#anyway. trying to get his face right. simplifying him is kind of a chore but i will do it. for him

[rochenn]

Luthen studies

[calculatingminutiae]

Angsty BS Drabble

"You love me to punish yourself."

He says, deadpan, with no provocation. He's simply staring up at the ceiling of the dark, dark room through overgrown bangs, train of thought clipping through the tracks and swerving down detours until it finally arrives at that conclusion.

Latula turns over, groggy. "Wh-?? Babe, no," she coos, still a little tipsy from earlier on in the night. She spites herself for it under her breath. His moments of clarity are so rare, and here your drunk ass is going to waste it. Wasssste it. Haha. What a funny noise, ssss....

"Are you sad still?"

"'bout what, babezz? Nothin' to, to be saaaad about!"

He closes his eyes. So she is, then. In these rare moments,  he sees through the thin veneer he'd painted of her before the game had even started; she has always been oh-so clever, and wise and thereby simply must know more than he, and she is too good and pure to ever lie to him. To ever lie, he trusts her more than he trusts himself, incarnation of justice, the anchor that keeps the world going 'round.

He can't remember those nights, anymore. Only that the principle he'd chosen to live by (she is everything you can never be and more) didn't start after the incident. Only that she is important.

Only that she is more important than him. Isn't that how they got here?

"'s that why you drink so much?"

The words aren't quite as clean and clear as he'd intended, but then again,  they never are, anymore. This is a good night. He does not feel so indeterminately, inexpressibly angry, nor so numbed to emotion he can hardly sense the passage of time at all. He is confused,  but he can always cling to his anchor.

An anchor that hasn't been taking care of herself, that hasn't been letting herself leave his side long enough to socialize, that's come to regard him with venom on her tongue where she does not think he can hear.

He does not blame her. He's sick of him, too.

He does not need a caretaker. He should not need someone to take care of him, of course not, he is Mituna fucking Captor, eternally nine-sweeps like the rest of them, most powerful psion in the Beforan Empire by the age of six sweeps and her insistence on making this work between them is breaking her. She's falling apart, and he's so certain it's because he cannot pull himself together, and in this coveted moment of self-awareness where it doesn't take dizzying twists and turns to come to the conclusion, where he doesn't feel like he's drowning under the pressure of the atmosphere so that he can still say that he knows what he should do. What he should have done millennia ago.

Type her, messy as it may be, with poor hand-eye coordination, a note.

[I think I love you. If you don't love me anymore,  that's okay.  We can stop. I don't blame you. Please don't lie to both of us anymore.]

He tucks her in as best he can with shaking hands, and walks away.

He doesn't know where,  or how long for,  or what he's hoping to see or accomplish, but he walks down the stairs and out of their collective hive in his pajamas, letting the artificial sun sting the surface of his skin. It hurts. It hurts, and he wants to scream.

Good, says the part of his mind that simply knew this was the only way. They'll all be better off without him. She will be better off without him.

It doesn't matter what happens now.  His lover, his best friend, is freed of her eternal burden. She never even has to see his face again. It'll be wonderful, for her, finding friends and never dealing with an outburst, or a breakdown, or a seizure, or some other kind of interference to a casual afterlife. She won't have to be overwhelmed every step of the way.  She won't see him as a chore instead of her matesprit, giving and taking in equal measure. All he's done is take, take, take from her, since he's been back.  Now he'll try to take some of the misery.

It shouldn't be hard.  He's already gotten lost, finding a nice spot in the damp grass and undergrowth to lay down and stay still for as long as he can stand.

It's better this way.

It's because you love her.

If you really didn't care, you would stay and watch her drown in herself.

You need to simplify. You know this wont make sense later, when you wake up, or when the dull ache in your head arbitrarily decides to sharpen to a point. You won't understand like you do now. You will be scared, and lost, and alone, and you will not be able to piece back together all of the reasons why.

Because you love her.

Love Latula.

Love.

Everything you've ever done has been for love, so you've been told. You worked to make your powers as strong as they could be for love. You worked them so hard they burned out of your body, for love. You clung to your last breath and refused to let go until you saw your love. Love-love-love-love, with you, so she has told you. It seemed so possible, before, your heart full of emotions that go wide and deep and frightening when you turn to get a good look at them.  Your joy mutates into ugly cackling, your disappointment to a flood of tears that physically refuses to stop for half an hour after you'd decided to move on. Your frustration, with your emotions, your teammates, yourself, is like a reset button. You get so worked up, a powder keg, pressure boiling to the top of your throat and boring upwards through your skull and then. 

Then you don't know.  You never remember exactly what you say or do, at that point. It scares you most of all.

Well, it scares you second-most, next to the knowledge that this, no, this isn't for love. This is because you hate yourself. You are doing this because you hate being so invisible when you have something to say and such a sideshow when you're struggling, be it to articulate or to emote appropriately or, hell, just to be. You hate the way they look at you. You hate that you can't do anything about it.

You hate the sad look in her eye when she looks at you. You hate the pity. You hate the despair. You hate that she tells you and herself that it's okay, and she'll love you anyway. Always love you anyway.

Is it selfish, that you can't take it anymore?

You can't stop being as you are. You have tried, and it's beyond you. You are no longer in control of yourself, not even enough to pretend you don't need help nobody that's left can possibly proficiently give you, and it only starts to frustrate you again.

You also know that,  being everyone is dead already,  you can't exactly take yourself put of the picture any better than by running haphazardly into the woods in someone else's dream. 

Love. You are full of so much love, that's why you stay put.

You're listening for instructions.

Someone better than you, smarter than you, someone with a brain that makes all the right neural connections.

Nevermind that they'll never come.

Now all you have to do is wait for time to end.

[ambrvsel]

hey there demons! it’s me, sam ( she / her, 22, est timezone ) aaaand here’s a fourth char, which i’ve never had here but we started accepting older muses and daniel sharman is one of my fave fcs ever so here we are. pls bear with me but ok let’s hop into this! character info under the cut and as always please message me here or @ellvie​​ if you’d like to plot!

╰☆╮ DANIEL SHARMAN ─ AMBROSE LANCASTER identifies as CIS MALE and uses HE/HIM pronouns. they’re a POET/ACTOR, and they’re only TWENTY-EIGHT ! they’re said to be INGENIOUS, but also BROODING. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE WORDSMITH in the tabloids. *mia's older brother wc!

so, this is...ambrosius cyril lancaster. we just don’t know why the lancaster parents gave him such a mouthful of a name and then looked at their second kid and went nah just one ( 1 ) syllable for this one, but it happened and now here we are! he tends to go by ambrose, which is just the simplified version of his actual name and takes less than five fuckin hours to say

anyway, as you might have guessed ambrose is mia’s older brother! they’re about seven years apart which is obviously a significant age gap, but it never really stopped them from being v close!

he was born and raised in los angeles, california where he experienced your typical upper middle class sort of lifestyle during his childhood. his parents divorced when he was a teenager, but it was amicable so he was able to kinda just accept it and move on with his life. he and mia lived with their mother most of the time, but both of their parents are cool and he really doesn’t have any issues with them or any serious childhood tragedies at all really

so growing up he was always kinda quiet and timid, but not painfully so. as his interests in the arts developed, his parents kinda nudged him into doing things like joining the drama club, which helped him to come out of his shell a bit

yes, he was a Theater Kid™ i’m so sorry everyone

he was...v v good at acting to the point where he wound up going to hollywood arts a special performing arts high school in hollywood on an acting scholarship. he starred in many of the school plays which usually had a lot of talent agents and casting directors and producers in the audience so he got noticed without really trying tbh

did a couple small tv appearances when he was 16 - 17 in all of the basic af teen drama shows of the time like pll & tvd & gossip girl. so, nothing special or groundbreaking buuuut it got him noticed by a lot of studios and hollywood people who were offering him much bigger roles in tv and film but he was like nah and went to college instead.

so he took a small break from acting in order to study poetry at columbia university in nyc, but he got bored bc it felt kinda easy to him oops. so he quickly went back to acting on the side while continuing his studies and got himself a steady recurring role on yet another basic teen drama to keep him entertained while he went through school.

he got his mfa in poetry from columbia a few years ago and he’s v proud of it aw i love that for him :’)

however after graduating he really didn’t do much with his writing bc he accidentally bit off more than he could chew by taking on a couple more acting roles bc he figured he’d be able to manage it and still work on his poetry but...nah. as a result his writing has kinda fallen by the wayside but he’s still really passionate about it!

was engaged to torrance keynes for a time and it wound up being v...Messy. she got pregnant more than once, but unfortunately miscarried each time. it was obvs difficult on both of them and it turned out to be too much and so they eventually broke things off. he’s still kind of a wreck over everything but like how could he not be? it’s still a very sore subject for him but like what are you gonna do! he basically just refuses to talk about it and pretends everything is fine haha yikes

he’s kinda been switching between la and nyc ever since he started college bc of school and work and going to see his fam ( especially mia! ) and he’s never really settled in one place or the other? but he’s really fallen in love with nyc and it’s where he spends most of his free time!

might have dipped to la for a little longer than usual after his last break up with torrance, buuuut he’s obvs returned and i think he’s planning to stay put for now

extra fun facts! probs a good thing to read if you’re looking for a tl;dr tbh

he’s probs on a tv show right now. think like american horror story or the walking dead or something? i feel like he gets typecast as a dark/brooding/sarcastic type of character in a lot of ~edgy~ type of shows. lmk if you’ve got any suggestions for a specific role bc rn i’ve got nothing

critics and management and even fans often complain that he’s wasting his immense acting talent on all of these smaller roles, but ambrose is happy with his career rn. he loves acting and he doesn’t want it to start feeling like a chore and he wants freedom and flexibility so that he can finally start focusing on his poetry.

“are you mad?” no that’s just his face

hobbies include boxing, throwing knives, surfing, taking walks, watching pretentious films, hanging out in record stores, and some dabbling in drawing.

loves to read, always carrying a book around and sticking his nose in it if he has a few minutes of free time & it’s not uncommon to see him with a new book every single day, or even more than one book in a single day

he’s kind of a hipster i’m sorry

also just kinda...slightly...a little...very Dramatic™

might do music on the side but like……...very far on the side. he’s probs a drummer?? in some arctic monkeys type of shitty indie rock band but he enjoys it so whatever

a total gentleman and a romantic, but also most likely a Disaster in the relationships department so...watch out for that too ig!

personality: ambrose is quiet, perceptive, intelligent, eloquent, creative, pensive, sarcastic, dramatic, tumultuous, and passionate. he can come across as standoffish but it’s just Resting Bitch Face and the fact that he’s an introvert working against him. just start talking about film or books or something and he’ll warm right up. he’s a v loyal and protective friend, nice and polite to strangers, but noticeably a bit closed off ( especially after the miscarriages and failed engagement ). basically - all you need to know about ambrose is that if someone told you that he was secretly a 500 year old british vampire who likes to surf in his spare time then you would probably believe them.

here are a few lame connection ideas that you should not feel limited by whatsoever!

best friend

friends

frenemies

former costars

enemies

romantic - exes, crushes, pr relationships maybe? & all that stuff

people he attended school with - either in la or at columbia

college roommates?

other members of his little side project indie band?

ok that’s it for now! feel free to message me if you’d like to plot and as always, i’m super excited to write with you all!