elysianapostasy

[elysianapostasy]

"I- I don't understand," I stammered. It was like looking in a mirror. I backed away from my duplicate, edging ever closer to the roof's edge. "Where did you come from? Why are you here? What did I ever do to you?!"

The other me laughed, a slightly manic tone to it as she pointed the knife at me, blade shining in the moonlight. "You stole my whole life! My job, my house, my friends, my wife! What, are you going to pretend you did it by accident?"

"I- I don't know what you're talking about!" I backed away again, but tripped, falling backwards, my back now to a sheer three-story drop. "I've lived here for fifteen years! I met Lilith on our first date five years ago! I remember, I- I thought-"

"You LIAR!" My clone shouted, and dove at me, knife in hand. I screamed in pain as the blade sliced open my cheek, and again as it plunged into my shoulder. I struggled to get control, but I could feel my arm losing its strength as the blade trembled between the two of us. I didn't want to hurt her! I didn't want to die! What could I-

"Drop the knife! Both of you!"

Lilith had made her way onto the roof, finally, and in her hand she held the gun my clone had dropped during the chase. She gripped it hard, pointing it in our direction.

"Lilith," said the clone, "Lilith, it's me, it's Kathrine, you have to believe me, I got kidnapped, I haven't been here for months, you've been living with this impostor-"

The safety on the gun clicked, but the muzzle wavered. "I said, drop the knife."

Slowly, she released her pressure on it, and so did I. When she let go, I knocked it off the roof. I gasped, bleeding, barely able to rise to my knees. "Lilith, I don't know what's going on. I've been here," I gulped, gasping against the pain, "the whole time. The cats know it's me, you know how they get with strangers-"

My clone snarled at me. "The cats? You even managed to fool the cats?! You bitch!" She grabbed my dress, hauling me to my feet. I hung on desperately to her hands, all too aware of the drop behind me.

"I don't-" I started, at the same time Lilith shouted, "Put her down! I'm warning you!"

My clone's eyes were wild, deranged, panicked, darting back and forth between Lilith and I. As her eyes settled on me, she stared at something on my face. "I can prove it," she breathed. "I can prove it!" She shouted to Lilith. "Watch! I'm the real Kathrine!" She reached up towards the cut in my face and dug her nails in. I screamed, closing my eyes, Lilith shouted something, and then...

And then it was quiet. It didn't hurt anymore. I heard my clone breathing rapidly in front of me. I slowly eased my eyes open to see her staring at me in fear and victory. I glanced at Lilith, gun pointing more at our feet now, mouth open in shock.

"Jig's up, impostor," said my clone. She let go of me, and held something up to my face. "Your disguise is busted."

The thing she was holding... it was like a mask. Floppy, sort of rubbery in the way that it hung.

A mask of my own face.

I grabbed at my own face, my cheeks, my eyes, all of it felt smooth, cold, metallic. I felt raised bumps in regular patterns, weld marks, maybe, or small rivets. My mouth opened in shock, and I could hear the hum of tiny servos. "W-what-"

My clone - no, Kathrine, the real Kathrine - looked at me with surprise and distrust. "You can't tell me you didn't know."

"I- I- I had no idea!" I turned to Lilith. "I remember our first date! We were both so nervous, and then you infodumped about amusement parks at me for an hour, and I thought I had to see you again! I remember our wedding! I thought, she looks so beautiful, I could die right here and go directly to heaven and I wouldn't notice the difference!" I started to cry at the memory, at the situation, at learning who and what I was...

Lilith stared at me, raising the gun again. "You never told me that."

The look, the betrayal in her eyes, it nearly made my heart break. I slumped to my knees. Had it all been fake? My whole life?

Then, suddenly, standing in front of me, arms wide, was Kathrine. I looked up at her in shock, but she was facing the other way, towards Lilith, who hastily pointed the gun at the ground. "I never told anyone that," she said. "It sounded too sappy, even for me." She turned to face me. "You're not just an evil clone. You are me, aren't you?"

I sniffed, and looked up at her. My voice quivered, and reverberated oddly through the metal of my face. "I thought I was me."

She dropped to her knees, and embraced me. A moment later, so did Lilith. I hugged both of them as tears erupted from all of us.

After a while, I sniffed and let go. "Hey," I said, my voice still wobbly, "if I'm not the real Kathrine, does that mean I don't have to go to work on Monday? Or file taxes?"

Kathrine looked at me. "Oh. Uh, I guess not?"

"Oh thank god," I said. "Being real was fucking exhausting."

next

[elysianapostasy]

This had me spiraling because like WHAT DO YOU MEAN A 4 ON COURAGE 😭 acting like he didn’t mock and taunt the ENTIRE autobot team while strapped to a table in their clutches… former gladiator btw too?? But yknow in his defense his courage stat is higher than Starscream’s so it’s not too outrageous 😒 but still (credit to @/fumbletron3000 on twt for the pic of the stats btw)

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i know we're only shreds of the infinite and all but for the record it's been an honor to exist during this blink of space and time with you

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shyly peers back here on tumblr

gently slides a Keyleth towards u, I hope u like her

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To: professor@schoolname.edu Subject: CLASS3290 Question

are you mad at me

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compilation

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Concerned Ape knows what's up

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Also to be clear if you put the new Harry Potter show on my dashboard I will be unfollowing and probably blocking you. JK Rowling is responsible for the death and pain of too many trans people to count in my country and I cannot tolerate her new way of trying to gain cultural and financial power in any way shape or form.

[elysianapostasy]

the thing is that most men hate women in general and treat any woman they're close to as an exception. his girlfriend is not like the other girls, his female friend is just like one of the boys, his mother is a saint among women. this is a normal and expected outlook for a man to have, to the point that highlighting all the ways that he hates women in general as being hateful and not just normal has been one of the major projects of feminism.

so when i as a clearly frustrated feminist and a trans woman say "i hate men" i think it's actually very easy for all the men in my life who already understand everything ive just said above (because they're feminists) to understand what i mean by that, and to get that they can represent exceptions to a general feeling of sexgender class resentment. it's really only the men who do not understand the first goddamn thing about feminism or who are completely hair-trigger ready to jump in with white-knight high horse man-defense-league bullshit who object to it.

pretending that you don't understand how i could have men as close friends and family in my life and still genuinely feel that i hate men in general as a category and a social class is just engaging in the same old kind of "first day on earth" willful obtuseness that is characteristic of so much men's rights bullshit and has been for literally ever

[elysianapostasy]

With great excitement I can finally unveil: Glass Roses!

This is my year long student film, with Echo the Dragon and Harper the glassblower learning to communicate and get along. Best enjoyed with sound as it has a custom score.

The story concept was mine and I got to be the art director and story lead on it. I did most of the animation on this, I designed Echo the dragon, and gave feedback and direction on color palettes, layouts, and VFX. My awesome team pulled out some awesome work and overall I think our final film is absolutely stellar.

Please feel free to reblog this! I spent so much pouring time and love into this! If you want you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, and I have an Echo design up on Redbubble if you like my little dragon!

[elysianapostasy]

I literally spit water all over my screen.

[elysianapostasy]

A little thing I've noticed about very specific certain multiplayer games where the players are supposed to inhabit a "blank slate" player character to act as their vehicle of interaction it usually comes in one of 3 flavors.

1) completely generic white guy.

2) a person fully garbed head to toe showing absolutely no skin and they tell you isn't gendered but is still given a fully masculine body with no option to alter its shape

3) something not even really recognizable as a human. More of a approximation of something with two arms, two legs, a head and (maybe) a face.

All of them will generally share the trait that differentiated your blank slate from other players is done via dressing them up with clothes colors or accessories.

Generally this doesn't get remarked upon at all by people playing the game.

And then there's Satisfactory where there are numerous people on the community page saying that they loved the gameplay but are bothered by the fact that unlike other games the devs of this one made their "blank slate" player-character models all explicitly women but also not super femininely rail-thin.

And a bunch of guys don't know how to cope with being not only "forced" to play as a girl but also one that isn't really designed to be sexy.

I dunno, I just think it's neat.

[elysianapostasy]

i get nervous and start making weird noises whenever cool people are reading my posts. essoooaosuuugooeoauoouoeiauegguhguhguhaaurp aurp aurp aup auopipipipiiiaooooo heuh heuehu hueh hhhhhhsaahhhhoieoouhhololool bip bip bubguhguuyuguguuu bboeba

[elysianapostasy]

when you realize

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borders between countries aren't real btw we just made them up. there's no such thing as an "immigrant" we're all just people moving around on the same planet that we've always moved around on

[elysianapostasy]

why is this framed all cutesy??