Hello! This is the masterpost for all the art I created for @seaglass-skies's amazing Clockwork fic. I'll be updating this list as I post each work of art that corresponds with each chapter.
Also, here's a link to the fic (go read it): Take me back to the time loop
The first draft philosophy that has finally gotten me writing for fun isn't "worst version of story" type framing, it's "tell the story to yourself."
Your story isn't ready for polished prose, you don't know what happens yet. This doesn't make it Bad Writing, it's a different type of writing. And this ties into why I think the plotter vs pantser debate misses the mark - both detailed outlines AND make-it-up-as-you-go first drafts are ways to make up the story.
This part is for you, so how you do it should be whatever is the most fun or satisfying way to tell yourself the story.
What's the worst trap you see amateur writers falling into?
Not appreciating the whole story.
Scroll around "Writing Tumblr" for a few hours and you'll see something to the effect of "I was daydreaming about this big fight/plot twist/dramatic irony, but I hate writing all the stuff leading up to it!"
Everything leading up to the big third act is treated as an obligation. The 'homework' before you get to the 'fun part.'
See this enough times, and you start to realize why you see so many stories meandering around for the first two acts until they can have their big, dramatic climax. You start to see why everything that isn't a Baysplosion is considered "filler" now.
If you're only into writing to write memorable third act reveals, then everything you write is going to be terrible.
There's a video by Noralities going over an old anime, which she admits she hated at first because she was skipping the episodes that were dubbed "filler" by some idiot, and her friend who suggested it to her had to sit her down and tell her that the filler was some of the best parts. And she was in disbelief about that.
"A character-based show feels worse when you watch only the plot episodes and none of the character episodes? Say it ain't so!"
It is a moment of spectacular brainrot in what is otherwise an S-Tier Youtuber, because it's such a basic concept that some people will weirdly fight you on.
Character moments, slow moments, things that might be considered boring to a hyperactive, plot-obsessed weirdo, these are all important. Trying to have a big grand plot without these things is like trying to build a bridge without supports. If you don't have as much of a deep and abiding love for those things as you do for the big fight scene at the end, you're going to make shit.
There are entire genres of storytelling that don't have villains, fight scenes, or dramatic plot twists. There are NO genres of storytelling that don't have characters and character relationships as a core component of them.
It's the CHARACTER stuff, the in-between, the stuff they call "filler"--the stuff where you see how they react to frustration and loss and each other--that makes the Baysplosion scenes meaningful. It's that character stuff what demonstrates what they have to fight for.
Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.
5 Tiny Writing Tips That Aren’t Talked About Enough (but work for me)
These are some lowkey underrated tips I’ve seen floating around writing communities — the kind that don’t get flashy attention but seriously changed how I write.
1. Put “he/she/they” at the start of the sentence less often.
Try switching up your sentence rhythm. Instead of
“She walked to the window,”
try
“The window creaked open under her touch.”
Keeps it fresh and stops the paragraph from sounding like a checklist.
2. Don’t describe everything — describe what matters.
Instead of listing every detail in a room, pick 2–3 objects that say something.
“A half-drunk mug of tea and a knife on the table”
sets a way stronger tone than
“There was a wooden table, two chairs, and a shelf.”
3. Use beats instead of dialogue tags sometimes.
Instead of:
"I'm fine," she said.
Try:
"I'm fine." She wiped her hands on her skirt.
It helps shows emotion, and movement.
4. Write your first draft like no one will ever read it.
No pressure. No perfection. Just vibes. The point of draft one is to exist. Let it be messy and weird — future you will thank you for at least something to edit.
5. When stuck, ask: “What’s the most fun thing that could happen next?”
Not logical. Not realistic. FUN. It doesn’t have to stay — but chasing excitement can blast through writer’s block and give you ideas you actually want to write.
What’s a tip that unexpectedly helped with your writing? Let me know!! 🍒
A lot of understanding your writing process is literally just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Trying new processes and experimenting. You find what you like by trying things. You don’t have to keep them. You don’t even have to follow through. I feel like a lot of writing advice ends up sounding like it’s going to lead you to The One Right Way For You, but honestly, truly, the first and most important rule is to have fun.
The midjourney stuff just reminds of when we were trying to find a new platform to host the ao3 donation form, and companies kept trying to tell me about all their "ai" features that would track donor engagement, and figure out the optimal pattern to email individual donors asking for follow up donations, and all the ways they suggest we manipulate people into staying on our websites. It was a great way to filter out who either wasn't listening to us when we described our ethics and donor base, or just didn't believe us.
Now granted ao3 is a unique case based on a) the amount of page views we get in any given time period and b) the fact that most donors absolutely do Not want to be identified as such anywhere, (the default "list of recent donors" module got nuked Immediately) but it surprised me some that the concept of "donors who value their privacy and would be furious at even the whiff of AI" is unique. Some of us really are just existing in different worlds.
#I just started dropping '2.5 Billion page views a month'#into conversations as early as possible bc they would Not believe me otherwise#it was right up there with having to say 'csam attacks' to get them to take my compartmentalization of information concerns seriously#turns out those are the magic words#otw#op
The last part was kind of insane, honestly. When we started changing platforms for the donor database, I kept telling them that yes I was aware we already had an account for the volunteer database, and no that could not be connected to the donor database. And they said yes fine sure and then connected them anyway. And I called them back and said, excuse me, I'm confused, I can see both databases. And they said, well, yeah, but it's only you, someone has to be able to see both databases to give other users access. The other users can't see both. And I said, no, we have been asking for a completely separate database. I should not be able to see both. And they said, you are one organization, one organization can't have two databases. And I said, last year someone used our volunteer email list to commit approximately one thousand felonies. Please feel free to imagine how much worse it could have been had they had a way to use volunteers' email addresses to get their legal names. We do not want this to be something anyone can do no matter how much we trust them. Let me describe those felonies to you in more detail. And they emailed me two hours later and said, you can have two separate databases.
Your character doesn't need to be likeable. They need to be legible. The reader needs to understand every decision they make even when it's wrong, even when it's ugly, even when they want to shake them. Likeable is easy and forgettable. Legible is what makes someone stay with you for years. Make the logic of every bad choice visible. The reader doesn't have to agree with it. They just have to follow it.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 15/?
Fandom: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Characters: Peter Parker, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds
Additional Tags: Spider-Man: No Way Home (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: No Way Home (Movie)
Summary:
Sometimes Peter needs a paycheck more than he needs good grades.
Sometimes your writing style will be too difficult for some people to understand. Good, you don't write for everybody. It's okay to be complex.
Sometimes your writing will be interpreted many ways, some of which you may not enjoy. Fine, you didn't write it for them, but they're thinking critically about it and that's cool. It's common to be misinterpreted.
Sometimes readers may disagree with your portrayal of something even though you carefully researched or experienced it yourself. Alright, so they read different research or had a different experience. You're not obligated to correct yourself or explain yourself to them.
Sometimes a reader is actually a troll. Block or report them.
Sometimes you really did mess up and accidentally wrote something offensive. Learn why it hurt someone, and don't repeat the mistake.
Most of the time your readers will say nice, simple things or read silently and say nothing at all. Both of these are good and should be respected as the reader's choice. It's perfectly normal to receive little feedback.
What's bad to one person may be great to another. If writers love an unloved work, that's preferable to readers loving a work the writer regrets. Yet either way, someone loves the work!
---
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wish everyone could perceive the Vague Concepts in my head because i just know you would looove my Vague Concepts. you would think im so smart if you saw the misty clouds of Vague Concepts floating around in my head. #MyVagueConcepts
Having confidence in your writing abilities is just as much a skill you need to cultivate as actually writing is.
It's normal to doubt yourself, it's just important to learn how to look past your doubts and recognize that letting yourself worry about the possibility that your writing sucks will never make you a better writer. The only thing that will make you a better writer is writing, so stop worrying about whether you're any good and WRITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
something you learn fast and necessarily when you get into the habit of writing is that you are riddled with blind assumptions, prejudices, unpractised rhetoric and all kinds of unchallenged cicada shell thoughts that were left stuck to your mode of being when bad ideas fled you. most people get to move through the world behind a kind of modesty veil that divides their internal thoughts from their external observations, but you have to take that off when you write. you have to suddenly present the whole world to itself nakedly, without the kindness of someone who can stop you mid-sentence and say "hold on, I know you, you can't possibly mean that". people are often scared to show their work to an editor in case the editor points out what they look like without their modesty veil, but god, christ, hell and heaven, you have to be more afraid of what the whole world of strangers will see if you don't let someone pick the cicada shells off you first.
Chapters: 14/?
Fandom: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Characters: Peter Parker, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds
Additional Tags: Spider-Man: No Way Home (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: No Way Home (Movie)
Summary:
After settling into his new anonymous life, Peter picks up a new coffee habit. But is it really just for the sake of routine, or is it an excuse to see his old friends?
Peter resolves that today is the last time, and then he will truly cut ties with his past. After all, that's what he wanted, wasn't it?
Whoa, an update to this ancient fic? Let’s just say that I am excited for the new movie.
Writing Advice that Will Save You from Crying over Chapter 3 Again
☽ Sometimes “writer’s block” is actually just your story being broken and your brain knowing before you do. Respect the vibes, go back. Something stinks.
☽ If you’re stuck in the middle, skip to the part you’re excited to write. Chronological writing is a suggestion, not a law.
☽ “Kill your darlings” is not about deleting every cool thing you love. It’s about not hoarding scenes like a dragon with dialogue you wrote in 2017 that doesn’t even make sense anymore.
☽ You do not need to write like your favorite author. You need to write like you, caffeinated and slightly unstable.
☽ Talking to yourself in the mirror as your character is not weird. It’s called method writing. You’re not unhinged, you’re dedicated.
☽ Aesthetic Pinterest boards and playlists are writing progress if they make you feel like a god again.
☽ You can write the climax before you finish Act 1. You can rewrite Chapter 1 thirty times and then delete it anyway. You’re not behind, you’re in hell with the rest of us.
You’re allowed to write stuff that’s not “marketable.” You’re allowed to be weird. Write the story that would make you feel seen. The niche finds its freaks.
☽ Beta readers are not gods. Take what resonates, ignore what doesn’t. If five people say your story drags at Chapter 8? Maybe listen. If one person says “make it all about the dog,” maybe don’t.
Written for Phantasmal Nights: A Danny Phantom Fantasy AU Zine, organized and created by @dpfantasyzine.
With music from @maebird-melody, and illustrations by @lilianade-comics, both embedded and linked! Thank you both, for creating such amazing work for this story!
Links to my other works for this zine:
03 - Beau and the Beast
04 - Tell Me Your Secrets
06 - Plant a Seed in Your Soul
10-11 - Birth of an Impossible Star
Summary: Jazz Fenton is spiraling through time to save her brother from death; but will she lose herself to despair in the process? A Madoka Magica AU.
CW: Death, Violence, Light Gore, Suicidal Ideation.
HxH Narrator Voice: Jazz is now drowning in an indescribable emptiness. [SICK GUITAR RIFF]
(Quick plug for a similar phic ideated and written by @kawaiijohn first! "Her Flame Burns Despite the Storm" is phenomenal!)
This version of the phic is a little chunkier than the version written for the zine! If you've read both, which do you prefer?
ao3 | ffn
Jazz Fenton marches through the witch’s lair. Shadows shift and swirl, ebbing and flowing just beyond the reach of her scythe. They had a truce.
The pinprick of betrayal pulls from Jazz’s heart, like a thread drawn taut—pulling her attention—and as she turns, the shadows billow away from her, forming a corridor of mist where before there had been only turbulent darkness.
And at the end of the corridor, Danny—bound and gagged by shadows, dangling like a slab of meat.
But his chest heaves. His eyes are bloodshot and aware.
He’s alive.
Jazz rushes forward—they don’t have time, now that she’s found him. “Danny, it’s going to be okay—I’ll get you down—”
Tears stain his cheeks. Jazz squashes her anger. They had a truce.
Then his eyes widen. He struggles against his bonds, cries muffled by the gag—
Jazz spins with her scythe, and the shadowy tendrils reaching for her fizzle in flashing blue sparks. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Liar.
The word pulses in her mind, and Jazz realizes her mistake. She twists toward her brother, blue power flooding her hand.
“Dann—”
Crack.
Danny’s body crumples to the ground—head lolling at an impossible angle.
The shadows swarm.
“Failure! Failure! Failure!”
“Your fault! Your fault! It’s always your fault!”
“You killed him! You did this! You keep doing this!”
“Monster. You’re a monster. And you know it.”
“What kind of sister are you?”
The thoughts reverberate—each her own voice, each promising a spiral that would destroy her—but imagine the sweet release—
And finally, the telltale claws slowly slide along her shoulders, creeping towards her neck.
There.
Jazz snaps her hand out—not too slow, but not too fast, either, still pulsing with blue power—the perfect pace and placement to grab Spectra by the neck.
The swarm disperses, revealing Spectra’s form: a shadow cut from Jazz’s figure, its substance clinging to the surrounding mist, its face leering down at Jazz.
Jazz glares. “I told you to leave my brother alone.”
“You never visit, and when I call you, this is the response I get? Pity.” Spectra’s dark claws linger on Jazz’s pulse.
“Danny is off limits!”
“And you know how bored I get. Eating the same misery again and again—it just gets stale, after a while.”
Jazz wills herself to remain stony and cool. She can’t show weakness to this witch—not again.
“I could do with some fresh teenage angst—”
Jazz unleashes a wave of blue energy, rapidly aging Spectra’s figure. Releasing the witch, she turns away.
Jazz stares at her brother’s corpse. The lair shimmers and fades like a mirage, leaving him cold and alone on the concrete floor of an empty warehouse.
Then she spins her scythe, slicing a tunnel through time. 367.
Jazz Fenton steps through the portal.
*~*~*
25.
It was an accident. That’s what the football team says when his friends find him stuffed in a gym locker with their dirty clothes, left to rot over the weekend. That’s what the school tells the paper. Jazz does not attend the memorial.
42.
Jazz fights the monsters at the lake for him. The ghosts, the witches, the cryptids—all of them. When the coast is clear, she finds him face down in the water anyways.
68.
A truck hits him.
*~*~*
Heat snaps against Jazz’s skin. She holds her brother close.
“Jazz, it hurts.” His voice crackles like the fire she’d pulled him from, like his broken skin rasping against her shirt.
“It’ll be alright, Danny—stay awake, you’ll be okay—”
She whips her head up, neck aching. “Help! Please, somebody, anybody, please!”
But she can’t see anyone past the flames and rubble.
Danny whimpers. “I—I don’t—”
“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay—Somebody, please! P-Please…” She swallows a sob. She has to be strong for Danny, he needs her, he needs help, he needs her to stay together and get them through this. She ignores the warmth soaking her clothes.
“Jazz…”
She looks at him, trying to smile. “It’s going to be okay, Danny, I promise.” It has to be okay. It has to.
Then he shudders, and she watches his head loll—feels him go limp in her arms.
“No, Danny, wake up, it’s okay, please wake up—no, no, no—”
The fire billows and reflects in the whites of her brother’s dead eyes.
Danny’s dead eyes.
Danny’s dead.
Jazz wails into her brother’s bloody chest.
*~*~*
89.
The A-Listers did it. His friends did it. Even some of the nerds did it. So why is it, when he tries to snowboard down the school steps on his backpack, he’s the one who cracks his head open on a block of ice?
111.
His best friend dared him. He eats five ecto-infused hotdogs before they kill him.
136.
Where did the black bear come from? Illinois doesn’t have black bears.
*~*~*
“Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”
Jazz crosses her arms as Spectra circles her, smoky form trailing in the darkness.
Spectra tuts. “Oh, don’t be so curt. Is that any way to treat a friend?”
“You’re not my friend.”
Spectra’s chuckle echoes through the lair, and Jazz suppresses a flinch when her cold voice caresses Jazz’s ear. “Oh honey, I’m the only friend you’ve got.”
Jazz turns to face Spectra—but she isn’t there. Of course. She glares at the darkness before her—it’s as much a part of Spectra as everything else here is.
“You killed my brother.” Her voice is sharp.
“And he’s alive now, right?” Spectra reappears in her periphery, just out of reach of her scythe—Jazz feels it in the tug on the emotion she’d let slip like chum in the water.
Jazz doesn’t let herself react, and Spectra lazily circles again. “He’s probably out watching a movie, or playing one of those silly little videogames with his silly little friends.”
“Get to the point.”
Spectra pouts. “You’re no fun.”
“This isn’t about fun.”
“No, of course not,” Spectra tuts. “It’s about your silly, childish, Sisyphean quest to avoid the inevitable.”
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” Jazz retorts.
“So you like watching your brother die over and over again?” Spectra grins. “Or perhaps there’s comfort in the pattern. The sweet relief that you can start over, once you’ve let the boulder slip and run the poor kid down.”
Jazz doesn’t know when she summoned her scythe, swinging it at the shadows where Spectra’s voice emanates—but there’s nothing there. Spectra’s cackles echo in her head.
“Touched a nerve, have I?” The voice swirls around her. “Or maybe a truth?”
“Nothing you say is true,” Jazz says, holding back the mist and shadows closing in.
“Oh Jasmine,” Spectra coos, her voice suddenly intimate, her claws caressing Jazz’s cheek and neck. “You’re the one who said it.”
Spectra’s words worm into her head—then split and divide and echo, morphing into Jazz’s voice, repeating and crying and cackling until all she can hear is “imagine Sisyphus happy” and “over and over and over and over and—”
Jazz slams her scythe into the ground. Blue lightning swirls around her, turning everything it touches to dust.
“I won’t let him die.” She breathes harshly. “I’ll go as far as it takes.”
Spectra smirks as she disintegrates.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
*~*~*
149.
A piano falls on him.
179.
The Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle skids to a stop a foot from Jazz’s face. Her dad bounds from the front seat, completely oblivious. “Hey, Jazzipants! Did you see where that ghost went? I swear I was right on its tail!”
He doesn’t notice his son beneath the vehicle’s oversized tires. Jazz doesn’t tell him.
201.
Rubble from the latest ghost attack falls on him.
*~*~*
“I can help.”
The voice rings clear despite the fire and blood roaring in Jazz’s ears. She blinks tears from her eyes, clutching her brother’s body.
There—just a few feet from her, balancing on a bit of metal.
It’s not a cat, although it sits like one—paws together and bushy tail turned up, little triangle ears attentive. But it has two long, furry tendrils descending from its ears, a little gold loop around each, swaying gently in the harsh, hot wind. Its face looks like a stuffed animal, but its wide red eyes stare up at her, alive.
“What are you?” Jazz rasps.
“I am Kyubey.” Its mouth doesn’t move. “I have the power to grant wishes. You could use a wish right now.”
Jazz hugs her brother tighter to her chest. “You’re not a ghost.”
“Correct! I can help. If you form a contract with me and become a magia, I will grant you a wish. I sense the potential within you to become a powerful magia—your wish could unleash that potential!”
Kyubey hops down and approaches Jazz. She scampers back, dragging her brother’s body with her. “Don’t—don’t touch him!”
The creature stops, glancing down from Jazz to the corpse of her brother. “It’s a shame he died. He also had potential.”
Heart clenching, her vision goes cloudy. She buries her face in her brother’s chest.
“I’ll give you time to think about it.”
Sirens sound in the distance. Jazz jerks her head up.
The creature is gone.
*~*~*
223.
A girl he doesn’t know asks him to go to a ball he hasn’t heard of. Of course he says no. Why would he expect her to turn into a ghost dragon and swallow him whole?
247.
Amity Park has never had gators in the sewers. That’s a New York City myth.
When he falls down the manhole, she can only listen as the ghost gators rip him apart.
264.
A winter evening, she comes home late from the library, after fighting ghosts and witches. Making sure they can’t hurt anyone—let alone her little brother.
She finds him locked out, frozen and alone on the porch.
*~*~*
“Your hope is sickening.”
Jazz laughs and spins, flicking Spectra on the nose, blue power giving it wrinkles. She smirks at Spectra’s disgust and cartwheels away. “It wouldn’t kill you to be more hopeful.”
They both know this is a lie—witches are made of despair.
But this is the longest Jazz has kept Danny alive. Maybe this time she doesn’t have to reset the cycle. And if she can hope for a timeline where Danny doesn’t die a horrible death, she can hope for anything.
“I don’t know why you’re getting your hopes up.” Spectra pats the wrinkles from her nose. “He’s going to die anyway.”
“Not listening!” Jazz sings, slicing through the next attack.
Spectra grins and steps back into the shadows, letting her voice fill the void. “Honey, you don’t have to listen. You just have to look.”
The shadows and mist close in. Jazz twirls and blue light erupts from her, arcing around her, cutting through the lair’s cloying darkness.
Spectra’s voice rings out from everywhere all at once.
“You twist the web of time in knots every time you use your pretty little powers, Magical Girl. Look around you.”
And now Jazz can see it—how her powers have been pushing against time—not against a wall like she’d thought, but along intersecting lines and waves and curves—patterns carving themselves along every axis of space, changing along the arcs of her blue power—changing because of her power.
She tugs experimentally on the heart of her power—shaping it inwards and forwards, rather than just shoving it out—and the blue arcs wrap themselves through Spectra’s shadows, crackling as they shrink them down to nothing.
Spectra snorts. “Impressive. If you were a beginner.”
But Jazz can’t pay attention to Spectra—the patterns of time itself twist around each other—swirl through her—spin from her in paths that wind closer together, driving into a single, blue path that leads to—no, no, no—
“Ah, there it is! The recognition! The horror! The frustration! The crushing despair! There’s the Jasmine Fenton I know!” Spectra claps and cackles her glee, even as Jazz throws her scythe, even as it cuts the witch in half.
Black smoke spills from the wound, whispering in Jazz’s voice.
“You can’t stop it. You’re the reason he keeps dying.”
*~*~*
289.
He tries to help, and Jazz lets him. After all, it’s Johnny and Kitty—they’re harmless.
Then Kitty’s kiss makes him disappear.
305.
He wasn’t allergic to them before. The flowers in mom’s garden are strange and thorny, but the most they can do is prick fingers. He’s been avoiding the garden, though; it’s only after their mom sneaks blood blossoms into his lunch that she understands, too late, why.
333.
She isn’t surprised when the ghost of a bull shark gets him. Just disappointed. And so, so tired.
*~*~*
The smell of smoke and blood lingers in Jazz’s hair. It mingles with the sharp, cloying scent of antiseptic. She asks the nurse to open the window—just a crack, just to let the air flow a little.
She looks down at her hands—she doesn’t need to see the nurse smile sadly at her as he opens the window the full three inches.
The hospital machines and Fenton tech surrounding her beep and whine discordantly—out of time and tune with each other and with her whirring mind. She can’t sleep even if she wanted to.
It’s for the better. When she tried to sleep earlier, she could only see her brother’s dead eyes.
The ghost detectors don’t register Kyubey’s arrival. But Jazz feels its presence, sitting at the windowsill, its red eyes boring into her soul.
She hates the heart monitor’s beeping, and she tries to school her breathing. It’s just a physiological reaction to an understandable amount of stress and emotion. But she feels vulnerable.
“Have you thought about it?” Kyubey’s gentle voice cuts through the noise like a knife.
“What does ‘magia’ entail?” Jazz asks.
“It means you will become magical! A Magical Girl, with the power to fight the terrible creatures of darkness and despair—creatures known as witches!”
“And if I do this, will it save him? Save Danny?” Her voice is small. The heart monitor races.
“That depends on you, Jasmine Fenton. Your power to save your brother is as strong as your wish.”
“So how do I know this isn’t a scam? What’s the catch?” Jazz forces herself to stare into the creature’s red eyes. She’ll be damned if she just lets it manipulate her, just like that.
“Does it matter? You’ve already decided.”
Jazz blinks first. She takes a shuddering breath. Damned heart monitor. Damned Kyubey.
But, if there’s a chance she can save her brother, she guesses she’s damned, too.
*~*~*
358.
Human bodies shouldn’t be phased into walls. His torso is suspended in the corner of a building. His mouth and nose are full of brick.
371.
One moment, he’s walking next to her, on their way to school; the next, his body’s collapsed on the ground, a green, smoking hole in his head where the meteorite hit him.
402.
He’s hit by the Fenton Peeler.
It shouldn’t work—Fenton tech doesn’t hurt humans—but he screams, his skin cracking and peeling to reveal something dead, glowing, impossible—
But she knows it was only a matter of time.
He’s died horrifically more than enough. It was inevitable he’d form a ghost.
*~*~*
403.
“I was wondering when I’d see your pretty little face again.”
Jazz doesn’t say anything. She sits on a coil of mist and looks away from Spectra, tracing the way time eddies and flows below her.
“How’s your brother?” Spectra steps in front of Jazz. “He didn’t look well after your parents flayed him alive in front of you.”
Jazz feels her hands ball into fists—watches time ripple blue with her potential—and loosens her fingers. Lets the potential dissipate.
“Well.” Spectra chuckles. “That’s a loose term for the poor kid, isn’t it. Alive.”
She circles, running her claws along Jazz’s back—almost a caress, but Jazz knows they want to rend and tear. Maybe she should let them.
“It’s never going to end.” The words leave Jazz’s mouth before she can stop them.
“What is?” Spectra asks, hand on Jazz’s shoulder.
“This.” Jazz flings her hand out, and time eddies down darker and darker currents. “All of this. This cycling. This song and dance. And Danny—”
Her breath hitches and her heart aches, and she feels the prick of Spectra’s claws in her shoulder, siphoning energy from her despair.
“Danny dies. He keeps dying. No matter what I do—no, because of what I do.” Jazz buries her face in her hands. Her chest hurts. “Because of me.”
“Oh, honey.” Spectra’s voice drips with false sympathy. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Jazz groans. “Danny deserves better. He deserves a sister who can keep him safe—but I can’t—I’ve failed him. I keep failing him! I don’t want to become a witch, but if I keep going, he’ll keep dying—but what can I do? If I can’t protect him, what can I do?”
“Does it matter?” Spectra grips Jazz’s chin, tilting it up. Her eyes glow red, and her voice echoes around them in the turbulent darkness. “You’ve already decided.”
Jazz tries and fails to hold back a sob. Her chest burns.
“Leave her alone!”
Green light—green like ectoplasm, green like death—tears through the darkness, ripping Spectra away, and suddenly Jazz can breathe again. She collapses to the concrete—not mist not darkness but real, hard concrete—and recoils as cold hands grab her arms, flinching at the pain where Spectra’s claws had torn from her. Channeling power to her hand, she looks up and—
It’s Danny.
His hand bleeds green smoke, and his face shows fear and worry and all the things he shouldn’t show in a witch’s lair.
Her ears ring with the absence of Spectra’s voice, and it takes a moment to catch the words spilling from Danny’s lips.
“—hey! Jazz! I—it’s okay, Jazz, it—it’s gonna be okay, but we have to get out of here—”
“Danny.” The whisper leaves her lips unbidden. She lets her power dissipate.
“Yeah, Jazz! It’s me!” He smiles weakly. “It’s me. And we gotta get out of here.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Jazz, no one should be here—”
“No, you need to leave! I can’t—” her eyes blur. She imagines Danny’s dead eyes. “I can’t save you, and it’s all my fault—I failed you. I failed you! You deserve better than a monster for a sister—”
Danny hugs her. His fluffy hair gets in her face. His face buries itself in her neck.
She tentatively hugs him back—then clings to him like he’s the last bit of hope she has.
In a way, he is. When’s the last time she’s actually hugged her brother, and not his corpse?
“Jazz, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
He mumbles into her shoulder, and she shifts to look him over. He’s covered in bruises and scrapes; his eyes are teary, dark with exhaustion. He offers a grin to her—one that barely reaches his eyes.
He’s alive.
He’ll die if he stays here.
“Danny, you—”
“I know, Jazz.”
Jazz freezes.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been trying to save me.” Danny huffs. “You’re dealing with all of this—just for me. I love you, Jazz, I love you so much, but… you’ve gotta stop.”
“I can’t stop, Danny—you’ll die if I do!” Jazz blinks tears from her eyes and looks away. “I need to save you—but it all ends in your death, and it’s my fault—I’m so sorry, Danny, it’s always my fault—”
“Hey.” Danny bends down to catch her eye. “Hey Jazz, just—come on, listen to me!”
Jazz looks up at him, eyes wide. He stares back with determination.
“None of this is your fault. You’re my sister, and you’re trying your best, but sometimes that isn’t enough! And that’s okay!”
“It’s not okay! If I don’t save you, you’ll die—”
“Then let me die!”
Danny’s breath echoes in the darkness.
Then Jazz hears a slow clap. Spectra emerges from the mist.
“Aw, what a touching reunion!” Spectra coos. “It’s too bad we have to end it.” She flexes her claws.
Danny grabs Jazz’s hand and squeezes. He gives her a gentle smile, full of love and life. “It’ll be okay, Jazz. I promise. This time, it’s my choice.”
Then he leaps into the air, and in a sweeping, blinding flash of green and white, he invites death itself into his very being. His hair turns blinding white, and his skin darkens and cracks like fire had kissed it. He shoots energy at Spectra, who screeches as the darkness surrounding her dissolves.
Danny’s eyes are green as death—yet still, somehow, alive. “Didn’t know I could do that, huh!” He grins cheekily.
Jazz chuckles and wipes the tears from her face. Dead, alive, or something in between, he’s still her little brother.
She stands, summoning her scythe. “Let’s finish this.”
Jazz unleashes the floodgates on her emotions. Her anger and frustration. Her sadness. Her despair. But also her love. Her happiness. Her hope. Her yearning for a future she could share with her brother, and her determination to grasp that future.
She opens her eyes to time, as well—letting the blue power flow through her, stronger than ever, powered by the emotions she’s unleashed. Before, she had refused to look beyond Danny’s death; but now that Danny has chosen his own fate, she can see the timelines open to endless possibilities.
“No!” Spectra screams, and the mist and darkness writhe. Jazz can feel Spectra’s emotions well up—her anger and hatred, her despair—but beneath that, her yearning: to fill herself with power, to break free of this warehouse and this world and time itself—but also to fill the void within her with something, someone, that could truly understand—
And her terror of it all being stripped away.
The shadows lunge. Danny blasts some of them away, and Jazz dodges the rest—not too slow, but not too fast, either—darting forward to take Danny’s hand.
Danny grins and grabs her, then spins in the air—his free hand blasting shadows to ash, her scythe slicing them to dust—until all that’s left is the shattered shadow of Spectra herself.
Danny goes to destroy Spectra, but Jazz grabs his arm.
“Wait.”
She approaches the weakened witch—a literal shadow of what Spectra once was, curling in on itself in its despair.
“I could have been like you,” Jazz says. “I came close. Too close.”
She crouches next to the shadow. “But then we’d both be drowning in our despair.”
The words pulse faintly in her mind. Like you. Despair.
Jazz reaches out her hands, blue with power, gently cupping the shadow as it churns. She stares at the remnants of Spectra, noting the contours of its shapes, the whirls of its emotions—then blows, gently, as if to blow out a candle—shaping her blue power along those contours and whirls, molding time itself to her own emotions—scattering the shadow into small, blue motes of dust that slowly fade to nothing.
Farewell.
After a moment, Jazz stands.
Danny stares at her. “What did you do?”
“I gave her what she wanted,” Jazz states.
The warehouse is empty except for the two of them, morning light shining through the broken windows to alight upon them.
No.
The light shines on Jazz—but it shines through Danny.
She can see through him, to the dusty floor below.
She reaches for Danny’s hand—but her hand goes through it as well.
He’s fading.
“Danny—Danny, no—”
Danny shushes her. His finger can’t touch her, but its aura is cold against her lips. “I won’t be gone forever—just for a bit. I promise.”
He floats upwards, gazing at something she can’t see. Dust floats through his grin.
“Go make friends, Jazz! Seriously, being a shut in isn’t good for you.”
Then Danny fades completely. Jazz is left alone on the warehouse floor.
But somehow, she doesn’t feel as lonely.
*~*~*
“I wish to undo what’s happened, to protect my brother.”
1.
