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nincompoopydoo · 3 years

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PINING, BAGELS, REPEAT.

— WHEN THE DRINKING'S DONE ; PART 6 / ?

( gif from this gifset by @jascontodd )

PAIRING: Bruce Wayne x reader

WORD COUNT: 2.9k

SUMMARY: Sunday night dinner with your mother doesn’t go as planned when Bruce shows up unexpectedly at your door and you both know how your mother really loves him alot.

A/N: Slow and kinda long-winded chapter again haha. I used to be the kind of person who couldn’t write long stuff. Now look at me. Who is she??? Enjoy this one yall. Probably one or two more chapters to go, depends on how much I can write <3

WARNINGS: Swearing, alcohol. I write about what I feel and they are very real. So if you find these things triggering, please do not read this.

MASTERLIST ; MASTERPOST

Sunday night. You’re in an apron, flushed from the heat of the stove. You’ve just poured a glass of wine for your mother, but she doesn’t drink it—too busy walking around your apartment, clearing your stuff as she criticizes your lack of cleanliness and organization. Grading papers during exam season keeps you busy. Needless to say, you don’t have the time to clean your goddamn house.

You still love her anyway.

You’re at the sink, purple-stained fingers from peeling the tunic of the red onions are under running water when there is a knock on your door. It’s deafening, rapid, and agitating. You’ve just spilled boiling water onto your hand and you really don’t need another problem to come charging at your front door. Literally.

Moving out of the kitchen with haste, you call out over your shoulder to your mother to quit rearranging with bits and bobs of stationary and papers because yes, it’s messy but you know exactly where everything is. The knocking doesn’t cease, and your annoyance aggravates further. You’re gonna have to punch someone or something if it doesn’t stop.

You aggressively pushed the barrel of the bolt lock, swinging the door open as the strands of your wild hair flew backward in the sudden blow of air.

All forms of anger and agitation disappear as soon as your gaze meets the flushed face of none other than Bruce fucking Wayne, dressed in a grey dress vest, tie hanging loosely a pristine white shirt, and an ebony tweed overcoat. This feels like deja vu. Your expression goes through a series of mixed emotions, mostly confusion, when it morphed into a guise of embarrassment, cheeks even redder. “Don’t tell me I texted you by accident again?” He blinks, seemingly as bewildered as you are. “What? No, no. No. I—” His sentence is cut short when he takes a moment to catch his breath. Your brows are frowning even deeper than before. “Did you run here or something? And what are you doing here anyway?”

Bruce shifts in his stance, a palm against the door frame, shaking his head. He feels small under your interrogative stare. “No, I came here to see you…” he trails off, eyes shamelessly skirting across your figure. He just now notices that it may be a bad time for him to turn up, and you’re hit with the realization you’re in a ratty apron, very red and very sweaty. You’re right. It is deja vu because why are you always a mess when Bruce shows up at your front door unannounced? You abruptly pull the apron over your head, hurling it behind the door, hands palming the frizz of your hair into a somewhat presentable look.

“Look, I need to talk you—”

“Honey! Who’s at the door?” He’s being cut off mid-sentence again. This time, by your mother’s voice from the living room. Your eyes are wide again—so are his.

Your mother’s fondness for Bruce is an understatement. Obsession is a better word. She had only met him once, and that was six years ago but the conceptualization of being somewhat related to an exceptionally handsome and successful man had gotten to her head all those years ago. Hell, she loves him more than she loves you. Your mother—A woman who wishes to call your best friend ‘son’ with a whole lot of love to give. If she discovers Bruce is here, at your doorstep, she will never let go. Never. And you both know it. There’s a silent understanding that travels between the two of you and the look you’re giving him tells only one thing—Run before it’s too late.

“Bruce Wayne as I live and breathe...”

Well, too late.

A small-statured lady stands on the farther side of the hallway, face lit up with sheer joy and excitement as if she had just won a lottery. She approaches him with arms open wide and soon, her hands are laid on his cheeks, examining the man’s face carefully. Bruce just stands there, stiff as a rock, unsure of how to regain his composure from all the adrenaline of wanting to see you now that he was in such close proximity to the woman who raised you. When it’s you, he tends to struggle with timing and it’s partly the reason he has never managed to act on his feelings for you. For the longest time, he has wanted to be more than friends or whatever the hell this was. He had been hesitant but now, he’s very sure.

Sometimes it feels like it's the right person but the wrong time. He doesn’t want it to be that way. He wants to make things right with you.

And there he was, being squished under the grasp of the lady that loves him very much.

He catches your gaze; you flash him a sympathetic smile as you mouth the word “sorry.” Bruce arches his brows, indicating he has no idea what to do or how to get out of this situation.

“You’ve grown so much since the last time I saw you!” the older woman exclaims, a hand now firmly on his shoulder, the other brushing away his long strands of hair from his face with affection. Bruce would never admit it; he likes the attention your mother gives to him—the touch of a mother. Something he longs for.

“Why don’t you come in and join us for dinner? There's more than enough food.”

Crap, you should have known that question was bound to be mentioned. You’re not convinced that you will be able to suppress your emotional heartburn and the idea of Bruce tasting the dishes you’re cooking, it’s making your palms sweat. But what the hell. You shouldn’t be this nervous around him, you’ve known each other for years. He has seen you at your worst and vice versa.

Still, you’ll like to avoid the predicament of a dinner table set for you, your mother, and the man you secretly love. You’re quick with an answer. “Oh, I’m sure he has other important things to do. Bruce is very busy—”

“I’ll be happy to. I have no plans for tonight after all.”

You stare at Bruce, eyes glimmering with shock and betrayal—he is supposed to be on your side. He simply sends you a swift wink, and you feel the growing and most likely apparent deep red of your already flushed cheeks. You glance away to face your mother, eye crinkling in hopes of concealing the effect he has on you. Well, at least your mother looks fucking overjoyed. Maybe the night won’t end in disappointment.

The scent of chicken and spice whiffs through the air from the dishes of chicken and chorizo paella you’ve managed to whip up in a quick thirty minutes—a recipe you came by in an article titled “Fancy dishes for lazy cooks.” Well, it’s certainly working; everyone looks pleasantly surprised when you emerge from the kitchen with a cast-iron skillet within your kitchen gloved-grasp.

Happiness is the sound of the clinking of cutlery against nearly empty smeared plates, the splash of wine cascading from the bottle you held into the glasses of your guests, and the occasional laughter that erupts from your mother as Bruce tries to make a joke through mouthfuls of paella. A symphony of contentment and comfort, composed and orchestrated by the two most significant individuals in your life. Beauty is made anywhere beautiful people are; in this space, cramped up at the beech wooden table made for one by the casement window that overlooks the apartment across yours.

This side of Bruce—where boyish smiles were manifested and hearty laughs arising from the belly—is the side you miss the most. Years ago, things felt simpler though your past self would deny that notion as human life continues to become more intricate as we grow older and our eyes see more. Innocence to maturity. Happiness to grief. But, the complexity of this warfare between the brain and the heart seems to reside in perpetual darkness, no light at the end of the tunnel. For a long time, you thought deciding to be alone could eventually bring peace to the madness but maybe, you’ve been with the wrong people this whole time. It’s your reflection against the window pane that shows the evident crinkle in your eyes and the constant upward in the curve of your lips even though it contrasts the gloomy hues of blue from the sky at twilight—you’re happy.

It’s the way your mother leans over and wipes off the bits of rice from the corner of your mouth and the exchange of awkward smiles when Bruce accidentally brushes his hand against yours when reaching for the fork. This is what you want. And maybe, just maybe, you deserve to not be alone.

“So, have you decided on who you’re taking to the wedding?”

Your mother’s voice hauls you back from your daydream. She gives you a knowing look, discretely glancing towards Bruce on the other end of the table. She knows you don’t have a date, and you know she wants you to bring Bruce. You feel your anxiety creep back in.

This is weirdly the second time you’re in this situation.

“I don’t know yet...” In times like this, you wonder if your mother wields some sort of magical ability of truth or something because no matter how much you try, you can never lie to her. And now, you wish the ground would collapse and swallow you up. You know she means well, but oh my God, Bruce is staring at you and you don’t know what to do with your hands anymore.

“Wedding?” Bruce chirps with a questioning brow as he glances between you and your mother. Now, you’re forced to explain for the sake of context. “My cousin’s getting married next week and mom here wants me to bring a date.” Your mother’s expression indicates that you’re lying through your teeth. Yet in reality, it’s not technically a lie if you’re leaving parts of reason out of the explanation because it’s true she wants you to bring a date but you don’t mention how you don’t want to go alone because weddings make you sad.

It sounds pathetic.

Bruce just nods, taking a sip of his wine. The fact he’s not saying anything is making you anxious. You thought you didn’t want him to be your date but now, maybe you do. These feelings are messing up your brain. It’s just mush now, and there’s no cure.

These are the times you want to say “Fuck you, Bruce” but in the nicest way possible.

“Why don’t you bring Bruce?”

She was direct as they come but is mostly tired of your lack of initiative and doubt. I mean, it’s not like you’re asking him to marry you, right? And honestly, you’re kind of relieved you didn’t have to be one to do it but you can’t keep depending on her to do all the heavy lifting for you. You’re not a teenager anymore. You’re a goddamn grown adult.

Nevertheless, you peer at his reaction to this from the corner of your eye, fully expecting some sort of a resting jaded expression or eyes wide in horror but he’s just looking at you...with that look—highly bewildered and almost seems to be entertained by your embarrassment. Despite the purse of his lips, you manage to catch sight of the slight impish tuck of his lips.

He thinks it's the wine, but he isn’t exactly sure.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“Are you sure about this?” you cross your arms, as you watch Bruce shrug on his coat from the rack. The two of you are squeezed in the entryway of your apartment, huddling in hushed conversation. “About what?” he asks absentmindedly when in reality, he knows exactly what you’re referring to. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, it’s an excuse to be around you longer. You purse your lips, shifting in your stance, eyes flickering away from his gaze. “About coming to the wedding,” you say it slowly, carefully, like you’re afraid to and you’re not sure why. He nods with the furrow of his brows, tugging his hands into the pockets of his ebony tweed coat. “I’m sure...Unless you don’t want me to come—”

“No, no. God, of course, I want you to come,” you stop, realizing how your sudden outburst of excitement must have made you seem desperate. You clear your throat, feet shifting once more. “I don’t want to pull you off work just because I don’t want to be alone.”

He raises his brows, nearing a little closer to you. “So that’s the real reason?” A hint of a smile—it’s a teasing one. You simply throw a fist to his arm yet unable to stifle your growing smile. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Bruce winces followed by a laugh that comes out more light a puff of air as he bares his palms in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I didn’t say anything.”

Maybe, it’s the walls of this hallway, covered with hung framed photographs of family, childhood, and friends because it’s starting to feel warm. You think it’s the way his eyes light up when you laugh, radiating a sort of comforting warmth on this cold night. It feels like home. Bruce feels like home. You notice the prominent stain of your mother’s lipstick on his left cheek. You bring one hand to rest on the curve of his cheekbone, thumb trying to efface the smeared stain away.

You’re not sure if it's the smell of his deodorant or the sudden sense of his breath on your skin that made you comprehend the closing gap between your face and his. In an instant, your hand jerks away and returns to your side, clenching to a fist. Bruce clears his throat, bringing a hand up to scratch the growing stubble at his jaw. The touch of your fingers lingers like a burn.

Recognizing the tension in the air, you decide to avert your thoughts back to the conversation you were having in the first place. “You know, you don’t have to come. Really. You’ve done a lot for me, and you know that.”

“Yes...but I’ll always have your back no matter what.”

He smiles at you. The kind that reaches his eyes. He looks younger like this.

“And I’ll always have yours, Bruce.”

You’re an idiot. He’s an idiot. You’re just two idiots, standing in the hallway with hearts that feel like they’re about to explode. Despite the lingering tension in the air that’s still present, you bring him into an embrace. It feels natural, your arms around his shoulder and his on the small of your back. “Thanks for everything. Especially for making my mom really happy.” you punctuate your sentence with a gentle caress to the back where his shoulders meet. You hear the muffled sound of his laugh, feeling the rumble of his chest against yours as you try not to squirm at the brush of his unshaven chin against the curve of your neck. “No problem,” he mumbles before pulling away.

“And you need a shave.” You’re pointing to his chin and he finds himself scratching it again. He merely hums in response.

Swinging the door open while you wave him goodbye feels like a part of you is leaving. You’re not sure why you’re feeling this newly found emptiness in you when you know you’ll see him next week. You decide to blame the wine. It’s easier that way.

He’s walking away, already out of view when you decide you should really say something at least.

“Bruce,” you suddenly call out; he turns on his heels and backtracks a little too eager to face you at the doorway. “What was it you wanted to talk about?” He frowns in response, head tilting in a questioning manner. “When you came here, you said you needed to talk.”

He recalls the real reason he was here in the first place. Rushing to your door like you’re about to disappear any minute. Yet, you’re here, still at the doorway, three hours later. Fuck, he was about to confess.

Bad timing. Again.

Right person, wrong time.

No. He’ll make it right. Just, not now.

“I was...going to thank you for the bagels; Asiago. Nice choice.” Is what he says instead of reciting the words that had been running through his head in rehearsal since the drive to your apartment. He ignores the way your shoulders sag, perhaps in relief—he doesn’t want to know. He ignores the burning in his chest when you nod, the corners of your mouth tugging into a faint smile as you raise a palm in a somewhat solemn wave of farewell. He ignores the sting in his eyes when the door closes on him, symbolizing finality when he really doesn’t want it to end. Left alone in the dismal light of the hallway; it acts as a poignant reminder of his bereavement and how much of his consolation depends on your presence.

When the drinking's done, does it make it any easier for him to open himself up to you?

Bruce allows himself to cry once he pulls the car door to a close because he feels overwhelmed by the conflicting thoughts that continue to reside in his mind. The regrets, the what-ifs, and the should-haves. He forgets himself sometimes because he gets so lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t recognize himself anymore.

You keep him grounded. You remind him who Bruce Wayne truly is.

He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror.

You’re right. He does need a shave.

TAGLIST:

@raineeace

#bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader #batman #batman x reader #bruce wayne imagine #batman imagine #bruce wayne x you #batman x you #justice league

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monstersdownthepath · 3 years

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Demigod Dossier: Velstrac Demagogues, part 1

Pictured: Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Lawful Evil Mad Artists of the Shadow Plane

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 120~121 Additional information is also present in Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 74~79

Our second-ever Demigod Dossier, now fully in-swing! The Velstrac Demagogues are the rulers of the Shadow Plane and all the lives within, though many of said lives within aren’t really fans of them. Natives to the Netherworld find the presence of the Velstrac an annoyance at best and a threat to their lives at worst, and would much prefer if they went back to Hell where they came from, but unfortunately for everyone everywhere they don’t appear too eager to throw themselves into the jaws of the inferno just yet. Instead, they’re busy throwing themselves into the jaws of one another.

The Demagogues represent the pinnacle of a specific subset of the Velstrac’s twisted senses of ‘art’ and ‘perfection,’ either because they’ve mutilated themselves into something wholly unlike anything else that can, did, or could exist, or they’ve pioneered a form of artistry that other Velstrac couldn’t even conceptualize in the first place and gathered a fandom. It takes some very twisted, alien forms of thinking to become a Demagogue and get others rallied behind you, even moreso because the Velstrac themselves are, putting it kindly, completely out of their gourd. When your audience already expects the insane and outlandish, you have to go even further, and many of the fiends you’ll soon see have.

We’ll only be covering four in this initial post, with the rest to be saved for later...

Demagogues view mortals as little more than primal clay to be shaped, and thus see little worth in investing true divine power into them, worshipers receive Boons that are are relatively simple: a trio of spell-like abilities, each of which may be used 1/day. Boons are normally gained slowly, at levels 12, 16, and 20, however entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes can see the Boons gained as early as levels 10, 13, and 16. Note that while they are Lawful Evil fiends originally from Hell, they are not devils, thus you cannot enter the Diabolist Prestige Class to obtain their Boons without DM fiat.

Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Demagogue of Possibility, Revenge, and Sanctuary Domains: Evil, Law, Protection, Trickery Subdomains: Deception, Defense, Fear, Tyranny

Obedience: List the names of those who have wronged you until the writing covers a page, then consume the parchment. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist compulsion effects.

What a completely normal, sane, and healthy thing to do! As the first of the Demagogues to flee from Hell, Aroggus is EXTREMELY angry at the devils for locking them up in the first place. Angry enough to want revenge on the whole of the diabolic race, as well as the Asura... Angry enough that he hasn’t yet even started getting around to enacting his revenge, instead just constantly thinking about and refining it as if no iteration of suffering is perfect enough to match his fury.

True to form, he wants you to ruminate in your anger rather than doing anything to enact your vengeance, blacking out a page with the names (or just one name) of all who’ve wronged you no matter how petty or insignificant the inconvenience they may have caused. Unfortunately, no two ways about it, you’re going to look insane (in the literal definition of the term) doing this every day, especially if you only have one or two people who’ve wronged you enough to get onto your list. Scrawling their name, front AND back, until the page is filled and then eating it is behavior that will raise eyebrows no matter who you’re adventuring with. Best to keep this one behind closed doors. Make sure you have a glass of activated charcoal after, because all of that ink day after day (unless you write with, I don’t know, berry juice or blood) is going to do amazingly terrible things to your constitution.

The benefit is good. Compulsions are typically Save-Or-Suck effects, so having more Save means less Suck for you later on. It’s useful at any point in your adventure, so I can’t say anything bad about it! My only wish is that it was a little stronger, since some other gods give +4 vs compulsion and charm effects.

Boon 1: Nondetection Boon 2: Forcecage Boon 3: Imprisonment

Nondectection is a good spell for those times when you need to sneak by diviners, hide magic items from scrutiny, avoid the gaze of a Paladin who’s a little too judicious with Detect Evil, or to add another layer of shroud over Invisibility and the like. It’s a spell that’s a pain to prepare every single day, but useful to have when you need it... but you only have one casting of it per day, so using it wisely is paramount. Ironically, it combines well with your own Divination to find out if you’ll even need it later. More often than not you won’t be using it at all except to idly ward yourself when going into town or diving into a dungeon.

Forcecage is a completely different animal, the offensive and defensive applications of the spell simply mind-blowing, to the point that keeping this to just one paragraph to save space is going to take some herculean effort on my part! So, the basics: Forcecage has two versions, both of which halt all movement through them: A 20ft square of force bars that allow spells, projectiles, and line-of-effect through, and a 10ft cube that blocks line-of-effect and all forms of magic and supernatural abilities. A Forcecage is effectively invincible (having Hardness 30 and 20hp/level) and impossible to move, so anyone trapped inside without the ability to teleport is likely to stay there for the spell’s duration. Also, to put it simply, shoving enemies in the cage is the main point, but if you cannot, a 10ft/20ft square is an enormous roadblock to stop up narrow passages with.

Which leaves Imprisonment, a portable hole you can shove all sorts of problems into, which will likely create new problems down the line if the target had anything you needed on them. I recommend knocking out a foe, stripping them of their valuables, and then shoving them into their baby jail for all eternity! With the Freedom spell being the only means to undo Imprisonment (even Wish and Miracle fail), you’ll have no actual way to undo the spell against any target you cast it on for one or two more levels, if at all (depending on the party composition). Make sure to use it only when the villain has no MacGuffins, or is a powerful recurring threat. Imprisonment works on anything and everything capable of failing the Will save (take note, anyone wanting to fight Kaiju, Great Old Ones, or Spawn of Rovagug), which gets a -4 penalty if you know the target’s name and some facts about its life, so famous villains are even more vulnerable to being thrown into the Eternity Marble!

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Barravoclair, Lady of the Final Gasp

Demagogue of the Elderly, Fatalistic Insights, Resurrection Domains: Death, Evil, Healing, Law Subdomains: Murder, Restoration, Resurrection, Undead

Obedience: Practice breath control, holding your breath until you nearly pass out. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on checks to resist drowning and on saves against inhaled poisons.

A hell of a step down in terms of unhealthiness in terms of Aroggus, and significantly less suspicious, too. Breath control is practiced by people of all stripes, from athletes to explorers to simple monks attempting more profound meditation. While ‘nearly passing out’ is skirting an edge most people won’t approach, it’s not exactly as dangerous for you as, say, inhaling water or eating poison every day. Without any materials needed, the Lady of the Final Gasp is one of the simplest and probably the single cheapest Obedience ritual one could ask for! There is a minor caveat in that races who can’t breathe can’t technically do this Obedience at all, but those aren’t the audience Barravoclair wants anyway.

Unfortunately, the benefit is as weak as the Obedience is easy to do. Drowning is unlikely to come up as a danger unless you’re physically dragged into the water by a monster (which means holding your breath likely isn’t an option anyway), and inhaled poisons are the least common poison type in the game. Against the odd Catoblepas or Green Dragon it will come in handy, but it’s protection from injury poison you really need, which the Lady of the Final Gasp doesn’t provide.

Boon 1: Speak With Dead Boon 2: Resurrection Boon 3: Soul Bind

Alright, let’s face it. Some days, you need Speak With Dead to keep the plot running smoothly. Whether your overzealous DPS kills everyone in the room, your Fireball-lobbing Sorcerer kills everyone in the room, or your summoner’s unchained beasts kill everyone in the room, chances are at some point in your career you’re going to save the party a lot of headaches by being able to pull answers from a corpse. Having Speak With Dead available every day will likely not matter 80% of the time (meaning you can typically use it at your leisure just before going to bed), but much like with Water Breathing and spells like Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, having it for those 20% of times you need it can keep the wheels spinning and stop unneeded side quests.

... And speaking of side quests and things you’ll need once in a blue moon, Resurrection? For free? Even 1/day? With the hefty cost of 10,000gp for the normal spell, even a well-off party will feel the impact every single time they have to use Rez, but the removal of the cost ups the power level of the spell by a margin so enormous that it doesn’t really matter what Boon you get before or after this one; THIS boon rewards worship of Barravoclair enough to justify putting up with her empty benefit. Even without factoring in the ability to raise party members, you can now curry favor with people of all stripes and demand all forms of insane payments for your ability to raise centuries-old dead at no cost but time... or do your work for free and call in favors at a later date. Do note, however, that you’ll also need someone else on standby to remove the negative levels/stat drain caused by the resurrection process.

I said it didn’t matter what the third Boon was and I stand by it. Unlike with the free Rez above, Soul Bind’s enormous cost still makes its use as anything but a once-per-campaign finisher of an annoying enemy irritating and unfeasible. Spell-likes normally require no components, but Soul Bind operates in a gray area of the rules in that its focus component becomes the subject for the spell, meaning that a DM can very easily and very rightly say you DO require the gemstone whose value must equal or exceed the target’s HD x 1,000. Binding even a simple 5 CR creature requires the tall order of a 5,000gp gemstone, and if you want to use it on a target that’s worthwhile, it gets expensive fast. It’s way cheaper and easier to just hire a Cacodaemon.

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Fharaas, the Seer in Skin

Demagogue of Experience, Murder, and Patterns Domains: Evil, Knowledge, Law, Repose Subdomains: Ancestors, Fear, Memory, Souls

Obedience: Study the interior of a freshly severed limb. Benefit: You are immune to bleed effects that deal 6 damage or less.

This Obedience is deceptively simple for what its implication is. You’d best get yourself a Sack Of Rats or have access to a lot of disposable prisoners (or the Regenerate spell)! But thankfully, there’s some wiggle room in the wording: ‘freshly severed’ means no cheating and using Gentle Repose on the same arm over and over, but it ALSO means you can carry around a single corpse and slowly slice it apart, as the limbs themselves don’t have to be fresh, just freshly cut off for the purpose of the ritual. Also, you can use the bodies of Undead, Constructs, and any other creature that technically has severable limbs! Though Fharaas, the Seer In Skin, will likely punish you if your ritual doesn’t involve the examination of actual flesh.

You’re going to look really weird, is what I’m saying. At least if someone barges in on you, you can claim you’re inspecting them for something or other. Infection, signs of magic, etc, whatever you can come up with to blunt the blow. You can cover yourself moderately well by being a butcher or a hunter in your day job, as the severed limb doesn’t have to be human, or even sapient (hence why I suggest a Sack Of Rats), letting you freely slice up and examine your kills.

Bleed effects are fairly uncommon in the grand scheme of things but are also a pain in the neck to deal with in the middle of battle, so this giving a +4 bonus aga--wait, sorry, hold on no, this isn’t a bonus to saving throws? Or skill checks to heal bleed? It just... Stops them if they deal 6 or less damage? You don’t even have to make a save?

Okay. Okay, alright. So you’re just immune to bleed, then?

More or less, really. There are very few monsters that deal more than d6 bleed damage with their attacks (be warned that higher-level ones can sometimes stack their bleed!), and this ability also works on the rare but dreaded stat bleed, and off the top of my head there are NO monsters that deal more than a d4 dice in stat bleed damage. My main problem is that it doesn’t reduce the bleed damage you take by 6, so taking even 1 more point of bleed damage makes this ability useless. Still, though it’s fairly narrow, being effectively immune to a dangerous and irritating status ailment at level 3 or so (when bleed is at its most threatening) is well worth taking up butchery.

Boon 1: Keen Edge Boon 2: Vision Boon 3: Foresight

Keen Edge is a spell you absolutely want to slap onto any vaguely pirate-y or hoity-toity party member you may have, as cutlasses, rapiers, and scimitars all leap from a dangerous 18~20 critical range to a terrifying 15~20, meaning they threaten to critically strike 1 out of every 4 attacks instead of just once every other fight or so. With a duration of 10 min/level, the enchantment will likely last multiple fights even if you only have it 1/day, but unfortunately it refuses to stack with any crit-boosting enchantments or feats the wielder may already possess, lessening its usefulness as your adventure goes on and your martial party members pick up increasingly fancy gear and pad out their collection of feats. Still, it’s useful for when you get it, and will remain useful for several levels after.

Vision is a whole different beast, and a dangerous one at that. It operates as the Legend Lore spell but vastly accelerated, allowing you to scrape the public consciousness for any information it may have on a specific person, place, or thing. I’ve complained about the general niche uses of Legend Lore before, but Vision grants the information in a much shorter time (a single standard action) at the cost of a potential for failure and a slap of fatigue whether you succeed or not. I don’t like 1/days that do nothing on a failure, but since Vision is purely a downtime spell (unless you need to know the boss’ weakness or info on the Evil Doom Artifact right now immediately), it’s not as much of an impediment to lose out on whatever information it could give you. That being said, the DM will likely have ways for you to do whatever plot-relevant research you need anyway, so Vision is more of a way to speed up the process than anything.

Which leaves Foresight, a spell whose main benefit relies intensely on DM cooperation, as I’ve ranted about here. Mechanically it’s fairly unimpressive, but if the DM reads the spell carefully, they should realize it gives whoever you cast it on a 6-second glance into the future at all times. Whatever horrors befall the victim 6 seconds from now should spring into your mind before they happen, making you the best trap radar on the planet, and the spell’s warnings for the best ways to protect yourself will urge the DM to grant you information about the enemy’s capabilities you may never otherwise know... but what do you expect from 9th level magic? It SHOULD be filling you in with details you’d never figure out!

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Inkariax, the White Death

Demagogue of Preservation, Absolute Cold, and Solitude Domains: Evil, Law, Void, Water Subdomains: Fear, Ice, Isolation, Slavery

Obedience: Inventory your collection of hoarded knickknacks, reciting your unique name for each item as you do Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist effects that would petrify or paralyze you.

God, finally, someone normal. At worst you’ll look like someone with a few obsessive issues, but at least you won’t look like a menace to society as you lay out your, I dunno, marbles or bone dice or dolls or what have you and make note that they’re still there, cooing to them with names only you know. It’s fitting for Inkariax, of all the Demagogues, to have an Obedience that requires no self-harm, physically or psychologically; unlike all the rest, he was born perfect and doesn’t need to chase after it. Instead, he pursues finding perfection in others, freezing and collecting people and items he believes represent perfection in whatever unusual way he desires that day (having perfect posture, or a perfect scream, or a perfect pair of eyes, etc). Much like him, you’re encouraged to expand a collection of whatever you deem perfect and desirable, which you’re often going to do just over the course of normally adventuring. I’ve yet to see a player character that doesn’t start amassing all sorts of junk in their pockets the moment they get a Bag of Holding or similar.

Indeed, you can just pick up whatever catches your fancy, be it stones, sticks, or severed bits of an enemy, though I’m sure Inkariax will ever-so-slowly raise a disapproving eyebrow if you just pick up any old junk. Make sure to curate your collection now and then! Being able to perform this Obedience with anything you happen to gather is especially helpful if you’re ever separated from your collection (always a danger) and need to start again, but note that each item you gain in your collection must have a completely unique name. That’s only really a danger for especially RP-heavy campaigns, but in such campaigns Worship of the White Death isn’t for everyone who just names all their collected bird feathers Jeffery. Start getting in the habit of stretching out your inventory sheet with names for all your items!

The benefit you get from lovingly counting up all your stolen statuettes and dusty books is resistance to two of the worst status effects in the game. While petrification is relatively rare it typically appears in Save-Or-Suck form, which makes protection against it far more valuable than, say, protection against something like the far more common fatigue or exhaustion. Paralysis is an ailment just short of a death sentence by itself, costing the victim their turn at best and their life at worst, so even a +4 between you and that is something you need to cling to with your entire being.

Boon 1: Sleet Storm Boon 2: Sequester Boon 3: Microcosm

Sleet Storm is a very simple spell with a decent number of functions. Its Long range means that any enemy in your line of sight can potentially be a target, letting you lash out easily at ranged enemies or dangerous casters by creating a 40ft-wide and 20ft-tall area of concealing sleet that’s impossible for any vision to pierce (except the rare and niche Snowsight or Fogcutter Lenses). Anyone inside will have to rely on Tremorsense or Blindsense (though the jury’s out on if the splashing of the sleet would confound those, as well) to navigate it, and 40ft of difficult terrain can feel impossible to clamber through when you start right in the middle of it with no idea which way is the way you need to go. It’s one of the strongest vision-blockers in the game due to its immunity to common tactics that thwart lesser spells (Gust of Wind, True Seeing, etc), forcing enemies to either blow their valuable uses of Dispel Magic or suffer for its entire duration. My only complaint is that you only get it 1/day and that it screws over your party just as hard if you use it incorrectly.

Sequester is as niche a use spell as there ever was for players, requiring a bit of forethought about what or who you’d want to hide with it. The target must be willing or inanimate to be affected, so tricking an enemy via Charm or Dominate into accepting the spell can keep them fresh as a daisy for weeks at a time if you ever have a reason to do such a thing. More often than not you’ll use it to conceal items you seriously don’t want seen or detected, such as a Bag of Holding or similar loaded with your collection of knickknacks or emergency supplies, a particular hostage, an NPC you need to keep alive, or your phylactery if you’re a Lich. If you’re especially sadistic, using it on an item someone else needs and throwing it into a well or a hoard of other objects will keep them occupied for a while. If you’re a more martial character, using it to hide your armor is viable, making it seem as though you’re invincible when enemy blows bounce straight off, or even your weapon to confound your enemies who seem to be taking wounds from an unseen item. Your mime routine will be killer, literally! Just... Just don’t drop the thing, because in the heat of battle you’re never going to find it.

Microcosm is one of the best spells you can hurl into a crowd of commoners or a swarm of foes meant to gum you up instead of actually threaten you. Its 30 HD limit will mean it likely will only strike one or two creatures capable of actually threatening you, but it’s brutal even then. The spell is permanent, trapping your victims in an illusory world in which everything goes right for them even as their bodies starve to death in the waking world. Anything with less than 10 HD is automatically affected with no saving throw, the spell easily mopping up mobs, while anything with 11~15 HD escapes automatically after 10 min... per level you have. On a successful save. There’s Save-Or-Suck, and then there’s the immensely rare Save-And-Suck! No wonder Microcosm is ONLY on the Psychic’s list! Anything with more than 16 HD is unaffected if they succeed their save, but all their allies are likely in an everlasting dreamland now. The big issue is that the HD restriction is way tighter than you may think; creatures, especially at higher levels, usually do NOT have HD matching their CR, but if you’re mainly battling level-appropriate Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid creatures, Microcosm is fairly reliable in such battles, as those foes typically have HD that roughly matches their CR. But if you’re up against, say, Dragons or Outsiders, good luck bud.

Side note: Microcosm and Sequester used in combination make for excellent ways to start your own morbid collection of living creatures, just like your icy master! Just make sure you have some non-Divination means of seeing them, as Sequester blocks even True Sight.

#Pathfinder #dungeons and dragons #Demigod Dossier #Spiritual Spotlight #Sinister Spotlight

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98prilla · 4 years

Text

Fallen

A03

Logan falls from heaven. Instead of dying, he finds aid from a familiar face.

...

He’s falling.

Crashing, really.

Through the atmosphere, through plains of reality, he’s broken the sound barrier, and he wonders if he’ll ever hit the ground. At this point, he wishes he would, just so the anticipation would be over.

His wings burn and tear and scorch at the edges from the force of the fall. Feathers fly around him, not that they’ll cushion his eventual landing. He can see them blackening at the edges, the wind ripping them to shreds, and it hurts, oh, it hurts.

But he’s numb. Passive. Apathetic, he supposes, is the best word, because what else can he be? There’s no way to stop this, no way to change it, the only thing he can do is give in, and hope that the ground snaps his neck on impact. Otherwise, it will be a slow, painful death.

He would pray for mercy, but there’s not much use for prayer, now.

God won’t answer him.

…

His breath escapes him, his heart stops beating, everything freezes for a just a moment, and it takes his brain a second to catch up with his body, for the agonizing, burning, endless waves of pure excruciation to hit his pain receptors, and he chokes on the torment in his soul.

He tries to move, to sit, to crawl, but he can’t even twitch his fingers, even that burns with the heat of a thousand stars, sends him reeling into a darkness that swallows him whole, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been, when he wakes, days or hours, but the pain hasn’t diminished.

He’s almost grateful he can’t seem to turn his head, because he can’t bear to see the state of his wings, he knows it’s a bad sign that he can’t feel anything at all from them, meaning more than likely they go beyond broken to unsalvageable, and that more than anything breaks him down into a howling, wretched, mess.

He painted the sky, he placed the stars, he wove the cosmos into being, and now he can’t even touch them. Will die here, on this rock hurtling through space, without ever touching his stars again.

And for what?

A couple questions? His curiosity? His desire to discover everything and anything and how it all worked, and why it all worked, and somehow, somehow, that was blasphemy, when it should have been considered the purest kind of love, that he wanted to know the humans better, know their world better, well.

He can feel blood trickling from his mouth, though he doesn’t know if it’s from internal injuries or simply because at some point in the fall he bit his tongue. He’s too tired to care. He’s cold, as well, an unusual feeling, it was never cold in heaven. Even now, his sluggish mind is trying to process the new feeling, trying to determine the consequences, trying to understand, but it was slow.

Everything feels slow.

He barely notices the vibrations against the ground, the footsteps approaching, until the shadow is hovering over him. He barely hears the person whistle lowly. Barely manages to open his eyes for a fleeting second, as he feels himself be moved, picked up, held, and he instinctually presses against the warmth.

“Something did a number on you, didn’t it?” The voice murmurs, rumbling in their chest, a soothing feeling, another thing to catalogue. But he’s already slipping away, as some small movement tweaks his wing joints, and he screams at the electric anguish it sends racing through his veins.

…

Warm.

He is warm.

His entire being pulses with a dull, endless ache. His soul feels ripped to shreds. His heart feels shattered beyond repair.

Yet he’s alive.

The world is a blur. Warm browns and dark woods, something soft and gentle beneath him. Something fluffy and warm wrapped around him. He can feel something wrapped around his chest, something pinning his wings back, trapped and he hisses, tries to pull at the restraints, tries to get free, tries to escape-

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t do that.” He freezes at that voice, a blurry shape coming into view, black hair with a white streak, and he recoils, afraid, breath hissing through his teeth at the ache sharpening to a stabbing in his skull. “Sorry, sorry, it’s okay, but, uh, you really need to leave the bandages and stuff alone. One of my friends fixed you all up, I don’t know shit about healing and stuff, but he said if you ever wanna use those again, you gotta let ‘em heal.” His breath hitches at that, and his focus didn’t sharpen, but the ache in his heart did.

“they’re broken. they shattered on impact. Based on my velocity, into a thousand tiny pieces of bone fragments that can’t ever be pieced back together. Not only that, the flesh itself tore apart from the speed and the crash, I can’t feel them. They’re nothing more than useless weights to drag along behind me. I won’t fly again. Don’t lie to me. I’ve already lost everything, don’t lie to me.” His voice is dull and emotionless, his spark is dimmed to an ember, he doesn’t have anything left in him.

“I’m not. I swear, they’re not a lost cause. It won’t be fast, or soon, but he said that you’ll be able to fly again. He’s, uh, not really a human, so, he used some of his voodoo magic or whatever, and it seems to have stuck.” He’s too tired to try and parse out whatever that means, but a kernel of hope is soothing the ache, now, because if he can fly, that’s all he needs, he just needs his wings, and he’ll be able to make it. He just needs the stars.

…

He’s crying.

He doesn’t know why, but tears are slipping down his cheeks, still half dreaming.

He hadn’t thought it would be Patton, who would turn him in. Didn’t think he’d done anything worthy of being turned in for, which was why he hadn’t been afraid. Even as he was standing in front of the council, explaining himself, he hadn’t been afraid.

He’d thought it all a misunderstanding.

Until the clouds parted under him, and sent him hurtling down.

Until Patton said he was sorry, but this was for everyone’s own good.

Until he reached desperately up, expecting someone, anyone, to grab his hand, haul him back up, to say this was wrong, or all a joke, but instead his grasp closed on air, and he fell.

He’s fallen.

That doesn’t hurt. Not really. It’s the betrayal that hurts. That twists like a knife in his side, that stabs him through the heart and breaks him, because how long, how long, how long, had Patton been planning this?

He’d thought Patton was curious, like him, he always listened so attentively, always asked questions, the only one who actually cared about his speculations and interests and studies.

And it had all been a lie.

It would make him angry, if he had anything left in him besides tired, down trodden, defeat.

He should have been smarter than this. He knows how pure Patton sees himself, sees the other angels, sees heaven. He knows how he looks for corruption everywhere, how he supported the flood, but he’d just been glad someone wanted to listen.

And it cost him.

“-been sleeping.”

“Still, I’d like to check on him. Those wounds need redressing.” A new voice, soft and sibilant, soft voice, one he almost recognized, almost remembered, but his memories seem blurry on the subject.

He cracks open his eyes as footsteps approach, the room slightly less blurry, now, he supposes some of the swelling on his face must have gone down, allowing his eyes to open fully.

A face comes into view. One half is covered with golden scales, that trail down from his eyes and extend down his wrist, encasing his hands in their soft shimmer, one eye a snake’s, the other a dark, nearly coal, black, and there’s something strange and graceful and ageless about him.

“serpent.” He greets, voice rasping and whispery, and he sees the figure inhale sharply, take a step back.

“logan. Oh, stars, what did they do to you?” He isn’t sure how the serpent knows his name, but he doesn’t care. His eyes are slipping shut and he doesn’t have the strength to keep them open anymore, he doesn’t care what happens to him, he just wants to sleep and never wake up. “Shhh, it’ll be ok, love. Jussst sssleeep.”

….

Remus watches as Deceit smooths back the winged man’s hair, Logan, he’d said, a strange look on his face, a strange combination of anger and fierce softness.

“You know him.” He says, and Deceit lets out a soft sigh, running a hand through his hair.

“I know all of them, Remus. I was there when they were made.”

“But you know him, personally.” Deceit’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t answer, instead shifting his attention back to Logan.

“He’ll be out for a while. He’s exhausted as is, and my influence will keep him that way long enough to do what needs to be done. I’d rather he not be awake, it’s going to hurt considerably rebandaging and preening those wings. You might want to lay down a tarp. This will get messy.”

…

He remembers something.

Distant, hazy, broken pieces of thoughts.

Painting the stars, laughing at something someone else said, someone with a golden glow and long brown locks, hazel eyes alit with the cosmos.

Speaking beneath a tree, well, more of an idea of a tree, a conceptualization of a tree, a fuzzy, hesitant painting of one. They are mapping the sky, planning it out, tracing future constellations.

Patton. Sky blue wings, ripping away the gold. For his own good. Too many questions, too many doubts, too many mistakes, but he wouldn’t let him, he was wrong!

Patton froze. His expression morphed into something cold, something that made him feel something new… fear.

He was afraid as Patton gripped his arm too hard, shoved him back, somehow freezing him in place. Bright light lit the space, Janus screamed, colors flashed, his vision went dark, and everything stopped.

…

He shoots awake.

His wings are still pinned back, but he can feel them, now, a relief, though they ache, yet.

He can hear speaking. He forces himself to his feet, nearly tumbling over at the dull wash of pain, at the unbalanced weight of his wings behind him, which would usually help steady him or be tucked primly back, now hindered by splints and bandages. His head swims, so full of memories and shifting images and he needs to get there, needs to reach him, so he forces himself forwards, leaning heavily against the walls, until he reaches a doorway, trips over a rug, and goes falling to the floor.

Impact never comes, someone swears, and catches him, and he opens his eyes to those mismatched ones, so strange, but so familiar, and he doesn’t hesitate, now, to throw his arms around him, and cry.

“I know, darling. It hurts. But it will be alright.” Janus murmurs to him, clearly mistaking his anguish as being borne of his fall, or his wounds, and he shakes as he feels him card a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry.” He manages, through great, gasping heaves of air.

“shh, there’s nothing to apologize for, love.” He’s so kind, even now, he’s so kind, even when Janus thinks he doesn’t know him, doesn’t recognize him, even when Logan is simply another fallen angel, and Janus is supposed to be the tempting serpent, he’s kind, and it’s such a Janus way to spite Patton, who turned him into this, into the face of deception and trickery, accidentally giving him the keys to all the knowledge he’d ever sought.

“my fault. You f-fell and it’s m-my fault. Patton did this to you, b-because I said he was wrong, he did this to you, and then he m-made me f-forget.” He stutters, feeling Janus freeze, his breath caught in his throat, and a hand is tilting up his chin, to meet those endless eyes.

“what did you say? What… this is a trick. A trap. A ploy. He wouldn’t-“ He cuts off Janus, pressing their lips together, closing the space between them, and Janus is suddenly holding him close, desperate for his warmth, and he very nearly laughs at the joy surging through him as they part.

“Janus. You are Janus. The serpent of Eden, the guardian of knowledge, everything Patton did to hurt you only made you stronger, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have fought harder, I should have remembered, I shouldn’t have let him continue to use me, I should have known-“

“you can’t know everything, love. His power is strong, he’s ruled as a tyrant for so long, I’m… I didn’t expect you to remember, ever.” Janus murmurs, gaze roving over every inch of his face, his hands caressing his arms, as if once he stopped, Logan would vanish. “I’ve missed you.” Janus presses another kiss to Logan's lips. “I looked at the stars every night, remembering you. I’m sorry for the pain, but I’m selfishly not sorry you fell, not when it means you’re here with me.”

“I’m not either. I’m not sorry. I’m so proud of you, Janus. I…” his voice breaks, and he buries his head against Janus's chest. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, darling dearest.”

“I'm sorry. He took the sky from you. I’m sorry.” He cries softly, feeling Janus rock him.

“it doesn’t matter. You’ll still have them. And I have you. That’s what matters, Logan. You are my stars. You are my universe, and Patton failed, because we are together, and that is all I’ve ever dreamed.”

They stay like that, holding each other, whispering memories and I love yous and kissing for a long time, drowning in each other until the sun set and the stars rose.

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transformersrelay · 3 years

Photo

Mace ropes Weathervane and Shrapnel into a drinking contest, because what better way to befriend his quiet crewmates than with a challenge! He didn’t expect the idealogical crises, though.

“Hey guys!” Mace made entrances, Weathervane had learned. The drone practically burst into the hangar, abandoned by all but the newest recruit and their second-in-command. Shrapnel had been assigned to show him the specifics of the controls first thing, in case there was ever an emergency.

But Mace didn’t seem to notice or care that they were in the middle of something. Mace slammed his servos on the panel in front of him, making just one of the other two planes jump.

“I bet you both I can hold the most hi-grade!”

Weathervane blinked. Shrapnel scoffed.

“You try this every time, Mace.”

“Besides, we’re all flyers, so it’s not like you have an advantage? And… you’re the smallest.” The biplane gave a skeptical frown.

“Oooh newbie~ Prove it,” Mace smirked.

“For the love of Primus...” the SIC muttered.

“Uh, but...Why? Would we?”

“Because! It’ll be fun!”

Shrapnel and Weathervane exchanged glances.

“C’mon! Fun?”

Weathervane laughed nervously. Shrapnel stared.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll bet you both my entire personal unit stash.”

That was how the two had found themselves allowing him to drag them along, down to the mess hall. Shrapnel went to fetch the stash of hi-grade he kept stocked; Mace had teased that it was so well maintained precisely for times like this, but the triple-changer had neither confirmed nor denied. The rec room was empty, which served Mace’s plans wonderfully, because his fellow flyers were far too proud to have fun in front of other bots. Primus forbid anyone know they weren’t completely devoid of positive attitudes!

They sat down with their stack, and each took one cube to start. The larger two swirled theirs hesitantly: Shrapnel out of disinterest and Weathervane looking like he thought his would bite him. Oh, this would be like taking Energon treats from sparklings! Mace, with a wicked grin, slammed his down without warning, sticking his tongue out with his empty cube on display. That earned him a couple of competitive frowns.

“Well? I’m winning so far!”

“We just started-- don’t reach for another. Primus,” Shrapnel grumbled, drinking his own just as quickly. “Your big mouth is cheating!” and moving to keep pace. Mace was already mostly through with his second.

“Weathervane, are you trying to be slow?”

“No,” he snapped defensively, trying to take a big gulp and not making much progress. “Shut up, Mace, you’re so going down.” He tried to drink more and scowled.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like hi-grade,” Shrapnel said.

“I do! I’m just not used to it, okay?”

“Should’ve been built a Seeker frame,” Mace teased.

“Oh, well gee, thanks Mace, I’d never considered that,” he huffed, forcing the contents of his drink down with finality. “Hand me another damn cube.”

Mace happily did so, grabbing himself another too. Shrapnel was keeping up, at least.

“Don’t you do this with Bumper all day instead of making yourself useful?” Shrapnel mused, clearly not ready to leave Weathervane alone. “I’d think you an expert solely by keeping his company.”

“Not more than one, when we do,” he said. “Not like I’m going to get myself tipsy on the clock.”

“He certainly would,” the triple-changer said.

“Well, I’m not him. Don’t expect it to be a habit, anyways. I’ve only joined him once or twice.”

Mace gasped. “Do you like him?”

“Uh, I guess? I mean, I think we could be friends.”

“No, no, no, like like.”

“... What?”

“He’s asking if you have romantic interest.”

“Oh, what? No! Why would you assume that?”

“Awww, too bad, you guys would be cute.”

Weathervane grimaced. “I’m going to need this hi-grade after all.”

An awkward silence settled. Granted, not for Mace, not ever, and Shrapnel was far too self-assured to let it bother him. So really it was awkward for Weathervane and Weathervane alone. He worried his lip with fang-like teeth. Not that it was anything new, but he felt intensely out of place with the two Autobots. He found himself fretting privately about how he let himself get roped into this situation and what they might be thinking and if they--

“Okay, okay, you’re like, three drinks behind. C’mon, Weathervane,” Mace set his cube aside and pushed an armful of them in front of the other plane. “We’ll wait!”

Shrapnel nodded solemnly from his seat. The biplane blinked at them, a twinge of relief at the silence being broken despite the newest pressures placed so unceremoniously upon him, now. He sighed, looking as terribly put-upon as possible. But he did as asked. He wanted those units, after all.

The smallest of them snickered, not missing the slight sloppiness in his movements. “Are you getting affected already?”

“Shut up, Mace,” he snapped. “Why are you so eager to win, anyways? You won’t get anything out of it. Can’t give yourself your own units.”

“I can, too!”

“Bragging rights,” Shrapnel said.

“Oh, yeah. That, too. I told you both I could hold more than you!” He pointed dramatically ahead, as if striking a pose.

“You’ve hardly won, yet.”

“Ah,” Weathervane muttered.

While the empty air still bothered the newest Autobot, he had a task to complete now: drinking with whatever fervor he could muster. So really, it didn’t occur to him that he ought to be feeling awkward again. Shrapnel had seemed to settle on looking and acting bored, perhaps spacing out. Mace, for his part, was watching Weathervane with a twitchy excitement, and had the biplane not been so focused, it would have been making him far more uncomfortable than he already was. The uninitiated may have seen the drone’s energy as a side-effect of the hi-grade, a few weeks ago, but he knew better by now. It was just his constant state of being. The mechsimply had no off-switch.

“Hurrrryyyyyy,” Mace whined.

“I’m doing the best I-- listen, you’re going to stress me out and then I’m just going to… to choke or something.”

“You’re lllllllame.”

“Stop! I didn’t ask for your opinion!”

Shrapnel sighed deeply and grabbed another cube, despite what Mace had said. This was not his ideal company for drinking.

“Ah, but you like drama like this, don’t you, Weathervane?”

He cocked his head. That had been a sharp turn, hadn’t it. Mace was a difficult conversation.

“Depends,” he answered carefully.

“Hey! Who do you think is the strongest Autobot here? I think it’s Echo because of his guns, but he probably has weaknesses I didn’t even think about!”

“Plenty,” Shrapnel said blankly. Weathervane wondered if the drinks had invigorated their usually stoic and silent Second to say so much. Though, speaking ill of the captain had never required him to be drunk before, so in the end, he still couldn’t tell. This was all so stupid, petty, impotent. Yet a hot flash of anger bolted through Weathervane’s chest at those stupid words.

“That’s the problem with your hero complexes,” he growled, before his brain could catch up with him. “You think being strong is a good thing. It’s not. It makes you incapable of empathizing with the targets of that strength.”

“...What?”

He hesitated, mouth suddenly dry. “Oh. S-sorry, that… wasn’t what you wanted.”

“The hi-grade is getting to you,” the largest mech surmised.

“Says you.” Weathervane sat back upright, trying his best to appear collected and sober. His bashfulness forgotten, his claws curled against the tabletop and he grabbed another cube defiantly. “I won’t give up. You’ll have to kill me.”

The triple changer only looked at him in response.

“Hey, Shrap.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Since you’re second-in-command, do you know any cool Autobot secrets?” Mace leaned in, eyes surely sparkling. The other mech didn’t bother turning to him, because really, it was a stupid question, and Mace only ever wanted light, fluffy responses, anyways.

“As I’ve said before, if I did, why would I tell you?”

“Ahh, you’re no funnn,” he whined.

The biplane tuned in silently with a shift of optics. They’d had this conversation before, had they?

“I’m actually kinda curious, now,” he said, eyebrows arched up, body leaned in, expression plainly interested. Normally, Shrapnel wouldn’t notice how it suited him.

“That is unfortunate.” He sipped his drink. They’d amassed a decent pile of empty cubes by then.

“Surely there’s something interesting,” Weathervane pushed.

“What do you want from me? The terminal passwords?” Shrapnel didn’t budge.

“Well, I certainly… wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m sure. You would use it to download alien music or something, wouldn’t you?”

“W-- would I? Do I strike you as a musical person?”

“Well, you were telling Bumper all about alien instruments the other day,” Mace added, leaning his head in his hand. Clearly, he thought there was something to say about the two, judging by the teasing look on his face. Jumping to conclusions, as he often did.

“That’s because he asked,” the biplane argued.

“That’s not the point,” Shrapnel said, tapping a finger on the table. “The fact that you knew any of that means you must have studied it.”

“I read one book on it,” he said, looking far more affronted than necessary. “It was just for the one planet, too. It’s just because the history of different tools and how each civilization created them is interesting. It’s how you fill the time. What are you going to do otherwise, walk down the hall? Or-- or sit and stare into space? So that then, when you think back to that moment, you’ll think, ‘oh, why didn’t I do something with that time? Now I just have memories of staring at a wall.’ But instead, I have memories of learning the conceptualization and evolution of a viola and how to use it and what each string sounds like. Even if you never use that knowledge, it’s stimulating and new and worth learning because at the very least, it’s better than nothing”

The other two, for the first time that night, turned to each other.

“I’m lost,” said Mace.

“He is much more talkative now, isn’t he?” Shrapnel almost sounded teasing.

“You asked! Don’t complain when you asked me!”

In his defense, he wasn’t completely sober, himself, but Shrapnel felt himself intrigued that Weathervane would ramble in such a way. It almost felt like some secret he was bearing witness to. The newbie could speak more than two sentences, who knew?

“What kind of frame are you, anyways, Weathervane?” Mace jumped without warning to a new subject again.

“Hm? Why does it matter?”

“Well you’re probably not a Seeker like me, and you’re definitely not like Shrap. Are you Vosian?”

“Of course I’m Vosian, I’m just made for mining.”

“That explains the weapons,” Shrapnel said.

“Aw man, I wonder if we ever met before, then? Since we’re all Vosian!”

He almost seemed to snarl. “Not a chance. You upper castes wouldn’t even know where to find the mines.”

“No, I mean like, out in the skies!”

“Military is hardly that upper,” Shrapnel added.

“Aren’t you Seekers super regulated on where you can and can’t go? We certainly were. We were expected to live in the mines working forever, so those damn upper castes didn’t have to do any work.”

“If you didn’t do the work, someone else would have had to,” Shrapnel said.

“Ohh, well now that you say that I feel so much better, Shrapnel. Even if we were never built and others took our place wouldn’t make it any more just. To say that ignores a perfectly viable third option, wherein energon miners regardless of construction are treated fairly, given freedom and compensation for their time. I know the politicians and scientists get those things. Why only them?”

“Politicians and scientists have more to offer. Even a Disposable could pick up a tool and dig up some crystals. Those who present a unique contribution to society don’t have to justify their existence. The rest do.”

“Is that really what you believe? That the system was functional?” Weathervane’s expression darkened. The larger mech huffed.

“No system is perfect. And of course, only the lowest castes complained, rather than accepting their role. They should’ve been proud. They were crucial to the balance, afterall.”

At that, Weathervane’s eyes sparked like fire.

“Well, I think the revolution was inevitable. I think the people at the top got what was coming to them. They deserved it for being ignorant-- for being okay with how things were.”

“Uhh, I’m not really sure what’s going on right now,” Mace interjected nervously. “Isn’t that something a... Decepticon would say?”

“You would know.”

Mace started like he’d been burned.

“More like something I’d have heard in a neutral camp,” Shrapnel said.

“You... raided?” Weathervane tensed.

“No, idiot, I lived in one.”

“O-oh. Oh.” He tilted his head, seemed to get dizzy for a moment. “That sounds nice.”

“It wasn’t.”

“A-anyway, naturally the energon drought pushed everyone to get more aggressive in obtaining it. And neutrals, generally, aren’t so aggressive. But isn’t that simply fair, by your philosophy? That those who won’t contribute aren’t worthy of basic rights?”

“My philosophy is that those who don’t work as hard shouldn’t expect the same benefits as those who do. That is not a denial of basic rights, it’s a rejection of the weakest link. Besides, now we’re discussing the entirely different issue of idealism, which is pointless now even with your best arguments.”

Mace looked between the two with a nervous smile. All of this was going way over his head.

---

“Where the hell is Shrapnel...” Echo hissed, to no one in particular. His second-in-command was supposed to be helping set the scanners and it was hours past when they’d started. Most of the crew was resting by now, and Echo wanted to do nothing more than follow suit and take his mind off this tedious piece of scrap, Shrapnel be damned.

“Dunno, Cap’n,” Bumper said, looking up from where he’d been helping in the triple-changer’s stead. “Y’don’t think he actually went off with Mace all this time, after all?”

Bumper had noted when he’d approached Echo earlier that he’d seen the two with Weathervane, but he didn’t expect they’d have been getting along. Even if, by some miracle, Weathervane had gotten on the SIC’s good side, he sincerely doubted that would be enough to make him spend quality time with the drone.

Echo stewed for a few moments.

“At this point, I don’t care where he is or what his excuse might be. He can’t just skip out on jobs, now. Meetings was one thing, but this-- He’s going to finish this by himself,” he stalked off, his direction being the only indication he’d actually heard Bumper at all.

Bumper frowned at the unfinished job, but shrugged and followed after, anyways. Where to look for them, that was the big question. The three Autobot flyers didn’t have many interests in common, from what he knew. Assuming Shrapnel was still with them, what could they possibly be doing?

---

“What you’re proposing is mass suicide, you understand that,” Shrapnel was saying. He sounded slightly off. Too relaxed, and not-angry.

Echo stood in the doorway, watching the scene before him, somewhere between furious and downright incredulous. There sat the unlikeliest of trios, a notable stack of empty cubes between them (Bumper made a distressed noise from behind him.) Mace seemed perfectly normal, but the same could not be said for the other two.

“This trajectory is just going to end with all us dead anyways,” Weathervane was arguing. He was clearly inebriated, his words unsteady and his optics burning brighter than they should. A passion-- something Echo hadn’t seen from him yet-- clouded his expression. “We should at least be able to die trying to fix this Primus-forsaken hellhole we’ve made.”

“We’re doing that. It is called surviving.”

“No, by… Ugh. I just want to save a shred of morality for myself. That would be so nice…”

“Are you always so depressing when you’re drunk?”

“Okay,” Echo interjected sharply, and only the biplane jumped, “What the hell is going on here? Explain, Shrapnel.”

“Competition. Whoever lasts the longest gets all of Mace’s units.”

“And I’m winning!”

“That sure ain’t healthy…” Bumper murmured, eyeing the aforementioned stack of empty cubes. “You even leave any for the rest o’ us?” He seemed a little downtrodden at the thought of the supply being low. Weathervane seemed to draw back, at that. He looked way more guilty than he needed to be.

“It was my idea, Captain! Don’t get mad at Shrapnel! Besides, we still have a lot of hi-grade left, it’s not that big of a deal!” Mace beamed.

“That’s not what I’m mad about, Mace,” Echo said curtly, “But thank you for confessing, we will discuss that later.”

“I’m not very pleased about it,” Bumper added. “But, uh,” he turned back to the biplane, who looked upset- and more than a little frightened. If he was a paranoid drunk, this situation was only going to exacerbate his condition. He could practically see the steam coming off of Echo. “We should take care o’ you, first, buddy. You’re not going to get back to your quarters in that state.”

“Who won…?” His voice was oddly hollow, for the question. Though all things considered, it made sense that he wouldn’t make sense.

“Clearly Mace did,” Echo said.

“What?!” Shrapnel exclaimed.

“Ahh, risk not reward, hmm,” Weathervane seemed to grow sad.

“Woohoo! Told you guys! I was right!”

Shrapnel drew his shoulders up, as if to argue, but was cut off.

“Clearly you’re even more of a joy than usual, Shrapnel. You’re not acting like yourself, and you missed tonight’s job.”

“What of it, Echo,” he turned slowly back to the Captain. “It got done without me.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Uh, well I’m gonna help Vane here back, but I’ll come back help with the rest o’ that, after,” Bumper interrupted. He’d already slung one of the other’s arms around his shoulders and supported his heavy leaning. Weathervane seemed to be getting more nervous.

“Thank you, Bumper.” Echo didn’t look at him as he effectively dismissed him, focused on Shrapnel. He regarded him silently. Shrapnel stared back. “... We’ll discuss this when you can think straight.”

“Can you say you deserve to be alive?” Weathervane blurted, turning around at the door to figure out where Shrapnel was and nearly knocking both himself and Bumper over in the process.

“... Weathervane?”

“What do you mean?” The largest mech tilted his head.

“You… your arguments fall apart if you can’t tell me, guilt-free, that you deserve to be alive more than everyone who’s ever died,” he managed. “You’re wrong.”

His intensity was tangible. A momentary hush fell over the room, as if they’d all been blindsided by his words. Echo had to admit he was... surprised, his spark both twisted and impressed by the biplane’s sentiment. Perhaps his first impression of Weathervane had been… wrong.

“You’re naive,” Shrapnel answered, unaffected, voice still cold and precise. “Everyone who has offlined has made their sacrifice. They weren’t strong enough to survive, and their deaths decided their worth.”

Weathervane’s mouth clicked shut. He glared, unfocused, for a silent few moments. An insurmountable rage seemed to flare up in the spare moments. Shrapnel scoffed, had to have one last remark.

“This is a war you’re in. Not everyone matters.”

The other’s silence grew angrier, he almost seemed to regain a focus, something sharp and cutting he’d never displayed before. In moments he deflated, suddenly looking defeated and burdened.

“C’mon buddy,” Bumper interrupted gently. “Let it be.” The flyer was already too distraught for him to allow it to get worse. And Shrapnel was gasoline to a flame. The grounder coaxed him forward on wobbling legs and managed them both out of the room towards the suites.

The captain and his second-in-command watched them go in silence; a silence that even Mace respected, clearly uncomfortable as he was.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Echo finally spat, turning on the largest mech. “You should be ashamed of your conduct.”

“I’m not.”

“I fucking know you’re not. Get to your quarters and rust for all I care. I want you on deck at cycle break and you are fixing the Primus-forsaken scanners on your own. If you’re not there, I’m throwing you out of the airlock myself.”

The triple changer didn’t immediately move, challenging the optics glaring at him. Echo was only intimidating if one believed him, afterall. Nonetheless, the captain’s words impacted him enough to slowly stand. He didn’t sway like Weathervane had, but his steps were uncertain all the same, leaving behind Echo and Mace without another word. Echo wished he believed there was some regret in his silence. But he wasn’t that stupid.

“Soooooo I guess I’ll just--” Mace was slinking out of his chair.

“Clean up this mess? I agree.”

The drone’s wings drooped and his mouth opened to protest, but after a moment, he thought better of it. He began collecting the empty cubes scattered on the floor, the containers quietly clinking together the only noise until the little mech started humming to his work.

“So, uh, Captain? I--”

“Mace, you still have the courtesy of my patience, but it’s thin.”

The drone looked wounded, but got the hint.

Echo left after the first two armfuls were disposed of, confident that the work would be done without issue. Mace was a chatterbox, but he pulled his weight, if nothing else.

He went back to the main deck, staring absently at the mess laid out on the panels, and spent the rest of the cycle awake.

---

“You gonna be okay?”

Weathervane nodded groggily. It seemed that the crash had hit him hard now that the challenge factor had been removed. Bumper chuckled, in both humor and relief, “Well, good. An’ I hope you learned somethin’ tonight. If Mace challenges you, it’s prolly ‘cause he knows he can win.” He chuckled to himself. The flyer graced him with a little smirk at that, if tinged with what he could only assume was disappointment, optics darkened and losing focus quickly.

The purple mech stayed just long enough to make sure the newbie was settled, already in hi-grade induced recharge by the time he left the hab suite, and made his way back to the rec room as he’d promised. Mace was still picking up; and by Primus there were a lot of cubes. He didn’t seem particularly upset by how things had ended, but he was alone all the same.

“Need help?”

The drone perked up immediately, spinning on his heel with an arm full of cubes.

“Phew, absolutely! I was getting lonely!” The grounder smiled-- it was hard to stay mad at the tiny crewmate-- before grabbing an armful himself. It was tempting, but it was too late in the cycle to have some himself. He was almost hurt he hadn’t been invited.

“So… What’d you start this whole mess for, anyway?” He prodded, dumping out his armful into the receptacle against the counter, “Weathervane, sure, but Shrap? You had t’ know that’d be bad news.”

Mace almost looked hurt by his wording, but seemed to brush over it just as quickly.

“Well, I really did just think it’d be fun. Flyers have to stick together, you know. Besides, those two are so wound up all the time. They’re gonna get stuck that way!”

Bumper laughed at that. “Guess so. Just might not be somethin’ worth messin’ with. Yer gonna end up on Echo’s scrap-list.”

“Yea, maybe not. But hey, I tried! Never say I didn’t try!

“... I did win, though.”

#transformers relay #transformers prime #transformers #tfp #TFR Art #TFR Story #Admin Marie #Admin Galaxy

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auncyen · 4 years

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Eye of the Beholder

this has been in my drafts for over half a year, and it was supposed to be longer, but I just cannot so ONE-SHOT TIME. Ren snorts after discovering what the classically handsome, mostly naked shadow with a flower growing out of its blond head calls itself. Of course the conceptualization of Narcissus would be found on Shido's boat. It must have been drawn to the man's titanic ego, a case of like calling to like; the shadow is still oozing self-confidence as it acquiesces and becomes another of Ren's personas. I suppose I can help when you need me, it simpers, as if Ren would consider letting it take up space in his head just to lounge around and think it looks pretty. Just the idea makes him roll his eyes behind his mask. The personas of the Lovers arcana can certainly be confident in themselves, bolstering the flirtatiousness some of them show, but Narcissus takes it a few steps beyond to self-involved. Good thing he already has a strong bond with Ann that no longer needs help from personas, because he's really not sure how he could associate Narcissus with her, besides the fact that they're both blondes. He should see if fusing Narcissus will create anything interesting. After they're done here. The infiltration goes as normally as it can in a Palace full of statues that turn people into mice. It's aggravating and tiring, and they've only gotten up to letter number three by the time everyone is worn out, but that's--not good, but manageable. There's still about two weeks before the election, and Ren sets himself down to schedule those in coded shorthand in his probation diary (which means the code is "I'm a good boy, honest") while he and everyone else gets their breath back in the safe room. Then Ann catches his eye. Or rather, the compact mirror she's holding with one hand as the other brushes her wild hair back into order. "Ann. Can I borrow that?" "My brush?" Not like he'd need one when he's just going to pull a hood over his head as soon as he leaves the Palace. He shakes his head. "Mirror." "Oh! Here," she says, passing it over without a second of hesitation. Though she does add, "Don't worry, you look just fine," with a cheeky smile. He's surprised to find he agrees. There's a mark on his cheek from the interrogation still, mending but plain as day, plus the sweat from the day's work. It's obvious he's tired, his eyelids starting to droop. Yet he feels more awake as his eyes roam over points of his face. His fatigue, the sweat, the mark, those things are all temporary, and he can look past them to the shape of his face, the set of his cheekbones. The wild curls of his hair. The thought he had when he first caught sight of himself in the compact mirror comes back. Beautiful. It's not a thought he's had often before in regards to himself; he knows he can look good, but it takes a certain affectation, an effort to make it look effortless. This is spontaneous, natural. It probably ties back to Narcissus. 'I am thou, thou art damn fine' and all. So maybe that really makes it unnatural? Considering he found Narcissus inside the psyche of a man whose egotism could ruin the entire country in the near future. But there's nothing wrong about this feeling. It's good for him to appreciate himself. He should appreciate himself. He winds a curl of hair around one finger before letting it go and tracing his jawline instead. He's worked so hard, been through so much shit, and he still looks good. "--Joker?" Ah. The sound of his name startles him out of his fascination to realize that Ann and now Makoto are staring at him. Haru is preoccupied, talking with Ryuji, but she glances over with thinly veiled curiosity herself. Yusuke makes no disguise of his own interest, fingers framing Ren. Closing the compact and passing it back to Ann, he gives the artist a smug smirk, something he would do anyway in this situation, but surprises himself with: "I'd ask you to paint me, but I'm already a work of art." "Indeed," Yusuke agrees, disarming in his complete frankness. He drops his hands. "I have been wrestling for some time now with the question of how one would adequately capture your essence. You had an interesting expression just then. Might I ask what you were thinking of?" The honest answer is 'himself', which makes Ren's cheeks grow hot. Right. The myth of Narcissus is where the English term 'narcissist' comes from; he's starting to act self-absorbed, and he needs to toss this persona out soon, as he has with a few others. He knows that all of them simply reflect different aspects of his personality, that none of them are truly alien to his being, but over taking in dozens and dozens of personas, a small handful have managed to throw him off-kilter with just how much they exaggerate certain traits. There's a fine line between 'self-assured' and 'obnoxious', and Narcissus is going to make him cross it. "Lost track of my thoughts," he fibs. "It looked like you got lost in your own eyes," Ann teases. "They are pretty ones." "Just as lovely as yours." "Man, are you complimenting her or yourself there?" Ryuji's caught what distracted Haru and is now hooked on the conversation himself. On the other hand, Morgana looks uneasy now, so it's better if they cut this short. Besides, there's a persona to execute. Ren shoots Ryuji a grin and a little half-shrug, a non-verbal 'you decide', and then stands from the chair. "Everyone good to go? Let's start heading out. I'll be last. Need to sort my personas." He keeps the visit to the Velvet Room short. The others might worry if he doesn't follow them out into the real world quickly enough. Justine is always efficient at listing his options for fusion, so it's just a quick scan through the list to pick Scathach as Narcissus' unlucky partner, producing Norn, an overseer of fate. Her appearance as a woman atop an ornate clock is familiar: he fought her in Sae's Casino. Her temperament is level compared to Scathach's sharp wit and Narcissus' outsized ego, the two seemingly spliced to create a pride tempered by knowledge of things greater than man and perhaps even herself. Yes, Norn will keep him in line, and he leaves the Velvet Room satisfied. Morgana wriggles into his bag as soon as he's out in the real world, and they make their way through the cityscape of Tokyo, passing dozens and dozens of windows and reflective surfaces on their way back to Leblanc. And the first time Ren catches his image being mirrored back to himself, he kind of wants to laugh. Huddling under a hood with a big mark on his face, yeah, real pretty. He's got to grin at just how strange Narcissus' way of thinking was. He smiles a little again the second time he catches his mug in the glass, and the third, too. By the fourth time, though, it's not funny. His eyes flick away from the window, and he presses his fingers against the bruise on his face. Not too hard, because Takemi will be annoyed if he picks at injuries, but just hard enough to feel a throb of pain that reminds him how much of his face it covers. It's so ugly. Ann probably played along with his little burst of vanity to be kind. And Yusuke, well, his fascination with Mementos shows the artist can find inspiration even in the grotesque. Ren's a real work of art, sure, painted in black and blue and purple and yellow and white, too white, too pale. He keeps his eyes away from reflections after that. Ever since...that night, his face has been a mess, and looking at it just makes him feel the mess inside, anger and rage and fear and shame. Why should he feel ashamed? That's a mess in itself, and trying to pick it apart just makes the cage rattling in his chest feel tighter. Maybe...next time he comes across Narcissus, he'll keep him. If the options are being a little obnoxious or hating to look at himself, the others can cut him some slack.

#persona 5 #ren amamiya

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rivetgoth · 4 years

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OC #3 - Giovanni Marcello

Pinterest board 🔮 Tag on OC blog

Sorry for the long delay in these, uh, if y’all have been watching my posts I got sick and had to fight a bunch of hurdles in the super inundated pandemic medical world to even get my medicine and things have just kind of been exhausting, but LUCKILY I think (KNOCK ON WOOD) I’m on the tail end of it now and recovering.

SO here’s Giovanni. He’s a really special OC to me, he’s one of the protagonists of my novel. He means a lot and I’ve spent a LOT of time with him. I realized a while back that if I ever did one of those memes where you combine all of your favorite characters into an OC, Giovanni would be it. He’s really fun and I care a lot about him. I can’t wait to finish my novel and force people to really get to know him.

Giovanni is in his early-mid thirties and he’s gay. He’s the second youngest child and the youngest son in the Marcello family. The Marcellos own this huge corporation in the Fresno megalopolis that sells drugged, often heavily addictive candies to the public. They basically have the monopoly on the pharmaceutical industry even though they didn’t even initially claim any medicinal value, but as Himmel Medicine took over the entire hospital industry and started inflating medicine prices, Marcello Candies became the public’s go-to for over the counter drugs and self-medicating. Giovanni is the product of his father’s second wife, with whom he has one fully biological sister, Vittoria. She’s the other protagonist of my novel.

Giovanni was born to Vittorio and Camila Marcello. During the early years, Vittorio was very much not around, busy running the Marcello Candy Company and letting Camila worry about their infant son. After some time it became clear that there was something “wrong” with Giovanni - this universe probably doesn’t really have a reliable DSM, but it would be something along the lines of autism or ADHD. He was just taking a lot longer with things like talking than most would at his age, stuff like that. Vittorio was furious and suggested that they put him through intensive therapy to sort this out, but Camila reassured him that she would see to it personally that Giovanni was looked after, and he was, until he was about about seven, when she gave birth to his younger sister, Vittoria, and died of complications shortly after.

Now that his mother was gone and Vittorio was left to parent alone, he went through with his initial plan and set Giovanni up with a strict tutor and therapist who was supposed to train Giovanni to comply properly with Vittorio’s expectations for him. Obviously, this didn’t really do much except horribly effect Giovanni’s sense of self and destroy any sort of confidence or certainty in his identity that he may have had otherwise. And, between the therapist, his father, and his older brother Antonio, already a teenager, who often babysat him and was merciless and cruel to him all being men, he also came to really fear men and have a very intense aversion to masculinity in general, which would fuck with him more and more as he grew older and began to develop attraction exclusively to men. By the time he was in his teenage years he was a complete mess with horrid self esteem issues and constant insecurity. Vittorio insisted on him staying inside as often as possible, not wanting him to be seen by the public and ruin the family’s name, and the one person who tried to reach out to him, his half brother Dante, killed himself not long after.

What probably saved Giovanni’s life was becoming invested in makeup. Trapped in trauma and internalized homophobia he didn’t comprehend that his attraction to women was not any sort of romantic or sexual attraction but a sort of draw towards femininity, in part to cope with aforementioned trauma and in part to grapple with his own complex feelings about gender and sexuality he was dealing with. Through makeup he could get in touch with a more effeminate side, a space more comfortable than masculinity, and he could begin to view his own face as a canvas for art instead of something ugly and imperfect. He began to experiment with makeup and get increasingly good at it, and it gave him something to be passionate about for the first time in his life.

Vittorio, having given up on even wanting Giovanni to be a “functional member of society,” decided it would do less damage to his company’s name if he just kept him pacified, allowing him access to as much of the company’s drugged candy as he desired and giving him odd jobs around the company to give him busy and out of the public’s eye. In his free time he would take care of pet birds (which he adored), get drugged out on candies, and have sex with various women from the company - Something he didn’t even really enjoy except on a physical level and usually just left him feeling guilty and bad about himself and unable to understand what was wrong with him, refusing to even consider or address his attraction to men out of fear. Free time was also spent making his little sister’s life hell - He has a lot of complex feelings towards her, mostly jealousy and anger, feeling like she ruined his life by being born.

As the Marcello Candy Company grows more powerful, questions about the Marcello children would become more and more frequent, and Giovanni would eventually become a source of shame that his father could no longer handle. He (as well as Vittoria, his little sister) would get kicked out of the house and thrown out onto the streets, unofficially disowned with only a small monthly “allowance” to satiate them. At the time that this happens, Giovanni is thirty-four. The vast majority of my novel takes place around these events so I want to keep things from here kinda vague, but I will say that he ends up on the outskirts of Fresno and comes to stay with Angel Steel and Hollywood California in a little house that they’re using to hide out in. Angel becomes one of Giovanni’s primary love interests, although he also has some “interaction” with an assassin named Leatherette too (I’ll do his bio soon… maybe it’s the next one? Hmm). He eventually comes to live out by the beach as a fortune teller, but I don’t want to share too much, though I don’t mind spoiling that he doesn’t straight up die in my book LOL.

Giovanni can be very childish and immature. He overcompensates for his insecurities by being very haughty and bratty. He likes to take petty little shots at his sister but he gets very easily offended when she retaliates. He likes to imagine that he’s something of a romantic. He loves makeup, glitter, and the colors purple and gold. He likes fancy clothing, scarves, flowers, and dangling earrings that he can tap and swing around and rub between his fingers when he gets anxious. One of his bigger struggles is conceptualizing things around him as real and existing with their own thoughts and feelings rather than being stuck inward and only focusing on himself, which only leads down a path that hurts others and makes him incredibly self-destructive as well since he hates himself. One way this manifests is through his pet birds; despite how much he adores them he struggles to take care of them and frequently kills them via neglect, which makes him feel really bad too. You can dwell on foreshadowing here if you’d like, or wait to read my novel and learn more about what happens. :)

Giovanni doesn’t have very good social skills and he gets pretty flustered and nervous easily, but like I said before, he usually copes by acting out which only makes things worse for everyone, including himself. He’s pretty good at embarrassing himself. He eats way too much candy and is almost always high or drunk because he doesn’t really want to think too hard about stuff. He loves art, especially paint and makeup. I think Giovanni feels very bad about things very often but has worked extremely hard to mask it as well as possible by simply rejecting anything that makes him feel at all guilty or uncomfortable, so he has a very fractured sense of self.

#daily OC talk

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sirjustice330-blog · 4 years

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Many nations now making airplane

scratched fish scales makes coins of any nation once a sample or samples are placed while white guava mixture with the same makes even notes as well as red guava solution mixed with the former solution while white guava makes even coins as ground-nut brown outer peel, most of boiled 1, makes notes when inserted in milk or inserted in red guava solution and with coin in white guava solution 1 as well as with ripe mango solution dude.

Reasons why people love earthly things and many a family know not is having tetanus virus in ya head bone musles with if treated/removed and vacine employed, u refute being rude and became soft with life as loving being alone in an enclosed space and reduces the likes of earthly things as stated above. We can get many in a limbo yet we know not the above hidden truth explained above, reasons why even most white people infuse the same virus on people when lkids to move the world business a head as if u got that virus it makes u love earthly things more and u relent not as u got the rearing to go spirit in you. U can use break fluid mix with much water to inject into ya system b4 u resort to the vacine to make u hate life and even women as many know not of the above truth but now its handy u got it.

Some1 on me, cause a woman he thinks he can not win, he can win by dismissing my ways as tinting my name/image. Stop dude, too grown up 4 that, educate ya kid, if he cant continue with high school, save that cash u use to take him to school and help him start business early as what u think he can make now we know how to make and he is now a hoot to us as u walk with him that the only thing he misses to make such as in the link above in large life which u u cant afford but must get it from people. Stop anger dude, chorea story ya difu, u stupid braggart, come out we fight, stop acting like a rodent, u silly crazy animal of pretense of helping people yet know nothing. U will be shot like with helicopter story, as we locate such people dude, wanting from some1 as if their manhood belonged to ya, eblotongi, those tricks surface not 4 ya advice, Jinga hii. Innovation is 1 man guitar not a tribe, i don’t see a tribe claiming the same below.

Airplane made in S-sudan and Sudan images in the link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT76cinBzQc

https://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-to-begin-aircraft-production,31601

When u conceptualize the ideas explained in tumblr a/c sirjustice50, u see Uganda and Tanzania capital well ahead out of Kenyan capital as they got no import from Kenya as Kenya out of huge population imports cooking oil, sugar, milk from Uganda as maize floor from Tanzania, the only thing both import is wheat as in the link below which makes even Ethiopia well ahead of Kenya after knowing how to make their own machines as they got huge wheat volume set aside 4 export, the Kenyan 1 just saves the country exports as out of continued population growth, needs import to meet the created deficit

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJCCSM-02-2018-0015/full/html#:~:text=The%20most%20important%20wheat%20producing,South%20Africa%20(0.5%20Mha).

https://www.world-grain.com/articles/10887-sub-saharan-africa-falling-short-in-grain-production

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-wheat-producing-countries.html

Wheat has less use as compared to maize, as wheat flakes grows 1 bald so fellows desist from the same and resort to corn/maize flakes.

https://www.quora.com/Are-wheat-flakes-better-than-corn-flakes#:~:text=When%20compared%20with%20cornflakes%2C%20they,they%20are%20loaded%20with%20fiber.

https://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/healthy-breakfast-corn-flakes-vs-shredded-wheat.html

What u say they refute and stand up as u say something out of hand pleasing them not as they want u to do their own shit bro, the kikuyu blooded, still u got things on store which if u be good many people will cling to ya so u dismantle with ya dubious acts. Dude style up bro!!!!

Get a glimpse of Burundi made airplane, bobona, in the below link

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fnd_JTRtP9FE%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dnd_JTRtP9FE&tbnid=wmAAqpL-N1ZmYM&vet=12ahUKEwiyk5K1-MzqAhUDwYUKHSegB8UQMygAegUIARCmAQ..i&docid=ufGtHkEi-0OvjM&w=1280&h=720&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20burundi&ved=2ahUKEwiyk5K1-MzqAhUDwYUKHSegB8UQMygAegUIARCmAQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd_JTRtP9FE

Ablogoyi gi lungu nyako ni as in the link below, Kikuyu where are u, fell off drone to down crust, 4 ya information if u did not know, ablogoyo cianda ne motimo chieth no, Minaj and magdalin jaluth, chwado gi rabber band to aweyo kata arido skat tii, to achwado gi oleng mar ywech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54wxB7_9cHQ

Somalia but Sudan made airplane, Comoros, Seychelles and cape Verde in the link below

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fmritems%2Fimagecache%2Fmbdxxlarge%2Fmritems%2FImages%2F2016%2F2%2F6%2F85c49e9aa0b94edbbf2296d0215c1222_18.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2016%2F02%2Fofficials-blast-somalia-airplane-caused-bomb-160206191753414.html&tbnid=PhS7Ov8HLolVoM&vet=12ahUKEwixgZGD_MzqAhVdgM4BHSNnAvwQMygCegUIARCrAQ..i&docid=SzYgTFwSWOlugM&w=800&h=450&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20djibouti&ved=2ahUKEwixgZGD_MzqAhVdgM4BHSNnAvwQMygCegUIARCrAQ

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/336573772126918916/

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ch-aviation.com%2Fportal%2Fstock%2F6752.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ch-aviation.com%2Fportal%2Fnews%2F85002-cabo-verde-airlines-briefly-delays-but-meets-december-wages&tbnid=MUQ40xpTkmSAoM&vet=12ahUKEwiL86WG_czqAhUXw4UKHSh4BrkQMygCegUIARCmAQ..i&docid=EBIveK7nw7RTOM&w=794&h=275&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20cape%20verde&ved=2ahUKEwiL86WG_czqAhUXw4UKHSh4BrkQMygCegUIARCmAQ

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Funusualtraveler.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F08%2F2017-05-12-10.47.24.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unusualtraveler.com%2Fprincipe%2F&tbnid=-DQSUggX20I4MM&vet=12ahUKEwi2zMmq_czqAhVCQRoKHU8FAGEQMygHegUIARC0AQ..i&docid=azWQ0p33TcAq0M&w=2448&h=730&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20%20sao%20tome%20and%20principle&ved=2ahUKEwi2zMmq_czqAhVCQRoKHU8FAGEQMygHegUIARC0AQ

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnew.observer.org.sz%2Fadministrator%2Fnews%2F1523741012.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnew.observer.org.sz%2Fdetails.php%3Fid%3D4645&tbnid=zBhau25EQ8i6LM&vet=12ahUKEwiwnLjF_czqAhUP_BoKHURUCSIQMygAegUIARCmAQ..i&docid=ObMnNl3LpDfmeM&w=640&h=409&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20%20swaziland&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiwnLjF_czqAhUP_BoKHURUCSIQMygAegUIARCmAQ

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fa%2Faa%2FMaseru_airport_%25284019614223%2529.jpg%2F1200px-Maseru_airport_%25284019614223%2529.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMoshoeshoe_I_International_Airport&tbnid=j0yJZSKmyCjtpM&vet=12ahUKEwimgpDS_czqAhUNgRoKHfCoClgQMygBegUIARCrAQ..i&docid=iw3qYmCvW9BbEM&w=1200&h=800&q=airplane%20images%20made%20in%20%20lesotho&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwimgpDS_czqAhUNgRoKHfCoClgQMygBegUIARCrAQ

https://www.google.com/search?q=airplane+images+made+in++lesotho&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiwnLjF_czqAhUP_BoKHURUCSIQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=airplane+images+made+in++lesotho&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQA1D3sQFY_bwBYILEAWgAcAB4AIABqwKIAcULkgEFMC41LjKYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZw&sclient=img&ei=1cQNX_DdC4_4a8SopZAC&bih=753&biw=1135&hl=en#imgrc=unVgaZZkHw9SdM

Tryna give my message to the world the best way i can in the song link below

https://www.google.com/search?q=twista+ft+faith+evans&oq=twista+ft+faith+evans&aqs=chrome..69i57j46j0l3.5871j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

New machines in the link below as well as Kenyan Made E-tuk tuk

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2020-06-17-nys-backs-electric-tuk-tuk-innovation/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKnV5IYAfTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k5VAW3qOu4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOZlCnoknho

Putin sending folks to stub my eye this time round, gotten unto ya hadi hewa yako yamwisho will i never sit with u in 1 table as its point black am not hooligan now good as his plans stopped as am above ya in thinking and mind, don’t wait 4 dubious ways to be 1st as in the link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqGR_Bzfm1U

They get into drones get up high and land in foreign lands as the same can be stopped using digital telescope mounted on TV to see the intruder up high not as opposed to the normal 1 u see via ya own eye like with binoculars as in the link below as well in shadow SA movie the white man grabbed on a tie up high a lofty skyscraper building.

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=digital+telescope+astronomical

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/TVV3000-F9114EQ-3-0MP-digital-computerized_280202267.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.0.0.4b606c5dz6B5ou

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=digital+binoculars+with+camera+and+video&viewtype=&tab=

When involved in diagnosis u can use the microscope in the link below 4 accurate results

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Z110-THD10-Trinocular-Biological-Microscope-LCD_62307856909.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.0.0.66c95e645Xaaf3&s=p

U can employ the above explained technologies on ya border line with every nation to monitor intruders using drones to get to to ya land to commit crimes as the same captured images can be placed on skype 4 the public to see or on a Tv channel station designed for that purpose as with all sectors like ports, police stations, govt offices, state house to be blurred to discourage many from such post who like privacy and comapnies dude.

The kikuyu likes have deviated from the main thing, where are we headed when all the nations have learnt the dubious ways of making chemicals, machines and disinfectants we use daily as u know blocking ya sale of such to them as they know as well, making u only to sell in domestic markets, and allocating some cash to send to like Tz is useless as they are alerting u to stop as with the newly built E-train truck which the electric lines that gives it power can be removed and alternator generator placed on the touching wires to make it still operate and the E-vehicles it has made. Cant tell ya directly, so stop and eat ya money instead of wanting other food, question is where now are u taking ya money, Nairobi and get it dude Nairobi or Kenya can never be more than any large wheat growing nation or sugar producing nation as when all have learnt the explained above as u got less production of the above u will import from them lest u control birth in 10 years to reduce population to meet the same and even a nation like Cameroon, Nigeria or Congo that has much food crops u will never compete with in ya mind we got E-fuel free drone to ship the same as artificial of wheat, sugar or the food crops named above destroys the teeth and that the reason many will opt 4 such. With maize u can do as the artificial mixed with real 1 denatures the teeth not but, people having the removing from the cob maize machine and milling will buying still on the firm as same left to dry to be finished in buying- the only loop hole remaining 4 the dubious people if some few people in the economy cant afford the above out of long distances from production site or lack of sufficient cash to buy the same.

Wanting their kids to stay with people early when still kids while another taught his kids and was disabled not as them sane even wanting to break war with those they want favor with whose grave they have exhumed and eaten. Do the same when ya kid finish junior high school or just high school not straight from birth as we still have the wife to the deceased above they claim the shit above as the mother child DNA to solve the dispute yet dilly dally as wants to burn the mother or kidnap 4 good 4 the truth to end to be saying the above endlessly no-matter what as planned if other nations did not know how to make gadgets same as them to sub-due them.

Don’t say am Moses as in the bible the jew never got it as i have said me aint Moses and u got it, that u got had back, that u could do when Russia alone was controlling the world as previous not now even them are in fear. Russia was using trick as their land big and of plenty but in reproach to make them get their to investigate and resort to the way of reproach to remove the old thinking that is only poor people not relaxed in life as with them also they claim they are reach yet in reproach though poor as they want not their corpse eating way not be known as now is known so tries to align it with good thing as if u eat such u became innovative to avoid shame but alas dude, all overtaken by time bro and that’s it homey. Still tuned to white man as superior that u, burst in anger if 1 talks of them bad that u r with them yet oblivious of their character and defeat as m,any nations have learnt their dubious ways, then u r pretenders u wanna form alliance and take their lands u of little understanding dude. Going to like SA or Russia but in pretense, Kikuyu stop me, u will be finished bro!!!!

If we know how to make internet we kill him as well as with Pay-tv or Passenger airplane, google per country how many nations have made the same b4 them, so we be jew as he can tell many nation to flop our deal yet unknowingly on pintrest or Instagram a/c he finds still logged in not his but 4 others he knows not had sent the same 1st hand to every nation news tv station, just a matter of time b4 they launch the same is when like 2 months after the above send to Kenyan tribes as his defeat method. Dude if u don’t get this stop dude!!!! What machine again u wanna make that can sell like hot cake to repeat the pattern below we know? Ha ha ha ha dude, high speed gear box from china as in the link below, cheap cheap cheap dude

https://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/electric+motor+speed+gearbox.html?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=electric+motor+speed+gearbox&isGalleryList=G

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sirjustice329-blog · 4 years

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UG or TZ capital skyline a head