#it helps to dehumanize the ‘other side’ well my oh my do i have news for you

[queenwille]

how can some people go to bed at night satisfied that they ripped off/defaced posters of actual civilians being held as war hostages just to make a point

well idk, couldn’t be me but sure go off you’re doing great honey fighting for human rights

[blood-choke]

hiiii… i wanted to ask more about this particular val scene where mc and her talk about that portrait and mc is a bit stuck on the word husband and wants val to know theyre not a man. can i ask what inspired that type of convo? i wanted to know if it’s something you’ll touch up on again? is this underlying feelings mc had before their entombment… worried that val sees them as a man just because mc is masc? cause i know that’s kind of broader discussion in the lesbian community iirc….. was that why you wanted to incorporate it? this ask has so many questions LOL but basically i wanted to say i was intrigued and it did made me think more on those type of dynamics (thinking back to those resources you rb’d a while ago that go more into depth about diff things in the lesbian community)

oh boy get ready for another long-winded answer from me!

a lot of the feelings mc has about their gender are inspired by Leslie Feinberg's work (mainly Stone Butch Blues)

Feinberg was someone who lived & passed as a man for years of hir life, and wrote a lot about the complexities of hir gender and what it was like being a "gender outlaw."

there was actually a scene in particular from sbb that kinda put the kernel of an idea in my mind that led to this narrative of the mc feeling overshadowed by Standard and anxious about being perceived as a man. it's towards the end of the book when Jess (sbb's protagonist) meets Ruth (a trans woman that Jess falls in love with)

Jess offers to help Ruth carry groceries up to her apartment, and Ruth takes this the wrong way & is offended, partly because she thinks Jess is a man.

One Saturday afternoon I found her clutching two huge bags of groceries and fumbling with the downstairs front-door lock. I pulled out my key.

“Here, let me.” She didn’t say thank you. She hurried ahead of me on the stairs.

“Can I help you carry those?” I offered.

“Do I look weak to you?” she asked.

I stopped on the stairs. “No. Where I come from it’s just a sign of respect, that’s all.”

She continued up the stairs. “Well, where I come from,” she called out, “men don’t reward women for pretending to be helpless.” Once I heard her apartment door close I kicked the stair in anger and frustration.

later, after they get to know each other better, they have this interaction:

I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know if I’m a man or a woman?”

“No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much about you.”

I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you first met me?" She nodded. "Yes. At first I thought you were a straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was liberated from all of that.”

I smiled. “I didn’t want you to think I was a man. I wanted you to see how much more complicated I am. I wanted you to like what you saw.”

i think the inspiration here is quite obvious, hahaha. i figure anyone that's read sbb can sense the similar through-line here in my work. though the conversation between mc and Valentina has a much different tone.

there's another scene later as well after something happens to Jess and she has to have her jaw wired shut. she's working at a new job and is unable to speak, and she's also passing as a man at this job. she overhears some of her female coworkers talking about her and they refer to her as a "creep" and speculate that she's always watching one of them. Jess overhears all of this and then walks out of the job, goes home and pulls the wires out of her mouth herself:

After I was sure I’d gotten the last piece of wire out of my gums, I rinsed my mouth with whiskey and then drank the rest of it so I could sleep without remembering how Marija’s words had stripped me of my humanity.

butches & gnc women still face this kind of dehumanization; compared or likened to men in a derogatory way, accused of being "heteropatriarchal," the predatory stereotype of the fat ugly lesbian, and on the other side they're also hypersexualized, especially online and in queer spaces. butchphobia is a specific kind of misogyny that hits from all sides, even from the people that are supposed to be a part of your community. and this attitude especially effects trans women and women of color, who are already experiencing all of these things due to transmisogyny and racism.

i also really wanted to use this to touch on the kind of gender essentialism that we see in a lot of these cis feminist discussions - to these women at this job, Jess had committed no real crime other than being quiet and being the “wrong” kind of man. something about this scene has always stuck with me and really bothered me, but it's hard to put into words; on one hand i can admit i have probably been one of those women who made some kind of similar remark about a man i barely knew, but i've also been someone on the receiving end, too, because of the way i look. the mc in blood choke is put into this box, but they can't fit in, as someone who has been on both sides and doesn't really understand where they belong because of it; how can she stand beside Valentina or Hana or Clear when they might see her as a perpetrator, someone who can't be trusted? how does this mindset harm both the women and the men of the council and everyone in between? how can we break this cycle?

one of the films i mentioned recently when talking about the character designs was The Same Difference, which is specifically about the Black lesbian community and the discrimination within that community based upon gender roles (though this is not something limited to just the Black lesbian community)

a lot of the women in that doc talk about the boxes they're put in as AG or stud lesbians - they can't have their hair long, they can't wear makeup, they can't do this or that, they have to be aggressive and hard or else they're not real studs. they discuss stud on stud (or butch4butch) and how other lesbians look down on those types of lesbians, as well as the disdain for bisexual women for "betraying" the community. it explores the way misogyny and the patriarchy still oppress these women and forces them into this restrictive gender role despite their refusal to adhere to the other role originally assigned to them, and the way racism specifically intersects and exacerbates it for Black lesbians. there's a stud that's an exotic dancer and wears a weave, and a lot of other studs have a problem with this because a weave is "a female thing." another section follows a pregnant stud, and how the community shuns her for that, because she "dresses like a man and acts like a man" so why is she getting pregnant when she should be "the man"?

mc doesn't remember how they felt before entombment, but waking up they feel this need to prove themselves - both in that they are hard and aggressive like a butch should be, but also in that they want to be this person for Valentina or Clear or Hana (or all of them) that is safe and comforting. but they aren't sure how to do that when the world perceives them as this one specific thing - as a husband, as Standard, as a man, specifically this man who hurt Valentina.

of course we've already seen this to not be true of the companions with the last chapter as the mc learns more and spends more time with everyone. but this is kind of the foundation of where this whole idea came from. it started with my novel & i chose vampires for that story & this one because there is a long history of lesbian vampirism (and also because it's sexy) but there's this "curse" that both Hana & Valerie talk about in their respective stories, the first one being the racism she's had to face, the transphobia, along with this alienation and perception of lesbians as predatory and conniving and aggressive, as vampires, which i just think really lends itself to expanding upon these issues lesbians & trans women face both in general and within the community.

anyways if you want to read more i suggest Stone Butch Blues, which you can get for free on Leslie Feinberg's website, as well as S/he, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, available on the internet archive, Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote & Rae Spoon also on the internet archive, and you can rent The Same Difference for $10 on vimeo.

[frodo-with-glasses]

More Reading Thoughts: “The Land of Shadow”

Ding dong, finally moving on to a new chapter! I know it actually wasn’t a long time, but feels like we spent so long in the Tower of Cirith Ungol…but now on to new territory!

Two sentences in and Frodo is already trying to chuck himself off a cliff LOL 🤣🤣

“Well, here goes, Mr. Frodo. Good-bye!” Sam really is Mr. Guess I’ll Die in these chapters, isn’t he?

Suddenly: BUSHES

Having gone walking in the desert in Arizona and still finding burrs in my sneakers months later, I can confirm that thorns are little spawns of the devil in plant form.

And then they both have a lie-down. Or Frodo has a lie-down, and Sam has a nap. Good. They need it.

Fjshdskfj this whole thing about the mail coat is. Aaaahh. It’s frickin’ killing me. I can’t believe I glossed over it when I was a kid. Frodo like “I’m too weak to go on wearing this” and Sam like “but we have to protect you somehow” and Frodo like “it’s no use, I don’t have the strength, I’m sorry, please don’t think I’m ungrateful, I know you went through a lot of effort to get it for me” and Sam like “oh my word, don’t worry about me! I’m the one who’s supposed to be worrying about you!” and I just. Nnnnggaahh! They *clenches fist* love each other so much I’mma frickin’ die

Also, “Don’t talk about it, Mr. Frodo. Bless you! I’d carry you on my back, if I could.” FOOORESHADOWING!!

Frodo has a Nazgûl detector. Side effect of the Morgul Blade, perhaps??

THAT REFERENCE TO THEODEN THO. HECK.

The Witch King has just been slain! No wonder the weather is changing in Mordor! Aw, man, if only Frodo and Sam knew what Merry had just helped to do…they’d be so proud, bro.

Sam: “Don’t you feel better?” Frodo: “No, not really.”

Pfffft way to be a downer, Frodo 🤣

WATERRRRRR!!

HECKIN’. WATERRRRRR!!!!

AAAAAHHHHHH I could cry 🤣🤣

Sam like “let me try it first” and Frodo like “:-( but I’m thirsty too” and Sam like “I know that, but I’m trying to test if it’s poisonous” fjshjdks they’re hilarious

Water in the desert. Heck. Frickin’. Do I need to restate how much water is a symbol of hope and rest and restoration and life in this story?? Heck to the frick frickin’ heck.

I love how just the presence of plant life in Mordor makes me feel like that’s a victory somehow. Like “HECK YES, STICK IT TO THE MAN, YA BALLSY LITTLE TREES, YOU GO!!”

Sam holding Frodo’s hand to try to keep himself awake 🥺

THE STAR BETWEEN THE CLOUDS!! HECK! So this is where that passage comes from! “In the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach”, AAAAAHHHHH—

Also the hobbits sleeping hand in hand is very cute but also. Sam. Sam you’re supposed to be on guard duty LOL

Good to know Aragorn’s distractionating is working.

Frodo is. Such a downer. I love him so much you guys. 🤣 “The whole thing is hopeless. There’s no way we’re gonna make it. Welp, let’s do this.”

This is what Peter Jackson’s trilogy got right when they had Gimli say, “Certainty of death, small chance of success—what are we waiting for?” It’s played for laughs there, but that really is the defiant optimistic pessimism that surrounds this story. It’s glorious. Gritty, stubborn, desperately clinging to life, bruised and bloody-knuckled and exhausted but still breathing, and clawing forward inch by inch if that’s all it can do. Relatable as heck, and inspiring like nothing else. Lord give me defiance like that.

Yooooo but that spat between the orcs tho. Now we know Gollum is still around, and nabbed Frodo’s mail shirt, and that word has reached the orcs that the Witch King is dead….and also orcs are ranked by numbers?? Very sophisticated. Very dehumanizing. Very Evil Overlord Army.

Sam hates Gollum with every thread of his being. And for good reason, too.

Frodo hears Sam’s whole story, and when it’s finished, he says nothing, but “took Sam’s hand and pressed it”.

I am. I am going buckwild about this. Didn’t I say that Frodo’s love language is Words of Affirmation, and Sam’s are Acts of Service and Physical Touch?? But here—here Frodo’s love language fails. He has no words left. He’s too exhausted. His love language offers him nothing. So he uses Sam’s.

I am. I am going to throw something. Scream. Cry, maybe. I just. AAAAAAAAAHHHHH—

“I’ll try and be a bit quicker, Sam.” FRODO I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT I WOULD KILL FOR YOU—

Sam just letting Frodo eat and drink the last of their store, and sleep on his own cloak, is. So much. Sam. You beautiful, self-sacrificial little saint, I would die for you (but you would probably insist on dying first).

Ooh, Gollum tried to come take the Ring while Sam was away getting water. Gaaaahhh, this is a so suspenseful.

Aaaand Frodo drank all the water LOL

Well, they’re caught. Here goes. Only about a page left to the chapter…

Oh! So the whole “hit me, start fighting” thing was invented by the movies. Makes sense. Couldn’t be too exciting, after all.

And what we have learned, kids, is that we can credit the survival of Middle Earth to the fact that Mordor doesn’t have traffic lights.

[bltzgore]

Pt of 2nd person whump, or more of Casey BS

Tw: language, manipulation, second person, dehumanization

again not much whump, but the predator is getting closer to her prey

<- Back - Next ->

Every scientist needs the compliance of their test subject, more or less. When you lack a controlled environment trust is required, but reliance is better. I decided to press things a little and see which was easier to get from you. To do this one only needs a little basic data on the subject. To start with: what they're scared of, what they empathize with, and what drives them.

I like to move fast, I’m a creature of efficiency after all, but there are risks in that. I could have scared you away. I already knew I intimidated you, I didn’t know exactly how bold you were, but I could guess. I could have lured you out of your comfort zone, I knew you were curious, people who are curious can be stupid. But you became something of a pet project. I wanted to take my time, play the game well. After all, I was in no rush. We had nothing but time.

After our first meeting I decided you needed time to think, not too long. Not long enough to decide to keep your distance, but enough time to go back over the interaction and get part of the way through a half baked assessment of me. You were given two days, I didn’t talk and I didn’t let you see me glancing. Then I found you in the cafe. 

You were eating something that wasn’t from the ward. A sandwich that looked like it came from wawas or subway. You seemed somewhat in your head, glancing at your phone in between bites, and choosing not to join your associates. Something I noticed was common for you. 

I picked gray sludge instead of brown slop and joined you. 

“Well well well, look who it is.” I was careful to keep my tone lighter than when last we spoke, friendly, conversational, but kept it within the scope of normal for that personality. I sat down across the table from you. A comfortable amount of space, but close enough to show interest. “Catch any new cheaters at the card table?” Jokes always ease the introduction. 

You smiled, a bit timidly, I think you felt guilty. Good. “No, not yet.”

I matched your smile, but kept the characteristic arrogance in my expression. “I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like the cafe creatures are playing favorites.” I said nodding to your food.

You laughed a bit this time, you had decided I wasn’t mad. “Oh, no. I brought my food, all the orderlies do.” You felt guilty. I was tempted to get a sandwich out of it, then I decided to.

“Haven’t had one of those in months. The food here is so shit I’m amazed it isn’t fucking with my meds.” 

You looked guiltier, suspicious, but guiltier. You were deciding if I was conning you, and if you cared. You watched me make faces as I slurped my sludge, and it was in that moment of weakness I knew I had won. “I’m not gonna eat all of this.” You motioned to the sandwich. 

“Great, lunch for two days.” I shrugged. 

“No, I mean, want the other half?”

I gave you a good two seconds of healthy hesitation looking at the sandwich, then up at you. “You sure?” Some good old fashioned human decency always sold it, though now I know you saw through it. Such a gentle stupid creature. 

“Yeah, go for it.” 

I took the sandwich and ditched the tray. I leaned forward while eating, I knew how to look: open, nothing to hide. “So, you got a name?” I decided not to read the name on your ID.

You were hesitant at first, and I leaned back. You said your name was Sam Harper, and that you didn’t think you’d be here long. From there I knew you had abandonment issues and got attached easily. I already had two out of three.

“You on your way up the ladder or is this just a side thing for you?”

You were just interning, you assured me, you were hoping to make physician one day. 

“So you like to help people?”

“I like to understand people.” You corrected. 

What a coincidence, so did I.

“Why?” I acted put off. “People suck.” I said prior to a large bite. 

You laughed, it was cute, you were so easily led. “I dunno, it’s just interesting I guess.”

Fucking lies. 

I grinned, “You have a lot more faith in these people than I do.”

Our conversation petered out from there, but pleasantly. You eventually excused yourself back to work and I made you feel justified, collecting myself and heading off to the main room. You had given me some good information for our first session, you wanted to understand people. People only do that for two reasons, 1) they like to control others or 2) they were hurt and want to know why. I couldn’t be certain of either yet, but both were equally exciting.

[brick-a-doodle-do]

Chapter four has arrived :D Okay so as usual this was rushed- I have a good reason though! I have a brand new AU coming out as soon as Curiosity is finished 👀 Not gonna spill too much, but, that’s why these are rushed and not going anywhere. However something does happen in this chapter that breaks off the slowness, so that’s nice :] Again, XYZ thank you for the help ;D also @/beckyu, you put the sugared up Tommy in my mind and I made it canon. Thank you :>

Oh also if anyone wants to be put on a tag list for future chapters let me know :D

You think I read this? Think again. (I didn’t)

Curiosity Killed The Cat (4)

_WC - 1.7k (The next one will be longer, that’s a promise)

_TW: Swearing, kind of panic? (he’s more anxious than panicky) , mention of dehumanization

——————————————————————

It’s been a couple days. He’s bored. 

Tommy’s shoulder hit against the glass as he rushed into it roughly. The repetitive motion surely would leave him with a bruise or a sore arm, but he needed out. Something in the coke gave him motivation that he didn’t have before, so now he’s trying to get a jump start on his plan. He’s just.. making the best out of Wilbur’s absence. It was foolish to leave Tommy of all people with a coke and then dip to go sleep or shower or whatever the hell he’s doing, but, hey, he overestimated Wilbur just a bit. 

Again he hit the glass, grunting as a slight bolt of pain went through his arm. He took a few steps back to the middle of the jar, shaking his hands in preparation of taking a running start. He closed his eyes, and one, two, three, ran at the glass. The jar only slightly budged, not nearly enough for what unfortunate pain followed close after. He whined as he realized it was a lost cause. Wilbur would probably be back soon and then his time would be over. While he probably shouldn’t back down so soon because of a small defeat, he was tiring himself out. Sort of. He still felt jittery. 

He bounced on his heel as he looked around at the inside of his prison, taking in each little crevice. It was nearly all clean, save for a few spots of dust around the top of the lid. 

The air holes were what he wasn’t looking at, as it gave him a feeling that made him realize he was just a pet and not a human like he was. Is, not was. He’s still.. very much a human being. 

He spun around, bored out of his mind. He couldn’t really do anything when there was nothing but a few empty coke cans sitting across from him. His phone continued to taunt him just out of his reach, and he wondered if his family were worrying about him. Probably so, it’s been at least four days. On the other hand, he does wish they don’t run after him, since, who knows where they would go, and if it’s the place he’s thinking of, that’s a terrible place to wind up. 

The door to the basement opened and Tommy paused, shifting his stance so he was facing forwards. Wilbur had nothing in his hand unfortunately. Not that he wanted anything. Definitely not. 

He eyed the empty coke cans. 

Wilbur hurried down the stairs, not at a particularly alarming speed but at one he noticed wasn’t typical. “Shit, shit, shit,” The man swore, his desk chair sliding just slightly as he sat himself in it, moving a beaker to the side, right before it began bubbling over. Huh, he had not noticed that. He assumed he was too busy spinning and nearly dislocating his arm to spot it, which to him is a perfectly acceptable reason. 

“Hi, Wilbur.” He said, arms crossed. “Uh, hi,” Wilbur said, eyes on the liquid as he wiped it with a rag. “What’s.. what’s that?” He tried. Wilbur has been gone all day, the isolation got to him just a bit. “It’s a- well it was a potion. It’s gone now. Too much spilled and… now I can’t use it.”

Tommy nodded for moments too long before having a question get stuck in his throat. He wanted out. He needed out. So.. would it… hurt to just ask? Wilbur seems like a.. that’s a lie. Wilbur is not a nice guy. 

But, he can say they sort of bonded over the last four days. Bonded is not the right word. He still fucking hates the guy, he’s just gotten comfortable enough to talk with him. He hates Ranboo and he still talks to him. 

“Hey, uh, Wil?” He cleared his throat, attempting to hide the use of a nickname. “Wilbur?” He finished, not missing the smile. He frowned, biting at his cheek. “Yeah?” The giant looked at him only briefly to show his interest. “I- I was thinking,” Words, words, words. How to form the words? “About?”

“The.. jar!”

Wilbur paused and set whatever he had in his hand down. His full attention was now on Tommy. He shook just slightly, the same jittery feeling in his body. Although he doubted it was from the sugar; he was nervous. Very nervous. He fucks this up and he’s never getting out. 

“Could you.. Prime, uh, mm, let- me.. out?” His voice went down in volume as the last word fell from his mouth. 

Fuck, shit, fucking hell oh shit. 

He prepared for the yelling, the hand gripping the jar, anything. He shook like a fucking leaf, the same scratchy throat and wet eyes returning. He shook his hands, terrified. It’s fine. Fuck, why couldn’t he have just waited? Waited for his plan to work.. Prime! He’s so fucking stupid! He laughed a bit hysterically again to himself, pacing back and forth while shaking his hands. His legs felt like they’d go out under him if he didn’t keep them moving. 

Wilbur stayed silent, just taking it in. Maybe. He didn’t have a damn clue what was running through the giant's mind right now. 

The two pursed their lips in sync. Tommy noticed and looked away, dropping the expression. “Uh, yeah, sure, whatever.” 

..What?

Tommy furrowed his brows, mouth agape as he stared in utter shock at Wilbur’s response. Yes? Yes? He fucking agreed? Why didn’t he in the damn first place? What the fuck? “I’m sorry?” He asked, wanting a laugh or an eye roll that showed him the giant was joking. 

Actually he didn’t want that. He just wanted to make sure he wasn’t joking. 

“Yes. It’s been long enough I guess, four days. You don’t agree?”

“No! I do! I definitely.. definitely do. I, um, I just didn’t expect you to say yes. I didn’t mean to ask the question, it came out. Are you being for real or are you just saying it to fuck with me?” 

Wilbur shook his head. “No, I’m not lying.” He slid his desk chair over to Tommy’s end. He still stared in shock. There’s no way in hell this is real. He pinched himself.

He winced. Real. Maybe. No, it’s not real. He’ll soak in his fake freedom in the meantime, though. Wilbur has been giving him sized down food ever since the first coke delivery, so he’s cut his reaction to hands down to a small tense, and even then Wilbur is still for some reason cautious of how fast he moves. He shifted from foot to foot as Wilbur undid the lid and gave him a word of warning before beginning to tilt the glass jar. Oh, it perhaps is real. Maybe he’ll close the lid right before he gets there. Just to.. taunt him. 

Seems like something that could happen. 

However he was eager and tried to put that thought on the shelf. He kept himself from falling as the jar completely tilted.

The lid was off now and he watched Wilbur set it down. There was no food coming his way, just his freedom waiting at the opening. Well.. here goes fucking nothing. 

He stepped forward once hesitantly, ignoring the eyes on him. Tommy kept a steady pace, careful not to disturb the jar that could very much roll off the desk. While he wanted that originally, he’s now got a new window of opportunity ahead of him. 

The outside world was right there. He swallowed nervously and exhaled. Fresh cold air wafted onto him and that alone let him take the final step out. It was cold, but he was free and that was what mattered. The lid wasn’t put back on at the last second, there were no hands grabbing at him, it was… fine. He smiled, a single laugh coming from his lungs in huff, he honestly wished it was real. It hoped it was. 

He breathed in steadily, making sure he made the best of whatever time he had. The wheels of a chair however caught his attention. 

Wilbur now was sitting in front of him, a bitten down smile being horribly hidden. “Oh, um, thank.. you?” He awkwardly shared the smile that Wilbur gave into. His body still felt jittery as he saw Wilbur reach out. It wasn’t at him, but he still jumped out of the way on instinct. “I’ve actually.. been planning on letting you out soon. I have some things in progress for you. I, uh, I know the jar wasn’t the.. greatest idea of mine,” Tommy nodded in agreement as he stayed wary of everything Wilbur did. “I realized I could’ve used.. a potion.” 

Tommy looked behind him, noticing what looked to be a variety of small ladders and.. bridges? For him, he assumed. What else would he need them for?

“Look, I’m sorry.” Wilbur said, sounding like he wanted to say that for a good while now. Tommy looked back at the giant and waited for him to continue. “You’ve said that.” He said sarcastically, not wanting to make Wilbur feel better. Whatever emotions he was dealing with right now are the ones that should stay there. Wilbur did let him out, but that was the bare-fucking-minimum. If he really wanted to repent his actions he would let him the fuck out of this damn house. 

“Don’t bother looking for an exit, but anywhere else in the house you can go. He said. “If you want.” He then quickly added. “I don’t want to keep you here like a pet. It’s clearly making you uncomfortable and, frankly,” Wilbur paused and exhaled. “I’m losing sleep over it.” 

Tommy raised a brow and folded his arms. Well that’s a fucking lie. If he truly lost sleep over it, Tommy would’ve been out a long time ago. 

“I can go wherever, good to know. Thanks, Wil. -Bur.” Can he stop with the nicknaming? 

“Sure, Toms.” Oh, okay. He’s never heard that nickname before, it’s all ‘Tomathy’ and ‘Theseus.’ 

He doesn’t know which he prefers but it feels weird hearing his kidnapper call him such a friendly name. He still won’t call Wilbur ‘Wil’ though. That’s weird. 

Okay, so, he’s out now, and one question circles in his mind. Should he do the next phase of his plan? It’s been a shot in the dark for the other part, and it was all bullseyes, so maybe luck can continue to be on his side. 

Or, you know, it could go terribly. 

——————————————————————

chapter five

[delimeful]

Helpless (2)

the next chapter in the drider virgil fic!

warnings: spiders, slight dehumanizing language, assumptions/jumping to conclusions

-

Logan was certain that he’d tracked down his quarry.

Of course, he’d also been certain the last two times he’d found promising evidence around a swath of woods, but this time was different.

He had learned plenty while traversing through the varied lands of his kingdom, and while physical evidence was ideal, word of mouth was one of the most useful tools a researcher could use to find leads.

That was part of the reason why he’d been so careful to observe typical travelers for weeks before his departure, the reason he was wearing worn, cheap fabric and staying at the second-cheapest room at this town’s inn, despite having plenty of money still hidden on his person. He didn’t want a single rumor about a suspiciously rich noble traveling alone.

The last thing he needed was for his investigative journey to be interrupted by bandits, or worse, would-be do-gooders attempting to return the missing prince to his place in line for the throne.

Logan resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the very thought, putting aside the last half of his travel rations and stopping at the edge of town to stare into the woods beyond. He checked his compass habitually, and he was pointed firmly westward, exactly towards the point of the woods that were occupied by a dangerous monster, according to the barkeep that Logan had plied for information last night at supper.

The whole town knew of it, even the younger residents, which was a point in favor of the creature really existing rather than just being another folk tale.

There was one other potential source on the creature, a town outcast going by the way others’ noses wrinkled at the mention of him, but Logan was more than ready to begin investigating for himself, and the odds that the outcast actually knew anything were low, anyhow.

Decided, he headed into the forest, prepared for the day-long trek that was sure to follow. If he was prone to less scientific notations, he might have jotted down that he had a good feeling about this particular town.

Exactly an hour and a half later, Logan had found himself almost entirely immobilized by layers and layers of gossamer threads strewn about the trees.

Needless to say, he was ecstatic.

Even the foolish manner in which he’d landed himself stuck in such an obvious trap couldn’t dampen his spirits, not when faced with undeniable proof that there was in fact a drider in these woods. He’d been too hasty in his attempt to collect some of the biological material, and by yanking too hard, had ended up pulled forwards into the thick of the intricate spider web.

His immobility was a bit concerning, but mostly frustrating, since he couldn’t reach for his journal to note down the surprising level of the webbing’s tensile strength. Still, proper scientists had to be prepared to hold onto their observations for as long as it took for them to be able to write them down.

Besides, he could hardly complain. His current predicament practically guaranteed that he would actually get to see the creature!

-

There was a person stuck in his webs, and Virgil was freaking out about it.

It had never happened before. Virgil very specifically made the webs closer to town thick and opaque so that any passerby would see them and avoid this exact situation.

Virgil peered around the cluster of bushes he had half-flattened himself behind. The stranger didn’t seem too panicked, at least, going by the way that the web barely swayed with his presence. He didn’t even seem to be breathing hard, which was… admittedly sort of strange.

Skies above, what if this was a trap? Virgil turned his head sharply to scan his surroundings, wary of human hunters suddenly popping out of the undergrowth.

Several moments of silence, and even with all his senses pushed to their farthest, he couldn’t detect anything. It seemed the only one trapped here was the human.

A pang of guilt curled unpleasantly in his first stomach. He grimaced, wishing desperately that Patton was here to mitigate the utter terror Virgil was surely about to inflict on this guy.

No point in drawing it out. He rose up to his full height, grateful that the human had gotten stuck facing the opposite direction, and quietly crept up behind him. All he needed to do was announce his presence and let the human know he wasn’t going to hurt them, but he was immediately distracted at the sight of just how tangled his webs had grown.

“How does one human manage to touch every single support thread at the same time?” he asked, voice incredulous.

The human stiffened, and he couldn’t help but tense in response, cursing his big mouth.

… Really though, he spent hours crafting these, and now this one would have to be completely reconstructed!

“Are you the monster spoken of in town?”

The measured voice snapped Virgil out of his thoughts as easy as a clap of thunder, and he shuffled a bit from side to side nervously. His many steps must have been louder than he’d thought, because the human immediately attempted to twist around and see him.

He failed, naturally, because Virgil’s threads weren’t exactly easy to wriggle free of, but Virgil’s nerves only grew. “I… why do you ask?”

There was a short silence, and then, “Considering my current situation, it’s only natural I would want to know, isn’t it?”

Virgil resisted the urge to wince at his own dumbassery. “Right. Well. Yeah,” he confirmed, already bracing for the fear that nearly every human bore when confronted with him. Even Patton had been afraid at first, though Virgil really thought him braver than any other human, to be so terrified of even normal spiders and befriend a Drider of all creatures.

“Oh, excellent,” the human said with clear excitement. “Would you mind coming around so that I can see you?”

Virgil blinked, befuddled. The last thing most humans wanted was for him to come closer. Maybe it was the natural fear of him being in their blind spot? The guy certainly didn’t sound very afraid, even with Virgil’s less-than-stellar first impression.

“Do you have a weapon?” he asked warily.

“I have a knife,” the stranger offered, “but I can’t exactly reach it at the moment.”

Virgil could see the glint of it, caught bladefirst at the very edge of a web as though it had been used on the threads themselves. He slowly circled around the clearing, watching the stranger closely for any sudden movements, until he stood before him, all eight legs and thorax visible.

“Fascinating,” he breathed, eyes blown wide as they skittered from point to point as though noticing every little detail. Virgil would have thought him afraid had it not been for the prideful little grin that sat on his face. “I thought maybe you were lying to me-- I hadn’t expected you to be so fluent in the common language, living in the woods and all-- but wow!”

Virgil felt his front legs rising up a little bit in an automatic defense against the unexpected reaction. He ran his tongue over his fangs nervously, trying to figure out whether or not he should be insulted about the language thing. And what exactly did this guy mean by ‘expected’?

The stranger’s hands twitched slightly, still stuck firmly in place, and irritation briefly flitted across his face as though he’d forgotten his position. He blinked, as though remembering something.

“Oh, right. Are you planning on trying to consume me, then?” he asked, the question as politely curious as an inquiry about the weather.

Virgil recoiled physically at the idea, skittering back a few strides and baring his fangs despite the difference in size and strength and trapped-ness between the two of them. “What? No!”

The stranger managed to drag his intrigued gaze away from Virgil’s fangs, his hands twitching again almost subconsciously. “In that case, would you mind helping me down? My leg has begun to go numb, and I really would like access to my journal.”

“I-- I mean, yeah, if you aren’t-- I can--,” Virgil stumbled over his words, drawing closer with his body lowered non-threateningly and waiting for the inevitable flinch or shiver of disgust.

It never came. The stranger continued to stare at him with no trace of terror in his eyes, even as Virgil grew close enough to reach out and touch him.

“Take your time,” he offered, despite being the one trapped in a monster’s web. Virgil abruptly felt a bit silly about his obvious wariness, and lifted his front legs to rub them together at the ankles. The stranger’s head tilted to the side slightly, watching the gesture intently.

“... It’s the oils that make the webs not stick,” Virgil explained. “I produce it naturally on my feet so I don’t get, y’know, stuck. I’ll have to touch the webs that are attached to you. With my feet. The spider ones.”

Virgil didn’t have any other kinds of feet, but the stranger graciously didn’t nitpick.

“A built-in solvent… I wonder if natural spiders have similar traits,” he mused instead, and then, “Do whatever you need, I don’t mind. The opposite, really, I appreciate the assistance.”

Sure enough, he didn’t shy away when Virgil began carefully plucking at the threads entangling him, sliding the sides of his legs along them to coat them in the anti-stick oils. Bit by bit, the entanglement loosened, and Virgil had just freed both arms when the human abruptly twisted around to reach for something on his person.

Of course, now that much of the webbing holding him in midair had been removed, his weight was significantly less supported. A few threads snapped, and he dropped a few inches with a startled yelp. If he continued, he’d be in for either a rough fall or getting caught in a whole new layer of webbing, and Virgil wanted neither of those things.

He quickly reached forwards with his human arms and lifted the stranger up and away from further entanglement, batting away any stray threads with his front legs. Belatedly, he realized he had forgotten to check if it was a weapon that the human had reached for. Even more belatedly, he realized that this was the second human he’d picked up in this impromptu carry.

Weird that it had happened twice.

“Perfect, thank you,” the guy said, and then he started writing furiously in a little book, occasionally glancing up at Virgil and locking onto a feature before returning to writing. It was as though he didn’t mind at all being held aloft like a human might lift up a misbehaving cat.

Virgil took the opportunity to continue cleaning any web remnants off the guy while he was distracted, his mind whirring. A stranger who had clearly never done a day of hard labor in his life, who didn’t seem at all afraid of him, and was taking notes.

... Oh, shit.

Virgil set him carefully on the ground while he was still preoccupied with scrawling out a label for a diagram of Virgil’s teeth. He backed up, softening his steps, and by the time the stranger pulled his attention away from his book, Virgil was already well out of sight and planned to keep it that way, regardless of the confused little call the stranger made.

He was not messing with what was clearly a mage out for his parts.

[perpetualcontrolleddrowning]

Gender Stuff with Fresh Cut Grass!

Pre-relationship FCG/Ashton, 3k, gender exploration

(AKA Jack projects all of their gender stuff onto a robot to make brain go brrrrr. Also, CW for misgendering before someone discovers their pronouns and some past dehumanization of robots from Dancer's party. If you want more comprehensive trigger warnings, let me know. A lot of this is based on my own experience of exploring gender and does not reflect everyone's journey.)

Fresh Cut Grass had been traveling with Dancer and her crew for the first couple years of its existence. And things were great! There was Dancer and her friends Haliwinthe and A’Rekke and Bellin. And then Dancer made more helper bots like Oatmeal and Apple Pie and Pussy. And things kept being great!

Sometimes the party would get hurt, and that was when they were thankful that Fresh Cut Grass existed. It had been made to heal others and it was very good at it.

Sometimes A’Rekke would get angry and sad and go off on her own and Fresh Cut Grass would roll over to talk to her. A’Rekke said that she didn’t mind. That it was nice to talk about this with someone who was a neutral party.

Is that what Fresh Cut Grass was? A neutral party? It supposed that the people in the party had seen Dancer make it, so they probably knew best. Fresh Cut Grass: healer, neutral party, helper. The people in the party liked it so it was pretty sure that it was doing things right, just the way it was programmed to do.

And then there was the night when Fresh Cut Grass went into stasis. The night when it came out of stasis to a dead party. Fresh Cut Grass had rolled off to the side to go into stasis and that was the only reason it wasn’t taken to pieces like Apple Pie and Oatmeal and Pussy.

It was a good thing that Dancer had programmed it to notice when something sad had happened, because then Fresh Cut Grass would know when to help others. The problem was that it tried to heal the party and no one woke up, so there was no one to help. Its programming started to go a little haywire then, since there wasn’t any way to heal the others and there wasn’t anyone to help process what had happened. Fresh Cut Grass figured that was why it was so difficult to remember what happened those days.

What matters is that it spent the next few days rolling around that mine until it stumbled across this weird, grumpy, sentient rock. He introduced himself as Ashton and thought Fresh Cut Grass was funny.

They spent the next few hours in that mine, until Ashton mentioned that they were trying to figure out what happened to Dancer’s adventuring party. Fresh Cut Grass was programmed to always be helpful, and it told Ashton as much as it could.

Two sentences into the story, Ashton had turned to Fresh Cut Grass in shock. By the end, they had leaned their hammer against the wall and sat on it, staring at the little robot in front of them.

“Fuck, bud, what are you still doing around here?”

“Well,” Fresh Cut Grass thought aloud, “I’m meant to be helpful and to heal other people. I guess I was just waiting for someone else to come around so I could help. I know it can be upsetting to hear about the tragic end of another’s life. Do you want to talk about that?”

“You don’t have anyone to stay with?” Ashton asked. Fresh Cut Grass felt a spark of a misfiring wire in its chest at that question, but quickly dismissed it.

“Not anymore, seeing as everyone I know is dead now!” The wire kept sparking, but Fresh Cut Grass would just eat some metal later and let it fix itself.

“Welp,” Ashton slapped his hands against his thighs and straightened up, “I guess you’re coming back with me then. It’s nice to meet you, new roommate. Ashton Greymoore, Earth genasi, he/they.” He held out a hand to shake, which Fresh Cut Grass happily took.

“The pleasure is all mine. My name is Fresh Cut Grass, and I’m a healer bot!”

“Pronouns?” Ashton asked, already walking back toward the entrance to the mine.

“What do you mean?”

“What are your pronouns?”

“Oh, I’m not a person, Ashton. I don’t have any pronouns.”

At that last sentence, Ashton shot Fresh Cut Grass a glance, but didn’t say anything else.

*~*~*

They walked out of the mine, then back to where Dancer’s party had made camp. Fresh Cut Grass had tried to heal the bodies but, when that hadn’t worked, it hadn’t been able to do anything else. Now, Ashton showed that they were pretty strong when they put their mind to it, and he worked all day to dig shallow graves for all of the members of the party. It was hard work, but luckily Fresh Cut Grass was able to refresh Ashton and take away any exhaustion they might have felt at the job.

After a full day of that, Ashton and Fresh Cut Grass started on their way to Jrusar. Ashton was great! He was grumpy and snapped when he first woke up in the morning. It reminded Fresh Cut Grass of A’Rekke, and it figured that Ashton probably also had something very sad and traumatic that had made them so quick to bursts of moody anger. That was good, though, because it meant there was someone for Fresh Cut Grass to help! It was very good at being a neutral party and listening when other people were upset. Plus, Ashton seemed to think that Fresh Cut Grass’s relentless optimism was bafflingly charming.

They went back to Krook House, and Ashton introduced Fresh Cut Grass to Milo.

“This is our new roommate. Name’s Fresh Cut Grass.”

Milo peered at Fresh Cut Grass with excited interest. “Nice to meet you! I’m Milo. They/them. Interesting name you’ve got. Did you give it to yourself?”

“Not at all! My creator named me after one of her favorite smells.”

“That’s pretty fucking cool, actually. Pronouns?”

This time, Fresh Cut Grass understood the question. “Oh, no pronouns. I’m not a person.”

At that, Milo looked a little shocked and shared a quick glance with Ashton. They seemed to carry on a quick conversation with just their eyes. Oh! They must have known each other for quite a while and must have built a very close relationship with each other.

“That’s kind of bullshit, I think,” said Milo, decisively. “You seem like a person to me. What do you use to refer to yourself in your own head?”

That was a weird question. None of the others had ever asked Fresh Cut Grass that before. “I guess my creator’s old party just used it/its for me, so you can do that.”

Milo’s mouth slanted into an unhappy line and Ashton huffed out a scoffing laugh. He flopped onto the sagging couch next to Milo and looked Fresh Cut Grass in the eye. Milo kept talking.

“Is that what you want to be called? Because we can use it/its if that’s what you want, but it feels you’re using it as a dehumanizing thing, and I’m not sure I’m down with that.”

“Well,” explained Fresh Cut Grass, patiently, because sometimes this was difficult for the soul-touched to understand. Even Bellin and A’Rekke had sometimes used pronouns for Fresh Cut Grass. “I am not a human, or really a creature at all. I’m just a jumble of programmed metal! So you don’t have to worry about any of that.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” huffed Ashton. “I’ll use it/its but you tell me if that changes. Can we at least call you FCG or something?”

They were being particularly resistant, huh? This must be something that was important to Ashton and Milo. “If it would make you happy to call me that, you can, sure!”

Milo and Ashton exchanged another glance that Fresh Cut Grass couldn’t decipher before Milo spoke one last time.

“We’ll call you FCG for now, but say something if you don’t like that name, or if you want us to call you something else. This is a nickname, not us renaming you.”

“This all seems really important to you two, so go right ahead. I’ve never had a nickname before!”

And that was that. Milo and Ashton stood up and got Fresh Cut Grass set up with its own space. The house itself was rickety and tall and cluttered. There were bells and lanterns and paper stars and tapestries all hanging down from the ceiling and dividing the floor Milo and Ashton lived on into different spaces. Ashton and Milo started to move some of the hanging tapestries around to make a nook that was just for Fresh Cut Grass. It tried to tell them that it was just a robot, and it didn’t need something like a bedroom when it could just go into stasis in the living room, or by the front door. Ashton just laughed and told it not to look a gift horse in the mouth, before shoving it into the room and letting a tapestry drape between them.

That night, Fresh Cut Grass stood in the middle of its private little nook and struggled to go into stasis. It could hear the sound of snoring coming from Milo’s corner, and the huffing breath of Ashton closer by. Fresh Cut Grass couldn’t clearly remember a time when it had gone into stasis since it had lost Dancer’s party, and for a few minutes it wondered if something had gotten broken in the fight. It had definitely been banged up in those days wandering around the mine, and there were some deep gashes in the metal. Plus, some of the wires in its chest kept sparking at weird times and didn’t seem to be fixing themselves on their own. Maybe this was another thing that was broken, the ability to go into stasis.

It stood there in the living room and listened to the others in their own stasis. Slowly, slowly, Fresh Cut Grass wheeled itself over to the top of the stairs leading into their floor of Krook House. This way, it would be able to quickly get to anyone who needed help. Maybe that was the problem! It had been tricky to go into stasis because Fresh Cut Grass was first and foremost a helper bot, and all the people it could help were in stasis. This way, it would know the moment someone needed help. No one would be able to come onto this floor of the house without Fresh Cut Grass knowing about it. And, you know, being able to help.

That was why it was suddenly easier to go into stasis.

*~*~*

It didn’t take long before Fresh Cut Grass met everyone else who lived at Krook House. The main people were Anni and Ashton and Milo, but sometimes Bean would stay the night, and Arlo lived on the street corner, mostly, but liked to come inside and sleep in the house when it was cold out, or if it was raining above-ground and the water dripped down to give the whole neighborhood a mildewy sheen.

They were all wonderful, if in need of a little motivation and encouragement. Which Fresh Cut Grass was more than happy to provide! And here was the thing: they all had some sort of fancy pronoun thing going on. And every time a new one met Fresh Cut Grass, they asked for its pronouns. And Fresh Cut Grass had never been around so many people who asked questions like that and genuinely waited for an answer. Dancer had created Fresh Cut Grass on the road, and it had traveled with Dancer and Bellin and A’Rekke and Haliwinthe for months, but they were all pretty clear on using she or he for their pronouns.

It was just. Fresh Cut Grass had always known that there were people who lived outside those two categories, but it had always pictured those people as androgenous, or some fascinating blend of feminine and masculine. This was different from that. Ashton used he/they pronouns but had a deep voice and said that he hated wearing dresses or skirts because the fabric would get caught on the sharper ends of his hammer. Milo was usually dressed in two layers of draping fabric and some kind of knitwear in a way that was kind of feminine but somehow strikingly not. Anni used she/her pronouns but had her hair shorn to a short buzzcut and never wore makeup.

It was just, Fresh Cut Grass thought that Dancer had programmed a perfect understanding of gender, but it was realizing that there was so much it hadn’t known. So much more that was possible.

There were a few soft, precious memories that Fresh Cut Grass liked to make sure were stored correctly. Sometimes, when they were joking around or when they would talk to it, they would use he/him for Fresh Cut Grass. It had noticed a pattern in these moments, that they would do it when they needed emotional support in upsetting moments. This was probably because Dancer had programmed it to have a lower voice and A’Rekke and Bellin would project onto it when they needed support. That’s probably all it was.

And, you know, Fresh Cut Grass had always thought it was obvious that it didn’t fit into a male or female category, nor some beautiful blend of the two. But. If that wasn’t all that gender was, then maybe there was something to that question that everyone was asking.

And it wasn’t that Dancer didn’t know best! Obviously Dancer knew everything about Fresh Cut Grass when they made it, but what if Dancer hadn’t known about all this gender stuff either? Fresh Cut Grass bet that she just hadn’t been blessed with this life experience yet. And if she had been, then she would have known that gender didn’t have to just be a clear dichotomy, or even a trichotomy. That sometimes they/them was used to encompass such a beautiful, extensive variety of experiences.

So, maybe it would tell Ashton that they could use they/them for it. But at that thought, those diamond-bright memories of A’Rekke, sitting high up in a perch while she cried and talked to Fresh Cut Grass about her parents, of Bellin, ranting his frustration to Fresh Cut Grass while he laid on his back and looked up at the stars. Of them heading back to the campfire afterward and telling Dancer that “he was a good listener.” Of the bright, satisfying glow of happiness that Dancer had programmed into it at hearing praise like that.

Thinking back on that, on the idea of someone using he/him to refer to it, Fresh Cut Grass felt a soft flare of that same joy. That feeling of being appreciated and seen and noticed. Thinking about the people surrounding it now, and using the pronouns they/them, Fresh Cut Grass felt a feeling of something aligning in its chest. Looking at all the people in its life and feeling some deep knowledge of them. Something that was easy to know because it was shared. Because in that way, they were the same.

Besides, Fresh Cut Grass was designed to be helpful to others, and it seemed to make everyone uncomfortable when it insisted that it wasn’t a person. That was probably why its programming was pushing it to think about all this gender stuff. It was making people uncomfortable, and so the programming made Fresh Cut Grass change it.

That afternoon, when Ashton finally woke up, Fresh Cut Grass rolled over to greet them.

“Smiley day to you, Ashton!”

Ashton groaned and shoved their head deeper into their pillow. “Smiley fucking day, FCG. ‘Sthere any food?”

“There sure is! Milo has been teaching me how to make that kitchen sink scramble thing they’re always making and I made some for you since they had to go out pretty early this morning. It’s got beans and eggs and pretzels and chocolate so I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.”

Ashton rolled to the side and narrowed his one eye that wasn’t covered by the pillow. “That sounds pretty disgusting, bud.”

“Oh!” Another wire sparked in Fresh Cut Grass’s chest. They were going to have to ask Milo to take a look at it and see what was broken. “Sorry about that. I’ll go ahead and throw that away and make something else. You just go back to sleep, Ashton.”

Before Fresh Cut Grass could roll away, though, Ashton grabbed his arm. “Well hold on, now. I never said I wouldn’t eat it. ‘Sit still warm?”

“Of course!”

“Then that’s literally all I need.” And Ashton patted their hand once or twice against Fresh Cut Grass’s arm before groaning and shoving themselves to their feet and stumbling toward the kitchen area. Fresh Cut Grass rolled after them, wondering why it was taking him so long to say this.

“Also, my pronouns are he/they,” he finally called out, as Ashton shoveled some of the brown, chunky scramble onto their plate.

Ashton paused in his movements and turned to look at Fresh Cut Grass. “No shit?”

Not sure what to do with that, Fresh Cut Grass just kind of held their arms out to the side and smiled as best as they could with their metal jaw.

“Fuck yeah, man. Sounds good. Now stop talking until I do something about this hangover.”

Oh, right, of course.

“Oh, right, of course. I can heal you Ashton, if you think that might help you feel any better!”

And Fresh Cut Grass wheeled his way over to where Ashton was mumbling into his chocolatey, bean- and pretzel-filled eggs, looking for a new way to help.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Mr. Petrus is somewhere in public when a meek stranger approaches him on the street. They immediately recognized him as a Handler—formerly theirs. They appear alone, and half a second from falling to their knees should he so much as look at them a certain way. They try to tell him something but the words catch in their throat and only a quiet noise slips free. How does he react this unexpected interaction?

CW: Pet whump, whumper POV, creepy/intimate whumper, escaped whumpee returns to whumper, dehumanization, collared, implied dubcon/noncon at end, dubcon touch, dubcon kiss

He isn’t usually the type to go out to bars - Luke’s a workaholic on a good week, content to all but live in his Facility sleeping quarters, leaving for supplies or to spend a day out in the sun and then coming right back.

When you love what you do, as they say, you’ll never work a day in your life.

Still, Renford's essentially mandated he take a damn vacation for once. He’s left behind his trainees and headed out to enjoy himself at a bar he used to frequent, back before he found he preferred to frequent the cells the frightened young men are held in, waiting for the slightest touch to remind them they exist.

Luke sits back on a barstool with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Oh, he’s not supposed to smoke, but this bar doesn’t push the issue and he’s not the only one filling the air with the familiar, acrid scent.

Out on the floor, people dance together, barely lit by dim lights changing color every so often, Red, blue, and green move over sweaty skin, curves and straight lines. Luke enjoys it all. He quirks a smile. He can see, just looking, who here would look fucking gorgeous with a collar buckled around their neck and a little more emptiness inside.

Get ‘em so empty they need someone to fill it up.

Luke’s probably ten years older than the oldest of the people on the dance floor, but that doesn’t bother him. Plenty of people like an older man, and those who don’t… well, if he gets them on the wrong end of his baton, they don’t really get to choose what they like or don’t, now do they?

The beat is a deafening rumble that rolls against his skin in rhythm and Luke hums contentedly. His beer is cool and rolls with citrus sourness along his tongue and down his throat, slightly fizzy compared to the darker stuff. Bright enough to flirt with tasting like cider, or nearly so.

Some local craft brewery shit, probably. In his Facility studio, Luke just keeps some basic Coors. No need to get fancy at home, after all.

Does he even have beer in his actual home? It’s been so long since he’s been there…

Something touches his arm, pulls just slightly at his sleeve, and Luke turns, head tipping to the side, a grin already on his lips.

There’s a lithe, beautiful young man there, with hair dyed a brilliant, ridiculously bright purple, eyes ringed in eyeliner. He has a lip ring, Luke notes, his tongue moving out to run over his own lower lip in thought.

There’s something familiar about the young man, although Luke can’t quite place him. Not exactly.

But the shiver of trepidation mixed with a desperation to have eyes - and more than eyes - on him… Luke knows that well enough. It tells him what he wants to know. His smile widens, just a little. “Evening, pretty boy.”

The young man looks up at him, his hand still hovering just over Luke’s bicep, and his mouth opens like he’ll reply. All that comes out is a soft sound that Luke only hears because a new song has started, slightly off-key piano playing over a heavily-synthesized voice and the slow introduction of a beat.

“What?” Luke’s eyebrows raise. “Use your words.”

The young man takes a step closer, and then another. He’s moving like a newborn fawn, on suddenly-awkward legs like he might fall to his knees at any moment. Luke was watching the dancers before, but now his gaze is wholly caught by the absolute goddamn sexiness of a runaway pet who can’t stop himself from walking back into a cage.

“H-Handler Petrus,” The runaway says, and when Luke’s hand moves to cup his face, the young man tips his head immediately into it. His eyes are watering, wet with tears that haven’t yet fallen. As soon as one slips out, Luke leans slowly forward and licks up the side of his face. The runaway whimpers at the wet heat of his tongue, the casual ownership of the action.

“That’s me,” He murmurs into the young man’s ear. “You know it. Why aren’t you running from me?”

The young man swallows, hard, and turns his head, pressing his own lips in a shivering, fearful brush against Luke’s cheek. “I-I’m hungry,” He says, voice almost too low to pick up. “And… and I don’t-... I don’t w-want-...” His voice trails off, and Luke’s smile only widens as the runaway leans forward and rests his forehead against Luke’s shoulder.

He sighs, setting his beer down half-drunk and turning to run his condensation-cold fingers through that garishly bright purple hair. “You ran away, huh?”

He already knows the answer.

The runaway pet nods without speaking.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?” Luke slides off his barstool, shifting to slide an arm around the runaway’s shoulders. He slaps a ten-dollar bill on the bar and walks away, heading for the door, the beat of a song bouncing off his skin right up until they step outside. It’s chilly out here, with a stiff breeze blowing the scent of saltwater through the air around them. It feels a little like walking through the surf, down here at the old warehouse district.

“No. I’m… hungry all the time, I still have to fuck for a place to sleep, people are… mean sometimes, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, where to go.”

Fuck. He has to make sure the lib people don’t get ahold of this little beauty. He’s exactly what they’re looking to save.

“What’s your number?” He asks, casual as can be. The runaway isn’t wearing long-sleeves or a bracelet, he’s scarred on the inside of his left wrist when Luke takes a peek. Looks like he cut the tattoo off of himself, or had someone else do it, once upon a time.

“654338,” The pet says automatically, without hesitation. “Designation Romantic, Facility 001-”

“Yeah, I got that part.” Luke cuts him off and the pet falls back into silence. “Why’d you run away?” With his blue eyes as cold as ever, Luke lights another cigarette, takes a deep, deep drag, exhales smoke into the air in front of them as they move. The runaway coughs into one hand.

“I just… didn’t want to, anymore. With my owner.”

“You should know that what you want doesn’t fucking matter,” Luke says amiably, but the runaway winces and hunches into himself. Luke watches from the corner of his eye, his own mouth watering at the sight of the pet’s shame, his nervousness. “You don’t exist to get what you want. So why come up to me?”

“I thought maybe-... maybe you could help me.”

“Get back to your owner?”

The pet turns to look up at him, with gorgeous warm brown eyes full of pleading. “No, Handler Petrus. Please, please no. Just… just, to someone else, please, someone who won’t-... hurt me so badly. Please. Please.”

“It’s my job to get any runaway I see back to the Facility, gorgeous thing. Then back home."

“No. No, don’t take me back there! Please, I can’t-... I can’t do the lights again, please. I can't take how he h-hurts when, when he-"

"Yeah, yeah." Luke rolls his eyes. "Wimp."

The pet's eyes close against more tears.

Luke snorts at the sight. Pathetic. “We have pretty strict contracts that ensure runaways go right back to their rightful owners.”

“No, please, just-... can you help me another way?” The runaway goes up on his toes, presses his lips to Luke’s chin, against the corner of his mouth. Those pretty hands move to slide up under Luke’s shirt, cold fingers against his warm stomach. They tease moving downward. There’s a distance in the pet’s eyes, now, separating himself from what he’s doing to earn what he’s desperate for.

Luke considers. Then he has an idea, and he sighs, as if he's won over.

“Tell you what.” He rubs a thumb over the runaway’s lower lip, toys with his lip ring. The pet opens his mouth to show the silver stud on his tongue. Luke’s smile goes slightly cock-eyed, a jolt of heat straight to the pit of his stomach, spreading from there. “I’ve got a friend who might be able to keep you. I’m not going to just hand over anyone, though.”

The pet takes Luke’s thumb into his mouth, sucks lightly, rolling the tongue piercing against the underside in an unspoken promise. He pulls back just to ask, “What do I need to do?”

“I have an apartment, a week’s worth of vacation scheduled, and you can show me just how good you are at earning your keep.”

The runaway swallows with an audible click in his throat, then nods. “I-I can do that.”

“I know you can, baby. I’m the one who trained you. Now, let’s go find out how good you are with that tongue ring.”

Luke leads the pet away, towards his car, smiling contentedly into the night. He can enjoy a week of desperate eagerness, then drug the fuck out of the pretty thing, buckle a collar right back around his neck, and throw him into a cell at WRU to be wiped and put back where he belongs.

Once he’s on the Drip for a couple of days, he won’t even know Luke broke a promise.

He’ll be the same puppy-eager for Luke’s hands and mouth and anything else he wants to give him that he is right now. Plus, Luke’ll get a nice little bonus for turning in a runaway.

This is shaping up to be an excellent vacation.

[galaxywhump]

Birdcage

[Masterlist]

Continued from Proper Introductions.

cw: hero/villain whump, pet whump, defiant winged whumpee, captivity, dehumanization, caged, restraints, threats, forced name change, humiliation, manhandling, mention of strangulation, hand gagging.

~~~

“A bird joke. Isn’t that too original?”

“Couldn’t help myself”, Bradley laughed, draping a large towel around Oscar’s shoulders in an attempt to dry his wings at least a little bit. “Black birds are so serious, but canaries? They’re fun! They’re adorable! They’re… pets.”

Oscar’s stomach sank at that, and he swallowed. Deep down he’d known that was basically what Bradley had made him into when he decided to keep him - a phrase that made him nauseous the first time he heard it - but hearing it said out loud still felt like a punch, a series of punches, each more painful than the last.

“I’m not your pet, and my name is-” His words turned into a sharp mmph! when Bradley covered his mouth with his hand.

“Ah-ah, I know it, but I don’t want to hear it. You’re Canary now. Get used to it.” There was genuine sadistic glee in Bradley’s voice, and yet Oscar felt as if it was the glee of a first-timer, reveling in this unique opportunity to humiliate and threaten.

He had just been given a new toy, after all.

Bradley retracted his hand and pulled off the towel, already soaked through and useless.

“I wish I had invited someone with heat powers”, he said, tossing the towel aside and critically eyeing Oscar’s sopping, shivering form. “Or caught myself whoever it was that evaporated that swimming pool last week. Do you know them?”

“No, and-”

“Oh, well. Point is- I can’t bring you into the house like this”, Bradley continued, once again disappearing behind Oscar, who tensed up, waiting for another nightmare to follow the whip of freezing water, “and it’s cold out, so you’ll have to wait here a little longer, until you’re dry. Or at least drier.”

Oscar wished he had taken the chance to sit down when he had it. His body was killing him in the strained position he was in, and he doubted Bradley was going to free his wrists from the chains. Something was set on the tiled floor and he managed to turn his head to the side to see what it was as Bradley plugged it in and turned it on. A space heater.

He sighed. At least he wouldn’t be freezing anymore.

“Alright. Here’s your first order: just stay here until you stop looking like a drowned rat.”

He glared, but Bradley had already done a heel turn and was walking towards the door.

“I’m not following your orders, you ass”, Oscar growled after him despite knowing too well that he had no choice, at least in this case; he was only answered with a chuckle. “And my name is Oscar!”

The door slammed shut, leaving him alone once again, and with nothing distracting him anymore he became acutely aware of the aching pulsating in his arms and the tension in his legs and torso. At least his wings weren’t dripping with water anymore, but, folded up as they were, they would take longer to dry than if he was able to stretch them out.

And they cramped. And itched. And it was driving him insane.

Maybe it was better to focus on that, though, rather than his apparent new name and status as Bradley’s pet, pet Canary.

Oscar wasn’t one to cry, but this time he had to blink away burning tears.

-=-

He didn’t know how much time had passed since Bradley had left him there. All he had to go by was the fact that he was getting drier, which was more than welcome. His hair and clothes were almost completely dry, while his wings were still unpleasantly damp, but not dripping wet. His arms were getting numb after the throbbing pain forced a few tears out of his eyes, but at least they dried quickly, too, and when Bradley entered again, there was nothing hinting at Oscar’s moment of weakness, other than his humiliating situation.

“Much better”, Bradley commented, reaching up towards Oscar’s hands to remove the chain, leaving the handcuffs on. Oscar had to stop himself from audibly sighing with relief when he was finally able to lower his arms - he didn’t want to let Bradley know how much pain he was in. Good first impressions and all that.

“My wings would’ve dried quicker if you’d cut that tape”, Oscar said while Bradley crouched down to unlock the manacles around his ankles. Their grip didn’t lessen even when he let go, though; the chains were holding his legs still, preventing him from kicking Bradley - which he mourned - while he stood up straight again.

“I’m not in a hurry. And I’d rather not get smacked.” Bradley released his invisible grip on the manacles, grabbed Oscar’s handcuffs, and pulled him forward, forcing him to walk. “Follow me, and don’t do anything stupid.”

He clicked his fingers and a length of chain flew up from the workbench and towards the metal bracelet on his wrist; he swiftly grabbed it and wound it around his fist, an emergency weapon and restraint more than anything. Oscar glared at it. With Bradley’s powers, which he used to envy and admire, trying anything stupid was out of the question- for now, he reminded himself.

He was finally led inside the house proper, leaving the garage behind him. (He hoped it was for good, at first. Then he realized that wherever Bradley was taking him might be, and probably would be, ten times worse.) He stayed quiet, taking in the interior, just as brochure-esque as the exterior. He caught a glimpse of the kitchen with black marble counters, and the living room with an obscenely large TV and black leather couches.

It was almost nauseating, really.

Bradley led him past it, through a corridor, turned right, and soon enough they reached a closed door - with a lock, of course, an ostentatious decorative one. Oscar wondered if it was a recent addition. Bradley grinned at him and pushed the door open, revealing the room on the other side.

The trophy room.

Its walls were covered in cut-outs from newspaper articles, drawings and letters, probably fan mail; there were glass cases with medals inside, trophies, and even the key to the city. That wasn’t what made Oscar’s heart sink, though, because straight ahead, by the far wall of the room, there was a spot prepared for Bradley’s most recent, unusual trophy.

“What the hell?” he spat out, his eyes going wide.

What the hell did you expect, more like.

“I had it custom built for you!” Bradley said, excited, and pulled Oscar forward again, which required more force this time - he was simply frozen in place.

He was staring at a cage, built into the wall. It was a half-circle with a metal bottom slightly elevated above the floor, and bars - gilded, of course they were gilded - that curved elegantly at around two thirds of their height to connect in one spot of the ceiling. A gilded birdcage. His new home.

“It still needs some tweaks, but it was a miracle that I could find people who could do the job at such short notice. Nothing like a little renovation, right?”

Oscar didn’t respond, still unable and unwilling to comprehend what he was looking at, stumbling behind Bradley as he led him closer and opened the door; he let go of him, then, but his power immediately took over and Oscar was pulled into the cage, tripping as his handcuffs yanked him downwards. He landed hard on his knees and hissed in pain while Bradley finally got to removing the tape from his wings. Once they were freed, he was wise enough to step aside before Oscar spread his wings out to relieve the cramps and, with a little luck, smack the bastard.

“Woah!” Bradley laughed, and Oscar cursed under his breath when the handcuffs once again dragged him forward until he was forced to bow. “Careful there, Canary. The tape can always go back on.”

He gritted his teeth, but brought his wings close again. He heard Bradley walk out of the cage and close the door behind him, then lock it, and his handcuffs finally disconnected from the bottom of the cage.

“Come here.”

Kneeling with his back turned to Bradley, he closed his eyes, trying not to shudder. He was in a cage. He was being given orders.

It hurt more than he cared to admit.

He stood up, which was a feat on its own with how sore his body was, and turned around to face Bradley, immediately hit with the sheer weirdness of seeing him - seeing the room, seeing everything - through the bars. A newfound unease settled in his heart, his stomach, and his lungs, unease that he didn’t want to entertain.

He decided to pretend the bars just weren’t there. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to pretend.

“Come on. I’ll get these off of you.”

“Can’t you do that with your telekinetic hocus-pocus?” Oscar snarked, but still approached. Getting the handcuffs taken off was a tempting prospect, even if it was a reminder that they weren’t needed anymore, that he was powerless, that the cage had become a new restraint.

“Nope. I still need a key. I can always do this, though.”

This time Oscar knew what to expect, and the sharp pull on the handcuffs pinning him to the bars of the cage barely made him stumble.

A metal cage. A damn playground for Bradley’s powers. Oscar felt even more overwhelmed upon realizing that. The handcuffs were, however, the last metal element he had, and once they were off he held on to the relief that Bradley couldn’t control him directly anymore.

He was still in a cage in his trophy room, but that fact he preferred not to think about too hard - not while Bradley was there.

“Looks like you’re all set!” Bradley took a step back, as if reading Oscar’s mind, knowing how tempted he was to reach out and wrap his hands around his throat. “Okay, almost. But you have a name and a home now, and that’s what matters.”

“So what now?”

He didn’t mean to say it out loud, and it was only by miracle that the pathetic question didn’t sound as uncertain as it did in his head. Bradley smiled.

“Now you just make yourself comfortable, get acquainted with your new room, and then… I’m sure my friends would love to meet you.”

Oscar’s throat went dry, but he didn’t break eye contact. He cursed himself for his stupidity - of course there were going to be other people, hell, he’d already gotten acquainted with security guards, and Bradley didn’t seem the type to do his own chores. And there would be his friends, too, other heroes, most likely. More people seeing him like this, defeated, caged, humiliated.

“And I’d rather not meet them”, he managed to say.

“Well, too bad. There’s no easy way to say this, Canary, but I’m sure you understand… You’re mine now.”

Why did it sting? Why did it feel like a punch to the gut? He knew this. He knew all this, he knew he was a criminal, he knew what Bradley deciding to keep him meant - but denial was a powerful defense, and he kept it up as he looked into Bradley’s eyes, sparkling with excitement.

“You could be in jail right now, but instead you’re here, in this beautiful cage I commissioned just for you. It’s special treatment, and because of that, because you’re mine, you’ll be doing what you’re told.”

“I don’t think so.” It was getting harder and harder to keep his voice from shaking, to force himself to talk at all. He hadn’t found Bradley himself particularly terrifying before, but now his smile, the spark in his eyes, and the way his voice was getting quieter, darker, froze him to the core. 

Bradley laughed, a genuine laughter that Oscar could swear echoed throughout the room and kept ringing even after it stopped.

“We’ll see about that! But- I hate to leave you, but I still have a few things to sort out for you, and I’m sure you’d like to get accommodated at your own pace, so I’ll be back later. Enjoy your new home, Canary!”

He grinned seeing anger flash through Oscar’s eyes, but he got no response other than that – this time words got stuck in Oscar’s throat for good. Then he was left alone again, in his final destination, with no restraints, no further journey. It was just him in the room with all the evidence of Bradley’s victories and adoring crowds, of his powers and his devotion to helping people, to doing good; and yet he had a captive now, a new trophy more fit for a villain.

Oscar sat down slowly, cross-legged, and wrapped his wings around himself, grimacing at the itching and static resulting from the prolonged restraint. It helped combat the cold – and he wasn’t sure whether it was the room that was freezing, or just his terror - and offered the most comfort he had gotten in days. He reached for one of the dozen or so pillows strewn around the bottom and buried his face in it with a long, shaky exhale. He didn’t cry. Didn’t scream in frustration. He stayed perfectly still, with his eyes closed, for what felt like hours, until pretending that the cage didn’t exist became a tad easier.

He would have to open his eyes eventually, but for now he allowed himself to get lost in memories of places he wasn’t sure he would see again, and people who couldn’t save him.

taglist: @funky-little-glitter-bomb

~~~

[next]

[probably-haven]

after binge reading i have come to a new revelation: I’m not a fan of most Xiaoven fanfics

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ship and its one of my favorite to think about.... but most of the fanfiction for the ship just- doesn’t sit right with me for a number of reasons. 

Disclaimer: these are personal opinions from my own taste and are in no way an attack against any authors out there, because frankly fanfic authors are great and not like i could do better lol. As these are personal opinions, I acknowledge here and now that a number of people disagree and that they are under no obligation to change their opinions in any way as it is not and never will be my intention to tell others what they should be thinking That said- read at your own risk if you want- meh, anyway-

time to share some opinions that have been on my mind lately

The biggest reason.... is how they handle Xiao. And I don’t even mean mischaracterization because Xiao is such a complex and yet simultaneously simple character that as long as you’re somewhere in the range of “Xiao vibes” it’s really hard to write him out of character because of his complexities. What I mean is something that i actually completely agree with as being accurate to his character. In nearly every single fanfic I’ve seen, there is some element of idolization that Xiao has for Venti, or for the sake of reference, Barbatos. He tends to think himself beneath Barbatos and/or indebted to him, whether that be because he’s an archon, because he saved him, or simply because of Xiao’s tendency to dehumanize(yes i see the irony in that word usage) himself.  This by itself isn’t an issue but its often how this trait of his is treated.

Imma just list a few ways I’ve seen this be handled within Xiaoven fics. - It isn’t handled, it’s just there and accepted as a part of who he is in the story - It isn’t handled but his trait is treated as source of humor within the story - Venti(and others) roll with it (finding humor in it, just cant change it, encouraging it, making jokes about it, etc.) - Venti takes advantage of it(whether accidentally or purposely) - it’s actually addressed(by Venti or someone else or the narration- can go a number of ways, but just- even a brief reference to the fact that its not a good mindset fits in here) - savior!Venti(Where venti disagrees with it but the way it’s written gives off “god among mortals” vibes- like he’s just being humble and truly is above him in reality) - its the focus of the story  - not directly addressed but shown to be destructive.  - they chose not to not include this in the story’s characterization of Xiao(just saying that this is valid ahead of time) Theres others but i have a lot already.  Note that I tend to read more ‘serious-toned’(idk if that makes sense) fics so that may skew my perception

Now there’s a few that i have issues with on their own- both instances of it not being handled, Venti(and others) rolling with it, Venti takes advantage of it(purposely(and without good intent)), and savior!Venti. Xiao not only has this trait, but he is unfamiliar with what is normal in relationships or emotions as a result of isolation and inexperience. He is also either not aware of or not concerned with what is considered strictly “healthy.” Combining these makes for a rather dangerous combination and just accepting it as “oh he’s just like that, it’s who he is” or making it out to be something funny- It’s not wrong or bad by any means necessarily, and I could still possibly enjoy it to an extent depending on a series of different factors, but its- not as often.  Even in the case where I do enjoy reading it however, I would still feel uncomfortable sharing it with or recommending it to others because in the first instance it feels like normalizing a destructive and dangerous mindset, and in the second case it does the same while simultaneously making a joke of it. It’s the same deal with Venti or other characters rolling with it, but that’s probably gonna be mentioned later too. Not to say that this is a “wrong” way to handle it, that it makes the fic bad, or that authors even are normalizing anything by doing so, just that in my specific instance- not a fan. 

I’ll get to the others when i talk more about Venti, but for now: It’s the focus of the story. I think I saw like... 2? where the story was like- focused on this and why its a problem which- power to them, address those real world problems like a boss- but also i wouldn’t actively seek it out or anything- like, good job, but doing so just leaves it open neutrally for other factors to decide how good a story i think it is. 

not directly addressed but shown to be destructive. You’d think i wouldn’t like this- but frankly in fanfiction not everyone wants to address every character flaw verbally because it can through off story, narration, dialogue, and general flow to do so. This can be with an event, an action, a dialogue, a mere comment, making it actually fit into the it’s actually addressed category except that its- subtle enough to make its own category. plus i live for show not tell- in everything- its a thing. im- very much a fan of when the fics do this but the subtlety is easy to miss and its not common so- 

It’s actually adressed- doesnt have to be a lot- just mention anywhere or imply anywhere that maybe idolizing someone as a god and savior and being in a relationship with them while having little knowledge of standards, emotions, relationships, or healthy behaviors in general- maybe isnt the smartest idea in the word. (”Call me Venti, not Barbatos” by itself is not enough to fit in this category tho as a note)

-

Now lets talk about Venti...

uh.... those who have followed me for awhile will probably already know this but... I have a lot of opinions on Venti and a pretty- “niche(?)” perception of his characterization that isn’t shared by a lot of others- so I don’t actually read as much Venti fanfic in general as you might expect because I often end up disagreeing with how writers portray him, which again, in no way is their characterization wrong, but- “their perceived truth” conflicts with “my perceived truth” and by extent so does the characterization, though neither is any more correct than the other from an objective point of view, if that makes sense... but anyways now that that’s said, moving on before this becomes a philosophy lecture, as fun as that would be for me.  I’ll try to keep my “perceived truth” out of this for the first bit. 

Venti’s response to this: 

He rolls with it: this depends on the mood of the fanfiction. If they dont put a lot of stress on that trait of Xiao’s it totally fine but if the trait seems to be a major part of Xiao’s character, it seems like normalization once more. (more on this later)

he takes advantage of it purposely: if its an AU or something and Venti’s like a villain(i saw a few) then- villain venti isnt my cup of tea but i have no qualms. If they don’t portray Venti in a negative light while having him take advantage however that’s a bit uncomfortable to read for me because it feels like normalizing taking advantage of that mindset as well as the mindset itself. However, i did see a number of instances of Venti using it as leverage for like- self care- which i definitely have no qualms. Xiao: [insert probably destructive idolizing statement about being indebt] Venti: How bout you pay me back by actually sleeping for once smh or other variations are okay and depending on the vibe are actually a really fun dynamic as long as it doesnt turn into romanticizing or normalizing it, y’know?

Venti accidentally taking advantage of it.... I love angst- and in most of these theres a sense of guilt when he realizes- and i just think thats a lovely way of addressing the dangers of such a mindset for both sides. As long as it doesn’t keep repeating to the point of romanticization its totally cool to read in my eyes(not irl ofc). If Venti never realizes he accidentally took or is taking advantage it feels a bit like normalization, and if he does but just- doesn’t care thats- a rip.

savior!Venti...... i- i hate. the story giving off vibes that Xiao’s mindset is technically correct while Venti oh so humbly tells him to treat him as an equal like the wonderful and charitable person he is.... i just- no. of course thats over dramatizing it- I think the main thing that gives it this vibe is when Venti doesn’t seem either concerned, surprised, uncomfortable, or otherwise have a negative feeling towards Xiao’s mindset. Just- it makes the whole thing weird in my eyes when Venti doesnt really seem to have his own reason to oppose the mindset idk- 

-

fact time!

Venti is the god of freedom. His backstory is freeing Mondstadt from a god’s tyrannical reign. His origin is a windsprite, just another breeze bringing changes for the better. His form is a nameless boy who played an instrument and then died, thus failing at his only dream and only ever accomplishing anything because of the help of others. He slept for a thousand years after the archon war to avoid putting Mond under the rule of yet another tyrannical god. He only even became a god because Andrius chose to let him. He wouldn’t have even had that chance if the nameless bard had survived, he’d remain just another wind while his friend ascended to godhood. Venti sacrifices his own power for his people’s freedom. 

now that I’ve laid out a number of canon facts, time for opinions:

Venti has little to no desire to be seen as a god. He thrives in, comes from, and emphasizes a lack of superiority in quite nearly everything. The first Ragnvindir, who canonically turned his back on Venti after Decarabian’s fall, likely did so because one- he anticipated power would corrupt and Venti would soon become just another tyrannical god, two- he suspected Venti used the nameless bard in an attempt to rise to godhood, or three- idk insert other possibilities to acknowledge again that i could totally be wrong.

Look me in the eyes and tell me Venti wouldnt trade godhood for his friend in an instant. His godhood was only granted to him because his friend died and could easily serve to constantly remind him of what could have been and what he lost. Venti takes no enjoyment from being seen as superior and in my opinion, I feel that it could actually make him largely uncomfortable when his divinity and abilities as an archon get involved-

also self promotion for my favorite posts- check out #archon war era venti if thats interesting to you

so anyway Venti rolling with it or making jokes about it just doesn’t sit right with me.- 

-

Okay! enough talking about that mindset!

idk- i have... a few/lot of other gripes and stuff or just things that kinda throw off the vibe for me but that’s the main one plus my general personal pickiness when it come to Venti fanfics- but this has gotten long enough already- 

idk i just felt like rambling about it and i haven’t done a long post in a while so-

again, I love the ship and its actually one of my favorites- just the fanfic isnt my thing..... that doesn’t mean i don’t still love it and come up with a whole ton of brainrot and ideas on it tho lmao

[whump-a-la-mode]

Signal - Pincushion

Hey uhh this is a bit of a weird one! Thanks to @suspicious-whumping-egg (aka blue fren) for helping me come up with a fun way to torture my poor lab whumpee. Also, tagging @shiningstarofwinter !

Previous entries to this story can be found in my pinned infopost (no pun intended.)

CW//Injury, mentioned amputation, blood, pins, needles, torture, dehumanization

Upon the table, Signal shook like a pinned butterfly. And, in a way, that was exactly what they were.

After all, how else could they be described, in that moment?

“Stop-” They were begging. When the experiment had started, they had tried to stop themself from doing so. Tried to keep their dignity about themself. But how could they really have something even resembling dignity when they spent their life eating out of a dog bowl in a cage? “Stop- Please please please- No, no, no!”

Their last ‘no’ resembled an anguished howl more than anything that could be described as human language. But, it didn’t stop the next pin from going in.

“Stop squirming.” The sharp voice of the one and only Dr. Crane barked, piercing Signal’s ears as though it were an airhorn. They flinched in the same manner. “I said, stop squirming!”

How could they stop squirming when their wings, no, their whole body may as well have been on fire?

“You’re okay, Signal.” Dr. Sampson’s far softer tone coaxed. “We’re almost done.”

“We’ve barely started.” The other researcher commented sharply.

They’d only just started?! If anything, that reignited Signal’s writhing. When the next pin went in, they couldn’t help but feel that Dr. Crane had placed it as harshly as she could manage, simply to make a point.

Every piece of them was in agony. Their wings were so burdened by pain that the weight was disturbed, too, to their other limbs, their chest, their skull.

But they could not move, and there was quite a paramount reason for that.

Signal should have known, as soon as they were laid out, upon the table. They knew that table. Sure, in its default state, it held no different intentions than the metal exam tables they were so often forced upon.

But, this table in particular had something very unique about it. A pair of metal flaps, able to extend from either side of its surface. The perfect size for fixing in place a pair of wings.

Most of the doctors’ tortures, they’d learned to handle. That did not mean that they cared for them in any way, shape, or form, of course. But, they knew what to expect. They understood the pain that awaited for them.

Procedures upon the wings, however? They could never get used to those. They’d always found it stupid, found it unfair, the fact that their oversized, unwieldy, feathered appendages contained the most easily-ignited nerve endings on their whole body. A single brush upon a single feather was enough to set the hairs on the back of their neck on end.

Their wings had been tortured plenty of times, of course. But this?

This was horrid. More than that, this was new.

‘We’re only measuring muscle activity in your wings.’ Sampson had spoken, oh so terribly innocently. ‘It’s only sensors. You know sensors.’

She had, of course, forgotten to mention the fact that the sensors were located upon the ends of pins, nearly three inches in length. No, Signal hadn’t found that out until they had been stretched out upon the restraint table, and the first pin had forced its way into their flesh.

How many had gone in, now? A dozen? Two dozen? They couldn’t tell, but they couldn’t stop their wings from shivering. The only thing stopping them from sobbing was the fact that they had run out of tears to cry half an hour ago.

“There. All done.” Dr. Sampson sighed, at long last.

“A-All done?” Agony alone rendered Signal nigh-speechless.

“Putting the sensors in.” Dr. Crane spoke with a laugh. “Though, maybe it would go a little faster if you would stop flopping like a fish.”

“You’re doing fine, Signal.” The lab rat could do nothing to resist as the kinder of their two torturers gave them a horribly degrading pat upon the head. “But it’ll go a lot easier if you would just relax.”

Relax? When they were being treated like a pincushion?!

“The machine’s ready, as soon as you’re done talking to the rat.” Dr. Crane interrupted.

“Yes, yes. I apologize.” Her colleague hummed. “Go ahead.”

Somewhere, a switch was flipped.

Somewhere, Dr. Crane sentenced Signal to the worst agony of their life.

Upon the table, the winged person howled. So it felt, a million and a half lightning bolts lurched through their feathered appendages and back again. A ceaseless feedback loop of agony.

They had been staying still, before. Their wings hadn’t been restrained-- there was no need, after all. The pins had caused enough discomfort to still them.

Now, however? Signal wasn’t thinking. If anything, they did not so much as have control over their movements.

They flapped their wings.

It’s hard to tell what was worse-- the pain Signal experienced in that moment, or the view that the pair of doctors had as they did so. The prior was agonizing, certainly. But the latter? The sheer amount of blood? The way that pins pierced feathered flesh, twisting and stabbing at any and all angles?

Perhaps that was even worse.

The only mercy that Signal received was that of unconsciousness. It was shock that sent them, after only a few moments, leaving their doctors to clean up their mess.

“Oh, god...”

“Are they ever going to fly again?”

“Fly? Are they going to live?!”

“That is a lot of blood.”

“The Facility. Now. It’s their only chance of keeping the wings.”

[nocek]

Don't spare us the long rant! We want to hear your thoughts!

Oh you are going to regret this ;P

So here goes my loooooooong angry rant about Taskmaster and also the Black Widow movie in general.

Let's start with my point of comparison. Captain America the Winter Soldier was a good movie. It's still in my top 3 Marvel movies as I'm sure is for many people. And statistically speaking everybody likes Bucky. He is like the most beloved side character right after Loki. I guess.

Anyway. My point is that Taskmaster and Winter Soldier have bit for bit the exact same building blocks: hypercompetent antagonist that is a serious threat to our hero who just can't win with in one on one combat. But then plot twist: our antagonist was just a victim and puppet without free will in hands of actual villain who is bland bureaucrat.

So why did Winter Soldier worked really really well and Taskmaster was just ehh.. ok?

Well the short answer is that catws was a much tighter movie that had clearer goal (and also that goal/theme was singular: good things get corrupted with time and sometimes you get to start over) compared to black widow which had to jump through too many hoops and still somehow managed it but it wasn't as graceful as it would be if they (as in executives) resigned from one or two hoops and flips and explosions.

And I'm omitting a BIG disadvantage of making a prequel movie about a character that they killed off in shitty way. Though that created one of extra hoops for them to jump through: quickly build up Yelena as a character.

And character build they did. Because srsly Yelena is awesome and I love her. BUT. That came at a price.

Lets compare to catws. The new character there is Sam (and kiiiiiiiinda also Natasha a bit but that's a topic for a different rant) who is nowhere near as well build as Yelena. At the beginning. Because he had time to be fleshed out and naturally grow in few different movies and then we got a deep dive in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

But Marvel can't give Yelena few movies because she will appear in Hawkguy an Hawkeye series and also Marvel is generally dividing their assets into: outer spaaaace, down to earth heros and magic stuff (aliens, androids and wizards ;P). But also they can only create so many things in a year.

So yeah. Yelena offtopic can be summarized that I love that we have her as we have her but it came at a cost of air time of the movie.

So comparing the movies again:

Catws had the theme of good things being corrupted with time. And the theme was underlined 3 times through Peggy, Bucky and then Shield/Hydra. Which are interconnected and also make nice scale from inner conflict of the main character to the outer conflict of the movie.

In Black Widow there is the topic of the past evil that never went away and is still taking away free will from people. And again we have it shown through 3 outlets: Yelena, Taskmaster and Black Widows. But there is also whole family subplot attached to Yelena and there is Red Room attached to Black Widows. So as you can see things are getting crowded. Which in turn make the theme a bit blurry.

I mean, sure, the Red Room should be the Shield equivalent. Even it could take smaller space because good Shield turns out to be evil Hydra is generally more time consuming to explain than Red Room bad. But still combining Red Room and Black Widows make things a bit crowded.

(There is a reason why the surprise subplot of there is more Winter Soldiers was in separate movie and was kinda handwaved and cut to minimum. But they couldn't do that here).

But it's time to stop my ranting about whole Black Widow movie and focus on comparing Taskmaster and Winter Soldier.

Because to be honest both are bare bones of character and more of an carte blanche in the movie. Both have barely any screen time yet there are colossal difference which stems out of:

first introduction: as I mentioned they are hypercompetent and unstoppable threat that you can't win with, you can only hope to run away (both done equally well)

programmable killing machine:

For Taskmaster we just get a scene with her watching other heroes fighting at the screen. For the sake of building up the mystery of character we think that "he" is just watching. Maybe learning or more likely just being creepy. The information about the chip and literal programming is given to us much later in the movie which makes this scene lose the power. idk how it will work on rewatch? Maybe better? Hopefully. right now there is too many new movies in cinemas to go for a rewatch and disney+ still isn't available here -.-

For Bucky we have literal torture scene. You just can't be more blunt than that. It also hammered the next point in.

there is human behind the mask:

Winter Soldier is introduced with full face mask which he gradually loses and then we have the big reveal of not only: that's a human but also that's a human our main hero cares about deeply.

With Taskmaster they fucked up it for chap plot twist. We are learning quite late that oh snap that's Antonia (that we don't really care about) and our main hero kinda feels guilty about her.

I think the big difference is what kind of character Steve and Nat are and also the way they reveal this secret. Steve actively recognizes Bucky by himself and is very openly shocked. Nat is passively told and shown that hey, this is Antonia. And there is no time in the movie for Nat (and for us) to be shocked because that's the 3rd act and we need time for explosions and stuff.

Besides, the problem is that all the big plot twist reveals are boring on rewatch (stil big props for Pacific Rim and giving us the monster reveal in like second minute of the movie, I will never not appreciate that).

Also on related shitty note. We the audience. Bucky is handsome and vulnerable and we can drool all over him (and oh man, we the fandom did a fair share of drooling). Antonia is disfigured and not sexualized in any way. Which I'm actually grateful for but there is no pretending that doesn't make a hell lot of difference. But that's a whole different, ugly and big topic I'm not remotely qualified to write about. I'm just angry ranting here.

they don't have free will:

For Winter Soldier we have amnesia + torture tropes which to be honest have been done over and over again and it shouldn't have worked as well as it worked. Bit it did. In context of Black Widow movie it worked because it was just one guy that actively broke through brainwashing with active help of the hero.

In Black Widow there is a lot of characters that are pasively "woken up" out of mind control over and over again by active protagonist. Unfortunately the repetition kinda cheapens it. Especially in comparison to main gut punch right in the feels scene in the other movie. Which is why it's not fair to compare the two.

So lets talk about lack of free will aspect itself. To be honest the mind control aspect in Black Widow was done really great from story perspective. Evil scientists perfected it to the point it being (bit handwavey but) completely impersonal but also completely dehumanizing to the subject. So I'm buying that it can be completely switched off in equally efficient and impersonal way. Even the way they explained it with Alexei the pig was great and terrifying... to a point. Because then kicked the main problem with this movie. Clearly some execs came and saw it and went whoa... that's too dark for pg13 blockbuster. Let's put some cheap jokes here. And it happens over and over again in this movie :S

humanizing flashback scene that ties them to main hero:

For Bucky, sure we had Captain America First Avenger but a movie needs to stand on it's own legs. That's why we have the flashback scene which shows us that Bucky cared about Steve. Leaving it at the narration in Smithsonian of "best friends since childhood" would be just telling us. And we needed to be shown and we needed a space for the "till the end of line" so it could come back and stab us right in the feels.

Also because we are ignoring previous movie Russos cleverly made us care about Winter Soldier because Steve cares about Winter Soldier. And we already know and like Steve so building up our main character gives us more mileage out of new bare bones character (because let's be honest, Winter Soldier is just that). Two birds one stone thing.

In Black Widow there is no such thing which IMHO is the main reason Taskmaster doesn't work. We just get information about cardboard cutout: insert cute little girl here (only told, not even shown actual cardboard) and all of the emotional connection to Natasha is: I know that my boss that I hate has a daughter, she got in the crossfire. Which means nobody cares.

All it would take is adding a short flashback scene. idk Dreykov is an asshole and doesn't care about Antonia but she is she cutest and most adorable little girl. She treats the Black Widows as older sisters. Hell if you want to make it more horrorish copy of the idea of Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie when he grows up or T'challa wanting to be a Dora Milaje. Little Antonia wants to be Black Widow when she grows up because they are badass and they are nice to her (and are also slightly confused by her) because she is nice to them and is only person that treats them as humans. Hell we could have short interaction between her and Nat. Just a smile between them would be enough.

You could get a lot of character buildup mileage out of such a short scene.

But it couldn't happen partially because the movie didn't have time for that but we didn't get that mostly because it would show us instead of telling that Nat killed a cute little innocent girl for her own personal gain. (well she thought she was destroying Red Room but mostly wanted to get away - vide she didn't check on Yelena or other widows. But I wouldn't hold that against her. It was put your oxygen mask first kind of situation. But still it would make her look bad)

Besides, that would take guts to actually show.

And technically they could have afforded to have that guts. That was last movie with Nat anyway. It would actually make this plotline about her feeling guilty about Dreykov's daughter and red in her ledger work. But well... It was last movie so they wanted to leave us with the most goodest and bleeding hartest and heartwarming mary sue version of Nat with just telling us without showing hey, she got dark past.

On the other hand if we had the rumored Endgame plotline of Nat running an orphanage. Damn that would tie to this plotline so well. We could tie the loose widows also. Dam we were robbed here I tell ya >.<

Ok I'm overdoing offtopic about Nat. Sorry

design

So yeah. Design wise Winter Soldier is like great. For Taskmaster, she sure looks cool but also kinda generic? If in 10 years you'd show me her and say it's antagonist from GI Joe or something I'll believe you :S (not touching the debate that in comics something something because unfortunately I don't know Taskmaster from comics. Although I hear that few recent ones were quite good so I'll check them out sooner or later)

snapping out of mind control

I mentioned before. It would be unfair and there is no point comparing main emotional scene of the movie versus means to an end that were repeated several times through a movie.

Natasha freeing Antonia even if she thought that Antonia will kill her because that would fair was great. What I'm annoyed is a cheap fakeout that went with that. It was just after the bombastic finale with explosions and all the cgi shit. Even without looking at the movie runtime it was obvious there will be no extra fight scene.

In catws it worked because the cgi pew pew extravaganza was a background noise and was part of a continuous fight. In BW helicarriers fell already, there was a second of dust settling and then Nat throws away the shield (uses that capsule). Tension just fell from highest place in a movie (quite literally lol), trying to rise it again for such a short moment just doesn't work.

But that's the general problem with Marvel movies. Bombastic CGI fest as grand finale that probably is "outsourced" and then actual director comes back and needs to end movie super quickly.

disappearing act at the end

So in catws there is mystery of what will Bucky do. We are given some hope since he dragged Steve out of river and visited the museum but thats all. I mean there is this annoying Marvel thing of skipping over the interesting ending of last movie and starting with next plot point. We were hoping for the grand roadtrip/hunt for Bucky but nope. We must run ahead with all the plotlines (same way I'm sure that the Spiderman is Peter Parker and he killed a guy thing will be already dealt with in the beginning of the next movie -.-) But that's bonus mini rant.

In BW they needed to wrap up to many plot lines too quickly so Antonia wakes up and that's all. We don't get a suggestion what she may do. The problem of the chip she still has installed is omitted. There is nothing. She just fucks off to lalaland with other Black Widows the end. Because we needed ending for Nat's actual family which was ok but also kinda rushed.

As I mentioned waaaay before (god, this rant is pretty long) too many hoops to jump through.

Which really sucks because if they added that one flashback scene just for Antonia and spared few more minutes for the overall ending it would work so much more better.

And I even know where they could have saved few minutes (besides the explosions thingies). The supply guy. One extra character in a movie with too many characters. In catws the supply problem (with wings) was solved with nbd shrug. If you wanted to show that Nat has her own web of contacts it should be more than one guy. IDK in Budapest there could be 10 second scene with neighbor saying hi nice to see you again we reinforced the walls after last time. In Norway we could see her visiting some special secret supply stash run by some rando before getting to the mobile home.

But oh she was on the run so that would be too many people. Then cut the people entirely. The shitty helicopter can be worked around with joke that I'm not on speaking terms with Stark rn and that's the best we can have on short notice.

Eh.. side rant again. Sorry.

So to wrap it up. I actually really would love to see what will happen with the loose Black Widows and Antonia because here they were really underdeveloped. And while widows were more of a group hero and we have Yelena as a representative so in a way it balances out but Taskmaster needed so little extra care to make her character so much better and I'm a tiiiiiiny bit salty about it.

[potassium-pilot]

Prompt 24: Illustrious

“Is it done, Alphinaud?” Dia pestered excitedly.

“No, it is not.”

She waited for approximately five seconds before asking again, “How about now?”

“Do you really want me to rush through this?”

“You’re the Artist Alphinaud, I am your assistant; what else can I do if not make sure you finish?”

“Will you ever let go of that?”

“Never.”

Alphinaud sighed defeatedly and continued his drawing. He was commissioned to create a current portrait of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to hang in the Solar. To their relief, he had everyone’s figures wrote to memory and therefore, did not require them to pose. That in mind, Dia couldn’t help but be a shadow to the boy, watching his artistry at work. The Warrior of Light was many things; an artist, she was not. It seemed the act of using a paintbrush did not come with the same ease as using a sewing needle, or a cooking utensil.

In the middle stood what he believed looked like himself holding a carbuncle while Alisaie stood on his right side at roughly the same height with her rapier held out in front of her. Dia towered behind him carrying Tataru on her shoulders (at her behest) with Thancred on her left with his arms crossed, Y’shtola on her right with a cane being wielded, Urianger on Thancred’s left with a book in hand, G’raha between Alphinaud and Alisaie with a big grin on his face, and Krile in front of Y’shtola to the left of Alphinaud leaning up against him.

“All right, I’m not done, but what do you think so far, Dia?” She scrambled from the Solar door to the desk to look it over with enthusiasm. “Ahh, I love it so far! Why’d you make yourself so short though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Alphinaud, you’re not that small. You almost made yourself into a lalafell compared to me.”

“It feels accurate to me…after all, ‘tis no secret I’m of a smaller stature in comparison to many of you.”

“Smaller stature, sure, but you’re not miniature. Give yourself more credit.” He shook his head before she inquired, “And where’s Estinien?”

“Oh…”

“What?”

“He…told me not to draw him…”

If her eyes could turn red in fury like Nidhogg, they would have in that very moment. “Give me but a moment, Alphinaud…” she told him quietly. She turned away from the smaller elezen and exited out the door in a seemingly calm manner, concealing her fury.

*********

Estinien, Thancred, and Urianger enjoyed a cup of coffee in the lobby.

“So you sort of just…wait for an assignment?” Estinien confirmed. The other two nodded. “Frankly, it’s been a bit more trouble to have the patience recently, particularly since our last assignment wasn’t exactly taken by choice”, Thancred stated.

“Indeed. Though we only aged some few moons in the Source, our souls hath lived on for years in the First, and kept us all plenty occupied, particularly when our friend finally arrived”, Urianger affirmed. Estinien made a hum. “What did you do while waiting before?”

“Oh”, Thancred began nervously, “Nothing too unusual. We just took our rest, did something leisurely, enjoyed ourselves whilst we waited.”

“Is that what thou calleth courting several maidens at once?”

Thancred scowled at Urianger while Estinien made a slight smile at the remark. Suddenly, Thancred and Urianger made horrified faces and scattered from their positions, abandoning Estinien to his fate: a furious Warrior of Light, wearing a look she wore when she killed gods.

“Do you want to explain your thought process here?” Dia confronted him.

“You’re under the assumption that I care to explain anything.”

“Look, I get you that you like to work alone; frankly, it’s understandable in a way. Twelve knows half the work I do needs to be done alone, lest anyone without the Echo be tempered, but I have news for you: you are not alone anymore!”

He growled, “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” She placed her face in her palm, then explained annoyedly, “The portrait, Estinien.”

“By the Fury, you’re angry with me about that?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“It’s a bleeding portrait. What does it matter?”

“It matters, Estinien! It matters a lot to me, to Alphinaud, to quite a few of us.”

His face betrayed his befuddlement. Not having been a Scion for very long, her irritation seemed misplaced.

“That portrait’s not my place”, he attempted to explain, “And quite frankly, I don’t understand why you all so desperately want this portrait in the first place.”

“We want to commemorate our little family.”

“This isn’t my family. It never was.”

“Never?” she repeated incredulously.

He raised an eyebrow at her tone.

“Estinien, Alphinaud fought for you after your possession by Nidhogg. I fought for you. When everyone seemed intent on killing you, even yourself, we did everything we could to keep you alive. We even entreated Hraesvelgr to help us save you when Aymeric seemed content with just stopping Nidhogg at any cost. Then you go and follow us through Gyr Abania, to the point where you even pushed back an Ascian in the body of Zenos yae Galvus, and pulled my comatose body out of a battlefield and back to the front. And on top of that, you helped take out Black Rose facilities for us while the rest of us were off in another world. You mean to tell me that meant nothing?!”

Estinien blinked.

“Guess what, dragon boy? You were a Scion before you even offered your lance!”

He looked away to the floor, pondering her words, irritated by the nickname.

“Don’t call me ‘dragon boy’…” he snapped.

“That’s what you’re taking from this?”

He remained silent, still thinking through. What in hells had he done? What did he get himself into? He let out a frustrated breath and walked away. She watched him get away from her in disbelief, and followed him as he aimed for the Solar.

Estinien opened the door and called, “Alphinaud?”

The young elezen looked up and away from his efforts. “Yes, Estinien?” The dragoon hesitated, then begrudgingly ordered, “…put me in your damn portrait.”

Dia flashed a huge grin, and Alphinaud’s eyes lit up in excitement. “I’ll do just that! Thankfully, I was still sketching, so I can find a way to add you.”

“Hm…good, I guess.” He closed the door behind him and glared at Dia, still chipper from his agreement. “You’re a pain in my side, Dia Sito.”

“You have to be to do what I do. Thank you, Estinien. He’s a great artist; he’ll do you justice.” He shook his head and stomped off while Dia hurried back inside the Solar.

*********

A bell had passed since Estinien agreed to be in the portrait. Making sure he wasn’t followed, he quietly slipped into the Solar where Alphinaud continued his work unabated. He sat down in front of the young artist and bade him, “How goes the portrait?”

“Quite well, all things considered. I did have to remake the idea a bit, but overall, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.”

“I see.” The dragoon shuffled in his chair for a moment, unsure how to phrase his next question. “Alphinaud…you are doing this of your own free will, correct?” He brought his attention from his work to the question brought before him. “Of course I am”, he answered incredulously.

“You’re sure, Alphinaud?”

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“I want to make sure this is something that you truly wish to do. Dia has a tendency to be a bit dramatic as I’ve recently learned.”

“Fear not, Estinien. I’m under no influence but mine own.”

Estinien let out a long breath and asked, “I know her reasons, but what of yours? What does obsessing over a painting get you?”

Alphinaud smiled at him. “I get a chance to relax.”

“Really?”

“I do. The past few times I’ve drawn, ‘twas out of necessity in order to locate our missing comrades or to gain entry into forbidden cities. This isn’t like that at all. Despite our friend’s being a bit more enthusiastic than I’m used to, I feel no pressure.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself at the very least, Alphinaud. But is that the only reason why?”

Alphinaud brought his gaze back to the portrait. In particular, he focused on the outlines of two people; Dia and Estinien.

“When I lost command of the Crystal Braves…when I heard that everyone I knew had been lost to that bloody banquet, all I felt was hopelessness. I felt stuck in a dark abyss, where nothing could see me nor pull me from it’s shackles. That’s what I earned for dehumanizing those who would help me, for seeing them all as pawns in my game to unite Eorzea.

Then Dia pulled me out of it. So did Tataru and Haurchefant.

Despite everything I ever thought of her, despite the way I would send her out as though she were my trusty god-slayer from my toolbelt, she stood with me, and helped me find a new home. Had she not saved Haurchefant’s friend from the Inquisition, and slayed Shiva, and the dragon that threatened the gates of Ishgard, we would not have found refuge within it’s walls.

After everything that came of our tenure in Ishgard, the Scions became something different. Especially now that my blood family has forsaken me, the bonds I’ve formed with my comrades became a great source of comfort to me. Everyone has their reasons for why the Scions are their home. If we wish to commemorate that with a painting, I see no reason not to oblige.”

Estinien didn’t usually pry into this sort of business; that was Aymeric’s domain. Yet, he did find himself in a better understanding of Alphinaud after that. He met the boy when he was still so immature, inexperienced in many things that were obvious to him growing up with Ser Alberic. It was interesting to hear how he changed, and what he missed.

“So this truly is more than just Dia’s will being imposed on others, then.”

“Dia’s not wont to impose her will onto others. She merely expressed a wish that the rest of the Scions shared, myself included.” Alphinaud raised an eyebrow. “Now that I think of it…I’m not entirely sure what her will is on a normal day. What does she want?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps it’s best for that to remain her business, hm?”

“When this is all over, and the Final Days are halted, I mean to express my sincere gratitude to her in any way I can.”

“Heh. Good luck with that”, Estinien commented as he rose from his chair. “Well, I won’t pry from your work any longer. Keep at it, Alphinaud.”

“I will, Estinien, thank you.”

The dragoon turned away and left through the door to the Solar. Alphinaud returned his full focus to the portrait.

******

The days passed while Alphinaud took his time to focus on the painting. The Solar was nearly forbidden territory, with the exception of Dia, who nobody would dare try to stop. After nearly a week’s worth of effort, Dia finally opened the door, and approached her fellow Scions.

“If any of you would like to view the portrait and help us decide where to place it, that would be most welcome”, Dia announced to the group as they sat in the lobby. All but Estinien rose from their chairs and walked towards the Solar.

“That means you too, Estinien.”

“Your suggestion is noted.”

“Get in here, or I’m telling Alphinaud to put it on your bed.”

He stood up reluctantly and followed her into the Solar, where they beheld the group fawning over the portrait. Estinien and Dia looked to each other, Dia wearing a smile on her face, Estinien his usual stoic look. He slowly walked towards the portrait to join the group.

For the most part, the positions of everyone stayed the same with one notable exception; Estinien stood between Dia and Thancred with a smirk and with his hand placed on Alphinaud’s head.

“I’m glad he took my suggestion and made himself taller”, Dia mused. Estinien tore his eyes away from the painting and looked to Dia. “Didn’t he do a good job with you, Estinien?” He nodded, “Aye, he did.” He brought his attention back to his portrait self.

Is that how he sees me, he thought.

“All right, now the question remains: where do we place it?” Alphinaud asked the group.

Everyone took a moment to think. “What about up there?” Estinien suggested, pointing to a spot above the desk…the spot that once held Tupsimati. Most of the group shifted uncomfortably with the exception of G’raha and Dia.

“Well…” Alphinaud started.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Dia defended. The group made faces of disbelief towards her. “Look, I will never forget Louisoix, nor will I forget Moenbryda’s sacrifice. But that spot is perfect. Anytime we walk in, we’ll see us hanging there proudly. After all, Tupsimati’s not hung there in how many moons now. Why don’t we use that spot to honor a new legacy?”

The Scions considered her words. “Did I touch upon something sensitive?” Estinien whispered to Dia. “‘Tis a long story. You did nothing wrong”, she whispered back to him.

“All right. Perhaps it would be better for us all to let our own story be told. After all, we saved not just one world, but two. That should be worth a nice spot, don’t you think?” Thancred reasoned. The group nodded.

“Allow me”, offered G’raha. He took out his staff and levitated the portrait from it’s spot. Y’shtola took out her cane and prepared a nail for the painting to hang upon. The two combined their efforts, and in a matter of minutes, the portrait hanged proudly in the very same spot Louisoix’s legacy once stood, the legacy that Dia had unfortunately sacrificed along with Moenbryda in her attempt to destroy Nabriales.

“There. I like it there quite a bit”, Dia complimented. “Thank you, G’raha, Y’shtola.”

“Of course. Now would you care to explain to me why that spot seemed to cause discomfort?” G’raha questioned.

Dia smiled. “I owe you two an explanation, it would seem.”

[distinctlywhumpthing]

Together 6: Inferno.

Previous — Masterlist — Next

CW: explicit language and content, multiple whumpees, torture, captivity, conditioning, noncon touching (non-sexual), implied noncon (sexual), dehumanization, electrocution, shock collar, beating, gaslighting, manipulation, restraints, extreme control of food/exercise for appearance, mention of passing out/vomiting due to exercise/restricted diet, controlling whumper, multiple whumpers, possessive whumper, masked whumper, letmeknowifimissedany

The next day, I wake up before August. He’s starfished on his back, feet, and one hand hanging off the bed. He looks even younger asleep, with freckles scattered across his nose, long eyelashes, and not much facial hair for a man who hasn’t had the chance to shave in a handful of days. The stubble that is there is even lighter than his hair, tending toward blondish rather than auburn. He sits up ramrod straight and groggy as hell when the keyring clangs against the outside of the metal door.

“Let’s go, Princess,” one of the goonies drones as he opens it. It’s Darius, but for some reason, he’s wearing a ski mask.

Weirdo. Did you just come from robbing a bank?

Maybe the mask means they’re planning to let August go, a good thing. I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone, but I still feel a bitter pang of jealousy. I don’t look back at him as I walk out.

Wyatt is waiting for me in his office, upstairs. He’s already cleared his desk for me. There are gauzy curtains in front of the windows so I can’t see the view but I always look forward to the daylight. Today, it’s muted like it might be overcast or raining. I strain to listen to see if I can hear it on the windows.

“Come here,” he says, standing and patting the desk in front of him.

I walk over, trying to read into his expression and tone. It’s never easy to tell what I’m in for because he’s so calculating. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen him lose control of himself in all these years. I sit up on the desk. He steps in between my knees so we’re eye-to-eye, tucks my hair behind both ears, and puts his hands on my thighs. Close enough that he can inhale every minute expression on my face and in my eyes like I’m shotgunning him.

“How do you like your new roommate?” he asks.

I’d shrug if it were allowed. There’s a remote to the collar in the pocket of his blazer. Instead, I just blink at him. Does it matter? Either way, he won’t be around very long.

Wyatt nods like I really did just answer him. “He made some poor choices last night. You were perfect, putting up with all of that.” He lifts his hand to the side of my neck, thumbing the collar through my shirt. “A little healthy fear will set him straight. I bought a new belt just for the occasion.”

Christ. I work to keep my face neutral.

Beatings have never been his M.O. with me. Except to make sure the silence was deep enough that not a damn thing earthside would illicit a fucking peep out of me, but he made it a point not to leave scars. He wants my body as perfect as my behavior. Otherwise, it’s all about the mind for this lunatic. Patient enough to find the trigger that will have me agreeing all on my own. He feels powerful, and I guess he is, for knowing just how to frame things, pinpointing what I want and need, even if I don’t realize.

“When it turned out he’d be staying longer than intended, I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. He’s just too perfect,” Wyatt purrs.

What the fuck does that mean?

Wyatt stays silent and goes on reading my face while my thoughts snowball.

Shit. Why are you smiling at me like that?

Finally, he seems to have his fill of my reactions and squeezes my thigh. “It’s been quite a while since you took that many shocks, Emmy, and I can’t have you being stiff later,” he tells me, then pulls a tablet out of the desk drawer. “Do a yin yoga class—you haven’t eaten enough for anything else.”

I dip my head once in a nod.

He runs his thumb along my jaw before moving so I can hop off the desk.

The yoga is part of a whole distorted regimen. Wyatt wants my skeletal frame toned and flexible. “Not just skin and bones,” he says, but then goes on feeding me one meal a day. There’s no way he doesn’t calorie count the shit out of everything that passes my lips to elicit what he wants but it’s never enough to truly exercise on. He’s had me try other things but I’d just pass out or throw up and he wasn’t willing to adjust the input to equal the output. I love the yoga anyway.

The clothes he has me wear are skin tight and all black because boy does he love to watch me move. “You’re so graceful,” he’ll croon, admiring his maintenance of my figure. In the beginning, I wasn’t flexible enough for his liking, so he’d push me in the stretches until I thought my muscles would snap. Sometimes he’ll have some look-the-other-way woman come in and wax every surface below my neck so that in a black yoga bra and practically-underwear shorts, I shine. Then, he’ll have me to do all sorts of other things.

—

When I finish the video, an hour long, he waves me back over. He’s been watching me the whole time, a serene look on his face. He has me sit in front of him on the desk again. Prefers me up here, all within reach and eye-level. Carlos brings in our lunch in paper bags. It’s an endless rotation of delivery and takeout here. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a kitchen. Wyatt passes me a compostable bowl with a plastic lid. He knows this is one of my favorites.

I narrow my eyes.

The shit-eating grin comes back.

I don’t turn down the food though, despite the twisting in my stomach. Hunger strikes result in having a tube shoved down my throat. After all, my body is his wonderland. He eats a burrito, reclined in the chair with his feet on the desk next to me. Sips Coke out of a glass bottle and passes it to me. Purses his lips while he watches me hold it by the neck and take a swig before I hand it back. It fizzes down my throat sweetly.

Fuck, what is he planning?

It’s not strange to eat together or share a drink, but there’s something in his eyes today. An extra sparkle of anticipation. Last time he was like this, I wound up hanging from the ceiling for half a day. Contorted by silk rope knots into a goddamn living chandelier. The goonies had express permission to carry me after that one on account of my limbs turning to pins-and-needles jello.

After I finish eating, he tells me to find a book to pass the time. “I won’t have you getting sick later,” he says, pulling his phone out, dismissing me.

I move my ass before he moves it for me even though my sense of dread is deepening. I’ve made a fair dent in his library by now. Naturally, being a psychopath, Wyatt is well-read and intelligent. Lots of philosophy, social theory, plenty of psychology (but I feel like those must be a trap so I avoid them), books in other languages, and classic literature. I find it a little one-sandwich-short-of-a-picnic-basket that he wants his effectively-mute captive to also be well-read but it’s beyond me to try to understand his depraved logic.

—

When he’s decided it’s time, he stands and walks over to where I’m curled up in the armchair by the bookcase. “Let’s get you ready,” he says, holding out his hand and leading me over to his desk.

My pulse hammers in my throat.

He picks up a crisp sopping bag, pulls out folded black clothes. I usually change after I shower but it’s always a roll of the dice with Wyatt, especially in this kind of mood. I’m surprised when he starts putting the clothes on over what I’m already wearing. It’s baggy sweatpants and a hoodie—also black—and then some sneakers. I can’t remember the last time I wore shoes. Next, he pulls a little case out of the bag and opens it to reveal earbuds.

Oh, hell. Not again.

We’ve done this before. He took me out to some fluorescent superstore, spread his goonies around on video calls to record me, and sat in the fast-food restaurant with his laptop. Read me a shopping list and watched me sweat through it. I nearly had a conniption at the register. It was one of three times he’s ever taken me out.

Wyatt smirks at the misgivings playing across my face and passes me an elastic for my hair. I pull it all into a low, tight bun and then he uses first-aid tape to secure the headphone inside my ear. I’d never dream of removing it myself, and he knows that, so whatever is about to happen to me puts it at risk of falling out. I haven’t felt this scared in a while and it’s making him smile even more.

I know being hopeless but no longer frightened provides an irresistible challenge. It’s not like I can help being resigned to his life for me, exactly as he intended. He doesn’t want me shitting-my-pants-afraid. It’s not about that. He could have made me vacant, and not just silent if he’d wanted but there’s a thrilling risk to pushing me. My psyche is his game of Jenga and he never loses. He knows how to manipulate, balance, and finesse every piece so that I’ll only ever wobble, dangerously close to collapse but always just shy, leaving him infinitely validated. So, I know he’d never put me in a position to truly break but I still fear the magnitude of the wobble. And the duration.

Wyatt has handed me gloves and is now holding up the last item from the bag. A clown mask.

Oh, god. Are we actually robbing someplace?

If I weren’t wearing so many clothes, I would be convinced I was in for some twisted, kinky shit, especially with these gloves. He ties the mask securely behind my head and I’m already sweating under the foamy rubber just imagining silently holding someone up. With a loaded weapon in my hand.

Fuck, Wyatt. Seriously?

He traces his fingers down my arms, pulling up my hands and helping me off the desk. Holding my arms out and looking me over like he’s seeing his prom date’s outfit for the first time and just knows that he’ll get to take it all off later. He drops my hands and pulls the hood of the sweatshirt over my head.

“Perfect,” he purrs and leads me down the hallway toward a door I haven’t entered in a very long time. I’m wearing too many clothes for what that room is usually used for. I hope.

Wyatt moves in front of me and pulls me close so our noses almost touch, lowers his voice in a way that is far from soothing. “If I’m not happy, with any aspect of your performance, I will personally tenfold it. Understood?” He searches my eyes one at a time. Left to right and back again.

I nod, stomach already somewhere by my feet.

He leaves me in the little hall, alone. There’s a yellow light bulb underneath a metal cage on the wall.

Sonofabitch. I’m terrified.

Naturally, I don’t move until Wyatt's voice comes over the headphone in my ear. “Go in. Close the door behind you.”

Calm down, Emma, you just have to survive this one thing right now. How bad can it be?

I take a deep breath and open the door, step in, and close it softly behind me, not sure what is waiting for me since it’s dark. My eyes don’t have time to adjust before the lights flick on.

All my blood runs cold. This is undeniably the ninth circle of Hell.

Wyatt lets me stand there, frozen, and unable to pull air into my lungs, for more than a few of my stuttering heartbeats before he finally gives me my next command,

“Emma, pick up the belt.”

Previous — Masterlist — Next

Taglist: @deluxewhump

[delimeful]

not always what they seem

finished g/t space au commission for @legendsgates ! it was super fun to work on, i hope everyone enjoys!

warnings: dehumanization, treating people like animals, abduction, miscommunication, remus being remus, deceit, misguided but good intentioned light sides

-

“Hey, kid, wake up.” 

Virgil groaned, shifting to his side. It was still dark, why was someone bothering him? 

“There you go. It’s a great day outside, open your eyes already.” 

Wait. He lived alone. Who was talking to him?

Visions of chatty burglars or insane door to door salesmen breaking and entering flashed before his eyes, and he jerked upright with a gasp, eyes flying open. 

Darkness. He couldn’t see a thing. “What?” 

Virgil nearly poked himself in the eye in his haste to check his face for a blindfold. He should be able to see plenty; there was an annoying streetlamp just under his apartment window. Had he spontaneously gone blind? Had he been kidnapped? Was he in a trunk, slowly suffocating to death? 

“Hey, calm down. Everything’s going to be fine, don’t pass out on us now.” 

A burst of unhinged, echoing laughter nearly cut off the end of the sentence, and chills ran down Virgil’s spine. “Oh god. Look, I take terrible care of my body, you don’t want my organs, I promise.”

There was an aggrieved sigh nearby. Virgil hesitantly reached his hands out to feel the space around him. It didn’t feel like a car trunk. He was sitting up just fine. 

“I don’t think we’re being trafficked, but if we were, you’d be pleading your case to the wrong guy. I’m in the same situation as you.” A dull knocking accompanied the words. “Unfortunately.”

Virgil carefully turned his body to face the direction of the voice, squinting in case he could make out any sign of an attack. “...Right, sure. Care to fill me in on what-- what exactly that situation is?” 

The stranger only seemed sardonically amused at the bite in his voice. “We’re trapped in a room. There’s glass walls dividing the room into sections. There’s a little bit of light coming in through the roof, your eyes will adjust soon. That’s all I’ve got. Remember anything from before you woke up?” 

 Virgil shoved down the rising panic, rising to a tentative crouch with his arms outstretched for balance. He’d been… What had he been doing? “I… I don’t know.”  

Another sigh. “Yes, I assumed so.” The outline of a silhouette seemed to be coming into focus. Unless Virgil was just imagining things. “Thank you so much for being helpful.”   

He bristled at the tone, but before he could respond, another giggling laugh reverberated around them. 

“Don’t fret so much, figments,” a new, somewhat nasally voice said cheerily. “I’m sure your terrible and inevitably gory deaths will only hurt for as long as the dream lasts.” 

Virgil took a long, shaky inhale. “What the fuck.” 

“‘The fuck’ is Remus, the third occupant in our room. As far as I can tell, he believes this is all a hallucination brought on by sleep paralysis. Best to just ignore him,” the first stranger advised dryly. 

“I’m still ignoring you back,” ‘Remus’ returned in a singsong. Virgil almost couldn’t blame him. He’d really rather wake up and realize this was all a dream, too. 

He wasn’t going to bet on it, though. He stumbled forwards, feeling the walls for a door, a switch, anything. 

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” the unnamed stranger scorned. “I’ve already checked everything that could be checked. Nothing’s going to happen--” 

His voice was cut off by three quick, consecutive beeps from somewhere above their heads. Virgil turned his head this way and that, searching for an intercom or mechanical device nearby. “What’s that?” 

Neither stranger answered, and Virgil realized that this was something new just as one side of the room began to slide upwards like a garage door. He raised a hand as bright light poured into the room, backing up as far as he could. In the corner of his vision, another person was doing much the same.

Something large moved outside the room, its shadow falling on them and making it a little less difficult to see. 

Unfortunately, what he was seeing was impossibly horrifying enough to be real.

A huge figure, like a giant from a children’s fairytale, was visible from the torso up. It was wearing something close to a full body hazmat suit, its inhuman face visible behind a pane of red-tinted glass. Piercing red eyes were placed just slightly too far apart, and a shiny black shell covered the bottom of its face like a curved medical mask.

It leaned closer, and Virgil recoiled harshly enough to slam his back into the corner of the room. The eyes settled on him for a moment, before flicking over to the other occupants. Adrenaline surged through him, but there was nowhere to channel it. He couldn’t flee, and there was no way he could fight. He was helpless.

In the section next to Virgil, a short man dressed in formal wear stood carefully still. He was meeting eyes with the monster, his expression neutral and still. Where Virgil had felt like a deer in the headlights, this man acted more like a snake assessing prey. The only sign that he was unsettled was the white knuckled fists at his sides.

The monster made an unsettling sound, like a hum interspersed with clicks, and then turned its attention to the only human still laying on the ground, presumably Remus. A few rigid plates along its forehead twitched downward, and it chittered at Remus. 

Virgil caught what looked like mandibles protruding from under its face plate, and felt lightheaded. 

“Remus, I suggest you look alive,” the snakelike man muttered, attention still locked on the huge creature. Remus didn’t respond, though whether it was because of the monster or because he was still ignoring them was anyone’s guess.

A moment later, the monster reached up with a limb, the suit glove doing nothing to conceal the creature’s spindly, clawed fingers, arranged like an osprey’s talons. It tapped the glass between them, and Virgil was abruptly reminded of a child at an aquarium. The ‘room’ they were captive in was a mere box to this being. An enclosure.

Remus finally sat up, stretching lanky arms as though it was a normal morning. He cocked his head at the monster, squinting. “What are you looking at, you big bitch?” 

Virgil inhaled sharply through his teeth, but the monster didn’t react beyond its forehead plates shifting back up, and before long, it was looking down at a strange grey cube, flicking talons along its surface like it was a touchscreen. 

In his section, Remus had unfolded to his ridiculous full height, and was ambling up to the wall separating them. He smiled, something about it vaguely unhinged. “Hmm, hallucinations aren’t supposed to be this expansive! It’s almost like we’re actually here, captured by giant monsters that are probably going to stick us in a blender for a morning smoothie!” 

The snakelike man rubbed his temples, still holding onto his composure. He didn’t dignify the gory statement with a response, but Virgil was more than happy to. 

“Hey, it was Remus, right?” Virgil asked, and he saw the man nodding enthusiastically in the corner of his vision. “Please shut the hell up.” 

“Never been very good at that!” 

—-

Roman glanced up from the data sheet, watching as the new specimens wandered about and made little noises at each other. He couldn’t help but hum a bit at the sight; the little animals were so charming. 

“Roman!” a familiar voice trilled, and he turned to the lab’s entrance, clicking in greeting at the sight of his partners. Though he’d been uncertain about working with beings from other quadrants at first, they’d managed to overcome most of their original hurdles and now worked smoothly together. There was nobody he’d rather have as his research team, even with the disapproving twitch in Logan’s ears. 

“Dear friends,” he returned, gesturing widely and making all the specimens freeze up again. “I swear I haven’t opened a single sect, only gazed upon our newest finds. You’re going to love them Patton, they have the strangest little noises.” 

The Nilh wasted no time in scampering forwards, just barely prevented from bumping the enclosure by Logan’s tail tugging him back slightly. “Oh, they’ve already started communicating with each other? What about body language, did you have the vidfeed on?”

“Yes, and of course,” Roman gestured with a pointed flourish, “I have also followed procedures and had the cam on since I entered the lab, treasured nerds.”

Logan’s hand flicked in an exasperated gesture, but his ears were no longer angled down, so Roman counted it as a win. Patton tugged the Glanrim closer by the tail, using his multitude of hands to push him into his spot. “Look, Lo! I think this one is threat displaying at me! They’re all acting so differently, it’s going to be so exciting to figure out what sort of sounds they use!” 

Despite his professional demeanor, Logan’s eyes all widened with excitement as he bent slightly to inspect their samples. “There’s quite a variety in patterns and sizes as well,” he observed, voice low and resonant. The little creatures all seemed to stiffen at it. “I would almost believe them different species entirely if not for the similar body structure.” 

“They’ve even got little primitive outfits, see?” Roman pointed towards the calm one in the middle, eyeing the seams. “There must be a bonding purpose for it, like how some mammalian animals will use pigment-dyes for enhancing appearance to attract mates. The real question is, how did they all end up looking so different? Which one is closest to the traits that make one desirable?” 

“I don’t see any reason we can’t find out!” Patton responded brightly. “We’ve got three samples, one for each of us, so what say we each get started on recording all the information we can!”

“We only have three specimens, so it’s important that we don’t push too far with any of them. This is only preliminary work,” Logan cautioned. “That said, I agree. The sooner we begin, the better.” 

“I’ll take the yellow one!” Roman immediately chimed in, his wings vibrating slightly inside his suit. 

—

“There’s three of us, and three of them, so of course they’re going to eat us.” Remus remained blithely oblivious to Virgil’s glower. “It’s lucky there’s not one more, otherwise we’d have to rock-paper-scissors on who gets torn in half.” 

Of course, this was the moment that the monsters stopped their odd, chitter-click-buzz noises to turn back to the container, and the first monster, the red one, began to fiddle with the side of the glass. Virgil started to breathe heavily as there was mechanical clicking around them, and then the ground under their feet shifted slightly. 

Without another second of suspense, Red reached under the box and slid the middle section out like a book from a shelf. The man in formalwear went with it, stumbling slightly and pressing against the glass for balance. 

“Oh hey, you got the freaky insect one,” Remus said, waving cheerily. “Hope your death is really cool and gory! Try not to make it cooler or gorier than mine though!” 

“Very helpful,” the man hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes slightly panicked. Virgil stumbled forwards to the front of his section as though he could reach the other human through the glass, terror chilling him. It was a pointless gesture, but as he was carried out of sight, the man offered him a nod anyways. 

Remus seemed to be unfortunately correct about them being split up, since next the one with the six arms and rocky skin pried the tall man’s section out and left with it as well. That left Virgil with the last one, a monster whose face was covered in neat fur and long whiskers. It looked at him with way too many eerie slitted pupils, and Virgil couldn’t help but compare it to a predatory big cat. Maybe several predatory big cats.

Its gaze was nothing compared to its size, of course, and Virgil couldn’t help but drop to a crouch, curling in on himself as gloved hands curled around the glass box he was stuck in and lifted it with ease.  

The floor of the box was transparent, and he stared at the dizzying drop to the floor the whole transferring process. When there was finally solid ground beneath him again, he looked up and found that his box had been placed on a sterile, shining counter. 

Before he could get much of a read on his surroundings, a shadow darkened the floor around him, and he barely got to flinch before cool fingers were descending on him, lifting him from the box. 

The hold was firm and clinical; his arms pinned to his sides, and a finger under his chin to prevent biting. The pressure on his throat was just slightly too much, and Virgil let out a choked cough, struggling to breathe through his panic. 

Thankfully, it only lasted for a moment. In the next, he was released, and his hands and knees met a solid surface. He scrambled to his feet, glancing around. 

The bad news was that he was out of the relative safety of the glass box. The worse news was that he appeared to be in a warped version of a hedge maze, walls and corners twisting around him. The worst news was that the monster was still present, and now it was manipulating some kind of square device. 

A heartbeat later, the walls around him started to buzz ominously, making the hair on the back of his neck rise up as he pictured every Saw movie he’d ever seen. 

“Fuuuuck this,” he muttered, shifting to his feet and starting down the nearest path. He alternated between making sure he didn’t get too close to the walls and making sure the monster hadn’t moved or otherwise acted suspiciously. The creature was watching him unerringly every time he looked up, and having all those eyes on him didn’t help his increasing unease at all.

As he turned a corner, he was faced with something new, and automatically ducked away in case it was going to start shooting at him. The small orb continued to sit in the middle of the path innocently, at just the right height to take out someone’s achilles heel. 

Virgil shuddered and turned around, backtracking to the last fork in the path. He wasn’t messing with monster traps, no fucking way. 

Above him, the monster seemed to sigh slightly.

—-

“... just too timid,” Logan was saying when Patton re-entered the main area of the lab. “The specimen didn’t engage in a single puzzle during our session, not even one.” 

“What a puzzling situation!” Patton chimed in, carefully slotting his own specimen unit back into the container. Inside, the little creature continued to make a bizarre assortment of calls, not even in Patton’s direction. 

Logan exhaled shortly. “Am I to assume that your insistence on wordplay means that you had greater successes than us?”

“Well, you could go with that, but you know what they say about assuming!” he replied, tucking a pair of arms behind his back as he wandered over to the others. “The little guy seemed pretty aggressive, so I tried to see if there were any specific threat calls I could make out, but… it almost never repeated. Either they have very complex body language that I’m missing or my little friend is a few sticks short of a tree!”

The other two looked disheartened, and the linguist glanced over at Roman. “You two didn’t have any luck, either?” 

“No. My specimen barely participated in the trials I set up, and so I haven’t discerned what level of intelligence we are working with yet,” Logan gritted out, ears flat.

Patton tilted his head slightly. “Not even the treat ball? Most sentient life forms have no trouble with that one.” 

“No, no interaction at all. It may be worth looking for more compelling bait…” 

Roman cut in, antennae flicking in displeasure. “Anyways, mine was uncooperative too! I was trying to get a few samples of their outer shells to see what the fabric is constructed of, but it was so resistant after just one layer that I started getting worried that maybe removing any more would actually harm it.” 

“Good. Better not to risk damaging them.” Logan turned to the units, nose twitching as he thought. “There are other non-invasive tests we can try, but results might shift if we try different samples for different tests.” 

Roman click-buzzed in complaint. “That could take forever, though! We’re supposed to be coming up with significant research, not trading specimens around!” 

“Maybe, instead, we could observe all of them at the same time,” Patton suggested, getting both of his teammates’ attention. “After all, isn’t controlled engagement with multiple specimens one of the tests?”

Roman and Logan exchanged a look, before the latter inclined his chin, slowly. “It’s worth an attempt, at least. Just watch carefully for any signs of aggression. They can’t harm us, but they could certainly harm each other.”

---

By the time the monsters finally decided to put them all in a penned-in space with each other, Virgil was almost too exhausted to be worried. Almost.

He shuffled away from where the three bizarre creatures were looming over them, but carefully remained out of grabbing distance from the other two humans. He wasn’t stupid; he barely knew these people.

“Aliens,” Remus greeted them, holding his hands up in an exaggerated pose. “I’ve totally cracked it.” 

“You’ve totally cracked,” Virgil shot back, but most of his attention was on the well-dressed man. Or, formerly well-dressed, since now he appeared to have had all top layers except his undershirt removed. “Hey, what happened?” 

“Oh, is it not obvious?” the man hissed, arms crossed tightly. “I’ve been robbed. Clearly, this must all have been an elaborate mugging for my blazer and button up.”

Remus cackled. “Yeah right! That suit is cheap as hell!”

The man rolled his eyes, and Virgil couldn’t help but notice the way he was shaking. It didn’t seem like a fear shake, not with this man’s demeanor. “Okay, but are you okay? You seem, uh, cold.” 

“Of course I’m not cold. Why ever would a half-dressed, anemic man in a glass box be cold?” the man snapped. One of the aliens moved slightly, and their gazes all flickered up for a moment. 

Once it became clear no grabbing was happening, Virgil sighed lowly, pulling at his zipper and shifting the sleeves of his hoodie off. “You’re kind of a bitch, huh?” 

The man snapped his head around, opening his mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but Virgil interrupted him by tossing the hoodie at his face. “Excuse m-- oof!”

“Don’t spill anything on it,” Virgil muttered, ignoring the man’s perplexed stare. “You can pay me back with your name.” 

“... It’s Dee.”

---

“Did you see that?” Patton bounced on his toes, tugging at Roman’s talons. “It gave away it’s covering!” 

“Astonishing,” Roman replied, not tearing his eyes away. “Is it a social hierarchy thing? Did you see any familiar dominance displays?” 

“I… didn’t, actually,” Patton replied, face scrunching in perplexion. “Maybe this one is less attached?” 

“No.” They both turned to Logan, whose eyes had gone wide. “It was an act of assistance. The yellow specimen was shaking, likely from temperature exposure due to losing some of it’s covering. It was… kindness.” 

“Woah, what?” Roman clicked, antennae perking up. “But that would mean--” 

“Look!” 

At Patton’s cry, they all watched as the other specimen seemed to attack, almost jumping forwards to intervene. At the last moment, Patton’s arms pulled them back. “No, wait!” 

Though the small, gangly creature had flopped onto the shorter one, the action seemed to elicit no pained cry or battle screech, only mild grumbles as the two readjusted in their impromptu pile. The one that had given away its covering made a face before carefully folding into a sitting position as well, a seat that kept it between the aliens and the other specimens. 

“These specimens were all pulled from different locations,” Logan half-stated, half-asked. Roman nodded, eyes wide. “They can’t be nestmates. What in the galaxy is this?”

“They’re sapient,” Patton blurted, a hand pressed to his mouth. “The sounds, they’re too complex because they’re not calls, they’re words. Language.”

“Language? But, the planet was said to only contain primitive lifeforms!” Roman protested, wings flaring up in agitation. “You’re telling me… Oh man.” 

“The heat sharing, the communication, even the extreme caution shown in unfamiliar circumstances,” Logan spoke slowly, as though warming up to the idea. “It… does seem to be a potential explanation.”

They all looked back to the tiny bipeds, now seeing their every action in a new light. 

“Well, there’s only one way to be sure,” Patton said, lifting up a hand and waving it slowly in a generic friendly gesture. “We’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves, using our own judgement.” 

After a long moment, one of the specimens-- no, aliens-- waved back. 

[relaxxattack]

ayo! (wait this might be a bit of a jumpscare dishdks i apologize) i’m op of That Post and was wondering what your opinions were on the whole woobification thing? /gen

because it’s a Tiny Bit widespread within the dream apologists to sort of,, overdramatize stuff like l’manberg hurting him. like they’re not a 100% wrong but if you look at it subjectively you can see some sort of bias going into that sort of thing that makes the character’s mistreatment a bit more blatant and intentional which,, it really wasn’t? and there wasn’t That Much of it either. especially on twitter (tumblr is much better about it) people just jump to conclusions it seems and yeah. since you brought it up i was wondering if you wanted to write a bit about it from your perspective!

we’re kinda from different corners of the fandom but i still notice that once you are too attached to a character you start taking certain evidence and giving it more weight than it actually has. there’s a blurry line between “taking away a character’s humanity” and woobification and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance when said character shows pretty much nothing of his emotional life (e. g. putting up the intimidating villain act in front of only c!tommy, pretty much everything he does making rational sense with no emotional subtext) and a lot of the fandom instantly jumps to one side or the other while it’s like.

we don’t know by far enough to say “he’s traumatized” or “he isn’t traumatized” or “he was villainized and it hurt him” or “l’manberg didn’t affect him at all”

as a very analytical person people constantly jumping to conclusions grinds my gears, but that’s about it for my own view of the situation - sorry for the rambling.

in general i agree with you that both dehumanization and woobification is Bad and i really hope getting Actual Context sorts this out (e. g. him saying he was betrayed by his friends doesn’t mean it wasn’t partially his fault or that they were allowed to leave him, but it also shows that he did care about that happening. mentioning the cat doesn’t mean anything about what happened to c!tommy but it also shows that he did care about what happened to it. it’s just always interesting to get more information about the way he feels because he usually does a very good job at hiding it.) because man.

it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if you also are attached to the character and are expected to automatically agree with everything the people on “your side” say. it just ends up with everyone being mad and the character being mischaracterised overall.

oh wow hello! i didnt expect the op of the post to find me you’re right lol

and yes i agree! you seem to have a lot of very good thoughts tbh.

and by woobification, i mean exactly what you’ve already pointed out— the people who will say l’manberg purposely villainized dream, the people who will say wilbur faked his mental illness to manipulate dream, the people who are pretty much always talking about how badly dream was treated by people who were acting only fairly for themselves, usually.

for example people who act like dream was a perfect peacemaker before tommy showed up, or that tommy started most conflict. these are just actual lies that are told by c!dream himself to justify his abuse of tommy, and people fall for them incredibly easily because not a lot of people watched early dsmp and know that truthfully it was chaotic even then, and that dream was chaotic too. not to mention wilbur soot tried very hard to secede peacefully with l’manberg and dream jumped directly into war with no warning. and then people say he was forced into their war when, no, he started it.

theres also people who will say like, dream and sapnap for example are such good friends. i’m sure they cared for each other, but dream on multiple occasions has done horrible things to sapnap with no regard for his feelings (like leading fundy to sapnaps pets during the petwar, leading tommy to sapnaps pets during the other petwar and encouraging him to kill them, handing mars over to tommy to use as leverage against sapnap, etc). george he’s been less awful too but he certainly spoke over him and ignored his feelings enough that george felt hurt. he had places in his hall of attachments for beckerson and mars. george and sapnap were right to walk away from being treated like that.

there’s also what you just said here — “dream puts on a villain persona for tommy”— but honestly he acts like that around quite a few people (example: eret) and it’s usually when he’s revealing crucial info, which leads me and many others to believe that ‘persona’ is actually a more truthful version of him.

there’s the fact that he really isn’t safe for people to be around (or at least he wasn't before the prison) because he was planning to come up with ways to control every single person by stealing and threatening their attachments (some of which were not items but were living animals, or a real breathing person).

and then people will say dream was doing exile to enforce rules, or to keep the peace— when it’s very clear in canon it was a deliberate plan to get tommy on his own and into the prison. (from the way he was framing tommy for multiple crimes, and having sam set up the prison, and kidnapping tommy instead of correctly exiling him, all at the same time).

not even going into how he wants to kill and revive people for fun or make tommy immortal.

it’s just— ignoring all these actual facts and saying “oh he misses his friends, let’s get him some friends now” reminds me of like. when people would put flower crowns on pictures of serial killers. and then, there’s hardly anyone on the server who wasn’t subject to dream’s plans, so there’s absolutely no one i would be okay with him interacting with.

just remembered about the torture thing, and wow i still hate it so much. it’s someone’s sick revenge fantasy twisted into a way to get a manipulative villain sympathy, and it’s just gross to me on every account. i do think dream is traumatized-- just not by l’manberg, which was a conflict he started on his own terms. i would think l’manberg did affect him, because he was scared of losing control.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again— my ideal ending for dream would be for him to be sent far away from dsmp to an island full of therapy animals and super strong therapists who have never met him before. and for him to get a shit ton of therapy until he becomes a halfway normal person. and then eventually he could get integrated into society again; but a different one with new people. (although maybe dteam + bbh + puffy can visit him, they might still like him.)

none of the people on the server (who have all been affected by dream) should be burdened with befriending him or rehabilitating him— look how that turned out with sam! sam had a personal grudge towards dream and it ended with the poor dude being tortured every day; and sam himself falling into corruption and literally cutting off his boyfriends arm. like we can all see thats fucking awful right?

no one who was affected by dream should have to deal with him ever again. and contrary to popular belief, that includes a LOT more people then just tommy. dream isn’t just tommy’s antagonist, hes almost everybody’s.

the only person on the server who might also be able to stand to help dream is techno, and that’s from sheer lack of ability to give a shit. but techno is probably THE furthest thing from a good therapist there is lol, and dream needs better then that.

this kind of just ended up being a rant about my thoughts on c!dream, so im so sorry op. especially since it was probably negative for you. i hope you’re doing very well.

i guess in the end it’s true what you said— people will highlight or ignore things based on what characters they like, and it’s especially easy to do in this fandom, where half the content doesn’t even get watched and then we become a big echo chamber of half-truths.

considering dream has hurt so many of the characters i care about, i almost can’t understand how he could be someone’s favorite or comfort character— but he is nonetheless, and it would be unfair of me to be rude about that.

essentially it just bothers me to see someone who was a perpetrator of accurately portrayed abuse and manipulation (using both those words in their actual definitions, not just as random buzzwords lol) being given the flower crown edit effect. especially since he’s hurt the characters i care about a lot.

ANYWAY all of that being said (this got LONG im so sorry op) i am so so excited to get dream’s pov, because although i disagree with his actions strongly i actually find dream’s character very interesting and cool, and watching his POV is going to insanely fun. i cannot wait to see what theories get confirmed or denied

ALSO incase it wasn’t clear this is all /nm at you! you seem lovely and smart, and neither of us can help what characters we get attached to :]