#i just had to purge it into the void...im sorry :( | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rolaplayor101 · 3 years ago

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Cmon

Give us the thoughts

Ok so It's been a few months since I binged Ben 10 uaf but i was thinking about this, I cant get this monologue in my mind out of my head so I'm gonna finally write it all out and im sorry if some info is wrong and I dont make any sense, this is stream of consciousness rn

So, like, you ever think about how Ben is in the car alone with Gwen when they're arguing about Kevin and his current state of serial violence and how we never see him yell like that, and how in alien force he was in the car with Julie and Kevin and Gwen and he would insist on not arguing with her when they were being watched, and now when he's alone with Gwen, without Kevin, he can let it all out? And how Kevin has pretty significant body dysmorphia and how that is seen as his most important and most conflicting trait, the thing he hates the most and that he struggles with so much over and over and how Albedo also has body dysmorphia and that its played for a joke and not taken with the same amount of seriousness and caution that Kevin's is, and that Kevin never comments on it despite having the exact same issue, and like how literally all Albedo wants is his og body back but even by the end of the whole series he never gets it back and its supposed to be funny funny haha too bad for him even though his whole thing with Azmuth was even said by him in UAF to no longer matter to him if he could just get his galvan body

and that Ben was established to make jokes and act all cocky because if he didn't he would lose his mind and break under all the pressure and that when he was separated into three different Ben's when he was at Julie's tennis match he kept trying to talk to Kevin about how their relationship with each other has changed since they were kids and how he considers him his best friend and how in the episode that they were trapped in the Perplexahedron looking for the piece of the map of infinity or whatever he gets to have that conversation seriously with Kevin about how much they appreciate each other and they have an intimate moment and how quickly Ben goes from that scene to being ready to kill Kevin, and he was ready to do it, but as soon as another viable option comes up he takes it just like that and how he goes over to Jimmy's to talk about his relationship with Julie and he infodumps and really talks about all his thoughts to this kid and how he kisses Gwens forehead before he chooses to sacrifice himself to save the transformations in his omnitrix and how he hugs Grampa Max when he finds him in the Null Void after he was presumed dead and how he makes an effort to get to know and change Reiny when they're stuck on some random planet without food or water despite having tried to kill each other just before and how it's kinda like what he kept wanting to talk about with Kevin

And how when Gwen intimidated Zombozo into never bothering the Tennyson family and friends again by threatening to kill them and how Ben intimidated the Forever Knights in The Purge by straight up threatening to kill them in how i recount to be a more visceral way and how mad he gets about Area 51, and how Kevin had a life before meeting Gwen, like he had Argit and a mentor he looked up to and he got engaged to someone and he watched Captain Planet and got a car and a drivers licence and how he literally doesn't hang out with anyone else except for Argit sometimes and even then he acts like he doesn't actually care about him, and how they all died??? Like they literally all just died??? From Charmcaster??? And Ben was ready to give up his life, practically commited, but that ended up working in his favor and yet he died??? From her?? And he also did all that threatening, him and Gwen, and yet they died??? So shes the strongest character??

And Kevin, like, has a mom?? We see his mom for the first time and she's got her son's style and then we never see her again but we do see his stepdad and they have that super intimate kinda out of nowhere conversation and his stepdad is like "I dont want your mom to see you like this" and it almost works, and how once again Kev and Albedo both have body dysmorphia and how online its equated with body dysphoria and being trans when body dysmorphia is itself also its own thing, and how Ben works well with anyone he meets- like Elena, Manny and Helen, Alan, Pierce, and Cooper. He works well with Rex, and the Saturday's, and Simian for awhile, and Eunice, and literally he's just nice to all these people and he's adaptable, like as soon as he found out Simian was the bad guy he made a plan, and same with Cooper when he found out Kevin could be saved. Also, like, Ben hugging Julie in the Prom episode, and hugging her in the last episode of ua, and smiling at Kevin when he turned back, or when he was yelling at the leaders of the war in the episode Simple which is another time he gets unusually angry for himself

and how you'd look at all these things and think his character is inconsistent but no, i think he's just a 15 to 16 year old kid figuring himself out and feeling emotions and changing from day to day with each life threatening adventure its not like he's a uber serious thirty year old man whose suddenly acting super sweet and handing out candy bars he's a teenager who doesn't have his personality figured out yet because he rarely has time for himself, like Gwen literally says that Ben keeps staying up late with her and Kevin while they patrol because he has nightmares and then it comes up again later that he's still not sleeping good, and then theres the episodes where aliens just appear in his room and either attack him or give him trophies and finally you have Albedos attack that backfires and ends up with him living out his worst nightmares in a dream like of course the kids inconsistent hes a mess it's not bad writing in fact i feel like thats realistic af

#ben tennyson #ben 10 #kevin levin #gwen tennyson #argit #charmcaster #ben 10 charmcaster #julie yamamoto #ben 10 albedo #body dysmorphic disorder #body dysmorphia #ask

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xxxdragonfucker69xxx · 5 years ago

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@lyhoradka tagged me in that post about five bits of text from written media that are burned into your brain and, kindly, gave me a theme of places. i am going to annotate this because i am a bitch

1. holy places are dark places. the wisdom that we get in them is not thin and clear like water but thick and dark like blood. - cs lewis, till we have faces

im almost certain ive misremembered this one but its better this way. clive what the devil fuck were you trying to say with till we have faces. burn it down and start over with this. i have a sidenote about hope faith and love but thats beyond the scope of this discussion

2. night falls. the workers put down their tools and point to the sky. “there is the blueprint,” they say. invisible cities, italo calvino

again idr if its sky or stars. this is the description of thecla from invisible cities, kindly appointed to me by my good friend venus. this is not the strongest one but it is a strong one and its for Me and i remember it. inna thought i was going to make this whole post about haunted houses and this one is completely the opposite; i’ll consider it aspirational

3. walk to the east till you can walk no more. swim east until you pass the sunrise; swim east until you pass the stars; swim east until you come to the edge of the sky. there you will find yourself on the shores of a different land. even in that place, they shall know your name, and mine. - adel, kc danine/unlikely flowerings, jenna moran

sorry i cheated on this one bc i looked up the attribution and found my memory was wrong. but i cut it up to match what i thought. this one is actually a combo with

3a. the sea will be the color night behind glass. then, slowly, it becomes green: first rain-wet slate, then darkest jade. green as fresh emeralds. green as remembered rivers - the sun beneath the sea, sunless seas

again ive hashed the first part of that but green as remembered rivers lives in my head rent free. these two live under the heading “an exile in the uttermost east”

4. THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR. NO HIGHLY VALUED DEED IS REMEMBERED HERE. NOTHING OF VALUE IS STORED HERE.

the warning continues of course but the basis is here. the idea that we cannot produce something so horrifying and terrifying that it does not also fascinate us, as you might guess, fascinates me. nightmare and obsession are such close brothers

5. a woman drew her hair out tight/and fiddled in the violet light/and upside down in air were towers/tolling reminiscent bells that kept the hours/and voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

in my head sean bean reads these lines in his civ vi voice. why did so much weird fiction pattern weird bits of worldbuilding after this bit. not that i am immune. voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhauuusted wells

BONUS CONTENT

so many things i wanted to add that werent written or that i didnt have memorized perfectly enough

1i. the, like, entire first half of to tundra by los camp, which i will reproduce below

meet me at st nicholas among the oaks behind the church that sway like pigtailed girls as summer wind whistles around your bare-shin knees and the forsythia leaves in the shade lay with me tickled by the feather reeds thats where the trees grow old under the ivys hold as you in my two arms equally safe from harm and in a hazy daydream our bodies married the stream and we broke down into pebbles and silt the water ran from the fields until the oceans we filled and found the seabed the comfiest quilt

there was more life in the weeds than in the few hundred seats that rose from transept to chancel to nave [...]

2i. prim leaves her father’s house. i won’t reproduce the whole story here but there’s a girl prim and her father is the god hansa and they live in a house of iron nails and one day her dad is killed and she has to go bury him and takes nothing but his corpse and a single iron nail. and she traipses all across creation and the void looking for somewhere to bury him but every time she tries his corpse shouts at her for being shit at it. and eventually she collapses, and drops the nail and it springs right up into the same exact house, and she imagines crawling in there with her fathers corpse to die next to him and freaks out and then

A pale face came before her and she was abruptly struck from her despair as though by a great hammer. A beautiful stranger had appeared, mild and tall, of milky flesh, spare in figure, but radiant in voice and visage. "I know you," said the stranger in a small voice, "you are Prim."

"I was Hansa's orphan, the slave, Prim," croaked Prim in response, "and now I am nobody, just a small dirty thing in great emptiness and here I will die."

"No," said the stranger, and the clarity and firmness of her voice and smile send a shock through Prim, "you are Prim, and Prim only, and Prim you shall be." And Prim there realized her tears had made a great pool and she was greeting her own reflection. And she fell into that murky pool and straight away it turned clear as crystal and Prim vomited forth a great black knot from very deep within her, and her body was scoured and lashed by the icy waters of that pool, and great draughts of poisonous filth and despondency were drawn in rushing gasps from her wounds, and her skin was sealed and her soiled trappings were purged and the caked illness and death was ripped away and she rose from that pool fresh and humming. Her back straightened and she scarcely thought on her father's corpse or the faintest echo of that iron house. That is how Prim left her father's house.

so basically abaddon scooped all of tsiy and every other haunted house writer in like five thousand words

3i. berenike

From my words you will have reached the conclusion that the real Berenice is a temporal succession of different cities, alternately just and unjust. But what I wanted to warn you about is something else: all the future Berenices are already present in this instant, wrapped one within the other, confined, crammed, inextricable.

4i. a ghost does not come to stand in the dark doorway of your room because it is an 18th century orphan girl named annie. a ghost comes to stand in the doorway of your room because the doorway is where things come to stand. - i am in eskew, david ward

the formats all fucked up now huh. this has influenced my thoughts on both psychogeo and necromancy. what a fucking guy. theres also the pope lick bridge one but

5i. i hope you will forgive me for including a bit from tsiy

I opened my eyes. I was kneeling at the base of a tree, at the top of a grassy hill, under starry night. Dad was standing a little ways back, head craned back to look at the tree. "What is this place to you?" he asked, looking around. The island came to an abrupt stop at the edges; it wasn't a floating island in space or anything, there just.....wasn't anything beyond the edge of it. Like looking past the edge of your own eyesight -- not the blackness of eyelids, but the colorless place beyond.

"I'll die here someday," I said, and meant it.

i really need to work on getting places and haunted places into the new draft. im slacking. but im also not allowed to go back and change anything rn or ill just never get anywhere

#visible cities #also sprach #christ this took a million years

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sladedick · 6 years ago

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im just creepin on your twitter (as you do) and i wondering if u would ever write some rastim? bc 👀👀

yes!!!!! sorry this too k so long i love ra’stim owo

noncon/underage/switching/violence/black humor | on ao3

Timothy Drake stares at his American school lunch in the fuzzy security camera. His dark circles are visible under his eyes even from this height, and his hair is visibly unwashed. Equations trail their way up pale arms in smudged ink. He shovels another soggy french fry into his mouth, scratching his armpit with the other hand.

“Are you sure you want that one, Master?” Ra’s’s assistant inquires, standing meekly next to him as he watches the screen.

“You dare question the will of the Demon?” Ra’s booms.

“N-no, master, of course not,” he mutters, looking down. Ra’s turns his attention back to Timothy. He’s facedown in his applesauce, clearly snoring.

“He’s perfect.”

Share the happy news with your detective

“Happy engagement,” Ra’s says. Tim blinks at him.

“To who?”

“To you.”

“I’m not engaged,” he says blankly.

“I am pleased to inform you that you are. To me, the Demon’s Head.”

“No,” Tim declares.

“Yes.” Ra’s’s grin shows teeth.

“No!”

“This is not a discussion,” Ra’s says. “It is the respectful thing to do before I deflower you, Detective.”

Tim makes a disgusted face. “You won’t be ‘deflowering’ me. I had sex with Superboy.” It had been an ordeal. Kon’s Kryptonian dick had gained semi-sentience and tried to lay its eggs in Tim. Turns out Clark hadn’t bothered to give him ‘the talk’.

Ra’s’s lip curls. “How inappropriate.”

“No premarital sex, huh, but rape is a-okay,” Tim mocks.

“Victor’s rights, Timothy.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tim says. Ra’s wags a finger in his face.

“Language, Detective.”

Tim sticks his tongue out. “You can’t marry minors without parental consent. Your marriage is null and void. Ra’s! Ra’s, listen to me, we have to be in Alabama—”

Keep excessive amounts of alcohol away from your detective

The reception is ostentatious, of course.

Ra’s first notices the problem when Tim’s step is slightly halting at the reception, cheeks slightly redder—always red, really, given how pale his skin is even for a European. They’re even red through the several layers of makeup that Ra’s had his servants apply.

Tim gives a lopsided grin, showing off teeth that, until recently, had had braces on them. That’s the second sign something is off. Timothy has been pouting ever since he was kidnapped.

“I want — some more campaign,” he says, quite sincerely. A face, as if he knows that’s not quite right. “Clam pain.” A pause. “Sham veins?”

“Champaign, dear,” Ra’s says softly. Timothy grabs another glass from a passing server before Ra’s can stop it. The reception is ostentatious, and Timothy’s dress is no exception, in lacy whites and pale greens, showing off his body just enough to tell everyone what Ra’s has that they don’t. And how they should be jealous of Ra’s’s high school concubine.

“It’s poor taste to be drunk at your own reception,” Ra’s says.

“Your … fault,” Tim says. He sways slightly. Ra’s catches his arm. “Kidnapped me. Miss my family.”

“You’ll make a new one quite soon.”

“Fuck you. Hate you,” he mumbles. “Don’t wanna get pregnanant. Pregant. Prenengant.”

Ra’s snatches the glass of champagne from Timothy’s hand as the boy slumps slightly against him.

“I insist,” he says coldly, angrily, “that you be conscious for the consummation.”

He takes some pleasure in seeing Timothy’s skin lose its redness for the first time that night, falling away to reveal a pale face. Timothy grabs desperately for the alcohol, but Ra’s whisks it away just in time.

“Absolutely not.”

2. Keep your detective well entertained

“You can’t all be monks,” Tim tries to explain. The ninja sat in a circle around him squint at him through the eyeholes in their masks, heavy armor clinking as they shift. Tim repeats it in Arabic for the two that don’t speak English, and then switches to it for good.

“I wish to be of the shadow subclass,” Ninja No. 3 says.

“As do I,” adds Ninja No. 1.

“The point of Dungeons and Dragons is to be something you’re not. It’s escapism.” The four guards, practically brainwashed into the service of Ra’s al Ghul, stare at him. “Nobody is allowed to be a ninja monk.”

“I will be a warlock,” says Ninja No. 2, waving about the bit of paper that Tim had given him, translated from what Tim remembers of the Player’s Guide. “In service of the great Head of the Demon—”

“This is a fantastical universe. Ra’s doesn’t exist. See? Escapism!” Tim sighs. “If you don’t cooperate I’m going to tell him you were very inadequate and suggest severe punishment.” He stares sternly.

The ninja pale. Tim wouldn’t do that, really, because then they would end up dead. He knows exactly how much influence he has with Ra’s. The threat, however, is still good.

“I will be a fighter,” sighs Ninja No. 2. “In the service of nobody.”

“Perfect!” Tim grins. He feels like he should patronizingly pat their heads, but refrains. That’s the kind of thing they might only accept from Ra’s.

“I will be a sorcerer,” says Ninja No. 4, “who works for only himself, and wields fantastic power.”

Tim nods enthusiastically.

“I will be a rogue,” says Ninja No. 1, “who overthrows his glorious leader and takes his place, murdering his kin and raping his wife—”

“Wait just a second—”

“—and sending all his castles and being to endless ruin, in search of individuality.”

“I mean,” Tim says, “I’ll allow it …”

(Ninja No. 1 doesn’t show up the next week. Neither do any of the others. It wasn’t your fault, Ra’s assures him, though please do not encourage individuality, Timothy.)

3. Be assured your detective is sexually satisfied and interested

Tim sits on one side of the wooden table, idly tracing the patterned texture with one

finger. Ra’s sits stiff and regal as always, a few slips of paper right in front of him. This is obviously a Meeting. Ra’s is always around Tim, but a Meeting is different. Ra’s has something to talk about, and Tim probably doesn’t want to hear it.

“Beloved,” Ra’s says.

“Ra’s,” Tim replies. His voice is considerably cold. More tired.

“I’ve been doing some research,” Ra’s says. “You have been quite uninterested in our sexual activity.”

“It’s because I object to the rape,” Tim says.

“Ah, I think not. I think you’re simply not … stimulated enough. So I found out what you might be interested in.”

“Please don’t—”

The papers are slapped onto the table like a death warrant, and Tim is stared in the face by his last six months of search history.

man turns little brother gay big dick blowjob looks back at him like the antichrist with flaming, doomed eyes. Tim pales. He tries to think of exactly what he’d been searching on PornHero before Ra’s had caught up with him, but his mind is suddenly completely blank.

bears rail twink anal dp rimming glares accusingly at him. Tim knows that Ra’s has a perfectly neutral expression on his face. He always does. But Tim can’t force himself to meet the green eyes, not even on the pain of losing some of his pride.

“And some more enlightening content,” Ra’s adds, putting another piece of paper on the table. Tim can barely bring himself to open his eyes and look.

batman fucks robin hard in the ass, batman and robin blowjob, batmanxrobin—

Tim covers his eyes. He can’t take it.

“You’re particularly understimulated in the bedroom. Would you prefer that I don a suit in the manner of your adopted father? Would you enjoy referring to me as—”

“No!” Tim almost screams. He wants to cover his ears. “Ra’s, please. Please don’t, okay? I’ll be good, okay? I’ll pretend I like getting fucked. Just please stop.”

Ra’s makes a little humming sound. “This is not a punishment, Beloved. I am simply curious.” The rustling sound of papers lets him know what’s going on. “Though perhaps you can explain this? Superboy x reader fluffy love fanfiction?”

Tim turns white.

“I’m going to kill myself,” he declares, and he’s not sure if he’s joking or not.

4. Install safety bars on windows; learn modern youth jargon

“I’m going to kill myself,” Timothy says.

It’s something he says a lot. Quite a bit, really, typically any time something goes even a little wrong. Timothy had explained to him, a sullen glare in his eyes, that it was a joke. Ra’s had eventually been persuaded.

The fact that Timothy is crouched on the window ledge, the mountain wind making long-grown dark hair—tended to with the most expensive shampoos—swirl out behind Timothy, makes the thought of him joking much less likely.

“That is a choice you will regret,” Ra’s says coolly. He could try to grab him, but Timothy would fall out of the window and die anyways. Then when it came time to punish him properly, Timothy could attempt to childishly shift the blame.

Timothy flips him off.

Ra’s raises an eyebrow. “How rude, Beloved.”

“Yeet,” Timothy says. Ra’s assumes this also means I’m going to kill myself because right after Timothy does it, he’s falling through the air. Ra’s doesn’t hear the crack of his bones or see the blood spatter, but he sees the broken body splayed in the snow below, certainly dead.

“How inconvenient,” Ra’s says, to nobody in particular. Except, perhaps, the three guards who monitor Timothy at all times. He makes a mental note to have them executed.

6. Discourage your detective from staging coups

“Fuck,” Tim says.

“Indeed.” Ra’s’s teeth are perfect, pearly white. A wickedly curved sword at his side slowly drips blood into the oceans pooled around his feet, the corpses’ blood eking its way towards Tim’s booted feet.

Tim stomps. Blood splashes, staining the bottom of his robes. “Fuck!”

Ra’s sheathes his sword. The front of his shirt is crimson, showing that he, at least, did not escape unscathed. Tim draws some small satisfaction from that, even though he feels the guards still loyal to Ra’s grab at his shoulders, yanking his arms behind his back and holding him still.

“A valiant attempt, Detective,” Ra’s says. “Next time, I suggest purging your dissenters’ ranks for spies more carefully.” He moves forward, and Tim sags slightly in the arms of the guards.

“I’m sorry?” Tim offers.

“You’re not.”

Tim sticks his tongue out.

7. Properly reprimand your detective

“I’m sorry,” Tim whimpers, head hanging between his shoulders as he stares down at the bed beneath him, fingers curled in the sheets, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

A hand cards gently through sweaty hair. “Shh, Timothy, it will be over soon,” Ra’s murmurs. The back of the boy’s thighs and buttocks are covered in red switch marks, from the birch thing that Ra’s holds in the hand that does not hold Timothy. The skin burns red and pink and parts bleed. Timothy won’t be able to sit down for a month without remembering this.

The next one whips down with a wicked noise. Timothy chokes, spasms, arms shaking. He gasps, tears clinging to his long, pretty lashes like pearls.

“You are free to cry if you like, Beloved,” Ra’s says softly. “Forty out of fifty. You’re almost finished.”

8. Curb attempts to relate to the youth

Ra’s throws his sword. It impales the man through the gut; a wound that will leave him squirming for hours in agony before he finally expires.

“Yeet.”

(Timothy doesn’t speak to him for a week.)

9. Keep track of possessions around your detective

“Is that my cape, Detective?”

Tim wraps the green folds further around himself, his small form almost disappearing inside of it. “Maybe.”

“Are you going to return it?”

The high collar hides Timothy’s face, and slightly muffles his answer. “No.”

10. Take very good care of your detective, and give it nobody else to turn to when it hurts

Timothy’s eyes are wide, blank oceans, full of a sort of pain and sadness that Ra’s knows will pass, but he still almost dislikes seeing in his consort’s eyes. Ra’s’s arm is wrapped around him, fingers splaying dark hair around them, Timothy warm against his chest. His eyes are closed, the two of them wrapped in Ra’s’s cape. Before, Timothy would flinch away whenever he was to be held. Now, he almost begs to be touched with his eyes, even when he is too proud to ask.

A shift of him. Ra’s stays still, doesn’t move, enjoying the fact of Timothy against him. A hand slowly pets his hair.

Something is wet against his chest, where the neck of his shirt is cut down to reveal his chest. Ra’s almost has to pry Tim’s face off of him, and it comes away teary.

“How do you fair, my love?”

A hand rests on Ra’s’s shoulder, pale fingers against dark, tanned skin. The eyes look past Ra’s.

“I hate you,” Timothy whispers. It’s not an accusation. Simply a sad, broken confession.

“I know,” Ra’s says, almost, almost sympathetic.

A pause,

A long, long pause.

“I love you,” Tim whispers, and it’s even softer, barely audible. And then he’s diving back against Ra’s’s chest, Ra’s’s head tucked above Tim’s.

“I know,” Ra’s murmurs.

The look in his eyes is the stare of a man who has killed millions, and will kill millions more.

#Anonymous #asks #ra'stim #ra's al ghul #tim drake #fic recs #freak fic #prompts/requests

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little-wintry · 5 years ago

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So. This is Different.

((I’ll cut to the chase. I’m absolutely sick as a dog, but somehow I have enough inspiration to write something for my big WIP. Like, the big one, the series, the one I wrote three books for. Am I gonna write book 4 today? Probably not, but hopefully sometime soon. But, I really really really wanted to post this here [so maybe I can get a tad bit of validation] before going into a cough medicine induced coma and binging [bingeing? binge-ing? don’t fucking know man] buzzfeed unsolved. I will explain a few things below, since obviously context will be needed for this sad 3 1/2 page passage, but just know this isn’t your average Destiny Shit(tm).))

Before we begin, know that this is from my main WIP, Paladins, both a well-fleshed out fantasy series and a bit of a plot-mess sci-fi series. The character this is written in the perspective of, Jacklyn, is the Champion of a goddess, Mirsith. Unfortunately, said goddess also has an evil counterpart, Minsar, which recently was able to corrupt Jacklyn enough after the death of her brother. This lead Kata, Jacklyn’s wife, to go after her. This whole thing is the battle from Jacklyn’s point of view. Yes, it’s a little whack, yes, I’m crazy, but I’m throwing this out into the void for some validation and also im sick, have mercy on a poor dumb soul. And like, this is gonna sound weird, but spoilers I guess? I dont fucking know man maybe i’ll publish this someday and if someone somehow manages to come across this i don’t wanna be a dick.

-----------------------------------

There was a burning pain the back of her head.

It had been there for what felt like hours, now. Pulsing, biting, sending spikes of pain through her skull. She flinched with every wave of it, white spots dancing in her eyes.

Her body ached. It was as if she was stumbling through a dream, a dream heavy with smoke and heat and blood, less of a dream and more of an all-too-real nightmare. She was a whirl of blades, and anger burned hot in her chest.

Who was she angry at? She couldn’t remember. Her own sense of self was beginning to crumble, she was now nothing but a name that escaped her. Grief ran in her blood, grief for a face that was… close? Someone she knew, right?

She couldn’t remember them. Why was she grieving?

She was fighting a shadow. Not a Shadow, capital-S, the mindless servants that plagued this realm otherwise. But… a shadow, a memory, a faint silhouette against the web of storm clouds in the sky, and words, scattered and fragmented, filled the air.

She pinned the shadow down. Something about their figure, the subtle feeling of the way they fought and the way they almost seemed to try to calm her, it was… familiar.

Her dagger hovered above the figures chest. For a moment, it was all silent.

DO IT, a voice hissed in the back of her mind. She flinched. SHE IS AT YOUR MERCY, STRIKE DEEPLY INTO HER HEART.

She paused. The grief was beginning to vanish, the hot anger solidifying into a chunk of ice within her chest. Her mouth was dry, her muscles aching, and her heart, her heart was beating softly, as if it was beginning to… remember.

“N-No,” She whispered.

DO IT, YOU INSOLENT CHILD. SHE TOOK AWAY YOUR BROTHER, YOUR HOME, YOUR LIFE YOU ONCE WERE HAPPY WITH. SHE DESERVES TO DIE IN AGONY.

Lies. This voice, this consistent presence she was feeling, was lying to her, had been lying to her, this whole time. She could feel it now - the figure she had pinned was beginning to solidify, the words becoming clearer and clearer.

“Because I love you, and I always will-”

“No,” She said again, stronger. “She, she loves me. She cares about me, she’s my home-”

NO! SHE’S A VILE DEMON, A BLIGHT ON THIS WORLD-

“It doesn’t matter how much you hurt me because I know this isn’t the real you-”

Her hands were trembling now, and though she couldn’t see the figures face, she could picture it, perfectly in her mind. Warm, coffee brown eyes, onyx-dark hair. A smile that could chase away the worst nightmares.

“Kata-” She said, the name finally finding its way into her mouth. “Kata, I-”

STOP! The voice boomed. Her limbs screamed in pain, and her violence solidified, taking her over again. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the knife, but her eyes screamed with hot tears.

The figure - Kata, her wife - was still speaking, the words still echoing in her mind.

“I know for a fact, that when this is over, when we’re sitting at home and you’re back safe in my arms, you’re going to regret this. And I won’t even be mad, because I know you love me back, Jackie.”

Jackie, that was her, her name.

The world around her came into view. Desaturated, crumbling buildings, a treeline in the distance, and Kata, pinned to the ground, bloody and bruised, with tears drawing lines down her cheeks.

But her mind was not her own. She couldn’t move a muscle.

With every ounce of her being, every ounce of this newfound self and love, she stood. The knife vanished in her grasp. Opposite of Kata, there was a woman, black ram horns and a blood-red gown, scowling and furious.

You are Jacklyn Storm, a Paladin, a protector, a wife and a friend-

You are a queen, not a pawn.

Not a pawn in someone else’s game.

The woman with the horns - Minsar, a name she remembered, a name that filled her mouth with venom - still held some control, still tainted her words, but Jacklyn found just enough independence to speak.

“Maybe being a Paladin did teach me a thing or two,” Jacklyn said, turning. Her mind ran quickly, thinking of how to purge the influence in her blood.

As a Champion of Mirsith, Minsar can influence you as well. As long as Minsar’s magic is within you, Minsar will always be there. You know what you must do.

Jacklyn did. But the very thought of it made her feel sick.

She turned her back to Kata for a moment. “I’m sorry, love.” She looked down at her hand, bloodstained, but through that blood a faint light began to pulse on her right palm, a tattoo of a snake.

She turned, and watched as Kata sat up, and called her name.

Jacklyn could not listen. Her own power began to pulse inside of her, in time with her heartbeat. Somewhere, far from this realm, she felt a flicker of hope. And a flicker of fear.

She felt like, at any moment, the world could go out from under her, like her very consciousness could collapse. Her heart kept beating, faster, more and more energy surging within her like a thunderstorm.

You are Jacklyn Storm-

She remembered the first time she touched that Shrine.

A Paladin-

She remembered running into the midst of battle for her friends’ sake.

A protector-

She remembered her wedding and long, late night talks with Atalanta and Lupa, with the rest of her team sitting by her side.

A wife and a friend-

Her coronation. The tall white spires of Neptune and the throne with an amethyst inset into the headrest and her own crown, which she was sure sat on her dresser back home.

You are a queen-

Minsar’s rage was tangible now. The rage of an immortal, an insane one at that, who was now having all of her delicate plans thrown away in an instant.

Kata was standing now, trying to make her voice heard over the maelstrom of magic.

Far away, her friends were fighting a battle they could loose.

Far away, eight immortals were locked in cells.

But here, and now?

You are not a pawn in someone else's game.

A mortal, a single mortal, is writing upon the currents of time and doing what dozens of others before her could not.

Minsar ran towards her, a fistful of destructive magic in one hand. Kata screamed her name again, and Jacklyn had to ignore them all. Her entire body now, was alight with magic, and Jacklyn sent all of it out in one final shockwave.

#ho boy #yknow i might take this down later #i'll probably get embarrased #also yeah i wanna publish this #wip #not destiny #personal #writing

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