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arm.ands speaking accent is something both as odd and fluid as the rest of him, impossible to place a finger on as it depends on who he is speaking to and his intention. regularly it is simply described as "european" of some unidentifiable origin, clear and precise yet lilting, thickening in passion or emotion. it is likewise capable of vanishing in a moment to a dry and ambivolent american at will, as if all traces of history are wiped away at once to leave a blank and vacant slate.

rarely do his accents spill into one another when not using english, however, passable as a native of several tongues - albeit with a curiously antiquated dialect in some instances.

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this is a terrible time to be alive *remembers the latter half of the 14th century* this is a not so good time to be alive

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love characters who are like "this is how the world works. this is how it has to be (because if i'm wrong i have to face what i've done // if i'm wrong i have to face whats been done to me) "

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dropping my playlist here bc its getting suitably out of hand

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[ ... ] it scared me that even at my very best, i wouldn't be able to stop myself from being fond of the tearing. isn't mauling touch? the warmth of a hand close to you, right before it tears you apart, is something.

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listen I am here for whatever depression dark aca.demia fashion line show a.rmand has going on as much as the next but I also feel in my heart he only dresses to reflect the persona he took on while dating louis , also in turn the mirror example of a social chameleon. he loves to experiment with clothing not so much for style itself but the personal perception that it put off and how he is in turn seen by those he interacts with. what is he, after all, if nothing but what others project. i love the boring french entrepeneur lesbian aesthetic but consider give him the jean jacket is what I am saying. some platform boots or a cowboy hat. let him cook.

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give me the aux cable

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Devils minion again

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YOUR WORST SIN IS THAT YOU HAVE DESTROYED AND BETRAYED YOURSELF FOR NOTHING.

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so when are we getting the scene where a.rmand pointedly degloves a dead guys head of hair to subtly make a point when someone's making incredibly creepy advances he doesn't care for

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still rotating the book sth specifically endearing thinking abt him with a russian slanted accent idk

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incoherently worded thought about a.rmands definition of love being so entwined in violence and servitude and consumption it has fucked up his learning altogether. love has been zealous worship and blood and crawling at someone's feet and something to be earned and something he will never earn and secrets and obsessions and something always taken or an expectation.

there is always love, he is always searching for it and carving the shape into things but he does not know how to receive it or what it is supposed to look like. but I also think, at least, as the books go on and he stays in the orbit of others thru qotd, he is learning, he wants to learn. and that is something telling even if it does not absolve the harm and bloodshed.

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baldur's gate 3 starters (part 2)

part 2 / ? .

❝ i’m also worried about me, but i somehow seem to be worried about you more. ❞ ❝ you put the stars to shame. let’s sit here a little while - i want to drink you in. ❞ ❝ i’d tell you not to get in trouble, but i suspect it will find you whether you like it or not. ❞ ❝ well, this seems as good a time as any for me to stop babbling on. ❞ ❝ i just….need some air…clear my head. ❞ ❝ it’s been a long time since i shed a tear. i don’t even know how long. ❞ ❝ i had a feeling you’d show up. it’s sort of our thing. like it’s fate or something. ❞ ❝ i do appreciate your enthusiasm, but let's try to restrain ourselves a little. ❞ ❝ if that was an attempt at flirting, i should let you know i prefer the strong, silent type. ❞ ❝ no matter how far you come, you’re still on the road to ruin. ❞ ❝ i thought you a hunter. wrong. you’re prey - small. snivelling. pathetic. ❞ ❝ and what am i owed? what about the injustices i’ve suffered - am i not entitled to anything? ❞ ❝ i can’t help but feel the strangest twinge of disgust as i look upon you. ❞ ❝ i trust that you will continue to remember who is really on your side. ❞ ❝ better a short life built on truth than immortality woven of lies. ❞ ❝ i won’t make excuses. i can’t make amends. but i want to help, if you’ll let me. ❞ ❝ gods, it’s horrifying…and a touch fascinating. ❞ ❝ there are many names for you --- and all of them inspire dread. ❞ ❝ destiny is at your door; won’t you at least twitch the curtain? ❞ ❝ the gravest crimes committed in this world are committed for love. a hunger crueller than bloodlust. ❞ ❝ you’ve got a backbone, and the makings of a leader. ❞ ❝ revenge sounds so sweet until you’ve taken it. then all you have is…no one left to blame. ❞ ❝ some mistakes can’t be resolved with an apology. some mistakes, you have to carry with you, forever. ❞ ❝ you’re plotting something, aren’t you? come on then - out with it. ❞ ❝ this is not good, if i may state the obvious. ❞ ❝ think of all we’ve been through just to get to this moment. that wasn’t luck. that was us. ❞ ❝ feel like i should laugh but i’m just too godsdamned tired. ❞ ❝ there is something i lost…no, had taken from me. i want it all back. ❞ ❝ careful - you’re in very real danger of hurting my feelings. ❞ ❝ one thing i’ve learned - real saviours never label themselves as such. ❞ ❝ less thinking of bad thoughts, and more breaking of bad bones. ❞ ❝ i rather like interfering. it’s kind of my thing. ❞ ❝ evil is evil, even if it once was innocent. ❞ ❝ you know, i've been catching myself smiling more lately. i think that's your fault.. ❞ ❝ oh, i’m no innocent. but evil? you tell me. ❞ ❝ i still want to believe you’re better than that. but even i am having my doubts. ❞ ❝ i can’t afford to lose my nerve. safer to just not think, and keep forging ahead. ❞ ❝ when all this is over, will you stay with me? for good? ❞ ❝ this is not good, if i may state the obvious. ❞ ❝ is there a reason you're always such an utter drip? do you have some sort of condition? honestly, it's like you hate good news. ❞ ❝ all of nature’s beauty pales in comparison to you. ❞ ❝ i can’t save you from yourself. it hurts terribly, but i can’t. ❞ ❝ if i seem suddenly flush with hope and soft feeling, you have only yourself to blame. ❞ ❝ is there good and evil within us all? ❞

❝ i’ve been watching you fight. your skills are improving. ❞ ❝ you know, for all the sense of dread and horror seeping through this place, i really feel quite at home here. ❞ ❝ and you? you’re wholly without vice or sin or the occasional lapse in judgement? ❞ ❝ i wager you don’t even know how extraordinary you truly are. but i do. ❞ ❝ one might say you’re paragon of luck. i’ll be there when it runs out. ❞ ❝ i've always had a soft spot for the confident ones…they always disappoint though. ❞ ❝ i concealed nothing from you. i simply left out the details that were not pertinent. ❞ ❝ you’re an odd friend. but, i suppose, a friend still. ❞ ❝ i won’t let you do this. i won’t let you win. ❞ ❝ you are my puppet. make no mistake. without me, you have no value. ❞ ❝ well, this seems like a lovely little spot. the sense of impending doom aside. ❞ ❝ whoever your enemies are, they have good reason to fear you. ❞ ❝ this place is astonishing, a bard’s tale made real. ❞ ❝ i may not regret my actions, but i do regret that they were necessary. ❞ ❝ experience has taught me that no matter how bleak things look, there’s always hope. ❞ ❝ if this adventure has taught me anything, it’s that there are things in this world more valuable than power. ❞ ❝ a wise man learns from his mistakes, and strives not to repeat them. ❞ ❝ no more hiding things from me. agreed? ❞ ❝ my friend. my companion. i adore you. ❞ ❝ your face is sour. by all means leave, if i am so distasteful. ❞ ❝ careful, it’s dark around here. would be a terrible shame to lose you forever. ❞ ❝ you startled me. i…i was miles away. ❞ ❝ you have to know who i was. you have to know who i really am. ❞ ❝ nothing special, of course. you’re only the first person who i truly care for. ❞ ❝ you’ve got a backbone, and the makings of a leader. ❞ ❝ anything you ask, i’ll answer as honestly as i can. ❞

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olivia is only in a couple of days a week, but her eyes are sharp.

in glimpses of daniel's wandering memory, the creature searches and picks her shrewd gaze out among the rest, picks her apart with the frantic notion that drums in each beat of the mortal's heart. armand does not need to put the thought there for it to rise to the surface. time is short. they know. this will not last. danger. they know. as little as it would be to turn her eyes, to distract her attention elsewhere, it is a band-aid on a snapped bone. it has taken near too long.

the boy knows this. he frets, wrings his hands and paces through thoughts. he thinks of the future, the lack of it. how he will be reassigned, turned away to face another wall, to sit with his endless stream of curiosities locked behind his teeth, to live without living, mundane and unsatisfied until death.

is this all you want ?

there is an audible click when the door unlocks.

'I hope I get to look at you.'

lamplike eyes linger on the blinking spot in the corner for just a moment. does he? well. they will see. he has earned this, for his work. scarcely is there time enough to ambush and drink his immediate fill before the world is plunged into a violent red. the exits, the sharp edged shrieks, the spray hot across his face.

it is not hard to follow the sound of a heart by the time few remain beating. daniel's mind exists like a candle in the dark, hopeful and terrified, familiar and easy to find his way back to. he has studied it now for this long.

it would have taken less effort, perhaps, to instead wipe himself from the watchful eyes of the humans who have held and coveted him like some rare prize, to slip out like a shadow. he is not often a creature for senseless violence, after all, and yet hatred and hunger paint his shape with a careful brush. the whisper of a stolen starch coat grazing the threshold sounds like the breath of wings, punctuated by what drips.

the acrid stench of smoke clings to the boy's skin and hair. what must that look like? how soft to the touch? how he shakes, now, the sound of his breath audibly flutters and seizes with each terrified breath scraped in. thoughts echo near as frantic and loud as the alarms he has triggered, screaming uncertainty, prey animal bowing before open and waiting jaws. armand drops olivia - what remains - and lets her look all she can ever want.

" daniel. " the name beckons saccharine, soft velvet beneath the red red shriek of sirens and gurgling of the already dead. he has never spoken it before, not aloud, and there is some small tenderness in the intimacy of how it sounds, lilted with accent and irreparably stained red beneath the whirling overhead lights.

there is a soft creak of the desk as the monster's weight is added atop it, waiting patiently for vulnerable, trembling rabbit to draw nearer.

i have come for you, as you wanted. why do you hide from me? come out, daniel. let me see you.

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olivia is only in a couple of days a week— she does something with tech and even though she has told daniel twice, he could only guess her job title— and she stopped him on the way in today. he thinks they may have exchanged pleasantries, but the only part of the conversation he recalls is when she told him he looked tired. he didn’t lie well enough, and so she narrowed her eyes a bit and asked him if everything was okay.

and that is when he knew he was running out of time.

7479 could not see the way his knee bounced or the fingertips of his left hand drumming against the desk. the nails of his right were being gnawed to nubs. daniel did not tell 7479 that he was out of time, but the nightmare could smell it on him. even buried in a holding cell where the closest they get to seeing each other is through a colorless screen permanently set to a night vision mode, 7479 can listen to his heart beating faster, can sense the dryness of his mouth, the anxious edge to his words.

daniel wasn’t planning on doing it today— he wasn’t planning on doing it at all.

but daniel knows what happens to people who lose their unbiasedness toward scps— who fail a mental evaluation, whether routine or conducted to follow up on a reported concern. they’re removed from that project. walled off from all further study or access to information regarding the scp which has managed to damage their neutrality. permanently. for the sake of remaining secure. better to remain safe and devote the resources to filling the role again than risk what daniel is thinking about doing.  

7479 got quiet, as if politely giving daniel a moment to consider his options, and then asked him a question.

----------Daniel. Is this all you want?

and armand did not have to press him further.

He’s going to kill you.

It felt as if his hand moved of its own accord, directed with a numbness nestled firmly in his soul.  It did not hesitate to flip open a keypad and begin typing in a series of numbers.

usually the entry-code is used only for food or else under circumstances in which 7479 must be removed, but always when 7479 is sedated. heavily, from what he understands. the medical part is beyond his scope of work— he only designed the cage. and it, of course, is only designed to accept the entry code at certain registered times. it would be a poor security system if a single code and thumb-print unlocked the gate at any point on any whim.

however, there is an override.

it is protocol to have an override function.

“ I’ve only ever seen you through a screen. ” an absent murmur as daniel began inputting his security information.

I hope I get to look at you.

he rubbed his index and middle across a tired eye and fumbled in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

“ gate’s unlocked. I don’t know if it made a noise or anything. ”

his hands decided it is an appropriate moment to begin trembling as he watched armand open the door. the waiting was excruciating, but brief— he was only on his second cigarette when the screaming began.

And daniel thought the screaming would be long over by now. everything else daniel thought is dubious. perhaps the nightmare crawled between his brain cells and stole away important questions and his ability to care about the answers. what is armand going to do? how will he do it? who will he do it to? when—

he doesn’t remember how quickly he decided to shove himself underneath his desk and pull his knees against his flailing, screaming heartbeat, but against every instinct to try and save himself, he remained anchored in place. He pressed himself harder and harder against the corner as the sounds of panic unfurled into carnage, nauseatingly vivid. louder than he could have believed. it has not touched him, but it is on its way.  

his hands are screwed over his ears as if chasing the hope of sparing himself all the shrieking. it is difficult to decipher what is human from what is only the wailing containment breach siren.

when the harsh thud of something lifeless lands beside him, he screams. he jolts hard enough to slam into corner he shoved himself into. her eyes are glassed over, mouth gaping, her skin faded of color and bathed in the red light of the whirling alarm. blood crawls over pristine black tile and seeps beneath the desk.

his terror has cauterized his sobbing into silent, whole-body shuddering. a sweat-soaked hand is clamped over his mouth catching choking, wheezing breaths desperate to fill lungs woven tight with panic. he does not see armand, does not move, does not sever his gaze from the dead person asking him why.

“ what the fuck— what the fuck did you do? ”

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The light on the catholica wall this morning