you know, snapping away Asmodeus is really not helping the whole smiting reputation you've got going on. i know you didn't smite him, but, appearances
Appearances mean little when we should have been having a private conversation in the first place.
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a zero escape ficlet
Your name is Aoi Kurashiki. Ten years ago, your sister died. You tried to fix that one year ago but something went wrong. You lost and she's still dead. On a whim—a snail stops in your path—you visit this science symposium in America—you never went back to Japan because it hurt too much to go home without her—and see this brick shithouse man—or he would be if he didn't look like he hadn't been eating or sleeping, his face drawn and scarecrow thin, his clothes hanging off of him, his eyes as dead as yours—standing next to your sister.
He calls them GAULEMS. He says he based her—not your sister, Echo, model GTF-AM-E-305—off of someone he knew. You ask him how, when, at what point. He looks like you struck him. He says "She and I cohabited together" which is a lie. He says "I didn't know she was dead until I woke up here" which makes no sense. He says "Forty-five years from now, in a timeline that will not happen, she and I will have hosted a game on the moon" which hurts to hear. He says "Do you know who Zero is?" and you do.
Its not fair. "No," he says, "it's not". She was supposed to live. "And the world was supposed to end. or," he adds, "I was supposed to help stop it from ending." Why are you alive when she isn't? "I don't know," and something in his voice makes you believe he's just like you. "Her name is Phi," he says, "and she didn't make the jump with me. or maybe I made the wrong jump." Wrong turn at Albuquerque. "That would be my luck." His laugh feels empty.
Echo hurts to be around and he knows this so she isn't nearby when you talk with him (you talk a lot). You tell him about the Nonary Game and Hongou and Light and Clover. You tell him about Junpei ("Tenmyouji?" and you're more sad than surprised he's been—will be?—in more than one. Nobody deserves that, not even you) and Hazuki and Seven and losing. You tell him about fire and nine years of your life. He tells you about forty-five and the moon and a pandemic.
You grieve together for other timelines.
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"TD-D9 hobbled back into the chamber carrying a tray that held plates covered by domed lids. The droid set the covered plates before the seated figures, then said, 'Are you finished with me, Master Sidious?' 'Most definitely,' Sidious said. Keeping his eyes on Maul, Sidious waved at the droid. TD-D9 lifted off the floor, flew across the chamber, and smashed into the wall." (Windham, 70).
And so Sidious looks directly into Maul's eyes as he kills his proto-mother.
I'd like to talk about the class + gender dynamics of this little scene.
Deenine is obviously a British aristocratic servant, if we use the domed lid as a reference. She has served as Sidious' butler throughout the text, with the expected stoicism of the role having morphed into actual faceless steel.
What is interesting here is that she naturally doubles as another role; a mother. She controls the domestic space of this fortress while Sidious goes abroad. She raises and tyrannises Maul, but they must both bow to the patriarch.
Like the stay-at-home-mum and the Victorian nanny, she is dismissed once the little bird flies the nest. All power she once held evaporates.
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hi so i just finished bridge to terabithia and now i’m unwell and my eyes are red because i’ve been crying before i’d even reached 20 minutes of it for i actually knew what was going to happen and by the time i reached an hour something something i just straight up sobbing screaming into my pillow. and now it’s 12 am and i’m still thinking about them. because god, look at them, how they were, the little world they lived in, wouldn’t you just love that, to run away, to escape, to grasp that childhood naivety and innocence that you lost a long time ago, to feel the sun in your skin and the air in your lungs and to paint fantasies and laugh and play and run hidden away from the world and find an old run down tree house and decided to make it your own little shelter and pin up canvases on the worn wood and paint and let your creativity goes wild and have someone understand you and gets you and do it with you, and wouldn’t you just love to have something so constant, so sincere, so genuine, so pure, so real, that there wasn’t anything else. if i knew i was going to cry this much, if i knew how much space this movie would make in my life, i wouldn’t have started this movie tonight. i would have been in peace on the floor of my room, not realizing how badly i actually want something like this even though i would never unironically admit this to anyone in my life or even myself when i’m outside of the familiar place of my mind, for that matters
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anyway for the rest of the concurrent soulmates-system bsd au, so kunikida has dazai's scars (and dazai has kunikida's, but that never comes up) and chuuya gets to have every lie of dazai inked on his skin (and dazai has chuuya's, but that's a whole lot less)
(i fucking love the idea that it's very obvious to dazai's soulmates that he's theirs, but they can't be sure they are his unless he lets them know)
anyway the point is that the buraiha trio can't lie to each other (literally unable to lie to each other, not lies revealed via tattoos), but only in bar lupin, only when the three of them are present - which sure has some interesting implications about what went down in dark era ! - and also ? towards the end of the break up scene ? it broke. they could have lied to each other from the end of that scene going forward, but they never got to know that.
Dazai and Ango suspect, though.
the fun part though ? another version of it came back. by which i mean that dazai tried to lie through his heartbeats - something like 'it was your fault' or another cruelty - and he couldn't. Ango doesn't realize, but he wouldn't be able to lie through coded time-stopping messages, either. they can't lie to each other anymore - but only when they're communicating via codes. secret notes that are supposed to be hidden. morse code blinks. whatever communication they use as long as it's private. simply talking to each other, even in private, doesn't count, it needs a level of secrecy.
i kinda need to to dig into it, but it fits.
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Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 10: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression
(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)
Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should join the travelers on the larger river boat for a short lunch ...
~
"Before he even fully musters the courage to shout a 'hello', the large group on the boat initiates contact first, gleefully waving at him, whooping and shouting as they near his tiny raft in the water. Apparently, some of them were betting over whether they'd actually find any other travelers out on the river today.. He fumbles over his words a bit, as always, but somehow manages to successfully get himself invited onto their boat for a quick lunch..
After safely securing his raft to the side of the boat with some spare rope, he climbs aboard, stumbling into the excitement of some sort of celebration. A few of them explain that they're traveling for 'kahesallei', an old elven holiday recently re-popularized in some of the larger cities nearby. Whatever it's true meaning and origins used to be, the current significance (at least to those within the city walls) seems to just be mindless feasting, drinking, and gaudy decor. Most of the traveling group are strangers to each other, only brought together by catching a ride on the same tour/party boat, but the mood is light, quite friendly between them, and perhaps a bit drunk.
While the boat itself is relatively plain wood, it's been strewn with gold and orange banners, flags, shimmery tassels, beads, and bushels of dark green ivy braided with fresh herbs and wildflowers. There are flat round tables of food and drink, plenty of cushions to lounge on, and one random guy perched precariously on the edge railing of the boat, gently strumming a lute for background music..
The elderly ship captain hobbles over to The Adventurer, sternly explaining that, no matter what the 'silly' passengers say, he's only allowed to stay for an hour because he didn't pay for a boat ride ticket, and thus really shouldn't even be allowed on board. By the time The Adventurer has mentally processed this information, the captain has already returned to his little steering room, slamming the door shut with a displeased grunt.. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to confront him or question the rules...... But! Hey, at least he has one hour at the party.. How should he spend his time? "
~
Additional Information
the adventurer's current main goal: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has
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i’m having shining nikki sagau thoughts everybody beware. so first of all like i remembered that elves canonically exist in miraland (idk if we ever mentioned this before) and there’s elves or at least elf-like creatures in teyvat…… i’m connecting the dots (<- they’re not connecting shit)
second of all. the new skins. “sailwind shadow” and “blossoming starlight” are SUCH designer’s reflection names like if i opened up shining nikki and saw those there they wouldn’t even be out of place. idk about everyone else but i think it would be cute if sailwind shadow was bandit. i have more to say but i need time to put my thoughts in Order - teddy anon
shining nikki!!
honestly despite red being in my head on and off, i didn’t even CONSIDER sailwind shadow and that is a tragedy. i have his skin but didn’t do the quest relating to it yet (it’s a costume he wears for a play right?) but the entire thing with this event. god he’s so perfect.
blossoming starlight is probably just klee but higher energy and less fear, and while i don’t doubt the power of klee dps i do doubt your conscience allowing you to bring a child into battle, double so after red split. she’s just. a little girl. so we move on.
sailwind shadow. i’ll choose to interpret him as a mix of the dagger bandit and kaeya himself, which makes for a fun little guy in my opinion. always trying to sneak you off to somewhere “more interesting than sitting around all day, no?” and thinks that the others are being far too uptight. does he understand the gravity of the hunt? absolutely. but whereas red (and the two archons) want to keep you safe in the cave you’ve made home, he’d much rather whisk you away down a path in the forest.
less for combat, i’d imagine, leaving that to nikki and the others. has quite a few stories to tell, most made up but some gathered from his weak memory. dislikes kaeya, but less so than red, surprisingly. he seems to view him as having no other choice, that he’s “already conflicted enough without that fake touting him about as their sword.” he views kaeya with more pity than anything else.
he and red have a.. strange relationship. at their cores, they are diluc and kaeya, but that affection is hidden beneath the several layers of trauma painted over. they both worry for the other in their own ways—he checks red for injuries from afar when you all regroup after a fight, and red makes sure to make chicken mushroom skewers when he’s having a bad day—but it’s still a tough trial. it’ll probably go quicker than diluc and kaeya, but you’ll have to wait a while before they connect properly.
in his early stages, he’s not all that dissimilar from red. clingy and always hesitant to leave, but does do more to try and keep your attention on him. he’s kaeya at his core and the costume is from a play, so he’s got quite a few tricks up his sleeve to prolong his stay.
(these tricks commonly include starting to tell you a story only to reveal that the ‘ancient artifact’ is one of fischl’s arrows, or red’s rings. your laughter is enough to keep him stealing them back—anything to be the source of that shine in your eyes.)
less prone to violence than red, and definitely safer to take out in public after everything’s over. at worst, he’ll make a passing comment, but is too worried about his image. what if you see him sneer, or if the other person sees and tells you? no no no, it’s far safer to just pull you away again, even if he has to lie as to why. you’ll understand if the crowds are getting to him, or if he feels trapped indoors, right? you were meant to be amongst nature anyway, so if anything he’s just doing you a favor, surely.
(he doesn’t often leave your side as you sleep, but he did see red in the middle of.. taking care of some things once. while he prefers to keep his hands clean—it’s awfully hard to lie to you, and he doesn’t think he could stay quiet if you asked—he doesn’t look down on red’s choice of problem solving. he recognizes the person beneath his boot anyway, hands slightly twitching at the memory from earlier today. when the two of them return to camp by morning, he lets red do most of the talking, only adding in the small half truth of “just having some fun” when prompted. he did his best to wipe his sword clean of any unsavory stains, but does keep it safely in it’s sheath whenever you’re around.)
however, just because he’s less violent than red doesn’t mean the source of said violence went away. he still gets jealous, and if he finds his theatrics don’t make you laugh as much as they used to, he‘ll begin to panic. are you growing bored with him? are his stories getting predictable? do you look down on him for running away with hunters with you instead of staying like the others do? he promises he’s not just dead weight! please, what does he have to do? do you want him to be more like barbatos? he can’t quite help you fly like he can, but he can try to pick up a bow! do you like red more? he’d really rather not get blood on his outfit, but anything for you. anything, anything at all… just keep your attention on him for a little longer. please?
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