#I fucking need Dr. Grant in my life

[seventh-district]

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[arieslost]

sky full of stars | ln4

summary: dj!lando always plays your song when you’re at the club.

word count: 3,615

warnings: drinking

masterlist — join my tag list here!

© arieslost 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

2021

You did not want to be in this club. You would need another pair of hands and feet to count off all the places you’d rather be, the very first one being asleep in your bed.

But here you were, not only in the club, but within a throng of people at varying levels of fucked up, jumping around and dancing to the song pounding through the speakers. Your comforts were twofold: the first was knowing that you could handle the two shots in your system, and the second was that your best friend was the designated driver tonight, so there was no way in hell she was going to leave without you.

Frankly, you’d been ready to leave an hour ago. In fact, you’d started saying the words, “I want to go home” when you caught a glimpse of the DJ in charge of tonight’s music. Granted, it was hard to really look at him considering the fact that the lights were low and you were on the other end of the club, but you’d seen just enough to know that he was attractive and any thought of leaving had gone right out the window. Not to mention the fact that he hadn’t said anything when he started his set, so you didn’t even know what his voice sounded like.

You needed a closer look.

So here you were, surprisingly enjoying yourself on the dance floor while you tried to check him out without being overly conspicuous. You were only able to make out a head of curly hair and the large hand that lifted a shot glass to his lips when your phone started ringing, the buzz in your pocket the only indication thanks to the blaring music. You squinted at the screen, thinking it might be your friend trying to find you, but the caller ID read “Potential Spam,” so your phone went right back into your pocket. You were on a mission.

When you looked up, you made direct eye contact with the man of the hour– the DJ you found nothing short of infatuating. You were rather close to his setup, maybe ten people away, but you could feel his gaze on you as he picked up a microphone.

“This next song is dedicated to the gorgeous woman I’m looking at right now,” he announced to the whole room, sending a wink in your direction before getting to work on fading the current song into the new one– “A Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay.

You felt goosebumps rising on your arms as the first few notes filled the room, suddenly glad that you were here and not at home, asleep. The lights moved in tandem to the beat of the song, and you finally got a proper look at his face. It’s then that you knew you were screwed, because if he wasn’t the most attractive man you’d ever seen in your life, you’d be lying.

You barely had any time to pull yourself together before he was motioning for one of his friends to take over for him and stepping down from the booth into the crowd, making a beeline right for where you stood in the middle of it all.

“You’re awfully bold,” you said when he was close enough to hear you, a bit taken aback by how quickly he’d closed the distance between the two of you. “What makes you think I like this song?”

He didn’t answer at first, instead choosing to slowly run his hand down your arm until his fingers tangled with yours. “You have goosebumps, and I’d be shocked if you didn’t like it. When I played it last time, you came up to me and tried to take the mic so you could sing it to everyone.”

That’s another reason why you never made a habit out of going to the club. Somehow, it always got to the point where you lost your mind a little bit and somehow managed to find new ways to make an idiot out of yourself. But tonight was different– you were managing your alcohol intake, and the hot DJ was calling you out on something you’d been too drunk to remember the next morning.

Your friends hadn’t though; in fact, they’d been gracious enough to provide video proof of them dragging you away from the DJ booth. You’d never felt such shame as you did watching that back.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, his free hand tilting your chin up so he could look right at you as he spoke. “It’s how I noticed you in the first place. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of you since.”

At least one good thing came out of my foolishness, you thought to yourself as he took your other hand and put both of your arms around his neck. It made sense, anyway– you definitely would’ve remembered seeing him before had you been sober.

“I’m not a very good dancer,” you warned him as he began to sway to the music, taking you along with him as his hands went down to your hips.

“Neither am I,” he confided, lips close to your ear.

The chorus began, the song’s beat drop making the lights change from red to blue, and you decided that you would let this happen, even if it turned into another embarrassing memory. At least you would remember this time, and you’d never forget swaying back and forth with the handsome DJ as the rest of the crowd danced around you both.

2022

You were in the club again, and you couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Spending so much time with your favorite DJ, Lando Norris, will do that to you. After that first dance, he bought you a couple drinks and didn’t go back to the DJ booth for the rest of the night due to you dragging him right back out into the crowd and dancing with him until your feet hurt too much to stand. Eventually, your best friend had found you and told you it was time to go, and in your tipsy state you’d kept your arms firmly around Lando, said something about “holding him hostage,” and vehemently refused to go anywhere. It wasn’t until he gave you his number that you allowed your best friend to take you home.

He texted you right away when he woke up that morning, and the day after the two of you went on your first date. He surprised you by taking you to a rather high-end restaurant; you’d pegged him for a more low-key guy when it came to dates, despite the fact that he’d dedicated a song to you in front of a club full of people, and you were proved correct when you were on the phone with him later that night.

“I don’t even like going out that much,” he confessed, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “I just thought you deserved something special for a first date so I didn’t look like a loser.”

“You could have just told me that,” you giggled. “The dress code for our next date can be sweats.”

You still remembered the way his eyes lit up when you said “our next date.” That next date, a movie marathon at your apartment, had turned into countless dates, and you never went back to that restaurant.

Now, you were in the club where the two of you first met to celebrate your one year anniversary. Lando was wearing a white button up, and had just unbuttoned the top two buttons to reveal more of his tan skin and the gold chain around his neck. You’d given him a look, and he’d complained that “it’s just so hot in here,” but the both of you knew he was just doing it to rile you up.

It was working.

Your hands gravitated to the newly exposed skin, palms running up along his shoulders and fingers dipping beneath his collar to gently scratch at his back. You could spend all night running your hands over his skin, and he’d be happy to let you do it. He leaned closer to you, nearly stepping on your toes as his arms looped around your waist.

“You really weren’t lying last year when you said you were a bad dancer.” You laughed at the affronted look on his face.

“I think I’ve gotten better, thank you very much.” He said, and promptly stepped directly on your foot. “Shit, baby, I’m sorry!”

You only laughed harder, pulling him into a kiss. You could feel the vibrations of his own laughter against your lips.

“Wait right here,” he instructed, breaking the kiss. “I’ve got something for you.”

He kissed your cheek and disappeared into the crowd.

The song playing began fading out, which caught your attention because it was in the middle of the chorus. You didn’t need Lando’s DJ knowledge to know that it was a strange decision to fade a song out long before it was over.

“Attention, everyone. We had a special request tonight from a familiar face,” the DJ announced before passing the microphone to none other than your boyfriend.

“This next song goes out to my beautiful girlfriend,” Lando said, pointing directly at you and causing your face to get hot when half the room looked in the direction of his finger. “Happy one year, baby. I love you.”

Your jaw dropped as the familiar opening notes of “A Sky Full of Stars” started playing. Not just because of the song, but because of those three special words. I love you. You’d only said it to each other a handful of times, and Lando had just said it to you in front of hundreds of people.

You met him in the middle of the floor, too impatient to wait until he got back to you.

“I love you, I love you so much!” You yelled over the music, kissing him again.

“One year is just the beginning, yeah?” He asked, and you nodded enthusiastically, cheeks hurting from smiling so wide.

2023

You were wrapped up in Lando’s arms as you stood before his setup. In the past year, he had been promoted to be the main talent for the club and had three sets every weekend. He had insisted that the only gift he wanted from you for your two year anniversary was that you help him DJ his next set, and you’d obviously agreed. You got him a necklace anyway, but kept your promise so long as he promised to help you gain at least some skills beforehand so the audience wouldn’t kick you out for being shit. After a week or so, you felt confident enough with the buffer of the knowledge you’d picked up over the past two years to be where you were now– fading one song into another almost seamlessly.

Lando would take his hands off of you for only seconds at a time to adjust something here or there and make the music flow as smoothly as possible. Otherwise, he was all over you for the whole club to see, and you were kind of obsessed with it. He was hardly paying attention to anything else; only moving on autopilot to fiddle with the knobs or whatever it was he was doing to make you look like an adequate DJ.

“Did I do okay?” You asked towards the end of the set, looking over your shoulder at your boyfriend who hadn’t stopped smiling at you since you left the apartment and arrived at the club early to set up.

“Are you kidding? I think I might be out of a job after tonight,” he said, threading his fingers into your hair to pull you into a long kiss. “At least I would be, if I didn’t have this party trick under my sleeve.”

Slightly dazed from the passion of his kiss, you let him lean around you and queue up a song that wasn’t originally in the mix for that evening’s set.

At this point, you should have expected it, and maybe you did a little bit, but that didn’t stop the tears from pricking your eyes and the goosebumps rising on your arms when “A Sky Full of Stars” began, sending the crowd into a chorus of cheers.

“It works every time,” he said cheekily, reaching up to wipe away the tears that had escaped.

“You are unbelievable.” It was meant to be said in jest, but you were just so filled with love and adoration for him that it sounded like a compliment.

“Dance to our song with me,” he said, spinning you and tugging you forward so you bumped right into his chest.

“Here?” You looked behind you, at the set up, at the hundreds of people, and he took your chin in his hand and turned your face back to him.

“Here. Now. I want them all to see how much I love you.” He said it so sweetly that, in that moment, you were willing to give him just about whatever he wanted.

He started singing the song to you, “‘Cause in a sky, ‘cause in a sky full of stars, I think I saw you,” and it felt like you were the only two people in the room when the beat dropped and you kissed him with everything you had, letting him sway you back and forth and spin you around one too many times just to see his smile and hear his giddy laugh.

2024

You’re surprised when Lando tells you that he’s made different plans for your three year anniversary. The club has become a second home of some sorts; you’re there more often than not to watch his sets, and you’ve always gone there for your anniversaries. Not just the years, but the six month, year and a half, and two and a half year anniversaries as well. Thus, the sudden deviation from tradition raises a few alarm bells in your head. If anything, you’d expect a change for your four years next year since 4 is your boyfriend’s lucky number.

You don’t have time to dwell on it that much. You have to be out the door in ten minutes, and you still have to finish applying your lipstick, not to mention strap yourself into the sparkling silver heels Lando had gotten you for Christmas.

“Almost ready, baby?” He asks, peeking into the bathroom and watching as you add one last swipe of lipstick.

“Yup! Just need my—” you’re cut off when he holds up the heels. “—shoes. Thanks, Lan.”

“Here, sit. I’ll put them on for you.” He gestures to the edge of the tub.

You take him up on his offer happily, and your heart jumps up into your throat when he stares right into your eyes and slowly gets down on one knee before you.

You’d overheard him talking about possibly proposing to you with your parents over the holiday break, and you hadn’t been stealthy about it at all, so he knows that you heard. Since then, he’s made a game out of getting on one knee in front of you every now and then. He already did it once this morning when he woke you up only to tell you that he made you breakfast. You know he’s joking, but now that you’re celebrating a significant milestone in your relationship you can’t help but have a slight inkling that his joking around is less of a joke and more of a hint.

So when he holds your gaze long enough to make you start thinking that it might actually happen before going about putting your shoes on, you’re not at all fazed and ruffle his hair.

“Hey! Easy, I spent a lot of time making my hair look good for you.” He yelps, jumping up to look in the mirror and patting it down meticulously.

“I like it when it’s messy,” you reply, giving him a look that you know drives him crazy.

“You can’t say that and look at me that way when we’re trying to leave the house, babe.” He whines.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You make sure the straps on your heels are tight enough before you stand up, pleased that your retaliation to his down-on-one-knee joke worked better than you thought it would. “Come on, I don’t want to be late!”

He wastes no time in getting his payback for your antics when you arrive at the restaurant he took you to for your very first date. He opens the car door for you, and takes your hand to help you step out. The moment you’re on the sidewalk and the door is closed behind you, he gets down on one knee again, making a point to look at you the entire time. Your heart jumps again. Certainly he wouldn’t do it on the sidewalk? Or maybe he would, to add to the element of surprise?

He doesn’t. He simply ties his shoelace, the picture of innocence all the while.

“Shall we?” He says as he straightens up, offering his arm with a smile.

You retain your own picture of innocence, wrapping your hand around his bicep. “We shall.”

Seeing that he had booked the private dining room has more alarm bells going off in your head, not to mention the fact that you thought you’d never see the inside of this restaurant again. Regardless, you were actually kind of happy to be somewhere quieter to celebrate your anniversary, as much as you’ve fallen in love with being at the club.

Lando clears his throat loudly towards the end of your meal as the waiter pours two glasses of champagne. “Three years,” he begins, sounding somewhat awestruck.

You nod in agreement. “Three years. Sick of me yet?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” He passes you a glass, and you clink them together before you each take a sip. “Actually, I’d really love to just spend my entire life with you.”

Now he’s not even trying to hide it, so you laugh a little bit. “That’s sweet, Lan.”

“I’m serious,” he pouts, and you try to contain yourself, painting a serious expression on your face and nodding as you press your lips together. “Fine, I admit it. I went a little too far with the joke.”

“Which time? Are we talking about just today or the past few weeks?” You ask pointedly, taking another sip of your champagne.

“Okay, a lot too far.” He huffs, getting out of his chair and pushing it in before walking to your side of the table. “I want to make up for it right now though, if that’s alright with you.”

“Oh my God. You’re actually serious?” You ask, feeling your insides beginning to shake a little with giddiness as he gets down on one knee before you for the fourth time today.

“I have never been more serious about anything in my life.” He reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a small box.

It looks a bit different than ring boxes normally look, and the moment he opens it you understand why. The notes of “A Sky Full of Stars” emit from within the box where the ring sits, the dazzling diamond sparkling when it catches the light.

“Fuck’s sake, Lando, I wouldn’t have spent so much time on my makeup if I knew you were gonna do this,” you sniffle, putting a hand over your mouth.

“I’ll keep it short because I don’t want to cry too much and ruin it,” he promises, taking your free hand in his own, the other holding the box out to you. “I’ve never been happier to be borderline assaulted by a drunk girl in the middle of a set, because if that never happened I don’t know if we would’ve met.”

You start laughing hysterically, tears most definitely ruining your makeup, and he laughs through his own tears.

“I just love you so much, every little thing about you. It would take me eternity to tell you how much I love you, and that wouldn’t even be enough time with you. So, that’s why I want to ask you to be with me beyond eternity and do me the honor of being my wife.” He says your name like he’s saying it for the first time, taking his time to savor the way it rolls off his tongue. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” you nod. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Hand shaking, he slips the ring onto your finger. The moment it’s in place, he puts his other knee down and pulls you into the tightest hug as the song continues playing from the box.

“I love you,” you whisper in his ear, feeling his shoulders shake slightly as he cries. “But did you have to give me a heart attack so many times today?”

He laughs, pulling away and grabbing a napkin to gently wipe your eyes. “Four’s my lucky number, I had to do it three other times today to make sure I got it right.”

The song comes to an end, and you pick up the box, observing the intricate design and the engraving on the outside– You get lighter the more it gets dark. I’m going to give you my heart. Forever.

“You know this has to be the song we dance to for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Norris, right?” You say to him, leaning in and kissing the tears off of his cheeks.

“Way ahead of you, baby. I already started making our playlist; it’s the first song on there.”

note: the fact that i’m posting this after lando confirmed he “retired” from dj-ing… call this my long-winded eulogy. special thanks to coldplay for making a song that inspired a whole story!

requests are OPEN, and my inbox is always open for comments, criticism, and conversation! feel free to pop in!

reblogs are always appreciated <33

beautiful dividers by @/saradika !

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[aurae-rori]

DR RATIO ANALYSIS: PART 2, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

SPOILERS FOR 2.1 CONTENT.

Now, you might be saying - "Aurae, you already did one, why do you need a second?" And my answer is, "LORD, I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW HIS DEFINITION OF 'IDIOT' IS DIFFERENT. AND ALSO HE DOES NOT HATE AVENTURINE NOR DOES HE THINK AVENTURINE IS STUPID." Once again, here is my disclaimer - although I have been researching psychology for a solid six years, I am NOT a professional. (I will be, one day. Just you wait, just youuuu wait-) So understand that everything I say has been analyzed with personal judgement, with my own conclusions, come to with logic and my personal interpretation. This is just what I have concluded, and you are always free to disagree.

This is my legacy. To be an analyzer. So let's go.

Okay, now that my disclaimer is over, let's take off Ratio's plaster head and chuck it into the sea, and see - what does he mean by 'idiot'?

This will be much shorter than my last, so don't worry - I will not be flashbanging you with another 4k words. This is more like a follow up, than anything else, because there's a few things I wish to touch on.

Dr. Ratio doesn't hate idiots in the sense that he hates people that have 'low IQ' or are 'stupid' in terms of being 'slow to understand'. I definitely touched on this in my last analysis, but he hates people who take their education for granted and don't go places with the gifts that they've been given. He hates "idiots" - "narrow minded" people who have the capabilities to do more and perceive more than they choose to do. People who deliberately look away or take what they know and what they could do for granted. He wants to open people's eyes and allow them to see life from multiple different angles and he believes that everyone should have a chance to learn - with the whole "knowledge for everyone" thing he's got rolling.

He wears a plaster head around people he doesn't seem to know too well in order to think more, or so that he doesn't have to see the faces of the people he dislikes. Pretty good roast. However, he does NOT wear that plaster head around Aventurine. Let's listen to the doctor's judgement - Aventurine is far from stupid. Although he likes to chalk up a lot of the things he does to his own luck, he is an INCREDIBLY capable individual who's managed to get this far because of his own form of genius. He's a man who relies on chance and good fortune, yes, but his charm, his way of scheming, and the way that he's good with people? That's skill. A talent he doesn't take for granted. Dr. Ratio respects him for this - because despite the fact that he has no proper education, he has his eyes wide open to the world and doesn't take shit for granted. He learns what he can in order to survive and he does it fucking well - Aventurine is a very smart man. He's observant, quick on his feet, and great at going with the flow and thinking in the moment.

Aventio aside, I actually believe that Dr. Ratio would be a really good teacher to those who struggle. He's patient where it's needed to be, even if he's got a quick temper, and I believe in his pursuit for knowledge he would do his best to go out of his way to find strategies that would work for their individuals. We're all unique, and he's aware of this - and because he wants to allow people to think for themselves, whatever helps the individual works. Depression? He's got a psych degree, I'm sure bro could give you some strategies. Autism? He has a touch of the 'tism himself. ADHD, and not feeling organized? Bro will help you. It's canon that he's a great fucking teacher - those who finish his classes go on to become successful people who are intelligent and critical thinkers. Round of applause for Ratio, the man that kins my father. He's shit at emotions, but great at knowledge.

Also, on that note, I believe that he would most likely hate parents that push thier "gifted" students to the limit without any compassion for the person that they really are. He's most definitely got some of that academic trauma so I believe that bro holds a secret disdain for parents who just use their children to gain more recgonition. Well, not so secret. He'd cuss them out. (Ratio please cuss out the horrible parents.)

Dr. Ratio, the Teacher ever. (Hey, maybe he'd get along with Kunikida...)

Also, I am definitely planning on making a fic where he teaches Aventurine Latin. As long as you're eager to learn and willing to look past the chalk being thrown, he's got a place for you.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk. I did not read this through, so this is not edited. Take my unedited rambles.

[fortunefavourstheboldau]

chapter 2: psych evals

Staring at the board filled with silly posters as a false 'we care about you!' from Pony Express, Curly contemplated just giving her the fake, overly cheery mask he usually put on during the psych evals. If he answered properly, and she questioned his mental status, Jimmy would likely be put as temporary caption. He shuddered at the thought. He'd rather Daisuke as a temporary captain, even with his inexperience.

"God, I know you hate these psych evals, Captain; but I would prefer you to not just repeat the same answers as last time... Can you please try this time?"

Anya sighed, grabbing Curly's hand. It felt strange to even have hands, let alone someone touch them - after the months of staring at the ceiling. The specifics of how he was here now though, had made him spiral into a tizzy; desperately trying to figure out if those memories were real or if it was a warning from some past life.

"You know me too well, Anya. I can't make any promises though. Don't want good ol' Jimbo acting as captain if I'm off my rocker."

He grimaced at that thought, but a twinge of guilt tug at his heartstrings. If his memory served him correctly, Jimmy had already impregnated the poor woman, but she hadn't had the courage to talk to Curly about it yet. Fuck, if only Curly had just- not struggled when Jim did what he wanted to him. If only he'd laid there, instead of trying to tell the guy, "I got you a new job, isn't that enough? What more do you want from me?". The logical part of him laughed at the thought. Jimmy would've done it anyways. Jimmy still came in, night after night, when Curly told him that enough was enough. But he couldn't just get rid of the guy. He'd stupidly recommended the guy as his co-pilot, and now Jimmy was needed in case something happened to him.

"... Yeah. I uh.. I like your authority better, Curly. You're a good guy."

Anya whispered, loud enough so Curly could hear, but quiet enough so no one else could. He looked down, analysing her now sombre face. She fidgeted with the callouses on his pointer, nervously trying to distract the both of them to avoid further discussion of that. Curly laughed nervously, attempting to take the hint,

"So, what's our first question, Dr Anya?"

She grinned, letting go of his hand to grab the checklist and her favourite pen, white with flowery stickers adorning it.

"You flatter me. Anyways the first question is.."

Anya scanned the page, clicking the pen as she read the words.

"Do you have any issues sleeping, or eating?"

Curly stared at the floor, guiltily, her eyes following his. He coughed, clearing his throat nervously, trying to keep his accent from messing with the clarity of his answers. These damn evals were recorded, in case the company decided to sue the crew for potential damages caused on the trip. They especially hated his mixture of a Scottish/Australian accent.

"Yeah, I've had some trouble getting to sleep, but I always stick to my 5 regulated hours. Haven't had any issue eating, other than the usual trying to force down slop."

That was a lie. Even before the crash, he'd had maybe 3 hours of sleep on a good day, and those came rarely. 30 minutes was his regular, and that left him with some of the worst headaches and brain fog. The brain fog was honestly the worst part. Everyone needed something from him, day in and day out, and he wanted to give them the best version of himself he could manage but the fog made that pretty damn hard. He ate sometimes, when he could stomach it. In a fucked up way, it was kinda funny. On Earth, he ate pretty much whenever he could afford it. Jimmy used to tease him for it, but he'd jokingly punch the guy in return, telling him "Oi mate, you can make fun of me when your gains are as nice as these." Now, he was a shadow of his former self, a shell of the brilliant, strong Grant Curly. He couldn't admit that on the cameras though. Anya tapped him on the wrist with her pen.

"Grant? You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm alright, Anya. Let's continue."

She sighed, switching the camera off. Curly flinched at the fizzling sound that echoed from the old camera.

"Curly, I'm serious. Talk to me. None of this has to go on the records."

"Anya..."

She stood up, walking over to kneel beside him. Despite being Russian, she was still relatively short. He thought it might've been the half-Japanese in her.

"I want you to talk to me, as a friend, not as your nurse. I haven't seen you eat breakfast in at least 3 months, and your light in your room is always on when I walk back to my room right before the moonlight screen transitions to the sunrise screen. I know something's wrong."

Curly turned his head, guiltily avoiding eye contact. He should be the one saying that to her. He should be the one sitting her down, asking her what's wrong, comforting her and telling her he'll really find a way to deal with Jimmy. He should've done that a long time ago, and yet it was her doing it for him, instead of him doing the damn right thing and doing it for her.

"Curly, please look at me. I'm... I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help you."

He made a small, stupid noise reminiscent of a pained whimper, and turned his head to look at her.

"It should be me instead of you, Anya. I'm so sorry"

Anya flinched, using her elbow to catch herself from falling. She looked on the brink of tears, heaving with every breath.

"Come.. Come again?"

"I should've never gotten him the job. I should've just let him do it to me, instead. I should've just taken it, instead of fighting back every night. I-I should've bargained with Pony for locks on the damn doors, for anything to protect you. I failed-"

"Stop. How do you know what he did to me?"

Fuck. What excuse could he tell her? "Oh yeah, in a past life I failed you and didn't do shit against Jimmy, and so I know he did it. Oh I promise I'm going to fight against him, and find a way to protect you, when I've already failed you twice." Curly fidgeted with a loose curl hanging by his ear.

"I uh.. I took a short course in training that detailed these sorts of... incidents ."

"Has he been.. doing the same thing to you?"

Curly tugged on the curl, panicked.

"No, no it's not the same. He told me he needed it, and that he was at risk of hurting our friends, and now crew if I didn't let him have it.. so I let him, for a couple years. It's not the same as yours."

"Just because you 'let him' do it, doesn't mean it was consensual. You didn't want him to do that."

Curly stood up, blood rushing to his head as he did so. He'd deal with the 'almost passing out' part later, if he could help it.

"Can I give you a hug, Anya? I think that's enough of me talking"

"Huh? Oh uh.. sure. That would be nice."

He wobbled over to her, vision blurring with black spots. Curly hated when that happened. The dizziness and the tremors were fine, but the black spots that flooded his vision were the worst.

"You never deserved any of that, Anya."

Curly hugged her, pulling her close to him, but leaving his grip light enough so she could bolt if she needed to. She sobbed into his chest, flooding the tacky blue fabric with tears. He stroked her back, drawing circles into the crevices of her spine.

"He start-started off nice at first. He told me I was a wonderful nurse, and I would.. make a great mother."

She choked up on the last part, shaking even more with every word.

"I didn't mind, but he kept complimenting me, and the compliments got even more sexual, and I ended up telling him I didn't.. didn't like him like that, and he lashed out, and at first slapped me. Then he'd sneak his way into my chambers at night, after offering me a cup of tea, that I later found out was drugged, and he'd have his way with me. I-I.."

A knocking rang at the door, loud and harsh.

"It's been a fucking hour in there, assholes! Hurry the fuck up, cause some of us have places to be!"

Jimmy. Anya's sobs grew harder, now clawing at the fabric on Curly's back, yet she'd practised hiding the sound of her cries. He couldn't let Jimmy see or hear her like this. Curly yelled back,

"Your schedule's practically empty. What places are you fucken plannng to be?"

He heard a barely controlled cackle, and a violent bash on the door.

"Dickhead, you changed it so I would teach Daisuke some basic flight skills! Come out here and look at it, smart guy."

Curly looked down at Anya, who stared back in fear.

"Lock the door behind me."

"I don't want him in here, Curly."

God no, he wouldn't force Anya to face Jimmy. That'd be the absolute worst thing he could do right now.

"No, that's not what I meant. Give me his psych eval sheet. You stay in here, and lock the door when I leave."

She paused, pushing herself off him.

"No! He'll do something to you, I know it."

Curly sighed, pushing the fear down into his stomach. He'd deal with that later. Right now, he needed to really be a captain. And that would start with not letting Anya be in the same room as her abuser.

"Captain's orders, Anya. I mean it."

fic link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61405324/chapters/157084453

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 1

Propaganda why Dr. Heinrich Faust is insufferable:

"Dude is an old disgruntled man that does nothing but complain. He gets the coolest sidekick (Mephisto) who grants him the power of looking hot and young again and what does Faust do with that power ?

-- no suspense here we all read the play. He seduces an underage girl (Gretchen), impregnates her then fucks off to party with a bunch of witches for 9 months, after wich Gretchen is sentenced to death for killing the resulting infant after you know....BEING A SHELTERED YOUNG WOMAN NOT REALLY KNOWING WTF TO DO WITH A NEWBORN.

And then Faust cries to her about it in prison.

Faust sucks. "

"INSANE over him being submitted and SURE i'll go along with it. He is supposed to be insufferable, clearly. Which REALLY starts in the Gretchentragödie. Where he (middle aged scholar) tries to get with a 14yr old girl (and manages to) and kills like her whole family. The reason this is extra infuriating is because in the first part of the drama he's actually quite relatable. Whining about how he has nothing to live for and how he studied everything there was at the time and he STILL doesn't get what the world's really about. He also recognizes that nature and culture have a lot to offer instead. So what does he do when a demon promises him a fulfilled life in a deal? Of course he decides to groom a 14yr old. Cool writing, there's a reason it's a classic. But yeah, he's Supposed to suck and be infuriating. He acts like a little BITCH towards mephisto, the demon, asks him for shit all the time, like a toddler. In my opinion, gay sex would have fixed him. If a demon told me he'd give me anything to make life worth my time i know who I would bang instead of the 14yr old. Not only does he wanna be with her but he's so BAD at it too. Failure of a man. You WILL want to punch him"

"Rarely have I ever loathed a character as much as Faust.

He starts relatable enough, wanting to know more than possible and stuff, but he is incapable of accepting a no. Desperation and hubris are fun, don't get me wrong, but he is so incredibly annoying about it.

My main issue is his obsession with Gretchen though. Like. My guy gets deaged into youth and needs to fuck the first girl he sees. Buddy, she's, like, 16 At Most (probably 14 actually but I don't remember). You're literally an old fuck of a professor. And like, you literally keep calling her a child and ignoring all her concerns and her values! The only times you agree with her are to placate her so you can still get in her pants!!

And like. He literally admits this outright. He literally says he doesn't care what happens to her as long as he gets what he wants. He manipulated a teenage girl into accidentally murdering her mother during their first time. Then he leaves her alone! She's pregnant, that's a death sentence!

And AFTER the fever dream of Walpurgis Night or whatever he's like "ohhhh I love you so much please run away with me and abandon all your values again" LITERALLY SHUT THE FUCK UP THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

YOU LITERALLY HAVE A LIFE TIME OF EXPERIENCE YOU KNEW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING AT ALL TIMES YOU'RE A MISERABLE ARSEHOLE WHO KILLED HER AND SOMEHOW YOU STILL DON'T RESPECT HER AS LIKE A HUMAN????

Like even for the time! That's fucked up! Even in the fucking context of Goethe's time that is messed up!!

Anyway I haven't yet gotten to read the second book but I'll do it literally just to watch Faust die. I need him to die so badly. He's such a horny, selfish, holier-than-thou bastard who thinks he's better than everyone because he's do "big picture" and "studied all fields of science" and then acts Like That. I'm chewing on his remains. I hope he suffers forever.

Like. You could have done anything. But instead you manipulated a teenage girl (and like, literally, not the tumblr usage) just to sleep with her, doomed her for your own pleasure and then had the gall to throw a fit and make her death all about yourself, and still didn't acknowledge her as a person even once. I hope you choke on your ego, Dr. Heinrich Faust."

Propaganda why Victor Frankenstein is insufferable:

"Victor Frankenstein is so pathetic not even tumblr could love him. The best parts of Frankenstein are the ones where your blessedly saved from being in his whiny, self deprecating, self centered pov. He’s so conceited that when his creation tells him directly “In revenge for killing the wife you were making for me I’m going to kill YOUR wife to see how YOU like it!”, Victor Frankenstein thinks that the creation is going to kill him and *only* him. (A decision And on top of it, he’s a shitty dad. Truly the worst.c

"this fucker has zero self awareness, which could maybe be fun to read about! except that 3/4 of the book consists of him constantly woe-is-me-ing about his own mistakes and how he shouldn't be responsible for any of his own actions."

"He's not irredeemable, but his refusal to take accountability til it's too late is irritating"

"The man has never one in his life taken responsibility for his own actions. He's always surprised when the things he does have consequences for him and the people around him.

"It's not my fault I spent months grave robbing for spare body parts, sewing them together, and giving life to the results. How could I have ever predicted that that creature wouldn't look quite right? How could I have known that it was wildly irresponsible to abandon the grown man sized newborn that I created?"

Man acts like he is a completely innocent victim when, in reality he's the cause of every one of the problems in the book."

[piratesoftheseaandsky]

Gods, Villains, and the concept of Change

I beat in Stars and Time recently, and it got me thinking.

Spoilers for In Stars and Time, Persona 5 Royal, Destiny 2: the Final Shape, and Slay the Princess.

The games listed above are some of my favorite, and they have a common ground I didn't expect. Change. Resistance to it, and how that affects the world around it. They're all excellent games made with a lot of love, and I highly recommend them.

Let's start with Persona. Persona 5 Royal is an angry game. It is a game about spitting in the face of complacency. In it, you fight a total of 2 gods. The first is one brought into being from humanity's want to not need to choose. It's a critique of Japan's culture just allowing heinous acts to occur without anyone speaking up because of a whole lot of factors. Prestige, corrupt and failing systems, so on and so forth. That's not why I want to talk about it.

I want to talk about it because this is the most grounded form of resistance to change that I can offer. The god you face says it outright, this is what people wanted, this is a longing from a society at large. No one wants to have to be the one coming forward to fight against things that feel too expansive to handle alone. So, they stagnate. So the world stagnates, and so comes a god of control, to make those decisions for you. And so you are complacent. The point of this game is to scream and bare your teeth at it, to rage at allowing others to be hurt because you're comfortable, because you don't want to pursue change.

You kill that god, stand on its corpse, a bullet through its metallic skull, and prove that things can change, that it's worth a shot. That complacency is not the answer. That to get better, we have to change.

Then comes the second god. A man, one so maddeningly stuck up his own ass that he can't imagine anyone's perspective but his own. Dr. Maruki is a horrible therapist and a worse researcher. But that's not the point. The point is that he ascends to a weird sort of godhood to grant people's wishes. This is where the game elevates itself from pretty good to fucking excellent. He wants to heal everyone, and grants anyone's wish, no matter what it is.

You see a teacher of yours undergo a drastic change from grumpy asshole to friendly and kind. By someone else's wish. It's an insult, in a lot of ways, a different kind of complacency. Everyone is dependent on wishes to make life easy for themselves, and Maruki never seems to bother thinking about what these wishes he's granting might mean when they affect others.

One of your Confidants makes an argument about this relatively early on, that I always took as illogical, until Maruki became a god. She is hypocritical, but also was being manipulated, and besides, there's no point in judgement, only in action.

Once again, that's what the game is doing. The point is to get mad, to act, to do something to fix it instead of letting a shitty situation stagnate. Don't let anyone else dictate you, what you are, how you act, all of it. Don't ever allow complacency to get others hurt.

The point is to change, and force society to change with you.

Now let's fling ourselves to the other end of the spectrum. To a universe ending extreme.

Destiny 2: the Final Shape is the culmination of a decade of storytelling and a last, heartfelt hurrah to a story and a character that players fell in love with. The Witness is not a god, not quite. Powerful, horrifying, but not a god. Not worshipped, subconsciously or otherwise. It is, however, a villain. One obsessed with perfection.

Perfection is always a sticky thing, symbolic for a whole load of things. Here, the symbol doesn't matter, the act does. The Witness freezes everything in what it considers to be their perfect moment.

Well, is in the process of doing so, that's when you show up. To do so, you have to step into the Traveler, your god, or patron, or whatever. It's what granted you immortality, and your only constant companion. Your Ghost. That's something to talk about later, in a different post, how the game flips your perspective of your Ghost on its head.

The Witness uses the Traveler's power, the darkness and the light, the mental and the physical, and manifests a whole world in the Traveler. A world of perfect moments. Your first revival, the first time you make it to the Tower, the first god you ever killed.

It is an iconoclasm. "To step foot in the body of a god would be unquestionably to defile it." The Witness twists your everything, takes existence and bends it into unchanging, frozen, moments. It loathes you, because you are it's antithesis. Impermanence itself, your first life, your original self long forgotten, a constantly changing eternal.

For an immortal, you are remarkably fragile. It drives you into perpetual motion, makes you beautifully imperfect. Everything the Witness hates. Your god encourages growth, and never interferes directly. You exist for a purpose. Your god won't tell you what it is.

Of course it won't, the Traveler doesn't like to dictate you, that goes against its philosophy. Your existence is yours, it won't shove itself into a life that only belongs to you. Choice is valuable, precious. The Witness wants to rip it apart for its own purposes.

Another insult, putting the wishes of one over the many, making choices that only belong to the individuals. You rip apart its "perfection", bare the blood and guts, ugly interior built on one soul's desperate grasping for control. It buries its followers-turned-dissenters under itself, sucks them of their power and strips them of their individuality.

You sink your teeth into its throat, tear it's vocal chords out and destroy it, make an example of it, like you have done with its disciples before. Your freedom, your ability to change, your individuality, you've fought everything to keep it. And someone makes a sacrifice. For you.

But it was their choice. And that's why it matters. They chose that change for themselves, and knew how it would end. It's an honor, that their final death was for you.

For as many times as the change is no one's choice but your own, there are just as many where circumstance forces your hand. Let's talk about In Stars and Time.

In Stars and Time is a game that took me 47 hours to beat, and put me through one of the worst crushers I've ever dragged myself through. I loved it more than anything. There is a belief in this game built around the concept of change.

Change, and time, and their relation to each other. You play as Siffrin, a traveler from a country now forgotten, alongside a party on their way to face the King. The King is freezing Vaugarde, the country you're currently in, in time.

He is not a god, powerful but not divine. Barely even a threat by the end. But that's not where the danger lies, because he's not the only one messing around with time.

At the start of the game, you make a wish. You don't know the contents, not truly, but it will decide everything that happens next.

You miss a trap, and a giant boulder is dropped on your skull as your party watches.

You feel a tug on your stomach.

And you're back where you started. No one but you, and your faithful guide, Loop, remember. You repeat the same two days more times than you should, break your brain apart as you try to figure out why you're stuck in a time loop, all the while pretending nothing's wrong.

You memorize what your friends say, and soon enough you're following a script, only ever erring when it make actually be useful to figuring this out. You uncover things about yourself and your past, you change while everything stagnates.

At one point you meet the change god. It talks to your friend first, for so many reasons I will talk about somewhere else. Then, it looks to you.

You, the only one who still changes, who is still allowed to change. Center stage, under the spotlight, all eyes on you. It thinks itself the audience.

No, you are the center of an orrery, the celestial body in this loop from which all things orbit.

You change in the worst ways, tear yourself apart and drive yourself to mania for any chance at an escape. All it takes is a promise.

All it takes is the worst things you've ever said, the biggest deviation from the script you've ever done. All it takes is honesty. All you have to do is let yourself be loved.

You and the King are foils, driven by grief for a country forgotten, you force stagnation in the world around you. He changes by choice, makes himself gigantic and intimidating, chooses consciously to pluck away an entire country's freedom.

You lose an eye on instinct, wish to stay as nothing more than a desperate whisper, unconscious and drowning in your own forgetfulness.

The Universe leads, you can only follow. A three body problem. The King is a star fading, freezing, everything in its orbit loses speed, until the solar system grinds to a halt.

You are star going supernova, blinding, bursting, taking all that surrounds you with you.

But you change. The King changes. You have a family, they'll stay with you, they love you. You can move on. The King remembers, in his final moments. The last of your home frozen forever.

But he changed. He is gone and you remain, a three body problem solved. Changes made.

None of these happen in a vacuum, there are circumstances outside of both your control and your sight. A whole world to save. Let's talk about one in which there is nothing but you, a path, a cabin, the voices, and a princess.

You are on a path in the woods. At the end of this path is a cabin. In that cabin is a princess.

You are here to slay her.

If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

These are the opening lines of every route of Slay the Princess. It is a love story.

Like In Stars and Time, the gameplay is built on change. Try every dialogue option, find every ending, meet every version of the princess and hear every voice of your own.

No matter what you do, you finish your first route, and you find yourself in the long quiet. First, you must touch a mirror, see yourself, and say goodbye to the voices. They cannot follow you here. A thing sits where the cabin was, holding whatever version of the princess you dragged out. It thanks you. It asks for more. 5 is the minimum. Just five versions. Just five routes.

Everyone plays it a little differently, finds different routes, explores different dialogue. Everyone gets a different ending.

We're not here to talk about the ending, we're here to talk about you, the Shifting Mound (the thing in the long quiet), and the narrator.

The narrator is fragments, echoes of a man who made a choice for no one but himself under the guise of saving the world. Like Sisyphus cheating death. His punishment is you. You and your other half.

He trapped change itself, and split it in twain. Plucked you apart and forced you to slaughter each other for eternity, until finally one succeeds and "saves the world". He interferes, he forces your hand in the most literal sense, he denies and deflects and refuses to be honest. No matter what you choose, before the end, if you've brought the Shifting Mound 5 vessels, you will destroy the narrator.

He shatters, and he gives you answers. Sort of. You only have so manu questions before the shards of glass beneath you can no longer sustain him. It doesn't matter, because you get answers.

A fabricated prison, a separation, ill-fated desperation, and a selfish wish. A wish to get rid of change, in its entirety.

He didn't lie, freeing the princess will bring about the end of the world. But not at once. Just eventually. Because for change there must be destruction. Because motion will always, eventually, run out of energy.

Inertia, and all that. What you do next is your choice. That's the point, after all. You and the Shifting Mound are Change, and there are many ways this can go. Possibilities brought about by chance, by choice, by change.

Four stories, all about change, all about stagnation, all about the value of choice, or the lack of it. Maybe this will be meaningful for you. Maybe you'll scroll past it without a second thought.

That's the point. That's the value of change. That's why I wrote this.

[enigmaticxbee]

XF AU - Fic Recs

When the world was unrecognizable and upside down, there was one thing that remained the same. You... were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant... my touchstone (or, alternate universe and canon-divergent fics):

Contemporary AUs:

A Companion Unobtrusive by @slippinmickeys - She needed a roommate. He needed a room.

The Annapolis Grant by @slippinmickeys - Fake relationship! Scully hires Mulder to pretend to be her boyfriend.

Aprons and Scrubs by @lokisgame - Scully’s a doctor and Mulder runs a bar.

Five Years and a Lifetime by @monikafilefan @slippinmickeys - One night stand AU. Five years later, Scully and Mulder work at the same pediatric hospital, and Scully's four year old daughter bears a striking resemblance to the picture of a dark haired girl that sits on Mulder's desk...

Skin by Annie Sewell-Jennings - In a world where Mulder and Scully have never met, fate intervenes and brings two worlds colliding in the city of Charleston, as a vicious murderer reigns and a storm approaches.

Sinners Come Down by aster_risk - Six years into her marriage to Daniel, Scully meets Fox Mulder at a bar one night, and they get talking and fucking over alcohol and self-pity.

In the Best Interest of the Child by @mldrgrl - When tragedy strikes, Mulder is forced to take guardianship of his young niece, but the matter is complicated by the arrival of a sister-in-law he's never met.

Historical AUs:

By the Dim and Flaring Lamps by @sunflowerseedsandscience - Civil War AU. Captain Mulder befriends Private Scully who’s hiding a secret…

The Countess and The Earl by @slippinmickeys - Regency Romance!

Old Growth Forest by Andrea - Mulder and Scully travel back to frontier times

Rocky Mountain Interlude Part 1 and Part 2 by Jacquie LaVa and Tess - Mulder and Scully travel back in time to solve the case of a Colorado mining ghost

The Science of Sex by @if-the-seascatchfire - Masters of Sex AU. Mulder and Scully are doctors in the late 1950s who undertake a years-long study about human sexuality, and as part of the research, they also have sex with each other - you know, for the science.

Out of this World:

The Magician by Suzanne Bickerstaffe and Jennifer Lyon - Fantasy series where Mulder and Scully travel to another world full of magic (one of the first fanfics I ever remember reading!)

Out of the Little Grove by @slippinmickeys - Crossover with His Dark Materials (a mashup truly made just for me, my 13 year old self would have been over the moon)

Blinded by White Light by @dashakay - Post-colonization. What are we, but the sum of our memories? A classic.

Julia and Gabriel by Mish - Post-colonization. A new identity, a new, dangerous society, an unchanged heart and soul. Gave me Hunger Games vibes for some reason (although written years before that was published)

Canon-Divergent: Pre or Early Series

Eleventh Hour by Rachel Anton - Mulder travels back in time to find college-aged Scully and change everything.

Belphagor’s Prime by Prufrock’s Love - When Scully disappears Mulder travels back in time to a pre-X-Files Scully for help.

In Another Life by @mldrgrl - What if there was no conspiracy? What if Mulder was just a regular FBI Agent? What if Scully was just a bureau pathologist?

How They Met by @peacenik0 - After an encounter at Scully’s FBI academy graduation party they must determine how to deal with their past and their undeniable attraction to one another when partnered up.

One Week at Quantico by CrossedBeams - What if Mulder had been teaching at the Academy when Scully was training…

Paging Dr. Scully by @mangokiwitropicalswirl - Mulder keeps ending up in Dr Scully’s ER.

Only One Choice by @sisterspooky1013 - Scully was never assigned to The X Files.

The Way Things Are by Sukie Tawdry - A season 1 one night stand changes everything. Baby-fic.

Departures & Arrivals by anarchybeauty - After the X Files are closed in 1994, Scully moves on. Two years later, she runs into Mulder in an airport.

Right Hand Return by humphreywrites - Scully is returned from her abduction with a baby, no memories of anything prior to her captivity and some PTSD.

12 Rites of Passage and 12 Degrees of Separation by Anne Hayes - mytharc story written very early in the series run.

parent_1 by @markwatneyandenesemble - It’s 1996, Mulder’s been off the X-Files for three years, and not speaking to Scully. They’ve almost moved on with their lives. Almost.

Canon-Divergent: Mid Series

A Different Place by @myownsuperintendent - When Mulder successfully brings one of the Samantha clones back from the farm with him in Herrenvolk, she must learn to adapt to a different life.

Once More With Feeling by skinfull - While on a stakeout Mulder is shot in the head and loses his memory.

Iolokus by rivkat and MustangSally - Mytharc AU. Painted across the barren and desolate reaches of Texas, the shadows of the Project put additional pressure on Scully and Mulder's already fragile relationship. After a hostage crisis raises more questions about the Project's breeding program, Scully begins her own investigation, leaving Mulder to choose between saving her and saving himself. Pretty disturbing but fascinating, a classic.

Arizona Highways by Fialka - Mytharc AU. Visions of Melissa lead Our Heroes on a case confirming the existence of a series of Emilys. But does Melissa really have a message, or is it all in Scully’s head? Another classic.

Heuvelmans' On the Track by @mashnotesofthemythopoeic - post-FTF mytharc AU, truly a ride you’ll never forget.

The Leap and Landfall by Ambress - Scully has a one time opportunity for motherhood, given to her by the Kurt Crawfords.

All That Is Dark and Bright by @malibusunset-xf-blog - Emily lives AU.

Five Years and One Night by Shalimar - Scully leaves the X-Files post-Emily but gets drawn back in when Mulder discovers Emily wasn’t the only child created.

Cubed by Louise Marin - Mid-season 6 Scully does a little body-swapping of her own. Can she and Mulder make it back to each other? Do they want to?

The Boy on the Beach and Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1999 by @cecilysass - One moment she was sitting in the chair. Her chin up, her expression ice. And the next moment she was gone. Fantastic exploration of the Samantha storyline.

Canon-Divergent: Late or Post Series

40 Weeks by @malibusunset-xf-blog - What if the IVF attempt in Per Manum had been successful?

Mobius by L.A. Ward - Post-Requiem while investigating the disappearance of a physicist, Scully finds someone she didn't expect - Mulder. But is it her Mulder?

By the Wind Grieved by Karen Rasch - Mulder is returned several months post Requiem but he doesn't know who he is or what Scully and he are to each other. Together they must reclaim the past before their enemies take away their future.

Deadalive AU by @markwatneyandenesemble - Mulder is returned but is missing several years of memory.

The 13th Sign and 7 Days in May by Prufrock’s Love - Post-Deadalive. Mulder saw no reason for life, death, sex, Armageddon, or emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.

Hurricane Season by rah and beduini - Post-Existence week at the beach with the Scully family and baby Wim.

Terra Firma series by @malibusunset-xf-blog - Post-Existence domestic family drama, a classic comfort read for me.

2008 by MystPhile - With the quest at an end, the X-Files closed in the year 2000. Our heroes went their separate ways. In 2008, they meet in Bloomingdale's and the past, present, and future are explored.

Dr. Scully's School for Exceptional Boys by Prufrock’s Love - More than a decade had passed. Mulder had no reason to hole up in his apartment alone, wearing a Three Dog Night T-shirt with dried mustard on the hem and blue jeans that had seen better days. He wasn't "saving himself" for anyone. Especially not Her. Though she remained epically, beautifully, brilliantly kick-A-S-S.

Machines of Freedom by Amal Nahurriyeh - post-IWTB. The end of the world is coming. And they're doing everything in their power to stop it.

North of Zero by @slippinmickeys - Post-IWTB, post-colonization. The bombs have fallen. The aliens have come. What’s next?

Canon Parallel AUs:

I've got you under my skin by cuits - In a universe where soulmate identifying marks exist and affect a part of the population, would Mulder and Scully's relationship evolve any different? Unfinished but complete through Existence so it still ends in a satisfying place.

Half-light by skuls - Mulder and Scully get a second chance.

The Family G-Man by Neoxphile and FelineFemme - A double tragedy strikes Mulder the week before Christmas of 2003. What if he could go back and change things, save the son one lost and give the other the family she wanted? Could it keep them safe?

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

Hello. I'm not American, but I followed the last election pretty closely, and it raised a lot of questions for me. I was hoping you could share your perspective on a few things. For example, why does American politics seem so focused on personality and spectacle rather than actual policy? Is this because of a broken system that can't foster meaningful dialogue, or does the focus on "character" reflect a deeper cultural preference for spectacle over substance?

lmaooooo. i assume you are a european? because this ask reeks of european smugness. but it's fine. it's an interesting question and i'm happy to share my thoughts. and boy, do i have a lot of thoughts.

tl;dr: why? because americans are based.

"keep reading" at your own risk (it's gonna be long)....

first of all, i don't know how other countries run their democracies. so it seems like you're suggesting that your country is different from america. that y'all focus more on policy rather than "spectacle". i am skeptical of this claim but for the sake of this discussion, i'll grant it and assume it's accurate. so you come from a policy-heavy democracy. okay. this just further confirms to me that you're a european.

okay. so you live in a country full of nerds and policy wonks. good for you.

here in america? we are men. we are loved by the gods. and we are alive. we like to kill and we like to fuck. there is still red-hot blood in our veins! it's called the political arena for a reason. like the colosseum. arena means "place of sand," because gladiatorial arenas were covered in sand to soak up blood. american democracy isn't some mundane policy debate. boring, lame, and soulless.

no, american democracy is spirited and mythic. it is a place where men do (political) combat. a test of wills and destiny as much as skill. where not just survival is at stake, but everlasting glory too. the (political) arena is a sacred stage. a hallowed ground upon which the fates of men and nations are decided. you cannot even begin to comprehend the power of the american people. count yourself lucky to be able to bear witness to the divine struggle.

yes, yes. it's spectacle. it's theater. it's performance. so what? this is all to say that it is an art form. american politics is politics as art. fuck your spreadsheets. we're mythmaking here! and here, in the land of heroes, the lines between myth and reality are blurred. american politicians aren't policy wonks here to give the people policy briefs. no, they are larger-than-life symbols that represent the very complex and tangled psyche of the american people. they are vessels through which the people's hopes and fears can be expressed. they are an embodiment of the collective soul of the nation at a particular time.

and this is why i take some issue with the idea of it being "spectacle" because the term implies that the people are just passive observers but i don't agree. the people are active participants and co-creators in this mythmaking. casting votes, doing activism, attending town hall meetings, writing legislators, donating, volunteering, etc. these are all deeply engrained in the american psyche. and when they vote they're not just doing some rationalistic cost-benefit analysis of the policies. they are curating a particular national character, an emblem of their vision of what america is or should be. in this way it is literally collaborative mythmaking.

and a great people (like we americans) admire greatness. and so it's not enough for a person to have good policy. they need to be great and inspiring. policy isn't going to get people fired up. but a great leader will. he will ignite, move, and seduce the people's imagination. and truly, i think this is part of what makes america so great.

yes, policy is important. but it's not the most important thing. policy doesn’t make the hair on your arms stand up, doesn’t fill a stadium, doesn’t pull people out of their beds and into the fire. americans understand this. we the people are the directors casting the symbolic figures who will stand at the heart of america’s ever-unfolding story, in a way that is raw and passionately human. american democracy is a never-ending collaborative ritual of becoming.

you want to paint it as something shallow but it's actually the opposite. it's as deep as you can get. it's primal. it's reaching into the depths of the human soul. you call it a spectacle; i call it a mystery play. a dramatic unfolding of archetypes and primal forces, a cosmic pageant where the ideals of freedom, justice, fear, and power are constantly manifesting, clashing, and transforming.

and this isn't to say that every american politician is great, obviously. or that every election will present us with great politicians. it is a sliding scale and there are obviously lulls and low points. but honestly, even at its "worst" it still manages to be very sacral. i mean, just look at kamala. she was a deeply unpopular nobody, painfully banal and unimpressive, and yet she was still elevated to some kind of notability by the dems' party apparatus (again, pageantry and theater is a key part of this) and you had ordinary citizens who really loved and believed in her. i've seen videos of young women approaching her and sobbing with a mix of fear and hope. kamala, like many politicians, was a mask. a ceremonial persona that channels a force larger than themselves. each political figure is a vehicle for the expression of the archetypes lurking within the public psyche.

the "spectacle" of american democracy, then, is not shallow or trivial but profoundly alchemical: a process through which the invisible forces and latent desires of society become visible, embodied, personal. every campaign, every rally, every soundbite is an incantation in this larger ritual, a symbolic offering that speaks to the fears, the aspirations, and the boundless imagination of the public.

and even the controversies and scandals should be thought of in this context. not as distractions from governance but as necessary rites of purification and trial. the political arena is where these figures are tested; subjected to ritual humiliation or exaltation, challenged to expose themselves and submit to judgment by the people.

ours isn't a democracy of facts and figures but myth and memory. like i said earlier, it's politics as art. and art is about redemption. american democracy is about the peoples' need to see itself reflected and redeemed. like in any play.

our leaders aren’t simply decision-makers (though they are certainly that too)—they’re dream-bearers, keepers of the national spirit, actors summoned to embody what is essential, unspoken, even taboo. they’re the protagonists of a public dreamscape where american ideals aren’t just principles but living gods, bending and twisting to reflect the collective will of the people in real-time.

and so this isn’t just a political process. it’s a public initiation, a ritual that binds the people not through rational calculation but through shared mythmaking. policy might structure society, but it’s this ritual of personality, this living myth, that keeps the american spirit alive, forever restless, forever reinventing itself on the sacred stage.

and i think this captures the original, ancient, most authentic sense of democracy. i can't imagine ancient greek, roman, or even germanic leaders going around giving policy briefs. no. they were men of charisma and vision, capable of inspiring and igniting the people. they made promises, sure. "i promise i'll get you, my soldiers, land." but this is different to having a strict policy regime. a promise is so much nobler and sacred. maybe they didn't have all the details of how they'd achieve it figured out. but they made the promise. and there's the expectation they'd keep it. if they didn't, they were doomed. and even their rhetoric was more like a magical spell than rationalistic discourse. i think that's what y'all are missing. the art of rhetoric. appealing to reason is important, but it's only one part.

i think you policy wonk types are too logos-brained. not enough ethos or pathos. and i think america has all three in spades. indeed, i kinda take umbrage with this idea that americans somehow don't care about policy just because it isn't the only thing we're preoccupied with. because if you look at the world, america seems to have a pretty excellent track record. our policies and our institutions have turned our country from a colonial backwater into a global hegemon in a couple centuries.

and that's the other thing. our leaders aren't obsessed with policy, sure. but they do make promises. and yeah many promises are broken. but others are not. but that's all part of the drama. promises made, promises kept, promises broken. it isn't some empty spectacle like you're suggesting. just because americans aren't obsessed with policy like you doesn't mean we don't care about policy at all. we just approach it from a different angle. these promises are sacred to us. the "spectacle" can't just be empty. it has to be meaningful. there has to be something tangible/substantial.

american's aren't just tuning in for the show. they expect very real transformation and change, obviously. it's not always presented in some rigid policy brief, but still. the expectation is there. the promises represent a broader vision. the details are less important. and the execution of this vision is dependent on the greatness of the leader. a great leader will make these promises and present a vision to the people and then carry it out. and they'll make whatever policy changes they need to do so, most of the time. in this way, great leaders are like alchemists who can turn abstract policy into something material, translating the mythic into the real. it gives weight and purpose to the "spectacle".

so yeah i reject this idea that americans don't care about policy. i think we do just in a different, more holistic way than you do.

yes we americans elect our president in a fashion similar to my ancient german ancestors elected their kings; in roaring assemblies of freemen possessed by frenzy joined together through a moment of communion and electing our leader by acclamation; bestowing upon him the responsibility of guarding and guiding the wyrd (fate) of our people. i feel no shame about embracing this ancient spirit of democracy, when our leaders were more than mere soulless administrative policy-makers.

last thing i'll say. american democracy, as mentioned earlier, is a ritual of becoming. because america itself is a nation of becoming. it is not a calculation. it is a movement. from the very moment of our birth america has been defined by dreaming and yearning and creating. a nation of possibility and boundless potential. always asking "what if?" and achieving the impossible. the american ideal of freedom, of freedom of expression, is so deeply romantic. it cannot be understood rationally. we americans have a promethean fire in us. insert "you wouldn't get it" meme.

america is a land of new beginnings, where reason, society, and even government are bent and shaped by human passion, a place where history can be remade because the people are driven by ideals rather than chains of tradition.

i mean, look at our founding document. the declaration of independence. it's a poetic manifesto more than anything else. a titanic declaration of defiance and the promise of a new vision of a new world. and my great-spirited ancestors were willing to die for this. and you're really surprised that americans today are a people driven by passion and heroic ideals and myths?

we are americans. we are men. we still have red-hot blood in our veins and fire in our hearts and i won't apologize for it!

[hunterssm00n]

Family is Forever

"I just found it interesting that... 17 years later, that little baby grew up to shoot him in the face."

also on ao3: here

*cw trauma, past violence, dysfunctional family, psychological trauma, aftermath of violence, serial killers, childhood trauma, michael myers is his own warning, mental institutions, emotional baggage*

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hunterssm00n © All rights reserved by me. I do not allow this work to be used or adapted in any way without my permission.

"I just found it interesting, that... 17 years later that little baby grew up to shoot him in the face."

~~~~

It had been three weeks, and the wounds still hadn't completely healed.

The physical ones, she was referring to. The stitches were still deeply imbedded in her skin, and if she moved her face just the right way, she could feel the skin begin to split. Scarring was inevitable - she didn't need the doctors to tell her that. Physical and mental. While the physical scars were merely cosmetic, the mental scars were deeper than the sharpest knife.

Three weeks, and she still hadn't been able to shake this. To shake him.

Laurie Strode closed her eyes to her reflection. She should've known better; when she closed her eyes, he loomed larger than ever. The dark circles under her lashes were proof of that - she hadn't slept well in three weeks (some nights, she hadn't slept at all). But really, who the hell blamed her?

Even now, Laurie wanted to go back in time and close her eyes to some of the things she'd seen. She'd never considered herself to be a sheltered child. She wasn't the most worldly seventeen year old, granted, but her parents had usually let her experience things that a normal teenager should be able to.

God, her parents. Tears came to her eyes at the memory. 

Or, were they? She wasn't sure about anything, anymore. In any case though, biological parents or not, she still loved them; they had raised her, after all. 

Laurie, in the midst of being rushed to the hospital after the incident, had overheard someone - be it a cop, paramedic - mention something about a family history of mental illness, and how the Strode's had managed to keep her from being like a woman named Deborah and a man named Michael for so long...

She was taking a wild guess, but she was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to hear that. She didn't even know what it meant.

This was what had led her to agonize for the past three weeks over the absurd possibility that the Strode's were not her real parents... something she had never even considered until now.

And the man... the one who, after terrorizing her for one night, now seemed to perpetually terrorize her every night in her head. Who was he? And what on Earth did he want from her?

Laurie knew, looking at her tired, wild-eyed reflection in the mirror, that somehow, all of this was connected. Part of her wanted to brush everything under the rug, and just forget what had happened. Another part of her knew that she wouldn't be able to move on if she didn't find out what the fuck was going on around here. And she also knew who she'd have to ask. The white haired man who had tried to save her- she prayed he would be able to answer her questions. He had called the nightmare male form Michael - she didn't think it was a coincidence that she had heard that name before. The white haired man, Dr. Loomis, had told Michael that 'it wasn't Laurie's fault', and to 'let her go'. What exactly was 'it', and why would this giant man, whom she'd never met in her life, think that she was somehow responsible?

Dr. Loomis knew something she didn't. She had to get these things figured out. She would never find peace, otherwise.

Laurie looked at her reflection in the mirror. Seeing the scars up close, for some reason, brought tears to her eyes. Why did this happen to me? She didn't care that she was 'feeling sorry for herself' - she had every fucking reason to.

And now, she had a feeling she was going to feel even sorrier when she uncovered a truth that it seemed everyone knew but her.

~~~~

As Laurie limped up the hallway towards the room Dr. Samuel Loomis was residing in in the special care unit, she pushed all thoughts that were urging her to run away to the back of her mind. Now that she was so close to knowing, it was like a physical need. 508, 508, 508... she searched the numbers on each door that she passed, and briefly hoped Annie's car wouldn't have a ticket under the wiper when she went back out to retrieve it. Mostly because she had taken it without permission, and she didn't want anyone to find out she was here. Undoubtedly, Sheriff Brackett would find out somehow - he always did; had since she and Annie were kids. While Laurie was forever grateful to him for letting her stay at his house - especially while his own daughter was in the SCU as well - she was aware that he also knew more than he was letting on, and if she was to ask, she knew he'd keep his mouth shut.

So, she'd found out what room the good doctor was in, hijacked Annie's car, and had driven to the hospital. She was going to be in some very deep shit after this, but she had the leverage of only wanting to know what everyone was keeping from her. So they'd all just have to back the fuck off.

 508. Finally, she gimped to a stop in front of the room. She'd left her crutches in the car, as as not to draw attention to herself. Also, in case someone recognized her (like Brackett himself, or one of his cops), she'd be able to make a less messy getaway. That is, unless one of the stitches in her leg tore open. Why am I worried about this? I have every right to know who I am.

"Holy crap, here goes nothing." Or everything. Laurie took a deep breath, and opened the door to the room.

To her immense relief, Dr. Loomis was awake, watching TV. He recognized her immediately, as evidenced by the look of utter surprise on his face. Laurie let the door close behind her, and she limped over to the chair next to the bed on the left side.

"My dear, how are you?" asked this man whom she didn't know.

Easing herself slowly down into the chair, so as not to tear any of those damn stitches, she looked at him with a weary expression, "About the same as you; plus over a hundred stitches all over my body, minus four fingernails, and enough glass in my gut to make a windshield."

Dr. Loomis struggled to prop himself up into a sitting position in his bed, but Laurie reached out to touch his hand, "Please." She didn't want him to injure himself further, as he had almost been murdered trying to protect her. Her, this girl that he had never met in his life.

The white haired man turned his blue eyes onto hers, and then she realized she was crying, yet again. "Please, I - I -"

"Shh, it's alright," Dr. Loomis reached his other hand out so that both of his hands were clasping her outstretched one - it was about as much as he could move with an IV in his arm.

This was not what she had planned - she had carefully rehearsed what she was going to say before she came.

"Who is he?" she blubbered, snot running down her face. She hadn't wanted to spring this on him without conversation first, to soften him up, but she was far beyond the point of reasonable interaction at this moment. Dr. Loomis handed her the tissue box that was on his bed, and she took the whole thing, mushing two tissues into her watery eyes. Dr. Loomis didn't answer - he, himself, had been trying to rehearse what he would say when this happened. She had been a loose canon from the moment Michael had taken her hostage... Dr. Loomis knew that she would get an idea in her head, and it would eat away at her sanity until she found answers.

Unfortunately in this situation, the truth may have been worse than not knowing. It would certainly be a hard pill to swallow. Looking at her tear-stained, tired face, he didn't want to lie to her. The poor child had been through enough. And if she didn't find out from him, she'd find out from someone else, eventually. Someone who didn't know every extensive branch of this horrid story.

Once she calmed down a bit, she looked up at him with a silent plea in her eyes. "Who is he?" she asked again, "Why did they say that I wasn't a Strode?" To her own ears, her voice sounded foreign, almost like a childs. She grabbed another few tissues and wiped at her face, not looking away from the man in the bed.

He knew that she had to know, but at the same time, he didn't want to tell her. He wasn't quite sure how.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he struggled to come up with the words that would begin this nightmarish story, "... His name is Michael. Michael Myers." He saw a flash of recognition in her eyes at the name, and he wasn't surprised. Everyone knew that last name - they all knew the house, and that something terrible had happened there. The younger generations, such as Laurie's, were fortunate enough to not remember it as a real event, but rather as a horror story used to scare children. Not everyone knew the full story. Dr. Loomis was one of the few that did.

"Michael..." he began, then switched gears, "I assume you know the last name, and the rumors that are spread about it?" When she nodded, he continued, "I assure you, it isn't just a spooky story - it's so much more. Michael lived in the house with his family. He was a sweet boy, almost an old soul... but he had a-" How on earth to phrase this? "-a rough life. And when he was ten years old, he murdered three people in his home on Halloween night." Loomis swallowed, then continued. "He killed his mother's boyfriend, his older sister, and his sister's boyfriend as well. He then went into his baby sister's room, took her out of the crib, and sat on the front porch with her until his mother got home from work. Michael was taken to Smith's Grove sanitarium. After two years of incarceration, he stopped speaking indefinitely. As far as I know, he hasn't said a word since. His mother went on to commit suicide, and Michael remained in the sanitarium for seventeen years altogether... until one night, he escaped. Some guards became a little too comfortable around him, forgetting that he had murdered more than three people before he was fifteen. He broke out, and headed to Haddonfield - to his home."

Laurie tried piecing all of this together in her mind, and continued to wonder what the hell it had to do with her.

"Why did he kill my friends?" She felt the tears start again. Was it because Linda had been trespassing in his house? But then why had he tried to kill Annie? She hadn't even been on the same street as the Myers' house. "Why did he take me?"

Dr. Loomis took another breath, not looking at her. "I knew Michael's motivation would be to find his baby sister... She was the only other person besides his mother that he cared about. That's the only reason he came back here."

Laurie still didn't understand - the answer that her mind came up with made no sense. "I don't know anybody named Myers, though. There's no one in school with that last name. Why would he think I would know anything about his family... me of all people..."

Suddenly, it came to her, feeling like a train had unexpectedly come crashing into her at hyper speed. "Oh, God, I'm not - I'm not related to him, am I? Like a cousin, or something?"

Dr. Loomis looked at her then. "Laurie, you are his baby sister."

The weight of his words crushed her lungs, and a wave of dizziness crashed over her. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry - she didn't know if she could even do either one with this horrible heaviness in her chest.

The tears came again, "Please, are you telling the truth?" This couldn't be real. There was no way.

"Laurie," the white haired man looked somber, squeezing her hand, "I wouldn't joke about this, I assure you."

"So I'm not -" she blubbered, reaching for more tissues, "I'm not a Strode? I'm a Myers?" Every breath hurt; just the physical act of inhaling and exhaling seemed to be causing her actual pain. Her vision was becoming blurry.

"Yes," Dr. Loomis said with finality, his voice grim, "You are Michael Myers' sister."

Her vision went black, and Laurie screamed loud and long as she was sucked back into the world of consciousness. Her eyes shot open she realized she was in the guest room of Annie's house, where she had been staying for the past two months. Upon becoming aware of this fact, she relaxed back onto the mattress, trying to catch her breath. She hadn't screamed like that in weeks. Before the incident, she couldn't remember ever having screamed like that. It was exhausting, as well as embarrassing.

Laurie rolled over in bed, and turned the clock to face her head on the pillow. 5:11am. She still had another hour and a half before she would start getting ready for school. Sighing, she pulled the blankets up around her face, rolling onto her side. Whenever she awoke from her nightmares, it was usually a bitch and a half to try and fall back to sleep. She would wake up so suddenly; her heart pounding as he body would jolt itself up off the bed like she had been electrocuted wide awake to protect herself.

It was a legitimate fear - the reason for her nightmares was very much alive, and, as far as she knew, still sitting in Smith's Grove sanitarium (for the second time in his life). He had killed one of her best friends, attempted to kill another, and had taken her hostage in the basement of his house.

Their house; a sick part of her mind liked to remind her that she had lived there once, too. That was her intended home - the place she almost grew up in.

Angel. Her mind sounded out the word a thousand times in different tones, like some strange lullaby. Angel Myers. Much more interesting than Laurie Strode. But she was Laurie Strode. This Angel - how was an Angel Myers supposed to be? Probably nothing like a Laurie Strode.

She wondered if she would have turned out the same, had she grown up in that environment - so different from how the Strode's had raised her. Would she have the same values? The same morals and beliefs? Would she have dressed the same, acted the same? She doubted it. From what she had found out about her blood family, she would've probably been in juvie by now. Maybe she would've even picked up that knife, at some point -

Laurie squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to think about that.

And then there was the fact that she had a brother. Technically, she'd had two siblings, but her brother had murdered their eldest sister. What had she been like? Judith Myers... What would having a sister be like? Laurie had spent her whole life thinking she was an only child; it would've been so different from her single-child life now.

Her mind continued to wonder, and it kept drifting back to the one person she equal parts didn't want to think about, but at the same time, the person she wanted to know about the most.

Michael.

She also often wondered if he would have turned out the same, had she not been taken away from him. Most likely, she thought to herself, since her presence as a baby hadn't quelled his bloodlust in the first place. She'd only been removed from the house, as well as from the official report, once their mother had decided she just couldn't take it any more.

The whole thing was like a soap opera.

Michael was her brother, but she had barely perceived him as a human being - more so as a personification of her worst fears coming to drag her away. The mask he wore was all rotted and peeling - much like a hulking zombie. He was nearly seven feet tall. And he had instilled a fear within her that was so jarring, so deep, that she felt her chest clench just thinking about him.

That nightmarish man was her brother, and Loomis had said that she was the only person alive that he cared about.

This was why she had called Smith's Grove and asked if Michael Myers could have visitors. Once she explained her situation to the nice secretary, the woman had told her yes, surprisingly. The fact that Dr. Loomis had called a few hours before to ask the same question (on her behalf) probably had helped a little, she mused.

She could barely stomach the thought of having to go to school first. She was debating staying at home until she went over to the asylum to visit him. This was only her third week back at school - this was not at all how she imagined senior year would be. At this rate, she had missed enough school that she would either have to take summer classes, or just re-take the grade completely.

Who would've thought that one holiday would change almost everything?

~~~~

When Laurie stepped into the Smiths Grove, three thoughts went through her head at once: "I'm gonna puke", "I need to get out of here", and quite possibly the loudest thought, "One step at a time". That was what her psychologist kept telling her, and she repeated it daily like a mantra; one step at a time. One day at a time. One moment at a time. Take it all in stride, at whatever pace you need to go at. She held onto the advice like a lifeline; sometimes it was all she could take to keep from sinking to the floor in a hysterical mess. Kind of like right now, where she didn't know if she should try to turn and run as fast as she could, or if she should keep going. I'm here for a reason, I came this far. Just one step, one foot in front of the other. Another thought, perhaps the one that pushed her forward the most, whispered in her mind: This is the only way. Taking a deep breath, Laurie slowly started hobbling towards the front desk on her crutches. That last thought rang true: this was the only way. She had to know, had to be certain. Of what, she didn't entirely know. But she needed this.

She smiled, or tried to as she approached the front desk, realizing that it probably looked more like a grimace. She could only imagine how much like the Bride of Frankenstein she looked at the moment, what with all the stitches adorning her face and her hair flying around her head all crazy. She nervously tried to smooth it down with one hand as she parked herself in front of the desk, "Hi, um, I'm - My name is Laurie Strode," She took a deep breath, unsure of how to possibly continue. I'm here to visit the man that did this to my body, and also put this crazed-constantly-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown look in my eyes.

Thankfully, the brown haired woman behind the check-in desk smiled, rising out of her chair, "Oh yes, Dr. Loomis called and said you might be coming." She reached a hand across the counter to gently grasp Laurie's. She tilted her head with a kind look, "I don't mean to pry, but are you sure you're up for this?"

Laurie thought for a long moment, deciding that this woman seemed too genuine and kind to lie to. "No." she answered honestly, "I'm not. But I have to do it now, or I never will." It was true - now that she was finally here, the fear and anticipation rising, heart in her throat, she knew she might never have this chance again. She'd probably get thrown in here right next to her brother if Sheriff Brackett found out she was even remotely close to this vicinity. Laurie could just imagine him saying to her, a pleading look in his eyes like the one he got when he just didn't know how to help her. Why Laurie? Why? I thought you were terrified of him.

I am, Laurie mentally answered to the scenario in her mind, More than I've ever been afraid of anything.

The rest of her registration seemed like a blur - then finally she was being led down a narrow hallway, weird fluorescent lighting beaming down on her. There were two guards escorting her, one on either side. Their dark clothes were beginning to blur in her vision as they continued their slow trek down the hallway. The metal clicking of her crutches with each step seemed to be growing louder in her ears, kind of like a bell tolling, or a blacksmith forging... Or a knife slicing through someone's back-

She stumbled briefly, catching herself before she faceplanted on the linoleum. The guards on either side of her immediately hopped to help, and she practically slurred, "I'm okay, I'm fine."

"You sure you're gonna be alright, Miss?" The guard to her left inquired. Laurie nodded in reply, beginning to start her trek back down the hall. They were almost at the end - she couldn't stop now. Almost there.

They reached the door, which was more of jail cell bars draped across the hallway. Past this point were the more dangerous patient's in maximum security, security had informed her before they'd started walking. The other guard to her right tapped his badge on the scanner, and the metal bars slowly started to open in front of them. All three of them stepped in to the small area about four feet by four feet between the sliding 'doors'. There was another guard on the other side where they were going to as well - definitely stationed there to stop any escaped patient's from getting through those doors. Laurie wondered, as the one set of bars clanged shut behind them, if there had been anyone at that post the night her brother had escaped. She shuddered inwardly, and decided she'd rather not think about that. Once the doors behind them were securely locked, the guard on the other side opened the doors in front of them. Laurie noted that they'd probably only open for someone with authorization, and only one set of bars would open at a time. She made sure to remember both of these factors just in case she would need to make a break for it.

She cleared her throat as they began to walk forward again, "Are these the only doors leading in and out of this wing?" she asked to anyone in particular.

"Yes ma'am," the man to her left spoke again, "And there's an officer here at all times."

Laurie tried to be comforted by that. She also tried not to remember how very easy it had been for her brother to dismantle the two cops that had responded to Lindsay's 911 call while Laurie had been in the house with the kids.

"Miss?" Someone was speaking to her, and then she realized both guards were looking at her.

"Uh, what?" God, maybe she shouldn't have taken her pain pills before she came; not to mention before she drove a car that wasn't hers.

"Are you ready?" Randy asked, motioning to the doors leading to the room that awaited them. It was then for the hundredth time that Laurie felt how not ready she was, her breath catching in her throat as she realized this was her last stop.

"Is he-" She almost couldn't finish her sentence, voice catching in her throat.

"Not yet, they're grabbing him outta his room now," the officer replied, then seeing her look of fear added, "Don't worry, there'll be six guards in the room wit' ya. He can't do anything."

Again, hobbling through the doors, Laurie tried very hard to be reassured. The words held no water; she'd seen her brother take more than one bullet and keep on going.

This room that they had just entered looked to be a cafeteria, of sorts. It kind of resembled a school lunch setting, but much bleaker. She decided that she didn't want to relate any of this to her normal life at all, and shook the thought from her head. Once she was settled comfortably at a table near the entrance, Kevin grabbed the vocera attached to the front of his uniform and spoke into it, "We're all set here, go ahead and bring Myers."

It was all Laurie could do to stay in her chair and not try and break out the door. This is actually happening, sweet Jesus. Her hands shook on top of her thighs. For the next few minutes she focused solely on breathing, staring at the table surface in front of her, attempting to keep her heart rate down. When she finally heard the door start to open, it felt like she was going to die right there. When she heard the chains clinking and the feet shuffling across the floor, she thought of how very good it was that she was already sitting down, for if she'd been standing she would've collapsed. And when she heard the chair across from her scrape against the floor as it was being pulled back, she knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she would never be the same after this.

Her hands gripped her thighs hard to cease trembling as she looked up very slowly. He was already looking at her, just as she'd expected. What she had not expected was the sheer size of him, nor the mask on his face, nor the crushing power of his gaze that practically withered her away to pure nerves. The only sound he made was gentle breathing, and he didn't move at all. He unnerved her so much just sitting here, staring at her, that she wanted to cry. But she didn't. She forced herself to look directly into those eyes, and addressed him as bravely as she could, "Michael."

The words came out in a whisper, a side effect of her fear, and she cleared her throat so that her voice would carry more volume. "Michael." To the untrained eye, it would appear that the name had no effect on the being in front of her whatsoever. However, Laurie noted that he did, in fact, react to it in possibly the only way he could. He straightened in his seat ever so slightly; such a miniscule thing, but she was watching him so intensely that she could see everything. Were it not for him breathing, and the slow pulsing vein in his neck, he could've passed for a dead body propped upright in the chair.

Laurie waited for something, anything else to happen. She waited for what felt like minutes. He did absolutely nothing else. Didn't say a word, didn't move a muscle. It was dead quiet in there, save for his breathing. One of the guards radio's crackled, and the sudden sound startled Laurie out of her stupor. Michael didn't flinch, unbothered by anything and everything. She wondered what exactly was wrong with him. He didn't look sick - not like other mentally unstable patients she'd ever seen or heard of, which admittedly was not many. This wasn't like the movies, or TV shows she'd watched. He wasn't foaming at the mouth, wasn't speaking in tongues, wasn't climbing up the walls. He wasn't emaciated or deathly pale. There was something wrong with his mind, but what exactly, she didn't know. She wasn't sure if anybody knew. What she did know was that anyone who had assumed this seemingly catatonic man was a ten year old trapped in a thirty-something year old's body was dead wrong; there was fierce intelligence swimming in his eyes. That she could see from any distance. They gleamed underneath his long, scraggly dirty blonde hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed in months. Underneath the crude paper mache, orange mask that looked vaguely like a jack-o-lantern.

She had to admit, even as her hands were still trembling on top of her thighs under the table, and even though her stomach still churned, she was enthralled by him. She wasn't sure what it was about his presence, but it held her hostage just as much as he had when he'd kidnapped her. She knew that her obsession with him on top of her fear was part of what had drawn her to come to him today. Laurie also couldn't deny; knowing that she had family, real blood family sitting right here before her eyes... it stirred something within her. And that was the only thing keeping her here.

She wasn't sure how long they sat there just staring at each other; studying each other openly. Well, she assumed he was studying her. He didn't appear to be doing anything other than collecting dust in the chair across from her. She knew that she should probably get going soon, unsure of what time it was at the moment, and even more unsure of when the Sheriff would return home to check on her. She had known from the get-go that there was always that possibility that he would realize that she had gone, more like probability. But if she covered her tracks well, he'd never know where she'd really been. No one would.

Though she was still terrified beyond reason, she was also intrigued enough to come back. Admittedly, she wanted to know more about her brother, even after all the horrible things he'd done. Why had he done those things? What had driven him? The answer to that would probably lie within their family environment that he had grown up in. She had to find out more about her blood family, and maybe she'd get some answers. She wanted to know him; though he'd caused her pain and fear beyond her imagination, she knew that he wasn't completely to blame for his own state of mind. There had to have been something terrible that had happened to him in order for him to be the way that he was. Despite everything he'd done, she felt a spark of sympathy for the man in front of her.

Her attention was immediately drawn to her brother when he shifted in his chair, and despite herself, she flinched. She knew there was (probably) no way he could break out of those chains, with his arms handcuffed to the back of the chair behind him. Then again, underestimating people like him was usually what got others into a lot of trouble. And after seeing all the mayhem he had previously caused, underestimating him was the last thing she should be doing. She looked at him, realizing that he had probably moved to get her attention, and for no other reason. Had she been zoning out again? She knew she had to get going before she became too lethargic, as inevitably the pain pills would soon kick in full force.

Very slowly, Laurie reached into her sweatshirt pocket with her bandaged right hand. She pulled out a folded photograph; the very one that the man before her had given her in the basement of their old house. She would never admit how many times she had just sat and stared at the picture, sometimes for hours. If she awoke from nightmares and couldn't sleep, she took the picture out from the top drawer of her nightstand and stared at it until her eyelids drooped. How very different things were when that picture had been taken; a little smiling blonde haired boy with nothingness in his blue eyes holding a screaming baby who clutched him like a lifeline. The picture had woven its way into her soul and filled some lonely place there.

Unfolding it, she looked at the photo one final time before she slid it across the table to stop right in front of Michael, her hand trembling despite all her efforts to stop it. He followed the picture across the surface with his eyes before tilting his head up to look at her fully. She looked back at him, and something passed between them. She could feel it, and she knew by the way he continued to stare at her that he felt it too. Somewhere in the distance an alarm sounded, and yet they remained unmoving; the Myers siblings, both silent and still in the chaos. Family. The hair on the back of her neck rose. There was no going back after this.

౨ৎ

AN: I do not own the Halloween franchise or any of it's characters. The above photos are from pinterest, and attached are links to the original posts.

[pom-seedss]

Okay. So.

I am 99.999~% sure it is my neck. Whether it is a weird nerve pinch or a blood vessel or what idk, but after more testing of various things at home it is almost certainly the culprit for the temperature disregulation. TL;DR at the end.

I finally got my doctor's office to take it seriously by writing a letter mentioning that I have at many points wanted to die and did not want to get *actively* suicidal again after over five years without having been actively suicidal. Since it it in writing that their patient was potentially going to become suicidal about them not doing anything.... they decided it was appropriate to actually do something. What I found out is despite my doctor's office being a multi-doctor clinic who supposedly works together, my primary doctor didn't even confer with her colleagues about the situation before going with the "I can't think of anything" and leaving it with me.

Because the on-call doctor decided to actually *listen* to what I was saying and is sending me for a neck xray with possibility of going for further testing (ex: MRI) if things turn out normal there. He is also sending me for some endocrine testing, cortisol testing and some kind of 24 our urine analysis test as a just in case it's these weird things measure. He literally just took the few things that were on the top of his head from maybe 20 minutes looking in to my situation, so I am still pretty mad at my primary doctor for the negligent attitude she'd taken towards this.

And yes, they are probably only acting to cover their asses because I mentioned not wanting to be actively suicidal about all of this again. But that wasn't an idle threat, I was starting to teeter towards that feeling and even Bean was worried and if there was literally no end to this we actually discussed MAiD at one point - not as an immediate thing, but as a vague possibility because of how fucking awful it was and the prospect of living with that forever was *that* fucking daunting.

My doctor was trying to pass it off as 'a weird stress response' despite the only major stressor in my life at that point being...the hot cold bullshit itself. And yes, stress made it worse, but that's true of *any* condition under the sun.

I finally got to go back in to my old chiropractor of 12+ years who knows how to take care of my body and almost instantly she made me go from feral gremlin with a boiling head to human being again. It just sucks because it is taxing on my body to travel 1.5hrs to get that treatment.

Granted, one appointment isn't going to solve this problem and what I really need is long-term stability, which is what I am going to go back to physiotherapy for as soon as I am cleared by my gallbladder surgeon to be able to do more active things.

Along with going back to massage therapy, whenever I can actually book that *rolls eyes at everyone under the sun having no availability*, I hope that I can get this at least under control. TL;DR 1. Doctor's office finally decided to check some basic things out, like a neck xray, after I mentioned I was on the edge of becoming suicidal about being left to my own devices about this. 2. It is almost certainly my neck causing the issue. 3. I am trying to get back in to regular treatment in various places to help heal and stabilize the neck. 4. I am not well yet, the worst of it can come back at any time, but I am more hopeful for the future. Holy fuck this has been scary and exhausting and it will take awhile for me to be okay with things but damn.... it's...something. Maybe this will just be a very bad blip in my life after all.

[inposterumcumgaudio]

dr. faraday!

I think Dr. Faraday is a very crucial character in terms of how she compares to so many other characters in the game. She gives us insight into how they might have fared under different circumstances.

The most obvious is Sally. They're both successful female scientists and yet, up until til Faraday's decision to stop enabling the police state of Wellington Wells, she seemed to have the sort of working life Sally could only dream of: a lab to herself with some guys out front to keep people from bothering her (granted, Roger and James were apparently not the best at this) with no expectation of entertaining anything but the science.

And this is why I rag on Sally so hard, aside from that she is one of the game's professed "three moderately terrible people" but how seems to escape a lot of players. One time I said as much in a WHF discord server, that she was just as bad as Arthur and Ollie, and whoo-boy! Several people were typing! All to tell me that I just didn't understand Sally's story. That. It. Is. About. Feminism! A lone woman and her precious baby against a cruel world seeking to exploit and abuse her at every turn!

Y'all.

Faraday is but one example of how women in Wellington Wells rose to and seized the opportunities presented to them by the town's lack of resources and ability to maintain status quo. And like many others (Gemma Olsen, Margaret Oliphant, Penelope Snug) she has done this without the help of men. Which Sally could do too, if she were so inclined. People hit me with the "but that's how she was raised!". Do you think these other women were not raised this way? Faraday herself had a husband and right up until he went on holiday, she lived Sally's same brilliant-assistant-who-gets none-of-the-credit role. But time's had appreciably changed by then. Instead of finding another man to play second fiddle to, Faraday hired a pair of houseboys to screen her calls and make her sandwiches, then went into business for herself.

I think her success up to the point at which she has her change of heart is also an interesting comparison to Verloc's role at Haworth Labs. That is, they have similar temperament and lack of emotional intelligence, but they are apparently brilliant when left the fuck alone. I think Verloc's chief problem is that he's in a role where he has to manage and delegate to others (others who operate at varying levels of detriment due to Joy use) and he is ill suited to the patience that requires. Faraday, on the other hand, fashioned for herself ideal work conditions for her similar personality: a private lab in her home with all her creature needs seen to and distractions minimized. Again, Roger and James aren't the best at providing this (although I think Faraday is unduly harsh in her criticism of them), but she only has to manage the two of them as compared to a whole factory, they try their best, and they are aligned with and supportive of her goals for the most part.

Another person we could compare her to is Percy.

Arthur surmises that Percy would have made a good scientist due to his analytical way of thinking and that "you don't have to talk much to be a scientist". This is, as said above, only true if you arrange things this way and don't find yourself in charge of an entire factory.

My close friends and I sometimes like to suppose especially hot takes for this game and a relevant one that comes to mind is that Percy would not have been able to conform effectively to Wellington Wells' society the way Edmund was able to because he has resting bitch face, he cannot tolerate any kind of discomfort, and his lack of social awareness does not endear people to him the way Edmund's does. As such, Arthur may have actually given him a shot at survival in abandoning him to the train.

But, I do think if somehow Percy had fallen into a Faraday-like circumstance before succumbing to any of the town's social perils, he would have done quite well for himself in Wellington Wells. Indeed, he might have even made a very good lab assistant to Dr. Faraday.

I do have some Fun Faraday Facts for you: there are cut lines in Cub Reporter/Start Spreading the News that state that she and Margaret Oliphant were schoolgirl friends and that Margaret's cat puzzle was designed by Faraday.

There's also a cut quest called Blow Up for Sally in which Faraday would task her with preventing the explosion of a motilene power station and would give Sally a walkie talkie to track her progress. The walkie talkie model used in They Came From Below is a salvaged asset from this quest.

One of the objectives for this quest involves Sally making a trade with Bobby Catesby, which she is reluctant to do.

126 Then you're going to have to set the snuffer charge! Otherwise the whole station will melt down.

128 You can't just go to Lionel Castershire and buy a bomb! You'd have to-- the only man I know who'd even-- I'm not going to bloody Robert Catesby for a bomb! He hates me!

130 If that station melts down, the whole motilene system will go up in flames. But I can understand how it's difficult talking to some men.

132 I'll find him. And I'll reason with him.

134 That's ma girl!

Tell her ass, Dr. F.

Dr. Faraday's idle waiting animation before you tap on her window is the sitting-on-the-floor-and-sobbing one.

Roger's idle animation is crying before you approach the house too though so I wouldn't read too much into that.

[botanikos]

I am making this post instead of reblogging the one I saw — for several reasons. I agree and can see that Stolas takes Octavia for granted. I do think she is immensely important to him ( I will even go as far as to say she's the only one present in his life that he loves, even ), and he values his connection with her very much — but it is also true that he fails to uphold that connection with her, and isn't a very good father.

While we aren't given every morsel of detail, from what we have seen/do see, Via is often on the back-burner, and Stolas doesn't seem to understand her feelings whenever they are expressed. Whether it's due to not recognizing social cues or a lack of paying proper attention is another thing altogether. We also don't see quality time spent between them, and he does tend to have a. . . Questionable vocabulary / lack of acknowledgement for boundaries when in her company ( i.e. when he very colorfully states he's calling Blitz for the Loo Loo Land ep & calling Stella names ). He's definitely NOT winning any awards as a dad ( though I'd give him one for when she was small, and I hc he was very attentive whilst she was just a tiny owlet ).

I love Stolas, but he's deeply flawed and definitely can and should do better. And he owes Octavia an apology and an explanation now that she's older. He needs to communicate.

That being said — if you hold anything in regards to an "affair" or the hostility/lack of consideration between him and Stella against him. . . I'm giving quiet side-eye. To each their own, but he was in an awful and abusive arranged marriage. Things between him and Stella were tense, undesirable, and eventually volatile. Of course he didn't fucking tell Octavia, and truth be told, it wasn't until MUCH later that he even spoke outwardly ill of Stella in front of Via. He even mentions trying to make things work.

My portrayal hid as much of the abuse between Stella and himself as possible, keeping Octavia in the dark to the best of his abilities ( which is a kindness, but a mistake in and of its own as he still failed to come forward with it all to explain things properly ).

Anyway, I kept getting interrupted while writing this, and I no longer remember why or what my point is for writing this. Stolas is flawed, stop acting like he's the sole reason everything is fucked up.

TL;DR — Stolas is flawed and obviously not getting any Father of the Year/month/week/or day awards but fuck if he didn't try when Via was younger, and everyone like to just overlook the fact that he's been enduring long-term ABUSE. He absolutely owes Via an apology, explanation, and better moving forward, but dang.

[creppersfunpalooza]

wouldn’t it be so silly if my ocs had tumblr

(0 notes)

🎀 metallia’s-banned-account Follow

there’s this one girl i absolutely fucking hate but i need to know what brand of hair dye she uses oh my god. completely unrelated note does anyone know the most effective way of prying open a window without causing permanent damage or any noise? thank you, luv lia 💜

🔁 bunnicula Follow

I’m reporting you.

(25 notes)

🪽 reaperofcupid Follow

HELLO TUMBLR!💞 Have any unresolved love conflicts? A crush you just can’t get out of your head? stop by for a free love potion! i’ll also grant additional wishes that are within my range of capabilities. tips optional (in the form of life force and/or magic <3). you’ll find me if and when you need me!~ xoxoxo

(205 notes)

🧿 priest-of-pawns Follow

going out on the TOWN!! turns out being in the church has some perks lol. we’re volunteering to oversee a few services. excited af. maybe i’ll even get to read some new people.

🔁 priest-of-rooks Follow

FUCK YEAH WE’RE GOING OUTSIDE 💯💯💯 NEW FRIENDS FRESH MEAT

🔁 priest-of-pawns Follow

let’s try to keep the body count low this time okay???

🔁 priest-of-rooks Follow

I’ll try!

🔁 the-church-of-ocellus Follow

aw, you two deserve to live a little. go wild! -celly 👁️

(6,368 notes)

⌛️ allthateverwas Follow

hAhA wAtch thIs gUyS

🔁 thetalesofarabbit’s-banned-account Follow

HELP. GET ME OUT OF HERE. PLEASE.

(1 note)

🌿 fairest-of-folk Follow

@reaperofcupid is a SCAMMER. do NOT buy from him!!!!! i want a REFUND!!!!!!

🔁 reaperofcupid Follow

bitch it’s free. i hope you know how stupid you look right now. now how about you explain your issue like a rational client?

🔁 fairest-of-folk Follow

oh nvm it’s working now :3!! i think!!

🔁 reaperofcupid Follow

lovely. now fuck off.

(15 notes)

🍬 mai-kandi Follow

shoutout to my girlfriend :D!!!!! who may or may not be an FBI agent!!!!!!!!! 💖💖💖 babe you can tell me if you are!!!!!!!

🔁 bunnicula Follow

Uhm. Not exactly. Love you too though! 🖤

(52 notes)

🔷 da-official Follow

Productivity is up 6%! Keep up the good work! New approved hypotheses and studies being released to the public soon!

🔁 the-black-rabbit’s-banned-account Follow

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU????? WHO’S RUNNING THIS FUCKING ACCOUNT??? THAT’S NOT ME. THAT’S NOT ME. IM TRAPPED ON SOME STRANGE PLANE OF EXISTENCE. WHO’S PRETENDING TO BE ME???

🔁 tbr-official Follow

If anyone is aware of who was behind the impersonator account, please stop by my office to report them to me. Thank you, TBR.

(341 notes)

💉 dr-venstal Follow

Looking for volunteer drug testers! Your help contributes to a better future! You’ll get a free lollipop if you participate! <3

🔁 metallia’s-banned-account Follow

nerd.

🔁 dr-venstal Follow

Well, that’s a bit mean.

🔁 metallia’s-banned-account Follow

do i look like i care. go cry in the bathrooms or whatever you gay people do idc.

🔁 dr-venstal Follow

bisexual.

🔁 metallia’s-banned-account Follow

sorry do you want me to cry with you or something? yeah i’m bisexual so what?? do you think calling me that hurts? i was kidding about the gay thing. i also like girls. wow surprise. i kiss women. i am married to a woman.

🔁 dr-venstal Follow

I’m bisexual, Ophelia.

(532 notes)

🎸 yourfavoritebloodycunt Follow

new phone new account. apparently people thought i was a werewolf for a while lmao.

🔁 just-hollywood Follow

YOOUR USEENMAE IS RVRITUAH

🔁 yourfavoritebloodycunt Follow

HUH????!!!?!??

🔁 just-hollywood Follow

YOUT USERNAME

🔁 yourfavoritebloodycunt Follow

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY USERNAME???

🔁 just-hollywood Follow

IT’SfyfucjUGNY BRITISH.

🔁 yourfavoritebloodycunt Follow

i’m deleting my account. kms. goodbye internet.

(13 notes)

💎 eshimaislegallyblonde Follow

Hellooo! Does anyone have room for a new flat mate?? I do have a certain price range, but I’m working on getting a better job at the moment <3. I love true crime podcasts, coffee shops, sweets, the color pink, and horror movies. I’m fine with all different kinds of music and I’m always open to new things! I’m looking for someone with similar interests, so that way we can develop a closer friendship!

🔁 o0spooky_lover0o Follow

YOU’RE MOVING OUT???????? :{

🔁 eshimaislegallyblonde Follow

oh god oh fuck callum you weren’t supposed to find this. look you’re really sweet but the weird screams coming from your room are starting to freak me out at night.

🔁 o0spooky_lover0o Follow

Oh. okay yeah that’s fair!!!! good luck!!!!!!!!! :3

(3 notes)

[loveandlegacy]

Character ask game, Singed, #5, 8, 25 and 27

(this is yesitsterriblysimple btw, tag me pls)

hello!!! singed! my favorite topic 🥰 5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

ok this was the hardest question to answer of all time somehow but the two i came up with are:

hungover in jonestown by amigo the devil

careful what you wish for by jack harris

pls know and understand that if these were diagetic songs they would be from the perspective of people reacting TO singed not singed's own pov

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

lol i feel like he has so few stans that it's like kind of hard to come up with an answer to this. i do find it sort of baffling when people interpret him or read him or whatever as having been anything other than a deleterious force in viktor's life. like i'm not here to make anyone feel bad for whatever they're doing but do occasionally encounter art where he's figured as a loving fatherly figure to viktor (and sometimes to orianna, tho that's less frequent) and i'm like churious. that you think this. given all the information we have on hand.

on the other hand i also am not personally super into people who basically hannibal-lecter-ify him either! i joke about him being a serial killer because he is one in the literal definition of the term ie a person committing many murders in sequence, but there are many ways for a person to serially murder other human beings and actually i think the trope of The Serial Killer is the least interesting reference point for him! i have said to friends that as characterizations go i guess i broadly conceive of him as being more similar to real-life had-their-actual-medical-degrees physicians who engaged in medical experimentation on prisoners of war, racially marginalized populations, people with disabilities etc and who were granted the institutional power to do so because the cultures they were operating in considered those people disposable anyway.

it's less campy i suppose bc those people irl are just horrible to think about and also we don't really have the same cultural fixation on like drs donald ewan cameron and shiro ishii and so forth so i guess it's not as "fun" as personality comparisons go but the things those men did were so nauseating and also SO ACCEPTED by their respective milieus at the time that it's actually devastating to think about. and i guess in my head it just kinda suits him, the idea that he fits into this very real constellation of people who were clearly being cruel just because they could be but who veiled all their extensive extensive crimes against humanity as "science" and "progress" and sometimes even for various kinds of love! fucking. wild stuff

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

i think on first sighting i was like 'who is this creep. i need to know more about him immediately' but it took me a few watch-throughs to really get attached. i initially liked silco better because his whole thing is so immediately funny i was like this guy has NEVERRRRRR gotten over a single thing in his whole life. but after a few times around i felt like the show mostly answered all the questions i could have ever had about silco, where singed was and is like endlessly compelling to me.

now i would say my first impression was right. he is a creep. but that's why he's great. he reflects something that i think is actually kind of rare in fiction where he's like truly heinous but also fairly unobtrusive? something about that grabs me.

in the interest of not making this answer a hundred million pages long, you can read this longer, cringey and earnest thing i wrote about why he's my favorite if you so choose <3

27. FREEBIE QUESTION!!

freebie!!! idk idk. a while ago someone on here suggested that corin reveck and singed were two different men and were husbands and it is like now one of the most sincerely held beliefs i have and i will never give it up lol

if you are unfamiliar: corin was orianna's original father in the lore and was an artificer. since arcane, singed is now her father but since cait never says his first name and only calls him "dr reveck" i can hold on to this delusion because i'm like ok well corin wasn't a doctor so jot that down obviously they're different guys. anyway. in my heart of hearts they were married and it went pretty badly. as you can imagine

[chispas-and-broken-bindings]

I refuse to post anything schmaltzy about my husband on social media with people we actually know in real life for many reasons, so tumblr, I apologize, but I just need to say it and this is the closest thing I have to a diary.

I'm really, head-over-heels, struck dumb in love with my husband.

And I don't believe in astrology, or fate, or religion, or anything like that, but hot damn...lady fortune was quite generous with me in the realm of love.

This past year, I was the lowest I've ever been; depressed and overwhelmed with grief and he just knew every step of the way how to love me. How to keep me in my body. In the present. In the past when I needed to be. Looking forward when the past was pulling me down.

And not only that, but I knew, deeply, without question that I could grieve. I had the space. I had the time. I had the gift of grieving, because I knew he could handle our life and me with care and competence and grace.

And that trust proved to be so well-founded.

He wasn't pitying or saccharine or impatient. He wasn't my caretaker but he took care of me, and our son, and our life.

And he saw me. He sees me, and nothing about me has him shying away. And he's always been that way, and I never expected less of him, but this year has me really appreciating his unwavering gaze to a heightened degree.

I am very aware, now more than ever, what a precious, rare gift it is to be seen and loved and to be able to love like this and I don't ever want to take it for granted.

----

TL;DR: Life is really fucking hard, and love really is the only thing that matters in the end.

[glowingbadger]

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY HOT OCS

A few of you beautiful people gave me permission to talk about my OCs for a bit (not that I need it but it's nice to have), and for that, there shall be consequences. I wanna show y'all a few of my beauties, tell you about them, and brag about how hot they are and all the thoughts I have about their sex lives lmao (also featuring, btw, a major DnD npc who is.... VERY inspired by Seteth lmao though his story definitely ended up going its own way from that starting point)

**Also note because I know a couple IRL friends of mine follow this blog- if you play any tabletops with me, don't you fucking dare read this I will be SO mad because there will be spoilers I'm being so serious rn lol

((Also if you don't care that much about my OCs (fair lol I get that's not what most of y'all are here for) but just wanna see some of my art maybe, feel free to just scroll through and look at four hot anime people looooool))

First, we've got Rhys Ledger! (Cyberpunk Red ttrpg) Full art here

Rhys was born with severe chronic illness and a desperately poor family. Because of this, every issue and flair up got pushed off until it absolutely HAD to be addressed by a medical professional- and this lead to both of his arms and one eye eventually becoming infected to the point of requiring the cheapest and crappiest cybernetic replacements on the market- and even these still pushed his family into horrific debt. To get the debt collectors away from his mother, he staged a big interpersonal blow-up with her, ran away, faked his death, and started sending money to the debtors anonymously on her behalf, so that he could make the payments while separating himself from his mother so she wouldn't feel compelled to try to find and help him anymore.

So basically, he's cut off his entire family, in his mind for their own good. He's in crippling and seemingly insurmountable medical debt. Plus, his cybernetic eye and arms are cheap and shitty and keep breaking- his eye even plays ads at regular intervals, and you can imagine how maddening that is. All he had to rely on was the beginnings of a medical education received from Dr. Banting, a man who provided routine checkups at minimal cost to him as a child in addition to periodically tutoring him. So he leveraged that to test into a medical education program that would basically fast-track him into indentured servitude to a major corporate medical cybernetics company. And on the side, he takes odd jobs for extra cash- which is how he ran into the rest of our tabletop party.

He's a deeply, deeply empathetic and caring person deep down, who's just been beaten down by the trials of life and grown cynical and sarcastic as a result. Unlike most quality cybernetics, his hands completely lack a nervous suite, so he has no sense of touch there, and he secretly misses that sensation desperately. All of these factors contribute to him having been in a multi-year dry spell, sexually (he's had a tendency to pull away from romantic relationships before they got more than skin-deep), and at this point he'd likely faint if confronted with a naked boob. He's incredibly touch-sensitive, and while he probably doesn't even realize it, deep down he absolutely yearns to be touched gently and intimately by someone who actually values his falling-apart body. Rhys probably needs someone who's very vocally encouraging during sex, and who will communicate clearly what they want and what they like; with that sort of person, he'd be the ultimate service-whatever. Top, bottom, all that matters is that he's doing a good job and pleasing his partner, he's not capable of taking someone for granted once they've shown they truly appreciate and desire him.

~~~

Next we have Shaeleigh Sommers (unofficial Pokemon tabletop; also a cyberpunk setting) Full art here (also some spicier pics of her here and here)

Shaeleigh, or Shae, is from a Cyberpunk Pokemon tabletop that my husband has been running for three years now with friends, so she predates Rhys, but in retrospect she's like... a perfect foil for him lol

Shae was born to a fairly well-off family with a corporate, ladder-climbing father and a trophy-wife mother (she has respect for the former and very little regard for the latter). Her older brother is following their father's footsteps, while Shae pursued... basically Pokemon veterinary studies lol. After college, she worked for a Pokemon shelter for unwanted and retired Pokemon, but it was shut down for taking on more cases than they were supposed to (not wanting to turn away any Pokemon in need), and as a result, Shae's dream is to gain the money, experience, clout and sponsors to open her own private shelter. She has an enormous soft-spot for lesser-loved Pokemon, and has no interest in the "popular picks" who will have no trouble finding a trainer to take care of them. She's somewhat naive, though she's learned a lot on her adventures, and she has a good heart despite being a bit spoiled.

Shaeleigh is also desperately in love/lust with the professor overseeing her and her allies on their journey, Professor Shoot. He's a young Professor, still technically the equivalent of an "adjunct," and Shae and her buddies are his first group of assigned trainers. Shae was immediately attracted to him physically, and overtime this has slowly developed into a deep, deep crush and potentially even love. He's gentle and kind in a way that's extremely rare in the dystopian cyberpunk future, and while he insists that, as a professor he's less a man and more a cog in a machine, Shae sees a warm and beautiful humanity in him that she clings to, as it represents her desire not to lose herself or her values despite how hard her battles may become. Also he plays piano, so like, those hands... hnnng.

Anyway, I've always viewed Shae as someone who has had a lot of flings and passing relationships, but nothing very serious. Lately, she's been hooking up with a gang leader (really closer to a warlord) from the wild, untamed underground of the city, but while she does respect him and admire his free way of life, she's truly only seeking him out as solace while she can't have her beloved Professor. With a few more badges under her belt though, she'll be considered to have a level of authority within the Pokemon League that may finally allow her to openly pursue Professor Shoot... fingers crossed for my girl lmao. In the meantime, she insists that she wants him to make the first decisive move, and they live in a surveillance state, so her desired Professor-romance has been an AGONIZING slow-burn thus far. Sexually, I think she's a bit vanilla, but very warm and encouraging, even if she doesn't care that much about the guy she's with. With someone she does care about, she's relentlessly devoted to their mutual pleasure, with incredible stamina and focus, all towards the goal of expressing even a fraction of what she feels in her heart.

~~~

Okay guys, I hope you're ready because I have SO much to say about Saul (NPC, DnD 5e) Full art here

Guys. The way my brain has been soaking in the essence of this character for like two years. And I have no outlet for this because there's SO much about him that my players in this campaign don't know about him yet. (btw this is a follow up warning to my players in my dnd campaign that I will be so, so mad if you keep reading after this point lmao)

OKAY so. On the surface, Saul is a stern but reasonable man who acts as head steward of the Temple of the Allfaith, a place where every deity in the pantheon is given due worship and respect. The philosophy behind this is that reality is formed through the interactions of countless contradictory forces, and by giving regard to all deities of all domains, we assure that each is mollified. This also makes it a place welcoming to all kinds of people from all walks of life- for the most part. Saul is, as one can imagine in such a chaotic environment, kept enormously busy at all times with paperwork, supply forms, requests, ceremonies, festivals, and all of the various needs and conflicts that arise among the clerics, priests, and so on.

Now, in truth, Saul is a Cambion- the offspring of an Incubus and his victim, who was eventually consumed by the demon who sired her child. While the Incubus moved on to terrorize some other locale, Saul was left in the small hamlet where he was born, and it was only out of regard for his late mother that the people here bothered to care enough for him to keep him alive. With time, though, their natural fear and resentment for the literal hellspawn they'd been saddled with caused constant and open mistreatment, and he was only offered the food, water and shelter he needed to survive, and absolutely no more. All the while, even as a child he potently felt the hatred evident in their eyes when he dared show himself in public.

Now, Cambions are functionally immortal, but they do age at a more or less "normal" rate until they reach maturity. When Saul reached his early teens, another young girl from the village asked to meet with him in a secluded grove beyond the town limits. When he arrived, he was cautious and on-edge, believing this to be some plot or ambush for the townspeople to finally do him in, so when the girl came to see him and made a sudden move towards him, he lashed out. His inherent fire magic abilities sparked out at her, and he killed her in an instant without ever consciously understanding his own actions. What he'll only find out through magical means later in the campaign, is that this young girl actually had grown affectionate towards him, and had hoped to confess her feelings to him that day.

After this, he fled the village and subsisted in the wild for some time, until he was of-age. During this period, he learned to harness his innate magic to disguise himself as a half-elf, but he also learned to hate and resent the people of this world. He grew to believe that they were all as cruel and corrupt as he himself was, and to prove it, he spent the following few years essentially fighting and fucking his way from town to town. Rumors of a demon of vengeance were whispered among the towns dotting the countryside, and in Saul's eyes, any who showed the slightest moral weakness was subject to his personal brand of judgement. A shady business might be burned to the ground overnight, the corrupt mayor (and potentially his wife) might suddenly become swept into a quite public and humiliating affair, the cleric skimming donation money from the congregation might be hung from a nearby tree. His reputation in the region became so fearful that a band of Paladins was sent to exorcise this demon and free the people from him.

It was then, bloodied and beaten near to death, that Saul dragged himself to the doors of the Temple of the Allfaith, where an older man named Erasmus took him in without question. Erasmus was the founder and master of the temple, and he nursed Saul back to health with his own hands, no questions asked. He took Saul in for the following years, and while he was a difficult and petulant guest at first, eventually Erasmus' open and earnest care broke through to what semblance of a soul he still possessed. The unconditional love of a father-figure gave Saul not a second chance, but the first chance he'd ever had, and over time it transformed him completely. While he remained as serious and stubborn as ever, Erasmus never gave up on Saul, and with his nurturing mentorship, he became a deeply empathetic man, and learned to open his heart and view others as worthy of kindness and compassion.

At the time of the campaign, Master Erasmus has long passed, and Saul has been the Steward to the Allfaith Temple for decades. He's known to be highly competent, deadly serious, and relentlessly stubborn, but ultimately kind. His life now is one that he lives in a constant state of repentance. He hopes that, by serving a temple to all of the gods, some day one of them may open their arms to him despite his hellish nature, and offer him the salvation he so desperately craves. The tragedy of it all is that, in all likelihood, several of the gods would now welcome him as-is in light of his life of dedicated service to others at the temple, but Saul himself has yet to view himself as redeemable.

Now, for the juicy stuff- believe me when I say that few men have ever needed to get laid like Saul does. While he was of course quite rakish as a younger man, once he took on the mantle of responsibility at the temple, the idea of engaging in intimacy with one of the priests or clerics here became unthinkable. There would be rumors, accusations of favoritism, and worst of all, the potential that his true nature might be revealed. So he has kept himself very strictly at arms-length with others for several decades now, and this combined with his normally uptight demeanor has made him the top candidate for "ready to go absolutely goddamn feral if he ever gets the chance to really fuck again." Plus, I mean, his birth father was an Incubus, so.... there are a lot of assumptions that can be made about Saul's equipment and technique, even while in his half-elven form. He's the type of man who would relish just about any form of kink with the right person; his sexuality is a dam with a hairline fracture in it ready to burst open. In particular, he would find the use of power-dynamics to be downright therapeutic. Tying him up and forcing him to surrender his control and his body, then teasing and tormenting him until his over-worked mind is finally blank? Sublime. Offering yourself to him so he can fuck you like the demon he truly is, using all of his strength and power to reduce you to his whimpering toy? Also incredible. A more structured sort of power-play session with ropes and edging and punishment and vaguely religiously toned lectures? Divine. And, as we'll see, he's just primed for a good ol' fashion enemies-to-lovers arc just LOADED with sexual tension.

(I need y'all to realize that for how over-long that was, I skipped over a TON of info and worldbuilding and additional details, seriously, I have such brainrot about Saul you could ask me what he was doing during any single second of his life and I'd have an answer for you lmao)

~~~

Lastly, let's talk about Anya Lisianthus (NPC, DnD 5e) Full art here

Anya, at the time of the campaign, is the High Priestess of Beshaba (goddess of misfortune and bad luck), and, like most who worship such deities, she does so to pacify her goddess and free herself from the shackles of excessive misfortune. Before coming to the Temple of the Allfaith, she had been from a noble family, but one falling in its standing. She'd had many siblings, but nearly all succumbed to illness, leaving Anya to shoulder heavy responsibilities for her family that she'd had no interest in and no preparation for. Due to complicated political shifts (that we don't have time to go into here or Anya's section will be even longer than Saul's lol), her family started getting involved with some political dissidents. Anya took to their philosophies, and soon joined in with rebel groups who sought to overthrow the local religious leader who had begun exerting immense governmental control beyond their normal purview. However, a tiny instance of misfortune lead to her downfall; a coin dropped from a guard's pocket, and when he abandoned his patrol route for a moment to follow it as it rolled, he caught sight of Anya and her rebel allies. After this incident, her family labeled her a traitor and an upstart to save the remains of their own reputation, and she fled the city as a wanted criminal.

At the Allfaith Temple, she found acceptance, peace, and the promise of a goddess who could protect her from capricious misfortune. But, as Beshaba is an "evil aligned" deity, Anya is kept to the underground portion of the Temple for the most part- both by her own preference, and by the looks of suspicion and discomfort that her presence draws when around those who worship gods of light and goodness up on the surface. That said, she still carries the undeniably noble bearing of her upbringing, and is fond of hosting others for tea, provided they are able to supply interesting conversation.

She feels some resentment towards Saul, not only for being boorish and stubborn, but also for his holier-than-thou bearing, which she finds intolerable. However, as she falls in with a group of other underground clerics and priests with dubious plans of their own, she agrees to attempt to learn more about Saul for their purposes. So, she's been spending time trying to get through to him. For now, this has mostly taken the form of arguing bitterly in his office just about any time our group of adventurers pass by there, but with time, the two are going to start noticing other facets of one another. Saul views Anya as a strikingly brilliant woman, beautiful of course, but more importantly someone incredibly engaging to talk to, well-read, well-informed, and who thinks through all angles of a subject. Meanwhile, Anya will come to see that Saul's dedication to serving the people of the temple is no mere mask of piety, but a true and wholehearted desire to do good and protect those who rely on him, and that sort of genuine earnestness is hard to come by. So, y'know. We're definitely headed towards a "oh no I accidentally fell for and slept with the man I was meant to be investigating and/or manipulating oh fuck oh no I guess I'm betraying the bad guys now" kind of situation lol.

Sexually, Anya is confident, capable, but choosy. Her natural charisma may give the impression of a flirt, but in truth, not just anyone is deemed worthy to share her bed. She was nobility once, after all- there was a time when men took a knee for the privilege of an audience with her. That said, once she's decided someone meets her standards, she relishes in learning their turn-ons and desires and exploiting them mercilessly. She's every bit as sexually open and flexible as Saul, but in a far more proactive way; the lusts of her partner are intel, precious secrets to be learned and utilized to the fullest. There's nothing she finds more satisfying than seeing a lover look at her with worship in their eyes as she fulfills them absolutely. Saul, with all of his pent-up libido and sexual baggage, is going to make for an absolutely delightful partner for her. She'll never tire of learning the thousands of ways she can make his stoic facade crumble.

Anyway if you actually read all of this, please know that I hope only good things ever happen to you for the rest of your life, that someone you like kisses you on the mouth sloppy-style, and that you find twenty dollars &lt;3