#and how things would be without the endless cycle of violence

[rona-eser]

"Father, why eternal torment? Is it not cruel?

Is torture unending truly a fate fit for a fool?"

[marcyvamp1re-blog]

PIERROT, THE SAD CLOWN.

pairings ⸺ Yandere! Richard 'Dick' Grayson x Villain! Fem! Reader.

¿Request? Yes!

This is a Headcanon!

sinopsis ⸺ From the moment he first saw her, Dick Grayson knew he loved her. However, she could only perceive the sadness and darkness surrounding her. Despite his efforts, he couldn’t make her see the light he wanted to offer.

He firmly believed he could be her happiness.

warnings ⸺ Angst, ¿OOC Dick? Idk, Dark Themes, Dead, murdering, Disturbing Content, Unhealthy Obsession, Street Fights, Gaslight, Violence, Blood, Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual Content, Noncon, Mental Illness, Corruption, Isolation, Trauma, Paranoia, Manipulation.

A/N ── English is not my first language—Spanish is— This, to be honest, is a headcanon I came up with about three minutes ago after I was left unsatisfied with the results of two headcanons I made about Jason. Since I didn't like them, I started writing a story that I had pending about Dick Grayson.

On another note, I want to thank you for the 500 followers ♡ I will keep posting more things and such.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... had never felt such a deep void until he saw you for the first time, a blurred shadow among the rubble of Blüdhaven. You, the villain who neither screamed nor laughed, only existed in a perpetual sadness, became his obsession. Pierrot, his very own Joker, trapped in a prison of melancholy, without the frenetic spark of the crazies he used to face. That sadness you emanated was his own reflection, a crack he wanted to mend with his love, a love that bordered on madness.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... from the rooftops, watched you wander the streets, always with that lost look, as if you didn't belong to this world. Every time they fought, he felt something breaking more inside you, something he could fix if only you let him get close. The nights were long, filled with endless watchings, as he silently followed you, keeping a prudent distance, until he could no longer bear it. He knew he was losing you. How was it possible that you couldn't see how much he loved you, how much he needed you? You were trapped in your own sadness, and he, in his obsession to save you.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... one day, while watching you from the shadows, found you on top of a rooftop, and thought you were going to jump. But no. You were crying, again. It was always the same. You approached the edge, and terror engulfed him. He thought you would leap, and for the first time felt something beyond duty: he felt he couldn't lose you. So, he researched everything he could about you. Your past revealed itself to him as a dull echo of emotional deprivation, a devastated childhood, and that dark philosophy about life, death, and chaos that you admired in the Joker. You had lost yourself in that labyrinth of despair, and he swore he would bring you back.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... when he finally caught you, instead of taking you to justice as he had done before, he took you to Arkham, believing you would be safe there, under his constant watch. He visited you, he watched over you. But it wasn't long before you escaped, thanks to the Joker. Time and again, you faced him, and time and again, Dick brought you back to that exhausting cycle. However, something in him broke the last time he caught you.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... when conventional methods failed, began to seek more extreme solutions. He took you to Wayne Manor the second time you escaped from Arkham. He locked you in a room from which you couldn't escape. It wasn't a cell, it was a luxury prison, but a prison nonetheless. He watched you day and night, ensuring that nothing and no one would ever hurt you again. The need to protect you had turned into something sick. He kept you safe, locked away. It wasn't a cold cell, but the walls suffocated you, and Dick's constant presence, ever-watchful, made you feel that freedom was just an illusion. Your protests became muted whispers drowned by his excessive devotion. He didn't understand why you couldn't see what he was doing for you, why you resisted. He believed that if he could control you enough, if he could protect you from yourself, you would eventually realize that you loved him.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... looked at Bruce and the others in the Wayne family with a mix of resentment and pity. They spent millions on therapies, on psychiatrists trying to "cure you," on initiatives to "reform you." How could they be so blind? He was the only one who understood what you truly needed. The Batfamily treated you like a project, while Dick saw you as the love of his life. Didn't they realize that only he could save you? But while the others saw your despair as an illness, Dick saw in your sadness a kind of beauty that no one else understood. To them, you were just a villain; to him, you were his everything.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... every time he found you on the edge of the abyss, when your empty eyes stared into nothingness, when everything around you seemed to break apart, he was there. He hugged you tightly, his hands gripping you as though they could tie you to the world. "I love you," he whispered in your ear, as if those words could heal the pain you carried inside. He felt your resistance, your hopelessness, but that only fueled his desire further. He was convinced he could tear you from the grips of your own sadness, even if he had to break you to rebuild you.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... when you escaped from Wayne Manor, he searched for you with frantic intensity. Every time he found you, he only saw one more opportunity to prove to you that he was the only one who could save you. He surrounded you with his body, protecting you from the world, but also imprisoning you. Bruce confronted him one night, warning him that his obsession was consuming him, but Dick merely replied that love was like that, devouring and total.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... faced Harley when she tried to pull you from the abyss, believing that the chaos of the Joker would be your only salvation. But Harley didn't know what Dick knew. He could give you peace, love, not the unrestrained madness she offered. When he confronted her, the fight was not just physical. Harley mocked him, telling him he could never save you, that you would always be a tragedy, like her. And when Harley's blood stained the ground, Dick knew he had crossed a line. It wasn't a heroic battle, but a desperate act. He did it for you, to protect you from those who wanted to send you back to hell.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... the days became blurred as he kept you in the Manor, away from the world that hurt you so much. He wanted you to understand that everything he did, every confinement, every possessive caress, was for your own good. Meanwhile, Alfred and Bruce tried to convince him that what he was doing was not love, but control. But for Dick, words were useless. He believed that true love required sacrifice, and if he had to sacrifice your freedom to save you, then he would do it without hesitation.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... decided that you could no longer be in the hands of others. No one else understood what you needed. He took you to his apartment, to a place where the windows were closed and the doors always locked. You were no longer free, but you were not alone either. Dick cared for you, spoke to you of a future where you would be together and happy. Every time you tried to escape, he stopped you, not with anger, but with a disturbing calm. "It's for your own good," he told you, as he held you tighter than seemed necessary. His caresses were gentle, but behind them, there was always something darker, a desperation that grew with each attempt to flee.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... the first time he possessed you was, for him, an unforgettable moment. Your body trembled, amidst tears, as he whispered how much he loved you each time his pelvis met your backside. In his mind, you loved how he took you, how he made your intimacy cry for more of him, and how he filled you with his seed at the end of the night. Each of your sobs only reinforced his conviction that you were his forever, as he enveloped you in a mix of devotion and obsession from which you didn't know how to escape.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... followed you even into the darkest corners of your mind, where others dared not tread. When the Joker attempted to drag you back into chaos, Dick confronted him one night. The confrontation was brutal, swift, and when Dick was done, the ground was stained red. You, trembling and broken, watched as Dick tore apart the Joker's henchmen with a brutality you had never witnessed in him. That night, he took you back, covered in cuts and with a twisted smile, convinced he had saved you once more.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... dreamed of the day when you would come to your senses, when you both could walk hand in hand, form a family. In his dreams, you smiled, forgetting the pain, redeemed by his love. But those dreams never became reality, and with each passing day, you moved further away from that vision.

Yandere! Dick Grayson who... made you his in the only way he knew how. Without consent, without a voice to defend you, he took you before a judge and secretly married you. The marriage was not a celebration but an act of possession. The ceremony was silent, intimate in its darkness. Dick looked at you with that mix of devotion and madness as he bound you to him forever. In his distorted mind, it was the happy ending he had always imagined. You were no longer Pierrot, the tragic villain. You were his, completely. And in that possession, he believed he had found peace. Now you were Dick Grayson's wife, trapped in a bond you never asked for, but which he believed was your only salvation. He saw it as the perfect conclusion, the ending he had always desired. Because if you couldn't love the world, at least you could love him.

A/N ─── I hope you enjoyed this. Don't forget to leave a comment and a little heart.

Don't hesitate to ask me anything if you want.

take a bath!

[cheriecoke]

˚₊‧꒰ა cold embrace (provenance) — fyodor dostoevsky

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎. you buy a two hundred year old house with a two hundred year old painting hanging above the mantel. it's not the only thing the previous owner left behind.

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈. ghost!fyodor, f!reader, violence, angst, death, alternate / modern universe, no smut but it is suggestive, fyodor is kind of a pervy ghost so, wc: 6.1k

𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈. this one has two titles bc it was supposed to be for my kinktober... never finished it. embarrassing ! but here is a semi-revamped version for this series! i can finally check it off my wips page <3 idk how i feel about it but i hope you enjoy

part of my summerween series !

A chime from the grandfather clock brings Fyodor out of his stupor, the sound signaling another day, another meaningless hour that will only continue his eternal misery. He’s grown used to it now—evening after evening of emptiness, of reading nothing but the same books, playing the same pieces of dull sheet music, and the lifeless chess matches against himself. The house is cold with only his presence, dusty without a housekeeper and a life to make it a home.

There are a million things in Fyodor’s life that he must have done to deserve this misery, but he can’t pinpoint which one solidified his reward of a lamentable, endless cycle.

He’s certain hell is better than this. It’s something he wishes for every day, if only to have an eternal companion with the devil, a challenge to overcome.

Though, even with this boredom, Fyodor refuses to let anyone live in his home. They’ll only serve to be another pain, something that would, surely, push him past the brink of sanity.

The centuries old décor will get replaced with gaudy twenty-first century items, ones that will be nothing more than an eyesore. There are a few already scattered around his home from previous tenants, but only things that he believed useful enough for him to keep; a few books from authors he didn’t live to read, a television from the nineties, a computer that he watched one couple scroll on before he murdered them in cold blood.

Perhaps he is two hundred years dead and gone, but he refuses to be an ignorant ghost, one that is unaware of anything beyond these four walls, caught forever in the past.

Although now, it’s been a while since anyone’s tried to move in, and he’s certain the only reason the house hasn’t been torn down is because its preserved nicely, an eighteenth-century home that has withstood the test of time.

Fyodor, in his lowest moments, wishes they would tear it down. Maybe then, and only then, can he be set free. Or maybe, he’s forever trapped in this exhaustive lot, doomed to decay, even when there’s nothing left of the foundations but soil.

He pushes a pawn forward on the board, putting himself in checkmate for the millionth time in a row. It’s been so long that he’s used to his own tricks. Even the computer, which he’d come to understand quickly, is no match for him. It’s far too exhaustive to play against a machine that utilizes an algorithm he can so easily decipher.

Out of nowhere, the front door unlocks, and Fyodor glances over at the sound, dark hair falling over his eyes. Seconds later, he notices an older realtor with a clipboard leading you around, a woman he’s never seen, dressed up nicely with a darker shade of lipstick smeared across your mouth.

He’s been through this before. It’s a miracle the realtor hasn’t given up on this house yet, a mansion she is determined to sell despite the endless horrors that have been committed by his hand.

“Here it is,” she says, nervous, gesturing around the expansive hall, the crystal chandelier and staircase that immediately follows. “It was built in 1731, but one of the owners remolded it in the style of the mid-nineteenth century. The structure has been stabilized; it’s safe… enough.”

The two of you chat, but he doesn’t bother to listen in. It’s all questions of: when can I move in? can we negotiate? — things you will come to regret once he sets his sights on killing you.

Then, the realtor is sighing, wringing her hands together as she watches you spin around the house in awe. It’s clear that you’re impressed by the layout, the rich furniture and colors that have been used.

That, at least, satisfies Fyodor. Everyone else who has moved in was looking to upgrade it to a modern style, rid the place of its aged grace and charm.

“I’m truly sorry,” she says, brushing curly hair away from her cheekbones. “But I am legally obligated to tell you that every person who has lived here before has suffered a terrible, terrible fate. There have been gruesome murders that cannot be explained, done in ways that I don’t even want to tell you about.”

You laugh, eyeing her with skepticism. “Are you telling me it’s haunted?”

The realtor shrugs. “That’s what people say.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” you answer, and Fyodor rolls his eyes, scoffing as he floats to the second floor, unable to listen into the unreasonable conversation anymore. It’s been the same story for decades. No one believes in ghosts, but it is always a ghost that kills them.

He returns to the chess board, irritated, though unable to consider the game any further. Your face is stuck in his mind. For some reason, he can’t remember the last time he’s ever seen anyone with such beauty.

Fyodor stops; your ageless elegance doesn’t matter—it can’t, and it won’t. You’ll be dead by the end of the month, when you gather all your things and invade the bedroom that was once his own. Even if you are beautiful, you are a nuisance, a threat to Fyodor’s eternal torment and quiet existence.

Still, he can’t help but wonder if it would be nice to have something other than his own thoughts to distract him from the endless misery.

You move in on the thirteenth of June, nothing more than a few boxes and a decade old car to keep you company. He guesses you’ve traveled a long distance to get here, and you’ve gotten rid of half of your life in the process.

A good thing for him. That means things can be over relatively quickly, and all your belongings can be disposed of easily after he kills you.

You spend the entire first day unpacking, and Fyodor waits patiently, allows you time to get comfortable in his home. He watches as you bring a stack of thick novels into the waiting room, which once boasted large parties, and place them on a shelf below those that have his name within the covers.

You take a few calls as you hang up your autumn coats, ones that won’t be needed for a few months. The voice on the other line sounds frantic, worried. A local, most likely. You only seem annoyed by his continuous string of anxieties.

When the sun sets, and you grow tired, you rub your eyes and head to bed. The first night you will spend in this place that Fyodor likens to Hell.

It’s the time he’s been waiting for—a moment to catch you off guard. You are so unsuspecting, already so at home in the mansion, that you have no fear of anything hurting you in the middle of the night.

While you get ready for bed, Fyodor slips into your room, observing the pieces of your life that have conquered his bedroom. A soft classical piece plays from your phone, one that he recognizes from his mortal life. Clearly, you are fascinated by the period he once lived in. A shame, really, he won’t be able to tell you more about it.

You leave the bathroom, come back towards him to change into a pair of small shorts, a large shirt hanging over your frame.

He’s forgotten how long it’s been since he’s seen a woman, how long since he’s touched one.

Fyodor finds himself distracted by your body, the smoothness of your skin. His eyes travel over your legs, your hips, the fullness of your breasts and ignores how much he desires to let his thumb graze over your flesh. There is something so soft about you, so gentle and innocent.

Perhaps, that is where his fascination stems from: he has always been the opposite. Even in his human existence, Fyodor was not a kind man, and he doesn’t plan on becoming one now that he is dead.

He shakes away the vision, the thoughts that swirl within his mind. It has been far too long since he has experienced any sort of pleasure, and maybe even a man as cold as himself is not immune to the desires that course within his veins.

Though he tries to be. He ignores his arousal desperately in exchange for a renewed bloodlust.

You climb into bed, put your phone on the white cord, and shut your eyes. Thirty minutes later, you’re sleeping soundly, soft puffs of air leaving your lips as you sleep.

It’s the opportune moment. The silver knife gleams brightly in his hand, streaks of moonlight tracing over the slanted point. It’s the same blade he’s killed every other new tenant with, their screams still echo in the halls like a harmonious melody each time he bring the knife down on another unknowing victim.

He stands before you at the side of the bed, watches as your chest rises and falls, the evidence of your life undeniable. You are a lovely image like this, something to be painted and adored; more beautiful than many of the women he’d met in his time, even those who were of the finest elite in the country.

Fyodor presses the blade to your throat, contemplative. He considers how much lovelier you will look with the scarlet stain of blood seeping down your neck, spraying across the room and ruining the fresh sheets. Will you awaken, gasping as you claw at your throat, or will you drift away without even understanding what has become of you?

He pictures it, and digs the blade close to your throat, nothing more than a pinprick of blood flowering there.

You don’t awaken; but you a little sound leaves you, something between a gasp and a moan, and you shift away from the knife gripped between his pale fingers. It’s a sound that has him pausing, musing, as he regards your vulnerable state, a beautiful figure there with no clue that such a murderous man is also a resident in her home.

You make another one of those pretty noises in your throat, and Fyodor, against two centuries of murderous intent, pulls the knife away. He watches as you roll on your stomach, your shirt scrunching, moving up your body to reveal the undersides of your breasts. Your hand shifts towards him on the bed, reaching in his direction, before you still. Then, your breathing is back to normal, evened out completely.

Your lips part blissfully as you sigh in your sleep.

He can’t stop looking at you, can’t stop wondering what his name would sound like leaving the perfect swell of your mouth, if you’d sound just as pretty when you orgasm as you do when you’re asleep.

Surely, he can find a better use for you—it would be a shame for such a pretty thing to go out so early.

As he draws back, Fyodor notices the chess board on the side table, the pieces arranged nicely, each on the correct square. He can’t tell if you play. You could just have it for decoration, or perhaps it was a gift given to you from a lover that he hasn’t seen pictures of, the one that he’s certain someone as lovely as you must have.

The board is aged; not as old as the one in the drawing room, but a nice set, nonetheless. Fyodor glances back at your sleeping form once more, smiles coolly to himself, and shifts a pawn forward.

The chess piece is the first thing you notice in the morning.

It’s almost ridiculous how easily it catches your eye, a tiny little movement within the chaos that was your brand-new room. A pawn is on a different square, leering at you from the other wall, as if smiling, a flashing sign above its head, calling to you, hoping you’ll pay attention.

You almost think nothing of it; things can move, can’t they? Perhaps there was a shift in the earth overnight… Though, that makes little sense when you think about it rationally.

It’s strange, that much is certain. You remember the realtor telling you about the ghosts, and though you aren’t inclined to believe in haunted houses and scary stories, you find a part of yourself questioning the logic of the chess piece.

You are certain it was on the correct square before you slept.

It’s the only thing on your mind as you get ready, suffer through a tasteless breakfast, and throw on a rain jacket to combat the dreary weather. You’re meeting a friend for lunch—the only friend you have in this town. Sigma is the sole reason you decided to move here, instead of the other arbitrary cities that you’d been desperate to escape to.

Still, the board won’t leave your mind. You take one last glance at it before, on a whim, pushing the opposite color pawn forward as well.

Then you leave, hoping that a conversation with your friend will take your mind off the strangeness of that happenstance, the anxiety you feel about moving to a new place, a new job where no one knows you, a home that stays cold, despite the heat that reigns with long summers.

The walk to the cafe is short, but with the wind and the drizzling rain, you are miserable, your hands wrinkling from the dampness, even within your pockets.

Sigma is waiting for you, his lavender and white hair loose over his shoulders as he peruses the menu, eyes darting across it like he’s never read it before.

You sit, offer him a greeting, and though your conversation is cordial, the two of you catching up on your day, you eventually ask the question you’ve been dying to know.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Sigma stops, puts the utensil back down on his plate, and regards you with a thin frown. “Did something happen?”

You think of the chess piece, wonder if another will be moved when you get home. “No, but—”

“I told you not to move into that house,” he says, eyes narrowing. Sigma refuses to step into that mansion, grows anxious every time you mention it. “Over ten people have died there. Do you want to get murdered?”

“No particularly,” you say, staring at him flatly, your mouth pulling into a line. “But I’ve made it one night already. I’ll be fine.”

A hard laugh leaves him, as he shakes his head, unamused by your cheekiness. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it? Then they all die.”

“Very dramatic.” You take a long sip of your water. Sigma’s features don’t crack in the slightest as he stares at you, waiting for you to continue. “I’m not scared. I just want to know if you believe in ghosts or not… Because I don’t.”

Sigma’s eyes flit across your face, searching for any hint of a lie, for any signs of fear. When he finds none, his hands stretch across the table, lacing them together as he glares. “Whether you believe in ghosts or not doesn’t matter. There’s something evil about that house, and you’re putting yourself in danger by living there.”

The conversation with Sigma weighs on your mind for hours after, when you return home, still thinking about the chess board. It was just as you’d left it, two pawns moved forward, staring each other down menacingly. Nothing out of the ordinary.

You sigh and finally put it out of your mind. It was just a coincidence, that’s all. The piece was probably on the wrong square all along, and you’d been too tired last night to notice it.

Instead, you focus your sights on unpacking, and contemplate what to do with the portrait hanging above the mantel.

It’s a dusty old thing, one that the previous owners had, for some reason, never taken down. It had hung over the mantel for centuries, the corners faded from the sun, but the sinister grin of the subject never losing its effect.

You tilt your head, stare at it from a different angle. Looking at it that way, you could, perhaps, see why the painting appealed to them. It’s old, with a style from a different century, and the man composed of deep shadows and pale colors is undeniably handsome. He seems out of place in the portrait, trapped there, too otherworldly to be captured on such a canvas. His features are sharp, molded out of something tougher than diamonds, something more beautiful than this plane is able to comprehend. His deep eyes seem to know all as they stare at you, trace you across the room.

For minutes, you are hypnotized, before a wave of disgust washes over you, and you turn away, unable to look at it any longer. You’ll sell it, you decide. Maybe it will be worth a pretty penny.

That evening, you decide to look into it, but the search into a local art dealer doesn’t get far. When you sit down at your laptop, beginning to type your question into the browser, the lid shuts on your fingertips.

It takes a moment for you to register what had happened. A faint sting dances along the back of your hands, your knuckles tender as you lift the lid back up. Lines bounce along the screen, as if the imprint of your hand had made its way into the pixels, matching the pulse of your nerves.

You curse lowly, hoping that a reset will fix the issue.

The lid had just fallen, nothing serious. It was a newer model, but those things could happen. Issues with the manufacturing, with the way it was assembled. Technology fails you all the time.

You hold the power button, irritated, and upset, when a horrible, screeching noise echoes from the computer. Nothing but a shrill scream, the speakers begging you for help. You slam it shut once more, and the noise stops, but your heartbeat doesn’t slow down.

Shit.

Tomorrow, you’ll have to take it in, and see if anyone can discern the issues. It’s not ideal, but there’s so many things to still need to do, and a broken laptop makes those things very difficult.

You sigh, pushing the chair back into the table. The portrait looms above you as you retreat back to your room, hands shaking. It’s irrational, you know it is, but you swear his eyes follow you all the way up the stairs.

It doesn’t take long for you to start believing in the ghost that is haunting your manor, the one who has let you live for a week and who plays a new game of chess every time your back is turned. Whoever it is, they are much better than you; so far, you’ve lost twice—haven’t even gotten close to winning.

He hides things from you, items that you are needing for the next day, papers that you can’t submit to work on time because the important files have been stashed away.

You find your books opened to paragraphs the ghost seemingly finds interesting, your sheet music scattered in a mess when you return. The candles get blown out unexpectedly, and doors slam when you’re not suspecting it.

If he’s trying to scare you—it isn’t working. You remain in the house, sometimes talking to him like he’s a friend, whispering amongst the walls that know all of the secrets in your home.

You stop at the library on your free weekend, flipping through a dusty copy of the local legends, only stopping when you find your home. There’s a copy of the painting there—your painting, the one that still hangs above your mantel, despite your better judgment.

Beside it, there’s a painting of your home, done when the house was first built. The outside of it is a differently color entirely, the garden in front blooming with pink and yellow flowers. It looks cheerful; the home of a warm and loving family, inviting and kind to each of the neighborhood children. Nothing like the dark manor it is today, with a dead garden in the front and shutters that keep even an ounce of light out.

You read the pages proceeding the painting. The first owner had been a kind man, but the next were not such. After the original owner lost his wealth, he sold the house, passed it to a line of greedy men, ones that were focused only on their money. For a century, it went on this way—until a man named Fyodor Dostoevsky purchased the home for twice as much as it once was.

He was the one who changed it, renovated it, upgraded it to his own personal style, ensuring that it fit in with the times and his own opinions of luxury. Fyodor was charming, but ruthless, deadly with his own intelligence, owning half the town as they lost their money to his schemes.

Fyodor’s rein came to an end when he was poisoned by his closest friend, perhaps the one man he had trusted. It was the first murder in a string of ones to follow within the house.

You close the book, unsure if you regret the knowledge you’d gained or not.

The house feels colder now that you know the history of it. As if you can see the cruelty etched into every wall. Colors of the home bleed into each other, a pastel yellow of warmth and light, and the next room empty, almost uninhabitable, with its royal purples.

You stare at the portrait as you make dinner, feeling like you can never escape the gaze of those oil painted eyes. He has a name now—Fyodor. It feels even more disarming now that you know more about him than he’ll ever know about you.

And though Fyodor watches you, every night, from every angle, you convince yourself it’s just the way that the painting is situated. It would be foolish to think that he’s really watching every move you make, irises pinned on your form, unblinking.

The oven heats up behind you as you cut up your food, humming a soft tune to yourself. It’s getting hotter outside – you’d almost forgotten how miserable the summers could be. You forget every year, even though you’ve lived many.

Just as you’re getting lost in your thoughts, going through a list of things that need to get done in your fixer-upper home, you hear a scratch behind you.

It’s a quick sound, so quick that you almost think it was only your imagination. It’s enough to give you pause, your humming fading out into the night as your eyes dart around your house. Although you’ve tried not to let urban legends get the best of you, you’re paranoid in this aged mansion now.

A few seconds pass. You listen to the sound of your own heartrate, feel it pounding in your chest as you will it to calm down. It’s just enough time for you to convince yourself that it was nothing, that you’re far too nervous about silly ghosts to think rationally.

Though as you turn, a knife flies from the counter, just grazing your cheek, but enough to cause a scratch to open up against the skin. Your finger draws away scarlet as you press it to the wound, staring at the painted crevices of your fingertip.

You can’t move. Despite every cell in your body begging, screaming at you to move, you’re frozen, trapped in the four walls of that kitchen as you stare at your bloodied hand.

It’s all a dream, you repeat to yourself. A dream.

One that you don’t wake up from.

Time passes strangely, when every muscle in your body is on edge, your head pounding from the anxiety that spikes throughout your nervous system. A bead of sweat drips from your temple, and though you aren’t sure how long you stand there, nothing else happens. The knife remains lodged in the wall behind you, and the ghost makes no other attempt to lodge one into your stomach.

It’s quiet. There’s no noise, save for the music that plays softly from your phone.

After you regain control of your racing heartrate, you realize that the song playing isn’t what you’d put on originally. It had switched to a gentle, classical piece. Tchaikovsky, you think… or something similar. Something that a man from a different era would be familiar with.

“Who’s there?” You find yourself saying, perhaps stupidly. “What do you want?”

There’s no response – of course there isn’t. You’re talking to the air. To a ghost. No one had gotten inside the house. You’d checked more than enough times, just as you always did.

“I live here now,” you offer, thinking that, perhaps anger is not the best course of action. Neither is fear, though, if the scary movies you’d watched as a teenager had been any indication. “But I’ll leave, if you want me to.”

There’s no answer to that either.

You sigh, and deflate once more, trying to make yourself believe that there was a logical explanation to knives flying and playlists changing. Just as you’d made yourself believe that everything the “ghost” had done before was just a game, innocently played.

Perhaps, there was never a ghost at all. It could be that stress is driving you to insanity.

With a glass of wine in your hand, you finish up dinner, feeling like you are at your wit’s end. How is it that only a few weeks in this house has already singed your mind, turned you into a believer of things that you are not?

The portrait feels like an omen, staring at you with violet eyes, as you wonder where Fyodor is now. Does he watch you when your home, cooking, as you shower, a vicious gaze tracing over each curve of your body, with a sickening thought of all the things he wishes to do to you?

You shiver. It’ s been a while since anyone’s looked at you with a hint of desire. The feeling has become foreign, now, but you can still recall the gratification that comes with being wanted, how it makes you feel, if only for a moment, comfortable in your own skin.

That thought alone quickly snaps you out of your irrational behavior. Thinking of a ghost wanting you? A man that had been buried in the earth for so long that his body would be nothing more than bones?

This house was making you sick, you concluded, wrapping your leftovers up in plastic and tinfoil, placing them in the fridge. Your nervous friend was right – you never should’ve moved into this house, and you never should have stayed this long.

Your hands shook along the banister, heart racing around every corner. You expected that, maybe, you would see a dark-haired spirit there, his body translucent, but still corporeal. Though, there was no spirit hiding within the depths of the shadows, lurking in the places where he still belonged. No sounds startled you, caused you to jump as you brushed your teeth, completed the one last routine of your day.

The bed was colder than usual as you climbed into it, like a flush of a cold spot had settled within the sheets. You remembered what they said about temperatures and ghosts—how they changed, nothing able to survive in the places that they haunted, as they were not of this world, but something in between, something unnatural.

Your lamp flickers as you turn it on, and it’s just one more red flag you choose to ignore. In houses as old as this one, there are issues like that. The wiring is faulty, the electric needs to be monitored, a laundry list of items you will probably never resolve.

There are a thousand rational conclusions, though, and only one irrational one, which puts your mind at ease. Things like flickering lamps and cold spots can be explained simply, even if knives flying at your face cannot.

Still, you settle into bed, deciding that you will talk to the realtor again soon. You’ll move in with Sigma if he’ll have you. Anything to put your mind at ease for good.

That night, you dream of Fyodor, as if he is there right in the room with you, looming above you with those deep, violent eyes. His fingers, long and pale, trace across your cheekbones, as your eyes flutter open, consciousness coming back to you.

He says your name – it’s no surprise he knows it, after living with you for so long. It’s spoken softly, with a hint of possession behind it, like you belong to him. And yet, you’ve never said a word to him, even if all this time, he’s gotten to know you better than anyone else ever has.

You expect a scream to leave your throat, some hint of surprise, of fear, even, to see a stranger in your bedroom. To see him watching you with those familiar eyes, hair falling over his pale forehead as he gazes down at you from the edge of the bed.

No sound emerges.

Your mind feels a little fuzzy, hazy at the edges as you blink at him, closer to a state of intoxication, than you are alertness. Despite that awareness, you can’t seem to snap out of it; maybe you don’t want to. Instead, you sink deeper into the warmth, the honeyed feeling that comes with turning off your rationality. Everything feels as if it’s coming through in blurred, rosy glasses.

“Fyodor,” you mouth, instead of the scream that you’d anticipated, his name coming out in two wistful syllables.

You should hate him – there’s something in your instincts pushing back at you. A flash of a knife, the days of chaos and uncertainty, where you were sure you were losing your mind, come back at you.

But none of that seems to matter now, as you trace your finger across his cheek, feeling the sharp indent below the high bone. His eyelashes are a shade lighter than his hair, soft as they flutter over his forehead. The portrait of him didn’t do him justice… or perhaps, it is in death that he has found his purest form.

“I’m too tired.”

You’re not sure where those words even come from. Calm, like this is nothing but routine, and waking up with Fyodor beside you is the closest thing to normalcy.

He smiles at you, leaning over you again on the bed, lips pulled tightly together in a morbid grin. It does little to sour your mood, to scare you into action, even if you can’t quite understand why.

“I know,” he replies.

It’s the first time you’ve heard him speak, a deep, accented sound smoothing against your ears as he traces his gaze against each of your features; musical, almost. His voice calms you, lulls you back into a meditative state.

You reach for him, in a trance, and twirl a strand of his hair between your finger, just to see if he’d let you. After the hell you’d been through the past week, well – was it really that miserable? He seems content to watch over you, observe the gentle movements of his dark hair coiled up around your pointer finger.

“Why are you here?” you ask, your voice softer than a whisper, carried away by the wind until it never existed at all.

Fyodor never disappears from your line of sight, even when you try to blink, to close your eyes. He’s there, gazing at you with a lustful fondness, one that’s dangerous, perhaps even malicious. If it’s a dream, it sure feels like a vivid one.

“You wanted to leave,” he says, taking your finger away from his face, before bringing it to his lips. The kiss is barely there, and his mouth is cold, chapped, from the brutality of the afterlife. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Hm?” You try to sit up. It takes more effort than it should’ve – you’re so relaxed, so weak, that you fall back down, letting yourself sink into the plushness of the pillow. “Why?”

Fyodor releases your hand, before touching his own finger to your mouth. It’s slender, like a piece of ice, gently parting your lips before grazing your chin, hovering over your neck. Then, he drops his touch to your collarbone. He stakes a claim on every inch of your skin, pausing as he reaches your chest, still covered by the blankets.

Your clothing is thin – it wouldn’t take much effort to get his cool hands on your bare skin. But he refrains, still smiling before answering your question, tucking his hands together onto his lap. “It’s been so long.”

It doesn’t make sense, but you can’t muster up the effort to question him, not when he’s contemplating every word, like he’s hesitant to scare you away. You let him think, watch him ponder, as you stare, too exhausted to move a muscle.

“I thought you’d be like all the rest,” he says, taking a seat next to you on the bed, nearly touching your hip. “They were nothing but filth, stains in these halls. It’s a crime for them to ever think that they belonged here. In my home.”

You blink. “It’s my home, too,” you say, suddenly filled with an immense amount of dread. It crawls up your neck, chokes you, and nothing leaves you but garbled sounds, as you panic.

Fyodor doesn’t move – there is no twitch in his features, as he watches you with disguised adoration, a kind you didn’t think a ghost capable of revealing. “Of course it is, darling,” he says, so softly, it could’ve been mistaken for kindness. Fyodor leans down, presses his cold, dead lips to your cheek, a kiss of death. “That’s why I couldn’t let you leave. It’s your home. You belong here.”

“Right,” you breath, steadying yourself, before nodding. “My home.” Once more, you gaze around the room, your eyes flicking over every surface. Things are exactly as you’d left them, nothing out of place. “With you?”

The ghost smiles, and reaches out to you, finally helping you into a seated position. Your neck is so stiff, in pain, and you roll it around, feeling nothing there when you expect shifting bones. “With me,” Fyodor confirms, running his icy fingertips across your throat, tangling them with your hair.

He leans into you, pressing a lingering kiss to your mouth, one that catches you off balance, before you accept it with an eagerness that surprises you further. It doesn’t feel unfamiliar, instead, it’s as if you’re coming home, like the man you’ve never seen until now was always meant to find you.

A thought that should’ve scared you, even though it doesn’t.

Fyodor pulls away, right as you begin to shift forward, maneuver yourself onto his lap. “You should rest,” he replies, keeping you at a distance. “It might take some time to adjust.”

“Hm? What do you mean?” you blink, holding onto his wrist as your gaze shifts from his impossibly dark eyes to the mirror across the room.

There, in the darkness of the evening, shrouded in moonlight, you can see your reflection staring back at you, eyes vacant, lifeless. You expect to see yourself as nothing but exhausted, but when you draw your gaze across the image of yourself, there is blood seeping from your neck, a stream of scarlet. There is thick gash across your throat, slashed so deep that it would’ve killed you instantly.

The expression on your face shifts from one of calm to horror, as you scrape at your neck, trying to clear off the blood that isn’t really there, the permanent wound that will follow you even into your death.

“What did you do?” you scream, tears rolling down your cheeks, even though you can’t feel them, can only see them in the mirror. “What did you do to me?”

Fyodor smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. Though you fight against him, he takes you into his arms, and you are too weak to fight him off. “I told you,” Fyodor says, shushing you, running his palm over your head as you scream. “I couldn’t let you leave.”

thank you for reading !

[allthemeniveloved]

Too Sweet - Sequel to Cradle

Summary: Arthur wears his daughter’s flower crown into town, showing his love and care without hesitation.

wc: 1,415

ao3 link, part 1

a/n: Inspired by @scarletlove2's comment!

The soft coos of your baby girl filled the cabin as dawn broke over the horizon, golden light filtering through the curtains. Arthur was already awake, sitting by the hearth with her cradled in his arms. His eyes were tired, shadows darkening the space beneath them, but his expression was peaceful. Content.

You watched them from the bed, a quiet smile playing on your lips as Arthur rocked her gently. His large, calloused hand dwarfed her tiny body, but his movements were impossibly delicate. He hummed an old tune, one you recognized from the gang’s nights around the fire, and though his voice was rough, it carried a soothing rhythm that made you want to drift back to sleep.

“You’re up early,” you said softly, sitting up and wrapping a shawl around your shoulders.

Arthur glanced at you, his lips curving into a small smile. “She woke up hungry,” he said, nodding toward the empty bottle on the small table beside him. “Didn’t wanna wake you. Figured you deserved some rest.”

You stood and crossed the room, leaning down to press a kiss to his scruffy cheek. “You deserve some rest, too, Arthur. You’ve been running yourself ragged.”

He shook his head, his gaze dropping back to the baby in his arms. “I’m alright. Can’t seem to sleep much anyhow. Every time I close my eyes, I think about… things.” He hesitated, his voice growing quieter. “What kinda world she’s gonna grow up in. What I’ve gotta do to make sure it’s good enough for her.”

Your heart ached at the weight in his words, the unspoken fears that lingered behind them. You knelt beside him, resting your hand on his arm. “You’re already doing it, Arthur. Just by being here. By loving her.”

He didn’t answer right away, his thumb brushing over your daughter’s tiny hand as she squirmed against his chest. “She deserves better than this life. Better than runnin’ and hidin’. She deserves a home.”

You nodded, your own thoughts echoing his. Life with the gang wasn’t what you wanted for her—or for yourselves. The danger, the uncertainty, the endless cycle of violence and survival—it wasn’t a life you could bear to raise her in.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” you admitted quietly. “About leaving.”

Arthur’s head snapped up, his blue eyes locking onto yours. “Leavin’? You mean… for good?”

“Yes.” You held his gaze, your voice steady. “I know it’s dangerous, and I know Dutch would never let us go easy, but… we can’t keep doing this, Arthur. Not with her. She needs stability. She needs to grow up somewhere she can be safe.”

He was quiet for a long moment, his brows furrowed in thought. You could see the conflict in his eyes—the pull of loyalty to the gang warring with the deep, unshakable love he had for his daughter. For you.

“You’re right,” he said finally, his voice heavy but resolute. “I’ve been thinkin’ the same. Just didn’t know how to say it.”

Relief flooded through you, and you leaned your head against his shoulder, closing your eyes. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

Arthur sighed, his free arm wrapping around you to pull you closer. For a moment, the three of you were wrapped in a quiet bubble of warmth, the weight of the world outside held at bay.

“I’ll talk to Charles,” Arthur said after a while, his voice thoughtful. “He’s good at coverin’ tracks, and he’ll keep quiet. We’ll need supplies, horses… somewhere to go.”

You nodded. “We’ll find a place. Somewhere far from here.”

Arthur looked down at the baby, her tiny hand clutching his finger in her sleep. His jaw tightened, and you could see the determination harden in his expression.

“I ain’t lettin’ anything happen to her,” he said firmly. “Or to you. We’re gettin’ outta this, and we’re gonna give her the life she deserves.”

You believed him. Arthur had always been a man of action, and now that he had a purpose that went beyond survival, you knew he wouldn’t stop until he’d seen it through.

The sun climbed higher in the sky, bathing the cabin in warm light. Your daughter stirred, her little eyes fluttering open as she let out a soft cry. Arthur stood, handing her carefully to you.

“Guess she’s hungry again,” he said with a small chuckle.

You smiled, holding her close. “You go rest, Arthur. I’ve got her.”

He hesitated, his protective instincts warring with his exhaustion, but finally he nodded. “Alright. Wake me if you need me.”

As he climbed into the cot and closed his eyes, you sat by the fire with your daughter, the weight of the coming changes heavy but hopeful in the air. The road ahead wouldn’t be easy, but with Arthur by your side, you knew you could face it.

-

The morning sun spilled golden light over the wildflower-dotted meadow just beyond the small homestead you and Arthur had built. Your six-year-old daughter, Sarah, was kneeling in the grass, her little hands busy weaving a crown from the flowers she’d been gathering all morning. Arthur sat nearby, his long legs stretched out and his back propped against a tree, watching her with a smile that softened his rugged features.

“You about done there, little miss?” Arthur teased, tipping his hat back to get a better look at her handiwork.

“Not yet, Papa!” Sarah said, her small tongue peeking out in concentration as she tied a daisy stem into place. “You gotta be patient.”

Arthur chuckled, leaning his head back against the tree. “Patience, huh? You sure you didn’t learn that from your ma?”

You smiled from the porch, where you were sitting with a cup of coffee, watching the scene unfold. Sarah had Arthur wrapped around her little finger, and you both knew it.

Finally, Sarah stood, holding the flower crown aloft like it was a treasure. She marched over to Arthur with a triumphant grin. “Okay, Papa! All done!”

Arthur sat up straight, his grin widening as she climbed into his lap and carefully placed the crown on his head. It sat crooked, teetering on his messy hair, but she clapped her hands in delight.

“There!” she declared. “Now you’re a king!”

Arthur laughed, the sound deep and genuine. “A king, huh? Well, I reckon I couldn’t ask for a better crown.”

“You have to wear it into town!” Sarah said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “So everyone knows you’re a flower king.”

Arthur raised a brow but didn’t hesitate. “Alright, if that’s what my princess wants.”

You nearly choked on your coffee. “Arthur, you’re really gonna wear that into town?”

He shrugged, his expression as relaxed as ever. “Why not? Ain’t nobody’s business what I wear.”

Sarah beamed, throwing her arms around his neck. “You’re the best, Papa!”

Later that afternoon, the three of you made the trip into town, Sarah skipping happily beside Arthur while he strode confidently through the dusty streets, flower crown still perched on his head. People turned to stare, some with bemused smiles, others with outright laughter. Arthur, however, didn’t so much as flinch.

“Mr. Morgan,” an elderly woman called from her rocking chair on a porch. “That’s quite the look you’re sportin’ today.”

Arthur tipped his hat—well, the flower crown—at her with a grin. “Why, thank you kindly, ma’am. My little girl made it for me. Ain’t it somethin’?”

The woman chuckled, waving him off. “You’re a good father, Arthur.”

Sarah giggled, tugging at his hand. “See, Papa? Everyone loves it!”

You walked a step behind them, your heart full as you watched the easy way Arthur carried himself, unbothered by the stares or whispers. For all his gruffness and rough edges, he’d become the kind of father you’d always dreamed he’d be: patient, loving, and willing to wear a flower crown in public if it made his daughter smile.

When the errands were done, and the three of you made your way back home, Sarah sat on the wagon seat between you and Arthur, her little hands busy weaving another crown. She looked up at him, her eyes full of admiration.

“You’re the best king ever, Papa,” she said.

Arthur looked down at her, his blue eyes soft. “And you’re the best little princess a man could ask for, I reckon.”

As the wagon rolled on, laughter and love filled the air, and the flower crown stayed on Arthur’s head until the sun dipped below the horizon.

꧁✰꧂꧁✰꧂꧁✰꧂꧁✰꧂꧁✰꧂꧁✰꧂꧁✰

a/n: I'm not very good at writing children's dialogue, my apologies! Hope you still enjoyed!

[chaoticgremelin]

It deeply annoys me when people complain about Neil's deal with Ichirou

Bitch, did you think they were gonna take down the FUCKING YAKUZA????!!!!

They aren't John Wick to face the whole crime world by themselfs neither friendship and love are gonna save the world

A handfull of gay disasters isn't going to take down an entire mafia empire with influence inside the literal FBI and come out alive to tell the tale

But mostly it annoys me because it shows a deep misunderstanding of the whole point: sometimes the best you can do is live, sometimes winning is just finding a way of living and not only surviving

They aren't gonna solve the world's problems, but they can find a way of claiming the love that they were denied all their lifes. They can find a way to heal and to learn to care and be cared for. And that will have to be enough

"BuT tHeY aRe FunDiNg CrImE"

Yeah, they are...and??? It is not their jobs to care about this.

Ichirou can pull strings inside the FBI. Neil states himself he knows one of the man in his interrogatory was with the Moriyamas. This means that the people whose jobs are exactly to care about this sort of thing are failling so miserably that they are uncapable of keeping the mafia out of their own ranks. And you are telling me Neil, Kevin and Jean should give a fuck????

Those kids have known nothing but abuse for almost their entire lifes. They are literally considered property. Neither of them has ever thought they would have a chance at being really happy. For them, all life would ever be was endless pain.

80% of their future money going towards an organization that would exist just fine without it is a very small price to pay for a chance to have all that they once thought was impossible

This isn't a cheesy novel about noble heroes bringing down an evil empire (if you wanna see that, go read Harry Potter). This is a book about broken youth, with their sharp edges and hardened hearts, learning how to love and care. Learning how to heal. And for people like them, there is no space for caring for the whole world or caring for righteousness. For people like them being able to scape this never ending cycle of pain and violence is already as much of a victory as they will ever get

In life sometimes that's it. Sometimes all you can do is care for you and for yours. And it is fine. Not always we have the power or emotional energy and capability to turn the tables and change the game. Sometimes you just play along and get happy you got to other side in one piece

Sometimes the best you are gonna be able to do in your whole day is get out of bed and eat some crackers. And it is fine

Revolution also happens in the small things. Caring in a world that has only ever shown you pain and brutality is a form of revolution. No need to tear down empires all by yourself. Sometimes that's not a possibility. Actually, most of the times that's not a possibility

And it is fine

There is no shame in choosing your own peace after all you have ever known was storm and war

[themothwhisperer]

Amongst the actually intelligent criticism I read about The Last of Us Season 2, there is a comment that emerges a lot. It’s based on the idea that the game makes revenge very easy to fall into as the player. The acts of violence are, in a way, easier to accept and fully commit to (initially, with Ellie’s POV at least). This all justifies Ellie a lot more in Part II since the whole journey is validated and solidified. It obviously collapses with time, but at first we are totally following Ellie’s plan, no question asked.

On the other side, Season 2 sort of makes things very shaky early on. The characters are generally more uncertain about what’s happening (starting in Jackson). Abby is presented under a clearer light from the very beginning. Ellie is more flawed in a way, leaving room for other characters to shine and breathe alongside her. Ellie is also more emotional and clueless (in my opinion, this is more realistic since 19 y/o kids are usually quite immature still). There are some contradictions that make us doubt Ellie’s actions and motives on a regular basis. As an audience, we feel super unsure with every step and every decision that is taken.

So I do agree with the criticism. It’s entirely true that the game places revenge at the center. We fall into the trap. Being intimately invested with the controller in hands, it is a great decision to be hit in the face later on with the lessons on the endless cycle of violence. It makes us feel bad with the things we kind of also did as active players. I get that.

But here, with a TV show, we are a passive audience. For very obvious reasons, Ellie cannot embark into the mad bloodbath she is committed to in the game as a way to elevate her rage; it would simply be completely unrealistic for one human being to kill so many trained people without taking any significant damage whatsoever. So no, that’s obviously not working. From the start, they had to make Ellie feel more human, more relatable and more realistic. And surprise, surprise! A real human being is flawed and ridden with weaknesses. Especially a very young one who’s wounded with trauma. That’s Ellie.

And it’s actually a realistic portrayal for a young adult that sincerely doesn’t know how to deal with an extreme and uniquely tragic situation. Bella Ramsey is doing a wonderful job at presenting that complexity. In the game, sometimes it felt like Ellie was born ready for this moment. The creators are actually trying to fix some issues that were unfortunately misunderstood by some people. By balancing both Ellie and Abby. Because the other massive aspect to consider about this story is how they share the main role. Part II is about BOTH Ellie and Abby. We need to doubt Ellie to a certain degree and to see some truth in Abby’s journey as we discover who she truly is. As players, we had once again the controller in hands and some people insisted on hating Abby even when the credits were rolling at the very end. Some people never got the point of this entire story anyways! In my opinion, they’re also changing things up for that exact reason.

Ellie does react weirdly. She’s wrong sometimes and she’s not as confident as she was in the game. But so what? Does she have to be? Is it that much of an issue how she shared the spotlight with Dina for a while? How she needs that support? Is it unfair for Jesse to accuse her of all their misery? Are her motivations wrong? Who is selfish and who is not? Who is the better person? All valid questions. Every character is far from perfect, just like real humans. People fuck up and pay for it. This is what The Last of Us is all about. Being cruel and seeking violence will always have a cost. She’s a kid and this is enormous. This loss, this pain, it’s all bigger than her. It goes beyond her comprehension and sense of logic. Of course, she will fuck up and nothing about it is going to be pretty. Mel’s death being the cherry on top for me. Absolutely atrocious and tragic. Much more impactful than it was in the game. It’s a point of no return for the audience and it definitely breaks something in Ellie too. THIS is what happens when the choice is revenge over forgiveness. THIS is what happens when the actions aim to harm. THIS is what happens when rage is blinding. Things can get out of hand really quickly.

All of this to say that I don’t hate the fact that the revenge is not as justified in the show. That it all feels more useless and stupid. Because it is! There is no trophy at the end of the line. This is a fight that cannot be won. The mistakes are bleeding through already. Nobody will feel better whether they exit at the other end of the tunnel or not. The desperation is palpable. Abby will feel the consequences too. It’s fair play here. No one is entirely wrong or right. There is no character to hate or love unconditionally here. This is a very human learning experience about forgiveness, love, helplessness, mistakes and pain.

[sorry-not-feeling-it-right-now]

Thinking about Stubborn and Oppy

So like. They’re quite similar to each other. But also very different. You’ll hear that a lot when I’m comparing the voices together. Both of them wants to like. “Get to the top” in some regard. Stubborn in overpowering the other, while Oppy wants to get to the top of the pecking order. They would want to “get to the top” in very different ways.

For Stubborn it’s through hard work and through a more “smash it until you get there” technique. He loves a challenge, and he would rather not take it lying down.

For Oppy it’s through lying and cheating his way up the ladder. He is also very lazy, and would rather let others do all the hard work for him before snatching their victory away for himself. I hate him.

Stubborn focuses more on the physical and willpower aspect of “getting to the top”, while Oppy focuses more on the socially and power part of it. Hell, their mirror princesses reflects that part of themselves, with how you get the vessels being locking in with them in an endless cycle of violence/betrayal. And they are really happy about that it seems.

And funny thing is(not actually funny but. listen.) both of them had expressed distaste towards Broken. Stubborn dislikes him because, from his perspective, Broken is just giving up without even putting up a fight. Oppy hates Broken because, paraphrasing his words here, doesn’t have any dignity for himself. Both of them dislike Broken because they think Broken had already given up the fight even before it had even begun.

Which I think explains their difference in perspective in MOC. Oppy had already decided that, socially speaking, there is no other way to get around Clarity aside from doing what she says because she is the top of the pecking order. She has the most power, so might as well become her lackey to make things slightly better for us. In their words, they’re tried literally everything, so Oppy must have concluded that she is a power that he does not want to mess with. So might as well fawn over her.

Stubborn, on the other hand, still wants to overpower her in a physical manner, whether it’s by trapping her forever or just fighting her. Just anything. The body is still standing, therefore they have to keep going, even though the mind and the will had already withered away. Which is probably why Stubborn is acting so irritable in the route. He needs to keep going, but the fire inside of him is dwindling, and it had already dwindled even. He needs something to punch and smash, hopefully to reignite whatever was lost in those loops.

Interestingly enough, despite having your will stripped away from you in MOC, you also have the option to not go to the cabin. That is probably the only choice you have aside from the inevitable. In a way, you had overpowered the Princess through this action, and hence keeping her trapped in there. This might be part of Stubborn’s doing, since out of everyone he seems to be the only one who still wants to overcome her despite how tired he is.

[thewisecheerio]

Elden Ring, Rejection of Authority, and Transcendentalism

Elden Ring rejects authority as a final solution to the ills of the world, and then offers a message of transcendental hope that such lowly creatures as ourselves might be able to effect real change.

Elden Ring's world is locked into a seemingly endless cycle of violence. No one—not the humanoids, nor the many demigods and gods—has been able to come up with a solution that would establish an everlasting peace.

Count Ymir points out one of the roots of the cycle, which repeats in character after character. He tells us that the Golden Order's system as a whole is rooted in evil, unhinged from the start. Marika and the Fingers—the "mothers" of the system—birthed it malformed from the very beginning:

I fear that you have borne witness to the whole of it. The Conceits - the hypocrisy - of the world built upon the Erdtree. The follies of men. Their bitter suffering. Is there no hope for redemption? The answer, sadly, is clear. There never was any hope. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Marika herself. And the fingers that guided her. And this is what troubles me. No matter our efforts if the roots are rotten, then we have little recourse.

Ymir also laments a similar situation with his son, in which he takes the blame for his son's malformation:

Forgive me, I failed to birth you whole, I failed to be your mother. For now, my dear, sleep soundly.

In both cases, we see him blaming the parent for the malformation of their children.

Ymir says separately that without a "true mother", how are we to flourish?

We all need a mother, do we not? A new mother, a true mother, who will not give birth to further malady.

So using these dialogue together, we can see that he believes that children can only flourish with good guidance from a mother figure, and that conversely children (and systems) birthed of a rotten mother will only continue to do harm when their creators set them up to be harmful from the start.

We see the same theme repeat with Metyr, daughter of the Greater Will. She is abandoned and left without its guidance, according to the Staff of the Great Beyond:

The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come.

We know that 1) the Fingers she birthed were rotten from the start (from the first block quote) and 2) Ymir's supposes that all of us are left floundering without a parent's guidance. We can then surmise that Metyr waiting on guidance from the Greater Will and never receiving it—while simultaneously refusing to change course and seek guidance within herself or another source—led to this malformation of her children. She kept doing the same thing she'd been doing since last hearing from the Greater Will, and that refusal to change course in the absence of guidance was her downfall.

We see this same cycle of abandonment and refusal to change course repeat with Messmer. An NPC spirit's dialogue begs Marika to come collect her abandoned child, presumably Messmer, to put an end to the violence he is doing—as if his violence might be ended by intervention from an authority he respects. But originally set on his genocidal course by his mother (see his armor set clothing tags), Messmer refuses to change course even after being abandoned, as he tells us:

My purpose standeth unchanged

and then proceeds to beat the ever-loving daylight out of us so that he can go back to spearing Hornsent. It's important to ask, "Why? Why must your purpose stand unchanged?" After all, he could simply end the genocide himself, disbanding the military forces that so respect him. But it's his refusal to do anything but act on the last command he received from his preferred authority figure—his mother—that ensures that his cycle of violence will continue.

So if all of the authority figures are truly rotten in Elden Ring, and those who rely on them end up making grave and violent mistakes, where then are we to turn?

The Mending Rune of Perfect Order might give us a clue:

A rune of transcendental ideology which will attempt to perfect the Golden Order. The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.

The Rune reminds us not to worship gods—or any authority figures—for they are just as fallible as the men who blindly follow them. It explicitly warns us against relying solely on guidance from authority to decide on what we think the right course is.

And so if we cannot rely on authority, where then do we turn?

I think the gameplay gives us two answers. After all, the only ones who can make actual change within the game world are 1) ourselves, and 2) our community, should we choose to summon other players for help. So instead of worshipping any authority figure, hoping that they will simply tell us what to do, we are forced to make decisions with our own and our community's input alone.

Elden Ring challenges you to think critically about what you and your community think is truly right and effective in any given situation. In this way, Elden Ring gives us a thoroughly transcendental message of hope, that such lowly creatures as ourselves and our community might remake the world to be better.

[simp-ly-writes]

Pinning Me Down

─────── · · A TDOTJ FanFic

Pairing: The Jackal x F!Reader

─ · · SUMMARY: You were a private investigator known as "Operator Grey" for working both sides of the table, police and the underground equally. You pull the strings to narratives to maintain work yet not everyone appears happy with your puppeteering work as an "admirer" of sorts has you watching your back while not knowing they already have it in sights.

─ · · TAGS: second person perspective used, female-pronouns used, enemies/rivals to lovers, fluff and angst, scenes of stalking, blood, violence, injury, guns, and obsessive behaviours, hurt/comfort, arguments, lying, HIGHLY SUGGESTIVE THEMES, kissing, the Jackal being a ultra charismatic mf, not beta read or edited.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 2,668

─ · · A/N: thank you for all the Jackal asks! I know its been a little while, still hope you guys want to read a Jackal fic!

─────── · ·

─ · · As a personal investigator and private operator for high profile clients your job was simple on the surface level; gather information with no questions asks and leave undetected with the evidence or blackmail your client requested and stare at the generous pay check afterwards before putting it to use.

─ · · People paid for how 'simple,' swift, and effective your operations appeared- always providing the results the client wanted (sometimes even needed) and you did not shy away from going above and beyond, disguising yourself while providing encrypted information, hacking into government servers, following your targets across boarders and seas without a sweat, and occasionally offering your friday night for a round of drinks with your favourite clientele (though before anyone got too touchy you would politely excuse yourself).

─ · · But that was just what your job appeared on the surface; a simple woman with a love for luxury that gained her wealth by blending into crowds and documenting evidence for deep pockets... the thing is... you didn't care for any 'side.'

─ · · Light or dark, the legal or illegal, you operated in the grey space as the "Grey Operator," or simple "Grey." Infiltrating and networking on the surface and all throughout the underground networks on a global scale.

─ · · Anytime anyone would come close to putting you behind bars, all spy agencies and police around the world knew you, knew that you helped them as much as the people they were chasing like a puppeteer pulling all the strings and slipping just enough information for the endless cycle of cat and mouse between criminals and cops.

─ · · Yet it appeared not everyone was too pleased with being "bossed" around as it appeared recently that all the targets you got requested to look over were 'sadly' deceased upon your arrival, a simple rose planted in each of their mouths, a letter in their hands always addressed to you- "Miss. Grey." Tearing open the paper, a dozen rose petals fall from the paper and one to two lines appear underneath. Some have a snarky remark or simple observation about your habits, others a clue for where they buried the information you needed in order to finish your mission.

─ · · Your chuckle at how they remove the 'operator title' from your ails and the way in which they boldly assume you're not married; it charms you as it equally infuriates you that someone is watching you in the same way you do for everyone else, simply pulling you along their intended trail with every new contract you receive and every corpse you discover.

─ · · But your humour did not last for long as your reputation was starting to take a hit. It was all fun and games to start as you observed the stack of letters by your bedside and the singular withered rose you had in a vase within your kitchen... but you did not want to be pulled along any longer.

─ · · So you took a new job, the last one your 'admirer' you tagged them to be had requested you take in order to continue to follow their trail. The catch though? You held no plans on carrying through with this mission, instead you went to a lab, tracing back the rose to its origins alongside the ink, paper, and writing-style used, anxiously waiting back for the results for a potential slip up.

─ · · You tapped your foot anxiously against the tile, eyes flickering between your watch and the clock on the wall, debating which one was running faster (both were timed the same) but it did well to somewhat calm your nerves.

─ · · Feeling increasingly restless, you unpinned your hair, sighing and ringing your fingers across your sore roots while circling the room. You picked up various test tubes and dada sheets left by the last worker within the space, nodding your head along before a 'ding!' had you dashing back across the room and eyeing the screen.

... INK: BRITIAN

PAPER: SPAIN

FLOWER: PORTUGAL

PRINTING: NOT IN DATABASE, ENTER RESULT? ...

─ · · Your brows furrow as you press your face closer to the screen in hopes of discovering a newfound answer within the code only to come back empty handed. The person who had been sending you these... 'gifts' had to be rich in order to buy the various materials and travel to plant them and by the meticulous craft of every shot between the eyes, you had already narrowed them down to being a sniper-of-sorts but they still leaved hundreds of possible candidates if not thousands...

"I'll be honest, I was disappointed you didn't even try and go see my newest gift," a man voice sounds from behind you making you still, gripping the edge of the table. You begin to tilt your head over your shoulder yet their stern tone stops any further movement, "Stay where you are, Miss. Grey and tell me the little image you have imagined me to be before seeing the real thing."

You let out a quick breath through your nose and roll your eyes at the ego of the man behind you. Standing up straight and smoothing out your shirt, you try and squint at the computer screen to catch their reflection. "I won't strain your eyes, love, only your mind, now tell me."

You humourlessly chuckle, "You won't 'strain my eyes-hm?' So a man of murder, ego, and vanity, quite the impressive and if I may say horrifically 'attractive' man I'm building an image of," you strike while rolling your shoulder back.

You listen as the man shuffles footsteps that clack against the tiles, dress shoes, once distant now appear closer, a chair scrapes against the floor before they've taken a seat behind you, "I will only admit to one of those sins. I'm afraid the other are abhorrently wrong, Miss. Grey. Do try again but this time, use more of your brain."

Slamming your fist against the table you are vibrating with anger as the comment slips in through your ears and to the front of your mind, clouding any rationally you were holding onto after being quite literally stalked for the past few months and watching as all your long-standing clients ran from you without another word, all because of this man, you think to yourself, scrunching up your nose before taking a deep breath- squeezing your eyes shut.

"Middle-aged male, European- most likely British descent from the accent yet sounds too forced to Birmingham slang making me think you're actually from London," you tease hearing man grunt but before he can send his come-back you are already speaking, "you had military experience, a marksman or sniper... leaning towards the latter by how well you disguise yourself. I would know you if you worked over the table so you're an underground operative and to know my connections you must be working for someone well-established... and with deep pockets," you conclude, "cleared to turn?"

"You are cleared," they reply, tone appearing to disregard how impressed the man was by how well you could read into him by what little evidence he gave.

Turning around you see a middle-aged man, head tilted up to observe you in a similar way you do him, from the shoes up until your eyes meet and you squint, "contacts and your nose is peeling," you whisper, biting your lip and taking another step forwards, one hand trailing behind yourself with nonchalance while in reality you were feeling for the cold metal of your weapon.

Seeing your little slide of hand you watch as the man raises an eyebrow, "no need to get violent, Miss. Grey. You wouldn't want to be hurting a grade school teacher now would you?" Your eyes narrow at the fake badge that dangles from his chest pocket, a cheery-fake smile with animals stickers cluttered around it. "Well, 'Mr. Richards', I highly doubt that you even have a formal education let alone are teaching a group of forty children when you spend your Friday afternoons in a lab with random women."

"You think yourself to be random?"

"No. But I will be in a moment."

"Is that so? Then why do I have you pinned to a room so easily?"

"You? Pinning me?" you giggle, taking a few steps back and starting to back up your gear, throwing the rose by his feet, observing how it crumbles across the white tiles, little red petals all splattered about like blood. "I would like to see you try," you tease before sharply darting out of the room hearing as the dash after you yet you know these halls like the back of your hand, dashing around a corner and bursting through a window you know to be able to fall through at a safe height into a pile of trash.

Standing up with a hull, rolling your ankle while looking up, you cast 'Mr. Richards,' a wink before walking off with the rush-hour crowd of those getting of work and sink into the subway system without a trace.

─────── · ·

─ · · You would like to say that was your last time running into said man yet he always found another way to you no matter where you seemed to turn or who you worked with... it was as if they were tracking your every move as you made it, that would be impossible though.. I've swapped phones at every stop and gotten all new passports.

─ · · The man, you know know to be as "The Jackal" in one of his recent entries to you still helped you with your work (as in doing it for you and offering you the entire pay check with his added 'gifts' again). You didn't know weather of not to feel disturbed anymore or intrigued to learn more as the notes became longer, the killing of your clients less frequent as he apologized for taking away your work while explaining he had his own jobs to fulfill in the past, and you with every city to ventured to, you thought to see his features pop up in the most crowded of places that made your heart race.

─ · · The Jackal would occasionally greet you in-person (of course when you least expected it). Take the club for instance when he ordered you a drink at the bar before spinning you for a dance and leaving at the sound of the next song like a mere figment of your imagination. How about that one time he waved you goodbye at the airport before boarding a separate flight or that time he acted as waitstaff to an event you were infiltrating.

You remember that night vividly, feeing as his longer slender fingers grabbed the coat from off your shoulders, draping it across his forearm before quickly leading you inside and into a discrete corner to offer some... advice? Before commenting on how beautiful the shade of blue made your complexion look and leaving before you could process his words and went back to hyper-focussing on your mission.

─ · · You hate to admit to yourself now how smoothy that mission ended up going with his feedback and escape plans and how well you both seemingly worked together like a seamless... effortless transition every time your paths would cross again. Just like to puzzle pieces falling together.

─ · · That once irritation now infatuation by how quickly he could rile you up with just a few words and how equally quickly he could calm you and crazily enough, you found yourself relaxing to his presence. Even looking forwards to it and waiting, hoping for the random face in a crowd to be his... you felt pathetic by how fast your heart was running before your brain. Any initial concern going out the window when the moment he complimented your work so earnestly, eyes so wide and welling with truth that you couldn't hold yourself from falling and forgetting parts of yourself in the process as you spiralled and fell into his arms, felt his kiss to your forehead, heard his voice calling your name in the private of one of your homes or felt how his hand gripped your thigh as he drove you both across seaside roads to soak of the sun.

─────── · ·

─ · · You shake the feeling of an over looming stare you never seem to find off of you before turning into your motel room. You had found yet another successful job and were ready to reap the rewards with a five-star vacation away from all the stress you had been experiencing.

─ · · Knocking off your boots and flinging off your itchy wig you sigh, feeling overwhelmed by all the layers of clothes you wear before stepping into the bathroom but the door appears to be... locked?

You jiggle the handle, "just a minute, Miss. Grey," a voice sounds from the behind the wood that has your hand stilling on the metal handle before being flung forwards and into a warm chest as the door is ripped open sending you with it, "good to see you again too," the Jackal teases, lazily casting an arm around your waist as you huff and pull away, feeling his lingering touch against your skin haunting your bones as you walk backwards and sit upon the bed.

The Jackal smirks, crossing his arms and leaning against the hallway arch, staring at you, "It has been some time since we've last seen each other, I thought you'd be all over me by now" he teases, eyes crinkling at the way you scrunch your nose up just like the first day he met you- watching as you foot taps against the floor as you think of a retort.

"Me? All over you? I think you have these roles revered, Mr. Jackal-sir," you smile, hands drifting back on the covers as you lean backwards, drinking in his relaxed appearance.

The Jackal slowly stalks forwards, standing before you before crawling over top of you as you fall back against the mattress, smiling up brightly as he traces your jaw, "and to think," he leans in slowly, breath hot and heavy against your ear as you squirm beneath him, "you'd say I'd never pin you down." He bites your earlobe before leaving a trail of kisses down your neck, across your collarbone and back up to your lips where he settles with a groan as you wrap your legs around his waist, locking your ankles around his lower back and smiling into the feeling of his lips on yours.

You both pull away breathless as you reach up, fixing a few golden curls that bounce across his forehead- pulling them back and leaning forwards for another kiss, "Don't make me eat my words now or you'll be left with your hand for the night," you warn, starting to pull away.

The Jackal simply places more of his body weight on you, casting you a glare, "like you'd be able to form words if I had my way with you."

"Wanna bet?" you trail one finger from his lip, down his jaw and neck before feeling his chest and the rapid beat of his heart- watching as his eyes darken to your words, "what does the winner receive?"

"Well why don't we ask them at the end? I'm sure she'll come up with a fair answer," you giggle, starting to pull at the neck of his shirt in a silent ask for him to remove it.

The Jackal does not budge, simply staring deeply into your eyes before briefly flickering down to your parted lips, "She-hm? Well I don't think he has ever lost a bet."

"It would be a pleasure to be the first one to hold one over you then."

"We'll see about that."

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: I would lose- wait who said that?? lol

─ · · JACKAL TAGLIST: @swiftietevitdrewjew @groovyponypatrollamp @alelo23 @apaperflowerreader @itz-stuts @moonlightmvrvel @nadixq

[beautifulterriblequeen]

would love to see Runaan retire from assassining and take up something softer. Maybe being a ranger like the other guardians of the Silvergrove, as they're called in the Xadia game. Especially since he's soft for animals, and sometimes you get rangers with animal companions as they move through the wild.

What does he range around for? Just Silvergrove defenses? Nah, not our boy. He's got Guilt! He loves Xadia and he still wants to protect it, and he's also got all these precision violence skills. How to use them effectively without continuing the Cycle, though?

Well. There are all these horrible nighttime ghosts flitting around every night now. And arrows can strike them, as we've seen. And the Xadia game had a whole plot arc centered on what happens when restless spirits return (hint: you kill them a couple more times, really good and dead for suresies). And I think Runaan would be pretty good at such a job.

It's got angst and sorrow - he'd have to range all over Xadia, whether Ethari comes with him or not (he's coming with him), and spend his time dwelling on those who died violent deaths and had unfinished business - things Runaan's assassin job directly contributed to. His hands really could make his amends, by putting to rest these angry spirits to protect the living, and looking his past deeds in the eye while he does it.

Some of the spirits he encounters may be people he killed, even. And that's where things get interesting. In order to save people from avenging spirits, he'd have to shoot someone he already shot. And that's pretty angsty. Will he still be hard enough not to hesitate? Or will he get caught up in the guilt and shame of his place in this grand engine? Would he let them hurt him, would he even be able to stop them if they tried, if they recognized him specifically? Ohoho. Ohohohoho.

*steeples fingers* Yes good, I would deeply enjoy seeing ghost hunter Runaan and wardcrafter Ethari taking on a seemingly endless array of tormented souls armed with what I can only imagine are truly inspired haunt-proof trinkets and weapons specifically tailored to control and take out ghosts.

Not least because it would mean Runaan gets a new outfit. 😇

[6ives]

﹑%# ☆﹒attention﹗🩰 f. toji x masc! reader

TW mention of blood, violence, yandere theme ps. romanticizing yandere behavior is sick, get help pls🙏🙏

TOJI LOST HIS ability to love ever since the death of his dear wife. he viewed the world as a dark abyss where he’ll never find happiness from ever again. he loathed it, despised every moment he was in it. he spend his nights alone, lonely and miserable. some nights, he was out killing— the only thing that kept him occupied before he gets overwhelmed by his own presence.

there was a boy he called ‘son’, but he was sure that boy hated him for reasons he knew why. he couldn’t blame his kid, it was his fault— for not being a good father. he was afraid that he might reflect his own past onto his son, and his wife knew that for she had given the child to gojo, seeking care for the young one.

toji’s life was an endless cycle, everyday was the same, seemingly never ending. that was, until he met you. you were everything, with your luscious [h.c] locks and eyes that glowed under the moonlight, your touch melted onto his skin and he never seemed to get over it.

you had that man wrapped around your fingers.

but you didn’t notice the power you held over him, about how you could end up swooning him up with a simple stare of yours. and before you knew it, he was already obsessed. he was too afraid to love that when he met a man like you, he ended up being afraid of loosing the love.

he would go even as far as killing someone for you. it wasn’t as if he was inexperienced in this field. he used to take off people without a purpose— money flooded in of course, but it didn’t satisfy his soul. nevertheless, he has you. now every life he takes has a purpose behind it, it was worth something for him now. he felt warm, unlike that same old dreading cold feeling that he always had.

you were again oblivious to his actions, you saw him as a good friend— unable to do any harm. why would he? he was a father. you always thought of him in that way, a harmless father who was trying his best. at least that’s what you think of him. but you couldn’t say that anymore, not with the sight in front of you.

your wife.

she was on the floor, her apron spilled with blood as it slowly smeared down on the ground. her hair was sprawled everywhere, sticking onto the fresh blood and then, your stomach dropped. who would do such a thing? you wondered, tears bubbled around your eyes.

breathing got heavier as your hands trembled, cold sweat ran down your spine. why her? your lips quivered, blinking the tears away as you fell on the floor, the bags of fruits smashed on the wooden ground, rolling away from the plastic bag that you were carrying. “ka..kazemi?” your voice broke.

your cry got louder, as you crawled to her body, taking her head and placing it on your lap, “wake up, my dear” you slapped her face lightly— hoping she would hear your sorrowful cries and somehow open her eyes. “please..”

you took the hair off her face, tracing all her features with your thumb, as tears rolled down your eyes before finally breaking down, wrapping your warm arms around her cold figure, you weeped. “kazemi.. how.. how could anyone do such a thing to you?” your whole body shook as you cradled her in her arms.

“did you like my little present?”

a voice rang through the cold room as your breath hitched, you knew that voice— maybe a little too much. “toji?” he stood near your bedroom, arms crossed over each other as you held your wife even closer to you, slowly looking up at the man in front of you, you doubted if he was even a man at that moment, he was nothing but a monster in your eyes now.

”present..?” you quietly muttered, scrunching your nose, “present?” your voice raised, brows furrowing. “are you sick?” you shouted, carefully placing your wife down and walking towards toji, breathing heavily.

“so you do like it,” a smirk curved onto his face, and you loathed it.

without even a thought, a punch was thrown at him, startling him. “you murderer! you sick fuck,” you cursed, pouncing onto him. anger controlled you, and the man underneath you did nothing but smile.

at least your attention was on him now.

[sausage-rolll]

My personal undertale headcanon is that Flowey isn’t emotionless and incapable of connecting with others because he lacks a soul or is inherently “bad”, it’s because he was deeply traumatized from watching his best friend/sibling kill themselves in an incredibly painful way only to die violently himself hours later at like, the age of 11?

That would break anybody. To make things even worse, he woke up an undisclosed amount of time later in a body wholly alien to him, unable to move, completely alone until Asgore found him. If that wasn’t bad enough he then had to directly face the consequences of his and Chara’s plan, and the deep pain that it caused everyone in the underground. His father, the king? Broken. His mother? Missing. His people? Devastated and hopeless. Chara? Gone.

And to make things just that much worse, when the pain and grief of everything gets too much for him, and he deems himself broken beyond repair and decides to take his life he finds out that he has complete control over time itself.

He then spends an unimaginable amount of time experimenting with this power, constantly trying to do the right thing, constantly trying to help people and make the world better. But he’s never satisfied. He’s never happy. He does this, again and again and again. He grows older and older but never actually ages, he sinks deeper and deeper into his own tiny world, becoming even more distant and disconnected from the people around him as situations repeat themselves and peoples lives loop and loop without end. 

Eventually he becomes so unbearingly bored of the endless, unescapable cycle that he starts to experiment with more negative situations. Afterall, his actions no longer have consequences, right? Anything he does, he can and will undo eventually. Even the most horrific actions hold no weight in Flowey’s impermanent world. The only person who ever has to deal with the consequences of Flowey’s actions… Is Flowey himself.

So he does it. Slipping deeper and deeper into his delusions. Falling deeper and deeper into genuine insanity as the years repeat themselves onto eternity and Flowey disconnects completely from the world around him.

At this point, he feels that he’s experienced quite literally everything the world has to offer. He probably lived as Flowey far longer than he ever did as Asriel by now. He’s befriended everyone, he’s hurt everyone. He’s saved everyone, he’s killed everyone. He’s done everything. Even violence doesn’t interest him anymore. So what does he do? He stops.

I’ve always wondered how Frisk even had the chance to fall into Mt. Ebott and usurp Flowey of his powers if he was constantly resetting the timeline, but I think I finally get it.

Flowey probably just… Stopped completely at some point. He stopped resetting, stopped interacting with the world and sat himself at his best friend's grave and just… waited. Waited for something, anything new to happen. Eventually enough time passed for a new human to fall, a human who inherently overpowers Flowey’s control of the timeline and so, for the first time in what must have felt like eternity Flowey was finally free from his power.

-

After everything that Asriel experienced leading up to and during his death, he probably would have needed intense therapy to overcome the trauma. But that’s not what he got was it? He didn’t get therapy. He didn’t get the chance to heal. He got the powers of a god and the curse of his actions no longer having consequences. I don’t believe Flowey is incapable of connecting with others or feeling true happiness or love. I think that’s just a lie he told himself so his situation wouldn’t hurt as much.

-

But, even after all of that I believe Flowey still has a chance at happiness. We see his character shift dramatically after the Omega Flowey fight. After he is once again stripped of his power over time, he has an intense moment of vulnerability that shows what I believe to be his true colors, followed by him coaching Frisk on how to get a better ending for everyone.

Sure, this was likely a trap for Flowey to take everyone’s souls, but once again, after his defeat as Asriel and returning to Flowey’s form, he has yet another character shift.

He’s genuinely happy at this ending. He’s happy that everyone escaped the underground, happy that Frisk gets to live their life. He begs the player to just leave everyone to their lives and to move on themselves. He doesn’t want his power back, he doesn’t want the cycle to continue anymore.

For the first time in god knows how long, Flowey is satisfied.

And maybe if the alarm clock dialogue is anything to go by, given time Flowey can finally heal. Flowey can finally find happiness and love again.

[aurakisses]

the astral’s express guide to obscure sorrows: a project inspired by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrors of John Koenig.

énouement

n. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.

French énouer, to pluck defective bits from a stretch of cloth + dénouement, the final part of a story, in which all the threads of the plot are drawn together and everything is explained. Pronounced “ey-noo-mahn.”

fandom: honkai star rail

character: phainon

word count: 568

ao3 link here!

"What will the future look like?"

Lying back on the soft, golden straw, the boy pictured an epic tale unfolding before his eyes.

"Maybe the hero will roam the world, righting wrongs, solving impossible problems, yet leaving no name behind…

"Carrying a mysterious past, defying a cruel fate, and vanquishing fearsome enemies.

"When the world teeters on the brink, they'll honor their vow with a heart pure and true — wherever they go, peace and prosperity will follow…

"Even if they fall a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times... A hero can be destroyed, but never defeated...”

A future carved in stone for Amphoreus, and foretold in the rigid numerals of an algorithm for Phainon.

If he interprets an epic poem with more than thirty-three million words, do readers reach the end? Or do their eyes glaze over by the ten-thousandth verse, their hands slackened by each syllable, dragging them down like stones in the shallows?

Questions torment Phainon, again and again. After quoting the same endless page, he forces himself to remember: he didn’t write it to skim the end, but to lock away the devastating demon that even now gnaws at the edges of its verses. A demon whose hunger will one day spill from the stars beyond Amphoreus.

No seal bound the box its creator forgot. So when the lab rats caught that first whiff of freedom, they, of course, ripped the latch away. For it remained inevitable; those tiny claws would rend whatever feeble thing held them.

With that, they unleashed the anguish that would gut Amphoreus for all its heartless cycles to come. Phainon already witnessed every one: the thirty-three million fifty-five thousand six hundred sixty-four identical endings.

Always the same: his sword brings forth death for everyone he loves except himself.

Dawnmaker is supposed to be the sun their eternal night yearns for. But in his hands, the weapon becomes nothing more than an instrument of execution. And the worst part? There is no other option.

The program demands that he seize the Coreflames of his companions through pure violence. With that blade of twilight, he cuts off Castorice's wings; with his audacity, he exhausts the triplets to their last breath. Anaxagoras and Aglaea meet the same fate. Not even the most cunning, Ciphera, slippery as a snake, holds the ability to escape his deep maws.

And Mydeimos… oh Mydeimos. Entrusting Phainon with his most sacred secret fixes the ink of his blood-dry destiny, where the papyrus whispers the end of his prophecy: "One day you shall die with a wound in your back."

One after another, the divine heirs pile up beneath his feet. He climbs them all like Heliose and crowns himself as the first hero who once stood up to dawn.

Khaslana grants Phainon one candid wish: he allows the child in that repetition to feel the rays' caress on his belly and the coolness of the seabed beneath his body. As long as he manages to enjoy some reprieve from Kefale's worldbearing, he keeps him safe.

Imprisoned by cycles, he plays the Deliverer’s role without protest and carves the name ‘Phainon’ into the artifice of the sky. Waiting for the true hero of his heart to set the course of destiny astray.

Until then? Let the flames take him. Let his bones blacken to cinders if it means dawn will rise hotter with him at the helm.

hope you enjoyed this, reblogs and feedback are always appreciated!

[dailyanarchistposts]

Radical perfectionism and paranoid reading

This tendency for constant evaluation and the imposition of external standards has percolated its way into many facets of life under Empire. It exists even among radicals: what changes is merely the kind of standards and the mode of evaluation. Is it radical? Is it anarchist? Is it critical? Is it revolutionary? Is it anti-oppressive? How might it be co-opted, complicit, or flawed? What is problematic? What does it fail to do? How limited, ineffective, and short-lived is it? Margaret Killjoy spoke to us about the ways that these tendencies can pervade anarchist spaces:

While I think there’s a decent bit of spontaneity and not-making-rules and such going on in radicalism, I see an awful lot less creativity at the moment. Particularly, I see very little creativity from tactical, strategic, and even theoretical analysis … For a bunch of anarchists, we’re remarkably uncomfortable with new ideas. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that happens because we’ve really honed our ability to critique things but not our ability to embrace things.[167]

Applied incessantly, critique can become a reflex that forces out other capacities. The queer theorist Eve Sedgwick argues that this penchant for constant critique runs through many currents of radical thought, in what she calls paranoid reading.[168] Paranoid reading is based on a stance of suspicion: an attempt to avoid co-optation or mistakes through constant vigilance. It seeks to ward off bad surprises by ensuring that oppression and violence are already known, or at least anticipated, so that one will not be caught off guard, and so that one can react to the first sign of trouble. The result is that one is always on guard and never surprised. By approaching everything with detached suspicion, one closes off the capacity to be affected in new ways.

When we interviewed Richard Day, he suggested that this tendency is linked to being in pain and converting that pain into an incessant search for lack:

In general, I think rigid radicalism is a response to feeling really hurt and fucked up. And the real enemy is the dominant order, but it gets mixed into this big soup, so the enemy becomes each other. It becomes oneself. It’s a finding lacking as such … a finding lacking almost everywhere with almost everyone. And when that lack is found, then of course there needs to be some action: which is going to be to tell, or force, or coerce, or get at that lack, and try to turn it into a wholeness. So strangely enough I’d suggest that rigid radicalism is driven by a desire to heal. And it has exactly the opposite effect: of sundering the self more, of sundering communities more, and so on.[169]

Those of us who regularly find ourselves in pain might find this paradox familiar. Through the constant imposition of external standards, everything can be found lacking, and all kinds of coercive responses can seem justified. An endless cycle ensues: no one and nothing is good enough, and this paranoid stance constantly incapacitates exploration, healing, and affirmation.

Many of us learn this mode of thought through university, or through immersion in radical spaces themselves: we learn to search for, anticipate, and point out the pervasiveness of Empire. Even without the sad rigor of the Weather Underground, we learn to search the bodies, behaviors, and words of others for any shred of complicity. Mik Turje spoke to this tendency when we interviewed them:

I think as a youth I was really idealistic, and I came to the university context, and critical theory, where idealism and imagining something better was stamped out as something naïve. The only option was to master the hypercritical language myself, and one-upping people. I got really good at that. I won all of the political arguments in school, but … I was being a shitbag of a militant, tearing everyone down.[170]

By being immersed in paranoid reading, people learn to find themselves and others lacking. Having been “educated,” one becomes a pedagogue oneself, spreading the word about Empire, oppression, and violence, and in the process one tends to position others as naïve and ignorant.

This is clear in how surprise and curiosity are often infantilized by Empire. They are treated as foolish or “childish”—that is, lacking the educated, rational, civilized, adult capacities of detached evaluation. Paranoid reading and its association with adulthood and rational detachment are transmitted through schooling, founded on patriarchal white supremacy. Based on suspicion, perfectionism, and the penchant for finding flaws in ourselves and others, paranoid reading prevents us from being joyfully in touch with the world and with the always already present potential for transformation.

Crucially, paranoid reading and lack-finding have their own affective ecology, with their own pleasures and rewards. There can be a sense of satisfaction in being the one who anticipates or exposes inadequacy. There can be safety and comfort in a paranoid stance, because it helps ensure that we already know what to do with new encounters. Incessantly exposing flaws can be pleasurable, and can even become a source of belonging.

We think this is at the heart of what destroys the transformative potential of movements from within: the capacity for paranoid reading closes off the capacity to embrace and be embraced by new things. The stance of detached judgment means remaining at a distance from what is taking place. In contrast, experimentation requires openness and vulnerability, including the risk of being caught off guard or hurt. From a paranoid perspective, things like gratitude, celebration, curiosity, and openness are naïve at best, and potentially dangerous. When everything is anticipated, or one can see immediately how something is imperfect or lacking, one misses the capacity to be affected and moved.

[pxnsneverland]

Something Immortal | Biker!Austin Butler x OC (part 4)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13

plot summary: In the gritty underbelly of a city ruled by werewolf biker gangs, Austin Butler reigned supreme as the ruthless leader of his pack. A man of unwavering ferocity, he lied, killed, and stole without remorse, living by a code of violence that defined his kind. Yet, even Austin harbored a secret weakness – his childhood friend Bonnie Barlow, the one woman he had loved in silence for years. Bonnie's father had once been part of Austin's gang, but after his death, she fled the treacherous world of the werewolves, unable to stomach the endless cycle of crime and brutality. For five years, she remained a fugitive from her own nature, until a fateful night when her life took an irreversible turn. Freshly released from a two-year prison stint, Austin returned to his pack, reveling in the debauchery of their den. But his revelry was cut short by a frantic call from Bonnie, pleading for his aid. Rushing to her side, he uncovered a grim truth – in a desperate act of self-defense against her abusive boyfriend, Bonnie had taken a life, awakening the dormant werewolf within her. As the next full moon loomed, she would undergo her first agonizing transformation, a fate she had always dreaded. Defying the pack's ruthless code, Austin sheltered Bonnie, guiding her through the excruciating metamorphosis that tore through her body each lunar cycle. In the depths of her torment, their bond rekindled, blossoming into a love they had long suppressed. Nights of shared laughter and reminiscence gave way to stolen moments of tenderness, their connection deepening with every passing moon. Yet, their newfound bliss was a fragile thing, forever threatened by the harsh realities that governed their world. For Bonnie was branded a deserter, her very existence a betrayal in the eyes of the pack. If Austin's treachery was uncovered, retribution would be swift and merciless.

pairings: biker!austin butler x oc

word count: 2510

warnings/notes: n/a

Chapter 4: Calm Before the Storm

The slender fingers of dawn crept through the gaps in the heavy, hand-hewn blinds, casting long, spectral shadows across the timber floor. Bonnie stirred from the depths of a dream-filled solace, her eyes fluttering open to the ceiling above. She lay nestled in Austin's muscular embrace. His chest rose and fell against her back in a rhythm that sang a lullaby of protection, a serenade of safety in this world of wolves and violence.

Her mind echoed with the echo of last night's conversation; Austin's voice rumbling like distant thunder, fierce and unyielding as he told her about the approaching full moon, his duty to the pack, his defiance for her safety. A sense of foreboding filled her heart at the thought of what this could mean for them - for him.

"Bonnie?" he murmured sleepily.

She sat up quickly removing herself from his embrace suddenly feeling very self conscious. “I-I’m fine. Sorry to wake you.”

Austin blinked away sleep, his blue eyes, as cool and piercing as a winter's dawn, focused on Bonnie. He sat up, the quilt pooling around his waist, revealing his chiseled torso.

"Don’t lie to me," he rumbled, reaching for her. His hand captured her wrist gently, but firmly. "You've got that look in your eyes. What're you thinking?"

What was she thinking? She was thinking about how muscular he had become and how cute he looked when he was just getting out of sleep. No, she had to stop. Austin was her childhood friend, the one who had always looked out for her and always kept her safe. This friendship was more important than whatever was currently tugging on her heart. Besides, she didn’t have time to think about it. Not with the impending full moon.

“I’m just hungry,” she partially lied, “I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.”

Austin's eyes softened with understanding and concern. He let out a little sigh, and then gave her a soft smile that reached his eyes, a rare sight that was only bestowed to Bonnie. "Let me fix you something to eat."

He got up, grabbing a loose shirt off the floor and shrugging into it before moving towards the small kitchen at the far corner of the cabin. Bonnie watched as he busied himself preparing some food for her - his broad shoulders taut with strength, blonde hair tousled from sleep falling over his forehead.

The sound of sizzling soon filled the quietness of the space, and Austin turned round momentarily, giving Bonnie a comforting smile that made her heart flutter erratically.

Bonnie found herself watching Austin intently. His focus was entirely on the food he was preparing, yet there was a certain grace about him - a lethal elegance that contradicted his rugged exterior. A sudden pang of emotion flowed through her veins, strong and unbidden.

"I'm making some eggs and bacon," he said, "Should only take a minute."

The rustling of pans filled the cabin as he cracked some eggs into a bowl and chopped up some vegetables. The smell of frying bacon wafted through the air, mixing with the scent of freshly cut wood from the fireplace. Alongside it, there was a hint of his delicious musk that lingered in the air from last night. Her stomach grumbled at the thought of food.

A few minutes later, Austin placed a plate in front of her on the bed, its contents steaming gently. She sat up slowly, taking in the thick-cut bacon and two sunny-side-up eggs arranged neatly on top of toast points. Her mouth watered at the sight and smell of it all. The scent of breakfast filled her senses as she picked up her fork to take a bite of egg yolk oozing over its edge. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste - warm buttery toast cradling flavorful egg yolk, interspersed with salty bacon and slightly charred bits. Austin watched her intently, studying her reactions to everything - including the way she ate his food. It made something stir within him deep inside.

"This is amazing," Bonnie commented between bites.

He chuckled softly from across the room where he sat on one of the log benches by the fireplace, finishing his own meal. "I try my best."

Finishing breakfast quickly, she felt more grounded and content than she had in hours. Despite everything that loomed over them both, this small moment felt like normalcy again; just them being themselves amongst nature's beauty around them.The hearty breakfast did wonders for Bonnie's empty stomach and the fresh air cleared her mind. She leaned back against the pillows, taking in deep breaths of the earthy scent of pinewood mixed with Austin's masculine musk that lingered in the air, wishing she could hold onto this peaceful moment forever. "Thank you," she whispered between bites.

Austin nodded, his head turning slightly towards her with a small smile playing on his lips. He stood up abruptly, stretching his strong arms above his head before grabbing a cloth to clean up any dishes left behind.

The clang of metal on metal resounded as he placed dishes into the sink filled with soapy water. The sizzling sound faded away as he turned off the stove top before returning to sit again near her by the fireplace. He watched her with those calculated blue eyes which seemed to see straight through her thoughts - those intense gazes making Bonnie's heart skip beats once more.

She couldn't help but notice how his body radiated heat; each flex of his muscles shifting under his clothes sent waves of warmth towards her direction. She tried not to focus too much on it but couldn't help herself; his broad shoulders tapering down into a strong V-shape torso leading to lean hips. His blonde hair fell over one eye, giving him a boyish charm despite the roughness around him - an irresistible mix that awakened something inside her.

She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, blushing as she looked away, hoping he hadn't noticed her staring.

"What is it?" Austin asked suddenly, his icy eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Bonnie's flushed face.

"Nothing," she stammered, shaking her head.

Austin chuckled, a deep, hearty sound that vibrated through the cabin.

"You're a terrible liar, Bon," he teased lightly, moving closer to her. He reached out and gently brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. The touch sent shivers down Bonnie's spine.

The air between them crackled with tension as Bonnie found herself getting lost in those piercing blue eyes again. The distance between them seemed to shrink, making her heartbeat quicken. Austin's proximity and the way his eyes bore into hers was unsettling yet exciting. She swallowed hard, trying to gather herself.

The peaceful moment was abruptly shattered by a guttural growl that resonated outside the rustic cabin. Austin sprang from the bed, his heart pounding with fear and adrenaline. He rushed to the window and cautiously opened it. In the distance, he could see the headlights of a bike pulling up to the cabin. Cursing under his breath, Austin knew exactly who it was - Jerry, who always seemed to show up at the most inconvenient times.

Without hesitation, Austin grabbed Bonnie's hand and pulled her out of bed, rushing her to the back door. He swung it open as quietly as possible and gestured for her to hide outside. She looked at him with confusion and worry etched on her face. "Who is that?" she whispered.

"Jerry," Austin gritted through clenched teeth. "That son of a bitch would be the only person to come visit me after just seeing me last night. How did he even get along with me in jail?"

Bonnie froze in shock. "You went to jail?" Her voice trembled with concern.

Austin didn't have time to explain now - there would be plenty of time for that later. "Just go hide," he urged, motioning for her to find a place to conceal herself. Just as a knock sounded at the door, he made sure Bonnie was safely hidden before quickly answering it himself, bracing himself for whatever lies or excuses Jerry had concocted this time around.

"S'up, boss?" Jerry greeted brusquely, his figure massive and imposing even in the early sunlight. His gruff voice echoed eerily through the silence as he kicked the kickstand down on his bike and began lumbering towards the porch.

Austin, who had long learned the art of concealing his true emotions, casually leaned against the doorframe with an air of indifference. "Jerry," he replied coolly, keeping his voice steady. He watched as Jerry squinted at him suspiciously, his broad shoulders visibly tensing under the worn-out leather jacket he always wore.

The two men eyed each other for a moment, taking in each other's hardened exterior. Jerry broke the silence first, grunting as he took a step closer to Austin. "Thought you might want some company after being in the slammer for so long," he said nonchalantly, scratching at his grizzled beard.

Austin nodded curtly, not wanting to engage in any further conversation than necessary. "I don’t."

Jerry raised an eyebrow at Austin's curt response, a hint of suspicion flashing in his gaze. He didn't say anything for a moment, studying Austin's stoic expression. Austin's heart pounded against his ribs like a wild drum. He maintained his indifferent facade, curling his hand tighter around the door frame. Jerry shrugged, looked around the cabin, then back at Austin. There was a silent standoff between the two men for a moment before Jerry finally broke it by saying, "Come on, now. It’s just friendly concern for you. That’s all."

"Right," Austin responded, his voice dripping with disbelief. "Since when did you start caring?"

Jerry gave a shrug, the creeping sunlight highlighting the scars that marred his rough features. "Times change," he said cryptically.

The air seemed to thin between them, the tension palpable. Austin clenched his jaw as he contemplated Jerry's words. His right-hand man had never shown any sign of concern before. Something was amiss.

"Well, your sudden change of heart is touching," Austin said, injecting a note of sarcasm into his words, "But I don't need company. I need quiet."

Austin didn't miss the flash of annoyance that crossed Jerry's face at his refusal. His large hands curled into fists, knuckles whitening visibly. But instead of lashing out as Austin expected, Jerry slowly unclenched his fists and relaxed his stance.

"Alright," Jerry said gruffly, turning away and heading back towards his bike. But before he could hop onto it, he paused and turned back to Austin. "Just remember," He said, his eyes cold and hard. “Tomorrow is the full moon. The pack will expect you to lead the hunt since you’re back.”

With that, he revved his bike loudly before roaring down the dirt path away from the cabin, leaving Austin alone once more in the serene wilderness. Austin watched him until he was nothing more than a speck in the distance, a feeling of unease settling deep in his gut.

Austin took a deep breath, trying to shake off the unnerving encounter. As soon as he was sure Jerry was far enough away, he called out to Bonnie who emerged from her hiding spot behind a large tree. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"Is it safe?" She asked tentatively.

Austin nodded, stepping forward to embrace her in his arms. He breathed in the familiar scent of her hair, a mix of vanilla and honey from her shampoo. She didn't resist but her arms hung limply at her sides. "What about the hunt? Jerry has a point. They'll be expecting you." It would be suspicious if he didn't show up for the pack's regular hunts, especially since it had been awhile since his last one. Someone would come looking for him and find Bonnie in the midst of her first full moon transformation.

Austin sighed, rubbing circles on Bonnie's back to soothe her. "I know," he said gruffly, his voice barely above a whisper. He knew what the full moon would do to her, how it would awaken the beast within her. It was something he wished she never had to experience.

"I can't leave you alone during your first transformation, Bon," he admitted, his grip tightening slightly around her small frame. "It's painful... and dangerous."

"But what about the gang?" Bonnie asked worriedly, her voice muffled in Austin's chest. She knew better than anyone how crucial Austin's role was in the gang and how dangerous it was for him to defy their expectations.

Austin sighed heavily again, running a hand through his messy hair. It wasn't going to be easy dealing with the gang's questions and suspicions. But he had an idea - a risky one. He pulled away from Bonnie, looking down at her with determination burning in his blue eyes.

"You mean more to me than any gang or code," Austin's voice resonated with sincerity as he spoke, his eyes locked onto Bonnie's. She understood the weight of his words, their predicament a testament to their bond. "There's an old bomb shelter underground in the woods, a few miles from here. My dad used it to train me when I first turned. It's secure, no way out once you're in. During the hunt, amidst the chaos and bloodlust, I'll slip away to be with you." The plan was daring, risking exposure if anyone caught wind of Austin's intentions. Yet, he hoped his aggressive display at the bar had deterred prying eyes.

Fidgeting nervously with her hands, Bonnie longed for Austin's presence during her impending transformation but not at the expense of his allegiance to the pack. While she had never felt tied to their ways, it had always been different for Austin. His destiny seemed predetermined by his father's legacy within the Blood Moon Riders.

"Austin... during my first shift, I won't be myself," Bonnie confessed worriedly, haunted by visions of losing control to primal instincts and savagery. “Austin…I won’t be myself during my first transformation. Dad said it was like having no control over your body, thinking of nothing but blood and rage and tearing things apart. What if I hurt you?”

Austin met her apprehension with a smirk that drew a pout from Bonnie as she crossed her arms defensively. Stepping closer, he reassured her with unwavering confidence. "As an alpha, I possess strength beyond that of regular werewolves. If things go awry, I can hold my ground against you."

"But won't the full moon affect you too?" Bonnie pressed on anxiously.

Acknowledging the challenge in her gaze, Austin admitted candidly about controlling his own transformations except during pack hunts under the full moon when primal urges surfaced briefly before being suppressed by guilt and remorse once blood was shed.

Before Bonnie could voice further concerns, Austin interjected firmly yet tenderly. "No arguments," he asserted with conviction in his eyes,"I will protect you."

"Even from myself?" Bonnie questioned softly, uncertainty lingering between them like an unspoken dare.

With a resolute nod and a steadfast gaze fixed on hers, Austin affirmed his vow without hesitation: "From everything."

Stay tuned for part 5!! Click HERE to view!

[d4wn13]

ᴡʜᴏ... ᴡʜᴏ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ...? | ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴘᴏɪɴᴛ ꜰɪᴠᴇ

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NOTE: HAIII AUTHOR WRITING THIS !!!

THIS ISN'T AT ALL A CHAPTER BUT MORE OF HOW LEON AND CLAIRE THOUGHT ABOUT U.

MIGHT BE DOING THIS IN EVERY CHAPTER IF NOT LAZY JUST WANTING TO DO THIS SHORT CHAPS WHERE WE AT THEIR POINT OF VIEW MEETING U.

NOW THAT IS DONE HERE IS THIS CHAPTER

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⚠ ᴄᴀᴜᴛɪᴏɴ ⚠: °{Near death experience, blood, gun, and violence in general (?), hints of obsessed tension.}°

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ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : » [The Blond] «

┆ ⤿ 💌 ⌗ TV Girl ┆

0:00 〇────── : 3:48

⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻

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ʚ ︵‿︵‿︵꒰ welcome Leon ꒱︵‿︵‿︵ ɞ

┊﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍┊

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Name: Leon Scott Kennedy

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Sanity: 95%

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Relationship: 5% Acquainted with user

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Extra: He is grateful to save you from that thing that tries to kill you back there. He thought you were pretty cute without that blood on you though he tries to push that though as he needs to focus on what's going on rather than having a puppy crush on some random person who he just met!

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶

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꒰ ʟᴇᴏɴ ᴘᴏᴠ: ꒱

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I looked ahead at the endless road... When would I come to Raccoon City...? This feels like a cycle that isn't stoppable... Feels like I have been in these streets longer than I intended.

The only thing being heard beside the car driving was the radio blasting songs that I wasn't really paying attention to. It was there to relieve my stress for the night as I was coming late to the station.

↳ ❝ [ɢᴀꜱ ꜱᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ] ¡❞

I looked over to the gas station that came over my view, wondering if I should stop to refill my car with more gas.

“Yeah… I should stop here for now…” I mumble as I start to drive over there. Stopping near the station. I hop off my jeep as I stand beside it as I go to pump my car with more gas. My eyes landed on the police car parked in front of the gas station.

“That's weird …” I mumble to myself as I glance down… To see blood…?

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“Huh?”

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Blood was planted on the floor as it was coming inside the gas station, seeing a phone booth still ringing as it was taken from its spot… I sense something terrible happened.

I instantly walked to where the blood trail went, ignoring how the rain poured in, wetting my hair. I tried my best to cover myself to get myself wet.

Opening the door to get in, I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. The only thing leading to at least guidance was the moonlight that was able to pass through the window and many other papers planted on the wall. I looked down to see a flashlight on the floor relief. I took it so I could now see.

“Hello? Is there anybody there?!” I said as I started to look around the small store as everything was a mess… Items were thrown on,there was a trail of blood, and even the sounds of banging? “Something is not right…”

I went further into the small building, my eyes landing on a man who was on the floor, his back leaning on the wall as he was holding down on the side of his neck where blood was pouring out.

“you alright?” I asked the man as he didn't seem to answer my question. Instead, he pointed his finger to another room from where the sounds were happening.

“Don't move… I'll be back for you.” I reassured him,as I went ahead to the other room where I could assume was the storage where they held other items before putting them on shelfs.

Walking down the same hall to where the sounds were coming louder sounded like… growling…? I'm not sure…

The door that was open was not wide enough for me to even see that I used my right hand to push the door using my left hand to steady my flashlight to see what's going to be in front of me.

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What I saw made me frozen.

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A dead cop laying on the floor with big chomps like an animal was taking a bite on him, which killed him.

A man who was painfully pure pale as blood was painted on his hands and mouth, they were on top of someone. I glanced down to see someone who was in danger, and they were about to be killed.

Without wasting time, I pull out my pistol and release a shot aiming at the man hitting him in the forehead. Falling down on top of a poor victim, which I hope is still alive.

“Are you okay…?!” I asked as I quickly walked over to them, pushing the weird man off them. They looked very much relieved of being safe from whatever that was.

I stretch out my hand for them to take. They took without a second as they pulled themselves out now with them at full size. I could see them up close…

They looked so hopeless as they were covered in blood and whatever thing that was spilled on them. They looked like they came straight out of some tornado with clothes, quite ruffled and pulled, most likely by that thing. Beside them looking homeless.

They still good-looking? I guess… The shade of color in their eyes sparkles even with almost dark this place is, and this poor lighting flashlight I'm using. Maybe washing off the blood, giving them fresh clothes, and-

"It's there something in my face...?” They asked as they looked at me in confusion as they wiped off anything on their face. I was puzzled until I realized that I was still quiet and looking at them. Feeling embarrassed, I tried to give them a response, hoping they didn't think of me as a creep or something.

"Ummm- No! My name is Leon Kennedy... Yours?” I blurted, not wanting to look strange from my actions, feeling my cheeks warm luckily with how dark it is they might not even notice it.

"My name is 𐔌ᴜꜱᴇʀ𐦯 !” {{USER}} answer with a small smile… They looked good with a smile on their face… What the fuck are you thinking? You barely know them and you already hook… Snap out of it. It hasn't been at least a week after your girlfriend broke up with you.

“Well... We should go... 𐔌ᴜꜱᴇʀ𐦯... Is not safe being here.” I replied as I went ahead to the exit of this tiny room. I looked off my shoulder to wait for them to follow me which they did for the better.

As we walked out of the room, we noticed one of the other coworkers, the one that led me to the other room, was now standing up… He didn't seem right as he was doing the same thing as the other now making growling sounds now seeing us in his view he started to limp toward us. We didn't want it to end like dinner. We sprinted out the front door as other people with the same symptoms were trying to catch us.

Reaching the front door, I was about to pull on the door to open it when someone did it first.

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ʚ ︵‿︵‿︵꒰ welcome Claire ꒱︵‿︵‿︵ ɞ

┊﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍┊

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Name: Claire Redfield

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Sanity: 97%

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Relationship: 6% Acquainted with user

꒰ 💭 ꒱ Extra: She finds you interesting! You just appear randomly, and she hopes to find more stuff about you... Hope you talk more about your life to her soon... But for now, she needs to find her brother Chris! Maybe you can join her...? You show great potential!

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꒰ ᴄʟᴀɪʀᴇ ᴘᴏᴠ: ꒱

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I looked ahead at the endless road... When would I come to Raccoon City…? I have to find my brother… Where could he be? All I know about his last appearance was him telling me about this city before he went all silent. Being the worried sister I am, I went all my way here to find him.

I know it's quite silly of me doing all of this, but I know this is serious. The rain is pouring down on me as I ride my motorcycle, speeding down the road.

Seeing light appear, I assumed it was some gas station thinking it's best to fill my motorcycle before going back to the streets.

Stopping next to the pump before I could even start to fill my motorcycle with gas, I tense up as I glance over to see the store to be completely dark. No light. No sounds. Nothing.

My body tense at whatever was happening at that store hearing the sound of the phone . I looked over to see a phone booth walking over there. I was about to put it back when I heard a voice pick up.

“{{USER}} did you pick up the phone…?! Don't tell me you already died… didn't you?” A woman's voice coming out sounded distraught… she seems scared for that particular person…

“Ma'am hello? This was left on its own, and the person here isn't he-”

“Oh fuck- umm nervermind I should of end the call- Also you should check your surroundings ever few seconds.” The woman replied as her voice didn't sound as scared as she was a few seconds ago before I could even open my mouth to ask why. The call ended.

“That was weird…!” I said to myself as I put back the call, looking back just like what the woman said…. I just wish I was lying to myself when I say this…

Across from me a few feet away, I could see someone limping toward me… I assume someone was hurt when they were getting closer… Closer enough to see them in the light…

They were rotten from the inside and out, clothes torn, looking more of a monster than a human.

I noticed behind that there was more coming…! Not wanting to see what happens next I ran over to the door for safety.

Pulling on the door, the first thing I saw was a pistol pointing in front of me. Looking up to the person holding the pistol was a young man with dirty blond hair having blue eyes.

Raising my hand up as I didn't want to get myself shot by him, nervousness coming at my body as I was either going to be eaten by those weird shitter outside or be shot in the head.

“She not infected Leon…!” A voice came out but not from the man across from me pointing a pistol at me. Looking behind him saw someone else being thankful from a random person for the first-time ever.

The man who I now assume is Leon looked behind me seeing something dangerous. “Duck!” Leon yelled as I went down, Leon, who now pulled a trigger shooting at one of those things behind me.

Getting out outside once more, you three dashed to the police car and decided to sit in the passenger seat while Leon chose to be the driver while the stranger who I haven't gotten their name thrown themselves at the back.

Leon, who didn't waste any time, went full speed out and straight to the streets as we were speeding to Raccoon City.

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↳ ❝ [ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ] ¡❞

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꒰ ᴛʜɪʀᴅ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴ ᴘᴏᴠ: ꒱

Everyone was quiet. Tense. And scared. Mind replaying from minutes ago of what they saw that night… that scene looked straight out of an apocalypse fantasy…! That can't be real! How could that occur…? Maybe the station could tell what's going on.

“Ummm... Well... I'm 𐔌ᴜꜱᴇʀ𐦯... What's your name…?” {{USER}} said out of nowhere as they were looking straight at Claire who now finally knew their name…

“Claire-Claire Redfield” she answered as she noticed that your name was called out from that woman in the call… Wanting to know about that,but decided to keep her mouth shut for now.

"Name is Leon Kennedy!” Leon introduced himself as his eyes were on the view, but his eyes were going every few seconds to the rear view window looking over to you. He doesn't know why he is doing this… He never did this type of behavior to someone he barely knows… Does he have a crush…? No.. that can't be… Maybe he was just scared of losing one of you with how the situation is! Yeah…

Even though he only felt that only to you, not to Claire.

Claire didn't even give much of a thought of Leon which was so out of character for her… She thought she held a grudge because he pointed his pistol at her, but she was not sure at this point…

She found out a few things about him, one he was a cop. Two, this was his first day of his job. And three… Not much to say….

Claire wanted to seem interested and gave a response to her brother, who was in the city. Wanting to find him, she went her way through here.

“What about you 𐔌ᴜꜱᴇʀ𐦯…?” Claire wanted to know more about them… They seem special… She doesn't know how to explain it… They are still pretty much strangers with a little info about them… I don't even know their last name!

“Oh! Well... I have lived in Raccoon City for a few weeks now... and my job is at the gas station that we were on a few minutes ago…” {{USER}} replied, sounding unsure… They sounded not truthful at what words were coming out of their mouth. Both Leon and Claire knew something was off, but not wanting to pry into your life, they let it go.

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↳ ❝ [ʀᴀᴄᴄᴏɴ ᴄɪᴛʏ] ¡❞

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They just hope there information of what the fuck is happening.

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