#ship: in a world of lost and found | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

girl-lostconnection · 4 months ago

Text

Concept of a concept time:

Reader who goes through the whole relationship with Ghoap or the whole 141 believing that they would always come second place, because of course Simon would burn the world down if Soap was taken out of it. Of course, Price would do everything and anything to save Simon. Of course, Simon would turn into monster if it meant keeping his family safe, keeping his TaskForce safe.

Of course, Kyle would go mad with grief if he was to lose Johnny. Of course, Kyle would become a shell of himself if he lost Price.

Of course they would all shatter without each other alive and well. It was obvious. It was a fact.

Reader who sees it and places themselves on the outside of it, because these men were already something before they came along. These men were already tight knit and close to each other.

These men were already family when Reader got dropped into their laps. It’s only natural they don’t really slot fully. There’s just no more space.

Reader who takes every bit and crumb of an affection they are given. Reader who gives away everything. All of them. Every kiss and confession, every hug, every bit of love and care they have. They give it all, because yeah, maybe they will never be a part of these 4. But they can be near and maybe…maybe that’s enough?

Reader, who dies. Not instead of Soap, not instead of anyone. They just don’t come back from the job one day, their foot locker was supposed to be shipped out to the family. But there is no family.

So 141 takes it. Who, if not them, right?

Reader, who dies and haunts the narrative from that point on. Reader who leaves a hole the size of a person and no one can fill it. It’s impossible.

Reader, whose warmth was seeping through them all for so long, the absence of it feels like a whiplash. The absence of it feels in their bones and it’s cold-cold-cold now. Their hearth dies and there is nothing to do about it but keep going.

Soldiers die every day, this one shouldn’t have been special. But they were.

Kyle who takes their personal things before someone else can come and toss them out, sleeping with their T-shirts and hoodies. Part of him dies with Reader. Part of him is getting buried with them. He’s sitting at their funeral until Price leads him away.

Simon who takes their photos and books, hiding them, keeping them safe. He needs to have it, because memory is traitorous and one day he might not be able to put a face to the name and he’s terrified of it to the point of feeling sick.

Soap who takes mementoes — keychains and magnets from all of the deployments, he takes every knick knack they found in the foot locker and Reader’s room, he stores them next to his. There are new keychains on every set of his keys. He’s fumbling with them every time he feels like there’s knot in his throat and he can’t speak.

Price gets the notebooks. Just a few of those were in a footlocker, filled with scribbles and meal plans and random quotes and games Reader played with Kyle during boring briefings. But it feels like them. It smells like them. Reader never wrote a consistent diary, too little time and too much going on, but they notated the places and times and that Soap coughs like a sick Victorian child and that Kyle has the most perfect beauty marks on his thighs and that Price sneezes like dad and that Simon sleeps with lamp on.

It is everything there was of them. Everything there’s left of their love and John isn’t sure he’d be able to part with it. It isn’t fair that it happened like that. It isn’t fair that he feels like destroying his whole office when he reads the “im not sure i fit in. on the bright side I reckon if something was to happen to me, no one would mourn too long. they have each other, I should be happy it is like that. I should be grateful” because it’s not fair-not fair-not fair-not fair.

John doesn’t show these diaries to anyone. John guards them like his most prized possession, reading it over and over because you, silly perfect thing, why haven’t you said anything. Why haven’t they noticed anything.

John doesn’t show it to anyone because he’s not sure if they won’t crumble under the notion. He’s not sure they won’t shatter when the rest find out that Reader died thinking they weren’t part of the family.

John sobs so hard, bile rises to his throat, world swimming in his eyes and it hurts, and he’s so fucking angry and it’s so unfair. Because it’s not true, because of course you were part of them, of course you matter, of course they mourn.

Because you die never finding out how much you were loved. Because there’s nothing he can do.

And it’s not fair.

Continuation

5K notes · View notes

dadbodsandbots · 5 months ago

Note

🧸 and 🧭 for your Locus and u! 💕

🧸- What plushies or stuffed animals would represent your ship?

after letting this marinate for a week while I paced around, I finally consulted @flatstarcarcosa about Sam's plushsona, and they had the remarkable stroke of genius that he radiates Blåhaj vibes meanwhile i am a simple silly pink kitty

🧭- Whats a song that makes you think of your ship?

Oats in the Water by Ben Howard Just Pretend by Bad Omens We are the quintessential "right people, wrong time" couple wish I had more songs, especially concerning the reconciliation/healing arc, but all I listen to these days is spongebob dril and dad rock lmaooo

#ship: in a world of lost and found

3 notes · View notes

helenanell · 1 month ago

Text

Butchered Tongue | Remmick

Remmick x f!reader

(Although, reader is mentioned as having an Irish father, so this does lean towards being an OC.)

Summary: Lost and alone in Mississippi, you go to a bar and sing a song of Irish rebellion. Something follows you home.

Notes: Angst, sexual tension, Remmick being alluringly dangerous, manipulation, heavily features discussion of colonialism and the British Empire.

This story is based upon and inspired by the song ‘Butchered Tongue’ by Hozier, as well as his earlier ‘Foreigner’s God’. I wanted to explore Remmick’s backstory and the pain and history of English colonial rule in Ireland. I have done my best to research, but I am English (I can only apologise) so if you spot a mistake I’ve made in terms of the history please let me know!

WC: 4.4k

I was not going to write for Remmick, but then I read the phenomenal work of @ay0nha and @spikedfearn and was so inspired, so go and read their far superior stories! Here's my attempt.

America will be cruel to you.

That was what you had been told before boarding the ship bound for the New World, dragged, kicking and screaming, by your parents.

You had sneered at those who had warned you with those words. A place was not cruel, only people.

London, your home, held no malice within it; it did not consume with a slavering maw. Yes, the Thames was filled with blood and filth, polluted with the sorrows of the doomed and drowned, but the current had no say over what it carried. It was burdened by the evil acts of men.

That was why your mother and father had wanted to leave: other people. Not because of the earth beneath your feet or the smog-thick air.

That was why you had not listened to the warnings. You would not be wary of America, only the people that you found within it.

New World. That was another lie.

An ancient tree found in the middle of the forest was not new because you had not seen it before. Its roots that were embedded deep within the earth, had likely felt you coming. You were small and insignificant in its shadow. It should be revered. Respected.

But men would see something beautiful and take an axe to it, burn it for warmth and then turn their noses up at the piles of ash left behind. Then they would demand someone else clean it up.

America was not new and it had not been ‘discovered.’ It had been invaded. Stolen.

That was why, when you had found yourself settled in Clarksdale, Mississippi, you had set about asking its true name; the name it had always been known as to its native people.

But no one could or would tell you. No one cared, or thought to care.

A year after you arrived, your mother was taken by sickness, a consuming kind of ailment that left her with barely the skin in her bones by the end.

Then, your father went. Everyone else said that was from the drink, but you knew it was a broken heart: your mother was gone and he was homesick, not for London, but his true home, the place of his birth. He had died yearning for and dreaming of a free Ireland.

It was only when both of them were long-since buried and you were utterly alone, that you finally learnt the origins of the name of the county, Coahoma.

It was derived from the Choctaw word, ‘Co-i-humma’ which meant red panther. According to the old man who had told you, the upper Delta was ‘infested’ with them.

You hated the word infested when he used it, mostly because you had heard it said with the same derision by people speaking of the Choctaw. As with the panthers, it was their home. You couldn’t infest what belonged to you.

You hadn’t wanted to come to America, but how could you leave? And where would you go? Like you father, London had been where you had lived, but it had never felt like home.

But Ireland…you felt you had no claim or connection without your father. You were half English, but that could not be heard in your accent; a reminder of tyranny. You would likely not be welcome.

Nowhere was safe, so you simply stayed put. You stayed trapped in Mississippi.

Your antipathy for your existence was what drove you to the local bar most nights and if you could, you would get up and sing, or recite a poem.

Irish lyrics that told of the joys and despairs of the Irish people and yet all of the words were English.

Irish Gaelic had been cut from your ancestors mouths, which had left your father mute when it came to what should have been his native tongue. And you were too.

Most of the time, your peformances were met with bemusement. Occasionally the locals would cheer or clap, but it never felt right. They didn’t understand; it only ever felt like they were humouring you.

It was why you had stormed out of the bar at closing time in a foul mood.

With the low-light of evening ceding its rights on the landscape, the warm hues vanished from the street as you walked down it. Nothing gold-edged anymore, just shadow-bound.

Also bound to you was a stumbling lecher, who seemed to feel that your reluctant conversation with him in the bar had been an invitation to walk you home.

Benny dragged his feet, kicking up dust that clung to your moisture-slick skin. The sun had departed,but its heat remained and that felt like a dirty-trick to you.

You had never adjusted to the climate and whenever you were in the grip of the sweltering heat, it left you feeling as though you were teetering on the brink of madness.

But something in the air that night had sympathy for you and it thrummed with its own insanity.

Your skin prickled when Benny drew up to your side and your fingers twitched, aching to lash out and slash at his skin.

‘Come on, baby.’ he drawled, hot, disgusting breath on the side of your face as he leaned in. ‘You sang so pretty, but giving me a smile would make you beautiful.’

You kept your eyes forward, grimacing at the stench of him. He had been festering in the back corner of the bar when you arrived, so God only knew how long he’d been there. All day, probably. He was hot and foetid, like something left to ferment.

You had almost reached your home, so you wanted to shake him off. You couldn't be sure that he wouldn’t force his way inside once you unlocked the door.

‘I have a way you can make me smile.’ You said, your voice sickly sweet.

‘Tell me. Anythin’ for you honey.’

It was a struggle not to gag as Benny flung his arm around your shoulder, fingers digging in like you were a peach he was prodding to feel its ripeness.

When you turned your head to glare at him, his nose almost brushed yours. You smirked nastily. ‘I will grin from ear to ear if you stop following me home like a stray dog.’

His smug expression disappeared from his face with a violence, almost as if you had reached out and torn it right off. It gave you a sadistic rush of satisfaction, heart beating a little quicker beneath your flushed skin.

Before he could open his mouth again, you shrugged off Benny's hold and kept walking, picking up your pace.

You had just reached the wooden steps of your front porch when you heard footsteps scrambling to close the distance. You underestimated how fast he could move in his intoxicated state and didn’t turn around before Benny’s hand clamped down on the nape of your neck, fingers twisting into your hair.

‘Now why did you have to go and be so nasty?’ He hissed in your ear, ‘you should be grateful for the attention. Everyone else thinks you're strange. Lonely little girl with her strange songs, parents dead and rotting–’

Benny broke off into a cry when you lifted your elbow up with violent force and slammed it into his stomach. You were released from his hold as he stumbled back, doubled over and gasping. He looked up at your with the promise of retribution in his watering eyes.

‘You whore-’

What happened next unfolded too quickly for your eyes to keep up with. One moment Benny was spitting venom at you, prepared to strike, and the next he was down in the dirt.

There was a man who had appeared like an apparition, pale and lined in spectral moonlight, the edges of him silver and shining. He had his boot pressed against Benny’s neck, who was on his back and scratching madly at his attacker's leg.

‘That is no way to treat a lady.’ The man glowered down at Benny and pressed his boot down even harder. A strangled gurgle came from his captive’s throat. ‘You should apologise.’

You watched with an unmitigated, dangerous thrill when the man's boot lifted off Benny’s neck and he sputtered out a barely coherent apology.

The man who had appeared from nowhere turned to you with a charming grin and a feral glint in his eyes.

‘Miss, did you find that apology sincere? Because in my humble opinion it was severely lackin’.’

On the ground, Benny had raised himself onto his hands and knees, his panicked breaths no doubt had him inhaling yet more dust and dirt. His face was as red as a tomato and seemingly fit to burst like one under the strain.

But some malicious instinct that was foreign to you rose up and took hold of your tongue.

‘No.’ With a smile growing on your face your eyes moved back to the mystery man who was considering you with searing intensity. ‘I don’t think it was good enough.’

The words had barely left your mouth before the man grabbed Benny by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet, the tips of his boots dragging in the dirt. He held him up before you like a scolded puppy.

‘Apologise.’ The man shook his prey in his grip and if you weren’t so perversely entranced by the display, you would have questioned the inhuman strength he seemed to possess.

‘I’m sorry!’ Benny shouted, fear flashing in the whites of his eyes, ‘I’m really sorry! I-I was rude and crass-’

‘And you shouldn’t have laid your filthy fuckin hands on her.’ The man snarled. ‘Go on now, repeat it.’

‘I-I shouldn’t have laid my filthy f-fuckin hands on you!’ Benny was so distressed, he sounded as though he was being choked. A dark patch spread on the crotch of his pants, liquid running down his legs.

‘Really? You're gonna piss yourself now?!’ The man exclaimed derisively. He wasted no more time and tossed Benny away, throwing him as though he weighed no more than a pebble.

You laughed in crazed disbelief, both at the ease the man had thrown Benny and how he then scrambled away, whimpering and mewling.

Your gaze moved over to the man and found him glaring at the fleeing drunk. His lip was curled, his teeth far too pointed to be natu–

‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m afraid I may have gotten a little carried away,’ the man said, sounding far from apologetic as he met your eye.

You had been in the middle of a thought, but his attention had dispelled it.

He was so very handsome, with unruly brown hair that fell just above his eyes which in the darkness seemed to be blue shot through with green, or perhaps the other way around. It was the colour of the roiling ocean. He wore a striped shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing a smooth expanse of chest. Suspenders held up his pants and rested on his broad shoulders.

When he stepped closer to you, he moved with such intention that it was as though he’d long-since charted a course to you. His closing of the distance felt inevitable.

It was the very reason you felt so instantaneously drawn to him that you knew to be wary. When you retreated a step, your heels hitting the edge of your porch, he smiled knowingly and held up his hands.

‘Ma’am, I know my behaviour may suggest otherwise, but I promise you that I come in peace.’

‘Where did you come from?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him.

You and Benny had been walking the street alone and it was quiet enough that you should have heard any approaching footsteps, especially at the speed at which this man had appeared.

‘If you speak of my physical body, then I came from right here. But if you speak in terms of belongin’ to a place…well, that has a long, painful answer that not even this dark night can outlast.’

Your brow furrowed at the strange winding nature of his words. ‘Were you following us?’

The man hummed impishly. ‘I was followin’ you.’

Your heart faltered in your chest and struggled to regain its rhythm. You knew then that you had not escaped an attack, not really, because this man, whoever he was, was the true assault. An assault on your senses and upon your will.

‘Why?’ You asked tersely, grateful your anxiety could not be heard in your voice.

The man placed a hand on his heart, signalling his supposed sincerity. ‘I just could not bear letting you go without telling you how beautiful I found your singing.’

Caution was supplanted by hostile suspicion as the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end.

‘You weren’t in the bar.’ You said.

It was a small, packed place and you knew you would have remembered seeing a man like him.

‘My name is Remmick.’

While his smooth, sultry voice worked to lull you into submission, you would not let him get away with refusing to answer you.

‘You weren’t in the bar.’ You repeated sternly.

Remmick tilted his head tauntingly. His smile grew. ‘Well, maybe I dreamt of you then and that’s where I heard it.’ He stepped closer, so close the two of you were almost toe-to-toe. ‘Maybe I’m still dreamin’. Yeah, that's the only way to explain it.’

‘Explain what?’

He leant down, eyes set upon yours. There was a flash of something, a firefly against the darkness of his irises, a red glow. So very red. But then you blinked and it was gone.

‘Well, why was an English lass reciting ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’?’

Those words snared you, wire tightening around your throat. His voice had changed, no longer a Southern drawl, but an Irish lilt. And his tone had become abrasive, harsh enough to draw blood. There was anger in his eyes.

But, defiance bloomed within you, fed on soil rich with the anger of the last few years of your life. Rebellion unfurled.

‘Why is an Irish boy pretending to be southern?’ You countered heatedly.

His lips pulled back in a sneer, revealing sharp, slightly crooked teeth. ‘Boy, is it? Oh, no darlin’, I’m no boy. I was born beneath an Irish sun that still shone on land that your people hadn’t yet stolen.’

‘Those are the words of a madman.’ You answered, breathing growing ragged at his proximity.

The Empire had first invaded Ireland hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

‘Oh, yes, mad is what I am. Mad with grief.’ You gasped when his hand shot out and grabbed your chin. He moved in closer, lips brushing your cheek until he pressed them to the shell of your ear. ‘And what is a lunatic to do, when he hears a song of Irish rebellion fall from English lips? Full, pretty lips, aye, but English all the same? All your lot know how to do is steal, isn’t that right?’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ you say, finding strength in indignation, ‘my father taught me the poem. He said I should know it, seeing as I was descended from the fighters.’

Your ancestors fought and died in the Rebellion in County Wexford in seventeen ninety-eight, when Irish rebels revolted against oppressive British rule. They were violently struck down, countless ending up in mass graves, barley oats in their pockets that then grew up out of the earth. The poem, named after the rebellion, was written sixty-three years later by the poet Robert Dwyer Joyce.

The poem was one of the first things you remember your father teaching you. He had been born in Ballymurn, not far from Wexford. Hundreds of years had passed and his family hadn’t moved far from the sight of that rebellion.

Remmick's grip tightened for a second, nails digging in as a warning, but then he let go. He pulled back just enough to peer down at you, the sweat-slick front of your dress brushing his shirt.

‘Oh, an Irish girl?’ He taunted. He was evidently still riled, but there was a sort of excitement shimmering in his eyes. ‘An Irish girl with an English accent, singing of rebellion in a bar in Mississippi.’

You narrowed your eyes at the challenge in his voice. He didn’t believe you. Or at least, he didn’t want to.

‘Afraid to get your hopes up?’ You goaded.

‘What exactly would I be hoping for?’

You smile teasingly. ‘A mad Irish boy, who claims to be hundreds of years old, approaches me with anger when truly he is just sad. Sad and alone. You are seeking something, aren’t you? Some piece of home?’

He chuckled, but it was brittle. When he reached out his other hand and took your flushed cheeks into his hold, thumbs brushing the line of your jaw, you found yourself not trying to flee, but fighting the instinct to lean in.

‘Is that what you are to be, love?’ He whispered. ‘Are you to be my piece of home?’

‘You miss it,’ you said, voice hoarse with pain that was not yours, but what you felt from him.

His eyes ran over the curves of your face, mapping them as if he’d find a glimpse of Ireland there.

‘I miss it,’ he affirmed darkly, fingers pressing in, ‘but what I miss I can never return to. I miss living without a foreigner’s God in my mind, without my tongue mutilated to speak the language of the invader. Both mind and body torn apart. I am eternally bloody and bleeding.’

When his voice cracked, you found yourself reaching up, your hands curling around his wrists, not to pull him off you but to keep him there.

Unbidden, the poem poured out of you as it had in the bar, only this time it was without music and your only audience member was him:

‘I sat within a valley green,

I sat there with my true love,

My sad heart strove the two between,

The old love and the new love, -

The old for her, the new that made

Me think of Ireland dearly, –’

You were cut off when Remmick swayed forward, almost as if in a trance. He bent down and dipped his head low, his hot breath fanning against your neck. When your recitation stopped, he let out a disgruntled huff, almost animalistic. When his next words came you felt the shape of them on your neck where he pressed his lips.

‘Don’t stop.’ He murmured, teeth scraping your flesh.

You swallowed down your trepidation and kept speaking. As you did, his lips stayed pressed on your neck as if he was using them to feel your pulse:

‘While soft the wind blew down the glade

And shook the golden barely

‘Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us

‘Twas harder still to bear the shame

Of foreign chains around us

And so i said “The mountain glen

I’ll seek next morning early

And join the brave United Men!” -’

When you stopped, he planted a proper kiss on your neck. Then his tongue met your flesh and he dragged it up teasingly, gathering drops of sweat until he reached that tender spot just below your ear. It was tantalising in its promise, but already a mere promise was not enough.

As if he tasted your impatience on your flesh, Remmick chuckled, the noise vibrating right down into the core of you.

‘Eager little thing.’ He whispered into you ear, nipping at the lobe.

Growing burdened by the heat rising in you, you moved your hands to mirror his on your face and cupped his cheeks. You repaid him in kind by digging your fingers into his skin. That seemed to please him no end and he groaned wantonly, pulling you so closer to him.

‘Remmick,’ you began, ignoring your better sense that was screaming at you to shut your mouth, ‘do you want to come i-’

Before you could finish your request, he pressed a finger to your lips and shushed you, gently, but urgently.

There was unbridled desire in Remmick's eyes, you could practically feel him shake with it. And yet, his expression pinched as he fought against himself.

‘No- no darlin’ you don’t want to do that yet.’ He spoke the last word as if it was a prophecy: you would let him in, but he did not want it to be now.

‘Why don’t I, Remmick?’

You knew why.

Even after only a few minutes spent in his company, you knew there were ample reasons for you to be much more afraid of him than you had been of Benny, and yet you wanted his reasoning. Remmick intrigued you when instinct said you should be horrified.

Remmick pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of your mouth and pulled away, but only by a hair's-breadth, to answer you.

‘Because when you invite me in, you will do so knowing all the ways you will be consumed. I will have you in your bed, I will know every inch of your flesh, but when we are truly joined, I will know all you feel and see all that you have seen.’

It shouldn’t have made sense and yet the words brought you clarity. Perhaps not clarity of his meaning, but of yourself. You knew, in that moment, that you would end up letting him subsume you.

Remmick was shattered, but you would let him embed the broken pieces of himself within you if it meant you were no longer alone. You would bleed to escape the despair of solitude.

‘Why wait?’ You asked, grabbing his shirt and twisting the fabric so hard that another of his buttons came undone. ‘Tell me the truth of it now and you will have me now.’

Remmick took your mouth in a bruising kiss and it was soon followed by a sharp pain when he bit down, hard, on your bottom lip. You barely tasted the metallic of your blood before his tongue came and gathered it up, licking you clean. He groaned into your mouth as his hands landed on your hips, coasting down to squeeze your backside.

‘You still don’t understand, do you?' He said, 'My lust isn’t for your body alone. Once I have fucked you, I will not slip out into the night. I will live in the darkness of you and you in mine.’

‘You sound like a madman. Again.’

‘I told you already, I am mad.’

Then, with jarring speed, Remmick pulled away and shoved you back. It sent you sprawling painfully onto the steps of your porch. Spine hitting hard-edged wood.

Equally disorientated and outraged, you looked up at him, prepared to hurl more than a few nasty words, but they all died in your throat.

Remmick's eyes were alight with red, the burning end of a cigarette in the dark. His teeth had changed too, as sharp as dagger. And then there were his hands…instead of nails he had claws.

‘This is what becomes of a boy from Ireland when his soul gets trapped, darlin’, he said darkly, ‘My soul is shaped by the hand of oppressor’s and I cannot be rid of it, even in death. I will never go home and I can never be home, not even in my own mind. I was drawn to your sweet song, the poetry of pain and resistance. Now, you must decide if you want to resist the pain of me.’

‘Would it change anything? If I chose to resist now?’

‘No. But it will be oh so delicious to watch you try. Do that for me, won’t you? It’ll make it so much sweeter when you finally give in.’

‘What are you?’

‘I am exactly what you said. I’m lonely.’ He began to step backward and his eyes did not leave yours. ‘Lock your doors, sweet girl, there’s all sorts of evil that might try to get in. And unlike me, it won’t ask nicely.’

As he was absorbed into the shadows and became one with the darkness, his voice remained reciting another part of ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’:

‘While soft winds shook the barley,

While sad I kissed away her tears,

My fond arms ‘round her flinging,

The foeman’s shot burst on our ears,

From out the wildwood ringing, –

A bullet pierced my true loves side,

In life’s young spring so early,

And on my breast in blood she died

While soft winds shook the barley!’

You did not sleep that night. Not true sleep, anyway. Remmick stalked your dreams, remaining in shadow even in your subconscious mind.

You awoke aching. You ached with the desire for him to return. You ached with pain, the same sort of pain when your bones grew as a child: uncomfortable, inevitable and signalling a great change to come.

You did not trust Remmick and knew to fear what he was. Maybe you even resented him. Yet you did want him to return to you.

Maybe you would welcome him in, or maybe you would leave him scratching at the door.

You had a bone-deep knowledge that he would seduce you eventually, but even the illusion of that choice made you feel more alive than you had been in years.

You didn't know it yet, but the man who brought death had reminded you that your heart still beat. He would also be the one to stop it.

But when?

And what would come after life?

Thank you for reading! Comments are so very welcome, author's thrive on feedback!

Part II - Fall On Me Like Night

#remmick #remmick x reader #remmick x you #remmick sinners #sinners movie #sinners 2025 #jack o'connell #sinners #sinners fanfiction #remmick fanfic

1K notes · View notes

dcxdpdabbles · 1 month ago

Text

DCxDP Fanfic idea: The Cousin

Clark had always known that Krypton was an entire planet with more than just a few cities scattered about, but it was a very distant knowledge that he grew up with.

Yes, it was sad that he was among the few Kyptonians left in the universe, but Clark has always considered himself human before anything else. He was Jonathan Kent and Martha Kent's son long before he learned of his identity as Kal-El.

It made him feel guilty that he preferred being Clark Kent to Kal-El, but it was the honest truth, as mean as it was.

Kara had once accused him of not understanding what it mean to have lost their home planet like she did. She often pointed out that his Kryptonese sounded like someone who had learned it as a second language. She also claimed that he was only pretending to be Kryptonian in another argument, and the worst was when she stated he wasn't Kryptonian enough. She raged because she was mourning the loss of her planet and people, and lashing out at him was easier.

He knew that, but it still stung, though not in the way she wanted. It stung because of the guilt: He agreed that he was prouder to be considered an Earthling than a Kryptonian.

He couldn't help that English rested more comfortably on his tongue or the scents of Earth's food were far more appetizing than the meals Kara made (As close to her family's recipes as she could. There were some spices Earth similarly couldn't substitute)

His rocket ship was his parents' attempt to stuff as much of their culture as they could into it before their people were wiped out. He tried hard to learn everything they managed to save, but he didn't connect to it as strongly as he did in history class listening to the USA's humble beginnings.

He felt guilty about that, too.

When they found Kon-El, he let Kara give him a name, only to later discover what Kon in Kryptonian meant. By that point, the clone had built an entire identity out of the name, and seeing his cousin's smug smirk made his insides turn.

He didn't like the clone, but he didn't think the boy deserved that. Though Clark should have done something, eventually, he would help rebrand the name, shifting the translation of the more modern (or it was before Kypton was no more) to an older Kryptonian one. Although Kara acted like he was destroying more of their culture, Clark felt it was better this way.

It was a struggle to be trapped between two worlds, but Clark knew which one he would choose every single time.

Then Bruce found the boy.

As usual, Bruce kept an eye on all major powers, including up-and-coming heroes. He first gained wind of the young hero in Amity Park from a young Wes Weston, who posted daily about Phantom. Since Phantom seemed to fall under the jurisdiction of the Justice League Dark, Clark didn't pay much attention to him.

Bruce had eyes on the young hero and had sent Robin to offer training and support, but the boy seemed much more interested in staying in his own part of the world and fighting the dead. Clark could respect that.

All heroes had an area that was undoubtedly theirs, and Phantom picked the most haunted place in the country to protect. It made sense. Months went by with Bruce occasionally bringing up the boy in meetings, to either update them on his work or praise the child for his missions in that weird, emotionless way Bruce talked as Batman.

Then, one day, Kara barged into the meeting, about to argue for her right to join the Justice League, when her eyes landed on the hologram of Phantom, which was frozen in place. Her mouth opened and closed, eyes wide, before she blurted out, "You found someone from the house of Lor-Van!?"

"What?" Clark sat up, recognizing his mother's maiden name.

"Look at his chest! That's the Lor-Van symbol!" Kara screeched, hope starting to bloom in her eyes. "He's your cousin, Kal. Likely from your mother's young brother! I heard he was attempting to make a rocket on the other side of Kypton, but I never knew if he was successful....but he must have! He has your mother's eyes!"

Clark feels like someone kicked him in the chest. His voice cracks as he asks, "There were other refugees from Kypton?"

Whatever glee was on Kara's face died a painful death as she turned away, hiding her tears. "Not everyone believed Uncle Jor, but not everyone thinks he was lying. They just didn't make it."

The silence in the meeting hall is heavy. Clark is only half aware of his teammates shooting unsure glances between the two aliens until Bruce clears his throat. "If Phantom is truly of house Lor-Van, I think it's time to approach him again, especially since he's a ghost. Anyone with magic can take control of him."

"Oh," Kara's voice is small. "He didn't make it either."

Clark leaps to drag Kara into a hug. She goes willingly, but doesn't hug back as she stays stiff as a board, hiding her face in his chest. "He should have been your age. Makes sense why he's still a teenager."

He doesn't know what to say to make her feel better. Nothing will feel better when you lose your entire world.

"We could go meet him, " he offers instead. Clark feels Kara move her head against his chest in one brisk nod, but it's enough for him to excuse himself from the rest of the League. They wave away his apology, offering to come with them for moral support, but Clark feels it's something he and Kara should be able to handle on their own.

She's crying on her way back to Earth, aiming for the part of the planet that houses Amity Park. Clark could have just had the Zeta beams from the Watch Tower, but he felt a flight would have done her some good.

"I don't know why I'm sad," She laughs wetly. "It's not like he's my cousin. He's a cousin of a cousin. I just thought...."

"I know," he tells her, pretending not to see the flooding tears behind her. Maybe we can find out what happened to him."

Maybe he was raised on Earth before his early death. Maybe Phantom is like me. Clark says, but he hopes. Even if it were a ghost, it would be nice to have someone understand.

The two Supers don't say anything else as they re-enter Earth's skies, and they can spot a ain't green glowing monster fighting against another smaller white glowing figure on the horizon.

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #The Cousin #The doddle Sam made turns out to be a alien house crest #Danny is confused for Clark's cousin on his mother's side #Clark's Pov #Is he actually a Kryptonian?#Who knows #Kara is a bit mean here but she's just a angry teenager lashing out #She gets better #Clark is trapped between his two cultures

1K notes · View notes

planariaareneat · 1 year ago

Text

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak.

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth.

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human.

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

#humans are space fae #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humans are strange #I’m seeing a lot of people in these tags just kind of disregard the nature of life and the universe #Unfortunately there probably aren’t mediterranean worlds without desert ‘nor tundra and life easy enough that losing a limb #wasn’t considered evolutionarily advantageous to be able to survive.#There will be wolves and tigers and bears all the same on alien worlds #and life will probably be hard everywhere in the galaxy #and there will be hatred and wars and love and hope and the burning feeling in thing’s vital organs when they just need to go a little more #and that’s what makes it life.#Sorry for ranting in the tags lol…

6K notes · View notes

yanderedrabbles · 5 months ago

Text

The North Wind & His Bride

The North Wind was the coldest and cruelest of winds. So when a man came to your father's door claiming to be him and asking for your hand, your father was quick to turn him away.

"My daughter is too bright and too kind to be wasted on the worst of the winds. Come back once you learn to carry spring on your breath instead of snow."

And all that night the wind whispered down your chimney. You dreamt strange dreams - of the colours found only at the edge of the world, of snow flurries and seas black as night.

The man returned the next day. And your father once again refused him. "Come back when you can grant succor to the poor and the pitiful and not freeze them where they sleep."

That night, the wind keened even higher and rattled the window shutters. You dreamt of a wedding dress with frost for lace and a ring the gold of sunrise on snow. When you woke, your ring finger was cold as ice.

The man did not come again that day and you huddled close to the fire, rubbing warmth back into your bones. Your father paced his study and tried to scheme a way of avoiding the wind.

That night, the air laid still as in a coffin and you slept the black sleep of the drowned. You woke in time to see the first snow of the year, two months too early.

Your father's crops froze in the ground or rotted with the thaw. He paced his study and tried to scheme a way of avoiding the creditors.

When next your suitor came, your father's good manners had been worn down by debt collectors and bank notes. He snapped at the wind like a thing cornered. "Come back when you can guide ships safe to port and not wreck them on icy shores."

That night, a blizzard blew in from the north and any creature not crouched by the fire or huddled indoors was found frozen solid. You dreamt again, of a man with cold hands and even colder eyes who danced with you under foreign stars.

Your suitor did not come again but terrible news did. Your brother's ship was wrecked by a storm high on the winter coast. All souls were lost.

Through your grief, a terrible anger began to grow.

When next your suitor came, you greeted him at the door. He had a face as finely chiseled as an ice sculpture and eyes the deep black of the hinterland sea.

"If you would have me as your bride, then I will have a dowry from you."

He took your hand in his and his touch chilled you worse than a corpse's would. He looked at you with a hunger born out of winter and scarcity and cold.

"Anything. Ask anything of me and you can have it."

All through your brother's funeral you thought of ways to avenge him. And now you asked the North Wind for the one thing you thought he could never obtain.

"In a kingdom far south of here, where the snow never falls and the winter never comes, there is a jewel carved from the sun God's bones. Bring me that as a wedding band and I will be your bride."

You thought he would flinch or ask you to reconsider. Instead he bowed and kissed your hand and said he would soon return.

You felt your hope slipping, but he did not return the next day. Or the day after that. The end of autumn came without snow or gales or the return of your suitor. Slowly, you began to breathe again. Began to heal from your brother's death. Began to dream of summer and love and fresh fruit bursting between your teeth.

The winter equinox dawned with clear skies. There was to be feasting that night, and dancing. You dressed your hair with silver chains and sweetened your lips with winter berries. When the music started, one young man after another swept you into his arms and spun you around the bonfire. You tilted your head back and laughed and flirted and forgot all about your suitor.

Near midnight, the wind started to blow. The fire hissed as snowflakes drifted down from suddenly cloudy skies. Your dance partner caught one on his glove and offered it to you. Daring and high on the thrill of dancing, you licked it off his finger. "Tastes of winter in storm," you teased and when he took you for another dance, you wondered if you'd caught yourself a husband.

He spun you around but the arms that caught you were icy cold even through the fine velvet of the wearer's suit.

Midnight tolled and you looked up into the eyes of the North Wind.

He pulled your hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against your skin. At his touch, even the bonfire at your back seemed to lose its warmth.

"The journey south was wrecked with danger and the sun almost melted me clean away, but I have brought your dowry."

Before you could pull away, he slipped a ring onto your finger. It was the gold of fire and sunset and desert sand, and it's warmth spread through you.

The snow turned into a blizzard but you didn't notice it. The wind outside the safety of his arms was sharp as stinging nettles and the townsfolk called to each other in panic, barely able to keep their torches from blowing out.

The North Wind kissed your cheek, eyes glimmering with triumph.

"You're mine now. My spring bride, my dearest love."

All your dreams of a sweet summer love melted. When the snow finally settled, you were no longer in the town square but in a throne room at the edge of the world. Green and blue lights danced in the sky and shone through the palace ceiling, bathed your new husband in all the colours of his kingdom.

He leaned forward and claimed his first kiss.

When you pulled away and tried to step out of his embrace, he tightened his grip and his smile both.

"You are my wife now," he explained in a voice as comforting as frostbite, "And a wife cannot refuse her husband's love."

Your sun ring was the only spot of warmth on your body and you clung desperately to the anchor it offered.

"I would not refuse you, husband of mine. But I am the daughter and the sister of common men and there are traditions to uphold before I can climb into your wedding bed."

"What more must I do to have you?"

What would he be unable to do, here at the end of the world?

"Build me a fire that burns all day and all night on one stick of wood and you can have me as promised."

"These are strange traditions you have, wife of mine. But I have come this far to have you, and I will go further yet."

He left you with a flurry of snow and the hissing shriek of a gale. When he was gone, you paced the throne room from one end to the other and could not find a door. Everything about the room was as stark and cold as he.

Exhausted and chilled, you sat at the foot of his throne. What terrible thing did you do to earn the love of the North Wind? You wiped away your tears and then jumped at the hissing sound they made when they touched your ring. Like water spilled on coals.

"You've melted his heart," your ring hissed. "And he cannot afford to let you go."

You stared at your hand. Eventually you found your voice and the strength to ask, "How do I escape him?"

"Trick him. His heart holds all his power. If you have it, you can ride the wind far from here. He was once a man and still might be tempted into a deal."

The ring was silent after that and you waited for your husband's return with bated breath. It was dawn when he came to you, a branch slung over his shoulder. It was of a dry, white wood that you didn't recognise.

There were no fireplaces in the North Wind's palace and so he laid the branch at your feet before he lit it. It caught with a harsh crackle and fire spread across it in a greenish haze. You stretched your fingers out to feel the heat and even the meagre warmth of it was a comfort.

But that comfort turned to a slow dawning horror when you realised the branch wasn't turning to ash. The fire ate at it but the wood refused to darken.

"It's a branch from Death's own orchard," your husband said proudly. "It can burn for eternity and never go out."

"Well done," you said, even though your lips were numb from panic. "But we must watch it burn for the full day and night or else our marriage cannot be consummated."

He sat down beside you and curled his arm around your waist. "It is an easy task to watch this fire, wife of mine. When I grow tired, I need only think of the reward that awaits me."

For a whole day and night, the North Wind held you his arms and watched the fire burn. When Dawn's light touched his palace again, he kissed your shoulder and then your neck and then your lips. He sighed with a deep contentment.

"At last I will have you."

With each kiss, you felt yourself grow colder. With each caress, the binding ties of marriage grew tighter. All night you thought of a trade to offer him and now you said it aloud.

"Husband of mine, I will come willingly to your bed and serve willingly as your wife. But I would ask you first for a boon."

"Ask, wife of mine. If it is mine to grant, then I shall grant it."

You slipped off his lap and turned to look at him.

"I would have your heart."

The North Wind sighed and miles away, a gale began to form. "You already have it."

"So have said countless suitors over countless years to countless girls. And still they were unfaithful, unkind. If your love ever turns away from me, I will be stuck here at the end of world with naught but sea bears and ice hounds to comfort me."

The North Wind sat on his throne and regarded you with eyes old as the mountains. In his own hall, in his own country, he did not seem like a man who could easily be tricked. Still, you tried. You let your hands drift across his cheeks and up his thighs, let his skin bask in the warmth of your touch.

"Grant me this, husband. And I will be yours for eternity."

Was it lust or love that made him hand you a knife and bid you cut out his heart? He guided your hand to the tender spot between his ribs and the bare skin of his chest almost made your reconsider.

The blade was carved out of whalebone and moonlight and he was bleeding before you even pressed down. You thought of your brother, drowned in the ice so far from home and found the strength to slice into him.

The blood that welled up from his chest was thick and black as oil. Where it touched your skin, hoatfrost bloomed.

He didn't seem to feel any pain - he only pulled you higher up his lap and watched the guilt and horror flicker across your face.

When the cut was deep enough, you pushed your hand into his chest and felt for his heart. His organs were colder even than his skin and it felt like you'd sunk your hands into snow.

The beating of his heart mirrored yours and when you finally grabbed it, the thrumming of his blood sounded just like your own.

You held the North Wind's heart in your hand and pulled it from his chest.

All at once, in all the countless winter kingdoms, the wind stopped howling and the snow grew still.

His heart was the size of your palm and oozed icy blood over your fingers. It was so cold that at first you didn't realise the numbness in your hand was spreading. It crawled up your arm like a burning frost and locked your bones in place.

You couldn't drop his heart even if you tried.

The North Wind looked at you with an indulgent, amused smile. And when the ice reached your heart he leaned up and kissed you.

He kissed you and for once his lips felt warm, felt human. Dimly, you realised it wasn't him who was getting warmer, it was you who was freezing over. Becoming a thing of ice and hunger as he was.

"Now you need never fear I will abandon you." The North Wind ran his hands up your sides and warmth bloomed in his wake.

"Now you can control the wind as I do and ride it to the furthest reaches of the world. You can swim with the sea bears and dance with the witches."

You looked down and realised his heart was almost gone, melted into your bones and blood.

He kissed you again. "My love, you are as free as the wind."

It wasn't until then that you realised the cost of freedom. The cost of having the North Wind's heart. And when he drew you up in his arms and lead you to your wedding bed, you were too cold to turn him away.

#Yandere Fairytales #yandere x reader #yandere #yandere drabbles #yandere imagines #yandere oc x you #yandere scenarios #yandere x darling #yandere male #fem reader #Reader insert #X Reader #Fables #Folk tales #Tales from the hinterland #fairy tales

2K notes · View notes

sbcdh · 6 months ago

Text

On the morning of August 19th 1966, the merchant marine vessel Pelican unloaded its cargo into the port of Los Angeles. Recently declassified information about the Pelican’s ship manifest confirms that the ship was carrying experimental materials for a nascent project Clover. Of the 425 drums of material, only 424 were accounted for.

While government officials have not confirmed exactly what was in the lost barrel, its contents are believed to be approximately 55 gallons of an experimental substance similar to LSD.

To anyone with a passing interest in the 1970’s music scene, this will not come as news. Tall tales of a lost ship full of experimental drugs were as common as disco, though the stories have been exaggerated. The most common form of the story features a drunk crane operator loading a shipping crate onto the wrong train, though in reality it was only a single barrel that went unaccounted for. The more outlandish forms of the legend include everything from a daring heist by a crew of rocker-pirates to shadowy government entities vanishing the entire ship for their own nefarious purposes.

The reality was a simple logistical mixup, a mistake that can be tracked back to a simple addition error on an inventory sheet, an ordinary yet deeply embarrassing mistake on part of the government. Additionally, The information that revealed the lost barrel came alongside a report detailing project clovers lost asset tracking protocol. Protocol that reads as comically naive in hindsight, with guidelines including “monitoring local jazz bars” or keeping an eye out for “feminist thought.” With the benefit of retrospective, it is no surprise that agents were not able to track the barrel.

Declassification of the Pelican’s manifest prompted an unexpected crossover with another niche legend of the 1970s Los Angeles music scene: the disappearance of the Knights of Altonia.

Even today, many consider the Knights of Altonia to be a myth, but scant references to their existence can be found. According to a review from a 1977 issue of Jam! Magazine, the Knights of Altonia were a “D-List psychedelic glam metal outfit with more style than skill, known more for their disappearance than their music.” Though a 1997 retrospective from Tempo calls them “A band too ahead of their time to be properly appreciated” noting their flamboyant stage costuming and its significant influence on the aesthetics of the genre.

To the frustration of music historians seeking to separate fact from fiction, the band featured an elaborate mythology, with each member claiming to be a “Wizard-Knight of the Mystic Tower” who traveled from their world to ours “on a journey through the Nine Realms to find the secret stone.” This has been the source of innumerable urban legends around the band. A common joke among hobbyist historians at the time claimed that the Knights did not vanish, but simply “returned to the Nine Realms.” Information on the band is so muddled that many music historians doubt their existence entirely. In fact, the only confirmed, physical evidence of the band’s existence is a photograph at the bottom of the Jam! Review, it features:

Lead singer and guitarist Donald Hawkins as his stage persona “Zozimos the Wise.” He sports a mane of dreadlocks, and a classic blue wizard hat and robe decorated with yellow stars.The robe is worn open to reveal Donald’s bare chest, along with velvet short-shorts and a pair of thigh-high leather boots. The article states that the glittery bright purple guitar in his hands was named “Excelsior.”

Rhythm guitarist Jon Todachine as “Wan the Witch King.” He wears a deerskin jacket, also open at the front, decorated with what appear to be crow feathers and small animal bones. The theme of bones continues to his belt buckle, which features an as-of-yet unidentified animal skull. This figure is presumed to be Jon, although it should be noted that the broad hat he wears features a curtain of beads that obscures his face.

Bassist Riley Knox as “Chulainn the Horned.” He wears a full deer skull, along with a lit candle that appears to be slowly melting down over the mask. Most of his upper body is obscured by what appears to be a cloak of leaves. Beneath the cloak he appears to be wearing a pair of Nike Blazers.

Drummer Marcus Wilson as “Magnus Fire-Weaver.” He wears a viking helmet over intricately braided red hair, a chain-maille loincloth, a pair of medieval bracers on his wrists, and nothing else.

Most notably, a speaker on stage left is placed upon a large steel drum identical to the ones used by project clover.

Study is ongoing.

2K notes · View notes

essekknits · 1 month ago

Text

It’s so interesting to me that Kingsley Tealeaf, unlike any of the previous people in charge of that body, does actually take interest in the past and those who came before him.

Molly used to run away from any mention of the person who had his body before hand. Nothing good ever came out of it, and every interaction with that past was intimidating and unpleasant to him. A reminder of the shaky foundation and loneliness his life started in. The only thing he knows, and needs to know, about that person, is that they died, and got buried in a lonely shallow grave from which he had to crawl, empty and alone.

Lucien, when he came back, didn’t want anything to do with Molly either. He didn’t care for “the speck”, he wanted nothing to do with the full life he lived, with the person he was. That person was nothing. There is only Lucien. Even as he yearned for the things Molly left behind, the warmth and love that the Nein had for this thing he saw as insignificant (yearning enough to consume, to try and pull them into himself and devour them to maybe feel their warmth), he never bothered trying to understand why. He didn’t have to crawl out of the grave probably, he had Cree to help him out, but he was still the man buried once before, not too far from this grave.

But Kingsley? Kingsley Tealeaf was born in the open, surrounded by people he barely recognised, but immediately showed him care and love. He was covered, warmed, held. Even when he found words again (with help and meddling from these people, who had been there for his entire life), even when he tells them “I am not the person you wanted”, they love him anyway. They don’t leave him. They tell him about the past, and he listens. This isn’t him, this person they’re describing with so much love, but… it’s not a stranger. Not an adversary. A brother. Someone he shares some things with, someone he can pay homage to, who came before him and paved some of the way. Who, in death, gave him the gift of a stable foundation, of people he can come back home to, who can tell him about what the world used to be for this body he’s in, and who the person who came before him was, when he’s ready.

And maybe sometimes they get sad. Maybe sometimes they look at him weird, like they are grieving. They are! They are grieving a friend they lost, but they’re not trying to force him to be that person. They help him find out who he is instead. And with that security, the knowledge that he can forge a future without expectation to repeat the past, he can look back and find out who these people who came before him were. Because when he’s confident he’s his own full person, these other people aren’t a risk to his identity, just a facet of the past he gets to explore.

He called his ship the Mollymauk. The vessel that carries him into the future named after the brother who in death left him the foundation of one.

#critical role #cr2 #the mighty nein #tm9 #mollymauk tealeaf #lucien tavelle #kingsley tealeaf

878 notes · View notes

dadbodsandbots · 4 months ago

Note

2+3+9+11+23 for sam and 29+33+35+62 for digs

Sam

2. Who is the one who fusses the most? Does their S/O mind very much?

I'm casually fussy because it's the people pleaser in me. Sam appreciates my helpfulness, but there are some things that he prefers to handle on his own and he has a pet peeve about people hovering when he is focusing on something. He also recognizes that undercurrent of wanting to be useful and it makes his stomach churn that I still struggle with the same toxic trait that I helped him recover from. Funnily enough, he uses similar cognitive behavioral methods to redirect my energy to helping him with adjacent tasks as a team instead of anxiously waiting to jump in on demand. We're partners and partners communicate :)

3. What is their love language?

Sam defaults to acts of service because he's comforted by the knowledge that he helped my day a bit easier by shortening my to-do list or surprising me with a little treat :) He also appreciates spending quality time together, even if it's simply parallel play in the moment.

9. If there wasn't enough seats, how would they sit? One on the other's lap? One on the armrest? One on the floor in front of them?

Sam would actually die if I sat on his lap in public lmfao He'd be a gentleman and offer me a chair. We get stuck in a polite feedback loop and end up leaning against a wall together.

11. Who is clingy?

Meee :3c Although I'm very physically affectionate, Sam's personal boundaries and preferences help dictate the amount of physical contact he's comfortable with at that moment. He's more likely to indulge me when we're home, leaving space open on the couch or bed for me to clamber next to him.

Sam is tactile in his own way: reciprocating my attention to his hair and hands, kissing my forehead, and offering hugs that are equally strong and reassuring. He's at his clingiest when we're both nearly asleep, lulled by the soft puff of breath against his chest and drawing me close to rest his head on top of mine.

23. Who said "I love you" first?

I did. We were still in the U.NSC and Sam had received his first marching orders to be shipped out to a particularly active combat theatre while I was pushing pencils to get my foot in the door of O.NI's xenoarchaelogy department. There was a mutual attraction - mental, emotional, and physical - but neither of us had made a move due to regulations and our respective career risks.

It was half caused by the beers we'd crushed the evening before and half panicked impulse that if I didn't confess and something bad happened to him, I would never forgive myself for not taking the chance to let him know that he had someone waiting on him.

Sam's initial lack of reaction almost made me cut and run before he reciprocated the sentiment with the first true, bruising hug he'd given someone - anyone - in his lifetime.

Digs

29. What's an insecurity they hold about their relationship?

Beneath the bravado and swagger, Digs knows that he's a fuck up with zero prospects who will either end up dead from a botched Squad mission or his own misfortune. He worries that one day I'll wisen up and leave him in the rearview mirror like everyone else with good sense does. Digs feigns disinterest and noncommitment, but he scrabbles to hold onto anything remotely good in his life for as long as he can, which he habitually botches due to his tendency to overcorrect with exaggerated or lackluster reactivity.

33. Which one of them gives "that look" when the other is acting like a fool?

bro why did you even ask this you know it's me lmfao

Digs thinks my pursed lips and scrunched nose of disapproval are adorable that he rarely takes my warnings seriously until I yank him down by the collar or start dialing S.lade's or S.nart's number to straighten him out.

35. How does each significant other view any exes and former relationships?

He preens knowing that he's my first "real" relationship in the most threadbare definition of the word, but makes an honest attempt to respect my personal boundaries after he learns about my handful of failure-to-launch attempts at dating that ended with me going into hiding more than once. I genuinely appreciate his enthusiastic offers to kill the guys who made me feel unsafe, but they're honestly not worth the charges. I'm not so insecure to get jealous of Digs' past partners, having fully accepted his manwhore past, present, and probably future. If anything, I feel somewhat flattered when he surprises me with a stick-n-poke tattoo of my name on his dick rendered in a shaky attempt at elegant cursive above the hastily crossed-out names of his most recent exes. Given what he's working with, there is a LOT of real estate :^)

62. How would outside characters describe their relationship?

Enmeshed, barely medicated fuck buddies. They dodge each other's red flags like Neo and need to get sterilized for society's sake as well as their own. - W.aller Further proof that no loving god would have allowed them to match each other's freak; everyone else is just so much collateral. - S.lade

I'm gonna officiate their trashy dive bar wedding or I'll blow up the Gotham City courthouse!!! - H.arley Q.uinn

#ship: in a world of lost and found #ship: catarang #thank you!! :333

3 notes · View notes

comicaurora · 2 months ago

Note

Do you think ethics are just an attempt at being a healthier form of selfish?

In one of your Detail Diatribes where Batman confronts Catwoman and tries to stop her from killing Falcone, you highlighted the fact that his reasoning was not to protect her father, but to try and save her. Ever since, some very strange ideas about the nature of selfishness and selflessness have been rattling around my head.

It only started coming into focus when I tried to put into words why it was a bad thing that D-16 killed Sentinel Prime. My best answer right now is because it made D-16 into Megatron. Orion wasn't trying to save Sentinel, he was trying to protect the cybertronian people. Maybe if Orion focused more on saving D-16, they wouldn't have lost their friendship and all of Cybertron would be better for it. Of course, in the end, Megatron was the deciding factor in making himself, caring more about his pride than his current identity, but this highlights a strange selfish quirk in sustainable selfless behavior.

If you are purely selfless you suffer from spending more of yourself than you have to give. If you're too selfish you can't maintain the human connections that are a requirement for being a complete and healthy person. It leaves the best options as being selfless to make your environment an easier one for you to live in. Where your actions for others are repaid by the selflessness from your community. Or, being selfish with your charity. Taking care of what you care about because their well being positively contributes to your own.

To be fair, the opening sentence now looks like an incomplete thought. It probably should be asking if you think ethics is just an attempt at being a more healthy form of selfish and selfless. Really, just asking if ethics is meant to make you better at being a person, which seems like a question that can answer itself. Still, it feels like an important insight to highlight that to be ethical isn’t about how much of your own life you're willing to sacrifice. It's hard to be a good person when you're not a person anymore.

This is a fascinatingly deep question, and I'm very tickled that our two touchpoints in it are a transforming robot tank and Batman.

My personal opinion is that ethics and morals are not reflections of some universal truth of Justice and Goodness, as they are often framed, but are instead best-practice guidelines on how to function in the big, messy world without causing undue suffering to yourself and others. A facet of this is determining, case by case, how much you need to prioritize yourself vs how much you can afford to help others - in the framing you've proposed, selfishness vs selflessness.

Taking the specific examples we're focusing on - two cases where someone attempts to prevent a revenge killing for the benefit, not of the victim, but of the avenger - I think they reflect this worldview, that the killing is not seen as some innately universally-judged evil act that must be prevented for its own sake, but that the act of killing will harm the killer in a way the person trying to stop them doesn't want to see.

For Catwoman, committing premeditated murder wouldn't solve any of her problems in any way that arresting Falcone and having him legally unraveled would. It'd just park a first degree murder charge on someone who'd up til this point only dealt with petty larceny, and it would potentially weigh her down with misery and regret as she grappled with the trauma of taking a life.

For Megatron, killing Sentinel Prime wasn't a bad action because he deserved to live. They just spent that whole fight scene tearing through enemies. They're warriors on track to spend the next four million years killing each other; the whole "taking a life" ship has already sailed. The problem is that Sentinel is a symbol and a structural part of the political narrative in the founding of the next stage of Cybertron's society. If the first thing the new regime does is bloodily avenge itself on the face of the old regime for the personal wrongs it did them, that proves that the only thing they care about is personal satisfaction of their individual desires - just like Sentinel. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If they can instead take a step back, think of the good of Cybertron as a whole, enforce a rule of law and a fair system of justice that applies equally to everyone, even on someone they personally loathe, that would signify integrity and credibility and the hallmark of wise, just and fair leadership capable of setting aside personal feelings for the greater good. It's not about Sentinel; it's about whether the satisfaction of killing him is worth the price of enforcing forever that personal vendettas are more important than the well-being of the people of Cybertron. Which makes it really obvious which one Megatron is going to pick.

My hottest take, and I mean this very genuinely, is that most of the human perception of what constitutes goodness and justice is one thousand percent based on vibes, and is extremely susceptible to narrative reframing. We see an unsympathetic victim (Sentinel Prime, Falcone) who has gleefully caused suffering to innocent people (so judged because they are framed sympathetically, not because we've actually enumerated their lifelong actions to determine they've never done anything wrong) and we feel (feel) that it would be right and just for them to suffer consequences (emphasis on suffer) because that would balance the scales on this vibes equation and that would make us feel like justice had been served. Would this suffering lead to any material good? Not inherently. Would it heal the victims? Not usually. Would it remove the source of the problem? Categorically not, what with how negative reinforcement works (or rather does not work.) It also wouldn't do anything about the other people empowered by the same system to be just as shitty in just as many ways that just happen to be offscreen from our POV. But it feels fair. So what is justice, if it reduces down to "I want them to hurt for the hurt they've caused me"? If it can be sated with a spectacle or distracted by a long nap and a good joke to let the feeling fade? What purpose does this justice serve if it is devoted wholly to the satiation of a bone-deep chordate-brain hunger for Retributive Violence rather than towards actually ensuring that the lives of those harmed are healed and supported and built up again after being broken down? (This is the entire core character arc in The Batman, btw, I'm not just monologuing for no reason here. He calls himself Vengeance for a reason, and the reason is he's doing Batman wrong)

That feeling - that white-hot burning core of Righteous Fury - is the unexamined heart of many systems of morality that focus, not on doing good, but on exacting satisfying retribution on Bad People Who Deserve It, categorized as People Who I Can Hurt Without Feeling Bad Myself. It's a very tempting concept for people who have suffered at others' hands. That feeling, that powerful instinctual understanding of "that's unfair," is incredibly strong. In my opinion, most systems of ethics are built, not around relitigating what is Good and what is Bad per se, but in trying to shape and curb that bone-deep, unbelievably powerful desire to rend the flesh from the bones of your tormenters.

But I mentioned that feeling is susceptible to narrative reframing. This is, as I understand it, a huge part of lawyering. Tell the story of what happened using true events and adding no falsehoods, but highlight the parts that make it feel like your client is the one who is being treated unfairly. They're not an unsympathetic wrongdoer who you can punish without personal moral stain - they're a loving spouse, a parent of three adorable children, they have a really cute puppy, they donate to charity, they're a wonderful conversationalist, a kind friend, etc etc. All those things can also be true of people who do terrible things, but thinking about them defuses that White Hot Core by making us sympathize with the sympathetic parts of them.

This is incredibly well-understood in fiction. It's the whole reason the tropes Kick The Dog and Pet The Dog exist. When you want the audience to root for a character's destruction, leave aside any of their potential quiet moments of sympathy - their tragic backstory, their cute pet, their adorable relationship with their mom - and instead show them going out of their way to commit some minor act of petty cruelty, say Kicking The Dog. The audience will infer that this badness is 24/7 and they have no reason to curb their enthusiasm for Righteous Vengeance. But if the writer wants the audience to see a spark of good in them, to sympathize, to believe they can be redeemed, they'll highlight one of those small moments of charming kindness, and allow them to Pet The Dog instead.

Neither of these acts, in the grand scale, have any bearing on the morality of this person's actions. A pet dog doesn't counterbalance a razed village; a kicked dog doesn't negate a generous contribution to the local soup kitchen. Goodness and badness is not a linear scale added or subtracted to by opposing deeds. BUT showing them to an audience reframes them narratively, and THAT is what shapes the judgment of the White Hot Burning Core. In the space of fiction, this form of bottom-shelf emotional manipulation is one of the cleanest ways to get the audience to root for the messy destruction of what is ostensibly, in the universe of the fiction, a wholly complex and living person who definitely has reasons for everything they've done, even ones that could be framed sympathetically when shown.

Meanwhile, in the real world, ethics are an attempt to judge what is best in a given situation without trusting the White Hot Burning Core to make the call, no matter how compelling "but it would feel really good though" might seem. They try to give someone perspective, context, other priorities to consider. The White Hot Burning Core might want you to rip someone's arms off for driving slow when you've got important places to be, but Ethics can present a number of compelling reasons not to do that - even if it's just "ripping their arms off will definitely make me even more late." And yes, this can be a balance of Selfishness Vs Selflessness. You are one of the people whose wellbeing ethics is designed to make you prioritize improving even if it feels weird, and when all other things are equal, your own health and happiness can be the deciding factor. In a world with an overarching Moral Force that weighs the goodness of your soul by sifting through every grain of action and intent seeking negativity to punish you for, absolute selflessness to the point of self destruction would still probably be seen as Morally Wrong, simply because the universe is a better place with you in it trying your best.

Anyway, if doing the right thing was simple, easy and painless, we probably wouldn't have so many thousands of years of arguing about what it looks like. Good luck out there everybody 👍

#asks #not aurora

709 notes · View notes