#verse; fear as am

[iobartach]

@silverjetsystm [mr. knight] asked; ❝ violence is almost always, in one way or another, personal. ❞

altered carbon prompts

It was the mechanism that bridged desire with action, a handy tool for when words... simply weren't enough. It wasn't so long ago, in a time yet to arrive, that a few unfortunate souls had experienced his exhibitions of brutality first hand, sampled a taste of his unflinching wrath when acting in defence of the voiceless. He had demonstrated early into his own crimefighting career that he differed from his predecessor in that regard; that on his watch, there was no such thing as second chances, a stance upheld to deliberately leave a lasting impression in the hearts of Nueva York's criminal cults.

But, with a change of scenery -- and Earth, for that matter -- came a need to adapt, to abide by a new set of standards and rules that valued human life far more than the dystopia hell that he hailed from. With some degree of practice, Miguel had adjusted to these differences gradually, behaving in a manner that resembled his fellow wallcrawlers... until tonight. When, after expending a great deal of effort to comply, he had stepped out of line.

He'd gone too far.

"Spare me the lecture." A murmur of sound fills the dim alleyway, coarse in a way had suggested he had strained his voice from snarling too much. Far from the worst quality that seemed off about the Spider, however, more quirks could be found in the shape of his jarring pose. Both set of feet talons were burrowed into brickwork, as were a single set of hand talons, reaching far about his head. It gave the impression that he was about to scurry away, leave the evidence of his actions behind for someone else to discover, when the other male caught him in his tracks, earning both a hostile glare as well as something else; he reeked of the metallic stench of blood.

"Go away."

[itssluv]

I have one hour before class it’s time to grind.

@that-one-birbie YOURE SO REAL FOR THIS 🙏🏾🙏🏾

[aceghosts]

Cyberpunk 2077 Masterpost

Hey Everyone! I wanted to put together a masterpost of my Cyberpunk 2077 fics, and I’ve finally gotten around to doing it. I’ve also included some relevant edits that shed more light on Rooney’s lore. As I write more fic and create more edits, I’ll update this post with them. Also, please mind the warnings on the specific fics.

Sending some tags to people I think might be interested: @bbrocklesnar, @chyrstis, @alexxmason, @sergeiravenov, @voidika,

@tommyarashikage, @imogenkol, @strangefable, @derelictheretic, @socially-awkward-skeleton,

@carlosoliveiraa, @theelderhazelnut, @direwombat, @cassietrn, @cloudofbutterflies92,

@confidentandgood

V: ALL I KNOW IS A PLACE WHERE I HAUNTED

This is Rooney’s main canon for Cyberpunk 2077. Most of Rooney’s fics are set in this universe, and take place during and before the events of Cyberpunk 2077. (Note: I am writing these fics out of order, and they may be moved around as I write.)

Relevant Edits: Moodboard | Character Card | Edit | FIA Profile | Playlist | General VP Tag

Pre-2077

Microprompt: In Dreams

Is This the End Or Is This the Beginning?

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: M Summary: Stuck in an Arasaka Facility, Rooney Shepard makes a new friend/ally, an unexpected one: Yorinobu Arasaka.

I Know You Feel Lost, But I'm Here To Wander With You

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: M Summary: The week that Rooney’s family died is always the worst week of the year. Rooney is having a bad week, the anniversary of their family death's looming over them. Luckily, they've got Yorinobu in their corner.

Forevermore the Apple of My Eye

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: T Summary: In the parking garage after a dinner date, Rooney Shepard and Yorinobu Arasaka are attacked. The event (and Yorinobu's actions) leave Rooney feeling shaken.

During Cyberpunk 2077

And I try to move on, but I just can't let go

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: M Summary: Rooney Shepard takes a missing person's case at the request of Rogue Amendiares; they do not expect the client to be their ex-boyfriend, Yorinobu Arasaka.

Baby, All I Want Is You

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: T Summary: “You have that look again.” “What look?” He asks, shooting them a charming smile. “The one where you’re planning something.” A short scene where Rooney and Yorinobu flirt with each other.

Microprompt: Trembling Hands

Cuddling In Bed After A Long Day

Tumblr Rating: T Summary: Rooney and Yorinobu cuddle in bed and chat after a long and tiring day, especially about dinner with some old friends.

Microprompt: One Chance

All Is Fair In Love

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: E (Minors do not interact) Summary: Rooney makes an off-handed comment about their boyfriend being a distraction. Yorinobu takes that as a personal challenge.

V: WILL YOU WELCOME YOUR EXTINCTION IN THE MORNING RAYS?

An AU where Rooney has the Relic in their head.

Relevant Edits: Edit

Microprompt: Total Control

All I Know is a Place Where I Haunted

Tumblr | AO3 Rating: M Summary: After saving President Rosalind Myers and delivering her to Reed, Rooney tries to deal with everything they've seen. But it's all too much to bear.

V: YOU'RE MY BROTHER AND I LOVE YOU

An AU where Rooney's younger brother, Jack Shepard, is still alive.

Relevant Edits: Jack Shepard Profile | Jack and Rooney Lore

No fics at this time, but I hope to write some in the future.

[bansheenolan]

— FRANK BIDART.

[giyuulatte]

i had to explain pronouns to my boss yesterday, bless her oml. so basically i have to fix our bulletin board (i work in the history department) and we are doing it the way the english department does it. and on theirs, it has the professors name, what they do, office number, and their pronouns. and one of the professors had they/them pronouns on their description, so she was like "explain this to me" and i did, and she was still confused! and, she thought pronouns had to do with you being gay...now mind you this woman is about 50-60

ok so it basically went like this, but abridged

her: explain this to me me: well instead of saying "he blah blah blah" you would said "they blah blah blah" her: but im only talking about one person?? me:yes, but you would use "they" instead of "he" her:how long has this been around? me: i mean for a while, but it's more accepted so people are more comfortable being themselves her: but why "they" me: well because they don't feel like a "he" or a "she" her: ouu this don't make no sense, as if the world isn't confusing enough. we arent adding pronouns to ours me: oh ok

lol yall think imma get fired if i add pronouns anyway??

the conversations i have with this woman, but i love her she like my second mama

[thelordismylightandmysalvation]

Verse of the Day - Isaiah 41:10

[critter-time]

*going through a canon event* hahaha this is just like [anthology horror podcast]!

[lemonhemlock]

i am way too late for any of this, but i felt like ranting a little (a lot) over tma, so here it goes.

i actually really, really liked the dreamlike quality of the S5 statements. i think they're some of jonny's best work. so evocative and just beautifully written, the feeling of horror so prevalent, so delicate, so entrapping. i would listen to them absolutely enthralled. what a submersive experience. so on that front, 100% would recommend.

the problems i have are mainly with the meta-plot. certainly, personal preferences and biases come into play here, bc i despise jonmartin with the fire of a thousand suns and would have loved a jonelias corruption narrative, but, i feel that, in his quest to appease the j-mart shippers, jonny sacrificed a lot of his story's integrity. also, i have no way of verifying this, but it also felt like he inserted his own biases in a way that wasn't necessarily productive.

ultimately, i feel like he disrespected his main antagonists and that essentially translated into a sort of irreverence towards his own story. elias was easily his most dramatic and interesting villain (regardless of what he originally intended for him, it's how he developed throughout the story & i think there is a certain honesty in a writer acknowledging and respecting that), stole every scene he was in, yet after his great villain reveal in S4, he is absolutely absent throughout his entire apocalypse. it creates a lack of catharsis that i find bothersome. his death is way too easy. yet when he finally appears in MAG 193, it is glorious. he is terrifyingly in the throws of religious ecstasy as the eye's pupil. such an interesting idea! so little it was developed though bc jonny for some reason doesn't like elias.

there's this entire commentary about how elias is really just there to be eye's pupil until jon takes over from him, bc it's jon the eye truly desires. as if after faithfully serving the beholding for two centuries and bringing about his ritual, the eye would just disregard elias and actually be interested in the one person who is unwilling to play ball. please be serious. not saying that jon can't be the eye's "special little boy" or whatever, but the nerfing of elias/jonah borderlines on petulant. ofc, jonny is the author and you cannot begrudge a man for writing whatever he wants, but, as a listener, i have to say it feels very unsatisfying whenever authorial biases directly affect the storyline. very deus-ex-machina. very unearned.

i also have a problem with how the eye was ultimately handled and, once again, nerfed. the introduction of this element in relation to the beholding, that it sees but does not understand, felt very trite to me. it was added as a way to de-power the eye and elevate the web. but how could it even be true in the context of the entity conceptualization? the reason scopophobia is a thing is because people fear someone is behind the watching. what they fear is judgment or someone keeping tabs on them and using that information to harm them in some way. that requires intelligence, a capacity to distinguish between the harmless and the incriminatory, a propensity for casting moral judgment, of holding people accountable, of assigning blame, of discovering people's deepest, darkest secrets, of weaponizing shame. no one is afraid of a crow or a cat staring back at them, because, while those are also living beings, they lack the higher intelligence that creates the context necessary for scopophobia. so how can the eye not possess intelligence? apparently it doesn't, because jonny decided he didn't like the eye and the spider was oh-so-cooler instead.

but that only lead to the spider being way too overpowered than it should have been. as the so-called brain of the operation, the web really manifests a lot of faults that could have been exploited, yet the character never do, because the web needs to be true It Girl for some reason. this all feels very childish. the web's motivations do not work in-universe. we are often told it doesn't have a ritual because it is content with playing its games of manipulation within the world as it currently is. and that honestly seemed a rather fair assessment to make, but later proved to be a red herring, because it was the web that was actually behind the eye's own ritual.

i have several gripes with this. 1. if the spider is so smart, why doesn't it/can't it have its own ritual and re-shape the world according to its own preferences? why does it have to piggyback on the eye's grind? 2. the spider's big plan seems to be bringing about the eyepocalypse just to convince the characters to let the fears out into the metaverse so it can start again. because, as it turns out, the eyepocalypse isn't really it's preferred state of being? it was the status-quo after all? the web DID prefer the world as it was, because it allowed it to thrive off manipulation and puppeteering, things it can't really engage in as much as it would like, since now everyone is trapped inside various fear domains. so, why-oh-why, not just leave the world as is? why even bring about an apocalypse in the first place if your intention is to always inhabit a apocalypse-less place?

i felt like this was such a plot-hole of an explanation the way it was presented. the web's greatest flaw was that it loved intricate plots so much there was a real danger of over-complicating its own plans and failing to see the forest from the trees, so to speak. the eye could have been used not to boggle down on meaningless details and ramifications, but to get a better sense of the bigger picture, something the web could very well lose sight of (pun intended). so the web's "plan" could have been ultimately rendered meaningless, because instead of choosing the simplistic, straightforward, occam's razor solution (no apocalypse, just thrive off the world as it is), it chose the overly complicated path that placed it in a situation it didn't thrive in (eyepocalypse) and made it even more complicated to get out of in the first place. it basically surrendered its destiny into the hands of people who had zero reasons to act sympathetic and could have very well chosen to destroy the entire world, fears included. and yet i am supposed to be in awe of the web's great intelligence and buy into the whole dumb eye propaganda?

many things have already been said about the moral dilemma at the end of S5 and my take on that is that jon was right. it was the merciful and just solution to prevent other people from other universes from suffering at the hands of fear entities. but i will be indulgent and account that it is a difficult choice to make for anyone, since human beings are so survivalist in nature and the choice to just make the fears someone else's problem in the hopes of their plans maybe getting foiled more effectively by others is tantalizing. who knows what any of us would have chosen had we been in their situation? perpetuating the horrors on someone else just so you could get reprieve is so cravenly but it's human and i get it. however, by no means is this a happy ending the way it was framed by the narrative. what melanie, georgie, basira and martin did was horrible and evil, but it is never acknowledged in that way. the least jonny could have done is have jon resist martin's selfish decision and have martin genuinely kill him. but, no, martin gets his romantic send-off together with jon, with the open possibility that they get transported to another world where they could start over. melanie, georgie and basira get to start a new life in the entity-less world, after contributing almost nothing. the worst characters get to live & they're validated in their awful behaviour.

however. i do feel like there were other ways to resolve the eyepocalypse without resorting to a horrible sophie's choice in the first place, but that would require a more extensive endgame re-write.

[auguststormstories]

Meaninglessness! Meaningless!

Screamed the Teacher at their students,

The world does not listen to you!

Why should it?

Everything you say is wrong

Everything you say is worthless

Everything you say is ugly

What friends? What hope?

Learn to be hurt and no one can hurt you

Learn to be sad and no one can sadden you

Learn to be nothing and no one can a thing to you

Meanwhile…

Your best friend ignores you

Your spouse turns you away

Your god demands gifts

And you still have to work tomorrow to qualify for the privilege of giving your money away

That is the lesson today folks

Try not to laugh

I’m serious

I’m not crying, you are

August 28, 2024

[iobartach]

@snkts // short thing starter

"I've been known to take things way too far." Conduct that involved testing the limits of good intentions, repeatedly desecrating the borrowed moniker that he taken for himself; known here in this time as much as the man standing opposite him.

And, just like Parker, would not come between the Spider and achieving his goals.

"Out on the edge until the day I die."

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

As things stand I’ve got a desk job again til next June or so, and desk jobs being what they are I’ve been using some of my spare intellectual energy to think about what I want to do next and I’ve been trying to set aside my considerable self-hatred and think about the things people consistently report are my skills

And even setting aside the self-hatred the stuff I’m reputed to be good at is just so, so stupid

[magnus-and-the-dragon]

i LOVE a gay detour episode! fuck!

[elvisabutler]

Miss girl!!! I was looking at the old old red carpet pictures of Olivia in the turquoise dress with Austin and it made me think of little dove and how if they hadn’t spoken since the end of filming/occasional red carpet - how does she feel watching his career now? and his girlfriends? and how he looks like a superstar now but he used to just look like a pretty, sweet boy?

curious to what we're talking about? click here for the little dove verse.

MISS GIRL. god no one ever calls me that anymore. it's always MISS MA'AM. you've won me over and forced me to give you my heart for that. and thus get an answer

okay! so. the infamous well if they never got back together sort of timeline/idea. see, when eurus and i first came up with this au she was always more of the girl who did it where they never came back together/spoken that sort of thing. but in the time since then i have thought about it. and it's truly sort of the basis of this au i once got asked about where they come back together 10 years in the future.

and here's the thing, she'd be proud of him. for all of the mess that would be attached to their relationship in her mind, she'd still care for him and be so proud he's doing so well. because there was pillow talk about where to go in their careers before the character bleed really took hold. and she'd know he wanted to do more work and the producer element. she'd know all this and she'd be the first person who read the article and went that's my boy. wouldn't post about it, probably. but she'd be so unbelievably proud. though, she'd be jealous of the girlfriends. like she'd try not to be, but she fell so hard and deep for him- even if she thinks when they break up it's just the bleed from playing priscilla. that seeing him be in love with someone else? that stings a lot. lily was a lot. and then kaia is a lot and just. she tries to not dwell on it too much.

as for him looking like a superstar? um. let's just say she perhaps enjoys the videos from like the ysl campaign a bit too much and generally swoons a lil seeing him on occasion. it also makes her step her game, oddly enough? like call it being competitive, call it wanting to make herself more equal to him? it's weird. she really just wants to get that same sort of glow up. like used to be sweet little girl ( who has those rumors chasing her ) and now look at her being a superstar queen.

so basically proud as punch but also jealous and a bit you could be the king but watch the queen conquer vibes for her own life.

[royaltea000]

The Bog Bodies by Rabbitology is so unhealthy rusliet lietpru core some a y’all should give it a listen and lemme know if I’m being delusional

[katyspersonal]

When I figure that genuinely saying things like "Lol I hate how I am that type of a villain who is cartoonishly immature and draws mockery memes of their enemies", "My favourite thing about [friend] is how they always admire and validate me no matter how insane I get", "Damn, FUCK, why the FUCK did they do that to themselves?!" (when someone blocked me) or "Whoever hates me is either jealous or horny" is extremely out-of-character for me but then I remember that I do have DID that I refuse to organize a proper system for and I had bad memory gaps recently, so it is probably just another shard and there is hoping that this fraction of me won't linger for long

[dutybcrne]

Thinkings thinkings of Fatui!Kaeya have been reawakened in reviewing Arle's teasers/animations