#also scar's feet are based on vultures

[citrusinicake]

banquet au designs for vex!scar and pre-exile watcher!grian

[talk1about7seventeen]

☂ Paradise In Somberville ☂

Summary: Mansions and lore is all ancient history, yet not for the rather faint heart of Virgil who stumbles upon a great secret that may just change his life forever.

Warning: Angsty Virgil, cursing, detailed descriptions of death, violence, talks about violence, mentions and depictions of blood, creepy Remus, uncomfortable situations involving sexual tones, just general vampire stuffs.

Characters: Virgil, Remus, Janus, Roman, Patton, and Logan.

Word Count: 3238

Ship/ Paring: No real ship, just general Remus flirting/ being creepy with Virgil, hints of Prinxiety (Virgil x Roman)

AU: Vampires! 

Song Inspiration (Author’s Note): I was inspired by two songs: Vampire Banquet - Fox Academy and BERNADETTE - IAMX. This story is generally based off of Diabolik Lovers (Specifically the anime - WOAH, I JUST FOUND OUT IT WAS A VISUAL NOVEL ON THE PLAYSTATION???? WHAT???) because I’ve been watching a lot of it recently ^^ I should probably check the game/ novel to fully understand the story...I bet plenty of fanfics have been made on this topic and this is just for fun so yea! 

I hope you enjoy! ( ◜◡◝ )♡

꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Virgil to skip school, especially on gloomy days. It made him want to walk around and explore with his thoughts alone. Today was no exception. He found himself traveling down the same road he always did, enjoying the well needed time to himself. This hour was usually filled with cars, or at the very least animals scattered about. Nothing. Just gloom and quiet; oddly so. It hadn’t really crossed Virgil’s mind. His surroundings were as significant as the millions of other times he made some irrational decision that would shake the course of his day. 

A steady tune played in his ears as he felt like a character in a TV show. “This is the part where something unexpected happens....right?” He commented to the air. Tsk!! “Oh, how scared I am...” His sarcasm was as apparent as the eye roll he gave to absolutely no one. Who knew the reason for his pessimism, or his sour tone. It had become who he presented even alone; his character. Lemons had more of a sweetness to them than he did, and he was aware of that. As the guitar slowly died in his head phones, he felt the vibrations of the road under his feet. This was odd. He wasn’t ever really aware of his surroundings when music was playing but something pulled him from his haze. There was a sound that roared in the distance, probably a car or a truck.

He wouldn’t have cared much normally but it startled him. Besides his own breathing, it was the only sound in the atmosphere. Such a loud contrast to the once silent road. Like a flash of lightning, a beam of sunshine through a window, the only thing in sight....came so fast. The car reared it’s ugly head in view, uncontrollable....untamed. Right at him. 

He felt frozen, anxiety blooming from him like a poisonous plant. Closer....louder....it was angry....the noise! Eyes wide and unprepared for the worst, the horn of the beast ringing out in the air like a siren, a warning call. All of the sudden it came to him in slow motion....the impact. Thankfully, he wasn’t hit face on by the car, only getting clipped in the side. This was enough to send him crashing down to the ground behind him....or...where there should have been flat ground. Instead, Virgil found himself tumbling backwards down a steep slope on the side of the road. 

Every hit to the uneven ground made him let out a groan and shaky breath until he landed on something flat. The ground was so much kinder to him once he stopped rolling. His hand was missing his phone, and the head phones once placed in his ears were suddenly ripped out on the way down to....wherever he was. Laying on his back, he stared at the gloom, the sky. The deep trees like hands reaching out for it. Virgil felt numb emotionally, the anxiety had turned to acceptance....this was how he would die. It made sense. The miserable would find misery. He just had wished someone could have found him before hand. Maybe then he could have made it out with only a few broken bones. 

His lips pressed into a hard line as he pictured all that would occur after this. He would decay here, his flesh peeled off of his bones by the vultures, devoured by the maggots. Maybe he would end up on Buzzfeed Unsolved. He could see the headlines now.....

18 year old boy, found dead in the woods. Was it murder? Here, we will uncover the tale of Virgil, the boy who probably deserved it in the end.

To be fair, only Virgil would classify himself that way. He breathed in once, the knot in his chest ever present. As he began to breathe out for what he imagined would be the last time, he heard a twig snap. His eyes shot open and the anxiety turned into agony. Tears instantly streamed down his face. This was really over.....the man who drove that death machine had found him, didn’t he? Coming to finish the job...

There was a voice but not soon enough spoken. Just as the person was about to say something....anything, Virgil blacked out.

---

“Logan! We have to do something!!”

“Quiet yourself, it doesn’t do any good to shout.”

“Nerd over here is right, Pat. Shut your fucking mouth, babe!”

“Remus! This isn’t helpful, I---oh...”

Virgil began to regain consciousness. His head was spinning and it was surely the people....whoever was around him’s fault. People.....wait...

He sat up faster than he should have because a sharp pain coursed through his lower torso. “Fuck!” He groaned, cupping his side. No one moved in the room and he could feel multiple eyes on him. “Where....” Looking up, his eyes focused on the figures in front of him, now clearer than what his vision had been before. In the room were five other people. The tallest was a lean man with glasses pressed against the bridge of his nose. He looked calculated, smart...it was probably just the glasses though. Or his uncanny expression that looked like he hadn’t slept in months. Virgil knew what that was like, being an insomniac and all. His hair was black and slicked back neatly. He wore more dressed up attire, including a button up shirt which was a dark blue, almost navy and dress pants. He had a vest on that was black, matching the pants he wore, but his eyes....were blue...deeply so. The kind of blue Virgil hadn’t ever seen in eyes before. It was beautiful....alluring. 

The second tallest was also fairly lean, yet he had broader shoulders. His appearance almost made Virgil jump. One side of his face was scarred completely. Something you might only see in comics. He dawned a hat and dressed similarly to the blue eyed man on the other side of the room, yet not as neat. There was a kind of ruggedness to him that made him stand out from the others. His eyes were also oddly bright, taking the form of a yellow hue with a lime green around the iris. Little blonde hairs poked out of his hat almost like bangs. The man looked Virgil up and down and turned to the others, presumably looking for some kind of reaction. 

“Are you going to say anything?” One chimed in. His voice was the equivalent of a broken vinyl on a record player. Virgil nodded, recognizing him as the third voice to speak when he was waking up initially. He was drastically different from the first two, standing at the third tallest next to another man who had the exact same face as him. He was a twin. His clothes were torn and stuck to him like a death threat on the front of a door. What seemed to be a repeating theme was the man’s scattered aesthetic, likewise, his hair was unkempt and silver in color. There were bandages on his right eye, covering what lay underneath. The eye that did show was wild...it had seen murder, or at least that’s the only comparison Virgil could give to how the man looked at him....as if he were prey and he, a hunter. They were green, like a vile of chemicals. 

“Speak then, bitch!” He growled. “Remus!” The smallest boy exclaimed. Remus was his name....he recalled hearing it when he awoke. Out of all of them there, the first voice seemed less threatening, soft even. He had light hair, almost peach looking and it curled freely around his softly framed face. He had the softest features out of all. The rest of the group were so jagged. His eyes were a light blue, almost white. 

“I....” Virgil tried to speak but the words got caught in his throat. “Stop, you’re scaring him!” The soft one spoke again, looking agitated at Remus who crossed his arms in response. The tallest walked up to Virgil with such a stride that would reveal confidence. The man grabbed the sides of Virgil’s chin and turned his face, letting go after a moment of calculation. “How do you feel?” His tone was cold. “Uhm....I---OW! FUCK!” He grasped his side as the pain started to set in. “Where...am I?” 

“My apologies, I am Logan Sanders. You are currently residing in the Somberville Mansion.” Logan looked Virgil dead in the eyes, his almost emotionless nature almost...frightening. “Mansion!?” Remus snickered at the confused boy’s reactions. “Welcome~” He said sensually. “You aren’t helping!” Said his twin. Virgil looked over Logan’s shoulder to see a boy who he would have expected to mirror the dumpster fire of a person but no...he was greeted to a regal, dare even say, royal man. His hair was also silver, but less of an ash color and more of a pearl shade. The beautiful stranger was wearing an eye patch on his left eye which was embellished with red roses and rubies. And oh, his eyes....an orange and red mixture like fire blazing right through him. The passion in his eyes was that only read in stories. “Roman, Remus, leave at once.” Logan ordered, not looking away from Virgil. Roman....that was his name. 

“What is your name?” He asked as the two now out of sight. “Virgil...” The smallest boy came up to the table he laid on. “Hi! I’m Patton! A pleasure to meet you.” He smiled widely. His teeth looked almost like they had fangs. “I really did hit my head hard, didn’t I?” Virgil asked out loud, receiving a small giggle from Patton. “You smell,” He inhaled. “Amazing!” 

Virgil looked down at his now ripped attire, sniffing in the scent. “If you like muddled cologne---uh---sure..” Logan finally turned to the last person in the room and muttered something Virgil couldn’t really hear. “Do you guys have a phone I could use?” The room he was in was decorated accordingly to how each person dressed. It was polished, almost Victorian, with a fireplace in the corner which was surrounded by bookshelves that held knowledge unbeknownst to outsiders. “Don’t think so. But trust me,” Patton cupped Virgil’s hands in his palms and looked into his eyes with the utmost optimism. “You’re in good hands.” His cheerful giggle rang out into the air once more. “I think I dropped my phone somewhere in the woods....if I could just get to that, I---” 

“No worries, we already got it covered.” The yellow eyed person said, handing him over his phone. The screen was damaged which was no surprise. Virgil sighed. “Thanks...” Patton let go of Virgil’s hand “Great job, Janus!” 

“If you follow me, we can get you proper clothing and make sure you’re seen off momentarily back to your home.” Logan walked up to the dark oak double doors with golden handles, pulling it gently and moving through. “C’mon, cutie!” Patton beckoned him out of the room.

---

If not for the fact that he was being directed into different hallways, up different staircases, he could have gotten lost. They weren’t kidding when they called this place a mansion. They finally came upon a door that opened up to a room with a plush bed, a vanity, and a large wardrobe and other objects that Virgil doubted were considered an necessity. It was all fully furnished and it looked expensive. “I hope you find the selection most suitable. We’ll leave you here to change. Come out when you’re finished.” And with that, Logan closed the door behind him leaving Virgil alone with his thoughts. Though, his thoughts were anything close to what he wanted to be alone with. He didn’t know these people which would normally spike his nerves. Yet, these people were somehow inviting despite their intense appearance. Even if not, they were all he had at the moment. He didn’t know where he was and his phone was busted. The five people in this crazy maze of a house was the ticket to his survival. If he didn’t die out in those woods, he was certain he wasn’t going to die now. Not like this anyways. Not with his fresh wounds. He couldn’t get away even if someone was chasing him. There was no telling the condition his legs were in let alone his entire body. The risk was too great. He was forced to blindly trust these people. So far they had been seemingly kind. But that was only now. What about later? Especially with that Remus guy....he looked like a wild cat ready to pounce. Virgil didn’t trust the blood lust in his eyes. But he was safe for now. In a room. Alone with his thoughts.

Might as well find something to wear. There wasn’t any more time left to waste. The sooner Virgil could get out, the later he could contemplate and better yet, process everything that was happening. He opened the large wardrobe and gulped. Clothes sat untouched of the finest material. Skimming his hands over a blouse, he gasped. This thing had to be a couple hundred dollars at least. This was definitely out of his comfort level, but this may be the only time he could feel and look expensive. He chose a long sleeved blouse that was white and shined under the light. It was cut into a V shape at his neck, exposing some of his chest. The sleeves fanned out at the forearms and tightened around his wrists, a part of the shirt covering the back of his hand. The shirt went along with a set of black pants which weren’t ripped unlike what he normally wore. Lastly, the shoes were black and had a slight heel on the bottom. Walking away from the wardrobe he got a good look at himself in a full-body mirror that sat next to a window. Outside of the window shown the sky darkening as rain came falling down from the sky. He had to get out of here. 

“Uh....Logan?” Virgil called, leaning on the bedroom door. The door swung open and instead of Logan and Patton was Remus. “Oh...uh...” He began to stammer. “I think Logan was supposed to be out---”

“What do you get out of teasing me like this?” Remus glowered. “What--?” The man took a step forward, causing Virgil to take one back. “You’re smell so....addictive, my pet~” He began to walk backwards until he hit the bed behind him, falling onto it. With a quick motion, Remus jumped on top of Virgil, straddling him. “Dude, what the fuck!?!?!” The bigger man placed a hand forcefully on Virgil’s lips. “Shhhhh.....shhh....” He cooed. “You can’t wear such a....revealing piece of clothing....” Remus leaned down to Virgil’s ear and took in a deep breath. “Delicious....I’ll take immense pleasure in you...” For a quick moment, Virgil looked into Remus’ eyes and saw death in the face. Panic....nothing but panic! Thoughts flooded into his head like a cry for help. Please!!!! It can’t end like this. Then suddenly, a strike, almost like a needle, dug into Virgil’s exposed skin. He let out a yelp, trying to make any sound he could to grab someone’s attention, anyone! He felt a sucking sensation which burned the side of his neck. Remus lifted his head, blood trickling down his lips and exposed teeth. They were sharp.

“REMUS!!!” Patton gasped. The man groaned and got off of Virgil, cursing under his breath. “I’m so sorry, Vir---!” Patton tried to say and caught a sight of Virgil’s neck. Patton went and yelled for someone but Virgil wasn’t sure who because he felt his vision fade and his consciousness leave him.

---

He awoke to sun in his window. Virgil sat up and laughed to himself. What an odd dream he had. There was pain....and a hot mystery man...and vampires....but it was all a dream...it was all---

“Good morning!” Patton cheered. “It....it wasn’t fake!?” 

“Clearly not.” Logan readjusted his glasses. “Since Remus was, for lack of better words, crudely inappropriate last night, it has come to my attention that you know about him, about us. And knowing our secret, we cannot permit you to leave Somberville.” Virgil’s eyes widened, tears starting to form. “I-I--no! I need to get out of here! I have a family! Friends! I---can’t be here!” 

Patton turned away, too solemn to look Virgil in the eyes. “I do not blame you for his....mistake.” Logan’s words cut like a knife as he glared towards Remus who was unphased by this. “However, you must pay the consequences for such. We can do one of two things, make the public presume you dead,” he paused. “Or, we can come up with a more....kind explanation to your sudden disappearance.” 

“We’ll let you decide, of course.” Patton said, his once cheery voice now as gloom as yesterday’s sky. “Let us know in exactly fourty-eight hours.” Logan checked his watch and with a small nod, exited the room. “It’ll be....okay...you’re in good hands...” Patton tried to be optimistic as he once was, but nothing could shake the emotion that coated his voice. Janus pulled Remus out of the room, too cautious to leave Virgil and him alone again. Virgil wiped the tears that poured down his cheeks. A figure sat down on the side of the bed, sinking into the plush mattress. It was Roman.

“Uh...I’m sorry about my, rather ignorant brother. He was dropped on his head as a kid.” Virgil let out a small chuckle. “No kidding....soo...you guys..are--” 

“Yea...” Roman sounded sympathetic for the boy who wasn’t quite sure if he was just a boy anymore. Virgil rubbed against the side of his neck, pressing against the bite marks that remained from Remus. “I don’t think I ever introduced myself. I’m Roman, pleasure to make your acquaintance....though I wished on different circumstances.” He held out a hand. Virgil shook it, making eye contact with the one eye that was showing. There was silence between them now. The breeze drifted into the room and birds began to chirp. Roman wasn’t so scary....not that he expected him to be...but after last night, there’s no saying who could be deceiving Virgil. “Well, I’ll leave you to your own devices. If he ever does anything like this again, call for me. I’ll be your dark prince, always at your service.” He planted a kiss on the knuckles of Virgil’s fingers. He stood up and took a small bow. Virgil felt his cheeks flush. “The rest of us aren’t so bad.” Roman promised. “Hopefully.” Virgil responded, null of hope.

Roman stopped at the door and gave one last nod and vanished out of the room. The sky was shining today. It was warm and glowing. The atmosphere was light and everything they didn’t seem to be. A facade in the form of living. Such a happy place for the name Somberville. But even still, all Virgil could feel was the gloom and the aching of his body and where the bite marks remain....and he was more aware of himself than he ever was before, and afterwards...

[redschillzone]

First Kiss Headcanons (Star Wars)

(Gif found here!)

Warnings: None

A/N: Decided to work on some first kiss headcanons as well! Enjoy. :)

Iden Tag List: @allfiguredout​ @dversstark​

Prequels/Clone Wars

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Your first kiss with Obi-Wan happened when he had visited your apartment in Coruscant after a rather rough Jedi council meeting. You were letting him vent to you as you both sat on the couch, listening to him go on and on about something, you couldn’t recall what but your eyes were on his lips the whole time. “Obi-wan.” You called his name to which he glanced at you, an eyebrow raised before you went ahead and pressed your lips to his; The kiss was short, but it was sweet and you managed to get your point across as you pulled away, a blush on both your faces but you had noticed how much more relaxed Obi-wan looked. “Can you kiss me again, my love..? I’d love to feel your lips on mine again.” He asked you and all you could do was giggle and kiss him once more.

Anakin Skywalker

Your first kiss with Anakin happened after a rough dogfight with a few Vulture droids; He had been pulling rather dangerous stunts and as you watched him do each one, you could feel your heart tightening with each one. You needed to remind him that there was someone waiting for him. “Anakin!” You had called out as you made your way across the hangar to him. He looked over at you, eyebrow raised and was about to speak but you grabbed him by the shoulders and brought him down to your height before you crashed your lips against his; It was a passionate kiss and you were blushing a dark red throughout the kiss. He had gladly returned it but was quick to pull away, making sure nobody else saw before he spoke up. “We gotta be more careful when we do that but.. Fuck can you do that again?” He asked and you all but rolled your eyes. “I’ll kiss you again if you promise not to pull sure reckless stunts.” You offered and he grinned before he nodded. “Fair enough.”

Ahsoka Tano

Your first kiss with Ahsoka happened while you two were cuddling in bed, just talking about your days. You were listening to her talk, watching her with a smile on your face as she continued to talk to you about some stunt Flyguy pulled during training and you just couldn’t help yourself as you leaned forward to gently press you lips against hers; She froze on the spot but eventually relaxed and kissed back, putting her hands on your cheeks. When you both pulled away, she looked at you with so much love in her eyes and a smile on her face. “How long have you wanted to do that one?” She had asked you and you just blushed and hid your face in her neck before mumbling. “A long, long time.”

Captain Rex

Your first kiss with Rex happened when he returned from a long recon mission with General Skywalker and Kenobi. You couldn’t help yourself as you all but ran to him, jumping into his arms as he chuckled and held you close to him; You allowed him the time to take his helmet off and before he could ask you how you were doing you crashed your lips to his, a dark blush crossing his features before he kissed you back. You just giggled once you pulled away, watching the Captain clear his throat. “I- Um- Wow.” Was all he could say and you couldn’t help but laugh as you brought him in for another kiss, his brothers all wolf whistling and cheering for the two of you.

Original Trilogy/Battlefront 2

Luke Skywalker

Your first kiss with Luke would happen right after his return from blowing up the first Death Star. The moment you saw his X-wing land in the hangar you all but ran over with Han and Leia behind you and once his feet touched the ground, he ripped the helmet from his head and pulled you in for a hug before he crashed his lips against yours, his eyes shut tightly as a dark blush spread across your face; You had returned the rather heated kiss. You two weren’t going to pull away anytime soon so Han cleared his throat, which caused you both to pull away and blush as he patted Luke’s shoulder. You couldn’t help but grin as you watched him before you spoke. “Fuck- Kiss me again, Luke.” You told him and he laughed before kissing you once more.

Leia Organa

Your first kiss with Leia would be after the Battle of Endor. You couldn’t believe it, that the Republic had won and as you looked towards where Leia rested, her arm bandaged up, you couldn’t help yourself as you kneeled beside her and grinned. “We did it.. We won.” You had told her, watching as she gave you a smile and nodded before she leaned forward, putting her hand on your cheek before she pressed her lips to yours in a slow, passionate kiss. You had turned red as you felt her lips against yours but you allowed yourself to kiss back before you pulled away, a grin on your face as she laughed lightly; The kiss was well worth the wait.

Han Solo

Your first kiss with Han would be after a very close get away after you both had smuggled some weapons. He would be laughing in the pilot seat beside you in the cockpit of the Falcon, you laughing as well before you began to relax, glancing at him and noticed how he had also calmed down but had his eyes trained on you. You couldn’t help but bite your lip before you spoke up. “That was uh- That was close.” You had told him and he had nodded in agreement. “Can I do something?” He asked you and you blinked but nodded and it was then he placed his hand on your cheek and brought you over to him, allowing his lips to press against yours in the sweetest kiss you could have ever imagined. You all but melted into it and returned the kiss. To say the least, your first kiss also happened to be your first time.

Iden Versio

Your first kiss with Iden would happen on one of her off days. You two would be resting in her room, the two of you just talking about the upcoming missions for the Inferno Squadron before you just got the sudden urge to kiss her and you took it; Pressing your lips to hers as she talked mid-sentence but froze as she your lips on hers. She was ready to push you away but slowly began to melt into the kiss and returned it. When you pulled away, you couldn’t help but sheepishly speak up. “Sorry.. I uh- I should have warned you or something but just.. I wanted to do that for awhile.” You admitted, blushing darkly as she laughed before she spoke up. “Good, because so did I. Now come here, I want another.”

Sequels

Rey 

Your first kiss with Rey would happen during training. You were a Jedi yourself so you would help her by testing her skills against yours and once you had her pinned on this particular training day, she stared up at you with wide eyes before she pressed her lips against yours in a sweet and fast kiss. You were frozen to the spot as she pulled away. “I um- I didn’t mean that- I mean I did but I just-” She was quickly explaining to you and you just laughed before you kissed her again. She had returned the kiss and once you two pulled away you spoke up. “Next time you want a kiss, just ask, huh~?” You teased her as she all but whined below you and asked you for another kiss shyly, which you gladly gave her.

Finn

Your first kiss with Finn would happen after the Battle of Crait. You all but ran into his arms once you spotted him on the Falcon and he held you close before you pulled away, taking his face into your hands before you crashed your lips against his in a rushed, sloppy kiss; One he gladly returned. You were scared he wouldn’t make it back to you after everything that happened but alas, here he was in front of you. He was the first one to pull away, moving his own hands to your face as he gently smiled at you. “It’s okay, I’m here.. Can um.. Can you kiss me again though, just to make sure it’s not a dream?” He told you and you laughed as you kissed him once more.

Poe Dameron

Your first kiss with Poe would be after he returned to D’Qar after being captured from the First Order. You had heard he was back and in the medical ward so there you ran and once you ran in, you spotted the curly haired pilot at the edge of his medical cot, looking at you with wide eyes. “(Y/N).” He would call out to you and you could feel the tears rising as you ran over to him, crashing your lips against his busted lip in a sloppy kiss; You didn’t care how it felt because Poe was alive and he was back with you. He had returned the sloppy kiss and kept you close to him, his arms around your waist. It was a mess of a first kiss, but you didn’t care.

Kylo Ren

Your first kiss with Kylo would happen after the events on Starkiller base. You were waiting for him in his room on the Supremacy and once you heard the doors open, you quickly looked up and tensed as you noticed the black bandaging over his injury where a scar would most definitely form. He made his way over to you, fell to his knees between your legs and quickly brought you in for a kiss; One that was heated but filled with passion. You could feel the tears running down your face as you returned the kiss, placing your hands gently on his cheeks. You thought you had lost him to that scavenger but he was okay and he was alive, he was with you again and as you both pulled away for breath, you just stared into his eyes and understood what he wanted; With that, you brought him in for another kiss.

The Mandalorian

Din Djarin/Mando

Your first kiss with Din would be after the events on Nevaroo. You had helped him escape along with his Creed brothers but you had joined along to not only protect him but the Child as well and as you sat in his bunk, watching as the Child slept peacefully he had walked over and gently pressed his helmet against your forehead; You knew what this meant, it was the way Mandalorians showed love, showed how they kissed. You gave a small smile before you pressed your own forehead against his helmet, allowing your eyes to shut so you could cherish the moment. As much as you craved to feel his lips against yours, you knew how the Creed went and you knew how dedicated he was to it so you would follow his Creed and enjoy every moment of this Mandalorian kiss.

Cara Dune

Your first kiss with Cara would be after the events on Sorgan. As you settled in for the night she came in to check on you, make sure you weren’t injured and as you informed her that you were fine and just tired, she had pressed her lips to yours in a short, chaste kiss. You couldn’t help but blush as she smiled and placed her hand on your cheek, giving a small nod. “I’m glad you’re okay..” She spoke and you nodded once more before you squeaked out. “Can um- Can I have another good-night kiss..?” You questioned and she laughed but gladly gave into you.

[fc5holidayexchange]

FAR CRY 5 HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 2019 FIC

FAR CRY 5 HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 2019 FIC “Made For Me”

Nora Williams/John Seed. Nora finds her soulmate.

For @farcry5-obsessions

“I honestly had such a fun time writing this. I hope I was able to do Nora justice and I really hope you like it. <3”

Soulmates are a funny thing. There are all sorts of movies about people finding the person they were meant to be with and yet very rarely did it happen. It was hard to find someone with the exact same freckles as you. There were entire websites dedicated to matching distinct patterns together and still the number of people who actually found their other half was less than a million.

Nora had never understood how it all worked when she was little, if she was being honest she still didn’t totally understand it but at this point, she’d accepted it. Her skin reflected her soulmate’s: if she scraped her knee they got a scar; if they broke their nose she woke up with her’s a little crooked.

She wasn’t sure when the first scar had appeared, her mother was never specific but Nora always suspected some of the smaller ones had always been there. Silvery speckles decorated her palms, presumably from where her soulmate had fallen over and over again, causing the wounds to scar over.

If she compared pictures of herself through the years she could see the evolution of the markings across her body. Her nose had got a little crooked when she was 11, a paper-thin scar had appeared on her cheek when she was 8.

She never thought much about it at first, what the collection of injuries implied. It wasn’t until her stepsister had gasped when they’d been changing that she realized the scars were probably something wrong. A smattering of lashes were scattered across her back. It wasn’t too hard to figure out they were the scars from being beat with something like a belt or a whip, though her dad said belt seemed more plausible based on the pattern.

The first tattoo appeared when Nora was 15, a cross on her left wrist. She hadn’t noticed it at first, it hadn’t been until her 4th period when someone asked about it that she realized it was even there.

When she was 18, Nora got her own tattoo, a small black plane on her collar bone. She’d always liked watching planes fly by her house when she was little so it just felt right. The next day there were two more planes alongside it, the trio forming a “V” formation. It’d brought a smile to her face to see her soulmate adding on to what she’d started.

After that, the tattoos came in waves. She’d wake up to five new ones, then nothing for months. There were more planes over the years, lots more planes. She contributed her own occasionally, a crescent moon on one arm, the next year a dove. Her soulmate had added on to that one, surrounded the bird with a halo of leaves and a cherub reaching for it. Just like with the planes before, the addition warmed her heart, she saw it as an unspoken appreciation and solidarity.

They had been the biggest factor in the decision as to what she should major in, of course, there had been other factors but in the end, it came back to her soulmate. No one helped them when they were going through hell so she wanted to do her part and help someone else.

Two weeks before her graduation Nora had woken up to find her knuckles covered in scars. Some of them were barely visible but others stuck out, evidence towards the severity of the injuries she deduced. That same day she’d gotten a peacock feather tattooed on her arm. A symbol of protection, in hopes that her soulmate, whoever they were, might learn this and know that she cared. She couldn’t do much but if she could give them even a sliver of hope she would try.

• • • •

Nora woke up to a heavy throbbing behind her eyes, she didn’t dare open her eyes. Icy water lapped at the side her face, mud and silt soaked into her hair and clothes, covering her arms. The bliss in her blood made her limbs heavy and the world around her sound like her head was underwater, maybe it was. Someone shouted, the sound melding with the rest swirling around her head. The voices grew louder as the drugs from her mind cleared.

When she finally did open her eyes, it was to a dark sky, stars poking out from behind wisps of clouds. The air smelled like pine needles and rain; if it weren’t for the cultists prowling around the edge of her vision like vultures on a carcass she might even say it was peaceful.

She tried to lift her head but the head still spun a bit, her stomach doing flips when she even considered sitting up. A cultist crossed her vision, drawing her attention to another body on the ground near her, she was certain there would be more if she could just look around.

“This one?” The cultist asked, his voice reached her like he was a thousand feet underwater.

“No,” Another walked in front of Nora, his finger pointed at her. She suddenly realized the stars weren’t just in the sky but also swirling and twirling all around her. The man kept eye contact with her as he passed.

“Don’t seem very worthy.”

“It is not for us to judge.” A pause, the cultist above her swam in and out of focus. “Deliver her unto the waters. The Cleansing begins tonight.”

Nora’s eyes fell closed again as she was lifted up, her head slumping forward. The thought alone of trying to keep her head up was exhausting. It felt like a million tons of brick had made itself at home in her skull.

She must have blacked out, for when she came to again it was to muffled preaching and her lungs screaming for air. She opened her eyes to a rippling face above her holding her until ice-cold water that threatened to fill her lungs as it worked to numb her body. Now she wasn’t sure what were the effects of the leftover bliss pumping through her heart and what were side effects from the river’s attempt to freeze her.

“We must wash away our past. We must expose our sins.”

She’d been in harrowing situations before, this should be nothing new. She had been trained for situations like this, well maybe not this exactly. She was supposed to keep a level head, think through the situation rationally, use what she’s spent years learning to find a way to get herself out of this.

Instead, her mind shut itself down. Maybe it was a vain attempt to protect herself from the horror she was living. Perhaps she’d just been through too much too fast and the stress had finally broken her. Regardless, her mind was empty, her body taking over as panic filled her chest and she wailed, her voice lost before it reached the surface of the water.

“We must atone…”

The hands gripping her shoulders pulled her up, her knees threatening to buckle. Nora took a shaking step forward, the cultist holding her up.

“For only then may we stand in the light of God and walk through his Gate unto Eden.”

She looked up to see a pair of lights far off, maybe a car’s headlights, she wasn’t sure. A man, her brain was functioning well enough to recognize his voice as John Seed, stood feet from her. His body obscured one of the lights and the fuzzy, swaying of her vision made it look like a halo around his head.

She was walked forward slowly, her eyes never leaving him as he blessed the newly baptized and spoke passionately from the text in his hand. Each step felt easier until she was almost striding forward only stopping when she was in front of John. He closed his book, looking her in the eye with distrust and contention. She couldn’t say she blamed him, she’d been wrecking hell for the cult and he likely thought it was her fault this had all happened. If Joseph was to be believed it was all her fault.

Nora spared a second to looked down, her eyes catching on the word ‘sloth’ carved into his chest and crossed out. Her heart clenched and a hand involuntarily went to her own chest to cover her own marking, currently concealed by the shirt she had on.

“Not this one,” John spoke, his voice cold, and his arm darted out to stop the man leading her. He took a sure step forward as he handed off his book. His eyes dropped momentarily to glance at her hand before meeting her eyes again. “I’ll deal with her personally.”

“But—“ John cut whatever the man was going to say with a wave of his hand, the other wrapping around her arm and pulling her forwards towards the cars.

Nora was lifted into the backseat. John didn’t speak a word, silently waving off the people that offered to come with him.

“We’re fine. Finish up here. This one needs my personal attention.”

By the time John pulled the car to a stop again, Nora’s world had stopped spinning and the stars in her vision had gone away. John remained silent as he opened her car door and lead her into his ranch. Now that she wasn’t drugged to hell or on the verge of drowning and her brain decided to start working again she only felt confused.

“What am I doing here?” She questioned as the door clicked shut behind her. John’s back was to her and she heard him sigh before he turned back around.

“Those marks on your hand, your tattoos, did you get them yourself?”

“I— no. What’s it to you?” Her confusion turned into distrust, she tried to cover the hand in question with her other only to quickly realize she was putting those marks on display as well.

“Your soulmate’s?”

“Yes…?” Her heart fluttered with anxiety at the direction the conversation seemed to be going in.

Wordlessly, John nodded and reached up to unbutton his shirt. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he dropped the crisp blue material to the floor.

Her heart clenched at the sight, the same marks that hard disfigured and decorated her own skin were perfectly reflected on his. He took a deep breath and she watched the Eden’s Gate symbol on his stomach swell and the trio of planes below his collarbone rise as if they were flying. The scar on his ribs stretched and she didn’t hesitate to reach out, her hand connecting with warm skin and covering the old wound.

“Can I?” John asked after what felt like 10 minutes of silence. Nora nodded and pulled her own shirt over her head so she stood in front of him in her bra. He looked as amazed as she’d felt at the sight. His hand reached out and ran along her arm, thumb rubbing slow circles over the peacock feather there. The other came up to rest over the ‘sloth’ in her skin.

“I’ll be honest, I never expected to meet you.” His voice was quiet, his eyes filled with a cascade of emotions as he met hers once again.

“Neither did I, but here we are.” Nora smiled and for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last five minutes her heart clenched as he returned her smile.

“Here we are.” He repeated, unable to keep the joy from his voice. His composed mask slipped and he pulled her into a tight embrace. He clung to her like she might disappear at any moment and if she was being honest, Nora did the same.

When they finally broke apart enough to look up at each other, Nora raised a hand to cup his jaw. She ran her thumb against a long healed scar on his cheekbone and smiled at how unreal this all felt.

She didn’t wait a second longer, pushing herself up to capture his lips with her own. The two moved in perfect sync until they had to break away again to breathe, their foreheads pressed together.

“We’re soulmates,” John said aloud, a light giggle on the edge of his voice. Nora nodded, her forehead bumping his with each moment.

“We are.”

[acollectionofhalftruths]

The One With Enthusiasm

Clone Wars is coming back and I’m still appalled we never got an Ahsoka and Obi-wan bonding episode. Read under the cut or on AO3 

“Adversity is friendship’s truest test.”

Ahsoka dumped her pack on the ground and rummaged around for dinner—a ration bar. Again. She, Anakin, and Torrent Company had set up camp in a shallow cave system here in the northern hemisphere of Ryloth, a short respite in their push towards the city of Nabat where a bunch of clankers had hunkered down. In her head, she knew the names and the places, but it was already starting to blur with the few other ground battles she’d been in. Is this how her masters felt? Trying to keep the endless besieged worlds separate, trying to distinguish between each endless wave of droids.

“Hungry, Snips?” Anakin asked, dropping his own pack.

She bared her sharp teeth in a smile. “Starving. I think I saw a red rat on the way in, so I might go hunt one of those down.”

Anakin nodded nonchalantly—he’d eat anything, she’d seen him eat tube worms straight off a cave wall once—but a few away, a couple clones blanched and quickly went back to setting up camp. She bit off a hard chuck of ration bar and stuffed it between her teeth and cheek to soften. Mostly she was messing with them, but a little fresh meat would be a welcome break from the endless march of bland, nutrient-exact bars. Small as they were, red rat wouldn’t be hard to catch. A little patience and good timing—

“General.” Rex had his finger to his ear comm. “We’ve got Ghost Company and General Kenobi inbound. Should I have the men pack in?”

“Tight as they can, Rex. Something tells me tonight is going to be cold.”

Ahsoka dug her cloak out of her pack and dropped it about where she would be sleeping. The clones distributed a few small space heaters for later and set up the makeshift medical space for Jesse and Blackout to work. A few minutes later, Ghost Company trudged into the caves and mingled with the 501st.

Ahsoka spied Obi-wan talking to Cody. Dirt and smoke streaked his face and clung to his robes, and an ugly blaster mark scarred his right shoulder armor. Even for the mighty Master Kenobi, it seemed there were close calls.

Finally, the Jedi master left Cody and came to sit near Ahsoka. He looked even more tired up close, but he smiled at her. “It’s good to see you, Ahsoka.”

She swallowed the bite of ration and smiled back. “Good to see you too, master. We spent the whole day clearing out recon bases and sniper nests.”

“We did much the same. We’ll have to make an aerial assault on Nabat, but the guns on the ground are too thick for that yet.”

Anakin dropped down beside them and smirked. “You look terrible.”

Obi-wan just gave his friend a long-suffering look. The three of them clustered around the heater and Rex and Cody joined to discuss the day’s gains and check in with Admiral Yularen over a shaky holocall. Around them, Ghost and Torrent Company settled in for the night, swapping stories about their day, exchanging kill counts, and in one corner a makeshift barber’s set up as a few expert clones buzzed their brothers’ hair, either to touch up fussier styles or to give new scrapes and cuts room to heal. It looked interesting, having hair. She’d seen all the things Senator Amidala could do with hers, but it also looked like a hassle to maintain, especially on the battlefield. But the men reveled in it, in how it made them both distinct and united.

Then Force whispered, like a tug at the back of her mind. Quiet. Insistent. She raised her head, and Anakin and Obi-wan were already on their feet, looking to the cave entrance. A distant scream echoed down the valley, but it didn’t fade like a sentient sound of pain or fear. It dragged on and drew closer, higher, louder.

Bombers.

“Run!”

Everyone sprinted deeper into the cave. The scream rattled the stones on the floor until it rang in Ahsoka’s montrals and made her eyes water. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Obi-wan and Anakin slow and turn, and she skidded to a stop and spun around to follow them. Clones raced past, blue and gold blurs in her peripheral.

Light.

Like looking into a sun.

Then thunder and fire and death burst toward her. She threw up her hands to hold back the seething explosion that strained for her, ravenous and raging to swallow everything down. The smoke burned in her eyes and throat, and she dug her feet into the ground and pushed back.

Then another explosion shook the cave. She was hurled back into pain and blurry light until she slipped into darkness.

***

Someone was touching her shoulder. “Ahsoka. Ahsoka, wake up.”

Her head rang. A hundred rocks dug into her back, and everything hurt. She wanted to lie still, to wait until the throbbing and jabbing gave up and left, but someone’s voice turned into Obi-wan’s, and he wasn’t giving up. “Ahsoka, you need to wake up.”

She opened her eyes but just saw more dark.

“It doesn’t look like anything’s broken,” he said.

She put a hand to her pounding head and winced. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as I can be.” His hand found hers, and he pulled her to her feet while she groaned a little louder than necessary.

“What happened?”

He ignited his saber, and the pale light spilled across his face revealing a deep gash across his forehead that his hair stuck to. “Vulture bombers. We held the explosion back until the walker fuel tanks blew. Threw us into this side passage.”

She took a step towards him. “You’re hurt.”

He looked surprised, then touched his forehead and shrugged. “Just a scratch.”

She looked around, and her eyes had already adjusted enough for her to make out the close walls of the cave, barely a few meters apart, and the ceiling was just out of reach. The Force must have been watching over them if they made it into the tunnel instead of smashing piecemeal into a cave wall. She blinked and looked back to him. “And Anakin? The men?”

He held up his wrist. “Anakin. Anakin, come in.” Feedback whined through the cave. “Cody. Cody, do you read me?”

Ahsoka tried her own comm and got nothing but static. “All this rock must be blocking the signal.”

“Possibly.” He took a couple steps, and the light spilled onto a wall of rubble stretching up to the cave ceiling. “This doesn’t look good.”

“Can we move it?”

“I don’t think moving it is going to be possible.” He held the saber higher. “It seems to be holding up the roof at this point, and moving it may cause more rubble to fall.”

Ahoksa clenched her fists. “What about Anakin and the men? They could be hurt!”

“That’s possible, but there isn’t anything we can do for them from here. The only thing we can do is to find another way out and find our way back to them.”

Ahsoka sighed. “Then how do we get out of here?”

He pointed his lightsaber in the opposite direction, into the endless dark. “I think I feel the air moving from deeper in. This may be a tunnel system.”

She frowned. She wanted to do something, not run around in the dark hoping not to run into something big and fanged. But Obi-wan was already striding into the unknown. Ahsoka sighed and ignited her lightsaber. “Then I hope we don’t run into whatever dug these.”

He snorted. “That would be unfortunate.”

They followed the curve of the tunnel for what felt like hours, wandering further and further away from camp before Obi-wan pitched forward into the dark.

Ahsoka grabbed his arm and yanked hard. “Master!”

Somehow he got both feet back on solid ground and took a breath. “Oh, dear.” He leaned forward, holding his saber aloft.

A black ravine stretched out beneath them, maybe a meter across and too deep to see the bottom. Ahsoka leaned out and looked up, and overhead the ravine ran up to a dark sky. Barely outlined by the moon, smoke from days of fighting stained the narrow gash of night sky and blotting over the stars. On the far side of the chasm, the tunnel ran on into the dark. Goosebumps rose on her bare arms and shoulders in the open, cool night air, and she wrinkled her nose in discomfort.

Maybe being out of the tunnel would give a better signal. Ahsoka tried her comm again. “Skyguy. Skyguy, do you read me? Ankain?”

Static.

She groaned. “Useless.”

“It must have been damaged in the explosion.” Obi-wan leaned over the edge of the canyon, peered down into the dark, and pointed lower down the cliff face. “It looks like there’s a ledge big enough for both of us.”

Ahsoka turned her lightsaber off and hung it back on her belt. On her bare arms and shoulders, goosebumps rose. “Big enough for what?”

“To pass the night. We can regroup with the others in the morning.”

Her mouth fell open. “What? We can’t stay here.”

“Ryloth is dangerous enough during the day. There will be all kinds of predators and droid patrols out now, so I think it’s wisest to wait for light.”

Ahsoka scowled. “But they might need our help.”

“Ahoksa, I understand your frustration, but we came almost straight through the plateau. It will take us hours to get back on foot. We won’t be any good to Anakin or Cody if we’re caught by Separatists or falling into a gutkurr nest.”

She crossed her arms then hugged herself tighter against the cold.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Have faith in Anakin. He’ll be there when we get back.”

She sighed. “Yes, master.”

They leapt down to the ledge and tried to settle in for a few hours of sleep. Ahsoka curled into a ball and wrapped her arms around herself. Kark, it was cold. How did a planet get so hot during the day and lose all the heat once the sun went down? What she would give for a cloak right now. It was probably ash. Obi-wan put his back to the wall and raised an arm in invitation, and Ahsoka scooted close to share his body heat. Even with his cold, dura-plastic armor, the Jedi master was warm, and she curled up with his arm around her and her face buried in his side. Thank the Force for mammalian species.

***

Ahsoka woke stiff and cold the next morning. Pale, pink-brown light filtered down the ravine, bright and dancing with dust particles. She licked her chapped lips and tasted blood in the cracks. Obi-wan must have felt her stirring because he inhaled and sat up, then rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “Lived to see another morning.”

Ahsoka snorted and breathed into her hands and rubbed her arms to limber them back up. “Don’t feel very alive.”

He stood with a suppressed groan and stretched. “It’ll be hot enough soon. We should get moving.”

Sliding further down the ravine, they found a path worn into the cliff face, narrow and broken, probably created by some wild animal and eroded by time. They picked their way along the cliff face, and sometimes they had to leap several meters to reach the next portion of the path. After a few hours, they worked their way out of the canyon into the open air again. The sun was high, and it was getting hot again. She turned in the direction of the camp, and over the edge of the mesa rose a black, swirling cloud.

Ahsoka gasped and dash towards it.

“Ahsoka,” Obi-wan shouted. “Wait!”

She sprinted to the smoking cave mouth. Scattered across the ground were hulking, twisted pieces of metal, melted and hardened into threatening angles. Smoke drifted off the rocks, the gutted AT-TE, the skeleton of the crashed Vulture. It must have made a suicide run to get at their camp.

Obi-wan ran up behind her and look around, saber in hand but not ignited. In the corner of her eye something glinted, and she turned to it. An unharmed comm lay on the ground, surrounded by boot prints scattered in the ash and dirt. She grabbed it and turned it on. A map of the area flickered up with a blinking beacon a few klicks beyond their current position. “Looks like a rendezvous point. Ugh. This is going to take forever.”

“Don’t give in to impatience, Ahsoka.” Obi-wan rubbed his chin. “They must have had to move out. We should do the same. There’s no telling if the Separatists will come looking for survivors.”

Ahsoka glanced back at the smoky cave then pocketed the comm and turned with Obi-wan to the rendezvous point. For the next few hours, they marched on.

The sun rose higher, and soon sweat was rolling down Ahsoka’s back, and Obi-wan’s robes darkened down the back. They wove between the towering buttes and strange rock formations until they suddenly cleared, and the duo stepped into clearing. Ahsoka stopped and looked around.

The ground was pocked with holes and stray shrapnel encrusted with dirt, probably the evidence of artillery fire. Ahoksa frowned and looked around at the faded battle zone. “Is this all from the Separatists? We’ve only been here for a few days.”

Obi-wan shook his head. “No, I’m afraid the fight on Ryloth has been raging for much longer than the Republic has been here.”

They trudged on through the battlefield, avoiding rusting droids and skirting stone cairns marked with white chalk symbols Ahsoka didn’t recognize. There were a lot of cairns, more than there should have been. “There were files on the Ryloth Resistance in the briefing. I guess I didn’t realize they had been fighting so long.”

Obi-wan surveyed the half-buried wreckage of an armored vehicle. “I think we are all going to be fighting much longer than we realize.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and he nudged some twisted shrapnel with his boot. “Be careful, Ahsoka. There might still be live ammunition.”

Ahsoka glanced around, then took a deep breath. The faster they got through this field, the faster they’d reach the rendezvous point. She stepped over another pothole forward and smiled back at him to try and cheer him up. “Don’t worry, master. I’m always careful.”

Then she was falling, plummeting down. She landed hard and rolled across the ground and into something hard that slammed her to a stop. Groaning, she sat up and found herself at the bottom of a pit, every bruise from the explosion screamed with new pain.

Something landed heavy beside her, and a hand touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

She winced and blinked until the older Jedi’s face came back into focus. “I think so.”

A low growl reverberated through the cave. Heat in her throat, Ahsoka leapt to her feet. Her right ankle buckled, and she fell to one knee. “Oh kark, that hurts.”

Another growl echoed through the cave—closer—and the Force tremored. Obi-wan looped her arm over his shoulder. “One, two—”

On three, they sprang out of the pit, and Ahsoka’s leg buckled again, throwing her forward. She stumbled a few steps before she caught herself.

“Are you all right?” the master asked.

She hissed, balanced on one foot, and carefully spun her throbbing ankle, but the movement sent pain shooting up her ankle. She hissed again and shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Obi-wan watched her silently as she limped a couple steps in the direction of the rendezvous point. Then he shook his head and offered his hand.

Her lips twitched with embarrassment. She looked around and pointed to a nearby rock pile, large enough to hide her from any passing Seppie air patrols. “I’ll hide out there.”

“Anakin will never let me hear the end of it if I leave you here.”

Ahsoka thought about arguing, but ten minutes later Obi-wan was piggy-backing her the last few klicks to the point. She wrapped her arms around his neck and set her chin on his shoulder, legs sticking almost straight out. Why was she so short?

“You don’t have to carry me the whole way.”

“Don’t worry.” He sounded awfully chipper for hauling someone half his size across the Ryloth badlands. “We’re almost there.”

He climbed up a short incline, and his breathing was getting a little harder, but the redheaded human showed no signs of slowing. Ahsoka smirked. “You’re pretty spry for a grandmaster.”

"Hmm. It seems Anakin is rubbing off on you in more ways than one.”

“I think he prefers to think of it as his amazing teaching skills.”

“I’m sure he does. You two are well suited.”

Reckless. That was what Anakin had called her. What a lot of people had called her, and here she was being carted across the Ryloth plains, useless because she had rushed in without looking. “Master?”

He hummed an acknowledgement.

Ahsoka ran her tongue over the points of her teeth before speaking. “Do you think I would have made it as your padawan?”

He skirted a collapsed rock formation and trudged in silence just long enough to make Ahsoka nervous. She started to speak, but he said, “I think you're doing quite well so far.”

“Haha.”

He turned his head, and a smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes. “You will do well, padawan, wherever the Force takes you.”

She rested her forehead against his shoulder and shut her eyes. “Thanks, master.”

They reached the new camp a few hours later. Anakin smirked as they came in. “Glad you made it.”

Ahsoka scowled at him over Obi-wan’s shoulder. “If you laugh, Skyguy, I’ll punch you.”

“Wasn’t gonna say anything, Snips. Wasn’t gonna say anything.”

[catfiished]

ZODIAC SIGN: Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra | SCORPIO | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces GOOD DAY: Magnetic, passionate, loyal, protective, trendsetting, brave BAD DAY: Obsessive, possessive, jealous, secretive, vengeful, manipulative

MYERS-BRIGGS: ESFP | ISFP | ESTP | ISTP | ESTJ | ISTJ | ESFJ | ISFJ | ENFJ | INFJ | ENFP | INFP | ENTP | INTP | ENTJ | INTJ STRENGTHS: Honest & direct, strong-willed & dutiful, very responsible, calm & practical, create & enforce order, jack-of-all-trades WEAKNESSES: Stubborn, insensitive, always by the book, judgmental, often unreasonably blame themselves

FOUR TEMPERAMENTS: Sanguine | Melancholic | CHOLERIC | Phlegmatic The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. They have a lot of AGGRESSION, ENERGY, & PASSION and try to instill it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. They like to be in charge of everything. However, cholerics also tend to be either highly disorganized or highly organized. They do not have in-between setups, only one extreme to another. Cholerics can also fall into deep and sudden depression. Essentially, they are very much prone to mood swings.

CELTIC ZODIAC: Birch (The Achiever) | Rowan (The Thinker) | Ash (The Enchanter) | Alder (The Trailblazer) | Willow (The Observer) | Hawthorne (The Illusionist) | Oak (The Stabilizer) | Holly (The Ruler) | Hazel (The Knower) | Vine (The Equalizer) | Ivy (The Survivor) | REED (THE INQUISITOR) | Elder (The Seeker)

Reed signs among the Celtic tree astrology signs are the secret keepers. You DIG DEEP inside to the real meaning of things and discover the truth hidden beneath layers of distraction. When there is a need to get to the HEART of the matter, most certainly the Reed sign will find the core. You love a good story, and can be easily drawn in by gossip, scandals, LEGENDS & LORE. These tendencies also make you an excellent historian, journalist, detective or archaeologist.

SOUL TYPE: HUNTER | Caregiver | Creator | Thinker | Helper | Educator | Performer | Leader | Spiritualist

As a Hunter, you have both feet  firmly planted on the ground. You are GOAL-ORIENTED and will see a task through  to COMPLETION, working in an orderly manner. You have a strong practical streak  and may sometimes forget to take time to stop and smell the flowers. Your pragmatic nature might result in your home being more functional than decorative. Your LOYALTY TO YOUR FAMILY,  friends, or co-workers is strong, as is your ability to organize others. You may be drawn to team sports or group activities, though you can work alone equally  well. Solitary Hunters occupy offices throughout the corporate world, while small groups of them can be found scaling mountains or otherwise seeking  adventure and the chance to prove themselves.

HOGWARTS HOUSE: GRYFFINDOR | Hufflepuff | Ravenclaw | Slytherin

ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good | NEUTRAL GOOD (23) | CHAOTIC GOOD (24) | Lawful Neutral | True Neutral | CHAOTIC NEUTRAL (20) | Lawful Evil | Neutral Evil | Chaotic Evil

LAW & CHAOS: Chaos (11) // GOOD & EVIL: Good (12)

A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with LITTLE REGARD for what OTHERS EXPECT OF HIM. He makes his own way, but he's kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows HIS OWN MORAL COMPASS, which, although good, MAY NOT AGREE WITH THAT OF SOCIETY. DARK TRIAD: PSYCHOPATHY (57%) | Machiavellianism (17%) | Narcissism (17%) Psychopathy reflects shallow emotional responses. The relative lack of emotions leads results in HIGH STRESS TOLERANCE, LOW EMPATHY, LITTLE GUILT and leads them to seek extremely stimulating activities, resulting in impulsivity and a disposition towards INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT.

THE ANIMAL IN YOU: Lion | Tiger | Dolphin | Bear | Wild Cat | Fox | Weasel | Badger | Dog | Otter | Wolf | Sea Lion | Wild Dog | Walrus | Gorilla | Deer | Rhinoceros | Hippo | Sable | Horse | Sheep | Mountain Goat | Warthog | Zebra | Baboon | Elephant | Bison | Giraffe | Cottontail | Mole | Bat | Porcupine | Beaver | Prairie Dog | Shrew | Mouse | Eagle | Rooster | Owl | Swan | Peacock | Vulture | Penguin | CROCODILE | Snake | Rabbit Characteristics: Tough. Street-smart, Self-reliant, Passionate, Conceited, Ruthless Crocodiles are LEAN, LEATHERY INDIVIDUALS with an AIR OF WARINESS that comes from living on the edge. Their skin is often decorated with scars or tattoos. But crocodiles are not always easy to identify, because their survival strategy is based on misdirection and camouflage. As natural predators crocs attack without subtlety or intelligence, using any weapon at their disposal. .

ROSENBERG SELF ESTEEM SCALE: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

BRAIN LATERALIZATION TEST: Right brain (48%) | LEFT BRAIN (52%)

Check out that almost even split

Left brain dominant individuals are more orderly, literal, articulate, and TO THE POINT.  They are good at understanding directions and anything that is EXPLICIT & LOGICAL.  They can have trouble comprehending emotions and abstract concepts, they can feel lost when things are not clear, doubting anything that is not stated and proven.

TAGGED BY: i tagged myself

TAGGING: t a k e i t

[justaprettyshitstory]

For As Long As The Sky Is Blue- #12

AN- okay ugh this didn’t post yesterday because internet problems blah blah blah, also i had to finish this in a rush so like sorry

number in series- 12

warnings- abuse mentions

word count- 2470

from the writings of Blue Ardence

Ronald Clarence was the only child of the master and mistress of the household, and after how he turned out, I’m not surprised that they had no children after him. He was a spoilt little boy, having grown up in the lap of luxury, and had begun to believe that since his parents were able to get him anything, then everything must belong to him. Of course, as a young child this way of thinking started out small, thinking that all the toys that he saw, were his already, that he deserved the toys, because he was so much better than the other people, so much richer, so much mightier. He grew up in silk pyjamas, and an army of servants to cater to his every need. Growing up, he wasn’t surrounded by many children his age, home-schooled and raised to take over his father’s business; there wasn’t much room in his life for playdates. However, I am in no way using these instances as an excuse for his actions, he grew up to be a despicable human, a psychopath. the first time that he was to come into close contact with a child his age, was when he caught me running from my father when I was five years old. At this time, he was eight, and fascinated, and obsessed with the idea of another child joining him in the expansive grounds of the mansion, but I soon discovered that his interest in me was not one of friendship, but a compulsive need to torture me in every way imaginable, as now, he had a new toy to play with, and he was desperate to see how it worked. He didn’t have much opportunity when I was younger as I was constantly climbing chimneys, he settled for pulling my hair, making fun of my appearance, calling me names, pinches, things that the observant servants would titter about, dubbing it to be, ‘normal’ child behaviour. However, suddenly, Ronald discovered that I was now part of his staff, a kitchen hand. That’s when his taunts moved to a whole new level, I remember his pinches and hair pulling becoming harder, in the beginning, and then he began to appear all over the place. He would show up while I worked, yell at me, taunt me, kick over buckets of water I was using so that I would have to refill them and lug them back to my position. He moved on to using his position to abuse me, calling me to do the worst jobs in the manor, so that he could snicker at me behind my back, but slowly the tricks got worse. He believed, as he had with his toys when he was younger, that I should ‘belong’ to him, in a sense, so he could do whatever he liked to me. He sent people to follow me, to trip me over, push me down short flights of steps, ruin all my work so that I would get in trouble with the vulture, all without getting his own hands dirty. I think that even at thirteen, he relished in seeing me cry. Because of this, and because of my parents, I had grown to develop a strong distrust of anyone who paid too much attention to me, perceiving them as a threat, and so of course, it was no difference with tom.

I held him, in the muggy summer evening, by the ear, shaking him slightly as I glared at him, unwilling to let myself believe that he was there purely innocently, until I had proof. “It’s Tom! Alright? It’s Tom! From the circus remember? I gave you the cotton candy!” He winced, and reached up to pull my hand off him, and backed up a couple of feet, rubbing his ear reproachfully. “What’s your deal? Why are you following me? Was it Ronald? Did he send you?” I’d made several threatening steps forward, my hand raised, ready to defend myself, causing him to stumble backwards until he hit the edge of the fountain. He raised his hands quickly in defence, eyeing my hand cautiously. “No! I told you! I don’t know who this Ronald fellow is! I’m sorry!” I continued to advance towards him, my eyes flicking over him as I did so. He had changed from his costume in the show, and was back in his baggy trousers and cap, but now I could see the details of his face, a pale one with large blue eyes, and hundreds, no, thousands of brown freckles covering his face, over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks and forehead, framed with light orange curls that hung around his ears, damp with sweat. “You swear?” I began to lower my hand, calming down enough to see clearly, this would have been a stretch even for Ronald, to find a random person from a show I may or may not go to, to find me, if I were even there, and to then follow me. I began to blush, embarrassed at my overreaction, but I was still unwilling to back down. “yes! I swear! Cross my heart and swear to die, see?” he lowered one of his hands to make a cross over his heart. I dropped my hand, satisfied, but not entirely calm yet. “Fine. Why were you following me then? Huh? I know you were!” I cross my arms and glare at him. I’d heard that my ‘death stare’ as rose put it, could be so haunting that it would literally make people drop things from sheer fright. It appeared to be having the desired effect on Tom, who had begun to twist his hands together, as a blush rose on his cheeks. He spoke very fast, his eyes flickering around the square to avoid looking at me. Apparently, he had simply been curious about me, the pretty girl who had never had cotton candy before, and he was only going to follow me for a little bit, but then he was curious about where I was going and i-was-very-pretty-anyway-and-don’t-pinch-my-ear-again-that-really-hurt, (he had said that bit very fast), and he was going to talk to me, but had been too nervous to try. I considered him for a moment longer, as his entire face slowly turned the colour of beetroot, even his ears tinging pink. He looked so awkward and embarrassed that eventually I stopped glaring enough to giggle at him, before softly apologizing, realising my over reaction, and told him I’d just been a little jumpy, and thought he was someone else. He shrugged it off shyly, his cheeks still red. “It’s okay, it was my fault anyway, I shouldn’t have followed you.” We had stood their awkwardly for another minute, both avoiding each other’s eyes sheepishly, before I had broken the silence: “Want to sit?” And so, we had sat, the thin boy with scarred lips, and the shy girl with fingernail imprints on her face, being lightly sprayed by the fountain in the humid evening air, our legs swinging against the base. “So, who is this Ronald fellow?” he glanced at me quickly as he asked, as though he were concerned about my reaction. I shrugged, and stared at the wall across from me, counting all the bricks on the top row. “He’s the son of the master and mistress in the house where I work, he likes to mess with me, I thought maybe he sent you to trick me or something, it was stupid.” “Nah.” I glanced at him, while he kicked at the ground. “I’d think the same thing if someone was following me, I mean, I’d think it was someone from my troupe that is, not, not Ronald.” I’d smiled a little. “you did great out there tonight by the way.” I’d told him, leaning over to nudge him in the shoulder, with mine. His grin was infectious, and soon we were both smiling much wider than before. “you really liked it? you looked kinda, sad, while you were watching it was the thing, so I thought you weren’t enjoying it.” I paused, and looked at him, and noticed that his nose crinkled when he smiled, and he had little dimples near his scars. “No, I did! I liked it really, it was just, you didn’t look happy while you were doing it, like your smile wasn’t real, kinda like this, see?” I demonstrated, putting on my best ‘please don’t hit me, I’m sorry’ smile.   “You’re pretty good at that.” He’d told me, pushing his hair out of his face. “I liked the skit, I think it was funny, it just hurt a bit, that was all, but I’m used to it.” I’d asked what he meant, and that was when I found out about what life was like for him in the circus. He was sold into the troupe when he was three, so that his parents could pay off some debts, and from there, he had been taken into the care of the acrobats. He recalled being ‘bent backwards’ forcefully by the men, so that he would be flexible enough to preform, his legs and arms stretched in different directions and positions, and that he was hardly fed, so that he would be light enough to be thrown around; all of which he told me, were completely necessary, so that he could perform; at least that was what he was told.   But because he wasn’t one of the major acts, he wouldn’t have been missed, if he were to suddenly go missing because of one of the more violent acts lost their temper, so he was constantly on his toes, staying out of trouble so he wasn’t hurt, or beaten as much, taking his training and tiny meals without complaint, doing everything he could to stay out of trouble, under the radar. He didn’t even complain when he was refused entry to any of the caravans when they were on the road, and was made to run behind them. so that he wasn’t left behind, one of the dancers threw him a rope, which he tied around his middle and ran behind, and when he got tired, just let it drag him along the bumpy road. “I get that.” I’d told him, staring at the wall again. “I told you a little lie before, about my family. I do have parents, but they don’t really act like parents. My friend Rose reads me books, and the parents in those never act the way mine do, I don’t think they ever wanted to be my parents anyway, so its easier to pretend they don’t exist sometimes.” “do they hit you?” he was looking at me properly now, not glancing at me out of the side of his eyes, but staring intently at my face, his wide eyes unblinking. “They broke my toes once, see?” I kicked off my shoes, so he could look at my crookedly set toes, and we stared at them in silence. “what happened to your lips?” He'd stayed silent, staring at my toes, then shrugged, his mouth curved downwards. “I told you about my toes, tell me about your lips!” I nudged him again in the shoulder, and he rocked to the side a few times, eyes still on the ground, and it was a few moments before he answered, slowly, like the words didn’t want to come. “when I was small, there was a technique called ‘smile therapy’ that was supposed to… trick your face into smiling, I guess. It was these metal clips that wrapped around my head like this,” he twirled his hand behind his head, from the side of his mouth, behind his ears to the other side. “they pulled your mouth up so you were smiling, I cried a lot back then so they thought this way I’d always smile, but one day the clips slipped a little bit. They were too tight I guess, but now it always looks like I’m smiling, so I suppose it worked.” I was silent for a moment, and the two of us stared down at the ground. “I’m sorry.” “It’s ok.” The conversation was sad, and filled with gaps, and silences, but for the first time, I remember feeling strangely at peace as we talked, like I wasn’t tiptoeing around words, or living in fear I was going to say something wrong, and get hurt. We were just two sad kids, staring at the bricks, joined in that moment in our similar destructive lives, like we had found our pair at last. “I don’t know your name yet,” he’d commented, leaning back so that the water spray could cool down his face. “Don’t have one.” “What?!” he spun around and shoved me playfully in the shoulder, “Course you do, stop kidding around.” “Do not! Well, Rose calls me ‘sweetie’ But everyone else just calls me ‘dumb bitch’ so maybe that’s what it is, I don’t know.” “Bitch? Nah it can’t be, that’s one of those bad words.” He paused like he was in deep thought. “Well you can’t just go through life without a name. We gotta come up with one.” I’d giggled at the serious look on his face, and turned so that we were fully facing one another. “Well what would you call me? I’m no good with coming up with things.” “Well… it’s gotta be something that reflects who you are, right?” I’d laughed again, watching his brows furrow as he continued to consider me. “You look so.. Blue all the time, so I think you need a name that matches your sad eyes, you know?” Maybe it was the fountain gushing close by, maybe it was the heat playing on my mind, but I could have sworn that he had suggested ‘Blue’ as a name to match my sad eyes, and I had thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and asked if he thought I should be named Blue. And then to my surprise, he stared at me for a long time, and smiled that crooked smile, that made his nose crinkle and his dimples appear and said, “Actually, I think that would be a great name for you! Because Blue is my favourite colour, because it can be such a beautiful colour, while being a sad colour too, and a happy one, like you!” and he’d smiled so much, and it had been such a pretty smile, that I had told him that I loved the name, just so he would smile again. And so that night, under the fountain, while I swung my bare feet over the cobblestones, and a little boy with orange hair and purple scars, I got my first ever name, and even now, I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

[kindelwyrm]

I’m well into the fifth Master portrait, but it’s going to take me a while longer.  In the meantime, I want to talk about the design using the space bat sketch above.  So without further ado...

Warning!  Pieces of this post contain spoilers for Fallen London and Sunless Sea!   Fallen London is © 2015 and ™ Failbetter Games Limited: www.fallenlondon.com.  This is an unofficial fan work. 

The Master Portrait Project, the purpose of this blog, is to see if I could take Failbetter Games’ writing and make a reasonably plausible creature design loosely rooted in science.  I don’t need to tell any veteran player that science is pretty out of place here; but I have some thoughts on the Masters/the above design at the end.

Different numbers correspond to each part that I felt was important.

1) Head - The basis I used for the head shape is the Ambition: Bag a Legend icon:

It’s very stylized and I think it looks a little like a Welsh dragon, or maybe an owl’s skull, but it also does look like a bat with small ears. The portraits of the individual Masters have taken the bat approach, with an elongated and flanged nose.  Each is based on a scale somewhere between flying fox and spectral bat - with aspects of other species thrown in to alter the subtle features.  Mr Cups/Mirrors, for example, has a head with subtle traits of slit-faced bats. Probably one of the most anthropomorphized bits are the eyes, just by the shape; but after some fussing these are basically glowing orbs without pupils.  From the Silver Tree  we know that Mr Wines has blue eyes, and from Fallen London’s Battle of Wolfstack Docks that Mr Fires has red eyes.  The others have colors chosen based on personality/Neathy quirks/what looks good. None of the canon Masters/space bats have the fabulous mane like this picture.  Maybe I’ll give Mr Stones one.

2) Ears - ...Artistic license here.  Aerial hawking (echolocating, aerial hunting) bats usually have large ears and softer voices, while fruit bats have comparatively small but mobile ears.  From Ambition: Bag a Legend the Vake/Mr Veils tends to YELL when it’s hunting by shouting each word to allow it to echolocate.  So it’s possible the Masters are actually kind of bad at echolocation, but not as bad as humans.

I went with larger, expressive ears with an extra ear flap that moves almost independently.  This is probably one of the most fun and telling parts of each Master to draw and paint, as they all have their own ear design.

3) Horns - At the end of a quest in Sunless Sea there is an encounter with the Vake/Mr Veils that mentions it having scars on its vanes and horns.  What do a space bat’s horns look like?  Could they even fit under the hood of a cloak?

Actually yes, there can be a huge amount of room in a hood such as on an apocalypse cloak!  And each Master in the Portrait Project has their own different horn style in one to three pairs.

4) Neck - Artistic license.  The design here has an elongated, curved neck like that of a vulture with the wing/shoulder muscles rising up over the back of it to add to the hunchbacked look.  Also, lots of fluff.

5) Wings - There’s a little more about the wings at the end of the post.  Repeatedly the species the Masters are from is mentioned as having “wings that span the skies”.  In the Neath the Masters may be between two and a half and four meters tall.  I usually draw them as being tentacle-like and vague at the ends of the wings, while the base design is loosely based off of the statues at Avid Horizon in Sunless Sea:

On the body, the wings are oriented under the arms with muscle overlapping the shoulders and wrapping around the rib cage to the breastbone.  There is also an extra tine from the spine muscles at the lower back/top of the hips to allow a broader wing surface while leaving the legs more free.

6) Hands - At Sacksmas you receive a visit from “Mr Iron” and the player character notices that it seems to have too many long, curved fingers.  These are based off of a mix of bat claws and human hands, with an extra digit and an opposable thumb.  Better for writing with.

7) Arms - Flimsy seeming by human standards, maybe?  I figured that the extendable fins could help stabilize in flight while still allowing the Masters to seem human and have usable hands.

8) Legs - Earth bats have surprisingly strong legs (if you’ve ever tried to get them off of something), but are incapable of standing upright and the claws are turned backwards.  These are more like an owl’s legs, with grasping talons (four in front, two in back) enabling an upright stance that could also be used in hunting. They are duck-toed with their feet turning outwards to keep some of that chiropteran origin. 9) Tail - Artistic license.  Fuzzy with flaps of skin connecting to the thighs where the wings also connect. COLOR - So we know from The Silver Tree, Ambition: Bag a Legend, and the item Veils Velvet that the Masters are most likely furry.  But what about the color?  There are a few instances where the player characters in Sunless Sea and Fallen London see Masters uncloaked.  Theological Husbandry and Mysteries of the Foreign Office describe them as appearing like a bat-shaped patch of pitch black sky speckled with distant lights on closer examination.  Sunless Sea’s cameo is similar, with the creature being described as “a crested wave of night” with wings like the sky. This makes sense for a creature that hunts in the dark space between stars, as to prey it would only appear to be part of the vast void of space; not a horrible bat creature that’s about to eat them.  It also does mean that, purely conjecture here, one that was shining white might stand out terribly and be considered aberrant.

But with the thoughts on color, we’ve come to our closing thoughts!

The Masters appear to be mutable and extensible in form.

The space bats are always described as having wings that span the sky, and in The True Story of the Vake gained by one of the Sunless Sea Kickstarter Backers, it describes Mr Veils as “putting away its wings” and “folding its body into something more manageable”.  In fact, the impression I’ve garnered from the Failbetter team’s writing bears resemblance to a bat-shaped black hole or dark matter.  This is somewhat at odds with the flesh-and-blood impressions in Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name and the Master’s Blood item, but since when do eldritch predators follow Earth rules?

It’s very likely in the High Wilderness these creatures would be much larger, almost weightless, and utterly deadly.  They’re only taking on semi-humanoid forms to be able to interact with humans for the purposes of the Bazaar.

So if you have a completely different idea of what they should look like?  Start working on it!  And make sure you show me. ;) EDIT 2017/5/16 - Someone mentioned that the size seemed kind of large; I recounted and realized I’d messed it up since the USA doesn’t usually use metric for measurements.  Made it slightly smaller to start off with, with a wider range.

[niskrp]

:// SEARCHING OPERATIVE …

… searching for AGENT 030 / THE DEATH. classified files indicate that they go by LEE HANSOL, and are also known as ZERO. born in NEW YORK, USA, in 1993/03/14, further investigation makes it clear that they joined the agency FIVE YEARS ago. they are an INTELLIGENCE AGENT who specialize in HACKING. higher clearance is needed to access further information…

… ENTER PASSWORD TO ACCESS THE COMPLETE FILE.

:// ACCESSING BACKGROUND FILES ...

a mission: to unearth the flesh from the skin, leaving the marrows exposed for the maggots to consume. sanity is an option that comes together with an exit wound. not a precise incision, not a seamless suture. there’s a scripture that becomes a guide to how much you can dissect yourself without dying, and here are the trembling fingers, trying to mimic the culture of an open heart surgery.

the autopsy doesn’t end here. in fact, it has just begun, a set of scalpels on the table. a glyph in the machine, data decryption of the anatomy…

he lives circa post-mortem. the interior of his ribcage has too many deaths mounted on its brittle walls, the necrosis of the organs turned into reminders of the life once a mirror of lies. traces his footfalls, there is a path left by the shrapnel, back to the road prior the forked ends. reminds himself that once upon a time, the only dichotomy was naught but his bone tongue: he spoke two languages vastly different, now six. he doesn’t recognize which is native to him anymore.

boyhood was a gossamer chrysalis that enveloped. appa was two syllables that he kept in his mouth for safekeeping, sometimes enunciated so carefully so his mouth didn’t get seared. eomma was a fistful of handcrafted untruths, and she tied him with piano strings on each limb. he grew up peculiar with a set of inward teeth, biting into his own lips he spoke in riddles. he grew up dissonant with a pair of bruised knuckles, breaking into his own ire he shattered in pieces. eomma built his spine ridge by ridge, placing him everywhere he didn’t want to be.

sometimes, she told him to bend his knees and fold his hands, prayers towards nothing in particular, for there was soft violence that came with a religion in which death was mounted on its altar. he did not register the face of a god, a singular freeform that held eomma captive. he only located each gentle stroke of war in every verse, the urban bible that he’s carried until now. counted the beads of the rosary with a falsified belief he became a body of notions.

six when he saw the fear that stained eomma’s expression for so long, it had become a part of her construct. the exoskeleton of this american dream riveted in a concept that lasted with a supporting crutch. she was crucified by her paranoia — or was it? psyche that he did not know how to navigate, but the trepidation was there for his perusal. it felt like dermatillomania, watching her drowning in an ankle-deep ocean at three am. pills that cured, and he turned his back on her once again to carve a dent on the tallies.

appa was a missing incisor that cut him deep enough to remind him that there was a price to pay for each inhale, exhale. his systole and diastole did not come free, the liberty not theirs to begin with. shot with a glock once, twice at the age of nine, appa scorched his insignia in the form of a beast. he was not the same boy that had walked into the room an hour prior; the mechanism of these planted seeds turning his being into more than just the palpitation.

this liminality was a syllabus of conundrums: appa and eomma hid too many secrets at the bases of their throats. tracheas that swelled with the weight of the world. thought it wasn’t an anomaly when he’d only known how to pretend all his life, mandible filled with grenade pins scripted with homemade lies. the columns of his throat were pillars of sanctioned daydreams that deviated from public norms. realization came late like a garrote around his neck at sixteen, when eomma stripped him away from her. his grandparents, absent for over a decade, took over.

manhattan sighed a quiet goodbye in exchange for seoul, where nobody knew the history of familial negligence over his violent streaks. distilled himself for a name sixteen years late, donning ruptured backgrounds that remained consistent as fabricated by eomma. told him eomma was coming — soon, soon. excelling in the art of excavating his own laments, he turned to ace in academics. or, when his synapses glitched, there was always a punching bag, a shooting range. when he was red and raw from the personal rotting, he believed that devastation tasted like false comprehensions over his own upbringing. what if, what if, what if…

filaments of this boyhood lattice speak of an artwork so intricate, but what’s stranger than the scar tissues that marred his back without any recollections of who painted them?

and so, he sought. crowned himself with teeth, and last time he had asked his grandparents what his parents actually were, he was met with a weary look. at least they didn’t question the money spent for a one-way plane ticket to new york. instead of the rattled welcome, however, he was met with a deafening silence. she’d moved. she hadn’t mentioned it in their monthly calls. he returned with anger planting bruises in his being, camouflaged by each night of punching and kicking and shooting and thrashing.

he became feral, but contained. enrolled himself in the closest thing he knew to be close to appa, somewhere in the deep web. a man didn’t just spit out a son to leave. so he learned to decode, decipher. certain that along the line, he’d find the semblance of a long-lost father. eomma, on the other side of the story, came to seoul four years late for a visit too transient. but she kissed each cheek with fervor so ingrained, he thought she’d break nails digging them into his skin. she left the week after; an ounce of goodbye in a letter meant zilch. he clasped his jaw, moving on.

he had issues that swelled, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. learning his way into the depthless casket of the internet, he found appa with a relationship more complicated than what the years of hacking could offer. an agent, it said. for what? for whom? the ends of the information were too frayed for him to tell. there was his understanding, of all the secrets buried in the nooks of each joint. when he graduated, he chose to follow the barely known steps. there was no eomma, no appa. his grandparents wilted in the silence that shrouded their dinners. he barely came home, the smudged edges of his presence eventually were erased completely when he moved away on his own.

twenty-three. he was everything resembling half-smoked hymns, voice constricted to the hoarse sound of his past, haunting him in the poltergeists within his chest. he was a good agent in the making, marksmanship a particle of his existence since he was young. that was, until a detour in the midst of the sleepless night caught news about a woman. shot dead. point blank. he plummeted six feet under, the soil bled ice he developed hypothermia. he didn’t even have it in him to cry. appa found him one of those nights, telling him he was proud. eomma was proud. ( “for fuck’s sake,” he retorted. “you don’t have the right to be.” )

she was the hyacinth that bloomed in the winter, premature blossom that ended with slivers eaten in caustic measures. she still had her strings around his sternum. he couldn’t undo her with these shaking hands. the training gave him flashbacks of the news, so he ran until he splintered his ankles. joined another division to put his education into use instead. that way, he didn’t need to deal with the paraphrase of eomma’s passing. he didn’t even have a corpse to bury, a funeral to attend.

instead, the only corpse to bury for him would be his. a backyard funeral, elegies handwritten in an uneven penmanship. he is unhinged— vultures gnawing on his insides, charred black. some nights, he doesn’t know how to place his limbs anymore.

:// ACCESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION ...

the archives of his psychological profile maintain a great deal of feigned apathy with a dash of pretense placed in the front. there’s a tough shell to even fissure, although upon peeling the skin there would be too much to discern. dissection is not advised, please proceed with cautions. diagnosis would include depression and anxiety. there are symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. prominent issue is the anger management contained through violent means. the channeling itself is not the core to the peril — it is the general lack of disclosure towards himself. he doesn’t have any healthy coping mechanism, often choosing to swallow everything down. addictions are often found in drowning himself in workloads. surrounded by fellow agents, he can socialize to an extent but doesn’t exert himself much. remains in the comfort zone of shallow social interactions. amiable, easy-going. his typical appearance would be described as charming, albeit off. some sensitive people might be able to tell that he’s not everything that he chooses to divulge, as it’s often limited to what he’s comfortable with, and that level merely scratches the surface.

... END OF FILE. CONTACT THE AGENT DIRECTLY FOR MORE.

[justanotherpaperman]

Secret Santa

Hey so I have 4 characters I've really played and enjoyed most of the rest of the time I am the GM. So from new to old 1 is scratch who is a kenku based on a painted vulture. He is a wizard who is great at spells and thinks melee weapons are a last restore. He also is a con man who makes fake documents extremely well under a disguise of a large hat (dark souls big hat logans hat) and a spell to make him seem like a normal kenku. 2 is a black dragonborn who is a former sailor who was betrayed but his cousin in a hostel ship take over left with a large scare on his back and thoughts of revenge he tries his best as an eldritch knight with a magic trident. And my two oldest are a tifling who is fairly close looking to a feind goat feet red skin sharp teeth she was a great weapon fighter who was former Gladiator so she has a bunch of scars and the such she only wears her armor when things are really tough her armor is plate with an lion motif and the elf is dusk who has fair skin and a warlock who always uses weapons that are way too large for her. She has pale skin blonde or silver hair and wears a mix of fancy clothes and practical stuff. Like she will have a nice jacket and or corset but very practical pants. She is pact of the book warlock.