#code vein Jasper

[j-inky]

It took him 3 nights and multiple jab wounds, but Io gets a new dress

[sophieinwonderland]

Today on (probably very obvious) plural characters:

Any fusion from Steven Universe. Especially Malachite and Stevvonie, though

Because SU fusion is different from DBZ fusion. Trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible here, we know from Malachite and Stevvonie alone that the individuals who fused are still present in the fusion, because Steven and Connie can still talk through Stevvonie. And likewise with Lapis and Jasper with Malachite. Where's in DBZ, the new fusion is a completely separate entity and the two characters who fused don't exist in any capacity, at least as far as I can tell. And in SU, Stevvonie literally explores the ideas of problems from the individual affecting (or even breaking) the entire fusion.

If Rebecca Sugar didn't know about systems and plurality, then she somehow hit an uncannily similar vein. And yeah, I know this is probably very common knowledge that SU fusions are extremely plural coded, but it's something I only recently realized and I can't stop thinking about it lmao

Yes! This! 100%! 👍

And the fusions have their own inner worlds!

And at a symbolic level, the temple is basically an inner world for the fusion of the main characters!

And Pearl literally has multiple autonomous Pearls in her head holding different traumas!

The only reason I haven't done a "Plurality of Steven Universe" yet is because that post will be SO long!

[sugarskullserenade]

Thought I should finally post all my Code Vein Ocs

Bios for the rest will be coming soon

[the-un-holy-gamer]

So uh... If y'all like watching people die a fuck ton in video games then look no further than my gameplay of Code Vein! I've got more coming up but it's more uh... Story like in a way and I've also got just the cutscenes recorded with my character Rayne (You guys will be meeting him soon cause I'm gonna upload screenshots of my blonde boi) so uh if any of you guys like that kinda thing just wait a bit and I'll upload the cutscenes with Rayne in them. Anyways enjoy 52 episodes of me dying a metric fuck-ton lol

[gisellelx]

Walls (new Cien Años short)

Walls Ashland, WI November, 2020

To live with Esme Platt Cullen was to live in a carefully ordered chaos. 

In more stable times, and in more stable homes, this chaos had been the chaos of their children, now six-almost-seven of them. Emmett and Jasper, enjoying a boisterous playfight. Rosalie and Edward snipping at each other in that odd way they did that was one part love, one part self-hatred, a third part disdain. Renesmee, when she had been younger, trying everyone’s patience and most of all her parents’. The way the house would eventually rise to a fever pitch like a thrumming beehive and Carlisle would eventually retreat to his study, simultaneously craving solitude and also intensely grateful that, these days, solitude was so hard to come by. Eventually, his wife would come find him, standing next to his chair and raking her hands through his hair as she pulled his head to her bosom. 

Solitude was, unfortunately, easier to find these days. With the children in Europe and the two of them alone in the house which seemed strangely too large without the omniscience of Edward’s gift, quiet was their constant companion. 

And the chaos now was different. Instead of the raucousness of their large family, this was the chaos of sawdust and century-old plaster, warped floorboards with haphazard nails—nails which couldn’t hurt either of them, of course, but which still seemed to appear out of the ether in places Carlisle could’ve sworn they hadn’t existed twelve hours ago. 

He’d retreated to their bedroom, or what was left of it. His body remembered the route more than his mind did, up the staircase and to the right, through the second doorway.  The footprint was still here; wall studs turned a deep brown with age and striped with the pattern of the lath boards which had been removed and carefully stacked in a corner. Esme had told him that he wasn’t to touch them; she’d salvage what she could. 

The house needed new systems. It had been built with only the most nascent plumbing, and while he’d run electricity, it was the electricity which had been able to be run at the time;; not what was standard now. Esme would restore it to its mid nineteenth century glory in the end, but first it needed bringing into the twenty-first. For now there were no walls, just outlines of where walls had once been, with bright-yellow conduit dangling like vine, and red and blue flexible plumbing snaking its way to what once had been and soon would be again the kitchen and bathrooms, making the house look like the anatomy textbooks Carlisle was more used to. Blue veins, red arteries. It made sense to him to think of the house like a body—helped him make sense of, and honor, his wife’s diligent work. 

Esme was on the roof when he arrived home and slid into the remains of their bedroom, shedding his briefcase, his pea coat, and his white doctor’s coat as he passed the foyer, the coat closet, and the hamper, respectively. She understood and honored his desire to live as humanly as possible, and so she had warned him that the roof was coming off for a few days while she brought the trusses up to twenty-first century building code. But that hadn’t happened yet, and for now, there was still this ghost of the structure of the home he had bought, when his only identity had been “sire” and sometimes, if he dared to think it, and Edward had allowed him, “father.” And so he stripped down to his scrubs in this odd shell of a home, and sat, cross-legged, on the floor of the furniture-less bedroom. The sound from above him was rhythmic as his wife worked through the existing structure. First the scraping of the wrecking bar, then the quiet ping of the nail releasing from the roof, then the resounding thwap of the shingle hitting the ground two floors below. 

Scrape. Scrape. Ping. Thwap. The repetition was meditative, and he allowed himself to get lost in it. He was so deep in his own thoughts that he missed the cessation of sound on the roof, the quiet sounds of tools being put carefully back into place, the opening and closing of closet doors in what was left of the frame of the house. 

He finally became aware when he heard the thunk of the tool belt in the foyer, the toeing off of the unnecessary work boots. The soft padding of socked feet on the bare, stripped staircase. A moment later, the light shading through the patchwork of lath which awaited replacement revealed a feminine silhouette, arms crossed as she regarded him coolly.  

“How much longer do we get to keep the roof?” he asked.

“I should have it off by tomorrow midday. I timed it with your long shift.” The socked feet padded across the room and then she, too, had dropped into a cross-legged posture behind him, and then her lips were at the base of his neck. “That is, if you don’t distract me too much while you’re home, Dr. Cullen.” 

He smirked a little. “Far be it for me to separate you from a demolition.” 

She laughed her clear laughter, and he twisted a little so that their lips could meet. They kissed for several seconds, the gentle, familiar kiss of the long-married, her hand finding its way to his hip. 

“You’ve had a bad day,” she said when their lips parted. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not particularly.” He looked toward the ceiling, or what once had been the ceiling. It was now, like everything else, bare beams, the odd mixture of new and very old, and he could see to the roof, where the removal of the shingles had exposed the places where the old roof boards had shrunk away from one another, letting in little slivers of daylight. 

“I’m looking forward to furniture,” he admitted. “How far in the future is that?” 

She laughed again. “I’ll get you some for Christmas. In the meantime…” She patted her thigh and, almost without thinking, he lay down, putting his head in her lap. In the same instant, her hands were in his hair, her fingertips against his scalp as she combed through it.

It had taken decades, this part of their relationship. He had been used to fending for himself, convincing himself that he was invincible. And Edward, as glorious as he had been, had only made this aspect worse, as every day, Carlisle had tried even harder to be Edward’s rock. And so when Esme had joined them, it had taken him years to admit to even the slightest crack, and even longer to reach this utter surrender.

He closed his eyes, letting his senses be overcome by the feeling of fingers in his hair, the sound of breath, rolling in and out, the cinnamon-lilac-honey of his wife’s scent—one part his own, one part her own perfect unique essence. 

“There were eleven today,” he muttered finally, not opening his eyes. One of the worst days yet. They’d moved because of the surge here, and he had steeled himself for it. Nothing he’d faced in the states held a candle to Italy, not even this, but the comparison didn’t make it any easier. Sometimes, he’d walked out of the room; let a nurse in full protective equipment, looking like an astronaut hold a phone in a gloved hand as family members on FaceTime looked on while their parent or grandparent slipped away from life. Other times, he stayed; he was the one to hold the phone, to flick the ventilator to the OFF position, to witness the deep, rattling, final breaths. 

His wife sighed sadly. “Eleven is so many, Carlisle.” 

He nodded. “Eleven is too many. One is too many. This whole year is too many.” One by one, the same progression, over and over. Ctyokine. Hypoxia. Multisystem organ failure. The same sequence, the same dread, the same point of no return. And if he thought too long or too hard, he could recall each and every face. 

Carlisle squeezed his eyes closed as the fingers made their way back into his hair. One hand in his hair made its way to his back, the other to his arm. He let his body go slack as he let the day’s pain slip away into her hands.

“Thank you,” he breathed several minutes later.  

“Thank you for letting me in,” his wife answered, bending deeply and pressing her lips to his again. 

He chuckled. “Well, it’s hard to keep you out when we don’t have any walls.” 

Carlisle felt, more than heard, Esme’s answering laughter. It was a tiny cough of a laugh, small against the all the world was throwing at them. 

But, he realized as he allowed himself to rest, it was also just enough.  

[robotslenderman]

Dove character analysis

An analysis on Dove, her Nictuku traits, and how they ended up making her resembling the Cappadocians so strongly that her own sire thought she was one somehow.

I always assumed Dove and Modian were close because Dove was clearly distressed when she saw Modian in the condition he was in in the video.

But I was going through the VTMNR code to see the things she tells you about herself that I missed when I was playing that scene, and got to this bit:

"But when he saw my face, he thought he had been tricked," Dove says, her tone bleak. "He said I resembled one of the extinct clans, and treated me like a red-headed stepchild. Imagine that: too ugly to be a Nosferatu. I made my own way then, met up with Jasper Knowles, the Warlock, while he was digging through ruins for old magic, and through him ended up becoming a respectable member of the Camarilla. I didn't see Modian again for a century, when I came to the New World." 

So this started out as an analysis on how Modian must have recognised Nictuku traits in Dove (they are descended from Nictuku, a bloodline of Nosferatu that are blood bound to Absimilliard, the Nosferatu Antediluvian, and sworn to destroy the Nosferatu. If you trace Reremouse’s family tree, the Methuselah they’re descended from was a known Nictuku defector). The Nictuku are said to be particularly hideous, like Dove --

Imagine that: too ugly to be a Nosferatu. 

And a lot of people don’t believe they exist.

He said I resembled one of the extinct clans

So I thought that the Nictuku blood came out really strongly with Dove, Modian realised it, and freaked the fuck out.

But the “one of the extinct” clans didn’t quite fit (people either believe they exist or don’t, but they never talk about them being extinct), and there was a mention of the Giovanni wanting to put Dove down:

"Jasper was interested in another act of diablerie, the one that birthed Clan @{(clan = "Hecata") Giovanni. This was way before you all joined back up with the other necromancers|Giovanni—this was before the death clans all reunited to form Clan Hecata}. He was interested in me because he wondered if I wasn't a Nosferatu at all, but one of the now-extinct clans. Of course, I had been Embraced by Modian in the normal fashion, my dark arts were those of my clan, and Jasper's hypothesis came to nothing…but that wasn't before a bunch of Giovanni learned about me and tried to destroy me because they thought I was a harbinger of their destruction. To escape them, we jumped onto the Simplon-Orient-Express in Constantinople, and there we ran into this Polish Gangrel…anyway, that was all a long time ago."

So I thought. Huh. Maybe the Giovanni have links to the Nictuku?

Then I remembered what clan the Giovanni are descended from. Cappadocians. Whose bane were that they looked like corpses.

Boom. Turns out the Nictuku to the Giovanni’s Nosferatu are the Harbingers of Skulls, whose weakness --

The Harbingers of Skulls clan weakness is an extension of the Cappadocian clan's weakness. Regardless of the quantity of blood a Harbinger of Skulls consumes, their skin maintains a deathly pallor. Additionally, the Harbingers' skin shrinks to make these Cainites appear skeletal, with bony limbs and faces frozen into an immortal death's grin. Because of this decidedly unwholesome and morbid visage, Harbingers of Skulls have Appearance Traits of zero. All Social rolls involving the Appearance Trait automatically fail for Harbingers of Skulls. 

 -- are that they look skeletal. Just like Dove.

And like the Nictuku with the Nosferatu, they want to fuck Giovanni shit up. They’re pissed about what the Giovanni did to the Cappadocians.

So the Giovanni see this Nosferatu with a skull for a face, freak the fuck out, and try to murder her.

Modian Embraces a childe, the Nictuku genes come out strongly --

Additionally, age is difficult and transforming on the bloodline. For every hundred years since their Embrace, the Hungry become more monstrous in appearance. But their physical bodies also grow stronger, until they reach the peak of human (and vampiric) physical potential. They grow slowly but decidedly bent, twisted, and ever more deadly, slowly aging grotesques that blame the Nosferatu for their condition. 

-- but to the extent that happens to resemble a Cappadocian. Modian freaks out, is like “what the fuck, you’re clearly not mine” even though he was there, so poor Dove gets basically orphaned.

The Nictuku weakness doesn’t quite fit Dove. Nictuku need Cainite blood to feed, not kine. Dove might have been feeding on Cainites this whole time and kept it secret, but a Nosferatu courier doesn’t make any mention of having to do that, so I think it’s safe to assume Dove doesn’t. Also, there’s no mention that Dove gets uglier each century in spite of being Embraced ~1830. But she’s definitely Nictuku because she’s descended from Melachoate, which we find out in the Reremouse chapter.

But who knows. Maybe that weakness gets weaker as your generation gets higher. Maybe Jasper was feeding her the vitae of his victims -- she knew he experimented on wights, there’s a flashback where she’s casually chatting to him while standing over an entire pit of them. But that still doesn’t explain why her childe doesn’t seem to have that weakness either.

So. Dove has Nictuku blood, it came out stronger in her than Modian (and presumably Reremouse), Modian freaked, and it basically caused a rift between them so she ended up raised by Jasper instead.

Which is... interesting. Because she is visibly upset at seeing what Jasper did to Modian, but not upset at seeing Jasper get destroyed.

But it might explain why Jasper chose to wight Modian. Dove never trusted him, and maybe he was far from magnamious when he wighted Modian.

But I dunno. Maybe he was pissed off that Modian basically rejected his own childe.

And it makes me wonder -- Dove often speaks about how restless she is and how trapped she feels. Another Nictuku weakness, beside the hideousness and the inability to take sustenance from kine blood, is what might be claustrophobia:

The Hungry will not haven where they cannot see the moon when they rise and leave each night.  [...] They loathe the underground and will not haven there. Ever. This may be related to, or the cause of, the Nosferatu desire to dig.

Dove gets really edgy about not driving, about not getting to leave the city -- essentially about not getting to be in wide open space. We never see her underground, or see any mention of her ever being underground.

She also seems to have a very lowkey manifestation of the Nictuku hatred of the Nosferatu, in that she’s constantly at odds with them.

Firstly, she’s at odds with Modian. Sure, that’s because of his rejection of her -- but Modian is also at odds with her. He was present at her Embrace, there’s no reason for him to think she’s not his, but he does.

Secondly, the way she talks about the Nosferatu is nothing but critical.

"Back in the '80s, some of the younger Nosferatu discovered the internet, and found a new place to hide and hoard secrets. [..] They got online by the dozens, and then by the hundreds, establishing a shadow internet for the undead. I warned them not to do it."

The Nictuku despise the Nosferatu. Dove, who has their blood in her veins, although very diluted, doesn’t hate them. But she doesn’t respect them, either.

"But those Nosferatu, they'd look at themselves in the mirror and see the same ugly, unchanging face as when they were first Embraced. And they'd tell themselves, 'I still have the edge."

She’s like this even with her own childe. You can save her life when you last see her, but when you show up at Elysium she is all but obvious with her dislike of you. She sees another Nosferatu, even a Nictuku one, and seems to have this instinctive, lowkey revulsion of them that she attributes to other things. (She claims the Courier abandoned her, but made no effort to reach out to them despite knowing where they were, and the Courier being completely ignorant of where she was.)

And it’s just. fascinating. And so very sad. She’s this lost little chick who knows, deep down, that her bloodline isn’t the same as other Nosferatu, and it comes out in such subtle ways. And yet it comes out in one glaringly obvious respect -- her face.

[callmederok]

I finished Dragon Quest XI S

The differences to Dragon Quest XI aren’t that many, so I’ll focus on those:

Tockle’s world: It’s a 2d world...filled with adventures, honestly? I’m disappointed it’s boring as hell and felt like a chore...the only quest I actually liked it’s the Wedding Rehearsal because I didn’t fight monsters and because the party members express their feelings to MC/Luminary when asked to be the bride(even the males, yes and Rab too aka MC’s actual grandfather...yep extremely weird). I would probably like this more if it was in 3d where I can actually use the “run button“ or see something(for me the 2d used here it’s pretty grainy and my eyes were burning almost all the time)

The new introduction to ACT2: Aside from Serena, Veronica and Hendrick(he is not a party member yet), the characters get a dungeon to explore alone: Rab/Lord Robert gets visions of how life would be if the monsters never attacked Dundrasil(which it means we get to see kid MC playing around, or planning Rab’s birthday), with Erik we learn why when we meet him later he doesn’t remember a single thing and with Jade we learn how and why she got brainwashed in Octagonia. This was pretty cool.

They removed some stuff like the crossbow challenges which it’s fine and added some special costumes and other good features like auto-looting when you smash minerals or “hit“ trees so that you can get stuff from them, or the ability to summon the horse and Cetacea from everywhere.

They added a 2d version of the whole game...which feels wrong with this game, so I didn’t play it at all...because I saw Tockle’s world, and I was already done with 2d.

I’m sad that there isn’t a new game+ mechanics...because I would love to goof around in first level areas while having the strongest equipment or seeing the characters in early game cutscenes with end-game costumes(like MC wearing the Cobblestone Finest outfit for the whole game, or Erik with his Pirate King outfit)

and that’s it...i’ve the same complaints about the emotional scenes where MC is so emotionless to drive me insane, but i blame the developers

Remember guys: a Silent Character is different from an Emotionless Character

a silent character can express feelings even with gestures, like hugging someone or patting their head, or making some noises with their mouth. See Link from Legend of Zelda! Hell! I’ll even add the MC from Code Vein who is pretty much silent and emotionless until the end of the game, but he/she shows some bloody emotion the moment that Io(a character) is involved, even more in the “Dweller in the Dark” ending when MC calls her name and the tone of their voice expresses some emotion. Link in BotW has a reason for being silent! Stress and huge expectations and even bigger responsibilities stress the hell out of him to the point of not-speaking.

And don’t tell me “But it’s a tradition that MCs in Dragon Quests are silent! It’s good!“ because no it’s not...ACT3 of this game it’s the proof of it...if MC could speak like literally the entire introduction of ACT3 could be so much faster and easier to deal with(Spoiler alert: MC goes back in time, around the end of ACT1, he remembers everything happened in ACT2, and he can prevent Veronica’s death...but because he doesn’t speak, he can’t warn his friends/party-member, they still manage to save Veronica and King Carnelian, but they still are surprised by Jasper’s ambush)

So yeah like in Dragon Quest XI, most of the emotional scenes would be 80% better if MC either showed some emotion, spoke or he simply hugged another character or IF other characters had hugged MC (Amber and Gemma in ACT2 in Last Bastion cough cough) 

There is some affection when you marry a character(Gemma and Serena mostly)...but for like 6 minutes in a 300 hours long game.

[isolaradiale]

Lost in Space 27

Hello, Isolans! We have conducted an activity check for the month of December!

If your character isn’t on this list, make sure to check this page to see how many stars that character has earned this month! Stars can be used for purchases at the marketplace.

The blogs that were removed from the Isola Radiale masterlist are under the cut. Note that both blogs with broken links and deactivated accounts will be included both at the top of this list and in their proper categories.

If you were removed in error, please simply send a re-application message. Several different people work on the activity checks, so it’s possible there are mistakes! If this happens to you, you will be able to keep everything you previously had, you just may be placed in a different residence.

Our general activity rules regarding checks are as follows:

Make at least three in-character posts during a calendar month (for instance, if the activity check is for January, have three in-character posts between the 1st and 31st of January).

Only one drabble and/or meme response of 300+ words counts as activity.

One-liners or minis not tagged #isola mini also do not count.

Please Note: If you are removed during two consecutive activity checks, you will not be allowed to re-apply as that character for two calendar months. 

Additionally, anyone removed during the activity check will have a 12-hour window from the time of posting to re-claim their character. Any character not reclaimed during that period will be open to the community at large.

Please send in your reapplications from the account of the character that was removed.

Broken URLs:

... none!

THE ADVENTURE ZONE

Davenport (TOWNHOUSE 212)

 APEX LEGENDS

Crypto (HOUSE 101)

 ARKNIGHTS

Blaze (APARTMENT 317)

 BLAZBLUE

Tsubaki Yayoi (CONDO 429)

 BORDERLANDS

Gaige (HOUSE 122)

Handsome Jack (HOUSE 116)

 CODE VEIN

Jack Rutherford (HOUSE 105)

 DC COMICS

Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) (Epíneio Manor [The Mistwood])

Harley Quinn (Harley's House [Golden])

 DETECTIVE CONAN

Magic Kaito (CONDO 407)

 DEVIL MAY CRY

Vergil (APARTMENT 319)

 DIGIMON

Daisuke Motomiya (APARTMENT 318)

 DRAGON QUEST

Luminary (The Hero) (CONDO 408)

 ENSEMBLE STARS

Madara Mikejima (HOUSE 119)

 FALLOUT

The Courier (TOWNHOUSE 205)

 FATE

Archer (Ishtar) (APARTMENT 320)

Berserker (Arjuna Alter) (APARTMENT 339)

Berserker (Florence Nightingale) (APARTMENT 313)

Caster (Queen of Sheba) (HOUSE 131)

Lancer (Enkidu) (TOWNHOUSE 218)

Rider (Saint Martha) (Iskandar's Palace [Golden])

Rider of Red (Achilles) (CONDO 420)

 FINAL FANTASY

Crystal Exarch (HOUSE 114)

Warrior of Light (Dark Knight) (Lycelle Astarinn) (APARTMENT 338)

Warrior of Light (Machinist - Morgan Lefae) (TOWNHOUSE 230)

Warrior of Light (Scholar - Manako Mitsu) (TOWNHOUSE 202)

 FIRE EMBLEM

Leo (APARTMENT 342)

Lucina (Lucina's House [Archimedes])

Yuri (TOWNHOUSE 207)

 GENSHIN IMPACT

Venti (CONDO 412)

Xinyan (CONDO 423)

 GOLDEN SUN

Mia (APARTMENT 361)

 GRANBLUE FANTASY

Lucifer (Sandalphon's Home [Cotes])

 THE GUY WHO DIDN'T LIKE MUSICALS

Professor Hidgens (HOUSE 117)

 HOLLOW KNIGHT

Hornet (Rung's House [Golden])

The Pale King (APARTMENT 316)

 KIPO AND THE AGE OF WONDERBEASTS

Hugo Oak (Scarlemagne) (CONDO 406)

 LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

Ahri (CONDO 404)

Jinx (TOWNHOUSE 209)

Luxanna Crownguard (HOUSE 107)

 LEGEND OF ZELDA

Link (Breath Of The Wild) (HOUSE 108)

Octavo (CONDO 425)

 LIFE IS STRANGE

Rachel Amber (TOWNHOUSE 223)

 LORE OLYMPUS

Persephone (HOUSE 116)

 THE MURDERBOT DIARIES

Murderbot (SecUnit) (CONDO 409)

 MY HERO ACADEMIA (BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA)

Shouto Todoroki (APARTMENT 312)

 ORIGINAL CHARACTER

Edgar Winter Matthews (HOUSE 173)

Locke (War) (CONDO 409)

Mizi Unipao (CONDO 417)

Phaedra (APARTMENT 310)

Tsukiyomi Abe (TOWNHOUSE 220)

 THE OWL HOUSE

Eda the Owl Lady (APARTMENT 304)

 PROFESSOR LAYTON

Emmy Altava (TOWNHOUSE 207)

 PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA

Oriko Mikuni (TOWNHOUSE 227)

 RWBY

Blake Belladonna (TOWNHOUSE 218)

Yang Xiao Long (TOWNHOUSE 207)

 SAIYUKI

Sanzo Genjo (Kachina's House [Golden])

 SHAMAN KING

Yoh Asakura (HOUSE 101)

 SHOVEL KNIGHT

Specter Knight (TOWNHOUSE 220)

 STEVEN UNIVERSE

Jasper (HOUSE 124)

 SUPERNATURAL

Dean Winchester (CONDO 406)

 SURGE CONCERTO

Earthes (TOWNHOUSE 216)

 TERRARIA

The Guide & Wall of Flesh (APARTMENT 305)

 THRONE OF GLASS

Aelin Galathynius (TOWNHOUSE 215)

 TOILET-BOUND HANAKO-KUN

Nene Yashiro (HOUSE 104)

 TSUBASA RESERVOIR CHRONICLE

Fai D. Flowright (APARTMENT 308)

Princess Tsubasa (APARTMENT 344)

 TWISTED WONDERLAND

Epel Felmier (TOWNHOUSE 211)

Malleus Draconia (HOUSE 104)

 THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU

Joshua Kiryu (CONDO 408)

Neku Sakuraba (APARTMENT 313)

 YUPPIE PSYCHO

Inay Doshi (HOUSE 112)

[shipping-receiving]

Trivia Tuesday: Some Notes on Full Spectrum

I’m not sure if I’ll return to this story anytime soon, so I thought I’d share a little about what I wish I had done differently, and what I might do if I ever continue it.

First of all, I have to confess that I basically winged it when it came to the plot. The novel on which I based the story has an incredibly elaborate universe, so I needed to figure out how to condense that. Plus, the novel was meant to be the first in a trilogy, but the latter two books have never been published, so I had to make up or gloss over a few things as I went along. Regardless, I knew I wanted seven chapters (seven colours, Seven Kingdoms etc.), so I started off with the chapter titles using idioms/sayings that fit those seven colours. 

The first chapter I wrote was Chapter 4: The Grass is Always Greener (i.e. Jaime and Brienne banging in the meadows of Tarth while tripping on colour), then Chapters 1–3 after that, all while praying that the solution for Chapters 5–7 would just magically come to me. At the end of July my outline for Chapter 7 was still: LOL IDK THEY'VE FALLEN IN LOVE IN A DYSTOPIA NOW WHAT?! So there are a ton of things that I would have changed or included if I had… you know, actually planned everything properly beforehand.

Anyway, some hopes, regrets, questions, and headcanons after the cut:

What I would write assuming the current version stays as it is:

Ideally – though I seriously doubt my abilities to pull this off given the amount of anxiety I experienced regarding all the plot conundrums in this story – I would love to write a trilogy of seven-chapter stories. Seeing as the first focuses on uncovering the conspiracies, the second would involve more political manoeuvring culminating in some sort of revolution, and the third might be… post-apocalyptic? Maybe? Or at least taking place in a kind of unstable version of the new social order.

The second act would also involve a Stoneheart plot, once they make contact with the resistance. This would explore how the Starks’ Purple perception was taken away, and what they know about the Wildfire Protocol.

Along those lines, I’d probably need to figure out J and B’s relationship arcs for the second and third acts. I suppose the most straightforward would be to have her pregnant for the second part, and there’s a time jump in the third part so they already have at least one kid.

I am toying with the idea of writing that epistolary interlude I mentioned at the end of the story. The fic would be entirely composed of sexy letters between Jaime and Brienne while she’s on Tarth (perhaps she’s stuck there for a month or two), but Jaime reveals some of what’s happening with the Council and she discusses what she’s found out from the Stark girls. I was even thinking of hiding the sensitive information in the sexy stuff – code, invisible ink, something like that – so each letter between them might actually have a second letter embedded in it.

I really love the idea of the Wildfire swatch being ‘planted’ all over King’s Landing, not to “burn them all”, but rather as a mass exposure of everyone to the Wildfire Protocol and the ability to see in natural colour. I don’t know how this could be done safely, given the addictive qualities of colour and the general chaos this would cause, but I like the subversion of canon!Wildfire. It might be the grand gesture to trigger a revolution.

*sigh* I might have to write about Shae betraying them. It’s why I tried to be careful to mention that there is hardly any way for her to know that the Stark girls are the Stark girls (it’s not like she can see Sansa’s red hair anyway), even though they stayed at her house for a couple of nights. It’s just so I could keep them protected if I have to.

Now, here’s some parallels with canon that I would make space for if I overhauled the story and turned it into a longfic:

I’d find a way to do Enemies to Lovers instead of Strangers to Lovers. My fics tend to work with the latter, so I’d want to challenge myself in that way. It’ll give me more time to develop the characters and the world as well. In that vein:

I would want to figure out a way for Jaime to be known as the Kingslayer or some equivalent, which would establish animosity between him and Brienne from the get-go. Also:

I would actually write in some form of twincest, though this would likely have ended by the time Cersei marries Robert. The idea of Jaime and Cersei having the exact same Purple perception and seeing the world in the same way (and differently from everyone else) is really ripe for exploring their dynamic and how it became toxic. It’s possible that this dynamic never became (fully) sexual, given the fact that the Colour Perception Test can also function as a kind of rough paternity test, but I think it would make for some great dialogue between Jaime and Brienne as he confronts that past. (I really wanted to write this back when I was planning for this story to switch between Brienne’s POV and Jaime’s, but it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to resolve this comfortably in seven chapters, since I prefer to give the characters time to process.)

By extension, I’m thinking about what it means to “see the world with the same eyes” – and how in canon, Cersei and Brienne are meant to be mirrors of Jaime in vastly different ways. There’s a lot to mine there in terms of Colour Perception (the vision one is born with) vs. World View (the values one cultivates). There’s also some space here for thinking about beauty as being seen vs. the act of looking.

JAIME’S GODDAMN HAND. I never explained how he lost his fingers because… I don’t know. I assume in some kind of accident during one of his scrap colour expeditions. But since its loss is so symbolic in canon, I would want to find a proper parallel for this. Perhaps he loses an eye instead?

And here’s elements from the original novel (Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde) that I would expand upon:

I’d need to better explain the Chromatic Hierarchy and how it works within the context of a feudal system. Or at least have it make more sense in my head. In the original novel, I think it was intentionally meant to be rotational in some way so certain families couldn’t centralise power for more than a few generations, but perhaps I’ll need to tweak it further to make it fit Westeros.

The original novel had a ‘central government’ called National Colour, which I replaced with the Ultraviolet Council without really having a clue how that might work. Are they a fully functioning government with a civil service? How does that work with a pseudo-feudal system – local/state and central/federal governments?

I might also want to expand on the merit system, which has much higher stakes in the original novel – if you lose enough merits, you’re sent to Reboot (thus far unexplained in the source material). It’s a means of regulating behaviour that I chose to push to the background, but I think there’s potential here for Brienne to lose faith in a ‘moral code’. Reboot could also be the official story for why the Starks were pushed out, rather than relying on the ‘diluted Purple’ narrative.

On that note, I should probably delve a bit more into how scrap colour works, and the whole economy surrounding it. In the original novel, it’s implied that scrap is basically artificially-coloured relics/trash from the past world (our world).

[j-inky]

Updated Jasper's ref

[feuilly-cakes]

Twilight - review

I'm now revealing myself to be twilight trash, but let's talk about it! In this review you'll find the good, the bad, and the ugly (in list form even!) I know this story like the back of my hand, and this is a reread, so although I've only read this particular book once before, I can't be unbiased here. I am a more critical reader now than I was at 14 though, so hopefully this review counts for something. There will be a warning before the section with the spoilers if you haven't yet given in to the curiosity.

I loved it. I gave it 4*. I also found certain parts offensive. Some parts were very funny, and others just as dramatic as you'd expect from a book published for teens in 2005. The love story was, dare I say it, good. It's an enemies to friends to lovers, with a very quick progression on those last two. Both Bella and Edward acted just like regular teens around each other, and if there wasn't a vampire aspect involved it wouldn't have been criticised too heavily on the relationship front. I pretty much sped through the book, even with life getting in the way and pausing every 5 minutes to stick annotation tabs in. We are given a good amount of information about vampires, the history of the characters, and also the kinds of people these characters are. Aside from the offensive/insensitive parts, the entirety of which I will be listing below as I picked up on them, there are only a few moments of genuine real life creepiness not related to the Port Angeles scene right up until the epilogue, which made me very uncomfortable for reasons I shall be explaining. As a random note, I noticed 9 obvious instances of foreshadowing. She must have known where she was going with this series, or else that was a strange coincidence. The rest of this review will contain spoilers Let's begin with how this differs from the movie, since pretty much everyone has seen the movie. First and foremost, there are the characters - Bella and Edward specifically. Bella in this book is a typical teenager with a strong personality. As a child she had tantrums over going to Forks, saying she 'hadn't made a secret of [her] distaste for Forks.' She has a fierce temper, but she is also kind, frowning upon Jessica Stanley's judgement of Esme for adopting kids because she can't have any biologically. She's not vain but she cares about her looks, fussing over her skin being paler once she got to Forks - 'My skin could be pretty' 'I had no color here.' Sarcasm is her thing, and she despairs that none of her new classmates seem to get her sense of humour. She's friendly though an introvert, smiling and waving at everyone who greets her after a week of school while not knowing all of their names. She loves girls nights, and finds being around other girls 'invigorating'. She's independent and won't let Edward question that: "No, she did not send me here. I sent myself." However, she notices she has a very strong crush on Edward that is almost obsessive and finds it 'pitiful' and 'pathetic'. At least she's self aware. 

Bella is very funny at times, especially when referencing her clumsiness (I won't spoil this because humour should never be spoiled). Bella is very smart and resourceful, but not in the obvious way. Schoolwork is a breeze for her because she's done most of it at her old school, but she's smart in other ways. It's Bella who figures out about Edward's mind reading abilities and questions him about it, and who flirts with Jacob Black to get information about the Cullens and why they aren't allowed on the reservation. It's Bella who tells Edward that men and women should be equal or as close to equal as they can, each saving each other the same amount of times. It's also Bella who feels that Mike Newton understands her, because they both were new in Forks at one point, and both lived in sunny places and probably both experienced the chain link fences and metal detectors that Bella was shocked were not at Forks High School. (Personally that threw me for a loop too, that schools could have metal detectors.) Edward is closer to the movie characterisation, but acts more like a typical teenage boy. He's moody but charming, awkward at times but also mischievous. At one point he cuts Bella off in the school car park and then deliberately stops his car to wait for his siblings, causing a queue behind them and giving Tyler Crowley the opportunity to ask her to the dance. He does all this to anger Bella, and it was absolutely hilarious. He flip flops between cheerful and broody, and finds Bella utterly fascinating. He is constantly relearning boundaries and ways to make Bella and himself feel more comfortable. An interesting aspect of his character that was definitely unintentional and handled poorly was the way he was coded as demi-sexual. He states that he has never wanted anyone before Bella, and his adoptive mother Esme thought there was something missing in him. As this is offensive I'll be bringing it up again later. Back to some positives, he likes to sing under his breath in a very fast speed that looks like his lips are trembling, and finds the heat of Bella's hands very pleasant. I thought this was cute, and I had to tab it for future reference. A not so cute thing is how he can 'dazzle' Bella by being close to her face and breathing on her. She describes this as her mind going blank, after which we see her agree to whatever he says while she is in this state. It's a bit creepy but he doesn't take advantage of it at first after being made aware of it, he only does so towards the end, which we shall get into later. He also hears the minds of others as a background hum that he can then focus in on, which I found interesting. Now, onto actual plot things that differed, we have Bella never buying that book on Quileute legends, instead simply flirting with a 15 year old Jacob to get his information and then combining that with a google search, and coming to her conclusions that way. Next, we have the Volturi being mentioned but not by name, firstly on vampires a-z in the section: 'Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires.' and then in a scene that wasn't a part of the film at all, wherein Edward and Bella are in Carlisle's office, talking about his history, and they are brought up simply as Carlisle's artistic friends from Italy. They are named but the word Volturi is nowhere in this book. In a similar vein, several backstories are revealed in this book that we didn't really get to see until later in the series. Bella gets some meaningful interactions with Jasper, who actually sits next to her and touches her to calm her down in the hotel. It's also implied somewhere in those chapters that Alice possibly knew about Bella planning to sneak off and let her go anyway. Finally, Bella is awake after the venom gets sucked out. This is important because she tells them that the venom is gone and thanks Edward before passing out. She was awake and aware the whole time, though in incredible pain. Another difference happens but I'll be discussing that with the other creepy things. Next, I would like to discuss a few things we learn about Vampires. Did you know that despite their physical perfection, a hungry vampire looks like they are recovering from a nose job? The bruises are very prominent, and likely not pretty to look at. Did you also know that they a venomous in the true sense of the word? Alice tells Bella that the venom is to incapacitate victims with the pain, and becoming a vampire is just a side effect, not the true function of the venom. The pain is there for a reason, and that reason is to torture victims with the burning sensation so they can't get away. These vampires may sparkle, but they aren't cute. I will never get the image of snake fangs out of my mind in conjunction to twilight vampires. Am I the only one who didn't realise the inherent creepiness of that because there's no mention of it in the films? Alright, now onto the offensive/ creepy stuff. I'll be bullet pointing these with elaboration where needed. -Bella refers to herself as an albino simply because she is pale. This one just didn't sit right with me, for reasons I can't explain. Stick with me here, it gets worse. -A casual comment about suicide: 'I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.' This one is tricky, because everyone has made jokes like that, but it made me personally uncomfortable and didn't need to be in there considering the tone of the rest of the book. -Upon Edward talking to her again after the car park incident, Bella says this: "Do you have multiple personality disorder?" This needs no elaboration. Buckle up, it gets worse. -Jacob. He tells Bella his people's legends after she flirts with him, all the while telling her he didn't believe them himself. Then he asks her: "So do you believe we're a bunch of superstitious natives or what?" As someone who is not native american, I can't give a personal perspective here, but I don't believe this is something she should have had a native character say. Stephenie Meyer is a white woman and had no place essentially calling the people she culturally appropriated a bunch of superstitious natives. It was jarring to read that line knowing that it's not her culture and she has no right to say that, only someone from the culture has the right to say that. As I said, I'm not native american and I haven't looked deeply into what exactly she stole and changed, but I know she did it, so that can of course be a pretty major offence to many people. -She compares her clumsiness to being 'almost disabled'. Gross. -The watching her while she sleeps thing. Let's talk about it. She guesses he's been spying on her when he knows where the key is after the meadow date, and he says he's been watching her sleep. It's undoubtedly creepy, but Bella isn't concerned about that. Oh no, she's concerned about what he heard while she was sleep talking. She actually seems unbothered by the stalking aspect, which is why I think these actions flew under the radar for so many people. If Bella thinks it's fine then it must be fine, right? This should have been handled differently. -The Aphobia. Edward tells Bella that Esme was 'afraid that there was something missing from [his] essential makeup'. This is really harmful, but it wasn't intentional. I have no doubt that Stephenie Meyer had no clue and perhaps still has no clue that asexuality is a thing and that she accidentally made Edward demisexual, by simple fact of him being interested in no one before Bella. Nonetheless, it needs to be warned for. -There are heavy implications of p*dophilia here, by choice of language. Regarding Bella's class, full of people her age. Edward calls them a 'class full of children' then on the next page calls Bella 'an insignificant little girl' and then a few chapters down he calls jacob a 'child' to which Bella responds that he is not much younger than she is and Edward cheerfully replies that he knows. It's beyond creepy and I wish it wasn't there, because if it had gone the opposite way of Edward making old man jokes it could have been funny and not horrifying to think about. -Lastly though not leastly, the epilogue. All throughout the book Bella has under no circumstances wanted to go to prom. She is tricked into going to prom. Alice sees the future, Edward reads minds, they knew she wouldn't want to go but bamboozled her into going anyway, and when she starts shouting and crying, Edwards tells her "Don't be difficult". This is creepy and horrifying, that they are taking away her agency and treating her like a child when she tries to refuse. Although she goes and has a goodish time, it still wasn't right to force her into that position. Thus concludes this review, and I leave you with the knowledge that if you read this you get to see the part where Charlie Swan tells Bella that Carlisle Cullen is very attractive. Good day.

[the-indigogirl]

Chakra Series 1- Root Chakra

Chakras were such an important thing for me to learn about. Learning to feel these energy centers and tell if how balanced they are has been huge not just for my own spiritual practice and healing, but for my clients as well. During a reiki session I’ll get a feel for imbalances and use that healing time to bring them back to alignment.

You don’t need a reiki practitioner or energy healer like myself to tell you when your chakras aren’t in balance. Each of the 7 main charkas is connected to a physical, emotional and spiritual part of yourself. Knowing a little bit about your chakras and some self examination will tell you, and there’s plenty you can do to help bring back that balance. Soo I wanted to create a series for you to have all the chakra resources you need! Today we start with the Root.

Generally speaking, your root chakra is out of alignment when have moments of being needy, ungrounded or vulnerable. It’s well balanced when we give and receive nourishment, care and unconditional love.

Location: Base of the spine

Color: Red

Sound Note: C

Aromatherapy/Essential Oils: Sandalwood, Cedar, Rosewood, Ginger, Cloves, Black Pepper, Rosemary

Crystals: Hematite, Black Onyx, Red Jasper, Tigers Eye, Fire Agate

Physical Symptoms: Any issues with skeletal system, muscular system, rectum, intestines, legs and/or feet

Disease Symptoms: Sciatica, constipation, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, osteoarthritis, immune issues

Human Concerns: Survival, Physical Needs, Financial Insecurities, loss of physical order, life path

Mental Beliefs: Identity confusion, safety and survival, inherited beliefs that aren’t true to your spirit’s beliefs.

Mudra and Mantra: Pictured below- the hand position for Root Chakra meditations is to place your hands, palms up on top of your knees. Then touch your index finger to your thumb. The mantra for this chakra is LAM.

Areas of focus to heal restore balance:

All of these questions are things to ask yourself when doing Root Chakra work. It can be in the form of meditations, journal prompts, sigil work, spells.. whatever feels best for you!

What family traditions do I wish to honor? Which do I choose to let go of?

What is my personal code of honor?

Do I belong to a group of any kind?

Am I willing to seek out like-minded people?

What/who is my support system?

What belief systems have I adopted that do not serve my highest good?

Affirmations:

My needs are always met.

I recognize love around me in all it’s forms.

I am never “without”.

I belong.

My beliefs are valid, valuable and my own.

Comment with any questions! Next up- Sacral Chakra!

[sugarskullserenade]

In the face of certain death, we rise.

[bellamysgriffin]

first person to touch the ground loses

this is a gen fic that’s basically a study on octavia’s character. if you know me, you know i’m the biggest bellamy blake stan who ever lived, so this fic does hold octavia accountable for the stuff she does, but it’s not mindless bashing either. just a rumination of sorts. 

summary: In another life, she could’ve been happy. But that’s not the life she gets. So, in this life, Octavia destroys.

ao3 | ffn

From the very beginning, she knows she is unwanted. Her mother never says so, of course, and Bellamy wouldn't even let her think it, but who would purposefully have a second child in a world where you'd be killed just for giving birth?

She has a lot of time to think while she's under the floor, and Octavia is nine years old when she starts to believe that she's just an aberration. A mistake. A glitch in the universe's coding. Of course, those aren't the words that pop into her head exactly, not yet anyway. All she has is the darkness, her raggedy stuffed animal and the sense that she is wrong, wrong, wrong.

She is twelve and she still wants to play lilypads all the time. Even though Bellamy gives a little exasperated sigh each time she asks, he always plays. He always lets her win. The games keep getting shorter and shorter as he "accidentally" touches the ground sooner and sooner. Even then, Octavia likes the feeling of victory.

She is fifteen and she wants to go to a dance and her brother wants nothing more than to make her happy. It's a recipe for disaster. In another life, she gets to dance with a nice boy without wearing a mask. That isn't the life she gets now, though, and in the end, it doesn't matter. That's the last night of her childhood. Even after she's discovered, they throw her in solitary. She sees nothing except her own face staring back at her and wonders what it's like to hear the voice of someone she doesn't know.

And then, one day she is sitting in a dropship and she is plummeting towards the ground, and her heart is beating so fast, faster than it ever has, and maybe this is it. Lights out. End of story. But she's headed towards something massive, and there's a part of her, larger than she'd like to admit, that's giddy with excitement.

Her brother's arms around her feel familiar and sturdy and comforting. In another life, she never has to lose that. But in that life, she never gets to fully understand how nice it feels to have it back. And then, all of sudden a lever is pulled and there's light, trees, the smell of air and the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. Her brother is grinning, prodding her forward. Octavia takes the first step.

The first one to touch the ground loses.

It's her first time being around actual people, and there's so much to learn. Right out of the gate, she flirts with the boy with the long hair. Hey, Spacewalker. Rescue me next. She loves her big brother, but she ignores his warnings. She stands in the river half-dressed and smiles at the feeling of water sloshing around her ankles. She's mauled by some sort of fish pretty quickly, but it's okay.

She makes a new friend. His name is Jasper. He's nice and he's funny and he's different than anything she's ever known - because all she's ever known is solitude. Her first day on the ground is warm and forgiving. And then her new friend gets a spear in her chest.

She doesn't mean to, but she learns.

It doesn't take long before they all go to war. And she is already surrounded by so much destruction. Atom, the boy who showed her the glowing butterflies, who gave her her first kiss, is torn up from the inside by gas sent to kill them all. Her new friend spends days screaming, and her brother wants to kill him for it. There is no floating down here, there aren't even any rules, and yet people keep dying and dying and dying and there's nothing she can do about it.

And then she falls and hits her head and wakes up in a strange man's cave. She watches her brother torture him, feeling blackness clawing at her insides. But in the end, the strange man lives and he has a name. Lincoln. When Octavia kisses him for the first time, she knows that there is finally something in this world that is truly and completely hers. No one can take that away.

They make plans to run, to find a new shore on a different patch of earth and live out the rest of their days there. In another life, they make it. It is a softer life, a gentle place for Octavia to land, but there still comes a time when it is not enough for her. And in another life, the poison from the arrow ends up killing her. Both of those might have been happier endings than what she ended up getting.

Instead, she meets a woman named Indra and that woman is the beginning of her destiny. She had Lincoln, true, but now she has something to fight for. It feels good to be a warrior. It feels like being part of something. Everyone is so obsessed with their people. But she was denied the right to be one of Skaikru the moment she was born. So she'll become something else.

Indra and Lincoln are her people. Bellamy is her people. And no one - no one can take that away.

Until they do. Until Bellamy lets someone shoot Indra and she watches Pike put a bullet in Lincoln's head and the blackness that she's been pushing away all this time finally consumes her. Nothing is sacred. Everything is falling apart. It doesn't matter that Bellamy is sorry. It doesn't matter that he tries to stop it. When she punches him, his jaw feels solid against her fist. It doesn't matter that the blood spilling out of his nose and mouth is the same blood running through her veins. Because it's then that she realizes he will always be around for her to hate. And there is nothing she could do to him to make him hate her back.

She is stumbling in the dark. I'm not Trikru. I'm not Skaikru. I'm nothing.

You're one of the 100.

In another life, she hears him. In another life, she comes crying into his arms, she lets herself fall apart, understands how people make mistakes, but realizes there will always be something terrible and beautiful that bonds her to these people forever. But in this life, it is Octavia against the world, and either she doesn't see the hand reaching out for her or she doesn't want to take it.

In the end, she doesn't really hear him. Not even when he kills his mother for her. Six years later, in his heart of hearts, Monty will wish that he had just let Octavia die instead. There are some things that can never be fixed.

She learns what it means to kill. She likes the way it feels. Octavia has already died a thousand deaths, so she will take a thousand lives.

There's a part of her that wants to see how far she can push Bellamy. There's a part of her that wonders how long he'll take it from her before he pushes back. When she realizes he never will, she just goes in harder. He's her brother, and in her mind, all he's done is let her down.

One night, when her brother is trying to figure how to fix what he broke, he says, "I made a promise. My sister, my responsibility."

Octavia is a warrior now. She has blood on her hands and war paint on her face and it is armor. "That's not true anymore," she says. "I release you from it."

His eyes are pleading. "I don't want to be released."

But she just turns away.

Her pain is so deep and her heart is almost completely hardened. Ilian isn't Lincoln, but he's a warm body to press up against and Octavia doesn't want to be alone. The rain is pouring down and it's acid and she is about to fling herself into it when his arms wrap around her torso and yank her back into the cave. Not even death belongs to her.

And then, redemption. Reconciliation. She becomes the savior of Skaikru and the savior of all. She forgives Bellamy - because he needs her forgiveness. And she tries, she really tries to create something Lincoln would be proud of. Wonkru. A place where it's not a matter of my people or your people. She tells her big brother she loves him and he doesn't hear her, but that doesn't matter because she's going back under the ground. Back under the floor. But this time, she's in charge, and she's not hiding anymore.

What happens down there isn't Octavia's fault. Nothing she's done is her fault. She was kept under the floor her whole life, she was cast out just for existing and she was never granted a moment of peace. Her mother died because of her. She watched the man she loved fall to the ground with blood trickling out of his head. She didn't deserve that.

Of course she didn't deserve it. That's not really the question. The truth is, most of us don't deserve what we get. Did Bellamy deserve the weight of the world on his shoulders from the age of seven? Did Clarke deserve to bury her best friend, to press a knife into the body of the boy she loved, to think she killed her father for years? There are questions you should be asking yourself. But Octavia doesn't want to ask questions. She wants to be heard.

Bellamy comes down a different person. He still wants her to love him, he still wants to make her happy, but he won't let her destroy him. That's okay. Octavia has plenty left to destroy.

In her mind, she's not destroying her people. She's saving her people. She told Jaha that she was a warrior, not a leader, but when everyone bowed down to her bloody form - well, Octavia would be lying if she said there wasn't a part of her that loved it.

She really thinks she is still in control until Bellamy's hand is covering her mouth, until the blackness inside her is crowding the edge of her vision and there's a tear rolling down the side of her face and she understands that there are people he loves more than her. It's too late to go back to a world where that was unthinkable.

She wakes up and she doesn't care that he's her brother. She wants his head on a fucking platter.

Until she doesn't. Until she sees him gagged next to Indra and Gaia and she remembers that first day in the dropship, his arms around her. He's her brother, he's her blood, and she has forgotten what that really means. Bellamy never has. She won't do what it takes to save him, but she'll tell him how to save himself. She's stopped questioning herself long ago so she's convinced that that's enough.

Is she relieved when they're all saved? A little. But is she disappointed too? And how many lies does she tell herself as she burns down Monty's algae farm with the claim that it's all for her people?

After all they went through, they deserve the valley. It belongs to her. It can't have been for nothing. But deserve is a funny word. If you become obsessed with it, then you'll never be satisfied.

She wakes up again in a field surrounded by the bodies of her people. Her brother is whispering that she killed them. His touch is no longer gentle. She told him he would become her enemy, but now she has become his. There is the smell of blood in the air, and there's that part of her - that part of her that might never go away - that doesn't even notice. Because she's used to it.

She's gone a long time without really thinking of Lincoln. If she wonders whether he'd be proud of her now, the answer becomes clear. She doesn't like that answer. Octavia destroys things she doesn't like. It's not until her brother says he wants her dead that she really understands she has nothing left. Her people are dead. Her brother hates her. Lincoln's been buried long ago. Indra is no longer behind her.

But she can still have this. She can still die for the right thing. Dying right. Is that the best she can ask for? She thinks it probably is. In another life, she dies there in a hail of gunfire, and it might not be the happiest ending she could've hoped for, but it's one of the better ones. Even then, in that life, there's an indescribable pain in Bellamy's heart as he watches her fall.

In this life, she's saved and Bellamy is spared that pain, but he receives another more familiar one.

Octavia Blake is a tragedy of her own making. Bellamy's still trying to save her. She's given up on saving herself. And if she can't save herself, then she's willing to take everyone down with her. But it's easy to forget that there was a time when she was just a girl who wanted nothing more than to feel the wind on her face. To have something that was just hers. What happened to that girl? Why did she let her go?

He doesn't tell her he loves her, and it manages to surprise her. It stings. But it's deserved. There's that word again. As she's sliding into the ice ("Kinda like going under the floor."), she wonders if she might wake up a different person and be able to start completely new, in a world where she's made no mistakes yet and her brother still loves her, and she's done nothing at all to destroy him. That would be nice.

(Can't you see her, though? Drinking coffee with a friend, running to class. Sneaking out of her window to meet up with another boy. Teasing her brother, getting drunk at a bar and letting him take her home, meeting a world that gives her kindness and gentleness where this world has only given her cruelty. A world where she doesn't have to sit in the dark and wonder if she is just a mistake. Can't you see her there?)

Who knows what she could have been in another world? But the tragedy of this life is that we don't get another world. It doesn't matter who we could have been. It only matters who we are. And we are responsible for whatever we become.

First one who touches the ground loses.

[haphazardlyparked]

write-o-ween, 8-14

i have a lot of catching up to do, and the strangeness (here) and (here) continues.

eight: Billet-doux

a love letter

Kate sighs, and tosses the letter away, exasperated. There was nothing to be done: it had started as running out to grab a coffee together because it was convenient, and then it became a habit, and then the doctor was in love with her. Lola’s been hinting for weeks that this kind of attachment is unethical — and Lola knows these things — so now Kate will have to find a new, more ethical therapist.

Sometimes she thinks the only people in the world who won’t fall in love with her are Ian and Lola. They love her — but Ian’s too obsessed with knowing everything to ever be in love, and Lola likes her detached observation too much to get romantic.  Kate’s grateful for them,  even if Lola has been falling apart lately.

She thinks Kate doesn’t notice, but Kate does. Lola can always be counted on to hammer in the last excessive nail into the coffin of a subpar joke; to repeat Kate’s insults to Ian quietly, as if trying them out; or to mimic Ian’s admonishments, which took Kate a long time to realize was approval, not mockery.

Lately, Lola hasn’t been saying much of anything. She’s too wound up in the whole Jasper problem. Kate wonders if this will be the thing that breaks her. She’s even been editing its code — Kate didn’t realize Lola still did that. She and Ian assumed Lola’s engineering days were long over, since she’s way too old for that kind of work.

Well, Kate sighs, and tips a candle towards the edge of the love letter. It catches flame and blazes harmlessly in a tin ashtray on her desk.

She and Ian will just have watch out for Lola. It’s nothing new; they’ve all always watched out for each other, in the empty boarding house that is their home.

nine: pluviophile

any organism that thrives in conditions of heavy rainfall; one who loves rain, a rain-lover

“Boo,” Kate says, flat and inflectionless.

Ian turns from the window and smiles at her. “It’s raining,” he says, and tilts his head towards the window.

Kate joins him there. Through the rhythmic patter of the rain and the drops streaked across the glass, Kate sees Lola standing out there, in a pale blue night shirt and pants that are soaked and plastered to her skin.  Her hair is down, tangled, and hangs wet and heavy over her shoulders. She’s staring at the sky, eyes open and barely blinking.

“I can’t get over how much she loves the rain,” Ian says. “It makes no sense.”

“I swear to god, Ian,” Kate drawls. “If you say anything about wanting to understand her passion for the rain, I’m going to punch you.”

Surprisingly, Ian doesn’t snipe back; he just grins, almost teasing, and stands there.

They watch Lola together for a few more minutes. Neither of them say anything about Jasper, but Kate knows they’re both hoping this is the mental reset Lola needs. Neither of them wants to lose Lola.

ten: redamancy

act of loving in return

In the circle of Kate’s arms, Lola turns her head into Kate’s shoulder and tenses when the door opens.

“Hey,” the shadow that is Ian whispers. Kate feels Lola relax a little.

“Hey,” Kate says as Ian pads quietly towards the bed. Even in the dim light, she can see the worried look on his face. She rubs slow circles against Lola’s back.

The mattress dips and shifts when Ian sits down, then stretches out on Lola’s other side. Lola cranes her neck and offers Ian a trembling smile over her shoulder. “Hey,” she says, and Ian smiles, soft and reassuring.

Not long after that, Lola’s breathing evens out as she finally finds sleep.

eleven: lachesism

the desire to be struck by disaster; to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire

“Lola. Lola. Earth to Lola.”

Lola jumps and whirls around. She looses her balance and falls off the stool, knocking it over, and the sleek black tablet on her lap slides to the floor.

“Kate,” Lola says, blinking in surprise. “What?”

“What?” Kate asks, and waves at Lola.

Lola’s brow furrows as she seems to take stock of where she is: one of the unused bedrooms on the second floor, with Ian’s tablet and Jasper laid out on the floor, face down.

“Oh,” she says blankly. “I just found it like this. I was trying to see what happened.”

Kate kicks aside the overturned stool, ignoring its curving arc of its roll, and sits down on the floor next to Lola.

“Lola,” Kate says as gently as she can. You’re blunt, Lola likes to tell her. It’s not bad or good, it’s just who you are. But Kate envies Lola’s quiet sympathy, her easy way of broaching difficult topics; Kate wants to say why are you looking for trouble? Is this what you want? but she thinks about what Lola would say and asks instead, “Why are you doing this?”  

Lola stares at the tablet on the floor.

“I’m not.” Her whisper is so soft Kate has to lean in a little to hear. “I’m not doing this, I’m not courting disaster.”

twelve: rubatosis

the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

Lola looks up at Kate. She feels the rhythmic pounding in her ears, feels a desperation pounding through her veins.

“I don’t know how I got here,” she tells Kate, trying to will her to understand.

Jasper lies on the floor. Blank faced, no heartbeat, a dead, staring thing. Lola doesn’t remember turning it down on its face, but it seems like something this new version of her would have done.

But it’s not me, Lola thinks, and presses her eyes shut. She can almost see the beat of her heart against the back of her eyelids. This overwhelming fear, the nightmares and the secret coding she can’t remember—this isn’t Lola.

thirteen: nodus Tollens

the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore

“I’m not myself,” Lola admits.

She doesn’t open her eyes, but she feels Kate reach out and take her hand. She hears Kate pick up the tablet and set it aside.

“We’ll figure it out, Lola,” Kate says.

Lola wants to believe her; if she were herself, she would believe her. How long has it been, just her and Kate and Ian, in the boarding house together, the three of them against the world outside the house’s gates?

Lola can’t remember.

fourteen: opia

the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable

“Come on, Lola,” Kate coaxes. “Look at me. Don’t you believe me?”

Lola opens her eyes and stares at Kate, bright and striking as always. It always takes Kate’s breath away, even now; she can’t look into Lola’s eyes and remember Lola isn’t human, not flesh and blood like Kate and Ian.

“I want to,” Lola says, and her sharp human eyes say I want to, I love you, but I’m so afraid.

so yay, some changing povs and i still don’t have an idea of what’s happening 

[dvhdesigns]

Oregon Spiderman Jasper focal beads and cabs I just made! A black jasper with amazing brick red veining. I left these witha soft, satin, matte finish. All are part of my DVHdesigns 1/4th OFF for the 4th of July SALE! 25% OFF! Use Coupon Code: JULY4TH at checkout to get the discount. Sale runs through Sunday the 7th.