#day 2: apologies

[sergeantsporks]

Dadrius Week Chapter 2: Apologies

Hunter’s head snapped up at a rustling sound breaking through the busy hustle of the mall, and he eyed the potted plant next to him. A tiny abomination wriggled out of the foliage and offered him a note.

He’s telling me I can just stay with Camila, if that’s really how I feel.

Hunter turned the note over and over in his hands as the abomination waited patiently. Finally, he unfolded the paper.

I have something to say.

Hunter nodded at the abomination, and it scooted back through the leaves of the plant. Hunter heard a rustling sound, and he saw Darius’ face on the other side of the potted plants, mostly covered by leaves.

Is he sitting on the floor?

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“You’re right,” Darius repeated, “I’ve been ignoring you all day, not listening to your concerns. And I ignored you for years. I looked away so that I didn’t have to see what was happening. It should have been obvious. A kid, in the keep? Doing the work of an adult? Scars running up your face? The signs were all there.” His voice wasn’t loud, but somehow, it cut over all of the noise of the mall. “I ignored you so that I wouldn’t see those signs.”

Darius sighed. “My mentor meant a lot to me. And when he died, no one but me seemed to care. It was… frustrating. You may find this hard to believe, but I was incredibly angry for a time.”

Hunter couldn’t help himself. “No. You? Angry?”

Thank titan, Darius chuckled. “Oh, very. I was upset, and then… you showed up. Belos filled his shoes like he’d never existed, with some kid whose feet weren’t big enough. I think I was mostly angry at Belos for moving on so quickly, for putting someone who was too young in his place. But it was much… safer… I suppose… to take it out on you.

And it’s easy in hindsight to say that I shouldn’t have. It’s easy now to say that perhaps both our lives would have been better if we’d worked together instead of always being at each other’s throats. Perhaps you would have been happier. Perhaps I could have let go of some of that anger. It’s too late now to take all of it back, it’s too late to undo all of the damage that didn’t have to be done. I can’t change what happened. But I can change how things are going forward. I want to help now.”

Darius let out a slow breath.

“And I want to say that I’m sorry.”

Hunter nearly choked. “What?”

“I want to say that I’m sorry,” Darius said again. Fluidly. Simply. As if it were the easiest thing in the world.

As if he really meant it, with no reservations.

“You were just a kid. And I was an adult. And I should have known better. And I never should have taken out my frustrations on you. I should have helped you out of a situation that was very clearly wrong instead of ignoring you. And I am sorry for the way I treated you. I am sorry for ignoring you and the things that were very clearly wrong in your life. I am sorry for icing you out. I am sorry for treating you like you were nothing but Belos’ dog, when you needed help. I am sorry for acting like you needed to prove you were worth saving.”

Hunter gasped for air, every apology slamming into him like a punch to the gut.

Sorry.

Xxx

Darius waited. If Eber had taught him anything, it was that you had to wait for an injured creature to approach you. You couldn’t rush them, you couldn’t try to force them to come. So he waited. On the floor.

Does anyone ever sweep around here?

Finally, a blonde head poked around the potted plant. Hunter crawled out from his hiding spot. “You’re… sorry?”

“Cross my heart. You don’t have to give me an answer on whether or not you’ll move in just at the moment. For now, let’s just finish our shopping trip. Get some lunch.”

“Okay.”

Darius was off the floor in a moment, and Hunter followed suit. Darius dusted off his pants. “I put a sign on the door, the clothes should still be there. Unless you hated all of them, in which case we can start over.”

Which would be a shame, I’m sure some of them were good fits.

“No, we can go back.”

Darius nodded and turned to go.

“Darius?”

“Mm?”

“I forgive you.”

Oh. Darius’s muscles locked in place.

He hadn’t thought about that part, about Hunter actually… forgiving him.

He’d assumed he wouldn’t, he had no reason to.

Ignoring how he feels again.

A habit I should get out of.

I forgive you.

Unexpected.

And for some reason, it made his back straighten just a little, and his chin tilt ever so slightly higher.

I forgive you.

[angelfishcake]

@sergeantsporks 's Dadrius Week Day 2: Apologies

I made this playlist a little bit ago and might still add to it. Though half the songs are just about Darius, the second half involves Hunter as well, so it technically fits the prompt lol

[bamsara]

i love them. so, so much.

[ballpitwitch]

𝐊𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐮 𝐑𝐞𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤 𝐇𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐭𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐍𝐉 - 𝟏𝟎/𝟎𝟖/𝟐𝟑

[gemsalive]

re: that HEFTY siffrin sweep on id5’s isat favourite blorbos poll — this might sound silly but i do actually think it’s kinda fascinating that isat, as a game so inseparably steeped in (for lack of a better way to describe it) queer fandom culture, managed to so completely sidestep the common Fandom Phenomenon that i suspect was behind the poll in the first place by creating a main character that is also overwhelmingly the fan favourite character for once.

obviously there are any number of factors we could point at to explain the extent to which siffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames manages to grab people and absolutely not let go, but personally i think one of the most interesting ones to consider is the one specific to the medium — that is, how siffrin subverts the “silent blank slate video game protagonist” archetype in such a way that happens to be primo brainrot breeding grounds.

like, when a video game dev makes a silent protagonist it’s usually a bid to maximize immersion by closing the aesthetic distance between player and character as much as possible, right? which is especially true of rpg video games — players find connection in the generic, as that is what gives you the freedom of motion to insert yourself into the story in whatever unique shape suits you best. you are your character and your character is you.

(as ever, post ran long. yall know the drill. tossin in a quick header pic before thoughts on blank slates & blorboification continue under the cut)

and then you’ve got siffrin, who is expressly pointed out to be the taciturn type; who when initially giving the player exposition about their journey so far doesn’t seem to hint at a life or history or even really any motivations outside the journey; whose every thought and action is narrated in second person so as to keep tracing and re-tracing the connection between him and you.

even their design — all darkless and shapeless, bundled up in that big cloak, as if an invitation for you to fill it in with whatever lets you relate to them most! at this point they are their own character for sure, but they also have enough very clear parallels going on with the silent protagonist archetype to feel more than accidental.

of course, as you keep playing you start to recognize that his blankness is much, much more than just a grab at immersion; his apparent lack of backstory, itself a fundamental piece of backstory. this is where he flips dramatically in the player’s perception from “generic vessel for story delivery” to “thoroughly multidimensional character trapped within endless torment nexus custom-built to target and exacerbate all his very specific worst traits rooted in very specific traumas”.

yknow, the good stuff !

but by then you have also been playing enough to be feeling the effects of the thing isat’s design does best of all. i’m talkin bout that ludonarrative lockstep baby. every piece of isat’s gameplay is designed to make you feel what siffrin is feeling — you understand by now that he is not a stand-in for you, but all the same you share in his frustration, his grief, his rare moments of joy and the subsequent heart-in-your-shoes devastation when that joy is inevitably poisoned — and through it all, the desperate grasping for anything new — all as if they were every bit your own.

so in this way the connection is maintained, even if you were someone for whom siffrin’s particular traits & struggles might not otherwise cause you relate to them at all if you had encountered them elsewhere, in a setting where you weren’t actively controlling them as a player. siffrin still gets to carry all the “just like me fr” impact of the blank slate protagonist in the tropes he embodies and in the game mechanics’ design, while totally free to evolve completely into his own character and keep you relating to closely them all the same. now toss back in the fact that said traits & struggles very much ARE of a flavour that a great many people Would Tend To Relate To and just like that you’ve got a perfect storm cookin.

too individual and compellingly written to be an empty vessel for plot delivery. too closely connected with the player’s emotional state to be a story observed impassively from the outside. he has 92 mental illnesses and for the low low price of free u can give him yours to carry too. nobody is doin it like him. congratulations on your well-deserved nose sniffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames <3

[marisatomay]

so cool that fanfiction won anne rice’s war on fanfiction

[woolysstuff]

I did a silly

[ducks-love-peas]

Good Omens 2 | ⭑favorite moments⭑ 1/?

[departedmars]

average sibling interaction or something

[daily-odile]

maid dile

[leodraws3]

I wanted to explore the possibility of enid dying 😔

[moonsnqil]

part 2 of art i did for the aftg big bang

based on @valnillablonde 's tma au fic!

[hinamie]

howsl are atla!itafushi doing i miss those little freaks

these little freaks r doing just fine !!!! yuuji has been yapping abt citrine and megumi has reread the same paragraph 7 times in the past hour

admittedly lmhs production has slowed a bit on account of irl stuff on both sam's and my ends ,, and i must confess i have been terribly anxious abt/invested in canon so that's where i've been focusing my efforts with my art but rest assured we r not abandoning this project !! no getting off this ride we signed a blood pact we trudge on

[nanaten]

PAULA!! and magical girl pola because why not?? i think she’d watch tokyo mew mew and imagine herself as a character (and ness wouldn’t get it because he thinks anime is lame (despite watching dragon ball— if you try and tell him dragon ball is an anime he will disagree Very Adamantly) but he still likes watching her draw)

art trade with @ghostbox99 !!

[gomacave]

raises you sephiroth in victorian goth attire (from that ask with the juri robe)

Not quite goth and not completely victorian but this sparked some sort of animalistic desire to draw seph in house of worth coats in me. + bonus aerith

Love how i’ve been clocked as a fashion history liker lol 😭 i love rgu and anyone who mentions rgu to me gets +500 points in my mind. Also to me seph is a bit juri coded. Pathetic futch lesbian. So cool and good with a sword but secretly soooo sooo lonely and patehtic……

THANK YU FOR ASKING…!1!111!!!!

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 281

ill be honest w yall i dont remember most of hs2 or the epilogues and i will not be rereading to refresh my memory but i DID read today's upd8 specifically because i saw my guy and you know what

callin this one a win for the sollux enjoyers