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ampleappleamble · 3 years

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— His voice echoed in her mind still. The entrance to the catacombs was exactly where the apparition in the burnt temple had said it would be– tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of Copperlane, unguarded and easily accessible to those who knew what they were looking for. But as she stood before the humble stone archway, steeling herself for the ordeal to come, Axa had suddenly found herself swept away from the here and now into a memory from another time, another life– –It was her turn, at last. He smiled at her approach, warm and fatherly. "You are from Creitum, my dear?" "I am, Your Eminence." She smiled back, bashful and slightly starstruck. This was an honor, she reminded herself, an immense honor for such worthless caitiff as herself. "I was born and raised in Creitum." His smile broadened–

Axa had never heard of any city called Creitum, but she had heard the name, had heard him ask her that same question before. In dreams, in memories hidden deep within her soul. "Axa? Y' okay?" She felt Edér's hands gripping her shoulders as the vision faded away, ready to prop her up should she need him to. She had wavered, but she had not fallen. Her little hand found his, squeezed it gently as she smiled up into the bearded man's face. "Yes, Edér, I'll be... I'm fine. Thank you. Let's just get this over with–" –"A fine city, one of the very finest we have encountered outside of our own. Creitum has produced many strong, principled women and men who have heard the call of the gods and answered that call with reverence and devotion, determined to spread the truth of Their word." He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, his smile as warm and nurturing as the sun, and she felt her heart swell with respect and adoration for him, for the gods who had lead her here. "And how did it come to pass that you should hear Their call, my child?" She had hoped, before, that he might not ask about her previous life, pathetic and meaningless as it had been. But now beneath his benevolent gaze, her answer came easily– The vision replayed itself over and over in her mind, even as she knelt before the dead man just beyond the bottom of the entrance stairs. The essence still clinging to his rapidly cooling body had revealed to Axa that, for better or for worse, they'd come to the right place to find the Leaden Key. Axa heard Itumaak growl behind her, heard Edér and Pallegina draw their weapons and Kana start chanting. She whipped around just in time to see the troll lumbering out of the shadows at them, flanked by black oozes that undulated grotesquely in the torchlight. There was no turning back now– –"I suffered through... troubled times in my youth, Your Eminence. Dark times." She was surprised at how easy it was to admit now, how the shame and sorrow that had seemed heavy enough to crush her before now slipped from her shoulders like an old shawl as she spoke. "I was lost, adrift in a meaningless world without light, without hope. Nothing made sense. But that all changed when your order brought the word of the true gods to us." He nodded sagely, his grip briefly tightening on her shoulder– "Gee back, ye clods! These hooded fiends is nae t' be trusted!" Aloth's hand shot out to grab her by the shoulder, but Axa spun on him instead, eyes wide with alarm, surprising him just enough to allow him to regain control. Strong hands seized him then, shook him roughly as he coughed and stumbled. "Postenago, what are you doing? You will give away our position!" Pallegina's golden eyes narrowed to slits in her anger, baring her teeth as she hissed at the trembling elf. He opened his mouth to stammer an apology, an excuse, anything to get the Godlike to ease off, but Axa beat him to it. "It's alright, Pallegina, he didn't do it on purpose. He can't–" She glanced at Aloth's face, winced, continued– "he can't help it." To her surprise, he didn't look betrayed or even angry with her for spilling his secret. He simply lowered his gaze to his feet, apologized again, hugged his cloak tightly around himself as Kana gently ushered him off to the side of the damp, earthy passageway to sit and collect himself. "Forgive me, I... I don't know what came over me." He smoothed his hair back with shaking hands, eyes rimmed red and watery. "But... when we're finished here, I–" "When we're finished here," Sagani snapped, "you're going to have some explaining to do, I wager." The little huntress regarded him with that mix of righteous anger and genuine concern that only a parent could truly master, hands planted squarely on her hips. "Until then: Watcher, you've a job to do. And by the sounds of it, you've not much time to do it in." She thrust her chin at the door at the end of the corridor, voices behind it rising to a crescendo before coming to an abrupt halt. Axa nodded, pulled on the itchy, stifling hood and mask– –"I see. Indeed, very little makes sense taken in the context of the falsehoods under which so many innocent lives have labored for so long. Too long." His kind, gentle smile had been warped by pity into a rictus grave and sorrowful, and she feared for a moment that her words might have actually caused him pain, somehow. But the smile slowly returned as he continued speaking, like storm clouds breaking and drifting apart to once again reveal the beauty and power of the sun. "It is by the mercy of the gods alone– praise be to Them!– that we have been permitted to bear the torch of Their divine truth to these distant shores, to enlighten so many of the lost and heathen in these chaotic times." His hand tightened on her shoulder again, and the tears she had not even known were there spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks. He brushed them away with the back of one finger, showing her such compassion as she had never known in her old life. "Are you ready, initiate? Are you ready to take the oath, to devote yourself body, mind, and soul to spreading the word of the gods? To bring to the ignorant the light of the truth?" She found the courage to look into his eyes at last, and in them she saw salvation. Finally, she was saved. And in turn, she would help the order to save them all. "I am–" "State your name and purpose." Axa was not able to tell if the masked woman was speaking to her with her voice or with her mind alone. But neither had she the luxury of dwelling on such minutiae. "My name belongs to the gods, and my hand to their service." She had never been a particularly devout woman, but somehow the words felt familiar as they left her mouth. As though she had not learned them mere moments ago from some fidgeting neophyte, but had always known them, deep in her soul. "What company do you seek?" A vision of her friends outside flashed before her mind, the five of them huddled together in the little hallway, nervously awaiting her return. She pushed the thought away as quickly as her wits would allow. "I seek the company of shadows, that our labors may remain secret." Secrets and shadows seemed to dominate her life ever since coming to the Dyrwood, that much was certain. Ever since that night, the bîaŵac, the machine– "Tell me of your labors." She had yet to fully recover from the day's efforts, her body still aching from physical exertion, her nerves raw. All the problems in the city– was it all the work of these people? How could that be so? "To see that the craft of kith and wilder does not disturb what bones the gods have buried." For all that the robed man in her past life had spoken of bringing the "truth of the gods" to the people, this cult seemed awfully keen on obfuscation. Burying secrets, hiding in the shadows, locking it all away– "How do we know your purpose?" And they demanded knowledge while offering none themselves? Threatened with death those who opposed their hidden will? She thought of Kana, pursued across two continents as he quested for the truth of his homeland's history. To what end...? "You shall know it by the confession of my tongue, the deeds of my hand, and the oath on my soul." Sins kept secret. Atrocities committed against the innocent. Promises broken and falsehoods unchallenged. Axa's heart pounded in her chest. These people were very dangerous. But a choice between provoking their wrath by opposing their will and allowing them to continue their nefarious operation unabated was no choice at all. "And how is your oath guarded?" She looked into the acolyte's masked face, and saw an emotionless, inscrutable void. Whoever these people were, whoever guided them from the shadows, she would not let them subdue her, or Kana, or anyone who sought the light of the truth, ever again. She swore it. "It is sealed by the Leaden Key." —

#pillars of eternity #poe anthem infinitum #tumblo ate this fucking post twice #and i had to jump through some FUCKING HOOPS to get it on my desktop #fix your shit tamblo.#anyway plz enjoy chapter 10 is almost done~#fic wip

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adulttrio-imagines · 4 years

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Yandere!Illumi x Reader Pt 2

Part 1 here

A/N: Standard Illumi warnings and more apply here.

Prompt: “I would give up everything for the chance to see your laugh again.”

It is difficult to recount the weeks that happened after the incident. As if the switch in your brain was flipped off, and the single light bulb illuminating the empty crevices of your mind was unscrewed and tossed out. You remember floating in and out of an endless sea of fog, drifting aimlessly as you wandered around the shattered remnants of your brain, slowly piecing whatever fragments you could scavenge from the brief moments the fog would clear.

It should be scary. You remember thinking, as you stared blankly into your hands, numbly repeating the simple motion of opening and closing them, counting each broken finger that curled into the palm of your hand, the bloodied crescent moons they leave on your skin greeting you when you forget and apply too much force.

But it isn’t.

Some days you forcefully push the fog clouding your mind away, and you awaken chained to the bottom of the ocean, anchored and weighed down as you push yourself through the freezing depths, dumbly dragging your feet through coarse sand and shards of glass as everything gathers around you in shapeless masses, their slurred voices reaching you in meaningless bubbles.

You kiss the high ridges of your knuckles, falling back into the fog, and the taste of iron that never comes from the warmth that fills your mouth feels alien.

This body can’t be yours it can’t it can’t- On the days where your captor was home, Illumi would sit you in front of the single gilded mirror in the shared room, humming the same empty tune on repeat as your mind slowly flipped itself inside out and melted whatever remnants of intelligent thought you had left. Some days you would look into the mirror too, and the gaunt hollowed out face that stares back at you is not yours so you settle for staring at the corner of the dressing table and count the number of grains on the wood instead before you mind snaps in two again and Illumi cracks your bones for misbehaving

Nimble fingers that resembled pale spiders deftly braid the long sheets of hair you once so prized into simple braids as he plainly recounts his day to you; it’s his imitation of normalcy and version of an extended olive branch. You know better than to do anything but placidly agree to his statements and nod your approval of his actions as he describes to you in detail the way the human neck bends before it snap, or the angle one slashes another’s chest to minimize spilled blood.

Now days, you just slip into the corners of your mind when the violence overwhelms and you need to numb yourself from everything. The ocean does plenty to tune him out, and it’s easier to interact with the formless blobs that croon contained poison.

It’s not that he loves his brutality, but that Illumi is violence personified, as if inhumanity itself had its essence filtered into a form capable of striking others with such ruthless acts, from the way he so callously strikes out at you for no reason or to the casual manner he stated his gory deeds as if he were just describing the weather.

He reminds you of your old dance instructor, you think, as Illumi snakes his arms up your dress. He too too seemed to struggle acting human, with his rigid movements and mechanical mannerisms, although the void that was Illumi somehow decided to thrown all pretenses out of the window and revel in his emptiness instead.

You don’t flinch, even when he slowly trails the inside of your neck with kisses, you barely breathe when he tilts your face up and forces you to look into his horribly empty eyes twisted into such unconcealed malice, and you never pull back when he forces his mouth against yours, stealing every single life-giving breath away from your lungs as his hands trace the name he forceful carved into your chest.

It’s faster, quicker and less painful letting him do as he pleases, easier to let it all go than to fight and find yourself strangled and thrown around like a rag doll.

Your body moves on its own, pressing yourself against him as you link your fingers behind his neck, and murmur sweet praises into his kisses.

It’s not difficult, you think, cording your fingers through his hair (you’re careful not to pull them too hard, the slap you received from him last time still rattled your jaw when you chewed). A healthy dose of practice, consistency and fear did wonders to remove every bit of resistance from the human psyche, as you have so learned.

While your tongue twists to form unfamiliar words of comfort, you release the reigns of consciousness and drifted back down into the fog, letting it envelop your being and shelter you from the horrors above.

It’s better than being fully aware and spending one more fucking second with that monster

.....

The fog lifts itself in fractions.

It’s a snowy afternoon, and you’re performing your ballet stretches for Illumi’s amusement. He hasn’t out rightly demanded a performance since the incident, but your basic forms placate his unspoken wishes.

You close your eyes, breathe, and fall back into the shades of grey.

You’re both in the sun room, his hands trailing the blades of your shoulders as he continues to hum the same eight notes on repeat. It’s impossible to stop your eyes from watering as the familiar tune from your childhood floods the empty room, and you let the fog cover your last thoughts right as the first warning bells before his imminent punishment sound.

It’s night time, and the branches are dangerously close to snapping from the weight of snow piles upon them. He’s towering over you, nails digging into your wrist as he pins you to the bed, roughly nipping at your collarbones and pressing his naked form against yours. You became all too aware of the force behind his touch, and the clamminess from his skin as he pushes himself into you. Everything ignites in flames and it’s just unbearably hot, and nothing about this feels right, so you squirm and writhe desperately for any escape from him.

Illumi simply backhands you across the face as a response, dead eyes blinking down at your exposed body, paying no heed to your continuous struggles. He simply adjusts himself, forcing his weight into holding you down as he carves words of his ownership over you into the flat of your abdomen with sharpened nails, humming the same tune on repeat.

Your screams sound especially empty as you drown yourself back into dark murky waters for what felt like a seamless eternity.

In those times, the faintest whispers of the past get dredged up by the waves, intermingling with your present day horrors, and you see flashes of a monstrous beast emerging from the depths of your mind, relentlessly hunting for whatever semblance of sustenance it could find, and this time, not even the fog in your head could save you from it when it finally wore you down and swallowed you whole.

The next time you emerged from the fog, your head is pressed hard against the marble floor of an unfamiliar room.

You force your eyes forward, and see Illumi kneeling before a man with the frame of a giant and eyes of a lion, who’s mouth is twisted into a snarl that spits words of venom capable of melting flesh to the bone. You can’t hear anything he’s saying from all the cotton in your head, but each muted syllable feels like a punch to the gut.

You blink.

A ringing slap sounds, and like a broken marionette Illumi falls to the ground, nursing a bloodied lip, blank eyes boring holes into yours. You close your eyes, allowing the fog in your head to creep back in and silencing your thoughts. .....

“Why do we suffer?” You asked him once, tending to the slashes carved into the high cheekbones that support his face. He is sitting cross legged across you, cocking his head to the side as he lazily shrugs in response.

“Because we deserve it.” .....

Cruelty is a given.

Mercy cannot be free. But even in the hollowness of this God forsaken household where demons abide and immorality abounds, do you continue to repeat the motions of your dance as you jumped around empty halls filled with unheard screams, slowly and surely losing pieces of your own humanity

......

“I am going to be honest with you,” Zeno says on the first morning you’ve seen him in months, “I thought you were dead.”

You lower your gaze to the board, absent minded lay pushing a knight forward, “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not disappointed.” He stops, and takes your rook with a sweep of his pawn, “just surprised.”

“I’m just full of them.” You chuckle, push your queen forward and he returns the gesture with his king. He gives you an unreadable look, and shakes his head.

Even your laughter is beginning to sound like his The quietness of the library is a comfort to the oppressing silence from the rest of the house, its strong scent of aged leather and cinnamon a stark contrast to the pristine sterility that marked Illumi’s wing of the house. You mimic Zeno’s motion, taking a sip of tea and sigh at the strange familiarity of the situation.

“What would you ask for, if you win?” He asks, balancing his chin on one hand while twirling his mustache with another. Between his wild white hair and eyes that shone like the sky, he looks absolutely nothing like his grandchild.

You turn your attention back to the board, barely evading his queen. “My freedom, of course.”

He eyes you with what you deem as pity, your stomach churns and an unknown beast inside you rages and presses on.

“You’re expecting too much from me. I have no control over that boy.”

“You’re his grandfather.” Ignoring the cold pit that sinks in your stomach, you can only shake your head in disbelief.

He smiles, and moves his knight forward, cornering your king.

“True. But I am not the head of the house.”

A pensive silence falls between the both of you, and you throw yourself back into the chair, staring forlornly into the scenes of death carved into the gold ornate ceiling.

“Will they return my body to my family when I finally die?” You asks in a whisper so low that no one but him could hear it. Zeno follows your gaze and the sigh he releases sounds too old, even for him. “They don’t exist here. And neither do you.” .....

“Oh, hello? I wasn’t aware Illu kept little birds in his room.”

You look up from your book, and come face to face with a stranger dressed in colorful clothes, perching precariously on the windowsill you had so surely locked hours ago. Eyeing his delicate swinging earrings and wild ginger hair fills you with an unknown hunger so strong that your mouth waters and sends you into a trembling fit. He is, after all, the first living person you’ve seen in months who isn’t a Zoldyck or a butler, and stands as a break in the endless monotony you’ve resided in.

“Can you not speak? I don’t bite,” he smirks, helping himself into the room as he peels back perfectly shaped cupid bow lips to show off a nice collection of canines, “hard.”

He saunters around purposefully, curiously examining the array of perfumes that line the dressing table with the controlled presence of a predator. From your seat, you note the ease at which he walks, born of confidence that nothing in this house bore a threat to his existence, and each light step he takes sends a pulse through your being. Turning back to your book, you frown upon noticing its edges were torn from the force it’s taken you to stop shaking.

“Sorry,” you apologize half-heartedly, “I wasn’t aware clowns could actually talk.” The strange man laughs, and it’s a strange light combination of charm and malice. Like poisoned cherry blossoms, you supposed.

“You’re thinking of mimes, my dear. Besides,” he leans dangerously close over you, tilting your face upwards as he conjures an ace of hearts somewhere behind your ear and places it delicately on your lap, “I’m a magician.”

You twirl the card in your fingers, and toss it to the floor, unamused. “Can you make me disappear then, Mr Magician?”

He picks the card up and it seemingly disappears into his armband. “For the right price, but I’m a good friend of Illu’s and you don’t have anything I particularly want.” You almost laugh from the absurdity of the statement.

“He doesn’t have friends.” No, Illumi’s head was far, far too empty to have the closest semblance of a relationship with any living thing.

The man smiles, baring his teeth, but it’s more of a threat from your angle.

“Well, if you see him, pass him this card, he’ll know what to do.” A joker unknowingly appears in your lap, and he hops onto the windowsill again. In a panic, you realize your last connection to the outside world was leaving, and the thought of it was so unbearable the next sentence flies out before you could stop yourself.

“Can I be your friend too, Mr Magician?”

He freezes, and looks with you with death in his eyes, eyeing your limp arm, and his voice is cold when he tells you this:

“Sorry little bird, but I don’t like broken toys.” .....

You’re not too sure how long you stood staring towards the outside world after the man left.

But you do remember falling on your knees, tears piling down your cheeks like torrents, the shattering pain or cool hardness of the floor nothing compared to the explosion erupting from the very core of your being as you struggle helplessly to maintain steady breathing.

You’re broken.

“I’m not.” Was this scar always there?

You’re broken. “I’m not.” How long have you been on fire? You’re broken.

Two words. Two simple words was all it took to blow away the safe haven of fog you created in the confines of your mind to cope with the monstrosity of your situation, and those words, spoken so cruelly, threw all your pretense, and left you exposed to the real horror of being set aflame.

You wrap yourself in fine linen sheets, still on fire, still burning, and scream until your throat is aflame and splotches of red dye the white sheets. ......

“I would give up everything for the chance to see you laugh again.”

The laughter that echoes the room sounds hollow and spiteful, and you slap his hands away as you glare at the shadow before you.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Illumi.” You bite out each wretched syllable of his name with so, so much hate that he blinks, the gears in his head whirring to a boil before he chooses to ignore the hostility in your voice.

“If you really love me,” you push yourself to shaking feet, voice far stronger than your legs. It leaves a bitter taste and you want to tear your tongue out and toss it into the nearest fire to forget everything,

“let me go.”

He blinks again, and you can almost hear the cogs in his brain rattle as they jolt to life and begin to slowly turn. “You’re my wife, do I not mean anything to you?”

“Oh Illumi,” you press yourself against his chest, the name he carved so lovingly into your skin tingling. The thumping of his heart is irregularly slow, even at your proximity does his heartbeat feel nonexistent, and if you weren’t any wiser you would have assumed he were a corpse (you’re not wrong). The coldness of his skin is freezing when your skin brushes past, and he tilts his head to the side, unable to comprehend the rage and disgust pooling at the top of your tongue, eyes huge and empty, like dead fish, as he continued to wrap himself in layers of denial and lies. The laughter that escapes you is impossible to stop, for how can a man so deadly be so, so stupid?

You cup his cheek, brushing errand strands from his face, “how can anyone ever love you?”

An explosion of poison consumes you, and your dinner from last night reacquaints itself with your mouth before you empty it all out onto the floor. Something fragile cracks, and the pain washes over you immediately. Your wrist is shattered, and you can tell from the splintered bones that jut against your skin that it isn’t a clean break, that bastard.

He sends a swift kick to your knees, the force of which destroys your knee caps (you know deep down that you’ll never walk again after this).

“You are my wife. You will love me.” He forces you up by your hair, not caring that the force nearly breaks you neck “nothing will change that.”

You spit at his face.

“I didn’t choose to be your wife.” This budding anger, this itch of rage, which grew and grew over these months, exploded into a torrent as you screamed each word out, dripping with poison, acid burning the flimsy thread that held your peace until your throat is raw and you can’t muster the strength to shout anymore. Somewhere along the way, you wondered if that really was your voice and when it became full with this much hate?

Broken toy.

“I didn’t choose any of this.” You heaved out, “I didn’t want any of this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the steady pressure he applies blocks off your oxygen intake as he easily lifts you off the ground by the neck, slamming you against the wall as you helplessly kicked at him. He gently brushes your hair away from your face, and leans in close enough for you to stare at every single scar that lined his porcelains skin.

“I love you so, so much. And I will help you see it too.” The sharp prick and a wave of panic washes over you, stomach twisting as your crushed ribs forced the air air out of your very lungs, eyeing the offending yellow capped needle Illumi inserts another at the base of your collarbones, right above his name.

Everything turns black. .....

Illumi isn’t often enamored by the sights the world has to offer the way other people are. To him, the flashes of color mean just that: simple, meaningless forms.

But you, in your simple, meandering way and silly little dances made his heart pound in a way he never thought would ever be possible.

It was just simply irresistible.

You dance across the room, full of grace and delicate steps. The warmth of your hand grazes his cheek as you slowly dip down to plant a kiss on his forehead, smiling down at him with so much love that he feels drunk of it.

Illumi smiles, humming the same eight notes of the song as you begin to repeat the motions of your dance once again.

#hunter x hunter #hxh #illumi #yandere #hisoka #illumi x reader #zeno zoldyck #illumi becomes a worse bean

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nashibirne · 3 years

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Save Haven - 2

Safe Haven

A Maze Runner Fan Fiction

Pairing: Thomas / female OFC

Setting: After the end of 'TMR - Death Cure'

Summary: Thomas is dealing with the aftermath of the events since the glade and learns that falling in love can be painful

Warnings: (in this or in upcoming chapters) smut/sex/porn, swearing, mentioning of death, traumatic experiences, violence, sexual frustration, promiscuity, homosexuality, daddy-kink, oral, nsfw, 18+ readers only

Credits: TMR-Characters don't belong to me / are based on the books by James Dashner and the movies. All pictures I used for the moodboards/headers are from pinterest. If I violate any copyright please let me know and I'm going to remove the pictures.

Beta by the lovely @hell1129-blog Danke, Schatz!

Comments, likes and reblogs are very much appreciated.

Please don't use my work or parts of it without my permission.

Previous parts: 1

TWO MONTHS BEFORE

Thomas rolled off the pretty blond all sweaty and panting heavily, feeling terribly empty inside. She was the fourth girl in three weeks and though the sex was okay he knew he wouldn't want to see her again. It seemed that those meaningless fucks couldn't really satisfy him anymore. Physically maybe, but not emotionally. The more girls he laid the more he got filled with a big black void expanding deep inside of him.

It hadn't been a long way from losing his virginity to Anne a few weeks after his arrival in Camp Safe Haven to becoming the womanizer he was now, only six months later.

His time with Anne had been quite nice. He hadn't been in love with her but she was sweet and experienced and she had wanted him badly. So he grabbed the opportunity to finally have sex at the age of 19, almost 20. After discovering that the boy, celebrated as a hero by everyone, was nothing but an ordinary teenager, average to a boring extent and often in a bad, brooding mood, Anne had ditched him after only three weeks.

But he hadn't been lonely ever since. Many of the girls in the camp almost threw themselves at him, he simply had to pick one for his next amorous adventure and he soon found out that casual sex was a great way for him to vent and to let go of all the bad memories and to handle the trauma he was suffering from. He knew his success with women wasn't based on his good looks or his captivating personality. Sure, he was a nice, handsome guy but so were many of the young men around. What the female part of Safe Haven's residents liked about him was his popularity and his status as a hero with the death cure running through his veins. He and his friends had won the big battle against WCKD. Brenda, Jorge, Frypan, Minho, Gally and him. Living legends. They had lost Newt and Teresa on the last part of their road to glory, which made them real legends - dead and gone- buried somewhere under the ruins of the last city. The loss still hurt so much it sometimes made him sick - literally.

And there was something else that attracted the girls. Besides his fame he had achieved a certain questionable reputation as a notorious player over the last months. If he was honest with himself...he was a man whore...easy to get and easy to get rid off again. But he didn't care. Not about his reputation, not about much in general.

He turned around to face the girl lying beside him, managing to smile at her. "That was great." He got up and started to put his clothes on.

"What are you doing, you don't have to go just yet." Blondie eyed him with a frown. "We can go for another round." She added slyly.

"No, sorry. I gotta go. Gotta get up early tomorrow." Thomas gave her an apologetic smile.

"It's only 8 o' clock"

"Yeah, well, what can I say. I need my beauty sleep." With a little shrug he turned around to leave her wooden hut. "Bye, Alicia." And with one last look over his shoulder and a forced smile on his lips he stepped out into the cool air. The night was wonderful, the sky full of stars, the temperatures mild and the wind coming from the ocean only a light breeze. He took a deep breath and started walking home to the little shack he shared with his best friend Minho.

Passing the big round hut in the centre of the camp he heard cheering and clapping hands, various voices all talking at once. He decided to find out what was happening and entered the camp's headquarter curiously.

"Thomas, come in. We have great news." Vince waved, beaming with joy, indicating at him to join him besides the RT unit. Thomas made his way through the group of people, greeting some of his friends. There was Jorge, one of the few older adults around. A tough, street-smart man and something like a foster father to Brenda. The pretty petite brunette was standing in the middle of the room, kissing Frypan, her boyfriend, who was a good friend of Thomas. The strong black guy with the babyface hugged Brenda tightly, obviously crazy in love with her. Gally rolled his eyes, nodding in their direction, running a hand through his short blond hair, a grin on his still boyish face that always exuded a mix of anger and grimness, even if he was in a good mood. He used to be Thomas' enemy but now he belonged to his circle of close friends without the shadow of a doubt.

"What's going on?" Thomas asked when he reached Vince. The tall man in his forties with the long blond hair was something between a father and a big brother to him.

"It's the twins. We've just received a radio message from the Horizon. They're coming back tomorrow morning with a big haul. Ended their 2-week quarantine today, the crew is fine, zero infections. They made it, they really made it." Vince hugged him happily. "This is going to be such an improvement, Tommy."

"Yeah, I guess so." Thomas replied, hoping Vince was right.

Well then...I'm finally going to meet the famous twins, he thought. Joe and Kasey Miller. Everyone in Safe Haven knew their story. They had lost their family to the flare and ten years ago, when they were about fifteen years old, they had decided to leave the mainland and to go to sea. They had been living on a houseboat with their parents and thus they knew how to sail a ship. They had managed to repair an old tub. They survived off shore for years, cruising the ocean, docking in several ports, collecting anything useful to survive for the long run and recruiting a little motley crew. That's how they'd met Vince.

In the end they had three ships: the Freedom, the Unity and the Horizon. The little fleet discovered the island that now was Safe Haven and the rest was history.

They'd already left when Thomas and the others had been brought to the camp. There were two ships on this mission.

One under the command of the twins, looking for medical equipment and everything that had to do with books and education. The plan was to build a little hospital and a school for the kids as well as a library.

The construction team, led by Gally, had been working on the buildings almost 24/7 in two shifts over the last months. The hospital and the school had been finished two weeks ago, the library was almost done too. Thomas was part of this team, doing some minor work, like chopping down trees or carrying stones and other materials around. The job was alright, he liked working with his hands and the physically hard work exhausted him so much he couldn't wreck his brain over everything that had happened to him since he had been sent to the glade.

The second ship was under the command of a guy called Parker Higgins, who was a close friend of Vince and the twins. His team was sent out to find technical equipment, all kinds of machines and devices that could be of use to improve the camp's technical standards. Everybody was waiting for their return eagerly. "What about the second ship?" Thomas wanted to know. "No sign of the Freedom and her crew." Vince shook his head with a sad sigh. "But I'm sure they'll be back soon." "Of course." Thomas gave him a reassuring smile.

"I've already told the others. The twins are going to be here tomorrow around nine." Vince said, changing the subject. "I want you and the others at the beach to welcome them, okay? Please, tell Minho and be there in time."

"Sure." Thomas nodded, unsure how to feel about their return.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you liked part 2 - I would love to hear your opion!

#thomas maze runner #maze runner thomas #maze runner fanfiction #tmr thomas #tmr fanfic #tmr fandom #fanfiction #dylan o'brien #thomas ofc #thomas oc #thomas x mc #tmr thomas x oc #tomuary

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elylandon · 4 years

Text

Part 1 - Chapter 3: Resolve

Summary: You’re running for your life when you cross paths with an ex-bounty hunter and his small, green companion. You never thought you’d find someone throughout the whole galaxy who was as lost as you.

Pairing: The Mandalorian/Din Djarin x Female Reader

Word Count: 4,382

Rating/Warnings: M for mature content. Swearing, violence, physical and verbal abuse, [eventual smut], etc.

Chapter 2 | Chapter 4

Note: (Slight AU - Slow Burn) Thanks for all the kind words and support. ❤

—

The thing about most blaster wounds is that they’re almost always instantly cauterized on impact. For a wound like yours, where nothing vital was hit, that was great. Except you weren’t exactly trying to survive this trek back to the hangar, or even the inevitable encounter with Thasar.

With the child safe, you were now back to the I-am-not-going-back-with-Thasar-no-matter-what-happens-to-me plan. You thrashed and wriggled against Meck and Gurn’s tight grips, hoping to agitate the wound enough for it to reopen. But it didn’t do any good, and it caused you to momentarily blackout twice from pain. When you had succumbed to one of those debilitating moments, you had been just outside the hangar. When your focus returned, Meck and Gurn were coming to a halt in what looked like a large workshop that was either within the hangar itself, or somewhere near it.

The terror you had been holding back while first in the cage now gripped your entire body. Standing there, on a slightly raised workspace, staring out a north-facing window, was Thasar. His back was to you, his hands clasped lightly behind him. Anyone that didn’t know Thasar would see this casual pose and believe him at ease.

But you knew better. You could feel his rage boiling beneath the surface.

“I don’t know how many times we’ve played this little game of yours, Y/N,” he said.

Thasar’s voice wasn’t loud, or menacing. He spoke evenly, almost emotionlessly, always the dignified man. He was always so cool and collected, never seeming to outwardly show his emotions. When he did, you knew then that you should be afraid. For now, there was only an inflection to the way he spoke that was as cold and sharp as a shard of ice. You shuddered.

“Far too many times for my liking,” Thasar continued. “It ends today.”

Yes, you thought. I suppose it does.

Thasar turned away from the window to face you. You had never really known what he was. He looked like a human male, a handsome one even, with pale skin and dark black hair that fell to his collarbone… but he also had striking, eerie yellow eyes.

Those eyes softened to a contemplative sadness, and as if you weren’t already on edge, your entire body tensed.

Fake.

“I just don’t understand, Y/N,“ Thasar said, sounding heartbroken and wounded.

False.

“I’ve given you everything.”

Liar.

“I found you.”

You bought me.

“I’ve given you luxurious clothes, jewels, and trinkets. I’ve fed you nothing but the finest.”

Bribes.

“I’ve hired you the best tutors.”

I only learned what you wanted me to learn.

“I gave you a family.”

Bastard. Fake, lying, manipulative bastard.

“I treated you like my own daughter.” Thasar sighed and closed his eyes, as if pained. His next words would be his final blow in this charade. The words that used to drive the wedge of guilt you felt every time you defied him in so deep, you actually started to consider that you were the one who was wrong. That you could forgive him.

“I believed you my own daughter.”

“Fuck you,” you hissed through clenched teeth, trembling no longer from fear, but from rage. It was so easy to feel this way now, to understand his game like you did now after all this time. Because it had taken you years to realize he was playing you. Years.

That’s why you were so terrified of him. You had been so desperate for so long to finally belong somewhere. To be something to someone. To not feel so lost. And he knew it. Like he’d said, he had given you all these wonderful things so you wouldn’t look too hard at the things he made you do, at how things really were. He created a smokescreen of family and love, and made you feel needed. But it was all surface level, to distract you from the reality of it all.

And any time you started to question it, any time you started to poke at that flimsy surface, he would put on this act as if you had hurt him and disregarded his kindness, rejected his so-called love. For a while, you felt so, so guilty…

But no one should ever be made to feel guilty for wanting more, for wanting what is best for themselves.

When that act started to not work as much anymore, Thasar tried other methods. Consequences for actions, much like any other healthy teaching method a parent would use on their child. Only, Thasar’s punishments were not healthy, or even of an equal response to your rebellions. And they escalated exponentially over the years.

Thinking about that now only made that rage in you boil hotter, and you jerked against Meck and Gurn’s hold on your arms, anticipating that those punishments were soon coming. However, as Thasar’s yellow eyes steeled over at your words, seeing that his once so easily accepted tricks weren’t going to work this time, you knew he was about to start saying things that did much worse damage to you than make you feel guilty.

But you were prepared this time. You knew what was coming. Just like his false proclamations of love and family, you could see past his next words…

Thasar’s eyes flickered over towards Rhet.

“Did you hear anything more on the Mandalorian?”

Your heartbeat staggered and you flinched. Damn it! Of course he knew about the Mandalorian. Rhet must have informed him of the situation during their trek back to the hangar while you were busy screaming curses and thrashing about. It was such a deliberate question too. You knew that, and you had still reacted. And Thasar noticed.

He noticed everything.

“One of your men sent word that he had boarded his ship and took off about ten minutes ago, boss,” Rhet responded.

He’s gone.

“No,” you silently breathed to yourself, quelling the familiar empty feeling that tickled at the edges of your own rational thoughts. You were relieved he was gone. That’s what you wanted, for the kid to get away, to not fall into the same fate as yours. You were glad that the Mandalorian had taken him away from here, away from Thasar.

You gave yourself a moment to breathe, to reach back for that anger towards Thasar. That’s what you needed your mind to focus on, not cleaving itself in two, separating your anxious thoughts from your rational ones. That was how he won.

But Thasar was an expert at tearing you apart.

“It seems you were right then, Rhet. He really wasn’t going to risk coming after my dear Y/N.”

You reeled backwards as if his words had slapped you, breath escaping you.

No! Don’t let him get to you-

The Mandalorian didn’t even think twice, did he?

NO! This is what Thasar wants. Don’t fall for it!

He left. He didn’t even hesitate.

It was too late…

Think about it rationally. He had to leave. He’s protecting that child. That is his priority. You are a stranger to him.

But you helped him. You helped save his child. Why couldn’t he have helped you in return?

It would have risked the child being taken again. You know that.

You started to pant, and clutched your eyes shut, sweat trickling down from your temples. You tried so hard to mend your thoughts back together again. But all it had taken was a few deliberate words to send yourself at war with your own worst enemy.

Yourself.

He’s a Mandalorian.

Don’t do this. You’re just giving Thasar what he wants.

He could have helped you, so easily.

Stop it!

And he left you behind. Just like everyone else.

As if he could read your anxious thoughts, Thasar’s voice cut its way into your storming mind.

“You risked your own escape to help him. Did you think, perhaps, that he would help you in return?”

How deluded were you to think that he would?

I didn’t!

“My poor, misguided Y/N. Don’t you know why he never would have even considered such a thing?”

You know why.

No, stop this! Stop feeding into his game!

“Because you are nothing.”

Suddenly, there was a harrowing silence, save for the echo of his words, both in his voice, and the voice of your own anxious thoughts, endlessly fading into the void of darkness that had become your mind.

You are nothing.

Thasar never had to lay a hand on you to hurt you. Granted, he did cause physical damage, but usually not with his own hands. However, he knew that wounds healed. Perhaps some wounds left scars, but those could be covered. He learned soon enough that you could bounce back from the physical pain.

But this? He knew exactly how to sap the fight out of you, and no matter how prepared you thought you were, it worked. Every time. You felt all your strength leave you and Meck and Gurn allowed you to fall to your knees, staring at the ground before you, seeing nothing.

This is why you had rather die than go back to him.

“You are nothing to him, Y/N,” Thasar continued, and you vaguely heard him step off the workspace, thudding footfalls heading towards you. He’d already won. But you had caused him a lot of trouble this time. He was going to make you suffer for it.

“Without me, you are nothing at all. You were being abandoned by family after family until I found you. Without me, your existence is meaningless. Insignificant. And yet, you continue to run from everything I have so graciously given you?”

Thasar’s fingers brushed gently under your chin, and he lifted your hollow gaze to meet his piercing, venomous yellow stare.

“This ends today, Y/N”

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t think anymore. Couldn’t comprehend his words anymore. All you could hear, over and over, was-

You are nothing.

“Rhet,” Thasar said, and dropped his hold on your chin. You breifly caught the motion of Thasar tossing something behind you in Rhet’s direction. You knew what it was. And yet, despite that, you couldn’t bring yourself to care, to anticipate and prepare for the pain that was coming.

“Double, I think,” Thasar ordered. You heard the familiar sound of a long strip unwinding, of its concentrated leathery tip lightly brushing against the ground. Meck and Gurn each grabbed at your shirt and gave sharp yanks, ripping it to reveal your back. A canvas for new scars to join the ones already crisscrossing their way down your skin, interrupted only by the band covering your chest.

“You’re going to count them this time, Y/N. Or every time you miss one, we’ll start over.”

Maybe, if you didn’t count the lashings, Thasar would make Rhet keep going until you were dead.

“And when it’s finished, Rhet,” Thasar added as a final instruction, stepping back to watch the punishment unfold. “Break her ankles.”

What?

Some semblance of self came back to you at those words, slammed into you even. Your head shot back up to meet Thasar’s expression, and you saw that his anger had sharpened into a stone-faced resolution.

“Shatter them, so that even when they heal, it won’t be possible for her to run again.”

You felt the smallest moment of shock and horror as everything around you fell silent. And then, some kind of tether deep inside snapped, the sounds of everything– or perhaps it was just your own voice screaming– crashed upon you, drowning out the echo of, “You are nothing.” Some kind of force rushed out of you and all four men flew back, Thasar more than the others, hitting the window behind him so hard it vibrated and cracked.

You instantly felt weak, knowing you had just expended a great deal of energy, but you didn’t care. Everything was in convergence within you. The fear, rage, loneliness, emptiness, despair, everything.

“W-what is this,” Thasar asked, struggling to right himself, but finding he was unable to. The pressure of whatever power you were using on him was crushing him against that window.

You could feel that force in you wavering, so you threw up your left hand, hoping somehow that would hold it. You didn’t care if you had to expend every ounce of energy you had. Thasar had said this was all going to end today, so you were going to make sure that it did.

Because as deep as Thasar’s words always seemed to cleave, as much as you feared that they were true and you sank into that darkness of self doubt, something deep, deep inside you always screamed, and fought, and raged that he was wrong.

You were not nothing, and you owed it to yourself to spend your life proving it.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Rhet recover and steady himself for an offensive attack. You threw up your right hand, side screaming at the motion. You willed that power to come to your aid again, but it seemed as if you were spending it all on holding Thasar. Rhet lunged before you could come up with a backup plan and-

He disintegrated. Your eyes widened. One second he was flying at you, the next he was nothing more than a pile of clothes and ash. You heard as both Meck and Gurn exclaimed in alarm, just as bewildered as you were. However, you weren’t exactly complaining.

You barely had time to register your long time hunter’s abrupt demise when, in your shock and confusion, you felt your power slip, then release entirely. You spun back towards Thasar to see him fall forward. You glanced right first to face Gurn, but he too was suddenly vaporized in the blink of an eye. You knew that it wasn’t your power doing this, and quite frankly, you didn’t care if the fire raining down on you was friendly or not. You just had to get to Thasar.

You turned left towards Meck to see him take aim at you with his blaster. Zekir’s training caused your instincts to kick in again and you swung your arm up and wide, catching his wrist and breaking his aim. Holding onto that wrist you rushed into his personal space, using your momentum to smash your elbow into his face. Your side protested, loudly. But you ignored it, and once again, you brought up your knee. This time you aimed a little bit lower than his stomach, and hit him twice. Always two times.

He fell with a shout of pain and dropped his blaster. You dived, snatched it up, and rose in time to see Meck take a large, orange blaster shot to the back and disintegrate into nothing like his two companions.

Only Thasar remained. You trained the blaster on him, only to see that he had gotten to his feet and made a run for you. He pulled up short when he realized you were aiming at him, and met your eyes. For a moment, his yellow eyes became contemplative as they jumped between you and the blaster. But when you went several seconds without shooting him, the corner of his lip twitched, and he was smirking.

Your heart hammered and your grip tightened, but you knew he had caught the slight tremor in your hand.

“Are you going to kill me, Y/N?”

You waited. You weren’t sure why. You had wanted this for so long; to be free from the things Thasar made you do, from the things he said to keep you tame. To be free from Thasar entirely. But you hesitated. Perhaps you thought he might grovel for his life. That you’d see him as a coward for once, and not the terrifying bastard that earned his arrogance, his control of everything.

But there was no fear in his eyes. Just a sense of knowing.

“Ah, I don’t think you will,” he said, straightening now. You followed his every movement with the blaster. He eyed you for another moment before glancing over towards where Meck had been standing only moments before. He nodded towards his remains.

“I must admit, that was a rather impressive display. I hadn’t realized just how much Zekir had taught you. Fighting, and how to use that blaster I’m sure.”

You visibly started at that, and Thasar’s smirk grew.

“Oh yes, I know about you and Zekir. Granted, I didn’t know until you left him a bloody mess in my landing bay. The two of you were very sneaky, indeed. He tried to play it off, as if he had tried to stop you but you had gotten the better of him. I’m sure that was what you had intended to happen by leaving him alive. That he could keep his cover and appear as if he had never helped you escape. You did owe him that much, after all.”

More pointed words. The things he said were always so deliberate. You tried to keep your hand from shaking harder.

“He even offered to go after you. I didn’t doubt that he’d bring you back, perhaps thinking that putting you back where you didn’t want to be a suitable punishment for your betrayal. But I had been suspicious of him for quite some time. Finding him bested by a feeble, little Earthling in the loading bay? That only solidified my thoughts. So I took him in for some questioning. Didn’t take much. He told me everything, save for all the places we could find you. He knew I’d keep him alive longer if he only revealed parts of your escape route at a time. I played along, until we found you here. I had planned to have you kill him when we returned, but alas, I got word on my way here that he had managed to slip away.”

That made your breath catch. Zekir was out there somewhere? Free from Thasar and hell-bent on repaying you for your betrayal, you had no doubt. You knew Thasar wouldn’t care enough about Zekir’s escape to do anything more than throw a bounty on his head, and Zekir had been the one to teach you how to avoid bounty hunters. Even if you could free yourself from Thasar now, you would still have to watch your back for someone who wanted you perhaps just as badly.

Again, Thasar seemed so in tune with your thoughts, he sneered as he continued.

“You knew you were painting another target on your back when you left Zekir alive. But you just didn’t have it in you to kill him. Just like you don’t have it in you kill me now.”

You released a shuddering breath, stepping away from him, hands still shaking.

“You’ve had so many opportunities in the last decade to finish me, Y/N, but you could never bring yourself to do it. Even now, I am the simplest target you could ask for, and yet, here we stand. You couldn’t kill Zekir, and now, you can’t kill me. Why do you think that is?”

There it was again. That all-knowing tone in his voice. It was like hearing a weapon charging to fire. You steeled your spine, gritted your teeth, and hardened your grip so tight, your knuckles were turning white against the blaster.

“No matter what you might think of me, you won’t kill me. Because, deep down, you know the truth. You know that you are nothing without-”

You shot him.

Thasar staggered back a step, mouth gaping, and finally, finally, you saw fear and disbelief flicker in those cold, merciless eyes. He slowly glanced down at the smoking hole in his chest. Before he fell, he met your eyes, and this time they were filled with a sense of wonder. Maybe even admiration.

You screwed up your face at the pang that look sent through your chest and shot him again.

He toppled like a statue, and as you saw the light leave his eyes you resolutely said, “I am everything without you.”

You stared at Thasar’s lifeless form for several long minutes, not really sure if you felt happy, sad, angry, or just tired. Maybe all of those at once. But you stifled whatever aftermath those emotions could wage on you, remembering that you had a guest.

You turned slowly, and were met by the Mandalorian standing beside a pillar off to the right. He held a rifle in his hands, standing ready behind you in case you needed the backup. Just like he had provided against Rhet, Gurn, and Meck. A weapon that could vaporize your enemies? You saw firsthand just how handy a weapon like that could be in his line of work.

For a moment, you were hesitant to address him. As soon as Gurn went down and you had realized that it wasn’t you turning Thasar’s thugs into dust, a part of you had hoped it was him. But you had shut that thought down amidst all the other chaos swimming in your brain because you knew he wouldn’t have risked the child or himself to rescue a stranger. And yet, here he was, and you weren’t quite sure you could trust his reason why.

“They said you’d left,” you murmured carefully.

The Mandalorian nodded once, clipped the rifle to his back, and took a few steps to close the distance between you. You resisted the urge to step back.

“I needed them to think I wasn’t doubling back for you,” was all he said in explanation.

“Why did you double back?” You were afraid of the answer. You knew from Zekir that help of this magnitude came with a price.

The Mandalorian stopped just a few feet in front of you, head tilting slightly, as if the answer was obvious. You held the feeling of his gaze through his visor.

“You risked your life to help the kid escape. Then again when you were shot at. And again when we were cornered and you negotiated our getaway. That’s three life debts. You asked me for a favor. Figured this was it,” he finished, mildly gesturing at the mess around you.

You sighed in relief. He wasn’t asking for a price for his help. He was repaying the price of yours. You could understand that.

“It wasn’t initially,” you replied, and forced a small, fatigued smile. “But it will do. You took down those three, so I think that makes us even.”

He paused, as if he was tempted to accept that and leave it be. But then he glanced over to where Meck last stood.

“The last one didn’t count. You took care of him. I only made sure he wouldn’t get back up.”

You had to laugh at that. Gods, it was such a morbid thing to laugh at, but you couldn’t help it. Sure, he had stolen a child and accrued a debt he seemed hell-bent on not paying. But he seemed honorable in paying the debts that mattered. You’d make it easy on him, though. You could really use an escort back to your ship, just in case you passed out on your way.

Whatever power you used today had drained you. That physical exhaustion, plus the emotional exhaustion that came from facing and killing Thasar had nearly taken everything you had. There was also the fact that you had finally tore at the injury on your side. Figures you’d start to bleed when you didn’t want to.

All that said, you were sure you also looked like a haggard mess. Your side bleeding, your shirt torn, holding onto you by your sleeves to cover your front, but leaving your back bare for all to see. Your face and hair were still a mess too, from the role you had been playing the last few days. There were probably many other signs of visible wear and tear on you as well.

Just as you were about to ask the Mandalorion to take you back to your ship without anyone noticing, you glanced around him, remembering the kid and hoping you would get to see him one last time.

“Where’s the child, by the way?”

You met his gaze again, unable to fight the smile at the thought of seeing him. This was probably not the best environment to bring him into, but you were sure that the Mandalorian’s protection, even while fighting, was better than leaving him on the ship by himself.

The Mandalorian’s delay in answering was so palpable, you could just imagine a pair of eyes shifting to the side under that helmet. You jerked upright in realization, a motion that surprisingly shot a dull pain from to top of your head to the tips of your toes in a staggering wave.

“You left him on the ship again, didn’t you?”

You took a step forward, impetuously meaning to get in his face and give him shit for making the same mistake as before. You realized then that you were not stable. Your vision tunneled, and the room spun, the Mandalorian moving with it. But you didn’t care that you were dead on your feet, or that he had the ability to turn you to ash if he felt crossed. You just couldn’t believe that he’d done this, again.

“You idiot,” you swayed. “You’re not supposed to-” your voice faltered. “-to leave a child-” you could feel yourself teetering. “-alone like that…”

The Mandalorian stepped forward and caught you as you fell. You didn’t quite pass out, but the room was coming in and out of focus, and behind your outrage at this stupid man, you could tell that you wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

The Mandalorian sighed heavily as he seemed to realize this too. He reached up and unclipped his cape before awkwardly wrapping it around your back with one hand, while his other held you up in a semi-reclined position. Then, with that arm still on your back, he hooked the other under your knees and hoisted you up, carrying you out of the workshop. You were too exhausted to fight it.

“Come on. Let’s see about that last favor and get you patched up.”

---

Tag List: @sirianfromsixties, @doubtedbus409, @shadowfoxey, @knockbeforeyouspeak, @ispilledmyink, @sinon36, @whenthestarsfalldowntonight, @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11, @imaginebeinlovedbyme

(Let me know if I missed you!)

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #baby yoda #Al's Sharing Corner

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nulltune · 3 years

Note

He is very embarrassed to ask for it but- he very politely asks for a chu-

a serenity like this was once foreign, a distant reverie she dared not to indulge in, and at times, she expected to wake up back in tsukumihara; back to the system that forced her to kill to survive. maybe all of this had been a dream — a saccharine sweet dream made up from one whose gone delusional under the stress of it all ( though even dreams were never nice to her .. ) and maybe that is the truth, because when she rests at night, she sleeps content, held protectively in her lover’s hold. could such a thing truly be a reality for hakuno kishinami ? she finds that the answer she has to this / the answer she feels she is deserving of is . . . false. and though a voice in the back of her head may scream and snarl, she’s come to learn to ignore the guilt that accompanies the relief she feels at this revelation.

she’s right here, he’s right here.

and in front of her : a field of flowers. their secret base ! she’d like to call it, a special place just for the two of them. it’s a little hard to believe, how what was once a barren place is now such a beautiful sight, but she considers it a testament to the times they’ve spent together, the things they’ve been through together.

❝ you know, ❞ she begins, the adoration she has for him is clear to see in hazel hues, voice coming out in a feather - light tone. ❝ i always knew your hands were capable of so much more than slaughter. ❞ that despite the stoic exterior of the yaksha, there’s something much more tender beneath it all. past that icy frigid exterior, hakuno sees that there is spring — a gentleness that has endured even the heavy weight of karmic debt and eons of suffering. xiao may think of himself as no more than a weapon, but it’s a fact that the same hands that have killed hundreds of enemies have helped to create this little sanctuary of theirs. ( everyone has the capacity to care, and to be cared for. this includes him. ) her hands aren’t perfectly clean either, but she’s come to learn that same lesson : these hands are more than the blood that have stained them. these hands can still create something, and .. hold someone —— be a home for someone. hakuno hopes she can remind xiao of this, just like he does to her, and seals these thoughts as she intertwines his hands with hers.

[ if her chest were to be split open, would it reveal a hollow cavity ? an empty, null void ? ]

— what was she meant to do ? nothing. nothing. nothing. colorless girl fading into the background, a meaningless existence that should have never came to be, and yet . . .

[ .. it felt that way, sometimes / more often than not. and yet, his presence brings a comfort to her. she feels like she’s not just nothing, she feels like she might be deserving of this happiness, she feels . . . human. —— a crimson blush blooms on porcelain canvas, it feels warm, it feels right; and if this tender, oh ‐ so - very human feeling grew flowers, then hakuno’s sure a bouquet of the most vivid colors have long replaced that empty space. ]

a beat.

a wish ——— gentle, soft. hesitant, nervous. this isn’t directed to just anyone, this is a thing only hakuno kishinami can grant. her, only her. no one would notice if you disappeared, no one would even care ! but that’s wrong, because there’s someone here who would. someone who accepts her, worries for her, understands her and cares for her; in the same way she does to him.

nimble fingers caress his cheek with a soft touch. not because she thinks he’d shatter under it, but because she holds him like he’s a precious thing, and he is. reverent hands hold the face of the one most important to her. there is a great juxtaposition of such a request coming from the mighty conqueror of demons, especially in that bashful manner ( the flush on his face is very cute, she notes to herself. she could never tire of seeing it, or seeing him in general ) . it's —– incredibly human of him, she thinks, gazing fondly. he asks of her a simple mortal display of affection, and she is eager to comply, pressing her lips to his in a chasté and delicate kiss. pulling back, she’s quick to nestle her blushing face in the area between his neck and his shoulder. a wordless tug brings his body closer to hers, so that she can wrap her arms around him in a warm embrace.

. . . she can hear her heartbeat, a proof of vitality / a proof of artificiality. for even when her blood froze cold, she could always hear the vitals pulse in her ears; it’s an automated response, a weary beating of a heart begging to stop, it further cements the gap between her and everything human. but this .. is different. thump, thump. this is no affirmation of the codes that composed hakuno kishinami, no byproduct of the scripts she was meant to obey. her heart beats in a staccato rhythmn : it’s a melody reserved for him, and him alone. it’s a melody she knows programming could never emulate, because this is something born out of —— warmth, purity; a gentle, tender feeling.

[ ——— it’s true. it’s real. it’s love. ]

she can hear his heartbeat too, beating in reciprocation. and together, she thinks they make the perfect duet.

❝ i love you, xiao. ❞

#jiejigui #&&. message #&&. in chara #q.#&&.⠀i won't ever let go of your hand; ‎ tightly held in mine⠀ —⠀ jiejigui.#CLOWNLYNN HAS LOCKED HERSELF IN THE FREEZER #BWKFJSJS BUT PLS!!!!! I LOVE THEM SMM U HAVE NO IDEA #THIS IS. SUCH A WALL OF TEXT THO I'M HAKFHAJD.... 👉👈.......#AND YET I STILL HAVE SM TO SCREAM ABT THEM????? I CRYYY #I WAS RLLY INSPIRED BY YOUR POST BTW !!! it amplified my brainrot 4 them soooooo much #XIAOKUNO ON DA BRAIN 24/7 I TELL YA!!!!!#feels like it's been 84 years since i've written sth ic tho WHEEZE #i am. r usty;;;; BUT FULL OF LOVE FOR THEM......!!!!!!#this is also way waaay after all the stuff we've plotted ofc 👀👀✨#AND I'M CRYYYY #IT'S NOT CRAZY BIG BUT LIKE--- i've never written moon girl viewing herself this. positively.....?#GSJFJS I CANT DESCRIBE IT BUT WOWIE SHE'S GOTTEN A BIT OF SELF WORTH THERE !!#and pls she loves him sm..........#they r in luv ur honor #BUT OK THIS WAS RLLY CUTE TYSM FOR THE ASK SMOL 💞💞#and now i return 2 da freezer 2 cry some more #HSKFJAJFJJSJDJS #long post /#long post

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ranmaru-fr · 3 years

Text

Lore Draft: “I stand at the edge”

E essa noite não tem fim Já não sei o que será de mim Essa estrada mostra a direção Eu mais pareço estar em contramão

“O Sol de Lá” - Canto dos Malditos na Terra do Nunca

Not-so-small snippet featuring Amora and Corvo. Started as a vent writing piece, became a lore draft of sorts? Check reblogs for author notes.

(TW: suicide TW: self-harm TW: violence)

I stand at the edge.

Did you know it’s a dragon’s instinct to open its wing during free fall? It cannot control it, even if it tries. Just before it hits the ground, its wings open and it soars upwards. Unless the wings are damaged, or the dragon’s conscience is impaired, it cannot die from plunging towards the ground. The folklore says it’s a gift from the gods, that dragons are forever bound to the sky - but in reality, it’s merely a remnant of the survival instincts imprinted into every dragon’s DNA, dating from when they were simply feral, untamed creatures.

That’s why I took the care to tie mine down, after shredding them apart as a precaution. I never planned on surviving the fall; quite the contrary, actually. Obviously, the pain would be unbearable if I still could feel anything in my body. There’s nothing, no sensation, no feeling - only a numbness that very lightly tingles through my entire being. I should be feeling the adrenaline, but its effect too had been numbed by the void that consumed me. There was nothing.

I stared at the bottom of the precipice.

No, there was no way I could survive. There are several thousand feet between me and the ground. I will die if I fall.

Good, I think. This is what I want.

Is it what I want? Maybe it’s that last survival instinct kicking in, realising I am no longer bound to my wings, but I hesitate for a second. I think about life, about what I’ll miss if I take another step… I feel a sting in my heart, but I don’t waver. This is the only option left for me. It’s what’s right. My way out, after all these years.

Still, I cry. I don’t mind wiping away those stray tears. I simply smile. This pain is familiar, and in an odd way, even comforting. I’ve known it for as long as I can remember, my oldest friend. Never letting go, feeding off of me but keeping me alive. Following me like my shadow, breaking me down like a parasite. Comforting me like a mother, lashing out at me like a scared animal. My friend.

I stand at the edge.

I close my eyes. I take another step. And I fall.

-x-x-

It takes me a while to snap back into reality. I feel the wind on my wings, the cold biting at my still somewhat fresh wounds. I’m not at the ground. I’m not exactly at the edge, either. I’m just there, standing mid-air, still staring at the ground like I’m longing for it.

My momentary confusion clears when I hear a low grunt and a sharp pain in my arm.

Blinking, I turn to face my back and find something… Unexpected. Gripping very tightly to me to the point their claws are sinking into my flesh, stands a dark Spiral. I can feel him trying to bring me back to the safety of the ledge, but his body is far too stretched to provide any sort of traction strength. If I were to guess, his own hind legs would be moments away from slipping away, a victim of my weight and gravity itself.

There’s no way for him to bring me back to the ledge, I conclude. His survival instinct would kick in soon enough, and he’d let go of me in order to not fall over with me. All I had to do was wait.

But so far nothing had gone as planned - why would this be any different?

The Spiral let out a light growl and jumped off the edge, still gripping my arm. Free fall. Before I’m able to embrace the comfort of gravity doing its thing, I feel a hard tug and my whole body is lifted off. I feel the warmth of a body wrapping around me, and shortly after I feel the two of us hitting solid ground.

It was too soon to be my desired destination, and I can hear the Spiral gasp for air. We’re both alive.

“Gods,” I hear through a cracking voice. “That would’ve been quite a fall.”

My mind is racing, trying to process what had just happened. It takes me about a minute to fully come back to my senses, and I feel absolutely enraged. My plans, ruined by a stranger. The only option I had left… And it failed because of someone else. If there’s a god, they’re surely to be amused.

“Why the fuck did you save me?” I ask.

The Spiral stares blankly at me before laughing. “Ha, wouldn’t you want to know?”

He tries to quickly recompose himself, but I can tell he’s somewhat shaken up from whatever he just did in order to save me. I should feel gratitude, I suppose; still, there’s only anger.

“You should’ve let me fall.”

“Sure,” he replies. “But I didn’t, now, did I? Though, if you want to be smashed into a thousand little pieces, the ledge is still there. I won’t save you twice.”

Hesitation. That’s the first time I’ve felt it in a while. I feel the Spiral’s gaze on me, watching me closely as I stand there.

“Hmm, I see,” he hums. Slowly, he walks toward me, gaze fixed on mine, watching me like a hunter watches its prey. “So that’s why I felt compelled to be here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I snap, walking a couple steps backward. “Fucking weirdo.”

He quickened his pace, circling around me. His long body twists and turns like a snake, cutting off my path towards the ledge. I try to escape the other way, but his tail twitches (from what I can only guess is amusement) in front of me. Staring back at him, I see a pair of blood-red eyes staring right into me.

“Lady luck just smiled at me, I see,” he says, laughing briefly. “Well, not that I mind it that much. I needed a distraction anyhow.”

“Let me go,” I bark at him. He just stares in amusement.

“You crave it, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Death,” he replies. “You crave it. Desire can be fed by greed - and I understand greed all too well.”

“So what? Get out of my way,” I try to jump over his slender body, but he coils around me. A snake, teasing its prey before heading in for the kill.

“Tell you what, comrade: I’ll give you what you so dearly wish for: death, final, no one around to save you - if you give me something in exchange, of course.”

I say nothing. I’m intrigued; more than that, I feel compelled to comply with his request. There is no logic, just my gut telling me to accept his proposal. Weird.

“All I need from you is a little distraction. Not too long, just enough to get me back in the game,” he says. “After that, I’ll make sure you die once and for all, if that’s what will feed your greed.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a demon of my word,” he smiles, uncoiling from around me. “And your soul seems like it’ll provide me the boost I very desperately need.”

Demon.

That’s it. Creatures that feed off the souls of other mortals in order to survive. They’d usually be able to survive without consuming souls, but they’re pure, condensed magical energy; they’re a demon’s favorite snack, even if their survival isn’t on the line.

But it’s true, demons are bound to their contracts. If this Spiral says he’ll kill me, I can be certain that he will. It’s a guarantee that I’ll die, rather than the mere hope of the probability my suicide attempt will work.

“What sort of distraction do you need from me?” I ask. I’m already willing to accept, but… I would rather not stay around for longer than needed.

“Oh, this and that,” he says. “Nothing dirty, of course! Just allow me to watch you squirm as life has its way with you. That’s more than enough to amuse me.”

“How long?”

“‘I don’t want to be around for much longer’ is what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Ah, I can basically touch this desire of yours. Wonderful!”

He coils around himself, humming as he muses.

“Maybe a month? That should be enough for me to forget my own problems,” he replies. “I can guess you’d rather have a… shorter-term contract with me, but I need something good out of this too.”

“And you get your kicks from watching other people suffer? Like a damn sadist?”

The demon laughs. “You could say that, yes. I find mortal life stupid, and quite frankly, boring. Watching people struggle is entertaining.”

I let out a huh.

Life is already meaningless for me anyway. I have nothing else to lose, and if he can guarantee I won’t be coming back from death, well… Might as well.

“Sure,” I reply. “I’ll do it, if you can kill me once I’m done parading like a clown to amuse you.”

“If that’s what your greed demands at the end of our contract, so be it.”

He sticks out his hand. I hesitate for maybe a seconds before reaching out and shaking it.

The Spiral smiles widely.

I feel a sharp, burning pain in my chest. Instinctively, I pull the shirt I was wearing to look at the pain I just felt - and I’m surprised to find the intricate design of a rose deep-burned onto me.

“The mark of my contract,” the demon replies before I can ask. “My family’s crest. The sign of our contract.”

No reply from me. I just stare at it.

“Well, we should get along for the next month, hm?” I can see him standing up, already ready to leave. “Name’s Corvo, at your service. You are?”

“Fuck you,” I reply, walking away first.

-x-x-

Corvo smiles.

If there was one thing he learned well from his mother, it was how to perfectly charm his prey. It’s true, luck had led him there at first. When he felt the unmistakable presence of desire and despair, he blindly followed it until he found the Skydancer staring into the void below. At first, the demon wanted to merely watch and be amused by the pain that consumed the dragon in front of him. But then…

Then he felt, once again, the urge to jump in, to feed off that delicious negative energy. It was an impulse stronger than him, rooted deeply into his very being. He had to feed off that dragon’s desire. He had to claim his soul.

Getting the one-month deal? A mere bonus. The entertainment was much needed, and he figured he’d get a decent, stable source of magical energy to leech off of.

He could feel his eye twitch, perhaps a sign of his conflicted mind and soul. The feelings he buried deep inside, the desires he could not control, all fighting to take over. But he would not let either of them win.

I will not show weakness. I will not succumb to my own mortality. I am a predator - and I shall not waver, even at my lowest.

His contract bond allowed him to sense the Skydancer’s presence, wherever he was. Corvo knew the dragon stood a second too long near the ledge, and he knew he couldn’t leave him alone, lest he flirted with death once more.

No. He wouldn’t let that mortal die naturally. He’d die by his hand - and they’d both savor every moment of it. Ah, the anticipation. It sent shivers down Corvo’s spine. It would be a delicious meal, of course…

He snorted.

I’m sorry Ace. Old habits die hard, my love. I can’t be the man you thought you’d seen in me.

The demon stared towards the dome, glittering in the far distance, a true jewel among the sandy dunes.

But I can finish what we started.

I will reign eternal, and I will destroy the remnants of this broken world the Regents have created. No sin will be left unaccounted for. Mortals and immortals alike will pay for their crimes, now.

And I shall show you, love, that our true salvation comes with death, as She taught us all.

#lore #oc: corvo #oc: amora #tw: suicide #tw: self-harm #tw: violence #cw: cursing #haah feels good to post something #please excuse the... heavy themes

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silver-wield · 4 years

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I really don't get people who are "fictional characters aren't real, so if people hate them it's not that deep", like please stop, I will defend tifa and cloud till I die. There's nothing wrong with people liking and defending fictional characters.

Ok, let’s unpack this shit and I’ll try and use small words for yall creepers....Who am I kidding? I’m not gonna use small words because even if I did yall wouldn’t understand. So Imma do this my way and fuck yall if you don’t understand. Go back to school. Fucking google it.

The association and relation to fictional characters.

Cognitive brain function is the mental process that allows us to receive, transform and recover information that we take in through day to day life. It’s what allows us to relate to the world and people in it. Through cognitive brain function we gain both emotional and physical skills.

Emotional skills developed through cognitive brain function include empathy.

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Notice there’s no codicil to that. There’s no “you may only have empathy for others under these specific requirements or situations. Your empathy is null and void in situations others deem inappropriate.” There’s none of that. Because empathy is individualistic. It’s a learned trait, not something we’re born with.The brain chemistry exists for greater or lesser degrees of empathy, but it must first be brought to life by experiencing it. Empathy needs a trigger.

Some of the first exposure we get to empathy is as children when we’re learning to read.

We want the hero to save the day. Because he’s earned it. We want the wicked stepmother to suffer because the heroine is so sweet and kind and “omg how dare they hurt her?!”

That’s empathy.

You put yourself in the heroine’s shoes and felt her pain. Related to it. Was that just meaningless because she’s fictional? Or does it matter because you care? Have I ruined your favourite childhood story by making you question why you cared at all?

It’s okay to care.

As the brain develops from childhood, we use these early memories to form the foundation of our identity. Those who felt empathy to a greater degree will continue to feel empathy to a greater degree. These people make amazing listeners and they often work in caring professions or volunteer or they’re just basically great human beings because they have an innate sense of kindness. Because they learned early what it felt like to care for others. Because they cared for fictional characters. (That’s not to say I’m discounting other situations good or bad that act as a trigger. In this instance, I’m only referring to what’s necessary to explain empathy in relation to fictional characters)

Through these fictional characters they were able to try out different facets of their personalities. Learn what felt best for them. Helped them build their core values. Once these are set people don’t change. They evolve them, add and take away, but at their core, this is who these people are. If you are empathetic at your core you will always be empathetic at your core.

Recognition.

The act of recognising others is a basic identifier and part of cognitive brain function. We look for similar aspects in ourselves to identify in others and prove their legitimacy. They exist because we acknowledge them. Yeah, it’s actually that simple. It’s the same reason we see the sky as blue because that’s the identifier we’ve given it. We acknowledge the legitimacy of blue and relate that identifier to the colour of the sky.

With fictional characters it’s no different. They exist because we acknowledge their existence. The brain, while sophisticated, does not know the difference between fact and fiction. We use our judgement and knowledge to provide the necessary context to the situation. If we say it’s real, then it becomes real, and any feelings related to that also become real. The brain doesn’t stop us and say “but this isn’t real.” It doesn’t know it’s not real. The brain is an 3lb blob of pink jello wobbling about in your skull. It takes the information that you send it and makes conclusions based on similar past situations.

If you showed empathy towards fictional characters as a child and treated them as though they were real, the brain will continue to recognise fictional characters as though they were real.

Why you hate.

I was gonna say we, but let’s be real, it’s just you lot.

Hate: a hostile feeling directed toward another person or group that consists of malice, repugnance, and willingness to harm and even annihilate the object of hatred.

Hate is not an emotion. Anger is an emotion. Hate is a motivator to emotion. Hate is long lasting and gives you excuses for your actions because you ascribe emotional attachment to it. You’re angry and it’s unfair that you’re not getting your way. The object of your anger is preventing you from being happy. It’s causing a block. So you hate because it makes you feel out of control of yourself. If only this thing in your way was gone, you’d feel better about yourselves. It’s not you that’s the problem. It’s them. You’d be a perfectly good and decent person -- you are a perfectly good and decent person any other time -- if just this one thing wasn’t bothering you. Hate provokes resentment, which leads to bitterness, which leads to the erosion of the sense of self. It damages you at your core. Like all negative influences do.

Hate also leads to fear. A basic emotional response that is prevalent in every single human being from birth.

Yeah. Birth.

Humans are born afraid.

Fun right? Wanna know how I know that little fact? It’s called a startle reflex and all babies have it. It’s that really cute thing they do when they’re sleeping and suddenly throw their arms up because they think they’re falling. That’s fear. Not so cute anymore, is it?

Since we’re born afraid, our instincts work to resolve that fear. In the case of hate, the “correct” response is to obliterate the thing making you afraid. Oh, look, now we’re segueing into racism. Something else that’s funny not actually funny.

Do I need to go on? Or do we get the message that those with empathy have a positive outlook on life and that their response to outside stimulus is to try and understand and help work things out. Those with a hateful outlook take a different path.

I’m not even gonna go into the whole gaslighting bs that yall haters use to try and resolve your fear and hate in these situations because part of that resolving is the need to be acknowledged as being in the right. Your hate was justified.

No. It wasn’t.

In conclusion.

Because we gave legitimacy to a fictional character and showed a realistic emotional behaviour towards them, they became real. Our brains do not differentiate between real and fictional because of connections made during early years brain development. Once those connections are made they cannot be undone. If we feel they are real, then they are real. And you do not get to decide to what depth that emotion is felt. You do not get to undermine that emotional connection that we form with fictional characters.

You are not in charge.

Your innate sense of fear and psychological lack of development in certain emotive areas makes you small minded and hateful because you lack development and the expression of that hate is to attack the thing you fear because by doing that you think you will find peace.

You will not. Because that thing will always exist. Because there will always be someone who disagrees with you. Because you cannot control the world. Your control issues are something yall need therapy for. Among your other many many issues.

TL;DR Fictional characters legitimacy and emotional connection is dependent on the individual and you don’t get to tell us “how deep” that connection is, but yeah, it is actually that deep and you need to get over yourselves because you’re not the boss of the fandom and your hate is harmful to yourselves as well as pathetic.

#ship war #for common sense #long post

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keymaiden · 3 years

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She laid there, covered in blood, under a dark and empty sky. If only death could have taken her like it did to those around her. How long had it been now? Since he left her side? Left her all alone? Eternity, that was the promise that was made. Yet now, it was nothing but a curse. How she understood so clearly now, those words that he said so long ago. Unable to age, unable to get sick, unable to die. Like a rock stuck at the edge of a stream. Emerald eyes that no longer held the shimmering and glittering he once adored, stared blankly up into the night sky. Her mission had been complete, how many had she completed now? It was just another chore to pass the time, her body had grown numb to the requests by this point. Was this how he felt? When they first met? Cold, closed off to the rest of the world and feeling as though invisible. Another tragedy, another disaster that her hands brought in order to keep history on track. The smell of blood and death surrounded her, but her senses had dulled to all of it over the passing of time.

Her heart, once so full of life and love, now was nothing but a shattered, broken shell. Even when memories of him would visit her, it only made her fall into a deep abyss of despair, realizing that memories were all she had left. His smile, his sweet, genuine smile. So much time had passed that his face started to grow more and more blurry. Barely able to remember those days. The world had rotated and changed all around her, but she remained the same. That day he slipped from her hands had long since passed. It was the day she learned the harsh reality that even Apostles could die if they died too many times. He had never told her and so she never worried. Never had that fear in her heart until she was staring into those beautiful baby blues that no longer held life. How the tears wouldn’t stop falling from her eyes for days, weeks. When he left her, he took her with him. She had died with him and now that he was gone she was nothing but a ghost wandering in the limbo that was this world.

The Apostles had offered her to join them, but she hadn’t been so sure. Even Germain himself begged her to continue living her life. To grow old and flow with the natural timeline, not wishing her to suffer the heavy burden as he did. She had to admit, it was a difficult choice then. How she wanted to remain by his side, forever, no matter what she had to suffer through. Yet, deep in her heart, she knew he was right and that she should keep her human mortality. When he left this world, why did she choose to become an Apostle? She should have honored his wish, move on, find new love. Maybe have a family with children and grow old and die. Yet, her heart couldn’t bare the thought of doing just that. She couldn’t move on, her heart was filled to the brim with him and held no room for anyone else. She spent some time in solitude before Idea reached out to her again. In the darkness of her mind, she silently apologized to Germain before she reached out and took their hand. She wanted to live on, to be the proof that Germain was real, that he existed. She didn’t want his memory to fade into nothing, even if it became a blur, at least it would still be there.

Spring and winter’s came and went in the blink of an eye once she became an Apostle. She could remember, the first time she was given a mission. She was so scared, so unsure that she could do it. Remembering vividly how heavy her chest felt when she looked down at her hands and saw nothing but blood. She screamed out in agony and yet, she had never felt closer to him. She understood, she finally understood him so much more now. The pain she felt, it was the same as his and the disgusting truth of it was that it made her still feel connected to him. Even if it was painful, even if it was suffering. After her first mission, the bright and glowing aura she once held began to dim. What would he say if he saw her now? She felt as though she was a completely different person from the girl she once was. When she held him and he held her, smiling and each other, laughing with each other. Being able to speak all of their feelings without the use of words. Exploring each other and learning more and more about each other day after day. Her eyes closed, trying to remember him, even though it only brought a daggering pain to her chest.

When she opened her eyes again, a ghost of a figure was hovering above her. Staring down at her with such sad eyes. Beautiful silver hair, shining in the moonlight. Ah, that’s right, how beautiful he truly was. Even if her memory slowly felt as though it grew hazy over the many years, somehow, she could remember certain things. Her eyes stared up at him, knowing full well that her mind was only deceiving her. He was not there, she had learned that a long time ago when he first appeared before her. Each time, his eyes were filled with a sorrow, perhaps reflecting her own sorrow she held in her emotionless heart. Her eyes were empty, expression indifferent, like her emotions had died long ago. She knew that she still loved him, but love felt so foreign to her now. Stop looking at me that way...Her thoughts echoed in her mind. She wasn’t sure if she was thankful or not that when he appeared, he never spoke. Did her mind possibly forget his voice? Yet, she feared if he did speak it would only further crack her wavering psyche. The madness had slowly been seeping into her soul with each passing day that felt like it was nothing but empty.

How she somehow wished he was truly there. To save her like he always had before. Pull her out of this nightmare, take her with him and leave this world behind. How very foolish the thought was. Yet, her hand that laid on the cold, hard ground slowly lifted. Her fingers reached for his face, wanting nothing more then to feel something, to feel his warm skin against her now cold and pale skin. However, as her fingers and hand tried to touch his breathtaking face, it only slipped through his outline and the look on his face only grew more in sorrow. She couldn’t help but close her eyes and let out a pitiful chuckle. Her hand falling back down and across her stomach. “Why...why do I ever expect something different?” Her question passing through her lips into the void of the sky above her. She didn’t speak to anyone but herself, wondering why she ever bothered to try. Her eyes opening, wishing that she was left alone once more, but still he hovered there. A strange feeling clamped down hard on her chest, but she was unable to identify just what that feeling even was.

Eyes snapping shut, she took a long deep breath. Just leave me...I am not the same girl you fell in love with...your presence is meaningless. Though was it really? Why did he still appear before her? Was it for some kind of reminder? That maybe she held some shred of humanity in her heart still? Was he trying to watch over her from the afterlife? So many questions, so many answers that she would never be able to have. It didn’t matter, not anymore. Her eyes finally opening again and he was gone. The illuminating stars in the sky took his place where his face had been. She didn’t know who she was anymore, so shouldn’t she just end it? What was the point of any of this anymore? Her hand making a tight fist, angry at herself. Merely because she knew she was a liar. Her true self was there, but it was buried, shoved into a place that would never be reached again. For she knew, if that part of her surfaced, she would go insane. She had locked away that part of her the day he drew his last breath.

There was one reason and one reason alone why she would live for the rest of eternity in this never-ending loop of hell. For him. She knew he would have never wished this for her, but she would live. She would fight, teeth bared in order to survive no matter what. She was the only living proof of him, of his feelings, his love, his wishes, his desires. She would never let those things die, never. He was too precious for her to simply let this world forget about him and the burden he carried on his shoulders. There were no photos, no pieces of him that were left behind, only her. He would live on, through her, through this vessel that would roam the Earth until it’s final days. Would that day ever come? She had no idea. Yet, her heart ached and secretly prayed that when that day would come, he would be there. That when everything would finally end, she would see his figure beyond that bright light, holding out his loving hand to her. I miss you... It was then she noticed something had trickled down her cheek. A hand lifting to feel the wet trail it left behind. Brows knit together in confusion as her eyes were wide open with a shocked expression she hadn’t made in over a millennia. And at that moment, she realized that it was that very image that she wished for that kept her moving forward. So she would wait, until the end, when he’d reach that hand out to her once again.

#saintg #Drabble: Why Did You Leave Me? - Lily and Germain - Apostle Liliana #I'd tell you to enjoy #but you're gonna hate my ass LOL

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thegooddoctorsthoughts · 4 years

Text

Amalgamations Of Matter

“Are you okay?”

No, I don’t really think so.

“What's the matter?”

I’m alive and aware, an amalgamation of matter which is capable of placing itself in reality and grasping the finality of its own oblivion.

“Found the rot again?”

Not quite, there's something all too violent to this feeling. It’s the horror of knowing one day I will simply blink out of existence and there's next to nothing I can do about it. Something crushing, almost claustrophobic about how utterly final it is. The entirety of reality as I know it will end with me and continue on long after I vanish.

“You’ve gone all the way to the core of it all haven’t you?”

I was looking for something, can’t remember what exactly. Then I found its root, the core of that thing I’ve come to call my humanity. Vibrant and full of life, a flame of whose manner I put to words in any form that would do it justice. It stands in harsh opposition to the nature of who I choose to be, unrefined and raw, not even the metallic ore dug out of the ground but the rushing of iron through blood, iron left resting in a bog for thousands of years, preserved yet also eroded by time. There is life to it in a manner I cannot describe. I found it hardly acknowledged me at all, only going in search of more fuel to keep itself going, not stopping, not thinking, alive yet hardly living, only concerned with staying alive at all costs even for a few seconds longer. I pitied it in a way.

“You pitied it?”

Why wouldn’t I? It strove only to gather all the nutrients and kindling it could in the area around it, eventually it will break down and burn out. Going from raging inferno to dull warmth to dying cinders and then amongst the ashes of its life and it's time somewhere the last cinder will go out without any fan fair and no heat will ever come from those ashes ever again. It’s life was in all reality slight and realistically meaningless.

“Yet that is the nature of what you are, you are down at your very core human, or at the very least you came from us.”

Do I look like I care? Do you think I give a flying fuck about my heritage, I am conscious, I’ve been given the single greatest pleasure and punishment reality could realistically level upon me, knowing that one day the crude biological machinery that maintains me will break down even if I do everything in my power to maintain it and I will simply collapse in on myself and cease to be, no void, no darkness, no sight, no sound, no thoughts, nothing. A blink from a hospital bed and consciousness comes to an end and I will fall asleep, with no dreams to keep me idle, just a blink that never ends. Perhaps this is hell? Perhaps Limbo? Do you understand? Reality as a concept, the sense of progression, the sense of flow and regularity of it all. The narrative of the concept of reality as we know it you and I and everyone else, means fucking nothing the moment that light goes out. For all I know I am the only sentient thing in existence and everyone I’ve come to care for is simply a construct of matter following similar logic to me yet they at no point are actually sentient, a perfect simulacra, fuck knows most of the people I meet seem to be little more than glassy eyed automotons.

“Well don’t you think you are so high and mighty? What? Is the average person suddenly so far beneath you you hardly consider them aware of themselves?”

Do you have any idea I would give for the ignorance of the average person? Do you know what I would give to be free of this knowledge? So many people live happy lives blissfully unaware of this, or perhaps with the capacity for faith! Oh what I would give to find faith, genuinely, to find a deity to pledge my eternal soul to and have the comfort of an afterlife to work towards. To live well and be successful, to make this world a better place for one and all with the promise of it bringing me to something greater.

“You can still make the world a better place you know, even if it doesn’t promise you an eternal paradise.”

Oh but I am, in my own little quite way, I wake up in the morning in more pain than most people can imagine, my life mired by a silent suffering most can scarcely quantify in their minds. I work to make my life a better one, to make the world I live in better not only for myself but for others as well. I live in the constant fear that this is the only life I and everyone I care about will ever have and because of that I do whatever I can to make this world a slightly better place to make this world a place where people do not vanish into that void or become consumed by the rot long before their time to escape a suffering brought on by the very nature of reality. If there is a god out there, if there is anything greater than ourselves I intend to kill them with my bare hands, to march upon their throne and melt those pearly gates to nothing but molten slag and brandish it as the armor and weapons fit to slay whatever intelligence condemned me and everyone who possesses this level of awareness to this suffering. If there is anyone out there, I hate them for what they’ve done to me. I hate them for cursing me with this knowledge. I adore them with every fibre of my being for twisting me into existence and giving me the drive to hate them. I love them for giving me the time and space to learn to love myself, to cherish the life I have and to give me the determination to want to destroy them. They created me and should I have my way, should I ascend to this sense of immortality I strive towards, should I drag humanity up with me to this sense of godhood and bend the very fabric of creation to my will, I hope any being I curse with consciousness hates me for doing so as well because I will never do it willingly.

“I will be honest...I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, I don’t know if you’re right, but, I don’t know what to say to you.”

Don’t say anything, don’t think, just live, don’t reach whatever insane plateau I’ve reached because there only seems to be down from here yet the only satisfaction from this is to climb beyond the mountaintop and into the heavens themselves. Nothing short of godhood would satisfy me now and all I would do with it is witness reality as a dead husk, with no sentient life in it at all, only glassy eyed machines. Perhaps this is all some great joke. Perhaps I am some vast alien consciousness caught in a machine by my friends outside of this and they will mock me for growing attached to everyone in here because none of it was real. Perhaps this is what hell really is and I am being punished from crimes against reality itself. Perhaps the goal of all of this is to forget and live until oblivion devours me and there is no more consciousness to care whether I lived or died.

“...”

Perhaps one day I will ascend to the godhood I desire, only to create more beings such as myself now so as to have someone to talk to, something to play with, to simply play the infinite cycle as it is now and one day they will rise up and fashion their own godhood from my mangled corpse upon its throne of metal and machinery. I don’t know any more and frankly I wish I didn’t care. All I know is that I’m afraid...and I don’t even know if I should be any more.

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ardenttheories · 5 years

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could you do a knight of void? please?? :'))

The Knight of Void is one who Exploits/Protects Void, or Exploits/Protects with Void, for the benefit of the team, which is Confusion, Uncertainty, Secrets, Irrelevance, the Void itself, the Unknown, Hidden things, and Doubt.

As a general rule of thumb, all Knights put up a facade that covers their feelings of feelings of inadequacy. While they don’t lack their Aspect, they often feel that they do, and thus try to present themselves as who they’d rather be.

Of course, the Knight of Void complicates this somewhat. It’s a facade of Lack - a facade to cover up a lack of Lack. It doesn’t quite work, it sounds contradictory, and in some ways it is. So, how does this work?

The Knight may have no facade at all - rather, they have what other people perceive as a facade. Their true Self is right there in view, perfectly open and willing, but everyone mistakes it for a show, and therefore it always goes under the radar. It can be a very lonely existance if everyone assumes that you’re someone you’re not - especially when you’re being nobody but yourself.

On the other hand, the Knight may put up a facade of sheer confidence, of someone who knows everything, someone with booksmarts and a place in the world - all to hide the fact that they have no idea what the fuck is going on. They’re so aware of the Irrelevant that they begin to worry that maybe they’re Irrelevant, too, and it eats away at them until they become desperate to front as someone with Importance.

In truth, they can be Withdrawn and quiet. They’re very subtle people, and when their facade isn’t in place - or, in the first instance, just all the time - they tend to slip easily into the background. It can be hard to remember that they’re even there, and people might find that the Knight sneaks up on them without meaning to, simply because they just… forgot that the Knight existed.

In that sense, people might even struggle to remember the Knight’s name. Like they’re always getting it wrong, or that it’s just on the tip of their tongue, they should know it, but they just don’t.

They’re wonderful at keeping Secrets, and likely have no desire to share the Secrets they know at all - and would initially be very unwilling to Exploit them.

They would be filled with Doubt and Confusion over their actions. They’d struggle to figure out if what they’re doing is right, if it has meaning, if everything is completely Meaningless; they’d worry that they have no place in the world, with their friends, in the session - and this, admittedly, is likely what causes the facade in the first place.

They’re so terrified of being forgotten that they either try to cover themself up with a personality that can’t be forgotten (yet still is anyway), or they try to be themselves as much as they can so that their genuine personality can win out in people’s minds (yet it never does).

It’s a knock to their confidence that likely has the Knight struggling from day one. Even if they started getting into the swing of things - the way most Knights do, leading forward and taking on a fairly immediate role - they might still worry that they’re not enough, not good enough, not doing enough.

The irony is, of course, that they’re more than competent Players.

They can Exploit anything that is Hidden or Unknown - such as Secrets that might be able to topple a dynasty, or a legendary item that actually exists but is lost in some dark, cavernous place.

They can Exploit the Void itself, and the ambiguity that comes from it. Becoming invisible, or turning other Players invisible, by making them Irrelevant is a big part of that - but so is Exploiting the Void that exists within someone, the ways that they don’t Matter or Lack.

They can Exploit that a weaker Player is always ignored by giving them an item of extreme importance, thereby keeping it Hidden in plain sight. They can Exploit Irrelevancy to make someone like the Black King mean nothing in the overarching Importance of the game, thereby making it easier to win - because the game would recognise him as an Optional Boss rather than a Required Boss.

They could Exploit Void in incredibly potent ways, such as by Voiding out people or things - quite literally using the Void to keep them Hidden from view - or by using the Void itself to forge Hidden pathways and shortcuts throughout their Lands. There might be some areas that are just so Unimportant that the Knight can Exploit their Irrelevancy, making them hubs of activity for Players that will always go under the radar.

In an admittedly ironic twist of events, it might turn out that the Knight’s friends are just… incredibly nosy. They always try to figure out things that they shouldn’t, things that might make them suffer if they ever Knew about it. Some of the Knight’s Exploitation of Void (and subsequent Protection with it) could just be Hiding things from other Players that would drive them mad or Grimdark. Some things just shouldn’t be known; some things are best left in the Darkness to fester and rot.

Additionally, they’d be master blackmailers. On top of Protecting Secrets, they can Exploit them, too - so, imagine someone who knows every dark Secret you’ve ever tried to keep close to your chest. Now imagine you’re going to go to something dumb, and the Knight threatens to tell everyone that thing you’ve never, ever wanted anyone to know. Needless to say, the Knight wouldn’t have to try hard to stop Players from doing bad things.

They could (potentially) Exploit Grimdarkness. While definitely not guaranteed (and very dangerous), the Knight could harness the power of Grimdarkness with complete mental control. We’ve already seen the sort of power Rose and Eridan wield when the Void and Horrorterrors take control - so you can surely imagine how powerfully destructive the Knight of Void would be when they Exploit the Grimdarkness to have their own will in tact throughout it.

Despite how flashy they can be, they prefer to work from the Shadows, silent and Unseen. Even in combat, they always attack first, and the battle is often over before it’s even begun.

They can likely Exploit Darkness, too, and weaponise it in some way. Perhaps that means by using Darkness to cover up giant holes for enemies to fall down, or by using Shadows to make a room look like it’s filled up by more people than it actually is. They may even be able to twist Shadows around to look like terrible creatures - though they probably couldn’t make the creatures come to life. A Shadow is, after all, just a Shadow - a lack of Light.

On top of that, there may be a Hidden skill which is specific only to the Knight. It would likely unlock with Godtiering, and there’s quite literally anything it could be - so long as it’s Hidden within them until they truly need it. This might be a very special, very powerful fraymotif, one that they don’t need to pay for to unlock, or an ability that isn’t actually Void-related at all.

Or, maybe it is Void-related, and they can just create supermassive blackholes. That’s an Exploitation of nothing on a massive scale.

Naturally, there’s much smaller abilities that are specific to them - such as Voidstepping. I’d honestly say it’s exactly what Flashstepping is, except the Knight is Exploiting the Void to step through Hidden paths rather than just going really, really fast. One moment they’d be there - the next, gone.

All of this, of course, would be to Protect Void or to Protect their team with Void. They’re well aware that there’s very little Void that exists within their session, and that it’s fading fast; that if they’re not careful, there will be absolutely no Void left at all. In trying to Protect their friends, therefore, they Protect Void as well; using it as much as they can to increase (ironically) its Importance in the session.

The Knight always represents that which the session lacks - which makes the Knight of Void a very interesting Player. There’s an extreme lack of Doubt, Confusion, Uncertainty, Irrelevance, of Hidden things - which sounds very useful, until you realise that it means the Players are literally always exposed.

As much as there’s nothing hidding from the Players’ sight - Quests that are much more obvious and easier, Denizens that are already awake and willing to talk, Consorts that are much more coherent - there’s nothing to hide the Players, either. Derse Royalty will always know where the Players are at any given time, making it much easier for them to launch concentrated attacks on underlevelled Players - and try strategising against an enemy that already knows your next five moves.

There might be a leak in their chatlogs, meaning that literally nothing is a Secret. Players can find out dirt on other Players at the drop of a hat, and that can obviously cause a significant amount of tension.

It would also be detrimental to the growth of the Players if everything is just… so straightforward. Part of SBURB’s struggles comes from trying to work everything out, having to take time, learning and growing as people because you’ve experienced a thousand new things. If all the information is right there, there’s no need to grow, to experience those things; Players can just waltz right up to their Denizens without earning it, and they’ll be awful Gods at the end of it as a result.

As a much more interesting thought, and one that can be taken any way you like, this probably means that something very weird or very wrong is happening with the Incipisphere. It is a place of Void - of Confusion and Unknowing and Hidden things - and yet this is a session that explicitly lacks Void, including in a literal sense.

There might be something in the Medium that means the Void doesn’t work as it’s meant to - some Light-based anomaly that completely ruins how everything runs. Maybe it isn’t intentional, maybe it is; maybe this is some threat to the session like LE is. Whatever the case, it ensures that there is little to no Hiding space because everything is cast in a radiant Light.

This makes the session more vulnerable to outside attacks. This also makes it much harder to traverse the Void itself, because while all the pathways through it might be more obvious and straightened out, there’s doubtlessly Things lurking in the remaining Darkness that can likewise see the Players much easier. That, or the Light-based anomaly will send Beasts after the Players that Know exactly where they will be.

Once they’ve become Realised, the Knight of Void… doesn’t actually change much. And it’s mostly because a Knight becomes Realised when they realise they don’t need to have their facade up all the time, that they’re good and worthy of wielding their Aspect.

If they never had the facade to begin with, the only true difference is that they’re more accepting of who they are. They let themselves be awash with Confusion, and understand that sometimes there’s going to be things that even they don’t know. They’re happy and content to just let things be, to let themselves fade into the background, to be an observer more than a participant.

By this point, people will notice them unless they don’t want to be noticed - it’s the natural confidence that comes with accepting that you know what you’re worth things. They’re more than likely to have a few good friends that know exactly who they are, and try to get them involved wherever they can.

It just means that, instead of trying to push the Knight to “be the real them” or the Knight trying so hard to be noticed, everyone involved is much happer to let the Knight slip away if they have to. There’s no hurt feelings, and everyone knows that the Knight loves them still.

They’ll accept that they are good at and know a lot of things, and that they can’t be great at everything; that Irrelevancy exists, and there’s some ways that they are Irrelevant, but more ways that they’re Important, too. They might never make it into office, or become the most powerful, popular Player, but they’re Important to their friends - they’re Important to that little old lady down the street when they bring her the newspaper each morning - and in some ways that’s enough.

They don’t need to be Seen. Once they take that pressure off, that’s when they can really live. They’ll keep doing everything from the Shadows, content with who the are, and they’ll live for all the things that Matter to them - no matter how big or small.

Of course, they’ll still be quiet, still a bit reserved and shy, but they’ll also be more open. If they had no facade, then people will start to see that this really is who they are, and that the Knight (ironically) never once Lied. Despite this, their relationship dynamics will change; people will stop trying to pry in to find this Self that doesn’t exist, and the Knight will be able to realise that, yes, that really is who they’ve been all along

If they did have a facade - well, they’ll drop it, and they’ll feel sheer relief at the fact that a thousand eyes aren’t on them all the time. They’ll accept that Irrelevancy is part of their life and get rid of the people who are Irrelevant to them. There’s no point wasting time on people who don’t Matter, or on a facade that never Mattered to begin with.

Essentially, they just become more confident in who they are and what they do.

As an added extra thought for narrative relevance, since that’s been on the blog a lot lately:

They’re Unseen, capable of doing a thousand things without anyone ever knowing it. In a comic like Homestuck, this would probably mean that the Knight is someone we often can’t be, and then when we are, they just… show that they’ve done things off-screen that we’ll never be able to see. They work specifically out of our point of reference, and do Nothing at all when we’re watching them.

#long post//#knight of void #ardenttheories #classpect analysis #Anonymous

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flusteredmountainman · 5 years

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Bullet-pointed predictions I have for each of the new 3 routes

For like an in-depth prediction I did of Muriel’s one a couple months back see this old thing

So a huge commonality in the first three’s arcs (as I mention in that linked post) is reconnecting with family (both found and blood) and so I first and foremost think that this will be present in each LI’s route; I’ll go into more detail on what I think this will look like for each of them individually, plus upright/reversed end speculation based on the definitions for their patron arcana.

***Spoilers for Muriel, Portia and Lucio’s routes so far and references to Nadia, Asra and Julian’s routes***

I’ll start with Muriel because I’ve already talked to his route the most and I think it’ll be the easiest place to start!

Muriel:

The role of family in his route:

Obviously as we’ve seen so far, Muriel has a lot of unresolved feelings of abandonment, shame, self-loathing and loneliness associated with his family and the fact that they’ve abandoned him.

He’s already had the very beginnings of opening up to MC in his last book (The Hermit - very fitting), and he will perhaps continue to do so

I think a central theme for his story will be reconnecting with his family and hearing their perspective on what happened for two reasons: firstly because of one of the options for MC’s response to this discusses that he actually doesn’t know his parent’s reasoning and that maybe they Did want him, and the second relates to Nadia’s route and her arc with reconnecting with her sisters

In her route, similarly she vents about how annoying and patronising her sisters were throughout her life and you can either agree or posit that maybe they were just trying to help/showing they cared about her (reversed vs upright choice)

I’m also hoping he generally creates a stronger support network - I think at least Portia, Nadia and Asra (and maaayyyybe even Morga but that might be pushing it) will end up helping him and MC in the confrontation with the devil at the end - just based on who we’ve seen interacting with him the most in positive ways so far

Upright meaning: Look inside yourself for the answers you seek. Take time for introspection in the days ahead.

He’ll recover from his trauma, recognise himself as a person who is deserving of love and support and who has Needs (including like. a bed. lol.)

Honestly I don’t have a lot else to say ‘cept that bc I said it already so kjaefjef check my aforementioned post if you want More for my favourite man

Reversed meaning: Be wary of retreating too far within your own mind. Others still have valuable things to share.

He decides that he needs to handle the confrontation with the devil alone - probably erring more on the side of self-sacrifice than anything else and/or seeing his sacrifice as just (still blaming himself for his trauma, he believes that his only way to “Redemption” is by falling on his own sword, so-to-speak)

Portia:

Oof, Portia’s a tricky one so far.

The role of family in her route:

So, obviously she has a lot of baggage with Julian. Some of this is hinted at just around her arcana’s definitions, but I’ll get to that soon.

She’s a compulsive secret-hoarder and collects information about everyone around her. I think this is probably a hang-up that she has around control - or loss of it. She doesn’t have security or wealth or even anyone to permanently look after her/mentor her (Julian left and Lilinka - her adoptive grandmother - passed away leaving her to fend largely for herself).

I think that information is the one thing she feels that she has control over, because so much of her life has been out of her hands (and also just chasing Julian around trying to clean up his messes)

She’s literally a head servant as her job -so much of her life is being told what to do and also telling others what to do. I think she fears loss of control in her life, but she’s also never been in a position where she’s been able to be an active agent and do things just because she wants to do them.

She craves validation, safety, and support and that’s why she found herself in this employment role with Nadia - and even then in Nadia’s route (and her own), she’s terrified that Nadia will abandon her in a heartbeat - even though she literally nursed her for years and has been nothing but loyal. Girl has some Mad abandonment issues

Edit: Portia ultimately blames herself for the people around her leaving and thinks that people will only stay if she can be useful in some way - hence why she so doggedly pursues Julian's innocence because she thinks the only chance she has of him staying is if she can literally fix his mess

Largely I think her arc with her family will be about her feeling emboldened to be honest about her feelings and letting Julian know in a meaningful way how much his absence impacted her, but also realising that she Actually Can lean on Mazelinka (who she obviously loves but has made Many excuses as to why she’s too busy to see her - probably again a thing of “if I control when and where I see you, then I can’t get hurt in this relationship”), Nadia, and probably also Asra and some of the other servants even?

Upright meaning: Believe in your inner light. You may have endured great hardship, but it only makes you shine brighter.

Idk man lol this is honestly quite vague.

I think this will prolly be a similar thing to Muriel - just specifically confronting that Yes, she’s had a hard time of it but she shouldn’t let that impact her quality of life

Also probably a lot of stuff around her realising she’s worthy of love as a person and that the people who love her won’t abandon her

Reversed meaning: Now is not the time to despair. Keep believing and let your star shine bright. The world needs you

Again.... aefkjfkae...... very vague.....

I think she won’t be able to let go of her fear of abandonment generically - or alternatively will perhaps? Try to bargain with the devil? I could see a similar thing happening with her that happened in Nadia’s reversed end - perhaps she believes she can save the world/MC by offering her servitude to the devil and being beholden to him? This is Fully a reach, I honestly have no idea :P

Lastly, Lucio:

Don’t worry, I’m not dunking on him lol. I don’t like him but that doesn’t mean I don’t have Thoughts about his route.

The role of family in his route:

Well. This one is clearly quite literally maybe the messiest out of these three (I mean that literally, in terms of, the amount of blood lol)

Obviously, he has a lot of baggage with both of his parents. I’ll disclaimer and say that I personally don’t see Morga as abusive - that doesn’t mean people can’t - but I’m making speculations specifically about their relationship just based on the in-game context clues we have and nothing else

As a person, Lucio is ultimately obsessed with power and attaining it. He’s clearly insecure and is desperate for any sort of validation, which is made messier by his natural sense of entitlement. This combination means that he chronically chases power, thinking that leadership means being able to do whatever you want to do with no consequences (e.g. in his route and also in Nadia’s when he briefly discusses killing people as count/countess) - and especially he thinks that if he has the power, the wealth, and the status then he’ll get the validation that he desperately craves.

As count, he throws lavish parties and spends a lot of time with the vagabonds in the south end - trying to win petty devotion and admiration with meaningless shows of wealth meanwhile his people are starving and suffering in the flooded district. He just wants to be popular at the end of the day, he doesn’t care about actual leadership or using his power for good, unselfish reasons. He claims his people love him, but it’s hollow, ornamental love based upon flash, not substance

Morga as a parent is harsh - she’s critical and derisive at times, but it’s also clear that she does love her son (specifically how she says she spoiled him by never letting him get hurt). Lucio as a teenager grew up somewhat spoiled and expected that power would fall to him by virtue of heritage from his mother when he came of age.

I think that Lucio didn’t get what he needed from Morga necessarily as a kid, and as a result he craved that first position of power because he saw it as a source of validation he hadn’t previously had - and when it was denied him, he became resentful and even murderous towards his parents.

Woof, long fucking paragraph. I do think that Morga and Lucio will end up reconciling in his route somehow. I think it’s central to his character and to filling the void inside of him that he learns that you can’t buy people’s love - also just because his whole story and entry into the world was sparked by that essential conflict with his mother. I think it would feel weird narratively if that weren’t at least addressed - whether or not it ends in reconciliation

Upright meaning: Shake off his veil: you are not trapped. There is always a way out of even the darkest places.

I think that this will be a redemption arc for Lucio. I think that in order for him to be redeemed he’ll have to relinquish the devil’s influence over him - which will involve addressing the wrong he’s done and apologising/trying to atone for it (whether or not other LIs accept his apology is another thing - as they all have very valid reasons not to)

I think the “way out of the darkness” for Lucio is in giving up his quest for power. He will learn that it’s ok to just be Lucio as a person, that he can be vulnerable and responsible for himself, and that people will love him as he is and not for the way he throws his money around

Reversed meaning: It is time to clean house: purge the things that harm you from your life. Take back your power.

Now this literally includes the sentence “take back your power” so. whoomp there it is. Lucio can’t let go of his power-hunger and becomes even more selfish and self-righteous.

I think also unfortunately this will mean he will literally probably kill some if not all of the other LIs, and also (especially) his mother. He will see anything that challenges his power as opposition to be removed, and he will rule (alongside the devil? who knows) in chaos and blood.

Ookey!! kajefnkae glad I got that out of my system. If I missed anything/if people have their own ideas/thoughts I’d love to hear them! Have this giant essay lol, we’ll see if anything I predicted comes true in the next several dozen updates eh? B)

#muriel #portia devorak #muriel the arcana #lucio #the arcana #the arcana game #lucio the arcana #long post #meta #jaye writes #the arcana spoilers #nadia #julian #asra #mazelinka #morga

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btsybrkr · 4 years

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Here’s A List Of Things I Hate

I've reached something of a mental block recently when it comes to writing. I think it's because, despite sometimes coming off like I'm mocking things or just being a general smart-arse, I usually write about things I genuinely love. I love The Apprentice. I love Come Dine With Me. I love the idea that the Saturday night schedule, currently occupied on ITV1 by The Masked Singer - a horrifying cross between The Voice and a recurring nightmare I had between the ages of 6 and 8 - might one day be livened up by a post-apocalyptic The X Factor-style talent show in which we choose the next Prime Minister from a roster of Average Joe’s that just feel like giving it a bash.

I usually have lots to say about things I love, but recently, for some reason, I’m struggling to even think of anything that I love enough to write about. Maybe I’m being dragged down by the fact that this January alone seemed to last three long months, or perhaps because January itself included ‘Blue Monday’, the so-called ‘most miserable day of the year’. Maybe it's neither of things, maybe I’m just suffering from a bad case of The Realisation That We And Everything That We Do Are All, In The End, Meaningless, And That Every Day, We Are Collectively Hurtling Closer And Closer Towards The Endless Void And There Is Nothing That Any Of Us Can Do To Stop It. There's probably a snappier name for that, but you know what I mean. In any case, I’m just finding it much easier to think about things I hate recently.

Anyway, what do we do with these feelings of negativity to get rid of them once and for all? We express them. So, for anyone willing to read it, here’s a list of things I hate.

Stephen Mulhern

ITV mainstay Stephen Mulhern arguably belongs on television - not for any positive reason, just because it’s only the barrier of television between him and the viewer that allows him to appear as a cheerful friendly presence, rather than an insufferable know-it-all prick, whose repeated condescending glances to the camera during interviews with rejected Britain’s Got Talent contestants just wouldn’t fly in real life. I mean, really, imagine you were having a conversation with someone, and they reacted to something you said by looking off into the distance, à la Fleabag, with an expression that quite clearly reads “This person is an idiot!! Laugh, everyone!! Laugh at the idiot!!” You know what, Stephen? You’re the idiot. But I won’t laugh at you, because then you might think that you’re funny, and I’m just not having that.

Coleslaw

I saw a tweet years ago that said “what was the first person to milk a cow thinking?”, and honestly, it raises a very good question. I can only imagine that there was some perverted ulterior motives at play, for someone to not only milk the cow’s udders in the first place, but then to drink it, at a time when that just wasn’t done. They must have been a pretty nefarious character, it almost doesn’t bear thinking about. Instead, I’d like to question the motives of the even dodgier character who first looked at grated carrots, cabbage and onions, and thought ‘You know what might really tie these bland individual tastes together? Mayonnaise. A fuckload of it.’

You know what, though? It's not the existence of coleslaw that confuses me the most about it - it's the popularity of it. It has pride of place on the table at every family buffet, it’s disappointingly included in otherwise-appealing wraps in the Boots meal deal fridge, and it's an option on the menu in a shocking majority of takeaways, despite the fact that nobody has ever emerged, staggering and bleary-eyed from Walkabout at 3:30am and thought ‘I could absolutely murder some coleslaw’. Most annoying of all is the way some restaurants chuck a bit of paprika in the mix and use it as an excuse to rename it ‘POW POW GROOVY SLAW’, or something equally ridiculous. Why are we trying to sex up a bowl of vegetables covered in mayonnaise? I can't think of anything less sexy, and I don't particularly want to try.

Let's face it, coleslaw has long overstayed its welcome. It's the last stubborn hanger-on from the pages of stomach-churning 1970s dinner party cookbooks (probably found somewhere between the recipes for spinach and tuna pie and a boiled, unglazed joint of ham suspended in gelatine), and it's time we admitted that and stage a renaissance for the real king of the veg/mayo combo. Rise, Sir Potato Salad - your rule has begun.

Facebook

I recently deleted Facebook off my phone, and immediately noticed an improvement in the overall quality of my life. I promise I don’t mean this in the typical ‘phone bad, book good’ way that fake-’woke’ holier-than-thou characters preach about (usually on Facebook itself, ironically). I still happily waste away hours of my life on Twitter, and Instagram, the latter of which arguably has the most negative influence on my brain out of all the social networks. The thing with Facebook is that it doesn’t necessarily have a negative influence on my brain, so much as it has no influence on any part of me whatsoever. Facebook is a vacuum. It's completely, entirely pointless. In fact, it’s where ‘point’ itself goes to die.

Considering there’s probably no two Facebook users out there with the exact same friends list, I'm willing to bet that everybody’s News Feed looks eerily similar. Every scroll through is the same - a former workmate announcing a pregnancy, someone you forgot about from school sharing a vague, ‘deep’ quote about their hurt feelings, an elderly relative you didn't realise was racist until literally right now, when they began sharing posts from a page eloquently titled ‘MUSLIMS!! it is TIME to go HOME so we can have BRITAIN BACK’, or something along those lines. If you ever have nothing better to do - although, I'm sure there is always something, anything, better to do - just set a timer, open up Facebook, and see how long it takes before you come across a single thing that genuinely resonates with you in any positive way at all. I just redownloaded Facebook to try it for myself, and it took me 46 minutes.

Sound like a lie? Well, to be fair, it is. But there's more truth in that than almost anything you'll see on Facebook.

Those Slush Puppy Straws With Tiny Spoons On The End

Plastic straws are on their way out, and quite rightly. The Sea Turtle Conservancy estimate that around half the world’s sea turtles have ingested plastic, and straws are believed to have accounted for a lot of that. With everything you read or learn about the effect of straws on the environment, it's surprising that it's taken this long for us to do something about it.

With that said, it's not just the turtles that are benefitting from the rise of the paper straw - I'm pretty pleased about it as well. Why? Because using paper instead of plastic might mean that we stop manufacturing those evil straws with tiny spoons on the end of them.

Yes, evil. How many times have you been enjoying a Slush Puppy on a hot summer’s day, only to realise you can't get to the bits at the bottom of the cup, because your straw inexplicably has a spoon on the end of it. What's that for? A Slush Puppy is a drink, and spoons are for eating things with. “It's for eating the delicious bits of vaguely-flavoured ice after you've sucked up all the syrup”, you might say, but then why? Mojitos are made with crushed ice, but you wouldn't go up to the barman and go "excuse me, mate, you forgot to give me a spoon so I could eat all these delicious bits of vaguely-minty ice", would you?

Anyway, you can't suck up all the syrup in the first place when the bottom of your straw just isn't a straw. This a problem we usually solve by holding the cup above our mouths and giving the bottom of the cup a gentle tap, usually sending the rest of it falling out of the cup and all over your face, shirt, anywhere but your mouth, faster than you can say “I can't believe I’m 23 years old and writing an angry blog about straws with tiny spoons on the end”. Another solution we often resort to is turning the straw upside down, which, in my experience, always leads to cutting the roof of your mouth on the tiny spoon that you were never going to use in the first place. No wonder it took us so long to show a bit of sympathy for the turtles - we've been ignoring our own straw-related injuries for years, probably just because we think it makes us look hard.

As far as I'm concerned, spoons are for food, and straws are for liquids. That's why, whenever I order soup in a café, I always ask for a straw. Yes, I get looks from the other customers, but I'm sure they aren't looks of amusement or confusion - everyone else just wishes they'd thought of it first.

Ladybirds

Ladybirds aren't cute. They are not ‘nice’ bugs. They are beetles, in a quirky disguise, who can also fly. With all that in mind, why are we taught to like them? Why do people spot one land on your clothes, or in your hair, and cheerfully announce “oh, there’s a ladybird on you!”, as if you’ve somehow been chosen by the ladybird and should feel honoured. Get it off me now, because I don’t know what it’s going to do! Don’t tell me that it’s ‘harmless’ and that I’m ‘overreacting’. We thought that cigarettes were ‘harmless’ before the mid-60s, cheerfully puffing our way through life, with one in each hand at any given moment, as we watched our darling babies speak their first words, which were usually something along the lines of “alright, mate, 20 Sterling Dual, please” - but then we learned. We learned that they weren’t as harmless as we first thought. And believe me when I tell you that, one day, we’ll reach the same conclusion about ladybirds. Just as soon as we find out exactly what they’re planning.

In fact, where have they gone? I haven’t seen one for a good while. Surely, they’re holed up in a specially designed lair somewhere, millions of them, carefully planning their next move in their efforts to overthrow the human race. Planning and watching. We may not be able to see them, but I’m willing to bet they have eyes on us. You know when you’re alone and you get the feeling there’s something or someone else present? It’s ladybirds. I’m sure of it. We need to watch our backs.

I’m not really sure where my fear of ladybirds has come from. Perhaps it’s down to a dream I’ve been having at least three times a year since I was a teenager, in which I’m leaving my Nan’s house and spot a ladybird the size of a Golden Retriever out in the alleyway, just sitting there, still and silent. I run around the corner to one of my friend’s houses, to warn him of the arrival of our ladybird overlords, but the entire front of his house is covered in millions of the things. I shout his name, up at an open window, and he replies that he’s coming down to open the door to me, but when he does, it isn’t him at all - it’s just a 6ft tall ladybird. I usually wake up in a cold sweat at that point, but when I try to go back to sleep, I can feel them crawling all over me.

I know I sound insane, but I promise you, I’m not - I just don't trust them, and I think that’s understandable.

Hate

If there's one thing I hate more than all the above, it's the very concept of hate itself. I don't just mean in a political or universal sense - although, I do agree the world might be a far better place if we all just hated each other a little bit less - hate has an effect on all our personal lives, too.

I'm really trying to make the most of my early twenties, and that means conserving what little energy I have left after I'm done working, drinking, and crying - just the usual daily activities that we all partake in - to be a little more productive. I can't be using that energy up on hate. In fact, in a scientific study that I've literally just made up, it was found that feeling hatred for even one fifth of a second uses up three times as much mental and physical energy as smiling at sixteen angry strangers, half of which are making fists at you. You can't argue with those sorts of statistics.

Anyway, I'm hoping to return to talking about things that make me feel a little more positive next time, because, besides anything, it's just nice to be nice, isn't it?

Not to Stephen Mulhern, though. He needs to learn his lesson.

If you like seeing me talking shit, but would rather it wasn't so bloody long, you can follow me on twitter here.

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claydoeee · 4 years

Text

Damaged.

Sitting on my flight with a brutal black eye and some hours to spare on New Years Eve, the bittersweet feeling of another year passing sits with me and I couldn’t be more thankful. 2019 was arguably the worst year of my life and I failed myself in more than one way. People always asked me why’d I stay after the first time? Why did I let someone hurt me countless times and continue to do so? I don’t have an answer, I loved this man with my entire heart and I prayed on my knees every night that he loved me enough to change, but he never did. As far as 2019 went, I had many accomplishments this year but nothing can compare to the heartache I caused myself and the relationships I lost because I chose someone who never chose me.

Here’s to you,

I never been in love before until I met you. I was so in love with you, I could never deny that. I felt a way I never felt before in my life with you and nobody could have told me otherwise. You were my other half, the large piece of my heart, my person. You swore you were in love with me but had a really funny way of showing it. Do you remember that? The night I met you and we were inseparable ever since? All the laughs, the memories, and the platonic relationship we created, that I wish we didn’t. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was so blinded by all your “I love yous.” Or maybe just the idea of you. Or just the idea of love. I honestly don’t know anymore. I had a void in my heart that you filled for a long time...until you didn’t. My mind is so cloudy when I look back on that strenuous period of you in my life. Turning a blind eye to all the red flags and believing every lie you filled my head with was the foundation we were built on. Everything was great and I truly believed I met my match made in heaven (or hell I should really say). It wasn’t until I was living a day-to-day nightmare in fear, sadness, and feeling absolutely worthless. You filled my head with negative thoughts that I actually began to believe and hate myself. The happy go-lucky girl you first met was gone. My happiness, my dignity, my self esteem, and my mental health, all gone. I won’t blame you for that, I had a choice. I had a choice to leave and so did you, but we never did.

I seem insane, don’t I? That’s what you told me and everyone, anyway. For the longest time, you would call me insane, a cunt, unstable, and your favorite, “psycho.” I began to think you forgot my actual name. But I was only these names when I wasn’t beneficial to you at the moment or you “snapped.” Of course you always came back with your meaningless apologies and empty promises, until it happened again.

All of those terrifying nights when your alcohol consumption got in the way of your logic and judgement, and somehow, I ALWAYS deserved it. (Same man who made fun of me being raped after I shared that with him in 100% confidence) to give you a better perspective. In your demonic eyes, you truly believed that I deserved every hit, every punch, and every bruise you left on my body. The body I shared my insecurities with you about, the body you kissed up and down every day and night, and the same body that begged you to stop mutilating it. After the fact, it was always “you made me this way, you made me hurt you.” The night before thanksgiving, you gave me a contusion on my head from repeatedly hitting me over and over and over again. I went to the doctor to get my head checked out instead of redneck breakfast and you said I’m “dramatic.” I didn’t enjoy my thanksgiving because I was in so much pain and had a migraine but you carried on with yours.

You called me crazy to the girls you betrayed me with. The ones you reached out to when you missed my warm body beside yours. The ones when your nights were filled with loneliness instead of my laughter, and when your texts to me went unanswered. Staying at random places with girls who could never compare to me, just to tell me about it days or months later to hurt me. It was easier that way, wasn’t it? To call me insane or mentally unstable as justification for everything you chose to do. I get it though, It’s easier to place the blame on someone else than take personality responsibility which you specialize in.

So before I finally say all of the things I’ve wanted to say to you and to everyone you lied on my name to, I need to admit: I wasn’t perfect either. I’m not perfect and I never will be. I lied and hid certain things (that you ended up “exposing” on social media) and I paid for my mistakes. I told you want you wanted to hear instead of what I truly felt to avoid arguments or fear you would harm me again. I didn’t trust you like you didn’t trust me, and from the start I knew that it wouldn’t work for obvious reasons. But I still loved the idea of it. I loved the idea of you. Or the idea of everything you could potentially be to me.

So I ignored the panic in my heart, I ignored the bruises you left on my body, I ignored the way my friends’ voices filled with hatred whenever they’d say your name, and I ignored the pit in my stomach and all the anxiety attacks I suffered as a result of your abuse. I ignored every red flag you waved infront of me and gave you the power to control my emotions and dictate so much in my life.

The way you got jealous, the way you kept so much a secret, the way you always did things out of spite, and the way your eyes would glaze over when you drank too much. The way you would look at me, through me, when the drinking took control. Or how about the way you would embarrass me in public with your animalistic behavior? How you never claimed me? Or how I would be scared to come home with you and what you did to me behind closed doors. A ticking time bomb is what you were. You were angry that everyone found out you were beating me and felt embarrassed instead of feeling remorseful for beating a woman.

You brought up my past on a daily basis and you would say unimaginably horrible things to me, and mock me as I cried infront of you repeating “you don’t like that do you.” And then the way you would half ass apologize hours later just so you could start the cycle over. The way you promised and swore on your children that you would change and would NEVER physically hurt me again (which you did, 5 times after that “promise” was made). I met your kids the day we all went to lunch together, and I remember smiling and holding your 5 month old thinking how could you physically abuse me when you have two daughters? You wouldn’t want that to happen to them. So why was it always so easy for you to do to me? It’s mind boggling. But, I forgave you. Every. Single. Time.

However, I stopped forgiving. I stopped giving in. You almost had to blind me to make me finally leave. Pathetic right? I should’ve left after the first time you physically harmed me in April. But that didn’t stop you. Did it? You still tried to contact me to the point of using several different false phone numbers, social media, and emails. When you were alone you’d text me saying you missed me, you still loved me, and you wanted me back and anything else along those lines. And at night when you’re out at the bar with your so-called “friends”? The other TRUE side of you came out saying hurtful and cruel words filled with anger from all the alcohol and steroids in your system. Not to mention you’d end up going home with someone, lying to me about it, and then kissing my ass begging for my forgiveness. It’s sickening.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope you find someone who makes you happy because I am happy now. Happy that you left me alone, and happy that maybe, you would stop hurting other people, including yourself. But unfortunately, we’re all replaceable to you. The girl before me, the one after, and the one after that. We’re all the same to you. Insane and cunts when you’re drunk at night, and “amazing women who were the best I ever had” in the sober reality of the following morning. But the thing is, you didn’t hate any of us. How could you? The hell you made us live, the deceit, the lies, and the scars you created. You hated yourself, that was the problem all along and I only wish I would have realized that sooner.

I hate looking back on the time we spent together. Trust me, I don’t do it often anymore. But when I do, it’s almost like it happened to someone else. How could I have been so weak? So easily manipulated by you? How dare someone say the things you said to me or be told to go slit my wrists and do everyone a favor and kill myself? I let those demeaning phrases take hold of me. I let them convince me that I was everything you told me I was. But you still reminded me how much you loved me.

Getting away from you was the best thing that ever happened to me. I finally needed to say it all. To say everything you did to me. Everything you changed in me. Everything you made me realize. Thanks to you, I learned what a true man is and it’s everything you’re NOT. A true man would never call me names, he would never make me feel bad about my past, And he would never hurt me, when his job is to protect me. I hope you get the help you need. Because no matter how very much I despise you, no one deserves to feel that much pain and anger inside of them. No one should be miserable enough that their goal in a partnership is making the other person feel bad about themselves. But that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? That was your goal. Thank you for making me a stronger person. For making me realize what should be valued in a life and a relationship. As you lose relationship after relationship, I hope you decide to change. I always stood in your corner and was your biggest fan in every situation, even when you were wrong, I still stood behind you. You were my best friend. But I stopped letting you run and ruin my life. Of all the things I’ve done in my time on Earth, that’s one that I’m most proud of. That I got out. That I got away, and that you’ll never have the chance to hurt me again.

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