#and it's just so bizarre i feel like i can't even describe it properly

[villainofmyownstory]

Day Zero chapter 7

masterlist | taglist | AO3

Previous | Next

pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x plus size fem!reader

summary: When you enter a dark building, you don't expect that you will face an enemy you haven't seen for a long time. One of them.

tags: AFAB reader, plus size reader, dog german shepherd, zombies/monsters, blood, gory

author's note: Finally! I'm back with a new chapter, I hope someone is still waiting for the next parts ^^ because I'm going to keep writing it anyway. Thank you for your comments, likes and reblogs. It means a lot to me.

And English is not my first language, so probably many things are poorly described and the vocabulary is very simple. If you see any mistakes - let me know!

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Chapter 7: The one with the Jaws

Day 738

You moved nervously in your seat, looking out of the car window towards the building that Ghost and Riley had entered some time ago. Time passed slowly, you seemed to have sat locked in the car for a good few hours. However, the still high-hanging sun made, if not reaffirmed, the belief that you hadn't spent much time waiting for the return of the two, now, closest living beings to you. You don't know yourself anymore who you were more worried about. Biting your lip nervously and still plucking at the already ragged fabric of your gloves, you continue to stare into the dark entrance of the building. You still can't see any light or movement in it. Nothing. Darkness. Ghost has told you to sit in the car. Of course, on the one hand, you perfectly understand his behaviour towards you. Seeing how insecurely you hold your gun, generally how clumsy you are and practically know nothing. And most importantly, he still simply didn't trust you - because he didn't know you. You understood this and sat there, stuck in the car, even simply for your own safety, but perhaps more so to make Ghost's job easier. At least he didn't have to stay busy and watch out for you. He could concentrate on keeping an eye on Riley and, more importantly, dealing with whatever was lurking ahead of you in the dark corridors of this building. But on the other hand, you felt frustrated because you felt that you were no longer who you used to be. You've re-learned how to live in these bizarre conditions, and you want to feel that you can be of some use, that your presence here is somehow important. Needed.

But at some point, it is a kind of relief that you don't have to worry about another day, about yourself. That you don't have to fall asleep praying for at least one quiet night and passing at least one hour, not waking up suddenly for any reason, any slightest unknown sound.

Now, the thought comes to you that you are already worried about yourself. Somehow, after all you've been through, all that has happened to you over the past months. You finally feel the sense and desire to somehow take care of and surround someone else with care. With that, you catch yourself staring at an empty open door, not just worried, just about your dog. But for someone who was just as much alive as you were.

Well, you're sure the dog will do just fine. Whatever he had to deal with there in that dark space. Whatever could stand hostile , against Riley. It certainly won't come out defensively in a clash with your dog. You've seen it, from the day you saw him, after those two years, there at the tower . Not only has he grown, he has matured because of his age. But he was simply well-trained. This was not only your small contribution because since he came to your house you took great care of his development and training.

But the dog's behavior around Ghost, how obediently it obeyed commands, how faithfully it guarded you and the man, how docilely it wandered past your or the man's leg, and with what aggression and persistence it tried to reach whatever was in the basement. This only reinforced your belief that the dog was being properly looked after. Ironically, the only winner in this new reality, in this new world, is Riley. Well cared for, fed, trained.

And most importantly, surrounded by respect and -

love.

With each passing minute, you slowly pull and tug harder and more vigorously at the already badly damaged glove material. Your lower lip is bitten so hard that it begins to bleed. Finally you admit to yourself that all this nervousness is due to such a trivial reason.

You are worried about that damn drunk.

About the man who wanted to kill you without even exchanging a word with you. But ultimately you are worried about Ghost. About the one who, despite everything, welcomed you into his home and let you stay.

Shaking your head, you try to get rid of these thoughts. It's so stupid. To worry about someone who probably, if he saw your cold, emotionless and lifeless body. He wouldn't even spend a second thinking about who you were. Without any thought or pity for you. He probably wouldn't even look. He would just move on, as was his habit. Somewhere to a designated destination, a defined place.

Or maybe it was just a façade, maybe somewhere under that bizarre mask was a real, feeling person. Silly you, you hoped so. But that's what you shouldn't bother with, and most importantly, that's not what's most important in all this.

Survival. That's what matters.

Survival instinct. Primal, natural, just plain animalistic.

So as you slam the door behind you and try to bravely and vigorously walk to the building, you repeat one thought in your head. Your continued survival depends on this man, you must hold on to him. You can't let him die. Or worse, turn into one of them. With this thought, of simply surviving, you marched to the entrance of the building.

Because if Ghost were no longer there, any hope for any future was virtually nil. Rather, the pool of dumb luck you've had for the past two years has definitely run out. You won't be able to survive another dark and cold winter alone. You won't even be able to survive another month alone.

That's what you were sure of. You were never a strong and courageous person. And living in constant fear, with your heart rate perpetually racing, with adrenaline constantly high was not something you were used to. You didn't feel the motivation, the will to survive, the fight for each new day. Quite the opposite. All this, each successive sleepless night, the constant search for food, medicine, safe shelter made you feel immense resignation, chronic fatigue and, above all, a sense of the meaninglessness of your existence. Because it's hard to call life what you've been doing these past 24 months. Vegetation. Like a little calf left without its mother. No idea how to survive, how to live.

Holding a pistol in one hand, taken from the glove compartment of the car, and holding a small hand-held flashlight in the other. Slowly, being careful with every step you take, you enter the building. As soon as you cross the threshold, you are overwhelmed by darkness. It's not good. Shivers run through your body. Step by step you try to walk silently into the depths of the narrow corridor. On each side, left as well as right, there are doors.

Although it's daytime you can only see the places you illuminate with your flashlight, and in places through gaps in the door or some open doors, single rays of sunlight reach you. The building is also silent. It's definitely not good.

It's too quiet.

You can't hear the barking of a dog or the quick and heavy footsteps of a man. You slowly and steadily check each room, but only those to which an open or half-open door leads. There aren't many on the first floor. The rooms you check are usually empty, or there are isolated objects like a chair, a cabinet or a desk. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust and usually carelessly placed somewhere in disarray in the room.

Apparently, the building stood empty long before Day Zero. Maybe that's not so bad after all. Placing your feet carefully on the dusty and dirty floor, advancing to the last open door on this floor you finally hear something. Stopping at the ajar door and holding your breath, you try to focus on the sounds reaching you.

Adrenaline and a rapid heartbeat make it difficult to hear exactly what is happening in the distance.

But you can definitely hear something.

Like the shifting of something on the ground, the steady and long clatter of something heavy on a dirty floor. As if someone was pulling something, moving something. Maybe some furniture was moved, or maybe it was-

What if someone gets hurt? Directing the small light of your flashlight at your feet, you walk towards the narrow stairs at the end of the hall. What if you wait too long in the car and something terrible happens?

As you hurry every two steps, you don't worry about them hearing you. Your ears are ringing more and more often. Your increased pace, not only caused by your sudden mounting fear but also by the effort of climbing the stairs at a fast pace, causes you to hear nothing but your own tired body for a moment. You stop for a moment between floors. Listening. If you hear this rustling, it means someone is there. There definitely has to be someone here. Alive.

What if someone attacks and Ghost gets hurt or the dog needs help? There is such a possibility. No. You hope not. It definitely couldn't be Riley. You quickly push away that terrible thought and climb the stairs again, skipping some steps to get higher faster. You finally reach the penultimate floor, and here the sound finally becomes louder, more audible.

Now you can hear it clearly.

Trying to calm down a bit and control your tiredness, you stop on the last step, trying to breathe through your nose, but your poor state causes the exhaled air to come out of your mouth, much too loudly. Despite your sincere intentions, you cannot remain unnoticed. The shuffling stops suddenly. As with breathing, the air remains in your lungs and your slightly parted mouth closes quickly. You hesitantly direct the light of your flashlight towards the corridor and-

It's been months since you last saw one of them. And that was from quite a distance. Long months allowing you to erase that monstrous image in your mind. At least wipe out a little of the horror that was your daily life in the first weeks. With each passing day, the number of infected - or perhaps already-dead, multiplied with each sunset. More and more.

Their screams, the inhuman sounds they made of themselves, it was something that not only caused a nervous shaking of your whole body. And so simply did not let you fall asleep, did not allow you to close your eyes at least for a few minutes.

Terror, mixed with fear. That was your everyday life then.

After that day, when you decided to end this agony, your miserable life - and what you failed.

Their horrifying screams stopped. At least for you.

And even today, you remember the first time you met them. The first contact with those things. It was something so terrifying, inhuman and unreal. That it stuck in your memory, permanently blurred in your brain, and the image stayed in your mind, probably accompanying you and will always be there. That recollection lasted with you, even though you tried so hard to forget it. Pretend it was a nightmare or a scene from a movie.

Day 10

You

It was one of the first days when you were left completely alone at home. No TV, no internet, and not even a phone. You couldn't communicate with anyone or get any information - everything stopped working. Suddenly, in one day. And the chaos outside only intensified, increasing with each passing day. You were so panicked and paralyzed with fear that for the first few days you didn't even leave the house, didn't even look out the window.

Until one late afternoon, when it seemed that the commotion outside the window was slowly calming down. When the sun had already hidden behind the horizon, and you were preparing to take up shelter again in the basement, in one quiet and seemingly safe place. Unexpectedly, you heard someone's familiar voice in the distance, somewhere in the yard behind the house. Distorted, not quite human. But nevertheless still recognizable and familiar.

It was Rose. It had to be her.

She called out to you, you clearly heard your name. Without waiting a moment, you dashed to the back door by the kitchen. With no hesitation, you turned the locks and grabbed the handle. You quickly opened the old wooden door.

Immediately after opening the door and crossing the threshold, you regretted your decision. On the terrace steps, stood Rose. Or something that tried to imitate her. In stained, dirty and frayed clothes stood a pale, hunched figure. In her hair, there was no sign of her signature-amulet, a red pin with a rose, from which she took her nickname. The lush, long and dark hair on her head was gone. She was almost bald, her pale skull surrounded by a thin light shell, her skin almost translucent, through which, a web of dark veins could be seen. Twisted, in a strange way, the figure slowly walked towards you. It clumsily took steps, and a low, penetrating screech could be heard through its open mouth, from which a bizarre, dark liquid flowed.  Long, bright claws protruded from behind cracked, scarred lips. Which with each passing second seemed to extend even further. As if sensing your silhouette, they became bigger, sharper.

Maybe it was just an illusion, maybe the monster in front of you just opened its jaw even wider. A strange grimace merged with a murky liquid - resembling old, dirty blood. Dark maroon drops ran down his angular jaw, staining the light-colored cloth and dripping onto the wooden floorboards of the terrace. Frozen with terror, you stand motionless, not knowing what the hell to do. How to act properly. Run away, attack, scream, cry.

Anything. Something.

Millions of thoughts run through your head. No action seems logical or wise. With no time for further deliberation, when seemingly Rose has already approached you at arm's length.  Stumbling over the threshold of the door, you retreat a few steps into the depths of the house. Holding the door, you try not to fall over and close it.  Cutting yourself off this way and being as far as possible from the strange figure in front of you. The monster is already close to the threshold, shouting louder, the sound rumbling in your ears, reaching so deep that you wince at the unimaginable pain the horrible high-pitched sound causes.

You feel as if something is tearing apart your eardrums, as if it is trying to reach the farthest recesses of your brain, slowly tearing it apart. With a last effort to suppress the pain, at least for a moment, you try to slam the door.

Rose, however, is quick enough to push its head between the door and the doorframe, driving its sharp teeth into you. The dark liquid splashes not only around her, but single drops fall on you as well.

You push the door with your whole body to prevent it from opening wider and the strange figure from entering the depths of your home. Which until now seemed to be the only safe place. With one leg you block the door so that it doesn't move towards you and let Rose in. With the other leg, you lean against the wooden floor to stop the incredible force with which the monster is trying to force its entry into the house.

For some reason, there is a brief moment when Rose stops attacking, and at that exact second, with all your strength and power, you push the door in its direction, trying to close it. The monster's neck lands between the door and the doorframe, so you cut off its air supply. Rose stops screaming and after a few moments you feel its resistance weakening. However, seeing the monstrous figure in front of you, it is with what fury, madness in hungry eyes she looked at you. And she definitely wanted to attack and bite you - and thus probably kill you. Your anger grew.

Seeing that the inhuman figure has lost consciousness and is hanging inertly by the door. You fall into a fury unknown to you since that moment. You start opening and closing the door. The figure falls helplessly between a small space on the ground. And you, with unimaginable and unfamiliar fury and force, close and open the door so that the monster's neck and head are struck by the wooden door and, bouncing off it, hit the edge of the door frame.

Full of anger, you scream louder and louder, feeling a burning pain in your throat. Blood mixes with a strange jelly-like liquid. Forming a bizarre mixture at your feet. Hearing a loud crunch and already feeling less resistance, you nevertheless continue to bang the door against the lying figure with vigorous power.

Finally you stop and, sobbing, sit down on the floor. Terrified, you wipe your face and, seeing the terrifying image in front of you, you crawl backwards into the farthest corner of the room. To be as far away as possible. Not to smell the horrible stench emitted by the inert body. To be as far away as possible and not see the pool of blood mixed with a viscous gelatinous liquid, infected pieces of brain and shreds of skull bones. You cower against the wall covering your eyes, trying to hold back loud sobs and fear.

That day you killed for the very first time. Unfortunately, it was not the last time. It was just the beginning.

Day 738

With your shaking hand you direct the stream of light from a small flashlight to the direction you thought strange sounds were coming from just a moment ago. Now, hearing nothing but your own breathing and heartbeat, you wonder if this sound was not a creation of your imagination.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

A pale, bony figure lurking behind one of the doors, now irritated by the small light from the flashlight, moves toward you. It rushes at you with a wide-open mouth in which long bright fangs shimmer, stained with the dark liquid you already know. You don't have a chance to do anything, it's happening so fast that you don't even think of pulling the trigger of the gun you hold in your hand.

The monster with high force hits you and causes you to fall on your back on the half-floor. The force of the impact is so great that all the air escapes from your lungs. Despite the loss of breath and the monstrous bou in the back of your body. Perhaps due to adrenaline triggered by fear, you try to fight back. With your hands you try to push the undead away. You hit it with your hands trying to at least push its distorted face away from you. You curl up on the floor, tilting your head from side to side. As you fall, a gun falls out of your hands and a flashlight, which also illuminates some stairs, dropped a few feet away from you.

Just so it doesn't bite you. If only its fangs dig into your skin, you're dead. It'll be end of you.

The monster opens its mouth wide, exposing fangs that have clearly been dipped into a living thing more than once. They're filthy, with pinkish bits of flesh visible in between. The dark substance lands on you. The undead spits blood at you and whatever the brown liquid coming out of it is. The stinky sticky substance is practically everywhere. On your cheeks, forehead, in your hair, on the fresh clothes you wore this morning. Writhing under this murderous form, you try to catch at least one breath of clean air, you try to move your legs to throw off your opponent.

All in vain.

You feel that you have less and less strength and soon you won't be able to push that overly contorted, monstrous face away. At one time it must have been a human being. But now, aside from its general physical features, it did not resemble a man, at least not a living one. It definitely hadn't been one for a long time. In torn clothes, without hair, with dark eye holes in place of eyes, with long and sharp fangs. With pale white, almost transparent skin, from under which dark veins could easily be seen. With each passing day, the thing that infected the human body transformed it more and more into a strange creature that only seemingly resembled a human. It looked as if the evolution of these creatures, instead of taking hundreds of years, had accelerated many times over. It was even difficult to recognize whether it was once a young man or an older woman. Maybe a teenager.

You can already feel your hands failing, losing energy and strength with each passing second. By the time the monster's face was close to your cheek, its breath could be clearly felt on your skin, and the penetrating odor prevented you from taking another much-needed breath. You stretch out your neck and tilt your head as much as you can to catch it, trying to make sure the figure above you doesn't bite you.

You close your eyes and pray in your mind to whomever, whatever god, that if at this moment, you'll end your life.  That it would at least take place quickly and relatively painlessly. You expect this bite to really hurt, maybe more than-.

To your surprise and confusion. You feel a thump, a push. A jerk and a sudden relief. The pressure of the body is no longer over you, your hands do not resist, you can move your legs freely.

You slowly turn your face away and carefully open your clenched eyelids. Somewhere nearby you hear muffled gasps and stifled squeaks. Ragging, tugging, tearing at fabric, some banging. However, the flashlight lies too far away to reach out and grab it. The building is too dark to see anything, whatever is happening further than a step away from you. Momentarily, all sounds stop. All you hear is your own heartbeat and rapid breathing, gasping. Not just your own.

Now that there's no adrenaline in your body, you slowly start to feel more and more pain in your body from falling down the stairs and hitting the ground. However, you don't have time to pick yourself up, to think about what hurts the most, if any bone was broken, and most importantly, if at some point the monster didn't bite you.

Before you have time to make any move to try to get up from the cold floor. Once again you feel the pressure on your body. However, this time it is softer. More human-

"Don't move."

It's Ghost.

"Are you broken?"

Asking this question, you feel him gently checking if your limbs are broken. Although you are still in shock you feel how efficiently and yet gently he touches first one hand then the other, gently squeezes and moves your arm, elbow checking if the joints are in place too. When you feel a gentle pressure on your right thigh you grimace gently, but try not to show any discomfort. When your legs are checked by him you feel him change positions and another sentence comes from his mouth.

"Now I'm going to touch your upper body, check your ribs and hips, okay?"

Without thinking, you nod.

Ghost grunts.

"Lucky me to have night vision. But don't pretend to be tough, kid, that fall must have cost you a lot. Tell me if something hurts you. I'll help you."

"O-okay, I'll tell you."

Fortunately, you don't feel any pain in your chest or hips. As Ghost checks your pupils and asks if you felt a bite and asks a few more questions about your wellbeing you feel yourself shaking with terror. The involuntary trembling of your arms, as well as the rest of your body, is out of control. Tears appear in your eyes.

"It's okay. Whoa, it's alright. I'll get you out of here and we'll go home. Hang in there a little longer. You did a good job."

Hearing these words you want to say something back but you're unable to, every sound trapped in your throat. All you can do is once again shake your head pathetically in confirmation. Ghost lifts you off the ground, doing it very gently and slowly. As if he is afraid that by any careless movement, you will break into millions of pieces. Despite your weight, he lifts you easily off the ground and without a word starts to walk down the stairs.

You sink your face into the hard material of his tactical gear, trying to control a sob. To your surprise, despite having you in his arms, the man walks with a quick and steady stride.

And extremely quietly. The rhythm you hear is a slightly accelerated pulse. His.

When he finally reaches the ground floor, he stops for a moment. Now that the corridor is lit up thanks to the open exit door, you notice Riley stopping by Ghost's leg. This puts you at ease. They both look fine and healthy.

"How are you feeling?"

Ghost's voice snaps you out of your reverie. He's different than before. Like he's more concerned, more nervous. Something is not quite right. Before you have time to answer anything, the man is almost running towards the exit of the building. Once you are outside, you squint your eyes, even though the events inside seemed to go on forever, it must have been a relatively short time, an hour at maximum, since you crossed the threshold and entered the darkness. It is very warm and bright outside, and the sun is still high in the sky. You involuntarily close your eyelids, the daylight makes you ache.

Ghost runs to the car at a very fast pace, and when he opens the car door he practically throws you into the passenger seat. He shouts to the dog, giving him a brief command to get into the back and, without waiting for the dog to react, he quickly makes his way to the car, getting behind the wheel.

Finally, as the car starts and pulls away, you open your eyes. Your eyesight has finally become adjusted to the day's prevailing brightness. Still, tears and something else prevent your eyes from fully and sharply observing the world around you. You feel that something wrong is happening. Something is definitely not right. So you try to find some clean cloth to wipe your misty eyes. Correct your vision to look at the man next to you in peace and figure out what's going on. Why he is acting so nervously and hurriedly.

But before you do, the answer to your questions you simply see.

You are covered in dirty brown blood.

Despite the blurry and blurry image from your tears, you look at the dark stains on your skin of your forearms and on the gray fabric of your clothes. In a panic, you start wiping your soiled skin against the fabric of your clothes trying to clean what has already dried on your body.

"Hey hey, take it easy, don't move. Try not to spread it, so it doesn't get into your eyes or into some wound on your skin."

Ghost grabs your arm with one hand and holds you down.

"Everything is fine as long as you're not hurt and nothing bites you - it's fine. Just stay calm. At home you will change and clean yourself up."

The rest of the way back you don't exchange a single word. You feel that Ghost looks at you every now and then but you don't have the courage to raise your head and look at the man sitting next to you. You stare at your hands placed on your knees which you clench nervously.

You try not to panic even more. However, you no longer know if you have been infected and the faster heartbeat, the slight nervous twitching and trembling of your limbs or jaw, are not due to the fact that you are already in transition. Or was it simply panic, fear and fatigue of the body after the horror you encountered in the building.

The way from the car to the house, and then how you found yourself in the bathroom, washed and changed into fresh new clothes. It was all like a blur. It's like you're not doing it yourself. Throughout this process, you are accompanied by Ghost's calm, subdued voice. It's how he reassures you, reiterates that everything is fine and that you should be careful to just wash the dried blood away and try not to smear it into your eyes or somehow into your mouth. Even when you are locked in the bathroom and slowly rinsing off the remnants of your recent struggle for life, the man's voice can still be heard from behind the closed door.

It's because of him that you don't panic even more. You don't do something stupid. Just calmly, like a robot that performs the actions programmed to it. You just simply do it.

As you now sit in the kitchen and warm food lands on a plate in front of you and hot tea steams in a mug next to you, you slowly return to reality. Beside your meal you notice a few pills.

Finally you lift your gaze and look at Ghost, who is leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed over his chest and watching you closely.

"Thank you."

This is the only thing you can think of at this point. Grabbing a spoon you scoop up a large portion of food and without waiting for any response from the man you begin to eat, at the same time you take the pills left next to it.

The meal goes on in silence, Riley sits next to Ghost and, as if copying his behavior, with his head slightly bowed, does not take his eyes off you. It's as if they are both waiting to see if you are about to fall to the floor in pain, screaming loudly and eventually turning into one of them. Nothing like that happens so far. However, this thought, doesn't allow you to calmly finish your meal. What if your heart is about to stop beating, what if the poison was already slowly in your bloodstream and is systematically turning your blood cells into sticky dead brown clots. What if-

"Come on, it's time to rest. It's been a long and fucked up day."

Ghost walks slowly toward the hallway expectantly looking at you. Drinking the last sip of tea, you get up from your chair and move slowly toward your room.

And so the three of you, you, Ghost and Riley find yourselves in a small space, your cramped and small bedroom.

"Lie down and try to sleep-" 

Ghost interrupts his speech, because Riley nudges him in the leg with his head, clearly signaling to him that he's not the only one here.

"You little bastard." 

Patting Riley on the back, the man finishes his interrupted comment

"Of course, me and Riley will be here all night. We'll be watching to see if anything bad happens to you. Are you okay with that?"

"'Y-yes, I think so."

You answer and slowly lie down on the bed, as soon as your head touches the pillow you feel your eyes slowly closing.

"You really have nothing to worry about, if you were to transform it would have happened long ago, it never takes that much time."

Ghost's voice gets quieter and softer, everything seems to slow down. Your breathing becomes more steady. Your eyelids are heavy that you no longer have the strength to open them. Besides, the bed is so soft and comfortable that you don't even want to change it. With your last effort, before sleep has completely overtaken you, you add barely audibly.

"I know, it should be painful. It hurt so damn much back then. Now it feels good. I just- I was just scared. I didn't want to die yet."

You don't hear Ghost's answer anymore, as you fall into a deep sleep.

taglist:

@leviathanleva @chocolate-noodles @vmaxis@poohkie90 @ghostlythots @nobodys-coffee @famouscattale @youdontneedtoknow1226 @pimpinsins @justguessfan @novasilvae @pausbirudanlumbalumba @ella2497 @lunamoonbby @sams-pineapples @tonylagsagne @lurkinwbreexy @azkza @mooseblooddd @mroman0111

[my-name-is-siduri]

Sense of Time - Cricket Wife connection?

While they don't sound too similar musically, Sense of Time and Cricket Wife seem to have similar lyrical themes. I'd go as far as to say Sense of Time is a companion piece to Cricket Wife in some ways.

"Time has stopped / The air is still / Nothing moves / or ever will / Present tense / is future past" to "No sense of time / Not even night and day" and "No sense of time / No perfect tense" Both of these songs call attention to grammatical tense when describing distortions in time. (I wonder if a stealth pun is going on there, that time not working properly for the narrator is making them feel tense?)

"I can't remember / why or when / they brought me here" to "but I couldn’t remember where I was / or if we’d said goodbye" The memories of the songs' narrators have also been distorted. They've both forgotten how they ended up in the situations they found themselves in.

"Bones and blood / and anxious anger / replaced in space / by girlish laughter" to "In these imminent dark ages / if you find it too bizarre / and nothing / seems to make sense any more / just remember who you are" Not exactly one to one, but both of these sections invoke a similar image: the bleak present gets swept away by happy memories of the past.

"He packs his bat / They're off together / And that was that / and is forever" to "I wondered if I’d died / and found a world / where living and dead / were walking side by side" Again not entirely one to one, but depending on your interpretation of what the cricket wife and husband's situations are (such as if the cricket wife is alive but dreaming of being with her dead husband or if she's in the process of dying and is being greeted by him), you could describe the married couple going off together as the living and dead walking side by side.

I don't think these songs are narratively connected per se. But they have so much in common that I feel like they could thematically connected somehow. Or something. This song has taken over my personality for the next few days

[toujokaname]

Game master / Episode 16

Author: Akira

Characters: Kohaku, Hiiro, Aira, HiMERU

"Yes. HiMERU hates incompetence. It's pointless to get involved, and therefore a waste of time."

← Previous ✧ Directory ✧ Next →

[ Read on my site for a better viewing experience using Ois~su ♪ ]

Season: Winter

Location: Amagi's House

A few minutes later. In a room of the mansion, the final checkpoint of the courage test.

Kohaku: I took a lil look around the mansion.

Still, no soul in sight... Checked some nearby houses too, but they were all empty.

And that feelin' I've been havin' for a while's gone, too. What the hell's goin' on here?

Hiiro: This is truly an abnormal situation.

Before we knew it, everyone in this Amagi Village vanished. While we were following the designated route, they all disappeared without a trace.

Just like the staff of the paranormal program we heard about in the ghost story, they've all gone missing.

Aira: W-What's going on? Seriously, what's happening?

Is it because I called this place a backward village and made fun of it? Did I trigger the wrath of the Amagi God(?) of the Amagi Village and cause them to be spirited away or cursed?!

Hiiro: Calm down, Aira. This should be another phenomenon that can be explained rationally, logically.

The universe is governed by the laws of physics. There are no such things as apparitions.

HiMERU: HiMERU agrees with you as well.

Hiiro: Umu, I think Nii-san would also agree. He's a logical person, after all.

HiMERU: Then allow HiMERU to retract his prior statement and say that he has a different opinion from you.

Hiiro: Wait, why though?

Kohaku: Hehe. Still, we got caught up in somethin' strange, didn't we...?

Of course, this is part of the scripted setup by the producers, but doesn't it feel like more than just a prank?

Aira: I just don't get it... Even if it's a prank, it's being dragged out too long, and I can't grasp the intention at all.

I seriously think we got caught up in some inexplicable phenomenon.

Hiiro: Even apparitions must have some logic. Ghosts may be impossible, but the ones described in ghost stories remain in this realm because they have some kind of lingering attachments.

What could ghosts, or rather, apparitions, stand to gain by pushing us into such circumstances?

Aira: Like I said, it's a curse! We probably angered some divine entity by accidentally breaking a taboo in this backward village!

That's why we're being put in this scary situation! That's how it is, isn't it?!

Hiiro: Umm. We don't really worship any particular deity in my hometown, and so far we haven't broken any taboos to warrant such severe punishment...

Well, I mean, by inviting strangers from outside into our secluded homeland, we've already broken a taboo.

But if that were the case, we would've all been cursed as soon as we set foot in this village.

Aira: So, what's the deal? Explain it so that even an idiot can understand!

Kohaku: Ahaha, Rabu-han's like Crazy:B's Niki-han, huh.

Aira: Chances are you're not complimenting me, are you, Kohakucchi?!

Hiiro: Basically, this situation is highly unnatural. There's no logical explanation, it's too nonsensical.

To put it bluntly, it's a mess.

HiMERU: —Well, HiMERU's viewpoint does differ slightly.

Hiiro: ? What do you mean, HiMERU-san?

HiMERU: HiMERU has long harbored a certain suspicion.

He kept quiet until now, since he was warned in no uncertain terms by Rinne just before arriving here. Yes, HiMERU's nature is that of a person with a strong sense of duty who properly keeps his promises.

Kohaku: Settin' aside your usual self-praise, what's this suspicion about?

HiMERU: It's about that person called Akan.

Aira: Ahh, the producer in charge of Matrix?

I sorta sympathized, being an underachiever who got ridiculed by everyone.

HiMERU: Right. That AkanP is the organizer of this series of events, Matrix. The starting point of all the occurrences woven within this narrative.

And yet, for some reason, there's a bizarre lack of presence exhibited.

Like a ghost, hm?

Such incompetence is far too profound to allow for any meaningful actions—HiMERU thought that might be the reason.

Essentially, AkanP is no more than a mere faceless background character in this story.

Kohaku: Some brutal words ya got there... Well, HiMERU-han's been gettin' real irritated with that person, so I reckon his language's takin' a rough turn.

HiMERU: Yes. HiMERU hates incompetence. It's pointless to get involved, and therefore a waste of time.

"I've" spent my whole life discarding such worthless people without a second thought.

I thought that was the correct course of action. In fact, it's precisely because I carelessly reached out a helping hand to a completely useless fool that I—

Kohaku: Huh? HiMERU-han, talkin' in first person? That's rare.

HiMERU: —Pardon. Anyway, what HiMERU wanted to say is that AkanP is excessively incompetent.

Kohaku: Ain't that goin' too far? I guess Anzu-han's support was a factor, but Matrix seems to be gettin' a pretty good reception for what's been shown, right?

So, wouldn't ya call the project a success?

HiMERU: That's true. Perhaps that was unexpected for the mastermind behind this sequence of events—the culprit.

Kohaku: Culprit, ya say?

HiMERU: Originally, it was intended to be a much sloppier and utterly hopeless event. This Matrix, hardly anyone even took notice of it...

In other words, it didn't matter whether it succeeded or failed; it was meant to be an insignificant program.

Kohaku: Nah, ain't Matrix supposed to be a major event wrappin' up ES's first year? At least, that's the official story, right...?

HiMERU: What if that was just an excuse contrived retroactively?

The much-anticipated big event turned into a sucky project all because of the useless producer named Akan—

Kohaku: "Sucky"... Sometimes you talk real eccentric, HiMERU-han.

HiMERU: —And yet, contrary to that, was there not a fundamentally flawed plan to begin with?

However, with Anzu-san's involvement, that plan turned into something remarkably engaging.

As a result, ES took notice, and Matrix became a major event wrapping up the first year of ES.

Hiiro: In other words, according to HiMERU-san's conjecture, the order of events was reversed.

[ ☆ ]

← Previous ✧ Directory ✧ Next →

[melancholy-menagerie]

((just a lil excerpt from Kougami's TG AU)) ....

Somehow, at some point, without his conscious realization, the comfortable, calm silence between them had turned oppressive and stifling instead; though it started off only as a nagging little itch at the back of his mind, albeit one that reached out with small, restless hands for recognition-- it had now pushed its way to the forefront, and rendered the easy, pleasant mood suddenly uncomfortable. Tsukishima had noticed, of course-- nothing could ever get by him, even when he didn't state his awareness, no subtleties could escape him, and Kougami knows that well already, by now. And this?... Simply their unnatural, unusual friendship-- investigator and ghoul, enjoying each other's company; an unlikely duo, a mismatched pair-- cohabitating. Yet, like a bad, cliched confessional, when asked what is on his mind, he had began, with the recounting of that day, not so long ago-- of when the two of them had first crossed paths; as if it were something either of them could have forgotten, or would ever need to be reminded of... but even so, he waxes on with the all too familiar tale, like a man prolonging the drive toward his final destination.

In turn, graciously, Tsukishima allows him that luxury, instead of cutting in with his trademark sharp wit and sarcasm, to poke fun at his ineptitude; perhaps he can sense the somberness lurking in the investigator's words, the suggestion of strangled sentiment, suppressed if awkward sincerity... whatever the reason, he merely listens, with gaze turned upward toward the dusky evening sky. This topic isn't new however, in fact it may have been the very first thing they touched upon, when Tsukishima had initially regained consciousness, and inquired why he had saved him. At the time, Kougami had told him there was no particularly deep methodical reasoning behind the action; the scene had struck him as bizarre and he'd been left with too many questions to ignore, and so spontaneously acted. He'd since had time to properly reflect on that day, though, and found himself needing to give a more satisfactory, honest answer.

"--I don't know exactly what it was, in truth... when I looked into your eyes, realizing in that moment, you were actually still alive…? I can't adequately describe it, even now, with a clear head, what it is that struck me in that moment…" He takes a short moment to pause, musters a thin and uneven smile; his stare, pinned to the ground, as he plays back the still images in his head, of that fateful day that led them to one another. "...I really had thought at the time, that you had to be dead; the extent of the physical damage was so severe, and there was so much blood everywhere. And you, just sprawled there, motionless & torn up as if you'd been savaged by a den of furious beasts," Kougami shakes his head, scoffs with sarcastic disdain. "Then, in the next moment, catching the slightest shift of your eyes toward me… the fading light in them, and the soft, chilling gurgle of blood in your mouth…" Kougami shifts a bit, brow furrowing a little, under the ugly weight of that grisly recollection. "Even now, I can still perfectly see the growing pool of blood, spreading out beneath you-- the way your white lips, smeared with scarlet, twitched at their corners for a second... like the shadow of a smirk… the small bubbles in the blood that had accumulated out of your open mouth-- an attempt at a smile, at humor? How, in that situation? And yet, I think something at the back of my brain understood it perfectly; your eyes becoming darker, darker-- dimming with your descent toward death, unmistakably... and you, almost-smiling, with unfocused stare slowly lifting toward me."

Tsukishima says nothing still, his face is impassive and unreadable, giving nothing away about what he could be thinking; it always makes Kougami feel a bit self-conscious, like he's battle-ramming him with unnecessary commentary, his poorly expressed feelings, or whatever... ? They're to a point where he knows that's just his own perception, but that doesn't make things any smoother to get through. And so, with determination, the investigator continues; grateful at least that Tsukishima's gaze still seems to be set upon the sky, and not aimed at him.

"... That stare back then, it wasn't one that asked for help, nor pleaded for salvation, nor even mercy, if one can call such acts merciful. No, neither a gaze filled with despair, nor fear of impending death, nor suffering…. there was only exhaustion; those were eyes filled with simple acceptance, a stare that said to me, 'I expected no less than this, dying here, in some filthy back alley, torn to pieces… alone and abandoned by this world'..." he takes a sobering breath, furrowed brow openly reflecting now the displeasure of his sentiments recalling this. "I hated that, you know? I hated seeing that look in your eyes, and I hated understanding your resignation which spoke of having nothing in your world left to hold onto, to hold out for… I couldn't leave you there. I couldn't simply do nothing & stand there watching, waiting for you to finish dying and disappearing; I wanted to at least make the attempt to save you-- I think if you had died back then, in that moment, I would be forever haunted by your expression, I would come to see it everywhere."

At last-- a reaction. Tsukishima snorts softly at that, and a brief smile flickers into view, if only momentarily. Kougami manages a slightly crooked, undoubtedly awkward, smile in return. ".... I had told you before that I acted without thinking, back then, in that moment when I decided to bring you here & saved your life… and that's partially true, but… when I really sit down to think it all over, it doesn't seem all that spontaneously impulsive, after all," the investigator admits, with a sheepish glance over to his friend, now. "In actuality, it was probably inevitable."

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

I saw your SCP-682 comics (among many other masterpieces) and i just gotta ask- SCP-5000 reveals why 682 finds humanity so disgusting, so I'm wondering if -B also noticed *that* and how'd they take it

Very good question. There's some kinda... weird aspects of SCP-5000, and implications made by project Dammerung-related stuff, but I fully confess I mostly understand it second-hand from voice-over work from the likes of the Exploring Series, and SCP Explained.

Gonna ramble a long while about my own headcanons, and finally what Styx would likely think; in brief, he sees "It" as mostly just a benign tumor.

If anyone is unfamiliar with any of this, please scroll on by. This is long, and requires knowledge of SCP-5000 and SCP-2718 for context.

What I gathered though is that "It" is why humans feel pain, and that if the afterlife is just being a self-aware corpse as O5-11 described, feeling constant pain "feeds" "It". Hence, "You're not supposed to feel pain". Cure yourself of "It", and you'll get to not feel empathy, or pain, and die without issue.

A lot of the story is left up to interpretation, but it's presented as a nightmare scenario in the most literal sense, where the idea is scary enough to make you want to suspend your disbelief so that it has full effect. There's weird... holes to it, though.

When properly examined, "It" is something that exists in the collective unconscious of humans, but... animals feel pain. Animals feel empathy, at least in some capacity. It's a practical chemical reaction and instinct-complex to strengthen pack bonds.

I have to assume SCP-5000's canon isn't "materialist", as in, humans aren't just neuron-signals in meatsuits and nothing more. In that case, the "Individual consciousness" is implied to be sacrosanct, and anything else exploiting the "Individual" is a malicious, unjust force. There's a strong objectivist/individualist moral implication about SCP-5000, which already by default doesn't sit so right with me, as "no man is an island"; no matter how much you want to act like a unique individual, there are natural beliefs every individual will latch onto, such that the formation of a collective unconscious is just inevitable, and therefore the formation of "It".

I think beings like canon 682 see this as an inherent moral evil, and rationalize this evil as suffering, as from an empathy-less perspective, the individual is always supreme, so anything that subverts the individual is "disgusting". Even still, if the Foundation is trying to do humans a favor, what is the motivation? Just that the wailing of humanity is disgusting to them, and they'd like it to be silenced? That doesn't really justify anything short of a clean scorching of the earth, rather than the bizarrely sadistic approach taken by the Foundation in SCP-5000. If SCP-2718 only works via "It's" influence, then taking the inefficient, weird sadistic approach to exterminate humanity implies a motivation on their part that doesn't stem from empathy (that they aren't supposed to have) or logical self-interest (that they'd supposedly be left with). If all humans were wiped out, there'd be nothing for "It" to feed off of, and it's not a stretch to assume the Foundation could've done way more efficiently than they did.

All information we get as justification for wiping out humanity from the changed-Foundation's and 682's perspective is already biased, and riddled with logical inconsistencies that only more inconsistent conjecture can explain. Supposedly, "It" is such a threat that wiping out humanity is the more humane alternative, but with this information and these deductions, I feel that you can't really rationalize that or ignore some clear bias the heartless Foundation has.

So to finally answer your question: Ideally I'd rather just assume in my canon that the entity doesn't exist, but if it were to, SCP-682-B/Styx Nacht II would figure that "It" is not something separate from humanity, nor is it the same as humanity itself. "It" is "civilization" and "society", something that inevitably manifests in the unconscious of any species that becomes developed enough. Society isn't "good" or "evil", but the purpose of empathy is to keep the bindings of "society" strong.

So in his opinion, the ideal is to neither fear "It", nor believe "It" to be "supreme" over your own self. Hold this belief, and your afterlife will be fine, and the entity can't exploit you. Completely shackling yourself to empathy will make you suffer, but you'll still suffer if you try "hardening your hearts". The answer lies in the middle. "Suffering" is inevitable, even without "pain". Killing the entity doesn't solve that, and something else would take its place anyway. This is what he'd understand, and that normal 682 wouldn't.

I like SCP-5000 for the sprawling horrific scenario it is, but on a logical level, even with Foundation-canon weirdness, it kinda just comes across as a biblical apocalypse story written by an objectivist having a nightmare.

Hopefully I.. sort of explained myself, and didn't write something totally incoherent.

[mrslittletall]

oh trust me, mothiva lives in my head against my will. ive got a Lot of hcs, but compiling them may be difficult (brain machine broke, yknow how it is). i think a lot about both her General Dysfunction and the fact that shes an idol, if only bc idol culture is a wee bit fucked.

-She's got anger issues. She'll say she doesn't have anything of the like, she tries to keep it under control best she can, but it's undeniably a Thing and absolutely comes into play if a bug happens to annoy her too much.

-She would probably bite someone if given the chance to do so without social consequences.

-Her morals are almost entirely related to social expectations and "what would look good for me". Most of them are discardable when the situation comes to it. Most of the ones that she doesn't consider discardable are informed by Zasp's opinions on the matter.

-You know how her longer fur is off-white and her shorter fur is yellow? She's got a real wonky double-coat situation going on. The shorter sections are sheared to show off the color, and are a lot softer to touch but provide no protection whatsoever against wind.

-Her kick hits as hard as B33's charge attack. This one isn't a headcanon, I just think about it incredibly often. The list of attacks that actually knock a character down unblocked is incredibly low and the length of that list happens to imply that Mothiva kicks roughly as hard as the entire Heavy Drone B33 slamming into you at top speed.

-Her relationship with Zasp is extremely goddamn bizarre, both in a "I'm not sure how to describe what's going on here" way and in a "the way these two people communicate is so out of the norm that it's really hard to define what's going on there" way. I do think they like each other, but I don't think that whatever they have going on here is translateable to any normal relationship.

-Speaking of communication, she doesn't know how to do it. She learned to interact with people in the context of being an idol and simply didn't gain social skills past that. She could not carry a normal conversation outside of that script if her life depended on it.

-It's against her contract to date. Like, legally, she's not allowed to date at all. Whether or not she's obeying this is... up for debate? I've written a few (currently unfinished & unpublished) fics abt my take on her and Zasp's relationship but honestly, I have no clue how to sum any of that up without, like, 30k words of essay and gods know I've edited my own work to get things across enough that Whatever They Have Going On There is hard to properly quantify.

Oh, anon, these are excellent! Forgive me for not reacting to each one in detail though. The kicks! Yeah, I remember when she went up to Vi and just kicked her so hard she got knocked out! Loved that! Mothiva suddenly throwing hands! Actually, I would like this 30 page essay ^^ And yeah, I know the feeling of a character living in your head rentfree even though in canon they suck! It can be so fun to come up with headcanons for them. Also yeah, idol culture is HARSH, but we also can't excuse abusers because of the circumstances. It is an explanation, not an excuse. Of course she is fictional, but in RL,nobody who abuses you should do it just because they have it "hard".

[ryo-maybe]

7, 12, 25 and 35?

7. Most disappointing game you’ve played?

Fire Emblem Fates. I loved Awakening to death (I specifically kept my copy along with Echoes' when I sold all my 3ds games), so when Fates was about to come out, I was down bad. Pre-ordered both versions of the game, which is the sinning equivalent of performing an Astra on your nether regions. With a Brave Weapon. I didn't give a shit. I needed Fates to give me more of the magic, the wonderful characters and fun gameplay that made me love Awakening so much.

Then I played it.

I couldn't. I straight up tried to gaslight myself into believing I liked the game for what few good aspects it had, if only to justify the monetary expense, which at the time was about the equivalent of one month's worth of food for me (well, still is, but that's beside the point), but, I simply couldn't like it. I hated the weird gimmicky way weapons worked as a trade-off for the removal of durability. I hated the characters. I hated Corrin's stupid, stupid ass. I hated the oddly written and/or paced Supports. The fucking Baby Dimension. The plot... look, we all know, we've talked it down to death, but MAN... I gave so little of a shit that Conquest's decent gameplay couldn't save the whole shebang for me. If it was just the gameplay, I could have played loads of other FEs, with the caveat that they also had a story and characters that didn't make me want to piledrive my ass onto a cactus.

12. Most bizarre game you’ve ever played?

Ooh, I know this one. I had to think on it for a while, but I think I can safely answer this with Steambot Chronicles. There are games done with a deliberate style and aesthetic that evoke a sense of surreality, like, say, Suda51's or SWERY's - Steambot Chronicles does not fall under the same purview. It is a game with the deceptive aesthetic of something aimed at younger audiences, but with an incredibly melancholic veneer to it, and a surprising amount of mature topics such and death and grief featured in its story, among other things. The gameplay... how do I even describe it properly? There is exploration. You can play an instrument (and its associated rhythm minigame) on a corner of a street to gain some dimes from passersby. There is a stock market you can fully engage with. Your responses can make your character pass off as a goody-two-shoes, an asshole, or a dude roleplaying as a soldier. You fight arena matches with mecha shaped like oldie car chassis, except with arms (or drills, or swords, or pile-drivers) and legs (or threads, or spider legs) instead of wheels. You can date and have (implied) sex with some characters. Some of the NPC questlines are as depressing as a Soulslike's. You can end the game by bombing society back into a less technology-addicted dark age. Its Japanese name is "Bumpy Trot". The cover looks like this:

It's a deeply fascinating experience. And the Trotmobiles are an absolutely genius design.

25. Proudest accomplishment in gaming?

I'm not really tryhard enough to do big challenges or anything, but on a purely personal level, I fondly remember this one day of my childhood I spent hooked on my PS2 all day learning how to successfully execute all of King's throw strings in Tekken 5. Of course, it ended up mattering little since I still had to remember how to perform them outside of Practice Mode, but still! It definitely felt very fulfilling at the time.

On the topic of fighting games, any victory I manage to get by the skin of my teeth against @r4ampage feels downright cathartic.

Oh, and clearing the entirety of both Ouendan games in high school too!

35. Best protagonist?

I like Kyle Hyde from the Hotel Dusk series (if you can even call it that, with only two games to its name) a whole damn lot. He checks a lot of my archetypical preferences: he is a detective, a grump who can't help but care about others, an utter loser, and, most important of all, he is so, so delightfully human. I think that, at the end of the day, he embodies a lot of what I like in a character in a simple, straightforward, yet not necessarily inferior fashion to other characters with more complex writing.

That said, I will also say that Library of Ruina's Roland also became a very dear favorite in more recent times, but to properly explain the reasons why I would have to delve into too many spoilers about a game I really wish more people would check out.

[piquuse]

[Mysterious Risotto]

confusion was clear on dear queen's features, frowned brows staring down at very haunting mass of what he barely could tell it was risotto ... maybe. he was starting to doubt his own sight on the matter --wait, was that a fluorescent mushroom ?! " uh. when did this appear on the table. "

let's get hootin'!

          "...I think one of the Savanaclaw students forgot it here? That really tall guy over there, with the blond tail." Deuce's befuddled gesture eventually lands on one of the students who had ran up to join the rest of the crowd on the dance floor. "Oh wow, um, I didn't know Professor Amos could dance like that." He didn't think people's joints could bend like that either without breaking a bone. Yikes.

In the end, however, Deuce's curiosity gets the better of him and he leans in to inspect the rather peculiar-looking dish. It's barely been touched; a sign that there were in fact students attending the university with some of their survival instinct intact, even if it's been somewhat impaired. The smart idea would likely have been to avoid the dish altogether—but then again, Deuce had never claimed to be the sharpest spade in the shed.

And he's just so terribly, terribly curious about what such a bizarre-looking food would taste like... The mushrooms themselves don't look too peculiar (he thinks, at least) and as he continues to gaze at the food he can't help but feel...compelled, so to speak. Compelled to try a bite of it, just a one little nibble.

After all, he thinks, perhaps a bit naively, it was just a purple risotto, right? So against what would have been the better judgement, Deuce ferries a spoonful of risotto into his mouth...only to be surprised by the rich, savory flavor that almost seems to explode onto his tongue.

Shocked didn't even being to cover the spectrum of emotions that held Deuce in an affectionate chokehold. If he were a more erudite type, he had a feeling that even if he had run the gamut of appropriate synonyms to describe how he felt with that one bite, it wouldn't have mattered. Words weren't enough to convey how much he enjoyed this oddly colored risotto, so he would simply have to show it instead!

Newly resolved, he straightens abruptly and turns to face the Pomefiore senior with fervor in those sharp teal eyes, earnest intent lining his frame. "Schoenheit—!!" He begins, but as he opens his mouth to speak a fuzzy sort of darkness peppers his vision; his jaw goes slack in silenced surprise, and suddenly he is no longer at Night Raven University's First Annual Hootenanny.

Instead, he is standing in the living area of a modest little townhouse. It's neatly furnished, if clearly lived-in, and familiar. The architectural style of the interior design is something he would have described as being 'carefree and whimsical', in a way that should not but somehow clearly does manage to function properly. It's a familiar aesthetic, because it is the same sort of common style that was found in the Heartslabyul dorm.

Breathing in introduces the scent of roses to him, sweet in a way that only dried blooms achieved best. From behind him, somewhere outside the house, he can hear the sounds of a party, muted by the walls. From a different part of the house, however, Deuce can hear a woman's voice humming gently to a song that only she could hear. And just like the furniture, just like the roses, that too is familiar.

Warmth creeps into his chest like a vice, and he turns down the hall that he knows will lead into the kitchen, because he knows this house like how he knows who that voice belongs to.

          "Hey Mom, need any help?" Deuce asks, before pressing a kiss to her cheek the way he has done since he was a child. She's shorter than he remembers her being, the last time he saw her, but he abandons the thought as quickly as it comes. She laughs, but says yes.

          "It's just the cake that's left to bring out, but sure, you can carry it out for me." His mom explains, gesturing a hand towards the simple two-tiered cake that she had just placed onto the carrying tray. "Maybe I should have agreed to let that baker friend of yours take care of the cake this year after all. Then I wouldn't have had to clean all those dishes."

          "I'll let him know next time, then." He says, before carefully picking up the cake. "Okay, I think I got it... Can you get that for me?" He asks, once they've reached the backdoor, though she's already pulling it open for him by the time he's finished speaking.

The party he had heard earlier turns out to have been located right in their own garden. It's a small gathering, because there simply is not a lot of open space in the Spade household. Not that Deuce had ever bothered to bring any guests home in his youth in the first place, he remembers.

He...can't quite make out any of their guests' faces, which is disturbing, but something in his gut tells him that he knows these people even if he can't quite place them, and Deuce has always found some value in trusting his gut. With that settled, he lets the matter go for the most part and makes the join the rest of the party, but his mother stops him before he gets through the doorway. When he turns to ask why, he finds that he can't speak.

          "I'm proud of you, Deuce." She says, her matching teal eyes soft with a mother's love. "You're not quite there yet, but I know that one day, you'll get to where you want to be. So don't give up. When that happens, then you can come and join the rest of us here." Her hand brushes against his cheek fondly, and it feels like a goodbye but less of a bye forever and more of a see you soon. All the same, he doesn't want to leave.

But when he blinks, he’s suddenly back at the table with the mysterious purple risotto, and Housewarden Schoenheit is looking at him with an expression that says that he's about to give up on trying to reach wherever it was that Deuce's head had flown off to.

It's...jarring, actually. Because Deuce doesn't even know where he went just then, and doesn't even know where to start with explaining what he just saw. Not that something like that would stop him from trying, of course. But, well...

(It's hard to explain something like that when Deuce starts crying as soon as he starts to speak, y'know?)

[ciaran-archive]

Hey, not an ask I just wanted to reach out and tell you that I recently came across a repost from your old account @radiqueer that really resonated. It said that there's a common thread in gifted children of wishing there was some kind of great tragedy in their past to validate the pain they're constantly feeling, because they feel like they haven't suffered enough to warrant this level of pain. It actually kind of felt like someone punched me directly in the heart, because it described almost exactly what I've felt for a lot of my life. I read a LOT, and I always assumed this was some kind of bizarre, creepy byproduct of that, like I wanted so desperately to be a part of the story I kind of took on the character's pain. The feeling always scared me a little bit, so I never told anyone, and I've never been told of anyone else feeling this way. So when I read your post, I can't properly express exactly what that meant to me. The fact that there are other people who feel this way, that it doesn't make me weird or crazy, is honestly a completely life-changing realization (which I know sounds crazy but it really is), and I just really needed to thank you for that. You managed to completely flip my perspective on my life in one post, and that's really amazing. Thank you so much.

i’m so glad that resonated with you <3 thank you for telling me. i was only 16/17 when i ran that blog but it’s quite amazing to me even now how much the posts i made on it seem to resonate with people. you’re never as alone as you think you are, though, and you’re never as monstrous as you feel. i hope you have a lovely week!

[elizabethrobertajones]

I'm not saying you agree with that TLJ article since you tagged it 'mh', but I'm very worried but this latest trend 'Your opinion is wrong because of internalized ___'. Some movies just suck? Like, I hated Ghostbusters 2 because it was bad. I was perfectly okay with having four women as main characters, but that can't be your whole idea for a movie.

I do think that article is interesting, and trying to describe what is basically a wider cultural phenomenon. I’m sure on case by case basis you could rarely boil it down to just a few specific factors and “diagnose” someone except for really obvious lifelong character types who would be in the most obvious demographic. 

Star Wars *already* got a bunch of sexist and racist backlash before TFA, so it’s already in the bracket of movies which got thrown together as the collection of SJWs are ruining our childhood movies like Mad Max, Ghostbusters, etc, so it’s also definitely not like this is a wild stab in the dark that it has pre-existing tension, although in this case the reaction is still really split. But I can see why it’s easy to examine it this way and analyse where it might make people uncomfortable, and wonder to what degree people are prepared to let go of Leading White Man formula for mega blockbusters. 

Something like Wonder Woman, people know what they’re getting into when they see it in the sense that the franchise is completely built around there being a female character in the lead role. So that stands quite alone. And it’s not like there haven’t been action movies with female leads in the past either, but the re-casting in the case of Ghostbusters, or just development of interesting female characters who aren’t beholden to a cookie cutter template/romance arc within a supposedly male-dominated franchise (Furiosa, especially) and changing up old franchises to have more diverse cast (Star Wars) or just completely flip the “male is the default” idea like Ghostbusters and Oceans 8, are deliberately challenging and in some cases - the last 2 especially - are pretty much thumbing the nose to the idea of all-male casts being unremarkable and default. Whether the movies are *good* or not (I thought Ghostbusters was about on the level of, say, a Ghostbusters movie for quality and humour, so okay basically :P) they’re culturally significant at a time when it seems both bizarre and horrifically slow and backwards that we *still* don’t have *even just getting male and female representation right, never mind race and sexuality and disability representation* (I mean for that last point - in some ways these films are already going to be regressive by the time other progressive steps are made, for example Charlize Theron wearing a green screen glove to delete her arm, instead of just hiring an actress with half an arm which is the immediately less-expensive and fiddly route to get the aesthetic…)

But idk, it’s not even like Star Wars was either perfect or extremely progressive, it just managed *not* to have 2-3 white male leads + some other people in the background, and to allow the non white male people to have such a stake in the story they could mess up and make decisions that affected the fate of the galaxy - often negatively, as this is the ESB slot of the trilogy aka where everything is supposed to go in the toilet. There was a lot they could have done better and I’m still annoyed that Maz and Phasma both got pitifully tiny roles but were basically included despite the set up of the movie being extremely restrictive to much exploration and with probably the longest time limit they thought they could allow themselves and still sound like there were any tension in the chase… 

I think it’s definitely always worth exploring whether social issues are having an impact on the reception of a film, though, because it’s a way of addressing the issues in our society, which we *know* exist, and when a film is openly critical of our society, and then people are critical back at it, guessing there may be a nervous backlash from people it made uncomfortable for too-close-to-home reasons makes sense. The critique offered by Kylo Ren to edgy white masculinity is really interesting, and I think it’s probably not hard to imagine SOME people especially who fit the profile are reacting against him, or glorifying him anyway unironically while disliking large amounts of the rest of the movie. 

One of the points that article made as well was that other generic or bad films do much better with audience reaction - in fact some truly terrible films do really well as they’re marketed to a niche audience, and that audience gobbles them up and we get the inverse, of critically panned but audience ratings pretty high.

I mean, I’m assuming if you follow me you’re a Supernatural fan and so we’re all here to gobble up the melodramatic pretty boys :P

So, idk, I think in some ways the picking apart of the film and emphasising its flaws is happening in a strange social climate, where in some ways the discomfort about the film not catering with the most “easy” empathy of a white male main character & with flawed but interesting characters in the other roles particularly prone to being criticised in society for existing anyway and that the SW revival has already had one film threatened boycott over because of Finn being a black stormtrooper on his reveal, and I doubt that feeling has just magically gone away… There comes a point where I wonder how much is basically film review concern trolling when it comes to criticising his and Rose’s arc, or the film in general. 

And how much of the film’s real flaws, plotholes etc if they existed in an easier version of the film with all 4 Chrises in the major roles would take months or years to get properly dissected by the internet while it’s basically as soon as you go back online after the movie someone’s complaining about why Canto Bight even existed.

I mean my “Hm” was “this is interesting and I think it definitely could apply to the wider cultural reaction to the movies” while obviously on a personal level if people have certain standards for films (my dad hates basically *everything* so I don’t think his reaction to TFA was categorically racist or sexist, just that he would be inclined to think pretty much anything JJ Abrams makes is garbage and whoops I never should have naively made him watch the first episode of Fringe with me :P) then if any of these movies are things you can tell would have rubbed you up the wrong way anyway, e.g. you didn’t like the original Ghostbusters that much/have found it far cringey-er on adult rewatches etc then you are absolutely allowed to have a reaction to it on a personal level which is not a sign of the sickness of our society :P 

But I think even if you don’t like the new SW film, it’s worth putting aside your critiques of it for a moment to think about this article and the wider reaction - not to make you guilted into enjoying the film, but because it’s worth at least pondering the wider social issues the film’s already definitely caught up in since like, before TFA came out, so we can’t deny that there’s at least some portion of the audience, whether the loud but small group of assholes who utterly invisibly boycotted TFA, or the wider percentage of the population who’ll be consciously or unconsciously turned off by the cast and the power given to their characters in the story, and the possibly even wider percentage who may still struggle to empathise with female characters because Hollywood has so systematically underrepresented like, what can alternately be the literal largest demographic on the planet, and presented just plain old cis women as characters whose inner lives are valuable and decisions should be respected. 

I mean since I came out the movie I’ve been swinging back and forth on “should Holdo have just told Poe her plan or was the point that this man of a much lower station is getting all up in her business demanding to know and questioning her, and I assume that was intentional so I should agree with Holdo but would this have looked just as bad if a male admiral showed up doing the same thing and they accidentally undermine her by it being a bad decision in general, or is the point that if it had been a male admiral Poe would have shut up and not let an insurrection, but I mean it’s *Poe* and I love him and I totally understand and he was made out to be more sympathetic until *after* the twist so did they WANT us to be critical of Holdo or am I just falling into a trap of not giving female characters the same room to fuck up as male characters -” and that’s BEFORE I get onto the internet and read this debate for weeks, just my confusion about this arc and what it was saying and if it was meant to say one thing or the other or if it’s a bit of bad writing (but not something so bad it would ruin the film to the point of only 50% enthusiasm like Rotten Tomatoes is giving it - like, 93% or something :P) or if it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to by making my brain cogs go and making me feel I need to write like, a dozen female admiralty into things to allow Holdo a cultural sisterhood of good bad and ugly admirals to be her own person in instead of the only female admiral to ever stick in my head like this :P So idk. 

Hm. Basically.