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disco-elysium-via-polls · 2 months

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🎵 We Are Not Checkmated (muted)

3. "Democracy is a meaningless sham as long as the working class is under the boot-heel of capital."

+1 Communism

Level up!

That's Mazovian Socio-Economics coming in with the bonus XP for saying Communist things.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant clears his throat. "Of course, the detective's personal views do not represent the views of the RCM."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Ah, my friend, but the lesson of the Revolution is that communism does not work."

"It 'didn't work' because the Coalition crushed it violently."

"We just haven't tried *real* communism yet."

"And you're telling me *this* world here is working out well?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Oh, yes, the big bad Coalition crushed the Revolution. Tell me, if the revolution was succeeding, would it have been crushed so easily?"

"Are we really so bad for wanting compromise, peace, and prosperity -- on reasonable, achievable terms? Ask yourself that."

"Now, enough of this delightful political interlude. Was there anything else you wanted to ask?"

6. "Tell me about Sur-la-Clef."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "What's there to say? Sur-la-Clef is a modern, urbanized country that measures very high on the Human Development and Freedom Index. Mostly, though, it's known as the executive heart of *EPIS*..."

"Moreover, it is a great sponsor of less-emerged countries. Revachol is only one of its many darlings whose progress it supports and cherishes."

"What makes Revachol Sur-la-Clef's 'darling'?"

"That's nice of them."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Because a great percentage of Revachol's culture hails from Sur-la-Clef -- its language, its people, its cuisine even, or at least in the downtown La Delta area."

PERCEPTION (TASTE) [Medium: Success] Jamrock and other parts of the International Zone have been mercifully spared of Sur-la-Clef's love for meatballs and mashed potatoes.

7. "Tell me about Oranje."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Oranje is an *exemplary* nation who, as a core member of EPIS, contributes 28% of our annual budget. Next to Sur-la-Clef, Oranje is probably the most prominent member of the international community."

"Which one of them is more EPIS?"

"Okay, but outside of EPIS, what is Oranje?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "As founding members they are *both* very EPIS. Oranje carries a lot of political weight, while Sur-la-Clef takes care of the business side of things -- Sur-la-Clef hosts the headquarters of the major EPIS institutions."

"Okay, but outside of EPIS, what is Oranje?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Oranje's economy is one of the most advanced in the world. It has successfully transitioned from heavy industry to advanced services, and generally acts as an engine for sustainable change in the international community."

"Can't you just… talk like a normal person?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "About what?"

"About Oranje -- just tell me what it's like there."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Oh, it's very urban and very well-organized. Their streets are clean, their horsecars run on time, the people are polite and efficient. Like I said, they are an example for less-emerged nations to follow."

8. "Enough business, let's talk about something else."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Whatever you wish, officer."

3. "Can you tell me about your friend?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Ah, my friend. My friend is a good young man. His family immigrated here from Kedra and life has not been easy for him. But he understands the importance of education. He has taken his future into his own hands and that's all that matters."

"What's Kedra?"

"How did you two even become friends?"

"You still haven't told me who he is."

"What are you doing in his apartment by yourself?"

"I had something else in mind..."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Kedra is a candidate member of EPIS. But, between you and me, their potential membership is a more... *contentious* issue."

"What do you mean?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "That it's never going to happen. They entered negotiations in '21 and it's been pending ever since."

"What's this EPIS thing you keep talking about?"

"But that doesn't tell me anything about Kedra itself. Is it warm there? Cold? Something in-between?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "EPIS is a very special program developed by the Moralintern to support certain Occidental nations. It began as a unified system of weights and measures, which proved to be a *wild* success. Nothing but kilograms and centimetres as far as the eye can see!"

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - God, yes. Sweet standardisation. The backbone of rationality -- and commerce.

SUNDAY FRIEND - "It was *such* a wild success that we expanded it into an economic union for the processing of steel -- another success. And between you and me... the Moralintern feels *emboldened* by this success. Emboldened to take EPIS to the next level."

"Okay, but like, what does it stand for?"

"What's the next level?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Why, it stands for progress and stability, like the Moralintern as a whole."

"No, what do the *letters* stand for?"

"Sure, fine. What's this next level you were talking about?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "It's been such a wild, *extraordinary* success thus far. We are very excited to take it to the next level..."

"You don't even hear the words I'm saying, do you?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "A supranational political alliance, the United States of Occident."

"Is it going to be like this place here?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "You mean Revachol? No, it's going to have transparent democracy."

"Is Revachol going to be part of EPIS?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "It's one day going to be a *candidate member* of EPIS, sure."

"Didn't you say that candidate members never become real members?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "No, no, candidate members *do* become members, why do we even have the whole system in place if they don't? It just takes time -- time and evaluation."

"But we were talking about my friend here, not politics..." He chuckles gently.

2. "How did you two even become friends?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "How did any of us become friends? Bad things happening on the Insulindian isola. Oil platforms ablaze in the night. Civil wars lasting for years. Finally, the international community is forced to step in."

"What are you talking about? No one becomes friends that way."

"You're describing how the Coalition occupied Revachol."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "One of the wonders of democracy is that everyone is allowed to have his own opinion." The man pats his pockets, looking for something. "And not just allowed, *encouraged* even. Have you ever tried debate?"

"What do you mean?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Debating. You should consider joining a debating society for adults. I hear they're *oodles* of fun. I used to have a flyer for one, but..."

"But now that I start to think of it, it was for an improv class anyway. It's this funny theatre thing, you know," he moves his fingers, "very *creative*, helps relieve stress."

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - A chill runs down your spine as you envision a half-dozen people in professional attire standing around a chair awkwardly pretending to be waiting for a motor-bus. It's neither funny nor creative.

3. "You still haven't told me who he is."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Sorry, who?" The man throws a quick glance at his watch.

"Your friend, the smoker on the balcony. We were just talking about him."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "But I told you, officer. He's a bright young man here to pursue his education. Education is the foundation of our future, especially the arts. It is a cornerstone of our civilization."

"Fine, but what's his real name?"

"So all you can tell me about him is that he's here to study the arts?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Officer, you have to understand... I can't give you his personal information. I'm sure you have your own methods and databases, right? Please don't put me in this situation."

2. "So all you can tell me about him is that he's here to study the arts?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "He's deeply enmeshed in the study of the fine arts, yes."

"Which arts?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "He's a truly free spirit. He likes all the arts. Perhaps graphic design? Printmaking? Who knows? The world is open wide for a talented youth like him."

4. "What are you doing in his apartment by yourself?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "I'm just enjoying the view," the man smiles, nodding to the window.

"What view? It's dark outside."

"Isn't it rude for your friend to leave you alone like this?"

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Listen," he says, raising his hand...

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - A baby is crying in the neighbouring apartment.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Legendary: Success] - Waves crashing in the distance, the sound of sea below the window.

"I can hear the waves."

"Someone's baby is crying."

"What? I'm not hearing anything."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "The Insulindian Bay."

"What about it?"

"I was asking about your friend."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "This place used to be a luxury accommodation, before the Revolution. Apartments, of course, were much bigger then -- a few walls have been added here and there, leaving some of the tenants without a private bathroom or a kitchen..."

"But the million reál view stays. You can't take that away." He knocks on the balcony door, his face mirrored in the darkened glass.

"I was asking about your friend."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "My friend comes and goes. I'm sure you'll see him around, he's a busy bee."

5. "I had something else in mind..."

SUNDAY FRIEND - "I'm all ears, officer."

4. "Thanks, I've got all I need." [Leave.]

SUNDAY FRIEND - "A moment, officer."

"Do you have everything you need from me? I'm afraid we won't have the chance to speak again once you leave."

"Hold on, why can't we talk later?"

"I'm not going anywhere, I just want to take a look around in this apartment." [Leave.]

"Thanks for the heads up, but my work here is done." [Leave.]

SUNDAY FRIEND - "It's against diplomatic best practices for an official in my position to be discussing murders with local militiamen." He pauses. "And I'm pressed for time. After you leave, I should be leaving as well."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - That's not the real reason he's so apprehensive -- men in his position shouldn't be seen loitering around in underprivileged young men's apartments in the middle of the night.

There's nothing else we're going to get out of this guy, unless we want to accuse him of the murder. And as much as I'd *like* to do that, I get the feeling it's a bad idea.

2. "Thanks for the heads up, but my work here is done." [Leave.]

SUNDAY FRIEND - "Of course, I'm sorry I couldn't be the 'break' you were looking for. Good luck with the investigation."

#disco elysium #charles villedrouin

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fuzedatti · 1 year

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XVII. The dearest devotion.

───── ❝ 𝐀𝐧 𝐒𝐂𝐏 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞 ❞ ─────

Masterlist.

CW ; Graphic depictions of violence.

──────────────────

God's blood is not an easy resource to obtain, for it is even harder to find a God that bleeds. The blood of "THE DEER", better known as SCP-2845, was their ticket to the Olympus. Clef felt remorse knowing who the blood belonged to; He vividly remembered the moment when he had to kill it, pointing a gun at its head.

Louis noticed the melancholy on his face, kneeling on the ground to do the ritual. They were still in Alagadda, surrounded by the infected royalty, waiting for the moment when they would ascend to the divine realm and find their cure.

The doctor ignored the concern in his subconscious towards Clef and finished drawing with the blood. The Hanged King stepped closer to the circle and the mere touch of his fingers activated the portal, blood glowing brightly. Louis extended his hand to Clef to take it and enter the golden circle, he accepted and approached him. The Lords, The King, and The Ambassador watched as their bodies faded into the glow.

—May you be blessed.– The King whispered. —Because luck has already abandoned you.–

Contrary to popular belief, the Olympus was not made of clouds and marble, full of ecstasy and joy; It rather was a depressing corporate landscape, large gray buildings invaded the view along with large red signs that read "OBEDIRE, SUCCEDERE."; And to make it worse, they wore both faces of Dýo. Clef and Louis were horrified to see what the mask had done.

Conquering all of Olympus should not have been an easy task, especially given Dýo's reputation. It was even more their surprise, seeing the mangled corpse of Zeus fall from a building of more than a hundred floors, falling brutally on the concrete sidewalk. It seemed to have huge bites from which it secreted more golden blood. They both approached the corpse and could see that it was still breathing, his hollow eyes imploring an end to his suffering.

—Help me please...– Zeus's last words froze their souls, watching as the blood ran throughout his body to abandon any trace of life.

Alto Clef looked terrified at the doctor, who was looking at the top of the building from where Zeus had fallen. The blond followed the french's gaze, only to find a feathered beast with three heads.

—What a pleasant surprise.– Three voices said at the same time. —The traitor and his new toy.—

The beast wore Dýo on its forehead, while the other two heads had masks similar to him with slight flaws. The creature lowered itself from its throne to the ground, breaking the stone beneath its feet, landing right on top of the corpse to finish its destruction. Splashes of golden blood marked their bodies.

—Dr. Clef! Are you enjoying the company of mon chéri?

Dýo's new body had the shape of a dog covered in scales and feathers, the same as those SCP-049-J possessed. Part of its skeleton was exposed, mainly its ribs and claws, accompanied by a long snake-like tail.

—How daring of you to call me that at this moment, Polonoí.

—Huh... now you demand my respect? After leaving me?

—Leave you? You controlled me to make me a part of this... chaotic plan of yours. Do you at least know what you want with this, Dýo?

While the couple argued, Clef noticed that around him were thousands of corpses wearing masks, all the same as Dýo's. The more they argued, the more he noticed that the bodies were moving, at that moment, Clef felt his heart sink.

—He's controlling the corpses...– He whispered holding the trigger of his gun. —HE IS CONTROLLING THE GOD-DAMN CORPSES!–

Clef's scream distracted Louis who was lashed with brute force by the beast's claws and shot away from the scene. The blond reacted quickly but was stopped by the possessed corpses, which laughed at the same time as Dýo. He loaded his gun and started shooting them one by one in the head, destroying their masks in the process. Louis fell hard to the ground, being immobilized by the beast, who looked at him furiously. He tried to escape his grip but it was inhumanly strong, his body wallowing under his weight even if it was useless.

—Filthy, lying snake, look what you've done!–

—You were always my prey, you were always inferior, weak.– His voice became harsh, the corpses repeated the same words as him. —You are dependent on me, you need me...–

The doctor took the opportunity to grab a rock from the ground and stuck it between the beast's joints, which roared in pain and freed the doctor. Louis dug up a spear lying next to the corpse of an armored man, the spear was heavy and had inscriptions in some root dialect. He didn't have time to try to decipher the text because Dýo had regenerated his bone structure and was heading directly to Louis.

He spinned the spear with ease and impaled it to the ground, challenging Dýo to a duel. The God laughed at his threat but he didn't underestimate him, they had fought before for less important reasons and he still knew he was strong enough if he put his mind to it. The beast hissed and ran towards the french, who aimed his spear right at the beast's heart to tear it open; He knew this wouldn't have much of an effect on the God, but it would give him and Clef time to plan something.

Doctor Clef had noticed that all the corpses he had been killing belonged to the mythological Gods he knew, and the fact that they were being controlled by Dýo was even more dangerous. His weapon had run out of ammo so now he was fighting bare-knuckles against gods and demigods. While fighting he could hear what Dýo was saying to Louis.

—I found you when you were little, insignificant...– The Goddess Demeter said. —Without me, you would be nothing.– Clef grabbed the Goddess's head and impaled her on his knee, breaking her mask and unfortunately killing her in the process.

His stamina was starting to run out, but hearing Dýo say such disgusting things to Louis made him furious; He kept fighting the corpses, until one of them grabbed him by the chest and hit him on the ribs, but he couldn't feel his body fall to the ground, he had been transported to Earth again. Rather, to the Moon.

—Dammit not again!

Getting back with Louis; This one continued tearing the skin of the beast so that it would regenerate again. He had managed to break the two masks that were on the other two heads, but what he needed was to break Dýo's mask.

—Why do you say such awful things, Dýo!?— He yelled. —This was your plan since we met, to use me as a transport for your delusions!?

—Don't be naive, Nicéphore, I loved you, I really loved you.– He growled as he dug one of his claws into the doctor's thigh, making him cry out in pain at that. —But we don't have the same goals, and you'd just be a nuisance.–

—You promised me so much... You dedicated a thousand poems and sunsets to me. You deceived me, just like a snake would... And now you deign to justify yourself...– Dýo broke Louis' mask to expose his bleeding face, almost pitch black from his illness. —Look at yourself now... who would love someone like you...

—...My Lord?

That was his breaking point. That was how the claws snatched his heart, to leave it under the cloudy sky, bleeding before his God.

The dearest devotion, death.

#olympus scp #scp #scp 035 x scp 049 #scp 049 x scp 035 #scp 035 #scp 049 #scp fanfiction #scp fanfic #doctor clef #dr alto clef #alto clef

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finiffy · 2 years

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It's finally done!🎉

Warning: this is my first fanfic ever. (And it gets stupid very fast.)

Twas a normal day for Simon Glass. Constantly bottling up the fact that he murdered iceberg, bright almost seeing his face before killing someone, so on so forth. But as he was walking down the hallway to his office he heard some form of snarling which can only be described to be the devil's coming from clefs office, he was concerned, horrified, AND curious to see what was happening in there. So he knocked the door (bum ba-da-da-da da-da) but there was no response. "Clef, you okay in there?" "Ghrrrashehshhhhh". Yep. There it was again. He decided to open the door.

The door creaked open, he went inside because he is stupid and he knows it. "Ukelele. This better just be you trying to be an ultra edgelor-" Francis attacked at glass, badly injuring him.

With quick thinking- he kicked Francis back, then ran for it. Francis started running after him. He took a left- so did Francis. He BARELY managed to outrun the creature that is Francis. As soon as he got to the medical room he slammed the door, locked it then backed up. He checked out the wounds. He looked in the mirror "damn it all!" He thought, examining the bite mark on his arm (he had scratches everywhere but this is the important one for some reason🙄). The wound itself looked deep, and he was losing a lot of blood. However, after patching all the injuries up he decided not to test for any (like a dumbass) diseases he might've gotten. He then went on with his Jolly day.

It was months. He still hasn't checked the wound out and he was starting to feel reeaally strange. He FINALLY decided to check it out and low and behold, he got an unknown disease. He was shocked, for he wouldn't have known how he gotten SOME UNKNOWN DISEASE (DBAJJSHSKAHJUG YOU DUMBASS BITCH. YOU GOT IT FROM FRANCIS DBSIDHSJDHJK.🤬) he decides to ignore it because he CLEARLY has a will to live (sarcasm).

bright was walking along going to his 8:30am appointment thingy-mah-bob and when he got there glass was acting strange. He was acting like a sick stray cat that hasn't seen a human in its life. Scared, confused and vicious. Luckily bright has multiple granola bars in his pocket for whenever his adoptive father figure clef is like this. He threw the granola bar in his face and Simon ate it (wrapper and all). Did not work. Yep. So what do you do? You keep tossing granola bars in his face until he calms down! After glass wrecked his own office out of rage he finally calmed down. "Chchchchchchchchch" bright clicked his tongue as though he was trying to call a cat over. Finally Simon approached the doomed nutcase out of curiosity.

Two hours later jack Bright was hand-feeding the creature Simon pizza and fries, somehow not being Glass's dinner (feral-character whisperer.) Then he heard footsteps outside. "Hello?" It was one of o5-6's husbands. "Go away I'm having dinner with glass." Glass snarled as though he understood what Bright was saying, even though this unknown disease made him forget a quarter and a half of his vocabulary (But he's still smarter than pre-feral glass!🎉🎉)

fishy note: Now before y'all go "why should he have checked for any diseases from a human bite" this is CLEF we're talking about here. Who knows what other diseases he might have other than the unknown disease. Part two Will probably won't come out for a long time. Want me to write a story about the flute-k***ys?

- walking fish anon

FERAL GLASS!!

This is really good especially for your first fic with the right amount of crack that I fucking love plus with the other references. Also yes...I would die for a Flute and K***y story

#fin answers #walking fish anon #long post #other's amazing stories #bright is taking good care of glass with the diet of pizza and granola bars

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sappho-info-qr-museum-display · 2 years

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Influences In Legacy

Sappho influenced literary figures such as Virginia Woolf, Charles Baudelaire, and T.S Elliot.

The name Lavender Menace is a reference to Sappho’s motifs of lavender adorning two young women who love each other. This organisation used the ‘Lavender’ menace as a driving symbol in getting lesbians accepted in feminism.

Sappho for Equality is an organisation based in Kolkata, India, working for the rights of lesbians, bisexual women, and trans men.

In 1894 French writer Pierre Louys published ‘The Songs of Bilitis,’ erotic poetry that he claimed was translated from Ancient Greek found in Cyprus, written on the walls of a tomb. He completely made up Bilitis and he wrote those poems mimicking the style of Sappho. This ‘Bilitis’ and Sappho fanfiction, if you will, became a symbol for a Lesbian rights organisation called ‘The Daughters of Bilitis.’

Natalie Barney was an American writer who presented herself to renowned dancer and courtesan Liane de Pougy as a page of love sent by Sappho and later became the subject of Pougy’s roman-a-clef Sapphic Idyll. Barney herself wrote Five Small Grecian Dialogues under the name Tryphe, which contains long passages about Sappho. Barney also dated a woman; Renee Vivien, a poet who was one of the earliest modern translators of Sappho’s poetry.

In her diary, Virginia Woolf speculated that critics of her book A Room of One’s Own would call her a Sapphist for its descriptions of female friendship. Woolf’s novel Orlando features a gender-fluid character based on her lover Vita Sackville-West.

In the 1970’s, Sidney Abbot and Barbara Love wrote Sappho Was a Right On Woman, in which they highlighted and explored the connection between feminism and lesbianism. This occurred around the same time as the Lavender Menace movement.

In the Summer of 2000, a bunch of British lesbians decided to travel to Lesbos and have a wild package holiday. They came to Lesbos as it was home to Sappho, who is regarded as the first recorded lesbian. The documentary made on this event is compiled of film the lesbians took on their trip, and aptly named ‘Lesbians go Mad on Lesbos.’ The group of partying lesbians faced a lot of prejudice and backlash from locals, particularly the mayor, who tried to ban them from having their holiday on Lesbos. This documentary was largely inaccessible to the public and lost in archives until recently when lesbian YouTuber StrangeAeons, requested for the archives to have this film restored and available for her series exploring sapphic history.

Sappho is largely responsible for the Lesbos tourism industry. Due to this being her home island, lesbians tourists are apparently ‘10 a penny.’ Lesbos villagers are largely accepting of lesbians as they have been visiting the island since the 70s and providing a large income for the island since. Lesbos even has attractions related to Sappho for this demographic, including the popular bar, ‘The Tenth Muse.’ There are two lesbian-run bars on the island, as well as a massive statue of Sappho herself. The local stray cats hang around these lesbian bars to get scraps of food, making them as reliant on the lesbian tourists as the villagers.

The Daughters of Bilitis was one of the first lesbian organisations to be established, as long as we are not counting medieval nunneries. Since it was founded in San Francisco in 1955, lesbian were very much subject to public hostility, so it formed as a sort of secret lesbian society that eventually evolved into a well known lesbian rights group.

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willowisbunger · 3 years

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God Im Sorry (A tapeworm clef fanfic)

Before we begin. This is all for jokes. I am so sorry for anyone who has to read this. Its also just a draft and will be complete at some point. For now enjoy what little I give you.

You find yourself resting on the couch of your dearly beloveds bed quarters. You scroll through your phone looking fondly at old text messages of when you and your husband to be's first text messages. All the ridiculous nicknames you two exchanged, all the flirting, photos, and various other things you two have sent to each other over the years. You couldn't help but giggle. You find it hard to believe this all started cause you decided to help some weird blonde guy with a ukulele out with his broken leg.

You two have been dating for almost 8 years and two months ago, the man, Dr. Alto Clef. He took you on a date. Just a nice simple stroll around the woods, which ended in a nice picnic by a river. In which you saw the man you have fallen head over heels for, get down on one knee and began plucking at the strings of his ukulele. Singing a sweet melody like a song bird in the spring, before pulling out a wedding ring and asking those simple words of "will you marry me". Your heart flutters with glee as you chuckle. You feel giddy and so over joyed with happiness. Right as your giggle fit calmed down you heard the front door open, and there stood your beloved. With a wide grin on his face as he held some folders in his hands. He had a doctors appointment that day since he had been feeling strange. With his face showing his usual bright beaming smile and his three beautiful eyes showing their usual mischievous gleam, it was clear that he was in more than perfect shape.

"Heya there pumpkin. I'm home. And I've got some great news." He spoke in a raspy slightly southern voice. At first it was grating on ya, but now its like all your favorite songs combine into one incredible tune. "Welcome home sweetheart!" You chirped as you ran up to your beloved teddy bear to give him a quick peck to the lips as you hugged him close, "What's the good news teddy? I can tell from that big dumb grin of yours ya got somethin real good to tell me. What did the doctor say?" You said as you affectionately pinched his cheeks causing him to laugh as he took both your hands to hold. "Well besides me being fit as a bull. Looks like I'm gonna be eating for two from now on."

You blinked and tilted your head in confusion, slowly processing the information as you stepped back a lil. "How? Babe I never top and we always use protection. Who-" "Oh no pumpkin. I ain't pregnant" He interrupted, chuckling as he ruffled your hair. "I got a tape worm. The doc took some sonograms of my stomach to see if there were any issues and yeah, there's a lil fella in there. Look." The blonde handed you the folder, which you opened and began reading through and your face turned pale at the sight of the tape worm in the photo of an ultra sound. You gagged a lil as you shoved the folder back into clefs arm. "Babe that's not okay!!!! That's a parasite!!!! Its gonna just keep reproducing and shit and its gonna fuck up your insides." You said quite loudly, usually you were quiet but this, this was making you quite distressed. Your fiancés face turned from a smile to a disappointed frown "I thought you would've liked clef junior....".

You stood baffled at the situation before you. Your dearly beloved, just, accepting and seeming to be happy about the fact he has a god damn TAPE WORM living inside of him. You've seen some shit in your days working for the foundation. A sheet of music that makes people go bonkers and try to bleed, Kondraki -clefs ex- ridding on god damn 682, and other shit that would boggle anyone's mind. But this. THIS RIGHT HERE. Just.... Leaves you speechless. "Pumpkin?" the third eyed man spoke in a concerned tone, which rarely came from him. "Are you okay?" You held your head in your hands as you sat back down on the plush couch and just took a deep breathe, and just as quickly as you sat down you sprung back up, grabbing your jacket and zipping it up. "Babe.... I just.... I need a moment.... I'll be out for awhile.... This is just, strange even for you and I need a moment to think about this." You sped walk past your -potentially ex- husband to be to the door. You shut the door, seeing Clef's face look uncharacteristically sad at you. It hurt you a little to leave your teddy bear like that, but you still needed time to just, think and process this whole situation.

You leave the housing area for researchers and quickly the site as well. You hail a cab and as soon as you enter the bright yellow vehicle you tell the faceless driver to "Take me to the nearest motel." Which he happily complied especially with the hefty tip you gave him. You just, Needed awhile to think and god knows how long that could be so you may as well rent out a room away from that hell site foundation to have a clear mind. After all who knows what might happen. Fucking Dr. Bright could tell you to give it a chance and raise the worm together with your teddy bear or some shit. You never know with this job and the people you worked with. While in your thoughts you rented out a room, room 105. Great another reminder of your hell job, even though it was just the simple numbers of 0 and 5 you can't help but be reminded of your faceless higher ups and the fact you work for them.

You found your room and quickly made your way inside to flop down on the bed, beforehand making sure to put up the "Do not disturb" sign and locking it. You burried your face into the hard cheap pillows of this motel, missing the one you had back at your place with its soft textures and the scent of your beloved.... Which once again brought you back to the worm. That fucking worm. Why the hell was your husband so keen on keeping it? He's at least some form of scientist he should know that tape worms are a dangerous parasite that affect your health. You stare up at the popcorn ceiling just, trying to wrap your head around WHY. Why would your partner; your future husband; the one who knows everything about you and you know everything about them.... just why are they keeping the tape worm?

You of course knew the stuff your teddy was known for, sleeping with that statue after a date, killing a dangerous reality bending child, father to 166 (who you were honestly happy to take in as your new step daughter). Out of everything. The tape worm makes you break. Makes you rethink your relationship with the man you've been dating for years at this point. All you can do at this moment is sigh, hearing the phone in your coat pocket buzz. You pull it out and set it to "do not disturb" as you set the device aside on a night stand. "Maybe I should sleep it off. Maybe I'll have a clearer mind then...." You say to yourself as you threw your coat off and roll onto your side. Feeling uncomfortable in your current clothes but you didn't pack a bag so, you just ignore the discomfort until eventually.... You drift off to sleep. The shallow hum of power surging through the building and the busy city outside envelop you as you feel unconsciousness take over.

While in your state of unconsciousness you hear a silky smooth, deep yet gentle voice speak to you. "Y/N... Y/N its time to wake up Y/N". You slowly awoke, opening your groggy eyes, what laid before you, you didn't know. They had a handsome chiseled face, comparable to the statues found in ancient Greece with even a similar tone of white marble. They had thick luxurious hair that went down to their waste, rippling muscles that went down both torso and back.... They were ungodly white though. And didn't have legs. You stared at the bottom half and slowly processed what you were looking at..... A fucking tapeworm man. A fucking humanoid tape worm what the fuck. "Im going back to bed" You said as you laid on your side, and tried to ignore the hallucination.

The tapeworm creature, slid over you just to get to the side you were facing. You shivered feeling it’s disgusting body wiggle about. You close your eyes tightly as you did your best to ignore it. You could feel yourself holding back even more shivers as you felt their cold hands touch your face. “Y/n…. Look at me…. I just want to talk.” “And I just want to be left alone and not think about tapeworm men trying to seduce me while I’m contemplating breaking up my engagement.”

#alto clef #tw parasites #scp foundation #joke fic #shitpost #please end my suffering #crack fic

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flock-of-feral-plague-doctors · 3 years

Text

An Introduction

Hello, good evening and all those lovely other greetings. We are the Flock of Stardust. We are a hybrid OSDD-1b system with 100+ active members.

We're a mixed origin [adaptive/spiritual] system who supports endogenic systems. If you're hostile towards endos, this blog isn't for you and you will be blocked.

Do not call us alters.

Current system hosts listed below.

Cecil [He/They/Void]: Hosts the moon layer of Radio Static, currently considered the primary system host. Spooky guy extraordinaire. Permanently frontstuck.

Kevin [He/It/Eld]: Hosts the sun layer of Radio Static, as well as being a secondary system host and protector. Several guys in a trench coat. Made up of three known fragments that call themselves the Triptych.

Jack [Any pronouns except she]: Core of the Fractal Engine subsystem. Made the mistake of trying to separate from source after a fandom controversy and accidentally subsystemed themself. Probably part Phoenix. If you know his source character, don't give him shit about it.

Clef [He/It]: Host of the A Major Chord. Protector/Caretaker. The only one in the system immune to our collective nonsense. Usually fronts with Ukulele or Tenor.

Posts tagged with "[member name] stardust" are either posts that member made or reblogs we associate with that member.

Anything else important will be under the cut, including a couple notes from specific birbs. At some point, we're planning on moving most of this info to a Carrd.

Sideblogs

@voiceless-host Fictive blog run by Cecil. Carlos and Steve post occasionally post there too.

@itsalwayssunnyindesertbluffs Fictive blog run by Kevin and Kasper. Please heed the trigger warnings in the blog bio.

@amemorylongthoughtforgotten Angelcore blog run by our resident flight of angels.

@the-eternity-garden Pokemon blog run by our sidesystem, the Eternity Garden. It's mostly Eos and Giratina that post there.

@echoes-of-stardust - Space blog run by Eclipse, Rigel and Solace

@two-and-a-half-anomalies - SCP fictive blog. We reblog stuff for all of our SCP fictives, but it's mostly Solaire, Jack and Clef running the show.

@evergreen-cryptids - Blog for cryptid and foresty aesthetics run by Cedar and Frank

We're a monoconscious system with a sentient collective consciousness. It used to go by Stardust, but its status is a little more nebulous since it merged with Erika.

My early posts are signed with the name Raphael, as I changed my name at some point -Xariphail

If anyone likes the Pokemon sprite recolors I've done and would like to request one, our ask box is always open. Most of the sprites I use are from gen 5, but I do have sprites from earlier generations if anyone is into that, and I can do Pokemon from gen 6 and later as well. Most of the current sprite edits are tagged with smearglesplatter -Aiden

We have worldbuilding about the universe that our inner world is based on. Link to the masterpost can be found here

#intro #pokemon #pokemon sprite #system #introject #fictive #plural #plurality

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whaleofatjme1920 · 2 years

Note

Headcanons on who's the most likely in the foundation squad to caught throwing hands with the o5 council members?

Foundation Squad Fighting the 05s

[All of them, you already know this. @hereggssuitcasefish, @lynxlycan, @celestialissues and @thegracelessfaceless]

[Warnings: Like, none?]

[AN: Blanket statement is literally all of them. Eat the rich and those in power if you can.]

Dr. Tjme

Stole from the 05s, is currently on their watch list/grey list for problematic staff. Would still fight some of the 05s, specifically 05 [REDACTED]. Known to speak ill of the 05s in a mostly polite, zinging way. Makes some Nine Tail agents, and internal security confused on how to handle her. On one hand, there's only about 35 - 50 mer working at the Foundation making them a protected species, but on the other, she sometimes poses a social threat to the wellbeing of 05s. It's confusing. Knows she won't get off that list, will have fun while she's still here. This is the more reckless anyone will ever see her.

Agent Icarus

Almost put her at the very top, all agents have a bone to pick with the higher ups. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but the Foundation has its own hierarchy, and multiple within those hierarchies. Every community is its own. Agents are at the bottom despite being considered elite and integral to the Foundation's wellbeing. 05s often treat them as canon fodder, and unless you're part of Alpha 1, your loyalty is to your teammates first, and everyone else second (it's a near unspoken rule due to it being social). Icarus would, without a shadow of a doubt, fight the 05s given the chance for playing games with the lives of her teammates. That's just how it is. In the meantime, she will snark them as much as possible, and they can't do anything about it because she's integral to the Foundation with her anomalous properties and her work in the field.

Dr. Quill

Probably,,, would fight the 05s? But it's more of a shifty kind of fighting. Her aunt would largely try to stop it before it could happen, but that doesn't mean Quill doesn't do it. She's a lot more subtle, and uses whatever powers her aunt gave her as leverage. I think she's a bit hesitant to actually get involved in the teeth bared way Tjme and Icarus would because she has so much riding on her shoulders in a way those two don't. Besides, Quill also has a bunch of social cover if she really needed it. It's just a lot more subversive than the other two.

Dr. Sora

It's not that Sora wouldn't fight the higher ups, just that they don't always see a reason to. The Foundation took them in when no one else would, and for that, they feel an immense sense of debt. Still, they reocgnize their powers do get exploited from time to time, and that's enough for them to blow their lid and get into verbal spats with the 05s' mouthpieces, as no one really knows the 05s. I think Sora is kinda hesitant, but would ultimately go ahead with it given the chance. It really just depends.

Nurse Grace

No,,,? Maybe? It depends? I think Clef let it slip around her about the nature of the 05s, and things haven't really been the same after that. Maybe, it really does depend. I think Grace has some strong emotions and things to say after they debated with euclid specialists on whether to let Grace and Sal be together. She's still really upset some of them tried to say "no, that would distract the two of them". Make it make sense. So, yeah, i think she would fight them, but doesn't have a direct in to them like the upper four do.

#dr quill #dr sora #agent icarus #dr tjme #nurse grace #the foundation squad headcanons #the foundation squad

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turtle-paced · 4 years

Text

Revisiting Chapters: Brienne VIII, AFFC

This post is also available on my wordpress.

The story so far…

Having done what a true knight does and saved the children at the Inn, a wounded Brienne is taken to receive her just reward. The catch being it’s Lady Stoneheart’s idea of just.

Fever Dreams

The chapter starts with Brienne incapacitated. Aside from the fact that someone’s tied her up (so tightly that it cuts into her wrists, we find out later) and slung her across a horse, she’s very much not well. She’s in a lot of pain and she doesn’t understand what’s going on. Pod’s somewhere in the background.

Cue successions of horrible dreams, swapping back and forth with reality. Brienne revisits the bear pit, calling out for Jaime, and then for a maester. She dreams of Renly’s murder and Vargo Hoat with an infected ear. She replays the fight at the Whispers and loses, because she cannot fight without the magic sword Jaime gave her.

The reader understands as Brienne does not at this point that what’s going on around Brienne is very, very bad for her. When Brienne mistakes a girl who speaks to her for Sansa, a man nearby laughs. Some time afterwards, she’s moved and given medicine. The girl administering said medicine gives us a rundown of Brienne’s injuries. Aside from the nasty wound on her face from Biter’s bites, she’s got a broken arm and some cracked ribs.

Brienne’s with it long enough to hear the confirmation that yes, Gendry killed Biter at the end of the previous chapter. The girl treating her is definitely not Sansa Stark, though. Instead, she appears to be the innkeeper, now revealed to be Jeyne Heddle (and her sister, back at the inn, is Willow Heddle). Her status as a prisoner is confirmed by a dark-haired man Brienne keeps mistaking for Renly (it’s Gendry). She’s being taken to Lady Stoneheart.

“M’lady means to make you answer for your crimes.”

Ominous! Brienne is quite sensibly afraid. She asks after Pod and Ser Hyle, though she also thinks that Septon Meribald and his dog are there. That’s about the end of that bout with lucidity. Next up, she’s taken across a river. No Gendry, he’s gone back to the Inn to protect the children. A man in a yellow cloak and wearing the Hound’s helm threatens to kill Brienne.

Finally, Brienne dreams of her encounter with Ronnet Connington. Her father promises to bring her a rose, but Brienne needs a sword. She bites her own tongue off in her nervousness, spits it out to lie next to the useless rose, and as her dream suitor expresses his digust with her, Ronnet turns to Jaime.

The overarching themes of Brienne’s dreams here are sex and romance, violence, and failure. Each of Brienne’s dreams ends with her failing in some way - to win a fight, to protect Renly, to even speak. In several of her dreams, she’s missing her sword and wants it back. This particular bit I find particularly telling:

“He will bring a rose for you,” her father promised her, but a rose was no good, a rose could not keep her safe. It was a sword she wanted. Oathkeeper. I have to find the girl. I have to find his honour.

While it’s a sweet notion, it also makes me sad. The only person who can find Jaime’s honour is Jaime. It also shows us how Brienne has come to see her quest - not just for Catelyn, but for Jaime as well.It’s not hard to see how the recent events of Brienne’s life have resulted in this traumatic mishmash of images. I don’t think they’re prophetic in any way, just reflecting her own rather poor state of mind. She feels like she’s failed, and she feels helpless.

The Broken Brotherhood

The first sign that this is, for sure, the Brotherhood Without Banners again is the presence of this man:

One of the shadow men shoved the girl aside. He was clad in rusted rings and a studded belt. At his hip hung longsword and dirk. A yellow greatcoat was plastered to his shoulders, sodden and filthy. From his shoulders rose a steel dog’s head, its teeth bared in a snarl.

Lem Lemoncloak. Compare to his first good description in Arya II, ASoS, where his armour is steel but not rusty and his cloak is only worn and stained instead of absolutely filthy.

The fact that the Brotherhood Without Banners has been taken over by undead Catelyn Stark was the subject of the epilogue of ASoS. As GRRM does with the epilogues, though, that was a one-off PoV character who doesn’t survive his experience with perspective voice. It’s a reveal for the readers. This is the internal reveal to our surviving and continuing PoV characters. Not the big reveal yet. But part of it.

Lem says that they’ll be hanging Brienne, to which she protests that she should have been covered by guest right, back at the inn.

“Guest right don’t mean so much as it used to,” said the girl. “Not since m’lady came back from the wedding. Some o’ them swinging down by the river figured they was guests too.”

This is not the same band that was doing their best to protect the peasants of the Riverlands. This tells us that nothing is sacred in how this new Brotherhood pursues their revenge against the Freys and Lannisters. Brienne, being ill, conks out again and doesn’t wake up for a while.

She wakes up again in what’s basically a grave.

The air was cold and heavy, and smelled of earth and worms and mold. She was lying on a pallet beneath a mound of sheepskins, with rock above her head and roots poking through the walls. The only light came from a tallow candle, smoking in a pool of melted wax.

And if that wasn’t making the point enough:

The flickering light cast queer shadows. Shadows of the slain, she thought, dancing all about me, hiding when I turn to look at them. Everywhere she saw holes and cracks and crevices, but there was no way to know which passages led out, which would take her deeper into the cave, and which went nowhere. All were black as pitch.

Brienne’s not alone down here; there’s an “old grey man” in rags as well. He helpfully flags for Brienne that their current location is representative of the Brotherhood’s moral slide. The man checks Brienne’s fever (broken) and tells her the status of her face (badly scarred, once it heals). He was not the one who treated Brienne, though. That was the girl from earlier, Jeyne.

Brienne asks why she received treatment if they’re just planning to hang her. He tells her that it was Lem’s screw-up that made the fight at the inn necessary - Lem was baited into charging off after the Bloody Mummers, but the man considers that Lem should have known better. Then we get to the key question: who are these people?

“We were king’s men when we began,” the man told her, “but king’s men must have a king, and we have none. We were brothers too, but now our brotherhood is broken. I do not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going. I only know the road is dark. The fires have not shown me what lies at its end.”

I know where it ends. I have seen the corpses in the trees.

Then it clicks for Brienne. This is the Brotherhood Without Banners, and she’s speaking to Thoros of Myr. Who clearly has his doubts again. Beric Dondarrion is dead. The Brotherhood has a new leader, who Thoros describes as “grimmer”. He goes to get her some food.As in her dreams before, Brienne finds herself looking for a weapon. She finds none.

When Thoros returns, he does so with some pretty lousy food. No milk, no honey, which is absolutely representative of the stores of human kindness on offer. Thoros says so himself, when Brienne asks for Pod to receive pity. If kindness is not available, what about justice?

“Justice.” Thoros smiled wanly. “I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. […] We were king’s men, knights, and heroes…but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.”

Ah, wordplay! Thoros sees how the cause of the Brotherhood has turned from justice to revenge, and frankly he preferred the justice. This moment here with Thoros is for the reader to reconcile the somewhat morally ambiguous band of Merry Men who tried to look after Arya, tried to give to the poor, and try to conduct trials with the people who’ve been hanging and hanging and hanging people throughout the Riverlands.

That’s when Thoros hears company arriving. Brienne half remembers them from her interludes of lucidity. Once again Lem Lemoncloak is the most noticeable figure. He took the Hound’s helm from Rorge’s corpse. Lem does not deny it when Brienne identifies him as “the Hound”. By taking up the helm, Lem becomes the man. With consequences:

“There is nothing good about that helm, nor the men who wore it,” said the red priest. “Sandor Clegane was a man in torment, and Rorge a beast in human skin.”

“I’m not them.”

“Then why show the world their face?”

Fear, basically. But literally, though, there are those in the Brotherhood who are becoming the evil they fought. Who’s going to be able to tell Lem Lemoncloak apart from the previous men who wore the Hound’s helm? Who’s going to be able to tell the Brotherhood Without Banners from the other groups terrorising the Riverlands, now that they’re not a brotherhood and they’re all out of kindness and justice?

Heart of Stone

Once Brienne is brought to the main cavern (to answer for what she’s done, leaving her rather confused as to what it is she’s supposed to have done), she gets her first look at Lady Stoneheart, recently returned from Fairmarket.

A trestle table had been set up across the cave, in a clef in the rock. Behind it sat a woman all in grey, cloaked and hooded. In her hands was a crown, a bronze circlet ringed by iron swords. She was studying it, her fingers stroking the blades as if to test their sharpness. Her eyes glimmered under her hood.

The readers know several things that Brienne does not, in this moment. The obvious one, that this is undead Catelyn. Then there’s the less obvious. This crown was last mentioned back in Jaime VI, in the possession of Ryman Frey (in point of fact, Jaime told Ryman that Ryman shouldn’t take the crown when he left the camp). Sure enough, in Jaime VII, we’ll learn that Stoneheart’s men ambushed Ryman Frey and company two leagues out of Fairmarket. This is Robb’s crown that Lady Stoneheart now has.

The accusations against Brienne are quickly made clear. Association with and loyalty to the Lannisters. The evidence for this? She was calling out for Jaime in her fevered state. Not great evidence. But then they bring out Oathkeeper. Valyrian steel. Though it’s noted that Lady Stoneheart is focusing only on the lion pommel. Plus the letter Jaime gave her, signed by Tommen, claiming that Brienne is about his business. Better evidence.

All Brienne has to counter that is the truth. Jaime Lannister, famously dishonourable, gave Brienne a Valyrian steel sword and sent her to find Sansa Stark to protect her. Actually protect her, not the ‘move her to Cersei’s dungeons pending trial’ protection. The problem is…

“Are we supposed to believe the Lannisters are handing out gold and ruby swords to foes? That the Kingslayer meant for you to hide [Sansa] from his own twin? I suppose the paper with the boy king’s seal was just in case you needed to wipe your arse.”

It’s frankly unbelieveable. Unbelieveable to anyone who wasn’t in Jaime’s PoV for the duration of ASoS. To make matters worse, Pod and Hyle are brought forth too, described as “the Imp’s own squire” and “one of Randyll Bloody Tarly’s bloody household knights” respectively. Brienne can see the way this is going and pleads for them to be left out of it.

At last Lady Stoneheart speaks. Not well. She needs a young northman (Harwin, not that Brienne knows his name) to translate her words. She asks the name of Brienne’s sword.

“Oathkeeper,” Brienne answered.

The woman in grey hissed through her fingers. Her eyes were two red pits burning in the shadows. She spoke again.

“No, she says. Call it Oathbreaker, she says. It was made for treachery and murder. She names it False Friend. Like you.”

Again, the reader knows something that Brienne does not. Some of the last words Catelyn Stark heard in life were Jaime Lannister sends his regards. What this looks like to Lady Stoneheart is that Jaime had a hand in arranging the Red Wedding, then bribed Brienne to go after Sansa as well.

In the meantime, Brienne is confused about why Lady Stoneheart is making such a personal accusation, and this at last prompts the reveal.

“Lady Catelyn?” Tears filled her eyes. “They said…they said that you were dead.”

“She is,” said Thoros of Myr. “The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And…she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.”

So the classic zombie look, really, but a zombie retaining Catelyn’s last traumatic memories and plenty of will. Brienne’s narration refers to her as “the thing that had been Catelyn Stark.” As Brienne is absolutely adamant that she never broke faith with Catelyn, Lady Stoneheart demands she prove it.

“What does she want of me?”

“She wants her son alive, or the men who killed him dead,” said the big man. “She wants to feed the crows, like they did at the Red Wedding. Freys and Boltons, aye. We’ll give her those, as many as she likes. What she asks from you is Jaime Lannister.”

Note the simplicity of this agenda. Lady Stoneheart wants the one impossible thing - her murdered son, not to have been murdered. Failing that, the next best thing is lots and lots of dead people. She wants to do the same thing to the Freys as the Freys did to her. There’s no suggestion of retaking land, or dealing with administration and supply. She just wants everyone even tangentially involved with her son’s murder dead.

This is all very well and good if we’re talking about your Walder Freys (any one of several options) or your Roose Boltons, but now we see Lady Stoneheart lashing out at Brienne, and Pod, and Hyle. Brienne’s situation looks bad, but the reader knows that she’s right when she says Jaime’s not the man he was. Pod’s backstory as revealed in Brienne’s own chapters show his lack of options. Even Hyle, who’s undoubtedly an asshole, is clearly not responsible for Catelyn’s suffering. This is why Thoros was bemoaning the general lack of justice he was seeing around the place.

Lady Stoneheart then offers Brienne a choice. Her own life for Jaime’s. The sword or the noose. Brienne refuses to pick. So Lady Stoneheart orders Brienne hanged. Hyle and Pod too. Brienne tries to bargain for Pod’s life, using the same ‘sapphires’ line Jaime tried, but Lem (now referred to in narration as ‘the Hound’) tells her he wants his wife and daughter back, and starts the hanging. Brienne is focused on Pod. Just Pod.

The chapter finishes with Brienne screaming a single word.

Chapter Function

This chapter is our first proper look at Lady Stoneheart, who’s as tragic as she is terrifying. GRRM’s used Brienne’s PoV well to get both these things across. While Jaime’s storyline necessarily deals with the effects of Lady Stoneheart’s actions, it’s Brienne’s that makes you feel for her victims. It’s also Brienne’s storyline that makes the reader feel for Catelyn herself, who was wronged and murdered and brought back to more pain.

This is the true emotional climax of Brienne’s AFFC arc. Not the fight. The choice. We’ve seen Brienne decide good and honourable things all throughout her storyline, but here she’s put in a situation where there is no good and honourable decision. Take the sword to kill Jaime, betray the trust of a man who saved her life. And, though Lady Stoneheart doesn’t believe it, betray the mission Catelyn gave her. Take the noose, and Pod hangs with her.

Sometimes there’s no way to keep every vow. Brienne has the best of intentions. We’ve seen her good character. But there’s just no good solution to this problem. It’s the point Jaime made, way back when. Brienne’s vows are less important than doing what’s right, and allowing Pod to hang when she could prevent it isn’t right.

Now to see how she handles Jaime. The climax of this AFFC arc lets us know how things will be progressing in TWoW, because now we need to know how Brienne’s going to handle the choice, while also knowing that Lady Stoneheart won’t be backing down from hers. More trouble for the Riverlands is ahead.

Miscellany

Thoros notes that Long Jeyne Heddle treated Brienne as well as a maester could. I doubt she’s had much formal training. Which means that what Jeyne learned, she learned from experience. There’s a nasty thought.

It’s worth thinking twice about Lady Stoneheart and the crown. While Catelyn believes that Arya, Bran, and Rickon are all dead, she has no idea where or whether they were buried. She knows for sure that Robb is dead, but again, it’s not clear where or whether he was buried - given the desecration of his corpse, and what happened to Catelyn’s own body, it doesn’t seem likely that he received a respectful funeral. The fact that Sansa’s vanished without a trace is rather important to Brienne’s storyline. This crown is all Catelyn has left of her children.

Clothing Porn

In her final dream sequence, Brienne wears a silk brocade gown with blue and red quarters and decorated with golden suns and silver moons. Out of dream flashback, she’s wearing a brown woolen shift. Thoros wears the remains of an old robe, red faded out to pink and white.

Food Porn

Onion broth. Cold, greasy stew. Hard bread and harder cheese.

Next Three Chapters

Jon VII, ACoK - Jon IX, ADWD - The Princess in the Tower, AFFC

#ASoIaF #valyrianscrolls #revisiting chapters #cw: violence #a feast for crows #brienne of tarth #catelyn stark

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utopians · 4 years

Note

heya since youre one of the only scp fans i know, scp/tma au???? 👀 👀 except, jon and other avatars are the scps themselves instead of researchers or personnel (tho im thinking that martin, sasha and tim arent)

ALRIGHT at long last! here’s my thots. there’s a lot of stuff under the cut and it involves AWCY melanie and narrative anomaly gerry so it might be worth a read

jon is in containment! he’d essentially have his canon powers, and he’s considered euclid. his containment procedures include the exclusive use of physical locks bc he could just Know a password or keycode. additionally, interviews with him are conducted exclusively through D class who are given a list of questions to ask him so he can’t compel classified information out of an actual researcher

martin and sasha are researchers! they’re best friends in this au, and have weathered many a containment breach together after working at the same site for years. not!sasha still happens, but it’s because she’s taken and replaced through anomalous means by elias (who is the morally bankrupt site director in this scenario) because she got too close to unearthing his plans

Tim is initially an MTF operative that works closely with Martin and Sasha but defects and joins the GOC after a. the not-Sasha ordeal and b. his brother is taken in and killed by the Circus of the Disquieting. he just becomes increasingly jaded and angry and he loses his faith in the foundation to do the right thing or protect anyone

gertrude is a senior staff member a la Clef or Gears who’s both revered and resented for her merciless nature. she pretty much embodies ‘cold not cruel’ to its logical extreme. she became notorious after murdering a level 3 researcher and close personal assistant, michael shelley, to contain a reality-bending anomaly during a containment breach

unfortunately the same anomaly brought michael back and he attempted to kill her. he is currently in keter-class containment. she never visits him but sometimes she just stands behind the reinforced one-way glass and watches for a while

gerry is also in containment! he’s an anomaly a lot like scp-423, his soul was bound into an anomalous book and he now acts as a narrative entity who can move between different pieces of media. he’s considered euclid bc he’s a sentient being but is generally pretty cooperative and communicates a lot with martin and sasha to the point where he would consider them friends

elias is the corrupt site director at the site where martin and sasha work... he’s generally respected and liked but is exploiting the scips under his authority for personal gain and is specifically manipulating jon into giving him blackmail info that he’s using to work his way up through the foundation

peter lukas is the individual known as Nobody

basira is a science officer in the GOC who defects to the foundation after she sees the GOC’s methods firsthand and can’t deal with the ethical ramifications anymore. she essentially just packs up and leaves in the night without telling anyone. she wants to tell daisy, her long-term friend and partner, but is (rightfully) afraid that daisy’s loyalty to the GOC would make rat basira out

daisy is a particularly ruthless GOC agent notorious for her involvement in the ichabod campaign, in which she and her team killed upwards of 150 type greens. she only gets more violent after basira’s disappearance, which she and the rest of the GOC mistakenly attributes to some kind of group of interest-involved killing or kidnapping

daisy ends up in foundation custody after a raid gone wrong and is confronted by the miraculously not-dead basira, which is when she begins to question the GOC

melanie is an anartist specializing in video-based anomalies... she meets georgie at an underground awcy gathering and the two start dating. although she started as Just an anartist, she becomes increasingly militant against groups like the foundation and GOC and gets taken into foundation custody after creating an anomaly specifically to fuck with them

georgie and jon were very close friends when jon was snatched up by the foundation, and georgie ended up getting heavily into anomalous stuff afterwards, getting involved with various minor anomalous groups (spent a while on the parawatch forums and the like) for a while before ultimately getting involved with the anart scene, where she met melanie. however it’s pretty much just means to an end, she’s ultimately just looking for any way that she could theoretically break jon out or just find him again and getting involved in anomalous stuff is the clearest path to that she can see. when melanie gets taken as well this gets thrown into overdrive and it essentially becomes her driving purpose

martin eventually deserts the foundation and he and jon escape to the wanderer’s library. they join the serpent’s hand and are fugitives happily ever after

Annabelle Cain Type Green Reality Bender no need to elaborate there

anyway that’s a lot of text. kudos to you for getting this far!

#tma #scp #oh lord this got long #the magnus archives #asked and answered

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war-of-the-words · 3 years

Text

A December Night

A very merry Christmas and happy holidays to my @dcmkkaishinevents giftee, Clef! I sincerely hope this gift makes you smile! -Two

Kaito hated wearing heels. They weren’t any problem for him now, he could wear them for hours if he had to, but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed them. And when you’re disguised as an attractive young woman at a private auction for high-priced items, heels were practically mandatory. Plus, heels made his legs look fantastic.

He hadn’t sent an advance notice this time. He just wanted it to be a quick in and out kind of deal. The majority of this decision was because Nakamori finally got time off and he promised Aoko that he would spend the day holiday shopping together. Aoko had been so excited to hear it, and Kaito thought that they both deserved some father-daughter time.

Unfortunately, that meant that Kaito had to spend more time than he liked weaseling an invitation for his disguise from the organizers. It never ceased to amaze him how sleazy “high class” people could be. But he was there now, circling the buffet table like a shark and eating his fill of the pretentious mini desserts.

“Excuse me?” a voice said from behind him. An incredibly familiar voice that made Kaito’s blood run cold.

“Hm?” he hummed, turning around and giving the intruder a warm smile. The face wasn’t one he wanted to see. Kudou Shinichi stood there, looking incredibly handsome in a fitted charcoal suit, a smile on his face. Kaito hated how he couldn’t help but notice the way one side of his lip always pulled a little higher than the other.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you babe.” What did he just say?

“Um, I think you’ve-” Kudou tilted his head ever so slightly, a sharp look in his eyes. Kaito slid his gaze to where Kudou indicated and noticed one of the more sleazy organizers orbiting a little too close for comfort. It clicked, Kudou had seen a woman in potential danger and stepped in like a knight in shining armor. “-got the wrong idea about why we came here, dear. The jewelry is great and all, but you know I can’t resist a good dessert table!” Kudou laughed, it made Kaito’s heart do backflips. Why, of all the people that could materialize at a secret KID heist it had to be him.

“How did you think I knew to find you here?” Kaito was about to respond, but the organizer finally decided to make his move.

“Miss Yamagi!” He said, walking over from where he was not so subtly eavesdropping. “I didn’t know you knew Kudou Shinichi!” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, he thought he was catching Kaito in a lie here, whether for leverage to get Kaito alone or to make a fool of him like the rich often like to do.

“Of course I do.” Kaito said, pushing as much honey into his voice as possible. He ran a hand through his long blonde wig. Yamagi was an aspiring model after all, a good cover for being taller than average, and a wonderful opportunity to use one of his favorite wigs, but she was best for winning over unruly men. Kaito watched the way the organizer followed Kaito’s hand as he played with his hair, winding the soft locks around his finger. How easy this would be. “We’ve been seeing one another for a while now, but its a secret.” Kaito pushed out his bottom lip into an adorable pout.

“Her modeling career hasn’t taken off yet, and my darling refuses any help from my family. She’s determined to get there on her own terms; that’s why she insisted on getting her own invitation to this event instead of being my plus one.” Kudou said, moving closer to Kaito’s side and smoothly wrapping his arm around Kaito. Kaito didn’t want to think about how easy it was to lean into Kudou’s side.

“Is- is that so?” The organizer looked like he was trying very hard to refrain from mentioning the PDA. “Well, be careful that the press here doesn’t see you.”

“We will,” Kudou said with a cold smile, letting the organizer know his intentions were known, “We’ll just be on our way, excuse us.” And with that Kudou guided Kaito out towards the balcony, which was devoid of people thanks to the chilly weather.

“Thank you,” Kaito said once they were out of earshot of the rest of the guests. He could’ve easel handled it himself, but it was nice to be given help.

“You’re welcome, although I have to admit I had ulterior motives.” Kudou shimmed off his suit jacket and wordlessly placed it around Kaito’s bare shoulders. Suddenly, Kaito was very thankful he had worn a strapless dress.

“Oh, and what might those be?” Kudou probably didn’t know he was KID, he hadn’t even sent a notice so there should be no reason to even suspect that KID would be here.

“I just wanted to know why such a beautiful girl would look so lost.” He gave Kaito another killer smile and Kaito could feel his face flush. This man is criminal.

“I have no idea what you mean.” Kaito averted his gaze out to the clear night sky. The moon wasn’t even half full but the winter night was bright.

“Hm, my hunches usually aren’t wrong.”

“Well, this one was.”

“If you say so.”

Kaito was about to say, ‘I do say so’, but something made him stop. He chanced a glance at Kudou; he was staring at the sky too. His face was soft in the moonlight, the usual tension eased. Kaito never got to see him like this, and he was usually the reason why. He found himself playing with his hair again, he found it soothing. He called Kudou the “Great Detective” for a reason.

“You promise not to tell anyone?” Kaito cringed out how quiet it came out, how obviously nervous.

“Cross my heart.” The words hung in the air for a while, Kaito desperately trying to regain control of the pounding of his heart. It was so loud he was sure that Kudou could hear it.

“I guess I’ve just been overthinking a lot of things lately.” The words felt thick in his mouth, and they fought to stay in his throat. “I know everyone acts differently in front of others, but sometimes I feel like I’m an extreme case.” The irony that Kaito was saying this in a voice that was not his own was not lost on him. “My jobs requires me to be someone else, but all of those people are me in one way or another. So when I’m alone I guess I don’t really know who I am. Which one of those masks are actually my real face, you know?”

“Probably, not to the same extent as you, but yeah, I think I do. You would be amazed out how often.” Kudou let out a low chuckle. Kaito laughed too. It was sweet that Kudou was trying, but he highly doubted Kudou could understand this gnawing feeling Kaito had been trying to ignore for months.

He had been changing faces as KID for so long that when he was “himself” it started to feel like an act too. Especially in front of Aoko. The amount of times he wanted to tell Aoko about his plans for a heist, a trick he was developing for KID, were piling up. Not to mention all the times Aoko dragged him shopping but he found himself shopping for his different personas instead of his best friend. He’s caught her casting suspicious glances at him when he’s spent a little too long looking at clothes Aoko would never wear. But Yamagi would, although at this point that’s the same as saying that Kaito would. His appearance had become completely detached from who he actually was. Even as the faceless Kaitou KID he put on a mask.

“It’s harder when you have no one to lean on.” Kudou interrupted his thoughts. He was still facing forward, eyes to the sky, a soft smile on his lips. “But it’s hard to find someone to lean on when what you feel feels so earth-shattering. No one can carry the weight of the world but Atlas after all.” Kudou turned to look at him, still wearing a smile Kaito never had the privilege of seeing before. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of Kaito’s hair behind his ear, and Kaito shivered but not from the cold. Kudou let his hand linger on Kaito’s cheek, it’s warmth a stark contrast to the night chill. Kaito was sure now that Kudou could feel his racing pulse, and the sound of it nearly made Kaito miss the announcement that the auction was about to begin. It was a chance to escape, to slip away from this dreamlike moment and return to his reality.

“Kudou, I really appreciate what you did for me tonight, but I-”

“Of course, this is an auction after all. But what did you come here for?” Kaito contemplated it, it couldn't hurt to tell him, right? Kudou just thought he was an attractive young model-

He never told Kudou he was a model. He never had a chance, Kudou just said he was a model to the organizer. Did he just guess? He was a detective after all, and considering Yamagi’s height it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch… “A necklace,” Kaito said tentatively.

“I thought so,” Kudou was still so close to Kaito, he could feel the detective’s hot breath on his face as he breathed out a laugh.

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but this is the first time we’re meeting, isn’t it?” Kaito tilted his head in the way that made most men swoon and gave Kudou a pretty little smile. If Kudou had suspicions he had to dissuade them as quickly as possible.

“Mmm, no. It isn’t.” Kudou’s lip pulled up into that smirk that made Kaito want to simultaneously flee and kiss him senseless. He reached into his pants pocket, and Kaito had to physically fight the urge to run as fast as possible. He did not need to make a scene. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Stupid crush, making him act all stupid. He should have just thanked Kudou as quickly as possible and ran. He hadn’t made any announcements on purpose. And why had Kudou said ‘I thought so?’.

His thoughts were cut short as he felt hands brush the side of his neck and a weight fall onto his chest. Startled, he opened his eyes and took a step back. “What?” Kaito stammered, confused. Glancing down, he saw his target, glimmering in the moonlight. “What?” Kaito said again, searching Kudou’s eyes for answers.

“It really suits you, KID.” And Kaito probably would have run if Kudou’s voice hadn’t been so damn gentle. “I knew it would suit you as soon as I saw it.”

“Okay Meitantei, you’re going to have to break this one down for me.” Kaito said, with his own voice this time. It didn’t seem to faze Kudou.

“I knew it was you as soon as I saw you walk in. Your presence fills the room, KID, even if you don’t mean it too.”

“I think you’re the only person with that problem, Meitantei.”

“I would never call that a problem, KID. But after I saw you, I was sure you were here for something from the auction.”

“But I didn’t send a notice, how did you know I wasn’t just here for fun?”

“And free dessert? Just call it a hunch. And the knowledge that Nakamori was very excited to have some time off to spend with his daughter.” Kaito let out a sigh.

“I hate how much you know about me.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Oh, cocky now, aren’t we? So, what’s the catch, you’ve got me collared,” Kaito gestured at the very expensive piece of jewelry around his neck, “are you going to turn me in?”

“What, I can’t just get you a Christmas present?”

“Seriously? Shinichi, I know what the starting price for this was going to be, and I don’t want to know how much you paid to buy it before it could even be put on sale. This isn’t something you just give to your favorite rival.”

“Hmm, I suppose it isn’t. But rivals also don’t call each other by their first names.”

“I, um, well-”

“Look, KID, I like you. A lot. I’m drawn to you like a moth to a flame. I’ve come to terms with that now, and if the way you’ve reacted to me tonight was anything to go by, I might have a chance.”

“You haven’t been flirting with me all night because you think I’m a hot supermodel?”

“I’ve been flirting with you all night because you’re Kaitou KID. It’s just a bonus that I got to see you looking like a hot supermodel.”

“But that whole thing I said about-”

“I told you, KID, it’s so much easier to share it with someone, and I desperately want to be that someone. You’re not Atlas, and even if you were, I’d carry the world for you.”

“So you don’t care that I’m-”

“KID, you could fill in that blank with anything and my answer would be the same.”

“I’m the magician here,” Kaito laughed, “I’m supposed to be the one to leave you speechless.”

“I might know a way you could shut me up.” And there was that smirk again, but it no longer made him want to run. And so he kissed him senseless, underneath the bright December sky, where it felt like it was only the two of them in the entire world.

#kaishin #ksss20works #player 2 #one shot

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scpconfessions · 3 years

Note

Remember when this blog was about simping for characters and kinning and not for people to anonymously share discourse?

the very first confessions we got on this blog was ace discourse. it was never just about simping for characters, this is a "confession blog" for people who wants to say something but doesnt wanna be known or cant say it in the scp tag. if someone wants to say "i love dr clef so much" or "i think we should rewrite scp 035" but doesn't have the courage to say it this is where they would want to go. what we offer isnt funny stuff or simping, its anonymity

so yeah as long as you fit our rules send us whatever discourse or character simping or even funny stuff we can edit pictures into all you want because this blog isnt just for simping. there are other confession blogs that post only simping stuff from what ive seen. you can even make your own confession blog, its not that hard. but dont get mad at us for what we chose to post in the first place.

#not confessions #mod crow

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bloodybells1 · 3 years

Text

PROCESS, ONE: A READER’S JOURNEY

“The essays in this book were memoir until they couldn’t stand to be memoir anymore.” —Leslie Jamison

Had I read that quote even only six months ago (the book to which she refers is her much-lauded personal essay collection The Empathy Exams), I wouldn’t have known exactly what it meant.

How can a piece of writing evolve from memoir? In terms of simple, unvarnished truth-telling, I thought the memoir, as a genre of literature, was pretty much the vessel. Yet here a case is being made for something that sounds like the opposite: it seems one can go beyond even the once terminally-regarded memoir.

Let me think about this further, about my confusion. Maybe my framing is off. Maybe it’s not an issue of evolution or reduction. It’s not that the personal essay is somehow purer than the memoir, as far as autobiographical writing is concerned. The issue is not one of authenticity. It’s about application, or even misapplication, that the quest for truth for which one naturally uses the data of one’s own life could, depending on the circumstances, be more appropriately undertaken in a different genre. The two genres are merely looking at different subject matter. They’re examining completely different lifeforms on the slides, but they’re using the same authentic microscope, as it were.

I relate to the sense of frustration in the Jamison quote, that there’s a feeling that the mission she started out on—writing a memoir—became so inadequate for the real task at hand that it became unbearable, that the pressure of working under a false guise gave way to a different form of transmission.

The memoir became a personal essay collection. It had to. The questions she was exploring could not be undertaken by simply telling the story of one’s own life. Personal data was necessary for the full picture. But she needed other sources, the experiences of others, the realities of phenomena outside of her normal experience, even as they were phenomena that ultimately she ended up relating to in a deeply intimate manner. In her collection, she let us into those experiences, and then we were able to relate, by dint of her fearless storytelling and personal excavations.

Now I’m getting it: a personal essay is fixed on some question and that is what drives the exploration. Personal, say, autobiographical, details are needed for the exploration, and this can vary depending on the subject. But the focus is the external question. That is the different lifeform on the slide. It’s about the question being pursued.

But first, a look at where I started on this journey, with the memoir itself.

The memoir as a work of literature was my singular focus while I was crafting my book proposal a couple of years ago. Simply put, it was what was on the table. Owing to my provenance as a musician and an actor, and my express interest in writing about my life, the genre of the memoir naturally became a thing for me.

So I dove into acquainting myself, not with examples of celebrity memoirs or memoirs by politicians—perhaps the two most popular varieties—but with examples of the finer possibilities in those genres which—big surprise—happen to be written for the most part by writers. I found myself falling in love with the exercise of memoir writing, as opposed to, say, the gratuitous voyeurism that is often offered by the popular variants of the genre.

For me, what became valuable was the quality of the writing; most of the time I was reading the life stories of people with whose work I had, outside of the memoir being read, little to no familiarity. These windows into life were captivating in their own right, these portals into raw experience, the possibilities of narration within the genre of nonfiction, the enlightened self-awareness made evident in sculpting large-scale timelines of one’s own life.

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It’s difficult for me to overstate the degree to which these two books have influenced me thus far.

Nabokov’s memoir is well-known. It’s a work of literature in its own right. It is a great example of the possibilities of the memoir to accomplish something other than realism: the whole thing is a kind of Proustian meta-narrative of his childhood and abrupt departure from Russia after the revolution, like a dream of family life written down. Mary Karr, in The Art of Memoir, heads her chapter on this book, “Don’t Try This at Home: The Seductive, Narcissistic Count.” Indeed, the book reads somewhat Transylvanianly, a bold, exotic yarn full of strange characters unfurled for an audience unfamiliar with that way of life. It reads as alluring and dark, and, yes, quite vampiric. But it is also profound and gorgeous.

While it’s not really a memoir, more of an autobiography, and also not often regarded as exemplary of the form, My Lives, written by Edmund White is an incredible tour de force of portraiture of the most important people in his life, his therapists, his parents, his lovers, his friends, his subjects, they all get a chapter dedicated specifically to them. Imagine knowing a world-renowned painter who decides he wants to do a string of portraits of the most important people in his life and you are one of them. That’s what this is, in literary form. It’s less a story of him than of these people, but, by the end of the book, you, of course, end up knowing a lot about him. His ability to make you see the things that he is looking at, in a very concrete, physical way—the curves of a body, the angles of a face, the ambience of a train station—is unparalleled in my view.

Is there a difference between an (a) autobiography and a (b) memoir?

I think the difference is about scope. The autobiography is explicitly a functional genre that attempts to document a person’s entire life. It is a biography that is written by the person whose life is being written about. It does not usually try to invoke any literary devices and is intended to serve as an ancillary to consumption of the subject’s work outside of the autobiography. It is a kind of “reader” of the subject’s life. It’s main purpose is not to be written well (although if it isn’t it is a grave mistake), it is to convey the near entirety of the subject’s experience on earth.

By contrast, good writing is a bit more called-for in the memoir; otherwise the whole premise falls apart. The memoir, in carving out a specific “slice” of a person, either a period of time or some type of encounter or some activity that they always do, is explicitly intended to amplify and interrogate aspects of being. In this way, the memoir has more potential for inspiration and edification irrespective of the reader’s interest in the subject’s life outside of the memoir. This, to me, is the crucial difference.

For the most part, I am not explicitly a huge fan of the work of the writers below. But their memoirs have touched and inspired me. I don’t think I would have all that much interest in reading the autobiography of, say, Joan Didion. (I might, I can’t be sure, of course). But my point is that I’m not looking for her autobiography, whereas there’re a lot of Didion fans out there that would be waiting for said autobiography.

In this way, autobiography is a kind of fan service, whereas the memoir is a thing unto itself. It is a work of literature written for the purpose of refracting aspects of being alive. To appreciate that type of writing you need not be familiar with anything else that person has done on this planet, anymore than that it is necessary to be familiar with Herman Melville’s entire oeuvre in order to love and appreciate Moby Dick.

It was with the consciousness of the memoir’s self-sufficiency, the irony of its ability to communicate, in its more specific mode, even more broadly than the supposedly more capacious autobiography, that I continued my exploration of the genre and began taking notes for the writing of my own memoir (which is now a personal essay collection, but more on that later).

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Two classics of the genre, here.

Many of us have read Maya Angelou’s book in high school. Both focus on the same thing: a period of time starting from birth and leading just up to late adolescence. Both are written like traditional first-person stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, and, were it not for our knowledge of their source material, might easily pass as romans a clef. I also think that both are examples of “misery lit,” although I think that that genre is overly hip and reductive for Angelou’s work, which is about so much more than just her misery. But they both focus on their childhood traumas in such a plain, unadorned, simple way, it is shocking and, for those of us struggling with these same issues, healing.

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The Apology and The Year of Magical Thinking are examples of how the memoir can focus to a degree of incredible specificity. Both focus on pain but are concerned with different parts of experience. Didion writes only about one year of her life, while Ensler writes about almost the entirety of it, but with a focus on a single, prevailing experience. Both are harrowing in completely different ways and both are exquisite in the way they lift up their struggles to find meaning and truth, things that pertain to the reader’s own experiences and which he or she may also come into touch with in reading these books. They truly are gifts in that regard.

In a manner of speaking, these two books are like two, very long, book-length personal essays. They rigorously explore and interrogate their premises and do their best to extract whatever possible that is meaningful out of that exploration.

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More “misery lit”! I actually don’t mean to be reductive in saying that. Both of these are fabulous stories concerning completely different encounters with mental illness and they are far beyond some hipster term of art. But there is a lot of memoir writing out there that explores the darker ways some of us were brought up and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with simply naming a certain type of writing that courageously explores how our childhoods might have been compromised.

In The Glass Castle it’s about her father’s mental illness and in An Unquiet Mind, it’s about the author’s own journey discovering and treating her bipolar disorder. Walls writes her story very much like it’s a novel, like Angelou’s memoir, and, also like Angelou, she writes it from the perspective of her child self and it is a compelling account as a result, full of tragic innocence and complicated encounters far beyond the reach of a child to properly grapple with.

Jamison’s book is very clinical, although she recounts her episodes frankly and shockingly and really brings you in to her subjective experience of insanity. These two books—not to mention Eve Ensler’s—have given me the courage to begin exploring my own encounters with mental illness and childhood trauma and to commit those experiences to writing.

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As I continued to research I started coming upon a very interesting type of memoir, the experimental memoir. That’s really interesting I thought. How does one write a memoir as a form of experimental art?

Not that this one is expressly experimental, but Robert Graves’ book is slightly off-putting in that fecund, experimental way: the bulk of it is dedicated to his experience in the trenches and it’s told with grit and harsh realism. But it starts with his schooldays and ends briefly, and curiously inconclusively, with scenes of fatherhood and tutelage. It’s a rather unique rendering of a life. Towards the end he admits that his original idea was to use the notes that he took on the frontlines for writing a novel but changed his mind after realizing that he would be desecrating his experiences and his memories and his sacrifices by layering a plot and storyline onto them. He then decided to write it simply as a factual account.

Dark Back of Time, however, is a full-on experiment in autobiography and it is always slipping in and out of reality, imagination and historicization. He spends a large amount of time writing about an old soldier who died accidentally on a hotel balcony in South America but he gets to this through talking about the reactions that his peers in Oxford had to one of his novels which they suspected made use of their lives. Truly an eye-opening experience to read autobiographical material refracted in this way.

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I haven’t read these three yet. They are “on deck,” as it were. Eat, Pray, Love needs little introduction, obviously. The Speckled People was highly recommended by a fellow writer and Lying came up in an online search as a prominent example of the experimental memoir.

At this point, it was already clear to me that I was writing a different kind of memoir than any of these examples. I realized that I was in effect writing personal essays without knowing it. I knew very early on that I wanted to eschew responsibility for an overarching narrative of any sort. I wanted to commit myself to specific topics that could be covered discretely in one chapter each. When I read the Graves’ passage regarding the desecration of his time on the battlefield, I thought of my own “war stories” and thought similarly that trying to give them a plot, while not exactly a “desecration,” would feel unnatural and inauthentic. What was feeling natural was to pick separate experiences in my life and devote a chapter to those I felt were strong enough for further elucidation. The time I got stuck on a mountain overnight with a friend. The shock of coming to NYU. The decision to leave the music industry. There were so many other parts of my life that seemed to deserve specific treatment in this way. I naturally started coming upon essay collections as a result.

II.

I took an online course by Alexander Chee called, “How to Write an Essay Collection” and afterwards it became much clearer what kind of book I wanted to write. I read about half of his reading list for the class and, along with the volumes I’d already dug into, I learned what a personal essay really was and what it wasn’t, and knowing this difference demonstrated to me quite clearly that the book I was writing wanted to be an essay collection in the truest sense of what an essay really is. The Leslie Jamison quote at the top of this blog post became true for me as well. My memoir could no longer stand being a memoir and had become a personal essay collection.

During the class, Alexander Chee recounted an irony regarding his own personal essay collection. He said that he found it curious when readers of his book would tell him that they found so much of him in it. “There’s actually not very much of me at all,” he said; and he mentioned this in order to illustrate what a personal essay collection is and what it isn’t. The reason why there’s not that much “of him” in his essay collection, nor, for that matter, why there isn’t much of any author’s life in any of their personal essay collections, is that a personal essay, despite being “personal,” is primarily geared towards externals not internals. “Pity the personal essayist,” the author Sloane Crosley writes in her New York Times review of Jamison’s latest essay collection, Make it Scream, Make it Burn, “fated to play with a reader’s tolerance for that most cursed of vowels. Too many “I”s and you’re self-absorbed; too few and: Where are you in this piece?”

Self-absorption as a liability in writing is understood enough, though, when it comes to autobiographies and memoirs, the liability becomes unavoidable and, if anything, necessary. We read those books exactly for the purpose of the big drop into an author’s psyche, willingly diving down the subjective abyss, basically swimming in “I”s (the best ones allow us to do this gleefully).

Not so in a personal essay, where the restriction on egoistic license holds. And yet: how do we include and implicate ourselves into the topic? without stepping on traps of self-absorption? This is what Chee was talking about when he said that there wasn’t much of him in his essays: not that he didn’t implicate himself in his narrations—he very much did—but that he skillfully observed this precarious balance.

That balance is undertaken quite differently depending on the author (and in my synopses of the collections I’ve read recently I’ll try to speak about how they’ve assigned “percentages of self” into their essays, what the “lean-to-fat" ratio is, for example, when “fat” could be understood as the strictly autobiographical portion of the essay). It can also vary according to the essay. In some cases it’ll be necessary to fully implicate oneself. In others, perhaps only a passing mention of the author’s impression of the events is needed. But there’s an essential aspect to what makes for a great personal essay, irrespective of ratios of personal to objective, that Charle’s D’Ambrosio captures beautifully in the introduction to his own essay collection:

My instinctive and entirely private ambition was to capture the conflicted mind in motion, or, to borrow a phrase from Cioran, to represent failure on the move, so leaving a certain wrongness on the page was OK by me. The inevitable errors and imperfections made the trouble I encountered tactile, bringing the texture of experience into the story in a way that being cautiously right never could.

This is kind of a Copernican revolution to me. I mean, it had never really occurred to me that you could be wrong and that would be a good thing. In writing I had always striven to make sure that I didn’t insult researchers, journalists, experts and scholars by misrepresenting the truth. Yet, here was basically a license to get it all wrong and admit it on the page and have that be a virtue of the writing.

What this tells me is that what remains key in the personal essay is not some authoritative stance, but the very uncertainty of the perspective, and how that might invite opportunities for a much more intimate relational structure with the topic matter on the part of the reader. This isn’t about ingestion (of data, of info, of ideas, etc.) but about contact. I see that as being very similar to the relationship between reader and author in a memoir, this premium on relation. The only difference—and for me, a very consequential one—is that the primary target of a personal essay’s sight is not the self qua self, but some implication with the content of reality on the part of the self. That intersection is what fascinates me more at this time than simple self-narration.

In this way, a personal essay can kind of be like a stop sign, a signal to halt the gyrating (mostly online) world, with its hyperlinks and ads and other pseudo-references. In fact, in his brilliant collection Proxies, Brian Blanchfield takes on this very task and turns the internet off when writing each of his essays in the collections. In order to take solace within the much more subjective account housed within the pages, an account at once open and tentative, based as it is in doubt, and hermetically sealed, shunning the greater world’s insistence on certification and realism, the essay becomes a prismatic utility for investigation, where perspective and subjectivity are king and certainty and objectivity are actually limiting.

The memoir offers something very direct to the reader: the author’s own struggle with, or journey through, some issue or period in life. The author is the chief protagonist in the drama, the star of, say, the cinematic adaptation of the book. The issues swirl around the protagonist but the camera stays trained on him or her. What I started to notice was that my mental gaze was always scudding away from the protagonist (me) and over to what else was in the frame. And so the personal essay as I began to learn about it became a much more appropriate vessel for these concerns, even as I knew that I would need to implicate myself in the action, keep myself in the frame. Striking that balance in a way that is both specific to me and my experiences and yet observant of the proper limits of the genre, so as not to veer away and “regress” back into memoir, has become my chief objective with each of the essays that I’ve been writing.

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These three collections might be my bible for this project. Each are very different in style and application, but each is similar in that joyous experience of reading a paragraph and being so stunned by the insight that one has to turn the face away from the page for a moment (or two) to let it sink in. Baldwin is, of course, the king of this sort of thing. There were times while reading his essays when I actually had to straight up close the book and put it down in order to absorb what was going on. The title essay which is about Harlem, his father, and his early awakening to the depth of his country’s racism, is perfection on both the level of content and form. It does what an essay does best: leave you with the unequivocal residue of human feeling twisting around the grander issues with which that essay is concerned.

Each essay, in all of these volumes, is like a discrete nugget, a piece of writing, contiguous, open and alive, that can be read and reread, like an oracle you visit throughout your life, which, using the same words, speaks to you anew each time.

Ambrosio’s essays are absolutely nimble and virtuosic; his language is muscular and sinewy; his sentences are lean and long and you can ride them effortlessly and when you finish them and their paragraphs, you are left with an image of a truth that was planted in your sight without you knowing. It’s an exhilarating experience.

Blanchfield’s essays are a revelation of subjectivity. This volume was part of Chee’s reading list and I can’t express enough gratitude for having been directed to it. Perhaps Blanchfield is the master of nesting the autobiography within the confines of an essay. When he toggles between the external and the internal, you don’t notice it. It’s effortless. His ability to tell a giant story in one paragraph is inspiring. The tone and delivery is somewhat sacral, he’s a poet, after all. But it is also delicate, graceful, poised and elegant. And deeply personal. How someone can title an essay “On Frottage” and turn the reader’s attention to the true significance of the topic—AIDS and the gay scene in the 80s and 90s—and all of the social significance intertwined in it, along with implicating himself in a nakedly autobiographical way, is beyond me, but I am happy to be in the audience for it.

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What I love about these two collections are their stealth and form. Their stealth comes from how they read, not so much as casually but as without artifice or adornment, and how this aspect lets the reader’s guard down, only to have some extremely penetrating conclusion arrive at the end of each essay, in a manner that the more plainspoken style did not necessarily anticipate. Chee’s prose particularly comes across as either supremely and dryly witty or as modest plainness, but when you finish one of his essays the takeaway is anything but those things; it is profound. Jamison as well. As for their form, they tend to do some adventurous things. One of Jamison’s essays uses a kind of diagram of storytelling which she learned in a writing class to “tell the story” of a traumatic episode involving a horrific episode of violence she experienced in South America. The essay is called “The Morphology of a Hit.” It’s a perfect example of something else that I really love about personal essays which is their ability to take leaps in form when that form enables a type of storytelling that otherwise isn’t possible. Chee does this very thing in a somewhat humorous essay, the titular one of this volume, which is just a long list of life hacks and writing tips. I’m really grateful for the insight that this man has given me into the writing process. My copy of his book is signed, as I first became aware of him at a reading of his with Edmund White at NYU which my good friend invited me to. So I’m very grateful to that friend as well! He also introduced me to Edmund White so it’s a double whammy!

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I would’ve never encountered these collections of my own volition without their inclusion on the reading list in Chee’s course, but I’m very happy that I read these. McCarthy’s essays are quite old, dating to the 50s and 60s, I believe, when they were originally published in The New Yorker. They’re all centered around her childhood years, either living with her grandparents or in an orphanage and they are remarkable portraits of intimacy and observation. The same with Ginzburg’s collection, although she writes in a much more enigmatic style. What inspired me most about her essays was how simultaneously aloof and vulnerable they are: she has a way of, say, writing about England, without ever even mentioning the name of the country, yet contriving a recognizable and incisive portrait of it, all from the vantage point of her own experience of the country during a certain time. Finally, there’s really nothing quite like Wojnarowicz’ book. It’s slightly Beat in tone, sometimes surreal and ecstatic, and then progressively more plainspoken and political. But it is all so very raw and pulsing with the heat of experience and desperation and anger. Wojnarowicz was an incredible artist, a sculptor and photographer and he lived in the East Village of the 80s and reports from the frontlines on the AIDS crisis. His work bears the stamp of a deeply tuned in artist confronting the hypocrisies and injustices of his time.

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I put these three together mostly because these collections are explicitly comedic, although each has its own manner of using humor to communicate a deeper message. Jonathan Ames is well-known as a very funny novelist and the creator of the TV show Bored to Death. His essays are very short and very direct. There’s almost no commentary and he just narrates the events. The approach of leaving room for not knowing is very noticeable in his work, as he often qualifies his observations with humility and openness. The work comes across as very tender as a result. Irby is laugh-out-loud funny. I don’t know how she does it but she has a way of sending herself up and making fun of herself and her limitations that is both funny and painful at the same time. Commercialism, body positivity, and personal achievement are only some of the themes that are explored through that lens of self-effacement. Her ability to put herself under the most lacerating gaze of the authorial microscope and coming out the other end of that examination as a strong individual is unparalleled. I consider this volume must-reading material. In terms of exquisite construction and intelligence I would have to put Sedaris up high on the list, though his work is popular enough and his collections prodigious enough that his reputation for that kind of writing needs no further illustration here.

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Virginia Woolf is popular as an essayist for collections published much earlier than Moments of Being, such as The London Scene. The essays here are actually very raw and unedited and so very sprawling, though obviously of high literary quality. She wrote them down like diary entries and then they were found after her death. They feel similarly to McCarthy’s essays in their naked observations of early childhood and family life. Juxtaposing this collection with DFW’s Consider the Lobster is a bold choice on my part, but it’s for the purpose of elucidating my previous point about that delicate “lean-to-fat” ratio I spoke about earlier in this blog post. Woolf’s posthumous collection is “all fat,” one could say, in that her focus is almost exhaustively on her own life and personal upbringing and subsequent marriage. These essays are basically memoir writing in the guise of the personal essay. DFW’s essays, by way of intense contrast, are almost “all lean,” in the sense that he spends almost no time talking about his personal life. The closest he gets to that is his essay on 9/11 where he goes over the details of where he was when it happened. The rest are what you’d expect from the author: penetrating accounts of the subtleties and hidden motivations of the cultures and people he investigates. He is basically like the most intelligent wartime journalist where his “wars” are the John McCain presidential campaign of 2000, the AVN Awards Ceremony, or the Maine Lobster festival.

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I have yet to read these collections but I’m very much looking forward to them. Hemon’s essays are about his upbringing in the war-plagued Balkans of the Nineties and subsequent emigration to the US. Didion’s basically needs no introduction as its de rigeur for essay writing. I’ve included Benjamin’s because of his critical insight. He’s not writing about his personal life, but his gifts for analysis will be really helpful to be exposed to for anyone undertaking the task of writing a personal essay. I have not included a picture of Susan Sontag’s collection Against Interpretation because it’s on order, but that one is also on deck. As are two other collections not pictured: Mary Oliver’s Upstream and Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark.

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butterfly-winx · 4 years

Photo

One more girl on the lineup! Empress Heir Xiang Galatea of Melody, Fairy of Composing/ Composed Music! Super shiny, super brassy!

Details below!

Galatea was born on Melody during a summer of spoiled harvest, and as it is custom for the emperor’s family to share the perils that hit their people, Galatea and her mother suffered significant undernourishment. This shaped Galatea’s years of early development and led her to appear frail and stick thin. At first the court’s medimagicians even suspected she would be an insufficient conduct for magic and never manifest any skills despite all her ancestry sporting strong magic users, but Galatea proved them wrong with her first fairy transformation, right on schedule on her fifteenth birthday. Using magic stabilised her and got rid of many of her fatigue issues, making her a lot more healthy than she looks to the eye. However this came with the side effect that her small treble clef shaped wings never fully disappear when she detransforms, always circulating some amount of passive magic through her.

“Xiang Galatea” is Galatea’s zí name, the one that is respectable and polite for people to use who don’t know her or are below her in standing. This name would usually be chosen when the person reaches adulthood and is ready to join society, but Galatea belonging to the royal family, she received it rather early so that she could make public appearances. Xiang is her family name that she inherited from her mother (which is a tradition on Melody that makes heritage tracing extremely difficult) meaning “lucky, good omen”. Her míng name that close family calls her by is “Wei Qing”, which derives from “small” and “blue,green” in reference to the light eyes she was born with that darkened over the years to her current brown. Platinum is shockingly also not Galatea’s actual hair colour: she dyes it meticulously, but her transformations make the colour appear natural. She used moving away from home to Alfea as an excuse to change up her look without her parents knowing and went for the choppy pixie cut that has grown to be her staple since.

Arriving at Alfea one year after the Winx made their debut, Galatea was very thankful for being able to enjoy her first year at school without great disruptions (whatever was going on in the Dungeons with a whole dimensional portal was not her problem, bless her soul). From a young age Galatea has been extremely dutiful, doing exactly as her grandfather wished or her country demanded of her, but this attitude slackened a little bit once had her own taste of the wider world. She knew she had to be thankful for the social position awarded to her by birth, for the continued faith of the people of Melody in the Emperor’s institute of power, but she couldn’t help but wonder. Did it even make sense to uphold the Empire? Wasn’t the court on its own enough? She just wanted more perspective, a little bit more from life, which probably sounded incredibly ignorant of her privilege as part of the heritage line of one of the world’s oldest dynasties. If her grandfather and father enjoyed a long life, then Galatea herself would have decades to enjoy life and build a family before she even had to consider ascending to the throne to rule. She had conversations with her father however, who suggested withdrawing from his position thinking it would be much better for Galatea to become Empress sooner so that the country could have a younger person at its head... That wasn’t exactly the kind of monarchy abolition Galatea had been hoping for.

Galatea was in general also tired of being followed around and supervised at all times, which probably influenced her change of spirit. There was painfully little however which she could have expressed her dissent with, aside the little promise she made her grandfather about connecting their countrymen abroad. She kept in touch with the other students at Alfea who also hailed from Melody as advised, but she didn’t really develop a friendship with either of them aside from Musa. Musa in her own way was already hardened from knowing two (and a half) princesses, so her attitude towards Galatea was completely different from the other Melodian kids. They were much too stiff when conversing with her and tried to mimic a proper Melodian high court accent that were just a little bit on the side of mocking putting Galatea off wanting to talk to them. So she didn’t and lied trough her teeth about tea ceremonies they supposedly held together, praying no babysitter to be sent after her.

Her second year hit like a sledgehammer to a wall with Valtor and the Trix causing upheaval all across the Magic Universe. Melody escaped their scrutiny for much longer than their neighbouring countries on the planet, but eventually Tian Qi Feng, the guardian fairy of Melody paid her and Musa a grim visit and cautioned them against returning home until the unrest has been settled. Worried about their families the two girls bonded comforting each other with a little piece of home, making music and cooking. To take her mind off the stress, Galatea threw herself into another kind of stressor with high expectations attached: her studies. She spent hours after class in the library, switching meaningful personal contacts for written text.

She was just in a wrong place at the wrong time when the Trix sneaked in and took her hostage and forced her to hand out Alfea’s secret spell collection. The witches first tried their luck with the librarian who got knocked out by the force of Stormy’s attack before moving on to Galatea and torturing her by freezing off her wings. Absolutely and helpless in shock, all she could do was send a distress signal to Musa, deeply ashamed by her lack of skill facing the witches. The Winx swooped in not a second too late and chased the Trix off, but not before Darcy set off a cursed fire in the library that not even Bloom’s fire control spells could tame. The others carried the unconscious librarian off while Musa and Galatea stayed behind, the latter feeling responsible for the situation and the books that have given her so much comfort over the last few weeks. Loosing information was the biggest curse that could strike a society and Galatea didn’t want to let so many important books perish because of her mistake. It took Musa a minute to tear her away from her futile attempt and lead her towards the exit that had since been blocked by a fallen over bookshelf. Galatea pointed out that Musa could easily fly over the obstacle, but Musa objected that her Charmix wings wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of them both. It would be a strain on a clear day, but amidst all the fire and exhaustion from the smoke they didn’t stand a chance. Dutifully, Galatea told Musa to leave her behind, but Musa refused to trying to figure out a way for both of them to get out alive. Her stubborn dedication made Musa earn her Enchantix. Subduing the cursed flames with her fairydust, Musa led them out with Galatea clutching the precious book in one hand and Musa’s hand in her other.

Outside Faragonda, teachers, other students have rushed to the burning library. Enchanti were instructed to use their dust to dampen the flames and Faragonda then used her powers to restore the books to their previous form, not a char mark left behind. Musa immediately returned to Galatea’s side once that had been dealt with and used her fairy dust one last time to give Galatea her passive wings back, ending the hour long anxiety attack Galatea didn’t even notice she was having. The two of them had a long conversation after that about low self esteem and feeling like the only worth one could earn was from how useful one was to other people. Galatea beat her insecurities about not being allowed to trust people and opened up to Musa admitting that she did want things from life, just for her own sake and Musa gently encouraged her to take that lep of faith next time a choice presented itself to her. In doing so, Galatea earned her Charmix.

Despite not much harm coming to her beloved books or herself, Galatea had been deeply shaken by the incident and developed a fear of the Trix, remaining apprehensive every time they were mentioned. During the Crisis of the Seas she stayed reserved in her grandfather’s shadow, right until the Trix started joining the mix. From there on she campaigned on behalf of Andros getting the help they needed and her words moved the Melodian court to mobilise troops for the final showdown.

(In the time between the two eventd, she did earn her Enchantix and graduated Alfea with stellar results in the same year group as Mirta did. Similarly to Mirta, she had been swept up in the consequences of magic returning to Earth and the unrest it caused across the Galaxy as well. Unhappy masses protesting the data collection regulations placed on witchers (lest they collaborate with the Black Circle from Earth, who were known terrorists, was the reason given) derailed a train she had been travelling on. Even though her magic aspect lay in something completely else, she tried to protect everyone in the carriage from the crash - and unlocking her Enchantix she did manage to do so!)

In the S6 timeline she shows up likewise late in the story arc, but at a crucial point to offer help to the Winx after they have been beaten back by the Trix despite having gotten rid of the Legendarium. Despite their partial victory, the girls were once again without weapons as their Mythix spells didn’t pack a punch against the physical attacks of the Trix. So Galatea temporarily gifted her vial of fairydust to Musa to use as a last resort. Ever since the library incident the two women have been tied together by a life debt Galatea owed to Musa, which now has been resolved. Galatea herself joined the Red Fountain and Company of Light forces sent to liberate Alfea and detain the Trix.

Having powers over Composing makes Galatea able to give other people inspiration and see harmonies, not just in music but in philosophy and life as well. She knows a lot about composed music as well - written songs, not passed by oral tradition - and can recite many to the great pleasure of her diplomacy skills teachers. It certainly helps if she can demonstrate knowledge on her conversation partner’s culture. Having an abstract power source Galatea is far from being a fighter and she absolutely prefers it so. Her very first battle (if you can call it that) showed her that she did not have the nerves of steel needed to handle such a dangerous situation with the acuity and quick-wit needed. She knows she is a weak conduct and has to take good care of her body and can’t afford to express large quantities of magic without fearing the rebound consequences. It took her a while to come to terms with it, but Galatea now knows where her strengths lie, and that is in politics: as her father’s and grandfather’s successor leading Melody.

Galatea is very underappreciated because she stays away from the action so much, but I took the chance to make it a part of her character. Just because people are capable of magic doesn’t mean they have to work towards becoming the heaviest hitting canons in the universe. Galatea as a casual magic user has her own place in my heart and in my story!

#winx club #winx galatea #galatea enchantix #locally sourced art #I had better writing seshes I'm not gonna lie #technically worldbuilding #also tumblr blue here to screw with my colours again

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ericsonclan · 3 years

Text

The Gentle Warmth of Friendship

Summary: Brody and Violet journey with their Pokemon when suddenly they meet someone new.

Word Count: 3353

Read on AO3:

“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Brody asked as she struggled to balance the PokeNav in her hand while gently holding Cleffa. Ralts walked beside her, calm and collected as it followed its trainer.

“Clef?” The small pokemon looked up at its trainer’s face and saw the worry in her eyes. Brody’s brows furrowed as she studied the map. Prescott shouldn’t be far away from the route they were on.

“I don’t know. Aasim said to stay on route 116 and keep walking until we see a road marker that points towards Prescott,” Violet shuffled the pack on her back. Part of her wanted to take a break for the day and set up camp. But another, bigger part of her wanted to continue on. If the two of them walked on and didn’t stop, they could reach the town by nightfall.

“Okay, well I’m sure we’ll be able to find it,” Brody jogged forward and caught up with her friend. The auburn gave a friendly smile to Violet who offered a small one in return. Cubone walked alongside Violet and kept one hand on its weapon and another on her pant leg. The pokemon had always been extremely attached to Violet ever since the day she had found it after its mother’s passing.

Violet looked down with a smile. “You let me know if you get tired, Cubone, and we can stop,”

The words made Cubone look up with big eyes. “Cu? Cubone!” it cried happily and its grip on Violet’s pant leg tightened. Violet shook her head good-naturedly then turned her sights up ahead. Cubone had a tendency to push itself too hard but that only made things worse for the pokemon. With how tired it got it sometimes couldn’t keep up with Violet. At that point Cubone would start to cry from loneliness, causing a sad melody to vibrate throughout the skull it wore on its head, making it shake.

“Veno!”

The sudden call made Brody and Violet stop to see that Venonat had gotten distracted by rock collecting. The bug type pokemon pitter pattered over and stopped in front of Violet. Its large red eyes looked into hers as it held up the item. “Venonat!”

“For me?” Violet knelt down and gave a soft smile as her pokemon handed over the item before she tucked it away. “Thanks.”

“Nat! Nat!” The pokemon exclaimed happily and did a small dance before it gave Violet a look. Instantly the trainer knew what it wanted and carefully picked up her pokemon. Soon the two trainers were off on the route once more.

“Doesn’t carrying all those rocks become tiring?” Brody looked over at Violet who glanced over her way. Violet moved a bit closer to Brody and brought her voice down to a whisper.

“I don’t keep all of them. My pack gets too fucking heavy so when Venonat is napping I usually place them to the side or give them to some wild pokemon I see if they’re friendly.” Violet’s explanation made Brody chuckle softly. The reaction made Violet frown. “It's not funny.”

“Sorry, no, it's just that's really sweet. You really do love your pokemon, Vi.” Brody smiled softly and Violet looked away.

“Yeah, of course. I’d be a pretty shitty trainer if I didn’t think about my pokemon.”

“Speaking of trainers, I can’t wait to see the others in Prescott,” Brody’s eyes shone with joy and her Ralts moved closer towards her, drawn in by her positive emotions.

“Me too. I bet you’re really excited to see one trainer in particular,” Violet teased her friend who nudged her arm.

“Hey! I’m gonna be happy to see the others too! I haven’t seen Ruby in ages and Minnie will definitely want to challenge me to a pokemon battle when we arrive.” As Brody spoke Cleffa held onto her finger, snuggling it contentedly. “But yeah, I can’t wait to see Mitch either and watch that confident smirk turn dorky as soon as he sees me.”

“Not like your face is any better. You two short circuit around each other.” Violet’s words made Brody grow embarrassed.

“Well, it's not like you and Prisha are any better. You told me you dropped your PokeNav into the curry the last time you two camped together because she surprised you with a hug from behind!” Brody was now the one with the smug, teasing expression on her face while Violet felt overwhelmed.

“Whatever, the Pokenav still worked and besides, it's not as embarrassing as that berry incident,” Violet’s smile returned when she saw that Brody clearly remembered that day.

“Well played, Vi. Anyways, I heard that Prescott has quite the gym leader.” Brody shifted their conversation before rummaging around in her pockets. She offered some berries and other treats to Violet. Violet gave a small thanks before handing some of the treats to her pokemon before munching on a berry herself.

“Yeah, I heard the gym there is tough. The Fairy gym leader is known to kick anyone’s ass that challenges him,”

Brody nodded and was about to add to that when suddenly a patch of grass to her right rustled wildly. Both trainers stopped in their tracks and carefully studied the grass. Violet instinctively moved forward in front of Brody and prepared to defend her friend if need be.

The grass continued to move until suddenly a purple blob pokemon wiggled forward. Its beady little eyes looked at Brody then Violet before it smiled. “Ditto!” It cried happily then noticed Venonat staring at it from the safety of Violet’s arms. WIthout warning the Ditto began to transform and became an exact replica of the bug type pokemon.

“Veno?” Violet’s Venonat looked somewhat scared but squirmed out of Violet’s arms. Cautiously it moved forward and examined the Ditto who now looked exactly like it. Venonat did a few different motions with its claws and they were mirrored with ease. “Nat! Nat!” The pokemon screeched and waddled back frantically, clutching onto Violet’s leg desperately.

“Ditto?” Ditto looked confused as to why that had scared its potential new friend. The Ditto morphed back into its original form and was about to imitate another pokemon to see if it could become friends with it when all of sudden a soft voice called out to it.

“Ditto! There you are!” A trainer ran forward, his dark hair getting in the way of his eyes as he scooped up the Ditto. “I thought I told you, no running off and bugging other trainers,” The trainer scolded his pokemon before looking over at Violet and Brody. “Sorry about my Ditto.”

“It's fine,” Violet mumbled and picked up her Venonat.

“Yeah, your Ditto was just trying to make friends, right?” Brody smiled over at the trainer who nodded slowly.

“Ditto always tries to make new friends, thinks that it will help with my social anxiety,” the trainer explained, gesturing with his hands a lot and causing Ditto to nearly slip out of his arms.

“Well, there was no harm done. I’m Brody and this is Violet,” The auburn trainer gestured to herself then to Violet who gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

“It's nice to meet you. My name is James,” The trainer’s soft voice grew a bit quieter. It had been a while since he had run into trainers that weren’t mad that his Pokemon had bugged them. “Well, I should get-”

“Riolu!” A pokemon cried out protectively and ran forward. Its little paws whacked against the ground before the blue pokemon slid in front of James. Its red eyes dared Brody and Violet to even try to take a step forward.

“Riolu! No!” James placed down Ditto and reached out to stop his Riolu from starting a fight like it usually did. “These are nice trainers. What did I say about fighting?”

“Ri!” The pokemon huffed as it looked back at its trainer. James picked it up, now holding both his pokemon in his arms. Riolu’s eyes soon snapped over at the group once more. Quickly it sensed the auras surrounding the two trainers and their pokemon. Brody had a calm, comforting aura and her Cleffa and Ralts seemed to have a similar aura radiating off of them as well. Riolu looked over and noticed the spooked aurora around Venonat and felt the lonely aura around Cubone although it seemed to be tamer than other Cubones and an undertone of happiness danced within its aura. Lastly Riolu looked over at Violet and noticed her quiet, subtle aura. There was no malice or anger amongst them. The pokemon glanced back at its trainer. Now that Riolu thought about it, James’ aura was unusually calm too. “Ri, Ri,” Riolu grumbled and settled down.

“Thank you,” James hugged his pokemon softly. “Sorry about Riolu. He tends to get overprotective of me,”

“That's okay, just shows that you have a good bond with your pokemon,” Violet’s words made James’ eyes grow large. They had clearly meant a lot to him. He was about to thank her for them but a laugh made all three trainers pause. They looked over to see two grunts strolling forward. Both of them had a menacing aura to them and the look in their eyes made it clear they were looking for trouble.

“Look, Joey, we found some cool pokemon for the boss!” The grunt on the left smiled smugly at his friend.

“Yeah, I bet the boss is gonna give us a promotion. Maybe we can even get to choose one of the next Pokemon in the ring!” Joey’s eyes shone with a twisted joy.

“I don’t know who you are but we don’t want trouble,” Brody spoke up and drew the two grunts’ attention.

“Well, we do and we want your pokemon too!” Joey strode forward but Violet stood in front of the group alongside James’ Riolu who had wiggled out of its trainer’s arms.

“Get your own Pokemon and leave us the hell alone!” Violet growled at the grunts, her eyes burning with warning.

The two grunts shared a look and began to laugh.

“Who’s gonna stop us? Your little bug? Listen, just give us the Cubone, Riolu, Ditto and Ralts and we’ll let you keep your shitty pokemon.” There was cocky confidence in the grunt’s orders. Those words caused three different reactions from the trainers. Violet gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists while James slowly strode forward, his eyes shimmering coldly. Brody gathered Ditto, Ralts, and Venonat together who Violet had told to go back to her.

“You would try to tear apart pokemon from their trainers? I won’t let you do that.” James’ calm aura had shifted and he was ready to fight if need be.

Heh, you don’t have a choice! We’re taking them by force! Ready, Justin?” Joey smiled over to his friend as he took out his pokeball.

“I’m always ready! We’re gonna show these dumbasses the might of Team Delta!” Justin unclipped his pokeball from his hip and tossed it in the air. The ball flew high before a light hummed from inside it and a pokemon emerged. A Machoke landed on the ground and shook its fist as it looked over at Violet and James. Its left eye was missing and scars littered its body. The sight pained James’ heart. What had happened to this pokemon? Had its trainer done this? Before James could ponder further Joey threw his pokeball and a Skarmory appeared in front of them. It gave a high pitched cry causing Brody, Violet and James to cover their ears. Its metal wings were damaged and its beak was bent. Violet clenched both of her fists. These two didn’t give a shit about any pokemon, even their own.

“Violet, would you help me in this battle?” James looked over with determination. Clearly he was just as upset by the sight before him as Violet was.

“Yeah.” Violet nodded and knelt down in front of her Cubone. “I’m going to need your help.” “Cubone!” The pokemon cried to hype itself up and waved around the bone weapon it wielded.

“Riolu, are you ready?” James asked his pokemon companion who got into a fighting stance.

“Riolu!” The pokemon declared proudly and glared at the Delta grunts.

“Okay then. We challenge you to a pokemon battle!” James yelled as he stood beside Violet.

“Bring it, losers!” Justin laughed then gave the first command. “Machoke, use low kick!”

“Choke!” Machoke roared and charged forward. It used its left leg to stabilize itself before sending a devastating low kick directly at Riolu’s face. Riolu lifted its arms to block the attack and soften the blow as it skidded backwards. Dust and dirt flew through the air; the battle had begun.

“Cubone, use headbutt!” Violet instructed and her pokemon charged forward with its head turned downwards towards Machoke.

“Cu!” the pokemon cried and landed a direct hit but it didn’t seem to do much damage.

“Skarmory, use wing attack!” Joey snapped and the pokemon immediately obeyed. Its sharp wings shone in the light and it flew forward, spinning wildly before its wings slashed out at Cubone. Cubone whimpered in pain and stumbled back. It was a super effective move.

“Cubone!” Violet glared at Joey with fiery hatred in her eyes. “You piece of shit!” Her anger only made Joey’s twisted smile grow. Violet’s jaw tightened; she wouldn’t give up so easily. “Cubone, use headbutt!”

Cubone listened and charged forward, ramming into the Skarmory.

“Heh, you’re so fucking stup-’

“Now! Use Bone rush!” Violet’s words made Joey freeze as Cubone used its bone and harshly hit Skarmory again and again. Skarmory cried out and tried to get away but the Cubone was too close and unusually fast.

“Justin! Help!” Joey yelled but his friend ignored him. He was too busy having fun using Machoke to low kick Riolu again and again.

“I don’t have time for your whiny shit, Joey! I’m busy beating the shit out of this twerp!” His words made James shake with anger.

“Riolu, use quick attack to dodge the next blow!” James cried and Riolu gave a nod. As soon as Machoke tried to use another low kick Riolu used quick attack, zooming underneath the outstretched leg.

“Machoke?” Machoke spun around this way and that to find its opponent.

“Now, use metal claw!” James’ voice rang out and danced around the battlefield as Riolu appeared through its makeshift shield of dust. Its claws shone as it tore at Machoke. Machoke gave a pained sound and tried to retaliate but Riolu slipped into the dusty wind once more. James continued on like this, commanding Riolu to use quick attacks to dodge Machoke’s onslaught before sending in a metal claw attack of its own. Slowly but surely Riolu was chipping away at Machoke’s health until James called out for the finishing blow. “Riolu, use force palm!”

“Ri, Ri!” Riolu dashed forward and appeared in front of Machoke. Getting on its left leg Riolu lifted up its right one slightly and got into a fighting stance. Moving both of its paws back it charged up a devastating attack and sent its right paw forward, crashing into Machoke’s chest.

“Choke?” Machoke stumbled back, frightened that it had lost. It tried to reach out to Justin but folded over and collapsed on the ground.

Justin tsked angrily and held out the pokeball to retrieve the pokemon. “Fucking useless! I’ll just have to steal a better pokemon,” Justin tossed aside the pokeball into a pile of mud nearby then looked over to see how Joey was faring.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!” Joey yelled. “Skarmory! Use fly now!”

Skarmory tried its best to get away as fast as possible but it turned out to be fruitless.

“Cubone, use bonemerang!” Violet’s words made the Delta grunt’s eyes shake with realization.

“Cu, cu!” Cubone lifted up its arm and with a mighty toss threw its bone through the air. The attack connected and hit the Skarmory in mid flight. The pokemon gave another high pitched cry which made Violet and James cover their ears once more before Skarmory fell from the sky. Joey didn’t seem worried at all. In fact, it looked like he was going to let it fall to the ground. Violet and James ran forward at the same time to catch the pokemon, sliding across the ground to save it just in time. They had been able to stop the Skarmory from getting severely harmed even though it would definitely cost them a few bruises over the coming days.

“Argh!” Joey reluctantly held out his pokeball to retrieve Skarmory before he noticed that Justin had discarded his pokemon. Joey thought for a moment and followed suit, tossing aside his pokeball like it was nothing.

“How dare you!” Brody ran forward and carefully fished the two pokeballs out of the mud.

“You two are just selfish assholes!” Violet spat with venom and strode forward with James.

In that moment all of Justin and Joey’s bravery seemed to disappear and they frantically pushed each other out of the way as they tried to escape. They were fighting each other so much that a small pouch slipped out of Justin’s pocket without him even realizing it. “Team Delta won’t forget about this!” Justin yelled angrily then turned and disappeared down the road with Joey.

The three trainers were quiet for a few moments before Violet and James turned their attention to their Pokemon. Violet carefully checked Cubone’s injuries and took out a potion spray. Gently she began to spray the wounds and used some bandages to make sure no infection got into the injuries before they reached Prescott and could visit a PokeCenter. James frantically checked Riolu for injuries before tenderly holding the Pokemon in his arms.

“Thank you, for helping me fight them off,” James smiled softly at Violet.

Violet picked up Cubone who clutched onto her shirt. The blonde trainer looked over at James then glanced away. “It was no big deal. Someone had to stop those assholes,” Violet offered a small smile towards James then turned towards Brody who was sadly looking at the pokeballs which held the discarded Pokemon. “We should see if Prescott has a Pokemon sanctuary.”

Brody glanced up at Violet’s words and nodded. “I don’t know who would abandon their Pokemon like this.”

“Heartless people, that's who. I’ve seen it before,” Violet walked forward and stopped beside Brody. “They’ll be okay.”

That made a gentle smile appear on Brody’s lips. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Thanks for watching out for Venonat too,” Violet offered a small smile her friend’s way.

“No problem.” Brody’s lips held the same smile until an idea crossed her mind. “Oh, James, would you like to journey with us to Prescott? It could be safer to have others with you in case Team Delta shows up again. Plus, it's always more fun to travel with company,”

James’ eyes grew large at Brody’s offer. He studied her eyes for a moment and saw she was truly genuine. Glancing over, he noticed Violet gave a small nod in agreement and that she was being genuine too. “Alright, I haven’t traveled with others in a while so I may not be the best company,” James readjusted his pack then hurried forward with Ditto and Riolu.

“That's okay. I tend to do the most talking anyway since Violet can get lost in her thoughts and be kinda standoffish, especially with new people. But practice makes perfect so speak up whenever you feel comfortable,” Brody smiled over at James before looking at Violet who was frowning slightly at Brody’s description of her and quickly glanced away.

James was silent, processing the kindness he had been offered while watching as Brody reassured Violet who shrugged her off but seemed to not have taken offense. It was clear these two were close friends and maybe, just maybe they could be his friends too. James looked at the road ahead. It could be wishful thinking but he wanted to believe otherwise. These two definitely made him want to believe.

#twdg #twdg brody #twdg violet #twdg james #twdg moody #twdg privet #brody violet brotp #violet james brotp #fanfic #i want to be the very best au

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