#this is RIPE for dissection

[terriblygrimm]

ok but this lyrical overlay playing over spock

because the road to ruin is paved by intentions of fools nice people who couldn’t keep a secret

discuss

[cressidagrey]

Such A Mystery - Part 3

Pairing: Max Verstappen x Colette Leclerc (Original Character)

Summary:

Max Verstappen fell in love at the ripe old age of 12 and never looked back.

Colette Leclerc really regrets posting that particular Taylor Swift Lyric to her private Instagram account, because it made George Russell go insane.  

The rest of the world has absolutely no idea that the Dutch Lion and Charles Leclerc’s twin sister have been a couple for 15 years and are expecting a baby. 

Warnings: 

Pregnancy, Mention of multiple miscarriages, Pregnancy complications, George Russell Bashing (he's probably really nice in real life but in this, he's the bad guy, sorry) 

Author Notes: Huge thanks to @llirawolf for holding my hand through this. Currently thinking this will have like 5-7 parts?

She wasn't fine. Colette was so far from fine that it wasn't even funny anymore.

And now her twin brother had decided to chime in with his own opinions, pouring oil into the fire. 

The thought of the media dissecting every word, every gesture, every expression was unbearable. And still, she couldn't stop herself from doomscrolling.

Colette was in a state of constant anxiety, unable to stop herself from scrolling through social media and the news articles. She knew it wasn't helping her, that it was only adding to her stress, but she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the screen.

Every article, every comment, every thread seemed to only add to her worry. The criticism, the speculation, the accusations...it was all too much. But she couldn't look away or stop herself from reading every word, no matter how much it hurt.

She was stuck in a vicious, spiralling cycle, seeking out the information, even though she knew it was bad for her. 

The hormones and the pregnancy symptoms didn't make it any better either. 

The hormones made her emotions more intense, her anxiety more pronounced, and the pregnancy symptoms only added to the stress and discomfort. She wanted desperately for it to end, but it seemed like it would never stop.

The worst of it all was the constant swirl of thoughts in her head. The worry and fear, the relentless stream of "what-if" scenarios.

And the most terrifying thought of all: what if her stress was hurting the baby? The idea that her anxiety could harm the little life growing inside her was a constant one, always at the front of her mind.

“Eat, Choupinette,” her mother insisted. Colette stared down at her plate. Porridge and fruit and whatever else was supposed to be good for her these days. 

But her appetite was nonexistent. The weight of everything that was happening, the thoughts and fears that were running through her mind...it made it difficult to even think about food.

"Eat, Choupinette," her mother insisted again, clearly concerned. "You need to eat something, for the baby's sake. You're too pale."

“I am..”

“You aren’t fine,” her mother cut her off with a disbelieving snort. "You're pale, you haven't been eating properly, and you look like you haven't slept in weeks."

"And don't even try to tell me that the pregnancy is doing that," her mother added, her tone firm. "I had three pregnancies, I know how tiring it is. This isn't just normal exhaustion."

Colette knew that her mother was right. The pregnancy, while exhausting, wasn’t the reason. It was the anxiety, the worry, the stress...it was all taking its toll on her.

But she also knew that there was nothing she could do about it. The situation was out of her control, even if it was affecting her directly.

It was her own fault why she was in this situation to begin with. 

“I was so stupid.” Colette's shoulders slumped as she muttered under her breath. Her mother shook her head, disagreeing with the assessment.

 "It wasn't the smartest thing," her mother admitted. "But the media is blowing it out of proportion. They're making an elephant out of a fly."

It was a sentiment that Colette wholeheartedly agreed with. But at the same time, she knew that the media was relentless in their pursuit of a story. 

And Colette’s and Max's relationship would be the juiciest scandal they had gotten their hands on in a long, long time.

“I don’t want this to fall back on Charles,” Colette whispered, her voice barely above a murmur.

Her brother had worked so hard to be where he was, at the pinnacle of motorsport…to drive for the team he loved so much. 

She didn’t want to get Charles into any trouble. It wasn’t his fault. It was all on her. And any scandal, any whiff of controversy, could potentially ruin everything Charles had worked so hard for.

Her mother's words were calm, but they hit hard. "Your brother is an adult," she repeated. "He can make his own decisions. And he was the one who decided he wanted to protect you. You didn’t force him to do anything, Choupinette."

Colette knew that her mother was right. Charles was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions. But that didn't make her worry any less.

Her phone rang, her hand immediately shooting out for it. It was Max. Her hand was almost shaking as she answered the call.

"Maxie," she breathed, relief and worry mixing in her voice.

Max's voice was gentle, a soothing balm in the storm of chaos that was swirling around her. "Hey liefje," he repeated, the affectionate nickname rolling off his tongue.

Colette closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the sound of his voice.

"What are you up to?" Max inquired, his tone soft. 

"I'm having breakfast with Maman," she replied, glancing at her mother, who was watching her carefully.  

There was a moment of silence on the line, but she could almost picture Max's expression. He was no doubt worrying just as much as she was, if not more. "How are you doing?" he finally asked, his voice laced with concern. 

Colette let out a shaky sigh, her emotions warring inside her.

She wanted to lie. Wanted to tell him that she was fine. But Max and her had made themselves a promise ages ago. If there was one thing that Max hated, then it was lying. Even little white lies like this. They didn’t lie. They didn’t sugarcoat. They told the truth. Regardless of how hurtful it could be. 

They told each other the truth. Always. 

“Tired,” she answered weakly. 

"I heard you've been stalking social media again," Max's voice was dry, a hint of disapproval in his tone.

"Charles should really mind his own business," she bit back, her irritation at her twin brother evident. There was just one person that Max could have learnt that from. 

There was a pause, and she knew that Max was choosing his words carefully.  "He's just worried," he said finally. "We all are."

Colette huffed, her irritation at being coddled smouldering. "I don't need everyone to worry about me," she retorted, her tone snippier than she intended.

"We're not doing it to annoy you," Max replied, his voice gentle but firm. "We're doing it because we care about you.  I'm worried about you, liefje."

Those words were like a knife through the heart. She could hear the worry and concern in his voice, and it made her feel guilty for being so snappy with him.

Sassy chose that moment to come to jump up on her lap and she petted the Bengal cat absent-mindedly as she made herself a home on Colette’s lap. 

"I know you are," she said quietly. "I'm sorry. I just..." she trailed off, unsure of how to put her mixed feelings into words. Sassy purred softly. 

"It's okay," Max reassured her, his voice low and soothing. "I know it's hard. But please, try to take care of yourself. For me. For Bébé."

Colette felt the tears well up in her eyes again. She wanted to tell him that she was trying, that she was doing her best. But the words lodged in her throat, replaced by a thick lump of emotion.

"I'm trying," she managed to say, hating how weak and shaky her voice sounded.

"I know you are," Max murmured, his voice full of understanding. "But you need to rest, to eat. You're not doing yourself or the baby any favors by skipping meals and staying glued to your phone."

Colette knew he was right. The lack of food and sleep was taking its toll on her health and her baby. But the stress, and the worry, it made it hard to find an appetite or to switch off her brain.

"I know," she whispered, feeling helpless and frustrated. Max sighed softly on the other end of the line. 

"I wish I could be there," he said, the longing in his voice palpable.

"Me too," she whispered, her heart aching with the weight of their separation.

"I hate being apart during all of this," he mumbled, a rare show of vulnerability from him. "I should be there with you, taking care of you, protecting you from all this damn media noise."

Colette's eyes welled with tears again at his words. "You are taking care of me," she reassured him, her voice thick with emotion. "Just hearing your voice helps more than you know."

"It's not enough," he retorted, his voice firm again. "I should be there, not just talking with you over the phone. I should be able to hold you, to make sure you eat and sleep properly."

Colette could picture the fierce expression on his face, the set of his jaw. She could almost feel the intensity of his gaze, his desire to protect and care for her. But she could also hear the frustration and helplessness in his voice.

"Max," she whispered, her voice barely above a breath. "It's not your fault. You're doing everything you can."

Max let out another sigh, a sound full of frustration and helplessness. "It doesn't feel like it," he mumbled, his voice betraying his emotions. "I feel so useless here, stuck continents away while you're dealing with all of this alone."

Colette's heart ached at his words. She wanted to assure him that he wasn't useless, that his support through the phone and the occasional visit meant the world to her. But she also understood how powerless he felt, how useless he must feel, miles and miles away from her.

"You're not useless," she said firmly, her voice steady despite the tears threatening to fall. "You're the only thing keeping me sane right now."

There was a pause on the line, and she could sense Max's turmoil on the other end. "I just wish I could do more," he said quietly. "I wish I could take all this away from you, the stress, the worry, the media. You shouldn't have to deal with all this alone."

Colette felt a fresh burst of tears at his words. She wanted to tell him that he wasn't Superman, that he couldn't fix everything, but she also knew that he would never accept that. Max was a doer, a problem solver. Watching her struggle from afar must be killing him.

"I'm not alone," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "I have you. That's more than enough."

"It's not enough," he mumbled again, the stubborn set to his words making her smile despite herself. She could almost see the familiar stubborn pout on his face even from so far away. "I'm serious," he insisted, his voice firmer now. "I should be the one taking care of you and our baby, not just chatting on the phone."Colette let out a quiet sigh, a mix of amusement and frustration at Max's stubbornness. She loved that he cared so much, but at the same time, she didn't want him to feel guilty for something that was out of his control.

"Max," she said gently, trying to make him understand. "You do take care of us, even from miles away. Just knowing that you're there for me, that you love us, it means everything. We're a team, remember? We're in this together."

There was another silence on the line, and she could practically picture Max clenching his jaw. She knew that he wanted to protest, that he wanted to argue, to find a solution to make things right. But he also understood that there was nothing he could do right now but accept the situation.

Finally, he sighed, the sound a mixture of frustration and resignation. "Okay," he said quietly. "But promise me you'll try to eat and sleep properly. Promise me you'll take care of yourself and our baby."

Colette couldn't help the tears that rolled down her cheeks at his concern. She could hear the love and worry in his voice, the desperate plea for her to take care of herself.

"I promise," she whispered, her voice wobbly but firm. "I'll take care of myself. For you, for Bébé. I promise."

She would even let go of the fact that she was pretty sure that her family were babysitting her. When her mother went home after breakfast, it didn't take too long for Arthur to show up, happily ignoring her pointing out that he actually had work to do and instead he joined her on the couch watching re-runs of The Real Housewives.

Colette rolled her eyes at Arthur's unashamed enjoyment of the reality TV show. He had always been a sucker for messy drama, and the housewives provided plenty of that.

"You are ridiculous," she mumbled, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.

"Oh, shut up," Arthur retorted cheerfully, his eyes never leaving the screen. "You love this show and you know it."

"I do not," Colette protested, but it sounded halfhearted, even to her own ears.

Quite frankly, she would rather watch fake drama on TV than think about the one happening in real life to her.

Bébé decided at that moment to kick her in her ribs again and she grimaced.

"Are you alright?" Arthur asked her immediately.

Colette let out a wince as the baby kicked her again. "Yeah, just baby kicking my ribs again. It's getting more and more frequent," she mumbled, rubbing the spot on her stomach where the baby had kicked.

Arthur chuckled. "The baby's probably just feeling cramped. They want more space," he teased.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious," Colette replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“Maybe the baby's just getting impatient and wants to come out already," Arthur said with a shrug, his eyes still glued to the screen.

"Don't even joke about that," Colette said, her tone serious. "I still have another month to go. He better stay in there until then.”

She still had around 4 weeks of pregnancy left. 

"Still thinking it's a boy?" Arthur asked her curious.

Colette nodded, her hand still resting on her stomach. "Yeah, I just have a feeling. Call it a mother's intuition," she said with a small smile.

Arthur rolled his eyes in amusement. "Or just wishful thinking," he teased her.  "Isn't Max convinced it's a girl?" 

Colette chuckled, thinking about Max's adamant belief that the baby was a girl. "Yeah, he is. He has ordered a bunch of dresses online," she said with a laugh. “And hairbows...so many hairbows…If it's a boy, I don't know what I'll do with all of them."

Arthur started laughing.

Colette shot him a playful glare. "Don't laugh at my predicament," she said, but the effect was ruined by the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Arthur couldn't help himself, bursting into another fit of laughter. "I'm sorry, it's just too funny picturing Max buying all those dresses and hairbows," he managed to say between chuckles. 

Her phone pinged again.  Colette huffed in irritation as Arthur picked up her phone before she could. "Hey, that's mine," she protested.

Arthur just shot her a cheeky grin. "Finders keepers," he teased, waving the phone just out of her reach. "Besides, no more doomscrolling for you," her younger brother told her seriously.

Colette rolled her eyes at his reprimand, but deep down, she knew he was right. "I wasn't doomscrolling," she mumbled petulantly, even though she knew it was a blatant lie.

"I just...People are making up opinions about me and my life and they don't know me," she said weakly. "That's why I don't even have a public Instagram in the first place, Arthur. I just want to live my life without worrying about what people are going to think..."

"What does it matter what they think?" Arthur asked her curiously.

Colette let out a frustrated sigh. "It shouldn't matter, I know it shouldn't," she said firmly. "But it does. Maybe it's human nature to care what other people think, I don't know."

She ran a hand through her hair tiredly. "I just don't want people to judge me, to make assumptions about my life and my decisions."

Arthur nodded in understanding. "I get it," he said softly. "It can be hard to block out the noise. But you have to remember that the only opinion that matters is your own."

Colette let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, tell that to the media," she mumbled, but there was no vitriol in her voice, just resignation.

Arthur huffed, shaking his head. "The media don't know what they're talking about. They just want the next big headline, the next scandal. They don't care about the truth."

Colette sighed, slumping back on the couch. "I just wish they'd leave me alone," she mumbled. "I just want to have my baby in peace."

Arthur patted her leg comfortingly. "Just focus on yourself and the baby," he said firmly. "Everything else is just background noise."

Colette nodded, taking a deep breath. He was right, of course. “They have this picture of me in their head, that’s very different from the actual person,” she said weakly. “And now they judge me for something that they don’t even know what it was, because it’s not public. They just take Russell’s word and run with it…”

Arthur's expression darkened as she vented. "I know," he said softly. "It's unfair and it sucks. But you can't let it get to you."

Colette sighed, rubbing a hand over her eyes. "I know. I know.”

"You don't owe anyone anything," Arthur said firmly. "You don't have to justify yourself to anyone. Max would say the same."

Colette smiled wryly at the mention of Max. She could almost hear his voice in her head, telling her the same thing.

She closed her eyes, picturing Max's face in her mind. He always knew what to say to keep her grounded, to keep her from spiralling into a dark pit of despair. She missed him, more than she thought was possible.

"I just wish Maxie was here," she muttered, her voice thick with emotion.

[w98pops]

dug out henry reference and realised how atrocious his clothes really are. so i made them worse.

also a short summary of his lore under the cut bcs a lot of new people here and digging through my oc tags... there's an abundance of outdated info 😭 sorry for that

Henry is 40ish. Was raised in a vault full of the greatest enclave minds of the generation. His dad was a neurosurgeon and also an overseer, so Henry's childhood was sure a lot of fun. He learned how to dissect a person by the ripe age of 7 but mostly stuck to kissing boys and playing games on his dad's terminal.

After almost 20 years of trying to get an answer from Navarro, Vault 10 finally opened its doors (off-schedule) and was immediately raided and decimated by the Legion. Henry' early desensitisation to gore, violence, and fascist views (thanks to a Richardson fanboy dad) helped him survive through the thick of it. He adopted his new name "Noam" and continued his medical practice but in a less sterile place.

There, he fell in love with a silly little guy named Aletus (my oc) and practically adopted Aletus's daughter Inga (my courier six). 8 gruelling years of an awful situationship later, Noam decided that the Legion kinda sucks and that he genuinely wants to be a proper family with a guy he loves. Noam communicated his plan to Aletus, and Aletus did a thing any normal guy would: drove Noam into the desert, slit his throat, and left him to die.

The Followers of the Apocalypse found Henry 2 days later, miraculously alive, patched him up, and he joined them for the fun of it. Mostly because of a metal ass name.

In 2281, Henry M. Paradaimu VII is a very respected member of the Followers, even though nowadays he mostly drinks and gambles instead of doing his job. He is a snarky, sarcastic dummy dum dum idiot with a cool, raspy voice and a lot of unadressed mental health issues. Henry likes tall blonde dudes, mimosas, and thinks about joining Great Khans. Because seeking thrilling and violent experiences is a healthy coping mechanism for sure :) And he's totally over that Aletus guy. Totally.

[gremlingottoosilly]

The Horror and The Wild [Emperor!Konig x fem!Reader] Medieval Fantasy AU (ch.4)

You had a nice, simple life. Serve the princess, obey the princess, protect the princess with your life. You never thought that this nice, simple life would bring you to be kidnapped by the infamous Northern Emperor. Konig never thought that kidnapping a wife would be much easier than courting one.

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| you're here! AO3 Word count: 3469 Tags/Warnings: Medieval fantasy/Alternative European history AU, Age gap, Enemies(one-sided)to lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Forced marriage, Size difference(Konig is absolutely huge), Somewhat one-sided slow burn, Yandere Konig Warnings for this chapter: Dub-con oral sex(f!receiving), outdated views regarding sex

— Now, dear princess, your husband will expect certain…qualities of his wife. Please, you must listen to this as closely as possible if we want to avoid…traumas. 

You pout, eating the apple that was provided to you by a group of servants who looked way too scared to be appointed to a princess. If Her Highness saw this, she would order them whipped – a servant shall never look unhappy in front of their patron, as not to invoke nasty feelings of sadness, misery, and empathy in the royal rulers. Princess made you smile and laugh through hours of her extensive, albeit a bit improvised and amateur, singing. You were to hold her hair while she was doing it, listening to the melodies of desire to escape the castle. 

The servants in front of you were sent by the Emperor – König, to…teach you something. You were not too interested in his, way too invested in weird fruits from foreign countries that they provided – still, you are too well-mannered to ignore them. 

— Traumas? Is his Emperor’s Illustrosicy going to torture me? 

Servants look over at each other, nervous. You tilt your head to the side, trying to see if you can decipher their gazes – but you see nothing but sympathy. Sad, miserable kind. Your blood runs cold as you get another bite of that apple. 

— You’re as innocent as Emperor said, your Majesty. 

You weren’t, in reality – you’re a liar, a traitor to your nation, the only one of the servants who was too scared to die alongside the royal family and performed that foolish gamble in order for a chance to save your hide. Such silly things like an untouchable hymen between your legs or lack of knowledge of intimacy, saved for a few books, are nothing compared to the life you are saving in your mind, There is nothing innocent about you or your actions. 

— W…well, you see…you are of child-bearing age. 

That was up for discussion. You might be an adult by all standards, a bit too ripe even, too sheltered for the age in which young men are already taking their family’s businesses and women are giving birth to their second and third children, but it doesn’t mean you want to bear someone’s kid. Definitely not conceive from a man who destroyed your future. 

— I won’t do it. 

You act like a princess would – bratty and pouty, all the new dresses and the room they place you in acting like a perpetuar of your ego. 

— My Lady, this isn’t up for discussion. Please, we need to…we need to teach you how to do it, in order to prevent…accidents. 

— What accidents? 

The other servant, an older lady with tired eyes and snappy gestures, took out a pile of drawings from the bag she was holding. Quite a lot of drawings. Quite detailed drawings. Quite nasty drawings. 

Quite…bloody drawings. 

Gods, is this what a woman must endure during lovemaking? Is this even lovemaking, or is this a dissection straight from the medical book? The drawings are lewd and horrifying – whoever was the artist, they didn’t spare the details of the act. Pain, blood, torn flesh…god, if they wanted you to learn how to take your husband properly, they did a horrible job – now you don’t ever want to see him again. Not without armor plates protecting…that thing. 

— I w…won’t do it. Behead me this instant.

Your voice is weak, horrified. Servants look equally scared. 

— Your Majesty, you must know that it’s just…the worst outcome. If you listen to your lessons and relax, you will escape such a fate. 

— How could a living being relax while they are being impaled on a spear?!

— With certain balms and extracts, such fate can be escaped. 

— How can a balm prevent this?! Too angry to ever listen to the servants, you drip the drawings from your hands, along with a half-eaten apple. Un-ladylike, but you need to preserve your life – and your dignity – before they would show you even more horrifying things that would never let you sleep again. Tugging on the heaviness of your skirt, you ran to the nearest hallway as soon as possible. 

The emperor’s palace is disgustingly big and dark – you’d say it was magnificent in that scary, gothic style, but you don’t have the time to think about all the artistic choices that the architects made by installing so many dark hallways in a place that suppose to protect Emperor from possible assassins. Still, you drop to the nearest dark corner, hoping that no one will follow you. 

With a calm sigh, you brush the dust from your skirts. God, you had to bring that apple with you – it was delicious. 

— I never heard anyone calling my cock  a spear before, Liebling. You’re full of surprises. 

Big, gloved hands are enveloping your waist, putting you in the hug you didn’t want. This embrace is all too familiar and too terrifying – you forget that this castle serves the only true owner, and your desire to escape will never be considered an option. Like a rabbit in the wolf’s mouth, you freeze. The worst company you could expect after such a horrifying lesson – your only hope is that, like men from the novels you and Princess were reading sometimes, The Emperor was into his comrades more than he would be into you. 

His warm hands, pulling you into a tight hug against his body, however, make you think otherwise. 

— Let go of me! Pl…please. 

You plead because the drawings installed a new fear into your body. You're not afraid of death – if anything, you wish for it. However, the fait of constant pain and suffering which each nightly visit makes you more terrified than any death sentence would. 

König only laughs, holding you as close to him as possible. A warm hand grazes over your stomach, making you shiver from anticipation. You don’t know what he is thinking about – you also don’t want to. 

— Why would I let go of my precious wife? 

— I’m not your wife yet. 

— And won’t be for quite a while, considering the lessons my servants taught you? 

Blood drains from your face. Even the slightest reminder makes you whimper – like a puppy without its mother, you let go of a pathetic little sound, and your face finds comfort in the armor plates that Knog wears even in many of his castles. Cold metal makes you slightly calmer, and you can force the dreams of touching his chest instead of deep in your mind. Bane to all the lewdness, as you saw the amount of blood it would drain from your body. 

— I will never succumb to such fate. 

— I promise it won’t be that bad. I can whip my servants for installing fear in you if you want to, little princess. 

No matter how scared they made you feel, you will never bestow such fate on any of the servants – you, perhaps, the only one who knows how hard and horrible work as a lady in waiting might be. You might not be the perfect princess, but you certainly aren’t a cruel one. 

— No. They…they shall not be harmed, Your Majesty. 

He chuckles, pushing a hand on your face. A few tears fall down your cheeks – he drains them with his gloved finger, making you whimper only more. God, you look divine like this – eyes are glistening with tears, the face is hot from fear and embarrassment, the mouth is open with a sweet little pout…it takes every last inch of his self-control not to simply pick you up and bring you to his bedroom before you could say anything. 

— You’re kind for a princess. 

There is suspicion in his voice – but you quickly try to brush it away by forcing yourself out of his embrace. Unfortunately, he only holds you tighter, making you bury your face in his armor again. To be honest, it’s not the worst place to be. 

— Shouldn’t you be in the courtroom? 

— I ran. Never liked to greet new people. 

You almost choke on your breath. Is he serious?! His face betrays his emotions – despite how confident his mask is, you can see that his eyes are colder than usual. More nervous than usual. His hands are shaking, if only for a little bit, holding you tight, as you can simply escape through his fingers like sand. You’d love to have such powers. 

— I thought the Emperor had responded. 

— I do. And an army of men to do these responsibilities for me. 

— You’re hiding from my country’s Ambassadors? 

— Collaborators and traitors of your people, yes. The only ambassador I care about is in my hands. 

With this, he quickly pushes you up in his hands, forcing you to sit on the cold stone ledge. The new dress design makes it possible to manipulate and move the skirt as he pleases – you hate this new fashion because it makes it ridiculously easy for König to simply push your skirt upwards, revealing your legs and your dignity, concealed by only a pair of short, frilly white underpants with so many bows and ribbons, it feels obscene. 

You try to kick him in the face, but he catches your ankle before you can do anything. He was a horrible, terrible man – totally unfit for the ruler of half of the world, you have no idea how a man this villainous could still be held in high regard for his people. This place is just as barbaric as their ruler, you presume – no dignity or sense of taste as König holds your skirt up, tearing apart the delicate fabric. God, it probably cost a fortune! 

Emerald green fabric lays like green ocean waves under your legs. You must admit, even the cold of the inner parts of the palace does not make you feel uncomfortable – if anything, this moment of exposure of your legs makes you feel a bit more comfortable and fresh. The light breeze caresses your legs, and you almost want to close your eyes and just enjoy wearing clothes without the stuffiness of the full gown. 

With your corset, torn skirt, and underpants, you almost feel like you’re wearing pants – an obscene picture, you assume, a lady should never show her ankles to anyone but her husband…and you would do everything to stop him from being marked as one. Still, König places his large imposing body between your legs, and you panic immediately – is this monster terrible enough to show you what those illustrations meant, not even in the comfort of a marriage bed, but in the coldness of the stone hallway? You close your eyes, kicking him to your heart’s content – and he is laughing every time you’re trying to resist, only catching both of your ankles in his grip and forcing them open. God, this is the end. Torture that you never wanted to experience will be bestowed upon you right about…

His tongue goes to rub you through the rough fabric of your underpants. Dispute all the layers of expensive material, your maidenhood feels like it had been set on fire. 

You are suddenly aware of the silly things you have between your legs. You can feel them too well right now – every second of movement of his tongue against sensitive flesh makes your legs kick him less and less. Your nails are trying to dig into the stone of a small ledge you were sitting on – but you can’t do anything to stop this sweet torture he is perpetuating. You want for everything to stop this instant, and you want for him to finally take off your undergarments. 

— Wh…wha…what are you doing?! You don’t scream as loud as you can, only because you know that the maids are nearby and you don’t want to be making a scene. Putting the emperor back in his place and revealing him as a pervert would be nice, of course – but it wasn’t as nice as having your dignity saved. You bite your lips, feeble attempts to save at least parts of yourself – still, you feel like you’re being boiled alive by his masterful tongue, without even the need to bring your pants down and feel him on your flesh directly. 

— I want to show you how nice this could be. 

— How nice what could be?! You are still kicking your legs, and he is slowly taking down the fabric of your underpants. You wish he had exposed hair so you could tug on it – you wish he wasn’t afraid of showing you his face, just so you could break it properly. A lady should always protect her virginity from a man with evil intentions, and König was certainly the most evil person of them all. 

Still, his tongue felt so good, circling around the parts you were only finding accidentally, blindly searching for pleasure like a dumb kitten, trying every little button in your body to see what would make you squirm. He is masterful at this, every action is deliberate and strong – every little thing in his movements makes you wonder just how many women he bedded. 

You can still feel the little tremble in his hands, his fingers that supported you and kept your legs apart are trembling, if only just a bit – you wonder if he truly is nervous about everything he is doing or if he just wants to make everything perfect. His touch leaves a trail of bruises on your inner thighs and you never thought that you’d yearn for a man whose touch is literally hurting you. 

— I know how to make… consumation go painless, little princess. Certainly have the experience for this. 

— Is fondling my undergarments a part of this experience, Your Highness? 

— If you wish for me to lost my control, little princess.

Before you could say anything else about not wanting for him to simply take off your underpants and throw them on the cold floor of the castle, he had already lowered them to hang around your ankles – revealing your sensitive folds, already glossy and wet from all the fondling he performed to make you nice and ready for him. 

König knew he shouldn’t be doing this – losing control would be too easy in this case. Little princess, out of her own depth, can barely stop him when he wants to take something precious from her – still, he wanted to at least try to be slower, softer, to make everything perfect and make her his precious trophy. Her dread over bedding him would prove horrible for their marriage – if she didn’t wish for the workers to be saved, he would already sent those dumb maids away. 

Princess is adult enough to learn the pleasures of being a woman – still, he understood why a king would want to hide a precious flower like this. You don’t behave like a spoiled brat would, no matter how much you want to make him think you were nothing but a pouty face and frowned brows, and he wants to see your true self – your inner nature, revealing itself in front of him. And he knows just a way to do this…

Your cunt is perfect – he is a soldier, a man of war and little romance, he can’t sing you a song of how beautiful and perfect your maidenhood is, but he can lick it and tease it and make you come on his tongue more than you ever could with that dainty fingers of yours. 

He isn’t ashamed of touching your sweetness when he is burning his face between your legs. Not even caring that his hood, which he had to draw back as fast as possible, is going to get messy with all o your juices, he licks and tugs on your clit, your folds, on every sensitive bit of skin of your body. 

And, by god, are you sensitive? 

Soon, your little cries of pleasure are turning into moans that you are pathetically trying to hide. Soon you are marking his rough, rugged face wet with your juices – his nose is pressed on your clit constantly, and that well-mannered, perfectly bred royal woman in your body is moaning like a common whore. 

König isn’t trying to be too gentle – his mind is filled with that boyish nerves and anxiety, the fear of getting spotted not because anyone would have anything to say to the literally fucking emperor, but because he doesn’t want anyone else to see how easily he can drown little princess in pleasure. She is a perfect girl, so pretty for him, so nice and wet when he pushes his tongue in and out. 

He forgot the last time he experienced such pleasure – his dick only grows with each gentle stroke of tongue in your folds, and he doesn’t even need to touch himself. You’re perfect for him, writhing under his touch, he had to force himself to stop putting too much pressure on your poor swollen clit. König almost forgot just how sensitive you are – he had to introduce you slowly to the world of pleasure, not pushing you into the depths before you could even get married, but…well, he was never one to follow the rules – and you, as his precious bride, deserved something nice outside of the wedlock. 

— St…stop, it’s t’ much…

You are mumbling, holding his hood in your hands, and he is almost afraid you are going to pull it to reveal his face even more – but even your ruined skirt is enough of a cover to make his identity concealed, and he isn’t afraid of pushing your gummy walls with his tongue, gently caressing your insides. 

You are clenching around his tongue, the intrusion is unfamiliar to you – he makes sure he kisses your clit from time to time, holding the sensitive bud between his teeth so as to threaten you gently. He usually involves a lot more biting and would love to put some permanent marks on your thighs and soft lower tummy, but if you were scared of the drawings those dumb maids put on to you, he doesn’t want to fuel your fear any further. He could try later, making your perfect body into a canvas for his desire. 

— Patience is a grace for a princess, ja? Be patient, Meine Liebe. 

— Pl…please, stop, I don’t…

— What is it? 

— It’s too much, you shouldn’t…

— I’m not claiming you yet. God won’t be against a bit of fun, Schatzi. 

— I’m against it…

— Your moans tell another story, little princess.

He knows you don’t want to be patient – he tugs at every nerve inside your body, his tongue swings in and out, and his lips caress your soft folds, collecting any juice that might be escaping. He will have to gift you another dress after this – but he is so used to seeing you in torn clothes it becomes a thing that stirs his manhood again and again. You look perfect when you’re not perfect – by god, he is unable to control himself. 

You whine lightly as he presses a final kiss to your clit, catching your orgasm and drinking your pleasure. He is a messy eater through and through – his stubble makes you whimper from sensitivity, you sob lightly as he pushes back, a hood returning to conceal his face before your dazed eyes would be able to catch him. 

Hell, you look precious. 

Panting, with sweat beads glossy on your skin, with your lips open and moans escaping it – with your face completely turned into an expression of enormous pleasure, he doesn’t know what to do with himself as he watches you breathe heavily, chest going up and down. If he could, he would chain you to a bed in his bedroom, not ever allowing your precious figure to escape. 

He might just do this when you’re married.

You whimper under him, your eyes are still glazed with that pleasurable expression, making him smile under his hood. You may hate him all you want, but he sees the truth – knows just how perfect you are in your stubborn desire to defy him. 

— Wh…what was it? 

You are still shocked but regain some of your senses – you take on your underpants quickly, stubbornness spreading across your warm, embarrassed face. How he loves that expression. 

— I wanted to show you that our wedding night wouldn’t be as bad. 

— I would rather live without a wedding night, Your Majesty. 

— Now, was it that bad? 

You tilt your head to the side. 

— I am not here to feed your ego. 

— You’re sure it is feeding my other senses. 

He brushes his hand over your face. You allow him to – not because you wanted his touch, but because you needed some time to think, and his touch was gentle enough to ignore. Yes. That is the truth.

[kivino]

I just thought of this when reading your idea for a konig x reader zombie fic, but along with additional survival stuff that Konig brings them, maybe he also brings them little knick knacks and other items they show interest in?

Like when Konig sees them gathering stuff from abandoned cars or buildings, he sees that they spend a bit more time looking at the cute sweaters, book series, figurines, and more

Konig wants to give them something to brighten their day but also wants to show them that he can provide them more happiness than the group could ever give 👀

Just kind of thoughts about it, sorry if it's rambling

hello, anon! thank you for your ask, i love this idea so much!!

i can just imagine, you're out to get some supplies from an abandoned, already ransacked mall. it's been pretty safe so far, with zombies being easy to avoid, but then you spot a book shop, and you just can't help yourself! you spend so much time looking at the dusted shelves, unaware of a pair of blue eyes boring into your back, dissecting your every move, as he creeps closer and closer, curious about what caught your eye in that deserted bookshop.

completely submerged into the world of the book held in your hands, you don't notice him lingering nearby, trying to sneak a peak, see what you like. it only now dawned on him that it must be exceptionally boring being with your group with no entertainment or cute things to keep you at least a semblance of company. blissfully unaware of könig, you linger around the figurines section, surprisingly untouched, if only a litte dusty, as you sigh in defeat. it would be a useless endeavor to try and bring even one back.

too distracted by your books and knick knacks, you fail to notice a couple of zombies shuffling aimlessly towards the store. they don’t even get a chance to step inside, as he drags one of them away by the scruff of its neck, one knife blow to the head becoming lethal for it. the second zombie is dealt with just as swiftly as the other one, as the man trips it up, smashing its head with a boot like a ripe and bloody watermelon. könig won’t let anyone harm you.

you get back to your group with none of the trinkets that caught your eye, opting to get the useful stuff. that is, until you’re confronted by another person from your group, holding up a couple of books and a pretty sweater, dangling in front of you and asking what in the hell did you bring back. you’re baffled and irritated to hear that they went through the stuff in your tent. but könig?

könig is seething. his hands curl into fists, as he observes that waste of space get their dirty hands on his gifts to you. how dare they. of course, it took him some time to realize that besides safety, food and water that he could easily provide for you, you also needed something to light up your days, at least a little bit. he needed to show you that he can also make you happy, while you’re with him. and this human vermin is questioning his actions? questioning you?

he takes a deep breath. soon he’ll have you all to himself, and you, in turn, will have all the flowers, plushies and books you’ll want. anything for you.

[raccoon-robyn]

Bro, this is exactly it. This is what caused Henry to want to leave his kids, cause not only is his kid being a jerk to Henry, he’s being a jerk to his kinda-son/nephew, and now Henry can’t abide by his kid not only trying to doom this entire plane of existence and dooming their friends from the forgotten realms, but he’s being cruel to Henry’s grandson. And now it feels like Henry’s teachings to lark have been forgotten and disregarded.

Henry can’t stop lark and sparrow from being awful to their son/(kinda-maybe)nephew, but he can at least go and try to take care of those who his sons have forsaken.

something something lark instantly yelling at/blaming normal for releasing the flesh horde

something something henry refusing, for years, to blame lark for releasing the doodler

something something sparrow breaking down and screaming this at henry while trying to impersonate lark:

and like, i know we still don't know if this is sparrow's actual true feelings or him trying to accurately portray his brother (porque no los dos?), but either way, failure to be adequately blamed/punished for their fuckup seems to be a real sticking point for one or both of them

so now we flash forward a decade and a bit, and a six-year-old normal has carried on the fun family tradish of unleashing some sort of eldritch horror upon an unsuspecting world. (never mind that he was unsupervised. in a place that was made to store dangerous eldritch monstrosities. in a room without a fucking lock on it. never mind that he was FUCKING SIX, and that lark sent him out there in the first place).

anyways, i'm wondering if lark being so shitty about this is a mixture of projection and tough-love bullshit. like, "my father refused to blame and/or get mad at me for my fuckup, and it's been eating away at me for most of my life, so i'm actually doing you a favour by acting this way."

which is objectively obviously dumb and incorrect on just SO many different levels, but i can definitely see lark seeing it that way.

anyways the REAL question here is how exactly this lead to the apparent complete dissolution of the relationship between henry and lark. like, henry never outwardly showed any blame or anger towards his son for literally stabbing him in the back and ending the world (though i'm sure he's been feeling and repressing it this whole time, as is the henry way) - but this? lark acting this way towards his own son? i can't see henry standing for that. henry "it's okay to be angry, it's not okay to be cruel" oak is in NO universe gonna let that shit go unchecked.

anyways i feel like this is nothing/entirely incoherent, just. there is a lot of pent-up and/or misplaced anger going on in this family and i CANNOT wait to see it (hopefully) all come to light in the next episode.

[kidspawn]

Since this used to be such a hot topic of discourse in the fandom, I’m keen to know your thoughts on Adam’s major

This is an ask I am delighted to have received, because this is a topic I have devoted far too much time picking apart. I wish that meant I had a succinct answer, but to be honest you knew what you were getting into sending me an ask. Especially an Adam-related ask. I have many, many thoughts. Not just because I'm writing college age Gangsey and I've devoted a lot of time to this concept, I genuinely just find this thread of thought fascinating and ripe for character analysis. Mild spoilers for Adam's arc in The Dreamer Trilogy, especially Greywaren.

Dissecting Adam's college major, I think, hinges entirely on what state of character development he's in, how many majors he's tried, how attached he stays to Ronan, his relationship with himself and his perception on success. More on that later, but it's crucial (I think) to know what major Adam chooses, what he'd enjoy, and what actually thematically works for him.

So, starting with canon knowledge, I'm fairly certain he's confirmed to be a psychology major as of Call Down the Hawk/Mister Impossible. This could be me making a logical leap, but he's “studying humanity” which points to Psychology or Sociology. I'm actually very fond of Psych major Adam, for numerous reasons I'll get into in a second. But yeah. And we know he's struggling quite a bit during this period of time, with identity and a loneliness he can't seem to break through. And after this, he transfers to multiple colleges in quick succession, before ultimately not graduating and entering into his ultra-mysterious government job. (I have mixed feelings on this.)

Here's how those years pan out, in my head: Adam transfers out of Harvard, to an equally prestigious college. He tries a new major, this time, knowing Psychology didn't work. Maybe the study was the problem, so he reapplies himself in an equally enticing discipline. I'd like to think, after all the occurs in Greywaren (especially with Ronan deviating and able to access things outside of the Barns, outside of Adam) he regresses a bit and tries for pre Law. Pre Law, to him, comes with the pressed suit and success he idealized as a child. It feels fitting, after a perceived failure, that he'd latch onto his adolescent definition of success. I think he'd do well, apply himself, perform admirably, but ultimately realize he fucking hates lawyers. And it doesn't click. Nothing passionate in him, just a resigned way of being. So, another transfer. Another Adam Parrish reinvention, another fresh start, a clean slate. What follows is a series of identity rewrites, different uniforms and backstreets and passions and sets of friends and parents to fabricate a new existence. And each one takes him further and further away from what he really wants. This culminates in the government email, from all his work along the ley line, all his whispers in the world of magic, and ends us at the Greywaren epilogue. (This is me weaving headcanon into the epilogue, not quite how I'd write Adam's story, but this is ending we've been given, and I find the serpentine nature of it immensely fascinating.)

Now, moving into majors I actively enjoy, say, reading or writing in. This is not a diss on any other assigned major - I can be persuaded to enjoy Adam in nearly any major or career, especially if it's written out well. That's part of the problem, is my opinion. I'm going to be kind of mean to Adam here, so let me start on a positive note: Adam is very academically inclined. Not even as a form of survival, he's just... a smart kid. He enjoys picking the world apart and analyzing what surrounds him. He's got the work ethic for traditional education, he's polite and listens to authority, he's inquisitive and skilled in academia. Whether he likes it, who's to say? There's little he indicates in regards to pleasure gained in academics. I'm actually of the mind he likes school because it is 1. A key to success and 2. He is good at it, and Adam likes being good at things. I fully believe he'd do well in nearly any academic path he picked, because Adam doesn't necessarily need joy to succeed academically. Just the drive to prevail and endure. So, taking this in mind, I think half the problem is Adam not really... enjoying any of these fields, just being good at it and seeing success at the end of the tunnel. The other half is his fucking identity crisis. What does he want? Who does he want to become? Those things directly conflict and make it truly difficult to find a major he'd want to pursue. He's being tugged in so many directions. Hence, while I think Adam would go to college as a means to an end, I've never actually seen Adam as someone who enjoys the actual act of school and academia. (I do think he enjoys perceiving and questioning and investigating the world, prying and analyzing. He enjoys problem solving. I digress. That wasn't the question.)

My Adam Parrish college major headcanons, my personal view, breaks down into: what I think he studied, what actually makes sense in the context of his character and his qualities, and my self-indulgent “omg i wish he studied it he'd love it.” I've already talked about what I think actually went down. I think he bounced through majors. Specifically, psych and sociology and law, maybe two or three more. But maybe more on my other opinions:

So, for an Adam Parrish major, I think there's some criteria that must be met:

1. Something in STEM. Adam is, at his core, very tactile and factual. He's not just the “science guy” for a joke. He's literally hardwired to perceive the world with the scientific method. I can't see him not studying a science pathway.

2. Monetary success. I don't even care if this seems reductive for character development, I actively think Adam would sit down, chart all career options, and choose the ones with the most profit. He'd balance passion and interest with a lucrative career. Whatever job he gets has to pay well.

3. Something that makes a good impression. I think Adam cares about what people think of him. I think he wants a diploma that brings a swell of pride in him. Something people find impressive, because it proves he is impressive. Rags to riches when it's done. For all his work after TRK, he still cares deeply what others see him as.

4. Something challenging. Adam canonically needs to be mentally occupied. It serves as a distraction. It keeps him sane. I don't think he's enjoy or want to pursue anything that isn't at least a LITTLE academically stimulating.

5. Something that lets him help people. This is largely a TRK headcanon, where he mentions as he leaves the trailer for the last time, that he wants to help all the Adams he knows are stuck there. I love this, actually. I genuinely adore this idea. Adam is good with kids. He cares about helping people, wants to become the person he needed the most when he was a kid. I adore this idea. I think this is a criteria that he keeps close to his chest, and it doesn't always have to be met for a great story. (I actually find the idea of Adam sacrificing this desire in favour of success wonderful ground for character study.) But at my very core, I love Adam pursuing a degree that opens doors to help people. However that looks.

Now, I can gush about majors I'd actually give Adam. In a lot of fic I write or miscellaneous commentary, I reference Adam being a psych major. I love love love Adam being a psych major. I have no clue what the fandom consensus is, but this is genuinely so fitting for his character. Not even narratively. Like, as a person, Adam being a psych major makes sense. Specifically, Adam being a psych dropout makes sense. (I do not think he gets a psych degree. I think he switches majors. Allow me to explain.)

I used to loath psych major Adam. I hated it. And then, I sat down and thought about the implications of psych major Adam. Adam, who picks the world and the people around him apart. Who operates as a fly on the wall, psychoanalyzes and makes assumptions based on human behavior, who's learned to read body language and intent. Who hones in on microscopic self expression, who builds assumptions and makes rash judgements based in behavior alone. Who sits and builds hypothesis on behavior based on empirical evidence. Introspective, analytical Adam Parrish who spends half the fucking series psychoanalyzing his friends and strangers in grocery stores and himself.

Adam spends so much time picking his own self apart, trying to understand who he is. And I find that, on a more sentimental level, pursuing psych gives him clinical distance to pick himself apart? There's a way to understand who he is and what that means about his role in humanity as a whole. The phrasing of that statement in the cut Adam chapter, set at Harvard, specifically speaks on studying humanity. I find that fascinating? I love that he seeks to comprehend human nature, and I think a part of him wants to apply that inward and figure out who he is. For a character who isn't entirely sure who he is or what he wants, a major pursuing that knowledge has to be crack. And it's why I think he'd drop it.

I don't know if this is common sentiment, but I've always heard two jokes about psych majors: they trauma dump like no one's business, and they'll always always change majors. I think Adam, first of all, fucking hates other psych majors. Specifically because I think Adam, who I adore (really need to stress this), kind of struggles to comprehend other people could suffer too? It's a point of contention in the base series that Adam sort of builds this monopoly on suffering, that he alone is the sole bearer of burden. It makes him clash with Ronan, with Blue, with Gansey. No one has suffered as much as Adam has. And that is said with love and understanding that Adam's childhood fucking sucked. That he has every right to acknowledge how difficult his life has been. But oftentimes, his self esteem and his mental health make him incredibly self absorbed and prone to dismissing other suffering as lesser or insignificant. No one is worse than Adam Parrish, no one has suffered more. (And if that sounds harsh, please reread the cut chapter. His perspective on Ronan in TRB. On Gansey. His actual textual arguments with Blue and Ronan when they call him out on this. I adore him, I do this too, that belief that I alone have suffered and no one else had. It took years of therapy to deprogram. It's not a moral statement on my end, it is something I find unfortunately relatable about Adam and something I appreciate has been stressed in his characterization.) This is to say I think he'd be fucking annoyed with psych majors psychoanalyzing each other. There's going to be an element of, "you don't know what it is to suffer." and rolling his eyes at other kids. I reiterate: Adam would hate other psych majors. (Which has great comedic potential, btw.)

I also believe, for all that pursuing psych might help him achieve some theoretical enlightenment, it'd also make him immensely uncomfortable. Strip him bare and force him to confront his demons. I don't see Adam “emotional repression” Parrish being willing to sit in his own human complexity. I think he likes the idea of knowing himself, but there’s a vulnerability in self analysis that Adam does not sit well in. Love him, tho. You go king.

My other reason revolves around him canonically enjoying debate on the human perception and experience. His conversation with Aurora, the way he experiences with love, revolves around discussing if two people perceive colour the same way. Which leads me to believe if Adam actually sat with psychology past the first two semesters, he'd love the theology and concepts of psychological study. Diving into the human brain, with a scalpel and vigour, appeals to Adam as a way to understand the world. The more I discuss it, the more I convince myself I adore psych student Adam who realizes he maybe hates other psych students and can't handle the reflection staring from his textbook. Adam, love, go to therapy. He would hate therapy.

But in my heart of hearts, he doesn't stick with it. For aforementioned reasons. I just think it feels too real. But god, in some universe Adam Parrish went into juvenile psychology.

My more self indulgent Adam major is another one I kind of fucking hated at first, before I came around. I love engineer major Adam. I do. I really really do. Specifically, mechanical, civil, environmental, or architectural engineering. First of all, applies for the same reasons I like him in a psych major - solving the world by picking it apart. But it takes a step back, sticks with those laws of nature upon which Adam so desperately clings. Math, science, physics. Tangible, real, results. Results you can calculate. Minimal human variability. Factors you can always account for. There's a way to change the world and comprehend it in a way that doesn't demolish his reality (he struggles with things that break his perception of the world, specifically magic). And this ties into another element of Adam I like: the joining of two impossibilities. I adore Adam restructuring cities, buildings, landscapes to accommodate ley lines. It's why I pick those specific engineering disciplines. It combines this scientific side of Adam Parrish, his comprehension of the world, with the magic that has informed his existence. He can pursue his goals, protect the ley lines, and make some good fucking money doing it. I will always always always adore engineering Adam. This is my actual answer. Engineer major Adam. Who started as a psych major and realized there is nothing wrong with the title of engineer, that not being a lawyer or a doctor or some revolutionary public figure does not mean failure - it is uniquely his. He didn't take engineering from anyone. It's a pursuit all his own, that weaves together the numerous contradictions of Adam Parrish.

(Architectural Engineer Adam is one I adore because it is 1. super self indulgent and I know this and own up to it, and 2. Every fucking architect I know is some weird ass cryptid control freak who goes on and on about making a lasting imprint on the world because of fucking course. Detail oriented freaks who never drink water and stay hunched over our damn fucking computer that keeps crashing while we enable our CAD software fuck you computer i have arthritis-) But tbh, I veer into Environmental or Civil engineering with a special soft spot for Architectural Engineer Adam I don't think is canon but I will never let that idea go and I will push that agenda. However, realistically, Environmental or Civil Engineering.

(I do enjoy all other Adam variants. The thematic power of Law student Adam, I think premed Adam is hot, I love love me a forensics or criminal justice Adam. I am so pro Adam being written into any major. This is just my approach to writing Adam in college.)

Thank you for attending my TED talk. As you can see, I think about this a LOT. Like, way way too much. I think about the Gangsey in college so fucking much. And Adam's journey through college is, really, a way to navigate his character arc. Imo. Hope you enjoy this.

[weareallgonnaliveforawhile]

Sonic the Movie HC!

I've always really held this hc but I'm of the belief that Shadow is mentally younger than Sonic, like by a decent amount. Maria was roughly 12ish when she died and Shadow got trapped in time, and of the two siblings Shadow was the younger. (Keep in mind, this is a hc)

It's not canon that Shadow's age was accelerated or anything like that and you might bring up 'But OP, he talks weirdly mature for a kid younger than 12', I raise you, that he was raised by a collective of scientists who had no idea how to treat kids.

You think those fuckers weren't doing their absolute best to teach Maria how to dissect rats at the ripe old age of 6?

But yeah, mentally and physically, he's closer to Tail's age than he is Sonic's (though he's still older than Tails). I think it'd be fun cause it'd make him a lot like characters like The Collector from TOH where they're children that were hurt before and don't really understand how powerful they are but just want to do things their way.

I just think the idea of Shadow seeming so scary and terrifying but really being a young kid that's only like 12 or something and he's going into everything he does fresh from his sisters death listening to the only father figure he ever knew and even with all of this very sympathetic knowledge, all it means is that he's a kid with powers that he just can't fully grasp or understand, but that doesn't mean that he can't accidentally hurt someone.

[iifishizzleii]

könig & gaz - first meet

rare ship alert lmao. unedited :]

könig, who’s sent by kortac (much to his displeasure) on a co-op with task force 141.

he doesn’t like how they work, how their attention will divert from the mission the moment it comes to protecting civilians.

if there’s a chance that innocent lives can be saved, könig will do what he can. but, he won’t compromise a mission over a few lives, because what’s war without sacrifice? (not that their sacrifice means anything in the end, but to be fair, if you see a group of military men rushing one way, why wouldn’t you run the other way?) he has a job, and it’s a job that pays him to take lives. not save them.

the 141, on the other hand, work like they are. and it’s fucking annoying because they suddenly have a conscious for the lives they’re taking, as if the soldiers they’d killed in the field weren’t civilians in gear— as if they weren’t men who were someone’s husband, son, or father. but what does könig know? he’s just a colonel who’s been on the field longer than even price.

(the truth is, könig wasn’t raised knowing the value of human life. his father hated his mother, and his mother hated that he looked like his father. when he was diagnosed with social anxiety, it was just a label to the skin-crawling feeling he got whenever somebody stared at him for too long, the fraying to his nerves when the voices around him made the ones in his head scream louder. people had never done könig any good in his life. so, what did they deserve from him?)

he was forced to a briefing with the 141, and they were as insufferable as he remembered. price, with his unintelligible bear grunting that had könig leaning left because the hearing in his right ear had dulled, and the odor of cigarettes and stress that always followed him. ghost, who‘s staring was like a dissection he felt tugging at every nerve, dull eyes watching könig from across the table in a way that made the taller man want to peel out his eyes. soap, the blabbering bastard that never knew how to sit still without brushing up cozy against the masked lieutenant. all three of them were ripe for early retirement by könig’s hand, testing him with every indirect jab and comment made at the expense of their former enemy. then, a fourth man könig hadn’t bothered sparing any attention for asks price and question, and he turns.

his name was gaz. that’s what könig was told, at least, though he doubted it was the brit’s real name. not that he gave a shit. and ‘gaz’ was no older than thirty five.

he stood to price’s right, staring down at the map on the table with a sharp focus könig noticed. and while they weren’t many things on this Earth he enjoyed, one thing könig could appreciate was a weapon that was as lethal as it was transfixing.

he has big, brown eyes that swam with emotion, something könig’s bitter heart wouldn’t know a thing about. full, tanned cupid bow lips twisted into a thoughtful frown as price and laswell discussed their plans for the mission. his skin was copper, unlike the pale complexions könig was accustomed to seeing on Al Mazrah and Ashika Island. he has thick brows and sharp nose, and when he folds his arms across his chest, his biceps bulge under the grey-blue button up shirt he wears. the curve of his ass and muscled thighs are hugged by his tactical cargo pants.

he wasn’t stocky like soap, nor was he as intimidatingly huge as price or ghost. it was anything larger in size, after all, that people’s attention naturally gravitated to. könig would know. and between the four of them, gaz sits directly in the middle of being physically dominating. and it’s that which interests könig, because while any other less experienced man would chalk gaz’s size up to his skill, he knew better. gaz had every good of a chance of killing him as the rest of the men did. maybe even more, now that könig was aware of how his presence effected the group, and how easily gaz could use to his advantage.

“hübsche klinge,” könig muttered under his breath.

but, awareness seemed to lose meaning as he watched the young man across the room, dark eyes trailing up the thin fabric stretched across gaz’s stomach before lowering to watch his narrow hips as shifts to face price.

then soap cracks a joke and könig would have condemned him for it, unused to such easy going attitude while prepping for a mission, but the sight of gaz’s lips uncurling into a the barest hints of grin make könig freeze. he’s a grown man for christ’s sake, a force of nature feared by enemies and revered by allies. not even the sight of a his own family’s mangled corpses could sway him.

yet, watching that small grin on gaz’s face bloom into a full smile, an exasperated but amused laugh escaping plush lips at soap’s joke, has könig tightening his fists at his side, tracking the way gaz’s eyes crinkle in the corner from the stretch of his smile, his arms unfolding just to refold them oppositely.

könig decides at that moment that out of all the 141, gaz would be the biggest hindrance.

[spotaus]

Shout-out to me rotating my goofy ahh New Age ideas in my head to no avail.

Ofc having said that, I'm still going to make a random little ramble post while I'm on the subject.

Right about now seems a banger time to flesh out Horror a bit and add more actual context to why he's even here, because it was like... beginning of everything the first time I mentioned him-

So, Horror. The basics are that he was initially brought back to the castle so he could teach Nightmare more about agricultural techniques from outside the kingdom. Horror's family in particular has very old traditions, and he had cousins and family friends move into the kingdom when they heard the crown had been passed on (times of turmoil leave for open land, usually). While Horror was staying at the castle, there was some sort of moment that led Nightmare to ask Horror to stick around and pick up training as a Knight.

Now, to dissect it a bit. When Dust is freed from his sentences in the dungeon, he's tasked by Nightmare to help him dismantle all the crime rings he knew of. Dust agrees (what's left to lose?) but quickly realizes that Night has no idea why they sprung up and what good they do for his people. So, Dust boldly informs him. Which leads Nightmare to put together the dots that... yeah, no, crops were meant to have weather, got by barely with altered methods for centuries, and now all the crops of the season were ruined. So, he obviously needs to start working on the whole Food Dillman before he can take down the black market for good, lest his people starve.

So, he decides he'll send out a few of his guard on a search. Find any farmers who know how to grow crops traditionally, foreigners, the poor, people who are deeply familiar, and report back to him. And, he gets several, but the most promising lead is a report of a monster colony at the edge of the kingdom. Their matriarch was selling perfectly good, ripe, crops at market for cheap. So, of course, Nightmare sends a messenger ahead of him before packing up Himself, Killer, and Dust (he does NOT trust Dust to be alone at the castle with Ccino and his other, mostly-loyal, followers. So he decides to babysit him.) and trekking out to the kingdom's edge discreetly to talk with these people.

When they arrive, it really is more like a colony. The monsters living in older buildings repaired with unfamiliar methods, farm tools discarded in favor of more natural-seeming ones, etc. But, it was obvious these people were managing alright. Not huge swaths of land, but enough to survive and sell a bit extra. As far as Night can tell, at least.

What it is, is that Horror's specific branch of his family had been struggling to make ends meet since he was young. They couldn't grow crops in their traditional way, the weather was harsh and the market expensive. It wasn't until the power shift when his extended family arrived and helped to revive bits of their field. Horror and his immediate family are very much still afraid it will get to drought territory again, and they'll need to start from step one.

Nightmare, after arriving, is greeted hesitantly. He's a bit paranoid, but overall he seems more focused on keeping an eye on Dust than acting hostile to any of the people. Killer and Dust unnerve them a lot, and Horror's mother and father are hesitant to speak up in any way to the new king. Being close to the border, they had the pleasures of hearing only the worst of the rumors.

I like to think that Nightmare tries to speak and ask for advice, but most everyone is too afraid of screwing up and getting themselves thrown out or killed. Horror is the one who comes back from chopping firewood, axe in-hand (and still pretty scrawny at this point, even though he towers). He stands in the doorway (fearlessly btw???) and hears Night out as well, before asking why he wants to know their crop techniques. Nightmare explains that he wants to be able to teach the farming communities to thrive in these new conditions. Horror shoots back that there's no point in teaching them new ways if the droughts would just turn back. Then Night explains the magic which had held back the storms for so many centuries. That he intended to never cast those rituals again, but that his good intentions left the kingdom floundering for support.

Horror, at that point, looks back to his mom and asks her a question in another language, before she seems more serious than nervous. They talk back and forth for a few minutes, before Horror nods and says that they'll talk to the others, but at the least hid mother wants to help. (Turns out, Nightmare completely missed a language barrier, so there was a huge misunderstanding for a good chunk if tine until Horror (fluent in both languages thanks to scrounging in the nearby town and learning quickly) shows from his chores.

After that point Horror's family welcomes them and makes dinner, and it's a huge communal situation that Nightmare (and Killer + Dust) are really flustered by tbh. Kids in the community hear their auntie call Nightmare and the other two friends, and they start convincing eachother to run up and tap his tendrils as they flick around nervously. The others who know some of Night's language talk to them quickly about what it's like in their homelands. It's a shockingly quick turn-around, but Nightmare's brought no hostility this whole trip, so they don't let the rumors persist. (Horror suggests to some of them to back off a bit a few tines when Nightmare seems antsy, but Killer is happy to entertain with stories of his missions (which unironically boost morale as Horror translates) and Dust is still in his sleepy era and no one minds when he slumps forwards and puts his head in his arms to nap. It's just a very kind little community.

That night, Horror, his mother, and a few of the other older women take Nightmare aside to tell him about the basics of their techniques. But... to really understand, he should see the whole process. Nightmare expresses that he simply doesn't have the time to stay (Ccino was alone... basically running everything in his wake.). And they cone to a standstill for a while, trying to think of a solution, but Night already knows. He needs someone to come back with him, give him lessons on how it all works. Every detail. Then he can summon prospective farmers to the capital to teach them new methods, reward them for cooperation, get the word spread and show that it works. Without bringing attention to the little paradise these people had built themselves.

It's after some more talking in their language, that Horror offers to go. He's heard the traditions his whole life. He could help. Plus, he could speak their language

After checking all bases (would his family be okay without him? What would they like in return? How often would he want to come back? He knows it's a long-term role, right? Horror agrees to all of the terms) they set out.

Horror can tell Nightmare has a good intention. If he didn't, Horror would've see him. Nightnare would've seemed disgusted ag his little cousins, or refused their meal (though he *did* silently have Killer take a chomp at it in test first), or, most damnibgly, Horror would've returned to Dust and flames. He'd heard of the old king. This one, though frustrated with his family, had mostly just looked distressed and tired at not recieving answers. He didn't order his men to attack, and his men seemed content (although the little guy *did* have a couple shackles (?) on from what Horror could tell). He wanted to help, and his little brother was big enough to pick up the slack he'd be leaving behind anyhow. (His family made him stop doing as much labor after his skull injury, since it still pained him on occasion, so there wasn't much he did nowadays anyways aside going to market for shopping + the occasional axe-work.)

This leads to him comfortably returning with Nightmare to the capital to start teaching him agriculture that can sustain the weather! (Also establishing that they need seeds from outside the kingdom for heartier crops because these ones are all dry and sad-). Horror is the reason there's a thriving little garden in the courtyard, and also the reason the servants treat it like a community garden later on! But at the start it's just Night and Horror figuring things out, while he has Killer and Dust back out dismantling the market.

When he feels more confident in his knowledge (and has seen Horror work wonders) Nightmare finally reaches out to those other candidates his guard had brought up. Those with partially surviving crops, who seemed willing to work to improve and revise after the storms. (Among them is Crop, yes this is where he and Horror first meet.) And he basically hosts a little banquet where he explains his hopes, offers compensation in-case the work were to go wrong and disrupt the land, and asks who'd like to participate. Everyone present says they would (I mean, their livihood went down the drain, they want it back!) And Nightmare has Horror explain what he knows, Nightmare is mainly just there to support him as a credible source of belief.

Skip some time, Nightmare and Horror often check in on the farms, and they seem to be doing well and spreading the word. By now Dust is free of his bands and started Knight training not too long ago. Horror, one day, boldly asks to join them. He expresses to Nightmare that he wants to be able to do his job more efficiently, and believes that it slows work down for Nightmare to have to babysit him. Killer goes off on missions, and he'd like to do the same for his peaceful check-ins. Along with that, he also has an insecurity that he might be broken beyond repair after his wound and starvation, so he wants to grow strong again. Not be just brittle bones.

Night, after careful thought, agrees. Horror has his head on straight and understands the full implications of the training. He would be prepared for knighthood. Horror insists that he appreciates Nightmare's goals and he's an improvement from the old King. A much, much, needed improvement. Night has to learn to prepare more physical training, but he decides that the best choice for that might just be to have Captain Rogers get Horror through the basics (under Nightmare's watch, of course). That way he can get a sense of Horror's strengths and weaknesses as they develop. But Horror is a quick learner, and once he gains enough mass back, Nightmare places Killer in charge of both new knight recruits and carefully supervises their training. Horror fits in no problem <3

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 12: Proof of Life

Hey guys, tik tok went down so I had to write fanfic again. Thats how this went. In reality I had been working on this for a while and I just work a lot of hours so it takes me a lot of time! That being said here it is, Chapter 12 (!) of PFSK. Crazy Crazy. We are now officially on year..three.. of ARWBFB au writing which is crazy. If y'all are still around you deserve an award.

This is also interestingly the first chapter that is not a taylor swift lyric. It's entirely because the entire concept of this is so distinctly different examples of proof of life, and I cant find a lyric to reflect that the way I wanted.

AO3

Masterpost

If you do not like blood or body imagery this is not the chapter for y'all that is for sure. I also toned down the sex to nearly nothing sorry guys.

As always I'm like..let me thank my friends especially @ohhowwehavefallen who listens to my clato rambling all day every day. @districtonekisses is an ACTUAL angel who listens to my ranting about this au on the DAILY and i'm so thankful to her. @afterfawn as always, of course who puts up with my BS.

Well lets just do it!

Fragile. Fleeting. Futile. 

These are the things Clove knows life to be, in different words. After all, she’s been motherless for six years, and is reminded of the futility of her own existence by the cruel sneers of her grandmother. It’s at the academy, in the eight daily hours of training, where she is reminded ad nauseam that if she loses focus for even a moment her life will be fleeting and abruptly ended before she is nineteen years old. 

Being desensitized to death, or maybe being made indifferent to life, starts early in training. 

The bodies belong to criminals, the enemies of the Capitol that exists to protect and guide them all. They are post execution, and their bodies are so generously donated to the future tributes, to give the opportunity to give these criminals the chance to turn the shame of their discretions into pride for the district through training future victors. 

(Rumor is that older trainees actually perform the executions, something Enobaria refuses to tell Clove no matter how many times she asks over dinner). 

“It’s an honor to have training tools like this, no other district gets such personal experiences with anatomy before the games.” Enobaria lectures, leading Clove with hands on her shoulders to stand at the left side of the corpse. “You can’t kill effectively if you don’t know what you’re aiming for.”

Leave it to District Two, to leave out crucial parts of human anatomy and physiology in their education, but breeding incredibly effective assassins in their children. 

They were excellent anatomists where it counted. 

There is no preparation for this lesson, no lectures on circulation or where to aim. It’s meant to be this way. The shock value was supposed to be a tool to wean out the first batch of the weak— as if an eight year old flinching at the sight of an open corpse was anything less than normal. 

“Come here, Clove.” Enobaria pulls her flush to the metal table, and sneakily slides a metal stool beside her to lift Clove onto. Fair is fair, and how would she learn if she couldn’t even see?  

(Clove never finds out that no one else in her class was too small to see on their own)

It’s her first time seeing a dead body in the flesh. She has seen all of the games, including her mother’s, over and over again. Yet there’s something about this- flesh that is still too pink, organs ripe with blood, and a smell- god a smell she cannot explain— absolutely assaulting her senses. It’s her job to take him in, the neat flaps of skin and muscle dissected back to expose the internal organs like wrapping on a package. She makes the mistake to look to his head, where glazed over eyes stare straight ahead, lifeless. There is the briefest moment where she swears the grey eyes of the cadaver flickered over to look at her. 

Clove gasps, and nearly steps back to fall off the stool, when she is caught on the arm by Enobaria The organs are plush and almost healthy looking, and that heart- that heart undeniably beats in his chest. “Baria, is he alive?” Clove half whispers, eyes flickering over the stuttering motion of cardiac wall. 

“He’s dead how it matters, Clove. And it’s Enobaria only here, don't forget.” Enobaria warns, bringing Clove’s hands back to the open body. “It’s a development from the capitol, and we’re thankful for the opportunities this gives us. Give me your right hand, Clove.”

She doesn’t wait, and simply grabs Clove’s little arm, pinching her second and third fingers between her own. “Okay so, what you’re feeling now, ignore it. It’s bowel. Cut through it, they’ll die eventually, but it’s not what you want. You want to be sure you’re going to get a kill, seconds can matter in the games.”

As soon as her arm hits the warm, gooey, worm-like structures she wants to recoil, her head whipping to look away from what she sees before her. “I-“

“No. Don’t you dare flinch. You aren’t getting eliminated like this Clove, you’re not weak, your mother didn’t die for you to get knocked out at the sight of intestine, look at me, and learn what you’re doing.” Enobaria snarls, grabbing Clove’s chin in her left head and forcing her to look down and into the cavity. 

Clove braces herself as her fingers are woven deeper, until they settle on something soft and tubular, a couple of centimeters wide. It pulses under her fingers, and with the little bit of pressure of Enobaria’s fingers squeezing over hers, she can feel the tension building and releasing, a pulse becoming a thrill, ebbing and flowing with the pressure of their hands. 

“This right here is what you go for to kill someone. It’s the biggest artery in the body, that comes right from the heart. If you’re drawing a kill out, if it’s about the entertainment, this isn’t the way to go. Once you hit this, it’s going to go fast. It’s called an Aorta, and it’s the money shot. This feeling under your fingers, no matter how faint, is proof of life. And you need to be sure you stop it. ” Enobaria takes her left hand, and runs from nearly the top of Clove’s spine all the way to her hips which makes the little girl shiver . “It’s all thought here…it connects to the heart. Then down your hips it splits into other arteries…” 

Enobaria leads Clove’s hand down to feel the split, then back up to feel other points of bifurcation. “Any of these, kid. Hit any of them. The ones down here, they go to the legs. Cut the inside of the thigh for those. This whole big tube though, you just need to knick it. It’s easiest between the ribs and hips, where there's less bone In the way. You can get a kidney too, but this is your goal.” Clove feels her fingers pressed a little deeper, running into something hard. “This is spine. It’s going to protect this from behind. You need to come in on an angle..squeeze, feel how the flow changes with your pressure..” Enobaria smiles in approval as Clove’s little hands constrict, and Enobaria can feel the change in pressure on her own. “Good job, kid.”

Enobaria keeps elaborating on anatomy, on the best places to cut for a fast versus quick death. How in the bloodbath it’s about fast, bloody kills, and the best spot to hit. She is an excellent teacher, as if Clove should expect anything less from her recently victorious mentor. 

Clove tries to internalize all the words and their paths-the aorta, the Iliacs, renal something- but all she can focus on is the strum of a pulse under her fingers. Someone’s entire life line contained in this little soft tube.  “Why isn't there any blood in this guy?”

“It’s all contained. Blood isn’t floating around, it’s contained in all these little tubes and channels. You have to open one for blood. Keep your hand there..” Enobaria’s instructing, but her hand slips out of the field of Clove’s vision. 

She’s so distracted by the thrumming she doesn’t notice a thing until she feels something cold In her free hand. When she looks, she realizes it’s one of her beloved little knives fitting naturally in the curve of her hand. Clove’s head snaps up to look at Enobaria, a million little questions filling her evergreen eyes. Questioning, almost, if Enobaria is suggesting what she thinks. 

“Go ahead. Cut it.” 

“Where do I-“ Clove stammers, looking rapidly between Enobaria and the body, her fingers still hooked around Aorta to hold it steady.

“You just go for it. Figure it out.” Enobaria instructs, but stealthily takes a step back. “No hesitation, Clove.”

She braces herself, not letting her eyes look to the face, when she takes her knife in her right hand and all but severs the structure in two with one fast swipe of her wrist. 

Clove watches, as the heart first flutters faster for merely seconds, before stuttering to a final stop in under a minute. It dawns on her now, as blood fills the cavity and coats her hands, that the body does not work at all like she thought. There's no thrumming, no pulse, no..anything..dancing under her fingers now. 

Would that count as her first kill?  She wonders only momentarily, before she feels her hands being pulled out of the sticky, coagulating substance . 

“You didn’t take any fingers off, right?” Enobaria inspects, ensuring that none of the blood is Clove’s own. Satisfied by her evaluation, she brushes a thumb over Clove’s cheek. “You’ve got blood freckles.” She returns to inspect the body, heartbeat ceased and firmly dead even to Clove’s untrained eyes. 

“Good work, Clovey. Get going, you need to shower before class.” Enobaria gently takes her off the stool, gently nudging her between her shoulder blades to move forward. “Go. You did good.”

“…thank you, Baria.” She murmurs, practically running off to find a shower before her basic math class that morning. She finds her blood covered fingers coming up to her neck, her wrists, the bend of her leg, desperately searching for her own pulse, finding proof of her own life and viability. 

Life is fragile, she decides, if she can feel it fading under her fingertips. 

——————————————————————————————————

She had watched him in the games, watching as he cut someone clean in two through the torso, leaving their upper and lower bodies in two hemorrhaging halfs. She watched him kill a lot, with that sun kissed flush to his skin and the sweat gathering at the base of his neck. He was efficient, he was ruthless, he was hot, and most importantly to her, he was alive. 

So Alive, Clove notes, her hands planted firmly over the places of his chest from where she is on top of him. His hands squeeze into the flesh around her hip bones, bruisingly tight, guiding the rise and fall of her hips when all she can do is close her eyes and whimper for more. 

He is so alive, he is alive and under her, he is alive and inside her, he is alive and holding her now. 

Even with her eyes squeezed together, she can undeniably feel the shared life between them in the way he moves inside of her, the way her hands desperately grasp at the sunburned skin of his chest. 

It is under her fingertips, where she can feel the increasingly speedy but steady beat of his heart under his skin. It races, likely as does her own, and even with her eyes squeezed shut she can feel with certainty that they are alive. 

In this short moment it does not matter that she has to go to training in the morning without him, that walking is going to leave her with an aching reminder of her current –and frankly, all night long– activities. It doesn’t matter that she’ll likely be physically punished for what she’s doing now. 

All that matters is that he is alive and so is she, and when she comes the gasp that escapes from between her lips is yet another example of proof that she is alive. 

Alive, Alive, Alive. 

——————————————————————————————————

They throw her into her cell. That is not an exaggeration. They grab her under the arms, lift her feet from where they drag on the ground, and fully toss her against the concrete floor before slamming the door locked behind her. 

She does not give them the satisfaction of hearing her breath catch when she hits the floor, of giving them the satisfying groan when it feels like her bones crunch under the weight of her body, or letting herself whine out loud when she reflexively puts out her hands to catch herself and the bleeding, broken remnants of her wrists flop in agony and let her land right on her face. The door slams shut and she feels it reverberate through her body as it echoes through the cell, somehow bouncing off of her cinder block prison. The second the door is shut, and she can be sure they don’t get to see her suffer, she lets out the sob she had held back, trying to use what strength she has left in her legs to get up against the wall. She can barely walk, barely move her legs without the feeling of her hips being ripped out of their socket. She cannot support herself on her arms, with the breaks in her wrists, her severed tendons, and certainly not to forget the dislocations and bruising around both of her shoulders. She doesn’t know what she looks like, but she can only imagine it’s a corpse. 

She can see the horrific purple and blue discoloration of her hands, of her legs. If she turns her arm the right way she can see greens and yellows, evidence of bruising that is already healing. It’s the same way with her scars– all horrific, jagged lines in various stages of healing– some of which have even been reopened time and time again. All are markers of her stay, markers of the things they do to her. 

Her body carries the scars of knowing that it does not matter that she was the best. She was the most loyal. She had given her life to these games, to her district, and it didn’t matter. 

She didn’t matter.

All of the blood is not only trapped in her joints and in her skin, but it pools around her. Crimson red and sticky, and it is not the first time she has been coated in blood, and as of late it was not uncommon to be covered in her own. She isn’t even sure where this particular episode was coming from– she just seemed to be bleeding from everywhere all of the time. For all she knows her back could be flayed open and she is so blinded by pain she is none the wiser. 

There's a lot of blood this time, so much so that the already small room seems to be caving in on her at a rapid speed. The fingers of her right hand find her left wrist, and she fights through the agony when she presses down to desperately search for her own pulse. She can’t find it and she’s dead, she has to be dead, why else wouldn’t she have a pulse? She can hear Enobaria in her head– Enobaria, is she alive? Is she angry at her?-- telling her to check, always check for the pulse, make sure the job is done. 

She didn’t think death would be like this. 

She doesn’t mean to lay back down on the floor, but the concrete meets her skull anyway.  She must make some noise, and when she forces her eyes open, through the single missing cinderblock in the top left corner, she is face to face with Marvel through the six inch space. 

“You’ve looked better. You’re so pale it’s like you’ve never seen the sun.” There's a sunken look to the skin of his eyes, but still an unmistakable spark of kindness as he tries to make her laugh, but that kindness is quickly replaced by something that can only be relayed as concern. “Clove? Hey, Clove seriously, are you okay?’

She forces her eyes open as wide as they can go, which is barely enough of a slit for green to be seen. “I’m dead. We’re dead and we’re in hell.”

“You’re talking to me, you aren’t dead.” Marvel chides, but doesn’t look away from her as she very clearly has to fight not to die. “Why do you think you’re dead?”

“No pulse…” she slurs, using all the effort she has left to lay her wrist by her face. “Dead with no pulse.” Her ability to form coherent, abstract thought clearly slips away from her as fast as the blood pours from her body. 

Marvel slips his own skinny hand across, and when he goes to grab her wrist she retracts in pain, actually unable to hold back her cry this time and his hand instinctively drops hers with a soft apology. 

“Hey, hey I'm sorry…” He instead finds the side of her neck and presses in, giving her a reassuring pat on her shoulder before his face comes back into view with the retraction of his arm. “It’s there. It’s weak, but it’s there. You’re alive.”

“I don-wanna-be” Clove mumbles, eyes fully shut now, “everythinghurts, I can’t breathe.” 

“No no, you want to live, You want to live to get home to Cato, remember? Out of the two of us you gotta get home.”  And in reality, it would more likely be him than her. They starved him, they gave him a few beatings, but really they just showed him the truth of Glimmer, maybe in a way they did him a favor.  At the very least Cato might kill him if Clove dies and he doesn’t. 

“Mmm…you got…-immer.” Clove tries, but the words escape her as she feels the sticky warm sensation of blood reaching her face. “Cato’s dead.”

“I don’t have her, I never did.” Marvel cools, but this is not about him, this is not about his own losses or the betrayal he faced at the realization of Glimmer’s disingenuity. “He isn’t dead. If they were dead they’d have killed us already. Why hurt you if it doesn’t get to him, right?”

“He didn’t come.” Clove slurs, trying hard to catch her breath and never seeming to be able to get enough to make her brain feel less fuzzy. “He always came when I needed him and he didn’t. He’s dead too.”

Marvel gives a soft sigh, and shakes his head though she cannot see it. “Clove you don’t know- Clove? Clove where is all this blood from-” It’s seeping through the single block opening now, deep red and metallic, a slow but unending trickle. “Clove, seriously Clove this isn’t funny, wake up.”

It’s a last ditch effort, not that he can do a single thing for her if she’s dead, but he reaches his hand back in and feels for her throat. Her breathing is there, shallow, uneven, but there. He finds her pulse, too, thready, weak, irregular. 

But it is there. She’s alive. For how much longer she will be, though… well. 

(He never tells anyone, but he is absolutely sure if they were not found when they were that she would have been dead within a week)

——————————————————————————————————

“Clove?” Her voice is soft, wavering, unsure as it calls out to the otherwise silent room. They sit in beds a few feet apart, in an otherwise bare and nondescript room. It’s technically Clove’s room, too, but she spends all nights and the majority of the time with Cato understandably. Now, Cato is at some mandatory meeting, and Marvel is…well she doesn’t know because he doesn’t want her to know. 

Clove sits in ‘her’ bed for now, laying relatively still as she flips through some book that is so old Glimmer cannot read the title. All she can really see is that the pages are so old they’re tinted yellow. She doesn’t glance up, only flipping through the pages absently, as if she is waiting to find something interesting. “Yeah, Glim?”

Her voice cracks in her throat before she can even get the words out, as she anxiously scratches at her wrists. “...can I come sit with you?”

Clove starts to make a face, she can feel her eyebrows scrunching together, before she looks up from the old novel in her hands, to actually see Glimmer. Her eyes are so red, the skin around her nose raw from the irritation of continuous tears. Her hair is in its seemingly permanent frizzy state, honey blonde grown to the top of her eyes before the bleach and capitol coloring continues past that point. She is such a far cry from the bombshell the capitol loves to exploit, and yet, she seems so much more authentically Glimmer. “I…yeah. Sure, Glimmer.”

Clove shifts to the left side of the bed, and Glimmer wastes no time, untangling her legs and hopping off the bed before she scurries over to Clove’s half of the room. She doesn’t press under the covers, only to sit side by side on the left half of Clove’s bed. 

“Do I want to ask if you’re okay or…” Clove starts feeling, instead of shared body heat, the actual weight of Glimmer curling up into her side, a blonde head resting on her shoulder. “Glimmer?”

“I just miss being wanted.” Glimmer whispers, curling up on her side and clinging to Clove much against her invitation. “Everyone wanted me and now no one wants me. It’s nice to feel another person.”  She explains, and as much as Clove may not like it, she can feel warm tear drops hitting her skin through her District issued pajamas. 

“Oh.” Clove says softly, shutting her book with her left hand and placing it on her thighs. She doesn’t even mean to do it, but she lets Glimmer take her right hand to hold, too. “...We want you, Glimmer. Maybe not in the way you’re used to, but I like having you around.”

“You don’t have to lie, Clove. I’m not anyone’s person anymore. Maybe no one ever liked me to begin with! They liked how I looked, but even I was just a cheaper, second rate version of my sister for the people who couldn’t afford Cashmere.”  Glimmer explains, quickly working herself back up to a sob, a heavy, awful sound that catches in her voice. “It’s all I was ever good for.”

“No..No, Glimmer that's not true. At all. We like you Glimmer. We don’t care what you look like. I don’t care how good you are in bed. I don’t care, Glim. You’re…my friend. You are probably my first friend, because Cato doesn’t count now. I’m glad you’re here, with me. I’m glad you’re alive.” Clove finds herself intertwining her finger’s with Glimmer’s, squeezing so softly that it was both uncharacteristic for her but also the best she could do with the current weakness she still faced. “You’re like..my best friend, Glimmer. And I am so glad you’re here. Who else would I talk to? Annie, so she can tell me all about using the ocean to clean her energy? Even when we get out of this place you will still be my best friend, Glimmer. I’d say even a District apart, but there’s not even going to be a Two to go back to at this rate.”

“...you can come live with me, if you want. While Two rebuilds…” Glimmer offers softly, her other free hand coming to hold their joined hands. “Thank you, Clove. I’d really like to stay your friend.”

“I think we’re kind of stuck together now, Glimmer. Especially if you let Cato live in your house, he might never want to leave.” Clove subconsciously drops her head on top of Glimmer’s, dark hair mixing in with blonde.  “You’re worth so much more than they made you think.”

Glimmer just sort of shrugs, nodding her head towards the book in Clove’s lap. “What were you reading?” 

Clove grabs the old book in her left hand, and thumbs through the pages for Glimmer to see. “It’s a recipe book, from something called a Depression? And not the way we feel but I guess it was a thing a long time ago, where people had no money and had to make really bad food. I guess that’s what we’ll be working with when all this is over, but the options suck” 

“I’ve never used my kitchen, you can break it in however you like.” Glimmer flicks through the pages absently, before handing it back to Clove.  “What’s the first thing you want to make?”

“Anything with flavor.” 

Glimmer laughs, a soft girly giggle that Clove can’t help but echo on her own. She feels the soft shaking of her shoulders as she leans on her, but she is drawn to the feeling of someone else's hand in hers. 

There is a comforting strum of Glimmer’s thumb over hers, a gentle occasional squeeze between the bases of her fingers reminding her that she is here, she is with her, and they are alive in this place together. 

——————————————————————————————————

“I’m glad you’re too slow to get off the couch, I think if you could still get up on your own I’d be dead.” Cato teases, holding both his hands out to her, not really giving her a choice to accept them before his large hands are encircling her elbows and pulling her to a standing position. His hands come to rub at her upper arms soothingly, “What’s wrong, baby?”

“Don’t fucking underestimate me.” Clove tries to threaten, but it falls short as she audibly sighs with the ease at which he pulls her to a standing position. “If I was going to kill you it was going to be last night when you ate that incredibly looking steak that was just so red and juicy and I felt like I had to chew on leather–” Clove starts to complain, but she is quickly out of breath and needs to take a deep inhale before she can even consider continuing her ranting. 

“You’re..upset over dinner last night? I can go get you some right now-” Cato quirks an eyebrow, but gives her arms a reassuring squeeze. “That I could fix–”

“NO. Cato. I can’t have that, because I am growing your child, and I can’t eat that because it could hurt him. Or Her. But him.” Clove snaps, but goes to lean her head on his chest. She is stopped by the barrier that is her own body, and the space that is filled with their well grown child gets in her way. She wants to scream in frustration, but instead her body betrays her with the threat of tears. “Speaking of him, he’s kind of my problem. He was supposed to come out Tuesday and it is now Friday and would you look at that, he’s still nestled up in my fucking ribs, Cato. I need this kid out.” 

“I promise you, as soon as he’s out, I will go cut you a piece of steak right out of one of Annie’s cows, it’ll still be breathing when you take a bite.” He offers a playful smile, but her frustration is palpable, and instead his hand comes to cradle the back of her head, pulling her against his chest. “I know, babe, I know. I mean we could try what Glimmer said–”

“I know what Glimmer said, and no, we are not having sex. That got us in this fucking mess, in fact, we’re never fucking ever again.” She huffs, before burying her face in the thin fabric of his shirt. She can hear, and feel, his heart beating under her ears, a steady, solid sound that has now carried her through an entire war. It’s almost the sound of home to her.

 “And Glimmer only said that because Annie said that, you know she wasn’t doing that. Besides, Her girls had the courtesy to come four weeks early, not overstay their welcome by four days. She’s a hypocrite.”

“He’s just cozy in there, Clove. I can’t blame him, I’d also just live inside you as long as I could if I was allowed. You’re literally his home.” Cato plays, but lays his chin on top of her head, the hand that is not cradling her head coming to rub circles on her lower back. “It’ll be over soon. He’s just an overachiever. Or maybe he doesn’t want to come out because he knows he’ll have to meet our friends. Would you want to come out knowing you’d have to see Marvel?”

“I thought about literally cutting him out myself–”

“Okay no you are not doing that, I know you’re good and all Clove but–”

“Shut up. I said I thought about it. I obviously didn’t do it. I couldn’t really see where I'd need to cut, and frankly I wouldn’t be able to stitch myself back together, and yeah you’re good with your fingers but you have never been good at a suture, even when we were teenagers.” Clove tries to shift her weight, looking for any comfort she can get in this permanently irritating state. Everything hurts. Her joints, her back, her neck, hell even her feet just ached. “Mostly, I know I could hurt him, and we have made it way too far for me to risk hurting him now, Cato. He’s safe in here. I’ll never be able to keep him this safe again.”

“We’ll protect him Clove, even on the outside.” He promises her, letting his hand come down to the under curve of her belly, letting himself press up just enough to take the extra strain off of her joints. She audibly relaxes, not only melting into him but letting out a genuine sign of relief at the release of weight from her hips and spine. 

“We’ll try, but he’s just so safe, and he’s warm, and he’s never hungry…I feel bad trying to evict him.” Clove murmurs, pressing herself just slightly forward to take advantage of shifting even more of the weight of her abdomen into his hands. 

“It’s our job to take care of him, Clove. He’ll be safe and he’ll be warm, and unfortunately he’ll probably be hungry a lot because he’s mine but we’ll take care of that, too.” He kisses the crown of her head, his thumb stroking at the side of her belly. “What do you think he’s doing in there?” 

“Mmm, he’s moving because you’re talking to him.” Clove brings her own hand down, hovering a few inches above her pubic bone before pressing in. “Here’s his big head..” She tracks her fingers up, expertly following the curve of her baby’s spine and body, until she reached, “here’s his body.. and his feet are all the way up in my lungs. Where he kicks them incessantly.” 

“He’ll just be a fast runner, strong legs and all.” Cato tries, holding her cheek and chin in the flesh of his palm. “Do you actually think he can hear us talking?.”

“A runner? What are you going to have him training for, Cato? His interdistrict baseball team? And what if it’s a girl?” She teases, but lays her head to be caressed in his hand more fully. “Of course he hears us, he’s right there, and he moves a lot more when you talk. He likes you.”

“Hell yeah I am. We’ve got Victor genes, baby. They aren’t going to waste. Hunger Games or baseball, I don’t care, he’s gonna win whatever it is. Our five year old will absolutely wipe out a five year old from district one, it’ll be a big rivalry. A girl, too, our daughters will also be incredibly athletic you know. They’re kind of bred for that kind of thing.” Cato grins, leaning down to catch her lips in a kiss, that while it starts soft and gentle, quickly evolves beyond that with the fiery passion that so often becomes all that is Cato and Clove. It’s her who pulls away first, with significantly less lung capacity these days, gasping for a deep breath.

“Do you still like me even though i’m fucking huge?” She almost pouts, blinking green eyes up to him with skepticism. “Like really fucking huge.”

“You’re not huge you’re straight up entirely baby, I am quite literally holding our kid through your skin right now.” He offers, leaning back down to catch her lips in another quick, yet equally as adoring, kiss. “Of course I still like you, babe, I love you. So much. Plus, you’re like so hot. Maybe even hotter than usual-”

“I’m still not having sex with you ever again.”

“I know, but I mean it.” He promises, and the warmness in his voice almost makes her believe it. “Besides, I don’t want to hurt it-”

“Oh fuck Cato, your not that big, i’m sorry to tell you–” She rolls her eyes, turning her face up and out of his hand. She winces as she feels one of those big shifts in her rib cage, and ends up stepping back away from Cato. “Can you go start a shower for me? That way by the time I make it upstairs it’ll be warm enough?”

“It’s big…” He mumbles in response, but withdraws his hand away from her lower belly in retaliation. “Sure. Can I join or-”

“No, Cato.” 

“...I can just watch.”

“No, Cato.” 

He huffs, loud enough for her to hear, but turns to stomp up the stairs anyway. “I’ve seen you naked before you know.”

“Not like this!” Clove calls up after him, before turning on her heels and sinking back into the couch he had hauled her out of. It was exhausting, at this point, to even be on her feet that long. 

She pulls her feet up to the couch, having learned her lesson of letting them hang on the floor and barely being able to walk as a result. All the shifting and motion translates directly to her child– boy or girl, which technically it still could be a girl– who decides to roll it’s back to the other side of her abdomen with feet still solidly extended into her torso. 

Her fingers find the spine of her son again, and she prods gently to feel him roll to the other side. “Your dad loves you a lot, you know that? He wants you sooo bad.” 

But then again…so does she. 

“If you could just come out to actually meet us that would be great.” Clove whispers, firmly poking at her own belly. She is greeted directly with what is so clearly a limb– could be a foot, could be a hand— sliding up under her skin and looking as if it is going to break out and escape right through her flesh. “I’d like to see that hand from the outside.” 

She pokes again, and is once again responded to with movement that she can feel so distinctly that she would swear her son is right there, just under her skin, even though she knows it not to be the truth. There’s muscle between them, skin, fat, fascia, and even more muscle that keeps them apart. Something like six or seven layers of her own tissue separating her from the baby she made. Seven layers one way, but at the same time there is nothing that separates them, as he literally exists only inside of her. 

There is so much between them and yet nothing at all. 

Is he just abnormally strong, to so clearly be felt under her fingertips? Or is this just a reminder of how fragile her own body is, how thin seven layers can feel between herself and the thing she wants the most. 

“I just want to see you, buddy. I’d also like my spine back, but mostly I’d like to see you. Find out what you look like… maybe finally name you..” Clove talks aloud, a sweetness in her voice truly reserved only for the moments when she is alone with herself and her body. He reacts to her, like he always does, wiggling around and pressing into her as if all he wants is to see her too. LIke he’s also trying to break through to actually see the woman whose voice he never ceases to hear. Maybe he also would like to have a name, even, and not continuously be referred to as baby or buddy. 

She has felt a lot of life under her fingers. Pulses, heartbeats, sweat, a hand in hers, a muscle twitch. This, though, is unlike anything she has ever fathomed. A pulse is an abstract way to connect to a heart beat, but this? This is pure, distinct life under her fingertips. 

A few days later, he is real and he is fragile on her chest, but he is alive. It’s fascinating, almost instantly, how naturally he fits exactly there, how his favorite place seems to be right over her heart, as if that is the place he had been living and growing. 

(Maybe it may as well have been, because it certainly feels like she is looking at the embodiment of her heart when she watches him nestle into her skin.)

She even finds that while she started to love watching his little hands and feet under her skin, she is even more in love with the way his entire hand grasps her finger. 

It dawns on her, when he falls asleep again and again over her heartbeat, that while Cato and the sound of him alive is her home, maybe the proof of her own life is home to her son. 

Life is fragile and fleeting, but it is anything but futile. 

Life is fantastic. 

[bardic-tales]

Day 2 | Diana Ravenscroft | Day 4

31 days of FF 7 Headcanons: Day 3: Connection to the Lifestream

For today's prompt, we're diving into the deep green currents of the Lifestream, but not everyone sees it as a place of healing or rebirth. In this entry, we explore Diana Ravenscroft’s relationship with the Lifestream, which is anything but spiritual. To Diana, the Lifestream is not a river of souls but a living system waiting to be mapped, modified, and ultimately conquered. Her perspective is clinical, ambitious, and unnervingly detached, yet beneath her pursuit of dominance, the Planet seems to watch back.

Diana's part in Fantasy Worlds Collide is a story of science, hubris, and the quiet, creeping consequences of trespassing into sacred ground.

Possible Trigger Warnings: Autopsy imagery, body horror, death, egoism, ethical violations, invasive scientific experimentation, loss of humanity, medical horror, metaphysical distress, non-consensual experimentation, psychological manipulation, spiritual desecration, trauma, violence.

Diana Grace Ravenscroft does not believe in the Lifestream in the way most people do: not as a sacred river of souls or a cosmic cycle of rebirth, but as a poorly understood energy system ripe for exploitation. She views the Lifestream through a scientific lens, fascinated by its regenerative properties and latent power. To her, it is not a “spiritual force,” but a biological and metaphysical phenomenon. It is a force that Shinra was right to harness, and one that has been criminally under-researched in terms of its potential for genetic application. The fact that the Planet "fights back" only deepens her interest. In Diana's mind, anything that demonstrates such a reactive intelligence must be studied, mapped, and, eventually, subdued.

Her personal connection to the Lifestream is not one of awe or reverence, but of curiosity and conquest. Working under Hojo, she’s seen what happens when beings are infused with Mako and, as well, as alien cells, and, more importantly, when they shouldn’t be. The cellular degeneration, the unstable behavior, the madness. It all speaks to a delicate balance that no one, not even Shinra, has managed to decode. Diana believes that the Lifestream contains more than energy; it contains memory, essence, and perhaps even fragments of consciousness.

She has overseen autopsies of infused subjects, watching green light flicker like dying fireflies beneath their skin. Rather than mourn them, she dissects them, hoping to pin down what the Planet tries so hard to obscure.

Her work on Bianca Moore only cemented this belief. Bianca’s blood shimmered with something more than mako saturation: something Diana suspects is a mutation in the soul itself. Bianca Moore's blood has flecks of gold amid the red. The fusion of divine, human, and demonic energy within Bianca may be the key to unlocking the Universe beyond the Planet, and Diana is obsessed with unlocking it. She doesn’t flinch when Bianca calls out to beings who had died a year ago or when her veins pulse with celestial fire. Instead, Diana records everything with surgical precision, half-believing that if she can decode Bianca’s composition, she can gain control over the very will of the Planet and Creation. That kind of discovery would change the course of evolution and elevate her above the limitations of flesh and mortality.

Despite her ambition, there are quiet, solitary moments where Diana feels the Lifestream's presence not as data but as resistance. Machinery fail for no reason. Subjects scream prophetic nonsense moments before death. Some call out for their loved ones, as if they were in the room with Diana and the subject. Her dreams sometimes bleed green. Though she dismisses it as subconscious noise, the weight of the Planet feels heavier around her now than it did when she first joined Shinra. She tells herself this is the price of greatness, but something primal in her, perhaps a fragment of her long-buried humanity, wonders whether she has drawn the attention of something older than gods, and far less forgiving.

Still, Diana does not fear the Lifestream. She sees herself as apart from it, destined to master it rather than return to it. The idea of dissolving into an ocean of souls is offensive to her ego and her intellect. She will not become part of the whole. She will define the whole. If the Planet wishes to preserve its secrets, it has chosen the wrong opponent. Diana Ravenscroft is not interested in communion. After she meant the celestial being Bianca Moore, Diana has become interested in dominion.

@themaradwrites @shepardstales @megandaisy9 @watermeezer

@prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen @chickensarentcheap

@inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon @projecthypocrisy @serenofroses

[laylasverse]

[🥭 ☀️ 🗺️ & 🪼] for your smosh dr (if you want?) if not, your better cr!!

SUMMERTIME BLUES ✶ ASK GAME ﹙ 🥭 ☀️ 🗺️ & 🪼 ﹚

���⋆ answering for mysmosh dr! get ready for our trip to the aquarium, theo. we're leaving in an hour.

𐔌 . 🥭 ⋮ RIPE MANGO ֹ ₊ ꒱ what is your favorite treat you only eat during the summer? why do you only eat in the summer? is it from the local ice cream parlor that only opens during the warm season? a certain fruit that's only harvested in the heat?

during my first summer in los angeles angela, chanse and arasha showed me a bunch of restaurants & food spots. they introduced me to the mangonada at la michoacana ice cream parlor. tore it up so fast i had brain freeze for three minutes after. also i found this spot that makes funnel cakes with strawberries & whipped cream on top─ salivating just thinking about it. before i moved to los angeles i had been going to the fair with my high school best friend since sophomore year so the funnel cake is like a little reminder of that too.

𐔌 . ☀️ ⋮ DAYS OF SUN ֹ ₊ ꒱ what are your go-to summertime activities? do you and your friends plan big garden parties with all the fruits and snacks? maybe a charcuterie board? possibly a water balloon tournament?

one of my love languages is feeding the people i love. i hate doing the dishes but i will make you those muffins you've been talking about for weeks. oh, that drink you haven't been able to find anywhere? yea, i got a case of it for you. you love fresh pineapple but hate cutting it up? don't even worry about that. i already cut up some for you. all that to say i pack the baskets & coolers for the garden parties. court asked me one time if i wanted to dress up like a princess for a lunch in the park and i nodded so fast i gave myself whiplash. eating with my girls ( not gender specific use of "girls" ) in the fresh air is beautiful.

𐔌 . 🗺️ ⋮ WORLD WIDE MAP ֹ ₊ ꒱ if you could have one fantastic trip where would you go? why would you go there? what intrigues you about that place? are there certain activities there that have attracted you there?

truthfully, i would adore a month-long trip around europe. seeing all of it would be amazing but i would need to hit denmark, greece & italy. there is so much history in europe that i need to absorb like a child watching a video of dancing fruit. denmark's vikings, the fucking roman empire, and the italian renaissance. i love love love history. learning about the past while dissecting historic events has me foaming at the mouth.

𐔌 . 🪼 ⋮ COLORFUL JELLYFISH ֹ ₊ ꒱ okay, we're going to the biggest aquarium in the world. where are you dragging me first? to the large sharks? the exotic fish? the fish tank tunnel to watch the fish above us? or are you mad at me because you wanted to go get ice cream instead?

well obviously i am just following you around and listening to all the details and facts you tell me. i love to learn about new things and it's even more fun when i can learn from a friend. all i ask is that we go look at the manatees because that's literally twin. like me & the manatees are on the same wavelength. slow-moving, curious, small cliques? that's me. oh, also! can we get a sweet treat after? plssss

[leonawriter]

Have you ever considered writing more essays or maybe even writing an entire analytical piece or heck even a video on Ayin and his story?

Your fanfics and strangefellow's fanfics (thank you for the recommendation by the way, they are lovely) are amazing at character dissection and analyses!

So far, I've seen a multitude of Youtube essays for in-depth analyses of the motivation, personalities, and trauma of characters like Roland, Angela, Carmen and even Benjamin but there have been absolutely NONE so far for Ayin. NONE! ZERO! ZILCH!

Ayin is the main protagonist of Lobotomy Corporation yet there's none for him at all. The closest of these character analyzing video perhaps was Project Moon's Day 50 video which is an animation of the last day and perhaps some Tiktok or Reels video edits of power-ranking and occasional summaries of Ayin's past.

There's so much of a lack that it seems to be an injustice especially when you consider how nuanced and complex Ayin's character really is and thus how ripe it could be for analyses from multiple angles and points of view!

Even just talking about his backstory could be a could jumping point for talking about the more interesting worldbuilding such as the other CEOs, how the Wings and the Head work, and the Smoke War. So many possibilities rarely realized and brought into being that it's sad seeing so much potential being wasted.

Man, YEAH.... I don't even usually watch video essays, but I think Project Moon got me started, because some people are really cool about it.

Unfortunately, I myself have not got any ability with YouTube or video work at all. I do still have a few more analysis posts in progress or in the to-do list, though.

It's a right shame there aren't any yet, because like... so many people seem to overlook Ayin and who he really is, in favour of the view of him as someone who was just plain abusive and who doesn't "deserve" being talked about positively - something that makes me wonder if the majority of PM fans who see him that way: 1) didn't pay attention to, or didn't finish, Lobotomy Corporation. 2) went through Library of Ruina and mostly listened to Angela. 3) just plain... take things at face value too much, and don't like nuanced characters. :/

I really do hope that someone does something like this, because it'd catch a different audience, and they'd be able to go into a lot of detail about a lot of things, like you say.

[deiscension]

﹄ ◇ ; @riwrite

     ⌜◈⌟    ▌ ──  𝐈𝐧 𝐒𝐡𝐢 𝐐𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 fantasies, she confronts Black Water Sinking Ships.

     𝐈𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 sea itself part for her fury. She stalks across the miles-long graveyard of splintered ships and sailor's bones, an unstoppable force of grief in the shape of a human. He's always waiting for her at the shoreline, an inky slash against sands the same color as exposed bone. He says nothing when she approaches without hesitation, nothing when she grabs fistfuls of his robes (does he remember the last time she reached for him out of her own volition?). She pulls, hard enough to make him stumble, enough to make his head snap forward. And she screams. She screams at him for taking her brother away, for taking her best friend away, for not letting her know. 

    "𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪!?" she howls, no different than a child throwing a tantrum. "If I was so detestable, if all you wanted was for me to die for what I'd done, then how could you do all of THAT instead?"

     𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 same: vaguely contemptuous, mostly impassive. Even in her fantasies, she cannot imagine a world where Black Water Sinking Ships looks at her instead of through her. He never answers. He waits until she's screamed herself raw, no strength left except in the white-knuckling of his robes, before dislodging her as easily as plucking a leaf from one's hair. Then he turns and leaves.

    𝐈𝐧 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 by side somewhere quiet, the cry of a mourning dove the only sound apart from her breathing. Sunset bathes her in swaths of red and gold, the richest colors she has worn since the loss of stolen divinity. It has no effect on him. He is less of a person and more of a shadow, growing darker and darker as the sun slips away.

     𝐍𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 is hard at work peeling another orange; several sit between them, each resting atop its undone peel, glistening and ripe. Untouched. Unwanted, more likely than not. Why would Black Water Sinking Ships ever deign to eat from her hand again?

     "𝙒𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡?" she asks-- stupidly, because she believes she already knows the answer. What use is there in one liar baring their heart to another liar? "Don't answer that. Are you at peace now?" she asks instead, and in this fantasy, she has the strength not to look at him. When she swallows, the acidic bite of citrus clogs her throat even though she hasn't had a single slice of orange. "Are... are they at peace? Tell me it wasn't for nothing."

     𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫. 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 fantasy, he is never really there.

      𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 ones where he does kill her. Not quickly, not kindly. Slowly, surely, softly, a gentle dissection in which he lets her study her own mortal flesh, lets her see every inch of her dirty, unworthy self. Dream on, he says, and will keep saying as a little more blood is let, a little less breath is drawn.

     𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 dreaming. That's all she has ever done her whole damned life.

     𝐍𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐲 unfolds, he never looks at her.

     𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞 cannot conjure a believable enough expression for him to wear.

     𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐬 often as she pretends she will ever be granted right to speak with him again, he is pretending she does not exist at all.

     𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 course of the past few weeks, she has felt the weight of his eyes on her.

    𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐡𝐞 believed herself mistaken. A coincidence, an overactive imagination. And if it weren't, then what? A passing glare is all it takes to set goosebumps rippling down her arms, terror a knife splitting through her gut. How many times has she woken in the dead of night, soaked in sweat and shaking like a newborn fawn, from night terrors where he would come crawling from the sea, eyes twin embers of pure hatred? If she must dream on, it ought not be of him.

     𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐭.

     𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 that gaze, demanding its full attention, grinning at bemusement, shrinking from genuine anger. Happiest when he looked at her and none other but her.

     𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 what she never had. Never had any right to. Of course she doesn't listen to her own sound logic. Self-discipline and common sense never were her virtues of choice.

     𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 she feels herself being watched, she makes what will quite possibly be one of the worst decisions of her life.

     𝐈𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 day. Fat droplets of rain interrupt her midstory, sending a previously captive audience hurrying away to find shelter before the skies open up. One or two toss a few errant coins into the cracked cup propped against the wall by her cane. She makes a show of stooping over to pick it up, groaning about her back (and hey, it really is sore!), stretching out her bad leg while she has the wall to lean against. Through matted hair, she watches one audience member loiter. He has a peculiar way of holding himself: shoulders stiff, back ramrod straight, feet rooted to the ground as though if he doesn't maintain full contact with the cobblestone street the wind will blow him away.

     𝐇𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 she moseys down a cramped alley lit with backdoor lanterns and porch stoves. Not overtly. But he's there when she exits into a wider side street, in her peripheral when she arrives at the wharf. Awful place to be, with a squall rolling in. Last time it stormed, the waves crashing against the docks rose so high they devoured entire ships.

     '𝙂𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 day I join you in hell. Either my own stupidity is about to get me killed, or embarrassment is. But.. it's not like you can throttle me for it either way. So, here goes!'

     𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 winsome smile, the very one that earned her the title darling of the Heavens (if it did not work on him then, why would it work on him now?), and prepares to have what's left of her soul crushed underfoot.

     𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 leg, the former Wind Master brandishes her fan in the stranger's direction. "You there! I've seen you before; you've attended my storytellings. Always happy to have repeat listeners, haha!"

     ( I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm so scared. Somebody, anybody, save me. )

     𝐄𝐱𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 she could ever hope to feel again-- how is it she used to walk around in such a self-assured manner all the time? --Shi Qingxuan limps a little closer. Whether she is trying to cage him in or prove to herself she is still capable of bravery, she doesn't know. If she could lift her gaze a tad more, make a meaningful pass at eye contact--

    ( --metal biting into her wrists, blood-flecked spittle coating her lips. Her soul all but hovering outside her body, yet not so far gone as to spare her the sight of her ge's glass-eyed leer dangling mere inches from her face-- it's me, it's me, I'm the one who sinned-- )

     𝐍𝐨. Impossible. She'll never again... never, ever again...

     ( Black Water Sinking Ships. Look at me. If you are better than me, not a coward like me, then look at me. )

     "𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞. I'm sure you've heard! That makes me trustworthy, en?" Raising her brows for dramatic effect, she leans against her cane, swaying in his general direction-- not actually drawing any closer, the trajectory of her movement merely suggesting she might. "So believe me when I tell you: there is a ghost following you."

     𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧, 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚 𝐭𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬, and oh damn, Qingxuan, don't get cold feet now: "This ancestor knows all about hauntings."

[neurofactory]

the flip-side of diagnosis: a post-dissection analysis

in the pursuit of validation, like many other young system hosts, i found myself spilling out my guts to a stranger adult lady in an uncomfortable armchair from the ripe age of twelve years old. the next few years consisted of psychiatric and government intervention, and feeling like my brain was being picked apart by the white coats and youth care part-timers who were dumb enough to stay up north.

as the psych-eval papers flooded in and the puzzle pieces started to come together, i felt like i was finally being listened to. that preteen part of me being labelled a hypochondriac was soothed in the fact that people now knew i wasn't attention-seeking— i was just in pain.

but in the end, it didn't matter. the people i truly craved validation from were the people who facilitated my system's creation, or fragmentation, in the first place. the moment i went into government care, i didn't matter to them. i was simply a nobody, a real basket case after all.

my psychologist, the same lady from when i was twelve, she still sees us now. our system is diagnosed, and we're adults. i no longer fear psychiatrists, but feel like a pathetic little man when i walk into every office.

there's a sense of remarkability, security, and identity in being so sick in your youth. but suffering and having something to show for it doesn't feel like strength anymore. it makes me feel like nothing more than a broken man with a prescription.