#my misery needs company

[holographic-mars]

(Wip) he was supposed to love me

[shortnotsweet]

[ “SOMEBODY TOLD ME”]:

BREAKING MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME. SEVENTEEN TRACKS AND I’VE HAD IT WITH THIS GAME. A BREAKIN’ MY BACK JUST TO KNOW YOUR NAME—BUT HEAVEN AIN’T CLOSE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS.

— The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)

Princess Rhaenyra’s insolence is wearing her stepmother’s patience thin. Queen Alicent is not ten years her senior, but even during her own sixteenth year, she cannot recall herself behaving so brazenly. She would never burst into courtly discussions in nothing but gilded armor and the underskirts of her riding leathers, awash in blood. (She would never be spotted in blood that was not her own, anyway. Alicent has never picked up a sword, not one that belonged to her.) Nevermind that Rhaenyra is attending to diplomatic affairs with bared teeth and scales, no—the crux of the matter is just that, her affairs. Rhaenyra is the Realm’s Delight, a beauty incomparable to any fair maiden, Alicent included. She indulges herself with appetite of a spoiled child, the confidence of man, and the pickings befitting only to her royal blood. Criston Cole. Daemon Targaryen. Harwin Strong. Laena Velaryon. She’s full of love, isn’t she? That selfish, foolish girl. What does Rhaenyra Targaryen know of love, of duty? She is a child in so many ways—she thinks killing makes her a man, thinks the throne is hers despite being a woman, thinks she can have her knight and her uncle and her protector and Laena Velaryon in one fail swoop. She’s wrong. She doesn’t know herself half as well as Alicent does. Alicent, who sees her for what she truly is, who wants to see all of her and more of her and none of her. Alicent has been stolen into the Keep by her own father—both of their fathers—but Rhaenyra is the key to this place, is the window to everything barred. Rhaenyra Targaryen has a dragon. Rhaenyra can fly.

That’s what Rhaenyra had promised her once, with her lips pulled back in a grin, exposing the white of her teeth like the violently radiant creature she was. “Perhaps when you grow tired of plotting against me, we shall ride on dragonback together,” she had said. The tease.

Alicent had yanked her into an empty corridor by the silk of her sleeve, ready to chastise her for her ill behavior. Conversing with the lords and ladies of the court at a feast was one thing, but chattering about her bloody encounters in battle over the pudding tureen were another. The lord at her elbow was going green. Alicent’s own face was likely red; her heart raced whenever Rhaenyra got like this. Alicent had never seen the battlefield—only seen battered men in dented armor and the slumps of corpses lined along dirt roads in the aftermath of war—but her own imagination terrified her like nothing else.

(Rhaenyra is better with a sword than half of the knights in Westeros, and more lovely than the lot. Her reign has not yet begun, but already the commoners flock to her—lured in by tales of her beauty and fine hair—and soldiers would follow her into battle. Alicent would not follow, but she would watch and bite her nails down to the quick.

She thinks of the figure Rhaenyra cuts in full armor, the heat in her gaze underneath the slots of her helmet. Alicent remembers the weight of her own hand in Rhaenyra’s—which was gloved—when the princess rode up to the spectators box and grasped it in her own, bringing Alicent’s knuckles to her lips. She thinks of Rhaenyra murdered in the sky, skewered with another man’s sword, plummeting to the ground, torn in half, streaking crimson across the clouds. Alicent would scream, or cry. She might laugh. She would throw herself from the window of her tower. Rhaenyra’s bloody exploits terrified Alicent for reasons she could not identify, and excited her for reasons she refused to.)

“I’d sooner be confined to the castle for the rest of my days than get on the back of that bloody lizard,” Alicent scoffed. Rhaenyra only tucked her hand over Alicent’s, where it was resting on her forearm. She flexed her fingers, moving to release her grip on the dark fabric, but Rhaenyra intertwined their fingers and held them fast.

“You’re confined already. You are already accustomed to such a thing. I know you. But—”

“But you forget yourself. You think you’re invulnerable, Rhaenyra. You don’t know who you are.” Alicent intends for it to be a sneer, but instead it comes out quietly, and too gentle for disdain. She can’t know. Rhaenyra is as trapped as she is, but they’re trapped together. They belong together. She belongs with Alicent.

“I am Rhaenyra Targaryen, Heir to the Iron Throne and all of Westeros. I am a dragonrider. I am—I am your daughter. In a way. Your sister, too. Your enemy. Your sword, your shield.”

“And what am I?” What else is left for me? Alicent wonders.

“My Queen. For now.” Rhaenyra cocks her head, and the gleam in her eyes burns like fire raining down. “When I am Queen, you will be my lady.”

[cordeliawhohung]

[033h]

i think i'm finally finally relearning how to be okay with being alone :) and (maybe unsurprisingly) it's also deeply connected with rediscovering what i like and care about and am even passionate about! and just recognizing that i can do things i'm interested in alone, that i don't have to just do random things with others for the sake of being around people. allowing myself to be alone has ironically helped me feel more open to new connections, no matter how fleeting, which feels even better!

[bigkickguy]

I'm sorry but I have another stupid limbus theory about Dante's identity! I think it is even sillier than my last one but also i like it way more haha Lobotomy corporation spoilers ! Leviathan spoilers !

cogito straw jump scare !

Ok I like the idea that Dante used to be a member of the original L corp as an employee for the Extraction team. It would be cool if they were specifically the employee who had Express Train to Hell extracted from them back in the first lab. 1. We know from wonderlab that all of the Lcorp employees use they/them and I've seen people mention that is because there was no place to record the gender of employees in-game? I have no idea if that is true and I would think it is slightly less fun than just a 100% cast of characters without gender on random chance all working for the same place - but for the sake of my crack theory let's assume its true for a second here! (I think it's a hilarious theory in many ways and I enjoy the absurd concept of LC somehow stealing employees' gender but I will not go into that now.) 2. We also know that Dante has the same 2 weird dot's on the front of their clock that Express Train to Hell has. That lines up with many of Vergilus' lines about going to hell and the whole Dante's Inferno pile of references and why the bus is actually looking like a train. I don't remember if it's implied or mentioned but Faust built both the train and Dante's new head so I'm pretty sure they're connected (they at least seem that way visually) 3. I think it is funny that rolling the gatcha for characters uses the same term extraction as the process that Binah was in charge of for filling up the lab with abnormalities. Binah mentions that Carmen and cogito basically do all the work inside someone's head and then the extraction team pulls it out. I'm assuming that means making the abnormality a physical separate entity. Binah specifies that the employees don't watch or listen to what they are doing - they just follow her instructions. She implies looking too hard into the eyes of the employees who are injected with cogito and are extracted from would cause many people to go mad.

How does this relate to what Faust told Vergilius in leviathan? I wonder how similar the strange cogito state is compared to how Charon lost her memories of being Lapis. It's possible that when Faust mentions Vergilius can save Lapis and Garnet she is referring in part to restoring Lapis' original identity. This would line up with the motivation (assuming Faust was telling the truth) to make Vergilius sign on as the Limbus Company Guide.

And if this theory is true that opens up a lot of interesting ideas for what the company is after. If the original employee super dosed with cogito is looking into 'the well' of human consciousness or whatever the phrasing was - what will they remember when they wake up? What is on the other side in there - is limbus company after that information? Do they know something is there and they want more details? Do they want an example that the theoretical way to rehabilitate people from this state works? Did they pick Dante on purpose due to some properties of the Express Train to Hell - or would they have picked at random with any intact employee they could find? It feels more like a mission a corporation in the city would realistically take.

Do they want to become the next L Corp? Are they looking for that singularity to replace them? It lines up as a feasible way they could do that while taking they actions they have so far in the story i think? It's another silly crack theory but I enjoy thinking about it all :)

[micamone]

hey guys

[iguessitsjustme]

Happy Friday!!

I found the perfect gift I need to get you….

Thanks again for yesterday….You’re the reason I haven’t gone off on that chick!!

#your amazing to let me vent 2

#if not for you might have told her off and lost my job by now

#THANK YOU ❣️

Ya know, I do need more socks lol

Glad I was able to help. I'm always a good person to vent to if you ever need it and I'm always here for you!

Hope you have a fantastic Friday (I'm home early today yay!)

[sovonight]

well, anomen has been knighted, and i'm left insulted that he never attempted to begin his romance even though i would've had to shut it down for xan anyway 😞

[trashlie]

Hello, I'm the anon from earlier. I'm not a business person by any means either, but I guess I was thrown off by the fact that a seemingly family-owned corporation like Hirahara Corp apparently had an outsider as CEO? Rand inheriting instead of Yui makes sense since there were no male heirs and this is probably a patriarchal set-up; but why didn't Koutaro, or any other Hirahara, become CEO rather than Young-chul?

I 100% think the partnership with the Kims continuing even after the past SA allegations is a "sleazy business world" thing. I doubt shareholders have any problems with it so long as it generates profit. Most likely the allegations didn't amount to anything, which is unfortunately realistic.

I can't WAIT for Yujing's article, it will no doubt send shockwaves throughout the system even if it doesn't manage to topple it just yet.

Oh absolutely, SAME! I've always felt that Yui herself resents that the company is passing down not through her, but technically through Rand, that his illegitimate child could possibly even stand an opportunity simply by being Rand's son (and thus why she has torn him down at every opportunity, so he never gets the chance to ever catch attention). Part of her whole deal with having Kousuke fast-track his way to CEO seems to be to bring the company fully back into the hands of the Hiraharas, so yes, I was DEFINITELY taken aback that someone OTHER than a Hirahara could have been a CEO.

Like... right. For what reason did it work out that way, that not even Koutarao was CEO? And if Yui doesn't want Hirahara falling into the hands of anyone else, it feels like a Choice to partner with them - although I guess it's because a partnership doesn't hold as much power?

A really half-baked thought I haven't been able to work through prior is that maybe Yui is playing some kind of long game - that by partnering with the Kims they could somehow let them fall back on their own sword (when you think about it, the Kims and Hiraharas are really poised to bring each other down, right?) but.... that seems messy and why would she do that? Then again... she likes a good hunt and chase. Tangentially a theory I have that goes dark is, perhaps, a member of the Kim family may have assaulted Yui when she was younger, but that's a topic for another post (I keep meaning to work on) but it loops back to "why would Yui partner with someone if she loathes them"? What does she seek to gain from that? She tends to see a few steps ahead of anyone else, so if she had had a plan, I wouldn't be shocked. After all.... wouldn't it be so easy to spin the story as "sob sob as it turns out, Gun Kim pressured us to make poor Nol take the fall for Sangchul; he was going around trying to drug girls at the Kim formal but he forced us to stay quiet~ you know how that family is~" which is, honestly, scary, but is it beyond the realm of the things Yui does? If anything, it feels like child's play, right?

On the one hand I'm like that's so convoluted, Yui would never, but only the other hand, this woman gets off on peoples' misery and loves to torture, so if she went through a long con to get back at the man/family who possibly did something to her when she was younger, if she played nice with them with the eventual intention to castigate them? Making them business partners gives enough reason to believe that they could "coerce" Yui and co to do anything, by trying to use the "lesser" of the Hirahara boys (barf) to take the fall. And how easy would it be to actually trace the drugs back to Yui? Oh, the accused perp is claiming she gave them to him? When there's a whole history of this happening at his school, in his family? When you look at Gun Kim and his rep? What other allegations have come from those Kim formals that never went anywhere? She could SO easily twist any of that!

But idk lmao it feels almost cartoon villain and I'm probably grasping at straws, but I let the thought live at the back of my mind, to see if it will grow into anything else and to see if we get anything else to change how I feel. Something definitely happened in Yui's past, of that I'm certain, but everything else is very loose conjecture.

But whether that has to do with the Kim Hirahara family history we're yet to see. There's so many questions I have and I really hope everything will be answered LMAOOOOO I also look forward to Yujing's expose, but ever since reading the theory that she's working on two separate pieces, I can't help but feel the real bomb will drop in s2. But even seeing what she's writing for Nol's case sounds promising, because it feels like the prelude of the much bigger piece, right?

GOD I get really excited just thinking of it, even though I feel like learning the eventual truth is gonna make me feel real nauseous. The seediness of the Kims and Hiraharas runs deep and twisted and UUGGGHHH. The angle of "the less fortunate" taking the fall for the affluent, privileged elite is suuuuch a good angle to work and I can't WAIT to see the ripples of it!!!!!

[ragnarssons]

kinda trying to gather some anti tlou2 group on my dash before the end of the show’s first season and... well everything that will come after.

[anaalnathrakhs]

european mutuals pls where do you shop ethically-ish. i found the perfect dress at h&m and i really don’t want to buy it there.

[headfullofpresley]

“never meant to cause you a problem. here i am, yet once again with the same old story. you don't see the issues, i got 'em; yeah i do, it's true.”

“i'll make it feel like heaven but i swear i'm not a saint. and you won't see the truth 'cause i'll be kissing it away. i'll be all you need until i'm driving you insane; baby, all i'm tryna do is save you the pain.”

[karomiiz]

first crying session before finals~

[fyreice360]

I feel like I'm the only person in the world atm who is completely insane about Dwight and Jake (dbd) because the brainrot has completely returned and taken over my life again and it's actually even more maddening to be completely alone in it I need someone to talk to who is as insane as I am but I feel like everyone moved on in 2021 and I'm in an echo chamber on my own

[regularshcw]

td part 2 !

[glitterandhelium]

was feeling shit then left my room and my cat was laying in his liter box -.-