#nothing drear

[deirdresart]

Still my favorite color palette... magical witchy gradients 💛🧡💙💜

[nothingdrear]

Chapter 1 Page 23

Nothing Drear Can Move Me updates periodically on tumblr and on webtoons

my art blog

[Image ID: this is a page of digital artwork which features a dark background which looks like the night sky. Across the top left corner is the faint gray pattern of a scar, which is reminiscent of Talia Hardbroom’s scar from earlier in the chapter. Across the bottom right corner is a faded blue billow of smoke. In the around center of the page are faint gray and blue specks as well as some orange star-like dimonds. /.End ID]

[ghostlygunk]

almos three in the morning time to. worry

[liesmyth]

Alright, I've got another fic question for you! What are your favorite tlt gen fics?

you say “what ARE” I took this as permission to rec Many

A Mild Sort of Resurrection by sigaloenta [Bari Star AU]

In all the extensive special briefings and all-hands bulletins and strict sets of orders preparatory to the Emperor Divine's inspection tour of the Avernus, no one had considered that God might desire to fetch Himself a coffee.

An Impromptu Christening by orphan_account

The Ninth house finds a body and a baby. Nobody who matters is really thrilled about this turn of events.

believing in everything (and knowing nothing at all) by LesbianJesusLovesYou

A series of childhood memories from the Ninth.

“Fuck it, I'm adopting her," said John Gaius, not knowing the paperwork wasn't necessary by @naamah-beherit

Gideon, a highly distinguished Cohort lieutenant, saves the day—and the girl—and then gets stuck in the lift of The Erebos with a man feeding her peanuts as if they have all the time in the world. They don't, but if he doesn't mind, then why should she?

High But Very Drear by @honorarycassowary. (written pre-NtN)

Aiglamene and Crux receive the five hundred ancient dead gifted by the Emperor for the renewal of the Ninth, and also do something that could be construed as mourning.

John 25:12 by @halfeatenmoon

John and his friends escape the cow fortress to spend Christmas Day at the beach. With beer, salads, pavlova, and the corpses of a million fish killed by nuclear weapons testing.

Mortification of the Flesh by @theriverbeyond

In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the Lord of the Sharpest Edge!—Harrow Nova challenged the cavalier of the Ninth for his title.

Purgatory Is Mandatory by @urban-sith (written pre-NtN)

Ianthe figures out the true secrets of Lyctorhood while stuck in a time loop at Canaan House.

recognize them by their fruits by @ceruleanvulpine (written pre-NtN)

John and Ianthe deal with the fact that his only remaining Lyctor is the one he never liked much. Maybe they can bond over the fact that they're both egotistical manipulators who lie like breathing? No?

so I open the window to hear sounds of people by @sunderedstar [but really that whole series!]

John misses the beach. The real beach. The current one is mostly soil with a lacy veneer of nuclear ash, clammy and streaky and hilariously radioactive, which is a real bummer when he thinks about it too hard. But the twenty-five meter sea level rise that came when all the freshwater ice finished melting around the mid-century mark ate away at the shoreline, rolled in between the skyscrapers on a new tide, swallowed up all the people who couldn't afford to move anywhere else. Have you seen the rent rates lately?

some part of me must have died by @theriverbeyond

What if Wake survived long enough to bring her newborn baby to Tomb, and killed her. and then the baby didn't die.

the kingdom of heaven by bittybelle

John puts that first-draft dream of his to bed.

Two Things by Isis

There were two things Jeannemary Chatur wanted: to fight for the Emperor Undying by the side of her necromancer, and for the stupid pimple on her chin to go away already.

when I call, will you come to me? by LesbianJesusLovesYou

“My Lady,” Ortus wheezed, shifting uncomfortably. “I only thought you should know… Gideon Nav was flogged before the congregation.”

[ruknowhere]

"The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go."

Emily Brontë - Spellbound, 1837.

Shufu Miyamoto (b.1950) - Winter Scene.

Source: Ravenous Butterflies

[tropes-and-tales-archives]

More Precious Than Rubies: Part 4a

This is an alternate timeline story that has a Rafael Barba track and a Sonny Carisi track. The two paths split off in part 3.

WC: 4229

TW: SVU-typical talk of rape and sexual assault cases; idiots in love.

AN: The prompt was "Everything will fall into place."

The day had started great.  Barba had a grand jury return an indictment on a difficult test case, and the week only looked to get better as it progressed.

He left the courthouse and paused at the top of the steps.  He squinted against the bright May sunshine, slid his sunglasses on, and took in the scene around him.  There was something about the springtime that lifted the relative drear of his life.  The trees in Thomas Payne Park were in bloom, a gentle wind was curving through the columns of the courthouse.  Spring was a season of possibilities.

He started down the steps when he felt someone come up behind him.  He heard a familiar voice call out, without social niceties or preamble, “we need to talk about the Forni case.”

He turned in time to see you fall in step beside him.  He glanced you over as you both descended the steps and paused at the bottom to face each other. 

Your usual pencil skirts usually hit precisely at the knee, but the navy blue one you wore now hit an inch or two higher, showing off your shapely legs.  He was glad for his sunglasses hiding his eyes, but you smirked at him anyway.

“Nothing to talk about, counselor,” he replied.  “We couldn’t reach a deal, so I’ll see you in court.”

Your smirk transformed into a wide grin.  You reached into your satchel and pulled out a folded paper that you handed to him.  He went to take it, and you held it for a beat, making him tug it out of your grasp as you smiled at him. 

“Ah, but you won’t see me in court,” you said.  “I got Forni shifted to family court.  I’ll be seeing a one Ms. Pippa Cox instead.”

Barba opened the paper and scanned it in disbelief.  “How…what…?” he sputtered.

If your smile got any wider, it’d split your face in half.  “Turns out Judge Barth is open to certain studies that show how racial disparities affect minority communities when it comes to underaged people being tried as adults.  She agreed that the case belonged in family court.  I’m off to see Cox now to talk about a reasonable deal that serves justice without vengeance.”

He crumpled the paper in his fist and glared at you, and you only gave him a light laugh.  You waved your hands in front of him like you were doing a magic trick.  “Poof, there goes your case,” you declared.  “The Amazing Girl Wonder does it again.”

You walked away, and he watched you go, trying to ignore the way your skirt strained a bit around your ass and how your legs looked in your heels.  He gritted his teeth and felt a migraine start up in his left temple.  McCoy was going to hate this, and Liv would probably have something smart to say too.

-----

He heard that you and Cox hammered out a deal that got Anthony Forni into a juvenile treatment facility.  Less than a month into him serving his sentence, certain crimes committed against him came to light, and SVU was put on the case.

You had been right:  Anthony’s uncle had been molesting him since he was a young child, and the more SVU dug into the old man, the more victims they found.  Before long, Barba had a strong case with multiple victims and incontrovertible evidence.  It was a slam dunk, and the jury was only out for a bit before they came back with a guilty verdict.

You sat in the gallery during the sentencing.  Anthony was there to give a victim impact statement, and when it was all over, Barba caught your eye.  You did that usual irritating head tilt of yours, but you nodded at him too.  And then you smiled.

-----

May turned to June, and Barba didn’t have another case against you for the entire month.  It should have been a relief – just his usual slate of cases without quite so much aggravation – but it didn’t mean he didn’t think about you.  Just the opposite, in fact.

Barba prided himself on having a good read on people based on first impressions, and that went double with his fellow lawyers.  He knew, for example, within five minutes of meeting Buchanan that the man was a money-grubber without a shred of moral integrity.  He knew that his fellow ADAs were a mixed bag:  Callier was competent but treated the job like a job without much passion for justice, and O’Dwyer punted off any case that he couldn’t twist into a headline or a law review article. 

Barba had similarly judged you, but you kept surprising him.  He was constantly revising his impression of you. 

First, he thought you were just some barely functional law lackey and had landed in public defense because it was all that was available to you.  When you proved yourself as competent, he revised his opinion of you.

Then he assumed that you were one of those lawyers who used public defense to vault into a lucrative career of criminal defense.  That’s what Buchanan had done, after all.  But after a while, Barba heard through the gossipy channels of his lawyer networks that you’d been offered positions with a few different firms and had turned them down.  Revision number two.

He was currently settled on thinking that you really were some sort of do-gooder, revise-the-system sort of advocate.  He saw the way your eyes shined when Anthony Forni finally got justice.  There was no faking that sort of genuine feeling. 

He wondered where your zeal for justice came from.  He knew his fair share of bleeding-hearts in his career, but you were specifically driven – you didn’t have the vague, do-gooder, we’re all one people sort of passion.  You were laser-focused on specific issues.  Something had made you that way.  He wondered what it was.

He almost felt bad – public defenders either burned out quickly or became embittered.  As much as you were a thorn in his side, he would readily admit that you were a good lawyer with a sharp intellect for the law that belied how green you really were.  He’d hate to see you in ten years (or five, or two), that sparkle in your eye and that annoyingly defiant head tilt gone. 

But Barba was irritated by the fact that you were taking up so much space in his head.  And it didn’t get any better.

In fact, it got worse.  Barba went out with the squad one night to celebrate a hard-won case, and he had too much to drink.  Your name had come up over the course of the evening – Fin complaining about you, remarking that he hated hearing your heels clicking down the hallway when SVU caught a new case with a public defender.  From there, Barba couldn’t shake the image of you at the sentencing of Forni’s uncle, when you nodded and then smiled at him.  Too many scotches in, and he couldn’t shake the image.

Liv had to load him into a taxi, and he stumbled home to his empty apartment.  He only got himself half undressed before he collapsed into bed, and the combination of too much alcohol and a well-fought win and you on the brain left him feeling…well, amorous. 

Barba rarely ever bothered to take care of himself, but in the spirit of celebration, he did – and as much as he fought it, he kept picturing you.  His mind, soaked in booze, spun though a series of improbable scenarios:  in his office, in the courtroom, in the SVU interrogation room. 

His mind finally settled on a cliched stuck-elevator scenario that he’d be embarrassed by in the morning, but in the meantime…he pictured the two of you trapped in an elevator (power outage, it’d take hours to fix), you panicking (you were claustrophobic), him comforting.  He imagined you doing that infuriating head-tilt you did, but in his mind, you tilted your face to his, pleading with him to distract you. 

From there, the scenario deteriorated, and he brought himself to climax with you on his mind, and then he rolled over and slept the sated sleep of the near-dead.  He didn’t wake up until late morning, but it was a Saturday and he didn’t have anywhere to be.

In the light of morning, he cleaned himself up soberly, his head throbbing and a twist of Catholic guilt at masturbating in the first place.  He vowed to stop thinking about you.

-----

It was easier said than done. 

Barba found himself collecting interactions with you like a magpie collection shiny baubles and lining his nest with them. 

There were the usual meetings to review possible plea deals when you had one of his cases.  He probably should feel ashamed to have thought about you that drunken night after the bar, but he was always able to meet your gaze levelly without hesitation.  When a plea couldn’t be reached, there was the usual trials.  You usually lost, but it was never a complete loss – you always managed to get more serious charges dropped or found ‘not guilty,’ and you managed to get a lot of your clients more lenient, alternative sentencing. 

But there were other interactions too.

There was the time he saw you across the street of the courthouse.  You were waiting for the light, and you turned your face to the sunlight and closed your eyes for a second.  He saw you take a deep breath and smile at the stolen moment of serenity in what he assumed was a life as busy as his.

There was the time in the courthouse elevator, when he stepped on at one floor and you joined him on the next.  You nodded at him and then turned your back to him, and he watched you and prayed for a non-fatal elevator disaster to strike.  But god’s attention was clearly elsewhere because the elevator deposited both of you on the ground floor, and you strode away without a backwards glance.

There was the time he saw you running in Riverside Park.  You were obviously doing some workout – sprinting for a distance on the trail, then walking back to your starting point while frowning at a giant watch on your wrist.  Then repeating it, over and over.  He had been out for a rare Sunday afternoon walk, tired of being cramped in his office all weekend, and he had stood and watched you from a distance until he was certain someone would call the cops on him for publicly leering at women in the park.

There was the time at the wine bar when he was just settling in his seat as you were paying and leaving.  When you noticed him, you smiled and repeated the magic-trick gesture that you’d done with the Forni case.  Then you left, and Barba found out the next morning that you’d yanked another case out from under his nose.

There was the conference on sexual crimes and cyberspace, and Barba only noticed you during a break before the keynote.  You stood at the refreshments table and frowned at the offerings of stale bagels and burnt coffee, and he watched you sigh heavily before you speared a few slices of cantaloupe.  He walked over to stand beside you, and he pretended to get a coffee.

“Counselor,” he said in greeting.  “Learning about the new crimes you’ll have to defend?”

He watched you turn to face him, and he watched you look him up and down.  He was glad to have worn one of his better suits, but he still wondered what you thought of him.  Your mouth twisted into one of your half smiles, but that could mean literally anything with you.

“I have to stay one step ahead of the D.A.’s office,” you admitted.  “They have some really tough lawyers over there.”  You paused a beat, then added, “O’Dwyer is one of the best, honestly.”

Then you snorted at the look on his face and walked away with your plate of fruit, leaving Barba flustered with his cup of awful coffee.

********

You loved your job.  You lost more than you won, but that was the life of a public defender, and you managed to divert a fair share of non-violent and first-time offenders into alternative sentencing arrangements.

The best was when you scored a hit against ADA Barba.  You were cordial with the other ADAs – Callier, O’Dwyer, Niles – but Barba was linked to SVU and pompous to boot.  You wondered if he learned how to smirk at Harvard, or if it was a natural talent.

You didn’t know how he was with other defense lawyers, but he seemed to enjoy arguing with you.  You’d been offended by the “girl wonder” comment, but then you leaned into it, tossing it back in his face when you beat him.  You loved the way his handsome face got stony, how his green eyes turned stormy when you bested him. 

The best was when he clenched his jaw so hard that you could hear his molars straining under the pressure.  You made a deal with yourself:  if you got him to crack a tooth in frustration, you’d take a long weekend and go to the Catskills for a mini-vacation. 

And if he never did, at least you could enjoy needling him.  You loved throwing him off his game.  Barba was just another politically-minded ADA, taking certain cases so that he could claim the “tough on crime” tag when he made his eventual run at a judgeship. 

Still, he seemed okay as a person.  You may even vote for him, if he ran for an elected position.  Maybe turn up to one of his campaign events just to stare at him and wait for him to blink first.  Or imply that one of his coworkers was better than him, like you did when you ran into him at a conference.  The look on his face, somewhere between surprise and offense, had been hilarious.

Your life had a comforting rhythm.  You worked.  You went home.  You ate lunch too often at Salvadoreño, probably keeping them afloat with your addiction to their pupusas.  You took up a half-marathon training plan to justify your daily lunch calorie count.  You hung out with your friends when you had free time, and you just contributed to an ongoing text string when you didn’t have time.  Your friends were mostly lawyers too, and no one had time for anything other than work.

Work was a convenient excuse for your appalling lack of love life.  After Sonny, you refused to date for a while.  Once the heartache faded a bit, you went on a few first dates that were like slow-motion train wrecks.  The Wall Street guy who spent the evening on his phone.  The Bronx ADA who lambasted your job.  The corporate lawyer who talked about himself the entire evening and then parted ways with you on the street afterwards after telling you that you weren’t his type, physically.

You only saw Sonny sometimes at work.  It could have been easy to fall back into bad habits, but he kept his distance from you and only exchanged the smallest of small talk.  Every so often, you caught him looking at you with a woebegone look on his face, but more often than not, he was joined at the hip to Amanda.  Leaning on her desk with his lanky legs stretched out in front of him.  Sitting in interrogation with her.  Bringing her a ginger ale from the breakroom.  Trotting after her like a puppy when a new case came in.

Almost two years later, and it still nettled to see it.

You were in the 16th precinct to talk with a new client who was going to be arraigned the next day.  It was a Barba case, and you each did your usual snark-filled banter across the interrogation table.  His eyes got their usual glint in them that made you question, as usual, if he was turned on by arguing.  Then your client was led out in handcuffs, and you assured him that you’d be there in the morning for his arraignment.

When you went to leave the room, Barba opened the door for you and then fell in step with you.  He was saying something about the case, making a final bid for some deal, but you barely heard him.  As you walked through the precinct bullpen, your eyes drifted to Sonny and Amanda standing by the big-screen in the corner. 

And you saw, clearly, that Amanda was pregnant.

It was like a punch in the gut, pulling all the wind from you.  Your eyes went from her swelling stomach to Sonny’s face – who was looking directly at you with his bright blue eyes.  The expression on his face was unreadable, and you turned away and walked as quickly as you could to the elevator.  Barba matched your speed and kept up with you, but he had fallen silent.  He watched you jam the ‘down’ button furiously, then joined you when the elevator doors slid open.  He watched you jam the ‘door shut’ button just as angrily.  You heard Sonny call your name from the hallway, and you hit the button and kept hitting it until you felt a tentative hand on your wrist.

“It’s shut,” said Barba softly.  “You can stop.”

You couldn’t look at him.  Your vision was blurry with tears as you stared at the elevator panel.  You hadn’t meant to start crying – it felt like an involuntary reflex, seeing Amanda pregnant and Sonny solicitous with her.  How long had he waited before he started sleeping with her after you broke up with him?  Had he already been sleeping with her?  Your mind stretched back to all the broken dates and the times he stood you up to be with her….

And of course, the one single time you got emotional at work, it had to be in front of your harshest competitor.  You could envision a long stretch ahead of you where Barba mocked you for crying every time you tried to hash out a plea deal. 

But he didn’t say anything right now.  He removed his hand from your wrist and reached into his suit jacket.  He pulled out a handkerchief – an actual cloth handkerchief, like some member of the landed gentry in a period piece, for fuck’s sake – and handed it to you without a word.  You took it but just stared at it; it was a blindingly snowy white, and it felt like a bridge too far to wipe your tear-stained face on it, especially with his embroidered initials staring back at you. 

When the elevator deposited you on the ground floor, Barba put his hand on your upper back lightly and steered you towards the ladies room, plucking his handkerchief from your hand and pushing you inside the bathroom. 

He didn’t follow, thank god.  You stood at the mirror and braced yourself against the sink.  You took deep breaths.  You pushed aside the mental image of Amanda and Sonny together.  Not just pushed – you shoved it into a box, taped it shut, and tossed it into a dark corner of your mind with the rest of the awful life experiences that you compartmentalized.  You were pretty good at it – you had lots of experience, after all.

You waited a long moment, just staring at your own reflection.  You felt like an idiot.  Of course Sonny would end up with Amanda.  And regardless of when it happened, it didn’t matter anymore.  You weren’t together. 

What did matter was keeping your composure, especially in front of people like the entire SVU squad and ADA Barba.

When you exited the bathroom, the latter was standing outside, waiting for you.  But if you expected him to smirk or gloat at your sudden show of emotion, you would be wrong.  He just stood there, sharp in his black three-piece suit, with a look of concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and he didn’t sound like he was teasing, so you nodded at him.

“You look like you need a drink,” he continued, and he gestured for you to walk with him.  You did.

“It’s only 11:30 in the morning,” you replied with a watery laugh, and he held the door for you as you both left the building.

“Lunch then,” he said.  He took your elbow and steered you out to the street.  “And a glass of wine wouldn’t hurt.”  You opened your mouth to protest but he cut you off and led you towards a little Italian place on the corner.  “You’d be surprised how much smaller problems seem on a full stomach and a bit of pinot.”

You followed him mutely into the tiny restaurant, to the tiny table jammed against a wall.  You ordered a Caesar salad and allowed him to order you a glass of pinot, and he placed his order too.  When the waiter dropped off your drinks and left, you braced yourself for whatever snarky comments Barba had planned.

You were wrong again.  He didn’t even mention your dramatic scene at the 16th.  He asked how you liked being a public defender, then segued to talking about lawyers you both knew.  It turned out that you had a lot of mutual acquaintances – the law community of New York City and its surrounding environs was shockingly small.

When your food came, the conversation shifted to your individual experiences at law school.  It turned out that you were both scholarship kids and knew the divide it could cause with your fellow classmates.  You were both editors of your respective law reviews too.

“Though Harvard Law has a little more brand recognition,” you admitted with a small smile, and Barba only shrugged modestly and asked what topics you had written about.

It felt weird that it wasn’t weird, sitting across from your toughest opponent, eating lunch and chatting about things casually instead of bickering about plea arrangements.  And, to his credit, you had barely thought about Sonny and Amanda since you sat down to eat.  You’d have to revise your opinion of him as a pompous type.  Maybe a person could be pompous and nice.

The waiter bussed your empty dishes and dropped the check, which Barba took without comment and paid.  When you tried to protest, he made a snarky comment about your paltry salary as a public defender, so you glared at him.

You both stood to leave, and you each paused on the sidewalk in awkward silence.  You finally spoke up to thank him, and you hoped he knew it wasn’t just for the salad and wine.

He cleared his throat.  “It’s probably not what you’re thinking it is,” he said.  “But I know what you’re going through.”  He sighed, paused, then added, “everything will fall into place.”

You dropped your head and looked at your feet on the sidewalk.  “I don’t want your pity, Barba.”

He swung his briefcase to nudge it against your own satchel, making you look up at him.  “If you think for one second I’m going to go easy on you, Fordham Law, you have another thing coming,” he said with a smirk.  “No pity.  And no mercy either.”

“Bring it, Harvard Law,” you replied with a grateful smile.  His smirk turned into a smile in return, and he parted ways with you – he walked to the left, and you walked to the right.

-----

You kept the Sonny and Amanda situation carefully compartmentalized over the next month.  Sonny tried to talk to you once in the precinct, but you carefully kept the discussion focused on the new suspect you were representing.  He eventually stopped trying, and you had a way of unfocusing your gaze when it drifted over your ex-boyfriend and Amanda.

Work was busy, you ran a lot with your training group, and any time your mind drifted to those thoughts, you shoved them away by focusing on other things.

Barba, for example.  Still pompous, and not granting you an inch, as promised.  He was still your toughest ADA:  Callier was always open to reasonable deals, O’Dwyer ducked most of the cases you handled…but Barba always had fight in him.  You could put the best deal on the table and he’d still argue with you about it, layering in platitudes about the law and justice while accusing you of being a softy.

You argued at SVU, you argued in court.  You each got pulled into chambers and argued your points there.  Judge Hawkins, herself a champion smirker, watched the two of you bicker for a full five minutes before she interjected and told you to get a room.  Barba sputtered in shock, which allowed you to get your final point in without interruption, but Hawkins split the difference and only threw out half the evidence you were trying to get expunged.  It was still better than nothing.

You still glared at each other during court, but there was no real weight behind it.  He started calling you “Fordham Law” all the time, which was miles better than “Girl Wonder.”  In return, you started shaking his hand after trials concluded, even the ones where he won. 

And if you felt anything when his warm hand enveloped yours, you compartmentalized that too.

[thenorthsource]

He wrenched free of their grip and ran, half-blind, for the door. Ghost followed close at his heels, out into the night.

The yard was quiet and empty. A lone sentry stood high on the battlements of the inner wall, his cloak pulled tight around him against the cold. He looked bored and miserable as he huddled there alone, but Jon would have traded places with him in an instant. Otherwise the castle was dark and deserted. Jon had seen an abandoned holdfast once, a drear place where nothing moved but the wind and the stones kept silent about whatever people had lived there. Winterfell reminded him of that tonight.

The sounds of music and song spilled through the open windows behind him. They were the last things Jon wanted to hear. He wiped away his tears on the sleeve of his shirt, furious that he had let them fall, and turned to go.

[crybabytoy59]

Holiday season break…

Drear John think you need a break….

It was a wonderful summers day that morning, birds chirping on the apple tree, flying back and forth swinging from the bird feeder, the wee red nuts turning white with each peck…

John loved to watch nature the outdoors always held a strange lure to him something peaceful about it made him calm…

Just as he looked out the window Aunt Dee walked into the kitchen, looking over to John she spoke to him..

“Morning You… sleep well ?”…

As she glided past him he marvelled at her beauty….

His Aunt was only ten years his senior in her late 40’s but she had the figure of a woman much younger due to her keep fit routine…

Her stunning long black hair flowed over her shoulders down her back to almost her lower back, framed by very straight powerful shoulders, she had beautiful blue eyes with high cheekbones and the widest smile !

Again she spoke breaking John from his stare !

“Did you sleep well ?” She gave a small chuckle as he stuttered a yes thank you Aunt Dee …

John had stuttered not over her beautiful presence, rather what she was dressed in !

Or the lack of it !!!

She had o a grey straight dress that had no arms like an official would ware ..But this was Very short only coming to the top of her thighs ! Around her waist was a black leather belt around 4” wide with a huge buckle….she had on a white shirt under the dress that only had lacy sleeves that clung to her upper biceps… her black hair was in a high ponytail tied with a black lace that had been woven from her crown 6” down to her neckline…. She was stunning !!!!…

But for John this was such a treat as secretly John had a huge crush on his Aunt…

For years he had made every attempt to go to her for regular holidays…

Just to simply be in her presence, his infatuation had gotten worse after he visited in his early 20’s for a long weekend.

He had gone to the toilet one day when Aunt Dee was out shopping, sitting on the toilet he looked at the laundry basket…No he couldn’t …

On flushing he walked past the basket, But stopped at the door !

It would do no harm just to look ?

Lifting the top there was among the laundry her silk frilly lace pants !

OMG he wanted to put the top back and run downstairs…

But he lifted a pair looking at them ! Then it happened he put them to his nose !!!

His Aunt’s smell was so very sweet..But worse was to come he was so excited John took out his swollen member grabbing at the toilet paper he started to masterbate hard ! in seconds he shot hot sperm into the awaiting paper !!

Truly embarrassed by his actions he put the pants back flushed the toilet and vowed Never to do such a thing again…

It didn’t last long each holiday he would wait till Aunt Dee was out then take pants…

This got worse as he started putting them on ! Followed by her bra ..

That was how it started him dressing in her underwear feeling like a naughty little girl !

A sissy girlie !!

Years had passed as he grew older the stay’s became less frequent..

John did keep in touch with his Aunt regularly so was not surprised on her invitation to stay with her after a messy break up…

But on the second day he couldn’t help him self he went to the laundry basket !!!

Stealing a pair he would sleep with them on then simply put them back in the early morning…

This he had done with a huge smug smile to himself she would know nothing of his dirty nights play in them…..

Eating bran flakes from the bowl he casually looked over at his Aunt’s current attire…

“Do you like it John ? (A nod came) I have some business to take care of today so hence my dress code…. Now finish your cereal…. Then you can help me with something”..

John put his bowl into the dishwasher and followed his Aunt up stairs to the attic conversation she strode up the stairs in front of him he was in heaven watching her cute bubble butt bounce before him !

She went into his room ? ….

Stood at the bed with her arms now folded !

John what is this ! …

She pulled the bed sheet down to reveal her silk panties !!!

How ? How could she have known what pair he took !!!!

John went bright Red !!

Aunty Dee I don’t know how they got there ?!

2.

This was indeed a half truth as he had put them back ?

Aunt Dee looked him right in the eyes !

“I hate lies ! Admit it you stole my panties and have been putting them on !”

No ...N’No Aunt Dee I wouldn’t do that ….

She barked at him again !

“Yes you did madam ! Infact I think you get off on women’s knickers don’t you !”

No Aunty please !!

“I will fucking please you madam you’re a knicker stealing Sissy !!!”

Aunty Dee held up her Mobile !!!

There in colour was him in bed with her panties on sleeping !!!!….

The shame burst through as he went Deeper red welling up !

“Get over my knee Madam ! “

She sat on the bed…

Wwwhhat Aunty Dee ?

“Eh Now sissy !!”

She took his arm pulling him off balance, then over her knee !

A spanking with his arm up his back followed !!!

“You little shit !! You have been wanking in them haven’t you ! “

Thwack !

No Aunt Dee !

“You little liar! You’re a nasty sissy pantie stealing bitch !!!”

Ppplease Auntie nooo !

“Then admit it You stole Auntie Dee’s frilly knickers didn’t You !”

Suddenly over whelmed with a deep sense of submissive feelings from the spanking, it all came flowing out as John confessed to everything ..

His pant stealing his dirty habits and more ..

But worse he blurted out his Deeply held love for his Aunt !,,,,,

She barked at him to get up and bend over the end of the bed frame !

This he’s scurried to do for his aunt as she left to get some items from a cupboard ..

On her return she spanked his red rear hard !

Thwack !

“Spread your legs wide you little sissy ! Am going to show you what happens to pantie thefts in this house !” His Auntie then tied his ankles to the bed legs wide apart ! Followed by his arms tied behind his back...

OMG Auntie Dee had a wooden hair brush !

Thwack !

“Dirty sissy pant stealing wee bitch ..Thwack !

Jerking off in my panties are you !”

Thwack... Thwack !...

Am so sorry Auntie Please stop ! It sore !

“Yes it’s sore sissy it a Punishment ! ..Now say it your a sissy pantie stealing wee bitch ! What are You?”

Am a pantie stealing wee. Sissy bitch Auntie Dee !...

“Now Am going to give You 12 Full force spankings and You sissy will stay silent for Your Auntie !

or she will simply start over until you are silent !”

To her utter amazement her sissy nephew stayed silent for All twelve !

But burst out crying hysterically at the end !

She almost felt sorry for him for a split second ...

She untied him then spoke..

“Pull your pants up sissy and come over here !”

As John turned Auntie was sitting in the small padded chair in the corner his rear on fire hurt as he walked to his beautiful Auntie...

“Kneel down here hands behind your head ! ..now tell Auntie Dee why you stole my panties dirty ones at that !”

What happened next really stunned her to the core !!!

Am a submissive Auntie Dee and I love frilly things.

But for years I have Loved You Auntie Dee... with all my heart I just want to be your subissive sissy ...

Stunned by this new revelation she put her hand under his chin lifting it so gently ..

“If you love me why are you looking at the floor sissy John ?”

Sorry Auntie Dee am embarrassed to look at you knowing you know my secret now..

She was suddenly aware of a tingling Deep within she had not felt in years a building throb ! Fuck she wanted to slap his face tell him to get out !

But the throbbing simply took over...

“So you love frilly things do you ? Right sissy close your eyes and don’t Fucking move an inch or it’s the hair brush got That !”

Yes Auntie Dee !

She got up leaving to her room entering the walk-in dressing room in her bedroom she opened a drawer lifting out a silk yellow teddy nightie and matching frilly bloomers !...

Smiling to herself she walked back to the spare room but stopped to fetch another pair of used panties and tights from the dirty washing basket !

He was still kneeling in the same position as she came up behind him...

“Keep your eyes closed and open your mouth ! No sissy Wide !”

Fuck he did as told so fast she wanted to burst out laughing ....

Putting the new dirty pants over his nose (Auntie Dee had to dig around to find this pair as she had an accident in the When first on her periods !).

“So this is the smell you love is it Sissy pantie boy !”

Utterly ashamed he blurted out a Yes Auntie !

But his words trailed off as she again barked ..

“Open Wide no talking ...You nod or shake your head Sissy !”

She stuffed the soiled pants into his right cheek firmly then lifted the pair he had in bed still wet with his come ! These were pushed into the left cheek hard then she pulled the used tights over his face pulling the legs out taught she fed them around his head wedging his mouth tightly !

This brought cute wee moans from John ....

The throbbing was building even more now as she worked on him ...

Fuck this was so powerful ! She felt in such control it was fantastic. !!!

“Stand up and strip for Auntie Dee ! Do it very slowly John or I will punish you again is that understood ?”

He nodded rapidly as he started removing All his clothing !

Fuck he was rock hard ! Dirty little shit !...

“Hold Aunties shoulders !”

John felt for her shoulders ..holding them felt Devine, he was in Sub heaven ...

“Lift your right leg sissy ! ...now the left !”

John shuddered as he felt the cool silk being fed up his slender legs then snapped around his waist !

“Ok hands off my shoulders and kneel ! (He did as told) Now hands up !”

Pulling the teddy nightie over his young body brought a smile to her face..

Here he was dressed in her silks, his face wrapped in a tights hood with bulging pantie stuffed cheeks.....Time for some fun !

“Hands behind your head sissy ! Now feel what Auntie Dee has dressed you up in sissy boy !”

She watched as he not only felt every where but was moaning and panting through the gagging obviously getting off on it !

Suddenly a vision passed through her mind ..What if ? Yes what if ?

“John are you a Girl ?”

He froze on the spot !! No that was too much he couldn’t tell his Auntie he Always wanted to be a Girl !

“I asked you a Question John are you a Girl inside ! Tell Auntie Dee don’t dare hide !”

John took a huge breath and nodded tears falling from him as wet patches now appeared on the tights hood !

“A sissy girl well we’ll we will have to find you a new name then sissy !”

Auntie Dee had lifted the yellow teddy nightie and was running her foot over his bulge !

No sooner had she started this than wetness spread, he was oozing pre-come !

OMG she thought as she got up to fetch a hand towel from the on suite ..

“What a dirty sissy girl you are missy !”

Auntie Dee opened the bloomers looking at his straining member it was covered glistening in the bedroom lights !

She folded the towel along its length to form a pad putting it under him up his rear, but too her surprise he spread his legs Wide panting loudly ?

As she pulled the bloomers back up she spoke to him...

“There that will catch your mess missy ! So to a name for my new girl...”

John had not even heard his auntie as he was caught by the soft towel material he was slowly moving his hips as he arched backwards an unstoppable force set in motion he screamed into the dirty panties !

“Sissy don’t you dare ! Don’t you mess my nice towel with your fucking filth !”

Auntie Dee kicked between his legs !

She watched as sissy arched backwards climaxing hard screaming into the gagging !

Auntie Dee was lost in lust herself now, her fingers drenched in her wet pussy ripping out a climax of her own she suddenly wanted with all her heart to hurt him...Hurt him Bad !!!

Lifting the hair brush she threw him on the floor sitting on his back she pulled the towel down spanking his rear wildly !

“Dirty girl ..How dare you do that in Aunties silk bloomers ! Dirty wee bitch ! Auntie is going to blister your naughty Ass !”

She spanked him wildly for around ten mins then realised he was actually crying and sobbing like a Baby !..

“Are you sorry sissy girl ?”

He was nodding wildly ..

“Well take a Deep breath and No sound for your Punishment 12 !

Show Auntie you Love her and take this silently Baby girlie LEMON !...Yes your acting like a baby so am going to treat you like a baby!”

He took a huge Deep Breath as the white hot pain rained down on him but Yes he stayed silent as he truly Loved his beautiful Auntie Dee....

“Clever baby lemon come over her and get a sissy baby cuddle sweetheart as Auntie Loves you too”

A plan had formed in her head as she spanked his rear staying silent for her in deep submission....

She at that moment knew two things she loved being Dominant and wanted to Humiliate him for her Pleasure..

Now knowing just the path too take to pull that Humiliation from him !

John sobbing lay his head on her lap..

He had waited so very long to hear her say those words he burst out crying sobbing his heart out as she pulled him in..

“Hush Hush now Baby Auntie will take good care of you now ....You will write a letter of resignation to give up your job.then we will sell everything you own, as you won’t be needing anything now that your coming to stay with Auntie as her Babyslave !”....

His Auntie now had a picture forming in her head she would Humiliate him beyond anything he could possibly dream of for Her Pleasure she had suspected him for so long but he wanted to be a Girl ! Well she would have him as that but as the two year olds she first knew when he was ever so cute !!!!!...

[princessmacabre]

day 70/100 days of productivity

got up at 8am

morning tea

household chores

did the laundry

did the dishes & cleaned the kitchen

cooked lunch

started reading Ignite Me

nap

dinner with my sisters

woke up fairly well rested and in a much better mood than i was yesterday. still feeling low and depressed but a little better, and that’s all that counts. waiting for the first exemplary of my novel. i am escaping again. slipping through the cracks. slip slip slip between pages and moving images. i am escaping again.

The Night

The night is darkening round me,     The wild winds coldly blow;   But a tyrant spell has bound me,     And I cannot, cannot go.   The giant trees are bending     Their bare boughs weighed with snow;   The storm is fast descending,     And yet I cannot go.   Clouds beyond clouds above me,     Wastes beyond wastes below;   But nothing drear can move me:     I will not, cannot go.

by Emily Brontë

bisous

xx

[muscatos]

A Comparison: Edgar Allen Poe's and his works to All for the Game

This is a dramatic and unnecessary comparison, one that I'm not entirely certain Nora did purposefully (though I remain hopeful), but nevertheless we have come to a conclusion.

An initial first look would instantly have me foaming at the mouth to mention that Edgar Allen Poe and Neil Josten (read - Nathaniel Wesninski) have the same birthday, alluding to the idea that Nathaniel had been and would always be intrinsically tied to Edgar Allen University, Riko, and the Ravens until Nathaniel is officially buried in baltimore and Neil is born legally in the FBI database and assuming a new birthday that is entirely his own, therefor cutting ties once and for all with Edgar Allen University and the trauma that it holds, in relation to both Riko and his Father. This is semi ironic as while Nathaniel died in baltimore and rose again as Neil ( “leave Nathaniel buried in baltimore” Andrew said,) Edgar Allen Poe also died in the same city under ‘mysterious circumstances,’ of which is where I like to think that Nora got her location inspiration, (both that and Baltimore having one of the highest rates of corrupt law enforcement, but that's neither here nor there.) These links only continue as Poe watched his mother die before living and being educated in numerous places around the US, England, and France, of which similarly seems to mirror Neil’s own childhood.

Edgar Allen Poe wrote his infamous ‘The Raven’ while in West Virginia, likely being the reason that Edgar Allen university is located there in All For The Game and the decision for the exy team to be titled The Ravens as a result, a particular point of interest as the contents of the ‘The Raven’ represent the madness someone descends into once their love is lost; this mimics the relationship between Riko and Kevin, with the formers sanity spiralling from his control once Kevin is lost, (with it also notable to point out that Riko and Kevin were originally written to be lovers, furthering this mirroring to the poem.) The symbolism for the Ravens represent a ‘bird of ill omen’ and seem to foreshadow the downfall of Poe's character as he was surrounded by them, as well as Rikos’ by being in the nest, with Poe also stating that the character is “distorted by his obsessive attachment.” Both Jean and Kevin escaping these ravens and having a promising ending reinforces this intention by Nora.

The idea of these Ravens that Poe writes about seem to also mirror Neil’s relationship to the nest, with the ravens in the poem coming to “Bellow for Revenge” on a “Drear-Nighted December.” A startling similarity to Riko forcing Neil to go to the nest over Christmas. The Nest being entirely painted black seems to also reference Poe’s poem in which the speaker enters the door into “darkness there and nothing more,” such as Neil would have done upon entering the Nest at the beginning of December, once again referenced almost directly as Jean tells Neil to look at the sky one final time as he wouldn’t see it again throughout Christmas.

This choice of a raven, in all, is chosen by Poe and seemingly Nora to symbolically represent the personification of death and the Narrator's impending fate, in this case being Neil’s knowledge that he will die by the hands of his father.

Edgar Allen Poe also coined the terms Evermore and Nevermore, with Evermore meaning that loss will always be apart of life, fitting as the characters in All For The Game all seem to go the Castle Evermore upon losing somebody and therefor unable to grieve, such as Jean losing his Family, Kevin loosing his mother, and even Riko losing his birth family, with only Kevin and Jean able to overcome that grief once leaving the Castle Evermore. Nevermore, however, means that one can never hold onto what they have, with the Narrator of Poe’s poem chanting the word once succumbing to madness from the loss of his partner, implicating the idea in All For The Game that no matter the circumstances, Riko never would have managed to keep Kevin in the long run, always ensuing the same fate.

I’m sure that there are mountains more connections that I’m yet to explore, with vague links to addiction regarding Andrew that even I know is a stretch at best, yet I see so little people talking about the random horrifying literature references sprinkled throughout the series that I had to do it myself. Sue me.

[daweyt]

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow; The storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing drear can move me; I will not, cannot go.

Emily Brontë, “The night is darkening round me”

[deirdresart]

She’s the big dyke energy I always wanted in a witch character

@nothingdrear

[nothingdrear]

Chapter 1 Page 20

Nothing Drear Can Move Me updates periodically on tumblr and on webtoons

my art blog

[Image ID: a digital comic page with 3 panels and no text. The first panel shows a silhouette of the Stonetower mansion at night. Golden light fills the windows. The second panel shows a close-up of one of those windows. The last panel takes over the whole bottom half of the page and shows the interior dining room of the house. Ruth sits beside Alistair, but stares disappointedly to her other side where there is an empty chair. Alistair seems unbothered by her. Godmother sits on the other side of him, chattering with someone else off-panel. /.End ID]

[sl0thonaga]

CH.2 - SYMPATHY FOR A DEAD MAN

Even in death, you will be encased and confined to this place of nightmares. In bleeding, evil metal. The minerals that feed on my bones will feed unto more bloodshed, not peace.

Will you be able to rest here, Shin? Peacefully, and eternally?

His eyes claw deep into Midori's face as he haunts his every step through the facility.

Never. NEVER.

I'll never forget you, even if I'm dead.

Won't you show sympathy for a dying man's body?

Chapter 2 of my Ghost!Shin YTTD Fic: MOMENTO MORI is out!

Words: 5,263 Characters: Hiyori Sou | Tsukimi Shin, Original Hiyori Sou | Midori, Meister (Kimi ga Shine) Relationships: Hiyori Sou | Tsukimi Shin/Original Hiyori Sou | Midori [for this specific chapter] Additional Tags: Kanna Lives | Sou Dies Route (Kimi ga Shine), Grief/Mourning, Ghosts, Trauma, Acceptance, Haunting, Mild Gore, Kugie and Shin are Ghosts, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships, Character Study, Obsessive Behavior, Fluff and Angst, Edgar Allan Poe References, Introspection

Within the ever-humming, luminescent monitor room, it seems a piece of scrap paper has been inserted roughly into the edge of a familiar book. With an ominous breath of wind, the page falls out.

"I wonder when Hiyori will come back..."

.

.

.

.

.

ASU-NARO

▇▇CONFIDENTIAL▇▇

Shi▇n DIARY ▇▇ :Compiled and Logged by DR. H▅▅▆▅▅ S▅▅U

Ah, broken is the collar red! The spirit flown forever!

Let the bell toll!--a weakling soul floats on the Stygian river;

And, Man of Green, hast thou no tear?--weep now or lie in sin!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, thy Shin!

Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--

An anthem for the pitiful dead that ever died so young--

A dirge for him the doubly dead in that he died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved him for his mind and hated him for his lies,

"And when he fell in feeble binds, ye blessed him --that he died!

"How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung

"By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue

"That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?"

Through discourse and disclosure; but rave not your composure! Let his corpse belong

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!

The sweet Shin hath "gone before kin," along Joy, that flew beside

Leaving thee wild for the dear child whose death thy should have decide-

For him, the fair and innocent, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon his cyan hair but not within his eyes--

The life still there, upon his hair--the death upon his eyes.

"Avaunt! Tonight my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

"But waft that red scarf on Shin's flight as a Pæan of old days!

"Let no bell toll!--lest his sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

"Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.

"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--

"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven--

"From grief and groan, to purgatory alone, towards the gates of Heaven."

.

.

.

.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

A slow march of thinning blood and coarse rubble, clacking against smooth-leather dress shoes. Through barren hallways, the steady sludge of bloody teal. The remnants of the sheep, throwing himself into the lion's den to protect the herd.

A green-haired man steps with a macabré elegance, dragging something. Dragging someone. His red scarf sways in the encroaching darkness as a trail of rouge follows behind him.

Up a long flight of stairs, through walls thick with wire, to a cold, silver casket. Glum and static. The perfect place for unfulfilled desires to dissipate.

The green-tailed silhouette, his polished flow broken up by an uncanny rigidity of his joints, halts mechanically in front of the coffin's silver sheen.

The dim room is accompanied by nothing but the dripping din of muddy, stained crimson. The man that holds his pale, fragile wrists doesn't even breathe.

Dull, doll-like jade pupils stare into the empty, bottomless casket. His uncanny gaze shifts towards the bloodied beanie on his beloved's head, beaten with grit and dirt.

Sigh...

The man effortlessly picks up the corpse in his arms, already feeling lighter than when he still had life in him, and carefully drapes the body across the coffin's dark interior.

And slowly, he wakes.

It's true when they say death deprives you of all other things. He once imagined he would wake up, screaming, wanting to scream, perhaps in rage, perhaps in agony, like waking up from a nightmare.

But as he rises once more, all he feels is his numbness. As if all the emotions have left him, buried along with the shell of his mortality, in the gaps of void within the coffin.

The shell of Shin Tsukimi.

.

I'm dead.

Shin Tsukimi sees himself, the same grassy strands of cyan hair on his head. Thin like silk thread, ruffled by his beanie.

Dead. He's dead. Dead? Dead. Dead.

The notion passes through him. Like mercury slides over his tongue every time he says it. He is but a wisp, and only regret tugs at him now.

The searing pain on his neck has left him, and he finds himself as translucent as a ghost. He stares past his hands, vision gluing onto the marks on his body's neck, the symbol of his final resistance. Finally, the first shreds of humanity come back to him as an injustice, a feeling that follows him to purgatory.

Sadness.

He wishes he could cry. Can he cry now? Is he deprived of that too? Maybe he is, but when tries to, it just feels like his spirit is only wallowing and weighing heavier.

I..I wanted to live too...

This...is worthless...all so worthless...

Why has he been left on earth? And here, of all places? This dingy, hellhole.

Shin, now a ghost, can't help but mourn himself. How could he not? Even though he sacrificed himself for the one girl who in turn, selflessly cared for him, A life lost is still a life lost. He lays beside the silver walls of the coffin, curling his translucent knees towards his face as he laments to the floor.

What now...what now...

He's so helpless. When will his spirit wither away? Will it do so along with his body?

It echoes through his soul. Gloomy, so gloomy..

His gloominess is startled by the abrupt clack of polished leather soles. Sharp and familiar; a sound he feared, yet one he would still run to. A sound that makes him jolt up on instinct. And when he does, an immediately recognisable face greets him, merely inches away from his own.

H...

..Hiyori...!

Another part of his life comes back to him, hits him like a cold breeze against his neck. This man was his life. The hairs on his head rise, pupils dilated as he starts sweating, cold and sticky like wax against his even more transparent skin.

Isn't he dead? Why is it as if his heart is racing, still pounding horridly at the sight of him?

Why, even after death, do you still cling onto your abuser?

Those wide, jade eyes don't seem to feel Shin's presence though, merely kneeling forward behind where Shin sat to promptly place a picture frame against his coffin.

He's...he's not smiling like usual, as he remembers him. He looks...somber.

Shin ponders, rather bitterly. Why?

Hiyori’s eyes, although shadowed by the dim backdrop, glows with an eerie stagnancy, downlooking the face framed behind glass.

The face of what used to be reveals itself in yellow backlight; innocent and pure, Shin Tsukimi.

No. No.

Slowly, Hiyori stands up, his neon head bleaching the dark canopy like poison. His face is plastered with a frown, wordless. Dormant.

It was these moments that used to make Shin sweat down to his neck. His indifference was more terrifying than his madness.

But now it was that same face, implanted, injected? – None of it feels real– with a sense of despondence. Confusing. Awful. Simply awful.

There is a slight downturn in the way his pupils eye the coffin. There is a crease where he presses his bottom lip into his jaw.

Shin’s wispy figure swivels around Hiyori's brown dress shoes, to peer at a peculiar piece of paper fallen beside his picture.

His ghastly eyes bore and sink into the words engraved fresh in ink.

..He can't be..

'Sou Hiyori, 21, of R▅D▅CTED, Japan, expired March XXth XXXX. Shin Tsukimi, Son of XXXX and XXXX Tsukimi, expired on March XXth in ASU-NARO's 3rd Floor Rubble Room Facility, after succumbing to mortal injuries in resisting the security systems, to give one last hope to Sara Chidouin and the remaining participants of the Death Game. Tsukimi worked as a job-hopper prior to the Death Game. He also loved computers, soft things, collecting, warm soups and cozy clothing. He displayed a self-sacrificial naiveté and beaming smile that charmed his dear friend. He is survived by his mother, father and little sister, Kanna Kizuchi, who he willingly exchanged his life and identity for in the Main Game to protect her. It is a shame he died without knowing their blood connection. He will be resented but remembered by friends, and greatly missed by family. And me. Me too.’

"Pity...such a pity.." The first murmurs draw out under the green-haired man's breath, sending chills down Shin's spine as it pierces through the unnervingly long silence.

Shin jerks up from his position and freezes there, soul growing colder by the second.

He could never get used to it. But then once upon a time, he did. Why. Why now? And why here?

Full Chapter on AO3..

[cg edits by me] [note: it is romantic soushin, but it is for the sake of exploring the characters as an unhealthy relationship. IT DOES NOT MEAN I CONDONE ABUSIVE DYNAMICS IN REAL LIFE.]

[astrolotte]

as much as i love splatoon lore. you all know i love splatoon lore. as much as i love splatoon lore i am not afraid to admit that a lot of the impact is lost via the storytelling methods.

For example, the Sunken Scrolls. a HUGE part of the lore is from here. and a lot of impact is lost simply because these scrolls don't allow for any further exploration. At most you'll get a few scroll pages (a paragraph for each page) on a topic. Like the fact that Judd was from the human time and was cryogenically frozen.

If they wanted to explore that concept, it could be devastating. He had an owner, a human who loved him very much. A human who loved his cat so much that, when faced with the end of the world and the resources to only save one person, he elected to save his cat. But instead of a big story with drama and heartache, we get like 3 paragraphs on it, and then... nothing.

Humanity's downfall is another big devastating lore beat, obviously, and to its credit it does have somewhat of a focus in Splatoon 3, via the Alterna Logs! Instead of a picture of a human skeleton with a Wii U nearby (a canon sunken scroll btw), we have multiple mini stories on how the survived, and how they died. The Alterna Logs are GREAT, and in my mind they're impactful! Even the fact that you can only unlock them a few sentences at a time via completing missions didn't stall it too much, as the logs tell a whole story rather than a tiny lore dump.

But it's.. not always treated that way. There's the previously mentioned drawing of a human skeleton with a Wii U right next to it (a gamer to the end...) and characters regularly mention that humans are dead without a care. Which, y'know, makes sense. Humans are long extinct, and the fish have no attachment to them. But it does negate a lot of the meaning.

Then there's cases where the drear is hidden away within mere implications, like with OE's "hundreds of dead test subjects" beat. While it's fun to sit there and have it slowly dawn on you that many test subjects likely did get blended up, it really messes with the impact of it.

My final point here is the areas of the lore left unexplored. The biggest instance of this, imo, is the Octarian society, which we... know next to nothing about. We know they live underground. We know they are in the middle of a power crisis. We know that they can be inspired by Calamari Inkantation to leave. But what about their daily lives? What is it like deep down in Octo Valley? What is it like to live in the middle of a power crisis like that, and what is it like under Octavio's rule? This could be such an interesting perspective, but we're left with next to nothing. A few Sunken Scrolls, and a few bits of poetry from Agent 8, but after that...

Like I said, I love Splatoon lore, truly. It's fun and it's dark and it's crazy. But a lot of its impact, its meaning, its passion, is left with less simply due to the way its told.

As weird as it might be to suggest, I kinda hope we get a Splatoon spinoff that's not a multiplayer shooter, something that can properly explore the lore and let people process just how devastating it really is. It's one thing to say all of humanity went extinct, and it's another thing to really feel the impact of that.

I know the developers have passion for the world they made. That's apparent with just how much lore we have in general- if they didn't care about the world of Splatoon, we wouldn't even have an explanation for why Inklings are humanoid. Or, well, for the vast majority of things in the game. No one really needs to know that microbes in the air are what make the ink disappear after games, but we have that information because the developers love what they made.

I just hope that we eventually reach a point where this can be properly explored.

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 29 June 2024

The Night is Darkening round Me BY Brontë, Emily (1818 - 1848)

THE night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow ;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow ;

The storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below ;

But nothing drear can move me :

I will not, cannot go.