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I love you robots and artificial intelligence with mental illness. I love you repression being depicted as literally deleting archived data to preserve functionality. I love you anxiety attacks being depicted as a system crashing virus. I love you ptsd being depicted as an annoying pop-up. I love you anxiety disorder being depicted as running thousands of simulations and projected outcomes. I love you artificial beings being shown to be human via their own artificiality.

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my favorite genre of fictional character is like "i am terrifying to almost everyone, i'm very good at killing, i can endure anything, i've become exceptionally good at playing into my reputation, and if you try to give me positive social interaction i will react with confusion and cower in a corner like an abused animal. and i may try to shoot you. but there is also a chance i may imprint on you like a feral dog receiving its first loving touch! good luck."

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favorite lit quotes ➤ vicious, v.e. schwab

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I love a character raised to be a weapon as much as the next guy. But what really gets me is a character raised to be a shield. Who can’t fathom being needed—or even being wanted— beyond keeping others safe. Who believe they are alive only to insure someone doesn’t die. no matter the cost. Characters who self-sacrifice not because they think they deserve it, but because no one else does deserve it, and it’s their job to protect.

Characters who’ve been told that’s why your important. Your worth something because this other person/ thing is important, and you are here solely to keep them safe.

Bonus points if it’s not a legitimate job they’ve been given. Maybe at one point it was, but now that they are free from it, they haven’t given up that mentality. No one is forcing or asking them to do this, but they need to. They need to in order to be deserving.

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characters who suffer the most tragic fates not because they were destined to die but because they were doomed to survive

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For Old Time's Sake

For a voidsent, Zilmat talked a lot. For anybody, Zilmat talked a lot and Sergius couldn’t decide if he was making up for lost time, had a quota to fill, or just had grown comfortable enough with his presence. Rising had stuck the nervous creature in the library because he had kept Jackal’s own collection of tomes in order and with that no longer an option, due to the man’s untimely death, she had brought him to Heartwood because she felt sorry for him. Or had inherited him. Sergius wasn’t quite sure. What he did know, because Rising had tasked him with the duty, was that he was supposed to keep an eye on the small voidsent and keep him out of trouble. 

So far, all Zilmat wanted to do was read, tell Sergius about what he read, and put the shelves in order according to his own cataloging system. A project Sergius was currently helping with because, what the hell else was he going to do? 

While Zilmat continued rehashing the latest book he’d read, Sergius backburned his main audio feed and played Rhua’s recent message through his system again. 

"Hey…Fireworks just went off near my apartment balcony. So I guess... it's beach season again right?...Would...Would you like to gather up and watch one of the night's fireworks? Just for old time's sake. It's... Well. It's fine if you're still busy. Well... Uhh... Good luck with work if it was too much."

He’d already listened to the message more than he’d ever admit to, had sifted through the audio channels and deciphered every shift in Rhua’s tone, every blank space and if Sergius had to point to a picture to describe how he felt after each listen, he’d pick a wet blanket, crumpled on the floor. 

“You’re not listening.” Zilmat had caught on. 

Sergius didn’t bother to reply. 

“You’re doing that thing where you tune me out.” He sighed, his enthusiasm draining from his rotund body. 

Just to be an ass, Sergius recited the last (lengthy) set of sentences the voidsent had uttered. It wasn’t that he wasn’t listening, it was that he didn’t care. Which, he learned, was not something you said aloud. Even to a small voidsent. Even if it was true. Which seemed stupid to him, everyone going around lying to each other half the time, feigning interest where it didn’t exist but apparently that was what passed as acceptable social interaction.

Zilmat, however, took his dry recitation as permission to continue and from one of his drone feeds Sergius watched the creature’s little wings flit in excitement. 

“Ah! Yes! S-so then we come to the crux of the story’s dilemma, which is…”

Maybe Sergius should share Rhua's voice recording with Zilmat, get his opinion, and get a real case of the blind leading the fucking blind going. Maybe he should also just stick his hand in a live electrical current. Both ideas held the same amount of merit.

The problem with Rhua’s prior admission, the thing that had sent him all but running back to Heartwood like the star’s greatest coward, wasn’t Rhua at all. 

It was that all he could think of, all he could see was Lucian, framed against the halo of rooftop lights and swirling snowflakes, a look of disappointment stamped across his face as he teetered on the ledge, the cusp of the moment right before he tipped back and let himself go over the edge.  

“I think I owe you an apology. I’m sorry, Sergius. I’m sorry I ever created you. You were a mistake.”

As far as final words went, they were as messy and obliterating as a hollowpoint round. 

Because he didn’t say it was the act of creation that was a mistake or even that Lucian himself was to blame. No. It was him. Sergius. He was the mistake. He was the problem. He was the thing to regret.

And it wasn’t as though Lucian was wrong. Scrolling back through his logs was like looking through a greatest hits collection of the variety of ways Sergius fucked things up. Losing Lucian was just the biggest one and after the resulting cascading systems failure Sergius experienced, it was just one shining example after another that had led him here. Standing in Heartwood’s library, staring at the reorganized shelves, playing nanny to Jackal’s book-loving voidsent because the creature made some members of the company uncomfortable. Welcome to the club. 

Point being, he had hard evidence that he was neither equipped or capable to handle any interaction messier than the basics required to get a job done.

Obviously, he couldn’t accept Rhua’s invite. He had screwed that up enough and he could never be what she wanted him to be. She didn’t get that yet but she would. Better to rip that bandage off now. While Zilmat excitedly chatted on, he recorded a reply:

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. They have me on babysitting detail. I hope you manage to get a good seat for the fireworks.” 

There were probably several things wrong with his message, dry brevity for one, but analyzing it wasn’t going to make it better. At the very least (and we’re talking lowest bar possible, here), he hadn’t made a pile of sorry excuses. Surprise, surprise, that did nothing to stop him feeling like shit as he sent it out. 

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“Fine. You take off for one of them or one of them gets a hold of you, I’ll initiate shutdown hopefully before it can use you.” It went without saying Sergius didn't like it and it was a last option but given the alternative, he'd do it. August gets rattled out of this stupor by Sergius. He marches towards him with a thinly veiled rage, building and pent up and bursting, now. Out of control. “No. You won’t. Cuff him to the fucking bike, knock him out, I don’t care. Do what you need to do, except that.” August: “That’s an order.” Sergius turns his head to stare in Rema's direction as he approaches, unmoved in the face of the man's outburst or his attempt at issuing orders. If he needed the reminder, Rema was a pitch-perfect example of how emotions cast logic to the fucking wind every time. "I'll do what has the greatest probability of success. That's my job." So Rema could keep his orders. Arym goes on a start-stop-start-stop journey of trying to decide whether he should get in the middle, and he finally makes it close enough, "hey--!" His metallic fingers flex into the leather of August's coat, floundering as he tries to read August's expression. "…fuck, have a little faith, August. I'm not that easy to kill." “I want you to understand what life is supposed to be,” August manages. “And I want both of you to respect your own god damn humanity.” He may seem to be out of control, but he’s actually clinging onto what remains of it. He hasn’t lost it completely, and he doesn’t want that to happen while he’s with these two. It’s the last thing anyone needs. He inhales so sharply, it’s like something’s jabbed up and punctured his diaphragm. With that, on the cusp of being completely blinded by emotions he normally suffocates, he turns abruptly to leave. Sergius doesn’t try to stop him. It’s not the first, nor the last time people will confuse the fact that he wants any part of this humanity they claim to have. Acting as though it’s a fucking ideal he should strive for when he knows it to be anything but.

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PARKS AND RECREATION (Season 2, Episode 14)

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do you ever say something and then think "wow this isnt even a bit. im just like this"

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TOWER art, part 1! Assets and designs

TOWER was a FF14 arc run from July 2022 to June 2023. It was jointly open to members of the Heartwood FC and Bellworks FC.

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Holograms I made at N³ for the Genesis Vision ID