it as she descends to the earth, cheeks reddened with frustration. She picked through a few human dreams to figure out where this guy hangs out, and the answer she got was some cave.

Really!? Ken feels like she’s losing her mind as she finds the entrance. Stupid cave. Stupid ghost. Stupid Calamity that does nothing but vex Ken.

She enters the cave.

So, the cave might not actually be just a cave. It weaves in endless tunnels and paths that leave Ken dizzy. Her memory is sharp, so she takes careful note of every turn she makes.

"Little god," a shadow whispers. Ken jumps out of her skin, turning around sharply. "You should leave here. It's not safe."

"Who's there?"

A boy walks out of an alcove, pale skinned and skinny as a twig. He looks like he's been lost in there for a long time.

"What are you doing in here?" Ken asks, patting over the boys shoulders and cheeks. He's taller than Ken, but she doubts he's even close to beokg older than Ken was when she ascended. "Let's get you out of this place."

“I’ve been lost for weeks. . .” the boy’s eyes seem hollow, and Ken clicks her tongue. “I came to ask for help from the ghost that lives here, but I wasn’t smart enough to make it through his maze.”

“There’s no need to look towards a ghost when there are hundreds of temples who will take you in” Ken scolds, taking the boy’s hand and tugging him. “Come, come, let me get you out.”

The boy follows diligently, footsteps airy behind her.

“The temples. . . they don’t take kindly if you’re empty handed. The ghost here, he doesn’t ask for much.”

“What? What could he ask for? Anything is too much when it's to a ghost from a human.”

“Just a love story.”

Ken pauses, and the boy stumbles and crashes into her back. She turns to give him an incredulous look.

“A love story.”

“Yes. This ghost, he is a ghost of love.”

“A ghost of love.”

Ken doesn’t mean to parrot back everything the boy says, but the boy smiles a bit, clearly amused by Ken’s obvious befuddlement.

“That’s what everyone says.”

“That’s dumb,” Ken starts to walk again, finally seeing the light of day squirm its way into the paths. “Who ever heard of a ghost of love?”

“That’s what everyone here says. That he was very in love, and that he is very clever, and he can solve any problem as long as you tell him a love story.”

Stupid, Ken thinks, but she keeps her mouth shut. The sun feels like a kiss to the face when they exit together. The boy looks no less pale in the light, but he basks in it all the same.

“Thank you for your help, little god. I can find my way home now. But you should be careful here.”

A cold seeps out from the mouth of the cave. Ken shivers. Something heavy lays just at the borderline of the entrance, something that wasn’t there before, and she recalculates her choices. She has to come more prepared than this, considering that it took her hours and she still failed to find the ghost she was trying to curse.

“Thank you for your advice.”

Ken escapes back to the heavens.

Wifies watches the little god return to the heavens. This juvenile form is one of the better disguises he has, and it has worked once again beautifully. He stretches out, black veil unfurling over his face once more. Better to keep meddling gods out of his business as much as possible.

He flexes his hand, still warm with the residual heat from the god’s grip.

“Indeed, who ever heard of a ghost of love?” he chuckles.

[saiintvalentiine]

a trickle of sunlight

Patience can be rewarding, if a little prickly. Wifies has been very patient as he waits for Parrot to finally say something, anything to him post chunkban. or: a resolution for the end of among those in the know.

surprise shawty. my final and concluding fic for the thing with feathers after about two years.

[saiintvalentiine]

hi hello are you taking requests if so can i ask for parfies i miss them 😔

a parfies for u with a bonus of wifies in a dress 😌

"Parrot," Wifies calls out. After a beat, he calls out again, louder, "Parrooooooot."

He searches for a bit but can't find Parrot anywhere. The house isn't that big, and he has an event to go to soon. Wifies hikes his skirt up and wanders into the living room.

Welp. There is a foolproof method to shake Parrot out of wherever he is.

"I can't zip the back of my dress and I can't find my boyfriend, whatever shall I do?" Wifies muses out loud. "Maybe I should call someone else to help me. . . I'm sure Ken can stop by—"

Like a spell, there's the thud of footsteps and then Parrot at the living room entryway. Wifies would feel bad about abusing Parrot and Ken's weird rivalry thing, but he doesn't actually care that much about it.

"Hi," Wifies says wryly before turning around. "Please zip my dress up."

"Is that all?" Parrot mumbles. He smells like gun oil and metal as he gets closer.

"Wow, is it such a burden to see me?"

Parrot grouses indistinctly behind him. He brushes his hands over Wifies's exposed back, under his dress and over his sides warmly. There's a kiss to the base of his neck, then another on his shoulder, and then Parrot's small, worried voice.

"It's not a burden," he says, nose brushing up Wifies's neck. "Just a little frustrated."

Instead of commenting on Parrot's wandering hands, Wifies says, "You can come with me."

"Bleh."

Wifies laughs, turning his head to drop a kiss on top of Parrot's head.

"I know, I know. You hate formals, you weren't invited, you don't care about escape room stuff."

"I just hate to see you go."

Parrot finally zips up Wifies's dress and he gives a little twirl so Parrot can appreciate the flow of his skirt.

"What do you think?" Wifies asks, shuffling over so they're face to face.

"Beautiful."

Parrot has a talent for making one-word sentences feel like so much more. Wifies is a sucker for blushing, but he can't help it. Parrot hooks a knuckle under his chin and pulls him into a kiss, sweet and slow, until all Wifies can do is hold onto him. Parrot's mouth is stained with his lipstick when they pull apart. Wifies huffs.

". . . I'm still going."

"Damnit."

[saiintvalentiine]

Summary: All Collin wants is diamond tools, goddamn it.

Notes: i guess i go here now. hi. having some fun poking and prodding at the edges of collin's character... and if you know my writing, this is in fact full of saiintisms lol my bad. dividers

Word count: 1,109

It’s raining. It’s always raining. Like, always. It fluctuates in intensity, and sometimes Collin even sees the suggestion of a sun behind the clouds, but it never stops. He lives in a slick yellow coat and molding boots and there's no hope for him to upgrade his wardrobe any time soon.

As silly as he looks, the doppelganger looks worse. He hopes. There's no way he looks like that, is what he means, all angular and uneven, like a jerkily animated corpse in a low budget movie.

“Why ominous obsidian obelisks?” Collin mutters over his fence, feeling the dribble of rain sneaking just under his coat collar. “Is it like drawing dicks on a school desk kind of thing?”

[colinlock19]: it ist n a pnesi thng

“Sounds like a penis thing.”

The doppelganger angers easily, a mirror to Collin's own short temper. He doesn't really think about it often, but it's not like he's an idiot; he knows what this world is filled with, and he chooses not to play along. If he imagines his world as a chess board and all these things as pawns, then Collin is choosing to flip the board over at every opportunity. He doesn't care who the hand playing belongs to. He's not fucking playing. He's flipping the board over and over every time it's set.

He's still sitting at the table though.

If there's one thing he likes doing more than hunkering down at his house in an act of reactive fear, it's goal-oriented grinding. Collin's a simple guy in the end, okay? He likes having something to work towards. The clarity of wanting something done. The satisfaction of hitting your goals.

It’s hard, a bit harder than usual, but he wants some diamond tools. And he isn’t going mining in a deep, dark cave for them. It’s stupid. It’s not just stupid, it’s probably expected of him to do that; he’s sure there’s some fucking thing hanging out underground, just waiting for him to walk his dumbass into its maws. Nuh-uh. Not today, at least.

Instead, he packs up some essentials, and starts his journey to a village.

Ideally, Collin will get really, really lucky, and find one that already has a toolsmith, weaponsmith, and armorer, and he’ll trade around for a few days, and get an easy breezy set of diamond armor and tools before long.

Pfft. Yeah, right.

But hey, making a nice villager trading hall wouldn’t be the worst fate. It might even be nice to get away from his base for a bit. He can't remember the last time he enjoyed this world without a caveat.

He could leave. The world, that is. Leave and get rid of it and solve more problems than not. But then—

Collin's more stubborn than anyone gives him credit for. What's his is his to have. This world is his.

He crests a mountain, and feels quite proud of himself until he spots it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he mutters.

There's a village alright. It looks like a throbbing, infected bruise on the skin of the world; nether blocks replace all the overworld blocks in an almost-round, ten block radius all around. He spots movement, and for a second he hopes that there are still villagers he can cart away from here.

Instead of a bobble headed villager, what moves among the village paths is a staticky shadow figure, others joining as night begins to fall.

“Fuck this,” Collin says.

He turns to the right, decides it's a good enough direction to go in, and starts a new trek to a new village that is hopefully less fucked.

The next village (or what ChunkBase says should be a village) is a giant, square hole that drops all the way to void, bedrock eaten away like acid. He throws his arms up and picks a new direction.

The next village looks wrong, with no movement or even animals within it. He carefully walks through gravel paths, confused by the building style of the mossy cobblestone houses. The only reason Collin goes looking is to see if maybe any theoretical villagers pathfound their way into some hole or something, but it’s in a relatively flat piece of land with no openings or holes that he can see.

A discordant cave noise plays, one he's never, in his whole goddamn existence, ever heard, and he nopes the fuck out.

Collin returns to his base, several more ominous obsidian obelisks lining the outside of this fence in the “activation zone”, whatever the fuck that means. He's not giving up though. Hostile mobs still spawn around here, and all he needs is to trap two zombified villagers for this to work.

His house hasn't been robbed or griefed during his journey, which is a nice change of pace. He still checks every nook and cranny of the property, including the safe room, and once he's fairly satisfied, he gets right to it.

The doppelganger sees the boat in Collin's hand and disappears. It won't be long until it's back, he knows, but now he puts all his efforts into finding a zombified villager among the ruckus of nighttime around his base. Fighting off mobs while keeping an eye out for the distinct look of zombified villagers is another pleasant distraction for a bit.

He knocks a creeper back with his sword, and it explodes next to one of the obelisks. For a moment, Collin contemplates putting a sign on the spot. He shakes his head, rain rolling off his hat like a dog shaking its fur out. He's not sorry. Fuck that guy.

He turns around and nearly has a heart attack. Some fucking thing, again, he doesn't even get a good look at the dark blob in front of him before he whacks it once, twice, thrice with his sword, wildly swinging to-and-fro. It screeches, the sound unfamiliar even with his recently acquired repertoire of entity noises, and the world blacks out.

Deep breath.

Collin can still feel the slick cold of the rain. The wood of the boat splinters under his palm. His sword weighs heavy in the other, blisters blooming on his fingers.

He's still here. Which means, most likely, it is still here.

He lifts his sword and swings.

Maybe Collin is playing, in his own way. Dominoes instead of chess. He's slapping tiles down hard enough to shake the table, pawns flying left and right.

It's a dogshit game.

He's unceremoniously spit up next to his fence. The doppelganger is there, sloppily patching up the hole next to its obelisk.

[colinlock19]: boa t.

“Shut the fuck up,” Collin barks out.

[saiintvalentiine]

hi saint... one order of kww please... plot is whatever i would js like it to touch on their animalistic features and the dynamics as a result of that. :3

this. probably isn't what you meant. but I thought abt herding dog wifies for two seconds too long and got ill.

"Stop herding us," Ken says, batting at Wifies's arm. "I'm not herdable, okay, that's not how I work."

Wifies's tail droops and he purses his lips, slowing down so that he lags further behind of Ken and Wato.

"I'm pretty herdable," Wato says, slowing down to pet between Wifies's dejected ears and tug him forward. "Like, I'll let you do it."

"Thanks. And sorry."

Ken doesn't mean to prickle, but it's hard not to when Wifies keeps weaving back and forth behind him and bumping his heels to herd him like a wayward sheep. They're walking. They're enjoying a walk in a park. The point is to wander.

"I didn't mean to," he says, slipping between Wato and Ken. "I didn't know I was doing that."

"There's no such thing as a bad dog, just a dog that's not doing the right job," Wato says seriously before breaking into a sharp-toothed grin.

Wifies nudges their side with a huff but he looks less embarrassed at least. Ken hooks a finger through one of Wifies's belt loops and tugs him along.

"C'mon, working dog," Ken says. Wifies's tail starts wagging again. "I'm not letting you get behind us again."